Moike Delaney is not here, Dick Arbuckle," came in a female
voice. "He's gone off wid Pawnee Brown, and there's no tellin' whin
he'll be back. Is yer father gone?"

"Yes, and I don't know where," and now Dick stepped closer, as the round
and freckled face of Rosy Delaney peered forth from a hole in the canvas
end. "He went to bed when I did, and now he's missing."

"Saints preserve us! Mebbe the Injuns scalped him now, Dick!" came in a
voice full of terror.

"There are no Indians around here, Mrs. Delaney," answered the youth,
half inclined to laugh. "But he's missing, and it's mighty strange, to
say the least."

"He was sick, too, wasn't he?"

"Father hasn't been real well for a year. He left New York very largely
in the hope that this climate would do him some good."

"Moike was sayin' his head throubles him a good bit."

"So it does, and that's why I am so worried. When he gets those awful
pains he is apt to walk away and keep right on without knowing where he
is going."

"Poor mon! Oi wisht Oi could help yez. Mebbe Moike will be back soon.
Ain't Jack Rasco about?"

"No, he is off with Pawnee Brown, too. Rasco and Brown have been looking
over the trails leading to Oklahoma. They are bound to outwit the United
States cavalry, for the boomers have more right to that land than the
cattle kings, and right is always might in the end."

"Especially wid Pawnee on the end o' it, Dick. He's a great mon, is
Pawnee, only it do be afther givin' me the shivers to hear him spake the
Pawnee language loike he was a rale Injun. Such a foine scout as he is
has no roight to spake such a dirthy tongue. How illegant it would be
now if he could spake rale Oirish."

"His knowledge of the Indian tongue has helped both him and our
government a good deal, Mrs. Delaney. But I mustn't stop here talking.
If my father----"

A wild, unearthly shriek cut short further talk upon Dick Arbuckle's
part. It came from the darkness back of the camp and caused Mrs. Delaney
to draw back and tumble to the bottom of her house on wheels in terror.

"It's the Banshee----" she began, when Dick interrupted her.

"It's Pumpkin Bill. I'd know his voice a mile off," he declared.
"Somebody ought to send him back to where he belongs. Creation, what a
racket!"

Nearer and nearer came the voice, rising and falling with the wind. The
shrill shrieking penetrated to every wagon, and head after head was
thrust out of the canvases to see what it meant. In