Jack Norths Treasure Hunt | Page 7

let me alone after this?" demanded Jack, giving
his victim another plunge in the bucket.

"Yes. Let me go or I'll tell Fowler. Oh--oh!"
"Tell Fowler, will you?"
"No--no! Let me go!"
"You promise it?"
"Yes," spluttered the man as soon as he could speak.
"I think that will be enough this time." declared the triumphant Jack. "If
I could get my hands on you, Fret Offut, I would give you a dose of the
same medicine."
"I ain't done nothing!" cried the terrified youth. "Don't you dare to
touch me!" and by that time he had reached the door, to disappear an
instant later.
Feeling that he had nothing more to fear from his enemies, Jack left the
shop to go to his home, his mind soon occupied with thoughts of his
South American voyage rather than with the more unpleasant memory
of his recent trouble with young Offut and Furniss.
Before going direct to his home to tell the news there, Jack sought
another home that he might first break the account of his good fortune
to one whose fair countenance had been in his mind's eye all the
afternoon.
He knew the hardest part of his starting on his long voyage would be in
tearing himself away from a certain blue-eyed damsel named Jenny
Moodhead.
At her home he was met by the girl's mother, who, in answer to his
inquiries for Jenny, said:
"Jane is not here, and I do not see why you have not met her, as she
said she was going to see you as you came from the shops. I am afraid
something has happened to her."

Without further loss of time, Jack started to retrace the way to the
engine shops, though going by a different course from that which he
had come.
He had got about half way there, and was passing near an old ruined
mill, which stood more than half over the river, when he was startled
by the sound of a voice, which was too familiar for him not to
recognize.
"Don't you dare come any nearer, Fret Offut! Stand back, or the worst
will be your own!"
It was Jenny speaking, and as Jack dashed down to the side of the old
mill he discovered her at the further extremity of the ruins defiantly
facing young Offut, who was kept from approaching any nearer to her
by a club she held in her hands, uplifted over her head.
Between the two was a gulf of dark waters a dozen feet or more in
width, but spanned by a plank over which the girl had evidently passed
in reaching her place of retreat.
"I'll take up the plank so you can't come back!" declared young Offut.
"You see if you do not answer me in a becoming manner I can--"
Fret Offut did not have the opportunity to finish his sentence before a
stout hand was laid on his shoulder and he was plunged headfirst into
the river. "Get out the best you can!" cried Jack North.
He turned to the girl. "Has he dared so much as to lay a ringer on you,
Jenny?"
"Oh, Jack! I am so glad to see you! No, he had not touched me, though
I don't know what he might have done if you had not come. You won't
let him drown?"
"It would serve him about right, if I did. But he will take care of
himself. See, he is crawling out below the mill. Come with me, Jenny,
for I have important news to tell you. I am going to South America!"

"To South America! Oh, Jack, why?"
"The firm want me to go, and they will pay me well for my services. I
am to look after some machinery that is to be shipped."
"But you will come back?" questioned Jenny, anxiously.
"Sure, as soon as my task is done. But now tell me about Fret Offut."
"Oh, there is not much to tell. He--he wanted to be sweet on me
and--and I wouldn't have it. That made him angry, and he followed me
to this place, and--you saw the rest."
"I hope he won't bother you again."
"I don't think he will," said Jenny. "Anyway, I'll keep my eyes open for
him."
After that Jack spent a pleasant hour in the company of the girl who
was his dearest friend, and then went home to prepare for his trip of so
many thousand miles.
His parents already knew something about the proposed journey, so
they were not much surprised. They had seen Mr. Fowler and talked it
over with the manufacturer. Mrs. North did what she could to get Jack's
outfit ready for him.
"I'll be glad to leave such fellows as Fret Offut behind," said Jack, to
his