CHRISTY HOLGATE.
“Stop her!” I shouted again and again to Christy Holgate, as I pointed
the pistol at his head through the window of the cab.
When I first made my appearance, he had thrust his head and shoulders
through the window, apparently to examine the situation, and determine
in what manner he could best dispose of me. I threatened to shoot him,
and he drew in his head, placing himself where I could not see him
without changing my position.
I pointed the pistol at Christy and threatened to fire; but I had as
little taste for shooting a man as I had for eating him, and I beg the
privilege of adding, that I am not a cannibal. I found it very easy to
talk about firing, but very much harder to do it. Christy had proved
that he was a villain, and a very mean villain too; but I found it
quite impossible to carry my threat into execution. I could reason it
out that he deserved to be shot, and as he was running away with my
father’s money, and did not stop the engine when I told him to do so,
that it would be perfectly right for me to shoot him.
If I had been a bloodthirsty, brutal monster, instead of an ordinary
boy of sixteen, with human feelings, I suppose I could have fired the
pistol while the muzzle covered the head of the rascal in the cab. If
I had not been afraid of killing him, I think I should have fired; for
I had considerable confidence in my skill as a marksman, though it had
not been fortified by much practical experience.
Though Christy had been very useful in enabling me to enlarge my
knowledge of the mysteries of the marine engine, and though I was
reasonably grateful to him for the privilege he had afforded me, I did
not feel under great obligations to him. Whenever I made a trip with
him in the engine-room, for the purpose of studying my favorite theme,
he invariably set me at work upon some dirty job, either at oiling the
machinery or cleaning the bright parts. He was rather stout, and it was
always my function to climb up and oil the gudgeons and other working
parts of the walking-beam. I had done almost everything pertaining to
an engine, under his direction. He used to praise me without stint, and
call me a smart boy; which perhaps he intended as my reward, though I
found it in the knowledge and experience I had gained.
I did not refrain from pressing the trigger of the revolver while
aiming it at Christy’s head on account of the debt of obligation
which weighed me down. I knew enough about an engine to make myself
useful, and I worked hard for all the information I obtained. Still I
considered myself indebted to him for the opportunities he had afforded
me; and, if he had not chosen to be a villain, I am quite sure I should
always have felt grateful to him, even while I paid in hard work for
every scrap of knowledge I obtained from him.
Christy and my father were quite intimate; though, as the steamer
in which he served always lay nights and Sundays at the lower end
of the lake, they had not been together much of late years. He had
recommended my father for the position he then held in the flour mills.
I know that my father felt under great obligations to him for the kind
words he had spoken in his favor, and had often urged me to help him
all I could, encouraging me by the hope that I might, by and by, get a
place as engineer on a steamboat.
The engineer of the Ruoara--for this was the name of the steamer in
which we had gone down to Ucayga--was a strange man in some respects.
He made a great deal of the service he had rendered to my father and
to me, and very little of the service we had rendered to him, for my
father had often made him little presents, often lent him money, and
had once, when the mills were not working, run his steamer for him a
week, while he was sick, without any compensation. I never thought
Christy had any cause to complain of either of us. But I dislike this
balancing of mutual obligations, and only do it in self-defence; for it
is the kindness of the heart, and the real willingness to do another a
favor, which constitute the obligation, rather than what is actually
done. “And if ye do good to them that do good to you, what thank have
ye? For sinners also do even the same.”
Christy was a man who always believed that the world was using him
hardly. He was unlucky, in his own estimation. The world never gave
him his due, and everybody seemed to get the better of him. Though he
had good wages, he was not worth any money. He spent his earnings as
fast as he got them; not in dissipation, that I am aware of, but he
had a thriftless way of doing business. He never could get rid of the
suspicion that the world in general was cheating him; and for this
reason he had an old grudge against the world. On the passage to Ucayga
he discoursed in his favorite strain with my father when he learned his
errand. The unhappy man seemed to think that it was unjust to him for
one in the same calling to have twenty-four hundred dollars in cash,
while he had not a dollar beyond his wages.
