'Quite sure. I am a good hand at faces. One wants to be when one is a bookmaker and don't always find it convenient to pay up. I saw that man at the Oaks; he was talking for some time to a man I knew – the very man who was mixed up in the job I pulled off before leaving England.'

'You mean it was his money you got at?'

'Yes. Well, that fellow you saw there has been after me. Two or three of my pals told me there had been a man asking about me on the racecourses, and one day, it was the only time I went down, one of them pointed him out to me. He got into the train with me at Epsom; he thought I did not see him, but I did. He got into the next compartment, but I slipped him at Vauxhall, and did not see any more of him. I believe that fellow is on my track, though how he has got hold of it is more than I can guess. Anyhow, I cannot believe it is accident that brings him alongside of me again. I should not be surprised if he has got a warrant against the girl and me in his pocket now.'

'Well, he has brought his pigs to the wrong market if he has,' Murdoch said fiercely; 'we have gone into this affair now, and if anyone thinks he is going to meddle with us he will find he is mistaken. Well, there ain't any time to be lost; if he happens to go to the same hotel you are at the game is up. You had best go straight back, get a carriage and have all your things taken right down to the boat; then if you are smart, you will be in time to get on board the boat that starts in two hours for Baton Rouge. Get off there and be on the look out for our boat as she comes along to-morrow. I shall be up in the bow; if you see me wave my handkerchief you will know it is all right, and you can step right on board; if you don't see me wave, do you and the girl move off at once; get behind one of the stores, and come on by the next boat. I don't think it likely he will be there, mighty unlikely, but it is just as well to settle what to do in case he is. If he should by any chance guess that the Mr. and Miss Myrtle he sees in the hotel books are the pair he is looking for, he would find out that they are bound up the river, and in the morning he might go down to the steamer to see if it is them. He would watch till she went off, and when he found out that you are not among the passengers he would think that he had made a mistake, and go back to the hotel again, and would hunt about in other places before he had made up his mind that you had given him the slip. It is a week before another steamer goes up to Omaha, and we should be a week out on the plains before he got there.'

'I should like to see anyone talking about an arrest out there. However, I don't think you need be afraid of him; I fancy I can arrange about that.'

'You ain't going – '

'Never mind what I am going to do,' the other interrupted. 'I am not going to have our plans broken up, nor the pleasure of our journey spoilt by being hunted as if we were dogs. I don't know who this fellow is, and I don't care; if he chooses to meddle with our affairs, he has got to take the consequences; he is not in London now. There, don't stand here another minute; he may land in half-an-hour, and you have got to be out of the hotel before then. I heard the girl say that the boxes were all packed. Mind, first get the boxes on board, then go to the wharf and get on board the Baton Rouge steamer. Look out for our boat; if you see me wave my white handkerchief it is safe to come on board; if not, slip away and get behind something till we go on again; then come by next boat. If he gets off at any of the landings, going up the river, I shall get off too, and come on board again as you come along.'

Murdoch went back to the landing-place. The passengers were pouring off the steamer with bags and boxes of all kinds. The man he was to watch was still walking quietly up and down the hurricane deck, evidently in no hurry to land until the rush was over. Sometimes he stopped to speak a word or two to a boy who was standing at the rail, watching the others landing.

'I guess that fellow is with him,' Murdoch muttered. 'It may be some boy he has made friends with on the passage. If he has brought him from England it must be because the boy knows Tom and the girl; but if he does he could do no harm if the other was out of the way. You are taking it cool and quiet, my fine fellow. If you guessed that every five minutes you spent there spoilt your chance, you would not take it quite so easily.'

It was a good half-hour before the stream of passengers and porters with baggage had ceased crossing the gangway; then the man and boy left the hurricane deck, and a minute or two later appeared at the gangway, followed by two men with portmanteaux. There was but one vehicle remaining by the wharf. Murdoch knew the driver.

'Mike,' he said, 'here are a couple of dollars for you. If that man just landing tells you to drive him to Planter's Hotel you take him somewhere else. Pretend you misunderstood him. I have my reasons for not wanting him to go there.'

'All right, I will take him to Reardon's; it is at the other end of the town.'

