Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

"I hear it, mate, but do you lie down. You are not strong enough to be exciting yourself like this, though I am blamed if I can see what it is about."

"What did he go home for?" the doctor asked, still unheeding Sim.

"He went home because my father had died, and he came in for a considerable property, and he was one of my guardians."

"Do you hear that, Sim?" the doctor cried in a loud shrill voice that was almost a scream; "do you see it all now?"

"Just you run and call the surgeon, Lightning; the doc's going clear off his head."

"Stop!" the doctor said, as Hugh was about to hurry off. "If Sim wasn't that thick-headed he would see what I see. Give me a drink."

Hugh handed him a glass of lemonade, which he tossed off.

"Now, then, Sim, haven't I told you this young fellow was like someone, though I couldn't mind who. Don't you see it is our mate, English Bill?"

"Yes, he is like him," Sim said, "now you name it. He is a bit taller, and his figure is loose yet, but he will widen out ontil he is just what Bill wur."

"Like what his uncle was," the doctor broke in; "don't you see, Sim, his uncle was our mate."

"But how can that be, doctor? Don't you hear him say as his uncle is alive in England, and didn't we bury poor Bill?"

"You've heard Hugh say what his uncle came home for. What was Bill going home for, Sim?"

"Ah!" Sim exclaimed suddenly, as a light flashed across him, "it was just what Lightning has been saying. His brother was dead, and he was going home to be guardian to his nephew; and because he had come into an estate."

"Quite so, only he never went, Sim; did he?"

"No, certainly he never went, doc. There is no doubt about that."

"But somebody did go," the doctor said, "and we know who it was. The man who killed him and stole his papers."

An exclamation of astonishment broke from Hugh, while Sim exclaimed earnestly:

"By thunder, doctor, but you may be right! I reckon it may be as you say, though how you came to figure it out beats me. That must be it. We never could make out why he should have been killed. He had money on him, but not enough to tempt the man as we suspected."

"Suspected? No! the man we knew did it," the doctor broke in. "You see now, Lightning, how it is. It was known in camp that our mate had come into an estate in England. He said good-bye to us all and started, and his body was found a few miles away. We felt pretty sure of the man who had done it, for he was missing. He was a gambler. Bill had been pretty thick with him for some time, and I allow the fellow had got the whole story out of him, and knew the place he was going to, and knew where it was, and had wormed a whole lot out of him that might be useful to him. Then he killed him, and wasn't seen any more in these parts. I searched for him for a year up and down California, and Nevada, and New Mexico, and down into Northern Mexico, but I never came across his track. If I had got as much as a sign which way he had gone, I would have hunted him down all over the world; but there was not a sign from the day he had left the camp. Nobody ever heard of him again. I found out he had a wife down in Southern California, a Mexican girl, and I went down there to hunt her out, but she had gone too – had left a few days after he had disappeared. Now we are on his track again, Sim. I guess in a week I will be up, and you and I will go straight off with this young fellow to England, and see this thing out. Lay me down now. I must be quiet for a bit. Take Lightning out and talk it over with him, and tell the cook to let me have some strong soup, for I have got to get out of this as soon as possible."

"Can all this be true, Sim, do you think?" Hugh said; "or is the doctor light-headed? Do you think it is possible that the man who murdered my uncle is the one who has taken his place all these years."

"It is gospel truth, Lightning. At least it is gospel truth that your uncle was murdered here, for there can't be no doubt that your uncle Bill Tunstall and our mate is the same man; but I can't say whether the one as you thought was your uncle is the one that killed him. Your description is like enough to him. Tell me a little more about him."

"He is rather dark, with a moustache but no whiskers; he has a quiet manner; he is slight, but gives you the idea of being very strong. He has very white well-made hands. He shows his teeth a little when he smiles, but even when I first knew him I never liked his smile; there was something about it that wasn't honest. And he brought over with him a Mexican wife."

"That's him," Sim said in a tone of conviction; "you have just described him. He has a light sort of walk like a cat, and a tigerish way with him all over. There ain't a doubt that is the man. And what is the woman like?"

"She has always been very kind and good to me," Hugh said. "No aunt could have been kinder. I am awfully sorry for her, but I hated the man. That was why I left England. I came into the room one day and found that he had knocked his wife down, and I seized him. Then he knocked me down, and I caught up the poker. I was no match for him then in strength. Then he drew a pistol, but I hit him before he could aim; and as he went down his head came against a sharp corner of a piece of furniture, and I thought that I had killed him, so I bolted at once, made my way to Hamburg, and crossed to New York. That is how I came to be here."

"Has he got much of the property, lad?"

