When Tom thought his brother had been allowed time enough to ride to the fort, and purchase the blankets and clothing he had promised to give him, he arose to his feet and walked slowly down the ravine.
“If there were any way in which I could smash up that expedition of his, and send him back to the States with as heavy a heart as I carry at this moment, I’d do it,” said Tom, who was so envious of Oscar that he would gladly have injured him by every means in his power; and, this being his state of mind, he was quite eager to fall in with a plan that was suggested to him a few days afterward. “It must be broken up, for it would never do to allow him to go back to Eaton and Yarmouth, and earn honors and money there, while I am out here in this deplorable condition. I’ll speak to Lish about it as soon as he comes back.”
While Tom was ready to throw all the obstacles he could in the way of his brother’s success, he was equally ready to accept from him a suit of thick clothes and a pair of blankets to keep him warm of nights. He thought Oscar ought to be on his way back by this time, and so he was, as Tom found when he reached the mouth of the ravine.
He was coming at a gallop along the path that led through the sage-brush. Tom did not want to meet him again, so he sought a hasty concealment among the bushes on the side of the ravine opposite to that on which stood the rock he had described to his brother.
He heard Oscar pronounce his name and say that he had news for him, but he could not be coaxed out of his hiding-place. He saw the bundle that Oscar carried on the horn of his saddle, watched him as he rode up the bank toward the rock behind which the bundle was to be left, and wondered what it was that kept him there so long.
He also saw his worthy partner when he went by, and was somewhat surprised that Lish, whose eyes were as sharp as an Indian’s, did not see the trail that Oscar’s pony made when passing through the bushes. Oscar, too, saw the wolfer, as we know, and made all haste to quit the ravine as soon as he had passed out of hearing.
“He’s gone at last,” said Tom, as he drew a long breath of relief, sprang to his feet, and ran across the ravine toward the rock. “If he had stayed here much longer I should have thought that he was making the clothes or weaving the blankets for me. Oh, I see what it was that kept him,” he added, snatching up the note that Oscar had thrust under the string with which the bundle was tied. “Perhaps I shall now find out what it was he wanted to tell me, and perhaps, too, he has been thoughtful enough to put a ten-dollar note into this. No, he hasn’t! I might have known better than to expect it.”
Tom opened the letter, but there was nothing but writing in it. He quickly made himself master of its contents; and, after cramming it into his pocket, untied the bundle, threw out the blankets, which were on the top, and began a hurried examination of all the pockets in his new suit; but he did not find what he was looking for—every one of them was empty.
“He must have hurt himself,” said Tom in great disgust, as he picked up the blankets, one after the other, and shook them violently in the air, at the same time keeping a close watch of the ground under them to see if anything fell out. “A pair of blankets, an overcoat, and a suit of clothes, but not a cent of money, although he knows that I stand in great need of it. You haven’t made anything by this day’s work, Mr. Oscar. Yes, you have,” he added a moment later. “You have made an implacable enemy of me, and of Lish also; for I know he will be hopping mad when I read that note to him. I wish I knew what that ‘affair’ was, for then I could read something to Lish to make him madder. No matter. I can make up something.”
Although Tom’s rage was greatly increased by the sight of his brother’s gift—the articles comprising it were not as fine and costly as he had expected them to be—he did not hesitate to take it. On the contrary, he made all haste to pull off his threadbare garments and get inside the new and warmer ones.