Part 31

“But we had barely arrived when you seemed to grow suspicious of me. That must be stopped immediately, and I hastened to make preparations for departure. I left you alone for a time, went to the neighboring city, and engaged a trader to take necessaries to a certain man who purposed living in ‘The Cave,’ as it was called. I represented you as being deranged and idiotic, but quite harmless, and charged him to deal fairly with you, and keep his own counsel for a short time, in which case all would be well. Then I returned to the cave, and acquainted you with such of these facts as you might know. That night I gathered up my own effects, as well as the stolen money, and fled.

“I did not suppose that you would remain long in the cave. On the contrary, I supposed that through the trader, or by some other means, your identity would soon be established. But I wished to place myself beyond the reach of pursuit before that should happen. To that end I had compacted with the trader; to that end I now fled precipitantly.

“My better nature returned for a moment, and I thought of advertising your retreat, or even of calling upon your kinsmen. But I was dissuaded from this by fears of incurring danger of being apprehended by the superintendent of the hospital, whose suspicions must, by this time, have been aroused. May I enquire how long you remained in ‘The Cave,’ Mr. Lawrence?”

“Ten years.”

“Ten years! Then, indeed, I deserve the severest penalties that the law can inflict! Ten years! I could not believe that from other lips than yours! And that man knew you were there all that time, and yet took no action to set you at liberty! But no; I had told him that it was better so, and I suppose he took it for granted that it was. Yes, he is guiltless in the matter.

“To resume my confession. I escaped with the money intact, as I imagined; but when I came to open the receptacle, far away from you and the cave, I found, to my consternation, that more than half of it was missing, and its room taken up with stones and earth! You had evidently grown so suspicious of me as to abstract the money and conceal it in the cave during my absence in the city. That was the only solution of the mystery that occurred to me.

“How I raged! My punishment was beginning already. But I was not softened; if I had dared, I should have returned to the cave, and dug up every foot of ground within it. But I feared that detectives were already on my track, and I hurried on, a baulked and furious man.

“Greater misfortune was yet to overtake me. The box containing the stolen treasure was torn asunder in a steamboat explosion on the Mississippi, and the treasure was scattered and lost beyond recovery in the muddy waters. Thus I lost what remained to me of the treasure, and was left, penniless, friendless, homeless; a fugitive, an outcast. Since that time, I have lived I know not how; at one time stricken with fever in the tropics; at another time languishing in prison for some petty crime; sick, persecuted, longing for death. Minions of the law often pursued me for minor irregularities; but the secret of my one great crime never came to light. In my distress I joined the army, and hoped to find relief in fighting the battles of my country--my country, to which I was an odious reproach! I often thought of returning to the cave, to discover what had become of you, and to make such restitution as lay in my power; but I never had the moral courage to do so. For the last year, I have lived in this forest, in fellowship with this man, James Horniss.

“I now surrender myself to outraged justice,--voluntarily, even gladly,--for I can endure this way of life no longer. Forgive me, if you can, Mr. Lawrence, for I have been tortured with remorse in all these years.”

The villain’s story was ended; and Uncle Dick, Henry, the officer of the law, and Jim Horniss, fetched a sigh of relief.

They felt extremely sorry for the sick man who had confessed so eloquently and prolixly; but Mr. Lawrence was not so “tortured” with pity as to plead for his release from punishment. In fact, he had nothing to say against the law’s taking its course with him. However, he spoke kindly.

“Mr. Monk,” he said, “I forgive you freely, for it was my own foolishness that led me into your power. As for the money, it seemed fated that it should melt away, and to-day not one cent of it remains. I am glad to see you in a better frame of mind, sir; but I must leave you now to see how it fares with my nephew. Come, Henry.”

“And _your_ story?” asked the confessor, with a curious and eager air.

“Excuse me, Mr. Monk,” said Uncle Dick; “but _my_ story would seem prosaic, exceedingly prosaic, after _yours_. Good day.”

And he and Henry brutally strode out of the hut, leaving the ex-villain “tortured” with curiosity.

Thus those two villains, Hiram Monk and Jim Horniss, pass out of this tale.

