A Cousin's Conspiracy: or, A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance

Peter Brant – Sir: I have received your letter making an appeal to me in behalf of Ernest Ray, the son of my cousin. You wish me to educate him. I must decline to do so. His father very much incensed my revered uncle, and it is not right that any of his money should go to him or his heirs. The son must reap the reward of the father’s disobedience. So far as I am personally concerned, I should not object to doing something for the boy, but I am sure that my dead uncle would not approve it. Besides, I have myself a son to whom I propose to leave the estate intact.

It is my advice that you bring up the boy Ernest to some humble employment, perhaps have him taught some trade by which he can earn an honest living. It is not at all necessary that he should receive a college education. You are living at the West. That is well. He is favorably situated for a poor boy, and will have little difficulty in earning a livelihood. I don’t care to have him associate with my boy Clarence. They are cousins, it is true, but their lots in life will be very different.

I do not care to communicate with you again.

    Stephen Ray.

Ernest read this letter with flushed cheeks.

“I hate that man!” he said hotly, “even if he is a relative. Peter, I am sorry you ever applied to him in my behalf.”

“I would not, Ernest, if I had understood what manner of man he was.”

“I may meet him some time,” said Ernest thoughtfully.

“Would you claim relationship?”

“Never!” declared Ernest emphatically. “It was he, you say, who prejudiced my grandfather against my poor father.”

“Yes.”

“In order to secure the estate himself?”

“Undoubtedly that was his object.”

“Nothing could be meaner. I would rather live poor all my life than get property by such means.”

“If you have no more questions to ask, Ernest, I will try to sleep. I feel drowsy.”

“Do so, Uncle Peter.”

The old man closed his eyes, and soon all was silent. Ernest himself lay down on a small bed. When he awoke, hours afterward, he lit a candle and went to Peter’s bedside.

The old man lay still. With quick suspicion Ernest placed his hand on his cheek.

It was stone cold.

“He is dead!” cried Ernest, and a feeling of desolation came over him.

“I am all alone now,” he murmured.

But he was not wholly alone. There was a face glued against the window-pane – a face that he did not see. It was the tramp he had met during the day at the village store.

CHAPTER III

ROBBERY

The tramp stood with his face glued to the pane, looking in at the boy. He could not quite understand what had taken place, but gathered that the old man was dead.

“So much the better!” he said. “It will make my task easier.”

He had hoped to find both asleep, and decided to wait near the house till the boy went to bed. He had made many inquiries at the store of Joe Marks, and the answers led him to believe that old Peter had a large amount of money concealed in his cabin.

Now Tom Burns was a penniless tramp, who had wandered from Chicago on a predatory trip, to take any property he could lay his hands on. The chance that presented itself here was tempting to a man of his character.

Earlier in the evening he had reached the cabin, but thought it best to defer his work until later, for Ernest was awake and stirring about the room.

The tramp withdrew from the cabin and lay down under a tree, where he was soon fast asleep. Curiously it was the very oak tree under which Peter’s little hoard was concealed. This of course he did not know. Had he been aware that directly beneath him was a box containing a hundred dollars in gold he would have been electrified and full of joy.

Tom Burns in his long and varied career had many times slept in the open air, and he had no difficulty in falling asleep now, and when he woke it was much later than he intended. However, without delay, he made his way to the cabin, and arrived just as Ernest discovered the death of the old man whom he had supposed to be his uncle.

What time it was the tramp did not know, but as he stood with his face glued to the window-pane he heard a clock in the cabin striking the hour of three.

“Three o’clock,” he ejaculated. “Well, I did have a nap!”

The boy was awake, and he thought it best to wait a while.

“Why didn’t I get here a little sooner?” he grumbled. “Then I could have ransacked the cabin without trouble. Probably the old man has been dead some time.”

He watched to see what Ernest would do.

“He won’t be such a fool as to sit up with the corpse,” he muttered a little apprehensively. “That wouldn’t do no good.”

Apparently Ernest was of this opinion, for after carefully covering up the inanimate body he lay down again on his own bed.

He did not fall asleep immediately, for the thought that he was in the presence of death naturally affected his imagination. But gradually his eyes closed, and his full, regular breathing gave notice that he was asleep.

He had left the candle burning on the table. By the light which it afforded the tramp could watch him, and at the end of twenty minutes he felt satisfied that he could safely enter.

He lifted the window and passed into the room noiselessly. He had one eye fixed on the sleeping boy, who might suddenly awake. He had taken off his shoes and left them on the grass just under the window.

When Tom Burns found himself in the room he made his way at once to the trunk, which his watchful eye had already discovered.

“That’s where the old man keeps his gold, likely,” he muttered. “I hope it isn’t locked.”

Usually the trunk would have been fastened, but the conversation which Ernest had with old Peter so engrossed his mind as to make him less careful than usual. Tom Burns therefore had no difficulty in lifting the lid.

With eager fingers he explored the contents, and was not long in discovering the box which contained the two gold coins.

The discovery pleased and yet disappointed him.

“Only ten dollars!” he muttered. “There ought to have been a pile of these yellow boys. Perhaps there are more somewhere.”

Meanwhile he slipped the two coins into his vest pocket. It was not much, but it was more than he had had in his possession for months.

He continued his search, but failed to discover any more money. He felt indignant. That a miser should have but a paltry ten dollars in his trunk was very discreditable.

“He must have some more somewhere,” Burns reflected.