None of the family said anything more until they had got to the barn and turned the horse out, and fed him with a handful of grass, and then Jonas seated himself on a bucket, which he turned upside down, and gave his wife a full history of the events that had happened to them since they went away in the morning; that is he had the groundwork of truth for its foundation, but there was many a little item which he put in that occurred to him as he went along. Whenever he touched upon anything which his wife found it hard to believe, he always appealed to Caleb, and the latter never failed to corroborate all he said.
“And do you think that he got those spirits to help him when he went into the bushes?” asked Mrs. Keeler.
“He did; else why didn’t he make some noise while he was going through them?” asked Jonas, in reply. “He went along as still as a bird on the wing. It was of no use for anybody to try to follow him. Well, that is once we failed, but the next time we will fight him with his own weapons. Caleb, don’t you forget those two rabbits’ feet the next time we go.”
“You bet I won’t,” replied Caleb.
CHAPTER XIV.
The Storekeeper in Action.
Nat’s heart was in his month because he did not believe he could escape from Jonas, and Caleb so easily. The noise he necessarily made in running through the bushes would naturally guide them in the pursuit, and Jonas was noted for his lightness of foot, and Caleb also, for that matter. But it was now or never. The switch was being prepared for him, and in a few minutes more he would feel the full weight of Jonas’s arm; and that it would fall by all his strength, Nat did not doubt in the least.
“Here goes,” said Nat, to himself. “If I fail they can’t any more than whip me, and if I get away—”
Nat did not wait to finish all the sentence that was in his mind. He bounded from his place as if he had been set upon springs, a short skirmish with Caleb who was overturned as easily as a child, and he was safe in the bushes which closed up behind him, and the twigs in his path seemed to give away before him on their own accord. He ran down the path with all the speed he could command, jumped as far to the left as he could and stretched himself out flat on the ground and waited to see what was going to happen. By the merest accident he lay down not ten feet from his camp, and consequently he was within full hearing of their voices while they remained there.
“By gum!” said Caleb, slowly, as he picked himself up from the bushes into which he had been thrown. “Pap, he has got away.”
He heard Jonas when he came around the trees and knew when he raised the switch intending to use it on Caleb for not keeping guard over Nat. He listened in the hope that Caleb would feel the full force of that switch, for he had a long account against him and he did not think that any blow he could have received would have been amiss.