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Indian and Scout: A Tale of the Gold Rush to California

by F. S. Brereton · English · Gutenberg #40467 · 569,189 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Indian and Scout: A Tale of the Gold Rush to California

Author: F. S. Brereton

Illustrator: Cyrus Cuneo


        
Release date: August 9, 2012 [eBook #40467]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INDIAN AND SCOUT: A TALE OF THE GOLD RUSH TO CALIFORNIA ***

                       Indian and Scout

             A Tale of the Gold Rush to California

                   BY CAPTAIN F. S. BRERETON

    Author of "The Great Aeroplane" "A Hero of Sedan" "John Bargreave's
    Gold" "How Canada was Won" "Roughriders of the Pampas" &c.


    _ILLUSTRATED BY CYRUS CUNEO_

    H. M. CALDWELL COMPANY
    NEW YORK        BOSTON

    _Printed in Great Britain_




[Illustration: "JACK SWUNG HIS HEAD ROUND"]




Contents


     CHAP.                                            PAGE

        I. TUSKER JOE                                    9

       II. JACK KINGSLEY'S DILEMMA                      21

      III. A RUDE AWAKENING                             35

       IV. THE ROAD TO CALIFORNIA                       52

        V. ON THE RAILWAY                               65

       VI. A HOLD-UP                                    80

      VII. FRIENDS AND HUNTERS                          94

     VIII. OUT ON THE PRAIRIE                          109

       IX. ONLY A YOUNGSTER                            128

        X. A BUFFALO HUNT                              146

       XI. SURROUNDED BY INDIANS                       165

      XII. A TIGHT CORNER                              179

     XIII. DODGING THE ENEMY                           192

      XIV. AN ATTACK IN FORCE                          205

       XV. GIVING 'EM PEPPER                           220

      XVI. THE BASHFUL JACOB                           239

     XVII. BLACK BILL TO THE RESCUE                    258

    XVIII. THE GOLD RUSH                               275

      XIX. TOM MAKES A FIND                            288

       XX. AN AMBUSCADE                                301

      XXI. THE OUTWITTING OF TUSKER                    314

     XXII. A DOUBLE RECOGNITION                        327

    XXIII. STEVE LEADS THE WAY                         341

     XXIV. A GREAT ACQUITTAL                           360




Illustrations


Page

"JACK SWUNG HIS HEAD ROUND" _Frontispiece_ 154

TUSKER JOE'S CHALLENGE 10

"HE SAW THE RASCAL CRUMPLE INTO A HEAP" 89

"THE INDIAN CHIEF THREW UP HIS ARMS" 212

RUNNING A RISK 271

JACK FETCHES THE RIFLES 324




CHAPTER I

Tusker Joe


"Ef there was a man here as was a man, guess it'd be some use waitin'
and talkin'. But as thar ain't sich a thing handy, why, I'll git. Once
and fer all, aer thar a one here as don't think I did it fair? Eh?"

The man who spoke swept his eyes round the narrow, ugly room, and pulled
the brim of his wideawake hat down over his eyes just a trifle lower;
whether to hide the scowl in them, or the fear which lurked in his
dilated pupils, it would be difficult to say. Tusker Joe was not anxious
that his companions in the room, which went by the name of saloon,
should guess that he was anything but self-composed and full of courage.
But to give the bare truth, Tusker Joe was by no means easy in his mind.
Even the smoking revolver in his hand, in which four unused cartridges
yet remained, failed to reassure him. It was not only fear for his own
wretched life that haunted him. Tusker Joe had a conscience at this day,
and it smote him just then harder than all else. Even as he swept his
eyes round the room he was struggling hard to drown that ready
conscience, to still the voice which whispered persistently in his ear:
"Murderer, murderer!"

"Yer don't speak," he went on, after a minute's awkward silence,
raising his voice till he almost shouted the words, as if the sounds
helped to encourage him and drown that still, small whisper. "Then I
takes it that ye're all in agreement. It was fair done. Me alone against
them two, and they quarrelsome. I'd stop and face the sheriff hisself
with that. But what's the use? A man has ter work nowadays, and a
sheriff wastes time. Yer can jest give him the facts for yerselves; but,
at the same time, yer can jest mind. Tusker Joe ain't a playsome girl.
He ain't a weaklin', likely ter take sauce from no one. And lies he
don't have at no price, not at all. Ef there's a man here as feels at
this second as he don't agree that it war all fair and square, jest let
him speak up. That's what I say. Let him open his mouth, here and now,
before what's left of us."

The man's voice was truculent now. His words deafened those within the
saloon, and there was no excuse for not hearing them. But no answer
came. Not one of the three men seated at a table at one end ventured to
open his lips. Instead, all, as if by common arrangement, kept their
eyes fixed on the wall opposite them, as if intent on counting the
planks which helped to make it, while their open palms lay exposed on
the table.

[Illustration: TUSKER JOE'S CHALLENGE]

Right opposite Tusker Joe a solitary individual sat awkwardly on a rough
bench. He was a man of some thirty years of age, with red hair and
beard, and a weak expression. The long, pointed chin, the narrow eyes
switching restlessly from side to side, even the diminutive proportions
of this fellow, spoke of indecision, of one accustomed to follow and not
to lead, of one inclined at all times to shirk difficulties. Red Sam,
for that was the name he went by in this mining camp, was not even his
own master. He was a hired labourer, who had come to the mining camps
not to test his own luck, and to risk all he had in the hope that hard
work and a strenuous fight with Dame Fortune would bring him the riches
which many a man had won. Sam had not the courage for such a venture. He
preferred good wages, and a certainty, to any risk. He was not
quarrelsome, nor over-talkative, and he did not frequent the drinking
saloon at Salem Falls more often than others. He was just an average
miner, content with his lot so far, and indistinguishable from the
others who worked at the camp save in respect to his beard. He wore the
same gaudy shirt and neckerchief, high boots, a wide-brimmed hat, and a
belt big enough to circle a horse, in the holster of which was a
revolver. Tusker's eyes, which during the last few moments had been
searching the cracked mirror opposite him, at the back of the bar on
which he leaned, suddenly lit upon Sam--Red Sam, the weakling--whom all
in that camp knew to be harmless and the reverse of dangerous. And as
they did so, that still, small voice whispered with even greater
persistence in Tusker's ear: "Murderer, murderer!" till the man became
savage. He swung round again, his eyes flashing, his pistol pointed.

"What's that?" he demanded menacingly. "Yer didn't speak, I know, but
yer looked what yer thought. Draw!"

Sam was utterly disconcerted. Had he been able, he would have
straightway sunk beneath the rough boards which formed the floor of the
saloon. To retreat, to get away from such a terrible man and such an
ugly encounter, was all that he desired. But that pointed pistol held
him rooted to the spot.

"Me?" he stuttered, gripping the bench with both hands. "Me think
anything! Why----"

He stared at Tusker with wide-open mouth, and eyes which were dilated
with terror.

"Yer looked it," retorted Tusker, his face scowling horribly. "Ef I
thought for one moment as yer'd forget, I'd put daylight clean through
yer now. Clean through yer, Sam."

The very idea of such a terrible happening almost caused Red Sam to
faint. He positively shivered, and when his shifting eyes happened to
pass to the far end of the saloon, where were the men whom Tusker had
already fired upon, the shiver became a tremble. His fingers twitched as
he endeavoured to clutch the bench, his hair stood erect beneath the
wide-brimmed hat, which gave this modest fellow such a desperate
appearance at ordinary times, while the end of his beard shook.

"Clean through yer," repeated Tusker grimly: the sight of this harmless
and trembling individual seeming to appease the bully for the moment.
"Through yer and any others as dares ter think--think, mind yer--that
all warn't fair and square. For the last time, aer thar a man here as
has got a word ter say agin it."

Tall and broad, his face and neck and arms burned to a brick red by
exposure to the sun, Tusker Joe would have at ordinary times been
pronounced a handsome fellow. His long, curling, black moustache set off
features which, though never pleasant, were regular and distinctly
prepossessing. His red mining shirt, corduroy breeches, and high boots
made up, with the brilliant handkerchief round his throat and the
draggled and untidy hat upon his head, an appearance which was
picturesque, if nothing more; while the breadth of his shoulders, and
the size of his limbs, told of a man used to labour, of a strong fellow,
able to look well to himself. Unfortunately, however, there was
something about the face which detracted from the general air of
picturesqueness. Tusker Joe's features were marked by heavy lines, some
across a somewhat narrow forehead, and others about the corners of the
eyes and the mouth. Even at rest the features wore an air the reverse of
frank and straightforward. The eyes were shifty, even more so than those
of the weak Red Sam. And now, when his passions were stirred, the face
which looked out from beneath the pulled-down brim of his hat was seamed
with other lines--lines which told of hate, of avarice, of fear, of a
thousand passions flitting through the man's mind. Bluff and brag at his
best, Tusker Joe was in those days too young a man to carry off such a
situation with absolute tranquillity. True, he had been in saloon brawls
before, and had shot men; but he had never murdered. In those rough
days, down at the diggings, when men spent a goodly part of their gains
in the saloons, quarrels were of frequent occurrence, and revolvers came
readily to the hand. Bullies arose, too, and for a while terrorized even
these lawless, gambling men. But sheer murder was hardly attempted, for
then even the miners arose in anger, and when that was the case lynch
law was the order--a short shrift was given to the guilty party, and
either he was riddled with bullets or, if a rope happened to be handy,
he was strung to the nearest tree. Often enough there was no suitable
tree, and then the bullets of the miners finished the matter.

Tusker Joe had turned from Red Sam by now, and for one brief moment cast
his eyes to that far end where lay the men at whom he had fired. Even he
shuddered ever so little, and from contemplating them turned to the
rough bar again and leaned one arm upon it. Then his eyes sought the
cracked mirror which was nailed to the boarded wall behind the bar,
reflecting from its golden-circled frame the whole of the saloon. In the
glass he could see the three men seated at the table, their palms still
prominently exposed. Not one had moved so much as a finger. They sat
riveted to their chairs, their eyes fixed on the plank wall as before,
knowing that Tusker Joe's eyes were upon them, and that to carry a hand
to a pocket meant a shot from his revolver in an instant.

"Cowed! Jest don't dare ter move a finger, the skunks," growled the
murderer beneath his breath. "And thar ain't one of 'em as don't know
Tusker well enough ter guess what'll follow if they get ter blabbin'.
Blabbin'! What's that I said? Thar ain't no need ter fear that. It was
fair and square. Lord Tom had no need fer ter call me a liar and a
thief. He knew that a man don't take sich words hereabouts, and that
bullets git flyin' when names are called. He asked fer trouble, and, by
thunder, he's had it! As fer Jim, he'd a hand at his shooter, and ef
he's gone under, reckon it's his own fault. Yer don't catch me waitin'
fer a man ter shoot."

For some two minutes he stood at the bar, his unseeing eyes fixed upon
the reflecting mirror, while his busy brain invented excuse after excuse
for the act of which he had just been guilty. But, strive as he might to
gloss over this shooting affray, and to paint his own side of the
squabble in rosy colours, that still, small voice returned with
persistence. "Murderer! murderer!" It echoed even louder in his ears,
till the man was distracted and desperate.

"Here! fill it up, will yer?" he shouted, thrusting forward an empty
glass, and menacing the frightened negro behind the bar with his
revolver. "To the brim, and slippy with it! Hur! Now, again! Hur! Thar's
the price fer it. Keep the change."

Gulping down two glasses of spirit within a few seconds, he threw the
glass to the floor, where it smashed into a hundred pieces, and then
tossed a dollar on to the bar. By now a haunted look had come into the
man's face. The fingers which pulled the expended cartridges from his
weapon and replenished the chambers trembled obviously. The man was
become desperate. His conscience was driving him hard. But with it all
he was cunning. He kept his eyes on the men at the table, and then swung
round to confront Red Sam, causing that miserable individual to shiver
more than ever. Then, with never a glance to the far end of the room, he
backed to the door of the saloon, pulled it open with his foot, and
backed out. The door slammed to, and Tusker was gone. Those who crossed
to the window to watch him saw the miner running down the street for his
life, and, conscious now that they were safe themselves, they shook
their fists at his retreating figure, and swore beneath their breath.

"I knew as it would come from him," exclaimed one of them, proceeding to
fill a pipe. "Tusker Joe is bound ter break out somewhares, and become
camp bully and murderer. Up to date he ain't dared attempt anything over
much, but ter-day he's done it. He won't never look back. Mark my words,
mate, he'll get wusser and wusser. He's the sort that goes on from one
thing ter another, and don't stop till the sheriff's got him, or his
mates has took the law up themselves, and has strung him six foot up. It
war all a plant."

"It war," agreed a second. "Tusker had made up his mind fer a ruction,
and Lord Tom war a fool to help him. Ef he hadn't been green, as green
as grass, he'd have known what'd happen when he got ter callin' names.
He war too free with 'em, and had got no use fer his own shooter. But
I'm surprised at Jim. He's been out this way nigh most of his life, and
he must have known. Seems he was took by surprise; fer he could shoot,
he could."

They nodded their heads at one another, and slowly filled and lit their
pipes, while they held their eyes to the window, fearful that Tusker Joe
might yet return. Not that he would have terrorized them altogether.
When a man finds another holding a revolver levelled at his head, and
knows that the slightest movement or protest will bring a bullet in his
direction, he by force of circumstances keeps very still. Even if he
happens to be a courageous man--and many of these miners were
undoubtedly that--common sense teaches him not so much as to lift a
finger. He swallows his chagrin, and registers the vow to live for
another day, when matters may be more equal. Tusker Joe had got the drop
on his comrades in the saloon, to use a mining expression. He had drawn
his revolver at the very beginning of the quarrel, and all knew that he
was a dead shot. But now he could have no advantage, and had he appeared
again, he would undoubtedly have met with strenuous opposition.

"He's cleared, yer bet," said the third man after a while. "Tusker knows
as thar won't be no livin' fer him here after this, and he's bound ter
git. Suppose it's a case fer the sheriff?"

"Yep; thar ain't nothin' more ter do. Guess the verdict'll be murder.
Thar's bound to be a howl in Salem Falls, and men'll get ter swear that
they'll shoot Tusker on sight. Then it'll blow over. Tusker won't be
fool enough ter show up this side of the grave, and things'll be
forgotten. Suppose we git a move on."

The three stepped towards the door, Red Sam rising at the same time and
joining them, evidently with the idea of obtaining some sort of
protection from their company. He lifted the latch, and was about to
emerge, when a sound came from the far end of the room, bringing the
four facing round in that direction. And this is what they saw.

Close to the far wall was a second table--a long affair composed of
rough boards, with a bench perched just behind it, between the table and
the wall. On this bench a man was seated, with his hands sprawled out on
the table top, and his head resting on his hands. He might have been
asleep for all one could tell, as his posture was the most natural one
possible. Certainly one would never have imagined that he was the victim
of a shooting affray. But Lord Tom was dead, without any doubt. Closer
inspection of his body showed a hole in his forehead, now reclining on
his hands, while an ugly dark pool was spreading out between his
fingers. At his feet lay a man as dead apparently as he. His feet were
pointed towards the centre of the saloon, while his head and shoulders
lay beneath the bench, almost directly under his dead comrade. It seemed
that he had been holding a paper when the affray started, for he had
dragged that to the ground with him, and it now covered his face and
chest, while one arm peeped from beneath it, exposing the hand to view,
with a revolver gripped in the latter. A moment before Jim had lain an
inert mass. Now, at the sound of departure of the others, he stirred and
called gently to them. Then the hand which gripped the revolver loosed
its hold, and gently drew the paper from his face.

"Jest pull me out from under this here consarn," he asked in the coolest
possible voice. "Now set me up on the table. Gently, boys! That ere
chap's broken my arm. Now, Peter, something wet ter drink, quick as yer
can."

They lifted him on to the table very gently; for these miners, when all
was said and done, were exceedingly good and kind to one another when in
distress. And there they supported him, while the negro behind the bar
mixed some spirit and water and brought it.

"Huh! that'll make me wake up," said Jim, still cool and collected. "So
Lord Tom's dead? I guessed it'd come ter that when he got ter flingin'
names about. And Tusker's gone. Wall, there ain't nothin' more ter do
now but ter git well and started in again at the diggin'. Guess he's
took all. A fine pardner he's been, to be sure! He's seen me and Tom
slavin' every day and guess he's jest chuckled. He's bided his time, and
got clean off with all the stuff. Boys, we'd cleaned up the claim only
yesterday, and thar was enough to take every mother's son of us back to
New York, with something in hand ter start up business with. And
Tusker's got it all, and has rubbed poor Tom out."

He looked round at the miners, and each in turn nodded his agreement.

"Rubbed him clean out, yer bet," said one. "It don't take twice lookin'
ter tell that. Tom's dead, and we'd a notion yer was the same. Yer lay
that still."

"And yer didn't move over sprightly," came from the wounded man dryly.
"I saw every little bit of the theatricals, and thar wasn't a man as
dared ter show fight, small blame to yer. For me, he'd got the drop
before I'd a hand on my shooter, and jest sent his lead through my arm.
I wasn't askin' fer more. I knew a move meant death, sure. And so I did
same as you. Lay still as a mouse, with the paper over my face, and jest
a small tear in it through which I could watch what was happening.
Mates, I'll tell yer somethin'. I've been diggin' and minin' this five
years. I've met bad men and good, rough and honest, and downright
ruffians. But Tusker's jest a murderer. I gives him notice, here and
now, that I shoot on sight at the next meetin'. If only for Lord Tom's
sake, I shoot on sight. Tusker's a thief and a murderer."

When the whole matter came to be discussed, it was the decision of the
inmates of the camp at Salem Falls that Tusker Joe was indeed a thief
and a murderer. It cropped up in the evidence offered to the sheriff,
who duly made an enquiry, that this man, some thirty years of age only,
had twice before entered into partnership with other miners, and, having
waited till the claims panned out well, and earnings were collected,
disappeared with all that he could lay his hands on. And on this
occasion it was his intention to do the same. But Lord Tom, a man of a
different stamp to the miners, had detected his intention, and in an
unwary moment had taxed him with the crime, and had not hesitated to
call him a thief. Then it was that Tusker had deliberately shot his
partner down, and done the same for Jim. It was a clear case of murder.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of the man, and in a little while
the event was forgotten. But Jim did not forget, while in course of time
the news of Lord Tom's death filtered through to New York State, where
his widow was living. Mary Kingsley did not forget. She mourned her
husband for many a long day, and then, like the sensible woman she was,
set herself to think of her son. And that son, Jack Kingsley, is the lad
who is the hero of this story.




CHAPTER II

Jack Kingsley's Dilemma


Mary Kingsley may be described as an eminently unfortunate woman.
Married at an early age, it was not long before her husband fell out of
employment, and found himself hard put to it to make a living. That was
in or about the year 1848; and presently, when a fever for gold digging
in California spread over the United States of America, Tom Kingsley
became badly bitten with the desire to try his own fortune. A town-bred
man, he fared but ill at first; but in a little while his fortunes
mended, so that he was able to send money to his wife. Then had come a
partnership, bringing great profit at first, and later on the disaster
with which the reader is acquainted.

Five years after the death of Tom Kingsley, Mary married again--a man of
uncertain temper, who quickly began to look upon his stepson Jack as an
encumbrance. There were quarrels between himself and his wife with
regard to the boy, and very soon Jack himself came in for ill-feeling
and frequent chastisement.

"I don't think I shall put up with it much longer, Mother," said Jack
one day when there had been an unusually stormy scene. "I learned last
year that when I was away from home, on a visit up the Hudson, you and
Father got on well together; but immediately I returned there were
quarrels, of which I was the cause. I think he's jealous of your care
for me."

"It seems so," admitted Mary with tears in her eyes. "I've noticed the
same, Jack. Phineas is a good and kind husband when things do not
disturb him, but when he's upset, matters are--well, unpleasant for all.
If he had had a son of his own perhaps things would have been different;
but he hasn't, and so one has to look facts in the face. You know, boy,
that your mother would not have you leave. But----"

"Just so, Mother," interrupted Jack. "There is always a but in these
affairs. I've talked it over with Uncle up the Hudson, and he thinks I
should cut from home and strike out for myself. I'm old enough. I'm
seventeen and a half."

"And big enough, bless you!" cried Mary. "Ah, if only the question had
never arisen! But I'm not a fool anyway, Jack, and I'm looking facts in
the face. I see clearly that it would be better for you, better for me,
and happier altogether. Though I shall miss you, boy. How I shall you do
not know. What'll you do?"

Jack thought for a moment; and while he stands there, his hands sunk
deep in his pockets, let us take a good look at him. Jack Kingsley was
of that peculiarly fair complexion which is generally, and too often
wrongly, associated with a hasty and hot temper. His hair was distinctly
red, not the lank red hair one often meets with, but crisp red curls
that clung closely to his head. Indeed the colour suited his general
complexion remarkably well, and Jack was by no means a bad-looking
fellow. For the rest, he was a typical American; well grown for his
age, in fact quite tall, though a little lanky, for he was too young to
have filled out yet. Still Jack was well covered with muscle, light and
active on his feet, with his head well set back on a pair of stout
shoulders. There was a deep white scar on his cheek, which seemed to set
off the good lines of his face as a patch sets off that of a lady. That
scar was the result of a determined struggle with an old school enemy,
whom Jack had fought three times in succession, suffering defeat on the
first two occasions. Eyes which looked at you frankly and steadily, a
firm chin and expressive lips, hiding a set of excellent teeth,
made up an appearance which was as decidedly attractive and
confidence--inspiring as Tusker Joe's had been the opposite.

