I
T was with intense delight that all in the caravan noticed the gradual change of herbage which showed that they were approaching the confines of this terrible region; and when, at their first halt after leaving it, they came upon flowing streams, a general bath was indulged in by man and beast, the oxen lying down in the water, and being with great difficulty induced to emerge from it. The hunters now recommenced their excursions in search of game, for all were suffering from the want of fresh meat, the children especially feeling the privation.
Turk accompanied the party. The dog was now completely restored, and nothing could induce it to leave Frank's side. It was quite young, and Frank soon taught it to remain by his horse while he dismounted to stalk game; while in pursuit on horseback, Turk often pursued and pulled down deer who would otherwise have escaped.
One day Dick and Frank had gone out alone, and had been led a long distance from the line of march in pursuit of a herd of deer. These had finally gone up a narrow cañon in the mountains. The hunters pursued them forsome distance, and then, despairing of overtaking them, turned their horses, and began to retrace their steps. Suddenly Turk, who was in advance, stopped, uttered a deep growl, and its hair bristled from its head to its tail.
"What is it, Turk?" Frank asked.
The animal replied with another low, deep growl.
"It must be some savage beast," Frank said.
"That ain't likely," Dick said; "any beast in this cañon would have moved away when we passed before. I think the dog must scent Injins. A party may have seen us entering the gap, and may be in pursuit."
He threw himself off his horse, and listened, with his ear to the ground.
"It's Injins, sure enough!" he exclaimed; "I can hear the clattering of horses' hoofs on the hard rock. There's nothing for it but for us to make our way up the cañon."
They turned their horses, and galloped forward, Turk, after one more growl in the direction of the Indians, following. Presently the defile divided.
"Shall we take the main branch, or the one to the right?" Frank asked.
"Better keep straight on," Dick said; "the other may lead into some valley from which there could be no getting out, and we should be caught in a trap. See!" he said, as he halted, "the deer have gone that way. Do you see some of the pebbles have been thrown out of that little stream?
"Jump off your horse, and cut some bits off your blankets and tie them round your horse's feet. If the Indians see no marks going forward, they will naturally suppose we have turned off here in pursuit of the deer."
Frank did what his comrade suggested; but quickly as the work was performed, they heard the sound of the horsemen in pursuit, loud and distinct, before they again set forward. Then, springing on their horses, they rode up the cañon. After a while they halted; the sounds of pursuit had ceased, and they had no doubt the Indians had turned off into the other ravine.
"It all depends how far that runs," Dick said, "how soon they will be in pursuit again. If it comes soon to an end it will not be long before we have them after us; if it goes on for some miles we are safe."
Winding between perpendicular cliffs of great height, they rode forward, mounting steadily. It was impossible to make rapid progress, for although in some places the bottom of the ravine was bare, smooth rock, at others it was piled with boulders.
It was three hours before they emerged from it, and upon doing so found they were upon an elevated plateau. Before they moved forward, Frank said, "Turk, do you hear them?" The dog stood with ears erect and quivering nostrils, looking down the ravine which they had just left. Presently he gave a low, deep growl.
"They are coming," Frank said; "but they must be a good way off, for Turk did not hear them at first. Which way shall we go, Dick?"
"We had better turn to the left," Dick said, "for our natural line leads to the right. However, it does not make much difference, for they will be able to track us; still, it may puzzle them. It will be dark in a couple of hours, and if we can keep ahead till then we are safe."
They started at a gallop, and for an hour rode at full speed in the direction which would take them down to theplain at or near the spot where they had halted the night before.
"Look out, Frank! rein up!" Dick suddenly shouted. Frank pulled his horse back on its haunches, and but just in time, for at the brow of the swell up which they had been galloping, the ground fell suddenly away in a precipice two hundred feet deep, and the horse was barely a length from it when he brought it to a standstill.
"We are in a mess," Dick said. "The Injins behind us will know of this, and instead of following will scatter to the right and left, as they will know that we must turn one way or the other."
"In that case," Frank said, "our best plan will be to go straight back."
"You are right," Dick exclaimed, "that is the best thing we can do. We won't follow the exact track, as a few of them may have kept our line, but will bear a little distance off it, and hope they may pass us unseen; the sun is setting already, half an hour and it will be dark."
Taking every precaution to conceal their trail, they rode back, keeping a hundred yards or so to the right of the line by which they had come. A quarter of an hour passed, and then Turk gave his growl of warning.
"Could not have been better," Dick exclaimed, "this brushwood is just the place for us."
They threw themselves from their horses, and made the animals lie down at full length in the low bushes, and laid themselves down beside them.
