The Boss of Taroomba by E. W. Hornung

  CHAPTER IV

  THE TREASURE IN THE STORE

  When Engelhardt regained consciousness he found himself spread out onhis bed in the barracks, with Tom Chester rather gingerly pulling offhis clothes for him as he lay. The first thing he saw was his ownheavily splintered arm stretched stiffly across his chest. For themoment this puzzled him. His mind was slow to own so much lumber as apart of his person. Then he remembered, and let his lids fall backwithout speaking. His head ached abominably, but it was rapidlyclearing, both as to what had happened and what was happening now. Withslight, instinctive movements, first of one limb, then another, heimmediately lightened Tom Chester's task. Presently he realized that hewas between the sheets and on the point of being left to himself. Thisput some life in him for perhaps the space of a minute.

  "Thank you," he said, opening his eyes again. "That was awfully good ofyou."

  "What was?" asked the other, in some astonishment. "I thought you werestunned."

  "No, not this last minute or two; but my head's splitting; I want tosleep it off."

  "Poor chap! I'll leave you now. But what induced you to tackle HardTimes, when you weren't a rider, sweet Heaven only knows!"

  "I was a fool," said Engelhardt, wearily.

  "You leave that for us to say," returned the other. "You've got somepluck, whatever you are, and that's about all you want in the bush. Solong."

  He went straight to Naomi, who was awaiting him outside withconsiderable anxiety. They hovered near the barracks, talking all thingsover for some time longer. Then Naomi herself stole with soft, boldsteps to the piano-tuner's door. There she hesitated, one hand on thelatch, the other at her ear. It ended in her entering his room ontiptoe. A moment later she was back in the yard, her fine face shiningwith relief.

  "He's sleeping like a baby," she said to Chester. "I think we mayperhaps make our minds easy about him now--don't you? I was terriblyfrightened of concussion; but that's all right, or he wouldn't bebreathing as he is now. We'll let him be for an hour or two, and thensend Mrs. Potter to him with some toast and tea. Perhaps you'll look himup last thing, Mr. Chester, and give him a hand in the morning if hefeels well enough to get up?"

  "Certainly I would, Miss Pryse, if I were here; but we were all goingout to the shed to-night, as usual, so as to make an early start----"

  "I know; I know. And very glad I shall be to get quit of the others; butI have this poor young man on my mind, and you at least must stop tillmorning to see me through. I shall mention it myself to Mr. Gilroy."

  "Very well," said Chester, who was only too charmed with the plan. "I'llstop, with all my heart, and be very glad to do anything that I can."

  With Chester it was certainly two for himself and one for the unluckyEngelhardt. He made the most of his evening with Naomi all to himself.It was not a very long evening, for Gilroy delayed his departure to thelast limit, and then drove off in a sullen fury, spitting oaths rightand left and lashing his horses like a madman. This mood of themanager's left Chester in higher spirits than ever; he had thesatisfaction of feeling himself partly responsible for it. Moreover, hehad given Gilroy, whom he frankly detested, the most excellentprovocation to abuse him to his face before starting; but, as usual, theopening had been declined. Such were the manager of Taroomba and hissubordinate the overseer; the case was sufficiently characteristic ofthem both. As for Chester, he made entertaining talk with Naomi as longas she would sit up, and left her with an assurance that he would attendto the piano-tuner like a mother. Nor was he much worse than his word;though the patient knew nothing until awakened next morning by theclatter and jingle of boots and spurs at his bedside.

  "What is it?" he cried, struggling to sit up.

  "Me," said Chester. "Lie perfectly tight. I only came to tell you thatyour breakfast's coming in directly, and to see how you are. How areyou? Had some sleep?"

  "Any quantity," said Engelhardt, with a laugh that slipped into a yawn."I feel another man."

  "How's the arm?"

  "I don't feel to have one. I suppose it's broken, is it?"

  "No, my boy, only dislocated. So Miss Pryse said when she fixed it up,and she knows all about that sort of thing. How's the head?"

  "Right as the bank!"

  "I don't believe you. You're the color of candles. If you feel fit toget up, after you've had something to eat, I'm to give you a hand; butif I were you I'd lie in."

  "Die first," cried the piano-tuner, laughing heartily with his whiteface.

  "Well, we'll see. Here comes Mother Potter with your breakfast. I'll beback in half an hour, and we'll see about it then."

  Chester came back to find the piano-tuner half dressed with his onehand. He was stripped and dripping to the waist, and he raised his headso vigorously from the cold water, at the overseer's entrance, that thelatter was well splashed.

  "Dry me," he cried.

  The overseer did his best.

  "I feel as fit as a Strad," panted Engelhardt.

  "What may that be?"

  "A fiddle and a half."

  "Then you don't look it."

