Chapter Twenty Seven.Hunky Ben and Charlie get Beyond their Depth, and Buck Tom gets Beyond Recall.While hunting together in the woods near Traitor’s Trap one day Charlie Brooke and Hunky Ben came to a halt on the summit of an eminence that commanded a wide view over the surrounding country.“’Tis a glorious place, Ben,” said Brooke, leaning his rifle against a tree and mounting on a piece of rock, the better to take in the beautiful prospect of woodland, river, and lake. “When I think of the swarms of poor folk in the old country who don’t own a foot of land, have little to eat and only rags to cover them, I long to bring them out here and plant them down where God has spread His blessings so bountifully, where there is never lack of work, and where Nature pays high wages to those who obey her laws.”“No doubt there’s room enough here,” returned the scout sitting down and laying his rifle across his knees. “I’ve often thowt on them subjects, but my thowts only lead to puzzlement; for, out here in the wilderness, a man can’t git all the information needful to larn him about things in the old world. Dear, dear, it do seem strange to me that any man should choose to starve in the cities when there’s the free wilderness to roam about in. I mind havin’ a palaver once wi’ a stove-up man when I was ranchin’ down in Kansas on the Indian Territory Line. Screw was his name, an’ a real kind-hearted fellow he was too—only he couldn’t keep his hand off that curse o’ mankind, the bottle. I mentioned to him my puzzlements about this matter, an’ he up fist an’ come down on the table wi’ a crack that made the glasses bounce as if they’d all come alive, an’ caused a plate o’ mush in front of him to spread itself all over the place—but he cared nothin’ for that, he was so riled up by the thowts my obsarvation had shook up.“‘Hunky Ben,’ says he, glowerin’ at me like a bull wi’ the measles, ‘the reason we stay there an’ don’t come out here or go to the other parts o’ God’s green ’arth is ’cause we can’t help ourselves an’ don’t know how—or what—don’t know nothin’ in fact!’“‘That’s a busted-up state o’ ignorance, no doubt’ said I, in a soothin’ sort o’ way, for I see’d the man was riled pretty bad by ancient memories, an’ looked gittin’ waxier. He wore a black eye, too, caught in a free fight the night before, which didn’t improve his looks. ‘You saidwejust now,’ says I. ‘Was you one o’ them?’“‘Of course I was,’ says he, tamin’ down a little, ‘an’ I’d bin one o’ them yet—if not food for worms by this time—if it hadn’t bin for a dook as took pity on me.’“‘What’s a dook?’ says I.“‘A dook?’ says he. ‘Why, he’s adook, you know; a sort o’ markis—somewheres between a lord an’ a king. I don’t know zackly where, an hang me if I care; but they’re a bad lot are some o’ them dooks—rich as Pharaoh, king o’ J’rus’lem, an’ hard as nails—though I’m bound for to say they ain’t all alike. Some on ’em’s no better nor costermongers, others aremen; men what keeps in mind that the same God made us all an’ will call us all to the same account, an’ that the same kind o’ worms ’ll finish us all off at last. But this dook as took pity on me was a true blue. He wasn’t one o’ the hard sort as didn’t care a rush for us so long as his own stummick was full. Neether was he one o’ the butter-mouths as dursen’t say boo to a goose. He spoke out to me like a man, an’ he knew well enough that I’d bin born in the London slums, an’ that my daddy had bin born there before me, an that my mother had caught her death o’ cold through havin’ to pawn her only pair o’ boots to pay my school fees an’ then walk barefutt to the court in a winter day to answer for not sendin’ her boy to the board school—hersend me to school!—she might as well have tried to send daddy himself; an’ him out o’ work, too, an’ all on us starvin’. My dook, when he hear about it a’most bust wi’ passion. I hear ’im arterwards talkin’ to a overseer, or somebody, “confound it,” says he—no, not quite that, for my dook heneverswore, only he said somethin’ pretty stiff—“these people are starvin’,” says he, “an’ pawnin’ their things for food to keep ’em alive, an’ they can’t git work nohow,” says he, “an’ yet you worry them out o’ body an’ soul for school fees!” I didn’t hear no more, for the overseer smoothed ’im down somehows. But that dook—that goodman, Hunky Ben, paid my passage to Ameriky, an’ sent me off wi’ his blessin’ an’ a Bible. Unfortnitly I took a bottle wi’ me, an when I got to the other side I got hold of another bottle, an’ another—an’ there stands the last of ’em.’“An’ wi’ that, Mr Brooke, he fetched the bottle in front of him such a crack wi’ his fist as sent it all to smash against the opposite wall.“‘Well done, Screw!’ cried the boy at the bar, laughin’; ‘have another bottle?’“Poor Screw smiled in a sheepish way, for the rile was out of him by that time, an’, says he, ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do. A shot like that deserves another!’“Ah me!” continued the scout, “it do take the manhood out of a fellow, that drink. Even when his indignation’s roused and he tries to shake it off, he can’t do it.”“Well do I know that, Ben. It is only God who can help a man in such a case.”The scout gravely shook his head. “Seems to me, Mr Brooke, that there’s a screw loose some wheres in our theology, for I’ve heard parsons as well as you say that—as if the Almighty condescended to help us only when we’re in bad straits. Now, though I’m but a scout and pretend to no book larnin’, it comes in strong upon me that if God made us an’ measures our movements, an’ gives us every beat o’ the pulse, an’ counts the very hairs of our heads, we stand in need of His help ineverycase and atalltimes; that we can’t save ourselves from mischief under any circumstances, great or small, without Him.”“I have thought of that too, sometimes,” said Charlie, sitting down on the rock beside his companion, and looking at him in some perplexity, “but does not the view you take savour somewhat of fatalism, and seek to free us from responsibility in regard to what we do?”“It don’t seem so to me,” replied the scout, “I’m not speakin’, you see, so much of doin’ as of escapin’. No doubt we areperfectlyfree towill, but it don’t follow that we are free toact. I’m quite free towillto cut my leg off or to let it stay on; an’ if I carry out my will an’doit, why, I’m quite free there too—an’ also responsible. But I ain’t free to sew it on again however much I may will to do so—leastwise if I do it won’t stick. The consekinces o’ my deed I must bear, but who will deny that the Almighty could grow on another leg if He chose? Why, some creeters Hedoesallow to get rid of a limb or two, an’ grow new ones! So, you see, I’m responsible for my deeds, but, at the same time, I must look to God for escape from the consekinces, if He sees fit to let me escape. A man, bein’ free, may drink himself into a drunkard, but he’snotfree to curehimself. He can’t do it. The demon Crave has got him by the throat, forces him to open his mouth, and pours the fiery poison down. The thing that he is free to do is to will. He may, if he chooses, call upon God the Saviour to help him; an’ my own belief is that no man ever made such a call in vain.”“How, if that be so, are we to account for the failure of those who try, honestly strive, struggle, and agonise, yet obviously fail?”“It’s not for the like o’ me, Mr Brooke, to expound the outs an’ ins o’ all mysteries. Yet I will p’int out that you, what they call, beg the question, when you say that such people ‘honestly’ strive. If a man tries to unlock a door with all his might and main, heart and soul, honestly tries, by turnin’ the key the wrong way, he’ll strive till doomsday without openin’ the door! It’s my opinion that a man may get into difficulties of his own free-will. He can get out of them only by applyin’ to his Maker.”During the latter part of this conversation the hunters had risen and were making their way through the trackless woods, when the scout stopped suddenly and gazed for a few seconds intently at the ground. Then he kneeled and began to examine the spot with great care. “A footprint here,” he said, “that tells of recent visitors.”“Friends, Ben, or foes?” asked our hero, also going on his knees to examine the marks. “Well, now, I see only a pressed blade or two of grass, but nothing the least like a footprint. It puzzles me more than I can tell how you scouts seem so sure about invisible marks.”“Truly, if they was invisible you would have reason for surprise, but my wonder is that you don’t see them. Any child in wood-craft might read them. See, here is the edge o’ the right futt making a faint impression where the ground is soft—an’ the heel; surely ye see the heel!”“A small hollow I do see, but as to its being a heel-print I could not pronounce on that. Has it been made lately, think you?”“Ay, last night or this morning at latest; and it was made by the futt of Jake the Flint. I know it well, for I’ve had to track him more than once an’ would spot it among a thousand.”“If Jake is in the neighbourhood, wouldn’t it be well to return to the cave? He and some of his gang might attack it in our absence.”“No fear o’ that,” replied the scout, rising from his inspection, “the futt p’ints away from the cave. I should say that the Flint has bin there durin’ the night, an’ found that we kep’ too sharp a look-out to be caught sleepin’. Where he went to arter that no one can tell, but we can hoof it an’ see. Like enough he went to spy us out alone, an’ then returned to his comrades.”So saying, the scout “hoofed it” through the woods at a pace that tested Charlie Brooke’s powers of endurance, exceptionally good though they were. After a march of about four miles in comparative silence they were conducted by the footprints to an open space in the midst of dense thicket where the fresh ashes of a camp fire indicated that a party had spent some time.“Just so. They came to see what was up and what could be done, found that nothin’ partiklar was up an’ nothin’ at all could be done, so off they go, mounted, to fish in other waters. Just as well for us.”“But not so well for the fish in the other waters,” remarked Charlie.“True, but we can’t help that. Come, we may as well return now.”While Charlie and the scout were thus following the trail, Buck Tom, lying in the cave, became suddenly much worse. It seemed as if some string in his system had suddenly snapped and let the poor human wreck run down.“Come here, Leather,” he gasped faintly.Poor Shank, who never left him, and who was preparing food for him at the time, was at his side in a moment, and bent anxiously over him.“D’you want anything?” he asked.“Nothing, Shank. Where’s Dick?”“Outside; cutting some firewood.”“Don’t call him. I’m glad we are alone,” said the outlaw, seizing his friend’s hand with a feeble, tremulous grasp. “I’m dying, Shank, dear boy. You forgive me?”“Forgive you, Ralph! Ay—long, long ago I—” He could not finish the sentence.“I know you did, Shank,” returned the dying man, with a faint smile. “How it will fare with me hereafter I know not. I’ve but one word to say when I get there, and that is—guilty! I—I loved your sister, Shank. Ay—you never guessed it. I only tell you now that I may send her a message. Tell her that the words she once said to me about a Saviour have never left me. They are like a light in the darkness now. God bless you—Shank—and—May.”With a throbbing heart and listening ear Shank waited for more; but no more came. The hand he still held was lifeless, and the spirit of the outlaw had entered within the veil of that mysterious Hereafter.
While hunting together in the woods near Traitor’s Trap one day Charlie Brooke and Hunky Ben came to a halt on the summit of an eminence that commanded a wide view over the surrounding country.
“’Tis a glorious place, Ben,” said Brooke, leaning his rifle against a tree and mounting on a piece of rock, the better to take in the beautiful prospect of woodland, river, and lake. “When I think of the swarms of poor folk in the old country who don’t own a foot of land, have little to eat and only rags to cover them, I long to bring them out here and plant them down where God has spread His blessings so bountifully, where there is never lack of work, and where Nature pays high wages to those who obey her laws.”
“No doubt there’s room enough here,” returned the scout sitting down and laying his rifle across his knees. “I’ve often thowt on them subjects, but my thowts only lead to puzzlement; for, out here in the wilderness, a man can’t git all the information needful to larn him about things in the old world. Dear, dear, it do seem strange to me that any man should choose to starve in the cities when there’s the free wilderness to roam about in. I mind havin’ a palaver once wi’ a stove-up man when I was ranchin’ down in Kansas on the Indian Territory Line. Screw was his name, an’ a real kind-hearted fellow he was too—only he couldn’t keep his hand off that curse o’ mankind, the bottle. I mentioned to him my puzzlements about this matter, an’ he up fist an’ come down on the table wi’ a crack that made the glasses bounce as if they’d all come alive, an’ caused a plate o’ mush in front of him to spread itself all over the place—but he cared nothin’ for that, he was so riled up by the thowts my obsarvation had shook up.
“‘Hunky Ben,’ says he, glowerin’ at me like a bull wi’ the measles, ‘the reason we stay there an’ don’t come out here or go to the other parts o’ God’s green ’arth is ’cause we can’t help ourselves an’ don’t know how—or what—don’t know nothin’ in fact!’
“‘That’s a busted-up state o’ ignorance, no doubt’ said I, in a soothin’ sort o’ way, for I see’d the man was riled pretty bad by ancient memories, an’ looked gittin’ waxier. He wore a black eye, too, caught in a free fight the night before, which didn’t improve his looks. ‘You saidwejust now,’ says I. ‘Was you one o’ them?’
“‘Of course I was,’ says he, tamin’ down a little, ‘an’ I’d bin one o’ them yet—if not food for worms by this time—if it hadn’t bin for a dook as took pity on me.’
“‘What’s a dook?’ says I.
“‘A dook?’ says he. ‘Why, he’s adook, you know; a sort o’ markis—somewheres between a lord an’ a king. I don’t know zackly where, an hang me if I care; but they’re a bad lot are some o’ them dooks—rich as Pharaoh, king o’ J’rus’lem, an’ hard as nails—though I’m bound for to say they ain’t all alike. Some on ’em’s no better nor costermongers, others aremen; men what keeps in mind that the same God made us all an’ will call us all to the same account, an’ that the same kind o’ worms ’ll finish us all off at last. But this dook as took pity on me was a true blue. He wasn’t one o’ the hard sort as didn’t care a rush for us so long as his own stummick was full. Neether was he one o’ the butter-mouths as dursen’t say boo to a goose. He spoke out to me like a man, an’ he knew well enough that I’d bin born in the London slums, an’ that my daddy had bin born there before me, an that my mother had caught her death o’ cold through havin’ to pawn her only pair o’ boots to pay my school fees an’ then walk barefutt to the court in a winter day to answer for not sendin’ her boy to the board school—hersend me to school!—she might as well have tried to send daddy himself; an’ him out o’ work, too, an’ all on us starvin’. My dook, when he hear about it a’most bust wi’ passion. I hear ’im arterwards talkin’ to a overseer, or somebody, “confound it,” says he—no, not quite that, for my dook heneverswore, only he said somethin’ pretty stiff—“these people are starvin’,” says he, “an’ pawnin’ their things for food to keep ’em alive, an’ they can’t git work nohow,” says he, “an’ yet you worry them out o’ body an’ soul for school fees!” I didn’t hear no more, for the overseer smoothed ’im down somehows. But that dook—that goodman, Hunky Ben, paid my passage to Ameriky, an’ sent me off wi’ his blessin’ an’ a Bible. Unfortnitly I took a bottle wi’ me, an when I got to the other side I got hold of another bottle, an’ another—an’ there stands the last of ’em.’
“An’ wi’ that, Mr Brooke, he fetched the bottle in front of him such a crack wi’ his fist as sent it all to smash against the opposite wall.
“‘Well done, Screw!’ cried the boy at the bar, laughin’; ‘have another bottle?’
