PROLOGUE.

One hot, sultry August afternoon, a weary horse, whose heaving sides and foam-flecked breast bore evidence to the fact that he had been driven long and rapidly, was reined up in front of a little station on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. His rider—a tall, broad-shouldered, full-bearded man—was dressed in clothing which seems to have been chosen by the ranchmen of the country of which we write, as a badge distinctive of their calling—a red shirt, wide-brimmed hat, corduroy trousers and heavy top boots.

He was armed and equipped as the law of the plains directs—a heavy Winchester rifle 6being slung at his back, and a brace of navy revolvers buckled about his waist.

Before his horse had fairly come to a stand-still, he swung himself from the saddle, hurried into the telegraph office, drew a couple of blanks toward him, and, after writing a hasty dispatch upon each, handed them to the operator.

The latter read them with great deliberation, counted the words they contained, and no one would have imagined, by looking at his impassive face, that he had made himself master of a piece of news that was destined to work the most remarkable changes in the lives of some of the characters who are to appear in our story.

Having received pay for the dispatches, the operator seated himself at his instrument and sent them off, while the horseman sprang into his saddle and rode slowly away.

Let us go with these telegrams and see where they went, and how they were received by those to whom they were addressed. They both sped over the same wire until they reached the city of Chicago, and then one 7turned off and made its way to the little town of Bolton, in Indiana, where we will leave it for the present, while we follow the other, which finally reached its journey’s end in a thriving village in one of our Eastern States.

The operator at the latter place, when he heard his “call” sounded, seated himself at his table with his usual nonchalance; but, before he had written half a dozen words, a surprised and grieved expression settled on his face, and, when the dispatch had been copied, he leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply.

“By George!” he exclaimed aloud.

“What’s the matter?” asked a messenger boy, who stood at his elbow.

“That’s telling,” was the answer. “If you are ever able to run a ticker of your own, you will know that it is against the law to reveal the contents of the messages you receive. Take this up to Mrs. Butler’s, and be quick about it. It is for Bob Howard—all the way from Arizona.”

“By George!” repeated the operator, when the messenger boy was out of hearing. “It’s 8too bad. It will pretty near kill Bob—and this is his last day at school, and he is going to start for the West to-morrow morning. He’ll go to a desolate home, poor fellow! If I had the money he is heir to, I wouldn’t spend many more hours at this table, I bet you!”

The messenger boy broke into a run as soon as he was out of the office, and presently mounted the steps leading to the door of a modest house in a quiet street.

His pull at the bell was answered by a motherly-looking old lady, who took the message, signed her own name to the receipt book, because she didn’t believe that Mr. Howard had yet come from the academy, and then went up-stairs and laid the dispatch upon the centre-table in a nicely furnished room, propping it up against a book, so that it would be sure to meet the eye of the person for whom it was intended as soon as he entered at the door.

He came a few minutes later—a tall, dark youth, with coal-black hair and eyes, and a countenance so striking, that, when you had 9taken one look at it, you always wanted to turn and take another. You knew that he was a young gentleman as soon as you put your eyes on him.

He was a favorite with the girls because of his handsome face and figure; with his teachers, because of his studious habits and strict regard for the rules of school; and with his fellows, because of his kindness of heart and his proficiency in every athletic sport.

Frail as he looked, he took the lead of them all. No academy boy had ever taken his measure on the campus, and as for sparring and fencing, his superiority was acknowledged by everybody. He was a good oarsman, a lightning pitcher, a terrific batter, and dead sure of making a double shot on quails or snipe as often as the opportunity was offered. Many a poor student had his money helped out of a tight place; and, although Bob never let one hand know what the other hand did, those who were the recipients of his favors could always tell where they came from.

10The companion who followed at his heels was a different sort of boy altogether. He was short and thick-set, and as homely as he was good-natured, and his whole appearance indicated that he had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

His name was George Edwards, and he was janitor of the academy. His lot had always been a hard one—how hard you will see as our story progresses—and George could not remember the time when he had not been dependent upon his own exertions for his daily bread.

Up to the hour he made the acquaintance of Bob Howard, his life had been one fierce and constant struggle with poverty; but, since that memorable afternoon, his pathway had been made smoother for him.

