Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 45617-h.htm or 45617-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45617/pg45617-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45617/45617-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/redskincowboytal00hent
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
Three inline graphics have been replaced with text, a
circle in a triangle--[brand circle triangle], an "E"
in a circle [brand E], and an X--[brand X].
REDSKIN AND COW-BOY
[Illustration: THE MEETING IN THE INN GARDEN AT EL PASO.]
REDSKIN AND COW-BOY
A Tale of the Western Plains
by
G. A. HENTY
Author of "Held Fast for England;" "The Dash for Khartoum;" "By
Right of Conquest;" "True to the Old Flag;" "In Freedom's Cause;"
&c.
With Twelve Page Illustrations by Alfred Pearse
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1896
Copyright, 1891,
By Charles Scribner's Sons.
PREFACE.
MY DEAR LADS,
There are but few words of preface needed to a story that is not
historical. The principal part of the tale is laid among the cow-boys
of the Western States of America, a body of men unrivalled in point
of hardihood and devotion to work, as well as in reckless courage
and wild daring. Texas, which twenty-five years ago was the great
ranching state, is no longer the home of the typical cow-boy, but
he still exists and flourishes in New Mexico and the northern States
and Territories. The picture I have given of their life can be relied
upon, and its adventures and dangers are in no degree coloured, as
I have taken them from the lips of a near relative of my own who was
for some years working as a cow-boy in New Mexico. He was an actor in
many of the scenes described, and so far from my having heightened or
embellished them, I may say that I have given but a small proportion
of the perilous adventures through which he went, for had I given them
in full it would, I am sure, have seemed to you that the story was too
improbable to be true. In treating of cow-boy life, indeed, it may well
be said that truth is stranger than fiction.
Yours sincerely,
G. A. HENTY.
CONTENTS.
Chap. Page
I. An Advertisement, 11
II. Terrible News, 29
III. The Wanderer's Return 50
IV. An Explosion, 67
V. Across the Sea, 83
VI. A Horse Deal, 100
VII. Among the Cow-boys, 119
VIII. A Rattlesnake Diet, 136
IX. A Round-up, 156
X. A Race, 172
XI. A Fire on the Plains, 189
XII. An Indian Raid, 206
XIII. Rescued, 224
XIV. Surrounded by Redskins, 242
XV. With the Waggon Teams, 260
XVI. A Mining Expedition, 284
XVII. Carried off, 303
XVIII. The Brigands' Haunt, 321
XIX. A Fight and a Rescue, 339
XX. The Avenger, 359
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
The Meeting in the Inn Garden at El Paso, _Frontis. 290_
Symonds and Bill Tunstall have a Talk, 39
Hugh practises shooting with his Revolver, 72
"Hugh, seizing a poker, sprang at his Uncle," 81
When the Cow-boy fired, Hugh dropped on one knee, 98
"The next jump threw him fairly over the horse's head," 130
Branding the Calves at the "Round-up", 167
"A couple of kicks sent out the planks, and then we bolted," 195
"All safe, Father," cried Rosie, 230
The Cow-boys charged down upon the Indians, 262
Discovering the Body of the Bloodhound, 313
Besieged by Brigands, 346
[Illustration]
REDSKIN AND COW-BOY.
CHAPTER I.
AN ADVERTISEMENT.
Cedar Gulch was, in 1851, a flourishing camp. There had been some good
finds by the first prospectors, and a rush had of course followed.
In many cases first discoveries proved illusive, but it was not so at
Cedar Gulch. The ground turned out well, and although no extraordinary
finds were made, the average was good all over the bottom, and there
were few who were not doing fairly well.
The scene was a busy one. Several hundreds of men were hard at work on
the flat, which in winter was the bed of a wide stream, but which in
summer was a mere thread of water among the rocks, scarce enough for
washing purposes.
Everywhere were piles of stones and rubbish that had been brought up
from the shafts; men toiled at windlasses; others emptied the buckets
as they came up into swinging troughs or cradles; others again kept
these supplied with water, and swung or rocked them, taking off the
large stones that the motion brought to the surface, while the slush
and mud ran out at the lower end. New-comers moved about watching the
work with eager eyes, wishing that they had had the luck to get there
among the early arrivals, and to take up a claim, for every foot of
ground far down the valley had already been occupied, and there was
now no getting into a claim except by purchasing a share or altogether
buying out the present holders.
