Julian Mortimer
It was rapidly growing dark, and Julian, anxious to reach the cabin before his absence was discovered, broke into a rapid run, which he never slackened until he reached the road leading from The Corners to the clearing. There he encountered a stranger, who, as he came out of the bushes, accosted him with:
“Hold on a minute, my lad. I believe I am a little out of my reckoning, and perhaps you can set me right.”
Julian stopped and looked at the man. He could not get so much as even a glimpse of his face, for the broad felt hat he wore was pulled down over his forehead, and his heavy muffler was drawn up so high that nothing but his eyes could be seen; but the boy at once put him down as a gentleman, for he was dressed in broadcloth, and wore fine boots and fur gloves. Julian looked at his neat dress, and then at his own tattered garments, and drew his coat about him and folded his arms over it to hide it from the stranger’s gaze.
“Is there a hotel about here?” continued the gentleman, approaching the place where Julian was standing.
“No, sir,” was the reply; “none nearer than The Corners, and that’s ten miles away.”
“Is there no dwelling-house near?”
“There is a shanty about a mile distant belonging to Jack Bowles, but I wouldn’t advise you to go there.”
“Then I am on the right road after all,” said the stranger, with a sigh of relief. “Jack Bowles! He’s just the man I want to see. I have some important business with him. He can accommodate me with a bed and supper, can he not?”
“He can give you some corn bread and venison, but as for a bed, that’s a thing he doesn’t keep in his house. If you happen to have half a dollar in your pocket, however, he will stow you away somewhere. Jack will do almost anything for half a dollar. Why, what’s the matter, sir?”
It was no wonder that Julian asked this question, for the gentleman, who had now advanced quite near to him, took just one glance at his face, and started back as if he had seen some frightful apparition. He pushed his hat back from his forehead, pulled his muffler down from his face, and stared at Julian as if he meant to look him through. The boy was astonished at his behavior, and he would have been still more astonished if he had been able to look far enough into the future to see all that was to grow out of this meeting.
“Boy!” exclaimed the gentleman, in a voice which his agitation rendered almost indistinct, “who are you? What’s your name?”
“Julian Mortimer,” replied our hero.
“Julian! Julian Mortimer!” repeated the man, as if he could scarcely believe his ears. “It cannot be possible. Why, boy, you’re just – ahem! I mean – what a striking resemblance.”
The stranger spoke these last words hurriedly, and then, as if recollecting himself, hastily pulled his hat down over his forehead again, and once more concealed his face with his muffler – all except his eyes, which he kept fastened upon Julian.
“No doubt you think I act very strangely,” he continued, after a moment’s pause, “and perhaps I do, but the truth of the matter is, you look so much like a young friend of mine – a relative, in fact – that for a moment I was almost sure you were he. But, of course, you can’t be, for he is dead – been dead eight years. If you are ready we will go on.”
Julian was forced to be contented with this explanation, but he was not quite satisfied with it. It was made in a bungling, hesitating manner, as if the man were thinking about one thing and talking about another. More than that, the excitement he had exhibited on the first meeting with Julian seemed to increase the longer he looked at him; and now and then he rubbed his gloved hands together as if he were meditating upon something that afforded him infinite pleasure. He continued to watch the boy out of the corner of his eye, and finally inquired:
“Is this man Bowles, of whom you spoke, your father?”
“No, sir,” replied Joe, emphatically. “I live with him, but he is no relative of mine. My father, as I remember him, was a different sort of man altogether.”
“Eh!” ejaculated the stranger, with a start. “As you remember him? Ah! he is dead, then?”
“Not that I know of, sir. He was alive and well the last time I saw him. I’ll see him again in a few weeks.”
“Where is he?”
“Out West. He owns a rancho near the mountains with a gold mine on it.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because I can’t help myself. I didn’t come here of my own free will, but was brought by one who will have good cause to remember me if I meet him again when I become a man.”
“Do you think you would know him if you should see him again?” asked the stranger, looking sharply at Julian, and putting his hat lower over his eyes.
