Charlie to the Rescue, Robert Michael Ballantyne [pocket ebook reader txt] 📗

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 the curious evolutions of the firm of Withers and
Company which satisfies the firm completely and suits the captain to a
T. As the work can be done anywhere, a residence has been taken for
him in Sealford, mid-way between that of your mother and Mrs Leather,
so that he and his wife and little girl can run into either port when
so disposed. As Mrs L, however (to use his own phraseology), is
almost always to be found at anchor in the Brooke harbour, he usually
kills both with the same visit. I have not been to see him yet in the
new abode, and do not know what the celebrated Maggie thinks of it.

"When you find Leather, poor fellow, tell him that his mother and
sister are very well. The former is indefatigable in knitting those
hundreds of socks and stockings for poor people, about which there has
been, and still is, and I think ever will be, so much mystery. The
person who buys them from her must be very deep as well as honest, for
no inquiries ever throw any fresh light on the subject, and he--or
she, whichever it is--pays regularly as the worsted work is
delivered--so I'm told! It is a little old lady who pays--but I've
reason to believe that she's only a go-between--some agent of a
society for providing cheap clothing for the poor, I fancy, which the
poor stand very much in need of, poor things! Your good mother helps
in this work--at least so I am told, but I'm not much up in in the
details of it yet. I mean to run down to see them in a few days and
hear all about it.

"Stride, I forgot to say, is allowed to smoke a pipe in your mother's
parlour when he pays her a visit. This is so like her amiability, for
she hates tobacco as much as I do. I ventured on a similarly amiable
experiment one day when the worthy Captain dined with me, but the
result was so serious that I have not ventured to repeat it. You
remember my worthy housekeeper, Mrs Bland? Well, she kicked over the
traces and became quite unmanageable. I had given Stride leave to
smoke after dessert, because I had a sort of idea that he could nor
digest his food without a pipe. You know my feelings with regard to
_young_ fellows who try to emulate chimneys, so you can understand
that my allowing the Captain to indulge was no relaxation of my
principles, but was the result of a strong objection I had to spoil
the dinner of a man who was somewhat older than myself by cramming my
principles down his throat.

"But the moment that Mrs Bland entered I knew by the glance of her
eye, as well as by the sniff of her nose, that a storm was brewing
up--as Stride puts it--and I was not wrong. The storm burst upon me
that evening. It's impossible, and might be tedious, to give you all
the conversation that we had after Stride had gone, but the upshot was
that she gave me warning.

"`But, my good woman,' I began--

"`It's of no use good-womaning me, Mr Crossley,' said she, `I
couldn't exist in a 'ouse w'ere smokin' is allowed. My dear father
died of smokin'--at least, if he didn't, smokin' must 'ave 'ad
somethink to do with it, for after the dear man was gone a pipe an' a