Dorothy's Double. Volume 3 of 3

Dorothy was silent again until her father had finished his breakfast.

'Don't you think I ought to see it too, father?' she repeated. 'Why shouldn't I? If there is anything about me in it, I think I have almost a right to read it. Why should I be kept in the dark? I don't see what there can be about me, but if there is, wouldn't it be fair that I should know it?'

'That is what I have been puzzling myself about, Dorothy, ever since I opened it. I think, myself, you have a right to know. The more so that you have been so hard and unjust on the poor fellow – but I promised him not to say anything about it.'

'But you did not promise him not to show me the letter,' Dorothy said quickly, with the usual feminine perspicacity in discovering a way out of a difficulty short of telling an absolute untruth.

Mr. Hawtrey could not help smiling, though he was feeling deeply anxious and puzzled over what he had best do.

'That is a sophistry I did not think you would be guilty of, Dorothy; though it had already occurred to me. At the time I made the promise I thought his request was not fair to you and was unwise, but the reason he gave was that, having failed here, he did not wish that another failure should be known; and, moreover, he did not wish to raise false hopes when in all probability nothing might come of it. I have been grievously tempted several times to break my promise; I know that Singleton, who also knew, has been on the edge of doing so more than once, especially that day the letter came saying that he was wounded. I will think it over, child. No, I don't see that any good can come of thinking about it. I feel that, as you say, you have a right to know, and as Ned Hampton says it is possible he will go back to India without returning to England, it will be a long time before he can reproach me with a breach of faith. There is the letter, child. You will find me in one of the greenhouses if you want me.'

But as Dorothy did not come out in an hour, Mr. Hawtrey went back to the house and found her, as he expected, in the little room she called her own. She was sitting on a low chair with the letter on her knees; her eyes were red with crying.

'Was I right to show you the letter, child?' he asked, as he sat down beside her.

'Of course you were right, father. I ought to have known it all along,' she said, reproachfully. 'It was right that I should be punished – for I was hard and unjust – but not to be punished so heavily as this. Did he go out from the first only on my affairs, and not to hunt or shoot, as I supposed?'

'He went out only for that purpose, Dorothy. He told me before he started that if he found they had gone out there, he would follow, however long it might take. You must remember that you said yourself that you wished him not to interfere farther in your affairs, and he was anxious, therefore, for that and the other reason I gave you, that you should suppose that he had gone out simply for his own amusement. As I saw no more reason why they should have gone to the United States than on to the Continent, although he thought they had, there was no particular reason why I should not give him the promise he asked; and it was not until the letter came at Chamounix, saying that he had got on their traces, that I had any thought of breaking the promise, although Singleton, who said he had never actually promised, wanted very much to tell you that Ned had not, as you supposed, gone away for amusement, but to unravel that business.'

'It was wrong,' she said decidedly. 'I know it was chiefly my own fault. I might have been vexed at first, but I ought to have known. I ought, at least, to have been able to write to him to tell him that I would not have him running into danger on my account.'

'Your letter would not have reached him had you done so, my dear. There was no saying where to write to him, and he would have left New York before your letter arrived; indeed, he only stayed there three days, as he went down by the first steamer to New Orleans.'

'It would have been a comfort for me to have written, even if he had never got it,' she said. 'Now, he may never hear.'

'We must not look at it in that light, Dorothy,' Mr. Hawtrey said, with an attempt at cheerfulness. 'Ned Hampton has got his head screwed on in the right way, and, as he says, he won't be taken by surprise again. He has been close on these people's heels twice, and I have strong faith that the third time he will be more successful. What he is to do in that case, or how he is to get the truth out of them, is more than I can imagine, and I don't suppose he has given that any thought at present. He must, of course, be guided by circumstances. It may not be so difficult as it seems to us here. Certainly there is no shadow of a chance of his getting them arrested in that wild country, but, as they will know that as well as he does, it might prove all the easier for him to get them to write and sign a confession of their share in the business. There, I hear wheels on the gravel outside; no doubt it is Singleton – he has been over every morning for the last ten days to see if we have news. This will gladden his heart, for he is as anxious about Ned as if he had been his son.'

