DAN MAKES A DISCOVERY.
“HOW in the name of wonder did you manage to lose that money?” asked
George, as soon as he could speak. “Where and when did you see it last?”
“I had it in my hands not ten minutes before we left the boat,” replied
Bob, hardly able to keep back his tears. “It was safe, too, when I came
off the gang-plank, for I took pains to satisfy myself of the fact. When
we got into that crowd I was pushed about, first one way and then the
other, and, now that I think of it, I am sure I felt a hand in my
pocket.”
“Very likely you did,” answered George. “Your pocket has been picked,
that is the long and short of the matter, and here we are, alone in a
big city, without a cent to bless ourselves with, and not a friend
within hundreds of miles of us.”
Bob was greatly alarmed, and even George, with his eighteen months’
experience with the ways of the world, was sick at heart. They sat in
gloomy silence for several minutes, and then George brightened up a
little and spoke more cheerfully.
“It isn’t as bad as it might be,” said he, “for we know where we can get
money. If I can find somebody in the morning who is good-natured enough
to give me writing materials and a stamp, I’ll drop a line to Mr.
Gilbert, and he’ll see us through. But it will be two weeks before we
shall hear from him, and where are we going to sleep and what shall we
get to eat while we are waiting? That’s what bothers me. We must hunt
the city over for work. I am willing to do anything honest.”
“Where are we going to sleep to-night?” inquired Bob, whose courage was
all gone, and who felt as if he would like to crawl into a hollow log
out of sight, and give full rest to his feelings in a copious flood of
tears.
“We can’t sleep anywhere,” replied George.
“Can’t we find a dark stairway somewhere?” asked Bob, who remembered
that the heroes of some of his favorite books, who afterward became rich
enough to ride in their carriages, had passed more than one night in
that way when they first set out to seek their fortune.
“It wouldn’t be safe,” returned George, quickly. “There are policemen at
almost every corner, and they would be sure to find us and arrest us as
vagrants. They’ll not trouble us as long as we keep moving, and that is
the only safe thing we can do. We’re bound to have a hard night of it,
Bob, but the sun always brings the day.”
And they did have a hard night of it. They walked the streets for long
hours, and became so weary and footsore that they would have been glad
to lie down in the first clean place they could find and go to sleep.
The sun brought the day, it was true, but it did not bring any
improvement in their circumstances. At an early hour they found a man
opening a grocery store. George went in and told him their story; and
the man, after listening to it, gave him the writing materials he
needed, and also a liberal supply of crackers and cheese; but he could
not give him work, and neither could he tell them of anybody who wanted
to hire a boy.
The two friends sat on a box in front of the store, while they ate their
crackers and cheese, and then set out to find the post-office. The
letter, which George had written at the grocer’s desk, having been
mailed, their next hard work was to find something to do; but their
efforts in this direction met with no success. True, they found several
business men who wanted help, but they had no use for a cub pilot, or
for a boy who had never done anything in his life; and, besides, they
asked for something the wanderers could not produce, namely, letters of
recommendation. The boys roamed the streets all that day, without
anything more to eat, or without stopping to rest; and, when night came,
they were almost exhausted, and utterly discouraged. Even George, who
had thus far tried to keep up a light heart, was gloomy enough now.
“We can’t walk the streets to-night as we did last night,” said he; “and
there is only one place that I know of where we can go to sleep, and
that is the station-house.”
George had spoken of this several times during the day, and explained to
Bob that the station-house was the place where destitute persons went to
obtain a night’s lodging. He added one item of information that, made
the cold chills creep all over Bob, and that was that if they once went
in there they could not get out until morning, for they would be locked
in.
“I believe I’d rather die for want of sleep, than go to such a place as
that,” thought Bob, putting his hand first into one pocket and then into
another, as he had been doing all day, in the vain hope of finding the
missing pocket-book tucked away in some remote corner. “It seems to me
that I couldn’t breathe if I were locked up—I couldn’t,
possibly—hal-lo!”
