The seeker for a situation was wide awake as soon as he was awake at all. He sat on the ground watching the stranger as he crawled towards the road. It was quite dark, but the opening made by the highway admitted some light from the stars. Dory thought the stranger had something in his hand. If the man had walked right along, the boy would have thought nothing of the fact that he was in the woods after dark; but he was creeping like a cat, and Dory's curiosity was aroused.
He got upon his feet, and walked after the mysterious stranger. He did not care to show himself, and he kept one of the big trees between himself and the man all the time. Near the road a fringe of bushes had sprung up, and in their foliage the man concealed himself. Dory had obtained a better view of what the stranger had in his hand; and, though he was not sure of it, he thought it was a gun. Was the man out hunting in the dark? There were no deer so near the town, and it was hardly likely that the person was gunning in the darkness.
Dory continued to creep from tree to tree until he could not have been more than a couple of rods from the concealed night wanderer. If he had not believed the man had a gun in his hand, he would have left his concealment and gone about his business; for he had come to the conclusion that the affair, whatever it was, did not concern him. But he felt a little bashful about leaving, lest the gun might go off, and the shot accidentally strike him.
The next minute he was confident that he heard footsteps in the road. Before he had time to satisfy himself fully on this point, the gun in the hand of the stranger went off; and its going-off proved to Dory that it was a gun, as he had supposed, and even believed.
"Help! help!" shouted some one in the road; and the voice proved that there was some one there.
Scarcely had the word been uttered before the man in the bushes broke from his place of concealment, and rushed towards the road. Dory was too much interested in the affair to remain at a distance any longer. It was none of his business; but it was plain enough that the mysterious stranger had fired his gun at the person who shouted for assistance from the road. Dory reasoned, that, as he had fired the gun once, he could not fire it again without reloading it; and he had not had time to do this.
But there was some sort of wickedness in progress, and Dory ran with all his might to the road; and, even if he had not run with all his might, it would not have taken him a great while to accomplish two rods. When he came to the opening, he saw one man spring upon another. The former dropped the gun he carried in his hand, and it was plain that he had fired the shot.
The two men clutched each other, though one of them tried to say something to the other. Dory had lots of blood in his veins, and it began to boil as though it was over a hot fire. All his sympathies were with the man who had been attacked. The other had crept upon him like a thief in the night, had fired at him, and then had followed up the attack with a hand-to-hand onslaught.
"Don't, Pearl!" pleaded the man who had been attacked. "Consider what you are doing! You will ruin yourself! You are sure to be discovered, even if you kill me!"
Dory did not wait to hear any more. He had a strong impulse to take a hand in the affair, though it was none of his business. The stranger who had wakened him from his slumbers was back to him, and the boy thought his opportunity at the present instant was too good to be lost.