OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES
The girl had lived so long among "grown-ups" that she usually
considered matters deserving thought at all with more seriousness than
most children. This trouble Teddy Ford was in was no light matter. Nor
was Mr. Harvey Langdon's side of the question something that could
easily be put aside or ignored.
The boy had been hurt to the quick by the ranchman's angry harshness.
The ranchman (as he believed) had very good reason for being harsh with
Teddy. There the matter stood. Oriole was very, very uncertain.
"Won't you wait and see Mr. Langdon when he comes for the twins,
Teddy?" Oriole finally pleaded. She did not know that the ranchman
had already been to the island and had taken Myron and Marian back to
Littleport on the iceboat.
"Me see Harvey Langdon?" gasped Ted. "Gee! No!"
"But I _know_ he will do something for you."
"I don't want him to do anything for me," said the boy independently.
"Only just one thing. And he won't do that."
"Yes?"
"I want him to say he don't believe I stole that silver," growled Teddy.
"But how can you ever make him see that he--he made a mistake, if you
have run away from the ranch country. You don't give Mr. Langdon a
chance," said Oriole.
"A chance to chase me off his ranch again?"
"Don't you see, if you remained out there, something might turn up to
give you--you a clew. You know what I mean? Of course, _some_body stole
that chest of silver."
"You bet they did. And got away with it slick, too. Nobody but me and
Ching Foo about the ranch house--and I know I didn't see a soul."
"Is--is Mr. Ching Foo a Chinaman?"
"Yes. Cook, I tell you. Oh! _he_ is not to be suspected. Ching Foo has
been at the ranch for twenty years--and sent home long ago for his
coffin and has it stored away in his bedroom."
"Goodness, Teddy Ford! what are you saying?" cried Oriole.
"That's right," said the boy. "Ching Foo is an old-fashioned Chinaman,
and no American-made coffin would do for him. He showed it to me.
All lacquer-work and dragons and fancy doo-dads on it. He will be put
in that when he dies and be shipped back to Canton to sleep with his
fathers. Mr. Langdon has promised him that it shall be done just as he
says. Otherwise he would go back to China himself and die there, for he
has plenty of money saved up."
"Dear me!" said Oriole in a worried tone, "I think that is too, too
dreadful. Are all Chinamen like Mr. Ching Foo?"
"You got me there, Oriole," said the boy. "He's not a half bad old
chap. And he said something funny to me when I was coming away from the
Langdon Ranch. I ain't forgot it."
"What do you mean--funny?" asked the interested girl.
"Why, it sounded as though he might know--or suspect--more about
who was the real thief than he let on. The Chinese are awfully
closemouthed. He only said to Harvey Langdon: 'Me no catchee pidgin;
him no my pidgin.'"
"Goodness me!" ejaculated Oriole. "I thought you said it was silver
that was stolen, not pigeons."
"It was silver plate," chuckled Ted Ford. "But Ching Foo talks what
they call pidgin English sometimes. He is a Canton Chinaman, and he
can't say business. Pidgin is the nearest he can come to saying
business. You see, he meant to tell Langdon it wasn't any of his
business, and he shouldn't ask him about the lost silver."
"Oh!"
"It looked to me as though the old man was scared to tell everything he
knew. I went after him alone in the kitchen, and asked him if he didn't
suspect who stole the plate? He said:
"'Plenty bad mans here. Melican boy get away; mebbe get hurt.' And
then he added the thing that afterward set me thinking. It was: 'Three
topside bad men--alli same talkee-talkee. Melican boy look out!'"
Oriole still looked at the boy curiously.
"You see," said Teddy, his voice lowered, "afterward I remembered that
Ridley, Shaffer and Tom Mudd were always roosting around on the fences
when they weren't working, and talking together out of the corners of
their mouths. Three tough fellows, they were, and don't you forget
it. They had only just come to the ranch and, although they were good
punchers, some of the boys said they were bad eggs."
"Why didn't you tell Mr. Langdon about them?"
"You can't talk to Harvey Langdon when he's mad and his mind is made
up. And, besides, I never thought much about what Ching Foo said till
I was half way across the continent on the cattle train."
"I think that is too bad," said Oriole soberly. "But I wish you would
stay and talk with Mr. Langdon, Teddy Ford."
"Not me!" cried the boy emphatically.
"Then I wish you would go back home and see if you can't find those
three bad men. It must be that they have made some use of the silver."
