CHAPTER IV
THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT
Will uttered a great sigh of relief as the stranger led him towards the anxious throng.
“Here’s your money, my little man,” he said, extending a bill towards Will. “I wouldn’t go through the suspense I’ve suffered again, though, for ten ospreys.”
Will took the money deprecatingly, and his murmured words to the effect that “it was too much,” were lost amid the busy hum of talk around him.
“Where’s the bird?” demanded the stranger, abruptly.
“They’re chasing it yonder, still alive.”
“Yes, but it can’t fly. Here they come with it.”
Will Bertram took this opportunity, while attention was diverted from himself, to slip away from the throng.
Clasping the ten dollar bill tightly in his hands, which were not a little bruised by climbing, he thought only of the benefit its possession would afford his parents.
He burst into the house just as his father and mother were sitting down to their humble evening meal, and wondering what had detained him so long beyond his usual time.
Impulsive, excited boy that he was, Will could not keep the climax of his adventure of the afternoon and evening as a denouement to a continuous narrative, but, flushed with delight at imparting surprise and pleasure to others, he laid the crisp, new bill at his mother’s plate.
“Will! Will!” she cried, in utter amazement, “where did you get this?”
“Earned it.”
The incredulous, almost anxious, expression on his mother’s face made Will hasten his explanation.
The repast was deferred, as with bated breath and wondering faces his parents listened to his recital.
He saw his father’s face grow grave as he told of his encounter with Captain Morris, and that of his mother blanch with anxiety when he described his ascent of the steeple.
No chiding words fell from his father’s lips when he had concluded his narrative. Instead, he said, calmly:
“It is not a question of incurring Captain Morris’ enmity, Will, it is a simple question of right and wrong. His conduct to poor Tom Dalton was cruel in the extreme, and I am afraid I should have done just as you did in telling him to run away. As to defying Morris and trying to resist his anger as you did, hereafter I would simply keep out the way of such men.”
“He cannot injure you, Father, as he threatened?” inquired Will, anxiously.
“No, Will, at least not until the next interest note is due, six months hence, and by that time it looks as if my brave boy intends to have enough money to settle the claim for good.”
“I will, Father, see if I don’t,” cried Will, enthusiastically. “I’m bound to work, and I don’t intend to get into trouble and peril to do it as I did today, either. Don’t think me lacking in respect to my elders, Father, because I defied Captain Morris, but he is a bad-hearted, malignant man, and I could not control my indignation at his conduct.”
“And where is Tom Dalton?” inquired Mrs. Bertram.
“I don’t know,” responded Will. “Poor fellow, I must hunt him up as soon as the Moose sails, for he’ll keep in hiding until then. Captain Morris says I’m helping a mutiny and breaking his discipline, but I think it’s a mighty bad discipline he’s got, Father.”
“Well, come, Will, your supper is ready, and there’s plenty of time to discuss the affair later,” urged Mrs. Bertram, as she bestowed a tender look on her son and carefully folded away the bill.
They sat down at the table, but Will’s tongue would run over the exciting events of the day. They had scarcely completed the meal when a quick knock sounded at the door.
Mrs. Bertram looked inquiringly at the well-dressed stranger who stood revealed on the threshold as she answered the knock.
“Does Mr. Bertram live here?” he inquired, and then, as she nodded assent, he continued: “I am looking for Will Bertram.”
Will recognized the voice and hastened to the door.
“Oh! it’s the gentleman who wanted the osprey,” he explained.
“Come in, sir,” spoke Mrs. Bertram, while the husband tendered him a chair.
The stranger nodded pleasantly to Will.
“Yes, he’s the person I’m looking for. The people directed me here. I suppose he has told you of my recklessness in hiring him to risk his neck for the sake of a bird?”
Mrs. Bertram paled concernedly.
“He is very venturesome,” she said, solicitously.
“He is a natural acrobat,” broke in the stranger, enthusiastically. “Mind me, madam, not that I want to encourage him to these feats of danger, but the agility, courage, and manliness he exhibits should not be suppressed.”
Will’s cheek flushed at the honest compliment the stranger bestowed upon him.
“And now to business,” continued the stranger, “for I didn’t come here from idle curiosity. My name is Robert Hunter, and I am an agent for the North American Menagerie and Museum. Every year we send out agents to secure material for our institution from all quarters of the globe. I myself am now on my way to the great northern forests of Maine. We shall remain there for some two months and endeavor to trap a large number and variety of animals, such as the deer, the moose, the otter, the beaver, the catamount, the wolf, the bear, the fox, the lynx, and also such large birds as can be found. For this expedition, we are very nearly entirely equipped, and I am expected tomorrow to join the wagons containing our outfit, traps, and men, at a town some few miles north of here.”
Will Bertram had listened with breathless attention. His eyes glittered with excitement as Mr. Hunter’s words suggested to him a fascinating field of adventure.
“I’ve taken a rare fancy to your boy Will,” continued Hunter. “He’s just the lad we need for handy little tasks, and I’ve come to make him an offer to accompany us on our expedition.”
Mr. Bertram’s face had grown serious, while Mrs. Bertram’s hand stole caressingly, anxiously, around that of Will, who sat near her.
“You want him to go away,—to leave us?” she murmured, tremulously.
