Mr. Watkins appeared astonished.

"I want you to consider your position," he repeated.

"I may tell you that I considered it carefully some months ago, but there's a point I'd like to mention. Has it struck you that I might promise to fall in with your friends' views and all the same give them away?"

"It was talked about," Mr. Watkins answered. "We decided it wouldn't be in keeping with what we knew about your character, and you'd certainly be sorry you had done it afterward."

"Now we're coming to the second and more important half of the message,"

said Mr. Oliver.

"You're right," was the answer. "I'm to understand that when you say you won't meet my friends' views it's your last word?"

"Yes," said Mr. Oliver firmly.

"Then my message is a plain one. Let up, or look out. I want you to fix your attention on the last part of it. You have quite a nice place here, a high-cla.s.s barn and homestead, and a good hay crop, and there's n.o.body living within some miles of you except Webster."

"Precisely!" said Mr. Oliver. "They cost me a good deal of very hard work and I shall try to keep them. Now I suppose you've said your piece?"

Mr. Watkins raised his hand as if to beg his forbearance.

"You've heard it all. I only want to add that I'm quite willing to start right now for Carthew if you wish it."

Mr. Oliver laughed naturally and easily.

"No," he said, "you're my guest for the night. After this we'll change the subject and talk about something else." He looked around. "Harry, will you bring the cigar box out?"

Mr. Watkins did not appear to be a brilliant conversationalist, but he discussed politics and railroad extension with his host, and Frank found himself wondering at and admiring the rancher's att.i.tude. He had shown no sign of anger and had never failed in courtesy. Threats had apparently no effect on him, and he had received them with a quiet amus.e.m.e.nt which appealed in particular to the boy's fancy. It seemed ever so much finer than bl.u.s.tering indignation, but he thought that there would be a striking change in Mr. Oliver's manner if he were ever driven to action.

Mr. Watkins took his departure after breakfast next morning, after which Mr. Oliver wrote two letters before he called the boys.

"I want you to take the sloop and go up to the settlement," he said.

"You will mail this letter there. It's to Barclay, though it isn't directly addressed to him."

Harry looked thoughtful.

"Of course," he said hesitatingly, "I'll do that if you wish it, but Porteous is a mean white, isn't he? Mightn't he open the thing?"

"It's possible," Mr. Oliver answered with a smile. "As it happens, I've no great objections to his reading it, and I'm mailing it with him as an experiment. Don't put it into the box, but hand it to him. When you have done that sail back along the beach and then head right across to Bannington's, where you'll mail this other letter. As you can't be back to-night, you had better take some provisions with you. Start as soon as you can."

The boys were off in half an hour, for the rain had stopped and there was a clear sky and a moderate breeze. As they sailed out of the cove Harry from his place at the helm glanced at his companion with a chuckle.

"When you come to understand him, dad's unique," he said. "Porteous will open that letter. He's mean enough for anything, and it's been my opinion all along that he's in with the gang."

"But won't it give your father's plans away if he reads it?"

"Not much!" said Harry. "Haven't you got hold yet? The letter's about hunting, and there's most likely an order in it for Winchester sh.e.l.ls or something else that will put Porteous off the track. He's probably not an expert at opening envelopes, and it won't take Barclay long to tell whether anybody has been tampering with the letter. The other one will go through without being interfered with. They're white at Bannington's."

"That won't get over much of the difficulty, after all," Frank objected.

"Won't your father's answer bring Watkins's friends down upon the ranch?"

"It's possible," said Harry. "I've a notion that when they come dad will be ready for them, and I fancy Barclay's nearly through with his trailing."

"You expect he'll make a new move then?"

Harry laughed. "Sure!" he said. "That little, fat man will get everything fixed up without making the least fuss. Then he'll bring his hand down once for all and smash the whole dope-running gang. I don't mind allowing that I was quite wrong about him at the beginning."

They said nothing more upon the subject, and they safely reached the cove next day after a long, cold sail.

