HOW WILSON ESCAPED.
Bayard and his cousins squeezed themselves through the hole in the
door, one after the other, all of them revolving in their minds some
tantalizing remarks they intended to address to Chase and Wilson when
they saw them; and the surprise and bewilderment they exhibited when
they found the room empty, were quite equal to Pierre’s. The latter,
after looking all about the apartment to make sure that the boys were not
there, lighted a candle, threw open the trap-door, and dived into the
cellar, where he spent some time in overturning the boxes and barrels
that were stowed around the walls; and when he came out again the
expression his face wore was a sufficient indication that his search had
been fruitless.
“Now, see here,” said he, looking savagely at Bayard; “what sort of a
story is this you have been telling me?”
“I told you the truth,” replied the boy, retreating hastily toward the
door as Pierre advanced upon him. “Wilson was certainly in this room,
because we all saw him when he made an attempt to climb out of that hole
in the loft. Look around a little. He’s here, I know he is.”
Pierre, who believed that Bayard was trying to mislead him for some
purpose of his own, and who had been on the point of giving him a good
shaking with a view of forcing the real facts of the case out of him,
looked toward the other boys for a confirmation of this story. Seth
and Will loudly protested that their cousin had told the truth, and
nothing but the truth, and Pierre, being in some measure convinced by
their earnestness, lifted the table from the floor, and after pushing
it against the wall to enable it to retain an upright position, placed
his candle upon it, and set to work to give the apartment a thorough
overhauling.
“If they were in the room when I reached the house, they must be here
now,” said he, “for there is no way for them to get out except through
the door and that hole in the loft. Move everything, and we’ll find them.”
Suiting the action to the word, Pierre seized one of the beds, and
pulled it into the middle of the floor, and there, snugly hidden behind a
pile of saddles, old blankets, boots, hats, boxes, and a variety of other
articles that had been thrown under the couch for safekeeping, was Henry
Chase. Pierre had looked under that same bed when he first came in; but
as it was dark in the room—there being no windows in the house—and his
examination had been hastily made, Chase had escaped his observation.
“Here’s one of them!” exclaimed Pierre, seizing the fugitive by the
collar and lifting him to his feet.
“What did we tell you?” cried Bayard. “Are you satisfied now that we knew
what we were talking about?”
“Where’s the other fellow—what’s his name?” demanded Pierre.
“Wilson,” suggested Seth.
“I’m sure I don’t know where he is,” answered Chase, and he told the
truth. Just before he dived under the bed, he saw Wilson running
frantically about the room as if he did not know which way to turn, but
where he went, Chase had not the remotest idea. “And if I did know I
wouldn’t tell you,” he added, boldly.
“You _do_ know,” exclaimed Bayard. “He was in this room with you not five
minutes ago.”
“I don’t deny that, but still I don’t know where he is. O, you may strike
me, if you feel so inclined,” added Chase, as Pierre drew back his
clenched hand, “but I can’t tell you a thing I don’t know, can I?”
“Bring me something to tie him with,” said Pierre, turning to Bayard;
“one of those bridles will do. We’ll make sure of him, now that we have
got him, and then look for the other.”
Bayard brought the bridle with alacrity, and even assisted in confining
Chase’s arms, the latter submitting to the operation without even a show
of resistance. Pierre used more than usual care in making the straps
fast, and when he had bound the boy so tightly that he could scarcely
move a finger, he pulled a chair into the middle of the room and pushed
him into it. His short experience with his prisoner had convinced him
that he was a very slippery fellow, and he thought it best to have him
where he could keep his eyes upon him.
As soon as Chase had been disposed of, the search for Wilson was
renewed, Bayard and his cousins lending willing aid. They began by
examining every nook and corner of the cellar, and not finding him there,
they returned to the room above and pulled the beds to pieces, explored
the loft, and looked into all sorts of impossible places, even peering
under chairs, and taking out the bureau drawers; and finally, one after
another, they made a journey to the fire-place and looked up the chimney.
