A NARROW ESCAPE.
WALKING rapidly along the alley that ran behind his father’s garden Guy
climbed the fence, dropped down into a thicket of bushes, and stopped to
take a survey of the premises. There was no one in sight, and having
fully satisfied himself on this point he crept stealthily into the
carriage-house and up the stairs to his curiosity shop. Locking the door
behind him he took down from one of the nails a dilapidated valise,
which he had provided for this very occasion, and throwing open his
tool-chest began bundling his valuables into it with eager haste. He did
not forget anything, not even the rubber blanket, powder-horn, or rusty
butcher-knife. When the last article had been crowded into the valise he
closed it, and carrying it to the window that overlooked the garden
dropped it to the ground. Then he locked the door of the curiosity shop,
descended the stairs, and picking up the valise carried it to the lower
end of the garden and concealed it under a quince tree.
This much was done, but he had still another piece of work to perform,
and that took him into the house. He went to his mother’s room, and
after considerable fumbling in one of the bureau drawers took out
something wrapped up in a white paper, which, after he had examined it
to make sure that he had found what he wanted, he put it into his
pocket. Next he hurried to his own room to secure the buckskin purse
containing the fifteen dollars he had with so much difficulty scraped
together. This done, he selected from his abundant wardrobe a pair of
heavy boots, a shirt or two, a change of linen, a few pairs of
stockings, and a suit of his roughest and most durable clothing, all of
which he tied up in a handkerchief he had spread upon the floor. Once
during this operation he paused and looked with rather a longing eye
toward the pair of patent-leathers and the natty broadcloth suit he was
accustomed to wear on extra occasions, but, after a little reflection,
he decided to leave them behind, consoling himself with the thought that
in the country to which he was going buckskin was oftener seen than
broadcloth, and that fine boots and expensive clothing would not look
well on the person of a trapper.
Having tied his bundle he caught it up and ran out of the house. His
previous examination of the premises had satisfied him that the coast
was clear, so he did not take any pains to conceal his movements. He
went directly to the place where he had concealed his valise and spent
ten minutes trying to crowd some of the clothing into it; but it was
already so full that there was not room even for a pair of stockings,
and Guy found that he must either carry his bundle through the streets
wrapped up in his handkerchief or leave it behind. He decided on the
former course. Even trappers must have clothes, and he feared that those
he was then wearing might not hold together until he could capture and
cure a sufficient number of deer hides to make him a suit of buckskin.
Taking the valise in his left hand, and the bundle in his teeth, Guy
mounted to the top of the fence, and was on the very point of swinging
himself over, when happening to cast his eyes up the lane, whom should
he see approaching but Henry Stewart. He had come up just in time to
catch him in the act of running away from home.
So thought Guy, as he stood leaning on the top of the fence, growing
pale and red by turns, and utterly at a loss what to do. He was well
aware that the quick-witted Henry would know in a minute what was going
on; he could not well help it if he made any use of his eyes, for there
was the evidence of Guy’s guilt in the shape of his valise and bundle in
plain sight. What would Henry think of him for breaking the solemn
promise he had made the evening before—and more than that, what would he
_do_? But, unfortunately for our hero, Henry not being as wide-awake as
he usually was, did not see him. I say unfortunately, because had Henry
received the least intimation of what was going on, he would have saved
his friend many an hour of misery and remorse. He walked along,
whistling merrily, as though he felt at peace with himself and all the
world, carrying in one hand his jointed fish-pole, stowed away in a neat
bag of drilling, and in the other a fine string of rock bass; and so
completely was his mind occupied with thoughts of the splendid sport he
had enjoyed on the pier that he had neither eyes nor ears for what was
going on near him.
Guy saw that he had a chance to save himself, and he lost not an instant
in taking advantage of it. As quick as a flash he dropped his burdens
behind the fence, and in a moment more would have been out of sight
himself had not the noise the heavy valise made in falling through the
branches of a quince tree in the garden aroused Henry from his reverie.
He looked up just in time to see Guy’s head disappearing behind the
fence.
“Aha!” he exclaimed, “I saw you, old fellow. What are you about there?”
Guy, finding that he was discovered, straightened up and looked over the
top of the fence again. “Halloo, Hank,” said he, with an attempt to
appear as cordial and friendly as usual.
“What’s going on in here?” asked Henry, walking up close to the fence
and peeping through one of the cracks. “I heard something drop.”
“It was my ball club,” replied Guy, who could swallow a lie as easily as
if it had been a strawberry. “I was about to toss it toward you to
attract your attention, when it slipped out of my hand.”
“Oh,” said Henry. “But what’s the matter with you? Your face is as white
as a sheet. Are you ill?”
“No, only mad because father wouldn’t let me go fishing this morning. I
wish you would pass on and attend to your business,” added Guy mentally.
“I am in an awful hurry.”