"Hush! Turk," Frank said to the dog, as he laid his hand upon it's head. "You must lie quiet, sir, and not make the least noise."
DICK AND FRANK ELUDE THE INDIANS.DICK AND FRANK ELUDE THE INDIANS.
The dog, who was quivering with excitement, lay down quietly, as if it comprehended the need for silence.
"One, two, three, four, five, six," Dick counted, peering through the bushes. "Six of them; we could fight that lot easy, but the sound of our rifles would bring the whole gang down upon us."
The Indians were not riding at full speed, for their horses were tired, having already made a long march before they saw the hunters following the deer to the cañon, and they did not expect to overtake those of whom they were in pursuit, believing that when they reached the precipice they would make along it to the right or left, and so fall into the hands of one or other of the parties who had gone to intercept them.
No sooner were they fairly out of sight than the hunters rose, and, remounting their horses, continued their way.
"It's well-nigh dark," Dick said, "and I doubt if they will be able to make out our back-track when they get to the edge; at any rate they cannot follow it."
They rode on until they found that their horses could no longer carry them, then, dismounting, led them by the bridle. They had been steering by the stars, and presently found themselves at the upper end of the ravine.
"We won't enter this now," Dick said, "for some of them may take it into their heads to gallop back, although that ain't very likely. Anyhow the horses can't go any further, and if they could, we couldn't make our way over these stones; it'll be as dark as pitch down there. So we will move away two hundred yards, and let the horses feed while we get a few hours' sleep. That dog of yourn will give us notice if any of the varmint are coming this way."
The night passed without alarm, and at the first dawn of light they were upon their feet again. The horses were given a mouthful of water from the skins, and then the hunters mounted and rode down the cañon. There would be pursuit, they knew well; but the Indians would not be able to take up the trail until daylight, and would be an hour and a half following it to the top of the cañon, so that they had fully two hours' start. This being the case, they did not hurry their horses, but kept up a steady pace until they emerged at the lower end of the ravine; then they urged them forward, and two hours later arrived at the halting-place of the caravan. No move had been made, but the instant they were seen approaching, Abe and his two comrades rode up to meet them.
"What has happened?" he asked, as he reached them. "We have been terrible uneasy about you, and I was just going to start to try and pick up your track and follow you."
Dick related the adventure.
"It war well it war no worse," Abe said. "That critter's sense has saved your lives, for ef he hadn't given you warning you would have ridden slap into the hands of the Injins; you may consider you are quits with him now, Frank. But it war a nasty fix, and I congratulate you both on having brought your har safely back to camp; that coming straight back on your trail when you was stopped by the fall of the ground was a judgmatical business."
"It was Frank's idee," Dick said.
"Wall, he just hit the right thing; if it hadn't been for that you would have been rubbed out sure."
At the next halting-place they found that three or four of the caravans which had preceded them had halted,being afraid to move forward in small parties, as the Indians had made several attacks. With the accession of force given by the arrival of John Little's party, they considered themselves able to encounter any body of redskins they might meet, as there were now upwards of fifty waggons collected, with a fighting force of seventy or eighty men.
They therefore moved forward confidently. Several times parties of Indian horsemen were seen in the distance, but they never showed in force, the strength of the caravan being too great for any hope of a successful attack being made upon it.
It was nearly five months from the time of their leaving Omaha before the caravan approached the point where the great plateau of Nevada falls abruptly down to the low lands of California many thousand feet below. Here the hunters bade farewell to the emigrants, whom they had so long escorted. All danger of Indians had been long since passed, and they were now within a short distance of the gold regions.
Very deep and sincere were the thanks which were poured upon them by the emigrants, who felt that they owed their lives entirely to the vigilance and bravery of Abe and his companions. They expected to meet again ere long at the gold-fields, and many were the assurances that should by any chance better luck attend their search than was met with by the hunters, the latter should share in their good fortune.
The change in the character of the scenery was sudden and surprising. Hitherto the country had been bare and treeless, but the great slopes of the Nevada mountains were covered from top to bottom with a luxuriant growthof timber. Nowhere in the world are finer views to be obtained than on the slopes of the Nevada Mountains. The slopes are extremely precipitous, and sometimes, standing on a crag, one can look down into a valley five or six thousand feet below, clothed from top to bottom with luxuriant foliage, while far away in front, at the mouth of the valley, can be seen the low, rich flats of California.
On the lower slopes of these mountains lay the gold deposits. These were found in great beds of gravel and clay, which in countless generations had become so hardened that they almost approached the state of conglomerate. The gold from these beds had been carried, either by streams which ran through them, or by the action of rain and time, into the ravines and valleys, where it was found by the early explorers. These great beds of gravel have been since worked by hydraulic machinery, water being brought by small canals, or flumes, many miles along the face of the hills, to reservoirs situated one or two hundred feet above the gravel to be operated upon.