"Yes, I'm old enough and big enough," said Jack, with that easy
assurance so common to young Americans. "And I ain't afraid of work."

"A good thing too," echoed his mother. "Because you will have to look to
yourself. Your father hasn't enough to be making you allowances, and
you've nothing else to look to. I'm not sorry either. A young man should
look at the world for himself. The fact that he has to make his way
should give him greater determination. If Tom had lived it might have
been different. But that rogue who murdered him stole all he possessed,
including his papers. But there--I'll not bother you with the tale. What
will you do?"

"I've talked it over twenty times, Mother, and Uncle has advised me to
go west, down to the camps."

"To dig! Gold prospecting!" exclaimed Mary Kingsley with horror in her
voice; for she thought of her first husband.

"Perhaps. But only if other things fail. I'm told that a smith is always
wanted down there. There are spades and picks to mend, ironwork to
prepare, and, in fact, lots of jobs for a handy man."

"But you don't----"

Mary threw her hands up in consternation. She knew that Jack had but
recently left school, and had as yet no knowledge of any trade. He had
done a great deal of amateur joinery at home; but then that was not
smith's work.

"I've tried it," said Jack sturdily. "Uncle sent me to the forge near
his house, and last holidays I did a month on end. I can use a hammer
now, and in a few months shall be able to do ordinary jobs, as well as
shoeing horses. The older I get the stronger I shall become, no doubt;
and strength is what is wanted, once one has the training and
knowledge."

"But for the moment you are useless to all intents and purposes,"
exclaimed Mary.

"I can earn my bread and butter and a trifle for spending in leisure
times," said George. "I stopped at Hopeville as I came through from up
the Hudson, and James Orring, the smith, will take me at a dollar a
week, with board and lodging thrown in. If you're willing I'll go at
once."

It may be imagined that Mary was thrown into a condition of unhappiness
at her son's news. True, she had begun to realize more and more that the
best thing for the boy was to leave home and strike out a career for
himself. But she had put the evil day as far from her as possible,
satisfied in her unselfishness to put up with her husband's tempers if
her son could be near her. And now to hear that he was prepared to go at
once, that the day was actually at hand for him to cut adrift from the
nest which had held him all these years, was a bitter blow. She shed
tears, and then, like the sensible woman she was, encouraged Jack to
carry out his determination.

She busied herself for the next two days with his clothes, and then bade
farewell to him bravely. So, in due course, our hero reached Hopeville,
and took up his residence with James Orring.

"You'll have to fetch and carry besides smithing," said James, a blunt,
kind-hearted fellow. "Labour's hard to get hereabouts. Mighty hard, I
tell you, and a chap who wants wages has to earn them. But I'll not be
stingy. Show us that you're a willing fellow, and the money'll be good
and plenty."

For a month Jack laboured steadily in the forge, his sleeves rolled to
the elbow, and his leathern apron round his waist. And, little by
little, James allowed him to undertake work at the anvil.

"He's shapin' well," he told his wife, "and since that's the case I'm
giving him jobs. It'll help to make him know his powers, besides giving
a body time for a smoke in his own parlour. He ain't no trouble, that
lad."

Three months later Jack had become so good at the work that James was
able to enjoy even more leisure. He began to take a holiday every now
and again, and left the little township with his wife in order to visit
friends. He felt he was justified in doing so, for his apprentice was
wonderfully steady, and easily earned the four dollars a week he was now
receiving.

"We're off for the day and night," he said when he came to the forge in
the early morning, his white cuffs and collar showing that he did not
intend to work. "You can manage any ordinary job that comes in. But if
it's something big, and you don't fancy tackling it, why, it'll wait
till to-morrow. Me and the missus is off to see her sisters, way back of
the forest, and we'll be here again by noon to-morrow."

Jack nodded, and stopped hammering for a moment. "There are plenty of
small jobs to keep me going to-day," he said. "I'll look to things. Go
and enjoy yourself."

Some two hours later he was disturbed at his work by the arrival of a
buggy. It was driven up to the door of the forge, and a man whose
clothing showed that he came from a town descended briskly.

"Mornin'," he said. "Busy?"

"Moderate," answered Jack, for he was not anxious to lose a job.

"Got time ter do a little bit for me?"

"Depends what it is," said Jack. "If it ain't big, reckon I'll tackle
it. But not now. I've a heap to get on with."

"Special money fer special work," exclaimed the stranger. "See here,
I've broke the key of my front door, and blest if I know how I'm ter git
in again. I could break a window, fer sure, but then that's more
expensive than getting another key. The puzzle is that the business end
is broken off in the lock, and I ain't got it."

He held up the shank of a big key, one which might have belonged to the
lock of a large front door, and handed it to Jack. The stem was broken
and twisted halfway up, and the most important item was missing. Jack
shook his head.

"I could forge an end to it easy," he said. "But then, what'd be the
use? It wouldn't open the lock unless you knew all about the wards. It
would be waste of money."

"So it would, so it would, siree," agreed the stranger, a man of some
thirty-five years of age, to whom, somehow or other, Jack took an
instant dislike. "But I ain't sich a fool as I look. I can give yer a
plan."

"Exact?" asked Jack.

"To a T; a wax impression. Thar's care for you! I'm fond of a bit of
modelling in wax, and sometimes try my hand at amateur sculpture. Guess
it was one of the first things I did ter take a wax impression of that
'ere key. And it's comin' in useful. I'd forgot it almost, and then
remembered it was in the drawer."

He stopped suddenly and looked keenly at Jack; for this individual had
overstepped himself. If he had broken the key of his own front door, and
so locked himself out, how had he been able to get the impression from
the drawer? Jack was no duffer, to be sure, but he had at the same time
no cause for suspecting anyone who came to offer work. Moreover, he was
pondering with all his youthful keenness how to set about the task.

"It's a longish job," he said, scratching his head.

"How much?" demanded the man quickly.

"I don't know for sure. Depends on how long it takes. Besides, I've
other work, which can't be left."

"Ten dollars if it's ready in two hours," came from the stranger, making
Jack open his eyes.

"Right!" he said promptly. "I'll do it. Leave the shank and the
impression. I'll get at the job at once."

As a matter of fact it took our hero rather less than two hours to
complete the task, for he was a quick workman, and this was a
straightforward matter. In a very little while he had welded a piece of
iron on to the broken shank, and had shaped it roughly to form the wards
of the key. Then he placed it in the vice, and used a hack saw and file
till all was completed.

"And I wonder why he's in such a hurry, and ready to pay such a figure
for it," he wondered, as he put the finishing strokes. "Ten dollars
would pay for more than window and key, and--jimminy!"

He gave vent to a shrill whistle, and stood looking out of the
smoke-grimed window, his hand supported on a file. He was thinking of
the stranger, and for the first time felt suspicious. What his
suspicions were he could not say for the life of him. They were entirely
intangible. But why did the man need that key? Was it actually for his
front door, and, if so, how did he obtain the wax impression? Jack
picked up the piece of wax and examined it.

"Certainly not old," he said emphatically. "This was moulded perhaps
yesterday, or the day before. I wonder if----"

"Got it ready, youngster?" came a voice from the door, and looking there
Jack saw the stranger. He had not come in his buggy on this occasion,
but afoot; and as he spoke was gingerly stepping round the puddle and
soft mud which existed near the door.

"Ready, sure," exclaimed Jack, reddening. "And I hope it'll do. You said
it was for the front door?"

"Yes. Ye're right in one guess. It's the front door. That's a good job,
lad. Let's see if it'll stand the pressure."

Placing the wards in the vice, the stranger tested the strength of the
key by twisting with all his might.

"A strong job too," he exclaimed. "Here's the ten dollars. Four in
notes, and the rest cash. Good day!"

He was gone almost before Jack had finished counting the money, and,
having stepped again gingerly across the mud, disappeared along the road
which led through the town. He left our hero staring after him, and
unconsciously examining the wax impression which he still held in his
hand.

"It's queer," he said. "Wish James was back home to discuss the matter.
Now, if I was older, or had more experience, I suppose I should get to
thinking that that fellow wanted the key for some other purpose. That it
was not his own front door he wished to open with it. He told me a fib,
I'm sure. He made a mistake when he talked about the impression being in
his drawer. Well, there's the money, and James will be glad."

At six o'clock our hero shut the forge, took his tea in the house
closely adjacent, and, having washed himself and put on a suit of
respectable clothes, he went down into the town and out to the other
side. He was fond of a sharp walk after being cooped up in the forge all
day long, and often went off into the country. It was dark when he had
covered six miles, and by then he was almost in the wilderness. The road
had almost ceased to exist, while there was forest land on every side.
On the left, however, as he faced home again, the country was divided by
the Hudson River, beside which the road wound, but elevated from its
surface. Indeed, it stood three hundred feet above the water.

"A fine place for a house," thought our hero, as his eyes were attracted
by lights ahead and to the left. "The man who selected that site had an
eye to beauty. They say he started without a dollar, and made all he has
by hard work. I wonder if I shall ever be able to do anything like that.
It doesn't seem possible, and yet I dare say he thought the same. It
would be grand to have a big house overlooking the Hudson, and give
mother a home there."

Jack was not above the building of castles in the air, and as he trudged
along, his busy brain conjured up a future for himself, a future in
which hard work and care would bring him riches and a rise in the world.
For America was the home of numbers and numbers of men who had made
wealth from nothing, aided by a strong arm, a firm purpose, and
continuous application. Why should he, Jack Kingsley, not be able to
follow in their footsteps? What if he were to own a big forge one of
these days, and, leaving it to a manager, opened others elsewhere. That
would be doing business. That would be rising in the world, and, if the
thing were managed properly, money would be gained and would accumulate.

Jack was so entirely lost in the brilliant scenes he was conjuring up
that he was barely conscious of his surroundings. He had strayed from
the road now, and was traversing a strip of moorland which ran between
it and the river. Then of a sudden something attracted his attention.
It was a dusky outline right ahead, which presently took on the shape of
a buggy. Jack halted when he was within ten paces of the cart and
listened. He was no sneak at any time, but a familiar note caught his
ear. Someone was speaking, and, since he could not settle the doubt in
his mind at that distance, he stepped even closer, making not a sound as
his feet trod the soft green carpet beneath them.

"Jest ten o'clock," he heard the voice say, while someone on the far
side of the buggy struck a match, shielded it with his hand, and
evidently examined his watch with the aid of the flame.

"Jest ten, and Jem Bowen's away down in New York city. That's good."

"Fer us. Guess it ain't fer him," responded someone else. "'Cos, seeing
as he ain't here, and don't have need fer certain things, we'll make
free with 'em. Did yer get the key?"

"Yer bet," and Jack instantly recognized that this was undoubtedly the
voice of the man who had accosted him at the forge. "I ain't lived a
while fer nothing. I've been down here for two weeks past lordin' it in
Hopeville, and getting ter know the ropes. Thar's a young chap down at
James Orring's forge as is a good workman, and soft."

Jack flushed in the darkness at this allusion to himself, and stood
undecided how to act. His idea of common fairness bade him decamp at
once, and no doubt he would have done so had not the words he had
already heard, and others which followed immediately, persuaded him that
he ought to stay.

"Soft?" queried the other man with a giggle which roused Jack's
indignation. "Perhaps he's made a mistake."

"No fear of that. He's more simple than soft. That's jest what I meant.
He's jest mighty keen on his work, and don't give a thought to other
matters. I guessed he was the man fer us, so I cleared old man James out
with a call from his wife's sisters. Then I went down ter the forge, and
the young chap asked no questions. I jest stuffed him with a yarn, and
he swallowed it. At any rate, thar's the key. A fine job."

"And it's like the impression?"

An oath escaped the first man. He remembered now for the first time that
he had left the wax model behind him.

"'Tain't no matter after all," he said after a while. "The model ain't
no use to him, and ten to one he's tossed it into the fire. At any rate
I compared the thing he made with the model, and I guess it was exact.
Thar ain't a doubt but what it'll fit."

"Then thar's no use in waitin'. The lights yonder has been out fer the
last three hours, save in the servants' quarters, and we know the old
man who's in charge is as deaf as any adder. The sooner we break the
place the better chance of getting clear. How's that?"

"Sense! Nothing more and nothing less. Let's git right now. Thar ain't
no need ter exert ourselves. We'll drive pretty close, and walk right
in."

The two figures appeared from the far side of the buggy, while Jack slid
to the ground and crouched behind a bush. He caught the whiff of
someone's pipe, and saw the red end of the barrel. Then the men sprang
to their places, the whip cracked, and in a moment the buggy was moving
away.

"Ought he to follow? Should he cling to the back of the buggy and give
the alarm when they reached the house? Should he leave the matter? It
was no affair of his."

The questions raced through Jack's mind, and for a few seconds he was
undecided. Care for his own safety prompted him to pursue the easier
course, to let matters drift, and not interfere himself. Then his
duty--the common duty we owe one another--pulled him in the other
direction. He would go and give the alarm. But those few seconds of
indecision had altered the complexion of affairs. The buggy was already
some yards away, and, though Jack ran, it rapidly increased its distance
from him. Then the house to be burgled by these rascals was a good mile
and a half away, and before he could arrive their purpose might be
carried out.

"Not if I can stop them," said Jack stubbornly. "It's clearly for me to
do something. I'll put a spoke in their wheel."

He took to his heels at once and cut straight across towards the house,
at that moment hidden from him by a rise in the land. However, he soon
sighted the light which had been referred to, and within a little while
was at the gates which shut in the surroundings of the park attached to
the mansion. They were open, and the buggy stood just within, the reins
being secured to the ironwork. Jack stepped boldly through into the
park, and ran along on the grass border. In a little while he reached
the drive, and, skirting that--for to have stepped into it would have
been to make a noise--he presently came to the large front door. It was
open.

"And the thieves have gone in. I'll follow, and then kick up a rumpus,"
he said. "They shall not get away with any booty if I can avoid it."

He stepped across the threshold, and was within the mansion immediately.
Listening for a moment, he heard sounds in the distance, and set off in
that direction.

"Better catch them red-handed than not," he thought. "Guess this'll be a
surprise for 'em."




CHAPTER III

A Rude Awakening


"Guess this'll be a surprise for 'em."

His heart throbbing a little faster than it was wont to do, and his
pulses beating tumultuously, Jack crept along a passage, and presently
came to a large door which stood ajar. There was someone within the room
without a doubt; for he heard whispering voices, while, though the place
was not lighted, every now and again a ray swept past the door, and
penetrated through the chink beneath it, as if one of the burglars had a
lamp and were flashing it to and fro. Then he heard the chink of metal.

"Silver!" he heard someone exclaim.

"H--h--ush! You'll wake the house, booby! Silver it is, and plenty of
it. Easier ter take Jem Bowen's glint than dig for gold in Californy.
Put 'em in the sack. Never mind bending the things. They'll all come out
the same in the melting-pot. Here, leave the job ter me and get to the
other cabinet."

The dulled sound of footsteps came to Jack's ear, and every now and
again a metallic sound, as the silver articles were dropped into the
sack. As for himself, he had made no sound as he came along the passage,
for it was luxuriously carpeted. He stood at the door, hesitating
again, eager to enter and face the men, and yet doubting whether the
right moment had yet arrived. And our hero was to discover again to his
cost that indecision does not always pay. In fact, that the man who can
make up his mind on the spur of the moment, in a flash as it were, and
act upon it inflexibly, without doubts, without a second's delay, is the
man who more often succeeds in this life than he who is dilatory. But
expedition in such matters is not to be expected from a lad of Jack's
age. It was only natural that he should hesitate. After all, he was
suddenly face to face with a dilemma which might well have tried the
discretion and courage and steadiness of an elder man. He hesitated.

"If I go now they will get clean away with that silver. If I wait till
they are fully engaged, and then wake someone in the house, then they
may well be captured. Guess I'll wait. Helloo!"

Another dull footfall had come to his ears, and he swung round to see
who had caused it. A big man was stealing up to him along the corridor,
a man dressed in nightshirt and trousers, bearing a small lantern, and
armed with a club. Jack was thoroughly startled, and, to be honest, lost
his head. He was between two fires, and was likely to be singed by both.

"S-s-s-sh!" he whispered, holding up his finger. "In there. In there."

He pointed to the room at the door of which he stood, and again held up
his finger for silence. But the man who was creeping down that passage
had but one idea in his mind. He had been awakened by a sound, and from
his position in one wing of the mansion had caught the flash of a light
in one of the living rooms. The instant he saw Jack he took him for a
burglar, and, now that he was within striking distance, he disregarded
our hero's signs, and, suddenly dashing in, brought his club down with a
furious swish. Fortunately for Jack it missed the mark. But in another
moment they were locked in one another's arms, the newcomer endeavouring
to use his club, while Jack gripped his arm with all his might. They
fell to the ground during the struggle, and continued the contest there.

"Leave go!" shouted Jack at the top of his voice. "Can't you tell I'm on
the same errand as you are. There are two men in there. Burglars! I've
tracked them."

Crash! The club, seized in the man's other hand, came with a resounding
bang against his head, and in a second our hero was unconscious. At the
same moment the door of the room was torn open, and the lamp, which had
rolled to the floor of the passage, but which was not extinguished,
showed the two whom Jack had followed.

"Hands up!" shouted the fellow who had so unexpectedly appeared upon the
scene, and who had made such a stupid error with respect to our hero.
"Yer won't! Then take the consequences!"

He was a sturdy fighter, this caretaker of the mansion and in one brief
half-second had broken the arm of one of the men. Then he attacked the
second, and no doubt would have done him a like injury with his
formidable weapon had not the fellow drawn back. Something bright
glinted in his hand; there was a sharp report, which went echoing down
the corridor, and instantly his attacker fell to the ground.

"Wall! If that don't beat everything! Dead, is he?"

The one with the broken arm bent over, supporting his injured limb with
the other, and looked at the man who had been shot.

"As mutton," he said curtly; "and serve him right. He's broken my arm."

"Who's the other? Seems he must have been following us, and this old
fool took him for one of our gang. Turn him over."

Together they rolled Jack over on to his back and inspected his face.

"Gee!" cried the leader, the one who had come to the forge that morning;
"ef it ain't the youngster who made the key for me. And I thought he was
soft. Phew! Wall, he's brought it on hisself. Get the sack, mate, and
let's be moving. We know the old man was alone in the house, so thar's
no hurry. But it won't do ter wait. Someone else might be in the game.
Get the sack, and we'll drive."

Without a thought for the man they had shot, or for poor Jack, they
decamped from the mansion, leaving the two victims lying on the floor.
Ten minutes later their buggy was whirling them away, so that no trace
was left of them when the morning came. And it was not till then that
the crime was discovered. A gardener found the door open, and, being
unable to make the caretaker hear, entered the mansion. An hour later
Hopeville's solitary policeman was there.

"Hm! A burglary," he said knowingly; "and the old man came in at the
right moment. Is he dead?"

"Left for dead, but still breathing ever so gently," answered the
gardener. "I've sent for the doctor."

"And t'other fellow?"

"Head pretty nigh bashed in. Insensible, and likely to remain so for a
day," was the report. "Reckon Davy caught him nicely. What'll you do?"

"Note the surroundings first. Then, when the doctor arrives, get 'em to
bed. Reckon the thief couldn't be moved yet awhile."

It was an hour before surgical aid arrived, and very soon afterwards
Jack was put into a bed in one of the attics, with a groom to watch him,
and make sure that he did not escape. As for Davy, he was carried to a
sofa, the movement nearly shaking the slender thread of life still
remaining out of his body. He rallied slightly, opened his eyes, and in
a feeble voice gave an account of the burglary. Then he closed his eyes,
and died within ten minutes.

"Which makes the case worse for that young blackguard upstairs," said
the man of law. "To think that James Orring's man should take to such
ways. I've sent along for him, so as to ask a few questions. Guess he'll
be mighty put about. It was only yesterday that he passed me on the
road, and got to talking about young Jack Kingsley. It'll be a case
of----" He jerked his head back, and indicated a hanging.

"Y-e-e-es," agreed the other doubtfully, "ef it's proved. In the States
a man ain't guilty, and don't hang in consequence, till he's proved to
have done murder."

"Proved! It's a clear case," exclaimed the policeman. "Clear as
daylight. Here's the young blackguard discovered on the premises,
knocked silly by Davy's club, and Davy himself dyin'. Ef that ain't
clear, what is?"

His familiarity with the law, the necessity for showing greater
knowledge than the gardener, caused the policeman to sniff with
indignation. To his legal mind Jack was not only guilty of the offence,
but was already condemned. Indeed, looking at the evidence clearly,
things wore a black aspect for him. Now that Davy was dead there was no
one to give evidence but himself, and the poor fellow who had so
recently died had definitely stated that Jack was one of the burglars,
believing that to be the case himself.

Let the reader imagine our hero's feelings when at length he regained
consciousness, and was taken to the station-house.

