“Oh, this is absurd!” cried the new-comer as soon as he had recovered somewhat from his surprise. “I am George Harrington. What does it mean – some subterfuge on your part, sir, to make me take fresh steps to prove my identity? If so, pray speak out.”

The lawyer made a deprecatory movement.

“I beg your pardon, ladies, for speaking out so abruptly, but it was a natural feeling of indignation.”

“It is quite excusable, sir, and this is no subterfuge.”

“But in Heaven’s name give me some explanation.”

“My dear Gertrude, Mrs Hampton,” said the lawyer with dignity, “perhaps it would be better for you to leave us. This gentleman and I will discuss the matter together.”

Gertrude looked at him almost resentfully, and then there was quite an air of sympathy in her manner, as she turned to their visitor, who said gravely:

“Yes, Miss Bellwood, I quite agree with this gentleman, it would, perhaps, be better that we should discuss the question alone. Indeed, till I have proved that I am no impostor, I am no fit company for ladies.”

He crossed to the door, held it open, and bowed gravely, as without a word they passed out, and then as soon as they were gone, he turned fiercely upon the old man.

“Now, sir, if you please, I am waiting for an explanation,” he said in a low, angry voice.

“Yet,” said Mr Hampton, throwing himself back in his chair, thrusting up his glasses, and fixing his calm, cold eyes upon the visitor as he continued, “I do not grant that you have any right, sir, to demand this explanation. Your position should be that, if you consider you have a just claim, you should instruct a solicitor, and he would place himself in communication with me.”

“Hang all solicitors, sir!” cried the young man angrily, and his eyes seemed to flash with indignation.

The old man made a gesture.

“I beg your pardon, Mr Hampton. I believe you said you were a solicitor,” he added quickly.

“Go on, sir; I am not offended. On the contrary I rather like your display of anger. It makes me feel that you may be honest instead of an extremely clever pretender.”

“Honest, sir! Good Heavens! Put yourself in my place. Now, between man and man what does this mean?”

“Simply what I have told you; but sit down, sir. This is a question for calm consideration, and you are walking up and down like – ”

“A wild beast in a cage. Yes, I know it; but who can be calm at a time like this? Pray excuse me and go on.”

“I have very little to tell you, sir. Perhaps, as the solicitor of the party in possession, I ought to make no admissions. I can merely tell you that nearly four months ago Mr George Harrington came over from America with indubitable proofs of his identity, and, as soon as the proper legal forms could be gone though, took possession.”

“Nearly four months ago? Here, stop a moment, sir. Was he a man about my height?”

“Yes.”

“Rather darker?”

The old lawyer bowed, and scrutinised the speaker carefully.

“He had a quick, sharp way of speaking, and a habit of looking behind him as if in search of danger.”

“Exactly. You are describing Mr George Harrington most carefully.”

“The villain! The hound! And I thought it was for robbery only. Well, one knows how to treat a man like that when we meet.”

He showed his regular white teeth, as his brow puckered up, and there was a look of fierce determination in his eyes as startling as his next act, which was to slip his hand behind him, and draw a small heavy-looking revolver from his pocket. This he examined quickly as he tried the lock.

“Put that away, sir,” cried Mr Hampton sternly. “You are not in the Far West now but in civilised England. Give me that pistol instantly.”

The young man handed the weapon without a moment’s hesitation.

“I beg your pardon, Mr Hampton,” he said. “Temper, got the better of me.”

He threw himself into a chair.

“Will you let me speak out quietly and calmly?”

“Go on, sir,” said the lawyer.

There was a pause, during which the young man seemed to be collecting himself, and then he said in a deep, clear voice:

“You are quite right, sir. This is a question for calm settlement, and as I have right on my side I can afford to wait.”

“That’s talking like a reasonable man, sir.”

“You must excuse me. Much of my life has been passed on ranches and upon the mountains, among desperadoes and rough fellows, who do not place much value upon a man’s life. Then I have had long dealings with Indians and bears, and altogether I am not much of a drawing-room man.”

The lawyer bowed and glanced at the pistol on the table at his side.

“During my last year in the West, I picked up for companion a clever, shrewd fellow, named Portway – Daniel Portway. He was in terribly low water, and as it seemed to me undeservedly. He had been gold-prospecting, he told me, and had made some good finds; but ill-luck had dogged his steps. He was robbed by his companions twice over. He was attacked by Indians three or four times, and when I came upon him in Denver the poor wretch was down with fever. Well, to make the story short, I did what one Englishman would do by another if he found him out in a wild place dying. I couldn’t get a woman to attend him for love or money, so I had to do it myself, and a long and tedious job I had. I don’t know that I liked him, but I found he was a clever hunter, and knew the way about the mountains well, so we became companions, and I took him on my hunting expeditions. There, sir, honestly, I don’t think I could have behaved better to him if he had been a brother.”

