TWO ON THE TRAIL

Motionless before her stood a figure wrapped in the usual Indian blanket. p. 100

TWO ON THE TRAIL

CHAPTER I

THE LOG HOUSE

"Do you suppose anything has happened to him?" asked the boy; "do you, Nell?"

He had been asking that question a great many times a day for a good many days. Every time he asked it his sister said, "Oh no, of course not," and set about any sort of work to prove she was not thinking anxious thoughts. At last, however, her answer was rather slower in coming, and on this particular occasion no answer came till David touched her arm.

"Do you, Nell?" he urged.

"I don't know. I shouldn't think so," she said, but instead of getting busy she sat still and stared at the red-hot stove, her strong hard hands clasped round her knees, and a frown on her forehead--actually doing nothing at all but just think!

This state of things was surprising enough to make "Da," as she called her young brother, more persistent than ever. He was a big, strong, square-shouldered boy of twelve, or thereabouts, and his sister was to him very much what the Captain of the First Eleven might be to a boy in an English school. She was wonderful. She could do anything and everything that he understood and that came into his life, as well--better than anyone he knew. Besides the jobs that men left over--in his experience--and which Nell did as cleverly as the mother who had died about five years before.

Da had entire confidence in her, and who shall say he had not a right to, considering all that he saw and knew about her!

She was fifteen; a head and shoulders taller than himself, and apparently as strong as their father. Her dark red hair was short as his own. That is to say, as short as hair can be where people have no shops and do their own hair-cutting. Her eyes were greenish grey and sharp as