"Now remember. We are to keep close together until we get through
Sawyer. Then, if we are followed, you are to give me a chance to get
ahead, and you will keep straight on until you tire them out, if you
drive all night. Ralph," he added, "Jim knows the road and you don't, so
I am going to let him drive for you."
Then Bob got into the torpedo-wagon, Dick mounted the one that had come
from the new camp, Jim and Ralph clambered into George's team, and in
that order they started toward the highway, Bob driving leisurely, as if
to keep his horses fresh, in case they were called upon for any unusual
exertion.
The orders Bob had given aroused in Ralph's mind, now that it was too
late to make any objection, the suspicions that his pleasing manner had
lulled. He began to see why it was he had been hurried away before
George came.
The torpedo-wagon was the one that the authorities would attempt to
capture, if they saw it, and George's team, being in the rear, would be
the one that would most likely stand the brunt of the pursuit, in case
one was made. The other two teams being ahead, could turn from the road
into the woods, at a favorable opportunity, while George's horses would
lure the officers away from the tell-tale loads.
Ralph knew perfectly well that had Harnett come from the stream at the
same time he did, his team would not have been used as a "cover," for he
had no desire to implicate himself with the moonlighters, even if they
were his friends, and would possibly have refused to act, or allow his
team to act, any such part.
But while all these ideas passed through Ralph's mind, he was not
certain he was correct in his suppositions, and it was, so he thought,
not advisable for him to say anything until the time came when Bob's
plans were made apparent. Besides, he hoped that the officers would not
see them, that there would be no necessity for flight, and that George's
horses would be restored to their owner, fresh and in good condition.
During the first two miles of their journey, there was nothing to which
the most careful person could have taken objection, unless, indeed, it
was the fact of riding behind a carriage loaded with nitro-glycerine,
which was by no means a pleasant thing to do, and then the little town
of Sawyer was reached.
Up to this time the horses had trotted slowly; but on entering the town,
Bob set the example of driving faster, and all three teams were urged
along at full speed.
It surely seemed as if the moving of the moonlighters' property was to
be accomplished without difficulty, for the outskirts of Sawyer had
nearly been passed before any sign was made that they had been
observed, and then the clattering of horses' hoofs was heard, at the
same time that a voice cried:
"Halt!"
The time had come when Ralph was to learn whether Bob was making a
cat's-paw of him or not, and the suspicions he had had fast became
certainties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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