What Bob Davenport thought when he saw me waving that pocket-book to
him, I don’t know. I held it extended in my left hand and tapped it
with my right as if to say, “Here’s your will,” until he came up, and
then I saw his face was whiter than it was when he thought he had lost
his cattle.
“You’ve got it! You’ve got it as sure as the world!” he exclaimed, as
soon as he came within speaking distance. “Is it mine?”
“Tom Mason found it for you, and it is all yours,” said I. “I don’t
know how much there is in it, because I haven’t read the will; but I
heard your father say that it was all yours.”
With hands that trembled Bob took the pocket-book and opened it; and
as he gazed upon the hand-writing of his father now laid away among
the willows, his eyes filled with tears. Mr. Davenport, I afterward
learned, had been buried near the scene of his death, and the cattlemen
had made a heavy box and loaded it with stones to protect it from the
wolves. Bob had not yet recovered from his father’s sudden death, but
Clifford Henderson was not at the funeral, and when remonstrated with
by the cattlemen for his want of sympathy for the fate of his brother,
said gruffly:
“Why should I want to see him buried? He drove me away from home by his
ingratitude eight years ago, and I have never got over it. He seems to
have one mourner there, and that is enough.”
Bob Davenport, we repeat, read the will from the beginning to the end,
also the letter of instructions, and we sat on our horses waiting for
him to finish. When he was through he folded up the letter, closed the
pocket-book, and handed it back to me.
“Why, Bob, it is yours,” I said.
“No,” he replied; “you fellows found it. I should never have seen it
if it hadn’t been for you, and I wish you to take and hand it to Mr.
Chisholm. When he says I may have it all, I will take it; not before. I
left him here at the wagon when I came up.”
We followed Bob back to the wagon, and there we found Mr. Chisholm,
smoking as usual. He knew there was something up, for we had waited
almost fifteen minutes for Bob to read the letter, but he said not a
word until I rode up and gave him the pocket-book. Then he opened it
and read the first line of the will, after which he folded it up and
placed it in his own pocket.
“Is it all right?” he asked.
“It is all there,” replied Bob. “I read the whole of it.”
“Which was the lucky fellow?”
I jerked my thumb over my shoulder toward Tom Mason, and in another
moment Mr. Chisholm had him from his horse.
“By George, Tommy, you did nobly!” said he, lifting Tom from the ground
with one hand and giving him a grip with the other that must have
brought tears of pain to his eyes. “I believe now that you found the
nugget, but I was not prepared to swallow it all when I first heard of
the story.”
“Course he did! Didn’t he find my nugget when it had been buried out of
sight longer than I can remember? Give us your grip, Tom.”
We looked up, and there was Elam Storm coming around the wagon. He had
his sleeves rolled up, and a person who knew him would have hesitated
about shaking hands with him; but Tom took it without ceremony. There
was genuine affection between the two boys, and it showed itself in the
way they greeted each other.
“Now, boys,” said Mr. Chisholm, who could not have been more delighted
if the will he had in his possession had deeded some property to him
instead of to Bob, “the next thing is something else. I wish when you
start out again that you would see every cowboy that you can, and tell
him to come to my wagon after supper, for I have got some things that
will interest them. I promised to do some more talking to them when I
got the will, and now I am in a condition to do it. Tell Henderson to
come along too.”
“Henderson won’t be here,” said our spokesman.
“Ah! Skipped out, has he?”
“Yes. He said we were thieves, the last one of us, and we asked him to
take it back and never show his face in our camp again. He left in a
mighty hurry, and I guess he was going somewhere.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Chisholm, with a sidelong glance at me. “Well, you
send all the boys up here. We have something here now that will put a
different look on the matter.”
“Now, Bob,” continued our spokesman, “we haven’t had a chance before to
tell you how pleased we are at your good fortune. Shake!”
“Oh, I took it for granted,” said Bob, accepting the cowboys’ hands,
one after the other. “You have been so good to me ever since I lost my
cattle that I knew you sympathized with me. I am glad to receive your
congratulations.”