“I am sorry you couldn’t go, for we had the best of sport,” said Henry.
Then he exhibited his string of fish, and went on to tell who were on
the pier, and what success each one had met with—how he had struck a
splendid black bass, and after an exciting struggle had almost landed
him, when his line broke and the fish took himself off; how Charley
Root, one of their school-mates, hooked on to a yellow pike that he
ought to have lost, he handled him so awkwardly, but which, by the
united efforts of all the men and boys on the pier, was safely landed at
last, and when placed on the scales pulled down the beam at nine pounds
and a quarter—of all of which Guy scarcely heard a dozen words, although
under any other circumstances he would have listened with all his ears.
“As you must be lonely, I’ll come in and visit with you a while,” added
Henry.
“I wish you could,” answered Guy, “but father told me before he went
away to bring no one in the yard.”
“Then suppose you come over and see me.”
“I can’t. I have orders not to go outside the gate to-day.”
“Have you finished reading the ‘Boy Trappers?’ If you have, I’ll lend
you another book.”
“No, I am not yet done with it. Perhaps I will spend an hour or two with
you this evening, after the folks come home.”
“I wish you would. You know we want to talk about something. Good-by.”
“Farewell—a long farewell,” said Guy to himself as his friend moved
away. “You’ll never see me again or the ‘Boy Trappers’ either, for I’ve
got it safely stowed away in my valise. I need it more than you do, and
you’ve so many you won’t miss it. But didn’t I come near being caught,
though?” he added, drawing a long breath as he thought of his very
narrow escape. “In half a second more I’d have been over the fence and
into a scrape that I could not possibly have lied out of. But what’s the
odds? A miss is as good as a mile.”
Guy remained standing on the fence for ten minutes—long enough to allow
Henry time to reach home and go into the house—and then jumped down into
the garden after his valise and bundle. This time he succeeded in
scaling the fence without being seen by anybody, and with a few rapid
steps reached the corner of the block, where he stopped to take a last
look at his home. He ran his eye quickly over its familiar surroundings,
and without a single feeling of regret turned his back upon it and
hurried away. A walk of fifteen minutes brought him to the corner above
his father’s store, where he found Bob waiting for him. The latter had a
well-filled valise in his hand, and was as cool and careless as ever. He
peered sharply into Guy’s face as he came up and seemed satisfied with
what he saw there.
“You look better than you did the last time I saw you,” said he. “Have
you got it?”
Guy replied in the affirmative.
“Father hasn’t left the store yet,” continued Bob, “so we’ll have plenty
of time to go down to the dock and engage passage on a propeller. The
Queen of the Lakes sails to-night, and we’ll go on her.”
“All right,” said Guy with a show of eagerness he was very far from
feeling.
“We’ll have to leave our luggage somewhere, for when we get our guns and
other things we’ll have as much as we can carry, and we might as well
leave it on board the steamer as anywhere else. We mus’n’t be seen
together with these valises in our hands, or somebody will suspect
something, so you had better go back and go down Elm Street and I’ll go
down Ninth. We’ll meet at the foot of Portage Street, where the Queen of
the Lakes lies.”
The two boys separated and pursued their different routes toward the
dock. Guy reached it ten minutes in advance of his companion, and the
first vessel he saw was the propeller of which he was in search. Her
name was painted in large letters on her bow, and over her rail was
suspended a card bearing the words, “This steamer for Chicago to-night.”
Her crew were engaged in rolling barrels and hogsheads up the
gang-planks, and Guy, watching his opportunity, dodged in and ascended
the stairs that led to the cabin.
“Now, then,” exclaimed a flashily-dressed young man, who met him at the
top and looked rather suspiciously at the bundles Guy deposited on the
floor of the cabin, “what can I do for you?”
“Are you the steward?” asked the boy.
“I have the honor.”
“I want to go to Chicago on this boat.”
“Who are you, where do you live, and what is your name?” demanded the
steward with another sidelong glance at Guy’s luggage.
The boy noticed the look, and took his cue from it.
“My name is John Thomas,” said he, “and I used to live in Syracuse, but
I am going West now to find my uncle.”
“Where does your father live, and what business does he follow?”
“I haven’t got any father or mother either. I am alone in the world.”
The man’s face softened instantly. The next words he uttered were spoken
in a much kinder tone.
“The fare will be eight dollars,” said he.
“I had thought of taking steerage passage,” returned Guy. “Money is not
as plenty with me as it is with some folks.”
“Then you can go for five dollars. Step this way.”
Guy picked up his valise and bundle and followed the steward, who led
the way along the deck toward the forward part of the vessel, finally
turning into an apartment which looked very unlike the neatly furnished
cabin they had just left. The floor was destitute of a carpet, and the
rough bunks that were fitted up against the bulk-heads looked anything
but inviting. Chests, bundles, and bed-clothes were scattered about, and
in one corner were congregated a dozen or more persons of both sexes,
who were eating bread and bologna and talking loudly.
