The White Flag

by Gene Stratton-Porter

Jason, fleeing through the darkness of a thicket at the approach to the forest, was running in headlong terror. He was ripped by thorns, rasped by blackberry vines. He was in no condition to think. He was escaping an enormous, blood-dripping hand clutching at his back in a threat against his life. Staring ahead of him, he ran wildly; he did not realize where his flying feet were taking him until he fell into a mass of warm, living things. A shriek of terror broke from his lips. Then the odour of cattle, the heavy breathing, and the slow arisings around him told him, even in his frenzy of fear, that he was among harmless creatures. He looked back to see the meadow lying white behind him. He could be seen plainly across it, so again he ran with all his might for the shelter of the forest. Into the darkness of its outstretched arms he plunged for refuge. He could not see where he was going. Repeatedly he ran against trees until he was bruised, half stunned, and finally, when his strength was almost exhausted, he fell across a big log and allowed his body to slide to earth regardless of what might happen to him. Throwing up his arms, he pillowed his head upon them while a dry sob tore from his lips. He was only a boy. He was not quite sixteen. There was no one who loved him, and there was no one who cared if the banker did kill him. There was no help from heaven above or the earth upon which he lay. In his confused state, it appealed to him that very likely he had killed the rich and powerful banker. What would be done to him if he had, he could not imagine, but he knew that it would be done swiftly, it would be done cruelly. Twice he had heard the threat to kill him. The first sob bred others. His face dropped against the cold, damp mosses of the log and he cried until he was exhausted. Then his breath came more evenly; his eyes slowly closed, and presently, with the quick reactions of youth, he was resting.

He had only slept a few minutes when there came in contact with his face a nauseating odour and the touch of a furred creature from which he drew back with a terrified scream. In the darkness he could see a pair of big, gleaming green eyes. He could not know that it was only a coon carrying a chicken taken from his own hen house. He could not know that the mouthful of chicken prevented the coon from recognizing the man odour until it had stepped upon him.

Jason sprang to his feet and went plunging through the forest again. His next period of exhaustion found him at a thicket of spice brush and he sank down beside it and lay panting for breath. It was only a short respite until a great, horned owl, screaming with the panther scream of its species when food hunting, plunged into the bushes, its wings wide spread, to scare out small, sheltered birds. This owl cry was as blood-curdling as that of any animal. Jason was so terrified that once more he went lunging forward until he fell in utter exhaustion and lay unconscious.

That morning Junior Moreland and his father faced each other across the breakfast table each having a bandaged head. In his heart, each of them was furious over his condition. Junior expressed the opinion to his mother that some one had hit him accidentally when throwing at a prowling cat or a loose animal. Mr. Moreland explained that he had been compelled to work late at the bank. As he was locking the door on leaving, some one had struck him a terrible blow on the head—struck him so forcefully that he had fallen as if he were dead, which evidently frightened the burglar so that he ran away without taking his watch and the big diamond ring that he always wore on his left hand.

These explanations were offered for the satisfaction of Mrs. Moreland. She sat in a sort of stupefaction, looking from her husband to her son, her mind filled with slow wonder, with persistent questionings, with sickening forebodings. She kept asking for details, when in her heart she knew they were lying to her. She so fervently desired to accept their word that she asked for particulars in the hope that one or the other might afford her a small degree of heart-ease by telling her something so convincing that she could believe it and not feel like a fool in so doing.

As Mr. Moreland left the breakfast table, he said to Junior: “Come up to the bathroom a minute. I want to be sure your head is all right before you risk going to school.”

Once inside the most elaborate of the three bathrooms of Ashwater, Moreland Senior closed the door and faced Moreland Junior.

“Now, out with it, young man,” he said.

Moreland Junior looked at his father speculatively.

“I told you the truth last night, Dad,” he said. “I didn’t see who did it, but, of course, it was Jason. There isn’t any one else who would have dared. He’s had it in for me since that time he spoiled my suit, and you had him licked for it.”