“Poor Screw smiled in a sheepish way, for the rile was out of him by that time, an’, says he, ‘Well, I don’t mind if I do. A shot like that deserves another!’
“Ah me!” continued the scout, “it do take the manhood out of a fellow, that drink. Even when his indignation’s roused and he tries to shake it off, he can’t do it.”
“Well do I know that, Ben. It is only God who can help a man in such a case.”
The scout gravely shook his head. “Seems to me, Mr Brooke, that there’s a screw loose some wheres in our theology, for I’ve heard parsons as well as you say that—as if the Almighty condescended to help us only when we’re in bad straits. Now, though I’m but a scout and pretend to no book larnin’, it comes in strong upon me that if God made us an’ measures our movements, an’ gives us every beat o’ the pulse, an’ counts the very hairs of our heads, we stand in need of His help ineverycase and atalltimes; that we can’t save ourselves from mischief under any circumstances, great or small, without Him.”
“I have thought of that too, sometimes,” said Charlie, sitting down on the rock beside his companion, and looking at him in some perplexity, “but does not the view you take savour somewhat of fatalism, and seek to free us from responsibility in regard to what we do?”
“It don’t seem so to me,” replied the scout, “I’m not speakin’, you see, so much of doin’ as of escapin’. No doubt we areperfectlyfree towill, but it don’t follow that we are free toact. I’m quite free towillto cut my leg off or to let it stay on; an’ if I carry out my will an’doit, why, I’m quite free there too—an’ also responsible. But I ain’t free to sew it on again however much I may will to do so—leastwise if I do it won’t stick. The consekinces o’ my deed I must bear, but who will deny that the Almighty could grow on another leg if He chose? Why, some creeters Hedoesallow to get rid of a limb or two, an’ grow new ones! So, you see, I’m responsible for my deeds, but, at the same time, I must look to God for escape from the consekinces, if He sees fit to let me escape. A man, bein’ free, may drink himself into a drunkard, but he’snotfree to curehimself. He can’t do it. The demon Crave has got him by the throat, forces him to open his mouth, and pours the fiery poison down. The thing that he is free to do is to will. He may, if he chooses, call upon God the Saviour to help him; an’ my own belief is that no man ever made such a call in vain.”
“How, if that be so, are we to account for the failure of those who try, honestly strive, struggle, and agonise, yet obviously fail?”
“It’s not for the like o’ me, Mr Brooke, to expound the outs an’ ins o’ all mysteries. Yet I will p’int out that you, what they call, beg the question, when you say that such people ‘honestly’ strive. If a man tries to unlock a door with all his might and main, heart and soul, honestly tries, by turnin’ the key the wrong way, he’ll strive till doomsday without openin’ the door! It’s my opinion that a man may get into difficulties of his own free-will. He can get out of them only by applyin’ to his Maker.”
During the latter part of this conversation the hunters had risen and were making their way through the trackless woods, when the scout stopped suddenly and gazed for a few seconds intently at the ground. Then he kneeled and began to examine the spot with great care. “A footprint here,” he said, “that tells of recent visitors.”
“Friends, Ben, or foes?” asked our hero, also going on his knees to examine the marks. “Well, now, I see only a pressed blade or two of grass, but nothing the least like a footprint. It puzzles me more than I can tell how you scouts seem so sure about invisible marks.”
“Truly, if they was invisible you would have reason for surprise, but my wonder is that you don’t see them. Any child in wood-craft might read them. See, here is the edge o’ the right futt making a faint impression where the ground is soft—an’ the heel; surely ye see the heel!”
“A small hollow I do see, but as to its being a heel-print I could not pronounce on that. Has it been made lately, think you?”
“Ay, last night or this morning at latest; and it was made by the futt of Jake the Flint. I know it well, for I’ve had to track him more than once an’ would spot it among a thousand.”
“If Jake is in the neighbourhood, wouldn’t it be well to return to the cave? He and some of his gang might attack it in our absence.”
“No fear o’ that,” replied the scout, rising from his inspection, “the futt p’ints away from the cave. I should say that the Flint has bin there durin’ the night, an’ found that we kep’ too sharp a look-out to be caught sleepin’. Where he went to arter that no one can tell, but we can hoof it an’ see. Like enough he went to spy us out alone, an’ then returned to his comrades.”
So saying, the scout “hoofed it” through the woods at a pace that tested Charlie Brooke’s powers of endurance, exceptionally good though they were. After a march of about four miles in comparative silence they were conducted by the footprints to an open space in the midst of dense thicket where the fresh ashes of a camp fire indicated that a party had spent some time.
“Just so. They came to see what was up and what could be done, found that nothin’ partiklar was up an’ nothin’ at all could be done, so off they go, mounted, to fish in other waters. Just as well for us.”
“But not so well for the fish in the other waters,” remarked Charlie.
“True, but we can’t help that. Come, we may as well return now.”
While Charlie and the scout were thus following the trail, Buck Tom, lying in the cave, became suddenly much worse. It seemed as if some string in his system had suddenly snapped and let the poor human wreck run down.
“Come here, Leather,” he gasped faintly.
Poor Shank, who never left him, and who was preparing food for him at the time, was at his side in a moment, and bent anxiously over him.
“D’you want anything?” he asked.
“Nothing, Shank. Where’s Dick?”
“Outside; cutting some firewood.”
“Don’t call him. I’m glad we are alone,” said the outlaw, seizing his friend’s hand with a feeble, tremulous grasp. “I’m dying, Shank, dear boy. You forgive me?”
“Forgive you, Ralph! Ay—long, long ago I—” He could not finish the sentence.
“I know you did, Shank,” returned the dying man, with a faint smile. “How it will fare with me hereafter I know not. I’ve but one word to say when I get there, and that is—guilty! I—I loved your sister, Shank. Ay—you never guessed it. I only tell you now that I may send her a message. Tell her that the words she once said to me about a Saviour have never left me. They are like a light in the darkness now. God bless you—Shank—and—May.”
With a throbbing heart and listening ear Shank waited for more; but no more came. The hand he still held was lifeless, and the spirit of the outlaw had entered within the veil of that mysterious Hereafter.
Chapter Twenty Eight.Chase, Capture, and End of Jake the Flint.It was growing dark when Brooke and the scout reached the cave that evening and found that Buck Tom was dead; but they had barely time to realise the fact when their attention was diverted by the sudden arrival of a large band of horsemen—cowboys and others—the leader of whom seemed to be the cow-boy Crux.Hunky Ben and his friends had, of course, made rapid preparations to receive them as foes, if need were; but on recognising who composed the cavalcade, they went out to meet them.“Hallo! Hunky,” shouted Crux, as he rode up and leaped off his steed, “have they been here?”“Who d’ye mean?” demanded the scout.“Why, Jake the Flint, to be sure, an’ his murderin’ gang. Haven’t ye heard the news?”“Not I. Who d’ye think would take the trouble to come up here with noos?”“They’ve got clear off, boys,” said Crux, in a voice of great disappointment. “So we must off saddle, an’ camp where we are for the night.”While the rest of the party dismounted and dispersed to look for a suitable camping-ground, Crux explained the reason of their unexpected appearance.After the Flint and his companions had left their mountain fastness, as before described, they had appeared in different parts of the country and committed various depredations; some of their robberies having been accompanied with bloodshed and violence of a nature which so exasperated the people that an organised band had at length been gathered to go in pursuit of the daring outlaw. But Jake was somewhat Napoleonic in his character, swift in his movements, and sudden in his attacks; so that, while his exasperated foes were searching for him in one direction, news would be brought of his having committed some daring and bloody deed far off in some other quarter. His latest acts had been to kill and rob a post-runner, who happened to be a great favourite in his locality, and to attack and murder, in mere wanton cruelty, a family of friendly Indians, belonging to a tribe which had never given the whites any trouble. The fury of the people, therefore, was somewhat commensurate with the wickedness of the man. They resolved to capture him, and, as there was a number of resolute cow-boys on the frontier, to whom life seemed to be a bauble to be played with, kept, or cast lightly away, according to circumstances, it seemed as if the effort made at this time would be successful.The latest reports that seemed reliable were to the effect that, after slaying the Indians, Jake and his men had made off in the direction of his old stronghold at the head of Traitor’s Trap. Hence the invasion by Crux and his band.“You’ll be glad to hear—or sorry, I’m not sure which—” said the scout, “that Buck Tom has paid his last debt.”“What! defunct?” exclaimed Crux.“Ay. Whatever may have bin his true character an’ deeds, he’s gone to his account at last.”“Are ye sure, Hunky?”“If ye don’t believe me, go in there an’ you’ll see what’s left of him. The corp ain’t cold yet.”The rugged cow-boy entered at once, to convince himself by ocular demonstration.“Well,” said he, on coming out of the cave, “I wish it had been the Flint instead. He’ll give us some trouble, you bet, afore we bring him to lie as flat as Buck Tom. Poor Buck! They say he wasn’t a bad chap in his way, an’ I never heard of his bein’ cruel, like his comrades. His main fault was castin’ in his lot wi’ the Flint. They say that Jake has bin carousin’ around, throwin’ the town-folk everywhere into fits.”That night the avengers in search of Jake the Flint slept in and around the outlaws’ cave, while the chief of the outlaws lay in the sleep of death in a shed outside. During the night the scout went out to see that the body was undisturbed, and was startled to observe a creature of some sort moving near it. Ben was troubled by no superstitious fears, so he approached with the stealthy, cat-like tread which he had learned to perfection in his frontier life. Soon he was near enough to perceive, through the bushes, that the form was that of Shank Leather, silent and motionless, seated by the side of Buck Tom, with his face buried in his hands upon his knees. A deep sob broke from him as he sat, and again he was silent and motionless. The scout withdrew as silently as he had approached, leaving the poor youth to watch and mourn over the friend who had shared his hopes and fears, sins and sorrows, so long—long at least in experience, if not in numbered years.Next morning at daybreak they laid the outlaw in his last resting-place, and then the avengers prepared to set off in pursuit of his comrades.“You’ll join us, I fancy,” said Crux to Charlie Brooke.“No; I remain with my sick friend Leather. But perhaps some of my comrades may wish to go with you.”It was soon arranged that Hunky Ben and Dick Darvall should join the party.“We won’t be long o’ catchin’ him up,” said Crux, “for the Flint has become desperate of late, an’ we’re pretty sure of a man when he gets into that fix.”The desperado to whom Crux referred was one of those terrible human monsters who may be termed a growth of American frontier life, men who, having apparently lost all fear of God, or man, or death, carry their lives about with hilarious indifference, ready to risk them at a moment’s notice on the slightest provocation, and to take the lives of others without a shadow of compunction. As a natural consequence, such maniacs, for they are little else, are feared by all, and even brave men feel the necessity of being unusually careful while in their company.Among the various wild deeds committed by Jake and his men was one which led them into serious trouble and proved fatal to their chief. Coming to a village, or small town, one night they resolved to have a regular spree, and for this purpose encamped a short way outside the town till it should be quite dark. About midnight the outlaws, to the number of eight, entered the town, each armed with a Winchester and a brace of revolvers. Scattering themselves, they began a tremendous fusillade, as fast as they could fire, so that nearly the whole population, supposing the place was attacked by Indians, turned out and fled to the mountains behind the town. The Flint and his men made straight for the chief billiard room, which they found deserted, and there, after helping themselves to all the loose cash available, they began to drink. Of course they soon became wild under the influence of the liquor, but retained sense enough to mount their horses and gallop away before the people of the place mustered courage to return and attack the foe.It was while galloping madly away after this raid that the murderous event took place which ended in the dispersal of the gang.Daylight was creeping over the land when the outlaws left the town. Jake was wild with excitement at what had occurred, as well as with drink, and began to boast and swear in a horrible manner. When they had ridden a good many miles, one of the party said he saw some Redskins in a clump of wood they were approaching.“Did ye?” cried Jake, flourishing his rifle over his head and uttering a terrible oath, “then I’ll shoot the first Redskin I come across.”“Better not, Jake,” said one of his men. “They’re all friendly Injins about here.”“What’s the odds to me!” yelled the drunken wretch. “I’ll shoot the first I see as I would a rabbit.”At that moment they were passing a bluff covered with timber, and, unfortunately, a poor old Indian woman came out of the wood to look at the horsemen as they flew past.Without an instant’s hesitation Jake swerved aside, rode straight up to the old creature, and blew out her brains.Accustomed as they were to deeds of violence and bloodshed, his comrades were overwhelmed with horror at this, and, fearing the consequences of the dastardly murder, rode for life away over the plains.But the deed had been witnessed by the relatives of the poor woman. Without sound or cry, fifty Red men leaped on their horses and swept with the speed of light along the other side of the bluff, which concealed them from the white men’s sight. Thus they managed to head them, and when Jake and his gang came to the end of the strip of wood, the Red men, armed with rifle and revolver, were in front of them.There was something deadly and unusual in the silence of the Indians on this occasion. Concentrated rage seemed to have stopped their power to yell. Swift as eagles they swooped down and surrounded the little band of white men, who, seeing that opposition would be useless, and, perhaps, cowed by the sight of such a cold-blooded act offered no resistance at all, while their arms were taken from them.With lips white from passion, the Indian chief in command demanded who did the deed. The outlaws pointed to Jake, who sat on his horse with glaring eyes and half-open mouth like one stupefied. At a word from the chief, he was seized, dragged off his horse, and held fast by two powerful men while a third bound his arms. A spear was driven deep into the ground to serve as a stake, and to this Jake was tied. He made no resistance. He seemed to have been paralysed, and remained quite passive while they stripped him naked to the waist. His comrades, still seated on their horses, seemed incapable of action. They had, no doubt, a presentiment of what was coming.The chief then drew his scalping knife, and passed it swiftly round the neck of the doomed man so as to make a slight incision. Grasping the flap raised at the back of the neck, he tore a broad band of skin from Jake’s body, right down his back to his waist. A fearful yell burst from the lips of the wretched man, but no touch of pity moved the hearts of the Red men, whose chief prepared to tear off another strip of skin from the quivering flesh.At the same moment the companions of the Flint wheeled their horses round, and, filled with horror, fled at full speed from the scene.The Red men did not attempt to hinder them. There was no feud at that time between the white men and that particular tribe. It was only the murderer of their old kinswoman on whom they were bent on wreaking their vengeance, and with terrible cruelty was their diabolical deed accomplished. The comrades of the murderer, left free to do as they pleased, scattered as they fled, as if each man were unable to endure the sight of the other, and they never again drew together.On the very next day Crux and his band of avengers were galloping over the same region, making straight for the town which the outlaws had thrown into such consternation, and where Crux had been given to understand that trustworthy news of the Flint’s movements would probably be obtained.The sun was setting, and a flood of golden light was streaming over the plains, when one of the band suggested that it would be better to encamp where they were than to proceed any further that night.