He was about to take up the letter when Dorothy laid her hand on it.

'Tell him the news, father, please; I want to keep the letter all to myself.'

Mr. Hawtrey went out to meet his friend, who was delighted to hear of Ned Hampton's recovery, but fumed and grumbled terribly when he heard of his plans.

'Upon my word, Hawtrey, I hardly know which is the most perverse, Dorothy or Ned Hampton; they are enough to tire the patience of a saint. Where is the letter?'

'I have given it to Dorothy, and she declines to give it up even for your reading.'

'So that is it. Then he has let the cat out of the bag at last, Hawtrey; that is a comfort anyhow. And how did she take it?'

'She was very much upset – very much; and she says she ought to have known it before.'

'Of course she ought – that is what I said all along; and she would have known if we hadn't been two old fools. Well, give me the contents of the letter as well as you can remember them.'

Mr. Hawtrey repeated the substance of the letter.

'Well, well, we must hope for the best, Hawtrey. He is clear-headed enough, and he will be sharply on his guard when he overtakes them; and he will look so different a figure in a rough dress after that long journey I can hardly think the fellow is likely to recognise him again.'

'Will you come in, Singleton?'

'Not on any account. We had best let Miss Dorothy think the matter out by herself. I fancy things will work out as I wish them yet.'

Dorothy sat for a long time without moving; then she drew a small writing-table up in front of her, and, taking a sheet of note-paper, began to write after a moment's hesitation.

'My dear Captain Armstrong, – When I saw you last I told you that I would let you know should the strange mystery of which I was the victim ever be cleared up. It is not yet entirely cleared up, but it is so to a considerable extent, as the woman who personated me has been traced to America, where she went a week after the robbery, and my portrait has been recognised as her likeness by a number of persons at the hotel where she stopped. This encourages us to hope that some day the whole matter will be completely cleared up. I received this news on the day after you left Chamounix, but I did not write to you before because I wanted to think over what you said to me in quiet.

'I have done so, and I am sorry, very sorry, Captain Armstrong, to say that I am certain my feelings towards you are not, and never will be, such as you desire. I like you, as I told you when you first asked me the question, very, very much, but I do not love you as you should be loved by a wife. I hope we shall always be good friends, and I wish you, with all my heart, the happiness you deserve, though I cannot be to you what you wish. I do not hesitate to sign myself your affectionate friend, Dorothy Hawtrey.'

The note was written without pause or hesitation. It had been thought out before it was begun. It was strange, even to herself, how easily it had come to her, after having had it so much on her mind for the last month. She wondered now how she could have hesitated so long; how she could ever have doubted as to what she would say to him.

'I thank God I did not write before,' she murmured, as she directed the letter. 'I might have ruined my life and his, for, once done, I never could have drawn back again.'

CHAPTER XX

A caravan – consisting of ten waggons, drawn by teams of six, eight, and ten bullocks, five or six lighter vehicles of various descriptions, half-a-dozen horsemen, and a score of men on foot – was making its way across an undulating plain.

Few words were spoken, for what was there to talk of when one day was but a picture of another? The women, sitting for the most part in the waggons, knitted or worked with but an occasional remark to each other. The men, walking with the oxen, kept on their way as doggedly as the animals they drove, and save for the occasional crack of a whip or a shout from one of the men to his beasts, and the occasional creaking of a wheel, the procession might have seemed to an onlooker a mere phantasmagoria of silent shapes. But the sun was getting low and the oxen beginning almost insensibly to quicken their pace, and all knew that the long day's journey was nearly over, and the water-holes could not be far ahead.