But they could see nothing there. There was a fire on the hearth, and
the smoke ascended in such volumes that it speedily filled their eyes
and nostrils, and they were glad to draw back into the room for a breath
of fresh air. Chase sat in his chair watching all their movements with
the deepest interest. His friend’s sudden and mysterious disappearance
astonished and perplexed him as much as it did anybody; but he exulted
over it, while Pierre and his young assistants seemed to be very much
dismayed, especially the former. After the house had been thoroughly
searched (even the apartment across the hall was examined, although
there was not the least probability that Wilson could have got into
it), Pierre walked once or twice across the room, and then taking down
a hunting-horn from its nail over the fire-place, went to the door and
blew it as if he meant that it should be heard by everybody for ten miles
around. When he came back he addressed himself rather sternly to Bayard.
“Now, then, clear out,” said he. “Be off at once, and never let me see
your face again.”
“What are you going to do with Chase, and what were you blowing that horn
for?” asked Bayard, who thought it might be policy to learn something of
Pierre’s plans before he left him.
“That’s my own business,” was the gruff reply. “Do you see that hole in
the wall? It was left there for folks to go out of, and I advise you to
make use of it.”
Pierre pointed toward the door, and Bayard, judging by the expression
of his countenance that it would be a dangerous piece of business to
irritate him by refusing to comply with his wishes, sprang out into the
hall, followed by his cousins.
“That’s the return we get for doing him a favor,” said he, as he led the
way toward the place where their horses were tied. “However, I don’t mind
it much, for Chase is captured again, and if we can only secure Wilson
we are all right. As he is not in the house, it follows as a thing of
course that he must be out of it; although how he got out is a mystery to
me. He has taken to the woods, most likely, and if we start after him at
once we can catch him.”
Bayard and his cousins mounted their horses and rode off at a gallop.
Pierre watched them until they were out of sight, and then went into the
house and renewed his search for Wilson, which he kept up until he was
interrupted by a hasty step in the hall, and Coulte appeared and looked
through the broken door. He had heard the sound of the hunting-horn, and
knowing from the peculiar manner in which it was blown, that there was
something unusual going on at the house, he had hurried back to see what
was the matter. A single glance at the inside of the room and at his
son’s face, was enough to tell him that the latter had some exciting news
to communicate.
“Oh! Whew! Somedings is going wrong again!” he exclaimed, in a frightened
tone.
Pierre replied that there were a good many things going wrong, and in a
few hurried words made him acquainted with all that had happened in the
house during the last fifteen minutes, adding a piece of information and
prediction that greatly alarmed Coulte, namely: that Wilson had again
escaped, and that in less than an hour he would return to the clearing
with an army of settlers at his heels. The old Frenchman listened eagerly
to his son’s story, only interrupting him with long-drawn whistles, which
were loud and frequent, and when it was finished declared that it was
necessary to make a change in their plans—that, instead of waiting until
night to begin the voyage to Lost Island, they must begin it at once.
They would sail down the bayou into the swamp, conceal themselves there
until dark, and then continue their journey. What they would do after
they had disposed of their prisoner, Coulte said he did not know; but
of one thing he was satisfied, and that was, that they could not return
to the settlement to sell their property, as they had intended to do.
They had worked hard for it, but they must give it up now, for it would
probably be confiscated when the authorities learned that he and his sons
belonged to the smugglers. This thought seemed to drive the old Frenchman
to the verge of distraction. He paced up and down the floor with his
beloved pipe tightly clenched between his teeth, swinging his arms wildly
about his head, talking loudly, sometimes in English and sometimes
in French, and declaring, over and over again, that this was the most
magnificent scrape he had ever got into.
“Well, I can’t help it,” grumbled Pierre. “You know that I didn’t want
to have anything to do with it in the first place. I told you just how
it would end, and now there is no use in wasting words over it. Let’s be
moving, for as long as we stay here we’re in danger.”
Pierre bustled out of the room, and presently returned with an axe, a
side of meat, a small bag of corn-meal, and a couple of old blankets,
which he deposited in the hall. He then approached the prisoner and
remarked, as he began untying his arms—
“As those things are intended for you, you can take them down to the boat
yourself. Have you a flint and steel?”
“I have,” replied Chase. “Is that all you are going to give me for an
outfit?”
“Of course, and you may be glad to get it, too. What more do you want?
There’s grub enough to last you a week, blankets to keep you warm of
nights, and an axe to build your camp and cut fire-wood.”
