Chapter XIV: Leslie on Guard

Leslie Capes, coming around the corner of the house just then, gaped in sheer amazement at the remarkable picture before him. And when he saw Dick’s sweet little mother, after giving vent to those words, embrace the shabby looking stranger as though she at least had no doubt concerning his identity, Leslie shook his head in his suspicious way.

“It may be all right,” he muttered to himself, “but that old rascal looks like an impostor to me. How can Mrs. Horner tell whether it’s her brother or not, when she hasn’t seen him for so many years?”

He determined then and there to constitute himself a vigilance committee of one to watch the stranger closely. If he detected anything that looked suspicious it would of course be his duty to tell his chum, and so put the Horners on their guard.

Meanwhile, the others were so excited that none of them even noticed the presence of Leslie Capes, so that he had plenty of chances to listen and observe.

“For years,” the wanderer was saying, with a touch of regret in his voice, “I’ve been promising myself to look up my only sister if I could strike it rich. Fortune plays queer pranks with men up there in Alaska. Several times I believed I was on the verge of a glorious fortune, only to have the bubble burst.”

He uttered the last words with a half groan as though nearly overpowered.

“Never mind, Silas,” said Mrs. Horner, as cheerily as she could, “your intentions were good at least. It was not your fault if fortune failed to knock at your door. But how did you find us out?”

The shabby stranger swallowed hard as though nearly overcome with emotion; but the watchful Leslie believed this was mostly assumed. He was more than ever convinced that the so-called Silas would bear close scrutiny.

“When I finally fell sick,” continued the weary wanderer, “somehow my thoughts seemed to roam back to the old life more than ever. Finally, I could stand it no longer, and determined to start out in hopes of finding my little sister Polly. I had enough to take me to the States, and East. By following up certain clues, I learned that you were living in this section, and I came here to see you once more before I cashed in.”

“But you have been walking far today, Silas, and you look half dead with fatigue,” Dick’s gentle mother went on to say. “Indeed, you must rest here for a few days until you can plan for your future. Oh! I wish we were better off, so that I could offer you a home for the rest of your life!”

“That would be an imposition, Polly, which I could not hear of,” said the other, though Leslie noticed that when he turned his head aside, he smiled as though secretly pleased. “If I can rest a day or two, I intend to go on to New York City, where an old partner of mine lives.”

“But would he do anything for you, Silas?” asked Mrs. Horner, solicitously.

“I saved his life once in the gold mines up there in the frozen North,” explained Silas, quickly. “And as he has made his pile, I fancy Joe Shepard wouldn’t begrudge me the little money needed to keep my soul and body together for the short time I have to live.”

Now Leslie had been noticing that in spite of the cough which Silas gave vent to at times, and his bent attitude, he had rather a sturdy figure.

“Sure that old fellow is putting it on pretty thick for some reason or other,” the boy kept telling himself. “I even believe that cough of his is made up, because he lets it go every once in a while, as if he suddenly remembers a plan he has figured out. Huh! he may pull the wool over the eyes of these simple Horners, but I’ve got my eye on him, you bet. I’ll lay low and watch the sly old fox.”

Grandpop Horner again entered into the conversation at this point. He pounded his cane vigorously on the floor to emphasize his remarks, in a way he had.

“Don’t think of it, my boy,” he said, heartily. “No brother of my daughter-in-law, Polly Horner, is going to beg his way while we’ve got a crust in the larder. You’ll hang your hat on a peg in this house, and be welcome to what little we’ve got.”

“Oh! that’s too much, sir, entirely too much,” remonstrated the other, shaken by some emotion. “But I am tempted to stay with you a day or two until I get a little strength back. Then I can shape my plans, and will perhaps have heard from my old partner in the city. He may send me the money to come to him.”

“Polly, put the kettle on!” sang Grandpop Horner, in his cheery way, “and we will have our tea. The fare is plain, Silas, but so far we have not known real want, though there are many things we have to do without, and my pension doesn’t go as far as I would like.”

The newcomer sat there looking quite happy, Leslie Capes thought as he watched his chum Dick bustling around, bringing in several armfuls of wood, and assisting his mother in various ways.

Now ordinarily, Leslie, being a most accommodating fellow, would have hastened to lend Dick a helping hand. On this special occasion he did nothing of the sort, and for a very good reason.

“I’ve just _got_ to play detective,” he told himself in explanation for his peculiar conduct, “and keep an eye on that smart stranger. I don’t believe more than half he says. He knows something about Silas Langhorne, who was mebbe a pal of his up in Alaska, and is bent on imposing on these simple people. But p’raps he’ll run up against a snag when he finds he’s got Leslie Capes to contend with.”

Old Grandpop Horner entertained the wanderer while these preparations for supper were under way. Of course, most of his talk ran along the lines of his extraordinary adventures in the long-ago, when he fought through the Civil War. Indeed, no matter what line the conversation opened with, it was sure to drift to those times that had been stamped so indelibly on the old veteran’s mind.

Dick presently found that his mother needed him no longer and so joined his chum, who was playing with little Sue, some seven years of age, a winsome girl with chestnut curls, and a slight lisp that made her more attractive than otherwise might have been the case.

