Joe's Luck; Or, Always Wide Awake, Jr. Horatio Alger [mobi reader TXT] 📗

boys'll begin to look up to me then. I can't hardly believe it's all true. Maybe I'm dreamin' it. Jest pinch my arm, will you?"

Joe complied with his request.

"That'll do, Joe. You've got some strength in your fingers. I guess it's true, after all."

Joe observed with some surprise that Hogan did not come near them. The rest, without exception, had congratulated them on their extraordinary good luck.

"Seems to me Hogan looks rather down in the mouth," said Joe to
Bickford.

"He's mad 'cause he didn't find the nugget. That's what's the matter with him. I say, Hogan, you look as if your dinner didn't agree with you."

"My luck don't agree with me."

"You don't seem to look at things right. Wasn't you lucky the other day to get away from the bear?"

"I was unlucky enough to fall in with him."

"Wasn't you lucky in meetin' my friend Joe in New York, and raisin' money enough out of him to pay your passage out to Californy?"

"I should be better off in New York. I am dead broke."

"You'd be dead broke in New York. Such fellers as you always is dead broke."

"Do you mean to insult me, Mr. Bickford?" demanded Hogan irritably.

"Oh, don't rare up, Hogan. It won't do no good. You'd ought to have more respect for me, considerin' I was your boss once."

"I'd give something for that boy's luck."

"Joe's luck? Well, things have gone pretty well with turn; but that don't explain all his success—he's willin' to work."

"So am I."

"Then go to work on your claim. There's no knowin' but there's a bigger nugget inside of it. If you stand round with your hands in your pockets, you'll never find it."

"It's the poorest claim in the gulch," said Hogan discontentedly.

"It pays the poorest because you don't work half the time."

Hogan apparently didn't like Mr. Bickford's plainness of speech. He walked away moodily, with his hands in his pockets. He could not help contrasting his penniless position with the enviable position of the two friends, and the devil, who is always in wait for such moments, thrust an evil suggestion into his mind.

It was this:

He asked himself why could he not steal the nugget which Joe had found?

"He can spare it, for he has sold the claim for a fortune," Hogan reasoned. "It isn't fair that he should have everything and I should have nothing. He ought to have made me his partner, anyway. He would if he hadn't been so selfish. I have just as much right to a share in it as this infernal Yankee. I'd like to choke him."

This argument was a very weak one, but a man easily persuades himself of what he wants to do.

"I'll try for it," Hogan decided, "this very night."

CHAPTER XXXVII THE NUGGET IS STOLEN.

At this time Joe and Joshua were occupying a tent which they had purchased on favorable terms of a fellow miner.

They retired in good season, for they wished to start early on their journey on the following morning.

"I don't know as I can go to sleep," said Joshua. "I can't help thinkin' of how rich I am, and what dad and all the folks will say."

"Do you mean to go home at once, Mr. Bickford?"

"Jest as soon as I can get ready. I'll tell you what I am goin' to do, Joe. I'm goin' to buy a tip-top suit when I get to Boston, and a gold watch and chain, and a breast-pin about as big as a saucer. When I sail into Pumpkin Holler in that rig folks'll look at me, you bet. There's old Squire Pennyroyal, he'll be disappointed for one."

"Why will he be disappointed?"

"Because he told dad I was a fool to come out here. He said I'd be back in rags before a year was out. Now, the old man thinks a good deal of his opinion, and he won't like it to find how badly he's mistaken."

"Then he would prefer to see you come home in rags?"

"You bet he would."

"How about Susan? Ain't you afraid she has married the store clerk?"

Joshua looked grave for a moment.

"I won't say but she has," said he; "but if she has gone and forgotten about me jest because my back is turned, she ain't the gal I take her for, and I won't fret my gizzard about her."

"She will feel worse than you when she finds you have come back with money."

"That's so."

"And you will easily find some one else," suggested Joe.

"There's Sophrony Thompson thinks a sight of me," said Mr. Bickford. "She's awful jealous of Susan. If Susan goes back on me, I'll call round and see Sophrony."

Joe laughed.

"I won't feel anxious about you, Joshua," he said, "since I find you have two girls to choose between."

"Not much danger of breakin' my heart. It's pretty tough."

There was a brief silence.

Then Joshua said:

"What are your plans, Joe? Shall you remain in San Francisco?"

"I've been thinking, Mr. Bickford, that I would like to go home on a visit. If I find that I have left my business in good hands in the city, I shall feel strongly tempted to go home on the same steamer with you."

"That would be hunky," said Bickford, really delighted. "We'd have a jolly time."

I think we would. But, Mr. Bickford, I have no girls to welcome me home, as you have."

"You ain't old enough yet, Joe. You're a good-lookin' feller, and when the time comes I guess you can find somebody."

"I don't begin to trouble myself about such things yet," said Joe, laughing. "I am only sixteen."

"You've been through considerable, Joe, for a boy of sixteen. I wish you'd come up to Pumpkin Holler and make me a visit when you're to home."

