Page:Milady at Arms (1937).pdf/78

 through the underbrush, and when she would have run, caught her in an angry grasp.

"How now!" he exclaimed fiercely. "What foolishness be this, Sarah?"

Sally, glancing over her shoulder and seeing Jerry slip safely away behind the chipmunk's tree stump, allowed herself to be haled out of the swamp and hurried along the road toward the Todd farmhouse. "I—I—was—was looking i' the swamp for—for—little Mary," she explained at last, wearily, in answer to the indignant questions Master Todd kept shouting at her as he half dragged, half carried her along by her thin arm.

He seemed beside himself with fatigue and anxiety. His tone softened as he glanced down at the childish figure staggering along beside him, with downcast eyes and bowed head of auburn curls. "All this time, Sally?" he asked. Without waiting for a reply, to Sally's intense relief, for she had hesitated in answering him, not wishing to tell him an outright falsehood, Master Todd continued more gently: "Ye must be tired, then, lass! Best home wi' ye to bed!"

"But Mary!" cried the girl despairingly. She gave a little sob. "I could not sleep—I must help to find her!"

"I will keep up the search, Sally, never fear!" Grimly, determinedly, the father looked down at her out of eyes like sunken coals. "Ye had better