The Oxbow Wizard — Story, Setting & Ideas

use his time—while the mumps kept the schoolhouse closed—to test several theories that, ever since he had read the book with the green cover, had been simmering away in the back of his head.

But Young Dan got no leisure in which to test his theories—at least he was not able to try them in the exact manner he had planned—for a stirring and mysterious event that roused excitement in the whole Oxbow region occurred less than twenty-four hours after the vacation began. Miss Carten disappeared. She dropped from sight as completely and as mysteriously as if a silent airplane had swooped down at night out of a dark sky and had carried her aloft like a great-horned owl stealing a birdling. On Friday someone asked for Miss Carten at the Troller farm where she boarded.

“She went to a party over to Cameron’s las’ night an’ took her suitcase with her; I thought as how she’d stop the night with Lizzy Cameron,” said Mrs. Troller.

At the Cameron place, two miles away—as it developed later—Miss Carten had not been seen. No member of the family, in fact, had heard from her in the last twenty-four hours.

There was excitement on the Oxbow which extended down to the main river. Search-parties went into the woods, equipped with shotguns and lanterns and stimulants and dinner-horns. Ponds and likely pools were dragged. Justices of the peace, rural constables and game-wardens awoke to official activity from the Bend on the Oxbow all the way down to Harlow on the main stream. The days and nights passed—six of each—without bringing any degree of reward or encouragement to the searchers. Nothing was seen or heard of Miss Stella Carten, dead or alive, and no suspicious characters were discovered in the vicinity of the Bend. The lost lady had not been remarked on the road or on the river, nor had she called at any isolated farmhouse. She had not been seen at the village of Bean’s Mill, at the Oxbow’s mouth. She had not bought a railway ticket at Harlow. She had vanished, suitcase in hand.

Seven days after the disappearance of Miss Carten, at eight o’clock in the morning, Young Dan Evans encountered his Uncle Bill on the portage round Old Squaw Falls, seven miles upstream from the Evans clearings. Young Dan carried nothing but an axe and a small pack. He had left his leaky old basket of a bark canoe in the bushes below the falls, for it was too heavy for him to shoulder. Uncle Bill, coming from the other end of the portage, was bonneted by his long, green canvas canoe. The meeting was unexpected to both, but only Uncle Bill expressed astonishment.

“You, Young Dan!” he exclaimed, lowering his canoe to the trail. “What brings you ’way up here?”

“Left my canoe below the carry,” replied the boy. “Just moochin’ round lookin’ for something.”

“Sit down,” said Uncle Bill.

They sat down, and the man lit his pipe and pushed his big felt hat far back from his forehead.

“Looking for anything in particular?” he asked.

“Yep. Miss Carten disappeared a week back and I’m sorter lookin’ round for her.”

“You don’t say! Disappeared! And you think she’s maybe up here somewheres?”

“That’s how I’m figgerin’ it out, Uncle Bill. She ain’t downstream, anyhow. Some folks think she’s lost in the woods or been killed—but I don’t; I reckon she’s run away on business of her own; and as she ain’t gone downstream I guess she’s come up.”

“You don’t say! What makes you think so?”

“Well, she intended to go somewheres, because she took her suitcase packed full, and her money. She wouldn’t do that if she was just meanin’ to stop a night with Lizzy Cameron. And they ain’t found hide nor hair of her down river—but I’ve found her tracks, and more’n her tracks, up this way. Yep, I found the tracks two days back, about two miles below this, close to the edge of the stream. I knowed ’em by the sharp heels. I hunted both sides of the stream for a mile and dug into every pool, but didn’t find any more signs. But I found somethin’ else yesterday; and now I’m goin’ clear up the Prongs.”

“What did you find yesterday?”