Thompson had no more to say after that. He did not know how a jail looked on the inside—he didn’t want to, for if it looked as badly as it did on the outside it was gloomy enough—and the idea of staying there for six weeks filled the foreman with apprehension.
“Dog-gone the boy, let him go!” said he.
“That is what I say. Now, I want you to stay here.”
Carl hoped they would be allowed to finish their journey in peace, and that no further attempts would be made to steal that miserable money. By the time the boat started he had recovered from his blow so that he could be on deck, and by the time they arrived at Fort Scully he was overjoyed to find his boat there. The clerk gave Carl his money with the remark that it was a pity he did not see his way clearly toward having those men arrested, for now they would be encouraged to go on another expedition of the same kind, and saw him go ashore. In process of time their little boat carried them in safety to Fort Yates, and, as it was early in the morning, they hitched up their team and started for home.
“Thank goodness that trip is made,” said Carl, who felt like yelling when he found himself on the prairie again, “and I hope it will be long before I am called upon to make another. Thompson, I will not take you with me, anyhow.”
“Shake,” said the foreman extending his hand. “I would sooner be here with the cattle. But if it had not been for me you would have gone under the wheels of that steamer.”
“Well, I guess that is so,” said Carl.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The New Scout.
The prairie home of Carl, the Trailer, seemed very inviting to him after the thrilling scenes through which he had passed on the Mississippi, and sometimes he was almost tempted to send word to the commander of the fort that certain circumstances over which he had no control would keep him at home. There everybody was friendly to him, his word was law, and it was reasonable to suppose that he could get along with them better than he could with strangers. But whichever way he turned he found something to remind him of his father, and he hoped that, surrounded with new associations and new scenes, he would be led to forget the past and so begin life anew.