Julian Mortimer

“Can it be possible that those things never happened, and that Dick Mortimer, with his lantern and revolver, the long, dark passage-way, and the feeble old man who frightened him so terribly, were objects that I saw only in my dreams?” exclaimed Julian.

As this thought passed through his mind he sprung from the couch, and running to the opposite side of the room pulled up the hangings, fully expecting to find there the opening through which his captor had conducted him into the passage-way. But the wall was as solid as ever – not one of the huge blocks of stone was out of place.

“If I dreamed that I did not dream that I left these curtains all down and the windows closed, did I?” Julian asked himself in deep perplexity. “Somebody has certainly been in here while I was asleep, and he didn’t come in through the door either. I’ve spent my last night in this house. I didn’t hear any of those frightful sounds Sanders heard the night he slept here, but I’ve seen enough. If I ever get outside these walls I’ll not come back. What’s this?”

After hastily throwing on his clothes Julian stepped to the table to help himself to a glass of water from the pitcher that some thoughtful hand had placed there, when his eyes fell upon a paper, folded in the form of a letter, and addressed to himself. With eager haste he opened it, and after some trouble, for the spelling was defective and the writing almost illegible, he deciphered the following:

“Have no fear. Watchful friends are near you, and no harm shall come to you. Reginald Mortimer is your uncle. Treat him as such.”

Julian read these mysterious words over and over again, and finally carried the paper to the window and examined it on all sides, in the hope of finding something more – something to tell him who these watchful friends were, and where the missive came from. Being disappointed in these hopes he put the letter carefully away in his pocket and resumed his toilet. He was a long time about it, for he frequently stopped and stood at the window gazing out at the mountains on the other side of the valley, or walked up and down the room with his eyes fastened on the carpet. His mind was busy all the while, and by the time he was ready to leave the room he had thought over his situation and determined upon a plan of action. Just then the little clock on the mantel struck the hour of 10.

“I am getting fashionable,” said Julian, who, remembering how carefully Richard Mortimer was always dressed, and believing that Uncle Reginald, as he had determined to call him, might be equally particular, stopped to take another look at himself in the mirror before quitting the room.

It was a very handsome face and figure that the polished surface of the glass reflected. A finely embroidered shirt with wide collar and neck-tie, a closely fitting jacket of dark-blue cloth, black velvet trousers, brown cloth leggings with green fringe, light shoes, and a long crimson sash worn about the waist, completed an attire that set off his slender, well-knit frame to the very best advantage. One could scarcely recognize in him the half-starved ragamuffin whose daily duty it had been to keep Mrs. Bowles supplied with back-logs and fore-sticks.

Having satisfied himself that he was presentable, Julian undid the numerous fastenings of the door, smiling the while to think how inefficient they had proved to keep out the intruders of whom he stood so much in fear, and was about to pass out into the hall when the sound of voices reached his ears. He paused and listened, his attention being attracted by the mention of the name of one in whom he was now more than ever interested.

“Wal, I don’t reckon we could help it, could we?” growled a voice which the boy knew belonged to the trapper Sanders. “Me an’ my pardner ain’t the men to let $5,000 slip through our fingers without doin’ our level best to hang onto it, be sure?”

“A couple of blockheads, I say!” replied the voice of Reginald Mortimer, in angry, excited tones. “Two desperadoes like you and Tom to allow a single man like Silas Roper to get the better of you. Go and hide yourself. How did it happen?”

“Why we was a bringin’ him down here this mornin’ on hossback, me and Tom was,” replied Sanders, “an’ the first thing we knowed he slipped his hands out o’ his bonds, which we thought we had made hard an’ fast, an’ afore we could say ‘Gen’ral Jackson’ with our mouths open, he jerked Tom’s gun out o’ his hands, knocked him from his saddle as clean as a whistle, an’ sent the ball into me.”

“Hurrah for Silas?” thought Julian, gleefully. “He has escaped. Now, if there is any way in which he can assist me he will not fail to do it.”

“He was out o’ sight an’ hearin’ afore we could raise a finger to stop him,” continued Sanders. “I guess my broken arm an’ Tom’s bloody head is proof enough of what I say, hain’t it? We couldn’t help it.”

