THE FLIGHT.
WHEN THE gentleman came out of his dark corner, and the light of the
candle fell upon his features, Julian took a good look at him, and an
expression of great disappointment settled on his face.
“Whoever he is, he is not my father,” said he, to himself, “for my
father had gray hair. This man is a stranger, and as it would be a mean
piece of business in me to stay here and listen to his conversation I
will crawl back to my pile of husks and go to sleep.”
Acting upon this resolution Julian began a slow and cautious retreat;
but he had not gone far when a thought struck him, and he crept back to
the edge of the loft and looked over into the room again.
“Jack called him _Mr. Mortimer_,” soliloquized the boy, “and I should
like to know who and what he is. The manner in which he acted when I
met him in the woods makes me believe that he has seen me before, and
that he knows something about me that he wishes to keep hidden from me.
I have a good deal at stake and it will do no harm to listen a while
anyhow.”
It was a very handsome face that Julian’s eyes rested upon, and one
that he did not think he should ever forget. Although the man’s
language indicated that he was an American, his features had a decided
Spanish cast. His face was dark and wore a haughty expression, his hair
was long and waving, and like his mustache and goatee, was as black as
midnight. Julian looked at him attentively, and was surprised to see
that he shook hands with Mr. Bowles and his wife, as if they were old
acquaintances whom he was glad to meet once more.
“It’s a long time since I’ve seed ye, Mr. Mortimer, but I allowed I
knowed ye as soon as I clapped my eyes onto ye,” said Jack, drawing his
nail-keg a little closer to the side of his guest.
“And you came very near making a mess of it, too,” replied the latter,
with some impatience in his tones. “I believe that boy suspects me—he
looked at me as if he did—and I would not have him know who I am for
the world. You’re sure he is asleep?”
“Sartin, ’cause I went up to look. We’ve kept him safe an’ sound fur
ye, ’cordin’ to orders, hain’t we?”
“An’ now you have come to take him away from us—I jest know ye have,”
exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, raising the corner of her tattered apron to her
left eye. “I don’t know how I can let him go, ’cause my heart’s awfully
sot onto that poor, motherless boy.”
“We’ve done our level best by him,” chimed in Jack. “Ye told us when ye
brought him here that he was a gentleman, an’ a gentleman’s son, an’
we’ve treated him like one.”
“When _he_ brought me here,” repeated Julian, to himself; and it was
only by a great exercise of will that he refrained from speaking the
words aloud.
He became highly excited at once. Mr. Mortimer was the one who had
stolen him away from his home and delivered him up to the tender
mercies of Jack Bowles and his wife—the very man of all others he most
wished to see. He had been a long time coming, almost eight years, and
now that he had arrived, Julian found that he was destined to become
better acquainted with him than he cared to be. He watched the guest
more closely than ever, carefully scrutinizing his features in order to
fix them in his memory. He hoped to meet him some day under different
circumstances.
“He haint never had no work to do, an’ we never struck him a lick in
our lives,” continued Jack. “We’ve treated him better’n our own boys.
He’s got a good hoss of his own, an’ I’ve been a feedin’ it outen my
corn ever since he owned it, an’ never axed him even to bring in an
armful of wood to pay for it. An’ my boys do say that he’s got a heap
of money laid up somewhars. If ye have come to take him away I reckon
ye’ll do the handsome thing by us.”
“My friends,” interrupted the guest, as soon as he saw a chance to
speak, “I know all about Julian, for I have talked with him. I know
what he has got and what he intends to do. Have you ever told him
anything about his parentage?”
“Nary word,” replied Jack.
“Then I wonder how it is that he knows so much about it. He knows that
his home is near the mountains; that he was stolen away from it, and
that he has a father there. More than that he intends to go back there
very soon, and is laying his plans to run away from you.”
“Wal, I never heered the beat in all my born days!” exclaimed Mrs.
Bowles, involuntarily extending her hand toward the rawhide which hung
on the nail behind the door. “I’ll give him the best kind of a whoppin’
in the mornin’. I’ll beat him half to—— What should the poor, dear
boy want to run away from his best friends fur?”
“The leetle brat—the ongrateful rascal!” said Mr. Bowles. “That’s
why he’s bought that ar hoss; an’ that’s why he’s been a huntin’ an’
trappin’ so steady—to earn money to run away from us, is it? I’ll larn
him.”
And Jack turned around on his nail-keg and looked so savagely toward
the loft, where Julian was supposed to be slumbering, that the
eavesdropper was greatly alarmed, and crouched closer to the floor and
trembled in every limb, as if he already felt the stinging blows of the
rawhide.