'Come back here and let me know where you put him down,' and Murdoch moved off as the gentleman came up to the carriage.

He watched them drive off, and then took a seat on a baulk of timber till Mike returned.

'He told me to take him to the Crescent City, and it's there I put him down, Mr. Murdoch.'

'All right, Mike; I don't care where he goes so that it isn't to Planter's.' Then he walked away, and after threading several of the worst streets of the town, stopped at a low wine shop. There was no one in but the man behind the bar.

'They tell me that you have sold out, Murdoch, and are going West. Is it true?'

'That is right. I have had enough of this. I am going to try my luck West. Have you got Black Mat with you still?'

'No. You will find him at Luttrell's. You know the place, at the corner of Plantation Street. That is to say, he was there a fortnight ago, if he has not got shot or hung since. Not thinking of taking him with you?'

'No.' Murdoch laughed. 'He is strong enough and would be useful, but he gets so confoundedly sulky if he takes a drop too much. That was why I had to get rid of him. He got into three or four rows, and I had him on my hands each time for over a fortnight, so I thought he had better go.'

'Yes, you told me about it. I found him useful here, especially when I wanted the place cleared; but it would not do, he broke one fellow's shoulder throwing him out, and it was getting me a bad name.'

'Well, good-bye,' Murdoch said. 'I am off by the boat to-morrow. I will look you up if I come back this way, and let you know how I have got on.'

Five minutes later Murdoch turned into Luttrell's. A powerful negro, whose face was disfigured by the scars of several cuts and gashes at once came up to him. 'Waall, boss, how are you?'

'I am all right, Mat. I came to have a word with you.'

'There ain't no one to prevent you. The boss has just gone out. We don't do no business here till late.'

'What I want you for is this, Mat. There is a friend of mine just come from New York. He is going up the River with me, but there is a police chap just come down after him, and, like enough, he will be at the boat to put his hand on his shoulder. I want to arrange that he shan't be there, you understand; I don't want him killed, but I just want him to have a hint that he had better not meddle with other people's business – a hint, you know, strong enough to lay him up for three weeks or a month; and I should not mind paying twenty dollars to the man who gives him the hint.'

'You point him out to me and the job will be done, boss; only I don't sees as I can hit it to exact three weeks or a month. When one is in a bit of a hurry it ain't no easy matter to figure it out just exact.'

'Well, we are not particular to a week; what we want is not to be bothered with him.'

'I will fix that, boss. You can go on board that boat with your mind easy.'

'Of course you can't go now?'

'Well, I could go, if it was downright necessary, but it would be rough on the boss to find no one here when he came back. I expect he will be in in ten minutes. He said if anyone asked for him he would be back in half-an-hour, and it is getting on for that now.'

'I will wait, then; I know Luttrell very well; he will let you go out for a bit with me if I ask him.'

The keeper of the saloon soon returned. 'I can do without him,' he said, when Murdoch told him that he wanted the negro to do a job for him. 'I don't expect it will be a very busy night, and if it is I will call my wife down, and put her behind the bar, while I keep things straightened out.'

Upon arriving at the hotel Captain Hampton dined quietly. Then he went to the clerk's desk, had a talk with him over the people who had been staying there and showed him Dorothy's photograph.

'Nothing like that been here,' the clerk said positively. 'I should have noticed her at once if she had been.'

'I have no reason to suppose that she came here more than to any other hotel,' Hampton said. 'I will go round in the morning and try the others. I suppose there are not a great many where a gentleman with a lady with him would be likely to put up?'

'Not more than six, I should say, at the outside,' the clerk said, and gave the names, which Captain Hampton at once wrote down in a note-book.

'It is just possible that they might not have come here at all, but may have stopped at Mobile, where the steamer touched on her way down; still, I think it much more likely that they have come here.' Then he went upstairs and wrote a chatty letter to Danvers, giving him an account of the voyage.

