"Had we better let Tommy go?" asked Davis.
"He stood up for the kid, John," replied Earle. "He's going to be in at the finish."
Down by the woods Frank was waiting for them now--waiting for these slow-moving bipeds. "This is the way he went," he said plainer than words. "Better than if I had seen him, I know." His long silken ears were blown back by the wind. As they drew nearer they saw the eagerness of his dark eyes. Earle took Tommy by the hand. On the other side, his beard blown against him, hurried Mr. John Davis. Behind came the women.
A quarter of a mile in the woods, dark with the approaching storm, Earle turned a grim face to his neighbour.
"He's making straight for the mill dam, John."
The breath went out of Tommy with terror. That was an awful place, the mill dam! Above it the water was fifteen feet deep, his father said. Below, the water tumbled and foamed over rocks that would beat a man's life out. On top of the dam, raised above the glancing water on stays, a narrow walkway of single planks was laid. Grown men could cross, not boys.
Once, when he had gone with his father to the mill and no one was looking, Tommy had tried to walk out, just a little way. Everything had turned black. He only knew his father was calling him to look up, not down. But he could not take his eyes from the rushing water under his feet. While he was falling, arms had snatched him up. Tommy began to sob as they hurried.
It was growing darker in the woods. There had been no rain yet, but high up in the trees was a roaring sound, and now and then leaves and dead twigs came whirling down into the quieter regions below.
"No. Call him, Steve. We may be off the track."
"I'm afraid to do that, John. If it rains hard, as it's apt to do any minute, he will lose the trail."
"There's nothing else to do!" cried Davis above the wind. "We may be going wrong!"
Earle stopped. His hat had fallen off and he had not paused to pick it up. Tommy had never seen his face as it was now.
"Here, John, take the boy," he said. "I'll run for the dam!"
Just then, sharp and clear above the wind, from the dark wooded bottoms ahead, came a bark--a strange little yelp to be made by so big a dog, but the kind a bird dog makes when he functions as a hound. Tommy saw a smile on his father's face.