Page:The trail of the golden horn.djvu/41



OR two days Marion Brisbane lived in a world of doubt and uncertainty. She was in a quandary. She had found her father, only to lose him again. Should she go in search of him? But where would she go? How could she find him? To whom could she turn for advice and help? How could she explain the reason of her search without telling who the man really was? And this she did not wish to do, for the present, at least. This problem agitated her mind as she went mechanically about her work. The child had been taken by a man and his wife who had no children of their own, and were strongly drawn to the little waif of the night.

When the story of the old man’s visit to the hospital and his sudden disappearance leaked out, it caused much comment in Kynox. Several surmised that it was Hugo, the wanderer of the trails, the peculiar trapper about whom they had heard much, although few had ever seen him. From the earliest days mystery has always delighted the human mind. Strange characters, noted for their peculiar ways, and endowed with great strength, have ever made special appeal. They give a spice, a thrill to life, and remove some of its monotonous drabness. No race, no age, has ever lacked some mysterious being about whom many legendary tales gather. This was true in a way of Hugo, the