“So we will, boy,” said Crux, looking about for a suitable spot, until his eye fell on a distant object that riveted his attention.“A strange-looking thing, that,” remarked the scout who had observed the object at the same moment. “Somethin’ like a man, but standin’ crooked-like in a fashion I never saw a man stand before, though I’ve seen many a queer sight in my day.”“We’ll soon clear up the mystery,” said Crux, putting spurs to his horse and riding straight for the object in question, followed by the whole cavalcade.“Ay, ay, bloody work bin goin’ on here, I see,” muttered the scout as they drew near.“The accursed Redskins!” growled Crux.We need scarcely say that it was the dead body of Jake they had thus discovered, tied to the spear which was nearly broken by the weight of the mutilated carcass. Besides tearing most of the skin off the wretched man’s body, the savages had scalped Jake; but a deep wound over the region of the heart showed that they had, at all events, ended his sufferings before they left him.While the avengers—whose vengeance was thus forestalled—were busy scraping a shallow grave for the remains of the outlaw, a shout was raised by several of the party who dashed after something into a neighbouring copse. An Indian had been discovered there, and the cruelties which had been practised on the white man had, to a great extent, transferred their wrath from the outlaw to his murderers. But they found that the rush was needless, for the Indian who had been observed was seated on the ground beside what appeared to be a newly formed grave, and he made no attempt to escape.He was a very old and feeble man, yet something of the fire of the warrior gleamed from his sunken eyes as he stood up and tried to raise his bent form into an attitude of proud defiance.“Do you belong to the tribe that killed this white man?” said Hunky Ben, whose knowledge of most of the Indian dialects rendered him the fitting spokesman of the party.“I do,” answered the Indian in a stern yet quavering voice that seemed very pitiful, for it was evident that the old man thought his last hour had come, and that he had made up his mind to die as became a dauntless Indian brave.At that moment a little Indian girl, who had hitherto lain quite concealed in the tangled grass, started up like a rabbit from its lair and dashed into the thicket. Swiftly though the child ran, however, one of the young men of the party was swifter. He sprang off in pursuit, and in a few moments brought her back.“Your tribe is not at war with the pale-faces,” continued the scout, taking no notice of this episode. “They have been needlessly cruel.”For some moments the old man gazed sternly at his questioner as if he heard him not. Then the frown darkened, and, pointing to the grave at his feet, he said—“The white man wasmorecruel.”“What had he done?” asked the scout.But the old man would not reply. There came over his withered features that stony stare of resolute contempt which he evidently intended to maintain to the last in spite of torture and death.“Better question the child,” suggested Dick Darvall, who up to that moment had been too much horrified by what he had witnessed to be able to speak.The scout looked at the child. She stood trembling beside her captor, with evidences of intense terror on her dusky countenance, for she was only too well accustomed to the cruelties practised by white men and red on each other to have any hope either for the old man or herself.“Poor thing!” said Hunky Ben, laying his strong hand tenderly on the girl’s head. Then, taking her hand, he led her gently aside, and spoke to her in her own tongue.There was something so unexpectedly soft in the scout’s voice, and so tender in his touch, that the little brown maid was irresistibly comforted. When one falls into the grasp of Goodness and Strength, relief of mind, more or less, is an inevitable result. David thought so when he said, “Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord.” The Indian child evidently thought so when she felt that Hunky Ben was strong and perceived that he was good.“We will not hurt you, my little one,” said the scout, when he had reached a retired part of the copse, and, sitting down, placed the child on his knee. “The white man who was killed by your people was a very bad man. We were looking for him to kill him. Was it the old man that killed him?”“No,” replied the child, “it was the chief.”“Why was he so cruel in his killing?” asked the scout.“Because the white man was a coward. He feared to face our warriors, but he shot an old woman!” answered the little maid; and then, inspired with confidence by the scout’s kind and pitiful expression, she related the whole story of the savage and wanton murder perpetrated by the Flint, the subsequent vengeance of her people, and the unchecked flight and dispersion of Jake’s comrades. The old woman who had been slain, she said, was her grandmother, and the old man who had been captured was her grandfather.“Friends, our business has been done for us,” said the scout on rejoining his comrades, “so we’ve nothing to do but return home.”He then told them in detail what the Indian girl had related.“Of course,” he added, “we’ve no right to find fault wi’ the Redskins for punishin’ the murderer arter their own fashion, though we might wish they had bin somewhat more merciful—”“No, we mightn’t,” interrupted Crux stoutly. “The Flint got off easy inmyopinion. If I had had the doin’ o’t, I’d have roasted him alive.”“No, you wouldn’t, Crux,” returned Ben, with a benignant smile. “Young chaps like you are always, accordin’ to your own showin’, worse than the devil himself when your blood’s roused by indignation at cruelty or injustice, but you sing a good deal softer when you come to the scratch with your enemy in your power.”“You’re wrong, Hunky Ben,” retorted Crux firmly. “Any man as would blow the brains out of a poor old woman in cold blood, as the Flint did, desarves the worst that can be done to him.”“I didn’t say nowt about whathedesarves,” returned the scout; “I was speakin’ about whatyouwould do if you’d got the killin’ of him.”“Well, well, mates,” said Dick Darvall, a little impatiently, “seems to me that we’re wastin’ our wind, for the miserable wretch, bein’ defunct, is beyond the malice o’ red man or white. I therefore vote that we stop palaverin’, ’bout ship, clap on all sail an’ lay our course for home.”This suggestion met with general approval, and the curious mixture of men and races, which had thus for a brief period been banded together under the influence of a united purpose, prepared to break up.“I suppose you an’ Darvall will make tracks for Traitor’s Trap,” said Crux to Hunky Ben.“That’s my trail to be,” answered the scout. “What say you, Black Polly? Are ye game for such a spin to-night?”The mare arched her glossy neck, put back both ears, and gave other indications that she would have fully appreciated the remarks of her master if she had only understood them.“Ah! Bluefire and I don’t talk in that style,” said Crux, with a laugh. “I give him his orders an’ he knows that he’s got to obey. He and I will make a bee-line for David’s Store an’ have a drink. Who’ll keep me company?”Several of the more reckless among the men intimated their willingness to join the toper. The rest said they had other business on hand than to go carousin’ around.“Why, Crux,” said one who had been a very lively member of the party during the ride out, “d’ye know, boy, that it’s writ in the book o’ Fate that you an’ I an’ all of us, have just got so many beats o’ the pulse allowed us—no more an’ no less—an’ we’re free to run the beats out fast or slow, just as we like? There’s nothin’ like drink for makin’ ’em go fast!”“I don’t believe that, Robin Stout,” returned Crux; “an’ even if I did believe it I’d go on just the same, for I prefer a short life and a merry one to a long life an’ a wishy-washy miserable one.”“Hear! hear!” exclaimed several of the topers.“Don’t ye think, Crux,” interposed Darvall, “that a long life an’ a happy one might be better than either?”“Hear!hear!” remarked Hunky Ben, with a quiet laugh.“Well, boys,” said one fine bright-looking young fellow, patting the neck of his pony, “whether my life is to be long or short, merry, wishy-washy or happy, I shall be off cow-punching for the next six months or so, somewhere about the African bend, on the Colorado River, in South Texas, an’ I mean to try an’ keep my pulse a-goin’withoutdrink. I’ve seen more than enough o’ the curse that comes to us all on account of it, and I won’t be caught inthattrap again.”“Then you’ve bin caught in it once already, Jo Pinto?” said a comrade.“Ay, I just have, but, you bet, it’s the last time. I don’t see the fun of makin’ my veins a channel for firewater, and then finishin’ off with D.T., if bullet or knife should leave me to go that length.”“I suppose, Pinto,” said Crux, with a smile of contempt, “that you’ve bin to hear that mad fellow Gough, who’s bin howlin’ around in these parts of late?”“That’s so,” retorted Pinto, flushing with sudden anger. “I’ve been to hear J.B. Gough, an’ what’s more I mean to take his advice in spite of all the flap-jack soakers ’tween the Atlantic and the Rockies. He’s a true man, is Gough, every inch of him, and men and women that’s bin used chiefly to cursin’ in time past have heaped more blessin’s on that man’s head than would sink you, Crux,—if put by mistake onyourhead—right through the lowest end o’ the bottomless pit.”“Pretty deep that, anyhow!” exclaimed Crux, with a careless laugh, for he had no mind to quarrel with the stout young cow-boy whose black eyes he had made to flash so keenly.“It seems to me,” said another of the band, as he hung the coils of his lasso round the horn of his Mexican saddle, “that we must quit talkin’ unless we make up our minds to stop here till sun-up. Who’s goin’ north? My old boss is financially busted, so I’ve hired to P.T. Granger, who has started a new ranch at the head o’ Pugit’s Creek. He wants one or two good hands I know, an’ I’ve reason to believe he’s an honest man. I go up trail at thirty dollars per month. The outfit’s to consist of thirty hundred head of Texas steers, a chuck wagon and cook, with thirty riders includin’ the boss himself an’ six horses to the man.”A couple of stout-looking cow-boys offered to join the last speaker on the strength of his representations, and then, as the night bid fair to be bright and calm, the whole band scattered and galloped away in separate groups over the moonlit plains.
It was growing dark when Brooke and the scout reached the cave that evening and found that Buck Tom was dead; but they had barely time to realise the fact when their attention was diverted by the sudden arrival of a large band of horsemen—cowboys and others—the leader of whom seemed to be the cow-boy Crux.
Hunky Ben and his friends had, of course, made rapid preparations to receive them as foes, if need were; but on recognising who composed the cavalcade, they went out to meet them.
“Hallo! Hunky,” shouted Crux, as he rode up and leaped off his steed, “have they been here?”
“Who d’ye mean?” demanded the scout.
“Why, Jake the Flint, to be sure, an’ his murderin’ gang. Haven’t ye heard the news?”
“Not I. Who d’ye think would take the trouble to come up here with noos?”
“They’ve got clear off, boys,” said Crux, in a voice of great disappointment. “So we must off saddle, an’ camp where we are for the night.”
While the rest of the party dismounted and dispersed to look for a suitable camping-ground, Crux explained the reason of their unexpected appearance.
After the Flint and his companions had left their mountain fastness, as before described, they had appeared in different parts of the country and committed various depredations; some of their robberies having been accompanied with bloodshed and violence of a nature which so exasperated the people that an organised band had at length been gathered to go in pursuit of the daring outlaw. But Jake was somewhat Napoleonic in his character, swift in his movements, and sudden in his attacks; so that, while his exasperated foes were searching for him in one direction, news would be brought of his having committed some daring and bloody deed far off in some other quarter. His latest acts had been to kill and rob a post-runner, who happened to be a great favourite in his locality, and to attack and murder, in mere wanton cruelty, a family of friendly Indians, belonging to a tribe which had never given the whites any trouble. The fury of the people, therefore, was somewhat commensurate with the wickedness of the man. They resolved to capture him, and, as there was a number of resolute cow-boys on the frontier, to whom life seemed to be a bauble to be played with, kept, or cast lightly away, according to circumstances, it seemed as if the effort made at this time would be successful.
The latest reports that seemed reliable were to the effect that, after slaying the Indians, Jake and his men had made off in the direction of his old stronghold at the head of Traitor’s Trap. Hence the invasion by Crux and his band.
“You’ll be glad to hear—or sorry, I’m not sure which—” said the scout, “that Buck Tom has paid his last debt.”
“What! defunct?” exclaimed Crux.
“Ay. Whatever may have bin his true character an’ deeds, he’s gone to his account at last.”
“Are ye sure, Hunky?”
“If ye don’t believe me, go in there an’ you’ll see what’s left of him. The corp ain’t cold yet.”
The rugged cow-boy entered at once, to convince himself by ocular demonstration.
“Well,” said he, on coming out of the cave, “I wish it had been the Flint instead. He’ll give us some trouble, you bet, afore we bring him to lie as flat as Buck Tom. Poor Buck! They say he wasn’t a bad chap in his way, an’ I never heard of his bein’ cruel, like his comrades. His main fault was castin’ in his lot wi’ the Flint. They say that Jake has bin carousin’ around, throwin’ the town-folk everywhere into fits.”
That night the avengers in search of Jake the Flint slept in and around the outlaws’ cave, while the chief of the outlaws lay in the sleep of death in a shed outside. During the night the scout went out to see that the body was undisturbed, and was startled to observe a creature of some sort moving near it. Ben was troubled by no superstitious fears, so he approached with the stealthy, cat-like tread which he had learned to perfection in his frontier life. Soon he was near enough to perceive, through the bushes, that the form was that of Shank Leather, silent and motionless, seated by the side of Buck Tom, with his face buried in his hands upon his knees. A deep sob broke from him as he sat, and again he was silent and motionless. The scout withdrew as silently as he had approached, leaving the poor youth to watch and mourn over the friend who had shared his hopes and fears, sins and sorrows, so long—long at least in experience, if not in numbered years.
Next morning at daybreak they laid the outlaw in his last resting-place, and then the avengers prepared to set off in pursuit of his comrades.
“You’ll join us, I fancy,” said Crux to Charlie Brooke.
“No; I remain with my sick friend Leather. But perhaps some of my comrades may wish to go with you.”
It was soon arranged that Hunky Ben and Dick Darvall should join the party.
“We won’t be long o’ catchin’ him up,” said Crux, “for the Flint has become desperate of late, an’ we’re pretty sure of a man when he gets into that fix.”
The desperado to whom Crux referred was one of those terrible human monsters who may be termed a growth of American frontier life, men who, having apparently lost all fear of God, or man, or death, carry their lives about with hilarious indifference, ready to risk them at a moment’s notice on the slightest provocation, and to take the lives of others without a shadow of compunction. As a natural consequence, such maniacs, for they are little else, are feared by all, and even brave men feel the necessity of being unusually careful while in their company.
Among the various wild deeds committed by Jake and his men was one which led them into serious trouble and proved fatal to their chief. Coming to a village, or small town, one night they resolved to have a regular spree, and for this purpose encamped a short way outside the town till it should be quite dark. About midnight the outlaws, to the number of eight, entered the town, each armed with a Winchester and a brace of revolvers. Scattering themselves, they began a tremendous fusillade, as fast as they could fire, so that nearly the whole population, supposing the place was attacked by Indians, turned out and fled to the mountains behind the town. The Flint and his men made straight for the chief billiard room, which they found deserted, and there, after helping themselves to all the loose cash available, they began to drink. Of course they soon became wild under the influence of the liquor, but retained sense enough to mount their horses and gallop away before the people of the place mustered courage to return and attack the foe.
It was while galloping madly away after this raid that the murderous event took place which ended in the dispersal of the gang.
Daylight was creeping over the land when the outlaws left the town. Jake was wild with excitement at what had occurred, as well as with drink, and began to boast and swear in a horrible manner. When they had ridden a good many miles, one of the party said he saw some Redskins in a clump of wood they were approaching.
“Did ye?” cried Jake, flourishing his rifle over his head and uttering a terrible oath, “then I’ll shoot the first Redskin I come across.”
“Better not, Jake,” said one of his men. “They’re all friendly Injins about here.”