“It seems that my visit was most opportune,” continued the stranger.
“If I had arrived a day or two later I might not have found Julian
here. He would probably have been on his way to the mountains; and
if he had by any accident succeeded in finding his old home, all my
plans, which I have spent long years in maturing, would have been
ruined. I came here to remove him from your care. It appears that
certain persons, who are very much interested in him, and who have
been searching for him high and low ever since I brought him here, have
by some means discovered his hiding-place, and it is necessary that I
should remove him farther out of their reach. I shall take him to South
America.”
“What’s that? Is it fur from here?” asked Jack.
“It is a long distance. I came down the river from St. Joseph in a
flatboat,” added the visitor. “I found that the captain is a man who
will do anything for money, and I have arranged with him to carry us to
New Orleans. It will take us a long time to accomplish the journey, but
we cannot be as easily followed as we could if we went by steamer. If
you will accompany me I will pay you well for your services. I can say
that the boy is a lunatic and that you are his keeper.”
“‘Nough said!” exclaimed Jack. “I’m jest the man to watch him.”
“But you must not watch him too closely,” said Mr. Mortimer earnestly.
“If he should accidentally fall overboard during the journey it would
not make any difference in your pay.”
“In course not,” replied Jack, with a meaning glitter in his eye. “If
he gets one of them ar’ crazy spells onto him some dark night an’ jumps
into the river, why—then——”
“Why then you ought to be handsomely rewarded for your faithful
services while in my employ, and discharged.”
“Perzactly. Whar is this yere flatboat now?”
“I left her about twenty miles up the river. I told the captain to
lay up for a few hours until I could have time to come down here and
transact my business with you. She will be along about noon to-morrow.
Have everything ready so that we can hail her, and step on board
without an instant’s delay.”
“I don’t fur the life o’ me see how I can let him go—my heart is so
sot onto him,” sighed Mrs. Bowles, once more raising her apron to her
eyes. “He do save me a heap o’ steps, an’ he’s a monstrous good hand to
cut wood an’ build fires o’ frosty mornin’s.”
“But he hain’t never had it to do,” interrupted Jack, who, for reasons
of his own, thought it best to impress upon the mind of his guest that
Julian’s life under his roof had been one continual round of ease and
enjoyment. “We allers makes our own boys roll out o’ mornin’s and cut
wood, an’ Julian can lay in his comfortable bed, as snug as a bug in a
rug, an’ snooze as long as he pleases. The reason we’ve tuk sich good
care of him is, ’cause we thought ye sot store by him. Ye’re some kin
to him, I reckon. Ye’re names is alike.”
“That is a matter that does not interest you,” answered the guest
sharply. “I pay you to work for me, and not to ask questions.”
“I didn’t mean no offense. But when I see a man like yerself totin’ a
boy about the country, an’ leavin’ him hid in a place like this fur
eight year, an’ then huntin’ him up agin, an runnin’ him off to some
other place, an’ hear ye say that if he falls into the river an’ gets
drownded ye won’t be no ways sorry fur it, I think there’s something
up, don’t I? Ye don’t do that fur nothing; an’ since the boy ain’t ole
enough to be a standin’ atween ye an’ a woman, I naterally conclude
that he stands atween ye an’ money. Howsomever, it hain’t no consarn of
mine. I know which side of my corn-dodger’s got the lasses onto it.”
“Pap! I say pap!” suddenly cried a voice from one of the beds. “Ye
think yer sharp, ye an that feller do, but ye ain’t so sharp as ye
might be.”
“Hush yer noise, boy, an’ speak when ye’re spoken to,” exclaimed Jack
angrily. “Ye needn’t be no ways oneasy, Mr. Mortimer,” he added, seeing
that his guest arose hastily to his feet and appeared to be greatly
excited to know that their conversation had been overheard. “We’re all
true blue here, an’ my boys has too much good sense to blab what they
hears—leastwise while they are paid to keep their mouths shet. Ye,
Jake, roll over an’ go to sleep.”
“All right, pap,” said Jake, obeying the first part of the order. “If
ye wake up in the mornin’ an’ find that yer bird has flew ye needn’t
blame me, ’cause I told ye.”
“Eh?” roared Jack, jumping up in great amazement.
“O, he won’t be here, an’ ye can bet yer bottom dollar on it. He’s
heered every blessed word ye said.”
“Who? Julian?” gasped the visitor.
“Sartin. I seed his head a stickin’ over the hull time ye was a
talkin’.”