"He has got what was my uncle's share," Hugh replied. "Now that I know who he is I can understand things. I could not understand before. If I had died before I came of age he would have had the whole of the property. He used to get the most vicious horses he could find for me to ride, and I remember now when we were in Switzerland together he wanted to take me up mountains with him, but my aunt wouldn't let me go. Then he offered to teach me pistol-shooting, but somehow he dropped that, and my aunt taught me herself. I think she must have stopped him. Thinking it all over now, I feel sure that he must have intended to kill me somehow, and that she managed to save my life. There were often quarrels between them, but she didn't seem to be afraid of him. I think that she must have had some sort of hold over him."

"Waal, there is one thing," Sim said after a pause; "I believe this here discovery has saved the doctor's life. He had made up his mind that he had done with it, and wasn't going to try to get better. Now, you see, he is all eagerness to get on this fellow's scent. If he had been a blood-hound he could not have hunted the country closer than he did for that thar tarnal villain. He had an idee it wur his business to wipe him out, and when the doctor gets set on an idee like that he carries it out. It will pull him round now, you see if it don't."

"I do hope so, indeed, Sim," Hugh said warmly. "The doctor is a wonderful fellow, and if it hadn't been for him we should never have arrived at this discovery. Well, I am glad. Of course I am sorry to hear that my uncle was murdered, but as I never saw him that does not affect me so much; but I am glad to hear that this man whom I hated, a man who ill-treated his wife and who spent all his time at horse-racing and gambling, is not my uncle, and has no right to a share in the property that has been in our family for so many years. I only hope that this excitement will not do the doctor any harm."

"I am sure that it will do him good," Sim said confidently; "but it wur strange to see a man who looked as if he wur just dying out wake up like that; but that has always been his way; just as quiet as a woman at most times, but blazing out when he felt thar wur a great wrong, and that it wur his duty to set it right. I can tell you now what I know about his story. Now he knows you are English Bill's nephew he won't mind your knowing. Waal, his story ain't anything much out of the way. There are scores who have suffered the like, but it didn't have the effect on them like it did on the doctor.

"He is really a doctor trained and edicated. He married out east. He wur a quiet little fellow, and not fit to hustle round in towns and push hisself forward; so he and his wife came round and settled in Californy somewhere about '36. Thar wurn't many Americans here then, as you may guess. He settled down in the south somewhere a hundred miles or so from Los Angeles. He had some money of his own, and he bought a place and planted fruit trees and made a sort of little paradise of it. That is what he told me he lived on, doctoring when it came in his way. There wur some rich Mexicans about, and he looked after most of them; but I guess he did more among the poor. He had four children, and things went on peaceable till '48. Then you know gold was discovered, and that turned Californy upside down.

"It brought pretty nigh all the roughs in creation there. They quarrelled with the Mexikins, and they quarrelled with the Injuns, and there was trouble of the wust kind.

"There was gangs of fellows as guessed they could make more money by robbing the miners than they could by digging for gold, and I reckon they was about right; and when they warn't robbing the miners they was plundering the Mexikins. Waal, I never heard the rights of it, the doctor never could bring hisself to talk about that, but one day when he had been twenty miles away to visit a patient, he came back and found his place burned down, and his wife and the four children murdered. He went off his head, and some of the people as knew him took him down to Los Angeles, and he wur a year in the madhouse thar. He wur very quiet. I believe he used ter just sit and cry.

"After a time he changed. He never used to speak a word, but just sot with those big eyes of his wide open; with his face working, as if he seen an enemy. Waal, after a year he got better, and the Mexikins let him out of that madhouse. Someone had bought his place, and the money had been banked for him. He took it and went off. He never got to hear who the gang wur as had been to his house. I think the idee comes to him ever since when he comes across a really bad man, that he wur one of that lot, and then he goes for him. It is either that, or he believes he has got a sort of special call to wipe out bad men. As I told you, he is always ready to do a kindness to anyone, and ef he has killed over a score or more of the wust men in Californy, I guess he has saved five times as many by nussing them when they are ill, only he will never give them medicine. One of his idees is that if he hadn't gone on doctoring, he wouldn't have been away when that gang came to his house, and that is why he will never do anything as a doctor again. He is just a nuss, he says, and nothing more.

"Now, don't you go for to think, Lightning, that the doctor is the least bit mad, because he ain't, and never have been since I first knew him, and I should like to see the man as would say that he wur. He is just as sensible as I am; that ain't saying much; he is ten times as sensible. He always knows the right thing to do, does the doctor, and does it. He air just an ornary man, with heaps of good sense, and just the kindest heart in the world, only when thar is a regular downright bad man in the camp, the doctor takes him in hand all to hisself."

"But, Sim, I thought you were going about this gold business, this placer, directly the doctor was able to move."