If the reader thinks it worth while, he can turn back to the twenty-second chapter, and compare the story which Mr. Lawrence told Mr. Mortimer with the story narrated by Monk in this chapter. But seriously, gentle reader, it is hardly worth while to compare the two. Time is too precious to be fooled away in trying to comprehend the plots and mysteries put forth in certain romances.

Mr. Lawrence and Henry hurried on in the direction taken by their fellow-hunters an hour before.

“Mr. Lawrence,” said Henry, “I think I shall never go hunting again; I consider it a wicked waste of gunpowder and shoe-leather.”

“Yes, for a company of heedless innocents, who know little or nothing about fire-arms, and still less about the habits of animals, it is all a piece of foolishness;” Mr. Lawrence replied. “For those who are prudent enough to keep out of danger, who can understand and enjoy hunting and trapping, and go about it systematically, it is all very well.”

Parents and guardians, accept this as a warning--not that your sons, or wards, will clear up any appalling mystery by going hunting, but that they will be far more likely to destroy themselves than to return burdened with game.

_Chapter XLV._

THE LAST BLUNDER.--A LAST CONVERSATION.

To the heart-felt joy of the entire party, the surgeon declared that, by taking great care, Steve would not lose his thumb and fingers, though they might be stiff and mis-shaped for life.

As to Will’s knee, that was really a serious matter, and he would probably suffer more or less with it to his dying day. This was appalling to poor Will, who was so fond of physical exertion, but he bore it as bravely as he could.

As for the cuts made by the flying pieces, the surgeon regarded them with unutterable disdain. “A schoolboy,” he said, “would chuckle over such hurts, and make the most of them while they lasted; but he wouldn’t degrade himself by bellowing--unless his sister happened to dress them with vitriol. But if a piece had entered an eye, now, there would have been a tale to tell.”

And yet those hurts, slight as they were, had frightened Will so much that he had injured himself for life.

After all their wounds had been dressed, the Nimrods wended their way back to their humble cabin, still carrying Will, of course. As they went along they naturally conversed. Seeing that it is their last conversation, we deliberately inflict the whole of it on the hapless reader. However, the hapless reader cannot be forced to read it all.

“Let us have a little light on the subject, as the bloody-minded king said when he dropped a blazing lucifer on the head of a disorderly noble of his,” Steve observed, as they left the surgeon’s.

“What are you driving at now, Steve?” Charles inquired.

“The confession made by Monk, if Mr. Lawrence has no objections.”

“Certainly;” said uncle Dick. “Henry, you can give it better than I can; do so.”

“I wish, with all my heart, that I had taken it down,” said Henry, “for I consider it the best thing I ever heard. That man is a born romancer; but he wasted his talents keeping the records of his hospital, and afterwards dodging the ‘minions’ and his own conscience. However, I’ll give it as well as I can.”

The six, who had not heard it, listened attentively--even Will ceased to moan, in his eagerness to hear every word.

“What an extraordinary story!” cried Steve. “I hope he didn’t devise it for our amusement, as he devised his fiction about the small-pox!” he added grimly.

“Oh, he was very solemn about it,” Henry asserted.

“Didn’t Mr. Lawrence get back any of his lost fortune?” Marmaduke asked. “Surely he should have! Why, there is no moral at all in such a story as that!”

“Even so, Marmaduke; Hiram Monk made a grave mistake when he suffered the remainder of the fortune to be ingulfed in the ‘muddy waters’ of the Mississippi. He should have swelled it to millions, and then buried it near the first parallel of latitude, so many degrees northeast by southwest. When he confessed to Mr. Lawrence to-day, he should have given him a chart of the hiding-place, and in three months from this date we should have set out on the war-trail. After having annihilated several boat-loads of cannibals, and scuttled a pirate or so by way of recreation, we should have found the treasure just ten minutes after somebody else had lugged it off. But of course we should have come up with this somebody, had a sharp struggle, and lugged off the treasure in our turn. Then we should have returned, worth seven millions, a tame native, and an ugly monkey, apiece. But, alas! I don’t take kindly to that kind of romance any more, Marmaduke; I don’t pine to shed the blood of villains, cannibals, and pirates.”

