CHAPTER XXIIITHE BULLY IS HUMBLED
Manya man would have been startled by such a direct accusation, but J. Rutherford Brown had been in a similar position before and was not to be scared thus easily. He turned slowly, put his feet on the floor and gazed coldly at Hockley.
“Young man, you are mistaken,” he said. “And if you dare to repeat your words you will be sorry.”
“But I say—” went on the youth, and then the look in the eyes of the man made him pause. It was a merciless, crafty face that peered into his own and it made Hockley shiver in spite of himself.
“We had several fair and square games of cards,” went on the man from Montana. “And you lost your money. Don’t be a calf to cry over it. If you are in hard luck say so, and I’ll—well, I’ll lend you ten dollars.”
As he concluded J. Rutherford Brown calmly took from his hip pocket a big roll of bills—a largeportion of them Hockley’s bills—and drew forth one of the denomination mentioned.
“Do you want this?” he asked, extending the bill between the tips of his fingers.
“Ye—yes,” stammered the youth, and took it. “But—but——”
“I don’t want to talk over the affair of yesterday,” interrupted the man. “If you will remember, I lost something before the luck turned. If you had quit the game then, I should not have squealed. Besides that, I took you away, so that you would not get into trouble while you slept. I spent ten dollars for carriage fare, but we will let that pass.”
Having thus delivered himself, J. Rutherford Brown hoisted his feet to the table once more and resumed the reading of his newspaper. Hockley looked at him in amazement not unmixed with consternation. He had never before met such a fellow as this. He did not know how to proceed, and walked away revolving the situation in his mind.
The more he thought it over, the more Hockley became convinced that he could do little or nothing. Of course, if it came to the pinch, J. Rutherford Brown would deny everything, and as there wereno witnesses to what had occurred, legal proof would be hard to obtain.
“I’ve been a chump,” he muttered as he walked out of the hotel. “A downright chump.”
As there seemed nothing else to do, he turned his footsteps in the direction of the hotel at which the professor and the other boys were stopping. His heart felt like lead in his bosom and he could not for the life of him conjure up what to say. He knew that excuses would be unavailing, that Professor Strong would insist upon making a rigid investigation.
As he turned a corner leading to the hotel he came face to face with Professor Strong, who was walking with another man, a native hired to show the party the sights.
“Jacob Hockley,” cried the professor. “Where have you been? We have been hunting everywhere for you.”
“It’s a long story, sir,” answered Hockley, meekly. “And if you please, I’d like to get breakfast before I tell it.”
“So you have had nothing to eat? Then come to the hotel by all means. But where have you been?”
“Out of town, a good many miles, I guess.”
“Out of town?”
“Yes, sir. And I’ve lost the most of my money,” went on the lank youth, desperately.
“How did you lose that?” And now Professor Strong’s face grew stern.
Hockley felt a certain quaking within him. It would never do to say that he had been playing cards—worse, that he had been gambling. Professor Strong had read the young travelers more than one lecture on evils of this sort.
“I—I got in a crowd and somehow I either lost the money or it was taken from me,” stammered the bully. “But please don’t tell the others,” he went on. “They’ll only have the laugh on me.”
“Just give me the details,” said Professor Strong, briefly, and then Hockley had to invent a long tale of how he had gone carriage riding down to the seashore and how, while he was getting a lunch at a restaurant, there had been a horse runaway and he had gone out to see the excitement.
“There was more of a crowd than I thought,” he continued. “I was shoved around by a policeman and a number of natives. I had been counting my money and when the excitement began I rammed itin my hip pocket. When I went back to the eating place the money was gone.”
“And what made you remain away all night?”
“It was growing dark when the runaway happened and I thought I could find the money this morning. But I didn’t find anything.”
“Humph! How about your watch and that ring you are in the habit of wearing?”
Hockley felt a certain cold chill steal over him. In his haste to smooth matters over he had forgotten about the watch and the ring.
“They—er—they got lost too,” he said, lamely, his face growing very red.
“Quite likely,” was Professor Strong’s comment. “Come with me. We will get to the bottom of this later on—after you have had something to eat.”
Hockley was hungry, but eating breakfast came very hard to him that morning. As soon as he had finished Professor Strong plied him with questions, and at last he broke down and confessed all—how he had received the money order from home and how he had started out to have a little quiet fun, as he called it. And then, when the professor insisted that he take him to the spot where the runaway had occurred, he had to admit that there hadbeen no runaway but that he had fallen into the hands of a sharper, and that the sharper now had all the money excepting ten dollars and the amount spent for the dinner.
