The wagon train had brought in the mail, and this included the usual letters for Ben—one from Walter and the other from Uncle Job Dowling. Ben breathed a long sigh as he opened the communications.
“I’m going to spring a surprise on you,” so wrote Walter. “I’ve been reading the newspapers, and it makes me weary to think that I am just cruising around with our squadron doing nothing, while you and Larry are right in it, head and heels. I’ve applied for a transfer to one of the warships in Manila waters, and it may be that before this reaches you I will be on the bounding Pacific on my way to join you and Larry in our fight with Aguinaldo and his supporters. Si Doring, my old Yankee chum, has applied with me, so we’ll probably come on together, and when we get there you and Larry will have to look to your laurels, that’s all.”
“Dear Walter!” murmured Ben, after reading the letter twice. “What will he say when he hears that Larry is missing? If Larry doesn’t show up, it will break his heart, and it will break 153 mine, too!” And he brushed away the tears that sprang up in spite of his efforts to keep them down. Then he turned to the heavy, twisted scrawl from his Uncle Job.
“It’s rare good news you have sent, Ben,” wrote the old man, after stating that he was in good health, “and the news comes none too soon, for the party who took a mortgage on my house wants his money, and where I am going to get it I don’t know, with money so tight and interest and bonus so high. I’ve told him that Braxton Bogg is captured,—and he saw it in the newspaper, too,—and he is about of a mind to wait for his money now until the bank gets back what was stolen, and settles up. For myself, I can’t hardly wait till that time comes; and after this you can be sure I’ll be mighty careful where I put my cash and what’s coming to you three boys, too. You won that thousand dollars’ reward fairly, and I hope you and Larry won’t squander it like most soldiers would. I thought that war would end soon, but it appears like it would go on forever. Tell Larry to take good care of himself, and mind that you don’t get shot.”
“Poor Uncle Job—he’ll be in a hole again,” murmured Ben. “Evidently he wrote this right after I sent word Braxton Bogg was caught, and he doesn’t know anything of my being shot and getting over it, and of Benedicto Lupez skipping out with what Bogg stole. Hang the luck, but everything seems to be going wrong.” And Ben grated his teeth, in a mood hard to explain.
“What’s up, Ben?” The question came from Gilbert, who had just come up to watch the young captain, in considerable surprise.
Ben showed the two communications. “I’m just thinking of what I had best write to my Uncle Job,” he returned. “I’m afraid it will break the old fellow’s heart to learn that the money is gone—and after he is trying to turn over a new leaf, too.”
“And the news about Larry will cause him pain, too, I reckon.”