Dave

“ He had even persuaded Dave to intercede for him. She smiled as she thought of it. But her smile was for Dave, and not at the other's display of cowardice. It was not a smile of amusement either. She only smiled at the absurdity of Dave pleading for one whom he knew to be wholly unworthy. It was the man's large heart, she told herself. And almost in the same breath she found herself resenting his kindly interference, and wishing he would mind his own business. Why should he be always thinking of others? Why should he not think sometimes of himself? ”

“ Dave looked at the little figure prostrate in the snow, and despair for a time deprived him of all thought. Then the lifelong habit of being practical asserted itself. Unconsciousness from long exposure to cold, he knew, resembled death, but warmth and care would often revive the fluttering spark. If there was a chance in a thousand, Dave was prepared to fight the world for it.
He lifted Anna tenderly and started back for the shed where he had fought Sanderson. ”

“ Whooping, yelling, waving his hat and shooting, Dave took after the escaping steers.
"Oh for one man to help," he cried aloud, and it seemed as if his cry was answered. For, riding toward him, and toward the bunch of stampeded cattle, he descried a figure that made his heart leap with joy.
"Pocus Pete!" he cried. "Now we'll get you beasts back!"
And indeed it was the efficient foreman of Bar U ranch who rode up at top speed, his hat off, his revolver spitting fire, and his horse lending itself to the game with all its energies. ”

“ It never would have occurred to him to tell Dave in what way his face differed from the many others of his type. There was a certain kindliness of twinkle in the gray eyes at times, and always a straightforward honesty of gaze that made one instinctively trust him. There was strength of purpose in the resolute set of his mouth, and one could not imagine him being turned back on any road which he had made up his mind to travel to the end.
Several days after that when the Doctor was sitting up outside the tent, the resemblance to someone whom he could not recall, puzzled him again. ”

“ Then Dave, with a deep breath, murmured:
"Brothers! Is it possible?"
"Not only possible, but probable!" cried Mr. Bellmore. "We are brothers, I tell you, Dave! Your mention of that cork life-preserver almost proves it to me." ”

“ Dave had no plan. He simply walked into Conward's office. His eye took in the little group, and the mind behind caught something of its portent. Irene's beauty! What a quickening of the pulses was his as he saw in this splendid woman the girl who had stirred and returned his youthful passion! But Dave had poise. Upon a natural ability to take care of himself in a physical sense, environment and training had imposed a mental resourcefulness not easily taken at a disadvantage. He walked straight to Irene. ”

“ Dave felt as if he had been scalped.
Dave was lying on the grass and Stoodles was working over him, digging and dabbling with a handkerchief to get the youth's eyes and mouth clear of the glutinous "frew-frew."
"Sorra a bit too soon was I," said Pat, as Dave blinked and groaned. "I've a lock of your hair for a keepsake, lad! I saw you go into that threacherous pit, I threw a plank across, I grasped your topknot. It was loike taking a drowned cat out of glue. Sit up, if you can't stand up. If you let that stuff harden once, you'll be stiff as a statoo." ”

“ Dave, rushing up on deck quite pale and agitated, had made the announcement that brought Bob to his feet with a shock.
They were two sturdy boys. The flavor of the briny deep was manifest in their bronzed faces, their attire, their clear bright eyes, and sinewy muscles. They had known hardship and peril such as make men resolute and brave. Although Dave was deeply distressed, determination rather than despair was indicated in the way in which he took the bad, bad news now being conveyed with lightning speed, mostly with depressing effect, all through the ship. ”

“ The shock brought Dave to his senses; he got out and walked about the car, feeling the tires with his hands in the darkness. He could appraise no serious damage. Then he sat on the running board and stared for a long while into the darkness. "No use being a damned fool, anyway, Dave," he said to himself, at length. "I got it—where I didn't expect it—but I guess that's the way with every one. The troubles we expect, don't happen, and then the trouble that we didn't expect gets us when we're not watching." He tried to philosophize; to get a fresh grip on himself. "Where are we, anyway?" ”