'I hear there is a steamer leaves to-morrow, and I hope to be able to give you some news before I close this. I am going round the hotels the first thing, and hope, if not to find them, to get some news of them. The latter is most probable. I don't see Truscott could have any motive in stopping here, and I shall expect to find that they only stayed a day or two and then went up the river. I have a strong conviction he means to go to California; but even in that case he may have chosen some other route – have gone down to Panama and crossed the isthmus there, or may have taken steamer to Galveston and started from there by the southern route, though I don't think that is likely, for the Indians are worse on that line than on the other. Anyhow, whichever route they have taken I shall follow. I wrote from New York to the War Office, asking that my leave might be extended for another six months from the end of the year, on very urgent business that compelled me to travel in America. I have sent a private letter to Colonel Eversfield, telling him something of the nature of the work I have in hand, and asking him to back up my request. I have no doubt he can manage it. That ought to give me plenty of time; but if the worst comes to the worst and I find myself pinched I must take ship at San Francisco and get to China, and from there by a P. and O. to India. This will be the last letter you will get, I fancy, for a very long time; though for aught I know there may be means of sending off letters from some of the stations on the plains.'

He addressed an envelope, laid it by the unfinished letter, and then went downstairs. It was dark now, and beckoning to Jacob, who was sitting in the hall, to accompany him, he strolled out through the door. For nearly an hour they wandered about, and at the end of that time came out on the quays.

CHAPTER XVI

'It is pleasant here, Jacob, after those close streets.'

'It is an awful place for smells, Captain.'

'It is smelly, Jacob. I fancy the town was built on a swamp; I think I have read something about it. Well, there are no smells here; suppose we sit down and look at the river for a bit, the air is fresh and pleasant.'

A minute later a man with naked feet stole up behind them. He was close to them before any sound warned them of his approach. Jacob looked round and uttered a sharp exclamation. Captain Hampton was in the act of springing to his feet when he received a violent blow on the shoulder, and fell face foremost on the ground. With a cry of rage Jacob sprang at his assailant and caught him by the throat. The man shook him off and brought down his hand on the top of his head with such force that he fell insensible. Then he stooped over Captain Hampton, and having turned him over on his back felt in his pockets, but rose with an exclamation of disgust, having only found two or three dollars in them, as Captain Hampton had taken the precaution of laying aside his watch and emptying his pockets of money and papers before leaving his room. Ten minutes later some sailors coming along the wharf came across Jacob, who was just trying to get on to his feet.

'Hello, mate, what is the matter?'

'I dunno,' he replied stupidly.

'Been having a drop too much?'

'No, it ain't that – oh, I remember now. I was there with my master, sitting on that log, when a great nigger attacked us. He stabbed my master, and I suppose he stabbed me; I don't remember much about it except that I got hold of his throat.'

'Where is your master?'

The question completely aroused Jacob's faculties, and he hurried round to the other side of the log.

'Here he is,' he cried. 'Oh, my dear master, are you hurt bad?' and stooping over him he burst out crying.

'That won't do any good, lad,' the sailor said. 'Here, let us have a look at him. He has been stabbed, sure enough, Jack. He is just soaking with blood.'

'Is he dead, Bill?'

The sailor tried to turn the body over, but as he did so there was a faint moan.

'He ain't gone yet, that's clear. Who is he, boy?'

'He is Captain Hampton, an English gentleman. We only got in here this afternoon. He is staying at the Crescent City.'

'Well, we can't let him lie here. You stay here with him, Jack, and we will go off and get some one to carry him.'

In a few minutes the men returned with two constables carrying a stretcher; on this the body was placed, four of the sailors lifted it and carried it to the hotel, and then up to his room, where two surgeons were quickly in attendance. Jacob stood by listening with breathless anxiety to their talk as they examined his master.

'Will he die, sir?' he asked, in a broken voice, as they rose from the examination.

'No, I reckon he hasn't had his call this time, but it has been a close thing. What was he doing when he was struck?'

'He was just getting up, sir, from the log that he was sitting on.'

'Ah, that saved him; another half inch and we could have done nothing for him. You see, he was struck from above; the wound is just behind the shoulderbone, and it has gone right down inside the bladebone, but has missed the lungs altogether – at least, we think so. Do you see that dark mark under the skin below the bone? That is where the point of the knife came to. Of course he has lost a lot of blood, but there is no reason why, if he goes on well, he should not be about again soon. Did he drink?'

'No, sir,' Jacob replied indignantly.

'Well, that is all in his favour; in this climate a man with his blood heated has but a poor chance if he gets hurt. He is English, the clerk told me as I came up?'