There was a pause, and then in a voice husky with emotion he exclaimed:

“Hang it all! how can a man be such a brute? Well, sir, I suppose in chatting with him I let him know all my affairs, and at last read him my letters. He knew that I was coming to England as soon as I had ended that last expedition. There, I’m a frank sort of fellow, who would trust any man till I found out that he was a rogue. I suppose I began talking about my affairs, like a fool, to relieve the tedium of his illness. Thus it went on till he must have known all I knew.”

“This is a very plausible story, Mr Daniel Portway,” said the lawyer quietly; but he started, and laid his hand upon the revolver, so fierce was the bound the young man made to his feet.

But he sat down again directly.

“No, no; you don’t think that, sir. May I go on?”

“By all means.”

“Shall I take the cartridges out of the revolver, sir?” said the young man drily, “in case, I make a snatch at it.”

“No, no, no. Go on, sir; go on.”

There was a meaning smile on the young man’s lips as he went on again, and began telling of his last hunting-trip; but the smile soon died out, and he looked stern and relentless as he spoke of the weary tramp they had had, the midday sleep, and their journey afterwards till they were beside the great cañon, where he stepped forward to look about him.

“And then – I suppose it was a sudden temptation – the brute took a step or two forward, came close behind me, and before I could turn, for I felt paralysed with the horror of my position, he raised his rifle as high as he could reach, and struck me a crashing blow upon the back of the head.”

“How do you know if you were looking in another direction?”

“Because the evening sun cast his shadow upon the side of the cañon, where it seemed to me in that momentary flash that one giant was smiting down another. Then I fell headlong down, and for a few moments all was darkness.”

“Go on, sir,” said the old lawyer, who was deeply interested, for his vis-à-vis was talking in a slow, laboured way, as if the recollection of the terrible scene was more than he could bear and choked him with emotion.

“Then I came to myself, to lie helpless as if in a dream. I could not stir or make a sound; but I could hear distinctly, as I lay low down where I had fallen, the sounds made by some one lowering himself down the side of the cañon. Now twigs were breaking, and now stones kept falling; and after what seemed to be a long time, full of a dull sense of pain and drowsiness, I was conscious of a heavy breathing as of a wild beast.”

“A bear,” said the old lawyer involuntarily.

“No,” said the young man with a bitter smile; “a worse kind of wild beast than that: a man, sir – mine own familiar friend – Dan Portway.”

“Ah!”

“He was searching my pockets, and taking everything about me; my roughly-made, plain gold ring – pure gold from a pocket in the mountains – what letters I had; everything. Of course I had not much with me; nearly all I possessed was at my tent in the saddlebags miles away.”

“You felt all this?”

“And saw, though my eyes were nearly closed. And at last, as it seemed to me, he was about to finish his work by casting me down headlong into the profound depths of the great chasm, when a devilish thought entered his mind and seemed to flash into mine as he held me.”

There was another pause, and the young man’s voice sounded very husky, and he seemed to be suffering the bygone horror over again as he recommenced:

“I tell you I could not stir, but I could think, and feel, and see that devil’s satisfied grin as he must have said to himself: —

“‘Some day, perhaps, his body may be found, and then they will say he was last seen in my company, and it might prove awkward. They shall think he was killed by the Indians.’”

During the earlier part of this narrative the old lawyer had leaned back in his chair; but as he grew interested he sat up, then leaned forward, and now rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and gazed full in the speaker’s face, so as not to lose a gesture, the slightest play of his countenance, or a word.

“Yes,” he continued; “go on.”

“It was as I thought, and for a moment I tried to shut out the horror, and to ask God to forgive all I had done wrong, and spare me the horrible agony I was to feel before I died.

“But I could only think a few of the words I wished to say, and then, as if every other sense grew more capable of taking in all that passed, I saw him draw his keen hunting-knife from his belt. He seized my hair, and the next moment the point was dividing the skin of my forehead, and I felt the resistance offered by the bone, the sharp pain, and the blood start and begin to trickle over my temples. Then there was a hideous yell; he let me fall, and fled.”

“Repentant?” said the old lawyer in an excited whisper.

“You shall hear, sir. As my head struck the rock there was a heavy breathing, a rustling sound of undergrowth being thrust aside, and a heavy foot was planted upon my chest, as a huge bear rushed over me in full pursuit of my would-be murderer, and then I lay listening to the crackling of twigs and the falling of stones. By degrees this died away, and for a long time all was still, and I must have glided into a state of insensibility from which I was roused by a low, snuffling noise, and I felt hot breath upon my face, and the wet tongue of the great bear licking my forehead. Then I felt him paw at me, and turn me over on to my face.

“Then all was blank.