"That has got to wait," Sim said. "Maybe some day or other, when this business of yours is over, I may come back and see about it; maybe I won't. Ef the doctor is going to England with you, I am going; that is sartin. Besides, even if I would let him go alone, which aren't likely, maybe his word wouldn't be enough. One witness wouldn't do to swear that this man who has stepped into your uncle's shoes ain't what he pretends to be; but if thar is two of us can swear to him as being Symonds the gambler, it'll go a long way. But you may have trouble even then. Anyhow, don't you worry yourself about the gold-mine. Like enough we should all have been wiped out by the Red-skins ef we had tried it. Now I will just look in and see how the doctor is afore you go."

Sim returned in two minutes, saying that the doctor had drank a bowl of soup, and had told the orderly who brought it that he was going to sleep, as he wanted to get strong, being bound to start for a journey in a week's time.

As the carriage was not to return until late, Hugh started to walk over to Don Ramon's, as he wanted to think over the strange news he had heard.

"Your friend is better, I hope," the señora said as he entered, "or you would not have returned so soon."

"He is better, señora. We have made a strange discovery that has roused him up, and given him new life, while it has closely affected me. With your permission I will tell it to you all."

"Is it a story, Señor Hugh?" the younger girl said. "I love a story above all things."

"It is a very curious story, señorita, as I am sure you will agree when you hear it; but it is long, therefore, I pray you to make yourselves comfortable before I begin."

As soon as they had seated themselves, Hugh told the story of the flight of his uncle as a boy, of his long absence and return; of the life at home, and the quarrel that had been the cause of his own flight from home; and how he had that day discovered that his companions in their late adventure had been his uncle's comrades and friends; and how, comparing notes, he had found that his uncle had been murdered, and that his assassin had gone over and occupied his place in England. Many exclamations of surprise were uttered by his auditors.

"And what are you going to do now, señor?"

"I am going to start for home as soon as the doctor is well enough to travel. I should have been willing to have first gone with them upon the expedition upon which we were about to start when your daughters were carried off, but Sim Howlett would not hear of it."

"I intended to have had my say in the matter," Don Ramon said, "and have only been waiting to complete my arrangements. I have not hurried, because I knew that until your companion died or recovered, you would not be making a move. I am, as you know, señor, a very wealthy man, wealthy even for a Mexican, and we have among us fortunes far surpassing those of rich men among the Americans. In addition to my broad lands, my flocks and herds, I have some rich silver mines in Mexico which alone bring me in far more than we can spend. The ransom that these brigands set upon my daughters was as nothing to me, and I would have paid it five times over had I been sure of recovering them; but, you see, this was what I was not sure of, and the fact that they had not asked more when they knew how wealthy I was, in itself assured me that they intended to play me false, and that it was their intention to keep them and to continue to extort further sums.

"You and your friends restored my daughters to me. Now, Señor Hugh, you are an English gentleman, and I know that you would feel the offer of any reward for your inestimable services as an insult; but your three companions are in a different position, two are miners and one is a vaquero. I know well that in rendering me that service, there was no thought of gain in their minds, and that they risked their lives as freely as you did, and in the same spirit, that of a simple desire to rescue women from the hands of scoundrels. That, however, makes no difference whatever in my obligation towards them.

"My banker yesterday received the sum in gold that I directed him to obtain to pay the ransom, and I have to-day given him orders to place three sums of 25,000 dollars each at their disposal, so that they need no longer lead their hard and perilous life, but can settle down where they will. I know the independence of the Americans, señor, but I rely upon you to convince these three men that they can take this money without feeling that it is a payment for their services. They have given me back my daughters at the risk of their lives, and they must not refuse to allow me in turn to make them a gift, which is but a small token of my gratitude, and will leave me still immeasurably their debtor."

"I will indeed do my best to persuade them to accept your gift, Don Ramon, and believe that I shall be able to do so. The doctor is a man of nearly sixty, and Howlett is getting on in years, and it would be well indeed for them now to give up the hard life they have led for so long. As to Bill Royce, I have no doubt whatever. I have heard him say many a time that his greatest ambition is to settle down in a big farm, and this will enable him to do so in a manner surpassing anything he can ever have dreamt of."

"And now, señor, about yourself. What you have just told us renders it far more difficult than I had hitherto thought. We have talked it over, I, my wife, Carlos, and my daughters. I knew that you were a gentleman, but I did not know that you were the heir to property. I thought you were, like others of your countrymen, who, seeing no opening at home, had come out to make your way here. What we proposed was this. To ask you whether your inclinations had turned most to cattle breeding or to mining. In either case we could have helped you on the way. Had you said ranching, I would have put you as manager on one of my largest ranches on such terms that you would in a few years have been its master. Had you said mining, I would have sent you down to my mine in Mexico there to have first learned the nature of the work, then to have become manager, and finally to have been my partner in the affair. But now, what are we to do? You are going home. You have an estate awaiting you, and our intentions have come to naught."