Redskin and Cow-Boy: A Tale of the Western Plains

by G. A. Henty

"Waal, there is one thing," Sim said after a pause; "I believe this here discovery has saved the doctor's life. He had made up his mind that he had done with it, and wasn't going to try to get better. Now, you see, he is all eagerness to get on this fellow's scent. If he had been a blood-hound he could not have hunted the country closer than he did for that thar tarnal villain. He had an idee it wur his business to wipe him out, and when the doctor gets set on an idee like that he carries it out. It will pull him round now, you see if it don't."

"I do hope so, indeed, Sim," Hugh said warmly. "The doctor is a wonderful fellow, and if it hadn't been for him we should never have arrived at this discovery. Well, I am glad. Of course I am sorry to hear that my uncle was murdered, but as I never saw him that does not affect me so much; but I am glad to hear that this man whom I hated, a man who ill-treated his wife and who spent all his time at horse-racing and gambling, is not my uncle, and has no right to a share in the property that has been in our family for so many years. I only hope that this excitement will not do the doctor any harm."

"I am sure that it will do him good," Sim said confidently; "but it wur strange to see a man who looked as if he wur just dying out wake up like that; but that has always been his way; just as quiet as a woman at most times, but blazing out when he felt thar wur a great wrong, and that it wur his duty to set it right. I can tell you now what I know about his story. Now he knows you are English Bill's nephew he won't mind your knowing. Waal, his story ain't anything much out of the way. There are scores who have suffered the like, but it didn't have the effect on them like it did on the doctor.

"He is really a doctor trained and edicated. He married out east. He wur a quiet little fellow, and not fit to hustle round in towns and push hisself forward; so he and his wife came round and settled in Californy somewhere about '36. Thar wurn't many Americans here then, as you may guess. He settled down in the south somewhere a hundred miles or so from Los Angeles. He had some money of his own, and he bought a place and planted fruit trees and made a sort of little paradise of it. That is what he told me he lived on, doctoring when it came in his way. There wur some rich Mexicans about, and he looked after most of them; but I guess he did more among the poor. He had four children, and things went on peaceable till '48. Then you know gold was discovered, and that turned Californy upside down.

"It brought pretty nigh all the roughs in creation there. They quarrelled with the Mexikins, and they quarrelled with the Injuns, and there was trouble of the wust kind.

"There was gangs of fellows as guessed they could make more money by robbing the miners than they could by digging for gold, and I reckon they was about right; and when they warn't robbing the miners they was plundering the Mexikins. Waal, I never heard the rights of it, the doctor never could bring hisself to talk about that, but one day when he had been twenty miles away to visit a patient, he came back and found his place burned down, and his wife and the four children murdered. He went off his head, and some of the people as knew him took him down to Los Angeles, and he wur a year in the madhouse thar. He wur very quiet. I believe he used ter just sit and cry.

"After a time he changed. He never used to speak a word, but just sot with those big eyes of his wide open; with his face working, as if he seen an enemy. Waal, after a year he got better, and the Mexikins let him out of that madhouse. Someone had bought his place, and the money had been banked for him. He took it and went off. He never got to hear who the gang wur as had been to his house. I think the idee comes to him ever since when he comes across a really bad man, that he wur one of that lot, and then he goes for him. It is either that, or he believes he has got a sort of special call to wipe out bad men. As I told you, he is always ready to do a kindness to anyone, and ef he has killed over a score or more of the wust men in Californy, I guess he has saved five times as many by nussing them when they are ill, only he will never give them medicine. One of his idees is that if he hadn't gone on doctoring, he wouldn't have been away when that gang came to his house, and that is why he will never do anything as a doctor again. He is just a nuss, he says, and nothing more.

"Now, don't you go for to think, Lightning, that the doctor is the least bit mad, because he ain't, and never have been since I first knew him, and I should like to see the man as would say that he wur. He is just as sensible as I am; that ain't saying much; he is ten times as sensible. He always knows the right thing to do, does the doctor, and does it. He air just an ornary man, with heaps of good sense, and just the kindest heart in the world, only when thar is a regular downright bad man in the camp, the doctor takes him in hand all to hisself."

"But, Sim, I thought you were going about this gold business, this placer, directly the doctor was able to move."

"That has got to wait," Sim said. "Maybe some day or other, when this business of yours is over, I may come back and see about it; maybe I won't. Ef the doctor is going to England with you, I am going; that is sartin. Besides, even if I would let him go alone, which aren't likely, maybe his word wouldn't be enough. One witness wouldn't do to swear that this man who has stepped into your uncle's shoes ain't what he pretends to be; but if thar is two of us can swear to him as being Symonds the gambler, it'll go a long way. But you may have trouble even then. Anyhow, don't you worry yourself about the gold-mine. Like enough we should all have been wiped out by the Red-skins ef we had tried it. Now I will just look in and see how the doctor is afore you go."