Dorothy's Double. Volume 2 of 3

'Hello, mate, what is the matter?'

'I dunno,' he replied stupidly.

'Been having a drop too much?'

'No, it ain't that – oh, I remember now. I was there with my master, sitting on that log, when a great nigger attacked us. He stabbed my master, and I suppose he stabbed me; I don't remember much about it except that I got hold of his throat.'

'Where is your master?'

The question completely aroused Jacob's faculties, and he hurried round to the other side of the log.

'Here he is,' he cried. 'Oh, my dear master, are you hurt bad?' and stooping over him he burst out crying.

'That won't do any good, lad,' the sailor said. 'Here, let us have a look at him. He has been stabbed, sure enough, Jack. He is just soaking with blood.'

'Is he dead, Bill?'

The sailor tried to turn the body over, but as he did so there was a faint moan.

'He ain't gone yet, that's clear. Who is he, boy?'

'He is Captain Hampton, an English gentleman. We only got in here this afternoon. He is staying at the Crescent City.'

'Well, we can't let him lie here. You stay here with him, Jack, and we will go off and get some one to carry him.'

In a few minutes the men returned with two constables carrying a stretcher; on this the body was placed, four of the sailors lifted it and carried it to the hotel, and then up to his room, where two surgeons were quickly in attendance. Jacob stood by listening with breathless anxiety to their talk as they examined his master.

'Will he die, sir?' he asked, in a broken voice, as they rose from the examination.

'No, I reckon he hasn't had his call this time, but it has been a close thing. What was he doing when he was struck?'

'He was just getting up, sir, from the log that he was sitting on.'

'Ah, that saved him; another half inch and we could have done nothing for him. You see, he was struck from above; the wound is just behind the shoulderbone, and it has gone right down inside the bladebone, but has missed the lungs altogether – at least, we think so. Do you see that dark mark under the skin below the bone? That is where the point of the knife came to. Of course he has lost a lot of blood, but there is no reason why, if he goes on well, he should not be about again soon. Did he drink?'

'No, sir,' Jacob replied indignantly.

'Well, that is all in his favour; in this climate a man with his blood heated has but a poor chance if he gets hurt. He is English, the clerk told me as I came up?'

'Yes, sir; he is an English captain.'

'Ah, well, he will have a chance of fighting some more battles yet. You are his servant, I hear?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, you are not going to lose your master this time; you had better sit up with him to-night. We will get a nurse for him in the morning. I will order some lemonade to be sent up, and will bring round some medicine in half an hour, and sit here for a bit. Doctor Hawthorne will wait until I come back.'

By this time they had finished bandaging the wound.

'Hullo, what is the matter with you?' he exclaimed, as Jacob reeled and would have fallen had he not caught him. 'Here is another patient, Hawthorne. The boy is bleeding from the head somewhere. I thought he looked half stupid.'

They laid him down and examined him.

'He has had a tremendous blow on the head,' the other said. 'It has cut right through the cap and has laid the bone bare. I expect that thick cap saved his life. I wonder what he was struck with.'

They bathed the boy's head with iced water for some time. Presently he opened his eyes.

'Do not move, lad; you have had an awkward blow on the head. You must lie still for a bit, else we shall be having you on our hands too. What did he hit you with?'

'I dunno, sir; he had nothing in his hand but the knife.'

'It wasn't done with a fist,' Doctor Hawthorne said, 'and is certainly not the cut of a knife.'

'I fancy it was done with the handle of the knife,' the other said. 'The negro could have had no motive in killing the boy. I expect he had the knife in his hand, and he struck down on him with the end of the hilt. That would make just the sort of wound this is. You see, it is a little to one side of the centre of the skull, and so glanced off the bone. If it had caught him fairly in the centre it would have staved in the skull to a certainty.' They placed a pillow from the sofa under the boy's head, gave him a little lemonade to drink, and then one of the doctors left, after having aided in placing Captain Hampton on the bed, propped up almost into a sitting position by pillows. Jacob dozed off into a confused sleep. Occasionally he woke up and saw the doctor sitting by his master's bedside, and then relapsed into sleep. At last he started up at the sound of a voice. The sun was gleaming through the window and the doctor was standing speaking to Captain Hampton.

'You have a nasty wound,' he was saying, 'but fortunately it has not touched any vital point. You have been simply insensible from loss of blood. There is every chance of your doing well, but you must not try to move.'

'What is the matter with Jacob?' Captain Hampton said feebly, as the boy appeared at the foot of his bed with a wet towel still bound round his head.

'I am all right, Captain, though I feel queer and my head is aching terribly; but I don't care a bit now you have come round.'

Captain Hampton's eyes turned to the surgeon for an explanation.

