It did not need any second call to bring Zeke out of bed and to his feet. He opened the door, saying as he did so—
"That Caleb beats all the boys in the world that I ever heard of. What has he been doing now?"
Enoch replied that he did not know. Caleb had come over to his house to borrow something of his mother, and he had never gone home with it. His mother was at Mrs. Crosby's now looking for him.
"Beyond a doubt he is in jail," said Enoch. "You know he did not pay his fine to-day, and I will bet that that magistrate has arrested him and locked him up."
"Bussin' on it, I believe you are right," said Zeke, hurrying on his clothes. "If he is in jail I wager that he will come out. Come in."
"I guess I had better stay out here. You will have to take a lantern with you, for it is awful dark."
In much less time than it takes to tell it Zeke presented himself at the door arrayed in his usual costume, but he had something else that he did not carry in the daytime. It was a huge club, and he had fashioned it after a style of his own. The club looked too heavy for one man to manage, but Zeke handled it as though it were a walking-cane. In his left hand he carried a lantern which he handed to Enoch.
"You don't think there is going to be a fight, do you?" asked the boy. "If you do I had better go home and get my flint-lock."
"There is no knowing what will happen," returned Zeke, with a peculiar twist of his head. "Suppose he is in jail, and the magistrate has brought up some of them fellows from the Margaretta to act as his guards. I don't know that he has done it, but it is well enough to be on the safe side. Now let us go and see the place where Caleb was arrested. We may be able to find out something from that."
"Now, Zeke, do be careful of yourself," said his wife, who was sitting up in bed.