'Yes, sir; he is an English captain.'

'Ah, well, he will have a chance of fighting some more battles yet. You are his servant, I hear?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, you are not going to lose your master this time; you had better sit up with him to-night. We will get a nurse for him in the morning. I will order some lemonade to be sent up, and will bring round some medicine in half an hour, and sit here for a bit. Doctor Hawthorne will wait until I come back.'

By this time they had finished bandaging the wound.

'Hullo, what is the matter with you?' he exclaimed, as Jacob reeled and would have fallen had he not caught him. 'Here is another patient, Hawthorne. The boy is bleeding from the head somewhere. I thought he looked half stupid.'

They laid him down and examined him.

'He has had a tremendous blow on the head,' the other said. 'It has cut right through the cap and has laid the bone bare. I expect that thick cap saved his life. I wonder what he was struck with.'

They bathed the boy's head with iced water for some time. Presently he opened his eyes.

'Do not move, lad; you have had an awkward blow on the head. You must lie still for a bit, else we shall be having you on our hands too. What did he hit you with?'

'I dunno, sir; he had nothing in his hand but the knife.'

'It wasn't done with a fist,' Doctor Hawthorne said, 'and is certainly not the cut of a knife.'

'I fancy it was done with the handle of the knife,' the other said. 'The negro could have had no motive in killing the boy. I expect he had the knife in his hand, and he struck down on him with the end of the hilt. That would make just the sort of wound this is. You see, it is a little to one side of the centre of the skull, and so glanced off the bone. If it had caught him fairly in the centre it would have staved in the skull to a certainty.' They placed a pillow from the sofa under the boy's head, gave him a little lemonade to drink, and then one of the doctors left, after having aided in placing Captain Hampton on the bed, propped up almost into a sitting position by pillows. Jacob dozed off into a confused sleep. Occasionally he woke up and saw the doctor sitting by his master's bedside, and then relapsed into sleep. At last he started up at the sound of a voice. The sun was gleaming through the window and the doctor was standing speaking to Captain Hampton.

'You have a nasty wound,' he was saying, 'but fortunately it has not touched any vital point. You have been simply insensible from loss of blood. There is every chance of your doing well, but you must not try to move.'

'What is the matter with Jacob?' Captain Hampton said feebly, as the boy appeared at the foot of his bed with a wet towel still bound round his head.

'I am all right, Captain, though I feel queer and my head is aching terribly; but I don't care a bit now you have come round.'

Captain Hampton's eyes turned to the surgeon for an explanation.

'He has had a heavy blow on the head. We have heard nothing from him beyond the fact that he had hold of the throat of the negro who attacked you. The man evidently struck him down, and from the appearance of the wound we gather that he struck him with the haft of the knife. Fortunately it fell rather on the side of his head or it might have killed him; as it is, it has laid the bone bare; we bandaged it up with a cloth soaked in ice water and he will be all right in a day or two.'

'Where am I wounded?' Captain Hampton asked.

The surgeon explained the nature of the wound.

'No doubt it was some negro who had gone down to sleep on the wharf, and seeing you come along with this boy thought he would rob you. Your pockets were turned inside out.'

Captain Hampton did not speak for a minute; then, with a faint smile, he said:

'He did not get much for his pains. I put everything in that drawer and locked it before coming out, and dropped the key into my portmanteau.'

'That is all right,' the surgeon said cheerfully. 'I was afraid you might have lost a good deal of money. We gave notice to the police last night, but it is not likely you will ever hear of the fellow again. Such things are common enough in the streets of New Orleans, and it is not once in a hundred times that the police ever manage to lay a finger on the scoundrels. Had you been in any gambling place, because, in that case, some one may have tracked you?'

Captain Hampton shook his head. 'No; I had only taken a stroll through the town. How long am I likely to be laid up?'

