The priest's brow darkened and his lips were compressed, as if he found it hard to speak what he would say.
"I come to you, Philip, because your experience here has made you a man who were only a boy yesterday; because you love O'mie; because you have been able to keep a quiet tongue; and most of all, because you are John Baronet's son, and heir, I believe, to his wisdom. Most of O'mie's story is known to your father. He found it out just before he went to the war. It is a tragical one. The boy was stolen by a band of Indians when he was hardly more than a baby. It was a common trick of the savages then; it may be again as our frontier creeps westward."
The priest paused and looked steadily out over the Neosho Valley, darkening in the twilight.
"You know how you felt when O'mie was lost. Can you imagine what his mother felt when she found her boy was stolen? Her husband was away on a trapping tour, had been away for a long time, and she was alone. In a very frenzy, she started out on the prairie to follow the Indians. She suffered terrible hardship, but Providence brought her at last to the Osage Mission, whose doors are always open to the distressed. And here she found a refuge. A strange thing happened then. While Patrick O'Meara, O'mie's father, was far from home, word had reached him that his wife was dead. Coming down the Arkansas River, O'Meara chanced to fall in with some Mexicans who had a battle with a band of Indians at Pawnee Rock. With these Indians was a little white boy, whom O'Meara rescued. It was his own son, although he did not know it, and he brought the little one to the Mission on the Neosho.
"Philip, it is vouchsafed to some of us to know a bit of heaven here on earth. Such a thing came to Patrick O'Meara when he found his wife alive, and the baby boy was restored to her. They were happy together for a little while. But Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from her hardships on the prairie, and her husband was killed by the Comanches a month after her death. Little O'mie, dying up there now, was left an orphan at the Mission. You have heard Mrs. Gentry tell of his coming here. Your father is the only one here who knows anything of O'mie's history. If he never comes back, you must take his place."
The purple shadows of twilight were folding down upon the landscape. In the soft light the priest's face looked dark and set.
"Why not tell me now what father knows?" I asked.
"I cannot tell you that now, Philip. Some day I may tell you another story. But it does not concern you or O'mie. What I want you to do is what your father will do if he comes home. If he should not come, he has written in his will what you must do. I need not tell you to keep this to yourself."
"Father Le Claire, can you tell me anything about Jean Pahusca, and where he is now?"
He rose hastily.