AT THE STATION.
“I knew it!”
Hugh could feel the figure of the boy partly collapse as he muttered
these disconsolate words. He only tightened his clasp on Cale’s arm.
“Don’t worry a bit about it,” he said, in the other’s ear. “We’re not
going to let him put a hand on you. Just try your level best to keep
from looking at him; and leave the rest to us. We’ll see you through,
and let him try to take you away if he dares!”
“Well, I’d like to see him try it, that’s all!” blustered Billy,
swinging that nice club of his with a “swish” that sounded encouraging
to him.
This sort of talk began to buoy up the spirits of Cale.
“I’ll try and hold out, fellows!” he told them. “You don’t know that
man. He can make you do just what he wants. It’s simply fierce what a
way he has of changing your mind for you!”
“Huh! I’d like to see him get me to change mine, that’s all!” Billy
chuckled.
“Well, here he comes, and now we’ll see some fun!” declared Jack Durham,
as the rapid beating of horse’s hoofs reached their ears, accompanied by
a man’s angry voice.
“Stop right where you are, I tell you, boy! I want you to go back with
me in this buggy! You are under contract with me, understand!”
“We might as well stop and have it out with him,” remarked Hugh.
“Yes, since we couldn’t expect to run away from a horse,” added Walter.
So they stepped to one side of the road, and as the vehicle arrived the
man in the buggy stopped his sweating horse by drawing sharply on the
lines.
“Here, what do you boys mean trying to kidnap my assistant?” he shouted,
shaking the whip he held in a menacing manner.
Hugh stepped in front of Cale, one of his objects being to keep the boy
from meeting those angry and glittering eyes of the fakir.
“I’d advise you to keep that whip to yourself, sir,” he said, meaningly.
“If you have any idea of trying to use it on us you had better think
twice. With the first stroke I promise that you’ll find it snatched from
your hand, and used on your back without mercy.”
“Yes,” added Billy Worth, “because we’re scouts, don’t think we can’t
protect ourselves if set on. The rules don’t keep us from defending
ourselves from assault.”
Perhaps the man did not quite like the determined manner of those five
boys in khaki; at any rate he stopped switching the whip in that
menacing manner, though at the same time continuing to scowl blackly at
Hugh.
“What does this mean?” he demanded. “Don’t you boys know you’re liable
to arrest for trying to entice my assistant to break his contract with
me in the middle of my harvest season? I’ll have the law on you, and
lock you all up!”
Billy Worth laughed aloud.
“You sure make us shiver with fright, Mister Merritt, if that’s your
real name,” he told the other. “Hugh, tell him to go to thunder, and
that we’re not one mite afraid of his bluster. Cale’s going with us if
we have to pick him up and carry him.”
Perhaps Billy had a double reason for talking in this way. He may have
intended to warn the fakir that they would resist him to the utmost; but
more than that it was of importance that the boy should feel they were
determined to keep him from obeying the will of his employer.
“Cale!” said the man, sharply, using a peculiar tone which doubtless was
inclined to affect the boy more than his natural voice.
Hugh continued to stand between.
“Don’t look at him, Cale!” he said, forcefully.
“Come right here and get in with me, I tell you!” continued the man,
sternly.
Cale made a mechanical move.
“I’ve got to go!” he muttered, helplessly, whereat Billy linked his arm
more tightly in his, while Walter did the same on the other side, with
Ralph and Jack pushing to the front alongside Hugh.
“Not much you will,” said Billy, derisively. “Think we’ve gone to all
this trouble with you to give up so easy? You’re going to stick it out
with us, Cale, hear me talking? We won’t let you go worth a cent!”
“Start off toward the station with him, fellows,” said Hugh, grimly.
“We’ll stand guard on this side of you. Keep fast hold of Cale all the
while. Once we get there I’ll call up Chief Wallis, and get him over to
settle this thing. He’s a good friend of ours, you know.”
The man in the buggy seemed hardly to know what to do next when they
started along the street heading for the railroad station, now in plain
sight. He must have guessed that his grip on poor Cale was broken
through the persistence of these five scouts, and yet, being a most
stubborn sort of man, he evidently did not mean to give up until he had
exhausted every means for attaining his purposes.
He started up his horse so as to keep even with them. He began to appeal
to the boy to stand by him. He used every device which in the past had
acted so favorably in forcing Cale to obey his will; but the conditions,
with those five guardians striding alongside the weak boy, were changed
now.
Billy, not wishing Cale to hear much that the fakir said, kept up more
or less of a racket. He whistled shrilly, laughed, and even started to
sing snatches of some rollicking school song, such as scouts were
accustomed to rolling out in concert when seated about their campfire of
nights, after their bountiful suppers.
In this manner they drew nearer the station. Hugh would often look back
at that last hundred yards of the journey with amusement. Billy was
really making himself ridiculous in his endeavor to drown the voice of
Doc Merritt, so that it might not have its intended effect on the boy
whom they had taken in charge.