“What’s the odds to me!” yelled the drunken wretch. “I’ll shoot the first I see as I would a rabbit.”
At that moment they were passing a bluff covered with timber, and, unfortunately, a poor old Indian woman came out of the wood to look at the horsemen as they flew past.
Without an instant’s hesitation Jake swerved aside, rode straight up to the old creature, and blew out her brains.
Accustomed as they were to deeds of violence and bloodshed, his comrades were overwhelmed with horror at this, and, fearing the consequences of the dastardly murder, rode for life away over the plains.
But the deed had been witnessed by the relatives of the poor woman. Without sound or cry, fifty Red men leaped on their horses and swept with the speed of light along the other side of the bluff, which concealed them from the white men’s sight. Thus they managed to head them, and when Jake and his gang came to the end of the strip of wood, the Red men, armed with rifle and revolver, were in front of them.
There was something deadly and unusual in the silence of the Indians on this occasion. Concentrated rage seemed to have stopped their power to yell. Swift as eagles they swooped down and surrounded the little band of white men, who, seeing that opposition would be useless, and, perhaps, cowed by the sight of such a cold-blooded act offered no resistance at all, while their arms were taken from them.
With lips white from passion, the Indian chief in command demanded who did the deed. The outlaws pointed to Jake, who sat on his horse with glaring eyes and half-open mouth like one stupefied. At a word from the chief, he was seized, dragged off his horse, and held fast by two powerful men while a third bound his arms. A spear was driven deep into the ground to serve as a stake, and to this Jake was tied. He made no resistance. He seemed to have been paralysed, and remained quite passive while they stripped him naked to the waist. His comrades, still seated on their horses, seemed incapable of action. They had, no doubt, a presentiment of what was coming.
The chief then drew his scalping knife, and passed it swiftly round the neck of the doomed man so as to make a slight incision. Grasping the flap raised at the back of the neck, he tore a broad band of skin from Jake’s body, right down his back to his waist. A fearful yell burst from the lips of the wretched man, but no touch of pity moved the hearts of the Red men, whose chief prepared to tear off another strip of skin from the quivering flesh.
At the same moment the companions of the Flint wheeled their horses round, and, filled with horror, fled at full speed from the scene.
The Red men did not attempt to hinder them. There was no feud at that time between the white men and that particular tribe. It was only the murderer of their old kinswoman on whom they were bent on wreaking their vengeance, and with terrible cruelty was their diabolical deed accomplished. The comrades of the murderer, left free to do as they pleased, scattered as they fled, as if each man were unable to endure the sight of the other, and they never again drew together.
On the very next day Crux and his band of avengers were galloping over the same region, making straight for the town which the outlaws had thrown into such consternation, and where Crux had been given to understand that trustworthy news of the Flint’s movements would probably be obtained.
The sun was setting, and a flood of golden light was streaming over the plains, when one of the band suggested that it would be better to encamp where they were than to proceed any further that night.
“So we will, boy,” said Crux, looking about for a suitable spot, until his eye fell on a distant object that riveted his attention.
“A strange-looking thing, that,” remarked the scout who had observed the object at the same moment. “Somethin’ like a man, but standin’ crooked-like in a fashion I never saw a man stand before, though I’ve seen many a queer sight in my day.”
“We’ll soon clear up the mystery,” said Crux, putting spurs to his horse and riding straight for the object in question, followed by the whole cavalcade.
“Ay, ay, bloody work bin goin’ on here, I see,” muttered the scout as they drew near.
“The accursed Redskins!” growled Crux.
We need scarcely say that it was the dead body of Jake they had thus discovered, tied to the spear which was nearly broken by the weight of the mutilated carcass. Besides tearing most of the skin off the wretched man’s body, the savages had scalped Jake; but a deep wound over the region of the heart showed that they had, at all events, ended his sufferings before they left him.
While the avengers—whose vengeance was thus forestalled—were busy scraping a shallow grave for the remains of the outlaw, a shout was raised by several of the party who dashed after something into a neighbouring copse. An Indian had been discovered there, and the cruelties which had been practised on the white man had, to a great extent, transferred their wrath from the outlaw to his murderers. But they found that the rush was needless, for the Indian who had been observed was seated on the ground beside what appeared to be a newly formed grave, and he made no attempt to escape.
He was a very old and feeble man, yet something of the fire of the warrior gleamed from his sunken eyes as he stood up and tried to raise his bent form into an attitude of proud defiance.
“Do you belong to the tribe that killed this white man?” said Hunky Ben, whose knowledge of most of the Indian dialects rendered him the fitting spokesman of the party.
“I do,” answered the Indian in a stern yet quavering voice that seemed very pitiful, for it was evident that the old man thought his last hour had come, and that he had made up his mind to die as became a dauntless Indian brave.
At that moment a little Indian girl, who had hitherto lain quite concealed in the tangled grass, started up like a rabbit from its lair and dashed into the thicket. Swiftly though the child ran, however, one of the young men of the party was swifter. He sprang off in pursuit, and in a few moments brought her back.
“Your tribe is not at war with the pale-faces,” continued the scout, taking no notice of this episode. “They have been needlessly cruel.”
For some moments the old man gazed sternly at his questioner as if he heard him not. Then the frown darkened, and, pointing to the grave at his feet, he said—
“The white man wasmorecruel.”
“What had he done?” asked the scout.
But the old man would not reply. There came over his withered features that stony stare of resolute contempt which he evidently intended to maintain to the last in spite of torture and death.
“Better question the child,” suggested Dick Darvall, who up to that moment had been too much horrified by what he had witnessed to be able to speak.
The scout looked at the child. She stood trembling beside her captor, with evidences of intense terror on her dusky countenance, for she was only too well accustomed to the cruelties practised by white men and red on each other to have any hope either for the old man or herself.
“Poor thing!” said Hunky Ben, laying his strong hand tenderly on the girl’s head. Then, taking her hand, he led her gently aside, and spoke to her in her own tongue.
There was something so unexpectedly soft in the scout’s voice, and so tender in his touch, that the little brown maid was irresistibly comforted. When one falls into the grasp of Goodness and Strength, relief of mind, more or less, is an inevitable result. David thought so when he said, “Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord.” The Indian child evidently thought so when she felt that Hunky Ben was strong and perceived that he was good.
“We will not hurt you, my little one,” said the scout, when he had reached a retired part of the copse, and, sitting down, placed the child on his knee. “The white man who was killed by your people was a very bad man. We were looking for him to kill him. Was it the old man that killed him?”
“No,” replied the child, “it was the chief.”
“Why was he so cruel in his killing?” asked the scout.
“Because the white man was a coward. He feared to face our warriors, but he shot an old woman!” answered the little maid; and then, inspired with confidence by the scout’s kind and pitiful expression, she related the whole story of the savage and wanton murder perpetrated by the Flint, the subsequent vengeance of her people, and the unchecked flight and dispersion of Jake’s comrades. The old woman who had been slain, she said, was her grandmother, and the old man who had been captured was her grandfather.
“Friends, our business has been done for us,” said the scout on rejoining his comrades, “so we’ve nothing to do but return home.”
He then told them in detail what the Indian girl had related.
“Of course,” he added, “we’ve no right to find fault wi’ the Redskins for punishin’ the murderer arter their own fashion, though we might wish they had bin somewhat more merciful—”
“No, we mightn’t,” interrupted Crux stoutly. “The Flint got off easy inmyopinion. If I had had the doin’ o’t, I’d have roasted him alive.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Crux,” returned Ben, with a benignant smile. “Young chaps like you are always, accordin’ to your own showin’, worse than the devil himself when your blood’s roused by indignation at cruelty or injustice, but you sing a good deal softer when you come to the scratch with your enemy in your power.”
“You’re wrong, Hunky Ben,” retorted Crux firmly. “Any man as would blow the brains out of a poor old woman in cold blood, as the Flint did, desarves the worst that can be done to him.”
“I didn’t say nowt about whathedesarves,” returned the scout; “I was speakin’ about whatyouwould do if you’d got the killin’ of him.”
“Well, well, mates,” said Dick Darvall, a little impatiently, “seems to me that we’re wastin’ our wind, for the miserable wretch, bein’ defunct, is beyond the malice o’ red man or white. I therefore vote that we stop palaverin’, ’bout ship, clap on all sail an’ lay our course for home.”
This suggestion met with general approval, and the curious mixture of men and races, which had thus for a brief period been banded together under the influence of a united purpose, prepared to break up.
“I suppose you an’ Darvall will make tracks for Traitor’s Trap,” said Crux to Hunky Ben.
“That’s my trail to be,” answered the scout. “What say you, Black Polly? Are ye game for such a spin to-night?”
The mare arched her glossy neck, put back both ears, and gave other indications that she would have fully appreciated the remarks of her master if she had only understood them.
“Ah! Bluefire and I don’t talk in that style,” said Crux, with a laugh. “I give him his orders an’ he knows that he’s got to obey. He and I will make a bee-line for David’s Store an’ have a drink. Who’ll keep me company?”
Several of the more reckless among the men intimated their willingness to join the toper. The rest said they had other business on hand than to go carousin’ around.
“Why, Crux,” said one who had been a very lively member of the party during the ride out, “d’ye know, boy, that it’s writ in the book o’ Fate that you an’ I an’ all of us, have just got so many beats o’ the pulse allowed us—no more an’ no less—an’ we’re free to run the beats out fast or slow, just as we like? There’s nothin’ like drink for makin’ ’em go fast!”
“I don’t believe that, Robin Stout,” returned Crux; “an’ even if I did believe it I’d go on just the same, for I prefer a short life and a merry one to a long life an’ a wishy-washy miserable one.”
“Hear! hear!” exclaimed several of the topers.
“Don’t ye think, Crux,” interposed Darvall, “that a long life an’ a happy one might be better than either?”
“Hear!hear!” remarked Hunky Ben, with a quiet laugh.
“Well, boys,” said one fine bright-looking young fellow, patting the neck of his pony, “whether my life is to be long or short, merry, wishy-washy or happy, I shall be off cow-punching for the next six months or so, somewhere about the African bend, on the Colorado River, in South Texas, an’ I mean to try an’ keep my pulse a-goin’withoutdrink. I’ve seen more than enough o’ the curse that comes to us all on account of it, and I won’t be caught inthattrap again.”
“Then you’ve bin caught in it once already, Jo Pinto?” said a comrade.
“Ay, I just have, but, you bet, it’s the last time. I don’t see the fun of makin’ my veins a channel for firewater, and then finishin’ off with D.T., if bullet or knife should leave me to go that length.”
“I suppose, Pinto,” said Crux, with a smile of contempt, “that you’ve bin to hear that mad fellow Gough, who’s bin howlin’ around in these parts of late?”
“That’s so,” retorted Pinto, flushing with sudden anger. “I’ve been to hear J.B. Gough, an’ what’s more I mean to take his advice in spite of all the flap-jack soakers ’tween the Atlantic and the Rockies. He’s a true man, is Gough, every inch of him, and men and women that’s bin used chiefly to cursin’ in time past have heaped more blessin’s on that man’s head than would sink you, Crux,—if put by mistake onyourhead—right through the lowest end o’ the bottomless pit.”
“Pretty deep that, anyhow!” exclaimed Crux, with a careless laugh, for he had no mind to quarrel with the stout young cow-boy whose black eyes he had made to flash so keenly.
“It seems to me,” said another of the band, as he hung the coils of his lasso round the horn of his Mexican saddle, “that we must quit talkin’ unless we make up our minds to stop here till sun-up. Who’s goin’ north? My old boss is financially busted, so I’ve hired to P.T. Granger, who has started a new ranch at the head o’ Pugit’s Creek. He wants one or two good hands I know, an’ I’ve reason to believe he’s an honest man. I go up trail at thirty dollars per month. The outfit’s to consist of thirty hundred head of Texas steers, a chuck wagon and cook, with thirty riders includin’ the boss himself an’ six horses to the man.”
A couple of stout-looking cow-boys offered to join the last speaker on the strength of his representations, and then, as the night bid fair to be bright and calm, the whole band scattered and galloped away in separate groups over the moonlit plains.
