The team had resumed its progress and the violent flurry of the elements began subsiding. The flashes were less frequent, though they appeared often enough to show the course of the stage, as the animals pressed on at a moderate walk.
The driver and the New Englander were more considerate than most persons would have been under the circumstances, for they forebore taunting the youths, whom they had at their mercy. Tom and Jim were resentful enough to have used violence toward Durrell, who bad turned the tables so cleverly on them; but the manner in which he did it gave them a wholesome fear of the wiry fellow from down East.
“Then,” said Tom, addressing the driver, “that was all stuff that you told us about seeing a suspicious person in these woods.”
“No, sir, it was all true,” was the unexpected reply.
This statement instantly awoke interest again in the question, for even Durrell had supposed the driver was playing with the fears of the boys.
“If that’s the case,” he said, “we may have trouble yet, though it gets me how a man dare try anything like that in this part of the world.”
“They haven’t tried it yet,” was the reminder of Lenman.
“No, and I guess they won’t; but from what I’ve read and hearn tell, it’s just such crimes that succeed, ’cause nobody expects anybody would dare try them.”
That night was an eventful one in the history of the occupants of the old stage-coach plying between Belmar and Piketon. That the driver was uneasy was shown by his silence and his close attention to his team and matters in front. He took no part in the conversation, but let the others do the talking while he listened and watched.
All noticed the rapid clearing of the sky. The disturbance of the air was peculiar, for, while it threatened a severe rainfall, nothing of the kind took place, not a drop pattering on the leaves. The electric conditions changed back again to something like a normal state, the lightning ceasing, the wind falling, and the clouds dissolving to such an extent that, before Black Bear Swamp was crossed enough moonlight penetrated the woods to reveal their course.