We stood there at the wagon and saw the cowboys ride away and Elam
engaged in conversation with Tom, and then I motioned to Mr. Chisholm
to follow me off on one side. There were two things that I wanted to
speak to him about.
“You know when Henderson read that will, do you not?” I began.
“I thought I did,” he replied. “You had him cornered so that he
couldn’t get away or destroy it?”
“Yes, sir. He read it rapidly, much more so than I could have done if I
had had the paper, and he wanted to get at the name of the bank where
the money was kept on deposit--that is, where the bonds were kept. Then
I interfered and the men took the paper away from him.”
“Well?” said Mr. Chisholm.
“He said I was too late,” I continued. “And then he gave me to
understand that he had got all he wanted. He said that the next time I
saw him would be in Austin----”
“W-h-e-w!” whistled Mr. Chisholm.
“Yes. And then he would have the law to back him up. He would go to
the surrogate and challenge the will. Now, it seems to me that he could
make us a heap of trouble by doing that.”
Mr. Chisholm knocked the ashes from his pipe and filled up for another
smoke, all the while keeping his eyes fastened upon me. I knew he was
thinking deeply about something, and made no attempt to interrupt him.
“Well?” said he, when he had come to some conclusion.
“And there’s another thing I wanted to speak to you about,” I
continued. “I can’t help it because Coyote Bill should be so friendly
with me, can I?”
“Why--no; if you haven’t done anything to make him so.”
“Well, you know what Mr. Davenport told you, don’t you? He thinks
because I lost my cattle I am down on everybody who has not lost
theirs. Now, he was one of the party who came up there to search the
house.”
“That doesn’t matter. You couldn’t have kept him away from there if
he was a mind to come, and I confess I thought something was up when
Henderson came up missing the next morning.”
“But I don’t want to get these men down on me because he acts so. He
asked me if I was going with him and help him steal cattle, and I told
him I was not. He tried his best to get me interested in the matter
before he made any move, but I wouldn’t do it, and it was only by
taking Elam into my confidence that I was able to upset him.”
“Well, you just let Coyote Bill go and trust to me,” said Mr. Chisholm,
giving me his hand to shake. “If anybody says anything to you about it
send them to me. But I don’t know what to make of Henderson’s going to
Austin. If he should get the cattle thrown into the hands of a trustee,
and have some sort of an arrangement made by which he could keep the
bonds out of our grasp---- Who-pee! By George! We would be in a fix
then.”
“But could he do that?” I asked, alarmed at the proposition. “Just see
all the writings we would have.”
“He could do it if we had a thousand times as much. He could just
challenge the will, and by giving some little pettifogger money enough,
and promising him as much more if succeeded, he could have it thrown
into chancery and keep us out of it forever. He could do it easily
enough. I never did like that man Henderson, anyway.”
Of course Mr. Chisholm made things different from what they were, and
anybody could see that he didn’t know much about law; but it had an
effect upon me, as I didn’t know anything about the ins and outs of
the profession. I had never had any experience in it in my life, and
I was appalled by his story of what that bad man could do in the way
of contesting the will if he tried. It was Bob’s, and why couldn’t Bob
have it? In a new State like Texas, law was not considered to be of as
much use as it was in some older communities, and there was but one
thing I could think of to use in Henderson’s case, and that was, to get
him out of the way. I looked at Mr. Chisholm and could see that he was
thinking of the same thing.
“There is but one way out of it,” he continued, after he had thought
the matter over, “and that is a revolver shot. That will end all
difficulty. This thing that he has got on his side may be law, but it
is not justice.”
“There may be a better way than that,” I added, for I was disposed to
be a boy of peace, “and it won’t do any harm to try it, for it will
bring mischief to no one but Henderson. If we could prove that he was
in cahoots with Coyote Bill----”
“Set me down for a blockhead!” exclaimed Mr. Chisholm, once more
extending his hand. “But you are the very boy I want. You think of
everything before I do. Of course we can prove it, for didn’t you and
Tom Mason see him and talk with him when he came out there to the
ranch? Carlos, you be around to-night, for we are going to Austin.