"Melted it up. Sell it for silver bullion at one of the mining towns.
That would be their game."
"That is terrible! But if you could _prove_ that they did just that?"
"It wouldn't prove they were the robbers," grumbled the boy, shaking
his head.
"But it would _look_ so. Mr. Langdon would believe you were innocent,
then, I am sure."
"Not much he wouldn't. You have to show Harvey Langdon. You can't tell
him. And anyway he would not listen to me."
"But he will listen to me," said Oriole firmly. "And I mean to tell
him all about you--what you say and what you did in saving us from the
water. You go back to Montana and fight this, Teddy Ford--that's what
_you_ do," said the girl earnestly.
"G-g-g--I mean, do you want me to?" he gasped.
"That is the way to do. Stay right there until you have proved your
innocence."
"Well, I can work back that way. I know how," said Teddy, doubtfully.
"Do you think that is the right thing to do?"
"So I believe," Oriole confidently responded.
"I imagine you know more about what's right than I do," said Teddy Ford
soberly. "If you say so----"
"I do say so. And I will tell Mr. Langdon. He will meet you differently
out there I am sure. He might just want to give you money here in the
East and thank you for saving Marian and helping Myron and me. But if
you go right to him at home and tell him you want to clear up that
awful mystery I am sure he will think you really _are_ honest."
And in her shrewd mind Oriole meant to talk to Mr. Langdon in such a
way that he would be sure to meet Teddy Ford in just this way! The boy
was impressed by her words. He nodded his head thoughtfully.
"That sounds right, Oriole. I guess you are giving me the 'real steer,'
as the punchers say. I'm going to do it. I got a chance to go on a boat
around to Boston, and I must start now. Good-by. You'll hear from me
some time--though I ain't much on writing letters."
"Oh, Teddy, be _sure_ to write to me!" Oriole cried, almost in tears as
the boy pushed past her to open the door.
"You bet I will. Good-by!"
He turned back and squeezed her hand, blushing furiously as he did so.
Then he ran out of the house. Oriole watched from the window but could
see nothing of him after he crossed the porch and started down the path
to the cove, it was so dark. Then she sighed.
"I do think other people have so very many troubles," she said, and she
took this thought back to bed with her.
In the morning she certainly was surprised to learn that the twins as
well as Teddy Ford had gone away in the night. Mr. Langdon had been
right here at the island without seeing the boy from the West. Oriole
was much disappointed.
But she made up her mind, nevertheless, to talk to Mr. Langdon about
that lost chest of silver. It was impossible for her to believe that
Teddy Ford was in any measure guilty of the robbery.
She hurried home, dragging the sled with her, and arrived at Mrs. Joy's
before noon, finding that the widow and Lyddy Ann had been informed of
Oriole's safety by Mr. Langdon after his return from the island the
night before.
"I do think that bay is no place for you, Oriole," Mrs. Joy said. "It
is too dangerous for anybody to risk themselves upon it. Now you must
wait for open weather before you go to the island again."
"Tell you what," Lyddy Ann told the girl, "you might's well wait for
one of these flying-machines to take you. 'Tis safer, I do allow. That
Anson Cope ought to be lashed to the mast for ever running you down
that way with his iceboat. You wait till I give him a piece of my mind!"
As Lyddy Ann was forever threatening to give people "a piece of her
mind," Oriole wondered that she had any mind left at all. But of course
she did not say just that.
Her own mind, in fact, was quite occupied with the trouble of Teddy
Ford and how she should broach the subject to Mr. Langdon. She had told
Uncle Nat all about her interview with the youth and what he had said
and what she had advised him to do.
"You got the right idea, Oriole," the old lightkeeper declared. "Let
the boy go back there to that ranch and prove his innocence. He can do
it if he goes about it right. And I believe Mr. Harvey Langdon is a
kind man at heart. You put a flea in _his_ ear."
So Oriole started over to the hotel after the noon dinner to do just
this. She knew the twins were all right, for Mr. Langdon had sent her
word. Neither Myron nor Marian seemed a whit the worse for the plunge
into the icy harbor.
"You are a mighty brave girl, my dear," said Harvey Langdon, warmly. "I
know that few girls of your age could have kept their heads and saved
the children."
"Oh, Mr. Langdon! I didn't save Myron and Marian. At least, little
Marian would have been drowned had it not been for somebody else."
"I did hear from Anson Cope that somebody aided you."
