Note 1. A Western joke, from the pa.s.sage in Pope's Essay on Man which runs: "Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind."

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

A BOMB FOR THE REV. DUDLEY.

The Rev. Dudley Vallance sat in his library sorting out the contents of the post-bag.

There was his usual correspondence, all of which he knew at a glance, and tossed impatiently aside, and two or three missives in an unknown hand, which met with no greater attention. But that which he sought was not there. Not a line from his absent son.

More than a month had elapsed since Geoffry had started on his travels.

To the surprise of his parents, he had as suddenly come round to their plans, and was as ardently ready to go abroad as he had been formerly opposed to the idea. Still more to their surprise, he had expressed a firm determination to travel in the United States and nowhere else; and, with an energy wholly foreign to his limp nature, had extorted from them a promise to reveal no word of his intention until after his departure.

Of course, the reason of this was soon made manifest; yet his indulgent father would not oppose him. And now, for nearly a fortnight, no news of him had been received. To be sure, he had been on the eve of quitting the furthest limits of Western civilisation when he last wrote--probably opportunities of communication were few and far between.

Yet the Rev. Dudley felt very anxious, very disappointed.

Mechanically he opened his letters, one after another, but hardly glanced at the contents. Even the announcement that a couple of farms would shortly be thrown on his hands--a notice which at any other time would have disturbed his rest for a week--pa.s.sed unheeded now. Suddenly his face paled, and a quick gasp escaped his white lips. He had come to the last letter of all, and it was from his solicitors.

We know of nothing more calculated to knock a man out of all time than a wholly unexpected and equally unwelcome communication imparted through the agency of the post. If imparted by word of mouth, he can find some relief in questioning his informant, but when coming through the medium of a letter, especially a lawyer's letter, there is that in the cold, stiff paper, in the precise, hateful characters, as unbending, as inexorable as the very finality of Fate. The communication which, even in the midst of his paternal anxiety, had knocked Mr Vallance so thoroughly out of time, conveyed nothing less than the news that a claimant had come forward to dispossess him of the Lant estates, to contest the late squire's will on several grounds, including that of fraud. And the said claimant was no less a personage than the late squire's son.

And really it is not surprising that he should have been knocked out of time. In a lightning-flash there pa.s.sed before him a vision of years of litigation, draining his resources and impoverishing his estate--and that even should things not come to the worst. The tone of his lawyers'

letter was not rea.s.suring. This meant that, in their opinion, the claimant had a good case. How good that case might be was a consideration which turned the reverend squire's features a trifle paler.

Then came a ray of hope. Ralph Vallance had not been heard of for years, nearer twenty than ten. He had probably gone to the dogs long ago, had joined the ranks of the "shady," and, in keeping with his umbrageous character, was now trying to extort a compromise, or, failing that, a sum of money not to make himself troublesome. But to this happy idea succeeded a darker one, dousing the first as in a rush of ink.

Probably with the extraordinary luck which now and then befalls the thorough adventurer, Ralph was returning a rich man, prepared, out of sheer vindictiveness, to devote a large portion of his wealth to plunging his cousin into protracted litigation, with all its hara.s.sing and impoverishing results. This would be about as disastrous, in the long run, as the actual establishment of the claim.

Again and again he read the hateful missive, until every word of it was burnt into his brain, but he gleaned no comfort. From whatever point he thought it over, the outlook was about as gloomy as it could be. The summer air came into the room in soft and balmy puffs, laden with the scent of roses. He could hear his children's voices on the terrace below, and away over many a mile of rolling down his eye wandered over pleasant pastures alternating with velvety woodland, and yellow corn-fields awaiting the sickle; to the river flashing like a silver streak through the shade of the beeches, where the deer lay in antlered and dappled groups, lazily chewing the cud in the soft and sensuous forenoon. All this was his own, and his son's after him--an hour ago, that is. But now? He saw himself adrift in his old age, and his idolised son drudging miserably for daily bread. He saw the kinsman, in whose place he had for so long stood, ejecting him pitilessly, vindictively; exacting, it might be, all arrears to the uttermost farthing. Even after this lapse of years (nearer twenty than ten) he cowered beneath the bitter and burning home-truths which that kinsman had hurled at him, here, in this very room, and his heart quaked and his blood curdled at the promise of a terrible and unlooked-for vengeance with which his kinsman had left him. Time had gone by; year had succeeded year; his children growing up, and he himself in undisturbed possession, and the force of these denunciations and threats had become dulled. He had long since come to categorise them in his own mind as the furious vapourings of a desperate and disappointed man. And now they were to bear fruit, to strike him down in his old age, to turn him and his homeless and helpless on the world. The wretched man dropped his head into his hands and groaned aloud.

But, the reader will ask, what was the man made of to start by discounting the worst; to throw up the sponge so abjectly at the very first threat of battle? Well, there may be something in the adage that conscience makes cowards--of certain temperaments, or there may have been a something underlying the whole affair unknown even to Mr Vallance's own lawyers, or, possibly, a good deal of both. We can only say: Reader, persevere, and discover for yourself.

