"What shall be done with Gage?" asked Professor Scotch.
"He shall be given shelter and medical treatment," declared Frank; "and I will see that all the bills are paid."
"Thot's the only thing Oi have against ye, me b'y. Ye wur always letting up on yer inemies at Fardale, an' ye shtill kape on doin' av it."
"If I continue to do so, I shall have nothing to trouble my conscience."
Frank did take care of Gage and see that he was given the best medical aid that money could procure, and, as a result, the fellow was saved from a madhouse, for he finally recovered. He seemed to appreciate the mercy shown him by his enemy, for he wrote a letter to Frank that was filled with entreaties for forgiveness and promised to try to lead a different life in the future.
"That," said Frank, "is my reward for being merciful to an enemy."
If Jack Jaggers did not perish in the Everglades, he disappeared. Ben Bowsprit and Black Tom also vanished, and it is possible that they left their bones in the great Dismal Swamp.
William Bellwood, so long a hermit in the wilds of Florida, seemed glad to leave that region.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
IN THE MOUNTAINS AGAIN
Leaving their friends in Florida, Frank, Barney and the professor next moved northward toward Tennessee, Frank wishing to see some of the battlegrounds of the Civil War.
The boys planned a brief tour afoot and were soon on their way among the Great Smoky Mountains.
Professor Scotch had no heart for a "tour afoot" through the mountains, and so he had stopped at Knoxville, where the boys were to join him again in two or three weeks, by the end of which period he was quite sure they would have enough of tramping.
Frank and Barney were making the journey from Gibson's Gap to Cranston's Cove, which was said to be a distance of twelve miles, but they were willing to admit that those mountain miles were most disgustingly long.
They had paused to rest, midway in the afternoon, where the road curved around a spur of the mountain. Below them opened a vista of valleys and "coves," hemmed in by wild, turbulent-appearing masses of mountains, some of which were barren and bleak, seamed with black chasms, above which threateningly hung grimly beetling crags, and some of which were robed in dense wildernesses of pine, veiling their faces, keeping them thus forever a changeless mystery.
From their eyrie position it seemed that they could toss a pebble into Lost Creek, which wound through the valley below, meandered for miles amid the ranges, tunneling an unknown channel beneath the rock-ribbed mountains, and came out again—where?
Both boys had been silent and awe-stricken, gazing wonderingly on the impressive scene and thinking of their adventures in New Orleans and in Florida, when a faint cry seemed to float upward from the depths of the valley.
"Help!"
They listened, and some moments passed in silence, save for the peeping cry of a bird in a thicket near at hand.
"Begorra! Oi belave it wur imagination, Frankie," said the Irish lad, at last.
"I do not think so," declared Frank, with a shake of his head. "It was a human voice, and if we were to shout it might be—— There it is again!"
There could be no doubt this time, for they both heard the cry distinctly.
"It comes from below," said Frank, quickly.
"Roight, me lad," nodded Barney. "Some wan is in difficulty down there, and' it's mesilf thot don't moind givin' thim a lift."
Getting a firm hold on a scrub bush, Frank leaned out over the verge and looked down into the valley.
"I can see her!" he cried. "Look, Barney—look down there amid those rocks just below the little waterfall."
"Oi see, Frankie."
"See the flutter of a dress?"
"Oi do."
"She is waving something at us."
"Sure, me b'y."
"She has seen us, and is signaling for us to come down."
"And we'll go."
"Instanter, as they say out West."
The boys were soon hurrying down the mountain road, a bend of which quickly carried them beyond view of the person near the waterfall.
It was nearly an hour later when Frank and Barney approached the little waterfall, having left the road and followed the course of the stream.
"Is she there, Frankie?" anxiously asked Barney, who was behind.
"Can't tell yet," was the reply. "Will be able to see in a minute, and then—— She is there, sure as fate!"
In another moment they came out in full view of a girl of eighteen or nineteen, who was standing facing the waterfall, her back toward a great rock, a home-made fishing pole at her feet.
The girl was dressed in homespun, the skirt being short and reaching but a little below the knees, and a calico sunbonnet was thrust half off her head.
Frank paused, with a low exclamation of admiration, for the girl made a most strikingly beautiful picture, and Frank had an eye for beauty.
Nearly all the mountain girls the boys had seen were stolid and flat-appearing, some were tall and lank, but this girl possessed a figure that seemed perfect in every detail.
Her hair was bright auburn, brilliant and rich in tint, the shade that is highly esteemed in civilization, but is considered a defect by the mountain folk. Frank thought it the most beautiful hair he had ever seen.
Her eyes were brown and luminous, and the color of health showed through the tan upon her cheeks. Her parted lips showed white, even teeth, and the mouth was most delicately shaped.
"Hivvins!" gasped Barney, at Frank's shoulder. "Phwat have we struck, Oi dunno?"
Then the girl cried, her voice full of impatience:
"You-uns has shorely been long enough in gittin' har!"
Frank staggered a bit, for he had scarcely expected to hear the uncouth mountain dialect from such lips as those but he quickly recovered, lifted his hat with the greatest gallantry, and said:
"I assure you, miss, that we came as swiftly as we could."
"Ye're strangers. Ef you-uns had been maounting boys, you'd been har in less'n half ther time."
"I presume that is true; but, you see, we did not know the shortest way, and we were not sure you wanted us."
"Wal, what did you 'low I whooped at ye fur ef I didn't want ye? I nighly split my throat a-hollerin' at ye before ye h'ard me at all."
Frank was growing more and more dismayed, for he had never before met a strange girl who was quite like this, and he knew not what to say.
"Now that we have arrived," he bowed, "we shall be happy to be of any possible service to you."
"Dunno ez I want ye now," she returned, with a toss of her head.
"Howly shmoke!" gurgled Barney, at Frank's ear. "It's a doaisy she is, me b'y!"
Frank resolved to take another tack, and so he advanced, saying boldly and resolutely:
"Now that you have called us down here, I don't see how you are going to get rid of us. You want something of us, and we'll not leave