Chapter 8 BILLIARD RUNS AWAY

Billiard, white, scared, remorseful, had crept away up the mountainside the minute he had seen Dr. Hayes bending beside the still form on the kitchen floor, and remained in his retreat, watching the house with frightened eyes, until the physician's bulky figure strode down the path toward town again. Then, flinging himself face down in the gravel, he sobbed in unrestrained relief, until, exhausted by the strain of his recent fearful experience, he fell asleep in the shadow of a ragged boulder, where late that afternoon Tabitha found him, after a vain search about house and yard.

Surprised at having caught a glimpse of this unsuspected side of the bully's character, she beat a hasty retreat, and with the tact of a diplomat, sent one of the younger girls in quest of him, feeling that he might resent being awakened by her while the trace of tears still showed on his face. Nor was she mistaken in this surmisal, for the instant the boy's eyes unclosed in response to Susie's energetic shaking, he demanded, "Does Tabitha-know where I am?"

"She wouldn't have set the rest of us to hunting if she had, would she?"

"Well, 'tain't necessary for you to tell her I was asleep. The sun was so hot it made my head ache, and I guess it has burned my face to a blister," cautiously touching his puffed, smarting cheeks.

Susie eyed the swollen lids and scarlet visage suspiciously, but for once held her tongue, only announcing briefly as she started on a trot down the trail, "We're waiting supper for you."

"Well, you needn't for I'm not hungry. Tell Tabitha I don't want anything to eat. I am going to bed. My head aches."

"All right," retorted Susie, too cheerfully, he thought with bitterness in his heart, as he followed her nimble feet toward the house. He had hoped she would at least express some sympathy for his aching head; but what did she care? What did anyone care about him? Morosely he shambled along behind his agile cousin; but instead of entering the kitchen, which was of necessity also the dining-room, he chose the front door, and quietly sought the room where he and his brother slept.

Toady's pale face on the pillow made him pause on the threshold, while a twinge of remorse tugged at his heart, but the victim, hearing the creak of the opening door, opened his round eyes, and smiling beatifically, asked in a weak voice, "Seen Tabitha?"

Billiard grunted an unintelligible reply.

"Tell you what, she's a crackerjack!" continued the invalid. Then, as Billiard's only answer was a vicious jerk which divested him of collar and waist at a single effort, Toady cried in surprise, "Why, Bill, have you had your supper?"

"Don't want any!" growled the other, tugging savagely at his boots.

"What's the matter? Sick?"

"Headache!"

"You didn't eat any castor-beans, did you?"

Billiard paused in the act of crawling into bed to glare angrily at his brother, thinking he was being made fun of; but Toady's cherubic face seemed to allay his suspicions, and he briefly, but savagely replied, "Naw!"

"You better tell Tabitha-" began Toady in genuine solicitude; but Billiard again misconstrued his brother's meaning, and interrupted, "Aw, shut up! Let a feller alone for once, can't you?" And as Billiard wriggled into bed, puzzled Toady lapsed into silence.

Tabitha, too, was puzzled by the older boy's actions. She had hoped that the poisoning of his brother would awake his better nature if nothing else would, so she was keenly disappointed, as well as surprised, at the change which now took place in him.

"It seems so strange," she confided to Gloriana. "He acted so terribly cut up the day he brought Toady home sick, that I thought it would cure him of his mean mischief, at least. But now he seems bent on trying to find the limit of human endurance-doubling his mischief and being more aggravatingly hateful than ever."

"Perhaps he is getting even for Toady's reform," suggested the red-haired girl, looking worried.

"Toady-bless the boy!" exclaimed Tabitha fervently. "I should go wild if he had taken the streak Billiard has."

"And yet I can see how provoking it must be to Bill--"

"Why, Gloriana!"

"I mean that Toady's declaration of independence would naturally rouse Bill's 'mad,' as Rosslyn says, when Toady had blindly followed his leadership for so long. And besides, the way Toady flaunts his virtues in his brother's face--"

"That is rather amusing, isn't it?"

"Provoking? I should, say! Billiard has been used to saying the word and Toady has obeyed. It's rather a-a-jar, to be defied, or ignored all of a sudden. Bill is bright--"

"Too bright," sighed Tabitha, somewhat sarcastically, Gloriana thought.

"He is bright!" championed the younger girl warmly. "This morning I happened to overhear him teasing the girls at play under the kitchen window, and he declared that it was a mistake for Inez and Irene to be twins; that it should have been Susie and Inez, and then their names would have been Suez and Inez."

Tabitha smiled in spite of herself, then said heatedly, "But he is so mean about it! To-day while you were at the bakery and he thought I had gone for the mail, I heard a commotion in the yard, and what do you suppose I found him doing?"

Gloriana shook her head.

"He had the girls and Rosslyn lined up by the woodpile and was making them carry in his wood. Even little Janie was loaded down with two immense sticks, so heavy she could hardly toddle with them."

"What did you do?"

"Made them drop their loads right where they were, and he had to carry it all in by himself."

"Without even Toady's help?"

"All by himself!" repeated Tabitha emphatically.