Suddenly there floated in upon the summer air a mellow peal of church bells. Mr Vallance aroused himself. He had forgotten it was Sunday, forgotten his anxiety about Geoffry, forgotten everything in this new and terrible blow that threatened him. The turning of the door-handle made him fairly start from his chair, so overwrought were his nerves.

"The girls have gone on, Dudley," said his wife, entering, a sumptuous presence in her church-going attire.

"All right, my dear. Kindly overtake them, will you? I'll follow you when I'm ready."

"But you'll be very late. Why, what is the matter?" she broke off, alarmed by his appearance and the huskiness of his tone. Then glancing at the pile of newly-opened letters--"Is it bad news? Not--not about Geoffry?"

"_No_, not about Geoffry; thank Heaven for that. There is no word of the boy or his movements. It is--er--merely a very unfortunate and perplexing matter of business. Please don't wait for me."

Those who caught a glimpse of their pastor's face that morning as he swept up the church behind his little procession of choir-boys were startled at the grey, set expression it wore; and when, after several mistakes and omissions in the performance of the service, he brought it to a close without a sermon, the parish--such of it as was present, at least--came to the conclusion that something must have gone very wrong indeed. Had Mr Vallance heard bad news about his son? No, for when the retired jerry-builder, who was also churchwarden, meeting the parson after service, made the enquiry in a sepulchral and sympathising stage-whisper, he met with a very unconcerned answer in the negative.

"Parson do look main sick, surely" was the verdict of the village, as, represented by its choicest louts, it hung around the churchyard gate, and subsequently at the corners of the roads and lanes, previous to its afternoon Sunday loaf among the same. "Parson, he be agein', he be."

Thus the village verdict.

"Poor Mr Vallance was looking very ill this morning," remarked Mrs Santorex at dinner that day. "He could hardly get through the service.

Everybody thought at first that he had heard bad news of Geoffry, but it appears not. In fact, he had heard no news of him at all."

"Likely enough he has been hard hit in the pocket department," rejoined her lord. "Probably, 'poor Mr Vallance' has been dabbling in bubble investments; and his particular bubble has--gone the way of all bubbles.

Rather rough that he should hear about it on Sunday, though, the day of all others when he has to show up in public. So he blundered over the service, did he? Well, our shepherd ought to know by this time that he can't serve two masters--ha--ha!"

But when later in the afternoon Mr and Mrs Vallance, with a brace of daughters, dropped in, Mr Santorex felt persuaded that at least one of the quartet had come there with further intent than that of making a mere friendly call, and accordingly he awaited events in a kind of mental ambush congenial to his cynical soul.

"Any news of Yseulte?" asked Mrs Vallance, rising to depart.

"Yes. She has fallen in with a Major Winthrop and his wife. They seem very good sort of people, and the little girl is going to travel under their charge. They are neighbours of my boy George, and are returning to their ranche."

"Can I have a word with you, Santorex?" said the Rev. Dudley, lingering at the gate, having told his wife and daughters to go on without him.

"Er--the fact is," he continued, lowering his voice, as the other nodded a.s.sent, "the fact is--er--something rather troublesome--a mere trifle that is to say--has occurred to worry me. Have you any idea of the whereabouts of Ralph Vallance?"

"Not the faintest."

"Oh. I thought perhaps you might know something about him. I believe you and he were--er--on friendly terms at one time?"

"Yes, we were. Why? Have _you_ heard anything about him?"

"Er--well, I may say this much. I fancy the poor fellow is in need of a.s.sistance--if only I knew where he was."

"Afraid I can't help you to learn. Stay. It was only lately I was turning out a lot of old correspondence, and there was a whole bundle of Ralph's letters. It was just before Chickie went away. I'll hunt them up and see if they afford any clue."

The other started. A scared, anxious look came into his face at the mention of the correspondence.

"Might I--might I just look over those letters?" he asked, eagerly.

"H'm. I'm afraid I can hardly agree to that. But if I find anything in them likely to be of service to you I won't fail to let you know."

With this, Mr Vallance was forced to be content. His late host stood shaking his head softly as he looked after his retreating figure, and that cynical half-smile played about the corners of his mouth.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

POOR GEOFFRY AGAIN.

True to Vipan's prediction, the first person they met on their return to camp was Smokestack Bill.

Leaning against a waggon-wheel, lazily puffing at his pipe, his faithful Winchester ever ready to hand, the scout watched their approach as imperturbably as though he had parted with his friend but half-an-hour back, instead of nearly a month ago, when he had watched the latter ride off with Mahto-sapa's band into what looked perilously like the very jaws of death. But he could not restrain a covert guffaw as he marked in what company he now met his friend again.

"h.e.l.lo, Bill! Any news?" cried the latter, as they rode up to the waggon corral. "By the way, I must call round and collect that twenty dollars from Seth Davis."

"Guess you'll have to trade his scalp to raise it," was the grim reply.

"And you'll find it drying in the smoke of an Ogallalla _teepe_."

"That so?"

"It is. Couple o' nights after War Wolf was run off, a crowd of 'em came along and shot Seth in the doorway of his store. Then they cleared out all the goods and burnt down the whole shebang. They couldn't nohow get rid of the idea that he'd had a hand in giving War Wolf away."