OSCAR WRITES A NOTE.
While the colonel was speaking, Oscar had twisted uneasily about on his
chair, waiting with the utmost impatience for him to bring his remarks
to a close.
At almost any other time he would have plied the officer with questions
regarding the class of nomads known as “wolfers,” for he would like to
have learned more about them; but he had already found out all he cared
to know just then.
Tom was suspected of complicity in some crime that rendered him liable
to punishment; and, if he escaped and went to the hills with Lish, he
would run the risk of being robbed by him.
Oscar thought it was his duty to warn him of these dangers. He knew that
the lieutenant would carry out his instructions with the utmost
promptness and decision—these regulars waste no time when acting under
orders—and not a moment was to be lost.
The colonel settled back in his chair as though he had nothing more to
say just then, and Oscar arose to his feet and went into his bedroom.
After slinging on his powder-flask and shot-pouch, and making sure that
the little box in the stock of his fowling-piece was filled with caps,
he opened his trunk, and, taking from it a sum of money sufficient to
pay for the clothes he had promised to purchase for his brother, he went
back into the colonel’s room.
There the officer detained him for a few minutes in order to describe
the localities in the immediate vicinity of the fort in which he would
be likely to find the most game, and to tell him how to shape his course
in order to reach those localities. He thought he was doing the boy a
kindness; but instead of that he was putting him on nettles.
Oscar listened as patiently as he could; and, when the colonel ceased
speaking, he bade him good-by and left the room.
He bolted through the outer door, and ran at the top of his speed across
the parade-ground to the sutler’s store. Fortunately there were no
customers present, and so the sutler was at liberty to attend to his
wants at once.
Slinging his double-barrel over his shoulder by the broad strap that was
attached to it, Oscar quickly selected the articles he thought his
brother needed, paid the price demanded for them, and, as soon as they
had been tied up in a compact bundle, he hurried to the stable after his
horse.
The animal, as before, showed a desire to use his heels, but Oscar,
having no time to waste, paid not the slightest attention to him. The
curb and the rawhide lasso were both brought into requisition; and,
before the vicious little beast was fairly through smarting under the
energetic pulls and blows he had received, he had carried his rider
through the gate and out of sight of the flag-staff.
The pony accomplished the distance that lay between the fort and the
mouth of the gully in much less time than he had accomplished it before;
for Oscar made no effort to check him, not even when he was moving with
headlong speed down the steep path that led through the sage-brush.
Almost before he knew it, the boy found himself in the mouth of the
ravine, and there he drew rein and brought his pony to a stand-still.
He now had another cause for uneasiness. Suppose the lieutenant had
found Lish at the village, and that the wolfer had said or done
something to warrant his arrest! Suppose, too, having placed Lish safely
in the guard-house, the young officer should come after Tom, and find
Oscar there in the ravine!
Even if he did not suspect him of something—and it is hard to see how
the lieutenant could help it when he caught sight of the big bundle that
was tied to the horn of Oscar’s saddle—would he not mention the
circumstance to the colonel when he made his report, and wouldn’t the
colonel have a word or two to say about it?
“Gracious!” exclaimed Oscar; “I’ll be in trouble myself if I don’t look
out. What could I say to the colonel if he should ask me what I was
doing here, and what I had in my bundle? Tom!” he added, calling as
loudly as he dared. “If you are about here, show yourself without any
fooling. I am in a great hurry, and I have news for you.”
Tom _was_ about there, but he would not show himself. He was lying at
the foot of a scrub-oak, on the other side of the ravine, keeping a
close watch over his brother’s movements; but not even the announcement
that Oscar had some news to communicate, could induce him to stir from
his place of concealment. He felt so heartily ashamed of himself that he
did not want to meet his brother face to face again, if he could help
it.
“I can’t waste any words on him. There are his clothes, and when he
wants them he can come after them,” said Oscar, pitching the bundle down
behind the rock Tom had described to him. “Now then, I don’t know
whether or not I shall have time to do it, but I’ll take the risk.”
So saying, Oscar drew from his pocket a diary and lead-pencil, and
dashed off a short note to his brother, using the pommel of his saddle
for a writing-desk. The pony was as motionless as the rock beside which
he stood.
Probably he thought—if he was able to think at all—that Oscar had ridden
into the bushes in order to conceal himself from some enemy who was in
pursuit of him. At any rate, he showed the training he had received at
the hands of his Indian master.
The note ran as follows:
DEAR TOM:
Here are the clothes you need. I am sorry I cannot see you again,
for I should like to ask you some questions in regard to a certain
“affair” that happened last summer; and in which you and Lish, the
Wolfer, are supposed to have been engaged. If you had anything to do
with it, you will know what I mean, and you had better dig out of
here without the loss of a minute’s time. Go off somewhere among
white folks; begin all over again, with an earnest resolution to do
better, and, as soon as you are able, make amends for what you have
done. But first drop Lish, as you would drop a hot potato. You will
never amount to a row of pins so long as you have anything to do
with him or men like him. I have as good evidence as I want that he
will rob you before the season is over, as Frank Fuller and Eben
Webster robbed Leon Parker. If you had no hand in that “affair,”
whatever it may be, come up to the fort as soon as you have read
this note and put on these clothes, and I will do everything in my
power to give you a start. In either case drop Lish. It would be
better for you to work for nothing and board around, as you did in
Denver, than to associate longer with him.
For prudential reasons, Oscar signed no name to the note; and, indeed,
no signature was needed to tell Tom where it came from. He read it over
hastily, and bending down from his saddle, he thrust it under the string
with which the bundle of clothing was tied up.
“It isn’t as emphatic as I wish it was,” thought he, “but I have no time
to re-write it, and I don’t know that I could make any improvements in
it if I should try. I would much rather talk to him, and I wish he
had——”
Just then the pony’s head came up with a jerk, and his ears were thrown
back as if he were listening to some sound behind him.
He did not turn about as most horses would have done, nor did he move
one of his feet an inch—not even when the clatter of hoofs on the hard
path began to ring out clearly and distinctly, as it did a moment later.
Somebody was coming through the sage-brush toward the ravine—that was
evident. Beyond a doubt it was the lieutenant; and here was Oscar,
fairly cornered.
A person thinks rapidly when placed in a situation like this, and it did
not take the boy an instant to make up his mind that everything depended
on his pony.
The rock behind which he had hidden the bundle stood on the hillside,
fully twenty feet from the path, and the intervening space was thickly
covered with trees and bushes.
If the pony could be kept from revealing his presence, it was possible
that the approaching horseman might pass on into the ravine, without
suspecting that there was anyone near him.
“It’s rather a slender chance,” Oscar thought, as he swung himself from
the saddle and seized his pony by the bit; “but it is the only one I
have. Now, old fellow,” he added in a whisper, “just imagine that I am
an Indian hiding here to escape from a white man who wants to shoot me!”
If the pony had been able to understand every word his master said to
him, he could not have behaved with more circumspection.
He stood perfectly still, and there was nothing but the motion of his
ears to indicate that he heard anything.
Oscar kept a close watch of the path through a convenient opening in the
bushes, and presently the horseman passed across the range of his
vision.