“But the river,” said the Rector, “has a very fine bed.”
Clarence broke into laughter.
“Thank you so much, sir,” he said, “I never, never, never enjoyed a meal so much in all my born days.”
“You’re welcome,” said Father Keenan. He turned to the wide-eyed squire, adjuring that thoroughly excited young man to go see whether the complete outfit of clothing were awaiting Clarence in the parlor. Their talk was brief; but when Father Keenan turned to address Clarence, the lad’s head was sunk upon his breast. He was sound asleep.
“Never mind about those clothes, Squire; or, rather, have them sent over to the infirmary.” Saying which, Father Keenan took Clarence, including table-cover and coat, in his arms, and conveyed him to the infirmary, where, warmly wrapped in a comfortable bed, he slept unbrokenly till after five o’clock in the afternoon.
Returning to his room, the Rector took up the morning paper. In examining the mail, he had, when Clarence’s arrival interrupted him, noticed the large headlines announcing a dreadful railroad wreck in the west; a broken bridge, a Pullman sleeper and a passenger car immersed in a flooded river. Suddenly, as his eyes ran down the list of the missing, he gasped.
For there in black type were the names of Mr. Charles Esmond, mining expert, and wife.
CHAPTER XIII
In which Clarence as the guest of Campion College makes an ineffectual effort to bow out the Bright-eyed Goddess of Adventure.
Father George Keenan, while Clarence slept, was an unusually busy man. He telephoned, he wrote letters, he sent telegrams. All the machinery of communication was put into requisition. Within an hour the work of dragging the water near Pictured Rocks was discontinued; by noontime a telegram arrived saying that Mr. and Mrs. Esmond were still missing and were in all probability drowned or burned to death; and early in the afternoon the proprietor of a hotel in McGregor arrived in person. The Esmonds had been at his place and had gone, leaving as their address “The Metropole,” Los Angeles, California. But alas, they had not reached their proposed destination.