“Oliver October’s down there now,” said Serepta. “I got him out of bed a little after seven. He didn’t wait to put on anything except his pants and shoes. All I could get out of him was that the last he saw of his father was down on the swamp road about nine o’clock last night. Old Ollie walked a piece with him. Last Oliver saw of him, he was standing down there in the middle of the road.” “Sure as shootin’!” gulped Mr. Sikes, sitting down heavily on the arm of a chair. “Out of his head. Wandering around. In circles. Dead, maybe. My God, Silas!” “My God!” echoed Mr. Link, wiping the moisture from his forehead with a palsied hand. Both of them looked helplessly at Mrs. Grimes. She too was pale but she was not helpless. “Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t sit there like a couple of corpses,” she cried. “Do something. Get busy. Go look for him. Start—” “Sure he’s not around the house or barn anywhere?” broke in Mr. Link, struggling to his feet. “Maybe he fell down the cellar,” exclaimed Mr. Sikes, hopefully. “Or the cistern, or—” “I’ve looked everywhere. He ain’t in the cellar or the cistern or the barn. I got here just about seven. Lizzie Meggs was getting breakfast. She was singing, happy as a lark. Did I tell you that Abel Conroy is still alive? Well, he is. I sat up with Kate Conroy all night, looking for him to die any minute. He—” “Think he’ll pull through the day?” inquired Mr. Link, suddenly becoming an undertaker. “Wouldn’t surprise me if he got well.” “Good deal depends on how his heart holds out. Doc’ Williams was saying—” “Oh, for the Lord’s sake!” boomed Mr. Sikes. “As I was saying,” resumed Mrs. Grimes, “Lizzie was getting breakfast. I said I thought I’d go upstairs and lie down for an hour or two, and she says I’d better knock on Mr. Baxter’s door, ’cause she hadn’t heard him moving ’round, and his breakfast would be cold if he didn’t get a move on him. So I rapped on his door as I went by. Not a sound. I rapped again, and then I tried the door. Then I went in. He wasn’t there. His bed hadn’t been slept in. So I called Oliver October. It’s half-past eight now, and the boy’s been down at the swamp for nearly an hour. Do something! Go out and help him look—” “I’ll take a look in the barn first. He may have gone up to the haymow to sleep,” said Sikes, and shuffled off, followed a moment later by Silas Link, who had stayed behind long enough to instruct Mrs. Grimes to telephone to the police and to the railway station. The long and the short of it was, Oliver Baxter had vanished as completely as if swallowed by the earth—and it was the general opinion that that was exactly what happened to him. There was not the slightest doubt in the minds of his horrified friends that he had wandered out upon the swamp and had met a ghastly fate in one of the countless pits of mire whose depths no man knew or cared to fathom even in speculation.