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But he put his head back inside the doorway to call out, reassuringly:
“Begging pardon, Mrs. Benton, I’ll ‘spell’ you on the ‘worming out’ business and promise they shan’t leave my care till I hand ’em back to you thoroughly ‘pumped.’ Come along, laddies. I’ve a mind to visit every spot on this blessed ranch and–upon one condition–I’ve a mind to take you with me. Want to hear?”
“Yes. What is it?” demanded Ned, already very happy at the exchange of jailers.
“Only that you must explain what all this row and rumpus is about with Aunt Sally.”
Standing at the top of the steps, with one foot outstretched, old “Forty-niner” paused and steadily regarded the small face above his shoulder.
Ned returned the gaze with equal steadfastness, as if he were pondering in his troubled mind the best course to pursue. Then, because he might think more clearly so, he lifted his serious gaze to the distance; and, at once, there burst from his quivering lips a cry of fear:
“Oh, I see him! I see him! He’s coming, like he said–to kill me–to kill me! I dassent–I dassent!”
CHAPTER XIII.
NED’S STORY
“Eels couldn’t have done that slicker!” commented Ephraim, in surprise. For, behold! his arms were empty and the flash of twinkling legs along the garden path pointed whither his charges had fled. “Here they were and here they aren’t, and whatever scared them that way is more than I can see.”
Indeed, though he shaded his eyes with his hand and made a prolonged examination of the outlook, nothing different from ordinary was visible; and, after a moment’s reflection, he sought Aunt Sally and reported:
“Well, Mrs. Benton, I ’low I’m doomed to that dose of picra, for I–I– You see–”
“Ephraim Ma’sh, where’s them children?”
“That’s just exactly what I’d like to know myself, neighbor.”
“Huh! You needn’t go ‘neighborin’’ me, if that’s all you’re worth. Tryin’ fool capers like a boy, ain’t you? Think it was terr’ble clever to cut strings that I’d took the trouble to tie and then settin’ them youngsters free. Well, all I have to say is that you’ve done more harm than you can undo in a hurry, and that’s the true word,” retorted the indignant matron, beating a bowlful of eggs as she would have enjoyed beating him just then.
Ephraim crossed the kitchen and laid one hand on her shoulder, saying:
“Come, Sally, let’s quit chasing about the bush. There’s something more in this nonsense than appears, and if you’re a true and loyal friend to this family I’m another as good. Two heads are better than one, you know–”
“Even if one belongs to a silly old feller like you? H’m Ephraim, you’re right! There is somethin’ more’n shows outside. That candy was a bait, a trap, a lure, a–anything you choose; and I do hope the little fellers are safer’n I fear they be. If I catch ’em again, for their good–My suz! Here they’re comin’ back of their own free will and wonder ain’t ceased!”
Indeed, as swiftly as they had scampered away, the lads were returning and burst into the kitchen, crying with what little breath they had left:
“Aunt Sally, lock me up! Lock us up tight! Quick–quick! I seen him! He’ll do it! My mother says Antonio always does do things, he does! Quick, quick!”
“Lock up, quick!”
Ned and the echo swung round behind the matron’s capacious person and rolled themselves in the folds of her full skirt, which performance hid them from the view of anyone outside and as effectually interfered with her movements.
But she had now caught something of their excitement, and their appeal to her protection had promptly banished her last trace of anger against them.
“So I will, lambies, so I will. You just keep on a steppin’ backwards and I’ll do it, too, and first we know we’ll get to that nice pantry where we stayed last night. I’ve got the key to that, even if ’tis rusty from not bein’ often used, and I’ll defy anybody to get it away from me.”
Still beating her eggs as if nothing uncommon were happening, the housewife retreated toward the door in question, and slipping one hand behind her opened it without turning her head. She was instantly relieved of the drag upon her skirts, and quietly shut the door again upon her self-imprisoned charges. Then she drew a long breath, and exclaimed:
“Well, sharpshooter, what do you think of that?”
“Looks as if you couldn’t have been so very hard on them, else they’d never come back.”
“I ain’t a-flatterin’ myself. That was a ‘Hobson’s choice.’ But–”
“But they must have been badly frightened to have done it.”