“ Lon seemed put out, but he began in that hearty, genial manner that I had noticed before. It seemed a shade too hearty and genial, and it irritated me.
"Oh, Dave is a fine man," he said. "He's a man, every inch of him, and he stands six feet four in his socks. His word is as good as his bond. The man lies who ever says Dave told a lie, and that man will have to fight with me, too, as well—if there's anything left of him when Dave gets done with him. For Dave is a fighter. ”

“ Dave took off his own cap, also, and put it upon Rob’s head and we all laughed a little in spite of our fright, when it came down nearly to his ears.
“I came to find Bathsheba,” he said as Dave scolded him, as gently as his mother might have done. “She—she knows, Dave!” His voice was a husky whisper and he trembled in every limb. “I didn’t think how dangerous it was, at first. She’ll think it her duty to tell, girls always think it’s their duty to do disagreeable things! And if father should find out——! You make her promise not to tell a soul, Dave!” ”

“ Dave fought him round by round and found the great man smooth and impervious as polished agate.
Yet Dave liked him. When they met at lunch, as they did more than once, the grizzled Westerner who had driven a line of steel across almost impassable mountain passes was simple and frank in talk. He had taken a fancy to this young fellow, and he let him know it. Perhaps he found something of his own engaging, dogged youth in the strong-jawed range-rider.
"Does a financier always hogtie a proposition before he backs it?" Dave asked him once with a sardonic gleam in his eye. ”

“ And then Dave looked in her face. It was a pretty face, notwithstanding its grease-paint, and it smiled right into his eyes. His heart thumped between his shoulders as though it would drive all the air from his lungs. She smiled at him—for him! Now they were away again; there were gyrations about the stage, he almost lost her in the maze; a young man in fine clothes rushed in, and was apparently being mobbed by the girls, and said some lines in a rapid voice which Dave's ear had not been trained to catch ”

“ About the horse, however, Dave was surer. The animal Dave had certainly never seen before. No such horse was known about Brookville, and spontaneously Dave uttered the exclamation:
“What a beauty!”
Dave was a lover of animals, and this one carried him to the bounds of admiration. High breeding, grace, elegance and value showed in the splendid animal. As it pranced up the road in the white moonlight, Dave was reminded of pictures he had seen of some magnificent charger.
“He looks like a race horse,” said Dave. “He has run away from that man, who is desperate to catch him. ”

“ There seemed to be no doubt but that Dave was back on the old stamping-ground of Pat Stoodles. He was not at all sorry for this. It was the destination of the Swallow. Perhaps the steamer had already reached it.
"Things are working easier for me than I had any right to expect," reflected Dave, "only I must keep out of the clutches of any of the natives till I locate my friends."
Dave got behind an obscure rock. From there he peered intently at the two men who now entered the cave; the one crawling on his hands and knees, the other maintaining still his lofty bearing of superiority. ”

“ This was the pride of Dave as wheel-dog, of Sol-leks as he pulled with all his strength; the pride that laid hold of them at break of camp, transforming them from sour and sullen brutes into straining, eager, ambitious creatures; the pride that spurred them on all day and dropped them at pitch of camp at night, letting them fall back into gloomy unrest and uncontent. This was the pride that bore up Spitz and made him thrash the sled-dogs who blundered and shirked in the traces or hid away at harness-up time in the morning. ”

“ Dave’s reflections, however, did not drive away his cheerful expression.
“Now that the chaps have disappeared,” he mused, “their kindly support must needs be withdrawn. Here I am, left high and dry on the shores of adversity, with two awful alternatives facing me: to borrow, or not to borrow; to depend upon myself, or not to depend upon myself.”
The humor of it all appealed irresistibly to the historian; he laughed to himself, although his eyes were turned longingly toward a restaurant in the window of which a tempting collection of food products was displayed. ”

“ Dave's mother was proud, proud of her successful husband, of the mansion and estate of which she was the envied mistress, proud of her handsome self and handsome daughters, and specially proud of Dave, the brightest and handsomest of them all. It is a pity that she who so fully enjoyed the pleasures of wealth, and of wealth-shielded motherhood, might not have lived to drink to her full of the joys she loved. Pride, insufficient clothing, wealth, inadequate exercise, exposure in a raw, March bluster, defective personal resistance, pneumonia!—and in a week, the life was gone. ”

