Chapter 13

There is an enemy before whom the strongest and bravest man must succumb; that enemy is sleeplessness. When daylight found the desperado, he had not closed an eye all night. His nerve was gone, and, perhaps for the first time in his life, he felt a thrill of fear. The emptiness of the prairie, which should have encouraged him, struck a chill of loneliness into him, and he longed for the sight of a man, even though he might have to fight him when he approached. He must have a comrade, he said to himself, if he could find any human being in straits as terrible as his own, some one who would keep watch and watch with him through the night; but the comrade must either be ignorant of the weight of money that hung over the desperado's head, or there must be a price on his own. An innocent man would not see the use of keeping such strict watch; a guilty man, on learning the circumstances of the case, would sell Sam's life to purchase his own freedom. Fifty thousand dollars, in the desperado's mind, would do anything, and yet he himself, of all the sixty million people in the land, was the only one who could not earn it! A comrade, then, innocent or guilty, was impossible, and yet was absolutely necessary if the wanderer was to have sleep.

The horse was in distress through lack of water, and Sam himself was both hungry and thirsty. His next halting-place must be near a stream, yet perhaps his safety during the first night was due to the fact that his pursuers would naturally have looked for him near some watercourse, and not on the open prairie.

Ten days later, Mike Davlin was awakened at three in the morning, to find standing by his bed a gaunt, haggard living skeleton, holding a candle in one hand, and pointing a cocked revolver at Mike's head with the other.

"Get up," said the apparition hoarsely, "and get me something to eat and drink. Drink first, and be quick about it. Make no noise. Is there anybody else in the house?"

"No," said Mike, shivering. "You wait here, Sam, and I'll bring you something. I thought you were among the Indians, or in Mexico, or in the Bad Lands long ago."

"I'm in bad lands enough here. I'll go with you. I'm not going to let you out of my sight, and no tricks, mind, or you know what will happen."

"Surely you trust me, Sam," whined Mike, getting up.

"I don't trust any living man. Who fired that shot at me when I was leaving?"

"So help me," protested Mike, "I dunno. I wasn't in the bar at the time. I can prove I wasn't. Yer not looking well, Sam."

"Blister you for a slow dawdler, you'd not look well either, if you had no sleep for a week and was starved into the bargain. Get a move on you."

Sam ate like a wild beast what was set before him, and although he took a stiff glass of whiskey and water at the beginning, he now drank sparingly. He laid the revolver on the table at his elbow, and made Mike sit opposite him. When the ravenous meal was finished, he pushed the plate from him and looked across at Davlin.

"When I said I didn't trust you, Mike, I was a liar. I do, an' I'll prove it. When it's your interest to befriend a man, you'll do it every time."

"I will that," said Mike, not quite comprehending what the other had said.

"Now listen to me, Mike, and be sure you do exactly as I tell you. Go to where the bank manager lives and rouse him up as I roused you. He'll not be afraid when he sees it's you. Tell him you've got me over in the saloon, and that I've come to rob the bank of that fifty thousand dollars. Say that I'm desperate and can't be taken short of a dozen lives, and there is no lie in that, as you know. Tell him you've fallen in with my plans, and that we'll go over there and hold him up. Tell him the only chance of catching me is by a trick. He's to open the door of the place where the money is, and you're to shove me in and lock me up. But when he opens the door I'll send a bullet through him, and you and me will divide the money. Nobody will suspect you, for nobody'll know you were there but the bank man, and he'll be dead. But if you make one move except as I tell you the first bullet goes through you. See?"

Mike's eyes opened wider and wider as the scheme was disclosed. "Lord, what a head you have, Sam!" he said. "Why didn't you think of that before? The bank manager is in Austin."

"What the blazes is he doing there?"

"He took the money with him to put it in the Austin Bank. He left the day after you did, for he said the only chance you had, was to get that money. You might have done this the night you left, but not since."

"That's straight, is it?" said Sam suspiciously.

