“Not a sound so fur as they told me.”
“It’s not possible to ford the river at that point?”
“Boss, a cayuse couldn’t swim it, the current’s that swift.”
“That’s so, too, I thought for a moment that the boy might have foolishly tried to cross into Mexican territory.”
“Ef he did, it’s flowers fer his’n ef we ever find him,” declared Baldy piously.
“Let us hope it is not as bad as that. But it is most mysterious.”
“Very consterious,” agreed Baldy. “You see, there were men to the east and west of where the kid was, and they didn’t hear nor see nothing.”
“And yet the boy has vanished.”
“Waal, he ain’t ter be found,” admitted Baldy, ignoring the long word.
Captain Atkinson sat up in his blankets lost in thought. At length Baldy ventured to break in on the silence.