The Spoilers of the Valley Part 52

"Sure I am," he answered proudly. "And my Betty, she says, 'Go to it!' Anybody hurt Smiler, hurt Betty,--see! Anybody hurt my Betty,--well,--by gar!--he only hurt her one time,--that's all."

Truly Phil had his hands full, and when he got back home he met with further disquieting news, Jim Langford, with his horse, and a cheque he had just received that day in payment for some of his dime novels, was off on the rampage.

For the three days following, Phil tried hard, but could find no trace of his chum.

On the fourth day news reached him that Jim was out on the race-track, a mile from town, racing a band of Indians for their horses. He hurried over, and got there just in time to see the last horse added to the lot, tethered to a fence, that Jim had already won. The moment Jim set eyes on Phil, he put spurs to his mare, vaulted the fence right on to the highway, and set off full tear for Vernock, leaving his live winnings behind him without a thought.

This foolish act was characteristic of Jim, and it suited the Indians splendidly. The losers at once started out to claim their horses. But Phil got there first, strung the animals together, pushed his way boldly through the protesting crowd and trotted nine horses back with him to town. He stabled the lot in Mrs. Clunie's s.p.a.cious barn, then set out on foot to search for Jim once more.

He did not have far to go, for on pa.s.sing through the Recreation Park he came on a scene that he positively refused to disturb. Instead, he dropped on his hands and knees, and stalked stealthily behind the trees and among the bushes until he could both see and hear all that was going on.

Jim's horse, with its reins trailing, was cropping gra.s.s close by.

Jim was seated on the gra.s.sy bank near the creek, where the clear water wimpled and gurgled over the white, rounded stones. Around Jim, in easy att.i.tudes but with eyes wide and gaping mouths, squatted some twenty-five or thirty boys of varying ages and of varying colours and nationalities, but all of a kin when it came to appreciation of the universal language--the language of an exciting story.

Jim was reading to them from one of his most b.l.o.o.d.y dime novels, and the wonderful elocution he possessed never displayed itself with greater zest. His wavy, reddish-brown hair swept his forehead becomingly; his face, thin, keen and full of cultured intelligence, betrayed every emotion as he declaimed; and his long arms and tapering fingers moved in a ceaseless rhythm of gesticulation.

It was the same old stuff:--

"'Hal, the boy rider of the Western plains, stood on the brink of the chasm: behind him, three thousand feet of sheer precipice to the seething, boiling waters and jagged rocks below;--before him, the onrus.h.i.+ng bandits.

"'Black Dan, outstripping the others, sprang on Hal, mouthing fearful oaths. With astounding agility, Hal stepped aside, caught Dan by the middle, and, swinging him high over his head, sent him hurtling, with ear-splitting shrieks, down, sheer down to his doom.

"'This staggered Dan's followers for a second, until Cross-eyed d.i.c.k, jibing his comrades for their cowardice, next rushed in upon our dauntless hero. Hal drew his dagger from his belt and bravely awaited the onslaught. When Cross-eyed d.i.c.k was within a few yards of him, he raised his arm and threw his dagger deftly and with terrific force, burying it to the hilt in the train-robber's windpipe. With a clotted gurgle--blood spurting from his mortal wound--Hal's a.s.sailant still came rus.h.i.+ng on. He staggered on the brink for a moment, then--without another sound--he toppled over and joined his dead leader who was lying, a beaten pulp, among the boulders, far below.'"

On and on Jim went, making the hackneyed, original; the ridiculous, feasible; the impossible, real; until even Phil hated to pull himself away from the scene, to await a more convenient season for his endeavours to bring Jim back to himself.

If ever there was poetry in a "Deadwood d.i.c.k," thought Phil, surely it was then.

Feeling that Jim was in harmless company for the time being, Phil left him, intending to round him up later.

An hour afterwards he returned to Mrs. Clunie's to have a look at the horses he had stabled. To his great surprise and annoyance he found the place empty of all but his own and Mrs. Clunie's animals.