  "But I soon shall. What's a dislocated arm? Steady on, I say, though.Easy over the stones!"

  Chester was nonplussed.

  "My dear fellow, you're bruised all over. It'd be cruel to touch youwith a towel of cotton-wool."

  "Go on," said Engelhardt. "I must be dried and dressed. Dry away! I canstand it."

  The other exercised the very greatest care; but ribs and shoulders onthe same side as the injured arm were fairly dappled with bruises, andit was perfectly impossible not to hurt. Once he caught Engelhardtwincing. He was busy at his back, and only saw it in the mirror.

  "I am hurting you!" he cried.

  "Not a bit, sir. Fire away!"

  The white face in the mirror was still racked with pain.

  "Where did you get your pluck?" asked Chester, casually, when all wasover.

  "From my mother," was the prompt reply; "such as I possess."

  "My boy," said Chester, "you've as much as most!" And, withoutthinking, he slapped the other only too heartily on the bruisedshoulder. Next moment he was sufficiently horrified at what he had done,for this time the pain was more than the sufferer could conceal. In aninstant, however, he was laughing off his friend's apologies with noless tact than self-control.

  "You're about the pluckiest little devil I've ever seen," said theoverseer at last. "I thought so yesterday--I know so to-day."

  The piano-tuner beamed with joy. "What rot," however, was all he said.

  "Not it, my boy! You're a good sort. You've got as much pluck in onehair of your head--though they _are_ long 'uns, mind--as that fellowGilroy has in his whole composition. Now I must be off to the shed. Ishould stroll about in the air, if I were you, but keep out of the sun.If you care to smoke, you'll find a tin of cut-up on the corner bracketin my room, and Miss Pryse'll give you a new pipe out of the store ifyou want one. You'll see her about pretty soon, I should say. Oh, yes,she had breakfast with me. She means to keep you by main force tillyou're up to piano-tuning again. Serve Gilroy jolly well right, thebrute! So we'll meet again this week-end; meanwhile, good-by, old chap,and more power to the arm."

  Engelhardt watched the overseer out of sight, with a mingled warmth andlightness of heart which for the moment were making an unusually happyyoung man of him. This Chester was the very incarnation of a type thatcommonly treated him, as he was too ready to fancy, with contempt; andyet that was the type of all others whose friendship and admiration hecoveted most. All his life he had been so shy and so sensitive that thegood in him, the very best of him, was an unknown quantity to all savethose who by accident or intimacy struck home to his inner nature. Thelatter was true as steel, and brave, patient, and enduring to anunsuspected degree; but a cluster of small faults hid this from theordinary eye. The man was a little too anxious to please--to do theright thing--to be liked or loved by those with whom he mixed. As anatural consequence, his anxiety defeated his design. Again, he was alittle t
oo apt to be either proud or ashamed of himself--one or theother--he never could let himself alone. Wherefore appreciation wasinordinately sweet to his soul, and the reverse proportionately bitter.Mere indifference hurt him no less than active disdain; indeed, wherethere was the former, he was in the bad habit of supposing the latter;and thus the normal current of his life was never clear of littleunnecessary griefs of which he was ashamed to speak, but which he onlymagnified by keeping them to himself. Perhaps he had his compensatingjoys. Certainly he was as often in exceedingly high spirits as in thedumps, and it is just possible that the former are worth the latter. Inany case he was in the best of spirits this morning; nor by any meansashamed of his slung arm, but rather the reverse, if the whole truth betold. And yet, with a fine girl like Naomi, and a smart bushman like TomChester, both thinking well of him together, there surely was for oncesome slight excuse for an attack of self-satisfaction. It was transitoryenough, and rare enough, too, Heaven knows.

  In this humor, at all events, he wandered about the yard for some time,watching the veranda incessantly with jealous eyes. His saunterings ledhim past the rather elaborate well, in the centre of the open space, tothe store on the farther side. This was a solid isolated building, verystrongly built, with an outer coating of cement, and a corrugated roofbroken on the foremost slope by a large-sized skylight. A shallowveranda ran in front, but was neither continued at the ends nor renewedat the back of the building. Nor were there any windows; the piano-tunerwalked right round to see, and on coming back to the door (a remarkablystrong one) there was Naomi fitting in her key. She was wearing an oldblack dress, an obvious item of her cast-off mourning, and over it, fromher bosom to her toes, a brilliantly white apron, which struckEngelhardt as the most charming garment he had ever seen.

  "Good business!" she cried at sight of him. "I know how you are from Mr.Chester. Just hold these things while I take both hands to this key; italways is so stiff."

  The things in question, which she reached out to him with her left hand,consisted of a box of plate-powder, a piece of chamois leather, atooth-brush, and a small bottle of methylated spirits; the lot lyinghuddled together in a saucer.