"Taken for one of the burglars, just because that poor, stupid fellow
made the mistake! Surely not," he groaned. "That would be too cruel! I
can prove that I was not. I can describe what happened--how I met them
on the heath and followed. I can speak about the key, and----"

He broke off with a groan, for as he reviewed the matter he realized
that he could but make a statement of what had happened, but that there
was no one to bear it out. After all, facts were glaringly against him.
Indeed he realized that to the full when he was brought up before the
sheriff and judges.

"The prisoner states that he was at work in the forge when a man entered
and desired to have a key made," counsel for the prosecution announced,
when summing up the case. "That may or may not be the case, though we
can believe that it happened, for there were footmarks in the mud
outside the smithy which correspond with others on the lawn outside the
mansion. But we maintain that those marks were those of an accomplice.
The prisoner made the key to match a wax impression supplied by this
accomplice, and carelessly left the impression in the smithy. Now let us
follow the prisoner's movements. He shuts the smithy and goes off in the
evening, as he has done many times before. But let us bear in mind an
important item of evidence. On ordinary days he would have to be back by
nine o'clock at the latest. But on this particular evening he owns that
he walked so far that a return at that hour was impossible. With that we
place the fact that James Orring and his wife were lured away from
Hopeville for the night. Is that not very suggestive of prisoner's
complicity in this crime? He lures his patron away, so that his absence
shall not be detected. And why should he walk farther on this particular
occasion? To meet the buggy with his two accomplices. The tracks on the
heather are clear enough to show that three men were about the buggy. It
stands to reason that one man could not have been spying, for he would
certainly have been detected.

"And now we come to the mansion. Davy declares that this man was one of
the miscreants, though he did not say who fired the shot. That is his
dying deposition. Is it probable that he would have thrown himself upon
a defenceless youth? Highly improbable. Unbelievable. Contrary to common
sense. And had he done so, is it possible that he could still have
persevered in his error? No, a thousand times no! Davy, at death's
door, gave us his honest conviction."

Terribly black was the evidence, and it may be imagined with what a
sinking heart our unfortunate hero listened to it all. There was no one
to speak for him, save honest James Orring, who sturdily maintained that
his apprentice was innocent.

"Find the weapon with which he shot the man Davy," he asked savagely,
"and then talk of the lad's guilt. A steadier boy never worked in a
forge. Him a burglar! Not much! And ef he was, do yer think I shouldn't
have spotted it, with him under my eyes day and night?"

Jack's case stirred the countryside, and filled the columns of the
paper. Discussion as to his guilt or innocence waxed loud and furious,
and was responsible for many incidents. People took up the cudgels for
him in the saloons, and often enough that led to angry words and to
broken heads. Even the jury wavered. Looking at Jack in the dock they
were bound to confess that a franker face never before was seen. The
prisoner faced his terrible position with a courage and fortitude which
were commendable, while his answers were so direct, so evidently
spontaneous and sincere, that even with that damning evidence before
them the most experienced of the jury felt a qualm, hesitated a little,
and was inclined to give some benefit to the prisoner.

"It'll be manslaughter," said James dolefully, "as he discussed the
matter with his wife. They'll never hang Jack, even though the evidence
is so black against him. He'll be given ten years, ten long years, in
prison."

Mrs. Orring wept, and was joined by Jack's mother, who had come to stay
with them during the trial.

"Ten long years," she moaned. "He'll be an old man by then. To think
that a bonny fellow such as he must be shut up for the finest years of
his life, must be treated like a wild beast. Oh, it is horrible!"

"He shan't! I tell yer he shan't!" cried James, banging his fist on the
parlour table till the whole floor shook. "Even though I war the victim
of a hoax that cleared me away for the time being, I ain't never had
ought but a friendly feelin' for young Jack, and I'm dead sartin that
he's as innocent as a babe. If them skunks who were in it had the pluck
of sparrows, they'd come forward and declare theirselves. But they
won't--trust 'em! And they'll see this young chap nigh hanged and put in
prison, while they're free ter burglar other places. Jack's up against
it hot and strong, and I'm his friend. I say again, he shan't go to
prison."

His vehemence was remarkable, and stirred his listeners.

"Not go to prison! You won't----" commenced Mrs. Orring.

"Silence, woman!" thundered James, his brows knit close together, his
eyes staring at the opposite wall. "Ye've heard what I've had to say.
Then silence! Not another word! Don't breathe a syllable to a soul. Good
night!"

The usually pleasant and easy-going smith got up and left the room
abruptly, while the two women stared at one another, half-laughing and
half-weeping.

"This is how I look at it," said James, when he was well away from the
house. "I can't get to think in there with women round me, but here a
man can see things clearer. Jack's done. If he ain't hanged, he'll be
put away fer ten solid years. And how's he ter prove his innocence when
he's cooped up within four walls? He can't, and thar's no one else to do
it fer him. And supposin' he goes fer the ten years, he's branded as a
felon, and won't have the spirit or the energy ter try to clear himself
when at last he gets free. I don't, as a rule, get advisin' a man as is
innocent ter skip before his trial's finished. It makes things all the
blacker agin him. But here's a case where no good can come with waitin'.
He's branded, sure, and he'll stay branded if he goes to prison. I'll go
and see Pete."

Pete was an old friend of James's, and because of help he had had at a
critical time, from the owner of the smithy, he always had an indulgent
ear for James.

"Ef yer could get ter chat along with the policeman, maybe I'd be able
ter take a look at Jack," said James, accosting his friend, and passing
him a wink. "Not yet awhile, though, 'cos I'm busy. But after tea. Jest
about sevin o'clock."

Pete looked up quickly, and a sharp glance shot from his eyes. He was a
man of sixty-five, perhaps, though he looked older, and was already as
white as snow as to his hair and beard. But he was no fool, was Pete,
and his glance showed that he half-understood James.

"You aer thinkin' that boy's innocent?" he asked, as he sucked at his
pipe.

"Dead sartin," replied James. "Sit down and have a smoke. Try mine."

He handed out his tobacco skin, and Pete filled from it gratefully.

"Up!" he remarked, as he pulled at the pipe; "and you was thinkin' maybe
that Jack----"

"Yer know what I was thinkin', Pete," exclaimed James bluntly. "Look ye
here. Have yer ever been dead down on yer luck, right clean hard up agin
it?"

Pete nodded, his ferrety little eyes watching the smoke curl up from the
bowl, and his whole expression denoting satisfaction.

"I've been dead down on the rocks, with the pinnacles comin' clear
through," he admitted, as if the recollection caused him enjoyment.
"I've had fortune play me so scurvily that I couldn't see a crust
anywheres, and hadn't but one friend ter turn to. Yes, James, I've knowd
what it is ter be clean up agin it."

"And yer didn't want help?"

"Ye've struck it wrong. Every man wants help some day. It may be only
when he's old and tottery, like me----" he stopped to smile, and watch
the smoke again--"jest like me," he repeated. "Sometimes he don't want
it even then. But there's others want it, soon and plenty, when they're
just cuttin' their teeth. Guess Jack's one of 'em."

"And he's jest got one friend," said James slowly. "That's me."

"Then you've struck it wrong agin. Jack's got two. Jack's friend is my
friend. I don't forget the time when I was up agin it."

The shrewd, sharp look came again from the old man, and James noted it.
Taking his courage in both hands he blurted out his news.

"I'm goin' to fetch him out of that ere jug of a prison," he said
curtly. "Help me with the policeman, and--and----"

"Why, bless us! what am I doin'," cried Pete, suddenly taking his pipe
from his mouth. "It's five o'clock now, and I must be goin'. I've got a
'pointment with the constable at sivin, jest to do a bit of talkin'. So
long, James."

"And bless you," thought the owner of the smithy, as Pete departed. "Now
ef I don't fix it, my name ain't James Orring. First thing's an aliby."

He stood thinking for a few moments, and then hastened back home. Tea
was ready, and after that, and a smoke, it wanted only a quarter to
seven.

"Missus," said James suddenly, "I'm agoin' to bed. I've a headache. Jest
come in and put the light out, will yer."

Mrs. Orring was not gifted with a brilliant wit, and stood for a while
regarding her husband with questioning eyes. For James certainly did not
look to have a headache. If ever a man looked in robust and absolute
health it was he. But Jack's mother saved the situation.

"I think I should go and do as he says in a few moments, dear," she
whispered. "You see, to-morrow you will be able to tell the people that
James went to bed, and that you left him there, sick with a headache."

It dawned upon Mrs. Orring that this manoeuvre of her husband's might
have something to do with Jack, and promptly she carried out his wishes.

"And jest sit right there in the front parlour," said James, as the
light was put out. "Then I shan't be disturbed with the talking. Yer
can come in and see how my head's doin' when I call. Not before, 'cos I
shall likely be sleepin'."

He yawned, turned over, and drew the clothes well across him, as if
disposing himself for sleep. But within a minute of Mrs. Orring's
departure, James was out of bed. To open the window and leap out was the
work of a moment. Then he went straight to the smithy, procured a file
and a hammer, and, covering his face with a scarf, set off towards the
prison, choosing a path at the back of the houses.

"Better see as Pete's got the constable in tow," he said to himself as
he went. "Now's the time to work a liberation, 'cos this jail ain't by
noways strong. But after the trial's over, and the verdict's given,
guess Jack'll be taken to a place as strong as could be wanted. Now what
in thunder aer we ter do with him when he's out."

The difficulty almost floored James, and for a time he sat pondering.

"Got it!" he cried at last. "Thar's bound ter be a hue and cry, and a
dickens of a fuss; and the country-side'll be searched high and low.
Guess I'll help ter put 'em off the tracks."

Some ten minutes later he was close to the prison, and had safely hidden
himself in the angle of a house from which he could watch the street.
Hopeville boasted of a town hall and a jail, both perched at the edge of
a square, which, now that the township was a dozen years old, had become
the fashionable promenade of the inhabitants. It was lighted by some
half-dozen swaying oil lamps, and was provided with a few benches. On
one of these, some distance from the tiny prison, Pete was seated as
James looked, smoking quietly, and engaged in earnest conversation with
the only constable that Hopeville possessed. And if that conversation
could have been overheard, it would have appeared at once that the
artful Pete was playing on the constable's vanity.

"Good for me! Good for Jack!" thought James. "Now, I won't lose no time
about it, and I'll go at it like a man."

Being the only smith in the place, he was thoroughly acquainted with the
ins and outs of the prison, and knew the solitary cell it boasted. James
was no believer in half-measures. He clambered on to a wall at the back
of the prison, made his way along it, and gained a roof. The grilled
window of the cell looked on to this, and in a twinkling James was at
it.

"Hist!" he called through the bars. "That you, Jack!"

He had to repeat the summons before our hero put in an appearance.

"What is it?" he asked sleepily. "You! James!"

"Fer sure. Look here, Jack! Ye're innocent, and we knows it."

Our hero nodded curtly. He had heard the same tale from James before,
and had blessed him for his support. But the iron of this terrible time
had seared his mind; his feelings were dulled; he felt that he was
already branded a thief and a murderer.

"And I've made up me mind ter give yer a chance. Look here, lad! Ef yer
go to prison it'll be fer ten solid years, and thar'll be no one ter
clear you."

"Well," asked Jack, his eyes brightening a little.

"Ef yer bolts, people can't say more than they have done. Yer ain't more
guilty than yer wur afore, but yer have a chance ter get hold of that
chap and make him clear yer. Savvy? Wall, yer can take yer liberty or
leave it. It's right here, outside the windy. Will yer have it?"

Jack thought for a moment. He realized that to leave was practically to
declare his guilt. Then he looked at the other side, the prison side:
the impossibility of being able to show his innocence--the hopelessness
of his future life. Rightly or wrongly he chose liberty.

"I'll take it," he said breathlessly. "How'll you manage the bars? I'll
leave 'em to you, while I scribble a note."

He went across to the far side of the cell, where light entered the
place in a thin stream from a candle placed in a niche in the corridor
outside. Pulling out a pocket-book, he wrote boldly and in large
letters:

"This is to declare solemnly, on my word of honour, that I am entirely
innocent, and that every word I have uttered is true. I have to face
death or imprisonment under the brand of a felon, and without hope of
justice reaching me. On the far side of my prison bars I see liberty: if
I can gain it, the chance to clear my good name and bring the right men
to justice. I choose the last, whether it stamps me guilty or not. I
will return when the time arrives, and will deliver myself up again to
the law."

He scrawled his name boldly beneath the words, and left the sheet of
paper on the tiny table. Meanwhile James had stripped off his coat, had
wrapped it into a thick buffer, and, placing this against the bars, had
broken them with a few lusty blows from his hammer. In a minute Jack was
free, shaking himself like a dog just emerged from the water.

"And now?" he asked.

"Jest come along with me, and doggo aer the order. Do yer remember the
store of scrap, back of the smithy? Then ye're goin' thar. Thar's a
place pretty well built all ready for yer. I'll look after things when
ye're hid, and send 'em off on the wrong scent. But doggo it's got ter
be. Yer must lie as quiet as any mouse."

James led him swiftly from the broken cell and took him to the smithy.
At the back, in the open, was a mass of odds and ends of iron.
Axletrees, plough-irons, swingle-bars, rods and hoops, and old
horseshoes galore. The heap was piled high, and leaned against the side
of the smithy. But James was a tidy man, and for a long while had
insisted on piling his old horseshoes wall-fashion, and in course of
time quite a big wall had been formed.

"Thar's room and plenty for yer," he whispered to Jack, indicating the
heap. "Get along in, while I sling a few bars up agin it. And not a word
till I give the signal, not even if you're starvin'."

Jack crept into the hole, which, by the way, he had never noticed before
in the scrap heap, and James threw a number of bars and hoops up against
the opening.

"Ter-morrow there'll be shoes and sichlike to sling," he said. "So long,
and don't forget it, it's doggo."

Running as fast as possible, James made for the river, and in ten
minutes had beaten in the boards of an old dinghy which had once been
Pete's, and which was now old and useless. He cut the painter and let
the wreck drift.

"It'll be down ten foot and more in a jiffy," he said, "and in a while
it'll reach the bottom, or get broken up and float away. Anyway, it'll
give 'em a scent. They'll turn to the river, or the far shore."

Satisfied with his labours he retreated to his house, clambered in
through the window of the bedroom, and presently called loudly for his
wife.

"Wuss," he said as she entered, sitting up and treating her to a broad
wink. "It's wuss, that head of mine. Feels like a swollen pertater.
Can't think. Can't even sleep. What's the clock?"

"The time? Why, ten," answered Mrs. Orring. "You've been asleep, sure."

"That's likely. I thought it war somewhere's in the neighbourhood of
sevin. Good night!"

James threw himself flat again, and grunted, while Mrs. Orring retired.

"He's been fast asleep all this while, I do believe," she said,
addressing Jack's mother, and nodding significantly. "Poor dear, I've
left him to it!"

Having safely established his alibi, James Orring fell into a deep
slumber, and indeed was still snoring heavily when the constable
appeared and insisted on searching the premises.




CHAPTER IV

The Road to California


Jack Kingsley's escape from the jail at Hopeville caused a huge
sensation, and the hue and cry raised by the constable and by the
officials in charge of the case extended into the country on every side.
It was clear that he had been aided by some outside individual, and, as
was perfectly natural, suspicion fell upon James Orring.

"He's been the one all through that's stuck up for the prisoner,"
reported the constable, at his wits' end to provide a tale which would
clear himself from blame, "and I can't help thinking he's done it. But
he's too clever."

"How?" demanded the official who was interrogating him.

"Just this way. James has witnesses to swear he was at home from after
tea till I went round to inspect and search the premises. I went to his
house the instant I learned that the prisoner had escaped, and found
James fast asleep."

"Or kidding," suggested the official.

"No; right down fast asleep, and no mistake. And Mrs. Orring, whom I've
known all my life, declared he'd gone to bed with a baddish headache
soon after tea, and had been there ever since. He'd wakened once, and
had called her."

"Is there anyone else whom you suspect of complicity in the escape?" he
was asked.

"Nary one. Jack Kingsley was a stranger, so ter speak, and hadn't any
friends. That's why I'll stake my davy James was in it."

"Well? And have you any news as to the direction he took?"

"Down stream," answered the constable emphatically. "I searched James
Orring's yard thoroughly, yer bet, and then someone told me that a boat
was missing. Later on it was reported stranded on the far shore, with
the planks kicked in. So the prisoner is at large over thar."

"Where we shall lay our hands on him," said the official. "I will send
his description to all the stations."

But a week passed and still there was no trace of the prisoner.

"Yer must jest lie low and doggo a little longer," said James one early
morning, standing at the door of the smithy, and speaking apparently to
the air. "Find it comfortable in thar?"

"Been in a worse spot," sang out Jack cheerily, for he was still
ensconced behind James's scrap heap. "It's a little cramping to the
legs, that's all."

"And had enough to eat?"

"Heaps, thanks!"

"Then stick it out a bit longer. That 'ere Simpkins, the constable,
can't get it outer his mind that I war the one to free yer. He's got a
sorter idea you're here, and he comes slinking round most times of the
day. So don't yer show so much as a finger."

Jack, fortunately for him, obeyed these instructions to the letter,
never emerging from his retreat even at night-time. For one evening the
constable put in an unexpected appearance, coming from the back of the
houses. He found James Orring washing before a bucket placed in the yard
standing between the smithy and the house, and his wife holding a towel
in readiness for him.

"Why, it aer the constable!" said James in surprise, as his face emerged
from the pail and he stretched out for the towel. "What in thunder aer
he come along fer? Say, Simpkins, will yer come and have a bit of tea
with us? I knows ye've been a trifle put out over this affair, and have
got it stuck into yer head that I'm the man that's done it. Jest try to
get the idea put clean aside, and let bygones be bygones. Come and have
a bit of tea and a smoke afterwards."

But Simpkins was not to be beguiled. He strode into the smithy, and
afterwards carefully searched every corner of the yard, climbing on to
the top of the scrap heap. Evidently he disbelieved James, and thought
he was being hoaxed. His attitude vexed Mrs. Orring till her patience
gave out.

"Look ye here, young man," she called out at last, "ef yer want to come
searching round here most hours of the day and night, yer'd better by
half come and take up yer quarters here altogether, so as to save
trouble. Trade's not been that good that we'd sniff at a lodger, and
we'd make yer comfortable. Then yer could sit right at the smithy door,
and count the people what comes during the day. Or yer could sit right
thar in the parlour, and make sure as sure that we ain't feedin' young
Jack. More shame to yer to hound after him so! A wee, young chap such as
he."

James Orring laughed heartily, while Simpkins looked confused, and
reddened. He had a very great idea of his own importance, and banter
irritated him. Moreover, cases in Hopeville being few and far between,
he had made the utmost of this one of burglary and murder. He had been
so energetic, in fact, that he had won the commendation of the sheriff.
And now the escape of his prisoner at the eleventh hour had brought
ridicule down on his head. People joked him in the street, and his
wounded dignity was ready to blaze out at anything. If Mrs. Orring had
been alone he would have given her a piece of his mind. But James was
there, looking particularly formidable, and laughing heartily, thereby
showing he cared not a fig for the constable.

"If I was you I'd jest git," said James. "This here smithy ain't a
healthy place for sech as you. Don't yer take my missus serious. She
don't want you ter stop up here; not at all."

"I'm open to lay anything that you helped the prisoner to escape,"
blustered Simpkins; "and I believe that if I searched high and low I'd
find him."

"Then why not get to at it?" asked James with a bantering smile. "One
would have thought yer had already done it pretty thoroughly."

"Then I haven't. I'd like to pull the smithy down and see what's behind
those bellows, or up in the loft Besides, there's that heap of scrap.
Fer all I know you've hidden him there."

James Orring went off into a peal of gruff laughter while his wife
turned away to hide her dismay. As for Simpkins, he walked to the
tumbled heap of iron rusting against the smithy, and began to pull
portions of it away.

"Say, constable, you'll be the death of me," gasped James, doubling up
with laughing. "Why, if that ain't Seth and Piggy Harten! Say, boys,
what do yer think's the latest? This here Simpkins guesses as Jack
Kingsley's hidden up somewhars here, and he wants a man or two ter pull
the smithy about, tear down the bellows and sichlike, and cart away that
heap of scrap. He's jest took on that heap. He believes as Jack's lyin'
there at the bottom."

It happened that Seth was not on the best of terms with the constable,
and at James's words he giggled audibly, and turned a scornful face to
Simpkins.

"You're jest about right," he cried. "Jack's 'way down below that heap
o' iron scrap, and yer'd best get a horse or so to pull it about. Reckon
he'll be no use as a prisoner though."

Simpkins turned an enquiring look upon him. He was a stubborn fellow,
this constable, and all the banter only made him more determined.

"Why no use?" he asked.

"'Cos he'll jest be as flat as a pancake. Jest like a sheet, you bet.
There's three ton o' iron there, man, and it'd squeeze the life out of
even a constable."

Seth went off laughing, while the constable again reddened. Turning on
his heel, he gave James one quick, vindictive look, and then departed.

"He means mischief," said Mrs. Orring. "That man suspects something, and
he'll not be satisfied till he's rummaged the smithy and every corner.
Jack'll be found."

"Ef he's here," answered James cunningly; "ef he's here, missus. Jest
yer hop right in and tell Mrs. Kingsley as her son'll be at the back
door a bit after sevin. He'll be sayin' goodbye. Ef she's got a trifle
for him, she'd better have it ready."

