I've thought of that, and said to meself that it might be also that she
had become lost herself in trying to find it."

Fred laughed.

"She hardly knows enough for _that_; and, if she found the bell she
wouldn't know what to do with it; but if that leathern string around her
neck had broken, it may be that she is close by. A cow after losing one
milking is apt to feel so uncomfortable that she hurries home to be
relieved; but what's the use of talking?" added Fred, throwing up his
head and stepping off at a more lively pace; "we've started out to find
her and that's all we have to do."

Perhaps a dozen acres had been cleared around the little town of
Greville. This had been planted with corn, potatoes and grain, though
scores of unsightly stumps were left and interfered with the cultivation
of the soil. Beyond this clearing or open space extended the immense
forests which at one time covered almost the entire face of our country.
On the south side of the town and distant a furlong wound a creek, which
after many shiftings and turnings found its way into the Mississippi and
so at last into the Gulf of Mexico. The course of this stream was so
winding that it extended on two sides of the town and ran in a westerly
direction, exactly the opposite of that it finally had to take in order
to reach its outlet.

As a rule, it was about twenty feet wide with a depth of from one or two
to six feet. It was subject to tremendous overflows which sometimes
tripled its volume and increased its width to that of a river. At such
times a series of enormous rocks through which the creek at "low tide"
lazily wound its way, lashed the turbid current into a fury somewhat
like that seen in the "whirlpool" below Niagara. Could you have stood on
the shore and looked at the furiously struggling waters, you would have
been sure that even if a man were headed up in a barrel, he could not
have lived to pass through the hundred yards of rapids, though there was
reason to believe that more than one Indian had shot them in his canoe.

Terry Clark told his friend that his search of the night before and of
the morning following had been to the north and west of the settlement,
so that it was hardly worth while to continue the hunt in that
direction. The cows sometimes stood in the water, where so much
switching of their tails was not needed to keep away the flies, and,
though there was quite a growth of succulent grass on the clearing, the
animals o