“ But his soft, sedulous voice had not lost the note of friendly confidence which had attracted Dave, perhaps against his better judgment, on the night of their first meeting.
"'Lo, Dave," he said. "Alone?"
"Almost," said Dave, without looking up from his typewriter. Then, turning, he kicked the door shut with his heel and said, "Shoot."
"This strenuous life is spoiling your good manners, Dave, my boy," said Conward, lazily exhaling a thin cloud of smoke. "If work made a man rich you'd die a millionaire. But it isn't work that makes men rich. ”

“ Dave had settled down to his studies in earnest, for that winter he wished to make an extra good record for himself. He loved sports, but as he grew older he realized that he was at Oak Hall more for a mental than a physical training.
"When my time comes, I shall have a good many business interests to look after," was the way he expressed himself to Phil, who joked him about "boning like a cart horse," "and I know if I haven't the education I'll be at the mercy of anybody who wishes to take advantage of my ignorance."
"Well, you are not going to give up football, are you, Dave?" ”

“ It came at the sudden realization of how well his work had been carried out, and what that work meant. Dave, watching, grasped something of its meaning. There was that within him which guided him surely in the mental workings of his fellow man. He was looking into the very heart of this man who had so desperately tried to injure him. And what he saw, though he was angered, stirred him to a strange pity.
"It's pretty mean when you think of it," he said slowly. "Makes you think some, doesn't it? Makes you wonder what folks are made of. ”

“ Dave was detained out in the barn, helping his father with a sick farm-horse, and while they were waiting for him in the living-room the talk drifted to Monsieur and his devoted kindness during Louis's illness.
"He simply couldn't do enough for me," the [Pg 115] boy asserted. "Beginning with his insisting on my having his room, he loaded me with delicacies and attentions of every sort the whole time. I began by quite despising him, but he's been so jolly good to me that I've just got to like him, whether or no! Honestly, it's almost pathetic sometimes, he tries so hard. ”

“ A furious gale was blowing, and the frail yawl was riding on high waves.
Daley had crawled along the boat. He was shaking Dave vigorously by the arm. At the same time, bringing his lips close to Dave's ear, he shouted loudly a word that aroused Dave like an electric shock:
"Land!"
"What--where?" cried Dave, starting up.
"Steady, mate," warned Daley, holding Dave back in the seat. "Get your peepers wide open and all your senses woke up. Drop the oars," he yelled to his companions, "they're only in the way. Let her swing. It's drift or drown now, sure." ”

“ Dave said. "I'm going to call Mr. Carson dad until I find my real one—if I ever do. No matter what happens, even if I do find my real folks, I can't forget that he has been as good as a father to me."
"That's what he has, Dave," said the foreman, solemnly. "An' I hope you don't ever forget that. There's not many folks—not even a fellow's real ones—who can beat th' Old Man. He's th' real stuff an' twenty-four carats fine every time."
Together they urged the now quieted cattle toward the corral. ”

“ To her Dave was the finest boy in all the world.
"Let's have a song!" cried out Phil, from the seat in front.
"Right you are!" returned Dave. "What shall it be?"
"Oh, anything!" came from the girls in concert; and then they started to sing one familiar song after another; and while they are singing let us say good-by and take our leave. ”

“ Dave shuddered at the thought but kept straight on his course.
Of a sudden he caught the young Lord’s voice in the phone. It was high and cheerful as he shouted:
“Enemy ahead. Let’s tap in.”
‘Tap in’, Dave knew meant ‘have a good time.’ Would they have a good time? Would they? He wondered. Then, as if he had taken a breath of pure oxygen, his spirits soared. Have a good time? Why not? This was a game. In this game one must have a good time or die.
They were putting on speed. At first he did not see the enemy. Then he saw them all too well. Five Messerschmitts came zooming out of a thin cloud. ”