"I am afraid-we are not apt-to--"

"To what?" asked Tabitha, as her companion stammered in confusion and paused abruptly.

"To gain anything-much of anything by trying to force Billiard into being good."

"How are we to make him mind, then? He won't coax. You can't flatter him into behaving himself, and threats don't do a mite of good. I think a smart dose of the hickory stick would be the most effective medicine for such cases as his."

Glory looked dubious.

"You don't agree with me?" suggested Tabitha.

"He is such a big boy to be thrashed," she evaded.

"He is such a big boy to act that way!"

"Yes, that's true, but--"

How she would have finished her sentence Tabitha never found out, for at that moment a piercing scream broke the stillness of the desert afternoon, followed by a medley of excited accusations, denials, threats, and Billiard's taunting laugh. Tabitha flew to the rescue of her brood and found Irene stretched full length in the gravel, with Mercedes and Toady deluging her with water, while the rest of the sisters danced frantically about the trio.

"He-he shot her!" cried Rosslyn indignantly, at sight of the slender figure in the doorway.

"I gave her fair warning," said defiant Billiard.

"Hand me your gun!" demanded Tabitha in exasperation, after a hasty examination of the victim had convinced her that Irene was more frightened than hurt.

"Gun! Ha, ha, ain't that rich?" mocked Billiard.

"'Twas a slingshot," volunteered Toady.

"And he shooted a rock," added Janie.

Tabitha held out her hand with an imperious gesture. "Pass it over quietly, or I shall make you."

Billiard calmly pocketed the article in dispute, and seeing that Irene was recovering under the heroic treatment of her amateur nurses, he seated himself in tantalizing silence upon the saw-horse, as if to enjoy the scene he had created. But his enjoyment was short lived. Tabitha, now thoroughly aroused, and forgetful of her dignity, swooped down upon the tormentor, wrested his slingshot from his grasp, and before anyone could divine her intentions, seized a barrel stave from the woodpile and gave the surprised boy a sound drubbing.

In the midst of the thrashing, there came vividly to her mind her childish horror of that day of reckoning with her father, when he had struck her with one of his slippers, and she recalled the fact that it was not the physical hurt, but the humiliation of the blow which had wounded her most deeply. Flinging down the stick, she released the struggling lad as suddenly as she had seized him; and in tones that sounded husky in spite of herself, briefly ordered, "Go to your room!"

Angry, stunned, shamed, Billiard bounced through the kitchen, slammed the door of his room, turned the key in the lock and-stood still in the middle of the floor. Whipped by a girl not four years his senior! Whipped by a girl! It was an unforgivable outrage. He would get even for that. But what was he to do? Would could he do? She had beaten him at every turn, she had set Toady against him, she had made him the laughing stock of his cousins. He-he-he would do something desperate. He would--

As if in answer to his thoughts, he heard a strange voice close beside the open window say, "Yes, he has run away. The inspector completed his job this morning, found Atwater's accounts five hundred dollars short, and he skipped."

"Who?" demanded Mercedes. "The post-master?"

"Yep! Lit out. Can't have been gone more'n an hour, but no one seems to have seen him anywhere around town, and they are scouring the country for him."

Billiard drew a deep breath. That was an idea. Why hadn't he thought of it before! He, too, would run away. Stealthily he crept to the little closet, selected a clean shirt, a pair of stockings, a necktie, and his pajamas, tied them up in a bath-towel, not having such a thing in his wardrobe as a bandana handkerchief, although he felt that this was an essential; and after a cautious survey of the premises to make sure that the children were nowhere near, he crawled out of the window, carefully shut the screen again, and darted swiftly down the steep, pathless incline on the west side of the house to the flat below. It was a hazardous undertaking, and at any other time he would have shrunk from attempting it, but in his unreasonable anger and desire for revenge, all else was forgotten; and he arrived at the sandy bottom breathless, badly scratched by the mesquite, and smarting from the prick of cactus thorns, but triumphant.

Pausing only long enough to shake his fist defiantly at the house on the cliff above, he made off across the desert as fast as his legs would carry him. His first idea had been to follow the railroad, but on second thought he concluded that he might easily be overtaken and brought back if he took that course. So after a brief survey of the pathless landscape, he decided to skirt the mountains in whose hollow lay the town of Silver Bow, and to strike off to the west, in the direction of a neighboring mining camp called Crystal City.

"If I should miss that place," he reasoned to himself, "I am sure to get somewhere. Perhaps to Los Angeles that Mercy goes so crazy about. Say, that's just the thing! It takes only about twelve hours to get there by train; I ought to be able to walk it in two days, and I'll join the navy. I always did want to be a sailor!"

So he trudged sturdily on through the heavy sand of the flats, building air castles and nursing his wrath, but paying little heed to the course he was taking, until with a shiver of alarm he discovered that the afternoon sun had set and the range of white-capped mountains which sheltered Crystal City was seemingly no nearer than when he had set out. He began to feel faint with hunger and thirst, and was appalled to think he had forgotten in his flight to pack any lunch in his small store of belongings, and was now what seemed miles from civilization, in the midst of the pathless desert with neither food nor drink, and night coming on.