“When I could see again I was lying chest downward, perfectly helpless, but with my head so turned that I could see, a dozen yards away, the great grizzly bear busy feeding upon the fruit of one of the low shrubs which grew on the side of the cañon. Sometimes he crawled leisurely down, sometimes up, as the fruit was most abundant; and this seemed to satisfy him; for though during the next two days he came near me again and again, he never so much as snuffed about me.

“But it all seems, after I awoke that morning, dreamlike and strange. I told you it was two days, but I am not sure about that. I have a dim recollection of the sun burning me, and seeming to scorch my brain, of its being light and dark, and of a horrible sensation of thirst, and then of all being blank. Rather a ghastly tale for ladies’ ears, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” said the old lawyer. “And afterwards?”

“Afterwards, sir? Yes; the next thing I remember is lying upon a bison-skin in an Indian’s skin lodge, and of the dark, dirty, wild face of a squaw looking down into mine. Then of being held up while my head was bandaged, and then for a long period all seemed misty and wild. I was hunting and shooting in the Rockies. Then I was galloping after bison with which the plain seemed to be black. Then I was prospecting for gold, and finding rifts in the rocks full and waiting to be torn out, but I could never get the gold, never succeed in hunting or shooting. There was always something to interfere, till at last I found that I was as weak as a child, and with almost the thought and action of a helpless babe, living in the lodge of a roving party of Indians who camped just where it seemed to be good in their own eyes. They are savages, whom the white man has ousted from nearly all their own hunting grounds; they are filthy and abominable in their ways, false and treacherous, all that is bad some have learned, but they nursed me through a long fever and delirium into a sort of imbecile childhood, from which I slowly gained my manhood’s reason and strength, and then they gave me my rifle, and set me at liberty to join a party of gold-seekers across whom we came.”

“They found you there, lying half dead by the bear.”

“I suppose so, sir. All I know I found out by thinking the matter over. I recollect standing my rifle against a rock close to the track; and as my companion fled, I suppose they must have seen it in passing, hunted about for the owner and found me. I do not know for I could not understand the Indians, and they could not understand me.

“I have nearly done, sir,” said the young man speaking more briskly now. “I made my way to my old camping-place, but there was nothing there, and I was wondering whether Dan Portway had carried everything off, till I remembered seeing the bear charge him, and I went to the place, expecting, perhaps, to find his bones. But I made no discovery; and knowing what a hopeless task it would be to try and find the villain, I determined to come on here in obedience to the letter I had received before I went for my last trip, made my way to San Francisco, and there I learned of my grandfather’s death.”

“You made no effort then to find your assailant?” said the lawyer.

“No, sir, and it has proved to be the correct thing to do, for in coming here I have run him to earth.”

They sat gazing at each other for some moments in silence. Then Mr Hampton spoke.

“You have the scar, then, made by your enemy’s knife?”

“Yes, sir, here,” said the young man, slightly pressing back his hair, and bending forward so that the light of the shaded lamp fell upon a red line about half an inch from the roots.

“And the injury to your head?”

“Rather an ugly place still, sir. The skull was slightly fractured. Do you wish for that proof of my identity?”

“I should like that proof of the truth of your story, sir. I am a lawyer.”

“Give me your hand, then.”

He took the old man’s index finger, bent lower, and pressed it upon the back of his head.

The old man shuddered and drew back.

“And if you want any further proof that I am the man I say, I have one here that I had forgotten. When I was a child, for some freak, my father tattooed a heart and dart upon my breast. There they are.”

He tore open the flannel shirt he wore, and displayed the blue marks upon his clear white skin.

“There, sir; that is all I can tell you now. The next thing is to confront Mr Dan Portway.”

“You think, then, that your old companion – I mean you wish me to believe that your old companion took everything he could to prove his identity, and has come here, and traded upon the knowledge he won?”

“And come here and laid claim to the estate, sir. Yes, I could lay my life that is the case.”

At that moment there was a tap at the door.

Chapter Twenty Seven
“It’s him; it’s him!”

“Come in.”

Mrs Denton entered timidly, looking nervously at the stranger, and then said deprecatingly:

“Mrs Hampton sent me, sir, to say she should be glad to speak to you, sir.”

“Yes, yes, of course. Well, sir, I have heard all you wanted to say?”

“No, not yet,” cried the young man excitedly. “I say, old lady, you remember me?”

The old woman looked at him wistfully, and shook her head.

“No, sir, no,” she said.

“Oh, yes, you do,” he cried merrily. “Don’t you remember washing me when I was a little chap in a sort of tin bath with spots on it, red spots, and the inside was white, with shiny places, where the paint had come off.”

The old woman gazed at him wildly.

“You remember? The bottom curved up and as I stood on it, gave way, and then came up again with a loud bump.”

She still gazed at him silently, while he seemed to be trying to evoke old memories.

