VI.
True to his promise, before the first cock had sounded the approaching morn on that late October night, Alec reined up at the Aughfeultwangher, and Mr. Young, alighting, rapped at the door, and all questions being satisfactorily answered, Jack was admitted, and the carriage rolled rapidly down to the little village at the foot of Conneaut lake, and at the hotel breakfast was ordered for men and beasts.
Having washed themselves, they were waiting the progress of culinary processes in the kitchen, meanwhile regaling themselves by reading the hand-bill advertising Jack, which was conspicuously posted in the bar-room, when two horsemen, one a constable from Mercer county, rode up and also ordered breakfast and feed for their horses.
The constable and Mr. Young readily recognized each other, and though no word was passed it was evident to each that his business was understood by his neighbor, hence the breakfast passed in silence, and when his bill was settled, the carriage of the ex-Virginian took a homeward direction.
No sooner was it gone than the constable remarked to Boniface, “I have been after that turnout all night. When it started there was a passenger in it, answering to that bill there.”
“You’ve been making the old fellow a close call,” said the landlord, “but you’ll find him a hard one to handle.”
“Yes; but if I could catch the nigger, the $500 wouldn’t come bad. We have been close on his track for several days. We know he was at Young’s last night but where in the d—— he is now is the question.”
“Dropped somewhere, likely.”
“Yes, dropped. Old Alec was too much for us, and we lost the trail. From which direction did they come?”
“From towards Meadville.”
“Do you know any station that he could have touched?”
“No, unless Aughfeultwangher’s.”
“Awfultricker’s! ha! ha! Upon my life that is a bright idea. Why the old woman would make even Young think the day of judgment had come if he were to bring a nigger to her home.”
“So I would have thought once, and so I am disposed to think now, but I have sometimes thought his bland manners have overcome her Democracy and that somewhere about the premises there is a station; yet ’tis all guess work with me. I give you the information; if you, gentlemen, can make $500 out of it, you are welcome to the fee.”
After a short consultation between the constable and the stranger, a regular catcher who had undertaken to capture Jack, they ordered their horses and were off towards the Aughfeultwangher.