Charlie Brooke listened to this narrative with compressed brows, and remained silent a few seconds. “My poor chum!” he exclaimed at length. Then a flash of fire seemed to gleam in his blue eyes as he added, “If I had that fellow Ritson by the—”
He stopped abruptly, and the fire in the eyes died out, for it was no part of our hero’s character to boast—much less to speak harshly of men behind their backs.
“Has money been sent?” he asked.
“Not yet. It is about that business that I’m going to call on poor Mrs Leather now. We must be careful, you see. I have no reason, it is true, to believe that Ritson is deceiving us, but when a youth of no principle writes to make a sudden demand for money, it behoves people to think twice before they send it.”
“Ay, to think three times—perhaps even four or five,” broke in the Captain, with stern emphasis. “I know Ralph Ritson well, the scoundrel, an’ if I had aught to do wi’ it I’d not send him a penny. As I said to my—”
“Does your mother know of your arrival?” asked Mr Crossley abruptly.
“No; I meant to take her by surprise.”
“Humph! Just like you young fellows. In some things you have no more brains than geese. Being made of cast-iron and shoe-leather you assume that everybody else is, or ought to be, made of the same raw material. Don’t you know that surprises of this sort are apt to kill delicate people?”
Charlie smiled by way of reply.
“No, sir,” continued the old gentleman firmly, “I won’t let you take her by surprise. While I go round to the Leathers my good friend Captain Stride will go in advance of you to Mrs Brooke’s and break the news to her. He is accustomed to deal with ladies.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the gratified Captain, removing his hat and wiping his brow. “As I said, no later than yesterday to—”
A terrific shriek from the steam-whistle, and a plunge into the darkness of a tunnel stopped—and thus lost to the world for ever—what the Captain said upon that occasion.
Chapter Eleven.
Tells of Happy Meetings and Serious Consultations
Whether Captain Stride executed his commission well or not we cannot tell, and whether the meeting of Mrs Brooke with her long-lost son came to near killing or not we will not tell. Enough to know that they met, and that the Captain—with that delicacy of feeling so noticeable in seafaring men—went outside the cottage door and smoked his pipe while the meeting was in progress. After having given sufficient time, as he said, “for the first o’ the squall to blow over,” he summarily snubbed his pipe, put it into his vest pocket, and re-entered.
“Now, missus, you’ll excuse me, ma’am, for cuttin’ in atween you, but this business o’ the Leathers is pressin’, an’ if we are to hold a confabulation wi’ the family about it, why—”
“Ah, to be sure, Captain Stride is right,” said Mrs Brooke, turning to her stalwart son, who was seated on the sofa beside her. “This is a very, very sad business about poor Shank. You had better go to them, Charlie. I will follow you in a short time.”
“Mr Crossley is with them at this moment. I forgot to say so, mother.”
“Is he? I’m very glad of that,” returned the widow. “He has been a true friend to us all. Go, Charlie. But stay. I see May coming. The dear child always comes to me when there is anything good or sorrowful to tell. But she comes from the wrong direction. Perhaps she does not yet know of Mr Crossley’s arrival.”
“May! Can it be?” exclaimed Charlie in an undertone of surprise as he observed, through the window, the girl who approached.
And well might he be surprised, for this, although the same May, was very different from the girl he left behind him. The angles of girlhood had given place to the rounded lines of young womanhood. The rich curly brown hair, which used to whirl wildly in the sea-breezes, was gathered up in a luxuriant mass behind her graceful head, and from the forehead it was drawn back in two wavy bands, in defiance of fashion, which at that time was beginning to introduce the detestable modern fringe. Perhaps we are not quite un-biassed in our judgment of the said fringe, far it is intimately associated in our mind with the savages of North America, whose dirty red faces, in years past, were wont to glower at us from beneath just such a fringe, long before it was adopted by the fair dames of England!
In other respects, however, May was little changed, except that the slightest curl of sadness about her eyebrows made her face more attractive than ever, as she nodded pleasantly to the Captain, who had hastened to the door to meet her.
“So glad to see you, Captain Stride,” she said, shaking hands with unfeminine heartiness. “Have you been to see mother? I have just been having a walk before—”
She stopped as if transfixed, for at that moment she caught sight of Charlie and his mother through the open door.
Poor May flushed to the roots of her hair; then she turned deadly pale, and would have fallen had not the gallant Captain caught her in his arms. But by a powerful effort of will she recovered herself in time to avoid a scene.
