Dorothy's Double Volume Ii Part 14

'Let us go down to the wharf, Joe,' his comrade said, changing the conversation. 'It is all as good as settled now, and we may as well begin to get the things. How long will it take us?'

'It won't take more than two hours, any way,' Joe said. 'There are big stores here where we can get every mortal thing we want. We could go by the boat to-night if we wanted to, but we don't want to. In the first place I have got to settle about selling my saloon, and in the second the order for the horses is only going by to-night's boat, and it ain't no manner of use our getting into Omaha before they do. It would cost us twice as much to live in a shanty, where every square foot is occupied by sleepers, than it would to stop comfortably in an hotel here. I shall not be long in getting rid of my place. Two or three of the men who use it have asked me at one time or another what I would take to clear out of it. It is handy for the river, and I do a fairish trade with sailors of an evening. Still, it would take a day or two to arrange it, and it will never do to look as if one was in a hurry. If they thought I wanted to clear out they would not offer half the sum they would if they thought that I did not care one way or the other about making a deal.'

They walked along the wharves looking at the steamers.

'There are plenty of them going up the river,' Murdoch said, 'but Thursday's boat is the first that goes up to Omaha, and that is about as close as we can cut it. It is Monday now, and the day is pretty near half gone; I reckon I shall want all the time for carrying out my deal.

I will go now and see one of the chaps I spoke of. At three o'clock we have got to meet at that lawyer's office, and then if you like we will go and get our outfit, and take our pa.s.sages. I have got more than enough money to pay for my share. If you will take my advice, Miss Linda, you will go back to the hotel and overhaul your things and see what you want for the journey. You will want some good strong plain dresses and serviceable things underneath, for it is a rough business I can tell you. You want a store of all sorts of little things--b.u.t.tons and such like, needles and thread and all that sort of thing--and plenty of stout shoes that will bear knocking about. You must bear in mind that you won't see a shop for four or five months; but remember the less baggage you take the better, as I have heard that many a waggonload of emigrants going across the plains have had to chuck everything overboard, kit and food and all except a sack of flour, so as to lighten the waggons when the horses broke down. I am not sure, Bob, that it would not be wiser to write for six horses, or better still for two mules for wheelers and four horses. It may cost a bit more, but it will make things more easy and will give us a better chance of getting to the end of our journey with all our kit.'

'All right, Joe; you know more of these things than I do. If you think that six are best, order them. I suppose the tent we shall get out there.'

'Yes, the tent is a mighty heavy thing. I should never think of dragging that with us.'

'I should not have given you credit for being so soft, Murdoch,'

Truscott growled, as after seeing the girl into the hotel, they turned away together.

'I dare say not. Softness ain't much in my line, but that girl fetched me altogether. Here she is, right away from England and without a friend in the world, and she speaks out as firm and as brave as if she had twenty men within call ready to help her. If she had been one of the crying sort she would have got no pity from me, but she regular took my breath away when she spoke out like that, and I says to myself, "She has got to be ridden on a snaffle; just touch the curb and she will bolt with you and will break your neck as well as her own." But I meant what I said for all that. She is just the girl for what we want, and if she finds we treat her well and act square by her she will act square by us.

She will keep them all at a distance, and keep her head straight all the time; only you will have to humour her. I don't know where you picked her up, but I should wager a dollar to a cent that she is thoroughbred.'

'You would not have said so if you had seen her three years and a half ago, when I picked her out from a slum in London.'

'I might not have said so then, that is likely enough; one can't always tell whether a yearling is going to turn out a good horse, and a good many who think they are clever get sucked in over it; but a man who has an eye to horseflesh can tell whether a three-year-old is well bred or not, and I guess I am not far out with this one. Yes, I am struck over her. It is not often that women, or men either for that matter, get on the soft side of me. You know pretty well that I wasn't afraid of running a bit of risk in the old days, and you may guess that this country doesn't make a baby of one. No, sir, I have seen pistols and knives out pretty often since I came here, and would use them myself if there was any occasion, and I guess that if we ever get into a mess you will find I shall play my part as well as you do; only I want it clearly understood that in this job we are going in for I am ready to go through it whatever comes; but I am fixed in my mind that we are going to act straight to that girl.'

