Tom Crawford

“ I must see Mr. Crawford at once. I wonder if he could come here? He might be able to advise me. I have had very little experience with legal difficulties. My specialty is in other lines of work. But I must do something. Every moment is valuable. I wonder who the men were?"
"I'm sure one of them was the same man who came here that night--the man with the black mustache, who dropped the telegram," said Tom. "I had a pretty good look at him as the auto passed me, and I'm sure it was he. Of course I didn't see who it was that struck me down, but I imagine it was some one of the same gang." ”

“ At that moment the door would open and Sherry Trimm would come in and whisper a few words in his ear. Tom Craik liked to imagine the young fellow’s bound of surprise, the stifled cry of amazement that would escape from his lips, the doubts, the fears that would beset him until the money was his, and then the sudden cure that would follow. Yes, thought Tom, there was no such cure for a spendthrift as a fortune, a real fortune. To make a man love money, 153give it to him all at once in vast quantities—provided he is not a fool. And George was no fool. ”

“ What he’s after is to make you boys walk home.”
“Make us walk home!” cried Joe. “What should he want to do that for?”
Tom grinned, and in reply, said: “Yetmore thought that as soon as we uncovered that fine three-foot vein of galena you would be for getting your ponies and galloping off home to tell Mr. Crawford of the great strike, and as he [Pg 59] wanted to get there first he stole your ponies—temporarily—to make sure of doing it.” ”

“ It would be set down as an act of revenge on the part of some enemy of Yetmore’s; and so Tom and Joe thought, too, when I went back to the house and told them about it.
“That’ll be the theory, all right,”said Tom. “And as far as I see, we may as well let it go at that. We have no evidence to present, and it would look rather like malice on our part if we were to charge Long John with blowing his best friend’s house to pieces just because we happen to suspect him of it. And so, I guess, boys, we may as well lay low for the present: we shan’t do any good by putting forward our own theories. ”

“ There could be no doubt that the man ahead of us was hunting the same game as we were.
“Do you suppose it’s Yetmore, Joe?” said I.
“No,” Joe answered, emphatically, “I’m sure it isn’t. Look at his tracks: they are bigger than mine.”
“It can’t be Tom, himself, can it?”
[Pg 108]
“No, I’m pretty sure it isn’t Tom either. Tom is a big, powerful fellow, all right, but he’s not more than five feet ten, while this man, I think, is extra-tall—see the length of his stride where he came down the bank. Whoever he is, though, Phil, he’s an experienced prospector. ”

“ But though my father disapproved of Tom’s action, that fact did not lessen his desire to help his friend when I had related to him how Tom had indeed spent all his savings on Mrs. Murphy and her family.
“What a good-hearted, harum-scarum fellow he is!” exclaimed my father. “He knows—in fact, no one knows better—that there is a possible fortune waiting for him somewhere up here on Lincoln; he saves up all winter so that he may be free to go and hunt for it in the spring ”

“ We quite expected that Tom would come flying down at once, but instead we received from him next morning a reply, stating that he could not leave his work, and asking my father to allow us boys to do a little prospecting for him—which, I may say, we boys were ready enough to do if my father did not object.
He did not object; being, indeed, very willing that we should put in a day’s work for the benefit of our friend. For, as he said, to undertake one day’s prospecting for a friend was a very different matter from taking to prospecting as a business. ”

“ So the putty-faced boy sleeps in the store, does he?” remarked Tom to himself; a conclusion in which he was confirmed when he saw a candle lighted and the boy making up his bed under the counter. A few minutes later the candle was blown out, when Tom set off briskly up the street for the widow’s store.
He found Mrs. Appleby and Seth tidying up preparatory to closing the store, and stepping in, he said, “You don’t take in lodgers, I suppose, ma’am? I’m intending to stay down town to-night.”
“No, we don’t,” replied the widow. “The house is not large enough. ”

