Nellie felt that she would like to go on down the creek to the big pond
into which it emptied; but she knew better than to do that, for she
would be certain to miss her big brother, and it was already beginning
to grow dark around her.

"I wonder what makes Nick so long," she said to herself, as she sat down
on a fallen tree; "I'm so tired that I never can walk the four miles
home."

She had sat thus only a brief while, when her head began to droop; her
bright eyes grew dull, then closed, and leaning against a limb which put
out from the fallen tree, on which she was sitting, she sank into the
sweet, dreamless sleep of childhood and health.

Had she not been disturbed she would not have wakened until the sun
rose, but at the end of an hour, an involuntary movement of the head
caused it to slip off the limb against which it was resting with such a
shock that instantly she was as wide awake as though it was mid-day.

Ah, but when she sprang to her feet and stared about her in the gloom
she was dreadfully alarmed!

She was quick-witted enough to understand where she was and how it had
all come about. The gibbous moon was directly overhead, and shone down
upon her with unobstructed fullness.

"Nick has gone over the bridge while I was asleep," was her instant
conclusion; "and father and mother will be worried about me."