ALONE AND FRIENDLESS.
Leon, who was by no means dull of comprehension, had no difficulty
in finding an explanation of the hunter's actions. The latter had
deliberately robbed and deserted the boy who had trusted him.
This conviction came upon Leon with stunning force, and literally
crushed him to the ground.
He fell down beside the fire, and for a few moments gave way to the
most violent grief. Then, suddenly recovering himself, he sprang to his
feet and ran swiftly down the trail, shouting the hunter's name and
imploring him to come back.
But Eben was out of hearing. In a few seconds more he disappeared over
a swell, and Leon was alone on the prairie.
How he managed to exist during the next few hours he never knew.
He was animated with but one idea, and that was to reach Julesburg in
the shortest possible space of time.
He knew it was a military post, and he hoped to find the hunter there.
If he did, he would seek an interview with the commandant, tell him his
story, and have the thief arrested.
"But how much better off will I be then than I am now?" sobbed Leon,
after he had thought the matter over. "I shall get my property back,
of course; but what use will it be to me? I would not dare start for
St. Joe alone, for there are Indians along the route, and I have heard
Eben say that it will not be long before the roads will be blocked with
snow. I suppose I might find a train of empty freight-wagons going
back, but who will feed me when I have no money to pay for what I eat?
I can't become a hunter, now that Eben has gone back on me, and I----
Oh, I wish I had never seen or heard of Frank Fuller! I wouldn't be
here now if he had stayed at home."
Leon ran until he was all out of breath, and then slackened his speed
to a walk.
He had heard the hunter say that the nearest post was only ten miles
distant; but the miles on the prairies are longer than they are in the
States, and it was past the middle of the afternoon when he came in
sight of the little collection of tents and mud-houses that bore the
name of Julesburg.
He directed his course toward the stockade, which stood on a hill a
little apart from the town, but when he came to the gate he paused, for
there was an armed sentinel pacing back and forth in front of it.
"Do you allow strangers in here?" asked the boy timidly.
"Yes; if they come on business," answered the sentry.
Leon, replying that he had come on business, and very important
business, too, walked through the gate and paused to see which way he
would go next.
He was surprised at the extent of the fortifications. In the center was
a parade-ground large enough to admit of the evolutions of a regiment.
This parade-ground was surrounded by broad, level walks, the space
between the walks and the stockade being occupied with warehouses, the
sutler and trader's stores, barracks, officers' quarters, and stables,
all built of sun-dried bricks.
A tall flag-staff arose from the parade-ground, and from it floated the
Stars and Stripes.
Leon could see nothing of Eben, but he did see three or four men
lounging in front of the open door of one of the buildings, and toward
them he bent his steps.
The building proved to be a stable, and the men were government
teamsters.
When they saw Leon approaching, they ceased their conversation and
looked at him with curiosity.
"Good-afternoon!" said the boy, speaking in as steady a voice as he
could command. "Do any of you happen to know a hunter named Eben
Webster?"
"I reckon," replied one of the men; "and we don't know nothing good of
him, neither."
"Have you seen him about here to-day?" asked Leon.
"About here? About this fort?" exclaimed another teamster. "Not much.
He'll never come through one of our gates unless he comes with a guard
over him. You don't want no dealings with him, pilgrim. He's a thief."
"I know it," replied Leon, his lips quivering and his eyes filling with
tears. "He stripped me of everything I had, except the clothes I stand
in, and left me alone on the prairie."
The teamsters began to prick up their ears when they heard this, and
two or three of their companions, who were at work in the stable, came
to the door to listen to the conversation.
Leon, finding that he had an attentive audience, began and told the
story of his troubles, hoping that, if he could get the men interested,
they would assist him in some way.
He told nothing but the truth as far as he went, but he omitted one
very important thing which the wagon-master, an old, gray-headed man,
who had not yet spoken, supplied for him, after asking a few questions.
"Have you got a father?" he asked.
Leon replied that he had.
"And a mother, too?"
The boy nodded his head.
"Then, my young tenderfoot, you're a runaway, that's what you are. No
father or mother livin' would let a kid like you come out here to make
his bread and bacon by huntin' and trappin'. You're a nice lad to talk
about roughin' it in the mountains, aint you, now? Jest step over here
'longside of me and look at yourself."
The old wagon-master spoke seriously, and his words did not raise a
laugh at Leon's expense, as the latter expected they would. He hung his
head, and it was all he could do to keep his tears from bursting out
afresh.
One of the teamsters declared that it was a perfect shame, and this
remark brought about a general conversation, during which Leon learned
how foolish he had been in taking into his confidence a man with whom
he was not acquainted.
Eben had never been post-hunter at Laramie, nor anywhere else. He was
nothing but a renegade, who had married an Indian wife that he might
share in the annuities that are yearly distributed among the different
friendly tribes.
Leon was also informed that Eben had fled the country a few months
before to escape arrest; that he had never killed eight hundred
buffaloes during all the years he had been on the plains, and that he
was too lazy and too big a coward to spend a winter in the mountains,
hunting and trapping. He much preferred to settle down in his teepee
and eat government rations.
As for the articles he had stolen, the boy might just as well give them
up for lost. Eben had doubtless drawn a bee-line for the place where
the band to which he belonged was encamped, and Leon would never see
him again.
While this conversation was going on, the wagon-master arose and walked
away.
He was gone but a few minutes, and when he came back he beckoned to
Leon, who promptly joined him.