“ Murphy’s lap, who, when all is said and done, has no real claim upon him, thus taking the risk of being stranded in town while Long John goes off and cuts him out. What are we going to do about it, boys? What can you suggest?”
“It would certainly be a shame,” said Joe, [Pg 194] “if Tom, by his act of charity, should put himself out of the running in the search for that vein of galena. Yet he will surely do so if he can’t raise that money. And even if he should raise it, he might be late in getting it, in which case Long John would get the start of him.” ”

“ What do you say, Phil? Shall we go up there? We might be able to help.”
“Yes, come on!”I cried. “Let’s go and see first, though, if Tom hasn’t a second lantern. We shall save time by it if he has.”
Our hurried search for a lantern was vain, however, so we determined to set off without one. As we closed the door behind us, our clock struck eleven, and a moment later we heard faintly the eleven o’clock whistle up at the Pelican.
“Good!”cried Joe. “It isn’t the boiler [Pg 225] blown up, anyhow, so Tom’s safe; for he is working underground and the explosion, whatever it was, was on the surface.” ”

“ He would be quite ready to resort to violence, provided always that he could do it without risk to his own precious person. The hermit is right, too, in saying that Long John is all the more dangerous for being the cowardly creature that he is: whatever he may do to head off Tom will be done in the dark—you may be sure of that. We must warn Tom, so that he may be on his guard. ”

“ Let’s go out first, though, Joe, and take a look at old Snyder’s house, so that we may see what effect Tom expects to get.”
“Come on, then!”
The row of six little houses, of which Tom’s was the third, counting from the west, had been one of Yetmore’s speculations. They were situated on the southern outskirts of town, and were mostly occupied by miners working on the Pelican. Each house was an exact counterpart of every other, they having been [Pg 205] built by contract all on one pattern. Each had a room in front and a room behind; one little brick chimney; a front door with two steps ”

“ So far, so good. Next he set a bucket beneath the hole, took the faucet between his teeth in order to have it handy, and inserting the auger, he set to, boring a hole in the bottom of the barrel. Soon the tool popped through, when Tom hastily substituted the faucet, which he drove firmly in with a blow of his horny palm.
The putty-faced boy inside the store stirred in [Pg 187] his blankets, muttered something about “them pigs,” and went to sleep again.
Tom waited a moment to listen, and then drew off a bucket of oil. ”

“ Have you walked?" asked Sor Tommaso.
"Even with two legs one can walk," laughed the girl. "But of course a beast is better with four. The beasts had all gone to Tivoli with wine for Rome. They had not come back yesterday morning. [169] Therefore with these two feet I walked. I and many others, girls like me. It is true that I am half dead."
"You are fresher than lettuce," observed Sor Tommaso. "And then you have climbed up my stairs. This is a true Christian act. God return it to you. I am alone all day."
"But the Englishman comes to see you," said Annetta, indifferently. ”

“ But Annetta filled the tumbler with pure water, and emptied it again.
"At last!" she exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction. "What thirst! I seemed to have eaten ashes! And now I thank you, Sor Tommaso, and I am going home; for it is Ave Maria, and I do not wish to make a bad meeting in the dark as happened to you. Ugly assassins! I will never forgive them, never! What am I to say at home? That you will come to supper one of these days?"
"Eh, if God wills," answered the doctor. "I will be accompanied by Serafina."
"I!" exclaimed the old woman. "I am afraid even of a cat! ”

“ The paper said you were related to the English nobility, and hinted that Miss Claybourne was the true explanation of your coming to Deep Harbor. When the evening paper came out, the headline man boosted you up a notch higher—something about 'English peer's son nursed by local society girl'—say, you furnished 'em great stuff for three days."
"That must be the real reason 'mother' went to Asheville," I reflected.
"Ted, what I don't understand is how Prospero could slip anything like that over on you. As a chemist you ought to know enough to look out for fumes. How'd he do it? Hypnotize you?" ”

