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PIONEER BOYS OF THE GOLD FIELDS

MARK AND HIS DIFFICULTIES

"I wonder if this report can be true, Carl?"

"What report, Mark?"

"This report in the newspapers that great nuggets of gold are to be found in California," replied Mark Radley. He pointed to the sheet he had been perusing. "Here is an account of a miner picking up ten thousand dollars' worth of nuggets in two days, and another account of a gold hunter washing out six thousand dollars' worth of dust in a week. I declare it's enough to make a fellow's mouth water just to think about it!"

"Beats working in a musty law office all to bits, eh?" was Carl Felmore's remark, and he uttered a short laugh. "I'll wager the reports are false, Mark," he added. "Why, if there was so much gold in California the Spaniards out there would have gotten it long before Uncle Sam took possession of the country."

"Here are names and dates," answered Mark, with a serious shake of his head. "If the reports are false, I don't see how they got those."

"Even if the reports are true, I don't think I'd care to go away out to California for the gold," resumed Carl, who was a bit of a coward. "Why, it's three thousand miles from Philadelphia, and you'd have to either go out on horseback most of the way, or take a steamer or a sailboat to the Isthmus of Panama and then up the gold coast, or else go clear around Cape Horn! You don't catch me making such a trip as that!"

"Never mind taking a trip to the moon, young man!" broke in a harsh voice at Mark's back. "Just get to work and leave California alone. Have you finished that copying I gave you yesterday?"

"Not yet, Mr. Powers," answered Mark. "But I'll have it done in half an hour."

"Good-by, Mark," came from Carl Felmore, and he slipped out of the office without another word.

"I don't want that Felmore boy hanging around here," cried Jadell Powers, wrathfully. "After this he must keep away."

"He brought over some legal papers for Cross & Barwick," answered Mark, quietly. He saw that his step-father was not in an agreeable frame of mind.

"Oh! Well, he needn't hang around, even so," grumbled Jadell Powers, but in a more subdued tone of voice. "Hurry up with those papers. I must get to court by ten o'clock and it's now half-past nine."

"I'll hurry all I can," answered Mark.

"You were out late last night," went on the lawyer, after a moment of silence.

"Only until ten o'clock. I went to a concert given by the college boys."

"Humph! A fine way to waste your money."

"It was my own money," answered Mark, with spirit.

"Nevertheless, you had no need to throw it away, young man. But don't talk now--get through with those papers," and the lawyer turned away, and departed for a nearby court.

Mark Radley was a lad of sixteen, tall, broad-shouldered, and rather good-looking, with brown eyes and curly brown hair. He was an orphan, his father having died when he was but five years old and his mother departing this life when the boy was fourteen. Mark had had two sisters, but both had died when quite young.

When Mark was ten years of age, Mrs. Radley had met and married Jadell Powers, a man ten years her senior, and known in Philadelphia as a fairly successful lawyer. Powers was a widower, having one son, who had run away from home when out of grammar school. Those who had dealings with him knew him to be very irritable and a good deal of a miser, but Mrs. Radley knew nothing of his shortcomings until they were married several months. Then her eyes were opened, and for four years--up to the day of her death--she suffered much, but always in silence.

Almost from the start, Mark could not get along with his step-father, and boy and man had more than one open quarrel and on three different occasions the youth was on the point of running away, but the presence of his mother deterred him.

"You must toe the mark after this, young man," said the lawyer, after matters had been adjusted. Then he took Mark out of high school and made the boy enter his law office, although Mark did not take to a legal calling in the slightest degree.

"I wish I had hold of my money, I'd travel a bit before settling down," Mark told his friend Carl. But Mark got hold of very little cash, and so had to stick at the office grind, week in and week out, winter and summer. Once in a great while he slipped away--to play ball or go fishing--but this always brought on a good scolding from his step-father.

"Boys nowadays want to play, they don't want to work," grumbled Jadell Powers. And then he would give Mark copying and other work to do that would keep the lad busy until nine or ten o'clock at night.