One of the claims that was doing best was held by three men who had
worked in partnership for the last two years, and who had been among
the first to arrive at Cedar Gulch. They were known among the others as
English Bill, Sim Howlett, and Limping Frank. Sim Howlett was perhaps
the leader of the party. He had been one of the earliest gold-diggers,
and was a square, powerfully built man. He was a man of few words, but
the words when spoken were forcible. He was by no means quarrelsome,
but was one whom few cared to quarrel with, even in a place where
serious quarrels were of constant occurrence, and where revolvers
cracked so often that the sound of a fray excited but little attention.
English Bill was a tall wiry man, hot of temper, but a general
favourite. Generous with his money, always ready to lend a helping hand
to anyone who was down on his luck, he also was a capital worker, and
had, in spite of his rough clothes and the use of language as rough as
that of his companions, a certain air which told that, like many others
in the diggings, he was a gentleman by birth. Why these two men should
have taken up with Limping Frank as a comrade was a matter of surprise
to those who knew them. They were both men in the prime of life, while
he was at least ten years their senior. His hair was already white;
his face was that of a student rather than a miner, with a gentle and
almost womanly expression. His frame was slight, and looked altogether
incapable of hard work, and he walked with a distinct limp, the result
of a bullet wound in the hip. And yet there were men in the gulch
who, having known the trio at other diggings, declared that they
would rather quarrel either with English Bill or Sim Howlett than with
Limping Frank, and as some of them were desperate fellows, and noted
pistol shots, their report was quite sufficient to secure respect for
a man who otherwise would have been regarded with pity or contempt.
Very little of the hard work of the partnership fell upon Frank. He
cooked, looked after the shanty, did what washing and mending to the
clothes was necessary, and occasionally came down and assisted to work
the cradle and sort the stuff. They generally addressed him as doctor.
Not that he made any profession of medical knowledge; but he was always
ready to give his services in case of sickness, and many a miner had he
pulled through fevers which, had it not been for his nursing and care,
would have proved fatal.
"I can't make out what yer mean by saying I had best not quarrel with
that little old atomy you call Limping Frank," a big, powerful fellow
who had recently arrived at the camp said to one who had been talking
over with him the characteristics of several of the miners. "I ain't
very pertiklar who I quarrels with; but what on arth there can be in
that little chap to make one keep clear of him beats me. Can he shoot?"
"You bet," the other replied. "He could put a bullet plumb between your
eyes ten times following, the length of the long saloon up there. There
ain't no better shot nor quicker anywhere on the slopes."
"But he don't look as if he could speak up for himself," the other said.
"No; and he doesn't speak up for himself, though his mates would be
ready enough to speak up for him if anyone said anything to him. There
is nothing quarrelsome about him. He is always for peace and order.
He is a sort of Judge Lynch all to himself. He has cleared out one or
two camps I have been at. When a chap gets too bad for anything, and
takes to shooting over and above what is usual and right, 'specially
if he draws on quiet sort of chaps and becomes a terror, then Limping
Frank comes out. I was down at Dead Man's Gulch when there was a gang
of three or four men who were a terror to the place. They had stretched
out seven or eight between them, and Texan Jack, as the worst of them
was called, one day shot down a young fellow who had just come into
camp, for no reason at all, as far as any one knew.
"I happened to be in the saloon five minutes afterwards, when Limping
Frank came in. Texan Jack was standing drinking there with two of his
mates, laughing and jawing. You would scarcely have known that little
chap if you had seen him then! He had been nursing a mate of mine only
the night before, and as I had been sitting near him I thought what a
gentle sort of face he had--more like a woman's than a man's. But now
his eyes were wide open and his lips closed, and there was just a set
look in his face that I knew meant mischief--for I had seen him once
before when his dander was up--and I put my hand into my back pocket
for my pistol, for I knew there was going to be a muss. He stopped in
the middle of the room, and he said in a loud, clear voice that made
every one look sharp round, 'Texan Jack, murderer and villain, we have
borne with you too long. If you are a man, draw.' Texan Jack stared
with astonishment.
