“You do know,” exclaimed Bayard. “He was in this room with you not five minutes ago.”
“I don’t deny that, but still I don’t know where he is. O, you may strike me, if you feel so inclined,” added Chase, as Pierre drew back his clenched hand, “but I can’t tell you a thing I don’t know, can I?”
“Bring me something to tie him with,” said Pierre, turning to Bayard; “one of those bridles will do. We’ll make sure of him, now that we have got him, and then look for the other.”
Bayard brought the bridle with alacrity, and even assisted in confining Chase’s arms, the latter submitting to the operation without even a show of resistance. Pierre used more than usual care in making the straps fast, and when he had bound the boy so tightly that he could scarcely move a finger, he pulled a chair into the middle of the room and pushed him into it. His short experience with his prisoner had convinced him that he was a very slippery fellow, and he thought it best to have him where he could keep his eyes upon him.
As soon as Chase had been disposed of, the search for Wilson was renewed, Bayard and his cousins lending willing aid. They began by examining every nook and corner of the cellar, and not finding him there, they returned to the room above and pulled the beds to pieces, explored the loft, and looked into all sorts of impossible places, even peering under chairs, and taking out the bureau drawers; and finally, one after another, they made a journey to the fire-place and looked up the chimney. But they could see nothing there. There was a fire on the hearth, and the smoke ascended in such volumes that it speedily filled their eyes and nostrils, and they were glad to draw back into the room for a breath of fresh air. Chase sat in his chair watching all their movements with the deepest interest. His friend’s sudden and mysterious disappearance astonished and perplexed him as much as it did anybody; but he exulted over it, while Pierre and his young assistants seemed to be very much dismayed, especially the former. After the house had been thoroughly searched (even the apartment across the hall was examined, although there was not the least probability that Wilson could have got into it), Pierre walked once or twice across the room, and then taking down a hunting-horn from its nail over the fire-place, went to the door and blew it as if he meant that it should be heard by everybody for ten miles around. When he came back he addressed himself rather sternly to Bayard.
“Now, then, clear out,” said he. “Be off at once, and never let me see your face again.”
“What are you going to do with Chase, and what were you blowing that horn for?” asked Bayard, who thought it might be policy to learn something of Pierre’s plans before he left him.
“That’s my own business,” was the gruff reply. “Do you see that hole in the wall? It was left there for folks to go out of, and I advise you to make use of it.”
Pierre pointed toward the door, and Bayard, judging by the expression of his countenance that it would be a dangerous piece of business to irritate him by refusing to comply with his wishes, sprang out into the hall, followed by his cousins.
“That’s the return we get for doing him a favor,” said he, as he led the way toward the place where their horses were tied. “However, I don’t mind it much, for Chase is captured again, and if we can only secure Wilson we are all right. As he is not in the house, it follows as a thing of course that he must be out of it; although how he got out is a mystery to me. He has taken to the woods, most likely, and if we start after him at once we can catch him.”