Page 27 of Follow the Lonesome Trail
“A...ha. And do you have any money with you?”
“I have one dollar and thirty cents. It’s what’s left of the money Mother gave me for meals on the journey.” Margot hesitated, as if something still puzzled her. “Did—didn’t Uncle John have a house, or a store? Or any mines?”
Doc Hatch cleared his throat. “Er—no. Not round here. Perhaps he’d sold them.” (Butch Donnell, who had grubstaked English John twice even though the first stake had gone entirely for whiskey, gave a little harrumphing cough.)
Doc Hatch turned back to the others. “Well, I suppose the logical thing is to send them back to their mother. Perhaps wecan take up some kind of collection, to scrape together stage fare—”
“But wecan’tgo back to Mother!” interrupted Margot in alarm. “If she doesn’t have a situation yet she can’t take care of us, and we’ll be—” She broke off, for she had always tried not to show in front of the boys how much she dreaded the Orphans’ Home.
“Now, now,” said Doc Hatch not unkindly, “don’t take on. It’s best to be with your mother, isn’t it, when you’re lucky enough to have one? In the meantime, Mrs. Mulligan, I suppose—”
The washerwoman nodded resignedly. “They can stay. Won’t be much trouble for a day or two.”
“Don’t mind about grub,” said Steady Shaffler, understanding the reservation in her tone. “I’ll go along to the store and fetch you some—seeing as you’ll be busy.”
Mrs. Mulligan unbent a little further. “Neighborly of you.”
She followed the men outside, where a short, private second conference was held. “Think the mother’s abandoned them?” said Doc Hatch.
Mrs. Mulligan shook her head. “Not likely. She must be a nice woman, to have such good, polite little things and dress them as nice as she could. Reckon she sent them off to the uncle like they said, and her last letter got burnt, or he was too ailing to answer it. Mine owner indeed—the whiskey-soaked scoundrel!”
“Well, don’t be too hard on him; he’s had his,” said Steady.
“But they can’t stay in Flat Rock,” said the doctor. “They’re not old enough to fend for themselves, city children like that. I suppose when the marshal comes by again he can arrange to put them on a train for the nearest orphans’ home—they’ll be the fittest people to try and get in touch with the mother.”
Inside the cabin, the children sat silently. Dominic looked from Margot to Theodore, and being unable to read their faces, he resorted to the question that had given meaning to so manyanxious hours, tiresome journeys, and dreary rooms. “Where are we now?”
Margot drew a slow breath. She felt weary, and small; but she knew how much the game meant to Dominic—and even Theodore, who knew it was a game—how it kept their minds occupied and their spirits up. And even for herself, imagining grander and more romantic dangers than the ones they really faced had its way of bracing her up to endure the commonplace trials with the courage that adventure required.
“Our enemies have been ahead of us,” she said. “The faithful retainer who was to meet us was living in disguise in Flat Rock, pretending to be an Englishman. But the spies found him out, and assassinated him. Now we are on our own, and we must be careful, for there are still spies in the camp. And above all”—her voice filled with a sudden determination—“wemustnot lead them back to the Queen in hiding!”
“I don’t see how we’re going to manage that,” said Theodore. “If there’s no faithful re—I mean, Uncle John in Flat Rock, we can’t stay.”
“We could work. Maybe Mrs. Mulligan would let us stay if I helped her with the washing.”
“Not if she’s like other landladies. Cash on the barrelhead’s all they want,” said Theodore. He sighed. “I guess we’re for the dungeons after all.”
“I don’twantto go to the dungeons!” said Dominic with sudden vehemence. “I like it better here. I want to stay at the mines. Margot, I don’t want to go!”
“Dominic, hush! The spies will hear you,” said Margot, taking a very forgivable advantage of the game. “I don’tknowwhat we’ll do yet. Maybe we’ll find a way to stay. But we won’t let them send us to Mother while there’s still danger, I’m determined on that!”
Outside, Mrs. Mulligan stood petrified a foot from the half-open cabin door. Her eyes were bulging, and the wisps of grayhair that stuck out all over her head seemed to be standing on end even more wildly than usual from the sensation of what she had just heard.
“This can’t be right nohow,” said Butch Donnell. “We don’t have no Queens or Princesses in America.”
“They’re foreigners, you big lunkhead,” said Mrs. Mulligan. “English John was a foreigner, wasn’t he? Onlyhe wasn’t English.”
“If he wasn’t, he certainly gave a more convincing portrayal of a down-and-out remittance-man than you’ll find on any stage,” said Doc Hatch, in whose tent this conclave was being held.
“It sounds to me,” said Steady Shaffler, “as if somebody over in Eu-rope has got hold of a throne that don’t belong to them. They’re pretty flush with kingdoms over there, a lot whose names we wouldn’t even reckernize. And this party not having clear title to their claim, they ain’t easy in their minds about the rightful heirs runnin’ round loose.”
“And this—this drama of succession is being played out in the wilds of Dakota Territory?”
“There’s nowhere foreigners won’t follow to settle their quarrels,” said Mrs. Mulligan darkly. “Remember that Chinaman who was stabbed last month, by the other Chinaman who knew him in Shanghai?”
“England still had Queen Victoria last I knew,” said Butch, still laboring to understand.
“It explains why the little Princess was so anxious about not bein’ sent back to her mother, once she heard them assassins had got to English John,” said Steady. “If the folks at theorphans’ home write to this here Queen in hiding, it’ll put their enemies right on her trail. Doc, I don’t think we ought to let ’em go.”
