The Boy Land Boomer | Page 9

camp? I thought he came here with my mare?"
"He ain't nowhar. Rosy Delaney says he went off with Pumpkin to look
for his dad, who had disappeared----"
"Then he didn't come back? What can have become of him and Bonnie
Bird?" Pawnee Brown's face grew full of concern. "Something is wrong
around here, Jack," he continued, and told the boomer of what had
happened up at the Devil's Chimney. "First it's the father, and now it's
the son and my mare. I must investigate this."
"I'm with yer, Pawnee--with yer to the end. Yer know thet."
"Yes, Jack; you are one of the few men I know I can trust in everything.
But two of us are not enough. If harm has befallen the Arbuckles it is
the duty of the whole camp--or, at least, every man in it--to try to sift
matters to the bottom."
"Right ye air, Pawnee. I'll raise a hullabaloo and rouse 'em up."
Jack Rasco was as good as his word. Going from wagon to wagon, he
shook the sleepers and explained matters. In less than a quarter of an
hour a dozen stalwart boomers were in the saddle, while Jack Rasco
brought forth an extra horse of his own for Brown's use.
"Has anybody seen the dunce?" questioned the scout.
No one had since he had gone off with Dick to look for the so-called
ghost.
"We will divide up into parties of two," said Pawnee Brown, and this
was done, and soon he and Jack Rasco were bounding over the trail
leading toward the Indian Territory, while others were setting off in the
direction of Arkansas City and elsewhere.

"Something curious about them air Arbuckles," observed Rasco as they
flew along side by side. "Mortimer Arbuckle said as how he was
coming hyer fer his health, but kick me ef I kin see it."
"I think myself the man has an axe to grind," responded the leader of
the boomers. "You know he came West to see about some land."
"Oh, I know thet. But thar's somethin' else, sure ez shootin' ez shootin',
Pawnee. It kinder runs in my noddle thet he is a'lookin' fer
somebuddy."
"Who?"
"Ah, thar's where ye hev got me. But I'll tell ye something. One night
when the boy wuz over ter Arkansas City the old man war sleeping in
the wagon, an' he got a nightmare. He clenched his fists an' begun ter
moan an' groan. 'Don't say I did it, Bolange,' he moans. 'Don't say
that--it's an awful crime! Don't put the blood on my head!' an' a lot
more like thet, till my blood most run cold an' I shook him ter make
him wake up. Now, don't thet look like he had something on his mind?"
"It certainly does, and yet the man is not quite right in his upper story,
although I wouldn't tell the son that, Rasco. But what was the name he
mentioned?"
"Bolange, or Volange, or something like thet. It seems ter me he
hollered out Louis onct, too."
A sudden light shone in the great scout's eyes. He gripped his
companion by the arm.
"Try to think, Jack. Did Arbuckle speak the name of Vorlange--Louis
Vorlange?"
"By gosh! Pawnee, you hev struck it--Vorlange, ez plain ez day. Do yer
know the man?"
"Do I know him?" Pawnee Brown drew a long breath. "Jack, I believe I

once told you about my schoolboy days at Wellington and elsewhere
before I left home to take up a life on the cattle trails?"
"Yes, Pawnee. From all accounts you wuz cut out for a schoolmaster,
instead of a leader of us boomers."
"I was a professor once at the Indian Industrial school at Pawnee
Agency. That is where I got to be called Pawnee Brown, and where the
Pawnees became so friendly that they made me their white chief. But I
aspired to something more than teaching and more than cow punching
in those boyhood days at Wellington; I wanted to have a try at entrance
to West Point and follow in the footsteps of Grant and Custer, and
fellows of that sort."
"Ye deserved it, I'll bet, Pawnee."
"I worked hard for it, and at last I got a chance to compete at the
examination. Among the other boys who competed was Louis Vorlange.
He had been the bully of our school, and more than once we had fought,
and twice I had sent him to bed with a head that was nearly broken. He
hated me accordingly, and swore I should not win the prize I coveted."
"Did he try, too?"
"Yes, but he was outclassed from the start, for, although he was sly and
shrewd, book learning was too much for him. The examination came
off, and I got left,