ye can bet yer bottom dollar on it. He’s heered every blessed word ye said.”
“Who? Julian?” gasped the visitor.
“Sartin. I seed his head a stickin’ over the hull time ye was a talkin’.”
Had a bomb-shell burst in the room the two men could not have been more astonished. They stood motionless for a moment, and then, with a muttered imprecation, Jack bounded across the floor and went swiftly up the ladder that led to the loft, closely followed by his guest, whose face was as pale as death, while Mrs. Bowles snatched the rawhide from its nail, and rolling up her sleeves took her stand in front of the fire-place, prepared for any emergency.
Jack sprung into the loft when he reached the top of the ladder and ran straight to the bed, expecting to lay his hands upon the eavesdropper; but he was not there. With eager haste he threw aside the tattered coats and blankets, and even kicked the corn-husks about, but no Julian was hidden among them. Nor was he anywhere in the loft; for there was no furniture there, and consequently no place of concealment large enough to shelter a squirrel.
“Dog-gone!” roared Jack, stamping about so furiously that the boards which formed the floor of the loft creaked and bent, and seemed on the point of breaking beneath his weight and letting him through into the room below.
“He’s gone, as sure as ye’re a foot high.”
“He probably escaped through this hole,” said Mr. Mortimer, running to the gable-end of the cabin where the boards had fallen off. “It isn’t more than ten feet to the ground, and he could easily drop down without injuring himself. He must be brought back at any cost.”
“In course he must, an’ I know how to do it. I’ve got a hound that’ll trail him. Ole woman, stick yer head outer that door an’ holler for Nero.”
While Mrs. Bowles was shouting out the hound’s name, awaking the echoes far and near with her shrill voice, Jake and Tom were pulling on their clothes with all possible haste.
“Here’s a fine chance for a spec,” said the former, slyly pulling a small tin box from under his pillow and putting it carefully into his pocket. “Mebbe that feller in the store clothes will give something to have Julian brought back. The ole man’ll never ketch him ’cause he can’t run fast enough; an’ Julian’s too sharp to give a hound a chance to foller him. We know jest the place he’ll make tracks fur, an’ if we go thar we can gobble him.”
“Ye Jake!” cried Mr. Bowles, hurrying down the ladder, “when I get time, I’m a goin’ to give ye the best wallopin’ ye ever heern tell on.”
“Ye needn’t mind,” replied Jake, in great alarm.
“But I will mind, I tell ye; an’ I hain’t a-goin’ to forget it, nuther.”
“I hain’t been a doin’ of nothing, pap.”
“That’s jest what’s the matter. I’m goin’ to lick ye fur not doin’ something – fur not tellin’ me that ye seed Julian a listenin’. Here he comes! Here’s the feller that’ll bring the runaway back to us in less’n five minutes.”
At this moment the door was dashed violently open and in bounded Nero, who seemed to know that there was work for him to do, and was impatient to begin it. He was a magnificent brute – so large that when he sprang up and placed his paws upon his master’s shoulders his head was on a level with Jack’s. He showed a frightful array of teeth and growled threateningly at the visitor, who constantly shifted his position in order to keep Jack’s burly form between himself and the savage beast.
“Thar’s the dog fur ye, Mr. Mortimer,” said Bowles, looking proudly at his favorite. “He’ll ketch any thing ye tell him to, from a bar down to a chicken. Hand me that rope, ole woman. I’ll have to hold him in the leash, or he won’t leave enough of Julian to make it wuth while to take that trip down the river. Now, then, hunt ’em up, ye rascal!”
Having made one end of the rope fast to the hound’s collar, Mr. Bowles wrapped the other about his hand and arm, snatched a blazing fire-brand from the hearth, and hurried out of the door and around the house, to examine the ground there, and ascertain if Julian had really escaped from the opening in the gable-end. The hound struck the scent at once, and uttering a loud bay dashed off into the darkness, dragging the clumsy Jack after him.
“Now’s your time,” whispered Tom, when the yelping of the dog and the encouraging yells of his master began to grow fainter in the distance; “speak to him.”
“I say!” exclaimed Jake, addressing himself to Mr. Mortimer, who was pacing nervously up and down the floor; “pap’ll never ketch him, but we can, ’cause we know whar to look fur him.”
“Then why don’t you do it?” demanded the guest, angrily. “I will give you $10 apiece if you will bring him back to me.”
“Wal, that’s business. We were jest waitin’ to hear ye say something of that kind. Come on, Tom.”
The two boys rushed out of the house, and running swiftly along the path that led by the corn-cribs, were soon out of sight.
CHAPTER VIII
CHASED BY A BLOOD-HOUND
JULIAN did not remain long enough in his concealment to overhear all the conversation we have recorded, for an action he witnessed on the part of Jake Bowles, shortly after that worthy got into bed, turned his thoughts from the stranger, and his plans into another channel. He saw Jake thrust his arm under his pillow and draw out a small tin box, which he opened, and after looking over his shoulder to make sure that his father and mother were too much engaged with their visitor to pay any attention to himself, he drew out of it a roll of bills. He ran his fingers over them caressingly, held them above his head to allow the firelight to shine upon them, and exhibited in various other ways the delight he experienced in having them in his possession; after which he returned them to the box, replaced it under his pillow, and settling himself comfortably between the blankets, threw his arm over his head, and as Julian thought, prepared to go to sleep. But Jake did not intend to do anything of the kind, for he saw the top of the eavesdropper’s head over the edge of the loft.
“That’s my box,” thought our hero, his cheek growing suddenly pale, and his heart beating against his ribs with a noise that frightened him. “I’ve been robbed.”
The knowledge of this disagreeable fact came upon him with a force so stunning and bewildering, that for a few seconds he lay as motionless upon the floor of the loft as if he had been stricken down by some powerful hand. His secret was discovered after all his pains, and by the very ones from whose knowledge he had wished most to keep it hidden.
“My horse went first,” thought Julian, striving hard to choke back the tears that arose to his eyes, “and now everything else is gone; for, of course, if they found the box they must have found my furs and my rifle also. And I was always so careful never to go near my store-house until I had satisfied myself that there was no one in sight. I shan’t give up those things, and that’s all about it. Because I have never resisted their tyranny, Jack and his boys think I am a coward, but now I will show them what I am made of.”
Very slowly and cautiously Julian drew back from the edge of the loft, and retreated toward the opening in the gable-end of the cabin. So stealthy was he in his movements that even the wakeful Jake did not hear him as he crept across the floor, swung himself down from the gable-end and dropped to the ground.
The instant he landed on his feet he darted off at the
