Twice Bought, R. M. Ballantyne [ready to read books txt] 📗

chief, “decides me to make tracks down south to the big woods on the slopes of the Sawback Hills. There are plenty of parties travelling thereabouts with lots of gold, boys, and difficulties enough in the way of hunting us out o’ the stronghold. I’ll leave you there for a short time and make a private excursion to Simpson’s Gully, to see if my enemy an’ the beautiful Betty are there.”

“An’ get yourself shot or stuck for your pains,” said Goff. “Do you suppose that such a hulking, long-legged fellow as you are, can creep into a camp like an or’nary man without drawin’ attention?”

“Perhaps not,” returned Stalker; “but are there not such things as disguises? Have you not seen me with my shootin’-coat and botanical box an’ blue spectacles, an’ my naturally sandy hair.”

“No, no, captain!” cried Goff, with a laugh, “not sandy; say yellow, or golden.”

“Well, golden, then, if you will. You’ve seen it dyed black, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes! I’ve seen you in these humblin’ circumstances before now,” returned the lieutenant, “and I must say your own mother wouldn’t know you. But what’s the use o’ runnin’ the risk, captain?”

“Because I owe Bevan a grudge!” said the chief, sternly, “and mean to be revenged on him. Besides, I want the sweet Betty for a wife, and intend to have her, whether she will or no. She’ll make a capital bandit’s wife—after a little while, when she gets used to the life. So now you know some of my plans, and you shall see whether the hulking botanist won’t carry all before him.”

“O-ho!” muttered the snake-in-the-grass, very softly; and there was something so compound and significant in the tone of that second “O-ho!” soft though it was, that it not only baffles description, but—really, you know, it would be an insult to your understanding, good reader, to say more in the way of explanation! There was also a heaving of the snake’s shoulders, which, although unaccompanied by sound, was eminently suggestive.

Feeling that he had by that time heard quite enough, Tolly Trevor effected a masterly retreat, and returned to the place where he had left the horses. On the way he recalled with satisfaction the fact that Paul Bevan had once pointed out to him the exact direction of Simpson’s Gully at a time when he meant to send him on an errand thither. “You’ve on’y to go over there, lad,” Paul had said, pointing towards the forest in rear of his hut, “and hold on for two days straight as the crow flies till you come to it. You can’t well miss it.”

Tolly knew that there was also an easier though longer route by the plains, but as he was not sure of it he made up his mind to take to the forest.

The boy was sufficiently trained in woodcraft to feel pretty confident of finding his way, for he knew the north side of trees by their bark, and could find out the north star when the sky was clear, besides possessing a sort of natural aptitude for holding on in a straight line. He mounted the obstinate horse, therefore, took the rein of the obedient pony on his right arm, and, casting a last look of profound regret on Bevan’s desolated homestead, rode swiftly away. So eager was he that he took no thought for the morrow. He knew that the wallet slung at his saddle-bow contained a small supply of food—as much, probably, as would last three days with care. That was enough to render Tolly Trevor the most independent and careless youth in Oregon.

While these events were occurring in the neighbourhood of Bevan’s Gully, three red men, in all the glory of vermilion, charcoal, and feathers, were stalking through the forest in the vicinity of the spot where poor Tom Brixton had laid him down to die. These children of the wilderness stalked in single file—from habit we presume, for there was ample space for them to have walked abreast if so inclined. They seemed to be unsociable beings, for they also stalked in solemn silence.

Suddenly the first savage came to an abrupt pause, and said, “Ho!” the second savage said, “He!” and the third said, “Hi!” After which, for full a minute, they stared at the ground in silent wonder and said nothing. They had seen a footprint! It did not by any means resemble that deep, well developed, and very solitary footprint at which Robinson Crusoe is wont to stare in nursery picture-books. No; it was a print which was totally invisible to ordinary eyes, and revealed itself to these children of the woods in the form of a turned leaf and a cracked twig. Such as it was, it revealed a track which the three children followed up until they found Tom Brixton—or his body—lying on the ground near to the little spring.

Again these children said, “Ho!” “He!” and “Hi!” respectively, in varying tones according to their varied character. Then they commenced a jabber, which we are quite unable to translate, and turned Tom over on his back. The motion awoke him, for he sat up and stared.

Even that effort proved too much for him in his weak state, for he fell back and fainted.

The Indians proved to be men of promptitude. They lifted the white man up; one got Tom’s shoulders on his back, another put his legs over his shoulders, and thus they stalked away with him. When the first child of the wood grew tired, the unburdened one stepped in to his relief; when the second child grew tired, the first one went to his aid; when all the children grew tired, they laid their burden on the ground and sat down beside it. Thus, by easy stages, was Tom Brixton conveyed away from the spot where he had given himself up as hopelessly lost.

