“But look here, professor,” repeated the ranchman; “I’m a student myself—I haven’t brains enough to be a scholar—and I couldn’t think of throwing a straw in the way of those young fellows out there in Yarmouth, who want a museum to assist them in studying natural history; so, Thompson, you just go out and hitch up that mule; and, professor, you jump into the wagon and go on, and good-luck attend you.”
Oscar was electrified. He could hardly believe that he was not dreaming. The only thing real about the whole proceeding was the tremendous grip the ranchman gave him as he said this. There was no dream about that.
“Do you mean to tell me that I can have the mule?” exclaimed Oscar, as soon as he could speak.
“Yes,” replied the ranchman, still holding Oscar’s hand in his own. “I see very plainly that you can’t go on without him, and so I will lend him to you. When you come back in the spring, you can give him up. If you don’t find me here—and you may not, for life in these parts is so uncertain that a fellow can’t tell to-day where he will be to-morrow—he is yours, to sell or to keep, just as you please.”
Oscar now began to realize that the ranchman, in spite of a certain flippancy of manner, was in earnest; and the revulsion of feeling was so great that, for a moment, the dug-out seemed to swim around him.
“Mr. Barker,” he stammered, trying to squeeze the huge palm, to the strength of which his own would have offered about as much resistance as a piece of pasteboard, “I don’t know how to thank you for your kindness.”
“Then I wouldn’t try,” the ranchman said lightly. “Besides, it is not kindness; it is only justice. You had no means of knowing that the mule was stolen, and it wouldn’t be right for me to take him away from you. If I should claim him now, and thereby put the success of your expedition in jeopardy, I could never look a white man in the face again.”
Ike Barker spoke seriously now; and, for the first time since his arrival at the dug-out, Oscar began to see what manner of man it was with whom he was dealing. His backwoods bluntness of manner was entirely foreign to him. He had learned to assume it in order to conceal feelings and sentiments, the exhibition of which would have been regarded by those with whom he was daily thrown in contact as unmanly in the extreme.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE CAMP IN THE FOOT-HILLS.
“I say, perfessor, I reckon ye had an idee, mebbe, that I was kinder goin’ back on ye, when we was down thar to Ike Barker’s, didn’t ye?”