"Has anybody seen the dunce?" questioned the scout.
No one had since he had gone off with Dick to look for the so-called ghost.
"We will divide up into parties of two," said Pawnee Brown, and this was done, and soon he and Jack Rasco were bounding over the trail leading toward the Indian Territory, while others were setting off in the direction of Arkansas City and elsewhere.
"Something curious about them air Arbuckles," observed Rasco as they flew along side by side. "Mortimer Arbuckle said as how he was coming hyer fer his health, but kick me ef I kin see it."
"I think myself the man has an axe to grind," responded the leader of the boomers. "You know he came West to see about some land."
"Oh, I know thet. But thar's somethin' else, sure ez shootin' ez shootin', Pawnee. It kinder runs in my noddle thet he is a'lookin' fer somebuddy."
"Who?"
"Ah, thar's where ye hev got me. But I'll tell ye something. One night when the boy wuz over ter Arkansas City the old man war sleeping in the wagon, an' he got a nightmare. He clenched his fists an' begun ter moan an' groan. 'Don't say I did it, Bolange,' he moans. 'Don't say that—it's an awful crime! Don't put the blood on my head!' an' a lot more like thet, till my blood most run cold an' I shook him ter make him wake up. Now, don't thet look like he had something on his mind?"
"It certainly does, and yet the man is not quite right in his upper story, although I wouldn't tell the son that, Rasco. But what was the name he mentioned?"
"Bolange, or Volange, or something like thet. It seems ter me he hollered out Louis onct, too."