Madge dropped to the ground, shaking with sobs. She had found Eleanor's little, soft felt riding hat.

"Children," urged Mr. Preston, "don't be so alarmed. It is very natural that, when we took so long to find the poor child, she got up and wandered off somewhere to get out of the rain. I will rouse the neighborhood and we men will search the woods and fields. We will inquire at all the farmhouses in the vicinity. Why, we are sure to find Eleanor. You girls must run along home and wait until morning. I can't have you all ill on my hands with pneumonia."

Miss Jenny Ann, Mrs. Preston and Miss Betsey were crawling out of the phaeton when Mr. Preston led three of the girls back to "I can't go home, Jenny Ann," insisted Madge. "It was my fault that Nellie is lost.

Uncle and Aunt will never forgive me."

It was in vain that Miss Jenny Ann pleaded, argued and commanded the little captain to return with the other women to the Preston farm. She simply would not go. So Phyllis stayed behind with her for company.

Just before daylight one of the farmers who lived near the woods where Eleanor was supposed to have been left took the two girls home with him.

Eleanor had not then been found.

CHAPTER XV

THE BLACK HOLE

Hours and hours had gone by, and Eleanor had lain quite still. Sometimes she was conscious, but oftener she was not. The pain in her shoulder, the exhaustion from the long waiting, had made her delirious. When the rain began it seemed at first to refresh her, she was so hot and feverish. Later rheumatic twinges began to dart through her injured shoulder; her whole body was racked with pain. She seemed to be in some horrible nightmare. She forgot what had happened to her. She no longer realized that she was waiting for her friends to come to her rescue; she only believed that, if she could in some way get back to her own home, "Forest House," the agony and terror would cease.

In her delirium Eleanor managed to get up from the wet ground. She never knew how or when, but she remembered groping her way cautiously through the dark forest. The hundreds of trees seemed like a great army of terrible men and women waving angry arms at the frightened girl. Now and then she would b.u.mp into one of the trees. Eleanor would then step back and apologize; she thought that she had collided with a human being.

At times Eleanor was dimly conscious that she could hear the sound of her own voice. She was singing in high, sweet tones a song of her babyhood:

"When the long day's work is over, When the light begins to fade, Watching, waiting in the gloaming, Weary, faint and half afraid, Then from out the deep'ning twilight, Clear and sweet a voice shall come, Softly through the silence falling-- Child, thy Father calls, 'Come home.'"

There was something in the familiar words that comforted Eleanor. She would soon find her mother and father and Madge. But step by step Eleanor went farther away from civilization and deeper into the woods.

At last she came out of the woods altogether to a more forbidding part of the country. A group of small hills rose up at the edge of the woodlands. They seemed to poor Eleanor's distorted imagination to be a collection of strange houses.

A yawning hole gaped in the side of one of the hills. Years before a company of promoters had believed that rich coal deposits could be found in these Virginia hills. A coal mine had been dug in the side of this solitary hillock. But the coal yield had not been rich enough.

Later on the company had abandoned it and the old coal mine was disused and almost forgotten. A strange freak of destiny led Eleanor to the spot.

She felt, rather than saw, the opening. The rain had ceased, but the night was still dark. Eleanor believed that she had found the door of her own home at "Forest House." Why was it so dark in the hall? Had no one lighted the lamps? Surely, she heard some one cry out her name!

"Mother! Father!" she called. "Madge!" She put out one hand--the other was useless--and stepped into the black hole. It was all so dark and horrible. Eleanor took a few steps forward; a suffocating odor of coal gas greeted her; she stumbled and fell face downward. Eleanor was literally buried alive. She had wandered into a place that the world had forgotten, and she was too ill to make any effort to save herself.

So it was that Eleanor Butler heard no sound and saw no sign of the desperate search that was being made for her. But if Eleanor were unconscious, there was some one else who knew that the woods and all the nearby fields and countryside were being investigated, inch by inch, by a party of determined seekers. The man believed that the search was being made for him. For several days he had been in hiding on the edge of the woods, not far from the old coal mine into which Eleanor had stumbled. He had his own reasons for hiding, although he believed that until to-night no crime had been fixed on him.

While Eleanor was groping her way out of the woods this man was crouched in the branches of a heavily wooded tree. He had spent all his life in the open, and knew that a party of men searching through a forest on a dark night would not spy him out so long as the darkness covered him.

But he knew that at dawn he must find a better hiding place.

Just before daylight the woods were silent once more. The fugitive understood that the searching parties had gone home to rest and to get reinforcements in order to begin a more thorough hunt at dawn.