Chapter Twenty Nine.They Return to the Ranch of Roaring Bull, where Something Serious Happens to Dick Darvall.When Dick Darvall and Hunky Ben returned from the expedition which we have just described, they found all right at the cave, except that a letter to Leather had been sent up from Bull’s ranch which had caused him much grief and anxiety.“I have been eagerly awaiting your return, Ben,” said Charlie Brooke, when he and the scout went outside the cave to talk the matter over, “for the news in this letter has thrown poor Leather back considerably, and, as he will continue to fret about it and get worse, something must be done.”He paused for a few moments, and the scout gravely waited for him to resume.“The fact is,” continued Charlie, “that poor Leather’s father has been given far too much to the bottle during a great part of his life, and the letter just received tells us that he has suddenly left home and gone no one knows where. Now, my friend Leather and his father were always very fond of each other, and the son cannot forgive himself for having at various times rather encouraged his father in drinking, so that his conscience is reproaching him terribly, as you may well believe, and he insists on it that he is now quite able to undertake the voyage home. You and I know, Ben, that in his present state it would be madness for him to attempt it; yet to lie and fret here would be almost as bad. Now, what is your advice?”For some moments the scout stood silent with his eyes on the ground and his right hand grasping his chin—his usual attitude when engaged in meditation.“Is there enough o’ dollars,” he asked, “to let you do as ye like?”“No lack of dollars, I dare say, when needed,” replied Charlie.“Then my advice,” returned the scout promptly, “is to take Leather straight off to-morrow mornin’ to Bull’s ranch; make him comfortable there, call him Mister Shank,—so as nobody’ll think he’s been the man called Leather, who’s bin so long ill along wi’ poor Buck Tom’s gang,—and then you go off to old England to follow his father’s trail till you find him. Leather has great belief in you, sir, and the feelin’ that you are away doin’ your best for him will do more to relieve his mind and strengthen his body than tons o’ doctor’s stuff. Dick Darvall could remain to take care of him if he has no objection.”“I rather think he would be well pleased to do so,” replied Charlie, with a laugh of significance, which the scout quietly subjected to analysis in what he styled his brain-pan, and made a note of the result in his mental memorandum book!“But I doubt if Leather—”“Shank,” interrupted the scout. “Call him Shank from now, so’s we may all git used to it; tho’ p’r’aps it ain’t o’ much importance, for most o’ the men that saw him here saw him in uncommon bad condition an’ would hardly know him again, besides, they won’t likely be at Bull’s ranch, an’ the captain an’ troops that were here have been ordered down south. Still one can never be too careful when life and death may be i’ the balance. Your friend niver was one o’ the outlaws, but it mightn’t be easy to prove that.”“Well, then,” resumed our hero, “I was going to say that I fear Shank won’t be able to stand the journey even to the ranch.”“No fear of that, sir. We’ll carry him down to the foot o’ the Trap, an’ when we git out on the plain mount him on one o’ the horses left by poor Buck—the one that goes along so quiet that they’ve given it the name o’ the Wheelbarrow.”“Should I speak to him to-night about our plan, Ben?”“No. If I was you I’d only say we’re goin’ to take him down to Bull’s ranch i’ the mornin’. That’ll take his mind a bit off the letter, an’ then it’ll give him an extra lift when you tell him the rest o’ the plan.”In accordance with this arrangement, on the following morning a litter was made with two stout poles and a blanket between. On this the invalid was laid after an early breakfast; another blanket was spread over him, and the scout and Dick, taking it up between them, carried him out of Traitor’s Trap, while Charlie Brooke, riding Jackson’s horse, led the Wheelbarrow by the bridle. As for Black Polly, she was left to follow at her own convenience, a whistle from Hunky Ben being at any moment sufficient to bring her promptly to her master’s side.On reaching the plain the litter was laid aside, the blankets were fastened to the horses, and Shank prepared, as Dick said, to board Wheelbarrow.“Now then, Shank,” said the seaman, while helping his friend, “don’t be in a hurry. Nothin’ was ever done well in a hurry either afloat or ashore. Git your futt well into the stirrup an’ don’t take too much of a spring, else you’ll be apt to go right over on the starboard side. Hup you go!”The worthy sailor lent such willing aid that there is little doubt he would have precipitated the catastrophe against which he warned, had not Hunky Ben placed himself on the “starboard side” of the steed and counteracted the heave. After that all went well; the amble of the Wheelbarrow fully justified the title, and in due course the party arrived at the ranch of Roaring Bull, where the poor invalid was confined to his room for a considerable time thereafter, and became known at the ranch as Mr Shank.One evening Charlie Brooke entered the kitchen of the ranch in search of his friend Dick Darvall, who had a strange fondness for Buttercup, and frequently held converse with her in the regions of the back-kitchen.“I dun know whar he is, massa Book,” answered the sable beauty when appealed to, “he’s mostly somewhar around when he’s not nowhar else.”“I shouldn’t wonder if he was,” returned Charlie with a hopeful smile. “I suppose Miss Mary’s not around anywhere, is she?”“I shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t; but she ain’t here, massa,” said the black maid earnestly.“You are a truthful girl, Butter—stick to that, and you’ll get on in life.”With this piece of advice Charlie left the kitchen abruptly, and thereby missed the eruption of teeth and gums that immediately followed his remark.Making his way to the chamber of his sick friend, Charlie sat down at the open window beside him.“How d’you feel this evening, my boy?” he asked.“A little better, but—oh dear me!—I begin to despair of getting well enough to go home, and it’s impossible to avoid being worried, for, unless father is sought for and found soon he, will probably sink altogether. You have no idea, Charlie, what a fearful temptation drink becomes to those who have once given way to it and passed a certain point.”“I don’t know it personally—though I take no credit for that—but I have some idea of it, I think, from what I have seen and heard. But I came to relieve your mind on the subject, Shank. I wanted to speak with Dick Darvall first to see if he would fall in with my plan, but as I can’t find him just now I thought it best to come straight to you about it. Hallo! There is Dick.”“Where?” said Shank, bending forward so as to see the place on which his friend’s eyes were fixed.“There, don’t you see? Look across that bit of green sward, about fifty yards into the bush, close to that lopped pine where a thick shrub overhangs a fallen tree—”“I see—I see!” exclaimed Shank, a gleeful expression banishing for a time the look of suffering and anxiety that had become habitual to him. “Why, the fellow is seated beside Mary Jackson!”“Ay, and holding a very earnest conversation with her, to judge from his attitude,” said Charlie. “Probably inquiring into the market-price of steers—or some absorbing topic of that sort.”“He’s grasping her hand now!” exclaimed Shank, with an expanding mouth.“And she lets him hold it. Really this becomes interesting,” observed Charlie, with gravity. “But, my friend, is not this a species of eavesdropping? Are we not taking mean advantage of a pair who fondly think themselves alone? Come, Shank, let us turn our backs on the view and try to fix our minds on matters of personal interest.”But the young men had not to subject themselves to such a delicate test of friendship, for before they could make any attempt to carry out the suggestion, Dick and Mary were seen to rise abruptly and hasten from the spot in different directions. A few minutes later Buttercup was observed to glide upon the scene and sit down upon the self-same fallen tree. The distance from the bedroom window was too great to permit of sounds reaching the observers’ ears, or of facial contortions meeting their eyes very distinctly, but there could be no doubt as to the feelings of the damsel, or the meaning of those swayings to and fro of her body, the throwing back of her head, and the pressing of her hands on her sides. Suddenly she held out a black hand as if inviting some one in the bush to draw near. The invitation was promptly accepted by a large brown dog—a well-known favourite in the ranch household.Rover—for such was his name—leaped on the fallen tree and sat down on the spot which had previously been occupied by the fair Mary. The position was evidently suggestive, for Buttercup immediately began to gesticulate and clasp her hands as if talking very earnestly to the dog.“I verily believe,” said Shank, “that the blacking-ball is re-enacting the scene with Rover! See! she grasps his paw, and—”“My friend,” said Charlie, “we are taking mean advantage again! And, behold! like the other pair, they are flitting from the scene, though not quite in the same fashion.”This was true, for Buttercup, reflecting, probably, that she might be missed in the kitchen, had suddenly tumbled Rover off the tree and darted swiftly from the spot.“Come now, Shank,” said Charlie, resuming the thread of discourse which had been interrupted, “it is quite plain to Dick and to myself that you are unfit to travel home in your present state of health, so I have made up my mind to leave you here in the care of honest Jackson and Darvall, and to go home myself to make inquiries and search for your father. Will this make your mind easy? For that is essential to your recovery at the present time.”“You were always kind and self-sacrificing, Charlie. Assuredly, your going will take an enormous weight off my mind, for you are much better fitted by nature for such a search than I am—to say nothing of health. Thank you, my dear old boy, a thousand times. As for Dick Darvall,” added Shank, with a laugh, “before this evening I would have doubted whether he would be willing to remain with me after your departure, but I have no doubt now—considering what we have just witnessed!”“Yes, he has found ‘metal more attractive,’” said Charlie, rising. “I will now go and consult with him, after which I will depart without delay.”“You’ve been having a gallop, to judge from your heightened colour and flashing eyes,” said Charlie to Dick when they met in the yard, half-an-hour later.“N–no—not exactly,” returned the seaman, with a slightly embarrassed air. “The fact is I’ve bin cruisin’ about in the bush.”“What! lookin’ for Redskins?”“N–no; not exactly, but—”“Oh! I see. Out huntin’, I suppose. After deer—eh?”“Well, now, that was a pretty fair guess, Charlie,” said Dick, laughing. “To tell ye the plain truth, I have been out arter a dear—full sail—an’—”“And you bagged it, of course. Fairly run it down, I suppose,” said his friend, again interrupting.“Well, there ain’t no ‘of course’ about it, but as it happened, I did manage to overhaul her, and coming to close quarters, I—”“Yes, yes,Iknow,” interrupted Charlie a third time, with provoking coolness. “You ran her on to the rocks, Dick—which was unseamanlike in the extreme—at least you ran the dear aground on a fallen tree and, sitting down beside it, asked it to become Mrs Darvall, and the amiable creature agreed, eh?”“Why, how on earth did ’ee come for to knowthat?” asked Dick, in blazing astonishment.“Well, you know, there’s no great mystery about it. If a bold sailorwillgo huntin’ close to the house, and run down his game right in front of Mr Shank’s windows, he must expect to have witnesses. However, give me your flipper, mess-mate, and let me congratulate you, for in my opinion there’s not such another dear on all the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. But now that I’ve found you, I want to lay some of my future plans before you.”They had not been discussing these plans many minutes, when Mary was seen crossing the yard in company with Hunky Ben.“If Hunky would only stop, we’d keep quite jolly till you return,” observed Dick, in an undertone as the two approached.“We were just talking of you, Ben,” observed Charlie, as they came up.“Are you goin’ for a cruise, Miss Mary?” asked the seaman in a manner that drew the scout’s attention.“No,” replied Mary with a little laugh, and anything but a little blush, that intensified the attention of the scout. He gave one of his quiet but quick glances at Dick and chuckled softly.“So soon!” he murmured to himself; “sartinly your sea-dog is pretty slick at such matters.”Dick thought he heard the chuckle and turned a lightning glance on the scout, but that sturdy son of the forest had his leathern countenance turned towards the sky with profoundest gravity. It was characteristic of him, you see, to note the signs of the weather.“Mr Brooke,” he said, with the slow deliberate air of the man who forms his opinions on solid grounds, “there’s goin’ to be a bu’st up o’ the elements afore long, as sure as my name’s Hunky.”“That’s the very thing I want to talk about with you, Ben, for I meditate a long journey immediately. Come, walk with me.”Taking the scout’s arm he paced with him slowly up and down the yard, while Dick and Mary went off on a cruise elsewhere.
When Dick Darvall and Hunky Ben returned from the expedition which we have just described, they found all right at the cave, except that a letter to Leather had been sent up from Bull’s ranch which had caused him much grief and anxiety.
“I have been eagerly awaiting your return, Ben,” said Charlie Brooke, when he and the scout went outside the cave to talk the matter over, “for the news in this letter has thrown poor Leather back considerably, and, as he will continue to fret about it and get worse, something must be done.”
He paused for a few moments, and the scout gravely waited for him to resume.
“The fact is,” continued Charlie, “that poor Leather’s father has been given far too much to the bottle during a great part of his life, and the letter just received tells us that he has suddenly left home and gone no one knows where. Now, my friend Leather and his father were always very fond of each other, and the son cannot forgive himself for having at various times rather encouraged his father in drinking, so that his conscience is reproaching him terribly, as you may well believe, and he insists on it that he is now quite able to undertake the voyage home. You and I know, Ben, that in his present state it would be madness for him to attempt it; yet to lie and fret here would be almost as bad. Now, what is your advice?”
For some moments the scout stood silent with his eyes on the ground and his right hand grasping his chin—his usual attitude when engaged in meditation.
“Is there enough o’ dollars,” he asked, “to let you do as ye like?”
“No lack of dollars, I dare say, when needed,” replied Charlie.
“Then my advice,” returned the scout promptly, “is to take Leather straight off to-morrow mornin’ to Bull’s ranch; make him comfortable there, call him Mister Shank,—so as nobody’ll think he’s been the man called Leather, who’s bin so long ill along wi’ poor Buck Tom’s gang,—and then you go off to old England to follow his father’s trail till you find him. Leather has great belief in you, sir, and the feelin’ that you are away doin’ your best for him will do more to relieve his mind and strengthen his body than tons o’ doctor’s stuff. Dick Darvall could remain to take care of him if he has no objection.”
“I rather think he would be well pleased to do so,” replied Charlie, with a laugh of significance, which the scout quietly subjected to analysis in what he styled his brain-pan, and made a note of the result in his mental memorandum book!
“But I doubt if Leather—”
“Shank,” interrupted the scout. “Call him Shank from now, so’s we may all git used to it; tho’ p’r’aps it ain’t o’ much importance, for most o’ the men that saw him here saw him in uncommon bad condition an’ would hardly know him again, besides, they won’t likely be at Bull’s ranch, an’ the captain an’ troops that were here have been ordered down south. Still one can never be too careful when life and death may be i’ the balance. Your friend niver was one o’ the outlaws, but it mightn’t be easy to prove that.”
“Well, then,” resumed our hero, “I was going to say that I fear Shank won’t be able to stand the journey even to the ranch.”
“No fear of that, sir. We’ll carry him down to the foot o’ the Trap, an’ when we git out on the plain mount him on one o’ the horses left by poor Buck—the one that goes along so quiet that they’ve given it the name o’ the Wheelbarrow.”
“Should I speak to him to-night about our plan, Ben?”
“No. If I was you I’d only say we’re goin’ to take him down to Bull’s ranch i’ the mornin’. That’ll take his mind a bit off the letter, an’ then it’ll give him an extra lift when you tell him the rest o’ the plan.”
In accordance with this arrangement, on the following morning a litter was made with two stout poles and a blanket between. On this the invalid was laid after an early breakfast; another blanket was spread over him, and the scout and Dick, taking it up between them, carried him out of Traitor’s Trap, while Charlie Brooke, riding Jackson’s horse, led the Wheelbarrow by the bridle. As for Black Polly, she was left to follow at her own convenience, a whistle from Hunky Ben being at any moment sufficient to bring her promptly to her master’s side.
On reaching the plain the litter was laid aside, the blankets were fastened to the horses, and Shank prepared, as Dick said, to board Wheelbarrow.
“Now then, Shank,” said the seaman, while helping his friend, “don’t be in a hurry. Nothin’ was ever done well in a hurry either afloat or ashore. Git your futt well into the stirrup an’ don’t take too much of a spring, else you’ll be apt to go right over on the starboard side. Hup you go!”
The worthy sailor lent such willing aid that there is little doubt he would have precipitated the catastrophe against which he warned, had not Hunky Ben placed himself on the “starboard side” of the steed and counteracted the heave. After that all went well; the amble of the Wheelbarrow fully justified the title, and in due course the party arrived at the ranch of Roaring Bull, where the poor invalid was confined to his room for a considerable time thereafter, and became known at the ranch as Mr Shank.
One evening Charlie Brooke entered the kitchen of the ranch in search of his friend Dick Darvall, who had a strange fondness for Buttercup, and frequently held converse with her in the regions of the back-kitchen.
“I dun know whar he is, massa Book,” answered the sable beauty when appealed to, “he’s mostly somewhar around when he’s not nowhar else.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if he was,” returned Charlie with a hopeful smile. “I suppose Miss Mary’s not around anywhere, is she?”
“I shouldn’t wonder if she wasn’t; but she ain’t here, massa,” said the black maid earnestly.
“You are a truthful girl, Butter—stick to that, and you’ll get on in life.”
With this piece of advice Charlie left the kitchen abruptly, and thereby missed the eruption of teeth and gums that immediately followed his remark.
Making his way to the chamber of his sick friend, Charlie sat down at the open window beside him.
“How d’you feel this evening, my boy?” he asked.
“A little better, but—oh dear me!—I begin to despair of getting well enough to go home, and it’s impossible to avoid being worried, for, unless father is sought for and found soon he, will probably sink altogether. You have no idea, Charlie, what a fearful temptation drink becomes to those who have once given way to it and passed a certain point.”
“I don’t know it personally—though I take no credit for that—but I have some idea of it, I think, from what I have seen and heard. But I came to relieve your mind on the subject, Shank. I wanted to speak with Dick Darvall first to see if he would fall in with my plan, but as I can’t find him just now I thought it best to come straight to you about it. Hallo! There is Dick.”
“Where?” said Shank, bending forward so as to see the place on which his friend’s eyes were fixed.
“There, don’t you see? Look across that bit of green sward, about fifty yards into the bush, close to that lopped pine where a thick shrub overhangs a fallen tree—”
“I see—I see!” exclaimed Shank, a gleeful expression banishing for a time the look of suffering and anxiety that had become habitual to him. “Why, the fellow is seated beside Mary Jackson!”
