The Bishop's Shadow

by I. T. Thurston

The "somebody," whom the boys had heard, came slouching along through the dark alley and stumbled over the prostrate body.

"Hello! What's this?" he exclaimed, his nimble fingers running rapidly over the boy's face and figure. "Somebody's been up to something here. Let's see if--no! Well, that's queer!"

These disconnected remarks were the accompaniment to a rapid and skillful search through the boy's pockets, and the last emphatic expression was drawn forth by the discovery that there had been no robbery; whereupon the newcomer promptly proceeded to complete the job by emptying the said pockets in a manner that proved him no novice at such business. Then he stole noiselessly away, leaving the boy again alone in the darkness, and now there was no good bishop at hand to take him in.

Meantime, at home, Nan was wondering why Theo did not come in as usual to tell her what he had been doing at the night school, and to get Tag, who always staid with her when Theo was at the school. Tag was troubled and uneasy too. When it was time for the boy to come Tag sat watching the door, his ears alert for a footstep outside. Now and then he whined, and finally he showed so plainly his desire to go out that Nan opened the door, saying,

"Go find him, Tag."

She stood in her doorway listening, and heard the dog scamper up to Theo's door. There he listened and nosed about for a moment, then down he came again, and with a short, anxious bark, dashed down the stairs to the street. Nan waited a long time but the dog did not return, and at last she put out her light and went to bed with a troubled heart.

But Tag could not sleep. He seemed to know that there was something wrong and something for him to attend to. He raced first to his master's stand, then to the mission school and to the night school, and finding all these places now dark and silent, he pattered through the streets, his nose close to the ground, his anxious, loving eyes watching everything that moved. So at last he came to that dark heap in the dark alley, and first he was wild with joy, but when his frantic delight failed to awaken his master and make him come away home, Tag was sure that something was very wrong indeed and he began to run backward and forward between the motionless body and the corner, until he attracted the attention of a policeman who followed him around into the dark alley, and in a few minutes Theodore was on his way to the Emergency Hospital with Tag following after the ambulance at the top of his speed. But once again Tag found himself rudely repulsed when he tried to slip in after his master. This time he felt that he really could not bear it, and so he stood on the hospital steps and lifting up his voice howled his protest until somebody came and drove him away. But he couldn't stay away, so he crawled into a dark corner up against the wall, and curling himself into the smallest possible space, lay there watchful and wretched until morning, when, after eyeing wistfully those who came out and went in past him, he trotted slowly home to Nan, and did his poor best to tell her what had happened and where Theo was.

Nan had passed an anxious night, for she was sure that there was something wrong, and since Theo's return from the bishop's, he had been so changed, that she had grown very fond of him. Being a year or two his senior, she felt a kind of elder sisterly responsibility in regard to him, knowing as she did, that he was even more alone in the world than she, for she had Little Brother, and Theo had nobody at all.

So she was at Mrs. Hunt's door, talking the matter over with her, when Tag, with drooping head and tail, came slowly up the stairs. He wagged his tail faintly at sight of Nan, and rubbed his head affectionately against her, and then stood looking up at her, as if waiting to be questioned.

"He's been gone all night," Nan was saying to Mrs. Hunt, and referring to the dog, "but I don't believe he found Theo. He doesn't act as if he had. Oh, Mrs. Hunt, where do you suppose he is?"