Читать книгу Don Sturdy with the Big Snake Hunters or Lost in the Jungles of the Amazon - J. W. Duffield - Страница 5

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“Oh, do you think so?” asked Fred, new hope thrilling through his veins.

“I’m almost sure of it,” replied Don. “There are mighty few things my Uncle Amos doesn’t know or can’t find out. I’ll tell him all about you, and he’ll have the thing in mind all the time he’s down in Brazil. I’ll bet we’ll have you running a Marathon soon after we get back.”

“If I do, you’ll never hear me complain of anything again!” declared the cripple.

“You’ve had a mighty tough deal,” observed Don. “But just brace up now and everything will turn out all right.”

“I hope so,” replied Fred. “I’ve got somehow to make a living for Emily and myself and how can I do it when I’m so lame? We had a little money from father’s life insurance, but that will soon be gone. It would be different if father’s investments had turned out all right.”

“Perhaps they will,” Don encouraged him. “What were the investments? Perhaps my Uncle Frank can find out something about them.”

“Father put a good deal of money in a rubber company that had been formed to work the forests of Brazil,” explained Fred. “He had some, too, in a drug company that was interested in the same country. Up to the time he died he was sure he had a good thing. He kept getting dividends from them all the time. But since then we haven’t received a cent.”

“It’s queer they should have gone flooey all at once,” said Don. “Looks as if there were some funny business somewhere.”

“I think so myself,” said Fred. “Father left us in care of a guardian, a distant relative of his. He’s a great traveler, though, and he’s been away a long time now and though I’ve written to him, he probably didn’t get my letters. Perhaps he’s dead, for all I know. So I’ve had to attend to this thing myself. I’ve written to the company again and again, and that’s all the good it’s done me. I got some letters that I couldn’t make head or tail of, full of big words about reorganizations, and consolidations and stuff like that, but what stuck out all over the letters was that our money’s gone.”

“That’s rotten!” exclaimed Don. “Who’s the fellow that’s running the concern?”

“Glassbury, Henry Glassbury,” was the reply. “Father thought he was all right.”

“Bet you he’s a rascal,” said Don. “Why don’t you get a lawyer after him?”

“No money to hire one,” returned Fred gloomily. “But I’m chinning too much about my troubles and boring you to death.”

“Not a bit of it,” declared Don warmly. “Now look here. Give me the letters you’ve had from these crooks and I’ll sic my Uncle Frank on them. He’ll be glad to look the matter up.”

“That’s mighty good of you!” exclaimed Fred, his eyes kindling. “I’ll go upstairs and get them.”

While he was gone, Doctor Wilson drove up, and Don directed him to the patient on the upper floor.

“Here are the letters,” announced Fred, on his return. “I hope you’ll be able to get more out of them than I have.”

“Trust my uncle for that,” replied Don, as he slipped the letters into his pocket.

“I notice,” said Fred, with some hesitation, “that you speak only of your uncles. Have you had the same hard luck I have had in losing father and mother?”

A shadow of pain passed over Don’s face.

“Oh, pardon me!” cried Fred quickly. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked!”

“That’s all right,” returned Don. “To tell the truth, I don’t know whether my parents are alive or not. We know they were on the ship Mercury that went down off Cape Horn. We’ve never heard from them directly since. But a man in Algeria told us that he knew that a boatload of people from the Mercury had been rescued.”

“And were your people among them?” asked Fred breathlessly.

“That’s what we don’t know,” answered Don. “But we do know that a woman and a girl were in the boatload that was picked up, and we’re hoping that they may have been my mother and sister. Mr. Allison, the man I spoke of, got his information from a scientist and a sailor who were rescued. He didn’t know the sailor’s name, but he said the scientist was named Webb Reynard. The vessel that picked them up was bound for some port in Brazil. That’s all he knew.”

“But that’s a whole lot,” cried Fred. “Now at least you know where to look.”

“Yes,” said Don, “that’s the real reason I’m going to Brazil,” he added.

Just then Doctor Wilson came downstairs.

“How is Emily, Doctor?” asked Fred anxiously.

“There’s nothing to worry about, my boy,” replied the doctor, with a smile. “She isn’t suffering from anything but shock. She’s young and strong, and she’ll be all right in a day or two. Lucky you happened to be around,” he added, turning to Don, “or what we’d have needed here would have been an undertaker instead of a doctor.”

The doctor departed and Don himself arose to go.

“You’ll come again soon, won’t you?” implored Fred.

“Sure thing,” replied Don. “And I want you to meet my uncles, too. Just as soon as your sister is strong enough, I’ll bring our car over and take you to our house for dinner, your aunt, too, if she’d like to come along.”

“That’ll be dandy!” declared Fred. “We’ll be glad to come.”

On his way home Don took short cuts, as far as he could, for in his bedraggled condition he did not care to face curious glances. Not far from his own home, however, he had to turn into the main road.

As he did so, he saw an automobile coming along, with a man at the wheel whom he recognized as a discharged employee of Captain Sturdy’s. Don had never liked him, and was passing him with a nod, when the driver brought his car to a stop and looked at him with a contemptuous stare.

“You look like something that the cat dragged in,” he remarked.

His intention to be offensive was so evident that Don flared up.

“That’ll do for you, Claggett! You mind your own business.”

“Mighty uppity, ain’t you?” sneered Claggett. “Don’t give me any of your back talk or I’ll come down and give you a trimming.”

