Charlie to the Rescue, R. M. Ballantyne [classic english novels TXT] 📗

diggin’s are used to travellin’ night an’ day. An’ the troopers’ report o’ the weather might be worse. You was sayin’ somethin’ about duty, wasn’t you?”

“Right, Jackson,” returned Dick, “but Black Polly is not used to travellin’ night an’ day. If she was, I’d take her back to-night, for moonlight is good enough for a man that has twice taken soundin’s along the road, an’ who’s well up in all the buoys, beacons, an’ landmarks, but it would be cruelty to the good mare.”

“Duty first, Dick, the mare second. You don’t need to trouble about her. I’ll lend ye one o’ my best horses an’ take good care o’ Black Polly till Hunky Ben claims her.”

“Thank ’ee, Jackson, but I’ll not part wi’ Black Polly till I’ve delivered her to her owner. I won’t accept your invite to stop here three or four days, but neither will I start off to-night. I’ve too much regard for the good mare to do that.”

“Ho! ho!” thought his host, with an inward chuckle, “it’s not so much the mare as Mary that you’ve a regard for, my young sailor!”

But in spite of his name the man was much too polite to express this opinion aloud. He merely said, “Well, Dick, you know that you’re welcome to squat here as long or as short a time as you like, an’ use the best o’ my horses, if so disposed, or do the postboy business on Black Polly. Do as ye like wi’ me an’ mine, boy, for it’s only fair to say that but for your help this day my Mary an’ me would have bin done for.”

They reached the stable as he was speaking, and Jackson at once turned the conversation on the horses, thus preventing a reply from Dick—in regard to which the latter was not sorry.

In the stall the form of Black Polly looked grander than ever, for her head nearly touched the roof as she raised it and turned a gleaming eye on the visitors, at the same time uttering a slight whinny of expectation.

“Why, I do believe she has transferred her affections to you, Dick,” said Jackson. “I never heard her do that before except to Hunky Ben, and she’s bin many a time in that stall.”

“More likely that she expected Ben had come to bid her good-night,” returned the sailor.

But the way in which the beautiful creature received Dick’s caresses induced Jackson to hold to his opinion. It is more probable, however, that some similarity of disposition between Dick Darvall and Hunky Ben had commended itself to the mare, which was, as much as many a human being, of an amiable, loving disposition. She thoroughly appreciated the tenderness and forbearance of her master, and, more recently, of Dick. No doubt the somewhat rough way in which she had been thrown to the ground that day may have astonished her, but it evidently had not soured her temper.

That night Dick did not see much of Mary. She was far too busy attending to, and providing for, the numerous guests at the ranch to be able to give individual attention to any one in particular—even had she been so disposed.

Buttercup of course lent able assistance to her mistress in these domestic duties, and, despite her own juvenility—we might perhaps say, in consequence of it—gave Mary much valuable advice.

“Dat man’s in a bad way,” said she, as, with her huge lips pouting earnestly, she examined the contents of a big pot on the fire. The black maiden’s lips were so pronounced and expressive that they might almost be said to constitute her face!

“What man?” asked Mary, who, with her sleeves tucked up to the elbows, was manipulating certain proportions of flour, water, and butter.

“Why, Dick, oh course. He’s de only man wuth speakin’ about.”

Mary blushed a little in spite of herself, and laughed hilariously as she replied—

“Dear me, Butter, I didn’t think he had made such a deep impression on you.”

“’S not on’y on me he’s made a ’mpress’n,” returned the maid, carelessly. “He makes de same ’mpress’n on eberybody.”

“How d’you know?” asked Mary.

“’Cause I see,” answered the maid.

She turned her eyes on her mistress as she spoke, and immediately a transformation scene was presented. The eyes dwindled into slits as the cheeks rose, and the serious pout became a smile so magnificent that ivory teeth and scarlet gums set in ebony alone met the gaze of the beholder.

“Buttercup,” exclaimed Mary, stamping her little foot firmly, “it’s boiling over!”

She was right. Teeth and gums vanished. The eyes returned, so did the pout, and the pot was whipped off the fire in a twinkling, but not before a mighty hiss was heard and the head of the black maiden was involved in a cloud of steam and ashes!

“I told you so!” cried Mary, quoting from an ancient Manuscript.

“No, you di’n’t,” retorted her servitor, speaking from the depths of her own consciousness.

We refrain from following the conversation beyond this point, as it became culinary and flat.

Next day Dick Darvall, refreshed—and, owing to some quite inexplicable influences, enlivened—mounted Black Polly and started off alone for Traitor’s Trap, leaving his heart and a reputation for cool pluck behind him.

Of course he was particularly watchful and circumspect on the way up, but saw nothing to call for a further display of either pluck or coolness. On arriving at the cave he found his friends there much as he had left them. Buck Tom, owing to the skilled attentions which he had received from that amateur surgeon, Hunky Ben, and a long refreshing sleep—the result of partial relief from pain—was a good deal better; and poor Leather, cheered by the hope thus raised of his friend’s recovery, was himself considerably improved in health and spirits.

