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Frank Merriwell's Son; or, A Chip Off the Old Block, a fiction by Burt L. Standish |
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Chapter 16. For The Sake Of Old Days |
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_ CHAPTER XVI. FOR THE SAKE OF OLD DAYS A man and a woman were making their way through a strip of timber where the shadows were thick. They were almost running, the man being in advance. He carried a bundle, from which at intervals came a strange, smothered cry, like the wailing of an infant. "Oh, Selwin, Selwin," gasped the woman, "I can't keep this up! I'm ready to drop now! Can't you go a little slower?" "And have those human hounds overtake us?" snarled the man. "Curse them! They're like bloodhounds on the scent! I've tried every trick to turn them off our track. I've doubled and turned, I've crossed ledges and waded streams, but I fear to hear them behind us any moment!" "You were mad, Selwin--mad!" gasped the weary woman, whose garments were tattered and torn, and whose hands and face were scratched and bleeding. "I told you how it would be! I told you we could not carry this mad scheme through!" "I will carry it through!" he grated. "If we can keep away from them until darkness falls, they'll be unable to follow us farther." "But the whole country will be aroused! We can't escape! I say it was madness!" "How in the devil did they find it out so soon?" "I knew they would--I knew it! The other child----" "Looked enough like this one to pass muster for a few hours, at least," he interrupted. "Satan take the brat! Hear it squall!" Again a smothered cry came from the bundle. "Don't hurt it!" pleaded the woman. "Don't handle it so roughly!" "Hurt it? Furies! I'd like to strangle it! Here's a path. We'll follow that." The path soon brought them into an old wood road, and they mounted a wooded hill, the woman desperately stumbling along at the heels of the man. On the hillside they came upon a deserted hut. Through the trees they could see the sun sinking redly in the west. "Oh, stop, Selwin--stop a little while!" entreated the fatigued woman. "Let's rest here." He halted and scowled as he stood in thought. "They should be somewhere over to the northeast," he said. "I wonder if I could see them from the top of the hill. I'll try it. Here, take the brat, Bessie. I'll be back in a few minutes." He tossed the bundle into her arms, whirled and rushed away up the hill. The woman sat down on the trunk of a felled tree. She opened the bundle and gazed sadly, almost lovingly, on the face of an infant. The little eyes looked up at her, seemed to recognize her, and something like a smile came to the child's face. "Poor little Frank! poor little Frank!" she breathed. "It's a shame--a brutal shame! Oh, why did I ever consent! Even though I have hated your father, I love you! It's drink that's turned the brain of Selwin Harris!" The baby began to fret and cry. "You're hungry, darling," muttered the woman. "Oh, what brutes we are! What a wretched thing I am! I've always been bad, and I always will be. Still, a noble man loves me. Oh, Berlin, Berlin, you will despise me now! Even though you loved me through all the past and for all of the past, you'll scorn and despise me now! Well, what does it matter? You found me at last, and you forced the truth from my lips; but it was too late--too late!" Bitter tears of mingled sorrow and shame welled into her eyes and blinded her. They fell from her cheeks upon the cheeks of the fretting child. "Oh, Frank--oh, little honey boy!" she sobbed. "I hope you may never live to know such wretchedness as I have known! Better that you should die now! Better you had never been born! Why was I born? Why was I set adrift in this wretched, wicked old world? Not one thing in life has ever gone right with me!" A crashing sound gave her a start, and she saw the man returning on a run. As he passed a corner of the old hut one foot seemed to break through the ground, and he went down. With some difficulty, he drew forth his leg from a hole into which he had plunged. Pausing, he looked down into that hole, and far beneath he caught a faint mercurylike glitter. "An old well," he muttered. "The brush and deadwood had fallen over the mouth of it and hidden it. I came near dropping in there myself." "Are you hurt, Selwin?" called the woman. "No," he answered; "but I came mighty near