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* * *
The longer they searched, the more Meadow’s spirits drooped. There was no trace of Snow.
Her cell phone rang. “Where are you?” Dal Blake asked.
“Have you found her?” she countered with helpless concern.
“Not yet. But we’re getting Jerry Haynes to bring old Redhide over. Do you have something of Snow’s that he can get her scent from?”
“Oh, thank you!” she said, almost crying with relief. “Yes, there’s her blue blanket that she sleeps on. It’s just inside the back door.” She hesitated. “It isn’t locked. I forgot. I was so scared . . .”
“It’s all right.” His voice was oddly gentle. “We’ll give Redhide the scent and I’ll keep you posted. We’ll find her,” he added with such confidence that a little of the fear left.
“Okay,” she said. She hesitated. “Thank you again, for helping.”
“She practically lives with me,” he said, and he didn’t sound angry. “I feel some responsibility for her. I’ll be in touch. Is your phone fully charged?”
Oh, if only he hadn’t asked that. She looked at it. One bar left. She ground her teeth together. “Sort of,” she confessed.
“Ask Harry if his is charged.”
She did. Harry chuckled and nodded.
“Yes.”
“Give me his number.”
Harry called it out to her and she relayed it to Dal.
“I’ll call him when we know something. Got your gloves on?”
She bit her lip, hard, and didn’t answer. “We’ll keep going toward the traps,” she said instead.
“All right.”
She hung up. They rode on.
* * *
The snow and sleet increased so that it was hard to see even a few feet ahead. Meadow was worried that Harry might say to give it up until the storm abated, but he didn’t. He kept going without a single complaint.
Meadow thought of Snow when she’d rescued her, of how much company the dog had been, of the happy times they’d shared. Snow had been her comfort when the world fell on her. A sweet, gentle soul who loved her mistress. She couldn’t lose Snow. She just couldn’t!
Harry glanced at her. “We’ll find her,” he said. “Old Redhide can track anything. He’s famous. Even the FBI used him once to track a fugitive who ran to our county to hide. Flushed him out of an old mine within minutes of getting his scent.” He chuckled. “If we’ve got that bloodhound, your dog is as good as found.”
“Thanks, Harry,” she said softly. “I’m just scared, that’s all. Snow had such a hard life until I got her from the shelter . . .”
“Have to have faith,” he said. He smiled. “It does work wonders.”
“I’m trying. Really.”
They rode on. Meadow was freezing, but she tried to hide it from Harry. The men all knew she was a tenderfoot, rancher’s daughter or not. Her legs were killing her, too. But if she could just find Snow, it wouldn’t matter. Nothing else mattered.
“That’s where he sets traps,” Harry said, noting a stretch of woods. “Have to go on foot out there, Miss Dawson. And watch every step. He sets bear traps, too.”
“I hate traps,” she muttered.
“It’s how he makes his living, trapping fur. Long years ago, it was big business out west. Trappers went far and wide getting hides for the companies back east.”