'He has had a heavy blow on the head. We have heard nothing from him beyond the fact that he had hold of the throat of the negro who attacked you. The man evidently struck him down, and from the appearance of the wound we gather that he struck him with the haft of the knife. Fortunately it fell rather on the side of his head or it might have killed him; as it is, it has laid the bone bare; we bandaged it up with a cloth soaked in ice water and he will be all right in a day or two.'

'Where am I wounded?' Captain Hampton asked.

The surgeon explained the nature of the wound.

'No doubt it was some negro who had gone down to sleep on the wharf, and seeing you come along with this boy thought he would rob you. Your pockets were turned inside out.'

Captain Hampton did not speak for a minute; then, with a faint smile, he said:

'He did not get much for his pains. I put everything in that drawer and locked it before coming out, and dropped the key into my portmanteau.'

'That is all right,' the surgeon said cheerfully. 'I was afraid you might have lost a good deal of money. We gave notice to the police last night, but it is not likely you will ever hear of the fellow again. Such things are common enough in the streets of New Orleans, and it is not once in a hundred times that the police ever manage to lay a finger on the scoundrels. Had you been in any gambling place, because, in that case, some one may have tracked you?'

Captain Hampton shook his head. 'No; I had only taken a stroll through the town. How long am I likely to be laid up?'

'You must be in bed for a fortnight at least; the wound was made by a bowie knife and is a broad, deep cut, and the knife penetrated to its whole depth, for there is a bruise each side of the mouth of the wound. If you were to attempt to move earlier than that you might have a great deal of trouble. Now, there is no occasion for me to stay with you any longer. Dr. Hawthorne, who was called in with me, will be here at nine o'clock, and will bring a nurse with him. You must have some one with you; your wound might break out suddenly at any moment. We shall give you a little weak broth; but we must not begin building you up at present; the great thing is to avoid any chance of fever setting in. Your having lost so much blood is all in your favour in that respect. Now lad, I will have a look at your head; yes, you had better keep on applying cloths dipped in ice water to it. I will tell them to send you up a basin of broth when they send some up to your master. You had better not take any solid food to-day.'

At ten o'clock, Captain Hampton, having taken a few spoonfuls of broth from his nurse, fell off into a quiet sleep. Jacob, who had taken off his boots, so as to move about noiselessly, had tidied up the room. He had glanced several times towards the unfinished letter and the addressed envelope on the table, and he now took his shoes in his hand, and went out through the door, put on his shoes again, and proceeded down stairs, having, before he left the room, laid aside his wet cloths and put on his cap.

'When does the post go out for England?' he asked the clerk.

'It is mail day to-day; there is a steamer going direct to England.'

He went back to his master's room, took up a pen, and with infinite labour scrawled a few lines at the bottom of the unfinished letter, making several blots and smudges as he did so. These he dried with blotting-paper, and with much self-disapproval folded the letter, placed it in the envelope, and, going downstairs again, handed it to the clerk to post.

For three or four days Captain Hampton remained in a very weak state; then he began to rally and picked up strength fast. At the end of ten days he was able to walk across the room.

'What has become of the letter I left on the table when I went out with you, Jacob?'

'I saw the envelope was to Mr. Danvers, sir, and you had told me about him. I asked about the post, and they said that it was going out that day, and as you had written before you went out I was sure that you wanted the letter to go by it, so I made a shift to write a line at the bottom to say that you could not finish it because you had got hurt, and then fastened it up and posted it. I hope that was right, sir.'

'You intended well, anyhow, Jacob; but it would have been better, perhaps, if you hadn't done it, as it will only alarm him needlessly.'

'I told him the doctor said you would get round, sir.'

'Ah, well, that is all right. I am glad you sent it, as he would be looking for a letter from me. I suppose you are quite sure that it was a negro who stabbed me?'

'Quite sure, sir. It was dark, but not so dark that I could not see his face.'

'Well, in another three or four days I shall be able to be out, Jacob. If I find that these people were here at the time I landed I shall have no doubt that this business was their work. I knew the man by sight and he may have known me. Someone may have pointed me out to him on the racecourse, as I had been asking about him. Of course it may have been done merely for the sake of plunder, but I think the other is more likely.'

Three days later Captain Hampton was able to go for a ride in a carriage. He went first to the police office.

'We have no news whatever to give you, Captain Hampton,' the superintendent, who had been to see him several times, said as he entered.

'I did not expect you would have any,' he replied. 'I have come to see you about a different business. Here is the letter the head of the police at New York gave me to you. You see I am in search of two people from England. By the aid of the police at New York I traced them and found that they had come on here nearly three weeks before. I followed them, and was wounded a few hours after my arrival here. I am well enough to begin the search again, and shall be very glad if you will send one of your officers with me to visit the hotels.'