"'Are you mad, you little fool?' he said.
"'Draw, or I will shoot you down as you stand,' Limping Frank said,
and the Texan saw that he meant mischief. Frank had no weapon in his
hand, for he was not one to take an advantage. The Texan carried his
weapon up his sleeve, but quick as he was with it, Frank was as quick,
and the two pistols cracked pretty well at the same moment. Frank got
a ball in the shoulder, but the Texan fell dead with a bullet in the
centre of his forehead. His two mates drew in a moment, but Frank's
revolver cracked twice as quick as you could count them, and there were
just three bodies lying dead in a heap. Then he put up his pistol, and
said in his ordinary quiet voice, 'I don't like these things, but we
must have peace and order. Will some of you tell the others that they
had better git.' And you bet they did git. Limping Frank never said
another word about it, but got his arm in a sling, and half an hour
afterwards I saw him quietly cooking his mates' dinner while they were
both standing by blowing him up for starting out without them to back
him."
"What did he say?" the new-comer asked.
"I heard him say, 'It is no use your going on like that, mates. If you
had gone down he would have got his friends, and then there would have
been a general fight, and several would have got hurt. When you have
murderers like these you don't want a fight--you want an execution; and
having a sort of natural knack with the pistol, I took it upon myself
to be executioner.'
"There was another case, although it didn't happen at the camp I was
at, in which a woman was murdered by a half-breed Mexican. I did not
hear the circumstances, but it was a shocking bad case. She left a
child behind her, and her husband, a little German, went clean off his
head.
"Next morning Limping Frank was missing. All that was known was that
he had bought a horse of a man who had come in late the night before,
and was gone. His two mates looked high and low for him, but said at
last they guessed he would turn up again. It was well-nigh two months
before he came back. He brought back with him a watch and some trinkets
that had been stolen from the murdered woman, and it seems that he had
followed the fellow right down into New Mexico, and had shot him there.
The man who told me said he never made any talk about it, but was at
work as usual the morning after he came back. I tell you I would rather
quarrel with Sim Howlett and English Bill together than I would get
that little man's dander up. He is a peacemaker too, he is, and many a
quarrel he has smoothed down. At one camp we were in we made him a sort
of judge, and whenever there was a dispute about claims, or tools, or
anything else, we went to him and he decided, and no judge could have
gone into the case fairer or given a better judgment; and though, in
course, those he decided against were not pleased, they had to put up
with it. In the first place, the camp was with him; and in the second,
there ain't much use disputing with a judge who can shoot as straight
as he can, and is ready to do it if necessary."
The three partners had finished their day's work, and sat down to a
meal of tea, steak, and corn-cakes that Limping Frank had prepared for
them.
"We shall have to be moving from here soon," the Englishman said.
"Another week and our claim will be worked out. We have not done badly,
on the whole. The question is, had we better buy up somebody else's
claim and go on working here, or make a start for some fresh field?"
"I vote for a move," Sim Howlett said. "I don't say the claim hasn't
panned out well, but there is no excitement about it. The gold lies
regular right through the gravel, and it is almost as bad as working
for wages. You can always tell within an ounce or so what there will
be when you come to clean up the cradle. I like a bit of excitement.
Nothing one day and eight or ten ounces the next."
"It comes to the same thing in the long run," the Englishman said.
"We don't get very much forwarder. Grub costs a lot of money, and
then what there is over and above slips through our fingers somehow.
The gambling-tables take a large share of mine; and your weakness for
champagne, Sim, when you break out about once a month, makes a hole in
yours; and as to Frank's, he spends half his in getting meat for soups
and wines and medicines for his patients."
"What is one to do?" Frank said apologetically. "One cannot see people
die for want of ordinary necessaries. Besides, Bill, you give away a
lot too."
"Only my money is not so well spent as yours, doctor."
"Well, no, I don't think it is."