It was already getting dusk, so that there was little fear of being
disturbed. James went promptly to Jack's hiding place and dragged away
the odds and ends of iron he had thrown against the heap so as to hide
the opening.

"Yer can hop out right now," he said. "Now, ye've got ter git, and
precious slippy, else Simpkins'll have yer. How aer yer off for brass?"

"I've saved fifty-eight dollars," answered Jack promptly.

"And here's another fifty. On loan, lad. Yer can pay me back some o'
these days when things have shaped a little differently. Now, what aer
yer going ter do?"

Jack had been thinking it over during his enforced idleness in his
retreat, and answered promptly. "I'll make west to California," he said.
"Once there I shall be perfectly safe. It's the getting there that will
be difficult. There's this red head of mine to tell tales everywhere."

"To be sure there is. But yer ain't no need ter fear. Mrs. Orring and me
thought of that. We've sent down river for a bottle of hair dye, and
guess it'll change yer nicely. Come along into the smithy, and we'll try
it right now. So you'll make for Californy? And how?"

"By road. If I tried the rail I should certainly be detected. I'll make
down by road somehow. Perhaps I'll get a job on the way. If not, I'll
walk at night and hide up during the day."

"That's a cute idea; and say, youngster, when you gets there jest send a
line. We've took your mother's address, and we can post on to her. Don't
give no proper address, and don't sign a name. Savvy? Now fer the hair."

An hour later our hero was well outside the township of Hopeville, on
the road to California, hundreds and hundreds of miles to the west. He
was glad now to have said farewell to his friends and to be alone; for
he felt that he could think better, that he could shape his actions for
the future, and decide what course to follow. Uppermost in his mind,
swamping all other considerations, was the overwhelming desire to prove
his innocence. That was a task which he would never neglect nor forget.
But for the moment he must get clear away from Hopeville, and be lost,
as it were.

"In a year or so I'll be able to grow a beard," he said to himself. "By
then this matter will have been forgotten, and so long as I do not come
to Hopeville I shall be secure. Yes, I must get away, and wait till my
appearance is changed. For the present I have a long walk before me."

All that night he trudged on in a westerly direction, traversing a road
which was hardly deserving of the name. It was little better than a cart
track. And the following night found him some thirty miles from his
starting-point. He had met no one, and so far as he knew no one had seen
him. As the evening of the third day from Hopeville closed in he ate
the remainder of his provisions and took the road again; for he had
slept during the day hidden in a small wood.

"To-morrow I shall have to show myself," he said. "I must buy food, or I
shall be unable to stand the walking. I'll try some farm. That will be
better than going to a town."

It was, indeed, the only sensible course to pursue under the
circumstances, for, had he but known of it, the constable at Hopeville
had supplied a description of the runaway to all towns within a hundred
miles, while so greatly had the trial preyed upon Jack that, in spite of
the change in his complexion, he felt nervous of discovery, as if the
first woman or child who met him would recognize him at once. It was a
horrible feeling, and not to be conquered till time had elapsed.

Jack had covered some five miles of his tramp that night when his ear
detected sounds in the distance. He moved forward cautiously, and
presently discovered a cart and horse halted in the roadway. A man was
walking to and fro beside the cart, talking to himself excitedly, and
kicking the ground as if he were in a temper. Our hero took as close a
look at him as possible, for now and again the stranger crossed before
the beam of light thrown out from a solitary lantern. He was
ridiculously short, and ludicrously dressed. On his head was a black
wideawake, from beneath the brim of which rolls of hair descended till
they trailed on to his shoulders. He wore a short frockcoat, the tails
of which came little lower than his waist, and served to accentuate his
lack of stature, while a massive chain flashed across a rather ample
waistcoat. The face was neither ugly nor handsome, while at the same
time, in spite of the temper in which this individual undoubtedly was,
it gave promise of kindliness. Jack took his courage in both hands.

"Goody!" he said, striding up. "Anything amiss?"

The stranger started back at first, and looked not a little frightened.
Then he took the lamp and inspected our hero carefully, while it was as
much as the latter could do to return his glances. That odious
accusation, the fact that he was an escaping criminal, had almost robbed
his youthful face of its refreshing frankness.

"My word! Thought you was that villain George at first," said the
stranger. "Jest see here. I hired him out to look after the hosses and
act the professional man. He took good wages too. And he's jest bolted.
Said as he'd follow, and hasn't. Met him on the road?"

Jack shook his head. "Seen no one," he said.

"Wall, that jest proves it. He's done a bolt, and my tin box has gone
with him. Guess it's lucky I cleared the cash last night. What might you
be doin'?"

"Travelling west," said Jack.

"Business?" asked the stranger.

"N-n-no. Just travelling west," answered Jack. "I'm making for the
diggings."

"Oh!" exclaimed the little man. "Likely enough you're goin' to meet
friends there."

"I haven't any," said Jack, shaking his head, and thinking rather
bitterly of his position.

"Then you ain't in a hurry, and you ain't fixed for a job. P'raps you've
no need fer one."

Again Jack shook his head. He was not going to be communicative to this
little man, and yet at the same time he could not afford to throw away
a chance of help. If this stranger needed a man, why should he, Jack,
not accept the post?

"I'm ready for a job when I find one," he said quietly. "But I'm bound
for the west."

"And so am I, and I need someone to accompany me. See here," cried the
little man, "you're a fair height, and would make up splendidly. I'll
tell you what I'll do. I'll give you ten dollars a week and your food to
come with me. You'll have to feed and mind the horses, and clean out the
van. Then, when we set up shop at the towns, you'll have to dress up
fine and come on the stage."

"Stage!" exclaimed Jack, somewhat bewildered.

"Jest so. I'll explain. I'm a travelling conjuror and mesmerist. I have
to have help. Wall, to be candid, there are tricks that can't be worked
without a second man. You'll have a beard and moustache, and will dress
in a frockcoat, and all that, to look professional, and you'll hang
about till I call for one of the audience to come on the stage. That'll
be your chance. You'll hop up, and the trick will go like fire. And for
the job, ten dollars a week, your grub, and lodging in the van. It's as
snug as any house."

It was a tempting offer, and Jack decided to accept it at once. But he
asked another question.

"How about California? I'm bound there, and must go. I warn you I could
not stay very long in your service."

"And no need. I'm makin' west, and you and me'll be strangers wherever
we go. Leastwise, you will, for I've been along the route before. Wall,
now, you'll get known, and ef on the return run the same man appears,
and walks up on the stage, the people would spot something wrong and
funny. You can leave at the end of the trip, and I'll pick up another
man."

"Then I accept," said Jack.

He had been thinking keenly all the while, and saw in the offer now made
him an excellent opportunity of obtaining work and a disguise at the
same time. One thing, however, he did not like entirely. He asked
himself whether he was to be a dupe, whether the post he had accepted
would entail behaviour likely to gull the public. If that were so, he
decided offhand that he would leave this little man promptly; for,
though his position was critical, and arrest stared him in the face at
any moment, Jack was not the one to lend himself to dishonesty.

"I'm innocent, Heaven knows," he thought, somewhat bitterly, "and I have
to clear myself of that crime for which I was about to be condemned. But
I will not begin the task I have set myself by acting dishonestly in any
way."

"What name, please?" he asked.

"Amos Shirley, at your service from right now."

In the feeble light given by the solitary lamp the little man pulled off
his huge hat with a theatrical gesture, and bobbed in Jack's direction.
Indeed, looking at him there, he was, without doubt, a comical little
man, full of his own importance, with plenty of humour and kindliness,
and, if the truth be told, given not a little to pomposity.

"Amos Shirley, conjuror, clairvoyant, mesmerist, known up and down the
country. And you?"

"Tom Starling," answered Jack, reddening under Amos's gaze, a fact which
the little man noted, for he coughed significantly.

"And I wish to say that I reserve the right of giving a week's notice at
any time, and also that while I will help you willingly, and to the best
of my ability, I will not lend myself to any underhand tricks, any sort
of subterfuge, likely to gull your public."

Amos Shirley gave vent to a shrill whistle.

"Then the job's off," he said promptly, watching our hero closely. For
this conjuring business was no easy one to manipulate, particularly with
the intelligent people to be met with in America. Amos had before now
discovered that an audience of miners, for instance, not wholly
convinced of the genuineness of a trick, were apt to insist on
embarrassing conditions, and were not above pelting the conjuror, or
even perforating the stage with their bullets. He had, indeed, found
before now that miners and cowboys required clever humouring; and while
they were ready to pay liberally, and, indeed, to throw dollar notes on
the stage if pleased in some particular, that they were at the same time
a merry, high-spirited lot, apt now and again to become playfully
reckless, and attempt a counter attraction, which chiefly took the form
of showing how easily they could shoot the front lights of the stage
away, or puncture the broad-brimmed hat of the conjuror with their
bullets without doing any real harm.

"I'm sorry," replied Jack. "Goody!"

"Hold on. Say now," said Amos, feeling that he was about to lose a
chance. "Who said there was any gulling?"

"No one," answered our hero. "At the same time I gathered there might be
some sort of wish on your part. I'll help in every way when it's a case
of conjuring, for we all know that sleight of hand is required, and
general smartness. But in mesmerism, or anything of that sort, I'll not
take a hand."

"Gee! That's straight. Say now," cried Amos, "I'll take you on those
terms. You're a queer fish, you are, sticking out about such a trifle.
But we won't quarrel. You will learn what's expected, and I've
sufficient good tricks to play without overstepping your decision. Let's
git along. Had any food?"

For five weeks in succession our hero travelled west with Amos, and the
two became excellent friends. He found the work to his liking, and the
post an excellent passport. No one, unless well acquainted with Jack,
could have detected in Amos's helper the escaped prisoner from
Hopeville. The hair die disguised him well, while the beard and
moustache he donned, as soon as the stage was erected before the
travelling wagon, made him even more secure. But it is always the
unforeseen that happens. One evening, when he had stepped on to the
stage, dressed in top hat, frockcoat, beard, and moustache, to help his
employer in some conjuring trick, his eyes, roaming over the faces of
the collected audience, met one which was familiar. It was Simpkins, the
constable from Hopeville, sharp and alert, closely inspecting his
neighbours in the audience, and every person within his vision.




CHAPTER V

On the Railway


As the constable's eyes travelled round the audience watching Amos
Shirley's conjuring performance, and finally alighted on the stage, Jack
felt as if he would have given anything if the rough boards beneath his
feet would open. He sat in a chair, holding in his hand a handkerchief,
in which his employer had, a moment or so before, wrapped a silver
dollar, before the eyes of the gazer.

"You are sure it is there, ain't yer, friends?" said the little man,
stepping to the front of the stage, and wagging his head in a peculiar
way he had. "Did I hear someone say it was not there? Yes, I guess so.
Then will you please to open the handkerchief, sir, and show the
audience whether it contains something or nothing."

He tripped up to Jack, tapped the handkerchief with his wand, and
displayed to the eyes of all the dollar he had placed there.

"And now to proceed with the feat," he cried, in his most pompous
manner. "We wrap the coin so, and thar ain't no mistake about it. That
dollar's thar solid. Yer can hear the tap of the wand. It's thar, and
in a moment I'll transfer it to the audience. Now, one, two, three.
There she goes."

He waved the wand again, and then caught the handkerchief from Jack's
fingers.

"Say, did yer feel it fly?" he asked.

Simpkins's eyes were now on our hero, and for the moment the latter felt
as if the constable were a snake whose gaze fascinated him. Jack was
almost trembling. In his mind's eye he saw the cell from which he had so
recently escaped, that sombre court in which the trial had proceeded,
and in the near distance the prison to which he would be sent to spend
ten solitary, hopeless years of his life. He could only shake his head
to the question.

"Yer didn't feel it fly. But it's gone. Ye're sure of that?"

Jack nodded his head vigorously, while for one brief second he looked
squarely into Simpkins's eyes. Did he see suspicion there? Or was that
only a morbid fancy? The doubt was terrifying, and to speak the truth
Jack Kingsley was at that moment as near to acting foolishly as ever in
his life. The impulse was with him to leap to his feet, to jump from the
platform, and race away for his life. For there was suspicion in
Simpkins's eyes. Every man he regarded while on this special journey
upon which the officials had sent him was a suspect, the prisoner who
had escaped from Hopeville. Even the same man with the black beard and
moustaches who had clambered on to the stage at the call of the conjuror
might be the man he was searching for. And in consequence the constable
regarded him with a fixed stare, and struck by something, the height
perhaps, or some unconscious pose of Jack's, moved a trifle closer. A
moment later a movement on the part of Amos arrested further advance.

"Ah, there is no mistake, my friends! That coin is gone, flown, as I
said it would. And already I can see it. Pardon me, sir, but you have
it."

The wand pointed direct at Simpkins, much to the latter's annoyance. He
attempted to move away, but the crowd wedged him in, and, moreover, all
eyes were on him. A chorus of laughter greeted his attempt.

"He never made a dollar easier in all his life," cried one of the
audience. "Stop him! That ain't his money."

The sally drew another roar from the crowd, and set Simpkins scowling.
Amos, with all his showman's instincts, made the most of the occasion.

"Say, sir," he called out, "if I may trouble yer. That money ain't yours
altogether, though yer happen to have it on you. Would you jest mind
stepping along this way and handin' it over? I wouldn't trouble yer, but
then, if I was to come down myself, the gentlemen here might think there
was some faking, and that I'd jest dropped the coin right where it is.
Jest a moment, sir, and thank ye."

Simpkins could not draw back, and, finding that his scowls only made
merriment for the crowd, he came forward unwillingly, shaking his head
all the while.

"Ye're mistook," he called out. "There's not a stray dollar about me.
Yer can hunt if yer like."

He mounted to the platform, and stood there awkwardly, within three feet
of Jack, and directly facing him. Would he stretch out his hand and take
the prisoner? Did he actually recognize the young man sitting there
apparently so cool, and yet in reality quaking?

"Excuse me," said Amos. "Yer said you hadn't got that 'ere dollar, and I
call the audience to witness as yer added that yer hadn't a stray dollar
anywheres. But if that ain't a silver dollar, why----"

"Good fer you! He's got it," came the same voice from the crowd. "Didn't
I say he was fer walkin' off. Hold on to it, siree. We're all able to
swear as it's yours."

The reader can imagine the confusion of the constable, as Amos, standing
on tiptoe, reached for his hat, and, having removed it from Simpkins's
head, showed a dollar resting in it. And still more so, when, as if not
yet satisfied, the conjuror discovered a second in the lining of the
hat, a third in his handkerchief, and others elsewhere, not to mention a
variety of objects from his pockets, such as silk neckcloths, a toy gun,
and last of all a live rabbit. Then indeed was the constable overcome.
He dashed from the stage and away from the audience, followed by their
shouts of merriment. But he left his mark behind. Never before had Amos
found his assistant so unsympathetic. His carelessness was remarkable,
and more than one trick was almost spoiled. For our unfortunate young
hero was more than perturbed. The chilling influence of the law was on
him, and, do what he could, he failed to drive from his mind that
ever-present dread that his disguise was discovered.

"I shall have to bolt again," he thought, as he sat in the chair facing
the audience. "There is nothing else for it. Simpkins will be asking
questions all round, and the instant he hears from Amos that I met him
back east on the road, he'll know that I'm his man. I must go the
instant this business is over."

It seemed an eternity before the performance was ended, and he was able
to retire to the wagon. Then, at once, he accosted his employer.

"I want to say something," he said quietly, "and I hope you won't think
badly of me. But I must leave you at once. Never mind the reason. I must
go right now without another minute's delay. I know it will put you out
a little, for you will want someone else. But I am willing to hand back
half the wages you have paid me."

Amos regarded his young helper with an expression of surprise and
concern. He had come to like his right-hand man very much, and indeed
treated him now more as if he were his son.

"Gee!" he cried. "What's this? Leave right now, but----"

"I am sorry. It must be, though," said Jack. "Here's the money. Half of
what I have earned. Shake hands and let me go."

There was a moment's pause while Amos regarded him critically and with a
kindly eye.

"Ye've acted straight and willing by me all through, yer have, Tom," he
said at last, "and if yer must go, why yer must. But you'd better by
half trust a man who's to be trusted. I ain't a fool. I've seen all
through that yer had something hard on yer mind, and I've often felt
sorry for yer. It does a chap good sometimes to find a real friend who
won't give him away, and who'll be right alongside to lend him some
advice. What's it all about, lad? Yer can trust me as you could yer own
mother. What's the trouble? If it's bad I may be able to advise, fer
after all these years I'm a knowing old bird. In any case I'm sound.
Your secret stays with me safe as if it was locked up in a bank."

He held out a friendly hand, and Jack gripped it, gulping hard all the
while at the lump which filled his throat. He, too, had become much
attached to Amos. Indeed, they had been more like father and son. And in
his employer he had long since discovered a man who lived on no bed of
roses, but who had to work hard for a living. But with it all he was a
good fellow, by no means grasping, ready always to lend a helping hand.
More than that, too, he was trustworthy, and sufficiently a man of the
world to be able to look at two sides of a question.

"I'm an escaped prisoner," he said suddenly, blurting out the words. "I
was taken at Hopeville, and broke out of my cell. The charge was one of
burglary in which a murder was concerned."

"Wall?" asked Amos coolly, still gripping his hand.

"I can't tell the whole tale here. I haven't time."

"And no need, neither," came the answer. "I've seen it in the papers,
and all about the escape. What else?"

"I swear I am innocent. As you know the whole story, you will remember
how I was taken. I swear that I had followed those men to warn the
people of the house. James was the only one to believe me--James Orring
of the smithy at Hopeville. I hadn't another friend, save his wife and
my mother. So I made up my mind to bolt, for outside a prison I have a
chance of finding those men and of clearing myself."

"Guess you have," came the reply. "Guess, too, that yer did right, and
Jim Orring aer a good man to help yer."

There was a smile on his face now, and it increased as Jack regarded him
with a startled expression.

"Yer see," he explained, "Jim and me aer friends, and have been since we
were nippers together at Hopeville. That 'ere place is where I war born,
and reckon I know every man, woman, and child thar. But I've been away a
heap, and have seen so many people that I begin to forget. For instance,
I didn't quite fix that 'ere Simpkins when first I set eyes on him. Jim
Orring aer an old friend, and now that you tell me he's yours too, and
that he was one of few to believe in you, I ain't surprised he helped
yer to break out. Yer needn't get startled," he continued, for Jack
showed his concern at the last statement, for he was anxious that no
harm should come to the smith. "I've jest guessed the last part, and
reckon I'm dead right. It's the sort of handsome thing Jim would get to
doin'. But you haven't any need to admit that he helped yer. Don't say a
word. Wall, now, I suppose it is Simpkins that's disturbed you?"

Jack nodded. He was so taken up with thoughts of his escape that he
could scarcely speak, and, in spite of Amos's kindness, was anxious to
flee.

"I recognized him after a bit," went on Amos, "but I didn't connect him
with you. I thought perhaps that he meant trouble with me, for six
months ago, back there close to Hopeville, there was a ruction round my
stand one night. A rough in the audience wouldn't give me a fair show
to get on with my performance. Wall, it came to blows, and jest when I
saw Simpkins I thought he was here on that concern. Seems he ain't; but
I took the pluck out of him anyway. Now, let's think. He's a nasty
fellow is Simpkins, suspicious, and all that; and, as sure as eggs are
eggs, he'll be round here asking me where I've been, who's my man, and
where I got him; for of course he knows I always have a man to help in
the show. Yes, Tom, guess ye've got to git slippy. I won't stop yer. Yer
hop right off, and jest put that money back in yer pocket. I'll get
another man easy, and no bother. Jest remember this, ef you're in any
trouble, Amos is the one to call on. He's alongside of Jim. He believes
that you're as innocent of that 'ere crime as any baby."

He gave Jack's hand a firm and kindly squeeze, and put courage into him.
Indeed, those few seconds did a great deal for our hero. The fact that
another man believed in him put heart into the lad, braced him for the
work before him, and lifted a load from his mind. He seemed at once to
be able to look more clearly and resolutely into the future.

"Thank you, sir," he answered gratefully. "Then I'll go, and go all the
happier for what you've said."

"And how'll yer move?" asked Amos curiously.

"I don't know one bit. I want to get out of the town, and then I can
think."

"Wall, I ain't going to ask more, but a nod's as good as a wink they
say. Supposin' you was to make fer the station. We ain't at the end of
the rail yet. It runs on another hundred miles easy. Wall, supposin', I
say, yer was to make for the station, and found a train likely to leave
for the west. It ain't difficult to climb aboard when she's under weigh.
That means yer havn't booked, and no one here'll be the wiser, specially
Simpkins. Twenty miles out you get down and buy a ticket. To-morrer
you'll be as safe as a house. Goodbye, lad, I've been pleased to meet
yer."

There were tears in Jack's eyes as he bade farewell to his employer and
sped from the wagon. Somehow or other the fear of arrest, the
consciousness, ever present with him, that he was under the ban of the
law, that he was a criminal at large, had undermined his natural
resolution and courage. The feeling was so strange to him, and in course
of time had so mastered the lad, that he began almost to feel as if he
were actually guilty. But a few moments' conversation with Amos had done
wonders. Jack's head was set well back on his shoulders again. As he
left the wagon he walked like a man conscious of his own uprightness,
ready and willing to face the world frankly and courageously.