“Why, I want a gun and some ammunition. How am I going to get anything to
eat after that bread and meat are gone?”
“Trap it, that’s the way. Your own gun is on board the schooner; we’ve
got none here to give you, and besides, you don’t need one, and shan’t
have it. Shoulder those things and come along; and mind you, now, no
tricks.”
Chase picked up his outfit and followed his captors, who, after loading
themselves with various articles, which they thought they might need
during the voyage, led the way across the clearing at a rapid walk,
keeping a bright lookout on all sides to make sure that there was no one
observing their movements.
About ten minutes after they left the house, an incident happened there
that would have greatly astonished Pierre and his father, could they have
witnessed it. At one side of the room in which happened the events that
we have just attempted to describe, was an immense fire-place. The lower
part of it was built of logs and lined with mud, which had been baked
until it was as hard as a rock. The upper part—that is, the chimney—was
built of sticks, and was also plastered with mud, both inside and out.
As the chimney had been standing nearly ten years it was in a very
dilapidated state, and leaned away from the house as though it meant to
fall over every moment. Near the top were several holes which had been
made by the sticks burning out and falling into the fire-place; and had
Coulte and his son thought to look up at the chimney when they left the
house, they would have found that some of these holes were filled with
objects they had never seen there before. One of them looked very much
like the toe of a heavy boot; and at another opening, about five feet
nearer the top, was something that might have been taken for a black hat
with three holes cut in it. But it was not a black hat; it was something
else.
Shortly after Chase and his captors had disappeared in the woods, this
dilapidated structure began to rock and groan in the most alarming
manner. Huge cakes of mud fell down into the fire, and had there been
any one in the room at the time he would have said that there was some
heavy body working its way down the chimney. Presently a pair of boots
appeared below the mouth of the fire-place, then a portion of a pair of
trowsers, next the skirts of an overcoat, and at last a human figure
dropped down among the smouldering coals, and with one jump reached the
middle of the floor, where it stood stamping its feet to shake off the
sparks of fire that clung to them, pounding its clothes, scattering a
cloud of soot about the room, and gasping for breath. It was Leonard
Wilson, but he did not look much like the neatly-dressed young fellow who
had entered that room but a short half-hour before.
When Wilson found that Pierre had returned, the first place he thought
of was the chimney, which he believed offered the best chances for
concealment. He did not like to enter it, for there was considerable wood
on the hearth; it was all in a blaze, and he was afraid to trust himself
among the flames; but when he heard the door groaning under the furious
blows of the axe, he knew that he had no alternative—he must brave the
flames or submit to capture. He saw Chase dive under the bed, and after
waiting a moment to screw up his courage, he bounded lightly across
the floor and sprang into the fire-place. He did not linger there an
instant—if he had, he must have been burned or suffocated, for the flames
leaped around his high top-boots, and the smoke ascended so thick and
fast that it was impossible to obtain even the smallest breath of air—but
mounted at once into the chimney, and placing his back against one side
and his knees against the other, quickly worked his way as near the top
as his broad shoulders would allow him to go. As it happened there were
two holes about half way up the chimney, which were just large enough to
admit the toes of his boots; and by forcing a foot into each, and placing
his face to another opening nearer the top, he was able to hold his
position without the outlay of a great deal of strength, and to obtain
all the fresh air he needed. The flimsy old chimney swayed like a tree in
a gale of wind as he was ascending it, and threatened to topple over with
him every instant; but it maintained its upright position in spite of his
additional weight, and afforded him as perfect a concealment as he could
have asked for. But, for all that, he was glad when he saw Coulte and his
son disappear in the woods, and felt still more at his ease when he found
himself safe out of his smoky hiding-place, and standing in the middle
of the room.
“Another close shave,” panted Wilson, pulling out his handkerchief and
clearing his eyes of the dust and soot. “I put myself in danger for
nothing, for Chase is still a prisoner. I know what I shall do now: I’ll
go straight to Walter Gaylord and tell him everything that has happened.
Perhaps he won’t be very glad to see me after all the mean things I have
been guilty of, but I can’t help it.”
[Illustration: WILSON’S UNEXPECTED APPEARANCE.]
