It was while Betty was eating the gala "hen," delicious in its festive gravy and dumplings, that she looked off across the little dining-room to the dark window with its twinkling village lights in the distance and thought of the stranger. A dark fear flashed across her sweet face and sparkled in the depths of her eyes for just an instant. Was it perhaps the distant bay of the hounds on her trail, coming nearer every moment?
Then she remembered the heavenly Father and her new-found faith, and turned back to the cheery little room and the children"s pleasant clatter, resolved to forget the fear and to trust all to Him who cared for her. Perhaps he had sent the pleasant stranger, and the thought brought a quiet little smile to settle about her lips. She laughed with Bob and Emily at how they had got wet with a sudden unexpected shower from the new bath while they were arranging the curtain on the rod, and Emily had turned the faucet on without knowing it. The patient-eyed mother watched them all and was satisfied.
How good it is that we cannot hear all the noises of the earth at the same time, nor know of every danger that lurks near as we are pa.s.sing by! We grumble a great deal that G.o.d does not send us as much as we think he might, but we give scarce a thought to our escape from the many perils, lying close as our very breath, of which we never even dream.
At that moment, as they sat quietly eating their happy meal, a deadly particular peril was headed straight for Tinsdale.
Abijah Gage and Herbert Hutton boarded the evening train for Tinsdale together and entered the sleeper. Abijah shuffled behind, carrying the bags, a most extraordinary and humiliating position for him. He had never been known to carry anything, not even himself if he could help it, since the day his mother died and ceased to force him to carry in wood and water for her at the end of a hickory switch. He glanced uneasily round with a slight cackle of dismay as he arrived in the unaccustomed plush surroundings and tried to find some place to dump his load. But the well-groomed Herbert strode down the long aisle unnoticing and took possession of the section he had secured as if he owned the road.
"You can sit there!" he ordered Bi with a condescending motion, dropping into his own seat and opening a newspaper.
Bi sat down on the edge of the seat, and held on to the arm in a gingerly way as if he were afraid to trust himself to anything so different. He looked furtively up and down the car, eyed the porter, who ignored him contemptuously and finally came back and demanded his sleeper ticket with a lordliness that Bi did not feel he could take from a negro. But somehow the ticket got tangled in his pocket, and Bi had a hard time finding it, which deepened his indignation at the porter.
"I ain"t takin" no sa.s.s from no one. My seat"s paid fer all right," he said distinctly for the enlightenment of the other pa.s.sengers, and Herbert Hutton reached out a discreet arm and dropped something in the porter"s hand which sent him on his way and left Bi snorting audibly after him.
"You"d better shut up!" growled the dictator to Bi. "We don"t want to be conspicuous, you know. If you can"t hold your tongue and act as if you had ever traveled before, I"ll get off this train at the next station and you can whistle for your reward. Do you understand?"
Bi dropped his toothless lower jaw a trifle and his little eyes grew narrow. This was no way to manage affable Bi. He loved a good visit, and he had counted on one all the way to Tinsdale. He had no idea of sitting silent.
"I understand," he drawled, "an" I"ll be gormed ef I"ll agree. I ain"t told you yet where we get off, an" I don"t have to ef I don"t wantta. Ef you can"t treat me like a gen"l"man you know where you can get off, an"
I ain"t havin" to state it."
Herbert Hutton drew his arrogant brows in a frown of annoyance, and whirled around to placate his guide:
"Now see here, you old popinjay, what"s got into you?"
"No, sir, I ain"t n.o.body"s papa," babbled Bi, seeing he had scored a point. "I have enough to do to support myself without any family."
"That"s all right, have it your own way, only shut up or we"ll have somebody listening. Have a cigar. Take two. But you can"t smoke "em in here, you"ll have to go to the smoking-room. Wait! I"ll see if we can get the drawing-room."
The porter appeared and the change was effected, to the great disappointment of Bi, who kept continually poking his head out to get a glimpse of the fine ladies. He would much have preferred staying out in the main car and getting acquainted with people. His cunning had departed with the need. He had put things in the hands of this surly companion, and now he meant to have a good time and something to tell the gang about when he got home.
About midnight the train drew into a station and Herbert Hutton roused himself and looked out of the window. Bi, whose cunning had returned, followed his example. Suddenly he leaned forward excitedly and tapped the gla.s.s with a long finger:
"That"s him! That"s the guy," he whispered excitedly as another train drew in and pa.s.sengers began to hurry down the platform and across to the waiting sleeper.
"Are you sure?"
"Sartin!"
"You mean the one with the coat over his arm, and the two men behind?"
He stopped short with an exclamation.
Bi looked up cunningly. Now what was up? He saw a thunder-cloud on the face of his companion.
With embellishments Herbert Hutton asked if Bi had ever seen the two tall gray-haired men who were walking with their prey.
Bi narrowed his eyes and denied any knowledge, but perceived there were more sides than two to the enigma. Now, what could he figure out of those two guys? Were there more rewards to be offered? If so, he was a candidate. He wondered what chance there was of getting away from H. H.
and sauntering through the train. He found, however, a sudden willingness on the part of his companion to vanish and let him do the scout work for the rest of the night.
