CHAPTER XXVI.

POLLY.

It certainly did seem as though everything might be trying to assist Thad. Why, even the elements lent a helping hand; for the wind had only recently risen to such a busy degree that it was now sighing among the upper branches of all the trees, and rustling the leaves of oaks and pines and cypresses until there was raised such a commingling of various sounds that possibly one might speak in an ordinary tone without its being carried from the spring to where the concealed shack lay.

This was what Thad thought, for with a scout’s education he noticed everything that promised to have any connection with his affairs.

Providing, then, that the girl would not be so startled at his sudden and unannounced appearance that she would cry out, there was a chance of them carrying on a little heart-to-heart talk, by means of which he could impart certain facts which must be of considerable interest to her.

“Watch out for the coming of the man, while I try to speak with her,” he whispered in the ear of Alligator Smith; who immediately stopped short, as though he thought it would be as well to lie in ambush right there, as go on any further.

Thad forgot all about his companion after that.

The girl was still by the spring. She had set her pail down, and was on her knees. Thad could not see exactly what she was doing, but imagined that it might either be getting a drink, or else in girlish fashion utilizing the clear water of the spring as a mirror, to look at her reflection.

A dozen quick, noiseless paces served to bring him close up to where she knelt. He managed to get control of himself, and give a little cough, as though in this fashion he hoped to alarm her less than by suddenly speaking.

The girl instantly turned her head. He saw that she was astonished, and immediately Thad pressed his finger on his lips to beg of her not to call out. At the same time he tried to have a reassuring smile on his face, though in his excitement he hardly knew what he must look like.

“Please don’t call out to betray me to that man!” he said, softly, “I don’t mean you the least harm. In fact, I have come all the way down from the North just to speak with you. Will you believe me enough to listen, while I tell you something?”

She was on her feet now, and at first Thad feared he had so alarmed her that her whole desire would be to run as fast as she could to the shack, perhaps screaming out loud, in her desire to have Jasper hasten to her assistance. In that event he had made up his mind to seize her, and then depend on the guide to hold the angry man at bay when he came rushing up.

But if this was indeed her first intention she must have soon changed her mind. Possibly the friendly reassuring smile on his eager face influenced her; then again she may have been braver than he had ever imagined could be the case; and last of all perhaps she knew more about her past than it had entered his mind to imagine.

“Yes, boy, if you promise not to come any nearer to me than you are now, I will hear what you want to say,” she replied, in a voice that quivered with nervousness, fear, and perhaps anxiety. “But how could you ever find your way over here, when he told me no living person knew of that trail under the mud.”

“There was one man who knew about it,” Thad went on to say, softly, thinking it wise to approach the wonderful subject that he wanted to speak about by degrees, and first of all satisfy her girlish curiosity. “But first of all, tell me if you believe the man you are with is your own father?”

“He says he is, but somehow I do not believe him,” she replied, drawing a long breath, while her eyes opened wider than before, as though hopes that had lain half dormant in her heart for some time, once more flashed into life. “At the convent school the sisters often talked about him, and they could not believe he was my father. He gave his name as Allan; but once when he came to see me an empty envelope fell from his coat pocket, and I saw that it was addressed to Felix Jasper; so ever since I’ve believed that must mean him.”

“And you guessed what was true,” said Thad, quickly, pleased beyond measure at what success had already come to him in his suddenly arranged plans; “his right name is Felix Jasper. Years ago he used to be in charge of my mother’s property, just after my father died; but he took advantage of her inexperience to defraud her and was discharged, but not prosecuted. Instead of being grateful he seemed to lie awake nights trying to think up something dreadful, through which he might have revenge for what he considered his wrongs. It is an old story, but happens now and then, just as it used to do centuries ago. My little baby sister disappeared most mysteriously, and was never found, though they hunted everywhere. Jasper was careful not to give the least clue; but my mother believed until she died that he was to blame. And now, many years afterwards, word reached my uncle and guardian that this same Felix Jasper was seen coming into this swamp, having a girl in his company who seemed to be just about as old as my little sister Pauline must have been if she were alive. And I have come down here to find out if it might be true. Now you know why I asked you not to call out! You do not love that man, I hope?”

“I have hardly seen him more than four or five times in as many years, until he came two weeks ago, and told me I would have to leave the convent school, and go with him, because he had to live abroad. And then we came here to this queer spot, and he has acted so strangely all the while, as though he feared some one might be meaning to do him an injury. Ever so many times a day I have seen him examining a terrible pistol he carries in his pocket. Is it you he is afraid of, boy?”

