CHAPTER IVAN IDEAL OUTFIT
“I never read that before,” Mrs. Osborne said apologetically. “Of course, Uncle Willard is dead now. But he may have left children. You must find where Parowan is, and, if you get the chance, go there.”
Roy had opened the history again, and was copying his great uncle’s name and address in a little red vest-pocket memorandum book, he always carried.
“I certainly will—if I find the time,” he repeated. “It’s a good thing to know your relatives. But it’s likely I’ll be too busy to go visiting. I’ll have the address anyway—‘Willard Banks, Parowan, Iron County, Utah.’”
Then Roy and his mother responded to Mr. Osborne’s impatient calls from below to come to breakfast.
“I supposed you’d gone,” exclaimed Roy, glancing at the clock and noticing that it was after his father’s usual time of leaving for the works.
“I’m waiting for you,” his father replied.“I want you to go with me and see Mr. Atkinson. You can close your own bargain with him. I imagine he’ll want you to start in a few days, and I thought there might be clothes to be bought,” he added, turning to his wife.
“I suppose he ought to have a new suit,” began Mrs. Osborne.
Roy laughed outright.
“A new suit?” he roared. “Say, father, you don’t imagine I’ll need Sunday clothes to go roughing it in?”
“What you have are not decent to go away from home in,” interrupted his mother.
Roy held up his hands in amused protest. Then he turned seriously to his father.
“What do you think they’ll pay me?”
Mr. Osborne thought a moment. Then he said:
“Considering everything, the risk and the distance from home, I’m going to suggest two hundred dollars a month.”
Roy’s eyes flared open in astonishment.
“Why I never made over a dollar a day in my life—when I worked,” the boy exclaimed.
“It isn’t because it’s you—it’s the job,” added his father. “It won’t last long, youknow. But what has that to do with your outfit?”
“Well, if I work for six weeks, that’s three hundred dollars,” answered Roy, “and I suppose my expenses out there won’t be much.”
“The company will likely pay all your living expenses. But what are you getting at?” persisted his father.
“I’m getting at this,” replied Roy. “I’ll need a certain kind of outfit. If I can get enough wages advanced to me to make it possible I’ll buy the clothes and things I need in Chicago—not here. From my Baden-Powell to my automatic.”
“What are those?” interrupted his mother.
“Well,” explained Roy, smiling, “Baden-Powell is the name of a hat. I’ll get one with a leather band and a leather string to slip under the hair. Automatics are what they use to-day. Colts have gone out of style. You must have a ten-shot automatic revolver.”
“Roy,” exclaimed Mrs. Osborne, “you don’t mean to tell me you are actually going to carry a real revolver?”
“And a knife,” added the lad solemnly.
“Then you’ll stay right here at home.”
It was now Mr. Osborne’s turn to laugh.
“I thought you were so brave about the kid’s going away!”
“But I don’t see any sense in him going around like a desperado.”
“That’s part of the uniform out there,” broke in Roy. “But I’ll be careful,” he added, smiling again. “Another thing I’m bothering about now is, where will I get the money to buy my railroad ticket? And can I borrow enough from some one to get the outfit I need?”
“I suppose Mr. Cook’s company’ll pay your car fare. As for the other—I’ll advance it. What do you think you’ll need?” asked his father.
“I suppose,” said Roy slowly, “it’ll take one hundred dollars outside of my car fare.”
Mr. Osborne whistled and Mrs. Osborne’s face assumed a doubtful look.
“You know we aren’t rich, Roy,” his mother began.
“Pshaw, mother,” Roy exclaimed, springing to his feet, “don’t you worry about that. If you and father can spare the one hundred dollars, let me have it. I ain’t goin’ out west just to work for wages. That’s the greatest country in the world for a young man. Why, mother,I may discover something—a gold mine, perhaps.”
His father smiled.
“Do you know what you need?”
“I’ll have a list in an hour.”
“All right. Make it out. Find what your things will cost and come to the factory. We’ll have a talk with Mr. Atkinson.”