"I suppose it comes to the same thing in the end. I don't want to lay
by money. What should I do with it if I had it?"
"You don't want to lay by money because you are strong, and can go on
earning it for years yet; and you both know very well that if you had
a hundred thousand dollars you would chuck it all away in six months."
Sim Howlett laughed aloud.
"Perhaps you are right, doctor," English Bill said. "But if your
argument means anything, it means that we are fools for working as hard
as we do."
"Not at all," the doctor said gently. "You don't earn more than you
want, as is shown by the fact that you lay by so little, and that we
haven't more than enough dust in our sack to keep us for a month or
two if we don't happen to strike it in the next claim we take up. No; I
think we earn just enough. If you earned three times as much you would
go three times as often to that cursed gambling-table, and it would be
bad for your temper. If Sim earned three times as much he would go on
the spree three times as often, and it would be bad for his health.
If I were to earn three times as much, I should have three times as
many patients to attend to, and I couldn't stand such a strain; so you
see we are just right as we are," and he nodded pleasantly to his two
comrades.
"You are the most perplexing beggar I ever came across, doctor," the
Englishman said, "and I have seen some rum specimens during the twenty
years I have been knocking about in the States."
The little man nodded as if it had been a compliment.
"I know, Bill. That is what I think myself sometimes; there is a tile
just a little loose somewhere."
"Not at all, not at all," Bill said hotly; while Sim Howlett growled
that he would like to hear any one else say so.
"Not off, you know," Frank said, "but just a little loose. I know,
dear boys. You see my machine gets muddled up. It may work right enough
sometimes, but the chances are that a cog has got bent, or that there
is a little twist in a crank, and the thing never works quite even. It
just catches, you know--rattles now and then. You may look it all over
as much as you like, but you cannot spot where it is. You say it wants
grease, but you may pour bucketfuls over it and it makes no difference.
There"--and he broke off--"they are at it again up in that saloon."
Two or three pistol-shots rang out in the evening air.
"Things are not going on as they ought to," he went on quietly. "That
is another machine that wants regulating. There are more bad men in
this camp than there ought to be."
"Don't you worry yourself," Bill said hastily. "You cannot expect a
mining camp to be a sort of paradise, doctor, and all the bad men kept
outside. Things have been going on pretty smooth of late. It has been
quite a peaceful camp."
"I don't like the ways of that man Symonds the gambler," the doctor
said meditatively, with his head a little on one side.
"He is a bad lot," Sim Howlett agreed; "but he is going. I heard tell
yesterday that he said he was going down to Frisco at the end of the
week; and if he doesn't go, Bill and I will get a dozen other fellows
to go with us and tell him that he had better git, or the air of this
camp is likely to be unhealthy for him."
"Well, if that is so we need not think any more about it," the doctor
said. "I dreamt last night I saw him with a bullet mark in the centre
of his forehead; but perhaps that was a mistake, or the mark will not
come at present. It will come sooner or later," he added musingly, "but
perhaps not for a good time yet."
"Well, well," Sim Howlett broke in, "we are wandering about like green
hands lost in a sage-bush. We started by talking about whether, when we
have worked up our claim, we shall stop here or foot it."
"If we foot it, where do you propose to go, Sim?"
"I heard this morning that they are doing well in that new place they
call Gold Run. Then, again, you know we have always had a fancy for a
month's prospecting up at the head of the Yuba. The gold must come from
somewhere, though nobody has ever hit the spot yet."
"I am ready to go where you like, Sim," the doctor said; "but as I have
often told you before, you miners are altogether wrong in your notions,
as any one can see with half an eye by the fact, that whether you are
down here in the bottom of a gulch, or whether you are up on those
flats, 2000 feet above us, you always find gravel. Now those flats were
once the bed of a great river, that was when the mountains round were
tens of thousands of feet higher than they are now; they must have been
all that or there would never be water enough for such a river as that
must have been. That river must have rolled on for thousands of years,
for the gravel, which you can see in some places is 500 feet thick, is
all water-worn; whether it is big boulders or little stones, it has all
been rolled about.