Wilson pulled off his overcoat and thumped it energetically, beat his
slouch hat on the table, wiped his face with his handkerchief, and having
thus made a little improvement in his personal appearance, he hurried out
into the hall to look for his gun, which he had laid at the foot of the
ladder before entering the room. He did not expect to recover it, and
consequently was not much disappointed when he found that it was gone.
Knowing that Coulte or Pierre had taken charge of the weapon, he did not
waste time in looking for it. He stopped long enough to shake his fist
at the woods where the two men had disappeared, and to utter the fervent
hope that the thief would be knocked heels overhead by the gun the first
time he fired it; and then jumping down the steps drew a bee-line across
the clearing toward the canebrake where he had left his horse. He carried
his coats on his arm, ready to drop them and put himself in light running
order in case he saw Pierre or Bayard Bell and his cousins approaching;
and not until he reached the cover of the woods did he regard his escape
as accomplished. He found the horses near the place where he had camped
the night before, and when he had saddled and bridled both of them, he
mounted his own steed and rode off at a gallop, followed by Chase’s nag,
which kept close behind. Taking the shortest course to Mr. Gaylord’s
house, which lay through the thickest part of the woods, he went at a
break-neck pace, leaping his horse over logs and fences, dashing through
thickets of briers and cane that seemed almost impassable, and came at
last to the bayou on the banks of which he had halted with his companions
the day before to eat his lunch. As he turned down the stream toward the
ford, his attention was attracted by a commotion in the bushes on the
opposite shore, and in a few seconds Walter Gaylord and Phil Perkins
dashed into view. They pulled up their horses when they discovered
Wilson, and after gazing at his black face and hands for a moment, Perk
called out:
“Now just listen to me and I’ll ask you a question; have you turned
chimney-sweep?”
“No,” replied Wilson. “I’ve been in a chimney; but I didn’t stop to
sweep it out. I’d like to talk to you fellows a few minutes.” He had
been impatient to find Walter and his friends, but now that he was in
their presence he wished that the interview might have been postponed a
little longer. He did not feel at all uneasy concerning the reception
he was likely to meet at their hands, for he knew that they were young
gentlemen, and above taking a cowardly revenge on any one; but he was
ashamed of the manner in which he had conducted himself toward them, and
did not want to be obliged to look them in the face.
“Well, here we are,” replied Walter. “What have you got to tell us? Have
you seen anything of Featherweight?”
“No—that is—yes; I have heard of him. I have a long story to tell you,
and there are some things in it that will astonish you. I hope you don’t
bear me any ill will for what happened yesterday, and for the other mean
tricks I have done you?”
“No, we don’t,” replied Walter readily.
“Now I’ll just tell you what’s a fact,” chimed in Perk; “we’ve got
nothing against you or any of your crowd; and if you will only be
friendly with us, we’ll meet your advances half way.”
The boys turned their horses’ heads down the stream, and when they
reached the ford Walter and Perk crossed over to Wilson’s side, and, to
show that they meant all they had said, shook hands with him as heartily
as though they had always been on the most friendly terms. Their manner
put Wilson at his ease at once; and without any preliminary words he
began and told the story of the adventures that had befallen him during
the last twenty-four hours. To repeat what he said would be to write a
good portion of “THE SPORTSMAN’S CLUB IN THE SADDLE” over again. He did
not know where Featherweight was, for he had not seen him; and neither
could he tell what had happened to Chase, for during the short time
that they were besieged in Coulte’s house, he had not been allowed an
opportunity to talk to him; but he remembered the hint his companion had
given him of Featherweight’s condition, and repeated his words to Walter
and Perk.
“I have not the least idea where you ought to go to find Fred,” said
Wilson, in conclusion; “but this much I do know—that he is in a terrible
scrape, and that he is on board some vessel. Chase knows all about him,
for he has seen him and talked with him. Now, my advice, if you will
allow me to offer it, is this: assist me in rescuing Chase, and he will
tell you where to find Fred Craven; and, more than that, he and I will
stand by you through thick and thin, and do all we can to help you. What
do you say?”
