“Look here,” said Tom, suddenly pausing in his walk and looking down at his brother. “The fact that you came honestly by your money will not interfere with our arrangement, will it?” “I know what you mean, of course,” answered Oscar, “but I can’t consent to it. My instructions are most explicit, and the money I shall spend is not my own.”
“What’s the odds? Who’ll know whether you obey orders or not? How much are you to pay your guide?”
“A dollar and a half a day from the time we leave the fort until we get back.”
“Well, you will save all that by taking me in his place; and that consideration ought to have some weight with you, if you are as careful of the committee’s money as you pretend to be. When you go back to the post, tell him 89that you don’t want him—that you have made other arrangements—and be ready to meet me in the sage-brush to-morrow at sunrise. I shall want a pony, of course, and while you are about it you might as well bring me a rifle and a supply of ammunition. In the meantime, I will shake my partner, and we’ll set out together. When we find a place that suits us, we’ll go into camp, and while you are securing specimens I will put in the time in catching wolves. What do you say to it?”
“I say that there are many objections to your plan,” replied Oscar. “In the first place, my instructions are to hire a guide, and I have done so. If I should discharge Big Thompson, now that I have engaged him——”
“Big Thompson?” interrupted Tom. “He isn’t your guide, I hope?”
“He is; and he was recommended to me by the colonel commanding the post.”
“I don’t care who recommended him, he’s a rascal.”
“Do you know him?” asked Oscar.
“Not personally; but my partner does, and he doesn’t know any good of him, either. I 90wouldn’t pass a minute alone in the hills with him for all the money there is in the States.”
Oscar called to mind the kindly face of his guide, and the clear, honest-looking eyes which had gazed straight into his own whenever their owner spoke to him, and contrasted the man to whom that face and those eyes belonged with the sneaking ruffian he had met in the sage-brush; and the conclusion at which he arrived was that there was nothing in the world that would induce him to change companions with Tom.
Before he would do that he would throw up his situation and look about for some other occupation that would support himself and his mother.
Believing that Tom’s “partner” had some good cause for hating Big Thompson, Oscar said no more about him, but went on to state the other objections he had to Tom’s plan.
“Another reason why I can’t agree to your proposal is that I am working on a salary, and I am in duty bound to do the best I can for those who employ me,” said he. “What could you and I accomplish by roaming about 91among the hills without an experienced hunter to show us where the game is? You would catch no wolves, and I should find no specimens.”
“Yes, we would, for game of all kinds is so abundant that we couldn’t run amiss of it,” answered Tom.
Without stopping to argue this point, Oscar continued:
“There is still another reason. I am only on probation now, and unless I can show that committee that I am a hunter as well as a taxidermist, I shall have to step aside and give place to somebody else. You can see for yourself that it is to my interest to do the best I can at the start.”
“You seem to be full of excuses, but you needn’t offer any more,” said Tom, with suppressed rage. “If you don’t want to agree to my proposal, say it in so many words.”
“I don’t want to agree to your proposal,” returned Oscar. “I can’t.”
“You were ready enough to help Leon, who is nothing to you, and who did his 92best to injure you in every possible way while you lived in Eaton!” sneered Tom; “but when your brother asks you for a lift, you refuse to raise a finger. Lend me a hundred dollars to buy an outfit with. Can you do that?”
“No, I can’t. I haven’t got the money.”
“There! What did I tell you?” Tom almost shouted. “A little while ago you said you had a thousand dollars.”
“But it doesn’t belong to me. I have to............