"I dunno what happened arter Mis's Given gut Eli home, but he broke out ag'in and took to the woods or somewheres, and she ain't been able to find him. She was so all-fired mad that she come to me and wanted him 'rested. I had hard work to persuade her not to have him jugged. 'Course if it had been some feller who was inclined to git on a tear and raise thunder, I'd 'a' jest gone out and muckled onto him and shoved him into the lockup. But I did kinder hate to lock Eli up.
"I went over to Uncle Eb's lookin' for him, and there was Eben out in the woodshed a-snoozin' on a hoss blanket. Took me 'bout fifteen minutes to wake him up. He didn't know nuthin' 'bout Eli, so I went over to Deacon Hewett's. Er-haw! haw! haw! The deacon's wife had him on the lounge a-bathin' his head with cold water and a-holdin' smellin' salts to his nose. She said he'd been took sick sudden and was havin' a crackin' headache. She was in for callin' the doctor, but the deacon he wouldn't have it. He jest laid on the lounge and groaned and kept sayin' he was a poor sinful worm of the earth.
"When I left Mis's Hewett she follered me outside, pulled me by the sleeve and kinder looked shamed and downcast and asked me did I believe the deacon had been drinkin'. She said he told her he jest took a little medicine when the headache fust struck him. I didn't give him away. I looked s'prised and shook my head and told her he wasn't a drinkin' man, so 'course there wan't no question on that p'int. But we're kinder worried 'bout Eli. If he don't turn up before long, we're goin' to send out searchers for him."
"You needn't bother to do that, Bill," said a mild, mournful voice, as a dusky figure came round the corner of the house. "I'm all right. I'm purty well straightened out now, and I guess I'll go back home and kinder quiet mother's narves. You see she was rather excited and disturbed over the affair, and she wouldn't let me rest arter I gut to the house, so I sneaked off into Silus Cobb's barn, crawled into the haymow and slept a while. It was dark when I woke up, and I didn't know jest where I was. 'Twixt you and me, I'm going to tell Rufe Applesnack what I think of him. That cider was the most violent stuff I ever put down my woozle. It had an awful kick. I s'pose me and Eben and Elnathan are disgraced in Bloomfield for the rest of our lives. I don't think I'll show my head outside of the house for a month."
Frank slapped the downcast old man on the shoulder and tried to brace him up, but Given was so depressed that he refused to cheer up in the slightest.
"Think you can find your way home, Eli?" asked Hunker.
"Well, I'm over seven and I'm sober now," was the answer. "Don't you fret 'bout me. I'll git home, all right."
Bright and early the following morning Hunker and several villagers appeared at Merry Home and asked leave to use Frank's boats in the search for the body of the Mexican.
After breakfast Merriwell and a number of his friends went over to the lake and found the searchers at work.
Hunker reported that they had discovered no trace of the missing man. Carker, Hodge, and Merriwell launched a boat from the boathouse and joined in the work.