"Why! he _saved_ us. That's what Teddy Ford did. He jumped right in----"
"Who did you say?" broke in Harvey Langdon, with a queer look on his
bronzed face. "What is his name?"
"Ted--Teddy Ford," stammered Oriole.
"Indeed! A boy?"
"Yes, sir. He is a boy. And he jumped right into the water and brought
poor little Marian up from under the loose ice. Then he helped me
with Myron, and finally he got me out and the sled too. Oh, he is a
wonderful boy, Mr. Langdon!"
"He is, is he? And his name is Ford?"
"Yes, sir," hesitated Oriole. "You owe the twins' lives to him, and
that's a fact."
"I do, do I?"
The ranchman continued to look so "funny," as Oriole expressed it in
her thoughts, that she could scarcely tell the details of the rescue as
she had intended to. But she managed to make a considerable impression
on the man's mind--and, she hoped, in Teddy's favor.
"So that's how it was, eh?" commented Langdon. "And you think that this
boy is more to be commended than you are?"
"Oh, yes, sir! For he really saved us."
"Where is he now?"
"He's--he's run away."
"You don't mean it?"
"Yes, Mr. Langdon," said Oriole sorrowfully. "He is afraid of you."
"He is, is he? Humph! And maybe that is so. He is the Teddy Ford who
used to work for me, I suppose?"
"He says he worked on your ranch. And--and he ran away----"
"Because he stole."
"Oh, no, sir! He never! Why, think of it! He has no money and is just
knocking about working for his living. If he had got that silverware of
yours don't you suppose he would be _rich_?"
"Ha! He told you about it, did he?" asked the ranchman sternly.
"Oh, yes, sir. All about it. And he doesn't know a thing about the
robbery, Mr. Langdon. 'Deed and he don't."
"He would not admit it of course. And I don't suppose he did the whole
thing himself. Whoever he was in with cheated him out of his share of
the loot of course--he being only a boy. I am afraid Teddy's a bad egg."
"Just the same he saved Marian's life," Oriole declared with some
sharpness.
"That is right. I owe him a good deal for what he has done. We won't
say anything more about that silver--although it was very valuable and
had been handed down in our family for several generations. Brought
from England by the first Langdons.
"Well, when you see Ted again you tell him not to be afraid of me. All
that is wiped off the slate for what he did yesterday, and I stand
willing to help him all I can. He is nothing but a boy after all."
The ranchman's bluff heartiness pleased Oriole. Yet she felt that it
would be just because he was grateful to Teddy Ford if he helped the
boy--provided the latter would give the ranchman the chance. Langdon
still believed Teddy guilty of complicity in the robbery at the ranch.
She could say nothing more about it. She knew that it was not in her
province to criticize the ranchman or to try to convert him from his
opinion. Time--and Teddy Ford's own efforts--must change the man's
opinions.
Mr. Langdon gave every evidence of being fond of her, and on this very
day he broached a subject that delighted Oriole. She was very fond of
the twins, and Mr. Langdon had told her so much about his ranch and the
Montana country that in her heart there had begun to bud a desire to
see the far-distant plains and mountains.
"I don't see why you shouldn't come out there and see the twins and me
next summer," the ranchman said. "It would please Myron and Marian, I
am sure. I am going to start back very soon with the children and their
nurse. Sadie Brown can travel now, and she wants to go home. I'll have
to run up to Maine for a day or two with the children so that their
grandparents may see the twins, now that we are in the East. But of
course we can't have a visit there now, too much time has gone by and
we must start home as soon as possible. Yes, we must see you out on the
ranch."
"Oh! I'd love to come to see you," cried Oriole.
"Then I guess I can fix it with Mrs. Joy--and Nat Jardin."
"But when my dear mother and father come----"
"We'll hear about it at once by telegraph," Langdon assured her. "I
will make some special inquiries myself, anyway, Oriole, before I leave
for the West. Perhaps we can get some line on what part of the world
they are now in."
"Oh, wouldn't that be glorious!" gasped Oriole, clasping her hands.
"I've been studying my geography. Perhaps, if that ship took them 'way
round the world, they may land at San Francisco. Montana would be much
nearer to them then than Littleport."
"Quite so, my dear," agreed the ranchman.
And so plans were begun for Oriole Putnam's wonderful trip to the
cattle country in which, quite unsuspected by the girl, she was to have
many quite wonderful adventures.