ting the priest down in the chapel. Attending to his own affairs,
walking always like a very king, or riding as only a Plains Indian can
ride, he came and went unmolested. I never could understand that strange
power he had of commanding our respect. He seldom saw Marjie, and her
face blanched at the mention of his name. I do not know when he last
appeared in our town that summer. Nobody could keep track of his
movements. But I do know that after the priest's departure, his
disappearance was noted, and the daylight never saw him in Springvale
again. What the dark hours of the night could have told is another
story.

With O'mie out of danger, Le Claire left us. His duties, he told us, lay
far to the west. He might go to the Kiowas or the Cheyennes. In any
event, it would be long before he came again.

"I need not ask you, Philip, to take good care of O'mie. He could not
have better care. You will guard his interests. Until you know more than
you do now, you will say nothing to him or any one else of what I have
told you."

He looked steadily into my eyes, and I understood him.

"I think Jean Pahusca will never trouble you, nor even come here now. I
have my reasons for thinking so. But, Philip, if you should know of his
being here, keep on your guard. He is a man of more than savage nature.
What he loves, he will die for. What he hates, he will kill. Cam Gentry
is right. The worst blood of the Kiowas and of the French nationality
fills his veins. Be careful."

Brave little O'mie struggled valiantly for health again. He was patient
and uncomplaining, but the days ran into weeks before his strength
began to increase. Only one want was not supplied: he longed for the
priest.

"You're all so good, it's mighty little in me to say it, an' Dr.
Hemingway's gold, twenty-four karat gold; but me hair's red, an' me rale
name's O'Meara, an' naturally I long for the praist, although I'm a
proper Presbyterian."

"How about Brother Dodd?" I inquired.

"All the love in his heart fur me put in the shell of a mustard seed
would rattle round loike a walnut in a tin bushel box, begorra," the
sick boy declared.

It was long before he could talk much and we did not ask a question we
could avoid, but waited his own time to know how he had been taken from
us and how he had found himself a prisoner in that cavern whence we had
barely cheated Death of its pitiful victim. As he could bear it he told
us, at length, of his part in the night