His father had hardly gone before Roy was curled up on the porch swinging seat with two or three books in his lap, his smiling mother by his side.
“The Camper’s Manual or How to Camp Out and What to Do,” had long been Roy’s companion. The little dog-eared, paper bound volume had been thumbed and read until Mrs. Osborne had more than once threatened to destroy the book.
“What’s the sense of it all, Roy?” she was accustomed to say. “Why are you so interested in camp outfits, camp rations, tents and guns and cooking and packing?”
“Why?” Roy would answer with the teasing smile he always used in arguing with his mother. “I don’t really know except that I am. Some boys I reckon like one thing and some another. I just happen to like to fussaround a camp and then move and set up a new one.”
“But,” his mother would answer, “you were never out camping in your life.”
“That’s where you’re mistaken,” Roy would answer. “I’ve had many a fine trip—up here.” And he would tap his head, with a laugh. “Some day I’ll use it all, never fear.”
This morning he had a chance to recall to his mother what he had said.
“Now, you see, mother. It has come when I least expected it. The time is right here when I’m going to take advantage of what I’ve been learning out of the books. I know right now everything I want to take out west with me. And, least of all, will I need Sunday clothes.”
His mother sidled up close to the boy as he began to set down the items of his outfit, and at the very first article, she entered a renewed and vigorous protest. If ever a boy, who knew nothing of the woods or the wilderness from actual experience, had longed for and dreamed of the day when he might own and carry a modern firearm, that boy was Roy Osborne.
Had he been starting out on a yawling cruise down the New Jersey bays, he would have been tempted to carry a revolver. Since he was goinginto a land where such a weapon was an actual necessity, it was with positive joy that he checked off first on his list one of the new self-loading combination pistol and carbine weapons.
The weapon Roy had selected, which fired ten shots and weighed two and one-half pounds, he knew was already taking the place of larger revolvers. He also knew that soldiers, cowboys, sheriffs and frontiersmen generally were discarding the old Colts for it and, although it cost twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents, and cartridges were three cents apiece, this was the first item of his outfit the lad set down.
“The beauty of this revolver, mother,” explained Roy, “is that it comes in a wooden holster. You can attach this holster to the stock of the weapon and, presto, you have a carbine or rifle.”
Mrs. Osborne shivered.
“You aren’t going to shoot Indians with that, are you?” asked his mother. “Or, maybe, drop it accidentally, and shoot yourself?”
“Mother,” answered Roy soberly, “what if I started out over the desert in the airship and something happened so that I’d have to come down, and I landed plump in a covey of rattlesnakes—?”
“Oh, my—” exclaimed Mrs. Osborne in alarm.
“And say there were just ten of ’em all coiled up ready for business. You see where my ten-shooter would come in, don’t you?”
His mother looked relieved for a moment. Then, the thought just occurring to her, she said:
“But could you shoot them? You never practised shooting.”
“Not actually,” answered the boy—again very soberly—“but you know I’ve thought a good deal about it. That’s something. Besides, what if I haven’t had anything to eat for two or three days, and suddenly I see a deer? Bang! There goes my carbine and I’m saved again.”
“Oh, I suppose you’ve got to have it,” answered his mother, in a sort of reconciled tone. “But wouldn’t a little one do as well?”
“That deer might be a quarter of a mile away!”
His mother laughed and patted his hand. Then she grew sober again.
“But promise me one thing, Roy. If you do have to shoot ten rattlesnakes and a poor harmless deer, promise me you won’t kill any Indians—they’rehuman beings. That would be murder. Promise me that!”
Roy was forced to laugh.
“I’ve got a notion, mother, that there is only one danger with that revolver if I ever fall in with Indians.”
“What’s that?”
“That the Indians may steal it.”
Before his mother could protest further, Roy hurried on with his list. As for clothing, he set down: A Baden-Powell hat, $6; two gray flannel army shirts, $11; one pair Khaki riding breeches, $3.25; three pairs hand-knit woolen socks, $2.25; one pair hand-made, light hunting boots, water proof with moccasin feet and flexible soles, $6; two suits light woolen underwear, $4; two blue silk handkerchiefs, $1.50.
