"Day after to-morrow"s the day, I s"pose?"
"Yes," Jessie responded, dejectedly, "it is."
"Hu--m--wal", wal", you don"t seem real animated about it, if you"ll excuse my saying so. I swan, I "lowed you all would be right pleased to think the long waiting"s so nearly over."
"It isn"t that," Jessie told him, trying to keep her lips from quivering, "but--Joe has gone."
"What!"
Jessie repeated the statement.
"Pshaw! Now, that"s too bad!" Mr. Wilson exclaimed, rubbing his hair upright, as he always did when perplexed. "Wal", I don"t know when I"ve heard anything more surprising," he continued, when Jessie had detailed the manner of Joe"s disappearance to him; "I"d a banked on that old man to the last breath o" life. And he"s gone! Appearances are all-fired deceivin", that"s so, but don"t you grieve over it, girls; it"ll all come out all right in the end. The old man has stayed right by you and helped you good since your pa was taken, but we must remember that he never was in the habit of tyin" himself down to one place before this, and, more"n likely"s not, his old, rovin" habits have suddenly proved too strong fer him, and he"s jest lit out because he couldn"t stan" the pressure any longer."
"But Joe is so faithful; he has always been just like one of the family, and he knows so well how badly we need him," I objected; "it does not seem possible for him to have deserted us."
"Desert is a purty ha"sh word, Miss Leslie. There"s some mystery about it, take my word for it. Joe"ll be back again, and when he comes I"ll guarantee that he"ll be able to give some good reason for going away."
Jessie shook her head, tearfully. "I don"t believe he will ever come back," she said.
"Wal", s"pose he doesn"t? I reckon you two ain"t goin" to let go your grip on that account. But troubles do seem to kind o" thicken around you! That"s so."
He paused a moment, musing over our troubles, and Ralph took advantage of his silence to call his attention to the kitten with which one of the neighbors had presented him to the jealous torment of his old playfellow, the big cat: "My new tat tan wink wiv bof he eyes, see?"
he proclaimed, holding the animal up for inspection.
"Yes, yes, I see, little feller," was the absent reply.
Encouraged, Ralph put the kitten on his lap. "Her won"t bite; "oo needn"t be "fraid," he said.
Mr. Wilson stroked the small cat mechanically and then lifted it to the ground--using its tail for a handle, to Ralph"s speechless indignation--then he faced us again, his forehead puckered with anxious wrinkles: "There"s one thing that I never thought of until early this morning--when I did, I hurried through with my ch.o.r.es and came right over here. It"s a stunner to find that Joe"s gone, now, in addition to all the rest, but we must keep a stiff upper lip. Fact is, I"m to blame for not thinking of this thing six weeks--yes, three months ago. I ought to have thought of it, children," he swept us all with a compa.s.sionate glance, "the day that your father died. I"d be willing to bet a big sum, if I was a betting man--which I"m thankful to say that I ain"t--that Jake Horton thought of it, and has kept it well in mind all along; he ain"t the man to overlook such a thing as that." Wiping his perplexed face with the red silk handkerchief that he always kept in his hat for that purpose, he continued, desperately: "This claim was taken up, lived on, built on, notices for proving up by Ralph C. Gordon. Ralph C. Gordon! Wal"," he ran his fingers again through his iron-gray hair, making it stand more defiantly upright than ever, "there ain"t no Ralph C. Gordon!"
The point that we had overlooked, presented to us now, for the first time, almost on the eve of our proving up, was of such vital importance, as it occurred to our awakened understanding, that, at first, we could do nothing but stare at each other, and at him, in stunned dismay. But hope, as that saving angel will, stirred, and began to brighten as our friend proceeded.
"There are ways," he said. "I"ve been thinking of some of "em; but I am desperate afraid that none of "em will do. The agent might, if he was disposed to be obligin", transfer your father"s claim to you, Jessie, if you could swear that you are the head of a family, and that"s what you can"t do--not as the law requires it, you can"t. The law don"t recognize any one as the head of a family until of legal age. Even if you were of legal age, the agent might refuse, if he saw fit. If he should, all that you can do will be to file on the claim again and go in for another five years" tussle with the homesteading problem. "Pears like there was a pretty fair prospect of your whole family coming of age before another siege of homesteading is ended.
Why didn"t I think of all this before? "Cause I"m an old wooden head, I s"pose! No, I"m mighty afeared that the only thing we can do is for you to jest go down and file on the land in your own name, and say nothing about age, if the agent asks no questions. As I said before, you"ll be old enough for anything before it comes time for a second proving up."
Jessie, who had been listening intently, here suddenly interposed with sparkling eyes, "I"m old enough now, Mr. Wilson, or, at least, I shall be to-morrow. To-morrow is my birthday, and I shall be eighteen!"
Mr. Wilson sprang up so suddenly that he overturned his chair, and sent Ralph"s new pet scurrying from the room in wild alarm.
"Hooray for us!" he cried, seizing Jessie"s hand. "The Gordons forever! Now we"re all right. I"ve felt certain all along that the agent would give you a deed if he could, but he couldn"t if you were all under age. "Twouldn"t "a" been legal. But if one of you is of legal age, the homestead business is settled."
"But suppose he should refuse to give us a deed on account of the claim"s standing in father"s name?" Jessie asked.
