TOM AND HIS PARTNER.
“Well, if this doesn’t bang me completely! Who in the world would ever
have dreamed of seeing that boy out here? I can’t describe the feelings
I experienced when he first came in sight. I knew that I was neither
asleep nor dreaming, and I was really afraid that my senses were
deserting me. If I haven’t passed through enough since I left home to
unsettle almost anybody’s mind I don’t want a cent. This much I
know—I’ll never be surprised at anything that happens hereafter.”
It was Tom Preston who spoke. The last time we saw him he was hurrying
into a thicket, with an axe on his shoulder, ostensibly for the purpose
of cutting some wood for the fire, which he had allowed to burn itself
nearly out; but his real object was to get away from his brother, whose
presence he could no longer endure.
He now stood in the edge of the thicket, listening to the echoes made by
the pony’s feet as Oscar rode away from the camp. As soon as the sound
ceased he walked out of the bushes, threw his axe spitefully down upon
the ground, and seated himself on his log again. He had never been so
nearly overcome with rage before in his life.
“This is a pretty state of affairs, I must say!” he exclaimed aloud.
“Here’s Oscar, with a thousand dollars in clean cash at his command, a
fine hunting rig of his own, a pony to ride, and living like a gentleman
at the fort, with those gold-bespangled officers, who wouldn’t so much
as look at me if they met me on the trail, or even speak of me, unless
it was to say, ‘There goes some worthless vagabond.’ And he even had the
impudence to tell me that he has a guide, and is going to the mountains
in style; while I——It’s a lucky thing for him that he left his money at
the fort,” said Tom, grinding his teeth in his fury. “I’d have choked
some of it out of him in short order. He must have seen at a glance how
miserable I am, and yet he seemed to take delight in telling me how
comfortably he is situated.”
For a long time Tom sat on his log, making himself miserable with such
thoughts as these, and the longer he indulged them the madder he became.
He could see very plainly that there was a wide gulf between him and his
brother, and it hurt him terribly to know that he had made that gulf by
his own acts.
He had never dreamed that there was anything in Oscar, or “Old Sober
Sides,” as he used to call him; but here he was, the associate of a
college faculty and the daily companion of officers who held high and
honorable positions under the government.
As for himself, there was only one person in the world he could lean
upon, or to whom he could look for a kind word; and he was so low down
in the scale of humanity that, had he presumed to intrude among those
with whom Oscar associated on terms of the closest intimacy, he would
have been promptly kicked out of doors.
When Tom thought his brother had been allowed time enough to ride to the
fort, and purchase the blankets and clothing he had promised to give
him, he arose to his feet and walked slowly down the ravine.
“If there were any way in which I could smash up that expedition of his,
and send him back to the States with as heavy a heart as I carry at this
moment, I’d do it,” said Tom, who was so envious of Oscar that he would
gladly have injured him by every means in his power; and, this being his
state of mind, he was quite eager to fall in with a plan that was
suggested to him a few days afterward. “It _must_ be broken up, for it
would never do to allow him to go back to Eaton and Yarmouth, and earn
honors and money there, while I am out here in this deplorable
condition. I’ll speak to Lish about it as soon as he comes back.”
While Tom was ready to throw all the obstacles he could in the way of
his brother’s success, he was equally ready to accept from him a suit of
thick clothes and a pair of blankets to keep him warm of nights. He
thought Oscar ought to be on his way back by this time, and so he was,
as Tom found when he reached the mouth of the ravine.
He was coming at a gallop along the path that led through the
sage-brush. Tom did not want to meet him again, so he sought a hasty
concealment among the bushes on the side of the ravine opposite to that
on which stood the rock he had described to his brother.
He heard Oscar pronounce his name and say that he had news for him, but
he could not be coaxed out of his hiding-place. He saw the bundle that
Oscar carried on the horn of his saddle, watched him as he rode up the
bank toward the rock behind which the bundle was to be left, and
wondered what it was that kept him there so long.
He also saw his worthy partner when he went by, and was somewhat
surprised that Lish, whose eyes were as sharp as an Indian’s, did not
see the trail that Oscar’s pony made when passing through the bushes.
Oscar, too, saw the wolfer, as we know, and made all haste to quit the
ravine as soon as he had passed out of hearing.
“He’s gone at last,” said Tom, as he drew a long breath of relief,
sprang to his feet, and ran across the ravine toward the rock. “If he
had stayed here much longer I should have thought that he was making the
clothes or weaving the blankets for me. Oh, I see what it was that kept
him,” he added, snatching up the note that Oscar had thrust under the
string with which the bundle was tied. “Perhaps I shall now find out
what it was he wanted to tell me, and perhaps, too, he has been
thoughtful enough to put a ten-dollar note into this. No, he hasn’t! I
might have known better than to expect it.”
