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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31524-8.txt b/31524-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fcab82 --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15570 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Price of the Prairie, by Margaret Hill +McCarter, Illustrated by J. N. Marchand + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Price of the Prairie + A Story of Kansas + + +Author: Margaret Hill McCarter + + + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [eBook #31524] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE*** + + +E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.fadedpage.com) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 28711-h.htm or 28711-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h/28711-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h.zip) + + + + + +THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE + +"AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT" + + +[Illustration: "Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May +here in April!"] + + +THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE + +A Story Of Kansas + +by + +MARGARET HILL McCARTER + +Author of "The Cottonwood's Story," "Cuddy's Baby," Etc. + +With Five Illustrations in Color by J. N. Marchand + +Fifteenth Edition + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +Chicago +A. C. McClurg & Co. +1912 + +Copyright +A. C. McClurg & Co. +1910 + +Published October 8, 1910 +Second Edition, October 29, 1910 +Third Edition, November 16, 1910 +Fourth Edition, December 3, 1910 +Fifth Edition, December 10, 1910 +Sixth Edition, December 17, 1910 +Seventh Edition, January 25, 1911 +Eighth Edition, February 25, 1911 +Ninth Edition, April 5, 1911 +Tenth Edition, May 3, 1911 +Eleventh Edition, September 23, 1911 +Twelfth Edition, December 9, 1911 +Thirteenth Edition, February 17, 1912 +Fourteenth Edition, August 10, 1912 +Fifteenth Edition, December 28, 1912 + +Copyrighted in Great Britain + +Press of the Vail Company +Coshocton, U. S. A. + + + + +This little love story of the prairies is dedicated to all who believe +that the defence of the helpless is heroism; that the protection of the +home is splendid achievement; and, that the storm, and stress, and +patient endurance of the day will bring us at last to the peace of the +purple twilight. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Chapter Page + + PROEM ix + + I Springvale by the Neosho 13 + + II Jean Pahusca 25 + + III The Hermit's Cave 32 + + IV In the Prairie Twilight 43 + + V A Good Indian 56 + + VI When the Heart Beats Young 73 + + VII The Foreshadowing of Peril 85 + + VIII The Cost of Safety 99 + + IX The Search for the Missing 114 + + X O'Mie's Choice 132 + + XI Golden Days 150 + + XII A Man's Estate 166 + + XIII The Topeka Rally 184 + + XIV Deepening Gloom 200 + + XV Rockport and "Rockport" 217 + + XVI Beginning Again 242 + + XVII In the Valley of the Arickaree 261 + + XVIII The Sunlight on Old Glory 277 + + XIX A Man's Business 292 + + XX The Cleft in the Rock 317 + + XXI The Call to Service 334 + + XXII The Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry 354 + + XXIII In Jean's Land 370 + + XXIV The Cry of Womanhood 390 + + XXV Judson Summoned 403 + + XXVI O'Mie's Inheritance 420 + + XXVII Sunset by the Sweetwater 442 + + XXVIII The Heritage 464 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + Page + + "Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen + of May here in April!" _Frontispiece_ + + "Baronet, I think we are marching straight 158 + into Hell's jaws" + + Every movement of ours had been watched by 244 + Indian scouts + + Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, 288 + men, all dashed toward the place + + They came slowly toward us, the two captive 394 + women for whom we waited + + + + +PROEM + +"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her" + + +I can hear it always--the Call of the Prairie. The passing of sixty +Winters has left me a vigorous man, although my hair is as white as the +January snowdrift in the draws, and the strenuous events of some of the +years have put a tax on my strength. I shall always limp a little in my +right foot--that was left out on the plains one freezing night with +nothing under it but the earth, and nothing over it but the sky. Still, +considering that although the sixty years were spent mainly in that +pioneer time when every day in Kansas was its busy day, I am not even +beginning to feel old. Neither am I sentimental and inclined to poetry. +Life has given me mostly her prose selections for my study. + +But this love of the Prairie is a part of my being. All the comedy and +tragedy of these sixty years have had them for a setting, and I can no +more put them out of my life than the Scotchman can forget the heather, +or the Swiss emigrant in the flat green lowland can forget the icy +passes of the glacier-polished Alps. Geography is an element of every +man's life. The prairies are in the red corpuscles of my blood. Up and +down their rippling billows my memory runs. For always I see +them,--green and blossom-starred in the Springtime; or drenched with the +driving summer deluge that made each draw a brimming torrent; or golden, +purple, and silver-rimmed in the glorious Autumn. I have seen them gray +in the twilight, still and tenderly verdant at noonday, and cold and +frost-wreathed under the white star-beams. I have seen them yield up +their rich yellow sheaves of grain, and I have looked upon their dreary +wastes marked with the dull black of cold human blood. Plain practical +man of affairs that I am, I come back to the blessed prairies for my +inspiration as the tartan warmed up the heart of Argyle. + + + + +THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPRINGVALE BY THE NEOSHO + + Sweeter to me than the salt sea spray, the fragrance of summer rains; + Nearer my heart than the mighty hills are the wind-swept Kansas plains. + Dearer the sight of a shy wild rose by the road-side's dusty way, + Than all the splendor of poppy-fields ablaze in the sun of May. + Gay as the bold poinsettia is, and the burden of pepper trees, + The sunflower, tawny and gold and brown, is richer to me than these; + And rising ever above the song of the hoarse, insistent sea, + The voice of the prairie calling, calling me. + + --ESTHER M. CLARKE. + + +Whenever I think of these broad Kansas plains I think also of Marjie. I +cannot now remember the time when I did not care for her, but the day +when O'mie first found it out is as clear to me as yesterday, although +that was more than forty years ago. O'mie was the reddest-haired, +best-hearted boy that ever laughed in the face of Fortune and made +friends with Fate against the hardest odds. His real name was O'Meara, +Thomas O'Meara, but we forgot that years ago. + +"If O'mie were set down in the middle of the Sahara Desert," my Aunt +Candace used to say, "there'd be an oasis a mile across by the next day +noon, with never failing water and green trees right in the middle of +it, and O'mie sitting under them drinking the water like it was Irish +rum." + +O'mie would always grin at this saying and reply that, "by the nixt day +noon follerin' that, the rascally gover'mint at Washin'ton would come +along an' kick him out into the rid san', claimin' that that particular +oasis was an Injun riservation, specially craayted by Providence fur the +dirthy Osages,--the bastes!" + +O'mie hated the Indians, but he was a friend to all the rest of mankind. +Indeed if it had not been for him I should not have had that limp in my +right foot, for both of my feet would have been mouldering these many +years under the curly mesquite of the Southwest plains. But that comes +later. + +We were all out on the prairie hunting for our cows that evening--the +one when O'mie guessed my secret. Marjie's pony was heading straight to +the west, flying over the ground. The big red sun was slipping down a +flame-wreathed sky, touching with fire the ragged pennons of a +blue-black storm cloud hanging sullenly to the northward, and making an +indescribable splendor in the far southwest. + +Riding hard after Marjie, coming at an angle from the bluff above the +draw, was an Osage Indian, huge as a giant, and frenzied with whiskey. I +must have turned a white despairing face toward my comrades, and I was +glad afterward that I was against the background of that flaming sunset +so that my features were in the shadow. It was then that O'mie, who was +nearest me, looking steadily in my eyes said in a low voice: + +"Bedad, Phil! so that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to kill +that Injun jist fur grandeur." + +I knew O'mie for many years, and I never saw him show a quiver of fear, +not even in those long weary days when, white and hollow-cheeked, he +waited for his last enemy, Death,--whom he vanquished, looking up into +my face with eyes of inexpressible peace, and murmuring softly, + +"Safe in the arms of Jasus." + +Old men are prone to ramble in their stories, and I am not old. To prove +that, I must not jiggle with these heads and tails of Time, but I must +begin earlier and follow down these eventful years as if I were a real +novel-writer with consecutive chapters to set down. + +Springvale by the Neosho was a favorite point for early settlers. It +nestled under the sheltered bluff on the west. There were never-failing +springs in the rocky outcrop. A magnificent grove of huge oak trees, +most rare in the plains country, lined the river's banks and covered the +fertile lowlands. It made a landmark of the spot, this beautiful natural +forest, and gave it a place on the map as a meeting-ground for the wild +tribes long before the days of civilized occupation. The height above +the valley commands all that wide prairie that ripples in treeless +fertility from as far as even an Indian can see until it breaks off with +that cliff that walls the Neosho bottom lands up and down for many a +mile. To the southwest the open black lowlands along Fingal's Creek +beckoned as temptingly to the settler as did the Neosho Valley itself. +The divide between the two, the river and its tributary, coming down +from the northwest makes a high promontory. Its eastern side is the +rocky ledge of the bluff. On the west it slopes off to the fertile draws +of Fingal's Creek, and the sunset prairies that swell up and away +beyond them. + +Just where the little stream joins the bigger one Springvale took root +and flourished amazingly. It was an Indian village site and +trading-point since tradition can remember. The old tepee rings show +still up in the prairie cornfield where even the plough, that great +weapon of civilization and obliteration, has not quite made a dead level +of the landmarks of the past. I've bumped across those rings many a time +in the days when we went from Springvale up to the Red Range schoolhouse +in the broken country where Fingal's Creek has its source. It was the +hollow beyond the tepee ring that caused his pony to stumble that night +when Jean Pahusca, the big Osage, was riding like fury between me and +that blood-red sky. + +The early Indians always built on the uplands although the valleys ran +close beneath them. They had only arrows and speed to protect them from +their foes. It was not until they had the white man's firearms that they +dared to make their homes in the lowlands. Black Kettle in the sheltered +Washita Valley might never have fallen before General Custer had the +Cheyennes kept to the high places after the custom of their fathers. But +the early white settlers had firearms and skill in building +block-houses, so they took to the valleys near wood and water. + +On the day that Kansas became a Territory, my father, John Baronet, with +all his household effects started from Rockport, Massachusetts, to begin +life anew in the wild unknown West. He was not a poor man, heaven bless +his memory! He never knew want except the pinch of pioneer life when +money is of no avail because the necessities are out of reach. In the +East he had been a successful lawyer and his success followed him. They +will tell you in Springvale to-day that "if Judge Baronet were alive and +on the bench things would go vastly better," and much more to like +effect. + +My mother was young and beautiful, and to her the world was full of +beauty. Especially did she love the sea. All her life was spent beside +it, and it was ever her delight. It must have been from her that my own +love of nature came as a heritage to me, giving me capacity to take and +keep those prairie scenes of idyllic beauty that fill my memory now. + +In the Summer of 1853 my father's maiden sister Candace had come to live +with us. Candace Baronet was the living refutation of all the unkind +criticism ever heaped upon old maids. She was a strong, comely, +unselfish woman who lived where the best thoughts grow. + +One day in late October, a sudden squall drove landward, capsizing the +dory in which my mother was returning from a visit to old friends on an +island off the Rockport coast. She was in sight of home when that +furious gust of wind and rain swept across her path. The next morning +the little waves rippled musically against the beach whither they had +borne my dead mother and left her without one mark of cruel usage. +Neither was there any sign of terror on her face, white and peaceful +under her damp dark hair. + +I know now that my father and his sister tried hard to suppress their +sorrow for my sake, but the curtains on the seaward side of the house +were always lowered now and my father's face looked more and more to the +westward. The sea became an unbearable thing to him. Yet he was a brave, +unselfish man and in all the years following that one Winter he lived +cheerfully and nobly--a sunshiny life. + +In the early Spring he gave up his law practice in Rockport. + +"The place for me is on the frontier," he said to my Aunt Candace one +day. "I'm sick of the sight of that water. I want to try the prairies +and I want to be in the struggle that is beginning beyond the Missouri. +I want to do one man's part in the making of the West." + +Aunt Candace looked steadily into her brother's face. + +"I am sick of the sea, too, John," she said. "Will the prairies be +kinder to us, I wonder." + +I did not know till long afterward, when the Kansas blue-grass had +covered both their graves, that the blue Atlantic had in its keeping the +form of the one love of my aunt's life. Rich am I, Philip Baronet, to +have had such a father and such a mother-hearted aunt. They made life +full and happy for me with never from that day any doleful grieving over +the portion Providence had given them. And the blessed prairie did bring +them peace. Its spell was like a benediction on their lives who lived to +bless many lives. + +It was late June when our covered wagon and tired ox-team stopped on the +east bluff above the Neosho just outside of Springvale. The sun was +dropping behind the prairie far across the river valley when another +wagon and ox-team with pioneers like ourselves joined us. They were +Irving Whately and his wife and little daughter, Marjory. I was only +seven and I have forgotten many things of these later years, but I'll +never forget Marjie as I first saw her. She was stiff from long sitting +in the big covered wagon, and she stretched her pudgy little legs to get +the cramp out of them, as she took in the scene. Her pink sun-bonnet had +fallen back and she was holding it by both strings in one hand. Her +rough brown hair was all in little blowsy ringlets round her face and +the two braids hanging in front of her shoulders ended each in a big +blowsy curl. Her eyes were as brown as her hair. But what I noted then +and many a time afterward was the exceeding whiteness of her face. From +St. Louis I had seen nothing but dark-skinned Mexicans, tanned +Missourians, and Indian, Creole, and French Canadian, all coppery or +bronze brown, in this land of glaring sunshine. Marjie made me think of +Rockport and the pink-cheeked children of the country lanes about the +town. But most of all she called my mother back, white and beautiful as +she looked in her last peaceful sleep, the day the sea gave her to us +again. "Star Face," Jean Pahusca used to call Marjie, for even in the +Kansas heat and browning winds she never lost the pink tint no miniature +painting on ivory could exaggerate. + +We stood looking at one another in the purple twilight. + +"What's your name?" + +"Marjory Whately. What's yours?" + +"Phil Baronet, and I'm seven years old." This, a shade boastingly. + +"I'm six," Marjory said. "Are you afraid of Indians?" + +"No," I declared. "I won't let the Indians hurt you. Let's run a race," +pointing toward where the Neosho lay glistening in the last light of +day, a gap in the bluff letting the reflection from great golden clouds +illumine its wave-crumpled surface. + +We took hold of hands and started down the long slope together, but our +parents called us back. "Playmates already," I heard them saying. + +In the gathering evening shadows we all lumbered down the slope to the +rock-bottomed ford and up into the little hamlet of Springvale. + +That night when I said my prayers to Aunt Candace I cried softly on her +shoulder. "Marjie makes me homesick," I sobbed, and Aunt Candace +understood then and always afterward. + +The very air about Springvale was full of tradition. The town had been +from the earliest times a landmark of the old Santa Fé trail. When the +freighters and plainsmen left the village and climbed to the top of the +slope and set their faces to the west there lay before them only the +wilderness wastes. Here Nature, grown miserly, offered not even a stick +of timber to mend a broken cart-pole in all the thousand miles between +the Neosho and the Spanish settlement of New Mexico. + +Here the Indians came with their furs and beaded garments to exchange +for firearms and fire-water. People fastened their doors at night for a +purpose. No curfew bell was needed to call in the children. The wooded +Neosho Valley grew dark before the evening lights had left the prairies +beyond the west bluff, and the waters that sang all day a song of cheer +as they rippled over the rocky river bed seemed always after nightfall +to gurgle murderously as they went their way down the black-shadowed +valley. + +The main street was as broad as an Eastern boulevard. Space counted for +nothing in planning towns in a land made up of distances. At the end of +this street stood the "Last Chance" general store, the outpost of +civilization. What the freighter failed to get here he would do without +until he stood inside the brown adobe walls of the old city of Santa Fé. +Tell Mapleson, the proprietor of the "Last Chance," was a tall, slight, +restless man, quick-witted, with somewhat polished manners and a gift +of persuasion in his speech. + +Near this store was Conlow's blacksmith shop, where the low-browed, +black-eyed Conlow family have shod horses and mended wagons since +anybody can remember. They were the kind of people one instinctively +does not trust, and yet nobody could find a true bill against them. The +shop had thick stone walls. High up under the eaves on the north side a +long narrow slit, where a stone was missing, let out a bar of sullen red +light. Old Conlow did not know about that chink for years, for it was +only from the bluff above the town that the light could be seen. + +Our advent in Springvale was just at the time of its transition from a +plains trading-post to a Territorial town with ambition for settlement +and civilization. I can see now that John Baronet deserved the place he +came to hold in that frontier community, for he was a State-builder. + +"I should feel more dacent fur all etarnity jist to be buried in the +same cimet'ry wid Judge Bar'net," O'mie once declared. "I should walk +into kingdom-come, dignified and head up, saying to the kaper av the +pearly gates, kind o' careless-like, 'I'm from that little Kansas town +av Springvale an' ye'll check up my mortial remains over in the +cimet'ry, be my neighbor, Judge Bar'net, if ye plaze.'" + +It was O'mie's way of saying what most persons of the community felt +toward my father from the time he drove into Springvale in the purple +twilight of that June evening in 1854. + +Irving Whately's stock of merchandise was installed in the big stone +building on the main corner of the village, where the straggling Indian +trails from the south and the trail from the new settlement out on +Fingal's Creek converged on the broad Santa Fé trail. Amos Judson, a +young settler, became his clerk and general helper. In the front room +over this store was John Baronet's law office, and his sign swinging +above Whately's seemed always to link those two names together. + +Opposite this building was the village tavern. It was a wide two-story +structure, also of stone, set well back from the street, with a double +veranda along the front and the north side. A huge oak tree grew before +it, and a flagstone walk led up to the veranda steps. In big black +lettering its inscription over the door told the wayfarer on the old +trail that this was + + THE CAMBRIDGE HOUSE. + C. C. GENTRY, PROP. + +Cam Gentry (his real name was Cambridge, christened from the little +Indiana town of Cambridge City) was a good-souled, easy-going man, +handicapped for life by a shortness of vision no spectacle lens could +overcome. It might have been disfiguring to any other man, but Cam's +clear eye at close range, and his comical squint and tilt of the head to +study out what lay farther away, were good-natured and unique. He was in +Kansas for the fun of it, while his wife, Dollie, kept tavern from pure +love of cooking more good things to eat than opportunity afforded in a +home. She was a Martha whose kitchen was "dukedom large enough." +Whatever motive, fine or coarse, whatever love of spoils or love of +liberty, brought other men hither, Cam had come to see the joke--and he +saw it. While as to Dollie, "Lord knows," she used to say, "there's +plenty of good cooks in old Wayne County, Indiany; but if they can get +anything to eat out here they need somebody to cook it for 'em, and cook +it right." + +Doing chores about the tavern for his board and keep was the little +orphan boy, Thomas O'Meara, whose story I did not know for many years. +We called him O'mie. That was all. Marjie and O'mie and Mary Gentry, Cam +and Dollie's only child, were my first Kansas playmates. Together we +waded barefoot in the shallow ripples of the Neosho, and little by +little we began to explore that wide, sweet prairie land to the west. +There was just one tree standing up against the horizon; far away to us +it seemed, a huge cottonwood, that kept sentinel guard over the plains +from the highest level of the divide. + +Whately built a home a block or more beyond that of his young clerk, +Amos Judson. It was farther up the slope than any other house in +Springvale except my father's. That was on the very crest of the west +bluff, overlooking the Neosho Valley. It fronted the east, and across +the wide street before it the bluff broke precipitously four hundred +feet to the level floor of the valley below. Sometimes the shelving +rocks furnished a footing where one could clamber down half way and walk +along the narrow ledge. Here were cunning hiding-places, deep crevices, +and vine-covered heaps of jagged stone outcrop invisible from the height +above or the valley below. It was a bit of rugged, untamable cliff +rarely found in the plains country; and it broke so suddenly from the +level promontory sloping down to the south and away to the west, that a +stranger sitting by our east windows would never have guessed that the +seeming bushes peering up across the street were really the tops of tall +trees with their roots in the side of the bluff not half way to the +bottom. + +From our west window the green glory of the plains spread out to the +baths of sunset. No wonder this Kansas land is life of my life. The sea +is to me a wavering treachery, but these firm prairies are the joy of my +memory. + +Our house was of stone with every corner rounded like a turret wall. It +was securely built against the winter winds that swept that bluff when +the Kansas blizzard unchained its fury, for it stood where it caught the +full wrath of the elements. It caught, too, the splendor of all the +sunrise beyond the mist-filled valley, and the full moon in the level +east above the oak treetops made a dream of chastened glory like the +silver twilight gleams in Paradise. + +"I want to watch the world coming and going," my father said when his +house was finished; "and it is coming down that Santa Fé trail. It is +State-making that is begun here. The East doesn't understand it yet, +outside of New England. And these Missourians, Lord pity them! they +think they can kill human freedom with a bullet, like thrusting daggers +into the body of Julius Cæsar to destroy the Roman Empire. What do they +know of the old Puritan blood, and the strength of the grip of a +Massachusetts man? Heaven knows where they came from, these Missouri +ruffians; but," he added, "the devil has it arranged where they will go +to." + +"Oh, John, be careful," exclaimed Aunt Candace. + +"Are you afraid of them, Candace?" + +"Well, no, I don't believe I am," replied my aunt. + +She was not one of those blustering north-northwest women. She squared +her life by the admonition of Isaiah, "In quietness and in confidence +shall be your strength." But she was a Baronet, and although they have +their short-comings, fear seems to have been left out of their make-up. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +JEAN PAHUSCA + + In even savage bosoms + There are longings, yearnings, strivings + For the good they comprehend not. + + --LONGFELLOW. + + +The frontier broke all lines of caste. There was no aristocrat, +autocrat, nor plutocrat in Springvale; but the purest democracy was +among the children. Life was before us; we loved companionship, and the +same dangers threatened us all. The first time I saw Marjie she asked, +"Are you afraid of Indians?" They were the terror of her life. Even +to-day the mere press despatch of an Indian uprising in Oklahoma or +Arizona will set the blood bounding through my veins and my first +thought is of her. + +I shall never forget the day my self-appointed guardianship of her +began. Before we had a schoolhouse, Aunt Candace taught the children of +the community in our big living-room. One rainy afternoon, late in the +Fall, the darkness seemed to drop down suddenly. We could not see to +study, and we were playing boisterously about the benches of our +improvised schoolroom, Marjie, Mary Gentry, Lettie and Jim Conlow, Tell +Mapleson,--old Tell's boy,--O'mie, both the Mead boys, and the four +Anderson children. Suddenly Marjie, who was watching the rain beating +against the west window, called, "Phil, come here! What is that long, +narrow, red light down by the creek?" + +Marjie had the softest voice. Amid the harsh jangle of the Andersons and +Bill Mead's big whooping shouts it always seemed like music to me. I +stared hard at the sullen block of flame in the evening shadows. + +"I don't know what it is," I said. + +She slipped her fingers into the pocket of my coat as I turned away, and +her eyes looked anxiously into mine. "Could it be an Indian camp-fire?" +she queried. + +I looked again, flattening my nose against the window pane. "I don't +know, Marjie, but I'll find out. Maybe it's somebody's kitchen fire down +west. I'll ask O'mie." + +In truth, that light had often troubled me. It did not look like the +twinkling candle-flare I could see in so many windows of the village. I +turned to O'mie, who, with his face to the wall, waited in a game of +hide-and-seek. Before I could call him Marjie gave a low cry of terror. +We all turned to her in an instant, and I saw outside a dark face close +against the window. It was gone so quickly that only O'mie and I caught +sight of it. + +"What was it, Marjie?" the children cried. + +"An Indian boy," gasped Marjie. "He was right against the window." + +"I'll bet it was a spook," shouted Bill Mead. + +"I'll bet it wasn't nothin' at all," grinned Jim Conlow. "Possum Conlow" +we called him for that secretive grin on his shallow face. + +"I'll bet it wath a whole gang of Thiennes," lisped tow-headed Bud +Anderson. + +"They ain't no Injuns nearer than the reserve down the river, and ain't +been no Injuns in Springvale for a long time, 'cept annuity days," +declared Tell Mapleson. + +"Well, let's foind out," shouted O'mie, "I ain't afraid av no Injun." + +"Neither am I," I cried, starting after O'mie, who was out of the door +at the word. + +But Marjie caught my arm, and held it. + +"Let O'mie go. Don't go, Phil, please don't." + +I can see her yet, her brown eyes full of pleading, her soft brown hair +in rippling waves about her white temples. Did my love for her spring +into being at that instant? I cannot tell. But I do know that it was a +crucial moment for me. Sixty years have I seen, and my life has grown +practical and barren of sentiment. But I know that the boy, Phil +Baronet, who stood that evening with Marjie and the firelight and safety +on one side, and darkness and uncertainty on the other, had come to one +of those turning-points in a life, unrecognized for the time, whose +decision controls all the years that follow. For suddenly came the query +"How can I best take care of her? Shall I stay with her in the light, or +go into the dark and strike the danger out of it?" I didn't frame all +this into words. It was all only an intense feeling, but the mental +judgment was very real. I turned from her and cleared the doorstep at a +leap, and in a moment was by O'mie's side, chasing down the hill-slope +toward town. + +We never thought to run to the bluff's edge and clamber down the +shelving, precipitous sides. Here was the only natural hiding-place, but +like children we all ran the other way. When we had come in again with +the report of "No enemy in sight," and had shut the door against the +rain, I happened to glance out of the east window. Climbing up to the +street from the cliff I saw the lithe form of a young Indian. He came +straight to the house and stood by the east window where he could see +inside. Then with quick, springing step he walked down the slope. I +crossed to the west window and watched him shutting out that red bar of +light now and then, till he melted into the shadows. + +Meanwhile the children were chattering like sparrows and had not noticed +me. + +"Would you know it, Marjie, if you thaw it again?" lisped Bud Anderson. + +"Oh, yes! His hair was straight across like this." Marjie drew one hand +across her curl-shaded forehead, to show how square the black hair grew +about the face she had seen. + +"That's nothin'," said Bill Mead. "They change scalps every time they +catch a white man,--just take their own off an' put his on, an' it +grows. There's lots of men in Kansas look like white men's just Injuns +growed a white scalp on 'em." + +"Really, is there?" asked Mary Gentry credulously. + +"Sure, I've seen 'em," went on Bill with a boy's love of that kind of +lying. + +"Wouldn't a Injun look funny with my thcalp?" Bud Anderson put in. "I'll +bet I'm jutht a Injun mythelf." + +"Then you've got some little baby girl's scalp," grinned Jim Conlow. + +"'Tain't no 'pothum'th, anyhow," rejoined Bud; and we laughed our fears +away. + +That evening Aunt Candace sent me home with Marjie to take some fresh +doughnuts to Mrs. Whately. I can see the little girl now as we splashed +sturdily down Cliff Street through the wet gloom, her face like a white +blossom in the shadowy twilight, her crimson jacket open at the throat, +and the soft little worsted scarf about her damp fluffy curls making a +glow of rich coloring in the dim light. + +"You'll never let the Indians get you, will you, Phil?" she asked, when +we stood a moment by the bushes just at the steepest bend of the street. + +I stood up proudly. I was growing very fast in this gracious climate. +"The finest-built boy in Springvale," the men called me. "No, Marjie. +The Indians won't get me, nor anybody else I don't want them to have." + +She drew close to me, and I caught her hand in mine a moment. Then, +boylike, I flipped her heavy braid of hair over her shoulder and shook +the wettest bushes till their drops scattered in a shower about her. +Something, a dog we thought, suddenly slid out from the bush and down +the cliff-side. When I started home after delivering the cakes, Marjie +held the candle at the door to light my way. As I turned at the edge of +the candle's rays to wave my hand, I saw her framed in the doorway. +Would that some artist could paint that picture for me now! + +"I'll whistle up by the bushes," I cried, and strode into the dark. + +On the bend of the crest, where the street drops down almost too steep +for a team of horses to climb, I turned and saw Marjie's light in the +window, and the shadow of her head on the pane. I gave a long, low +whistle, the signal call we had for our own. It was not an echo, it was +too near and clear, the very same low call in the bushes just over the +cliff beside me as though some imitator were trying to catch the notes. +A few feet farther on my path I came face to face with the same Indian +whom I had seen an hour before. He strode by me in silence. + +Without once looking back I said to myself, "If you aren't afraid of me, +I'm not afraid of you. But who gave that whistle, I wonder. That's my +call to Marjie." + +"Marjie's awful 'fraid of Injuns," I said to Aunt Candace that night. +"Didn't want me to find who it was peeked, but I went after him, clear +down to Amos Judson's house, because I thought that was the best way, if +it was an Injun. She isn't afraid of anything else. She's the only girl +that can ride Tell Mapleson's pony, and only O'mie and Tell and I among +the boys can ride him. And she killed the big rattlesnake that nearly +had Jim Conlow, killed it with a hoe. And she can climb where no other +girl dares to, on the bluff below town toward the Hermit's Cave. But +she's just as 'fraid of an Injun! I went to hunt him, though." + +"And you did just right, Phil. The only way to be safe is to go after +what makes you afraid. I guess, though, there really was nobody. It was +just Marjie's imagination, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, there was, Auntie; I saw him climb up from the cliff over there +and go off down the hill after we came in." + +"Why didn't you say so?" asked my aunt. + +"We couldn't get him, and it would have scared Marjie," I answered. + +"That's right, Phil. You are a regular Kansas boy, you are. The best of +them may claim to come from Massachusetts,"--with a touch of +pride,--"but no matter where they come from, they must learn how to be +quick-witted and brave and manly here in Kansas. It's what all boys need +to be here." + +A few days later the door of our schoolroom opened and an Indian boy +strode in and seated himself on the bench beside Tell Mapleson. He was a +lad of fifteen, possibly older. His dress was of the Osage fashion and +round his neck he wore a string of elk teeth. His face was thoroughly +Indian, yet upon his features something else was written. His long black +hair was a shade too jetty and soft for an Indian's, and it grew +squarely across his forehead, suggesting the face of a French priest. +We children sat open-mouthed. Even Aunt Candace forgot herself a +moment. Bud Anderson first found his voice. + +"Well, I'll thwan!" he exclaimed in sheer amazement. + +Bill Mead giggled and that broke the spell. + +"How do you do?" said my aunt kindly. + +"How," replied the young brave. + +"What is your name, and what do you want?" asked our teacher. + +"Jean Pahusca. Want school. Want book--" He broke off and finished in a +jargon of French and Indian. + +"Where is your home, your tepee?" queried Aunt Candace. + +The Indian only shook his head. Then taking from his beads a heavy +silver cross, crudely shaped and wrought, he rose and placed it on the +table. Taking up a book at the same time he seated himself to study like +the rest of us. + +"He has paid his tuition," said my aunt, smiling. "We'll let him stay." + +So Jean Pahusca was established in our school. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE HERMIT'S CAVE + + The secret which the mountains kept + The river never told. + + +The bluff was our continual delight. It was so difficult, so full of +surprises, so enchanting in its dangers. All manner of creeping things +in general, and centipedes and rattlesnakes in particular, made their +homes in its crevices. Its footing was perilous to the climber, and its +hiding-places had held outlaws and worse. Then it had its haunted spots, +where tradition told of cruel tragedies in days long gone by; and of the +unknown who had found here secret retreat, who came and went, leaving +never a name to tell whom they were nor what their story might be. All +these the old cliff had in its keeping for the sturdy boys and girls of +parents who had come here to conquer the West. + +Just below the town where the Neosho swings away to the right, the +bottom lands narrow down until the stream sweeps deep and swift against +a stone wall almost two hundred feet in height. From the top of the +cliff here the wall drops down nearly another hundred feet, leaving an +inaccessible heap of rough cavernous rocks in the middle stratum. + +Had the river been less deep and dangerous we could not have gotten up +from below; while to come down from above might mean a fall of three +hundred feet or more to the foam-torn waters and the jagged rocks +beneath them. Here a stranger hermit had hidden himself years before. +Nobody knew his story, nor how he had found his way hither, for he spoke +in a strange tongue that nobody could interpret. That this inaccessible +place was his home was certain. Boys bathing in the shallows up-stream +sometimes caught a glimpse of him moving about among the bushes. And +sometimes at night from far to the east a light could be seen twinkling +half way up the dark cliff-side. Every boy in Springvale had an ambition +to climb to the Hermit's Cave and explore its mysteries; for the old man +died as he had lived, unknown. One winter day his body was found on the +sand bar below the rapids where the waters had carried him after his +fall from the point of rock above the deep pool. There was no mark on +his coarse clothing to tell a word of his story, and the Neosho kept his +secret always. + +What boy after that would not have braved any danger to explore the +depths of this hiding-place? But we could not do it. Try as we might, +the hidden path leading up, or down, baffled us. + +After Jean Pahusca came into our school we had a new interest and for a +time we forgot that tantalizing river wall below town. Jean was +irregular in his attendance and his temper. He learned quickly, for an +Indian. Sometimes he was morose and silent; sometimes he was affable and +kind, chatting among us like one of our own; and sometimes he found the +white man's fire-water. Then he murdered as he went. He was possessed of +a demon to kill, kill the moment he became drunk. Every living thing in +his way had to flee or perish then. He would stop in his mad chase to +crush the life out of a sleeping cat, or to strike at a bird or a +chicken. Whiskey to him meant death, as we learned to our sorrow. +Nobody knew where he lived. He dressed like an Osage but he was +supposed to make his home with the Kaws, whose reservation was much +nearer to us. Sometimes in the cool weather he slept in our sheds. In +warm weather he lay down on the ground wherever he chose to sleep. There +was a fascination about him unlike all the other Indians who came up to +the village, many of whom we knew. He could be so gentle and winning in +his manner at times, one forgot he was an Indian. But the spirit of the +Red Man was ever present to overcome the strange European mood in a +moment. + +"He's no Osage, that critter ain't," Cam Gentry said to a group on his +tavern veranda one annuity day when the tribes had come to town for +their quarterly allowances. "He's second cousin on his father's side to +some French missionary, you bet your life. He's got a gait like a Jessut +priest. An' he's not Osage on't other side, neither. I'll bet his mother +was a Kiowa, an' that means his maternal grandad was a rattlesnake, even +if his paternal grandpop was a French markis turned religious an' gone +a-missionaryin' among the red heathen. You dig fur enough into that +buck's hide an' you'll find cussedness big as a sheep, I'm tellin' you." + +"Where does he live?" inquired my father. + +"Lord knows!" responded Cam. "Down to the Kaws' nests, I reckon." + +"He was cuttin' east along the Fingal Creek bluff after he'd made off to +the southwest, the other night, when I was after the cows," broke in +O'mie, who was sitting on the lowest step listening with all his ears. +"Was cuttin' straight to the river. Only that's right by the Hermit's +Cave an' he couldn't cross to the Osages there." + +"Reckon he zigzagged back to town to get somethin' he forgot at Conlow's +shop," put in Cam. "Didn't find any dead dogs nor children next +mornin', did ye, O'mie?" + +Conlow kept the vilest whiskey ever sold to a poor drink-thirsty +Redskin. Everybody knew it except those whom the grand jury called into +counsel. I saw my father's brow darken. + +"Conlow will meet his match one of these days," he muttered. + +"That's why we are runnin' you for judge," said Cam. "This cussed +country needs you in every office it's got to clean out that gang that +robs an' cheats the Injuns, an' then makes 'em ravin' crazy with +drinkin'. They's more 'n Conlow to blame, though, Judge. Keep one eye on +the Government agents and Indian traders." + +"I wonder where Jean did go anyhow," O'mie whispered to me. "Let's foind +out an' give him a surprise party an' a church donation some night." + +"What does he come here so much for, anyhow?" I questioned. + +"I don't know," replied O'mie. "Why can't he stay Injun? What'll he do +wid the greatest common divisor an' the indicative mood an' the Sea of +Azov, an' the Zambezi River, when he's learned 'em, anyhow? Phil, +begorra, I b'lave that cussed Redskin is in this town fur trouble, an' +you jist remember he'll git it one av these toimes. He ain't natural +Injun. Uncle Cam is right. He's not like them Osages that comes here +annuity days. All that's Osage about him is his clothes." + +While we were talking, Jean Pahusca came silently into the company and +sat down under the oak tree shading the walk. He never looked less like +an Indian than he did that summer morning lounging lazily in the shade. +The impenetrable savage face had now an expression of ease and superior +self-possession, making it handsome. Unlike the others of his race who +came and went about Springvale, Jean's trappings were always bright and +fresh, and his every muscle had the poetry of motion. In all our games +he was an easy victor. He never clambered about the cliff as we did, he +simply slid up and down like a lizard. Jim Conlow was built to race, but +Jean skimmed the ground like a bird. He could outwrestle every boy +except O'mie (nobody had ever held that Irishman if he wanted to get +away), and his grip was like steel. We all fought him by turns and he +defeated everyone until my turn came. From me he would take no chance of +defeat, however much the boys taunted him with being afraid of Phil +Baronet. For while he had a quickness that I lacked, I knew I had a +muscular strength he could not break. I disliked him at first on +Marjie's account; and when she grew accustomed to his presence and +almost forgot her fear, I detested him. And never did I dislike him so +much before as on this summer morning when we sat about the shady +veranda of the Cambridge House. Nobody else, however, gave any heed to +the Indian boy picturesquely idling there on the blue-grass. + +Down the street came Lettie Conlow and Mary Gentry with Marjory Whately, +all chatting together. They turned at the tavern oak and came up the +flag-stone walk toward the veranda. I could not tell you to-day what my +lady wears in the social functions where I sometimes have the honor to +be a guest. I am a man, and silks and laces confuse me. Yet I remember +three young girls in a frontier town more than forty years ago. Mary +Gentry was slender--"skinny," we called her to tease her. Her dark-blue +calico dress was clean and prim. Lettie Conlow was fat. Her skin was +thick and muddy, and there was a brown mole below her ear. Her black, +slick braids of hair were my especial dislike. She had no neck to speak +of, and when she turned her head the creases above her fat shoulders +deepened. I might have liked Lettie but for her open preference for me. +Everybody knew this preference, and she annoyed me exceedingly. This +morning she wore a thin old red lawn cut down from her mother's gown. A +ruffle of the same lawn flopped about her neck. As they came near, her +black eyes sought mine as usual, but I saw only the floppy red +ruffle--and Marjie. Marjie looked sweet and cool in a fresh starched +gingham, with her round white arms bare to the elbows, and her white +shapely neck, with its dainty curves and dimples. The effect was +heightened by the square-cut bodice, with its green and white gingham +bands edged with a Hamburg something, narrow and spotless. How unlike +she was to Lettie in her flimsy trimmings! Marjie's hair was coiled in a +knot on the top of her head, and the little ringlets curved about her +forehead and at the back of her neck. Somehow, with her clear pink +cheeks and that pale green gown, I could think only of the wild roses +that grew about the rocks on the bluff this side of the Hermit's Cave. + +Marjie smiled kindly down at Jean as she passed him. There was always a +tremor of fear in that smile; and he knew it and gloried in it. + +"Good-morning, Jean," she said in that soft voice I loved to hear. + +"Good-morning, Star-face," Jean smiled back at her; and his own face was +transfigured for the instant, as his still black eyes followed her. The +blood in my veins turned to fire at that look. Our eyes met and for one +long moment we gazed steadily at each other. As I turned away I saw +Lettie Conlow watching us both, and I knew instinctively that she and +Jean Pahusca would sometime join forces against me. + +"Well, if you lassies ain't a sight good for sore eyes, I'll never tell +it," Cam shouted heartily, squinting up at the girls with his +good-natured glance. "You're cool as October an' twicet as sweet an' +fine. Go in and let Dollie give you some hot berry pie." + +"To cool 'em off," O'mie whispered in my ear. "Nothin' so coolin' as a +hot berry pie in July. Let's you and me go to the creek an' thaw out." + +That evening Jean Pahusca found the jug supposed to be locked in +Conlow's chest of tools inside his shop. I had found where that red +forge light came from, and had watched it from my window many a night. +When it winked and blinked, I knew somebody inside the shop was passing +between it and the line of the chink. I did not speak of it. I was never +accused of telling all I knew. My father often said I would make a good +witness for my attorney in a suit at law. + +Among the Indians who had come for their stipend on this annuity day was +a strong young Osage called Hard Rope, who always had a roll of money +when he went out of town. I remember that night my father did not come +home until very late; and when Aunt Candace asked him if there was +anything the matter, I heard him answer carelessly: + +"Oh, no. I've been looking after a young Osage they call Hard Rope, who +needed me." + +I was sleepy, and forgot all about his words then. Long afterwards I had +good reason for knowing through this same Hard Rope, how well an Indian +can remember a kindness. He never came to Springvale again. And when I +next saw him I had forgotten that I had ever known him before. However, +I had seen the blinking red glare down the slope that evening and I knew +something was going on. Anyhow, Jean Pahusca, crazed with drink, had +stolen Tell Mapleson's pony and created a reign of terror in the street +until he disappeared down the trail to the southwest. + +"It's a wonder old Tell doesn't shoot that Injun," Irving Whately +remarked to a group in his store. "He's quick enough with firearms." + +"Well," said Cam Gentry, squinting across the counter with his +shortsighted eyes, "there's somethin' about that 'Last Chance' store and +about this town I don't understand. There's a nigger in the wood-pile, +or an Injun in the blankets, somewhere. I hope it won't be long till +this thing is cleared up and we can know whether we do know anything, or +don't know it. I'm gettin' mystifieder daily." And Cam sat down +chuckling. + +"Anyhow, we won't see that Redskin here for a spell, I reckon," broke in +Amos Judson, Whately's clerk. And with this grain of comfort, we forgot +him for a time. + +One lazy Saturday afternoon in early August, O'mie and I went for a swim +on the sand-bar side of the Deep Hole under the Hermit's Cave. I had +something to tell O'mie. All the boys trusted him with their +confidences. We had slid quietly down the river; somehow, it was too hot +to be noisy, and we were lying on a broad, flat stone letting the warm +water ripple over us. A huge bowlder on the sand just beyond us threw a +sort of shadow over our brown faces as we rested our heads on the sand. + +"O'mie," I began, "I saw something last night." + +"Well, an' phwat did somethin' do to you?" He was blowing at the water, +which was sliding gently over his chest. + +"That's what I want to tell you if you will shut up that red flannel +mouth a minute." + +"The crimson fabric is now closed be order av the Coort," grinned +O'mie. + +"O'mie, I waked up suddenly last night. It was clear moonlight, and I +looked out of the window. There right under it, on a black pony just +like Tell Mapleson's, was Jean Pahusca. He was staring up at the window. +He must have seen me move for he only stayed a minute and then away he +went. I watched him till he had passed Judson's place and was in the +shadows beyond the church. He had on a new red blanket with a circle of +white right in the middle, a good target for an arrow, only I'd never +sneak up behind him. If I fight him I'll do it like a white man, from +the front." + +"Then ye'll be dead like a white man, from the front clear back," +declared O'mie. "But hadn't ye heard? This mornin' ould Tell was showin' +Tell's own pony he said he brought back from down at Westport. He got +home late las' night. An' Tell, he pipes up an' says, 'There was a arrow +fastened in its mane when I see it this mornin', but his dad took no +notice whatsoever av the boy's sayin'; just went on that it was the one +Jean Pahusca had stole when he was drunk last. What does it mean, Phil? +Is Jean hidin' out round here again? I wish the cuss would go to Santy +Fee with the next train down the trail an' go to Spanish bull fightin'. +He's just cut out for that, begorra; fur he rides like a Comanche. It ud +be a sort av disgrace to the bull though. I've got nothin' agin bulls." + +"O'mie, I don't understand; but let's keep still. Some day when he gets +so drunk he'll kill one of the grand jury, maybe the rest of them and +the coroner can indict him for something." + +We lay still in the warm water. Sometimes now in the lazy hot August +afternoons I can hear the rippling song of the Neosho as it prattled and +gurgled on its way. Suddenly O'mie gave a start and in a voice low and +even but intense he exclaimed: + +"For the Lord's sake, wud ye look at that? And kape still as a snake +while you're doin' it." + +Lying perfectly still, I looked keenly about me, seeing nothing unusual. + +"Look up across yonder an' don't bat an eye," said O'mie, low as a +whisper. + +I looked up toward the Hermit's Cave. Sitting on a point of rock +overhanging the river was an Indian. His back was toward us and his +brilliant red blanket had a white circle in the centre. + +"He's not seen us, or he'd niver set out there like that," and O'mie +breathed easier. "He could put an arrow through us here as aisy as to +snap a string, an' nobody'd live to tell the tale. Phil Bar'net, he's +kapin' den in that cave, an' the devil must have showed him how to git +up there." + +A shout up-stream told of other boys coming down to our swimming place. +You have seen a humming bird dart out of sight. So the Indian on the +rock far above us vanished at that sound. + +"That's Bill Mead comin'; I know his whoop. I wish I knew which side av +that Injun's head his eyes is fastened on," said O'mie, still motionless +in the water. "If he's watchin' us up there, I'm a turtle till the sun +goes down." + +A low peal of thunder rolled out of the west and a heavy black cloud +swept suddenly over the sun. The blue shadow of the bluff fell upon the +Neosho and under its friendly cover we scrambled into our clothes and +scudded out of sight among the trees that covered the east bottom land. + +"Now, how did he ever get to that place, O'mie?" I questioned. + +"I don't know. But if he can get there, I can too." + +Poor O'mie! he did not know how true a prophecy he was uttering. + +"Let's kape this to oursilves, Phil," counselled my companion. "If too +many knows it Tell may lose another pony, or somebody's dead dog may +float down the stream like the ould hermit did. Let's burn him out av +there oursilves. Then we can adorn our own tepee wid that soft black La +Salle-Marquette-Hennepin French scalp." + +I agreed, and we went our way burdened by a secret dangerous but +fascinating to boys like ourselves. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN THE PRAIRIE TWILIGHT + + The spacious prairie is helper to a spacious life. + Big thoughts are nurtured here, with little friction. + + --QUAYLE. + + +By the time I was fifteen I was almost as tall and broad-shouldered as +my father. Boy-like, I was prodigal of my bounding vigor, which had not +tempered down to the strength of my mature manhood. It was well for me +that a sobering responsibility fell on me early, else I might have +squandered my resources of endurance, and in place of this sturdy +story-teller whose sixty years sit lightly on him, there would have been +only a ripple in the sod of the curly mesquite on the Plains and a +little heap of dead dust, turned to the inert earth again. The West +grows large men, as it grows strong, beautiful women; and I know that +the boys and girls then differed only in surroundings and opportunity +from the boys and girls of Springvale to-day. Life is finer in its +appointments now; but I doubt if it is any more free or happy than it +was in those days when we went to oyster suppers and school exhibitions +up in the Red Range neighborhood. Among us there was the closest +companionship, as there needs must be in a lonely and spacious land. +What can these lads and lasses of to-day know of a youth nurtured in the +atmosphere of peril and uncertainty such as every one of us knew in +those years of border strife and civil war? Sometimes up here, when I +see the gay automobile parties spinning out upon the paved street and +over that broad highway miles and miles to the west, I remember the time +when we rode our Indian ponies thither, and the whole prairie was our +boulevard. + +Marjie could ride without bridle or saddle, and she sat a horse like a +cattle queen. The four Anderson children were wholesome and +good-natured, as they were good scholars, and they were good riders. +They were all tow-headed and they all lisped, and Bud was the most +hopeless case among them. Flaxen-haired, baby-faced youngster that he +was, he was the very first in all our crowd to learn to drop on the side +of his pony and ride like a Comanche. O'mie and I also succeeded in +learning that trick; Tell Mapleson broke a collar-bone, attempting it; +and Jim Conlow, as O'mie said, "knocked the 'possum' aff his mug thryin' +to achave the art." He fractured the bones of his nose, making his face +a degree more homely than it was before. Then there were the Mead boys +to be counted on everywhere. Dave went West years ago, made his fortune, +and then began to traffic with the Orient. His name is better known in +Hong-Kong now than it is in Springvale. He never married, and it used to +be said that a young girl's grave up in the Red Range graveyard held all +his hope and love. I do not know; for he left home the year I came up to +Topeka to enlist, and Springvale was like the bitter waters of Marah to +my spirit. But that comes later. + +Bill Mead married Bessie Anderson, and the seven little tow-headed +Meads, stair-stepping down the years, played with the third generation +here as we used to play in the years gone by. Bill is president of the +bank on the corner where the old Whately store stood and is a +share-holder in several big Kansas City concerns. Bessie lost her rosy +cheeks years ago, but she has her seven children; the youngest of them, +Phil, named for me, will graduate from the Kansas University this year. +Lettie Conlow was always on the uncertain list with us. No Conlow could +do much with a horse except to put shoes under it. It was a trick of +hers to lag behind and call to me to tighten a girth, while Marjie raced +on with Dave Mead or Tell Mapleson. Tell liked Lettie, and it rasped my +spirit to be made the object of her preference and his jealousy. Once +when we were alone his anger boiled hot, and he shook his fist at me and +cried: + +"You mean pup! You want to take my girl from me. I can lick you, and I'm +going to do it." + +I was bigger than Tell, and he knew my strength. + +"I wish to goodness you would," I said. "I'd rather be licked than to +have a girl I don't care for always smiling at me." + +Tell's face fell, and he grinned sheepishly. + +"Don't you really care for Lettie, Phil? She says you like Bess +Anderson." + +Was that a trick of Lettie's to put Marjie out of my thought, I +wondered, or did she really know my heart? I distrusted Lettie. She was +so like her black-eyed father. But I had guarded my own feelings, and +the boys and girls had not guessed what Marjie was to me. + +It was about this time that Father Le Claire, a French priest who had +been a missionary in the Southwest, began to come and go about +Springvale. His work lay mostly with the Osages farther down the Neosho, +but he labored much among the Kaws. He was a kindly-spirited man, +reserved, but gentle and courteous ever, and he was very fond of +children. He was always in town on annuity days, when the tribes came up +for their quarterly stipend from the Government. Mapleson was the Indian +agent. The "Last Chance," unable to compete with its commercial rival, +the Whately house, had now a drug store in the front, a harness shop in +the rear and a saloon in the cellar. It was to this "Last Chance" that +the Indians came for their money; and it was Father Le Claire who +piloted many of them out to the trails leading southward and started +them on the way to their villages, sober and possessed of their +Government allowance or its equivalent in honest merchandise. + +From the first visit the good priest took to Jean Pahusca, and he helped +to save the young brave from many a murdering spell. + +To O'mie and myself, however, remained the resolve to drive him from +Springvale; for, boylike, we watched him more closely than the men did, +and we knew him better. He was not the only one of our town who drank +too freely. Four decades ago the law was not the righteous force it is +to-day, and we looked upon many sights which our children, thank Heaven, +never see in Kansas. + +"Keep out of that Redskin's way when he's drunk," was Cam Gentry's +advice to us. "You know he'd scalp his grandmother if he could get hold +of her then." + +We kept out of his way, but we bided our time. + +Father Le Claire had another favorite in Springvale, and that was O'mie. +He said little to the Irish orphan lad, but there sprang up a sort of +understanding between the two. Whenever he was in town, O'mie was not +far away from him; and the boy, frank and confidential in everything +else, grew strangely silent when we talked of the priest. I spoke of +this to my father one day. He looked keenly at me and said quietly: + +"You would make a good lawyer, Phil, you seem to know what a lawyer must +know; that is, what people think as well as what they say." + +"I don't quite understand, father," I replied. + +"Then you won't make a good lawyer. It's the understanding that makes +the lawyer," and he changed the subject. + +My mind was not greatly disturbed over O'mie, however. I was young and +neither I nor my companions were troubled by anything but the realities +of the day. Limited as we were by circumstances in this new West, we +made the most of our surroundings and of one another. How much the +prairies meant to us, as they unrolled their springtime glory! From the +noonday blue of the sky overhead to the deep verdure of the land below, +there ranged every dainty tint of changeful coloring. Nature lavished +her wealth of loveliness here, that the dream of the New Jerusalem might +not seem a mere phantasy of the poet disciple who walked with the Christ +and was called of Him "The Beloved." + +The prairies were beautiful to me at any hour, but most of all I loved +them in the long summer evenings when the burst of sunset splendor had +deepened into twilight. Then the afterglow softened to that purple +loveliness indescribably rare and sweet, wreathed round by gray +cloudfolds melting into exquisite pink, the last far echo of the +daylight's glory. It is said that any land is beautiful to us only by +association. Was it the light heart of my boyhood, and my merry +comrades, and most of all, the little girl who was ever in my thoughts, +that gave grandeur to these prairies and filled my memory with pictures +no artist could ever color on canvas? I cannot say, for all these have +large places in my mind's treasury. + +From early spring to late October it was a part of each day's duty for +the youngsters of Springvale to go in the evening after the cows that +ranged on the open west. We went together, of course, and, of course, we +rode our ponies. Sometimes we went far and hunted long before we found +the cattle. The tenderest grasses grew along the draws, and these often +formed a deep wrinkle on the surface where our whole herd was hidden +until we came to the very edge of the depression. Sometimes the herd was +scattered, and every one must be rounded up and headed toward town +before we left the prairie. And then we loitered on the homeward way and +sang as only brave, free-spirited boys and girls can sing. And the +prairie caught our songs and sent them rippling far and far over its +clear, wide spaces. + +As the twilight deepened, we drew nearer together, for comradeship meant +protection. Some years before, a boy had been stolen out on these +prairies one day by a band of Kiowas, and that night the mother drowned +herself in the Neosho above town. Her home had been in a little stone +cabin round the north bend of the river. It was in the sheltered draw +just below where the one lone cottonwood tree made a landmark on the +Plains--a deserted habitation now, and said to be haunted by the spirit +of the unhappy mother. The child's father, a handsome French Canadian, +had turned Plainsman and gone to the Southwest and had not been heard of +afterwards. While we had small grounds for fear, we kept our ponies in a +little group coming in side by side on the home stretch. All the purple +shadows of those sweet summer twilights are blended with the memories of +those happy care-free hours. + +In the long summer days the cows ranged wider to the west, and we +wandered farther in our evening jaunts and lingered later in the +fragrant draws where the sweet grasses were starred with many brilliant +blossoms. That is how we happened to be away out on the northwest +prairie that evening when Jean Pahusca found us, the evening when O'mie +read my secret in my tell-tale face. Even to-day a storm cloud in the +northwest with the sunset flaming against its jagged edges recalls that +scene. The cattle had all been headed homeward, and we were racing our +ponies down the long slope to the south. On the right the draw, watched +over by the big cottonwood, breaks through the height and finds its way +to the Neosho. The watershed between the river and Fingal's Creek is +here only a high swell, and straight toward the west it is level as a +floor. + +The air of a hot afternoon had begun to ripple in cool little waves +against our faces. All the glory of the midsummer day was ending in +the grandeur of a crimson sunset shaded northward by that threatening +thundercloud. With our ponies lined up for one more race we were just on +the point of starting, when a whoop, a savage yell, and Jean Pahusca +rose above the edge of the draw behind us and dashed toward us headlong. +We knew he was drunk, for since Father Le Claire's coming among us he +had come to be a sort of gentleman Indian when he was sober; and we +caught the naked gleam of the short sharp knife he always wore in a +leather sheath at his belt. We were thrown into confusion, and some +ponies became unmanageable at once. It is the way of their breed to turn +traitor with the least sign of the rider's fear. At Jean's second whoop +there was a stampede. Marjie's pony gave a leap and started off at full +gallop toward the level west. Hers was the swiftest horse of all, but +the Indian coming at an angle had the advantage of space, and he singled +her out in a moment. Her hair hung down in two heavy braids, and as she +gave one frightened glance backward I saw her catch them both in one +hand and draw them over her shoulder as if to save them from the +scalping knife. + +My pony leaped to follow her but my quick eye caught the short angle of +the Indian's advantage. I turned, white and anguish-stricken, toward my +companions. Then it was that I heard O'mie's low words: + +"Bedad, Phil, an' that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to kill +that Injun, just for grandeur." + +His voice set a mighty force tingling in every nerve. The thrill of that +moment is mine after all these years, for in that instant I was born +again. I believe no terror nor any torture could have stayed me then, +and death would have seemed sublime if only I could have flung myself +between the girl and this drink-crazed creature seeking in his +irresponsible madness to take her life. It was not alone that this was +Marjie, and there swept over me the full realization of what she meant +to me. Something greater than my own love and life leaped into being +within me. It was the swift, unworded comprehension of a woman's worth, +of the sacredness of her life, and her divine right to the protection of +her virtue; a comprehension of the beauty and blessing of the American +home, of the obedient daughter, the loving wife, the Madonna mother, of +all that these mean as the very foundation rock of our nation's strength +and honor. It swept my soul like a cleansing fire. The words for this +came later, but the force of it swayed my understanding in that +instant's crisis. Some boys grow into manhood as the years roll along, +and some leap into it at a single bound. It was a boy, Phil Baronet, who +went out after the cows that careless summer day so like all the other +summer days before it. It was a man, Philip Baronet, who followed them +home that dark night, fearing neither the roar of the angry storm cloud +that threshed in fury above us, nor any human being, though he were +filled with the rage of madness. + +At O'mie's word I dashed after Marjie. Behind me came Bud Anderson and +Dave Mead, followed by every other boy and girl. O'mie rode beside me, +and not one of us thought of himself. It was all done in a flash, and I +marvel that I tell its mental processes as if they were a song sung in +long-metre time. But it is all so clear to me. I can see the fiery +radiance of that sky blotted by the two riders before me. I can hear the +crash of the ponies' feet, and I can even feel the sweep of wind out of +that storm-cloud turning the white under-side of the big cottonwood's +leaves uppermost and cutting cold now against the hot air. And then +there rises up that ripple of ground made by the ring of the Osage's +tepee in the years gone by. Marjie deftly swerved her pony to the south +and skirted that little ridge of ground with a graceful curve, as though +this were a mere racing game and not a life-and-death ride. Jean's horse +plunged at the tepee ring, leaped to the little hollow beyond it, +stumbled and fell, and, pellmell, like a stampede of cattle, we were +upon him. + +I never could understand how Dave Mead headed the crowd back and kept +the whole mass from piling up on the fallen Indian and those nearest to +him. Nor do I understand why some of us were not crushed or kicked out +of life in that _mêlée_ of ponies and riders struggling madly together. +What I do know is that Bud Anderson, who was not thrown from his horse, +caught Jean's pony by the bridle and dragged it clear of the mass. It +was O'mie's quick hand that wrested that murderous knife from the +Indian's grasp, and it was my strong arm that held him with a grip of +iron. The shock sobered him instantly. He struggled a moment, and then +the cunning that always deceived us gained control. The Indian spirit +vanished, and with something masterful in his manner he relaxed all +effort. Lifting his eyes to mine with no trace of resentment in their +impenetrable depths, he said evenly: + +"Let me go. I was drunk. I was fool." + +"Let him go, Phil. He did act kinder drunk," Bill Mead urged, and I +loosed my hold. I knew instinctively that we were safe now, as I knew +also that this submission of Jean Pahusca's must be paid for later with +heavy interest by somebody. + +"Here'th your horth; s'pothe you thkite," lisped Bud Anderson. + +Jean sprang upon his pony and dashed off. We watched him ride away down +the long slope. In a few moments another horseman joined him, and they +took the trail toward the Kaw reservation. It was Father Le Claire +riding with the Indian into the gathering shadows of the south. + +I turned to Marjie standing beside me. Her big brown eyes were luminous +with tears, and her face was as white as my mother's face was on the day +the sea left its burden on the Rockport sands. It was hate that made +Jean Pahusca veil his countenance for me a moment before. Something of +which hate can never know made me look down at her calmly. O'mie's hand +was on my shoulder and his eyes were on us both. There was a quaint +approval in his glance toward me. He knew the self-control I needed +then. + +"Phil saved you, Marjie," Mary Gentry exclaimed. + +"No, he saved Jean," put in Lettie. + +"And O'mie saved Phil," Bess Anderson urged. "Just grabbed that knife in +time." + +"Well, I thaved mythelf," Bud piped in. + +He never could find any heroism in himself who, more than any other boy +among us, had a record for pulling drowning boys out of the Deep Hole by +the Hermit's Cave, and killing rattlesnakes in the cliff's crevices, +and daring the dark when the border ruffians were hiding about +Springvale. + +An angry growl of thunder gave us warning of the coming storm. In our +long race home before its wrath, in the dense darkness wrapping the +landscape, we could only trust to the ponies to keep the way. Marjie +rode close by my side that night, and more than once my hand found hers +in the darkness to assure her of protection. O'mie, bless his red head! +crowded Lettie to the far side of the group, keeping Tell on the other +side of her. + +When I climbed the hill on Cliff Street that night I turned by the +bushes and caught the gleam of Marjie's light. I gave the whistling call +we had kept for our signal these years, and I saw the light waver as a +good-night signal. + +That night I could not sleep. The storm lasted for hours, and the rain +swept in sheets across the landscape. The darkness was intense, and the +midsummer heat of the day was lost in the chill of that drouth-breaking +torrent. After midnight I went to my father's room. He had not retired, +but was sitting by the window against which the rain beat heavily. The +light burned low, and his fine face was dimly outlined in the shadows. I +sat down beside his knee as I was wont to do in childhood. + +"Father," I began hesitatingly, "Father, do you still love my mother? +Could you care for anybody else? Does a man ever--" I could not say +more. Something so like tears was coming into my voice that my cheeks +grew hot. + +My father's hand rested gently on my head, his fingers stroking the +ripples of my hair. White as it is now, it was dark and wavy then, as my +mother's had been. It was the admiration of the women and girls, which +admiration always annoyed and embarrassed me. In and out of those set +waves above my forehead his fingers passed caressingly. He knew the +heart of a boy, and he sat silent there, letting me feel that I could +tell him anything. + +"Have you come to the cross-roads, Phil?" he asked gently. "I was +thinking of you as I sat here. Maybe that brought you in. Your boyhood +must give way to manhood soon. These times of civil war change +conditions for our children," he mused to himself, rather than spoke to +me. "We expect a call to the front soon, Phil. When I am gone, I want +you to do a man's part in Springvale. You are only a boy, I know, but +you have a man's strength, my son." + +"And a man's spirit, too," I cried, springing up and standing erect +before him. "Let me go with you, Father." + +"No, Phil, you must stay here and help to protect these homes, just as +we men must go out to fight for them. To the American people war doesn't +mean glory nor conquest. It means safety and freedom, and these begin +and end in the homes of our land." + +The impulse wakened on the prairie that evening at the sight of Marjie's +peril leaped up again within me. + +"I'll do my best. But tell me, Father," I had dropped down beside him +again, "do you still love my mother? Does a man love the same woman +always?" + +Few boys of my age would have asked such a question of a man. My father +took both of my hands into his own strong hands and in the dim light he +searched my face with his keen eyes. + +"Men differ in their natures, my boy. Even fathers and sons do not +always think alike. I can speak only for myself. Do I love the woman who +gave you birth? Oh, Phil!" + +No need for him to say more. Over his face there swept an expression of +tenderness such as I have never seen save as at long intervals I have +caught it on the face of a sweet-browed mother bending above a sleeping +babe. I rose up before him, and stooping, I kissed his forehead. It was +a sacred hour, and I went out from his presence with a new bond binding +us together who had been companions all my days. My dreams when I fell +asleep at last were all of Marjie, and through them all her need for a +protector was mingled with a still greater need for my guardianship. It +came from two women who were strangers to me, whose faces I had never +seen before. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A GOOD INDIAN + + Underneath that face like summer's ocean, + Its lips as moveless, and its brow as clear, + Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotion, + Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow,--all save fear. + + +Cast in the setting of to-day, after such an attempt on human life as we +broke up on the prairie, Jean Pahusca would have been hiding in the +coverts of Oklahoma, or doing time at the Lansing penitentiary for +attempted assault with intent to kill. The man who sold him the whiskey +would be in the clutches of the law, carrying his case up to the Supreme +Court, backed by the slush fund of the brewers' union. The Associated +Press would give the incident a two-inch heading and a one-inch story; +and the snail would stay on the thorn, and the lark keep on the wing. + +Even in that time Springvale would not have tolerated the Indian among +us had it not been that the minds of the people were fermenting with +other things. We were on the notorious old border between free and slave +lands, whose tragedies rival the tales of the Scottish border. Kansas +had been a storm centre since the day it became a Territory, and the +overwhelming theme was negro slavery. Every man was marked as "pro" or +"anti." There was no neutral ground. Springvale was by majority a +Free-State town. A certain element with us, however, backed up by the +Fingal's Creek settlement, declared openly and vindictively for slavery. +It was from this class that we had most to fear. While the best of our +people were giving their life-blood to save a nation, these men connived +with border raiders who would not hesitate to take the life and property +of every Free-State citizen. When our soldiers marched away to fields of +battle, they knew they were leaving an enemy behind them, and no man's +home was safe. Small public heed was paid then to the outbreak of a +drunken Indian boy who had been overcome in a scrap out on the prairie +when the youngsters were hunting their cows. + +Where the bushes grow over the edge of the bluff at the steep bend in +Cliff Street, a point of rock projects beyond the rough side. By a rude +sort of stone steps beside this point we could clamber down many feet to +the bush-grown ledge below. This point had been a meeting-place and +playground for Marjie and myself all those years. We named it +"Rockport" after the old Massachusetts town. Marjie could hear my call +from the bushes and come up to the half-way place between our two homes. +The stratum of rock below this point was full of cunning little crevices +and deep hiding-places. One of these, known only to Marjie and myself, +we called our post-office, and many a little note, scrawled in childish +hand, but always directed to "Rockport" like a real address on the +outside fold, we left for each other to find. Sometimes it was a +message, sometimes it was only a joke, and sometimes it was just a line +of childish love-making. We always put our valentines in this private +house of Uncle Sam's postal service. Maybe that was why the other boys +and girls did not couple our names together oftener. Everybody knew who +got valentines at the real post-office and where they came from. + +On the evening after the storm there was no loitering on the prairie. +While we knew there was no danger, a half-dozen boys brought the cows +home long before the daylight failed. At sunset I went down to +"Rockport," intending to whistle to Marjie. How many a summer evening +together here we had watched the sunset on the prairie! To-night, for no +reason that I could give, I parted the bushes and climbed down to the +ledge below, intending in a moment to come up again. I paused to listen +to the lowing of some cows down the river. All the sweet sounds and +odors of evening were in the air, and the rain-washed woodland of the +Neosho Valley was in its richest green. I did not notice that the bushes +hid me until, as I turned, I caught a glimpse of a red blanket, with a +circular white centre, sliding up that stairway. An instant later, a +call, my signal whistle, sounded from the rock above. I stood on the +ledge under the point, my heart the noisiest thing in all that summer +landscape full of soft twilight utterances. I was too far below the +cliff's edge to catch any answering call, but I determined to fling that +blanket and its wearer off the height if any harm should even threaten. +Presently I heard a light footstep, and Marjie parted the bushes above +me. Before she could cry out, Jean spoke to her. His voice was clear and +sweet as I had never heard it before, and I do not wonder it reassured +her. + +"No afraid, Star-face, no afraid. Jean wants one word." + +Marjie did not move, and I longed to let her know how near I was to her, +and yet I dared not till I knew his purpose. + +"Star-face," he began, "Jean drink no more. Jean promise Padre Le +Claire, never, never, Star-face, not be afraid anymore, never, never. +Jean good Indian now. Always keep evil from Star-face." + +How full of affection were his tones. I wondered at his broken Indian +tongue, for he had learned good English, and sometimes he surpassed us +all in the terse excellence and readiness of his language. Why should he +hesitate so now? + +"Star-face,"--there was a note of self-control in his pleading +voice,--"I will never drink again. I would not do harm to you. Don't be +afraid." + +I heard her words then, soft and sweet, with that tremor of fear she +could never overcome. + +"I hope you won't, Jean." + +Then the bushes crackled, as she turned and sped away. + +I was just out of sight again when that red blanket slipped down the +rocks and disappeared over the side of the ledge in the jungle of bushes +below me. + +A little later, when Mary Gentry and O'mie and I sat with Marjie on the +Whately doorstep, she told us what Jean had said. + +"Do you really think he will be good now?" asked Mary. She was always +credulous. + +"Yes, of course," Marjie answered carelessly. + +Her reply angered me. She seemed so ready to trust the word of this +savage who twenty-four hours before had tried to scalp her. Did his +manner please Marjie? Was the foolish girl attracted by this picturesque +creature? I clenched my fists in the dark. + +"Girls are such silly things," I said to myself. "I thought better of +Marjie, but she is like all the rest." And then I blushed in the dark +for having such mean thoughts. + +"Don't you think he will be good now, Phil?" + +I did not know how eagerly she waited for my answer. Poor Marjie! To her +the Indian name was always a terror. Before I could reply O'mie broke +in: + +"Marjory Whately, ye'll excuse me fur referrin' to it, but I ain't no +bigger than you are." + +O'mie had not grown as the most of us had, and while he had a lightning +quickness of movement, and a courage that never faltered, he was no +match for the bigger boys in strength and endurance. Marjie was rounding +into graceful womanhood now, but she was not of the slight type. She +never lost her dimples, and the vigorous air of the prairies gave her +that splendid physique that made her a stranger to sickness and kept the +wild-rose bloom on her fair cheeks. O'mie did not outweigh her. + +"Ye'll 'scuse me," O'mie went on, "fur the embarrassin' statement; but I +ain't big, I run mostly to brains, while Phil here, an' Bill, an' Dave, +an' Bud, an' Possum Conlow runs mostly to beef; an' yet, bein' small, I +ain't afraid none of your good Injun. But take this warnin' from me, an +old friend that knew your grandmother in long clothes, that you kape +wide of Jean Pahusca's trail. Don't you trust him." + +Marjie gave a little shiver. Had I been something less a fool then I +should have known that it was a shiver of fear, but I was of the age to +know everything, and O'mie sitting there had learned my heart in a +moment on the prairie the evening before. And then I wanted Marjie to +trust to me. Her eyes were like stars in the soft twilight, and her +white face lost its color, but she did not look at me. + +"Don't you trust that mock-turtle Osage, Marjorie, don't." O'mie was +more deeply in earnest than we thought. + +"But O'mie," Marjie urged, "Jean was just as earnest as you are now; +and you'd say so, too, Phil, if you had heard him." + +She was right. The words I had heard from above the rock rang true. + +"And if he really wants to do better, what have we all been told in the +Sunday-school? 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'" + +I could have caught that minor chord of fear had I been more master of +myself at that moment. + +"Have ye talked wid Father Le Claire?" asked O'mie. "Let's lave the +baste to him. Phil, whin does your padre and his Company start to subdue +the rebillious South?" + +"Pretty soon, father says." + +"My father is going too," Marjie said gently, "and Henry Anderson and +Cris Mead, and all the men." + +"Oh, well, we'll take care of the widders an' orphans." O'mie spoke +carelessly, but he added, "It's grand whin such min go out to foight fur +a country. Uncle Cam wants to go if he's aqual to the tests; you know +he's too near-sighted to see a soldier. Why don't you go too, Phil? +You're big as your dad, an' not half so essential to Springvale. Just +lave it to sich social ornimints as me an' Marjie's 'good Injun.'" + +Again Marjie shivered. + +"I want to go, but father won't let me leave--Aunt Candace." + +"An' he's right, as is customary wid him. You nade your aunt to take +care of you. He couldn't be stoppin' the battle to lace up your shoes +an' see that you'd washed your neck. Come, Mary, little girls must be +gettin' home." And he and Mary trotted down the slope toward the +twinkling lights of the Cambridge House. + +Before I reached home, O'mie had overtaken me, saying: + +"Come, Phil, let's rest here a minute." + +We were just by the bushes that shut off my "Rockport," so we parted +them and sat down on the point of rock. The moon was rising, red in the +east, and the Neosho Valley below us was just catching its gleams on the +treetops, while each point of the jagged bluff stood out silvery white +above the dark shadows. A thousand crickets and katydids were chirping +in the grass. It was only on the town side that the bushes screened this +point. All the west prairie was in that tender gloom that would roll +back in shadowy waves before the rising moon. + +"Phil," O'mie began, "don't be no bigger fool than nature cut you out +fur to be. Don't you trust that 'good Injun' of Marjie's, but kape one +eye on him comin' an t' other 'n on him goin'." + +"I don't trust him, O'mie, but he has a voice that deceives. I don't +wonder, being a girl, Marjie is caught by it." + +"An' you, bein' a boy," O'mie mimicked,--"Phil, you're enough to turn my +hair rid. But never mind, ye can't trust him. Fur why? He's not to be +trusted. If he was aven Injun clean through you could a little, maybe. +Some Osages has honor to shame a white man,--aven an Irishman,--but he's +not Osage. He's a Kiowa, the kind that stole that little chap years ago +up toward Rid Range. An' he ain't Kiowa altogether nather. The Injun +blood gives him cuteness, but half his cussedness is in that soft black +scalp an' that soft voice sayin', 'Good Injun.' There's some old Louis +XIV somewhere in his family tree. The roots av it may be in the Plains +out here, but some branch is a graft from a Orleans rose-bush. He's got +the blossoms an' the thorns av a Frenchman. An' besides," O'mie added, +"as if us two wise men av the West didn't know, comes Father Le Claire +to me to-day. He's Jean's guide an' counsellor. An' Phil, begorra, them +two looks alike. Same square-cut kind o' foreheads they've got. Annyhow, +I was waterin' the horses down to the ford, an' Father Le Claire comes +on me sudden, ridin' up on the Kaw trail from the south. He blessed me +wid his holy hand and then says quick: + +"'O'mie, ye are a lad I can trust!'" + +"I nodded, not knowin' why annybody can't be trusted who goes swimmin' +once a week, an' never tastes whiskey, an' don't practise lyin', nor +shirkin' his stunt at the Cambridge House." + +"'O'mie,' says he, 'I want to tell you who you must not trust. It is +Jean Pahusca,' says he; 'I wish I didn't nade to say it, but it is me +duty to warn ye. Don't mistreat him, but O'mie, for Heaven's sake, kape +your eyes open, especially when he promises to be good.' It's our stunt, +Phil, to watch him close now he's took to reformin' to the girls." + +"O'mie, we know, and Father Le Claire knows, but how can we make those +foolish girls understand? Mary believes everything that's said to her +anyhow, and you heard Marjie to-night. She thinks she should take Jean +at his word." + +"Phil, you are all right, seemin'ly. You can lick any av us. You've got +the build av a giant, an' you've beautiful hair an' teeth. An' you are +son an' heir to John Bar'net, which is an asset some av us would love to +possess, bein' orphans, an' the lovely ladies av Springvale is all +bewitched by you; but you are a blind, blitherin' ijit now an' again." + +"Well, you heard what Marjie said, and how careless she was." + +"Yes, an' I seen her shiver an' turn white the instant too. Phil, she's +doin' that to kape us from bein' unaisy, an' it's costin' her some to +do it. Bless her pretty face! Phil, don't be no bigger fool than ye can +kape from." + +In less than a week after the incident on the prairie my father's +Company was called to the firing line of the Civil War and the +responsibilities of life fell suddenly upon me. There was a great +gathering in town on the day the men marched away. Where the opera house +stands now was the corner of a big vacant patch of ground reaching out +toward the creek. To-day it was filled with the crowd come to see the +soldiers and bid them good-bye. A speaker's stand was set up in the yard +of the Cambridge House and the boys in blue were in the broad street +before it. It was the last civilian ceremony for many of them, for that +Kansas Company went up Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, led the line as +Kansans will ever do, and in the face of a murderous fire they drove the +foeman back. But many of them never came home to wear their laurels of +victory. They lie in distant cemeteries under the shadow of tall +monuments. They lie in old neglected fields, in sunken trenches, by +lonely waysides, and in deep Southern marshes, waiting all the last +great Reunion. If I should live a thousand years, the memory of that +bright summer morning would not fade from my mind. + +Dr. Hemingway, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, presided over the +meeting, and the crowd about the soldiers was reinforced by all the +countryside beyond the Neosho and the whole Red Range neighborhood. + +Skulking about the edge of the company, or gathered in little groups +around the corners just out of sight, were the pro-slavery sympathizers, +augmented by the Fingal's Creek crowd, who were of the Secession element +clear through. In the doorway of the "Last Chance" sat the Rev. Dodd, +pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South, taking no part in this +patriotic occasion. Father Le Claire was beside Dr. Hemingway. He said +not a word, but Springvale knew he was a power for peace. He did not +sanction bloodshed even in a righteous cause. Neither would he allow +those who followed his faith to lift a hand against those who did go out +to battle. We trusted him and he never betrayed that trust. This morning +I recalled what O'mie had said about his looking like Jean Pahusca. His +broad hat was pushed back from his square dark forehead; and the hair, +soft and jetty, had the same line about the face. But not one feature +there bespoke an ignoble spirit. I did not understand him, but I was +drawn toward him, as I was repelled by the Indian from the moment I +first saw his head above the bluff on the rainy October evening long +ago. + +How little the Kansas boys and girls to-day can understand what that +morning meant to us, when we saw our fathers riding down the Santa Fé +Trail to the east, and waving good-bye to us at the far side of the +ford! How the fire of patriotism burned in our hearts, and how the +sudden loss of all our strongest and best men left us helpless among +secret cruel enemies! And then that spirit of manhood leaped up within +us, the sudden sense of responsibility come to "all the able-bodied +boys" to stand up as a wall of defence about the homes of Springvale. +Too well we knew the dangers. Had we not lived on this Kansas border in +all those plastic years when the mind takes deepest impressions? The +ruffianism of Leavenworth and Lawrence and Osawatomie had been repeated +in the unprotected surroundings of Springvale. The Red Range schoolhouse +had been burned, and the teacher, a Massachusetts man, had been drowned +in a shallow pool near the source of Fingal's Creek, his body fastened +face downward so that a few inches of water were enough for the fiendish +purpose. Eastward the settlers had fled to our town, time and again, to +escape the border raiders, whose coming meant death to the free-spirited +father, and a widow and orphans left destitute beside the smoking embers +of what had been a home. Those were busy days in Kansas, and the memory +of them can yet stir the heart of a man of sixty years. + +That morning Dr. Hemingway offered prayer, the prayer of a godly man, +for the souls of men about to be baptized with a baptism of blood that +other men might be free, and a peaceful generation might walk with ease +where their feet trod red-hot ploughshares; a prayer for the strong arm +of God Almighty, to uphold every soldier's hands until the cause of +right should triumph; a prayer for the heavenly Father's protection +about the homes left fatherless for the sake of His children. + +And then he prayed for us, "for Philip Baronet, the strong and manly son +of his noble father, John Baronet; for David and William Mead, for John +and Clayton and August Anderson." He prayed for Tell Mapleson, too (Tell +was always square in spite of his Copperhead father), and for "Thomas +O'Meara." We hardly knew whom he meant. + +Bud Anderson whispered later, "Thay, O'mie, you'll never get into +kingdom come under an athumed name. Better thtick to 'O'mie.'" + +And last of all the good Doctor prayed for the wives and daughters, that +they "be strong and very courageous," doing their part of working and +waiting as bravely as they do who go out to stirring action. Then +ringing speeches followed. I remember them all; but most of all the +words of my father and of Irving Whately are fixed in my mind. My father +lived many years and died one sunset hour when the prairies were in +their autumn glory, died with his face to the western sky, his last +earthly scene that peaceful prairie with the grandeur of a thousand +ever-changing hues building up a wall like to the walls of the New +Jerusalem which Saint John saw in a vision on the Isle of Patmos. There +was + + No moaning of the bar + When he put out to sea + +for he died beautifully, as he had lived. I never saw Irving Whately +again, for he went down before the rebel fire at Chattanooga; but the +sound of his voice I still can hear. + +The words of these men seemed to lift me above the clouds, and what +followed is like a dream. I know that when the speeches were done, +Marjie went forward with the beautiful banner the women of Springvale +had made with their own hands for this Company. I could not hear her +words. They were few and simple, no doubt, for she was never given to +display. But I remember her white dress and her hair parted in front and +coiled low on her neck. I remember the sweet Madonna face of the little +girl, and how modestly graceful she was. I remember how every man held +his breath as she came up to the group seated on the stage, how pink her +cheeks were and how white the china aster bloom nestling against the +ripples of her hair, and how the soldiers cheered that flag and its +bearer. I remember Jean Pahusca, Indian-like, standing motionless, never +taking his eyes from Marjie's face. It was that flag that this Company +followed in its awful charge up Missionary Ridge. And it was Irving +Whately who kept it aloft, the memory of his daughter making it doubly +sacred to him. + +And then came the good-byes. Marjie's father gripped my hand, and his +voice was full of tears. + +"Take care of them, Phil. I have no son to guard my home, and if we +never come back you will not let harm come to them. You will let me feel +when I am far away that you are shielding my little girl from evil, +won't you, Phil?" + +I clenched his hand in mine. "You know I'll do that, Mr. Whately." I +stood up to my full height, young, broad-shouldered, and muscular. + +"It will be easier for me, Phil, to know you are here." + +I understood him. Mrs. Whately was, of all the women I knew, least able +to do for herself. Marjie was like her father, and, save for her fear of +Indians, no Kansas girl was ever more capable and independent. It has +been my joy that this father trusted me. The flag his daughter put into +his hands that day was his shroud at Chattanooga, and his last moments +were happier for the thought of his little girl in my care. + +Aunt Candace and I walked home together after we had waved the last +good-byes to the soldiers. From our doorway up on Cliff Street we +watched that line of men grow dim and blend at last into the eastern +horizon's purple bound. When I turned then and looked down at the town +beyond the slope, it seemed to me that upon me alone rested the burden +of its protection. Driven deep in my boyish soul was the sense of the +sacredness of these homes, and of a man's high duty to keep harm from +them. My father had gone out to battle, not alone to set free an +enslaved race, but to make whole and strong a nation whose roots are in +the homes it defends. So I, left to fill his place, must be the valiant +defender of the defenceless. Such moments of exaltation come to the +young soul, and by such ideals a life is squared. + +That evening our little crowd of boys strolled out on the west prairie. +The sunset deepened to the rich afterglow, and all the soft shadows of +evening began to unfold about us. In that quiet, sacred time, standing +out on the wide prairie, with the great crystal dome above us, and the +landscape, swept across by the free winds of heaven, unrolled in all its +dreamy beauty about us, our little company gripped hands and swore our +fealty to the Stars and Stripes. And then and there we gave sacred +pledge and promise to stand by one another and to give our lives if need +be for the protection and welfare of the homes of Springvale. + +Busy days followed the going of the soldiers. Somehow the gang of us who +had idled away the summer afternoons in the sand-bar shallows beyond the +Deep Hole seemed suddenly to grow into young men who must not neglect +school nor business duties. Awkwardly enough but earnestly we strove to +keep Springvale a pushing, prosperous community, and while our efforts +were often ludicrous, the manliness of purpose had its effect. It gave +us breadth, this purpose, and broke up our narrow prejudices. I believe +in those first months I would have suffered for the least in Springvale +as readily as for the greatest. Even Lettie Conlow, whose father kept on +shoeing horses as though there were no civil strife in the nation, found +such favor with me as she had never found before. I know now it was only +a boy's patriotic foolishness, but who shall say it was ignoble in its +influence? Marjie was my especial charge. That Fall I did not retire at +night until I had run down to the bushes and given my whistle, and had +seen her window light waver a good-night answer, and I knew she was +safe. I was not her only guardian, however. One crisp autumn night there +was no response to my call, and I sat down on the rocky outcrop of the +steep hill to await the coming of her light in the window. It was a +clear starlight night, and I had no thought of being unseen as I was +quietly watching. Presently, up through the bushes a dark form slid. It +did not stand erect when the street was reached, but crawled with head +up and alert in the deeper shadow of the bluff side of the road. I knew +instinctively that it was Jean Pahusca, and that he had not been +expecting me to be there after my call and had failed to notice me in +his eagerness to creep unseen down the slope. Sometimes in these later +years in a great football game I have watched the Haskell Indians +crawling swiftly up and down the side-lines following the surge of the +players on the gridiron, and I always think of Jean as he crept down the +hill that night. It was late October and the frost was glistening, but I +pulled off my boots in a moment and silently followed the fellow. Inside +the fence near Marjie's window was a big circle of lilac bushes, +transplanted years ago from the old Ohio home of the Whatelys. Inside +this clump Jean crept, and I knew by the quiet crackle of twigs and dead +leaves he was making his bed there. My first thought was to drag him out +and choke him. And then my better judgment prevailed. I slipped away to +find O'mie for a council. + +"Phil, I'd like to kill him wid a hoe, same as Marjie did that other +rattlesnake that had Jim Conlow charmed an' flutterin' toward his pisen +fangs, only we'd better wait a bit. By Saint Patrick, Philip, we can't +hang up his hide yet awhoile. I know what the baste's up to annyhow." + +"Well, what is it?" I queried eagerly. + +"He's bein' a good Injun he is, an' he's got a crude sort o' notion he's +protectin' that dear little bird. She may be scared o' him, an' he knows +it; but bedad, I'd not want to be the border ruffian that went prowlin' +in there uninvited; would you?" + +"Well, he's a dear trusty old Fido of a watchdog, O'mie. We will take +Father Le Claire's word, and keep an eye on him though. He will sleep +where he will sleep, but we'll see if the sight of water affects him +any. A dog of his breed may be subject to rabies. You can't always trust +even a 'good Injun.'" + +After that I watched for Jean's coming and followed him to his lilac +bed, a half-savage, half-educated Indian brave, foolishly hoping to win +a white girl for his own. + +All that Fall Jean never missed a night from the lilac bush. As long as +he persisted in passing the dark hours so near to the Whately home my +burden of anxiety and responsibility was doubled. In silent faithfulness +he kept sentinel watch. I dared not tell Marjie, for I knew it would +fill her nights with terror, and yet I feared her accidental discovery +of his presence. Jean was doing more than this, however. His promise to +be good seemed to belie Father Le Claire's warning. In and out of the +village all that winter he went, orderly, at times even affable, quietly +refusing every temptation to drunkenness. "A good Indian" he was, even +to the point where O'mie and I wondered if we might not have been wrong +in our judgment of him. He was growing handsomer too. He stood six feet +in his moccasins, stalwart as a giant, with grace in every motion. +Somehow he seemed more like a picturesque Gipsy, a sort of +semi-civilized grandee, than an Indian of the Plains. There was a +dominant courtliness in his manner and his bearing was kingly. People +spoke kindly of him. Regularly he took communion in the little Catholic +chapel at the south edge of town on the Kaw trail. Quietly but +persistently he was winning his way to universal favor. Only the Irish +lad and I kept our counsel and, waited. + +After the bitterly cold New Year's Day of '63 the Indian forsook the +lilac bush for a time. But I knew he never lost track of Marjie's coming +and going. Every hour of the day or night he could have told just where +she was. We followed him down the river sometimes at night, and lost him +in the brush this side the Hermit's Cave. We did not know that this was +a mere trick to deceive us. To make sure of him we should have watched +the west prairie and gone up the river for his real landing place. How +he lived I do not know. An Indian can live on air and faith in a +promise, or hatred of a foe. At last he lulled even our suspicion to +sleep. + +"Ask the priest what to do," I suggested to O'mie when we grew ashamed +of our spying. "They are together so much the rascal looks and walks +like him. See him on annuity day and tell him we feel like chicken +thieves and kidnappers." + +O'mie obeyed me to the letter, and ended with the query to the good +Father: + +"Now phwat should a couple of young sleuth-hounds do wid such a dacent +good Injun?" + +Father Le Claire's reply stunned the Irish boy. + +"He just drew himself up a mile high an' more," O'mie related to me, +"just stood up like the angel av the flamin' sword, an' his eyes blazed +a black, consumin' fire. 'Watch him,' says the praist, 'for God's sake, +watch him. Don't ask me again phwat to do. I've told you twice. Thirty +years have I lived and labored with his kind. I know them.' An' then," +O'mie went on, "he put both arms around me an' held me close as me own +father might have done, somewhere back, an' turned an' left me. So +there's our orders. Will ye take 'em?" + +I took them, but my mind was full of queries. I did not trust the +Indian, and yet I had no visible reason to doubt his sincerity. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHEN THE HEART BEATS YOUNG + + A patch of green sod 'neath the trees brown and bare, + A smell of fresh mould on the mild southern air, + A twitter of bird song, a flutter, a call, + And though the clouds lower, and threaten and fall-- + There's Spring in my heart! + + --BERTA ALEXANDER GARVEY. + + +When the prairies blossomed again, and the Kansas springtime was in its +daintiest green, when a blur of pink was on the few young orchards in +the Neosho Valley, and the cottonwoods in the draws were putting forth +their glittering tender leaves--in that sweetest time of all the year, a +new joy came to me. Most girls married at sixteen in those days, and +were grandmothers at thirty-five. Marjie was no longer a child. No +sweeter blossom of young womanhood ever graced the West. All Springvale +loved her, except Lettie Conlow. And Cam Gentry summed it all up in his +own quaint way, brave old Cam fighting all the battles of the war over +again on the veranda of the Cambridge House, since his defective range +of vision kept him from the volunteer service. Watching Marjie coming +down the street one spring morning Cam declared solemnly: + +"The War's done decided, an' the Union has won. A land that can grow +girls like Marjory Whately's got the favorin' smile of the Almighty upon +it." + +For us that season all the world was gay and all the skies were +opal-hued, and we almost forgot sometimes that there could be sorrow and +darkness and danger. Most of all we forgot about an alien down in the +Hermit's Cave, "a good Indian" turned bad in one brief hour. Dear are +the memories of that springtide. Many a glorious April have I seen in +this land of sunshine, but none has ever seemed quite like that one to +me. Nor waving yellow wheat, nor purple alfalfa bloom, nor ramparts of +dark green corn on well-tilled land can hold for me one-half the beauty +of the windswept springtime prairie. No sweet odor of new-ploughed +ground can rival the fragrance of the wild grasses in their waving seas +of verdure. + +We were coming home from Red Range late one April day, where we had gone +to a last-day-of-school affair. The boys and girls did not ride in a +group now, but broke up into twos and twos sauntering slowly homeward. +The tender pink and green of the landscape with the April sunset tinting +in the sky overhead, and all the far south and west stretching away into +limitless waves of misty green blending into the amethyst of the world's +far bound, gave setting for young hearts beating in tune with the year's +young beauty. + +Tell Mapleson and Lettie had been with Marjie and me for a time, but at +last Tell had led Lettie far away. When we reached the draw beyond the +big cottonwood where Jean Pahusca threw us into such disorder on that +August evening the year before, we found a rank profusion of spring +blossoms. Leading our ponies by the bridle rein we lingered long in the +fragrant draw, gathering flowers and playing like two children among +them. At length Marjie sat down on the sloping ground and deftly wove +into a wreath the little pink blooms of some frail wild flower. + +"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!" + +I was as tall then as I am now, and Marjie at her full height came only +to my shoulder. I stooped to lay that dainty string of blossoms above +her brow. They fell into place in her wavy hair and nestled there, +making a picture only memory can keep. The air was very sweet and the +whole prairie about the little draw was still and dewy. The purple +twilight, shot through with sunset coloring, made an exquisite glory +overhead, and far beyond us. It is all sacred to me even now, this +moment in Love's young dream. I put both my hands gently against her +fair round cheeks and looked down her into her brown eyes. + +"Oh, Marjie," I said softly, and kissed her red lips just once. + +She said never a word while we stood for a moment, a moment we never +forgot. The day's last gleam of gold swept about us, and the ripple of a +bird's song in the draw beyond the bend fell upon the ear. An instant +later both ponies gave a sudden start. We caught their bridle reins, and +looked for the cause. Nothing was in sight. + +"It must have been a rattlesnake in that tall grass, Phil," Marjie +exclaimed. "The ponies don't like snakes, and they don't care for +flowers." + +"There are no snakes here, Marjie. This is the garden of Eden without +the Serpent," I said gayly. + +All the homeward way was a dream of joy. We forgot there was a Civil +War; that this was a land of aching hearts and dreary homes, and +bloodshed and suffering and danger and hate. We were young, it was April +on the prairies, and we had kissed each other in the pink-wreathed +shadows of the twilight. Oh, it was good to live! + +The next morning O'mie came grinning up the hill. + +"Say, Phil, ye know I cut the chape Neosho crowd last evening up to Rid +Range fur that black-eyed little Irish girl they call Kathleen. So I +came home afterwhoile behind you, not carin' to contaminate meself wid +such a common set after me pleasant company at Rid Range." + +"Well, we managed to pull through without you, O'mie, but don't let it +happen again. It's too hard on the girls to be deprived of your +presence. Do be more considerate of us, my lord." + +O'mie grinned more broadly than ever. + +"Well, I see a sight worth waitin' fur on my homeward jaunt in the +gloamin'." + +"What was it, a rattlesnake?" + +"Yes, begorra, it was just that, an' worse. You remember the draw this +side of the big cottonwood, the one where the 'good Injun' come at us +last August, the time he got knocked sober at the old tepee ring?" + +I gave a start and my cheeks grew hot. O'mie pretended not to notice me. + +"Well," he went on, "just as I came beyont that ring on this side and +dips down toward the draw where Jean come from when he was aimin' to +hang a certain curly brown-haired scalp--" + +A thrill of horror went through me at the picture. + +"Ye needn't shiver. Injuns do that; even little golden curls from +babies' heads. You an' me may live to see it, an' kill the Injun that +does it, yit. Now kape quiet. In this draw aforesaid, just like a rid +granite gravestone sat a rid granite Injun, 'a good Injun,' mind you. In +his hands was trailin' a broken wreath of pink blossoms, an' near as an +Injun can, an' a Frenchman can't, he was lovin' 'em fondly. My +appearance, unannounced by me footman, disconcerted him extramely. He +rose up an' he looked a mile tall. They moved some clouds over a little +fur his head up there," pointing toward the deep blue April sky where +white cumulus clouds were heaped, "an' his eyes was one blisterin' +grief, an' blazin' hate. He walks off proud an' erect, but some like a +wounded bird too. But mostly and importantly, remember, and renew your +watchfulness. It's hate an' a bad Injun now. Mark my words. The 'good +Injun' went out last night wid the witherin' of them pink flowers lyin' +limp in his cruel brown hands." + +"But whose flower wreath could it have been?" I asked carelessly. + +"O, phwat difference! Just some silly girl braided 'em up to look sweet +for some silly boy. An' maybe he kissed her fur it. I dunno. Annyhow she +lost this bauble, an' looking round I found it on the little knoll where +maybe she sat to do her flower wreathin'." + +He held up an old-fashioned double silver scarf-pin, the two pins held +together by a short silver chain, such as shawls were fastened with in +those days. Marjie had had the pin in the light scarf she carried on her +arm. It must have slipped out when she laid the scarf beside her and sat +down to make the wreath. I took the pin from O'mie's hand, my mind clear +now as to what had frightened the ponies. A new anxiety grew up from +that moment. The "good Indian" was passing. And yet I was young and +joyously happy that day, and I did not feel the presence of danger then. + +The early May rains following that April were such as we had never known +in Kansas before. The Neosho became bank-full; then it spread out over +the bottom lands, flooding the wooded valley, creeping up and up towards +the bluffs. It raced in a torrent now, and the song of its rippling over +stony ways was changed to the roar of many waters, rushing headlong down +the valley. On the south of us Fingal's Creek was impassable. Every +draw was brimming over, and the smaller streams became rivers. All these +streams found their way to the Neosho and gave it impetus to +destroy--which it did, tearing out great oaks and sending them swirling +and plunging, in its swiftest currents. It found the soft, uncertain +places underneath its burden of waters and with its millions of unseen +hands it digged and scooped and shaped the thing anew. When at last the +waters were all gone down toward the sea and our own beautiful river was +itself again, singing its happy song on sunny sands and in purple +shadows, the valley contour was much changed. To the boys who had known +it, foot by foot, the differences would have been most marked. +Especially would we have noted the change about the Hermit's Cave, had +not that Maytime brought its burden of strife to us all. + +That was the black year of the Civil War, with Murfreesboro, +Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga and Chickamauga all on its +record. Here in Kansas the minor tragedies are lost in the great horror +of the Quantrill raid at Lawrence. But the constant menace of danger, +and the strain of the thousand ties binding us to those from every part +of the North who had gone out to battle, filled every day with its own +care. When the news of Chancellorsville reached us, Cam Gentry sat on +the tavern veranda and wept. + +"An' to think of me, strong, an' able, an' longin' to fight for the +Union, shut out because I can only see so far." + +"But Uncle Cam," Dr. Hemingway urged, "Stonewall Jackson was killed by +his own men just when victory was lost to us. You might do the same +thing,--kill some man the country needs. And I believe, too, you are +kept here for a purpose. Who knows how soon we may need strong men in +this town, men who can do the short-range work? The Lord can use us all, +and your place is here. Isn't that true, Brother Dodd?" + +I was one of the group on the veranda steps that evening where the men +were gathered in eager discussion of the news of the great Union loss at +Chancellorsville, brought that afternoon by the stage from Topeka. I +glanced across at Dodd, pastor of the Methodist Church South. A small, +secretive, unsatisfactory man, he seemed to dole out the gospel +grudgingly always, and never to any outside his own denomination. + +He made no reply and Dr. Hemingway went on: "We have Philip here, and +I'd count on him and his crowd against the worst set of outlaws that +ever rode across the border. Yet they need your head, Uncle Cam, +although their arms are strong." + +He patted my shoulder kindly. + +"We need you, too," he continued, "to keep us cheered up. When the Lord +says to some of us, 'So far shalt thou see, and no farther,' he may give +to that same brother the power to scatter sunshine far and wide. Oh, we +need you, Brother Gentry, to make us laugh if for nothing else." + +Uncle Cam chuckled. He was built for chuckling, and we all laughed with +him, except Mr. Dodd. I caught a sneer on his face in the moment. + +Presently Father Le Claire and Jean Pahusca joined the group. I had not +seen the latter since the day of O'mie's warning. Indian as he was, I +could see a change in his impassive face. It made me turn cold, me, to +whom fear was a stranger. Father Le Claire, too, was not like himself. +Self-possessed always, with his native French grace and his inward +spiritual calm, this evening he seemed to be holding himself by a +mighty grip, rather than by that habitual self-mastery that kept his +life in poise. + +I tell these impressions as a man, and I analyze them as a man, but, boy +as I was, I felt them then with keenest power. Again the likeness of +Indian and priest possessed me, but raised no query within me. In form, +in gait and especially in the shape of the head and the black hair about +their square foreheads they were as like as father and son. Just once I +caught Jean's eye. The eye of a rattlesnake would have been more +friendly. O'mie was right. The "good Indian" had vanished. What had come +in his stead I was soon to know. But withal I could but admire the fine +physique of this giant. + +While the men were still full of the Union disaster, two horsemen came +riding up to the tavern oak. Their horses were dripping wet. They had +come up the trail from the southwest, where the draws were barely +fordable. Strangers excited no comment in a town on the frontier. The +trail was always full of them coming and going. We hardly noted that for +ten days Springvale had not been without them. + +"Come in, gentlemen," called Cam. "Here, Dollie, take care of these +friends. O'mie, take their horses." + +They passed inside and the talk outside went eagerly on. + +"Father Le Claire, how do the Injuns feel about this fracas now?" +inquired Tell Mapleson. + +The priest spoke carefully. + +"We always counsel peace. You know we do not belong to either faction." + +His smile was irresistible, and the most partisan of us could not +dislike him that he spoke for neither North nor South. + +"But," Tell persisted, "how do the Injuns themselves feel?" + +Tell seemed to have lost his usual insight, else he could have seen that +quick, shrewd, penetrating glance of the good Father's reading him +through and through. + +"I have just come from the Mission," he said. "The Osages are always +loyal to the Union. The Verdigris River was too high for me to hear from +the villages in the southwest." + +Tell was listening eagerly. So also were the two strangers who stood in +the doorway now. If the priest noted this he gave no sign. Mr. Dodd +spoke here for the first time. + +"Well," he said in his pious intonation, "if the Osages are loyal, that +clears Jean here. He's an Osage, isn't he?" + +Jean made no reply; neither did Le Claire, and Tell Mapleson turned +casually to the strangers, engaging them in conversation. + +"We shall want our horses at four sharp in the morning," one of the two +came out to say to Cam. "We have a long hard day before us." + +"At your service," answered Cam. "O'mie, take the order in your head." + +"Is that the biggest hostler you've got?" looking contemptuously at +little O'mie standing beside me. "If you Kansas folks weren't such +damned abolitionists you'd have some able-bodied niggers to do your work +right." + +O'mie winked at me and gave a low whistle. Neither the wink nor the +whistle was lost on the speaker, who frowned darkly at the boy. + +Cam squinted up at the men good-naturedly. "Them horses dangerous?" he +asked. + +"Yes, they are," the stranger replied. "Can we have a room downstairs? +We want to go to bed early. We have had a hard day." + +"You can begin to say your 'Now I lay me' right away in here if you +like," and the landlord led the way into a room off the veranda. One of +the two lingered outside in conversation with Mapleson for a brief time. + +"Come, go home with me, O'mie," I said later, when the crowd began to +thin out. + +"Not me," he responded. "Didn't ye hear, 'four A. M. sharp'? It's me +flat on me bed till the dewy morn an' three-thirty av it. Them's vicious +horses. An' they'll be to curry clane airly. Phil," he added in a lower +voice, "this town's a little overrun wid strangers wid no partic'lar +business av their own, an' we don't need 'em in ours. For one private +citizen, I don't like it. The biggest one of them two men in there's +named Yeager, an' he's been here three toimes lately, stayin' only a few +hours each toime." + +O'mie looked so little to me this evening! I had hardly noted how the +other boys had outgrown him. + +"You're not very big for a horseman after all, my son, but you're grit +clear through. You may do something yet the big fellows couldn't do," I +said affectionately. + +He was Irish to the bone, and never could entirely master his brogue, +but we had no social caste lines, and Springvale took him at face value, +knowing his worth. + +At Marjie's gate I stopped to make sure everything was all right. +Somehow when I knew the Indian was in town I could never feel safe for +her. She hurried out in response to my call. + +"I'm so glad to see you to-night, Phil," she said, a little tremulously. +"I wish father were here. Do you think he is safe?" + +She was leaning on the gate, looking eagerly into my eyes. The shadows +of the May twilight were deepening around us, and Marjie's white face +looked never so sweet to me as now, in her dependence on my assurance. + +"I'm sure Mr. Whately is all right. It is the bad news that gets here +first. I'm so glad our folks weren't at Chancellorsville." + +"But they may be in as dreadful a battle soon. Oh, Phil, I'm so--what? +lonesome and afraid to-night. I wish father could come home." + +It was not like Marjie, who had been a dear brave girl, always cheering +her dependent mother and hopefully expecting the best. To-night there +swept over me anew that sense of the duty every man owes to the home. It +was an intense feeling then. Later it was branded with fire into my +consciousness. I put one of my big hands over her little white hand on +the gate. + +"Marjie," I said gently, "I promised your father I would let no harm +come to you. Don't be afraid, little girl. You can trust me. Until he +comes back I will take care of you." + +The twilight was sweet and dewy and still. About the house the shadows +were darkening. I opened the gate, and drawing her hand through my arm, +I went up the walk with her. + +"Is that the lilac that is so fragrant?" I caught a faint perfume in the +air. + +"Yes," sadly, "what there is of it." And then she laughed a little. +"That miserable O'mie came up here the day after we went to Red Range +and persuaded mother to cut it all down except one straight stick of a +bush. He told her it was dying, and that it needed pruning, and I don't +know what. And you know mother. I was over at the Anderson's, and when I +came home the whole clump was gone. I dreamed the other night that +somebody was hiding in there. It was all dead in the middle. Do you +remember when we played hide-and-seek in there?" + +"I never forget anything you do, Marjie," I answered; "but I'm glad the +bushes are thinned out." + +She broke off some plumes of the perfumy blossoms. + +"Take those to Aunt Candace. Tell her I sent them. Don't let her think +you stole them," she was herself now, and her fear was gone. + +"May I take something else to Aunt Candace, too, Marjie?" + +"What else?" She looked up innocently into my face. We were at the +door-step now. + +"A good-night kiss, Marjie." + +"I'll see her myself about that," she replied mischievously but +confusedly, pushing me away. I knew her cheek was flushed as my own, and +I caught her hand and held it fast. + +"Good-night, Phil." That sweet voice of hers I could not disobey. In a +moment I was gone, happy and young and confident. I could have fought +the whole Confederate army for the sake of this girl left in my care--my +very own guardianship. