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"Yes," Harrison Miller said simply.
But David was resentful, too. When his friends were in trouble he wanted
to know about it. He was somewhat indignant and not a little hurt. But
he soon reverted to Dick.
"I'll go back and send him off for a rest," he said. "I'm as good as
I'll ever be, and the boy's tired. What's the bee in Wheeler's bonnet?"
"Look here, David, you know your own business best, and Wheeler didn't
feel at liberty to tell me very much. But he seemed to think you were
the only one who could tell us certain things. He'd have come himself,
but it's not easy for him to leave the family just now. Dick went away
just after Jim's funeral. He left a young chap named Reynolds in his
place, and, I believe, in order not to worry you, some letters to be
mailed at intervals."
"Went where?" David asked, in a terrible voice.
"To a town called Norada, in Wyoming. Near his old home somewhere. And
the Wheelers haven't heard anything from him since the day he got there.
That's three weeks ago. He wrote Elizabeth the night he got there, and
wired her at the same time. There's been nothing since."
David was gripping the arms of his chair with both hands, but he forced
himself to calmness.
"I'll go to Norada at once," he said. "Get a time-table, Harrison, and
ring for the valet."
"Not on your life you won't. I'm here to do that, when I've got
something to go on. Wheeler thought you might have heard from him. If
you hadn't, I was to get all the information I could and then start.
Elizabeth's almost crazy. We wired the chief of police of Norada
yesterday."
"Yes!" David said thickly. "Trust your friends to make every damned
mistake possible! You've set the whole pack on his trail." And then he
fell back in his chair, and gasped, "Open the window!"
When Lucy came in, a half hour later, she found David on his bed with
the hotel doctor beside him, and Harrison Miller in the room. David was
fighting for breath, but he was conscious and very calm. He looked up at
her and spoke slowly and distinctly.
"They've got Dick, Lucy," he said.
He looked aged and pinched, and entirely hopeless. Even after his heart
had quieted down and he lay still among his pillows, he gave no evidence
of his old fighting spirit. He lay with his eyes shut, relaxed and
passive. He had done his best, and he had failed. It was out of his
hands now, and in the hands of God. Once, as he lay there, he prayed. He
said that he had failed, and that now he was too old and weak to fight.
That God would have to take it on, and do the best He could. But he
added that if God did not save Dick and bring him back to happiness,
that he, David, was through.