CHAPTER XVII.AWAKENED JEALOUSY.
Little Felicia uttered a cry of horror, her face paling.
“Oh, no, no, Dick!” she exclaimed, getting hold of him with both hands. “You don’t mean that! Why, I’ll never see you again! Oh, Dick! Dick!”
She was filled with fear and distress at the thought, and she clung to him as if afraid that he would start at once.
“Oh, but you will see me again!” he quickly declared. “That is why I am running away. It’s so, after he is gone, I can come back to you.”
“But where will you go? Where can you go?”
“Old Joe knows. I have been with him before. He will take care of me.”
“Old Joe? Then he——”
“Is going with me. You mustn’t tell, Felicia. We are going away this night.”
“Oh, so soon?”
“The sooner the better. I can’t stay here, for I will not let that man be my master.”
“Oh, but you do not have to go so soon! Hedoesn’t wish to take you away from here yet. You may stay with me a little longer, Dick.”
“No one knows when he may make up his mind to take me away. He wants to carry me away off to the East, and put me into a school, where I know I should die. It is dangerous to wait, Felicia.”
The girl fell to sobbing, and he put his arm about her.
“There, there!” he said, in a soft and soothing voice. “Don’t cry about it, dear cousin—please don’t. I’ll come back to you—I swear it! Before long I will be a man, and then he can’t take me from you. I’ll stay with you always then.”
He soothed her after a little, kissing away the tears.
“But you must promise not to tell a soul about what I am going to do,” he suddenly said. “He must not know it, for he would try to stop me.”
“If he should——”
“He’d better not try it!” panted the boy, his dark eyes flashing. “I am going with Old Joe away into the mountains, and he can never find me. After a while he will get sick of hunting for me, and then he’ll go away. Joe will know when he goes away, and I’ll come back here to you.”
Her face brightened a little.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’ll come back! But do you think it is right?”
“What?”
“Running away.”
“What’s the difference?”
“He is so good, and—and I can’t help—liking him, Dick.”
“That’s the way. Once or twice I’ve almost felt that way, but I won’t let myself. I know what he means to do with me, and I just won’t like him!”
“But perhaps what he means to do would be for your good, Dick. Other boys go to school, and——”
“Some do, and some don’t! Old Joe says those who don’t are better off than those who do.”
“Do you suppose Old Joe knows?”
“Of course he does!” exclaimed the boy confidently. “Old Joe taught me to call the birds and the beasts. He taught me to follow a trail and to shoot and do many things that no boy ever learns in school. He is a better teacher than all the schoolmasters in the whole world.”
“But some time you may have to do things that Old Joe does not understand, and then——”
“Never, for I’m going to live my whole life away from the big towns. You shall live with me, Felicia, and we’ll be just as happy as—as the birds. Now listen—to-night, when everything is still, I am going. Old Joe will be waiting for me over by the big Black Rock. When morning comes, and they find I amgone, we shall be so far away that no one can catch us. Then I want you to tell them that I ran away because I would not let my brother be my master. Will you tell them that, Felicia?”
“Yes, Dick—I’ll do anything for you.”
“Dear Felicia! Be brave, and I’ll come back to you. Don’t tell that I’m ever coming back, because then he might stay and watch for me. That would simply keep me away, for I shall know how long he stays and when he goes. If you wish me to return soon, don’t tell.”
She promised that she would not, though in her heart she felt that she was doing something wrong. For him, however, she would do it. He was the only playmate she had ever known, and she thought him the most wonderful boy in all the world.
Sometimes Felicia had sat quite still at a distance and watched Dick call the birds and the tiny wild things of the woods about him, delighted and amazed by his power. But when she had tried to approach they had fled; when she sought to call them they would not respond. She could not understand the mystery of it, but in her mind was the conviction that Dick was like the wild creatures that approached him without fear, and now it seemed wrong for any one to think of taking him from the scenes he loved and placing him in a school.
“I’ll think of you every day when I’m away, Felicia,” he promised.
