Twice Bought, Robert Michael Ballantyne [the false prince series .TXT] 📗

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 which little Trevor was going.

Of course the boy did not read this off as readily as we have written it all down. It cost him upwards of an hour's patient research; but when at last he did arrive at the result of his studies he wasted no time in idle speculation. His first duty was to reach Simpson's Gully, discover his friend Paul Bevan, and deliver to him the piece of birch-bark he had found, and the information he had gleaned.

By the time Tolly had come to this conclusion his horse and pony had obtained both rest and nourishment enough to enable them to raise their drooping heads and tails an inch or two, so that when the boy mounted the former with some of his old dash and energy, it shook its head, gave a short snort, and went off at a fair trot.

Fortunately the ground improved just beyond this point, opening out into park-like scenery, which, in another mile or two, ran into level prairie land. This Trevor knew from description was close to the mountain range, in which lay the gully he was in quest of. The hope which had begun to rise increased, and communicating itself, probably by sympathetic electricity, to the horse, produced a shuffling gallop, which ere long brought them to a clump of wood. On rounding this they came in sight of the longed-for hills.

Before nightfall Simpson's Gully was reached, and little Trevor was directed to the tent of Paul Bevan, who had arrived there only the day before.

"It's a strange story, lad," said Paul, after the boy had run rapidly over the chief points of the news he had to give, to which Betty, Fred, and Flinders sat listening with eager interest.

"We must be off to search for him without delay," said Fred Westly, rising.

"It's right ye are, sor," cried Flinders, springing up. "Off to-night an' not a moment to lose."

"We'll talk it over first, boys," said Paul. "Come with me. I've a friend in the camp as'll help us."

"Did you not bring the piece of bark?" asked Betty of the boy, as the men went out.

"Oh! I forgot. Of course I did," cried Trevor, drawing it from his breast-pocket. "The truth is I'm so knocked up that I scarce know what I'm about."

"Lie down here on this deer-skin, poor boy, and rest while I read it."

Tolly Trevor flung himself on the rude but welcome couch, and almost instantly fell asleep, while Betty Bevan, spreading the piece of birch-bark on her knee, began to spell out the words and try to make sense of Tom Brixton's last epistle.


CHAPTER ELEVEN.

With considerable difficulty Betty Bevan succeeded in deciphering the tremulous scrawl which Tom Brixton had written on the piece of birch-bark. It ran somewhat as follows:--

"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! what would I not now give to unsay all the hard things I have ever said to you, and to undo all the evil I have done. But this cannot be. `Twice bought!' It is strange how these words run in my mind. I was condemned to death at the gold-fields--my comrades bought me off. Fred--dear Fred--who has been true and faithful to the last--reminded me that I had previously been bought with the blood of Jesus--that I have been _twice bought_! I think he put it in this way to fix my obstinate spirit on the idea, and he has succeeded. The thought has been burned in upon my soul as with fire. I am very, _very_ weak--dying, I fear, in the forest, and alone! How my mind seems to wander! I have slept since writing the last sentence, and dreamed of food! Curious mixing of ideas! I also dreamed of Betty Bevan. Ah, sweet girl! if this ever meets your eye, believe that I loved you sincerely. It is well that I should die, perhaps, for I have been a thief, and would not ask your hand now even if I might. I would not sully it with a touch of mine, and I could not expect you to believe in me after I tell you that I not only robbed Gashford, but also Fred--my chum Fred--and gambled it all away, and drank away my reason almost at the same time... I have slept again, and dreamed of water this time--bright, pure, crystal water-- sparkling and gushing in the sunshine. O God! how I despised it once, and how I long for it now! I am too weak and wandering, mother, to think about religion now. But why should I? Your teaching has not been altogether thrown away; it comes back like a great flood while I lie here dreaming and trying to write. The thoughts are confused, but the sense comes home. All is easily summed up in the words you once taught me, `I am a poor sinner, and nothing at all, but Jesus Christ is all in all.' Not sure that I quote rightly. No matter, the sense is there also. And yet it seems--it is--such a mean thing to sin away one's life and ask for pardon only at the end--the very end! But the thief on the cross did it; why not I? Sleep--_is_ it sleep? may it not be slowly-approaching death?--has overpowered me again. I have been attempting to read this. I seem to have mixed things somehow. It is sadly confused--or my mind is. A burning thirst consumes me--and--I _think_ I hear water running! I will--"

Here the letter ended abruptly.

"No doubt," murmured Betty, as she let the piece of bark fall on the table and clasped her hands over her eyes, "he rose and tried to reach the water. Praise God that there is hope!"

She sat for a few seconds in profound silence, which was broken by Paul and his friends re-entering the tent.

"It's all arranged, Betty," he said, taking down an old rifle which hung above the door; "old Larkins has agreed to look arter my claim and take care of you, lass, while we're away."

"I shall need no one to take care of me."

"Ah! so you think, for you're as brave as you're good; but--I think otherwise. So he'll look arter you."

"Indeed he won't, father!" returned Betty, smiling, "because I intend that _you_ shall look after me."

"Impossible, girl! I'm going to sarch for Tom Brixton, you see, along with Mister Fred an' Flinders, so I can't stop here with you."

"But I am going too, father!"

"But--but we can't wait for you, my good girl," returned Paul, with a perplexed look; "we're all ready to start, an' there ain't a hoss for you except the poor critters that Tolly Trevor brought wi' him, an', you know, they need rest very badly."

"Well, well, go off, father; I won't delay you," said Betty; "and don't disturb Tolly, let him sleep, he needs it, poor boy. I will take care of him and his horses."

That Tolly required rest was very obvious, for he lay sprawling on the deer-skin couch just as he had flung himself down, buried in the profoundest sleep he perhaps ever experienced since his career in the wilderness began.

After the men had gone off, Betty Bevan--who was by that time better known, at least among those young diggers whose souls were