"Speakin' o' Jack," Newt Pinson ventured, in an off-hand way, but not daring to look at Jack's father—"speakin' o' Jack, 'pears to me it's nigh about time we was huntin' that boy up."
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Bishop, in a loud, angry voice, "you 'tend to your own business, if—you—please. Jack Bishop is nineteen year old, and full able to take keer of hisse'f."
These words penetrated through a half-open door into the family living-room back of the store. On hearing them, Jack's mother burst into a fresh fit of weeping, which the kindly neighbors hovering about her tried vainly to soothe.
"He's just as oneasy about Jack as I am," she sobbed. "That onliest child of ourn is the apple of his father's eye. But it's Gid's pride as won't let him give up that a Bishop can get lost. And everybody's plumb afraid of him. Oh, my boy, my boy!"
"Don't ye worrit yo'se'f into a spazzum, Susy Bishop," said Granny Carnes. "I ain't afeard o' Gid Bishop, ner no other male creeter. An' I've give my orders to the boys a-settin' yander in the sto'. Ef Jack Bishop"—here she raised her voice to its highest and shrillest pitch—"ef Jack Bishop ain't inside this house befo' candle-lightin' to-night, them boys has got to tromp out an' find him, an' fetch him home, or not dassen to show their faces agin the len'th an' bre'th o' Jim-Ned."
"Amen!" said Mrs. Leggett and Mrs. Trimble together.
"Double an' thripple Amen!" added Mrs. Pinson, solemnly.
There was indeed no small cause for anxiety. Early on a Tuesday morning young Bishop had started out afoot, with dog and gun, for a few hours' hunting in The Rough—a belt of savage woodland which stretched away westward, with wide solitary prairies on either side, to the chain of hills some fifteen miles distant. It was now Friday, past noon, and he had not returned. Newt Pinson had met him at the crossing of Jim-Ned Creek half an hour after he had left home; he had not been seen nor heard of since. He had gone on alone; for the dog, a half-grown puppy, had turned and trotted back, unnoticed, behind Mr. Pinson.
"Oh, if Josh was only with him!" moaned Mrs. Bishop, already alarmed, at the close of the first day.
And Josh, the intelligent old hound, rubbed his head against her knee and whined softly.