"It's God's truth I'm speaking," asserted Mike earnestly. "You can find that out for yourself in the morning. Nobody'll molest ye. Yer jus' dead beat for want o' sleep, I can see that. Go upstairs and go to bed. I'll keep watch, and not a soul'll know you're here."

Hickory Sam's shoulders sank when he heard the money was gone, and a look of despair came into his half closed eyes. He sat thus for a few moments unheeding the other's advice, then with an effort shook off his lethargy.

"No," he said at last, "I won't go to bed. I'd like to enrich you, Mike, but that would be too easy. Cut me off some slices of this cold meat and put them between chunks of bread. I want a three days' supply, and a bottle of whiskey."

Mike did as requested, and at Sam's orders attended to his horse. It was still dark, but there was a suggestion of the coming day in the eastern sky. Buller's horse was as jaded and as fagged out as its rider. As Sam, stooping like an old man, rode away, Mike hurried to his bedroom, noiselessly opened the window, and pointed at the back of the dim retreating man a shot-gun, loaded with slugs. He could hardly have missed killing both horse and man if he had had the courage to fire, but his hand trembled, and the drops of perspiration stood on his brow. He knew that if he missed this time, there would be no question in Sam's mind about who fired the shot. Resting the gun on the ledge and keeping his eye along the barrel, he had not the nerve to pull the trigger. At last the retreating figure disappeared, and with it Mike's chance of a fortune. He drew in the gun, and softly closed the window, with a long quivering sigh of regret.

Sidney Buller went west from Detroit when he received the telegram that announced his uncle's death and told him he was heir to the ranch. He was thirty years younger than his uncle had been at the time of his tragic death, and he bore a remarkable likeness to the old man; that is, a likeness more than striking, when it was remembered that one had lived all his life in a city, while the other had spent most of his days on the plains. The young man had seen the Sheriff on his arrival, expecting to find that active steps had been taken towards the arrest of the murderer. The Sheriff assured him that nothing more effective could be done than what had been done by the dead man himself in leaving fifty thousand dollars to the killer of Hickory Sam. The Sheriff had made no move himself, for he had been confidently expecting every day to hear that Sam was shot.

Meanwhile, nothing had been heard or seen of the desperado since he left Salt Lick on the back of the murdered man's horse. Sidney thought this was rather a slipshod way of administering justice, but he said nothing, and went back to his ranch. But if the Sheriff had been indifferent, his own cowboys had been embarrassingly active. They had deserted the ranch in a body, and were scouring the plains searching for the murderer, making the mistake of going too far afield. They, like Mike, had expected Sam would strike for the Bad Lands, and they rode far and fast to intercept him. Whether they were actuated by a desire to share the money, a liking for their old "boss," or hatred of Hickory Sam himself, they themselves would have found it difficult to tell. Anyhow, it was a man-chase, and their hunting instincts were keen.

In the early morning Sidney Buller walked forth from the buildings of the ranch and struck for the open prairie. The sun was up, but the morning was still cool. Before he had gone far he saw, approaching the ranch, a single riderless horse. As the animal came nearer and nearer it whinnied on seeing him, and finally changed its course and came directly toward him. Then he saw that there was a man on its back; a man either dead or asleep. His hand hung down nerveless by the horse's shoulder, and swung helplessly to and fro as the animal walked on; the man's head rested on the horse's mane. The horse came up to Sidney, thrusting its nose out to him, whinnying gently, as if it knew him.

"Hello?" cried Sidney, shaking the man by the shoulder, "what's the matter? Are you hurt?"

Instantly the desperado was wide awake, sitting bolt upright, and staring at Sidney with terrified recognition in his eyes. He raised his right hand, but the pistol had evidently dropped from it when he, overcome by fatigue, and drowsy after his enormous meal, had fallen asleep. He flung himself off, keeping the animal between himself and his supposed enemy, pulled the other revolver and fired at Sidney across the plunging horse. Before he could fire again, Sidney, who was an athlete, brought down the loaded head of his cane on the pistol wrist of the ruffian, crying--

"Don't fire, you fool, I'm not going to hurt you!"

