Bob Chester's Grit; Or, From Ranch to Riches

o more trouble, Bob restrained his impulse to break into a run, and endeavored to walk as unconcernedly as possible. But it

, not long did it take him to mi

might not have been some sleep delusion. But the pain of the sharp nip he gave himself satisfied him that he was indeed awake, and fu

store, when he suddenly remembered that the basket full of groceries,

ss, he was aware, yet he dared not go for them in the f

d take the double blow of the loss of the groceries and his arrest, he did not know, but past experience told him that he could expect no sympathy, and perhaps a beating, and he was sorely tempted not to return at all, but to strike out for

appeared from his private office, his shrewd face suffused by the ingratiating smirk he always put on when going to meet a prospective custome

d-I mean, I heard that you had been arrested, and I didn't expect to see you again for some time; that i

interrupted him when he was engaged at some unusual task. But how to meet the situation, Bob did not know, and he was vainly st

ket? Did you leave it with the grocer

It was the straw that broke his endurance of the long te

he basket at the police station when they took me to court, and after th

d and leave me here alone for almost four hours, without any one to deliver goods, and my customers all complaining because they don't get their orders. And as though that weren't enough, you deliberately abandon three dollars' wor

y magistrate had given him and pay for the groceries then and there.

e thought which had occurred

lging packages resting on the counter, "and deliver them. On your way back, as you will pass the police station, you can st

put his idea into action, it was this comm

I am going to leave you. I won't work for you another minute," and without giving his amazed guardian time t

dreamed-of life on a ranch. He would not be bothered with the packing of any clothes, for his guardian had never allowed him any extra clothing, and he had nothing but the suit upon

feverish haste to lift the board, and so excited was he that it seemed as though he could never raise it. But at last he

ean by saying you won't deliver my

eyes flashing defiance, one hand tightly doubled up, the other

won't be treated as you h

nt of his ward, Mr. Dardus stood staring at him

to travel, and you haven't a cent. And yet you're going West! That is a good one. Do you think the trains will carry you for nothing, just fo

his ward soon drove al

eft me. When I get settled out there, I will let you know, and you can send me the rest

ld man recovered his

father did me a favor once, and so I thought I could repay it by taking you-that you would have been sent to an orphan asylum? And this is the return I get. Here I've spent m

my father wrote, saying that I was to open it when I was ten years old, in w

his face to become more than usually ashen-hued. "I've a mind to thrash you for saying suc

rom his pocket, disclosing to the uneasy gaze of his guardian an envelope yellow with age, worn and soiled from much

and then his shrewd mind, suggesting a way out of the embarras

as while laboring under the delusion that he had money, that he wrote you of this phantom bequest. Poor Horace! The sight of his writing moves me

h a stigma upon the name of the boy's dead father, Bob might have believed him, but he had been watching his guardian

possession of the letter had failed, Len Dardus rushed upon the b

h? Well, I will take it, wh

no task at all for him to dive under the arm stretched forth to se