All children, even the Middle Lotters, went past them on their homeward way, and they were always the very last.

"Show me once more, and be quite sure, the very spot where he began to climb down," said Edi, "I will go down, in the same path." Sally showed the exact spot, where Erick had descended over the rock, and Edi began the descent a little timidly.

But he arrived safely down below and ran hither and thither, calling with a loud voice: "Erick! Erick!" But only the echo from the rocks, round about, answered mockingly: "'Rick! 'Rick!" Now it really began to be dark, and round about not a human sound, only the rushing of the Woodbach, sounded through the stillness.

Edi began to feel a little uncomfortable; he climbed as quickly as possible up the rock and said hastily: "Come, we will go home.

Perhaps Erick is already at home, he may have gone by another road." But Sally opposed this proposition with all her power, and assured him firmly that Erick had not gone home; that he would have first come back to her; and she was not going a step away from where he had left her, until Erick came, for if he were to come and she was not there, then he would wait for her again, if he had to wait the whole night, she was sure of that.
"We must go home, you know it," declared Edi.