Tom opened the letter, but there was nothing but writing in it. He
quickly made himself master of its contents; and, after cramming it into
his pocket, untied the bundle, threw out the blankets, which were on the
top, and began a hurried examination of all the pockets in his new suit;
but he did not find what he was looking for—every one of them was empty.
“He must have hurt himself,” said Tom in great disgust, as he picked up
the blankets, one after the other, and shook them violently in the air,
at the same time keeping a close watch of the ground under them to see
if anything fell out. “A pair of blankets, an overcoat, and a suit of
clothes, but not a cent of money, although he knows that I stand in
great need of it. You haven’t made anything by this day’s work, Mr.
Oscar. Yes, you have,” he added a moment later. “You have made an
implacable enemy of me, and of Lish also; for I know he will be hopping
mad when I read that note to him. I wish I knew what that ‘affair’ was,
for then I could read something to Lish to make him madder. No matter. I
can make up something.”
Although Tom’s rage was greatly increased by the sight of his brother’s
gift—the articles comprising it were not as fine and costly as he had
expected them to be—he did not hesitate to take it. On the contrary, he
made all haste to pull off his threadbare garments and get inside the
new and warmer ones.
He did not abandon his old clothes, but wrapped them up in his blankets,
threw them over his shoulder, and started toward the bottom of the
ravine.
Just as he reached it his steps were arrested by an exclamation of
astonishment that fell upon his ear, and, looking up, he saw Lish the
Wolfer peeping out from behind a rock a little distance away.
“Hello! What brought you back here?” exclaimed Tom. “I thought I saw you
ride toward the camp a quarter of an hour ago.”
“Mebbe ye did,” replied the wolfer, still keeping his position behind
the rock, and showing nothing but his head around the side of it.
“Thar’s been a hoss through this gulch since I went away. But, see here,
pard. Ye don’t look like yerself.”
“Don’t I?” replied Tom, who now walked up and presented himself before
the wolfer. “Well, you can see that it is I, can’t you? Come on. I’ve a
story to tell and a letter to read to you; and if you don’t get mad and
vow vengeance against the one who wrote it, you are not the man I take
you for. Lish, you had an awful row with some fellow last summer, and
injured him seriously, and if you don’t dig out of here in a little less
than no time you’ll be arrested.”
“’Taint no sich thing!” exclaimed Lish, stopping suddenly, and facing
his companion.
Tom saw at once that he had made a mistake. If he had been a little
better acquainted with his partner he never would have accused him of
being in a fight with anybody, for he lacked the courage to carry him
through such an ordeal.
“Well, you are suspected of it, anyway,” said Tom; “and if you stay here
and allow yourself to be taken into custody our trip to the hills is up
stump. But you did steal something,” he added, closely watching his
companion’s face, on which a change at once became visible, “and I know
it.”
That he had hit the nail on the head this time was evident. Lish turned
all sorts of colors, and looked up and down the ravine, and before and
behind him, as if he were trying to make up his mind which way he would
run, in case circumstances rendered it necessary for him to seek safety
in flight.
Finally he backed into the bushes, and said, almost in a whisper:
“Who told ye that story, pard?”
“I will begin at the beginning and tell you all about it,” was Tom’s
reply. “You met a boy on horseback up there in the sage-brush, didn’t
you? Well, that fellow was my brother, whom I supposed to be a long way
from——Don’t interrupt me now,” he exclaimed, when he saw his companion’s
eyes growing larger and his mouth open as if he were about to speak.
“Let me tell my story in my own way, and then I will answer all the
questions you can ask. That was my brother, as I told you, and he is——”
Here Tom went on to tell, in language the wolfer could easily
comprehend, all about the unexpected meeting between himself and Oscar,
and to repeat, as nearly as he could, the conversation that passed
between them.
He described how his brother happened to be there, told what he intended
to do, how much money he had, and wound up with the remark that he was
soon to start for the hills, with Big Thompson for a companion.
Then he exhibited the new clothes and blankets that Oscar had purchased
for him, and finally he came to the note, which he read to suit himself,
not forgetting to put in something about the theft Lish had committed,
and going into the particulars of that terrible fight he was suspected
of being engaged in during the previous summer.
It may have been all imagination on Tom’s part, but he really thought
that his companion seemed to grow taller and swell out considerably when
he read that imaginary part of the letter that related to the fight. He
certainly did grow bigger in feeling, if not in person, for he had never
before been suspected of “severely injuring” anybody, and he regarded it
as a high honor. He forgot the strange story to which he had listened,
and became lost in admiration of himself.
“Mebbe thar’s sunthin’ in that thar account, arter all,” said he,
looking reflectively at the ground. “I’ve had so many of them triflin’
skrimmages, an’ tumbled over so many fellers that I don’t seem to
rightly know which one that thar letter tells on. Don’t amount to
nothin’ when ye gits used to ’em.”
As the wolfer said this he drew himself up to his full height and looked
formidable indeed.