Page:Scribner's Monthly, Volume 12 (May–October 1876).djvu/319

Rh "Oh, where is he hurt, Pete? is he goin' to die?" And Pete, suspicious of any medication but his own, replied doubtfully:

"He looks bad, Miss Olly, dat's a fac'—but now bein' in my han's, bress de Lord A'mighty, and we able to minister to him, we hopes fur de bess. Your brudder meant well, is a fair-meanin' man, Miss—a tol'able nuss, but he ain't got the peerfeshn'l knowledge dat Mars Jack in de habit o' gettin'." Here Pete unslung from his shoulders a wallet, and proceeded to extract therefrom a small medicine case, with the resigned air of the family physician, who has been called full late to remedy the practice of rustic empiricism.

"How did ye come yer?" asked Gabriel of Olly, when he had submissively transferred his wounded charge to Pete. "What made you allow I was hidin' yer? How did you reckon to find me? but ye was allus peart and onhanded, Olly," he suggested, gazing admiringly at his sister. " When I woke up at Wingdam, after Jack went away, who should I find, Gabe, but Lawyer Maxwell standin' thar, and askin' me a heap o' questions. I supposed you'd been makin' a fool o' yourself agin, Gabe, and afore I let on that I know'd a word, I jist made him tell me everythin' about you, Gabe, and it was orful ! and you bein' arrested for murder, ez wouldn't harm a fly, let alone that Mexican ez I never liked, Gabe, and all this comes of tendin' his legs instead o' lookin' arter me. And all them questions waz about July, and whether she wazn't your enemy, and if they ever waz a woman, Gabe, ez waz sweet on you, you know it was July! And all thet kind of foolishness! And then when he couldn't git ennythin' out o' me agin July, he allowed to Pete that he must take me right to you, fur he said they waz talk o' the Vigilantes gettin' hold o' ye afore the trial, and he was goin' to get an order to take you outer the county, and he reckoned they wouldn't dare to tech ye if I waz with ye, Gabe—and I'd like to see 'em try it! and he allowed to Pete that he must take me right to you! and Pete—and there ain't a whiter nigger livin' than that ole man—said he would—reckonin', you know, to find Jack, as he allowed to me they'd hev to kill afore they got you,—and he came down yer with me. And when we got yer, you was off, and the sheriff gone, and the Vigilantes—what with bein' killed, the biggest o' them, by the earthquake—what was orful, Gabe, but we bein' on the road didn't get to feel!—jest scared outer their butes! And then a Chinyman gin us yer note—"

" My note?" interrupted Gabriel, "I didn't send ye any note." "Then his note," said Olly impatiently, pointing to Hamlin, "sayin' 'You'll find your friends on Conroy's Hill!'—don't you see, Gabe?" continued Olly, stamping her foot in fury at her brother's slowness of comprehension, "and so we came and heard Jack's singin', and a mighty foolish thing it was to do, and yer we are." "But he didn't send any note, Olly," persisted Gabriel. "Well, you awful old Gabe. what difference does it make who sent it?" continued the practical Olly; "here we are along o' thet note, and," she added, feeling in her pocket, "there's the note!" She handed Gabriel a small slip of paper with the penciled words, "You'll find your friends waiting for you to-night on Conroy's Hill." The handwriting was unfamiliar, but even if it were Jack's, how did he manage to send it without his knowledge? He had not lost sight of Jack, except during the few moments he had reconnoitered the mouth of the tunnel, since they had escaped from the court-house. Gabriel was perplexed; in the presence of this anonymous note he was confused and speechless, and could only pass his hand helplessly across his forehead. "But it's all right now, Gabe," continued Olly, re-assuringly; "the Vigilantes have run away—what's left of them; the sheriff ain't to be found nowhar! This yer earthquake hez frightened everybody outer the idea o' huntin' ye—nobody talks of ennything but the earthquake; they even say, Gabe—I forgot to tell ye—that our claim on Conroy Hill has busted, too, and the mine ain't worth shucks now! But there's no one to interfere with us now, Gabe. And we're goin' to get into a waggin that Pete hez bespoke for us at the head of Reservoir Gulch, to-morrow mornin' at sun-up. And then Pete sez we kin git down to Stockton and 'Frisco and out to a place called San Antonio, that the devil himself wouldn't think o' goin' to, and thar we kin stay, me, and you, and Jack, until this whole thing is blown over, and Jack gits well agin, and July comes back!"

Gabriel, still holding the hand of his sister, dared not tell her of the suspicions of Lawyer Maxwell regarding her sister-in-law's complicity in this murder, nor Jack's