"Well, I never!" came from him, a few minutes later. "Si, Walton, listen to this! My brother Larry was with Dewey at Manila and helped whip the Dons! Oh, but Larry's the boy, after all! Just read the letter for yourselves." And he tossed it over.
Ben's letter came next, a rather short communication, for Ben had never been much of a boy to write.
"I am high private in the best company of the Seventy-first regiment of New York," he wrote. "We are down here at Lakeland, near Tampa, getting into condition to invade Cuba. At present things are slow and awfully hot, but we look for livelier times ahead and that keeps up our spirits. My chum, Gilbert Pennington, has joined Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders. I hope we go to Cuba together.
"I suppose you are quite a jack tar by this time and walk with a regular swagger. Larry is now a bigger fellow than either of us, for he was on the Olympia, Dewey's flagship, at the battle of Manila Bay. He wrote me all about it and said he would write to you, too, so I suppose you already have the letter.
"Uncle Job seems to be coming around to his senses—with giving both you and me permission to take care of ourselves. If I were you, I would not let up on him about going to Boston. Those heirlooms ought to be located, and he is the man who must push the work, even if it does cost a few dollars. I want father's watch, and I am sure you and Larry want the wedding rings.
"I have made many friends while in the army, but I also have two enemies, Gerald Holgait and Dwight Montgomery, and I am afraid that sooner or later they will try to play me some mean trick. However, I will be on my guard against them. Good-by and good luck to you."
"I hope Ben does come down," mused Walter. "And if he has any enemies of the Jim Haskett sort he had better look out." And then he turned to the communication from Job Dowling.
"My dearest nephew," began the guardian, and the term of address made Walter smile. "Your letter was a big surprise to me, and I ain't over it yet. That you should meet that thief gets me, and I don't understand it nohow. However, I packed my valise (my new one that cost me a dollar thirty-five, although Wilson says it is worth the money) and the next day I took the cars for Boston on a ticket I got at cut rates, although it was tolerably dear even at that. When I got to Boston I introduced myself to Mr. Phil Newell, the one-legged man you used to work for, and he took me to police headquarters, and now I am stopping here at a boarding-house on Hammond Street. The police sent a detective to me, and he is going to find them heirlooms and that rascal of a Deck Mumpers, or whatever his name is, or know the reason why. If he finds the things, I'm to give him two hundred dollars in cash; if he don't, I pay his travelling expenses and no more. I wouldn't make such a bargain, but I know all you boys want the things back and I can't do the running after the thief. It's a waste of money, but it can't be helped. I want to show you and Ben and Larry that your uncle means well in spite of what you think of him.
"Newell says for me to tell you he will send you a bundle of newspapers. He says he knows how lonely life on board of a man-of-war gets sometimes. I hope you don't get hurt, if you get into a fight down in Cuba. Keep out of the sun, and write when you can, care of Newell's news-stand—for I stop there every day, after the detective's report. The detective hopes to get the things back before this week is out.
"Your loving uncle,
"Job Dowling."
The letter was a mere scrawl, horribly mis-spelled, and it took Walter fully quarter of an hour to decipher it. "Well, Uncle Job is turning over a new leaf," he thought, as he put it away. "I only hope that detective is all right, and don't hoodwink him into paying over his money for nothing. I reckon the letters Ben and I wrote him scared him pretty well, otherwise he wouldn't agree to pay two hundred dollars if the heirlooms are recovered."
Caleb had read Larry's letter with much interest. One portion of it, relating to the narrow escape from disaster during the battle, interested him not a little.
"Your brother had a close shave," he said. "To fire a gun when the breech is unlocked is a fearful thing."
"I don't see how it could happen on board of such a ship as the Brooklyn," answered Walter. "Everything works like clockwork here."
"You don't know how a thing would work in the middle of a battle, lad. Men get excited, and sometimes the jarring of the shots breaks the electric connections. More than likely that gunner was firing his piece by hand at the time. I've done the same, when the electric connection gave out. Last month I heard from a friend of mine, a gunner on the New Orleans, that used to be a Brazilian warship. They couldn't get their electric-firing apparatus into shape nohow, and had to do everything by hand,—and that is the time accidents occur. But somebody ought to have been watching that breech-block—your brother or somebody else." And then Caleb turned away to his duties.