“It will be a mighty bad thing for you if you try it,” replied Don, his indignation the greater at the insult because it was so wanton and unprovoked.

Perhaps Claggett was privately of the same opinion, for he made no move to carry out his threat. Instead, he changed the subject.

“Tell that uncle of yours that I’m going to get even with him yet,” he said.

“Perhaps you’d better come and tell him that yourself,” replied Don. “The house is only a little way off.”

But a personal meeting with Captain Sturdy was the furthest thing possible from Claggett’s desire.

“Or better yet,” the latter said, “tell him that I’ve already got even with him. He doesn’t know it, but I have. And with you too, you runt of an orphan.”

He threw in the clutch and started off just as Don made a hasty move toward him. The lad watched the car for a moment and then resumed his journey homeward, puzzling over the meaning of Claggett’s parting taunt.

Dinner was ready, and he had to hurry to get himself into presentable clothes. His uncles looked at him quizzically and yet with pride in their eyes, as he took his place at table.

“So our knight errant has been busy rescuing a maiden in distress,” remarked the captain, as he carved the roast.

“How did you know?” asked Don.

“I’ve seen Thompson,” was the reply. “What he told me was plenty. He thinks you are—let’s see, what’s the phrase you youngsters use?—the bee’s knees, the clam’s overshoes, the eel’s raincoat, or something along that line.”

“I’m proud of you, my boy,” put in Professor Bruce. “It was a plucky thing to do.”

“I’m afraid Mr. Thompson made too much of it,” said Don, turning to his plate to hide his embarrassment. “It was a simple thing after all. But the thing I’m most interested in is that it helped me make the acquaintance of a lame boy, Fred Turner, the girl’s brother.”

“Turner!” repeated the professor. “I used to know a man of that name, a very bright, clever scientist, who lived somewhere in this vicinity, but I’ve been abroad so much that I’ve lost track of him.”

“He’s dead now,” said Don. “But likely enough he’s the man you used to know. Fred said his father was a scientist.”

“I’m sorry to hear he’s dead,” said the professor. “I hope he left his family in comfortable circumstances.”

“He thought he did,” returned Don. “It’s just that I want to talk with you about. He left a lot of shares in some company interested in rubber in Brazil, and also some in a drug company that, for all I know, may have some connection with the first. I haven’t got all the rights of it yet, but the thing in a nutshell seems to be that the shares are no good, or at least that the company says they’re no good. At any rate, the Turners have never realized a cent from them since their father died, and I think there’s a lot of crookedness about the whole thing.”

“It seems incredible that any concern should try to swindle orphans!” exclaimed the professor indignantly.

“Only seems,” said the captain dryly. “You know and I know, Amos, that the thing’s being done every day. There are plenty of sharks and wolves in every business.”

“I was wondering, Uncle Frank,” said Don, “whether you would look the matter up.”

“I’ll be glad to,” returned the captain. “If you can pull the girl out of the water,” he added, with a grin, “I don’t see why other members of your family can’t try to pull her out of a fix.”

“I was so sure that you would,” said Don, “that I got Fred Turner to get out the correspondence he’d been having with the company and brought it along with me.”

“Good!” exclaimed the captain. “Did you bring along the shares too?”

“I didn’t think about that,” confessed Don. “I guess I can get them if you need them.”

“They might make it easier to look the matter up,” was the reply. “But I’ll look the papers over as soon as I get through dinner. Do you remember what the name of the company was?”

“Fred didn’t say,” answered Don. “But he said that a man named Glassbury—Henry Glassbury, I think it was—seemed to be the head of the concern.”

“Glassbury,” repeated the captain. “I’ve heard the name as that of a man connected with large affairs. As far as I know he’s always maintained a good reputation. I’ve never heard of any charge of crookedness brought against him.”

“Of course that doesn’t mean anything necessarily,” put in the professor. “All men are straight until they begin to turn crooked.”

“To be sure,” admitted the captain. “All the same, a good reputation counts for a great deal. But I’ll make a careful investigation. I’m only sorry that I have so little time at my disposal before we start for Brazil.”

“That’s another thing I want to speak of,” said Don. “Just before Fred’s father died he was planning to go to Brazil to hunt for some drug that he thought would help cure Fred’s lameness. He’d heard of something down there that was reported to have worked some wonderful cures among the natives. But he died before he could carry out his plan.”

“Too bad,” remarked the professor. “What seems to be the trouble with Fred?”

“Infantile paralysis started it,” explained Don. “But other things came in later. He’s all right except in one leg. That seems to be partly paralyzed and it drags along behind him dreadfully. I can’t tell you how sorry I felt for him. He’s such a fine fellow, too.”

The professor was lost for a time in meditation.

“I’ve heard of that remarkable remedy,” he said, at last. “A paper was read before one of the societies I’m connected with by a scientist who had just returned from Brazil. Among other things he spoke of this drug derived from the bark of a rare tree, which he said had been instrumental in effecting some marvelous cures in just the kind of trouble this young friend of yours seems to have.”

“I promised Fred that you’d hunt that up while you were down in Brazil,” ventured Don.

“Seems to me you’ve been promising the services of your family right and left,” observed the professor, smiling. “But I regard that as a compliment to us. You can be sure that I’ll do all I can. It will be right along the line of the work that I’m going to Brazil to do.”

“Bully!” cried Don. “How delighted Fred will be when I tell him that!”