"I'll take his hint," he thought, as he threaded his way through the
streets. "But let me take one last look to see that I am not followed."

He cast his eyes down the road, and saw at the end the wagon which
sheltered Amos. A man was walking towards it from the far distance, and
our hero watched as he stopped at the wagon and finally entered. It was
Simpkins, the constable.

"And likely to hear a tale which will put him off the scent," said Jack,
now by no means dismayed. "Here's the station. I'll get into a corner
and wait till it's dark."

There were a number of men lounging about the place, for the station was
a sort of no-man's land where the idlers and curious gathered. There
was no platform to be seen. Only a wooden flooring under a barnlike
roof, while the train lying in the station was composed of rough
carriages, which bore no resemblance to the magnificent vehicles now
plying to and fro on American railways. At the tail of the train was an
open truck with deep sides. Jack looked at it longingly.

"When does she start?" he asked one of the idlers.

"Sevin, sharp," was the curt answer. "Goin' west."

"Then she'll suit me," thought Jack. "I'll go along the line and look
out for a spot from which I can board her."

It was already getting dusk, and by the time he had walked half a mile
it was almost dark. He had traversed a level stretch of rail till now,
but was delighted to find that he had reached a steep up gradient.

"It is a heavy train," he thought, "and will be sure to slow down here.
I must manage to get aboard."

He sat down and waited patiently, wondering the while what Amos was
doing, and what had happened during his interview with Simpkins. If only
he had known it, that interview had been more than humorous. For the
astute little showman had been suddenly afflicted with forgetfulness. He
could hardly even remember Simpkins, much less the fact that he was a
constable. As to his man, well, he might be wandering in the town. In
any case Simpkins might see him when he cared to call. Yes, he was a
good young chap, had been with the van quite a time, but how long he
wasn't altogether certain. In fact, Amos threw abundance of dust in the
eyes of the constable. But he did not smother his natural suspicions.

"I believe the old hound knows a heap more than he will say," growled
Simpkins as he walked away. "And I can't help thinking that thar was
something about that man on the stage which struck me as being sort of
familiar. Ef it was young Jack Kingsley, whew!"

He whistled loudly, for he realized that re-arrest of the prisoner would
mean commendation for the constable, and promotion to a certainty. The
very thought stimulated him in his efforts. He went straight off to the
station, and was just in time to inspect the train about to leave, from
the engine right back to the truck trailing at the end.

"Not here," he said as he walked away, having seen the train run out of
the station. "He'll be in the town, I expect. Now that I come to think
about it, that fellow on the stage was jest about the right size for the
prisoner, and, in spite of the beard he wore, about the same age. Gee!"

There was something else which struck him, something again to do with
the pose of the man he had in his mind's eye. And now he remembered that
he had often and often watched Jack as he sat in the court under trial.
His pose there was precisely that of the man he had so lately seen on
the conjurer's stage. In a flash it occurred to him that this must be
the prisoner he sought, and he went off at a run to speak again with
Amos. Meanwhile the train had run from the town at a smart pace, which,
however, dropped as it ascended the rise.

"It will be a job to clamber aboard, all the same," thought Jack, as he
saw it coming. "I suppose it is doing seventeen miles an hour. But I
have got to get aboard somehow, if I have to dive for it."

He stood back from the rails, so that the engine lamps should not show
him to the drivers. But the instant it thundered past he stepped briskly
forward. Yes, the long line of heavy vehicles was pounding along at a
smart pace, and, more than that, their height above the rails was
greater than he had reckoned for. He watched the carriages like a cat,
seeking for a handy rail. But one after another they swung past till the
last was near at hand. It was a species of conductor's van, and the step
descended close to the ground. There was a strong rail beside it, and to
this Jack clutched as it came level with him. In spite of the fact that
he had begun to run with the train, he was jerked off his feet; for the
vehicles were gathering pace every second. But Jack was not to be easily
beaten. He clung desperately with one hand to the rail, while he gripped
the step with his other. Then he managed to swing his body till it
leaned on the step, and, later, to lift himself clean on to it.

"So far so good," he thought. "Now I make back for the truck behind.
I'll wait till I have gained my breath, for there is no hurry, and no
bridges likely to strike me. The train does not stop for twenty miles,
and, as it has to ascend a long gradient, it takes a time to do the work
and cover the distance. Gee! That dragging knocked my boots about."

Five minutes later he felt able to undertake the remainder of the task
before him, by no means an easy one, namely to clamber along the outside
of the coach, and cross to the truck trailing behind the train. It was
getting chilly on the step, and he felt that if he did not move soon he
would perhaps become too cramped. Clambering to his feet, he gripped the
rail overhead, which ran horizontally to the back of the coach, and felt
his way along the footboard with his toes. Presently he discovered that,
whereas the rail continued to the end, the boards did not. They were cut
off abruptly.

"Which makes it a trifle more difficult," he thought. "I shall have to
swing my way along."

But to cling to a rail and swing one's way along it when a train is
tearing away at thirty-five miles an hour, and swaying horribly, is no
easy matter; for the wind tears and grips at one dangerously. Jack found
it required all his strength to maintain a grip, and presently drew his
legs up and felt desperately for some foothold.

"I'm still a couple of yards from the end," he thought grimly, casting
his eyes over his shoulder, "and I'm dead sure I can't hold on like this
all the way. I must try--ah, here's something!"

His toes lit upon a beading of the carriage work, and the support he
thus obtained helped him wonderfully. Then, in the gloom above, he
discerned a second rail, and reaching up with one hand managed to grasp
it and haul himself a little higher, with his toes still on the bead.
And now his head was on a level with the windows of the coach.

"Three men," he said to himself, withdrawing his head, for a hasty
glance told him that the coach was occupied. "No, four. Whew!"

A second glance told him that there was a fourth person; and once he had
seen him our hero dropped down again, and gave vent to a low whistle.
Surprises seemed to be ever in store for him. The fourth individual he
had seen was huddled in a corner of the coach, and the glimpse Jack had
caught of him showed that he was bound hand and foot.

"Gee! Now what on earth is the meaning of that?" he asked himself.
"Three men sitting at the far end, with a lantern at their feet, and the
fourth a prisoner!"

It was not the most comfortable place in the world in which to puzzle
about such a knotty question, and, think as he might, our hero could
come no nearer a solution. Obviously he must reach some point of safety
and then cogitate.

"I'll get along this beading somehow," he thought, "and then take a look
round. There's queer doings in that coach."

Inch by inch he wormed his way along the coach, his feet on the beading
and his hands on the rail; and in course of time he gained the end.
Swinging round it, as the vehicle gave a tremendous lurch, almost
tearing his grip away, he found himself close to the buffers. A moment
later he was seated on an iron step secured to the coach.

"So far so good," he said to himself. "Now, up I go. There's a lantern
on top, and through it I'll be able to see what's happening."

It required very little energy to reach the roof of the coach, so that
in a couple of minutes he was spread out on it, the air sweeping past
him in a perfect hurricane. But he had a firm hold of the lantern, while
his face was pressed closely to it. And once more the shrill, low
whistle escaped him. For one of the three men below had moved. He had
dragged the individual who was bound, into a sitting position, and had
placed the lamp so that it threw its light full upon him. As our hero
stared down into the interior of the coach, the man pulled a revolver
from his belt and levelled it at the head of the prisoner, while his two
comrades approached nearer, and, taking up their stands close at hand,
began to question the unfortunate man they had bound.

Jack ran his fingers over the lantern, and pulled gently at the framing
nearest him. It moved noiselessly, though a little sound made no
difference, for the roar of the train drowned anything. Little by little
he contrived to open the lantern, till the window provided in it was
standing at right angles from the main framework. Then he dragged
himself forward, and slowly inserted his head. In two minutes he was in
such a position that he could see the interior of the coach clearly,
while he was directly above the four men. More than that, once his head
was through the window the roar of the wind ceased entirely, while the
rumble of the train was no greater than those below had to contend with.
They were shouting at the prisoner, and Jack opened his ears wide to
listen.




CHAPTER VI

A Hold-up


As Jack looked down into the coach with his head thrust through the
window of the lantern, the view he was able to obtain of the contents
was infinitely clearer than that he had had when a dirty pane of glass
intervened between him and the interior. Almost directly beneath him was
the man holding his revolver levelled, while a little to the left, his
back propped against the side of the coach, was the prisoner. He was
heavily-moustached, and his clothes bore witness to the fact that he was
a railway employee. Farther off were the other two, young men to look
at, and from their general appearance hardly the class of individuals to
lend themselves to violence. But good looks are not always a criterion
of good manners. It was very clear that both were unscrupulous ruffians.

"Now yer can jest listen here, conductor," one of them was saying in
loud tones, so that the roar of the train should not drown his words,
and with a menace in his voice which there was no mistaking; "ye've got
ter weaken right now, and without any more bobbery, or----"

He wagged his head at the revolver, while the rascal who held the weapon
squinted along the sights.

"Or what?" demanded the prisoner, his voice calm, his courage unshaken.

"Or get what yer deserve. Yer've heard tell of us before, I guess; but
if yer ain't, why, we're Bill Buster's band, and that'll tell yer what
to look out for. Now all we want is an answer to a little question.
Whar's the strong box? Even if yer don't tell us, and we have to put
lead into your carcass, it won't make much difference, 'cos, we'll have
the whole train easy, and then it ain't hard to find the box. By tellin'
us, yer jest make the thing easier and quicker. Now, whar is it? Number
three coach? Eh?"

"Go and find fer yerselves," came the bold answer. "I ain't goin' to
say. Look for yerselves."

Sturdily the prisoner faced his captors, and it seemed that he would
remain stubborn. But a revolver held at the head of a defenceless man
has a way of persuading; for the threat these rascals had made was no
idle one. It was clear they would shoot the conductor without the
smallest compunction.

"Wall, a man has only one life, and so you'd better have the answer,"
said the conductor at last, after a painful pause. "Number four's the
wagon."

"Good! Thought you wasn't a fool," said the spokesman for the bandits.
"Now for the amount. It war clearin' day back thar, and the bank has
sent all the stuff it could spare. How much?"

"Guess it's not far short of twenty-five thousand dollars," said the
conductor grudgingly. "But thar ain't nothin' definite on the way-bills.
One jest gets ter kind of hear."

"Twenty-five thousand," cried the leader of the men below, a note of
triumph in his voice. "And thar's fifty-six passengers in all. Take 'em
at ten dollars a head, which is a small allowance; that means quite five
hundred dollars more. But they'll have a heap, some of 'em. They're
goin' down to buy farms, and stock, and sich like. Now look ye here,
conductor. Ye're a sensible man, as yer've proved, and we ain't got no
grudge agin yer, so long as yer don't get up ter no tricks. Ef yer do,
my mate here'll have a talk with yer slippy."

"Yer ain't got any cause ter bother," came the answer. "Do I look as if
I could do anything?"

The conductor cast his eyes down at the cords which bound him hand and
foot, and then laughed harshly.

"Reckon it'll mean a lost job to me," he said. "But give me a smoke. One
of yer may happen ter have a weed."

One of the conspirators produced a cigar promptly, bit off the end, and,
having placed it in the conductor's mouth, held a light to the weed.

"What I call a sensible man," said the leader of the ruffians. "Now we
can git ter thinking serious of this affair. Number four's the wagon.
Jim, ye'll make along fer that, and stand up at the far end. Tom here'll
drop to the rails and run to the engine. I'll be with Jim before the
train's stopped. She'll begin to go steadier soon, fer we're about at
the foot of the long draw-up, and the incline soon tells upon her. When
she's going slower you two can slip on to the footboards and make along
to the first coach. I'll jest bring her up with the screw brake. That's
clear? Then best have a look to see how the boards lie."

From the manner in which the rascals set about their work of raiding the
train it was clear that they were old hands. The two told off to go
forward did not trouble to wait till the pace had diminished. They threw
open the door of the coach and swung themselves out on to the
footboards. Then they moved along them with an ease which put Jack's
efforts to shame, and, having reached the second coach, sat down on the
boards. By then the train was well on the incline, and the pace was
getting less. Half a mile farther on she was making only twenty miles an
hour.

"Jest the moment fer me," said the man who had remained in the coach.
"I'll give her the brake. Now mind it that yer don't interfere,
conductor. Ef yer do, it'll mean a case of shootin'."

As cool as an icicle the man stepped across to the big wheel which
controlled the tail brake of the train, and swung it round till it was
hard on. Instantly the screech of the slippers on the wheels could be
heard, while a line of fire sprang from the surface of the rails.

"That'll do it in five minutes or less," said the man, thrusting his
head out of the open door. "No engine will be able ter pull agin it. So
long! and don't git interferin'."

He, too, swung himself out of the coach, leaving the prisoner alone,
with Jack still staring in through the lantern. And let the reader
imagine for a moment the struggle going on in our hero's mind. Once
before, but a short while ago, he had endeavoured to thwart a crime, to
come between robbers and their prey; and he himself had been accused of
the crime he was attempting to put a stop to. The bitterness of that
bitter experience was still with him. It had clouded his young life,
till he could think of little else. And here he was face to face with a
similar experience, a crime about to be committed, and he alone to stand
between the passengers on the train and the ruffians about to rob them.
It was, indeed, a struggle. Jack was not naturally indecisive. He could
make up his mind when he liked, and quickly too. But it must be owned
that he hesitated. Fear of another terrible misunderstanding haunted
him. Then he thought of the passengers, of the man below, and of his
responsibility. In a moment he was clambering in through the window in
the lantern, and a second later dropped down into the coach.

"My! What, another!"

The conductor had taken him for one of the gang, and looked at him with
scowling face.

"No," cried Jack emphatically. "I heard all they said, and I've come to
help you. There!"

He drew his knife and cut the cords, setting the man free.

"Now," he said, "I've taken the first step. I'm willing to do what you
may suggest."

"But--but how on airth did yer get thar, up in the lantern?" asked the
conductor. "Aer you a passenger?"

"Yes and no," answered our hero boldly. "I climbed aboard when the train
was going, and got on the back of this coach. But I'd seen you tied up
when I looked in through the window. I thought I'd help."

"And so ye've risked bein' shot by those villains. Lad, ye've grit in
you. Shake a paw. Now, what's ter be done? The train's almost stopping.
Ah, swing that wheel back! My hands and arms are too numbed to do it.
That'll let the pace git up agin, and possibly leave one of the men
behind. Next thing is to make along to the other coaches. Pull that er
drawer open. Thar's a couple of shooters thar, and they're ready
loaded."

Jack followed the man's orders swiftly, and felt the train gathering way
already. Then he brought the revolvers.

"Get a grip of one yerself," said the conductor. "Now jest rub these
arms of mine. That's the way. There's a bit more feelin' in 'em already.
In a little I'll have a grip, and then we'll give them rascals sauce.
Aer yer afraid?"

"No, I don't reckon I am," answered Jack. "I'll help you."

"Then come along. Stick the shooter in your pocket and grip the rail.
But I forgot, yer've had experience jest lately. One warnin' though
before we move. Ef yer get a sight of those fellers, shoot! Don't wait.
Shoot!"

Our hero nodded, and made up his mind to do as he was told. He waited
for the conductor to get on to the footboard, and followed promptly.
Very soon they had gained the next coach.

"Next's Number four," shouted the conductor. "Let's get on the roof. We
can make along there easier, and reach 'em better. Did yer hear that?
They're at it."

The sharp sound of a pistol shot came to the ears of the two, and after
it a shrill cry. They scrambled to the top of the coach as quickly as
possible, and then went on hands and knees, and made their way along
it. At the far end they descended by means of the iron steps and rails,
and again took to the footboards.

"Now get ready fer shootin'," shouted the conductor. "Thar'll be a man
posted at this end, and I'm going to fire through the window at him.
Jest be prepared to hop right in and take a shot at the others."

Jack hung to the step, closely hugging the coach, and watched the figure
of the conductor as he scrambled farther along. He saw him stand to his
full height and peer in through a window. His revolver was raised
swiftly, and then there came a sharp crack from the inside of the coach.
The conductor dropped from the footboards without a sound, and Jack
caught a fleeting glimpse of his body bounding over the side track. He
was alone now, and the safety or otherwise of the passengers depended
upon him.

"I'll do it," he said to himself, his blood afire, and all hesitation
gone. "If I break in through the door I shall be dropped for a
certainty. And if I attempt to shoot through the window I shall meet
with the conductor's fate. I'll try the roof again."

He went scrambling up, and within a minute had reached one of the round
lanterns through which the lamps were dropped. Lifting the lid, he found
he had a fair view of the interior, for there was no lamp in this
lantern, and in those days the apertures were very large when compared
with modern fittings. Directly below him he detected a carpeted floor
and one end of a seat, while a pair of legs stretched over the carpet.
They evidently belonged to some unfortunate individual who had been
shot.

"Likely enough the one whose call we heard," thought Jack. "Now, let me
think. From his position he fell on to his back. He didn't tumble face
downwards and then roll over. That means that the man who shot him is
somewhere underneath me. I'll lean over and get a better view."

He was in the act of thrusting his head into the wide lantern, when
sounds at the side of the track caught his attention. Even in spite of
the roar of the train he heard shouts, while an instant later the
darkness was punctuated by red flashes. At the same time he became aware
of the disagreeable fact that the spluttering, hissing sounds round
about him were caused by bullets. Then he grasped the significance of
the situation.

"Gee!" he cried. "Then they are the friends of those three rascals who
boarded the cars. Now I see through the whole business. They were to tie
up the conductor, and then put the brakes on. That would bring the train
to a halt on the incline, and those men out there would ride up and
support the robbery. Ah! They're done nicely! We've run through them. We
shall see what's going to happen."

If Jack was elated one cannot blame him. But if he thought he was going
to master the difficult situation without further trouble he was much
mistaken. He thrust his head into the lantern and took a careful survey
of the interior of the coach. Now he could see the complete figure of
the man lying on his back, and saw that he was dead. There were four
other persons near him, crouching on the seat, and two were ladies. Just
a little farther back, almost beneath where his own feet lay, a man
stood with arms folded. He was tall, sunburned--for that Jack could see,
since he was bareheaded--and had a pair of fine flowing moustaches. His
arms were crossed on his breast, and his whole attitude was one of
resolution. A further effort on our hero's part showed him the muzzle of
a revolver, held within six inches of the tall man's head, and finally
of the figure of one of the robbers.

Should he fire now? Was he to shoot the man down in cold blood as it
were, though to speak the truth Jack's pulses were tingling. Was that
fair play?

Who will blame the young American that he hesitated to take life? He
waited a second, and that wait nearly proved his undoing. The robber
caught a glimpse of him, and at once sent a stream of bullets through
the roof. They tore through the boards on every side, sending the
splinters flying, and drumming against the ironwork of the lantern, and
by the merest chance they missed Jack.

"But he'll have me if I ain't extra smart," thought our hero, determined
more than ever now to get the best of the man. "Ah, here's something to
give me a hold! I'll try through the window."

He gripped a short smokestack which projected through the roof, and
holding firmly with one hand leaned over the side of the car. A window
was directly beneath, and well within his reach. Jack broke it with the
butt of his revolver without the smallest hesitation. Then, quick as
lightning, he returned to the lantern on top. One glance told him that
the man inside was standing prepared to fire, either through the window
or through the lantern.

"I'll make him think of the lantern," thought Jack. "It's my only chance
now."

Stretched full length on the roof, with his head depending downwards, he
once more gripped the smokestack, and leaned over the edge of the car.
Then he deliberately kicked the lantern with his feet, and continued to
drum his toes against it. Now was the time. He stretched over till he
could obtain a clear view of the interior of the coach through the
window, and at once caught sight of the robber standing in the same
position as before, his eye half-fixed on the lantern, and half on the
tall man standing so close to him. Up went Jack's revolver, though
aiming was out of the question considering his inverted position. His
finger went to the trigger just as the rascal within caught sight of
him. And then Jack pressed unconsciously, while at the same instant the
cracked glass to his right was shivered into thousands of fragments and
a cloud of cutting dust was blown into his face.

"Gee! Got him! But I do believe he's managed to hit me. Seems mighty
like it. Ugh! My shoulder!"

[Illustration: "HE SAW THE RASCAL CRUMPLE INTO A HEAP"]

As if in a dream he saw the rascal within the coach crumple into a heap,
and watched the tall man dart forward and bend over him. Then a sharp,
burning pain shot through his own shoulder, and for one brief instant
made him feel faint. But it was no safe place in which to encourage
weakness, and with an effort Jack braced himself to the task still
before him. He scrambled back on to the roof, slid to the end, and
descended the swaying steps. Then he clutched his way along the
footboard, and gained the door of the coach. It was opened by the man he
had seen standing with his arms so resolutely folded.

"Come right in! come right in!" he cried, extending a hand. "Now, where
are the others?"

Jack was winded with his exertions, but managed to answer. "One was to
have gone forward to the engine," he said quickly, "and one was to make
for this coach, where the third would join him. Where they are now I
don't know. The conductor was tied hand and foot, but I released him.
But he was hit, and dropped from the train. I think we ran through the
men who were waiting to help them."