“Perhaps you did the best you could,” replied Reginald Mortimer in a milder tone. “That Silas Roper is a match for any two men in the mountains. Come into this room and let Pedro dress your wounds.”

“Nary time,” said Sanders emphatically. “I’ve had jest the wust luck in the world ever since I had anything to do with you an’ your house, an’ now I’m goin’ to cut you. I came here to tell you that, an’ I ain’t never comin’ nigh you again. Let us out o’ here.”

“You will come whenever I choose to send for you,” said Mr. Mortimer fiercely.

“Oh, if it comes to that cap’n, in course we will,” replied Sanders, dropping his angry, confident tone very suddenly. “We’re bound to obey orders, but don’t ask nary one of us to come here agin. We’d a heap sooner you’d send us out to steal hosses and rob miners.”

“Silence!” said Mr. Mortimer in a hoarse whisper. “Do you not know that the very walls in this house have ears? You must capture Silas Roper; and I will give you the money I promised you whenever you deliver him into my hands. He is about here, and he will remain in the vicinity as long as I hold fast to this stool-pigeon.”

Uncle Reginald and the trappers passed through the door into the yard, and Julian strolled along the hall, and not knowing where else to go, entered the reception-room. While he was walking about with his hands in his pocket, he was thinking over some portions of the conversation to which he had just listened.

“Captain?” he repeated. “What is Uncle Reginald captain of? Steal horses and rob miners! Silas told me that the mountains were full of men engaged in that kind of business, and I wonder if this new relative of mine is in any way connected with them! He must be; and he must be their leader, too, for Sanders acknowledged that he was bound to obey his orders. Good gracious! What sort of a place have I got into, anyhow?”

While Julian, appalled by this new discovery he had made, was pacing restlessly up and down the floor, Uncle Reginald hurried in. The scowl on his forehead indicated that he was in a bad humor about something, but it cleared away instantly when he discovered Julian, and advancing with outstretched hand he greeted him in the most cordial manner.

“I hope you rested well after the fatigues and excitements of yesterday,” said he with a friendly smile. “You look as if you had. Breakfast is waiting, and while we are discussing it we will have a social chat.”

The boy, making some satisfactory reply, returned his uncle’s smile and the hearty pressure of his hand, and accompanied him toward the breakfast-room, which was located at the farther end of the hall. He glanced over the well-filled table as he took the chair pointed out to him, and told himself that if this breakfast was a fair sample of Uncle Reginald’s style of living he would never go hungry while he remained under his roof. Corn bread, salt meat and buttermilk did not constitute the substantial part of the repast as they invariably did in the cabin of Jack Bowles. There were juicy venison steaks, hot muffins, wheat bread, eggs, boiled and fried, toast and potatoes in abundance, and also coffee and chocolate, which Pedro, who waited upon the table, drew from a silver urn which stood on the sideboard. More than that, the cloth was spotless, the dishes clean and white and the table was altogether so nicely arranged, and looked so inviting, that Julian grew hungry the moment his eyes rested upon it.

When Pedro had supplied the wants of his master and his guests, he retired, and the two were left alone.

“Well, Julian,” said Uncle Reginald in a cheery voice, “do you feel inclined for a gallop on a swift horse this morning? I have some business that will occupy my attention until dinner, and if you in the meantime wish to amuse yourself in that way, there is a very fine filly in the stable which I purchased expressly for you, and which I hope will supply the place of the horse you lost last night.”

“You must have been expecting me,” said the boy.

“Certainly. I have been looking for you every day for the last two months; and as this introduces the subject which I know you are impatient to talk about, I will now make the explanation I promised you. In the first place, do you know that last night you slept in your old home for the first time in eight years? You were born in this house, and every thing in and about it – money, horses, cattle and gold diggings – will come into your undisputed possession the moment you are twenty-one years old. It is a fact. You are by no means the pauper you have always supposed yourself to be.”

Julian dropped his knife and fork, and settling back in his chair looked the astonishment he could not express in words. He gazed earnestly at his uncle, and then ran his eyes around the room as if he were trying to make an estimate of the value of his possessions from the few articles he saw about him.