The superintendent at once complied with his request, and at the second hotel they visited he discovered that the people he sought had been staying there and had left on the evening of his arrival.

'They were booked on the boat to Omaha,' the clerk said. 'I know they have been getting a lot of things at the stores, as they were going across the plains. The evening before they were to start Mr. Myrtle said they had changed their minds and were going on at once to Baton Rouge. They hurried up, but they were pretty late. They took a carriage from here and the driver told me they only just caught the boat by a minute; the bell was ringing when they got to the quay. You won't catch them now; the 'Arkansas' is a fast boat and I suppose they got on board her at Baton Rouge. There is no boat going now for the next four or five days, so they would have a good three weeks start of you.'

'You don't happen to know where they bought their things?' Captain Hampton asked.

'They got a lot of things at J. B. Nash's stores; a good many came up here, but I expect the heavy part went straight on board.'

'Thank you. I don't think there is anything more to ask you. We will go down to these stores,' he added to the policeman, as he returned to the carriage. 'I may learn something there that may be useful.'

His inquiries showed plainly enough that Truscott really meant to cross the plains and that they were going to travel by waggon. 'What harness did they buy?' he asked.

'For six horses, at least, by what I heard them say; for four horses and two mules. The two men were talking about it, and they wanted bigger collars for the two wheelers because they would be mules.'

'Were there two men, then, as well as a girl?'

'Yes; the three always came together; one of them belonged to this city. I knew his face, though I don't know what his name was. I take it he was a Britisher, though he had been long enough here to lose most of his accent. He seemed rather to boss the show and the other bought the things he fixed on. I allow he was a pretty smart fellow and was pretty well fixed up on prices. We did not get very much out of that deal.'

'What was he like?'

'He was a strong-built sort of chap about forty, I should say, and looked rather a hard sort of cuss. I don't know what his name was; the other called him Joe.'

'Thank you. I daresay I shall be coming in to get an outfit for myself in a day or two. I am thinking of going across the plains, too.'

'Well, I guess we can fix you up with everything you want, squire. But you don't look as if you was fit for a journey across the plains just yet. It ain't child's play; I reckon it wants a pretty strong man to stand the racket.'

'I shall have a fortnight to pick up on board the steamer,' Captain Hampton said. 'I have just had a bout of illness, but I am shaking it off, and it will be at least three weeks before I am at Omaha.'

'We are going for a long journey, Jacob,' he said when he returned to the hotel.

'We have been a pretty goodish long 'un already, Captain.'

'Nothing to what we are going to set out on now, Jacob. We have got a fortnight or three weeks on board a steamer, and then we start across the plains.'

'How long shall we be in crossing them, sir?'

'Four or five months, Jacob.'

'My eye!' the lad exclaimed. 'Them must be something like plains; and what is there the other side of them?'

'There is a country where they find gold, Jacob.'

'What! sovs?' the boy exclaimed.

'The stuff sovereigns are made of.'

'But you ain't going to look for that, sir.'

'No, lad; I am going after these people. They were here that evening when we came in, and as they started in a hurry half-an-hour after we landed, I cannot help thinking they saw me. It seems they had another man with them when they were here, and I expect they came here to join him. I don't know whether he left with them; my own opinion is he did not, but when Truscott saw me he hurried off at once to his hotel and started, leaving the other man to prevent my following them. Probably he started by the boat in the morning after them, believing the negro he had hired had done his work. At any rate I have made up my mind to follow them. I was determined to do so before; but if I hadn't been, this would have decided me. They have got a long start, but we will come up to them sooner or later.'

'I should think so,' the boy said, energetically, 'and pay them out for it too. My eye! won't they be surprised when we drop upon them just as they are picking up gold. But you ain't fit to start yet,' he went on, changing his voice; 'you look very white, sir; I think you have been doing too much, and it won't do for you to start to cross these here plains until you are strong; it will just be a-knocking yourself up, and I don't suppose there ain't no doctors living out there.'

'That there are not, Jacob,' Captain Hampton laughed. 'Well, we shall have three weeks' quiet on board the steamer, and by the time we land I hope I shall be as strong as ever. I will keep quiet for the rest of the day. To-morrow I shall have to see about taking our passage and getting ready for the start. I know nothing about what we shall want yet.'

The next morning Captain Hampton took Jacob with him down to the stores where he had been on the previous afternoon.

'I have made up my mind to go across the plains,' he said; 'now, what do I want? I know absolutely nothing about it. Clothes I have got of all sorts – I want nothing in that way; I want to travel as light as possible, so as to push on fast.'

'Can you shoot?'

