Part 17 (1/2)
”Can you wonder, Charlie?”
”Of course not. It's natural, and I quite sympathised with her when she exclaimed, `If I were only a man I would go to him myself.'”
”That's natural too, my son. I have no doubt she would, poor dear girl, if she were only a man.”
”Do you know, mother, I've not been able to get that speech out of my head all this afternoon. `If I were a man--if I were a man,' keeps ringing in my ears like the chorus of an old song, and then--”
”Well, Charlie, what then?” asked Mrs Brooke, with a puzzled glance.
”Why, then, somehow the chorus has changed in my brain and it runs--`I _am_ a man! I _am_ a man!'”
”Well?” asked the mother, with an anxious look.
”Well--that being so, I have made up my mind that _I_ will go out to Traitor's Trap and carry the money to Shank, and look after him myself.
That is, if you will let me.”
”O Charlie! how can you talk of it?” said Mrs Brooke, with a distressed look. ”I have scarcely had time to realise the fact that you have come home, and to thank G.o.d for it, when you begin to talk of leaving me again--perhaps for years, as before.”
”Nay, mother mine, you jump to conclusions too hastily. What I propose is not to go off again on a long voyage, but to take a run of a few days in a first-cla.s.s steamer across what the Americans call the big fish-pond; then go across country comfortably by rail; after that hire a horse and have a gallop somewhere or other; find out Shank and bring him home. The whole thing might be done in a few weeks; and no chance, almost, of being wrecked.”
”I don't know, Charlie,” returned Mrs Brooke, in a sad tone, as she laid her hand on her son's arm and stroked it. ”As you put it, the thing sounds all very easy, and no doubt it would be a grand, a n.o.ble thing to rescue Shank--but--but, why talk of it to-night, my dear boy?
It is late. Go to bed, Charlie, and we will talk it over in the morning.”
”How pleasantly familiar that `Go to bed, Charlie,' sounds,” said the son, laughing, as he rose up.
”You did not always think it pleasant,” returned the good lady, with a sad smile.
”That's true, but I think it uncommonly pleasant _now_. Good-night, mother.”
”Good-night, my son, and G.o.d bless you.”
CHAPTER TWELVE.
CHANGES THE SCENE CONSIDERABLY!
We must transport our reader now to a locality somewhere in the region lying between New Mexico and Colorado. Here, in a mean-looking out-of-the-way tavern, a number of rough-looking men were congregated, drinking, gambling, and spinning yarns. Some of them belonged to the cla.s.s known as cow-boys--men of rugged exterior, iron const.i.tutions, powerful frames, and apparently reckless dispositions, though underneath the surface there was considerable variety of character to be found.
The landlord of the inn--if we may so call it, for it was little better than a big shanty--was known by the name of David. He was a man of cool courage. His customers knew this latter fact well, and were also aware that, although he carried no weapon on his person, he had several revolvers in handy places under his counter, with the use of which he was extremely familiar and expert.
In the midst of a group of rather noisy characters who smoked and drank in one corner of this inn or shanty, there was seated on the end of a packing-case, a man in the prime of life, who, even in such rough company, was conspicuously rugged. His leathern costume betokened him a hunter, or trapper, and the sheepskin leggings, with the wool outside, showed that he was at least at that time a horseman. Unlike most of his comrades, he wore Indian moccasins, with spurs strapped to them. Also a cap of the broad-brimmed order. The point about him that was most striking at first sight was his immense breadth of shoulder and depth of chest, though in height he did not equal many of the men around him. As one became acquainted with the man, however, his ma.s.sive proportions had not so powerful an effect on the mind of an observer as the quiet simplicity of his expression and manner. Good-nature seemed to lurk in the lines about his eyes and the corners of his mouth, which latter had the peculiarity of turning down instead of up when he smiled; yet withal there was a stern gravity about him that forbade familiarity.
The name of the man was Hunky Ben, and the strangest thing about him-- that which puzzled these wild men most--was that he neither drank nor smoked nor gambled! He made no pretence of abstaining on principle.
One of the younger men, who was blowing a stiff cloud, ventured to ask him whether he really thought these things wrong.
”Well, now,” he replied quietly, with a twinkle in his eye, ”I'm no parson, boys, that I should set up to diskiver what's right an' what's wrong. I've got my own notions on them points, you bet, but I'm not goin' to preach 'em. As to smokin', I won't make a smoked herrin' o' my tongue to please anybody. Besides, I don't want to smoke, an' why should I do a thing I don't want to just because other people does it?
Why should I make a new want when I've got no end o' wants a'ready that's hard enough to purvide for? Drinkin's all very well if a man wants Dutch courage, but I don't want it--no, nor French courage, nor German, nor Chinee, havin' got enough o' the article home-growed to sarve my purpus. When that's used up I may take to drinkin'--who knows?
Same wi' gamblin'. I've no desire to bust up any man, an' I don't want to be busted up myself, you bet. No doubt drinkin', smokin', an'