From the reservoirs extremely strong iron pipes lead down to the gravel, and to the end of these pipes are fitted movable nozzles, like those of fire-engines, but far larger. The water pours out through these nozzles with tremendous force, breaking up the gravel, and washing it away down a long series of wooden troughs, in which the gold settles, and is caught by a variety of contrivances.
But in the early days of gold discovery the very existence of these beds of gravel was unknown, and gold was obtained only in the ravines and valleys by washing the soil in the bottom. It had already been discovered that the soil was richer the further the searchers went down,by far the greater finds being made when the diggers reached the solid rock at the bottom, in the irregularities of which, worn by water thousands of years before, large quantities of rough gold were often discovered.
There was no difficulty in following the track through the forest, and after two days' travelling the party arrived at the first mining village. They chose a piece of ground for their camp, fastened their horses to stumps, erected a tent of blankets, and placed in it the stores brought on their baggage-horses, which had remained untouched since they started. Then, leaving one of their number in charge, they started off to visit the diggings.
The whole of the bottom of the narrow valley was a scene of life and bustle. The existence of gold in the valley had been discovered but three weeks before, but a rush had taken place from other diggings. The ground had been allotted out, and a number of tents pitched, and rough huts erected. Men were working as if for bare life. The lots were small, and the ground was already perfectly honeycombed with holes. Generally the diggers worked in batches of four or five, each member of which took up a claim, so that the space for operations was enlarged.
Two men laboured with pick and shovel, and the baskets, as they were filled with earth and sand, were first screened in a sieve to remove the larger portion of stones and rock, and were then poured into what was known as a cradle, which was a long trough on rockers; one man brought water in buckets from the stream, and poured it into this, while another kept the cradle in constant motion. The mud and lighter portions of stone flowed away over the edge, or were swept off by the hand of themen employed in working it, the particles of gold sinking to the bottom of the machine, where they were found at the clean-up at the end of the day's work.
The new-comers looked on with great interest at the work, asking questions as to the luck which attended the operators. The majority gave but a poor account of their luck, the value of the finds at the end of the day being barely sufficient to pay the enormous rate charged for provisions, which had to be carried up from the coast some hundreds of miles away. The stores were brought in waggons as far as Sacramento, and from that town were carried to the diggings on the backs of mules and horses. Consequently it was impossible for a man to live on the poorest necessities of life for less than three or four dollars a day, and in the out-of-the-way valleys the cost was often considerably more.
Some of the diggers owned that they were doing well, but there was a general disinclination to state even the approximate amount of their daily winnings. The hunters found, however, that the general belief was that some of those who had claims in the centre of the valley, where of course the gold would settle the thickest, were making from ten to twenty ounces per day.
"That's something like!" Dick said. "Just fancy making from forty to eighty pounds per day. I vote we set to work at once. As well here as anywhere else."
"Yes, I suppose we may as well begin here," Frank agreed; "at any rate until we hear what is being done in the other places. But you see we must be ready to move off as soon as a report comes of some fresh discovery, so as to get good places. Here, of course, we must be content to settle down outside the rest. We will mark out five claims atonce, turn up the ground, and put our tools there; they say that's sufficient to take possession. Then we will go up into the forests and cut down a pine or two, and slit it up into planks for making one of those cradles. That will take us all day to-morrow, I reckon."
As they sat round the fire that evening, talking over their prospects, Abe said—
"I tell you what it is, mates, I have been thinking this here matter over, and when I sees what tremendous prices are being charged for grub here, I concluded there must be a big thing to be made in the way of carrying. Now we have got our five riding-horses, and the three baggage-horses, that makes eight. Now what I proposes is this: three of us shall work the claims, and the other two shall work the horses; we can sell the riding-saddles down at Sacramento, and get pack-saddles instead. We can begin by carrying for one of the traders here.
"I hear that a horse can earn from five to ten dollars a day, so our eight horses will earn forty to eighty dollars a day. Now that's a good sartin living for us all, especially as we shall bring up the provisions for ourselves, instead of paying big rates here. Arterards we will see how things go, and if we like we can open a store here, and one of us mind it. Anyhow the horses will keep us well. If the claim turns out well, so much the better; if it don't, we can do very well without it. I proposes as we take it by turns to drive the horses and dig."
The counsel was good and prudent, but it was only adopted after some discussion, for the sums which the more fortunate diggers were earning were so large that all looked forward to making a rapid fortune, and were inclined to despise the small but steady gains offered bythe plan Abe suggested. However, Frank sided with Abe, and offered to go with him on the first trip to Sacramento, and the others thereupon fell in with the plan.