“Yes, Ephraim, they are, and I am. I’m so stirred up I don’t know whether I’ve beat these eggs all one way, like I ought, or forty-’leven different ones, like I ought not. I’m flustered. I’m completely flustered, and that ain’t often my case.”
“Picra!” sympathetically suggested the old man.
Aunt Sally’s eyes snapped, and she smiled grimly, as she retorted:
“Picra’s good for them ’at need it. That’s you, not me. It ain’t a medicine for in’ards so much as ’tis for out’ards. I mean, it’s better for the body than ’tis for the mind, and it’s my mind that’s ailin’ me! Besides, doctors never take their own doses.”
“You know it yourself! I thought your mind was failing you, but–”
“No such thing. I said, or I meant to say, I was troubled in it. That’s all; and if you’re a mite of a man you’ll try and help me unravel this tangle and quit foolin’. Just step into that closet with me and maybe the tackers’ll tell you themselves. I’d rather you heard it first hand, anyway.”
Wun Lung, sifting flour in one part of the kitchen, and Pasqual scrubbing a kneading board at the sink, both paused and eyed the strange proceedings with curiosity if not displeasure; for not only had the children been bestowed within the “cold closet,” but Aunt Sally and Ephraim had, also, followed and locked themselves out of sight and hearing.
The pantry was absolutely dark, until Mrs. Benton found a candle and lighted it; then she pointed to the chair she had occupied during the night, mutely inviting “Forty-niner” to be seated. He declined the proffered courtesy, so she sat down herself, and it amused him that she had not once stopped that monotonous whisking of the eggs, though by this time the dish was heaped with their frothy substance.
“The cake you make of them should be light enough,” he remarked, with a smile.
“You’re right. There’s such a thing as overbeatin’–everything. Well, laddies, we’re all back in here together again, and auntie wants you to tell Mr. Ma’sh where you got that candy; who give it to you; what for; where you saw that sneaky snake, Antonio Bernal; what you’ve done with the staff wand; and all the rest of it? ‘Forty-niner’ is a man and a gentleman–”
“Here the sharpshooter bowed profoundly, acknowledging the compliment with a humorous expression; but the matron continued as if she had not observed him:
“You see, I know all about it, even if you wouldn’t tell. I’m one has eyes on the back of my head and on its top, too, I tell you, so you needn’t try to think I don’t see what’s going on, for I do.”
The faces of her small listeners showed utter amazement; then with one of his flashlike movements Ned sprang to the back of her chair and passed his hand rapidly all over her gray curls.
“Where are they, Aunt Sally? I can’t find ’em. I never saw ’em in all my life, and do–do, please, show them to me!” he implored.
Luis scrambled up the other side, and echoed:
“Never show ’em in m’life!”
“That’s all right. I don’t keep ’em in exhibition, but they’re there all the same.”
“Sally Benton!” expostulated Ephraim. “Don’t tell them wrong stories.”
“But it isn’t a wrong story; it’s a right one. If they’re not real, actual eyes, there’s something in my head takes their place. Might as well say ‘eyes’ as ‘brains,’ I judge. But, be you going to answer, Edward Trent? I’ve got a prime lot of cookin’ to do again, and no time to waste. ’Cause if you ain’t I’ll just take Mr. Ma’sh with me and lock you shavers in here alone, where you’ll be safe, but sort of homesick. I shan’t leave no candle burnin’, for you to set the house afire with. So you best tell, right away, and then be let out to have a good time.”
Luis began to whisper, and beg:
“Tell her, Ned. Tell her. I hate the dark–I do, I do!”
Ned hesitated but a moment longer. He loved his playmate as his own soul, and it altered nothing of this childish David-and-Jonathan friendship that it was as full of fight as of affection. Patting Luis’ shoulder, he cried:
“’Course I’ll tell, though if she knows it all a’ready–”
“But I don’t know it, Ned. She wants you to tell me. I’m one of us, you see–just we four,” interposed the sharpshooter, hastily.
“Well–well–well, ’tisn’t anyhow. Only I saw–I–saw–”
Here the child paused and peered cautiously about.
Mr. Marsh promptly sat down upon the boards and motioned the lads to come to him, and when they had done so, closed his arms around them, with a comforting pressure, saying:
“There now! We’re as snug as bugs in a rug, and nobody in the wide world dare harm you. Hurry up and talk fast, or you and I will never get a taste of that fine poundcake Aunt Sally wants to make.”
