CHAPTER XIX.

JOINING FORCES.

“Oh! Thad, did you hear what he said?” whispered Giraffe, in the ear of the scout-master.

“Keep still, Giraffe, and let me manage this affair, please!” was what Thad replied; and accordingly the tall scout, quickly grasping the situation, relapsed into silence; for he had the utmost faith in the ability of the patrol leader to whip things into shape.

“What was that you were telling us, Mr. Sheriff, about this man robbing some one?” Thad asked, before the other could turn fully away.

“It’s this way, son,” came the obliging officer’s reply; “a very wealthy planter by the name of Richmond had occasion to employ a secretary to conduct some literary work he was head oveh ears interested in. So in New Orleans he comes across a smart gentlemanly fellow who gives the name of Jasper. Fo’ a long time they seem to get on right well. Then all of a sudden the kunnel he finds that his secretary suh, done disappeah, as also the contents of his safe, includin’ some family jewels that had been fetched oveh from France two hundred yeahs ago by his ancestors, and which he values above anything he possesses.”

“Oh! and that is why he is willing to put up so much money to try and recover these things, I suppose?” Thad went on, for the purpose of drawing out still more information rather than because he failed to understand.

“That accounts fo’ the milk in the cocoanut, son,” the officer admitted. “He then and there calls me in fo’ a consultation, and immediately afterwards issues that offer of reward, as also the promise to pay every man and boy who would join my posse, and hunt fo’ the thief.”

“And then word came to you that some one had seen a man answering the description of this Jasper down here—was that it, sir?” Allan asked.

“You have described it to the lettah, suh. And as the thief must be hiding in Alligator Swamp, you can understand how we’ve made up our minds to clean the old pest hole out, once fo’ all.”

“But we are told that a stranger never could make his way in and out of here, because there are so many treacherous passages; and that more than a few men have met their death trying to escape from the endless succession of watery trails?” the scout-master continued, still trying to pick up information without betraying his side of the case to the other.

“Perfectly correct, suh,” the sheriff told him; “but that fact only made me look deeper into the case. What do you think I discovered, but that yeahs ago a family by the name of Jasper lived close by this region. If that is so, then we sorter reckons this heah thief might be a son of the ole man; and in that case don’t ye see, he’d know every part of the swamp as well as Tom Smith heah?”

It gave Thad a strange thrill to hear this spoken; because had he not actually covered the identical ground himself when figuring out just how the man with the girl should be able to go and come with such little concern?

“Why,” he exclaimed, suddenly meaning to go further, and learn more, if possible; “seems to me we heard something about a strange white man who had been seen going into the swamp here, Mr. Sheriff; and perhaps now it may have been the same Jasper. But this party had a little girl about ten years old with him. Was the Jasper you wanted the father of such a child, sir?”

“He done told the kunnel that he had a daughter in a school in New Orleans; so p’raps now he went an’ took her out, so she could cook his meals fo’ him all the time he was ahidin’, till the trail got cold, an’ it was safe fo’ him to head no’th,” was what the sheriff told him.

Meanwhile Thad had been quickly figuring in his mind whether it would not be best for him to take the officer wholly into his confidence; and being a boy who could cut the Gordian knot, and decide quickly on his plan of campaign, he immediately settled this matter in the affirmative.

If the objective point of the sheriff’s posse was the retreat where Felix Jasper was supposed by Tom Smith to be hidden, how foolish it would be for them to try and attain their object while there was a rival expedition in the field that might in some way interfere with the successful carrying out of their plans.

Yes, far better to combine, and pool their issues. Besides, with such a formidable backing would not success be more apt to perch upon their banners than should they keep on trying it alone?

“I’m going to tell you something, Mr. Sheriff,” he said, hastily; “and while it may hold you up a few minutes, in the end you’ll admit that the time has been profitably spent; because we might as well join forces with you. Fact is, sir, we have come all the way down from the North in the hope of rounding up this same Jasper you’re looking for; because the girl he has with him, I have great reason to believe, is my own little sister, stolen away from my mother’s home years ago by a man named Felix Jasper, once from New Orleans, and who wanted to have revenge upon the Brewster family on account of some fancied wrong done him.”

Of course upon hearing this remarkable statement the sheriff no longer evinced a nervous desire to be on the go. He seemed to realize that his interests were bound up with those of the manly leader of the scouts, who had just thrilled him with so strange a story.

And as for his posse, they were crowding around so densely, anxious not to lose a single word of what was said, that, as Giraffe afterwards declared, they looked like “sardines packed in a can;” every face filled with eagerness, and many of them seeming hardly to breathe lest they lose some of the story.