"Well, in time these mountains were all worn away. There wasn't water
then for the big river, and the water from the hills, as you see
them now, began to cut fresh channels, and this Yuba, which is one of
them, lies a thousand feet below the old gravel bed. In some places it
has crossed the old bed, and the gold that came down from the former
mountains into the gravel has been washed down into these valleys. You
will never find, as you all dream of doing, a quartz vein stuck full of
gold. There may have been veins like that in the old mountains, but the
quartz veins that you find now, and lots of them have been assayed, are
all very poor; they have got gold in them, but scarce enough to pay for
working even when they get the best machinery. I fancy gold goes off
with depth, though why it should I cannot say, and that these quartz
veins which near the surface had big nuggets, and were choke-full of
small stuff, just pettered away to nothing as they went deeper. That
is why I think, Sim, that you will find no quartz reefs worth working
anywhere now, and why you are less likely to find much pay dirt in
the upper gorges, because the water there has not gone through the old
gravel fields as it has in its windings lower down."
"But according to that, doctor, we should find it richest of all if we
were to sink in the bed of the river down by the plains."
"Not at all, not at all, Bill. From the point where the Yuba's course
leaves the old gravel bed of the big river and makes its own way
through hills down to the plains it has picked up no more gold. As
you know the big nuggets are generally found pretty high up, as was
natural they should be, for as soon as the new river washed them out
of the old bed they would sink down in some convenient hole; and as in
the course of ages the Yuba cut down deeper and deeper, they would go
down too. Their weight would prevent their rolling far; the light stuff
would wash down, moving onwards with the sands and gravel. And so, as
you search lower down, you get better surface washings, but find less
coarse gold."
"I dare say you are right, doctor," Sim Howlett said yawning, "so we
won't go prospecting up in the hills, though some nice little finds
have been made up there in spite of what you say. I vote we leave it
open until we have cleared up, and then look round. A new rush may be
started before a week is over, and if we are ready to move at once we
may manage to take up claims in the thick of it; if one isn't pretty
early at a new place, one may just as well stay away altogether. There
is the horn. The mail is late to-night. I will go out and see if I
can get hold of a Sacramento paper--one sees all about the new places
there. Not that one need swallow all they say, for the lies about what
is being got are tremendous. One fellow strikes it rich, and then they
put it in that every fellow in the camp is making from four to ten
ounces a day. I believe most of these lies come from the store-keepers.
Of course, it is to their interest to get up a rush to places where
they have set up their stores, and if a newspaper man comes along they
lay it on thick. Well, here goes;" and throwing on his wide-awake, Sim
Howlett sauntered off.
In a quarter of an hour he returned with a newspaper. "Here you are,
Bill, you may as well do the reading. I am out of practice, and the
doctor is not to be depended upon, and will miss the very bits we want
to know."
Taking the paper the Englishman read the columns devoted to reports
from the mining camps. A stranger would have thought from the perusal
that every miner on the Pacific slope must have been making a fortune,
so brilliant were the accounts of the gold that was being obtained in
every mining camp. "_John Wilkins and party obtained at their week's
clear-up 304 ounces of gold, including many fine nuggets. Many others
have met with almost equal good fortune; the sand on the shoulder is
panning out very rich._"
Such was a sample of the descriptions. The three men were unmoved by
them. They knew too well how untrustworthy were the reports. Many
were, as has been said, the work of the store-keepers; others were
the invention of miners desirous of disposing of their claims to
new-comers, and shifting to more promising regions. Little was said of
the fabulous prices of provisions, of the fever that decimated some of
the camps, of the total abandonment of others; and yet even the miners,
although knowing by frequent experience that no dependence could be
placed on these reports, were prone to cling to the hope that this
time they were correct, and the roads were thronged by parties who,
having failed at one camp, were making their way to a distant location
of which they had heard brilliant reports, and who were met, perhaps,
on their way by parties coming from that very camp to the one they had
just quitted.
"It sounds well," the doctor said with a quiet smile when the reading
was concluded.
"Sounds be blowed!" Sim growled. "They are thundering lies. What do
they say of this camp?--read it again, Bill."
