“Well, perhaps I have no right to think so. Somehow the business, though it seems all right to me, I couldn’t think of for my boy. No, I shall soon place him at school, where no one will know that he is related to the celebrated outlaw. I want him brought up to lead an honest life.”
“I am glad you do. I respect you for that.”
“My lad, you seem to be one of the right sort. As you will see my son I want you to promise me that you won’t say a word about the business I am engaged in.”
“I will make that promise. Then the boy doesn’t know?”
“No, he has no suspicion. He is too young to think much about that. Perhaps if he had associated with other boys much he would have found out.”
While this conversation was going on they had entered a wood, and the road became wilder and rougher. Indeed, it was hardly a road, but rather a lane, narrow and grass-grown.
Ernest began to wonder in what sort of a home his companion lived. His evident affection for his son gave Ernest a different feeling toward him. It was plain that he had a softer side to his nature, bandit though he was.
Ernest had never read the story of Jekyll and Hyde, but he felt instinctively that the man beside him had a double nature. On the road he was an outlaw, with corresponding traits, a rough and unscrupulous man, but at home and in the presence of his son, as Ernest judged, he was a warm-hearted and affectionate father.
In truth, the young bank messenger looked forward with interest to a meeting with the boy who was so dear to the heart of a man whom the world generally supposed to be a stranger to the softer emotions.
At length they reached a rocky hillside. Here the outlaw pulled up his horse and jumped from the buggy. Ernest looked at him in a questioning way.