Another moment of hesitation, and then came Ned’s triumphant statement:
“’Twasn’t no ghost, anyhow.”
“Of course it wasn’t,” answered “Forty-niner,” promptly agreeing, but considerably puzzled. He had not, as yet, heard from any of the others about the “vision” which Mrs. Benton had seen beside the window.
“’Twasn’t nobody but ’Tonio himself.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” he again agreed, and encouragingly patted the boy’s hand.
“And he come–and he come–and he gave us one–two boxes of that nice, nice candy; and all we gave him was Pedro’s old stick!”
Aunt Sally’s egg beater fell to the floor unheeded, this time she really put her spectacles in their proper place and stared through them at the narrator.
Ned warmed to his task and Luis cuddled beside him, complacently adding his affirmative “Yep,” at fitting intervals.
“And so he said it wasn’t nothin’. And so–and so–I fell offen the bookcase and made a noise; and my mother didn’t hear it ’cause she was asleep. Me and Luis was asleep, wasn’t we, Luis?”
“Yep. Sleep.”
“And he waked us up through the window–”
“Waked froo winder, yep.”
“And said: ‘Go get that pointed stick, Ned Trent, and I’ll give you a dollar.’ Didn’t he?”
“Gimme dollar. Didn’t gimme dollar. What’s a dollar?” asked the echo.
Ned went on, unheeding:
“And I said no. ’Twasn’t my stick; ’twas my mother’s.”
“Oh! Neddy, Neddy! if you’d only stuck to that!” groaned Mrs. Benton, wiping her face with her apron.
But being now fairly launched upon his narrative, and also feeling wholly secure within the shelter of “Forty-niner’s” arms, Ned paused no more till he had completed it:
“And then he gave us the candy, ’cause I didn’t want dollars. You can’t eat dollars, can you? And the candy was like the kind my mother never gives, and just for an old stick was older than Pedro. Huh! And then he–he–he made me put my hand on the top of my head–”
“Hands on tops of heads!” cried the echo, dramatically.
“And swore a swore I’d never, never, honest Injun, tell a single tell, else he’d–he’d kill me! Kill me right straight down dead! And now I have and he will, and I forgot and you made me! I hate you, I hate you! And won’t you feel bad when I’m all deaded and you you done it, ’stead of him–and–and–”
The sense of security had fled instantly, and completely. The memory of Antonio’s dark face as he had stood threateningly before the little fellow, at midnight by the window, returned with all its vivid, terrorizing power. Springing to the farthest reach of the room Ned crouched there, wide-eyed and trembling, and, of course, Luis followed his example.
To “Forty-niner’s” reassuring words, and to Mrs. Benton’s cajoling ones, neither child paid any further heed. They had been trained to believe that their promised word was the most sacred of all things, and now they had not only been induced to break that, but to break it in the face of Antonio Bernal’s terrible threat.
The elders left them to themselves and regarded one another with regretful eyes. Then Aunt Sally repeated in detail all that there was to tell concerning the curious wand which had pointed the way to wealth; and now Ephraim listened in vast respect. On the first recital, so hurriedly given by Jessica, and when she had run to get the staff, he had thought of the matter as one of the shepherd’s “pious mummeries.” It now assumed a graver aspect. The lost staff might possess some magnetic quality which was invaluable, as Old Century believed; but beyond all that was the uncomfortable reflection that Antonio Bernal was somewhere in hiding about Sobrante, and that doubtless it had been he, or his emissary, who had tampered with the mail pouch and caused Marty’s disaster.
“Well, a man that hides must have somethin’ to be ashamed of. And I believe every single word that child has told,” said Aunt Sally, in conclusion of her long harangue.
“H’m! I thought that ‘snake’ had had his fang extracted down there at Los Angeles; but it seems he’s the sort can grow a new one, when needed. Well, I’m powerful glad I’m home again. It takes a lot of honest men to keep watch of one thief, and I’ll prove handy. I’m off. I leave the lads with you. I’m going to find out three things: How Ferd, the dwarf, managed to break jail that night and leave no sign; who robbed that mail pouch; and where Antonio Bernal is at this precious minute.”
