A few minutes later Harry Furniss came out again and mounted.
"Now which way, Vincent? and what is it you want me for?"
"The way is to Jackson's place at the Cedars, the why I will tell you about as we ride."
Vincent then recounted his feud with the Jacksons, of which, up to the date of the purchase of Dinah Morris, his friend was aware, having been present at the sale. He now heard of the attack upon young Jackson by Tony, and of the disappearance of Dinah Morris.
"I should not be at all surprised, Wingfield, if your surmises are correct, and that old scoundrel has carried off the girl to avenge himself upon Tony. Of course, if you could prove it, it would be a very serious offense; for the stealing a slave, and by force too, is a crime with a very heavy penalty, and has cost men their lives before now. But I don't see that you have anything like a positive proof, however strong a case of suspicion it may be. I don't see what you are going to say when you get there."
"I am going to tell him that if he does not say what he has done with the girl, I will have his son arrested for treachery as soon as he sets foot in the Confederacy again."
"Treachery!" Furniss said in surprise; "what treachery has he been guilty of? I saw that he was one of those who escaped with you, and I rather wondered at the time at you two being mixed up together in anything. I heard that he had been recaptured through some black fellow that had been his slave, but I did not read the account. Have you got proof of what you say?"
"Perhaps no proof that would hold in a court of law," Vincent replied, "but proof enough to make it an absolute certainty to my mind."
Vincent then gave an account of their escape, and of the anonymous denunciation of himself and Dan.
"Now," he said, "no one but Dan knew of the intended escape, no one knew what clothes he had purchased, no one could possibly have known that I was to be disguised as a preacher and Dan as my servant. Therefore the information must have been given by Jackson."