There were a good many people waiting for the trains, because one would
draw in from either direction presently. Hugh had already learned that
Cale wanted to go west from Oakvale; and this meant there was no great
hurry, since that train was not due to arrive for twenty minutes after
the one for the east came along.
One thing still bothered Hugh. It concerned the future actions of Doc
Merritt. If the medicine fakir, for some reason or other, wanted to keep
hold of Cale, he might think it worth his while to go aboard the same
train as the boy for the purpose of getting hold of him when the scouts
would no longer stand as a bulwark between his victim and himself.
Just how that was to be avoided was a puzzling question. Hugh was
inclined to turn to Chief Wallis as a means for detaining the fakir. If
they could prevent him from taking that train, by trumping up some sort
of charge that would detain him in Oakvale an hour or so, all might yet
be well.
“By that time the boy ought to be far on the way home,” Hugh told
himself as he thought it all over. “At any rate, he will be beyond the
reach of this man’s evil influence. Yes, that seems to be the best thing
to do. I’ll try and get the Chief over as soon as the train for the east
pulls out again.”
He said that because even then he heard a whistle down the track
indicating the approach of the train from the west.
When they reached the station, the man jumped from his vehicle, and gave
the rig in charge of a boy to look after. He persisted in following them
as they threaded their way through the crowds that surged this way and
that—for scores of people had come from up and down the road to attend
the Fair, and were taking the last opportunity to get back home at a
reasonable hour.
The man was still trying to get in touch with Cale, though the scouts
had formed a complete circle around the boy, and he dared not use
violence. Hugh began to suspect the fakir had in mind just such an idea
as he himself had been considering; that is, he meant to board the same
train that bore Cale off.
This scheme must have struck Walter about that time, which would account
for his saying to the scout master:
“Hugh, he’s a sure-enough sticker, that man is, and he won’t see Cale go
off on that train without making another try to get him, mark my words.”
“We’ll have to set up a game on him, then,” remarked Billy. “It would
never do to let him be in the same car as Cale. The boy would give in as
quick as anything. Hugh, how can we do it?”
“I’ve got a scheme in mind,” Hugh told him; “just wait until this train
pulls out, and there’s a little more room. Then I’ll start things
moving. We’ll put a peg in his game. He’ll have to anchor in Oakvale
to-night, even if we get him locked up on a charge of assault.”
“Oh! I see what you mean now,” declared Billy. “We are to rattle him the
best we know how till he gets peeved enough to lay that whip on one of
us. Then you’ll have him arrested, and held at the station house till
after the train goes. Say, that’s a great dodge, Hugh! When it comes to
thinking up things, you’re in a class by yourself. Some day you’ll be
one of our ambassadors abroad, I honestly believe.”
The coming of the train prevented any further exchange of opinions among
the five scouts. They continued to keep Cale shut in, preventing the man
from fixing that terrible gaze of his on the boy’s eye. Several times
the look which the fakir gave them told that he was angry enough to
almost start to using the whip which somehow he still kept in his hand;
but thinking better of it he wisely refrained from active measures.
It might be the sight of Billy’s swinging stick that deterred him. Then
again he may have determined to bide his time and put into operation a
little scheme that had occurred to him along the very lines Hugh had
considered.
These boys were in their home town, while he was a stranger there, and
known as a fakir at that. He could not count on any sympathy in case of
an open rupture at the station. There was even a strong possibility that
he might be roughly handled in the bargain by the gathered throng.
The ringing of the engine bell as the train came into the station
announced to the hurrying crowd that it was time to get aboard.
“I wish this was my train,” Hugh heard the boy say, as though he had
begun to fear the long delay, with that man hovering so close, bent,
too, on once more regaining control over his will.
“Never mind, it will come along inside of twenty minutes,” said the
scout master. “In the meantime we’ll try to fix him so he can’t bother
you. Just keep a stiff upper lip, Cale, and everything is going to come
out right.”
“Oh, I hope so, I hope so!” the anxious boy was saying to himself, as he
clasped and unclasped his hands.
“Better step inside here, fellows, and let those passengers go by,”
suggested Jack Durham at this juncture.
A number of travelers had left the cars, and were making their way as
best they could through the crowd, heading in the direction of the
station building further along the platform.
The confusion was at its height, with the engine letting off surplus
steam with a hissing sound that prevented conversation to a great
extent. Hugh, still guarding the rescued Cale, turned to glance at the
newcomers. He supposed, of course, that for the most part they would be
relatives of the town people, coming to have a look at the County Fair
before it closed its gates on Saturday afternoon.
A voice at his elbow startled Hugh; it was Walter crying out excitedly.
“Oh! that must be Uncle Reuben and Aunt Ruth! Why, I’d almost forgotten
they were coming on this train. Hold on here! Hugh, stop him, can’t you;
he’s trying to break away from us! Here, Cale, what ails you?”