'You must be in bed for a fortnight at least; the wound was made by a bowie knife and is a broad, deep cut, and the knife penetrated to its whole depth, for there is a bruise each side of the mouth of the wound. If you were to attempt to move earlier than that you might have a great deal of trouble. Now, there is no occasion for me to stay with you any longer. Dr. Hawthorne, who was called in with me, will be here at nine o'clock, and will bring a nurse with him. You must have some one with you; your wound might break out suddenly at any moment. We shall give you a little weak broth; but we must not begin building you up at present; the great thing is to avoid any chance of fever setting in. Your having lost so much blood is all in your favour in that respect. Now lad, I will have a look at your head; yes, you had better keep on applying cloths dipped in ice water to it. I will tell them to send you up a basin of broth when they send some up to your master. You had better not take any solid food to-day.'

At ten o'clock, Captain Hampton, having taken a few spoonfuls of broth from his nurse, fell off into a quiet sleep. Jacob, who had taken off his boots, so as to move about noiselessly, had tidied up the room. He had glanced several times towards the unfinished letter and the addressed envelope on the table, and he now took his shoes in his hand, and went out through the door, put on his shoes again, and proceeded down stairs, having, before he left the room, laid aside his wet cloths and put on his cap.

'When does the post go out for England?' he asked the clerk.

'It is mail day to-day; there is a steamer going direct to England.'

He went back to his master's room, took up a pen, and with infinite labour scrawled a few lines at the bottom of the unfinished letter, making several blots and smudges as he did so. These he dried with blotting-paper, and with much self-disapproval folded the letter, placed it in the envelope, and, going downstairs again, handed it to the clerk to post.

For three or four days Captain Hampton remained in a very weak state; then he began to rally and picked up strength fast. At the end of ten days he was able to walk across the room.

'What has become of the letter I left on the table when I went out with you, Jacob?'

'I saw the envelope was to Mr. Danvers, sir, and you had told me about him. I asked about the post, and they said that it was going out that day, and as you had written before you went out I was sure that you wanted the letter to go by it, so I made a shift to write a line at the bottom to say that you could not finish it because you had got hurt, and then fastened it up and posted it. I hope that was right, sir.'

'You intended well, anyhow, Jacob; but it would have been better, perhaps, if you hadn't done it, as it will only alarm him needlessly.'

'I told him the doctor said you would get round, sir.'

'Ah, well, that is all right. I am glad you sent it, as he would be looking for a letter from me. I suppose you are quite sure that it was a negro who stabbed me?'

'Quite sure, sir. It was dark, but not so dark that I could not see his face.'

'Well, in another three or four days I shall be able to be out, Jacob. If I find that these people were here at the time I landed I shall have no doubt that this business was their work. I knew the man by sight and he may have known me. Someone may have pointed me out to him on the racecourse, as I had been asking about him. Of course it may have been done merely for the sake of plunder, but I think the other is more likely.'

Three days later Captain Hampton was able to go for a ride in a carriage. He went first to the police office.

'We have no news whatever to give you, Captain Hampton,' the superintendent, who had been to see him several times, said as he entered.

'I did not expect you would have any,' he replied. 'I have come to see you about a different business. Here is the letter the head of the police at New York gave me to you. You see I am in search of two people from England. By the aid of the police at New York I traced them and found that they had come on here nearly three weeks before. I followed them, and was wounded a few hours after my arrival here. I am well enough to begin the search again, and shall be very glad if you will send one of your officers with me to visit the hotels.'

The superintendent at once complied with his request, and at the second hotel they visited he discovered that the people he sought had been staying there and had left on the evening of his arrival.

'They were booked on the boat to Omaha,' the clerk said. 'I know they have been getting a lot of things at the stores, as they were going across the plains. The evening before they were to start Mr. Myrtle said they had changed their minds and were going on at once to Baton Rouge. They hurried up, but they were pretty late. They took a carriage from here and the driver told me they only just caught the boat by a minute; the bell was ringing when they got to the quay. You won't catch them now; the 'Arkansas' is a fast boat and I suppose they got on board her at Baton Rouge. There is no boat going now for the next four or five days, so they would have a good three weeks start of you.'

'You don't happen to know where they bought their things?' Captain Hampton asked.

'They got a lot of things at J. B. Nash's stores; a good many came up here, but I expect the heavy part went straight on board.'

'Thank you. I don't think there is anything more to ask you. We will go down to these stores,' he added to the policeman, as he returned to the carriage. 'I may learn something there that may be useful.'