“The sight of you reminded me so strongly of our dear Shank!” she stammered, when Charlie, hastening forward, grasped both her hands and shook them warmly. “Besides—some of us thought you were dead.”
“No wonder you thought of Shank,” returned Charlie, “for he and I used to be so constantly together. But don’t be cast down, May. We’ll get Shank out of his troubles yet.”
“Yes, and you know he has Ritson with him,” said Mrs Brooke; “and he, although not quite as steady as we could wish, will be sure to care for such an old friend in his sickness. But you’d better go, Charlie, and see Mrs Leather. They will be sure to want you and Captain Stride. May will remain here with me. Sit down beside me, dear, I want to have a chat with you.”
“Perhaps, ma’am, if I make so bold,” interposed the Captain, “Mr Crossley may want to have Miss May also at the council of war.”
“Mr Crossley! is he with my mother?” asked the girl eagerly.
“Yes, Miss May, he is.”
“Then I must be there. Excuse me, dear Mrs Brooke.”
And without more ado May ran out of the house. She was followed soon after by Charlie and the Captain, and Mrs Brooke was left alone, expressing her thankfulness and joy of heart in a few silent tears over her knitting.
There was a wonderful similarity in many respects between Mrs Brooke and her friend Mrs Leather. They both knitted—continuously and persistently. This was a convenient if not a powerful bond, for it enabled them to sit for hours together—busy, yet free to talk. They were both invalids—a sympathetic bond of considerable strength. They held the same religious views—an indispensable bond where two people have to be much together, and are in earnest. They were both poor—a natural bond which draws people of a certain kind very close together, physically as well as spiritually—and both, up to this time at least, had long-absent and semi-lost sons. Even in the matter of daughters they might be said, in a sense, to be almost equal, for May, loving each, was a daughter to both. Lastly, in this matter of similarity, the two ladies were good—good as gold, according to Captain Stride, and he ought to have been an authority, for he frequently visited them and knew all their affairs. Fortunately for both ladies, Mrs Brooke was by far the stronger-minded—hence they never quarrelled!
In Mrs Leather’s parlour a solemn conclave was seated round the parlour table. They were very earnest, for the case under consideration was urgent, as well as very pitiful. Poor Mrs Leather’s face was wet with tears, and the pretty brown eyes of May were not dry. They had had a long talk over the letter from Ritson, which was brief and to the point but meagre as to details.
“I rather like the letter, considering who wrote it,” observed Mr Crossley, laying it down after a fourth perusal. “You see he makes no whining or discontented reference to the hardness of their luck, which young scapegraces are so fond of doing; nor does he make effusive professions of regret or repentance, which hypocrites are so prone to do. I think it bears the stamp of being genuine on the face of it. At least it appears to be straightforward.”
“I’m so glad you think so, Mr Crossley,” said Mrs Leather; “for Mr Ritson is such a pleasant young man—and so good-looking, too!”
The old gentleman and the Captain both burst into a laugh at this.
“I’m afraid,” said the former, “that good looks are no guarantee for good behaviour. However, I have made up my mind to send him a small sum of money—not to Shank, Mrs Leather, so you need not begin to thank me. I shall send it to Ritson.”
“Well, thank you all the same,” interposed the lady, taking up her knitting and resuming operations below the table, gazing placidly all the while at her friends like some consummate conjuror, “for Ralph will be sure to look after Shank.”
“The only thing that puzzles me is, how are we to get it sent to such an out-o’-the-way place—Traitor’s Trap! It’s a bad name, and the stupid fellow makes no mention of any known town near to it, though he gives the post-office. If I only knew its exact whereabouts I might get some one to take the money to him, for I have agents in many parts of America.”
After prolonged discussion of the subject, Mr Crossley returned to town to make inquiries, and the Captain went to take his favourite walk by the sea-shore, where he was wont, when paying a visit to Sealford, to drive the Leathers’ little dog half-mad with delight by throwing stones into the sea for Scraggy to go in for—which he always did, though he never fetched them out.
In the course of that day Charlie Brooke left his mother to take a stroll, and naturally turned in the direction of the sea. When half-way through the lane with the high banks on either side he encountered May.
“What a pleasant pretty girl she has become!” was his thought as she drew near.
“Nobler and handsomer than ever!” was hers as he approached.
The thoughts of both sent a flush to the face of each, but the colour scarcely showed through the bronzed skin of the man.
