The road turned there and led straight up the mountain!
For just a moment the little girl felt a wild impulse to burst out in a
shriek for Aunt Frances, and to run crazily away, anywhere so long as
she was running. But the thought of Molly standing back there,
trustfully waiting to be taken care of, shut Betsy's lips together hard
before her scream of fright got out. She stood still, thinking. Now she
mustn't get frightened. All they had to do was to walk back along the
road till they came to the fork and then make the right turn. But what
if they didn't get back to the turn till it was so dark they couldn't
see it ... ? Well, she mustn't think of that. She ran back, calling, "Come
on, Molly," in a tone she tried to make as firm as Cousin Ann's. "I
guess we have made the wrong turn after all. We'd better ..."
But there was no Molly there. In the brief moment Betsy had stood
thinking, Molly had disappeared. The long, shadowy wood road held not a
trace of her.
Then Betsy WAS frightened and then she DID begin to scream, at the top
of her voice, "Molly! Molly!" She was beside herself with terror, and
started back hastily to hear Molly's voice, very faint, apparently
coming from the ground under her feet.
"Ow! Ow! Betsy! Get me out! Get me out!"
"Where ARE you?" shrieked Betsy.
"I don't know!" came Molly's sobbing voice. "I just moved the least
little bit out of the road, and slipped on the ice and began to slide
and I couldn't stop myself and I fell down into a deep hole!"
Betsy's head felt as though her hair were standing up straight on end
with horror.
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