JULIAN’S HOME.
WE HAVE said that Julian Mortimer was the hero of our story, and in
order that you may understand what brought him to the mountains, and
how it came that several persons whom he believed he had never seen
before should take so deep an interest in him, we must go back and
relate some events that transpired previous to the beginning of our
story.
On the banks of the Missouri River, about fifty miles below St. Joseph,
was a small clearing, in which stood a dilapidated cabin inhabited by
the family of John Bowles. It was a gloomy-looking place, and that was
not to be wondered at, for Jack, as he was familiarly called, was not
the man to waste any of his time or money in beautifying his home.
Both were much too precious for that. His time was spent in hunting
and trapping, and his money—what little he earned—was devoted to the
purchase of bad whisky, of which he was exceedingly fond. He was a
tall, heavy, broad-shouldered man, and looked the very impersonation of
laziness. His two boys, Jake and Tom, were chips of the old block, and
his wife was a sharp-featured, ill-tempered woman of wonderful strength
and daring, and it was said that in a fair rough-and-tumble fight—for
things came to that sometimes in the cabin of Mr. Bowles—she was more
than a match for her redoubtable husband.
The neighboring settlers had but little to do with Jack. They remarked
that his family went clothed in rags from one year’s end to another;
that they were sometimes destitute of even the common necessities of
life; and that Jack hunted early and late and spent every cent he
made at the grocery at “The Corners.” But one stormy night a stranger
was seen to ride rapidly away from the cabin, and from that hour
things seemed to take a turn for the better with Jack Bowles. He and
his family appeared in brand new suits of clothing; the boys sported
silver-mounted rifles in place of the rusty single-barreled shot-guns
in which they had before taken so much delight; a neighbor, who knew
something of the use of carpenters’ tools, was employed to patch up
the cabin, and Jack gave up hunting and spent his days and nights in
lounging about the grocery, drinking whisky and showing large rolls of
bills and handfuls of gold and silver. The settlers noticed, too, that
the cabin had an inmate whom they had never seen before—a slender,
fair-haired boy about eight years of age, who seemed to be altogether
out of his element there. And they told one another also that Jack and
his wife had reasons for wishing to keep him out of sight as much as
possible, for whenever any one passed the clearing the boy would be
summoned into the house by the shrill voice of Mrs. Bowles, and the
door closed upon him.
From this they naturally concluded that the boy and the money Jack
spent so freely were in some way connected; and, when hard pressed,
Jack acknowledged that such was the fact. He said that the boy’s
name was Julian Mortimer; that he had been brought to the cabin by a
stranger who wished to leave him there for a month or two while he went
on a business tour to New Orleans; and that he had paid a few weeks’
board for him in advance. There was one thing, however, that Jack did
not see fit to disclose, and that was that the stranger had cautioned
him to keep strict watch over the boy, and under no circumstances
to allow him far out of his sight. For awhile the settlers wondered
greatly at this story; but it soon ceased to be the topic of
conversation, and finally even the circumstance of the stranger’s visit
was forgotten.
Weeks grew into months, and months into years, and Julian Mortimer was
still an inmate of Jack Bowles’ cabin, which he had learned to call
home. The money that had been paid for his board had long ago been
squandered at The Corners, and Jack had been obliged to overhaul his
long-neglected implements of the chase, and resume his old occupation
of hunting and trapping.
The cabin was in a worse condition now than it was before it was
repaired. It was built of rough, unhewn logs, and contained but one
room. It had no floor—the ground, which had been trampled upon until
it was as hard as a rock, answering that purpose. The only furniture
it could boast of were two miserable beds, and a three-legged pine
table that had been pushed against the wall to enable it to retain its
upright position. As for chairs, there were none; the places of these
useful articles being supplied with boxes and empty nail-kegs. There
were no windows in the cabin, all the light and air being admitted
through the door, which was allowed to stand open during the coldest
days in winter.
