THE GENTLE BREEZE
I was just thinking how funny it was that Westy got this very same book
that I had, but maybe it wasn’t so funny, because that was what put it
into his head to get it—seeing it in my tent. Anyway, I was glad it
came back to me, because now I saw what I had done and I made up my mind
that I’d buy a new book for the library.
Then I was thinking how I’d have to tell Westy about it, and, oh, I
don’t know, I just didn’t know how to go and speak to him. I wasn’t mad
at him, but anyway, I felt as if I didn’t want to see him—yet. Anyway,
I didn’t have any money yet and books like that cost a lot.
All of a sudden I heard Don start barking and then he stopped. So I knew
somebody was coming that he knew. Then I heard somebody say, “You’re
always suspicious, ain’t you,” and oh, I felt awful funny, because I
knew it was Westy. It seemed as if he might be saying that to me, but I
knew he was saying it to Don—just kind of jollying him. Maybe you think
you can’t jolly a dog but you can. You can Don, anyway.
I didn’t know what I would say to him, because I thought probably he’d
come to give me my two dollars and say he was sorry and must have been
crazy or in a hurry. Jiminy, any excuse would be good enough for me, as
long as he told me straight out about it, like he did in the ditch. And
maybe things would get to be all right after a while. But I couldn’t
understand how he could come up the lawn whistling and jollying Don and
feeling so good. I don’t mean because he was hurt, because I knew that
wasn’t so bad, but I didn’t see how he could be feeling so happy.
Pretty soon he came in and Don was jumping up all around him and wagging
his tail.
“I’m glad you’re well enough to come out,” I said.
“You should worry about me,” he said; “I just have to limp a little,
that’s all. I’m a swell looking Silver Fox, hey?” And then he gave me a
push and rumpled my hair all up and said, “You won’t be ashamed of me on
account of my honorable wounds, will you? I was a punk scout to go and
do that.”
Gee, I didn’t know what to think, because it wasn’t anything to be
laughing at, that’s sure.
“Do what?” I said.
“Run right into that ditch.”
“Is that what you meant you did—when you told me?” I said, kind of
disappointed.
“Sure it is,” he said, “I’m a swell scout, hey? Going headlong into a
ditch!”
I just listened to him and I felt pretty bad, because now I saw that was
what he meant.
Then he gave me another shove and he said all happy like, “But I’m the
champion boy sleuth all right. Look at this—here’s your two bucks and
Skinny never took it at all.”
“I—I know he didn’t,” I said.
“_How_ did you know,” he shot right at me.
“Because,” I started to say and then he rumpled my hair up some more and
began talking and never gave me a chance.
“Because it was right in that copy of _Treasure Island_ that’s laying
there,” he shouted, “and I’m _one big gump_, that’s what _I_ am! I got
that copy of _Treasure Island_ out of the library this morning, because
you were telling me about it, and right there in the middle of it was
your plaguy old two buckarinos!”
Just for a minute I looked at him and I knew it was just like he said,
because he was laughing—he was so blamed happy about it.
Oh, _boy_, didn’t I feel good!
“How in the dickens did it get there?” he said.
“That’s one puzzle,” I answered him.
“Anyway, you’ve got your two bucks back.”
“A lot I care about that,” I said; “jiminy, I’ve got something better
than two dollars, and that’s friends, you can bet.”
Then I showed him the stain on the page of the book and we both sat
there gaping at it and thinking.
“I’m hanged if I know,” Westy said; “it would take Tom Slade to dope
that out.”
“Maybe Skinny was looking at the book and shut it with the two dollar
bill inside,” I said.
“How about the stain?” Westy asked me.
“Jingoes, it’s a puzzle,” I said.
All of a sudden he laid the book down open and laid the bill on it and
then he laid the oar-lock on the bill. Then he just sat there like as if
he was studying. Pretty soon he said, “We have to get a new copy for the
library, anyway. Do you mind if I make another stain on this one? I’ve
got a sort of an idea.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
So now I’ll tell you just what he did and you’ll see how it solved the
puzzle. And, believe me, you’ll have to admit that Westy’s a pretty
smart fellow. If you have an old book you don’t care anything about, you
can even try it and you don’t even need an oar-lock. Westy turned to a
new place in the book and then he laid the bill down on the right hand
page. Then he laid the oar-lock on the bill. “That’s just exactly what
you did when you laid the bill down in such a hurry that night you were
fixing Skinny up. You laid it on the open book just like that—see?”
“Maybe I did.” I said, “but what’s the big idea, kind sir?”
“Well, then,” he said, “I came up here to get your two bucks for you,
didn’t I? And you remember I told you there was a breeze blowing? Now
what did I do—in the dark?”
“Search me,” I said.
“Why, you big galook, I felt around in the dark and lifted the oar-lock
off the bill and then felt there for it, but the breeze was too quick
for me. It blew the page over and I slapped my hand down on—what?”
“Another page,” I said; “_good night!_”
“Good-bye two dollar bill,” he said, “it was between those two other
pages. That’s why there was a stain on the right page in the book. There
was a stain on the bill made by the oar-lock and when the page and the
bill blew over, the fresh oil on the bill kind of stamped itself on the
left hand page. _You_ didn’t damage the book. _You_ only damaged the
bill. It was the _breeze_ that damaged the book—see?”
“Believe me! I’ll be responsible,” I told him.
“That breeze was a thief,” he said.
“It’ll come to grief some day,” I told him.
Then we both began to laugh.
“And it’s lucky I got that book out of the library,” he said. “There was
your two bucks tucked away all nice and neat between the pages. It was
just where Jim Hawkins was starting away on the ship.”
“Narrow escape,” I said, “hey? If you hadn’t taken the book out just
when you did, _good night_, the ship might have started and good-bye to
my two dollars.”
“You crazy Indian,” he said.
“And all the time I was saying Jim Hawkins was honest and a good friend
and all that, and all the time he had my two bucks.”
“Believe me I wouldn’t trust that fellow with a postage stamp,” Westy
said.
Laugh! Oh, boy, I thought I’d die laughing—and Westy, too.