'I am going after them. I am still weak, and my shoulder—fortunately it is the left—sometimes hurts me consumedly. It is, of course, still in bandages, but it will take nearly three weeks to Omaha, for the steamer stops at all sorts of wayside stations, so I shall be quite fit by the time I get up there. I have bought three horses, one for my own riding and two to draw a light cart with our provender. The boy will drive it. I am not going to be beaten by this fellow, and sooner or later I will bring him and his accomplice to book, and clear this matter up to the bottom. Don't be uneasy about me; I have had a pretty sharp lesson, and shall not be caught napping again.
'I shall begin to let all the hair grow on my face from the day I leave, and shall have plenty of time to raise a big crop before I meet them again; and as he can have had but a casual look at me there can be no chance of his recognising me, got up in a regular miner's outfit, which I understand to be a dirty red shirt, rough trousers, and high boots. I have written to the Horse Guards for extension of leave, and, as I told you in my last, shall, if I am pushed for time in the end, make my way across the Pacific to India without returning. Of one thing I am determined. Dorothy Hawtrey shall be completely cleared, even if it takes so long that I have to send my papers in and sell out.
'Of course, when you write, you will merely say that I have gone West, and let it be supposed that I am after buffalo. I will write whenever I get a chance. You might send me a line two or three months after you get this, directed to me, Post Office, Sacramento, telling me how things are going on, and how the Hawtreys are. Say anything you like from me. I do hope they have not heard about my having been hurt.'
In a postscript was added: 'If anyone has stepped into Halliburn's shoes, don't fail to mention it. It will hurt, of course, but I knew my chances were at an end from the moment she found out that I had doubted her.'
'It is a long letter, father,' Dorothy said, as he laid it down beside him and turned to his neglected breakfast.
'Yes, it is rather a long letter,' he said absently.
'Was he badly hurt?' she asked, seeing that he did not seem as if he was going to say more.
'Hurt?' he repeated, as if he had almost forgotten the circumstance, and then, rousing himself, went on: 'Yes, he had a very narrow escape of his life. It seems a man crept up behind him as he was sitting on the wharf, with a bowie, which is a big clasp knife with a blade which fastens by a spring. Fortunately he heard the fellow just in time, and was in the act of rising when he struck him, and the blade fell just behind the shoulder and penetrated its full depth between the shoulder-blade and the ribs. He says he is getting round again nicely; his shoulder is still bandaged, and hurts him sharply at times, but he is going up the river in a steamboat, and will be two or three weeks on board, and he expects to be quite well by the time he lands; then he will be at the edge of what they call the plains.'
Dorothy was silent for some time.
'Was he robbed, father?'