CHAPTER XVIII.AN INTERRUPTED DEPARTURE.
The night was still and serene, with a large round moon, clear as burnished silver, shedding its light down into Pleasant Valley. Away to the west stood the ragged mountains, with the stars gleaming bright above their snow-capped peaks.
In the Black Woods the shadows were dense. The moonlight sifted down and fell on the front of the little cabin, but the rear of the cabin was in darkness. From the back door moved a form that made no noise, but hastened away as lightly as possible, slipping round into the path. Before plunging into the woods, the form paused and turned back to the cabin, toward which a kiss was tossed.
“Good-by, home! good-by, Felicia!” murmured Dick Merriwell, for Dick it was. “I am driven out, but I’ll come back when he is gone. I am free as the birds, and free I will remain. Good-by.”
Then he turned his back on the cabin and hastened noiselessly along the path.
When he thought how amazed Frank would be in the morning he felt like dancing and shouting with delight.
“Oh, I’d like to see his face!” he chuckled. “It would be such fun! It would be more fun than it was to see Billy roll his eyes round at the old pail.”
When he came to the edge of the woods he did not hesitate to step out into the moonlight, for now there was no fear in his heart that any one save Old Joe would see him.
Straight toward Black Rock, at a little distance from the shore of the lake, he hastened. There were some trees near the rock, and Dick fancied the old Indian was waiting in their shadows.
At some distance from the rock Dick paused and gave the hoot of the horned owl. Immediately, from a point near the rock, the howl of a coyote rose and quavered on the still night air.
“Joe is there!” laughed the boy. “He is waiting, and all is well.”
Then he ran forward. Near the rock a figure rose to meet him. It was Crowfoot.
“Ugh!” grunted the Indian. “You come. Old Joe think it time.”
“I waited till I was sure everybody was asleep,” said Dick. “Besides, I was bound to let him know he was not my master and that I had beaten him.”
“What you do?”
“I wrote on a slip of paper, ‘Good-by, Frank Merriwell; I am gone, and you’ll never catch me. I ranaway because I would not let you be my boss. It won’t do you a bit of good to try to find me.’ Then I signed my name to it. And I slipped into his room and put it where he would find it first thing in the morning.”
“Waste time,” declared the Indian. “Might been catched.”
“He was sound asleep in his bed. I could see his form under the clothes, but I could not hear him breathing. I got out just as quick as I could.”
“Now we get away,” said the Indian. “Get good start before morning.”
He had a rifle in his hands, while his old blanket was folded and fastened on his shoulders, so that he was in marching-trim.
“I’m ready,” said the boy. “I’ll follow you, Joe.”
“Come.”
The Indian started, with the boy at his heels, but as they passed round the rock they were amazed to see standing before them a silent figure in the moonlight—a man, with his arms folded over his breast.
Dick gave a little cry, while Old Joe stopped, half-lifting his rifle.
“Good evening,” said a pleasant voice. “Isn’t it rather late for a moonlight stroll?”
Frank Merriwell stood there before them!
“Ugh!” grunted the astounded redskin.
The boy was amazed and bewildered, for he had felt certain that Merry was fast asleep in bed in the cabin.
“It’s a lovely night, I know,” said Merry, in his calm, self-possessed manner; “but a boy like Dick should be in bed. Where were you thinking of going?”
“It’s none of your business!” cried the lad chokingly.
“I rather think it is,” was the serene retort. “If you will not tell me, I shall be compelled to tell you. I know all about it. You were thinking of going away, Dick. You were going to run away from me.”
“I am going to now!”
“I don’t think so.”
“I am! I will! You can’t stop me!”
“I have stopped you already. You will go no farther.”
“Boy go with me,” said Old Joe, fingering his rifle. “Get out of way!”
“He will return to the cabin with me,” asserted Frank confidently.
“No take him back!” declared Old Joe. “Get out way, or shoot um quick!”
“Don’t try it,” advised Merry. “I am his brother, and I know what is best for him.”
“He different from you,” said the redskin. “He like me better. He going to be like red man.”
“Hardly!” exclaimed Frank dryly. “I have no time to waste words with you, Crowfoot; but I tell you now, for the first and last time, that I will not have you monkeying with my brother or trying to thwart me in my plans. If you——”
The old Indian was enraged, and he suddenly flung his rifle up to shoot Frank straight through the body, but, with a sharp cry, the boy made a leap and knocked the barrel of the weapon aside.
Just in time! The rifle spoke, and the bullet whistled close to Frank.