“ The girl was surprised by his pallor, as compared with his formerly rubicund complexion. Peasant-like, she glanced about the room to judge of its contents before she spoke.
"How are you, dear Sor Tommaso?" she asked after the short pause. "Eh, what we have suffered for you, all of us! Who was this barbarian who wished to send you to Paradise?"
"Who knows?" returned Sor Tommaso, with amazing blandness. "I trust that he may be forgiven as I forgive him."
"What it is to be a wise man!" exclaimed Annetta, with affected admiration. "To have such sentiments! It is a beautiful thing. ”

“ Sor Tommaso smiled gently. The savage girl's mouth twitched as though she should have liked to laugh.
"Little by little; who goes slowly goes safely," answered the doctor. "I am an old man, you must know."
"Old!" Annetta was glad of the opportunity to laugh at last. "Old? Eh, on Sunday, when [168] you have on those new black trousers of yours that are tight, tight—you seem to me a boy as young as Gigetto. ”

“ Thomas Crawford was born in New York, March 22, 1813, and died in London, October 16, 1857. His lineage, school education, and early facilities indicate no remarkable means or motive for artistic development; they were such as belong to the average positions of the American citizen; although a bit of romance, which highly amused the young sculptor, was the visit of a noble Irish lady to his studio, who ardently demonstrated their common descent from an ancient house. ”

“ The first said that in that case they must look through the loophole. The second said that she did not know the doctor by sight. The first [72] speaker remarked with some truth that one could tell a respectable person from a highwayman, and suddenly a small square porthole in the door was opened inwards, and a stream of light fell upon Sor Tommaso's face, as the nuns held up their little flaring lamp behind the grating. Behind the lamp he could distinguish a pair of shadowy eyes under an overhanging veil, which was also drawn across the lower part of the face.
"Are you really the doctor?" ”

“ Not the type of thing Quartel would use. Not making you ride a horse or letting you watch Africano. Not anything as simple to get away from. Merely suggestion, Crawford. Your mind will do the rest. Little things. Insidious things.
"Like the story of a miner who got crushed in a cave-in down at Monterrey. Did that stay with you a long time, Crawford? At night, perhaps, you'd wake up. Remembering. Wondering. Innuendoes, Crawford. Insinuations. Things for the mind to retain and savor. Because it is your mind. I showed you that with the examination. It isn't your legs. ”

“ Quartel's gun crashed from ahead of them, but Crawford was too taken up with reining the black to use his Henry. He had that blurred impression of violent undulation around him. There was another snapping thud against Africano's buckskin shield, and a big diamondback fell to the ground beneath them as they went by.
Then it was the shrill scream from Huerta's copperbottom ahead. Crawford saw the huge rattler dropping off the animal's rump, and the copperbottom started to buck.
"There it is," screamed Huerta, "there it is!"
"Don't lose your head," shouted Crawford. "Get him to running again. ”

“ The Ingrams anticipated by several weeks their projected departure for Newport—they had given out that they were to spend the summer there—and, quitting New York, quite left, like the gentleman in "The School for Scandal," their reputations behind them.
I continued to observe Crawford with interest, and, although I did full justice to his wisdom and self-control, when the summer arrived I was ill at ease about him. He led exactly the life he had led before his engagement, and mingled with society; neither more nor less. ”

“ Off in the distance, down the hill, could be seen the dim lights in the old farmhouse of Mr. Appleby.
"Well?" asked the tramp, in a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot seem all the blacker by contrast.
Tom drew in his breath sharply. Taking a stride forward, and reaching out his two muscular arms in the darkness, he asked in a low voice:
"How much did you pay for that cyanide of potassium, Jacob Crouse?" ”

“ You are more serious. Gigetto! What must I say? He is handsome, he may be good, but he has not a head. There is nothing in that pumpkin."
"Blood of youth," answered Sor Tommaso. "It must boil. It must fling its chains about. Afterwards it begins to know the chains. Little by little it accustoms itself to them. Then it is quiet, quiet, as we old ones are. Sit down, my daughter. Serafina! A chair—the one that is not lame. These chairs remember the blessed soul of mamma," added Sor Tommaso, in explanation of their weakness.
"Requiesca'!" exclaimed Annetta, sitting down. ”