"In that case the thing to do is to file on it again, right there and then, in your own name--strange, ain"t it," he interjected, suddenly, "that the law "pears to declare that a girl"s as smart at eighteen as a boy is at twenty-one? Wal", the law don"t know everything; you must go down there day after to-morrow, prepared to enter the claim again, though I do hope it won"t come to that."
"That will cost a good deal, too, won"t it?" Jessie inquired, dejectedly.
"Yes; it will. I don"t see but you must go down with money enough not only to pay up the final fees, but to file on the land again in case of the agent"s refusal."
"Will that take more than the fees would amount to?" I inquired.
"Bless you, yes! I don"t know jest how much, but a right smart. How much have you got now?"
It needed no reckoning to tell the sum total of our painfully garnered h.o.a.rd. Mr. Wilson shook his head when Jessie named the sum total. "Not enough; not enough, by half! And, as the worst luck will have it, I"m clean out of money myself jest now. I declare, I don"t see where my money all goes! It don"t "pear to matter how much I may have one day, it"s all gone the next; beats all, it does!" He looked at us solemnly, sitting with his lips pursed up, his hair standing bolt upright, and his brows knit over the problem of his own financial shortage, yet, to one who knew him, no problem was of easier solution.
Up and down the length and breadth of the valley, in miner"s lonely cabin, in cowboy"s rough shack, or struggling rancher"s rude domicile--wherever a helpful friend was needed, Mr. Wilson was known and loved, and, if money was needed, all that he had was freely given.
So it was no surprise to learn that he was suffering from temporary financial embarra.s.sment at a time when he would have liked, as usual, to help a friend.
"Say," he suddenly exclaimed, starting from his troubled reverie; "in order to make all safe, you"ve got to have money enough to file on that land when you go down; there"s no "if"s" nor "and"s" about that!
Your father would never "a" hesitated a minute about borrowing the money for such a purpose, if he had it to do. Now, Jim Jackson--over Archeleuta way--he"s owing me quite a consid"able. I"ll go over there to-day and see what I can do with him. He"ll help us out if he can, but he"s been having sickness in his family, and maybe he can"t; we"ll have to take our chances. I do" no"s a hold-up is ever justifiable,"
he continued, with a humorous twinkle in his bright eyes; "but if it is, this would be one of the times. I hope we won"t be drove to that!"
He took his departure shortly after, going back home to exchange his team--to the detriment of his own affairs, I"m afraid--for a saddle-horse, the better to perform the somewhat hazardous journey up "Archeleuta way," but, before going, he enjoined us, if we had any written proof of Jessie"s coming of age on the morrow, to look it up and have it in readiness to offer in evidence, in case the fact were questioned.
"Your coming of age to-morrow is of so much importance that it seems almost too good to be true," he said, earnestly.
So, after he had gone, Jessie took the big family Bible down from the book shelf, and, opening the book, turned to the pages where the Gordon family record had been carefully kept for many years. We knew, of course, that there could be no mistake, but it was pleasant to see the proof of our security in indisputable black and white.
"I"m afraid that Mr. Wilson will get nothing out of the Jacksons,"
Jessie remarked, as we turned away from a prolonged inspection of the record; "he has had bad luck, and I heard, the other day, that Ted had broken his arm."
"I"m not going to be afraid about anything now," I declared valiantly.
"I"m sure we"ll come out all right. Mercy on us! What was that?" I broke off, as a chorus of mingled outcries came to our ears. Outside the doorway there appeared to be, judging by the sound, a lively commotion, in which cat, dog, and boy were each bearing a part. We ran out in alarm and found Ralph just picking himself up off the ground upon which he seemed to have been thrown with some force.
Ralph, unnoticed in the interest of our talk with Mr. Wilson, had been amusing himself in his own way. His way had been to overturn the empty bushel basket and put it over Guard, who was lying by the doorstep.
Guard had submitted to imprisonment with placid indifference until it came to Ralph"s thrusting the new cat in with him; this he instantly resented, so, to insure the dog"s staying within, Ralph had climbed upon the basket. Whereupon Guard sprang up, overturning both jail and jailor. The liberated cat fled with all speed, and Guard walked off in disgust.
"What on earth are you trying to do?" I demanded.
Ralph raised his violet eyes soberly to my face as he replied: "Us was havin" a round-up; now us all "tampeded," and the violet eyes were drenched with raindrops, as the little cattleman threw himself on the ground, sobbing.
"Never mind, darling, your herd will all come home," I said, consolingly.
"Me don"t want "em to tum back; me"s so mad!" was the uncompromising reply.
CHAPTER XIX
MR. HORTON MAKES US A VISIT
Late that same evening Mr. Wilson called again. He was on his way home, and stopped to tell us--with evident chagrin--that his mission had been a failure.
"You"ll have to take the trail in the morning, Leslie, and see what you can do," he said, as he went away.
The cows broke out of the corral that night, and it took so long to hunt them up, get them back into the corral, and milk them, that it was quite the middle of the day when I was ready to start out on my unwelcome business. Try as I might to convince myself to the contrary, the effort to borrow money seemed to me, somehow, akin to beggary. In my heart I had a cowardly wish that Joe had been on hand to take my place, but I kept all such reflections to myself. I had changed my print dress for the worn old riding habit of green serge, and was about starting for the barn to get Frank, when Jessie remarked:
"While you are hunting for a chance to borrow money, I"ll be earning some. If I can finish this work to-day--it"s Annie Ellis"