Night! He shuddered. How could he have forgotten the night part of it? Where was he to stay? He was afraid of the desert darkness. Somehow, it always seemed blacker and stiller there than anywhere else on earth. But perhaps the moon would come up. That would be lots of company, and the weather was so warm that he would really enjoy sleeping out in the open air. Eagerly he scanned the evening sky, and perceiving that the east appeared to be growing lighter, his spirits began to rise. After all, he was not sorry he had run away. Wouldn't there be consternation in the Eagles' Nest when his absence was discovered? How Tabitha would regret her unwarranted harshness! And Toady-Toady would cry and snivel because he had deserted his dear, big brother in his hour of need. And searching parties would be sent all over the country to find him. How he gloated over the pictures his vivid imagination had drawn!

But all the while he stumbled on, it was growing darker, the landscape had become an indistinct blur, and night sounds filled the air. The lonely howl of a wolf in the distance sent a chill of fear down Billiard's spine; the scream of a night-hawk overhead made him jump almost out of his shoes, and he was just beginning to consider where he should lie down to sleep when a sudden scurry in the underbrush froze him in his tracks. The next minute, however, he laughed at his fright, for it was merely a mother burro and her baby colt which his steps had routed from their hiding-place and sent flying across the flats for safety. A twig snapping sharply under his feet startled him; what sounded like a warning hiss close by brought his heart into his mouth; and trembling from head to foot he paused by a clump of Spanish bayonets, uncertain what to do next.

Oh, if only he had not run away! If only he were sitting with the rest of the lively troop of children around the supper table! Or perhaps it was too late for supper now. More likely they would be preparing for bed. What frolics they had enjoyed in the evenings when Tabitha made taffy and recited stirring ballads to fill in the moments while the toothsome sweet was cooking. What exciting tales his cousins told of the brave, black-haired maid whom he was trying so hard to hate. He did hate her! That is, sometimes he did. But he could not help admiring her pluck, even though he stood in awe of the fierce temper that blazed up so quickly, and as quickly died away again. She was certainly a wonder for a girl. There was no 'fraid cat about her. He wished she liked him better. But how could she, when he was so tantalizing, mean and sly? Perhaps if he went back home, that is, to Aunt--

"Hands up! We've got you at last!" growled a stern voice almost in his ear, it seemed; and poor Billiard's hands shot high into the air, he shut his eyes, held his breath and waited for the end. But to his utter amazement, a second voice huskily replied, after an instant, "Yes, you've got me, boys. I knew it was no use to run away, but-I-couldn't bear-to stay-and know that everyone looked at me as a thief. I never took the money."

The moon, which had seemed so slow in rising, had finally mounted to the crest of the surrounding hills, and poured a stream of mellow light upon the waste below. Billiard, his hands still thrust stiffly above his head, now distinguished a few feet in front of him the dark shapes of a dozen or more men, armed with revolvers, clustering around one whom he recognized as Atwater, the runaway post-master of Silver Bow.

"That's all right, Atwater," growled the first speaker, who was evidently leader of the posse. "Tell your tale in court, but be a man and face the music. Fall in, boys!"

For a long time, Billiard watched them as they marched their hapless prisoner back to town, and the leader's words kept ringing in his ears, "Be a man and face the music!" Suddenly a new thought flashed through his brain. Why had he not followed them? It wasn't too late yet. He could still see their forms indistinctly moving across the desert, and by following their lead, would sooner or later reach Silver Bow himself. Stepping out from the clump of Spanish bayonets which had formed his retreat, he set out on a dog-trot in the direction the men had taken, and after a long, rough, weary journey, actually found himself trailing up the familiar path to the Eagles' Nest.

He paused as he reached the children's play house and took a furtive survey of the place. One lone light burned in the low cottage. Probably Tabitha had missed him and was waiting for his return. Supposing she should lick him again for running away?

"Billiard!"

'Twas only a whisper from a rock nearby? but the boy almost screamed aloud in his fright at the unexpectedness of it.

"Sh!" the voice continued. "It's only I,-Glory. I had to go to the drug-store for some alum,-Janie has the croup,-and I saw you coming up the trail. Tabitha hasn't missed you yet. She has been so anxious over the baby. So sneak back to your room and I'll bring you something to eat as soon as I can. Run now! Tabitha will be expecting me."

"But Glory, doesn't anyone know I-" began bewildered Billiard, much taken back at his reception.

"Ran away?" finished Gloriana. "No one but Toady and myself. He won't tell. I made him promise. Of course we'd have had to, if you hadn't come back, but I knew-I thought you would-" How could she tell him that she knew he was too much of a coward to persist in running away? "Scramble into your room as quietly as possible," she continued, "so as not to disturb the others, and I will bring you some supper in a minute or so."

"You're-you're awfully good to a feller," mumbled the abashed boy, wondering how he ever could have disliked the red-haired Glory. "I-I'll not forget it." And as the girl hurried up the path to the kitchen door, he skirted the house till he reached the window of his room, through which he wriggled cautiously and disappeared in the friendly darkness within, thankful that he was home again.