Frank thought that Dorsett would actually leap upon him and strike him with the whip. The latter, however, with a hoarse growl in his throat, allowed Frank to proceed on his way unhindered.
“We shall hear from this of course—my mother and I,” said the youth to himself as he gained the street. “Mr. Dorsett will store this up against me, hard. All right—I’ve done my simple duty and I’ll stand by the results.”
A minute later, looking back the way he had come, Frank saw Dorsett come threshing out into the street. He kicked a dog out of his path, rudely jostled a pedestrian, jumped into the gig and went tearing down the homeward road plying the whip and venting his cruel rage on the poor animal in the shafts.
Frank started back towards Greenville the way he had come. He was greatly pleased at his success, and cheeringly anticipated the good the five dollars would do his mother and himself.
As Frank passed the spot where he had noticed the barefooted, mud-bespattered urchin lying asleep by the side of the ditch, he could find no trace of the lad.
A little farther on Frank came in sight of the high board fence he had so curiously observed on his way to Riverton.
The wind was his way, and as he approached the queer barrier he was somewhat astonished at a great babel of canine barking and howls that greeted his ears.
“Sounds like a kennel,” he reflected, “but’s a big one. Why, if there isn’t the little fellow with the package of meat.”
Frank wonderingly regarded a tattered, forlorn figure at a distance seeming to be glued right up face forward against the fence.