CHAPTER XXX – A FRIEND INDEED
It was a shocking sight, and for a minute or two Dick Halliard and Jim McGovern did not speak.
Tom Wagstaff had been cut off in the beginning of his lawless career, and his dead body lay at the feet of his former companion in wrong-doing, with whom he had exchanged coarse jests but a short while before.
It was as McGovern declared, and as the reader has learned. When the Piketon Rangers heard the rush of the flood, each broke from the tent, thinking only of his own safety, which was just as well, since neither could offer the slightest aid to the others.
We have shown by what an exceedingly narrow chance McGovern eluded the torrent. But for the hand of Dick Halliard, extended a second time to save him from drowning, he would have shared the fate of Wagstaff. The particulars of the latter’s death were never fully established. He probably fled in the same general direction as McGovern, without leading or following in his footsteps, since his body was carried to the same shore upon which McGovern emerged. His struggles most likely were similar, but, singularly enough, he knew nothing about swimming, which, after all, could have been of no benefit to him, and he perished as did the thousands who went down in the Johnstown flood.
Terry Hurley overheard the exclamation of McGovern, the roar of the torrent having greatly subsided, and he called out to know the cause. Dick explained, and the sympathetic Irishman instantly quelled the disposition to joke that he had felt a short time before.
The boys were not slow in observing that the water was falling. When they first laid down the body the current almost touched their feet. In a short while it was a considerable distance away.
“I believe he was an old friend of yours,” said Dick, addressing his companion, who was deeply affected by the event.
“Yes,” replied McGovern; “him and me run away from home together.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because Satan got into us; we both have good homes and kind parents, but we played truant, stole, fought, and did everything bad. Bob Budd came down to New York some time ago, and we made his acquaintance; we were fellows after one another’s heart, and we took to each other right off. We showed Bob around the city, and then he made us promise to come out and visit him. It was his idea to form the Piketon Rangers.”
“I don’t know as there was anything wrong in that,” said Dick, who felt for the grief of his companion and was awed by the fate that had overtaken the others; “camping out is well enough in its way, and I would do it myself if I had the chance.”
“It isn’t that which I mean; it’s the way we have been going on since we have been together. I daresn’t tell you all the bad we did, Dick Halliard.”
“Never mind; don’t think of it.”
“I am going home as soon as I can; this will break up Tom’s folks, for they thought all the world of him.”
“It is bad,” said Dick, who saw how idle it was to try to minify the dreadful incidents; “but sad as it is, it will not be entirely lost if you do not forget it.”
“Forget it!” repeated McGovern, looking reproachfully in his face; “it will haunt me as long as I live.”
“I have been told that people often feel that way when great sorrow overtakes them; but,” added Dick, seeing his companion was grieved by his words, “I do not believe it will be so with you.”
“I have run away from home before, but I think this was a little the worst, for my father had everything arranged to send me to college, and I know his heart is well-nigh broken.”
“Not so far but that you can mend it by doing what you say you mean to do,” said Dick, thinking it wise to emphasize the truth already spoken.
McGovern made no reply, but stood for a minute as if in deep thought. Dick was watching him closely and saw him look down at the inanimate form at his feet. He sighed several times, and then glancing up quickly, said in an eager voice:
“Dick Hilliard, I wish I was like you.”
The words sounded strange from one who had been so reckless of all that was right, but never was an utterance more sincere – it came directly from the heart.
“Don’t take me for a model, for you can be a great deal better than I; you tell me you have good parents; all you have to do is to obey them.”
“You seem to doubt my keeping the pledge,” said McGovern, looking with curious fixidity in the countenance of Dick.
“I believe you are in earnest now, but what I fear is that you have become so accustomed to your wild life that you will forget this lesson.”
“Well,” sighed the stricken youth, “that must remain to be tested; all that I can now do is to ask you to suspend judgment, as they say.”
“You can give me your hand on it, Jim.”
It was a strange sight, when the two boys clasped hands on the bank of the subsiding flood, with the lifeless body at their feet, and one of them uttered his solemn promise that from that hour he would strive to follow the right path and shun the wrong one.
But that pledge, uttered years ago, remains unbroken to this day.
Dick Halliard was thrilled by the scene, which will always remain vivid in his memory. Despite the sorrowful surroundings a singular pleasure crept through his being, for conscience whispered that he had done a good deed in thus exhorting the wayward youth, and that it was on record in the great book above.
