After a little more argument, Ned got a check for the money he wanted, made payable to the order of Gus Robbins. After that he wrote a letter to his friend urging him to come on immediately, put the check into it and mailed it at the first opportunity. Then he was in a fever of excitement and suspense, and wondered if it would be possible for him to live until his friend arrived. He judged that Gus intended to leave home without his father’s knowledge or consent, but Ned did not care for that. Perhaps he would do the same thing himself under like circumstances. True, he often asked himself how Gus could ever muster up courage enough to go home again after doing a thing of that kind, but he always let the question pass with the reflection that it was none of his business. It was a matter that Gus must settle for himself. He waited impatiently for his friend’s coming, little dreaming that his appearance at the rancho would be the signal for the beginning of a series of scrapes and adventures that would put the whole settlement into a turmoil.
CHAPTER IV.
A DISCONTENTED BOY.
“I do think that if there is a mean business in the world, I am engaged in it.”
Gus Robbins suspended for a moment the work of folding up the numerous bolts of calico he had taken down from the shelves for the inspection of a customer who had just departed without purchasing anything, and leaning on the counter, gazed longingly through the glass door into the street. It was a bright winter day. The sleighing was excellent, and the principal thoroughfare of the thriving little city of Foxboro’ was filled with sleighs which dashed by in both directions, carrying loads of gay pleasure-seekers, all of whom, Gus noticed with no little bitterness of heart, seemed to be enjoying themselves to the fullest extent. It was just before the holidays, and everybody seemed to be making unusual preparations for them. The store was filled with customers almost all the time, and Gus had stood in his place behind the counter, and taken down and put up bales of goods until he was almost tired out, and completely disgusted with the store and everything belonging to it. Just now there was a little lull in business, and Gus had a few minutes to himself. He improved them, as he generally improved his moments of leisure, by growling over his hard lot in life, and drawing a contrast between his own situation and that of some of the other boys of his acquaintance in the city.
“There are no such things as peace and pleasure for the unfortunate fellow who makes his bread and butter by clerking in a dry-goods store,” continued Gus, spitefully banging a bolt of calico down upon the counter. “Everybody is happy except me. Other boys are out behind their fast horses having a good time, and here I am shut up in this miserable old store, and have been ever since seven o’clock this morning. This thing is getting to be a little too monotonous, the first thing you know, and I am not going to put up with it much longer. If I had money, I wouldn’t stay in this city twenty-four hours longer. Great Cæsar!”
Gus brought his soliloquy to a sudden close, and the bolt of calico he had picked up to place upon the shelf dropped from his hands. While he was talking to himself he kept his gaze directed toward the street, and saw a red-faced man pass one of the windows and turn toward the door. As he laid his hand upon the knob, somebody in the street accosted him, and the red-faced man turned about and entered into conversation with him. Gus looked at him for a moment, and then ran his eyes hastily around the store as if he were looking for some way of escape.
“He’ll be in here in a second more,” said he, to himself, “and how shall I put him off? I’ve told him so many lies that I shall have to get a fresh stock on hand before I can tell him any more.”
The expression that rested on the boy’s face during the next half-minute, seemed to indicate that he was revolving a very perplexing problem in his mind. Suddenly he brightened up and with another glance at the door, passed rapidly around the counter, and crossed over to the other side of the store, where another clerk was at work folding up some goods.
“I say, Sam,” exclaimed Gus, in a hurried whisper; “will you add another to the long list of favors you have done me?”
“Well, I don’t know,” replied Sam, hesitatingly. “Depends upon what it is. If you want to borrow any more——”