Fortunately for his own peace of mind, it never seemed to occur to Shank that a return to health meant for Buck Tom, death on the gallows. Perhaps his own illness had weakened Shank’s powers of thought. It may be, his naturally thoughtless disposition helped to render him oblivious of the solemn fact, and no one was cruel enough to remind him of it. But Buck himself never forgot it; yet he betrayed no symptom of despondency, neither did he indicate any degree of hope. He was a man of resolute purpose, and had the power of subduing—at least of absolutely concealing—his feelings. To those who nursed him he seemed to be in a state of gentle, colourless resignation.

Charlie Brooke and Hunky Ben, having been out together, had returned well laden with game; and Leather was busy at the fire preparing a savoury mess of the same for his sick friend when Dick arrived.

“News from the old country!” he exclaimed, holding up the letters on entering the cave. “Two for Charles Brooke, Esquire, and one for Mister Leather!”

“They might have been more polite to me. Hand it here,” said the latter, endeavouring to conceal under a jest his excitement at the sight of a letter from home; for his wild life had cut him off from communication for a very long time.

“One of mine is from old Jacob Crossley,” said Charlie, tearing the letter open with eager interest.

“An’ mine is from sister May,” exclaimed Shank.

If any one had observed Buck Tom at that moment, he would have seen that the outlaw started and rose almost up on one elbow, while a deep flush suffused his bronzed countenance. The action and the flush were only momentary, however he sank down again and turned his face to the wall.

Charlie also started and looked at Shank when the name of May was mentioned, and the eye of Hunky Ben was on him at the moment. But Hunky of course could not interpret the start. He knew little of our hero’s past history—nothing whatever about May. Being a western scout, no line of his mahogany-looking face indicated that the start aroused a thought of any kind.

While the recipients of the letters were busily perusing their missives, Dick Darvall gave the scout a brief outline of his expedition to the ranch, reserving the graphic narration of incidents to a more fitting occasion, when all the party could listen.

“Dick, you’re a trump,” said the scout.

“I’m a lucky fellow, anyhow,” returned Dick.

“In very truth ye are, lad, to escape from such a big bunch o’ Redskins without a scratch; why—”

“Pooh!” interrupted the sailor, “that’s not the luck I’m thinkin’ of. Havin’ overhauled Roarin’ Bull an’ his little girl in time to help rescue them, that’s what I call luck—d’ee see?”

“Yes, I see,” was Hunky Ben’s laconic reply.

Perhaps the scout saw more than was intended, for he probably observed the glad enthusiasm with which the bold seaman mentioned Roaring Bull’s little girl. We cannot tell. His wooden countenance betrayed no sign, and he may have seen nothing; but he was a western scout, and accustomed to take particular note of the smallest signs of the wilderness.

“Capital—first-rate!” exclaimed Charlie, looking up from his letter when he had finished it.

“Just what I was going to say, or something of the same sort,” said Leather, as he folded his epistle.

“Then there’s nothing but good news?” said Charlie.

“Nothing. I suppose it’s the same with you, to judge from your looks,” returned Shank.

“Exactly. Perhaps,” said Charlie, “it may interest you all to hear my letter. There are no secrets in it, and the gentleman who writes it is a jolly old fellow, Jacob Crossley by name. You know him, Dick, as the owner of the Walrus, though you’ve never seen him.”

“All right. I remember; fire away,” said Dick.

“It is dated from his office in London,” continued our hero, “and runs thus:—

“My Dear Brooke,—We were all very glad to hear of your safe arrival in New York, and hope that long before this reaches your hand you will have found poor Leather and got him to some place of comfort, where he may recover the health that we have been given to understand he has lost.

“I chanced to be down at Sealford visiting your mother when your letter arrived; hence my knowledge of its contents. Mrs Leather and her daughter May were then as usual. By the way, what a pretty girl May has become! I remember her such a rumpled up, dress-anyhow, harum-scarum sort of a girl, that I find it hard to believe the tall, graceful, modest creature I meet with now is the same person! Captain Stride says she is the finest craft he ever saw, except that wonderful ‘Maggie,’ about whose opinions and sayings he tells us so much.

“But this is a double digression. To return: your letter of course gave us all great pleasure. It also gave your mother and May some anxiety, where it tells of the necessity of your going up to that wild-west place, Traitor’s Trap, where poor Leather is laid up. Take care of yourself, my dear boy, for I’m told that the red savages are still given to those roasting, scalping, and other torturing that one has read of in the pages of Fenimore Cooper.

“By the way, before I forget it, let me say, in reference to the enclosed bill, it is a loan which I have obtained for Leather, at very moderate interest, and when more is required more can be obtained on the same terms. Let him understand this, for I don’t wish that he should think, on the one hand, that he is drawing on his mother’s slender resources, or, on the other hand, that he is under obligation to any one. I send the bill because I feel quite sure that you started on this expedition with too little. It is drawn in your name, and I think you will be able to cash it at any civilised town—even in the far west!

“Talking of Captain Stride—was I talking of him? Well, no matter. As he is past work now, but thinks himself very far indeed from that condition, I have prevailed on him to accept a new and peculiar post arising out of