"But where do you come into this case, Senator?"
"I came into it last night at a little after nine o'clock," rejoined Dunwody. "Her former guardian has turned her over to me. She does not leave the boat till I do, at Cairo, where I change for up-river; and when I go, she goes. Don't pay any attention to any outcry she may make. She's my—property."
Captain Rogers pondered for a time, but at length his face broke out into a sort of smile. "There may be trouble ahead for you," he began. "It is like my old friend Bill Jones in there. He buys him a young filly last spring. Goes over to bring the filly home, and finds she isn't broke, and wild as a hawk. So he puts a halter on her and starts off to lead her home. The filly rears up, falls over and breaks her neck; so he's out his money and his pains. Some sorts of women won't lead."
"They all do in time," rejoined Dunwody grimly. "This one must."
The old boat captain shook his head.
"Some of them break their necks first," said he. "This one's got blood in her too, I tell you that."
Dunwody made no answer except to turn and walk down the deck. The captain, pondering on matters entirely beyond his comprehension, but forced to accept the assurances of men such as these who had appeared as guardians of this mysterious young woman, now returned to his own quarters. "I reckon it's none of my business," he muttered. "Some high-class forger or confidence worker that's beat the government somehow, maybe. But she don't look it—I'll be damned if she looks it. I wonder—?"
Dunwody, left to himself, began moodily to walk up and down the narrow deck, his hands behind his back. On his face was the red fighting flush, but it was backed by no expression of definite purpose, and his walk showed his mental uncertainty. All at once he turned and with decision passed down the stairs to the lower deck. He had heard voices which he recognized.
Judge Clayton had joined the party in charge of the fugitives, and was now in conversation with the overseer, a short man clad in a coarse blue jacket, with high boots and greasy leather trousers. The latter was expatiating exultantly upon his own bravery and shrewdness in effecting the recapture of his prisoners.
"Why, Jedge," said he, "fust off it di'n't look like we'd ever git track of 'em at all. I cotched the trail at Portsmouth at last, and follered 'em back into Ohio. They was shore on the 'underground' and bound for Canada, or leastways Chicago. I found 'em in a house 'way out in the country—midnight it was when we got thar. I'd summonsed the sher'f and two constables to go 'long. Farm-house was a underground railway station all right, and the farmer showed fight. We was too much fer him, and we taken 'em out at last, but one of the constables got shot—some one fired right through the winder at us. This Lily gal was the wust of the lot, and I don't put it a-past her to 'a' done some of the shootin' herself. But we brung 'em all along.
"Now, Jedge," he continued, "of co'se, I think I can do something for these two bucks Bill and Jim—this gal only persuaded 'em to run away with her. But if I was you, I shore would sell that Lily gal South, right away. She's bound fer to make trouble, and nothin' but trouble, fer you as long as you keep her round the place."