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FORESHADOWING OF PERIL + + O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou + So calm and strong! + Lend strength to weakness, teach us how + The sleepless eyes of God look through + This night of wrong! + + --WHITTIER. + + +While these May days were slipping by, strange history was making itself +in Kansas. I marvel now, as I recall the slender bonds that stayed us +from destruction, that we ever dared to do our part in that +record-building day. And I rejoice that we did not know the whole peril +that menaced us through those uncertain hours, else we should have lost +all courage. + +Father Le Claire held himself neutral to the North and the South, and +was sometimes distrusted by both factions in our town; but he went +serenely on his way, biding his time patiently. At sunrise on the +morning after O'mie had surprised Jean Pahusca with Marjie's wreath of +faded blossoms held caressingly in his brown hands, Le Claire met him in +the little chapel. What he confessed led the priest to take him at once +to the Osages farther down on the Neosho. + +"I had hoped to persuade Jean to stay at the Mission," Le Claire said +afterwards. "He is the most intelligent one of his own tribe I have ever +known, and he could be invaluable to the Osages, but he would not stay +away from Springvale. And I thought it best to come back with him." + +The good man did not say why he thought it best to keep Jean under his +guardianship. Few people in Springvale would have dreamed how dangerous +a foe we had in this superbly built, picturesque, handsome Indian. + +In the early hours of the morning after his return, the priest was +roused from a sound sleep by O'mie. A storm had broken over the town +just after midnight. When it had spent itself and roared off down the +valley, the rain still fell in torrents, and O'mie's clothes were +dripping when he rushed into Le Claire's room. + +"For the love av Heaven," he cried, "they's a plot so pizen I must git +out of me constitution quick. They're tellin' it up to Conlow's shop. +Them two strangers, Yeager and his pal, that's s'posed to be sleepin' +now to get an airly start, put out 'fore midnight for a prowl an' found +theirsilves right up to Conlow's. An' I wint along behind +'em--respectful," O'mie grinned; "an' there was Mapleson an' Conlow an' +the holy Dodd, mind ye. M. E. South's his rock o' defence. An' Jean was +there too. They're promisin' him somethin', the strangers air. Tell an' +Conlow seemed to kind o' dissent, but give in finally." + +"Is it whiskey?" asked the priest. + +"No, no. Tell says he can't have nothin' from the 'Last Chance.' Says +the old Roman Catholic'll fix his agency job at Washington if he lets +Jean get drunk. It's somethin' else; an' Tell wants to git aven with +you, so he gives in." + +The priest's face grew pale. + +"Well, go on." + +"There's a lot of carrion birds up there I never see in this town. Just +lit in there somehow. But here's the schame. The Confederates has it +all planned, an' they're doin' it now to league together all the Injun +tribes av the Southwest. They's more 'n twinty commissioned officers, +Rebels, ivery son av 'em, now on their way to meet the chiefs av these +tribes. An' all the Kansas settlements down the river is to be fell upon +by the Ridskins, an' nobody to be spared. Wid them Missouri raiders on +the east and the Injuns in the southwest where'll anybody down there be, +begorra, betwixt two sich grindin' millstones? I couldn't gather it all +in, ye see. I was up on a ladder peeking in through a long hole laid +down sideways. But that's the main f'ature av the rumpus. They're +countin' big on the Osages becase the Gov'mint trusts 'em to do scout +duty down beyont Humboldt, and Jean says the Osages is sure to join 'em. +Said it is whispered round at the Mission now. And phwat's to be nixt?" + +Father Le Claire listened intently to O'mie's hurried recital. Then he +rose up before the little Irishman, and taking both of the boy's hands +in his, he said: "O'mie, you must do your part now." + +"Phwat can I do? Show me, an' bedad, I'll do it." + +"You will keep this to yourself, because it would only make trouble if +it were repeated now, and we may outwit the whole scheme without any +unnecessary anxiety and fright. Also, you must keep your eyes and ears +open to all that's done and said here. Don't let anything escape you. If +I can get across the Neosho this morning I can reach the Mission in time +to keep the Osages from the plot, and maybe break it up. Then I'll come +back here. They might need me if Jean"--he did not finish the sentence. +"In two days I can do everything needful; while if the word were started +here now, it might lead to a Rebel uprising, and you would be +outnumbered by the Copperheads here, backed by the Fingal's Creek +crowd. You could do nothing in an open riot." + +"I comprehend ye," said O'mie. "It's iverything into me eyes an' ears +an' nothin' out av me mouth." + +"Meanwhile," the priest spoke affectionately, "you must be strong, my +son, to choose the better part. If it's life or death,--O God, that +human life should be held so cheap!--if it's left to you to choose who +must be the sacrifice, you will choose right. I can trust you. Remember, +in two or three days at most, I can be back; but keep your watch, +especially of Jean. He means mischief, but I cannot stay here now, much +less take him with me. He would not go." + +So it happened that Father Le Claire hurried away in the darkness and +the driving rain, and at a fearful risk swam his horse across the +Neosho, and hastened with all speed to the Mission. + +When that midnight storm broke over the town, on the night when O'mie +followed the strangers and found out their plot, I helped Aunt Candace +to fasten the windows and make sure against it until I was too wide +awake to go to bed. I sat down by my window, in the lightning flashes +watching the rain, wind-driven across the landscape. The night was pitch +black. In all the southwest there was only one light, a sullen red bar +of flame that came up from Conlow's forge fire. I watched it +indifferently at first because it was there. Then I began to wonder why +it should gleam there red and angry at this dead hour of darkness. As I +watched, the light flared up as though it were fanned into a blaze. Then +it began to blink and I knew some one was inside the shop. It was +blotted out for a time, then it glowed again, as if there were many +passing and re-passing. I wondered what it could all mean in such an +hour, on such a night as this. Then I thought of old Conlow's children, +of "Possum" in his weak, good-natured homeliness, and of Lettie. How I +disliked her, and wished she would keep out of my way, which she never +would do. Her face was clear to me, there in the dark. It grew +malicious; then it hardened into wickedness, and I slipped from watching +into a drowsy, half-waking sleep in my chair. The red bar of light +became the flame of cannon on a battlefield, I saw our men in a +life-and-death struggle with the enemy on a rough, wild mountainside. +Everywhere my father was leading them on, and by his side Irving Whately +bore the Springvale flag aloft. And then beside me lay the color-bearer +with white, agonized face, pleading with me. His words were ringing in +my ears, "Take care of Marjie, Phil; keep her from harm." + +I woke with a start, stiff and shivering. With one half-dazed glance at +the black night and that sullen tell-tale light below me, I groped my +way to my bed and slept then the dreamless sleep of vigorous youth. + +The rain continued for many hours. Yeager and his company could not get +away from town on account of the booming Neosho. Also several other +strange men seemed to have rained down from nobody asked where, and +while the surface of affairs was smooth there was a troubled +undercurrent. Nobody seemed to know just what to expect, yet a sense of +calamity pervaded the air. Meanwhile the rain poured down in +intermittent torrents. On the second evening of this miserable gloom I +strolled down to the tavern stables to find O'mie. Bud and John Anderson +and both the Mead boys were there, sprawled out on the hay. O'mie sat on +a keg in the wagon way, and they were all discussing affairs of State +like sages. I joined in and we fought the Civil War to a finish in half +an hour. In all the "solid North" there was no more loyal company on +that May night than that group of brawny young fellows full of the fire +of patriotism, who swore anew their eternal allegiance to the Union. + +"It's a crime and a disgrace," declared Dave Mead, "that because we're +only boys we can't go to the War, and every one of us, except O'mie +here, muscled like oxen; while older, weaker men are being shot down at +Chancellorsville or staggering away from Bull Run." + +"O'mie 'thgot the thtuff in him though. I'd back him againth David and +Goliath," Bud Anderson insisted. + +"Yes, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or some other Bible characters," observed +Bill Mead. "You'd better join the Methodist Church South, Bud, and let +old Dodd labor with you." + +Then O'mie spoke gravely: + +"Boys, we've got a civil war now in our middust. Don't ask me how I +know. The feller that clanes the horses around the tavern stables, trust +him fur findin' which way the Neosho runs, aven if he is small an' +insignificant av statoor. I've seen an' heard too much in these two +dirty wet days." + +He paused, and there came into his eyes a pathetic pleading look as of +one who sought protection. It gave place instantly to a fearless, heroic +expression that has been my inspiration in many a struggle. I know now +how he longed to tell us all he knew, but his word to Le Claire held him +back. + +"I can't tell you exactly phwat's in the air, fur I don't know it all +yit. But there's trouble brewin' here, an' we must be ready, as we +promised we would be when our own wint to the front." + +O'mie had hit home. Had we not sworn our fealty to the flag, and +protection to our town in our boyish patriotism the Summer before? + +"Boys," O'mie went on, "if the storm breaks here in Springvale we've got +to forgit ourselves an' ivery son av us be a hero for the work that's +laid before him. Safe or dangerous, it's duty we must be doin', like the +true sons av a glorious commonwealth, an' we may need to be lightnin' +swift about it, too." + +Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow had come in as O'mie was speaking. We knew +their fathers were bitter Rebels, although the men made a pretence to +loyalty, which kept them in good company. But somehow the boys had not +broken away from young Tell and Jim. From childhood we had been +playmates, and boyish ties are strong. This evening the two seemed to be +burdened with something of which they dared not or would not speak. +There was a sort of defiance about them, such as an enemy may assume +toward one who has been his friend, but whom he means to harm. Was it +the will of Providence made O'mie appeal to them at the right moment? + +"Say, boys," he had a certain Celtic geniality, and a frank winning +smile that was irresistible. "Say, boys, all av the crowd's goin' to +stand together no matter what comes, just as we've done since we learned +how to swim in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. We're goin' to stand +shoulder to shoulder, an' we'll save this town from harm, whativer may +come in betwane, an' whoiver av us it's laid on to suffer, in the ind +we'll win. For why? We are on the right side, an' can count on the same +Power that's carried men aven to the inds av the earth to fight an' die +fur what's right. Will ye be av us, boys? We've niver had no split in +our gang yet. Will ye stay wid us?" + +Tell and Jim looked at each other. Then Tell spoke. He had the right +stuff in him at the last test always. + +"Yes, boys, we will, come what will come." + +Jim grinned at Tell. "I'll stand by Tell, if it kills me," he declared. + +We put little trust in his ability. It is the way of the world to +overlook the stone the Master Builder sometimes finds useful for His +purpose. + +"An' you may need us real soon, too," Tell called back as the two went +out. + +"By cracky, I bet they know more 'n we do," Bud Anderson declared. + +Dave Mead looked serious. + +"Well, I believe they'll hold with us anyhow," he said. "What they know +may help us yet." + +The coming of another tremendous downpour sent us scampering homeward. +O'mie and I had started up the hill together, but the underside of the +clouds fell out just as we reached Judson's gate, and by the time we had +come to Mrs. Whately's we were ready to dive inside for shelter. When +the rain settled down for an all-night stay, Mrs. Whately would wrap us +against it before we left her. She put an old coat of Mr. Whately's on +me. I had gone out in my shirt sleeves. Marjie looked bravely up at my +tall form. I knew she was thinking of him who had worn that coat. The +only thing for O'mie was Marjie's big water proof cloak. The +old-fashioned black-and-silver mix with the glistening black buttons, +such as women wore much in those days. It had a hood effect, with a +changeable red silk lining, fastened at the neck. To my surprise O'mie +made no objection at all to wearing a girl's wrap. But I could never +fully forecast the Irish boy. He drew the circular garment round him +and pulled the hood over his head. + +"Come, Philip, me strong protector," he called, "let's be skiting." + +At the door he turned back to Marjie and said in a low voice, "Phil will +mistake me fur a girl an' be wantin' me to go flower-huntin' out on the +West Prairie, but I won't do it." + +Marjie blushed like the June roses, and slammed the door after him. A +moment later she opened it again and held the light to show us the +dripping path to the gate. Framed in the doorway with the light held up +by her round white arm, the dampness putting a softer curl in every +stray lock of her rich brown hair, the roses still blooming on her +cheeks, she sent us away. Too young and sweet-spirited she seemed for +any evil to assail her in the shelter of that home. + +Late at night again the red light of the forge was crossed and re-crossed +by those who moved about inside the shop. Aunt Candace and I had sat +long together talking of the War, and of the raiding on the Kansas +border. She was a balm to my spirit, for she was a strong, fearless +woman, always comforting in the hour of sorrow, and self-possessed in +the face of danger. I wonder how the mothers of Springvale could have +done without her. She decked the brides for their weddings, and tenderly +laid out the dead. The new-born babe she held in her arms, and dying +eyes looking back from the Valley of the Shadow, sought her face. That +night I slept little, and I welcomed the coming of day. When the morning +dawned the world was flooded with sunshine, and a cool steady west wind +blew the town clear of mud and wet, the while the Neosho Valley was +threshed with the swollen, angry waters. + +With the coming of the sunshine the strangers disappeared. Nowhere all +that day were there any but our own town's people to be seen. Some of +these, however, I knew afterwards, were very busy. I remember seeing +Conlow and Mapleson and Dodd sauntering carelessly about in different +parts of the town, especially upon Cliff Street, which was unusual for +them. Just at nightfall the town was filled with strangers again. Yeager +and his companion, who had been water-bound, returned with half a dozen +more to the Cambridge House, and other unknown men were washed in from +the west. That night I saw the red light briefly. Then it disappeared, +and I judged the shop was deserted. I did not dream whose head was +shutting off the light from me, nor whose eyes were peering in through +that crevice in the wall. The night was peacefully beautiful, but its +beauty was a mockery to me, filled as I was with a nameless anxiety. I +had no reason for it, yet I longed for the return of Father Le Claire. +He had not taken Jean with him, and I judged that the Indian was near us +somewhere and in the very storm centre of all this uneasiness. + +At midnight I wakened suddenly. Outside, a black starless sky bent over +a cool, quiet earth. A thick darkness hid all the world. Dead stillness +everywhere. And yet, I listened for a voice to speak again that I was +sure I had heard as I wakened. I waited only a moment. A quick rapping +under my window, and a low eager call came to my ears. I sprang up and +groped my way to the open casement. + +"What's the matter down there?" I called softly. + +"Phil, jump into your clothes and come down just as quick as you can." +It was Tell Mapleson's voice, full of suppressed eagerness. "For God's +sake, hurry. It's life and death. Hurry! Hurry!" + +"Run to the side door, Tell, and call Aunt Candace. She'll let you in." + +I heard him make a plunge for the side door. By the time my aunt wakened +to open it, I was down stairs. Tell stood inside the hallway, white and +haggard. Our house was like a stone fort in its security, and Aunt +Candace had fastened the door behind him. She seemed a perfect tower of +strength to me, standing there like a strong guardian of the home. + +"Stop a minute, Tell. We'll save time by knowing what we are about. +What's the matter?" My aunt's voice gave him self-control. + +He held himself by a great effort. + +"There's not a second to lose, but we can't do anything without Phil. He +must lead us. There's been a plot worked up here for three nights in +Conlow's shop, to burn' every Union man's house in town. Preacher Dodd +and that stranger named Yeager and the other fellow that's been stayin' +at the tavern are backin' the whole thing. The men that's been hanging +round here are all in the plot. They're to lay low a little while, and +at two o'clock the blazin's to begin. Jim's run to Anderson's and +Mead's, but we'll do just what Phil says. We'll get the boys together +and you'll tell us what to do. The men'll kill Jim an' me if they find +out we told, but we swore we'd stay by you boys. We'll help clear +through, but don't tell on us. Don't never tell who told on 'em. Please +don't." Tell never had seemed manly to me till that moment. "They're +awful against O'mie. They say he knows too much. He heard 'em talking +too free round the stables. They're after you too, Phil. They think if +they get you out of the way, they can manage all the rest. I heard old +Dodd tell 'em to make sure of John Baronet's cub. Said you were the +worst in town, to come against. They'll kill you if they lay hands on +you. They'll come right here after you." + +"Then they'll go back without him," my aunt said firmly. + +"They say the Indians are to come from the south at daylight," Tell +hurried on, "an' finish up all that's left without homes. They're the +Kiowas. They'll not get here till just about daylight." Tell's teeth +were chattering, and he trembled as with an ague. + +"Worst of all,"--he choked now,--"Whately's home's to be left alone, and +Jean's to get Marjie and carry her off. They hate her father so, they've +let Jean have her. They know she was called over to Judson's late to +stay with Mrs. Judson. He's away, water-bound, and the baby's sick, and +just as she gets home, he's to get her. If she screams, or tries to get +away, he'll scalp her." + +I heard no more. My heart forgot to beat. I had seen Marjie's signal +light at ten o'clock and I was sure of her safety. The candle turned +black before me. The cry of my dreams, Irving Whately's pleading cry, +rang in my ears: "Take care of Marjie, Phil! Keep her from harm!" + +"Phil Baronet, you coward," Tell fairly hissed in my ear, "come and help +us! We can't do a thing without you." + +I, a coward! I sprang to the door and with Tell beside me we sped away +in the darkness. A faint light glimmered in the Whately home. At the +gate, Dave Mead hailed us. + +"It's too late, boys," he whispered, "Jean's gone and she's with him. +He rode by me like the devil, going toward the ford. They'll be drowned +and that's better than for her to live. The whole Indian Territory may +be here by morning." + +I lifted my face to the pitiless black sky above me, and a groan, the +agony of a breaking heart, burst from my lips. In that instant, I lived +ages of misery. + +"Oh, Phil, what shall we do? The town's full of helpless folks." Dave +caught my arm to steady himself. "Can't you, can't you put us to work?" + +Could I? His appeal brought me to myself. In the right moment the Lord +sends us to our places, and forsakes us not until our task is finished. +On me that night, was laid the duty of leadership in a great crisis; and +He who had called me, gave me power. Every Union household in the town +must be roused and warned of the impending danger. And whatever was done +must be done quickly, noiselessly, and at a risk of life to him who did +it. My plan sprang into being, and Dave and Tell ran to execute it. In a +few minutes we were to meet under the tavern oak. I dashed off toward +the Cambridge House. Uncle Cam had not yet gone to bed. + +"Where's O'mie?" I gasped. + +"I dunno. He flew in here ten minutes or more ago, but he never lit. In +ten seconds he was out again an' gone. He's got some sense an' generally +keeps his red head level. I'm waitin' to see what's up." + +In a word I gave Cam the situation, all except Jean's part. As I hurried +out to meet the boys at the oak, I stumbled against something in the +dense darkness. Cam hastened after me. The flare of the light from the +opening of the door showed a horse, wet and muddy to the throat latch. +It stared at the light in fright and then dashed away in the darkness. + +All the boys, Tell and Jim, the Meads, John, Clayton, and Bud +Anderson,--all but O'mie, met in the deep shadow of the oak before the +tavern door. Our plans fell into form with Cam's wiser head to shape +them here and there. The town was districted and each of us took his +portion. In the time that followed, I worked noiselessly, heroically, +taking the most dangerous places for my part. The boys rallied under my +leadership, for they would have it so. Everywhere they depended on my +word to direct them, and they followed my direction to the letter. It +was not I, in myself, but John Baronet's son on whom they relied. My +father's strength and courage and counsel they sought for in me. But all +the time I felt myself to be like a spirit on the edge of doom. I worked +as one who feels that when his task is ended, the blank must begin. Yet +I left nothing undone because of the dead weight on my soul. + +What happened in that hour, can never all be told. And only God himself +could have directed us among our enemies. Since then I have always felt +that the purpose crowns the effort. In Springvale that night was a band +of resolute lawless men, organized and armed, with every foot of their +way mapped out, every name checked, the lintel of every Union doorway +marked, men ready and sworn to do a work of fire and slaughter. Against +them was a group of undisciplined boys, unorganized, surprised, and +unequipped, groping in the darkness full of unseen enemies. But we were +the home-guard, and our own lives were nothing to us, if only we could +save the defenceless. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE COST OF SAFETY + + In the dark and trying hour, + In the breaking forth of power, + In the rush of steeds and men, + His right hand will shield thee then. + + --LONGFELLOW. + + +It was just half past one o'clock when the sweet-toned bell in the +Presbyterian Church steeple began to ring. Dr. Hemingway was at the rope +in the belfry. His part was to give us our signal. At the first peal the +windows of every Union home blazed with light. The doors were flung wide +open, and a song--one song--rose on the cool still night. + + O say, can you see by the dawn's early light + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?-- + Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight + O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming! + O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? + +It was sung in strong, clear tones as I shall never hear it sung again; +and the echoes of many voices, and the swelling music of that old church +bell, floated down the Neosho Valley, mingling with the rushing of the +turbulent waters. + +It was Cam Gentry's plan, this weapon of light and song. The Lord did +have a work for him to do, as Dr. Hemingway had said. + +"Boys," he had counselled us under the oak, "we can't match 'em in a +pitched battle. They're armed an' ready, and you ain't and you can't do +nothing in the dark. But let every house be ready, just as Phil has +planned. Warn them quietly, and when the church bell rings, let every +winder be full of light, every door wide open, and everybody sing." + +He could roar bass himself to be heard across the State line, and that +night he fairly boomed with song. + +"They're dirty cowards, and can't work only in the dark and secret +quiet. Give 'em light and song. Let 'em know we are wide awake and not +afraid, an' if Gideon ever had the Midianites on the hike, you'll have +them pisen Copperheads goin'. They'll never dast to show a coil, the +sarpents! cause that's not the way they fight; an' they'll be wholly +onprepared, and surprised." + +Just before the ringing of the signal bell, the boys had met again by +appointment under the tavern oak. Two things we had agreed upon when we +met there first. One was a pledge of secrecy as to the part of young +Tell and Jim in our work and to the part of Mapleson and Conlow in the +plot, for the sake of their boys, who were loyal to the town. The other +was to say nothing of Jean's act. Marjie was the light of Springvale, +and we knew what the news would mean. We must first save the homes, +quietly and swiftly. Other calamities would follow fast enough. In the +darkness now, Bud Anderson put both arms around me. + +"Phil," he whispered, "you're my king. You muth go to her mother now. In +the morning, your Aunt Candathe will come to her. Maybe in the daylight +we can find Marjie. He can't get far, unleth the river--" + +He held me tight in his arms, that manly, tender-hearted boy. Then I +staggered away like one in a dream toward the Whately house. We had not +yet warned Mrs. Whately, for we knew her home was to be spared, and our +hands were full of what must be done on the instant. Time never seemed +so precious to me as in those dreadful minutes when we roused that +sleeping town. I know now how Paul Revere felt when he rode to +Lexington. + +But now my cold knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and +mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to +Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was +no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim +light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not +a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair that was outlined in +the gloom. And a voice, Marjie's sweet voice, called anxiously: + +"Is that you, Phil? I'll be right down." Then the light disappeared, and +I heard the patter of feet on the stairs; then the front door opened and +I walked straight into heaven. For there stood Marjie, safe and strong, +before me--my Marjie, escaped from the grave, or from that living hell +that is worse than death, captivity in the hands of an Indian devil. + +"What's the matter, Phil?" + +"Marjie, can it be you? How did you ever get back?" + +She looked at me wonderingly. + +"Why, I was only down there at Judson's. The baby's sick and Mrs. Judson +sent for me after ten o'clock. I didn't come away till midnight. She may +send for me again at any minute,--that's why I'm not in bed. I wanted to +stay with her, but she made me come home on mother's account. I ran home +by myself. I wasn't afraid. I heard a horse galloping away just before +I got up to the gate. But what is the matter, Phil?" + +I stood there wholly sure now that I was in Paradise. Jean had not tried +to get her after all. She was here, and no harm had touched her. Tell +had not understood. Jean had been in the middle of this night's business +somewhere, I felt sure, but he had done no one any harm. After all he +had been true to his promise to be a good Indian, and Le Claire had +misjudged him. + +"You didn't see who was on the horse, did you?" + +"No. Just as I started from Mrs. Judson's, O'mie came flying by me. He +looked so funny. He had on the waterproof cloak I loaned him last night, +hood and all, and his face was just as white as milk. I thought he was a +girl at first. He called to me almost in a whisper. 'Don't hurry a bit, +Marjie,' he said; 'I'm taking your cloak home.' But I couldn't find it +anywhere about the door. O'mie is always doing the oddest things!" + +Just then the church bell began to ring, and together we put on the +lights and joined in the song. Its inspiration drove everything before +it. I did not stay long with Marjie, however, for there was much for me +to do, and I seemed to have stepped from a world of horror and darkness +into a heaven of light. How I wished O'mie would come in! I had not +found him in all that hour, ages long to us, in which we had done this +much of our work for the town. But I was sure of O'mie. + +"He's doing good business somewhere," I said. "Bless his red head. He'll +never quit so long as there's a thing to do." + +There was no rest for anybody in Springvale that night. As Cam Gentry +had predicted, not a torch blazed; and the attacking party, thrown into +confusion by the sudden blocking of their secret plan of assault, did +not rally. Our next task was to make sure against the Indians, the +rumor of whose coming grew everywhere, and the fear of a daybreak +massacre kept us all keyed to the pitch of terrible expectancy. + +The town had four strongholds, the tavern, the Whately store, the +Presbyterian Church, and my father's house. All these buildings were of +stone, with walls of unusual thickness. Into these the women and +children were gathered as soon as we felt sure the enemy in our midst +was outdone. Dr. Hemingway took command of the church. Cam Gentry at his +own door was a host. + +"I can see who goes in and out of the Cambridge House; I reckon, if I +can't tell a Reb from a Bluecoat out in a battle," he declared, as he +opened his doors to the first little group of mothers and children who +came to him for protection. "I can see safety for every one of you +here," he added with that cheery laugh that made us all love him. Aunt +Candace was the strong guardian in our home up on Cliff Street. We +looked for O'mie to take care of the store, but he was nowhere to be +seen and that duty was given to Grandpa Mead, whose fiery Union spirit +did not accord with his halting step and snowy hair. + +A patrol guard was quickly formed, and sentinels were stationed on the +south and west. On the north and east the flooded Neosho was a perfect +wall of water round about us. + +Since that Maytime, I have lived through many days of peril and +suffering, and I have more than once walked bravely as I might along the +path at whose end I knew was an open grave, but never to me has come +another such night of terror. In all the town there were not a dozen +men, loyal supporters of the Union cause, who had a fighting strength. +On the eight stalwart boys, and the quickness and shrewdness of little +O'mie, the salvation of Springvale rested. After that awful night I was +never a boy again. Henceforth I was a man, with a man's work and a man's +spirit. + +The daylight was never so welcome before, and never a grander sunrise +filled the earth with its splendor. I was up on the bluff patrolling the +northwest boundary when the dawn began to purple the east. Oh, many a +time have I watched the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, but on this +rare May morning every shaft of light, every tint of roseate beauty +along the horizon, every heap of feathery mist that decked the Plains, +with the Neosho, bank-full, sweeping like molten silver below it--all +these took on a new loveliness. Eagerly, however, I scanned the +southwest where the level beams of day were driving back the gray +morning twilight, and the green prairie billows were swelling out of the +gloom. Point by point, I watched every landmark take form, waiting to +see if each new blot on the landscape might not be the first of the +dreaded Indian bands whose coming we so feared. + +With daybreak, came assurance. Somehow I could not believe that a land +so beautiful and a village so peaceful could be threshed and stained and +blackened by the fire and massacre of a savage band allied to a +disloyal, rebellious host. And yet, I had lived these stormy years in +Kansas and the border strife has never all been told. I dared not relax +my vigilance, so I watched the south and west, trusting to the river to +take care of the east. + +And so it happened that, sentinel as I was, I had not seen the approach +of a horseman from the northwest, until Father Le Claire came upon me +suddenly. His horse was jaded with travel, and he sat it wearily. A +pallor overspread his brown cheeks. His garments were wet and +mud-splashed. + +"Oh, Father Le Claire," I cried, "nobody except my own father could be +more welcome. Where have you been?" + +"I am not too late, then!" he exclaimed, ignoring my question. His eyes +quickly took in the town. No smoke was rising from the kitchen fires +this morning, for the homes were deserted. "You are safe still?" He gave +a great gasp of relief. Then he turned and looked steadily into my eyes. + +"It has been bought with a price," he said simply. "Three days ago I +left you a boy. I come back to find you a man. Where's O'mie?" + +"D--down there, I think." + +It dawned on me suddenly that not one of us had seen or heard of O'mie +since he left Tell and Jim at the shop just before midnight. Marjie had +seen him a few minutes later, and so had Cam Gentry. But where was he +after that? Much as we had needed him, we had had no time to hunt for +him. Places had to be filled by those at hand in the dreadful necessity +before us. We could count on O'mie, of course. He was no coward, nor +laggard; but where could he have kept himself? + +"What has happened, Philip?" the priest asked. + +Briefly I told him, ending with the story of the threatening terror of +an Indian invasion. + +"They will not come, Philip. Do not fear. That danger is cut off. The +Kiowas, who were on their way to Springvale, have all turned back and +they are far away. I know." + +His assurance was balm to my soul. And my nerves, on the rack for these +three days, with the culmination of the last six hours seemed suddenly +to snap within me. + +"Go home and rest now," said Father Le Claire. "I will take the word +along the line. Come down to the tavern at nine o'clock." + +Aunt Candace had hot coffee and biscuit and maple syrup from old +Vermont, with ham and eggs, all ready for me. The blessed comfort of a +home, safe from harm once more, filled me with a sense of rest. Not +until it was lifted did I realize how heavy was the burden I had carried +through those May nights and days. + +Long before nine o'clock, the tavern yard was full of excited people, +all eagerly talking of the events of the last few hours. We had hardly +taken our bearings yet, but we had an assurance that the perils of the +night no longer threatened us. The strange men who had filled the town +the evening before had all disappeared, but in the company here were +many whom we knew to be enemies in the dark. Yet they mingled boldly +with the others, assuming a loyalty for their own purposes. In the +crowd, too, was Jean Pahusca, impenetrable of countenance, indifferent +to the occasion as a thing that could not concern him. His red blanket +was gone and his leather trousers and dark flannel shirt displayed his +superb muscular form. There was no knife in his belt now, and he carried +no other weapon. With his soft dark hair and the ruddy color showing in +his cheeks, he was dangerously handsome to a romantic eye. Among all its +enemies, he had been loyal to Springvale. My better self rebuked my +distrust, and my heart softened toward him. His plan with the raiders to +seize Marjie must have been his crude notion of saving her from a worse +peril. When he knew she was safe he had dropped out of sight in the +darkness. + +The boys who had done the work of the night before suddenly became +heroes. Not all of us had come together here, however. Tell was keeping +store up at the "Last Chance," and Jim was seeing to the forge fire, +while the father of each boy sauntered about in the tavern yard. + +"You won't tell anybody about father," Tell pleaded before he left us. +"He never planned it, indeed he didn't. It was old man Dodd and Yeager +and them other strangers." + +I can picture now the Reverend Mr. Dodd, piously serious, sitting on the +tavern veranda at that moment, a disinterested listener to what lay +below his spiritual plane of life. Just above his temple was a deep +bruise, and his right hand was bound with a white bandage. Five years +later, one dark September night, by the dry bed of the Arickaree Creek +in Colorado, I heard the story of that bandage and that bruise. + +"And you'll be sure to keep still about my dad, too, won't you?" Jim +Conlow urged. "He's bad, but--" as if he could find no other excuse, he +added grinning, "I don't believe he's right bright; and Tell and me done +our best anyhow." + +Their best! These two had braved the worst of foes, with those of their +own flesh and blood against them. We would keep their secret fast +enough, nor should anyone know from the boys who of our own townspeople +were in the plot. I believe now that Conlow would have killed Jim had he +suspected the boy's part in that night's work. I have never broken faith +with Jim, although Heaven knows I have had cause enough to wish never to +hear the name of Conlow again. + +One more boy was not in our line, O'mie, still missing from the ranks, +and now my heart was heavy. Everybody else seemed to forget him in the +excitement, however, and I hoped all was well. + +On the veranda a group was crowding about Father Le Claire, listening to +what he had to say. Nobody tried to do business in our town that day. +Men and women and children stood about in groups, glad to be alive and +to know that their homes were safe. It was a sight one may not see +twice in a lifetime. And the thrill within me, that I had helped a +little toward this safety, brought a pleasure unlike any other joy I +have ever known. + +"Where's Aunt Candace?" I asked Dollie Gentry, who had grasped my arm as +if she would ring it from my shoulder. + +"Hadn't you heard?" Dollie's eyes filled with tears. "Judson's baby died +this mornin'. Judson he can't get across Fingal's Creek or some of the +draws, to get home, and the fright last night was too much for Mis' +Judson. She fainted away, an' when she come to, the baby was dead. I'm +cookin' a good meal for all of 'em. Land knows, carin' for the little +corpse is all they can do without botherin' to cook." + +Good Mrs. Gentry used her one talent for everybody's comfort. And as for +the Judsons, theirs was one of the wayside tragedies that keep ever +alongside the line of civil strife. + +They made room for us on the veranda, six husky Kansas bred fellows, +hardly more than half-way through our teens, and we fell in with the +group about Father Le Claire. He gave us a searching glance, and his +face clouded. Good Dr. Hemingway beside him was eager for his story. + +"Tell us the whole thing," he urged. "Then we can understand our part in +it. Surely the arm of the Lord was not shortened for us last night." + +"It is a strange story, Dr. Hemingway, with a strange and tragic +ending," replied the priest. He related then the plot which O'mie had +heard set forth by the strangers in our town. "I left at once to warn +the Osages, believing I could return before last night." + +"Them Osages is a cussed ornery lot, if that Jean out on the edge of +the crowd there is a sample," a man from the west side of town broke in. + +"They are true blue, and Jean is not an Osage; he's a Kiowa," Le Claire +replied quietly. + +"What of him ain't French," declared Cam Gentry. "That's where his +durned meanness comes in biggest. Not but what a Kiowa's rotten enough. +But sence he didn't seem to take part in this doings last night, I guess +we can stand him a little while longer." + +Father Le Claire's face flushed. Then a pallor overspread the flame. +His likeness to the Indian flashed up with that flush. So had I seen +Pahusca flush with anger, and a paleness cover his coppery countenance. +Self-mastery was a part of the good man's religion, however, and in a +voice calm but full of sympathy he told us of the tragic events whose +evil promise had overshadowed our town with an awful peril. + +It was a well-planned, cold-blooded horror, this scheme of the Southern +Confederacy, to unite the fierce tribes of the Southwest against the +unprotected Union frontier. And with the border raiders on the one side +and the hostile Indians on the other, small chance of life would have +been left to any Union man, woman, or child in all this wide, beautiful +Kansas. In the four years of the Civil War no cruelty could have +exceeded the consequences of this conspiracy. + +Unity of purpose has ever been lacking to the red race. No federation +has been possible to it except as that federation is controlled by the +European brain. The controlling power in the execution of this dastardly +crime lay with desperate but eminently able white men. Their appeal to +the Osages, however, was a fruitless one. For a third of a century the +faithful Jesuits had labored with this tribe. Not in vain was their +seed-sowing. + +Le Claire reached the Osages only an hour before an emissary from the +leaders of this infamous plot came to the Mission. The presence of the +priest counted so mightily, that this call to an Indian confederacy fell +upon deaf ears, and the messenger departed to rejoin his superiors. He +never found them, for a sudden and tragic ending had come to the +conspiracy. + +It was a busy day in Kansas annals when that company of Rebel officers +came riding up from the South to band together the lawless savages and +the outlawed raiders against a loyal commonwealth. Humboldt was the most +southern Union garrison in Kansas at that time. South of it the Osages +did much scout duty for the Government, and it held them responsible for +any invasion of this strip of neutral soil between the North and the +South. Out in the Verdigris River country, in this Maytime, a little +company of Osage braves on the way from their village to visit the +Mission came face to face with this band of invaders in the neutral +land. The presence of a score of strange men armed and mounted, though +they were dressed as Union soldiers, must be accounted for, these +Indians reasoned. + +The scouts were moved only by an unlettered loyalty to the flag. They +had no notion of the real purpose of these invaders. The white men had +only contempt for the authority of a handful of red men calling them to +account, and they foolishly fired into the Indian band. It was a fatal +foolishness. Two braves fell to the earth, pierced by their bullets. The +little body of red men dropped over on the sides of their ponies and +were soon beyond gun range, while their opponents went on their way. But +briefly only, for, reinforced by a hundred painted braves, the whole +fighting strength of their little village, the Osages came out for +vengeance. Near a bend in the Verdigris River the two forces came +together. Across a scope five miles wide they battled. The white men +must have died bravely, for they fought stubbornly, foot by foot, as the +Indians drove them into that fatal loop of the river. It is deep and +swift here. Down on the sands by its very edge they fell. Not a white +man escaped. The Indians, after their savage fashion, gathered the +booty, leaving a score of naked, mutilated bodies by the river's side. +It was a cruel bit of Western warfare, yet it held back from Kansas a +diabolical outrage, whose suffering and horror only those who know the +Southwest tribes can picture. And strangely enough, the power that +stayed the evil lay with a handful of faithful Indian scouts. + +The story of the massacre soon reached the Mission. Dreadful as it was, +it lifted a burden from Le Claire's mind; but the news that the +Comanches and the Kiowas, unable to restrain their tribes, were already +on the war-path, filed him with dread. + +A twenty-four hours' rain, with cloudbursts along the way, was now +sending the Neosho and Verdigris Rivers miles wide, across their +valleys. It was impossible for him to intercept these tribes until the +stream should fall. The priest perfected his plans for overtaking them +by swift messengers to be sent out from the Mission at the earliest +moment, and then he turned his horse upstream toward Springvale. All day +he rode with all speed to the northward. The ways were sodden with the +heavy rains, and the smaller streams were troublesome to the horseman. +Night fell long before he had come to the upper Neosho Valley. With the +darkness his anxiety deepened. A thousand chances might befall to bring +disaster before he could reach us. + +The hours of the black night dragged on, and northward still the priest +hurried. It was long after midnight when he found himself on the bluff +opposite the town. Between him and Springvale the Neosho rushed madly, +and the oak grove of the bottom land was only black treetops above, and +water below. All hope of a safe passage across the river here vanished, +for he durst not try the angry waters. + +"There must have been heavier rains here than down the stream," he +thought. "Pray Heaven the messengers may reach the Kiowas before they +fall upon any of the settlements in the south. I must go farther up to +cross. O God, grant that no evil may threaten that town over there!" + +Turning to look once more at the dark valley his eye caught a gleam of +light far down the river. + +"That must be Jean down at the Hermit's Hole," he said to himself. "I +wonder I never tried to follow him there. But if he's down the river it +is better for Springvale, anyhow." + +All this the priest told to the eager crowd on the veranda of the +Cambridge House that morning. But regarding the light and his thought of +it, he did not tell us then, nor how, through all and all, his great +fear for Springvale was on account of Jean Pahusca's presence there. He +knew the Indian's power; and now that the fierce passion of love for a +girl and hatred of a rival, were at fever pitch, he dared not think what +might follow, neither did he tell us how bitterly he was upbraiding +himself for having charged O'mie with secrecy. + +He had not yet caught sight of the Irish boy; and Jean, who had himself +kept clear of the evil intent against Springvale the night before, had +studiously kept the crowd between the priest and himself. We did not +note this then, for we were spell-bound by the story of the Confederate +conspiracy and of Father Le Claire's efforts for our safety. + +"The Kiowas, who were on the war-path, have been cut off by the +Verdigris," he concluded. "The waters, that kept me away from Springvale +on this side, kept them off in the southwest. The Osages did us God's +service in our peril, albeit their means were cruel after the manner of +the savage." + +A silence fell upon the group on the veranda, as the enormity of what we +had escaped dawned upon us. + +"Let us thank God that in his ways, past finding out, He has not +forsaken his children." Dr. Hemingway spoke fervently. + +I looked out on the broad street and down toward the river shining in +the May sunlight. The air was very fresh and sweet. The oak trees, were +in their heaviest green, and in the glorious light of day the commonest +things in this little frontier town looked good to me. Across my vision +there swept the picture of that wide, swift-flowing Verdigris River, and +of the dead whose blood stained darkly that fatal sand-bar, their naked +bodies hacked by savage fury, waiting the coming of pitiful hands to +give them shelter in the bosom of the earth. And then I thought of all +these beautiful prairies which the plough was beginning to subdue, of +the homesteads whose chimney smoke I had seen many a morning from my +windows up on Cliff Street. I thought of the little towns and +unprotected villages, and of what an Indian raid would mean to +these,--of murdered men and burning houses, and women dragged away into +a slavery too awful to picture. I thought of Marjie and of what she had +escaped. And then clear, as if he were beside me, I heard O'mie's voice: + +"Phil, oh, Phil, come, come!" it pleaded. + +I started up and stared around me. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING + + Also Time runnin' into years-- + A thousand Places left be'ind; + An' Men from both two 'emispheres + Discussin' things of every kind; + So much more near than I 'ad known, + So much more great than I 'ad guessed-- + An' me, like all the rest, alone, + But reachin' out to all the rest! + + --KIPLING. + + +"Uncle Cam, where is O'mie? I haven't seen him yet," I broke in upon the +older men in the council. "Could anything have happened to him?" + +The priest rose hurriedly. + +"I have been hoping to see him every minute," he said. "Has anybody seen +him this morning?" + +A flurry followed. Everybody thought he had seen somebody else who had +been with O'mie, but nobody, first hand, could report of him. + +"Why, I thought he was with the boys," Cam Gentry exclaimed. "Nobody +could keep track of nobody else last night." + +"I thought I saw him this morning," said Dr. Hemingway. +"But"--hesitatingly--"I do not believe I did either. I just had him in +mind as I watched Henry Anderson's boys go by." + +"All three of us are not equal to one O'mie," Clayton Anderson declared. + +"What part of town did he have, Philip?" asked Le Claire. + +"No part," I answered. "We had to take the boys that were out there +under the oak." + +Dr. Hemingway called a council at once, and all who knew anything of the +missing boy reported. I could give what had been told to Aunt Candace +and myself only in a general way, in order to shield Tell Mapleson. Cam +had seen O'mie only a minute, just before midnight. + +"He went racin' out draggin' somethin' after him, an' jumped over the +porch railin' here," pointing to the north, "stid o' goin' down the +steps. O'mie's double-geared lightin' for quickness anyhow, but last +night he jist made lightnin' seem slow the way he got off the +reservation an' into the street. It roused me up. I was half asleep +settin' here waitin' to put them strangers to bed again. So I set up an' +waited fur the boy to show up an' apologize fur his not bein' no +quicker, when in comes Phil; an' ye all know the rest. I've not laid an +eye on O'mie sence, but bein' short on range I took it he was here but +out of sight. Oh, Lord!" Cam groaned, "can anything have happened to +him?" + +While Cam was speaking I noticed that Jean Pahusca who had been loafing +about at the far side of the crowd, was standing behind Father Le +Claire. No one could have told from his set, still face what his +thoughts were just then. + +The last one who had seen O'mie was Marjie. + +"I had left the door open so I could find the way better," she said. "At +the gate O'mie came running up. I thought he was a girl, for he had my +cloak around him and the hood over his head. His face was very white. + +"I supposed it was just the light behind me, made it look so, for he +wasn't the least bit scared. He called to me twice. 'Don't hurry,' he +said; 'I'm taking your cloak home.' Mrs. Judson shut the door just then, +thinking I had gone on, and I ran home, but O'mie flew ahead of me. Just +before I came around the corner I heard a horse start up and dash off to +the river. I ran in to mother and shut the door." + +"I met a horse down by the river as I ran to grandpa's after Bill. He +was staying over there last night." It was Dave Mead who spoke. "I made +a grab at the rein. I was crazy to think of such a thing, but--" Dave +didn't say why he tried to stop the horse, for that would mean to repeat +what Tell had told us, and we had to keep Tell's part to ourselves. "The +horse knocked me twenty feet and tore off toward the river." + +And then for the first time we noticed Dave Mead's right arm in a sling. +Too much was asked of us in those hours for us to note the things that +mark our common days. + +"It put my shoulder out of place," Dave said simply. "Didn't get it in +again for so long, it's pretty sore. I was too busy to think about it at +first." + +Dave Mead never put his right hand to his head again. And to-day, if the +broad-shouldered, fine-looking American should meet you on the streets +of Hong Kong, he would offer you his left hand. For hours he forgot +himself to save others. It is his like that have filled Kansas and made +her story a record of heroism like to the story of no other State in all +the nation. + +But as to O'mie we could find nothing. There was something strange and +unusual about his returning the borrowed cloak at that late hour. The +whole thing was so unlike O'mie. + +"They've killed him and put him in the river," wailed Dollie Gentry. + +"I'm afraid he's been foully dealt with. They suspected he knew too +much," and Dr. Hemingway bowed his head in sorrow. + +"He's run straight into a coil of them pisen Copperheads an' they've +made way with him; an' to think we hadn't missed him," sobbed Cam in his +chair. + +Father Le Claire gripped his hands, and his face grew as expressionless +as the Indian's behind him. It dawned upon us now that O'mie was lost, +there was no knowing how. O'mie, who belonged to the town and was loved +as few orphan boys are loved. Oh, any of us would have suffered for him, +and to think that he should be made the victim of rebel hate, that the +blow should fall on him who had given no offence. All his manliness, his +abounding kindness, his sunny smile and joy in living, swept up in +memory in the instant. Instinctively the boys drew near to one another, +and there came back to me the memory of that pathetic look in his eyes +as we talked of our troubles down in the tavern stables two nights +before: "Whoiver it's laid on to suffer," I could almost hear him saying +it. And then I did hear his voice, low and clear, a faint call again, as +I had heard it before. + +"Phil, oh Phil, come!" + +It shot through my brain like an arrow. I turned and seized Le Claire by +the hand. + +"O'mie's not dead," I cried. "He's alive somewhere, and I'm going to +find him." + +"You bet your life he'th not dead," Bud Anderson echoed me. "Come on." + +The boys with Le Claire started in a body through the crowd; a shout +went up, a sudden determination that O'mie must be alive seemed to +possess Springvale. + +"Stay with Cam and Dollie," Le Claire turned Dr. Hemingway back with a +word. "They need you now. We can do all that can be done." + +He strode ahead of us; a stalwart leader of men he would make in any +fray. It flashed into my mind that it was not the Kiowa Indian blood +that made Jean Pahusca seem so stately and strong as he strode down the +streets of Springvale. A red blanket over Le Claire's broad shoulders +would have deceived us into thinking it was the Indian brave leading on +before us. + +The river was falling rapidly, and the banks were slimy. Fingal's Creek +was almost at its usual level and the silt was crusting along its +bedraggled borders. Just above where it empties into the Neosho we noted +a freshly broken embankment as though some weight had crushed over the +side and carried a portion of the bank with it. Puddles of water and +black mud filled the little hollows everywhere. Into one of these I +stepped as we were eagerly searching for a trace of the lost boy. My +foot stuck to something soft like a garment in the puddle. I kicked it +out, and a jet button shone in the ooze. I stooped and lifted the grimy +thing. It was Marjie's cloak. + +"This is the last of O'mie," Dave Mead spoke reverently. + +"Here's where they pushed him in," said John Anderson pointing to the +break in the bank. + +There was a buzzing in my ears, and the sunlight on the river was +dancing in ten thousand hideous curls and twists. The last of O'mie, +until maybe, a bloated sodden body might be found half buried in some +flood-wrought sand-bar. The May morning was a mockery, and every green +growing leaf seemed to be using the life force that should be in him. + +"Yes, there's where he went in." It was Father Le Claire's voice now, +"but he fought hard for his life." + +"Yeth, and by George, yonder'th where he come out. Thee that thaplin' +on the bank? It'th thplit, but it didn't break; an' that bank'th brokener'n +thith." + +Oh, blessed Bud! His tow head will always wear a crown to me. + +On the farther bank a struggle had wrenched the young trees and shrubs +away and a slide of slime marked where the victim of the waters had +fought for life. We knew how to swim, and we crossed the swollen creek +in a rush. But here all trace disappeared. Something or somebody had +climbed the bank. A horse's hoofs showed in the mud, but on the ground +beyond the horse's feet had not seemed to leave a track. The cruel +ruffians must have pushed him back when he tried to gain the bank here. +We hunted and hunted, but to no avail. No other mark of O'mie's having +passed beyond the creek could be found. + +It was nearly sunset before we came back to town. Not a mouthful had +been eaten, and with the tenseness of the night's excitement stretching +every nerve, the loss of sleep, the constant searching, and the +heaviness of despair, mud-stained, wearied, and haggard, we dragged +ourselves to the tavern again. Other searchers had been going in +different directions. In one of these parties, useful, quick and wisely +counselling, was Jean Pahusca. His companions were loud in their praise +of his efforts. The Red Range neighborhood had received the word at noon +and turned out in a mass, women and children joining in the quest. But +it was all in vain. Wild theories filled the air, stories of strangers +struggling with somebody in the dark; the sound of screams and of some +one running away. But none of these stories could be substantiated. And +all the while what Tell Mapleson had said to Aunt Candace and me when +he came to warn us, kept repeating itself to me. "They're awful against +O'mie. They think he knows too much." + +Early the next morning the search was renewed, but at nightfall no +further trace of the lost boy had been discovered. On the second +evening, when we gathered at the Cambridge House, Dr. Hemingway urged us +to take a little rest, and asked that we come later to a prayer meeting +in the church. + +"O'mie is our one sacrifice beside the dear little babe of Judson's. All +the rest of us have been spared to life, and our homes have been +protected. We must look to the Lord for comfort now, and thank Him for +His goodness to us." + +Then the Rev. Mr. Dodd spoke sneeringly: + +"You've made a big ado for two days about a little coward who cut and +run at the first sound of danger. Disguised himself like a girl to do +it. He will come sneaking in fast enough when he finds the danger is +over. A lot of us around town are too wise to be deceived. The Lord did +save us," how piously he spoke, "but we should not disgrace ourselves." + +He got no further. I had been leaning limply against the veranda post, +for even my strength was giving way, more under the mental strain than +the physical tax. But at the preacher's words all the blood of my +fighting ancestry took fire. There was a Baronet with Cromwell's +Ironsides, the regiment that was never defeated in battle. There was a +Baronet color-bearer at Bunker Hill and later at Saratoga, and it was a +Baronet who waited till the last boat crossed the Delaware when +Washington led his forces to safety. There were Baronets with Perry on +Lake Erie, and at that moment my father was fighting for the life of a +nation. I cleared the space between us at a bound, and catching the +Reverend Dodd by throat and thigh, I lifted him clear of the railing and +flung him sprawling on the blue-grass. + +"If you ever say another word against O'mie I'll break your neck," I +cried, as he landed. + +Father Le Claire was beside him at once. + +"He's killed me," groaned Dodd. + +"Then he ought to bury his dead," Dr. Hemingway said coldly, which was +the only time the good old man was ever known to speak unkindly to any +one among us. + +The fallen preacher gathered himself together and slipped away. + +Dollie Gentry had a royal supper for everybody that night. Jean Pahusca +sat by Father Le Claire with us at the long table in the dining-room. +Again my conscience, which upbraided me for doubting him, and my +instinct, which warned me to beware of him, had their battle within me. + +"I just had to do something or I'd have jumped into the Neosho myself," +Dollie explained in apology for the abundant meal, as if cooking were +too worldly for that grave time. "I know now," she said, "how that poor +woman felt whose little boy was took by the Kiowas years ago out on the +West Prairie. They said she did jump into the river. Anyhow, she +disappeared." + +"Did you know her or her husband?" Father Le Claire asked quietly. + +"Yes, in a way," Dollie replied. "He was a big, fine-looking man built +some like you, an' dark. He was a Frenchman. She was a little, +small-boned woman. I saw her in the 'Last Chance' store the day she got +here from the East. She was fair and had red hair, I should say; but +they said the woman that drowned herself was a black-haired French +woman. She didn't look French to me. She lived in that little cabin up +around the bend toward Red Range, poor dear! That cabin's always been +haunted, they say." + +"Was she never heard of again?" the priest went on. We thought he was +keeping Dollie's mind off O'mie. + +"Ner him neither. He cut out west toward Santy Fee with some Mexican +traders goin' home from Westport. I heard he left 'em at Pawnee Rock, +where they had a regular battle with the Kiowas; some thought he might +have been killed by the Kiowas, and others by the Mexicans. Anyhow, he +never was heard of in Springvale no more." + +"Mrs. Gentry," Le Claire asked abruptly, "where did you find O'mie?" + +"Why, we've had him so long I forget we never hadn't him." Dollie seemed +confused, for O'mie was a part of her life. "He was brought up here from +the South by a missionary. Seems to me he found the little feller (he +was only five years old) trudgin' off alone, an' sayin' he wouldn't stay +at the Mission 'cause there was Injuns there. Said the Injuns killed his +father, an' he kicked an' squalled till the missionary just brought him +up here. He was on his way to St. Mary's, up on the Kaw, an' he was +takin' the little one on with him. He stopped here with O'mie an' the +little feller was hungry--" + +"And you fed him; naked, and you clothed him," the priest added +reverently. + +"Poor O'mie!" and Dollie made a dive for the kitchen to weep out her +grief alone. + +It seemed to settle upon Springvale that O'mie was lost; had been +overcome in some way by the murderous raiders who had infested our town. + +In sheer weariness and hopelessness I fell on my bed, that night, and +sleep, the "sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care," fell upon +me. Just at daybreak I woke with a start. I had not dreamed once all +night, but now, wide awake, with my face to the open east window where +the rose tint of a grand new day was deepening into purple on the +horizon's edge, feeling and knowing everything perfectly, I saw O'mie's +face before me, white and drawn with pain, but gloriously brave. And his +pleading voice, "Phil, ye'll come soon, won't ye?" sounded low and clear +in my ears. + +I sprang up and dressed myself. I was so sure of O'mie, I could hardly +wait to begin another search. Something seemed to impel me to speed. "He +won't last long," was a vague, persistent thought that haunted me. + +"What is it, Phil?" my aunt called as I passed her door. + +"Aunt Candace, it's O'mie. He's not dead yet, I'm sure. But I must go at +once and hunt again." + +"Where will you go now?" she queried. + +"I don't know. I'm just being led," I replied. + +"Phil," Aunt Candace was at the door now, "have you thought of the +Hermit's Cave?" + +Her words went through me like a sword-thrust. + +"Why, why,--oh, Aunt Candace, let me think a minute." + +"I've been thinking for twelve hours," said my aunt. "Until you try that +place don't give up the hunt." + +"But I don't know how to get there." + +"Then make a way. You are not less able to do impossible things than the +Pilgrim Fathers were. If you ever find O'mie it will be in that place. I +feel it, I can't say why. But, Phil, you will need the boys and Father +Le Claire. Take time to get breakfast and get yourself together. You +will need all your energy. Don't squander it the first thing." + +Dear Aunt Candace! This many a year has her grave been green in the +Springvale cemetery, but greener still is her memory in the hearts of +those who knew her. She had what the scholars of to-day strive to +possess--the power of poise. + +I ate my breakfast as calmly as I could, and before I left home Aunt +Candace made me read the Ninety-first Psalm. Then she kissed me good-bye +and bade me God-speed. Something kept telling me to hurry, hurry, as I +tried to be deliberate, and quickened my thought and my step. At the +tavern Cam Gentry met us. + +"It ain't no use to try, boys, O'mie's down in the river where the +cussed Copperheads put him; but you're good to keep tryin'." He sat down +in a helpless resignation, so unlike his natural buoyant spirit it was +hard to believe that this was the same Cam we had always known. + +"Judson's baby's to be buried to-day, but we can't even bury O'mie. Oh, +it's cruel hard." Cam groaned in his chair. + +The dew had not ceased to glitter, and the sun was hardly more than +risen when Father Le Claire and the crowd of boys, reinforced now by +Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow, started bravely out, determined to find +the boy who had been missing for what seemed ages to us. + +"If we find O'mie, we'll send word by the fastest runner, and you must +ring the church bell," Le Claire arranged with Cam. "All the town can +have the word at once then." + +"We'll go to the Hermit's Cave first," I announced. + +The company agreed, but only Bud Anderson seemed to feel as I did. To +the others it was a wasted bit of heroism, for if none of us had yet +found the way to this retreat, why should we look for O'mie there? So +the boys argued as we hurried to the river. The Neosho was inside its +banks again, but, deep and swift and muddy, it swept silently by us who +longed to know its secrets. + +"Philip, why do you consider the cave possible?" Le Claire asked as we +followed the river towards the cliff. + +"Aunt Candace says so," I replied. + +"Well, it's worth the trial if only to prove a woman's intuition--or +whim," he said quietly. + +The same old cliff confronted us, although the many uprooted trees +showed a jagged outcrop this side the sheer wall. We looked up +helplessly at the height. It seemed foolish to think of O'mie being in +that inaccessible spot. + +"If he is up there," Dave Mead urged, "and we can get to him, it will be +to put him alongside Judson's baby this afternoon." + +All the other boys were for turning back and hunting about Fingal's +Creek again, all except Bud. Such a pink and white boy he was, with a +dimple in each cheek and a blowsy tow head. + +"Will you stay with me, Bud, till I get up there?" I asked him. + +"Yeth thir! or down there. Let'th go round an' try the other thide." + +"Well, I guess we'll all stay with Phil, you cottontop," Tell Mapleson +put in. + +We all began to circle round the bluff to get beyond this steep, +forbidding wall. Our plan was to go down the river beyond the cave, and +try to climb up from that point. Crossing along by the edge of the bluff +we passed the steepest part and were coming again to where the treetops +and bushes that clung to the side of the high wall reached above the +crest, as they do across the street from my own home. Just ahead of us, +as we hurried, I caught sight of a flat slab of the shelving rock +slipped aside and barely balancing on the edge, one end of it bending +down the treetops as if newly slid into that place. All about the stone +the thin sod of the bluff's top was cut and trampled as if a struggle +had been there. We examined it carefully. A horse's tracks were plainly +to be seen. + +"Something happened here," Le Claire said. "Looks like a horse had been +urged up to the very edge and had kept pulling back." + +"And that stone is just slipped from its place," Clayton Anderson +declared. "Something has happened here since the rains." + +As we came to the edge, we saw a pile of earth recently scraped from the +stone outcrop above. + +"Somebody or something went over here not long ago," I cried. + +"Look out, Phil," Bill Mead called, "or somebody else will follow +somebody before 'em--" + +Bill's warning came too late. I had stepped on the balanced slab. It +tipped and went over the side with a crash. I caught at the edge and +missed it, but the effort threw me toward the cliff and I slid twenty +feet. The bushes seemed to part as by a well-made opening and I caught a +strong limb, and gained my balance. I looked back at the way I had come. +And then I gave a great shout. The anxious faces peering down at me +changed a little. + +"What is it?" came the query. + +I pointed upward. + +"The nicest set of hand-holds and steps clear up," I called. "You can't +see for the shelf. But right under there where Bud's head is, is the +best place to get a grip and there's a foothold all the way down." I +stared up again. "There's a rope fastened right under there. Bend over, +Bud, careful, and you'll find it. It will let you over to the steps. +Swing in on it." + +In truth, a set of points for hand and foot partly natural, partly cut +there, rude but safe enough for boy climbers like ourselves, led down to +my tree lodge. + +"And what's below you?" shouted Tell. + +"Another tree like this. I don't know how far down if you jump right," I +answered back. + +"Well, jump right, for I'm nekth. Ever thee a tow-headed flying +thquirrel?" And Bud was shinning down over the edge clawing tightly the +stone points of vantage. + +Many a time in these sixty years have I seen a difficult and dreaded way +grow suddenly easy when the time came to travel it. When we were only +boys idling away the long summer afternoons the cliff was always +impossible. We had rarely tried the downward route, and from below with +the river, always dangerously deep and swift, at the base, our exploring +had brought failure. That hand-hold of leather thongs, braided into a +rope and fastened securely under the ledge out of sight from above, gave +the one who knew how the easy passage to the points of rock. Then for +nearly a hundred feet zigzagging up stream by leaping cautiously to the +right place, by clinging and swinging, the way opened before us. I took +the first twenty feet at a slide. The others caught the leather rope, +testing to see if it was securely fastened. Its two ends were tied +around the deeply grooved stone. + +Father Le Claire and Jim Conlow stayed at the top. The one to help us +back again; the other, as the swiftest-footed boy among us, to run to +town with any message needful to be sent. The rest of us, taking all +manner of fearful risks, crashed down over the side of that bluff in +headlong haste. + +The Hermit's Cave opened on a narrow ledge such as runs below the +"Rockport" point, where Marjie and I used to play, off Cliff Street. We +reached this ledge at last, hot and breathless, hardly able to realize +that we were really here in the place that had baffled us so long. It +was an almost inaccessible climb to the crest above us, and the cliff +had to be taken at an angle even then. I believe any one accustomed only +to the prairie would never have dared to try it. + +The Hermit's Cave was merely a deep recess under the overhanging shelf. +It penetrated far enough to offer a retreat from the weather. The thick +tangle of vines before it so concealed the place that it was difficult +to find it at first. Just beyond it the rock projected over the line of +wall and overhung the river. It was on this point that the old Hermit +had been wont to sit, and from which tradition says he fell to his doom. +It was here we had seen Jean Pahusca on that hot August afternoon the +summer before. How long ago all that seemed now as the memory of it +flashed up in my mind, and I recalled O'mie's quiet boast, "If he can +get up there, so can I!" + +I was a careless boy that day. I felt myself a man now, with human +destiny resting on my shoulders. As we came to this rocky projection I +was leading the file of cliff-climbers. The cave was concealed by the +greenery. I stared about and then I called, "O'mie! O'mie!" + +Faintly, just beside me, came the reply: "Phil, you 've come? Thank +God!" + +I tore through the bushes and vines into the deep recess. The dimness +blinded me at first. What I saw when the glare left my eyes was O'mie +stretched on the bare stones, bound hand and foot. His eyes were burning +like stars in the gloom. His face was white and drawn with suffering, +but he looked up bravely and smiled upon me as I bent over him to lift +him. Before I could speak, Bud had cut the bands and freed him. He +could not move, and I lifted him like a child in my strong arms. + +"Is the town safe?" he asked feebly. + +"Yes, now we've found you," Dave Mead replied. + +"How did you get here, O'mie?" Clayton Anderson asked. + +But O'mie, lying limply in my arms, murmured deliriously of the ladder +by the shop, and wondered feebly if it could reach from the river up to +the Hermit's Cave. Then his head fell forward and he lay as one dead on +my knee. + +A year before we would have been a noisy crew that worked our way to +this all but inaccessible place, and we would have filled the valley +with whoops of surprise at finding anything in the cavern. To-day we +hardly spoke as we carried O'mie out into the light. He shivered a +little, though still unconscious, and then I felt the hot fever begin to +pulse throughout his body. + +Dave Mead was half way up the cliff to Father Le Claire. Out on the +point John Anderson waved, to the crest above, the simple message, +"We've found him." + +Bud dived into the cavern and brought out an empty jug, relic of Jean +Pahusca's habitation there. + +"What he needth ith water," Bud declared. "I'll bet he'th not had a drop +for two dayth." + +"How can you get some, Bud? We can't reach the river from here," I said. + +"Bah! all mud, anyhow. I'll climb till I find a thpring. They're all +around in the rockth. The Lord give Motheth water. I'll hunt till He +thoweth me where it ith." + +Bud put off in the bushes. Presently his tow head bobbed through the +greenery again and a jug dripping full of cool water was in his hands. + +"Thame leadin' that brought uth here done it," he lisped, moistening +O'mie's lips with the precious liquid. + +Bud had a quaint use of Bible reference, although he disclaimed Dr. +Hemingway's estimate of him as the best scholar in the Presbyterian +Sunday-school. + +It seemed hours before relief came. I held O'mie all that time, hoping +that the gracious May sunshine might win him to us again, but his +delirium increased. He did not know any of us, but babbled of strange +things. + +At length many shouts overhead told us that half of Springvale was above +us, and a rude sort of hammock was being lowered. "It's the best we can +do," shouted Father Le Claire. "Tie him in and we'll pull him up." + +It was rough handling even with the tenderest of care, and a very +dangerous feat as well. I watched those above draw up O'mie's body and I +was the last to leave the cave. As I turned to go, by merest chance, my +eye caught sight of a knife handle protruding from a crevice in the +rock. I picked it up. It was the short knife Jean Pahusca always wore at +his belt. As I looked closely, I saw cut in script letters across the +steel blade the name, _Jean Le Claire_. + +I put the thing in my pocket and soon overtook the other boys, who were +leaping and clinging on their way to the crest. + +That night Kansas was swept across by the very worst storm I have known +in all these sixty years. It lifted above the town and spared the +beautiful oak grove in the bottom lands beside us. Further down it swept +the valley clean, and the bluff about the cave had not one shrub on its +rough sides. The lightning, too, played strange pranks. The thunderbolts +shattered trees and rocks, up-rooting the one and rending and tumbling +the other in huge masses of debris upon the valley. It broke even the +rough way we had traversed to the Hermit's Cave, and a great heap of +fallen stone now shut the cavern in like a rock tomb. Where O'mie had +lain was sealed to the world, and it was a full quarter of a century +before a path was made along that dangerous cliff-side again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +O'MIE'S CHOICE + + And how can man die better + Than facing fearful odds + For the ashes of his fathers + And the temples of his gods? + + --MACAULAY. + + +There was only one church bell in Springvale for many years. It called +to prayers, or other public service. It sounded the alarm of fire, and +tolled for the dead. It was our school-bell and wedding-bell. It clanged +in terror when the Cheyennes raided eastward in '67, and it pealed out +solemnly for the death of Abraham Lincoln. It chimed on Christmas Eve +and rang in each New Year. Its two sad notes that were tolled for the +years of the little Judson baby had hardly ceased their vibrations when +it broke forth into a ringing, joyous resonance for the finding of O'mie +alive. + +O'mie was taken to our home. No other woman's hands were so strong and +gentle as the hands of Candace Baronet. Everybody felt that O'mie could +be trusted nowhere else. It was hard for Cam and Dollie at first, but +when Dollie found she might cook every meal and send it up to my aunt, +she was more reconciled; while Cam came and went, doing a multitude of +kindly acts. This was long before the days of telephones, and a hundred +steps were needed for every one taken to-day. + +In the weeks that followed, O'mie hung between life and death. With all +the care and love given him, his strength wasted away. He had been +cruelly beaten, and cuts and bruises showed how terrible had been his +fight for freedom. + +At first he talked deliriously, but in the weakness that followed he lay +motionless hour on hour. And with the fever burning out his candle of +life, we waited the end. How heavy-hearted we were in those days! It +seemed as though all Springvale claimed the orphan boy. And daily, +morning and evening, a messenger from Red Range came for word of him, +bearing always offers of whatever help we would accept from the +kind-hearted neighborhood. + +Father Le Claire had come into our home with the bringing of O'mie, and +gentle as a woman's were his ministrations. One evening, when the end of +earthly life seemed near for O'mie, the priest took me by the arm, and +we went down to the "Rockport" point together. The bushes were growing +very rank about my old playground and trysting place. I saw Marjie +daily, for she came and went about our house with quiet usefulness. But +our hands and hearts were full of the day's sad burden, and we hardly +spoke to each other. Marjie's nights were spent mostly with poor Mrs. +Judson, whose grief was wearing deep grooves into the young mother face. + +To-night Le Claire and I sat down on the rock and breathed deeply of the +fresh June air. Below us, for many a mile, the Neosho lay like a broad +belt of silver in the deepening shadows of the valley, while all the +West Prairie was aflame with the sunset lights. The world was never more +beautiful, and the spirit of the Plains seemed reaching out glad hands +to us who were so strong and full of life. All day we had watched beside +the Irish boy. His weakened pulse-beat showed how steadily his strength +was ebbing. He had fallen asleep now, and we dared not think what the +waking might be for us. + +"Philip, when O'mie is gone, I shall leave Springvale," the priest +began. "I think that Jean Pahusca has at last decided to go to the +Osages. He probably will never be here again. But if he should come--" +Le Claire paused as if the words pained him--"remember you cannot trust +him. I have no tie that binds me to you. I shall go to the West. I feel +sure the Plains Indians need me now more than the Osages and the Kaws." + +I listened silently, not caring to question why either O'mie or Jean +should bind him anywhere. The former was all but lost to me already. Of +the latter I did not care to think. + +"And before I go, I want to tell you something I know of O'mie," Le +Claire went on. + +I had wondered often at the strange sort of understanding I knew existed +between himself and O'mie. I began to listen more intently now, and for +the first time since leaving the Hermit's Cave I thought of the knife +with the script lettering. I shrank from questioning him or showing him +the thing. I had something of my father's patience in letting events +tell me what I wanted to know. So I asked no questions, but let him +speak. + +"O'mie comes by natural right into a dislike, even hatred, of the red +race. It may be I know something more of him than anyone else in +Springvale knows. His story is a romance and a tragedy, stranger than +fiction. In the years to come, when hate shall give place to love in our +nation, when the world is won to the church, a younger generation will +find it hard to picture the life their forefathers lived." + +The priest's brow darkened and his lips were compressed, as if he found +it hard to speak what he would say. + +"I come to you, Philip, because your experience here has made you a man +who were only a boy yesterday; because you love O'mie; because you have +been able to keep a quiet tongue; and most of all, because you are John +Baronet's son, and heir, I believe, to his wisdom. Most of O'mie's story +is known to your father. He found it out just before he went to the war. +It is a tragical one. The boy was stolen by a band of Indians when he +was hardly more than a baby. It was a common trick of the savages then; +it may be again as our frontier creeps westward." + +The priest paused and looked steadily out over the Neosho Valley, +darkening in the twilight. + +"You know how you felt when O'mie was lost. Can you imagine what his +mother felt when she found her boy was stolen? Her husband was away on a +trapping tour, had been away for a long time, and she was alone. In a +very frenzy, she started out on the prairie to follow the Indians. She +suffered terrible hardship, but Providence brought her at last to the +Osage Mission, whose doors are always open to the distressed. And here +she found a refuge. A strange thing happened then. While Patrick +O'Meara, O'mie's father, was far from home, word had reached him that +his wife was dead. Coming down the Arkansas River, O'Meara chanced to +fall in with some Mexicans who had a battle with a band of Indians at +Pawnee Rock. With these Indians was a little white boy, whom O'Meara +rescued. It was his own son, although he did not know it, and he brought +the little one to the Mission on the Neosho. + +"Philip, it is vouchsafed to some of us to know a bit of heaven here on +earth. Such a thing came to Patrick O'Meara when he found his wife +alive, and the baby boy was restored to her. They were happy together +for a little while. But Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from her hardships +on the prairie, and her husband was killed by the Comanches a month +after her death. Little O'mie, dying up there now, was left an orphan at +the Mission. You have heard Mrs. Gentry tell of his coming here. Your +father is the only one here who knows anything of O'mie's history. If he +never comes back, you must take his place." + +The purple shadows of twilight were folding down upon the landscape. In +the soft light the priest's face looked dark and set. + +"Why not tell me now what father knows?" I asked. + +"I cannot tell you that now, Philip. Some day I may tell you another +story. But it does not concern you or O'mie. What I want you to do is +what your father will do if he comes home. If he should not come, he has +written in his will what you must do. I need not tell you to keep this +to yourself." + +"Father Le Claire, can you tell me anything about Jean Pahusca, and +where he is now?" + +He rose hastily. + +"We must not stay here." Then, kindly, he took my hand. "Yes, some day, +but not now, not to-night." There was a choking in his voice, and I +thought of O'mie. + +We stood up and let the cool evening air ripple against our faces. The +Neosho Valley was black now. Only here and there did we catch the +glitter of the river. The twilight afterglow was still pink, but the +sweep of the prairie was only a purple blur swathed in gray mist. Out of +this purple softness, as we parted the bushes, we saw Marjie hurrying +toward us. + +"Phil, Phil!" she cried, "O'mie's taken a change for the better. He's +been asleep for three hours, and now he is awake. He knew Aunt Candace +and he asked for you. The doctor says he has a chance to live. Oh, +Phil!" and Marjie burst into tears. + +Le Claire took her hand and, putting it through my arm, he said, gently +as my father might have done, "You are both too young for such a strain +as this. Oh, this civil war! It robs you of your childhood. Too soon, +too soon, you are men and women. Philip, take Marjory home. Don't +hurry." He smiled as he spoke. "It will do you good to leave O'mie out +of mind for a little while." + +Then he hurried off to the sick room, leaving us together. It seemed +years since that quiet April sunset when we gathered the pink flowers +out in the draw, and I crowned Marjie my queen. It was now late June, +and the first little yellow leaves were on the cottonwoods, telling that +midsummer was near. + +"Marjie," I said, putting the hand she had withdrawn through my arm +again, "the moon is just coming up. Let's go out on the prairie a little +while. Those black shadows down there distress me. I must have some rest +from darkness." + +We walked slowly out on Cliff Street and into the open prairie, which +the great summer moon was flooding with its soft radiance. No other +light is ever so regal as the full moon above the prairie, where no +black shadows can checker and blot out and hem in its limitless glory. +Marjie and I were young and full of vigor, but the steady drain on mind +and heart, and the days and nights of broken rest, were not without +effect. And yet to-night, with hope once more for O'mie's life, with a +sense of lifted care, and with the high tide of the year pouring out its +riches round about us, the peace of the prairies fell like a benediction +on us, as we loitered about the grassy spaces, quiet and very happy. + +Then the care for others turned our feet homeward. I must relieve Aunt +Candace to-night by O'mie's side, and Marjie must be with her mother. +The moonlight tempted us to linger a little longer as we passed by +"Rockport," and we parted the bushes and stood on our old playground +rock. + +"Marjie, the moonlight makes a picture of you always," I said gently. + +She did not answer, but gazed out across the valley, above whose dark +greenery the silvery mists lay fold on fold. When she turned her face to +mine, something in her eyes called up in me that inspiration that had +come to be a part of my thought of her, that sense of a woman's worth +and of her right to tenderest guardianship. + +"Marjie"--I put both arms around her and drew her to me--"the best thing +in the world is a good girl, and you are the best girl in the world." I +held her close. It was no longer a boy's admiration, but a man's love +that filled my soul that night. Marjie drew gently away. + +"We must go now, Phil, indeed we must. Mother needs me." + +Oh, I could wait her time. I took her arm and led her out to the street. +The bushes closed behind us, and we went our way together. It was well +we could not look back upon the rock. We had hardly left it when two +figures climbed up from the ledge below and stood where we had been--two +for whom the night had no charm and the prairie and valley had no +beauty, a low-browed, black-eyed girl with a heart full of jealousy, and +a tall, graceful, picturesquely handsome young Indian. They had joined +forces, just as I had once felt they would sometime do. As I came +whistling up the street on my way home I paused by the bushes, half +inclined to go beyond them again. I was happy in every fiber of my +being. But duty prodded me sharply to move on. I believe now that Jean +Pahusca would have choked the life out of me had I met him face to face +that moonlit night. Heaven turns our paths away from many an unknown +peril, and we credit it all to our own choice of ways. + + * * * * * + +Slowly but steadily O'mie came back to us. So far had he gone down the +valley of the shadow, he groped with difficulty up toward the light +again. He slept much, but it was life-giving sleep, and he was not +overcome by delirium after that turning point in his illness. I think I +never fully knew my father's sister till in those weeks beside the +sickbed. It was not the medicine, nor the careful touch, it was +herself--her wholesome, hopeful, trustful spirit--that seemed to enter +into the very life of the sick one, and build him to health. I had +rarely known illness, I who had muscles like iron, and the frame of a +giant. My father was a man of wonderful vigor. It was not until O'mie +was brought to our house that I understood why he should have been +trusted to no one else. + +We longed to know his story. The town had settled into its old groove. +The victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had thrilled us, as the loss +at Chancellorsville had depressed our spirits; and the war was our +constant theme. And then the coming and going of traders and strangers +on the old trail, the undercurrent of anxiety lest another conspiracy +should gather, the Quantrill raid at Lawrence, all helped to keep us +from lethargy. We had had our surprise, however. Strangers had to give +an account of themselves to the home guard now. But we were softened +toward our own townspeople. They were very discreet, and we must meet +and do business with them daily. For the sake of young Tell and Jim, we +who knew would say nothing. Jean came into town at rare intervals, +meeting the priest down in the chapel. Attending to his own affairs, +walking always like a very king, or riding as only a Plains Indian can +ride, he came and went unmolested. I never could understand that strange +power he had of commanding our respect. He seldom saw Marjie, and her +face blanched at the mention of his name. I do not know when he last +appeared in our town that summer. Nobody could keep track of his +movements. But I do know that after the priest's departure, his +disappearance was noted, and the daylight never saw him in Springvale +again. What the dark hours of the night could have told is another +story. + +With O'mie out of danger, Le Claire left us. His duties, he told us, lay +far to the west. He might go to the Kiowas or the Cheyennes. In any +event, it would be long before he came again. + +"I need not ask you, Philip, to take good care of O'mie. He could not +have better care. You will guard his interests. Until you know more than +you do now, you will say nothing to him or any one else of what I have +told you." + +He looked steadily into my eyes, and I understood him. + +"I think Jean Pahusca will never trouble you, nor even come here now. I +have my reasons for thinking so. But, Philip, if you should know of his +being here, keep on your guard. He is a man of more than savage nature. +What he loves, he will die for. What he hates, he will kill. Cam Gentry +is right. The worst blood of the Kiowas and of the French nationality +fills his veins. Be careful." + +Brave little O'mie struggled valiantly for health again. He was patient +and uncomplaining, but the days ran into weeks before his strength +began to increase. Only one want was not supplied: he longed for the +priest. + +"You're all so good, it's mighty little in me to say it, an' Dr. +Hemingway's gold, twenty-four karat gold; but me hair's red, an' me rale +name's O'Meara, an' naturally I long for the praist, although I'm a +proper Presbyterian." + +"How about Brother Dodd?" I inquired. + +"All the love in his heart fur me put in the shell of a mustard seed +would rattle round loike a walnut in a tin bushel box, begorra," the +sick boy declared. + +It was long before he could talk much and we did not ask a question we +could avoid, but waited his own time to know how he had been taken from +us and how he had found himself a prisoner in that cavern whence we had +barely cheated Death of its pitiful victim. As he could bear it he told +us, at length, of his part in the night the town was marked for doom. +Propped up on his pillows, his face to the open east window, his thin, +white hands folded, he talked quietly as of a thing in which he had had +little part. + +"Ye see, Phil, the Almighty made us all different, so He could know us, +an' use us when He wanted some partic'lar thing that some partic'lar one +could do. When folks puts on a uniform in their dress or their thinkin', +they belong to one av two classes--them as is goin' to the devil like +convicts an' narrow churchmen, or them as is goin' after 'em hard to +bring 'em into line again, like soldiers an' sisters av charity; an' +they just have to act as one man. But mainly we're singular number. The +Lord didn't give me size." + +He looked up at my broad shoulders. I had carried him in my arms from +his bed to the east window day after day. + +"I must do me own stunt in me own way. You know mebby, how I tagged +thim strangers till, if they'd had the chance at me they'd have fixed +me. Specially that Dick Yeager, the biggest av the two who come to the +tavern." + +"The chance! Didn't they have their full swing at you?" + +"Well, no, not regular an' proper," he replied. + +I wondered if the cruelty he had suffered might not have injured his +brain and impaired his memory. + +"You know I peeked through that hole up in the shop that Conlow seems to +have left fur such as me. Honorable business, av coorse. But Tell and +Jim, they was hid behind the stack av wagon wheels in the dark +corner--just as honorable an' high-spirited as meself, on their social +level. I was a high-grader up on that ladder. Well, annyhow, I peeked +an' eavesdropped, as near as I could get to the eaves av the shop, an' I +tould Father Le Claire all I could foind out. An' then he put it on me +to do my work. 'You can be spared,' he says. 'If it's life and death, +ye'll choose the better part.' Phil, it was laid on all av us to choose +that night." + +His thin, blue-veined hand sought mine where he lay reclining against +the pillows. I took it in my big right hand, the hand that could hold +Jean Pahusca with a grip of iron. + +"There was only one big enough an' brainy enough an' brave enough to +lead the crowd to save this town an' that was Philip Baronet. There was +only one who could advise him well an' that was Cam Gentry. Poor old +Cam, too near-sighted to tell a cow from a catfish tin feet away. Without +you, Cam and the boys couldn't have done a thing. + +"Can ye picture what would be down there now? I guess not, fur you'd not +be making pictures now, You'd be a picture yourself, the kind they put +on the carbolic acid bottle an' mark 'pizen.'" + +O'mie paused and looked out dreamily across the valley to the east +plains beyond them. + +"I can't tell how fast things wint through me moind that night. You did +some thinkin' yourself, an' you know. 'I can't do Phil's part if I stay +here,' I raisoned, 'an' bedad, I don't belave he can do my part. Bein' +little counts sometimes. It's laid on me to be the sacrifice, an' I'll +kape me promise an' choose the better part. I'll cut an' run.'" + +He looked up at my questioning face with a twinkle in his eye. + +"'There's only one to save this town. That's Phil's stunt,' I says; 'an' +there's only one to save Marjie. That's my stunt.'" + +I caught my breath, for my heart stood still, and I felt I must +strangle. + +"Do you mean to say, Thomas O'Meara--?" I could get no fuither. + +"I mane, either you or me's got to tell this. If you know it better'n I +do, go ahead." And then more gently he went on: "Yes, I mane to say, +kape still, dear; I'm not very strong yet. If I'd gone up to Cliff +Street afther you to come to her, she'd be gone. If Jean got hands on +her an' she struggled or screamed, as she'd be like to do, bein' a +sensible girl, he had that murderous little short knife, an' he'd swore +solemn he'd have her or her scalp. He's not got her, nor her scalp, nor +that knife nather now. I kept that much from doin' harm. I dunno where +the cruel thing wint to, but it wint, all right. + +"And do ye mane to say, Philip Baronet, that ye thought I'd lost me +nerve an' was crude enough to fall in wid a nest av thim Copperheads +an' let 'em do me to me ruin? Or did you think His Excellency, the +Reverend Dodd was right, an' I'd cut for cover till the fuss was over? +Well, honestly now, I'm not that kind av an Irishman." + +My mind was in a tumult as I listened. I wondered how O'mie could be so +calm when I durst not trust myself to speak. + +"So I run home, thinkin' ivery jump, an' I grabbed the little girl's +waterproof cloak. Your lady friends' wraps comes in handy sometimes. +Don't niver despise 'em, Phil, nor the ladies nather. You woman-hater!" +O'mie's laugh was like old times and very good to hear. + +"I flung that thing round me, hood on me brown curls, an' all, an' then +I flew. I made the ground just three times in thim four blocks and a +half to Judson's. You know how the kangaroo looks in the geography +picture av Australia, illustratin' the fauna an' flora, with a tall, +thin tree beyont, showin' lack of vegetation in that tropic, an' a +little quilly cus they call a ornithorynchus, its mouth like Jim +Conlow's? Well, no kangaroo'd had enough self-respect to follow me that +night. I caught Marjie just in time, an' I puts off before her toward +her home. At the corner I quit kangarooin' an' walks quick an' a little +timid-like, just Marjie to a dimple. If you'd been there, you'd wanted +to put some more pink flowers round where they'd do the most good." + +I squeezed his hand. + +"Quit that, you ugly bear. That's a lady's hand yet a whoile an' can't +stand too much pressure. + +"It was to save her loife, Phil." O'mie spoke solemnly now. "You could +save the town. I couldn't. I could save her. You couldn't. In a minute, +there in the dark by the gate, Jean Pahusca grabs me round me dainty +waist. His horse was ready by him an' he swung me into the saddle, not +harsh, but graceful like, an' gintle. I never said a word, but gave a +awful gasp like I hadn't no words, appreciative enough. 'I'm saving' +you, Star-face,' he says. 'The Copperheads will burn your mother's house +an' the Kiowas will come and steal Star-face--' an' he held me close as +if he would protect me--he got over that later--an' I properly fainted. +That's the only way the abducted princess can do in the novel--just +faint. It saves hearin' what you don't want to know. An' me size just +suited the case. Don't never take on airs, you big hulkin' fellow. No +graceful prince is iver goin' to haul you over the saddle-bow thinkin' +you're the choice av his heart. It saved Marjie, an' it got Jean clear +av town before he found his mistake, which wa'n't bad for Springvale. +Down by Fingal's Creek I come to, an' we had a rumpus. Bein' a dainty +girl, I naturally objected to goin' into that swirlin' water, though I +didn't object to Jean's goin'--to eternity. In the muss I lost me +cloak--the badge av me business there. I never could do nothin' wid thim +cussed hooks an' eyes on a collar an' the thing wasn't anchored +securely at me throat. It was awful then. I can't remember it all. But +it was dark, and Jean had found me out, and the waters was deep and +swift. The horse got away on the bank an' slid back, I think. It must +have been then it galloped up to town; but findin' Jean didn't follow, +it came back to him. I didn't know annything fur some toime. I'd got +too much av Fingal's Creek mixed into me constitution an' by-laws to +kape my thoughts from floatin' too. I'll never know rightly whin I rode +an' whin I was dragged, an' whin I walked. It was a runnin' fight av +infantry and cavalry, such as the Neosho may never see again, betwixt +the two av us." + +Blind, trustful fool that I had been, thinking after all Le Claire's +warnings that Jean had been a good, loyal, chivalrous Indian, protecting +Marjie from harm. + +"And to think we have thought all this time there were a dozen Rebels +making away with you, and never dreamed you had deliberately put +yourself into the hands of the strongest and worst enemy you could +have!" + +"It was to save a woman, Phil," O'mie said simply. "He could only kill +me. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd done the same yoursilf +to save anny woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see." + +How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. There +came to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jean +had sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after I +talked with my father of love and of my mother. That night two women +whom I had never seen before were in my dreams, and I had struggled to +save them from peril as though they were of my own flesh and blood. + +"You will do it," O'mie went on. "You were doing more. Who was it wint +down along the creek side av town where the very worst pro-slavery +fellows is always coiled and ready to spring, wint in the dark to wake +up folks that lived betwixt them on either side, who was ready to light +on 'em at a minute's notice? Who wint upstairs above thim as was gettin' +ready to burn 'em in their beds, an' walked quiet and cool where one +wrong step meant to be throttled in the dark? Don't talk to me av +courage." + +"But, O'mie, it was all chance with us. You went where danger was +certain." + +"It was my part, Phil, an' I ain't no shirker just because I'm not tin +feet tall an' don't have to be weighed on Judson's stock scales." O'mie +rested awhile on the pillows. Then he continued his story. + +"They was more or less border raidin' betwixt Jean an' me till we got +beyont the high cliff above the Hermit's Cave. When I came to after one +of his fists had bumped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn't +want. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as the +grave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in the +hostilities, I caught the faint refrain: + + 'Does the star-spangled banner yit wave, + O'er the land av the free and the home av the brave?' + +"I didn't see your lights. They was tin thousand star-spangled banners +wavin' before me eyes ivery second. But that strain av song put new +courage into me soul though I had no notion what it really meant. I was +half dead an' wantin' to go the other half quick, an' it was like a +drame, till that song sent a sort of life-givin' pulse through me. The +next minute we were goin' over an' over an' over, betwane rocks, an' +hanging to trees, down, down, down, wid that murderous river roarin' +hungry below us. Jean jumpin' from place to place an' me clingin' to +him an' hittin' iverything that could be hit at ivery jump. An' then +come darkness over me again. There was a light somewhere when I +come to. I was free an' I made a quick spring. I got that knife, +an' like a flash I slid the blade down a crack somewhere. An' +then he tied me solid, an' standin' over me he says slow an' +cruel: 'You--may--stay--here--till--you--starve--to--death. +Nobody--can--get--to--you--but--me--an'--I'm--niver--comin'--back. I +hate you.' An' his eyes were just loike that noight whin I found him +with thim faded pink flowers out on the prairie." + +"O'mie, dear, you are the greatest hero I ever heard of. You poor, +beaten, tortured sacrifice." + +I put my arm around his shoulder and my tears fell on his red hair. + +"I didn't do no more than ivery true American will do--fight an' die to +protect his home; or if not his'n, some other man's. Whin the day av +choosin' comes we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it. +Whin Jean put it on me to lay there helpless an' die o' thirst, I know'd +I could do it. Same as you know'd you'd outwit that gang ready to burn +an' kill, that I'd run from. I just looked straight up at Jean--the +light was gettin' dim--an' I says, 'You--may--go--plum--to--the--divil, +--but--you--can't--hurt--that--part--av--me--that's--never--hungry--nor +--thirsty.' When you git face to face wid a thing like that," O'mie spoke +reverently, "somehow the everlastin' arms, Dr. Hemingway's preaches of, +is strong underneath you. The light wint out, an' Jean in his still way +had slid off, an' I was alone. Alone wid me achin' and me bonds, an' wid +a burnin' longin' fur water, wid a wish to go quick if I must go; but +most av all--don't never furgit it, Phil, whin the thing overtakes you +aven in your strength--most av all, above all sufferin' and natural +longin' to live--there comes the reality av the words your Aunt Candace +taught us years ago in the little school: + +"'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fear +no evil.' + +"I called for you, Phil, in my misery, as' I know'd somehow you'd hear +me. An' you did come." + +His thin hand closed over mine, and we sat long in silence--two boys +whom the hand of Providence was leading into strange, hard lines, +shaping us each for the work the years of our manhood were waiting to +bring to us. