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.