“Ay, and holding a very earnest conversation with her, to judge from his attitude,” said Charlie. “Probably inquiring into the market-price of steers—or some absorbing topic of that sort.”
“He’s grasping her hand now!” exclaimed Shank, with an expanding mouth.
“And she lets him hold it. Really this becomes interesting,” observed Charlie, with gravity. “But, my friend, is not this a species of eavesdropping? Are we not taking mean advantage of a pair who fondly think themselves alone? Come, Shank, let us turn our backs on the view and try to fix our minds on matters of personal interest.”
But the young men had not to subject themselves to such a delicate test of friendship, for before they could make any attempt to carry out the suggestion, Dick and Mary were seen to rise abruptly and hasten from the spot in different directions. A few minutes later Buttercup was observed to glide upon the scene and sit down upon the self-same fallen tree. The distance from the bedroom window was too great to permit of sounds reaching the observers’ ears, or of facial contortions meeting their eyes very distinctly, but there could be no doubt as to the feelings of the damsel, or the meaning of those swayings to and fro of her body, the throwing back of her head, and the pressing of her hands on her sides. Suddenly she held out a black hand as if inviting some one in the bush to draw near. The invitation was promptly accepted by a large brown dog—a well-known favourite in the ranch household.
Rover—for such was his name—leaped on the fallen tree and sat down on the spot which had previously been occupied by the fair Mary. The position was evidently suggestive, for Buttercup immediately began to gesticulate and clasp her hands as if talking very earnestly to the dog.
“I verily believe,” said Shank, “that the blacking-ball is re-enacting the scene with Rover! See! she grasps his paw, and—”
“My friend,” said Charlie, “we are taking mean advantage again! And, behold! like the other pair, they are flitting from the scene, though not quite in the same fashion.”
This was true, for Buttercup, reflecting, probably, that she might be missed in the kitchen, had suddenly tumbled Rover off the tree and darted swiftly from the spot.
“Come now, Shank,” said Charlie, resuming the thread of discourse which had been interrupted, “it is quite plain to Dick and to myself that you are unfit to travel home in your present state of health, so I have made up my mind to leave you here in the care of honest Jackson and Darvall, and to go home myself to make inquiries and search for your father. Will this make your mind easy? For that is essential to your recovery at the present time.”
“You were always kind and self-sacrificing, Charlie. Assuredly, your going will take an enormous weight off my mind, for you are much better fitted by nature for such a search than I am—to say nothing of health. Thank you, my dear old boy, a thousand times. As for Dick Darvall,” added Shank, with a laugh, “before this evening I would have doubted whether he would be willing to remain with me after your departure, but I have no doubt now—considering what we have just witnessed!”
“Yes, he has found ‘metal more attractive,’” said Charlie, rising. “I will now go and consult with him, after which I will depart without delay.”
“You’ve been having a gallop, to judge from your heightened colour and flashing eyes,” said Charlie to Dick when they met in the yard, half-an-hour later.
“N–no—not exactly,” returned the seaman, with a slightly embarrassed air. “The fact is I’ve bin cruisin’ about in the bush.”
“What! lookin’ for Redskins?”
“N–no; not exactly, but—”
“Oh! I see. Out huntin’, I suppose. After deer—eh?”
“Well, now, that was a pretty fair guess, Charlie,” said Dick, laughing. “To tell ye the plain truth, I have been out arter a dear—full sail—an’—”
“And you bagged it, of course. Fairly run it down, I suppose,” said his friend, again interrupting.
“Well, there ain’t no ‘of course’ about it, but as it happened, I did manage to overhaul her, and coming to close quarters, I—”
“Yes, yes,Iknow,” interrupted Charlie a third time, with provoking coolness. “You ran her on to the rocks, Dick—which was unseamanlike in the extreme—at least you ran the dear aground on a fallen tree and, sitting down beside it, asked it to become Mrs Darvall, and the amiable creature agreed, eh?”
“Why, how on earth did ’ee come for to knowthat?” asked Dick, in blazing astonishment.
“Well, you know, there’s no great mystery about it. If a bold sailorwillgo huntin’ close to the house, and run down his game right in front of Mr Shank’s windows, he must expect to have witnesses. However, give me your flipper, mess-mate, and let me congratulate you, for in my opinion there’s not such another dear on all the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. But now that I’ve found you, I want to lay some of my future plans before you.”
They had not been discussing these plans many minutes, when Mary was seen crossing the yard in company with Hunky Ben.
“If Hunky would only stop, we’d keep quite jolly till you return,” observed Dick, in an undertone as the two approached.
“We were just talking of you, Ben,” observed Charlie, as they came up.
“Are you goin’ for a cruise, Miss Mary?” asked the seaman in a manner that drew the scout’s attention.
“No,” replied Mary with a little laugh, and anything but a little blush, that intensified the attention of the scout. He gave one of his quiet but quick glances at Dick and chuckled softly.
“So soon!” he murmured to himself; “sartinly your sea-dog is pretty slick at such matters.”
Dick thought he heard the chuckle and turned a lightning glance on the scout, but that sturdy son of the forest had his leathern countenance turned towards the sky with profoundest gravity. It was characteristic of him, you see, to note the signs of the weather.
“Mr Brooke,” he said, with the slow deliberate air of the man who forms his opinions on solid grounds, “there’s goin’ to be a bu’st up o’ the elements afore long, as sure as my name’s Hunky.”
“That’s the very thing I want to talk about with you, Ben, for I meditate a long journey immediately. Come, walk with me.”
Taking the scout’s arm he paced with him slowly up and down the yard, while Dick and Mary went off on a cruise elsewhere.
Chapter Thirty.Changes the Scene Somewhat Violently, and Shows our Hero in a New Light.The result of our hero’s consultation with the scout was not quite as satisfactory as it might have been. Charlie had hoped that Hunky Ben would have been able to stay with Shank till he should return from the old country, but found, to his regret, that that worthy was engaged to conduct still further into the great western wilderness a party of emigrants who wished to escape the evils of civilisation, and to set up a community of their own which should be founded on righteousness, justice, and temperance.“You see, sir,” said the scout, “I’ve gi’n them my promise to guide them whenever they’re ready to start, so, as they may git ready and call for my services at any moment, I must hold myself free o’ other engagements. To say truth, even if they hadn’t my promise I’d keep myself free to help ’em, for I’ve a likin’ for the good man—half doctor, half parson as well as Jack-of-all-trades—as has set the thing agoin’—moreover, I’ve a strong belief that all this fightin’, an’ scalpin’, an’ flayin’ alive, an roastin’, an’ revenge, ain’t the way to bring about good ends either among Red men or white.”“I agree with you heartily, Ben, though I don’t very well see how we are to alter it. However, we must leave the discussion of that difficulty to another time. The question at present is, what hope is there of your staying here even for a short time after I leave? for in Dick Darvall’s present condition of mind he is not much to be depended on, and Jackson is too busy. You see, I want Shank to go out on horseback as much as possible, but in this unsettled region and time he would not be safe except in the care of some one who knew the country and its habits, and who had some sort of sympathy with a broken-down man.”“All I can say, Mr Brooke, is that I’ll stay wi’ your friend as long as I can,” returned the scout, “an’ when I’m obleeged to make tracks for the west, I’ll try to git another man to take my place. Anyhow, I think that Mr Reeves—that’s the name o’ the good man as wants me an’ is boss o’ the emigrants—won’t be able to git them all ready to start for some weeks yet.”Charlie was obliged to content himself with this arrangement. Next day he was galloping eastward—convoyed part of the way by the scout on Black Polly and Dick Darvall on Wheelbarrow. Soon he got into the region of railways and steam-boats, and, in a few weeks more was once again in Old England.A post-card announced his arrival, for Charlie had learned wisdom from experience, and feared to take any one “by surprise”—especially his mother.We need not describe this second meeting of our hero with his kindred and friends. In many respects it resembled the former, when the bad news about Shank came, and there was the same conclave in Mrs Leather’s parlour, for old Jacob Crossley happened to be spending a holiday in Sealford at the time.Indeed he had latterly taken to spending much of his leisure time at that celebrated watering-place, owing, it was supposed, to the beneficial effect which the sea-air had on his rheumatism.But May Leather knew better. With that discriminating penetration which would seem to be the natural accompaniment of youth and beauty, she discerned that the old gentleman’s motive for going so frequently to Sealford was a compound motive.First, Mr Crossley was getting tired of old bachelorhood, and had at last begun to enjoy ladies’ society, especially that of such ladies as Mrs Leather and Mrs Brooke, to say nothing of May herself and Miss Molloy—the worsted reservoir—who had come to reside permanently in the town and who had got the “Blackguard Boy” into blue tights and buttons, to the amazement and confusion of the little dog Scraggy, whose mind was weakened in consequence—so they said. Second, Mr Crossley was remarkably fond of Captain Stride, whom he abused like a pick-pocket and stuck to like a brother, besides playing backgammon with him nightly, to the great satisfaction of the Captain’s “missus” and their “little Mag.” Third, Mr Crossley had no occasion to attend to business, because business, somehow, attended to itself, and poured its profits perennially into the old gentleman’s pocket—a pocket which was never full, because it had a charitable hole in it somewhere which let the cash run out as fast as it ran in. Fourth and last, but not least, Mr Crossley found considerable relief in getting away occasionally from his worthy housekeeper Mrs Bland. This relief, which he styled “letting off the steam” at one time, “brushing away the cobwebs” at another, was invariably followed by a fit of amiability, which resulted in a penitent spirit, and ultimately took him back to town where he remained till Mrs Bland had again piled enough of eccentricity on the safety valve to render another letting off of steam on the sea-shore imperative.What Charlie learned at the meeting held in reference to the disappearance of old Mr Isaac Leather was not satisfactory. The wretched man had so muddled his brain by constant tippling that it had become a question at last whether he was quite responsible for his actions. In a fit of remorse, after an attack of delirium tremens, he had suddenly condemned himself as being a mean contemptible burden on his poor wife and daughter. Of course both wife and daughter asserted that his mere maintenance was no burden on them at all—as in truth it was not when compared with the intolerable weight of his intemperance—and they did their best to soothe him. But the idea seemed to have taken firm hold of him, and preyed upon his mind, until at last he left home one morning in a fit of despair, and had not since been heard of.“Have you no idea, then, where he has gone?” asked Charlie.“No, none,” said Mrs Leather, with a tear trembling in her eye.“We know, mother,” said May, “that he has gone to London. The booking clerk at the station, you know, told us that.”“Did the clerk say to what part of London he booked?”“No, he could not remember.”“Besides, if he had remembered, that would be but a slight clue,” said Mr Crossley. “As well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as for a man in London.”“As well go to sea without rudder or compass,” observed Captain Stride.“Nevertheless,” said Charlie, rising, “I will make the attempt.”“Hopeless,” said Crossley. “Sheer madness,” added Stride. Mrs Leather shook her head and wept gently. Mrs Brooke sighed and cast down her eyes. Miss Molloy—who was of the council, being by that time cognisant of all the family secrets—clasped her hands and looked miserable. Of all that conclave the only one who did not throw cold water on our hero was pretty little brown-eyed May. She cast on him a look of trusting gratitude which blew a long smouldering spark into such a flame that the waters of Niagara in winter would have failed to quench it.“I can’t tell you yet, friends, what I intend to do,” said Charlie. “All I can say is that I’m off to London. I shall probably be away some time, but will write to mother occasionally. So good-bye.”He said a good deal more, of course, but that was the gist of it.May accompanied him to the door.“Oh! thank you—thank you!” she said, with trembling lip and tearful eyes as she held out her hand, “I feelsurethat you will find father.”“I think I shall, May. Indeed I also feel sure that I shall—God helping me.”At the ticket office he found that the clerk remembered very little. He knew the old gentleman well by sight, indeed, but was in the habit of selling tickets to so many people that it was impossible for him to remember where they booked to. In fact the only thing that had fixed Mr Leather at all in his memory was the fact that the old man had dropped his ticket, had no money to take another, and had pleaded earnestly to let him have one on trust, a request with which he dared not comply—but fortunately, a porter found and restored the ticket.“Is the porter you refer to still here?” asked Charlie.Yes, he was there; and Charlie soon found him. The porter recollected the incident perfectly, for the old gentleman, he said, had made a considerable fuss about the lost ticket.“And you can’t remember the station he went to?”“No, sir, but I do remember something about his saying he wanted to go to Whitechapel—I think it was—or Whitehall, I forget which, but I’m sure it was white something.”With this very slender clue Charlie Brooke presented himself in due time at Scotland Yard, at which fountain-head of London policedom he gave a graphic account of the missing man and the circumstances attending his disappearance. Thence he went to the headquarters of the London City Mission; introduced himself to a sympathetic secretary there, and was soon put in communication with one of the most intelligent of those valuable self-sacrificing and devoted men who may be styled the salt of the London slums. This good man’s district embraced part of Whitechapel.“I will help you to the extent of my power, Mr Brooke,” he said, “but your quest will be a difficult one, perhaps dangerous. How do you propose to go about it?”“By visiting all the low lodging-houses in Whitechapel first,” said Charlie.“That will take a long time,” said the City Missionary, smiling. “Low lodging-houses are somewhat numerous in these parts.”“I am aware of that, Mr Stansfield, and mean to take time,” returned our hero promptly. “And what I want of you is to take me into one or two of them, so that I may see something of them while under your guidance. After that I will get their streets and numbers from you, or through you, and will then visit them by myself.”“But, excuse me, my friend,” returned the missionary, “your appearance in such places will attract more attention than you might wish, and would interfere with your investigations, besides exposing you to danger, for the very worst characters in London are sometimes to be found in such places. Only men of the police force and we city missionaries can go among them with impunity.”“I have counted the cost, Mr Stansfield, and intend to run the risk; but thank you, all the same, for your well-meant warning. Can you go round one or two this afternoon?”“I can, with pleasure, and will provide you with as many lodging-house addresses as I can procure. Do you live far from this?”“No, quite close. A gentleman, who was in your Secretary’s office when I called, recommended a small lodging-house kept by a Mrs Butt in the neighbourhood of Flower and Dean Street. You know that region well, I suppose?”