The greater part of the night the man had spent in trying to decide where he should conceal himself before the daylight. He knew of but one possible hiding place that was safe. He had tracked through the country for miles to hide his treasures in the old coal mine, although he had believed that he was absolutely free from suspicion. Who had betrayed him? Not the old gypsy woman. The man did not consider her. But there was--_the boy_!

As soon as the woods were free from the hunting parties the man slipped down from his tree. It was a poor place of refuge, but he would crawl into the disused coal mine, for the day at least, to guard his life and his stolen property. He crept cautiously along. As soon as he could get word to the gypsy woman they would both try to get away from the neighborhood. Things were getting too hot for them both. And again, there was _the boy_!

There was some one else afoot in the woods. The man could hear a cat-like tread. Nearer stole the other prowler. There was another sound, a faint call, which the man answered. An instant later the old gypsy woman appeared. "I have been searching for you, lad. The boy says he has got to see you."

It was hardly dawn, but a faint light had appeared in the sky that was not daylight but its herald. A pause hung over the world that always comes just before its awakening.

The man and woman hesitated just a moment at the opening of the old mine. It was dreadful to shut themselves away from the daylight. The man went in first, the old woman close behind him. But a few feet from the entrance he staggered back; he had struck his foot against something.

The man's first thought was that some one had crept into the mine to steal his treasure. A few seconds later he became more accustomed to the dim light and saw the still figure of Eleanor.

The man and the woman stared at the girl as though they had seen an apparition. She was so deathly pale it was not strange that they thought at first that she was not alive.

Both the man and the woman kept close to the ground, so as not to inhale the odor of the coal gas. The old gypsy took Eleanor's limp, white hand.

"She is alive," she whispered to the man.

The man nodded. He realized at once that the woods were being searched, not for him, but for this lost girl. He could not imagine how the girl had wandered into this dreadful place of concealment. But she was certainly innocent of any wrong or suspicion of him. Yet, if she stayed in the coal mine with them all day, she might die.

There has hardly ever been born into this world any human creature who is wholly wicked. The man in the mine with Eleanor was not a cruel fellow. He had one strange, wicked theory, that the world owed him a living and he would rather steal than work for it.

Unexpectedly Eleanor opened her eyes. She did not cry out with terror.

She was no longer delirious. She smiled at the man and at the old woman in a puzzled, friendly fashion. "It is so dark and dreadful in here!

Won't you take, me out?" she pleaded.

Fortunately Eleanor had fallen near enough to the entrance of the mine to get the fresh air from the outside. She struggled to sit up, but the pain in her shoulder again overcame her.

"How did you get in here?" the man asked Eleanor suspiciously.

"I don't know," she answered, beginning to cry gently. "Please take me out."

The man realized that whatever was to be done for Eleanor must be done at once. Every minute that pa.s.sed made it the more dangerous for him to return to the forest. Later on, when the woods were full of people, he would not dare leave the mine. He knew that even now he was risking his own freedom if he carried the girl out from the safe shelter that concealed them.

The man lifted Eleanor in his arms as gently as he could. She cried out when he first touched her; then she set her teeth and bore stoically the pain of being moved.

"You can trust me," her rescuer said kindly. "I can't take you to your friends, but I will take you to a place where they can find you. Now you must promise me that you will never say that you have ever seen me or the old woman, and that you will never mention the old coal mine."

Eleanor promised and the fugitive seemed impressed with her sincerity.

The man carried her about a quarter of a mile into the woods. Then he laid her down in the gra.s.s and hurried away. Eleanor watched him with grateful eyes. She did not wonder why the man and the old woman had come to the mysterious hole in the earth, nor why they wished her to keep their hiding place a secret; she was not troubled about it. She was still in great pain, but her fever had gone and she was no longer delirious. She remembered the events of the day before up to the time when she started to wander in the woods. Now Eleanor waited, content and full of faith. The day had come, with its wonderful promise. She knew that she would soon be found. She would bear the pain as well as she could until then.

"Nellie! Nellie!" It was Madge's voice calling to her from afar off. The tones sounded queer and strained, but Eleanor felt sure they were those of her cousin. She could not be mistaken, as she had been last night.

She must have been dreaming when some one seemed to summon her from the mouth of the cave. Eleanor did not realize that she had but caught an echo of some one crying to her through the heart of the forest.

Eleanor was weak and faint, but she summoned her strength. "Madge! here I am!" she cried. Her voice was too feeble to carry far.

Neither Madge nor any of her companions caught the answering sound.

David Brewster, Jack Bolling, Phil and Lillian were with her. Harry Sears had given out at daylight and had gone back to the Preston farm.

Again they were wandering away from the spot where Nellie waited so patiently.

"Nellie! Nellie!" Madge called once more, her voice breaking.

Poor Eleanor realized that Madge's voice was farther off than it had been when she first called.