Fighting for fortune or, Making a place for himself
He knew Dean well, and did not like him over-well, either. But, to
Dean’s relief, he only glanced at him and then sat down beside the
driver.
The coach started on its journey.
“Where will this adventure end, I wonder?” mused the bewildered and
anxious Dean.
CHAPTER XXIII.
AT MILLVILLE AGAIN.
The stagecoach left Springfield behind, and reached the first outlying
station without incident.
At Blue Pond, Daley and his companions did not leave the coach, and
Dean, in order to continue his journey, was compelled to pay more money.
He managed to catch a glimpse of the tickets that the driver had
collected, and he saw that three of them were marked for Millville.
The discovery worried him. The men were going to his former home. Their
plot led them to the most dangerous place for Dean that the latter
could possibly venture to.
“I wonder who they are going to rob? I wonder if I dare go to
Millville?” mused the troubled Dean. “Abner Littleton did not recognize
me, though, and we’ll reach the town after dark.”
It took all the money that Marcus had given Dean to pay the fare of the
latter the remainder of the journey.
At one place, five miles from Blue Pond, Dean had a great shock.
It was an academy town, and as the stage passed the school, four boys
and the old steward of the place glanced up at him.
They all knew Dean Mercer, but they did not recognize him, although one
of them stared at Dean, as if puzzled over some familiar token in his
appearance.
“Say, Abner?” Dean heard the driver ask as the journey was resumed,
“Millville is pretty dead nowadays, eh?”
Dean pricked up his ears, hoping that the conversation might afford
some information about friends he longed to hear about.
It did.
“Yes,” drawled young Littleton, “since Tim Downey went away there’s no
rows, and since Rodney Darringford cut out, life ain’t worth living.”
“Ha! ha! Why not?”
“Oh, there’s no one for me to annoy with new clothes and fine jewelry.”
“Where did Rodney go?”
“Blamed if I know.”
“It’s sort of mysterious.”
“Not very. You see, since the burning of the new steamer and the
accident to the _Warrior_, steamboating has ended on the lake for this
season. That is why we have so many passengers to-day. They say Judge
Oglesby is working for a charter to build a railroad around the lake.”
“Sho! but won’t that knock this old stage higher’n a kite.”
“It isn’t built yet. That sly covey, Dean Mercer, kind of knocked the
wind out of three or four. Duped the judge, as shrewd as he is, out of
about eight thousand, and he soaked Montague out of a lot.”
“Can’t they get any trace of him?”
“Nope. Oh, he’s sly enough not to come within a thousand miles of
Millville. Gracious! how they’d like to get sight of him.”
Dean could scarcely keep still as he listened to the conversation,
learning beyond doubt that everybody at Millville believed him guilty
of the crime which made him a fugitive from justice.
It was a sorry homecoming--disguised and disgraced.
The coach made a more rapid journey than usual, and due at Millville
at eight o’clock, it rounded the last hill at the limits of the village
at dusk.
“Stop the wagon!” ordered a voice from the inside, that Dean recognized
as that of Daley.
“Want to get off here?” demanded the driver, checking the horses.
“Yes. Hand down the satchels!”
Dean did not dismount. He decided that such a move might arouse the
suspicions of Daley and Spofford.
Besides, as he saw them go toward a dilapidated, deserted shanty near
the river, he knew that they must intend to make a transient rendezvous
of it.
“I’ll ride on to the first line of timber,” he decided, “and then get
off where they cannot see me.”
“Who are they?” asked Abner Littleton of the driver.
“Dunno.”
“Strangers?”
“I reckon. Hello! Look there!”
Dean looked, too.
Walking in the timber, and with rather unsteady steps, were two
familiar figures.
“Yes,” laughed Abner, “my governor and the colonel.”
“Why, I thought they were bitter enemies?” exclaimed the driver
amazedly.
“They were.”
“But----”
“Affliction makes friends!”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you see, since Judge Oglesby talks of running a railroad----”
“Yes.”
“It means ruin to both the stage line and the lake steamers.”
“Sure!”
“Therefore, dad and the colonel have joined forces to try and outwit
Judge Oglesby.”
“And seem to have been celebrating it?”
“Yes, they are a little over the bay,” replied Abner, the graceless.
“They are scheming to beat the judge.”
“Can they do it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“They intend to buy narrow strips of land all around the lake, and when
the judge tries to get the right of way for his railroad, block him in
a dozen places.”
“Ho! ho! clever schemers, eh?”
“I should say so.”
Dean Mercer dropped from the coach noiselessly, and glided to the
timber.
Neither the driver nor Abner Littleton noticed his departure.
Glancing ahead amid the gathering dusk, Dean could see Daley, Spofford
and his friend Marcus Ellison, just entering the old hut by the river.
“I need be in no hurry,” he said. “They probably intend to stay there
for some little time. Hello! I mustn’t be seen by these men, either.”
Dean glided behind a tree. Mr. Littleton and the colonel were coming
through the woods, and at that moment sat down on a fallen tree.
Both were slightly intoxicated, and turbulent and maudlin.
It was a strange sight to Dean to see these old-time enemies apparently
the best of friends. He realized that it was, however, as Abner had
insinuated, the result of mutual hatred for their new business rival,
and Dean’s best friend and benefactor, Judge Oglesby.
“Well, squire,” maundered Colonel Darringford. “It’s all settled, eh?”
“You bet,” hiccoughed Squire Littleton.