“Why, what a woman you have grown, May!” said Charlie, grasping her hand, and attempting to resume the old familiar terms—with, however, imperfect success.
“Isn’t that natural?” asked May, with a glance and a little laugh.
That glance and that little laugh, insignificant in themselves, tore a veil from the eyes of Charlie Brooke. He had always been fond of May Leather, after a fashion. Now it suddenly rushed upon him that he was fond of her after another fashion! He was a quick thinker and just reasoner. A poor man without a profession and no prospects has no right to try to gain the affections of a girl. He became grave instantly.
“May,” he said, “will you turn back to the shore with me for a little? I want to have a talk about Shank. I want you to tell me all you know about him. Don’t conceal anything. I feel as if I had a right to claim your confidence, for, as you know well, he and I have been like brothers since we were little boys.”
May had turned at once, and the tears filled her eyes as she told the sad story. It was long, and the poor girl was graphic in detail. We can give but the outline here.
Shank had gone off with Ritson not long after the sailing of the Walrus. On reaching America, and hearing of the failure of the company that worked the gold mine, and of old Ritson’s death, they knew not which way to turn. It was a tremendous blow, and seemed to have rendered them reckless, for they soon took to gambling. At first they remained in New York, and letters came home pretty regularly, in which Shank always expressed hopes of getting more respectable work. He did not conceal their mode of gaining a livelihood, but defended it on the ground that “a man must live!”
For a time the letters were cheerful. The young men were “lucky.” Then came a change of luck, and a consequent change in the letters, which came less frequently. At last there arrived one from Shank, both the style and penmanship of which told that he had not forsaken the great curse of his life—strong drink. It told of disaster, and of going off to the “Rockies” with a party of “discoverers,” though what they were to discover was not mentioned.
“From that date till now,” said May in conclusion, “we have heard nothing about them till this letter came from Mr Ritson, telling of dear Shank being so ill, and asking for money.”
“I wish any one were with Shank rather than that man,” said Charlie sternly; “I have no confidence in him whatever, and I knew him well as a boy.”
“Nevertheless, I think we may trust him. Indeed I feel sure he won’t desert his wounded comrade,” returned May, with a blush.
The youth did not observe the blush. His thoughts were otherwise engaged, and his eyes were at the moment fixed on a far-off part of the shore, where Captain Stride could be seen urging on the joyful Scraggy to his fruitless labours.
“I wish I could feel as confident of him as you do, May. However, misfortune as well as experience may have made him a wiser, perhaps a better, man. But what troubles me most is the uncertainty of the money that Mr Crossley is going to send ever reaching its destination.”
“Oh! if we only knew some one in New York who would take it to them,” said May, looking piteously at the horizon, as if she were apostrophising some one on the other side of the Atlantic.
“Why, you talk as if New York and Traitor’s Trap were within a few miles of each other,” said Charlie, smiling gently. “They are hundreds of miles apart.”
“Well, I suppose they are. But I feel so anxious about Shank when I think of the dear boy lying ill, perhaps dying, in a lonely place far far away from us all, and no one but Mr Ritson to care for him! If I were only a man I would go to him myself.”
She broke down at this point, and put her handkerchief to her face.
“Don’t cry, May,” began the youth in sore perplexity, for he knew not how to comfort the poor girl in the circumstances, but fortunately Captain Stride caught sight of them at the moment, and gave them a stentorian hail.
“Hi! halloo! back your to-o-o-ps’ls. I’ll overhaul ye in a jiffy.”
How long a nautical jiffy may be we know not, but, in a remarkably brief space of time, considering the shortness and thickness of his sea-legs, the Captain was alongside, blowing, as he said, “like a grampus.”
That night Charlie Brooke sat with his mother in her parlour. They were alone—their friends having considerately left them to themselves on this their first night.
They had been talking earnestly about past and present, for the son had much to learn about old friends and comrades, and the mother had much to tell.
“And now, mother,” said Charlie, at the end of a brief pause, “what about the future?”
“Surely, my boy, it is time enough to talk about that to-morrow, or next day. You are not obliged to think of the future before you have spent even one night in your old room.”
“Not absolutely obliged, mother. Nevertheless, I should like to speak about it. Poor Shank is heavy on my mind, and when I heard all about him to-day from May, I—. She’s wonderfully improved, that girl, mother. Grown quite pretty?”
“Indeed she is—and as good as she’s pretty,” returned Mrs Brooke, with a furtive glance at her son.
