here are you going now?" he
added, his eye falling on the saddle-bags.

I had it on my lips to say, and then I remembered Mr. Wharton's
injunction.

"I'm going on a journey," said I.

"When?" said Nick.

"I leave in about an hour," said I.

He sat down. "Then I leave too," he said.

"What do you mean, Nick?" I demanded.

"I mean that I will go with you," said he.

"But I shall be gone three months or more," I protested.

"I have nothing to do," said Nick, placidly.

A vague trouble had been working in my mind, but now the full horror of
it dawned upon me. I was going to St. Louis. Mrs. Temple and Harry
Riddle were gone there, so Polly Ann had avowed, and Nick could not help
meeting Riddle. Sorely beset, I bent over to roll up a shirt, and
refrained from answering.

He came and laid a hand on my shoulder.

"What the devil ails you, Davy?" he cried. "If it is an elopement, of
course I won't press you. I'm hanged if I'll make a third."

"It is no elopement," I retorted, my face growing hot in spite of myself.

"Then I go with you," said he, "for I vow you need taking care of. You
can't put me off, I say. But never in my life have I had such a
reception, and from my own first cousin, too."

I was in a quandary, so totally unforeseen was this situation. And then
a glimmer of hope came to me that perhaps his mother and Riddle might not
be in St. Louis after all. I recalled the conversation in the cabin, and
reflected that this wayward pair had stranded on so many beaches, had
drifted off again on so many tides, that one place could scarce hold them
long. Perchance they had sunk,--who could tell? I turned to Nick, who
stood watching me.

"It was not that I did not want you," I said, "you must believe that. I
have wanted you ever since that night long ago when I slipped out of your
bed and ran away. I am going first to St. Louis and then to New Orleans
on a mission of much delicacy, a mission that requires discretion and
secrecy. You may come, with all my heart, with one condition only--that
you do not ask my business."

"Done!" cried Nick. "Davy, I was always sure of you; you are the one
fixed quantity in my life. To St. Louis, eh, and to New Orleans? Egad,
what havoc we'll make among the Creole girls. May I bring my nigger?
He'll do things for you too."

"By all means," said I, laughing, "only hurry."

"I'll run to the inn," said Nick, "and be back in ten minutes." He got
as far as the door, slapped h