“It is the truth, every word of it,” repeated Reginald Mortimer. “It is all yours, and it is a property worth having, I assure you. Your father, who was my brother, is dead, and so is your brother Frederick. I am your guardian, and stand ready to surrender your patrimony to you whenever you are competent to take charge of it. I assumed control of your father’s affairs immediately after his death. At that time you were eight years old and your brother nine. Fred died, and shortly afterward you were stolen away by some one, who, as I this morning learned from Sanders, who told me all about it, took you off to Missouri and left you there with one Jack Bowles. For eight years I made every effort to find you, and I have at last succeeded. I do not intend that you shall be separated from me any more.”

“Well,” said Julian, when his uncle paused.

“Well, that’s all.”

“All!” echoed the boy. “Am I to learn no more of my history than this brief outline? Do you not know who it was who stole me away?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“Or what he stole me away for?”

“Why, of course your property had something to do with it, but just what I can’t tell.”

Julian, who had settled into an easy position in his arm-chair with the expectation of hearing something exciting about himself, straightened up, and with an expression of great disappointment on his face, resumed his toast and coffee. He wanted to hear more, and he was satisfied from his uncle’s manner that he could tell him more if he felt so inclined; but it was plain that he did not, for his next words related to another subject.

“I hope you are now convinced that the fears to which you last night gave way were entirely groundless,” said Mr. Mortimer. “I shall endeavor by every means in my power to make your life here a pleasant one. I have been very lonely and I want you to cheer me. I want you to feel that you are one of the family, that you have a right to be here, and that you are at liberty to go and come whenever it suits your fancy. You shall have the best horse in the stable, a pack of hounds, a servant to wait on you, and live like a gentleman. There is a fort about two miles distant. Some of the officers have their families with them, and among them are several boys about your own age. Whenever you want company, bring them up here. They will find enough to interest them.”

“Perhaps they would also find some things they would not care to see,” said Julian, thinking of his recent adventure with the emigrant.

“What do you mean?”

“Why, some of those strange people who go about of nights making such unearthly noises.”

“That sounds just like Sanders,” exclaimed Uncle Reginald impatiently. “Julian, I hope you are a boy of too much good sense to pay the least attention to any thing that low, ignorant fellow may say to you. There isn’t a word of truth in it.”

“Nor about the secret passage-ways that run all through the house?”

“Not a particle. It is all moonshine.”

“Or about the old man who lives in the cellar?”

“All the veriest nonsense in the world.”

“Or about your missing things?”

“Why, as to that, I have missed some things, that’s a fact, but I know where they went. Pedro took them. He is a great rascal.”

“Why do you not discharge him if he is a thief?”

“Because servants are not so easily procured in this wilderness. More than that, he is a valuable fellow in spite of his faults – understands all my ways, and knows just how I want every thing done. You will stay with me?”

“Certainly, sir. I have not seen so much of the comforts of a home that I can afford to throw them away as soon as they are offered to me. Beside, I want to see the bottom of this mystery.”

“What mystery? Well, perhaps it does seem a little strange that I, a man whom you never remember to have seen before, should claim you as a nephew, and tell you that I hold in my hands a valuable property which is all your own, but it is nevertheless true.”

“And there are other things that seem strange to me,” continued Julian. “One of them is that you can live here unmolested, as you evidently do, while peaceable emigrants are butchered at your very doors.”

“That is also easily explained. In the first place, that wagon train was quite a lengthy step from my door when it was attacked – about forty miles. In the next, there is a fort and a regiment of soldiers almost within call of me. I have twenty-five herdsmen in the valley, and at the very first sign of a war-party they would come flocking into the house, which could withstand the assault of all the Indians on the plains. Now, if you have finished your breakfast, and are ready for your ride, I will show you your horse.”

