Frank Merriwell's Son; Or, A Chip Off the Old Block

by Burt L. Standish

  CHAPTER XVI.

  FOR THE SAKE OF OLD DAYS.

  A man and a woman were making their way through a strip of timber wherethe shadows were thick. They were almost running, the man being inadvance. 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 readyto 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 turnthem off our track. I've doubled and turned, I've crossed ledges andwaded streams, but I fear to hear them behind us any moment!"

  "You were mad, Selwin--mad!" gasped the weary woman, whose garments weretattered 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 madscheme through!"

  "I will carry it through!" he grated. "If we can keep away from themuntil darkness falls, they'll be unable to follow us farther."

  "But the whole country will be aroused! We can't escape! I say it wasmadness!"

  "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 followthat."

  The path soon brought them into an old wood road, and they mounted awooded hill, the woman desperately stumbling along at the heels of theman. On the hillside they came upon a deserted hut. Through the treesthey 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 ifI could see them from the top of the hill. I'll try it. Here, take thebrat, 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 bundleand gazed sadly, almost lovingly, on the face of an infant. The littleeyes looked up at her, seemed to recognize her, and something like asmile came to the child's face.

  "Poor little Frank! poor little Frank!" she breathed. "It's a shame--abrutal shame! Oh, why did I ever consent! Even though I have hated yourfather, I love you! It's drink that's turned the brain of SelwinHarris!"

  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 menow! Even though you loved me through all the past and for all of thepast, you'll scorn and despise me now! Well, what does it matter? Youfound me at last, and you forced the truth from my lips; but it was toolate--too late!"

  Bitter tears of mingled sorrow and shame welled into her eyes andblinded her. They fell from her cheeks upon the cheeks of the frettingchild.

  "Oh, Frank--oh, little honey boy!" she sobbed. "I hope you may neverlive to know such wretchedness as I have known! Better that you shoulddie now! Better you had never been born! Why was I born? Why was I setadrift in this wretched, wicked old world? Not one thing in life hasever gone right with me!"

  A crashing sound gave her a start, and she saw the man returning on arun. As he passed a corner of the old hut one foot seemed to breakthrough the ground, and he went down. With some difficulty, he drewforth his leg from a hole into which he had plunged. Pausing, he lookeddown into that hole, and far beneath he caught a faint mercurylikeglitter.

  "An old well," he muttered. "The brush and deadwood had fallen over themouth 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 ashuddery chill.

  "Let me take the child," he said.

  "No; I'll carry him a little while. Did you see anything of thepursuers?"

  "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 knowMerriwell 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 Indianever followed a trail more accurately than he has followed ours."

  "No Indian?" cried the woman. "You say he is a boy. Then it must beyoung Joe Crowfoot! I've seen him. He's one of the boys at Merriwell'sschool. He is a full-blooded Indian."

  "That accounts for it!" rasped the man. "That explains my failure todeceive them. The rest of the pursuers are far away on the main road. Isaw 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 upto hold him off.

  "There's only one thing to be done. If we're captured with the child inour possession, we go to the jug. If the child is not in our possessionand cannot be found, we can swear we know nothing about it. The otherone----"

  "You're still mad, Selwin Harris! Would you murder this helplessinfant?"

  "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 hasencumbered me frightfully. I couldn't help you. That child out of theway, I can help you. We'll dodge them until it gets dark. I'll drop thebrat into that old well and pull the brush over the opening. I can do itso that the well will not be found. We'll go back a short distance onour tracks and then turn off. They'll turn at the same point and followus. 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 intounconsciousness, 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 anythingto do with you! Back yonder somewhere in the carriage that is followingus 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 hiswife to-day, and I'd be an honest woman."

  "You--you an honest woman!" flung back the ruffian, with a sneeringlaugh. "You an honest woman--the daughter of a cattle thief!"

  "Laugh! Sneer! Taunt me! Fling my disgrace in my face! And you're theman I once thought I loved! I thought I did! Ha! ha! ha! You've calledme a fool. It's true! I thought I loved you; but now I hate you--I hateyou!"

