In reply Bruce simply drew his finger slowly down his chin and Laura, catching his meaning at once, leaped excitedly on to a stone wall beside the road and gazed after the retreating buggy, straining her eyes to get a full, fair view of its occupant.
“What’s the matter with you Laura?” demanded her brother brusquely, “you’re getting too old to be hopping up on stone walls, I can tell you.”
Laura descended to the path again and walked quietly along with the two boys, not deigning to make any response to Harry’s criticism.
Chapter XIII.
For a few moments after Laura had descended from the wall the trio walked along in silence. Bruce, who had been really startled by the sudden apparition of the black-bearded man, was too busy with his own thoughts to do much talking. What did the presence of this mysterious stranger in that part of the town signify? Could it be that he was following up the boy just as he had followed up the father? Bruce could not drive from his mind the remembrance of what Weyman had told him, and now, whenever he thought of his father, he remembered that on the very day when he went to his death in the smoke and the flames of the Broadway fire that same bearded stranger had called to see him and they had had a long, earnest talk together.
And now, twice within a week, the stranger’s path had crossed that of the boy. Was this a mere accident or was he deliberately shadowing the young lad with a view to wreaking further vengeance on him? As for Laura, she was fairly bubbling over with excitement, but she said nothing for fear of awakening her brother’s suspicion. She wished that she could devise some excuse for getting him out of the way, if only for a few minutes, in order that she might have a few words with Bruce, and so as they paused for a moment at a turn in the road, she said innocently: “You see that fence down there by the brook? Well, Tommy Martin ran and jumped over it the other day and leaped clean on the other side of the brook. He’s the best jumper anywhere around here.”
Now, Tommy Martin was a boy who lived near them and who often came over to visit them—a boy of whom Harry was decidedly jealous, partly because they had already been looked upon as rivals in such sports as running and jumping, and partly because they both liked the same girl, Kitty Harriott, a particular friend of Laura’s. Laura knew all about this rivalry when she took pains to point out the fence and brook over which Tommy had leaped so brilliantly, and she was not surprised when Harry burst forth contemptuously: “What do you mean by the best jumper anywhere about here? You don’t call that anything of a jump, do you? Why that’s nothing at all. I can go over it myself and I’ll bet I’ll strike two feet further on the other side than Tom did!”
With these words he slipped off his coat, walked over toward the spot indicated by his sister, surveyed it carefully and then walked back a dozen paces in order to make a flying leap. While he was doing this Laura had gasped out to Bruce, “Was that really the man with the black beard and the scar that went by?”
“Yes,” replied the boy, “I’d know him anywhere I saw him. Did you get a fair look at him?”
“Not very,” answered Laura, “but I think I would know him again if I saw him. Wasn’t that neat, the way I got Harry away for a minute? Now, you must be sure not to say a word to him or to anybody else about that man. We’ll keep that a secret for ourselves. My! just look at Harry, he’s going to take that jump. The silly fool, Tommy never jumped over that, I just told Harry that so as to get him out of the way a minute. He thinks he can do everything that Tommy does and they’re both of them perfectly wild over the same girl, who is my dearest friend. I’ve told her all about you, and she’s just crazy to see you.”