“I am quite sure I should. He stole me away from my home and brought me here; but why he did it I can’t tell. I don’t intend to stay any longer, if it would do him any good to know it. I’ve got a good horse and rifle, and plenty of money, and I am going to leave here in a few days and go back to the mountains where I belong, and I shall not ask Jack Bowles’ consent, either.”
“Do you think he would oppose it?”
“I know he would. He would beat me half to death, or his wife would, and lock me up in the smoke-house till I promised never to think of such a thing again. I’m going to run away, and by the time he misses me I shall be a long distance out of his reach.”
The man listened attentively to all Julian had to say, and when the latter ceased speaking he placed his hands behind his back, fastened his eyes on the ground, and walked along as if he were in a brown study. He did not look up until they reached the door of the cabin where Jack Bowles, who had just finished his supper, stood smoking his cob pipe.
“Wal, who have ye got thar?” was his surly greeting.
“A gentleman who wishes to find a place to stay all night,” replied Julian.
“Why don’t he toddle on and find it, then?” growled Jack. “I ain’t a hinderin’ him, be I? He can’t stop here. I don’t keep a hotel to take in every Tom, Dick and Harry that comes along. Wal, I be dog-gone!”
Jack suddenly took his pipe from his mouth, and stepping hastily up to the stranger, bent forward and peered into his face. Then something that was intended for a smile of recognition overspread his own countenance, and extending his hand with as cordial an air as he could assume, he continued:
“I allowed I had seed ye somewhar afore, Mr. – eh?”
Jack paused before the name he had been about to pronounce escaped his lips, interrupted by a hasty gesture from the stranger, who glanced toward Julian and raised his hand warningly.
“You are mistaken, my friend,” said he, blandly. “You have never seen me before, but I hope the fact that I am a stranger to you will not prevent you from extending your hospitality to me for the night.”
Jack stared, took a few long, deliberate pulls at his pipe, looked first at the eaves of the cabin, then down at the ground, and finally turned to Julian for an explanation.
“What’s he tryin’ to get through hisself?” he asked.
“He wants something to eat and a bed to sleep in,” replied the boy.
“Oh! Why didn’t he say so, then? Wal, stranger, I reckon we can hang ye up somewhar,” added Jack, who had seen and comprehended the warning gesture; “although, as I told ye afore, we don’t make a business of takin’ in every tramp that comes along. Ye see, in a new country like this it ain’t safe. Ole woman, make up another batch of them corn-dodgers an’ fry a slice or two of that bar’s meat. Julian, what be ye a standin’ thar gapin’ at? Cl’ar yerself. Come in, stranger – come in an’ set down.”
Julian moved around the corner of the cabin and remained out of sight until he heard Mrs. Bowles laying the table for the guest, and then he also entered.
It was not a very sociable party he found in the house. Mrs. Bowles was moving about preparing the corn-dodgers and bear meat; the visitor, who had removed his overcoat and muffler, was comfortably seated on a nail-keg in a dark corner of the room, and Jack Bowles sat in front of the fire, his elbows resting on his knees and his hat pulled down over his eyes, which were slowly moving over the stranger’s person and scrutinizing his dress and ornaments.
Julian noticed that his gaze rested long on the watch chain that hung across the stranger’s vest, and on the diamond ring that glittered on his finger, and the expression he saw on Jack’s face alarmed him and made him wish most sincerely that he had never conducted the gentleman to the cabin.
No one spoke until supper was ready, and then the guest was invited to “draw up and pitch in.” Julian tried to obtain a glimpse of his features as he came out of his dark corner, but the man, as if guessing his intention, kept his head turned away from him and took his seat at the table with his back to the fire, so that his face still remained in the shadow.
While he was busy with his corn-dodgers and bear meat, Jake and Tom came in. They glanced curiously at the guest, and Tom seated himself beside the fire opposite Julian, whom he regarded with a triumphant smile, while Jake went to one of the beds that stood in the room and carefully hid something under the pillows. Julian afterward recalled the movements of these two worthies, and wondered why his suspicions had not been aroused.
