I went up to look. We’ve kept him safe an’ sound fur ye, ’cordin’ to orders, hain’t we?”
“An’ now you have come to take him away from us – I jest know ye have,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, raising the corner of her tattered apron to her left eye. “I don’t know how I can let him go, ’cause my heart’s awfully sot onto that poor, motherless boy.”
“We’ve done our level best by him,” chimed in Jack. “Ye told us when ye brought him here that he was a gentleman, an’ a gentleman’s son, an’ we’ve treated him like one.”
“When he brought me here,” repeated Julian, to himself; and it was only by a great exercise of will that he refrained from speaking the words aloud.
He became highly excited at once. Mr. Mortimer was the one who had stolen him away from his home and delivered him up to the tender mercies of Jack Bowles and his wife – the very man of all others he most wished to see. He had been a long time coming, almost eight years, and now that he had arrived, Julian found that he was destined to become better acquainted with him than he cared to be. He watched the guest more closely than ever, carefully scrutinizing his features in order to fix them in his memory. He hoped to meet him some day under different circumstances.
“He haint never had no work to do, an’ we never struck him a lick in our lives,” continued Jack. “We’ve treated him better’n our own boys. He’s got a good hoss of his own, an’ I’ve been a feedin’ it outen my corn ever since he owned it, an’ never axed him even to bring in an armful of wood to pay for it. An’ my boys do say that he’s got a heap of money laid up somewhars. If ye have come to take him away I reckon ye’ll do the handsome thing by us.”
“My friends,” interrupted the guest, as soon as he saw a chance to speak, “I know all about Julian, for I have talked with him. I know what he has got and what he intends to do. Have you ever told him anything about his parentage?”
“Nary word,” replied Jack.
“Then I wonder how it is that he knows so much about it. He knows that his home is near the mountains; that he was stolen away from it, and that he has a father there. More than that he intends to go back there very soon, and is laying his plans to run away from you.”
“Wal, I never heered the beat in all my born days!” exclaimed Mrs. Bowles, involuntarily extending her hand toward the rawhide which hung on the nail behind the door. “I’ll give him the best kind of a whoppin’ in the mornin’. I’ll beat him half to – What should the poor, dear boy want to run away from his best friends fur?”
“The leetle brat – the ongrateful rascal!” said Mr. Bowles. “That’s why he’s bought that ar hoss; an’ that’s why he’s been a huntin’ an’ trappin’ so steady – to earn money to run away from us, is it? I’ll larn him.”
And Jack turned around on his nail-keg and looked so savagely toward the loft, where Julian was supposed to be slumbering, that the eavesdropper was greatly alarmed, and crouched closer to the floor and trembled in every limb, as if he already felt the stinging blows of the rawhide.
“It seems that my visit was most opportune,” continued the stranger. “If I had arrived a day or two later I might not have found Julian here. He would probably have been on his way to the mountains; and if he had by any accident succeeded in finding his old home, all my plans, which I have spent long years in maturing, would have been ruined. I came here to remove him from your care. It appears that certain persons, who are very much interested in him, and who have been searching for him high and low ever since I brought him here, have by some means discovered his hiding-place, and it is necessary that I should remove him farther out of their reach. I shall take him to South America.”
“What’s that? Is it fur from here?” asked Jack.
“It is a long distance. I came down the river from St. Joseph in a flatboat,” added the visitor. “I found that the captain is a man who will do anything for money, and I have arranged with him to carry us to New Orleans. It will take us a long time to accomplish the journey, but we cannot be as easily followed as we could if we went by steamer. If you will accompany me I will pay you well for your services. I can say that the boy is a lunatic and that you are his keeper.”
“‘Nough said!” exclaimed Jack. “I’m jest the man to watch him.”
“But you must not watch him too closely,” said Mr. Mortimer earnestly. “If he should accidentally fall overboard during the journey it would not make any difference in your pay.”
“In course not,” replied Jack, with a meaning glitter in his eye. “If he gets one of them ar’ crazy spells onto him some dark night an’ jumps into the river, why – then – ”
“Why then you ought to be handsomely rewarded for your faithful services while in my employ, and discharged.”
“Perzactly. Whar is this yere flatboat now?”
“I left her about twenty miles up the river. I told the captain to lay up for a few hours until I could have time to come down here and transact my business with you. She will be along about noon to-morrow. Have everything ready so that we can hail her, and step on board without an instant’s delay.”
“I don’t fur the life o’ me see how I can let him go – my heart is so sot onto him,” sighed Mrs. Bowles, once more raising her apron to her eyes. “He do save me a heap o’ steps, an’ he’s a monstrous good hand to cut wood an’ build fires o’ frosty mornin’s.”
“But he hain’t never had it to do,” interrupted Jack, who, for reasons of his own, thought it best to impress upon the mind of his guest that Julian’s life under his roof had been one continual round of ease and enjoyment. “We allers makes our own boys roll out o’ mornin’s and cut wood, an’ Julian can lay in his comfortable bed, as snug as a bug in a rug, an’ snooze as long as he pleases. The reason we’ve tuk sich good care of him is, ’cause we thought ye sot store by him. Ye’re some kin to him, I reckon. Ye’re names is alike.”
“That is a matter that does not interest you,” answered the guest sharply. “I pay you to work for me, and not to ask questions.”
“I didn’t mean no offense. But when I see a man like yerself totin’ a boy about the country, an’ leavin’ him hid in a place like this fur eight year, an’ then huntin’ him up agin, an runnin’ him off to some other place, an’ hear ye say that if he falls into the river an’ gets drownded ye won’t be no ways sorry fur it, I think there’s something up, don’t I? Ye don’t do that fur nothing; an’ since the boy ain’t ole enough to be a standin’ atween ye an’ a woman, I naterally conclude that he stands atween ye an’ money. Howsomever, it hain’t no consarn of mine. I know which side of my corn-dodger’s got the lasses onto it.”
“Pap! I say pap!” suddenly cried a voice from one of the beds. “Ye think yer sharp, ye an that feller do, but ye ain’t so sharp as ye might be.”
“Hush yer noise, boy, an’ speak when ye’re spoken to,” exclaimed Jack angrily. “Ye needn’t be no ways oneasy, Mr. Mortimer,” he added, seeing that his guest arose hastily to his feet and appeared to be greatly excited to know that their conversation had been overheard. “We’re all true blue here, an’ my boys has too much good sense to blab what they hears – leastwise while they are paid to keep their mouths shet. Ye, Jake, roll over an’ go to sleep.”
“All right, pap,” said Jake, obeying the first part of the order. “If ye wake up in the mornin’ an’ find that yer bird has flew ye needn’t blame
