“But you don’t recollect it? Well, may be you may remember names better than faces. Have you any memory of a poor boy you used to help, named Bob Munson?”
“Bob Munson—oh, is it you? I know you now. But it has been so long since I saw you!” eagerly exclaimed Sybil.
“Eight years, Mrs. Berners; and I have been fighting the Indians on the frontier all that time. But I got my discharge, and came back with Captain Pendleton. You know it was him as I went out with, when he was a third lieutenant in the infantry. I ’listed out of liking for him, and we was together from one fort to another all these years, until Captain Pendleton got a long leave, and come home. I couldn’t get leave, but the Captain got my discharge. And when he goes back to his regiment, I mean to enlist again and go with him.”
“But how came you to be a sheriff’s officer? and oh, above all, how could you come to take me?” reproachfully inquired Sybil.
“Oh, Miss—I mean, Madam,—can’t you guess in your heart? When all the bailiffs throwed up their places rather than serve a warrant on you, and Mr. Purley, who was a stranger, got an appointment and kept it, they wanted another man. And then my captain said to me, ‘Munson, apply for the place; I will back you. And then if you get it, you will have an opportunity of serving, and perhaps freeing, Mrs. Berners.’ And a great deal more he said, to the same purpose, Ma’am; and so I did apply for the situation, and got it. And now, Madam, I am here to help you with my life, if necessary,” added the young man, ardently.
“Give me your hand. God bless you, Bob! Help me all you can. I ought to be helped, for I am innocent,” said Sybil, earnestly.
“Don’t I know it? Don’t everybody with any sense know it? Don’t even old Purley know it, ever since he first clapped eyes on your face?”
“Heaven grant that all may soon!” prayed Sybil.
“They will be sure to, Miss—I mean Madam.”
“Bob tell me: how was it that we were found out?”