“She broke down when talking about Shank to-day, and I declare she looked quite beautiful! Evidently Shank’s condition weighs heavily on her mind.”
“Can you wonder, Charlie?”
“Of course not. It’s natural, and I quite sympathised with her when she exclaimed, ‘If I were only a man I would go to him myself.’”
“That’s natural too, my son. I have no doubt she would, poor dear girl, if she were only a man.”
“Do you know, mother, I’ve not been able to get that speech out of my head all this afternoon. ‘If I were a man—if I were a man,’ keeps ringing in my ears like the chorus of an old song, and then—”
“Well, Charlie, what then?” asked Mrs Brooke, with a puzzled glance.
“Why, then, somehow the chorus has changed in my brain and it runs— ‘I am a man! I am a man!’”
“Well?” asked the mother, with an anxious look.
“Well—that being so, I have made up my mind that I will go out to Traitor’s Trap and carry the money to Shank, and look after him myself. That is, if you will let me.”
“O Charlie! how can you talk of it?” said Mrs Brooke, with a distressed look. “I have scarcely had time to realise the fact that you have come home, and to thank God for it, when you begin to talk of leaving me again—perhaps for years, as before.”
“Nay, mother mine, you jump to conclusions too hastily. What I propose is not to go off again on a long voyage, but to take a run of a few days in a first-class steamer across what the Americans call the big fish-pond; then go across country comfortably by rail; after that hire a horse and have a gallop somewhere or other; find out Shank and bring him home. The whole thing might be done in a few weeks; and no chance, almost, of being wrecked.”
“I don’t know, Charlie,” returned Mrs Brooke, in a sad tone, as she laid her hand on her son’s arm and stroked it. “As you put it, the thing sounds all very easy, and no doubt it would be a grand, a noble thing to rescue Shank—but—but, why talk of it to-night, my dear boy? It is late. Go to bed, Charlie, and we will talk it over in the morning.”
“How pleasantly familiar that ‘Go to bed, Charlie,’ sounds,” said the son, laughing, as he rose up.
“You did not always think it pleasant,” returned the good lady, with a sad smile.
“That’s true, but I think it uncommonly pleasant now. Good-night, mother.”
“Good-night, my son, and God bless you.”
Chapter Twelve.
Changes the Scene Considerably!
We must transport our reader now to a locality somewhere in the region lying between New Mexico and Colorado. Here, in a mean-looking out-of-the-way tavern, a number of rough-looking men were congregated, drinking, gambling, and spinning yarns. Some of them belonged to the class known as cow-boys—men of rugged exterior, iron constitutions, powerful frames, and apparently reckless dispositions, though underneath the surface there was considerable variety of character to be found.
The landlord of the inn—if we may so call it, for it was little better than a big shanty—was known by the name of David. He was a man of cool courage. His customers knew this latter fact well, and were also aware that, although he carried no weapon on his person, he had several revolvers in handy places under his counter, with the use of which he was extremely familiar and expert.
In the midst of a group of rather noisy characters who smoked and drank in one corner of this inn or shanty, there was seated on the end of a packing-case, a man in the prime of life, who, even in such rough company, was conspicuously rugged. His leathern costume betokened him a hunter, or trapper, and the sheepskin leggings, with the wool outside, showed that he was at least at that time a horseman. Unlike most of his comrades, he wore Indian moccasins, with spurs strapped to them. Also a cap of the broad-brimmed order. The point about him that was most striking at first sight was his immense breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, though in height he did not equal many of the men around him. As one became acquainted with the man, however, his massive proportions had not so powerful an effect on the mind of an observer as the quiet simplicity of his expression and manner. Good-nature seemed to lurk in the lines about his eyes and the corners of his mouth, which latter had the peculiarity of turning down instead of up when he smiled; yet withal there was a stern gravity about him that forbade familiarity.
The name of the man was Hunky Ben, and the strangest thing about him—that which puzzled these wild men most—was that he neither drank nor smoked nor gambled! He made no pretence of abstaining on principle. One of the younger men, who was blowing a stiff cloud, ventured to ask him whether he really thought these things wrong.