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +GOLDEN DAYS + + There are days that are kind + As a mother to man, showing pathways that wind + Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight; + Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright; + Only luring us on, since the way must be trod, + Over meadows of green with their velvety sod, + To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before. + There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore + The original beauty of Eden; so tender, + They woo every soul to a willing surrender + Of feverish longing; so holy withal, + That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall + On the world. + + +We were a busy folk in those years that followed the close of the war. +The prairies were boundless, and the constant line of movers' wagons +reaching out endlessly on the old trail, with fathers and mothers and +children, children, children, like the ghosts of Banquo's lineal issue +to King Macbeth, seemed numerous enough to people the world and put to +the plough every foot of the virgin soil of the beautiful Plains. With +the downfall of slavery the strife for commercial supremacy began in +earnest here, and there are no idle days in Kansas. + +When I returned home after two years' schooling in Massachusetts, I +found many changes. I had beaten my bars like a caged thing all those +two years. Rockport, where I made my home and spent much of my time, +was so unlike Springvale, so wofully and pridefully ignorant of all +Kansas, so unable to get any notion of my beautiful prairies and of the +free-spirited, cultured folk I knew there, that I suffered out my time +there and was let off a little early for good behavior. Only one person +did I know who had any real interest in my West, a tall, dark-eyed, +haughty young lady, to whom I talked of Kansas by the hour. Her mother, +who was officiously courteous to me, didn't approve of that subject, but +the daughter listened eagerly. + +When I left Rockport, Rachel--that was her name, Rachel Melrose--asked +me when I was coming back. I assured her, never, and then courteously +added if she would come to Kansas. + +"Well, I may go," she replied, "not to your Springvale, but to my aunt +in Topeka for a visit next Fall. Will you come up to Topeka?" + +Of course, I would go to Topeka, but might she not come to Springvale? +There were the best people on earth in Springvale. I could introduce her +to boys who were gentlemen to the core. I'd lived and laughed and +suffered with them, and I knew. + +"But I shouldn't care for any of them except you." Rachel's voice +trembled and I couldn't help seeing the tears in her proud dark eyes. + +"Oh, I've a girl of my own there," I said impulsively, for I was always +longing for Marjie, "but Clayton Anderson and Dave Mead are both college +men now." And then I saw how needlessly rude I had been. + +"Of course I want you to come to Springvale. Come to our house. Aunt +Candace will make you royally welcome. The Baronets and Melroses have +been friends for generations. I only wanted the boys to know you; I +should be proud to present my friend to them. I would take care of you. +You have been so kind to me this year, I should be glad to do much for +you." I had taken her hand to say good-bye. + +"And you would let that other girl take care of herself, wouldn't you, +while I was there? Promise me that when I go to Kansas you will come up +to Topeka to see me, and when I go to your town, if I do, you will not +neglect me but will let that Springvale girl entirely alone." + +I did not know much of women then--nor now--although I thought then I +knew everything. I might have read behind that fine aristocratic face a +supremely selfish nature, a nature whose pleasure increased only as her +neighbor's pleasure decreased. There are such minds in the world. + +I turned to her, and taking both of her willing hands in mine, I said +frankly: "When you visit your aunt, I'll be glad to see you there. If +you visit my aunt I would be proud to show you every courtesy. As for +that little girl, well, when you see her you will understand. She has a +place all her own with me." I looked straight into her eyes as I said +this. + +She smiled coquettishly. "Oh, I'm not afraid of her," she said +indifferently; "I can hold my own with any Kansas, girl, I'm sure." + +She was dangerously handsome, with a responsive face, a winning smile +and gracious manners. She seemed never to accept anything as a gift, but +to take what was her inherent right of admiration and devotion. When I +bade her good-bye a look of sadness was in her eyes. It rebuked my +spirit somehow, although Heaven knows I had given her no cause to miss +me. But my carriage was waiting and I hurried away. For a moment only +her image lingered with me, and then I forgot her entirely; for every +turn of the wheel was bringing me to Kansas, to the prairies, to the +beautiful Neosho Valley, to the boys again, to my father and home, but +most of all to Marjie. + +It was twenty months since I had seen her. She had spent a year in Ohio +in the Girls' College at Glendale, and had written me she would reach +Springvale a month before I did. After that I had not heard from her +except through a marked copy of the _Springvale Weekly Press_, telling +of her return. She had not marked that item, but had pencilled the news +that "Philip Baronet would return in three weeks from Massachusetts, +where he had been enjoying the past two years in school." + +Enjoying! Under this Marjie had written in girlish hand, "Hurry up, +Phil." + +On the last stage of my journey I was wild with delight. It was +springtime on the prairies, and a verdure clothed them with its richest +garments. I did not note the growing crops, and the many little +freeholds now, where there had been only open unclaimed land two years +before. I was longing for the Plains again, for one more ride, reckless +and free, across their broad stretches, for one more gorgeous sunset out +on Red Range, one more soft, iridescent twilight purpling down to the +evening darkness as I had seen it on "Rockport" all those years. How the +real Rockport, the Massachusetts town, faded from me, and the sea, and +the college halls, and city buildings. The steam and steel and brick and +marble of an older civilization, all gave place to Nature's broad +handiwork and the generous-hearted, capable, unprejudiced people of this +new West. However crude and plain Springvale might have seemed to an +Eastern boy suddenly transplanted here, it was fair and full of delight +for me. + +The stage driver, Dever, by name, was a stranger to me, but he knew all +about my coming. Also he was proud to be the first to give me the +freshest town gossip. That's the stage-driver's right divine always. I +was eager to hear of everybody and in this forty miles' ride I was +completely informed. The story rambled somewhat aimlessly from topic to +topic, but it never lagged. + +"Did I know Judson? He'd got a controlling interest now in Whately's +store. He was great after money, Judson was. They do say he's been a +little off the square getting hold of the store. The widder Whately kept +only about one-third, or maybe one-fourth of the stock. Mrs. Whately, +she wa'n't no manager. Marjie'd do better, but Marjie wa'n't twenty yet. +And yet if all they say's true she wouldn't need to manage. Judson is +about the sprucest widower in town, though he did seem to take it so +hard when poor Mis' Judson was taken." She never overcame the loss of +her baby, and the next Summer they put her out in the prairie graveyard +beside it. "But Judson now, he's shyin' round Marjie real coltish. + +"It'd be fine fur her, of course," my driver went on, "an' she was old +a-plenty to marry. Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh +crazy about her. Did I know her?" + +I did; oh, yes, I remembered her. + +"They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's--lemme see, +uh--common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky--uh--Tillhurst, +Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from +Virginny to Illinois. Got near dead with consumption 'nd come on to +Kansas to die. Saw Springvale 'nd thought better of it right away. Was +teachin' school and payin' plenty of attention to the girls, especially +Marjie. They was an old man Tillhurst when I was a boy. He was from +Virginny, too--" but I pass that story. + +"Tell Mapleson's pickin' up sence he's got the post-office up in the +'Last Chance'; put that doggery out'n his sullar, had in wall paper now, +an' drugs an' seeds, an' nobody was right sure where he got his funds to +stock up, so--they was some sort of story goin' about a half-breed named +Pahusky when I first come here, bein' 'sociated with Mapleson--Cam +Gentry's same old Cam, squintin' round an' jolly as ever. O'mie? Oh, +he's leadin' the band now. By jinks, that band of his'n will just take +the cake when it goes up to Topeky this Fall to the big political +speak-in's." On and on the driver went, world without end, until we +caught the first faint line along the west that marked the treetops of +the Neosho Valley. We were on the Santa Fé Trail now, and we were coming +to the east bluff where I had first seen the little Whately girl climb +out of the big wagon and stretch the stiffness out of her fat little +legs. The stage horses were bracing for the triumphal entry into town, +when a gang of young outlaws rushed up over the crest of the east slope. +They turned our team square across the way and in mock stage-robbery +style called a halt. The driver threw up his hands in mock terror and +begged for mercy, which was granted if he would deliver up one Philip +Baronet, student and tenderfoot. But I was already down from the stage +and O'mie was hugging me hard until Bud Anderson pulled him away and all +the boys and girls were around me. Oh, it was good to see them all +again, but best of all was it to see Marjie. She had been a pretty +picture of a young girl. She was beautiful now. No wonder she had many +admirers. She was last among the girls to greet me. I took her hand and +our eyes met. Oh, I had no fear of widower nor of school-teacher, as I +helped her to a seat beside me in the stage. + +"I'm so glad to see you again, Phil," she looked up into my face. "You +are bigger than ever." + +"And you are just the same Marjie." + +The crowd piled promiscuously about us and we bumped down the slope and +into the gurgling Neosho, laughing and happy. + +With all the rough and tumble years of a boyhood and youth on the +frontier, the West has been good to me, and I look back along the way +glad that mine was the pioneer's time, and that the experiences of those +early days welded into my building and being something of their +simplicity, and strength, and capacity for enjoyment. But of all the +seasons along the way of these sixty years, of all the successes and +pleasures, I remember best and treasure most that glorious summer after +my return from the East. My father was on the Judge's bench now and his +legal interests and property interests were growing. I began the study +of law under him at once, and my duties were many, for he put +responsibility on me from the first. But I was in the very heyday of +life, and had no wish ungratified. + +"Phil, I want you to go up the river and take a look at two quarters of +Section 29, range 14, this afternoon. It lies just this side of the big +cottonwood," my father said to me one June day. + +"Make a special note of the land, and its natural appurtenances. I want +the information at once, or you needn't go out on such a hot day. It's +like a furnace in the courthouse. It may be cooler out that way." He +fanned his face with his straw hat, and the light breeze coming up the +valley lifted the damp hair about his temples. + +"There's a bridle path over the bluff a mile or so out, where you can +ride a horse down and go up the river in the bottom. It's a much shorter +way, but you'd better go out the Red Range road and turn north at the +third draw well on to the divide. It gets pretty steep near the river, +so you have to keep to the west and turn square at the draw. If it +wasn't so warm you might go on to Red Range for some depositions for me. +But never mind, Dave Mead is going up there Monday, anyhow. Will you +ride the pony?" + +"No, I'll go out in the buggy." + +"And take some girl along? Well, don't forget your errand. Be sure to +note the lay of the land. There's no building, I believe, but a little +stone cabin and it's been empty for years; but you can see. Be sure to +examine everything in that cabin carefully. Stop at the courthouse as +you go out, and get the surveyor's map and some other directions." + +It was a hot summer day, with that thin, dry burning in the air that the +light Kansas zephyr fanned back in little rippling waves. My horses were +of the Indian pony breed, able to go in heat or cold. Most enduring and +least handsome of the whole horse family, with temper ranging from +moderately vicious to supremely devilish, is this Indian pony of the +Plains. + +Marjie was in the buggy beside me when I stopped at the courthouse for +instructions. Lettie Conlow was passing and came to the buggy's side. + +"Where are you going, Marjie?" she asked. There was a sullen minor tone +in her voice. + +"With Phil, out somewhere. Where is it you are going, Phil?" + +I was tying the ponies. They never learned how to stand unanchored a +minute. + +"Out north on the Red Range prairie to buy a couple of quarters," I +replied carelessly and ran up the courthouse steps. + +"Well, well, well," Cam Gentry roared as he ambled up to the buggy. +Cam's voice was loud in proportion as his range of vision was short. +"You two gettin' ready to elope? An' he's goin' to git his dad to back +him up gettin' a farm. Now, Marjie, why'd you run off? Let us see the +performance an' hear Dr. Hemingway say the words in the Presbyterian +Church. Or maybe you're goin' to hunt up Dodd. He went toward Santy Fee +when he put out of here after the War." + +Cam could be heard in every corner of the public square. I was at the +open window of my father's office. Looking out, I saw Lettie staring +angrily at Cam, who couldn't see her face. She had never seemed less +attractive to me. She had a flashy coloring, and she made the most of +ornaments. Some people called her good-looking. Beside Marjie, she was +as the wild yoncopin to the calla lily. Marjie knew how to dress. +To-day, shaded by the buggy-top, in her dainty light blue lawn, with the +soft pink of her cheeks and her clear white brow and throat, she was a +most delicious thing to look upon in that hot summer street. Poor Lettie +suffered by contrast. Her cheeks were blazing, and her hair, wet with +perspiration, was adorned with a bow of bright purple ribbon tied +butterfly-fashion, and fastened on with a pin set with flashing +brilliants. + +"Oh, Uncle Cam," Marjie cried, blushing like the pink rambler roses +climbing the tavern veranda, "Phil's just going out to look at some land +for his father. It's up the river somewhere and I'm going to hold the +ponies while he looks." + +"Well, he'd ort to have somebody holdin' 'em fur him. I'll bet ye I'd +want a hostler if I had the lookin' to do. Land's a mighty small thing +an' hard to look at, sometimes; 'specially when a feller's head's in the +clouds an' he's walkin' on air. Goin' northwest? Look out, they's a +ha'nted house up there. But, by hen, I'd never see a ha'nt long's I had +somethin' better to look at." + +I saw Lettie turn quickly and disappear around the corner. My father was +busy, so I sat in the office window and whistled and waited, watching +the ponies switch lazily at the flies. + +When we were clear of town, and the open plain swept by the summer +breezes gave freedom from the heat, Marjie asked: + +"Where is Lettie Conlow going on such a hot afternoon?" + +"Nowhere, is she? She was talking to you at the courthouse." + +"But she rushed away while Uncle Cam was joking, and I saw her cross the +alley back of the courthouse on Tell's pony, and in a minute she was +just flying up toward Cliff Street. She doesn't ride very well. I +thought she was afraid of that pony. But she was making it go sailing +out toward the bluff above town." + +"Well, let her go, Marjie. She always wears on my nerves." + +"Phil, she likes you, I know. Everybody knows." + +"Well, I know and everybody knows that I never give her reason to. I +wish she would listen to Tell. I thought when I first came home they +were engaged." + +"Before he went up to Wyandotte to work they were--he said so, anyhow." + +Then we forgot Lettie. She wasn't necessary to us that day, for there +were only two in our world. + +[Illustration: "Baronet, I think we are marching straight into Hell's +jaws"] + +Out on the prairie trail a mile or more is the point where the bridle +path leading to the river turns northwest, and passing over a sidling +narrow way down the bluff, it follows the bottom lands upstream. As we +passed this point we did not notice Tell Mapleson's black pony just +making the top from the sidling bluff way, nor how quickly its rider +wheeled and headed back again down beyond sight of the level prairie +road. We had forgotten Lettie Conlow and everybody else. + +The draw was the same old verdant ripple in the surface of the Plains. +The grasses were fresh and green. Toward the river the cottonwoods were +making a cool, shady way, delightfully refreshing in this summer +sunshine. + +We did not hurry, for the draw was full of happy memories for us. + +"I'll corral these bronchos up under the big cottonwood, and we'll +explore appurtenances down by the river later," I said. "Father says +every foot of the half-section ought to be viewed from that tree, except +what's in the little clump about the cabin." + +We drove up to the open prairie again and let the horses rest in the +shade of this huge pioneer tree of the Plains. How it had escaped the +prairie fires through its years of sturdy growth is a marvel, for it +commanded the highest point of the whole divide. Its shade was delicious +after the glare of the trail. + +For once the ponies seemed willing to stand quiet, and Marjie and I +looked long at the magnificent stretch of sky and earth. There were a +few white clouds overhead, deepening to a dull gray in the southwest. +All the sunny land was swathed in the midsummer yellow green, darkening +in verdure along the river and creeks, and in the deepest draws. Even as +we rested there the clouds rolled over the horizon's edge, piling higher +and higher, till they hid the afternoon sun, and the world was cool and +gray. Then down the land sped a summer shower; and the sweet damp odor +of its refreshing the south wind bore to us, who saw it all. Sheet +after sheet of glittering raindrops, wind-driven, swept across the +prairie, and the cool green and the silvery mist made a scene a master +could joy to copy. + +I didn't forget my errand, but it was not until the afternoon was +growing late that we left the higher ground and drove down the shady +draw toward the river. The Neosho is a picture here, with still expanses +that mirror the trees along its banks, and stony shallows where the +water, even in midsummer, prattles merrily in the sunshine, as it +hurries toward the deep stillnesses. + +We sat down in a cool, grassy space with the river before us, and the +green trees shading the little stone cabin beyond us, while down the +draw the vista of still sunlit plains was like a dream of beauty. + +"Marjie,"--I took her hand in mine--"since you were a little girl I have +known you. Of all the girls here I have known you longest. In the two +years I was East I met many young ladies, both in school and at +Rockport. There were some charming young folks. One of them, Rachel +Melrose, was very pretty and very wealthy. Her mother made considerable +fuss over me, and I believe the daughter liked me a little; for she--but +never mind; maybe it was all my vanity. But, Marjie, there has never +been but one girl for me in all this world; there will never be but one. +If Jean Pahusca had carried you off--Oh, God in Heaven! Marjie, I wonder +how my father lived through the days after my mother lost her life. Men +do, I know." + +I was toying with her hand. It was soft and beautifully formed, although +she knew the work of our Springvale households. + +"Marjie," my voice was full of tenderness, "you are dear to me as my +mother was to my father. I loved you as my little playmate; I was fond +of you as my girl when I was first beginning to care for a girl as boys +will; as my sweetheart, when the liking grew to something more. And now +all the love a man can give, I give to you." + +I rose up before her. They call me vigorous and well built to-day. I was +in my young manhood's prime then. I looked down at her, young and +dainty, with the sweet grace of womanhood adorning her like a garment. +She stood up beside me and lifted her fair face to mine. There was a +bloom on her cheeks and her brown eyes were full of peace. I opened my +arms to her and she nestled in them and rested her cheek against my +shoulder. + +"Marjie," I said gently, "will you kiss me and tell me that you love +me?" + +Her arms were about my neck a moment. Sometimes I can feel them there +now. All shy and sweet she lifted her lips to mine. + +"I do love you, Phil," she murmured, and then of her own will, just +once, she kissed me. + +"It is vouchsafed sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on earth," Le +Claire had said to me when he talked of O'mie's father. + +It came to me that day; the cool, green valley by the river, the +vine-covered old stone cabin, the sunlit draw opening to a limitless +world of summer peace and beauty, and Marjie with me, while both of us +were young and we loved each other. + +The lengthening shadows warned me at last. + +"Well, I must finish up this investigation business of Judge Baronet's," +I declared. "Come, here's a haunted house waiting for us. Father says it +hasn't been inhabited since the Frenchman left it. Are you afraid of +ghosts?" + +We were going up a grass-grown way toward the little stone structure, +half buried in climbing vines and wild shrubbery. + +"What a cunning place, Phil! It doesn't look quite deserted to me, +somehow. No, I'm not afraid of anything but Indians." + +My arm was about her in a moment. She looked up laughing, but she did +not put it away. + +"Why, there are no Indians here, Phil," and she looked out on the sunny +draw. + +My face was toward the cabin. I was in a blissful waking dream, else I +should have taken quicker note. For sure as I had eyes, I caught a flash +of red between the far corner of the cabin and the thick underbrush +beyond it. It was just a narrow space, where one might barely pass, +between the corner of the little building and the surrounding shrubbery; +but for an instant, a red blanket with a white centre flashed across +this space, and was gone. So swift was its flight and so full was my +mind of the joy of living, I could not be sure I had seen anything. It +was just a twitch of the eyelid. What else could it be? + +We pushed open the solid oak door, and stood inside the little room. The +two windows let in a soft green light. It was a rude structure of the +early Territorial days, made for shelter and warmth. There was a dark +little attic or loft overhead. A few pieces of furniture--a chair, a +table, a stone hearth by the fireplace, and a sort of cupboard--these, +with a strong, old worn chest, were all that the room held. Dust was +everywhere, as might have been expected. And yet Marjie was right. The +spirit of occupation was there. + +"Do you know, Marjie, this cabin has hardly been opened since the poor +woman drowned herself in the river, down there. They found her body in +the Deep Hole. The Frenchman left the place, and it has been called +haunted. An Indian and a ghost can't live together. The race fears them +of all things. So the Indians would never come here." + +"But look there, Phil!"--Marjie had not heeded my words--"there's a +stick partly burned, and these ashes look fresh." She was bending over +the big stone hearth. + +As I started forward, my eye caught a bit of color behind the chair by +the table. I stooped to see a purple bow of ribbon, tied butterfly +fashion--Lettie Conlow's ribbon. I put it in my pocket, determined to +find out how it had found its way here. + +"Ugh! Let's go," said Marjie, turning to me. "I'm cold in here. I'd want +a home up under the cottonwood, not down in this lonely place. Maybe +movers on the trail camp in here." Marjie was at the door now. + +I looked about once more and then we went outside and stood on the +broad, flat step. The late afternoon was dreamily still here, and the +odor of some flowers, faint and woodsy, came from the thicket beside the +doorway. + +"It is dreary in there, Marjie, but I'll always love this place outside. +Won't you?" I said, and with a lover's happiness in my face, I drew her +close to me. + +She smiled and nodded. "I'll tell you all I think after a while. I'll +write it to you in a letter." + +"Do, Marjie, and put it in our 'Rockport' post-office, just like we used +to do. I'll write you every day, too, and you'll find my letter in the +same old crevice. Come, now, we must go home." + +"We'll come again." Marjie waved her hand to the silent gray cabin. And +slowly, as lovers will, we strolled down the walk and out into the open +where the ponies neighed a hurry-up call for home. + +Somehow the joy of youth and hope drove fear and suspicion clear from my +mind, and with the opal skies above us and the broad sweet prairies +round about us for an eternal setting of peace and beauty, we two came +home that evening, lovers, who never afterwards might walk alone, for +that our paths were become one way wherein we might go keeping step +evermore together down the years. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A MAN'S ESTATE + + When I became a man I put away childish things. + + +The next day was the Sabbath. I was twenty-one that day. Marjie and I +sang in the choir, and most of the solo work fell to us. Dave Mead was +our tenor, and Bess Anderson at the organ sang alto. Dave was away that +day. His girl sweetheart up on Red Range was in her last illness then, +and Dave was at her bedside. Poor Dave! he left Springvale that Fall, +and he never came back. And although he has been honored and courted of +women, I have been told that in his luxurious bachelor apartments in +Hong Kong there is only one woman's picture, an old-fashioned +daguerreotype of a sweet girlish face, in an ebony frame. + +Dr. Hemingway always planned the music to suit his own notions. What he +asked for we gave. On this Sabbath morning there was no surprise when he +announced, "Our tenor being absent, we will omit the anthem, and I shall +ask brother Philip and sister Marjory to sing Number 549, 'Oh, for a +Closer Walk with God.'" + +He smiled benignly upon us. We were accustomed to his way, and we knew +everybody in that little congregation. And yet, somehow, a flutter went +through the company when we stood up together, as if everybody knew our +thoughts. We had stood side by side on Sabbath mornings and had sung +from the same book since childhood, with never a thought of +embarrassment. It dawned on Springvale that day as a revelation what +Marjie meant to me. All the world, including our town, loves a lover, +and it was suddenly clear to the town that the tall, broad-shouldered +young man who looked down at the sweet-browed little girl-woman beside +him as he looked at nobody else, whose hand touched hers as they turned +the leaves, and who led her by the arm ever so gently down the steps +from the choir seats, was reading for himself + + That old fair story + Set round in glory + Wherever life is found. + +And Marjie, in spotless white, with her broad-brimmed hat set back from +her curl-shaded forehead, the tinted lights from the memorial window +which Amos Judson had placed there for his wife, falling like an aureole +about her, who could keep from loving her? + +"Her an' Phil Baronet's jist made fur one another," Cam Gentry declared +to a bunch of town gossips the next day. + +"Now'd ye ever see a finer-lookin' couple?" broke in Grandpa Mead. "An' +the way they sung that hymn yesterday--well, I just hope they'll repeat +it over my remains." And Grandpa began to sing softly in his quavering +voice: + + Oh, for a closer walk with God, + A cam and heavenli frame, + A light toe shine upon tha road + That leads me toe tha Lamb. + +Everybody agreed with Cam except Judson. He was very cross with O'mie +that morning. O'mie was clerk and manager for him now, as Judson himself +had been for Irving Whately. He rubbed his hands and joined the group, +smiling a trifle scornfully. + +"Seems to me you're all gossiping pretty freely this morning. The young +man may be pretty well fixed some day. But he's young, he's young. Mrs. +Whately's my partner, and I know their affairs very well, very well. +She'll provide her daughter with a man, not a mere boy." + +"Well, he was man enough to keep this here town from burnin' up, an' no +tellin' how many bloodsheds," Grandpa Mead piped in. + +"He was man enough to find O'mie and save his life," Cam protested. + +"Well, we'll leave it to Dr. Hemingway," Judson declared, as the good +doctor entered the doorway. Judson paid liberally into the church fund +and accounted that his wishes should weigh much with the good minister. +"We--these people here--were just coupling the name of Marjory Whately +with that boy of Judge Baronet's. Now I know how Mrs. Whately is +circumstanced. She is peculiarly situated, and it seems foolish to even +repeat such gossip about this young man, this very young man, Philip." + +The minister smiled upon the group serenely. He knew the life-purpose of +every member of it, and he could have said, as Kipling wrote of the +Hindoo people: + + I have eaten your bread and salt, + I have drunk your water and wine; + The deaths ye died I have watched beside, + And the lives ye led were mine. + +"I never saw a finer young man and woman in my life," he said gently. "I +know nothing of their intentions--as yet. They haven't been to me," his +eyes twinkled, "but they are good to look upon when they stand up +together. Our opinions, however, will cut little figure in their +affairs. Heaven bless them and all the boys and girls! How soon they +grow to be men and women." + +The good man made his purchase and left the store. + +"But he's a young man, a very boy yet," Amos Judson insisted, unable to +hide his disappointment at the minister's answer. + +The very boy himself walked in at that instant. Judson turned a scowling +face at O'mie, who was chuckling among the calicoes, and frowned upon +the group as if to ward off any further talk. I nodded good-morning and +went to O'mie. + +"Aunt Candace wants some Jane P. Coats's thread, number 50 white, two +spools." + +"That's J. & P. Coats, young man." Judson spoke more sharply than he +need to have done. "Goin' East to school doesn't always finish a boy; +size an' learnin' don't count," and he giggled. + +I was whistling softly, "Oh, for a Closer Walk with God," and I turned +and smiled down on the little man. I was head and shoulders above him. + +"No, not always. I can still learn," I replied good-naturedly, and went +whistling on my way to the courthouse. + +I was in a good humor with all the world that morning. Out on "Rockport" +in the purple twilight of the Sabbath evening I had slipped my mother's +ring on Marjie's finger. I was on my way now for a long talk with my +father. I was twenty-one, a man in years, as I had been in spirit since +the night the town was threatened by the Rebel raiders--aye, even since +the day Irving Whately begged me to take care of Marjie. I had no time +to quarrel with the little widower. + +"He's got the best of you, Judson," Cam declared. "No use to come, +second hand, fur a girl like that when a handsome young feller like Phil +Baronet, who's run things his own way in this town sence he was a little +feller, 's got the inside track. Why, the young folks, agged on by some +older ones, 'ud jist natcherly mob anybody that 'ud git in Phil's way of +whatever he wanted. Take my word, if he wants Marjie he kin have her; +and likewise take it, he does want her." + +"An' then," Grandpa spoke with mock persuasion, "Amos, ye know ye've +been married oncet. An' ye're not so young an' ye're a leetle bald. D'ye +just notice Phil's hair, layin' in soft thick waves? Allers curled that +way sence he was a little feller." + +Amos Judson went into an explosive combustion. + +"I've treated my wife's memory and remains as good as a man ever did. +She's got the biggest stone in the cemet'ry, an' I've put a memorial +window in the church. An' what more could a man do? It's more than any +of you have done." Amos was too wrought up to reason. + +"Well, I acknowledge," said Cam, "I've ben a leetle slack about gittin' +a grave-stun up fur Dollie, seein' she's still livin', but I have +threatened her time an' agin to put a winder to her memory in the church +an' git her in shape to legalize it if she don't learn how to git me up +a good meal. Darned poor cook my wife is." + +"An' as for this boy," Judson broke in, not noticing Cam's joke, "as to +his looks," he stroked his slick light brown hair, "a little baldness +gives dignity, makes a man look like a man. Who'd want to have hair like +a girl's? But Mrs. Whately's too wise not to do well by her daughter. +She knows the value of a dollar, and a man makin' it himself." + +"Well, why not set your cap fur the widder? You'd make a good father to +her child, an' Phil would jest na'chelly be proud of you for a +daddy-in-law." This from the stage driver, Dever, who had caught the +spirit of the game in hand. "Anyhow you'd orter seen them two young +folks meet when he first got back home, out there where the crowd of 'em +helt up the stage. Well, sir, she was the last to say 'howdy do.' +Everybody was lookin' the other way then, 'cept me, and I didn't have +sense enough. Well, sir, he jist took her hand like somethin' he'd been +reachin' fur about two year, an' they looked into each other's eyes, +hungry like, an' a sort of joy such as any of us 'ud long to possess +come into them two young faces. I tell you, if you're goin' to gossip +jist turn it onto Judson er me, but let them two alone." + +Judson was too violently angry to be discreet. + +"It's all silly scand'lous foolishness, and I won't hear another word of +it," he shouted. + +Just as he spoke, Marjie herself came in. Judson stepped forward in an +officious effort to serve her, and unable to restrain himself, he called +out to O'mie, "Put four yards of towelling, twelve and a half cents a +yard, to Mrs. Whately's standing account." + +It was not the words that offended, so much as the tone, the proprietary +sound, the sense of obligation it seemed to put upon the purchaser, +unrelieved by his bland smile and attempt at humor in his after remark, +"We don't run accounts with everybody, but I guess we can trust you." + +It cut Marjie's spirit. A flush mounted to her cheeks, as she took her +purchase and hurried out of the door and plump into my father, who was +passing just then. + +Judge Baronet was a man of courtly manners. He gently caught Marjie's +arm to steady her. + +"Good-morning, Marjie. How is your mother to-day?" + +The little girl did not speak for a moment. Her eyes were full of tears. +Presently she said, "May I come up to your office pretty soon? I want +to ask you something--something of our business matters." + +"Yes, yes, come now," he replied, taking her bundle and putting himself +on the outer side of the walk. He had forgotten my appointment for the +moment. + +When they reached the courthouse he said: "Just run into my room there; +I've got to catch Sheriff Karr before he gets away." + +He opened the door of his private office, thrusting her gently inside, +and hurried away. I turned to meet my father, and there was Marjie. Tear +drops were on her long brown lashes, and her cheeks were flushed. + +"Why, my little girl!" I exclaimed in surprise as she started to hurry +away. + +"I didn't know you were in here; your father sent me in"--and then the +tears came in earnest. + +I couldn't stand for that. + +"What is it, Marjie?" I had put her in my father's chair and was bending +over her, my face dangerously near her cheek. + +"It's Amos Judson--Oh, Phil, I can't tell you. I was going to talk to +your father." + +"All right," I said gayly. "Ask papa. It's the proper thing. He must be +consulted, of course. But as to Judson, don't worry. O'mie promised me +just this morning to sew him up in a sack and throw him off the cliff +above the Hermit's Cave into the river. O'mie says it's safe; he's so +light he'll float." + +Marjie smiled through her tears. A noise in the outer office reminded us +that some one was there, and that the outer door was half ajar. Then my +father came in. His face was kindly impenetrable. + +"I had forgotten my son was here. Phil, take these papers over to the +county attorney's office. I'll call you later." He turned me out and +gave his attention to Marjie. + +I loafed about the outer office until she and my father came out. He led +her to the doorway and down the steps with a courtesy he never forgot +toward women. When we were alone in his private office I longed to ask +Marjie's errand, but I knew my father too well. + +"You wanted to see me, Phil?" He was seated opposite to me, his eyes +were looking steadily into mine, and clear beyond them down into my +soul. + +"Yes, Father," I replied; "I am a man now--twenty-one years and one day +over. And there are a few things, as a man, I want to know and to have +you know." + +He was sharpening a pencil carefully. "I'm listening," he said kindly. + +"Well, Father--" I hesitated. It was so much harder to say than I had +thought it would be. I toyed with the tassel of the window cord +confusedly. "Father, you remember when you were twenty-one?" + +"Yes, my son, I was just out of Harvard. And like you I had a father to +whom I went to tell him I was in love, just as you are. When your own +son comes to you some day, help him a little." + +I felt a weight lifted from my mind. It was good of him to open the way. + +"Father, I have never seen any other girl like Marjie." + +"No, there isn't any--for you. But how about her?" + +"I think, I know she--does care. I think--" I was making poor work of it +after all his help. "Well, she said she did, anyhow." I blurted out +defiantly. + +"The court accepts the evidence," he remarked, and then more seriously +he went on: "My son, I am happy in your joy. I may have been a little +slow. There was much harmless coupling of her name with young +Tillhurst's while you were away. I did not give it much thought. +Letters from Rockport were also giving you and Rachel Melrose some +consideration. Rachel is an only child and pretty well fixed +financially." + +"Oh, Father, I never gave her two thoughts." + +"So the letters intimated, but added that the Melrose blood is +persistent, and that Rachel's mother was especially willing. She is of a +good family, old friends of Candace's and mine. She will have money in +her own right, is handsome and well educated. I thought you might be +satisfied there." + +"But I don't care for her money nor anybody else's. Nobody but Marjie +will ever suit me," I cried. + +"So I saw when I looked at you two in church yesterday. It was a +revelation, I admit; but I took in the situation at once." And then more +affectionately he added: "I was very proud of you, Phil. You and Marjie +made a picture I shall keep. When you want my blessing, I have part of +it in the strong box in my safe. All I have of worldly goods will be +yours, Phil, if you do it no dishonor; and as to my good-will, my son, +you are my wife's child, my one priceless treasure. When by your own +efforts you can maintain a home, nor feel yourself dependent, then bring +a bride to me. I shall do all I can to give you an opportunity. I hope +you will not wait long. When Irving Whately lay dying at Chattanooga he +told me his hopes for Marjie and you. But he charged me not to tell you +until you should of your own accord come to me. You have his blessing, +too." + +How good he was to me! His hand grasped mine. + +"Phil, let me say one thing; don't ever get too old to consult your +father. It may save some losses and misunderstandings and heart-aches. +And now, what else?" + +"Father, when O'mie seemed to be dying, Le Claire told me something of +his story one evening. He said you knew it." + +My father looked grave. + +"How does this concern you, Phil?" + +"Only in this. I promised Le Claire I would see that O'mie's case was +cared for if he lived and you never came back," I replied. "He is of age +now, and if he knows his rights he does not use them." + +"Have you talked to O'mie of this?" he asked quickly. + +"No, sir; I promised not to speak of it." + +"Phil, did Le Claire suggest any property?" + +"No, sir. Is there any?" + +My father smiled. "You have a lawyer's nose," he said, "but fortunately +you can keep a still tongue. I'm taking care of O'mie's case right now. +By the way," he went on after a short pause. "I sent you out on an +errand Saturday. That's another difficult case, a land claim I'm trying +to prove for a party. There are two claimants. Tell Mapleson is the +counsel for the other one. It's a really dangerous case in some ways. +You were to go and spy out the land. What did you see? Anything except a +pretty girl?" My face was burning. "Oh, I understand. You found a place +out there to stand, and now you think you can move the world." + +"I found something I want to speak of besides. Oh, well--I'm not ashamed +of caring for Marjie." + +"No, no, my boy. You are right. You found the best thing in the world. I +found it myself once, by a moonlit sea, not on the summer prairie; but +it is the same eternal blessing. Now go on." + +"Well, father, you said the place was uninhabited. But it isn't. +Somebody is about there now." + +"Did you see any one, or is it just a wayside camp for movers going out +on the trail?" + +"I am not sure that I saw any one, and yet--" + +"Tell me all you know, and all you suspect, and why you have +conclusions," he said gravely. + +"I caught just a glimpse, a mere flirt of a red blanket with a white +centre, the kind Jean Pahusca used to wear. It was between the corner of +the house and the hazel-brush thicket, as if some one were making for +the timber." + +"Did you follow it?" + +"N--no, I could hardly say I saw anything; but thinking about it +afterwards, I am sure somebody was getting out of sight." + +"I see." My father looked straight at me. I knew his mind, and I blushed +and pulled at the tassel of the window cord. "Be careful. The county has +to pay for curtain fixtures. What else?" + +"Well, inside the cabin there were fresh ashes and a half-burned stick +on the hearth. By a chair under the table I picked this up." I handed +him the bow of purple ribbon with the flashing pin. + +"It must be movers, and as to that red flash of color, are you real sure +it was not just a part of the rose-hued world out there?" He smiled as +he spoke. + +"Father, that bow was on Lettie Conlow's head not an hour before it was +lost out there. She found out where we were going, and she put out +northwest on Tell Mapleson's pony. She may have taken the river path. It +is the shortest way. Why should she go out there?" + +"Do some thinking for yourself. You are a man now, twenty-one, and one +day over. You can unravel this part." He sat with impenetrable face, +waiting for me to speak. + +"I do not know. Lettie Conlow has always been silly about--about the +boys. All the young folks say she likes me, has always liked me." + +"How much cause have you given her? Be sure your memory is clear." My +father spoke sternly. + +"Father," I stood before him now, "I am a man, as you say, and I have +come up through a boyhood no better nor worse than the other boys whom +you know here. We were a pretty decent gang even before you went away to +the War. After that we had to be men. But all these years, Father, there +has been only one girl for me. I never gave Lettie Conlow a ghost of a +reason for thinking I cared for her. But she is old Conlow's own child, +and she has a bitter, jealous nature." + +"Well, what took her to the--to the old cabin out there?" + +"I do not know. She may have been hidden out there to spy what we--I was +doing." + +"Did she have on a red blanket too, Saturday afternoon?" + +"Well, now I wonder--." My mind was in a whirl. Could she be in league +against me? What did it mean? I sat down to think. + +"Father, there's something I've never yet understood about this town," I +burst out impetuously. "If it is to have anything to do with my future I +ought to know it. Father Le Claire would tell me only half his story. +You know more of O'mie than you will tell me. And here is a jealous girl +whose father consented to give Marjie to a brutal Indian out of hatred +for her father; and it is his daughter who trails me over the prairie +because I am with Marjie. Why not tell me now what you know?" + +My father sat looking thoughtfully at me. At last he spoke. + +"I know nothing of girls' love affairs and jealousies," he said; "pass +that now. I am O'mie's attorney and am trying to adjust his claims for +him as I can discover them. I cannot get hold of the case myself as I +should like. If Le Claire were here I might find out something." + +"Or nothing," I broke in. "It would depend on circumstances." + +"You are right. He has never told me all he knows, but I know much +without his telling." + +"Do you know how Jean Pahusca came to carry a knife for years with the +name, 'Jean Le Claire,' cut in the blade? Do you know why the half-breed +and the priest came to look so much alike, same square-cut forehead, +same build, same gait, same proud way of throwing back the head? You've +only to look at them to see all this, except that with a little +imagination the priest's face would fit a saint and Jean's is a very +devil's countenance." + +"I do not know the exact answer to any of these questions. They are +points for us to work out together now you are a man. Jean is in some +way bound to Le Claire. If by blood ties, why does the priest not own, +or entirely disown him? If not, why does the priest protect him? + +"In some way, too, both are concerned with O'mie. Le Claire is eager to +protect the Irishman. I do not know where Jean is, but I believe +sometimes he is here in concealment. He and Tell Mapleson are +counselling together. I think he furnishes Tell with some booty, for +Tell is inordinately prosperous. I look at this from a lawyer's place. +You have grown up with the crowd here, and you see as a young man from +the social side, where personal motives count for much. Together we must +get this thing unravelled; and it may be in doing it some love matters +and some church matters may get mixed and need straightening. You must +keep me informed of every thing you know." He paused a moment, then +added: "I am glad you have let me know how it is with you, Phil. In your +life I can live my own again. Children do so bless us. Be happy in your +love, my boy. But be manly, too. There are some hard climbs before you +yet. Learn to bear and wait. Yours is an open sunlit way to-day. If the +shadows creep across it, be strong. They will lift again. Run home now +and tell Aunt Candace I'll be home at one o'clock. Tell her what you +have told me, too. She will be glad to know it." + +"She does know it; she has known it ever since the night we came into +Springvale in 1854." + +My father turned to the door. Then he put his arms about me and kissed +my forehead. "You have your mother's face, Phil." How full of tenderness +his tones were! + +In the office I saw Judson moving restlessly before the windows. He had +been waiting there for some time, and he frowned on me as I passed him. +He was a man of small calibre. His one gift was that of money-getting. + +By the careful management of the Whately store in the owner's absence he +began to add to his own bank account. With the death of Mr. Whately he +had assumed control, refusing to allow any investigation of affairs +until, to put it briefly, he was now in entire possession. Poor Mrs. +Whately hardly knew what was her own, while her husband's former clerk +waxed pompous and well-to-do. Being a vain man, he thought the best +should come to him in social affairs, and being a man of medium +intellect, he lacked self-control and tact. + +This was the nature of the creature who strode into Judge Baronet's +private office, slamming the door behind him and presenting himself +unannounced. The windows front the street leading down to where the +trail crossed the river, and give a view of the glistening Neosho +winding down the valley. My father was standing by one of these windows +when Judson fired himself into the room. John Baronet's mind was not on +Springvale, nor on the river. His thoughts were of his son and of her +who had borne him, the sweet-browed woman whose image was in the +sacredest shrine of his heart. + +Judson's advent was ill-timed, and his excessive lack of tact made the +matter worse. + +"Mr. Baronet," he began pompously enough, "I must see you on a very +grave matter, very grave indeed." + +Judge Baronet gave him a chair and sat down across the table from him to +listen. Judson had grated harshly on his mood, but he was a man of +poise. + +"I'll be brief and blunt. That's what you lawyers want, ain't it?" The +little man giggled. "But I must advise this step at once as a necessary, +a very necessary one." + +My father waited. Judson hadn't the penetration to feel embarrassed. + +"You see it's like this. If you'll just keep still a minute I can show +you, though I ain't no lawyer; I'm a man of affairs, a commercialist, as +you would say. A producer maybe is a better term. In short, I'm a +money-maker." + +My father smiled. "I see," he remarked. "I'll keep still. Go on." + +"Well, now, I'm a widower that has provided handsome for my first wife's +remains. I've earned and paid for the right to forget her." + +The great broad-shouldered, broad-minded man before the little boaster +looked down to hide his contempt. + +"I've did my part handsome now, you'll admit; and being alone in the +world, with no one to enjoy my prosperity with me, I'm lonesome. That's +it, I'm lonesome. Ain't you sometimes?" + +"Often," my father replied. + +"Now I know'd it. We're in the same boat barring a great difference in +ages. Why, hang it, Judge, let's get married!" He giggled explosively +and so failed to see the stern face of the man before him. + +"I want a young woman, a pretty girl, I've a right to a pretty girl, I +think. In fact, I want Marjory Whately. And what's more, I'm going to +have her. I've all but got the widder's consent now. She's under +considerable obligation to me." + +Across John Baronet's mind there swept a picture of the Chattanooga +battle field. The roar of cannon, the smoke of rifles, the awful charge +on charge, around him. And in the very heart of it all, Irving Whately +wounded unto death, his hands grasping the Springvale flag, his voice +growing faint. + +"You will look after them, John? Phil promised to take care of Marjie. +It makes this easier. I believe they will love each other, John. I hope +they may. When they do, give them my blessing. Good-bye." Across this +vision Judson's thin sharp voice was pouring out words. + +"Now, Baronet, you see, to be plain, it's just this way. If I marry +Marjory, folks'll say I'm doing it to get control of the widder's stock. +It's small; but they'll say it." + +"Why should it be small?" My father's voice was penetrating as a +knife-thrust. Judson staggered at it a little. + +"Business, you know, management you couldn't understand. She's no hand +at money matters." + +"So it seems," my father said dryly. + +"But you'd not understand it. To resume. Folks'll say I'm trying to get +the whole thing, when all I really want is the girl, the girl now. +She'll not have much at best; and divided between her and her mother, +there'll be little left for Mrs. Whately to go on livin' on, with Mrs. +Judson's share taken out. Now, here's my point precisely, precisely. You +take the widder yourself. You need a wife, and Mrs. Whately's still +good-looking most ways. She was always a pretty, winsome-faced woman. + +"You've got a plenty and getting more all the time. You could provide +handsome for her the rest of her life. You'd enjoy a second wife, an' +she'd be out of my way. You see it, don't you? I'll marry Marjie, an' +you marry her mother, kind of double wedding. Whew! but we'd make a fine +couple of grooms. What's in gray hair and baldness, anyhow? But there's +one thing I can't stand for. Gossip has begun to couple the name of your +boy with Miss Whately. Now he's just a very boy, only a year or two +older'n she, and nowise able to take care of her properly, you'll admit; +and it's silly. Besides, Conlow was telling me just an hour or more ago, +that Phil and Lettie was old-time sweethearts. I've nothing to do with +Phil's puppy love, however. I'm here to advise with you. Shall we clinch +the bargain now, or do you want to think about it a little while? But +don't take long. It's a little sudden maybe to you. It's been on my mind +since the day I got that memorial window in an' Marjory sang 'Lead +Kindly Light,' standing there in the light of it. It was a service for +my first wife sung by her that was to be my second, you might almost +say. Dr. Hemingway talked beautiful, too, just beautiful. But I've got +to go. Business don't bother you lawyers,"--he was growing very familiar +now,--"but us merchants has to keep a sharp eye to time. When shall I +call?" He rose briskly. "When shall I call?" he repeated. + +My father rose up to his full height. His hands were clasped hard behind +his back. He did not lift his eyes to the expectant creature before him, +and the foxy little widower did not dream how near to danger he was. +With the self-control that was a part of John Baronet's character, he +replied in an even voice: + +"You will come when I send for you." + +That evening my father told me all that had taken place. + +"You are a man now, and must stand up against this miserable cur. But +you must proceed carefully. No hot-headed foolishness will do. He will +misjudge your motives and mine, and he can plant some ugly seeds along +your way. Property is his god. He is daily defrauding the defenceless to +secure it. When I move against him it will be made to appear that I do +it for your sake. Put yourself into the place where, of your own +wage-earning power, you can keep a wife in comfort, not luxury yet. That +will come later, maybe. And then I'll hang this dog with a rope of his +own braiding. But I'll wait for that until you come fully into a man's +estate, with the power to protect what you love." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE TOPEKA RALLY + + And men may say what things they please, and none dare stay their tongue. + But who has spoken out for these--the women and the young? + + --KIPLING. + + +Henceforth I had one controlling purpose. Mine was now the task to prove +myself a man with power to create and defend the little kingdom whose +throne is builded on the hearthstone. I put into my work all the energy +of my youth and love and hope. + +I applied myself to the study of law, and I took hold of my father's +business interests with a will. I was to enter into a partnership with +him when I could do a partner's work. He forebore favors, but he gave me +opportunity to prove myself. Stories of favoritism on account of my +father's position, of my wasteful and luxurious habits, ludicrous enough +in a little Kansas town in the sixties, were peddled about by the +restless little widower. By my father's advice I let him alone and went +my way. I knew that silently and persistently John Baronet was trailing +him. And I knew the cause was a righteous one. I had lived too long in +the Baronet family to think the head of it would take time to follow +after a personal dislike, or pursue a petty purpose. + +There may have been many happy lovers on these sunny prairies that +idyllic summer, now forty years gone by. The story of each, though like +that of all the others, seems best to him who lived it. Marjie and I +were going through commonplace days, but we were very happy with the joy +of life and love. Our old playground was now our trysting place. +Together on our "Rockport" we planned a future wherein there were no +ugly shadows. + +"Marjie, I'll always keep 'Rockport' for my shrine now," I said to her +one evening as we were watching the sunset lights on the prairie and the +river upstream. "If you ever hear me say I don't care for 'Rockport,' +you will know I do not care for you. Now, think of that!" + +"Don't ever say it, Phil, please, if you can help it." Marjie's mood was +more serious than mine just then. "I used to be afraid of Indians. I am +still, if there were need to be, and I looked to you always somehow to +keep them away. Do you remember how I would always get on your side of +the game when Jean Pahusca played with us?" + +"Yes, Marjie. That's where you belong--on my side. That's the kind of +game I'm playing." + +"Phil, I am troubled a little with another game. I wish Amos Judson +would stay away from our house. He can make mother believe almost +anything. I don't feel safe about some matters. Judge Baronet tells me +not to worry, that he will keep close watch." + +"Well, take it straight from me that he will do it," I assured her. +"Let's let the widower go his way. He talks about me; says I'm 'callow, +that's it, just callow.' I don't mind being callow, as long as it's not +catching. Look at the river, how it glistens now. We can almost see the +shallows up by the stone cabin below the big cottonwood. The old tree is +shapely, isn't it?" + +We were looking upstream to where the huge old tree stood out against +the golden horizon. + +"Let's buy that land, Phil, and build a house under the big cottonwood +some day." + +"All right, I'm to go out there again soon. Will you go too?" + +"Of course," Marjie assented, "if you want me to." + +"I am sure I'd never want to take any other girl out there, but just +you, dear," I declared. + +And then we talked of other things, and promised to put our letters next +day, into the deep crevice we had called our post-office these many +years. Before we parted that night, I said: + +"I'm thinking of going up to Topeka when the band goes to the big +political speaking, next week. I will write to you. And be sure to let +me find a letter in 'Rockport' when I get back. I'll be so lonely up +there." + +"Well, find some pretty girl and let her kill time for you." + +"Will you and Judson kill time down here?" + +"Ugh! no," Marjie shivered in disgust. "I can't bear the sight of his +face any more." + +"Good! I'll not try to be any more miserable by being bored with +somebody I don't care for at Topeka. But don't forget the letter. +Good-night, little sweetheart," and after the fashion of lovers, I said +good-bye. + +Kansas is essentially a land of young politicians. When O'mie took his +band to the capital city to play martial music for the big political +rally, there were more young men than gray beards on the speakers' stand +and on the front seats. I had gone with the Springvale crowd on this +jaunt, but I did not consider myself a person of importance. + +"There's Judge Baronet's son; he's just out of Harvard. He's got big +influence with the party down his way. His father always runs away ahead +of his ticket and has the whole district about as he wants it. That's +the boy that saved Springvale one night when the pro-slavery crowd was +goin' to burn it, the year of the Quantrill raid." + +So, I heard myself exploited in the hotel lobby of the old Teft House. + +"What's Tell Mapleson after this year, d'ye reckon? Come in a week ago. +He's the doggondest feller to be after somethin', an' gets it, too, +somehow." The speaker was a seasoned politician of the hotel lobby +variety. + +"Oh, he's got a big suit of some kind back East. It's a case of money +bein' left to heirs, and he's looking out that the heirs don't get it." + +"Ain't it awful about the Saline country?" a bystander broke in here. +"Just awful! Saw a man from out there last night by the name of Morton. +He said that them Cheyennes are raidin' an' murderin' all that can't get +into the towns. Lord pity the unprotected settlers way out in that +lonely country. This man said they just killed the little children +before their mothers' eyes, after they'd scalped and tomahawked the +fathers. Just beat them to death, and then carried off the women. Oh, +God! but it's awful." + +Awful! I lived through the hours of that night from the time young Tell +Mapleson had told of Jean Pahusca's plan to seize Marjie, to the moment +when I saw her safe in the shelter of her mother's doorway. Awful! And +this sort of thing was going on now in the Saline Valley. How could God +permit it? + +"There was one family out there, they got the mother and baby and just +butchered the other children right before her eyes. They hung the baby +to a tree later, and when they got ready they killed its mother. It was +the only merciful thing they done, I guess, in all their raid, for they +made her die a thousand deaths before they really cut off her poor +pitiful life." + +So I heard the talk running on, and I wondered at the bluff committeeman +who broke up the group to get the men in line for a factional caucus. + +Did the election of a party favorite, the nomination of a man whose turn +had come, or who would be favorable to "our crowd" in his appointments +match in importance this terrible menace to life on our Indian frontier? +I had heard much of the Saline and the Solomon River valleys. Union +soldiers were homesteading those open plains. My father's +comrades-in-arms they had been, and he was intensely interested in their +welfare. These Union men had wounds still unhealed from service in the +Civil War. And the nation they bore these wounds to save, the Government +at Washington, was ignorant or indifferent to this danger that +threatened them hourly--a danger infinitely worse than death to women. +And the State in the vital throes of a biennial election was treating +the whole affair as a deplorable incident truly, but one the national +government must look out for. + +I was young and enthusiastic, but utterly without political ambition. I +was only recently out of college, with a scholar's ideals of civic duty. +And with all these, I had behind me the years of a frontier life on the +border, in which years my experience and inspiration had taught me the +value of the American home, and a strong man's duty toward the weak and +defenceless. The memories of my mother, the association and training of +my father's sister, and my love for Marjie made all women sacred to me. +And while these feelings that stirred the finest fibres of my being, and +of which I never spoke then, may have been the mark of a less practical +nature than most young men have to-day, I account my life stronger, +cleaner and purer for having had them. + +I could take only a perfunctory interest in the political game about me, +and I felt little elation at the courteous request that I should take a +seat in the speakers' stand, when the clans did finally gather for a +grand struggle for place. + +The meeting opened with O'mie's band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." +It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platform +stood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous, +least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too, +I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party's +virtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers +extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the +hour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State's +most pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through it +all my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the Saline +Valley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now in +the cruel slavery of Indian captivity. + +I knew only a few people in the capital city and I looked at the +audience with the indifference of a stranger who seeks for no familiar +face. And yet, subconsciously, I felt the presence of some one who was +watching me, some one who knew me well. Presently the master of +ceremonies called for the gifted educator, Richard Tillhurst of +Springvale. I knew he was in Topeka, but I had not hunted for him any +more than he had sought me out. We mutually didn't need each other. And +yet local pride is strong, and I led the hand-clapping that greeted his +appearance. He was visibly embarrassed, and ultra-dignified. Education +had a representative above reproach in him. Pompously, after the manner +of the circumscribed instructor, he began, and for a limited time the +travelling was easy. But he made the fatal error of keeping on his feet +after his ideas were exhausted. He lost the trail and wandered aimlessly +in the barren, trackless realms of thought, seeking relief and finding +none, until at length in sheer embarrassment he forced himself to +retreat to his seat. Little enthusiasm was expressed and failure was +written all over his banner. + +The next speaker was a politician of the rip-roaring variety who pounded +the table and howled his enthusiasm, whose logic was all expressed in +the short-story form, sometimes witty, sometimes far-fetched and often +profane. He interested me least of all, and my mind abstracted by the +Tillhurst feature went back again to the Plains. I could not realize +what was going on when the politician had finished amid uproarious +applause, and the chairman was introducing the next speaker, until I +caught my father's name, coupled with lavish praise of his merits. There +was a graceful folding of his mantle on the shoulders of "his gifted +son, just out of Harvard, but a true child of Kansas, with a record for +heroism in the war time, and a growing prominence in his district, and +an altogether good-headed, good-hearted, and, the ladies all agree, +good-looking young man, the handsome giant of the Neosho." And I found +myself thrust to the front of the speakers' stand, with applause +following itself, and O'mie, the mischievous rascal, striking off a few +bars of "See, the Conquering Hero Comes!" + +I was taken so completely by surprise that I thought the earth +especially unkind not to open at once and let me in. It must have been +something of my inheritance of my father's self-control, coupled with my +life experience of having to meet emergencies quickly, which all the +children of Springvale knew, that pulled me through. The prolonged +cheering gave me a moment to get the mastery. Then like an inspiration +came the thought to break away from the beaten path of local politics +and to launch forth into a plea for larger political ideals. I cited the +Civil War as a crucible, testing men. I did not once mention my father, +but the company knew his proud record, and there were many present who +had fought and marched and starved and bled beside him, men whom his +genius and his kindness had saved from peril, even the peril of death. +And then out of the fulness of a heart that had suffered, I pled for the +lives and homes of the settlers on our Plains frontier. I pictured, for +I knew how to picture, the anguish of soul an Indian raid can leave in +its wake, and the duty we owe to the homes, our high privilege as strong +men and guardians to care for the defenceless, and our opportunity to +repay a part at least of the debt we owe to the Union soldier by giving +a State's defence to these men, who were homesteading our hitherto +unbroken, trackless plains, and building empire westward toward the +baths of sunset. + +The effort was so boyish, so unlike every other speech that had been +made, and yet so full of a young man's honest zeal and profound +convictions from a soul stirred to its very depths, that the audience +rose to their feet at my closing words, and cheer followed cheer, making +the air ring with sound. + +When the meeting had finished, I found myself in the centre of a group +of men who knew John Baronet and just wouldn't let his son get away +without a handshake. I was flushed with the pleasure of such a reception +and was doing my best to act well, when a man grasped my hand with a +grip unlike any other hand I had ever felt, so firm, so full of +friendship, and yet so undemonstrative, that I instinctively returned +the clasp. He was a man of some thirty years, small beside me, and there +was nothing unusual in his face or dress or manner to attract my +attention. A stranger might not turn to him a second time in a crowd, +unless they had once spoken and clasped hands. + +"My name is Morton," he said. "I know your father, I knew him in the +army and before, back in Massachusetts. I am from the Saline River +country, and I came down here hoping to find the State more interested +in the conditions out our way. You were the only speaker who thought of +the needs of the settlers. There are terrible things being done right +now." + +He spoke so simply that a careless ear would not have detected the +strength of the feeling back of the words. + +"I'll tell my father I met you," I said cordially, "and I hope, I hope +to heaven the captives may be found soon, and the Indians punished. How +can a man live who has lost his wife, or his sweetheart, in that way?" + +I knew I was blushing, but the matter was so terrible to me. Before he +could answer, Richard Tillhurst pushed through the crowd and caught my +arm. + +"There's an old friend of yours here, who wants to meet you, Mr. +Baronet," and he pulled me away. + +"I hope I'll see you again," I turned to Mr. Morton to say, and in a +moment more, I was face to face with Rachel Melrose. It was she whose +presence I had somehow felt in that crowd of strangers. She was +handsomer even than I had remembered her, and she had a style of dress +new and attractive. One would know that she was fresh from the East, for +our own girls and women for the most part had many things to consider +besides the latest fashions. + +I think Tillhurst mistook my surprise for confusion. He was a man of +good principles, but he was a human being, not a saint, and he pursued a +purpose selfishly as most of us who are human do. + +The young lady grasped my hand in both of hers impulsively. + +"Oh, Mr. Baronet, I'm so glad to see you again. I knew you would come to +Topeka as soon as you knew I had come West. I just got here two days +ago, and I could hardly wait until you came. It's just like old times to +see you again." + +Then she turned to Tillhurst, standing there greedily taking in every +word, his face beaming as one's face may who finds an obstacle suddenly +lifted from his way. + +"We are old friends, the best kind of friends, Mr. Tillhurst. Mr. +Baronet and I have recollections of two delightful years when he was in +Harvard, haven't we?" + +"Yes, yes," I replied. "Miss Melrose was the only girl who would listen +to my praising Kansas while I was in Massachusetts. Naturally I found +her delightful company." + +"Did he tell you about his girl here?" Tillhurst asked, a trifle +maliciously, maybe. + +"Of course, I didn't," I broke in. "We don't tell all we know when we go +East." + +"Nor all you have done in the East when you come back home, evidently," +Tillhurst spoke significantly. "I've never heard him mention your name +once, Miss Melrose." + +"Has he been flirting with some one, Mr. Tillhurst? He promised me +faithfully he wouldn't." Her tone took on a disappointed note. + +"I'll promise anybody not to flirt, for I don't do it," I cried. "I came +home and found this young educator trying to do me mischief with the +little girl I told you about the last time I saw you. Naturally he +doesn't like me." + +All this in a joking manner, and yet a vein of seriousness ran through +it somewhere. + +Rachel Melrose was adroit. + +"We won't quarrel," she said sweetly, "now we do meet again, and when I +go down to Springvale to visit your aunt, as you insisted I must do, +we'll get all this straightened out. You'll come and take tea with us of +course. Mr. Tillhurst has promised to come, too." + +The young man looked curiously at me at the mention of Rachel's visit to +Springvale. A group of politicians broke in just here. + +"We can't have you monopolize 'the handsome giant of the Neosho' all the +time," they said, laughing, with many a compliment to the charming young +monopolist. "We don't blame him, of course, now, but we need him badly. +Come, Baronet," and they hurried me away, giving me time only to thank +her for the invitation to dine with her. + +At the Teft House letters were waiting for me. One from my father asking +me to visit Governor Crawford and take a personal message of some +importance to him, with the injunction, "Stay till you do see him." The +other was a fat little envelope inscribed in Marjie's handwriting. +Inside were only flowers, the red blossoms that grow on the vines in the +crevices of our "Rockport," and a sheet of note paper about them with +the simple message: + +"Always and always yours, Marjie." + +Willing or unwilling, I found myself in the thick of the political +turmoil, and had it not been for that Indian raiding in Northwest +Kansas, I should have plunged into politics then and there, so strong a +temptation it is to control men, if opportunity offers. It was late +before I could get out of the council and rush to my room to write a +hurried but loving letter to Marjie. I had to be brief to get it into +the mails. So I wrote only of what was first in my thoughts; herself, +and my longing to see her, of the noisy political strife, and of the +Saline River and Solomon River outrages, I hurried this letter to the +outgoing stage and fell in with the crowd gathering late in the +dining-room. I was half way through my meal before I remembered Rachel's +invitation. + +"I can only be rude to her, it seems, but I'll offer my excuses, and +maybe she will let me have the honor of her company home. She will hunt +me up before I get out of the hall, I am sure." So I satisfied myself +and prepared for the evening gathering. + +It was much on the order of the other meeting, except that only seasoned +party leaders were given place on the programme. + +I asked Rachel for her company home, but she laughingly refused me. + +"I must punish you," she said. "When do you go home?" + +"Not for two days," I replied. "I have business for my father and the +person I am to see is called out of town." + +"Then there will be plenty of time later for you. You go home to-morrow, +Mr. Tillhurst," she said coquettishly. "Tell his friends in Springvale, +he is busy up here." She was a pretty girl, but slow as I was, I began +to see method in her manner of procedure. I could not be rude to her, +but I resolved then not to go one step beyond the demands of actual +courtesy. + +In the crowd passing up to the hotel that night, I fell into step with +my father's soldier friend, Morton. + +"When you get ready to leave Springvale, come out and take a claim on +the Saline," he said. "That will be a garden of Eden some day." + +"It seems to have its serpent already, Mr. Morton," I replied. + +"Well, the serpent can be crushed. Come out and help us do it. We need +numbers, especially in men of endurance." We were at the hotel door. +Morton bade me good-bye by saying, "Don't forget; come our way when you +get the Western fever." + +Governor Crawford returned too late for me to catch the stage for +Springvale on the same day. Having a night more to spend in the capital, +it seemed proper for me to make amends for my unpardonable forgetfulness +of Rachel Melrose's invitation to tea by calling on her in the evening. +Her aunt's home was at the far side of the town beyond the modest square +stone building that was called Lincoln College then. It was only a +stone's throw from the State Capitol, the walls of the east wing of +which were then being built. + +I remember it was a beautiful moonlit night, in early August, and Rachel +asked me to take a stroll over the prairie to the southwest. The day had +been very hot, and the west had piled up some threatening thunderheads. +But the evening breezes fanned them away over the far horizon line and +the warm night air was light and dry. The sky was white with the clear +luminous moonlight of the open Plains country. + +Rachel and I had wandered idly along the gentle rise of ground until we +could quite overlook the little treeless town with this Lincoln College +and the jagged portion of the State House wing gleaming up beyond. + +"Hadn't we better turn back now? Your aunt cautioned us two strangers +here not to get lost." I was only hinting my wishes. + +"Oh, let's go on to that tree. It's the only one here in this forsaken +country. Let's pay our respects to it," Rachel urged. + +She was right. To an Easterner's eye it was a forsaken country. From the +Shunganunga Creek winding beneath a burden of low, black underbrush, +northward to the river with its fringe of huge cottonwoods, not a tree +broke the line of vision save this one sturdy young locust spreading its +lacy foliage in dainty grace on the very summit of the gentle swell of +land between the two streams. Up to its pretty shadowed spaces we took +our way. The grass was dry and brown with the August heat, and we rested +awhile on the moonlit prairie. + +Rachel was strikingly handsome, and the soft light lent a certain tone +to her beauty. Her hair and eyes were very dark, and her face was clear +cut. There was a dash of boldness, an assumption of authority all +prettily accented with smiles and dimples that was very bewitching. She +was a subtle flatterer, and even the wisest men may be caught by that +bait. It was the undercurrent of sympathy, product of my life-long +ideals, my intense pity for the defenceless frontier, that divided my +mind and led me away from temptation that night. + +"Rachel Melrose, we must go home," I insisted at last. "This tree is all +right, but I could show you a cottonwood out above the Neosho that +dwarfs this puny locust. And yet this is a gritty sort of sapling to +stand up here and grow and grow. I wonder if ever the town will reach +out so far as this." + +I am told the tree is green and beautiful to-day, and that it is far +inside the city limits, standing on the old Huntoon road. About it are +substantial homes. South of it is a pretty park now, while near it on +the west is a handsome church, one of the city's lions to the stranger, +for here the world-renowned author of "In His Steps" has preached every +Sabbath for many years. But on that night it seemed far away from the +river and the town nestling beside it. + +"I'll go down and take a look at your cottonwood before I go home. May +I? You promised me last Spring." Rachel's voice was pleasant to hear. + +"Why, of course. Come on. Mr. Tillhurst will be there, I am sure, and +glad as I shall be to see you." + +"Oh, you rogue! always hunting for somebody else. I am not going to +loose you from your promise. Remember that you said you'd let everybody +else alone when I came. Now your Mr. Tillhurst can look after all the +girls you have been flirting with down there, but you are my friend. +Didn't we settle that in those days together at dear old Rockport? We'll +just have the happiest time together, you and I, and nobody shall +interfere to mar our pleasure." + +She was leaning toward me and her big dark eyes were full of feeling. I +stood up before her. "My dear friend," I took her hand and she rose to +her feet. "You have been very, very good to me. But I want to tell you +now before you come to Springvale"--she was close beside me, her hand on +my arm, gentle and trembling. I seemed like a brute to myself, but I +went on. "I want you to know that as my aunt's guest and mine, your +pleasure will be mine. But I am not a flirt, and I do not care to hide +from you the fact that my little Springvale girl is the light of my +life. You will understand why some claims are unbreakable. Now you know +this, let me say that it will be my delight to make your stay in the +West pleasant." She bowed her proud head on my arm and the tears fell +fast. "Oh, Rachel, I'm a beast, a coarse, crude Westerner. Forgive my +plain speech. I only wanted you to know." + +But she didn't want to know. She wanted me to quit saying anything to +her and her beautiful dark hair was almost against my cheek. Gently as I +could, I put her from me. Drawing her hand through my arm, I patted it +softly, and again I declared myself the bluntest of speakers. She only +wept the more, and asked me to take her to her aunt's. I was glad to do +it, and I bade her a humble good-bye at the door. She said not a word, +but the pressure of her hand had speech. It made me feel that I had +cruelly wronged her. + +As I started for town beyond the college, I shook my fist at that lone +locust tree. "You blamed old sapling! If you ever tell what you saw +to-night I hope you'll die by inches in a prairie fire." + +Then I hurried to my room and put in the hours of the night, wakeful and +angry at all the world, save my own Springvale and the dear little girl +so modest and true to me. The next day I left Topeka, hoping never to +see it again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +DEEPENING GLOOM + + A yellow moon in splendor drooping, + A tired queen with her state oppressed, + Low by rushes and sword-grass stooping, + Lies she soft on the waves at rest. + The desert heavens have felt her sadness; + The earth will weep her some dewy tears; + The wild beck ends her tune of gladness, + And goeth stilly, as soul that fears. + + --JEAN INGELOW. + + +The easiest mental act I ever performed was the act of forgetting the +existence of Rachel Melrose. Before the stage had reached the divide +beyond the Wakarusa on its southward journey, I was thinking only of +Springvale and of what would be written in the letter that I knew was +waiting for me in our "Rockport." Oh, I was a fond and foolish lover. I +was only twenty-one and Judson may have been right about my being +callow. But I was satisfied with myself, as youth and inexperience will +be. + +Travelling was slow in those rough-going times, and a breakdown on a +steep bit of road delayed us. Instead of reaching home at sunset, we did +not reach the ford of the Neosho until eight o'clock. As I went up Cliff +Street I turned by the bushes and slid down the rough stairway to the +ledge below "Rockport." I had passed under the broad, overhanging shelf +that made the old playground above, when I suddenly became aware of the +nearness of some one to me, the peculiar consciousness of the presence +of a human being. The place was in deep shadow, although the full moon +was sailing in glory over the prairies, as it had done above the lone +Topeka locust tree. My daily visits here had made each step familiar, +however. I was only a few feet from the cunningly hidden crevice that +had done post-office duty for Marjie and me in the days of our +childhood. Just beside it was a deep niche in the wall. Ordinarily I was +free and noisy enough in my movements, but to-night I dropped silently +into the niche as some one hurried by me, groping to find the way. +Instinctively I thought of Jean Pahusca, but Jean never blundered like +this. I had had cause enough to know his swift motion. And besides, he +had been away from Springvale so long that he was only a memory now. The +figure scrambled to the top rapidly. + +"I'll guess that's petticoats going up there," I said mentally, "but +who's hunting wild flowers out here alone this time of night? Somebody +just as curious about me as I am about her, no doubt. Maybe some girl +has a lover's haunt down that ledge. I'll have to find out. Can't let my +stairway out to the general climbing public." + +I was feeling for the letter in the crevice. + +"Well, Marjie has tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole +was so deep." + +I found my letter and hurried home. It was just a happy, loving message +written when I was away, and a tinge of loneliness was in it. But Marjie +was a cheery, wholesome-spirited lass always, and took in the world from +the sunny side. + +"There's a party down at Anderson's to-night, Phil," Aunt Candace +announced, when I was eating my late supper. "The boys sent word for +you to come over even if you did get home late. You are pretty tired, +aren't you?" + +"Never, if there's a party on the carpet," I answered gayly. + +I had nearly reached the Anderson home, and the noisy gayety of the +party was in my ears, when two persons met at the gate and went slowly +in together. + +It was Amos Judson and Lettie Conlow. + +"Well, of all the arrangements, now, that is the best," I exclaimed, as +I went in after them. + +Tillhurst was talking to Marjie, who did not see me enter. + +"Phil Baronet! 'The handsome young giant of the Neosho,'" O'mie shouted. +"Ladies and gentlemen: This is the very famous orator who got more +applause in Topeka this week than the very biggest man there. Oh, my +prophetic soul! but we were proud av him." + +"Well, I guess we were," somebody else chimed in. "Why didn't you come +home with the crowd, handsome giant?" + +"He was charmed by that pretty girl, an old sweetheart of his from +Massachusetts." Tillhurst was speaking. "You ought to have seen him with +her, couldn't even leave when the rest of us did." + +There was a sudden silence. Marjie was across the room from me, but I +could see her face turn white. My own face flamed, but I controlled +myself. And Bud, the blessed old tow-head, came to my rescue. + +"Good for you, Phil. Bet we've got one fellow to make a Bothton girl +open her eyeth even if Tillhurtht couldn't. He'th jutht jealouth. But we +all know Phil! Nobody'll ever doubt old Philip!" + +It took the edge off the embarrassment, and O'mie, who had sidled over +into Marjie's neighborhood, said in a low voice: + +"Tillhurst is a consummit liar, beautiful to look upon. That girl tagged +Phil. He couldn't get away an' be a gintleman." + +I did not know then what he was saying, but I saw her face bloom again. + +Later I had her alone a moment. We were eating water melon on the back +porch, half in the shadow, which we didn't mind, of course. + +"May I take you home, Marjie, and tell you how sweet that letter was?" I +asked. + +"Phil, I didn't know you were coming, and Richard Tillhurst asked me +just as you came in. I saw Amos Judson coming my way, so I made for the +nearest port." + +"And you did right, dearie," I said very softly; "but, Marjie, don't +forget you are my girl, my only girl, and I'll tell you all about this +Topeka business to-morrow night. No, I'll write you a letter to-night +when I go home. You'll find it at 'Rockport' to-morrow." + +She smiled up at me brightly, saying contentedly, "Oh, you are always +all right, Phil." + +As we trailed into the kitchen from the water melon feast, Lettie +Conlow's dress caught on a nail in the floor. I stooped to loose it, and +rasped my hand against a brier clinging to the floppy ruffle (Lettie was +much given to floppy things in dress), and behold, a sprig of little red +blossoms was sticking to the prickles. These blooms were the kind Marjie +had sent me in her letter to Topeka. They grew only in the crevices +about the cliff. It flashed into my mind instantly that it was Lettie +who had passed me down on that ledge. + +"I suppose I'll find her under my plate some morning when I go to +breakfast," I said to myself. "She is a trailer of the Plains. Why +should she be forever haunting my way, though?" + +Fate was against me that night. Judson was called from the party to open +the store. A messenger from Red Range had come posthaste for some +merchandise. We did not know until the next day that it was the burial +clothes for the beautiful young girl whose grave held Dave Mead's heart. + +Before Judson left, he came to me with Lettie. + +"Will you take this young lady home for me? I must go to the store at +once. Business before pleasure with me. That's it, business first. Very +sorry, Miss Lettie; Phil will see you safely home." + +I was in for the obligation. The Conlows lived four blocks beyond the +shop down toward the creek. The way was shadowy, and Lettie clung to my +arm. I was tired from my stage ride of a day and a half, and I had not +slept well for two nights. I distrusted Lettie, for I knew her +disposition as I knew her father's before her. + +"Phil, why do you hate me?" she asked at the gate. + +"I don't hate you, Lettie. You use an ugly word when you say 'hate,'" I +replied. + +"There's one person I do hate," she said bitterly. + +"Has he given you cause?" + +"It's not a man; it's a woman. It's Marjie Whately," she burst out. "I +hate her." + +"Well, Lettie, I'm sorry, for I don't believe Marjie deserves your +hate." + +"Of course, you'd say so. But never mind. Marjie's not going to have my +hate alone. You'll feel like I do yet, when her mother forces her away +from you. Marjie's just a putty ball in her mother's hands, and her +mother is crazy about Amos Judson. Oh, I've said too much," she +exclaimed. + +"You have, Lettie; but stop saying any more." I spoke sternly. +"Good-night." + +She did not return my greeting, and I heard her slam the door behind +her. + +That night, late as it was, I wrote a long letter to Marjie. I had no +pangs of jealousy, and I felt that she knew me too well to doubt my +faith, and yet I wanted just once more to assure her. When I had +finished, I went out softly and took my way down to "Rockport." It was +one of those glorious midsummer moonlit nights that have in their +subdued splendor something more regal than the most gorgeous midday. I +was thankful afterwards for the perfect beauty of that peaceful night, +with never a hint of the encroaching shadows, the deep gloom of sorrow +creeping toward me and my loved one. The town was sleeping quietly. The +Neosho was "chattering over stony ways," and whispering its midnight +melody. The wooded bottoms were black and glistening, and all the +prairies were a gleaming, silvery sea of glory. The peace of God was on +the world, the broad benediction of serenity and love. Oh, many a +picture have I in my memory's treasure house, that imperishable art +gallery of the soul. And among them all, this one last happy night with +its setting of Nature's grand handiwork stands clear evermore. + +I had put my letter safe in its place, deep where nobody but Marjie +would find it. I knew that if even the slightest doubt troubled her this +letter would lift it clean away. I told her of Rachel Melrose and of my +fear of her designing nature, a fear that grew, as I reflected on her +acts and words. I did not believe the young lady cared for me. It was a +selfish wish to take what belonged to somebody else. I assured my little +girl that only as a gentleman should be courteous, had been my courtesy +to Rachel. And then for the first time, I told Marjie of her father's +dying message. I had wanted her to love me for myself. I did not want +any sense of duty to her father's wishes to sway her. I knew now that +she did love me. And I closed the affectionate missive with the words: + + "To my father and Aunt Candace you are very dear. Your mother has + always been kind to me. I believe she likes me. But most of all, + Marjie, your father, who lies wrapped in the folds of that + Springvale flag, who gave his life to make safe and happy the land + we love and the home we hope to build, your father, sent us his + blessing. When the roar of cannon was changing for him to the chant + of seraphim, and the glare of the battle field was becoming 'a sea + of glass mingled with fire' that burst in splendor over the + jewelled walls and battlements of the New Jerusalem, even in that + moment, his last thought was of us two. 'I hope they will love each + other,' he said to my father. 'If they do, give them my blessing.' + And then the night shut down for him. But in the eternal day where + he waits our coming and loves us, Marjie, if he knows of what we do + here, he is blessing our love. + + "Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know + now and always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or + shadow-checkered paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other + than as I do now. You are life of my life. And so again, + good-night." + +I had climbed to the rock above the crevice and was standing still as +the night about me for the moment when a grip like steel suddenly closed +on my neck and an arm like the tentacle of a devilfish slid round my +waist. Then the swift adroitness of knee and shoulder bent me backward +almost off my feet. I gave a great wrench, and with a power equal to my +assailant, struggled with him. It was some moments before I caught sight +of his face. It was Jean Pahusca. I think my strength grew fourfold +with that glimpse. It was the first time in our lives that we had +matched muscle. He must have been the stronger of the two, but +discipline and temperate habits had given me endurance and judgment. It +was a life-and-death strife between us. He tried to drag me to the edge +of the rock. I strove to get him through the bushes into the street. At +length I gained the mastery and with my hand on his throat and my knee +on his chest I held him fast. + +"You miserable devil!" I muttered, "you have the wrong man. You think me +weak as O'mie, whose body you could bind. I have a mind to choke you +here, you murderer. I could do it and rid the world of you, now." He +struggled and I gave him air. There was something princely about him +even as he lay in my power. And, fiend as he was, he never lost the +spirit of a master. To me also, brute violence was repulsive now that +the advantage was all mine. + +"You deserve to die. Heaven is saving you for a fate you may well dread. +You would be in jail in ten minutes if you ever showed your face here in +the daylight, and hanged by the first jury whose verdict could be given. +I could save all that trouble now in a minute, but I don't want to be a +murderer like you. For the sake of my own hands and for the sake of the +man whose son I believe you to be, I'll spare your life to-night on one +condition!" + +I loosed my hold and stepped away from him. He rose with an effort, but +he could not stand at first. + +"Leave this country to-night, and never show your face here again. There +are friends of O'mie's sworn to shoot you on sight. Go now to your own +tribe and do it quickly." + +Slowly, like a promise made before high heaven, he answered me. + +"I will go, but I shall see you there. When we meet again, my hand will +have you by the throat. And--I don't care whose son you are." + +He slid down the cliff-side like a lizard, and was gone. I turned and +stumbled through the bushes full into Lettie Conlow crouching among +them. + +"Lettie, Lettie," I cried, "go home." + +"I won't unless you will come with me," she answered coaxingly. + +"I have taken you home once to-night," I said. "Now you may go alone or +stay here as you choose," and I left her. + +"You'll live to see the day you'll wish you hadn't said that," I heard +her mutter threateningly behind me. + +A gray mist had crept over the low-hanging moon. The world, so glorious +in its softened radiance half an hour ago, was dull and cheerless now. +And with a strange heartache and sense of impending evil I sought my +home. + +The next day was a busy one in the office. My father was deep in the +tangle of a legal case and more than usually grave. Early in the +afternoon, Cam Gentry had come into the courthouse, and the two had a +long conference. Toward evening he called me into his private office. + +"Phil, this land case is troubling me. I believe the papers we want are +in that old cabin. Could you go out again to-morrow?" He smiled now. "Go +and make a careful search of the premises. If there are any boxes, open +them. I will give you an order from Sheriff Karr. And Phil, I believe I +wouldn't take Marjie this time. I want to have a talk with her +to-morrow, anyhow. You can't monopolize all her time. I saw Mrs. Whately +just now and made an appointment with her for Marjie." + +When he spoke again, his words startled me. + +"Phil, when did you see Jean Pahusca last?" + +"Last night, no, this morning, about one o'clock," I answered +confusedly. + +My father swung around in his chair and stared at me. Then his face grew +stern, and I knew my safety lay in the whole truth. I learned that when +I was a boy. + +"Where was he?" The firing had begun. + +"On the point of rock by the bushes on Cliff Street." + +"What were you doing there?" + +"Looking at the moonlight on the river." + +"Did you see him first?" + +"No, or he would not have seen me." + +"Phil, save my time now. It's a matter of great importance to my +business. Also, it is serious with you. Begin at the party. Whose escort +were you?" + +"Lettie Conlow's." + +My father looked me straight in the eyes. I returned his gaze steadily. + +"Go on. Tell me everything." He spoke crisply. + +"I was late to the party. Tillhurst asked Marjie for her company just as +I went in. Judson was going her way, and she chose the lesser of +two--pleasures, we'll say. Just before the party broke up, Judson was +called out. He had asked Lettie for her company, and he shoved her over +to my tender mercies." + +"And you went strolling up on Cliff Street in the moonlight with her +till after midnight. Is that fair to Marjie?" I had never heard his +voice sound so like resonant iron before. + +"I, strolling? I covered the seven blocks from Anderson's to Conlow's in +seven minutes, and stood at the gate long enough to let the young lady +through, and to pinch my thumb in the blamed old latch, I was in such a +hurry; and then I made for the Baronets' roost." + +"But why didn't you stay there?" he asked. + +I blushed for a certainty now. My actions seemed so like a brain-sick +fool's. + +"Now, Phil," my father said more kindly, "you remember I told you when +you came to let me know you were twenty-one, that you must not get too +old to make a confidant of me. It is your only safe course now." + +"Father, am I a fool, or is it in the Baronet blood to love deeply and +constantly even unto death?" + +The strong man before me turned his face to the window. + +"Go on," he said. + +"I had been away nearly a week. I sat up and wrote a long letter to +Marjie. It would stand as clean evidence in court. I'm not ashamed of +what I put on paper, although it is my own business. Then I went out to +a certain place under the cliff where Marjie and I used to hide our +valentines and put little notes for each other years ago." + +"The post-office is safer, Phil." + +"Not with Tell Mapleson as postmaster." + +He assented, and I went on. "I had come to the top again and was looking +at the beauty of the night, when somebody caught me by the throat. It +was Jean Pahusca." + +Briefly then I related what had taken place. + +"And after that?" queried my questioner. + +"I ran into Lettie Conlow. She may have been there all the time. I do +not know, but I felt no obligation to take care of a girl who will not +take care of herself. It was rude, I know, and against my creed, but +that's the whole truth. I may be a certain kind of a fool about a girl I +know. But I'm not the kind of gay fool that goes out after divers and +strange women. Bill Mead told me this morning that he and Bud Anderson +passed Lettie somewhere out west alone after one o'clock. He was in a +hurry, but he stopped her and asked her why she should be out alone. I +think Bud went home with her. None of the boys want harm to come to her, +but she grows less pleasant every day. Bill would have gone home with +her, but he was hurrying out to Red Range. Dave's girl died out there +last night. Poor Dave!" + +"Poor Dave!" my father echoed, and we sat in silence with our sympathy +going out to the fine young man whose day was full of sorrow. + +"Well," my father said, "to come back to our work now. There are some +ugly stories going that I have yet to get hold of. Cam Gentry is helping +me toward it all he can. This land case will never come to court if +Mapleson can possibly secure the land in any other way. He'd like to +ruin us and pay off that old grudge against you for your part in +breaking up the plot against Springvale back in '63 and the suspicion it +cast on him. Do you see?" + +I was beginning to see a little. + +"Now, you go out to the stone cabin to-morrow afternoon and make a +thorough search for any papers or other evidence hidden there. The man +who owned that land was a degenerate son of a noble house. There are +some missing links in the evidence that our claim is incontestable. The +other claimant to the land is entirely under Tell Mapleson's control. +That's the way it shapes up to me. Meanwhile if it gets into court, two +or more lines are ready to tighten about you. Keep yourself in straight +paths and you are sure at last to win. I have no fear for you, Phil, but +be a man every minute." + +I understood him. As I left the courthouse, I met O'mie. There was a +strange, pathetic look in his eyes. He linked his arm in mine, and we +sauntered out under the oak trees of the courthouse grounds. + +"Phil, do ye remimber that May mornin' when ye broke through the vines +av the Hermit's Cave? I know now how the pityin' face av the Christ +looked to the man who had been blind. I know how the touch av his hands +felt to them as had been lepers. They was made free and safe. Wake as I +was that sorry mornin' I had one thought before me brain wint dark, the +thought that I might some day help you aven a little. I felt that way in +me wakeness thin. To-day in me strength I feel it a hundred times more. +Ye may not nade me, but whin ye do, I'm here. Whin I was a poor lost +orphan boy, worth nothin' to nobody, you risked life an' limb to drag me +back from the agony av a death by inches. And now, while I'm only a +rid-headed Irishman, I can do a dale more thinkin' and I know a blamed +lot more 'n this blessed little burg iver drames of. They ain't no +bloodhound on your track, but a ugly octopus of a devilfish is gittin' +its arms out after you. They's several av 'em. Don't forgit, Phil; I +know I'd die for your sake." + +"O'mie, I believe you, but don't be uneasy about me. You know me as well +as anybody in this town. What have I to fear?" + +"Begorra, there was niver a purer-hearted boy than you iver walked out +of a fun-lovin', rollickin' boyhood into a clane, honest manhood. You +can't be touched." + +Just then the evening stage swung by and swept up the hill. + +"Look at the ould man, now, would ye? Phil, he's makin' fur Bar'net's. +Bet some av your rich kin's comin' from the East, bringing you their +out-av-style clothes, an' a few good little books and Sunday-school +tracts to improve ye." + +There was only one passenger in the stage, a woman whose face I could +not see. + +That evening O'mie went to Judson at closing time. + +"Mr. Judson, I want a lave of absence fur a week or tin days," he said. + +"What for?" Judson was the kind of man who could never be pleasant to +his employees, for fear of losing his authority over them. + +"I want to go out av town on business," O'mie replied. + +"Whose business?" snapped Judson. + +"Me own," responded O'mie calmly. + +"I can't have it. That's it. I just can't have my clerks and underlings +running around over the country taking my time." + +"Then I'll lave your time here whin I go," O'mie spoke coolly. He had +always been respectful toward his employer, but he had no servile fear +of him. + +"I just can't allow it," Judson went on. "I need you here." O'mie was +the life of the business, the best asset in the store. "It may be a +slack time, but I can't have it; that's it, I just can't put up with it. +Besides," he simpered a little, in spite of himself, "besides, I'm +likely to be off a few days myself, just any time, I can get ready for a +step I have in mind, an important step, just any minute, but it's +different with some others, and we have to regard some others, you know; +have to let some others have their way once in a while. We'll consider +it settled now. You are to stay right here." + +"Ye'll consider it settled that I'm nadin' a tin days' vacation right +away, an' must have it." + +"I can't do it, O'Meara; that's it. I would not give you your place +again, and I won't pay you a cent of this quarter's salary." + +Judson's foolish temper was always his undoing. + +"You say you won't?" O'mie asked with a smile. + +"No, I won't. Hereafter you may beg your way or starve!" Judson fairly +shouted. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Amos Judson, but I'm not to thim straits yit. Not yit. +I've a little bank account an' a good name at Cris Mead's bank. Most as +good as yours." + +The shot went home. Judson had but recently failed to get the bank's +backing in a business dealing he had hoped to carry through on loans, +and it had cut his vanity deeply. + +"Good-bye, Amos, I'll be back, but not any sooner than ye nade me," and +he was gone. + +The next day Dever the stage driver told us O'mie was going up to +Wyandotte on business. + +"Whose business?" I asked. "He doesn't know a soul in Wyandotte, except +Tell and Jim, who were working up there the last I knew. Tell may be in +Fort Scott now. Whose business was it?" + +"That's what I asked him," Dever answered with a grin, "and he said, his +own." + +Whatever it was, O'mie was back again before the end of the week. But he +idled about for the full ten days, until Judson grew frantic. The store +could not be managed without him, and it was gratifying to O'mie's +mischievous spirit to be solicited with pledge and courtesy to take his +place again. + +After O'mie had left me in the courthouse yard, the evening after the +party, I stopped on my way home to see Marjie a moment. She had gone +with the Meads out to Red Range, her mother said, and might not be back +till late, possibly not till to-morrow. Judson was sitting in the room +when I came to the door. I had no especial reason to think Mrs. Whately +was confused by my coming. She was always kind to everybody. But somehow +the gray shadows of the clouded moon of the night before were chilling +me still, and I was bitterly disappointed at missing my loved one's face +in her home. It seemed ages since I had had her to myself; not since the +night before my trip to Topeka. I stopped long enough to visit the +"Rockport" letter-box for the answer to my letter I knew she would leave +before she went out of town. There was no letter there. My heart grew +heavy with a weight that was not to lift again for many a long day. Up +on the street I met Dr. Hemingway. His kind eyes seemed to penetrate to +my very soul. + +"Good-evening, Philip," he said pleasantly, grasping my hand with a firm +pressure. "Your face isn't often clouded." + +I tried to look cheerful. "Oh, it's just the weather and some loss of +sleep. Kansas Augusts are pretty trying." + +"They should not be to a young man," he replied. "All weathers suit us +if we are at peace within. That's where the storm really begins." + +"Maybe so," I said. "But I'm all right, inside and out." + +"You look it, Philip." He took my hand affectionately. "You are the very +image of clean, strong manhood. Let not your heart be troubled." + +I returned his hand-clasp and went my way. However much courage it may +take to push forward to victory or death on the battle field, not the +least of heroism does it sometimes require to walk bravely toward the +deepening gloom of an impending ill. I have followed both paths and I +know what each one demands. + +At our doorway, waiting to welcome me, stood Rachel Melrose, smiling, +sure, and effusively demonstrative in her friendship. She must have +followed me on the next stage out of Topeka. Behind her stood Candace +Baronet, the only woman I have ever known who never in all my life +doubted me nor misunderstood me. Somehow the sunset was colorless to me +that night, and all the rippling waves of wide West Prairie were shorn +of their glory. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ROCKPORT AND "ROCKPORT" + + Glitters the dew, and shines the river, + Up comes the lily and dries her bell; + But two are walking apart forever, + And wave their hands in a mute farewell. + + --JEAN INGELOW. + + +The Melrose family was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house +of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to +its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much +staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing +to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the +best things of life never found their way. She took everything in +Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem that Kansas +should give its best to her; and withal she was a woman who delighted in +conquest. + +Her arrival in Springvale made a topic that was soon on everybody's +tongue. In the afternoon of the day following her coming, when I went to +my father's office before starting out to the stone cabin, I found +Marjie there. I had not seen her since the party, and I went straight to +her chair. + +"Well, little girl, it's ten thousand years since I saw you last," I +spoke in a low voice. My father was searching for some papers in his +cabinet, and his back was toward us. "Why didn't I get a letter, +dearie?" + +She looked up with eyes whose brown depths were full of pain and sorrow, +but with an expression I had never seen on her face before, a kind of +impenetrable coldness. It cut me like a sword-thrust, and I bent over +her. + +"Oh, Marjie, my Marjie, what is wrong?" + +"Here is that paper at last," my father said before he turned around. +Even as he spoke, Rachel Melrose swept into the room. + +"Why, Philip, I missed you after all. I didn't mean to keep you waiting, +but I can never get accustomed to your Western hurry." + +She was very handsome and graceful, and always at ease with me, save in +our interviews alone. + +"I didn't know you were coming," I said frankly; "but I want you to meet +Miss Whately. This is the young lady I have told you about." + +I took Marjie's hand as I spoke. It was cold, and I gave it the gentle +pressure a lover understands as I presented her. She gave me a momentary +glance. Oh, God be thanked for the love-light in those brown eyes! The +memory of it warmed my heart a thousand times when long weary miles were +between us, and a desolate sky shut down around the far desolate plains +of a silent, featureless land. + +"And this is Miss Melrose, the young lady I told you of in my letter," I +said to Marjie. A quick change came into her eyes, a look of surprise +and incredulity and scorn. What could have happened to bring all this +about? + +Rachel Melrose had made the fatal mistake of thinking that no girl +reared west of the Alleghenies could be very refined or at ease or +appear well dressed in the company of Eastern people. She was not +prepared for the quiet courtesy and self-possession with which the +Kansas girl greeted her; nor had she expected, as she told me +afterward, to find in a town like Springvale such good taste and +exquisite neatness in dress. True, she had many little accessories of an +up-to-date fashion that had not gotten across the Mississippi River to +our girls as yet, but Marjie had the grace of always choosing the right +thing to wear. I was very proud of my loved one at that moment. There +was a show of cordiality between the two; then Rachel turned to me. + +"I'm going with you this afternoon. Excuse me, Miss Whately, Mr. Baronet +promised me up at Topeka to take me out to see a wonderful cottonwood +tree that he said just dwarfed the little locust there, that we went out +one glorious moonlight night to see. It was a lovely stroll though, +wasn't it, Philip?" + +This time it was my father's eyes that were fixed upon me in surprise +and stern inquiry. + +"He will believe I am a flirt after all. It isn't possible to make any +man understand how that miserable girl can control things, unless he is +on the ground all the time." So ran my thoughts. + +"Father, must that trip be made to-day? Because I'd rather get up a +party and go out when Miss Melrose goes." + +But my father was in no mood to help me then. He had asked me to go +alone. Evidently he thought I had forgotten business and constancy of +purpose in the presence of this pretty girl. + +"It must be done to-day. Miss Melrose will wait, I'm sure. It is a +serious business matter--" + +"Oh, but I won't, Mr. Baronet. Your son promised me to do everything for +me if I would only come to Springvale; that was away last Spring, and my +stay will be short at best. I must go back to-morrow afternoon. Don't +rob us of a minute." + +She spoke with such a pretty grace, and yet her words were so trifling +that my father must have felt as I did. He could have helped me then had +he thought that I deserved help, for he was a tactful man. But he merely +assented and sent us away. When we were gone Marjie turned to him +bravely. + +"Judge Baronet, I think I will go home. I came in from Red Range this +noon with the Meads. It was very warm, coming east, and I am not very +well." She was as white as marble. "I will see you again; may I?" + +John Baronet was a man of deep sympathy as well as insight. He knew why +the bloom had left her cheeks. + +"All right, Marjie. You will be better soon." + +He had risen and taken her cold hand. There was a world of cheer and +strength in that rich resonant voice of his. "Little girl, you must not +worry over anything. All the tangles will straighten for you. Be +patient, the sunshine is back of all shadows. I promised your father, +Marjory, that no harm should come to you. I will keep my promise. 