While Bob was talking thus to himself he made a discovery that was
almost as welcome as the discovery of a gold mine would have been at any
other time. In the watch-pocket of his trousers he found a little round
ball of paper, and when his fingers came in contact with it a thrill of
hope shot through him. Gradually slackening his pace, and allowing
George to get a few feet in advance of him, he slyly pulled out the
ball, opened it, and found that it was a fifty-cent piece. He had put it
in there very carelessly, thinking nothing of it; but it was worth
something to him now. His fingers closed about it as eagerly as they had
closed about the tin box, when he pulled it out from under the log where
Dan Evans had hidden it.
“No station-house for me to-night,” thought he. “This will bring me
supper and lodging. It isn’t enough for both, so George must look out
for himself. I’ve saved his life twice, paid his expenses almost ever
since I met him, and I think it high time I was taking care of number
one. Now, how shall I slip away from him?”
This was the problem which Bob now devoted himself to solving. It did
not prove to be a very difficult one, for it solved itself. He continued
to walk very slowly, while his companion hurried along as if he wanted
to leave some of his gloomy thoughts behind him, and presently he was
nearly half a block ahead of Bob. He looked back now and then, to see if
Bob was coming, and then hurried on as before. Bob kept his eye on him,
and, as soon as the opportunity presented itself, he turned into a
side-street and broke into a run. He was so weak and tired that he could
scarcely stand upon his feet, but the prospect of a good supper and a
bed to sleep in put life into him, and for two or three blocks he ran at
the top of his speed. He turned into every street he came to, and, when
he thought he had put a safe distance between himself and his companion,
he stopped and sat down on a door-step to recover his breath.
“I had to do it,” thought Bob, who could not help feeling sorry when he
thought of George wandering hungry, friendless and alone through the
streets of the city. “I couldn’t stand it any longer without food and
sleep, and I have just enough money to see me through. Now I wonder if I
can find that place again!”
Once on the previous night, and two or three times during the day, the
boys had passed an eating-house, over the door of which was a huge
lantern, with a notice on it containing the information that supper and
lodging could be had there for fifty cents. This was the place Bob
wanted to find, and, to his great joy, he went almost straight to it. He
kept a sharp lookout for fear that he might run against George before he
knew it; and, when he reached the eating-house, he stopped and looked
all around to make sure that he was nowhere in sight. Then he went in,
laid his fifty cents on the counter, and informed the proprietor that he
wanted supper and a bed to sleep in. He was shown to a place at one of
the tables in the room, and ate as only a hungry boy can eat. When he
had satisfied his appetite he was conducted to his room, and sank into a
heavy slumber almost as soon as he touched the bed. He was aroused in
the morning by a loud and long-continued rapping at his door,
accompanied by cries of “Breakfast! breakfast!” He got up, but there was
no breakfast for him. He resumed his wanderings about the city, not
knowing where to go or what to do. He could not go home—O! how he wished
now that the steamer had been hailed when she passed Rochdale, and that
he had been discovered and compelled to go ashore. He could not find
work, and he could not live much longer as he was living now. He was a
miserable runaway. Once during the day he came very near encountering
the boy he most wished to avoid. While he was passing one of the
numerous hotels in the city, he saw George follow a gentleman in there.
As soon as Bob caught sight of him he turned and walked in the opposite
direction.
“He has either found work, or else he has been begging, and that
gentleman is taking him in there to give him his breakfast,” thought
Bob. “Begging! Must I come down to that?”
Bob had shot very wide of the mark. George had not found work, and
neither had he been begging. He had found Mr. Gilbert, the very man to
whom he had written the day before, and the two had spent a good portion
of the night and all the morning in looking for Bob. The latter had not
bettered his condition by running away from George.
