Tontine began to grumble at once when she discovered that Loka was not at hand to receive them on their return.
"_Bon!_" she exclaimed. "Now w'ere is that Loka? Ah, that girl, she aggravates me too much. Firs' thing she knows I'm goin' sen' her straight back to them ban' of lady w'ere she come frum."
"Loka!" she called, in short, sharp tones, as she traversed the house and peered into each room. "Lo--ka!" She cried loudly enough to be heard half a mile away when she got out upon the back gallery. Again and again she called.
Baptiste was exchanging the discomfort of his Sunday coat for the accustomed ease of shirt sleeves.
"_Mais_ don't git so excite, Tontine," he implored. "I'm sho she's yonda to the crib shellin' co'n, or somew'ere like that."
"Run, François, you, an' see to the crib," the mother commanded. "Bibine mus' be starve! Run to the hen-house an' look, Juliette. Maybe she's fall asleep in some corna. That 'll learn me 'notha time to go trus' _une pareille sauvage_ with my baby, _va!_"
When it was discovered that Loka was nowhere in the immediate vicinity, Tontine was furious.
"_Pas possible_ she's walk to Laballière, with Bibine!" she exclaimed.
"I'll saddle the hoss an' go see, Tontine," interposed Baptiste, who was beginning to share his wife's uneasiness.
"Go, go, Baptiste," she urged. "An' you, boys, run yonda down the road to ole Aunt Judy's cabin an' see."
It was found that Loka had not been seen at Laballière's, nor at Aunt Judy's cabin; that she had not taken the boat, that was still fastened to its moorings down the bank. Then Tontine's excitement left her. She turned pale and sat quietly down in her room, with an unnatural calm that frightened the children.
Some of them began to cry. Baptiste walked restlessly about, anxiously scanning the country in all directions. A wretched hour dragged by. The sun had set, leaving hardly an afterglow, and in a little while the twilight that falls so swiftly would be there.
Baptiste was preparing to mount his horse, to start out again on the round he had already been over. Tontine sat in the same state of intense abstraction when Francois, who had perched himself among the lofty branches of a chinaberry-tree, called out: "Ent that Loka 'way yon'a, jis' come out de wood? climbin' de fence down by de melon patch?"