CHAPTER VII

OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES

The girl had lived so long among "grown-ups" that she usually considered matters deserving thought at all with more seriousness than most children. This trouble Teddy Ford was in was no light matter. Nor was Mr. Harvey Langdon's side of the question something that could easily be put aside or ignored.

The boy had been hurt to the quick by the ranchman's angry harshness. The ranchman (as he believed) had very good reason for being harsh with Teddy. There the matter stood. Oriole was very, very uncertain.

"Won't you wait and see Mr. Langdon when he comes for the twins, Teddy?" Oriole finally pleaded. She did not know that the ranchman had already been to the island and had taken Myron and Marian back to Littleport on the iceboat.

"Me see Harvey Langdon?" gasped Ted. "Gee! No!"

"But I _know_ he will do something for you."

"I don't want him to do anything for me," said the boy independently. "Only just one thing. And he won't do that."

"Yes?"

"I want him to say he don't believe I stole that silver," growled Teddy.

"But how can you ever make him see that he--he made a mistake, if you have run away from the ranch country. You don't give Mr. Langdon a chance," said Oriole.

"A chance to chase me off his ranch again?"

"Don't you see, if you remained out there, something might turn up to give you--you a clew. You know what I mean? Of course, _some_body stole that chest of silver."

"You bet they did. And got away with it slick, too. Nobody but me and Ching Foo about the ranch house--and I know I didn't see a soul."

"Is--is Mr. Ching Foo a Chinaman?"

"Yes. Cook, I tell you. Oh! _he_ is not to be suspected. Ching Foo has been at the ranch for twenty years--and sent home long ago for his coffin and has it stored away in his bedroom."

"Goodness, Teddy Ford! what are you saying?" cried Oriole.

"That's right," said the boy. "Ching Foo is an old-fashioned Chinaman, and no American-made coffin would do for him. He showed it to me. All lacquer-work and dragons and fancy doo-dads on it. He will be put in that when he dies and be shipped back to Canton to sleep with his fathers. Mr. Langdon has promised him that it shall be done just as he says. Otherwise he would go back to China himself and die there, for he has plenty of money saved up."

"Dear me!" said Oriole in a worried tone, "I think that is too, too dreadful. Are all Chinamen like Mr. Ching Foo?"

"You got me there, Oriole," said the boy. "He's not a half bad old chap. And he said something funny to me when I was coming away from the Langdon Ranch. I ain't forgot it."

"What do you mean--funny?" asked the interested girl.

"Why, it sounded as though he might know--or suspect--more about who was the real thief than he let on. The Chinese are awfully closemouthed. He only said to Harvey Langdon: 'Me no catchee pidgin; him no my pidgin.'"

"Goodness me!" ejaculated Oriole. "I thought you said it was silver that was stolen, not pigeons."

"It was silver plate," chuckled Ted Ford. "But Ching Foo talks what they call pidgin English sometimes. He is a Canton Chinaman, and he can't say business. Pidgin is the nearest he can come to saying business. You see, he meant to tell Langdon it wasn't any of his business, and he shouldn't ask him about the lost silver."

"Oh!"

"It looked to me as though the old man was scared to tell everything he knew. I went after him alone in the kitchen, and asked him if he didn't suspect who stole the plate? He said:

"'Plenty bad mans here. Melican boy get away; mebbe get hurt.' And then he added the thing that afterward set me thinking. It was: 'Three topside bad men--alli same talkee-talkee. Melican boy look out!'"

Oriole still looked at the boy curiously.

"You see," said Teddy, his voice lowered, "afterward I remembered that Ridley, Shaffer and Tom Mudd were always roosting around on the fences when they weren't working, and talking together out of the corners of their mouths. Three tough fellows, they were, and don't you forget it. They had only just come to the ranch and, although they were good punchers, some of the boys said they were bad eggs."

"Why didn't you tell Mr. Langdon about them?"

"You can't talk to Harvey Langdon when he's mad and his mind is made up. And, besides, I never thought much about what Ching Foo said till I was half way across the continent on the cattle train."

"I think that is too bad," said Oriole soberly. "But I wish you would stay and talk with Mr. Langdon, Teddy Ford."

"Not me!" cried the boy emphatically.

"Then I wish you would go back home and see if you can't find those three bad men. It must be that they have made some use of the silver."