'Who wants not to act straight?' the other said angrily. 'Haven't I brought her all the way out here because I thought she would be useful?

Couldn't I have slipped away with all the pot we had made, and left her behind me if I had wanted to? And who is talking about my not acting square with her now?'

'That is right enough, mate; we won't quarrel over it. So that we three all act straight to each other all round I am satisfied.'

They did not get away from New Orleans as soon as they had expected. The various purchases were all made in ample time, but the business of disposing of Murdoch's saloon was not so speedily arranged. He suggested that the other two should go on by the 'Mississippi Belle,' and that he should follow by the next steamer, but Warbles was against this.

'A week won't make much difference one way or the other,' he said. 'It is better that we should keep together. You are more up to the ropes here than I am. I suppose they will change our tickets for those of next week's boat?'

'There will be no difficulty about that; I could change them in five minutes. There are lots of people who could not get berths on her, and have had to take them in the next boat, and they would jump at the chance of going up at once.'

It was not until they had been at New Orleans nearly three weeks that Murdoch's business was finally arranged and everything was ready for a start. Warbles was in no particular hurry; he had been accustomed to do a great deal of aimless loafing about during his career, and found plenty to amuse him, looking at the busy scene by the riverside; but at last all was ready, and their goods were all on board the steamer that was to start on the following morning.

'There is a New York steamer signalled coming up,' Murdoch said, as they stood together smoking on one of the quays. 'She will be in by five o'clock. It is the 'Savannah'; she is a smart boat, and I guess she has made the pa.s.sage down in four or five days quicker time than you did.'

'I am glad she is in before we start. I dare say she will have papers from England a good week later than any we have got here. It is as well to get the last news while we can. We shan't have the chance for some months again.'

'I don't care for English papers now. I look at them, because sometimes an English skipper or mate comes into my place, and when they find I am a countryman and know something about the turf, they will put a few dollars on some horse or other for the Derby. If the news is expected in before they sail, sometimes they will turn to the English paper and pick out a horse just for the fun of the thing for some other race of which the news ought to be in in a day or two, and put two or three dollars on it. If it was not for that I should never take the trouble to look at them, though I always take them regular in the saloon.'

It was not long before a steamer appeared at a distant turn of the river, and as she came up to the city the two men walked down to the wharf, where she would arrive, and where a crowd of idlers like themselves had already a.s.sembled. As she warped alongside, Truscott gave a sudden exclamation and nervously grasped his companion's arm.

'What is up?' the latter asked angrily. 'Confound it, there is no occasion to grip a man like that. I thought for a moment a big dog had got hold of me. What is the matter with you?'

Truscott had pulled his hat far down over his eyes.

'Do you see that man upon the hurricane deck, with his hands in his pockets smoking a cigar?'

'Yes, I see him fast enough; he is an Englishman, one can tell with half an eye. Well, what about him?'

'Take a good look at him so as to know him again, and then let us get out of this and I will tell you.'

Murdoch took another look and then followed his companion out of the crowd.

'Well, you look as if you had had a facer,' he said, when they had moved a hundred yards away. 'I have seen chaps look like that when they have had every penny they own in the world on the favourite and it has not even been placed.'

'I feel something like that, Joe. I believe that fellow is on my track?'

'You do; why, how can that be? How can he have followed you here?'

'That is more than I can say, but it don't much matter if he has followed me.'

'Are you sure it is the man?'

'Quite sure. I am a good hand at faces. One wants to be when one is a bookmaker and don't always find it convenient to pay up. I saw that man at the Oaks; he was talking for some time to a man I knew--the very man who was mixed up in the job I pulled off before leaving England.'

'You mean it was his money you got at?'

'Yes. Well, that fellow you saw there has been after me. Two or three of my pals told me there had been a man asking about me on the racecourses, and one day, it was the only time I went down, one of them pointed him out to me. He got into the train with me at Epsom; he thought I did not see him, but I did. He got into the next compartment, but I slipped him at Vauxhall, and did not see any more of him. I believe that fellow is on my track, though how he has got hold of it is more than I can guess.

