to find someone up here, the
portage men perhaps, or some Indians attending to the hundreds and
thousands of fish which were spread out drying in the sun and wind;
but there was no one. She did not know, of course, that Mr.
Selincourt had passed that way half an hour before, and had
summoned the portage men to help him to search for Mary among the
rocks. Looking back, she could see Oily Dave coming along at a
shuffling pace behind her, and with an imperious wave of the hand
to hurry his movements she sped onward now at a quicker pace,
because the ground was descending, and the hill behind her broke
the force of the wind. At the bottom of the hill there were two
tracks, both of which led round among the gulches or tideholes,
only by different ways and to different points, and it was here
that Katherine knew she would be at fault.

Hero still trotted contentedly just behind, as if perfectly
satisfied that she should take the lead. But a mistake now might
be disastrous and waste hours of time; so, calling the dog forward,
she began to talk to him in an eager, caressing fashion: "Good old
Hero, clever old dog, go and find Mary! Mary wants you ever so
badly; hurry up, old chappy, hurry up!"

The dog threw up its head with an eager whine, and looked round as
if to make certain where Mary was to be found,

"Mary, Mary, find her, go along!" cried Katherine; then with a
short bark Hero turned to the track leading seawards, and set off
at a trot, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left.

Katherine groaned. The tideholes nearest the sea naturally filled
first, and it could not be very far from high tide already.
Looking back, she saw Oily Dave gaining upon her, and waved to him
again to make haste. It was of no use to shout, because the wind
was blowing from him to her, and so her voice would not carry.
Then a dash of cold rain struck her from behind, and thankful she
was that it was behind, for if it had struck her in the face she
could hardly have stood against it. Right in front of her Hero was
trotting forward with head carried well in the air, and an eager
alertness in every limb. It was clear the creature felt no
uncertainty about its movements, and the feeling that she was going
right was an unspeakable comfort to Katherine, who toiled along in
the rear.

Suddenly the dog stopped dead short, flung up its head with a
weird, dismal howl, then bounded forward at a headlong pace.

What had it heard?