Captain Bayley's Heir: A Tale of the Gold Fields of California

"The young scamp," Captain Bayley growled, "thinking all the time of his own feelings and not of mine. It's nothing to him that I may be fretting myself into my grave in the belief of his guilt; nothing that I may be dead years and years before he comes home with this precious fortune he relies on making. Oh no! we are all to wait another twenty years in order that this jackanapes may not be suspected of being mercenary; three dozen at the triangles would do him a world of good, and if he were here I would – "

"You wouldn't do anything but shake his hand, and shout 'Frank, my boy, I am glad to see you back again,' so it's no use pretending that you would," Alice interrupted. "And now, Mr. Adams, it's past twelve, and I feel ashamed that we should have kept you so long; but I know you don't mind, and you have made us all very happy. You will come again in the morning, will you not? There is so much to ask about, and we have not yet even begun to tell you how deeply we are all obliged to you for your goodness in hurrying away from England directly you got home, and in spending weeks and weeks wandering about after us."

"I shall be glad to call again in the morning, Miss Hardy, but I shall start for England in the evening; I am anxious to be back now that my mission is fulfilled. My son is to be married in ten days' time, and he would like me to be present, although he said in his last letter that he quite agreed that the first thing of all was to find you and deliver the message, whether I got home or not. As I have several matters to arrange before his marriage, presents to get, or one thing or other, I shall go straight through."

"That is right," Captain Bayley said, "we will travel together, my dear sir; for of course we shall go straight back to England now. We have been dawdling about in this wretched country long enough. Besides, everything has to be arranged, and we have got to get to the bottom of this matter; so if you have no objection, we will travel home together. If the young people here want to dawdle about any longer they can do so; I dare say they can look after themselves, or if not, I can make an arrangement with some old lady or other to act as Alice's chaperon."

"You silly old man," Alice said, kissing him, "as if we were not just as anxious to get home and to get to the bottom of the thing as you are."

So the next afternoon the party started in the diligence which was to take them over the St. Gothard to Lucerne.

Alice had by this time heard, somewhat to the confusion of her ideas, that Frank was no longer the lad she had always depicted him, but a tall, powerful young man, rough and tanned by exposure, and a fair match in strength for the wildest character in the mining camp.

By the time they reached London Mr. Adams and Captain Bayley had become fast friends, and the first thing the next morning, Captain Bayley drove with Alice to Bond Street and purchased the handsomest gold watch and chain he could find as a wedding-present for young Adams, and a bracelet as handsome for Alice to send to the bride; then he sent Alice home in the carriage and proceeded to his lawyer's. He returned home in the worst of tempers. Mr. Griffith had refused to admit that the receipt of Frank's message had in any way changed the position.

"I understood all along, Captain Bayley, that your nephew, when accused by his master, had denied the theft; the mere fact that he now, three years later, repeats the denial to you, does not, so far as I can see, alter the situation in the slightest. He says that he's not in a position to disprove any of the circumstances alleged against him. Of course you are at liberty to believe him now, just as you believed him at first, and as, on mature consideration, you disbelieved him afterwards; but that is a matter quite of individual opinion. You have announced to Mr. Barkley that you intend to leave him a third of your fortune, and it would be in the highest degree unjust to make any alteration now, without a shadow of reason for doing so. Personally, no doubt, it is a satisfaction to you to have recovered your belief in Frank's innocence, but that ought not to interfere in any way with the arrangements that you have made. My own belief is, as I have told you, that, pressed for money, and afraid of expulsion were his escapade of going out at night discovered, Frank yielded to a momentary temptation – a grievous fault, but not an irreparable one – one, at any rate, for which he has been severely punished, and for which he may well be forgiven. So far I am thoroughly with you, but I cannot and will not follow you in what I consider your absolutely unfounded idea that he is innocent, and that his cousin – against whom there is not a vestige of evidence, while the proof the other way is overwhelming – is the real offender."

Whereupon Captain Bayley had returned home in a state of fury.

