us.
The fallen preacher gathered himself together and slipped away.
Dollie Gentry had a royal supper for everybody that night. Jean Pahusca sat by Father Le Claire with us at the long table in the dining-room. Again my conscience, which upbraided me for doubting him, and my instinct, which warned me to beware of him, had their battle within me.
"I just had to do something or I'd have jumped into the Neosho myself," Dollie explained in apology for the abundant meal, as if cooking were too worldly for that grave time. "I know now," she said, "how that poor woman felt whose little boy was took by the Kiowas years ago out on the West Prairie. They said she did jump into the river. Anyhow, she disappeared."
"Did you know her or her husband?" Father Le Claire asked quietly.
"Yes, in a way," Dollie replied. "He was a big, fine-looking man built some like you, an' dark. He was a Frenchman. She was a little, small-boned woman. I saw her in the 'Last Chance' store the day she got here from the East. She was fair and had red hair, I should say; but they said the woman that drowned herself was a black-haired French woman. She didn't look French to me. She lived in that little cabin up around the bend toward Red Range, poor dear! That cabin's always been haunted, they say."
"Was she never heard of again?" the priest went on. We thought he was keeping Dollie's mind off O'mie.
"Ner him neither. He cut out west toward Santy Fee with some Mexican traders goin' home from Westport. I heard he left 'em at Pawnee Rock, where they had a regular battle with the Kiowas; some thought he might have been killed by the Kiowas, and others by the Mexicans. Anyhow, he never was heard of in Springvale no more."
"Mrs. Gentry," Le Claire asked abruptly, "where did you find O'mie?"
"Why, we've had him so long I forget we never hadn't him." Dollie seemed confused, for O'mie was a part of her life. "He was brought up here from the South by a missionary. Seems to me he found the little feller (he was only five years old) trudgin' off alone, an' sayin' he wouldn't stay at the Mission 'cause there was Injuns there. Said the Injuns killed his father, an' he kicked an' squalled till the missionary just brought him up here. He was on his way to St. Mary's, up on the Kaw, an' he was takin' the little one on with him. He stopped here with O'mie an' the little feller was hungry – "
"And you fed him; naked, and you clothed him," the priest added reverently.
"Poor O'mie!" and Dollie made a dive for the kitchen to weep out her grief alone.
It seemed to settle upon Springvale that O'mie was lost; had been overcome in some way by the murderous raiders who had infested our town.
In sheer weariness and hopelessness I fell on my bed, that night, and sleep, the "sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care," fell upon me. Just at daybreak I woke with a start. I had not dreamed once all night, but now, wide awake, with my face to the open east window where the rose tint of a grand new day was deepening into purple on the horizon's edge, feeling and knowing everything perfectly, I saw O'mie's face before me, white and drawn with pain, but gloriously brave. And his pleading voice, "Phil, ye'll come soon, won't ye?" sounded low and clear in my ears.
I sprang up and dressed myself. I was so sure of O'mie, I could hardly wait to begin another search. Something seemed to impel me to speed. "He won't last long," was a vague, persistent thought that haunted me.
"What is it, Phil?" my aunt called as I passed her door.
"Aunt Candace, it's O'mie. He's not dead yet, I'm sure. But I must go at once and hunt again."
"Where will you go now?" she queried.
"I don't know. I'm just being led," I replied.
"Phil," Aunt Candace was at the door now, "have you thought of the Hermit's Cave?"
Her words went through me like a sword-thrust.
"Why, why, – oh, Aunt Candace, let me think a minute."
"I've been thinking for twelve hours," said my aunt. "Until you try that place don't give up the hunt."
"But I don't know how to get there."
"Then make a way. You are not less able to do impossible things than the Pilgrim Fathers were. If you ever find O'mie it will be in that place. I feel it, I can't say why. But, Phil, you will need the boys and Father Le Claire. Take time to get breakfast and get yourself together. You will need all your energy. Don't squander it the first thing."
Dear Aunt Candace! This many a year has her grave been green in the Springvale cemetery, but greener still is her memory in the hearts of those who knew her. She had what the scholars of to-day strive to possess – the power of poise.
I ate my breakfast as calmly as I could, and before I left home Aunt Candace made me read the Ninety-first Psalm. Then she kissed me good-bye and bade me God-speed. Something kept telling me to hurry, hurry, as I tried to be deliberate, and quickened my thought and my step. At the tavern Cam Gentry met us.
"It ain't no use to try, boys, O'mie's down in the river where the cussed Copperheads put him; but you're good to keep tryin'." He sat down in a helpless resignation, so unlike his natural buoyant spirit it was hard to believe that this was the same Cam we had always known.
"Judson's baby's to be buried to-day, but we can't even bury O'mie. Oh, it's cruel hard." Cam groaned in his chair.
The dew had not ceased to glitter, and the sun was hardly more than risen when Father Le Claire and the crowd of boys, reinforced now by Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow, started bravely out, determined to find the boy who had been missing for what seemed ages to us.
"If we find O'mie, we'll send word by the fastest runner, and you must ring the church bell," Le Claire arranged with Cam. "All the town can have the word at once then."
"We'll go to the Hermit's Cave first," I announced.
The company agreed, but only Bud Anderson seemed to feel as I did. To the others it was a wasted bit of heroism, for if none of us had yet found the way to this retreat, why should we look for O'mie there? So the boys argued as we hurried to the river. The Neosho was inside its banks again, but, deep and swift and muddy, it swept silently by us who longed to know its secrets.
"Philip, why do you consider the cave possible?" Le Claire asked as we followed the river towards the cliff.
"Aunt Candace says so," I replied.
"Well, it's worth the trial if only to prove a woman's intuition – or whim," he said quietly.
The same old cliff confronted us, although the many uprooted trees showed a jagged outcrop this side the sheer wall. We looked up helplessly at the height. It seemed foolish to think of O'mie being in that inaccessible spot.
"If he is up there," Dave Mead urged, "and we can get to him, it will be to put him alongside Judson's baby this afternoon."
All the other boys were for turning back and hunting about Fingal's Creek again, all except Bud. Such a pink and white boy he was, with a dimple in each cheek and a blowsy tow head.
"Will you stay with me, Bud, till I get up there?" I asked him.
"Yeth thir! or down there. Let'th go round an' try the other thide."
"Well, I guess we'll all stay with Phil, you cottontop," Tell Mapleson put in.
We all began