It was not the impressiveness of that silent form that so wrought upon the feelings of the youths, but the recollection of the missing one, whose body they believed was whirling about in the fierce currents of the torrent that was speedily exhausting itself in the deeper parts of the valley, or perhaps was lodged somewhere in the lower limbs of a tree, awaiting the morning for the shocked friends to claim it.
Considerable time had passed since the bursting of the dam, and the news of the calamity spread rapidly. People began flocking hither from the neighborhood, and before long there were arrivals from Piketon itself. These gathered at the scene of destruction and viewed it with bated breath. Some brought lanterns, but the broad space where the waters had reposed for so many years was clearly shown in the moonlight and made a striking sight.
The striking feature about the calamity, which, as we have stated, was never satisfactorily explained, was that the dam, which looked strong enough to resist tenfold the pressure, had not yielded in a single spot, as would be supposed, but had been carried away almost bodily. That is to say, three-fourths of the structure was gone, its foundations being on a level with the bottom of the pond in the immediate vicinity.
Perhaps the most probable explanation of the accident was that offered by an old fisherman, to the effect that muskrats had burrowed under and through the dam until it had been so weakened throughout most of its extent that when a giving way began at one point it was like knocking the keystone from an arch. Its results resembled those often shown by the explosion of a steam boiler, when only a few fragments remain to show what it once has been.
Before long a party reached the place where Dick and Jim were standing by the dead body of Wagstaff. When it was proposed to remove it the suggestion was made that it should not be disturbed until the arrival of the coroner, who could be called by morning to view the body. This practice, as the reader doubtless knows, prevails in nearly every portion of the country, and was adopted in the instance named.
Meanwhile Terry Hurley and his family, perched among the branches of the trees, were not forgotten. As soon as the waters subsided sufficiently, parties waded out, and by means of ladders that were quickly brought, soon placed the homeless ones safely on terra firma.
The haste of the flight had prevented the couple from doing much in the way of bringing needed garments, and the children, who were in their night clothes, suffered considerably. But they were now in the hands of good friends, who did everything possible. They were looked after, and it is a pleasure to say that no serious consequences followed.
Captain Jim Budd, the indulgent uncle of Bob, happened to be away from Piketon on the night of the great accident, but was expected back in the morning. Fortunately no one was so thoughtless as to hasten to Aunt Ruth with the news of her nephew’s death, and therein she was more favored than most people placed in her sad situation.
Dick Halliard made his employer his confidant as far as was necessary concerning Jim McGovern. The good-hearted merchant took hold of the matter at once.
Having obtained from McGovern the address of Wagstaff’s parents, word was telegraphed them and their wishes asked as to the disposition of their son’s remains. The father appeared that afternoon, and with the permission of the coroner took charge of them.
Mr. Wagstaff proved to be a man of good sense and judgment. He told Mr. Hunter that his life purpose had been to educate and bring up his five children, with every advantage they could require. He and his wife had set their hearts on preparing Jim for the ministry, but his wayward tendencies developed at an early age. He was the only one of the family to cause the parents anxiety, and he brought them enough sorrow for all.
This parent was one of those rare ones who saw his children as other people saw them. His boy had been as bad as he could be, and though the youngest of the three, no excuse was offered for him on that account.
“He has sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind,” remarked the father; “he chose the wrong path instead of the right, and no one is blamable beside himself.”
Mr. Wagstaff manifested deep interest in young McGovern, when he learned what the young man had said to Dick Halliard. His father was a prominent lawyer in New York, who had cherished the same hopes for his son as he, but he would not be controlled, and he, too, had run off to seek forbidden pleasures.
But the caller was touched by what he had heard as to the youth’s change of feelings. He sought him out, and was pleased with his talk. The same train which bore the remains of Wagstaff to New York carried also Jim McGovern on his way to join his parents who had known nothing of him for days.
CHAPTER XXXI – DICK HALLIARD IS ASTOUNDED
There were hopes until the following morning that Bob Budd might have escaped the flood. The fact that one of the Piketon Rangers had managed with help to extricate himself gave slight grounds for belief that a second had been equally fortunate.
This hope grew less and less as the night passed, and the people wandering up and down the valley, hallooing and calling the name of Bob, received no response. Only a few retained the slightest expectation of ever seeing him again.
Long before morning broke the flood had spent its force. Such a vast outlet as the sweeping away of most of the bank was like the sliding doors which admit passengers to the ferryboat. It was of such extent that the supply quickly ran out.
In the middle of the valley, where the whole force of the torrent was felt, large trees had been uprooted and hurled forward with a momentum which helped to uproot others in turn.