'Let +not your heart be troubled.'" His words were to her what the good +minister's had been to me. + +In the months that came after that my father was her one strong defence. +Poor Marjie! her days as well as mine were full of creeping shadows. I +had no notion of the stories being poured into her ears, nor did I dream +of the mischief and sorrow that can be wrought by a jealous-hearted +girl, a grasping money lover, and a man whose business dealings will not +bear the light of day. + +It has ever been the stage-driver's province to make the town acquainted +with the business of each passenger whom he imports or exports. Our man, +Dever, was no exception. Judson's store had become the centre of all the +gossip in Springvale. Judson himself was the prince of scandalmongers, +who with a pretence of refusing to hear gossip, peddled it out most +industriously. He had hurried to Mrs. Whately with the story of our +guest, and here I found him when I went to see Marjie, before I myself +knew what passenger the stage had carried up to Cliff Street. + +After the party at Anderson's, Tillhurst had not lost the opportunity of +giving his version of all he had seen and heard in Topeka. Marjie +listened in amazement but sure in her trustful heart that I would make +it all clear to her in my letter. And yet she wondered why I had never +mentioned that name to her, nor given her any hint of any one with claim +enough on me to keep me for two days in Topeka. After all, she did +recall the name--something forgotten in the joy and peace of that sweet +afternoon out by the river in the draw where the haunted house was. Had +I tried to tell her and lost my courage, she wondered. Oh, no, it could +not be so. + +The next day Marjie spent at Red Range. It was noon of the day following +Rachel's arrival before she reached home. The ride in the midday heat, +sympathy for Dave Mead, and the sad funeral rites in the morning, +together with the memory of Tillhurst's gossip and the long time since +we had talked with each other alone, had been enough to check even her +sunny spirit. Gentle Mrs. Whately, willing to believe everybody, met her +daughter with a sad face. + +"My dear, I have some unwelcome news for you," she said when Marjie was +resting in the cool sitting-room after the hot ride. "There's an old +sweetheart of Phil's came here last evening to visit him. Mr. Dever, the +stage-driver, says she is the handsomest girl he ever saw. They say she +and Phil were engaged and had a falling out back East. They met again in +Topeka, and Phil stayed a day or two to visit with her after the +political meeting was over. And now she has come down here at his +request to meet his folks. Marjie, daughter, you need not care. There +are more worthy men who would be proud to marry you." + +Marjie made no reply. + +"Oh, daughter, he isn't worth your grief. Be strong. Your life will get +into better channels now. There are those who care for you more than you +dream of. And you cannot care for Phil when I tell you all I must tell." + +"I will be strong, mother. What else?" Marjie said quietly. In the +shadows of the room darkened to keep out the noonday heat, Mrs. Whately +did not note the white face and the big brown eyes burning with pain. + +"It's too bad, but you ought to know it. Judge Baronet's got some kind +of a land case on hand. There's a fine half-section he's trying to get +away from a young man who is poor. The Judge is a clever lawyer and he +is a rich man. Mr. Judson says Tell Mapleson is this young man's +counsel, and he's fighting to keep the land for its real owner. Well, +Phil was strolling around until nearly morning with Lettie Conlow, and +they met this young man somewhere. He doesn't live about here. And, +Marjie, right before Lettie, Phil gave him an awful beating and made him +promise never to show himself in Springvale again. You know Judge +Baronet could do anything in that court-room he wants to. He is a fine +man. How your father loved him! But Phil goes out and does the dirty +work to help him win. So Amos Judson says." + +"Did Amos Judson tell you all this, Mother?" Marjie asked faintly. + +"Most of it. And he is so interested in your welfare, daughter." + +Marjie rose to her feet. "Mother, I don't know how much truth there may +be in the circumstances, but I'll wait until somebody besides Amos +Judson tells me before I accept these stories." + +"Well, Marjie, you are young. You must lean on older counsel. There is +no man living as good and true as your father was to me. Remember that." + +"Yes, there is," Marjie declared. + +"Who is he, daughter?" + +"Philip Baronet," Marjie answered proudly. + +That afternoon Richard Tillhurst called and detained Marjie until she +was late in keeping her appointment with Judge Baronet. Tillhurst's tale +of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew +better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize +if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous +rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with +these things in mind that Marjie had met me. Rachel Melrose had swept in +on us, and I who had declared to my dear one that I should never care to +take another girl out to that sunny draw full of hallowed memories for +us two, I was going again with this beautiful woman, my sweetheart from +the East. And yet Marjie was quick enough to note that I had tried to +evade the company of Miss Melrose, and she had seen in my eyes the same +look that they had had for her all these years. Could I be deceiving her +by putting Rachel off in her presence? She did not want to think so. Had +Judge Baronet not been my father, he could have taken her into his +confidence. She could not speak to him of me, nor could he discuss his +son's actions with her. + +But love is strong and patient, and Marjie determined not to give up at +the first onslaught against it. + +"I'll write to him now," she said. "There will be sure to be a letter +for me up under 'Rockport.' He said something about a letter this +afternoon, the letter he promised to write after the party at +Anderson's. He couldn't be deceiving me, I'm sure. I'll tell him +everything, and if he really doesn't care for me,"--the blank of life +lay sullen and dull before her,--"I'll know it any how. But if he does +care, he'll have a letter for me all right." + +And so she wrote, a loving, womanly letter, telling in her own sweet way +all her faith and the ugly uncertainty that was growing up against it. + +"But I know you, Phil, and I know you are all my own." So she ended the +letter, and in the purple twilight she hastened up to the cliff and +found her way down to our old shaded corner under the rock. There was no +letter awaiting her. She held her own a minute and then she thrust it +in. + +"I'll do anything for Phil," she murmured softly. "I cannot help it. He +was my own--he must be mine still." + +A light laugh sounded on the rock above her. + +"Are you waiting for me here?" a musical voice cried out. It was +Rachel's voice. "Your aunt said you were gone out and would be back +soon. I knew you would like me to meet you half way. It is beautiful +here, you must love the place, but"--she added so softly that the +unwilling listener did not catch her words--"it isn't so fine as our old +Rockport!" + +Quickly came the reply in a voice Marjie knew too well, although the +tone was unlike any she had ever heard before. + +"I hate Rockport; I did not tell you so when I left last Spring, but I +hated it then." + +Swiftly across the listener's mind swept the memory of my words. "If you +ever hear me say I don't like 'Rockport' you will know I don't care for +you." + +She had heard me say these words, had heard them spoken in a tone of +vehement feeling. There was no mistaking the speaker's sincerity, and +then the quick step and swing of the bushes told her I had gone. The +Neosho Valley turned black before her eyes, and she sank down on the +stone shelving of the ledge. + +My ride that afternoon had been a miserable one. Rachel was coy and +sweet, yet cunningly bold. I felt indignant at my father for forcing her +company on me, and I resented the circumstance that made me a victim to +injustice. I detested the beautiful creature beside me for her +assumption of authority over my actions, and above all, I longed with an +aching, starved heart for Marjie. I knew she had only to read my letter +to understand. She might not have gone after it yet, but I could see her +that evening and all would be well. + +I did not go near the old stone cabin. My father had failed to know his +son if he thought I would obey under these hard conditions. We merely +drove about beyond the draw. Then we rested briefly under the old +cottonwood before we started home. + +In the twilight I hurried out to our "Rockport" to wait for Marjie. I +was a little late and so I did not know that Marjie was then under the +point of rock. My rudeness to Rachel was unpardonable, but she had +intruded one step too far into the sacred precincts of my life. I would +not endure her in the place made dear to me from childhood, by +association with Marjie. So I rashly blurted out my feelings and left +her, never dreaming who had heard me nor what meaning my words would +carry. + +Down at the Whately home Richard Tillhurst sat, bland and smiling, +waiting for Miss Whately's return. I sat down to wait also. + +The August evening was dry and the day's hot air was rippling now into a +slight breeze. The shadows deepened and the twilight had caught its last +faint glow, when Marjie, white and cold, came slowly up the walk. Her +brown hair lay in little curls about her temples and her big dark eyes +were full of an utterable sorrow. I hurried out to the gate to meet her, +but she would have passed by me with stately step. + +"Marjie," I called softly, holding the gate. + +"Good-evening, Philip. Please don't speak to me one word." Her voice was +low and sweet as of yore save that it was cold and cutting. + +She stood beside me for a moment. "I cannot be detained now. You will +find your mother's ring in a package of letters I shall send you +to-morrow. For my sake as well as for your own, please let this matter +end here without any questions." + +"But I will ask you questions," I declared. + +"Then they will not be answered. You have deceived me and been untrue to +me. I will not listen to one word. You may be very clever, but I +understand you now. This is the end of everything for you and me." And +so she left me. + +I stood at the gate only long enough to hear her cordial greeting of +Tillhurst. My Marjie, my own, had turned against me. The shadows of the +deepening twilight turned to horrid shapes, and all the purple richness +with that deep crimson fold low in the western sky became a chill gloom +bordered on the horizon by the flame of hate. So the glory of a world +gone wrong slips away, and the creeping shadows are typical only of +pain and heartache. + +I turned aimlessly away. I had told Marjie she was the light of my life: +I did not understand the truth of the words until the light went out. +Heavily, as I had staggered toward her mother's house on the night when +I was sure Jean Pahusca had stolen her, I took my way now into the +gathering shadows, slowly, to where I could hear the Neosho whispering +and muttering in the deep gloom. + +It comes sometimes to most of us, the wild notion that life, the gift of +God alone, is a cheap thing not worth the keeping, and the impulse to +fling it away uprears its ugly suggestion. Out in a square of light by +the ford I saw Dave Mead standing, looking straight before him. The +sorrows of the day were not all mine. I went to him, and we stood there +silent together. At length we turned about in a purposeless way toward +the open West Prairie. How many a summer evening we had wandered here! +How often had our ponies come tramping home side by side, in the days +when we brought the cows in late from the farthest draw! It seemed like +another world now. + +"Phil, you are very good to me. Don't pity me! I can't stand that." We +never had a tenor in our choir with a voice so clear and rich as his. + +"I don't pity you, Dave, I envy you." I spoke with an effort. "You have +not lost, you have only begun a long journey. There is joy at the end of +it." + +"Oh, that is easy for you to say, who have everything to make you +happy." + +"I? Oh, Dave! I have not even a grave." The sudden sense of loss, driven +back by the thought of another's sorrow, swept over me again. It was +his turn now to forget himself. + +"What is it, Phil? Have you and Marjie quarrelled? You never were meant +for that, either of you. It can't be." + +"No, Dave. I don't know what is wrong. I only wish--no, I don't. It is +hard to be a man with the heart of a boy still, a foolish boy with +foolish ideals of love and constancy. I can't talk to-night, Dave, only +I envy you the sure possession, the eternal faith that will never be +lost." + +He pressed my hand in his left hand. His right arm had had only a +limited usefulness since the night he tried to stop Jean Pahusca down by +the mad floods of the Neosho. I have never seen him since we parted on +the prairie that August evening. The next day he went to Red Range to +stay for a short time. By the end of a week I had left Springvale, and +we are to each other only boyhood memories now. + +Out on the open prairie, where there was room to think and be alone, I +went to fight my battle. There was only a sweep of silver sky above me +and a sweep of moonlit plain about me. Dim to the southwest crept the +dark shadow of the wooded Fingal's Creek Valley, while against the +horizon the big cottonwood tree was only a gray blur. The mind can act +swiftly. By the time the moon had swung over the midnight line I had +mapped out my course. And while I seemed to have died, and another being +had my personality, with only memory the same in both, I rose up armed +in spirit to do a man's work in the world. But it cost me a price. I +have been on a battle field with a thousand against fifty, and I was one +of the fifty. Such a strife as I pray Heaven may never be in our land +again. I have looked Death in the face day after day creeping slowly, +surely toward me while I must march forward to meet it. Did the struggle +this night out on the prairie strengthen my soul to bear it all, I +wonder. + +The next morning a package addressed in Marjie's round girlish hand was +put before me. Forgetful of resolve, I sent back by its bearer an +imploring appeal for a chance to meet her and clear up the terrible +misunderstanding. The note came back unopened. I gave it with the bundle +to Aunt Candace. + +"Keep this for me, auntie, dear," I said, and my voice trembled. She +took it from my hand. + +"All right, Phil, I'll keep it. You are not at the end of things, +dearie. You are only at the beginning. I'll keep this. It is only +keeping, remember." She pointed to a stain on the unopened note, the +round little blot only a tear can make. "It isn't yours, I know." + +It was the first touch of comfort I had felt. However slender the +thread, Hope will find it strong to cling to. Rachel's visit ended that +day. Self-centred always, she treated me as one who had been foolish, +but whom she considered her admirer still. It was not in her nature to +be rejected. She shaped things to fit her vanity, and forgot what could +not be controlled. I refused to allow myself to be alone with her again. +Nobody was ever so tied to a woman's presence as I kept myself by Aunt +Candace so long as I remained in the house. + +My father, I knew, was grieved and indignant. With all my fair promises +and pretended loyalty I seemed to be an idle trifler. How could my +relation to Lettie Conlow be explained away in the light of this visit +from a handsome cultured young lady, who had had an assurance of welcome +or she would not have come. He loved Marjie as the daughter of his +dearest friend. He had longed to call her, "daughter," and I had +foolishly thrown away a precious prize. + +Serious, too, was my reckless neglect of business. I had disregarded his +request to manage a grave matter. Instead of going alone to the cabin, I +had gone off with a pretty girl and reported that I had found nothing. + +"Did you go near the cabin?" He drove the question square at me, and I +had sullenly answered, "No, sir." Clearly I needed more discipline than +the easy life in Springvale was giving me. I went down to the office in +the afternoon, hoping for something, I hardly knew what. He was alone, +and I asked for a few words with him. Somehow I seemed more of a man to +myself than I had ever felt before in his presence. + +"Father," I began. "When the sea did its worst for you--fifteen years +ago--you came to the frontier here, and somehow you found peace. You +have done your part in the making of the lawless Territory into a +law-abiding State, this portion of it at least. The frontier moves +westward rapidly now." + +"Well?" he queried. + +"I have lost--not by the sea--but, well, I've lost. I want to go to the +frontier too. I must get away from here. The Plains--somewhere--may help +me." + +"But why leave here?" he asked. After all, the father-heart was +yearning to keep his son. + +"Why did you leave Massachusetts?" I could not say Rockport. I hated the +sound of the name. + +"Where will you go, my boy?" He spoke with deepest sorrow, and love +mingled in his tones. + +"Out to the Saline Country. They need strong men out there. I must have +been made to defend the weak." It was not a boast, but the frank +expression of my young manhood's ideal. "Your friend Mr. Morton urged me +to come. May I go to him? It may be I can find my place out in that +treeless open land; that there will come to me, as it came to you, the +help that comes from helping others." + +Oh, I had fought my battle well. I was come into a man's estate now and +had put away childish things. + +My father sitting before me took both my hands in his. + +"My son, you are all I have. You cannot long deceive me. I have trusted +you always. I love you even unto the depths of disgrace. Tell me truly, +have you done wrong? I will soon know it. Tell me now." + +"Father," I held his hands and looked steadily into his eyes. "I have no +act to conceal from you, nor any other living soul. I must leave here +because I cannot stay and see--Father, Marjie is lost to me. I do not +know why." + +"Well, find out." He spoke cheerily. + +"It is no use. She has changed, and you know her father's firmness. She +is his mental image." + +"There is no stain somewhere, no folly of idle flirtation, no weakness? +I hear much of you and Lettie." + +"Father, I have done nothing to make me ashamed. Last night when I +fought my battle to the finish, for the first time in my life I knew my +mother was with me. Somehow it was her will guiding me. I know my place. +I cannot stay here. I will go where the unprotected need a strength like +mine." + +The stage had stopped at the courthouse door, and Rachel Melrose ran up +the steps and entered the outer office. My father went out to meet her. + +"Are you leaving us?" he asked kindly. + +"Yes, I had only a day or two that I could spend here. But where is +Philip?" + +John Baronet had closed his door behind him. I thanked him fervently in +my heart for his protection. How could I meet this woman now? And yet +she had seemed only selfishly mischievous, and I must not be a coward, +so I came out of the inner room at once. A change swept over her face +when I appeared. The haughty careless spirit gave place to gentleness, +and, as always, she was very pretty. Nothing of the look or manner was +lost on John Baronet, and his pity for her only strengthened his opinion +of my insincerity. + +"Good-bye, Philip. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Good-bye, Judge +Baronet." Her voice was soft and full of sadness. She smiled upon us +both and turned to go. + +My father led her down the courthouse steps and helped her into the +stage. When he came back I did not look up. There was nothing for me to +say. Quietly, as though nothing had occurred, he took up his work, his +face as impenetrable as Jean Pahusca's. + +My resemblance to my mother is strong. As I bent over his desk to gather +up some papers for copying, my heavy dark hair almost brushed his cheek. +I did not know then how his love for me was struggling with his sense of +duty. + +"I have trusted him too much, and given him too free a rein. He doesn't +know yet how to value a woman's feelings. He must learn his lesson now. +But he shall not go away without my blessing." + +So he mused. + +"Philip," his voice was as kind as it was firm, "we shall see what the +days will bring. Your mother's spirit may be guiding you, and your +father's love is always with you. Whatever snarls and tangles have +gotten into your threads, time and patience will straighten and +unravel. Whatever wrong you may have done, willingly or unwillingly, +you must make right. There is no other way." + +"Father," I replied in a voice as firm as his own. "Father, I have done +no wrong." + +Once more he looked steadily into my eyes and through them down into my +very soul. "Phil, I believe you. These things will soon pass away." + +In the early twilight I went for the last time to "Rockport." There are +sadder things than funeral rites. The tragedies of life do not always +ring down the curtain leaving the stage strewn with the forms of the +slain. Oftener they find the living actor following his lines and doing +his part of the play as if all life were a comedy. The man of sixty +years may smile at the intensity of feeling in the boy of twenty-one, +but that makes it no easier for the boy. I watched the sun go down that +night, and then I waited through the dark hour till the moon, now past +the full, should once more illumine the Neosho Valley. Although I have +always been a lover of nature, that sunset and the purple twilight +following, the darkness of the early evening hour and the glorious +moonrise are tinged with a sorrow I have never quite lost even in the +happier years since then. I sat alone on the point of rock. At last the +impulse to go down below and search for a letter from Marjie overcame +me, although I laughed bitterly at the folly of such a notion. In the +crevice where her letter had been placed for me the night before, I +found nothing. What a different story I might have to tell had I gone +down at sunset instead of waiting through that hour of darkness before +the moon crept above the eastern horizon line! And yet I believe that in +the final shaping-up the best thing for each one comes to all of us. +Else the universe is without a plan and Love unwavering and eternal is +only a vagary of the dreamer. + +Early the next morning I left Springvale, and set my face to the +westward, as John Baronet had done a decade and a half before, to begin +life anew where the wilderness laps the frontier line. My father held my +hand long when I said good-bye, and love and courage and trust were all +in that hand-clasp. + +"You'll win out, my boy. Keep your face to the light. The world has no +place for the trifler, the coward, or the liar. It is open to homestead +claims for all the rest. You will not fail." And with his kiss on my +forehead he let me go. + + * * * * * + +Anything is news in a little town, and especially interesting in the +dull days of late Summer. The word that I had gone away started from +Conlow's shop and swept through the town like a prairie fire through a +grassy draw. + +No one man is essential to any community. Springvale didn't need me so +much as I needed it. But when I left it there were many more than I +deserved who not only had a good word for me; they went further, and +demanded that good reason for my going must be shown, or somebody would +be made to suffer. Foremost among these were Cam Gentry, Dr. Hemingway, +and Cris Mead, president of the Springvale Bank, the father of Bill and +Dave. Of course, the boys, the blessed old gang, who had played together +and worked together and been glad and sorry with each other down the +years, the boys were loyal to the last limit. + +But we had our share of gossips who had a tale they could unfold--a +dreadful tale! Beginning with my forging my father's name to get money +to spend on Rachel Melrose and other Topeka girls, and to pay debts I +had contracted at Harvard, on and on the tale ran, till, by the time the +Fingal's Creek neighborhood got hold of the "real facts," it developed +that I had all but murdered a man who stood in the way of a rich fee my +father was to get out of a land suit somewhere; and lastly came an +ominous shaking of the head and a keeping back of the "worst truth," +about my gay escapades with girls of shady reputation whom I had +deceived, and cruelly wronged, trusting to my standing as a rich man's +son to pull me through all right. + +Marjie was the last one in Springvale to be told of my sudden +leave-taking. The day had been intolerably long for her, and the evening +brought an irresistible temptation to go up to our old playground. +Contrary to his daily habit my father had passed the Whately house on +his way home, and Marjie had seen him climb the hill. I was as like him +in form as Jean Pahusca was like Father Le Claire. Six feet and two +inches he stood, and so perfectly proportioned that he never looked +corpulent. I matched him in height and weight, but I had not his fine +bearing, for I had seen no military service then. I do not marvel that +Springvale was proud of him, for his character matched the graces Nature +had given him. + +As Marjie watched him going the way I had so often taken, her resolve to +forget what we had been to each other suddenly fell to pieces. Her +feelings could not change at once. Mental habits are harder to break up +than physical appetites. For fourteen years my loved one had known me, +first as her stanch defender in our plays, then as her boy sweetheart +and lastly as her lover and betrothed husband. Could twenty-four hours +of distrust and misunderstanding displace these fourteen years of happy +thinking? And so after sunset Marjie went up the slope, hardly knowing +why she should do so or what she would say to me if she should meet me +there. It was a poor beginning for the new life she had carefully mapped +out, but impulse was stronger than resolve in her just then. Just at the +steep bend in the street she came face to face with Lettie Conlow. The +latter wore a grin of triumph as the two met. + +"Good-evening, Marjie. I s'pose you've heard the news?" + +"What news?" asked Marjie. "I haven't heard anything new to-day." + +"Oh, yes, you have, too. You know all about it; but I'd not care if I +was you." + +Marjie was on her guard in a moment. + +"I don't care for what I don't know, Lettie," she replied. + +"Nor what you do, neither. I wouldn't if I was you. He ain't worth it; +and it gives better folks a chance for what they want, anyhow." + +Lettie's low brows and cunning black eyes were unendurable to the girl +she was tormenting. + +"Well, I don't know what you are talking about," and Marjie would have +passed on, but Lettie intercepted her. + +"You know that rich Melrose girl's gone back to Topeka?" + +"Oh, yes," Marjie spoke indifferently; "she went last evening, I was +told." + +"Well, this morning Phil Baronet went after her, left Springvale for +good and all. O'mie says so, and he knows all Phil knows. Marjie, she's +rich; and Phil won't marry nobody but a rich girl. You know you ain't +got what you had when your pa was alive." + +Yes, Marjie knew that. + +"Well he's gone anyhow, and I don't care." + +"Why should you care?" Marjie could not help the retort. She was stung +to the quick in every nerve. Lettie's face blazed with anger. + +"Or you?" she stormed. "He was with me last. I can prove it, and a lot +more things you'd never want to hear. But you'll never be his girl +again." + +Marjie turned toward the cliff just as O'mie appeared through the bushes +and stepped behind Lettie. + +"Oh, good-evening, lovely ladies; delighted to meet you," he hailed +them. + +Marjie smiled at him, but Lettie gave a sudden start. + +"Oh, O'mie, what are you forever tagging me for?" She spoke angrily and +without another word to Marjie she hurried down the hill. + +"I tag!" O'mie grinned. "I'd as soon tag Satan, only I've just got to do +it." But his face changed when he turned to Marjie. "Little girl, I +overheard the lady. Lovely spirit that! I just can't help dancin' +attendance on it. But, Marjie, I've come up here, knowin' Phil had gone +and wasn't in my way, 'cause I wanted to show you somethin'. Yes, he's +gone. Left early this mornin'. Never mind that, right now." + +He led the way through the bushes and they sat down together. I cannot +say what Marjie thought as she looked out on the landscape I had watched +in loneliness the night before. It was O'mie, and not his companion, who +told me long afterwards of this evening. + +"I thought you were away on a ten days' vacation, O'mie. Dever said you +were." She could not bear the silence. + +"I'm on a tin days' vacation, but I'm not away, Marjie, darlin'," O'mie +replied. + +"Oh, O'mie, don't joke. I can't stand it to-night." Her face was white +and her eyes were full of pain. + +"Indade, I'm not jokin'. I came up here to show you somethin' and to +tell you somethin'." + +He took an old note book from his pocket and opened it to where a few +brown blossoms lay flatly pressed between the leaves. + +"Thim's not pretty now, Marjie, but the day I got 'em they was dainty +an' pink as the dainty pink-cheeked girl whose brown curls they was +wreathed about. These are the flowers Phil Baronet put on your hair out +in the West Draw by the big cottonwood one April evenin' durin' the war; +the flowers Jean Pahusca kissed an' throwed away. But I saved 'em +because I love you, Marjie." + +She shivered and bent her head. + +"Oh, not like thim two ornery tramps who had these blossoms 'fore I got +'em, but like I'd love a sister, if I had one; like Father Le Claire +loves me. D'ye see?" + +"You are a dear, good brother, O'mie," Marjie murmured, without lifting +her head. + +"Oh, yis, I'm all av that an' more. Marjie, I'm goin' to kape these +flowers till--well, now, Marjie, shall I tell you whin?" + +"Yes, O'mie," Marjie said faintly. + +"Well, till I see the pretty white veil lifted fur friends to kiss the +bride an' I catch the scent av orange blossoms in thim soft little +waves." He put his hand gently on her bowed head. "I'll get to do it, +too," he went on, "not right away, but not fur off, nather; an' it won't +be a little man, ner a rid-headed Irishman, ner a sharp-nosed +school-teacher; but--Heaven bless an' kape him to-night!--it'll be a +big, broad-shouldered, handsome rascal, whose heart has niver changed +an' niver can change toward you, little sister, 'cause he's his +father's own son--lovin', constant, white an' clane through an' through. +Be patient. It's goin' to be all right for you two." He closed the book +and put it back in its place. "But I mustn't stay here. I've got to tag +Lettie some more. Her an' some others. That's what my tin days' +vacation's fur, mostly." And O'mie leaped through the bushes and was +gone. + +The twilight was deepening when Marjie at last roused herself. + +"I'll go down and see if he did get my letter," she murmured, taking her +way down the rough stair. There was no letter in the crevice where she +had placed it securely two nights before. Lifting her face upward she +clasped her hands in sorrow. + +"He took it away, but he did not come to me. He knows I love him." Then +remembering herself, "I would not let him speak. But he said he hated +'Rockport.' Oh, what can it all mean? How could he be so good to me and +then deceive me so? Shall I believe Lettie, or O'mie?" + +Kneeling there in the deep shadows of the cliff-side with the Neosho +gurgling darkly below her, and the long shafts of pink radiance from the +hidden sunset illumining the sky above her, Marjie prayed for strength +to bear her burden, for courage to meet whatever must come to her, and +for the assurance of divine Love although now her lover, as well as her +father, was lost to her. The simple pleading cry of a grief-stricken +heart it was. Heaven heard that prayer, and Marjie went down the hill +with womanly grace and courage and faith to face whatever must befall +her in the new life opening before her. + +In the days that followed my little girl was more than ever the idol of +Springvale. Her sweet, sunny nature now had a new beauty. Her sorrow she +hid away so completely there were few who guessed what her thoughts +were. Lettie Conlow was not deceived, for jealousy has sharp eyes. O'mie +understood, for O'mie had carried a sad, hungry heart underneath his +happy-go-lucky carelessness all the years of his life. Aunt Candace was +a woman who had overcome a grief of her own, and had been cheery and +bright down the years. She knew the mark of conquest in the face. And +lastly, my father, through his innate power to read human nature, +watched Marjie as if she were his own child. Quietly, too, so quietly +that nobody noticed it, he became a guardian over her. Where she went +and what she did he knew as well as Jean Pahusca, watching in the lilac +clump, long ago. For fourteen years he had come and gone to our house on +Cliff Street up and down the gentler slope two blocks to the west of +Whately's. Nobody knew, until it had become habitual, when he changed +his daily walk homeward up the steeper climb that led him by Marjie's +house farther down the street. Nobody realized, until it was too common +for comment, how much a part of all the social life of Springvale my +father had become. He had come to Kansas a widower, but gossip long ago +gave up trying to do anything with him. And now, as always, he was a +welcome factor everywhere, a genial, courteous gentleman, whose dignity +of character matched his stern uprightness and courage in civic matters. +Among all the things for which I bless his memory, not the least of them +was this strong, unostentatious guardianship of a girl when her need for +protection was greatest, as that Winter that followed proved. + +I knew nothing of all this then. I only knew my loved one had turned +against me. Of course I knew that Rachel was the cause, but I could not +understand why Marjie would listen to no explanation, why she should +turn completely from me when I had told her everything in the letter I +wrote the night of the party at Anderson's. And now I was many miles +from Springvale, and the very thought of the past was like a +knife-thrust. All my future now looked to the Westward. I longed for +action, for the opportunity to do something, and they came swiftly, the +opportunity and the action. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +BEGINNING AGAIN + + It matters not what fruit the hand may gather, + If God approves, and says, "This is the best." + It matters not how far the feet may wander, + If He says, "Go, and leave to Me the rest." + + --ALBERT MACY. + + +I stood in the August twilight by the railway station in the little +frontier town of Salina, where the Union Pacific train had abandoned me +to my fate. Turning toward the unmapped, limitless Northwest, I suddenly +realized that I was at the edge of the earth now. Behind me were +civilization and safety. Beyond me was only a waste of gray nothingness. +Yet this was the world I had come hither to conquer. Here were the +spaces wherein I should find peace. I set my face with grim +determination to work now, out of the thing before me, a purpose that +controlled me. + +Morton's claim was a far day's journey up the Saline Valley. It would be +nearly a week before I could find a man to drive me thither; so I +secured careful directions, and the next morning I left the town on foot +and alone. I did not mind the labor of it. I was as vigorous as a young +giant, fear of personal peril I had never known, and the love of +adventure was singing its siren's song to me. I was clad in the strong, +coarse garments, suited to the Plains. I was armed with two heavy +revolvers and a small pistol. Hidden inside of my belt as a last +defence was the short, sharp knife bearing Jean Le Claire's name in +script lettering. + +I shall never forget the moment when a low bluff beyond a bend in the +Saline River shut off the distant town from my view and I stood utterly +alone in a wide, silent world, left just as God had made it. Humility +and uplift mingle in the soul in such a time and place. One question ran +back and forth across my mind: What conquering power can ever bring the +warmth of glad welcome to the still, hostile, impenetrable beauty of +these boundless plains? + +"The air is full of spirits out here," I said to myself. "There is no +living thing in sight, and yet the land seems inhabited, just as that +old haunted cabin down on the Neosho seemed last June." + +And then with the thought of that June day Memory began to play her +tricks on me and I cried out, "Oh, perdition take that stone cabin and +the whole Neosho Valley if that will make me forget it all!" + +I strode forward along the silent, sunshiny way, with a thousand things +on my mind's surface and only one thought in its inner deeps. The sun +swung up the sky, and the thin August air even in its heat was light and +invigorating. The river banks were low and soft where the stream cuts +through the alluvial soil a channel many feet below the level of the +Plains. The day was long, but full of interest to me, who took its sight +as a child takes a new picture-book, albeit a certain sense of peril +lurked in the shadowing corners of my thought. + +The August sun was low in the west when I climbed up the grassy slope to +Morton's little square stone cabin. It stood on a bold height +overlooking the Saline River. Far away in every direction the land +billows lay fold on fold. Treeless and wide they stretched out to the +horizon, with here and there a low elevation, and here and there the +faint black markings of scrubby bushes clinging to the bank of a stream. +The stream itself, now only a shallow spread of water, bore witness to +the fierce thirst of the summer sun. Up and down the Saline Valley only +a few scattered homesteads were to be seen, and a few fields of slender, +stunted corn told the story of the first struggle for conquest in a +beautiful but lonely and unfriendly land. + +Morton was standing at the door of his cabin looking out on that sweep +of plains with thoughtful eyes. He did not see me until I was fairly up +the hill, and when he did he made no motion towards me, but stood and +waited for my coming. In those few moments as I swung forward +leisurely--for I was very tired now--I think we read each other's +character and formed our estimates more accurately than many men have +done after years of close business association. + +He was a small man beside me, as I have said, and his quiet manner, and +retiring disposition, half dignity, half modesty, gave the casual +acquaintance no true estimate of his innate force. Three things, +however, had attracted me to him in our brief meeting at Topeka: his +voice, though low, had a thrill of power in it; his hand-clasp was firm +and full of meaning; and when I looked into his blue eyes I recalled the +words which the Earl of Kent said to King Lear: + +"You have that in your countenance which I would fain call master." + +And when King Lear asked, "What's that?" Kent replied, "Authority." + +[Illustration: Every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts] + +It was in Morton's face. Although he was not more than a dozen years my +senior, I instinctively looked upon him as a leader of men, and he +became then and has always since been one of my manhood's ideals. + +"I'm glad to see you, Baronet. Come in." He grasped my hand firmly and +led the way into the house. I sat down wearily in the chair he offered +me. It was well that I had walked the last stage of my journey. Had I +been twenty-four hours later I should have missed him, and this one +story of the West might never have been told. + +The inside of the cabin was what one would expect to find in a +Plainsman's home who had no one but himself to consider. + +While I rested he prepared our supper. Disappointment in love does not +always show itself in the appetite, and I was as hungry as a coyote. All +day new sights and experiences had been crowding in upon me. The +exhilaration of the wild Plains was beginning to pulse in my veins. I +had come into a strange, untried world. The past, with its broken ties +and its pain and loss, must be only a memory that at my leisure I might +call back; but here was a different life, under new skies, with new +people. The sunset lights, the gray evening shadows, and the dip and +swell of the purple distances brought their heartache; but now I was +hungry, and Morton was making johnny cakes and frying bacon; wild plums +were simmering on the fire, and coffee was filling the room with the +rarest of all good odors vouchsafed to mortal sense. + +At the supper table my host went directly to my case by asking, "Have +you come out here to prospect or to take hold?" + +"To take hold," I answered. + +"Are you tired after your journey?" he queried. + +"I? No. A night's sleep will fix me." I looked down at my strong arms, +and stalwart limbs. + +"You sleep well?" His questions were brief. + +"I never missed but one night in twenty-one years, except when I sat up +with a sick boy one Summer," I replied. + +"When was that one night?" + +"Oh, during the war when the border ruffians and Copperheads terrorized +our town." + +"You are like your father, I see." He did not say in what particular; +and I added, "I hope I am." + +We finished the meal in silence. Then we sat down by the west doorway +and saw the whole Saline Valley shimmer through the soft glow of +twilight and lose itself at length in the darkness that folded down +about it. A gentle breeze swept along from somewhere in the far +southwest, a thousand insects chirped in the grasses. Down by the river +a few faint sounds of night birds could be heard, and then loneliness +and homesickness had their time, denied during every other hour of the +twenty-four. + +After a time my host turned toward me in the gloom and looked steadily +into my eyes. + +"He's taking my measure," I thought. + +"Well," I said, "will I do?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Your father told me once in the army that his boy +could ride like a Comanche, and turn his back to a mark and hit it over +his shoulder." He smiled. + +"That's because one evening I shot the head off a scarecrow he had put +up in the cherry tree when I was hiding around a corner to keep out of +his sight. All the Springvale boys learned how to ride and shoot and to +do both at once, although we never had any shooting to do that really +counted." + +"Baronet"--there was a tone in Morton's voice that gripped and held +me--"you have come here in a good time. We need you now. Men of your +build and endurance and skill are what this West's got to have." + +"Well, I'm here," I answered seriously. + +"I shall leave for Fort Harker to-morrow with a crowd of men from the +valley to join a company Sheridan has called for," he went on. "You know +about the Indian raid the first of this month. The Cheyennes came across +here, and up on Spillman Creek and over on the Solomon they killed a +dozen or more people. They burned every farm-house, and outraged every +woman, and butchered every man and child they could lay hands on. You +heard about it at Topeka." + +"Hasn't that Indian massacre been avenged yet?" I cried. + +Clearly in my memory came the two women of my dream of long ago. How +deeply that dream had impressed itself upon my mind! And then there +flashed across my brain the image of Marjie, as she looked the night +when she stood in the doorway with the lamplight on her brown curls, and +it became clear to me that she was safe at home. Oh, the joy of that +moment! The unutterable thankfulness that filled my soul was matched in +intensity only by the horror that fills it even now when I think of a +white woman in Indian slave-bonds. And while I was thinking of this I +was listening to Morton's more minute account of what had been taking +place about him, and why he and his neighbors were to start on the next +day for Fort Harker down on the Smoky Hill River. + +Early in that memorable August of 1868 a band of forty Cheyenne braves, +under their chief Black Kettle, came riding up from their far-away +villages in the southwest, bent on a merciless murdering raid upon the +unguarded frontier settlements. They were a dirty, ragged, sullen crew +as ever rode out of the wilderness. Down on the Washita River their own +squaws and papooses were safe in their tepees too far from civilization +for any retaliatory measure to reach them. + +When Black Kettle's band came to Fort Hays, after the Indian custom they +made the claim of being "good Indians." + +"Black Kettle loves his white soldier brothers, and his heart feels glad +when he meets them," the Chief declared. "We would be like white +soldiers, but we cannot, for we are Indians; but we can all be brothers. +It is a long way that we have come to see you. Six moons have come and +gone, and there has been no rain; the wind blows hot from the south all +day and all night; the ground is hot and cracked; the grass is burned +up; the buffalo wallows are dry; the streams are dry; the game is +scarce; Black Kettle is poor, and his band is hungry. He asks the white +soldiers for food for his braves and their squaws and papooses. All +other Indians may take the war-trail, but Black Kettle will forever keep +friendship with his white brothers." + +Such were his honeyed words. The commander of the fort issued to each +brave a bountiful supply of flour and bacon and beans and coffee. Beyond +the shadow of the fort they feasted that night. The next morning they +had disappeared, these loving-hearted, loyal Indians, over whom the home +missionary used to weep copious tears of pity. They had gone--but +whither? Black Kettle and his noble braves were not hurrying southward +toward their squaws and papooses with the liberal supplies issued to +them by the Government. Crossing to the Saline Valley, not good Indians, +but a band of human fiends, they swept down on the unsuspecting +settlements. A homestead unprotected by the husband and father was +their supreme joy. Then before the eyes of the mother, little children +were tortured to death, while the mother herself--God pity her--was not +only tortured, but what was more cruel, was kept alive. + +Across the Saline Valley, over the divide, and up the Solomon River +Valley this band of demons pushed their way. Behind them were hot ashes +where homes had been, and putrid, unburied bodies of murdered men and +children, mutilated beyond recognition. On their ponies, bound hand and +foot, were wretched, terror-stricken women. The smiling Plains lay +swathed in the August sunshine, and the richness of purple twilights, +and of rose-hued day dawns, and the pitiless noontime skies of brass +only mocked them in their misery. Did a merciful God forget the Plains +in those days of prairie conquest? No force rose up to turn Black Kettle +and his murderous horde back from the imperilled settlements until +loaded with plunder, their savage souls sated with cruelty, with +helpless captives for promise of further fiendish sport, they headed +southward and escaped untouched to their far-away village in the +pleasant, grassy lands that border the Washita River. + +Not all their captives went with them, however. With these "good +Indians," recipients of the Fort Hays bounty, were two women, mothers of +a few months, not equal to the awful tax of human endurance. These, +bound hand and foot, they staked out on the solitary Plains under the +blazing August skies, while their tormentors rode gayly away to join +their fat, lazy squaws awaiting them in the southland by the winding +Washita. + +This was the story Morton was telling to me as we sat in the dusk by his +cabin door. This was the condition of those fair Kansas River valleys, +for the Cheyennes under Black Kettle were not the only foes here. Other +Cheyenne bands, with the Sioux, the Brules, and the Dog Indians from +every tribe were making every Plains trail a warpath. + +"The captives are probably all dead by this time; but the crimes are not +avenged, and the settlers are no safer than they were before the raid," +Morton was saying. "Governor Crawford and the Governor of Colorado have +urged the authorities at Washington to protect our frontier, but they +have done nothing. Now General Sheridan has decided to act anyhow. He +has given orders to Colonel George A. Forsyth of the U. S. Cavalry, to +make up a company of picked men to go after the Cheyennes at once. There +are some two hundred of them hiding somewhere out in the Solomon or the +Republican River country. It is business now. No foolishness. A lot of +us around here are going down to Harker to enlist. Will you go with us, +Baronet? It's no boys' play. The safety of our homes is matched against +the cunning savagery of the redskins. We paid fifteen million dollars +for this country west of the Mississippi. If these Indians aren't driven +out and made to suffer, and these women's wrongs avenged, we'd better +sell the country back to France for fifteen cents. But it's no easy +piece of work. Those Cheyennes know these Plains as well as you know the +streets of Springvale. They are built like giants, and they fight like +demons. Don't underestimate the size of the contract. I know John +Baronet well enough to know that if his boy begins, he won't quit till +the battle is done. I want you to go into this with your eyes open. +Whoever fights the Indians must make his will before the battle begins. +Forsyth's company will be made up of soldiers from the late war, +frontiersmen, and scouts. You're not any one of these, but--" he +hesitated a little--"when I heard your speech at Topeka I knew you had +the right metal. Your spirit is in this thing. You are willing to pay +the price demanded here for the hearthstones of the West." + +My spirit! My blood was racing through every artery in leaps and bounds. +Here was a man calmly setting forth the action that had been my very +dream of heroism, and here was a call to duty, where duty and ideal +blend into one. And then I was young, and thought myself at the +beginning of a new life; pain of body was unknown to me; the lure of the +Plains was calling to me--daring adventure, the need for courage, the +patriotism that fires the young man's heart, and, at the final analysis, +my loyalty to the defenceless, my secret notions of the value of the +American home, my horror of Indian captivity, a horror I had known when +my mind was most impressible--all these were motives driving me on. I +wondered that my companion could be so calm, sitting there in the dim +twilight explaining carefully what lay before me; and yet I felt the +power of that calmness building up a surer strength in me. I did not +dream of home that night. I chased Indians until I wakened with a +scream. + +"What's the matter, Baronet?" Morton asked. + +"I thought the Cheyennes had me," I answered sleepily. + +"Don't waste time in dreaming it. Better go to sleep and let 'em alone," +he advised; and I obeyed. + +The next morning we were joined by half a dozen settlers of that +scattered community, and together we rode across the Plains toward Fort +Harker. I had expected to find a fortified stronghold at the end of our +ride. Something in imposing stone on a commanding height. Something of +frowning, impenetrable strength. Out on the open plain by the lazy, +slow-crawling Smoky Hill River were low buildings forming a quadrangle +about a parade ground. Officers' quarters, soldiers' barracks, and +stables for the cavalry horses and Government mules, there were, but no +fortifications were there anywhere. Yet the fort was ample for the needs +of the Plains. The Indian puts up only a defensive fight in the region +of Federal power. It is out in the wide blank lands where distance mocks +at retreat that he leads out in open hostility against the white man. +Here General Sheridan had given Colonel Forsyth commission to organize a +Company of Plainsmen. And this Company was to drive out or annihilate +the roving bands of redskins who menaced every home along the +westward-creeping Kansas frontier in the years that followed the Civil +War. It was to offer themselves to this cause that the men from Morton's +community, whom I had joined, rode across the divide from the Saline +Valley on that August day, and came in the early twilight to the +solitary unpretentious Federal post on the Smoky Hill. + +It is only to a military man in the present time that this picture of +Fort Harker would be interesting, and there is nothing now in all that +peaceful land to suggest the frontier military station which I saw on +that summer day, now nearly four decades ago. But everything was +interesting to me then, and my greatest study was the men gathered there +for a grim and urgent purpose. My impression of frontiersmen had been +shaped by the loud threats, the swagger, and much profanity of the +border people of the Territorial and Civil War days. Here were quiet men +who made no boasts. Strong, wiry men they were, tanned by the sun of the +Plains, their hands hardened, their eyes keen. They were military men +who rode like centaurs, scouts who shot with marvellous accuracy, and +the sturdy settlers, builders of empire in this stubborn West. Had I +been older I would have felt my own lack of training among them. My +hands, beside theirs, were soft and white, and while I was accounted a +good marksman in Springvale I was a novice here. But since the night +long ago when Jean Pahusca frightened Marjie by peering through our +schoolroom window I had felt myself in duty bound to drive back the +Indians. I had a giant's strength, and no Baronet was ever seriously +called a coward. + +The hours at Fort Barker were busy ones for Colonel Forsyth and +Lieutenant Fred Beecher, first in command under him. Their task of +selecting men for the expedition was quickly performed. My heart beat +fast when my own turn came. Forsyth's young lieutenant was one of the +Lord's anointed. Soft-voiced, modest, handsome, with a nature so +lovable, I find it hard to-day to think of him in the military ranks +where war and bloodshed are the ultimate business. But young Beecher was +a soldier of the highest order, fearless and resourceful. I cannot say +how much it lay in Morton's recommendation, and how much in the +lieutenant's kind heart that I was able to pass muster and be written +into that little company of less than threescore picked men. The +available material at Fort Harker was quickly exhausted, and the men +chosen were hurried by trains to Fort Hays, where the remainder of the +Company was made up. + +Dawned then that morning in late Summer when we moved out from the Fort +and fronted the wilderness. On the night before we started I wrote a +brief letter to Aunt Candace, telling her what I was about to do. + +"If I never come back, auntie," I added, "tell the little girl down on +the side of the hill that I tried to do for Kansas what her father did +for the nation, that I gave up my life to establish peace. And tell +her, too, if I really do fall out by the way, that I'll be lonely even +in heaven till she comes." + +But with the morning all my sentiment vanished and I was eager for the +thing before me. Two hundred Indians we were told we should find and +every man of us was accounted good for at least five redskins. At +sunrise on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year of our Lord 1868, +Colonel Forsyth's little company started on its expedition of defence +for the frontier settlements, and for just vengeance on the Cheyennes of +the plains and their allied forces from kindred bands. Fort Hays was the +very outpost of occupation. To the north and west lay a silent, pathless +country which the finger of the white man had not touched. We knew we +were bidding good-bye to civilization as we marched out that morning, +were turning our backs on safety and comfort and all that makes life +fine. Before us was the wilderness, with its perils and lonely +desolation and mysteries. + +But the wilderness has a siren's power over the Anglo-Saxon always. The +strange savage land was splendid even in its silent level sweep of +distance. When I was a boy I used to think that the big cottonwood +beyond the West Draw was the limit of human exploration. It marked the +world's western bound for me. Here were miles on miles of landscape +opening wide to more stretches of leagues and leagues of far boundless +plains, and all of it was weird, unconquerable, and very beautiful. The +earth was spread with a carpet of gold splashed with bronze and scarlet +and purple, with here and there a shimmer of green showing through the +yellow, or streaking the shallow waterways. Far and wide there was not a +tree to give the eye a point of attachment; neither orchard nor forest +nor lonely sentinel to show that Nature had ever cherished the land for +the white man's home and joy. The buffalo herd paid little heed to our +brave company marching out like the true knights of old to defend the +weak and oppressed. The gray wolf skulked along in the shadows of the +draws behind us and at night the coyotes barked harshly at the invading +band. But there was no mark of civilized habitation, no friendly hint +that aught but the unknown and unconquerable lay before us. + +I was learning quickly in those days of marching and nights of dreamless +sleep under sweet, health-giving skies. After all, Harvard had done me +much service; for the university training, no less than the boyhood on +the Territorial border, had its part in giving me mental discipline for +my duties now. Camp life came easy to me, and I fell into the soldier +way of thinking, more readily than I had ever hoped to do. + +On we went, northward to the Saline Valley, and beyond that to where the +Solomon River winds down through a region of summer splendor, its +rippling waves of sod a-tint with all the green and gold and russet and +crimson hues of the virgin Plains, while overhead there arched the sky, +tenderly blue in the morning, brazen at noonday, and pink and gray and +purple in the evening lights. But we found no Indians, though we +followed trail on trail. Beyond the Solomon we turned to the southwest, +and the early days of September found us resting briefly at Fort +Wallace, near the western bound of Kansas. + +The real power that subdues the wilderness may be, nay, is, the spirit +of the missionary, but the mark of military occupation is a tremendous +convincer of truth. The shotgun and the Bible worked side by side in the +conquest of the Plains; the smell of powder was often the only incense +on the altars, and human blood was sprinkled for holy water. Fort +Wallace, with the Stars and Stripes afloat, looked good to me after +that ten days in the trackless solitude. And yet I was disappointed, for +I thought our quest might end here with nothing to show in results for +our pains. I did not know Forsyth and his band, as the next twenty days +were to show me. + +While we were resting at the Fort, scouts brought in the news of an +Indian attack on a wagon train a score of miles eastward, and soon we +were away again, this time equipped for the thing in hand, splendidly +equipped, it seemed, for what we should really need to do. We were all +well mounted, and each of us carried a blanket, saddle, bridle, +picket-pin, and lariat; each had a haversack, a canteen, a butcher +knife, a tin plate and tin cup. We had Spencer rifles and Colt's +revolvers, with rounds of ammunition for both; and each of us carried +seven days' rations. Besides this equipment the pack mules bore a large +additional store of ammunition, together with rations and hospital +supplies. + +Northward again we pushed, alert for every faint sign of Indians. Those +keen-eyed scouts were a marvel to me. They read the ground, the streams, +the sagebrush, and the horizon as a primer set in fat black type. Leader +of them, and official guide, was a man named Grover, who could tell by +the hither side of a bluff what was on the farther side. But for five +days the trails were illusive, finally vanishing in a spread of faint +footprints radiating from a centre telling us that the Indians had +broken up and scattered over separate ways. And so again we seemed to +have been deceived in this unmapped land. + +We were beyond the Republican River now, in the very northwest corner of +Kansas, and the thought of turning back toward civilization had come to +some of us, when a fresh trail told us we were still in the Indian +country. We headed our horses toward the southwest, following the trail +that hugged the Republican River. It did not fade out as the others had +done, but grew plainer each mile. + +The whole command was in a fever of expectancy. Forsyth's face was +bright and eager with the anticipation of coming danger. Lieutenant +Beecher was serious and silent, while the guide, Sharp Grover, was alert +and cool. A tenseness had made itself felt throughout the command. I +learned early not to ask questions; but as we came one noon upon a broad +path leading up to the main trail where from this union we looked out on +a wide, well-beaten way, I turned an inquiring face toward Morton, who +rode beside me. There was strength in the answer his eyes gave mine. He +had what the latter-day students of psychology call "poise," a grip on +himself. It is by such men that the Plains have been won from a desert +demesne to fruitful fields. + +"I gave you warning it was no boy's play," he said simply. + +I nodded and we rode on in silence. We pressed westward to where the +smaller streams combine to form the Republican River. The trail here led +us up the Arickaree fork, a shallow stream at this season of the year, +full of sand-bars and gravelly shoals. Here the waters lost themselves +for many feet in the underflow so common in this land of aimless, +uncertain waterways. + +On the afternoon of the sixteenth of September the trail led to a little +gorge through which the Arickaree passes in a narrower channel. Beyond +it the valley opened out with a level space reaching back to low hills +on the north, while an undulating plain spread away to the south. The +grass was tall and rank in this open space, which closed in with a bluff +a mile or more to the west. Although it was hardly beyond midafternoon, +Colonel Forsyth halted the company, and we went into camp. We were +almost out of rations. Our horses having no food now, were carefully +picketed out to graze at the end of their lariats. A general sense of +impending calamity pervaded the camp. But the Plainsmen were accustomed +to this kind of thing, and the Civil War soldiers had learned their +lesson at Gettysburg and Chickamauga and Malvern Hill. I was the green +hand, and I dare say my anxiety was greater than that of any other one +there. But I had a double reason for apprehension. + +As we had come through the little gorge that afternoon, I was riding +some distance in the rear of the line. Beside me was a boy of eighteen, +fair-haired, blue-eyed, his cheek as smooth as a girl's. His trim little +figure, clad in picturesque buckskin, suggested a pretty actor in a Wild +West play. And yet this boy, Jack Stillwell, was a scout of the +uttermost daring and shrewdness. He always made me think of Bud +Anderson. I even missed Bud's lisp when he spoke. + +"Stillwell," I said in a low tone as we rode along, "tell me what you +think of this. Aren't we pretty near the edge? I've felt for three days +as if an Indian was riding beside me and I couldn't see him. It's not +the mirage, and I'm not locoed. Did you ever feel as if you were near +somebody you couldn't see?" + +The boy turned his fair, smooth face toward mine and looked steadily at +me. + +"You mustn't get to seein' things," he murmured. "This country turns +itself upside down for the fellow who does that. And in Heaven's name we +need every man in his right senses now. What do I think? Good God, +Baronet! I think we are marching straight into Hell's jaws. Sandy knows +it"--"Sandy" was Forsyth's military pet name--"but he's too set to back +out now. Besides, who wants to back out? or what's to be gained by it? +We've come out here to fight the Cheyennes. We're gettin' to 'em, that's +all. Only there's too damned many of 'em. This trail's like the old +Santa Fé Trail, wide enough for a Mormon church to move along. And as to +feelin' like somebody's near you, it's more 'n feelin'; it's fact. +There's Injuns on track of this squad every minute. I'm only eighteen, +but I've been in the saddle six years, and I know a few things without +seein' 'em. Sharp Grover knows, too. He's the doggondest scout that ever +rode over these Plains. He knows the trap we've got into. But he's like +Sandy, come out to fight, and he'll do it. All we've got to do is to +keep our opinions to ourselves. They don't want to be told nothin'; they +know." + +The remainder of the company was almost out of sight as we rounded the +shoulder of the gorge. The afternoon sunlight dazzled me. Lifting my +eyes just then I saw a strange vision. What I had thought to be only a +piece of brown rock, above and beyond me, slowly rose to almost a +sitting posture before my blinking eyes, and a man, no, two men, seemed +to gaze a moment after our retreating line of blue-coats. It was but an +instant, yet I caught sight of two faces. Stillwell was glancing +backward at that moment and did not see anything. At the sound of our +horses' feet on the gravel the two figures changed to brown rock again. +In the moment my eye had caught the merest glint of sunlight on an +artillery bugle, a gleam, and nothing more. + +"What's the matter, Baronet? You're white as a ghost. Are you scared or +sick?" Stillwell spoke in a low voice. We didn't do any shouting in +those trying days. + +"Neither one," I answered, but I had cause to wonder whether I was +insane or not. As I live, and hope to keep my record clear, the two +figures I had seen were not strangers to me. The smaller of the two had +the narrow forehead and secretive countenance of the Reverend Mr. Dodd. +In his hand was an artillery bugle. Beyond him, though he wore an Indian +dress, rose the broad shoulders and square, black-shadowed forehead of +Father Le Claire. + +"It is the hallucination of this mirage-girt land," I told myself. "The +Plains life is affecting my vision, and then the sun has blinded me. I'm +not delirious, but this marching is telling on me. Oh, it is at a +fearful price that the frontier creeps westward, that homes are planted, +and peace, blood-stained, abides with them." + +So I meditated as I watched the sun go down on that September night on +the far Colorado Plains by the grassy slopes and yellow sands and thin, +slow-moving currents of the Arickaree. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARICKAREE + + A blush as of roses + Where rose never grew! + Great drops on the bunch grass. + But not of the dew! + A taint in the sweet air + For wild bees to shun! + A stain that shall never + Bleach out in the sun! + + --WHITTIER. + + +Stillwell was right. Sharp Grover knew, as well as the boy knew, that we +were trapped, that before us now were the awful chances of unequal +Plains warfare. A mere handful of us had been hurrying after a host, +whose numbers the broad beaten road told us was legion. There was no +mirth in that little camp that night in mid-September, and I thought of +other things besides my strange vision at the gorge. The camp was the +only mark of human habitation in all that wide and utterly desolate +land. For days we had noted even the absence of all game--strong +evidence that a host had driven it away before us. Everywhere, save +about that winking camp fire was silence. The sunset was gorgeous, in +the barbaric sublimity of its seas of gold and crimson atmosphere. And +then came the rich coloring of that purple twilight. It is no wonder +they call it regal. Out on the Plains that night it swathed the +landscape with a rarer hue than I have ever seen anywhere else, although +I have watched the sun go down into the Atlantic off the Rockport coast, +and have seen it lost over the edge of the West Prairie beyond the big +cottonwood above the farther draw. As I watched the evening shadows +deepen, I remembered what Morton had told me in the little cabin back in +the Saline country, "Who ever fights the Indians must make his will +before the battle begins." Now that I was face to face with the real +issue, life became very sweet to me. How grand over war and hate were +the thoughts of peace and love! And yet every foot of this beautiful +land must be bought with a price. No matter where the great blame lies, +nor who sinned first in getting formal possession, the real occupation +is won only by sacrifice. And I was confronted with my part of the +offering. Strange thoughts come in such an hour. Sitting there in the +twilight, I asked myself why I should want to live; and I realized how +strong, after all, was the tie that bound me to Springvale; how under +all my pretence of beginning a new life I had not really faced the +future separated from the girl I loved. And then I remembered that it +would mean nothing serious to her how this campaign ended. Oh! I was in +the crucible now. I must prove myself the thing I always meant to be. +God knew the heroic spirit I needed that lonely September night. As I +sat looking out toward the west the years of my boyhood came back to me, +and then I remembered O'mie's words when he told me of his struggle: + +"It was to save a woman, Phil. He could only kill me. He wouldn't have +been that good to her. You'd have done the same to save any woman, aven +a stranger to you. Wait an' see." + +I thought of the two women in the Solomon Valley, whom Black Kettle's +band had dragged from their homes, tortured inhumanly, and at last +staked out hand and foot on the prairie to die in agony under pitiless +skies. + +"When the day av choosin' comes," O'mie said, "we can't do no more 'n to +take our places. We all do it. When you git face to face with a thing +like that, somehow the everlastin' arms Dr. Hemingway preaches about is +strong underneath you." + +Oh, blessed O'mie! Had he told me that to give me courage in my hour of +shrinking? Wherever he was to-night I knew his heart was with me, who so +little deserved the love he gave me. At last I rolled myself snugly in +my blanket, for the September evenings are cold in Colorado. The simple +prayers of childhood came back to me, and I repeated the "Now I lay me" +I used to say every night at Aunt Candace's knee. It had a wonderful +meaning to me to-night. And once more I thought of O'mie and how his +thin hand gripped mine when he said: "Most av all, don't niver forgit +it, Phil, when the thing comes to you, aven in your strength. Most av +all, above all sufferin', and natural longin' to live, there comes the +reality av them words Aunt Candace taught us: 'Though I walk through the +valley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'" + +"It may be that's the Arickaree Valley for me," I said to myself. "If it +is, I will fear no evil." And I stretched out on the brown grasses and +fell asleep. + +About midnight I wakened suddenly. A light was gleaming near. Some one +stood beside me, and presently I saw Colonel Forsyth looking down into +my face with kindly eyes. I raised myself on my elbow and watched him +passing among the slumbering soldiers. Even now I can see Jack +Stillwell's fair girl-face with the dim light on it as he slept beside +me. What a picture that face would make if my pen were an artist's +brush! At three in the morning I wakened again. It was very dark, but I +knew some one was near me, and I judged instinctively it was Forsyth. It +was sixty hours before I slept again. + +For five days every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts. +Night and day they had hung on our borders, just out of sight, waiting +their time to strike. Had we made a full march on that sixteenth day of +September, instead of halting to rest and graze our horses, we should +have gone, as Stillwell predicted, straight into Hell's jaws. As it was, +Hell rose up and crept stealthily toward us. For while our little band +slept, and while our commander passed restlessly among us on that night, +the redskins moved upon our borders. + +Morning was gray in the east and the little valley was full of shadows, +when suddenly the sentinel's cry of "Indians! Indians!" aroused the +sleeping force. The shouts of our guards, the clatter of ponies' hoofs, +the rattling of dry skins, the swinging of blankets, the fierce yells of +the invading foe made a scene of tragic confusion, as a horde of +redskins swept down upon us like a whirlwind. In this mad attempt to +stampede our stock nothing but discipline saved us. A few of the mules +and horses not properly picketed, broke loose and galloped off before +the attacking force, the remaining animals held as the Indians fled away +before the sharp fire of our soldiers. + +"Well, we licked them, anyhow," I said to myself exultantly as we obeyed +the instant orders to get into the saddle. + +The first crimson line of morning was streaking the east and I lifted my +face triumphantly to the new day. Sharp Grover stood just before me; his +hand was on Forsyth's shoulder. + +Suddenly he uttered a low exclamation. "Oh, heavens! General, look at +the Indians." + +This was no vision of brown rock and sun-blinded eyes. From every +direction, over the bluff, out from the tall grass, across the slope on +the south, came Indians, hundreds on hundreds. They seemed to spring +from the sod like Roderick Dhu's Highland Scots, and people every curve +and hollow. Swift as the wind, savage as hate, cruel as hell, they bore +down upon us from every way the wind blows. The thrill of that moment is +in my blood as I write this. It was then I first understood the tie +between the commanding officer and his men. It is easy to laud the file +of privates on dress parade, but the man who directs the file in the +hour of battle is the real power. In that instant of peril I turned to +Forsyth with that trust that the little child gives to its father. How +cool he was, and yet how lightning-swift in thought and action. + +In all the valley there was no refuge where we might hide, nor height on +which we might defend ourselves. The Indians had counted on our making a +dash to the eastward, and had left that way open for us. They had not +reckoned well on Colonel Forsyth. He knew intuitively that the gorge at +the lower end of the valley was even then filled with a hidden foe, and +not a man of us would ever have passed through it alive. To advance +meant death, and there was no retreat possible. Out in the middle of the +Arickaree, hardly three feet above the river-bed, lay a little island. +In the years to be when the history of the West shall be fully told, it +may become one of the Nation's shrines. But now in this dim morning +light it showed only an insignificant elevation. Its sandy surface was +grown over with tall sage grasses and weeds. + +A few wild plums and alder bushes, a clump of low willow shrubs, and a +small cottonwood tree completed its vegetation. + +"How about that island, Grover?" I heard Forsyth ask. + +"It's all we can do," the scout answered; and the command: "Reach the +island! hitch the horses!" rang through the camp. + +It takes long to tell it, this dash for the island. The execution of the +order was like the passing of a hurricane. Horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place, but in the rush the hospital supplies and +rations were lost. The Indians had not counted on the island, and they +raged in fury at their oversight. There were a thousand savage warriors +attacking half a hundred soldiers, and they had gloated over the fifty +scalps to be taken in the little gorge to the east. The break in their +plans confused them but momentarily, however. + +On the island we tied our horses in the bushes and quickly formed a +circle. The soil was all soft sand. We cut the thin sod with our butcher +knives and began throwing up a low defence, working like fiends with our +hands and elbows and toes, scooping out the sand with our tin plates, +making the commencement of shallow pits. We were stationed in couples, +and I was beside Morton when the onslaught came. Up from the undulating +south, and down over the north bluff swept the furious horde. On they +came with terrific speed, their blood-curdling yells of hate mingling +with the wild songs, and cries and taunts of hundreds of squaws and +children that crowded the heights out of range of danger, watching the +charge and urging their braves to battle. Over the slopes to the very +banks of the creek, into the sandy bed of the stream, and up to the +island they hurled their forces, while bullets crashed murderously, and +arrows whizzed with deadly swiftness into our little sand-built defence. + +In the midst of the charge, twice above the din, I caught the clear +notes of an artillery bugle. It was dim daylight now. Rifle-smoke and +clouds of dust and gray mist shot through with flashes of powder, and +the awful rage, as if all the demons of Hell were crying vengeance, are +all in that picture burned into my memory with a white-hot brand. And +above all these there come back to me the faces of that little band of +resolute men biding the moment when the command to charge should be +given. Such determination and such splendid heroism, not twice in a +lifetime is it vouchsafed to many to behold. + +We held our fire until the enemy was almost upon us. At the right +instant our rifles poured out a perfect billow of death. Painted bodies +reeled and fell; horses sank down, or rushed mad with pain, upon their +fallen riders; shrieks of agony mingled with the unearthly yells; while +above all this, the steady roar of our guns--not a wasted bullet in all +the line--carried death waves out from the island thicket. To me that +first defence of ours was more tragic than anything in the days and +nights that followed it. The first hour's struggle seasoned me for the +siege. + +The fury of the Indian warriors and of the watching squaws is +indescribable. The foe deflected to left and right, vainly seeking to +carry their dead from the field with them. The effort cost many Indian +lives. The long grass on either side of the stream was full of +sharpshooters. The morning was bright now, and we durst not lift our +heads above our low entrenchment. Our position was in the centre of a +space open to attack from every arc of the circle. Caution counted more +than courage here. Whoever stood upright was offering his life to his +enemy. Our horses suffered first. By the end of an hour every one of +them was dead. My own mount, a fine sorrel cavalry horse, given to me at +Fort Hays, was the last sacrifice. He was standing near me in the brown +bushes. I could see his superb head and chest as, with nostrils wide, +and flashing eyes, he saw and felt the battle charge. Subconsciously I +felt that so long as he was unhurt I had a sure way of escape. +Subconsciously, too, I blessed the day that Bud Anderson taught O'mie +and me to drop on the side of Tell Mapleson's pony and ride like a +Plains Indian. But even as I looked up over my little sand ridge a +bullet crashed into his broad chest. He plunged forward toward us, +breaking his tether. He staggered to his knees, rose again with a lunge, +and turning half way round reared his fore feet in agony and seemed +about to fall into our pit. At that instant I heard a laugh just beyond +the bushes, and a voice, not Indian, but English, cried exultingly, +"There goes the last damned horse, anyhow." + +It was the same voice that I had heard up on "Rockport" one evening, +promising Marjie in pleading tones to be a "good Indian." The same hard, +cold voice I had heard in the same place saying to me, as a promise +before high heaven: "I will go. But I shall see you there. When we meet +again my hand will be on your throat and--I don't care whose son you +are." + +Well, we were about to meet. The wounded animal was just above our pit. +Morton rose up with lifted carbine to drive him back when from the same +gun that had done for my horse came a bullet full into the man's face. +It ploughed through his left eye and lodged in the bones beyond it. He +uttered no cry, but dropped into the pit beside me, his blood, streaming +from the wound, splashed hot on my forehead as he fell. I was stunned by +his disaster, but he never faltered. Taking his handkerchief from his +pocket, he bound it tightly about his head and set his rifle ready for +the next charge. After that, nothing counted with me. I no longer shrank +in dread of what might happen. All fear of life, or death, of pain, or +Indians, or fiends from Hades fell away from me, and never again did my +hand tremble, nor my heart-beat quicken in the presence of peril. By the +warm blood of the brave man beside me I was baptized a soldier. + +The force drew back from this first attempt to take the island, but the +fire of the hidden enemy did not cease. In this brief breathing spell we +dug deeper into our pits, making our defences stronger where we lay. +Disaster was heavy upon us. The sun beat down pitilessly on the hot, dry +earth where we burrowed. Out in the open the Indians were crawling like +serpents through the tall grasses toward our poor house of sand, hoping +to fall upon us unseen. They had every advantage, for we did not dare to +let our bodies be exposed above the low breastworks, and we could not +see their advance. Nearly one-half of our own men were dead or wounded. +Each man counted for so much on that battle-girt island that day. Our +surgeon had been struck in the first round and through all the rest of +his living hours he was in a delirium. Forsyth himself, grievously +wounded in both lower limbs, could only drag his body about by his arms. +A rifle ball had grazed his scalp and fractured his skull. The pain from +this wound was almost unbearable. But he did not loosen his grip on the +military power delegated to him. From a hastily scooped-out pit where we +laid him he directed the whole battle. + +And now we girded on our armor for the supreme ordeal. The unbounded +wrath of the Indians at their unlooked-for failure in their first attack +told us what to expect. Our own guns were ready for instant use. The +arms of our dead and wounded comrades were placed beside our own. No +time was there in those awful hours to listen to the groans of the +stricken ones nor to close the dying eyes. Not a soul of us in those +sand-pits had any thought that we should ever see another sunset. All we +could do was to put the highest price upon our lives. It was ten o'clock +in the forenoon. The firing about the island had almost ceased, and the +silence was more ominous than the noise of bullets. Over on the bluff +the powers were gathering. The sunlight glinted on their arms and +lighted up their fantastic equipments of war. They formed in battle +array. And then there came a sight the Plains will never see again, a +sight that history records not once in a century. There were hundreds of +these warriors, the flower of the fierce Cheyenne tribe, drawn up in +military order, mounted on great horses, riding bareback, their rifles +held aloft in their right hands, the left hand grasping the flowing +mane, their naked bodies hideously adorned with paint, their long +scalp-locks braided and trimmed with plumes and quills. They were the +very acme of grandeur in a warfare as splendid as it was barbaric. And +I, who live to write these lines, account myself most fortunate that I +saw it all. + +They were arrayed in battle lines riding sixty abreast. It was a man of +genius who formed that military movement that day. On they came in +orderly ranks but with terrific speed, straight down the slope, across +the level, and on to the island, as if by their huge weight and terrible +momentum they would trample it into the very level dust of the earth, +that the winds of heaven might scatter it broadcast on the Arickaree +waters. Till the day of my death I shall hear the hoof-beats of that +cavalry charge. + +Down through the centuries the great commanders have left us their +stories of prowess, and we have kept their portraits to adorn our +stately halls of fame; and in our historic shrines we have preserved +their records--Cyrus, Alexander, Leonidas at Thermopylæ, Hannibal +crossing the Alps, Charles Martel at Tours, the white-plumed Henry of +Navarre leading his soldiers in the battle of Ivry, Cromwell with his +Ironsides--godly men who chanted hymns while they fought--Napoleon's +grand finale at Waterloo, with his three thousand steeds mingling the +sound of hoof-beats with the clang of cuirasses and the clash of sabres; +Pickett's grand sweep at Gettysburg, and Hooker's charge up Lookout +Mountain. + +But who shall paint the picture of that terrific struggle on that +September day, or write the tale of that swirl of Indian warriors, a +thousand strong, as they swept down in their barbaric fury upon the +handful of Anglo-Saxon soldiers crouching there in the sand-pits +awaiting their onslaught? It was the old, old story retold that day on +the Colorado plains by the sunlit waters of the Arickaree--the white +man's civilization against the untamed life of the wilderness. And for +that struggle there is only one outcome. + +Before the advancing foe, in front of the very centre of the foremost +line, was their leader, Roman Nose, chief warrior of the Cheyennes. He +was riding a great, clean-limbed horse, his left hand grasping its mane. +His right hand was raised aloft, directing his forces. If ever the +moulds of Nature turned out physical perfection, she realized her ideal +in that superb Cheyenne. He stood six feet and three inches in his +moccasins. He was built like a giant, with a muscular symmetry that was +artistically beautiful. About his naked body was a broad, blood-red +silken sash, the ends of which floated in the wind. His war bonnet, with +its two short, curved, black buffalo horns, above his brow, was a +magnificent thing crowning his head and falling behind him in a sweep of +heron plumes and eagle feathers. The Plains never saw a grander warrior, +nor did savage tribe ever claim a more daring and able commander. He was +by inherent right a ruler. In him was the culmination of the intelligent +prowess and courage and physical supremacy of the free life of the +broad, unfettered West. + +On they rushed that mount of eager warriors. The hills behind them +swarmed with squaws and children. Their shrieks of grief and anger and +encouragement filled the air. They were beholding the action that down +to the last of the tribe would be recounted a victory to be chanted in +all future years over the graves of their dead, and sung in heroic +strain when their braves went forth to conquest. And so, with all the +power of heart and voice, they cried out from the low hill-tops. Just at +the brink of the stream the leader, Roman Nose, turned his face a moment +toward the watching women. Lifting high his right hand he waved them a +proud salute. The gesture was so regal, and the man himself so like a +king of men, that I involuntarily held my breath. But the set +blood-stained face of the wounded man beside me told what that kingship +meant. + +As he faced the island again, Roman Nose rose up to his full height and +shook his clenched fist toward our entrenchment. Then suddenly lifting +his eyes toward the blue sky above him, he uttered a war-cry, unlike any +other cry I have ever heard. It was so strong, so vehement, so full of +pleading, and yet so dominant in its certainty, as if he were invoking +the gods of all the tribes for their aid, yet sure in his defiant soul +that victory was his by right of might. The unearthly, blood-chilling +cry was caught up by all his command and reëchoed by the watchers on +the hills till, away and away over the undulating plains it rolled, +dying out in weird cadences in the far-off spaces of the haze-wreathed +horizon. + +Then came the dash for our island entrenchment. As the Indians entered +the stream I caught the sound of a bugle note, the same I had heard +twice before. On the edge of the island through a rift in the +dust-cloud, I saw in the front line on the end nearest me a horse a +little smaller than the others, making its rider a trifle lower than his +comrades. And then I caught one glimpse of the rider's face. It was the +man whose bullet had wounded Morton--Jean Pahusca. + +We held back our fire again, as in the first attack, until the foe was +almost upon us. With Forsyth's order, "Now! now!" our part of the drama +began. I marvel yet at the power of that return charge. Steady, +constant, true to the last shot, we swept back each advancing wave of +warriors, maddened now to maniac fury. In the very moment of victory, +defeat was breaking the forces, mowing down the strongest, and spreading +confusion everywhere. A thousand wild beasts on the hills, frenzied with +torture, could not have raged more than those frantic Indian women and +shrieking children watching the fray. + +With us it was the last stand. We wasted no strength in this grim +crisis; each turn of the hand counted. While fearless as though he bore +a charmed life, the gallant savage commander dared death at our hands, +heeding no more our rain of rifle balls than if they had been the drops +of a summer shower. Right on he pressed regardless of his fallen braves. +How grandly he towered above them in his great strength and superb +physique, a very prince of prowess, the type of leader in a land where +the battle is always to the strong. And no shot of our men was able to +reach him until our finish seemed certain, and the time-limit closing +in. But down in the thick weeds, under a flimsy rampart of soft sand, +crouched a slender fair-haired boy. Trim and pink-cheeked as a girl, +young Stillwell was matching his cool nerve and steady marksmanship +against the exultant dominance of a savage giant. It was David and +Goliath played out in the Plains warfare of the Western continent. At +the crucial moment the scout's bullet went home with unerring aim, and +the one man whose power counted as a thousand warriors among his own +people received his mortal wound. Backward he reeled, and dead, or +dying, he was taken from the field. Like one of the anointed he was +mourned by his people, for he had never known fear, and on his banners +victory had constantly perched. + +In the confusion over the loss of their leader the Indians again divided +about the island and fell back out of range of our fire. As the tide of +battle ebbed out, Colonel Forsyth, helpless in his sand pit, watching +the attack, called to his guide. + +"Can they do better than that, Grover?" + +"I've been on the Plains since I was a boy and I never saw such a charge +as that. I think they have done their level best," the scout replied. + +"All right, then, we are good for them." How cheery the Colonel's voice +was! It thrilled my spirits with its courage. And we needed courage, for +just then, Lieutenant Beecher was stretching himself wearily before his +superior officer, saying briefly: + +"I have my death-wound; good-night." And like a brave man who had done +his best he pillowed his head face downward on his arms, and spoke not +any more on earth forever. + +It has all been told in history how that day went by. When evening fell +upon that eternity-long time, our outlook was full of gloom. Hardly +one-half of our company was able to bear arms. Our horses had all been +killed, our supplies and hospital appliances were lost. Our wounds were +undressed; our surgeon was slowly dying; our commander was helpless, and +his lieutenant dead. We had been all day without food or water. We were +prisoners on this island, and every man of us had half a hundred +jailers, each one a fiend in the high art of human torture. + +I learned here how brave and resourceful men can be in the face of +disaster. One of our number had already begun to dig a shallow well. It +was a muddy drink, but, God be praised, it was water! Our supper was a +steak cut from a slaughtered horse, but we did not complain. We gathered +round our wounded commander and did what we could for each other, and no +man thought of himself first. Our dead were laid in shallow graves, +without a prayer. There was no time here for the ceremonies of peace; +and some of the men, before they went out into the Unknown that night, +sent their last messages to their friends, if we should ever be able to +reach home again. + +At nightfall came a gentle shower. We held out our hands to it, and +bathed our fevered faces. It was very dark and we must make the most of +every hour. The Indians do not fight by night, but the morrow might +bring its tale of battles. So we digged, and shaped our stronghold, and +told over our resources, and planned our defences, and all the time +hunger and suffering and sorrow and peril stalked about with us. All +night the Indians gathered up their dead, and all night they chanted +their weird, blood-chilling death-songs, while the lamentations of the +squaws through that dreadful night filled all the long hours with +hideous mourning unlike any other earthly discord. But the darkness +folded us in, and the blessed rain fell softly on all alike, on skilful +guide, and busy soldier, on the wounded lying helpless in their beds of +sand, on the newly made graves of those for whom life's fitful fever was +ended. And above all, the loving Father, whose arm is never shortened +that He cannot save, gave His angels charge over us to keep us in all +our ways. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE SUNLIGHT ON OLD GLORY + + The little green tent is made of sod, + And it is not long, and it is not broad, + But the soldiers have lots of room. + And the sod is a part of the land they saved, + When the flag of the enemy darkly waved, + A symbol of dole and gloom. + + --WALT MASON. + + +"Baronet, we must have that spade we left over there this morning. Are +you the man to get it?" Sharp Grover said to me just after dusk. "We've +got to have water or die, and Burke here can't dig a well with his toe +nails, though he can come about as near to it as anybody." Burke was an +industrious Irishman who had already found water for us. "And then we +must take care of these." He motioned toward a still form at my feet, +and his tone was reverent. + +"Over there" was the camp ground of the night before. It had been +trampled by hundreds of feet. Our camp was small, and finding the spade +by day might be easy enough. To grope in the dark and danger was another +matter. Twenty-four hours before, I would not have dared to try. Nothing +counted with me now. I had just risen from the stiffening body of a +comrade whom I had been trying to compose for his final rest. I had no +more sentiment for myself than I had for him. My time might come at any +moment. + +"Yes, sir, I'll go," I answered the scout, and I felt of my revolvers; +my own and the one I had taken from the man who lay at my feet. + +"Well, take no foolish chances. Come back if the way is blocked, but get +the spade if you can. Take your time. You'd better wait an hour than be +dead in a minute," and he turned to the next work before him. + +He was guide, commander, and lieutenant all in one, and his duties were +many. I slipped out in the danger-filled shadows toward our camping +place of the night before. Every step was full of peril. The Indians had +no notion of letting us slip through their fingers in the dark. Added to +their day's defeats, we had slain their greatest warrior, and they would +have perished by inches rather than let us escape now. So our island was +guarded on every side. The black shadowed Plains were crossed and +re-crossed by the braves silently gathering in their lost ones for +burial. My scalp would have been a joy to them who had as yet no human +trophy to gloat over. Surely a spade was never so valuable before. My +sense of direction is fair and to my great relief I found that precious +implement marvellously soon, but the creek lay between me and the +island. Just at its bank I was compelled to drop into a clump of weeds +as three forms crept near me and straightened themselves up in the +gloom. They were speaking in low tones, and as they stood upright I +caught their words. + +"You made that bugle talk, anyhow, Dodd." + +So Dodd was the renegade whom I had heard three times in the conflict. +My vision at the gorge was not the insanity of the Plains, after all. I +was listening ravenously now. The man who had spoken stood nearest me. +There was a certain softness of accent and a familiar tone in his +speech. As he turned toward the other two, even in the dim light, the +outline of his form and the set of his uncovered head I knew. + +"That's Le Claire, as true as heaven, all but the voice," I said to +myself. "But I'll never believe that metallic ring is the priest's. It +is Le Claire turned renegade, too, or it's a man on a pattern so like +him, they couldn't tell themselves apart." + +I recalled all the gentleness and manliness of the Father. Never an act +of his was cruel, or selfish, or deceptive. True to his principles, he +had warned us again and again not to trust Jean. And yet he had always +seemed to protect the boy, always knew his comings and goings, and the +two had grown yearly to resemble each other more and more in face and +form and gesture. Was Le Claire a villain in holy guise? + +I did not meditate long, for the third man spoke. Oh, the "good Indian"! +Never could he conceal his voice from me. + +"Now, what I want you to do is to tell them all which one he is. I've +just been clear around their hole in the sand. I could have hit my +choice of the lot. But he wasn't there." + +No, I had just stepped out after the spade. + +"If he had been, I'd have shot him right then, no matter what come next. +But I don't want him shot. He's mine. Now tell every brave to leave him +to me, the big one, nearly as big as Roman Nose, whiter than the others, +because he's not been out here long. But he's no coward. The one with +thick dark curly hair; it would make a beautiful scalp. But I want him." + +"What will you do with him?" the man nearest to me queried. + +"Round the bend below the gorge the Arickaree runs over a little strip +of gravel with a ripple that sounds just like the Neosho above the Deep +Hole. I'll stake him out there where he can hear it and think of home +until he dies. And before I leave him I've got a letter to read to him. +It'll help to keep Springvale in his mind if the water fails. I've +promised him what to expect when he comes into my country." + +"Do it," the smallest of the three spoke up. "Do it. It'll pay him for +setting Bud Anderson on me and nearly killing me in the alley back of +the courthouse the night we were going to burn up Springvale. I was +making for the courthouse to get the papers to burn sure. I'd got the +key and could have got them easy--and there's some needed burning +specially--when that lispin' tow-head caught my arm and gave my head +such a cut that I'll always carry the scar, and twisted my wrist so I've +never been able to lift anything heavier than an artillery bugle since. +Nobody ever knew it back there but Mapleson and Conlow and Judson. Funny +nobody ever guessed Judson's part in that thing except his wife, and she +kept it to herself and broke her heart and died. Everybody else said he +was water-bound away from home. He wasn't twenty feet from his own house +when the Whately girl come out. He was helpin' Jean then. Thought her +mother'd be killed, and Whately'd never get home alive--as he +didn't--and he'd get the whole store; greediest man on earth for money. +He's got the store anyhow, now, and he's going to marry the girl he was +helpin' Jean to take out of his way. That store never would have been +burnt that night. I wish Jean had got her, though. Then I'd turned +things against Tell Mapleson and run him out of town instead of his +driving me from Springvale. Tell played a double game damned well. I'm +outlawed and he's gettin' richer every day at home." + +So spoke the Rev. Mr. Dodd, pastor of the Methodist Church South. It +may be I needed the discipline of that day's fighting to hold me +motionless and silent in the clump of grass beside these three men. + +"Well, let's get up there and watch the fool women cry for their men." +It was none other than Father Le Claire's form before me, but this man's +voice was never that soft French tone of the good man's--low and +musical, matching his kindly eyes and sweet smile. As the three slipped +away I did the only foolish act of mine in the whole campaign: I rose +from my hiding place, shouldered that spade, and stalked straight down +the bank, across the creek, and up to our works in the centre of the +island as upright and free as if I were walking up Cliff Street to Judge +Baronet's front door. Jean's words had put into me just what I +needed--not acceptance of the inevitable, but a power of resistance, the +indomitable spirit that overcomes. + +History is stranger than fiction, and the story of the Kansas frontier +is more tragical than all the Wild West yellow-backed novels ever turned +off the press. To me this campaign of the Arickaree has always read like +a piece of bloody drama, so terrible in its reality, it puts the +imagination out of service. + +We had only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our +dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell +and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight +they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward +the southwest, and making a wide detour from their real line of +direction. The Indians were on the alert, and a man must walk as +noiselessly as a panther to slip between their guards. + +The scouts wore blankets to resemble the Indians more closely in the +shadows of the night. They made moccasins out of boot tops, that their +footprints might tell no story. In sandy places they even walked +backward that they should leave no tell-tale trail out of the valley. + +Dawn found them only three miles away from their starting place. A +hollow bank overhung with long, dry grasses, and fronted with rank +sunflowers, gave them a place of concealment through the daylight hours. +Again on the second night they hurried cautiously forward. The second +morning they were near an Indian village. Their only retreat was in the +tall growth of a low, marshy place. Here they crouched through another +long day. The unsuspecting squaws, hunting fuel, tramped the grasses +dangerously near to them, but a merciful Providence guarded their +hiding-place. + +On the third night they pushed forward more boldly, hoping that the next +day they need not waste the precious hours in concealment. In the early +morning they saw coming down over the prairie the first guard of a +Cheyenne village moving southward across their path. The Plains were +flat and covertless. No tall grass, nor friendly bank, nor bush, nor +hollow of ground was there to cover them from their enemies. But out +before them lay the rotting carcass of an old buffalo. Its hide still +hung about its bones. And inside the narrow shelter of this carcass the +two concealed themselves while a whole village passed near them trailing +off toward the south. + +Insufficient food, lack of sleep, and poisonous water from the buffalo +wallows brought nausea and weakness to the faithful men making their way +across the hostile land to bring help to us in our dire extremity. It is +all recorded in history how these two men fared in that hazardous +undertaking. No hundred miles of sandy plain were ever more fraught with +peril; and yet these two pressed on with that fearless and indomitable +courage that has characterized the Saxon people on every field of +conquest. + +Meanwhile day crept over the eastern horizon, and the cold chill of the +shadows gave place to the burning glare of the September sun. Hot and +withering it beat down upon us and upon the unburied dead that lay all +about us. The braves that had fallen in the strife strewed the island's +edges. Their blood lay dark on the sandy shoals of the stream and +stained to duller brown the trampled grasses. Daylight brought the +renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us +and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were +hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle +continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not +attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them. +And so the thing became a game of endurance with us, a slow wearing away +of ammunition and food, a growing fever from weakness and loss of blood, +a festering of wounds, the ebbing out of strength and hope; while putrid +mule meat and muddy water, the sickening stench from naked bloated +bodies under the blazing heat of day, the long, long hours of watching +for deliverance that came not, and the certainty of the fate awaiting us +at last if rescue failed us--these things marked the hours and made them +all alike. As to the Indians, the passing of Roman Nose had broken their +fighting spirit; and now it was a mere matter of letting us run to the +end of our tether and then--well, Jean had hinted what would happen. + +On the third night two more scouts left us. It seemed an eternity since +Stillwell and his comrade had started from the camp. We felt sure that +they must have fallen by the way, and the second attempt was doubly +hazardous. The two who volunteered were quiet men. They knew what the +task implied, and they bent to it like men who can pay on demand the +price of sacrifice. Their names were Donovan and Pliley, recorded in the +military roster as private scouts, but the titles they bear in the +memory of every man who sat in that grim council on that night, has a +grander sound than the written records declare. + +"Boys," Forsyth said, lifting himself on his elbow where he lay in his +sand bed, "this is the last chance. If you can get to the fort and send +us help we can hold out a while. But it must come quickly. You know what +it means for you to try, and for us, if you succeed." + +The two men nodded assent, then girding on their equipments, they gave +us their last messages to be repeated if deliverance ever came to us and +they were never heard of again. We were getting accustomed to this now, +for Death stalked beside us every hour. They said a brief good-bye and +slipped out from us into the dangerous dark on their chosen task. Then +the chill of the night, with its uncertainty and gloom, with its ominous +silences broken only by the howl of the gray wolves, who closed in about +us and set up their hunger wails beyond the reach of our bullets; and +the heat of the day with its peril of arrow and rifle-ball filled the +long hours. Hunger was a terror now. Our meat was gone save a few +decayed portions which we could barely swallow after we had sprinkled +them over with gunpowder. For the stomach refused them even in +starvation. Dreams of banquets tortured our short, troubled sleep, and +the waking was a horror. A luckless little coyote wandered one day too +near our fold. We ate his flesh and boiled his bones for soup. And one +day a daring soldier slipped out from our sand pit in search of +food--anything--to eat in place of that rotting horseflesh. In the +bushes at the end of the island, he found a few wild plums. Oh, food +for the gods was that portion of stewed plums carefully doled out to +each of us. + +Six days went by. I do not know on which one the Sabbath fell, for God +has no holy day in the Plains warfare. Six days, and no aid had come +from Fort Wallace. That our scouts had failed, and our fate was decreed, +was now the settled conclusion in every mind. + +On the evening of this sixth day our leader called us about him. How +gray and drawn his face looked in the shadowy gray light, but his eyes +were clear and his voice steady. + +"Boys, we've got to the end of our rope, now. Over there," pointing to +the low hills, "the Indian wolves are waiting for us. It's the hazard of +war; that's all. But we needn't all be sacrificed. You, who aren't +wounded, can't help us who are. You have nothing here to make our +suffering less. To stay here means--you all know what. Now the men who +can go must leave us to what's coming. I feel sure now that you can get +through together somehow, for the tribes are scattering. It is only the +remnant left over there to burn us out at last. There is no reason why +you should stay here and die. Make your dash for escape together +to-night, and save your lives if you can. And"--his voice was brave and +full of cheer--"I believe you can." + +Then a silence fell. There were two dozen of us gaunt, hungry men, +haggard from lack of sleep and the fearful tax on mind and body that +tested human endurance to the limit--two dozen, to whom escape was not +impossible now, though every foot of the way was dangerous. Life is +sweet, and hope is imperishable. We looked into one another's face +grimly, for the crisis of a lifetime was upon us. Beside me lay Morton. +The handkerchief he had bound about his head in the first hour of +battle had not once been removed. There was no other handkerchief to +take its place. + +"Go, Baronet," he said to me. "Tell your father, if you see him again, +that I remembered Whately and how he went down at Chattanooga." + +His voice was low and firm and yet he knew what was awaiting him. Oh! +men walked on red-hot ploughshares in the days of the winning of the +West. + +Sharp Grover was sitting beside Forsyth. In the silence of the council +the guide turned his eyes toward each of us. Then, clenching his gaunt, +knotted hands with a grip of steel, he said in a low, measured voice: + +"It's no use asking us, General. We have fought together, and, by +Heaven, we'll die together." + +In the great crises of life the only joy is the joy of self-sacrifice. +Every man of us breathed freer, and we were happier now than we had been +at any time since the conflict began. And so another twenty-four hours, +and still another twenty-four went by. + + The sun came up and the sun went down, + And day and night were the same as one. + +And any evil chance seemed better than this slow dragging out of +misery-laden time. + +"Nature meant me to defend the weak and helpless. The West needs me," I +had said to my father. And now I had given it my best. A slow fever was +creeping upon me, and weariness of body was greater than pain and +hunger. Death would be a welcome thing now that hope seemed dead. I +thought of O'mie, bound hand and foot in the Hermit's Cave, and like +him, I wished that I might go quickly if I must go. For back of my +stolid mental state was a frenzied desire to outwit Jean Pahusca, who +was biding his time, and keeping a surer watch on our poor +battle-wrecked, starving force than any other Indian in the horde that +kept us imprisoned. + +The sunrise of the twenty-fifth of September was a dream of beauty on +the Colorado Plains. I sat with my face to the eastward and saw the +whole pageantry of morning sweep up in a splendor of color through +stretches of far limitless distances. Oh! it was gorgeous, with a glory +fresh from the hand of the Infinite God, whose is the earth and the +seas. Mechanically I thought of the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, +but nothing there could be half so magnificent as this. And as I looked, +the thought grew firmer that this sublimity had been poured out for me +for the last time, and I gazed at the face of the morning as we look at +the face awaiting the coffin lid. + +And even as the thought clinched itself upon me came the sentinel's cry +of "Indians! Indians!" + +We grasped our weapons at the shrill warning. It was the death-grip now. +We knew as surely as we stood there that we could not resist this last +attack. The redskins must have saved themselves for this final blow, +when resistance on our part was a feeble mockery. The hills to the +northward were black with the approaching force, but we were determined +to make our last stand heroically, and to sell our lives as dearly as +possible. As with a grim last measure of courage we waited, Sharp +Grover, who stood motionless, alert, with arms ready, suddenly threw his +rifle high in air, and with a shout that rose to heaven, he cried in an +ecstasy of joy: + +"By the God above us, it's an ambulance!" + +To us for whom the frenzied shrieks of the squaws, the fiendish yells of +the savage warriors, and the weird, unearthly wailing for the dead were +the only cries that had resounded above the Plains these many days, +this shout from Grover was like the music of heaven. A darkness came +before me, and my strength seemed momentarily to go from me. It was but +a moment, and then I opened my eyes to the sublimest sight it is given +to the Anglo-American to look upon. + +Down from the low bluffs there poured a broad surge of cavalry, in +perfect order, riding like the wind, the swift, steady hoof-beats of +their horses marking a rhythmic measure that trembled along the ground +in musical vibration, while overhead--oh, the grandeur of God's gracious +dawn fell never on a thing more beautiful--swept out by the free winds +of heaven to its full length, and gleaming in the sunlight, Old Glory +rose and fell in rippling waves of splendor. + +On they came, the approaching force, in a mad rush to reach us. And we +who had waited for the superb charge of Roman Nose and his savage +warriors, as we wait for death, saw now this coming in of life, and the +regiment of the unconquerable people. + +We threw restraint to the winds and shouted and danced and hugged each +other, while we laughed and cried in a very transport of joy. + +It was Colonel Carpenter and his colored cavalry who had made a dash +across the country rushing to our rescue. Beside the Colonel at their +head, rode Donovan the scout, whom we had accounted as dead. It was his +unerring eye that had guided this command, never varying from the +straight line toward our danger-girt entrenchment on the Arickaree. + +Before Carpenter's approaching cavalry the Indians fled for their lives, +and they who a few hours hence would have been swinging bloody tomahawks +above our heads were now scurrying to their hiding-places far away. + +[Illustration: Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place] + +Never tenderer hands cared for the wounded, and never were bath and +bandage and food and drink more welcome. Our command was shifted to a +clean spot where no stench of putrid flesh could reach us. Rest and +care, such as a camp on the Plains can offer, was ours luxuriously; and +hardtack and coffee, food for the angels, we had that day, to our +intense satisfaction. Life was ours once more, and hope, and home, and +civilization. Oh, could it be true, we asked ourselves, so long had we +stood face to face with Death. + +The import of this struggle on the Arickaree was far greater than we +dreamed of then. We had gone out to meet a few foemen. What we really +had to battle with was the fighting strength of the northern Cheyenne +and Sioux tribes. Long afterwards it came to us what this victory meant. +The broad trail we had eagerly followed up the Arickaree fork of the +Republican River had been made by bands on bands of Plains Indians +mobilizing only a little to the westward, gathering for a deadly +purpose. At the full of the moon the whole fighting force, two thousand +strong, was to make a terrible raid, spreading out on either side of the +Republican River, reaching southward as far as the Saline Valley and +northward to the Platte, and pushing eastward till the older settlements +turned them back. They were determined to leave nothing behind them but +death and desolation. Their numbers and leadership, with the defenceless +condition of the Plains settlers, give broad suggestion of what that +raid would have done for Kansas. Our victory on the Arickaree broke up +that combination of Indian forces, for all future time. It was for such +an unknown purpose, and against such unguessed odds, that fifty of us +led by the God of all battle lines, had gone out to fight. We had met +and vanquished a foe two hundred times our number, aye, crippled its +power for all future years. We were lifting the fetters from the +frontier; we were planting the standards westward, westward. In the +history