Rags hustled back to the school-house steps, but instantly he knew something was wrong. He looked into the empty room. She was not there. He smelled his way up to the desk, but could not bring her into existence. He snuffed his way out to the steps and down the path in a hurry, then came back baffled, with short, sharp, worried barks, to hunt for the scent again. Snuff! Snuff! Snuff! Bark! Rags could not understand it. Yes—but it was—there was the scent! Snuff! Snuff! Snuff! Bark! Bark! He tried it over again to make sure. The scent went around the left of the school-house, through the girl’s play-ground. What could she have gone around there for at this time of day? Had the enemy come during his absence and stolen her away? Rags hurried around the school, snuffing and barking, scuttled under the fence in a hurry, and away down the hill, his bark growing more sure and relieved every minute. Daniel was not accustomed to receiving letters. He grasped the meaning of that first sentence slowly, having lingered long over the "Dear Daniel." But he got no further than the first sentence: "I am having to go away in a great hurry." He got to his feet rapidly and went around to the school-house door. A great fear was in his heart. The absence of Rags confirmed it. He entered the deserted school-room. No one was there. He stepped up to the teacher’s desk. A letter addressed to the minister lay there. Daniel stood still by the teacher’s desk, his heart filled with foreboding, and read the remainder of his own letter. As he finished, he heard a step outside the door, and, looking up, saw the stranger of the morning before him. Instinctively he reached out for the minister’s letter on the desk and put it with his own into his coat-pocket. Then he faced the intruder quietly, and something in his steady blue eyes reminded the man of his morning encounter with the dog. He felt that he had an enemy in the boy before him. Winthrop took off his hat and inquired suavely: "Is Miss Van Rensselaer here? This is the school-house, isn’t it?" "It’s the school-house all right," answered Dan, "but there ain’t no Miss Van Rensselaer round. Don’t know no such person. You must ’a’ ben told wrong." "Oh, no; I saw her this morning. In fact, she must have expected me. I refer to the teacher of this school." "The teacher’s Miss Montgomery—Miss Mary Montgomery—an’ she’s gone. She boards this week with the Peabodys’, up by the church, second house beyond. She hasn’t been gone from here five minutes." "That is very strange," said the visitor. "I just walked down past the church and did not meet her." "She sometimes stops a minute to see how the blacksmith’s little sick girl is, at the corner here. She might ’a’ gone there, but she never stays long. You’d best go right up to Peabody’s."