"_It is difficult to get at the exact state of things at Cedar Gulch.
Men who are doing well are always reticent as to their earnings; but
there is little doubt that all are doing well, and that while those
working in companies are obtaining very large results, the average
through the camp is not less than from two to three ounces a day._"
"The camp is not doing badly," Sim remarked. "There are mighty few
here who ain't earning their grub. I don't believe there is one who is
making from three to four ounces a day, not regular. Of course if he
comes on a pocket, or strikes the bed rock, he may earn a good bit over
that, ten times as much perhaps in a day; but take it all round, an
ounce, or at most an ounce and a quarter, would be the outside."
English Bill nodded. "I should say an ounce at the outside. There are
scores who ain't earning half an ounce regular, and there are a few
who have to run into debt for their grub. Well, there is nothing very
tempting in that lot of notices. We have tried a good many of them in
the last two years, and at any rate we have got another week before we
need make up our minds. I expect it will come again, Bill, to what it
has come to half a dozen times before. Write all the names on a piece
of paper, put them into a bag, let the doctor draw one, and go for
it. It is as good a plan as another, and the doctor's luck has always
pulled us through."
Sim and the Englishman stretched themselves upon their blankets and lay
there smoking, while Limping Frank squatted down by the side of the
solitary candle and began to look at the small portion of the paper
devoted to general news. This was soon finished, and then he ran his
eye over the advertisements. These principally related to articles
in demand by miners--patent rockers and cradles, picks and shovels,
revolvers and bowie-knives, iron houses for stores, tents, clothing,
waterproof boots, and flannel shirts. Then there was a column of town
lots in Sacramento, notices of steamers starting for San Francisco,
notices of stolen horses, offers of rewards for the capture of
notorious criminals, and advertisements for missing friends.
"Bill," he said presently.
"Hello!" said the Englishman with a start. He had just laid his pipe
down and was already dozing.
"Didn't you once say your name was Tunstall?"
"Yes, that's it, though I have pretty well forgotten it. What is it?"
"Well, there is an advertisement here that may relate to you."
"What is it, say? I haven't been running off with a horse, or shooting
a sheriff, so I don't know why they are advertising for me."
"_Five hundred dollars reward. The above sum will be paid by James
Campbell, attorney, San Francisco, to any one who will give him
information as to the whereabouts of William Tunstall, who was last
heard of four years ago in California. The said William Tunstall is
entitled to property in England under the will of his brother, the late
Edgar Tunstall of Byrneside, Cumberland._"
"That's me," the Englishman said, sitting upright and staring at the
doctor. "Well, well, so Edgar has gone, poor lad! Well, I am sorry."
Sim Howlett had also roused himself at the news. "Well, Bill, I was
going to congratulate you," he said; "but that doesn't seem the light
you take the news in."
"No, I am not thinking of money," the other said. "I could have had
that long ago if I had chosen to take it. I was thinking of my brother.
It is twenty years since I saw him, and I don't suppose I should have
ever seen him again any way; but it is a shock to know that he has
gone. It never was his fault, and I am sorry now I held off so. I never
thought of this. It has come to me sometimes that when I got old and
past work I might go back to the old place and end my days there; but I
never thought that he would go before me. I am sorry, mates, more sorry
than I can say."
"How was it, Bill?" the doctor asked. "Don't tell us if you don't like;
it is no business of ours. Here in the diggings there are few men who
talk of old times. Their eyes are all on the future, and what they
will do with their wealth when they gain it; but no one asks another
as to his past history. The answer might sometimes be a pistol-shot.
Here we three have been living together for more than two years and
not one of us has wanted to know what the others were before we met. It
is quite an accident that I know your name. You gave it when you gave
evidence as to the murder of that old German that we hung Red Hugh for.
It struck me it was an odd name then, but I never thought of it again
until I saw it in the paper. And you said once--it was Christmas Day, I
remember--you said there was a home for you in England if you liked to
go to it."
"I will tell you the story," the Englishman said. "I would have told it
to you long ago, only there was nothing in it to tell you. It was just
what has happened ten thousand times, and will happen as often again.