of the Plains warfare this fight on the Arickaree, though not +the last stroke, was one of the decisive struggles in breaking the +savage sovereignty, a sovereignty whose wilderness demesne to-day is a +land of fruit and meadow and waving grain, of peaceful homes and wealth +and honor. + +It was impossible for our wounded comrades to begin the journey to Fort +Wallace on that day. When evening came, the camp settled down to quiet +and security: the horses fed at their rope tethers, the fires smouldered +away to gray ashes, the sun swung down behind the horizon bar, the gold +and scarlet of evening changed to deeper hues and the long, purple +twilight was on the silent Colorado Plains. Over by the Arickaree the +cavalry men lounged lazily in groups. As the shades of evening gathered, +the soldiers began to sing. Softly at first, but richer, fuller, sweeter +their voices rose and fell with that cadence and melody only the negro +voice can compass. And their song, pulsing out across the undulating +valley wrapped in the twilight peace, made a harmony so wonderfully +tender that we who had dared danger for days unflinchingly now turned +our faces to the shadows to hide our tears. + + We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground. + Give us a song to cheer + Our weary hearts, a song of home + And friends we love so dear. + Many are the hearts that are weary to-night, + Wishing for this war to cease, + Many are the hearts looking for the right + To see the dawn of peace. + +So the cavalry men sang, and we listened to their singing with hearts +stirred to their depths. And then with prayers of thankfulness for our +deliverance, we went to sleep. And over on the little island, under the +shallow sands, the men who had fallen beside us lay with patient, folded +hands waiting beside the Arickaree waters till the last reveille shall +sound for them and they enter the kingdom of Eternal Peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A MAN'S BUSINESS + + Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; + charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business; + the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the + comprehensive ocean of my business. + + --DICKENS. + + +Every little community has its customs peculiar to itself. With the +people of Springvale the general visiting-time was on Sunday between the +afternoon Sabbath-school and the evening service. The dishes that were +prepared on Saturday for the next day's supper excelled the warm Sunday +dinner. + +We come to know the heart and soul of the folks that fill up a little +town, and when we get into the larger city we miss them oftener than we +have the courage to say. Unselfishness and integrity and stalwart +principles of right are not confined to the higher circles of society. A +man may be hungry for friends on the crest of his popularity; he may +long for the strong right hand of Christian fellowship in the centre of +a brotherhood of churchmen. Cam Gentry and his good wife are among those +whom in all my busy years of wide acquaintance with people of all ranks +I account as genuine stuff. They were only common clay, generous, +unselfish, clean of thought and act. Uneducated, with no high ideals, +they gauged their way by the golden rule, and made the most of their +time. A journey to Topeka was their "trip abroad"; beyond the +newspapers they read little except the Bible; and they built their faith +on the Presbyterian Church and the Republican party. But the cosy +lighted tavern on winter nights, and its clean, cool halls and +resting-places in the summer heat, are still a green spot in the memory +of many a traveller. Transients and regulars at the Cambridge House +delighted in this Sabbath evening spread. + +"Land knows," Dollie Gentry used to declare, "if ever a body feels +lonesome it's on Sunday afternoon between Sunday-school and evenin' +service. Why, the blues can get you then, when they'd stan' no show ary +other day er hour in the week. An' it stan's to reason a man, er woman, +either, is livin' in a hotel because they ain't got no home ner nobody +to make 'em feel glad to see 'em. If they're goin' to patronize the +Cambridge House they're goin' to get the best that's comin' to 'em right +then." + +So the old dining-room was a joy at this time of the week, with all that +a good cook can make attractive to the appetite. + +Mary Gentry, sweet-tempered and credulous as in her childhood, grew up +into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying +medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been +a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But +the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, +are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one +in Seattle, and one in New York City. Both in high places of trust and +financial importance. + +One October Sabbath afternoon, O'mie fell into step beside Marjie on the +way from Sabbath-school. Since his terrible experience in the Hermit's +Cave five years before, he had never been strong. We became so +accustomed to his little hacking cough we did not notice it until there +came a day to all of us when we looked back and wondered how we could +have been so inattentive to the thing growing up before our eyes. O'mie +was never anything but a good-hearted Irishman, and yet he had a keener +insight into character and trend of events than any other boy or man I +ever knew. I've always thought that if his life had been spared to +mature manhood--but it wasn't. + +"Marjie, I'm commissioned to invite you to the Cambridge House for +lunch," O'mie said. "Mary wants to see you. She's got a lame arm, fell +off a step ladder in the pantry. The papers on the top shelves had been +on there fifteen minutes, and Aunt Dollie thought they'd better put up +clean ones. That's the how. Dr. John Anderson's most sure to call +professionally this evening, and Bill Mead's going to bring Bess over +for tea, and there's still others on the outskirts, but you're specially +wanted, as usual. Bud will be there, too. Says he wants to see all the +Andersons once more before he leaves town, and he knows it's his last +chance; for John's forever at the tavern, and Bill Mead is monopolizing +Bess at home; and you know, Star-face, how Clayton divides himself +around among the Whatelys and Grays over at Red Range and a girl he's +got up at Lawrence." + +"All this when I'm starving for one of Aunt Dollie's good lunches. Offer +some other inducement, O'mie," Marjie replied laughingly. + +"Oh, well, Tillhurst'll be there, and one or two of the new folks, all +eligible." + +"What makes you call me 'Star-face'? That's what Jean Pahusca used to +call me." She shivered. + +"Oh, it fits you; but if you object, I can make it, 'Moon-face,' or +'Sun-up.'" + +"Or 'Skylight,' or 'Big Dipper'; so you can keep to the blue firmament. +Where's Bud going?" + +Out of the tail of his eye O'mie caught sight of Judson falling in +behind them here and he answered carelessly: + +"Oh, I don't know where Bud is going exactly. Kansas City or St. Louis, +or somewhere else. You'll come of course?" + +"Yes, of course," Marjie answered, just as Judson in his pompous little +manner called to her: + +"Marjory, I have invited myself up to your mother's for tea." + +"Why, there's nobody at home, Mr. Judson," the girl said kindly; "I'm +going down to Mary Gentry's, and mother went up to Judge Baronet's with +Aunt Candace for lunch." + +Nobody called my father's sister by any other name. To Marjie, who had +played about her knee, Aunt Candace was a part of the day's life in +Springvale. But the name of Baronet was a red rag to Judson's temper. He +was growing more certain of his cause every day; but any allusion to our +family was especially annoying, and this remark of Marjie's fired him to +hasten to something definite in his case of courtship. + +"When she's my wife," he had boasted to Tell Mapleson, "I'll put a stop +to all this Baronet friendship. I won't even let her go there. Marjie's +a fine girl, but a wife must understand and obey her lord and master. +That's it; a wife must obey, or your home's ruined." + +Nobody had ever accused Tell Mapleson's wife of ruining a home on that +basis; for she had been one of the crushed-down, washed-out women who +never have two ideas above their dish-pan. She had been dead some years, +and Tell was alone. People said he was too selfish to marry again. +Certainly matrimony was not much in his thoughts. + +The talk at the tavern table that evening ran on merrily among the young +people. Albeit, the Sabbath hour was not too frivolous, for we were +pretty stanch in our Presbyterianism there. I think our love for Dr. +Hemingway in itself would have kept the Sabbath sacred. He never found +fault with our Sunday visiting. All days were holy to him, and his +evening sermons taught us that frivolity, and idle gossip, and scandal +are as unforgivable on week days as on the Sabbath Day. Somewhere in the +wide courts of heaven there must be reserved an abode of inconceivable +joy and peace for such men as he, men who preach the Word faithfully +through the years, whose hand-clasp means fellowship, and in whose +tongue is the law of kindness. + +"Say, Clate, where's Bud going?" Somebody called across the table. Bud +was beside Marjie, whose company was always at a premium in any +gathering. + +"Let him tell; it's his secret," Clayton answered. "I'll be glad when +he's gone"--he was speaking across to Marjie now--"then I'll get some +show, maybe." + +"I'm going to hunt a wife," Bud sang out. "Can't find a thoul here +who'll thtay with me long enough to get acquainted. I'm going out Wetht +thomewhere." + +"I'd stay with you a blamed sight longer if I wasn't acquainted with you +than if I was," Bill Mead broke in. "It's because they do get acquainted +that they don't stay, Bud; and anyhow, they can run faster out there +than here, the girls can; they have to, to keep away from the Indians. +And there's no tepee ring for the ponies to stumble over. Marjie, do you +remember the time Jean Pahusca nearly got you? I remember it, for when I +came to after the shock, I was standing square on my head with both +feet in the air. All I could see was Bud dragging Jean's pony out of the +muss. I thought he was upside down at first and the horses were walking +like flies on the ceiling." + +Marjie's memories of that moment were keen. So were O'mie's. + +"Well, what ever did become of that Jean, anyhow? Anybody here seen him +for five years?" + +The company looked at one another. Bud's face was as innocent as a +baby's. Lettie Conlow at the foot of the table encountered O'mie's eyes +and her face flamed. Dr. John Anderson was explaining the happening to +Tillhurst and some newcomers in Springvale to whom the story was +interesting, and the whole table began to recall old times and old +escapades of Jean's. + +"Wasn't afraid of anything on earth," Bill Mead declared. + +"Yeth he wath, brother," Bud broke in, while Bess Anderson blushed +deeply at Bud's teasing name. Bill and Bess were far along the happy way +of youth and love. + +"Why, what did he fear?" Judson asked Dave Mead at the head of the +table. + +"Phil Baronet. He never would fight Phil. He didn't dare. He couldn't +bear to be licked." + +And then the conversation turned on me, and my virtues and shortcomings +were reviewed in friendly gossip. Only Judson's face wore a sneer. + +"I don't wonder this Jean was afraid of him," a recent-comer to the town +declared. + +"Oh, if he was afraid of this young man, this boy," Judson declared, "he +would have feared something else; that's it, he'd been afraid of other +things." + +"He was," O'mie spoke up. + +"Well, what was it, O'mie?" Dr. John queried. + +"Ghosts," O'mie replied gravely. "Oh, I know," he declared, as the crowd +laughed. "I can prove it to you and tell you all about it. I'll do it +some day, but I'll need the schoolhouse and some lantern slides to make +it effective. I may charge a small admission fee and give a benefit to +defray Bud's expenses home from this trip." + +"Would you really do that, O'mie?" Mary Gentry asked him. + +But the query, "Where's Phil, now?" was going the rounds, and the +answers were many. My doings had not been reported in the town, and +gossip still was active concerning me. + +"Up at Topeka," "Gone to St. Louis," "Back in Massachusetts." These were +followed by Dave Mead's declaration: + +"The best boy that ever went out of Springvale. Just his father over +again. He'll make some place prouder than it would have been without +him." + +Nobody knew who started the story just then, but it grew rapidly from +Tillhurst's side of the table that I had gone to Rockport, +Massachusetts, to settle in my father's old home-town. + +"Stands to reason a boy who can live in Kansas would go back to +Massachusetts, doesn't it?" Dr. John declared scornfully. + +"But Phil's to be married soon, to that stylish Miss Melrose. She's got +the money, and Phil would become a fortune. Besides, she was perfectly +infatuated with him." + +"Well," somebody else asserted, "if he does marry her, he can bring her +back here to live. My! but Judge Baronet's home will be a grand place to +go to then. It was always good enough." + +Amid all this clatter Marjie was as indifferent and self-possessed as +if my name were a stranger's. Those who had always known her did not +dream of what lay back of that sweet girl-face. She was the belle of +Springvale, and she had too many admirers for any suspicion of the truth +to find a place. + +While the story ran on Bud turned to her and said in a low voice, +"Marjie, I'm going to Phil. He needth me now." + +Nobody except Bud noticed how white the girl was, as the company rising +from the table swept her away from him. + +That night Dr. Hemingway's prayer was fervent with love. The boys were +always on his heart, and he called us all by name. He prayed for the +young men of Springvale, who had grown up to the life here and on whom +the cares of citizenship, and the town's good name were soon to rest; +and for the young men who would not be with us again: for Tell Mapleson, +that the snares of a great city like St. Louis might not entrap him; for +James Conlow, whose lines had led him away from us; for David Mead, +going soon to the far-away lands where the Sierras dip down the golden +slope to the Pacific seas; for August Anderson, also about to go away +from us, that life and health might be his; and last of all for Philip +Baronet. A deeper hush fell upon the company bowed in prayer. + +"For Philip Baronet, the strong, manly boy whom we all love, the +brave-hearted hero who has gone out from among us, and as his father did +before him for the homes of a nation, so now the son has gone to fight +the battles of the prairie domain, and to build up a wall of safety +before the homes and hearthstones of our frontier." And then he offered +thanksgiving to a merciful Father that, "in the awful conflict which +Philip, with a little handful of heroes, has helped to wage against the +savage red man, a struggle in which so many lives have gone out, our +Philip has been spared." His voice broke here, and he controlled it by +an effort, as in calm, low tones he finished his simple prayer with the +earnest petition, "Keep Thou these our boys; and though they may walk +through the valley of the shadow of death, may they fear no evil, for +Thou art with them. Amen." + +It was the first intimation the town had had of what I was doing. +Springvale was not without a regard for me who had loved it always, and +then the thought of danger to a fellow citizen is not without its +appeal. I have been told that Judge Baronet and Aunt Candace could not +get down the aisle after service until after ten o'clock that night and +that the tears of men as well as women fell fast as my father gave the +words of the message sent to him by Governor Crawford on the evening +before. Even Chris Mead, always a quiet, stern man, sat with head bowed +on the railing of the pew before him during the recital. It was noted +afterwards that Judson did not remain, but took Lettie Conlow home as +soon as the doxology was ended. The next day my stock in Springvale was +at a premium; for a genuine love, beside which fame and popularity are +ashes and dust, was in the heart of that plain, good little Kansas town. + +Bud called to say good-bye to Marjie, before he left home. + +"Are you going out West to stay?" Marjie asked. + +"I'm going to try it out there. Clate'th got all the law here a young +man can get; he'th gobbled up Dave and Phil'th share of the thing. John +will be the coming M. D. of the town, and Bill Mead already taketh to +the bank like a duck to water. I'm going to try the Wetht. What word may +I take to Phil for you?" + +"There's nothing to say," Marjie answered. + +To his words, "I hoped there might be," she only said gayly, "Good-bye, +Bud. Be a good boy, and be sure not to forget Springvale, for we'll +always love your memory." + +And so he left her. He was a good boy, nor did he forget the town where +his memory is green still in the hearts of all who knew him. His last +thought was of Springvale, and he babbled of the Neosho, and fancied +himself in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. He clung to me, as in his +childhood, and begged me to carry him on my shoulders when waters of +Death were rolling over him. I held his hand to the last, and when the +silence fell, I stretched myself on the brown curly mesquite beside him +and thanked God that He had let me know this boy. Ever more my life will +be richer for the remembrance it holds of him. + +Bud left Springvale in one of those dripping, chilly, wet days our +Kansas Octobers sometimes mix in with their opal-hued hours of Indian +summer. That evening Tell Mapleson dropped into Judson's store and O'mie +was let off early. + +The little Irishman ran up the street at once to the Whately home. Mrs. +Whately had retired. Eight o'clock was bed time for middle-aged people +in our town. Marjie sat alone by the fire. How many times that summer we +had talked of the long winter evenings we should spend together by that +fireplace in Marjie's cosy sitting-room. And now she was beside the +hearth, and I was far away. I might have been forgiven without a word +had I walked in that evening and found her, as O'mie did, alone with her +sad thoughts. Marjie never tried to hide anything from O'mie. She knew +he could see through any pretence of hers. She knew, too, that he would +keep sacred anything he saw. + +"Marjie, I'm lonesome to-night." + +Marjie gave him a seat beside the fire. + +"What makes you lonesome, O'mie?" she asked gravely. + +"The wrongs av the world bear heavily upon me." + +Marjory looked at him curiously to see if he was joking. + +"What I need to do is to shrive myself, I guess, and then get up an +inquisition, with myself as chief inquisitor." + +Marjie, studying the pictures in the burning coals, said nothing. O'mie +also sat silent for a time. + +"Marjie," he said at length, "when you see things goin' all wrong end +to, and you know what's behind 'em, drivin' 'em wrong, what's your rale +Presbyterian duty then? Let 'em go? or tend to somethin' else besides +your own business? Honest, now, what's what?" + +"I don't know what you're up to, O'mie." She was looking dreamily into +the grate, the firelight on her young face and thoughtful brown eyes +making a picture tenderly sweet and fair. In her mind was the image of +Judge Baronet as he looked the night before, when he lifted his head +after Dr. Hemingway's prayer for his son. And then maybe a picture of +the graceless son himself came unbidden, and his eyes were full of love +as when they looked down into hers on the day Rachel Melrose came into +Judge Baronet's office demanding his attention. "What's the matter, +O'mie? Is Uncle Cam being imposed on? You'd never stand that, I know." + +"No, little girl, Cambridge Gentry can still take care of Cam's interest +and do a kind act to more folks off-hand better than any other man I +know. Marjie, it's Phil Baronet." + +Marjie gave a start, but she made no effort to hide her interest. + +"Little girl, he's been wronged, and lied about, and misunderstood, by a +crowd av us who have knowed him day in and day out since he was a little +boy. Marjory Whately, did anybody iver catch him in a lie? Did he iver +turn coward in a place where courage was needed? Did he iver do a +cruelty to a helpless thing, or fight a smaller boy? Did he iver +decaive? Honestly, now, was there iver anything in all the years we run +together that wasn't square and clane and fearless and lovin'?" + +Marjie sat with bowed head before the flickering fire. When O'mie spoke +again his voice was husky. + +"Little girl, when I was tied hand and foot, and left to die in that +dark Hermit's Cave, it was Phil Baronet who brought in the sunlight and +a face radiant with love. When Jean Pahusca, drunk as a fury, was after +you out on the prairie with that cruel knife ready, the knife I've seen +him kill many a helpless thing with when he was drunk, when this Jean +was ridin' like a fiend after you, Phil turned to me that day and his +white agonized face I'll never forget. Now, Marjie, it's to right his +wrong, and the wrongs of some he loves that I'm studyin' about. The week +Phil came home from the rally I took a vacation. Shall I tell you why?" + +Marjie nodded. + +"Well, Star-face, it was laid on me conscience heavy to pay a part av +the debt I owe to the boy who saved me life. I ain't got eyes fur +nothin', and I see the clouds gatherin' black about that boy's head. +Back of 'em was jealousy, that was a girl; hate, that was a man whose +cruel, ugly deeds Phil had knocked down and trampled on and prevented +from comin' to a harvest of sufferin'; and revenge, that was a +rebel-hearted scoundrel who'd have destroyed this town but for Phil; and +last, a selfish, money-lovin' son of a horse-thief who was grabbing for +riches and pulling hard at the covers to hide some sins he'd never want +to come to the light, being a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. All +thim in one cloud makes a hurricane, and with 'em comes a shallow, +selfish, pretty girl. Oh, it was a sight, Marjie. If I can do somethin' +to keep shipwreck not only from them the storm's aimed at, but them +that's pilin' up trouble fur themselves, too, I'm goin' to do it." + +Marjie made no reply. + +"So I took a vacation and wint off on a visit to me rich relatives in +Westport." + +Marjie could not help smiling now. O'mie had not a soul to call his next +of kin. + +"Oh, yis, I wint," he continued, "on tin days' holiday. The actual start +to it was on the evenin' Phil got home from Topeka. The night of the +party at Anderson's Lettie Conlow comes into the store just at closin'. +I was behind a pile of ginghams fixin' some papers and cord below the +counter. And Judson, being a fool by inheritance and choice of +profession, takes no more notice of me than if I was a dog; says things +he oughtn't to when he knows I'm 'round. But he forgits me in the pride +of his stuck-uppityness. And I heard Judson say to her low, 'Now be sure +to go right after dark and look in there again. You're sure you know +just which crevice of the rock it is?' Lettie laughed and said, she'd +watched it too long not to know. And so they arranged it, and I arranged +my wrappin'-cord, and when I straightened up (I'm little, ye know), they +didn't see my rid head by the pile of ginghams; and so she went away. +When I got ready I wint, too. I trailed round after dark until I found +meself under that point av rock by the bushes in the steep bend +up-street. I was in a little corner full of crevices, when along comes +Lettie. She seemed to be tryin' to get somethin' out of 'em, and her +short fat arm couldn't reach it. Blamed inconvanient bein' little and +short! She tried and tried and thin she said some ugly words only a boy +has a right to say when he's cussin' somethin'. Just thin somethin' made +a noise between her and the steps, and she made a rush for 'em and was +gone. My eyes was gettin' catty and used to the dark now, and I could +make out pretty sure it was Phil who sails up nixt, aisy, like he knowed +the premises, and in his hand goes and he got out somethin' sayin' to +himself--and me: + +"'Well, Marjie tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole was +so deep.' + +"Marjie, maybe if that hole's too deep for Lettie to reach clear in, +there might be somethin' she's missed. I dunno'. But niver moind. I took +me vacation, went sailin' out with Dever fur a rale splurge to Kansas +City. Across the Neosho Dever turns the stage aside, U. S. mail and all, +and lands me siven miles up the river and ferries me on this side again. +Dever can keep the stillest of any livin' stage-driver whose business is +to drive stage on the side and gossip on the main line. He never cheeped +a chirp. I come back that same day and put in tin days studyin' things. +I just turned myself into a holy inquisition for tin mortial days. Now, +what I know has a value to Phil's good name, who has been accused of +doing more diviltry than the thief on the cross. Marjie, I'm goin' to +proceed now and turn on screws till the heretics squeal. It's not +exactly my business; but--well, yes, it's the Lord's business to right +the wrongs, and we must do His work now and then, 'unworthy though we +be,' as Grandpa Mead says, in prayer meetin'." + +"O'mie, you heard Dr. Hemingway's prayer last night?" Marjie asked, in a +voice that quivered with tears. + +"Oh, good God! Marjie, the men that's fighting the battles on the +frontier, the fire-guards around them prairie homes, they are the salt +of the earth." He dropped his head between his hands and groaned. +Presently he rose to say good-night. + +"Shall I do it, little sister? See to what's not my business at all, at +all, and start a fire in this town big enough to light the skies clear +to where Phil is this rainy night, and he can read a welcome home in +it?" + +"They said last night that he's going to be married soon to that +Massachusetts girl. Maybe he wouldn't want to come if he did see it," +Marjie murmured, turning her face away. + +"Oh, maybe not, maybe not. Niver did want to get back when he was away. +But, say, Marjie Star-face, Fort Wallace away out on the Plains ain't +Rockport; and rich men's homes and all that gabble they was desecratin' +the Sabbath with at supper last night--" O'mie broke off and took the +girl's trembling hand in his. "Oh! I can look after that rascal's good +name, but I don't dare to fix things up for you two, no matter what I +know." So ran his thoughts. + +The rain blew in a bitter gust as he opened the door. "Good-night, +Marjie. It's an ugly night. Any old waterproof cloak to lend me, +girlie?" he asked, but Marjie did not smile. She held the light as in +the olden time she had shown us the dripping path, and watched the +little Irishman trotting away in the darkness. + +The Indian summer of 1868 in Kansas was as short as it was glorious. The +next day was gorgeous after the rain, and the warm sunshine and light +breeze drove all the dampness and chill away. In the middle of the +afternoon Judson left the store to O'mie and went up to Mrs. Whately's +for an important business conference. These conferences were growing +frequent now, and dear Mrs. Whately's usually serene face wore a deeply +anxious look after each one. Marjie had no place in them. It was not a +part of Judson's plan to have her understand the business. + +Fortune favored O'mie's inquisition scheme. Judson had hardly left the +store when Lettie Conlow walked in. Evidently Judson's company on the +Sunday evening before had given her a purpose in coming. In our play as +children Lettie was the first to "get mad and call names." In her young +womanhood she was vindictive and passionate. + +"Good-afternoon, Lettie. Nice day after the rain," O'mie said, +pleasantly. + +She did not respond to his greeting, but stood before him with flashing +eyes. She had often been called pretty, and her type is always +considered handsome, for her coloring was brilliant, and her form +attractive. This year she was the best dressed girl in town, although +her father was not especially prosperous. Whether transplanting in a +finer soil with higher culture might have changed her I cannot say, for +the Conlow breed ran low and the stamp of the common grade was on +Lettie. I've seen the same on a millionaire's wife; so it is in the +blood, and not in the rank. No other girl in town broke the law as +Lettie did, and kept her good name, but we had always known her. The +boys befriended her more than the girls did, partly because we knew more +of her escapades, and partly because she would sometimes listen to us. A +pretty, dashing, wilful, untutored, and ill-principled girl, she was +sowing the grain of a certain harvest. + +"O'mie," she began angrily, "you've been talking about me, and you've +been spying on me long enough; and I'm going to settle you now. You are +a contemptible spy, and you're the biggest rascal in this town. That's +what you are." + +"Not by the steelyards, I ain't," O'mie replied. Passing from behind the +counter and courteously offering her a chair. Then jumping upon the +counter beside her he sat swinging his heels against it, fingering the +yard-stick beside the pile of calicoes. "Not by the steelyards, I ain't +the biggest. Tell Mapleson's lots longer, and James Conlow, blacksmith, +and Cam Gentry, and Cris Mead are all bigger. But if you want to settle +me, I'm ready. Who says I've been talking about you?" + +"Amos Judson, and he knows. He's told me all about you." + +O'mie's irrepressible smile spread over his face. "All about me? I +didn't give him credit for that much insight." + +"I'm not joking, and you must listen to me. I want to know why you tag +after me every place I go. No gentleman would do that." + +"Maybe not, nor a lady nather," O'mie interposed. + +Lettie's face burned angrily. + +"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a +dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do." + +She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little +knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies +have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a +monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the +sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The +twinkle in his eye only angered her the more. + +"Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've +fixed her. You two have always been against me, I know. I've heard what +you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody +away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and +her mother." + +"Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but +all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said, +leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you +please--Lord, it couldn't hurt me--but you, nor nobody else, man or +woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in +controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by +any evil names. If you've come here to settle me, settle away, and when +you get through my turn's comin' to settle; but if you say another word +against Marjie or any other woman, by the holy Joe Spooner, and all the +other saints, you'll walk right out that door, or I'll throw you out as +I'd do anybody else in the same case, no matter if they was masculine, +feminine, or neuter gender. Now you understand me. If you have anything +more to say, say it quick." + +Lettie was furious now, but the Conlow blood is not courageous, and she +only ground her teeth and muttered: "Always the same. Nobody dares to +say a word against her. What makes some folks so precious, I wonder? +There's Phil Baronet, now,--the biggest swindle in this town. Oh, I +could tell you a lot about him. I'll do it some day, too. It'll take +more money to keep me still than Baronet's bank notes." + +"Lettie," said O'mie in an even voice, "I'm waitin' here to be settled." + +"Then let me alone. I'm not goin' to be forever tracked 'round like a +thief. I'll fix you so you'll keep still. Who are you, anyhow? A nobody, +poor as sin, living off of this town all these years; never knowing who +your father nor mother is, nor nobody to care for you; the very trash of +the earth, somebody's doorstep foundling, to set yourself up over me! +You'd ought to 'a been run out of town long ago." + +"I was, back in '63, an' half the town came after me, had to drag me +back with ropes, they was so zealous to get me. I wasn't worth it, all +the love and kindness the town's give me. Now, Lettie, what else?" + +"Nothing except this. After what Dr. Hemingway said last night +Springvale's gone crazy about Phil again. Just crazy, and he's sure to +come back here. If he does"--she broke off a moment--"well, you know +what you've been up to for four months, trackin' me, and tellin' things +you don't know. Are you goin' to quit it? That's all." + +"The evidence bein' in an' the plaintiff restin'," O'mie said gravely, +"it's time for the defence in the case to begin. + +"You saved me a trip, my lady, for I was comin' over this very evenin' +to settle with you. But never mind, we can do it now. Judson's havin' +one of his M. E. quarterly conferences up at the Whately house and we +are free to talk this out. You say I'm a contemptible spy. Lettie, we're +a pair of 'em, so we'll lave off the adjective or adverb, which ever it +is, that does that for names of 'persons, places, and things that can be +known or mentioned.' Some of 'em that can be known, can't aven be +mentioned, though. Where were you, Lettie, whin I was spyin' and what +were you doin' at the time yoursilf?" + +"I guess I had a right to be there. It's a free country, and it was my +own business, not somebody else's," the girl retorted angrily, as the +situation dawned on her. + +"Exactly," O'mie went on. "It's a free country and we both have a right +to tend to our own business. Nobody has a right to tend to a business +of sin and evil-doin' toward his neighbor, though, my girl. If I've +tagged you and spied, and played the dirty coward, and ain't no +gintleman, it was to save a good name, and to keep from exposure a +name--maybe it's a girl's, none too good, I'm afraid--but it would niver +come to the gossips through me. You know that." + +Lettie did know it. O'mie and she had made mud pies together in the days +when they still talked in baby words. It was because he was true and +kind, because he was a friend to every man, woman, and child there, that +Springvale loves his memory to-day. + +"Second, I wish to Heaven I could make things right, but I can't. I wish +you could, but some of 'em you won't and, Lettie, some of 'em you can't +now. + +"Third, you've heard what I said about you. Why, child, I've said the +worst to you. No words comin' straight nor crooked to you, have I said +of you I'd not say to yoursilf, face to face. + +"And again now, girlie, you've talked plain here; came pretty near +callin' me names, in fact. I can stand it, and I guess I deserve some of +'em. I am something of a rascal, and a consummate liar, I admit; but +when you talk about a lot of scandal up your sleeve, more 'n bank notes +can pay by blackmail, and your chance of fixin' Phil Baronet's +character, Lettie, you just can't do it. You are too mad to be anything +but foolish to-day, but I'm glad you did come to me; it may save more 'n +Phil's name. Your own is in the worst jeopardy right now. You said, in +conclusion, that I was trackin' you, and you ask, am I goin' to quit it? +The defendant admits the charge, pleads guilty on that count, and throws +himself on the mercy av the coort. But as to the question, am I goin' to +quit it, I answer yes. Whin? Whin there's no more need fur it, and not +one minute sooner. I may be the very trash av the earth, with no father +nor mother nor annybody to care for me" (I can see, even now, the +pathetic look that came sometimes into his laughing gray eyes. It must +have been in them at that moment); "but I have sometimes been 'round +when things I could do needed doin', and I'm goin' to be prisent now, +and in the future, to put my hand up against wrong-doin' if I can." +O'mie paused, while that little dry cough that brought a red spot to +each cheek had its way. + +"Now, Lettie, you've had your say with me, and your mind's relieved. +It's my time to say a few things, and you must listen." + +Lettie sat looking at the floor. + +"I don't know why I have to listen," she spoke defiantly. + +"Nor do I know why I had to listen to what you said. You don't need to, +but I would if I was you. It may be all the better for you in a year if +you do. You spake av bein' tagged wherever you go. Who begun it? I'll +tell you. Back in the summer one day, two people drove out to the stone +cabin, the haunted one, by the river in the draw below the big +cottonwood. Somebody made his home there, somebody who didn't dare to +show his face in Springvale by day, 'cause his hand's been lifted to +murder his fellow man. But he hangs 'round here, skulkin' in by night to +see the men he does business with, and meetin' foolish girls who ought +never to trust him a minute. This man's waiting his chance to commit +murder again, or worse. I know, fur I've laid fur him too many times. +There's no cruel-hearted savage on the Plains more dangerous to the +settlers on the frontier; not one av 'em 'ud burn a house, and kill men +and children, and torture and carry off women, quicker than this +miserable dog that a girl who should value her good name has been +counsellin' with time and again, this summer, partly on account of +jealousy, and partly because of a silly notion of bein' romantic. Back +in June she made a trip to the cabin double quick to warn the varmint +roostin' there. In her haste she dropped a bow of purple ribbon which +with some other finery a certain little store-keeper gives her to do his +spyin' fur him. It's a blamed lovely cabal in this town. I know 'em all +by name. + +"Spakin' of bein' paupers and bein' kept by Judson, Lettie--who is +payin' the wages of sin, in money and fine clothes, right now? It's on +the books, and I kape the books. But, my dear girl,"--O'mie looked +straight into her black eyes--"they's books bein' kept of the purpose, +price av the goods, and money. And you and him may answer for that. I +can swear in coort only to what Judson spends on you; you know what +for." + +Lettie cowered down before her inquisitor, and her anger was mingled +with fear and shame. + +"This purple bow was found, identified. Aven Uncle Cam, short-sighted as +he is, remembered who wore it that day; aven see her gallopin' into town +and noticed she'd lost it. This same girl hung around the cliff till she +found a secret place where two people put their letters. She comes in +here and tells me I've no business taggin' her. What business had she +robbin' folks of letters, stealin' 'em out, and givin' 'em into wicked +hands? Lettie, you know whose letter you took when you could reach far +enough to git it out, and you know where you put it. + +"You said you could ruin Phil. It's aisy for a woman to do that, I +admit. No matter how hard the church may be on 'em, and how much other +women may cut 'em dead for doin' wrong things, a woman can go into a +coort-room and swear a man's character away, an' the jury'll give her +judgment every time. The law's a lot aisier with the women than the +crowd you associate with is." O'mie's speech was broken off by his +cough. + +"Now to review this case a bit. The night av the Anderson's party you +tried to get the letter Marjie'd put up for Phil. You didn't do it." + +"I never tried," Lettie declared. + +"How come the rid flowers stuck with the little burrs on your dress? +They don't grow anywhere round here only on that cliff side. I pulled +off one bunch, and I saw Phil pull off another when your skirts caught +on a nail in the door. But I saw more 'n that. I stood beside you when +you tried to get the letter, and I heard you tell Judson you had failed. +I can't help my ears; the Almighty made 'em to hear with, and as you've +said, I am a contemptible spy. + +"You have given hints, mean ugly little hints, of what you could tell +about Phil on that night. He took you home, as he was asked to do. But +what took you to the top of the cliff at midnight? It was to meet Jean +Pahusca, the dog the gallows is yappin' for now. You waited while he +tried to kill Phil. He'd done it, too, if Phil hadn't been too strong to +be killed by such as him. And then you and Jean were on your way out to +his cabin whin the boys found you. You know Bill and Bud was goin' to +Red Range, that night in the carriage when they overtook you. It was +moonlight, you remember; and ridin' on the back seat was Cris Mead, +silent as he always is, but he heard every word that was said. Bud come +all the way back with you to keep your good name a little while longer; +took chances on his own to save a girl's. It's Phil Baronet put that +kind of loyalty into the boys av this town. No wonder they love him. +Bud's affidavit's on file ready, when needed; and Bill is here to +testify; and Cris Mead's name's good on paper, or in coort, or prayer +meetin'. Lettie, you have sold yourself to two of the worst men ever set +foot in this town." + +"Amos Judson is my best friend; I'll tell him you said he's one of the +two worst men in this town," Lettie cried. + +"It's a waste av time; he knows it himself. Now, a girl who visits in +lonely cabins at dead hours av the night, with men she knows is +dangerous, oughtn't to ask why some folks are so precious. It's because +they keep their bodies and souls sacred before Almighty God, and don't +sell aither. You've accused me of tryin' to protect Phil, and of keepin' +Marjie's name out of everything, and that I've been spyin' on you. Good +God! Lettie, it's to keep you more 'n them. I was out after my own +business, after things other folks ought to a' looked after and didn't, +things strictly belongin' to me, whin I run across you everywhere, and +see your wicked plan to ruin good names and break hearts and get money +by blackmail. Lettie, it's not too late to turn back now. You've done +wrong; we all do. But, little girl, we've knowed each other since the +days I used to tie your apron strings when your short little fat arms +couldn't reach to tie 'em, and I know you now. What have you done with +Marjie's letter that you stole before it got to Phil?" His voice was +kind, even tender. + +"I'll never tell you!" Lettie blazed up like a fire brand. + +"Aren't you willing to right the wrongs you've done, and save yourself, +too?" His voice did not change. + +"I'm going to leave here when I get ready. I'm going away, but not till +I am ready, and--" She had almost yielded, but evil desire is a strong +master. The spirit of her low-browed father gained control again, and +she raised a stormy face to him who would have befriended her. "I'm +going to do what I please, and go where I please; and I'll fix some +precious saints so they'll never want to come back to this town; and +some others'll wish they could leave it." + +"All right, then," O'mie replied, as Lettie flung herself out of the +door, "if you find me among those prisent when you turn some corner +suddenly don't be surprised. I wonder," he went on, "who got that letter +the last night the miserable Melrose girl was here, or the night after. +I wonder how she could reach it when she couldn't get the other one. +Maybe the hole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who +knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her +thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the +mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good +and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added +seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now." + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK + + And yet I know past all doubting truly, + A knowledge greater than grief can dim, + I know as he loved, he will love me duly, + Yea, better, e'en better, than I love him. + + --JEAN INGELOW. + + +While O'mie and Lettie were acting out their little drama in the store +that afternoon, Judson was up in Mrs. Whately's parlor driving home +matters of business with a hasty and masterful hand. Marjie had slipped +away at his coming, and for the second time since I had left Springvale +she took the steep way up to our "Rockport." Had she known what was +going on at home she might have stayed there in spite of her prejudices. + +"It's just this way, Mrs. Whately," Judson declared, when he had +formally opened the conference, "it's just this way. With all my efforts +in your behalf, your business interest in the store has been eaten up by +your expenditures. Of course I know you have always lived up to a +certain kind of style whether you had the money or not; and I can +understand, bein' a commercialist, how easy those things go. But that +don't alter the fact that you'll have no more income from the store in a +very few months. I'm planning extensive changes in the Winter for next +Spring, and it'll take all the income. Do you see now?" + +"Partly," Mrs. Whately replied faintly. + +She was a sweet-spirited, gentle woman. She had been reared in a home of +luxury. Her own home had been guarded by a noble, loving husband, and +her powers of resource had never been called out. Of all the women I +have ever known, she was least fitted to match her sense of honor, her +faith in mankind, and her inexperience and lack of business knowledge +against such an unprincipled, avaricious man as the one who domineered +over her affairs. + +Judson had been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened +circumstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he +became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is +poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's +character and leads an erring nature into consummate villainy. + +"Well, now, if you can see what I'm tellin' you, that you are just about +penniless (you will be in a few months; that's it, you will be soon), +then you can see how magnanimous a man can be, even a busy merchant, +a--a commercialist, if I must use the word again. You'll not only be +poor with nobody to support you, but you'll be worse, my dear woman, +you'll be disgraced. That's it, just disgraced. I've kept stavin' it off +for you, but it's comin'--ugly disgrace for you and Marjory." + +Mrs. Whately looked steadily at him with a face so blanched with grief +only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have gone on. + +"I've been gettin' you ready for this for months, have laid my plans +carefully, and I've been gradually puttin' the warnin' of it in your +mind." + +This was true. Judson had been most skilfully paving the way, else Mrs. +Whately would not have had that troubled face and burdened spirit after +each conference. The intimation of disaster had grown gradually to +dreaded expectation with her. + +"Do tell me what it is, Amos. Anything is better than this suspense. +I'll do anything to save Marjie from disgrace." + +"Now, that's what I've been a-waitin' for. Just a-waitin' till you was +ready to say you'd do what's got to be done anyhow. Well, it's this. +Whately, your deceased first husband"--Judson always used the numeral +when speaking of a married man or woman who had passed away--"Whately, +he made a will before he went to the war. Judge Baronet drawed it up, +and I witnessed it. Now that will listed and disposed of an amount of +property, enough to keep you and Marjie in finery long as you lived. +That will and some other valuable papers was lost durin' the war (some +says just when they was taken, but they don't know), and can't nowhere +be found. Havin' entire care of the business in his absence, and bein' +obliged to assoom control on his said demise at Chattanoogy, I naturally +found out all about his affairs. To be short, Mrs. Whately, he never had +the property he said he had. Nobody could find the money. There was an +awful shortage. You can't understand, but in a word, he was a disgraced, +dishonest man--a thief--that's it." + +Mrs. Whately buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud. + +"Now, Mrs. Whately, you mustn't take on and you must forget the past. +It's the present day we're livin' in, and the future that's a-comin'. +Nobody can control what's comin', but me." He rose up to his five feet +and three inches, and swelled to the extent of his power. "Me." He +tapped his small chest. "I'll come straight to the end of this thing. +Phil Baronet's been quite a friend here, quite a friend. I've explained +to you all about him. Now you know he's left town to keep from bein' +mixed up in some things. They's some business of his father's he was +runnin' crooked. You know they say, I heard it out at Fingal's Creek, +that he left here on account of a girl he wanted to get rid of. And if +they'd talk that way about one girl, they'll say Marjie was doin' wrong +to go with him. You've all been friends of the Baronets. I never could +see why; but now--well, you know Phil left. Now, it rests with me"--more +tapping on that little quart-measure chest--"with me to keep things +quiet and save his name from further talk, and save Marjie, too. Many a +man, a business man, now, wouldn't have done as I'm doin'. I'll marry +Marjie. That saves you from poverty. It saves Irving Whately's name from +lastin' disgrace, and it saves Baronet's boy. I can control the men +that's against Baronet, in the business matter--some land case--and I +know the girl that the talk's all about; and it saves Marjory's name +bein' mixed up with this boy of Judge Baronet's." + +Had Judson been before Aunt Candace, she would have thrust him from the +door with one lifting of her strong, shapely hand. Dollie Gentry would +have cracked his head with her rolling pin before she let him go. Cris +Mead's wife would have chased him clear to the Neosho; she was Bill +Mead's own mother when it came to whooping things; but poor, gentle Mrs. +Whately sat dumb and dazed in a grief-stricken silence. + +"Give me your consent, and the thing's done. Marjie's only twenty. +She'll come to me for safety soon as she knows what you do. She'll have +to, to save them that's dearest to her. You and her father and her +friendship for the Baronets ought to do somethin'; besides, Marjie needs +somebody to look after her. She's a pretty girl and everybody runs after +her. She'd be spoiled. And she's fond of me, always was fond of me. I +don't know what it is about some men makes girls act so; but now, +there's Lettie Conlow, she's just real fond of me." (Oh, the popinjay!) +"You'll say yes, and say it now." There was a ring of authority in his +last words, to which Mrs. Whately had insensibly come to yield. + +She sat for a long time trying to see a way out of all this tangled web +of her days. At last, she said slowly: "Marjie isn't twenty-one, but +she's old for her years. I won't command her. If she will consent, so +will I, and I'll do all I can." + +Judson was jubilant. He clapped his hands and giggled hysterically. + +"Good enough, good enough! I'll let it be quietly understood we are +engaged, and I'll manage the rest. You must use all the influence you +can with her. Leave nothing undid that you can do. Oh, joy! You'll +excuse my pleasure, Mrs. Whately. The prize is as good as mine right +now, though it may take a few months even to get it all completely +settled. I'll go slow and quiet and careful. But I've won." + +Could Mrs. Whately have seen clear into the man's cruel, cunning little +mind, she would have been unutterably shocked at the ugly motives +contending there. But she couldn't see. She was made for sunshine and +quiet ways. She could never fathom the gloom. It was from her father +that Marjie inherited all that strong will and courage and power to walk +as bravely in the shadows as in the light, trusting and surefooted +always. + +Judson waited only until some minor affairs had been considered, and +then he rose to go. + +"I'm so sure of the outcome now," he said gleefully, "I'll put a crimp +in some stories right away; and I'll just let it be known quietly at +once that the matter's settled, then Marjie can't change it," he added +mentally. "And you're to use all your influence. Good-evening, my dear +Mrs. W. It'll soon be another name I may have for you." + +Meanwhile, Marjie sat up on "Rockport," looking out over the landscape, +wrapped in the autumn peace. Every inch of the cliff-side was sacred to +her. The remembrance of happy childhood and the sweet and tender +memories of love's young dream had hallowed all the ground and made the +view of the whole valley a part of the life of the days gone by. The +woodland along the Neosho was yellow and bronze and purple in the +afternoon sunshine, the waters swept along by verdant banks, for the +fall rains had given life to the brown grasses of August. Far up the +river, the shapely old cottonwood stood in the pride of its autumn gold, +outlined against a clear blue sky, while all the prairie lay in seas of +golden haze about it. On the gray, jagged rocks of the cliff, the +blood-red leaves of the vines made a rich warmth of color. + +For a long time Marjie sat looking out over the valley. Its beauty +appealed to her now as it had done in the gladsome days, only the appeal +touched other depths of her nature and fitted her sadder mood. At last +the thought of what might have been filled her eyes with tears. + +"I'll go down to our post-office, as O'mie suggested," she declared to +herself. "Oh, anything to break away from this hungry longing for what +can never be!" + +The little hidden cleft was vine-covered now, and the scarlet leaves +clung in a lacework about the gray stone under which the crevice ran +back clean and dry for an arm's length. It was a reflex action, and not +a choice of will, that led Marjie to thrust her hand in as she had done +so often before. Only cold stone received her touch. She recalled +O'mie's picture of Lettie, short-necked, stubby Lettie, down there in +the dark trying to stretch her fat arm to the limit of the crevice, and +as she thought, Marjie slipped her own arm to its full length, down the +cleft. Something touched her hand. She turned it in her fingers. It was +paper--a letter--and she drew it out. A letter--my letter--the long, +loving message I had penned to her on the night of the party at +Anderson's. Clear and white, as when I put it there that moonlit +midsummer night, when I thrust it in too far for my little girl to find +without an effort. + +Marjie carried it up to "Rockport" and sat down. She had no notion of +when it was put there. She only knew it was from my pen. + +"It's his good-bye for old times' sake," she mused. + +And then she read it, slowly at first, as one would drink a last cup of +water on the edge of a desert, for this was a voice from the old happy +life she had put all away now. I had done better than I dreamed of doing +in that writing. Here was Rachel Melrose set in her true light, the +possibility of a visit, and the possibility of her words and actions, +just as direct as a prophecy of what had really happened. Oh! it cleared +away every reason for doubt. Even the Rockport of Rachel's rapturous +memory, I declared I detested because only our "Rockport" meant anything +to me. And then she read of her father's dying message. It was the first +time she had known of that, and the letter in her trembling hands pulsed +visibly with her strong heart-throbs. Then came the closing words: + +"Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know now and +always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or shadow-checkered +paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other than as I do now. You are +life of my life; and so again, good-night." + +The sun was getting low in the west when Marjie with shining face came +slowly down Cliff Street toward her home. Near the gate she met my +father. His keen eyes caught something of the Marjie he had loved to +see. Something must have happened, he knew, and his heartbeats quickened +at the thought. Down the street he had met Judson with head erect +walking with a cocksure step. + +The next day the word was brought directly to him that Amos Judson and +Marjory Whately were engaged to be married. + + * * * * * + +In George Eliot's story of "The Mill on the Floss," the author gives to +one chapter the title, "How a Hen Takes to Stratagem." The two cases are +not parallel; and yet I always think of this chapter-heading when I +recall what followed Amos Judson's admonition to Mrs. Whately, to use +her influence in his behalf. When Marjie's mother had had time to +think over what had come about, her conscience upbraided her. Away +from the little widower and with Marjie innocent of all the +trouble--free-spirited, self-dependent Marjie--the question of influence +did not seem so easy. And yet, she knew Amos Judson well enough to know +that he was already far along in fulfilling his plans for the future. +For once in her life Mrs. Whately resolved to act on her own judgment, +and to show that she had been true to her promise to use all her +influence. + +"Daughter, Judge Baronet wants to see you this afternoon. I'm going down +to his office now on a little matter of business. Will you go over and +see how Mary Gentry's arm is, and come up to the courthouse in about +half an hour?" + +Mrs. Whately's face was beaming, for she felt somehow that my father +could help her out of any tangle, and if he should advise Marjie to +this step, it would surely be the right thing for her to do. + +"All right, mother, I'll be there," Marjie answered. + +The hours since she found that precious letter had been alternately full +of joy and sadness. There was no question in her mind about the message +in the letter. But now that she was the wrong-doer in her own +estimation, she did not spare herself. She had driven me away. She had +refused to hear any explanation from me, she had returned my last note +unopened. Oh, she deserved all that had come to her. And bitterest of +all was the thought that her own letter that should have righted +everything with me, I must have taken from the rock. How could I ever +care for a girl so mean-spirited and cruel as she had been to me? Lettie +couldn't get letters out, O'mie had said; and in the face of what she +had written, she had still refused to see me, had shown how +jealous-hearted and narrow-minded she could be. What could I do but +leave town? So ran the little girl's sad thoughts; and then hope had its +way again, for hers was always a sunny spirit. + +"I can only wait and see what will come. Phil is proud and strong, and +everybody loves him. He will make new friends and forget me." + +And then the words of my letter, "In sunny ways, or shadow-checkered +paths, I cannot think of you other than as I do now. You are life of my +life," she read over and over. And so with shining eyes and a buoyant +step, she went to do her mother's bidding that afternoon. + +Judge Baronet had had a hard day. Coupled with unusual business cares +was the story being quietly circulated regarding Judson's engagement. He +had not thought how much his son's happiness could mean to him. + +"And yet, I let him go to discipline him. Oh, we are never wise enough +to be fathers. It is only a mother who can understand," and the memory +of the woman glorified to him now, the one love of all his years, came +back to him. + +It was in this mood that Mrs. Whately found him. + +"Judge Baronet, I've come to get you to help me." She went straight to +her errand as soon as she was seated in the private office. "Marjie will +be here soon, and I want you to counsel her to do what I've promised to +help to bring about. She loves you next to her own father, and you can +have great influence with her." + +And then directly and frankly came the whole story of Judson's plan. +Mrs. Whately did not try to keep anything back, not even the effort to +shield my reputation, and she ended with the assurance that it must be +best for everybody for this wedding to take place, and Amos Judson hoped +it might be soon to save Irving's name. + +"I've not seen Marjie so happy in weeks as she was last night," she +added. "You know Mr. Tillhurst has been paying her so much attention +this Fall, and so has Clayton Anderson. And Amos has been going to +Conlow's to see Lettie quite frequently lately. I guess maybe that has +helped to bring Marjie around a little, when she found he could go with +others. It's the way with a girl, you know. You'll do what you can to +make Marjie see the right if she seems unwilling to do what I've agreed +she may do. For after all," Mrs. Whately said thoughtfully, "I can't +feel sure she's willing, because she never did encourage Amos any. But +you'll promise, won't you, for the sake of my husband? Oh, could he do +wrong! I don't believe he did, but he can't defend himself now, and I +must protect Marjie's name from any dishonor." + +It was a hard moment for the man before her, the keen discriminating +intelligent master of human nature. The picture of the battle field at +Missionary Ridge came before his eyes, the rush and roar of the conflict +was in his ears, and Irving Whately was dying there. "I hope they will +love each other. If they do, give them my blessing." Clearly came the +words again as they sounded on that day. And here was Irving Whately's +wife, Marjie's mother, in the innocence of her soul, asking that he +should help to give his friend's daughter to a man whom he was about to +call to judgment for heinous offences. And maybe,--oh, God forbid +it,--maybe the girl herself was not unwilling, since it was meant for +the family's welfare. What else could that look on her face last night +have meant? Oh, he had been a foolish father, over-fond, maybe, of a +foolish boy; but somehow he had hoped that sweet smile and the light in +Marjie's eyes might have meant word from Fort Wallace. What he might +have said to the mother, he never knew, for Marjie herself came in at +that moment, and Mrs. Whately took her leave at once. + +Marjie was never so fair and womanly as now. The brisk walk in the +October air had put a pink bloom on her cheeks. Her hair lay in soft +fluffy little waves about her head, and her big brown eyes, clear honest +eyes, were full of a radiant light. My father brought my face and form +back to her as he always did, and the last hand-clasp in that very room, +the last glance from eyes full of love; and the memory was sweet to her. + +"Mother said you wanted to see me," she said, "so I came in." + +My father put her in his big easy-chair and sat down near her. His back +was toward the window, and his face was shadowed, while his visitor's +face was full in the light. + +"Yes, Marjie, your mother has asked me to talk with you." I wonder at +the man's self-control. "She is planning, or consenting to plans for +your future, and she wants me to tell you I approve them. You seem very +happy to-day." + +A blush swept over the girl's face, and then the blood ebbed back +leaving it white as marble. Men may abound in wisdom, but the wisest of +them may not always interpret the swift bloom that lights the face of a +girl and fades away as swiftly as it comes. + +"She is consenting," my father assumed. + +"If you are satisfied with the present arrangement, I do not need to say +anything. I do not want to, anyhow. I only do it for the sake of your +mother, for the sake of the wife of my best friend. For his sake too, +God bless his memory!" + +Marjie's confusion deepened. The words of my letter telling of her +father's wishes were burning in her brain. With the thought of them, +this hesitancy on the part of Judge Baronet brought a chill that made +her shiver. Could it be that her mother was trying to influence my +father in her favor? Her good judgment and the knowledge of her mother's +sense of propriety forbade that. So she only murmured, + +"I don't understand. I have no plans. I would do anything for my father, +I don't know why I should be called to say anything," and then she broke +down entirely and sat white and still with downcast eyes, her two +shapely little hands clenched together. + +"Marjie, this is very embarrassing for me," my father said kindly, "and +as I say, it is only for Irving's sake I speak at all. If you feel you +can manage your own affairs, it is not right for anybody to interfere," +how tender his tones were, "but, my dear girl, maybe years and +experience can give me the right to say a word or two for the sake of +the friendship that has always been between us, a friendship future +relations will of necessity limit to a degree. But if you have your +plans all settled, I wish to know it. It will change the whole course of +some proceedings I have been preparing ever since the war; and I want to +know, too, this much for the sake of the man who died in my arms. I want +to know if you are perfectly satisfied to accept the life now opening to +you." + +Marjie had seen my father every day since I left home. Every day he had +spoken to her, and a silent sort of parental and filial love had grown +up between the two. The sudden break in it had come to both now. + +Women also may abound in wisdom but the wisest of them may not always +interpret correctly. + +"He had planned for Phil to marry Rachel, had sent him East on purpose. +He was so polite to her when she was here. I have broken up his plans +and his friendship is to be limited." So ran the girl's thoughts. "But I +have no plans. I don't know what he means. Nothing new is opening to +me." + +A new phase of womanhood began suddenly for her, a call for +self-dependence, for a judgment of her own, not the acceptance of +events. When she spoke again, her sweet voice had a clear ring in it +that startled the man before her. + +"Judge Baronet, I do not know what you are talking about. I do not know +of any plans for the future. I do not know what mother said to you. If I +am concerned in the plans you speak of, I have a right to know what they +are. If you are asked to approve of my doing, I certainly ought to know +of what you mean to approve." + +She had risen from her chair and was standing before him. Oh, she was +pretty, and with this grace of womanly self-control, her beauty and her +dignity combined into a new charm. + +"Sit down, Marjie," my father said in kind command. "You know the +purpose of Amos Judson's visit with your mother yesterday?" + +"Business, I suppose," Marjie answered carelessly, "I am not admitted to +these conferences." She smiled. "You know I wanted to talk with you +about some business affairs some time ago, but--" + +"Yes, I know, I understand," my father assured her. They both remembered +only too well what had happened in that room on her last visit. For she +had not been inside of the courthouse since the day of Rachel's sudden +appearance there. + +"Judge Baronet thinks I have nothing to bring Phil. I've heard +everywhere how Phil wants a rich wife, and yet the Baronets have more +property than anybody else here." So Marjie concluded mentally and then +she asked innocently: + +"How can Amos Judson's visit make this call here necessary?" + +At last the light broke in. "She doesn't know anything yet, that's +certain. But, by heavens, she must know. It's her right to know," my +father thought. + +"Marjie, your mother, in the goodness of her heart, and because of some +sad and bitter circumstances, came here to-day to ask me to talk with +you. I do this for her sake. You must not misunderstand me." He laid his +hand a moment on her arm, lying on the table. + +And then he told her all that her mother had told to him. Told it +without comment or coloring, sparing neither Phil, nor himself nor her +father in the recital. If ever a story was correctly reported in word +and spirit, this one was. + +"She shall have Judson's side straight from me first, and we'll depend +on events for further statement," he declared to himself. + +"Now, little girl, I'm asked to urge you for your own good name, for +your mother's maintenance, and your own, for the sake of that boy of +mine, and for my own good, as well, and most of all for the sake of your +father's memory, revered here as no other man who ever lived in +Springvale--for all these reasons, I'm asked to urge you to take this +man for your husband." + +He was standing before her now, strong, dignified, handsome, courteous. +Nature's moulds hold not many such as he. Before him rose up Marjie. Her +cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and lay over the arm of her chair. +Looking steadily into his face with eyes that never wavered in their +gaze, she replied: + +"I may be poor, but I can work for mother and myself. I'm not afraid to +work. You and your son may have done wrong. If you have, I cannot cover +it by any act of mine, not even if I died for you. I don't believe you +have done wrong. I do not believe one word of the stories about Phil. He +may want to marry a rich girl," her voice wavered here, "but that is his +choice; it is no sin. And as to protecting my father's name, Judge +Baronet, it needs no protection. Before Heaven, he never did a dishonest +thing in all his life. There has been a tangling of his affairs by +somebody, but that does not change the truth. The surest way to bring +dishonor to his name is for me to marry a man I do not and could not +love; a man I believe to be dishonest in money matters, and false to +everybody. It is no disgrace to work for a living here in Kansas. Better +girls than I am do it. But it is a disgrace here and through all +eternity to sell my soul. As I hope to see my father again, I believe he +would not welcome me to him if I did. Good and just as you are, you are +using your influence all in vain on me." + +Judge Baronet felt his soul expand with every word she uttered. Passing +round the table, he took both her cold hands in his strong, warm palms. + +"My daughter," neither he nor the girl misunderstood the use of the word +here, "my dear, dear girl, you are worthy of the man who gave up his +life on Missionary Ridge to save his country. God bless you for the +true-hearted, noble woman that you are." He gently stroked the curly +brown locks away from her forehead, and stooping kissed it, softly, as +he would kiss the brow of a saint. + +Marjie sank down in her seat, and as she did so my letter fell from the +pocket of the cloak she had thrown aside. As Judge Baronet stooped to +pick it up, he caught sight of my well-known handwriting on the +envelope. He looked up quickly and their eyes met. The wild roses were +in her cheeks now, and the dew of teardrops on her downcast lashes. He +said not a word, but laid the letter face downward in her lap. She put +it in her pocket and rose to go. + +"If you need me, Marjie, I have a force to turn loose against your +enemies, and ours. And you will need me. As a man in this community I +can assure you of that. You never needed friends as you will in the days +before you now. I am ready at your call. And let me assure you also, +that in the final outcome, there is nothing to fear. Good-bye." + +He looked down into her upturned face. Something neither would have put +into words came to both, and the same picture came before each mind. It +was the picture of a young soldier out at Fort Wallace, gathering back +the strength the crucial test of a Plains campaign had cost him. + +"There'll be the devil to pay," my father said to himself, as he watched +Marjie passing down the leaf-strewn walk, "but not a hair of her head +shall suffer. When the time comes, I'll send for Judson, as I promised +to do." + +And Marjie, holding the letter in her hand thrust deep in her cloak +pocket, felt strength and hope and courage pulsing in her veins, and a +peace that she had not known for many days came with its blessing to her +troubled soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CALL TO SERVICE + + We go to rear a wall of men on Freedom's Southern line, + And plant beside the cotton-tree the rugged Northern pine! + + --WHITTIER. + + +"Phil Baronet, you thon of a horthe-thief, where have you been keeping +yourthelf? We've been waiting here thinthe Thummer before latht to meet +you." + +That was Bud Anderson's greeting. Pink-cheeked, sturdy, and stubby as a +five-year-old, he was standing in my path as I slipped from my horse in +front of old Fort Hays one October day a fortnight after the rescue of +Colonel Forsyth's little company. + +"Bud, you tow-headed infant, how the dickens and tomhill did you manage +to break into good society out here?" I cried, as we clinched in each +other's arms, for Bud's appearance was food to my homesick hunger. + +"When you git through, I'm nixt into the barber's chair." + +I had not noticed O'mie leaning against a post beside the way, until +that Irish brogue announced him. + +"Why, boys, what's all this delegation mean?" + +"Aw," O'mie drawled. "You've been elected to Congress and we're the +proud committy av citizens in civilians' clothes, come to inform you av +your elevation." + +"You mean you've come to get first promise of an office under me. +Sorry, but I know you too well to jeopardize the interest of the +Republican party and the good name of Kansas by any rash promises. It's +dinner time, and I'm hungry. I don't believe I'll ever get enough to eat +again." + +Oh, it was good to see them, albeit our separation had amounted to +hardly sixty days. Bud had been waiting for me almost a week; and O'mie, +to Bud's surprise, had come upon him unannounced that morning. The +dining-room was crowded; and as soon as dinner was over we went outside +and sat down together where we could visit our fill unmolested. They +wanted to know about my doings, but I was too eager to hear all the home +news to talk of myself. + +"Everybody all right when I left," Bud asserted. "I got off a few dayth +before thith mitherable thon of Erin. Didn't know he'd tag me, or I'd +have gone to Canada." He gave O'mie an affectionate slap on the shoulder +as he spoke. + +"Your father and Aunt Candace are well, and glad you came out of the +campaign you've been makin' a record av unfadin' glory in. Judge Baronet +was the last man I saw when I left town," O'mie said. + +"Why, where was Uncle Cam?" I asked. + +"Oh, pretendin' to be busy somewheres. Awful busy man, that Cam Gentry." +O'mie smiled at the remembrance. He knew why tender-hearted Cam had fled +from a good-bye scene. "Dave Mead's goin' to start to California in a +few days." He rattled on, "The church supper in October was the biggest +they've had yet. Dever's got a boil on the back of his neck, and Jim +Conlow's drivin' stage for him. Jim had a good job in Topeka, but come +back to Springvale. Can't keep the Conlows corralled anywhere else. +Everybody else is doing fine except Grandma Mead. She's failin'. Old +town looked pretty good to me when I looked back at it from the east +bluff of the Neosho." + +It had looked good to each one of us at the same place when each started +out to try the West alone. Somehow we did not care to talk, for a few +minutes. + +"What brought you out here, Bud?" I asked to break the spell. + +"Oh, three or four thingth. I wanted to thee you," Bud answered. "You +never paid me that fifteen thenth you borrowed before you went to +college." + +"And then," he continued, "the old town on the Neosho'th too thmall for +me. Our family ith related to the Daniel Boone tribe of Indianth, and +can't have too big a crowd around. Three children of the family are at +home, and I wanted to come out here anyhow. I'd like to live alwayth on +the Plainth and have a quiet grave at the end of the trail where the +wind blowth thteady over me day after day." + +We were lounging against the side of the low building now in the warm +afternoon sunshine, and Bud's eyes were gazing absently out across the +wide Plains. Although I had been away from home only two months, I felt +twenty years older than this fair-haired, chubby boy, sitting there so +full of blooming life and vigor. I shivered at the picture his words +suggested. + +"Don't joke, Bud. There's a grave at the end of most of the trails out +here. The trails aren't very long, some of 'em. The wind sweeps over 'em +lonely and sad day after day. They're quiet enough, Heaven knows. The +wrangle and noise are all on the edge of 'em, just as you're getting +ready to get in." + +"I'm not joking, Phil. All my life I have wanted to get out here. It'th +a fever in the blood." + +We talked a while of the frontier, of the chances of war, and of the +Indian raids with their trail of destruction, death, torture and +captivity of unspeakable horror. + +The closing years of the decade of the sixties in American history saw +the closing events of the long and bitter, but hopeless struggle of a +savage race against a superior civilized force. From the southern bound +of British America to the northern bound of old Mexico the Plains +warfare was waged. + +The Western tribes, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe, and Kiowa, and Brule, and +Sioux and Comanche were forced to quarter themselves on their +reservations again and again with rations and clothing and equipments +for all their needs. With fair, soft promises in return from their chief +men these tribes settled purringly in their allotted places. Through +each fall and winter season they were "good Indians," wards of the +nation; their "untutored mind saw God in clouds, or heard him in the +wind." + +Eastern churches had an "Indian fund" in their contribution boxes, and +very pathetic and beautifully idyllic was the story the sentimentalists +told, the story of the Indian as he looked in books and spoke on paper. +But the Plains had another record, and the light called History is +pitiless. When the last true story is written out, it has no favoring +shadows for sentimentalists who feel more than they know. + +Each Winter the "good Indians" were mild and gentle. But with the warmth +of Spring and the fruitfulness of summer, with the green grasses of the +Plains for their ponies, with wild game in the open, and the labor of +the industrious settler of the unprotected frontier as a stake for the +effort, the "good Indian" came forth from his reservation. Like the +rattlesnake from its crevice, he uncoiled in the warm sunshine, grew +and flourished on what lay in his pathway, and full of deadly venom he +made a trail of terror and death. + +This sort of thing went on year after year until, in the late Summer of +1868, the crimes of the savages culminated in those terrible raids +through western Kansas, whose full particulars even the official war +records deem unfit to print. + +Such were the times the three of us from Springvale were discussing on +the south side of the walls of old Fort Hays in the warm sunshine of an +October afternoon. + +We were new to the Plains and we did not dream of the tragedies that +were taking place not many miles away from the shadow of the Fort on +that October afternoon, tragedies whose crimes we three would soon be +called forth to help to avenge. For even as we lounged idly there in the +soft sunshine, and looked away through shimmering seas of autumn haze +toward the still land where Bud was to find his quiet grave at the end +of the trail--as we talked of the frontier and its needs, up in the +Saline Valley, a band of Indians was creeping stealthily upon a +cornfield where a young man was gathering corn. In his little home just +out of sight was a pretty, golden-haired girl, the young settler's bride +of a few months. Through the window she caught sight of her husband's +horse racing wildly toward the house. She did not know that her husband, +wounded and helpless, lay by the river bank, pierced by Indian arrows. +Only one thought was hers, the thought that her husband had been +hurt--maybe killed--in a runaway. What else could this terrified horse +with its flying harness ends mean? She rushed from the house and started +toward the field. + +A shout of fiendish glee fell on her ears. She was surrounded by painted +savage men, human devils, who caught her by the arms, dragged her about +by her long silky, golden hair, beat her brutally in her struggles to +free herself, bound her at last, and thrusting her on a pony, rode as +only Indians ride, away toward the sunset. And their captive, the sweet +girl-wife of gentle birth and gentle rearing, the happy-hearted young +home-maker on the prairie frontier, singing about her work an hour +before, dreaming of the long, bright years with her loved one--God pity +her! For her the gates of a living Hell had swung wide open, and she, +helpless and horror-stricken, was being dragged through them into a +perdition no pen can picture. And so they rode away toward the sunset. + +On and on they went through days and days of unutterable blackness, of +suffering and despair. On, until direction and space were lost to +measure. For her a new, pitiless, far-off heaven looked down on a new +agonized earth. The days ran into months, and no day had in it a ray of +hope, a line of anything but misery. + +And again beyond the Saline, where the little streams turn toward the +Republican River, in another household the same tragedy of the times was +being played, with all its settings of terror and suffering. Here the +grown-up daughter of the home, a girl of eighteen years, was wrenched +from arms that clung to her, and, bound on a pony's back, was hurried +three hundred miles away into an unknown land. For her began the life of +a slave. She was the victim of brute lust, the object of the vengeful +jealousy of the squaws. The starved, half-naked, wretched girl, whose +eighteen years had been protected in the shelter of a happy Christian +home, was now the captive laborer whose tasks strong men would stagger +under. God's providence seemed far away in those days of the winning of +the prairie. + +Fate, by and by, threw these two women together. Their one ray of +comfort was the sight of one another. And for both the days dragged +heavily by, the two women of my boyhood's dreams. Women of whose fate I +knew nothing as we sat by the south side of old Fort Hays that afternoon +forty years ago. + +"Did you know, boys, that General Sheridan is not going to let those +tribes settle down to a quiet winter as they've been allowed to do every +year since they were put on their reservations?" I asked O'mie and Bud. +"I've been here long enough to find out that these men out here won't +stand for it any longer," I went on. "They're MEN on these Plains, who +are doing this homesteading up and down these river valleys, and you +write every letter of the word with a capital." + +"What'th going to be done?" Bud queried. + +"Sheridan's going to carry a campaign down into their own country and +lick these tribes into behaving themselves right now, before another +Summer and another outbreak like that one two months ago." + +"What's these Kansas men with their capital letters got to do with it?" +put in O'mie. + +"Governor Crawford has issued a call at Sheridan's command, for a Kansas +regiment to go into service for six months, and help to do this thing up +right. It means more to these settlers on the boundary out here than to +anybody else. And you just see if that regiment isn't made up in a +hurry." + +I was full of my theme. My two months beyond the soft, sheltered life of +home had taught me much; and then I was young and thought I knew much, +anyhow. + +"What are you going to do, Phil?" O'mie asked. + +"I? I'm going to stay by this thing for a while. The Baronets were +always military folks. I'm the last of the line, and I'm going to give +my fighting strength, what little I have, to buy these prairies for +homes and civilization. I'm going to see the Indian rule broken here, or +crawl into the lonely grave Bud talks about and pull the curly mesquite +over me for a coverlet. I go to Topeka to-morrow to answer Governor +Crawford's call for volunteers for a cavalry company to go out on a +winter campaign against the rascally redskins. They're going to get what +they need. If you mix up with Custer, you'll see." + +"And when the campaign's over," queried O'mie, "will you stay in the +army?" + +"No, O'mie, I'll find a place. The world is wide. But look here, boy. +You haven't told me how you got pried loose and kicked out yet. Bud's an +exception. The rest of us boys had a reason for leaving the best town on +earth." + +"You're just right, begorra!" O'mie replied with warmth. "I was kicked +out av town by His Majesty, the prophet Amos, only you've got to spell +it with an 'f' instead av a 'ph.'" + +"Now, O'mie, confess the whole sin at once, please." + +O'mie looked up with that sunshiny face that never stayed clouded long, +and chuckled softly. "Judson's on the crest right now. Oh, let him ride. +He's doomed, so let him have his little strut. He comes to me a few days +backward into the gone on, and says, says he, important and commercial +like, 'O'mie, I shall not need you any more. I've got a person to take +your place.' 'All right,' I responds, respectful, 'just as you please. +When shall I lave off?' 'To-morrow mornin',' he answers, an' looks at +me as if to say, 'Nothin' left for you but the poor-house.' And indade, +a clerk under Judson don't make no such bank account as he made under +Irving Whately. I ain't ready to retire yet." + +"And do you mean to say that because Amos Judson turned you off and cut +you out of his will, you had to come out to this forsaken land? I +thought better of the town," I declared. + +"Oh, don't you mind! Cris Mead offered me a place in the bank. Dr. +Hemingway was fur havin' me fill his pulpit off an' on. He's gettin' +old. An' Judge Baronet was all but ready to adopt me in the place av a +son he'd lost. But I knowed the boy'd soon be back." + +O'mie gave me a sidelong glance, but I gave no hint of any feeling. + +"No, I was like Bud, ready to try the frontier," he added more +seriously. "I'm goin' down with you to join this Kansas regiment." + +"Now what the deuce can you do in the army, O'mie?" I could not think of +him anywhere but in Springvale. + +"I want to live out av doors till I get rid av this cough," he answered. +"And ye know I can do a stunt in the band. Don't take giants to fiddle +and fife. Little runts can do that. Who do you reckon come to Springvale +last month?" + +"Give it up," I answered. + +"Father Le Claire." + +"Oh, the good man!" Bud exclaimed. + +"Where has he been? and where was he going?" I asked coldly. + +O'mie looked at me curiously. He was shrewder than Bud, and he caught +the tone I had meant to conceal. + +"Where? Just now he's gone to St. Louis. He's in a hospital there. He's +been sick. I never saw him so white and thin as whin he left. He told +me he expected to be with the Osages this Winter." + +"I'm glad of that," I remarked. + +"Why?" O'mie spoke quickly. + +"Oh, I was afraid he might go out West. It's hard on priests in the +West." + +O'mie looked steadily at me, but said nothing. + +"Who taketh your plathe, O'mie?" Bud asked. + +"That's the beauty av it. It's a lady," O'mie answered. + +Somehow my heart grew sick. Could it be Marjie, I wondered. I knew money +matters were a problem with the Whatelys, but I had hoped for better +fortune through my father's help. Maybe, though, they would have none of +him now any more than of myself. When Marjie and I were engaged I did +not care for her future, for it was to be with me, and my burden was my +joy then. Not that earning a living meant any disgrace to the girl. We +all learned better than that early in the West. + +"Well, who be thaid lady?" Bud questioned. + +"Miss Letitia Conlow," O'mie answered with a grave face. + +"Oh, well, don't grieve, O'mie; it might be worse. Cheer up!" I said +gayly. + +"It couldn't be, by George! It just couldn't be no worse." O'mie was +more than grave, he was sad now. "Not for me, bedad! I'm glad." He +breathed deeply of the sweet, pure air of the Plains. "I can live out +here foine, but there's goin' to be the divil to pay in the town av +Springvale in the nixt six months. I'm glad to be away." + +The next day I left the fort for Topeka. My determination to stay in the +struggle was not merely a young man's love of adventure, nor was my +declaration of what would be done to the Indian tribes an idle boast. +The tragic days of Kansas were not all in its time of territorial strife +and border ruffianism. The story of the Western Plains--the short grass +country we call it now--in the decade following the Civil War is a +tragedy of unparalleled suffering and danger and heroism. In the cold +calculation of the official reports the half-year I had entered on has +its tabulated record of one hundred and fifty-eight men murdered, +sixteen wounded, forty-one scalped, fourteen women tortured, four women +and twenty-four children carried into captivity. And nearly all this +record was made in the Saline and Solomon and Republican River valleys +in Kansas. + +The Summer of the preceding year a battalion of soldiers called the +Eighteenth Kansas Cavalry spent four months on the Plains. Here they met +and fought two deadly foes, the Indians and the Asiatic cholera. Theirs +was a record of bravery and endurance; and their commander, Major Horace +L. Moore, keeps always a place in my own private hall of fame. + +Winter had made good Indians out of the savage wretches, as usual; but +the Summer of 1868 brought that official count of tragedy with all the +unwritten horror that history cannot burden itself to carry. Only one +thing seemed feasible now, to bear the war straight into the heart of +the Indian country in a winter campaign, to deal an effectual blow to +the scourge of the Plains, this awful menace to the frontier homes. +General Sheridan had asked Kansas to furnish a cavalry regiment for +United States military service for six months. + +The capital city was a wide-awake place that October. The call for +twelve hundred men was being answered by the veterans of the Plains and +by the young men of Kansas. The latter took up the work as many a +volunteer in the Civil War began it--in a sort of heyday of excitement +and achievement. They gave little serious thought to the cost, or the +history their record was to make. But in the test that followed they +stood, as the soldiers of the nation had stood before them, courageous, +unflinching to the last. Little notion had those rollicking young +fellows of what lay before them--a winter campaign in a strange country +infested by a fierce and cunning foe who observed no etiquette of +civilized warfare. + +At the Teft House, where Bud and O'mie and I stopped, I met Richard +Tillhurst. We greeted each other cordially enough. + +"So you're here to enlist, too," he said. "I thought maybe you were on +your way home. I am going to enlist myself and give up teaching +altogether if I can pass muster." He was hardly of the physical build +for a soldier. "Have you heard the news?" he went on. "Judson and +Marjory are engaged. Marjie doesn't speak of it, of course, but Judson +told Dr. Hemingway and asked him to officiate when the time comes. Mrs. +Whately says it's between the young people, and that means she has given +her consent. Judson spends half his time at Whately's, whether Marjie's +there or not. There's something in the air down there this Fall that's +got everybody keyed up one way or another. Tell Mapleson's been like a +boy at a circus, he's so pleased over something; and Conlow has a grin +on his face all the time. Everybody seems just unsettled and anxious, +except Judge Baronet. Honestly, I don't see how that town could keep +balanced without him. He sails along serene and self-possessed. Always +knows more than he tells." + +"I guess Springvale is safe with him, and we can go out and save the +frontier," I said carelessly. + +"For goodness' sake, who goes there?" Tillhurst pushed me aside and made +a rush out of doors, as a lady passed before the windows. I followed and +caught a glimpse of the black hair and handsome form of Rachel Melrose. +At the same moment she saw me. Her greeting lacked a little of its +former warmth, but her utter disregard of anything unpleasant having +been between us was positively admirable. Her most coquettish smiles, +however, were for Tillhurst, but that didn't trouble me. Our interview +was cut short by the arrival of the stage from the south just then, and +I turned from Tillhurst to find myself in my father's embrace. What +followed makes one of the sacred memories a man does not often put into +print. + +We wanted to be alone, so we left the noisy hotel and strolled out +toward the higher level beyond the town. There was only brown prairie +then stretching to the westward and dipping down with curve and ravine +to the Kaw River on the one side and the crooked little Shunganunga +Creek on the other. Away in the southwest the graceful curve of +Burnett's Mound, a low height like a tiny mountain-peak, stood out +purple and hazy in the October sunlight. A handful of sturdy young +people were taking their way to Lincoln College, the little stone +structure that was to be dignified a month later by a new title, +Washburn College, in honor of its great benefactor, Ichabod Washburn. + +"Why did the powers put the State Capitol and the College so far from +town, I wonder," I said as we loitered about the walls of the former. + +"For the same reason that the shortsighted colonists of the Revolution +put Washington away off up the Potomac, west of the thirteen States," +my father answered. "We can't picture a city here now, but it will be +built in your day if not in mine." + +And then we walked on until before us stood that graceful little locust +tree, the landmark of the prairie. Its leaves were falling in golden +showers now, save as here and there a more protected branch still held +its summer green foliage. + +"What a beautiful, sturdy little pioneer!" my father exclaimed. "It has +earned a first settler's right to the soil. I hope it will be given the +chance to live, the chance most of the settlers have had to fight for, +as it has had to stand up against the winds and hold its own against the +drouth. Any enterprising city official who would some day cut it down +should be dealt with by the State." + +We sat down by the tree and talked of many things, but my father +carefully avoided the mention of Marjie's name. When he gave the little +girl the letter that had fallen from her cloak pocket he read her story +in her face, but he had no right or inclination to read it aloud to me. +I tried by all adroit means to lead him to tell me of the Whatelys. It +was all to no purpose. On any other topic I would have quitted the game, +but--oh, well, I was just the same foolish-hearted boy that put the pink +blossoms on a little girl's brown curls and kissed her out in the purple +shadows of the West Draw one April evening long ago. And now I was about +to begin a dangerous campaign where the hazard of war meant a nameless +grave for a hundred, where it brought after years of peace and honor to +one. I must hear something of Marjie. The love-light in her brown eyes +as she gave me one affectionate glance when I presented her to Rachel +Melrose in my father's office--that pledge of her heart, I pictured over +and over in my memory. + +"Father, Tillhurst says he has heard that Amos Judson and Marjie are +engaged. Are they?" I put the question squarely. My father was stripping +the gold leaves one by one off a locust spray. + +"Yes, I have heard it, too," he replied, and to save my life I could not +have judged by word or manner whether he cared one whit or not. He was +studying me, if toying with a locust branch and whistling softly and +gazing off at Burnett's Mound are marks of study. He had nothing of +himself to reveal. "I have heard it several times," he went on. "Judson +has made the announcement quietly, but generally." + +He threw away the locust branch, shook down his cuff and settled it in +his sleeve, lifted his hat from his forehead and reset it on his head, +and then added as a final conclusion, "I don't believe it." + +He had always managed me most skilfully when he wanted to find out +anything; and when the time came that I began in turn to manage him, +being of his own blood, the game was interesting. But before I knew it, +we had drifted far away from the subject, and I had no opportunity to +come back to it. My father had found out all he wanted to know. + +"Phil, I must leave on the train for Kansas City this evening," he said +as we rose to go back to town. "I'm to meet Morton there, and we may go +on East together. He will have the best surgeons look after that wound +of his, Governor Crawford tells me." + +Then laying his hand affectionately on my shoulder he said, "I +congratulate you on the result of your first campaign. I had hoped it +would be your last; but you are a man, and must choose for yourself. +Yet, if you mean to give yourself to your State now, if you choose a +man's work, do it like a man, not like a schoolboy on a picnic +excursion. The history of Kansas is made as much by the privates down in +the ranks as by the men whose names and faces adorn its record. You are +making that record now. Make it strong and clean. Let the glory side go, +only do your part well. When you have finished this six months and are +mustered out, I want you to come home at once. There are some business +matters and family matters demanding it. But I must go to Kansas City, +and from there to New York on important business. And since nobody has a +lease on life, I may as well say now that if you get back and I'm not +there, O'mie left his will with me before he went away." + +"His will? Now what had he to leave? And who is his beneficiary?" + +"That's all in the will," my father said, smiling, "but it is a matter +that must not be overlooked. In the nature of things the boy will go +before I do. He's marked, I take it; never has gotten over the hardships +of his earliest years and that fever in '63. Le Claire came back to see +him and me in September." + +"He did? Where did he come from?" + +My father looked at me quickly. "Why do you ask?" he queried. + +"I'll tell you when we have more time. Just now I'm engaged to fight the +Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Comanches, and the Kiowas, in which last +tribe my friend Jean Pahusca has pack right. He was in that gang of +devils that fought us out on the Arickaree." + +For once I thought I knew more than my father, but he replied quietly, +"Yes, I knew he was there. His tether may be long, but its limit will be +reached some day." + +"Who told you he was there, father?" I asked. + +"Le Claire said so," he answered. + +"Where was he at that time?" I was getting excited now. + +"He spent the week in the little stone cabin out by the big cottonwood. +Took cold and had to go to St. Louis to a hospital for a week or two." + +"He was in the haunted cabin the third week in September," I repeated +slowly; "then I don't know black from white any more." + +My father smiled at me. "They call that being 'locoed' out on the +Plains, don't they?" he said with a twinkle in his eye. "You have a +delusion mixed up in your gray matter somewhere. One thing more," he +added as an unimportant afterthought, "I see Miss Melrose is still in +Topeka." + +"Yes," I answered. + +"And Tillhurst, too," he went on. "Well, there has been quite a little +story going around Conlow's shop and the post-office and Fingal's Creek +and other social centres about you two; and now when Tillhurst gets back +(he'll never make the cavalry), he's square, but a little vain and +thin-skinned, and he may add something of color and interest to the +story. Let it go. Just now it may be better so." + +I thought his words were indefinite, for one whose purposes were always +definite, and in the wisdom of my youth I wondered whether he really +wanted me to follow Rachel's leading, or whether he was, after all, +inclined to believe Judson's assertion about his engagement, and family +pride had a little part to play with him. It was unlike John Baronet to +stoop to a thing like that. + +"Father," I said, "I'm going away, too. I may never come back, and for +my own sake I want to assure you of one thing: no matter what Tillhurst +may say, if Rachel Melrose were ten times more handsome, if she had in +her own name a fortune such as I can never hope to acquire myself, she +would mean nothing to me. I care nothing for the stories now"--a +hopelessness would come into my voice--"but I do not care for her +either. I never did, and I never could." + +My eyes were away on Burnett's Mound, and the sweet remembrance of +Marjie's last affectionate look made a blur before them. We stood in +silence for some time. + +"Phil," said John Baronet in a deep, fervent tone, "I have a matter I +meant to take up later, but this is a good time. Let the young folks go +now. This is a family matter. Years ago a friend of the older Baronets +died in the East leaving some property that should sooner or later come +to me to keep in trust for you. This time was to be at the death of the +man and his wife who had the property for their lifetime. Philip, you +have been accused by the Conlow-Judson crowd of wanting a rich wife. I +also am called grasping by Tell Mapleson's class. And," he smiled a +little, "indeed, Iago's advice to Roderigo, 'Put money in thy purse,' +was sound philosophy if the putting be honestly done. But this little +property in the East that should come to you is in the hands of a man +who is now ill, probably in his last sickness. He has one child that +will have nothing else left to her. Shall we take this money at her +father's death?" + +"Why, father, no. I don't want it. Do you want it?" + +I knew him too well to ask the question. Had I not seen the unselfish, +kindly, generous spirit that had marked all his business career? +Springvale never called him grasping, save as his prosperity grated on +men of Mapleson's type. + +"Will you sign a relinquishment to your claim, and trust to me that it +is the best for us to do?" he asked. + +"Just as soon as we get to an inkstand," I answered. Nor did I ever hold +that such a relinquishment is anything but Christian opportunity. + +That evening I said good-bye to my father, and when I saw him again it +was after I had gone through the greatest crisis of these sixty years. +On the same train that bore my father to the East were his friend Morton +and his political and professional antagonist, Tell Mapleson. The next +day I enlisted in Troop A of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and was +quartered temporarily in the State House, north of Fifth Street, on +Kansas Avenue. Tillhurst was not admitted to the regiment, as my father +had predicted. Neither was Jim Conlow, who had come up to Topeka for +that purpose. Good-natured, shallow-pated "Possum," no matter where he +found work to do, he sooner or later drifted back to Springvale to his +father's forge. He did not realize that no Conlow of the Missouri breed +ought ever to try anything above a horse's hoofs, in cavalry matters. +The Lord made some men to shoe horses, and some to ride them. The +Conlows weren't riders, and Jim's line was turned again to his father's +smithy. + +Tillhurst took his failure the more grievously that Rachel, who had been +most gracious to him at first, transferred her attentions to me. And I, +being only a man and built of common clay, with my lifetime hope +destroyed, gave him good reason to believe in my superior influence with +the beautiful Massachusetts girl. I had a game to play with Rachel, for +Topeka was full of pretty girls, and I made the most of my time. I knew +somewhat of the gayety the Winter on the Plains was about to offer. As +long as I could I held to the pleasures of the civilized homes and +sheltered lives. And with all and all, one sweet girl-face, enshrined in +my heart's holy of holies, held me back from idle deception and turned +me from temptation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE NINETEENTH KANSAS CAVALRY + + "The regiments of Kansas have glorified our State on a hundred + battle fields, but none served her more faithfully, or endured more + in her cause than the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry." + + --HORACE L. MOORE. + + +When Camp Crawford was opened, northeast of town, between the Kaw River +and the Shunganunga Creek, I went into training for regular cavalry +service, thinking less of pretty girls and more of good horses with the +passing days. I had plenty of material for both themes. Not only were +there handsome young ladies in the capital city, but this call for +military supplies had brought in superb cavalry mounts. Every day the +camp increased its borders. The first to find places were the men of the +Eighteenth Kansas Regiment, veterans of the exalted order of the wardens +of civilization. Endurance was their mark of distinction, and Loyalty +their watchword. It was the grief of this regiment, and especially of +the men directly under his leadership, that Captain Henry Lindsey was +not made a Major for the Nineteenth. No more capable or more popular +officer than Lindsey ever followed an Indian trail across the Plains. + +It was from the veterans of this Eighteenth Cavalry, men whom Lindsey +had led, that we younger soldiers learned our best lessons in the months +that followed. Those were my years of hero-worship. I had gone into +this service with an ideal, and the influence of such men as Morton and +Forsyth, the skill of Grover, and the daring of Donovan and Stillwell +were an inspiration to me. And now my captain was the same Pliley, who +with Donovan had made that hundred-mile dash to Fort Wallace to start a +force to the rescue of our beleaguered few in that island citadel of +sand. + +The men who made up Pliley's troop were, for the most part, older than +myself, and they are coming now to the venerable years; but deep in the +heart of each surviving soldier of that company is admiration and +affection for the fearless, adroit, resourceful Captain, the modest, +generous-hearted soldier. + +On the last evening of our stay in Topeka there was a gay gathering of +young people, where, as usual, the soldier boys were the lions. Brass +buttons bearing the American Eagle and the magic inscription "U. S." +have ever their social sway. + +Rachel had been assigned to my care by the powers that were. After +Tillhurst's departure I had found my companions mainly elsewhere, and I +would have chosen elsewhere on this night had I done the choosing. On +the way to her aunt's home Rachel was more charming than I had ever +found her before. It was still early, and we strolled leisurely on our +way and talked of many things. At the gate she suddenly exclaimed: + +"Philip, you leave to-morrow. Maybe I shall never see you again; but I'm +not going to think that." Her voice was sweet, and her manner sincere. +"May I ask you one favor?" + +"Yes, a dozen," I said, rashly. + +"Let's take one more walk out to our locust tree." + +"Oh, blame the locust tree! What did it ever grow for?" That was my +thought but I assented with a show of pleasure, as conventionality +demands. It was a balmy night in early November, not uncommon in this +glorious climate. The moon was one quarter large, and the dim light was +pleasant. Many young people were abroad that evening. When we reached +the swell where the tree threw its lacy shadows on its fallen yellow +leaves, my companion grew silent. + +"Cheer up, Rachel," I said. "We'll soon be gone and you'll be free from +the soldier nuisance. And Dick Tillhurst is sure to run up here again +soon. Besides, you have all Massachusetts waiting to be conquered." + +She put her little gloved hand on my arm. + +"Philip Baronet, I'm going to ask you something. You may hate me if you +want to." + +"But I don't want to," I assured her. + +"I had a letter from Mr. Tillhurst to-day. He does want to come up," she +went on; "he says also that the girl you introduced to me in your +father's office, what's her name?