CHAPTER XXIII

MR. OLIVER OUTWITS HIS WATCHERS

A day or two after they had got back to the ranch Mr. Oliver asked the boys if they would like another trip, and as both of them preferred it to grubbing stumps they paddled off to the canoe with him the same evening. A fresh breeze sprang up as the sun went down, and they had a fast and rather wet sail. Daylight was breaking across the scattered pines when the party left the sloop and walked up a trail within sight of a little lonely settlement.

As they approached it a harsh clanking and the tolling of a bell rose from behind the trees, and they had to wait while a locomotive and a string of freight cars jolted across the trail into a neighboring side track. When the train had pa.s.sed Mr. Oliver and his companions crossed the rails and entered a desolate flag station, which consisted of a roughly boarded, iron-roofed shack and a big water tank. In front of it was an open s.p.a.ce strewn with fir stumps, and beyond the latter three or four frame houses rose among the trees. The door of the shack was shut, and while they stood outside it the sound of an approaching train grew steadily louder and a jet of steam blew noisily from the valve of the locomotive waiting in the side track.

"A Seattle train," said Mr. Oliver. "They don't seem to be flagging her and she probably won't stop."

Frank stood looking about him with a curious stirring of his heart.

There was a gaudy poster pasted up on the shack announcing cheap tickets to Seattle, with a line or two about a circus and some attraction at an opera house. In the meanwhile the scream of a whistle came ringing across the shadowy trees and the boy was troubled by the familiar sights and sounds. The wet rails, the freight cars, and the brilliant poster reminded him of the cities he had turned his back upon some time ago.

Then, though the daylight was rapidly growing clearer, a big blazing lamp broke out from among the firs with a cloud of steam streaming behind it, and a locomotive and a row of clanging cars swept through the depot. The lights from the windows flashed into Frank's face, flickered upon the shack and rows of stumps, and grew dim again, after which the din receded and came throbbing back fainter and fainter. As he listened to it, a sudden fierce longing seized the boy. He wanted to hear the clamor of the cities again, to see the big stores and the hurrying crowds. Almost a year had elapsed since he had even seen a train, and a journey of two or three hours would take him back to the stir and bustle of civilization away from the constant monotonous toil with ax and saw in the lonely bush.

He wondered what his people were doing in Boston. In the winter season there were festivities and gayety there, and he had once enjoyed them with his old companions who had most likely forgotten him. Some had gone into business, two were at Harvard, and another had entered the army; but he stood, dressed in miry long boots and old well-mended garments still damp with salt water, in a little desolate depot in the wilderness. He fancied that he was justified in feeling rather sorry for himself.

Then with an effort he drove these thoughts away. After all, his place was not in the cities. He had no money and there was n.o.body to give him a fair start in life, while he admitted that it was very doubtful that he had any talent for business. He might, perhaps, become a clerk or something of the kind, but it once more occurred to him that he was better off in the bush. Indeed, though he scarcely realized this, the bush had already made a striking change in him, and it is possible that his eastern friends would have had trouble in recognizing him as the pale lad they had sent away to Minneapolis. His face was bronzed and resolute, he was taller, tougher, and broader around the chest, and he could now toil all day at a task which would once have broken him down in a couple of hours. Then he started as he noticed that Mr. Oliver was looking at him with a smile.

"You seem to be thinking rather hard," the rancher remarked.

"I was," Frank admitted hesitatingly. "It was the train that put the ideas into my mind."

"I fancied it might be something of that description," said Mr. Oliver.

"She'd soon have taken you up to Seattle, and nowadays it's a very short run to Chicago, where you could get on to one of the Atlantic flyers. I suppose you feel that you'd like to make the journey?"

"I did--for a minute or two," Frank confessed with an embarra.s.sed smile.

"Then, of course, I realized that it was impossible."

Somewhat to his astonishment, Mr. Oliver laid a hand upon his shoulder.

"The wish was very natural, but stay where you are, my lad. There's more room out here in the Western bush, and you're making progress. This is going to be a great country, and you won't be sorry you came out in a few more years."

"I'm not sorry now," Frank answered st.u.r.dily, with a flush in his face.

Mr. Oliver turned away as the agent opened the door of his shack, and they went into the little, untidy office.