Guy looked askance at them, and more than half made up his mind that he
wouldn’t take passage in the steerage. He didn’t like the idea of being
obliged to keep such company for a journey of seven hundred miles.
“You may take this bunk,” said the steward, pointing out the one he
wished Guy to occupy.
“Where are the bed-clothes?” asked the boy.
“We don’t furnish them to steerage passengers. Every man finds his own.”
“But I haven’t got any,” said Guy, “and I can’t sleep on those hard
boards. I think I had better wait a while. I have a friend, Ned Wheeler,
who is going with me, and perhaps he will decide to take a cabin
passage.”
The steward, not deeming any reply necessary, turned on his heel and
walked out, leaving Guy alone with the emigrants. He did not know that
it would be quite safe to leave his luggage there with no one to watch
it, but after a little hesitation he decided to run the risk; and,
pitching his valise and bundle into the bunk the steward had pointed out
to him, he hurried below to watch for his expected companion. He wanted
to post him. In a few minutes Bob made his appearance.
“Look here,” said Guy, as he ran to meet him, “your name isn’t Bob
Walker any longer—at least while we remain on board this propeller.”
“I understand,” said Bob. “Let me see; I’ll call myself——”
“I have told the steward that your name is Ned Wheeler, and that my name
is John Thomas.”
“It seems to me that you might have found better ones if you had tried.”
“No matter; they will answer our purpose as well as any others. You see
our names will have to go into the passenger list, and if our fathers
should suspect that we have gone up the lakes, they would have no
difficulty in tracing us as far as Chicago, if we gave our true names.”
“I understand,” said Bob again. “Have you picked out a berth yet?”
“No; but I have seen the steerage, and it is a horrible-looking place.
Come on; I’ll show it to you.”
Bob was not very favorably impressed with the appearance of things in
the steerage. He looked at the dingy deck, the empty bunks, the ragged,
dirty group in the corner, and stepped back and shook his head.
“I can’t go this, Guy,” said he. “I have been used to better things. Get
your bundles, and we’ll take cabin passage. We shall have money enough
to pay for it.”
The steward being hunted up, showed the boys to a state-room in the
cabin, in which they deposited their luggage, after which they hurried
ashore to carry out their plans.
Now came the hardest part of the work, and Guy would have been glad to
shirk it, could it have been accomplished without his assistance.
It was dangerous as well as difficult, and there was dishonor connected
with it. More than that—and this was what troubled Guy the most—there
was a possibility that the crime they intended to commit, even if they
were successful in it, would be discovered before they could leave the
city, and then what would become of them?
While Guy was thinking about it, they arrived within sight of his
father’s dry-goods store.
“Now, then,” said Bob, giving him an encouraging slap on the back, “keep
a stiff upper lip, and remember that everything depends upon you. Do
your part faithfully, and I’ll do mine.”
With a beating heart Guy walked into the store, and, stopping before the
counter, drew a small package from his pocket. He tried to look
unconcerned, but he trembled violently, and his face was white with
excitement and apprehension.
The clerk who stepped up to attend to his wants stared at him in
astonishment.
“What’s the matter, Guy?” he inquired.
“Nothing—nothing whatever, Mr. Fellows. What made you ask?”
“Why, you look as though you had been sick for a week. And see how your
hand shakes.”
“Well, I don’t feel remarkably lively for some cause or other, that’s a
fact,” returned Guy. “Mother sent me down here to see if you could match
this piece of silk,” he continued, unfolding the package and displaying
its contents.
“No, I cannot,” answered the clerk, and Guy knew very well what he was
going to say before the words left his lips. “I told Mrs. Harris the
last time she was in that our new stock would not arrive before Monday.”
“Mother is in a great hurry and can’t wait a day longer. Can’t you send
out to some other store?”
“Certainly,” said the clerk, taking a pair of scissors from his pocket
and cutting the silk in twain. “Here, Thompson, take this up to Kenton’s
and see if they can match it; and, Jones, you take this piece and go
over to Sherman’s.”
When Guy had seen the two clerks depart on their errand he drew a long
breath of relief. A part of his work was accomplished, and it had been,
too, just as he and Bob had planned it. The next thing was to keep Mr.
Fellow’s employed in the front part of the store for a few minutes
longer.
“Won’t you be kind enough to look over your stock again?” said Guy.
“Mother is positive there is a remnant of that silk somewhere in the
store.”
“I’ll do it, of course, to please her,” replied the clerk, “but I know I
sha’n’t find it. Ah! Here’s Mr. Walker. Perhaps he knows something about
it.”
At the mention of that name Guy started as if he had been shot. Bob’s
father was the very man of all others he did not want to see just then,
for he belonged in the back of the store, and Bob was there. Guy had a
presentiment that something disagreeable was about to happen.
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