But never a response got the dauntless little girl, slipping almost
up to her knees, sometimes, in black swamp-mud; and sometimes
stumbling painfully over tree-stumps, and through tangled undergrowth.

"I'll go till my wool gives out," said Ann Wales; then she used it
more sparingly.

But it was almost gone before she thought she heard in the distance a
faint little cry in response to her call: "Hannah! Hannah Fre-nch!"
She called again and listened. Yes; she certainly did hear a little
cry off toward the west. Calling from time to time, she went as
nearly as she could in that direction. The pitiful answering cry grew
louder and nearer; finally Ann could distinguish Hannah's voice.

Wild with joy, she came, at last, upon her sitting on a fallen
hemlock-tree, her pretty face pale, and her sweet blue eyes strained
with terror.

"O, Hannah!" "O, Ann!"

"How did you ever get here, Hannah?"

"I--started for aunt Sarah's--that morning," explained Hannah,
between sobs. "And--I got frightened, in the woods, about a mile from
father's. I saw something ahead, I thought was a bear. A great black
thing! Then I ran--and, somehow, the first thing I knew, I was lost.
I walked and walked, and it seems to me I kept coming right back to
the same place. Finally I sat down here, and staid; I thought it was
all the way for me to be found."