So spoke Charles. A few hours before, and Steve would have said it, or something like it; but now Steve was looking very grave, and seemed already to pounce on Charles for speaking so.

“Charley,” he growled, “you talk as if we read Dime Novels; and I’m sure _I_ don’t, if you do.”

Charley winced, but could not hit upon a cutting retort.

“What Charley says is very good,” Marmaduke, unmoved, replied; “but I don’t see why a whole fortune should be utterly lost, nor why Mr. Lawrence should spend ten years in idleness without some compensation. I hope you haven’t let Monk escape!” he cried, turning to Henry with such genuine alarm that the whole party broke into a laugh.

Even Steve forgot himself and joined in the laugh, Marmaduke’s expression of horror being so very ludicrous.

But he checked himself in a moment, and turned fiercely upon Charles: “Charles Growler, I am astonished at you! We do not know Marmaduke’s thoughts; we cannot judge him by ourselves. By nature, he is of a finer organism than we, and he sees things in a different light. Some day, when he is a poet among poets, he will hold us poor shallow creatures up to ridicule in some majestic and spirit-stirring satire.”

Stephen was in earnest now, but the others were not accustomed to this sort of thing from him, and thinking he meant to be only unusually sarcastic, their laughter broke forth again; and while Charles laughed uproariously, Henry said severely--so severely that Steve was almost desperate: “You ought not to be so personal in your remarks; you ought to have a _little_ respect for another’s feelings.”

Marmaduke remembered the promise Stephen had made on the log, and he now looked at him reproachfully, thinking, with the rest, that Steve was jeering at him.

Poor misunderstood boy! He knew not how to explain himself. This was the first time he had had occasion to play the champion to Marmaduke, and he was making an egregious fool of himself.

“Oh, you stupid fellows!” he roared. “I’m taking his part; and I mean to take it after this, for he is the best fellow in the world.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” Henry said heartily. “As for Hiram Monk, like all worn out villains, he is anxious that the LAW should care for him; and the officer who secured Jim Horniss will secure him, also. As for the confession, let us make the most of it as it is; for we can’t make it either better or worse if we stay here till we shoot another deer.”

“Well, boys, what about going home?” George asked.

“If _you_ are ready to go, I’m morally certain _I_ am,” said Steve.

Now that the subject was broached, the others were willing to acknowledge that they had had enough of hunting, and would gladly go home. Charles, however, thought it would be more decorous to offer some plausible excuse for returning so quickly, and so he said, “Yes, boys, I must go immediately; I have business that calls me home imperatively.”

“‘Business?’ _What_ ‘business?’” Steve asked in great perplexity.

He knew that Charley did not yet earn his own living at home; he knew, also, that Charley was not learning to play on the violin; hence his curiosity.

Charles was not prepared for such a question. He wanted, actually, craved for, a glass of lemonade and one of his mother’s pumpkin pies; but this seemed so flimsy an excuse that he hesitated to say so. He stammered; his cheeks flushed; and at last he said, desperately, “Well, boys, I should like to see how these cuts look in the mirror!”

Will, who shrewdly suspected what Charles was thinking of, said softly, in French--which he understood better now than he did six years before--with a faint attempt at a smile, “And in the eyes of that dear little girl.”

“This is a great change in our plans,” Henry observed. “We intended to stay three weeks; and now, at the end of three days, we are disgusted and homesick.”

It was evident that Steve had something on his mind, and he now asked, inquisitively: “Should _you_ like to go home, Henry?”

“Stephen, I am going home immediately--even if Will and I have to go alone.”

Stephen was about to make a sententious observation; but he checked himself abruptly, and his voice died away in one long, guttural, and untranslatable interjection.

The day before, Stephen had come upon Henry alone in the depths of the forest, leaning against a tree, and whistling as though his heart would break--whistling passionately, yet tenderly--whistling as only a lover can whistle a love-song. Yet it was not a love-song that Henry was whistling, but a piece of instrumental music,--“La Fille de Madame Angot,” by Charles Godfrey,--the first piece that, some three or four years before, he had ever heard his blue-eyed sweetheart play; and the last piece that, in memory of those old days, she had played for him before he set out to go hunting.