A ladder on one side of the room led to the loft where Julian slept. It
was the most uncomfortable part of the house, for some of the boards
at the gable-end had fallen off, the shingles on the roof were loose,
and during a storm the rain and sleet rattled down on his hard pillow.
There was nothing inviting about Julian’s bed, for it was simply a pile
of husks, with a large gunny sack, a tattered blanket, and one or two
ragged coats spread over it. But he always went to that bed aching in
every muscle after his hard day’s work, and slept as soundly there, in
spite of the cold wind and rattling shingles, as if it had been a couch
of down.
One end of the cabin was occupied by an immense fire-place, with
a stick chimney, which leaned away from the building as if about
to topple over. A fire was burning brightly on the hearth one cold
afternoon in March, and before it stood Mrs. Bowles, watching some
venison steaks that were broiling on the coals, and smoking a short
cob pipe, which was held firmly between her teeth. She was angry—that
was plain enough to be seen—and, indeed, it would have been difficult
to find her in any other mood. She thought she had good reasons for
showing her temper occasionally, for “that Julian,” as she called
the household drudge, was the plague of her life. More than half an
hour ago she had sent him out after firewood, and although she had
called him three times, and promised to dust his jacket for him the
moment he came within reach of her arm—a threat that never failed to
quicken the pace of her sons—he had not yet returned. She watched the
broiling steaks for a few minutes, listening the while for the sound of
footsteps, and then went to the door, removed the pipe from her mouth,
threw back her head and shrieked:
“You, Julian! Have you gone clear to St. Joe arter that firewood?”
This time her shrill tones reached the ears of a young fellow about
sixteen years of age, who was at work in the edge of the woods at a
short distance from the house. We ought rather to say that he _had_
been at work, and was resting from his labor, leaning on his ax and
gazing thoughtfully at the ground when the woman’s sharp voice broke in
upon his reverie.
“There it is again,” said he, with a long-drawn sigh, lifting his ax
and resuming his work. “It’s Julian! Julian! from morning until night.
Julian has to do everything that is done on the farm. I shouldn’t mind
the work so much if they would only give me some warm clothes and say
a kind word to me now and then; but they won’t do it. Look at that,”
he added, pausing, with his ax suspended in the air, and gazing down
at his boots, which were so sadly out of repair that they afforded his
feet but very little protection from the mud, and none whatever from
the sharp, biting air. “This coat is so thin that the wind blows right
through it; and as for this hat—well, perhaps it is better than none
at all, but not much. These are the only clothes I have in the world,
and they are the best I have owned since I came to this place eight
years ago. I have money enough to buy others, but I dare not do it, for
fear that they will be taken away from me and given to that lazy Jake
or Tom. And as for the treatment I receive—why, there isn’t a dog on
the place so badly abused. I suppose I shall get another beating now
for keeping Mrs. Bowles waiting for this firewood.”
When Julian had finished his soliloquy and his chopping, he threw down
his ax, and shouldering one of the heavy back-logs he had cut, made his
way slowly toward the house. Mrs. Bowles was too busily engaged with
her preparations for supper to think of the rawhide which she had taken
from its accustomed nail behind the door and laid upon the table close
at her side, and Julian succeeded in transferring his pile of wood from
the edge of the clearing to the cabin without attracting her attention.
This done, his work for the night was over, and he was at liberty to
attend to a little business of his own.
Drawing on a pair of tattered gloves he left the house, and walking
briskly past the corn-cribs, struck into the path that led through the
woods to The Corners, turning his head now and then to make sure that
there was no one observing his movements. Had he taken pains to look
closely at one of the corn-cribs as he went past it, he would have
discovered two pairs of eyes peering through an opening over the door;
and had he glanced behind him when he reached the cover of the woods,
he would have seen the door fly open and two figures spring out and run
swiftly along the path in pursuit of him.
Julian had set out to visit his traps. Minks, foxes and raccoons were
abundant in the woods about the clearing, and he was very expert in
taking them. During the last two winters he had earned a sum of money
that was quite a respectable fortune in his eyes; and more than that,
he had purchased an excellent rifle, a supply of ammunition and a fine
young horse, which he intended should some day carry him miles and
miles out of the reach of Mrs. Bowles’ rawhide.
