hunt up her brother Harvey, who had gone away and
left her at home. She had strayed so far into the mountains that she
was lost. Fortunately, she was warmly dressed at the time, but exposed
as she must be to the wintry winds and cold, she could not hold out
until morning unless rescued very soon.

Harvey was stricken with an anguish such as he had never known before,
but he knew that not a minute was to be lost. Dollie must be found at
once or it would be too late. It added a poignancy to his woe to know
that in coming down the mountain path, he must have passed close to
her, who was in sore need of the help he was eager to give.

"Have you made no search for her?" he asked.

"I could not believe she would not come back until it began to grow
dark. I thought she could not be far away; Maggie and I hunted through
the village, inquiring of every one whom we saw; many of the people
were kind, and two or three have gone to hunt for her; I started to do
so, but did not go far, when I was sure she had come back while I was
away, and I hurried home only to find she was not here."

"Are you sure any one is looking for her?"

"There are several."

"Well," said Harvey, impatient with the vacillation shown by his aunt,
"I shall not come back until she is found."

His hand was on the knob of the door when his distressed relative
sprang to her feet.

"Harvey;" she said in a wild, scared manner, "shall I tell you what I
believe?"

"Of course."

"Dollie did not lose herself: some of those awful men did it."

"Do you mean the strikers?"

"Yes; they have taken her away to spite you."

"Impossible!" exclaimed the young man, passing out the door and
striding up the single street that ran through the village.

But though unwilling to confess it to himself, the same shocking
suspicion had come to him at the moment he learned that Dollie was
lost. Could it be that some of the men, grown desperate in their
resentment, had taken this means of mortally injuring him? Was there
any person in the wide world who would harm an innocent child for the
sake of hurting a strong man? Alas, such things had been done, and why
should they not be done again? The words that he overheard between
Hugh O'Hara and Tom Hansell proved them capable of dark deeds. Could
it be that some of the hints thrown out by them during that brief
interview in the cabin bore any relation to the disappearance of Dollie.

At the moment Harvey turned awa