“Well, now,” he replied quietly, with a twinkle in his eye, “I’m no parson, boys, that I should set up to diskiver what’s right an’ what’s wrong. I’ve got my own notions on them points, you bet, but I’m not goin’ to preach ’em. As to smokin’, I won’t make a smoked herrin’ o’ my tongue to please anybody. Besides, I don’t want to smoke, an’ why should I do a thing I don’t want to just because other people does it? Why should I make a new want when I’ve got no end o’ wants a’ready that’s hard enough to purvide for? Drinkin’s all very well if a man wants Dutch courage, but I don’t want it—no, nor French courage, nor German, nor Chinee, havin’ got enough o’ the article home-growed to sarve my purpus. When that’s used up I may take to drinkin’—who knows? Same wi’ gamblin’. I’ve no desire to bust up any man, an’ I don’t want to be busted up myself, you bet. No doubt drinkin’, smokin’, an’ gamblin’ makes men jolly—them at least that’s tough an’ that wins!—but I’m jolly without ’em, boys,—jolly as a cottontail rabbit just come of age.”
“An’ ye look it, old man,” returned the young fellow, puffing cloudlets with the utmost vigour; “but come, Ben, won’t ye spin us a yarn about your frontier life?”
“Yes, do, Hunky,” cried another in an entreating voice, for it was well known all over that region that the bold hunter was a good story-teller, and as he had served a good deal on the frontier as guide to the United States troops, it was understood that he had much to tell of a thrilling and adventurous kind; but although the men about him ceased to talk and looked at him with expectancy, he shook his head, and would not consent to be drawn out.
“No, boys, it can’t be done to-day,” he said; “I’ve no time, for I’m bound for Quester Creek in hot haste, an’ am only waitin’ here for my pony to freshen up a bit. The Redskins are goin’ to give us trouble there by all accounts.”
“The red devils!” exclaimed one of the men, with a savage oath; “they’re always givin’ us trouble.”
“That,” returned Hunky Ben, in a soft voice, as he glanced mildly at the speaker,—“that is a sentiment I heer’d expressed almost exactly in the same words, though in Capatchee lingo, some time ago by a Redskin chief—only he said it was pale-faced devils who troubled him. I wonder which is worst. They can’t both be worst, you know!”
This remark was greeted with a laugh, and a noisy discussion thereupon began as to the comparative demerits of the two races, which was ere long checked by the sound of a galloping horse outside. Next moment the door opened, and a very tall man of commanding presence and bearing entered the room, took off his hat, and looked round with a slight bow to the company.
There was nothing commanding, however, in the quiet voice with which he asked the landlord if he and his horse could be put up there for the night.
The company knew at once, from the cut of the stranger’s tweed suit, as well as his tongue, that he was an Englishman, not much used to the ways of the country—though, from the revolver and knife in his belt, and the repeating rifle in his hand, he seemed to be ready to meet the country on its own terms by doing in Rome as Rome does.
On being told that he could have a space on the floor to lie on, which he might convert into a bed if he had a blanket with him, he seemed to make up his mind to remain, asked for food, and while it was preparing went out to attend to his horse. Then, returning, he went to a retired corner of the room, and flung himself down at full length on a vacant bench, as if he were pretty well exhausted with fatigue.
The simple fare of the hostelry was soon ready; and when the stranger was engaged in eating it, he asked a cow-boy beside him how far it was to Traitor’s Trap.
At the question there was a perceptible lull in the conversation, and the cow-boy, who was a very coarse forbidding specimen of his class, said that he guessed Traitor’s Trap was distant about twenty mile or so.
“Are you goin’ thar, stranger?” he asked, eyeing his questioner curiously.
“Yes, I’m going there,” answered the Englishman; “but from what I’ve heard of the road, at the place where I stayed last night, I don’t like to go on without a guide and daylight—though I would much prefer to push on to-night if it were possible.”
“Wall, stranger, whether possible or not,” returned the cow-boy, “it’s an ugly place to go past, for there’s a gang o’ cut-throats there that’s kep’ the country fizzin’ like ginger-beer for some time past. A man that’s got to go past Traitor’s Trap should go by like a greased thunderbolt, an’ he should never go alone.”
“Is it, then, such a dangerous place?” asked the Englishman, with a smile that seemed to say he thought his informant was exaggerating.