Having introduced our heroes, whom we hope you will like, we will describe the circumstances under which they first met, and then we will go back to the telegrams, which bear an important part in our story.

CHAPTER I. GEORGE AND HIS UNCLE.

“Well, George, it is either that or the poorhouse.”

“There’s where I differ with you, Uncle Ruben.”

“You are an ungrateful scamp. Here I am, offerin’ you a good home—”

“I know you offer me shelter, food and clothing, but you can’t give me a home. I shall never have one again, now that my mother is dead.”

“And your father in prison for stealin’.”

“You might have spared me that, Uncle Ruben. I know he is in prison, and there is no need that you and everybody else should constantly remind me of it. I am in no way to blame for what he did.”

“Mebbe you hain’t. But can’t you see how it’s a hurtin’ of you? Who is there 12about here that would be willin’ to hire the son of a thief?”

“I don’t care to talk to you now, Uncle Ruben. Leave me alone for a day or two, and then I will tell you what I have decided to do.”

“Might as well decide now as any time. I reckon you know that this house an’ everything what’s into it belongs to me, don’t you? I didn’t say nothing to your mother about it when she was alive, ’cause she was my brother’s wife, and I didn’t want to pester her; but now—”

“I know you didn’t say anything about the mortgage, but I notice that you always demanded the interest the moment it was due. You took it, too, when you knew that my mother didn’t have money enough in the house to buy a sack of flour.”

“Well, it was my due, an’ I wanted it.”

George Edwards uttered an exclamation of disgust, and, leaning his elbows on the railing that surrounded the porch, he rested his chin on his hands, and gazed off towards the distant hills; while Uncle Ruben paced 13up and down in front of the house, thrashing his cowhide boots with his riding whip, and taking a survey of the buildings and grounds that were soon to come into his possession by virtue of the mortgage he held upon them.

He was a very mean man, this Ruben Edwards—the meanest man in all that country, so everybody said—and you would have known it the minute you looked at him. He loved money, and not unfrequently resorted to questionable means in order to get it.

He owned several farms in the neighborhood, and was now congratulating himself on having secured another. True, it was not much of an acquisition. All he saw, as he looked about him, were a few acres of stony, unproductive land, a small, unpainted dwelling-house, and a few outbuildings, all of which showed signs of decay, in spite of the efforts the industrious George had made to keep them in repair.

It was no wonder that George did not want to talk to his uncle on this particular morning. He did not believe that there was 14a boy in the world who was so utterly miserable as he was, or who had so little to live for.

He had always been looked down on and shunned by the boys of his acquaintance on account of the conduct of his father, who was one of the village vagabonds; and, since the latter had been shut up in the penitentiary for breaking into a store and stealing money that he was too lazy to work for, poor George had had a hard time of it. No one in that village would have anything to do with him.

He left school and tried to find something to do in order to support his mother, who was an invalid; but nobody needed his services.

“There’s work enough to be done,” he often said to his mother, when he came home from his long tramps, weary and dusty; “but they won’t give me a chance. They are all suspicious of me. But never mind; you shan’t suffer. I have long been thinking of something; and, since no one will hire me, I shall go into business for myself.”

15And he did, just as soon as he could make the necessary arrangements.

The people who would not let him saw their wood, because they were afraid he would steal something, did not refuse to purchase the delicious trout and yellow perch that he peddled from door to door, and neither did the luscious berries he brought in from distant fields and pastures ever remain long on his hands.

He made money; but he often became disheartened, and angry, too, when he drew a contrast between his circumstances and those of the boys about him, and then all that was needed was a smile or a word of praise from his mother to bring all his courage and determination back to him again. But now she was gone—the only friend he ever had. She had been dead just a week, and George was lonely, indeed.

He wanted to get out into the woods by himself, and stay there, and he was already making preparations to take a final leave of the house which he could no longer call his home, when he saw his Uncle Ruben’s old 16clay-bank pacer coming down the road, and Uncle Ruben himself in the saddle.

George was not at all pleased to see him, for he knew pretty nearly what the man would have to say to him.