The engineer of the steamer had not pluck enough to resent and resist
injustice. Perhaps he thought that, in introducing my father to his
situation, he had been the making of him, and that he was therefore
entitled to the lion’s share of his savings for five years. Whatever he
thought, he had deliberately formed his plan to rob my father of his
money, and had actually succeeded in his purpose. Christy knew the weak
point of his intended victim, and had plied him with whiskey till he
was in a situation to be operated upon with impunity. I think my father
wanted to drink again, and had sent me for the tobacco so that I should
not see him do so.
My father afterwards told me that he recalled the movements of Christy
when he took the pocket-book from him, though he thought nothing of
them at the time.
“Ralph, you are a good fellow--the best fellow out! Let’s take one more
drink,” said Christy, as reported by my father.
“I’m a good fellow, Christy, and you’re another,” replied the victim.
“Just one more drink;” and my father, in his maudlin affection for his
friend, had thrown his arms around his neck, and hugged him.
During this inebriated embrace Christy had taken the money from
his pocket. After he had poured out the liquor, he found that his
pocket-book was gone. The discovery paralyzed him; but his head was too
much muddled at first to permit him to reason on the circumstances. He
remembered that he had felt the pocket-book only a few minutes before;
and, as soon as he could think, he was satisfied that his companion had
robbed him, for the simple reason that no one else had been near him.
He was ashamed of his own conduct. He was conscious that he had drunk
too much, and that this had been the occasion of his misfortune.
I do not know what Christy’s plan was, or how he expected to escape the
consequences of his crime. He had easily shaken my father off, and made
his escape. However hardly the world had used him, he was certainly
more severe upon himself than his tyrant had ever been; for when a man
commits a crime, he treats himself worse than any other man can treat
him. I could not fathom the villain’s plan in running away with the
locomotive. I doubt whether he had any purpose except to escape from
immediate peril, and thus secure his ill-gotten prize.
The circumstances had devolved upon me the responsibility of capturing
the treacherous friend. Half a dozen times I threatened to shoot him
if he did not stop the engine, but somehow my muscles did not seem to
have the power to execute the threat. Christy had placed himself where
I could not see him through the cab window. I examined the revolver,
which contained two charges, and then walked up to the window. The
villain had crouched down by the fire-box, evidently having a wholesome
regard for the weapon in my hand. The engine was going at the rate of
thirty miles an hour, and I judged that we had gone about ten miles.
“Christy Holgate, I don’t want to shoot you, but I’ll do it, as sure as
you live, if you don’t stop her!” I shouted, as loud as I could yell,
while I aimed the revolver at him again.
“Don’t fire, Wolf, and I’ll stop her as soon as I can,” he replied; and
I think his guilty conscience terrified him quite as much as the pistol.
He stood up, and I saw the pocket-book sticking out of his outside
breast pocket. I concluded that he had taken it out to examine
its contents, and I felt pretty confident that I should have the
satisfaction of restoring the lost treasure to my father. With the
revolver, containing two bullets, I realized that I was master of the
situation.
Christy shut off the steam, and put on the brake just as we entered a
dense wood. As the speed of the engine slackened, I climbed upon the
roof of the cab, and jumped down upon the wood in the tender. I took
care not to go very near the villain, for, even with the pistol in my
hand, I thought he was fully a match for me.
“Do you mean to shoot me, after all I’ve done for you, Wolf?” said he,
in a whining tone, as the engine stopped.
“I didn’t think you would serve my father such a mean trick as
you did,” I replied. “I will shoot you if you don’t give up that
pocket-book.”
“I didn’t mean to take your father’s money, Wolf. He and I have been
good friends for a great many years, and I wouldn’t hurt him any more
than I would myself.”
“But you did take it.”
“I didn’t mean to keep it. I was only joking. I meant to give it back
to him; but when he flew at me so, he made me mad.”
“What did you run away on the engine for, then?” I demanded, willing,
if possible, to accept his explanation.
“You got me into the scrape, and I hardly knew what I was about. I’m
ruined now, and it won’t do for me to go back.”
“You can go where you please; but give me that pocket-book, Christy, or
we’ll finish the business here,” I continued, raising the pistol again.
“Of course I’ll give it to you,” he answered, handing me the
pocket-book. “But I’m afraid to go back myself.”
I put the treasure into my pocket, and felt that I had won the day.
Christy jumped from the engine, and disappeared in the woods.