My father was one of the largest land-owners in Cumberland. I was his
eldest son. We never got on well together. He was cold and haughty, a
hard landlord, and a despot at home. We should have quarrelled earlier
than we did; but I was sent to Rugby, and often did not even come home
for the holidays, for I had a good many friends in those days. I went
back when I was eighteen, and was to have gone to college a month or
two later. I made a fool of myself, as boys do, and fancied I was in
love with one of our tenants' daughters.
"Some meddling busybody--I always thought it was the parson's wife, for
she drove along one evening just as I was saying good-bye to the girl
at the stile--told my father about it, and there was a frightful row.
For once he got in a passion, and I lost my temper too. It was really
a harmless flirtation, I think, and would have died out when I went
off to college. However, when my father swore that if I ever spoke to
her again he would turn me out of the house, I said he might do as he
liked, and that I would marry her when I came of age. He ordered me to
leave the house and never see his face again; said that I was no longer
his son, and might go to the devil, or words to that effect. So, being
just as obstinate in my way as he was in his, I went, and never did see
him again. Of course, I went first to see the girl. She was frightened
out of her life when she heard of what had happened, said that her
father would be turned out of his house, and all sorts of things, and
at any rate she would have nothing more to say to me.
"So I walked to Liverpool, and took my berth in the first sailing ship
to the States. My brother Edgar, who was two years younger than I,
was away at the time. We had always been capital friends. Ten years
later, when my father died, he advertised for me, and, the name being
an uncommon one, someone pointed it out to me, and I answered. He wrote
most affectionately, and lamented that our father had died without
forgiving me, and had not only cut me entirely out of his will, but
had, knowing his affection for me, inserted a clause that should he
endeavour to alter the purport of the will, or to hand over by deed or
otherwise any part or share of the estates to me, the property should
revert at once to a distant relative. Edgar said, however, that he had
consulted his lawyers, and they were of opinion that this clause in no
way affected his power to dispose of his income drawn from the estate,
and that he proposed to share this equally with me.
"I wrote back that while I was obliged to him for his offer I should
not accept it, for, as the property was not entailed, our father had
a perfect right to leave it as he liked. He had left it to him, and
there was an end of it. We exchanged several letters, but I was just
as obstinate as my father had been. I was too busy or too lazy for
letter-writing. Somehow no one writes here, and then one is constantly
on the move. Anyhow, I had one or two letters from him which I never
answered. The last was three or four years ago. And now he is dead, and
I suppose has left me some of the property I would not take during his
lifetime. Of course I was a fool, and an obstinate fool, all along, but
one never acknowledges this until it is too late."
The others made no remark for some time.
"Well, anyhow, Bill, you ought to go down to Frisco and see this
lawyer."
"I will think it over," the other said as, after relighting his pipe,
he lay back on the blankets again; "there is no hurry for a day or
two."
No further mention was made of the matter until the claim was cleared
up, but that evening Bill returned to the subject. "I have thought it
over, and I suppose I had better go down to Frisco. I don't think I
shall take this money. I should be like a fish out of water in England,
and should be miserable there. If I take anything it will be a thousand
pounds or so. I should sink that in buying a snug little place on the
foothills, and I should put somebody on to work it and plant it up with
fruit-trees or vines, or that sort of thing, and then some day when I
get too old for knocking about I shall settle down there; and I needn't
say that my home will also be yours, mates. I sha'n't be much more than
a week away. I shall come back here, and if you hear of anything before
I return leave a line with the store-keeper telling me where you are
off to. I have my kit packed, and if I start in half an hour I shall
catch the night coach as it comes along past the top of the gulch."
Sim Howlett made no comment, but simply observed, "I expect you will
find us here." But just as Bill was starting the doctor put his hand
on his arm and said, "Don't do anything hasty, mate. You see you made
rather a mess of your life by putting your foot down before when it
seems there was no occasion for it. There is never any good comes of
making up your mind in a hurry when there is no need for it. When you
see a man slipping his hand round towards his back trouser-pocket, I
allow that is not the time for thinking. You have got to act, and to
act mighty sharp too, or you will get a bullet in you before you have
drawn; but in a thing of this sort it makes no difference whether you
decide now or six months hence. You need only write and say that you
are found, and ask for particulars and so on, and when you have got
them you can take your time about giving an answer. Many men before
now have refused a good thing and been sorry for it afterwards. Your
brother, according to your own account, has acted kindly and well
towards you. Why should you refuse what he wished you to have, merely
because you think that it ought to have come to you in the first place?