The next day the cradle was made by Abe and Frank, the others setting to to dig and wash out in a bucket. At the end of a day of hard work they had got about a quarter of an ounce of glittering yellow dust. This was not paying work, but they were not disappointed; they had not expected to strike upon good ground at the first attempt, and were quite satisfied by the fact that they really had met with the gold which they had come so far to seek.
That evening Abe made a bargain to bring up goods from Sacramento for one of the store-keepers, having previously found the rate which was current. At daybreak next morning he and Frank started off on horseback, each with three horses tied, head and tail, behind the one he was riding, Turk marching gravely by their side.
The distance to Sacramento was upwards of seventy miles. On their road they met numerous parties making their way up the mountains. All carried a pick and shovel, a bucket and blanket, and a small sack with flour and bacon. Many of them were sailors, who had deserted from their ships at San Francisco, where scores of vessels were lying unable to leave for want of hands.
All, as they passed, asked the last news from the diggings, where the last rush was, and what was the average take at the camp, and then hurried on, eager to reach the spot where, as every man believed, fortune awaited him.
Two days of travel down the mountains took them to Sacramento. Here their saddles were disposed of, andpack-saddles bought. The horses were laden with sacks of sugar and flour, sides of bacon, and mining tools, and after a day's stay in town, they started back for the camp.
Sacramento, but a few months before a sleepy, quiet city, mostly inhabited by Spaniards, or rather people of Spanish descent, was now a scene of animation and bustle. Long teams of waggons, laden with stores, rolled in almost hourly across the plains from San Francisco, while the wharves at the river-side were surrounded by laden barges. Bands of newly-arrived emigrants wandered through the streets, asking eager questions of any one who had time enough to talk as to the best way of getting to the diggings, and as to the camp which they had better select for their first attempt. Dark-looking men, half Spaniard and half Indian, went along on their little ponies, or rode at the head of a string of laden animals, with an air of perfect indifference to the bustle around them.
Sounds of shouting and singing came through the doors of some saloons, in which many of the fortunate diggers were busily engaged in dissipating their hard-earned gains. Men sunburnt almost to blackness, in red shirts and canvas trousers, walked along the streets as if the town and all in it belonged to them in virtue of the store of gold-dust tied up in their waist-belts. In these, revolvers and bowie-knives were stuck conspicuously, and the newly-arrived emigrants looked with awe and envy at these men who had already reaped a harvest at the mines.
Shooting affrays were of frequent occurrence in the drinking saloons, where at night gambling was invariably carried on, the diggers being as reckless of their lives as of their money.
"About ten days of that place would be enough to ruin any man," Abe said, as they walked at the head of theircavalcadefrom the town. "I reckon as Sacramento is a sort of hell on arth, and guess there's more wickedness goes on in that ere little town than in any other place its own size on the face of creation. They tells me as San Francisco is worse, but at any rate Sacramento is bad enough for me."
On the evening of the third day after leaving Sacramento they arrived at the mining camp, and having delivered the stores they had brought up to the trader, and received the amount agreed upon, they took their way to the spot where they had pitched their camp.
"Well, lads, what luck?" Abe asked, as at the sound of their feet their comrades came out to greet them.
"We have got about four ounces of dust," Dick said, "and our backs are pretty nigh broken, and our hands that blistered we can hardly hold the shovel. However, we have been better the last two days. I expect there have been two or three hundred people arrived here since you left, and they are all at work now."
"Well, that's pretty well for a beginning," Abe said, "though you wouldn't have much of your four ounces left if you had had to pay for grub. However, we've brought up another half-sack of flour, twenty pounds of sugar, and five pounds of tea, and a half-side of bacon, so we have got quite enough to go on for a long time yet. I have brought up, too, a good stout tent, which will hold us comfortable, and, after paying for all that, here's thirty pounds in money. I got five pounds a horse-load, so with your earnings and ours we haven't made a bad week's work; that's pretty nigh ten pounds a man. I don'tsay that's anything wonderful, as times goes here; but when we hit on a good spot for our digging, we shall pick it up quick. Now let's pitch the new tent, and then we will have supper, for I can tell you walking twenty-five miles in this mountain air gives one something like an appetite."
D
URING the time which had elapsed between the departure of Frank Norris from England, and his arrival at the gold-diggings in California, much had happened at home which he would have been interested to learn had he maintained any communication with his relatives there. On the morning when Frank had been accused by Dr. Litter of abstracting the note from his table, the latter had, as he had informed Frank he intended to do, sent a note to Captain Bayley informing him that a most painful circumstance had taken place with reference to his nephew, and begging him to call upon him between twelve and one.