falling into a trap." As he approached her she observed a look on his face that gave her a shuddery chill. "Let me take the child," he said. "No; I'll carry him a little while. Did you see anything of the pursuers?" "See them?" he snarled. "Curse them, yes!" "They're still on our track?" "Following it like hounds--like hounds! There are four of them. I know Merriwell and Hodge. The other two are boys. One of the boys is leading, and he runs, stooped forward, with his eyes on the ground. No Indian ever followed a trail more accurately than he has followed ours." "No Indian?" cried the woman. "You say he is a boy. Then it must be young Joe Crowfoot! I've seen him. He's one of the boys at Merriwell's school. He is a full-blooded Indian." "That accounts for it!" rasped the man. "That explains my failure to deceive them. The rest of the pursuers are far away on the main road. I saw them. They're in a carriage. Give me that child, Bessie." He sought to take the baby from her. "What are you going to do?" she asked, her hand shaking as she put it up to hold him off. "There's only one thing to be done. If we're captured with the child in our possession, we go to the jug. If the child is not in our possession and cannot be found, we can swear we know nothing about it. The other one----" "You're still mad, Selwin Harris! Would you murder this helpless infant?" "Murder?" "Yes. There's murder in your heart--in your face! I see it!" "Look here, Bessie; there's only one show for us to escape. That kid has encumbered me frightfully. I couldn't help you. That child out of the way, I can help you. We'll dodge them until it gets dark. I'll drop the brat into that old well and pull the brush over the opening. I can do it so that the well will not be found. We'll go back a short distance on our tracks and then turn off. They'll turn at the same point and follow us. There's no time to waste. Let me have the brat." She fought him with all her strength. "Never! never! never!" she panted. "You'll have to kill me first!" In a moment or two he realized that, unless he beat or choked her into unconsciousness, he could not take the infant from her. "You're a fool--you always were!" he raged. "Yes, I'm a fool!" she flung back. "I was a fool to ever have anything to do with you! Back yonder somewhere in the carriage that is following us is a man who loves me--a noble, manly, honest man. I knew him first, and he would have married me. Had I not run away from him, I'd be his wife to-day, and I'd be an honest woman." "You--you an honest woman!" flung back the ruffian, with a sneering laugh. "You an honest woman--the daughter of a cattle thief!" "Laugh! Sneer! Taunt me! Fling my disgrace in my face! And you're the man I once thought I loved! I thought I did! Ha! ha! ha! You've called me a fool. It's true! I thought I loved you; but now I hate you--I hate you!" "Oh, rats! You're playing to the gallery now, Bessie. Well, we'll have to move--we'll have to hike lively. The sun is almost down. The shadows are growing thicker. Will darkness never come?" "It's come for me!" she groaned. "It's in my heart! It's in my soul! For me it is the eternal, never-ending night of sin, disgrace, and shame!" He clutched her arm and dragged her on. Again they stumbled and lunged and tore their way through the shadowy woods. To their right the sun had dropped beyond the far-away hills, flinging a last reddish glow up into the highest sky, and this glow seemed temporarily to lighten the whole forest. Through a boggy spot they floundered. Through a jungle they thrust themselves. And at last, as the reddish sky was fading and turning to lead, they came upon a rutty, winding country road. Darkness shut down quickly. A light gleamed ahead of them. It came from the window of a house. Hitched to a fence corner in front of the house was a horse, attached to an old wagon. The man paused beside the wagon. "Get in!" he commanded. "What are you going to do?" "Get in! I'm going to take this team. Somebody who is calling at that house left it standing here. It was left for us." He lifted her into the wagon, sprang to the head of the horse, unhitched the animal, and a moment later was by the woman's side. The horse was reined around into the road. The man seized the whip and a moment later the sound of the animal's hoofs mingled with the rattle of the wagon wheels. "Night at last!" cried the desperate kidnaper. "Now we'll dodge them