“I am sure he drugged me,” said Hockley, weakly. “He wouldn’t have gotten the money from me if he hadn’t.”
“I will see the man,” returned Professor Strong, shortly, and insisted that the youth show the way to where J. Rutherford Brown might be found.
The man from Montana stood upon the hotel steps, just preparatory to going on a hunt for another victim. He was smoking a black-looking cigar. He felt particularly elated, for between Hockley and a victim picked up two days before he had come into the possession of over three hundred dollars. To be sure, this was no fortune, especially to one supposed to own valuable gold mines in the West, but to J. Rutherford Brown, who had often had less than a dollar in his pockets, it was a considerable sum.
“Don’t think I’ll stay here much longer,” he mused, as he puffed away. “That boy or that man from Philadelphia may turn up and make trouble. Guess I’ll go back to San Juan.”
“There is the fellow!” cried Hockley, to Professor Strong. “The man with the checked suit, who is smoking.”
The professor took a good look and then he smiled grimly to himself. “I fancy we are in luck,” he said, briefly. “I know this fellow.”
“You do?” ejaculated Hockley. “Who is he?”
Professor Strong did not answer, but going up to the man from Montana clapped him on the arm.
“So we meet again, Henry Umbler,” he said.
The man who had called himself J. Rutherford Brown gave a start and his face changed color. Then he recovered and endeavored to put on a bold front.
“You are mistaken, sir. My name is not Umbler,” he said.
“We won’t argue the point, Umbler. I want you to pay back to this young man the money you took from him.”
“Don’t know him, sir. You are making a mistake.”
“Are you sure of this fellow?” questioned Professor Strong of Hockley.
“Yes, sir,” was the prompt answer.
“Then, Umbler, you must give up the money,every cent of it. Please to remember that you are in United States territory now—not in Brazil, where you were when last we met. I fancy some stockholders of the International Star Rubber Company would be glad to get their hands on Henry Umbler, one of the promoters of that get-rich-quick concern.”
“I tell you I am not Henry Umbler,” insisted the man from Montana.
“Very well then. We’ll go to police headquarters and settle this affair.”
“What do you want?”
“I want this young man’s money, his watch and his ring returned to him.”
“What is he to you?”
“I brought him down here to see the sights,—and I am bound to see that he is not swindled. Give him back his money and other things and I will not prosecute you, but if you refuse, I’ll see to it that he not only gets his money but that you go back to the West, where you belong.”
At this plain talk the face of the swindler became a study. At last he turned and faced Hockley.
“We had a fair game,” he growled. “You’re a baby to squeal, nothing but a baby. But if you want the money you can have it.”
He brought a roll of bills out of his pocket, and began to count out a sum equal to that the youth had possessed. With this, and the watch and ring, in his hand he looked again at Professor Strong.
“If I give him this does that close the whole affair?” he asked.
“Yes, so far is I am concerned,” answered Amos Strong.
“Then here you are, baby,” went on the man from Montana, and thrust the money and other things into Hockley’s willing hand. “Don’t ever try to be a sport again. You’re only fit to be let loose in a kindergarten.” And then he walked away, puffing at his black cigar more furiously than ever.
“Who is he?” questioned Hockley, as he put the money away, after counting it.
“He is a Western sharp,” replied the professor. “Years ago he was mixed up in a stock company that proved to be little better than a swindle. I had some shares in it but managed to get my money back. I tried to help others in the company, but they wouldn’t listen to my plan and went ahead on their own account and lost. I met Umbler in Brazil once and tried to get more money out of him, for the other stockholders, but he laughed at me, forat that time it would have been a hard matter to have a man transported from Brazil to the United States on such a charge as I could make.”
“I—I am much obliged for getting the money back, sir.”
“It was rare good luck, Jacob, nothing else, and now you have it again I want you to turn it over to me.”
“But, sir——.”
“I will not argue the matter.” Professor Strong’s voice grew stern once more. “You can either give the money to me, or pack your trunk and go home. And if you get into any more such scrapes I shall notify your father and send you home anyway. I want no more gambling and no more ‘seeing the sights’ on your own account. You have got to turn over a new leaf.”
For half an hour Amos Strong “laid down the law” to Hockley and at the end of that time the bully felt very humble indeed. He did not wish to be sent home, and he promised faithfully to do better in the future; and there the affair was dropped.