“And I’ll think of you, Dick,” she murmured. “When I say my prayers at night I’ll pray for you.”
“Dear little Felicia!” he exclaimed again. “We won’t let my bad brother separate us.”
“Oh, I do not think he is bad, Dick—I can’t think that! He is handsome, and he has such a good face!”
A strange light appeared in the eyes of the lad, while he flushed hotly.
“He knows how to fool people,” said Dick; “but I know he’s bad.”
“No, no!” cried Felicia. “He has held me on his knee and told me stories and talked to me. You are wrong, Dick. He is not bad.”
“He is! he is!” panted the boy, in a sudden burst of jealousy. “Don’t ever let him take you on his knee again, Felicia!” He grasped her by the wrists and glared into her startled eyes. “Promise me that you will not let him take you on his knee again. Promise! promise!”
She was frightened by his sudden fierceness, and the clutch on her wrists caused her to cry out with pain:
“Oh, oh! you are hurting me! I’ll promise; only don’t hurt me!”
Her face paled and showed her pain, which struckhim to the heart with remorse. Instantly he released her wrists and clasped his arm about her, saying pleadingly:
“Forgive me, please forgive me! I didn’t mean to hurt you—truly, I didn’t! But it made me mad to think about you sitting on his knee, and I didn’t know what I was doing. Oh, say I did not hurt you much!”
He kissed her wrists and showered her with caresses, his manner full of passionate devotion.
“You hurt just a little,” she declared bravely; “but it was only for a minute. It’s all gone now—now you have kissed it, Dick.”
“If you knew how I hate to leave you even for a little while!” he exclaimed.
“If you knew how I hate to have you go!” she breathed.
“My brave, sweet little cousin!” he said, with the air of a manly lover. “But you must not sit on Frank’s knee, and you must keep away from him as much as you can. Promise me that you will do as I ask.”
“Oh, I’ll promise, Dick!”
“Don’t look at him when he talks to you—don’t look into his eyes. If you do, he will get the best of you, for there is something in his eyes that it ishard to resist. I don’t know what it is, but I have felt it.”
He led her to make many promises of the sort, and she did so, though she knew it would be difficult for her to keep some of them.
“There!” he exclaimed, in satisfaction; “he’ll find he cannot master me! He’ll find he cannot force me to the school that makes cowards and weak men.”
“But he is no coward,” asserted Felicia. “You should have seen him fight the ruffian who was carrying me off the day he first came into this valley. That man was a giant, and he was strong and fierce; but Frank grappled with him, grasped his wrist when he tried to use his knife, threw him, and knocked him senseless. Oh, he must be awfully strong!”
Again Dick was green with jealousy.
“Bah!” he cried. “The ruffian must have been drunk. Don’t tell me any more about it! In a few years I will be able to handle him. Now we will go back to the house, and you must be careful in your actions not to do anything that will make any one suspect what is going to happen. You will be careful?”
“Yes, Dick. What am I to do?”
“Act just as you always do—not differently. Be happy.”
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t speak a word about it near the house. Don’t let Old Joe know that I have told you.”
She promised, and they started for the cabin, walking hand in hand through the woods. They came to the path after a while, along which they made their way.
Just before they came within sight of the cabin, Felicia suddenly stopped and flung her arms about Dick’s neck, brokenly exclaiming:
“Oh, Dick! how can I let you go away to-night—how can I? I shall lay awake and think about it! I shall know when you meet Old Joe at Black Rock! I shall see you stealing away together! I shall see you hurrying into the mountains!”
“Hush!” he said. “You must not speak of it again till I am gone. We are too near the house.”
“Kiss me good-by!” she half-sobbed.
They exchanged kisses, and then they romped away toward the cabin, like thoughtless children. And Dick’s laugh rang loudly through the woods—the wild, elfish laughter that was characteristic of him.
Beside the cabin Old Joe Crowfoot smoked in grim silence.
But within the cabin Frank Merriwell was no longer writing. His chair and table were deserted, and he was gone.