VII
MASTERLESS MEN
The story the robbers had to tell, when they returned to their captain, was not a very likely one. It was so unlikely that they took time to talk the matter over thoroughly before attempting to face him. Perhaps it would be better to tell a lie, if they could concoct one that would do. The trouble was that they could not think of any explanation for their failure, that was likely to satisfy him any better than the plain facts.
Of course it seemed impossible that a man and a wolf should be traveling peaceably in company,—to say nothing of taking a child out of the hands of several strong and reckless men. But even so, where had they gone? One of the men had been quick enough to thrust with his spear at the wolf as he got it against the sky,—and it went through nothing. He forgot that the motion of an animal is usually quicker than the human eye, on such occasions. Moreover, though two of them went back down the path until they [pg 82]could hear the voices of the villagers, there was no sign of man, wolf or child. The conclusion they felt to be the only one possible was that the villagers’ gods had come and taken the child away from them, in the form of the wolf and the man. In that case they must be very powerful, so powerful that it would not be safe to attempt anything against that village in the future.
Gubbo, who came from that village, assured them that its gods were powerful indeed. He had not, when he and the other man were watching it, seen anything like this man and wolf apparition, and it was certainly remarkable enough to attract attention. Neither had the country people ever mentioned such a thing. Privately, Gubbo did not believe much in gods, but he was afraid of them for all that, because he was not sure. Gubbo’s father had impressed upon him very hard that if he did wrong, bad luck would surely overtake him. The patience of the gods was great, but they knew everything, and in the end no man could escape them. Gubbo, wincing at the pain where the wolf’s teeth had caught him, was uncomfortably wondering whether his bad luck had begun. There had never been any other failure to kidnap somebody, when men were sent to do it. Perhaps the bad luck in this case came from the fact that one of the party was attacking [pg 83]his own relatives and friends. There would be more bad luck when the chief of the bandits heard of this thing. Gubbo decided to dodge any further trouble if he could, and he lagged behind and quietly slipped away, to find some other way of making a living. He intended to go on traveling for a long time, to be out of the way of his former comrades.
It was just as well for him that he did this, for the men who returned to the den in the rocks and reported to the chief had a very bad time of it. The leader was executed, and so was the man who had had charge of the child. Of the other three, one died of the bite of the wolf and the others were very ill. After that, not a man of them could have been induced to join in an attack against that village. The chief wisely did not press the matter. After all, that was the nearest village of all those in their range, and it might not be altogether prudent to arouse the anger of the fighting men. It might lead to discovery.
The Cub, as he made his way back to the hut of Faustulus, was doing a great deal of thinking. When he was younger he had sometimes dreamed of being captain of a band of outlaws, because that seemed the only chance to be captain of anything, for a fatherless boy. But he had no taste [pg 84]for kidnaping children or being a nuisance to peaceable and kindly people. Merely to think of those scoundrels made him hot all over. He would have liked to follow their trail up to their very den, for he had an idea that he knew where it was. One day, when he and Pincho had been hunting together, he had seen a place where men evidently lived, and lived without any sort of peaceful farming or other business. If that were the den of the banditti, they could easily make themselves the pest of the countryside, and what they had done would be nothing to what they could do. Although he did not himself know it, this boy was the kind of person whose mind leaps ahead and sees possibilities for others as well as himself,—evil as well as good.
One day he asked his brother how he would like to gather the masterless men of all that neighborhood into a band of soldiery, to live by hunting and by fighting for any chief who would give them their living. They were growing too old to live much longer as they had lived. Perhaps if they could gather followers enough, they could go somewhere after awhile and make a place for themselves. First they might go to the Long White Mountain, where there was a rather large town, and see what the prospect was for such an undertaking. They had already [pg 85]taken part in one campaign, with some of the boys of the neighborhood, under the names of the Wolf and the Piper. All of the troop had some nickname or other. There was the Ram, whose head would crack an ordinary board in two; the Snake, who could wriggle out of any bonds ever tied—they had tried him time and again; Big Foot, Flop-Ear, Long Arm, and some others. They found the captain they had followed before glad to use them again and give them ordinary soldier rations. On the second night of their life in camp, a broad-shouldered and slightly bow-legged individual came and asked to see the head of the band. Gubbo did not recognize the young leader, but the latter knew him the moment he saw him. Gubbo explained that he had been a member of a company of banditti, had become disgusted with their ways, and left them. He would like to make an honest living.
“What can you do?” asked the youth consideringly.
Gubbo said that he could teach tricks in knife work to almost any man; also he could wrestle.