Page:The Boy Land Boomer.djvu/20

12 swung himself into the sea of half-submerged prairie grass, and stalked over to the other wagon just mentioned.

"Mike Delaney!" he cried, kicking on the wagon wheel with the toe of his boat; "Mike Delaney, have you seen my father anywhere?"

"Sure, an' Moike Delaney is not here, Dick Arbuckle," came in a female voice. "He's gone off wid Pawnee Brown, and there's no tellin' whin he'll be back. Is yer father gone?"

"Yes, and I don't know where," and now Dick stepped closer, as the round and freckled face of Rosy Delaney peered forth from a hole in the canvas end. "He went to bed when I did, and now he's missing."

"Saints preserve us! Mebbe the Injuns scalped him now, Dick!" came in a voice full of terror.

"There are no Indians around here, Mrs. Delaney," answered the youth, half inclined to laugh. "But he's missing, and it's mighty strange, to say the least."

"He was sick, too, wasn't he?"

"Father hasn't been real well for a year. He left New York very largely in the hope that this climate would do him some good."

"Moike was sayin' his head throubles him a good bit."

"So it does, and that's why I am so worried. When