Thad, knowing that now he had broken the ice it would be better to explain more fully, started in to tell how his guardian received the news, and could not himself undertake the long journey, but had readily agreed that the scouts should come, because they had shown themselves so capable on many other occasions.

“We entered the swamp by ourselves, though I understood it was a dangerous thing to attempt,” Thad concluded; “but we were lucky enough to run across a guide in Tom Smith here. He thinks he can give a pretty good guess where this Jasper will be apt to hold out, Mr. Sheriff; and now that we’re all on the same business, why not combine forces, and let him show us the way?”

A number of the planters and others exchanged knowing glances.

“Best thing that ever happened for us, Mr. Sheriff!” one man declared stoutly.

“Truer words never were spoken,” observed another. “I’ve heard that Alligator Tom Smith knows more things about this same swamp than any man living. I told you in the beginning that we had ought to hunt him up, and make him join the posse. Luck is playing your way, Sheriff, believe me.”

The officer of the law seemed to think the same way, for he immediately turned upon the scouts’ guide and demanded:

“Are ye willin’ to come in with us, Tom, and trust to me to make it right with ye, when I gets that reward in my hands? ’Case if ye ain’t, I’m agoin’ to draft ye in the posse all the same, an’ ye just cain’t hold back. The State gives me that power, ye understand!”

“Oh! I’ll let yuh set the price accordin’ tuh how yuh sees fit,” remarked the wise and far-seeing Tom, quickly; if he had the name he might as well have the game too, he undoubtedly thought; “but I hopes as how my employer heah, Mr. Scoutmaster, won’t go fo’ tuh think I purposely deserted him.”

“Why, you’re working for us just the same, Tom,” observed Thad, quickly; “and your wages will be going on all the time, no matter what you get from our friend the sheriff. And so we may call it settled; is that so, sir?”

“Just as ye say, son; and I consider that I’ve certain got the best part o’ the bargain as it is,” the other replied.

“We won’t quarrel over the proceeds, for you want to get the man and the stuff he stole; while all we’re after is the little girl,” Thad went on to say.

“I sure hopes it may turn out all right to you, son, and the gal be thet same little sister you lost long ago,” the sympathetic sheriff went on to say; “I done got five gals, an’ I understand just what it must have been fo’ your mammy to a lost her on’y one. Yes, we-all hopes as how you’ll find it ain’t a mistake. But since these matters are fixed, let’s figure on headin’ that way, Tom Smith. Now, what might ye advise, to begin with?”

“Hit’s thisaway, Sheriff,” began the swamp-hunter; “dawgs is good in ther way; but sumtimes they mout seem tuh git in ther road, an’ guv warnin’ tuh theh party yuh was awantin’ tuh s’prise. Hain’t thet so, suh?”

“Reckon ye knows best, Tom; an’ let me say that I sees what yer drivin’ at,” the officer told him. “Ye believes as ye knows whar this Jasper’d most likely be aholdin’ out, an’ ye kin take us thar without the use of the hounds? Is that it, Tom?”

“Close tuh what I war meanin’ tuh say, Sheriff,” the alligator hunter went on to remark; “an’ if so be now yuh kept the dawgs back heah a bit till we seed if we cud round-up our man, it’d be better. Then, if he wa’n’t whar I laid out tuh find him, yuh cud call up the critters agin, an’ start in fresh.”

“That’s settled, then,” asserted the other; and turning to one of the posse who seemed to be in charge of the brace of hounds he continued: “Townley, ye heard as what was said, didn’t ye? Well, pick out another to help, and stay heah till ye gets the signal to come on; or we-all joins ye later.”

He spoke with such authority in his voice that the man dared not evince any disposition to disobey, though doubtless he secretly groaned in spirit at being left out of the deal at such an important juncture.

“And now, Tom Smith, lead us on; everybody keep quiet, and let’s play this game fo’ all she’s worth. If so be we brings the critter to bay, they’ll be fightin’ in plenty, I reckons, if what the kunnel says about this man is only half true. And in case we have to take to the boats, p’raps now some o’ us’ll be let crowd in with these plucky scouts. Fo’ the last word, then, here’s hopin’ we’ll have the best o’ success.”

The alligator-hide hunter again took the lead; but now he had a following that must have given him a strange thrill every time he turned his head to glance backward, for quite a flotilla of boats came in his wake; while on the nearby land a swarm of figures flitted, reminding one somewhat of a pack of silent wolves chasing relentlessly after a wounded stag.