'Yes, I am a good shot, and have a double-barrelled gun and rifle with me.'

'That will help you a good deal; the game has been mostly shot or scared away along the line, but there is some to be had, and, you see, any meat you don't want you can swap for flour and other things with some of the emigrants. As to your pushing on, you might do that sometimes, but not very often. There are Redskins all along the line, and a man travelling by himself would have much trouble in getting through. As a general thing folks go in parties of ten or twelve waggons, often more, and then they are too strong for the Redskins to attack. I do not think you could travel much faster than the ordinary, not even if you had good horses. The bullocks travel slow, but they go a good many hours a day, and camp at night where there is water.'

'If you could ride all the way you might do two days' journey in one sometimes, but you must take some provision along with you. You must take some flour and some bacon, for you can't always reckon on game, and tea and sugar, and little odds and ends. And then there are your clothes; knocking about for four months, and sleeping as you stand, you want at least two suits besides what you have got on. Then there is your ammunition. Altogether, go as light as you can, you have got a lot of things to haul along with you. If you ain't afraid of roughing it I should say you could not do better than take a strong buggy.'

'That is a four-wheeled vehicle, I suppose?'

The man nodded.

'You can have it with springs or without. Springs make it easy, but if you break one you are done.'

'Would it be strong enough to carry, say, six hundred weight?'

'Ay, double that, if need be; but of course the lighter the better. You would want a tarpaulin to cover the things up, and you might make a shift to sleep under it if it is wet.'

'No, we will sleep under the waggon; we will have hooks put along all round the bottom board, and a stout canvas curtain with rings to hang; down to the ground and peg down there.'

'That will make a capital tent; have it to open behind, so that you can sit at the entrance and have a fire outside.'

'Can you get me such a vehicle and make a sail-cloth curtain for me?'

'I can do that,' the man said.

'About how much will it cost for a good hickory waggon without springs, and without any particular finish?'

'You would pay about a hundred and fifty dollars; the tarpaulin to come well over it, and the canvas arrangement, might be forty dollars more, though I cannot tell you exactly. If you say two hundred dollars altogether you won't be far from the mark.'

'Very well, you can do it. How much flour shall I take?'

'Well, seeing that you will do some shooting and swap some of the meat for flour, I should say a hundred and fifty pounds ought to last the two of you fairly well.'

Half an hour was spent in discussing the other items, including a dozen of brandy for emergencies, a small stock of medicines, pickles, sauces, and other items, mounting up to about four hundred pounds in weight. To these were added some twenty pounds of ammunition.

'Allowing fifty pounds for blankets and clothes, we shall be well under five hundred,' Captain Hampton said; 'and we shall get lighter as we go on.'

'When you book your passage you can arrange for the buggy to be taken up,' said the storekeeper. 'You might put all the things in it. We shall put all the small items in boxes, and then lash the tarpaulin well over everything; they will travel safely enough, and you will have no trouble about them till you get to the end of the journey. Now, what about horses? What are you going to do? I reckon you will have to pay a mighty high price if you wait until you get to Omaha.'

'I shall want three horses; a good one for my own riding, and two sturdy animals for the cart – the boy will drive the cart. Could we get them taken up too?'

'You can get anything taken up by paying for it. I don't say as you wouldn't save money, because you would, a good bit, if you were to drop off at some station, a good way from any town, and look round among the farmers and get what you want, and go on by the next boat – but I suppose that would not suit you?'

'Not at all. The great thing is to save time. Do you think that I could pick up three horses to suit me here?'

'You can pick up anything you like here. I will give you the names of half-a-dozen stable-keepers, and if you don't find them all at one place you will at another. But mind, don't give the prices asked. Seeing you are a stranger they will put on about three times the price they will be ready to take.'

'They are pretty well alike in that respect all over the world,' Captain Hampton laughed. 'I have bought some horses in my time, and I don't think they will take me in much, still I am much obliged to you for your warning. I don't think I should have been prepared to bid them only a third, though I should, I dare say, have tried half.'

'A third is enough to begin with, anyhow,' the man said, 'and I shouldn't rise much on that. You have got five days before you start, so you can take your time; and I should say don't get town horses, but critters fresh from the farms. Town horses get their legs knocked about and can't stand hard work and weather, like those just brought in. I ain't sure you would not do better to take steamer and go twenty or thirty miles up or down the river; you will be more likely to get an honest horse.'

It took Captain Hampton three days before he had purchased three animals to his liking; but when he had done so, he was well content with his bargains, all of which he had picked up at farm houses a few miles from the city. A store of grain sufficient for the passage was sent with them on board the boat, and everything was in perfect readiness on the morning of the day when the steamer was to start up the Mississippi.