“Here, at your service, amigo!” cried a mocking voice, outside the shuttered window. A voice that all recognized at once as belonging to the late manager; yet, when Ephraim had hastily run out and around to that side of the house, there was nobody within sight; and nothing to be heard save the series of terrified shrieks which issued from the room he had left.
CHAPTER XIV.
TAKING THE DOCTOR’S ADVICE
For almost the first time in his life Ninian Sharp was under the doctor’s hands; and that gentleman’s verdict upon his patient’s case was simple and plain:
“Nothing the matter with you but breakdown. The result of doing two men’s work instead of one. What you need, and all you need, is a complete change of thought and scene. Go off on some ranch and take a vacation. That’s your medicine.”
“Thank you, doctor, but a prescription upon the nearest drug store would be easier to fill. In the first place I should worry all the time if I were idle, for ‘hustling’ has become my second nature. In the second–where shall I go?”
The physician shrugged his shoulders. He, also, was a busy man and having finished his visit to his patient did not prolong it. He picked up his hat, remarked that he “didn’t doubt so clever a young man could find a fitting place, if he gave what was left of his mind to it,” and bowed himself out, leaving the leaven of his sensible advice to accomplish its legitimate result.
As the doctor left the room the nurse entered, bearing with her a telegram which had been delayed en route, and a letter. It was with some reluctance that she delivered these to the man on the lounge, yet realizing, at the same time, how much worse for him was absolute cessation of all his ordinary interests. With a solicitous smile, she inquired:
“Would you not better let me read these first? They are probably unimportant.”
“Thank you, no. I’m not yet reduced to imbecility and prefer to examine my own correspondence,” returned the invalid, fretfully. Then as if ashamed of his petulance, and with a return to his ordinary manner, added: “This telegram might as well have walked. Would have saved time, judging by the date of it; and as for this letter–that, certainly, has seen better days.”
The nurse smiled again, indulgently, and busied herself in tidying the apartment; an occupation which would have incensed Ninian, since her idea of neatness seemed to him to be but the “disarrangement” of the heaps of papers and manuscript sheets scattered everywhere about, had he not been otherwise interested. A hasty examination of the messages he had received evoked his exultant exclamation:
“Hurrah! The very thing!”
“Good news?” asked the attendant.
“The best in the world. The doctor’s prescription, filled to the letter. A ranch and new business. Say, would you mind going out for a bit? I’d like to get into some other togs and in a hurry. If I can, I’ll make the one o’clock train.”
“The–one o’clock train!” gasped the bewildered nurse, believing that her charge’s brain had given away, even as the physician had suggested it might do.
“Exactly. Please don’t be alarmed. Some country friends of mine have invited me to visit them, and I judge they would be glad if I accepted at once. Their invitation fits in excellently with my own needs and, after I’ve dressed for the trip, I’d be grateful to you for packing a few things, while I write to the bank and telephone to some other places. Just touch that messenger call, will you, please?”
Certainly, he did not now look very like a sick man, as he sprang up and looked about him; save that he put his hand to his head because of a momentary dizziness and seemed somewhat unsteady on his feet. However, his eyes had lost their dullness and a faint color had come into his cheeks; and the attendant saw no reason for opposing his sudden determination.
The letter was Jessica’s, and its envelope had been mended by the postmaster after he had taken it, torn, from the mail pouch. The telegram was from Ephraim Marsh, and had been sent by the first messenger to Marion after that scene in the pantry with Aunt Sally and the little boys. It had been delayed by the curiosity of the operator, but had reached Mr. Sharp at last; and its import was that:
“If you’re willing to use your brains for Sobrante folks, as you used them once before, now’s the time. There’ll be a led horse at Marion till you come, and the sooner the better. ‘Forty-niner.’”
“A led horse. Why, he must have forgotten, if he ever knew, that I’ve my own Nimrod here, that Mrs. Trent insisted upon my accepting, when I left Sobrante before. The horse must go with me, of course, and I flatter myself I can pick up a bit of instruction on riding among those fine ‘boys’ of the little captain’s. I’ll send a return message–no, I won’t, either. I’ll trust to luck and surprise them. Now to get ready.”
