Why should he suspect that the Kid had managed to open that gate and to close it after him?
A little fellow like that?
So the searching parties, having no clue to that one incident which would at least have sent them in the right direction, kept to the outlying fringe of gulches which led into the broken edge of the benchland, and to the country west and north and south of these gulches.
At that, there was enough broken country to keep them busy for several days, even when you consider the number of searchers.
Miss Allen did not want to go tagging along with some party.

She did not feel as if she could do any good that way, and she wanted to do some good.

She wanted to find that poor little fellow and take him to his mother.

She had met his mother, just the day before, and had ridden with her for several miles.

The look in the Little Doctor's eyes haunted Miss Allen until she felt sometimes as if she must scream curses to the heavens for so torturing a mother.