Uncle Abner, Master of Mysteries by Melville Davisson Post Read Free Book Online Page A

listen.”
    Abner did not at once reply. He seemed to begin now at another point.
    â€œDix,” he said, “you’ve had a good deal of bad luck… Perhaps you wish it put that way.”
    â€œNow, Abner,” he cried, “you speak the truth; I have had hell’s luck.”
    â€œHell’s luck you have had,” replied Abner. “It is a good word. I accept it. Your partner disappeared with all the money of the grazers on the other side of the river; you lost the land in your lawsuit; and you are tonight without a dollar. That was a big tract of land to lose. Where did you get so great a sum of money?”
    â€œI have told you a hundred times,” replied Dix. “I got it from my people over the mountains. You know where I got it.”
    â€œYes,” said Abner. “I know where you got it, Dix. And I know another thing. But first I want to show you this,” and he took a little penknife out of his pocket. “And I want to tell you that I believe in the providence of God, Dix.”
    â€œI don’t care a fiddler’s damn what you believe in,” said Dix.
    â€œBut you do care what I know,” replied Abner.
    â€œWhat do you know?” said Dix.
    â€œI know where your partner is,” replied Abner.
    I was uncertain about what Dix was going to do, but finally he answered with a sneer.
    â€œThen you know something that nobody else knows.”
    â€œYes,” replied Abner, “there is another man who knows.”
    â€œWho?” said Dix.
    â€œYou,” said Abner.
    Dix leaned over in his chair and looked at Abner closely.
    â€œAbner,” he cried, “you are talking nonsense. Nobody knows where Alkire is. If I knew I’d go after him.”
    â€œDix,” Abner answered, and it was again in that deep, level voice, “if I had got here five minutes later you would have gone after him. I can promise you that, Dix.
    â€œNow, listen! I was in the upcountry when I got your word about the partnership; and I was on my way back when at Big Run I broke a stirrup-leather. I had no knife and I went into the store and bought this one; then the storekeeper told me that Alkire had gone to see you. I didn’t want to interfere with him and I turned back… So I did not become your partner. And so I did not disappear… What was it that prevented? The broken stirrup-leather? The knife? In old times, Dix, men were so blind that God had to open their eyes before they could see His angel in the way before them… They are still blind, but they ought not to be that blind… Well, on the night that Alkire disappeared I met him on his way to your house. It was out there at the bridge. He had broken a stirrup-leather and he was trying to fasten it with a nail. He asked me if I had a knife, and I gave him this one. It was beginning to rain and I went on, leaving him there in the road with the knife in his hand.”
    Abner paused; the muscles of his great iron jaw contracted.
    â€œGod forgive me,” he said; “it was His angel again! I never saw Alkire after that.”
    â€œNobody ever saw him after that,” said Dix. “He got out of the hills that night.”
    â€œNo,” replied Abner; “it was not in the night when Alkire started on his journey; it was in the day.”
    â€œAbner,” said Dix, “you talk like a fool. If Alkire had traveled the road in the day somebody would have seen him.”
    â€œNobody could see him on the road he traveled,” replied Abner.
    â€œWhat road?” said Dix.
    â€œDix,” replied Abner, “you will learn that soon enough.”
    Abner looked hard at the man.
    â€œYou saw Alkire when he started on his journey,” he continued; “but did you see who it was that went with him?”
    â€œNobody went with him,” replied Dix; “Alkire rode alone.”
    â€œNot alone,” said Abner; “there was another.”
    â€œI