“If he wants to go and you are willing. Don’t fear, madam. I’ll lead him into no danger, and the wildlife he’ll see will benefit him. We carry everything for comfort, and, aside from once in a while climbing a hill to prospect, or a tree to get some bird’s nest—”
Will looked his disapproval at this suggestion, and the keen-eyed stranger, quick to notice it, laid his hand kindly on his arm and said:
“Don’t misunderstand me, lad. I mean no nest-robbing expedition—only the securing of abandoned nests to fit up a fancy aviary in the museum. A man who has lived long with animals and birds as his daily companions learns to be kind to them, and we allow no wanton killing of harmless beasts. It was a pity, as much as curiosity, that made me want the osprey. Come, madam, I’m ready to make your boy an offer. What do you say?”
Mrs. Bertram was mute but glanced tearfully at Will, and then inquiringly at her husband.
Will took their silence as a token of encouragement.
“What will I be paid?” he asked. “You see, my father is old and there is a debt on the little home. As their help and support, I would not leave them for the mere pleasure of the expedition.”
“Spoken like the true lad I believe you to be,” said Mr. Hunter, heartily, “and business-like, in the bargain. Well, Master Will, aside from the premiums I will give you for any important discovery or capture, I will pay you fifteen dollars a month, and I’ll relieve your anxiety about your parents by paying you two months in advance.”
“Thirty dollars! Oh, Father, think what a help it would be!” cried Will, breathlessly.
Mr. Hunter arose to his feet, hat in hand.
“I will leave the hotel here to join the expedition at ten o’clock tomorrow morning. If you want to go, let me hear from you early in the day. Think it over, Mrs. Bertram, and rest assured if you agree I’ll take good care of him and return him safe and sound when the expedition is over.”
He bade them goodnight and was gone without another word, leaving Mrs. Bertram in tears, her husband anxious and silent, and Will excited and undecided over the strange proposition he had made.
“It seems like Providence, Father,” he said finally, after an oppressive silence. “With what I got today, the two months’ wages will support you for a long time, and you won’t have to work so hard. Besides, if there’s any extra money to earn, I will not miss it. Why, at the stores here I couldn’t earn half the amount, and I get my living free.”
“We will have to think and talk it over, Will,” replied Mr. Bertram, gravely, and at a motion, Mrs. Bertram followed him into the next apartment.
Will could hear the low, serious sound of their voices in earnest consultation, even after they had softly closed the door connecting the two rooms.
He took up a book and tried to read, but the exciting thoughts that would come about the expedition distracted his mind completely.
“I hope they’ll let me go,” he breathed fervently. “It’s even better than the ocean. Hello, what is that?”
There had come a quick, metallic tap at the window, and Will fixed his eyes in its direction.
“It’s the wind, I guess,” he finally decided. “No, there it is again.”
Will arose, put on his cap, and, walking to the door, opened it, stepped outside, and looked searchingly around.
A low whistle from the direction of the woodshed told him that someone was there—someone, he theorized, who had thrown the pebbles against the window to attract his attention, and who did not care to manifest himself openly—in all probability, Tom Dalton.
Will found his suspicions verified as he approached the shed, and a disorderly figure stepped from behind the door.
“Tom?” he queried, peering into the face of the other.
“Yes, it’s me,” came the low, dogged response. “I hadn’t ought to bother you, Will, but I’m nigh starved.”
“Hungry, eh, Tom?”
“I should say so. Bring me a hunk of bread and meat, and I’ll get out of town and your way.”
Poor Tom had become so used to being in people’s way that he could not regard his association with any human being as otherwise than a disagreeable tolerance.
“You ain’t in my way, Tom,” said Will, kindly, “and I’ll not only get you something to eat, but I’ll find a place for you to sleep tonight. Wait a minute.”
Will returned to the house, and, when he came back, tendered his belated companion the promised “hunk” of bread and meat, which Tom seized and devoured ravenously.
“Well, Tom,” said Will, finally, as the runaway bolted the last morsel of food with a sigh of intense satisfaction, “what are your plans?”
“Ain’t got any.”
“You won’t go back to the Moose?”
“Not much. Do you think I want to get killed? I tell you, Will, you don’t know what a brute the captain is.”
“Won’t they look for you?”
“Of course they will. They were down the street searching for me everywhere half an hour ago.”
“Who?”
“Captain Morris and two of the sailors in one party, and the mate and the boatswain in another.”
Will reflected. He had intended to obtain permission from his parents to allow Tom to sleep in the house that night, but if Captain Morris was looking for him it would be unsafe.
“If I can only keep out of the way until the Golden Moose sails, I shall be all right,” said Tom, confidently.
“Keep quiet, Tom; someone is coming,” whispered Will, warningly.
Someone was coming, sure enough, for as he spoke the heavy tramp of footsteps at the side of the house was followed by a thundering knock at the back door as the forms of two men loomed into view.
“What did I tell you?” quavered Tom, beginning to tremble violently.
“Keep quiet and listen,” repeated Will, peremptorily.
At that moment Mrs. Bertram, in answer to the knock, opened the door.
The lamplight fell upon the faces of two members of the crew of the Golden Moose—the boatswain and mate in quest of Tom Dalton, the runaway.
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