Two days before the opening of this story the boy and his step-father had had some hot words concerning several legal documents which Mark had copied. Mr. Powers had given directions to have them transcribed in a certain way. Mark had followed directions, and then the lawyer said that was not the way at all. In his rage Jadell Powers had threatened to thrash Mark and had taken up a book to throw at the boy's head. But Mark had stood his ground.

"You hit me and I'll hit you!" he cried, pale with resentment, and the look in Mark's eye made the lawyer drop the volume on his desk. There the quarrel rested, but it was not settled by any means.

Mark was so busy copying the papers which had been given to him that he had no time to think of his troubles, but once his step-father was gone a look of disgust crossed the boy's face.

"I'm just about as sick of this as a fellow can be!" he murmured, as he walked across the office, to gaze out of the window to the street below. "It's getting worse and worse every day! I really can't see how I'm going to stand it much longer! I wish I was a thousand miles from here!"

The office was a small affair, fronting on one of the main streets of Philadelphia. Next to it was another apartment, in which were located Mr. Powers' private desk and his safe--the latter an old-fashioned affair and scarcely fireproof.

As Mark gazed out of the window he saw a commotion in the street--coming from a restaurant on the corner. Then the cry of fire was raised, and soon a crowd gathered, while a dozen people ran from the burning building.

"A fire! I must see it!" cried the lad. He was dying for a little excitement, and rushed out of the office, slamming the door after him. He hurried downstairs and outside, and soon joined the crowd in the street.

In those days--it was but the year 1848--fire engines were not what they are to-day, and it took some time for them to reach the locality of the conflagration. But fortunately, the fire did not amount to much, and in half an hour it was out and the crowd dispersed as rapidly as it had gathered.

"Phew! I'll have to get back to the office--somebody may come in on business!" Mark told himself, and he ran back to the building with all speed. As he hurried up the stairs, he met a man coming down--a tall, slim individual, with a clean-shaven face.

"Excuse me, were you looking for Mr. Powers?" asked the boy. He had never seen the man before.

"No," was the quick answer. "I got into the wrong building. I was looking for No. 324," and without saying more the stranger descended quickly to the lower hall and disappeared into the street.

"He is certainly in a hurry," thought Mark, and soon reached the door to the office--to find it standing wide open. "Humph! I thought I shut this," he added, as he entered.

Everything seemed to be as he had left it, and having taken a look around, he began some more copying, keeping this up until half-past twelve, when his step-father returned and allowed him to go to dinner.

"I want you to copy these papers this afternoon, Mark," said Jadell Powers, when the boy returned. "Mind, I want the work done nicely, and don't leave it until it is all finished."

Mark took the papers and looked them over. There were many pages of fine writing.

"I can't get these done to-day!" he cried.

"Yes, you can!"

"I want no back talk, young man!" stormed Jadell Powers. "You'll have those done by to-night. If not, I'll have an account to settle with you!" And he shook his fist at the boy.

Mark's temper was none of the best and his face reddened. Then, seized by a mood he could not control, he dashed the legal documents to the floor.

"I won't copy your old papers!" he cried. "You can copy them yourself!"

"What's that?" screamed Jadell Powers, and of a sudden he made a leap for Mark. But the youth was too quick for him. Catching up his cap, he ran for the door, banging the barrier in his step-father's face. Then he leaped down the stairs, three steps at a time, and reaching the street, hurried up the block and around a corner as fast as his legs could carry him.

NEWS FROM CALIFORNIA

"Well, I wonder what I am to do next?"

It was Mark who asked himself that question. He was sitting in one of the public parks of the city. He had walked rapidly for the best part of an hour and was almost exhausted.

"I'll bet Mr. Powers is as mad as sixteen hornets," he mused. "He will want to skin me alive--if he catches me. But he isn't going to catch me just yet. I'd rather run away than fall into his clutches! How he did glare at me when I threw down those documents! I rather guess I'd best not go back."

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