We are brothers, you see, for I love her that way, too, and it gives me a lot of comfort to know you can understand me. But, old fellow-I don't quite know how to say it-I'm deeply sorry that your love has brought you only pain, and I feel all the more warmly toward you that you tried to help her when you knew she belonged to some one else. I never can thank you enough."

"I couldn't have helped it," said Dan gruffly. "If anybody _loved_ her, they'd _have_ to take care of her, _if it killed 'em_."

"Dan, old fellow, I love _you_," said Charles impulsively. "You can't know what this is to me, that you took care of her when I couldn't.

I'll love you always, and I shall never forget what you've done for me.

Now, begin at the beginning and tell me all you know about her, won't you? I'm hungry to hear."

And Dan found himself telling the whole story of how Dawn had conquered him, the ringleader of mischief in the school, made him her slave, and helped him up to a plane where higher ambitions and n.o.bler standards had changed his whole idea of life.

As he listened to the homely, boyish phrases and read between the lines the pathos of Dawn's struggles, Charles found tears standing in his eyes to think his little girl-wife had been through so much all by herself, without him near to help and comfort. Would he ever, ever, be able to make up to her for it?

He expressed this thought clumsily to Dan, and the boy, all eager now with sympathy, and loving Charles as loyally as Dawn, said royally:

"I calculate one sight of your face'll make her forget it all.

Leastways, that's the way it looks to me."

They talked at intervals all night. Charles drew from Daniel his ambition to get an education and be worthy to be the friend of such a teacher as he had had. The boy said it shyly, and then added, "And you too, if you'll let me," and there in the early breaking of the morning light the two young men made a solemn compact of friendship through life. When the sun shone forth and touched the hills, glinting the Hudson in the distance, Daniel sat up and looked about him with a new interest in life, and a happier feeling in his heart than he had had since Dawn went away.

Three days they spent in New York, searching for Dawn. The paper that had wrapped Dan's book they took to the post-office first, and by careful inquiry were able to discover in what quarter of the city the package was mailed, though, of course, this was very slight information, as she might have been far from her living place when she mailed it.

They also discovered the store where the books were bought, for Charles had had the forethought to send Daniel back for them before they started. The clerk who had sold them to her remembered her, and described her as beautiful, with black curls inside a white bonnet, and a dark silk frock. He said she had sad eyes, and looked thin and pale.

This troubled Charles more than he was willing to admit to Dan.

Having narrowed their clue to this most indefinite point, they held a consultation and decided that the only thing to do was to walk around that quarter of the city and see if they could get sight of her. Or possibly Rags would get on a scent of her footsteps in some spot less travelled than others. It was almost a hopeless search, yet they started bravely on the hunt, and talked to Rags in a way that would have made an ordinary dog beside himself.

Charles had with him the gloves that Dawn had dropped on the floor beside the bed when she fled from his home. He always carried them with him in his breast-pocket. He took them out and let Rags smell of them.

Then Dan said:

"Rags, go find Teacher. Teacher! Rags! Go find Teacher!"

Rags sniffed and looked wistfully in their faces, then barked and started on a sniffing tour all about them, his homely yellow-brown face wearing a look of dog anxiety. He thought he comprehended what they wanted, but was not sure. He had felt a great loss since the teacher went away. Was it possible they expected him to find her?

During the three days, they haunted the streets of the city, both day and evening, and Rags was quite worn out with sniffing. Once or twice he thought he had found a trail, but it came to nothing, and he scurried dejectedly on ahead, hoping his followers had not noticed him bark. On the morning of the fourth day they turned into a narrow street which was almost like a lane compared to other streets. There were only tiny, gloomy houses, and noisy, foreign-looking people stood in the doorways or conversed across the street. It seemed a most unlikely neighborhood for their search, and Charles was half of a mind to turn back and take another street, but almost at the entrance to the street Rags had gone quite wild and nosed his way rapidly down the uneven pavement until he stopped beside a humble doorstep and went nosing about and yelping in great delight. The door was closed, but he tried the steps, and even sniffed under the crack, and then came bounding back to his companions.

"What have you found, Rags, boy?" said Charles half-heartedly. He did not believe they would find any trace of Dawn here.

"He thinks he's found her," said Dan convincingly. "He never acts like that without a reason. Rags, find Teacher! Where is she, Rags?"

"Bow-wow!" answered Rags sharply, as much as to say, "Why don't you open the door and find her yourself?"

An old woman came to the door, and looked sharply at the dog on her clean step. Charles took off his hat.

"We are looking for a friend, madam, who is stopping in this neighborhood somewhere, and we do not know her address. Our dog thinks he has found a trace of her, but he is probably mistaken. You don't happen to have noticed anywhere near here, a young woman with dark eyes and dark, curling hair, lately come to the city-not more than two months ago, perhaps?"

"You wouldn't be meanin' pretty Mary Montgomery-bless her heart!-would ye?" the old woman asked quizzically, surveying the two.

But Rags had stayed not on the order of his going. He had dashed past the old woman and up the stairs to the floor above.

"Och! Look at the little varmint!" said the old woman, forgetting her question and dashing after the dog, thus missing the startled look that came into the faces of both young men.

But after a series of short, sharp barks, Rags returned as quickly as he had gone, almost knocking the old lady down her rickety stairs, in his delight, and bearing in his mouth a fragment of gray cloth which he brought and laid triumphantly at his master's feet.