When the stranger had satisfied his appetite, the three boys, at a sign from Mrs. Bowles, sat down and made a very light meal of that which was left, and no sooner had they arisen from the table than they received a second signal from Mr. Bowles, who pointed with his thumb over his shoulder toward that part of the room in which the beds were situated.
The boys all obeyed the order, but one of them, at least, had no intention of going to sleep. It was Julian, who, as he slowly mounted the ladder that led to the loft, told himself that he was in some way connected with the stranger’s visit to the cabin, and that he would learn something about the matter before morning, if there was any way for him to accomplish his object. He stretched himself upon his hard bed, and drawing one of the coats over his shoulders, waited impatiently to see what was going to happen.
For half an hour all was still; then some one began to move softly about the cabin, a step was heard on the ladder, and a light flashed upon the rafters over Julian’s head.
Presently a hand grasping a tallow dip appeared above the edge of the loft, closely followed by the grizzly head and broad shoulders of Jack Bowles, who stopped when he reached the top of the ladder and gazed at our hero long and earnestly.
Julian was wide awake, and through his half-closed eyelids could see every move Jack made, but the latter, believing him to be fast asleep, descended the ladder and joined his guest.
“My suspicions are confirmed,” soliloquized Julian. “They intend to talk upon some subject that they don’t want me to know anything about. I am going to learn something now. Perhaps I shall find out who I am and where my father is, and why I was brought here. What if this man should prove to be my father, who, for reasons of his own, does not wish to reveal himself to me?”
Julian, highly excited over this thought, rolled noiselessly off the bed upon the floor, crept to the edge of the loft, and looked over into the room below. Jack had just placed his candle on the table, and was approaching his guest with outstretched hand.
“Now, then, Mr. Mortimer,” said he, “the boy is out of the way fur the night, an’ thar’s no use in settin’ back thar away from the fire. Draw up an’ give us a shake.”
“Mr. Mortimer!” was Julian’s mental ejaculation.
His heart seemed to stop beating. He opened his eyes to their widest extent and kept them fastened upon the stranger, who pulled his nail-keg in front of the fire and seated himself upon it.
CHAPTER VII
THE FLIGHT
WHEN THE gentleman came out of his dark corner, and the light of the candle fell upon his features, Julian took a good look at him, and an expression of great disappointment settled on his face.
“Whoever he is, he is not my father,” said he, to himself, “for my father had gray hair. This man is a stranger, and as it would be a mean piece of business in me to stay here and listen to his conversation I will crawl back to my pile of husks and go to sleep.”
Acting upon this resolution Julian began a slow and cautious retreat; but he had not gone far when a thought struck him, and he crept back to the edge of the loft and looked over into the room again.
“Jack called him Mr. Mortimer,” soliloquized the boy, “and I should like to know who and what he is. The manner in which he acted when I met him in the woods makes me believe that he has seen me before, and that he knows something about me that he wishes to keep hidden from me. I have a good deal at stake and it will do no harm to listen a while anyhow.”
It was a very handsome face that Julian’s eyes rested upon, and one that he did not think he should ever forget. Although the man’s language indicated that he was an American, his features had a decided Spanish cast. His face was dark and wore a haughty expression, his hair was long and waving, and like his mustache and goatee, was as black as midnight. Julian looked at him attentively, and was surprised to see that he shook hands with Mr. Bowles and his wife, as if they were old acquaintances whom he was glad to meet once more.
“It’s a long time since I’ve seed ye, Mr. Mortimer, but I allowed I knowed ye as soon as I clapped my eyes onto ye,” said Jack, drawing his nail-keg a little closer to the side of his guest.
“And you came very near making a mess of it, too,” replied the latter, with some impatience in his tones. “I believe that boy suspects me – he looked at me as if he did – and I would not have him know who I am for the world. You’re sure he is asleep?”
“Sartin, ’cause 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 me, ’cause I told ye.”
“Eh?” roared Jack, jumping up in great amazement.
“O, he won’t be here, an’ 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.