CHAPTER IX

A PUZZLING OCCURRENCE

That evening Rico was later than usual in returning to the house, for the grandmother's singing lesson had taken some time. The aunt met him at the door.

"So this is the way you have begun!" she said sharply. "Your supper has been waiting for you long enough, so you may go to bed without it. I am sure it will not be my fault if you become a tramp. Any drudgery would be better than taking care of a boy like you."

Usually Rico made no response to her faultfinding. To-night he met her angry look with an expression of determination that she had never seen in his face before.

"Very well," he replied quietly, "I will take myself out of your way." He said nothing more, and as he went up to his dark bedroom he heard his aunt bolt the door.

The following evening, when the neighboring household had gathered about the table for supper, the aunt surprised them by coming to the door to inquire for Rico. She had not seen him that day.

"Don't worry," said Stineli's father, cheerfully; "he'll come when he's hungry."

As soon as the aunt saw that the boy had not taken refuge at the neighbor's, she went on to explain that in the early morning she had found the door unbolted. At first she had supposed that her trouble with Rico had made her forget to fasten it, but when she saw that he was not in his room and that his bed had not been slept in, she concluded that he had run away.

"If that is the case, something has surely happened to him," said the father. "He may have fallen into a crevasse on the mountain. A boy climbing about in the dark might easily break his neck. You were wrong not to speak of it sooner, for how is any one to find him, now that the daylight is gone?"

"Of course everybody will blame _me_ for it," the aunt retorted. "That is the way when a person is uncomplaining. No one will believe" (and here she told the truth) "what a stubborn, malicious, deceitful child he has been, nor how he has made my life miserable all through these long, long years. He will never be anything but an idle tramp."

The grandmother could bear no more in silence. She rose from the table, her eyes flashing with indignation.

"Stop, neighbor, for pity's sake!" she protested. "I know Rico very well. Ever since the father brought him here I have seen him almost constantly. Instead of saying harsh things about the child remember what danger he may be in this very minute. Don't you suppose that he may also have some reason to complain?"

The aunt had been thinking all day of Rico's words, "I will take myself out of your way," and trying to justify her own position. Now the grandmother's rebuke made her ashamed. "I will go back," she said, as she stepped out into the dark field. "Rico may have come home while I have been standing here." In her heart she knew that she would be glad to find this true, but the little house was empty and still.

Early the next morning the neighbors set forth to search carefully in the ravines and along the approaches to the glacier. When Stineli's father noticed that she had followed the others he said, "That is right, Stineli; you can get into places where bigger folk could not go."

"But, father," said Stineli, "if Rico went up the road he couldn't have fallen into any such place, could he?"

"Of course he could!" said the father. "He was such a dreamer that it would have been easy enough for him to lose his way. He probably paid no attention to where he was going, and wandered off toward the mountains."

A great fear entered Stineli's heart when she heard this. For days she could scarcely eat or sleep and she went listlessly about her work as if she did not know what she was doing.

No one could be found who had seen Rico since the night he left home. As time went on he was given up for dead. The neighbors tried to console one another by saying: "He is better off as it is. The child had no one to look after him properly."