anything. At least about his intentions, or line of business, or where
he’s from, and such things as that. And as for getting at the nature and
get-up of his main big chief mystery, why, he’ll just change the subject,
that’s all. You can guess till you’re black in the face–it’s your
privilege–but suppose you do, where do you arrive at? Nowhere, as near
as I can make out.”
“What is his big chief one?”
“Sight, maybe. Hearing, maybe. Instinct, maybe. Magic, maybe. Take
your choice–grownups, twenty-five; children and servants, half price.
Now I’ll tell you what he can do. You can start here, and just
disappear; you can go and hide wherever you want to, I don’t care where
it is, nor how far–and he’ll go straight and put his finger on you.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“I just do, though. Weather’s nothing to him–elemental conditions is
nothing to him–he don’t even take notice of them.”
“Oh, come! Dark? Rain? Snow? Hey?”
“It’s all the same to him. He don’t give a damn.”
“Oh, say–including fog, per’aps?”
“Fog! he’s got an eye ‘t can plunk through it like a bullet.”
“Now, boys, honor bright, what’s he giving me?”
“It’s a fact!” they all shouted. “Go on, Wells-Fargo.”
“Well, sir, you can leave him here, chatting with the boys, and you can
slip out and go to any cabin in this camp and open a book–yes, sir, a
dozen of them–and take the page in your memory, and he’ll start out and
go straight to that cabin and open every one of them books at the right
page, and call it off, and never make a mistake.”
“He must be the devil!”
“More than one has thought it. Now I’ll tell you a perfectly wonderful
thing that he done. The other night he–”
There was a sudden great murmur of sounds outside, the door flew open,
and an excited crowd burst in, with the camp’s one white woman in the
lead and crying:
“My child! my child! she’s lost and gone! For the love of God help me
to find Archy Stillman; we’ve hunted everywhere!”
Said the barkeeper:
“Sit down, sit down, Mrs. Hogan, and don’t worry. He asked for a bed
three hours ago, tuckered out tramping the trails the way he’s always
doing, and went up-stairs. Ham Sandwich, run up and roust him out; he’s
in No. 14.”
The youth was soon down-stairs and ready. He asked Mrs. Hogan for
particulars.
“Bless you, dear, there ain’t any; I wish there was. I put her to sleep
at seven in the evening, and when I went in there an hour ago to go to
bed myself, she was gone. I rushed for your cabin, dear, and you wasn’t
there, and I’ve hunted for you ever since, at every cabin down the gulch,
and now I’ve come up again, and I’m that distracted and scared and heart-
broke; but, thanks to God, I’ve found you at last, dear heart, and you’ll
find my child. Come on! come quick!”
“Move right along; I’m with you, madam. Go to your cabin first.”
The whole company streamed out to join the hunt. All the southern half
of the village was up, a hundred men strong, and waiting outside, a vague
dark mass sprinkled with twinkling lanterns. The mass fell into columns
by threes and fours to accommodate itself to the narrow road, and strode
briskly along southward in the wake of the leaders. In a few minutes the
Hogan cabin was reached.
“There’s the bunk,” said Mrs. Hogan; “there’s where she was; it’s where
I laid her at seven o’clock; but where she is now, God only knows.”
“Hand me a lantern,” said Archy. He set it on the hard earth floor and
knelt by it, pretending to examine the ground closely. “Here’s her
track,” he said, touching the ground here and there and yonder with his
finger. “Do you see?”
Several of the company dropped upon their knees and did their best to
see. One or two thought they discerned something like a track; the
others shook their heads and confessed that the smooth hard surface had
no marks upon it which their eyes were sharp enough to discover. One