Half an hour later these are reached, and at once a babel of sounds succeeds the previous silence. The children of all ages leap joyfully from the waggons, the men loose the oxen from their harness, and then some of them take them to the lowest water-hole, while the rest, and even the women, lend a hand at the work, and arrange the great waggons into the form of a square. As soon as this is done fires are made with the bundles of bush that the boys and girls have cut during the earlier part of the day's journey and piled on the tailboards of the waggons – long experience having taught them that everything that could burn had been long since cut down or grubbed up within a wide radius of the halting-place.

The horses are hobbled and turned out, to pick up what substance they can find in addition to a slice or two of bread that most of their owners have set apart from the over-night baking. Kettles are soon hanging over the fires, and it is not long before most of the women have their dough ready and placed in iron baking-pots over the red-hot embers, a pile of which is raked over the cover so as to bake it evenly right through. Two or three deer had been shot in the morning by the hunters, and the joints hung over the fires give an appetising odour very welcome to those whose chief article of diet for many weeks has been salt meat.

In one corner of the square a group of three or four men are seated round a fire of their own. It is they whose rifles have provided the meat for the camp, and who in return receive a portion of bread from each of the families composing the caravan.

'We shall not get much more hunting,' one of them said; 'we are getting to the most dangerous part of our journey. We have been lucky so far, for though we know that we have been watched, and have seen several parties of Redskins, none of them have been strong enough to venture to attack us. But now that every express rider we have met has warned us that there is trouble here, that strong caravans have been overpowered and the emigrants massacred, there will be no more wandering away far from the camp. You will have to travel the same pace as the rest of us, Ned,' he added, to the bearded figure next to him. 'It beats me how you have got through as you have, without having your hair raised.'

'I have only made extra journeys where, by all accounts, no Indians have been seen about for some time. Besides, it is only about three or four times we have made two journeys in one. We have simply, when the party we were with have made up their minds to stop a day or two at a water-hole to rest their beasts and to wash their clothes, gone on the next morning with another party who had finished their rest. There seem to be regular places where every caravan that arrives makes a halt for a day or so. We have done this seven times, so I reckon that we have gained fourteen days that way and on five days we have made double journeys, so that altogether we have picked up something like nineteen days on the caravan we started with.'

'Your critters are in good condition, too,' the man remarked.

'Yes, I have been fortunate with the hunting. One can always get half a pound of flour for a pound of meat, so that I still have almost as much as I started with, and I always give each of the horses four pounds of bread a day. One cannot expect that horses can be kept in condition when they are working day after day and have to spend their nights in searching for food and then not getting half enough of it.'

'These Indian ponies can do it; no one thinks of feeding a horse on the plains. They have got to rustle for themselves.'

'That may be, but these three horses have not been accustomed to that sort of thing. No doubt they have always been fed when they have worked, and they would soon have broken down under the life that comes natural to the half-wild ponies of the plains. However, it has paid to keep them well; they have come along without halts, and, as you see, they are in as good condition as when they started. In better condition indeed, for they are as hard as nails and fit to do anything.'

'That young mate of yours is a good 'un, and takes wonderful care of the critters. He is British too, I suppose?'

'Oh, yes, we came out together.'

'Ain't no relation of yourn?'

'No. I was coming out and so was he, and we agreed to come together. It is always a good thing to have someone one knows at home with one.'

'That is so,' the man agreed. 'A good mate makes all the difference in life out here. It is easy to see the young 'un thinks a heap of you, and I guess you could reckon on him if you got into a tight corner. He is a tough-looking chap, too. Well, I reckon the meat's done. You had better give a call for your mate. Where has he gone to?'

'He is at the cart,' Ned said, as he stood up and looked round. 'Jacob, supper is ready.'

'I am coming,' was called back; but it was another five minutes before Jacob came up and seated himself by the fire.

'What have you been up to, Jacob?'

'I fetched a couple of buckets of water, and I have been a-giving the cart a wash down and a polish.'

The hunters looked at the lad in surprise.

'Do you mean that?' one asked; and on Jacob nodding they all burst into a hearty laugh.

'Well, I reckon, Jacob, as that's the first cart as ever was washed out on these plains. Why, what is the good of it, lad? What with the mud-holes in the bottoms and the dust where the wind has dried the track, it will be as bad as ever afore you have gone half an hour; besides, who is a-going to see it?'