“Yes, to be sure, and you put me to bed in a great four-post affair, with heavy tassels and bobs round the top, and they swung to and fro, and – to be sure, yes, you set a great night-shade full of round holes on the floor, with a tin cup of water in it, and a long thin rushlight in the middle. Oh, yes, I remember seeing those holes reflected on the wall.”

“Yes, my dear,” cried the old woman excitedly, “and it has never been used since. No, Mr Hampton, sir, there are no long rushlights now.”

“Come, sir,” cried the young man excitedly, “we are beginning to feel bottom after all.”

“But – but – ” faltered the old woman, and then stopped.

“Why, my dear old lady,” cried the young man, taking her withered hands, “I can remember you holding my little palms together as I knelt on the bed, and teaching me to say a kind of prayer. Let me see, what was it – I’ve never heard it since – yes, that’s it:

“Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
God bless the bed that I lay on,
Four corners to my bed,
Six angels round me spread,
Two at head, two at feet,
And two to guard me while I sleep.”

The poor old woman’s jaw dropped, her eyes dilated, and her hands went up, as the speaker went on, and as he ended the simple, pious old doggerel, she burst into a hysterical fit of sobbing as she cried:

“Yes, yes, yes, it is – it is him, sir. Oh, my dear, dear boy; and you growed to be such a fine young man. It is you, Master George. Thank God! Thank God!”

She flung her arms about his neck, and he held her to his breast, kissing her withered old brow as he patted her cheek gently, ignorant of the fact that Mrs Hampton and Gertrude had followed to the open door, and were waiting impatiently for the old woman’s return.

“Come, old granny,” cried the young man, “this is more like coming home. Heaven bless all memories, say I.”

“Yes, my dear,” sobbed the old woman, looking at him proudly, as she laid her hands on his breast, and gazed in his face.

“And – Ha, ha, ha! The sugar drops you made me, and – by Jove, yes. What’s become of the old fruit-knife, and the white needle-case, and that bit of sweet root you used to keep in that big old pocket. Don’t you remember? You gave them to me to play with.”

The old woman uttered a little laugh full of childish delight as she bent sidewise, thrust one arm through an opening, raked about, and, as playfully as if she were dealing with a child, brought out by degrees the articles he had named, all preserved as old folk do preserve such things, and in addition a little square tin box, with grotesque heads stamped thereon.

“But you don’t recollect that?” she said playfully.

“Yes, I do,” he cried eagerly; “it’s the one out of which I spilt all the pins.”

“May we come in?” said Mrs Hampton, in her stern, harsh voice.

“Yes, yes, ma’am,” cried the old woman excitedly. “Miss Gertrude, my dear, oh, be quick! It’s him; it’s him; and me not to have known him directly I saw his face.”

A short, dry cough from the lawyer checked her, as, flushed and trembling with excitement, Gertrude stood once more in the room.

“Yes, yes, Denton,” said the old lawyer; “this is all very good evidence, but – ”

“Oh, it’s him, sir! it’s him! Miss Gertrude, we’ve all been dreadfully cheated. It’s him; it’s him!”

“Mrs Denton, have the goodness to be silent,” said Mr Hampton sternly.

“Yes, yes, granny,” said the young man, laying his arm caressingly on her shoulder; “be quiet now and wait. By-and-bye I hope to convince all here as strongly as I have convinced you.”

“You shall have fair play, sir,” said the lawyer gravely. “I regret to be compelled to treat you as I do; and I regret also that I must withhold all confidence in what you have said. I can only say, sir, that you have impressed me most favourably.”

“And I’m sure you never drink, my dear?” cried Denton.

“Mrs Denton?”

“I beg pardon, sir; it’s only that I’m so glad to see his bonny face again.”

“I shall,” continued the old lawyer —

“Excuse me for interposing, sir,” said the young man excitedly, for he had flushed as he met Gertrude’s eyes fixed wonderingly, and yet with a pleased expression upon his. “You are a lawyer, and the ways of the law are said to be slow. The case is this – ”

He spoke at the old lawyer, but he looked at Gertrude the while.

“I’m George Harrington, and during my illness the man I trusted has, believing me dead, come over and robbed me of my birthright. The first thing to be done is to bring us face to face.”

“Yes,” assented Mrs Hampton; “to bring them face to face.”

Gertrude drew a long breath, and it seemed as if a terrible load had been lifted from her breast.

“Without confronting the man who, I say, has imposed upon you all, and whom I believe to be Dan Portway, I have no means of proving who I am – save by the tattooed marks.”

“Which he possesses, too,” said the lawyer gravely.

“What! Oh, there must be an end to this. He claims to be George Harrington. I, George Harrington, say that he is a liar and impostor. Now, then, I am ready to confront him. Where is this man?”

There was a dead silence in the room.