Anyhow, I cannot believe it is accident that brings him alongside of me again. I should not be surprised if he has got a warrant against the girl and me in his pocket now.'

'Well, he has brought his pigs to the wrong market if he has,' Murdoch said fiercely; 'we have gone into this affair now, and if anyone thinks he is going to meddle with us he will find he is mistaken. Well, there ain't any time to be lost; if he happens to go to the same hotel you are at the game is up. You had best go straight back, get a carriage and have all your things taken right down to the boat; then if you are smart, you will be in time to get on board the boat that starts in two hours for Baton Rouge. Get off there and be on the look out for our boat as she comes along to-morrow. I shall be up in the bow; if you see me wave my handkerchief you will know it is all right, and you can step right on board; if you don't see me wave, do you and the girl move off at once; get behind one of the stores, and come on by the next boat. I don't think it likely he will be there, mighty unlikely, but it is just as well to settle what to do in case he is. If he should by any chance guess that the Mr. and Miss Myrtle he sees in the hotel books are the pair he is looking for, he would find out that they are bound up the river, and in the morning he might go down to the steamer to see if it is them. He would watch till she went off, and when he found out that you are not among the pa.s.sengers he would think that he had made a mistake, and go back to the hotel again, and would hunt about in other places before he had made up his mind that you had given him the slip.

It is a week before another steamer goes up to Omaha, and we should be a week out on the plains before he got there.'

'I should like to see anyone talking about an arrest out there. However, I don't think you need be afraid of him; I fancy I can arrange about that.'

'You ain't going----'

'Never mind what I am going to do,' the other interrupted. 'I am not going to have our plans broken up, nor the pleasure of our journey spoilt by being hunted as if we were dogs. I don't know who this fellow is, and I don't care; if he chooses to meddle with our affairs, he has got to take the consequences; he is not in London now. There, don't stand here another minute; he may land in half-an-hour, and you have got to be out of the hotel before then. I heard the girl say that the boxes were all packed. Mind, first get the boxes on board, then go to the wharf and get on board the Baton Rouge steamer. Look out for our boat; if you see me wave my white handkerchief it is safe to come on board; if not, slip away and get behind something till we go on again; then come by next boat. If he gets off at any of the landings, going up the river, I shall get off too, and come on board again as you come along.'

Murdoch went back to the landing-place. The pa.s.sengers were pouring off the steamer with bags and boxes of all kinds. The man he was to watch was still walking quietly up and down the hurricane deck, evidently in no hurry to land until the rush was over. Sometimes he stopped to speak a word or two to a boy who was standing at the rail, watching the others landing.

'I guess that fellow is with him,' Murdoch muttered. 'It may be some boy he has made friends with on the pa.s.sage. If he has brought him from England it must be because the boy knows Tom and the girl; but if he does he could do no harm if the other was out of the way. You are taking it cool and quiet, my fine fellow. If you guessed that every five minutes you spent there spoilt your chance, you would not take it quite so easily.'

It was a good half-hour before the stream of pa.s.sengers and porters with baggage had ceased crossing the gangway; then the man and boy left the hurricane deck, and a minute or two later appeared at the gangway, followed by two men with portmanteaux. There was but one vehicle remaining by the wharf. Murdoch knew the driver.

'Mike,' he said, 'here are a couple of dollars for you. If that man just landing tells you to drive him to Planter's Hotel you take him somewhere else. Pretend you misunderstood him. I have my reasons for not wanting him to go there.'

'All right, I will take him to Reardon's; it is at the other end of the town.'

'Come back here and let me know where you put him down,' and Murdoch moved off as the gentleman came up to the carriage.

He watched them drive off, and then took a seat on a baulk of timber till Mike returned.

'He told me to take him to the Crescent City, and it's there I put him down, Mr. Murdoch.'

'All right, Mike; I don't care where he goes so that it isn't to Planter's.' Then he walked away, and after threading several of the worst streets of the town, stopped at a low wine shop. There was no one in but the man behind the bar.