“’Taint no great shakes of a place,” said Uncle Ruben, after running his eye over the house and its surroundings. “But mebbe I can sell it for enough to save myself. Then you won’t go home with me an’ work for your board and clothes?”

“No, I won’t,” replied George promptly.

He did not thank his relative for his offer, for he knew the object he had in making it.

George was very strong for a boy of his age, and fully capable of doing a man’s work in the field; and he knew that his services there would be worth much more than his board and clothes. So did Uncle Ruben; but the latter thought it would be a good thing if he could induce his nephew to agree to his proposition, for it would be a saving to him of twenty or thirty dollars a month.

“If you will stay with me till you are twenty-one years old, I will give you a yoke 17of oxen an’ a good suit of clothes to begin life with,” added Uncle Ruben. “That’s customary, you know.”

“I know it is,” answered George. “But if I live to see the age of twenty-one, I shall have more than a yoke of worthless old oxen and a suit of shoddy clothes, I tell you!”

Uncle Ruben winced a little at this.

“I saw the outfit you gave to one of your bound boys, who had served you faithfully for six long years,” continued George. “The oxen were not worth the powder to blow them up, and the clothes fell to pieces in less than a month. You can’t palm any of your old trash off on me. I can do better.”

“I don’t see how. Whose goin’ to hire you?”

“I don’t ask any one to hire me. I’ve got a business of my own that enabled me to support my mother, and to pay your interest on the very day it became due.”

“But you shan’t foller it no longer,” said Uncle Ruben, decidedly. “Boys like you don’t know what’s best for themselves. You 18need a guardeen, an’ I shall ask the selectmen to have you bound out to me until you are of age.”

“I don’t care if you do,” replied George, in a voice choked with indignation. “Having no property, I do not need a guardian, and I won’t have one, either. I can take care of myself.”

“I know what you want to do,” said Uncle Ruben, with a sneer. “You’re too scandalous lazy to work for a livin’, an’ you want to go back to that shanty of yours in the woods, an’ live there, trappin’ and fishin’, jest for all the world like a wild Injun. But that ain’t a respectable way to live—that way ain’t—an’ I shan’t consent to it.”

“I haven’t asked your consent. I have a right to make an honest living in any way I can, and I intend to exercise that right. I am not too lazy to work; but, as you say, there is no one about here who will give me anything to do. I am not going to starve and go ragged, however, for all that.”

“Be you goin’ to stay up there in the woods all your life?” inquired Uncle Ruben.

19“No, I am not. I want to be something better than a hermit. I intend to stay up there until I can save money enough to take me to some place where I am not known, and then I shall make a new start.”

“Well, we’ll wait until we hear what the selectmen have to say about that,” answered Uncle Ruben, with a grin and a wink which seemed to indicate that he felt sure of his ground. “Mebbe they’ll think, as I do, that it’s best for you to go with me, so that you can have somebody what knows something to take care on you. You can stay here till I can have time to go an’ see ’em.”

“I don’t care to stay in this house another night,” replied George, quickly. “I was getting ready to leave it when I saw you coming. If you have got through talking, I’ll go now.”

So saying, George disappeared through the open door, and, when he came out again, he carried over his shoulder a heavy bundle, at which Uncle Ruben gazed with suspicion.

“Everything in here belongs to me, and was purchased with money that I earned 20myself,” said the boy, who understood the look. “If you don’t believe it—”

Here George threw the bundle down upon the porch within reach of his uncle’s hand.

But the latter did not offer to touch it. Mean as he was known to be, and anxious as he was to secure every article about the house that would clear him a dime or two at public auction, he could not bring himself to make an examination of his nephew’s bundle.

“Well, then,” said the latter, once more raising his property to his shoulder, “I will bid you good-by.”

He hurried out of the yard, and up the road toward the hills, while Uncle Ruben stood in front of the porch and shook his riding-whip at him.

“That’s a powerful bad boy,” said he to himself, “an’ he’s goin’ to be a no-account vagabond, like his father was. But there’s a heap of strength in him, an’ it’s a great pity that he should waste it by foolin’ about in the woods, instead of puttin’ it on my farm, where it would do some good. He’d oughter be taken in hand, that boy ought.”