With a sense of being on a vacation and a chance at catching big fish Bi swung out through the train. b.u.mping down among the now curtained berths, adjusting his long form to the motion of the express, lurching to right and to left as they went round a curve, falling over an occasional pair of shoes and bringing down lofty reproaches from the sleepy porter, he penetrated to the day coaches and at last located his quarry.
They were sitting in a double seat, the younger man facing the two older ones, and had evidently been unable to get sleepers. Bi hung around the water-cooler at the far end of the car until he had laid out his plans; then he sauntered up to the vacant seat behind the three men and dropped noiselessly into its depths, drawing his hat down well over his face, and apparently falling into instant slumber, with a fair sample of Tinsdale snoring brought in at moderate distances.
The conversation was earnest, in well-modulated voices, and hard to follow connectedly, for the men knew how to talk without seeming to the outside world to be saying anything intelligible. Occasionally a sentence would come out clear cut in an interval of the rhythm of the train, but for the most part Bi could make little or nothing of it.
"In all the years we"ve been trustees of that estate we haven"t seen her but twice," said one of the older men; "once at her father"s second marriage, and again at his funeral. Then we only saw her at a distance.
Her stepmother said she was too grief-stricken to speak with any one, and it was by the utmost effort she could be present at the service."
"She looked very frail and young," said the other old man; "and her hair--I remember her hair!"
Bi changed his position cautiously and tried to peer over the back of his seat, but the voices were crowded together now, and the younger man was talking earnestly. He could not catch a syllable. "Trustees!" That word stayed with him. "Estate" was another promising one, and the fact that her hair had been remembered. He nodded his old head sagaciously, and later when the three men settled back in their seats more comfortably with their eyes closed he slid back to the water-cooler and so on through the sleeper to the drawing-room.
Hutton was sleeping the sleep of the unjust, which means that he woke at the slightest breath, and Bi"s breath was something to wake a heavier sleeper. So they sat and planned as the train rushed on through the night. Now and again Bi took a pilgrimage up to the day coach and back to report the three travelers still asleep.
About six o"clock in the morning the train slowed down, and finally came to a thrashing halt, waking the sleepers uncomfortably and making them conscious of crunching feet in the cinders outside, and consulting voices of trainmen busy with a hammer underneath the car somewhere. Then they drowsed off to sleep again and the voices and hammering blended comfortably into their dreams.
The pa.s.sengers in the day coach roused, looked at their watches, stretched their cramped limbs, squinted out to see if anything serious was the matter, and settled into a new position to sleep once more.
Bi, stretched for the nonce upon the long couch of the drawing-room while his superior occupied the more comfortable berth, roused to instant action, slipped out to the platform and took his bearings. He had lived in that part of the country all his life and he knew where they ought to be by that time. Yes, there was the old saw mill down by Hague"s Crossing, and the steeple over by the soft maple grove just beyond Fox Glove. It would not be a long walk, and they had a garage at Fox Glove!
He sauntered along the cinder path; discovered that the trouble with the engine was somewhat serious, requiring to wait for help, took a glimpse into the day coach ahead to a.s.sure himself that the three men were still safely asleep, and sauntered back to the drawing-room.
His entrance roused the sleeper, who was on the alert instantly.
"Say, we got a hot box an" a broken engyne!" Bi announced. "It"ll take us some time. We ain"t fur from Fox Glove. We could santer over an" git a car an" beat "em to it!"
"We could?" said Hutton. "You sure? No chances, mind you!"
"Do it easy. Those guys are asleep. They won"t get to the Junction "fore ten o"clock, mebbe later, an" they can"t possibly get to our place "fore "leven."
"Lead the way!" ordered Hutton, cramming himself into his coat and hat.
"Better slide down on the other side," whispered Bi as they reached the platform. "We kin go back round the train an" n.o.body"ll notice."
As if they were only come out to see what was the matter they idled along the length of the train around out of sight, slid down the bank, took a shortcut across a meadow to a road, and were soon well on their way to Fox Glove in the early cool of the spring morning, a strangely mated couple bent on mischief.
Back on the cinder track the express waited, dreamily indifferent, with a flagman ahead and behind to guard its safety, and while men slept the enemy took wings and flew down the white morning road to Tinsdale, but no one ran ahead with a little red flag to the gray cottage where slept Betty, to warn her, though perchance an angel with a flaming sword stood invisibly to guard the way.
CHAPTER XVII
BOB had just finished feeding the chickens when the automobile drew up at the door, and he hurried around the house to see who it might be. He was rather looking for the return of that nice lawyer again. He felt the family expected him some time soon. Perhaps he would be to breakfast and mother would want some fresh eggs.
They had dropped Bi at the edge of the village and there were only Hutton and the driver who had brought them. Bi had no mind to get mixed up in this affair too openly. He valued his standing in his home town, and did not wish to lose it. He had an instinct that what he was doing might make him unpopular if it became known. Besides, he had another ax to grind.