Chapter 21

HUNTING FOR AMY

In spite of her seemingly heartless words, it was Ann Hicks who agreed to go with Ruth to hunt for the lost girl. Helen frankly acknowledged that she was afraid to tramp about the woods and fields at night, with only a boy and a lantern for company.

"Come along, Ruthie. I have helped find stray cattle on the range more times than you could shake a stick at," declared good-natured Ann Hicks. "Rouse out that lazy boy of Grandma Smith's."

Mrs. Sadoc Smith had to give just so much advice, and see that the expedition was properly equipped. A thermos bottle filled with coffee went into Ruth's bag, while Curly was laden with a substantial lunch, a roll of bandages, a bottle of arnica and some smelling-salts, beside the lantern.

"Huh!" protested the boy to Ann, "if she was sending us out to find a lost _boy_ all she'd send would be that cat-o'-nine-tails of hers that hangs in the woodshed. I know Gran!"

"And the cat-o'-nine-tails, too, eh?" chuckled the Western girl.

"You bet!" agreed Curly, feelingly.

They set forth with just one idea about the search. Amy Gregg, as far as Curly could remember, had expressed a wish to go to but one place. That was the old dam up in Norman's Woods, where he and Ruth had gone fishing.

They were quite sure that it would be useless to hunt for the girl in any neighbor's house. And Mrs. Sadoc Smith's premises had already been searched. They had shouted for Amy till their throats were sore before the news had come from Briarwood Hall. The fact that Amy had been suffering from a physical ailment, as well as one of the mind, troubled Ruth exceedingly.

"Maybe she was just 'sickening for some disease,' as Aunt Alvirah says," the girl of the Red Mill told Ann Hicks, as they went along. "A sore throat is the forerunner of so many fevers and serious troubles. She might be coming down with scarlet fever."

"Goodness gracious! don't say _that_" begged Ann.

Ruth feared it, nevertheless. The two girls followed Curly through the narrow path, the dripping bushes wetting their skirts, and briers at times scratching them. Ann was a good walker and could keep up quite as well as Ruth. Beside, Curly was not setting a pace on this occasion, but stumbled on with the lantern, rather blindly.

"Tell you what," he grumbled. "I don't fancy this job a mite."

"You're not 'afraid to go home in the dark,' are you, Curly?" asked Ann, with scorn.

"Not going home just now," responded the boy, grinning. "But the woods aren't any place to be out in this time of night--unless you've got a dog and a gun. There! see that?"

"A cat, that's all," declared Ruth, who had seen the little black and white animal run across their track in the flickering and uncertain light of the lantern. "Here, kitty! kitty! Puss! puss! puss!"

"Hold on!" cried the excited Curly. "You needn't be so particular about calling that cat."

"Why not? It must be somebody's cat that's strayed," said Ruth.

"Ya-as. I guess it is. It's a pole-cat," growled Curly. "And if it came when you called it, you wouldn't like it so much, I guess."

"Oh, goodness!" gasped Ann. "Don't be so friendly with every strange animal you see, Ruth Fielding. A pole-cat!"

"Wish I had a gun!" exclaimed Curly. "I'd shoot that skunk."

"Glad you didn't then," said Ruth, promptly. "Poor little thing."

"Ya-as," drawled the boy. "'Poor little thing.' It was just aiming for somebody's hencoop. One of 'em 'll eat chickens faster than Gran's hens can hatch 'em out."

Pushing on through the woods at this slow pace brought them to the ruined grist mill and the old dam not before ten o'clock. There was a pale and watery moon, the shine of which glistened on the falling water over the old logs of the dam, but gave the searchers little light. The moon's rays merely aided in making the surroundings of the mill more ghostly.

Nobody lived within a mile of the mill site, Curly assured the girls, and if Amy had found this place it was not likely that she had likewise found the nearest human habitation, for that was beyond the mill and directly opposite to Briarwood and the town of Lumberton.

They shouted for Amy, and then searched the ghostly premises of the ruined