somehow!" "You cannot dodge them, Selwin," said the woman. "I feel that we're hurrying straight into their clutches." "Why, you fool, they're behind us! I tell you we'll dodge them now. Why in blazes did I ever bother to take that other brat from the poorhouse where its mother died? It was your plan to substitute one child for the other, Bessie. I wanted to steal Merriwell's kid in the first place. Furies take him! I swore years ago to strike at his heart when the time came. He was responsible for the death of my brother. They were at Yale together, this Merriwell and poor old Sport. Merriwell disgraced Sport by exposing him as a card sharp. Sport sought to get even. He followed Merriwell to England, and in England he died. In his last letter to me he wrote that he had a premonition of his fate. He said he felt sure that Merriwell would do him up at last." "Did Frank Merriwell kill him?" "Oh, just the same as that. I believe Sport was killed in some sort of an accident while he was running away from Merriwell. I've waited a long time, but I've struck at last. Satan take this hill!" He lashed the horse, and the animal went galloping up the road that wound over the hill. Suddenly, at a turn of the road, two fiery eyes burst into view, and through the night came the wild shriek of an automobile horn. With an oath, the man sought to rein to one side of the narrow road. The fiery eyes were right upon them. There was a crash. The wagon was struck and smashed. Man, woman, and child were hurled into the ditch. Chester Arlington, a lad who, despite his father's wealth, had been dismissed from school, stopped his machine ten rods farther on. "Are you hurt, June?" he asked, addressing his sister, who numbered Dick Merriwell and Dale Sparkfair among her admirers. "No, I'm not hurt," answered the girl, who was sitting beside him. "But I believe you've killed some one, Chester! I told you that you would! Oh, it's terrible! Let's go back and see." Arlington removed one of the oil lamps from his car, and they started back toward the scene of the collision. Another wagon came over the brow of the hill and stopped. From a distance in the opposite direction came a sharp signal whistle that was answered by one of the three persons in the wagon. "That's Merry!" exclaimed Berlin Carson, as he leaped out. "I wonder what's happened here. Somebody's smashed up." Two minutes later young Joe Crowfoot, Frank Merriwell, Bart Hodge, and Dale Sparkfair arrived. They found a horse, with the shafts of a smashed wagon attached, calmly grazing by the roadside. The wrecked wagon was in the ditch. Near by lay the body of a man. A few yards away sat a woman, holding an unharmed child in her arms. "We've got them, Frank!" said Berlin Carson, as he took the lamp from Arlington's hand and turned the light on the face of the prostrate man. "Here's the wretch who did it! Do you know him?" Merry looked down. "He's dead!" said Frank. "I think his neck was broken," exclaimed Carson. "I don't believe he realized what happened after the automobile struck the wagon. Do you know him, Frank?" "I've seen that face before. Yes, I think I know him. His name--his name is Harris! That's it! Why, his brother was at Yale! You remember Sport Harris, Carson?" "Sure!" breathed Berlin. Merriwell seized the child, and the woman surrendered it to him. "I'm wicked!" she said. "Put me in prison! But I saved your child's life when Selwin Harris would have taken it!" "Lizette, why did you do this thing?" asked Merry. "What was that man to you?" "He was my husband," she replied. "I'm not Lizette. That's not my name. I deceived you because he commanded me to. Put me in prison! I hope they keep me there till I die!" Carson's hand found that of Merriwell. "Merry," he said huskily, pleadingly, "this poor girl is Bessie King. I loved her once. It's dead now, all the love I knew. She has been more weak than sinful. You have your boy safe in your arms. You'll take him back to Inza. You'll keep your promise to her. We were old comrades at college. I would have done anything for you then, and I would do anything in my power for you now. For my sake let this poor woman go--for my sake, Frank!" There was a hush. Frank stood there in silence for such a long time that every person seemed to hear the beating of his own heart. At last Merriwell spoke. "For your sake I will, Berlin," he said. _ |
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