'I don't care for that,' Jacob said sturdily; 'if it has got to get dirty it has got to; that ain't my fault; but it is my fault if it starts dirty. It ain't often one gets a chance o' doing it, but as we was in good time to-day I thought I would have a clean up. Ned had seen to the horses, so I looked to the cart.'

It had taken Captain Hampton immense trouble to accustom Jacob to call him by his Christian name. He began by pointing out to him that were he to call him 'Captain' or 'sir' it would at once excite comment, and that it was of the greatest importance that they should appear to be travelling together on terms of equality.

'Unless you accustom yourself always to say "Ned" the other words are sure to slip out sometimes. This journey is going to be a hard one, and we have got to share the hardships and the danger and to be comrades to each other, and so you must practise calling me Ned from the time we go on board the steamer.'

It had not been, however, until they had been out on the plains for some time that Jacob had got out of the way of saying 'Captain' occasionally, but he had now fallen into 'Ned,' and the word came naturally to his lips.

'I think the idea is right, Jacob. Absolutely, washing the cart may seem useless. So it is to the cart, but not to you. There is nothing like doing things as they should be done. When one once gets into careless habits they will stick to one. I always give my horse a rub down in the morning and again before I turn it out after it has done its work. I think it is all the better for it, and I like to turn out decently in the morning, not to please other people, but for my own satisfaction.'

'I reckon you are about right,' the oldest of the party said; 'a man who takes care of his beast gets paid for it. You don't have no trouble in the morning. Your three critters come in at once when they hear you whistle. I watched them this morning and saw you give them each a hunch of bread and then set to work to rub them down and brush their coats, and I says to myself, "That is what ought to be between horse and master. If we was attacked by Redskins you and that young chap would be in the saddle, and ready either to fight or to run, afore most of them here had begun to think about it."'

One of the horses in the cart always carried a saddle, and Jacob sometimes rode it postilion fashion, and also rode out with Ned Hampton when the start of the caravan was late and he went out to try to get a shot at game before they moved. In this way he had got to ride fairly, which was Ned's object in accustoming him to sit on horseback, as he told him there was never any saying when it might not be necessary to abandon the cart and to journey on horseback. The two draught horses were ridden in turns, and when the lad rode with his master the third horse was always summoned by a whistle to accompany them, and cantered alongside its companion until both halted, when Ned caught sight of game and went forward alone in its pursuit. Jacob was also taught to use a pistol, and by dint of steady practice had become a fair shot.

The meal was just finished when there was a shout from the man placed on the lookout a hundred yards from the encampment.

'What is it?' a boy posted just outside the waggons shouted back.

A dead silence fell on the camp until, a minute later, they heard the reply, 'It is only the express rider.'

Many of the men rose and moved towards the narrow opening left between two of the waggons to give admittance to the square.

The passage of an express rider was always an event of prime interest. These men were their only links with the world. Often if they met them on the way they would not check the speed of the ponies, but pass on with a wave of the hand and a shout of 'All's well,' or 'Redskins about; keep well together.' It was only when a rider happened to reach one of the pony stations, often forty or fifty miles apart, while the caravan was there, that they could have a talk and learn what news there was to be told of the state of the country ahead. It was uncertain whether the rider would draw rein there; he might stop to snatch a bit of food and a drink before he rode on. This hope grew into certainty as the footsteps of a horse at a gallop were heard approaching. The man threw himself off his pony as he entered the square, and the light of the fire sufficed to show that the horse was in the last state of exhaustion, its chest was flecked with foam, its sides heaved in short sobs, its coat was staring.

'Give it half a bucket of water with half a tumbler of whisky in it,' the man said hoarsely. 'It has saved my life.'

Jacob ran up with half a pail of water, and Captain Hampton emptied the contents of his flask into it.

'Thanks, mate,' the rider said, holding out his hand; 'that is a good turn I won't forget.'

