HAPPY MEETINGS.
FRANK was in splendid health, and his bones set rapidly. A fortnight
after the encounter with the brigands he rode down to the camp on the
Yuba with his arm in a sling. His attack single-handed upon the four
stage-robbers had rendered him quite a noted character, and he was
warmly greeted upon his arrival. As soon as he had got to the wooden
shanty dignified by the name of the "hotel," a deputation waited upon
him.
"We have come," the leader of the party said, "to congratulate you in
the name of the hull of this mining camp on having pretty well cleared
out that gang of stage-robbers. The safety of the roads air a matter of
great importance to this camp, as well as to all the other camps in the
State, seeing that we air obliged to pay a heavy rate of insurance on
our gold being carried down, and have the risk of losing it all if we
takes it down ourselves; therefore it air the opinion of this community
that you have done them a considerable sarvice, and we are obliged to
you."
The four members of the deputation then shook Frank solemnly by the
hand.
"I can only say I am much obliged to you," Frank said, "and I only
regret that one of the four got off safe. However, they had a lesson,
and I hope the roads will be safer in future."
"Now," the spokesman of the deputation said, "let's liquor."
Five glasses were poured out by the bar-tender, and drunk off solemnly;
this was considered to bring the ceremony to a close.
In the evening Frank was sitting around a fire with some of his
acquaintances, when two persons were seen approaching.
"Can you tell me," one of them said, when he got up to the group,
"whether Frank Norris is in the camp, and if so, where I can find him?"
Frank sprang to his feet with a cry of astonishment.
"Uncle," he exclaimed, "is it you, or am I dreaming?"
"My dear boy," Captain Bayley exclaimed, as he grasped Frank's hand,
"thank God we have found you! We have been advertising and looking for
you ever since you left, nearly three years ago."
For a minute or two they stood grasping each other's hand, their
feelings being too full for further speech.
"Sit you down right here, Norris," one of the miners said, rising, "no
doubt you will like a talk together, and we will leave you to
yourselves."
The other miners rose, and with the real courtesy and kindness which
lurked under the rough nature of the diggers, all left the spot. Captain
Bayley was the first to speak.
"But here is some one else wants to shake your hand, Frank, an old
friend too."
The fire was not burning very brightly, and although Frank seemed to
know the young fellow who stood leaning lightly on two sticks, he could
not recall where he had seen him before.
"Don't you remember me, Frank," he said, "the lad whom you took so much
trouble with over his Homer."
"Harry Holl," Frank said in astonishment.
"It was as Harry Holl that you knew him, but we have since found out
that he is my grandson, the son of my daughter Ella," Captain Bayley
explained.
"Then you are my cousin," Frank said, advancing and shaking Harry's
hand; "but how on earth have you and uncle come out here?"
"Let us sit down by the fire, Frank, for the evening is chilly, and then
I will tell you all about it. But first, how about that enormous brute
of a dog, who doesn't seem to have made up his mind whether the proper
thing is not to devour us at once."
"Come, Turk, good dog, these are friends of mine."
Finding that the intentions of the new-comers were amicable, of which at
first he had entertained some doubts, Turk threw himself down by the
side of his master.
"First of all, uncle," Frank said, as he sat down, "has that affair been
cleared up?"
"Well, not exactly cleared up, Frank, but we have our suspicions. Harry
and I never for a moment thought it was you--that is not till you ran
away instead of facing it out. I don't want to scold you now, but that
was a foolish business."
"Then if you thought me innocent, uncle, why did you not answer my
letter? I should never have dreamt of running away if I had not been
heart-broken at the thought that you believed me guilty."
"Letter!" Captain Bayley repeated in astonishment, "what letter? That
was just the thing, if you had written me only one line to say you were
innocent I should never have doubted you for a moment, and even your
running away would have made no difference to me."
"But I did write, uncle; I wrote to you the very first thing, telling
you that I was innocent, although appearances were all against me, and
saying that I could bear anything if I knew that you believed in me, and
I begged you to send me just one line by hand. I waited all day for the
answer, and all the evening, and when night came and no letter I felt
that you believed me guilty; I became desperate, and when Fred advised
me to bolt, and offered me the money to take me away, I thought I might
as well go at once as go after the disgrace of being publicly expelled
before the whole school."
"But I never got the letter," Captain Bayley said, "never got a line
from you, and it was that which shook my faith."
"I gave the letter to Fred Barkley to post, half an hour after I came
down from school, that is before eleven o'clock, and he told me he
posted it at once."
