G. A. Henty

“ It is lonely work when one gets the wrong side of sixty, to travel alone; at my age one does not make acquaintances at every turn, as young fellows do. No doubt I should meet men I know, but, as a rule, people one knows are not so fond of each other's society as they are in London. I think my old friend Hawtrey, and my little god-daughter, would not mind putting up with me, and I can travel with them till they begin to get tired of me, and then jog quietly back my own way."'
'Then you will stop with us all the time, Mr. Singleton. ”

“ The detective nodded.
'Well, well, one never knows what to believe. I don't know about the man, but that gal I should never have thought could have been bad.'
'Please look at the photograph again,' Captain Hampton said. 'Examine it closely; is it what you would call a very good likeness?'
'It is a good likeness,' the man said. 'I should have known it if I had seen it in a shop window anywhere; but photographs are never quite like—men's may be, but I have never seen a woman's that was the real thing. They always smooth out their faces somehow, and put on a sort of company expression. ”

“ There are more urgent things to think of, for I am afraid, Hawtrey, there is a good deal of trouble ahead for her and for you, whatever course you may decide to take about Gilliat's matter. We who know and love Dorothy may be absolutely certain of her innocence in these matters, but you must remember that unless we can produce the woman, it will be uphill work indeed to get the world to see matters in the same light, if it comes to a trial and all the facts come out. ”

“ Warbles went back to his hotel. A girl was standing at the window, looking out upon the river; she turned round as he entered.
'Well, have you settled anything?' she asked. 'I am sick of doing nothing, but just thinking and thinking.'
'Care killed a cat, Linda,' the man said lightly. 'Thinking is a pure waste of time. I have had a long talk with Murdoch and he has put an entirely new idea into my head.'
'An honest idea, of course,' she said scornfully. ”

“ They started as soon as they saw Captain Armstrong had his burden fairly arranged.
'Keep close behind me, monsieur,' Conrad said; 'if you follow quite close, you will see whether I make a step down or up.'
They descended rapidly. From time to time the guides paused and asked if all were together, and as soon as the reply was given pushed on again. Powerful man as he was, it taxed Captain Armstrong's strength to the utmost to keep up with the guides, who strode on rapidly ahead, as if their weights were nothing to them. ”

“ People have wonderfully short memories in society. Do you know, I rather take credit to myself as a prophetess, for on the evening of that dinner party where I last met you and Halliburn together, I told Captain Hampton that I didn't think your match would ever come off. By the bye, what a nice fellow he is. He is wonderfully little changed since I knew him as a boy down in Lincolnshire, before he went into the army. Sometimes boys change so when they become men, that it is quite a pleasure to meet one who has grown up exactly as you might have expected he would do. ”

“ It is very likely that if he is in funds and has got a clever woman with him they may have got themselves up and be staying at some swell hotel at one of the seaside places, or at Harrogate or Buxton, and be carrying on some little swindle there. Then again, after this job you say they have managed, they may think it best to make themselves scarce altogether, and may be at some foreign watering-place. A clever sharp can always make his living at those sort of places, especially with a woman to help him. I suppose she is young and pretty?'
Captain Hampton nodded. ”

“ They were simply rough characters who were more likely to remain at New Orleans or some of the river towns than to undertake a long and perilous journey. Whatever might be their nominal vocation, he set them down as being thieves, gambling-house bullies, or ruffians ready to turn their hand to any scoundrelism that presented itself. The real working men soon came to know each other, and being bound by a common object kept aloof from the others, and generally sat in little groups discussing the journey before them and the best methods of proceeding. ”

“ One wants to be within a quarter-of-an-hour's walk of a village, where one can hire a boat, to land where one likes, and make excursions among the hills. I should not want to do any snow-climbing, but there are plenty of problems one would be glad to go into, if one could investigate them, without that. It is really a treat to me, after Lincolnshire, to get into a country where you can go into geological problems without having to begin by digging.'
'I may frankly say that I know nothing about it,' Mr. Hawtrey replied. ”

“ He handed Dorothy's likeness to the detective.
'There ought to be no difficulty in identifying that,' he said, after examining it closely. 'No one who has seen her will be likely to forget it in a hurry; and what is the man like?'
'He is old enough to be her father, and no doubt passes as being so. He is a clean-shaved man—at least he was when I last saw him. He is a betting man of the lowest type, but has had the education of a gentleman, and when well dressed and got up would no doubt pass as one anywhere. ”

“ You don't suppose that if Dorothy had been quite indifferent as to Ned Hampton's opinion of her she would have been so exceedingly sore at his having doubted her. I do not say she loves him. I do not even suppose that she has the remotest idea of such a thing. I only say that she evidently attaches a very great weight to his good opinion, and is proportionately grieved at what she considers his want of confidence in herself.
'She makes light of having broken off her engagement to Halliburn, but we know she must feel it a great deal more than she pretends to do. ”

“ Still, I may as well secure a place.'
'This is awfully good of you, Singleton,' Mr. Hawtrey said; 'I know you are doing it out of regard for her.'
'A little that way, perhaps, Hawtrey, and a good deal because I am sure I shall enjoy myself greatly. As a rule, I should be very chary of offering to join anyone travelling; a third person is often a nuisance, just as much so in travelling as at other times. I own that I don't much care for going about by myself, but I thought you really would be glad to have me with you. ”