“Dangerous!” exclaimed the cow-boy. “Ay, an will be as long as Buck Tom an’ his boys are unhung. Why, stranger, I’d get my life insured, you bet, before I’d go thar again—except with a big crowd o’ men. It was along in June last year I went up that way; there was nobody to go with me, an’ I was forced to do it by myself—for I had to go—so I spunked up, saddled Bluefire, an’ sloped. I got on lovely till I came to a pass just on t’other side o’ Traitor’s Trap, when I began to cheer up, thinkin’ I’d got off square; but I hadn’t gone another hundred yards when up starts Buck Tom an’ his men with ‘hands up.’ I went head down flat on my saddle instead, I was so riled. Bang went a six-shooter, an’ the ball just combed my back hair. I suppose Buck was so took by surprise at a single man darin’ to disobey his orders that he missed. Anyhow I socked spurs into Bluefire, an’ made a break for the open country ahead. They made after me like locomotives wi’ the safety-valves blocked, but Bluefire was more’n a match for ’em. They kep’ blazin’ away all the time too, but never touched me, though I heard the balls whistlin’ past for a good while. Bluefire an’ me went, you bet, like a nor’-easter in a passion, an’ at last they gave it up. No, stranger, take my advice an’ don’t go past Traitor’s Trap alone. I wouldn’t go there at all if I could help it.”
“I don’t intend to go past it. I mean to go into it,” said the Englishman, with a short laugh, as he laid down his knife and fork, having finished his slight meal; “and, as I cannot get a guide, I shall be forced to go alone.”
“Stranger,” said the cow-boy in surprise, “d’ye want to meet wi’ Buck Tom?”
“Not particularly.”
“An’ are ye aware that Buck Tom is one o’ the most hardened, sanguinacious blackguards in all Colorado?”
“I did not know it before, but I suppose I may believe it now.”
As he spoke the Englishman rose and went out to fetch the blanket which was strapped to his saddle. In going out he brushed close past a man who chanced to enter at the same moment.
The newcomer was also a tall and strikingly handsome man, clothed in the picturesque garments of the cow-boy, and fully armed. He strode up to the counter, with an air of proud defiance, and demanded drink. It was supplied him. He tossed it off quickly, without deigning a glance at the assembled company. Then in a deep-toned voice he asked—
“Has the Rankin Creek Company sent that account and the money?”
Profound silence had fallen on the whole party in the room the moment this man entered. They evidently looked at him with profound interest if not respect.
“Yes, Buck Tom,” answered the landlord, in his grave off-hand manner; “They have sent it, and authorised me to pay you the balance.”
He turned over some papers for a few minutes, during which Buck Tom did not condescend to glance to one side or the other, but kept his eye fixed sternly on the landlord.
At that moment the Englishman re-entered, went to his corner, spread his blanket on the floor, lay down, put his wide-awake over his eyes, and resigned himself to repose, apparently unaware that anything special was going on, and obtusely blind to the quiet but eager signals wherewith the cow-boy was seeking to direct his attention to Buck Tom.
In a few minutes the landlord found the paper he wanted, and began to look over it.
“The company owes you,” he said, “three hundred dollars ten cents for the work done,” said the landlord slowly.
Buck nodded his head as if satisfied with this.
“Your account has run on a long while,” continued the landlord, “and they bid me explain that there is a debit of two hundred and ninety-nine dollars against you. Balance in your favour one dollar ten cents.”
A dark frown settled on Buck Tom’s countenance, as the landlord laid the balance due on the counter, and for a few moments he seemed in uncertainty as to what he should do, while the landlord stood conveniently near to a spot where one of his revolvers lay. Then Buck turned on his heel, and was striding towards the door, when the landlord called him back.
“Excuse my stopping you, Buck Tom,” he said, “but there’s a gentleman here who wants a guide to Traitor’s Trap. Mayhap you wouldn’t object to—”
“Where is he?” demanded Buck, wheeling round, with a look of slight surprise.
“There,” said the landlord, pointing to the dark corner where the big Englishman lay, apparently fast asleep, with his hat pulled well down over his eyes.
Buck Tom looked at the sleeping figure for a few moments.
“H’m! well, I might guide him,” he said, with something of a grim smile, “but I’m travelling too fast for comfort. He might hamper me. By the way,” he added, looking back as he laid his hand on the door, “you may tell the Rankin Creek Company, with my compliments, to buy a new lock to their office door, for I intend to call on them some day soon and balance up that little account on a new system of ’rithmetic! Tell them I give ’em leave to clap the one dollar ten cents to the credit of their charity account.”
Another moment and Buck Tom was gone. Before the company in the tavern had quite recovered the use of their tongues, the hoofs of his horse were heard rattling along the road which led in the direction of Traitor’s Trap.
“Was that really Buck Tom?” asked Hunky Ben, in some surprise.
“Ay—or his ghost,” answered the landlord.