O'mie gave me a sidelong glance, but I gave no hint of any feeling.
"No, I was like Bud, ready to try the frontier," he added more seriously. "I'm goin' down with you to join this Kansas regiment."
"Now what the deuce can you do in the army, O'mie?" I could not think of him anywhere but in Springvale.
"I want to live out av doors till I get rid av this cough," he answered. "And ye know I can do a stunt in the band. Don't take giants to fiddle and fife. Little runts can do that. Who do you reckon come to Springvale last month?"
"Give it up," I answered.
"Father Le Claire."
"Oh, the good man!" Bud exclaimed.
"Where has he been? and where was he going?" I asked coldly.
O'mie looked at me curiously. He was shrewder than Bud, and he caught the tone I had meant to conceal.
"Where? Just now he's gone to St. Louis. He's in a hospital there. He's been sick. I never saw him so white and thin as whin he left. He told me he expected to be with the Osages this Winter."