over
brambles and stones and fallen trees; through thickets, and up
projecting rocks--very rapidly.

"It is growing dark," said Gypsy, half under her breath; "why didn't we
find it out before?"

"Gypsy," said Joy, after a silence, "do you remember that knot of white
birches? I don't."

Gypsy stopped and looked around.

"N-no, I don't know as I do. But I dare say we saw them and forgot.
Let's walk a little faster."

They walked a little faster. They walked quite as fast as they could go.

"See that great pile of rock," said Joy, presently, her voice trembling
a little; "I know we didn't come by that before. It looks as if there
were a precipice off there."

Gypsy made no answer. She was looking keenly around, her eyes falling on
every rock, stump, tree, and flower, in search of the tiny, trodden path
by which they had left the summit of the mountain. But there was no
path. Only the bramble, and the grass, and the tangled thickets.

It was now very dark.

"I guess this is the way," spoke up Gypsy, cheerfully--"here. Take hold
of my hand, Joy, and we'll run. I think I know where the path is. We had
turned off from it a little bit."

Joy took her hand, and they ran on together. It grew darker, and grew
darker. They could scarcely see the sky now, and the brambles grew high
and thick and strange.

Suddenly Gypsy stopped, knee-deep in a jungle of blackberry bushes.

"Joy, I'm--afraid I don't--know the--way."

CHAPTER X

WE ARE LOST

The two girls, still clasping hands, looked into each other's eyes.
Gypsy was very pale.

_"Then we are lost!"_

"Yes."

Joy broke into a sort of sobbing cry. Gypsy squeezed her hand very
tightly, with quivering lips.

"It's all my fault. I thought I knew. Oh, Joy, I'm so sorry!"

She expected Joy to burst forth in a torrent of reproaches; once it
would have been so; but for some reason, Joy did not say an angry word.
She only sobbed away quietly, clutching at Gypsy's hand as if she were
very much frightened. She was frightened thoroughly. The scene was
enough to terrify a far less timid child than Joy.

It was now quite dark. Over in the west a faint, ghostly gleam of light
still lingered, seen dimly through the trees; but it only made the utter
blackness of the great forest-shadows more horrible. The huge trunks of
the pines and maples towered up, up--they could scarcely see how far,
grim, and gloomy and silent; here and there a dead branch thrust itself
out