"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 subst.i.tute 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 d.i.c.k 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.
CHAPTER XVII.
A CALL TO THE "FLOCK."