It gave Thad a strange thrill to hear this spoken; because had he not actually covered the identical ground himself when figuring out just how the man with the girl should be able to go and come with such little concern?
“Why,” he exclaimed, suddenly meaning to go further, and learn more, if possible; “seems to me we heard something about a strange white man who had been seen going into the swamp here, Mr. Sheriff; and perhaps now it may have been the same Jasper. But this party had a little girl about ten years old with him. Was the Jasper you wanted the father of such a child, sir?”
“He done told the kunnel that he had a daughter in a school in New Orleans; so p’raps now he went an’ took her out, so she could cook his meals fo’ him all the time he was ahidin’, till the trail got cold, an’ it was safe fo’ him to head no’th,” was what the sheriff told him.
Meanwhile Thad had been quickly figuring in his mind whether it would not be best for him to take the officer wholly into his confidence; and being a boy who could cut the Gordian knot, and decide quickly on his plan of campaign, he immediately settled this matter in the affirmative.
If the objective point of the sheriff’s posse was the retreat where Felix Jasper was supposed by Tom Smith to be hidden, how foolish it would be for them to try and attain their object while there was a rival expedition in the field that might in some way interfere with the successful carrying out of their plans.
Yes, far better to combine, and pool their issues. Besides, with such a formidable backing would not success be more apt to perch upon their banners than should they keep on trying it alone?
“I’m going to tell you something, Mr. Sheriff,” he said, hastily; “and while it may hold you up a few minutes, in the end you’ll admit that the time has been profitably spent; because we might as well join forces with you. Fact is, sir, we have come all the way down from the North in the hope of rounding up this same Jasper you’re looking for; because the girl he has with him, I have great reason to believe, is my own little sister, stolen away from my mother’s home years ago by a man named Felix Jasper, once from New Orleans, and who wanted to have revenge upon the Brewster family on account of some fancied wrong done him.”
Of course upon hearing this remarkable statement the sheriff no longer evinced a nervous desire to be on the go. He seemed to realize that his interests were bound up with those of the manly leader of the scouts, who had just thrilled him with so strange a story.
And as for his posse, they were crowding around so densely, anxious not to lose a single word of what was said, that, as Giraffe afterwards declared, they looked like “sardines packed in a can;” every face filled with eagerness, and many of them seeming hardly to breathe lest they lose some of the story.
Thad, knowing that now he had broken the ice it would be better to explain more fully, started in to tell how his guardian received the news, and could not himself undertake the long journey, but had readily agreed that the scouts should come, because they had shown themselves so capable on many other occasions.