“But do you reckon you’d ever be able to recognize this man if you set eyes on him again, Thad?” asked Bumpus, at this juncture.
“I am sure I would,” came the positive reply; “because he couldn’t have changed so much, only to look older. I’d never forget those snapping black eyes, and the straight nose, as well as the firm mouth. As I remember him, Felix wasn’t as cruel as he looked, but his temper often made him do things that perhaps he was sorry for afterwards, though he had a terribly stubborn disposition, and once started on a thing would carry it through, regardless of every consideration.”
“Did you ever hear of him after he was in New Orleans?” asked Allan, from the other canoe close by.
“I believe he prospered there for several years,” said Thad; “and then got into some sort of trouble. This same gentleman who wrote Daddy lately, used to keep him informed as to what Felix was doing, because somehow my uncle always believed that sooner or later something would be heard about my little sister through that man. Then came this letter stating that he had been seen near Alligator Swamp, and a girl in his company who might be some eleven years old; just what the age of Pauline must be if she is alive.”
“But when he was in New Orleans didn’t he have the girl with him?” demanded Giraffe, who was generally pretty keen when it came to asking questions.
“No, but then the chances were that he knew he was being kept under observation, and that at the time he was smart enough to have her at some other place. He did marry while in the city, but there were no children, and his wife left him, so we were told by the one who had been employed to keep tabs on the man, perhaps on account of his villainous temper.”
“Then you imagine that after he had to clear out from the city and hide, because of some crime he had done, this Felix Jasper may have gone and gotten the little girl, so that he would have company in his exile—is that it, Thad?” questioned Smithy, who had once known of a case something like that of the other, and could sympathize with his chum.
“That’s what I’m hoping, and what seemed to strike Daddy as perhaps the truth,” replied the other. “But if we have any decent kind of luck I’ll know more about it all before we start back home to Cranford again; because I’m determined to comb this old swamp through and through, asking every one I meet, to get pointers until I run across the man who was seen with a little girl. And if it turns out that after all he isn’t Felix, I’ll be feeling pretty sick, let me tell you. But something seems to keep telling me here,” and he laid a trembling hand in the region of his heart, “that there’s glorious news waiting for me; and every night I lie down I just pray with all my soul that it’s going to turn out that way.”
“So do we all, Thad, don’t we, fellows?” exclaimed Bumpus, soberly; and there was not one among the other six but who instantly expressed himself in the affirmative.
Thad quickly changed the subject, for he was feeling very much excited and shaken because of the sad memories recalled by his talk; and the other scouts, realizing that he did not wish to continue along those lines, readily fell in with his wishes in the matter.