Captain Jim was the contrast of Mr. Wagstaff as regarded the youth in whom he was interested. He proclaimed to every one that Bob was not only the brightest, but the best principled boy in Piketon and the neighborhood. Had he lived he would have made his mark in the law or ministry or whatever profession he chose to honor with his attention. He had always been truthful, honest, and obedient, and his loss was in the nature of a general calamity.
It seems incredible that a man of sense should talk in this fashion, and not only utter such words, but believe them. The reader, however, who has heard other parents talk, can credit the statement that such was the fact.
The first thing that Captain Jim did, after learning the facts, was to offer a reward of one thousand dollars for the recovery of the body of his nephew. No doubt, he said, the whole neighborhood would insist on attending his remains to the grave, that they might render a fitting tribute to one thus cut off in the prime of his promising young manhood. The Captain, therefore, felt it his duty to defer to so proper a desire. He would erect a monument over the remains, to which parents might impressively point, as they urged their offspring to emulate the virtues of Robert Budd.
The large reward offered for the recovery of the body resulted in the employment of fully a hundred and sometimes more people, who roamed up and down the narrow valley through which the flood had swept from early morning until darkness forced a cessation of the search.
Some three miles below the bursted dam the valley widened to fully double its width. There naturally the current expanded and lost the tremendous power displayed above. Most of this portion, like the rest, was covered with trees, so that places innumerable existed where a body might be hidden, thus making it almost impossible to find it unless by a fortunate accident.
The surprise was general that the search should be prosecuted so long and so thoroughly without result. It seemed that every foot of ground had been covered and no spot left unvisited. The bushy tops of trees, prostrate trunks, timbers, undergrowth, shrubbery, rifts of leaves, and, indeed, everything that looked as if it could hide a body as large as a dog were examined again and again, but without the slightest success.