to a grass path, where after walking for some time he suddenly
stopped and listened. Then pointing down it, he grinned and touched up
Stonecrop to make him trot, and after running for some time alongside
them, dropped behind. Dick began to think that the path was familiar
to him, and the ponies began to pull, as though they knew it also. In
another five minutes they came down into the road by which they had
driven up on the previous morning, and there stood the Corporal and
another servant, both of them mounted, not a hundred yards away.

Dick shouted joyfully, and the Corporal galloping hastily up,
dismounted and ran to them. He was white, haggard and unshorn, and for
a time only patted their ponies apparently unable to speak. Then he
looked up the valley at the hills, and seeing that they were clear of
mist told the other servant to get up to the top of the hill and make
the signal, and to look sharp about it; upon which the servant turned
his horse up the path and galloped away like one possessed. Then the
Corporal turned to the children and asked them who had brought them
back; and when they told him they noticed for the first time that the
idiot was not with them. They called and shouted for him several
times, but he never came; and then they rode back with the Corporal,
telling their adventures as they went.

But far behind them on one of the highest points of the moor stood
Colonel George and their mother. She was now deadly white, with great
black rings round her eyes, for she was worn out with watching and
anxiety; but she would not give in. She had dismounted and was sitting
on the heather, while Colonel George with his field-glass laid across
his horse's saddle conned the moor anxiously in every direction. The
mist was only just gone, and he seemed to have much to look at, for a
long line of horsemen was sweeping before him over the moor, searching
for the children. At last he set down the glass and rubbed his eyes,
for he had been in the saddle for nearly twenty-four hours, and taking
a flask from his pocket poured out a little for Lady Eleanor. She
shook her head as he brought it, but he only said "You must;" and then
she drank a mouthful or two. He was just about to drink himself when
he hastily slipped the flask into his pocket, and taking out the
field-glass looked long and earnestly through it. Then he tied a large
white handkerchief to his whip, waved it three times over his head and
loo