“Ay—intimately; and I know Mrs Butt too—a very respectable woman. Come, then, let us start on our mission.”Accordingly Mr Stansfield introduced his inexperienced friend into two of the principal lodging-houses in that neighbourhood. They merely passed through them, and the missionary, besides commenting on all that they saw, told his new friend where and what to pay for a night’s lodging. He also explained the few rules that were connected with those sinks into which the dregs of the metropolitan human family ultimately settle. Then he accompanied Charlie to the door of his new lodging and bade him good-night.It was a dingy little room in which our hero found himself, having an empty and rusty fire-grate on one side and a window on the other, from which there was visible a landscape of paved court. The foreground of the landscape was a pump, the middle distance a wash-tub, and the background a brick wall, about ten feet distant and fifteen feet high. There was no sky to the landscape, by reason of the next house. The furniture was in keeping with the view.Observing a small sofa of the last century on its last legs in a corner, Charlie sat down on it and rose again instantly, owing apparently to rheumatic complaints from its legs.“La! sir,” said the landlady, who had followed him into the room, “you don’t need to fear anythink. That sofar, sir, ’as bin in my family for three generations. The frame was renoo’d before I was born, an’ the legs I ’ad taken off an’ noo ones putt on about fifteen year ago last Easter as ever was. My last lodger ’ee went through the bottom of it, w’ich obliged me to ’ave that renoo’d, so it’s stronger than ever it were. If you only keep it well shoved up agin the wall, sir, it’ll stand a’most any weight—only it won’t stand jumpin’ on. You mustn’t jump on it, sir, with your feet!”Charlie promised solemnly that he would not jump on it either with his feet or head, and then asked if he could have tea and a fire. On being informed that he could have both, he drew out his purse and said—“Now, Mrs Butt, I expect to stay here for two or three weeks—perhaps longer. My name is Brooke. I was advised to come here by a gentleman in the offices of the City Mission. I shall have no visitors—being utterly unknown in this neighbourhood—except, perhaps, the missionary who parted from me at the door—”“Mr Stansfield, sir?” said the landlady.“Yes. You know him?”“I’ve knowed ’im for years, sir. I shall only be too pleased to ’ave any friend of ’is in my ’ouse, I assure you.”“That’s well. Now, Mrs Butt, my motive in coming here is to discover a runaway relation—”“La! sir—a little boy?”“No, Mrs Butt, a—”“Surelynot a littlegurl, sir,” said the landlady, with a sympathetic expression.“It is of no consequence what or who the runaway relation is, Mrs Butt; I merely mention the fact in order that you may understand the reason of any little eccentricity you may notice in my conduct, and not perplex your mind about it. For instance, I shall have no regular hours—may be out late or early—it may be even all night. You will give me a pass-key, and I will let myself in. The only thing I will probably ask for will be a cup of tea or coffee. Pray let me have one about an hour hence. I’m going out at present. Here is a week’s rent in advance.”“Shall I put on a fire, sir?” asked Mrs Butt.“Well, yes—you may.”“Toast, sir?”“Yes, yes,” said Charlie, opening the outer door.“’Ot or cold, sir?”“’Ot, andbuttered,” cried Charlie, with a laugh, as he shut the door after him and rendered further communication impossible.Wending his way through the poor streets in the midst of which his lodging was situated, our hero at last found an old-clothes store, which he entered.“I want a suit of old clothes,” he said to the owner, a Jew, who came forward.The Jew smiled, spread out his hands after the manner of a Frenchman, and said, “My shop, sir, is at your disposal.”After careful inspection Charlie selected a fustian coat of extremely ragged appearance, with trousers to match, also a sealskin vest of a mangy complexion, likewise a soiled and battered billycock hat so shockingly bad that it was difficult to imagine it to have ever had better days at all.“Are they clean?” he asked.“Bin baked and fumigated, sir,” answered the Jew solemnly.As the look and smell of the garments gave some countenance to the truth of this statement, Charlie paid the price demanded, had them wrapped up in a green cotton handkerchief, and carried them off.Arrived at his lodging he let himself in, entered his room, and threw the bundle in a corner. Then he rang for tea.It was growing dark by that time, but a yellow-cotton blind shut out the prospect, and a cheery fire in the grate lighted up the little room brightly, casting a rich glow on the yellow-white table-cloth, which had been already spread, and creating a feeling of coziness in powerful contrast to the sensation of dreariness which had assailed him on his first entrance. When Mrs Butt had placed a paraffin lamp on the table, with a dark-brown teapot, a thick glass sugar-bowl, a cream-jug to match, and a plate of thick-buttered toast that scented the atmosphere deliciously, our hero thought—not for the first time in his life—that wealth was a delusion, besides being a snare.“‘One wants but little here below,’” he mused, as he glanced round the apartment; “but he wants it longer thanthat,” thought he, as his eyes wandered to the ancient sofa, which was obviously eighteen inches too short for him.“I ’ope you’ve found ’im, sir,” said Mrs Butt anxiously, as she was about to retire.“Found who?”“Your relation, sir; the little boy—I mean gurl.”“No, I have found neither the boy nor the girl,” returned the lodger sharply. “Haven’t even begun to look for them yet.”“Oh! beg parding, sir, I didn’t know there wastwoof ’em.”“Neither are there. There’s only one. Fetch me some hot water, Mrs Butt, your tea istoogood. I never take it strong.”The landlady retired, and, on returning with the water, found her lodger so deep in a newspaper that she did not venture to interrupt him.Tea over, Charlie locked his door and clothed himself in his late purchase, which fitted him fairly well, considering that he had measured it only by eye. Putting on the billycock, and tying the green cotton kerchief loosely round his neck to hide his shirt, he stepped in front of the looking-glass above the mantelpiece.At sight of himself he was prepared to be amused, but he had not expected to be shocked! Yet shocked he certainly was, for the transformation was so complete that it suddenly revealed to him something of the depth of degradation to which hemightfall—to which many a man as good as himself, if not better,hadfallen. Then amusement rose within him, for he was the very beau-ideal of a typical burglar, or a prize-fighter: big, square-shouldered, deep-chested, large-chinned. The only parts that did not quite correspond to the type were his straight, well-formed nose and his clear blue eyes, but these defects were put right by slightly drooping his eyelids, pushing his billycock a little back on his head, and drawing a lock of hair in a drunken fashion over his forehead.Suddenly an idea occurred to him. Slipping his latchkey into his pocket he went out of the house and closed the door softly. Then he rang the bell.“Is the gen’leman at ’ome?” he asked of Mrs Butt, in a gruff, hoarse voice, as if still engaged in a struggle with a bad cold.“What gentleman?” asked Mrs Butt eyeing him suspiciously.“W’y, the gen’leman as sent for me to give ’im boxin’ lessons—Buck or Book, or some sitch name.”“Brooke, you mean,” said Mrs Butt still suspicious, and interposing her solid person in the doorway.“Ay, that’s the cove—the gen’leman I mean came here this arternoon to lodge wi’ a Missis Butt or Brute, or suthin’ o’ that sort—air you Mrs Brute?”“Certainlynot,” answered the landlady, with indignation; “but I’m Mrs Butt.”“Well, it’s all the same. I ax yer parding for the mistake, but there’s sitch a mixin’ up o’ Brutes an’ Brookes, an’ Butts an’ Bucks, that it comes hard o’ a man o’ no edication to speak of to take it all in. This gen’leman, Mr Brute, ’e said if ’e was hout w’en I called I was to wait, an’ say you was to make tea for two, an’ ’ave it laid in the bedroom as ’e’d require the parlour for the mill.”The man’s evident knowledge of her lodger’s affairs, and his gross stupidity, disarmed Mrs Butt. She would have laughed at his last speech if it had not been for the astounding conclusion. Tea in the bedroom and a mill in the parlour the first night was a degree of eccentricity she had not even conceived of.“Come in, then, young man,” she said, making way. “You’ll find Mr Brooke in the parlour at his tea.”The prize-fighter stepped quickly along the dark passage into the parlour, and while the somewhat sluggish Mrs Butt was closing the door she overheard her lodger exclaim—“Ha! Jem Mace, this is good of you—very good of you—to come so promptly. Mrs Butt,” shouting at the parlour door, “another cup and plate for Mr Mace, and—and bring theham!”“The ’am!” repeated Mrs Butt softly to herself, as she gazed in perplexity round her little kitchen, “did’e order a ’am?”Unable to solve the riddle she gave it up and carried in the cup and saucer and plate.“I beg your parding, sir, you mentioned a ’am,” she began, but stopped abruptly on seeing no one there but the prize-fighter standing before the fire in a free-and-easy manner with his hands in his breeches pockets.The light of the street-lamps had very imperfectly revealed the person of Jem Mace. Now that Mrs Butt saw him slouching in all his native hideousness against her mantelpiece in the full blaze of a paraffin lamp, she inwardly congratulated herself that Mr Brooke was such a big strong man—almost a match, she thought, for Mace!“I thought you said the gen’leman was in the parlour, Mrs Brute?” said Mace inquiringly.“So ’e—was,” answered the perplexed lady, looking round the room; “didn’t I ’ear ’im a-shakin’ ’ands wi’ you, an’ a-shoutin’ for ’am?”“Well, Mrs Brute, I dun know what you ’eard; all I know is that I’ve not seed ’im yet.”“’E must be in the bedroom,” said Mrs Butt, with a dazed look.“No ’e ain’t there,” returned the prize-fighter; “I’ve bin all over it—looked under the bed, into the cupboard, through the key’ole;—p’r’aps,” he added, turning quickly, “’e may be up the chimbly!”The expression on poor Mrs Butt’s face now alarmed Charlie, who instantly doffed his billycock and resumed his natural voice and manner.“Forgive me, Mrs Butt, if I have been somewhat reckless,” he said, “in testing my disguise on you. I really had no intention till a few minutes ago of playing such a practical—”“Well, well, Mr Brooke,” broke in the amazed yet amiable creature at this point, “I do assure you as I’d never ’ave know’d you from the worst character in W’itechapel. I wouldn’t have trusted you—not with a sixpence. You was born to be a play-actor, sir! I declare that Jem Mace have given me a turn that— But why disguise yourself in this way, Mr Brooke?”“Because I am going to haunt the low lodging-houses, Mrs Butt and I could not well do that, you know, in the character of a gentleman; and as you have taken it so amiably I’m glad I tried my hand here first, for it will make me feel much more at ease.”“And well it may, sir. I only ’ope it won’t get you into trouble, for if the p’leece go lookin’ for a burglar, or murderer, or desprit ruffian, where you ’appen to be, they’re sure to run you in. The only think I would point out, sir, if I may be so free, is that your ’ands an’ face is too clean.”“That is easily remedied,” said Charlie, with a laugh, as he stooped and rubbed his hands among the ashes; then, taking a piece of cinder, he made sundry marks on his countenance therewith, which, when judiciously touched in with a little water and some ashes, converted our hero into as thorough a scoundrel as ever walked the streets of London at unseasonable hours of night.
The result of our hero’s consultation with the scout was not quite as satisfactory as it might have been. Charlie had hoped that Hunky Ben would have been able to stay with Shank till he should return from the old country, but found, to his regret, that that worthy was engaged to conduct still further into the great western wilderness a party of emigrants who wished to escape the evils of civilisation, and to set up a community of their own which should be founded on righteousness, justice, and temperance.
“You see, sir,” said the scout, “I’ve gi’n them my promise to guide them whenever they’re ready to start, so, as they may git ready and call for my services at any moment, I must hold myself free o’ other engagements. To say truth, even if they hadn’t my promise I’d keep myself free to help ’em, for I’ve a likin’ for the good man—half doctor, half parson as well as Jack-of-all-trades—as has set the thing agoin’—moreover, I’ve a strong belief that all this fightin’, an’ scalpin’, an’ flayin’ alive, an roastin’, an’ revenge, ain’t the way to bring about good ends either among Red men or white.”
“I agree with you heartily, Ben, though I don’t very well see how we are to alter it. However, we must leave the discussion of that difficulty to another time. The question at present is, what hope is there of your staying here even for a short time after I leave? for in Dick Darvall’s present condition of mind he is not much to be depended on, and Jackson is too busy. You see, I want Shank to go out on horseback as much as possible, but in this unsettled region and time he would not be safe except in the care of some one who knew the country and its habits, and who had some sort of sympathy with a broken-down man.”
“All I can say, Mr Brooke, is that I’ll stay wi’ your friend as long as I can,” returned the scout, “an’ when I’m obleeged to make tracks for the west, I’ll try to git another man to take my place. Anyhow, I think that Mr Reeves—that’s the name o’ the good man as wants me an’ is boss o’ the emigrants—won’t be able to git them all ready to start for some weeks yet.”
Charlie was obliged to content himself with this arrangement. Next day he was galloping eastward—convoyed part of the way by the scout on Black Polly and Dick Darvall on Wheelbarrow. Soon he got into the region of railways and steam-boats, and, in a few weeks more was once again in Old England.
A post-card announced his arrival, for Charlie had learned wisdom from experience, and feared to take any one “by surprise”—especially his mother.
We need not describe this second meeting of our hero with his kindred and friends. In many respects it resembled the former, when the bad news about Shank came, and there was the same conclave in Mrs Leather’s parlour, for old Jacob Crossley happened to be spending a holiday in Sealford at the time.
Indeed he had latterly taken to spending much of his leisure time at that celebrated watering-place, owing, it was supposed, to the beneficial effect which the sea-air had on his rheumatism.
But May Leather knew better. With that discriminating penetration which would seem to be the natural accompaniment of youth and beauty, she discerned that the old gentleman’s motive for going so frequently to Sealford was a compound motive.
First, Mr Crossley was getting tired of old bachelorhood, and had at last begun to enjoy ladies’ society, especially that of such ladies as Mrs Leather and Mrs Brooke, to say nothing of May herself and Miss Molloy—the worsted reservoir—who had come to reside permanently in the town and who had got the “Blackguard Boy” into blue tights and buttons, to the amazement and confusion of the little dog Scraggy, whose mind was weakened in consequence—so they said. Second, Mr Crossley was remarkably fond of Captain Stride, whom he abused like a pick-pocket and stuck to like a brother, besides playing backgammon with him nightly, to the great satisfaction of the Captain’s “missus” and their “little Mag.” Third, Mr Crossley had no occasion to attend to business, because business, somehow, attended to itself, and poured its profits perennially into the old gentleman’s pocket—a pocket which was never full, because it had a charitable hole in it somewhere which let the cash run out as fast as it ran in. Fourth and last, but not least, Mr Crossley found considerable relief in getting away occasionally from his worthy housekeeper Mrs Bland. This relief, which he styled “letting off the steam” at one time, “brushing away the cobwebs” at another, was invariably followed by a fit of amiability, which resulted in a penitent spirit, and ultimately took him back to town where he remained till Mrs Bland had again piled enough of eccentricity on the safety valve to render another letting off of steam on the sea-shore imperative.
What Charlie learned at the meeting held in reference to the disappearance of old Mr Isaac Leather was not satisfactory. The wretched man had so muddled his brain by constant tippling that it had become a question at last whether he was quite responsible for his actions. In a fit of remorse, after an attack of delirium tremens, he had suddenly condemned himself as being a mean contemptible burden on his poor wife and daughter. Of course both wife and daughter asserted that his mere maintenance was no burden on them at all—as in truth it was not when compared with the intolerable weight of his intemperance—and they did their best to soothe him. But the idea seemed to have taken firm hold of him, and preyed upon his mind, until at last he left home one morning in a fit of despair, and had not since been heard of.
“Have you no idea, then, where he has gone?” asked Charlie.
“No, none,” said Mrs Leather, with a tear trembling in her eye.
