Chapter XIII. Revenge - Page 2

the bottom of the boat. Not content with inflicting this damage, he cut it in various other places, until it presented an appearance very different from the neat, stanch boat of which Will Paine had been so proud. At length Ben stopped, and contemplated the ruin he had wrought with malicious satisfaction.

"That's the first instalment in my revenge," he said. "I should like to see my young ferryman's face when he sees his boat again. It'll cost him more than he'll ever get from my miserly uncle to repair it. It serves him right for meddling with matters that don't concern him. And now I must be getting away, for my affectionate uncle will soon be raising a hue and cry after me if I'm not very much mistaken."

He would like to hare gone at once to obtain medical assistance for his wound, but to go to the village doctor would be dangerous. He must wait till he had got out of the town limits, and the farther away the better. He knew when the train would start, and made his way across the fields to the station, arriving just in time to catch it. First, however, he bound a handkerchief round his shoulder to arrest the flow of blood.

When he reached the station, and was purchasing his ticket, the station-master noticed the blood upon his shirt.

"Are you hurt, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, a little," said Ben Haley.

"How did it happen?" inquired the other, with Yankee inquisitiveness.

"I was out hunting," said Ben, carelessly, "with a friend who wasn't much used to firearms. In swinging his gun round, it accidentally went off, and I got shot through the shoulder."

"That's bad," said the station-master, in a tone of sympathy. "You'd better go round to the doctor's, and have it attended to."

"I would," said Ben, "but I am called away by business of the greatest importance. I can get along for a few hours, and then I'll have a doctor look at it. How soon will the train be here?"

"It's coming now. Don't you hear it?"

"That's the train I must take. You see I couldn't wait long enough for the doctor," added Ben, anxious to account satisfactorily for his inattention to the medical assistance of which he stood in need.

When he was fairly on board the cars, and the train was under way, he felt considerably relieved. He was speeding fast away from the man he had robbed, and who was interested in his capture, and in a few days he might be at sea, able to snap his fingers at his miserly uncle and the boy whom he determined some day to meet and settle scores with.

From one enemy of Robert the transition is brief and natural to another. At this very moment Halbert Davis was sauntering idly and discontentedly through the streets of the village. He was the son of a rich man, or of one whom most persons, his