Part 10 (2/2)

Deadman's Gulch! A flash of intelligence lit up the boy's blind confusion. Deadman's Gulch! Could it have been Jim Hooker who had really run away, and had taken his name? He turned half-imploringly to the first speaker.

”Wasn't he older than me, and bigger? Didn't he have a smooth, round face and little eyes? Didn't he talk hoa.r.s.e? Didn't he--” He stopped hopelessly.

”Yes; oh, he wasn't a bit like you,” said the man musingly. ”Ye see, that's the h-ll of it! You're altogether TOO MANY and TOO VARIOUS fur this camp.”

”I don't know who's been here before, or what they have said,” said Clarence desperately, yet even in that desperation retaining the dogged loyalty to his old playmate, which was part of his nature. ”I don't know, and I don't care--there! I'm Clarence Brant of Kentucky; I started in Silsbee's train from St. Jo, and I'm going to the mines, and you can't stop me!”

The man who had first spoken started, looked keenly at Clarence, and then turned to the others. The gentleman known as the living skeleton had obtruded his huge bulk in front of the boy, and, gazing at him, said reflectively, ”Darned if it don't look like one of Brant's pups--sure!”

”Air ye any relation to Kernel Hamilton Brant of Looeyville?” asked the first speaker.

Again that old question! Poor Clarence hesitated, despairingly. Was he to go through the same cross-examination he had undergone with the Peytons? ”Yes,” he said doggedly, ”I am--but he's dead, and you know it.”

”Dead--of course.” ”Sartin.” ”He's dead.” ”The Kernel's planted,” said the men in chorus.

”Well, yes,” reflected the Living Skeleton ostentatiously, as one who spoke from experience. ”Ham Brant's about as bony now as they make 'em.”

”You bet! About the dustiest, deadest corpse you kin turn out,”

corroborated Slumgullion d.i.c.k, nodding his head gloomily to the others; ”in point o' fack, es a corpse, about the last one I should keer to go huntin' fur.”

”The Kernel's tech 'ud be cold and clammy,” concluded the Duke of Chatham Street, who had not yet spoken, ”sure. But what did yer mammy say about it? Is she gettin' married agin? Did SHE send ye here?”

It seemed to Clarence that the Duke of Chatham Street here received a kick from his companions; but the boy repeated doggedly--

”I came to Sacramento to find my cousin, Jackson Brant; but he wasn't there.”

”Jackson Brant!” echoed the first speaker, glancing at the others. ”Did your mother say he was your cousin?”

”Yes,” said Clarence wearily. ”Good-by.”

”Hullo, sonny, where are you going?”

”To dig gold,” said the boy. ”And you know you can't prevent me, if it isn't on your claim. I know the law.” He had heard Mr. Peyton discuss it at Stockton, and he fancied that the men, who were whispering among themselves, looked kinder than before, and as if they were no longer ”acting” to him. The first speaker laid his hand on his shoulder, and said, ”All right, come with me, and I'll show you where to dig.”

”Who are you?” said Clarence. ”You called yourself only 'me.'”

”Well, you can call me Flynn--Tom Flynn.”

”And you'll show me where I can dig--myself?”

”I will.”

”Do you know,” said Clarence timidly, yet with a half-conscious smile, ”that I--I kinder bring luck?”

The man looked down upon him, and said gravely, but, as it struck Clarence, with a new kind of gravity, ”I believe you.”

”Yes,” said Clarence eagerly, as they walked along together, ”I brought luck to a man in Sacramento the other day.” And he related with great earnestness his experience in the gambling saloon. Not content with that--the sealed fountains of his childish deep being broken up by some mysterious sympathy--he spoke of his hospitable exploit with the pa.s.sengers at the wayside bar, of the finding of his Fortunatus purse and his deposit at the bank. Whether that characteristic old-fas.h.i.+oned reticence which had been such an important factor for good or ill in his future had suddenly deserted him, or whether some extraordinary prepossession in his companion had affected him, he did not know; but by the time the pair had reached the hillside Flynn was in possession of all the boy's history. On one point only was his reserve unshaken.

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