“We know, mother,” said May, “that he has gone to London. The booking clerk at the station, you know, told us that.”
“Did the clerk say to what part of London he booked?”
“No, he could not remember.”
“Besides, if he had remembered, that would be but a slight clue,” said Mr Crossley. “As well look for a needle in a bundle of hay as for a man in London.”
“As well go to sea without rudder or compass,” observed Captain Stride.
“Nevertheless,” said Charlie, rising, “I will make the attempt.”
“Hopeless,” said Crossley. “Sheer madness,” added Stride. Mrs Leather shook her head and wept gently. Mrs Brooke sighed and cast down her eyes. Miss Molloy—who was of the council, being by that time cognisant of all the family secrets—clasped her hands and looked miserable. Of all that conclave the only one who did not throw cold water on our hero was pretty little brown-eyed May. She cast on him a look of trusting gratitude which blew a long smouldering spark into such a flame that the waters of Niagara in winter would have failed to quench it.
“I can’t tell you yet, friends, what I intend to do,” said Charlie. “All I can say is that I’m off to London. I shall probably be away some time, but will write to mother occasionally. So good-bye.”
He said a good deal more, of course, but that was the gist of it.
May accompanied him to the door.
“Oh! thank you—thank you!” she said, with trembling lip and tearful eyes as she held out her hand, “I feelsurethat you will find father.”
“I think I shall, May. Indeed I also feel sure that I shall—God helping me.”
At the ticket office he found that the clerk remembered very little. He knew the old gentleman well by sight, indeed, but was in the habit of selling tickets to so many people that it was impossible for him to remember where they booked to. In fact the only thing that had fixed Mr Leather at all in his memory was the fact that the old man had dropped his ticket, had no money to take another, and had pleaded earnestly to let him have one on trust, a request with which he dared not comply—but fortunately, a porter found and restored the ticket.
“Is the porter you refer to still here?” asked Charlie.
Yes, he was there; and Charlie soon found him. The porter recollected the incident perfectly, for the old gentleman, he said, had made a considerable fuss about the lost ticket.
“And you can’t remember the station he went to?”
“No, sir, but I do remember something about his saying he wanted to go to Whitechapel—I think it was—or Whitehall, I forget which, but I’m sure it was white something.”
With this very slender clue Charlie Brooke presented himself in due time at Scotland Yard, at which fountain-head of London policedom he gave a graphic account of the missing man and the circumstances attending his disappearance. Thence he went to the headquarters of the London City Mission; introduced himself to a sympathetic secretary there, and was soon put in communication with one of the most intelligent of those valuable self-sacrificing and devoted men who may be styled the salt of the London slums. This good man’s district embraced part of Whitechapel.
“I will help you to the extent of my power, Mr Brooke,” he said, “but your quest will be a difficult one, perhaps dangerous. How do you propose to go about it?”
“By visiting all the low lodging-houses in Whitechapel first,” said Charlie.
“That will take a long time,” said the City Missionary, smiling. “Low lodging-houses are somewhat numerous in these parts.”
“I am aware of that, Mr Stansfield, and mean to take time,” returned our hero promptly. “And what I want of you is to take me into one or two of them, so that I may see something of them while under your guidance. After that I will get their streets and numbers from you, or through you, and will then visit them by myself.”
“But, excuse me, my friend,” returned the missionary, “your appearance in such places will attract more attention than you might wish, and would interfere with your investigations, besides exposing you to danger, for the very worst characters in London are sometimes to be found in such places. Only men of the police force and we city missionaries can go among them with impunity.”
“I have counted the cost, Mr Stansfield, and intend to run the risk; but thank you, all the same, for your well-meant warning. Can you go round one or two this afternoon?”
“I can, with pleasure, and will provide you with as many lodging-house addresses as I can procure. Do you live far from this?”
“No, quite close. A gentleman, who was in your Secretary’s office when I called, recommended a small lodging-house kept by a Mrs Butt in the neighbourhood of Flower and Dean Street. You know that region well, I suppose?”
“Ay—intimately; and I know Mrs Butt too—a very respectable woman. Come, then, let us start on our mission.”
Accordingly Mr Stansfield introduced his inexperienced friend into two of the principal lodging-houses in that neighbourhood. They merely passed through them, and the missionary, besides commenting on all that they saw, told his new friend where and what to pay for a night’s lodging. He also explained the few rules that were connected with those sinks into which the dregs of the metropolitan human family ultimately settle. Then he accompanied Charlie to the door of his new lodging and bade him good-night.
It was a dingy little room in which our hero found himself, having an empty and rusty fire-grate on one side and a window on the other, from which there was visible a landscape of paved court. The foreground of the landscape was a pump, the middle distance a wash-tub, and the background a brick wall, about ten feet distant and fifteen feet high. There was no sky to the landscape, by reason of the next house. The furniture was in keeping with the view.
Observing a small sofa of the last century on its last legs in a corner, Charlie sat down on it and rose again instantly, owing apparently to rheumatic complaints from its legs.
“La! sir,” said the landlady, who had followed him into the room, “you don’t need to fear anythink. That sofar, sir, ’as bin in my family for three generations. The frame was renoo’d before I was born, an’ the legs I ’ad taken off an’ noo ones putt on about fifteen year ago last Easter as ever was. My last lodger ’ee went through the bottom of it, w’ich obliged me to ’ave that renoo’d, so it’s stronger than ever it were. If you only keep it well shoved up agin the wall, sir, it’ll stand a’most any weight—only it won’t stand jumpin’ on. You mustn’t jump on it, sir, with your feet!”
Charlie promised solemnly that he would not jump on it either with his feet or head, and then asked if he could have tea and a fire. On being informed that he could have both, he drew out his purse and said—
“Now, Mrs Butt, I expect to stay here for two or three weeks—perhaps longer. My name is Brooke. I was advised to come here by a gentleman in the offices of the City Mission. I shall have no visitors—being utterly unknown in this neighbourhood—except, perhaps, the missionary who parted from me at the door—”
“Mr Stansfield, sir?” said the landlady.
“Yes. You know him?”
“I’ve knowed ’im for years, sir. I shall only be too pleased to ’ave any friend of ’is in my ’ouse, I assure you.”
“That’s well. Now, Mrs Butt, my motive in coming here is to discover a runaway relation—”
“La! sir—a little boy?”
“No, Mrs Butt, a—”
“Surelynot a littlegurl, sir,” said the landlady, with a sympathetic expression.
“It is of no consequence what or who the runaway relation is, Mrs Butt; I merely mention the fact in order that you may understand the reason of any little eccentricity you may notice in my conduct, and not perplex your mind about it. For instance, I shall have no regular hours—may be out late or early—it may be even all night. You will give me a pass-key, and I will let myself in. The only thing I will probably ask for will be a cup of tea or coffee. Pray let me have one about an hour hence. I’m going out at present. Here is a week’s rent in advance.”
“Shall I put on a fire, sir?” asked Mrs Butt.
“Well, yes—you may.”
“Toast, sir?”
“Yes, yes,” said Charlie, opening the outer door.
“’Ot or cold, sir?”
“’Ot, andbuttered,” cried Charlie, with a laugh, as he shut the door after him and rendered further communication impossible.
Wending his way through the poor streets in the midst of which his lodging was situated, our hero at last found an old-clothes store, which he entered.
“I want a suit of old clothes,” he said to the owner, a Jew, who came forward.
The Jew smiled, spread out his hands after the manner of a Frenchman, and said, “My shop, sir, is at your disposal.”
After careful inspection Charlie selected a fustian coat of extremely ragged appearance, with trousers to match, also a sealskin vest of a mangy complexion, likewise a soiled and battered billycock hat so shockingly bad that it was difficult to imagine it to have ever had better days at all.
“Are they clean?” he asked.
“Bin baked and fumigated, sir,” answered the Jew solemnly.
As the look and smell of the garments gave some countenance to the truth of this statement, Charlie paid the price demanded, had them wrapped up in a green cotton handkerchief, and carried them off.
Arrived at his lodging he let himself in, entered his room, and threw the bundle in a corner. Then he rang for tea.
It was growing dark by that time, but a yellow-cotton blind shut out the prospect, and a cheery fire in the grate lighted up the little room brightly, casting a rich glow on the yellow-white table-cloth, which had been already spread, and creating a feeling of coziness in powerful contrast to the sensation of dreariness which had assailed him on his first entrance. When Mrs Butt had placed a paraffin lamp on the table, with a dark-brown teapot, a thick glass sugar-bowl, a cream-jug to match, and a plate of thick-buttered toast that scented the atmosphere deliciously, our hero thought—not for the first time in his life—that wealth was a delusion, besides being a snare.
“‘One wants but little here below,’” he mused, as he glanced round the apartment; “but he wants it longer thanthat,” thought he, as his eyes wandered to the ancient sofa, which was obviously eighteen inches too short for him.
“I ’ope you’ve found ’im, sir,” said Mrs Butt anxiously, as she was about to retire.
“Found who?”
“Your relation, sir; the little boy—I mean gurl.”
“No, I have found neither the boy nor the girl,” returned the lodger sharply. “Haven’t even begun to look for them yet.”
“Oh! beg parding, sir, I didn’t know there wastwoof ’em.”
“Neither are there. There’s only one. Fetch me some hot water, Mrs Butt, your tea istoogood. I never take it strong.”
The landlady retired, and, on returning with the water, found her lodger so deep in a newspaper that she did not venture to interrupt him.
Tea over, Charlie locked his door and clothed himself in his late purchase, which fitted him fairly well, considering that he had measured it only by eye. Putting on the billycock, and tying the green cotton kerchief loosely round his neck to hide his shirt, he stepped in front of the looking-glass above the mantelpiece.
At sight of himself he was prepared to be amused, but he had not expected to be shocked! Yet shocked he certainly was, for the transformation was so complete that it suddenly revealed to him something of the depth of degradation to which hemightfall—to which many a man as good as himself, if not better,hadfallen. Then amusement rose within him, for he was the very beau-ideal of a typical burglar, or a prize-fighter: big, square-shouldered, deep-chested, large-chinned. The only parts that did not quite correspond to the type were his straight, well-formed nose and his clear blue eyes, but these defects were put right by slightly drooping his eyelids, pushing his billycock a little back on his head, and drawing a lock of hair in a drunken fashion over his forehead.
Suddenly an idea occurred to him. Slipping his latchkey into his pocket he went out of the house and closed the door softly. Then he rang the bell.
“Is the gen’leman at ’ome?” he asked of Mrs Butt, in a gruff, hoarse voice, as if still engaged in a struggle with a bad cold.
“What gentleman?” asked Mrs Butt eyeing him suspiciously.
“W’y, the gen’leman as sent for me to give ’im boxin’ lessons—Buck or Book, or some sitch name.”
“Brooke, you mean,” said Mrs Butt still suspicious, and interposing her solid person in the doorway.
“Ay, that’s the cove—the gen’leman I mean came here this arternoon to lodge wi’ a Missis Butt or Brute, or suthin’ o’ that sort—air you Mrs Brute?”
“Certainlynot,” answered the landlady, with indignation; “but I’m Mrs Butt.”
“Well, it’s all the same. I ax yer parding for the mistake, but there’s sitch a mixin’ up o’ Brutes an’ Brookes, an’ Butts an’ Bucks, that it comes hard o’ a man o’ no edication to speak of to take it all in. This gen’leman, Mr Brute, ’e said if ’e was hout w’en I called I was to wait, an’ say you was to make tea for two, an’ ’ave it laid in the bedroom as ’e’d require the parlour for the mill.”
The man’s evident knowledge of her lodger’s affairs, and his gross stupidity, disarmed Mrs Butt. She would have laughed at his last speech if it had not been for the astounding conclusion. Tea in the bedroom and a mill in the parlour the first night was a degree of eccentricity she had not even conceived of.
“Come in, then, young man,” she said, making way. “You’ll find Mr Brooke in the parlour at his tea.”
The prize-fighter stepped quickly along the dark passage into the parlour, and while the somewhat sluggish Mrs Butt was closing the door she overheard her lodger exclaim—
“Ha! Jem Mace, this is good of you—very good of you—to come so promptly. Mrs Butt,” shouting at the parlour door, “another cup and plate for Mr Mace, and—and bring theham!”
“The ’am!” repeated Mrs Butt softly to herself, as she gazed in perplexity round her little kitchen, “did’e order a ’am?”
Unable to solve the riddle she gave it up and carried in the cup and saucer and plate.
“I beg your parding, sir, you mentioned a ’am,” she began, but stopped abruptly on seeing no one there but the prize-fighter standing before the fire in a free-and-easy manner with his hands in his breeches pockets.
The light of the street-lamps had very imperfectly revealed the person of Jem Mace. Now that Mrs Butt saw him slouching in all his native hideousness against her mantelpiece in the full blaze of a paraffin lamp, she inwardly congratulated herself that Mr Brooke was such a big strong man—almost a match, she thought, for Mace!
“I thought you said the gen’leman was in the parlour, Mrs Brute?” said Mace inquiringly.
“So ’e—was,” answered the perplexed lady, looking round the room; “didn’t I ’ear ’im a-shakin’ ’ands wi’ you, an’ a-shoutin’ for ’am?”
“Well, Mrs Brute, I dun know what you ’eard; all I know is that I’ve not seed ’im yet.”
“’E must be in the bedroom,” said Mrs Butt, with a dazed look.
“No ’e ain’t there,” returned the prize-fighter; “I’ve bin all over it—looked under the bed, into the cupboard, through the key’ole;—p’r’aps,” he added, turning quickly, “’e may be up the chimbly!”
The expression on poor Mrs Butt’s face now alarmed Charlie, who instantly doffed his billycock and resumed his natural voice and manner.
“Forgive me, Mrs Butt, if I have been somewhat reckless,” he said, “in testing my disguise on you. I really had no intention till a few minutes ago of playing such a practical—”
“Well, well, Mr Brooke,” broke in the amazed yet amiable creature at this point, “I do assure you as I’d never ’ave know’d you from the worst character in W’itechapel. I wouldn’t have trusted you—not with a sixpence. You was born to be a play-actor, sir! I declare that Jem Mace have given me a turn that— But why disguise yourself in this way, Mr Brooke?”
“Because I am going to haunt the low lodging-houses, Mrs Butt and I could not well do that, you know, in the character of a gentleman; and as you have taken it so amiably I’m glad I tried my hand here first, for it will make me feel much more at ease.”
“And well it may, sir. I only ’ope it won’t get you into trouble, for if the p’leece go lookin’ for a burglar, or murderer, or desprit ruffian, where you ’appen to be, they’re sure to run you in. The only think I would point out, sir, if I may be so free, is that your ’ands an’ face is too clean.”
“That is easily remedied,” said Charlie, with a laugh, as he stooped and rubbed his hands among the ashes; then, taking a piece of cinder, he made sundry marks on his countenance therewith, which, when judiciously touched in with a little water and some ashes, converted our hero into as thorough a scoundrel as ever walked the streets of London at unseasonable hours of night.