The Flag on the Hilltop

Chapter V

CHAPTER V IN WHICH TRE GOLDEN CIRCLE CLOSES ROUND TRE RILL WREN Doctor Ford and T. D. came home from their fruitless search for meetings of the Golden Circle, on the night after Alec's arrival, the doctor went softly to the door of the room he had assigned to Alec, and tapped. There was no answer. He took a lamp, and entered the room. Itwas empty, and showed no sign of Alec's having as much as entered it. The doctor turned sharply and found that T. D. had come in, too, and was standing behind him, looking confounded. "He's run away," the doctor said. "Too much of a rebel to stay with us." T. D. rubbed his brow. ":M:ebbe not," he said; "mebbe he's jus' stickin' clost to Lafayette." 86 THE FLAG ON THE HILLTOP "Lafayette?" said the doctor. "What do you mean ? " T. D. blinked a little and tried to swallow the distaste of a confession. " I mean I 'm a plumb coward," he blurted desperately, "an' so's Lafayette. He deserted, an' I hid him out in the cave." " And Alec ? " asked the doctor, compressing his lips. "I reckon he's down there in the cave takin' care of him now," T. D. answered. " Lafayette was about to die " The doctor turned away from him, and started out of the house. T. D. followed. "If I tell you how it was," he began," you-uns won't think quite so hard of me, doc " - " I don't care how it was," the doctor asserted over his shoulder, in a tone which left nothing more to be said. The two men hastened across the lawn and through the peach orchard in silence, taking the shortest way to the cave. THE FLAG ON THE IDLLTOP 87 " We put him in the top barrel on account of the other one being so damp," T. D. explained , as they went through the gap. " Very thoughtful," the doctor answered dryly. "Pity you didn't honor me as a physician, if not as an old acquaintance." "You see, doc, it was this-a-way," T. D. hastened to begin again ; "jus' when I found Lafayette"- "But I don't care how it was," the doctor repeated. He took a small dark lantern out of his coat, and opening it, lighted their way around the pool and up to the second chamber of the cave. When he threw the light into it, it was as tenantless as the bedroom in the house, but he was too angry to be exactly surprised or alarmed. He merely turned toT. D. " Well?" he asked. T. D. looked round and round the cave, unable to believe that it was vacant. Finally he saw the half-burned match which Alec had thrown down. He picked it up and held it toward the doctor. 88 THE FLAG ON THE IDLLTOP "Well?" the doctor insisted. "I'm beat," said T. D. " Then this wasn't part of your programme ?" "Nope," T. D. answered. He rubbed his forehead again as if trying to make sure of what he remembered. " He dropped in the ravine, an' me an' Alec toted him to the gap," he said slowly. "I sprinkled his face, an' he come to enough to help himself a little climbin' up hyar, an' we laid him on the warm stones an' left him. When we got to the house, I did up a blanket an' some grub for Alec to bring back to him after we-uns had left, an' that's all I know." "In that case," the doctor declared, "it must be as I said at first. Alec has run away." " An' what about Lafayette ?'' asked T. D. ; " he had n't strength enough to go any farther." "And yet you see he 's gone," answered the doctor, "strength or no strength. I THE FLAG ON THE HILLTOP 89 suppose he thought my cave was n't a very healthy place to be hiding in." "But I don't know where they'd go to," T. D. objected. " That 'sa question which doesn't interest me," the doctor answered. " It 's their own affair, as long as they've chosen to go. I shall not look for them." "But, doc,"- T. D. began. The doctor made an impatient movement. " I don't want to hear you I " he said. " You have deceived me...