The Young Explorer Part 42

"Are you not ashamed to creep up to my tent in the middle of the night on such an errand as that, Patrick O'Reilly?" demanded Dewey.

"No, I'm not. Let me up, d.i.c.k Dewey, or it'll be the worse for you,"

said the intruder wrathfully.

"Give me your knife, then."

"I won't. It's my own."

"The errand on which you come is my warrant for demanding it."

"I won't give you the knife, but I'll go back," said O'Reilly.

"That won't do."

"Don't you go too far, d.i.c.k Dewey. I'm your aiqual."

"No man is my equal who creeps to my tent at the dead of night. Do you know what the camp will think, O'Eeilly?"

"And what will they think?"

"That you came to rob me."

"Then they'll think a lie!" said O'Reilly, startled, for he knew that on such a charge he would be liable to be suspended to the nearest tree.

"If they chose to think so, it would be bad for you."

"You know it isn't so d.i.c.k Dewey," said O'Reilly.

"I consider your intention quite as bad. You wanted to prevent this poor Chinaman from ever returning to his native land, though he had never injured you in any way. You can't deny it."

"I don't belave a word of all that rigmarole, d.i.c.k Dewey."

"It makes little difference whether you believe it or not. You have shown a disposition to injure and annoy Ki Sing, but I have foiled you. And now," here Dewey's tone became deep and stern, "give me that knife directly, and go back to your tent, or I'll rouse the camp, and they may form their own conclusions as to what brought you here."

O'Reilly felt that Dewey was in earnest, and that he must yield. He did so with a bad grace enough and slunk back to his tent, which he did not leave till morning.

Early in the morning, Richard Dewey awakened Ki Sing.

"You had better not stay here, Ki Sing," he said. "There are those who would do you mischief. Go into the mountains, and you may find gold. There you will be safe."

"Melican man velly good-me go," said the Chinaman submissively.

"Good luck to you, Ki Sing!"

"Good luckee, Melican man!"

So the two parted, and when morning came to the camp, nothing was to be seen of the Chinaman.

Dewey returned O'Reilly's knife, the latter receiving it in sullen silence.

It was not long afterward that Richard Dewey himself left Murphy's in search of a richer claim.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

ON THE MOUNTAIN PATH.

My readers will not have forgotten Bill Mosely and his companion Tom Hadley, who played the mean trick upon Bradley and our hero of stealing their horses. I should be glad to state that they were overtaken and punished within twenty-four hours, but it would not be correct. They had a great advantage over their pursuers, who had only their own feet to help them on, and, at the end of the first day, were at least ten miles farther on than Ben and Bradley.

As the two last, wearied and well-nigh exhausted, sat down to rest, Bradley glanced about him long and carefully in all directions.

"I can't see anything of them skunks, Ben," he said.

"I suppose not, Jake. They must be a good deal farther on."

"Yes, I reckon so. They've got the horses to help them, while we've got to foot it. It was an awful mean trick they played on us."

"That's so, Jake."

"All I ask is to come up with 'em some of these days."

"What would you do?"

"I wouldn't take their lives, for I ain't no murderer, but I'd tie 'em hand and foot, and give 'em a taste of a horsewhip, or a switch, till they'd think they was schoolboys again."

"You might not be able to do it. They would be two to one."

"Not quite, Ben. I'd look for some help from you."

"I would give you all the help I could," said Ben.

"I know you mean it, and that you wouldn't get scared, and desert me, as a cousin of mine did once when I was set upon by robbers."

"Was that in California?"

"No; in Kentucky. I had a tough job, but I managed to disable one of the rascals, and the other ran away."

"What did your cousin have to say?"

"He told me, when I caught up with him, that he was goin' in search of help, but I told him that was too thin. I told him I wouldn't keep his company any longer, and that he had better go his way and I would go mine. He tried to explain things, but there are some things that ain't so easily explained, that I wouldn't hear him. I stick to my friends, and I expect them to stand by me."

"That's fair, Jake."

"That's the way I look at it. I wonder where them rascals are?"

"You mean Mosely and his friend?"