"But, after all, uncle," Alice said, after listening for some time to his outburst against lawyers in general, and Mr. Griffith in particular, "it really is reasonable what Mr. Griffith says. You and I and Harry, who know Frank so well, are quite sure that he is innocent; but other people who don't know him in the same way might naturally take the other view, for, as Mr. Griffith says, the proofs were strong against him, and there was nothing whatever to connect Fred Barkley with the crime. I have been talking it over with Harry since I came back, and he agrees with me that we must, as you say, get to the bottom of the whole affair before we go any further.

"Well, isn't that what we have been trying to do all along?" Captain Bayley exclaimed angrily. "How are we to get to the bottom of it? If you will tell me that I will grant that you have more sense in your head than I have ever given you credit for."

"My idea, grandfather, is this," Harry said. "We have not yet heard Frank's side of the story. I am convinced that if we heard that we should get some new light upon it; and my proposal is that you and I shall at once start for California and see Frank, and hear all about it. It seems to me that he has been silent because he has some mistaken idea that you believe in his guilt, and when you assure him that you have an absolute faith in his innocence, he will go into the whole matter, and in that case we shall probably find some clue which we can follow up and get at the truth."

"The very thing, Harry," the Captain exclaimed impetuously, "we will start by the first ship, you and I, and find this troublesome young rascal, and have it out with him."

"And I shall go too, of course, uncle," Alice Hardy exclaimed; "I am not going to be left behind by myself."

"Impossible, Alice! you don't know what the country is. You could not go wandering about up in the mountains, looking for him through all sorts of mining camps, with no decent place for a woman to sleep."

"No, uncle; but I could stay at San Francisco till you came back with him; there must be some sort of people there you could leave me with. I am sure you would not be so unkind as to leave me in England in a state of anxiety all these months. You know I enjoy the sea, and you will want somebody to look after you during the voyage, and to see that you don't get into scrapes with that dreadful temper of yours. Besides, you must have some one to scold; you could not get on without it, and you don't scold Harry half so vigorously as you do me."

And so at last it was settled, and a week later Captain Bayley, his grandson, and Alice Hardy, sailed for Panama.

CHAPTER XXI.

HAPPY MEETINGS

FRANK was in splendid health, and his bones set rapidly. A fortnight after the encounter with the brigands he rode down to the camp on the Yuba with his arm in a sling. His attack single-handed upon the four stage-robbers had rendered him quite a noted character, and he was warmly greeted upon his arrival. As soon as he had got to the wooden shanty dignified by the name of the "hotel," a deputation waited upon him.

"We have come," the leader of the party said, "to congratulate you in the name of the hull of this mining camp on having pretty well cleared out that gang of stage-robbers. The safety of the roads air a matter of great importance to this camp, as well as to all the other camps in the State, seeing that we air obliged to pay a heavy rate of insurance on our gold being carried down, and have the risk of losing it all if we takes it down ourselves; therefore it air the opinion of this community that you have done them a considerable sarvice, and we are obliged to you."

The four members of the deputation then shook Frank solemnly by the hand.

"I can only say I am much obliged to you," Frank said, "and I only regret that one of the four got off safe. However, they had a lesson, and I hope the roads will be safer in future."

"Now," the spokesman of the deputation said, "let's liquor."

Five glasses were poured out by the bar-tender, and drunk off solemnly; this was considered to bring the ceremony to a close.

In the evening Frank was sitting around a fire with some of his acquaintances, when two persons were seen approaching.

"Can you tell me," one of them said, when he got up to the group, "whether Frank Norris is in the camp, and if so, where I can find him?"

Frank sprang to his feet with a cry of astonishment.

"Uncle," he exclaimed, "is it you, or am I dreaming?"

"My dear boy," Captain Bayley exclaimed, as he grasped Frank's hand, "thank God we have found you! We have been advertising and looking for you ever since you left, nearly three years ago."

For a minute or two they stood grasping each other's hand, their feelings being too full for further speech.