The prodigious power rapidly diminished as the ground rose on either side, until it was seen that the trunks were able to hold their own. There was considerable dislocation of vegetation, so to speak, but nothing to be compared to that in the middle of the valley.
The sheet of water had been plentifully stocked with fish, which were now scattered everywhere along the valley, napping in little pools of water as they did on the muddy bottom of the pond itself. It was a veritable picnic for the small boys.
Captain Jim Budd was on the ground as soon after he heard of the loss of Bob as he could reach the place. He was thoughtful enough to arrange matters so that his wife should learn nothing of the occurrence until his return. He placed a trusted friend on guard to keep busy mongers from her.
Captain Jim was the contrast of Mr. Wagstaff as regarded the youth in whom he was interested. He proclaimed to every one that Bob was not only the brightest, but the best principled boy in Piketon and the neighborhood. Had he lived he would have made his mark in the law or ministry or whatever profession he chose to honor with his attention. He had always been truthful, honest, and obedient, and his loss was in the nature of a general calamity.
It seems incredible that a man of sense should talk in this fashion, and not only utter such words, but believe them. The reader, however, who has heard other parents talk, can credit the statement that such was the fact.
The first thing that Captain Jim did, after learning the facts, was to offer a reward of one thousand dollars for the recovery of the body of his nephew. No doubt, he said, the whole neighborhood would insist on attending his remains to the grave, that they might render a fitting tribute to one thus cut off in the prime of his promising young manhood. The Captain, therefore, felt it his duty to defer to so proper a desire. He would erect a monument over the remains, to which parents might impressively point, as they urged their offspring to emulate the virtues of Robert Budd.
The large reward offered for the recovery of the body resulted in the employment of fully a hundred and sometimes more people, who roamed up and down the narrow valley through which the flood had swept from early morning until darkness forced a cessation of the search.
Some three miles below the bursted dam the valley widened to fully double its width. There naturally the current expanded and lost the tremendous power displayed above. Most of this portion, like the rest, was covered with trees, so that places innumerable existed where a body might be hidden, thus making it almost impossible to find it unless by a fortunate accident.
The surprise was general that the search should be prosecuted so long and so thoroughly without result. It seemed that every foot of ground had been covered and no spot left unvisited. The bushy tops of trees, prostrate trunks, timbers, undergrowth, shrubbery, rifts of leaves, and, indeed, everything that looked as if it could hide a body as large as a dog were examined again and again, but without the slightest success.
An excitement was roused by the report, the second day after the search had been instituted, that the body had been recovered, but it proved to be the remains of a heifer that was unfortunately caught in the swirl and was unable to save herself.
Gradually the belief spread that Bob Budd’s remains would never be found, and most of the searchers gave up the task. A few, prompted by the promise of a still larger reward, kept at it, hoping that some lucky chance might give them the opportunity to earn more money than they could do otherwise in several years.
The disappointment was a sorrowful one to Captain Jim Budd and his wife Ruth, the news having been broken to the latter. They could not reconcile themselves to the thought that their beloved nephew should be denied the last rites that were paid to the humblest individual; and while all knew the character of the missing young man, they deeply pitied his relatives.
Dick Halliard returned to his duties in the store of Mr. Hunter more thoughtful than ever before. He was grateful that McGovern had shown so strong a resolution of reforming his life and turning from his evil ways, but it was shocking to recall that Wagstaff and Bob Budd were placed beyond the power of undoing the evil they had committed.
Bob, as we have shown, was a native of Piketon, and had spent most of his life there. He was an only son, who was left a considerable fortune by his father, who appointed Uncle Jim Budd his guardian. This old gentleman, though he sometimes flared up and threatened Bob because of his extravagance and waywardness, was foolishly indulgent. Whatever firmness he might have shown at times in dealing with his nephew was spoiled by his wife, who refused the young man nothing that was in her power to grant. Bob was not naturally vicious, and his relatives were largely responsible for his going wrong.
One cause for deep satisfaction on the part of Dick was the wonderful proof of the truth of the words spoken by Dr. Armstrong, when the youth summoned him hastily to the bedside of his parent. From that evening there was a marked improvement in his condition, and his convalescence was steady until, in the course of a few months, he was completely restored to health and vigor.
After thinking over the question for a day or two, Dick decided to tell his parents everything. They had learned of what had occurred, and he believed it would be a pleasure to them to be told that one result of the blow was the reformation of McGovern.
