ALMOST TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
If Glen had detected that smile on Mr. Hobart's face, he would have been spared a few moments of very unhappy reflections. He would have known that his brown-bearded friend could not smile while dashing his high hopes, and that there must be something pleasant back of it all. But as the engineer, who could not resist the temptation to try the effects of a disappointment on the boy's temper, turned away his face at that moment, his words were heard, while the smile was not noticed.
Like a great surging wave, the thought of an ignominious return to Brimfield, and a picture of the mill and the store as he had last seen them, swept over the boy's mind. Then came the more recent picture of the happy out-of-door life he had been leading for the past three days. How could he give up the one and go back to the other? Of course, if Mr. Hobart said he could no longer have work with the surveying-party, it must be so. There could be no appeal from that decision. And he had tried so hard to do well whatever had been given him to do, and to make himself useful! It was too bad! But surely there must be other work in this big, bustling, wide-awake West, even for a boy. With this thought his clouded face cleared, and a look of settled resolve overspread it.
"I'm awfully sorry, sir," he said; but the tone was almost cheerful, and Mr. Hobart's face was now the one that expressed surprise. If he had been able to examine Glen's mind, he would have seen that the boy had simply decided not to go back, at least not until the summer was over, but to stay where he was, and attempt to solve the bread-and-butter problem alone.
"My new orders came very unexpectedly," continued the engineer, "and have completely upset my plans. It seems that the company has decided to send me through to the Pacific with General Lyle's exploring expedition."
A lump rose in Glen's throat. General Lyle's expedition! Why, that was the one Binney Gibbs was to accompany. Was all the world going on that wonderful trip except himself? It almost seemed so. "It will be a fine trip, sir," he said, trying to choke down the lump.
"Yes, I suppose it will; but it will also be a hard and dangerous one, such as a great many people would not care to undertake. I don't suppose you would, for instance?" and Mr. Hobart looked quizzically at the boy.
"Wouldn't I! I'd just like to have somebody offer me a chance to go on that expedition, that's all!"
"Very well," replied the engineer, quietly, "I'll offer you the chance, just to see whether you will accept it or not. Will you go with me on this long trip?"
For a few seconds Glen gazed into the brown-bearded face without answering. Was he awake or dreaming? Had the words been spoken? "Do you really mean it, sir?" he almost gasped, at length, "or are you only making fun of me!"
"Mean it? of course I do," was the reply. "I generally mean what I say, and if you really care to explore Kansas and Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California in my company, I shall be most happy to have you do so. I am also authorized to offer you a position, a humble one, to be sure, but one that will pay the same salary that you would have received as a member of the locating-party, in the division I am to command. I don't suppose there will be many chances for you to run locomotives out there; but I have no doubt there will be plenty of swimming to be done, as well as other things in the line of your peculiar abilities. But you have not answered my question yet. Will you accept my offer, or do you wish a few days in which to consider it?"
"Oh, Mr. Hobart!" cried the boy, who was standing up in his excitement. "It seems almost too good to be true! I can't realize that this splendid chance, that I've been trying so hard not to think about, has really come to me. Why, I'd rather go on that trip than do anything else in the whole world, and if you'll only take me along, in any position, I don't care what, I'll be grateful to you all my life."
"But what do you think your father will say? Do you suppose he will let you go?" inquired the engineer, soberly.
Glen's face became grave again in an instant. "Oh, yes, he's sure to," he replied, "but I'll write this very minute, and ask him.
"There won't be time to receive an answer," said Mr. Hobart, "for we must start from here to-morrow; but perhaps this letter will make things all right. You see," he added, "I thought it was just possible that you might care to accept my offer, and so I took the liberty of writing and asking your father if he were willing to have you do so. I also asked him not to say anything about it in Brimfield until after we had started, for fear I should be flooded with applications from other boys, who might imagine I had the power to give them positions. Your father's answer reached me here an hour ago, and with it came this letter for you."
No own father could have written a kinder or more satisfactory letter to a boy than the one Mr. Matherson sent to his adopted son. It readily granted the required permission, and congratulated Glen upon the splendid opportunity thus opened to him. At the same time it told him how they already missed him, and how they hated the thought of not seeing him for a whole year. It closed with the information that Binney Gibbs was making extensive preparations for his departure to the far West, and that the famous expedition, of which he was to be a member, was the all-absorbing topic of conversation in Brimfield.
Mr. Hobart watched the boy's glowing face as he read this letter with genuine pleasure; for he had taken a real liking to him, and was not only glad of this opportunity for affording him such unalloyed happiness, but also that they were to be companions on the proposed trip.
Matters being thus happily settled, the engineer told Glen that they would start the following evening for the end of the track, nearly two hundred miles west of that point, where the expedition was to rendezvous, and where he was to establish a camp for their reception.
The information that interested and pleased Glen the most, though, was that Mr. Brackett was to be assistant engineer of the new division, and that most of the members of the party with whom the boy was already on such friendly terms, were also to join it.
Being dismissed by Mr. Hobart, with orders to be on hand bright and early in the morning, for the morrow would be a busy day, the happy lad rushed away to find those who were to be his fellow-explorers, and talk over with them the wonders and delights of the proposed trip. To his surprise not one of them was anywhere about the hotel, and he was told that the entire party had gone down town a few moments before. Too excited to do anything else, Glen immediately set out to find them. For some time he searched in vain; but at length, attracted by the sound of great shouting and laughter, he joined a throng of people who were gathered about one of the few barber shops of the city, and seemed to be vastly entertained by something taking place inside.
Recognizing "Billy" Brackett's voice above all the other sounds that came from the shop, Glen pushed himself forward until he finally gained a position inside the door. All the engineers were there. Three of them occupied the three chairs that the shop boasted, and were having their hair cut. Another, standing on a table, so that he could overlook the crowd, was superintending the operation. But for his voice and his unmistakable costume, Glen would never have recognized in him the dignified young engineer under whom he had been at work but an hour before. Every spear of hair had disappeared from his head, and he was as bald as a billiard cue. Seated on the table, contentedly swinging their legs, were two other bald-headed figures, whom Glen with difficulty recognized as the leveller and rodman.
When the three victims in the chairs had been reduced to a similar state of baldness, their places were instantly occupied by the remaining members of the party. The whole performance was conducted amid the most uproarious fun, of which the recently promoted assistant engineer was the ruling spirit.
As the chairs became empty for the third time, and the nine bald-headed members prepared to depart, each declaring that the others were the most comical-looking objects he had ever seen, they suddenly caught sight of Glen, and a rush was made for him. In another moment, despite his struggles, he too was seated in a barber's chair, and was rapidly growing as bald as his fellow-explorers.
"You'll look worse than a boiled owl, Glen," remarked "Billy" Brackett, encouragingly.
"And be a living terror to Injuns," cried another.
"It'll be the greatest comfort in the world, old man, to feel that though you may be killed, you can't be scalped," shouted a third.
Realizing that resistance was useless, Glen submitted to the shearing process with as good a grace as possible. A few minutes later, wearing a very loose-fitting hat, he was marching up the street with his jovial comrades, joining with the full strength of his lungs in the popular chorus of
"The bald-headed man, who's been always in the van
Of everything that's going, since the world first began."