"Sit you down right here, Norris," one of the miners said, rising, "no doubt you will like a talk together, and we will leave you to yourselves."

The other miners rose, and with the real courtesy and kindness which lurked under the rough nature of the diggers, all left the spot. Captain Bayley was the first to speak.

"But here is some one else wants to shake your hand, Frank, an old friend too."

The fire was not burning very brightly, and although Frank seemed to know the young fellow who stood leaning lightly on two sticks, he could not recall where he had seen him before.

"Don't you remember me, Frank," he said, "the lad whom you took so much trouble with over his Homer."

"Harry Holl," Frank said in astonishment.

"It was as Harry Holl that you knew him, but we have since found out that he is my grandson, the son of my daughter Ella," Captain Bayley explained.

"Then you are my cousin," Frank said, advancing and shaking Harry's hand; "but how on earth have you and uncle come out here?"

"Let us sit down by the fire, Frank, for the evening is chilly, and then I will tell you all about it. But first, how about that enormous brute of a dog, who doesn't seem to have made up his mind whether the proper thing is not to devour us at once."

"Come, Turk, good dog, these are friends of mine."

Finding that the intentions of the new-comers were amicable, of which at first he had entertained some doubts, Turk threw himself down by the side of his master.

"First of all, uncle," Frank said, as he sat down, "has that affair been cleared up?"

"Well, not exactly cleared up, Frank, but we have our suspicions. Harry and I never for a moment thought it was you – that is not till you ran away instead of facing it out. I don't want to scold you now, but that was a foolish business."

"Then if you thought me innocent, uncle, why did you not answer my letter? I should never have dreamt of running away if I had not been heart-broken at the thought that you believed me guilty."

"Letter!" Captain Bayley repeated in astonishment, "what letter? That was just the thing, if you had written me only one line to say you were innocent I should never have doubted you for a moment, and even your running away would have made no difference to me."

"But I did write, uncle; I wrote to you the very first thing, telling you that I was innocent, although appearances were all against me, and saying that I could bear anything if I knew that you believed in me, and I begged you to send me just one line by hand. I waited all day for the answer, and all the evening, and when night came and no letter I felt that you believed me guilty; I became desperate, and when Fred advised me to bolt, and offered me the money to take me away, I thought I might as well go at once as go after the disgrace of being publicly expelled before the whole school."

"But I never got the letter," Captain Bayley said, "never got a line from you, and it was that which shook my faith."

"I gave the letter to Fred Barkley to post, half an hour after I came down from school, that is before eleven o'clock, and he told me he posted it at once."

"I am afraid," Captain Bayley said sternly, "that Fred Barkley is a vile young scoundrel; we have had our suspicions of him, Harry and I, and this seems to confirm them. I believe that villain is at the bottom of the whole affair. Have you ever suspected him, Frank?"

"Such an idea has flitted across my mind, uncle, but I have never allowed it to rest there; it was too shocking to believe."

"I am afraid it must be believed," Captain Bayley said. "It was Harry who first pointed it out to me that, looking at the whole case, the matter really lay between him and you, and that it was just as probable that he took the note and sent it to you as that you should have taken it and sent it to yourself. Harry urged indeed that Fred had far greater motives for doing so than you; for whereas you had only to get out of a stupid scrape, he would be playing for the money which I was to leave, which was a heavy stake. On the other hand, he admitted that the crime of stealing the note for the purpose of ruining you would be infinitely greater than the taking of money in your case.

"I have nearly worried myself into a lunatic asylum over the matter. I have been away from England for upwards of a year – partly for the sake of Harry here, who has got rid of his box long ago, and now gets along very fairly on sticks, partly to avoid seeing Fred, for as long as this thing was unsettled, it was impossible that I could give him my hand.