Such was the fact, but the greatest happiness that could come to the father and mother was that of learning the nobility of their boy, who had conducted himself so admirably through more than one crisis, more trying than most youths older than he are ever called upon to face.
Matters stood thus at the end of a week after the flood, when Dick Halliard was surprised by the reception of a letter from New York. He did not recognize the handwriting, and broke the seal with no little curiosity. A glance at the bottom of the page showed the name of Jim McGovern as the writer.
“My dear Dick,” he said, after giving the particulars of the funeral over the remains of Wagstaff, “I can never tell you how deeply grateful I am to you; I am not one of those who gush, and will not say more except to repeat a remark which my father made when I had told him all. ‘There is no earthly honor,’ said he, ‘which could be given me, that I would not surrender for the sake of having a son like Richard Halliard.’ Considered strictly as a compliment, I think you will admit, Dick, that that has some weight. I know your modesty, but I must beg you as a favor to me to read all my letter up to this point, when you must stop, for here comes something which is a secret for the present between you and me. You will not give a hint of it to any one.
“Come to think, however, there is no secret that I’m going to reveal in the letter, but I will tell you the next time we meet that will make your hair lift your hat. I want you to get permission right away from Mr. Hunter to come to New York for a couple of days. Telegraph me what time you will reach here, and I will meet you at the station and take you home. If anything should happen to prevent my being there on time come to No. – Madison Avenue, give your name, and wait for me. My folks will be delighted to receive you, and you will not be kept long waiting.
“I have arranged to enter Yale at the next term. I shall need to brush up in my studies, but I’m confident I’ll get there all the same, if you’ll excuse a little slang which still clings to me. But above all things, come to New York as soon as you can. I promise you will not regret it.”
As may be supposed, Dick Halliard found more than one cause for surprise in this letter. The first was the fact that the writer possessed a much better education than he suspected. The composition was not only correct as regards grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but the statement of his decision to enter Yale College showed the advantages the youth had received, and which were far superior to what would be supposed by one who heard McGovern discourse when a member of the Piketon Rangers.
But Dick was shrewd, and, although he respected the request of the writer that nothing should be revealed about the letter, he suspected the nature of the “secret” to which he referred in such strong language.
“Jim is in the flush of a mistaken sense of gratitude to me,” he said to himself, “and he has persuaded his father to feel very much the same way. They want to get me down there to their home, that they may all see and tell me how thankful they are, and perhaps they mean to make me a present of some kind. I don’t think I’ll go.”
Nothing could be more distasteful to young Halliard than a proceeding of the kind he had in mind. It is no misstatement to say that he would have preferred to receive personal chastisement to that of being made a lion of by any one.
And yet he disliked to disappoint Jim, who was so strenuous in his invitation. He would be grieved and repeat it more urgently than before until further refusal would offend him.
“I’ll go!” finally concluded the youth, “but I will give Jim to understand from the beginning that, if he attempts to show me off or to tell others anything about me, or tries to force a testimonial on me, I will take the next train home and forever afterward keep him at arm’s length.”
With this resolution in his mind, he went to Mr. Hunter’s private office and asked him whether he could be spared from the store a couple of days.
“We should miss you at any time,” said the genial merchant, resting his hand affectionately on his shoulder; “but there is no request that Richard Halliard can make of me which I will not cheerfully grant if it is in my power to do so. Yes, take a couple of days off, and a week if you wish, and may you have as good a time as you deserve, young man.”
Dick blushed under this warm compliment, and, thanking his employer, went home, where he told his parents of McGovern’s request, and secured their consent to his departure.
Jim met him at the station with a carriage, and drove him hurriedly homeward. After the warm greeting Dick wanted to warn him about the lion and testimonial business, but reflected that it would be in bad taste, since it was possible that Jim held no such intentions. In that event he would resemble the politician who declines the honor that has never been offered him.
McGovern seemed restless and uneasy on the way, often forcing an unnatural gayety, which did not deceive his friend, of whom he showed such extreme fondness.
Dick admired the handsome residence before which the carriage halted, and it was with considerable awe that he followed Jim up the broad stone steps, and was ushered into his father’s library. McGovern showed commendable taste in not presenting his visitor to the members of the household immediately on his arrival.
“But I have a friend in the library,” he said, as he led the way thither, “that I think you will be glad to meet.”
A young man rose to his feet, and came briskly forward.
“How are you, Dick?”
“Heaven save me!” gasped Dick Halliard, in amazement, recognizing the smiling youth as no other than Bob Budd himself!