Frank Merriwell's Backers Part 34

So they started off, Frank leading the horse bearing the ghastly burden, while the dog walked behind with hanging head, the perfect picture of sorrow.

A strange funeral procession it was, making its way toward the setting sun and the hazy mountains. The dead horse was left behind, while far in the sky wheeled two black specks, buzzards waiting for the feast.

The Indians had long vanished from the face of the plain, yet Frank knew their nature, and he was not at all sure he had seen the last of them.

The sun vanished behind the mountains and the blue night lay soft and soothing on the hot plain when the funeral procession came into the foot-hills.

It was not Frank's intention to carry the dead man farther than was needful, and, therefore, he kept his eyes about him for some place to bestow the body where it might rest safe from prowling beasts.

This place he found at last, and, with the aid of a flat stone, and with his bare hands, he scooped a shallow grave. Into this the body was fitted. Over the man's face Frank spread his own handkerchief. Then he besprinkled the dry earth lightly over the body at first, afterward using the flat rock to sc.r.a.pe and shovel more upon it, ending with covering it heavily with such stones as he could find, knowing well with what skill the ravening beasts of the desert could use their claw-armed paws.

For a time the dog sat and watched everything. When his late master was placed in the grave he whined and cried softly; but when the body was covered he lay down beside the grave in silence, and there was in his posture something so heartbroken that Frank was moved to a great pity.

"Poor old Boxer!" he murmured. "It is the end to which all living things must come, each in its own time. But it is the law of nature, and it is not so bad, after all. Blessed is he who goes to his last deep sleep without fear, feeling that he has done his best and is willing to trust everything in the hands of Him who sees and knows all. The fear of death and what may follow is such as should trouble alone the coward or the wicked wretch. Boxer, your master seemed to pa.s.s without fear, and something tells me it is not so bad with him. His case is in the hands of the Great Judge, and we may rest sure that he will be done no wrong."

Was there ever such a strange funeral oration! A youth with bared head and solemn face, speaking above a grave, and a silent, grief-stricken dog as the only mourner and attendant! The still Arizona night all around, with no sound of humming insect, no stir of foliage, no whisper of moving breeze, the dome of heaven above, studded with millions of clear stars! The dog did not move or lift its head, but Frank saw the stars.h.i.+ne glint upon his eyes, which were wide open and fastened upon the speaker.

When the work was completed Frank knelt for a moment beside that grave, praying softly, yet with an earnestness that bespoke his faith that his words were heard.

It was over. His horse was at a little distance. He went and brought the animal up and adjusted the saddle. The dead man's belt, stuffed to bursting and wondrous heavy, he had fastened about his own waist.

"Come, Boxer," he said, again stooping to pat the head of the dog. "We must go. Bid farewell to your master's grave. It's not likely you may ever again come beside it."

The dog stirred. He sat up and lifted his muzzle toward the stars. From his throat came a low note that rose and swelled to the most doleful sound imaginable.

With his blood chill in his body, Frank listened while the dog sang a requiem above that grave. Tears started from Merry's eyes, and never while life was his could he forget that sound and that sight. Never chanted words of ma.s.s had more of sorrow! No human tongue could speak greater grief.

At last the sound died away into silence, and the dog stood on all fours, with hanging head and tail, his muzzle kissing some of the rough stones heaped on that grave. How long he might have remained in that att.i.tude cannot be said; but soon Frank spoke again and called him to follow. At the word he turned, and his manner denoted he was ready.

Merry swung into the saddle and started, looking over his shoulder. In dead silence, the dog followed.

And so they pa.s.sed into the still night.

CHAPTER XIX.

NEW ARRIVALS IN HOLBROOK.

The town of Holbrook had been greatly stirred. It had not yet settled into its accustomed grooves. The proprietor of the best hotel in town had received a consignment of fine furniture, carpets, draperies, wallpaper and pictures, and he had set about renovating and decorating several of the largest rooms in his house, having for that purpose a number of workmen imported from some Eastern point. It was said that the rooms had been rearranged to connect with each other in a suite, and that when they were completed, and furnished, and decorated they were dazzlingly magnificent, nothing like them ever before having been seen in the place. The good citizens of Holbrook wondered and were amazed at all this; but they did not know that not one dollar had been expended by the proprietor of the hotel. All this work had been done without expense of his to accommodate some guests who came in due time and took possession of those rooms.