Captain Bayley had done so, and had, as Fred Barkley stated, been furious at the news which the Doctor conveyed to him; his fury, however, being in no degree directed towards his nephew, but entirely against the head-master for venturing to bring so abominable an accusation against Frank.
The evidence which Dr. Litter adduced had no effect whatever in staying his wrath, and so vehement and angry was the old officer, that Dr. Litter was obliged to ring thebell and order the servant to show him out. From Dean's Yard he took a cab, and drove direct to his solicitor, and requested him instantly to take proceedings against the head-master for defamation of character.
"But, Captain Bayley," the lawyer urged, "we must first see whether this gentleman had any reasonable cause for his belief. If the evidence is what may be considered as strong, we must accept his action as takenbonâ fide."
"Don't tell me, sir," Captain Bayley exclaimed angrily. "What do I care for evidence? Of course he told me a long rigmarole story, but he could not have believed it himself. No one but a fool could believe my nephew Frank guilty of theft; the idea is preposterous, it was as much as I could do to restrain myself from caning him when he was speaking."
The lawyer smiled inwardly, for Dr. Litter was a tall, stately man, six feet two in height, while Captain Bayley was a small, slight figure, by no means powerful when in his prime, and now fully twenty years the senior of the head-master.
"Well, Captain Bayley," he said, "in the first place it is necessary that I should know the precise accusation which this gentleman has brought against your nephew. Will you be good enough to repeat to me, as nearly as you can, the statement which he made, as, of course, if we proceed to legal measures, we must be exact in the matter?"
"Well, this is about the story he told me," Captain Bayley said, more calmly. "In the first place, it seems that the lad broke bounds one night, and went with a man named Perkins—who is a prize-fighter, and who I know gave him lessons in boxing, for I gave Frank five poundslast half to pay for them—to a meeting of these Chartist blackguards somewhere in the New Cut.
"Well, there was a row there, as there naturally would be at such a place, and it seems Frank knocked down some Radical fellow—a tailor, I believe—and broke his nose. Well, you know, I am not saying this was right; still, you know, lads will be lads, and I used to be fond of getting into a row myself when I was young, for I could spar in those days pretty well, I can tell you, Griffith. I would have given a five-pound note to have seen Frank set to with that Radical tailor. Still, I dare say, if the lad had told me about it I should have got into a passion and blown him up."
"I shouldn't be surprised at all," the lawyer said drily.
"No. Well that would do him no harm; he knows me, and he knows that I am peppery. Well, it seems this fellow found out who he was, and threatened to report the thing to the head-master, in which case this Dr. Litter said he should have expelled him for being out of bounds, a thing which in itself I call monstrous. Now, here is where Frank was wrong. He ought to have come straight to me and told me the whole affair, and got his blowing-up and his money. Instead of that, he asked three or four of the other boys—among them my nephew Fred—to lend him the money, but they were all out of funds. Well, somebody, it seems, sent Frank a ten-pound note in an envelope, with the words, 'From a friend,' and no more. Frank showed the envelope to the others, and they all agreed that it was a sort of godsend, and Frank sent the note to the tailor. Now it seems that the day before Frank got the note, the head-master, whenhe was hearing his form, had put a ten-pound note, with some other things, on the table, and being called out, he, like a careless old fool, left them lying there.
"Some time afterwards he missed the note, and does not remember taking it up from the table; still, he says, he did not suspect any of the boys of his form of taking it, and thinking that he had dropt it on the way to his house, he stopped the note at the bank, happening to have its number. A few days afterwards the note was presented; it was traced to the tailor, who admitted having received it from Frank; and would you believe it, sir, this man now pretends to believe that my nephew stole it from the table, and sent it to himself in an envelope. It's the most preposterous thing I ever heard."
Mr. Griffith looked grave.
"Of course, Captain Bayley, having met your nephew at your house several times, I cannot for a moment believe him guilty of taking the note; still, I must admit that the evidence is strongly circumstantial, and were it a stranger who was accused, I should say at once the thing looked nasty."
"Pooh! nonsense, Griffith," the old officer said angrily; "there's nothing in it, sir—nothing whatever. Somebody found the note kicking about, I dare say, and didn't know who it belonged to; he knew Frank was in a corner, and sent it to him. The thing is perfectly natural."
"Yes," the lawyer assented doubtfully; "but the question is, Who did know it? Was the fact of your nephew requiring the money generally known in the school?"
"No," Captain Bayley admitted. "The doctor examined the four boys before Frank. They all declaredthat they knew nothing of the note, and that they had not mentioned the circumstance to a soul; but my opinion is that one of them is a liar."
