O.

THE RED FLAG.

Dick's plan was soon carried into effect, and the little red flag flew
as an appeal for help ten feet above the snow in the lonely valley.

Down in Castleton events had turned out just as the boys had
anticipated. The night of the snow-storm there was no sleep for their
parents, and at daybreak, next morning, Mr Humphreys and Mr Jackson
set out on foot through the storm for the distant farm. They kept to
the road, but it took them four hours to reach the farm, for the drifts
were many feet deep in the hollows, and they had the greatest difficulty
in making their way through.

When, upon their arrival, they found the boys had left before the gale
began, their consternation and grief were extreme, and they started at
once on their return to Castleton.

Search-parties were immediately organised, and these, in spite of the
fury of the storm, searched the hills in all directions.

After the first day, when it was found that they were not at any of the
shepherds' huts scattered among the hills, all hopes of finding them
alive ceased. So hopeless was it considered, that few parties went out
on the three following days; but on the fifth, when the snow-storm
ceased and the sun shone out, numbers of men again tramped the hills in
the vague hope of finding some sign of the missing boys; they returned
disheartened. The snow was two feet deep everywhere, twenty in many of
the hollows.

The next day but few went out, for the general feeling was, that the
bodies could not be discovered until the thaw came, and at present it
was freezing sharply.

Among those who still kept up the search were several of the boys'
school-fellows. They had not been permitted to join while the
snow-storm continued, and were therefore fresh at the work. A party of
four kept together, struggling through the deep snow-drifts, climbing up
the hills, and enjoying the fun, in spite of the saddening nature of
their errand.

On arriving at the brow of a deep valley five miles from home, they
agreed that they would go no farther, as it was not likely that the
missing boys could have wandered so far from their track. That they had
in fact done so was due to a sudden change in the direction of the wind;
it had been driving in their faces when they started, and with bent down
heads they had struggled against it, unconscious that it was sharply
changing its direction.

"Just let us have a look down into the bottom," one of the bo