“Wal, I never heered the beat in all my born days!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, involuntarily extending her hand toward the rawhide which hung on the nail behind the door. “I’ll give him the best kind of a whoppin’ in the mornin’. I’ll beat him half to—— What should the poor, dear boy want to run away from his best friends fur?”
“The leetle brat—the ongrateful rascal!” said Mr. Bowles. “That’s why he’s bought that ar hoss; an’ that’s why he’s been a huntin’ an’ trappin’ so steady—to earn money to run away from us, is it? I’ll larn him.”
And Jack turned around on his nail-keg and looked so savagely toward the loft, where Julian was supposed to be slumbering, that the eavesdropper was greatly alarmed, and crouched closer to the floor and trembled in every limb, as if he already felt the stinging blows of the rawhide.
“It seems that my visit was most opportune,” continued the stranger. “If I had arrived a day or two later I might not have found Julian here. He would probably have been on his way to the mountains; and if he had by any accident succeeded in finding his old home, all my plans, which I have spent long years in maturing, would have been ruined. I came here to remove him from your care. It appears that certain persons, who are very much interested in him, and who have been searching for him high and low ever since I brought him here, have by some means discovered his hiding-place, and it is necessary that I should remove him farther out of their reach. I shall take him to South America.”
“What’s that? Is it fur from here?” asked Jack.
“It is a long distance. I came down the river from St. Joseph in a flatboat,” added the visitor. “I found that the captain is a man who will do anything for money, and I have arranged with him to carry us to New Orleans. It will take us a long time to accomplish the journey, but we cannot be as easily followed as we could if we went by steamer. If you will accompany me I will pay you well for your services. I can say that the boy is a lunatic and that you are his keeper.”
“‘Nough said!” exclaimed Jack. “I’m jest the man to watch him.”
“But you must not watch him too closely,” said Mr. Mortimer earnestly. “If he should accidentally fall overboard during the journey it would not make any difference in your pay.”
“In course not,” replied Jack, with a meaning glitter in his eye. “If he gets one of them ar’ crazy spells onto him some dark night an’ jumps into the river, why—then——”
“Why then you ought to be handsomely rewarded for your faithful services while in my employ, and discharged.”