As the revolver fell to the ground Sam sprang savagely at the throat of the young man, who, stepping back, struck his assailant a much heavier blow than he intended. The leaden knob of the stick fell on Sam's temple, and he dropped as if shot. Alarmed at the effect of his blow, Sidney tore open the unconscious man's shirt, and tried to get him to swallow some whiskey from the bottle he found in his pocket. Appalled to find all his efforts unavailing, he sprang on the horse and rode to the stables for help.

The foreman coming out, cried: "Good heavens, Mr. Buller, that's the old man's horse. Where did you get him? Well, Jerry, old fellow," he continued, patting the horse, who whinnied affectionately, "they've been using you badly, and you've come home to be taken care of. Where did you find him, Mr. Buller?"

"Out on the prairie, and I'm afraid I've killed the man who was riding him. God knows, I didn't intend to, but he fired at me, and I hit harder than I thought."

Sidney and the foreman ran out together to where Jerry's late rider lay on the grass.

"He's done for," said the foreman, bending over the prostrate figure, but taking the precaution to have a revolver in his hand. "He's got his dose, thank God. This is the man who murdered your uncle. Think of him being knocked over with a city cane, and think of the old man's revenge money coming back to the family again!"

THE UNDERSTUDY.

The Monarch in the Arabian story had an ointment which, put upon the right eye, enabled him to see through the walls of houses. If the Arabian despot had passed along a narrow street leading into a main thoroughfare of London, one night just before the clock struck twelve, he would have beheld, in a dingy back room of a large building, a very strange sight. He would have seen King Charles the First seated in friendly converse with none other than Oliver Cromwell.

The room in which these two noted people sat had no carpet and but few chairs. A shelf extended along one side of the apartment, and it was covered with mugs containing paint and grease. Brushes were littered about, and a wig lay in a corner. A mirror stood at either end of the shelf, and beside these, flared two gas-jets protected by wire baskets. Hanging from nails driven in the walls were coats, waist-coats, and trousers of more modern cut than the costumes worn by the two men.

King Charles, with his pointed beard and his ruffles of lace, leaned picturesquely back in his chair, which rested against the wall. He was smoking a very black brier-root pipe, and perhaps his Majesty enjoyed the weed all the more that there was just above his head, tacked to the wall, a large placard, containing the words, "No smoking allowed in this room, or in any other part of the theatre."

Cromwell, in more sober garments, had an even jauntier attitude than the King, for he sat astride the chair, with his chin resting on the back of it, smoking a cigarette in a meerschaum holder.

"I'm too old, my boy," said the King, "and too fond of my comfort; besides, I have no longer any ambition. When an actor once realises that he will never be a Charles Kean or a Macready, then come peace and the enjoyment of life. Now, with you it is different: you are, if I may say so in deep affection, young and foolish. Your project is a most hare-brained scheme. You are throwing away all you have already won."

"Good gracious!" cried Cromwell, impatiently, "what have I won?"

"You have certainly won something," resumed the elder calmly, "when a person of your excitable nature can play so well the sombre, taciturn character of Cromwell. You have mounted several rungs, and the whole ladder lifts itself up before you. You have mastered two or three languages, while I know but one, and that imperfectly. You have studied the foreign drama, while I have not even read all the plays of Shakespeare. I can do a hundred parts conventionally well. You will, some day, do a great part as no other man on earth can act it, and then fame will come to you. Now you propose recklessly to throw all this away and go into the wilds of Africa."

"The particular ladder you offer me," said Cromwell, "I have no desire to climb; I am sick of the smell of the footlights and the whole atmosphere of the theatre. I am tired of the unreality of the life we lead. Why not be a hero instead of mimicking one?"

