Children's Book Classics - Kate Douglas Wiggin Edition: 11 Novels & 120+ Short Stories for Children. Kate Douglas Wiggin
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go away from the camp alone that he surely would not do it. Papa and the boys will be home soon, now. It is nearly six o’clock, and I told them that I would blow the horn at six, as usual. If they are too far away to hear it, they will know the time by the sun.’
‘Well,’ said Bell, anxiously, ‘I hope it is all right. Papa is so strict that he won’t be late himself. Did all the boys go with him, mamma?’
‘Yes, all but Philip.’
‘Oh, then Dicky must be with them,’ said Margery, consolingly. ‘Geoffrey always takes him wherever he can.’
So the girls went into the tent to begin their dinner toilet, which consisted in carefully brushing burrs and dust from their pretty dresses, and donning fresh collars and stockings, with low ties of russet leather, which Polly declared belonged only to the stage conception of a camping costume; then, with smoothly brushed hair and bright flower-knots at collar and belt, they looked charming enough to grace any drawing-room in the land.
The horn was blown again at six o’clock, Aunt Truth standing at the entrance of the path which led up the cañon, shading her anxious eyes from the light of the setting sun.—
‘Here they come!’ she cried, joyously, as the welcome party appeared in sight, guns over shoulder, full game-bags, and Jack and Geoff with a few rabbits and quail hanging over their arms.
The girls rushed out of the tent. Bell took in the whole group with one swift glance, and then turned to her mother, who, like most mothers, believed the worst at once, and grew paler as she asked:
‘Papa, where is little Dick?’
‘Dick! Why, my dear, he has not been out with us. What do you mean?’
‘Are you sure you didn’t take him?’ faltered Aunt Truth.
‘Of course I am. Good heavens! Doesn’t any one know where the child is?’ looking at the frightened group.
‘You know, uncle,’ said Geoffrey, ‘we started out at three o’clock. I noticed Dicky playing with his blocks in our tent, and said good-bye to him. Did you see him when you came back for the cartridges?’
‘Certainly I did; he called me to look at his dog making believe go to sleep in the hammock.’
‘We girls went down to the pool soon after that,’ said Bell, tearfully. ‘He asked to go with us, and I told him it was too far, and that he’d better stay with mamma, who would be all alone. He said “Yes” so sweetly I couldn’t mistrust him. Oh, was it my fault, papa? Please don’t say it was!’ and she burst into a passion of sobs.
‘No, no, my child, of course it was not. Don’t cry; we shall find him. Go and look about the camp, Geoff, while we consider for a minute what to do?’
‘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!’