“We combine to beat the judge?”
“Anything to beat Judge Oglesby.”
“He’ll run no railroad.”
“Not if we know it.”
“He can’t kill off our valuable business interests?”
“No, sir-ree.”
“If he does, squire----”
“But he won’t.”
“If he tries it----”
“Well, colonel?”
“We’ll--we’ll do something desperate. He tried to run a boat, ha! ha!”
“And it was burned.”
“Yes, and Tim Downey----”
“Hey?”
“I mean--some one will burn up his railroad, too,” stammered the
colonel. “I won’t have it, squire. I have friends to help me, and when
I say smash him----”
“Smash he goes.”
“You bet. No railroad for us.”
The two men staggered to their feet, and soon left the woods.
Dean stood staring reflectively after them.
“Tim Downey,” he murmured. “Why did Colonel Darringford speak of him?
Is it possible that he could be bad enough to hire him to burn the
_Spray_? I can’t believe it.”
But the more that Dean reflected on the developments of the day the
more suspicious he became.
He wondered if, after all, he had not been made the victim of a deep
plot, engineered by rich men. In striking at a rival, they had ruined
him.
“Patience,” he told himself, as he got nearer to the hut near the
river. “I must keep track of Marcus, and through him Daley and
Spofford. We shall surely learn something to-night.”
Dean got nearer to the cabin. He could see a light within it. Then,
after an hour, Daley came out and walked away in the direction of the
village.
Dean secreted himself in a pile of dead brush, and kept his eyes on the
cabin.
One--two--three hours passed monotonously by.
Then he saw Daley reappear hastily from the direction of the village.
He walked straight to the door of the hut, but he did not enter it.
Instead, he seemed to call to Spofford, for that individual appeared
outside a minute later, and with Daley walked to and fro in front of
the cabin, apparently discussing something of interest and importance.
“I wish I could hear what they are saying. I wish I knew their plans,”
murmured Dean.
He decided to attempt to get nearer to them. Stealthily he crept from
bush to bush, from tree to tree, until he was within ear-shot of the
two plotters. Then he listened intently.
“No need to tell the boy anything about our plans until we arrive on
the ground,” Daley was saying.
“Bob Grant?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Are you ready?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“We’ll bring the tools?”
“We may need them.”
“Where is the house?”
“Over near the lake.”
“Rich man?”
“Very.”
“Money in the house?”
“Lots of it, Tim said.”
“Who is he?”
“Judge Oglesby.”
Dean Mercer now knew the plans of the robbers.
They intended to rob his benefactor, the judge.
By a singular combination of circumstances, Dean Mercer was enabled to
warn and save from pillage the man he was accused of robbing himself.
Dean acted on impulse.
There seemed to be only one correct thing to do--hasten to the judge’s
residence, tell him all his wretched story, and warn him of the
intended robbery of the night.
As the men reëntered the cabin, Dean Mercer dashed off on a keen run in
the direction of the palatial house of Judge Oglesby.
CHAPTER XXIV.
WORSE AND WORSE.
Marcus Ellison had only one thought in view as he rode in the
stagecoach from Springfield with Daley and Spofford, and later entered
the hut near the river at Millville, and that was to learn what they
knew of the robbery and imprisonment of his friend, Dean Mercer.
He saw the latter on the coach, and felt complacent. During the
journey, of course he could not talk to Spofford, but when they reached
the cabin he determined to question him deftly.
Daley went away toward the village, after lighting a lantern taken from
one of the satchels.
Then Spofford produced a lunch, invited Marcus to partake of it, and
then lighting his pipe, proceeded to examine the contents of the
satchels.
They contained a variety of burglars’ tools for forcing doors and the
like, and Marcus inspected them curiously.
Several times he endeavored to engage Spofford in conversation with
a view to leading him to speak of Tim Downey, but the burglar was
engrossed in examining the tools, and answered gruffly, and finally
stretched himself on the floor and dozed placidly until Daley returned.
Then, after a conversation outside with the latter, he returned to the
cabin, took up one of the satchels, directed Marcus to carry the other,
and said:
“Come on, Bob; we are ready.”
Marcus was in despair. He had so far utterly failed of his mission.
He was far-sighted enough, too, to discern that the time for learning
anything of the plot against Dean Mercer from these men had passed by.
Furthermore, he was in a bad dilemma. These men were now on the verge
of crime. He had accompanied them so far, and they would not be likely
to allow him to leave their company until the crime they meditated was
committed.
Thus he would be forced into crime, as he had not contemplated.
The men would execute their iniquitous designs of burglary, would
secure the money they coveted and then would fly to some remote spot,
leaving him behind, and destroying all trace of their whereabouts and
all clue to the Dean Mercer mystery.
He had gained nothing by his last bold venture, Marcus disappointedly
confessed. He might get into very serious trouble. Violence might be
necessary. They might all be arrested.
“I’ll warn the house at the last moment!” decided Marcus grimly. “I
must go on with these men now. They’d kill me if I showed treachery, or
tried to run away.”
So he trudged along with them.
“Here, boy! carry my coat!” ordered Daley finally. He tossed Marcus his
light overcoat as he spoke. As he did so, a memorandum book and several
letters fell on the ground.
Marcus recovered and replaced them in the pocket of the coat.
“See here, Daley,” said Spofford.
“Well?”
“When we get through here, what’s the programme?”
“New York--Europe.”