Then Dave began to worry. The last overheard words of his captors were enlightening. They had spoken as if it was fully intended to get him away from his present pleasant employment and keep him away from it. What affected Dave most seriously, however, was the hint of the two men that they had some evil designs against the Aegis.
“I think I guess it out,” mused Dave, very much wrought up mentally. “Jerry Dawson and his father are bent on getting me out of the way, and at the same time getting even with Mr. King, as they call it. I don’t see what they hope to gain. Mr. King wouldn’t take Jerry back in his employ in a thousand years, and they wouldn’t dare to do me any real harm. It would cost them money to have me shut up anywhere for any length of time, and the Dawsons haven’t got any too much of that. Besides, they won’t hold me long,” declared Dave doughtily, “if I get a chance to slip them.”
Dave counted the minutes, quite curious as well as anxious to find out what the next step in the programme would be. Then he heard voices approaching.
“They’re coming back,” decided Dave, “no,” he corrected himself, “those are not their voices.”
“Unhitch him, Jared,” spoke unfamiliar tones.
“All right,” responded a boyish voice. “Straight for home, father?”
“Yes, we’ll be late as it is, and mother will be uneasy. Give me the lines. I’ll drive.”
Two persons, apparently father and son, lifted themselves up into the front seat of the wagon, and the horse started up.
“That’s queer,” ruminated Dave, “mighty queer. Why, they don’t act as if they cared if I was smothering or already smothered. Why don’t they wait for the two men who put me in this awful fix?”
The wagon crossed a patch of open ground. Then a smooth country road was reached and the horse jogged along his way.