“I don’t know anything about it,” answered Bayard. “I never have such feelings.”
“I feel afraid,” said Seth, honestly. “Suppose something should happen?”
“O, now, what’s going to happen? The only thing I am afraid of is that Walter will keep himself close to-night, or that if he does come out, Coulte’s boys will miss him. If they meet him at all, it will probably be while he is on horseback—the Club are always in the saddle—and I described him so minutely that they cannot possibly mistake him. Coulte’s sons are not very well acquainted with Walter, you know, and I told him to tell them that if they saw a boy about my size and age riding a white horse, and wearing a heavy dark-blue cloak with a red lining, to catch him at all hazards and hold fast to him, for he is the fellow they want. Wasn’t the old fellow taken down completely when I told him that I knew he was a smuggler? He could scarcely speak.”
The boys faced-about in the saddle, and gazed back at the house. The Frenchman was still standing where they had left him, smoking furiously; and as they turned to look at him he took his pipe out of his mouth, and a long-drawn whistle came faintly to their ears. It was plain that he had not yet recovered from his astonishment.
CHAPTER VII.
BAYARD VISITS THE SCHOONER.
While Bayard and his cousins were galloping through the swamp on their way to the old Frenchman’s house, Henry Chase and Leonard Wilson were riding slowly along the road toward the residence of Mr. Bell. To say that they were astonished at what they had heard would not half express their feelings. They told themselves that they had never known anything about Bayard before that day, and were glad indeed that he had not asked their assistance in carrying out his plans. Chase was the first to speak.
“What shall we do about it?” he asked.
“I think our duty is very plain,” replied Wilson. “In the first place, we ought to say that we will never have anything more to do with those fellows.”