“Are they all alive?”
“The last blessed one of ’em.”
“I remember my father,” said Julian, gazing thoughtfully at the ground, “and it seems to me that I have some recollection of my brother; but I never knew anything about my mother. What brought you here?”
“I come to your camp to tell you that Bowles and Mortimer are comin’ arter you on hossback, an’ that if you want to save yourself you had better dig out. An’ I come to Missouri ’cause your friends sent me here arter you. I know the hul lot of ’em, I tell you, an’ if you will trust yourself to me I will take you to ’em safe an’ sound.”
Julian, astounded and bewildered by this proposition, dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground, and looked sharply at the man, as if he meant to read his very thoughts. Was he really the friend he professed to be? Of one thing the boy was certain—and that was that he was not an ally of Mr. Mortimer. If he had been he would not have warned him that another attempt was about to be made to capture him.
How gladly would he have given himself up to the man’s guidance if he had only been sure that he was trustworthy! He would have followed him all over the world, and braved all imaginable dangers, if he knew that by so doing he would be restored to his home once more. Home! How the word thrilled him!
“Who in the world am I?” Julian asked himself in great perplexity; “and how does it happen that the moment I am ready to carry my plans into execution, men whom I never remember to have seen before should suddenly appear and exhibit so deep an interest in me? If I have such good friends, who are so very anxious to see me, why did they leave me here for eight long years to be beaten, and starved, and treated worse than a dog? I can’t understand it at all.”
“What do you say?” asked the stranger; “will you go? You had better be in a hurry about making up your mind to something, ’cause I can hear the trampin’ of hosses.”
“Yes,” replied Julian, “I shall go; but I shall go alone.”
“Wal, then,” continued the man, who was plainly very much disappointed by this decision, “let me give you a word of advice: If you won’t trust me, don’t trust nobody—do you hear? You’ll meet plenty of folks who know you, an’ who will have something to say to you; but don’t listen to ’em. Jine a wagon train at St. Joe, an’ when you reach Fort Kearney, stop thar. You will then be within forty miles of your hum. You’d best be gettin’ away from here, ’cause them fellers is comin’—I can hear ’em.”