CHAPTER XX.

INSIDE THE DUG-OUT.

Poor Oscar! This was a most unexpected and disastrous ending to the expedition upon which he had set out with such high hopes.

What would his mother do now? What would be the verdict of the committee, who seemed to have so exalted an opinion of his abilities, and whose confidence in him had led them to place in his hands a thousand dollars of the university’s money?

It is true that he still had funds at his command, but he had use for them. If another mule must be purchased, where was he going to obtain the money to pay his guide? It was a bad case, altogether, and almost any boy would have been utterly discouraged. Oscar certainly was, and he was on the very point of abandoning the whole thing in despair, when something prompted him to say to himself:

“If I give up here, I must return that money; and how in the world am I to do that?”

This thought frightened him, and made him almost desperate. He hastily reviewed the situation, and in two minutes more had made up his mind how to act.

“All right, Mr. Barker,” said he, giving back the note which the latter had handed him to read. “If this is your mule it is nothing more than fair that you should have him. Thompson,” he added, turning to his guide, who had stood by, an interested listener to all that had passed between the ranchman and his employer, “what will you take for your pony?”

“Wal,” said the latter, suddenly straightening up and winking hard, as if he had just been aroused from a sound sleep, “he aint fur sale, that there hoss aint.”

“Mr. Barker,” continued Oscar, “have you an extra pony that you would be willing to dispose of? I haven’t money enough with me to pay for him; but I will give you an order on the colonel, which I assure you will be honored.”

“No,” was the disheartening reply. “I have but one, and I can’t spare him. But you don’t need a pony to carry you back to the fort, even if you are a tenderfoot. You can easily walk that distance.”

“Who said anything about going back to the fort?” exclaimed Oscar, almost indignantly. “I have not the slightest intention of going back. I shall not allow this expedition to fall through for the want of a little pluck now, I tell you. I’ll walk, since I can’t buy a horse, but it will be toward the foot-hills. I’ll take what I can on my back; and, Thompson, you will have to carry the rest. We’ll not stop here to-night. We can easily make five miles more before it is time to go into camp, and every mile counts now.”

“The foot-hills!” exclaimed the ranchman, who was plainly very much surprised. “What are you going there for at this time of year?”

“I am going to hunt. I was sent out by the Yarmouth University to procure specimens for its museum,” answered Oscar.

“_You_ were?” exclaimed the ranchman.

“Yes, _I_ was.”

Ike Barker looked toward the guide, who nodded his head in confirmation of Oscar’s statement, whereupon the ranchman backed toward the little mound of earth that had been thrown up when the steps were dug out, and seated himself upon it.

“This beats my time all hollow,” said he.

“It is the truth, whether it beats you or not,” replied Oscar, who showed that he could be independent if he was in trouble. “I have my credentials in my pocket. I should have been successful in my undertaking if I hadn’t been foolish, or, rather, unfortunate enough to buy this stolen mule. I shall have to leave my chest behind, after all. Mr. Barker, can I hire you to take it back to the fort for me?”

“Not by a long shot!” exclaimed the ranchman, suddenly jumping up and seizing Oscar by the arm. “Thompson, you turn your pony loose and unhitch that mule. You come into my den with me, Mr.—Mr.—What’s your name?”

“Preston—Oscar Preston. But I don’t want to go into your den.”

“Well, you’ll go, all the same. What sort of a man do you suppose I am, anyhow—a heathen?”

Before Oscar could reply, the ranchman, having tightened his grasp on his arm, dragged rather than led him down the stairs, ushered him into the dug-out, and seated him on an inverted dry-goods box that stood in the corner near the stove.

“There!” said he. “Sit down and talk to me, while I go on getting supper. I didn’t expect company to-night; and, as I have sent most of my grub and all my sheep off to the hills, I can’t give you as good a meal as I could if you had come a week ago. I should have been on the way to the hills myself by this time, if it hadn’t been for that note I found fastened to my door. How is everything in the States? Got any late papers with you?”

The friendly tone in which these words were spoken surprised Oscar. Could this be the same man who had pointed a loaded gun at his head a few minutes before?

While his host was speaking, Oscar had leisure to look about him. He had never before seen the inside of a dug-out, and he was not a little astonished at the appearance of it.

It was really a comfortable dwelling, and not the dirty hole he had expected to find it. There was plenty of room in it; and the furniture it contained, although of the rudest description, showed that it had been fitted up as a permanent abode.

There were two bunks beside the door; and in one of them a comfortable bed was made up. The other was empty. The walls were covered by blankets and buffalo robes; two small dry-goods boxes did duty as chairs, and a larger one served as the table.

There was a small cupboard on each side of the stove, one of which contained a few tin dishes, while the other, Oscar noticed with some surprise, was filled with books.

A solitary candle burned in a bracket candlestick that was fastened against the wall; but, as there was a reflector behind it, the interior of the dug-out was well lighted.

The ranchman talked incessantly while he was busy with his preparations for supper; but Oscar was too deeply engrossed with his own affairs to pay much attention to him.

The loss of the mule weighed heavily on his mind; but, after all, it did not trouble him so much as did the note which the ranchman said he had found fastened to his “door.”

Oscar knew then, as well as he knew it afterward, that the note had been written by his brother, at the dictation of Lish, the Wolfer, and that it could have been written for no other purpose than to get him into trouble with the ranchman; but why the Wolfer and Tom should want to get him into trouble was something he could not divine. It was something that baffled him completely.

Worse than all, he was obliged to keep his own counsel; there was no one to whom he could go for advice.

He would have been glad to continue the journey that night; for he wanted to get away by himself and think the matter over.

Presently the guide came in, having unhitched the mule and turned his pony loose to graze, as the ranchman had directed.

He had but little to say while disposing of his share of the homely supper that was speedily served up on the large dry-goods box, but left the ranchman and Oscar to do the talking.

The little he did say was addressed to his employer, who learned that he had attained to high rank during the last half-hour.

Although Oscar did not know it, he had made two firm friends by the course he had pursued.

An experienced plainsman has not the slightest respect for a “gentleman sportsman,” which is the title that hunters from the States generally assume for themselves; and that was the reason why Big Thompson had been so morose and taciturn ever since leaving the fort.

It would have been bad enough, the guide thought, to spend the winter in the mountains in company with one of his own kind—a man upon whom he could depend in any emergency, and who could relate stories of adventure around the camp-fire as thrilling as any he could tell himself; but the thought of passing long months in the society of a tenderfoot, and a stripling, besides, was most distasteful to him.

He had consented to act as Oscar’s guide simply because he knew the colonel wished him to do so, and because he had been made aware of the fact that the boy had money to pay him for his services; but he would much rather have remained near the fort, and passed the time in idleness.

Now he seemed to have different opinions. A boy who could look into the muzzle of a double-barrel with as little trepidation as Oscar had exhibited, and who could hold to his purpose in spite of difficulties and disappointments that would have disheartened almost anybody, must have something in him, even if he was a tenderfoot.

Not being accustomed to such things, the guide did not know how to acknowledge his mistake directly, but he could indirectly; and he did it by dubbing Oscar “professor,” by which dignified title he ever afterward addressed him.

That was Big Thompson’s way of showing his friendship; but the ranchman, although he very soon fell into the way of calling Oscar by the same title, showed his appreciation of the boy’s pluck and independence in a much more substantial manner.