21Uncle Ruben gave emphasis to this thought by hitting his boots a vicious cut with his whip, and then he went into the house, to see what he could find there.

CHAPTER II. UNCLE RUBEN LEARNS SOMETHING.

While Uncle Ruben was wandering about from one room to another, taking a mental inventory of the different articles they contained, and trying to figure up how much ready cash they ought to bring under the auctioneer’s hammer, Jonathan Brown, who was one of the selectmen, stopped his horse in front of the barn, and hailed the house.

“Mornin’, neighbor Edwards,” he exclaimed, as Uncle Ruben appeared at the door. “’Pears to me you look sorter blue, don’t you?”

“I’m so blue it’ll rub off,” replied Uncle Ruben, as he walked out to the fence and rested his arm on the top rail. “Silas cheated me fearful. I let him have too much money on that mortgage, an’ I shan’t get it 23back into a good many dollars. Then there’s that there boy, George—”

“Yes, I seen him a little while back,” said Mr. Brown, facing about in his wagon and looking up the road in the direction in which George had disappeared. “He had a big bundle on his back, an’ when I asked him if he had found work anywhere, he said he hadn’t, an’, what was more, he wasn’t goin’ to look for any. Where do you reckon he’s goin’?”

“Up into the hills, to live like a wild Injun,” replied Uncle Ruben, in a tone of disgust. “But I told him that that wasn’t no respectable way to live, an’ that I wouldn’t never consent to it.”

“I wouldn’t, neither,” said Mr. Brown.

“I offered to give him a good home, an’ all he could eat and wear, if he would work for me till he was twenty-one; an’ do you s’pose he would do it? No, he wouldn’t,” continued Uncle Ruben. “He jest as good as told me that he didn’t ask no odds of me nor anybody else. Now, Jonathan, don’t you think that, seein’ as how I shall lose twenty-five, 24and mebbe fifty dollars of the money I loaned my brother Silas on this property—don’t you r’ally think that that there boy had oughter make it up to me? Couldn’t I force him to do it?”

Mr. Brown scratched his head vigorously, and assumed an air of profound wisdom as he replied:

“I disremember jest now what the law has to say on that p’int; but I’ll look it up.”

“An’ don’t you think, Jonathan, that the boy was a fool to refuse a good home when I offered it to him?”

“Well,” replied Mr. Brown, slowly, “to be honest with you, Ruben, I don’t know who was the biggest fool—you or George.”

“I know what you mean by them words, Jonathan, but I don’t take no offense at ’em. I know that there ain’t no other man about here who would be willin’ to take him into his house; but somehow I couldn’t forgit that he’s my brother’s son. He hain’t got no livin’ relations except me, as one may say—seein’ that his mother is dead an’ his father 25locked up in prison—an’ so I thought I had oughter do something for him.”

“That shows your goodness of heart,” said Mr. Brown, who was well enough acquainted with his friend Ruben to know that the latter never would have offered George a home under his roof if he had not believed that he could make something by it. “But it’s my opinion that that there nephew of yourn will be shut up in prison, same as his father is, before many days more have passed over his head.”

“Sho!” exclaimed Uncle Ruben, who was greatly astonished. “You don’t tell me! What’s he been a-doin’ of?”

“I don’t say that he’s been a-doin’ of anything,” said Mr. Brown. “I’m only givin’ you my opinion; an’ it’s the opinion of more’n one man in town, too. Now jest listen to me while I tell you. You know that there was a heap of stealin’ goin’ on about here a while back, don’t you?”

Yes, Uncle Ruben knew all about it. He knew that burglaries had been of so frequent occurrence that the village merchants had 26clubbed together and hired a couple of night watchmen to patrol the streets.

“Well,” continued Mr. Brown, “you remember that while all them stores were bein’ broke into an’ robbed, our hen-roosts an’ spring-houses didn’t escape, don’t you?”

Uncle Ruben remembered it perfectly, and he thought of it now with no little bitterness of heart.

He had missed more than one tub of butter from his spring-house, and nearly all his fine Plymouth Rock chickens had disappeared, and left no trace behind.