"I'll put you up a nice, big lunch," Theodora said, trying to cheer us.
"And I do hope that you will find him at the Old Slave's Farm, or over
at Adger's camp. If you do, you may all be back by night."
She stole up to her room to get a pair of new double mittens that she
had just finished knitting for Addison; and for me she brought down a
woolen neck muffler that grandmother had knitted for her. Life brightens
up, even in a Maine winter, with a girl like that round.
Addison took his shotgun, and I carried the basket of luncheon. No snow
had come since Halstead and Alfred left, and we could still see along
the old lumber road the faint marks of their hand-sled runners. In the
hollows where the film of snow was a little deeper, two boot tracks were
visible.
"Halse wouldn't go off far into the woods alone, after Alf left him,"
said I.
"No, he is too big a coward," said Addison.
It was thirteen miles up to the Old Slave's Farm, where the negro--who
called himself Pinkney Doman--had lived for so many years before the
Civil War.
"We can make it in three hours!" Addison exclaimed. "If we find him
there, we shall be back before dark.
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