"Then we've had a fine escape," came the answer. "But we've got to take
those men, and the sooner the better. Get a pull on that cord, and then
be ready to shoot. They'll drop from the coaches the first chance they
have, and git for their lives."

Jack tugged at the alarm fitted just outside the window, and presently
the brakes began to grind and the train to slow down. As it did so two
figures dropped from it and raced away, Jack and his companion firing at
them, while a number of passengers in other coaches did the same. Then
lamps were brought, and an inspection made.

"Guess we're lucky, down right lucky!" exclaimed the man whom Jack had
spoken to. "Thar's one man killed in this coach. He swung round when
this rascal entered, and put his hand to his shooter. That was quite
enough to bring a bullet his way. Reckon there wasn't a move left in the
rest of us. The fellow had it all his own way. A chap can't grope for
his shootin' iron when a revolver's grinnin' at him. What's the news
elsewhere?"

"Much the same as yourn," came from a passenger. "We were kind er
dozing, and I'd jest begun ter wonder why in thunder the chap behind had
put on his brakes so hard, specially when we were on a sharp incline,
when the door bursts open, and a young chap climbs in smart. 'Hands up!'
he says, just as quiet as may be, and 'hands up!' it had ter be. We was
cornered. That young chap was Bill Buster, as he'd got to be called
hereabouts, one of the expertest leaders of railway breakers and thieves
that's ever been. What's the driver say?"

"I ain't heard nothing," came from the latter, who stood inside the
coach rubbing his dirty hands with a piece of waste. "I wondered why the
conductor had put on his brakes, 'cos it ain't too easy a job to pull
out over the rise, particular when thar's a heavy train like this. But
he took 'em off quick, and so we was able to pull along. Seems thar's
been shootin'."

"Shootin'! Rather! And it ain't the fault of the rascals as came aboard
that thar wasn't more," said the tall man. "We owe it to this here young
stranger that things ain't worse. How'd it all come about? Didn't see
you climb aboard way back there."

"Because I climbed aboard down the road," answered Jack boldly, the old
frankness in his eyes, his face flushed with delight and triumph. For
success had at last come his way. Though he hesitated to interfere at
first, frightened by the cruel disappointment of that other experience,
he had in the end undertaken what was clearly his duty, as it would have
been the duty of any other person similarly placed. And success had come
his way, though in gaining it he had incurred danger. His head was well
set back on his shoulders, his eyes flashed, and Jack Kingsley looked
his old, bonny self as he answered:

"I got aboard after she'd started, and managed to reach the conductor's
coach. When I took a peep inside, there he was, tied up like a sack,
with three men sitting over him. That's one of the fellows."

He nodded towards the body lying on the floor, and wondered vaguely
whether it was his bullet which had struck him, and, if so, where. Then,
leaning against the woodwork of the coach, he continued:

"So I climbed to the roof," he said, "and managed to hear what was going
on. You see, there's a large lantern back there, and it has a window in
it. I learned all about the attack, and saw the robbers separate while
the last put on the brakes hard. Then I slipped in quick."

"Yes," came eagerly from the assembled passengers.

"There ain't much more," said Jack lamely. "The conductor led the way
along to coach Number four, and I followed. He was shot. Guess he's way
back there on the track, and needs our help. I climbed right up on to
the roof, and--and the gentlemen here knows the rest."

"Gee! I do. This young chap never'll have a nearer shave. There's many a
grown man who would have funked it," exclaimed the tall man, "funked it,
I say. But he bamboozled that fellow. How'd yer manage?"

Jack explained, lamely, that he had gripped the smokestack and kicked
the lantern with his feet.

"Smart! real smart!" exclaimed the tall passenger, while a chorus of
approval came from the others. "Say, siree, who may yer be, and where
aer yer goin'? Yer ain't fer the plains?"

"I'm a smith," answered Jack limply, for his wound was very painful, and
the carriage excessively hot.

"A smith, and--here, what's the matter with the lad? Let him sit down.
Did the rascal wing yer?"

The big man gripped our hero in his arms as if he were a child, and laid
him on the seat. Then he bent over him and spoke softly.

"Whar's the hit?" he asked. "Ah, thar ain't no more need ter ask!"

Suddenly his eyes had detected the dark stain trailing down Jack's
sleeve, while he noticed how limply the arm hung. Then his whole
attention was attracted to our hero, for Jack marked the occasion of
this success of his by fainting. He fell back heavily on the seat, and
lay there as deathly pale as the man from whom he had received the
bullet.




CHAPTER VII

Friends and Hunters


"My, now, you've given us quite a fright! Feel a bit queerish? Eh?"

As if in a dream, Jack heard the words and struggled to answer. But for
some reason or other, which his disordered mind could not fathom, and
which distressed him greatly, the words would not come to his lips.
Moreover, he could not concentrate his wandering thoughts on any one
matter. Now he was in court, under trial for robbery, and a moment later
he was on the stage with Amos, helping in some conjuring feat which drew
roars of applause from the assembled audience. His thoughts even swept
back to that eventful ride on the railway; but they never reached
finality. The train ran on and on, while he clung to the rail and the
footboard, immovable, desperate, unable to creep forward or back.

"Say, now, yer ain't feelin' quite so bad? A bit shook up and so on? But
better, ain't yer?"

Jack opened his eyes, and saw a bearded face leaning over him. He shut
them again promptly, as if the sight had been too much for him, as well
it might, for the individual who had stared so closely at our hero was
not prepossessing, to say the least of it. He was gently pushed aside
by another individual, and a woman's gentle voice spoke.

"Leave him to me a little," she said. "He is still very weak, and not
fully conscious. Leave him, please. In a little while he will be
better."

Jack felt a warm pressure on his hand, and sank once more into oblivion.
But it was a pleasant unconsciousness on this occasion. No longer was he
distressed with views of the court, with counsel for the prosecution
standing before the jury and encouraging them to find this young fellow
guilty. No longer did he cling desperately to the rail of the train. He
sank into a dreamless, comforting oblivion, which held him securely in
its tender grip for another half-hour. And then he suddenly opened his
eyes.

"Well, now," he exclaimed, somewhat feebly, for his tongue seemed to be
heavily loaded, "where on earth am I? And what has been happening?
Coming, sir, coming."

Back wandered his mind to Amos, and he fancied he heard the conjurer
calling to him.

"Lie still and you'll feel better. Sip this," said someone, and at once,
obedient to the command, too weak to be over curious as to why it was
given or by whom, our hero sipped at the glass placed to his lips. And
the spirit there revived him wonderfully. It was as if a spur were
needed to stimulate his flagging energies. The cordial given him seemed
to have acted as a strong fillip, and in a minute he was sitting up,
pushing aside an arm which endeavoured to hold him down.

"Here, what's this?" he asked indignantly. "I'm not a baby! I--halloo!
Where am I?"

"Still in the train, recovering from the wound you received," said the
same gentle voice. "Now lie down again."

But Jack was stubborn, and had a horror of illness or of any show of
weakness. He let his legs slide from the long seat on which he had been
lying, and sat bolt upright. He looked round in a dazed fashion, and
then gave a cry of recognition.

"Ah, the train!" he said. "Guess this is where that robber lay. What
happened?"

"A heap," said someone standing near at hand, and, looking at him, our
hero discovered the man who had stood with folded arms whilst the
robber's revolver was pointed at him. "Jest a heap, young sir. But there
ain't no further call to fear the robber. Guess he's rubbed out clean."

He pointed to the far end of the coach, where, under a piece of
sailcloth, rested something which had the form of a body. Jack shuddered
and turned away.

"And no need to blame yourself neither," came from the man. "It was done
in fair fight, and thar warn't no favour. 'Sides, he managed to wing
you. How's the arm?"

"I had forgotten it," answered Jack, looking down and discovering that
his arm rested in a sling made from a scarf. "It hurts just a little,
but nothing to what it did at first. Is the wound severe?"

"Enough to cripple yer for a time, I guess, but not so baddish. A young
chap like you'll be able to swing the arm within three weeks, and work
with it in six. The bullet jest went a bit high. Or low, was it, seeing
as you was kinder upside down? It clipped the bone, I reckon, but thar
ain't a break. Ye'll do nicely. Now, if yer feel up to it, jest tell us
how it all happened."

Jack felt wonderfully better already, though a little bashful, for the
coach was half-filled with passengers, all of whom were looking at him
and listening eagerly. He stared back at them for a time, for the men
here were in many cases of a different class to those he was accustomed
to. They were sunburned, with but a few exceptions, and these latter
were obviously commercial men, travelling for some trade. The others
looked more like settlers, or cowboys, or even miners. They wore rough,
highly coloured shirts, broad belts, and riding-boots and breeches. Each
one carried a revolver, and some a hunting-knife.

"Kinder surprised at the look of us, eh?" smiled the tall man with the
big moustaches. "Wall, we're ordinary enough out this way. Yer don't get
folks out in this part dressin' as if they was in New York, not much.
We're ranchers, or miners, almost to a man. Now fer that 'ere yarn."

Very quietly and modestly Jack told how he had boarded the train, and
recounted his subsequent actions.

"Reckon it was the only thing I could do," he wound up lamely. "They'd
have shot me as well as anyone else."

"I dunno," came hotly from one of the passengers. "I dunno so much.
Excuse me, young stranger, but I'll ax a question. Yer was right aft
thar, close to the truck, warn't you? And yer could have boarded that as
easy as possible? Eh?"

Jack nodded, colouring visibly, for he began to wonder whether he would
have to declare to all present that that was actually his intention.

"Then them skunks wouldn't have found you. They was huntin' for the car
what carries the gold. Yer hadn't no call to enter the conductor's crib,
none at all, siree, and yet yer did. Yer cut him loose, and then come
along the footboard. There war something else you could ha' done. Yer
could ha' layed there snug, and not cared a jot. Reckon ye've saved a
pile for the owners of that 'ere money."

There was a loud chorus of approval, and immediately afterwards the tall
man with the fine moustaches stepped forward.

"That isn't all," he said slowly. "Ladies and gentlemen, many of you
know me. I'm Tom Horsfall, from down Colorado way, and I've made this
trip many a time, and scores of others. I've been through the Indian
country, and have seen fighting. Then every mother's son of us has used
his gun to save the outfit we've been along with, and to keep our own
scalps. Reckon we hadn't a show here. Those varmint were on to us too
quick, and a man has to weaken sometimes when he hasn't had time to lift
his gun. This young stranger didn't save the gold alone. Guess he saved
a goodish few of us."

Once more there was a chorus of approval.

"Ye've put it neat and handy, Tom," sang out the one who had spoken
earlier. "He's saved lives as well as money."

"And as a mark of our appreciation the passengers on the train, as well
as the staff, have made a collection. I have much pleasure in handing
you three hundred dollars."

The big man smiled--a comprehensive smile, which took in all the
company present, and Jack in particular. He stepped up to our hero, and
handed him a skin purse which was heavy with dollars.

"Ye've earned it fair and handsome," he said. "Take it, my lad."

To say that Jack was delighted and somewhat overcome would be to
describe his condition incorrectly. Tears were in his eyes as he took
the money, and he attempted vainly to return thanks. But the big man
helped him out.

"Yer ain't no call to say a word," he said kindly. "We all understand,
and we don't want thanks. Now, stranger, jest yer lie down again and
sleep. We'll talk later on."

"But the conductor?" asked Jack, suddenly remembering the man he had
released, and who had fallen from the train.

"He's jest as comfortable as may be," came the reassuring answer. "The
bullet that ruffian fired went slick through his wrist and made him let
go. He's a bit shook, and no wonder; but thar ain't anything worse with
him than a hole in his wrist, and that'll mend as soon as your wound.
Now, git down and rest."

The order was peremptory now, and Jack obeyed it. A delicious sense of
comfort and security came over him, and, better than all, the feeling
that he had friends. A while ago he was a hunted criminal, with none to
look to for help. Now, in the pocket of his jacket, he had solid
evidence of good friendship; for the dollars chinked loudly when he
moved, while all who looked at him smiled or patted his hand. Meanwhile
the train was proceeding, and when in the course of seven hours Jack
awoke, he found houses about him, and lights flickering through the
morning mist. The passengers were descending from the cars, gripping
their luggage, and everything pointed to the fact that the end of the
journey was reached.

"The rails don't go any farther," said Tom Horsfall, coming and sitting
beside him. "From here those who live farther afield have to go by
caravan, and there they are, hurrying away, as if they hadn't a moment
to lose. Where are you going, lad?"

Jack sat up suddenly and looked at his questioner. From the very first
he had taken a liking to Tom, and knew intuitively that he was one who
could be trusted. Still, he reflected, he must not say too much. The
constable might even now be following.

"To California," he answered steadily.

"To dig?"

Jack nodded his head. "Partly that, partly to earn money at the forge.
I've done a course of smith's work, and am fairly handy."

An exclamation of pleasure escaped Tom promptly.

"Do yer want a job?" he asked swiftly. "'Cos I've one ter offer."

To do Jack full justice, he hesitated to accept the post, and felt
troubled. For common sense told him that the place was offered because
of what he had done. It was, in a measure, a reward for his services.
But there was another aspect of the matter. When he had accepted Amos's
offer it was at a moment when he was sorely pressed, and when, because
of his haste, he had little time to consider other matters. But Jack
was honest to the core, and he had made up his mind to work for himself
at his trade rather than to accept a post and leave his employer
ignorant of his past history. And here he was face to face with the
dilemma. He must either refuse what might turn out to be just the thing
for him, or he must declare himself and hold nothing back.

"Yer ain't got no cause to fret about the arm," said Tom, noticing his
hesitation, "'cos we've a long march before us. It'll be three months
before we reach Nevada, and another before we hit upon a spot at which
ter dig. Long before then ye'll be fit again, and it's when we're at the
diggin's that ye'll come in handy. We've been lookin' out fer a smith,
and, yer see, we're off to Californy like you, so the thing seems kinder
ter fit."

"It isn't that," exclaimed Jack quickly. "I want to say something. You
don't know anything about me. I might be anything at all."

"Now, look ye here," cried Tom hotly, "don't yer jest take me fer a
fool. No one out here knows what his mates are, nor cares either.
'Tain't no business of no one's. Reckon out thar at the diggin's and on
the plains yer kin meet men as was dukes in Europe, others that's
thieves, and crowds that has as shady a history as yer could well think
of. That ain't no one's concern. But you!--with that honest face and
frank look--don't yer try ter get telling me that you've got a history
marked up against yer. Yer may have met trouble, but I reckon it come
from someone else's fault; or it was a monkey trick that any lad'll get
up to. Don't tell me. I've been out these ways boy and man, and I ain't
easily took in."

"Listen a moment," said Jack quietly. "I am an escaped prisoner, under
trial quite recently for burglary, and under suspicion of having killed
a man."

If our hero expected Tom to give vent to a whistle of astonishment, and
to make some sort of demonstration, he was disappointed. Tom sat down
coolly, pulled out a cigar, and bit the end off.

"Jest you fire ahead with the yarn, young 'un," he said, between the
puffs, as he held a match to the weed. "Tell me jest as much as yer
like, and jest as little. I ain't no policeman, I'm a plain man; and
where I've worked, though thar's been a sheriff, he's mostly lived a
hundred or more miles away. Consequence is, we've jedged matters fer
ourselves. Reckon we don't make many mistakes, neither. If a man's a
horse thief or a train robber, or something of that sort, he has a fair
show to clear himself. Ef he can't, he's shot. What's the row been
about?"

Jack told him frankly what his trouble was, and how he had fled from the
prison. Then he described his work with Amos, and finally his dash for
the train. Tom listened coolly, taking deep pulls at his weed, and
filling the carriage with smoke. Not an observation escaped him. But his
brows were wrinkled, and his eyes almost closed, seeming to point to the
fact that he was thinking deeply. He rose and went to the window to toss
the ash from his weed, and sauntered back again.

"Do yer smoke, young 'un?" he asked curtly but not unkindly. Then, as
Jack shook his head, he went on. "Ah, more's the pity jest now, for a
smoke kinder helps a man. He gets something between his teeth, and grips
tight at it. Ef he's got a plaguey business on hand, somehow or other
the thing between his teeth, and the smoke bubbling up into the air,
lets him get down to the bottom of that 'ere business. Jest tell me.
Could you recognize that 'ere chap as came to the forge for the key?"

"Anywhere!" exclaimed Jack emphatically.

"Then yer ain't no cause ter worry. And I'll tell yer why. All the train
robbers and sich like that works out east has to make tracks sooner or
later. Things gets too hot for 'em, and they have to move or be nabbed.
Wall, this here fellow has made things hot. A murder's a murder, and it
don't help matters even if the papers tell him that someone else is
standing his trial for the crime. The truth will out some day, and that
some day may be sooner rather than later; so the chap clears from the
east. And whar does he make for?"

Tom looked steadily at Jack, and, seeing that he shook his head, went on
promptly. "I'll tell yer. He goes slick west, to the diggin's, whar
thar's miners to swindle, and gold trains ter hold up. That's whar the
ruffians get to; and seeing that that's the case, ye're like ter meet
this fellow out Californy way sooner than in New York direction. That's
a good solid reason for yer to come west yerself, and though yer may
have thought, and rightly too, to throw off pursuit quicker in that
direction, ye've chosen at the same time the one place in all the world
whar you're likely ter get evidence that'll clear yer. Do I believe you
did it?"

Tom looked at Jack as he asked the question, and then burst into a loud
guffaw.

"Shucks!" he cried; "thar ain't no sense in the noddles of them
stay-at-homes. Anyone could see with half an eye that sarcumstances was
dead against yer, and that before jedgment was given, your age, your
past life, everything should be taken into consideration. But that jedge
and jury seemed ter have made up their minds, without even setting to
work to learn if other men had been handy, if a cart had been hired, or
other burglaries committed in them parts by two men. Reckon that friend
of yours you call James did well ter advise yer ter skip. Once ye'd put
your nose into a prison, ye'd have been done. Ye'd never have cleared
yourself. Now ye've a goodish chance, and I'll help yer. That job's
still open, youngster. And, by the way, what's the name?"

"Jack Kingsley. Tom Starling when I boarded the train."

"Then Jack let it be. Thar ain't no call ter have a second name. One's
good enough, and heaps. Will yer come?"

"Rather! and ever so many thanks for helping me," cried Jack, his lip a
trifle tremulous, for such kindness moved him.

"I ain't done nothing," came the prompt answer, "nothing compared with
what you've managed fer me. Reckon that rascal near let lead into me.
Jest remember this, lad. Ye're as good as any hereabouts, and no call to
hang your head. And thar ain't no fear of arrest. Thar ain't a soul
as'll know yer, save the villain that did that burglary and left yer to
face the trial. Ef yer meet him ye'll have ter act, and afore yer get
to the diggin's ye'll have learned how. Now jest a word about myself.
I've been everything--cowboy, rancher with my own ranch, storekeeper,
and miner. I ain't no wife nor chicks, and so a wandering life suits me.
And I've been lucky. Two years ago come Christmas time I struck it rich
and plenty way west in Californy, and me and my mate cleared out with a
handsome banking account. We agreed to separate till this time, and then
ter go partners again ef both of us wished ter have another turn. Wall,
we're both for the diggin's again, and we're going to do it big this
time. We've each put three thousand dollars into the thing, and I've
with me on the train an outfit that'll wash gold of itself. It'll want a
bit of fixin', and now and again a little repair, without a doubt. A
smith's the man for that, and so you're jest rightly fitted. Yer ain't
got no tools, perhaps?"

"None," Jack admitted, and then with a smile, "you see, I left so
hurriedly. There wasn't time to bring much away, and an anvil is rather
heavy."

"And perlicemen have a way of skipping along precious quick," laughed
Tom. "But we'll fix the whole matter. My mate meets me here at the rail
head, and we buy a wagon and some mules or hosses. Then we set off
across the plains, choosing some convoy to go with, ef that's possible.
Ef not, we'll have to risk the Indians. In any case we shall have a long
trail before us, and ef you're fond of shootin' and huntin' thar'll be
heaps of both for yer. Why, ef that ain't Steve!"

A short, spare man entered the car at this moment, and stepped lightly
towards Tom. There was the merest smile of recognition on his face,
while the eyes lit up for a moment. They gripped hands for an instant,
and then Steve crossed to the window, and looked out sharply, craning
his head so as to see in either direction. Tom laughed heartily.

"Steve's the silentest man I ever chummed with," he said. "And he can't
get that 'ere backwoods trick out of his mind. Don't matter where he is,
he's lookin' round, p'raps for enemies, p'raps for somethin' ter eat.
Lookin' round's become a sorter habit with him. Howdy, Steve?" he
shouted out. "Jest come and larn to know our new hand. This here's Jack,
smith to our outfit."

The little man strode from the window, faced Jack openly, and gripped
his hand till our hero could have shouted. He liked the look of Steve.
He was the very image of those hunters and scouts he had so often read
about; the silent, lean hunter who went his way into the wilderness, and
whose every hour called for courage and determination.

"Howdy, stranger?" said Steve. "Kin yer shoot?"

"None," answered Jack promptly.

"Nor ride?"

"A very little."

"Then ye'll do. Most every tenderfoot that comes this way is clean off
the finest shot and the best ter sit a horse that was ever seen. They
git to teachin' the old hands. Ef yer ain't used to neither, reckon
ye'll shape mighty soon. I ain't one who holds with side. Deeds is worth
a hull wagon load of boastin'."

