CHAPTER XVIII
AN ALL-NIGHT CAPTIVITY
AN ALL-NIGHT CAPTIVITY
AN ALL-NIGHT CAPTIVITY
Dave sank down in his soft bed of bags and straw, unable to move hand or foot.
The men who had made him a helpless prisoner had done their work well. Dave could not use a muscle. As to dislodging the gag or shouting, that seemed entirely out of the question.
The youth had lots of time to think. He blinked up at the stars, kept his ears on the alert, and waited for further developments.
“There’s something to Hiram’s warning, sure enough,” he reflected. “If this is the work of Jerry Dawson, he must be a pretty desperate fellow.”
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 theAegis.
“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.
“Pretty good price for the stuff you got, wasn’t it, father?” asked the boy.
“Yes, these shows pay us well,” was the response.
“Oh, I’m nobody and nothing, it seems,” thought Dave. “Wish I had the use of my tongue for about two minutes. I’d ask these people what they intend to do with me. They don’t appear like very bloodthirsty fellows. Maybe, though, they’re hired to dump me into the first river they come to, and don’t mind it so long as they get the money.”
Not a word was spoken by either father or son that showed the least interest on their part in their helpless passenger. Finally the boy said:
“It’s going to rain, father. I felt a sprinkle just then.”
“Well, we’ll be home in ten minutes.”
Dave had noticed that the sky had clouded up. A few drops of rain spattered his face. Then the horse took a turn, entered a farm yard, and was halted.
“You go into the house, father,” said the boy. “I’ll put up the horse.”
“All right, give him his feed, and say, Jared, you needn’t bother pulling the wagon in.”
“Just as you say, father.”
“Throw a hay tarpaulin over the box, so the bags won’t get soaked, that’s all.”
“The mischief!” reflected Dave. “Are they thinking of leaving me out in a rainstorm all night?”
Apparently this was just what the farmer boy was going to do. He unhitched the horse and led him into the stable. Then he came out carrying a great cover, whistling carelessly. He gave the tarpaulin a whirl, and it flopped over the box of the wagon, shutting Dave in snugly. Then, as there came a dash of rain, the boy ran for the house, and Dave could hear him run up a pair of steps and slam a door after him.
“Well!”
Dave nearly exploded with wonder, dismay and disgust. He wrenched at his bonds, and gave it up. He tried to bite the gag in his mouth free, and abandoned that futile attempt also.
“I’m certainly booked for a spell right where I am,” decided Dave. “Maybe those two fellows who captured me are to come here to get me or perhaps when the farmer and his son get their supper they’ll come out and move me somewhere else.”
Nothing of the kind, however, happened. All Dave could do was to rest snugly in one position and listen to the rain patter down on the protecting tarpaulin. An hour went by very slowly. Once in a while Dave could catch the echo of a voice singing inside the farm house. Finally he heard some windows shut down. Then everything became still. He knew now that the people in the house had gone to bed.
Dave got tired of listening to the ceaseless piping of the crickets in the grass and the croaking of the frogs in a pond near by.
“I might just as well try to go to sleep myself, too,” he told himself. “If I don’t, I’ll be in no shape for the big day to-morrow.”
There Dave faltered, with a pang that sent his heart way down into his shoes. To-morrow! It would an anxious day for him, if he was kept in captivity. And Mr. King! Dave writhed as he feared the worst.
He quieted himself finally by thinking out a new theory, and this made him feel somewhat hopeful as to himself.
“There’s been a miss in the plans of those scoundrels,” flashed into his mind. “It’s probable, it’s possible, yes, that’s it, I’ll bet!” decided Dave.
He felt more patient and satisfied now. The boy concluded that the two men who had captured him had picked out the wrong white horse. There had been more of that color among those hitched near the freight gate at the aviation grounds.
“They put me in the wrong wagon,” thought Dave, “and here I am. What will they do when they learn of their terrific blunder?”
Dave chuckled over this. If it had not been for his active fears as to some designs against Mr. King and theAegis, Dave would have felt quite jubilant.
“It will be all right in the morning,” he tried to believe, and finally went to sleep.
The loud barking of a dog aroused our hero. The tarpaulin was shaking, and as its edges flapped about Dave could tell that it was broad daylight.
“Here, Tige, what are you up to?” shouted a familiar voice.
It was that of the farmer boy who had covered Dave up in the wagon box the evening previous.
Dave could trace the movements of the dog, probably just released from his kennel by his early rising young master doing his chores about the barn yard. The animal barked unceasingly, circled the wagon and tore at the dangling ends of the tarpaulin. Dave could hear the paws of the dog as in his excitement he tried to clamber up into the vehicle.
“What is it, Tige—a cat under there?” spoke the farm boy, his voice apparently nearer.
Just then, under the dog’s pulling, the tarpaulin slid clear off to the ground. Dave was dazzled by a blinding glare of sunlight.
The farmer boy sprang upon a wheel hub and looked down into the wagon box, the dog clawing and panting at his heels. The eyes of the amazed lad fell upon Dave.
“For goodness sake!” shouted the farmer boy. “Where did you come from?”