ng steps, entered the house.

Carefully she removed every sign of his having been there. The bowl of
water, and the cloth from which she had torn strips to bind his head
she carried away, and the glass from which he had taken his milk, she
washed, and even the crumbs of bread which had fallen to the floor she
picked up one by one, so that not a trace remained. Then she took her
drawing materials back to the studio, and after kneeling long at her
bedside, and only saying: "God, help Richard, help him," over and
over, she crept in beside her little sister, and still weeping and
praying chokingly clasped the sleeping child in her arms.

From that time, it seemed to Bertrand and Mary that a strange and
subtle change had taken place in their beloved little daughter; for
which they tried to account as the result of the mysterious
disappearance of Peter Junior. He was not found, and Richard also was
gone, and the matter after being for a long time the wonder of the
village, became a thing of the past. Only the Elder cherished the
thought that his son had been murdered, and quietly set a detective
at work to find the guilty man--whom he would bring back to
vengeance.

Her parents were forced to acquaint Betty with the suspicious nature
of Peter's disappearance, knowing she might hear of it soon and be
more shocked than if told by themselves. Mary wondered not a little at
her dry-eyed and silent reception of it, but that was a part of the
change in Betty.

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER XIV

OUT OF THE DESERT

"Good horse. Good horse. Good boy. Goldbug--go it! I know you're
dying, but so am I. Keep it up a little while longer--Good boy."

The young man encouraged his horse, while half asleep from utter
weariness and faint with hunger and thirst. The poor beast scrambled
over the rocks up a steep trail that seemed to have been long unused,
or indeed it might be no trail at all, but only a channel worn by
fierce, narrow torrents during the rainy season, now sun-baked and
dry.

The fall rains were late this year, and the yellow plains below
furnished neither food nor drink for either man or beast. The herds of
buffalo had long since wandered to fresher spaces nearer the river
beds. The young man's flask was empty, and it was twenty-seven hours
since either he or his horse had tasted anything. Now they had reached
the mountains he hoped to find water and game if he could only hold
out a little longer. Up and still up t