“ You do not suppose that a man who has been on so friendly a footing with us for the last twenty years is going to put up with being called Captain Hampton, and addressed as if he were a stranger, and treated with a sort of freezing politeness by a girl whom, almost from the day when he arrived in England, he has been giving up his time to assist. ”

“ When all was done, Captain Hampton asked the detective as to how much he was indebted to him.
'Nothing at all, sir. My services were placed at your disposal by the chief, and it is all in the way of business. I am very glad to have been of assistance to you.'
'You have been of immense assistance, indeed, Mr. Tricher, and I feel deeply obliged to you. I should never have got on by myself in the same way; it was entirely owing to the clerk at the hotel knowing you that he so readily gave me the information I required, and interested himself in the matter. ”

“ He had talked it over with Armstrong on the previous evening when the latter had urged him to stay a week longer.
'I cannot afford it, my dear fellow,' he said. 'It is pleasant, very pleasant, but it is too dangerous a pleasure to be indulged in. However strict a man's principles may be, he's but human. Another week of this might be fatal to me. I cannot afford to marry Clara Fortescue, even if she would have me and her mother were willing, which, by the way, I am perfectly sure she would not be. ”

“ Captain Hampton was heartily glad when the vessel entered the Mississippi. He had associated principally with two or three of the Southern gentlemen, and had kept as far as possible aloof from the rowdy portion of the passengers. This, however, he had been unable to do altogether. He himself was an object of general curiosity. He was a Britisher; he was not bound for the West; he was not thinking of taking up land; he was unconnected with any commercial house. ”

“ Fortescue remarked that no doubt it did.
'Captain Armstrong is of course an excellent match,' she said. 'The question is, has he come here on his own account or on that of Mr. Fitzwarren? If on his own account, it must be in order to see more of one of our girls, or of Dorothy Hawtrey. On the other hand, Mr. Fitzwarren cannot be considered at all an eligible person; of course he is in society, and all that sort of thing, and is very well connected, but that won't keep up a household. ”

“ Danvers went out to the carriage with them. 'I congratulate you most heartily, Miss Hawtrey,' he said. 'There is no doubt that this will immensely strengthen your position. It has had, at any rate, a great effect on the mind of Levine. It is not often he has to own that his first impressions are entirely erroneous. I will come round this evening if you will be at home.'
'We will be at home, Danvers,' Mr. Hawtrey said, 'and I particularly want to see you about another matter. Come to dinner. Half-past seven. Can you come too, Singleton?' he went on as the carriage drove off. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I don't think she is a bit worldly, and I know by what she let drop one day when we were chatting together, when we got rather confidential at the beginning of the season, that she had got the idea in her head that a woman ought to respect her husband, and look up to him, and had in fact formed a distinct notion of the sort of man she should choose; and I felt at the time, though there was nothing whatever personal in our talk, I was the very last sort of fellow she would choose for her husband. ”

“ At any rate I am sure that if Dorothy broke off the match, she is not the sort of girl to make it up again. It must be an awful thing to break off an engagement when everyone is aware of it, and you know it will set everyone talking. ”

“ I could run the saloon, you could work the card rig in a room behind, and if the girl is as good-looking as you say she is, she would fetch them in crowds if she looked after the bar. There are no end of mining camps, I hear, and the miners just chuck their gold about, and one could move off from one to another when we found the game playing out.'
'It sounds a good thing,' Warbles said, 'but it is a long journey, isn't it?'
'Well, yes, it's a long journey, there's no denying that, but there are hundreds of people starting every week. ”

“ Hawtrey, I particularly request that Dorothy shall know nothing of the matter.'
'Why not, Ned?'
'I have not been successful so far, and in fact have done more harm than good, and the betting is very strongly against my succeeding. They may not have gone to America. I simply choose it because the other ground is occupied, and also because there is an undoubted tendency among criminals to make for the States. In the next place, even if they are in America, it is almost like looking for a needle in a cart-load of hay. Still, if fortune favours me, I may possibly succeed ”

“ If he means to ask the question he will ask it. And the worst of it is that he is such a good fellow, so unobjectionable in every way. But it is hard that while the other is spending his time in looking out for evidence that will completely clear Dorothy from these abominable charges, this man should be cutting in and making all the running here.'
'I don't think Dorothy suspects anything of the sort, Singleton.'
'No, I don't suppose she does; but a girl can't be thrown with a pleasant man day after day like this without getting to like him. ”

“ Is Captain Hampton going to shoot bears and that sort of thing, that you gave him warning?'
'He does not seem to have any fixed plan, Dorothy, but I fancy from what he said that he is more likely to wander about and look at the towns, and such places as Niagara and the other places tourists go to as a matter of course. He certainly did not say a word about shooting, and my warning was in no way given seriously. If we were not going away ourselves I should miss him amazingly, for a better fellow never trod in shoe leather. ”

“ I am heartily sorry. I don't think one makes so many real friends as he has of late shown himself to be, that one can afford to throw even one away, especially just at a time like this. Well, it is of no use talking about it any more.'
Danvers' report of the consultation between himself and Charles Levine left matters pretty nearly as they were before. It was greatly desirable for the purpose of preventing any further personation that the jeweller's claim should be contested, but upon the other hand it was equally certain that it would be an extremely unpleasant thing for Mr. and Miss Hawtrey. ”