"But, my dear boy," said the King, filling his pipe again, "look at the practical side of things. It costs a fortune to fit out an African expedition. Where are you to get the money?"

This question sounded more natural from the lips of the King than did the answer from the lips of Cromwell.

"There has been too much force and too much expenditure about African travel. I do not intend to cross the Continent with arms and the munitions of war. As you remarked a while ago, I know several European languages, and if you will forgive what sounds like boasting, I may say that I have a gift for picking up tongues. I have money enough to fit myself out with some necessary scientific instruments, and to pay my passage to the coast. Once there, I shall win my way across the Continent through love and not through fear."

"You will lose your head," said King Charles; "they don't understand that sort of thing out there, and, besides, the idea is not original. Didn't Livingstone try that tack?"

"Yes, but people have forgotten Livingstone and his methods. It is now the explosive bullet and the elephant gun. I intend to learn the language of the different native tribes I meet, and if a chief opposes me and will not allow me to pass through his territory, and if I find I cannot win him over to my side by persuasive talk, then I shall go round."

"And what is to be the outcome of it all?" cried Charles. "What is your object?"

"Fame, my boy, fame," cried Cromwell, enthusiastically, flinging the chair from under him and pacing the narrow room. "If I can get from coast to coast without taking the life of a single native, won't that be something greater than all the play-acting from now till Doomsday?"

"I suppose it will," said the King, gloomily; "but you must remember you are the only friend I have, and I have reached an age when a man does not pick up friends readily."

Cromwell stopped in his walk and grasped the King by the hand. "Are you not the only friend I have," he said; "and why can you not abandon this ghastly sham and come with me, as I asked you to at first? How can you hesitate when you think of the glorious freedom of the African forest, and compare it with this cribbed and cabined and confined business we are now at?"

The King shook his head slowly, and knocked the ashes from his pipe. He seemed to have some trouble in keeping it alight, probably because of the prohibition on the wall.

"As I said before," replied the King, "I am too old. There are no pubs in the African forest where a man can get a glass of beer when he wants it. No, Ormond, African travel is not for me. If you are resolved to go, go and God bless you; I will stay at home and carefully nurse your fame. I shall from time to time drop appetising little paragraphs into the papers about your wanderings, and when you are ready to come back to England, all England will be ready to listen to you. You know how interest is worked up in the theatrical business by judicious puffing in the papers, and I imagine African exploration requires much the same treatment. If it were not for the Press, my boy, you could explore Africa till you were blind and nobody would hear a word about it, so I will be your advance agent and make ready for your home-coming."

At this point in the conversation between these two historic characters, the janitor of the theatre put his head into the room and reminded the celebrities that it was very late, whereupon both King and Commoner rose, with some reluctance, and washed themselves; the King becoming, when he put on the ordinary dress of an Englishman, Mr. James Spence, while Cromwell, after a similar transformation, became Mr. Sidney Ormond; and thus, with nothing of Royalty or Dictatorship about them, the two strolled up the narrow street into the main thoroughfare and entered their favourite midnight restaurant, where, over a belated meal, they continued the discussion of the African project, which Spence persisted in looking upon as one of the maddest expeditions that had ever come to his knowledge; but the talk was futile, as most talk is, and within a month from that time Ormond was on the ocean, his face set towards Africa.

Another man took Ormond's place at the theatre, and Spence continued to play his part, as the papers said, in his usual acceptable manner. He heard from his friend, in due course, when he landed. Then at intervals came one or two letters showing how he had surmounted the numerous difficulties with which he had to contend. After a long interval came a letter from the interior of Africa, sent to the coast by messenger. Although at the beginning of this letter Ormond said he had but faint hope of reaching his destination, he, nevertheless, gave a very complete account of his wanderings and dealings with the natives, and up to that point his journey seemed to be most satisfactory. He inclosed several photographs, mostly very bad ones, which he had managed to develop and print in the wilderness. One, however, of himself was easily recognisable, and Spence had it copied and enlarged, hanging the framed enlargement in whatever dressing-room fate assigned to him; for Spence never had a long engagement at any one theatre. He was a useful man who could take any part, but had no specialty, and London was full of such.