"It is certainly necessary to believe," Mr. Griffith said slowly, "that one of them is either a liar or a thief. Of course there may be some other solution of the matter, but the only one that I can see, just at the present moment, is this: Your nephew is the sort of lad to be extremely popular among his schoolmates; either one of these four boys took the note from the master's table, with the good-natured but most mistaken idea of getting him out of a scrape, or they must have mentioned his need of money to some of their school-fellows, one of whom finding the note, perhaps in the yard, where the head-master may have dropped it, sent it to Frank to relieve him of the difficulty.
"These are possible solutions of the mystery, at any rate. But if you will take my advice, Captain Bayley, you will not, in the present state of affairs, take the steps which you propose to me against Dr. Litter. It will be time enough to do that when your nephew's innocence is finally and incontestably proved. Of course," he said, seeing that his listener was about to break out again, "you and I, knowing him, know that he is innocent; but others who do not know him might entertain some doubt upon the subject, and a jury might consider that the Doctor was justified, with the evidence before him, in acting as he did, in which case an immense deal of damage might be done by making the matter a subject of general talk."
With some difficulty Captain Bayley was persuaded to allow his intention to rest for a while.
"It is late now," he said, "but I shall go and see Frank to-morrow. I wish I had seen him this afternoon before I came to you. However, I have no doubt when I get home I shall find a letter from him—not defending himself, of course, as he would know that to be unnecessary, but telling me the story in his own way."
But no letter came that evening, to Captain Bayley's great irritation. He told Alice Hardy the whole circumstances, and she was as indignant as himself, and warmly agreed that the head-master should be punished for his unjust suspicions.
"And do you say he is really going to be expelled to-morrow?" she asked, in a tone of horror.
"So the fellow said, my dear; but he shall smart for it, and the laws of the land shall do Frank justice."
At half-past nine the next morning Fred Barkley arrived at Captain Bayley's.
"Well," his uncle exclaimed, as he entered, "I suppose you have been sent to tell me they have got to the bottom of this rigmarole affair."
"No, uncle," Fred said, "I have, I am sorry to say, been sent to tell you that Frank last night left his boarding-house and is not to be found."
Captain Bayley leapt from his seat in great wrath.
"The fool! the idiot! to run away like a coward instead of facing it out; and not a line or a message has he sent to me. Did you know, sir, that your cousin was going to run away?"
Fred hesitated.
"Yes, uncle, I knew that he was going, and did my best to dissuade him, but it was useless."
Captain Bayley walked up and down the room withquick steps, uttering exclamations testifying his anger and annoyance.
"Has he got any money?" he said suddenly, halting before Fred. "Did he get any money from you?"
Fred hesitated again, and then said.
"Well, uncle, since you insist upon knowing, I did let him have twenty pounds which I got for the sale of my books."
"I believe, sir," the old officer said furiously, "that you encouraged him in this step, a step which I consider fatal to him."
Fred hesitated again, and then said.
"Well, uncle, I am sorry that you should be so angry about it, but I own that I did not throw any obstacle in the way."
"You did not, sir," Captain Bayley roared, "and why did you not? Are you a fool too? Don't you see that this running away instead of facing matters out cannot but be considered, by people who do not know Frank, as a proof of his guilt, a confession that he did not dare to stay to face his accusers?"
Fred was silent.
"Answer me, sir," Captain Bayley said; "don't stand there without a word to explain your conduct. Do you or do you not see that this cowardly flight will look like a confession of guilt?"
"I did see that, uncle," Fred said, "but I thought that better than a public expulsion."
"Oh! you did, did you?" his uncle said sarcastically, "when you knew that if he had stopped quietly at home we should have proved his innocence in less than no time."
Fred made no reply.
"Do you think we shouldn't have proved his innocence?" roared his uncle.
"I am sorry to say anything which is displeasing to you, uncle, but I fear that you would never have proved Frank's innocence."
The words seemed to have a sobering effect on Captain Bayley. The blood seemed to die out of his face; he put one hand on a chair, as if to steady himself, while he looked fixedly in his nephew's face.
"Do you mean, Fred," he said, in a low voice, "do you mean that you have a doubt of Frank's innocence?"
"I should rather not say anything about it," Fred replied. "I hope with all my heart that Frank is not guilty, but——"
"What do you think?" Captain Bayley repeated; "have you any grounds whatever for believing him guilty?"
"No, sir, and I do not wish you to be in the slightest degree influenced by what I said." He paused, but Captain Bayley's eyes were still fixed upon him, as if commanding a complete answer.
