Page:Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil.djvu/184

174 day-dreams every time he happens to say a word about an oil well."

Betty searched painstakingly, even going out into the road and hunting a short stretch, lest the cow should have strayed out on the highway. The fields through which she tramped were woefully neglected, and more than once she barely saved herself from a turned ankle, for the land was uneven and dead leaves and weeds filled many a hole. Evidently there had been no systematic cultivation of the farm for a number of years.

The sun was low when Betty finally came out in the pasture lot. She glanced toward the bars, saw one down, and sighed with relief. Bob, then, had found the cow, or at least he was at home. She knew that the chances were he had brought Daisy with him, for Bob had the tenacity of a bulldog and would not easily abandon his hunt.

"Did Bob find her?" demanded Betty, bursting into the kitchen where Miss Hope and Miss Charity were setting the table for supper.

The aunts looked up, smiled at the flushed, eager face, and Miss Charity answered placidly.

"Bob hasn't come back, dearie," she said. "You know how boys are—he'll probably look under every stone for that miserable Daisy. She's a good cow, but to think she would run off!"

"Oh, he's back, I know he is," insisted Betty confidently. "I'll run out to the barn. I guess