"Perhaps I can arrange to be present at your wedding, Mr.
Bickford—that is, if Susan doesn't make you wait too long."

While this conversation was going on the dark figure of a man was prowling near the tent.

"Why don't the fools stop talking and go to sleep," muttered Hogan.
"I don't want to wait here all night." His wish was gratified.

The two friends ceased talking and lay quite still. Soon Joe's deep, regular breathing and Bickford's snoring convinced the listener that the time had come to carry out his plans.

With stealthy step he approached the tent, and stooping over gently removed the nugget from under Joshua's head. There was a bag of gold-dust which escaped his notice. The nugget was all he thought of.

With beating heart and hasty step the thief melted into the darkness, and the two friends slept on unconscious of their loss.

CHAPTER XXXVIII HOGAN'S FATE

The sun was up an hour before Joe and Bickford awoke. When Joe opened his eyes he saw that it was later than the hour he intended to rise. He shook his companion.

"Is it mornin'?" asked Bickford drowsily.

"I should say it was. Everybody is up and eating breakfast. We must prepare to set out on our journey."

"Then it is time—we are rich," said Joshua, with sudden remembrance. "Do you know, Joe, I hain't got used to the thought yet. I had actually forgotten it."

"The sight of the nugget will bring it to mind."

"That's so."

Bickford felt for the nugget, without a suspicion that the search would be in vain.

Of course he did not find it.

"Joe, you are trying to play a trick on me," he said. "You've taken the nugget."

"What!" exclaimed Joe, starting. "Is it missing?"

"Yes, and you know all about it. Where have you put it, Joe?"

"On my honor, Joshua, I haven't touched it," said Joe seriously.
"Where did you place it?"

"Under my head—the last thing before I lay down."

"Are you positive of it?"

"Certain, sure."

"Then," said Joe, a little pale, "it must have been taken during the night."

"Who would take it?"

"Let us find Hogan," said Joe, with instinctive suspicion. "Who has seen Hogan?"

Hogan's claim was in sight, but he was not at work. Neither was he taking breakfast.

"I'll bet the skunk has grabbed the nugget and cleared out," exclaimed Bickford, in a tone of conviction.

"Did you hear or see anything of him during the night?"

"No—I slept too sound."

"Is anything else taken?" asked Joe. "The bag of dust———"

"Is safe. It's only the nugget that's gone."

The loss was quickly noised about the camp. Such an incident was of common interest. Miners lived so much in common—their property was necessarily left so unguarded—that theft was something more than misdemeanor or light offense. Stern was the justice which overtook the thief in those days. It was necessary, perhaps, for it was a primitive state of society, and the code which in established communities was a safeguard did not extend its protection here.

Suspicion fell upon Hogan at once. No one of the miners remembered to have seen him since rising.

"Did any one see him last night?" asked Joe.

Kellogg answered.

"I saw him near your tent," he said. "I did not think anything of it. Perhaps if I had been less sleepy I should have been more likely to suspect that his design was not a good one."

"About what hour was this?"

"It must have been between ten and eleven o'clock."

"We did not go to sleep at once. Mr. Bickford and I were talking over our plans."

"I wish I'd been awake when the skunk come round," said Bickford. "I'd have grabbed him so he'd thought an old grizzly'd got hold of him."

"Did you notice anything in his manner that led you to think he intended robbery?" asked Kellogg.

"He was complainin' of his luck. He thought Joe and I got more than our share, and I'm willin' to allow we have; but if we'd been as lazy and shif'less as Hogan we wouldn't have got down to the nugget at all."

An informal council was held, and it was decided to pursue Hogan. As it was uncertain in which direction he had fled, it was resolved to send out four parties of two men each to hunt him. Joe and Kellogg went together, Joshua and another miner departed in a different direction, and two other pairs started out.

"I guess we'll fix him," said Mr. Bickford. "If he can dodge us all, he's smarter than I think he is."

Meanwhile Hogan, with the precious nugget in his possession, hurried forward with feverish haste. The night was dark and the country was broken. From time to time he stumbled over some obstacle, the root of a tree or something similar, and this made his journey more arduous.

"I wish it was light," he muttered.

Then he revoked his wish. In the darkness and obscurity lay his hopes of escape.

"I'd give half this nugget if I was safe in San Francisco," he said to himself.

He stumbled on, occasionally forced by his fatigue to sit down and rest.

"I hope I'm going in the right direction, but I don't know," he said to himself.

He had been traveling with occasional rests for four hours when fatigue overcame him. He lay down to take a slight nap, but when he awoke the sun was up.

"Good Heaven!" he exclaimed in alarm. "I must have slept for some hours. I will eat something to give me strength, and then I must hurry on."

He had taken the precaution to take some provisions with him, and he began to eat them as he hurried along.

"They have just discovered their loss," thought Hogan. "Will they follow me, I wonder? I must be a good twelve miles away, and this is a fair start. They will turn back before they have come as far as this. Besides, they won't know in what direction I have come."

Hogan was mistaken in supposing himself to