The California Special had dropped four persons in Holbrook, who regretfully left the comfort of a palace car and looked about them with some show of dismay on the cluttered streets and crude buildings of the Southwestern town. Holbrook was even better in general appearance than many Western towns, but, contrasted with clean, orderly, handsome Eastern villages, it was offensive to the eyes of the proud lady who was aided from the steps of the car and descended to the station platform with the air of a queen. She turned up her aristocratic nose a little on glancing around.

This woman was dressed in the height of fas.h.i.+on, although somewhat too heavily for the country she now found herself in; but there was about her an air of display that betokened a lack of correct taste, which is ever p.r.o.nounced in those who seek to attract attention and produce astonishment and awe. She had gray hair and a cold, unattractive face.

Still there was about her face something that plainly denoted she had been in her girlhood very attractive.

She was followed by a girl who was so pretty and so modest in appearance that the rough men who beheld her gasped with astonishment. Never in the history of the town had such a pretty girl placed her foot within its limits. She had a graceful figure, fine complexion, Cupid-bow mouth, flushed cheeks, large brown eyes and hair in which there was a hint of red-gold, in spite of its darkness.

A colored maid followed them.

From another car descended a thin, wiry, nervous man, who had a great blue beak of a nose, and who hastened to join the trio, speaking to them.

The hotel proprietor had at the station the finest carriage he could find, and this whisked them away to the hotel as soon as they had entered it, leaving the loungers about the station wondering, while the train went diminis.h.i.+ng into the distance, flinging its trail of black smoke against the blue of the Arizona sky.

At the hotel the lady and her daughter occupied two of the finest rooms, the colored maid another, less expensively furnished, and the man with the blue nose was given the fourth.

Holbrook wondered what it meant.

The lady ordered a meal to be served in her rooms.

The report went forth at once, and again Holbrook stood agog.

The hotel register was watched. Finally the man with the restless eyes and blue beak entered the office and wrote nervously in the register.

Barely was he gone when a dozen persons were packed about the desk, seeking to look over one another's shoulders to see what had been written.

"Whatever is it, Hank?" asked one. "You sure kin read writin'. Whatever do you make o' it?"

"'Mrs. D. Roscoe Arlington,' the fust name," said the one called Hank.

"Then comes 'Miss Arlington,' arter which is 'Mr. Eliot Dodge,' an'

lastly I sees 'Hannah Jackson.'"

"Which last must be the n.i.g.g.e.r woman," said one of the rough men.

"I allows so," nodded Hank. "An' it 'pears to me that name o' Arlington is some familiar. I somehow thinks I has heard it."

"Why, to be course you has!" said another of the men. "D. Roscoe Arlington, did you say? Who hasn't heerd that name? He's one o' them big guns what has so much money he can't count it to save his gizzard.

Ev-rybody has heerd o' D. Roscoe Arlington. If he keeps on gittin' rich the way he has the past three years or so, old Morgan won't be in the game. Why, this Arlington may now be the richest man in this country, if ev'rything were rightly known about him. He owns railroads, an' mines, an' s.h.i.+ps, an' manufacturin' plants, an' n.o.body knows what all."

"That sartin explains a whole lot the fixin' up that has been a-doin'

around this ranch," said a little man with a thirsty-looking mouth.

"They was a-preparin' fer the wife o' this mighty rich gent."

"But say!" exclaimed a young fellow with a wicked face, "ain't she got a slick-lookin' gal with her, what?"

Some of them laughed and slapped him on the back.

"Go on, Pete!" cried one chap. "You're a gay one with greaser gals, but you won't be able to make a wide trail with that yar young lady, so don't be lookin' that way."

"Wonder whatever could 'a' brought such people here," speculated a man with tobacco juice on his chin. "They must mean to stay a while, else they'd never had them rooms fixed up the way they are."

A ruffianly-looking man with a full beard broke into a low laugh.

"Why, ain't none o' you heard about the fight what's bein' made to git holt o' a certain mine not so very fur from yere?" he asked. "I mean the mine owned by a young chap what calls himself Frank Merriwell. You oughter know somethin' about that."

"Why, 'pears to me," observed the fellow with tobacco juice on his chin--"'pears to me I did hear that thar was trouble over a mine somewhar down in the Mogollons, an' that Cimarron Bill had been sent to take it."