For a long time he heard nothing from his friend, and the newspaper men to whom Spence indefatigably furnished interesting items about the lone explorer, began to look upon Ormond as an African Mrs. Harris, and the paragraphs, to Spence's deep regret, failed to appear. The journalists, who were a flippant lot, used to accost Spence with "Well, Jimmy, how's your African friend?" and the more he tried to convince them, the less they believed in the peace-loving traveller.

At last there came a final letter from Africa, a letter that filled the tender, middle-aged heart of Spence with the deepest grief he had ever known. It was written in a shaky hand, and the writer began by saying that he knew neither the date nor his locality. He had been ill and delirious with fever, and was now, at last, in his right mind, but felt the grip of death upon him. The natives had told him that no one ever recovered from the malady he had caught in the swamp, and his own feelings led him to believe that his case was hopeless. The natives had been very kind to him throughout, and his followers had promised to bring his boxes to the coast. The boxes contained the collections he had made, and also his complete journal, which he had written up to the day he became ill.

Ormond begged his friend to hand over his belongings to the Geographical Society, and to arrange for the publication of his journal, if possible. It might secure for him the fame he had died to achieve, or it might not; but, he added, he left the whole conduct of the affair unreservedly to his friend, in whom he had that love and confidence which a man gives to another man but once in his life--when he is young. The tears were in Jimmy's eyes long before he had finished the letter.

He turned to another letter he had received by the same mail, and which also bore the South African stamp upon it. Hoping to find some news of his friend he broke the seal, but it was merely an intimation from the steamship company that half-a-dozen boxes remained at the southern terminus of the line addressed to him; but, they said, until they were assured the freight upon them to Southampton would be paid, they would not be forwarded.

A week later, the London papers announced in large type, "Mysterious disappearance of an actor." The well-known actor, Mr. James Spence, had left the theatre in which he had been playing the part of Joseph to a great actor's Richelieu, and had not been heard of since. The janitor remembered him leaving that night, for he had not returned his salutation, which was most unusual. His friends had noticed that for a few days previous to his disappearance he had been apparently in deep dejection, and fears were entertained. One journalist said jestingly that probably Jimmy had gone to see what had become of his African friend; but the joke, such as it was, was not favourably received, for when a man is called Jimmy until late in life, it shows that people have an affection for him, and every one who knew Spence was sorry he had disappeared, and hoped that no evil had overtaken him.

It was a year after the disappearance that a wan, living skeleton staggered out of the wilderness in Africa, and blindly groped his way to the coast as a man might who had lived long in darkness and found the light too strong for his eyes. He managed to reach a port, and there took steamer homeward bound for Southampton. The sea-breezes revived him somewhat, but it was evident to all the passengers that he had passed through a desperate illness. It was just a toss-up whether he could live until he saw England again. It was impossible to guess at his age, so heavy a hand had disease laid upon him, and he did not seem to care to make acquaintances, but kept much to himself, sitting wrapped up in his chair, gazing with a tired-out look at the green ocean.

A young girl frequently sat in a chair near him, ostensibly reading, but more often glancing sympathetically at the wan figure beside her. Many times she seemed about to speak to him, but apparently hesitated to do so, for the man took no notice of his fellow-passengers. At length, however, she mustered up courage to address him, and said: "There is a good story in this magazine: perhaps you would like to read it?"

He turned his eyes from the sea and rested them vacantly upon her face for a moment. His dark moustache added to the pallor of his face, but did not conceal the faint smile that came to his lips; he had heard her, but had not understood.

"What did you say?" he asked, gently.

"I said there was a good story here, entitled 'Author! Author!' and I thought you might like to read it," and the girl blushed very prettily as she said this, for the man looked younger than he had done before he smiled.