did not know which. Now and then they heard the report of a gun, but
did not know what it meant. Sometimes Elmira wept a little, but
softly, that she might not waken her mother.

The moon was full, and it was almost as light as day outside. When a
little after midnight a team came in sight they could tell at once
that it was the doctor's chaise, and Jake Noyes was driving. The boy
and girl left the windows and stole noiselessly out of the house.
Jake drew up at the gate. "You'd better go in an' go to bed, both on
you," he said. "We'll find him safe an' sound somewheres to-morrow.
There's nigh two hundred men an' boys out with lanterns an' torches,
an' firin' guns for signals. We'll find him with nothing wuss than a
broken bone to-morrow. We've dragged the whole pond, an' he ain't
there, sure."




Chapter III


The pond undoubtedly partook somewhat of the nature of an Eastern
myth in this little New England village. Although with the
uncompromising practicality of their natures the people had given it
a name so directly significant as to make it lose all poetical
glamour, and render it the very commonplace of ghastliness, it still
appealed to their imaginations.

The laws of natural fancy obtained here as everywhere else, although
in small and homely measure. The village children found no nymphs in