Part 36 (1/2)
”Papa, won't you sit down and take me on your knee, and hug me up close, while you tell it?” entreated Grace.
”I will,” he said, doing as she requested. Then catching a longing look in Lulu's eyes, ”You may come too, daughter,” he said. ”Slip on your dressing-gown and stand here by my side. I have an arm for you as well as one for Gracie.”
Lulu promptly and joyfully availed herself of the permission.
”Lu,” said Max, ”you're a real heroine! brave as a lion! I'm proud to own you for my sister. I'm afraid I mightn't have been half so brave.”
”Oh yes, Max, I'm sure you would have done just the same,” she returned, blus.h.i.+ng with pleasure. ”And you see I preferred to do it, because I thought they might kill papa, and that would have been oh so much worse than being killed myself!” clinging lovingly to her father, and hiding her face on his shoulder as she spoke.
”Dear child!” he said in moved tones and clasping her close, ”you have a very strong and unselfish love for me.”
”Papa, it would have broken my heart, and Mamma Vi's, and Max's and Gracie's too, if anything dreadful had happened to you.”
”And what about papa's heart if he should lose his dear little daughter Lulu, or anything dreadful should happen to her?”
”I didn't have time to think about that, papa. I know you love me very much, and would be sorry to lose me--naughty as I often am--but you have other children, and I have only one father; so of course it would be a great deal worse for me to lose you, and all the rest to lose you too.”
”The worst thing that could befall us,” said Violet; ”but Lulu, dear, we all love you and would feel it a terrible thing to have you killed or badly injured in any way.”
”Indeed we would!” exclaimed Max, with a slight tremble in his voice.
”Oh I couldn't ever, ever bear it!” sobbed Gracie, throwing an arm round her sister's neck.
”Well,” said the captain cheerfully, hugging both at once, ”we have escaped all the evils we have been talking of; our heavenly Father has taken care of us and has not suffered us to even lose our worldly goods, much less our lives; and we may well trust Him for the future and not fear what man can do unto us.”
”Yes,” said Violet, ”we know that He has all power in heaven and earth and will never suffer any real evil to befall one of His people.
”'He will not suffer thy foot to be moved; he, that keepth thee will not slumber.'
”Levis, did you know those men?”
”One of them is Ajax.”
”Is it possible?” she exclaimed. ”What a return for all the kindness you have shown to him and his!”
”Ajax! There, I was sure I heard Ajax's voice in the hall while the sheriff was here,” cried Lulu. ”He must have been the one who was down on his knees trying to break the safe lock when I peeped in at the crack. I didn't see his face; but the other was a white man.”
”Yes,” said Max; ”a man we'd seen before.”
”The tramp you saw when out riding?” asked his father.
”Yes, sir.”
”I recognized him too,” said Lulu. ”Papa, what will be done with him and Ajax?”
”They will have to be tried for burglary and if convicted, will be sent to the penitentiary for a term of years.”
”Papa, will we have to appear as witnesses on the trial?” asked Max.