Had a bomb-shell burst in the room the two men could not have been
more astonished. They stood motionless for a moment, and then, with a
muttered imprecation, Jack bounded across the floor and went swiftly up
the ladder that led to the loft, closely followed by his guest, whose
face was as pale as death, while Mrs. Bowles snatched the rawhide from
its nail, and rolling up her sleeves took her stand in front of the
fire-place, prepared for any emergency.
Jack sprung into the loft when he reached the top of the ladder and ran
straight to the bed, expecting to lay his hands upon the eavesdropper;
but he was not there. With eager haste he threw aside the tattered
coats and blankets, and even kicked the corn-husks about, but no Julian
was hidden among them. Nor was he anywhere in the loft; for there was
no furniture there, and consequently no place of concealment large
enough to shelter a squirrel.
“Dog-gone!” roared Jack, stamping about so furiously that the boards
which formed the floor of the loft creaked and bent, and seemed on the
point of breaking beneath his weight and letting him through into the
room below.
“He’s gone, as sure as ye’re a foot high.”
“He probably escaped through this hole,” said Mr. Mortimer, running to
the gable-end of the cabin where the boards had fallen off. “It isn’t
more than ten feet to the ground, and he could easily drop down without
injuring himself. He must be brought back at any cost.”
“In course he must, an’ I know how to do it. I’ve got a hound that’ll
trail him. Ole woman, stick yer head outer that door an’ holler for
Nero.”
While Mrs. Bowles was shouting out the hound’s name, awaking the echoes
far and near with her shrill voice, Jake and Tom were pulling on their
clothes with all possible haste.
“Here’s a fine chance for a spec,” said the former, slyly pulling a
small tin box from under his pillow and putting it carefully into his
pocket. “Mebbe that feller in the store clothes will give something
to have Julian brought back. The ole man’ll never ketch him ’cause he
can’t run fast enough; an’ Julian’s too sharp to give a hound a chance
to foller him. We know jest the place he’ll make tracks fur, an’ if we
go thar we can gobble him.”
“Ye Jake!” cried Mr. Bowles, hurrying down the ladder, “when I get
time, I’m a goin’ to give ye the best wallopin’ ye ever heern tell on.”
“Ye needn’t mind,” replied Jake, in great alarm.
“But I _will_ mind, I tell ye; an’ I hain’t a-goin’ to forget it,
nuther.”
“I hain’t been a doin’ of nothing, pap.”
“That’s jest what’s the matter. I’m goin’ to lick ye fur not doin’
something—fur not tellin’ me that ye seed Julian a listenin’. Here he
comes! Here’s the feller that’ll bring the runaway back to us in less’n
five minutes.”
At this moment the door was dashed violently open and in bounded Nero,
who seemed to know that there was work for him to do, and was impatient
to begin it. He was a magnificent brute—so large that when he sprang
up and placed his paws upon his master’s shoulders his head was on a
level with Jack’s. He showed a frightful array of teeth and growled
threateningly at the visitor, who constantly shifted his position in
order to keep Jack’s burly form between himself and the savage beast.
“Thar’s the dog fur ye, Mr. Mortimer,” said Bowles, looking proudly at
his favorite. “He’ll ketch any thing ye tell him to, from a bar down
to a chicken. Hand me that rope, ole woman. I’ll have to hold him in
the leash, or he won’t leave enough of Julian to make it wuth while to
take that trip down the river. Now, then, hunt ’em up, ye rascal!”
Having made one end of the rope fast to the hound’s collar, Mr. Bowles
wrapped the other about his hand and arm, snatched a blazing fire-brand
from the hearth, and hurried out of the door and around the house, to
examine the ground there, and ascertain if Julian had really escaped
from the opening in the gable-end. The hound struck the scent at once,
and uttering a loud bay dashed off into the darkness, dragging the
clumsy Jack after him.
“Now’s your time,” whispered Tom, when the yelping of the dog and the
encouraging yells of his master began to grow fainter in the distance;
“speak to him.”
“I say!” exclaimed Jake, addressing himself to Mr. Mortimer, who was
pacing nervously up and down the floor; “pap’ll never ketch him, but we
can, ’cause we know whar to look fur him.”
“Then why don’t you do it?” demanded the guest, angrily. “I will give
you $10 apiece if you will bring him back to me.”
“Wal, that’s business. We were jest waitin’ to hear ye say something of
that kind. Come on, Tom.”
The two boys rushed out of the house, and running swiftly along the
path that led by the corn-cribs, were soon out of sight.