Bob spent the forenoon in wandering about the streets, and was growing
very hungry and almost desperate when his eye caught a notice that
attracted his attention. It read: “Men wanted for the U. S. Cavalry
service.” Bob looked at it for several minutes, then put his hands into
his pockets and moved on with his eyes fastened on the sidewalk, as if
he were thinking deeply about something. When he came to a crossing he
went over to the opposite side of the street and read the sign from
there. Then he came back again and read it while standing in front of
it. After that he looked in through the open door and saw three or four
men in fatigue uniform sitting beside a long table, which was covered
with papers and writing materials.
“There’s a chance to get plenty to eat and a place to sleep,” thought
Bob, as he walked on again, “and I don’t know that I can do any better.
I can’t go home; I don’t know anything about such work as they have to
do in a city, and I can’t live in this way. I’ll ask them if they will
take me, at any rate.”
As Bob said this he turned about and walked toward the
recruiting-office. He walked rapidly, as if he feared that his courage
might fail him, and when he reached the door he went in without stopping
to think about it. When he went in he was a free boy; when he came out
he was not so, having sworn away his liberty for five years. Perhaps
then he regretted the step he had taken as heartily as he regretted that
he had run a way from home; but it was too late to mend the matter. He
could no longer go and come as he pleased, and neither was there any
such thing as running away. But he was sure of something to eat and a
place to sleep in, and that was what he wanted. He had a long term of
years before him in which to think over the mistakes and follies of his
life, and let us hope that it was of benefit to him.
And what were the people in Rochdale doing all this while? Let us go
back and inquire. Let us return to Dan Evans, whom we have not seen
since Bob stole David’s money from him.
“Thar!” said Dan, to himself, as the report of his rifle rang through
the woods, and the squirrel, after turning two or three somersets,
struck the ground with that dull thud so gratifying to a hunter’s ears,
“I reckon I’ve done got a breakfast now. If ye’d only showed yourself a
little sooner I wouldn’t had to go up to Owens’s hen-roost, dog-gone it!
That ole nigger Bijah done cotched me in the tree, an’ he knowed me,
too; but I don’t keer fur that. The only thing that bothers me is to
know what I am goin’ to do next. I can’t go hum, kase Dave an’ the ole
woman won’t let me stay thar’, an’ thar aint no other place in the
settlement whar I kin stay. My circus-hoss, an’ my fine guns that break
in two in the middle, an’ all the other nice things I was goin’ to buy
with my money, are up a holler stump, kase I can’t use ’em while I’m
livin’ out here in the woods.”
Talking thus to himself Dan re-loaded his rifle, picked up his squirrel
and slowly and thoughtfully retraced his steps toward his camp. He was
now learning the lesson that Bob Owens was destined to learn a few days
later, and that was that the possession of money does not by any means
make one happy. Dan had more in his hands now than he had ever hoped to
earn by his own labor, and he had never been more miserable and
discontented in his life. He was lonely out there in the woods, and he
would have been almost willing to give up the money, if by so doing he
could bring himself back to his old mode of life again. When he was
handling the money he was in ecstasies; but the unwelcome thought that
it was of no earthly use to him would always force itself upon him
sooner or later, and then he would think strongly of taking it back to
his brother, with the assurance that he had stolen it from his father on
purpose to return it to him. He thought strongly of it now. He was not
so stupid but that he could see that he was getting rather low down in
the world. He had no clothes except those on his back, and they afforded
him but very little protection against the keen morning air—only three
or four more matches in his pocket and but a dozen bullets and powder
enough to shoot half of them. What should he do when his matches and
ammunition were all gone?
“I dassent go to the landin’ to spend none of this money,” thought Dan,
as he seated himself on the log beside the fire and began skinning the
squirrel, “kase folks ’ll know it’s Dave’s money I’m spendin’, an’ then
I’ll get into a furse, sure pop. Other fellers, like them Gordons, kin
get along jest as smooth and easy as failin’ off’n a log, an’ here’s me
who’s been a toilin’ an’ slavin’ ever since I was knee-high to a duck,
an’ jest look at me! Whoop!” yelled Dan, who grew angry while he thought
about it. “That’s what makes me so pizen savage agin everybody!”