"And words ain't much in your line," laughed Tom. "I never heard Steve
make a longer speech. He's took well to yer, Jack. Now then, listen
here, mate. This Jack's begun his shootin' already. We got held up back
thar down the line, and he cleared us proper. Jest cast yer eye up there
at the roof."

Steve strode beneath the lantern, and rapidly surveyed the punctures
which the robber's bullets had made. In a flash his eye took in the
general disorder, the broken window, the stained carpet, and the long
form lying beneath the sailcloth.

"It war warm while it lasted," he said, returning. "Whar was you?"

Jack pointed aloft. "On the roof," he said quietly. "He'd have had me
there I expect. So I held on to a smokestack, and shot him through the
window."

Steve strode to the side of the car, and once more surveyed the
surroundings. He leaped to the ground, and they saw him clambering along
the footboard. Then he returned as suddenly as he had gone.

"Ever pulled a trigger afore?" he asked bluntly.

"Never."

"And yer was upside down, so ter speak?"

"That's so," admitted Jack.

"I'm glad ye're comin'."

Steve was a character. He was as taciturn and as silent as a man might
well be. But honest to the core. A stanch friend, a bitter enemy, for
his had been a rough life; and a man so sharp that nothing escaped him.
His last words were high commendation indeed, and Jack, realizing that,
reddened.

"We'll be startin' right away," said Steve, addressing Tom. "A town
ain't no fit place fer a scout. One can't kinder breathe, with all the
smoke and the houses. I've palled with six boys as is goin' west."

The news was excellent, especially when Tom had persuaded his partner to
be a little more explicit. The boys turned out to be old hunter friends
of Steve's, accustomed to the plains, and their addition to the party
would make it possible for Tom and Steve and Jack to push on promptly,
and not wait for a larger party. For in those days the wide tracts of
plain separating the east from California were infested by cut-throat
Indians, and many was the massacre for which they were responsible.
Indeed, hundreds of unfortunate men and women, making their way across
to the goldfields, fell foul of these red demons, and were slaughtered
and scalped unmercifully.

"Then to-morrow we'll move," said Tom. "It won't take more'n two hours
ter buy up an anvil and sich like things. Hosses ain't no difficulty.
Thar's always plenty of 'em. Now, Jack, let's be movin'. Ye'll come
right along with us to the camp, and start in as our man from this
moment."




CHAPTER VIII

Out on the Prairie


Shouldering their baggage, Tom and Steve led the way from the station,
and, having traversed some few hundred yards, came to a single wagon,
halted by the roadside. It was a large affair, covered with a big canvas
tilt, and mounted on four strong wheels. A single shaft protruded in
front, to which the wheelers of the team of horses could be attached. In
fact, beyond a few minor particulars which followed the custom in vogue
in this part of America, the wagon was very similar to those huge
conveyances, sometimes called the "ships of the veldt", which are to be
found in South Africa.

"A tidy weight it is, too," said Tom, as Jack remarked on the wagon when
approaching. "But it's jest the thing for the plains. Yer see, ter do
any good way over in Californy a man wants a heap of tools and sich
like. Wall, they're to be had from San Francisco, or Sacramento; but,
gee! ain't the prices tall! It pays handsome ter buy a wagon back here
and fill it with stuff. That's what we're doin'. Me and Steve's put a
sight of earnin's and savin's into the matter, and we'll have ter strike
it rich way over thar to git the money back. Thar's something else. Ef
bad weather comes on, we kin shelter of a night under the
tilt--leastwise, we kin at first. After a bit thar won't be the chance.
Them skunks of Indians'll make us look out fer trouble, and any man as
has a care fer the haar on his head don't get sleepin' too heavy once
he's come into their country. Guess them's our mates. Scouts Steve
called 'em."

By now they were close to the wagon, and Jack noticed that quite a
little camp had been formed round it. At a little distance some ten
horses were grazing, while one man mounted guard over them. Close at
hand a dozen more were tethered to pegs, and nibbled the grass in a
circle round their pegs. A fire was burning just outside the wagon, and
over it a pot was suspended on an iron tripod. Steve gave a shout, and
promptly five men, who were seated near the fire, rose and lounged
forward.

"Gee, now! Ef that ain't Seth, Tricky Seth, as we called him," shouted
out Tom, waving his hat above his head. "Howdy, Seth? Didn't know yer
was this way. When last I set eyes on yer it was way down in New Mexico.
What's brought yer here?"

A short, heavily built man stepped forward from amongst his comrades. He
was so tanned by wind and exposure that one might have been excused the
mistake if one had taken him for an Indian. His eyes were a steely grey,
his chin and upper lip covered with thick, bushy hair, while the backs
of his hands, and his arms, which were exposed to the elbows, were also
thickly clad with the same material. He wore a wide-brimmed hat, which
decidedly had seen better days, a shirt which had once been red, but
which frequent washings and much exposure to a hot sun had bleached to a
mottled brown, while his nether limbs were clad in cowboy overalls
fringed with leather tassels. A picturesque fellow he looked, and
something more. His keen eyes, the resolute set of his features, hardly
needed the addition of the huge belt he wore, in which reposed a big
Colt, to tell a stranger that Seth--"Tricky Seth", as Tom had called
him--was something more than picturesque. He came forward with sparkling
eyes and with hand outstretched.

"Why, so it war," he cried, speaking with a very pronounced twang; "so
it war. And I jest reckon I was as s'prised as you to find myself up
this way. But New Mexico's that full of horse thieves and Injun skunks
that an honest man can't live. Fact is, I got into a muss with a gang of
robbers. I come up against 'em accidental at first, and that got their
danders up agin me. They was fer shootin' right off whenever they seed
me."

"And that ain't healthy fer any man," burst in Tom, "though I guess as
Seth ain't easy ter frighten."

"Not as a general thing; but this here case were special. I stood it fer
a while, yer bet, and by keepin' out in the plains and mountains,
trappin' and huntin' managed ter hold 'em clear fer a bit. But it got
precious onreasonable ter have bullets flyin' whenever I went into town
ter sell the skins I'd been collectin'. What with one meetin' and
another I got a matter of three holes drilled through me, and that
warn't pleasant. I give 'em snuff in return, I jest did, but that don't
help ter mend holes in a fellow's carcass. So I comed away. Then I
struck along o' Steve, and hearin' yer was goin' partners, and was off
to Californy, why, me and my mates here agreed ter go. We was thinkin'
of earning a bit by acting as sort of escort to other convoys makin'
across to the diggin's. But, bless yer, the crowds that's goin' don't
think of danger; they thinks of gold only."

"And believes they'll find it in handfuls, the poor fools," cried Tom.
"Thar's many a hundred as has lost their scalps crossin' the plains."

"And many more'll meet with the same," agreed Seth. "But they don't
reckon to meet nothin'. It's goin' ter be a picnic all the way across,
that's what they say and think, and so they don't want no escort. Me and
my mates fixed then that we'd try a little diggin' ourselves, and as yer
was goin', why, it seemed jest the chance to make across together. Who's
the stranger?"

Tom introduced Jack to Seth promptly, and then handed him over to the
latter, who made him acquainted with his comrades. Nor was it long
before all became familiar with the story of his behaviour on the train.

"For a fust shot it war good, precious good," declared Seth. "I've let
off a gun in most positions, but never upside down, as I reckon you was.
So, without offence, youngster, I should say as how that 'ere shot
weren't altogether of yer own doin'. There was a bit of flukin, in it.
Howsomever, that ain't the point. Yer had the grit to lean over and hold
fast to the gun. That's whar you came in. Yer held fast, and drew
trigger jest at the right moment. Reckon the gun did the rest. And he
managed to wing yer?"

Jack nodded. "He put a ball through my shoulder," he said. "It hurt a
bit, but someone seems to have bandaged it, and it's quite easy now."

"Then yer ain't no cause to blush and 'low folks to say as you're a
green 'un," laughed Seth. "Reckon a chap as has had daylight put through
him has seen something. But yer'll have to set to at shootin'. My advice
is to buy a hull heap of ammunition. Me and my mates most always jest
carry a dozen rounds. That's heaps under ordinary sarcumstances; but
when yer get to shootin' with a revolver, the ammunition melts away, as
it war. And a man ain't nothin' of a shot till he's fired thousands of
rounds. So buy up a supply, and set to in earnest when we gets clear of
the town."

Jack made a mental note of the advice given him, and decided to invest
some of his savings in a thoroughly good revolver and gun and the
necessary ammunition. Nor had he any reason to fear the expenditure, for
he had saved a good deal when in Amos's employ, and had hardly touched
the money he had brought away from Hopeville. In addition, that same
evening, when Tom and his friends were making their final preparations
for leaving camp at an early hour on the following day, two officials of
the bank to which the money on board the train was consigned approached,
and handed our hero no less than fifteen hundred dollars.

"As a reward for saving our consignment," they said. "We had a very much
larger sum on board the train than was supposed, and had those robbers
succeeded in mastering all the passengers, and in stopping the coaches,
our loss would have been a very severe one."

They left the camp within a few minutes, expressing the hope that Jack
would soon recover from his wound. But that young fellow was almost too
elated to recollect the fact that his shoulder was damaged. He was more
than delighted at the gift, and at once fell to wondering what he would
do with such riches.

"I shall return James and Mother the sums they lent me," he said, "and
for the rest I suppose I'd better bank it. I'll ask Tom."

"Yer can jest do one o' two things," replied the latter, when Jack had
spoken to him. "Ef yer bank it here the money'll be safe, and yer can
arrange to have a draft on a bank way over near Sacramento. Then, once
we get to Californy, and yer've had time to look round, yer can set up
some sort of business for yerself. Buy a plot in one of the towns that's
springing up like mushrooms, and set up as a smith. That'd bring in
dollars quick, for there ain't many smiths handy, and ironwork aer well
paid. Five hundred dollars should see yer started, with the rest and
your savings while working fer us safe in the bank in case of illness or
failure. Not that yer want ter think of failure. That are a word no
young man should allow has a place in the language. Seems to me ef a
youngster jest kind of pins 'success' up in front of him, and sets to to
gain it by steady, hard work, he's bound, sooner or later--and the
steadier he is the sooner it'll be--to find he's got to the thing he's
aimed at. But I was sayin' there's two things yer could do with that
money. I've mentioned one."

"And the other?" asked Jack eagerly.

"The other aer a proposition of my own--mine and Steve's; and mind yer,
ef it don't seem right and likely to you, jest refuse, 'cos no
offence'll be given. We've put jest three thousand dollars apiece into
this scheme of ours, me and Steve have, and a goodish part of the money
has gone to buy the wagon and outfit. Still, thar's a tidy few dollars
left, and that'll be workin' capital for when we reach the diggin's.
Wall, now, more workin' capital are always useful. Yer can buy up
appliances that'll make the diggin' and windin' easier, besides
employing more hands, and so gettin' down to the gold quicker. Ef yer
like the proposition yer kin buy a share in this consarn of ours, and
come in as a partner instead of a hired man. Yer'll stand to lose along
with us; but ef we strike it rich, why, ye'll gain, jest as we shall, in
proportion to the amount ye've put into the partnership. Now, jest yer
get away by yerself fer a while, or talk it over with Seth and his
mates. They're straight, and ef the consarn ain't worth it, or the
proposition ain't a fair one to you, they'll say so for sure. Come back
agin in an hour's time. I'm goin' into the town jest to finish a little
buying."

Jack needed very little time for consideration, for he had already
practically made up his mind. There was something transparently honest
and straightforward about Tom and Steve, and he felt he could not do
better than throw in his lot with them. To be sure, if their efforts to
discover gold were not successful, he would lose all the money he
subscribed. But then, they might meet with good fortune.

"I'll do it," he said to himself, and that, too, without discussing the
matter with Seth and his friends. "I'll send along the money I borrowed
from Mother and James Orring, pay a thousand dollars to this
partnership, and bank the rest against a rainy day. Who knows, I may be
glad to have the use of it later on."

His determination to become a partner in the little firm of gold
diggers delayed the departure of the party for a few hours.

"Things has to be done fair and square," said Tom, when Jack announced
his decision. "We'll get into town, as soon as it's light, and rouse up
a lawyer. It'll take him an hour to prepare a draft same as Steve and I
have. Then the sheriff'll have to sign it, and me and Steve too. When
the document's ready, you'd best hand it over to the bank, and give 'em
instructions to transfer it to their branch at Sacramento. They'll send
it _via_ New York and Panama, and thar ain't a doubt but that it'll
reach. The lawyer'll make a second copy, so that in any case you'll be
able to refer to the agreement if you want to."

"And we'd best put something into the draft that'll fix it right ef one
of us partners wants to clear," exclaimed Steve, who, though a silent
man as a rule, was not backward in making suggestions when his
experience told him they were needed. "Seems to me it might happen as
one of us would want to leave fer New York or somewheares else. Wall,
his money's in the firm, but he don't work no longer. And, sense work
aer the thing that's mainly wanted, why, ef he leaves, he ain't no
longer of any use."

"Agreed," cried Tom instantly. "I'm ready to stand by that."

"And I also," added Jack. "We might put in a clause giving the remaining
partners the right to buy up the share of the one leaving, and to do
that they might sell it to an outsider if they hadn't the money
themselves."

"Which'd be better than givin' the retirin' partner the right of
bringin' in someone as was his friend, and who mightn't hit it off with
t'others," said Tom. "Now, that's a fair and square proposal, and ef
we're all willin', why, it won't take more'n a few minutes longer fer
the lawyer feller ter stick in them extry clauses. While he's doin' the
thing, we'll get to the doctor's and have thet shoulder seen to, young
'un. When you was took bad in the train, and lay thar as if you was
dead, this doctor man fixed the wound nicely for you. Lucky he jest
happened to be aboard. Wall, ter-morrer he'll take another look, and
we'll get him to fix us up with bandages and sich like. Now it's time to
be turning in."

Jack Kingsley lay awake for some time on this his first night with his
new comrades. His surroundings were so entirely different from those he
was accustomed to, while even the accent and the language of the scouts
was so strange, that his brain was too full to allow of sleep. The stamp
of the horses outside, and the gentle whisper of the breeze as it blew
against the canvas tilt, all served to keep him awake. Then, too, his
wound became distinctly painful, while he himself felt burning hot and
icy cold in turns. However, at length he fell into a troubled sleep
which lasted till the early morning.

"How aer yer?" asked Tom, who lay in a bunk on the other side of the
wagon. "Fit as ever, youngster?"

Jack rose from his blanket couch and shook himself. After such a night
he was not at all sure whether he did feel as fit as he should do. But
within ten minutes he was laughing and joking merrily; the keen morning
air, the brilliant light of the rising sun, and the appetizing smell
wafted from the steaming kettle all serving to rouse his spirits.

"Ye'll do, yer will," cried Tom some few minutes later, as he watched
our hero. "Guess yer hadn't the best o' nights. I sleeps light always,
'cos where I've lived my days a man has to be easy waked, and ready at a
moment fer action. I heard yer a-heavin' and a-tossin' in yer blankets,
and I reckoned as the shoulder war a trifle troublesome. But ye've took
to yer breakfast. I never seed a fellow eat heartier. Seems as ef the
air hereabouts agreed with yer."

"And as ef bein' shot war a thing as give him an appetite," laughed
Steve. "But we'd best be movin' slippy into the town. I knows these
lawyer fellers. They're all jaw, and thar ain't no makin' them hurry.
Let's skip in thar right now, and the sooner we reach the chap, the
sooner we'll be able ter git altogether."

Leaving Seth and his mates to clear the camp and make all preparations
for their march, Tom and Steve and Jack walked briskly into the town. A
call was made at once on a lawyer, and, having given him the necessary
particulars, they left him to prepare the agreement which would make
Jack a partner in the firm.

"And now fer an outfit fer you, youngster," said Tom. "Ye're wantin' a
rifle and a revolver. Wall, ef yer go to a proper gunsmith, he'll fix
yer up with anythin', but it'll cost money. Thar's fellers in these
towns as buy weapons from hunters who aer in want of money, or from
miners returning east. They're the men to go to."

He led the way past the better part of the town, and dived into a
smaller street built at right angles to the one they had just left.
Then he stopped at a little shop, in the tiny window of which were
displayed an assortment of articles.

"Jest leave the tradin' to me," he said. "Likely enough, ef yer was to
try and fix the deal, the fellow would ask double his price, for these
men aer wonderful cute at spottin' newcomers. Leave it ter me; I've
bought off him afore."

Tom indeed made an excellent bargainer, for within half an hour Jack
found himself possessed of a fine rifle, and a revolver which appeared
never to have been used. Also, Tom bought for him a large quantity of
ammunition.

"The whole dirt cheap at a hundred dollars," he said as they issued from
the shop. "Now, all we've got ter buy is an anvil and sich tools as
ye'll want, 'cos that'll be your work in the partnership, besides
diggin'. In a firm like ours each of the partners'll do what he kin, and
as much as he kin, to get things going and to make dollars. Steve, thar,
has the best eye fer locatin' a likely corner fer gold as ever I came
upon. But he ain't no good with the pick and spade; he's built too
light. Last time we was partners, 'way in Californy, guess me an a hired
man did most all the diggin'. But Steve did more'n his equal share of
work for the firm, 'cos it was he who went nosin' round till he finally
hit upon the spot that panned out rich and gave us gold in plenty. Ha!
here's the general stores. They'll likely enough have all we want."

They had, in fact, no difficulty in purchasing all the tools Jack was
likely to require, and arranged with the storekeeper to have them sent
to their camp at once. An anvil of moderate size, a bag of fuel, the
necessary tools, and a small portable forge were bought; and, that done,
the trio returned to the lawyer's.

"Ready, gentlemen," he said, meeting them with a smile. "I know how
impatient you scouts and miners are, and I made a special effort to
press on with the document. It is here, and we can go across to the
sheriff right away. There the document can be duly signed and sealed,
the money can be paid over, and the exchange duly witnessed."

Within an hour Jack found himself a member of the firm, with Tom
Horsfall and Steve as his partners, and, as he left the sheriff's
office, could not refrain from silently contrasting his position then
with what it had been a few weeks formerly. Then everything seemed to be
against him, while a long imprisonment stared him in the face. But two
days ago he was a hunted criminal, seeking to make good his escape; and
now--so stimulating was the effect of the success his bold action on the
train had met with, and the few kind words with which he had been
greeted--he feared to face no man, no, not even Constable Simpkins.

"I feel for the first time as if I had taken a step in the right
direction," he said to himself, "the direction which will lead to the
discovery of that ruffian for whom I have suffered so much. I have met
with a stroke of amazing fortune, and have earned enough money to give
me a start. Well, I'll do my utmost to turn it to good account. I'll
slave to make this partnership a success, and if it prove to be that,
then I'll use what money I gain in tracking that criminal. For clear my
name from this slur I will, even if it costs me every dollar I possess,
and takes years and years to accomplish."

A visit to the doctor was made on the way back to camp, and having had
his shoulder dressed, and careful instructions given for the future care
of the wound, Jack returned to the camp with his friends.

"We didn't rightly know when you'd be returning," said Seth, "and so we
didn't hook in the beasts. But everything else is ready packed, and in
ten minutes we'll be movin'. That youngster had better climb into the
wagon. It won't do that shoulder of his'n any good jolting on a
mustang."

Let the reader imagine the party as they marched from the town. In front
of the wagon rode three horsemen, such horsemen as are not to be met
with in any other country; for these hunters had the free-and-easy seat
which comes from long custom. They rode, in fact, like others in
different countries who use their legs so seldom that walking is a
labour, and who climb into a saddle, even if they only wish to pass from
one tent to another. A fine picture Tom and Seth and Steve made as they
led the march. After them came the wagon, its team blowing, for they
were soft after a long rest and plenty of feeding, while beside the
beasts walked a negro, wielding a long whip, which cracked like a pistol
shot when he flicked it. On the front sat Jack, radiantly happy, while
in rear rode five more scouts, alert and watchful even here; for such is
the force of habit.

And so they turned their faces from the towns and moved off into the
plains--those long flats of country which stretched, with a break here
and there, right away to the mountains of Nevada.

"And by the time we reaches 'em yer'll be a scout same as we are," said
Tom, riding his horse close beside the wagon. "As soon as that 'ere
shoulder aer better yer'll be able to mount and ride same as us, and
then Steve'll set to with yer. Thar ain't another in Americky like him
to larn a youngster all the ways o' huntin', and how to track and follow
a trail. Yer've jest to sit thar tight and get well, and out here on the
plains, whar the air's pure, a fellow mends in no time."

This proved to be the case. The air of the plains is notoriously
healthy, and very soon Jack was able to use his arm. In three weeks he
was mounted, and then his real enjoyment of the trip began. Long before
that he had become bosom friends with his mates, and found them more
than kindly. Tom alone knew his secret, but the remainder guessed that
their new mate was a fugitive from justice.

"And why?" asked one of them with a laugh, as they sat round the camp
fire one evening. "'Cos Jack aer changed his colour. When he comed along
to the camp his haar war as black as a coal. Now it's carrots. If that
don't point ter something, my name ain't Jacob."

There was a hearty laugh, and then the conversation was turned; for in
those parts no man enquired too closely into the past history of his
mates. A man was judged for himself. If he was a good and true friend
that was enough. So Jack settled down amongst them, and quickly answered
to the name of "Carrots".

