CHAPTER XI.

GOOD NEWS.

Billy now came up bearing the big tin cup again.

“About time he had the second dose, I reckon, Doc?” he asked Arthur, and upon that worthy nodding his head in the affirmative the good-natured cook guided the drinking vessel to the lips of the repentant boy lying there.

He drank every drop of the contents, and seemed to relish it amazingly.

“You’re all so good to me, fellows!” he said, after draining the cup to the very dregs. “It’s almost like getting back home again to meet Oakvale boys up here, and my own brother Gus among the lot. I guess it must have been my good angel that guided me to this place, where I knew we’d find shelter; for I thought father’s loggers would be working here, and I might get a job on the sly, till I could communicate with my mother. Oh! I’ll never stop being thankful it’s all come out as it has.”

“There’s something I ought to tell you, Sam,” remarked Gus, a little later, after some of the excitement had worn away, and they could manage to sit or lie around enjoying the cheery fire, and thanking their lucky stars, as Billy said, that the fates allowed them to be so comfortable when it was getting bitter cold outside with a shift of wind into the northwest.

The prodigal looked anxious upon hearing his brother say that.

“Nothing bad, I hope, Gus?” he observed.

“You must settle that with yourself,” the other replied, “after you’ve heard what I say. But, Sam, I’ve got some reason to believe father is beginning to feel sorry for what he did years ago. You know he’s got an iron will, and even mother is afraid to stir him up. But just the other day something happened that made me think he’s breaking down.”

“Tell me, Gus, please tell me!” urged Sam, eagerly.

“Why, it happened this way, you see,” resumed the other, quickly. “I was passing the door of the library and chanced to look in just in time to see father put something down in the corner of the big secretary that stands there, you remember, Sam. He started to blow his nose, too, and turned his back on me; but I give you my word, Sam, when I saw him a few minutes later his eyes were red!”

“Oh!” exclaimed Sam, with his face as tense as it could well be.

“That made me mighty curious, I tell you,” Gus went on to say, “and when I had a half-decent chance I just slipped into the library and looked to see what it was father had been staring at when I startled him. Sam, would you believe it, I found that little picture of _you_ there, that mother had in a gilt frame, and kept on the parlor mantel up to the time you went away!”

Sam gave a low bubbling cry. He was evidently greatly shaken by this intelligence, the very first news he had received to show that, after all, the suffering had not fallen to himself and his mother alone.

“So that’s one reason why mother, when she heard that you had been seen here, and were sick, sent me up to find you, because we both believe father is weakening. He isn’t the same man he used to be, Sam. His shoulders are bowed these days, and he hasn’t much to say to anybody. He was always a proud man, you remember, and I guess he hates to admit that he was harsh and unforgiving when he sent you away from home; but I do honestly believe, Sam, he’s near the turning point now. A little thing would make him break down.”

Hugh could not help feeling pleased. Indeed, looking backward to many things that had happened in his past he could not think of any that gave him greater reason for thankfulness than the fact of his agreeing to accompany Gus on what to some might have seemed like a wild-goose errand into these woods.

“We expect to stay up here a few days, you see, Sam,” he explained, as they sat there and talked of many things that interested them all. “By the time we’re ready to fold up our blankets and start in the big seven-passenger car back home, you’ll be fit to travel. By then you can have made your plans, just what you expect to do, though the chief thing, I expect, will be to meet that good mother of yours, and fill her brave heart with new hope.”

“I tell you, Hugh, and the rest of you good fellows,” said Sam, “the minutes are going to drag like lead to me till the time comes when I can feel her arms about my neck again. Oh! none of you can ever understand what it means to a fellow to know that thousands of miles, yes, and something worse than that even, stands between him and his mother. How many nights I’ve dreamed I saw her, only to wake up and realize the terrible truth! A stronger hand than my own has guided me here, I honestly and truly believe.”

“Oh! I nearly forgot something else I meant to tell you, Sam!” exclaimed Gus just then, “not that it’s a matter of any particular importance, you see, but then, Mr. Jones, the post master, called me into his office to show it to me, and ask if I knew whether you expected to be back home soon. You see, he knows a little about what happened years ago, though few people in Oakvale do.”

