The Peril Finders Part 2

"No; the top and bottom are both blown up in a curve with the bad gas generated."

"Well, upon my word! Hear this, Wilton! Can anything be worse?"

"No. Who says home--Eastward Ho!" replied the gentleman addressed.

"Look here, Lee; we've been talking it all over as we went well over the plantation this morning. Everything has gone wrong, and it's madness to try any longer. Why, it's five years since we agreed to join hands and lands and to work the fruit-farm into a success."

"Yes," said the doctor sadly; "and we've worked like slaves."

"I'm afraid," said the gentleman addressed as Bourne, "that no slaves would have worked half so hard."

"That they would not," cried Wilton. "There, it's a failure, and we'd better get to 'Frisco and take pa.s.sage by a sailing-vessel while we have the money. The plantation is going back to a state of nature, and we shall waste time by trying any more."

"We ought to stay on for a bit," said the doctor, as the two boys stood listening eagerly and forgetting all about the poor dinner to come.

"What!" cried Wilton, with a bitter laugh. "Who'd buy it?"

"Oh, we shouldn't make much; only enough to pay our pa.s.sages back to Liverpool. Some newcomer would be glad to have a place fenced in and planted, and with all the improvements we have made."

"I, for one," said Mr Bourne firmly, "will not be a party to selling such a miserable failure to a stranger."

"Nor I," cried Wilton angrily. "It wouldn't be honest."

"Well, I suppose not," said the doctor sadly. "I'm afraid--no matter how little we obtained--I should feel as if I had swindled my brother-seeker for prosperity. There, I'll join with you in what you say. But what a failure we have made!"

"No, no, not altogether," said Ned's father warmly. "We have found what we ought to think better than riches. Eh, Wilton?"

"Hah! Brother-grumbler, we have indeed," said the other. "I never expected to be strong again."

"And we are," said Bourne. "Strong as horses, thanks to you, Lee."

"No, no, no, I won't take the undeserved credit, my dear fellows; thank the climate and the out-door life. The place is a regular Eden."

"Only it won't grow us food-stuffs to live upon."

"Nor fruit to sell," added Wilton. "There, we've talked it over for years, worked till we have been worn out, and hoped against hope. The plantations are the homes of plagues of every noxious insect under the western sun, so let's give it up and go."

"Agreed," said the others, and the boys joined in with a hearty "Hurrah!"

"Then you won't mind going, Ned?" said Mr Bourne.

"No, father. I should like it--for some things," replied the boy addressed, and he looked wistfully at his companion.

"What do you say, Chris?" cried the doctor. "You want to go, then?"

"Yes, fa, I should like to go to England again, but I shall be very sorry to go away from here, for it is very beautiful, you know."

"But you'd like the change?"

"Yes, fa," said the boy frankly, "for some things. But I shouldn't like it if Ned Bourne were not coming too."

"Oh! I should be coming too, shouldn't I, father?" said the other lad eagerly.

"Of course, my boy. I dare say Doctor Lee will think out some plan by which those years of companionship may be continued," looking at his friends.

"Oh yes," cried Wilton eagerly; "that must be managed somehow. I should say--Who's this?"

"Company?" said Ned's father, turning to look through the open door towards the track leading to the next plantation.

"Our Yankee neighbour," said the doctor. "What does he want?"

"It's a patient for you, Lee," said Wilton.

"Hillo, you!" cried the newcomer, in a l.u.s.ty voice, but in rather a nasal sing-song tone. "Doctor there?"

"Yes; come in," was the reply, and a tall, sun-dried, keen-looking man in grey flannels, the legs of which were tucked into his boots, dropped the b.u.t.t of his rifle on the earthen floor with a dull thud, as he slouched into the room, to show the a.s.sembled party that the joke about a patient for the doctor was a good guess, and that many a true word really is spoken in jest.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE MAN FROM THE WILDERNESS.

"Howdy, all on you? Two boys included. D'yer hear, nippers? I was a bit scared about ketching you, doctor. You're wanted yonder."

"An accident?" cried the doctor quickly.

"Accident?" said the newcomer. "Wal, yes, that'll do. You might call him an accident, poor beggar, for he's about played down to the lowest level. Some'd call him a loafer, but we'll say accident--fatal accident, for I'm thinking he's too far gone for you, friend Lee, clever doctor as you are."

"Where is he? At your place?"

"Nay-y-y! He's trudging along after me. I said I'd fetch the doctor to him, poor fellow, but he just found words enough to say he'd come after me, and he crept along. Yes," continued the American, turning to the door. "Here he comes. Do what you can for him, and send him back to me; he can have one of the sheds and as much husk as he likes to lie on for the time he wants it, and I don't think that'll be long."

"I dare say we can do that for him, poor fellow," said the doctor coldly, as he stepped towards the door, and then uttered an exclamation.

"For goodness' sake, Bourne, look here!"

Both his companions and the boys hurried to the door to look out where a strange, gaunt-looking, grey-haired figure came creeping along in the hot sunshine, walking painfully by the help of a stout six-foot stick.

At the first glance the red-brown skin drawn so tightly over his face made him resemble a mummy more than a living being, while his worn canvas and skin garments clung so tightly to him that his bodily aspect was horribly suggestive of a clothed skeleton.

Upon seeing that he was observed he stopped short, leaning forward resting heavily upon the stick, to which he clung, peering from beneath the shadow cast by his bony brows, while his eyes, deeply sunken in their orbits, seemed to literally glow.

The next moment he turned slowly towards a rough bench fixed beneath a shade-giving tree and sank slowly down with his back to the trunk, stretching out a long thin hand towards the doctor, while his dry greyish lips moved as if appealing naturally to him, the man he believed able to give that which he sought--help.

"Ugh! How horrible!" whispered Chris to his companion. "If I had seen him lying down I should have thought that he was dead."

The boy's idea was shared by all present, as the doctor stepped forward to their visitor.

"That's how he looked at me when he came up," said their American neighbour. "He can't say a word--only point and make signs."