ale rested. After that awful night I was
never a boy again. Henceforth I was a man, with a man's work and a man's
spirit.

The daylight was never so welcome before, and never a grander sunrise
filled the earth with its splendor. I was up on the bluff patrolling the
northwest boundary when the dawn began to purple the east. Oh, many a
time have I watched the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, but on this
rare May morning every shaft of light, every tint of roseate beauty
along the horizon, every heap of feathery mist that decked the Plains,
with the Neosho, bank-full, sweeping like molten silver below it--all
these took on a new loveliness. Eagerly, however, I scanned the
southwest where the level beams of day were driving back the gray
morning twilight, and the green prairie billows were swelling out of the
gloom. Point by point, I watched every landmark take form, waiting to
see if each new blot on the landscape might not be the first of the
dreaded Indian bands whose coming we so feared.

With daybreak, came assurance. Somehow I could not believe that a land
so beautiful and a village so peaceful could be threshed and stained and
blackened by the fire and massacre of a savage band allied to a
disloyal, rebellious host. And yet, I had lived these stormy years in
Kansas and the border strife has never all been told. I dared not relax
my vigilance, so I watched the south and west, trusting to the river to
take care of the east.

And so it happened that, sentinel as I was, I had not seen the approach
of a horseman from the northwest, until Father Le Claire came upon me
suddenly. His horse was jaded with travel, and he sat it wearily. A
pallor overspread his brown cheeks. His garments were wet and
mud-splashed.

"Oh, Father Le Claire," I cried, "nobody except my own father could be
more welcome. Where have you been?"

"I am not too late, then!" he exclaimed, ignoring my question. His eyes
quickly took in the town. No smoke was rising from the kitchen fires
this morning, for the homes were deserted. "You are safe still?" He gave
a great gasp of relief. Then he turned and looked steadily into my eyes.

"It has been bought with a price," he said simply. "Three days ago I
left you a boy. I come back to find you a man. Where's O'mie?"

"D--down there, I think."

It dawned on me suddenly that not one of us had seen or heard of O'mie
since he left Tell and Jim at the shop just before midnight. Marjie had
seen him a few m