"I am afraid," Captain Bayley said sternly, "that Fred Barkley is a vile
young scoundrel; we have had our suspicions of him, Harry and I, and
this seems to confirm them. I believe that villain is at the bottom of
the whole affair. Have you ever suspected him, Frank?"
"Such an idea has flitted across my mind, uncle, but I have never
allowed it to rest there; it was too shocking to believe."
"I am afraid it must be believed," Captain Bayley said. "It was Harry
who first pointed it out to me that, looking at the whole case, the
matter really lay between him and you, and that it was just as probable
that he took the note and sent it to you as that you should have taken
it and sent it to yourself. Harry urged indeed that Fred had far greater
motives for doing so than you; for whereas you had only to get out of a
stupid scrape, he would be playing for the money which I was to leave,
which was a heavy stake. On the other hand, he admitted that the crime
of stealing the note for the purpose of ruining you would be infinitely
greater than the taking of money in your case.
"I have nearly worried myself into a lunatic asylum over the matter. I
have been away from England for upwards of a year--partly for the sake
of Harry here, who has got rid of his box long ago, and now gets along
very fairly on sticks, partly to avoid seeing Fred, for as long as this
thing was unsettled, it was impossible that I could give him my hand.
"My heart has all along been with you, my boy, for you know I loved you
as a son; but your silence and your running away were ugly weights in
the scale against you. Now that I find that that villain suppressed your
letter--for he must have done so, else I should have got it--and that it
was he who urged you to fly to get you out of the way, I have no longer
a shadow of doubt in my mind. I must tell you that Harry here never
doubted you from the first; and as for Alice, she became a veritable
little fury when the possibility of your guilt was suggested. We have
had some rare battles and rows over that and her absolute refusal to
speak to Fred, whom from the first she insisted was at the bottom of
it, though how she arrived at that conclusion, except by instinct, is
more than I can tell. Her joy when Harry here was found, and of course
took the position I had intended for you, and her delight in Fred's
discomfiture, were, as I told her several times, absolutely indecent.
Not that she minded a farthing; she is the most insubordinate young
person I ever came across. You will hardly know her again, Frank, she is
growing fast into a young woman, and a very pretty one too."
"But how did you find me, uncle? Was it from Mr. Adams that you heard
where I was?"
"Well, Frank, we advertised for you, for over two years, in the American
and Colonial papers, and at last began almost to despair.
"About two months ago, when we were in Milan--for we have been wandering
about Europe for the last eight or nine months--your friend Adams found
us out; the good fellow had been hunting for us for two months."
"Ah! that explains why I have not heard from him," Frank interrupted. "I
have been looking for a letter for the last two months, and had begun to
conclude that as he had nothing pleasant to tell me he had not written,
and that I should never hear now."
"Then you thought like a young fool," Captain Bayley said angrily.
"Well, as soon as Adams had given your message to Alice--and why you
should have supposed that Alice should have believed in your innocence
any more than me, except that women never will believe what they don't
want to believe, I don't know--well, of course, she told us about it at
once, and we came back to England and talked it over, and settled that
the best thing was for us all to come out and see you."
"All!" Frank repeated in surprise.
"Yes, all; the headstrong young woman would not be left behind, and she
is at Sacramento now, that is if she hasn't been shot by some of these
red-shirted miners, or come to her end some other way. We stayed two
days at San Francisco. I have wandered about a good deal, but I thought
before I saw Sacramento and these places, that city was the residence of
the roughest and most dangerous set of rascals I ever met.
"We travelled by coach across the plains, and on going to the bank at
Sacramento found that you had been just shooting some highwaymen, and
had got your arm broken by a bullet. So we put Alice in charge of the
landlady of the hotel, and dared her to stir out of the room till we got
back; we came on to the place where they said you were stopping, but
found that you had come on here this morning. So we took our places in
the coach again, and here we are; and the sooner we get away from here
the better, so I hope you will be ready to start early in the morning."
"But, my dear uncle," Frank began.
"Don't give me any of your buts, sir," Captain Bayley said peremptorily.
"You have been hiding too long, now you must go back and take your place
again."
"But I can't clear myself of this affair."
"Don't tell me, sir," the old officer said angrily "you have cleared
yourself to me, and I will take good care that the truth is known. As
for that rascal Fred, I deserve all the trouble that I have gone through
for being such an old fool as to let him take me in. I want to get back
as quickly as possible to make my will again. Ever since Harry put the
idea into my mind I have been fretting about the one I had made leaving
Fred a third of my property. I thought if anything happened to me before
the matter was cleared up, and I found out in the next world--where I
suppose people know everything--that I had been wrong, I should have
been obliged to have asked for a furlough to come back again to set it
straight. Alice will be fidgeting her life out, and we must set out at
once; so let us have no more nonsense about delay."
