Ben's Nugget by Jr. Alger Horatio (story read aloud TXT) 📖

let the young lady leave her room on any consideration."

"All right, sir."

"I take it for granted, Mrs. Bradshaw, you are not easily taken in?"

"I should say not, sir," said the woman, emphatically.

"The young lady will try to impose upon you while I am away."

"Then she'd better save her trouble," said Mrs. Bradshaw, tossing her head.

"She's very artful," said Orton. "Most crazy people are."

"You don't mean to say she's crazy?" said Mrs. Bradshaw in surprise. "She don't look like it."

"You are quite right. She doesn't look like it, but she wrong here," continued Campbell, tapping his forehead. "Why, she fancies herself immensely rich, Mrs. Bradshaw, when, as a matter of fact, she's a penniless cousin of mine, who would have gone to the poorhouse but for my father's charity."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Bradshaw, interested.

"Sometimes she thinks she's worth millions of dollars. I wish she were, for in that case my father would be relieved of the burden of supporting her."

"To be sure, sir!"

"Some time since she managed to elude our vigilance and escaped from our home in Albany. Knowing how feeble-minded she was, we felt very anxious about her, but for some time were unable to get a trace of her. Finally, we learned that she had been seen in California, and I came out at great personal inconvenience to bring her back."

"Very kind of you, sir, I am sure: but how could she travel so far without money?"

"That is easily explained. She opened my father's desk and took out some hundreds of dollars," answered Orton Campbell, with unblushing falsehood. "Of course, we don't consider her responsible, as she is of unsound mind. Otherwise, we should look upon her as very ungrateful."

"She seems to be very good-looking," observed Mrs. Bradshaw.

"So she is, and if her mind were healthy I can imagine that she would be admired. As it is, her beauty counts for nothing."

"To be sure!"

"I hope to calm her down, and induce her without a violent disturbance to embark on the next steamer for New York with me. She won't listen to me now, but I shall call to-morrow forenoon and see how she appears. Meanwhile, she will probably try to bribe you to release her. She may promise you thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars, for it's all the same to her, poor thing! But of course you're too sensible a woman to be taken in by the promises of a crazy girl?"

"I should say so!" returned Mrs. Bradshaw, who was thoroughly deceived by the artful story of her employer, who, by the way, had promised her one hundred dollars for her co-operation in his scheme.

"She will probably tell you that she came to California in search of her lover, who is at the mines. Of course there is no such person, but she thinks there is."

"I understand," said the woman, confidently.

"I thought you would. Well, Mrs. Bradshaw, I will see you to-morrow. I am sure you are to be relied upon."

About six o'clock Mrs. Bradshaw carried up some supper to her prisoner.

"I hope you've got an appetite, miss," she said.

"Stay a moment," said Florence, eagerly. "I want to speak to you."

"Now it's coming," thought Mrs. Bradshaw, with some curiosity. She was rather taken aback by the first words of her prisoner:

"How much money has Mr. Orton Campbell promised to pay you for assisting him in his plot?"

"Well, I declare!" said Mrs. Bradshaw, bridling, for though she had been bribed she did not like to confess it.

"He is to pay me rent for this room," she said, after a pause.

"Then I am your lodger, am I?" asked Florence.

"I suppose so," answered the woman, rather embarrassed by this unexpected question.

"Very well, then. I don't think I care to occupy the room. I will pay you a week's rent out of my own purse, and leave you after supper."

"I think not," said Mrs. Bradshaw, decidedly.

"Then I am to consider myself your prisoner?"

"You may call it so if you like."

"It is just as well to call things by their right names. Of course Mr. Campbell has hired you to detain me here. Tell me how much he is to pay you, and I will pay you more to release me."

"Then you are rich, I suppose?" said the woman.

"Yes, I am rich."

Mrs. Bradshaw laughed. "You are worth several millions, I suppose?" she said, mockingly.

"Certainly not. Who told you so?"

"Mr. Campbell warned me that you would pretend you were rich."

"It is no pretence; I am rich, though at present his father has the greater part of my fortune under his charge."

"Oh, of course!" said the woman, laughing again. "I understand all about it."

"What has Orton Campbell told you?" asked Florence, suspiciously.

"He said you would pretend to be rich, and try to bribe me, though you were only a poor relation of his who would have gone to the poorhouse unless his father had supported you out of charity."

"He has deceived you, Mrs. Bradshaw. His father wanted me to marry this man in order to keep my fortune in his own family. That is why I ran away from his house."

"What made you come to California?" asked the woman.

"Because the man whom I really loved was at work somewhere in the mines."

"Ho! ho!" laughed Mrs. Bradshaw, loudly.

"Why do you laugh?"

"Because you are as crazy as a loon. Mr. Campbell told me just what you would say. He told me all about your stealing money from his father's desk, and running off to California after a lover in the mines. It's turned out exactly as he said."

"Did he dare to slander me in that way?" demanded Florence, so indignantly that her jailer drew back in some alarm.

