“Neither do I. I do think,” added Henderson, as though he was considering the matter for the first time, “that if I would go home and behave myself, and wait until the old man dies, I could really get hold of some of his money, but how much would I get? Not twenty thousand, and that isn’t enough to buy an oyster supper.”
“How much is the old man worth?”
“I don’t know. A cool million.”
“Whew!” whistled Scanlan. “And are you going to stay back and let that boy cheat you out of it? If you do I shall never be sorry for you.”
“That’s is just what I don’t want to do, and I came down here to talk to you about kidnapping him and putting him under lock and key,” continued Henderson, looking all around to make sure that no one overheard him. “I say let him be locked up at once.”
“Now you are talking,” said Scanlan. “If you had decided on that several years ago you would have had no trouble; but now I tell you it is going to be uphill work. We’ve got the tutor to overcome, and that is going to be all that we two can do. Now, what do you propose?”
A long conversation followed, and the substance was that the matter was left entirely in the hands of his friend Scanlan. Henderson had never been in the habit of defying the police by engaging in any kidnapping schemes, and he did not propose to begin now. He wanted the boy got rid of, when and how he didn’t care, so long as no effort was made against his life. That was too dangerous. And there, we may add, the thing rested for a whole year, until one day Henderson heard something in a few moments’ talk with the tutor, who had waited outside while his pupil was in a store making some purchases, that set him post haste after Scanlan.
“The dog is dead now,” said he, drawing Scanlan into a doorway where they could talk without being overheard, “and I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry over it. My brother is going to Texas!”
“To Texas?” exclaimed Scanlan. “What in the world should take him into that far-off region?”
“He had a relative down there engaged in the cattle business, and he has died leaving his property to old Bob. Don’t it beat the world how some fellows can get along without lifting their hands? Now, if he had left those cattle to me who stand so much in need of them——”