"No, mother; but we don't know where he is. Oh, mother, do forgive me!" was the despairing answer.
The story was soon told. The cattle had strayed farther than they supposed, and Willie was very tired before they came in sight of them. It was not convenient to spare a man to convey him home, and it was agreed that Charley should take him a short distance from their route to a log-cabin, with whose friendly inmates they were well acquainted. There he was to be left to rest, while his brother returned for a while to help in bringing the cattle together. The men separated, going in various circuitous directions, agreeing to meet at a specified point, and wait for Charley. He had a boy's impatience to be at the place of rendezvous. When he arrived near the cabin, and had led Willie into the straight path to it, he charged him to go into the house, and not leave it till he came for him; and then he ran back with all speed to Uncle George. The transaction seemed to him so safe that it did not occur to his honest mind that he had violated the promise given to his mother. While the sun was yet high in the heavens, his uncle sent him back to the log-cabin for Willie, and sent a man with him to guide them both within sight of home. Great was their alarm when the inmates of the house told them they had not seen the little boy. They searched, in hot haste, in every direction. Diverging from the road to the cabin was a path known as the Indian trail, on which hunters, of various tribes, passed and repassed in their journeys to and from Canada. The prints of Willie's shoes were traced some distance on this path, but disappeared at a wooded knoll not far off. The inmates of the cabin said a party of Indians had passed that way in the forenoon. With great zeal they joined in the search, taking with them horns and dogs. Charley ran hither and thither, in an agony of remorse and terror, screaming, "Willie! Willie!" Horns were blown with all the strength of manly lungs; but there was no answer,—not even the illusion of an echo. All agreed in thinking that the lost boy had been on the Indian trail; but whether he had taken it by mistake, or whether he had been tempted aside from his path by hopes of finding prairie-dogs, was matter of conjecture. Charley was almost exhausted by fatigue and anxiety, when his father's man guided him within sight of home, and told him to go to his mother, while he returned to give the alarm to Uncle George. This was all the unhappy brother had to tell; and during the recital his voice was often interrupted by sobs, and he exclaimed, with passionate vehemence,—
"Oh, father! oh, mother! do forgive me! I didn't think I was doing wrong,—indeed, I didn't!"
With aching hearts, they tried to soothe him; but he would not be comforted.
Mr. Wharton's first impulse was to rush out in search of his lost child. But the shades of evening were close at hand, and he deemed it unsafe to leave Jenny and Mary and their little girls with no other protector than an overtired boy.
"Oh, why did I advise her to let the dear child go?" was the lamenting cry continually resounding in his heart; and the mother reproached herself bitterly that she had consented against her better judgment.
Neither of them uttered these thoughts; but remorseful sorrow manifested itself in increased tenderness toward each other and the children. When Emma was undressed for the night, the mother's tears fell fast among her ringlets; and when the father took her in his arms to carry her to the trundle-bed, he pressed her to his heart more closely than ever before; while she, all wondering at the strange tearful silence round her, began to grieve, and say,—
"I want Willie to go to bed with me. Why don't Willie come?"
Putting strong constraint upon the agony her words excited, the unhappy parents soothed her with promises until she fell into a peaceful slumber. As they turned to leave the bedroom, both looked at the vacant pillow where that other young head had reposed for years, and they fell into each other's arms and wept.
Charley could not be persuaded to go to bed till Uncle George came; and they forbore to urge it, seeing that he was too nervous and excited to sleep. Stars were winking at the sleepy flowers on the prairie, when the party returned with a portion of the cattle, and no tidings of Willie. Uncle George's mournful face revealed this, before he exclaimed,—