"Well, sir," he went on hesitatingly, "I must own that, sad as it is to say so, I fear Frank did it."
"Did he confess it to you?" Captain Bayley asked, in a strained, strange voice.
"No, uncle, not in so many words, but he said things which seemed to me to mean that. When I tried to dissuade him from running away, and urged him to remain till his innocence could be proved, he said angrily, 'What's the use of talking like that, when you know as well as I do that it can't be proved.' Afterwards he said, 'It is a bad job, and I have been an awful fool. Butwho could have thought that note would ever be traced back to Litter?' and other remarks of the same kind. He may be innocent, uncle—you know how deeply I wish we could prove him so—but I fear, I greatly fear, that we shall be doing Frank more service by letting the matter drop. You know the fellows in the school all believe him innocent, and though his going away has staggered some of them, the general feeling is still all in his favour; therefore they are sure to speak of him as a sort of victim, and when he returns, which of course he will do in a few years' time, the matter will have died away and have been altogether forgotten."
The old officer sat down at the table and hid his face in his hands.
All this time Alice, pale and silent, had sat and listened with her eyes fixed upon the speaker, but she now leapt up to her feet.
"Uncle," she said, "don't believe him, he is not speaking the truth, I am sure he is not. He hates Frank, and I have known it all along, because Frank is bigger and better than he; because Frank was generous and kind-hearted; because every one liked Frank and no one liked him. He is telling a lie now, and I believe every word he has said since he came into the room is false."
"Hush! child," the old officer said; "you must not speak so, my dear. If it was only the word of one lad against another, it would be different; but it is not so. The proof is very strong against Frank. I would give all I am worth if I could still believe him innocent, and had he come to me and put his hand in mine, and said, 'Uncle, I am innocent,' I would have believed him against all the evidence in the world. It is not I who condemnhim, he has condemned himself. He sends me no word; he cannot look me in the face and declare himself innocent. He runs away at night, knowing well that there could be but one construction as to this, and that all would judge him guilty. No, Alice, it breaks my heart to say so, but I can struggle no longer against these facts. The lad whom I have loved as a son has turned out a thief."
"No, uncle, no," the girl cried passionately, "I will never believe it, not to the end of my life. I cannot prove him innocent, but I know he is so, and some day it will be proved; but till then I shall still think of him as my dear brother, as my true-hearted brother, who has been wrongfully accused, and who is the victim of some wicked plot of which, perhaps, Fred Barkley knows more than any one else," and, bursting into a passion of tears, she ran from the room. Fred looked after her with an expression of pity and sorrow.
"Poor child!" he said, "it is a terrible blow for her, and she scarce knows what she is saying."
"It is a terrible blow," Captain Bayley said, in a dreary voice, "a most terrible blow to me and to her. No wonder she feels it; and I have been planning and hoping that some day, a few years hence, those two would get to like each other in a different way. I had, by my will, divided my fortune equally between you and him, but I have liked him best. Of course, I brought him up, and he has been always with me; it was natural that I should do so. Still I wanted to be fair, and I divided it equally. But I was pleased at the thought that her fortune, which is, as you know, a very large one, would be his, and enable him to make a great figure in the world if he had chosen; and now it is all over.
"Go away now, my boy, the blow has been too much for me. I am getting an old man, and this is the second great blow I have had. Do not take to heart the wild words of poor little Alice. You see she scarcely knows what she is saying."
Without another word Fred took his departure. When once out of sight of the house his steps quickened, and he walked briskly along.
"Splendid!" he said to himself; "a grand stroke indeed, and perfectly safe. Frank is not likely to return for twenty years, if ever, and I don't think the old man is good for another five. I expect I shall have some trouble with that little cat, Alice; but she is only a child, and will come round in time, and her fortune will be quite as useful to me as it would have been to him. I always knew he was little better than a fool, but I could hardly have hoped that he would have walked into the trap as he has done. I suppose that other blow old Bayley spoke of was that affair of his daughter. That was a lucky business for me too."
Fred Barkley was not mistaken, it was of his daughter Captain Bayley had been thinking when he spoke. He had married young when he first went out to India, and had lost his wife two years later, leaving him with a daughter six months old. He had sent her home to England, and after a twenty years' absence he had returned and found her grown up.
She had inherited something of her father's passionate disposition, and possessed, in addition, an amount of sullen obstinacy which was wholly alien to his nature. But her father saw none of these defects in her character. She was very beautiful, with an air of pride and hauteurwhich he liked. She had a right to be proud, he thought, for she was a very wealthy heiress, for, his two elder brothers having died childless while he was in India, the fine property of their father had all descended to him.
