The old gentleman took off his glasses, and folded the paper.
"Yes; it's time Harry was home. I'm really getting uneasy about him. They may have tempted him with the prospect of a whole string of wives as he passed through Salt Lake—whereas here he can have only one."
"Give me his carte-de-visite, or the color of his hair and eyes, height, breadth, and weight, and I'll bring him, sure!" laughed the captain.
"Thank you kindly, captain; but I don't know whether Mr. McDonald would appreciate your kind attentions; particularly," continued the old gentleman, "if enhanced by those little steel bracelets you bring into requisition sometimes."
Twenty-four hours later the captain was hurrying, as fast as the stage-horses could run, to Salt Lake City, where, it was surmised, the dishonest cattle-agent would be found. A few hours' vigorous hunt convinced the captain that the object of his search was not there—circumstances pointing backward to one of the smaller places he had passed on his journey thither;—and the next stage that left had the captain for its occupant again. The only other passenger beside the captain and his one man, was a rather slender, well-built person, who, like himself and assistant, had both hands full, literally, to keep from being buried by the sides of bacon with which the stage was filled almost to overflowing.
When night set in, the coats of the captain and his man, and the woollen shirt of their travelling companion, seemed all to have been made of the same material, thanks to the equalizing gloss which the tumbling sides of bacon had spread over everything; but they fought the pork as valiantly as ever true-believing Israelite had done. There was little rest for them through the night, and no sleep; the treacherous bacon-sides, that had been closely packed to serve as pillows, would unexpectedly slip away from under their weary heads; and the bacon barricades, laboriously built, would descend like an avalanche of blows and hard knocks, when left unguarded by the drowsy travellers.
Luckily the bacon was left, the next morning, at a little town where it was wanted more than in the stage coach; and the captain, who had passed nothing on the road without casting on it at least half of his keen, official eye, gathered enough information here to feel confident of finding his game in one of the little new places springing up on the mail-line in Nevada. They reached the place next day at nightfall—it was near the border of California—and the captain saw at a glance that it would be warm work to cage any of the ill-favored birds who flocked about this place. Warm work it would have been under any circumstances: but made more difficult by the fact that the man in question had absconded from his employers in British Columbia somewhere, had merely passed through San Francisco with his plunder—some thirty-six thousand dollars—and could have defied all the law officers in California, if they came, as the captain did, with only the commission of the victimized cattle-owner, but without the authority that the existing relations between British Columbia and the United States made necessary.
Among the gamblers and roughs loafing about the hotel, the captain's quick eye had soon lighted on the right man; and after quietly taking his supper with his companions, he proceeded to arrest him. Of course there was an outcry and a hubbub among the patrons of this hotel, and the captain, who knew where his customer came from, gave the guilty man to understand that lynching a man who was no better than a horse-thief, was nothing unusual in California and Nevada; but that if he, the prisoner, would promise to remain quietly up-stairs in the room with the captain's man, he himself would go back into the bar-room and try to persuade the people to desist from carrying out any horrible plans they might have formed. The prisoner seemed to feel weak in the knees; asked permission to lie down, and sadly but gently extended his hands to the alluring steel wristlets which the captain persuasively held out. Returning to the bar-room, the latter singled out the head bully, approached him confidentially, and whispered that on him he must depend for assistance in keeping his obstreperous prisoner from breaking away; that he himself and his assistant were so tired out with a three-nights' ride and the fruitless chase, that they could hardly keep their eyes open; and that after seeing the landlord he would return and consult how they had best manage to keep their man safe.
From there the captain went straight to the room of the stranger who had come in the stage with him; to him he told all the circumstances of the case, and asked for his help. He was not mistaken in the man; and the stranger at once expressed his determination to aid the side of the law and the right. Proceeding together to the room of the prisoner, the captain's assistant was instructed to procure, as secretly as possible, a conveyance for himself, the stranger, and the prisoner, to the next town—already in California—some thirty miles away. Then there were more dark fears expressed concerning mobs and lawless proceedings, and hints thrown out, suggestive of the contempt in which horse-thieves and the like were held, and a clump of trees was spoken of, that stood close by the hotel and had been found convenient for hanging purposes before this. The stranger was left to guard the prisoner, and the captain made his way to the bar-room, where he was examined in the most friendly and patronizing manner, concerning "that little affair;" how much money the man had taken, whether the captain had yet recovered it, and what he meant to do next. Not a cent of the money had been recovered as yet, the captain said (with thirty-five thousand dollars neatly tucked away about his person), but he hoped that with good help—winking at the most ill-favored among them—he would get both the man and his money safely into California. He was not sparing in treats, and had the crowd drink the health and success of everybody and everything he could think of, till at last, apparently overpowered with sleep, he beckoned the rowdy he had spoken to before to one side. Familiarly tapping him on the shoulder, he said, trustingly:
"Now, old fellow, remember, I depend on you, should any of these rascals here make an attempt to assist my man in getting away from me. I'm tired to death, and if you'd sit up for an hour or two longer, while I take a short nap, I'd take it as a great kindness. At all events, I shall handcuff my prisoner and myself together, so that he cannot leave the bed without my knowledge."