HOW IT HAPPENED
When the terrific roar of waters reached the ears of the three Piketon
Rangers in their tent, McGovern and Wagstaff started at headlong speed
up the right side of the valley toward higher ground, the former
succeeding in saving himself with the help of Dick Halliard, while the
latter lost his life.
Bob Budd turned the opposite way, impelled only by the wild desire to
escape, with little hope of doing so. But fortune was kinder to him
than to his companions. Had they followed his footsteps they would
have been saved with little difficulty, for the ground on that side
was not only freer from undergrowth, but rose so much more rapidly
than that on the opposite slope that his efforts kept him ahead of the
torrent, and he struck the level ground where it was untouched by the
flood.
But Bob was in a panic, and instead of waiting to see how his friends
made out, he broke into a run that was never stopped until, panting
and tired, he could barely stand. He was near his own home, and sat
down to reflect upon the situation.
He was clear of one danger, but he believed he was in another equally
to be dreaded. In fact, although he repressed all signs of the
agitation at the time, he was as uncomfortable as can be imagined
while talking with his companions before the giving way of the
mill-dam.
He believed that Dick Halliard was sure to make known his attack on
him. It was so flagrant in its nature that imprisonment was
inevitable, for when he came to think over the matter he lost his
faith in a triumphant alibi. He knew that Dick Halliard’s simple
assertion would outweigh all the perjuries he and his companions could
utter.
It was a fearful prospect, and Bob felt he could not face it. There
was but one escape that presented itself—that was flight.
Everything pointed to this as a successful recourse. The people would
believe he was drowned in the flood, as he believed Wagstaff and
McGovern had already been, and therefore they would not dream of
looking elsewhere. If he could get out of the neighborhood without
being recognized he would be safe.
He resolved to do so. Knowing that his uncle was absent, he managed to
climb into the rear of his own home without discovery. Making his way
to his room without disturbing any one, he changed his clothing,
putting on a slouch hat, which could be pulled down over his face so
as to hide most of his features. Then, drawing up the collar of his
coat, he sneaked out again by the way he had entered without his
presence having been suspected by his aunt or any of the servants.
Bob always had abundance of money at command, so no inconvenience was
likely to result from lack of funds. It was three miles to the nearest
railroad station, but the walk was not a trying one on this cool night
in autumn, and he easily made it.
Luck was certainly with the young scapegrace on that eventful evening.
The hour was so late that he encountered only one person on the road.
He was an old farmer, so tipsy that he would not have recognized his
own mother in broad daylight. He paid no attention to the solitary
figure on the highway, with his slouch hat drawn far down over his
face and his collar about his ears, as though it were midwinter.
Reaching the station just as the night express was starting, he leaped
upon the rear platform without stopping to purchase a ticket, and thus
escaped another danger of recognition. He saw no one in the car that
he knew, and the conductor who collected his fare was also a stranger.
Thus Bob succeeded in getting away from Piketon without a living
person suspecting the fact.
Arriving in the metropolis he went to the Astor House, where he
registered under an assumed name. He had been in New York before, and
breathed somewhat freely, believing that the great city offered better
facilities for concealment from the authorities than can be found in
the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains.
Conscience makes cowards of us all, and Bob could never feel perfectly
secure. He feared every stranger whom he encountered on the streets
and who looked sharply at him was an officer that suspected his
identity and was meditating his arrest.
Even when he read in the papers the account of the disaster at
Piketon, and saw the name of Wagstaff and himself as the two worthy
young men that were drowned, he failed to obtain the consolation that
might have been expected. He was known to a good many in New York, and
feared he could not keep his secret much longer.
In this distressful state he dispatched a messenger boy to the home of
Jim McGovern, with the request that he would come to a certain room at
the Astor House to meet a person on important business. Bob did not
send a note or give his name, so that when the wondering Jim presented
himself at the famous hostelry, it was without the remotest suspicion
of whom he was to meet.
Possibly the amazement of McGovern may be imagined when he stood in
the presence of the former captain of the Piketon Rangers and listened
to his story.
“I have a great mind to sail for Europe,” he said, after making the
facts known.
“And why?”
“Because I’ll never be safe as long as I’m on this side of the
Atlantic; my attack on Dick Halliard will send me to prison for twenty
years.”
The frightened Bob now gave Jim a truthful account of his stopping
young Halliard on the highway and shooting at him.
“Have you told your uncle and aunt that you are here?” asked McGovern,
without referring to the incident, which, of course, he heard for the
first time.
“Gracious, no!” replied the startled Bob; “I wouldn’t do it for the
world.”
“Don’t you think you can trust them?”
“I know they would do anything for me, but it is too risky; they would
be sure to drop some hint that would let the cat out of the bag.”
“You needn’t be afraid of that; haven’t you reflected, Bob, how
distressed they are over your supposed death?”
“Yes, that is so, but I don’t know how it can be helped; you see how I
am fixed.”
“You are mistaken, and before I can agree to stand by you I must
insist that you write a letter to your uncle, Captain Jim, and let
him know that the thousand dollars he has offered for the recovery of
your body is safe. You can ask that until he hears from you again he
and Aunt Ruth shall let no one one suspect you are alive. You know he
believes in you, and you have only to say that you have important
reasons for the request, and they will be sure to respect it.”
“I wish I could feel as certain about that as you do,” said Bob, who
was made uncomfortable by the words of his friend.
“I am certain, and I can’t feel much sympathy for you as long as you
show yourself indifferent to the feelings of your best friends.”
“That’s queer talk for you, Jim; you didn’t think much about the
feelings of your folks when you and Tom run away from home.”
“I trust I am a different person from what I was then,” said Jim, his
face flushing.
Bob looked at him curiously, but did not speak the thought which came
into his mind at that moment.
“Well,” said he, with a sigh, “if you insist so strongly, why, I’ll do
it.”
“When?”
“In the course of a day or two.”
“I want you to do it _now_, while I am in this room.”
“But where’s the hurry, Jim?” asked Bob, impatiently; “I don’t see why
things need be rushed in the style you want.”
“Do it to oblige me, Bob, and then I have something to say to you
which is of importance and which will please you.”
“Let me hear it now,” said Bob, brightening up with expectancy.
“You sha’n’t hear a word till after the letter is written.”
The task was distasteful to young Budd, and he held off for awhile
longer, but Jim would not let up. He was determined that the letter
should be written in his presence and before he went away.
Seeing there was no escape, Bob turned to the stand containing writing
material, and addressed a brief note to his uncle, giving him the
important information that he had not suffered the slightest
inconvenience from the flood that drowned one of his companions and
came mighty near carrying off the other.
The main portion of the letter was taken up with an emphatic request
of his uncle and aunt not to give the slightest hint of what they had
learned until they heard further from him.
This letter was sealed and directed.
“Let me have it,” said Jim.
“What for?”
“I will drop it in the letter box as I go out.”
“Well, you beat the bugs,” laughed Bob, passing the missive over to
him; “now, what have you to tell me?”
It may be added that Bob Budd’s letter promptly reached the astounded
Captain, who found it hard to keep the joyful news to himself, but he
managed to do so, as did his wife, who went into hysterics when the
news was first broken to her.
But, as a means of averting suspicion, the Captain immediately doubled
the reward offered for the recovery of the body of his nephew. He
smiled grimly as he did so, and looked upon the matter as a capital
joke; but then some people do entertain peculiar ideas as to what
constitutes a joke.