We’ll take along sufficient men to keep Coyote Bill away from us if he
sees us on the way, and go down and prove the will. Now, keep mum, for
I don’t want any man around here to know it. So long!”
Mr. Chisholm and I returned to the wagon, and I invited myself to
the dinner which Elam had served up in great shape for Tom Mason.
Of course Bob was there and his face was radiant. I didn’t exactly
understand what Mr. Chisholm meant by saying that we would go down
to Austin to prove the will, but I was in for it. He seemed to think
there was going to be a fight before we got there, but when I looked at
Bob, so joyous now when he had been so distressed and cast down when
he thought he had lost all his father’s property, I told myself that I
was in for that too. There was one thing about it: Clifford Henderson
wouldn’t get those bonds, or the cattle either, by simply asking for
them.
“Tom Mason is the one you want to thank for finding that pocket-book,”
I said, as I sat down beside him. “Elam, have you got a slice of bacon
for me?”
“I know just what you both did and what you passed through when you
were there,” said Bob. “This is no place for me to thank you. I will do
that at some future time.”
For the first time it occurred to me that Bob might want to give Tom
some present for being so lucky, and I was strongly in favor of that.
For myself I didn’t want anything, for I had sold all my property to
Uncle Ezra, who still had some of my money left in case I should happen
to find him when dead broke; but Tom had suddenly taken it into his
head that he must return home with the amount of money he had stolen
from his uncle, and I was in favor of helping him out. When Bob got all
his cattle and bonds safe to himself, that would be the time for him to
act. I resolved that if he ever said anything to me, I would tell him
just what I thought about it.
Between joking and laughing and driving on the wagon to meet the
cowboys at nightfall, we passed the time agreeably enough. Just before
dark we came within sight of a grove of post-oaks which had been
selected for our encampment, and there we found a colony of wagons and
almost all the cowboys. Mr. Chisholm was there. He had ridden his horse
hard all the afternoon in the effort to find all the men attached to
his outfit to summon them to appear at this hour, and when we got up
there I found that there were two wagons missing. Everyone was glad
to see Bob. I never knew that boy had so many friends, especially when
Lem and Frank came up, whom Mr. Chisholm had found herding some cattle
on the furthest flanks. Of course they shook me warmly by the hand, but
devoted the most of their time and attention to Tom Mason.
“I knowed you would find it, pilgrim,” said Lem, holding fast to Tom
with one hand and patting him on the shoulder with the other. “Whenever
I lose anything I am going to send you after it.”
Supper didn’t take much time, for all hands were anxious to hear what
was in the will, so as soon as the motions had been gone through they
flocked up around the wagon to listen. The time came for Mr. Chisholm
to lay by his pipe, which he did, and drew out the pocket-book.
“I reckon we’ll find a little better reading in this one than we did
in the last,” said he, holding it up where all could see it. “Has our
friend Henderson come in yet?”
Although they all knew that the culprit was miles from there by that
time, they all looked at each other, but no one spoke.
“I reckon he’s skipped,” continued Mr. Chisholm. “’Cause he was allowed
to have the reading of these papers I hold here; and when he said we
were all thieves, our friends told him to be careful how he showed
his face in our camp to-night. The first paper I hold in my hand is
indorsed: ‘The last will and testament of Robert Davenport.’ I will now
read it.”
Mr. Chisholm took off his hat and laid it down beside him, and in a
much slower and more deliberate manner than he had used in reading the
contents of the other pocket-book, the one that contained the receipts,
he proceeded to read the paper he held in his hand. The testator made
Robert Davenport the heir to everything he possessed, horses, cattle,
and bonds, which were deposited for safe keeping in the Merchant and
Cattlemen’s Bank of Austin, with a few exceptions. To each of his
cowboys, “for services long and faithfully rendered,” he gave the
sum of one thousand dollars, and then came something I was glad to
see. To his half-brother, Clifford Henderson, “to show that he had
not forgotten him,” he gave the sum of one dollar, and he hoped that
before he got through spending it he would learn that honesty was the
best policy. The will was somewhat long, and I was pleased to note one
thing: the name of the bank in which the bonds were kept did not occur
on the first page, but on the second! and Henderson, when reading it,
had read all he wanted to see on the first page! By reading that and
going off in such a hurry he tried to play a bluff game on us. He did
not know the name of the bank at all!
