Part 4 (1/2)
”Oh, the pain is past. It's only a matter of money, and those wounds heal.”
”Only a matter of money!” said John Miles to himself. ”I must have misjudged Ferguson. I thought money was all in all with him. I did not think he would speak so lightly of it.”
”When I was a young man,” Ferguson began, ”my father died, leaving me a thousand pounds, and a small annuity to my mother. With this money I felt rich, but I knew it would not support me, nor was I minded to be idle. So I began to look about me, to consider what business I had best go into, when a young man, about my own age, a clerk in a mercantile house, came to me and proposed a partners.h.i.+p. He was to put in five hundred pounds, and contribute his knowledge of business, which was greater than mine. He was a young man of good parts, and had a brisk, pleasant way with him, that made him a favorite in business circles. I thought it was a good chance, and, after taking a little time for thought, agreed to his proposal. So the firm of McIntire and Ferguson was formed. We went into business, and for a time all seemed to go well. As my partner chose to keep the books, I was not so clear as I wished to be about matters, but we seemed to be prospering. One morning, however, on coming to business, I found that my partner had disappeared, after possessing himself of all the money he could collect on the credit of the firm. Of course we were bankrupts, or rather I was, for he left me to bear the brunt of failure.”
”Have you ever seen him since, Mr. Ferguson?”
”From that day to this--twenty years--I have never set eyes on Sandy McIntire.”
”It was a mean trick to serve you, Ferguson,” said Miles.
”Yes,” said the Scotchman, soberly. ”I minded the loss of money, but the loss of confidence was a sore thought too, after all the trust I had put in that man.”
Presently Miles rose to go.
”I'll take care of your money, Tom,” he said, ”and do my best to get it safely to your father.”
”Thank you, John.”
As Miles left the tent, he did not observe a crouching figure on the other side of it. It was the figure of Bill Crane, a crony of Missouri Jack, in fact, the man who helped him to fleece poor Peabody of his scanty h.o.a.rd.
Bill looked after Miles enviously.
”I wonder how much money he's got?” thought Bill. ”I'd like some of it, for I'm bust. I must tell Jack. I don't dare to tackle him alone.”
CHAPTER IV.
A FOILED ROBBER.
In the grand rush to the newly discovered gold-fields all cla.s.ses were represented. There were men of education, representatives of all the learned professions, men versed in business, and along with them adventurers and men of doubtful antecedents, graduates of prisons and penitentiaries. Bill Crane, introduced in the last chapter, belonged to the latter undesirable cla.s.s. He had served a term at Sing-Sing as a housebreaker, and later another term in a Western penitentiary. He had come to California with a prejudice against honest labor, and a determination to make a living by the use of the peculiar talents on which he had hitherto relied. He had spent a week at River Bend, chiefly at the saloon of Missouri Jack, whom he found a congenial spirit, and had picked up a little money from flats like the young Bostonian; but, on the whole, he had found it an unprofitable field for the exercise of his special talents.
”I must make a raise somehow,” he bethought himself, ”and then I'll make tracks for some other settlement.”
Precisely how to raise the fund of which he stood in need was difficult to decide. Moneyed men were not plenty at River Bend. Captain Fletcher and his party had been at work but a short time, and were not likely to have collected much.
As we know, Bill Crane overheard a part of the closing conversation between Tom and John Miles. From this he learned that Miles, besides his own money, would be in charge of seventy-five dollars belonging to our young hero. It was not much, but it was something.
”If the whole doesn't come to over two hundred dollars, I can make it do,” thought Crane. ”It will get me out of this beastly hole, and carry me to San Francisco.”
John Miles slept by himself under a small tent at the northern end of the small encampment. He looked like a man who ate well and slept well, and this would be favorable to Bill Crane, who proposed to effect the robbery in the night. He had half a mind to secure the aid of Missouri Jack, but then Jack would expect to go shares in the ”plunder,” and there was likely to be little enough for one. So Bill decided to make the attempt alone.
In a small camp like that at River Bend, the movements and plans of each individual were generally known. So it was generally understood that John Miles intended to start on Thursday for the city.
The previous evening he spent with Tom and Ferguson, with whom he was more intimate than any others of the party. He would not have been drawn to the Scotchman, but for his being Tom's room-mate. Through him he came to appreciate and respect the Scot's sterling virtues, and to overlook his dry, phlegmatic manner.
”I hope you'll have good luck, Mr. Miles,” said Tom.
”Thank you, my boy.”