"My heart has all along been with you, my boy, for you know I loved you as a son; but your silence and your running away were ugly weights in the scale against you. Now that I find that that villain suppressed your letter – for he must have done so, else I should have got it – and that it was he who urged you to fly to get you out of the way, I have no longer a shadow of doubt in my mind. I must tell you that Harry here never doubted you from the first; and as for Alice, she became a veritable little fury when the possibility of your guilt was suggested. We have had some rare battles and rows over that and her absolute refusal to speak to Fred, whom from the first she insisted was at the bottom of it, though how she arrived at that conclusion, except by instinct, is more than I can tell. Her joy when Harry here was found, and of course took the position I had intended for you, and her delight in Fred's discomfiture, were, as I told her several times, absolutely indecent. Not that she minded a farthing; she is the most insubordinate young person I ever came across. You will hardly know her again, Frank, she is growing fast into a young woman, and a very pretty one too."

"But how did you find me, uncle? Was it from Mr. Adams that you heard where I was?"

"Well, Frank, we advertised for you, for over two years, in the American and Colonial papers, and at last began almost to despair.

"About two months ago, when we were in Milan – for we have been wandering about Europe for the last eight or nine months – your friend Adams found us out; the good fellow had been hunting for us for two months."

"Ah! that explains why I have not heard from him," Frank interrupted. "I have been looking for a letter for the last two months, and had begun to conclude that as he had nothing pleasant to tell me he had not written, and that I should never hear now."

"Then you thought like a young fool," Captain Bayley said angrily. "Well, as soon as Adams had given your message to Alice – and why you should have supposed that Alice should have believed in your innocence any more than me, except that women never will believe what they don't want to believe, I don't know – well, of course, she told us about it at once, and we came back to England and talked it over, and settled that the best thing was for us all to come out and see you."

"All!" Frank repeated in surprise.

"Yes, all; the headstrong young woman would not be left behind, and she is at Sacramento now, that is if she hasn't been shot by some of these red-shirted miners, or come to her end some other way. We stayed two days at San Francisco. I have wandered about a good deal, but I thought before I saw Sacramento and these places, that city was the residence of the roughest and most dangerous set of rascals I ever met.

"We travelled by coach across the plains, and on going to the bank at Sacramento found that you had been just shooting some highwaymen, and had got your arm broken by a bullet. So we put Alice in charge of the landlady of the hotel, and dared her to stir out of the room till we got back; we came on to the place where they said you were stopping, but found that you had come on here this morning. So we took our places in the coach again, and here we are; and the sooner we get away from here the better, so I hope you will be ready to start early in the morning."

"But, my dear uncle," Frank began.

"Don't give me any of your buts, sir," Captain Bayley said peremptorily. "You have been hiding too long, now you must go back and take your place again."

"But I can't clear myself of this affair."

"Don't tell me, sir," the old officer said angrily "you have cleared yourself to me, and I will take good care that the truth is known. As for that rascal Fred, I deserve all the trouble that I have gone through for being such an old fool as to let him take me in. I want to get back as quickly as possible to make my will again. Ever since Harry put the idea into my mind I have been fretting about the one I had made leaving Fred a third of my property. I thought if anything happened to me before the matter was cleared up, and I found out in the next world – where I suppose people know everything – that I had been wrong, I should have been obliged to have asked for a furlough to come back again to set it straight. Alice will be fidgeting her life out, and we must set out at once; so let us have no more nonsense about delay."

Frank offered no further resistance, and agreed to start on the following morning.

"You look more like yourself now, Frank," his uncle said, "for, except by the tones of your voice, I should hardly have known you. You must have grown ten inches bigger round the shoulders than you were, and have grown into a very big man. You don't look so big here, where there are so many burly miners about, but when you get back to London people will quite stare at you. Your face at present is tanned almost black, and that beard, which I suppose is the result of exposure, makes you look half a dozen years older than you really are. I hope you will shave it off at once, and look like a civilised English gentleman."

"I suppose I must do so," Frank said, rather ruefully, "for one never sees a beard in London, except on a foreigner. I suppose some day men will be sensible and wear them."