A feeling that he was going “home” possessed the young man, and all his simple preparations strengthened rather than weakened him. Activity was his habit, and an hour before the train left the city he had completed his personal arrangements with his office, his bank and his landlord. He had paid his nurse the same salary she would have received had he required her services for the fortnight, as expected, and was ready for what came next.
“I feel as if I were entering upon a new life, instead of taking a rest cure,” he remarked to Mr. Hale, when that gentleman met him at the station, and explained that a Christmas invitation had come for himself, also. “And I say we’ll make it the jolliest holiday those people down there ever knew. I sent a letter to your address, after I ’phoned, and made out a list of things I’d like you to see to. Presents and so on; and I’ll write as soon as I get there and let you know what’s up with the sharpshooter. Some trouble, of course, but reckon it can’t be much. Ha! we’re off. Good-by. Forget nothing, add as much as you please to my list and send the bills to me. Good-by.”
The train rolled noiselessly away from the long platform, and the reporter for the Lancet stowed himself comfortably away on his cushions and slept as he had not slept before since this nervous illness attacked him. Not once did he awake, till the conductor touched him on the shoulder, and stated:
“End of the line, sir. Time to leave.”
Ninian sat up and shook himself, still feeling a bit dazed from his heavy slumber, and had scarcely realized the fact of his arrival before a man limped into the car and slapped him on the shoulder.
“Well done, lad. Welcome to Sobrante!”
“Hello, Mr. Marsh! You here? Sobrante? I thought–”
“Same thing. This is Marion; as near as we can get to our place on the rails. Remember, don’t you? Been sick, eh? You look rather peaked and I ’low I’d ought–”
“No apologies. Here I am, and am not ill now. Only been a little overworked; and your telegram, as well as Miss Jessica’s letter, came in the nick of time. Not an hour after the doctor had ordered this very medicine of change and recreation.”
Ephraim looked sharply at his guest and reflected:
“What our business needs is a clear head and a strong body, not an overtaxed man, as this ’pears to be. Well, sick or well, I hope he can see through some of our muddles, if not all; and half a loaf is better than no bread.” Then he gathered the traveler’s belongings, and remarked: “I told Aleck to have a good supper ready. It’s a fine night and I thought we’d ride home afterwards. Unless–”
They left the car and Ninian answered the other’s unspoken suggestion:
“No, I don’t want to stay all night, good as Janet’s beds are. I’ve had a delicious sleep and feel like another man from this morning. Hello! they’ve taken Nimrod out already, and evidently are waiting for orders. I declare, the handsome beast looks as if he recognized this place and was as glad to get back to it as I am.”
Old “Forty-niner” left his guest’s side and hurried to the spot where a trainman held the spirited animal, stroking its neck and speaking soothingly to it, to calm its excitement; and no sooner had the ranchman’s hand supplanted the trainman’s than Nimrod ceased to prance, and with a little final shiver, stood stock-still, uttering a low whinny of delight.
“That’s the talk, you beauty! Welcome home, old boy! Well, well, well! if you ain’t a sight to cure the headache! Yes, yes; it’s all right. This is Marion. We’ve got to stop at Aleck’s first. Remember Aleck? Remember Janet and her sugar? Well, well, well!”
Ninian approached, amazed and incredulous, inquiring:
“Think that creature knows what you’re saying?”
“Forty-niner” turned upon the questioner indignantly.
“That’s a fool sort of question for a smart man to ask! ‘Think’ he knows? No. There isn’t any ‘thinking’ in this. I know he knows, and I know he’s just as glad to set foot on his mother earth, here in Marion, as I was t’other day when I stepped off this same train–or its mate of the morning. I wish all the men in the world were half as brainy as he is. And I tell you what, stranger, you couldn’t have done a thing would make your own welcome so sure as fetching Nimrod with you. If you’d left him behind some of us would have had our own opinion. Though I, for one, didn’t know he was yours till this very morning.”
“And the led horse you spoke about?”
Ephraim looked up, surprised, answering, rather crisply:
“At home. Why not? When I heard about Nimrod I wasn’t silly enough to bring another.”
“So if I hadn’t brought him we’d been short a mount?” insisted the reporter, teasingly.
“One of us would had to foot it to the ranch, and that one wouldn’t have been me. Huh! Does me good to hear your nonsense gabble again. I declare it does. When did you get my telegraph?”
