WHERE IS JOE?

It was now getting late, and Sam knew that it was not well for him to talk longer. He felt so much better, however, that he knew he would continue to talk in spite of himself unless the whole party should go to sleep at once. Joe had not been in the drift cavern for more than two hours, and Sam, observing his prolonged absence, said:

"Tom, I'm afraid some of us have hurt poor Joe's feelings. Go and look at your water-mark, and while you are out, find the poor fellow and find out what's the matter with him. He's a good boy, and has done his part faithfully ever since we started. I can't bear to think of him moping."

Tom went out and examined his stake, which showed that the water was not more than an inch or two over the bank, and was not rising very rapidly now; but he could see nothing of Joe anywhere. He went to the look-out, but the boy was not there, and a diligent search through the drift-pile, showed that he was nowhere in the neighborhood of the fortress. Tom was now fairly alarmed, and returning, was about to report the facts to Sam, when little Judie, in a whisper, informed him that the big brother was asleep. As his fever had risen somewhat, Judie rightly thought it better not to disturb him, as he certainly could not aid in any way in finding Joe.

"I must just think," Tom said to himself, "as Sam does, and then I can do all there is to be done. Now I know Joe isn't anywhere in the hammock, because I knew every place he could squeeze himself into, and I've looked in every one of them. It's no use then to waste time looking there any more. He must have left here, either accidentally or on purpose. He couldn't have slipped off the drift and drowned, because he can swim pretty well and would have swam out in a minute. There is no other way in which he can have left here by accident, unless an Indian has killed him on the drift-pile somewhere, and if that were so I would have found his body. He must have run away on purpose."

But just as Tom reached this point in his thinking he remembered the earnestness with which poor Joe had begged him to bear witness in any and every event that he was not "a runaway nigger." And this reminded Tom of all the queer ways he had noticed in Joe of late. The boy must have had a premonition, he thought, that something was going to happen to him. Only two theories remained. One was that Joe had gone crazy under his long exile from civilized life and had madly put an end to himself by jumping into the river; and the other that, persisting in his belief in the instability of the drift-pile, he had gone to the upper bank for safety and had fallen asleep there. In that event he must be found, lest an Indian should discover him in the morning and put him to death. Tom went ashore after explaining his purpose to Judie, so that she might not be alarmed at his absence, and literally spent the entire night in hunting for the black boy. Joe was nowhere to be found, and when daylight came, Tom saw that a further search was of no use whatever, and he therefore returned sadly to the drift cavern. The water was now going down again, and the bank was free from it, but the sand in the root fortress was still too wet to sit or lie upon, and so Tom made no immediate preparation for their return.

Sam's fever was very slight that morning, and his first question was about Joe. Tom told him of his night's search, and Sam's deduction from all the facts was that the poor boy had committed suicide, had been killed by an Indian and thrown into the river, or had fallen in accidentally and drowned.

"He would never have left us in any case," said Sam, "and even had he been less faithful, he would have been afraid to run away, not knowing where to run or how to take care of himself in the woods."

They were too much grieved for Joe's loss, to relish their breakfast, and that meal was dispatched very quickly. Tom watched the falling of the water all day, and at night reported that the river was well inside its banks again.