"Melted it up. Sell it for silver bullion at one of the mining towns. That would be their game."

"That is terrible! But if you could _prove_ that they did just that?"

"It wouldn't prove they were the robbers," grumbled the boy, shaking his head.

"But it would _look_ so. Mr. Langdon would believe you were innocent, then, I am sure."

"Not much he wouldn't. You have to show Harvey Langdon. You can't tell him. And anyway he would not listen to me."

"But he will listen to me," said Oriole firmly. "And I mean to tell him all about you--what you say and what you did in saving us from the water. You go back to Montana and fight this, Teddy Ford--that's what _you_ do," said the girl earnestly.

"G-g-g--I mean, do you want me to?" he gasped.

"That is the way to do. Stay right there until you have proved your innocence."

"Well, I can work back that way. I know how," said Teddy, doubtfully. "Do you think that is the right thing to do?"

"So I believe," Oriole confidently responded.

"I imagine you know more about what's right than I do," said Teddy Ford soberly. "If you say so----"

"I do say so. And I will tell Mr. Langdon. He will meet you differently out there I am sure. He might just want to give you money here in the East and thank you for saving Marian and helping Myron and me. But if you go right to him at home and tell him you want to clear up that awful mystery I am sure he will think you really _are_ honest."

And in her shrewd mind Oriole meant to talk to Mr. Langdon in such a way that he would be sure to meet Teddy Ford in just this way! The boy was impressed by her words. He nodded his head thoughtfully.

"That sounds right, Oriole. I guess you are giving me the 'real steer,' as the punchers say. I'm going to do it. I got a chance to go on a boat around to Boston, and I must start now. Good-by. You'll hear from me some time--though I ain't much on writing letters."

"Oh, Teddy, be _sure_ to write to me!" Oriole cried, almost in tears as the boy pushed past her to open the door.

"You bet I will. Good-by!"

He turned back and squeezed her hand, blushing furiously as he did so. Then he ran out of the house. Oriole watched from the window but could see nothing of him after he crossed the porch and started down the path to the cove, it was so dark. Then she sighed.

"I do think other people have so very many troubles," she said, and she took this thought back to bed with her.

In the morning she certainly was surprised to learn that the twins as well as Teddy Ford had gone away in the night. Mr. Langdon had been right here at the island without seeing the boy from the West. Oriole was much disappointed.

But she made up her mind, nevertheless, to talk to Mr. Langdon about that lost chest of silver. It was impossible for her to believe that Teddy Ford was in any measure guilty of the robbery.

She hurried home, dragging the sled with her, and arrived at Mrs. Joy's before noon, finding that the widow and Lyddy Ann had been informed of Oriole's safety by Mr. Langdon after his return from the island the night before.

"I do think that bay is no place for you, Oriole," Mrs. Joy said. "It is too dangerous for anybody to risk themselves upon it. Now you must wait for open weather before you go to the island again."

"Tell you what," Lyddy Ann told the girl, "you might's well wait for one of these flying-machines to take you. 'Tis safer, I do allow. That Anson Cope ought to be lashed to the mast for ever running you down that way with his iceboat. You wait till I give him a piece of my mind!"

As Lyddy Ann was forever threatening to give people "a piece of her mind," Oriole wondered that she had any mind left at all. But of course she did not say just that.

Her own mind, in fact, was quite occupied with the trouble of Teddy Ford and how she should broach the subject to Mr. Langdon. She had told Uncle Nat all about her interview with the youth and what he had said and what she had advised him to do.

"You got the right idea, Oriole," the old lightkeeper declared. "Let the boy go back there to that ranch and prove his innocence. He can do it if he goes about it right. And I believe Mr. Harvey Langdon is a kind man at heart. You put a flea in _his_ ear."

So Oriole started over to the hotel after the noon dinner to do just this. She knew the twins were all right, for Mr. Langdon had sent her word. Neither Myron nor Marian seemed a whit the worse for the plunge into the icy harbor.

"You are a mighty brave girl, my dear," said Harvey Langdon, warmly. "I know that few girls of your age could have kept their heads and saved the children."

"Oh, Mr. Langdon! I didn't save Myron and Marian. At least, little Marian would have been drowned had it not been for somebody else."

"I did hear from Anson Cope that somebody aided you."