After that followed the letter of instructions, which was so plain that
anybody could have understood it, and it wound up with the entreaty to
Bob to be honest; but having been brought up all his life in that way
the testator did not think that Bob would depart from it. Bob told me
afterward that the letter talked just as plainly as his father would to
him. Bob was very much overcome, and during the reading he sat with his
hands covering his face, and I could see the tears trickling through
his fingers. By the time Mr. Chisholm was through all the cowboys had
their hats off. He folded up the paper and waited for somebody to make
known his pleasure concerning it. It was a long time before anyone
spoke. They seemed to be as much affected by the reading of the will as
Bob was.
“The will seems to be all right, Mr. Judge,” said the oldest cattleman
at last, “and I move it be accepted by this meeting.”
“Second the motion!” shouted a dozen men at once.
The motion was put and carried (we knew that Henderson didn’t have a
friend among those cowboys), and then the pocket-book was laid upon
Bob’s knee. He was a rich man at last. There were fifty good rifles to
back him up, and if Henderson or any of Coyote Bill’s band had been
there to take exceptions to it, he would have been roughly handled. At
almost any other time they would have called upon Bob for a speech,
but instead of that they let him go. He passed the pocket-book back to
Mr. Chisholm, with a few words expressive of his gratitude, and begged
him to keep it for him until the matter was quite settled, and arose
and went off into the darkness. He wanted to be alone, and none of us
intruded upon him.
Mr. Chisholm was now prepared to carry out the rest of his programme,
and as soon as the cattlemen had gone away he called some of his
cowboys to him and told them he wanted them to take charge of Mr.
Davenport’s wagon on the following morning, for he was going to Austin.
He didn’t enter into any explanations, for a ride of a hundred miles
was nothing for their employer to undertake, but they agreed at once,
and he sent them away.
“Now,” said he, “the next thing is something else. All you boys who
have been remembered in Mr. Davenport’s will, sit up close around me,
for I have something to tell you. We must go to Austin as quickly as
we can, for we don’t know but that man Henderson has gone there to
challenge the will.”
“Will you allow me to say a word right there, Mr. Chisholm?” I asked.
“That man Henderson doesn’t know the name of the bank in which the
bonds are deposited.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he read only the first page of the will. If you took pains
to notice, the name doesn’t occur except on the second page, and
consequently he could not have seen it.”
“Well, by George! I never noticed that. Did any of you boys take notice
of it? But I have got the will in my pocket. We can easily satisfy
ourselves on that point. It is so,” he added, after referring to the
will, “and you are just the boy---- But look here! If Henderson knows
how, he can just go down there and challenge the will, anyway. He can
say he doesn’t like the way that property has been left, and so make us
some trouble on account of it.”
“Who will he have to go to when he challenges it?” I asked.
“Blessed if I know!”
“I’d just like to meet him to-morrow,” said Frank.
“Here too,” said Lem. “You wouldn’t have to do all your shooting alone,
I can tell you.”
“But you see you aint likely to meet him,” said Mr. Chisholm. “Now, I
think we had better go to Austin right straight, in order to get the
start of him. Catch up!”
“Do you mean that we are all to go?” I asked.
“Yes, I do mean all of you; everyone who is remembered in Mr.
Davenport’s will, and Bob and those of us who witnessed his signature.
Even Elam will have to go, for he made his mark. I know the president
of that bank down there, for he holds a thousand dollars or two of
my money, and perhaps a word coming from me will help straighten the
matter out. Lem, you and Frank get the grub together. Elam, you hunt up
Bob.”
And this was all the ceremony that was employed in getting under way.
In a few minutes more there were ten of us, all well mounted and armed
and with provisions enough to last us to Austin, who rode away from
the camp. I made up my mind to one thing, and that was if Coyote Bill
should discover us and try to get that pocket-book away, he would have
a good time in doing it.