They sat talking until late in the night, Frank hearing all particulars of the discovery of Harry's relationship to Captain Bayley, and the news of all that had taken place since he had left England. He arranged for sleeping accommodation for them for the night in the hut of the storekeeper for whom he brought up provisions, judging that this was more comfortable and quiet for them than in the crowded and noisy plank edifice called the hotel. The next morning they started by the coach for Sacramento, Frank ordering the muleteers to follow with the animals at once. It was a twenty-four hours' drive; but it did not seem a long one to any of them, for Frank had so much to tell about his doings and adventures from the day when he last saw them, that there was scarce a pause in their talk, until at night Captain Bayley and Harry dozed in their corner of the coach, while Frank got outside and sat and smoked by the driver, being altogether too excited by the sudden arrival of his uncle, and the change in all his plans, to feel inclined for sleep. It was ten o'clock in the morning when they drove into Sacramento.

"I think, uncle, I will just go round to my house, for I keep one regularly here, and put on the garb of civilisation. Alice would not recognise me in this red shirt and high boots."

"Stuff and nonsense!" Captain Bayley said. "You had a wash-up when we breakfasted, and what do you want more? There, go up and see the girl at once, Harry and I will join you in a minute or two; according to my experience, these sort of meetings are always better without the presence of a third party," and the old officer winked at his grandson as Frank sprang up the stairs after the waiter whom Captain Bayley directed to show him to Miss Hardy's sitting-room.

Although Captain Bayley had told him that Alice had become a young woman, Frank had not realised the change that three years had produced in her. He had left her a laughing girl – a dear little girl, Frank had always thought – but scarcely pretty, and he stood for a moment in astonishment at the tall and very beautiful young woman of eighteen who stood before him. Alice was no less astonished, and for a moment could scarcely credit that this broad muscular man was her old playfellow, Frank. The pause was but momentary on both parties, and with a cry of joy and welcome the girl ran into his arms as frankly and naturally as she had done as a child.

"There, that's enough, Frank," she said presently. "You mustn't do that any more, you know, because I am grown up, and you know we are not really even cousins."

"Cousins or not, Alice," Frank said, laughing, "I have kissed you from the time you were a child, and if you suppose I am going to give it up now, when there is a real pleasure in kissing you, you are mistaken, I can tell you."

"We shall see about that, sir," the girl said; "we are in California now, among wild people, but when we get back to England we must behave like civilised beings. But, O Frank, what a monster of a dog! Is he savage? He looks as if he were going to fly at me."

For Turk, to whom greetings of this sort were entirely new, was standing at the door, his bristles half-raised, doubtful whether Alice was to be treated as a friend or foe.

"Come here, Turk. He is the best of dogs, Alice, though it is well not to put him out, for he has killed two men, one in defence of our money, the other of myself; but he is the dearest of dogs, and I will tell you some day how I found him. Come here, Turk, and give your hand to this lady, she is a very great friend of your master."

Turk gravely approached and offered his paw, which Alice took cautiously, Frank's report of his doings being by no means encouraging. Turk, satisfied now that there was no occasion for his interference, threw himself down at full length upon the hearthrug, and Alice turned to Frank.

"I am so glad you are coming home again."

"And I am glad to be coming home again," Frank said, "or rather I shall be when this matter is quite cleared up."

"I should not bother any more about it," Alice said decidedly. "Uncle Harry and I are all quite, quite sure that you had nothing to do with that horrible business, and that ought to be quite enough for you."

"It isn't quite enough, Alice," he said, "although it is a very great deal; but we need not talk about that now. Oh, here is uncle."

In the course of the day Alice heard of the new light which had been thrown on the matter by the discovery that Frank had written to protest his innocence, which letter had never come to hand, and that it was Fred who had urged Frank to fly and had supplied him with money to do so.

"I always knew he was at the bottom of it," Alice said decidedly. "I always said it was Fred. But I hope, Frank, you or uncle don't mean to take any steps to get him into trouble. I hate him, you know, and always have; still, I think he will be punished enough with the loss of the money he so wickedly tried to gain."