"Why! he _saved_ us. That's what Teddy Ford did. He jumped right in----"

"Who did you say?" broke in Harvey Langdon, with a queer look on his bronzed face. "What is his name?"

"Ted--Teddy Ford," stammered Oriole.

"Indeed! A boy?"

"Yes, sir. He is a boy. And he jumped right into the water and brought poor little Marian up from under the loose ice. Then he helped me with Myron, and finally he got me out and the sled too. Oh, he is a wonderful boy, Mr. Langdon!"

"He is, is he? And his name is Ford?"

"Yes, sir," hesitated Oriole. "You owe the twins' lives to him, and that's a fact."

"I do, do I?"

The ranchman continued to look so "funny," as Oriole expressed it in her thoughts, that she could scarcely tell the details of the rescue as she had intended to. But she managed to make a considerable impression on the man's mind--and, she hoped, in Teddy's favor.

"So that's how it was, eh?" commented Langdon. "And you think that this boy is more to be commended than you are?"

"Oh, yes, sir! For he really saved us."

"Where is he now?"

"He's--he's run away."

"You don't mean it?"

"Yes, Mr. Langdon," said Oriole sorrowfully. "He is afraid of you."

"He is, is he? Humph! And maybe that is so. He is the Teddy Ford who used to work for me, I suppose?"

"He says he worked on your ranch. And--and he ran away----"

"Because he stole."

"Oh, no, sir! He never! Why, think of it! He has no money and is just knocking about working for his living. If he had got that silverware of yours don't you suppose he would be _rich_?"

"Ha! He told you about it, did he?" asked the ranchman sternly.

"Oh, yes, sir. All about it. And he doesn't know a thing about the robbery, Mr. Langdon. 'Deed and he don't."

"He would not admit it of course. And I don't suppose he did the whole thing himself. Whoever he was in with cheated him out of his share of the loot of course--he being only a boy. I am afraid Teddy's a bad egg."

"Just the same he saved Marian's life," Oriole declared with some sharpness.

"That is right. I owe him a good deal for what he has done. We won't say anything more about that silver--although it was very valuable and had been handed down in our family for several generations. Brought from England by the first Langdons.

"Well, when you see Ted again you tell him not to be afraid of me. All that is wiped off the slate for what he did yesterday, and I stand willing to help him all I can. He is nothing but a boy after all."

The ranchman's bluff heartiness pleased Oriole. Yet she felt that it would be just because he was grateful to Teddy Ford if he helped the boy--provided the latter would give the ranchman the chance. Langdon still believed Teddy guilty of complicity in the robbery at the ranch.

She could say nothing more about it. She knew that it was not in her province to criticize the ranchman or to try to convert him from his opinion. Time--and Teddy Ford's own efforts--must change the man's opinions.

Mr. Langdon gave every evidence of being fond of her, and on this very day he broached a subject that delighted Oriole. She was very fond of the twins, and Mr. Langdon had told her so much about his ranch and the Montana country that in her heart there had begun to bud a desire to see the far-distant plains and mountains.

"I don't see why you shouldn't come out there and see the twins and me next summer," the ranchman said. "It would please Myron and Marian, I am sure. I am going to start back very soon with the children and their nurse. Sadie Brown can travel now, and she wants to go home. I'll have to run up to Maine for a day or two with the children so that their grandparents may see the twins, now that we are in the East. But of course we can't have a visit there now, too much time has gone by and we must start home as soon as possible. Yes, we must see you out on the ranch."

"Oh! I'd love to come to see you," cried Oriole.

"Then I guess I can fix it with Mrs. Joy--and Nat Jardin."

"But when my dear mother and father come----"

"We'll hear about it at once by telegraph," Langdon assured her. "I will make some special inquiries myself, anyway, Oriole, before I leave for the West. Perhaps we can get some line on what part of the world they are now in."

"Oh, wouldn't that be glorious!" gasped Oriole, clasping her hands. "I've been studying my geography. Perhaps, if that ship took them 'way round the world, they may land at San Francisco. Montana would be much nearer to them then than Littleport."

"Quite so, my dear," agreed the ranchman.

And so plans were begun for Oriole Putnam's wonderful trip to the cattle country in which, quite unsuspected by the girl, she was to have many quite wonderful adventures.