Dan’s thoughts ran on in this channel as he was dressing the squirrel
and preparing it for the spit, and while it was roasting he sat with his
elbows on his knees and his head resting on his hands, looking steadily
into the fire. But after the squirrel was done to his satisfaction and
he had eaten a portion of it and his ravenous appetite had been somewhat
appeased, he began to take a more cheerful view of things.
“I’ve got the money, anyhow,” thought Dan, holding a leg of the squirrel
in one hand and running the other through the leaves that were piled
against the log on which he was sitting. “That’s something I kin crow
over. It’s a heap of comfort to know that that thar mean pap an’ Dave of
our’n didn’t cheat me outen my share of them greenbacks as slick as they
thought they was a goin’ to. Wal, now, whar’s them greenbacks gone to?”
Dan laid his squirrel carefully down upon a piece of bark which he had
provided to serve as a plate, and kneeling beside the log, scraped away
the leaves, but without discovering the object of which he was in
search. The expression of astonishment which came upon his face
gradually gave away to a look of alarm, and the rapid movements of his
hands grew more rapid still as the fact seemed to dawn upon him that the
box which contained his treasure had most unaccountably disappeared. At
last the leaves were scraped away the whole length of the log, and Dan,
with a wild yell, bounded to his feet. He stood motionless for a moment,
and then dropping on his knees again, looked under the log, thinking
that perhaps he had pushed the box under farther than he had intended,
and that it had fallen into some little hollow out of sight. But there
was no little hollow under the log that Dan could discover, although he
ran his fingers over every inch of the ground. Dan’s eyes seemed ready
to start from their sockets.
“It’s gone, an’ I’m a busted man,” he exclaimed, casting frightened
glances on every side of him. “One of them thar haunts that lives in the
gen’ral’s lane has done come here an’ run off with it. This ain’t no
place fur me!”
Dan reached rather hurriedly for his rifle, and was about to desert his
camp with all possible haste, when he happened to discover something
that made him take an altogether different view of the matter. The
bushes behind the log had recently been disturbed—Dan was hunter enough
to see that—and a second look showed him that some heavy body had passed
through them. With his cocked rifle in his hand, Dan stepped over the
log to make a still closer examination, and found that the trail that
led through the bushes was so plain that he had no difficulty in
following it. It conducted him directly to the place where Bob Owens had
been concealed while he was watching Dan; but from that point it
gradually grew fainter, and, when it reached the more open woods, it
disappeared altogether. Almost the last sign of it that Dan could find
was the print of a boot-heel in the soft earth. This he examined as
closely as he could, through eyes blinded with tears of vexation and
disappointment.
“’Taint pap, nor Dave, nuther,” said he, at length. “Nary one on ’em
couldn’t git them big hoofs o’ their’n into a boot with sich a heel as
this yere; but somebody was snoopin’ around not more’n five minutes ago,
an’ who could it have been? Somebody ’sides pap knowed I had the money;
but who was it?”
This was a question that Dan could not answer, nor was it answered at
all until long months afterward. The loss of the money was a severe blow
to him, and he could see nothing but a gloomy future before him. Up to
this time he had felt comparatively safe, for he knew that, if he made
up his mind to do so, he could win his way into his mother’s good graces
and David’s very easily, by simply returning the latter’s money; but now
this chance for a reconciliation was taken from him, and the thought
almost drove him wild. How he lived through the next few days he could
not have told to save his life. He roamed the woods day and night—his
gloomy thoughts tormented him so that he could not keep still—shivering
in the cold morning air, going hungry more than half the time, and all
the while tortured by fears of some impending evil. At last the day came
when his matches were all expended, and he had not a single charge of
powder left in his horn. He had resolved to make a raid on Mr. Owens’s
hen-roost that night, although he could not for the life of him tell how
he was going to cook the chickens after he got them, and was on his way
to the plantation, when he came to the road which led from Rochdale to
the county-seat. As he was about to climb over the fence, he heard the
clatter of hoofs close at hand, and drew back into the bushes just in
time to escape discovery by the approaching horseman.
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