Now, it could not have been more than six hours after Tom had thus been borne away that poor Tolly Trevor came upon the same scene. We say “poor” advisedly, for he had not only suffered the loss of much fragmentary clothing in his passage through that tangled wood, but also most of the food with which he had started, and a good deal of skin from his shins, elbows, knuckles, and knees, as well as the greater part of his patience. Truly, he was in a pitiable plight, for the forest had turned out to be almost impassable for horses, and in his journey he had not only fallen off, and been swept out of the saddle by overhanging branches frequently, but had to swim swamps, cross torrents, climb precipitous banks, and had stuck in quagmires innumerable.

As for the horses—their previous owner could not have recognised them. It is true they were what is styled “all there,” but there was an inexpressible droop of their heads and tails, a weary languor in their eyes, and an abject waggle about their knees which told of hope deferred and spirit utterly gone. The pony was the better of the two. Its sprightly glance of amiability had changed into a gaze of humble resignation, whereas the aspect of the obstinate horse was one of impotent ill-nature. It would have bitten, perhaps, if strength had permitted, but as to its running away—ha!

Well, Tolly Trevor approached—it could hardly be said he rode up to—the spring before mentioned, where he passed the footprints in stupid blindness.

He dismounted, however, to drink and rest a while.

“Come on—you brute!” he cried, almost savagely, dragging the horse to the water.

The creature lowered its head and gazed as though to say, “What liquid is that?”

As the pony, however, at once took a long and hearty draught it also condescended to drink, while Tolly followed suit. Afterwards he left the animals to graze, and sat down under a neighbouring tree to rest and swallow his last morsel of food.

It was sad to see the way in which the poor boy carefully shook out and gathered up the few crumbs in his wallet so that not one of them should be lost; and how slowly he ate them, as if to prolong the sensation of being gratified! During the two days which he had spent in the forest his face had grown perceptibly thinner, and his strength had certainly diminished. Even the reckless look of defiant joviality, which was one of the boy’s chief characteristics, had given place to a restless anxiety that prevented his seeing humour in anything, and induced a feeling of impatience when a joke chanced irresistibly to bubble up in his mind. He was once again reduced almost to the weeping point, but his sensations were somewhat different for, when he had stood gazing at the wreck of Bevan’s home, the nether lip had trembled because of the sorrows of friends, whereas now he was sorrowing because of an exhausted nature, a weakened heart, and a sinking spirit. But the spirit had not yet utterly given way!

“Come!” he cried, starting up. “This won’t do, Tolly. Be a man! Why, only think—you have got over two days and two nights. That was the time allowed you by Paul, so your journey’s all but done—must be. Of course those brutes—forgive me, pony, that brute, I mean—has made me go much slower than if I had come on my own legs, but notwithstanding, it cannot be—hallo! what’s that!”

The exclamation had reference to a small dark object which lay a few yards from the spot on which he sat. He ran and picked it up. It was Tom Brixton’s cap—with his name rudely written on the lining. Beside it lay a piece of bark on which was pencil-writing.

With eager, anxious haste the boy began to peruse it, but he was unaccustomed to read handwriting, and when poor Tom had pencilled the lines his hand was weak and his brain confused, so that the characters were doubly difficult to decipher. After much and prolonged effort the boy made out the beginning. It ran thus:

“This is probably the last letter that I, Tom Brixton, shall ever write. (I put down my name now, in case I never finish it.) O dearest mother!—”

Emotion had no doubt rendered the hand less steady at this point, for here the words were quite illegible—at least to little Trevor—who finally gave up the attempt in despair. The effect of this discovery, however, was to send the young blood coursing wildly through the veins, so that a great measure of strength returned, as if by magic.

The boy’s first care was naturally to look for traces of the lost man, and he set about this with a dull fear at his heart, lest at any moment he should come upon the dead body of his friend. In a few minutes he discovered the track made by the Indians, which led him to the spot near to the spring where Tom had fallen. To his now fully-awakened senses Trevor easily read the story, as far as signs could tell it.

Brixton had been all but starved to death. He had lain down under a tree to die—the very tree under which he himself had so recently given way to despair. While lying there he—Brixton—had scrawled his last words on the bit of birch-bark. Then he had tried to reach the spring, but had fainted either before reaching it or after leaving. This he knew, because the mark of Tom’s coat, part of his waist-belt and the handle of his bowie-knife were all impressed on the softish ground with sufficient distinctness to be discerned by a sharp eye. The moccasined footprints told of Indians having found Brixton—still alive, for they would not have taken the trouble to carry him off if he had been dead. The various sizes of the moccasined feet told that the party of Indians numbered three; and the trail of the red men, with its occasional halting-places, pointed out clearly the direction in which they had gone. Happily this was also the direction in