A two-day search for five young girls who ran away together from Minneapolis ended in St. Paul on Tuesday night, when three of them were found wandering in the parking lot of a St. Paul department store and the other two were found at a Dayton’s Bluff residence.

None of the girls was harmed.

The five students of Seward Montessori School in South Minneapolis, ranging in ages from 11 to 13, left school at 2:30 p.m. Monday and were nowhere to be found. Parents reported them missing that afternoon, and investigators believed they were attempting to run away together.

Just before 9 p.m. Tuesday, acting on a tip, family members found three of the girls — Isabel Ward, 13, Gabriella Woods, 12, and Keneni Legese, 11 — walking in the parking lot of the Sears store on Rice Street near University Avenue in St. Paul.

The girls were apparently attempting to hike to Wisconsin but later split up, a family member said. It wasn’t immediately clear why they wanted to go to Wisconsin.

“The girls I picked up said they just walked. They couldn’t believe they walked all the way to St. Paul,” said Emily Heagle, an aunt of Isabel Ward, the oldest of the five girls, who all live in Minneapolis.

“We don’t really have a sense yet why they did it,” Heagle said.

The other two girls — Malina Long Crow, 12, and Alexandra “Alexx” O’Brien, 12 — were found at a residence in the Indian Mounds Park area of the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood.

Heagle said it was her understanding that the girls were tired and approached the home of a stranger. One of the girls called St. Paul police, who picked them up.

Tad Vezner can be reached at 651-228-5461 or follow him at twitter.com/SPnoir.