If Julian had given utterance to the thoughts that were passing through his mind, he would have told his uncle that he was not quite ready for his ride. There were other questions that he would like to have had answered. He wanted to know what sort of an organisation it was of which his uncle was captain; why he was so much interested in Silas Roper that he was willing to give $5,000 for his apprehension; if he knew that his cousin, Richard Mortimer, instead of being at Fort Stoughton hunting buffaloes, was prowling about somewhere in the immediate neighborhood, and that he had twice visited the rancho the night before. He wanted to know which of the two men who claimed to be his guardian was so in reality; how Uncle Reginald had found out that he was hidden in the wilds of Missouri; why, since he was so very anxious to find him, he had sent the trapper after him instead of going himself; and why Sanders had deserted him so suddenly when Silas Roper made his appearance in the streets of St. Joseph. He wanted to know who Silas Roper was; how he had learned so much about himself; and what Uncle Reginald meant when he said that the guide would not leave the vicinity of the rancho as long as the “stool-pigeon” was there. These and other questions had Julian intended to propound to his uncle; but the abruptness with which all the topics upon which he most wished to converse were dismissed, satisfied him that it would be a useless waste of time, and that his relative did not intend to enlighten him any further than he saw fit. Julian would have been glad of an opportunity to talk to one of those “watchful friends” spoken of in the note. He had a great deal to say to him.

“Romez, bring out Snowdrop.”

It was his uncle who spoke, and the sound of his voice aroused Julian from his reverie. They had now reached the stables – which were built under the same roof with the house and surrounded by the same wall – and were standing in front of the door.

The Mexican hostler to whom the order was addressed disappeared in the stable, and in a few minutes came out again, leading a beautiful snow-white mare, saddled and bridled.

Julian looked at her with delight, and declared that he had never seen a finer animal. She was very showy, and pranced about as if impatient to exhibit her mettle.

“I did not care to ride at first, but I do now,” said Julian. “I will be ready as soon as I get my rifle and revolver. But I must have some ammunition.”

“Pedro will supply you,” replied Uncle Reginald. “Go to him for everything you want.”

It was but the work of a few minutes to run to his room, throw his rifle and accouterments over his shoulder, buckle his revolver about his waist and return to Pedro for the powder and lead. He was out again almost as soon as he went in, and vaulting into the saddle he bade his uncle good-by and rode at a full gallop out of the gate.

CHAPTER XX

JULIAN GETS INTO BUSINESS

IF THERE is anything better calculated than another to put one at peace with himself and all the world, it is a brisk gallop on a good horse of a fine summer’s morning. It is a specific for melancholy. When Julian was safe outside the gloomy walls of the rancho, and felt himself being borne through the air with the speed of a bird on the wing, his spirits rose wonderfully, and in the exuberance of his glee he swung his sombrero about his head, and gave utterance to a yell almost as loud and unearthly as any he had heard uttered by the savages the night before. The spirited mare responded to the yell with a fresh burst of speed, and her rider, giving her a free rein, was carried at a rapid rate through the valley in which his uncle’s rancho was located, through the willows that skirted the base of the mountain, and finally found himself in a rocky defile which wound about among the cliffs. Here the mare voluntarily slackened her pace to a walk, and Julian wiped his flushed face with his handkerchief and looked about him. He could see nothing but rocks. They hemmed him in on all sides, and towered above his head until their tops seemed to pierce the clouds.

“I don’t know why I ever allowed myself to be brought in here,” thought the boy, “or why the horse should leave a level path to follow so miserable a road as this. Perhaps Uncle Reginald purchased her of some miner or settler up here in the mountains, and she thinks she is on her way home. At any rate she seems to know where she is going, and so long as she doesn’t lose me I don’t care where she carries me. I hope I shall find some one to talk to. Since uncle will not tell me anything about myself, I must learn what I want to know from other sources. Halloo!”

This exclamation was called forth by an unexpected sight that greeted his eyes. As he came suddenly around an abrupt bend in the path, he found before him a long, low, narrow cabin, built snugly under a beetling cliff which hung threateningly over the gorge. Two well-beaten paths appeared at this point; one leading to the doors of the building, and the other running on down the gorge. The mare, which seemed perfectly familiar with the locality, quickened her pace at once, and before Julian could gather up the reins to check her, she had turned into the first mentioned path, and galloping up to one of the doors stopped as if waiting for her rider to dismount. After looking all about him, without discovering any one, Julian began to take a survey of the premises.