Steve had stolen softly away, feeling that the person who could whistle that waltz as Henry whistled it, did not wish to be disturbed. He now refrained from making his observation, and said to himself: “Well, now, I feel just about as happy as if I had said what I wanted to say! Only, it was _so_ good!”

“Of course; that’s just what we should have thought of first,” said Charles, beginning where Henry left off. “Will must be taken home this very night--that is, a start for home must be made this very night. We will go with him, of course; for we don’t want to stay and hunt alone.”

“Of course,” chorused the others, not wishing to hunt “alone.”

“Shall we buy some deer of regular hunters?” Jim meekly suggested. “Every one will laugh at us if we go home without even a bird.”

Steve answered him: “No! If we can’t shoot a deer to take home, we had better go empty-handed. And besides, we can buy deer nearer home than this. As for _birds_, I didn’t know that amateur hunters take home birds as an evidence of their skill--unless they happen to shoot an eagle. As for the _laugh_, why, I tell you, we shall be worshipped as wounded heroes!”

“Perhaps, as stupid blunderers!” George said, testily.

For the first time, George’s whole skin troubled him. He had not received even a scratch; while all the others had some hurt, bruise, or mark, as a memento of this hunt. Even Jim had not escaped, a vicious hornet having inhumanly stung his nose.

They were now drawing near the place where they supposed their cabin stood. But everything seemed strange--very strange.

“Are we lost again?” was the cry that burst from Will’s lips.

“Not _lost_, but _burnt out_!” Steve exclaimed. “Yes, boys, we are burnt out of house and home! Now, in such a case, who is going to stay here and hunt? Why, our bitterest enemies wouldn’t expect it of us! Hurrah! But,” he added, gravely, “I’m afraid I’m reconciled to this disaster!”

“I think we all are,” Charles said, with a hideous grin.

“Now, I want to know how and why that shanty caught fire?” Will ejaculated.

By this time the hunters had reached the spot lately occupied by their cabin, and they now stood around the pile of still smoking ruins, with probably “mingled emotions.”

“You cooked the few morsels we had for breakfast, Will; therefore you ought to be responsible for this,” Henry observed.

“O--h!” groaned Will, “so I am! I didn’t put the fire entirely out this morning, and I forgot a box of matches on the hearth--the homemade hearth. They have met!”

“At first I grieved that our hovel was so small,” said Charles; “but now I’m glad it was, or else the fire might have gone into the forest.”

“And burnt us alive!” Steve said, with a shudder. Then he left Marmaduke, bent over the sufferer on the litter, and whispered in his ear: “Will, as soon as ever we reach home, I intend to deliver you over to Mr. B. F. Stolz!”

Having discharged this horrible threat, Steve returned to Marmaduke, muttering: “A hunter has no business to build a shanty to live in; he ought to pitch a tent, if it’s nothing but a parasol on a fish-pole.”

“What about this fellow’s bumps?” chuckles the reader.

It is very ungracious in the reader, after all our kindness towards him, to throw out such insinuations, and we refuse to give him any other explanation or satisfaction than this: Will’s bumps were not so prominent as usual that day.

George now spoke. “Look here, boys; stop your foolishness and listen to me. Didn’t we leave some valuables in that building? Where are they now?”

“Oh!” gasped the others, in one breath.

“Where are they now?” George roared again.

As no one seemed to know, he continued: “Well, I’m going to look for the wreck of my fowling-piece.” And he set his feet together, and deliberately leaped into the midst of the smouldering ruins.

He alighted on his feet, but they gave way beneath him; he staggered, and then fell heavily, at full length.

The hunters were alarmed. Was he hurt?

“George!--George!” they shrieked. “Oh, George!”

“Well, what’s the matter?” he growled, as he struggled to his feet.

“Oh, George, come out,” Charles pleaded. “You must be hurt.”

“Am I?” George cried, wildly, hopefully. “Am I hurt, I say?”

