Finally he became sure that his father was nowhere in the clearing,
and he raised his voice again and shouted, and hallooed, and
listened, and hallooed again, and got no response.

Suddenly a chill seemed to strike Jerome's heart. He thought of the
pond. Little given as he was to forebodings of evil, when once he was
possessed of one it became a certainty.

"Father's fell in the pond and got drowned," he burst out with a
great sob. "What will mother do?"

The boy went forward, stumbling half blindly over the stumps. Once he
fell, bruising his knee severely, and picked himself up, sobbing
piteously. All the child in Jerome had asserted itself.

Beyond the clearing was a stone wall that bounded Abel Edwards's
property. Beyond that was a little grove of old thick-topped
pine-trees; beyond that the little woodland pond. It was very shallow
in places, but it never dried up, and was said to have deep holes in
it. The boys told darkly braggart stories about this pond. They had
stood on this rock and that rock with poles of fabulous length; they
had probed the still water of the pond, and "never once hit the
bottom, sir." They had flung stones with all their might, and,
listening sharply forward like foxes, had not heard them "strike
bottom, sir."

One end of this pond, reaching up well among the pine-trees, had the
worst repute, and was called indeed a darkly significant name--the
"Dead Hole." It was confidently believed by all the village children