The Missing Pocket-Book; Or, Tom Mason's Luck

by Harry Castlemon

“I don’t know and his father doesn’t know; but if you are wise you will keep your eyes open.”

“Harm!” repeated Elam. “Well; I should like to see somebody harm him. He’s got a good heart, that boy has. Be they going to shoot him?”

“I don’t know what they are going to do, I tell you. If his father ever tells me I will tell you.”

During all this time Mr. Davenport kept Tom and me close to himself. It was a companionship that was entirely new to him in that country, and he wanted to make the most of it. Before I had been acquainted with him twenty-four hours I could see that he was different from most men who made stock raising a business, that for years he had been out there where he had nobody to talk to, and I was sure he had some secret to tell us. One day it all came out, as I knew it would, if we let the matter alone and did not trouble him with it. It was a hot day during the first of August and we were sitting there on the porch, trying to raise a little breeze by fanning ourselves with our hats. It was after dinner, and the Mexican cook had gone somewhere to sleep and we were there alone.

“I haven’t always been what you see me now,” said Mr. Davenport, settling back in his chair as if he had resolved upon his course. “I have a secret which I want to tell Bob, but I don’t know how to go about it. It isn’t anything of which I am ashamed,—many men have done the same before me,—but somehow I have let it go so long that it has become a task to me. I want to ask your advice about it. You are comparative strangers to me, but somehow I have taken to you and want to trust you. I haven’t had anyone around me to whom I was willing to confide it, and now I know that I am not long for this world I want to see Bob have his rights.”

With these words the invalid began his story. It was short, but we could both see how great an effort it cost him.

Mr. Davenport was an old “forty-niner.” He spent a few successful years in the gold mines and then returned to the States, and established himself as a wholesale merchant in St. Louis, his native city, and soon became known as one of its most enterprising business men. The only relatives he had in the world, except his son Bob,—who was not his son in reality,—were an unmarried uncle, who went to Texas and became a ranchman, and a half brother, who was not a relative to be proud of. Too lazy to work, this half brother, whose name was Clifford Henderson, gained a precarious living by his wits. He gambled when he could raise a stake, and borrowed of his brother when he couldn’t. He was more familiar with the police court than he was with the interior of a church, and when his generous brother’s patience was all exhausted and he positively refused to pay any more of his debts, he left that brother’s presence with a threat of vengeance on his lips.

“I will get even with you for this,” said he. “Bob is not your son, and I will see that you don’t adopt him, either. Whenever I see a notice of your death,—and you can’t live forever,—I will hunt that boy up and make him know what it is to be in want, as I am at this moment.”

The fact that Bob was not his son ought not to have weighed so heavily with the invalid as it did, but still he could not bear to enlighten him. He was the son of a friend in the gold mines, who, dying there, left Bob alone, and Mr. Davenport took him up. He christened him Davenport, and the boy always answered to his name. There never had been any doubt in his mind that Bob would some day come in for all his money, until this Clifford Henderson began his threatenings; and even after that Mr. Davenport did not wake up and attend to things as he ought.

In process of time Mr. Davenport’s unmarried uncle died, and in his will he made him executor and heir to all the property he had accumulated in Texas. In the hope that a change in the climate might prove beneficial to his health, as well as to leave that miserable Clifford Henderson and all his threatenings behind, Mr. Davenport moved to Texas and took possession of his legacy, bringing Bob with him. In fact, the two did not act like father and son, but like two brothers who could not bear to be separated. All they found when they reached Texas was a rather dilapidated old house, which was very plainly furnished, and presided over by a half-breed Mexican cook, who was so cross and surly that one could hardly get a civil word out of him. The rest of the help—there were four of them in all—were cowboys. They spent the most of their lives on the open prairie, looking out for the safety of Mr. Davenport’s cattle.