Despite his mother’s protests at the inadequacy of this list, Roy stuck to it as being ample, and even more than he would probably carry at times. Then, of a miscellaneous nature, he added: A Rocky Mountain combined cartridge and money belt (“I won’t have any money to carry,” Roy explained with a laugh, “but the pocket will be handy for dispatches, reports or orders”) to cost $2.25; a “carryall” bag, water proof, with rawhide handles and a heavy lock,to carry all surplus clothing, ammunition and other articles, $10; a medical and surgical case, including a hypodermic syringe and injection for snake bite, $5.00—
“I thought you were going to shoot all the snakes?” interrupted his mother.
“But one might crawl up on me while I was asleep,” explained Roy—again very soberly.
“You don’t mean to tell me you are going to sleep right down on the ground where animals and reptiles can get at you?” exclaimed Mrs. Osborne.
“Oh, I might have to do that a few times,” explained Roy, trying hard not to smile.
“Well, I want you to go to a hotel whenever you can,” urged his mother. “Or, if that is too expensive, to a decent boarding house. And another thing, Roy, I want you to see that your sheets are aired every day.”
“I promise,” answered the lad, lowering his head to hide his grin. “And I’ll go even further—I’ll make up my own bed every day I’m out there.”
“That’s right. Hotels always do it badly.”
Roy diverted his mother’s attention to his next item—a South African water bag that was guaranteed to furnish cool water in the hottestweather. He had selected a two and one-half gallon vessel costing $1.85. She was also much interested in an acetylene gas headlight apparatus. This, on Roy’s list, really belonged in the things most eagerly desired by him, next to the automatic revolver. The apparatus consisted of a light with a lens attached to a band to be worn on the head, thus leaving the hands free. The gas generator was small enough to be carried in the pocket. The weight was only ten ounces, and the cost $6.50.
“And what’s that for?” asked his mother with interest.
“Night flights,” answered Roy.
“You don’t have to work at night, do you?” exclaimed his mother.
“There isn’t any aviators’ union yet, mother,” answered Roy, good naturedly. “It’s just possible I might find it necessary.”
“Well, I wouldn’t,” retorted Mrs. Osborne. “That’s just the trouble with your father. He never knows when to quit work. I—”
But Roy again interrupted his mother’s criticism by showing her a picture of a compact, aluminum mess kit, weighing only two pounds and five ounces. It contained a three-pint canteen, a frying pan with a folding handle, a felt-linedcover for keeping things hot, a knife, fork and a spoon, and cost $4.50.
Then followed small articles: A soft rubber drinking cup, 20 cents; a safety pocket ax with steel lined guard, $1.60; an electric search or flash light, with extra batteries, $3.00; a waterproof handy compass to be pinned to the shirt, $1.15; a hundred-mile pedometer adjustable to any step, $1.00; and a five-inch hunting knife, with bone chopper back, $2.00.
“What does it all come to?” asked his mother, when Roy signified that the list was complete.
He announced the total—$106.55.
“Gracious me, Roy, that’s a lot of money.”
“To you and me, mother,” said the boy, with a laugh. “But I’m going into business now. It takes money to do things right.”
“But your father has to furnish it. Then there’s your car fare; I’m afraid we can’t afford it.”
Roy sprang up and patted his mother on the cheek.
“Mother,” he exclaimed, with a reassuring laugh, “I’m going to be worth so much more than that to the Utah Mining and Development Company that this little hundred or so dollars’llbe only a drop in the bucket. I’ll get it all back for father with good interest. And if you’ll promise to quit worryin’ about what I’m goin’ to do or the expenses of it, I’ll—I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” added Mrs. Osborne, smiling.
“Why, I’ll—I’ll take you out to Chicago this winter to see Uncle Tom. And I’ll pay all your expenses.”
The next moment the enthusiastic boy was clattering down the steps on his way to the factory.