As to his companions on this long and venturesome journey across the
plains which stretched between the point of their departure and
California, they were without a shadow of doubt far more interesting
than those one usually met. Already the group of hunters had come upon
parties of would-be miners journeying to the land of gold, and Jack was
forced to confess--it was brought home to him accidentally as it were,
but forcibly for all that--that the men they had met were poor specimens
for the most part. Often enough the bands were composed of clerks from
the cities, of storekeepers who had lost their all in their venture at
trading, and sometimes, mixed up with these men of the towns, who, to
say the best of them, were by their previous lives and experience wholly
unsuited to the new career at which they aimed, were men from a higher
sphere--dentists, doctors, soldiers, sailors, and even an actor or two.
Poorly developed for the most part, the glaring sun beneath which they
marched, and the open-air life which their journey forced them to lead,
had given them a colour to which many no doubt had been strangers
before. But no amount of exposure could give them experience of the
plains--that experience which could be learned only after years of
travelling, and which was so essential to them.

"It makes a man ache, so it do," said Seth, after they had bade farewell
to one of these bands, which was hopelessly delayed by the loss of their
draught horses. "Them poor critters would be better off back in the
towns instead of coming out here. In course they're delayed. Chances are
thar's some of 'em never had ter do with a hoss till now, and they ain't
a notion when ter feed and water him, when ter work him fer all he's
worth, and when ter give him a rest. In course out here a hoss mostly
feeds hisself. The grass is that good he'd get fat ef he warn't worked,
and worked hard too. But thar's sech a thing as resting the critters in
the heat of the day, of grooming them occasionally, and of giving 'em a
feed of corn when thar's a settlement handy. Them men we've jest left
ain't no more notion of a hoss than they have of an Injun, and the wust
of it are fer them that in the fust place the delay aren't all they've
got ter suffer, while in the second it are generally a case of bein'
clean and regular wiped out. Huh!"

Jack could not help but contrast his friends with these unhappy and
inexperienced men the party had come upon. He looked about him as he
jogged along, and was fain to confess that there was essentially a
business air about his mates--an air of the plains, an atmosphere which
spoke of independence, of courage, of that resource without which no
hunter or scout in those days could have survived for long. Ahead of him
rode the burly Tom, the first man to befriend him. Jack could catch a
view of the tips of his long, flowing fair moustache blowing back at
either side of his cheeks. What a seat the man had! He seemed to be a
part of the animal he rode, and yet there was no effort about his
horsemanship. To look at him he simply lounged in his saddle. Yet, as
many an incident had proved, Tom was not to be easily shaken from his
seat. A sudden start of his animal, a plunge, a trip over some hidden
hole produced the same result. The burly Tom sat still at ease, the
picture of contentment. And beside him jogged Steve, the wiry little man
who has already been introduced to the reader. Taciturn and silent as a
general rule, this little man, so fine drawn and lean, could on occasion
be almost garrulous. But his features seldom wore other than a serious
look. His keen eye was always watchful.

"Jest as I told yer," remarked Tom one day. "Steve aer always lookin'
round. He aer always expecting something, and fer that reason thar ain't
a scout as I'd sooner ride with. Ef you're dull and sleepy yerself,
thar's Steve to watch fer yer."

Let the reader glance at those others who had banded themselves with
Jack and his mates. Seth, Tricky Seth, a picture of good health and
manliness: sunburned to the last degree, scarred across the forehead as
the result of a toss from a horse when much younger, bearded and
moustached, and as handsome a man as one could meet in a week's march.
Yet how simple the man was! In spite of his good looks, of his obvious
power, of a frame which was magnificently put together, this Seth was
like an overgrown boy--jolly the day long, friendly with all, however
humble, and ready to lend a hand to the first who needed help. There
were no airs and graces about this scout.

Then turn to Jacob. Heavy and dull of feature, more taciturn than Steve
even, if that were possible, this silent scout seemed to be permanently
occupied with his thoughts. Of huge proportions, he moved as a general
rule with a sluggishness and a want of celerity which were in distinct
contrast with the sprightliness and alertness of Steve. But the man knew
the plains by heart. He had been born, one might say, with a gun in his
hand; and where horses were concerned there was not another to be found
who could teach him.

"He aer got the appearance of a parson or a teacher," laughed Tom, "but
Jacob ain't always thinkin'. Reckon he kin be lively when he likes; and
ef he took to runnin' yer or me for a mile, guess we'd come in last by a
goodish bit. And yer should jest see him when he's got a grip of the
ribbons. I've seen a hull heap of men runnin' teams, and sometimes it's
mules, and t'others it's hosses. Wall, it don't make no sorter
difference ter Jacob what the beasts aer. Reckon ef they was buffalo
he'd fix 'em jest the same. It aer a treat to see him steering a team
across bad country, and when we comes ter settlements, and he aer
conducting the outfit, why, guess it makes them city folks open their
eyes. Jacob aer a man fer hosses."

Then there was Black Bill, laughing and full of fun, but a thorough man
of the plains for all that. Dusky of complexion, of medium height, Bill
could hold his own with anyone when it came to the management of cattle,
for he had spent some years in the stockyards. And it was reported that
even Steve himself had seen no more of the Indians. Bill had experienced
a deal of fighting.

Of Tom Langham and David there is little to report. The one was as lean
as Steve, but lankier, and amongst his friends was a reputed yarner.
There were few who could tell a fireside tale as Tom Langham could.
David was more of Jacob's stamp, with little to make him distinctive.
And yet, put all these men together, with our hero Jack accompanying
them, and even a novice in those parts, a city man, would have found
something to hold his attention. It was that subtle air of business
which these scouts carried with them wherever they went, the air which
warned ruffians of the road to leave them severely alone, and made
Indians cautious of attacking them. No wonder that Jack considered
himself lucky. He was in the very best of hands, and if only his journey
to California turned out as favourably as the beginning augured, then
he promised himself success. Who could say? Perhaps in that country of
glorious skies, of sunrises and sunsets, he would discover more than
gold. It might even happen, unlikely though it seemed, that there amidst
the miners he might come upon that evidence for which he sought, that
man whose word alone could clear his character, could make of him once
again a respected citizen of that town from which he had so lately
fled.




CHAPTER IX

Only a Youngster


"We've a longish day before us," said Tom one afternoon, just after the
sun had mounted to its central position, and the heat was at its height.
"Them pals of ours has gone off huntin', fer it stands to reason we must
have fresh meat to keep us in good health. But, as I was sayin', we're
here, you and I, in charge of the team and the wagon; and sense we
dursent sleep, for there ain't never no sayin' when something won't turn
up, why we'd best settle down fer a jaw. I was thinking of that business
of ours in the train, when yer climbed on ter the roof. I wonder what
made yer think of that?"

Our hero was troubled by the question. When he came to review his
movements on that eventful evening, and this particular one more
especially, he found it hard to say why he had clambered to the roof of
the railway coach.

"I suppose I saw in a flash that that man would shoot me if I went along
the footboards," he said. "I had seen the conductor wounded and forced
to let go, so I suppose, without thinking, I realized that the roof was
the only place."

"Jest as I thought," remarked Tom, nodding his head, and busying himself
with his whip, which he seemed to crack on every spare occasion. "That
'ere fight reminds me of a time same as this, when I was jest a slip of
a youngster. It was down Mexico way, not in California, whar we're
goin', and thar was gold in the question, same as thar was with you the
other day. Yer see, my uncle owned a team of beasts. In fact, he owned
several teams, and made a fine living by carting stores down to the
Mexican mines, and returning with gold. He'd been extry lucky, too, and
hadn't been held up more than once. Then my father died, and Uncle Jim
took me under his wing. I used to march alongside the team, help feed
and water the beasts, and lend a hand at anything that war wanted. I war
jest about thirteen years of age, I reckon."

"Young," remarked Jack. "But I suppose many boys are to be found with
the mule teams as young as that?"

"Sometimes they're regular kids," came the laughing rejoinder. "I mind
one kid as war jest twelve, and he'd already had a turn agin the Injuns.
Boys in this country don't get so much schoolin' as they might
elsewhere--in England, fer instance--though I've no doubt, when
America's settled, the youngsters will get all the schoolin' they want,
and more besides. And so it ain't nothin' outer the ordinary to meet
kids out on the plains. Wall, I was a regular kid, and Uncle Jim and I
did many a march together. We'd been down to a mine located well in the
south, though I can't get hold of the name at this moment. We'd dropped
all our goods thar--hard tack, picks, and spades, and what not, and had
filled chuck-full with gold. Reckon there was twenty-thousand dollars
worth of dust on board--a fortune that wanted taking care of! And take
good care of it we did, Uncle sleeping by day, while I drove the team.
At night he'd fix his pipe in between his teeth, and keep watch wherever
we were camped, while I turned into my blankets. It war jolly while it
lasted, and yer may bet that I war a proud kid, takin' care of that 'ere
team and all the gold by my solitary self durin' the day."

"And then?" asked Jack eagerly. "You were held up by a gang of robbers?"

"Hold hard," sang out Tom. "We ain't got thar yet. Things was goin'
smoothly enough, when Uncle took ill. He war mighty queer. To this day I
ain't sure what ailed him. But I've a notion he'd got a kind of heat
stroke. Anyways, he war as hot as fire, and fer a time wanderin' in his
head. I remember it war somewhere's about this time of the day when he
went queer, and, sense I couldn't drive the team and look to him at the
same time, I formed camp jest beside the bank of a river, whar the road
ran down to the ford. I watered the beasts, pegged them out to feed, and
then set to work putting cold cloths, wrung out of river water, on
Uncle's head. Reckon I kept at it all that day, and right into the
night, till I was that weary I was falling asleep the instant I set down
in the wagon. And in the end I went right fast off beside Uncle, and lay
there snorin' till the sun was up, and it war nigh ten o'clock. It war a
shout that waked me."

Tom looked over his shoulder to see that Jack was listening, and then
threw the tail of his whip lightly over his leaders, sending his team
bounding forward.

"A shout," repeated Jack. "Yes."

"From over the water," said Tom. "I lifted the tilt of the wagon, and
looked across the river. There was four men, mounted, wavin' their arms.

"'Whar's the ford start?' one of them sang out, when he seed me come
clamberin' outer the wagon. 'Does it run straight over thar from whar
we're standin', or whar in thunder does it begin?'

"Wall, I war that green I was jest on the point of singing out that it
cut clear down stream from whar our wagon was located till you was in
line with a tree on the far side, and a kind of little bay on ours. Thar
was shallow water on top of a ledge running to that point. Perhaps it
war deep enough to come to the floor of the wagon, and in bad weather it
might be an inch or two deeper. But it warn't never more that I ever
knowed. On either side the ledge shelved off gradually, and in course
the water got deeper and deeper. From the point I jest mentioned one had
to swing the team right across stream, drive 'em fer ten yards or so,
and then swing their heads up stream again. It war the stiffest ford as
ever I crossed, and I can't make no shape to guess how it war first
located. But thar it was, I'd been over it a dozen times, and was game
to take the team myself, with the load of gold dust, Uncle, and all. I
war sayin', I war jest on the point of singing out directions to the
strangers over the far side, when Uncle jest pops the tip of his nose
outer the wagon.

"'Hold on, Tom,' he says. 'Who aer they?'

"I didn't know one bit. They was travellers I supposed. But Uncle had
been on that road for seven years, and guess he knew everyone for miles
up and down.

"'There's four of them,' I said. 'Guess they're going down to the
mines.'

"'Guess they're bound for gold anyway,' he says. 'Sing out as there's
another ford six miles up stream,' he says. 'That'll give us a breather.
Don't tell them on any account that they kin cross here.'

"You may reckon I got wondering whether Uncle were still wandering, and
off his head. I looked at him precious hard, and axed him ef he meant
it. 'They kin guess there's a ford here, and we know it,' I said, 'else
we shouldn't be camped by the entrance.'

"'Let 'em guess it, then,' he kind of snapped. 'Better they should think
we was fools than we should tell 'em the ford and have 'em takin' every
dollar we've got on board. Sonny, those four strangers aer a gang that's
been watchin' fer me more than once. I've give them the slip three times
already, and I'll do it agin this time ef I'm able. Ah, thunder! I can't
even stand.'

"He'd climbed to his feet inside the wagon, holding on to the tilt, and
jest as I looked across the river again I heard him fall with a bang.
Then the man who'd shouted from the far side sang out again: 'We're
making south,' he hailed. 'We've been directed to this here ford, and
sence you're meaning to cross yer must know it. We was told it war
tricky. Whar does it start, and whar does one have to turn?'

"'Bluff 'em,' calls Uncle from the wagon. 'Ef yer don't, it'll be a case
with both of us, youngster.'

"Wall, I war only a kid," said Tom, gathering his reins in a bunch, "and
I don't mind agreein' that I war in a mortal funk. I'd heard of Uncle's
escapes, in course, and I knew that thar war men out on the road who'd
take every dollar we had, and shoot us into the bargain. In my fright I
was nearly telling them the ford. But Uncle war at the tilt again,
glaring at me, and calling to me not ter be a fool. And I reckon I war
more afraid of Uncle when he was in a rage than I war of any other man
under the sun. I warn't fer telling a lie anyhow, but I 'low as all aer
fair in love and war, and thet was a case of war. So I plucked up some
sorter courage and called back to the men: 'Uncle's ill,' I shouted.
'He's too ill to come out and show the ford. But thar's another, six
miles higher up. Yer can't miss it when you get thar. It's easier than
this one.'

"Wall, that didn't please 'em. I could see the critters putting their
heads together, and perhaps they guessed that Uncle could ha' told me,
even if he war too ill to shout to them. So they tried to scare me into
telling them.

"'This here's a case of life and death,' sings out the rascal as had
shouted before. 'We're going south ter see our mother. She's thet bad
she ain't expected ter last over long. So we're pushing down as fast as
we can. Ax yer uncle ter tell you the road.'

"'Ax him the name of his mother,' growls Uncle from the wagon.

"Wall, thet did it," said Tom with a grin, looking into Jack's face. "In
course they seed that they was being bluffed, and one of 'em made up his
mind to find the ford for himself. He rid down the bank, spurred his
horse on into the water, and was ten feet out in no time. By then the
water was jest washin' his boots. Reckon he war on the ledge that
carried the ford on the far side.

"'You kin come along, mates,' he sang out. 'Ef that imp don't care ter
ax his uncle, or ef his uncle's foxin' ill, and won't say, why we'll get
across all the same, and make south all the sooner.'

"Guess he thought he was safely over," laughed Tom; "but he warn't. One
of his mates joined him, while the other two rode jest behind. Then
suddenly, afore you could have expected it, the two who were leading,
plunged into deep water. In course their horses started swimmin', but
the jerk, and being unused to thet sort of thing perhaps, upset their
riders, and reckon them two had a fine sousing. They turned back to the
bank, and went climbing outer the water, shoutin' and cussin', and
sayin' what they'd do ter me ef they could only get across. Then they
turned their hosses' heads and rid like mad fer the other ford!

"'Get them mules in quick,' sings out Uncle, squintin' outer the wagon
from beneath the tilt. 'Them critters'll be here afore yer kin look
round, and ef we ain't slippy they'll have us. Cut the ropes, lad, and
let yer blankets and sich things lie as they are. Ef we're alive we kin
come back fer 'em. Ef we're dead, guess we shan't want 'em. Quick aer
the word!'

"Yer could see as he war anxious, and in course I set to ter fix the
team into the wagon jest as slippy as I could. But I war a boy, yer must
remember, and it aer a man's work ter tie a hull team into their places.
Then, what with thinkin' of them critters, and the funk I war in, every
trace I touched got hooked to the wrong bar. There was Uncle, too,
squintin' at me from under the tilt, his face a fiery red, and his
dander burnin'. I wonder now thet I war able to fix 'em all. But at
last the mules were tied in and we was ready.

"'I'm to drive 'em over?" I axed the old man. 'Clean slick across?'

"'You aer soft!" he sings out in a kind of shriek. 'That's what they
want you to do. It's jest what we ain't meanin' ter carry out. Kin yer
guess why?'

"I couldn't," said Tom, making a grimace. "I war a thick-headed kid, and
the bustle had scared away all the sense I ever had.

"''Cos them critters'll have divided,' shouted Uncle. 'They know that
I'm queer, and they guess a kid ain't much ter be afraid of. Ef they'd
happened to have known this ford they would have ridden clean across,
took the gold, and riddled us with bullets. As it aer, two of 'em will
cross, the other two's hid up thar over the far side of the river. They
reckon they're bound ter have us either way. Boy, aer you game ter fight
'em?'

"'I'll try,' I says. 'What am I ter do?'

"'Send yer team into the water, and cut out along the ford. When you've
reached the point whar, in the ordinary course, you'd swing 'em up
stream, jest pull 'em in. It ain't over deep thar, and sense it's hot
these days the mules won't mind it. Hold the critters thar till you see
how things aer workin'. Ef the two men who have crossed ride out to us,
we must try and shoot 'em. Ef the others come riding out to join them,
then we've two things we kin do. One is ter send the team along the road
fer the other bank and chance the shootin'. T'other is to drive 'em into
deep water till the cart is out of reach, cut the traces, and leave the
mules to swim ashore.'

"Wall, that fairly staggered me," said Tom. "'Drive the wagon into deep
water, Uncle?' I axed, and I reckon my eyes was nearly starting from my
head.

"'Yer've got it,' he answers, as if thar warn't nothing outer the way in
the order. 'This cart's heavy. It are got enough dust aboard to keep it
on the bottom till the whole of the tilt is covered with water. I'd
sooner sink the hull thing, and myself too, ef that war necessary, than
see them critters get the gold. But we ain't goin' ter do that. Drive
the wagon off the road till the mules are off their feet and swimmin'.
By then we shall be deep enough. Then cut 'em free and wait fer them
critters. Yer've got to shoot, young un.'

"We was in a bad muss anyway," said Tom, his face assuming for the
moment a stern aspect; "and what with the bustle of puttin' in the
mules, and headin' them for the ford, I kind of forgot my fears. I was
that busy I hadn't time to think what might happen when those villains
reached us. So, somehow or other, I grew out of the funk that had set my
teeth chatterin' and my fingers shakin', and, rememberin' that the team
was in my hands entirely, I made up my mind to bring 'em through. The
leaders was enterin' the water before yer could think, and before five
minutes had passed, we were well out in the centre.

"'Now pull 'em in,' says Uncle. 'Them critters'll be here in ten
minutes, and by then the mules will be wantin' to move on. Yer'll have
ter hold 'em tight, lad. Jest remember that you are in charge of yer old
uncle and of the gold. Ef yer pull us through it'll be the making of
yer.'

"From being in a funk I got quite lively, and as proud as a peacock,
and sat there at the front of the wagon, same as I am here, holding the
reins, and fingering my shooter every now and again. I'd never let one
off before that, except sometimes Uncle would give me a shot when we
were well out on the plains. But I 'lowed as I could try, and by the
time them critters turned up I'd fixed it that I would shoot every man
of 'em sooner than lose the wagon and Uncle.

"Wall, in course of time two of the men that we'd first seen on the far
side of the river came galloping up along the bank we'd jest left.
Reckon they and their mates had been lying hid, waiting fer us ter get
across, and they set to howlin' when it war clear that we had taken to
the river ter get protection. The two who had stayed up on the other
bank came over a hill some four hundred yards away, and thar ain't a
doubt but that they had been watchin'. Anyway, they knew the route we'd
taken. There warn't, neither, any more doubt as to what their business
was. One of the critters let his shooter loose, and in a second, flick!
goes a bullet through the tilt of the wagon close behind my ear.

"'That ain't nothin',' sings out Uncle. 'A bullet don't hurt till it
hits, and the range are long for 'em. Hold them critters steady, lad,
and ef I tell yer, whip 'em up and swing 'em fer the far shore. Thar's
this in our favour: we've only two a side to deal with. When they was on
the far bank there were four. Now we kin be more even.'

"The two on our side rode their horses right down into the water, and
then we larned that we wasn't to have it altogether our own way. Uncle
had forgotten that two of the critters had been watchin', and these two
stood with their hosses' feet in the water and called across to their
friends, giving them directions how to move so as to follow the ford.
They meant business, there warn't a doubt, fer in two seconds the men on
our side were edging their beasts slowly into the stream, kinder feelin'
the ridge beneath them, and making out to where we were stood. It began
to look ticklish, and a lot wuss when the two varmint on the far side
rid their mounts farther into the river, and, as ef they'd guessed that
the ledge must make in a line to whar we were, began to push on towards
us.

"'It aer a case of facin' the hull crowd or of sinking the cargo,' sings
out Uncle.

"Ef he'd been strong enough ter get to his feet I reckon he would have
faced the crowd alone, fer he had fine courage; but he war as weak as a
child, and could only lie there raging at his helplessness.

"Kin you tackle the lot alone, Tom?' he asked after a bit, when them
critters was close handy.

"I suppose I looked what I thought. There warn't a chance that I could
manage the team and fight them four.

"'Then whip 'em up and run her into deep water,' cries the old man. 'Ef
the cart sinks fer good, then at any rate they won't have had the gold.
Ef she holds the bottom we'll be able to get a rope on to her later on,
a

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