‘If there is any fault, it is mine, for going to sleep,’ said poor Aunt Truth; ‘but I never dreamed he would dare to wander off alone, my poor little disobedient darling! What shall we do?’
‘Have you spoken to Pancho and Hop Yet?’ asked Phil.
‘Yes; they have seen nothing.’
Hop Yet just at this moment issued from his kitchen with an immense platter of mutton-stew and dumplings, which he deposited on the table. On being questioned again, he answered as before, with the greatest serenity, intimating that Dicky would come home ‘heap bime-by’ when he got ‘plenty hungly.’ He seemed to think a lost boy or two in a family rather a trifle than otherwise, and wound up his unfeeling remarks with the practical one, ‘Dinner all leady; you no eat mutton, he get cold! Misser Wins’, I no find pickle; you catchum!’
‘I don’t believe he would care if we all died right before his eyes,’ muttered Polly, angrily. ‘I should just like to see a Chinaman’s heart once, and find out whether it was made of resin, or cuttle-fish, or what.’
‘Well,’ said Phil, as Dr. Winship came through the trees from the card-room, ‘we must start out this instant, and of course we can find him somehow, somewhere; he hasn’t been gone over two hours, and he couldn’t walk far, that’s certain. Now, Uncle Doc, shall we all go different ways, and leave the girls here to see if he doesn’t turn up?’
‘Oh, papa,’ cried Bell, do not leave us at home! We can hunt as well as any one; we know every foot of the cañon. Let me go with Geoff, and we’ll follow the brook trail.’
‘Very well. Now, mamma, Pancho and I will go down to the main road, and you wait patiently here. Make all the noise you can, children; and the one who finds him must come back to the camp and blow the horn. Hop Yet, we go now; if Dicky comes back, you blow the horn yourself, will you?’
‘All light, boss. You eat um dinner now; then go bime-by; mutton heap cold; you—’
‘Dinner!’ shouted Jack. ‘Confound your impudence! If you say dinner again, I’ll cut the queue off your stupid head.’
‘Good!’ murmured Polly, giving a savage punch to her blue Tam o’ Shanter cap.
‘Jack, Jack!’ remonstrated Aunt Truth.
‘I know, dear auntie; but the callous old heathen makes me so mad I can’t contain myself. Come, Margery, let’s be off. Get your shawl; and hurrah for the one who comes back to blow the horn first! I’ll wager you ten to one I’ll have Dick in auntie’s lap inside the hour!’—at which Aunt Truth’s eyes brightened, and she began to take heart again. But as he tore past the brush kitchen and out into the woods, dragging Madge after him at a breathless pace, he shut his lips together rather grimly, saying, ‘I’d give five hundred dollars (s’posin’ I had a cent) to see that youngster safe again.’
‘Tell me one thing, Jack,’ said Margery, her teeth chattering with nervousness; ‘are there any animals in this cañon that would attack him?’
‘Oh, of course it is possible that a California lion or a wild-cat might come down to the brook to drink—they have been killed hereabouts—but I hardly believe it is likely; and neither do I believe they would be apt to hurt him, any way, for he would never attack them, you know. What I am afraid of is that he has tumbled over the rocks somewhere in climbing, or tangled himself up in the chaparral. He couldn’t have made off with a pistol, could he? He is up to all such tricks.’
Presently the cañon began to echo with strange sounds, which I have no doubt sent the owls, birds, and rabbits into fits of terror; for the boys had whistles and pistols, while Polly had taken a tin pan and a hammer. She had gone with Phil out behind the thicket of manzanita bushes, and they both stood motionless, undecided where to go.
‘Oh, Phil, I can’t help it; I must cry, I am so frightened. Let me sit down a second. Yes, I know it’s an ant-hill, and I shouldn’t care if it were a hornets’ nest—I deserve to be stung. What do you think I said to Margery this morning? That Dicky was a perfect little marplot, and spoiled all our fun, and I wished he were in the bottom of the Red Sea; and then I called him a k-k-k-ill-joy!’ and Polly buried her head in her blue Tam, and cried a good, honest, old-fashioned cry.
‘There, chirk up, poor little soul, and don’t you fret over a careless speech, that meant nothing at all. I’ve wished him in the Red Sea more than once, but I’m blessed if I ever do it again. Come, let’s go over yonder, where we caught the young owl; Dicky may have wanted to try that little game again.’
So they went on, calling, listening, then struggling on again, more anxious every moment, but not so thoroughly dazed as Bell, who had rocked her baby-brother in his cradle, and to whom he was the embodiment of every earthly grace, if not of every heavenly virtue.
‘I might have known this would happen,’ she said, miserably. ‘He is so careless that, if we ever find him again, we must keep him tied to something.’
‘Take care of your steps, dear,’ said Geoff, ‘and munch this cracker, or you won’t have strength enough to go on with me. I wish it were not getting so dark; the moment the sun gets behind these mountain-tops the light seems to vanish in an instant.—Dick-y!’
‘Think of the poor darling out in this darkness—hungry, frightened, and alone,’ sighed Bell. ‘It’s past his bed-time now. Oh, why did we ever come to stay in this horrible place!’
‘You must not blame the place, dear; we thought it the happiest in the world this morning. Here we are by the upper pool, and the path stops. Which way had we better go?’
‘I’ve been here before to-day,’ said Bell; ‘we might follow the trail I made. But where is my string? Light a match, Geoff, please.’
‘What string? What do you mean?’
‘Why, I found a beautiful spot this morning, and, fearing I shouldn’t remember the way again, I took out my ball of twine and dropped a white line all the way back, like Ariadne; but I don’t see it. Where can it have disappeared—unless Jack or Phil took it to tease me?’
‘Oh no; I’ve been with them all day. Perhaps a snake has swallowed it. Come.’
But a bright idea had popped into Bell’s head. ‘I want to go that way, Geoff, dear; it’s as good as any other, and there are flowers just the other side, in an open, sunny place; perhaps he found them.’
‘All right; let’s go ahead.’
‘The trouble is, I don’t know which way to go. Here is the rock; I remember it was a spotted one, with tall ferns growing beside it. Now I went—let me see—this way,’ and they both plunged into the thick brush.
‘Bell, Bell, this is utter nonsense!’ cried Geoff. ‘No child could crawl through this tangle.’
‘Dicky could crawl through anything in this universe, if it was the wrong thing; he isn’t afraid of beast, bird, or fish, and he positively enjoys getting scratched,’ said Bell.
Meanwhile, what had become of this small hero, and what was he doing? He was last seen in the hammock, playing with the long-suffering terrier, Lubin, who was making believe go to sleep. It proved to be entirely a make-believe; for, at the first loosening of Dicky’s strangling hold upon his throat, he tumbled out of the hammock and darted into the woods. Dicky followed, but Lubin was fleet of foot, and it was a desperate and exciting race for full ten minutes.
At length, as Lubin heard his little master’s gleeful laugh, he realised that his anger was a thing of the past; consequently, he wheeled about and ran into Dicky’s outstretched arms, licking his face and hands exuberantly in the joy of complete forgiveness.
By this time the voice of conscience in Dicky’s soul—and it was a very, very still, small one on all occasions—was entirely silenced. He strayed