  "That does it," continued Naomi as the lock shot back with a bang andthe door flew open. "Now come on in. You can lend me your only hand. Inever thought of that."

  Engelhardt followed her into the store. Inside it was one big room,filled with a good but subdued light (for as yet the sun was beatingupon the hinder slope of corrugated iron), and with those motleynecessaries of station life which are to be seen in every station store.Sides of bacon, empty ration-bags, horse-collars and hames, bridles andreins, hung promiscuously from the beams. Australian saddles kept theirbalance on stout pegs jutting out from the walls. The latter were barelylined with shelves, like book-cases, but laden with tinned provisions ofevery possible description, sauces and patent medicines in bottles,whiskey and ink in stone jars, cases of tea, tobacco, raisins, and figs.Engelhardt noticed a great green safe, with a couple of shot-guns and arepeating-rifle in a rack beside it, and two or three pairs of rustyhand-cuffs on a nail hard by. The floor was fairly open, but for a fewsacks of flour in a far corner. It was cut up, however, by a raised deskwith a high office-stool to it, and by the permanent, solid-lookingcounter which faced the door. A pair of scales, of considerable size andcapacity, was the one encumbrance on the counter. Naomi at onceproceeded to remove it, first tossing the weights onto the flour bags,one after the other, and then lifting down the scales before Engelhardthad time to help her. Thereafter she slapped the counter with her flathand, and stood looking quizzically at her guest.

  "You don't know what's under this counter," she said at last, announcingan obvious fact with extraordinary unction.

  "I don't, indeed," said the piano-tuner, shaking his head.

  "Nor does your friend Mr. Sanderson, though he's the store-keeper. He'sout at the shed during shearing-time, branding bales and seeing to theloading of the drays. But all the rest of the year he keeps the books atthat desk or serves out rations across this counter; and yet he littledreams what's underneath it."

  "You interest me immensely, Miss Pryse."

  "I wonder if I dare interest you any more?"

  "You had better not trust me with a secret."

  "Why not? Do you mean that you couldn't keep one?"

  "I don't say that; but I have no right----"

  "Right be bothered," cried Naomi, crisply; "there's no question ofright."

  Engelhardt colored up.

  "I was only going to say that I had no right to get in your way andperhaps make you feel it was better to tell me things than to turn meout," he explained, humbly. "I shall turn myself out, since you are tookind to do it for me. I meant in any case to take a walk in the pines."

  "Did I invite you to come in here, or did I not?" inquired Miss Pryse.

  "Well, only to carry these things. Here they are."

  He held them out to her, but she refused to look at them.

  "When I tell you I don't want you, then it will be time for you to go,"she said. "Since you don't live here, there's not the least reason whyyou shouldn't know what no man on the place knows, except Mr. Gilroy.Besides, you can really help me. So now will you be good?"

  "I'll try," said Engelhardt, catching her smile.

  "Then I forgive everything. Now listen to me. My dear father was thebest and kindest man in all the world; but he had his fair share ofeccentricity. I have mine, too; and you most certainly have yours; butthat's neither here nor there. My father came of a pretty good oldWelsh family. In case you think I'm swaggering about it, let me tell youI'd like to take that family and drop the whole crew in the welloutside--yes, and heat up the water to boil 'em before they'd time todrown! I owe them nothing nice, don't you believe it. They treated myfather shamefully; but he was the eldest son, and when the old savage,_his_ father, had the good taste to die, mine went home and collared hisdues. He didn't get much beyond the family plate; but sure enough hecame back with that. And didn't the family sit up, that's all! However,his eccentricity came in then. He must needs bring that plate up here.It's here still. I'm sitting on it now!"

  Indeed, she had perched herself on the counter while speaking; and now,spinning round where she sat, she was down on the other side andfumbling at a padlock before her companion could open his mouth.

  "Isn't it very dangerous?" he said at length, as Naomi stood up and setthe padlock on the desk.

  "Hardly that. Mr. Gilroy is absolutely the only person who knows that itis here. Still, the bank would be best, of course, and I mean to have itall taken there one of these days. Meanwhile, I clean my silverwhenever I come up here. It's a splendid opportunity when my young menare all out at the shed. I did a lot last week, and I expect to finishoff this morning."

  As she spoke the top of the counter answered to the effort of her twostrong arms, and came up with a jerk. She raised it until it caught,when Engelhardt could just get his chin over the rim, and see a huge,heavily clamped plate-chest lying like a kernel in its shell. There weremore locks to undo. Then the baize-lined lid of the chest was raised inits turn. And in a very few minutes the Taroomba store presented a scenewhich it would have been more than difficult to match throughout thelength and breadth of the Australian bush.