Luke Walton Part 10

"Strange!" he soliloquized, "that boy's interest in my personal appearance. I wonder if there can be a St. Louis man who resembles me.

If so, he can't be a very good-looking man. This miserable wart ought to be enough to distinguish me from anyone else."

He paused a minute, and then a new thought came into his mind.

"There is something familiar in that boy's face. I wonder who he can be. I will buy my evening papers of him, and take that opportunity to inquire."

Meanwhile Luke, to satisfy a doubt in his mind, entered the hotel, and, going up to the office, looked over the list of arrivals. He had to turn back a couple of pages and found this entry:

"THOMAS BROWNING, Milwaukee."

"His name is Browning, and he does come from Milwaukee," he said to himself. "I thought, perhaps, he might have given me a false name, though he could have no reason for doing so."

Luke felt that he must look farther for the man who had betrayed his father's confidence.

"I didn't think there could be two men of such a peculiar appearance,"

he reflected. "Surely there can't be three. If I meet another who answers the description I shall be convinced that he is the man I am after."

In the afternoon the same man approached Luke, as he stood on his accustomed corner.

"You may give me the _Mail_ and _Journal_," he said.

"Yes, sir; here they are. Three cents."

"I believe you are the boy who recognized me, or thought you did, this morning."

"Yes, sir."

"If you ever run across this Mr. Thomas, of St. Louis, present him my compliments, will you?"

"Yes, sir," answered Luke, with a smile.

"By the way, what is your name?"

"Luke Walton."

The gentleman started.

"Luke Walton!" he repeated, slowly, eying the newsboy with a still closer scrutiny.

"Yes, sir."

"It's a new name to me. Can't your father find a better business for you than selling papers?"

"My father is dead, sir."

"Dead!" repeated Browning, slowly. "That is un fortunate for you. How long has he been dead?"

"About two years."

"What did he die of?"

"I don't know, sir, exactly. He died away from home--in California."

There was a strange look, difficult to read, on the gentleman's face.

"That is a long way off," he said. "I have always thought I should like to visit California. When my business will permit I will take a trip out that way."

Here was another difference between Mr. Browning and the man of whom Luke's father had written. The stranger had never been in California.

Browning handed Luke a silver quarter in payment for the papers.

"Never mind about the change," he said, with a wave of his hand.

"Thank you, sir. You are very kind."

"This must be the son of my old California friend," Browning said to himself. "Can he have heard of the money intrusted to me? I don't think it possible, for I left Walton on the verge of death. That money has made my fortune. I invested it in land which has more than quadrupled in value. Old women say that honesty pays," he added, with a sneer; "but it is nonsense. In this case dishonesty has paid me richly. If the boy has heard anything, it is lucky that I changed my name to Browning out of deference to my wife's aunt, in return for a beggarly three thousand dollars. I have made it up to ten thousand dollars by judicious investment. My young newsboy acquaintance will find it hard to identify me with the Thomas Butler who took charge of his father's money."

If Browning had been possessed of a conscience it might have troubled him when he was brought face to face with one of the sufferers from his crime; but he was a hard, selfish man, to whom his own interests were of supreme importance.

But something happened within an hour which gave him a feeling of anxiety.

He was just coming out of the Chicago post-office, at the corner of Adams and Clark Streets, when a hand was laid upon his shoulder.

"How are you, Butler?" said a tall man, wearing a Mexican sombrero. "I haven't set eyes upon you since we were together at Gold Gulch, in California."

Browning looked about him apprehensively. Fortunately he was some distance from the corner where Luke Walton was selling papers.

"I am well, thank you," he said.

"Are you living in Chicago?"

"No; I live in Wisconsin."

"Have you seen anything of the man you used to be with so much--Walton?"

"No; he died."

"Did he, indeed? Well, I am sorry to hear that. He was a good fellow.

Did he leave anything?"

"I am afraid not."

"I thought he struck it rich."

"So he did; but he lost all he made."

"How was that?"

"Poor investments, I fancy."