There were two doors in the house, both opening out on the path. A short examination of the ground in front of the one at which his horse had stopped, showed him that it led into a stable; while the other, no doubt, opened into the living-room, for there was a rough bench beside it for the accommodation of loungers. While Julian was wondering by whom and for what purpose the house had been erected in that remote and lonely spot, his attention was attracted by the movements of his horse, which, after pricking up her ears and looking intently at the door in front of her, as if expecting the arrival of some one, began pawing the ground impatiently.

“She thinks there ought to be somebody here,” thought Julian. “And there certainly is something in the stable,” he added, after listening a moment, “for I can hear the stamping of horses. Halloo! the house!”

Julian waited for a reply, and listened for some movement in the cabin which would tell him that his call had been heard; but the only response he received was the echo of his own voice thrown back from the cliffs. This satisfied him that the owner of the premises was absent; and picking up his reins, he was on the point of turning back toward the valley, when, by the merest accident, he discovered something that he might have seen before if he had made good use of his eyes. It was a small window close under the eaves of the house, which was filled by the muzzle of a revolver and a pair of gleaming eyes looking straight at him.

Too astonished to speak, the boy sat in his saddle wondering what was going to happen now, and presently saw the six-shooter disappear and the eyes approach closer to the opening. A moment afterward a shaggy head, crowned by a broad-brimmed hat, was thrust slowly out, and a masculine face, that was by no means handsome or prepossessing, was exposed to his view.

“It’s you after all, hain’t it?” growled a deep voice, in no very amiable tones.

“Yes,” replied Julian, “it is I. But I heartily wish it was somebody else,” he added, mentally.

“Why in tarnation didn’t you whistle? I didn’t know you in them new clothes, and I might have put a ball into you just as easy as not. I’ll be out in a jiffy.”

As the man said this he drew in his head and closed the window. Julian was glad indeed when his villainous face disappeared, and trembled when he reflected that perhaps that revolver had been leveled at his head, and those evil eyes fastened upon him ever since he arrived within sight of the cabin, and he had never suspected it. He saw at once that he had placed himself in a dangerous position. One of two things was certain. The owner of the rancho was either hiding from pursuit, or else he was engaged in some unlawful business. If he were an honest man he would not act so strangely.

“But how does it happen that he recognizes me?” Julian asked himself. “Does he know who I am, or does he take me for somebody else? If he knows that I am Julian Mortimer, he may be a man of the Sanders stamp who has been hired to put me out of Dick’s way. If he thinks that I am an acquaintance of his, or an accomplice, he will certainly discover his mistake as soon as he has a fair view of my face, and then what will he do to me? I think I had better not wait for him.”

As quick as thought Julian wheeled his mare and touched her with his spurs; but the animal, knowing probably that good care and plenty of corn awaited her entry into the stable which she regarded as her home, responded very reluctantly. Before she had made many bounds the door of the stable was jerked open, and a voice called out in surprised and indignant tones:

“Halt! halt! I say, on the instant, or you’re a dead man!”

Julian knew that the speaker was in earnest, for his command was followed by the click of the lock of his revolver; but he would have kept on in spite of his fear of the bullets had not his horse, which doubtless recognized the voice, came to a sudden stand-still. Julian looked back and saw that the man’s pistol was pointed straight at his breast.

“If you ain’t a little ahead of all the fools I ever saw in all my born days my name ain’t Bob Smirker, and never was,” exclaimed the owner of the rancho fiercely. “That’s the second time I have come within an inch of shooting you. Come back here now, and let’s have no more fooling.”

Julian, not daring to attempt to continue his retreat on his unwilling steed, was compelled to obey. Calling all his courage to his aid, he turned about and rode back to the cabin. Smirker looked sharply at him as he came up, but Julian met his gaze without flinching, and even succeeded in calling a smile to his face. Believing that he had nothing to gain by deception, he began to explain who he was and how he came to be there; but the man interrupted him, and Julian was afterward glad that he had done so.