“Say, Dolan, you’ll stand by me, won’t you? I am almost in despair; the thing is so sudden.”
“I’ll do anything you want.”
“Well, you leave me here and run back to McGregor. Send word to my wife that I am detained—don’t let her think or even suspect that our boy is drowned—and to put off our trip to the Coast, as I cannot make the train. Tell her to expect me and Clarence before supper. Then get the proper officials of McGregor to come here at once and drag the river. Hire any extra men you judge fit. Don’t bother about expense. Now go and don’t lose a moment.”
Left alone, Mr. Esmond made a careful search, tracing the boy’s steps in their ascent to Pictured Rocks. He went part of the way himself, crying out at intervals, “Clarence! Clarence! Clarence!” There was no answer save the echoes which to his anxious ears sounded far differently from the “horns of elfland.”
Again and again he called. And yet Clarence was not so far away—hardly half a mile down the river, locked in slumber, and, as it proved, in the hands of that bright-eyed goddess of adventure whom the reckless lad had not in vain wooed.
Returning to the shore, Mr. Esmond on further investigation traced his boy’s footprints to the river’s banks. At this juncture, several motorboats arrived, each carrying a number of men, and soon all were busy dragging the river.
At six o’clock John Dolan insisted on bringing the despairing father back to McGregor.
“Dolan,” he said, as they started upstream, “have you any religion?”
“I hope so. I’m a Catholic.”
“I don’t know what I am;—but my poor boy! His mother ought to be a Catholic, but she was brought up from her tender years by Baptist relations with the result that she’s got no more religion that I have. When my boy was born, I started him out on the theory that he was not to be taught any religion, but was to grow up without prejudices, and when he was old enough, he was to choose for himself. All the religion he ever got amounted to his saying the ‘Our Father’ and ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’ At that school he’s been going to there’s no religion taught at all. I wish I had done differently. Think of his appearing before a God he never thought of. Some of our theories look mighty nice in ordinary circumstances. But now! My son is dead, and without any sort of preparation.”