"Pilgrim," said he, as they walked away together, "I wish I was your
father for 'bout half an' hour, so 't I could gin you a good trouncin'
to pay you for runnin' away from a good home, and comin' out here where
you aint got no sort of business in the world. But seein' I aint your
father, I'm kinder sorry for you, though you aint wuth no sorrer, and
I've been sayin' a good word to the trader for you. I heard him tell
one of the leftenants last night that he reckoned he'd have to send to
the States for a boy to help him take care on the store. You see, his
last clerk, growin' tired of stayin' here, stole some money of his'n
and put for home. Now, mebbe you can work yourself into his place."
Leon's thanks were cut short by their arrival at the door of the
trader's store.
He followed the wagon-master in, and was presented to a rough-looking
man, who stood behind the counter.
A long conversation followed, and when Leon was asked to tell his
story, he omitted nothing. The trader scanned him closely, and finally
inquired:
"Can you keep a set of books?"
"Yes, sir," replied Leon. "Either by single or double entry."
"Now, I don't want to hear no more about double-entry!" exclaimed the
trader, growing red in the face, and dashing his clenched hand upon
the counter. "That's the way my last clerk kept my books, and a nice
mess he made of it. He swindled me out of five hundred or a thousand
dollars. There's the books, just as he left them," added the trader,
waving his hand toward the desk, "and I can't make head nor tail of
them."
"Let me try," said Leon.
"Are you honest?"
"Well, I'll tell you what I am willing to do. I will come here on
trial, if you will take me, and you can withhold my wages, whatever
they are. If you see anything wrong about me, you need not pay me a
cent."
"That's a fair proposition," said the trader. "Hang up your overcoat
somewhere, and come around here."
Leon paused long enough to thank the kind-hearted wagon master for the
assistance he had rendered him, and then, taking his stand behind the
desk, set manfully to work to earn the money that was to pay his way
back to the States. That was all he had in his mind now. His ambition
to become a hunter was dead and buried out of sight.
All the rest of the day, and until twelve o'clock that night, the
trader and his new clerk stood at the desk trying to straighten out the
accounts, which Leon found to be in the greatest confusion.
And we may add that his mind was in great confusion, too. The sudden
blighting of his long-cherished hopes seemed to have stunned him,
and that strange malady, homesickness, from which Frank had suffered
actually ever since leaving Albany, assailed him with the greatest fury.
Frank had not given way to it, for he had been buoyed up by the thought
that, if he could only secure his cousin's money, he could at once turn
his face toward Boston; but Leon had absolutely nothing to encourage
him.
While they were at work, the trader casually remarked that he had paid
his former clerk twenty dollars a month and board, and when Leon
thought of the long months he must spend in that dreary place before he
could save enough to take him back to Eaton, he felt like crying out in
despair.
"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" sobbed the repentant runaway, as
he tossed about on his hard bed in the little room off the store that
had been occupied by his predecessor. "I shall die--I know I shall. Oh,
mother! if I could only see you just one minute!"
Leon's grief was so intense that he seemed to be on the point of
suffocating. He threw open the door of the room and walked the floor
until he was almost exhausted; but when he went to bed again he did not
sleep, and neither did he get up to open the store at six o'clock, as
his employer had told him to do. He was too ill to hold up his head.
The trader opened the store himself, and, after holding a few minutes'
conversation with his clerk, walked across the parade-ground and
entered the doctor's office.
Returning to his store, he found there a party of teamsters who were
waiting for him.
While he was attending to their wants, the hospital-steward entered and
went into Leon's room.
He stayed there about a quarter of an hour, and when he came out the
trader was alone.
"What's the matter with that boy?" he asked.
"Nostalgia; and I suppose that is one of the worst things a poor mortal
can be afflicted with," replied the steward. "I have known it to throw
every raw recruit in a battalion flat on his back."
"Jerusalem!" cried the trader, his face betraying the greatest
consternation. "Is it as bad as that?"
He did not understand the learned term which the steward had applied to
Leon's malady, but believing that a disease that bore a name like that
must of necessity be something dreadful, he was very badly frightened.
If there was any one thing of which he stood in the most abject fear,
it was contagion. He had had some experience with it during his life
among the Indians.
The steward, who seemed somewhat surprised at the trader's words and
actions, replied:
"Yes, he is a pretty sick boy. He has told me his story, and I'm going
to speak to the doctor about him at once. He ought to be shipped back
to the States with as little delay as possible."
The steward went out, and the trader paced up and down behind his
counter in a state of mind bordering on frenzy.
"If I ever befriend a vagabond again, may I be shot" said he. "He
must be got out of here at once, for I might catch it myself. It is a
pretty rough thing to do," he added, as he hurried toward Leon's door,
"but self-preservation is the first law of nature. Say, pilgrim," he
shouted, as he entered the room where his clerk lay tossing and moaning
on his bed, "you climb out o' that and waltz!"
"Sir?" said Leon faintly.
"'Sir!'" yelled the trader. "Get up and clear out! Do you understand
that?"
"Oh, yes, I understand it; but what have I done? I couldn't possibly
get up. I couldn't stand."
"You must, and you will!" roared the trader, flourishing his fists
in the air. "The steward says you ought to be kicked out of the fort
directly, and that shows you've got something that's catching. Now, you
get up and dust. Start this minute, or I'll take you by the collar and
drag you out."
This threat put a little life and energy into Leon. He arose to his
feet, and although he was so weak that he could scarcely maintain an
upright position, he succeeded in putting on his clothes.
Then he picked up his overcoat and staggered through the store and out
at the door, the trader shouting after him:
"Now, you go over to the other side of the fort and stay there. Don't
let me catch you on this part of the parade-ground again."
Poor Leon! All his hopes of seeing home and friends again were gone now.