Frank offered no further resistance, and agreed to start on the
following morning.
"You look more like yourself now, Frank," his uncle said, "for, except
by the tones of your voice, I should hardly have known you. You must
have grown ten inches bigger round the shoulders than you were, and have
grown into a very big man. You don't look so big here, where there are
so many burly miners about, but when you get back to London people will
quite stare at you. Your face at present is tanned almost black, and
that beard, which I suppose is the result of exposure, makes you look
half a dozen years older than you really are. I hope you will shave it
off at once, and look like a civilised English gentleman."
"I suppose I must do so," Frank said, rather ruefully, "for one never
sees a beard in London, except on a foreigner. I suppose some day men
will be sensible and wear them."
They sat talking until late in the night, Frank hearing all particulars
of the discovery of Harry's relationship to Captain Bayley, and the news
of all that had taken place since he had left England. He arranged for
sleeping accommodation for them for the night in the hut of the
storekeeper for whom he brought up provisions, judging that this was
more comfortable and quiet for them than in the crowded and noisy plank
edifice called the hotel. The next morning they started by the coach for
Sacramento, Frank ordering the muleteers to follow with the animals at
once. It was a twenty-four hours' drive; but it did not seem a long one
to any of them, for Frank had so much to tell about his doings and
adventures from the day when he last saw them, that there was scarce a
pause in their talk, until at night Captain Bayley and Harry dozed in
their corner of the coach, while Frank got outside and sat and smoked by
the driver, being altogether too excited by the sudden arrival of his
uncle, and the change in all his plans, to feel inclined for sleep. It
was ten o'clock in the morning when they drove into Sacramento.
"I think, uncle, I will just go round to my house, for I keep one
regularly here, and put on the garb of civilisation. Alice would not
recognise me in this red shirt and high boots."
"Stuff and nonsense!" Captain Bayley said. "You had a wash-up when we
breakfasted, and what do you want more? There, go up and see the girl at
once, Harry and I will join you in a minute or two; according to my
experience, these sort of meetings are always better without the
presence of a third party," and the old officer winked at his grandson
as Frank sprang up the stairs after the waiter whom Captain Bayley
directed to show him to Miss Hardy's sitting-room.
Although Captain Bayley had told him that Alice had become a young
woman, Frank had not realised the change that three years had produced
in her. He had left her a laughing girl--a dear little girl, Frank had
always thought--but scarcely pretty, and he stood for a moment in
astonishment at the tall and very beautiful young woman of eighteen who
stood before him. Alice was no less astonished, and for a moment could
scarcely credit that this broad muscular man was her old playfellow,
Frank. The pause was but momentary on both parties, and with a cry of
joy and welcome the girl ran into his arms as frankly and naturally as
she had done as a child.
"There, that's enough, Frank," she said presently. "You mustn't do that
any more, you know, because I am grown up, and you know we are not
really even cousins."
"Cousins or not, Alice," Frank said, laughing, "I have kissed you from
the time you were a child, and if you suppose I am going to give it up
now, when there is a real pleasure in kissing you, you are mistaken, I
can tell you."
"We shall see about that, sir," the girl said; "we are in California
now, among wild people, but when we get back to England we must behave
like civilised beings. But, O Frank, what a monster of a dog! Is he
savage? He looks as if he were going to fly at me."
For Turk, to whom greetings of this sort were entirely new, was standing
at the door, his bristles half-raised, doubtful whether Alice was to be
treated as a friend or foe.
"Come here, Turk. He is the best of dogs, Alice, though it is well not
to put him out, for he has killed two men, one in defence of our money,
the other of myself; but he is the dearest of dogs, and I will tell you
some day how I found him. Come here, Turk, and give your hand to this
lady, she is a very great friend of your master."
Turk gravely approached and offered his paw, which Alice took
cautiously, Frank's report of his doings being by no means encouraging.
Turk, satisfied now that there was no occasion for his interference,
threw himself down at full length upon the hearthrug, and Alice turned
to Frank.
"I am so glad you are coming home again."
"And I am glad to be coming home again," Frank said, "or rather I shall
be when this matter is quite cleared up."
"I should not bother any more about it," Alice said decidedly. "Uncle
Harry and I are all quite, quite sure that you had nothing to do with
that horrible business, and that ought to be quite enough for you."
"It isn't quite enough, Alice," he said, "although it is a very great
deal; but we need not talk about that now. Oh, here is uncle."
In the course of the day Alice heard of the new light which had been
thrown on the matter by the discovery that Frank had written to protest
his innocence, which letter had never come to hand, and that it was Fred
who had urged Frank to fly and had supplied him with money to do so.