His inquiries showed plainly enough that Truscott really meant to cross the plains and that they were going to travel by waggon. 'What harness did they buy?' he asked.

'For six horses, at least, by what I heard them say; for four horses and two mules. The two men were talking about it, and they wanted bigger collars for the two wheelers because they would be mules.'

'Were there two men, then, as well as a girl?'

'Yes; the three always came together; one of them belonged to this city. I knew his face, though I don't know what his name was. I take it he was a Britisher, though he had been long enough here to lose most of his accent. He seemed rather to boss the show and the other bought the things he fixed on. I allow he was a pretty smart fellow and was pretty well fixed up on prices. We did not get very much out of that deal.'

'What was he like?'

'He was a strong-built sort of chap about forty, I should say, and looked rather a hard sort of cuss. I don't know what his name was; the other called him Joe.'

'Thank you. I daresay I shall be coming in to get an outfit for myself in a day or two. I am thinking of going across the plains, too.'

'Well, I guess we can fix you up with everything you want, squire. But you don't look as if you was fit for a journey across the plains just yet. It ain't child's play; I reckon it wants a pretty strong man to stand the racket.'

'I shall have a fortnight to pick up on board the steamer,' Captain Hampton said. 'I have just had a bout of illness, but I am shaking it off, and it will be at least three weeks before I am at Omaha.'

'We are going for a long journey, Jacob,' he said when he returned to the hotel.

'We have been a pretty goodish long 'un already, Captain.'

'Nothing to what we are going to set out on now, Jacob. We have got a fortnight or three weeks on board a steamer, and then we start across the plains.'

'How long shall we be in crossing them, sir?'

'Four or five months, Jacob.'

'My eye!' the lad exclaimed. 'Them must be something like plains; and what is there the other side of them?'

'There is a country where they find gold, Jacob.'

'What! sovs?' the boy exclaimed.

'The stuff sovereigns are made of.'

'But you ain't going to look for that, sir.'

'No, lad; I am going after these people. They were here that evening when we came in, and as they started in a hurry half-an-hour after we landed, I cannot help thinking they saw me. It seems they had another man with them when they were here, and I expect they came here to join him. I don't know whether he left with them; my own opinion is he did not, but when Truscott saw me he hurried off at once to his hotel and started, leaving the other man to prevent my following them. Probably he started by the boat in the morning after them, believing the negro he had hired had done his work. At any rate I have made up my mind to follow them. I was determined to do so before; but if I hadn't been, this would have decided me. They have got a long start, but we will come up to them sooner or later.'

'I should think so,' the boy said, energetically, 'and pay them out for it too. My eye! won't they be surprised when we drop upon them just as they are picking up gold. But you ain't fit to start yet,' he went on, changing his voice; 'you look very white, sir; I think you have been doing too much, and it won't do for you to start to cross these here plains until you are strong; it will just be a-knocking yourself up, and I don't suppose there ain't no doctors living out there.'

'That there are not, Jacob,' Captain Hampton laughed. 'Well, we shall have three weeks' quiet on board the steamer, and by the time we land I hope I shall be as strong as ever. I will keep quiet for the rest of the day. To-morrow I shall have to see about taking our passage and getting ready for the start. I know nothing about what we shall want yet.'

The next morning Captain Hampton took Jacob with him down to the stores where he had been on the previous afternoon.

'I have made up my mind to go across the plains,' he said; 'now, what do I want? I know absolutely nothing about it. Clothes I have got of all sorts – I want nothing in that way; I want to travel as light as possible, so as to push on fast.'

'Can you shoot?'

'Yes, I am a good shot, and have a double-barrelled gun and rifle with me.'

'That will help you a good deal; the game has been mostly shot or scared away along the line, but there is some to be had, and, you see, any meat you don't want you can swap for flour and other things with some of the emigrants. As to your pushing on, you might do that sometimes, but not very often. There are Redskins all along the line, and a man travelling by himself would have much trouble in getting through. As a general thing folks go in parties of ten or twelve waggons, often more, and then they are too strong for the Redskins to attack. I do not think you could travel much faster than the ordinary, not even if you had good horses. The bullocks travel slow, but they go a good many hours a day, and camp at night where there is water.'