That is all I have to say, Bill;" and he walked slowly back to the
tent, while Bill started at a steady pace up the long steep hill from
the gulch to the plateau above, along which ran one of the principal
roads from Sacramento through the mining district.
"We shall miss him, Sim," Limping Frank said as he and his mate lighted
their pipes after their meal that evening. "It seems kinder lonely
without him after sitting down regularly for two years now."
"He ain't gone yet," Sim growled, "and I don't think as he is going.
What Bill said he will stick to, you bet."
"Oh, yes! he means what he says, Sim. Bill has gone away from here with
the fixed idea of going down there, writing a letter or two, coming
back here, waiting for his money to come over, investing it in a farm,
and going on working with us just as before; but, bless you, it is one
thing to make up your mind and another to carry it out."
"What is to prevent his carrying it out, doctor?"
"Lots of things, Sim. When a man once gets mixed up in a will, or in
any kind of law business, he ceases to be a free agent."
"Ceases to be what, doctor?"
"Well, he ceases to be his own master. Bill thinks he has only got
to go into a lawyer's office, and say,--'Here I am. I am the chap
mentioned in that advertisement. I dare say my brother has left me a
good lot, but I don't want it. Just write and tell them to send me on
five thousand dollars, that's all I want out of it. I am going back to
Sacramento to-morrow. When the money comes pay it into the bank there
for me.' Then he thinks that he will have a day's spree at Frisco, and
come back by steamer next day."
"And why shouldn't he? What is to hinder him?"
"Well, it won't be like that, Sim, at all. When he goes in and says
'I am William Tunstall,' the lawyer will say, 'I am heartily glad to
see you, sir. Allow me to congratulate you;' and he will shake Bill
by the hand, and Bill will say to himself, 'This is just as it should
be. Five minutes will do this job. I will go out and look up two or
three friends who are in from the mines, and we will have a bottle of
champagne a-piece over this business.' Just as he has thought that over
the lawyer will say to him, 'Of course you are in a position to prove
that you are the Mr. Tunstall advertised for.' Bill will say, 'Oh, yes!
here are my brother's letters.' Then the lawyer will smile and nod and
say, 'Most satisfactory,' and then he will add, 'Of course, you are
in a position to prove that you are the person to whom these letters
were sent? Of course, I don't doubt it for a moment, but letters do get
lost, you know, and fall into other people's hands. In a matter of this
kind we must proceed in a legal and business way.' Then Bill will say,
'Of course, I can prove that. There is Sim Howlett and Frank Bennett,
my mates. They know I am Bill Tunstall.' 'They knew you before you came
out here, I suppose?' 'Oh, no! but they have known me for two years.'
'Known you as William Tunstall?' 'Yes, of course,' Bill will say,
beginning to get riled. Then the lawyer will point out to him that we
can only say that he called himself Will Tunstall, and that as the last
of these letters he has got is dated earlier than that it comes to the
fact that there is only his word to go upon, and that the law requires
very much stronger proofs of identity than this. Then Bill will get
mad, and will say the money can go to the deuce, and that he sha'n't
trouble any more about it."
"What then, doctor?" Sim Howlett asked as his companion stopped.
"Ah! well, that I cannot say. He may come straight off without doing
anything more, or the lawyer may get him to talk it over. As to that I
cannot say; but you may be quite sure that if Bill is to touch a penny
of the money left to him he will have to go back to England to prove
who he is, and it is like enough he may not succeed when he gets there.
By what he says he was only at home just occasionally during his school
holidays. He was little more than a boy when he left, and after twenty
years' knocking about on the plains and here it is like enough he may
not be able to find a soul to recognize him."
[Illustration]