Walter and Perk did not say anything immediately, for they were so
astonished at the story they had heard that it was a long time before
they could speak. They could hardly believe it possible that all the
events that Wilson had described had taken place in their immediate
neighborhood, and that, too, without their knowledge; and they would have
been still more amazed if they had known that only a part of the story
had been told them. What would they have thought if they had known that
Mr. Bell was the leader of the smugglers of whom Walter had read in the
paper the day before; that his vessel was hidden in a little cove not
more than two miles from the place where they were then standing; that
Featherweight was stowed away in the hold, waiting to be carried to Cuba;
and that when he arrived there he was to be shipped as a foremast hand on
board a strange vessel and sent off to Mexico?
“Isn’t it the strangest thing in the world that Chase should have been
mistaken for me?” cried Walter, as soon as he could speak. “Of course
we’ll stand by him. How shall we go to work? Suggest something, one of
you.”
“Now, just listen to me a minute and I’ll tell you what I would do,”
exclaimed Perk. “Wilson, you said that Coulte is going to take Chase down
the bayou in the pirogue, didn’t you? Well, let’s go home and get the
Banner, and be ready to catch him when he comes out.”
“Perhaps he wouldn’t stop when we told him to,” said Wilson.
“We’d make him. We’d run over the pirogue and sink her. He’d stop then,
wouldn’t he?”
“But we’d waste too much time in following that course,” said Walter.
“We’re six miles from home, and it would take two hours to go there and
get the Banner under way. By that time it would be pitch dark. It is
forty miles to the village, and ten more along the coast to the bayou, so
that we would have to run fifty miles while the pirogue was running about
one fifth as far. Another thing,” added Walter, looking up at the clouds,
“it’s going to be a bad night, and I don’t care to trust my yacht outside
in a gale.”
Walter was in earnest when he said this, and it would have been hard work
for any one to have made him believe that he was destined to spend, not
only the greater portion of that night, but the whole of the succeeding
week on the Gulf, while the wind was blowing, the sleet flying, and the
waves running as high as his mast-head. But he did it.
“I think the best plan would be,” he continued, “to ride at once for the
bayou and cut a tree across it—you know that the stream is very narrow
for a long distance above its mouth—so that Coulte can’t sail out with
the pirogue. If we can keep him in the swamp until morning, we can get
help and capture him. What do you think of that, Wilson?”
“I like your plan the best,” was the reply. “We need not go a step out
of our way for an axe, for we can get one at Coulte’s house.”
While the boys were discussing the matter, the clear, ringing blast of
a hunting-horn echoed through the woods. Perk sounded his own horn in
reply, and presently Eugene and Bab galloped up. Their appearance was
most opportune, and saved Walter the trouble of riding in search of them.
They were surprised to see Wilson—they were obliged to take two looks at
him before they recognised him—and Eugene at first scowled at him, and
acted very much as though he would like to settle up some of the little
accounts he held against him; but when Walter, after telling him that he
had brought news of Featherweight, repeated the story of his adventures,
and described the plan they had just decided upon, Eugene changed his
mind, and extended a most cordial greeting to Wilson, in which he was
joined by Bab.
Of course there were a thousand and one questions to be asked and
answered, and during the ride to the bayou the Club kept Wilson talking
continually. They compelled him to tell his story over and over again,
and each time expressed their astonishment and indignation in no measured
terms. They all gave it as their opinion that Featherweight had somehow
managed to fall into the hands of the smugglers, and that he was detained
by them: but, of course, they could not determine upon any plans for his
release until they knew where he was confined, and that could not be
ascertained until they had rescued Chase.
In half an hour the boys reached Coulte’s plantation, and after
reconnoitering the premises to make sure that none of the family had
returned, they dismounted in front of the porch and went into the house
to secure the axe, and to look at the room in which Chase and Wilson
had been besieged. Everything in and about the apartment—the shattered
door, the hole in the floor of the loft, the broken furniture, the empty
shelves in the cupboard, and the huge cakes of mud in the fire-place,
which Wilson had knocked off while he was coming out of the chimney, bore
testimony to the truthfulness of his story. The members of the Club were
interested in everything they saw, and would have overwhelmed Wilson with
questions, had not Walter reminded them that the longer they lingered,
the longer they would be separated from Featherweight. The mention of
the secretary’s name brought them to their saddles again; and in a few
minutes more they had left the old Frenchman’s house behind them, and
were galloping through the woods toward the bayou.