Even Grandpop had his duties to perform, and was set to work grinding the coffee, a favorite task he delighted in. Silas had arisen from his chair, and was wandering about the cozy room looking at the pictures on the walls, some of them family portraits.

“Well, I haven’t had much time to say how-d’ye-do, Leslie,” remarked Dick, as he dropped down beside the other. “You see with this queer thing happening it’s excited us a heap. Did you run over to tell me anything special?”

“Oh!” explained the other, “I was just passing and thought I’d ask you for that list of books you promised to give me, some that you won in that puzzle contest a year ago. I’m getting things together, you know, so Mr. Holwell can start looking the books over, and deciding which ones he thinks suitable for our new library.”

“I’m glad you came when you did,” chuckled Dick; “because it was just in time to see the reunion. I guess this is about the queerest thing that ever happened to us.”

“How did you happen to meet--er, your Uncle Silas?” queried Leslie.

“Oh! he was sitting by the side of the road resting when I came by,” the other went on to say. “My shabby old wheel had broken down, and I was trundling it along. Only for that I might have whirled past and never noticed him.”

“Did he stop you and ask who you were?” pursued Leslie, curiously, for the newcomer was just then at the other side of the room talking with little Susie.

“Well, we somehow seemed to be attracted toward each other,” explained Dick. “I felt sorry for a man who looked so poor and needy, and when we got to talking he did ask me my name I believe.”

“Huh!” grunted Leslie, “chances are you invited him to walk along with you and get something to eat at your folks’ house. I say that because it’d be just like you. The poorer the Horners are the more they want to do things for those they think worse off than themselves.”

Dick did not take any offense at what his chum said. Indeed, he even laughed a little as though he believed it to be a compliment.

“It must be in the blood then,” he told Leslie, “because none of us can help it. My mother is always hoping that some day she may fall into a sum of money, because then she could help so many other poor people. What, not going already, Leslie?”

“I must,” replied the other who had arisen. “Give me the list of books you have, Dick. You might step outside with me,” he added in a whisper, “because I’d like to say a few words in your ear that I don’t dare get off here.”

Dick knew his chum so well that he thought nothing of this rather strange request. He went into his own small den and quickly came back bearing a slip of paper.

“There you are,” he told the other, “and I don’t believe Mr. Holwell can put a black cross against any one on the list, because they’re all splendid, thrilling, uplifting stories, and bound to do any fellow heaps of good reading them.”

He led the way to the outer air. The night was coming on though it was not fully dark. There was a suspicion of colder weather in the air, although as yet no one could call it chilly.

“Now what do you want to say to me that you didn’t care to tell indoors, Leslie?”

“Only this, Dick,” replied the other; “don’t believe _all_ that old chap says. He may be what he claims, but I’ve got my doubts about it.”

“Then you must have a good reason for thinking that way?” urged Dick, hardly pleased at hearing his chum speak in this strain.

“I’m going on general principles to begin with,” continued Leslie, unabashed, “for while I’m not from Missouri I have to be shown before I believe. Besides, according to my humble opinion, the story he tells is decidedly fishy.”

“Oh! do you think so?” asked Dick, chuckling, for it usually amused him to find his friend acting in this way. In times past he had even dubbed Leslie the Great Objector. “All of us seem to believe what he says, and mother surely ought to recognize her own long-lost brother.”

“It would seem so,” admitted Leslie, slowly. “But to tell you the truth, I don’t altogether like his ways. He strikes me as a chap who is playing some sort of clever game.”

“That’s a pretty serious accusation to make, old fellow,” argued Dick. “Now, if the Horners were well-to-do, there might be some reason for a scamp to scheme to hoodwink us. But great governor! what could any one expect to get here?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Leslie, who, however, was very tenacious in his ways, and could not be easily induced to desert his guns. “But something tells me he is up to some dark scheme.”

“Oh!” laughed Dick, “perhaps now he’s learned in a mysterious way that the Horners have fallen heir to some great big fortune, though they don’t know it yet themselves. And as you say, he may be intending to hang around so as to steal valuable papers that will enable him to claim the same. That must be what you’ve got in mind, Leslie--a regular movies stunt.”

“Now you’re making fun of me, Dick,” complained the other. “But I sat there and pretended to play with Susie, while I kept one eye on your so-called Uncle Silas. And Dick, I could see him chuckling to himself every little while as if something tickled him immensely.”

“Well, what of that?” urged Dick, stoutly. “He’s had hard luck all his life, and I can understand how pleased he must be to come on folks who belong to him. A rover they say, when he gets real old and sickly, always thinks of the past. Now, for my part, I seem to take to Uncle Silas quite well. We may find a way to keep him with us right along.”

“Listen,” said Leslie, as he was about to hurry off, “I saw him take up one of the tea spoons and look at it. Then he nodded his head as if he had found it real silver you know, one of those few heirlooms your poor mother thinks so much of.”

“Well,” said Dick, humorously, “if anybody ever ran across anything worth taking in the Horner home, I’d make him divide with me. So-long, Leslie, and thank you for the warning. But we Horners are always willing to take a chance, you know.”