--I've forgotten it." + +"So have I. Go on!" + +"He says she is to be married at Christmas to somebody in Springvale. +You used to like her. Tell me, do you care for her still? You could like +somebody else just as well, couldn't you, Phil?" + +I put my hand gently over her hand resting on my arm, and said nothing. + +"Could you, Phil? She doesn't want you any more. How long will you care +for her?" + +"Till death us do part," I answered, in a low voice. + +She dropped my arm, and even in the shadows I could see her eyes flash. + +"I hate you," she cried, passionately. + +"I don't blame you," I answered like a cold-blooded brute. "But, Rachel, +this is the last time we shall be together. Let's be frank, now. You +don't care for me. It is for the lack of one more scalp to dangle at +your door that you grieve. You want me to do all the caring. You could +forget me before we get home." + +Then the tears came, a woman's sure weapon, and I hated myself more than +she hated me. + +"I can only wound your feelings, I always make you wretched. Now, +Rachel, let's say good-bye to-night as the best of enemies and the worst +of friends. I haven't made your stay in Kansas happy. You will forget me +and remember only the pleasant people here." + +When she bade me good-bye at her aunt's door, there was a harshness in +her voice I had not noted before. + +"If she really did care for me she wouldn't change so quickly. By +Heaven, I believe there is something back of all this love-making. +Charming a dog as he is, Phil Baronet in himself hasn't that much +attraction for her," I concluded, and I breathed freer for the thought. +When I came long afterwards to know the truth about her, I understood +this sudden change, as I understood the charming pretensions to +admiration and affection that preceded it. + +The next day our command started on its campaign against the unknown +dangers and hardships and suffering of the winter Plains. It was an +imposing cavalcade that rode down the broad avenue of the capital city +that November day when we began our march. Up from Camp Crawford we +passed in regular order, mounted on our splendid horses, riding in +platoon formation. At Fourth Street we swung south on Kansas Avenue. At +the head of the column twenty-one buglers rode abreast, Bud Anderson and +O'mie among them. Our Lieutenant-Colonel, Horace L. Moore, and his staff +followed in order behind the buglers. Then came the cavalry, troop +after troop, a thousand strong, in dignified military array, while from +door and window, side-walk and side-street, the citizens watched our +movements and cheered us as we passed. Six months later the remnants of +that well-appointed regiment straggled into Topeka like stray dogs, and +no demonstration was given over their return. But they had done their +work, and in God's good time will come the day "to glean up their +scattered ashes into History's golden urn." + +A few miles out from Topeka we were overtaken by Governor Crawford. He +had resigned the office of Chief Executive of Kansas to take command of +our regiment. The lustre of the military pageantry began to fade by the +time we had crossed the Wakarusa divide, and the capital city, nestling +in its hill-girt valley by the side of the Kaw, was lost to our view. +Ours was to be a campaign of endurance, of dogged patience, of slow, +grinding inactivity, the kind of campaign that calls for every resource +of courage and persistence from the soldier, giving him in return little +of the inspiration that stimulates to conquest on battle fields. The +years have come and gone, and what the Nineteenth Kansas men were called +to do and to endure is only now coming into historical recognition. + +Our introduction to what should befall us later came in the rainy +weather, bitter winds, insufficient clothing, and limited rations of our +journey before we reached Fort Beecher, on the Arkansas River. To-day, +the beautiful city of Wichita marks the spot where the miserable little +group of tents and low huts, called Fort Beecher, stood then. Fifty +miles east of this fort we had passed the last house we were to see for +half a year. + +The Arkansas runs bottomside up across the Plains. Its waters are mainly +under its bed, and it seems to wander aimlessly among the flat, lonely +sand-bars, trying helplessly to get right again. Beyond this river we +looked off into the Unknown. Somewhere back of the horizon in that +shadowy illimitable Southwest General Sheridan had established a +garrison on the Canadian River, and here General Custer and his Seventh +United States Cavalry were waiting for us. They had forage for our +horses and food and clothing for ourselves. We had left Topeka with +limited supplies expecting sufficient reinforcement of food and grain at +Fort Beecher to carry us safely forward until we should reach Camp +Supply, Sheridan's stopping-place, wherever in the Southwest that might +be. Then the two regiments, Custer's Seventh and the Kansas Nineteenth, +were together to fall upon the lawless wild tribes and force them into +submission. + +Such was the prearranged plan of campaign, but disaster lay between us +and this military force on the Canadian River. Neither the Nineteenth +Cavalry commanders, the scouts, nor the soldiers knew a foot of that +pathless mystery-shrouded, desolate land stretching away to the +southward beyond the Arkansas River. We had only a meagre measure of +rations, less of grain in proportion, and there was no military depot to +which we could resort. The maps were all wrong, and in the trackless +wastes and silent sand-dunes of the Cimarron country gaunt Starvation +was waiting to clutch our vitals with its gnarled claws; while with all +our nakedness and famine and peril, the winter blizzard, swirling its +myriad whips of stinging cold came raging across the land and caught us +in its icy grip. + +I had learned on the Arickaree how men can face danger and defy death; I +had only begun to learn how they can endure hardship. + +It was mid-November when our regiment, led by Colonel Crawford, crossed +the Arkansas River and struck out resolutely toward the southwest. Our +orders were to join Custer's command at Sheridan's camp in the Indian +Territory, possibly one hundred and fifty miles away. We must obey +orders. It is the military man's creed. That we lacked rations, forage, +clothing, and camp equipment must not deter us, albeit we had not +guides, correct maps, or any knowledge of the land we were invading. + +My first lesson in this campaign was the lesson of comradeship. My +father had put me on a horse and I had felt at home when I was so short +and fat my legs spread out on its back as if I were sitting on a floor. +I was accounted a fair rider in Springvale. I had loved at first sight +that beautiful sorrel creature whose bones were bleaching on the little +island in Colorado, whose flesh a gnawing hunger had forced me to eat. +But my real lessons in horsemanship began in Camp Crawford, with four +jolly fellows whom I came to know and love in a way I shall never know +or love other men--my comrades. Somebody struck home to the soldier +heart ever more when he wrote: + + There's many a bond in this world of ours, + Ties of friendship, and wreaths of flowers, + And true-lover's knots, I ween; + The boy and girl are sealed with a kiss; + But there's never a bond, old friend, like this,-- + We have drunk from the same canteen. + +Such a bond is mine for these four comrades. Reed and Pete, Hadley and +John Mac were their camp names, and I always think of them together. +These four made a real cavalry man of me. It may be the mark of old age +upon me now, for even to-day the handsome automobile and the great +railway engine can command my admiration and awe; but the splendid +thoroughbred, intelligent, and quivering with power, I can command and +love. + +The bond between the cavalry man and his mount is a strong one, and the +spirit of the war-horse is as varied and sensitive as that of his rider. +When our regiment had crossed the Arkansas River and was pushing its way +grimly into the heart of the silent stretches of desolation, our horses +grew nervous, and a restless homesickness possessed them. Troop A were +great riders, and we were quick to note this uneasiness. + +"What's the matter with these critters, Phil?" Reed, who rode next to +me, asked as we settled into line one November morning. + +"I don't know, Reed," I replied. "This one is a dead match for the horse +I rode with Forsyth. The man that killed him laughed and said, 'There +goes the last damned horse, anyhow.'" + +"Just so it ain't the first's all I'm caring for. You'll be in luck if +you have the last," the rider next to Reed declared. + +"What makes you think so, John?" I inquired. + +"Oh, that's John Mac for you," Reed said laughing. "He's homesick." + +"No, it's the horses that's homesick," John Mac answered. "They've got +horse sense and that's what some of us ain't got. They know they'll +never get across the Arkansas River again." + +"Cheerful prospect," I declared. "That means we'll never get across +either, doesn't it?" + +"Oh, yes," John answered grimly, "we'll get back all right. Don't know +as this lot'd be any special ornament to kingdom come, anyhow; but we'll +go through hell on the way comin' or goin'; now, mark me, Reed, and +stop your idiotic grinning." + +Whatever may have given this nervousness to the horses, so like a +presentiment of coming ill, they were all possessed with the same +spirit, and we remembered it afterwards when their bones were bleaching +on the high flat lands long leagues beyond the limits of civilization. + +The Plains had no welcoming smile for us. The November skies were +clouded over, and a steady rain soaked the land with all its +appurtenances, including a straggling command of a thousand men +floundering along day after day among the crooked canyons and gloomy +sandhills of the Cimarron country. In vain we tried to find a trail +that should lead us to Sheridan's headquarters at Camp Supply, on the +Canadian River. Then the blizzard had its turn with us. Suddenly, as is +the blizzard's habit, it came upon us, sheathing our rain-sodden +clothing in ice. Like a cloudburst of summer was this winter cloudburst +of snow, burying every trail and covering every landmark with a mocking +smoothness. Then the mercury fell, and a bitter wind swept the open +Plains. + +We had left Fort Beecher with five days' rations and three days' forage. +Seven days later we went into bivouac on a crooked little stream that +empties its salty waters into the Cimarron. It was a moonless, freezing +night. Fires were impossible, for there was no wood, and the buffalo +chips soaked with rain were frozen now and buried under the snow. A +furious wind threshed the earth; the mercury hovered about the zero +mark. Alkali and salt waters fill the streams of that land, and our food +supply was a memory two days old. + +How precious a horse can become, the Plains have taught us. The man on +foot out there is doomed. All through this black night of perishing +cold we clung to our frightened, freezing, starving horses. We had put +our own blankets about them, and all night long we led them up and down. +The roar of the storm, the confusion from the darkness, the frenzy from +hunger drove them frantic. A stampede among them there would have meant +instant death to many of us, and untold suffering to the dismounted +remainder. How slowly the cold, bitter hours went by! I had thought the +burning heat of the Colorado September unendurable. I wondered in that +time of freezing torment if I should ever again call the heat a burden. + +There were five of us tramping together in one little circle that +night--Reed and John Mac, and Pete and Hadley, with myself. In all the +garrison I came to know these four men best. They were near my own age; +their happy-go-lucky spirit and their cheery laughter were food and +drink. They proved to me over and over how kind-hearted a soldier can +be, and how hard it is to conquer a man who wills himself unconquerable. +Without these four I think I should never have gotten through that +night. + +Morning broke on our wretched camp at last, and we took up the day's +march, battling with cold and hunger over every foot of ground. On the +tenth day after we crossed the Arkansas River the crisis came. Our army +clothes were waiting for us at Camp Supply. Rain and ice and the rough +usage of camp life had made us ragged already, and our shoes were worn +out. And still the cold and storm stayed with us. We wrapped pieces of +buffalo hide about our bare feet and bound the horses' nose-bags on them +in lieu of cavalry boots. Our blankets we had donated to our mounts, and +we had only dog tents, well adapted to ventilation, but a very mockery +at sheltering. + +Our provisions were sometimes reduced to a few little cubes of sugar +doled out to each from the officers' stores. The buffalo, by which we +had augmented our food supply, were gone now to any shelter whither +instinct led them. It was rare that even a lone forsaken old bull of the +herd could be found in some more sheltered spot. + +At last with hungry men and frenzied horses, with all sense of direction +lost, with a deep covering of snow enshrouding the earth, and a +merciless cold cutting straight to the life centres, we went into camp +on the tenth night in a little ravine running into Sand Creek, another +Cimarron tributary, in the Indian Territory. We were unable to move any +farther. For ten days we had been on the firing line, with hunger and +cold for our unconquerable foes. We could have fought Indians even to +the death. But the demand on us was for endurance. It is a woman's +province to suffer and wait and bear. We were men, fighting men, but +ours was the struggle of resisting, not attacking, and the tenth night +found us vanquished. Somebody must come to our rescue now. We could not +save ourselves. In the dangerous dark and cold, to an unknown place, +over an unknown way, somebody must go for us, somebody must be the +sacrifice, or we must all perish. The man who went out from the camp on +Sand Creek that night was one of the two men I had seen rise up from the +sand-pits of the Arickaree Island and start out in the blackness and the +peril to carry our cry to Fort Wallace--Pliley, whose name our State +must sometime set large in her well-founded, well-written story. + +With fifty picked men and horses he went for our sakes, and more, aye, +more than he ever would claim for himself. He was carrying rescue to +homes yet to be, he was winning the frontier from peril, he was paying +the price for the prairie kingdom whose throne and altar are the +hearthstone. + +"Camp Starvation," we christened our miserable, snow-besieged +stopping-place. We had fire but we were starving for food. Our horses +were like wild beasts in their ravenous hunger, tearing the clothing +from the men who came too carelessly near to their rope tethers. + +That splendid group of mounts that had pranced proudly down Kansas +Avenue less than a month before, moving on now nearly seven days without +food, dying of cruel starvation, made a feature of this tragical winter +campaign that still puts an ache into my soul. Long ago I lost most of +the sentiment out of my life, but I have never seen a hungry horse since +that Winter of '68 that I let go unfed if it lay within my power to +bring it food. + +The camp was well named. It was Hadley and Reed and Pete and John Mac, +that good-natured quartet, who stood sponsors for that title. We were a +pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour +given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a +sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, +as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few +little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the +bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we found was wasted. Even the +entrails cleansed in the snow and eaten raw gives hint of how hungry we +were. + +At last in our dire extremity it was decided to choose five hundred of +the strongest men and horses to start under the command of +Lieutenant-Colonel Horace L. Moore, without food or tents, through the +snow toward the Beulah Land of Camp Supply. Pliley had been gone for +three days. We had no means of knowing whether his little company had +found Sheridan's Camp or were lost in the pathless snows of a +featureless land, and we could not hold out much longer. + +I was among the company of the fittest chosen to make this journey. I +was not yet twenty-two, built broad and firm, and with all the heritage +of the strength and endurance of the Baronet blood, I had a power of +resistance and recoil from conditions that was marvellous to the +veterans in our regiment. + +It was mid-forenoon of the fifth of November when the Nineteenth Kansas +moved out of Camp Crawford by the Shunganunga and marched proudly down +the main thoroughfare of Topeka at the auspicious beginning of its +campaign. Twenty days later, Lieutenant-Colonel Moore again headed a +marching column, this time, moving out of Camp Starvation on Sand +Creek--five hundred ragged, hungry men with famishing horses, bearing no +supplies, going, they could only guess whither, and unable even to +surmise how many days and nights the going would consume. It was well +for me that I had an ideal. I should have gone mad otherwise, for I was +never meant for the roving chance life of a Plains scout. + +When our division made its tentless bivouac with the sky for a covering +on the first night out beyond the Cimarron River from Camp Starvation, +the mercury was twenty degrees below zero. Even a heart that could pump +blood like mine could hardly keep the fires of the body from going out. +There was a full moon somewhere up in the cold, desolate heavens +lighting up a frozen desolate land. I shiver even now at the picture my +memory calls up. In the midst of that night's bitter chill came a dream +of home, of the warm waters of the Neosho on August afternoons, of the +sunny draw, and--Marjie. Her arms were about my neck, her curly head was +nestling against my shoulder, the little ringlets about her temples +touched my cheek. I lifted her face to kiss her, but a soft shadowy +darkness crept between us, and I seemed to be sinking into it deeper and +deeper. It grew so black I longed to give up and let it engulf me. It +was so easy a thing to do. + +Then in a blind stupidity I began to hear a voice in my ears, and to +find myself lunging back and forth and stumbling lamely on my left foot. +The right foot had no feeling, no power of motion, and I forgot that I +had it. + +"What are you doing, Pete?" I asked, when I recognized who it was that +was holding me. + +Pete was like an elder brother, always doing me a kind service. + +"Trying to keep you from freezing to death," he replied. + +"Oh, let me go. It's so easy," I answered back drowsily. + +"By golly, I've a notion to do it." Pete's laugh was a tonic in itself. +"Here you and your horse are both down, and you can't stand on one of +your feet. I'll bet it's froze, and you about to go over the River; and +when a fellow tries to pull you back you say, 'Oh, let me go!' You +darned renegade! you ought to go." + +He was doing his best for me all the time, and he had begun none too +soon, for Death had swooped down near me, and I was ready to give up the +struggle. The warmth of the horse's body had saved one foot, but as to +the other--the little limp I shall always have had its beginning in that +night's work. + +The next day was Thanksgiving, although we did not know it. There are no +holy days or gala days to men who are famishing. That day the command +had no food except the few hackberries we found and the bark of the +trees we gnawed upon. It was the hardest day of all the march. + +Pete, who had pulled me back from the valley of the shadow the night +before, in his search for food that day, found a luckless little +wild-cat. And that cat without sauce or dressing became his Thanksgiving +turkey. + +The second night was bitterly cold, and then came a third day of +struggling through deep snows on hilly prairies, and across +canyon-guarded bridgeless streams. The milestones of our way were the +poor bodies of our troop horses that had given up the struggle, while +their riders pushed resolutely forward. + +On the fourth day out from Camp Starvation we came at sundown to the +edge of a low bluff, beyond which lay a fertile valley. If Paradise at +life's eventide shall look as good to me, it will be worth all the cares +of the journey to make an abundant entrance therein. + +Out of the bitter cold and dreary snow fields, trackless and treeless, +whereon we had wandered starving and uncertain, we looked down on a +broad wooded valley sheltering everything within it. Two converging +streams glistening in the evening light lay like great bands of silver +down this valley's length. Below us gleamed the white tents of +Sheridan's garrison, while high above them the Stars and Stripes in +silent dignity floated lightly in the gentle breeze of sunset. + +That night I slept under a snug tent on a soft bed of hay. And again I +dreamed as I had dreamed long ago of the two strange women whom I was +struggling to free from a great peril. + +General Sheridan had expected the Kansas regiment to make the journey +from Fort Beecher on the Arkansas to his station on the Canadian River +in four or five days. Our detachment of five hundred men had covered it +in fourteen days, but we had done it on five days' rations, and three +days' forage. Small wonder that our fine horses had fallen by the way. +It is only the human organism backed by a soul, that can suffer and +endure. + +Pliley and his fifty men who had left us the night we went into camp on +Sand Creek had reached Sheridan three days in advance of us, and already +relief was on its way to those whom we had left beyond the +snow-beleaguered canyons of the Cimarron. The whole of our regiment was +soon brought in and this part of the journey and its hardships became +but a memory. Official war reports account only for things done. No +record is kept of the cost of effort. The glory is all for the battle +lists of the killed or wounded, and yet I account it the one heroic +thing of my life that I was a Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry man through that +November of 1868 on the Plains. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +IN JEAN'S LAND + + All these regiments made history and left records of unfading + glory. + + +While the Kansas volunteers had been floundering in the snow-heaped +sand-dunes of the Cimarron country, General Sheridan's anxiety for our +safety grew to gravest fears. General Custer's feeling was that of +impatience mingled with anxiety. He knew the tribes were getting farther +away with every twenty-four hours' delay, and he shaped his forces for a +speedy movement southward. The young general's military genius was as +strong in minute detail as in general scope. His command was well +directed. Enlisted under him were a daring company of Osage scouts, led +by Hard Rope and Little Beaver, two of the best of this ever loyal +tribe. Forty sharpshooters under Colonel Cook, and a company of citizen +scouts recruited by their commanding officer, Pepoon, were added to the +regular soldiery of the Seventh Cavalry. + +These citizen scouts had been gathered from the Kansas river valleys. +They knew why they had come hither. Each man had his own tragic picture +of the Plains. They were a silent determined force which any enemy might +dread, for they had a purpose to accomplish--even the redemption of the +prairie from its awful peril. + +The November days had slipped by without our regiment's appearance. The +finding of an Indian trail toward the southwest caused Sheridan to loose +Custer from further delay. Eagerly then he led forth his willing command +out of Camp Supply and down the trail toward the Washita Valley, +determined to begin at once on the winter's work. + +The blizzard that had swept across the land had caught the Indian tribes +on their way to the coverts of the Wichita Mountains, and forced them +into winter quarters. The villages of the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, and the +Arapahoe extended up and down the sheltering valley of the Washita for +many miles. Here were Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne braves--they +of the loving heart at Fort Hays, they who had filled all the fair +northern prairie lands with terror, whose hands reeked with the hot +blood of the white brothers they professed to love. In their snug tepees +were their squaws, fat and warm, well clothed and well fed. Dangling +from the lodge poles were scalps with the soft golden curls of babyhood. +No comfort of savage life was lacking to the papooses here. And yet, in +the same blizzards wherein we had struggled and starved, half a score of +little white children torn from their mothers' clinging arms, these +Indians had allowed to freeze to death out on the Plains, while the +tribes were hurrying through the storm to the valley. The fathers of +some of these lost children were in that silent company under Pepoon, +marching now with the Seventh Cavalry down upon the snow-draped tepees +of Black Kettle and his tribe. + +Oh, the cost of it all! The price paid out for a beautiful land and +sheltered homes, and school privileges and Sabbath blessings! It was for +these that men fought and starved and dared, and at last died, leaving +only a long-faded ripple in the prairie sod where an unmarked grave +holds human dust returned to the dust of the earth. + +In the shelter of the Washita Valley on that twenty-seventh day of +November, God's vengeance came to these Indians at the hands of General +Custer. He had approached their village undiscovered. As the Indians had +swooped down on Forsyth's sleeping force; as the yells of Black Kettle's +braves had startled the sleeping settlers at dawn on Spillman Creek, the +daybreak now marked the beginning of retribution. While the Seventh +Cavalry band played "Garry Owen" as a signal for closing in, Custer's +soldiery, having surrounded the village, fell upon it and utterly +destroyed it. Black Kettle and many of his braves were slain, the tepees +were burned, the Indians' ponies were slaughtered, and the squaws and +children made captives. + +News of this engagement reached Sheridan's garrison on the day after our +arrival, with the word also that Custer, unable to cope with the tribes +swarming down the Washita River, was returning to Camp Supply with his +spoils of battle. + +"Did you know, Phil," Bud Anderson said, "that Cuthter'th to have a +grand review before the General and hith thtaff when he geth here +to-morrow, and that'th all we'll thee of the thircuth. My! but I wish we +could have been in that fight; don't you?" + +"I don't know, Bud, I'd hate to come down here for nothing, after all +we've gone through; but don't you worry about that; there'll be plenty +to be done before the whole Cheyenne gang is finished." + +"It'll be a sight worth seein' anyhow, this parade," O'mie declared. "Do +you remember the day Judge Baronet took his squad out av Springvale, +Phil? What a careless set av young idiots we were then?" + +Did I remember? Could I be the same boy that watched that line of +blue-coats file out of Springvale and across the rocky ford of the +Neosho that summer day? It seemed so long ago; and this snow-clad valley +seemed the earth's end from that warm sunny village. But Custer's review +was to come, and I should see it. + +It was years ago that this review was made, and I who write of it have +had many things crowded into the memory of each year. And yet, I recall +as if it were but yesterday that parade of a Plains military review. It +was a magnificent sunlit day. The Canadian Valley, smooth and white with +snow, rose gently toward the hills of the southwest. Across this slope +of gleaming whiteness came Custer's command, and we who watched it saw +one of those bits of dramatic display rare even among the stirring +incidents of war. + +Down across the swell, led by Hard Rope and Little Beaver, came the +Osage scouts tricked out in all the fantastic gear of Indian war +coloring, riding hard, as Indians ride, cutting circles in the snow, +firing shots into the air, and chanting their battle songs of victory. +Behind them came Pepoon's citizen scouts. Men with whom I had marched +and fought on the Arickaree were in that stern, silent company, and my +heart thumped hard as I watched them swinging down the line. + +And then that splendid cavalry band swept down the slope riding abreast, +their instruments glistening in the sunlight, and their horses stepping +proudly to the music as the strains of "Garry Owen to Glory" filled the +valley. + +Behind the band were the prisoners of war, the Cheyenne widows and +orphans of Black Kettle's village riding on their own ponies in an +irregular huddle, their bright blankets and Indian trinkets of dress +making a division in that parade, the mark of the untrained and +uncivilized. After these were the sharpshooters led by their commander, +Cook, and then--we had been holding our breath for this--then rode by +column after column in perfect order, dressed to the last point of +military discipline, that magnificent Seventh Cavalry, the flower of the +nation's soldiery, sent out to subdue the Plains. At their head was +their commander, a slender young man of twenty-nine summers, lacking +much the fine physique one pictures in a leader of soldiers. But his +face, from which a tangle of long yellow curls fell back, had in it the +mark of a master. + +This parade was not without its effect on us, to whom the ways of war +were new. Well has George Eliot declared "there have been no great +nations without processions." The unwritten influence of that thrilling +act of dramatic display somehow put a stir in the blood and loyalty and +patriotism took stronger hold on us. + +We had come out to break the red man's power by a winter invasion. Camp +Supply was abandoned, and the whole body made its way southward to Fort +Cobb. To me ours seemed a tremendous force. We were two thousand +soldiers, with commanders, camp officials, and servants. Our wagon train +had four hundred big Government wagons, each drawn by six mules. We +trailed across the Plains leaving a wide and well marked path where +twenty-five hundred cavalry horses, with as many mules, tramped the +snow. + +The December of the year 1868 was a terror on the Plains. No fiercer +blizzard ever blew out of the home of blizzards than the storms that +fell upon us on the southward march. + +Down in the Washita Valley we came to the scene of Custer's late +encounter. Beyond it was a string of recently abandoned villages +clustering down the river in the sheltering groves where had dwelt +Kiowa, Arapahoe, and Comanche, from whose return fire Custer saved +himself by his speedy retreat northward after his battle with Black +Kettle's band. + +A little company of us were detailed to investigate these deserted +quarters. The battle field had a few frozen bodies of Indians who had +been left by the tribe in their flight before the attack of the Seventh +Cavalry. There were also naked forms of white soldiers who had met death +here. In the villages farther on were heaps of belongings of every +description, showing how hasty the exodus had been. In one of these +villages I dragged the covering from a fallen snow-covered tepee. +Crouched down in its lowest place was the body of a man, dead, with a +knife wound in the back. + +"Poor coward! he tried hard to get away," Bud exclaimed. + +"Some bigger coward tried to make a shield out of him, I'll guess," I +replied, lifting the stiff form with more carefulness than sentiment. As +I turned the body about, I caught sight of the face, which even in death +was marked with craven terror. It was the face of the Rev. Mr. Dodd, +pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South. In his clenched dead +hands he still held a torn and twisted blanket. It was red, with a +circle of white in the centre. + +On the desolate wind-swept edge of a Kiowa village Bud and I came upon +the frozen body of a young white woman. Near her lay her two-year-old +baby boy. With her little one, she had been murdered to prevent her +rescue, on the morning of Custer's attack on the Cheyennes, murdered +with the music of the cavalry band sounding down the valley, and with +the shouts and shots of her own people, ringing a promise of life and +hope to her. + +Bud hadn't been with Forsyth, and he was not quite ready for this. He +stooped and stroked the woman's hair tenderly and then lifted a white +face up toward me. "It would have happened to Marjie, Phil, long ago, +but for O'mie. They were Kiowath, too," he said in a low voice. + +After that moment there was no more doubt for me. I knew why I had been +spared in Colorado, and I consecrated myself to the fighting duty of an +American citizen, "Through famine and fire and frost," I vowed to +myself, "I give my strength to this work, even unto death if God wills +it." + +Tenderly, for soldiers can be tender, the body of the mother and her +baby were wrapped in a blanket and placed in one of the wagons, to be +carried many miles and to wait many days before they were laid to rest +at last in the shadow of Fort Arbuckle. + +I saw much of O'mie. In the army as in Springvale, he was everybody's +friend. But the bitter winter did not alleviate that little hacking +cough of his. Instead of the mild vigor of the sunny Plains, that we had +looked for was the icy blast with its penetrating cold, as sudden in its +approach as it was terrible in its violence. Sometimes even now on +winter nights when the storms sweep across the west prairie and I hear +them hurl their wrathful strength against this stanch stone house with +its rounded turret-like corners, I remember how the wind blew over our +bivouacs, and how we burrowed like prairie dogs in the river bank, where +the battle with the storm had only one parallel in all this campaign. +That other battle comes later. + +But with all and all we could live and laugh, and I still bless the men, +Reed and Hadley and John Mac and Pete, whose storm cave was near mine. +Without the loud, cheery laugh from their nest I should have died. But +nobody said "die." Troop A had the courage of its convictions and a +breezy sense of the ludicrous. I think I could turn back at Heaven's +gate to wait for the men who went across the Plains together in that +year of Indian warfare. + +This is only one man's story. It is not an official report. The books of +history tell minutely how the scattered tribes submitted. Overwhelmed by +the capture of their chief men, on our march to Fort Cobb, induced +partly by threatened danger to these captive chiefs, but mostly by +bewilderment at the presence of such a large force in their country in +midwinter, after much stratagem and time-gaining delays they came at +last to the white commander's terms, and pitched their tepees just +beyond our camp. Only one tribe remained unsubdued: the Cheyennes, who +with trick and lie, had managed to elude all the forces and escape to +the southwest. + +We did not stay long at Fort Cobb. The first week of the new year found +us in a pleasanter place, on the present site of Fort Sill. It was not +until after the garrison was settled here that I saw much of these +Indian tribes, whom Custer's victory on the Washita, and diplomatic +handling of affairs afterwards, had brought into villages under the guns +of our cantonment. + +I knew that Satanta and Lone Wolf, chief men of the Kiowas, were held as +hostages, but I had not been near them. Satanta was the brute for whom +the dead woman with her little one had been captured. Her form was +mouldering back to earth in her grave at Fort Arbuckle, while he, well +clothed and well fed, was a gentleman prisoner of war in a comfortable +lodge in our midst. + +The East knew little of the Plains before the railroads crossed them. +Eastern religious papers and church mission secretaries lauded Satanta +as a hero, and Black Kettle, whom Custer had slain, as a martyr; while +they urged that the extreme penalty of the civil law be meted out to +Custer and Sheridan in particular, and to the rest of us at wholesale. + +One evening I was sent by an officer on some small errand to Satanta's +tent. The chief had just risen from his skin couch, and a long band of +black fur lay across his head. In the dim light it gave his receding +forehead a sort of square-cut effect. He threw it off as I entered, but +the impression it made I could not at once throw off. The face of the +chief was for the moment as suggestive of Jean Pahusca's face as ever +Father Le Claire's had been. + +"If Jean is a Kiowa," I said to myself, "then this scoundrel here must +be his mother's brother." I had only a few words with the man, but a +certain play of light on his cunning countenance kept Jean in my mind +continually. + +When I turned to go, the tent flap was pulled back for me from the +outside and I stepped forth and stood face to face with Jean Pahusca +himself, standing stolidly before me wrapped in a bright new red +blanket. We looked at each other steadily. + +"You are in my land now. This isn't Springvale." There was still that +French softness in his voice that made it musical, but the face was +cruel with a still relentless, deadly cruelty that I had never seen +before even in his worst moods. + +The Baronets are not cowardly by nature, but something in Jean always +made me even more fearless. To his taunting words, "This isn't +Springvale," I replied evenly, "No, but this is Phil Baronet still." + +He gave me a swift searching look, and turning, disappeared in the +shadows beyond the tents. + +"I owe him a score for his Arickaree plans," I said to myself, "and his +scalp ought to come off to O'mie for his attempt to murder the boy in +the Hermit's Cave. Oh, it's a grim game this. I hope it will end here +soon." + +As I turned away I fell against Hard Rope, chief of the Osage scouts. I +had seen little of him before, but from this time on he shadowed my +pathway with a persistence I had occasion to remember when the soldier +life was forgotten. + +The beginning of the end was nearer than I had wished for. All about +Fort Sill the bluffy heights looked down on pleasant little valleys. +White oak timber and green grass made these little parks a delight to +the eye. The soldiers penetrated all the shelving cliffs about them in +search of game and time-killing leisure. + +The great lack of the soldier's day is seclusion. The mess life and tent +life and field life may develop comradeship, but it cannot develop +individuality. The loneliness of the soldier is in the barracks, not in +the brief time he may be by himself. + +Beyond a little brook Bud and I had by merest chance found a small cove +in the low cliff looking out on one of these valleys, a secluded nook +entered by a steep, short climb. We kept the place a secret and called +it our sanctuary. Here on the winter afternoons we sat in the warm +sunshine sheltered from the winds by the rocky shelf, and talked of home +and the past; and sometimes, but not often, of the future. On the day +after I saw Jean at the door of Satanta's tent, Bud stole my cap and +made off to our sanctuary. I had adorned it with turkey quills, and made +a fantastic head-gear out of it. Soldiers do anything to kill time; and +jokes and pranks and child's play, stale and silly enough in civil life, +pass for fun in lieu of better things in camp. + +It was a warm afternoon in February, and the soldiers were scattered +about the valley hunting, killing rattlesnakes that the sunshine had +tempted out on the rocks before their cave hiding-places, or tramping up +and down about the river banks. Hearing my name called, I looked out, +only to see Bud disappearing and John Mac, who had mistaken him for me, +calling after him. John Mac, leading the other three, Hadley and Reed +and Pete, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one before him, +were marching in locked step across the open space. + +"The rascal's heading for the sanctuary," I said to myself. "I'll +follow and surprise him." + +I had nearly reached the foot of the low bluff when a pistol shot, clear +and sharp, sounded out; and I thought I heard a smothered cry in the +direction Bud had taken. "Somebody hunting turkey or killing snakes," +was my mental comment. Rifles and revolvers were popping here and there, +telling that the boys were out on a hunting bout or at target practice. +As I rounded a huge bowlder, beyond which the little climb to our cove +began, I saw Bud staggering toward me. At the same time half a dozen of +the boys, Pete and Reed and John Mac among them, came hurrying around +the angle of another projecting rock shelf. + +Bud's face was pallid, and his blue eyes were full of pathos. I leaped +toward him, and he fell into my arms. A hole in his coat above his heart +told the story,--a bullet and internal bleeding. I stretched him out on +the grassy bank and the soldiers gathered around him. + +"Somebody's made an awful mistake," John Mac said bitterly. "The boys +are hunting over on the other side of the bluff. We heard them shooting +turkey, and then we heard one shot and a scream. The boys don't know +what they've done." + +"I'm glad they don't," I murmured. + +"We were back there; you can't get down in front," Reed said. They did +not know of our little nest on the front side of the bluff. + +"I'm all right, Phil," Bud said, and smiled up at me and reached for my +hand. "I'm glad you didn't come. I told O'mie latht night where to find +it." And then his mind wandered, and he began to talk of home. + +"Run for the surgeon, somebody," one of the boys urged; and John Mac was +off at the word. + +"It ain't no use," Pete declared, kneeling beside the wounded boy. "He's +got no need for a surgeon." + +And I knew he was right. I had seen the same thing before on reeking +sands under a blazing September sky. + +I took the boy's head in my lap and held his hand and stroked that shock +of yellow hair. He thought he was at Springvale and we were in the Deep +Hole below the Hermit's Cave. He gripped my hand tightly and begged me +not to let him go down. It did not last long. He soon looked up and +smiled. + +"I'm thafe," he lisped. "Your turn, now, Phil." + +The soldiers had fallen back and left us two together. John Mac and Reed +had hastened to the cantonment for help, but Pete knew best. It was +useless. Even now, after the lapse of nearly forty years, the sorrow of +that day lies heavy on me. "Accidental death" the official record was +made, and there was no need to change it, when we knew better. + +That evening O'mie and I sat together in the shadowy twilight. There was +just a hint of spring in the balmy air, and we breathed deeply, +realizing, as never before, how easy a thing it is to cut off the +breath of life. We talked of Bud in gentle tones, and then O'mie said: +"Lem me tell you somethin', Phil. I was over among the Arapahoes this +afternoon, an' I saw a man, just a glimpse was all; but you never see a +face so like Father Le Claire's in your life. It couldn't be nobody else +but that praist; and yet, it couldn't be him, nather." + +"Why, O'mie?" I asked. + +"It was an evil-soaked face. And yet it was fine-lookin'. It was just +like Father Le Claire turned bad." + +"Maybe it was Father Le Claire himself turned bad," I said. "I saw the +same man up on the Arickaree, voice and all. Men sometimes lead double +lives. I never thought that of him. But who is this shadow of Jean +Pahusca's--a priest in civilization, a renegade on the Plains? Not only +the face and voice of the man I saw, but his gait, the set of his +shoulders, all were Le Claire to a wrinkle." + +"Phil, it couldn't have been him in September. The praist was at +Springvale then, and he went out on Dever's stage white and sick, +hurrying to Kansas City. Oh, begorra, there's a few extry folks more 'n I +can use in this world, annyhow." + +We sat in silence a few minutes, the shadow of the bowlder concealing +us. I was just about to rise when two men came soft-footed out of the +darkness from beyond the cliff. Passing near us they made their way +along the little stream toward the river. They were talking in low tones +and we caught only a sentence or two. + +"When are you going to leave?" It was Jean Pahusca's voice. + +"Not till I get ready." + +The tone had that rich softness I heard so often when Father Le Claire +chatted with our gang of boys in Springvale, but there was an insolence +in it impossible to the priest. O'mie squeezed my hand in the dark and +rising quickly he followed them down the stream. The boy never did know +what fear meant. They were soon lost in the darkness and I waited for +O'mie's return. He came presently, running swiftly and careless of the +noise he made. Beyond, I heard the feet of a horse in a gallop, a sound +the bluff soon shut off. + +"Come, Phil, let's get into camp double quick for the love av all the +saints." + +Inside the cantonment we stopped for breath, and as soon as we could be +alone, O'mie explained. + +"Whoiver that man with Jean was, he's a 'was' now for good. Jean fixed +him." + +"Tell me, O'mie, what's he done?" I asked eagerly. + +"They seemed to be quarrellin'. I heard Jean say, 'You can't get off too +quick; Satanta has got men hired to scalp you; now take my word.' An' +the Le Claire one laughed, oh, hateful as anything could be, and says, +'I'm not afraid of Satanta. He's a prisoner.' Bedad! but his voice is +like the praist's. They're too much alike to be two and too different +somehow to be one. But Phil, d'ye know that in the rumpus av Custer's +wid Black Kittle, Jean stole old Satanta's youngest wife and made off +wid her, and wid his customary cussedness let her freeze to death in +them awful storms. Now he's layin' the crime on this praist-renegade and +trying to git the Kiowas to scalp the holy villain. That's the row as I +made it out between 'em. They quarrelled wid each other quite fierce, +and the Imitation says, 'You are Satanta's tool yourself'; and Jean said +somethin' I couldn't hear. Then the Imitation struck at him. It was +dark, but I heard a groan and something like the big man went plunk into +the river. Then Jean made a dash by me, and he's on a horse now, and a +mile beyont the South Pole by this time. 'Tain't no pony, I bet you, but +a big cavalry horse he's stole. He put a knife into what went into the +river, so it won't come out. That Imitation isn't Le Claire, but nather +is he anybody else now. Phil, d'ye reckon this will iver be a dacent +civilized country? D'ye reckon these valleys will iver have orchards and +cornfields and church steeples and schoolhouses in 'em, and little +homes, wid children playin' round 'em not afraid av their lives?" + +"I don't know," I answered, "but orchards and cornfields and church +steeples and schoolhouses and little homes with children unafraid, have +been creeping across America for a hundred years and more." + +"So they have; but oh, the cost av it all! The Government puts the land +at a dollar and a quarter an acre, wid your courage and fightin' +strength and quickest wits, and by and by your heart's blood and a grave +wid no top cover, like a fruit tart, sometimes, let alone a tomb-stone, +as the total cost av the prairie sod. It's a great story now, aven if +nobody should care to read it in a gineration or so." + +So O'mie philosophized and I sat listening, whittling the while a piece +of soft pine, the broken end of a cracker box. + +"Now, Phil, where did you get that knife?" O'mie asked suddenly. + +"That's the knife I found in the Hermit's Cave one May day nearly six +years ago, when I went down there after a lazy red-headed Irishman. I +found it to-day down in my Saratoga trunk. See the name?" I pointed to +the script lettering, spelling out slowly--"Jean Le Claire." + +"Well, give it to me. I got it away from the 'good Injun' first." O'mie +deftly wrenched it out of my hand. "Let me kape it, Phil. I've a sort +of fore-warnin' I may nade it soon." + +"Keep it if you want to, you grasping son of Erin," I replied +carelessly. + +We were talking idly now, to hide the heaviness of our sorrow as we +thought of Bud down under the clods, whose going had left us two so +lonely and homesick. + +Two days later when I found time to slip away to our sanctuary and be +alone for a little while, my eye fell upon my feather-decked hat, +crushed and shapeless as if it had been trampled on, lying just at the +corner where I came into the nook. I turned it listlessly in my hands +and stood wrapped in sorrowful thought. A low chuckle broke the spell, +and at the same moment a lariat whizzed through the air and encircled my +body. A jerk and I was thrown to the ground, my arms held to my sides. +Almost before I could begin to struggle the coils of the rope were +deftly bound about me and I was helpless as a mummy. Then Jean Pahusca, +deliberate, cruel, mocking, sat down beside me. The gray afternoon was +growing late, and the sun was showing through the thin clouds in the +west. Down below us was a beautiful little park with its grove of +white-oak trees, and beyond was the river. I could see it all as I lay +on the sloping shelf of stone--the sky, and the grove and the bit of +river with the Arapahoe and Kiowa tepees under the shadow of the fort, +and the flag floating lazily above the garrison's tents. It was a +peaceful scene, but near me was an enemy cutting me off from all this +serenity and safety. In his own time he spoke deliberately. He had sat +long preparing his thought. + +"Phil Baronet, you may know now you are at the end of your game. I have +waited long. An Indian learns to wait. I have waited ever since the +night you put the pink flowers on her head--Star-face's. You are strong, +you are not afraid, you are quick and cunning, you are lucky. But you +are in my land now. You have no more strength, and your cunning and +courage and luck are useless. They don't know where you are. They don't +know about this place." He pointed toward the tents as he spoke. "When +they do find you, you won't do them any good." He laughed mockingly but +not unmusically. "They'll say, 'accidental death by hunters,' as they +said of Bud. Bah! I was fooled by his hat. I thought he was you. But he +deserved it, anyhow." + +So that was what had cut him off. Innocent Bud! wantonly slain, by one +the law might never reach. The thought hurt worse than the thongs that +bound me. + +"Before I finish with you I'll let you have more time to think, and here +is something to think about. It was given to me by a girl who loved you, +or thought she did. She found it in a hole in the rock where Star-face +had put it. Do you know the writing?" + +He held a letter before my eyes. In Marjie's well known hand I read the +inscription, "Philip Baronet, Rockport, Cliff Street." + +"It's a letter Star-face put in the place you two had for a long time. I +never could find it, but Lettie did. She gave it to me. There was +another letter deeper in, but this was the only one she could get out. +Her arm was too short. Star-face and Amos Judson were married Christmas +Day. You didn't know that." + +How cruelly slow he was, but it was useless to say a word. He had no +heart. No plea for mercy would move him to anything but fiendish joy +that he could call it forth. At last he opened the letter and read +aloud. He was a good reader. All his schooling had developed his power +over the English language, but it gave him nothing else. + +Slowly he read, giving me time to think between the sentences. It was +the long loving letter Marjie wrote to me on the afternoon that Rachel +and I went to the old stone cabin together. It told me all the stories +she had heard, and it assured me that in spite of them all her faith in +me was unshaken. + +"I know you, Phil," she had written at the end, "and I know that you are +all my own." + +I understood everything now. Oh, if I must die, it was sweet to hear +those words. She had not gotten my letter. She had heard all the +misrepresentation, and she knew all the circumstances entangling +everything. What had become of my letter made no difference; it was +lost. But she loved me still. And I who should have read this letter out +on "Rockport" in the August sunset, I was listening to it now out on +this gray rock in a lonely land as I lay bound for the death awaiting +me. But the reading brought joy. Jean watching my face saw his mistake +and he cursed me in his anger. + +"You care so much for another man's wife? So! I can drive away your +happiness as easily as I brought it to you," he argued. "I go back to +Springvale. Nobody knows when I go. Bud's out of the way; O'mie won't be +there. Suddenly, silently, I steal upon Star-face when she least thinks +of me. I would have been good to her five years ago. I can get her away +long and long before anybody will know it. Tell Mapleson will help me +sure. Now I sell her, on time, to one buck. When I get ready I redeem +her, and sell her to another. You know that woman you and Bud found in +Satanta's tepee on the Washita? I killed her myself. The soldiers went +by five minutes afterwards,--she was that near getting away. That's +what Star-face will come to by and by. Satanta is my mother's brother. I +can surpass him. I know your English ways also. When you die a little +later, remember what Star-face is coming to. When I get ready I will +torture her to death. You couldn't escape me. No more can she. Remember +it!" + +The sun was low in the west now, and the pain of my bonds was hard to +bear, but this slow torture of mind made them welcome. They helped me +not to think. After a long silence Jean turned his face full toward me. +I had not spoken a word since his first quick binding of my limbs. + +"When the last pink is in the sky your time will come," he laughed. "And +nobody will know. I'll leave you where the hunter accidentally shot you. +Watch that sunset and think of home." + +He shoved me rudely about that I might see the western sky and the level +rays of the sun, as it sank lower and lower. I had faced death before. I +must do it sometime, once for all. But life was very dear to me. Home +and Marjie's love. Oh, the burden of the days had been more grievous +than I had dreamed, now that I understood. And all the time the sun was +sinking. Keeping well in the shadow that no eye from below might see +him, Jean walked toward the edge of the shelf. + +"It will be down in a minute more; look and see," he said, in that soft +tone that veiled a fiend's purpose. Then he turned away, and glancing +out over the valley he made a gesture of defiance at the cantonment. His +back was toward me. The red sun was on the horizon bar, half out of +sight. + +"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no +evil." The arm of the All Father was round about me then, and I put my +trust in Him. + +As Jean turned to face the west the glow of the sinking ball of fire +dazzled his eyes a moment. But that was long enough, for in that instant +a step fell on the rock beside me. A leap of lightning swiftness put a +form between my eyes and the dying day; the flash of a knife--Jean Le +Claire's short sharp knife--glittered here; my bonds were cut in a +twinkling; O'mie, red-headed Irish O'mie, lifted me to my feet, and I +was free. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE CRY OF WOMANHOOD + + The women have no voice to speak, but none can check your pen-- + Turn for a moment from your strife and plead their cause, O men! + + --KIPLING. + + +After all, it was not Tillhurst, but Jim Conlow, who had a Topeka story +to tell when he went back to Springvale; and it was Lettie who edited +and published her brother's story. Lettie had taken on a new degree of +social importance with her elevation to a clerkship in Judson's store, +and she was quick to take advantage of it. + +Tillhurst, when he found his case, like my own, was hopeless with +Marjie, preferred that Rachel's name and mine should not be linked +together. Also a degree of intimacy had developed suddenly between Tell +Mapleson and the young teacher. The latter had nothing to add when +Lettie enlarged on Rachel's preference for me and my devotion to her +while the Nineteenth Kansas was mobilizing in Topeka. + +"And everybody knows," Lettie would declare, "that she's got the money, +and Phil will never marry a poor girl. No, sir! No Baronet's going to do +that." + +Although it was only Lettie who said it, yet the impression went about +and fixed itself somehow, that I had given myself over to a life of +luxury. I, who at this very time was starving of hunger and almost +perishing of cold in a bleak wind-swept land. And to me for all this, +there were neither riches nor glory, nor love. + +Springvale was very gay that winter. Two young lawyers from Michigan, +fresh from the universities, set up a new firm over Judson's store where +my father's office had been before "we planted him in the courthouse, +where he belongs," as Cam Gentry used to declare. A real-estate and +money-loaning firm brought three more young men to our town, while half +a dozen families moved out to Kansas from Indiana and made a "Hoosiers' +Nest" in our midst. And then Fingal's Creek and Red Range and all the +fertile Neosho lands were being taken by settlers. The country +population augmented that of the town, nor was the social plane of +Springvale lowered by these farmers' sons and daughters, who also were +of the salt of the earth. + +"For an engaged girl, Marjory Whately's about the most popular I ever +see," Dollie Gentry said to Cam one evening, when the Cambridge House +was all aglow with light and full of gay company. + +Marjie, in a dainty white wool gown with a pink sash about her waist, +and pink ribbons in her hair, had just gone from the kitchen with three +or four admiring young fellows dancing attendance upon her. + +"How can anybody help lovin' her?" Dollie went on. + +Cam sighed, "O Lordy! A girl like her to marry that there pole cat! How +can the Good Bein' permit it?" + +"'Tain't between her and her Maker; it's all between Mrs. Whately and +Amos," Dollie asserted. "Now, Cam, has anybody ever heard her say she +was engaged? She goes with one and another. Cris Mead's wife says she +always has more company'n she can make use of any ways. It's like too +much canned fruit a'most. Mis' Mead loves Marjie, and she's so proud of +her. Marjie don't wear no ring, neither, not a one, sence she took off +Phil Baronet's." + +Springvale had sharp eyes; and the best-hearted among us could tell just +how many rings any girl did or didn't wear. + +"Well, by hen!" Cam declared, "I'm just goin' to ask herself myself." + +"No, you ain't, Cam Gentry," Dollie said decisively. + +"Now, Dollie, don't you dictate to your lord and master no more. I won't +stand it." Cam squinted up at her from his chair in a ludicrous attempt +to frown. "Worst hen-pecked man in town, by golly." + +"I ain't goin' to dictate to no fool, Cam. If you want to be one, I +can't help it. I must go and set bread now." And Dollie pattered off +singing "Come Thou Fount," in a soft little old-fashioned tune. + + * * * * * + +"Marjie, girl, I knowed you when you was in bib aperns, and I knowed +your father long ago. Best man ever went out to fight and never got +back. They's as good a one comin' back, though, some day," he added +softly, and smiled as the pink bloom on Marjie's cheeks deepened. +"Marjie, don't git mad at an old man like your Uncle Cam. I mean no +harm." + +It was the morning after the party. Marjie, who had been helping Mary +Gentry "straighten up," was resting now by the cosy fireplace, while +Dollie and Mary prepared lunch. + +"Go ahead, Uncle Cam," the girl said, smiling. "I couldn't get mad at +you, because you never would do anything unkind." + +"Well, little sweetheart, honest now, and I won't tell, and it's none of +my doggoned business neither; but be you goin' to marry Amos Judson?" + +There was no resentment in the girl's face when she heard his halting +question, but the pink color left it, and her white cheeks and big brown +eyes gave her a stateliness Cam had never seen in her before. + +"No, Uncle Cam. It makes no difference what comes to me, I could not +marry such a man. I never will." + +"Oh, Lord bless you, Marjie!" Cam closed his eyes a moment. "They's a +long happy road ahead of you. I can see it with my good inside eyes that +sees further'n these things I use to run the Cambridge House with. +'Tain't my business, I'm a gossipin' inquisitive old pokeyer-nose, but +I've always been so proud of you, little blossom. Yes, we're comin', +Dollie, if you've got a thing a dyspeptic can eat." + +He held the door for Marjie to pass before him to the dining-room. Cam +was not one of the too-familiar men. There was a gentleman's heart under +the old spotted velvet "weskit," as he called his vest, and with all his +bad grammar, a quaint dignity and purity of manner and speech to women. + +But for all this declaration of Marjie's, Judson was planning each day +for the great event with an assurance that was remarkable. + +"She'll be so tangled up in this, she'll have to come to terms. There +ain't no way out, if she wants to save old Whately's name from dishonor +and keep herself out of the hired-girl class," he said to Tell Mapleson. +"And besides, there's the durned Baronet tribe that all the Whatelys +have been so devoted to. That's it, just devoted to 'em. Now they'll +come in for a full share of disgrace, too." + +The little man had made a god of money so long he could not understand +how poverty and freedom may bring infinitely more of blessing than +wealth and bonds. So many years, too, he had won his way by trickery +and deception, he felt himself a man of Destiny in all he under-took. +But one thing he never could know--I wonder if men ever do know--a +woman's heart. He had not counted on having to reckon with Marjie, +having made sure of her mother. It was not in his character to +understand an abiding love. + +There was another type of woman whom he misjudged--that of Lettie +Conlow. In his dictatorial little spirit, he did not give a second +thought beyond the use he could make of her in his greedy swooping in of +money. + +"O'mie knows too much," Judson informed his friend. "He's better out of +this town. And Lettie, now, I can just do anything with Lettie. You +know, Mapleson, a widower's really more attractive to a girl than a +young man; and as for me, well, it's just in me, that's all. Lettie +likes me." + +Whatever Tell thought, he counselled care. + +"You can't be too careful, Judson. Girls are the unsafest cattle on this +green earth. My boy fancied Conlow's girl once. I sent him away. He's +married now, and doing well. Runs on a steamboat from St. Louis to New +Orleans. I'd go a little slow about gettin' a girl like Lettie in here." + +"Oh, I can manage any girl on earth. Old maids and young things'll come +flockin' round a man with money. Beats all." + +This much O'mie had overheard as the two talked together in tones none +too low, in Judson's little cage of an office, forgetting the clerk +arranging the goods for the night. + +[Illustration: They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited] + +When Judson had found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause +by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who +had meant only for the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to +Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to +pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened +whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond +between them was stronger than ever. + +"She is such a loving, kind daughter, Amos," Mrs. Whately said to the +anxious suitor. "She fills the house with sunshine, and she is so strong +and self-reliant. When I spoke to her about our coming poverty, she only +laughed and held up her little hands, and said, 'They 're equal to it.' +The very day I spoke to her she began to do something. She found three +music pupils right away. She's been giving lessons all this Fall, and +has all she can give the time to. And when I hinted about her father's +name being disgraced, she kissed his picture and put it on the Bible and +said, 'He was true as truth. I won't disgrace myself by ever thinking +anything else.' And last of all, because she did so love Phil once" +(poor Mrs. Whately was the worst of strategists here), "when I tried to +put his case she said indifferently, 'If he did wrong, let him right it. +But he didn't.' Now, Amos, you must talk to her yourself. I don't know +what John Baronet advised her to do." + +Talking to Marjie was the thing Amos could not do, and the mention of +John Baronet was worse than the recollection of that callow stripling, +Phil. The widower stormed and scolded and threatened, until Mrs. Whately +turned to him at last and said quietly: + +"Amos, I think we will drop the matter now. Go home and think it over." + +He knew he had gone too far, and angry as he was, he had the prudence to +hold his tongue. But his purpose was undaunted. His temper was not +settled, however, when Mapleson called on him later in the day. Lettie +was busy marking down prices on a counter full of small articles and the +two men did not know how easily they could be overheard. Judson had no +reason to control himself with Tell, and his wrath exploded then and +there. Neither did Mapleson have need for temperance, and their angry +tones rose to a pitch they did not note at the time. + +"I tell you, Amos," Lettie heard Tell saying, "you've got to get rid of +this Conlow girl, or you're done for. Phil's lost that Melrose case +entirely; and he's out where a certain Kiowa brave we know is creepin' +on his trail night and day. He'll never come back. If his disappearance +is ever checked up to Jean, I'll clear the Injun. You can't do a thing +to the Baronets. If this thing gets up to Judge John, you're done for. +I'll never stand by it a minute. You can't depend on me. Now, let her +go." + +"I tell you I'm going to marry Marjie, Lettie or no Lettie. Good Lord, +man! I 've got to, or be ruined. It's too late now. I can get rid of +this girl when I want to, but I'll keep her a while." + +Lettie dropped her pencil and crept nearer to the glass partition over +the top of which the angry words were coming to her ears. Her black eyes +dilated and her heart beat fast, as she listened to the two men in angry +wrangle. + +"He's going to marry Marjie. He'll be ruined if he doesn't. And he says +that after all he has promised me all this Fall and Winter! Oh!" She +wrung her hands in bitterness of soul. Judson had not counted on having +to reckon with Lettie, any more than with Marjie. + +That night at prayer meeting, a few more prominent people were quietly +let into the secret of the coming event, and the assurance with which +the matter was put left little room for doubt. + + * * * * * + +John Baronet sat in his office looking out on the leafless trees of the +courthouse yard and down the street to where the Neosho was glittering +coldly. It was a gray day, and the sharp chill in the air gave hint of +coming rough weather. + +Down the street came Cris Mead on his way to the bank, silent Cris, +whose business sense and moral worth helped to make Springvale. He saw +my father at the window, and each waved the other a military salute. +Presently Father Le Claire, almost a stranger to Springvale now, came up +the street with Dr. Hemingway, but neither of them looked toward the +courthouse. Other folks went up and down unnoted, until Marjie passed by +with her music roll under her arm. Her dark blue coat and scarlet cap +made a rich bit of color on the gray street, and her fair face with the +bloom of health on her cheek, her springing step, and her quiet grace, +made her a picture good to see. John Baronet rose and stood at the +window watching her. She lifted her eyes and smiled a pleasant +good-morning greeting and went on her way. Some one entered the room, +and with the picture of Marjie still in his eyes, he turned to see +Lettie Conlow. She was flashily dressed, and a handsome new fur cape was +clasped about her shoulders. Self-possession, the lifetime habit of the +lawyer and judge, kept his countenance impassive. He bade her a +courteous good-morning and gave her a chair, but the story he had +already read in her face made him sick at heart. He knew the ways of the +world, of civil courts, of men, and of some women; so he waited to see +what turn affairs would take. His manner, however, had that habitual +dignified kindliness that bound people to him, and made them trust him +even when he was pitted with all his strength against their cause. + +Lettie had boasted much of what she could do. She had refused all of +O'mie's well-meant counsel, and she had been friends with envy and +hatred so long that they had become her masters. + +It must have been a strange combination of events that could take her +now to the man upon whom she would so willingly have brought sorrow and +disgrace. But a passionate, wilful nature such as hers knows little of +consistency or control. + +"Judge Baronet," Lettie began in a voice not like the bold belligerent +Lettie of other days, "I've come to you for help." + +He sat down opposite her, with his back to the window. + +"What can I do for you, Lettie?" + +"I don't know," the girl answered confusedly. "I don't know--how much to +tell you." + +John Baronet looked steadily at her a moment. Then he drew a deep breath +of relief. He was a shrewd student of human nature, and he could +sometimes read the minds of men and women better than they read +themselves. "She has not come to accuse, but to get my help," was his +conclusion. + +"Tell me the truth, Lettie, and as much of it as I need to know," he +said kindly. "Otherwise, I cannot help you at all." + +Lettie sat silent a little while. A struggle was going on within her, +the strife of ill-will against submission and penitent humiliation. Some +men might not have been able to turn the struggle, but my father +understood. The girl looked up at length with a pleading glance. She had +helped to put misery in two lives dear to the man before her. She had +even tried to drag down to disgrace the son on whom his being centred. +In no way could she interest him, for his ideals of life were all at +variance with hers. Small wonder, if distrust and an unforgiving spirit +should be his that day. But as this man of wide experience and large +ideals of right and justice looked at this poor erring girl, he put away +everything but the determination to help her. + +"Lettie," he said in that deep strong voice that carried a magnetic +power, "I know some things you do not want to tell. It is not what you +have done, but what you are to do that you must consider now." + +"That's just it, Mr. Baronet," Lettie cried. "I've done wrong, I know, +but so have other people. I can't help some things I've done to some +folks now. It's too late. And I hated 'em." + +The old sullen look was coming back, and her black brows were drawn in a +frown. My father was quick to note the change. + +"Never mind what can't be helped, Lettie," he said gravely. "A good many +things right themselves in spite of our misdoing. But let's keep now to +what you can do, to what I can do for you." His voice was full of a +stern kindness, the same voice that had made me walk the straight line +of truth and honor many a time in my boyhood. + +"You can summon Amos Judson here and make him do as he has promised to +do." Lettie cried, the hot tears filling her eyes. + +"Tell me his promise first," her counsel said. And Lettie told him her +story. As she went on from point to point, she threw reserve to the +winds, and gave word to many thoughts she had meant to keep from him. +When she had finished, John Baronet sat with his eyes on the floor a +little while. + +"Lettie, you want help, and you need it; and you deserve it on one +condition only," he said slowly. + +"What's that?" she asked eagerly. + +"That you also be just to others. That's fair, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is," she agreed. Her soul was possessed with a selfish longing +for her own welfare, but she was before a just and honorable judge now, +in an atmosphere of right thinking. + +"You know my son Phil, have known him many years. Although he is my boy, +I cannot shield him if he does wrong. Sin carries its own penalty sooner +or later. Tell me the truth now, as you must answer for yourself +sometime before the almighty and ever-living God, has Philip Baronet +ever wronged you?" + +How deep and solemn his tones were. They drove the frivolous trifling +spirit out of Lettie, and a sense of awe and fear of lying suddenly +possessed her. She dropped her eyes. The old trickery and evil plotting +were of no avail here. She durst do nothing but tell the truth. + +"He never did mistreat me," she murmured, hardly above a whisper. + +"He took you home from the Andersons' party the night Dave Mead was at +Red Range?" queried my father. + +Lettie nodded. + +"Of his own choice?" + +She shook her head. "Amos asked him to," she said. + +"And you told him good-bye at your own door?" + +Another nod. + +"Did you see him again that night?" + +"Yes." Lettie's cheeks were scarlet. + +"Who took you home the second time?" + +A confusion of face, and then Lettie put her head on the table before +her. + +"Tell me, Lettie. It will open the way for me to help you. Don't spare +anybody except yourself. You need not be too hard on yourself. Those who +should befriend you can lay all the blame you can bear on your +shoulders." He smiled kindly on her. + +"Judge Baronet, I was a bad girl. It was Amos promising me jewelry and +ribbons if I'd do what he wanted, making me think he would marry me if +he could. I hated a girl because--" She stopped, and her cheeks flamed +deeply. + +"Never mind about the girl. Tell me where you were, and with whom." + +"I was out on the West Prairie, just a little way, not very far. I was +coming home." + +"With Phil?" My father did not comment on the imprudence of a girl out +on the West Prairie at this improper hour. + +"No, no. I--I came home with Bud Anderson." Then, seeing only the kind +strong pitying face of the man before her, she told him all he wanted to +know. Would have told him more, but he gently prevented her, sparing her +all he could. When she had finished, he spoke, and his tones were full +of feeling. + +"In no way, then, has Philip ever done you any wrong? Have you ever +known him to deceive anybody? Has he been a young man of double dealing, +coarse and rude with some company and refined with others? A father +cannot know all that his children do. James Conlow has little notion of +what you have told me of yourself. Now don't spare my boy if you know +anything." + +"Oh, Judge Baronet, Phil never did a thing but be a gentleman all his +life. It made me mad to see how everybody liked him, and yet I don't +know how they could help it." The tears were streaming down her cheeks +now. + +And then the thought of her own troubles swept other things away, and +she would again have begged my father to befriend her, but his kind face +gave her comfort. + +"Lettie, go back to the store now. I'll send a note to Judson and call +him here. If I need you, I will let you know. If I can do it, I will +help you. I think I can. But most of all, you must help yourself. When +you are free of this tangle, you must keep your heart with all +diligence. Good-bye, and take care, take care of every step. Be a good +woman, Lettie, and the mistakes and wrong-doing of your girlhood will be +forgotten." + +As Lettie went slowly down the walk, to the street, my father looked +steadily after her. "Wronged, deceived, neglected, undisciplined," he +murmured. "If I set her on her feet, she may only drop again. She's a +Conlow, but I'll do my best. I can't do otherwise. Thank God for a son +free from her net." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +JUDSON SUMMONED + + Though the mills of the gods grind slowly, + Yet they grind exceeding small. + + --FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN. + + +Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a +lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking +his immediate presence in the Judge's office. + +The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the +wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience, +leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The +little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse. + +"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside +the door of the private office. "You sent for me, I see." + +My father returned his greeting and pointed to a chair. "Yes, I sent for +you. I told you I would when I wanted to see you," he said, sitting down +across the table from the sleek little man. + +"Yes, yes, I remember, so you did. That's it, you did. I've not been +back since, knowing you'd send for me; and then, I'm a business man and +can't be loafing. But now this means business. That's it, business; when +a man like Baronet calls for a man like me, it means something. After +all, I'm right glad that the widow did speak to you. I was a little hard +on her, maybe. But, confound it, a mother-in-law's like a wife, only +worse. Your wife's got to obey, anyhow. The preacher settles that, but +you must up and make your mother-in-law obey. Now ain't that right? You +waited a good while; but I says, 'Let him think. Give him time.' That's +it, 'give him time.' But to tell the truth I was getting a little +nervous, because matters must be fixed up right away. I don't like to +boast, but I've got the whip hand right now. Funny how a man gets to the +top in a town like this." Oh, the poor little knave! Whom the gods +destroy they first make silly, at least. + +"And by the way, did you settle it with the widow, too? I hope you did. +You'd be proud of me for a son, now Phil's clear out of it. And you and +Mrs. Whately'd make the second handsomest couple in this town." He +giggled at his own joke. "But say now, Baronet, it's took you an awful +time to make up your mind. What's been the matter?" His familiarity and +impudence were insufferable in themselves. + +"I hadn't all the evidence I needed," my father answered calmly. + +In spite of his gay spirits and lack of penetration that word "evidence" +grated on Judson a little. + +"Don't call it 'evidence'; sounds too legal, and nobody understands the +law, not even the lawyers." He giggled again. "Let's get to business." A +harsher tone in spite of himself was in his voice. + +"We will begin at once," my father declared. "When you were here last +Summer I was not ready to deal with you. The time has come for us to +have an understanding. Do you prefer any witness or counsel, or shall we +settle this alone?" + +Judson looked up nervously into my father's face, but he read nothing +there. + +"I--well, I don't know quite what you mean. No, I don't want no +witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man +to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know +law books. This is our own business and nobody else's. I'd knock my best +friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, +man alive! this is sacred. That's it--an affair of the heart. Now be +careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control was +slipping. + +"Amos Judson, I've listened patiently to your words. Patiently, too, I +have watched your line of action, for three years. Ever since I came +home from the war I have followed your business methods carefully." + +The little man before him was turning yellow in spite of his +self-assurance and reliance on his twin gods, money and deception, to +carry him through any vicissitude. He made one more effort to bring the +matter to his own view. + +"Now, don't be so serious, Baronet. This is a little love affair of +mine. If you're interested, all right; if not, let it go. That's it, let +it go, and I'm through with you." He rose to his feet. + +"But I'm not through with you. Sit down. I sent for you because I +wanted to see you. I am not through with this interview. Whether it's to +be the last or not will depend on conditions." + +Judson was very uncomfortable and blindly angry, but he sat as directed. + +"When I came home, I found you in possession of all the funds left by my +friend, Irving Whately, to his wife and child. A friend's interest led +me to investigate the business fallen to you. Irving begged me, when +his mortal hours were few, to befriend his loved ones. It didn't take +long to discover how matters were shaping themselves. But understanding +and belief are one thing, and legal evidence is another." + +"What was it your business?" Judson stormed. My father rose and, going +to his cabinet, he took from an inner drawer a folded yellow bit of +paper torn from a note book. Through the centre of it was a ragged +little hole, the kind a bullet might have cut. + +"This," he said, "was in Whately's notebook. We found it in his pocket. +The bullet that killed him went through it, and was deadened a trifle by +it, sparing his life a little longer. These words he had written in camp +the night before that battle at Missionary Ridge: + +"'If I am killed in battle I want John Baronet to take care of my wife +and child.' It was witnessed by Cris Mead and Howard Morton. Morton's in +the hospital in the East now, but Cris is down in the bank. Both of +their signatures are here." + +Judson sat still and sullen. + +"This is why it was my business to find out, at least, if all was well +with Mrs. Whately and her daughter. It wasn't well, and I set about +making it well. I had no further personal interest than this then. +Later, when my son became interested in the Whately family, I dropped +the matter--first, because I could not go on without giving a wrong +impression of my motives; and secondly, because I knew my boy could make +up to Marjie the loss of their money." + +"Phil hasn't any property," the widower broke in, the ruling passion +still controlling him. + +"None of Whately's property, no," my father replied; "but he has a +wage-earning capacity which is better than all the ill-begotten +property anybody may fraudulently gather together. Anyhow, I reasoned +that if my boy and Whately's girl cared for each other, I would not be +connected with any of their property matters. I have, however, secured a +widow's pension and some back-pay for Mrs. Whately, and not a minute too +soon." He smiled a little. "Oh, yes, Tell Mapleson went East on the same +train I did in October. I just managed to outwit him in time, and all +his affidavits and other documents were useless. He would have cut off +that bit of assistance from a soldier's widow to help your cause. It +would have added much value to your stock if Irving Whately's name +should have been so dishonored at Washington that his wife should +receive no pension for his service and his last great sacrifice. But so +long as Phil and Marjie were betrothed, I let your business alone." + +Judson could not suppress a grin of satisfaction. + +"Now that there is no bond other than friendship between the two +families, and especially since Marjie has begged me to take hold of it, +I have probed this business of yours to the bottom. Don't make any +mistake," he added, as Judson took on a sly look of disbelief. "You will +be safer to accept that fact now. Drop the notion that your tracks are +covered. I've waited for some time, so that one sitting would answer." + +There was a halting between cowardly cringing and defiance, overlaid all +with a perfect insanity of anger; for Judson had lost all self-control. + +"You don't know one thing about my business, and you can't prove a word +you say, you infernal, lying, old busybody, not one thing," he fairly +hissed in his rage. + +John Baronet rose to his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping +his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the +little man trembled. No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the +supremacy of that graceful motion and that penetrating look. + +"It takes cannon for the soldier, the rope for the assassin, the fist +for the rowdy; but, by Heaven! it's a ludicrous thing to squander +gunpowder when insect powder will accomplish the same results. I told +you, I had waited until I had the evidence," he said. "Now you are going +to listen while I speak." + +It isn't the fighter, but the man with the fighting strength, who wins +the last battle. Judson cowered down in his chair and dropped his eyes, +while my father seated himself and went on. + +"Before Irving Whately went to the war he had me draw up a will. You +witnessed it. It listed his property--the merchandise, the real estate, +the bank stock, the cash deposits, and the personal effects. One half of +this was to become Marjie's at the age of twenty (Marjie was twenty on +Christmas Day), and the whole of it in the event of her mother's death. +He did not contemplate his wife's second marriage, you see. That will, +with other valuable papers, was put into the vault here in the +courthouse for safe keeping, and you carried the key. While most of the +loyal, able-bodied men were fighting for their country's safety, you +were steadily drawing on the bank account in the pretence of using it +for the store. Nobody can find from your bookkeeping how matters were in +that business during those years. + +"On the night Springvale was to be burned, you raided the courthouse, +taking these and other papers away, because you thought the courthouse +was to be burned that night. Mapleson got mixed up in his instructions, +you remember, and Dodd nearly lost his good name in his effort to get +these same papers out of the courthouse to burn them. You and Tell +didn't 'tote fair' with him, and he thought you were here in town. You +wouldn't have treated the parson well, had your infamous scheme +succeeded. But you were not in town. You left your sick baby and +faithful wife to carry that will and that property-list out to the old +stone cabin, where you hid them. You meant to go back and destroy them +after you had examined them more carefully. But you never could find +them again. They were taken from your hiding-place and put in another +place. You thought you were alone out there; also you thought you had +outwitted Dodd. You could manage the Methodist Church South, but you +failed to reckon with the Roman Catholics. While you were searching the +draw to get back across the flood, Father Le Claire, wet from having +swum the Neosho up above there, stopped to rest in the gray of the +morning. You didn't see him, but he saw you." + +My father paused and, turning his back on the cowardly form in the +chair, walked to the window. Presently he sat down again. + +"Mrs. Whately was crushed with grief over her husband's death; she was +trustful and utterly ignorant in business matters; and in these +circumstances you secured her signature to a deed for the delivery of +all her bank stock to you. She had no idea what all that paper meant. +She only wanted to be alone with her overwhelming sorrow. I need not go +through that whole story of how steadily, by fraud, and misuse, and +downright lie, you have eaten away her property, getting everything into +your own name, until now you would turn the torture screw and force a +marriage to secure the remnant of the Whately estate, you greedy, +grasping villain! + +"But defrauding Irving Whately's heirs and getting possession of that +store isn't the full limit of your 'business.' You and Tell Mapleson, +after cutting Dodd and Conlow out of the game, using Conlow only as a +cat's paw, you two have been conducting a systematic commerce on +commission with one Jean Pahusca, highway robber and cut-throat, who +brings in money and small articles of value stolen in Topeka and Kansas +City and even St. Louis, with the plunder that could be gathered along +the way, all stored in the old stone cabin loft and slipped in here +after dark by as soft-footed a scoundrel as ever wore a moccasin. You +and Tell divide the plunder and promise Jean help to do his foes to +death--fostering his savage blood-thirsty spirit." + +"You can't prove that. Jean's word's no good in law; and you never found +it out through Le Claire. He's Jean's father; Dodd says so." Judson was +choking with rage. + +"The priest can answer that charge for himself," my father said calmly. +"No, it was your head clerk, Thomas O'Meara, who took a ten days' +vacation and stayed at night up in the old stone cabin for his health. +You know he has weak lungs. He found out many things, even Jean's fear +of ghosts. That's the Indian in Jean. The redskin doesn't live that +isn't afraid of a ghost, and O'mie makes a good one. This traffic has +netted you and Mapleson shamefully large amounts. + +"Where's my evidence?" he asked, as Judson was about to speak. "Ever +since O'mie went into the store, your books have been kept, and +incidentally your patronage has increased. That Irishman is shrewd and +to the last penny accurate. All your goods delivered by Dever's stage, +or other freight, with receipts for the same are recorded. All the goods +brought in through Jean's agency have been carefully tabulated. This +record, sworn to before old Joseph Mead, Cris's father, as notary, and +witnessed by Cam Gentry, Cris Mead, and Dr. Hemingway, lies sealed and +safe in the bank vault. + +"One piece of your trickery has a double bearing; here, and in another +line. Your books show that gold rings, a watch chain, sundry articles of +a woman's finery charged to Marjory Whately, taken from her mother's +income, were given as presents to another girl. Among them are a +handsome fur collar which Lettie Conlow had on this very morning, and +some beautiful purple ribbon, a large bow of which fastened with a +valuable pin set with brilliants I have here." + +He opened a drawer of his desk and lifted out the big bow of purple +ribbon which Lettie lost on the day Marjie and I went out to the haunted +cabin. "In your stupid self-conceit you refused to grant a measure of +good common sense and powers of observation to those about you. I have +seen your kind before; but not often, thank God!" + +My father paused, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. Judson +evidently fancied his case closed and he was beginning to hunt for a way +out, when his accuser spoke again. + +"Your business transactions, however, rank as they are, cannot equal +your graver deeds. Human nature is selfish, and a love of money has +filled many a man's soul with moth and rust. You are not the only man +who, to get a fortune, turned the trick so often that when an +opportunity came to steal, he was ready and eager for the chance. Some +men never get caught, or being known, are never brought to the bar of +account; but you have been found out as a thief and worse than a thief; +you have tried to destroy a good man's reputation. With words that were +false, absolutely false, you persuaded a defenceless woman that her +noble husband--wearing now the martyr's crown of victory--you persuaded +her, I say, that this man had done the things you yourself have done in +his name--that he was a business failure, a trickster, and an embezzler. +With Tell Mapleson and James Conlow and some of that Confederate gang +from Fingal's Creek, swearing to false affidavits, you made Mrs. Whately +believe that his name was about to be dishonored for wrongs done in his +business and for fraudulent dealing which you, after three years of +careful sheltering, would no longer hide unless she gave her daughter to +you in marriage. For these days of wearing grief to Mrs. Whately you can +never atone. You and Tell, as I said a while ago, almost succeeded in +your scheme at Washington. To my view this is infinitely worse than +taking Irving Whately's property. + +"All this has been impersonal to me, except as the wrongs and sorrows of +a friend can hurt. But I come now to my own personal interest. And where +that is concerned a man may always express himself." + +Judson broke out at this point unable to restrain himself further. + +"Baronet, you needn't mind. You and me have nothing in the world in +common." + +My father held back a smile of assent to this. + +"All I ever did was to suggest a good way for you to help Mrs. Whately, +best way in the world you could help her if you really feel so bad about +her. But you wouldn't do it. I just urged it as good for all parties. +That's it, just good for all of us; and it would have been, but I didn't +command you to it, just opened the way to help you." + +My father did not repress the smile this time, for the thought of Judson +commanding him was too much to bear unsmilingly. The humor faded in a +moment, however, and the stern man of justice went on with his charge. + +"You tried to bring dishonor upon my son by plans that almost won, did +win with some people. You adroitly set on foot a tale of disgraceful +action, and so well was your work done that only Providence prevented +the fulfilling of your plans." + +"He is a fast young man; I have the evidence," Judson cried defiantly. +"He's been followed and watched by them that know. I guess if you take +Jean Pahusca's word about the goods you'll have to about the doings of +Phil Baronet." + +"No doubt about Phil being followed and watched, but as to taking Jean +Pahusca's word, I wouldn't take it on oath about anything, not a whit +more than I would take yours. When a man stands up in my court and +swears to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he +must first understand what truth is before his oath is of any effect. +Neither Jean nor you have that understanding. Let me tell you a story: +You asked Phil to escort Lettie Conlow home one night in August. About +one o'clock in the morning Phil went from his home down to the edge of +the cliff where the bushes grow thick. What took him there is his own +business. It is all written in a letter that I can get possession of at +any time that I need it, Lettie was there. Why, I do not know. She asked +him to go home with her, but he refused to do so." + +Judson would have spoken but my father would not permit it here. + +"She started out to that cabin at that hour of the night to meet you, +started with Jean Pahusca, as you had commanded her to do, and you know +he is a dangerous, villainous brute. He had some stolen goods at the +cabin, and you wanted Lettie to see them, you said. If she could not +entrap Phil that night, Jean must bring her out to this lonely haunted +house. You led the prayer meeting that week for Dr. Hemingway. Amos +Judson, so long as such men as you live, there is still need for +guardian angels. One came to this poor wilful erring girl that night in +the person of Bud Anderson, who not only made her tell where she was +going, but persuaded her to turn back, and he saw her safe within her +own home." + +"It's Phil that's deceived her and been her downfall. I can prove it by +Lettie herself. She's a very warm friend and admirer of mine." + +"She told me in this room not two hours ago that Phil had never done her +wrong. It was she who asked to have you summoned here this morning, +although I was ready for you anyhow." + +The end of Judson's rope was in sight now. He collapsed in his chair +into a little heap of whining fear and self-abasement. + +"Your worst crime, Judson, is against this girl. You have used her for +your tool, your accomplice, and your villainously base purposes. You +bribed her, with gifts she coveted, to do your bidding. You lived a +double life, filling her ears with promises you meant only to break. +Even your pretended engagement to Marjie you kept from her, and when she +found it out, you declared it was false. And more, when with her own +ears she heard you assert it as a fact, you sought to pacify her with +promises of pleasures bought with sin. You are a property thief, a +receiver of stolen goods, a defamer of character. Your hand was on the +torch to burn this town. You juggled with the official records in the +courthouse. You would basely deceive and marry a girl whose consent +could be given only to save her father's memory from stain, and her +mother from a broken heart. And greatest and blackest of all, you would +utterly destroy the life and degrade the soul of one whose erring feet +we owe it to ourselves to lead back to straight paths. On these charges +I have summoned you to this account. Every charge I have evidence to +prove beyond any shadow of question. I could call you before the civil +courts at once. That I have not done it has not been for my son's sake, +nor for Marjie's, nor her mother's, but for the sake of the one I have +no personal cause to protect, the worst one connected with this business +outside of yourself and that scoundrel Mapleson--for the sake of a +woman. It is a man's business to shield her, not to drag her down to +perdition. I said I would send for you when it was time for you to come +again, when I was ready for you. I have sent for you. Now you must +answer me." + +Judson, sitting in a crumpled-up heap in the big armchair in John +Baronet's private office, tried vainly for a time to collect his forces. +At last he turned to the one resource we all seek in our misdoing: he +tried to justify himself by blaming others. + +"Judge Baronet," his high thin voice always turned to a whine when he +lowered it. "Judge Baronet, I don't see why I'm the only one you call to +account. There's Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow and the Rev. Dodd and a +lot more done and planned to do what I'd never 'a dreamed of. Now, why +do I have to bear all of it?" + +"You have only your part to bear, no more; and as to Tell Mapleson, his +time is coming." + +"I think I might have some help. You know all the law, and I don't know +any law." My father did not smile at the evident truth of the last +clause. + +"You can have all the law, evidence, and witnesses you choose. You may +carry your case up to the highest court. Law is my business; but I'll +be fair and say to you that a man's case is sometimes safer settled out +of court, if mercy is to play any part. I've no cause to shield you, but +I'm willing you should know this." + +"I don't want to go to court. Tell's told me over and over I'd never +have a ghost of a show"--he was talking blindly now--"I want somebody to +shake you loose from me. That's it, I want to get rid of you." + +"How much time will it require to get your counsel and come here again?" + +If a man sells his soul for wealth, the hardest trial of his life comes +when he first gets face to face with the need of what money cannot buy; +that is, loyalty. Such a trial came to Judson at this moment. Mapleson +had warned him about Baronet, but in his puny egotistic narrowness he +thought himself the equal of the best. Now he knew that neither Mapleson +nor any other of the crew with whom he had been a law-breaker would +befriend him. + +"They ain't one of 'em 'll stand by a fellow when he's down, not a one," +the little man declared. + +"No, they never do; remember that," John Baronet replied. + +"Well, what is it you want?" he whined. + +"What are you going to do? Settle this in court or out of it?" + +"Out of it, out of it," Judson fairly shrieked. "I'd be put out of the +Presbyterian Church if this gets into the courts. I've got a bank +account I'm not ashamed of. How much is it going to take to settle it? +What's the least will satisfy you?" + +"Settle it? Satisfy me? Great heavens! Can a career like this be atoned +for with a bank check and interest at eight per cent?" My father's +disgust knew no bounds. + +"You are going to turn over to the account of Marjory Whately an amount +equal to one-half the value of Whately's estate at the time of his +death, with a legal rate of interest, which according to his will she +was to receive at the age of twenty. The will," my father went on, as he +read a certain look in Judson's face, "is safe in the vault of the +courthouse, and there are no keys available to the box that holds it. +Also, you are going to pay in money the value of all the articles +charged to Marjory Whately's account and given to other people, mostly +young ladies, and especially to Lettie Conlow. Your irregular business +methods in the management of that store since O'mie began to keep your +records you are going to make straight and honest by giving all that is +overdue to your senior partner, Mrs. Irving Whately. Furthermore, you +are going to give an account for the bank stock fraudulently secured in +the days of Mrs. Whately's deep sorrow. This much for your property +transactions. You can give it at once or stand suit for embezzlement. I +have the amounts all listed here. I know your bank account and property +possession. Will you sign the papers now?" + +"But--but," Judson began. "I can't. It'll take more than half, yes, all +but two-thirds, I've got to my name. I can't do it. I'll have to hire to +somebody if I do." + +"You miserable cur, the pity is you can't make up all that you owe but +that cannot be proved by any available record. Only one thing keeps me +back from demanding a full return for all your years of thieving +stewardship." + +"Isn't that all?" Judson asked. + +"Not yet. You cannot make returns for some things. If it were all a +money proposition it would be simple. The other thing you are going to +do, now mark me, I've left you the third of your gains for it. You are +going to make good your promise to Lettie Conlow, and you will do it +now. You will give her your name, the title of wife. Your property under +the Kansas law becomes hers also; her children become the heirs to your +estate. These, with an honest life following, are the only conditions +that can save you from the penitentiary, as an embezzler, a receiver of +stolen goods, a robber of county records, a defamer of innocent men, an +accomplice in helping an Indian to steal a white girl, and a libertine. + +"I shall not release the evidence, nor withdraw the power to bring you +down the minute you break over the restrictions. Amos Judson," (there +was a terrible sternness in my father's voice, as he stood before the +wretched little man), "there is an assize at which you will be tried, +there is a bar whose Judge knows the heart as well as the deed, and for +both you must answer to Him, not only for the things in which I give you +now the chance to redeem yourself, but for those crimes for which the +law may not now punish you. There is here one door open beside the one +of iron bars, and that is the door to an honest life. Redeem your past +by the future." + +For the person who could have seen John Baronet that day, who could have +heard his deep strong voice and felt the power of his magnetic +personality, who could have been lifted up by the very strength of his +nobility so as to realize what a manhood such as his can mean--for one +who could have known all this it were easy to see to how hard a task I +have set my pen in trying to picture it here. + +"No man's life is an utter failure until he votes it so himself." My +father did not relax his hold for a moment. "You must square yours by a +truer line and lift up to your own plane the girl you have promised to +marry, and prosperity and happiness such as you could never know +otherwise will come to you. On this condition only will you escape the +full penalty of the law." + +The little widower stood up at last. It had been a terrible grilling, +but his mind and body, cramped together, seemed now to expand. + +"I'll do it, Judge Baronet. Will you help me?" + +He put out his hand hesitatingly. + +My father took it in his own strong right hand. No man or woman, whether +clothed upon with virtue or steeped in vice, ever reached forth a hand +to John Baronet and saw in his face any shadow of hesitancy to receive +it. So supreme to him was the ultimate value of each human soul. He did +not drop the hand at once, but standing there, as father to son he +spoke: + +"I have been a husband. Through all these long years I have walked alone +and lonely, yearning ever for the human presence of my loved one lying +these many years under the churchyard grasses back at old Rockport. +Judson, be good to your wife. Make her happy. You will be blessed +yourself and you will make her a true good woman." + + * * * * * + +There was a quiet wedding at the Presbyterian parsonage that evening. +The name of only one witness appeared on the marriage certificate, the +name in a bold hand of John Baronet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +O'MIE'S INHERITANCE + + In these cases we still have judgment here. + + --SHAKESPEARE. + + +True to his word, Tell Mapleson's time followed hard on the finishing up +of Judson. My father did not make a step until he was sure of what the +next one would be. That is why the supreme court never reversed his +decisions. When at last he had perfected his plans, Tell Mapleson grew +shy of pushing his claims. But Tell was a shrewd pettifogger, and his +was a different calibre of mind from Judson's. It was not until my +father was about to lay claim in his client's behalf to the valuable +piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that +Tell came out of hiding. This happened on the afternoon following the +morning scene with Judson. And aside from the task of the morning, the +news of Bud Anderson's untimely death had come that day. Nobody could +foretell what next this winter's campaign might hold for the Springvale +boys out on the far Southwest Plains, and my father's heart was heavy. + +Tell Mapleson was tall and slight. He was a Southern man by birth, and +he always retained something of the Southern air in his manner. Active, +nervous, quick-witted, but not profound, he made a good impression +generally, especially where political trickery or nice turns in the law +count for coin. Professionally he and my father were competitors; and +he might have developed into a man of fine standing, had he not kept +store, become postmaster, run for various offices, and diffused himself +generally, while John Baronet held steadily to his calling. + +In the early afternoon Tell courteously informed my father that he +desired an interview with the idea of adjusting differences between the +two. His request was granted, and a battle royal was to mark the second +half of the day. John Baronet always called this day, which was Friday, +his black but good Friday. + +"Good-afternoon, Mr. Mapleson, have a chair." + +"Good-afternoon, Judge. Pretty stiff winter weather for Kansas." + +So the two greeted each other. + +"You wanted to see me?" my father queried. + +"Yes, Judge. We might as well get this matter between us settled here as +over in the court-room, eh?" + +My father smiled. "Yes, we can afford to do that," he said. "Now, +Mapleson, you represent a certain client in claiming a piece of property +known as the north half of section 29, range 14. I also represent a +claim on the same property. You want this settled out of court. I have +no reason to refuse settlement in this way. State your claim." + +Mapleson adjusted himself in his chair. + +"Judge, the half section of land lying upon the Neosho, the one +containing among other appurtenances the big cottonwood tree and the +stone cabin, was set down in the land records as belonging to one +Patrick O'Meara, the man who took up the land. He was a light-headed +Irishman; he ran off with a Cheyenne squaw, and not long afterwards was +killed by the Comanches. This property, however, he gave over to a +friend of his, a Frenchman named Le Claire, connected in a business way +with the big Choteau Fur-trading Company in St. Louis. This Frenchman +brought his wife and child here to live. I knew them, for they traded at +the 'Last Chance' store. That was before your day here, Baronet. Le +Claire didn't live out in that cabin long, for his only child was stolen +by the Kiowas, and his wife, in a frenzy of grief drowned herself in the +Neosho. Then Le Claire plunged off into the Plains somewhere. Later he +was reported killed by the Kiowas. Now I have the evidence, the written +statement signed by this Irishman, of the turning of the property into +Le Claire's hands. Also the evidence that Le Claire was not killed by +the Indians. Instead, he was legally married to a Kiowa squaw, a sister +of Chief Satanta, who is now a prisoner of war with General Custer in +the Indian Territory. By this union there was one child, a son, Jean +Pahusca he is called. To this son this property now belongs. There can +be no question about it. The records show who entered the land. Here is +the letter sworn to in my store by this same man, left by him to be +given to Le Claire when he should come on from St. Louis. The Irishman +was impatient to join these Cheyennes he'd met on a fur-hunting trip way +up on the Platte, and with his affidavit before old Judge Fingal (he +also was here before you) he left this piece of land to the Frenchman." + +Mapleson handed my father a torn greasy bit of paper, duly setting forth +what he had claimed. + +"Now, to go on," he resumed. "This Kiowa marriage was a legal one, for +the Frenchman had a good Catholic conscience. This marriage was all +right. I have also here the affidavit of the Rev. J. J. Dodd, former +pastor of the Methodist Church South in Springvale. At the time of this +marriage Dodd, who was then stationed out near Santa Fé, New Mexico, was +on his way east with a wagon train. Near Pawnee Rock Le Claire with a +pretty squaw came to the train legally equipped and was legally married +by Dodd. As a wedding fee he gave this letter of land grant to Dodd. +'Take it,' he said, 'I'll never use it. Keep it, or give it away.' Dodd +kept it." + +"Until when?" my father asked. + +Mapleson's hands twitched nervously. + +"Until he signed it over to me," he replied. "I have everything +secured," he added, smiling, and then he went on. + +"Le Claire soon got tired of the Kiowas of course, and turned priest, +repented of all his sins, renounced his wife and child, and all his +worldly goods. It will be well for him to keep clear of old Satanta in +his missionary journeys to the heathen, however. You know this priest's +son, Jean Pahusca. He got into some sort of trouble here during the war, +and he never comes here any more. He has assigned to me all his right to +this property, on a just consideration and I am now ready to claim my +own, by force, if necessary, through the courts. But knowing your +position, and that you also have a claim on the same property, I figured +it could be adjusted between us. Baronet, there isn't a ghost of a show +for anybody else to get a hold on this property. Every legal claimant is +dead except this half-breed. I have papers for every step in the way to +possession; and as a man whose reputation for justice has never been +diminished, I don't believe you will pile up costs on your client, nor +deal unfairly with him. Have you any answer to my claim?" + +At that moment the door opened quietly and Father Le Claire entered. He +was embarrassed by his evident intrusion and would have retreated but my +father called him in. + +"You come at a most opportune time, Father Le Claire. Mapleson here has +been proving some things to me through your name. You can help us both." + +John Baronet looked at both men keenly. Mapleson's face had a look of +pleasure as if he saw not only the opportunity to prove his cause, but +the chance to grill the priest, whose gentle power had time and again +led the Indians from his "Last Chance" saloon on annuity days, when the +peaceful Osages and Kaws came up for their supplies. The good Father's +face though serious, even apprehensive, had an undercurrent of serenity +in its expression hard to reconcile with fear of accusation. + +"Mr. Mapleson, will you repeat to Le Claire what you have just told me +and show him your affidavits and records?" John Baronet asked. + +"Certainly," Tell replied, and glibly he again set forth his basis to a +claim on the valuable property. "Now, Le Claire," he added, "Baronet and +I have about agreed to arbitrate for ourselves. Your name will never +appear in this. The records are seldom referred to, and you are as safe +with us as if you'd never married that squaw of old Satanta's household. +We are all men here, if one is a priest and one a judge and the other a +land-owner." + +Le Claire's face never twitched a muscle. He turned his eyes upon the +judge inquiringly, but unabashed. + +"Will you help us out of this, Le Claire?" my father asked. "If you +choose I will give you my claim first." + +"Good," said Mapleson. "Let him hear us both, and his word will show us +what to do." + +"Well, gentlemen," my father began, "by the merest chance a few years +ago I came upon the entry of the land in question. It was entered in the +name of Patrick O'Meara. Happening to recall that the little red-headed +orphan chore-boy down at the Cambridge House bore the same name, I made +some inquiry of Cam Gentry about the boy's origin and found that he was +an orphan from the Osage Mission, and had been brought up here by one of +the priests who stopped here a day or two on his way from the Osage to +St. Mary's, up on the Kaw. Cam and Dollie were kind to the child, and he +begged the priest to stay with them. The good man consented, and while +the guardianship remained with the people of the Mission, O'mie grew up +here. It seemed not impossible that he might have some claim on this +land. Everything kept pointing the fact more and more clearly to me. +Then I was called to the war." + +Tell Mapleson's mobile face clouded up a bit at this. + +"But I had by this time become so convinced that I called in Le Claire +here and held a council with him. He told me some of what he knew, not +all, for reasons he did not explain" (my father's eyes were on the +priest's face), "but if it is necessary he will tell." + +"Now that sounds like a threat," Mapleson urged. Somehow, shrewd as he +was, solid as his case appeared to himself, the man was growing +uncomfortable. "I've known Le Claire's story for years. I never +questioned him once. I had my papers from Dodd. Le Claire long ago +renounced the world. His life has proved it. The world includes the +undivided north half of section 29, range 14. That's Jean Pahusca's. +It's too late now for his father to try to get it away from him, +Baronet. You know the courts won't stand for it." Adroit as he was, the +Southern blood was beginning to show in Tell's nervous manner and +flashing eyes. + +"When I came back from the war," my father went on, ignoring the +interruption, "I found that the courthouse records had been juggled +with. Some of them, with some other papers, had been stolen. It happened +on a night when for some reason O'mie, a harmless, uninfluential Irish +orphan, was hunted for everywhere in order to be murdered. Why? He stood +in the way of a land-claim, and human life was cheap that night." + +Tell Mapleson's face was ashy gray with anger; but no heed was given to +him, as my father continued. + +"It happened that Jean Pahusca, who took him out of town by mistake and +left him unconscious and half dead on the bank of Fingal's Creek, was +ordered back by the ruffians to find his body, and if he was alive to +finish him in any way the Indian chose. That same night the courthouse +was entered, and the record of this land-entry was taken." + +"I have papers showing O'Meara's signing it over--" Tell began; but my +father waved his hand and proceeded. + +"Briefly put, it was concealed in the old stone cabin by one Amos +Judson. Le Claire here was a witness to the transaction." + +The priest nodded assent. + +"But for reasons of his own he did not report the theft. He did, +however, remove the papers from their careless hiding-place in an old +chest to a more secure nook in the far corner of the dark loft. Before I +came home he had left Springvale, and business matters called him to +France. He has not been here since, until last September when he spent a +few days out at the cabin. The lead box had been taken from the loft and +concealed under the flat stone that forms the door step, possibly by +some movers who camped there and did some little harm to the property. + +"I have the box in the bank vault now. Le Claire turned it over to me. +There is no question as to the record. Two points must be settled, +however. First, did O'Meara give up the land he entered? And second, is +the young man we call O'mie heir to the same? Le Claire, you are just +back from the Osage Mission?" + +The priest assented. + +"Now, will you tell us what you know of this case?" + +A sudden fear seized Tell Mapleson. Would this man lie now to please +Judge Baronet? Tell was a good reader of human nature, and he had +thoroughly believed in the priest as a holy man, one who had renounced +sin and whose life was one long atonement for a wild, tragic, and +reckless youth. He disliked Le Claire, but he had never doubted the +priest's sincerity. He could have given any sort of bribe had he deemed +the Frenchman purchasable. + +"Just one word please, Judge," he said suavely. "Look here, Le Claire, +Baronet's a good lawyer, a rich man, and a popular man with a fine +reputation; but by jiminy! if you try any tricks with me and vary one +hair from the truth, I'll have you before the civil and church courts so +quick you'll think the Holy Inquisition's no joke. If you'll just tell +the truth nobody's going to know through me anything about your former +wives, nor how many half-breed papooses claim you. And I know Baronet +here well enough to know he never gossips." + +Le Claire turned his dark face toward Mapleson, and his piercing black +eyes seemed to look through the restless lawyer fidgeting in his chair. +In the old days of the "Last Chance" saloon the two had played a quiet +game, each trying to outwit the other--the priest for the spiritual and +financial welfare of the Indian pensioners, Mapleson for his own +financial gain. Yet no harsh word had ever passed between them. Not even +after Le Claire had sent his ultimatum to the proprietor of the "Last +Chance," "Sell Jean Pahusca another drink of whiskey and you'll be +removed from the Indian agency by order from the Secretary of Indian +affairs at Washington." + +"Mr. Mapleson, I hope the truth will do you no harm. It is the only +thing that will avail now, even the truth I have for years kept back. I +am no longer a young man, and my severe illness in October forced me to +get this business settled. Indeed, I in part helped to bring matters to +an issue to-day." + +Mapleson was disarmed at once by the priest's frankness. He had waited +long to even up scores with the Roman Catholic who had kept many a +dollar from his till. + +"You are right, gentlemen, in believing that I hold the key to this +situation. The Judge has asked two questions: 'Did Patrick O'Meara ever +give up his title to the land?' and 'Is O'mie his heir, and therefore +the rightful owner?' Let me tell you first what I know of O'mie. + +"His mother was a dear little Irish woman who had come, a stranger, to +New York City and was married to Patrick O'Meara when she was quite +young. They were poor, and after O'mie was born, his father decided to +try the West. Fate threw him into the way of a Frenchman who sent him to +St. Louis to the employment of a fur-trading company in the upper +Missouri River country. O'Meara knew that the West held large +possibilities for a poor man. He hoped in a short time to send for his +wife and child to join him." + +The priest paused, and his brow darkened. + +"This Frenchman, although he was of noble birth, had all the evil traits +and none of the good ones of all the generations, and withal he was a +wild, restless, romantic dreamer and adventurer. You two do not know +what heartlessness means. This man had no heart, and yet," the holy +man's voice trembled, "his people loved him--will always love his +memory, for he could be irresistibly charming and affectionate when he +chose. To make this painful story short, he fell in love--madly as only +he could love--with this pretty little auburn-haired Irish woman. He had +a wife in France, but Mrs. O'Meara pleased him for the time; and he was +that kind of a beast. + +"O'Meara came to Springvale, and finding here a chance to get hold of a +good claim, he bought it. He built a little cabin and sent money to New +York for his wife and child to join him here. Mails were slow in +preterritorial days. The next letter O'Meara had from New York was from +this Frenchman telling him that his wife and child were dead. Meanwhile +the villain played the kind friend and brother to the little woman and +helped her to prepare for her journey to the West. He had business +himself in St. Louis. He would precede her there and accompany her to +her husband's new home. Oh, he knew how to deceive, and he was as +charming in manner as he was dominant in spirit. No king ever walked the +earth with a prouder step. You have seen Jean Pahusca stride down the +streets of Springvale, and you know his regal bearing. Such was this +Frenchman. + +"In truth," the priest went on, "he had cause to leave New York. Word +had come to him that his deserted French wife was on her way to America. +This French woman was quick-tempered and jealous, and her anger was +something to flee from. + +"It is a story of utter baseness. From St. Louis to Springvale Mrs. +O'Meara's escort was more like a lover than a friend and business +director of her affairs. This land was an Osage reservation then. +O'Meara's half-section claim was west of here. The home he built was +that little stone cabin near where the draw breaks through the bluff up +the river, this side of the big cottonwood." + +Le Claire paused and sat in silence for a while. + +"Much as I have dealt with all sorts of people," he continued, "I never +could understand this Frenchman's nature. Fickle and heartless he was to +the very core. The wild frontier life attracted him, and he, who could +have adorned the court of France or been a power in New York's high +circles, plunged into this wilderness. When they reached the cabin the +cause for his devoted attentions was made plain. O'Meara was not there, +had indeed been gone for weeks. Letters left at Springvale directed to +this Frenchman read: + +"'I'm gone for good. A pretty Cheyenne squaw away up on the Platte is +too much for