Fiancées -- Fiction; Missing persons -- Juvenile fiction; Young women -- Juvenile fiction
"After that he stayed in or near the shack for days. He was so upset for
fear someone would find me that instead of going around as usual without
saying much, he would talk all the time. He was cunning enough not to
talk loudly, though. He had a glimmer of sense even if he was crazy, for
he kept his voice down to a mutter. I dare say my broken leg would have
healed a good deal faster, if he had gone on giving me as good care as
he gave me at first. He wasn't anxious for me to get well. He used to
say, 'When you can walk again, you will have to stay shut up just the
same. If you go into the woods, they will see you and take you away.'
"Privately I made up my mind that as soon as I was well enough I
wouldn't wait for 'them' to 'take me away'; I'd go of my own accord. But
I had to be careful. As I've already told you he was a giant. He was at
least six feet three and strong as a gorilla. I often used to wonder who
he was and all about him. One day, about a week before you came, I
thought I'd try my damaged leg to see if I could use it. He was off on
one of his jaunts or I wouldn't have dared to try it. I found I could
hobble about a little and just for curiosity I lifted up the board in
the floor, not because I wanted to count his money, but to see what else
he kept in the little old-fashioned box he always took it from. All I
found besides the money was a battered photograph of a little boy. On
the back of it was written in a round, childish hand: 'To my father. You
little son, Wallace Lindsey, twelve years old.' I suppose it must have
been----"
Old Jean interrupted Tom's recital with a sudden ringing cry of, "It is
the wil' man! He hav' the name Lindsey. You remember, M'sieu' David, I
hav' tell you 'bout him!" In his excitement Jean leaped from the log,
Tom and David viewing him in amazement. "But w'en I hav' see his son, he
big man lak' his father."
"What do you know of him, Jean!" Tom's question was freighted with
eagerness. "It's evident you must know something."
"Do you mean, Jean, that you think this fellow is the one you were
telling me of?" demanded David skeptically.
"It is the sam'," almost shouted the hunter. "I hav' know the name when
I hear it, but never could I remember. But I think he dead long time,
because after his son who he hav' love much get kill by tree, he turn to
wil' man an' run 'way to Canada, an' no one know after where he hav'
gone. Of a truth we hav' done well not to meet him. No wonder you say
'urry an' get away, M'sieu' Tom."
"Yes, I knew the danger if you didn't," returned Tom. "He had been gone
three days when you came and I was expecting him back at almost any
minute. Now I understand why he called me his dear son. How we managed
to dodge him is a miracle."
"Finding you was a miracle!" was David's reverent exclamation. "I feel
as though I'd been living in a nightmare and just awakened from it."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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