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