CHAPTER IX
Only a Youngster
"We've a longish day before us," said Tom one afternoon, just after the sun had mounted to its central position, and the heat was at its height. "Them pals of ours has gone off huntin', fer it stands to reason we must have fresh meat to keep us in good health. But, as I was sayin', we're here, you and I, in charge of the team and the wagon; and sense we dursent sleep, for there ain't never no sayin' when something won't turn up, why we'd best settle down fer a jaw. I was thinking of that business of ours in the train, when yer climbed on ter the roof. I wonder what made yer think of that?"
Our hero was troubled by the question. When he came to review his movements on that eventful evening, and this particular one more especially, he found it hard to say why he had clambered to the roof of the railway coach.
"I suppose I saw in a flash that that man would shoot me if I went along the footboards," he said. "I had seen the conductor wounded and forced to let go, so I suppose, without thinking, I realized that the roof was the only place."
"Jest as I thought," remarked Tom, nodding his head, and busying himself with his whip, which he seemed to crack on every spare occasion. "That 'ere fight reminds me of a time same as this, when I was jest a slip of a youngster. It was down Mexico way, not in California, whar we're goin', and thar was gold in the question, same as thar was with you the other day. Yer see, my uncle owned a team of beasts. In fact, he owned several teams, and made a fine living by carting stores down to the Mexican mines, and returning with gold. He'd been extry lucky, too, and hadn't been held up more than once. Then my father died, and Uncle Jim took me under his wing. I used to march alongside the team, help feed and water the beasts, and lend a hand at anything that war wanted. I war jest about thirteen years of age, I reckon."
"Young," remarked Jack. "But I suppose many boys are to be found with the mule teams as young as that?"
"Sometimes they're regular kids," came the laughing rejoinder. "I mind one kid as war jest twelve, and he'd already had a turn agin the Injuns. Boys in this country don't get so much schoolin' as they might elsewhere—in England, fer instance—though I've no doubt, when America's settled, the youngsters will get all the schoolin' they want, and more besides. And so it ain't nothin' outer the ordinary to meet kids out on the plains. Wall, I was a regular kid, and Uncle Jim and I did many a march together. We'd been down to a mine located well in the south, though I can't get hold of the name at this moment. We'd dropped all our goods thar—hard tack, picks, and spades, and what not, and had filled chuck-full with gold. Reckon there was twenty-thousand dollars worth of dust on board—a fortune that wanted taking care of! And take good care of it we did, Uncle sleeping by day, while I drove the team. At night he'd fix his pipe in between his teeth, and keep watch wherever we were camped, while I turned into my blankets. It war jolly while it lasted, and yer may bet that I war a proud kid, takin' care of that 'ere team and all the gold by my solitary self durin' the day."
"And then?" asked Jack eagerly. "You were held up by a gang of robbers?"
"Hold hard," sang out Tom. "We ain't got thar yet. Things was goin' smoothly enough, when Uncle took ill. He war mighty queer. To this day I ain't sure what ailed him. But I've a notion he'd got a kind of heat stroke. Anyways, he war as hot as fire, and fer a time wanderin' in his head. I remember it war somewhere's about this time of the day when he went queer, and, sense I couldn't drive the team and look to him at the same time, I formed camp jest beside the bank of a river, whar the road ran down to the ford. I watered the beasts, pegged them out to feed, and then set to work putting cold cloths, wrung out of river water, on Uncle's head. Reckon I kept at it all that day, and right into the night, till I was that weary I was falling asleep the instant I set down in the wagon. And in the end I went right fast off beside Uncle, and lay there snorin' till the sun was up, and it war nigh ten o'clock. It war a shout that waked me."