Surmising that the half-breeds had "put one over on him" he started down town, hot foot and hot of head. He took the back way through Chinatown, as he knew Jim had a habit of frequenting the most unusual places when on the rampage.

His journey, for a time, proved without adventure.

Had he taken the way of Main Street, or further over still, toward the poorer cla.s.s of shacks and dwellings, it might have been more interesting for him, for Jim's insatiable love of a change was being indulged to its full and he was busy making quite a good fellow of himself with all the orphans and poverty-stricken widows he could find.

It was he, and not the half-breeds, who had taken his horses from Mrs.

Clunie's barn. What he did with them after he took them was not clear to himself then, for his memory merely served him in flashes. But all of it returned to him later, in startling realism.

He found himself on top of a wagon-load of sacked potatoes, driving a good team of heavy horses townward, with his own mare leisurely ambling behind, unhitched--following him as a dog would.

He had no use for sacked potatoes at that particular moment, so he bethought himself how best to get rid of them. As usual, he set about to do a good turn where it was most needed.

From one end of the little country town to the other he went, stopping at the door of every family he knew of where the produce would prove of value, and off he unloaded one, or two, or three sacks, as he thought they might be required; refusing to betray the source of supply further than that they were a gift which the Lord was providing.

It was thus that Phil finally found him, and quite unabashed was that lanky, dust-browned individual.

"Can you no' let a man be?" he remonstrated. "When I'm playin' the deevil, you admonish me, and when I'm tryin' to do a good turn, you're beside me, silent and stern as a marble monument.

"Man, Phil, ye mak' me feel like the immortal Robert Louis Stevenson must have felt when he wrote 'My Shadow.'"

"I never heard of it," said Phil.

"What? Never heard of it! May the Lord in his bounteous mercy forgive ye for your astounding ignorance. No time like the present, Philly, laddie;--no time like the present. Listen!--and never dare ye tell me again that ye never heard it,--for it's your twin brother."

And there, in that back street, beside the potato wagon, he burst into melody in as clear and rich a baritone voice as Phil had ever heard.

Jim was a born minstrel.

From beginning to end, he sang that never-dying, baby melody of the master-craftsman, Robert Louis Stevenson, with a feeling true to every word of it and emphasising particularly the parts which he fancied applied especially to Phil.

"_I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,_ _And what can be the use of it is more than I can see._ He's very, very like me from the heels up to the head, And I see him jump before me when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow, Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow, For he sometimes shoots up taller, like an India rubber ball, _And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all_.

"He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play, _And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way_.

_He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see,_ _I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me._ One morning, bright and early, before the sun was up, I rose and found the s.h.i.+ning dew on every b.u.t.ter-cup But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed."

There were few people about when Jim began his singing, but a considerable crowd was gathered long before he finished.

Suddenly a little fair-haired girl came up to him with a show of bashfulness. He put his hand on her curls.

"What is't?" he asked. "Tell me;--ye need never be feart for me."

"Please--please, sir,--that was a nice song and mother says would you sing it to us at our social to--to-night?"

"Sing it,--of course I'll sing it. Just you tell your Uncle Jim where to come, and I'll be there. What social is it, bairnie?"

"Please--it's the Salvation Army."

"Oh-h!" groaned Jim, clutching at his forelock. But he held manfully to his contract. "What time would ye like me to be there, la.s.sie?"

"Mother says, please nine o'clock."

"Nine o'clock at the barracks! Right you are! I'll be there, and I'll sing 'My Shadow.'"

"Please--and what is your name?" she inquired, in a business-like way.

"My name!--let me see,--oh, ay! Uncle Jim,--just plain Uncle Jim!"

"And you'll come sure?" she asked.

"Yes, bairnie!--I'll come sure."

The little girl ran off, evidently highly pleased at the addition she had made to the programme for their social meeting.

Phil gripped Jim by the arm.