“You will probably have a black eye,” Mr. Lawrence sorrowfully observed, as the explorer emerged from the cinders.

“Am I much bruised?” he asked, turning to Stephen, certain that that worthy would do him justice. “Am I, Steve? I don’t feel hurt or bruised a bit.”

Quick-witted Steve saw what was going on in the questioner’s mind, and replied, promptly: “Bruised? Why, you’re a frightful object--a vagabond scare-crow! You must be wounded from your Scotch cap to the toe of your left boot. You’ve secured _not only_ an exceedingly black eye, _but also_ a swelled cheek, a protuberant forehead, a stiff neck, a singed chin, a sprained wrist, and, for all I know, a cracked skull! Why, George, you’re a total wreck! The folks at home will think that we took you for some wild beast, and that each of us fired at you and hit you.”

The Sage turned away with a happy smile on his lips.

“Surely,” he soliloquised, “Steve wouldn’t go so far if there isn’t something wrong. But I hope there is no danger of a black eye!”

Then aloud, and cheerfully: “Yes, boys, let us go home.”

Do not imagine, gentle reader, that this hunter fell purposely. He was not so foolish as that; but when he did have a fall, he wished to profit by it. Still, he could see neither romance nor poetry in gaining nothing but a black eye.

It is worse than useless to prolong their conversation, so here it closes.

The hunters felt somewhat crest-fallen when they found that the fire had consumed almost everything left in the cabin. However, they packed their remaining effects in some new boxes, and then set out for home in pretty good spirits. They arrived safe, and were welcomed as wounded heroes, as Steve had foretold.

For the consolation of those readers who have an antipathy to mutilated heroes, it may be stated that Stephen’s hurts healed, leaving no other bad effects than ugly scars.

For the consolation of conscientious readers, it may be stated that Hiram Monk and Jim Horniss were tried by law, and _sentenced_ to the punishment they deserved. If a learned lawyer should be beguiled into reading this story, he might know what punishment those wretches _deserved_--he might even guess at what punishment they _received_.

But the majesty of the law is possessed of a fickle mind.

_Chapter XLVI._

THE STORY CLOSED.

Some novels, like an endless chain, seem to have neither beginning nor end; others, while they give every little incident with wearisome minuteness, stop suddenly when they come to the colophon, pause in doubt and trepidation, and finally conclude with two or three sentences of sententious brevity, in which the word _marriage_ occurs at least once. The writer of this history, like all right-minded scribes, becomes disgusted when the last difficulty is surmounted, but yet has sufficient moral power to devote a whole chapter (though a short one) to the conclusion. Gentle reader, you ought to be indulgent to one who has such self-abnegation--such firmness of purpose--such greatness of mind.

This story draws to an end for several reasons: first, there is no great affinity between schoolboys, for whom it professes to be written, and volumes seventy-nine chapters in length; secondly, if the reader is not tired of it, the writer begins to be; thirdly, a story dies a natural death as soon as its writer unriddles, or attempts to unriddle, its mysteries; fourthly (and this is perhaps the strongest reason of all), there is nothing more to be written.

If there are other reasons why the story should be brought to an end, they concern the writer, not the reader, and therefore need not be specified. But in case the reader should care to hear what became of those boys, the writer graciously spins out a few pages more.

Naturally they married, observes the reader who is familiar with works of fiction. Certainly; every one of them married.

Marmaduke fell desperately in love; and, as was evinced when he rescued Sauterelle, he was a man who could love passionately and for ever. He married the object of his choice, of course. By the way, she was actually a French heiress--at least, her papa was a Frenchman teaching French in one of our colleges, and on the wedding-day he gave her the magnificent dowry of five hundred dollars, the accumulated savings of very many years.

Charles married the young lady referred to incidentally in the last chapter. All the heroes were present at his wedding; and their enthusiasm ran so high that they clubbed together, and bought the happy pair a marvel of a clock, that indicated not only the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and centuries, but was furnished, also, with a brass band,--which thundered forth “Yankee Doodle,” “Hail Columbia,” and “Home, Sweet Home,”--a regiment of well-dressed negroes, an ear-piercing gong, and “all the latest improvements.”