ly, "there over in the woods toward
the west. Do you see anything?"

Esther had gotten up on her feet more slowly and was leaning on Dick
Ashton's arm. She had become weary of false clues and false hopes. And
Polly with her sanguine temperament had been more often deceived than
any one else.

"That is only a mist you see rising between the trees, Miss O'Neill,"
Carl von Reuter answered before the others spoke. "It very often occurs
in these damp old forests on sultry nights."

Polly made no reply for the moment, only walking over to where Esther
was standing she whispered something to her that no one else could hear.
And Esther took tight hold of Polly's hand and without regarding their
escorts they both stared unceasingly in the direction that Polly had
first indicated. Were the light clouds they saw at so great a distance
away, rising and floating lightly in the night air like pale ghosts,
really nothing but mist? Then it was curious that the mist should rise
always in double clouds, the one within a few feet of the other.

A second time the two girls together watched this phenomenon and then
after an interval of ten minutes, during which neither one of them would
change her position, for the third time they saw the two light clouds
unfurl and this time, though they may not have been perfectly certain of
this detail, there appeared tiny sparks and cinders amid the clouds.

Polly turned deliberately toward Carl von Renter. "Lieutenant von
Reuter," she said, "Betty is somewhere within your woods. I am
perfectly sure of it and so is Esther by this time. You may not
understand, but we have lived together in the woods for over a year and
have studied woodcraft until we know almost as much about it as Indian
women. The two columns of smoke which we have discovered rising at
regular intervals are a woodsman's signal for help. We must go to Betty
at once. It is dark and we are not familiar with your forests, so that
it would take us a longer time to reach her alone. Will you be good
enough to lead the way?"

There was no disputing the girl's quiet conviction, and as Esther was
now equally convinced, neither young man advanced any denial. Only Carl
von Reuter plunged ahead so rapidly that following him was almost out of
the question.

By some magic he seemed to know the open spaces between the trees and
where the underbrush could be safely trodden down. Neither did he make
any effort to assist either of the two girls,