Dan stooped and picked it up almost reverently and smoothed the frayed edges. It was a bit of Dawn's gray school-dress that she had torn off where the facing was worn and had caught her foot as she walked. Dan recognized the cloth at once. Charles had never seen the gown, but he saw that the bit of cloth had some significance to Dan. He rushed in after the old lady, who had now descended the stairs wrathfully behind the dog.

"Tell me where this Miss Montgomery is, please," he said as quietly as he could. He had followed so many clues and seen them turn into nothing before his eyes, he scarcely could dare hope now. His heart was beating wildly. Was he to see Dawn again at last?

"Och! An' I wish I knew, the darlint!" said the garrulous old woman.

"She lift me yistherday marnin', an' it's thrue I miss the sight o' her sweet smile an' her pretty ways. She was a young wummun of quality, was she, an' I sez to me dauther, sez I, 'Kate, mind the ways o' her, the pretty ways o' Mary Montgomery,' sez I, 'fer it's not soon ye'll see such a lady agin.'"

"Has she been here in your house, do you say?" asked Charles anxiously.

He felt he must keep very calm or he might lose the clue.

"Yis, sorr, that she was. She ockepied me back siccond floor, an' a swater lady niver walked the earth, ef she _was_ huntin' work fer her pretty, saft hands to do, what she couldn't get nowhere, sorr, more's the pity. Would yez like to coom up an' tak a luik at the rum? It's as nate a rum as ye'll find in the sthreet, ef I do say so as shouldn't, though a bit small fer two. But there's the frunt siccond floor'll be vacant to-morry, at only a shillun more the wake."

Daniel held up the fragment of cloth.

"It's the frock she wore to school," he said. He spoke hoa.r.s.ely and handled it as though it belonged to the dead. It seemed terrible to him to have found where she had been, and not find her.

They followed the old woman upstairs, scarcely hearing her dissertation, nor realizing that she took them for possible roomers.

The room was neat, as the woman had said, but bare-so bare and gloomy!

Nothing but blank walls and chimneys to be seen from the tiny window, where the sun streamed in unhindered across the meagre bed and deal chair and table which were the only furnishings. Charles's heart grew tender with pity, and his eyes filled with tears, as he looked upon it all and realized that his wife had slept there on that hard bed, and had for a time called that dreary spot home. He glanced involuntarily out of the window, noting the garbage in the back yards below, and the unpleasant odors that arose, and remembered the warnings and precautions with which the papers had been filled even before the cholera had come so close to them. He shuddered to think what might have happened to Dawn.

"But where has she gone?" he asked the old woman.

"Yes, that's what we want to know," said Dan.

"Yes, where!" barked Rags behind the old woman's heels, which made her jump and exclaim, "Och, the varmint!" until Dan called the dog to his side.

"She's gone. Lift me, an' no rason at all at all, savin' thet she couldn't find wark, an' her money most gahn. I sez to her as she went out that dor, sez I, 'Yez betther go hum to yer friends ef yez kin find 'em. It's bad times fer a pretty un like you, an' you with yer hands that saft;' but she only smiled at me like a white rose, an' was away, sayin' she'd see, and she thankin' me all the whilst fer the little I'd been able to do fer her-me that's a widder an' meself to kape."

Nothing more could they get from the good woman, though they tried both with money and questions. Dawn had been there for two months, and had gone out every day hunting work. She had come back every night weary and discouraged, but always with a smile. At last she had come home with a newspaper, her face whiter than usual, and, as the old widow had put it, said: "'Mrs. O'Donnell, I'm away in the marn, fer I'm thinkin'

it's best;' and away she goes."

The two young men turned away at last, after having made Rags smell all around the room. He insisted upon their taking a folded bit of paper that he found on the floor by the window, as if it were something precious belonging to her. They bade Mrs. O'Donnell good-by, after Charles had given her something to solace her for losing two prospective roomers, and went out to search again.

Rags preceded them down the street, following the scent rapidly until he reached the corner, where he seemed in some perplexity for a time.

Finally, he chose the street leading to the river, and going more slowly and crookedly, sometimes zigzagging and sometimes going back to make sure, he brought them at last to the boat-landing.

Perhaps, they thought, she might have followed the advice of the old woman and gone back to her own home region-who knew? With heavy hearts, they set about finding what boats had left the wharf the day before, about the hour the old woman had said that the girl had left her house.

But the morning boat of the day before had just come in and was lying by for repairs. After some questioning, the captain professed to recall such a pa.s.senger as they described, but as all the decks had been scrubbed, Rags with his eager nose was unable to corroborate the captain's testimony. Charles and Dan lost no time in securing pa.s.sage on the boat, which was to sail that evening for Albany, where the captain said he was sure the young lady had gotten off the evening before.

The remainder of the afternoon they spent in making inquiries in every direction, leaving written messages directed to Miss Mary Montgomery, and putting notices in the various city papers. Rags, meantime, was much annoyed and disturbed by their digression. He felt that the boat was the place to stay. He was satisfied they were on the right track.

If he had been managing the expedition, he would have had the boat start at once. When it finally did leave the wharf, he sat up on deck with his fore-feet on the railing and barked his satisfaction, then settled down to rest at the feet of the two beloved ones, with a smile of satisfaction on his grizzly face.

CHAPTER XXVI