“Thank you, Dick,” said Merriwell coolly, as he swiftly advanced. “That is the second time you have kept this old heathen from salting me, and I’ll not forget it.”
He stopped close to Old Joe, at whom he looked fearlessly.
“Crowfoot,” he said, “you have twice attempted my life. If you try the trick again, I’ll shoot you down like a dog! I don’t want to do it, but I do not propose to have you make a target of me. I could have shot you just now. See here!”
Then Merry displayed a revolver which he had held clasped in his hand all the while, the weapon beingconcealed under one arm as his hands were folded over his breast.
“I could shoot you now,” Frank went on; “but I do not wish to do so. You have filled this boy’s head with false notions, but I am going to drive those notions out of his head. You have taught him some things of value, but even you were not shrewd enough to discover me as I lay in the little hollow there and waited for this meeting. I was here ahead of you, and I concealed myself, as I was taught to do by one of your own race. In my bed I left a dummy figure, which deceived Dick, and——”
“How did you know anything about it?” panted the boy, in wonder. “Did Felicia tell you?”
“Not a word.”
“Then how did you know?”
“Perhaps the birds told me,” said Frank, in a mysterious way.
Dick started.
“The birds?” he said, thinking how he had called the feathered creatures of the woods about him just before he revealed his secret to Felicia.
Then a strange thought came to the lad. Had the birds listened as he told the little girl of his plans, and had Frank somehow obtained the knowledge from them? The fact that Merry had learned of those plans somehow, and had appeared to intercept the boyin his flight, seemed singular indeed; but the possibility that he had obtained his knowledge in some marvelously mysterious manner from the birds was bewildering.
A feeling of awe came upon Dick. He was struck by the conviction that it was impossible to keep anything from his wonderful brother.
Old Joe was not so much impressed, although he was not a little chagrined over his failure to discover Frank waiting in the vicinity of the rock.
“Come, Dick,” said Merry quietly; “we will go back to the cabin. To-morrow we’ll talk over your plan to run away with Crowfoot, and, if you can convince me that it is for your good, I’ll let you go with him. I am going to do just what is for your good.”
This did not satisfy the boy by any means, but he was overawed and subdued by the powerful will of his brother, and he offered no further resistance.
Old Joe was disgusted and indignant.
“You go with him?” he asked of Dick.
The boy nodded.
“It’s no use now, Joe,” he said, with resignation. “He knows all about it. It wouldn’t do me any good to run away now. I’m going back.”
The old Indian grunted.
“Go!” he cried. “Old Joe, him go to the mountains.”
Then, to the surprise of both the boy and the Indian, Merry turned to Old Joe, saying:
“Crowfoot, come back to the cabin. I want you to stay and teach Dick all that you can.”
The Indian seemed incredulous.
“You fool Old Joe,” he declared.
“I am not in the habit of fooling,” Merry asserted. “I speak the truth; I want you to teach him as much as you can. I believe that no man acquires useless knowledge. It may seem that he does, but, some time during his life, he is certain to find need of it. It always has been my policy to keep my eyes and ears open and learn all that I could. I know something of Indian lore, for I am not quite the tenderfoot I look, and one of my friends was a young Indian by the name of John Swiftwing.”
“Ugh!” grunted Crowfoot. “Him go to Injun school, marry half-blood squaw?”
“Yes.”
“Old Joe know um.”
“You know him?”
“Him live in mountains, not hundred mile from here.”
“Crowfoot, are you telling me the truth?”
The Indian relapsed into indignant silence.
“You did not tell me the truth the first time I sawyou,” said Frank. “Why should I not ask the question?”
“No know um then.”
“And, now that you know me, you are ready to shoot me in a moment. Still, I want you to come back to the cabin. Dick need not fear that I am going to take him away to school right off. I have no thought of doing so now, and he’ll not have to go until he is perfectly willing. If you, Crowfoot, know where Swiftwing is to be found, I want you to take me to him. I shall be glad to pay you in any possible way for your trouble.”
The Indian stood still and looked at the boy. Frank also looked at Dick, who immediately said:
“I am going back to the cabin, Joe. Won’t you come?”
But the old fellow seemed offended.
“No,” he said; “not now.”
Dick knew it was useless to try to persuade Old Joe, and so he did not make the attempt.
“Mebbe come in one, two day,” said Crowfoot. “Mebbe not come at all.”
Then, without even bidding Dick good-by, the strange old redskin turned and strode away, soon passing from the moonlight into the shadow of the deep woods, which hid him from view.