Down the Slope Part 25

Billings looked disturbed, but made no reply. Although having had no direct share in the crime, he knew he was really an accomplice, and the knowledge that Taylor might inform against him was by no means pleasant.

It was eight o'clock in the evening when Skip ventured to come down from the hillside, and he looked like a boy who had been very ill. Even at this late hour he did not dare to walk through the village, but skulked around the outskirts until he saw Chunky, whom he hailed in a whisper.

"Where have you been?" Fred's chute mate asked in surprise.

"I had some work on the other side of the hill."

"Have you been there all day?"

"Yes. Jest got back. Are those fellows dead!"

Ordinarily Chunky was not quick to arrive at conclusions, but now he asked in a suspicious tone:

"How did you know anything about it if you've jest got back?"

"Oh, I heard from some of the fellows."

"Who?"

"Never mind," and Skip spoke sharply.

"Did they all get killed?"

"None of 'em; but the doctor says Fred won't be over it for three or four days. Joe an' Bill are both in bed, though they'll be out in the morning."

"Does Wright know who did it?"

"Did what?"

"Why, knock--whatever was done."

"I thought the roof of a cuttin' fell in 'cause it wasn't sh.o.r.ed up enough."

"I s'pose that was the reason," Skip replied in a nervous way.

"It seems to me you know more about this thing than anybody else."

"You'd better not say that again," and Skip stepped forward a few paces with clenched fists.

"You can get the best of me, so I'll have to hold my tongue; but I reckon I've had all I want of the regulators. Tryin' to kill a feller who never did much of anything to you is a mean trick."

"Shut up or I'll knock your head off. You can't back out of our s'ciety, an' if you ever say I tried to kill anybody I'll pound you till there won't be an inch of skin left."

Chunky did not wait to hear more. He started at full speed toward his own home, and Skip was more alarmed than before.

"Now I'm in a worse sc.r.a.pe than ever, for he's jest fool enough to tell what he knows, an' then there will be trouble. I'd better go to meet Billings, an' perhaps he can help me out."

He could reach the rendezvous without going through the village, and greatly to his relief the leader of the rioters was waiting to receive him.

"Now this is somethin' like business," and Billings patted the boy on the head.

Skip stepped back; the touch of the man's hand now, when through him he had gotten into so much trouble, was disagreeable.

"What am I to do?" he asked fiercely.

"Help me finish what you've begun."

"I won't do it. They'll have me arrested, an' you must get me through the sc.r.a.pe."

"So I will after I've served the company out. We'll go off somewhere together."

"And I'm to leave home?"

"There's nothin' for it if Wright gets the idea that you knocked the timber away."

"If he doesn't know it already there are them who will tell him. Chunky thinks I did somethin' to help the thing along."

"He does, eh?" and now Billings began to look disturbed. "Is he likely to go to any of the bosses?"

"He might tell some one else who would do it."

"That's true. What with him an' Taylor, things begin to seem kinder scarey for me."

"I'm in worse trouble."

"You're right, an' that shows we two must keep together."

"But I don't want to leave home."

"You can't help yourself. Once in the sc.r.a.pe, it's bad to back out."

Skip had good evidence that the way of the transgressor is hard. He felt a decided repugnance to becoming Billings' constant companion, but he dared not go home, and it seemed as if there was no other course left open.

"It won't do to stay here very long, for folks might see us, and it wouldn't be hard to guess we were up to mischief. Will you go with me, or take the chances of bein' arrested?"

"I'll have to do what you say," Skip replied with a groan, and Billings started straight across the hill toward the abandoned shaft.

"Where are you going?"

"We'll hide for a while. It ain't safe to loaf 'round here much longer.

Here's a dollar. Go to Taylor's an' get somethin' to eat. Tell him I want cooked food, 'cause I'm bound on a tramp."

"I don't dare show up there."

"Move on, or I'll break every bone in your body! You've got to toe the mark now if you don't want to go to jail."

Billings used the tone of a master, and Skip understood that his crime had brought him to slavery of the most degrading kind.