“Well, Tom, is it your horse?”
“No; but he looks enough like him to be his brother,” was the reply.
“There!” said Bob, to himself. “I hope they are satisfied now.”
“Don’t make no difference whether it’s Tom’s hoss or not,” said a voice, which Bob afterward found belonged to the constable. “That thar boy is no good; if he was, he would not want to turn that creetur loose to find his way back to his hum, twenty-five miles away. Bein’ a suspicioned person we have a right to know all about him. You say, Aleck, that he come up here to see somebody on business. Who was it, an’ what was his business?”
“I dunno,” answered the grocer. “I didn’t think to ask him about that.”
“Wal, we’d best find out about it. Thar’s some hoss-thief or another some whar about here, an’ if this chap is the feller, we’d oughter hold fast to him now that we have got him. It won’t be no trouble at all to take him back to Rochdale an’ see if anybody thar knows him, an’ if he’s all right he won’t mind goin’ there with me.”
These were the words that made Bob’s cheek blanch. His heart began to beat rapidly, and his hand trembled, as he put down his cup of coffee. He saw, now, that it was not so very amusing, after all, to be suspected of being a horse-thief. He certainly would mind going back to Rochdale. It was the very place that he wanted to keep away from.
“What in the world would I say to my father, if I allowed myself to be taken back there?” thought Bob, who was now seriously alarmed. “What could I say to him? What reason could I give for leaving home during the night, and riding off through the country for twenty-five miles? I tell you, if I was only back there, I’d stay; but the trouble is, I can’t go back without letting everybody know that I ran away. Of course, all the folks in the settlement will find it out some day, but I don’t want to see them after they do find it out.”
Once more Bob was in a quandary, but he was not long in discovering, as he thought, a way to get out of it. While he was looking all around the room, as if seeking some way of escape, his eye fell upon his valise, which the grocer had placed upon a chair in the corner. The sight of it suggested something to him. Hastily snatching up his cap, he crossed the floor with noiseless steps, seized the valise, and hurried to the door which led into the back yard. He opened it very carefully, stepped quickly across the threshold, and found himself confronted by a tall fellow, dressed in butternut clothes, who stood leaning against the fence, whittling the top rail with his knife, and whistling, softly, to himself. Something told Bob that the man had been stationed there to watch him, and, at first, he did not know whether to go back into the house or keep on toward the stable, where he had left his horse; but, after a moment’s reflection, he decided that the boldest course was the best, and so he closed the door and walked off. He tried to look unconcerned, but his face was pale, and he trembled in every limb. The sequel proved that he had cause for uneasiness, for, before he had made a dozen steps, the man of the fence called out:
“Wal, I say! Hold up, thar!”