“I have got everything——”
Mr. Davenport suddenly paused and put back into his coat the large pocket book which he had been in the act of showing to us. Then he got upon his feet and carefully closed the door leading into the cabin, and walked cautiously to one end of the porch and looked around the house, then to the other end, but came back without seeing anybody.
“One has to be careful,” said he, in explanation. “I am as afraid of my help as of anything else.”
“Of your help!” I exclaimed. “If there is anybody here that you are afraid of, why don’t you discharge him?”
“Because I want to see what he is here for,” said the invalid. “He works for nothing at all, but yet he always seems to have plenty of money. You know ’Rastus Johnson?”
Yes, we did know him, and he was one of the few people about the ranch to whom I had taken a violent dislike. He was just the man to excite the contempt of a Texan, because he couldn’t ride; but when he came to Mr. Davenport’s ranch six months ago, and told a pitiful story about the luck that had befallen him in the mines, he was given odd jobs to do about the ranch for his board. There were two things that struck Mr. Davenport as peculiar, or we might say three, and tempted by something, he knew not what, he kept the man around the house as much as possible and watched his movements. One was the care he took of his six-shooters. He had a splendid pair, and when engaged in no other occupation, he was always rubbing them up until they shone like silver. The other was his story about the mines. He did not know that Mr. Davenport was an old forty-niner, and he thought he could say what he pleased to him and he would believe it. The nearest mines that Mr. Davenport knew anything of were those located about Denver, the very place we had come from; and the idea that anyone could walk a thousand miles, right through a country settled up by cattlemen and farmers, and be as poor as he was when he struck Mr. Davenport’s ranch, was ridiculous. But Mr. Davenport kept this to himself. He had Clifford Henderson in mind, and he resolved if ’Rastus attempted anything out of the way he would expose him on the spot.
As ’Rastus grew more and more at home about the ranch, other qualities developed themselves. He took to “snooping” around the house to see what he could find there, and once, when Mr. Davenport entered the ranch suddenly, he was certain that he saw ’Rastus engaged in trying to pick the lock of his desk; but ’Rastus began tumbling up his bed, and turned upon his employer with such a hearty good-morning that the invalid was inclined to believe he was mistaken.
“Yes,” said I, in response to Mr. Davenport’s question; “I believe we know something about ’Rastus. Some of the cowboys have told us a good deal about him. Is he the one you are afraid of?”
“I’ve got the whole thing right here,” said Mr. Davenport, seating himself in his chair and drawing a big fat pocket-book from his inside pocket. “It contains my will, and also instructions in regard to what I want Bob to do with the rest of our herd in case any escape the effects of the drought. It also contains a full history of the manner in which he came to me, and hints regarding those threats of Henderson—whom I sincerely trust he may never see again. In short, nothing that I could think of has been omitted.”
“You don’t think that Henderson would follow you down here, do you?” said Tom.