"No violence, miss, if you please," she said. "You'd better be quiet, or you'll have to be tied."

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Florence, "I would not have believed Orton Campbell so false and artful!"

"He's acting for your good, miss. So you'd better not make a fuss;" and the landlady left the room, not failing to lock the door securely behind her.

CHAPTER XXVII. A STAR IN THE CLOUD.

Meanwhile, though things looked dark for Florence and favorable for her persecutor, there was one circumstance that threatened failure to the latter's plans. Orton Campbell was a mean man, and his meanness in this instance worked against him. He had promised his confederate, Jones, a thousand dollars as the price of his information and co-operation, but intended all the while to avoid paying it if it were a possible thing. Of this sum seven hundred dollars were still due, besides an extra sum for the services of Jones in making Florence a captive.

It was in regard to these sums that Jones called on Mr. Campbell on the evening succeeding the success of the plot.

Orton Campbell was about to go out when Jones appeared at his hotel.

"I would like to see you a few minutes, Mr. Orton," said the man respectfully.

"You must come some other time, Jones," said Campbell, carelessly; "I've got an engagement."

"I must see you now, sir," said Jones, still respectfully, but in a resolute tone.

"'Must'?" repeated Orton Campbell, arching his brows. "You are impertinent."

"Call me what you please," said Jones, doggedly; "I'm not to be put off."

"What do you mean?" demanded his employer, angrily.

"You know well enough. I want the money you are owing me."

"You seem to be in a hurry," said Campbell, with a sneer.

"You don't," retorted Jones. "All I ask is that you will keep your promise."

"What promise do you refer to?"

"'What promise do I refer to?' You said if I would join you in kidnapping—"

"Hush!" said Orton looking around, apprehensive of listeners.

"The young lady," Jones continued, "you would pay me the seven hundred dollars you owed me, and two hundred dollars extra for my help."

Now, Orton Campbell knew very well that he had made this promise, but the payment of nine hundred dollars he dreaded as much as some of my readers would dread the extraction of half a dozen teeth. He had got all he needed from Jones, and he decided that it would be safe to throw him off. It might be dishonorable, but for that he cared little.

"I suppose you have my promise in writing, Jones?" he said, with a sneer.

"No, I haven't, Mr. Campbell."

"Then you can't prove that I owe you anything, I take it."

"You don't mean to say, Mr. Orton, you'd cheat a poor man out of his hard-earned money?" ejaculated Jones, who, in spite of his knowledge of his employer's character, could hardly believe his ears.

"I never intended to give you such an enormous sum for the little you have done for me."

"Didn't you promise it, sir?" demanded Jones, exasperated.

"Not that I remember," answered Campbell, coolly. "I should have been a fool to promise so large a sum. I paid your expenses out to California and three hundred dollars. That, I take it, is pretty liberal pay for your services for a month."

"I'll have justice if I live!" said Jones, furiously.

He looked so threatening that Orton Campbell thought it might be best to placate him, even at the expense of a small extra sum. "Don't be a fool, Jones," he said. "You know very well that your demands are beyond all reason. I've treated you very liberally already, but I don't mind doing a little more. I'll go so far as to give you fifty dollars down, and a further sum of one hundred dollars on my wedding-day if I marry Florence Douglas, if you'll be content with that."

"I won't be content with it, Orton Campbell," said Jones, indignantly; "I won't be content with anything less than the full sum you promised me. You'd better pay me at once, or you may see trouble."

Orton Campbell should have known that it was dangerous to trifle with a man so thoroughly roused as Jones was, but his love of money and dislike to part with it overcame every other consideration, and he said, "You've refused my offer, and I have done with you. You needn't come near me again."

"Do you mean this?" asked Jones, slowly.

"Of course I do. You have served my purpose, and been paid. I have offered you more, and you have refused it. That ends everything."

"I understand you now, Orton Campbell."

"Mr. Campbell, if you please," interrupted Campbell, haughtily.

"Mr. Campbell, then; and I am sorry I didn't know you better before, but it isn't too late yet."

"That's enough: you can go."

As Jones walked away Campbell asked himself, "What is the fellow going to do, I wonder? I suppose he will try to annoy me. Never mind: I have saved nine hundred dollars. That will more than cover all the damage he can do me."

It was about the same hour that a party of three, dusty and shabby, entered San Francisco, and made their way to a respectable but not prominent hotel.

"We look like three tramps, Ben," said Bradley. "Anywhere but in San Francisco I don't believe we could get lodged in any respectable hotel, but they'll know at once that we are from the mines, and may have a good store of gold-dust in spite of our looks."

"If my friends at home could see me now," said Ben, laughingly, "they wouldn't think I had found my trip to California profitable. It would give my friend Sam Sturgis a good deal of pleasure to think that I was a penniless adventurer."

"He might be disappointed when he heard that you were worth not far from a thousand dollars, Ben."

"He certainly would be. On the other hand, Uncle Job would be delighted. I wish I could walk into his little cottage and tell him all about it."

"When you go home, Ben, you must have more money to carry than you have now. A thousand