Do and Dare — a Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune by Jr. Horatio Alger (good books for 8th graders .TXT) 📕

In the rude hotel kept by the outlaw, whom we have introduced under the name of Brown, there sat two men, to neither of whom will my readers need an introduction. They have already appeared in our story.

One was Brown himself, the other Col. Warner, or, as we may as well confess, Jerry Lane, known throughout the West as an unscrupulous robber and chief of a band of road agents, whose depredations had been characterized by audacity and success.

Brown was ostensibly an innkeeper, but this business, honest enough in itself, only veiled the man's real trade, in which he defied alike the laws of honesty and of his country. The other was by turns a gentleman of property, a merchant, a cattle owner, or a speculator, in all of which characters he acted excellently, and succeeded in making the acquaintance of men whom he designed to rob.

The two men wore a sober look. In their business, as in those more legitimate, there are good times and dull times, and of late they had not succeeded.

“I want some money, captain,” said Brown, sullenly, laying down a black pipe, which he had been smoking.

“So do I, Brown,” answered Warner, as we will continue to call him. “It's a dry time with me.”

“You don't understand me, captain,” continued Brown. “I want you to give me some money.”

“First you must tell me where I am to get it,” answered Warner, with a shrug of his shoulders.

“Do you mean to say you have no money?” asked Brown, frowning.

“How should I have?”

“Because in all our enterprises you have taken the lion's share, though you haven't always done the chief part. You can't have spent the whole.”

“No, not quite; but I have nothing to spare. I need to travel about, and—”

“You've got a soft thing,” grumbled Brown. “You go round and have a good time while I am tied down to this fourth-rate tavern in the woods.”

“Well, it isn't much more than that,” said Warner, musingly.

“Do you expect me to keep a first-class hotel?” demanded Brown, defiantly.

“No, of course not. Brown,” continued Warner, soothingly, “don't let us quarrel; we can't afford it. Let us talk together reasonably.”

“What have you to say?”

“This, that it isn't my fault if things have gone wrong. Was it my fault that we found so little cash in that last store we broke open?”

“Nineteen dollars!” muttered Brown, contemptuously.

“Nineteen dollars, as you say. It didn't pay us for our trouble. Well, I was as sorry as you. I fail to see how it was my fault. Better luck next time.”

“When is the next time to be?” asked Brown, somewhat placated.

“As soon as you please.”

“What is it?”

“I will tell you. You remember that stagecoach full of passengers that fooled us some time since?”

“I ought to.”

“I always meant to get on the track of that Melville, who spoiled our plot by overhearing us and giving us away to the passengers. He is very rich, so the boy who was with him told me, and I have every reason to rely upon his statement. Well, I want to be revenged upon him, and, at the same time, to relieve him of the doubtless large sum of money which he keeps with him.”

“I'm with you. Where is he?”

“I have only recently ascertained—no matter how. He lives in a small cabin, far from any other, about eight miles from the mining town of Deer Creek.”

“I know the place.”

“Precisely. No one lives there with him except the boy, and it would be easy enough to rob him. I saw a man from Deer Creek yesterday. He tells me that Melville has bought for the boy a half share in a rich mine, and is thought to have at least five thousand dollars in gold and bills in his cabin.”

Brown's eyes glistened with cupidity.

“That would be a big haul,” he said.

“Of course, it would. Now, Brown, while you have been grumbling at me I have been saving this little affair for our benefit—yours and mine. We won't let any of the rest of them into it, but whatever we find we will divide, and share alike.”

“Do you mean this, captain?”

“Yes, I mean it, friend Brown. You shan't charge me with taking the lion's share in this case. If there are five thousand dollars, as my informant seems to think, your share shall be half.”

“Twenty-five hundred dollars!”

“Exactly; twenty-five hundred dollars.”

“That will pay for my hard luck lately,” said Brown, his face clearing.

“Very handsomely, too.”

“When shall we start?”

“To-morrow morning. We will set out early in the morning; and, by the way, Brown, it's just as well not to let your wife or anyone else know where we are going.”

“All right,” answered Brown, cheerfully.

The next morning the two worthies set out their far from meritorious errand. Brown told his wife vaguely, in reply to her questioning, that he was called away for a few days on business.