“No, I don’t think it is,” replied Thad; “you see he is a thief, and has robbed a wealthy planter who employed him; so that he is afraid the sheriff and his posse will find him. And they are here close by, meaning to arrest him; so that you must not go back there to that shack, for it would be too dangerous. But if you believe that he could not be your real father, have you not sometimes tried to picture who was, and what your right name might be?”

“Yes, oh! yes, I have, many, many times,” she went on to say, breathlessly, so that Thad was emboldened to take a step toward her, and follow it up with another. “And then there was that day when the sisters showed me the clothes that were on me when he brought me there as a baby, saying that my mother had died, and he had to go abroad on a very important mission. I shall never forget that there were three letters embroidered on one of the garments; and oh! how often I used to dream that the day _might_ come when I could know whether my name were really Mary Allen, or something else that those initials stood for.”

“Listen,” said Thad, his very heart seeming to stop beating, because everything might depend on what answer she would make to the question he meant to ask her now; “tell me, were those three letters P. C. B?”

“Oh! you have said them just as I saw them!” she exclaimed, in sudden awe, not unmixed with ecstacy; and Thad breathed freely again, while his face lighted up with a joy that could no longer be denied.

“They stand for Pauline Chester Brewster!” he said, “and I do not for a minute doubt but that you are my own dear little sister; but all that can be settled when we see those sisters you speak of, in New Orleans, and the garments they have kept all these years are shown. You will not be afraid of me any longer, will you?”

He was drawing very close to her when he said this. The little girl’s bright eyes were fastened upon his face. What she saw there must have given her complete confidence in the boy, for she suddenly extended both hands toward him.

“No, I am not afraid of you. Why should I be when you have brought me such splendid news? And you look just like what I have always thought a brother must be. Oh! I do hope I won’t wake up and find that it’s all only a dream; because that has happened so many times. It always made me cry, because I was so very much disappointed. But then this time it seems different, because I’ve heard you speak, and you have told me the things I’ve always wanted to know. And so my name is Pauline?”

“Yes, or Polly for short,” the delighted boy went on, as he took both her extended hands in his; “do you think you will like it better than Mary? It was my mother’s name too, and she was a Chester before she married my father. I am Thad Brewster, your own brother Thad.”

“How queer it seems to me—to have a real brother,” she went on to say; “but oh! we forget about _him_. He will be very, very angry if he finds me talking to you in this way; because he has always told me I must never say a single word to a stranger.”

“Well, it’s different when you’re talking with your brother, you see,” Thad replied; but her words had awakened him to the fact that it was most unwise to continue to linger so close to the shack where Jasper was staying; and that the safest policy would be for them to reach the spot where Sheriff Badgely and his posse lay concealed, and leave the rest to that astute peace official.

He wondered at such a young girl talking so well, but then she had been all of her life in the charge of the sisters at the convent school, and consequently was somewhat old-fashioned in her ways.

“But what will you do about it?” she asked him; “because I am sure he will never let me go away with you, even if you are my brother.”

“I don’t mean to ask him,” Thad told her. “All you have to do is to walk off now with me, and we can laugh at him.”

“Oh! but you don’t know what a terrible man he can be!” she said, laying a little hand earnestly on his sleeve; “once I saw him furiously angry, and he frightened me very much, even if he did tell me I mustn’t think he was meaning me when he said such awful things. He will follow after us, and do something wicked, I know he will.”

“I hope he will follow us,” said Thad, with perfect confidence; “because then he may step into a trap, and have his teeth drawn without being able to do anybody harm. But come, let us hurry off.”

She seemed to have the utmost faith in this boy who had so suddenly dawned upon her horizon with the astonishing claim that he was her own real brother; for without hesitation she was about to take his hand, when suddenly she gave utterance to a piteous little cry:

“Oh! dear, I just knew it would turn out like it always does!” she exclaimed; and Thad, seeing that she was looking past him in a sort of daze, instantly turned his own head to ascertain what had caused this new alarm.

What he saw was not reassuring. There not twenty feet away stood the man of the shack, Felix Jasper. He was holding something that glistened in his right hand; and seemed both angry and astounded to see a stranger here on his private island that was guarded by that supposed to be impassable bog.