me. Tell Kathleen I'm never coming back. So she is free to +do what she wants to. You may have this ground I have preëmpted, for +your trouble. Good-bye.' + +"This letter, scrawled on a greasy bit of paper, was so unlike anything +Patrick O'Meara had ever said, its spirit was so unlike his genial +true-hearted nature that his wife might have doubted it. But she was +young and inexperienced, alone and penniless with her baby boy in a +harsh wilderness. The message broke her heart. And then this man used +all the force of his power to win her. He showed her how helpless she +was, how the community here would look upon her as his wife, and now +since she was deserted by her husband, the father of her child, her only +refuge lay with him, her true lover. + +"The woman's heart was broken, but her fidelity and honor were founded +on a rock. She scorned the villain before her and drove him from her +door. That night she and O'mie were alone in that lonely little cabin. +The cruel dominant nature of the man was aroused now, and he determined +to crush the spirit of the only woman who had ever resisted him. Two +days later a band of Kiowas was passing peaceably across the Plains. +Here the Frenchman saw his chance for revenge by conniving with the +Indians to seize little O'mie playing on the prairie beyond the cabin. + +"The women out in Western Kansas have had the same agony of soul that +Kathleen O'Meara suffered when she found her boy was stolen. In her +despair she started after the tribe, wandering lost and starving many +days on the prairie until a kind-hearted Osage chief found her and took +her to our blessed Mission down the river. Here a strange thing +happened. Before she had been there a week, her husband, Thomas O'Meara, +came from a trapping tour on the Arkansas River. With him was a little +child he had rescued from the Kiowas in a battle at Pawnee Rock. It was +his own child, although he did not know it then. In this battle he was +told that a Frenchman had been killed. The name was the same as that of +the Frenchman he had known in New York. Can you picture the joy of that +reunion? You who have had a wife to love, a son to cherish?" + +My father's heart was full. All day his own boy's face had been before +him, a face so like to the woman whose image he held evermore in sacred +memory. + +"But their joy was short-lived, for Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from +her hardships on the prairie; she died in a few weeks. Her husband was +killed by the Comanches shortly after her death. His claim here he left +to his son, over whom the Mission assumed guardianship. O'mie was +transferred to St. Mary's for some reason, and the priest who started to +take him there stopped here to find out about his father's land. But the +records were not available. Fingal, for whom Fingal's Creek was named, +also known as Judge Fingal, held possession of all the records, +and--how, I never knew--but in some way he prevented the priest from +finding out anything. Fingal was a Southern man; he met a violent death +that year. You know O'mie's story after that." Le Claire paused, and a +sadness swept over his face. + +"But that doesn't finish the Frenchman's story," he continued presently. + +"The night that O'mie's mother left her home in the draw, the French +woman who had journeyed far to find her husband came to Springvale. You +know what she found. The belongings of another woman. It was she who +slipped into the Neosho that night. The Frenchman was in the fight at +Pawnee Rock. After that he disappeared. But he had entered a formal +claim to the land as the husband of Patrick O'Meara's widow, heir to her +property. You see he held a double grip. One through the letter--forged, +of course--the other through the claim to a union that never existed." + +"Seems to me you've a damned lot to answer for," Tell Mapleson hissed in +rage. "If the Church can make a holy man out of such a villain, I'm glad +I'm a heretic." + +"I'm answering for it," the priest said meekly. Only my father sat with +face impassive and calm. + +"This half-section of land in question is the property of Thomas +O'Meara, son and heir to Patrick O'Meara, as the records show. These +stolen records I found where Amos Judson had hastily concealed them, as +Judge Baronet has said. I put them in the dark loft for safer keeping, +for I felt sure they were valuable. When I came to look for them, they +had been moved again. I supposed the one who first took them had +recovered them, and I let the matter go. Meanwhile I was called home. +When I came here last Fall I found matters still unsettled, and O'mie +still without his own. I spent several days in the stone cabin searching +for the lost papers. The weather was bad, and you know of my severe +attack of pneumonia. But I found the box. In the illness that followed I +was kept from Springvale longer than I wished. When I came again O'mie +had gone." + +The priest paused and sat with eyes downcast, and a sorrowful face. + +"Is this your story?" Tell queried. "Your proof of O'mie's claim you +consider incontestable, but how about these affidavits from the Rev. Mr. +Dodd who married you to the Kiowa squaw? How--" + +But Le Claire lifted his hand in commanding gesture. A sudden sternness +of face and attitude of authority seemed to clothe him like a garment. + +"Gentlemen, there is another story. A bitter, painful story. I have +never told it, although it has sometimes almost driven me from the holy +sanctuary because of my silence." + +It was a deeply impressive moment, for all three of the men realized the +importance of the occasion. + +"My name," said the priest, "is Pierre Rousseau Le Claire. I am of a +titled house of France. We have only the blood of the nobility in our +veins. My father had two sons, twins--Pierre the priest, and Jean the +renegade, outlawed even among the savages; for his scalp will hang from +Satanta's tepee pole if the chance ever comes. Mapleson, here, has told +you the truth about his being married to a sister of Chief Satanta. He +also is the father of Jean Pahusca. You have noticed the boy's likeness +to me. If he, being half Indian, has such a strong resemblance to his +family, you can imagine how much alike we are, my brother and myself. In +form and gesture, everything--except--well, I have told you what his +nature was, and--you have known me for many years. And yet, I have never +ceased to pray for him, wicked as he is. We played together about the +meadows and vine-clad hill slopes of old France, in our happy boyhood. +We grew up and loved and might both have been happily wedded +there,--but--I've told you his story. There is nothing of myself that +can interest you. That letter of Mapleson's, purporting to be from +Patrick O'Meara, is a mere forgery. I have just come up from the +Mission. The records and letters of O'Meara have all been kept there. +This handwriting would not stand, in court, Mapleson. The land was +O'Meara's. It is now O'mie's." + +Mapleson sat with rigid countenance. For almost fifteen years he had +matched swords with John Baronet. He had felt so sure of his game, he +had guarded every possible loophole where success might escape him, he +had paved every step so carefully that his mind, grown to the habitual +thought of winning, was stunned by the revelation. Like Judson in the +morning, his only defence lay In putting blame on somebody else. + +"You are the most accomplished double-dealer I ever met," he declared to +the priest. "You pretend to follow a holy calling, you profess a love +for your brother, and yet you are trying to rob his child of his +property. You are against Jean Pahusca, son of the man you love so much. +Is that the kind of a priest you are?" + +"The very kind--even worse," Le Claire responded. "I went back to France +before my aged father died. My mother died of a broken heart over Jean +long ago. While our father yet lived I persuaded him to give all his +estate--it was large--to the Holy Church. He did it. Not a penny of it +can ever be touched." + +Mapleson caught his breath like a drowning man. + +"It spoiled a beautiful lawsuit, I know," Le Claire continued looking +meaningly at him. "For that fortune in France, put into the hands of +Jean Pahusca's attorneys here, would have been rich plucking. It can +never be. I fixed that before our father's death. Why?" + +"Yes, you narrow, grasping robber of orphans, why?" Tell shouted in his +passion. + +"For the same reason that I stood between Jean Pahusca and this town +until he was outlawed here. The half-breed cares nothing for property +except as it can buy revenge and feed his appetites. He would sell +himself for a drink of whiskey. You know how dangerous he is when drunk. +Every man in this town except Judge Baronet and myself has had to flee +from him at some time or other. Sober, he is a devil--half Indian, half +French, and wholly fiendish. Neither he nor his father has any property. +I used my influence to prevent it. I would do it again. Jean Le Claire +has forfeited all claims to inheritance. So have I. Among the Indians he +is a renegade. I am only a missionary priest trying as I may to atone +for my own sins and for the sins of my father's son, my twin brother. +That, gentlemen, is all I can say." + +"We are grateful to you, Le Claire," John Baronet said. "Mapleson said +before you began that your word would show us what to do. It has shown +us. It is now time, when some deeds long past their due, must be +requited." He turned to Tell sitting defiantly there casting mentally in +every direction for some legal hook, some cunning turn, by which to win +victory away from defeat. + +"Tell Mapleson, the hour has come for us to settle more than a property +claim between an Irish orphan and a half-breed Kiowa. And now, if it was +wise to settle the other matter out of court, it will be a hundred times +safer to settle this here this afternoon. You have grown prosperous in +Springvale. In so far as you have done it honestly, I rejoice. You know +yourself that I have more than once proved my sincerity by turning +business your way, that I could as easily have put elsewhere." + +Tell did know, and with something of Southern politeness, he nodded +assent. + +"You are here now to settle with me or to go before my court for some +counts you must meet. You have been the headpiece for all the evil-doing +that has wrecked the welfare of Springvale and that has injured +reputation, brought lasting sorrow, even cost the life of many citizens. +Sooner or later the man who does that meets his own crimes face to face, +and their ugly powers break loose on him." + +"What do you mean?" Tell's voice was suppressed, and his face was livid. + +"I mean first: you with Dick Yeager and others, later in Quantrill's +band, in May of 1863 planned the destruction of this town by mob +violence. The houses were to be burned, every Union man was to be +murdered with his wife and children, except such as the Kiowa and +Comanche Indians chose to spare. My own son was singled out as the +choicest of your victims. Little O'mie, for your own selfish ends, was +not to be spared; and Marjory Whately, just blooming into womanhood, you +gave to Jean Pahusca as his booty. Your plan failed, partly through the +efforts of this good man here, partly through the courage and quick +action of the boys of the town, but mainly through the mercy of +Omnipotent God, who sent the floods to keep back the forces of Satan. +That Marjory escaped even in the midst of it all is due to the +shrewdness and sacrifice of the young man you have been trying to +defraud--O'mie. + +"In the midst of this you connived with others to steal the records from +the courthouse. You were a treble villain, for you set the Rev. Mr. +Dodd to a deed you afterwards held over him as a threat and drove him +from the town for fear of exposure, forcing him to give you the papers +he held against Jean Le Claire's claims to the half-section on the +Neosho. Not that his going was any loss to Springvale. But Dodd will +never trouble you again. He cast his lot with the Dog Indians of the +plains, and one of them used him for a shield in Custer's battle with +Black Kettle's band last December. He had not even Indian burial. + +"Those deeds against Springvale belong to the days of the Civil War, but +your record since proves that the man who planned them cannot be trusted +as a safe citizen in times of peace. Into your civil office you carried +your war-time methods, until the Postmaster-General cannot deal longer +with you. Your term of office expires in six days. Your successor's +commission is already on its way here. This much was accomplished in the +trip East last Fall." My father spoke significantly. + +"It wasn't all that was accomplished, by Heaven! There's a lawsuit +coming; there's a will that's to be broken that can't stand when I get +at it. You are mighty good and fine about money when other folks are +getting it; but when it's coming to you, you're another man." Tell's +voice was pitched high now. + +"Father Le Claire, let me tell you a story. Baronet's a smooth rascal +and nobody can find him out easily. But I know him. He has called me a +thief. It takes that kind to catch a thief, maybe. Anyhow, back at +Rockport the Baronets were friends of the Melrose family. One of them, +Ferdinand, was drowned at sea. He had some foolish delusion or other in +his head, for he left a will bequeathing all his property to his brother +James Melrose during his lifetime. At his death all Ferdinand's money +was to go to John Baronet in trust for his son Phil. Baronet, here, sent +his boy back East to school in hopes that Phil would marry Rachel +Melrose, James's daughter, and so get the fortune of both Ferdinand and +James Melrose. He went crazy over the girl; and, to be honest, for +Phil's a likable young fellow, the girl was awfully in love with him. +Baronet's had her come clear out here to visit them. But, you'll excuse +me for saying it, Judge, Phil is a little fast. He got tangled up with a +girl of shady reputation here, and Rachel broke off the match. Now, last +October the Judge goes East. You see, he's well fixed, but that nice +little sum looks big to him, and he's bound Phil shall have it, wife or +no wife. But there's a good many turns in law. While Baronet was at +Rockport before I could get there, being detained at Washington" (my +father smiled a faint little gleam of a smile in his eyes more than on +his lip)--"before I could get to Rockport, Mr. Melrose dies, leaving his +wife and Rachel alone in the world. Now, I'm retained here as their +attorney. Tillhurst is going on to see to things for me. It's only a few +thousand that Baronet is after, but it's all Rachel and her mother have. +The Melroses weren't near as rich as the people thought. That will of +Ferdinand's won't hold water, not even salt water. It'll go to pieces in +court, but it'll show this pious Judge, who calls his neighbors to +account, what kind of a man he is. The money's been tied up in some +investments and it will soon be released." + +Le Claire looked anxiously toward my father, whose face for the first +time that day was pale. Rising he opened his cabinet of private papers +and selected a legal document. + +"This seems to be the day for digging up records," he said in a low +voice. "Here is one that may interest you and save time and money. What +Mapleson says about Ferdinand Melrose is true. We'll pass by the motives +I had in sending Phil East, and some other statements. When I became +convinced that love played no part in Phil's mind toward Rachel Melrose, +I met him in Topeka in October and gave him the opportunity of signing a +relinquishment to all claims on the estate of Ferdinand Melrose. Phil +didn't care for the girl; and as to the money gotten in that way" (my +father drew himself up to his full height), "the oxygen of Kansas breeds +a class of men out here who can make an honest fortune in spite of any +inheritance, or the lack of it. I put my boy in that class." + +I was his only child, and a father may be pardoned for being proud of +his own. + +"When I reached Rockport," he continued, "Mr. Melrose was ill. I hurried +to him with my message, and it may be his last hours were more peaceful +because of my going. Rachel will come into her full possessions in a +short time, as you say. Mapleson, will you renounce your retainer's fees +in your interest in the orphaned?" + +It was Tell's bad day, and he swore sulphureously in a low tone. + +"Now I'll take up this matter where I left off," John Baronet said. +"While O'mie was taking a vacation in the heated days of August, he +slept up in the stone cabin. Jean Pahusca, thief, highwayman, robber, +and assassin, kept his stolen goods there. Mapleson and his mercantile +partner divided the spoils. O'mie's sense of humor is strong, and one +night he played ghost for Jean. You know the redskin's inherent fear of +ghosts. It put Jean out of the commission goods business. No persuasion +of Mapleson's or his partner's could induce Jean to go back after night +to the cabin after this reappearance of the long quiet ghost of the +drowned woman." + +Le Claire could not repress a smile. + +"I think I unconsciously played the same role in September out there, +frightening a little man away one night. I was innocent of any harm +intended." + +"It did the work," my father replied. "Jean cut for the West at once, +and joined the Cheyennes for a time--and with a purpose." Then as he +looked straight at Tell, his voice grew stern, and that mastery of men +that his presence carried made itself felt. + +"Jean has bought the right to the life of my son. His pay for the +hundreds of dollars he has turned into the hands of this man was that +Mapleson should defame my son's good name and drive him from Springvale, +and that Jean in his own time was to follow and assassinate him. +Mapleson here was in league to protect Jean from the law if the deed +should ever be traced to his door. With these conditions in addition, +Mapleson was to receive the undivided one-half of section 29, range 14. + +"Tell Mapleson, I pass by the crime of forging lies against the name of +Irving Whately; I pass by the plotted crimes against this town in '63; I +ignore the systematic thievery of your dealings with the half-breed Jean +Pahusca; but, by the God in heaven, my boy is my own. For the crime of +seeking to lay stain upon his name, the crime of trying to entangle him +hopelessly in a scandal and a legal prosecution with a sinful erring +girl, the crime of lending your hand to hold the coat of the man who +should stone him to death,--for these things, I, the father of Philip +Baronet, give you now twenty-four hours to leave Springvale and the +State. If at the end of that time you are within the limits of Kansas, +you must answer to me in the court-room over there; and, Tell Mapleson, +you know what's before you. I came to the West to help build it up. I +cannot render my State a greater service than by driving you from its +borders; and so long as I live I shall bar your entrance to a land that, +in spite of all it has to bear, grows a larger crop of honest men with +the conquest of each acre of the prairie soil." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +SUNSET BY THE SWEETWATER + + And we count men brave who on land and wave fear not to die; but still, + Still first on the rolls of the world's great souls are the men who + have feared to kill. + + --EDMUND VANCE COOKE. + + +Jean Pahusca turned at the sound of O'mie's step on the stone. The red +sun had blinded his eyes and he could not see clearly at first. When he +did see, O'mie's presence and the captive unbound and staggering to his +feet, surprised the Indian and held him a moment longer. The confusion +at the change in war's grim front passed quickly, however,--he was only +half Indian,--and he was himself again. He darted toward us, swift as a +serpent. Clutching O'mie by the throat and lifting him clear of the rock +shelf the Indian threw him headlong down the side of the bluff, crashing +the bushes as he fell. The knife that had cut the cords that bound me, +the same knife that would have scalped Marjie and taken the boy's life +in the Hermit's Cave, was flung from O'mie's hand. It rang on the stone +and slid down in the darkness below. Then the half-breed hurled himself +upon me and we clinched there by the cliff's edge for our last conflict. + +I was in Jean's land now. I had come to my final hour with him. The +Baronets were never cowardly. Was it inherited courage, or was it the +spirit of power in that letter, Marjie's message of love to me, that +gave me grace there? Followed then a battle royal, brute strength +against brute strength. All the long score of defeated effort, all the +jealousy and hate of years, all the fury of final conflict, all the mad +frenzy of the instinct of self-preservation, all the savage lust for +blood (most terrible in the human tiger), were united in Jean. He +combined a giant's strength and an Indian's skill with the dominant +courage and coolness of a son of France. Against these things I put my +strength in that strange struggle on the rocky ledge in the gathering +twilight of that February day. The little cove on the bluff-side, was +not more than fifteen feet across at its widest place. The shelf of +sloping stone made a fairly even floor. In this little retreat I had +been bound and unable to move for an hour. My muscles were tense at +first. I was dazed, too, by a sudden deliverance from the slow torture +that had seemed inevitable for me. The issue, however, was no less awful +than swift. I had just cause for wreaking vengeance on my foeman. Twice +he had attempted to take O'mie's life. The boy might be dead from the +headlong fall at this very minute, for all I knew. The clods were only +two days old on Bud Anderson's grave. Nothing but the skill and +sacrifice of O'mie had saved Marjie from this brute's lust six years +before. While he lived, my own life was never for one moment safe. And +more than everything else was the possibility of a fate for Marjie too +horrible for me to dwell upon. All these things swept through my mind +like a lightning flash. + +If ever the Lord in the moment of supreme peril gave courage and +self-control, these good and perfect gifts were mine in that evening's +strife. With the first plunge he had thrown me, and he was struggling to +free his hand from my grasp to get at my throat; his knee was on my +chest. + +"You're in my land now," he hissed in my ear. + +"Yes, but this is Phil Baronet still," I answered with a calmness so +dominant, it stayed the struggle for a moment. I was playing on him the +same trick by which he had so often deceived us,--the pretended +relaxation of all effort, and indifference to further strife. In that +moment's pause I gained my lost vantage. Quick as thought I freed my +other hand, and, holding still his murderous grip from my throat, I +caught him by the neck, and pushing his head upward, I gave him such a +thrust that his hold on me loosened a bit. A bit only, but that was +enough, for when he tightened it again, I was on my feet and the strife +was renewed--renewed with the fierceness of maddened brutes, lashed into +fury. Life for one of us meant death for the other, and I lost every +humane instinct in that terrible struggle except the instinct to save +Marjie first, and my own life after hers. Civilization slips away in +such a battle, and the fighter is only a jungle beast, knowing no law +but the unquenchable thirst for blood. The hand that holds this pen is +clean to-day, clean and strong and gentle. It was a tiger's claw that +night, and Jean's hot blood following my terrific blow full in his face +only thrilled me with savage courage. I hurled him full length on the +stone, my heavy cavalry boot was on his neck, and I would have stamped +the life out of him in an instant. But with the motion of a serpent he +wriggled himself upward; then, catching me by the leg, he had me on one +knee, and his long arms, like the tentacles of a devil-fish, tightened +about me. Then we rolled together over and under, under and over. His +hard white teeth were sunk in my shoulder to cut my life artery. I had +him by the long soft hair, my fingers tangled in the handfuls I had torn +from his head. And every minute I was possessed with a burning frenzy +to strangle him. Every desire had left my being now, save the eagerness +to conquer, and the consciousness of my power to fight until that end +should come. + +We were at the cliff's edge now, my head hanging over; the blood was +rushing toward my clogging brain; the sharp rock's rim, like a stone +knife, was cutting my neck. Jean loosened his teeth from my shoulder, +and his murderous hand was on my throat. In that supreme crisis I +summoned the very last atom of energy, the very limit of physical +prowess, the quickness and cunning which can be called forth only by the +conflict with the swift approach of death. + +Nature had given me a muscular strength far beyond that of most men. And +all my powers had been trained to swift obedience and almost unlimited +endurance. With this was a nervous system that matched the years of a +young man's greatest vigor. Strong drink and tobacco had never had the +chance to play havoc with my steady hand or to sap the vitality of my +reserve forces. Even as Jean lifted me by the throat to crush my head +backward over that sharp stone ledge, I put forth this burst of power in +a fierceness so irresistible that it hurled him from me, and the +struggle was still unended. We were on our feet again in a rage to reach +the finish. I had almost ceased to care to live. I wanted only to choke +the breath from the creature before me. I wanted only to save from his +hellish power the victims who would become his prey if he were allowed +to live. + +Instinct led me to wrestle with my assailant across the ledge toward the +wall that shut in about the sanctuary, just as, a half-year before, on +our "Rockport" fighting ground, I strove to drag him through the bushes +toward Cliff Street, while he tried to fling me off the projecting rock. +And so we locked limb and limb in the horrible contortion of this +savage strife. Every muscle had been so wrenched, no pain or wound +reported itself fairly to the congested brain. I had nearly reached the +wall, and I was making a frantic effort to fling the Indian against it. +I had his shoulder almost upon the rocky side, and my grip was tight +about him, when he turned on me the same trick I had played in the early +part of this awful game. A sudden relaxation threw me off my guard. The +blood was streaming from a wound on my forehead, and I loosed my hold to +throw back my long hair from my face and wipe the trickling drops from +my eyes. In that fatal moment my mind went blank, whether from loss of +blood or a sudden blow from Jean, I do not know. When I did know myself, +I seemed to have fallen through leagues of space, to be falling still, +until a pain, so sharp that it was a blessing, brought me to my senses. +The light was very dim, but my right hand was free. I aimed one blow at +Jean's shoulder, and he fell by the cliff's edge, dragging me with him, +my weight on his body. His left hand hung over the cliff-side. I should +have finished with him then, but that the fallen hand, down in the black +shadows, had closed over a knife sticking in the crevice just below the +edge of the bluff--Jean Le Claire's knife, that had been flung from +O'mie's grip as he fell. + +I caught its gleam as the half-breed flashed it upward in a swift stab +at my heart and my breath hung back. I leaped from him in time to save +my life, but not quickly enough to keep the villainous thing from +cutting a long jagged track across my thigh, from which spurted a +crimson flood. There could be only one thing evermore for us two. A +redoubled fury seized me, and then there swept up in me a power for +which I cannot account, unless it may be that the Angel of Life, who +guards all the passes of the valley of the shadow, sometimes turns back +the tide for us. A sudden calmness filled me, a cool courage contrasting +with Jean's frenzy, and I set my teeth together with the grip of a +bulldog. Jean had leaped to his feet as I sprang back from his +knife-thrust, and for the first time since the fight began we stood +apart for half a minute. + +"I may die, but I'll never be cut to death. It must be an equal fight, +and when I go, Jean Pahusca, you are going with me. I'll have that knife +first and then I'll kill you with my own hands, if my breath goes out at +that same instant." + +There must have been something terrible in my voice for it was the voice +of a strong man going down to death, firm of purpose, and unafraid. + +The feel of the weapon gave the Indian renewed energy. He sprang at me +with a maniac's might. He was a maniac henceforth. Three times we raged +across the narrow fighting ground. Three times I struck that murderous +blade aside, but not without a loss of my own blood for each thrust, +until at last by sheer virtue of muscle against muscle, I wrenched it +from Jean's hand, dripping with my red life-tide. And even as I seized +it, it slipped from me and fell, this time to the ledges far below. Then +hell broke all bounds for us, and what followed there in that shadowy +twilight, I care not to recall much less to set it down here. + +I do not know how long we battled there, nor whose blood most stained +the stone of that sanctuary, nor how many times I was underneath, nor +how often on top of my assailant. Not all the struggles of my sixty +years combined, and I have known many, could equal that fight for life. + +There came a night in later time when for what seemed an age to me, I +matched my physical power and endurance against the terrible weight of +broken timbers of a burning bridge that was crushing out human lives, in +a railroad wreck. And every second of that eternity-long time, I faced +the awful menace of death by fire. The memory of that hour is a pleasure +to me when contrasted with this hand to hand battle with a murderer. + +It ended at last--such strife is too costly to endure long--ended with a +form stretched prone and helpless and whining for mercy before a +conqueror, whose life had been well-nigh threshed out of him; but the +fallen fighter was Jean Pahusca, and the man who towered over him was +Phil Baronet. + +The half-breed deserved to die. Life for him meant torturing death to +whatever lay in his path. It meant untold agony for whomsoever his hand +fell upon. And greater to me than these then was the murderous conflict +just ended, in which I had by very miracle escaped death again and +again. Men do not fight such battles to weep forgiving tears on one +another's necks when the end comes. When the spirit of mortal strife +possesses a man's soul, the demons of hell control it. The moment for a +long overdue retribution was come. As we had clinched and torn one +another there Jean's fury had driven him to a maniac's madness. The +blessed heritage of self-control, my endowment from my father, had not +deserted me. But now my hand was on his throat, my knee was planted on +his chest, and by one twist I could end a record whose further writing +would be in the blood of his victims. + +I lifted my eyes an instant to the western sky, out of which a clear, +sweet air was softly fanning my hot blood-smeared face. The sun had set +as O'mie cut my bonds. And now the long purple twilight of the Southwest +held the land in its soft hues. Only one ray of iridescent light +pointed the arch above me--the sun's good-night greeting to the Plains. +Its glory held me by a strange power. God's mercy was in that radiant +shaft of beauty reaching far up the sky, keeping me back from wilful +murder. + +And then, because all pure, true human love is typical of God's eternal +love for his children, then, all suddenly, the twilight scene slipped +from me. I was in my father's office on an August day, and Marjie was +beside me. The love light in her dear brown eyes, as they looked +steadily into mine, was thrilling my soul with joy. I felt again the +touch of her hand as I felt it that day when I presented her to Rachel +Melrose. Her eyes were looking deep into my soul, her hand was in my +hand, the hand that in a moment more would take the life of a human +being no longer able to give me blow for blow. I loosed my clutch as +from a leprous wound, and the Indian gasped again for mercy. Standing +upright, I spurned the form grovelling now at my feet. + +Lifting my bloody right hand high above me, I thanked God I had +conquered in a greater battle. I had won the victory over my worser +self. + +But I was too wise to think that Jean should have his freedom. Stepping +to where the cut thongs that had bound me lay, I took the longest pieces +and tied the half-breed securely. + +All this time I had fogotten O'mie. Now it dawned upon me that he must +be found. He might be alive still. The fall must have been broken +somehow by the bushes. I peered over the edge of the bluff into the +darkness of the valley below. + +"O'mie!" I called, "O'mie!" + +"Present!" a voice behind me responded. + +I turned quickly. Standing there in the dim light, with torn clothing, +and tumbled red hair, and scratched face was the Irish boy, bruised, but +not seriously hurt. + +"I climbed down and round and up and got back as soon as I come too," he +said, with that happy-go-lucky smile of his. "Bedad! but you've been +makin' some history, I see. Git up, you miserable cur, and we'll march +ye down to General Custer. You take entirely too many liberties wid a +Springvale boy what's knowed you too darned long already." + +We lifted Jean, and keeping him before us we hurried him into the +presence of the fair-haired commander to whom we told our story, failing +not to report on the incident witnessed by O'mie on the river bank two +nights before, when Jean sent his murdered father's body into the waters +below him. + +"And so that French renegade is dead, is he," Custer mused, never +lifting his eyes from the ground. He had heard us through without query +or comment, until now. "I knew him well. First as a Missionary priest to +the Osages. He was a fine man then, but the Plains made a devil of him; +and he deserved what he got, no doubt. + +"Now, as to this half-breed, why the devil didn't you kill him when you +had the chance? Dead Indians tell no tales; but the holy Church and the +United States Government listen to what the live ones tell. You could +have saved me any amount of trouble, you infernal fool." + +I stood up before the General. There was as great a contrast in our +appearance as in our rank. The slight, dapper little commander in full +official dress and perfect military bearing looked sternly up at the +huge, rough private with his torn, bloody clothing and lacerated hands. +Custer's yellow locks had just been neatly brushed. My own dark hair, +uncut for months, hung in a curly mass thrown back from my scarred +face. + +I gave him a courteous, military salute. Then standing up to my full +height, and looking steadily down at the slender, graceful man before +me, I said: + +"I may be a fool, General, but I am a soldier, not a murderer." + +Custer made no reply for a time. + +He sat down and, turning toward Jean Pahusca, he studied the young +half-breed carefully. Then he said briefly, + +"You may go now." + +We saluted and passed from his tent. Outside we had gone only a few +steps, when the General overtook us. + +"Baronet," he said, "you did right. You are a soldier, the kind that +will yet save the Plains." + +He turned and entered his tent again. + +"Golly!" O'mie whistled softly. "It's me that thinks Jean Pahusca, son +av whoever his father may be, 's got to the last and worst piece av his +journey. I'm glad you didn't kill him, Phil. You're claner 'n ever in my +eyes." + +We strolled away together in the soft evening shadows, silent for a +time. + +"Tell me, O'mie," I said at last, "how you happened to find me up there +two hours ago?" + +"I was trailin' you to your hidin'-place. Bud, Heaven bless him, told me +where your little sanctuary was, the night before he--went away." There +were tears in O'mie's voice, but soldiers do not weep. "I had hard work +to find the path. But it was better so maybe." + +"You were just in time, you red-headed angel. Life is sweet." I breathed +deeply of the pleasant air. "Oh, why did Bud have to give it up, I +wonder." + +We sat down behind the big bowlder round which Bud, wounded unto death, +had staggered toward me only a few days before. + +"Talk, O'mie; I can't," I said, stretching myself out at full length. + +"I was just in time to see Jean spring his trap on you. I waited and +swore, and swore and waited, for him to give me the chance to get +betwane you and the pollutin' pup! It didn't come until the sun took his +face full and square, and I see my chance to make two steps. He's so +doggoned quick he'd have caught me, if it hadn't been for that blessed +gleam in his eyes. He wa'n't takin' no chances. By the way," he added as +an afterthought, "the General says we break camp soon. Didn't say it to +me, av course. Good-night now. Sleep sweet, and don't get too far from +your chest protector,--that's me." He smiled good-bye with as light a +heart as though the hours just past had been full of innocent play +instead of grim tragedy. + + * * * * * + +February on the Plains was slipping into March when the garrison at Fort +Sill broke up for the final movement. This winter campaign, as war +records run, had been marked by only one engagement, Custer's attack on +the Cheyenne village on the Washita River. But the hurling of so large a +force as the Fort Sill garrison into the Indian stronghold in the depth +of winter carried to the savage mind and spirit a deeper conviction of +our power than could have been carried by a score of victories on the +green prairies of summer. For the Indian stronghold, be it understood, +consisted not in mountain fastnesses, cunning hiding-places, caves in +the earth, and narrow passes guarded by impregnable cliffs. This was no +repetition of the warfare of the Celts among the rugged rocks of Wales, +nor of the Greeks at Thermopylæ, nor of the Swiss on Alpine footpaths. +This savage stronghold was an open, desolate, boundless plain, fortified +by distances and equipped with the slow sure weapons of starvation. +That Government was a terror to the Indian mind whose soldiers dared to +risk its perils and occupy the land at this season of the year. The +withered grasses; the lack of fuel; the absence of game; the salty +creeks, which mock at thirst; the dreary waves of wilderness sand; the +barren earth under a wide bleak sky; the never-ending stretch of +unbroken plain swept by the fierce winter blizzard, whose furious blast +was followed by a bitter perishing weight of cold,--these were the foes +we had had to fight in that winter campaign. Our cavalry horses had +fallen before them, dying on the way. Only a few of those that reached +Fort Sill had had the strength to survive even with food and care. John +Mac prophesied truly when he declared to us that our homesick horses +would never cross the Arkansas River again. Not one of them ever came +back, and we who had gone out mounted now found ourselves a helpless +intantry. + +Slowly the tribes had come to Custer's terms. When delay and cunning +device were no longer of any avail they submitted--all except the +Cheyennes, who had escaped to the Southwest. + +Spring was coming, and the Indians and their ponies could live in +comfort then. It was only in the winter that United States rations and +tents were vital. With the summer they could scorn the white man's help, +and more: they could raid again the white man's land, seize his +property, burn his home, and brain him with their cruel tomahawks; while +as to his wife and children, oh, the very fiends of hell could not +devise an equal to their scheme of life for them. The escape of the +Cheyennes from Custer's grasp was but an earnest of what Kiowa, Arapahoe +and Comanche could do later. These Cheyennes were setting an example +worthy of their emulation. Not quite, to the Cheyenne's lordly spirit, +not quite had the cavalry conquered the Plains. And now the Cheyenne +could well gloat over the failure of the army after all it had endured; +for spring was not very far away, the barren Staked Plains, in which the +soldier could but perish, were between them and the arm of the +Government, and our cavalrymen were now mere undisciplined +foot-soldiers. It was to subdue this very spirit, to strike the one most +effectual blow, the conquest of the Cheyennes, that the last act of that +winter campaign was undertaken. This, and one other purpose. I had been +taught in childhood under Christian culture that it is for the welfare +of the home the Government exists. Bred in me through many generations +of ancestry was the high ideal of a man's divine right to protect his +roof-tree and to foster under it those virtues that are built into the +nation's power and honor. I had had thrust upon me in the day of my +young untried strength a heavy sense of responsibility. I had known the +crushing anguish of feeling that one I loved had fallen a prey to a +savage foe before whose mastery death is a joy. I was now to learn the +truth of all the teaching along the way. I was to see in the days of +that late winter the finest element of power the American flag can +symbolize--the value set upon the American home, over which it is a +token of protection. This, then, was that other purpose of this +campaign--the rescue of two captive women, seized and dragged away on +that afternoon when Bud and O'mie and I leaned against the south wall of +old Fort Hays in the October sunshine and talked of the hazard of Plains +warfare. But of this other purpose the privates knew nothing at all. The +Indian tribes, now full of fair promises, were allowed to take up their +abode on their reservations without further guarding. General Custer, +with the Seventh United States Regiment, and Colonel Horace L. Moore, +in full command of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, were directed to reach +the Cheyenne tribe and reduce it to submission. + +A thousand men followed the twenty-one buglers on their handsome horses, +in military order, down Kansas Avenue in Topeka, on that November day in +1868, when the Kansas volunteers began this campaign. Four months later, +on a day in early March, Custer's regiment with the Nineteenth, now +dismounted cavalry, filed out of Fort Sill and set their faces +resolutely to the westward. Infantry marching was new business for the +Kansas men, but they bent to their work like true soldiers. After four +days a division came, and volunteers from both regiments were chosen to +continue the movement. The remainder, for lack of marching strength, was +sent up on the Washita River to await our return in a camp established +up there under Colonel Henry Inman. + +Reed, one of my Topeka comrades, was of those who could not go farther. +O'mie was not considered equal to the task. I fell into Reed's place +with Hadley and John Mac and Pete, when we started out at last to +conquer the Cheyennes, who were slipping ever away from us somewhere +beyond the horizon's rim. The days that followed, finishing up that +winter campaign, bear a record of endurance unsurpassed in the annals of +American warfare. + +I have read the fascinating story of Coronado and his three hundred +Spanish knights in their long weary march over a silent desolate level +waste day after day, pushing grimly to the northward in their fruitless +search for gold. What did this band of a thousand weary men go seeking +as they took the reverse route of Coronado's to the Southwest over these +ceaslessly crawling sands? Not the discoverer's fame, not the +gold-seeker's treasure led them forth through gray interminable reaches +of desolation. They were going now to put the indelible mark of +conquest by a civilized Government, on a crafty and dangerous foe, to +plough a fire-guard of safety about the frontier homes. + +Small heed we gave to this history-making, it is true, as we pressed +silently onward through those dreary late winter days. It was a +soldier's task we had accepted, and we were following the flag. And in +spite of the sins committed in its name, of the evil deeds protected by +its power, wherever it unfurls its radiant waves of light "the breath of +heaven smells wooingly"; gentle peace, and rich prosperity, and holy +love abide ever more under its caressing shadow. + +We were prepared with rations for a five days' expedition only. But +weary, ragged, barefoot, hungry, sleepless, we pressed on through +twenty-five days, following a trail sometimes dim, sometimes clearly +written, through a region the Indians never dreamed we could cross and +live. The nights chilled our famishing bodies. The short hours of broken +rest led only to another day of moving on. There were no breakfasts to +hinder our early starting. The meagre bit of mule meat doled out +sparingly when there was enough of this luxury to be given out, eaten +now without salt, was our only food. Our clothing tattered with wear and +tear, hung on our gaunt frames. Our lips did not close over our teeth; +our eyes above hollow cheeks stared out like the eyes of dead men. The +bloom of health had turned to a sickly yellow hue; but we were all +alike, and nobody noted the change. + +As we passed from one deserted camp to another, it began to seem a +will-o'-the-wisp business, an elusive dream, a long fruitless chasing +after what would escape and leave us to perish at last in this desert. +But the slender yellow-haired man at the head of the column had an +indomitable spirit, and an endurance equalled only by his courage and +his military cunning. Under him was the equally indomitable Kansas +Colonel, Horace L. Moore, tried and trained in Plains warfare. Behind +them straggled a thousand soldiers. And still the March days dragged on. + +Then the trails began to tell us that the Indians were gathering in +larger groups and the command was urged forward with more persistent +purpose. We slept at night without covering under the open sky. We +hardly dared to light fires. We had nothing to cook, and a fire would +reveal our whereabouts to the Indians we were pursuing. A thousand +soldiers is a large number; but even a thousand men, starving day after +day, taxing nerve and muscle, with all the reserve force of the body +feeding on its own unfed store of energy; a thousand men destitute of +supplies, cut off by leagues of desert sands from any base of +reinforcement, might put up only a weak defence against the hundreds of +savages in their own habitat. It was to prevent another Arickaree that +Custer's forces kept step in straggling lines when rations had become +only a taunting mockery of the memory. + +The map of that campaign is kept in the archives of war and its official +tale is all told there, told as the commander saw it. I can tell it here +only as a private down in the ranks. + +In the middle of a March afternoon, as we were silently swinging forward +over the level Plains, a low range of hills loomed up. Beyond them lay +the valley of the Sweetwater, a tributary of the Canadian River. Here, +secure in its tepees, was the Cheyenne village, its inhabitants never +dreaming of the white man's patience and endurance. Fifteen hundred +strong it numbered, arrogant, cunning, murderous. The sudden appearance +of our army of skeleton men was not without its effect on the savage +mind. Men who had crossed the Staked Plains in this winter time, men who +looked like death already, such men might be hard to kill. But lying and +trickery still availed. + +There was only one mind in the file that day. We had come so far, we had +suffered such horrors on the way, these men had been guilty of such +atrocious crimes, we longed fiercely now to annihilate this band of +wretches in punishment due for all it had cost the nation. I thought of +the young mother and her baby boy on the frozen earth between the drifts +of snow about Satanta's tepee on the banks of the Washita, as Bud and I +found her on the December day when we searched over Custer's battle +field. I pictured the still forms lying on their blankets, and the long +line of soldiers passing reverently by, to see if by chance she might be +known to any of us--this woman, murdered in the very hour of her +release; and I gripped my arms in a frenzy. Oh, Satan takes fast hold on +the heart of a man in such a time, and the Christ dying on the cross up +on Calvary, praying "Father forgive them for they know not what they +do," seems only a fireside story of unreal things. + +In the midst of this opportunity for vengeance just, and long overdue, +comes Custer's lieutenant with military courtesy to Colonel Moore, and +delivers the message, "The General sends his compliments, with the +instructions not to fire on the Indians." + +Courtesy! Compliments! Refrain from any rudeness to the wards of the +Government! I was nearly twenty-two and I knew more than Custer and +Sheridan and even President Grant himself just then. I had a sense of +obedience. John Baronet put that into me back in Springvale years ago. +Also I had extravagant notions of military discipline and honor. But +for one brief moment I was the most lawless mutineer, the rankest +anarchist that ever thirsted for human gore to satisfy a wrong. Nor was +I alone. Beside me were those stanch fellows, Pete and John Mac, and +Hadley. And beyond was the whole line of Kansas men with a cause of +their own here. Before my fury left me, however, we were all about face, +and getting up the valley to a camping-place. + +I might have saved the strength the passion of fury costs. Custer knew +his business and mine also. Down in that Cheyenne village, closely +guarded, were two captive women, the women of my boyhood dream, maybe. +The same two women who had been carried from their homes up in the +Solomon River country in the early Fall. What they had endured in these +months of captivity even the war records that set down plain things do +not deem fit to enter. One shot from our rifles that day on the +Sweetwater would have meant for them the same fate that befell the +sacrifice on the Washita, the dead woman on the deserted battle field. +It was to save these two, then, that we had kept step heavily across the +cold starved Plains. For two women we had marched and suffered on day +after day. Who shall say, at the last analysis, that this young queen of +nations, ruling a beautiful land under the Stars and Stripes, sets no +value on the homes of its people, nor holds as priceless the life and +safety even of two unknown women. + +Very adroitly General Custer visited, and exchanged compliments, and +parleyed and waited, playing his game faultlessly till even the +quick-witted Cheyennes were caught by it. When the precise moment came +the shrewd commander seized the chief men of the village and gave his +ultimatum--a life for a life. The two white women safe from harm must be +brought to him or these mighty men must become degraded captives. Then +followed an Indian hurricane of wrath and prayers and trickery. It +availed nothing except to prolong the hours, and hunger and cold filled +another night in our desolate camp. + +Day brought a renewal of demand, a renewal of excuse and delay and an +attempt to outwit by promises. But a second command was more telling. +The yellow-haired general's word now went forth: "If by sunset to-morrow +night these two women are not returned to my possession, these chiefs +will hang." + +So Custer said, and the grim selection of the gallows and the +preparation for fulfilment of his threat went swiftly forward. The +chiefs were terror-stricken, and anxious messages were sent to their +people. Meanwhile the Cheyenne forces were moving farther and farther +away. The squaws and children were being taken to a safe distance, and a +quick flight was in preparation. So another night of hunger and waiting +fell upon us. Then came the day of my dream long ago. The same people I +knew first on the night after Jean Pahusca's attempt on Marjie's life, +when we were hunting our cows out on the West Prairie, came now in +reality before me. + +The Sweetwater Valley spread out under the late sunshine of a March day +was rimmed about by low hills. Beyond these, again, were the Plains, the +same monotony of earth beneath and sky above, the two meeting away and +away in an amethyst fold of mist around the world's far bound. There +were touches of green in the brown valley, but the hill slopes and all +the spread of land about them were gray and splotched and dull against a +blue-gray sickly sky. The hours went by slowly to each anxious soldier, +for endurance was almost at its limit. More heavily still they must have +dragged for the man on whom the burden of command rested. High noon, and +then the afternoon interminably long and dull, and by and by came the +sunset on the Sweetwater Valley, and a new heaven and a new earth were +revealed to the sons of men. Like a chariot of fire, the great sun +rolled in all its gorgeous beauty down the west. The eastern sky grew +radiant with a pink splendor, and every brown and mottled stretch of +distant landscape was touched with golden light or deepened into richest +purple, or set with a roseate bound of flame. Somewhere far away, a +feathery gray mist hung like a silvery veil toning down the earth from +the noonday glare to the sunset glory. Down in the very middle of all +this was a band of a thousand men; their faded clothing, their uncertain +step, their knotted hands, and their great hungry eyes told the price +that had been paid for the drama this sunset hour was to bring. Slowly +the moments passed as when in our little sanctuary above the pleasant +parks at Fort Sill I had watched the light measured out. And then the +low hills began to rise up and shut out the crimson west as twilight +crept toward the Sweetwater Valley. + +Suddenly, for there had been nothing there a moment before, all +suddenly, an Indian scout was outlined on the top of the low bluff +nearest us. Motionless he sat on his pony a moment, then he waved a +signal to the farther height beyond him. A second pony and a second +Indian scout appeared. Another signal and then came a third Indian on a +third pony farther away. Each Indian seemed to call out another until a +line of them had been signalled from the purple mist, out of which they +appeared to be created. Last of all and farthest away, was a pony on +which two figures were faintly outlined. Down in the valley we waited, +all eyes looking toward the hills as these two drew nearer. Up in a +group on the bluff beyond the valley the Indians halted. The two riders +of the pony slipped to the ground. With their arms about each other, in +close embrace, they came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited. It was a tragic scene, such as our history has rarely +known, watched by a thousand men, mute and motionless, under its spell. +Even now, after the lapse of nearly four decades, the picture is as +vivid as if it were but yesterday that I stood on the Texas Plains a +soldier of twenty-two years, feeling my heart throbs quicken as that +sunset scene is enacted before me. + +We had thought ourselves the victims of a hard fate in that winter of +terrible suffering; but these two women, Kansas girls, no older than +Marjie, home-loving, sheltered, womanly, a maiden and a bride of only a +few months--shall I ever forget them as they walked into my life on that +March day in the sunset hour by the Sweetwater? Their meagre clothing +was of thin flour sacks with buckskin moccasins and leggins. Their hair +hung in braids Indian fashion. Their haggard faces and sad eyes told +only the beginning of their story. They were coming now to freedom and +protection. The shadow of Old Glory would be on them in a moment; a +moment, and the life of an Indian captive would be but a horror-seared +memory. + +Then it was that Custer did a graceful thing. The subjection of the +Cheyennes could have been accomplished by soldiery from Connecticut or +South Carolina, but it was for the rescue of these two, for the +protection of Kansas homes, that the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry had +volunteered. Stepping to our commander, Colonel Moore, Custer asked that +the Kansas man should go forward to meet the captives. With a courtesy a +queen might have coveted the Colonel received them--two half-naked, +wretched, fate-buffeted women. + +The officers nearest wrapped their great coats about them. Then, as the +two, escorted by Colonel Moore and his officers next of rank, moved +forward toward General Custer, who was standing apart on a little knoll +waiting to receive them, a thousand men watching breathless with +uncovered heads the while, the setting sun sent down athwart the valley +its last rich rays of glory, the motionless air was full of an +opalescent beauty; while softly, sweetly, like dream music never heard +before in that lonely land of silence, the splendid Seventh Cavalry band +was playing "Home Sweet Home." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE HERITAGE + + It is morning here in Kansas, and the breakfast bell is rung! + We are not yet fairly started on the work we mean to do; + We have all the day before us, and the morning is but young, + And there's hope in every zephyr, and the skies are bright and blue. + + --WALT MASON. + + +It was over at last, the long painful marching; the fight with the +winter's blizzard, the struggle with starvation, the sunrise and sunset +and starlight on wilderness ways--all ended after a while. Of the three +boys who had gone out from Springvale and joined in the sacrifice for +the frontier, Bud sleeps in that pleasant country at Fort Sill. The +summer breezes ripple the grasses on his grave, the sunbeams caress it +lovingly and the winter snows cover it softly over--the quiet grave he +had wished for and found all too soon. Dear Bud, "not changed, but +glorified," he holds his place in all our hearts. For O'mie, the winter +campaign was the closing act of a comic tragedy, and I can never think +sadly of the brave-hearted happy Irishman. He was too full of the sunny +joy of existence, his heart beat with too much of good-will toward men, +to be remembered otherwise than as a bright-faced, sweet-spirited boy +whose span of years was short. How he ever endured the hardships and +reached Springvale again is a miracle, and I wonder even now, how, +waiting patiently for the inevitable, he could go peacefully through +the hours, making us forget everything but his cheery laugh, his +affectionate appreciation of the good things of the world, and his +childlike trust in the Saviour of men. + +His will was a simple thing, containing the bequest of all his +possessions, including the half-section of land so long in litigation, +and the requests regarding his funeral. The latter had three wishes: +that Marjie would sing "Abide With Me" at the burial service, that he +might lie near to John Baronet's last resting-place in the Springvale +cemetery, and that Dave and Bill Mead, and the three Andersons, with +myself would be his pall bearers. Dave was on the Pacific slope then, +and O'mie himself had helped to bear Bud to his final earthly home. One +of the Red Range boys and Jim Conlow filled these vacant places. +Reverently, as for one of the town's distinguished men, there walked +beside us Father Le Claire and Judge Baronet, Cris Mead and Henry +Anderson, father of the Anderson boys, Cam Gentry and Dever. Behind +these came the whole of Springvale. It was May time, a year after our +Southwest campaign, and the wild flowers of the prairie lined his grave +and wreaths of the pink blossoms that grow out in the West Draw were +twined about his casket. He had no next of kin, there were no especial +mourners. His battle was ended and we could not grieve for his abundant +entrance into eternal peace. + +Three of us had gone out with the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and I am +the third. While we were creeping back to life at Camp Inman on the +Washita after that well-nigh fatal expedition across the Staked Plains +to the Sweetwater, I saw much of Hard Rope, chief man of the Osage +scouts. I had been accustomed to the Osages all my years in Kansas. +Neither this tribe, nor our nearer neighbors, the Kaws, had ever given +Springvale any serious concern. Sober, they were law-abiding enough, and +drunk, they were no more dangerous than any drunken white man. Bitter as +my experience with the Indian has been, I have always respected the +loyal Osage. But I never sought one of this or any other Indian tribe +for the sake of his company. Race prejudice in me is still strong, even +when I give admiration and justice free rein. Indians had frequent +business in the Baronet law office in my earlier years, and after I was +associated with my father there was much that brought them to us. +Possibly the fact that I did not dislike the Osages is the reason I +hardly gave them a thought at Fort Sill. It was not until afterwards +that I recalled how often I had found the Osage scouts there crossing my +path unexpectedly. On the day before we broke camp at the Fort, Hard +Rope came to my tent and sat down beside the door. I did not notice him +until he said slowly: + +"Baronet?" + +"Yes," I replied. + +"Tobacco?" he asked. + +"No, Hard Rope," I answered, "I have every other mark of a great man +except this. I don't smoke." + +"I want tobacco," he continued. + +What made me accommodating just then I do not know, but I suddenly +remembered some tobacco that Reed had left in my tent. + +"Hard Rope," I said, "here is some tobacco. I forgot I had it, because I +don't care for it. Take it all." + +The scout seized it with as much gratitude as an Indian shows, but he +did not go away at once. + +"Something else now?" I questioned not unkindly. + +"You Judge Baronet's son?" + +I nodded and smiled. + +He came very close to me, putting both hands on my shoulders, and +looking steadily into my eyes he said solemnly, "You will be safe. No +evil come near you." + +"Thank you, Hard Rope, but I will keep my powder dry just the same," I +answered. + +All the time in the Inman camp the scout shadowed me. On the evening +before our start for Fort Hays to be mustered out of service he came to +me as I sat alone beside the Washita, breathing deeply the warm air of +an April twilight. I had heard no word from home since I left Topeka in +October. Marjie must be married, as Jean had said. I had never known the +half-breed to tell a lie. It was so long ago that that letter of hers to +me had miscarried. She thought of course that I had taken it and even +then refused to stay at home. Oh, it was all a hopeless tangle, and now +I might be dreaming of another man's wife. I had somehow grown utterly +hopeless now. Jean--oh, the thought was torture--I could not feel sure +about him. He might be shadowing her night and day. Custer did not tell +me what had become of the Indian, and I had seen on the Sweetwater what +such as he could do for a Kansas girl. As I sat thus thinking, Hard Rope +squatted beside me. + +"You go at sunrise?" pointing toward the east. + +I merely nodded. + +"I want to talk," he went on. + +"Well, talk away, Hard Rope." I was glad to quit thinking. + +What he told me there by the rippling Washita River I did not repeat for +many months, but I wrung his hand when I said good-bye. Of all the +scouts with Custer that we left behind when we started northward, none +had so large a present of tobacco as Hard Rope. + +My father had demanded that I return to Springvale as soon as our +regiment was mustered out. Morton was still in the East, and I had no +foothold in the Saline Valley as I had hoped in the Fall to have. Nor +was there any other place that opened its doors to me. And withal I was +homesick--desperately, ravenously homesick. I wanted to see my father +and Aunt Candace, to look once more on the peaceful Neosho and the huge +oak trees down in its fertile valley. For nearly half a year I had not +seen a house, nor known a civilized luxury. No child ever yearned for +home and mother as I longed for Springvale. And most of all came an +overwhelming eagerness to see Marjie once more. She was probably Mrs. +Judson now, unless Jean--but Hard Rope had eased my mind a little +there--and I had no right even to think of her. Only I was young, and I +had loved her so long. All that fierce battle with myself which I fought +out on the West Prairie on the night she refused to let me speak to her +had to be fought over again. And this time, marching northward over the +April Plains toward Fort Hays, this time, I was hopelessly vanquished. +I, Philip Baronet, who had fought with fifty against a thousand on the +Arickaree; who had gone with Custer to the Sweetwater in the dreary +wastes of the Texas desert; I who had a little limp now and then in my +right foot, left out too long in the cold, too long made to keep step in +weary ways on endlessly wearing marches; I who had lost the softness of +the boy's physique and who was muscled like a man, with something of the +military bearing hammered mercilessly upon me in the days of soldier +life--I was still madly in love with a girl who had refused all my +pleadings and was even now, maybe, another man's wife. Oh, cold and +terror and starvation were all bad enough, but this was unendurable. + +"I will go home as my father wishes," I said. "I do not need to stay +there, but I will go now for a while and feel once more what +civilization means. Then--I will go to the Plains, or somewhere else." +So I argued as we came one April day into Fort Hays. Letters from home +were awaiting me, urging me to come at once; and I went, leaving O'mie +to follow later when he should have rested at the Fort a little. + +All Kansas was in its Maytime glory. From the freshly ploughed earth +came up that sweet wholesome odor that like the scent of new-mown hay +carries its own traditions of other days to each of us. The young +orchards--there were not many orchards in Kansas then--were all a blur +of pink on the hill slopes. A thousand different blossoms gemmed the +prairies, making a perfect kaleidoscope of brilliant hues, that blended +with the shifting shades of green. Along the waterways the cottonwood's +silvery branches, tipped with tender young leaves fluttering in the soft +wind, stood up proudly above the scrubby bronze and purple growths +hardly yet in bud and leaf. From every gentle swell the landscape swept +away to the vanishing line of distances in billowy seas of green and +gold, while far overhead arched the deep-blue skies of May. Fleecy +clouds, white and soft as foam, drifted about in the limitless fields of +ether. The glory of the new year, the fresh sweet air, the spirit of +budding life, set the pulses a-tingle with the very joy of being. Like a +dream of Paradise lay the Neosho Valley in its wooded beauty, with field +and farm, the meadow, and the open unending prairie rolling away from +it, wave on wave, in the Maytime grace and grandeur. Through this valley +the river itself wound in and out, glistening like molten silver in the +open spaces, and gliding still and shadowy by overhanging cliff and +wooded covert. + +"Dever," I said to the stage driver when we had reached the top of the +divide and looked southward to where all this magnificence of nature was +lavishly spread out, "Dever, do you remember that passage in the Bible +about the making of the world long ago, 'And God saw that it was good'? +Well, here's where all that happened." + +Dever laughed a crowing laugh of joy. He had hugged me when I took the +stage, I didn't know why. When it came to doing the nice thing, Dever +had a sense of propriety sometimes that better-bred folk might have +envied. And this journey home proved it. + +"I've got a errant up west. D'ye's lief come into town that way?" he +asked me. + +Would I? I was longing to slip into my home before I ran the gantlet of +all the streets opening on the Santa Fé Trail. I never did know what +Dever's "errant" was, that led him to swing some miles to the west, out +of the way to the ford of the Neosho above the old stone cabin where +Father Le Claire swam his horse in the May flood six years before. He +gave no reason for the act that brought me over a road, every foot +sacred to the happiest moments of my life. Past the big cottonwood, down +into the West Draw where the pink blossoms called in sweet insistent +tones to me to remember a day when I had crowned a little girl with +blooms like these, a day when my life was in its Maytime joy. On across +the prairie we swung to the very borders of Springvale, which was +nestling by the river and stretching up the hillslope toward where the +bluff breaks abruptly. I could see "Rockport" gray and sun-flecked +beyond its sheltering line of green bushes. + +Just as we turned toward Cliff Street Dever said carelessly, + +"Lots of changes some ways sence I took you out of here last August. +Judson, he's married two months ago." + +The warm sunny glorious world turned drab and cold to me with the words. + +"What's the matter, Baronet?--you're whiter'n a dead man!" + +"Just a little faint. Got that way in the army," I answered, which was a +lie. + +"Better now? As I was sayin', Judson and Lettie has been married two +months now. Kinder surprised folks by jinin' up sudden; but--oh, well, +it's a lot better quick than not at all sometimes." + +I caught my breath. My "spell" contracted in the army was passing. And +here were Cliff Street and the round turret-like corners of Judge +Baronet's stone-built domicile. It was high noon, and my father had just +gone into the house. I gave Dever his fare and made the hall door at a +leap. My father turned at the sound and--I was in his arms. Then came +Aunt Candace, older by more than ten months. Oh, the women are the ones +who suffer most. I had not thought until that moment what all this +winter of absence meant to Candace Baronet. I held her in my strong arms +and looked down into her love-hungry eyes. Men are such stupid unfeeling +brutes. I am, at least; for I had never read in this dear woman's face +until that instant what must have been written there all these +years,--the love that might have been given to a husband and children of +her own, this lonely, childless woman had given to me. + +"Aunty, I'll never leave you again," I declared, as she clung to me, and +patted my cheeks and stroked my rough curly hair. + +We sat down together to the midday meal, and my father's blessing was +like the benediction of Heaven to my ears. + +Springvale also had its measure of good breeding. My coming was the +choicest news that Dever had had to give out for many a day, and the +circulation was amazing in its rapid transit. I had a host of friends +here where I had grown to manhood, and the first impulse was to take +Cliff Street by storm. It was Cam Gentry who counselled better methods. + +"Now, by hen, let's have some sense," he urged, "the boy's jest got +here. He's ben through life and death, er tarnation nigh akin to it. +Let's let him be with his own till to-morror. Jest ac like we'd had a +grain o' raisin' anyhow, and wait our turn. Ef he shows hisself down on +this 'er street we'll jest go out and turn the Neoshy runnin' north for +an hour and a half while we carry him around dry shod. But now, to-day, +let him come out o' hidin', and we'll give him welcome; but ef he stays +up there with Candace, we'll be gentlemen fur oncet ef it does purty +nigh kill some of us." + +"Cam is right," Cris Mead urged. "If he comes down here he'll take his +chances, but we'll hold our fire on the hill till to-morrow." + +"Well, by cracky, the Baronets never miss prayer meeting, I guess. +Springvale will turn out to-night some," Grandpa Mead declared. + +And so while I revelled in a home-coming, thankful to be alone with my +own people, the best folks on earth were waiting and dodging about, but +courteously abstaining from rushing in on our sacred home rights. + +In the middle of the afternoon Cam Gentry called to Dollie to come to +his aid. + +"Jest tie the end of this rope good and fast around this piazzer post," +he said. + +His wife obeyed before she noted that the other end was fastened around +Cam's right ankle. To her wondering look he responded: + +"Ef I don't lariat myself to something, like a old hen wanting to steal +off with her chickens, I'll be up to Baronet's spite of my efforts, I'm +that crazy to see Phil once more." + +Through the remainder of the May afternoon he sat on the veranda, or +hopped the length of his tether to the side-walk and looked longingly up +toward the high street, that faced the cliff, but his purpose did not +change. + +Springvale showed its sense of delicacy in more ways than this. Marjie +was the last to hear of my leaving when all suddenly I turned my back on +the town nearly ten months before. And now, while almost every family +had discussed my return--anything furnishes a little town a +sensation--the Whately family had had no notice served of the +momentarily interesting topic. And so it was that Marjie, innocent of +the suppressed interest, went about her home, never dreaming of anything +unusual in the town talk of that day. + +The May evening was delicious in its balmy air and the deepening purple +of its twilight haze. The spirit of the springtime, wooing in its tone +of softest music, voiced a message to the sons and daughters of men. +Marjie came out at sunset and slowly took her way through the sweetness +of it all up to the "Rockport" of our childhood, the trysting place of +our days of love's young dream. Her fair face had a womanly strength and +tenderness now, and her form an added grace over the curves of girlhood. +But her hair still rippled about her brow and coiled in the same soft +folds of brown at the back of her head. Her cheeks had still the pink of +the wild rose bloom, and the dainty neatness in dress was as of old. + +She came to the rock beyond the bushes and sat down alone looking +dreamily out over the Neosho Valley. + +"You'll go to prayer meeting, Phil?" Aunt Candace asked at supper. + +"Yes, but I believe I'll go down the street first. Save a place for me. +I want to see Dr. Hemingway next to you of all Springvale." Which was my +second falsehood for that day. I needed prayer meeting. + +The sunset hour was more than I could withstand. All the afternoon I had +been subconsciously saying that I must keep close to the realities. +These were all that counted now. And yet when the evening came, all the +past swept my soul and bore every resolve before it. I did not stop to +ask myself any questions. I only knew that, lonely as it must be, I must +go now to "Rockport" as I had done so many times in the old happy past, +a past I was already beginning numbly to feel was dead and gone forever. +And yet my step was firm and my head erect, as with eager tread I came +to the bushes guarding our old happy playground. I only wanted to see it +once more, that was all. + +The limp had gone from my foot. It was intermittent in the earlier +years. I was combed and groomed again for social appearing. Aunt Candace +had hung about my tie and the set of my coat, and for my old army +head-gear she had resurrected the jaunty cap I had worn home from +Massachusetts. With my hands in my pockets, whistling softly to abstract +my thoughts, I slipped through the bushes and stood once more on +"Rockport." + +And there was Marjie, still looking dreamily out over the valley. She +had not heard my step, so far away were her thoughts. And the picture, +as I stood a moment looking at her--will the world to come hold anything +more fair, I wondered. It was years ago, I know, but so clearly I +recall it now it could have been a dream of yesterday. Before me were +the gray rock, the dark-green valley, the gleaming waters of the Neosho, +the silvery mist on the farther bluff iridescent with the pink tints of +sunset reflected on the eastern sky, the quiet loveliness of the May +twilight, and Marjie, beautiful with a girlish winsomeness, a woman's +grace, a Madonna's tenderness. + +"Were you waiting for me, dearie? I am a little late, but I am here at +last." + +I spoke softly, and she turned quickly at the sound of my voice. A look +of dazed surprise as she leaped to her feet, and then the reality dawned +upon her. + +"Come, sweetheart," I said. "I have been away so long, I'm hungering for +your welcome." + +I held out my hands to her. Her face was very white as she made one step +toward me, and then the love-light filled her brown eyes, the glorious +beauty of the pink blossoms swept her cheek. I put my arms around her +and drew her close to me, my own little girl, whom I had loved and +thought I had lost forever. + +"Oh, Phil, Phil, are you here again? Are you--" she put her little hand +against my hair curling rebelliously over my cap's brim. "Are you mine +once more?" + +"Am I, Marjie? Six feet of me has come back; but, little girl, I have +never been away. I have never let you go out of my life. It was only the +mechanical action that went away. Phil Baronet stayed here! Oh, I know +it now--I was acting out there; I was really living here with you, my +Marjie, my own." + +I held her in my arms as I spoke, and we looked out at the sweet sunset +prairie. The big cottonwood, shapely as ever, was outlined against the +horizon, which was illumined now with all the gorgeous grandeur of the +May evening. The level rays of golden light fell on us, as we stood +there, baptizing us with its splendor. + +"Oh, Marjie, it was worth all the suffering and danger to have such a +home-coming as this!" I kissed her lips and pushed back the little +ringlets from her white forehead. + +"It is vouchsafed to a man sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on +earth," Father Le Claire had said to me out on this rock six years +before. It was a bit of heaven that came down to me in the purple +twilight of that May evening, and I lifted my face to the opal skies +above me with a prayer of thankfulness for the love that was mine once +more. In that hour of happiness we forgot that there was ever a storm +cloud to darken the blue heavens, or ever a grief or a sin to mar the +joy of living. We were young, and we were together. Over the valley +swept the sweet tones of the Presbyterian Church bell. Marjie's face, +radiant with light, was lifted to mine. + +"I must go to prayer meeting, Phil. I shall see you again--to-morrow?" +She put the question hesitatingly, even longingly. + +"Yes, and to-night. Let's go together. I haven't been to prayer meeting +regularly. We lost out on that on the Staked Plains." + +"I must run home and comb my hair," she declared; and indeed it was a +little tumbled. But from the night I first saw her, a little girl in her +father's moving-wagon, with her pink sun-bonnet pushed back from her +blowsy curls, her hair, however rebellious, was always a picture. + +"Go ahead, little girl. I will run home, too. I forgot something. I will +be down right away." + +Going home, I may have walked on Cliff Street, but my head was in the +clouds, and all the songs that the morning-stars sing together--all the +music of the spheres--was playing itself out for me in the shadowy +twilight as I went along. + +At the gate Aunt Candace and my father were waiting for me. + +"You needn't wait," I cried. "I will be there presently." + +"Oh, joined the regular army this time," my father said, smiling. "Sorry +we can't keep you, Phil." But I gave no heed to him. + +"Aunt Candace," I said in a low voice. "May I see you just a minute? I +want to get something." + +"It's in the top drawer in my room, Phil. The key is in the little tray +on my dresser," Aunt Candace said quietly. She always understood me. + +When I reached the Whately home, Marjie was waiting for me at the gate. +I took her little hand in my own strong big one. + +"Will you wear it again for me, dearie?" I asked, holding up my mother's +ring before her. + +"Always and always, Phil," she murmured. + +Isn't it Longfellow who speaks of "the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots +of the angels," blossoming "in the infinite meadows of heaven"? They +were all a-bloom that May night, and dewy and sweet lay the earth +beneath them. We were a little late to prayer meeting. The choir was in +its place and the audience was gathered in the pews. Judge Baronet +always sat near the front, and my place was between him and Aunt Candace +when I wasn't in the choir. Bess Anderson was just finishing a voluntary +as we two went up the aisle together. I hadn't thought of making a +sensation, I thought only of Marjie. Passing around the end of the +chancel rail I gently led her by the arm up the three steps to the +choir place, and turning, faced all the town as I went to my seat +beside my father. I was as happy as a lover can be; but I didn't know +how much of all this was written on my countenance, nor did I notice the +intense hush that fell on the company. I had faced the oncoming of Roman +Nose and his thousand Cheyenne warriors; there was no reason why I +should feel embarrassed in a prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Church +at Springvale. The service was short. I remember not one word of it +except the scripture lesson. That was the Twenty-third Psalm: + + The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. + He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; + He leadeth me beside the still waters. + He restoreth my soul; + He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. + Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, + I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. + +These words had sounded in my ears on the night before the battle on the +Arickaree, and again in the little cove on the low bluff at Fort Sill, +the night Jean Pahusca was taunting me through the few minutes he was +allowing me to live. That Psalm belonged to the days when I was doing my +part toward the price paid out for the prairie homes and safety and +peace. But never anybody read for me as Dr. Hemingway read it that +evening. With the close of the service came a prayer of thanksgiving for +my return. Then for the first time I was self-conscious. What had I done +to be so lovingly and reverently welcomed home? I bowed my head in deep +humility, and the tears welled up. Oh, I could look death calmly between +the eyes as I had watched it creeping toward me on the heated Plains of +the Arickaree, and among the cold starved sand dunes of the Cimarron, +but to be lauded as a hero here in Springvale--the tears would come. +Where were Custer, and Moore, and Forsyth, and Pliley, and Stillwell, +and Morton, if such as I be called a hero? + +Cam Gentry didn't lead the Doxology that night, he chased it +clear into the belfry and up into the very top of the steeple; +and his closing burst of melody "Praise Father, Son, and +Holy Ghost," had, as Bill Mead declared afterwards, a regular +"You-couldn't-have-done-it-better-Lord-if-you-had-been-there-yourself" +ring to it. + +Then came the benediction, fervent, holy, gentle, with Dr. Hemingway's +white face (crowned now with snowy hair) lifted up toward heaven. After +that I never could remember, save that there was a hush, then a clamor, +that was followed pretty soon by embraces from the older men and women, +pounding thumps from the younger men and handshaking with the girls. And +all the while, with a proprietary sense I had found myself near Marjie, +whom I kept close beside me now, her brown head just above my shoulder. + +More than once in the decades since then it has been my fortune to +return to Springvale and be met at the railway station and escorted home +by the town band. Sometimes for political service, sometimes for civic +effort, and once because by physical strength and great daring and quick +cool courage I saved three human lives in a terrible wreck; but never +any ovation was like that prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Church +nearly forty years ago. + +The days that followed my home-coming were busy ones, for my place in +the office had been vacant. Clayton Anderson had devoted himself to the +Whately affairs, although nobody but those in the secret knew when +Judson gave up proprietorship and went on a clerk's pay again where he +belonged. Springvale was kind to Judson, as it has always been to the +man who tries honestly to make good in this life's struggle. It is in +the Kansas air, this broader charity, this estimation of character, +redeemed or redeemable. + +My father did not tell me of his part in the Whately business affairs at +once, and I did not understand when, one evening, some time later, Aunt +Candace said at the supper table: + +"Dollie Gentry tells me Dr. John (so we called John Anderson now), +reports a twelve-pound boy over at Judsons'. They are going to christen +him 'John Baronet Judson.' Aren't you proud of the name, John?" + +"I am of the Judson part," my father answered, with that compression of +the lips that sometimes kept back a smile, and sometimes marked a +growing sternness. + +I met O'mie at Topeka and brought him to Springvale. It was not until in +May of the next year that he went away from us and came not back any +more, save in loving remembrance. + +In August Tillhurst went East. Somehow I was not at all surprised when +the Rockport, Massachusetts, weekly newspaper, that had come to our +house every Tuesday while we had lived on Cliff Street, contained the +notice of the marriage of Richard Tillhurst and Rachel Agnes Melrose. +The happy couple, the paper said, would reside in Rockport. + +"They may reside at the bottom of the sea for all that I care," I said +thoughtlessly, not understanding then the shadow that fell for the +moment on my aunt's serene face. + +Long afterwards when she slept beside my father in the quiet Springvale +cemetery on the bluff beyond Fingal's Creek, I found among her letters +the romance of her life. I knew then for the first time that Rachel's +uncle, the Ferdinand Melrose whose life was lost at sea, was the one for +whom this brave kind woman had mourned. Loving as the Baronets do, even +unto death, she had gone down the lonely years, forgetting herself in +the broad, beautiful, unselfish life she gave to those about her. + +It was late in the August of the following year, when the Kansas +prairies were brownest and the summer heat the fiercest, that I was met +at the courthouse door one afternoon by a lithe, coppery Osage Indian +boy, who handed me a bundle, saying, "From Hard Rope, for John Baronet's +son." + +"Well, all right, sonny; only it's about time for the gentleman in there +to be known as Philip Baronet's father. He never fought the Cheyennes. +He's just the father of the man who did. What's the tariff due on this +junk?" + +The Osage did not smile, but he answered mildly enough, "What you will +pay." + +I was not cross with the world. I could afford to be generous, even at +the risk of having the whole Osage tribe trailing at my heels, and +begging for tobacco and food and trinkets. I loaded that young buck to +the guards with the things an Indian prizes, and sent him away. + +Then in my own office I undid the bundle. It was the old scarlet blanket +with the white circular centre, the pattern Jean Pahusca always wore. +This one was dirty and frayed and splotched. I turned from it with +loathing. In the folds of the cloth a sealed letter was securely +fastened. Some soldier had written it for Hard Rope, and the penmanship +and language were more than average fine. But the story it told I could +not exult over, although a sense of lifted pressure in some corner of +my mind came with the reading. + +Briefly it recited that Jean Pahusca, Kiowa renegade, was dead. Custer's +penalty for him had been to give him over to the Kiowas as their +captive. When the tribe left Fort Sill in March, Satanta had had him +brought bound to the Kiowa village then on the lower Washita. His crime, +committed on the day of Custer's fight with Black Kettle, was the +heinous one of stealing his Uncle Satanta's youngest and favorite wife, +and leaving her to perish miserably in the cold of that December month +in which we also had suffered. His plan had been to escape from the +Kiowas and reach the Cheyennes on the Sweetwater before we did, to meet +me there, and this time, to give no moment for my rescue. So Hard Rope's +message ran. But this was not all. The punishment that fell on Jean +Pahusca was in proportion to his crime, as an Indian counts justice. He +was sold as a slave to the Apaches and carried captive to the mountains +of Old Mexico. Nor was he ever liberated again. Up above the snow line, +with the passes guarded (for Jean was as dangerous to his mother's race +as to his father's), he had fretted away his days, dying at last of cold +and cruel neglect among the dreary rocks of the icy peaks. This much +information Hard Rope's letter brought. I burned both the letter and the +blanket, telling no one of them except my father. + +"This Hard Rope was for some reason very friendly to me on your +account," I said. "He told me on the Washita the night before we left +Camp Inman that he had shadowed Jean all the time he was at Fort Sill, +and had more than once prevented the half-breed from making an attack on +me. He promised to let me know what became of Pahusca if he ever found +out. He has kept his word." + +"I know Hard Rope," my father said. "I saved his life one annuity day +long ago. Tell Mapleson had made Jean Pahusca drunk. You know what kind +of a beast he was then. And Tell had run this Osage into Jean's path, +where he would be sure to lose his life, and Tell would have the big +pile of money Hard Rope carried. That's the kind of beast Tell was. An +Indian has his own sense of obligation; and then it is a good asset to +be humane all along the line anyhow, although I never dreamed I was +saving the man who was to save my boy." + +"Shall we tell Le Claire?" I asked. + +"Only that both Jean and his father are dead. We'll spare him the rest. +Le Claire has gone to St. Louis to a monastery. He will never be strong +again. But he is one of the kings of the earth; he has given the best +years of his manhood to build up a kingdom of peace between the white +man and the savage. No record except the Great Book of human deeds will +ever be able to show how much we owe to men like Le Claire whose +influence has helped to make a loyal peaceful tribe like the Osages. The +brutal fiendishness of the Plains Indians is the heritage of Spanish +cruelty toward the ancestors of the Apache and Kiowa and Arapahoe and +Comanche, and you can see why they differ from our tribes here in +Eastern Kansas. Le Claire has done his part toward the purchase of the +Plains, and I am glad for the quiet years before him." + + * * * * * + +It was the custom in Springvale for every girl to go up to Topeka for +the final purchases of her bridal belongings. We were to be married in +October. In the late September days Mrs. Whately and her daughter spent +a week at the capital city. I went up at the end of the visit to come +home with them. Since the death of Irving Whately nothing had ever +roused his wife to the pleasure of living like this preparation for +Marjie's marriage, and Mrs. Whately, still a young and very pretty +woman, bloomed into that mature comeliness that carries a grace of +permanence the promise of youth may only hint at. She delighted in every +detail of the coming event, and we two most concerned were willing to +let anybody look after the details. We had other matters to think about. + +"Come, little sweetheart," I said one night after supper at the Teft +House, "your mother is to spend the evening with a friend of hers. I +want to take you for a walk." + +Strange how beautiful Topeka looked to me this September. It had all the +making of a handsome city even then, although the year since I came up +to the political rally had brought no great change except to extend the +borders somewhat. Like two happy young lovers we strolled out toward the +southwest, past the hole in the ground that was to contain the +foundation of the new wings for the State Capitol, past Washburn +College, and on to where the slender little locust tree waved its dainty +lacy branches in graceful welcome. + +"Marjie, I want you to see this tree. It's not the first time I have +been here. Rachel--Mrs. Tillhurst--and I came here a few times." +Marjie's hand nestled softly against my arm. "I always made faces at it +as soon as I got away from it; but it is a beautiful little tree, and I +want to put you with it in my mind. It was here last Fall that my father +said he didn't believe that you were engaged to Amos Judson." + +"Didn't believe," Marjie cried; "why, Phil, he knew I wasn't. I told him +so when he was asked to urge me to marry Amos." + +"He urge you to marry Amos! Now Marjie, girl, I hate to be hard on the +gentleman; but if he did that it's my duty to scalp him, and I will go +home and do it." + +But Marjie explained. We sat in the moonlight by the locust-tree just as +Rachel and I had done; only now Topeka and the tree and the silvery +prairie and the black-shadowed Shunganunga Creek, winding down toward +the Kaw through many devious turns, all seemed a fairy land which the +moonbeams touched and glorified for us two. I can never think of Topeka, +even to-day, with its broad avenues and beautiful shaded parks and paved +ways, its handsome homes and churches and colleges, with all these to +make it a proud young city--I can never think of it and leave out that +sturdy young locust, grown now to a handsome tree. And when I think of +it I do not think of the beautiful black-haired Eastern girl, with her +rich dress and aristocratic manner. But always that sweet-faced, +brown-eyed Kansas girl is with me there. And the open prairie dipping +down to the creek, and the purple tip of Burnett's Mound, make a setting +for the picture. + + * * * * * + +One October day when the wooded valley of the Neosho was in its autumn +glory, when the creeping vines on the gray stone bluff were aflame with +the frost's rich scarlet painting, and the west prairies were all one +shimmering sea of gold flecked with emerald and purple; while above all +these curved the wide magnificent skies of Kansas, unclouded, +fathomless, and tenderly blue; when the peace of God was in the air and +his benediction of love was on all the land,--on such a day as this, the +clear-toned old Presbyterian Church bell rang the wedding chimes for +Marjory Whately and Philip Baronet. Loving hands had made the church a +bower of autumn coloring with the dainty relief of pink and white asters +against the bronze richness of the season. Bess Anderson played the +wedding march, as we two came up the aisle together and met Dr. +Hemingway at the chancel rail. I was in my young manhood's zenith, and I +walked the earth like a king. Marjie wore my mother's wedding veil. Her +white gown was soft and filmy, a fabric of her mother's own choosing, +and her brown wavy hair was crowned with orange blossoms. + +Springvale talked of that wedding for many a moon, for there was not a +feature of the whole beautiful service, even to the very least +appointment, that was not perfect in its simplicity and harmonious in +its blending with everything about it. + +Among the guests in the Baronet home, where everybody came to wish us +happiness, was my father's friend and my own hero, Morton of the Saline +Valley. Somehow I needed his presence that day. It kept me in touch with +my days of greatest schooling. The quiet, forceful friend, who had +taught me how to meet the realities of life like a man, put into my +wedding a memory I shall always treasure. O'mie was still with us then. +When his turn came to greet us he held Marjie's hand a moment while he +slyly showed her a poor little bunch of faded brown blossoms which he +crumpled to dust in his fingers. + +"I told you I wouldn't keep them no longer'n till I caught the odor of +them orange blooms. They are the little pink wreath two other fellows +threw away out in the West Draw long ago. The rale evidence of my +good-will to you two is locked up in Judge Baronet's safe." + +We laughed, but we did not understand. Not until the Irish boy's will +was read, more than half a year later, when the pink flowers were +blooming again in the West Draw, did we comprehend the measure of his +good-will. For by his legal last wish all his possessions, including the +land, with the big cottonwood and the old stone cabin, became the +property of Marjory Whately and her heirs and assigns forever. + +Out there in later years we built our country home. The breezes of +summer are always cool there, and from every wide window we can see the +landscape the old cottonwood still watches over. Above the gateway to +the winding road leading up from the West Draw is inscribed the name we +gave the place, + + O'MIE-HEIM. + +Sixty years, and a white-haired, young-hearted young man I am who write +these lines. For many seasons I have sat on the Judge's bench. Law has +been my business on the main line, with land dealings on the side, and +love for my fellowmen all along the way. Half a century of my life has +run parallel with the story of Kansas, whose beautiful prairies have +been purchased not only with the coin of the country, but with the coin +of courage and unparalleled endurance. To-day the rippling billows of +yellow wheat, the walls on walls of black-green corn, the stretches of +emerald alfalfa set with its gems of amethyst bloom; orchard and meadow, +grove and grassy upland, where cattle pasture; populous cities and +churches and stately college halls; the whirring factory wheels, the +dust of the mines, the black oil derrick and the huge reservoirs of +natural gas, with the slender steel pathways of the great trains of +traffic binding these together; and above all, the sheltered happy +homes, where little children play never dreaming of fear; where +sweet-browed mothers think not of loneliness and anguish and peril--all +these are the splendid heritage of a land whose law is for the whole +people, a land whose God is the Lord. + +Slowly, through tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine, +and nakedness, and peril, and sword; through fire and flood; through +summer's drought and winter's blizzard; through loneliness, and fear, +and heroism, and martyrdom too often at last, the brave-hearted, +liberty-loving, indomitable people have come into their own, paying foot +by foot, the price that won this prairie kingdom in the heart of the +West. + +Down through the years of busy cares, of struggle and achievement, of +hopes deferred and victories counted, my days have run in shadow and +sunshine, with more of practical fact than of poetic dreaming. And +through them all, the call of the prairie has sounded in my soul, the +voice of a beautiful land, singing evermore its old, old song of victory +and peace. Aye, and through it all, beside me, cheering each step, +holding fast my hand, making life always fine and beautiful and gracious +for me, has been my loved one, Marjie, the bride of my young manhood, +the mother of my sons and daughters, the light of my life. + +It is for such as she, for homes her kind have made, that men have +fought and dared and died, fulfilling the high privilege of the American +citizen, the privilege to safeguard the hearthstones of the land above +which the flag floats a symbol of light and law and love. + +And I who write this know--for I have learned in the years whose story +is here only a half-told thing under my halting pen--I know that however +fiercely the storms may beat, however wildly the tempests may blow, +however bitter the fighting hours of the day may be, beyond the heat +and burden of it all will come the quiet eventide for me, and for all +the sons and daughters of this prairie land I love. Though the roar of +battle fill all the noontime, in the blessed twilight will come the +music of "_HOME, SWEET HOME_." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE*** + + +******* This file should be named 31524-8.txt or 31524-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/5/2/31524 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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N. Marchand</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: The Price of the Prairie</p> +<p> A Story of Kansas</p> +<p>Author: Margaret Hill McCarter</p> +<p>Release Date: March 6, 2010 [eBook #31524]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by the<br /> + Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.fadedpage.com)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"> +<a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a> +<img src="images/ifpc.jpg" width="368" height="550" alt=""Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!"</span> +</div> + + + + + + <h1>THE PRICE<br /> + OF THE PRAIRIE</h1> + + <h3>A STORY OF KANSAS</h3> + + <h4><i>By</i></h4> + + <h2>MARGARET HILL McCARTER</h2> + + <h4><i>Author of</i> "THE COTTONWOOD'S STORY," "CUDDY'S BABY," ETC.</h4> + + <p class="center">WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR</p> + <h3>BY J. N. MARCHAND</h3> + + <p class="center">FIFTEENTH EDITION</p> + + <div class="figcenter" style="width: 150px;"> +<img src="images/004.jpg" width="150" height="142" alt="" title="logo" /> +</div> + + <p class="center">CHICAGO<br /> + A. C. McCLURG & CO.<br /> + 1912</p> + + + + + + + <p class="center">Copyright<br /> + A. C. McCLURG & CO.<br /> + 1910<br /><br /> + + Published October 8, 1910<br /> + Second Edition, October 29, 1910<br /> + Third Edition, November 16, 1910<br /> + Fourth Edition, December 3, 1910<br /> + Fifth Edition, December 10, 1910<br /> + Sixth Edition, December 17, 1910<br /> + Seventh Edition, January 25, 1911<br /> + Eighth Edition, February 25, 1911<br /> + Ninth Edition, April 5, 1911<br /> + Tenth Edition, May 3, 1911<br /> + Eleventh Edition, September 23, 1911<br /> + Twelfth Edition, December 9, 1911<br /> + Thirteenth Edition, February 17, 1912<br /> + Fourteenth Edition, August 10, 1912<br /> + Fifteenth Edition, December 28, 1912<br /><br /> + + Copyrighted in Great Britain<br /> + + PRESS OF THE VAIL COMPANY<br /> + COSHOCTON, U. S. A. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h3><br /><br />"AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT"<br /><br /></h3> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="centerbox"> +<p>This little love story of the prairies is dedicated to all who believe +that the defence of the helpless is heroism; that the protection of the +home is splendid achievement; and, that the storm, and stress, and +patient endurance of the day will bring us at last to the peace of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span>purple twilight.</p> +</div> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> + + + + + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="60%" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">Chapter</td><td align="right">Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"> </td><td align="left">PROEM</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_ix'>ix</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I</td><td align="left">Springvale by the Neosho</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_13'>13</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II</td><td align="left">Jean Pahusca</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_25'>25</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III</td><td align="left">The Hermit's Cave</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_32'>32</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV</td><td align="left">In the Prairie Twilight</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_43'>43</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V</td><td align="left">A Good Indian</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_56'>56</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI</td><td align="left">When the Heart Beats Young</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_73'>73</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII</td><td align="left">The Foreshadowing of Peril</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_85'>85</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VIII</td><td align="left">The Cost of Safety</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_99'>99</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IX</td><td align="left">The Search for the Missing</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_114'>114</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">X</td><td align="left">O'Mie's Choice</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_132'>132</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XI</td><td align="left">Golden Days</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_150'>150</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XII</td><td align="left">A Man's Estate</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_166'>166</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIII</td><td align="left">The Topeka Rally</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_184'>184</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIV</td><td align="left">Deepening Gloom</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_200'>200</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XV</td><td align="left">Rockport and "Rockport"</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_217'>217</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVI</td><td align="left">Beginning Again</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_242'>242</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVII</td><td align="left">In the Valley of the Arickaree</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_261'>261</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XVIII</td><td align="left">The Sunlight on Old Glory</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_277'>277</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XIX</td><td align="left">A Man's Business</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_292'>292</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XX</td><td align="left">The Cleft in the Rock</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_317'>317</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXI</td><td align="left">The Call to Service</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_334'>334</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXII</td><td align="left">The Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_354'>354</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIII</td><td align="left">In Jean's Land</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_370'>370</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXIV</td><td align="left">The Cry of Womanhood</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_390'>390</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXV</td><td align="left">Judson Summoned</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_403'>403</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVI</td><td align="left">O'Mie's Inheritance</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_420'>420</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVII</td><td align="left">Sunset by the Sweetwater</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_442'>442</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">XXVIII</td><td align="left">The Heritage</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_464'>464</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + + + + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="60%" cellspacing="0" summary="ILLUSTRATIONS"> +<tr><td align="left"> </td><td align="right">Page</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!"</td><td align="right"><a href='#frontis'><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Baronet, I think we are marching straight into Hell's jaws"</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_158'>158</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_244'>244</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all dashed toward the place</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_288'>288</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for whom we waited</td><td align="right"><a href='#Page_394'>394</a></td></tr> +</table></div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PROEM" id="PROEM"></a>PROEM</h2> + +<p class="center">"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her"</p> + + +<p>I can hear it always—the Call of the Prairie. The passing of sixty +Winters has left me a vigorous man, although my hair is as white as the +January snowdrift in the draws, and the strenuous events of some of the +years have put a tax on my strength. I shall always limp a little in my +right foot—that was left out on the plains one freezing night with +nothing under it but the earth, and nothing over it but the sky. Still, +considering that although the sixty years were spent mainly in that +pioneer time when every day in Kansas was its busy day, I am not even +beginning to feel old. Neither am I sentimental and inclined to poetry. +Life has given me mostly her prose selections for my study.</p> + +<p>But this love of the Prairie is a part of my being. All the comedy and +tragedy of these sixty years have had them for a setting, and I can no +more put them out of my life than the Scotchman can forget the heather, +or the Swiss emigrant in the flat green lowland can forget the icy +passes of the glacier-polished Alps. Geography is an element of every +man's life. The prairies are in the red corpuscles of my blood. Up and +down their rippling billows my memory runs. For always I see +them,—green and blossom-starred in the Springtime; or drenched with the +driving summer deluge that made each draw a brimming torrent; or golden, +purple, and silver-rimmed in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> the glorious Autumn. I have seen them gray +in the twilight, still and tenderly verdant at noonday, and cold and +frost-wreathed under the white star-beams. I have seen them yield up +their rich yellow sheaves of grain, and I have looked upon their dreary +wastes marked with the dull black of cold human blood. Plain practical +man of affairs that I am, I come back to the blessed prairies for my +inspiration as the tartan warmed up the heart of Argyle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="THE_PRICE_OF_THE_PRAIRIE" id="THE_PRICE_OF_THE_PRAIRIE"></a>THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + +<h3>SPRINGVALE BY THE NEOSHO</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sweeter to me than the salt sea spray, the fragrance of summer rains;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Nearer my heart than the mighty hills are the wind-swept Kansas plains.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Dearer the sight of a shy wild rose by the road-side's dusty way,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than all the splendor of poppy-fields ablaze in the sun of May.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Gay as the bold poinsettia is, and the burden of pepper trees,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sunflower, tawny and gold and brown, is richer to me than these;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And rising ever above the song of the hoarse, insistent sea,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The voice of the prairie calling, calling me.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—ESTHER M. CLARKE.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Whenever I think of these broad Kansas plains I think also of Marjie. I +cannot now remember the time when I did not care for her, but the day +when O'mie first found it out is as clear to me as yesterday, although +that was more than forty years ago. O'mie was the reddest-haired, +best-hearted boy that ever laughed in the face of Fortune and made +friends with Fate against the hardest odds. His real name was O'Meara, +Thomas O'Meara, but we forgot that years ago.</p> + +<p>"If O'mie were set down in the middle of the Sahara<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Desert," my Aunt +Candace used to say, "there'd be an oasis a mile across by the next day +noon, with never failing water and green trees right in the middle of +it, and O'mie sitting under them drinking the water like it was Irish +rum."</p> + +<p>O'mie would always grin at this saying and reply that, "by the nixt day +noon follerin' that, the rascally gover'mint at Washin'ton would come +along an' kick him out into the rid san', claimin' that that particular +oasis was an Injun riservation, specially craayted by Providence fur the +dirthy Osages,—the bastes!"</p> + +<p>O'mie hated the Indians, but he was a friend to all the rest of mankind. +Indeed if it had not been for him I should not have had that limp in my +right foot, for both of my feet would have been mouldering these many +years under the curly mesquite of the Southwest plains. But that comes +later.</p> + +<p>We were all out on the prairie hunting for our cows that evening—the +one when O'mie guessed my secret. Marjie's pony was heading straight to +the west, flying over the ground. The big red sun was slipping down a +flame-wreathed sky, touching with fire the ragged pennons of a +blue-black storm cloud hanging sullenly to the northward, and making an +indescribable splendor in the far southwest.</p> + +<p>Riding hard after Marjie, coming at an angle from the bluff above the +draw, was an Osage Indian, huge as a giant, and frenzied with whiskey. I +must have turned a white despairing face toward my comrades, and I was +glad afterward that I was against the background of that flaming sunset +so that my features were in the shadow. It was then that O'mie, who was +nearest me, looking steadily in my eyes said in a low voice:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Bedad, Phil! so that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to kill +that Injun jist fur grandeur."</p> + +<p>I knew O'mie for many years, and I never saw him show a quiver of fear, +not even in those long weary days when, white and hollow-cheeked, he +waited for his last enemy, Death,—whom he vanquished, looking up into +my face with eyes of inexpressible peace, and murmuring softly,</p> + +<p>"Safe in the arms of Jasus."</p> + +<p>Old men are prone to ramble in their stories, and I am not old. To prove +that, I must not jiggle with these heads and tails of Time, but I must +begin earlier and follow down these eventful years as if I were a real +novel-writer with consecutive chapters to set down.