“This morning.”
“This–morning! Why, I sent it day before yesterday, no, the day before that. Let me see; to-day’s one, yesterday–the funeral, two–the one–yes, three days ago. John Benton himself gave it into the telegraph man’s hands. Himself.”
They mounted and started toward McLeod’s Inn, Ninian doing very well, considering the impatience of his steed and his own limited experience of the saddle, and the sharpshooter sitting as composedly upon the back of as restless an animal as could readily be found. It was a bay, and pranced and curveted to the extent that Nimrod seemed a door-mouse beside it, and Ninian finally observed:
“That’s an undecided sort of beast you have, yourself. Seems to be as much inclined to go backward as forward.”
“Hale’s. Name Prince. Was on the mesa with Pedro till he died.”
“Pedro dead? I’m sorry. Was it his ‘funeral’ you meant?”
“Yes. Terrible pity he couldn’t have held on till Christmas, his Navidad, that always meant so much to him. But he couldn’t. Things have changed at Sobrante since you was here. I’m glad you’ve come. I’m powerful glad you’ve come.”
“Any new trouble, Ephraim?”
“H’m! I should say. Ghosts, the women think, and scamps for certain. But it’s a long story, and here we are at Aleck’s. We mustn’t spoil that good supper of his and talk will keep. We’ve thirty miles ’twixt us and bed, ’less you change your mind and stop here, and that should give time enough to turn a man’s mind inside out.”
“Were you so certain of my coming that you ordered a special supper, without hearing?”
“Sure. I took you to be a man and I put myself in your place. In your place I should have come if I could; and if I couldn’t I should have sent word. Light.”
Aleck came out to meet them, and Janet followed, of course. Where one of that worthy couple was the other was sure to be; and both extended to the city man such welcome as made him more impressed than ever by that “home feeling” which had possessed him all day. He returned their good wishes with heartiness and did full justice to his supper, adding as a thankful tribute to Janet’s fine cookery:
“That’s the first thing has passed my lips that hadn’t the flavor of ashes, since many a day. The doctor was right.”
“Glad to hear any doctor ever could be right,” returned the innkeeper, who had never been ill, and attributed his health to his distrust of physicians. “Fresh air, wholesome food and a clear conscience–them’s to long life what the three R’s are to ’rithmetic. Powerful sorry you can’t pass the night. I’d admire to talk over the political situation with an intelligent man.”
The side glance toward himself with which the Scotchman said this sent Ephraim off into a mighty guffaw, in which presently they all joined; and in the midst of the merriment a stable boy led up the horses, and the Sobrante-bound riders loped away. Yet, just before they were out of hearing, Aleck’s stentorian voice sent after them the warning advice:
“Keep a sharp lookout, by, and your hands on your guns. That spook’s hit the trail again! Watch out!”
Ninian laughed, and “Forty-niner” tried to do so, but the most he could accomplish was a feeble cackle, which, his companion fancied, betrayed his age as nothing heretofore had done. It was a nervous, irritated laugh, and was matched by the altered voice in which its owner presently remarked:
“If I can’t stop this fool business any other way, I’ve a notion to ride round the country and shoot right and left, everybody I see, promiscuous. That’s the sure and certain way to hit the spook, too.”
“Heigho! This grows exciting! Spooks? Mysteries? Mail robberies! What next?”
There was no answer from the sharpshooter, who had gotten his horse into a steady trot and was putting the road behind him in a manner that needed all Ninian’s efforts to match. If Nimrod had been as little used to the trail as his rider was to him the space between the two animals would have widened irretrievably; but he was the better bred of the two, and though he didn’t waste his strength in a first spurt, as Prince did, he fell into a steady, easy gait, that soon told to his advantage.
It was one of the perfect moonlight nights which come in that cloudless region, when one can easily “read fine print,” if so inclined, or see across country almost as well as in the day. The swift motion, the exhilarating air, the sense of freedom from city walls and cramped spaces, started the reporter into singing, and later into the silence of wonder over the astonishing power of his own voice.
“Hurrah! If that’s my warble I never heard it before! It’s a marvelous atmosphere that makes a rag time tune sound like a nightingale’s music. If ‘Forty-niner’ would join it–Hello! what’s up? What in–the name–of–all things!”