  "Oh, rats! You're playing to the gallery now, Bessie. Well, we'll haveto move--we'll have to hike lively. The sun is almost down. The shadowsare growing thicker. Will darkness never come?"

  "It's come for me!" she groaned. "It's in my heart! It's in my soul! Forme it is the eternal, never-ending night of sin, disgrace, and shame!"

  He clutched her arm and dragged her on. Again they stumbled and lungedand tore their way through the shadowy woods. To their right the sun haddropped beyond the far-away hills, flinging a last reddish glow up intothe highest sky, and this glow seemed temporarily to lighten the wholeforest. Through a boggy spot they floundered. Through a jungle theythrust themselves. And at last, as the reddish sky was fading andturning to lead, they came upon a rutty, winding country road. Darknessshut 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, att
ached toan 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 thathouse left it standing here. It was left for us."

  He lifted her into the wagon, sprang to the head of the horse, unhitchedthe animal, and a moment later was by the woman's side. The horse wasreined around into the road. The man seized the whip and a moment laterthe sound of the animal's hoofs mingled with the rattle of the wagonwheels.

  "Night at last!" cried the desperate kidnaper. "Now we'll dodge themsomehow!"

  "You cannot dodge them, Selwin," said the woman. "I feel that we'rehurrying straight into their clutches."

  "Why, you fool, they're behind us! I tell you we'll dodge them now. Whyin blazes did I ever bother to take that other brat from the poorhousewhere its mother died? It was your plan to substitute one child for theother, 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 timecame. He was responsible for the death of my brother. They were at Yaletogether, this Merriwell and poor old Sport. Merriwell disgraced Sportby exposing him as a card sharp. Sport sought to get even. He followedMerriwell to England, and in England he died. In his last letter to mehe wrote that he had a premonition of his fate. He said he felt surethat 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 ofan accident while he was running away from Merriwell. I've waited a longtime, but I've struck at last. Satan take this hill!"

  He lashed the horse, and the animal went galloping up the road thatwound over the hill.

  Suddenly, at a turn of the road, two fiery eyes burst into view, andthrough 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, andchild were hurled into the ditch.

  Chester Arlington, a lad who, despite his father's wealth, had beendismissed from school, stopped his machine ten rods farther on.

  "Are you hurt, June?" he asked, addressing his sister, who numbered DickMerriwell and Dale Sparkfair among her admirers.

  "No, I'm not hurt," answered the girl, who was sitting beside him. "ButI 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 startedback toward the scene of the collision.

  Another wagon came over the brow of the hill and stopped. From adistance in the opposite direction came a sharp signal whistle that wasanswered by one of the three persons in the wagon.

  "That's Merry!" exclaimed Berlin Carson, as he leaped out. "I wonderwhat's happened here. Somebody's smashed up."

  Two minutes later young Joe Crowfoot, Frank Merriwell, Bart Hodge, andDale Sparkfair arrived. They found a horse, with the shafts of a smashedwagon attached, calmly grazing by the roadside. The wrecked wagon was inthe 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 fromArlington'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 herealized what happened after the automobile struck the wagon. Do youknow him, Frank?"

  "I've seen that face before. Yes, I think I know him. His name--his nameis Harris! That's it! Why, his brother was at Yale! You remember SportHarris, 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'slife when Selwin Harris would have taken it!"

  "Lizette, why did you do this thing?" asked Merry. "What was that man toyou?"

  "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 theykeep me there till I die!"

  Carson's hand found that of Merriwell.

  "Merry," he said huskily, pleadingly, "this poor girl is Bessie King. Iloved her once. It's dead now, all the love I knew. She has been moreweak than sinful. You have your boy safe in your arms. You'll take himback to Inza. You'll keep your promise to her. We were old comrades atcollege. I would have done anything for you then, and I would doanything in my power for you now. For my sake let this poor womango--for my sake, Frank!"

  There was a hush. Frank stood there in silence for such a long time thatevery person seemed to hear the beating of his own heart.

  At last Merriwell spoke.

  "For your sake I will, Berlin," he said.