The horse at first refused to drink. Captain Hampton dipped his handkerchief in the bucket and sponged its nostrils and mouth, while its rider patted its neck and spoke encouragingly to it. At the next attempt it sipped a little and then drank up the rest without hesitation.

'It will do now,' its rider said, with a sigh of relief; 'it has carried me eighty miles, and for the last twenty of them I have been hotly chased by the Redskins; they were not a hundred yards behind when at the last rise I caught sight of your fires and knew that I was saved. It was my last chance, for I knew that if I did not find a party at these water holes it was all up with us.'

'Then there are Redskins near,' one of the men asked; 'how many of them?'

'Not above a dozen; it was a big band, but there were not more than that chased me. They won't venture to attack this outfit, but some of you had best turn out with your rifles at once, and get your oxen and horses in. If you don't you are not likely to find them here in the morning.'

This started the whole camp into activity. A waggon at the entrance was turned round so as to give more room to the animals to pass in; the boys were set to work to carry blazing brands and brushwood outside, and to relight the fires, at a distance of thirty or forty yards round the waggons, while the embers of those inside were at once scattered; the children were all placed for safety in the waggons, where Captain Hampton, whose horses had come in at once to his whistle, took his place with four or five other men in readiness to keep the Indians at a distance, if they showed themselves. The rest of the men, armed to the teeth, went out to drive in the animals. This was accomplished without interruption, and the waggon was then moved back into its place, the boys posted on watch all round, and the men gathered round the express rider to hear the news.

'It is mighty bad news, boys,' began the express rider, 'I can tell you – I saw nothing particular wrong till I got near the pony station, though I noticed that a big gang of Redskins had ridden across the track. Directly I fixed my eye on the station I saw as something was wrong. There was the stockade, but I did not see the roof of the station above it. I took a couple of turns round afore I went near it, but everything was still and I guessed the red devils had ridden off, so I made up my mind to ride straight in and take my chance. When I did, I tell you it made me feel a pretty sick man. The hut was down, but that was not the worst of it; there was bodies lying all about; men and women, scalped in course; there was what had been five waggons just burnt up, piles of flour and meat and other things all about, and it was clear that, after taking all they could carry, the Redskins had emptied the barrels, chucked them into the waggons and set them alight.

'It wuz clearly a surprise, for there wer'n't a dead Redskin about. That didn't go for much, cause they would have buried them; but I looked pretty close round and could see nary sign of blood except where the whites were lying. The Redskins had left their ponies at a distance, had scaled the stockades without being noticed, and then had fallen upon them afore they had time to get hold of their arms. There was a dead man at each corner of the stockade; them four had been stabbed or tomahawked, and so no alarm had been given. I counted fifteen dead bodies besides the station-keeper and his mate: they was pretty near all children or oldish women and men. I guess they carried off all the young women and some of the men.'

A deep groan of horror and fury broke from his hearers.

'Ay, it is one of the worst businesses there has been yet,' he said; 'and there has been some bad massacres in this part too. Men says those people up the Salt Lake stirs the Redskins up agin emigrants, but I can't believe as human nature is as bad as that. Well, I did not wait long, you may be sure. I got a bucket and filled it at the station-keeper's bar'l and put half a dozen pounds of flour in from one of the heaps, and stirred it up and give it to the pony. I guessed he would want it afore he had done. Then I rode on quiet, keeping a pretty sharp look out, you bet, till I got half way to this place. Then I got sight of a big lot of Redskins over on the right, and you may bet your boots I rode for it. They came down whooping and yelling, but the crittur is one of the fastest out on the plains, and if he had been fresh I should not have minded them a cent. Most of them soon gave it up, but about a dozen laid themselves out for me, and I tell you I have had to ride all I knew to keep ahead of them. The last half-mile I could feel that the poor beast could not go much further, and if I had found nary waggon here I had made up my mind to lie down at one of these holes and fight it out. I reckon some of them would never have got back to their tribe to tell how my scalp was took.'