croft?" I then
asked.

"No," said the shepherd.

"Weel, then, that's the only place she can have been to, that I can
think of. So you two had better get back to Crua Breck and wait
till daylight. I'll gang to Jack Paterson's, and if they ken
nothing of Thora there, we can only wait till the morning."

The two returned to the farm, therefore, and I tramped through the
storm to the croft of Clouston, past the ghostly standing stones of
the Druids, and along the dreary, snow-covered road.

The cottage was in darkness, with a great drift of snow against the
door. I knocked with my stick several times, and presently I heard
Jack Paterson's gruff voice demanding who was there.

"It's me, Halcro Ericson. Open the door, Jack."

"Save us all!" he exclaimed, raising the bolt. "What brings ye out
on a night like this, lad? Come inside."

"No; I'm seeking for Thora Kinlay; d'ye ken anything about her;
she's lost!"

"Lost! No; I ken nothing o' her. But wait and I'll see the bairns."

He returned to the door in a few minutes.

"Hilda says that Thora was here yestreen," he said. "But she went
away to Crua Breck when the snow came on so bad."

I was dismayed at his answer, for it seemed to prove to me that
Thora was really lost in the snow.

Paterson offered to continue the search with me, but I advised him
to dress and go to Stromness, and make inquiries in the town, while
I left him and returned to Lyndardy, always searching for
footprints on the snow.

At dawn I resumed the search with my sister Jessie. We first went
to Crua Breck to make sure that Thora had not yet returned. We
heard that Mrs. Kinlay was very ill now, and that Ann could not
leave her.

We returned by the top of the cliffs, where the snow was shallow,
but nothing rewarded our search until we got as far as North
Gaulton, where we observed what appeared to be footprints crossing
our path. They were indistinct, for the wind had disturbed the
snow; but they were indeed footprints, and we followed them. They
led us to the brink of the cliff, to the very spot where Thora and
I had, many weeks before, gone over to descend to the cave.

"Somebody has gone over here, Hal," said Jessie. "Look down on that
jag of rock, there is the mark of a rope!"

And at once I remembered about the disappearance of my climbing
lines. I looked to where Jessie pointed, and sure enough there were
the marks of a rope, where it had disturbed the snow and grazed
against the