Though the girl had many suitors, she would listen to none of them, having formed a strong attachment to a man in station altogether beneath her. He had given lessons in drawing at the school which had been her home as well as her place of education during her father's absence, for Captain Bayley had quarrelled with his sisters, both of whom, he considered, had married beneath them.
The fact that Ella Bayley was an only child, and that her father was a wealthy man, was known in the school, and had, in some way, come to the ears of the drawing-master, who was young, and by no means ill-looking. He had played his cards well. Ella was romantic and impetuous, and, before long, returned the devotion which her teacher expressed for her.
When her father returned home, and Ella left school to take her place at the head of his establishment, she had hoped that she should be able to win from him a consent to her engagement; but she found his prejudices on the subject of birth were strong, and she waited two years before she broached the subject.
The wrath of Captain Bayley was prodigious; he heaped abusive epithets upon the man of her choice, till Ella's temper rose also. There was a passionate quarrel between father and daughter. The next morning Ella was missing; a week afterwards Captain Bayley received a copy of the certificate of her marriage, with ashort note from Ella, saying that when he could make his mind up to forgive her and her husband, and to acknowledge that the latter did not deserve the abusive language that he had applied to him, she should be glad to return and resume her place as his affectionate and loving daughter. She gave an address at which he could communicate to her.
Three years passed before Captain Bayley's anger had sufficiently calmed down for him to write to his daughter saying that he forgave her. The letter was returned by the people at the house, with a note saying that many months had elapsed since any inquiries had been made for letters for Mrs. Smedley, and that they had altogether lost sight of her. Now that the Captain had once made up his mind to forgive his daughter, he was burning with impatience to see her again, and he at once employed a detective to find out what had become of her.
From the person to whose house the letter had been directed the detective learned the address where she and her husband had resided while in London.
For a time it seemed they had lived expensively, the sale of Ella's jewels keeping them in luxury for some months. Then hard times had come upon them; the man had altogether lost his connection as a teacher, and could, or would, do nothing to support his wife and himself; they had moved from the place they had first lived at, and taken much smaller lodgings.
Here the people of the house reported their life had been very unhappy; the husband had taken to drink, and there had been fierce and frequent quarrels between them, arising—the landlady had gleaned, from the loud and angry utterance of the husband—from the wife's refusalto appeal to her father for assistance. They had left this place suddenly, and in debt; thence they had moved from lodging to lodging at short intervals, their position getting worse, until they were last lodged in a wretched garret. From this point they were traced with great trouble down to Nottingham, where the husband obtained a precarious living by producing designs for embroidery and curtains.
Had he been steady he might have soon done fairly, but a great part of his time was spent in public-houses, and he was seldom sober. When returning home one night in a state of drunkenness, he was run over by a heavy van and killed. As his wife possessed but a few shillings in the world, he was buried at the expense of the parish and his widow at once left the town.
The people where she lodged believed that she had gone to London, taking with her her six months old child, and had started to tramp the way on foot. The woman said that she doubted whether she could ever have got there. She was an utterly broken woman, with a constant racking cough, which was like to tear her to pieces, and before she set out her landlady had urged upon her that the idea of her starting to carry a heavy child to London was nothing short of madness.
After this all trace of Ella had been lost. Advertisements offering large rewards appeared in the papers; the books of every workhouse between Nottingham and London, and indeed of almost every workhouse in England, were carefully searched to see if there was any record of the death of a woman with a child about the time of her disappearance. A similar search was made at all the London hospitals, and at every institution where she mighthave crawled to die; but no trace had ever been found of her.
That she was dead was not doubted; for it was found that at Nottingham she had once gone to the parish doctor for some medicine for her child. The physician had taken particular notice of her, had asked her some questions, and had made a note in his case-book that the mother of the child he had prescribed for was in an advanced stage of consumption, and had probably but a few weeks, certainly not more than a few months, to live.
It was long before the search was given up as hopeless, and many hundreds of pounds were spent by Captain Bayley before he abandoned all hope of discovering, if not his daughter, at least her child. During the year which elapsed before he was forced to acknowledge that it was hopeless, Captain Bayley had suffered terribly. His self-reproaches were unceasing, and he aged many years in appearance.
It was three years after this, on the death of his sister, Mrs. Norris, whose husband had died some years before, that he took Frank into his house and adopted him as his son, stating, however, to all whom it might concern, that he did not regard him as standing nearer to him as his heir than his other nephew, Fred Barkley, but that his property would be divided between them as they might show themselves worthy of it. It was three years later still, that, at the death of her father, an old fellow-officer, his household was increased by the addition of Alice, who had been left to his guardianship, but who had soon learned, like Frank, to address him as uncle.