"I always knew he was at the bottom of it," Alice said decidedly. "I
always said it was Fred. But I hope, Frank, you or uncle don't mean to
take any steps to get him into trouble. I hate him, you know, and always
have; still, I think he will be punished enough with the loss of the
money he so wickedly tried to gain."
"I think so too, Alice; he has behaved like a scoundrel of the worst
kind, but, for my part, I am quite content to leave him alone. Still, we
must if possible prove that I was innocent."
"But we all know you are innocent, Frank. Uncle never would have doubted
it if it had not been for the stories Fred told."
"Yes, Alice; but all the fellows at Westminster were told I was guilty.
I shall be constantly meeting them in the world, and all my life this
blot will hang to me if it is not set straight. When we get home I shall
go back to the School and see if I cannot hit on some clue or other. Of
course if Fred would confess it would be all right, but, after all, we
have not a shadow of real proof against him. We have only our suspicion,
and the fact that the letter did not come to hand; and if he faces it
out, and declares he posted it all right, who is to gainsay him? Letters
have gone wrong before now. I must clear myself if I can, but I promise
you that I will not bring public disgrace upon him if it can possibly be
avoided."
"He ought to be publicly disgraced," Captain Bayley roared, "the mean
scoundrel, with his quiet voice and his treacherous lies. Not disgrace
him? I would tie him up to a post in St. Paul's Churchyard, and hire a
bellman to stand on a chair beside him and tell the story of what he has
done every half-hour. Why, sir, he would have taken in St. Dunstan with
his pretended hesitation to say anything to your disadvantage, and the
affectation of pain with which he hinted that you had confessed your
guilt to him. The scoundrel, the rascal, the hypocrite! When I think
what his work has done, that you were disgraced at school, and sent
wandering for three years--not that that has done you any harm, rather
the contrary--to think that Alice has been wretched, and I have been on
thorns and out of temper with myself and every one else for the same
time, that for the last year we have been wandering about Europe like
three sentimental travellers, wasting our lives, spending our money, and
making fools of ourselves, I tell you, sir, if I was sitting as
president of a court-martial on him, I would give him five hundred
lashes, and then order him to be drummed out of the regiment."
Frank was about to speak, but Alice shook her head to him behind her
uncle's back; she knew that his bark was much worse than his bite, and
that, while contradiction would only render him obstinate, he would, if
left alone, cool down long before the time for action arrived, and could
then be coaxed into any course they might all agree upon.
The next morning the party started for San Francisco. Frank had already
found a purchaser for his team of mules at a good price, had wound up
all his affairs, and obtained an order from the bank on their agents in
England for the amount standing to his credit, which came to seven
thousand five hundred and sixty pounds.
His uncle was astounded when he heard how much Frank had earned in less
than two years' work. "I shall look at these red-shirted ruffians with
more respect in future, Frank; for, for aught I know, they may have tens
of thousands standing to their credit at the bank."
"My luck has been exceptional, sir," Frank said. "I might dig for
another fifty years without making so much. Of course, there are people
who have made a good deal more in the same time, but then there are
thousands who are no richer than when they began. We had done little
more than keep ourselves when we went to work on Adams's claim. We had
nearly four hundred apiece from him, besides what we made for our
labour, for the horses pretty well kept us; then from the claim six
hundred apiece. We had four thousand each out of the rich strike we
made at the head of the gulch; the bank gave me two thousand more; the
odd money represents the receipts of the rest of my digging and of my
earnings with the mule team."
They started for Europe by the first steamer which left San Francisco
for Panama, and reached home without adventure. The next morning Captain
Bayley took Frank to Mr. Griffith, and told him the story as he had
learned it from Frank.
"There, Griffith," he said triumphantly, when he had finished, "if you
are not ready to admit that you are the most obstinate, pig-headed
fellow that ever lived, I give you up altogether."
"I was wrong, I am glad to see," the lawyer said, smiling, "but I cannot
admit that I was wrong as far as the evidence that was before me went;
but certainly with the light our young friend has thrown upon the matter
I cannot doubt that the view you took was the correct one. Still,
remember there is still no actual proof such as a court of justice would
go upon. Morally we may be convinced, but unless you obtain further
evidence I do not think you are in a position openly to charge Fred
Barkley with stealing that ten-pound note, nor do I see how you are to
set about getting such evidence."
"We are going to try, anyhow," Captain Bayley said. "Frank and I are
going down to Westminster to-morrow to open the investigation again, and
with what we know now it is hard if we don't manage to get something."
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