The rifle, together with his money and stock of furs, was concealed
where no one would ever think of looking for it; but the horse was
claimed by Tom Bowles, Jack’s younger son, who took possession of the
animal as soon as Julian brought him home. But that was a matter that
did not trouble our hero. Of course he was denied the pleasure of
riding the horse—for Jake and Tom followed the example set them by
their parents, and tyrannized over Julian in every possible way—but
he knew where to find him when he wanted him; and when he was ready
to undertake the journey he had been planning and thinking about, he
intended to take possession of him without consulting Tom Bowles or any
one else.
On the day that Julian first brought the horse home he created quite a
commotion in the Bowles family. When he told Jack, in the presence of
his wife and sons, that the animal was his own private property, and
that he had paid $75 in cash for him, the inquiry very naturally arose,
where did the money come from? That was a matter that Julian did not
care to talk about. If he replied that he had received it for the furs
he had trapped, he knew that Jack and his boys would hunt the woods
over until they found his dead-falls, and then rob and destroy them.
He declined to enlighten them on this point, and that created on uproar
at once. Jack swore lustily; Mrs. Bowles flourished her rawhide; Tom
took charge of the horse and led him off to the stable; and Jake
threatened to black his eye for him. But Julian, who was not one of the
sort who are easily frightened, remained firm, and Jack and his boys
were compelled to change their tactics and resort to strategy.
They told one another that they would keep a sharp eye on all Julian’s
movements, and follow him wherever he went; and if they did not find
out what he did in the woods while he was there, and what it was that
took him away from home so regularly every night and morning, they
would know the reason why.
But even this plan failed, for Julian was always on the alert and could
not be caught napping. His ears, as sharp as an Indian’s, always told
him when he was followed. On such occasions he would stroll carelessly
about through the woods, as if he had no particular object in view,
and finally make his way home again and go to work. Then Tom and Jake
would be angrier than ever, and Julian was certain to suffer for his
watchfulness.
On this particular evening, however, Julian was not as careful as
usual. The plans he had been so long maturing were almost ready to
carry into execution, and he was so completely wrapped up in his
glorious anticipations concerning the future that he did not hear the
light footsteps of Jake and Tom as they dodged through the bushes
behind him.
He walked straight to the creek, and from the force of long habit,
paused on the bank to look about him. Having satisfied himself that
there was no one in sight, he sprung into the bed of the stream, and
looking under the overhanging roots of a beech where he had set one of
his traps, discovered a large mink caught by one of his hind feet.
A blow on the head with a stick stilled the animal, and after resetting
and baiting the trap, Julian picked up his prize, and rejoicing in the
thought that the skin of the mink would bring $2 more to be added to
his little fortune, hurried on up the creek.
For an hour Julian continued his walk, stopping now and then to bait
and set a trap that had been sprung by some animal too cunning to be
caught, or to take a fox, mink or raccoon out of another, and finally
he stopped at the foot of a precipitous cliff with $13 worth of furs
thrown over his shoulder—not a bad afternoon’s work for a trapper of
his years.
He now became more cautious than ever in his movements. His first care
was to convince himself that there was no one following him; and in
order to set his fears on this score at rest, he dropped his game and
ran back along the bank of the creek, peering through the trees in
every direction, and passing so close to Tom and Jake, who had thrown
themselves behind a log to escape discovery, that he could have touched
them. But he saw no one, and believing himself to be alone in the
woods, he once more shouldered his game and made his way up the cliff
until he reached a thicket of bushes that grew near the summit.
Here he paused, and began pulling away the leaves with his hands,
presently disclosing to view a small door which had been set into the
face of the cliff. The opening of the door revealed what appeared to be
the mouth of a cave, extending down into the ground. Julian threw in
his foxes and minks one after the other, and then crawled in himself
and closed the door after him.