The Wilderness Castaways Part 35

"A telegram for one of the young gentlemen," announced the clerk, as they entered the hotel and stopped at the desk for their keys. It was for Paul. He refrained from opening it until they reached their rooms.

Then with trembling hand he broke the seal and read:

"Thank G.o.d, my boy, you're safe. Mother and I leave at once to meet you in Toronto when your train arrives. Have wired Captain Bluntt. Bring Dan Rudd with you.

"FATHER."

Paul burst into tears, weeping from sheer joy. Dan, too, wiped his eyes.

"Good old Dad!" Paul exclaimed at last. "I can hardly wait to see them!"

Dan felt exceedingly uncomfortable in his new clothes. Even though he and Paul had selected suits at very moderate cost, and they were far from perfect in fit, he had never been so well dressed in his life. As he surveyed himself in the mirror, he confided to Paul:

"I feels wonderful fine dressed, an' when I gets home an' wears these clothes the folks at Ragged Cove'll sure be sayin' I'm puttin' on airs."

"Oh, you'll soon get used to them," laughed Paul. "I feel kind of stuck up myself, getting into civilized clothes again."

"And, Paul," continued Dan, "I feels wonderful rich with all th' money I'm gettin'. Dad and me hunted all of last winter, an' all Dad gets for his catch is a hundred an' twenty dollars in trade, an' he thinks he does rare well. Now I been gettin' five hundred an' sixty in cas.h.!.+"

"We did do pretty well, didn't we, Dan? And do you know, it's the first money I ever earned in my life. I've always just loafed and let my father give me everything. It makes me ashamed now to think of the way I've wasted money I never earned. I'll never do so again."

Paul and Dan occupied a large room, with two beds, Amesbury a single room, and between the two rooms was a bath room which they used in common, doors from the sleeping rooms opening into the bath room from opposite sides. These doors were left open when they retired at night.

All seemed unreal after the long camp life.

The boys, weary with the day's excitement, fell asleep the moment their heads touched the pillows. When they awoke the sun was streaming through the windows. Amesbury, taking his morning ablutions, was splas.h.i.+ng in the bath-tub, and singing:

"'There was a fat man of Bombay, Who was smoking one suns.h.i.+ny day; When a bird called a snipe, Flew away with his pipe, Which vex'd the fat man of Bombay.'"

The lads sprang out of bed. "My, but it's late," exclaimed Paul. "The sun's up."

"'Tis that," said Dan. "I weren't knowin' just where I were when I wakes."

"Good morning, fellows," called Amesbury from the bath room. "Come along one of you; I'm through."

"Good morning!" they both called back.

"Hurrah!" shouted Paul. "Today we start for home!"

"And you're going to leave a mighty lonely fellow behind," said Amesbury. "I'll have to break myself in all over again. I've a notion I'll kidnap you both and take you back to the bush with me."

"Can't you come with us?" plead Paul. "Change your mind about it, and come. Your sister would give the world to see you again, I'm sure. We do want you. It will be a jolly trip if you come."

A shadow pa.s.sed over Amesbury's face, and left it again--as on the evening when he told them his life story--haggard, old, and as one suffering inexpressible pain. He was dressing now. He made no answer for several minutes, and seemed to be struggling with himself.

Finally he spoke:

"Thank you ever and ever so much, fellows. It's better that I do not go. The world forgets good deeds quickly. It never forgets bad ones.

Mine were bad. I was a jailbird once. No one who ever knew it will ever forget it. My appearance in New York would bring shame to my sister and her children, if she has any. G.o.d alone knows how I long to see them! The news of who and what I was would spread among their friends--even their new friends--and they would be shunned and made miserable because of me. No, it's my punishment. I must not go."

Amesbury had again a.s.sumed his good-natured, whimsical att.i.tude when they went below to breakfast, and chaffed and joked the boys as usual.

Presently Ahmik appeared, to accompany them to the railway station.

"Come back hunt some more," Ahmik invited, as the train rolled into the station. "Miss you very much."

"We owe you so much," said Paul, as he shook Amesbury's hand. "I don't know what we'd have done if you hadn't picked us up."

"I'll never be forgettin' you, an' how rare kind you were," declared Dan.

"You chaps owe me nothing," insisted Amesbury. "The debt's all the other way. You earned your keep, made some money for me, and made a few weeks of my life very pleasant."

Paul and Dan ran to the platform of the rear car as the train drew out of the station, and had a last fleeting glimpse of Amesbury standing there gazing after them, a look of wistful longing in his eyes.

CHAPTER XXI

BAD NEWS AND GOOD

When John Densmore returned home after meeting Remington, he broke the news of Paul's supposed death to the boy's mother as gently as he could. She sat dry-eyed and mute, staring at him during the recital as though not fully comprehending the purport of his words. Densmore drew her to him and kissed her forehead.

"Mother! Mother!" he soothed, "bear up! It's a dreadful calamity, but we shall have to bear it!"

She fainted in his arms, and for several weeks was very ill. Even when she was again able to be about she was constantly under the care of a physician, and trained nurses remained with her night and day. The shock had left her in a state of nervous melancholia.

She had always deprecated Remington's proclivities for hunting and out-of-door sports. Now she felt very bitterly toward him, repeatedly a.s.serting that he was directly responsible for Paul's loss, at the same time upbraiding herself unceasingly for having permitted Paul to take part in the expedition.

Hour after hour she would sit, her hands folded in her lap, indulging her sorrow in silent brooding. She would picture Paul as he looked when he said his last farewell; her imagination would carry her to the desolate sh.o.r.es of Hudson Bay; she would see him struggling in icy waters; she would hear his last agonizing cry to her as he sank finally beneath the waves; and always his face cold in death, and his body unburied and uncared for, perhaps the prey of savage animals, rose up before her to reprove her for permitting him to leave her.

These were the things she dreamed of, asleep and awake, and they were the only subjects of her conversation.

Densmore was most devoted to his wife. He gave much of his time to her, and as the months pa.s.sed more and more of the conduct of his vast business affairs was left in the hands of trained subordinates.

During these months he had grown visibly older. Life had lost its charm. Much as he loved his son, he could have borne Paul's loss with some degree of fort.i.tude had his wife taken it less to heart, but the double sorrow of Paul's loss and her condition of melancholia took from him at length the old vim and vigor that had won for him his high place in the business world, and he was forced to admit that he had "lost his grip."

He was sitting in his sumptuously furnished office one June afternoon, his chin on his breast, deep in thought. A pile of important papers lay before him quite forgotten, though his secretary had placed them there an hour before, stating that they required his immediate personal attention.

"What is the use?" he asked himself. "Paul is gone. I've got a good deal more than we need. Mother [he always called Mrs. Densmore 'Mother'] must have a change, or she'll never recover from the shock.

Why not give it all up? Why not retire? Mother and I will take our yacht and float around the world and try to forget."

He looked at his watch at length. It was half past three. He pressed a b.u.t.ton, and a boy appeared.

"Tell Mr. Hadden I wish to see him," he directed.

At that moment Mr. Hadden, the secretary, evidently in a state of high excitement, entered briskly.

"Here's a telegram----" he began.

"Attend to it, Hadden, I'm going----"