“Why, what did he have to show you that was for me?” asked Sam, apparently puzzled to understand it all.

“It was a letter that had come by registered mail,” explained Gus, smiling fondly at his brother.

“For me, do you mean?” demanded the other.

“Yes, and from Alaska, too,” he was told. “I already knew that you had been seen near the camp up here, but I didn’t want to tell Mr. Jones that. So I just said it was possible you might be dropping in to sign for that letter yourself before a great while, if so, would he hold it for you, which he said he would, and gave me to understand he meant to keep it quiet.”

“A letter registered, and from Alaska,” Sam went on to say as though to himself. “That’s a queer thing. Few people up there knew that I came from Oakvale in this far Eastern State. I wonder who could have sent it?”

“Oh! as a scout,” Gus proudly told him, “who has been taught the value of observing things, I made sure to notice that up in the corner there was a printed slip that read this way: ‘Jenkins and Pratt, Attorneys, Nome, Alaska.’ Now, may be that’ll give you a clue to the senders, Sam.”

“It certainly does, Gus, thanks to your scout tactics,” the other quickly responded. “That was the name of the law firm I employed while fighting for my title to that mine that swamped me. I wonder what they are writing to me about. The chances are, though, they find they didn’t charge me enough for their services, and this is an extra bill they want me to pay.”

“Oh! perhaps they’re sending you some good news, Sam!” suggested Gus, as a sudden wild hope possessed him. “It would be just like it to have things take a turn up there, and that mine come back to you again.”

“No such good luck, I’m afraid,” remarked Sam, shaking his head skeptically. “I’ve been up against hard luck all my life, you see. Everything goes crooked with a fellow who’s gone and made a mess of his prospects like I did.”

“But you’ve reached the turn of the lane, Sam, you see,” ventured the other. “From now on things are going to right-about face, and be just the opposite from what they used to strike you. Once the tide of good luck sets in there’s no telling what will happen. Say what you will, I’m going to hope it’s that way.”

They sat there and talked for a long time afterwards. Indeed all of them were so excited that it was with considerable difficulty that Hugh could coax them to consider going to bed.

Before they retired he had some of the wood that had been taken into the cabin placed conveniently so that when any one chanced to awaken during the night it would be a simple matter to step over and cast a log on the fire. There would apparently be more or less need of extra warmth in the bunk-house before dawn came, what with the storm changing its course and bringing the bitter breath of winter out of the great Northwest.

They were short in blankets, but then Hugh expected to make himself comfortable with some of the bags they had found in the place, left behind by the loggers, as well as some extra clothes he had along with him. Sam had been given Hugh’s covering, and Gus would have forced the scout master to accept his blanket only he found himself up against a wall of adamant when he tried that sort of thing. In some matters Hugh could be very stubborn.

“This is an old story for me, Gus,” the scout master had told him convincingly, as he shook his head and pushed the proffered blanket back into the other’s hands. “In fact, to tell you the truth, I rather enjoy being put to the test this way, and having to hustle for bed clothes. I’ll keep warm enough, never fear; and besides, we mean to have a fire all night, so there you are. Thanks just the same, but it’s impossible, Gus. So stow yourself away in one of the bunks closest to the fire, and go to sleep happier than you’ve been this many a day.”

“I guess I will, Hugh,” admitted Gus, smiling at the other with eyes that sparkled as though they contained dewdrops, “because I’ll be dreaming of _her_, and how glad she’ll be when she knows I’ve succeeded in the mission she entrusted to my hands, thanks to the help of my chums.”

“Yes,” said the scout master, with a hand on the shoulder of Gus, “and depend on it, old fellow, before many moons pass by I’m going to see to it that your name is written on the Roll of Honor they keep at scout headquarters for all those who save human life at the risk of their own. You’re entitled to wear a medal on your coat for what you’ve done this night, if any of us won the honor.” And doubtless Gus Merrivale would sleep all the sounder that night on account of knowing that the ambition he had so long cherished above all other scout aims was in a fair way of being realized at last.