The Flag on the Hilltop

Chapter VI: Which Tells The Fate Of The Golden Circle

CHAPTER VI WIDCH TELLS THE FATE OF THE GOLDEN CffiCLE Boss JEEMES and Johnson returned to Jeemes's rather early, the evening after they had put Alec into the nook on the side of the clifi. Mrs. J eemes met them with a frightened face, and told them the story which Virgie had finally told her, and they hurried out to the bluff and found Alec gone. Johnson was suspicious and angry ; there were hot words between him and J eemes, but nothing could be done except to ride back in haste to the council of the Golden Circle, which met that night, and advise an immediate raid before Alec could reach Doctor Ford's, and the doctor could send for assistance. But Hiram J eemes was at the council with the news o£ Lafayette's death and the doc- 106 THE FLAG ON THE HILLTOP tor's absence. The raid was postponed until the night following, when the doctor would probably have returned, and it was agreed that if he was not in the house when they surrounded it, they would conceal themselves and wait for him. In the mean time, Lafayette 's burial had to be attended to in the afternoon, for T. D. had not come back, and no one knew what had become of him or where to look, and the doctor's return was likely to be too late. They all felt the ironical sadness of the situation , and for the brief interlude of the funeral they ceased to be enemies of the dead man and his friends, and were simply neighbors gathered together in kindliness under a gray sky in the rain. After nightfall it was with an odd change of mood that they assembled on the hilltop, and having nothing else to do before going into ambush, threw down the flag. Alec had passed the night before in a dry ravine under a drift of leaves, sleeping THE FLAG ON THE HILLTOP 107 uneasily and waiting for light to travel by ; but when light came the rain began, and it kept him floundering nearly all day through the woods, hungry, cold, discouraged, and lost again and again because he could get no outlook over the country. Finally he came to a road, and decided to follow it, in spite of the risk of its going the wrong way, and of his meeting some one he knew upon it. He was not mistaken in thinking that it led toward North Pass, and the two or three people whom he might have met he managed to avoid by slipping back among the trees. Toward night he came upon a little clearing and a house close by the road, and a woman who had come out to the fence to call her cows up from the woods. She saw him, so he made the best of it by inquiring his way and asking for something to eat. She brought him food willingly, saying a word or two which showed that she thought he might be a desertex· from the a1my. He 108 THE FLAG ON THE HILLTOP was glad enough to be accounted for in that way, but he went on without stopping to rest and dry himself as she advised, fearing to find one of his Golden Circle friends inside. The rain stopped, and although night came, he could still follow the road. At last he saw the handful o£ scattered lights which marked North Pass. Skirting slowly around the village, he found the road again on the other side, and hastened on over the ground he had traversed on his way up from the train. When he was in the woods just below the entrance to his uncle's place, he heard a man running behind him, and he stepped to one side. The man was carrying a lantern, so that Alec saw him plainly as he came near. It was Hutchins, hatless and coatless, his face wearing that wild, unbalanced look which shows that a single grief or fear has driven all other thoughts out of the mind. Alec sprang into the road and caught him THE FLAG ON THE HILLTOP 109 by the arm. "Has anything happened to my uncle ? " he asked. Hutchins looked at him without recognition for a moment, and then shook him off. "Your uncle's been gone nearly two days, and my wife's been worse...