</p> + +<p>Springvale by the Neosho was a favorite point for early settlers. It +nestled under the sheltered bluff on the west. There were never-failing +springs in the rocky outcrop. A magnificent grove of huge oak trees, +most rare in the plains country, lined the river's banks and covered the +fertile lowlands. It made a landmark of the spot, this beautiful natural +forest, and gave it a place on the map as a meeting-ground for the wild +tribes long before the days of civilized occupation. The height above +the valley commands all that wide prairie that ripples in treeless +fertility from as far as even an Indian can see until it breaks off with +that cliff that walls the Neosho bottom lands up and down for many a +mile. To the southwest the open black lowlands along Fingal's Creek +beckoned as temptingly to the settler as did the Neosho Valley itself. +The divide between the two, the river and its tributary, coming down +from the northwest makes a high promontory. Its eastern side is the +rocky ledge of the bluff. On the west it slopes off to the fertile draws +of Fingal's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> Creek, and the sunset prairies that swell up and away +beyond them.</p> + +<p>Just where the little stream joins the bigger one Springvale took root +and flourished amazingly. It was an Indian village site and +trading-point since tradition can remember. The old tepee rings show +still up in the prairie cornfield where even the plough, that great +weapon of civilization and obliteration, has not quite made a dead level +of the landmarks of the past. I've bumped across those rings many a time +in the days when we went from Springvale up to the Red Range schoolhouse +in the broken country where Fingal's Creek has its source. It was the +hollow beyond the tepee ring that caused his pony to stumble that night +when Jean Pahusca, the big Osage, was riding like fury between me and +that blood-red sky.</p> + +<p>The early Indians always built on the uplands although the valleys ran +close beneath them. They had only arrows and speed to protect them from +their foes. It was not until they had the white man's firearms that they +dared to make their homes in the lowlands. Black Kettle in the sheltered +Washita Valley might never have fallen before General Custer had the +Cheyennes kept to the high places after the custom of their fathers. But +the early white settlers had firearms and skill in building +block-houses, so they took to the valleys near wood and water.</p> + +<p>On the day that Kansas became a Territory, my father, John Baronet, with +all his household effects started from Rockport, Massachusetts, to begin +life anew in the wild unknown West. He was not a poor man, heaven bless +his memory! He never knew want except the pinch of pioneer life when +money is of no avail because the necessities are out of reach. In the +East he had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> a successful lawyer and his success followed him. They +will tell you in Springvale to-day that "if Judge Baronet were alive and +on the bench things would go vastly better," and much more to like +effect.</p> + +<p>My mother was young and beautiful, and to her the world was full of +beauty. Especially did she love the sea. All her life was spent beside +it, and it was ever her delight. It must have been from her that my own +love of nature came as a heritage to me, giving me capacity to take and +keep those prairie scenes of idyllic beauty that fill my memory now.</p> + +<p>In the Summer of 1853 my father's maiden sister Candace had come to live +with us. Candace Baronet was the living refutation of all the unkind +criticism ever heaped upon old maids. She was a strong, comely, +unselfish woman who lived where the best thoughts grow.</p> + +<p>One day in late October, a sudden squall drove landward, capsizing the +dory in which my mother was returning from a visit to old friends on an +island off the Rockport coast. She was in sight of home when that +furious gust of wind and rain swept across her path. The next morning +the little waves rippled musically against the beach whither they had +borne my dead mother and left her without one mark of cruel usage. +Neither was there any sign of terror on her face, white and peaceful +under her damp dark hair.</p> + +<p>I know now that my father and his sister tried hard to suppress their +sorrow for my sake, but the curtains on the seaward side of the house +were always lowered now and my father's face looked more and more to the +westward. The sea became an unbearable thing to him. Yet he was a brave, +unselfish man and in all the years following that one Winter he lived +cheerfully and nobly—a sunshiny life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p> + +<p>In the early Spring he gave up his law practice in Rockport.</p> + +<p>"The place for me is on the frontier," he said to my Aunt Candace one +day. "I'm sick of the sight of that water. I want to try the prairies +and I want to be in the struggle that is beginning beyond the Missouri. +I want to do one man's part in the making of the West."</p> + +<p>Aunt Candace looked steadily into her brother's face.</p> + +<p>"I am sick of the sea, too, John," she said. "Will the prairies be +kinder to us, I wonder."</p> + +<p>I did not know till long afterward, when the Kansas blue-grass had +covered both their graves, that the blue Atlantic had in its keeping the +form of the one love of my aunt's life. Rich am I, Philip Baronet, to +have had such a father and such a mother-hearted aunt. They made life +full and happy for me with never from that day any doleful grieving over +the portion Providence had given them. And the blessed prairie did bring +them peace. Its spell was like a benediction on their lives who lived to +bless many lives.</p> + +<p>It was late June when our covered wagon and tired ox-team stopped on the +east bluff above the Neosho just outside of Springvale. The sun was +dropping behind the prairie far across the river valley when another +wagon and ox-team with pioneers like ourselves joined us. They were +Irving Whately and his wife and little daughter, Marjory. I was only +seven and I have forgotten many things of these later years, but I'll +never forget Marjie as I first saw her. She was stiff from long sitting +in the big covered wagon, and she stretched her pudgy little legs to get +the cramp out of them, as she took in the scene. Her pink sun-bonnet had +fallen back and she was holding it by both strings in one hand. Her +rough brown hair was all in little blowsy ringlets round<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> her face and +the two braids hanging in front of her shoulders ended each in a big +blowsy curl. Her eyes were as brown as her hair. But what I noted then +and many a time afterward was the exceeding whiteness of her face. From +St. Louis I had seen nothing but dark-skinned Mexicans, tanned +Missourians, and Indian, Creole, and French Canadian, all coppery or +bronze brown, in this land of glaring sunshine. Marjie made me think of +Rockport and the pink-cheeked children of the country lanes about the +town. But most of all she called my mother back, white and beautiful as +she looked in her last peaceful sleep, the day the sea gave her to us +again. "Star Face," Jean Pahusca used to call Marjie, for even in the +Kansas heat and browning winds she never lost the pink tint no miniature +painting on ivory could exaggerate.</p> + +<p>We stood looking at one another in the purple twilight.</p> + +<p>"What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Marjory Whately. What's yours?"</p> + +<p>"Phil Baronet, and I'm seven years old." This, a shade boastingly.</p> + +<p>"I'm six," Marjory said. "Are you afraid of Indians?"</p> + +<p>"No," I declared. "I won't let the Indians hurt you. Let's run a race," +pointing toward where the Neosho lay glistening in the last light of +day, a gap in the bluff letting the reflection from great golden clouds +illumine its wave-crumpled surface.</p> + +<p>We took hold of hands and started down the long slope together, but our +parents called us back. "Playmates already," I heard them saying.</p> + +<p>In the gathering evening shadows we all lumbered down the slope to the +rock-bottomed ford and up into the little hamlet of Springvale.</p> + +<p>That night when I said my prayers to Aunt Candace I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> cried softly on her +shoulder. "Marjie makes me homesick," I sobbed, and Aunt Candace +understood then and always afterward.</p> + +<p>The very air about Springvale was full of tradition. The town had been +from the earliest times a landmark of the old Santa Fé trail. When the +freighters and plainsmen left the village and climbed to the top of the +slope and set their faces to the west there lay before them only the +wilderness wastes. Here Nature, grown miserly, offered not even a stick +of timber to mend a broken cart-pole in all the thousand miles between +the Neosho and the Spanish settlement of New Mexico.</p> + +<p>Here the Indians came with their furs and beaded garments to exchange +for firearms and fire-water. People fastened their doors at night for a +purpose. No curfew bell was needed to call in the children. The wooded +Neosho Valley grew dark before the evening lights had left the prairies +beyond the west bluff, and the waters that sang all day a song of cheer +as they rippled over the rocky river bed seemed always after nightfall +to gurgle murderously as they went their way down the black-shadowed +valley.</p> + +<p>The main street was as broad as an Eastern boulevard. Space counted for +nothing in planning towns in a land made up of distances. At the end of +this street stood the "Last Chance" general store, the outpost of +civilization. What the freighter failed to get here he would do without +until he stood inside the brown adobe walls of the old city of Santa Fé. +Tell Mapleson, the proprietor of the "Last Chance," was a tall, slight, +restless man, quick-witted, with somewhat polished manners and a gift +of persuasion in his speech.</p> + +<p>Near this store was Conlow's blacksmith shop, where the low-browed, +black-eyed Conlow family have shod<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> horses and mended wagons since +anybody can remember. They were the kind of people one instinctively +does not trust, and yet nobody could find a true bill against them. The +shop had thick stone walls. High up under the eaves on the north side a +long narrow slit, where a stone was missing, let out a bar of sullen red +light. Old Conlow did not know about that chink for years, for it was +only from the bluff above the town that the light could be seen.</p> + +<p>Our advent in Springvale was just at the time of its transition from a +plains trading-post to a Territorial town with ambition for settlement +and civilization. I can see now that John Baronet deserved the place he +came to hold in that frontier community, for he was a State-builder.</p> + +<p>"I should feel more dacent fur all etarnity jist to be buried in the +same cimet'ry wid Judge Bar'net," O'mie once declared. "I should walk +into kingdom-come, dignified and head up, saying to the kaper av the +pearly gates, kind o' careless-like, 'I'm from that little Kansas town +av Springvale an' ye'll check up my mortial remains over in the +cimet'ry, be my neighbor, Judge Bar'net, if ye plaze.'"</p> + +<p>It was O'mie's way of saying what most persons of the community felt +toward my father from the time he drove into Springvale in the purple +twilight of that June evening in 1854.</p> + +<p>Irving Whately's stock of merchandise was installed in the big stone +building on the main corner of the village, where the straggling Indian +trails from the south and the trail from the new settlement out on +Fingal's Creek converged on the broad Santa Fé trail. Amos Judson, a +young settler, became his clerk and general helper. In the front room +over this store was John Baronet's law<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> office, and his sign swinging +above Whately's seemed always to link those two names together.</p> + +<p>Opposite this building was the village tavern. It was a wide two-story +structure, also of stone, set well back from the street, with a double +veranda along the front and the north side. A huge oak tree grew before +it, and a flagstone walk led up to the veranda steps. In big black +lettering its inscription over the door told the wayfarer on the old +trail that this was</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE CAMBRIDGE HOUSE.<br /> +C. C. GENTRY, PROP. +</p> + +<p>Cam Gentry (his real name was Cambridge, christened from the little +Indiana town of Cambridge City) was a good-souled, easy-going man, +handicapped for life by a shortness of vision no spectacle lens could +overcome. It might have been disfiguring to any other man, but Cam's +clear eye at close range, and his comical squint and tilt of the head to +study out what lay farther away, were good-natured and unique. He was in +Kansas for the fun of it, while his wife, Dollie, kept tavern from pure +love of cooking more good things to eat than opportunity afforded in a +home. She was a Martha whose kitchen was "dukedom large enough." +Whatever motive, fine or coarse, whatever love of spoils or love of +liberty, brought other men hither, Cam had come to see the joke—and he +saw it. While as to Dollie, "Lord knows," she used to say, "there's +plenty of good cooks in old Wayne County, Indiany; but if they can get +anything to eat out here they need somebody to cook it for 'em, and cook +it right."</p> + +<p>Doing chores about the tavern for his board and keep was the little +orphan boy, Thomas O'Meara, whose story<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> I did not know for many years. +We called him O'mie. That was all. Marjie and O'mie and Mary Gentry, Cam +and Dollie's only child, were my first Kansas playmates. Together we +waded barefoot in the shallow ripples of the Neosho, and little by +little we began to explore that wide, sweet prairie land to the west. +There was just one tree standing up against the horizon; far away to us +it seemed, a huge cottonwood, that kept sentinel guard over the plains +from the highest level of the divide.</p> + +<p>Whately built a home a block or more beyond that of his young clerk, +Amos Judson. It was farther up the slope than any other house in +Springvale except my father's. That was on the very crest of the west +bluff, overlooking the Neosho Valley. It fronted the east, and across +the wide street before it the bluff broke precipitously four hundred +feet to the level floor of the valley below. Sometimes the shelving +rocks furnished a footing where one could clamber down half way and walk +along the narrow ledge. Here were cunning hiding-places, deep crevices, +and vine-covered heaps of jagged stone outcrop invisible from the height +above or the valley below. It was a bit of rugged, untamable cliff +rarely found in the plains country; and it broke so suddenly from the +level promontory sloping down to the south and away to the west, that a +stranger sitting by our east windows would never have guessed that the +seeming bushes peering up across the street were really the tops of tall +trees with their roots in the side of the bluff not half way to the +bottom.</p> + +<p>From our west window the green glory of the plains spread out to the +baths of sunset. No wonder this Kansas land is life of my life. The sea +is to me a wavering treachery, but these firm prairies are the joy of my +memory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> + +<p>Our house was of stone with every corner rounded like a turret wall. It +was securely built against the winter winds that swept that bluff when +the Kansas blizzard unchained its fury, for it stood where it caught the +full wrath of the elements. It caught, too, the splendor of all the +sunrise beyond the mist-filled valley, and the full moon in the level +east above the oak treetops made a dream of chastened glory like the +silver twilight gleams in Paradise.</p> + +<p>"I want to watch the world coming and going," my father said when his +house was finished; "and it is coming down that Santa Fé trail. It is +State-making that is begun here. The East doesn't understand it yet, +outside of New England. And these Missourians, Lord pity them! they +think they can kill human freedom with a bullet, like thrusting daggers +into the body of Julius Cæsar to destroy the Roman Empire. What do they +know of the old Puritan blood, and the strength of the grip of a +Massachusetts man? Heaven knows where they came from, these Missouri +ruffians; but," he added, "the devil has it arranged where they will go +to."</p> + +<p>"Oh, John, be careful," exclaimed Aunt Candace.</p> + +<p>"Are you afraid of them, Candace?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no, I don't believe I am," replied my aunt.</p> + +<p>She was not one of those blustering north-northwest women. She squared +her life by the admonition of Isaiah, "In quietness and in confidence +shall be your strength." But she was a Baronet, and although they have +their short-comings, fear seems to have been left out of their make-up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + +<h3>JEAN PAHUSCA</h3> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In even savage bosoms</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There are longings, yearnings, strivings</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For the good they comprehend not.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—LONGFELLOW.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The frontier broke all lines of caste. There was no aristocrat, +autocrat, nor plutocrat in Springvale; but the purest democracy was +among the children. Life was before us; we loved companionship, and the +same dangers threatened us all. The first time I saw Marjie she asked, +"Are you afraid of Indians?" They were the terror of her life. Even +to-day the mere press despatch of an Indian uprising in Oklahoma or +Arizona will set the blood bounding through my veins and my first +thought is of her.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the day my self-appointed guardianship of her +began. Before we had a schoolhouse, Aunt Candace taught the children of +the community in our big living-room. One rainy afternoon, late in the +Fall, the darkness seemed to drop down suddenly. We could not see to +study, and we were playing boisterously about the benches of our +improvised schoolroom, Marjie, Mary Gentry, Lettie and Jim Conlow, Tell +Mapleson,—old Tell's boy,—O'mie, both the Mead boys, and the four +Anderson children. Suddenly Marjie, who was watching the rain beating +against the west window, called, "Phil,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> come here! What is that long, +narrow, red light down by the creek?"</p> + +<p>Marjie had the softest voice. Amid the harsh jangle of the Andersons and +Bill Mead's big whooping shouts it always seemed like music to me. I +stared hard at the sullen block of flame in the evening shadows.</p> + +<p>"I don't know what it is," I said.</p> + +<p>She slipped her fingers into the pocket of my coat as I turned away, and +her eyes looked anxiously into mine. "Could it be an Indian camp-fire?" +she queried.</p> + +<p>I looked again, flattening my nose against the window pane. "I don't +know, Marjie, but I'll find out. Maybe it's somebody's kitchen fire down +west. I'll ask O'mie."</p> + +<p>In truth, that light had often troubled me. It did not look like the +twinkling candle-flare I could see in so many windows of the village. I +turned to O'mie, who, with his face to the wall, waited in a game of +hide-and-seek. Before I could call him Marjie gave a low cry of terror. +We all turned to her in an instant, and I saw outside a dark face close +against the window. It was gone so quickly that only O'mie and I caught +sight of it.</p> + +<p>"What was it, Marjie?" the children cried.</p> + +<p>"An Indian boy," gasped Marjie. "He was right against the window."</p> + +<p>"I'll bet it was a spook," shouted Bill Mead.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet it wasn't nothin' at all," grinned Jim Conlow. "Possum Conlow" +we called him for that secretive grin on his shallow face.</p> + +<p>"I'll bet it wath a whole gang of Thiennes," lisped tow-headed Bud +Anderson.</p> + +<p>"They ain't no Injuns nearer than the reserve down the river, and ain't +been no Injuns in Springvale for a long time, 'cept annuity days," +declared Tell Mapleson.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, let's foind out," shouted O'mie, "I ain't afraid av no Injun."</p> + +<p>"Neither am I," I cried, starting after O'mie, who was out of the door +at the word.</p> + +<p>But Marjie caught my arm, and held it.</p> + +<p>"Let O'mie go. Don't go, Phil, please don't."</p> + +<p>I can see her yet, her brown eyes full of pleading, her soft brown hair +in rippling waves about her white temples. Did my love for her spring +into being at that instant? I cannot tell. But I do know that it was a +crucial moment for me. Sixty years have I seen, and my life has grown +practical and barren of sentiment. But I know that the boy, Phil +Baronet, who stood that evening with Marjie and the firelight and safety +on one side, and darkness and uncertainty on the other, had come to one +of those turning-points in a life, unrecognized for the time, whose +decision controls all the years that follow. For suddenly came the query +"How can I best take care of her? Shall I stay with her in the light, or +go into the dark and strike the danger out of it?" I didn't frame all +this into words. It was all only an intense feeling, but the mental +judgment was very real. I turned from her and cleared the doorstep at a +leap, and in a moment was by O'mie's side, chasing down the hill-slope +toward town.</p> + +<p>We never thought to run to the bluff's edge and clamber down the +shelving, precipitous sides. Here was the only natural hiding-place, but +like children we all ran the other way. When we had come in again with +the report of "No enemy in sight," and had shut the door against the +rain, I happened to glance out of the east window. Climbing up to the +street from the cliff I saw the lithe form of a young Indian. He came +straight to the house and stood by the east window where he could see +inside. Then with quick, springing step he walked down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> the slope. I +crossed to the west window and watched him shutting out that red bar of +light now and then, till he melted into the shadows.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the children were chattering like sparrows and had not noticed +me.</p> + +<p>"Would you know it, Marjie, if you thaw it again?" lisped Bud Anderson.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes! His hair was straight across like this." Marjie drew one hand +across her curl-shaded forehead, to show how square the black hair grew +about the face she had seen.</p> + +<p>"That's nothin'," said Bill Mead. "They change scalps every time they +catch a white man,—just take their own off an' put his on, an' it +grows. There's lots of men in Kansas look like white men's just Injuns +growed a white scalp on 'em."</p> + +<p>"Really, is there?" asked Mary Gentry credulously.</p> + +<p>"Sure, I've seen 'em," went on Bill with a boy's love of that kind of +lying.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't a Injun look funny with my thcalp?" Bud Anderson put in. "I'll +bet I'm jutht a Injun mythelf."</p> + +<p>"Then you've got some little baby girl's scalp," grinned Jim Conlow.</p> + +<p>"'Tain't no 'pothum'th, anyhow," rejoined Bud; and we laughed our fears +away.</p> + +<p>That evening Aunt Candace sent me home with Marjie to take some fresh +doughnuts to Mrs. Whately. I can see the little girl now as we splashed +sturdily down Cliff Street through the wet gloom, her face like a white +blossom in the shadowy twilight, her crimson jacket open at the throat, +and the soft little worsted scarf about her damp fluffy curls making a +glow of rich coloring in the dim light.</p> + +<p>"You'll never let the Indians get you, will you, Phil?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> she asked, when +we stood a moment by the bushes just at the steepest bend of the street.</p> + +<p>I stood up proudly. I was growing very fast in this gracious climate. +"The finest-built boy in Springvale," the men called me. "No, Marjie. +The Indians won't get me, nor anybody else I don't want them to have."</p> + +<p>She drew close to me, and I caught her hand in mine a moment. Then, +boylike, I flipped her heavy braid of hair over her shoulder and shook +the wettest bushes till their drops scattered in a shower about her. +Something, a dog we thought, suddenly slid out from the bush and down +the cliff-side. When I started home after delivering the cakes, Marjie +held the candle at the door to light my way. As I turned at the edge of +the candle's rays to wave my hand, I saw her framed in the doorway. +Would that some artist could paint that picture for me now!</p> + +<p>"I'll whistle up by the bushes," I cried, and strode into the dark.</p> + +<p>On the bend of the crest, where the street drops down almost too steep +for a team of horses to climb, I turned and saw Marjie's light in the +window, and the shadow of her head on the pane. I gave a long, low +whistle, the signal call we had for our own. It was not an echo, it was +too near and clear, the very same low call in the bushes just over the +cliff beside me as though some imitator were trying to catch the notes. +A few feet farther on my path I came face to face with the same Indian +whom I had seen an hour before. He strode by me in silence.</p> + +<p>Without once looking back I said to myself, "If you aren't afraid of me, +I'm not afraid of you. But who gave that whistle, I wonder. That's my +call to Marjie."</p> + +<p>"Marjie's awful 'fraid of Injuns," I said to Aunt Candace that night. +"Didn't want me to find who it was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> peeked, but I went after him, clear +down to Amos Judson's house, because I thought that was the best way, if +it was an Injun. She isn't afraid of anything else. She's the only girl +that can ride Tell Mapleson's pony, and only O'mie and Tell and I among +the boys can ride him. And she killed the big rattlesnake that nearly +had Jim Conlow, killed it with a hoe. And she can climb where no other +girl dares to, on the bluff below town toward the Hermit's Cave. But +she's just as 'fraid of an Injun! I went to hunt him, though."</p> + +<p>"And you did just right, Phil. The only way to be safe is to go after +what makes you afraid. I guess, though, there really was nobody. It was +just Marjie's imagination, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, there was, Auntie; I saw him climb up from the cliff over there +and go off down the hill after we came in."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you say so?" asked my aunt.</p> + +<p>"We couldn't get him, and it would have scared Marjie," I answered.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Phil. You are a regular Kansas boy, you are. The best of +them may claim to come from Massachusetts,"—with a touch of +pride,—"but no matter where they come from, they must learn how to be +quick-witted and brave and manly here in Kansas. It's what all boys need +to be here."</p> + +<p>A few days later the door of our schoolroom opened and an Indian boy +strode in and seated himself on the bench beside Tell Mapleson. He was a +lad of fifteen, possibly older. His dress was of the Osage fashion and +round his neck he wore a string of elk teeth. His face was thoroughly +Indian, yet upon his features something else was written. His long black +hair was a shade too jetty and soft for an Indian's, and it grew +squarely across his forehead, suggesting the face of a French priest. +We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> children sat open-mouthed. Even Aunt Candace forgot herself a +moment. Bud Anderson first found his voice.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll thwan!" he exclaimed in sheer amazement.</p> + +<p>Bill Mead giggled and that broke the spell.</p> + +<p>"How do you do?" said my aunt kindly.</p> + +<p>"How," replied the young brave.</p> + +<p>"What is your name, and what do you want?" asked our teacher.</p> + +<p>"Jean Pahusca. Want school. Want book—" He broke off and finished in a +jargon of French and Indian.</p> + +<p>"Where is your home, your tepee?" queried Aunt Candace.</p> + +<p>The Indian only shook his head. Then taking from his beads a heavy +silver cross, crudely shaped and wrought, he rose and placed it on the +table. Taking up a book at the same time he seated himself to study like +the rest of us.</p> + +<p>"He has paid his tuition," said my aunt, smiling. "We'll let him stay."</p> + +<p>So Jean Pahusca was established in our school.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + +<h3>THE HERMIT'S CAVE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The secret which the mountains kept</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The river never told.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The bluff was our continual delight. It was so difficult, so full of +surprises, so enchanting in its dangers. All manner of creeping things +in general, and centipedes and rattlesnakes in particular, made their +homes in its crevices. Its footing was perilous to the climber, and its +hiding-places had held outlaws and worse. Then it had its haunted spots, +where tradition told of cruel tragedies in days long gone by; and of the +unknown who had found here secret retreat, who came and went, leaving +never a name to tell whom they were nor what their story might be. All +these the old cliff had in its keeping for the sturdy boys and girls of +parents who had come here to conquer the West.</p> + +<p>Just below the town where the Neosho swings away to the right, the +bottom lands narrow down until the stream sweeps deep and swift against +a stone wall almost two hundred feet in height. From the top of the +cliff here the wall drops down nearly another hundred feet, leaving an +inaccessible heap of rough cavernous rocks in the middle stratum.</p> + +<p>Had the river been less deep and dangerous we could not have gotten up +from below; while to come down from above might mean a fall of three +hundred feet or more to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> the foam-torn waters and the jagged rocks +beneath them. Here a stranger hermit had hidden himself years before. +Nobody knew his story, nor how he had found his way hither, for he spoke +in a strange tongue that nobody could interpret. That this inaccessible +place was his home was certain. Boys bathing in the shallows up-stream +sometimes caught a glimpse of him moving about among the bushes. And +sometimes at night from far to the east a light could be seen twinkling +half way up the dark cliff-side. Every boy in Springvale had an ambition +to climb to the Hermit's Cave and explore its mysteries; for the old man +died as he had lived, unknown. One winter day his body was found on the +sand bar below the rapids where the waters had carried him after his +fall from the point of rock above the deep pool. There was no mark on +his coarse clothing to tell a word of his story, and the Neosho kept his +secret always.</p> + +<p>What boy after that would not have braved any danger to explore the +depths of this hiding-place? But we could not do it. Try as we might, +the hidden path leading up, or down, baffled us.</p> + +<p>After Jean Pahusca came into our school we had a new interest and for a +time we forgot that tantalizing river wall below town. Jean was +irregular in his attendance and his temper. He learned quickly, for an +Indian. Sometimes he was morose and silent; sometimes he was affable and +kind, chatting among us like one of our own; and sometimes he found the +white man's fire-water. Then he murdered as he went. He was possessed of +a demon to kill, kill the moment he became drunk. Every living thing in +his way had to flee or perish then. He would stop in his mad chase to +crush the life out of a sleeping cat, or to strike at a bird or a +chicken. Whiskey to him meant death, as we learned to our sorrow. +No<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>body knew where he lived. He dressed like an Osage but he was +supposed to make his home with the Kaws, whose reservation was much +nearer to us. Sometimes in the cool weather he slept in our sheds. In +warm weather he lay down on the ground wherever he chose to sleep. There +was a fascination about him unlike all the other Indians who came up to +the village, many of whom we knew. He could be so gentle and winning in +his manner at times, one forgot he was an Indian. But the spirit of the +Red Man was ever present to overcome the strange European mood in a +moment.</p> + +<p>"He's no Osage, that critter ain't," Cam Gentry said to a group on his +tavern veranda one annuity day when the tribes had come to town for +their quarterly allowances. "He's second cousin on his father's side to +some French missionary, you bet your life. He's got a gait like a Jessut +priest. An' he's not Osage on't other side, neither. I'll bet his mother +was a Kiowa, an' that means his maternal grandad was a rattlesnake, even +if his paternal grandpop was a French markis turned religious an' gone +a-missionaryin' among the red heathen. You dig fur enough into that +buck's hide an' you'll find cussedness big as a sheep, I'm tellin' you."</p> + +<p>"Where does he live?" inquired my father.</p> + +<p>"Lord knows!" responded Cam. "Down to the Kaws' nests, I reckon."</p> + +<p>"He was cuttin' east along the Fingal Creek bluff after he'd made off to +the southwest, the other night, when I was after the cows," broke in +O'mie, who was sitting on the lowest step listening with all his ears. +"Was cuttin' straight to the river. Only that's right by the Hermit's +Cave an' he couldn't cross to the Osages there."</p> + +<p>"Reckon he zigzagged back to town to get somethin' he forgot at Conlow's +shop," put in Cam. "Didn't find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> any dead dogs nor children next +mornin', did ye, O'mie?"</p> + +<p>Conlow kept the vilest whiskey ever sold to a poor drink-thirsty +Redskin. Everybody knew it except those whom the grand jury called into +counsel. I saw my father's brow darken.</p> + +<p>"Conlow will meet his match one of these days," he muttered.</p> + +<p>"That's why we are runnin' you for judge," said Cam. "This cussed +country needs you in every office it's got to clean out that gang that +robs an' cheats the Injuns, an' then makes 'em ravin' crazy with +drinkin'. They's more 'n Conlow to blame, though, Judge. Keep one eye on +the Government agents and Indian traders."</p> + +<p>"I wonder where Jean did go anyhow," O'mie whispered to me. "Let's foind +out an' give him a surprise party an' a church donation some night."</p> + +<p>"What does he come here so much for, anyhow?" I questioned.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," replied O'mie. "Why can't he stay Injun? What'll he do +wid the greatest common divisor an' the indicative mood an' the Sea of +Azov, an' the Zambezi River, when he's learned 'em, anyhow? Phil, +begorra, I b'lave that cussed Redskin is in this town fur trouble, an' +you jist remember he'll git it one av these toimes. He ain't natural +Injun. Uncle Cam is right. He's not like them Osages that comes here +annuity days. All that's Osage about him is his clothes."</p> + +<p>While we were talking, Jean Pahusca came silently into the company and +sat down under the oak tree shading the walk. He never looked less like +an Indian than he did that summer morning lounging lazily in the shade. +The impenetrable savage face had now an expression of ease and superior +self-possession, making it handsome. Un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>like the others of his race who +came and went about Springvale, Jean's trappings were always bright and +fresh, and his every muscle had the poetry of motion. In all our games +he was an easy victor. He never clambered about the cliff as we did, he +simply slid up and down like a lizard. Jim Conlow was built to race, but +Jean skimmed the ground like a bird. He could outwrestle every boy +except O'mie (nobody had ever held that Irishman if he wanted to get +away), and his grip was like steel. We all fought him by turns and he +defeated everyone until my turn came. From me he would take no chance of +defeat, however much the boys taunted him with being afraid of Phil +Baronet. For while he had a quickness that I lacked, I knew I had a +muscular strength he could not break. I disliked him at first on +Marjie's account; and when she grew accustomed to his presence and +almost forgot her fear, I detested him. And never did I dislike him so +much before as on this summer morning when we sat about the shady +veranda of the Cambridge House. Nobody else, however, gave any heed to +the Indian boy picturesquely idling there on the blue-grass.</p> + +<p>Down the street came Lettie Conlow and Mary Gentry with Marjory Whately, +all chatting together. They turned at the tavern oak and came up the +flag-stone walk toward the veranda. I could not tell you to-day what my +lady wears in the social functions where I sometimes have the honor to +be a guest. I am a man, and silks and laces confuse me. Yet I remember +three young girls in a frontier town more than forty years ago. Mary +Gentry was slender—"skinny," we called her to tease her. Her dark-blue +calico dress was clean and prim. Lettie Conlow was fat. Her skin was +thick and muddy, and there was a brown mole below her ear. Her black, +slick braids of hair were my especial dislike. She had no neck to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> speak +of, and when she turned her head the creases above her fat shoulders +deepened. I might have liked Lettie but for her open preference for me. +Everybody knew this preference, and she annoyed me exceedingly. This +morning she wore a thin old red lawn cut down from her mother's gown. A +ruffle of the same lawn flopped about her neck. As they came near, her +black eyes sought mine as usual, but I saw only the floppy red +ruffle—and Marjie. Marjie looked sweet and cool in a fresh starched +gingham, with her round white arms bare to the elbows, and her white +shapely neck, with its dainty curves and dimples. The effect was +heightened by the square-cut bodice, with its green and white gingham +bands edged with a Hamburg something, narrow and spotless. How unlike +she was to Lettie in her flimsy trimmings! Marjie's hair was coiled in a +knot on the top of her head, and the little ringlets curved about her +forehead and at the back of her neck. Somehow, with her clear pink +cheeks and that pale green gown, I could think only of the wild roses +that grew about the rocks on the bluff this side of the Hermit's Cave.</p> + +<p>Marjie smiled kindly down at Jean as she passed him. There was always a +tremor of fear in that smile; and he knew it and gloried in it.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Jean," she said in that soft voice I loved to hear.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Star-face," Jean smiled back at her; and his own face was +transfigured for the instant, as his still black eyes followed her. The +blood in my veins turned to fire at that look. Our eyes met and for one +long moment we gazed steadily at each other. As I turned away I saw +Lettie Conlow watching us both, and I knew instinctively that she and +Jean Pahusca would sometime join forces against me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, if you lassies ain't a sight good for sore eyes, I'll never tell +it," Cam shouted heartily, squinting up at the girls with his +good-natured glance. "You're cool as October an' twicet as sweet an' +fine. Go in and let Dollie give you some hot berry pie."</p> + +<p>"To cool 'em off," O'mie whispered in my ear. "Nothin' so coolin' as a +hot berry pie in July. Let's you and me go to the creek an' thaw out."</p> + +<p>That evening Jean Pahusca found the jug supposed to be locked in +Conlow's chest of tools inside his shop. I had found where that red +forge light came from, and had watched it from my window many a night. +When it winked and blinked, I knew somebody inside the shop was passing +between it and the line of the chink. I did not speak of it. I was never +accused of telling all I knew. My father often said I would make a good +witness for my attorney in a suit at law.</p> + +<p>Among the Indians who had come for their stipend on this annuity day was +a strong young Osage called Hard Rope, who always had a roll of money +when he went out of town. I remember that night my father did not come +home until very late; and when Aunt Candace asked him if there was +anything the matter, I heard him answer carelessly:</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. I've been looking after a young Osage they call Hard Rope, who +needed me."</p> + +<p>I was sleepy, and forgot all about his words then. Long afterwards I had +good reason for knowing through this same Hard Rope, how well an Indian +can remember a kindness. He never came to Springvale again. And when I +next saw him I had forgotten that I had ever known him before. However, +I had seen the blinking red glare down the slope that evening and I knew +something was going on. Anyhow, Jean Pahusca, crazed with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> drink, had +stolen Tell Mapleson's pony and created a reign of terror in the street +until he disappeared down the trail to the southwest.</p> + +<p>"It's a wonder old Tell doesn't shoot that Injun," Irving Whately +remarked to a group in his store. "He's quick enough with firearms."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Cam Gentry, squinting across the counter with his +shortsighted eyes, "there's somethin' about that 'Last Chance' store and +about this town I don't understand. There's a nigger in the wood-pile, +or an Injun in the blankets, somewhere. I hope it won't be long till +this thing is cleared up and we can know whether we do know anything, or +don't know it. I'm gettin' mystifieder daily." And Cam sat down +chuckling.</p> + +<p>"Anyhow, we won't see that Redskin here for a spell, I reckon," broke in +Amos Judson, Whately's clerk. And with this grain of comfort, we forgot +him for a time.</p> + +<p>One lazy Saturday afternoon in early August, O'mie and I went for a swim +on the sand-bar side of the Deep Hole under the Hermit's Cave. I had +something to tell O'mie. All the boys trusted him with their +confidences. We had slid quietly down the river; somehow, it was too hot +to be noisy, and we were lying on a broad, flat stone letting the warm +water ripple over us. A huge bowlder on the sand just beyond us threw a +sort of shadow over our brown faces as we rested our heads on the sand.</p> + +<p>"O'mie," I began, "I saw something last night."</p> + +<p>"Well, an' phwat did somethin' do to you?" He was blowing at the water, +which was sliding gently over his chest.</p> + +<p>"That's what I want to tell you if you will shut up that red flannel +mouth a minute."</p> + +<p>"The crimson fabric is now closed be order av the Coort," grinned +O'mie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> + +<p>"O'mie, I waked up suddenly last night. It was clear moonlight, and I +looked out of the window. There right under it, on a black pony just +like Tell Mapleson's, was Jean Pahusca. He was staring up at the window. +He must have seen me move for he only stayed a minute and then away he +went. I watched him till he had passed Judson's place and was in the +shadows beyond the church. He had on a new red blanket with a circle of +white right in the middle, a good target for an arrow, only I'd never +sneak up behind him. If I fight him I'll do it like a white man, from +the front."</p> + +<p>"Then ye'll be dead like a white man, from the front clear back," +declared O'mie. "But hadn't ye heard? This mornin' ould Tell was showin' +Tell's own pony he said he brought back from down at Westport. He got +home late las' night. An' Tell, he pipes up an' says, 'There was a arrow +fastened in its mane when I see it this mornin', but his dad took no +notice whatsoever av the boy's sayin'; just went on that it was the one +Jean Pahusca had stole when he was drunk last. What does it mean, Phil? +Is Jean hidin' out round here again? I wish the cuss would go to Santy +Fee with the next train down the trail an' go to Spanish bull fightin'. +He's just cut out for that, begorra; fur he rides like a Comanche. It ud +be a sort av disgrace to the bull though. I've got nothin' agin bulls."</p> + +<p>"O'mie, I don't understand; but let's keep still. Some day when he gets +so drunk he'll kill one of the grand jury, maybe the rest of them and +the coroner can indict him for something."</p> + +<p>We lay still in the warm water. Sometimes now in the lazy hot August +afternoons I can hear the rippling song of the Neosho as it prattled and +gurgled on its way. Sud<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>denly O'mie gave a start and in a voice low and +even but intense he exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"For the Lord's sake, wud ye look at that? And kape still as a snake +while you're doin' it."</p> + +<p>Lying perfectly still, I looked keenly about me, seeing nothing unusual.</p> + +<p>"Look up across yonder an' don't bat an eye," said O'mie, low as a +whisper.</p> + +<p>I looked up toward the Hermit's Cave. Sitting on a point of rock +overhanging the river was an Indian. His back was toward us and his +brilliant red blanket had a white circle in the centre.</p> + +<p>"He's not seen us, or he'd niver set out there like that," and O'mie +breathed easier. "He could put an arrow through us here as aisy as to +snap a string, an' nobody'd live to tell the tale. Phil Bar'net, he's +kapin' den in that cave, an' the devil must have showed him how to git +up there."</p> + +<p>A shout up-stream told of other boys coming down to our swimming place. +You have seen a humming bird dart out of sight. So the Indian on the +rock far above us vanished at that sound.</p> + +<p>"That's Bill Mead comin'; I know his whoop. I wish I knew which side av +that Injun's head his eyes is fastened on," said O'mie, still motionless +in the water. "If he's watchin' us up there, I'm a turtle till the sun +goes down."</p> + +<p>A low peal of thunder rolled out of the west and a heavy black cloud +swept suddenly over the sun. The blue shadow of the bluff fell upon the +Neosho and under its friendly cover we scrambled into our clothes and +scudded out of sight among the trees that covered the east bottom land.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, how did he ever get to that place, O'mie?" I questioned.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. But if he can get there, I can too."</p> + +<p>Poor O'mie! he did not know how true a prophecy he was uttering.</p> + +<p>"Let's kape this to oursilves, Phil," counselled my companion. "If too +many knows it Tell may lose another pony, or somebody's dead dog may +float down the stream like the ould hermit did. Let's burn him out av +there oursilves. Then we can adorn our own tepee wid that soft black La +Salle-Marquette-Hennepin French scalp."</p> + +<p>I agreed, and we went our way burdened by a secret dangerous but +fascinating to boys like ourselves.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<h3>IN THE PRAIRIE TWILIGHT</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The spacious prairie is helper to a spacious life.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Big thoughts are nurtured here, with little friction.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—QUAYLE.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>By the time I was fifteen I was almost as tall and broad-shouldered as +my father. Boy-like, I was prodigal of my bounding vigor, which had not +tempered down to the strength of my mature manhood. It was well for me +that a sobering responsibility fell on me early, else I might have +squandered my resources of endurance, and in place of this sturdy +story-teller whose sixty years sit lightly on him, there would have been +only a ripple in the sod of the curly mesquite on the Plains and a +little heap of dead dust, turned to the inert earth again. The West +grows large men, as it grows strong, beautiful women; and I know that +the boys and girls then differed only in surroundings and opportunity +from the boys and girls of Springvale to-day. Life is finer in its +appointments now; but I doubt if it is any more free or happy than it +was in those days when we went to oyster suppers and school exhibitions +up in the Red Range neighborhood. Among us there was the closest +companionship, as there needs must be in a lonely and spacious land. +What can these lads and lasses of to-day know of a youth nurtured in the +atmosphere of peril and uncertainty such as every one of us knew in +those years of border strife and civil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> war? Sometimes up here, when I +see the gay automobile parties spinning out upon the paved street and +over that broad highway miles and miles to the west, I remember the time +when we rode our Indian ponies thither, and the whole prairie was our +boulevard.</p> + +<p>Marjie could ride without bridle or saddle, and she sat a horse like a +cattle queen. The four Anderson children were wholesome and +good-natured, as they were good scholars, and they were good riders. +They were all tow-headed and they all lisped, and Bud was the most +hopeless case among them. Flaxen-haired, baby-faced youngster that he +was, he was the very first in all our crowd to learn to drop on the side +of his pony and ride like a Comanche. O'mie and I also succeeded in +learning that trick; Tell Mapleson broke a collar-bone, attempting it; +and Jim Conlow, as O'mie said, "knocked the 'possum' aff his mug thryin' +to achave the art." He fractured the bones of his nose, making his face +a degree more homely than it was before. Then there were the Mead boys +to be counted on everywhere. Dave went West years ago, made his fortune, +and then began to traffic with the Orient. His name is better known in +Hong-Kong now than it is in Springvale. He never married, and it used to +be said that a young girl's grave up in the Red Range graveyard held all +his hope and love. I do not know; for he left home the year I came up to +Topeka to enlist, and Springvale was like the bitter waters of Marah to +my spirit. But that comes later.</p> + +<p>Bill Mead married Bessie Anderson, and the seven little tow-headed +Meads, stair-stepping down the years, played with the third generation +here as we used to play in the years gone by. Bill is president of the +bank on the corner where the old Whately store stood and is a +share-holder in several big Kansas City concerns. Bessie lost her rosy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> +cheeks years ago, but she has her seven children; the youngest of them, +Phil, named for me, will graduate from the Kansas University this year. +Lettie Conlow was always on the uncertain list with us. No Conlow could +do much with a horse except to put shoes under it. It was a trick of +hers to lag behind and call to me to tighten a girth, while Marjie raced +on with Dave Mead or Tell Mapleson. Tell liked Lettie, and it rasped my +spirit to be made the object of her preference and his jealousy. Once +when we were alone his anger boiled hot, and he shook his fist at me and +cried:</p> + +<p>"You mean pup! You want to take my girl from me. I can lick you, and I'm +going to do it."</p> + +<p>I was bigger than Tell, and he knew my strength.</p> + +<p>"I wish to goodness you would," I said. "I'd rather be licked than to +have a girl I don't care for always smiling at me."</p> + +<p>Tell's face fell, and he grinned sheepishly.</p> + +<p>"Don't you really care for Lettie, Phil? She says you like Bess +Anderson."</p> + +<p>Was that a trick of Lettie's to put Marjie out of my thought, I +wondered, or did she really know my heart? I distrusted Lettie. She was +so like her black-eyed father. But I had guarded my own feelings, and +the boys and girls had not guessed what Marjie was to me.</p> + +<p>It was about this time that Father Le Claire, a French priest who had +been a missionary in the Southwest, began to come and go about +Springvale. His work lay mostly with the Osages farther down the Neosho, +but he labored much among the Kaws. He was a kindly-spirited man, +reserved, but gentle and courteous ever, and he was very fond of +children. He was always in town on annuity days, when the tribes came up +for their quarterly stipend from the Government. Mapleson was the Indian +agent.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> The "Last Chance," unable to compete with its commercial rival, +the Whately house, had now a drug store in the front, a harness shop in +the rear and a saloon in the cellar. It was to this "Last Chance" that +the Indians came for their money; and it was Father Le Claire who +piloted many of them out to the trails leading southward and started +them on the way to their villages, sober and possessed of their +Government allowance or its equivalent in honest merchandise.</p> + +<p>From the first visit the good priest took to Jean Pahusca, and he helped +to save the young brave from many a murdering spell.</p> + +<p>To O'mie and myself, however, remained the resolve to drive him from +Springvale; for, boylike, we watched him more closely than the men did, +and we knew him better. He was not the only one of our town who drank +too freely. Four decades ago the law was not the righteous force it is +to-day, and we looked upon many sights which our children, thank Heaven, +never see in Kansas.</p> + +<p>"Keep out of that Redskin's way when he's drunk," was Cam Gentry's +advice to us. "You know he'd scalp his grandmother if he could get hold +of her then."</p> + +<p>We kept out of his way, but we bided our time.</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire had another favorite in Springvale, and that was O'mie. +He said little to the Irish orphan lad, but there sprang up a sort of +understanding between the two. Whenever he was in town, O'mie was not +far away from him; and the boy, frank and confidential in everything +else, grew strangely silent when we talked of the priest. I spoke of +this to my father one day. He looked keenly at me and said quietly:</p> + +<p>"You would make a good lawyer, Phil, you seem to know what a lawyer must +know; that is, what people think as well as what they say."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I don't quite understand, father," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Then you won't make a good lawyer. It's the understanding that makes +the lawyer," and he changed the subject.</p> + +<p>My mind was not greatly disturbed over O'mie, however. I was young and +neither I nor my companions were troubled by anything but the realities +of the day. Limited as we were by circumstances in this new West, we +made the most of our surroundings and of one another. How much the +prairies meant to us, as they unrolled their springtime glory! From the +noonday blue of the sky overhead to the deep verdure of the land below, +there ranged every dainty tint of changeful coloring. Nature lavished +her wealth of loveliness here, that the dream of the New Jerusalem might +not seem a mere phantasy of the poet disciple who walked with the Christ +and was called of Him "The Beloved."</p> + +<p>The prairies were beautiful to me at any hour, but most of all I loved +them in the long summer evenings when the burst of sunset splendor had +deepened into twilight. Then the afterglow softened to that purple +loveliness indescribably rare and sweet, wreathed round by gray +cloudfolds melting into exquisite pink, the last far echo of the +daylight's glory. It is said that any land is beautiful to us only by +association. Was it the light heart of my boyhood, and my merry +comrades, and most of all, the little girl who was ever in my thoughts, +that gave grandeur to these prairies and filled my memory with pictures +no artist could ever color on canvas? I cannot say, for all these have +large places in my mind's treasury.</p> + +<p>From early spring to late October it was a part of each day's duty for +the youngsters of Springvale to go in the evening after the cows that +ranged on the open west. We went together, of course, and, of course, we +rode our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> ponies. Sometimes we went far and hunted long before we found +the cattle. The tenderest grasses grew along the draws, and these often +formed a deep wrinkle on the surface where our whole herd was hidden +until we came to the very edge of the depression. Sometimes the herd was +scattered, and every one must be rounded up and headed toward town +before we left the prairie. And then we loitered on the homeward way and +sang as only brave, free-spirited boys and girls can sing. And the +prairie caught our songs and sent them rippling far and far over its +clear, wide spaces.</p> + +<p>As the twilight deepened, we drew nearer together, for comradeship meant +protection. Some years before, a boy had been stolen out on these +prairies one day by a band of Kiowas, and that night the mother drowned +herself in the Neosho above town. Her home had been in a little stone +cabin round the north bend of the river. It was in the sheltered draw +just below where the one lone cottonwood tree made a landmark on the +Plains—a deserted habitation now, and said to be haunted by the spirit +of the unhappy mother. The child's father, a handsome French Canadian, +had turned Plainsman and gone to the Southwest and had not been heard of +afterwards. While we had small grounds for fear, we kept our ponies in a +little group coming in side by side on the home stretch. All the purple +shadows of those sweet summer twilights are blended with the memories of +those happy care-free hours.</p> + +<p>In the long summer days the cows ranged wider to the west, and we +wandered farther in our evening jaunts and lingered later in the +fragrant draws where the sweet grasses were starred with many brilliant +blossoms. That is how we happened to be away out on the northwest +prairie that evening when Jean Pahusca found us, the evening when O'mie +read my secret in my tell-tale face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> Even to-day a storm cloud in the +northwest with the sunset flaming against its jagged edges recalls that +scene. The cattle had all been headed homeward, and we were racing our +ponies down the long slope to the south. On the right the draw, watched +over by the big cottonwood, breaks through the height and finds its way +to the Neosho. The watershed between the river and Fingal's Creek is +here only a high swell, and straight toward the west it is level as a +floor.</p> + +<p>The air of a hot afternoon had begun to ripple in cool little waves +against our faces. All the glory of the midsummer day was ending in +the grandeur of a crimson sunset shaded northward by that threatening +thundercloud. With our ponies lined up for one more race we were just on +the point of starting, when a whoop, a savage yell, and Jean Pahusca +rose above the edge of the draw behind us and dashed toward us headlong. +We knew he was drunk, for since Father Le Claire's coming among us he +had come to be a sort of gentleman Indian when he was sober; and we +caught the naked gleam of the short sharp knife he always wore in a +leather sheath at his belt. We were thrown into confusion, and some +ponies became unmanageable at once. It is the way of their breed to turn +traitor with the least sign of the rider's fear. At Jean's second whoop +there was a stampede. Marjie's pony gave a leap and started off at full +gallop toward the level west. Hers was the swiftest horse of all, but +the Indian coming at an angle had the advantage of space, and he singled +her out in a moment. Her hair hung down in two heavy braids, and as she +gave one frightened glance backward I saw her catch them both in one +hand and draw them over her shoulder as if to save them from the +scalping knife.</p> + +<p>My pony leaped to follow her but my quick eye caught the short angle of +the Indian's advantage. I turned, white<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> and anguish-stricken, toward my +companions. Then it was that I heard O'mie's low words:</p> + +<p>"Bedad, Phil, an' that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to kill +that Injun, just for grandeur."</p> + +<p>His voice set a mighty force tingling in every nerve. The thrill of that +moment is mine after all these years, for in that instant I was born +again. I believe no terror nor any torture could have stayed me then, +and death would have seemed sublime if only I could have flung myself +between the girl and this drink-crazed creature seeking in his +irresponsible madness to take her life. It was not alone that this was +Marjie, and there swept over me the full realization of what she meant +to me. Something greater than my own love and life leaped into being +within me. It was the swift, unworded comprehension of a woman's worth, +of the sacredness of her life, and her divine right to the protection of +her virtue; a comprehension of the beauty and blessing of the American +home, of the obedient daughter, the loving wife, the Madonna mother, of +all that these mean as the very foundation rock of our nation's strength +and honor. It swept my soul like a cleansing fire. The words for this +came later, but the force of it swayed my understanding in that +instant's crisis. Some boys grow into manhood as the years roll along, +and some leap into it at a single bound. It was a boy, Phil Baronet, who +went out after the cows that careless summer day so like all the other +summer days before it. It was a man, Philip Baronet, who followed them +home that dark night, fearing neither the roar of the angry storm cloud +that threshed in fury above us, nor any human being, though he were +filled with the rage of madness.</p> + +<p>At O'mie's word I dashed after Marjie. Behind me came Bud Anderson and +Dave Mead, followed by every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> other boy and girl. O'mie rode beside me, +and not one of us thought of himself. It was all done in a flash, and I +marvel that I tell its mental processes as if they were a song sung in +long-metre time. But it is all so clear to me. I can see the fiery +radiance of that sky blotted by the two riders before me. I can hear the +crash of the ponies' feet, and I can even feel the sweep of wind out of +that storm-cloud turning the white under-side of the big cottonwood's +leaves uppermost and cutting cold now against the hot air. And then +there rises up that ripple of ground made by the ring of the Osage's +tepee in the years gone by. Marjie deftly swerved her pony to the south +and skirted that little ridge of ground with a graceful curve, as though +this were a mere racing game and not a life-and-death ride. Jean's horse +plunged at the tepee ring, leaped to the little hollow beyond it, +stumbled and fell, and, pellmell, like a stampede of cattle, we were +upon him.</p> + +<p>I never could understand how Dave Mead headed the crowd back and kept +the whole mass from piling up on the fallen Indian and those nearest to +him. Nor do I understand why some of us were not crushed or kicked out +of life in that <i>mêlée</i> of ponies and riders struggling madly together. +What I do know is that Bud Anderson, who was not thrown from his horse, +caught Jean's pony by the bridle and dragged it clear of the mass. It +was O'mie's quick hand that wrested that murderous knife from the +Indian's grasp, and it was my strong arm that held him with a grip of +iron. The shock sobered him instantly. He struggled a moment, and then +the cunning that always deceived us gained control. The Indian spirit +vanished, and with something masterful in his manner he relaxed all +effort. Lifting his eyes to mine with no trace of resentment in their +impenetrable depths, he said evenly:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let me go. I was drunk. I was fool."</p> + +<p>"Let him go, Phil. He did act kinder drunk," Bill Mead urged, and I +loosed my hold. I knew instinctively that we were safe now, as I knew +also that this submission of Jean Pahusca's must be paid for later with +heavy interest by somebody.</p> + +<p>"Here'th your horth; s'pothe you thkite," lisped Bud Anderson.</p> + +<p>Jean sprang upon his pony and dashed off. We watched him ride away down +the long slope. In a few moments another horseman joined him, and they +took the trail toward the Kaw reservation. It was Father Le Claire +riding with the Indian into the gathering shadows of the south.</p> + +<p>I turned to Marjie standing beside me. Her big brown eyes were luminous +with tears, and her face was as white as my mother's face was on the day +the sea left its burden on the Rockport sands. It was hate that made +Jean Pahusca veil his countenance for me a moment before. Something of +which hate can never know made me look down at her calmly. O'mie's hand +was on my shoulder and his eyes were on us both. There was a quaint +approval in his glance toward me. He knew the self-control I needed +then.</p> + +<p>"Phil saved you, Marjie," Mary Gentry exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"No, he saved Jean," put in Lettie.</p> + +<p>"And O'mie saved Phil," Bess Anderson urged. "Just grabbed that knife in +time."</p> + +<p>"Well, I thaved mythelf," Bud piped in.</p> + +<p>He never could find any heroism in himself who, more than any other boy +among us, had a record for pulling drowning boys out of the Deep Hole by +the Hermit's Cave, and killing rattlesnakes in the cliff's crevices, +and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> daring the dark when the border ruffians were hiding about +Springvale.</p> + +<p>An angry growl of thunder gave us warning of the coming storm. In our +long race home before its wrath, in the dense darkness wrapping the +landscape, we could only trust to the ponies to keep the way. Marjie +rode close by my side that night, and more than once my hand found hers +in the darkness to assure her of protection. O'mie, bless his red head! +crowded Lettie to the far side of the group, keeping Tell on the other +side of her.</p> + +<p>When I climbed the hill on Cliff Street that night I turned by the +bushes and caught the gleam of Marjie's light. I gave the whistling call +we had kept for our signal these years, and I saw the light waver as a +good-night signal.</p> + +<p>That night I could not sleep. The storm lasted for hours, and the rain +swept in sheets across the landscape. The darkness was intense, and the +midsummer heat of the day was lost in the chill of that drouth-breaking +torrent. After midnight I went to my father's room. He had not retired, +but was sitting by the window against which the rain beat heavily. The +light burned low, and his fine face was dimly outlined in the shadows. I +sat down beside his knee as I was wont to do in childhood.</p> + +<p>"Father," I began hesitatingly, "Father, do you still love my mother? +Could you care for anybody else? Does a man ever—" I could not say +more. Something so like tears was coming into my voice that my cheeks +grew hot.</p> + +<p>My father's hand rested gently on my head, his fingers stroking the +ripples of my hair. White as it is now, it was dark and wavy then, as my +mother's had been. It was the admiration of the women and girls, which +admira<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>tion always annoyed and embarrassed me. In and out of those set +waves above my forehead his fingers passed caressingly. He knew the +heart of a boy, and he sat silent there, letting me feel that I could +tell him anything.</p> + +<p>"Have you come to the cross-roads, Phil?" he asked gently. "I was +thinking of you as I sat here. Maybe that brought you in. Your boyhood +must give way to manhood soon. These times of civil war change +conditions for our children," he mused to himself, rather than spoke to +me. "We expect a call to the front soon, Phil. When I am gone, I want +you to do a man's part in Springvale. You are only a boy, I know, but +you have a man's strength, my son."</p> + +<p>"And a man's spirit, too," I cried, springing up and standing erect +before him. "Let me go with you, Father."</p> + +<p>"No, Phil, you must stay here and help to protect these homes, just as +we men must go out to fight for them. To the American people war doesn't +mean glory nor conquest. It means safety and freedom, and these begin +and end in the homes of our land."</p> + +<p>The impulse wakened on the prairie that evening at the sight of Marjie's +peril leaped up again within me.</p> + +<p>"I'll do my best. But tell me, Father," I had dropped down beside him +again, "do you still love my mother? Does a man love the same woman +always?"</p> + +<p>Few boys of my age would have asked such a question of a man. My father +took both of my hands into his own strong hands and in the dim light he +searched my face with his keen eyes.</p> + +<p>"Men differ in their natures, my boy. Even fathers and sons do not +always think alike. I can speak only for myself. Do I love the woman who +gave you birth? Oh, Phil!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span></p> + +<p>No need for him to say more. Over his face there swept an expression of +tenderness such as I have never seen save as at long intervals I have +caught it on the face of a sweet-browed mother bending above a sleeping +babe. I rose up before him, and stooping, I kissed his forehead. It was +a sacred hour, and I went out from his presence with a new bond binding +us together who had been companions all my days. My dreams when I fell +asleep at last were all of Marjie, and through them all her need for a +protector was mingled with a still greater need for my guardianship. It +came from two women who were strangers to me, whose faces I had never +seen before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + +<h3>A GOOD INDIAN</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Underneath that face like summer's ocean,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Its lips as moveless, and its brow as clear,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotion,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow,—all save fear.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Cast in the setting of to-day, after such an attempt on human life as we +broke up on the prairie, Jean Pahusca would have been hiding in the +coverts of Oklahoma, or doing time at the Lansing penitentiary for +attempted assault with intent to kill. The man who sold him the whiskey +would be in the clutches of the law, carrying his case up to the Supreme +Court, backed by the slush fund of the brewers' union. The Associated +Press would give the incident a two-inch heading and a one-inch story; +and the snail would stay on the thorn, and the lark keep on the wing.</p> + +<p>Even in that time Springvale would not have tolerated the Indian among +us had it not been that the minds of the people were fermenting with +other things. We were on the notorious old border between free and slave +lands, whose tragedies rival the tales of the Scottish border. Kansas +had been a storm centre since the day it became a Territory, and the +overwhelming theme was negro slavery. Every man was marked as "pro" or +"anti." There was no neutral ground. Springvale was by majority a +Free-State town. A certain element with us,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> however, backed up by the +Fingal's Creek settlement, declared openly and vindictively for slavery. +It was from this class that we had most to fear. While the best of our +people were giving their life-blood to save a nation, these men connived +with border raiders who would not hesitate to take the life and property +of every Free-State citizen. When our soldiers marched away to fields of +battle, they knew they were leaving an enemy behind them, and no man's +home was safe. Small public heed was paid then to the outbreak of a +drunken Indian boy who had been overcome in a scrap out on the prairie +when the youngsters were hunting their cows.</p> + +<p>Where the bushes grow over the edge of the bluff at the steep bend in +Cliff Street, a point of rock projects beyond the rough side. By a rude +sort of stone steps beside this point we could clamber down many feet to +the bush-grown ledge below. This point had been a meeting-place and +playground for Marjie and myself all those years. We named it +"Rockport" after the old Massachusetts town. Marjie could hear my call +from the bushes and come up to the half-way place between our two homes. +The stratum of rock below this point was full of cunning little crevices +and deep hiding-places. One of these, known only to Marjie and myself, +we called our post-office, and many a little note, scrawled in childish +hand, but always directed to "Rockport" like a real address on the +outside fold, we left for each other to find. Sometimes it was a +message, sometimes it was only a joke, and sometimes it was just a line +of childish love-making. We always put our valentines in this private +house of Uncle Sam's postal service. Maybe that was why the other boys +and girls did not couple our names together oftener. Everybody knew who +got valentines at the real post-office and where they came from.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> + +<p>On the evening after the storm there was no loitering on the prairie. +While we knew there was no danger, a half-dozen boys brought the cows +home long before the daylight failed. At sunset I went down to +"Rockport," intending to whistle to Marjie. How many a summer evening +together here we had watched the sunset on the prairie! To-night, for no +reason that I could give, I parted the bushes and climbed down to the +ledge below, intending in a moment to come up again. I paused to listen +to the lowing of some cows down the river. All the sweet sounds and +odors of evening were in the air, and the rain-washed woodland of the +Neosho Valley was in its richest green. I did not notice that the bushes +hid me until, as I turned, I caught a glimpse of a red blanket, with a +circular white centre, sliding up that stairway. An instant later, a +call, my signal whistle, sounded from the rock above. I stood on the +ledge under the point, my heart the noisiest thing in all that summer +landscape full of soft twilight utterances. I was too far below the +cliff's edge to catch any answering call, but I determined to fling that +blanket and its wearer off the height if any harm should even threaten. +Presently I heard a light footstep, and Marjie parted the bushes above +me. Before she could cry out, Jean spoke to her. His voice was clear and +sweet as I had never heard it before, and I do not wonder it reassured +her.</p> + +<p>"No afraid, Star-face, no afraid. Jean wants one word."</p> + +<p>Marjie did not move, and I longed to let her know how near I was to her, +and yet I dared not till I knew his purpose.</p> + +<p>"Star-face," he began, "Jean drink no more. Jean promise Padre Le +Claire, never, never, Star-face, not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> afraid anymore, never, never. +Jean good Indian now. Always keep evil from Star-face."</p> + +<p>How full of affection were his tones. I wondered at his broken Indian +tongue, for he had learned good English, and sometimes he surpassed us +all in the terse excellence and readiness of his language. Why should he +hesitate so now?</p> + +<p>"Star-face,"—there was a note of self-control in his pleading +voice,—"I will never drink again. I would not do harm to you. Don't be +afraid."</p> + +<p>I heard her words then, soft and sweet, with that tremor of fear she +could never overcome.</p> + +<p>"I hope you won't, Jean."</p> + +<p>Then the bushes crackled, as she turned and sped away.</p> + +<p>I was just out of sight again when that red blanket slipped down the +rocks and disappeared over the side of the ledge in the jungle of bushes +below me.</p> + +<p>A little later, when Mary Gentry and O'mie and I sat with Marjie on the +Whately doorstep, she told us what Jean had said.</p> + +<p>"Do you really think he will be good now?" asked Mary. She was always +credulous.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course," Marjie answered carelessly.</p> + +<p>Her reply angered me. She seemed so ready to trust the word of this +savage who twenty-four hours before had tried to scalp her. Did his +manner please Marjie? Was the foolish girl attracted by this picturesque +creature? I clenched my fists in the dark.</p> + +<p>"Girls are such silly things," I said to myself. "I thought better of +Marjie, but she is like all the rest." And then I blushed in the dark +for having such mean thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Don't you think he will be good now, Phil?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> + +<p>I did not know how eagerly she waited for my answer. Poor Marjie! To her +the Indian name was always a terror. Before I could reply O'mie broke +in:</p> + +<p>"Marjory Whately, ye'll excuse me fur referrin' to it, but I ain't no +bigger than you are."</p> + +<p>O'mie had not grown as the most of us had, and while he had a lightning +quickness of movement, and a courage that never faltered, he was no +match for the bigger boys in strength and endurance. Marjie was rounding +into graceful womanhood now, but she was not of the slight type. She +never lost her dimples, and the vigorous air of the prairies gave her +that splendid physique that made her a stranger to sickness and kept the +wild-rose bloom on her fair cheeks. O'mie did not outweigh her.</p> + +<p>"Ye'll 'scuse me," O'mie went on, "fur the embarrassin' statement; but I +ain't big, I run mostly to brains, while Phil here, an' Bill, an' Dave, +an' Bud, an' Possum Conlow runs mostly to beef; an' yet, bein' small, I +ain't afraid none of your good Injun. But take this warnin' from me, an +old friend that knew your grandmother in long clothes, that you kape +wide of Jean Pahusca's trail. Don't you trust him."</p> + +<p>Marjie gave a little shiver. Had I been something less a fool then I +should have known that it was a shiver of fear, but I was of the age to +know everything, and O'mie sitting there had learned my heart in a +moment on the prairie the evening before. And then I wanted Marjie to +trust to me. Her eyes were like stars in the soft twilight, and her +white face lost its color, but she did not look at me.</p> + +<p>"Don't you trust that mock-turtle Osage, Marjorie, don't." O'mie was +more deeply in earnest than we thought.</p> + +<p>"But O'mie," Marjie urged, "Jean was just as earnest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> as you are now; +and you'd say so, too, Phil, if you had heard him."</p> + +<p>She was right. The words I had heard from above the rock rang true.</p> + +<p>"And if he really wants to do better, what have we all been told in the +Sunday-school? 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'"</p> + +<p>I could have caught that minor chord of fear had I been more master of +myself at that moment.</p> + +<p>"Have ye talked wid Father Le Claire?" asked O'mie. "Let's lave the +baste to him. Phil, whin does your padre and his Company start to subdue +the rebillious South?"</p> + +<p>"Pretty soon, father says."</p> + +<p>"My father is going too," Marjie said gently, "and Henry Anderson and +Cris Mead, and all the men."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, we'll take care of the widders an' orphans." O'mie spoke +carelessly, but he added, "It's grand whin such min go out to foight fur +a country. Uncle Cam wants to go if he's aqual to the tests; you know +he's too near-sighted to see a soldier. Why don't you go too, Phil? +You're big as your dad, an' not half so essential to Springvale. Just +lave it to sich social ornimints as me an' Marjie's 'good Injun.'"</p> + +<p>Again Marjie shivered.</p> + +<p>"I want to go, but father won't let me leave—Aunt Candace."</p> + +<p>"An' he's right, as is customary wid him. You nade your aunt to take +care of you. He couldn't be stoppin' the battle to lace up your shoes +an' see that you'd washed your neck. Come, Mary, little girls must be +gettin' home." And he and Mary trotted down the slope toward the +twinkling lights of the Cambridge House.</p> + +<p>Before I reached home, O'mie had overtaken me, saying:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Come, Phil, let's rest here a minute."</p> + +<p>We were just by the bushes that shut off my "Rockport," so we parted +them and sat down on the point of rock. The moon was rising, red in the +east, and the Neosho Valley below us was just catching its gleams on the +treetops, while each point of the jagged bluff stood out silvery white +above the dark shadows. A thousand crickets and katydids were chirping +in the grass. It was only on the town side that the bushes screened this +point. All the west prairie was in that tender gloom that would roll +back in shadowy waves before the rising moon.</p> + +<p>"Phil," O'mie began, "don't be no bigger fool than nature cut you out +fur to be. Don't you trust that 'good Injun' of Marjie's, but kape one +eye on him comin' an t' other 'n on him goin'."</p> + +<p>"I don't trust him, O'mie, but he has a voice that deceives. I don't +wonder, being a girl, Marjie is caught by it."</p> + +<p>"An' you, bein' a boy," O'mie mimicked,—"Phil, you're enough to turn my +hair rid. But never mind, ye can't trust him. Fur why? He's not to be +trusted. If he was aven Injun clean through you could a little, maybe. +Some Osages has honor to shame a white man,—aven an Irishman,—but he's +not Osage. He's a Kiowa, the kind that stole that little chap years ago +up toward Rid Range. An' he ain't Kiowa altogether nather. The Injun +blood gives him cuteness, but half his cussedness is in that soft black +scalp an' that soft voice sayin', 'Good Injun.' There's some old Louis +XIV somewhere in his family tree. The roots av it may be in the Plains +out here, but some branch is a graft from a Orleans rose-bush. He's got +the blossoms an' the thorns av a Frenchman. An' besides," O'mie added, +"as if us two wise men av the West didn't know, comes Father Le Claire +to me to-day.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> He's Jean's guide an' counsellor. An' Phil, begorra, them +two looks alike. Same square-cut kind o' foreheads they've got. Annyhow, +I was waterin' the horses down to the ford, an' Father Le Claire comes +on me sudden, ridin' up on the Kaw trail from the south. He blessed me +wid his holy hand and then says quick:</p> + +<p>"'O'mie, ye are a lad I can trust!'"</p> + +<p>"I nodded, not knowin' why annybody can't be trusted who goes swimmin' +once a week, an' never tastes whiskey, an' don't practise lyin', nor +shirkin' his stunt at the Cambridge House."</p> + +<p>"'O'mie,' says he, 'I want to tell you who you must not trust. It is +Jean Pahusca,' says he; 'I wish I didn't nade to say it, but it is me +duty to warn ye. Don't mistreat him, but O'mie, for Heaven's sake, kape +your eyes open, especially when he promises to be good.' It's our stunt, +Phil, to watch him close now he's took to reformin' to the girls."</p> + +<p>"O'mie, we know, and Father Le Claire knows, but how can we make those +foolish girls understand? Mary believes everything that's said to her +anyhow, and you heard Marjie to-night. She thinks she should take Jean +at his word."</p> + +<p>"Phil, you are all right, seemin'ly. You can lick any av us. You've got +the build av a giant, an' you've beautiful hair an' teeth. An' you are +son an' heir to John Bar'net, which is an asset some av us would love to +possess, bein' orphans, an' the lovely ladies av Springvale is all +bewitched by you; but you are a blind, blitherin' ijit now an' again."</p> + +<p>"Well, you heard what Marjie said, and how careless she was."</p> + +<p>"Yes, an' I seen her shiver an' turn white the instant too. Phil, she's +doin' that to kape us from bein' unaisy,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> an' it's costin' her some to +do it. Bless her pretty face! Phil, don't be no bigger fool than ye can +kape from."</p> + +<p>In less than a week after the incident on the prairie my father's +Company was called to the firing line of the Civil War and the +responsibilities of life fell suddenly upon me. There was a great +gathering in town on the day the men marched away. Where the opera house +stands now was the corner of a big vacant patch of ground reaching out +toward the creek. To-day it was filled with the crowd come to see the +soldiers and bid them good-bye. A speaker's stand was set up in the yard +of the Cambridge House and the boys in blue were in the broad street +before it. It was the last civilian ceremony for many of them, for that +Kansas Company went up Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, led the line as +Kansans will ever do, and in the face of a murderous fire they drove the +foeman back. But many of them never came home to wear their laurels of +victory. They lie in distant cemeteries under the shadow of tall +monuments. They lie in old neglected fields, in sunken trenches, by +lonely waysides, and in deep Southern marshes, waiting all the last +great Reunion. If I should live a thousand years, the memory of that +bright summer morning would not fade from my mind.</p> + +<p>Dr. Hemingway, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, presided over the +meeting, and the crowd about the soldiers was reinforced by all the +countryside beyond the Neosho and the whole Red Range neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Skulking about the edge of the company, or gathered in little groups +around the corners just out of sight, were the pro-slavery sympathizers, +augmented by the Fingal's Creek crowd, who were of the Secession element +clear through. In the doorway of the "Last Chance" sat the Rev. Dodd, +pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South, taking no part in this +patriotic occasion. Father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Le Claire was beside Dr. Hemingway. He said +not a word, but Springvale knew he was a power for peace. He did not +sanction bloodshed even in a righteous cause. Neither would he allow +those who followed his faith to lift a hand against those who did go out +to battle. We trusted him and he never betrayed that trust. This morning +I recalled what O'mie had said about his looking like Jean Pahusca. His +broad hat was pushed back from his square dark forehead; and the hair, +soft and jetty, had the same line about the face. But not one feature +there bespoke an ignoble spirit. I did not understand him, but I was +drawn toward him, as I was repelled by the Indian from the moment I +first saw his head above the bluff on the rainy October evening long +ago.</p> + +<p>How little the Kansas boys and girls to-day can understand what that +morning meant to us, when we saw our fathers riding down the Santa Fé +Trail to the east, and waving good-bye to us at the far side of the +ford! How the fire of patriotism burned in our hearts, and how the +sudden loss of all our strongest and best men left us helpless among +secret cruel enemies! And then that spirit of manhood leaped up within +us, the sudden sense of responsibility come to "all the able-bodied +boys" to stand up as a wall of defence about the homes of Springvale. +Too well we knew the dangers. Had we not lived on this Kansas border in +all those plastic years when the mind takes deepest impressions? The +ruffianism of Leavenworth and Lawrence and Osawatomie had been repeated +in the unprotected surroundings of Springvale. The Red Range schoolhouse +had been burned, and the teacher, a Massachusetts man, had been drowned +in a shallow pool near the source of Fingal's Creek, his body fastened +face downward so that a few inches of water were enough for the fiendish +purpose. Eastward the settlers had fled to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> our town, time and again, to +escape the border raiders, whose coming meant death to the free-spirited +father, and a widow and orphans left destitute beside the smoking embers +of what had been a home. Those were busy days in Kansas, and the memory +of them can yet stir the heart of a man of sixty years.</p> + +<p>That morning Dr. Hemingway offered prayer, the prayer of a godly man, +for the souls of men about to be baptized with a baptism of blood that +other men might be free, and a peaceful generation might walk with ease +where their feet trod red-hot ploughshares; a prayer for the strong arm +of God Almighty, to uphold every soldier's hands until the cause of +right should triumph; a prayer for the heavenly Father's protection +about the homes left fatherless for the sake of His children.</p> + +<p>And then he prayed for us, "for Philip Baronet, the strong and manly son +of his noble father, John Baronet; for David and William Mead, for John +and Clayton and August Anderson." He prayed for Tell Mapleson, too (Tell +was always square in spite of his Copperhead father), and for "Thomas +O'Meara." We hardly knew whom he meant.</p> + +<p>Bud Anderson whispered later, "Thay, O'mie, you'll never get into +kingdom come under an athumed name. Better thtick to 'O'mie.'"</p> + +<p>And last of all the good Doctor prayed for the wives and daughters, that +they "be strong and very courageous," doing their part of working and +waiting as bravely as they do who go out to stirring action. Then +ringing speeches followed. I remember them all; but most of all the +words of my father and of Irving Whately are fixed in my mind. My father +lived many years and died one sunset hour when the prairies were in +their autumn glory, died with his face to the western sky, his last +earthly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> scene that peaceful prairie with the grandeur of a thousand +ever-changing hues building up a wall like to the walls of the New +Jerusalem which Saint John saw in a vision on the Isle of Patmos. There +was</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No moaning of the bar</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When he put out to sea</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>for he died beautifully, as he had lived. I never saw Irving Whately +again, for he went down before the rebel fire at Chattanooga; but the +sound of his voice I still can hear.</p> + +<p>The words of these men seemed to lift me above the clouds, and what +followed is like a dream. I know that when the speeches were done, +Marjie went forward with the beautiful banner the women of Springvale +had made with their own hands for this Company. I could not hear her +words. They were few and simple, no doubt, for she was never given to +display. But I remember her white dress and her hair parted in front and +coiled low on her neck. I remember the sweet Madonna face of the little +girl, and how modestly graceful she was. I remember how every man held +his breath as she came up to the group seated on the stage, how pink her +cheeks were and how white the china aster bloom nestling against the +ripples of her hair, and how the soldiers cheered that flag and its +bearer. I remember Jean Pahusca, Indian-like, standing motionless, never +taking his eyes from Marjie's face. It was that flag that this Company +followed in its awful charge up Missionary Ridge. And it was Irving +Whately who kept it aloft, the memory of his daughter making it doubly +sacred to him.</p> + +<p>And then came the good-byes. Marjie's father gripped my hand, and his +voice was full of tears.</p> + +<p>"Take care of them, Phil. I have no son to guard my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> home, and if we +never come back you will not let harm come to them. You will let me feel +when I am far away that you are shielding my little girl from evil, +won't you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>I clenched his hand in mine. "You know I'll do that, Mr. Whately." I +stood up to my full height, young, broad-shouldered, and muscular.</p> + +<p>"It will be easier for me, Phil, to know you are here."</p> + +<p>I understood him. Mrs. Whately was, of all the women I knew, least able +to do for herself. Marjie was like her father, and, save for her fear of +Indians, no Kansas girl was ever more capable and independent. It has +been my joy that this father trusted me. The flag his daughter put into +his hands that day was his shroud at Chattanooga, and his last moments +were happier for the thought of his little girl in my care.</p> + +<p>Aunt Candace and I walked home together after we had waved the last +good-byes to the soldiers. From our doorway up on Cliff Street we +watched that line of men grow dim and blend at last into the eastern +horizon's purple bound. When I turned then and looked down at the town +beyond the slope, it seemed to me that upon me alone rested the burden +of its protection. Driven deep in my boyish soul was the sense of the +sacredness of these homes, and of a man's high duty to keep harm from +them. My father had gone out to battle, not alone to set free an +enslaved race, but to make whole and strong a nation whose roots are in +the homes it defends. So I, left to fill his place, must be the valiant +defender of the defenceless. Such moments of exaltation come to the +young soul, and by such ideals a life is squared.</p> + +<p>That evening our little crowd of boys strolled out on the west prairie. +The sunset deepened to the rich afterglow, and all the soft shadows of +evening began to unfold<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> about us. In that quiet, sacred time, standing +out on the wide prairie, with the great crystal dome above us, and the +landscape, swept across by the free winds of heaven, unrolled in all its +dreamy beauty about us, our little company gripped hands and swore our +fealty to the Stars and Stripes. And then and there we gave sacred +pledge and promise to stand by one another and to give our lives if need +be for the protection and welfare of the homes of Springvale.</p> + +<p>Busy days followed the going of the soldiers. Somehow the gang of us who +had idled away the summer afternoons in the sand-bar shallows beyond the +Deep Hole seemed suddenly to grow into young men who must not neglect +school nor business duties. Awkwardly enough but earnestly we strove to +keep Springvale a pushing, prosperous community, and while our efforts +were often ludicrous, the manliness of purpose had its effect. It gave +us breadth, this purpose, and broke up our narrow prejudices. I believe +in those first months I would have suffered for the least in Springvale +as readily as for the greatest. Even Lettie Conlow, whose father kept on +shoeing horses as though there were no civil strife in the nation, found +such favor with me as she had never found before. I know now it was only +a boy's patriotic foolishness, but who shall say it was ignoble in its +influence? Marjie was my especial charge. That Fall I did not retire at +night until I had run down to the bushes and given my whistle, and had +seen her window light waver a good-night answer, and I knew she was +safe. I was not her only guardian, however. One crisp autumn night there +was no response to my call, and I sat down on the rocky outcrop of the +steep hill to await the coming of her light in the window. It was a +clear starlight night, and I had no thought of being unseen as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> I was +quietly watching. Presently, up through the bushes a dark form slid. It +did not stand erect when the street was reached, but crawled with head +up and alert in the deeper shadow of the bluff side of the road. I knew +instinctively that it was Jean Pahusca, and that he had not been +expecting me to be there after my call and had failed to notice me in +his eagerness to creep unseen down the slope. Sometimes in these later +years in a great football game I have watched the Haskell Indians +crawling swiftly up and down the side-lines following the surge of the +players on the gridiron, and I always think of Jean as he crept down the +hill that night. It was late October and the frost was glistening, but I +pulled off my boots in a moment and silently followed the fellow. Inside +the fence near Marjie's window was a big circle of lilac bushes, +transplanted years ago from the old Ohio home of the Whatelys. Inside +this clump Jean crept, and I knew by the quiet crackle of twigs and dead +leaves he was making his bed there. My first thought was to drag him out +and choke him. And then my better judgment prevailed. I slipped away to +find O'mie for a council.</p> + +<p>"Phil, I'd like to kill him wid a hoe, same as Marjie did that other +rattlesnake that had Jim Conlow charmed an' flutterin' toward his pisen +fangs, only we'd better wait a bit. By Saint Patrick, Philip, we can't +hang up his hide yet awhoile. I know what the baste's up to annyhow."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it?" I queried eagerly.</p> + +<p>"He's bein' a good Injun he is, an' he's got a crude sort o' notion he's +protectin' that dear little bird. She may be scared o' him, an' he knows +it; but bedad, I'd not want to be the border ruffian that went prowlin' +in there uninvited; would you?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, he's a dear trusty old Fido of a watchdog, O'mie. We will take +Father Le Claire's word, and keep an eye on him though. He will sleep +where he will sleep, but we'll see if the sight of water affects him +any. A dog of his breed may be subject to rabies. You can't always trust +even a 'good Injun.'"</p> + +<p>After that I watched for Jean's coming and followed him to his lilac +bed, a half-savage, half-educated Indian brave, foolishly hoping to win +a white girl for his own.</p> + +<p>All that Fall Jean never missed a night from the lilac bush. As long as +he persisted in passing the dark hours so near to the Whately home my +burden of anxiety and responsibility was doubled. In silent faithfulness +he kept sentinel watch. I dared not tell Marjie, for I knew it would +fill her nights with terror, and yet I feared her accidental discovery +of his presence. Jean was doing more than this, however. His promise to +be good seemed to belie Father Le Claire's warning. In and out of the +village all that winter he went, orderly, at times even affable, quietly +refusing every temptation to drunkenness. "A good Indian" he was, even +to the point where O'mie and I wondered if we might not have been wrong +in our judgment of him. He was growing handsomer too. He stood six feet +in his moccasins, stalwart as a giant, with grace in every motion. +Somehow he seemed more like a picturesque Gipsy, a sort of +semi-civilized grandee, than an Indian of the Plains. There was a +dominant courtliness in his manner and his bearing was kingly. People +spoke kindly of him. Regularly he took communion in the little Catholic +chapel at the south edge of town on the Kaw trail. Quietly but +persistently he was winning his way to universal favor. Only the Irish +lad and I kept our counsel and, waited.</p> + +<p>After the bitterly cold New Year's Day of '63 the Indian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> forsook the +lilac bush for a time. But I knew he never lost track of Marjie's coming +and going. Every hour of the day or night he could have told just where +she was. We followed him down the river sometimes at night, and lost him +in the brush this side the Hermit's Cave. We did not know that this was +a mere trick to deceive us. To make sure of him we should have watched +the west prairie and gone up the river for his real landing place. How +he lived I do not know. An Indian can live on air and faith in a +promise, or hatred of a foe. At last he lulled even our suspicion to +sleep.</p> + +<p>"Ask the priest what to do," I suggested to O'mie when we grew ashamed +of our spying. "They are together so much the rascal looks and walks +like him. See him on annuity day and tell him we feel like chicken +thieves and kidnappers."</p> + +<p>O'mie obeyed me to the letter, and ended with the query to the good +Father:</p> + +<p>"Now phwat should a couple of young sleuth-hounds do wid such a dacent +good Injun?"</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire's reply stunned the Irish boy.</p> + +<p>"He just drew himself up a mile high an' more," O'mie related to me, +"just stood up like the angel av the flamin' sword, an' his eyes blazed +a black, consumin' fire. 'Watch him,' says the praist, 'for God's sake, +watch him. Don't ask me again phwat to do. I've told you twice. Thirty +years have I lived and labored with his kind. I know them.' An' then," +O'mie went on, "he put both arms around me an' held me close as me own +father might have done, somewhere back, an' turned an' left me. So +there's our orders. Will ye take 'em?"</p> + +<p>I took them, but my mind was full of queries. I did not trust the +Indian, and yet I had no visible reason to doubt his sincerity.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p> + + + +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h3>WHEN THE HEART BEATS YOUNG</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A patch of green sod 'neath the trees brown and bare,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A smell of fresh mould on the mild southern air,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A twitter of bird song, a flutter, a call,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And though the clouds lower, and threaten and fall—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There's Spring in my heart!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—BERTA ALEXANDER GARVEY.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>When the prairies blossomed again, and the Kansas springtime was in its +daintiest green, when a blur of pink was on the few young orchards in +the Neosho Valley, and the cottonwoods in the draws were putting forth +their glittering tender leaves—in that sweetest time of all the year, a +new joy came to me. Most girls married at sixteen in those days, and +were grandmothers at thirty-five. Marjie was no longer a child. No +sweeter blossom of young womanhood ever graced the West. All Springvale +loved her, except Lettie Conlow. And Cam Gentry summed it all up in his +own quaint way, brave old Cam fighting all the battles of the war over +again on the veranda of the Cambridge House, since his defective range +of vision kept him from the volunteer service. Watching Marjie coming +down the street one spring morning Cam declared solemnly:</p> + +<p>"The War's done decided, an' the Union has won. A land that can grow +girls like Marjory Whately's got the favorin' smile of the Almighty upon +it."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> + +<p>For us that season all the world was gay and all the skies were +opal-hued, and we almost forgot sometimes that there could be sorrow and +darkness and danger. Most of all we forgot about an alien down in the +Hermit's Cave, "a good Indian" turned bad in one brief hour. Dear are +the memories of that springtide. Many a glorious April have I seen in +this land of sunshine, but none has ever seemed quite like that one to +me. Nor waving yellow wheat, nor purple alfalfa bloom, nor ramparts of +dark green corn on well-tilled land can hold for me one-half the beauty +of the windswept springtime prairie. No sweet odor of new-ploughed +ground can rival the fragrance of the wild grasses in their waving seas +of verdure.</p> + +<p>We were coming home from Red Range late one April day, where we had gone +to a last-day-of-school affair. The boys and girls did not ride in a +group now, but broke up into twos and twos sauntering slowly homeward. +The tender pink and green of the landscape with the April sunset tinting +in the sky overhead, and all the far south and west stretching away into +limitless waves of misty green blending into the amethyst of the world's +far bound, gave setting for young hearts beating in tune with the year's +young beauty.</p> + +<p>Tell Mapleson and Lettie had been with Marjie and me for a time, but at +last Tell had led Lettie far away. When we reached the draw beyond the +big cottonwood where Jean Pahusca threw us into such disorder on that +August evening the year before, we found a rank profusion of spring +blossoms. Leading our ponies by the bridle rein we lingered long in the +fragrant draw, gathering flowers and playing like two children among +them. At length Marjie sat down on the sloping ground and deftly wove +into a wreath the little pink blooms of some frail wild flower.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!"</p> + +<p>I was as tall then as I am now, and Marjie at her full height came only +to my shoulder. I stooped to lay that dainty string of blossoms above +her brow. They fell into place in her wavy hair and nestled there, +making a picture only memory can keep. The air was very sweet and the +whole prairie about the little draw was still and dewy. The purple +twilight, shot through with sunset coloring, made an exquisite glory +overhead, and far beyond us. It is all sacred to me even now, this +moment in Love's young dream. I put both my hands gently against her +fair round cheeks and looked down her into her brown eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Marjie," I said softly, and kissed her red lips just once.</p> + +<p>She said never a word while we stood for a moment, a moment we never +forgot. The day's last gleam of gold swept about us, and the ripple of a +bird's song in the draw beyond the bend fell upon the ear. An instant +later both ponies gave a sudden start. We caught their bridle reins, and +looked for the cause. Nothing was in sight.</p> + +<p>"It must have been a rattlesnake in that tall grass, Phil," Marjie +exclaimed. "The ponies don't like snakes, and they don't care for +flowers."</p> + +<p>"There are no snakes here, Marjie. This is the garden of Eden without +the Serpent," I said gayly.</p> + +<p>All the homeward way was a dream of joy. We forgot there was a Civil +War; that this was a land of aching hearts and dreary homes, and +bloodshed and suffering and danger and hate. We were young, it was April +on the prairies, and we had kissed each other in the pink-wreathed +shadows of the twilight. Oh, it was good to live!</p> + +<p>The next morning O'mie came grinning up the hill.</p> + +<p>"Say, Phil, ye know I cut the chape Neosho crowd last<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> evening up to Rid +Range fur that black-eyed little Irish girl they call Kathleen. So I +came home afterwhoile behind you, not carin' to contaminate meself wid +such a common set after me pleasant company at Rid Range."</p> + +<p>"Well, we managed to pull through without you, O'mie, but don't let it +happen again. It's too hard on the girls to be deprived of your +presence. Do be more considerate of us, my lord."</p> + +<p>O'mie grinned more broadly than ever.</p> + +<p>"Well, I see a sight worth waitin' fur on my homeward jaunt in the +gloamin'."</p> + +<p>"What was it, a rattlesnake?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, begorra, it was just that, an' worse. You remember the draw this +side of the big cottonwood, the one where the 'good Injun' come at us +last August, the time he got knocked sober at the old tepee ring?"</p> + +<p>I gave a start and my cheeks grew hot. O'mie pretended not to notice me.</p> + +<p>"Well," he went on, "just as I came beyont that ring on this side and +dips down toward the draw where Jean come from when he was aimin' to +hang a certain curly brown-haired scalp—"</p> + +<p>A thrill of horror went through me at the picture.</p> + +<p>"Ye needn't shiver. Injuns do that; even little golden curls from +babies' heads. You an' me may live to see it, an' kill the Injun that +does it, yit. Now kape quiet. In this draw aforesaid, just like a rid +granite gravestone sat a rid granite Injun, 'a good Injun,' mind you. In +his hands was trailin' a broken wreath of pink blossoms, an' near as an +Injun can, an' a Frenchman can't, he was lovin' 'em fondly. My +appearance, unannounced by me footman, disconcerted him extramely. He +rose up an' he looked a mile tall. They moved some clouds over a little +fur his head up there," pointing toward the deep blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> April sky where +white cumulus clouds were heaped, "an' his eyes was one blisterin' +grief, an' blazin' hate. He walks off proud an' erect, but some like a +wounded bird too. But mostly and importantly, remember, and renew your +watchfulness. It's hate an' a bad Injun now. Mark my words. The 'good +Injun' went out last night wid the witherin' of them pink flowers lyin' +limp in his cruel brown hands."</p> + +<p>"But whose flower wreath could it have been?" I asked carelessly.</p> + +<p>"O, phwat difference! Just some silly girl braided 'em up to look sweet +for some silly boy. An' maybe he kissed her fur it. I dunno. Annyhow she +lost this bauble, an' looking round I found it on the little knoll where +maybe she sat to do her flower wreathin'."</p> + +<p>He held up an old-fashioned double silver scarf-pin, the two pins held +together by a short silver chain, such as shawls were fastened with in +those days. Marjie had had the pin in the light scarf she carried on her +arm. It must have slipped out when she laid the scarf beside her and sat +down to make the wreath. I took the pin from O'mie's hand, my mind clear +now as to what had frightened the ponies. A new anxiety grew up from +that moment. The "good Indian" was passing. And yet I was young and +joyously happy that day, and I did not feel the presence of danger then.</p> + +<p>The early May rains following that April were such as we had never known +in Kansas before. The Neosho became bank-full; then it spread out over +the bottom lands, flooding the wooded valley, creeping up and up towards +the bluffs. It raced in a torrent now, and the song of its rippling over +stony ways was changed to the roar of many waters, rushing headlong down +the valley. On the south of us Fingal's Creek was impassable. Every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> +draw was brimming over, and the smaller streams became rivers. All these +streams found their way to the Neosho and gave it impetus to +destroy—which it did, tearing out great oaks and sending them swirling +and plunging, in its swiftest currents. It found the soft, uncertain +places underneath its burden of waters and with its millions of unseen +hands it digged and scooped and shaped the thing anew. When at last the +waters were all gone down toward the sea and our own beautiful river was +itself again, singing its happy song on sunny sands and in purple +shadows, the valley contour was much changed. To the boys who had known +it, foot by foot, the differences would have been most marked. +Especially would we have noted the change about the Hermit's Cave, had +not that Maytime brought its burden of strife to us all.</p> + +<p>That was the black year of the Civil War, with Murfreesboro, +Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga and Chickamauga all on its +record. Here in Kansas the minor tragedies are lost in the great horror +of the Quantrill raid at Lawrence. But the constant menace of danger, +and the strain of the thousand ties binding us to those from every part +of the North who had gone out to battle, filled every day with its own +care. When the news of Chancellorsville reached us, Cam Gentry sat on +the tavern veranda and wept.</p> + +<p>"An' to think of me, strong, an' able, an' longin' to fight for the +Union, shut out because I can only see so far."</p> + +<p>"But Uncle Cam," Dr. Hemingway urged, "Stonewall Jackson was killed by +his own men just when victory was lost to us. You might do the same +thing,—kill some man the country needs. And I believe, too, you are +kept here for a purpose. Who knows how soon we may need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> strong men in +this town, men who can do the short-range work? The Lord can use us all, +and your place is here. Isn't that true, Brother Dodd?"</p> + +<p>I was one of the group on the veranda steps that evening where the men +were gathered in eager discussion of the news of the great Union loss at +Chancellorsville, brought that afternoon by the stage from Topeka. I +glanced across at Dodd, pastor of the Methodist Church South. A small, +secretive, unsatisfactory man, he seemed to dole out the gospel +grudgingly always, and never to any outside his own denomination.</p> + +<p>He made no reply and Dr. Hemingway went on: "We have Philip here, and +I'd count on him and his crowd against the worst set of outlaws that +ever rode across the border. Yet they need your head, Uncle Cam, +although their arms are strong."</p> + +<p>He patted my shoulder kindly.</p> + +<p>"We need you, too," he continued, "to keep us cheered up. When the Lord +says to some of us, 'So far shalt thou see, and no farther,' he may give +to that same brother the power to scatter sunshine far and wide. Oh, we +need you, Brother Gentry, to make us laugh if for nothing else."</p> + +<p>Uncle Cam chuckled. He was built for chuckling, and we all laughed with +him, except Mr. Dodd. I caught a sneer on his face in the moment.</p> + +<p>Presently Father Le Claire and Jean Pahusca joined the group. I had not +seen the latter since the day of O'mie's warning. Indian as he was, I +could see a change in his impassive face. It made me turn cold, me, to +whom fear was a stranger. Father Le Claire, too, was not like himself. +Self-possessed always, with his native French grace and his inward +spiritual calm, this evening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> he seemed to be holding himself by a +mighty grip, rather than by that habitual self-mastery that kept his +life in poise.</p> + +<p>I tell these impressions as a man, and I analyze them as a man, but, boy +as I was, I felt them then with keenest power. Again the likeness of +Indian and priest possessed me, but raised no query within me. In form, +in gait and especially in the shape of the head and the black hair about +their square foreheads they were as like as father and son. Just once I +caught Jean's eye. The eye of a rattlesnake would have been more +friendly. O'mie was right. The "good Indian" had vanished. What had come +in his stead I was soon to know. But withal I could but admire the fine +physique of this giant.</p> + +<p>While the men were still full of the Union disaster, two horsemen came +riding up to the tavern oak. Their horses were dripping wet. They had +come up the trail from the southwest, where the draws were barely +fordable. Strangers excited no comment in a town on the frontier. The +trail was always full of them coming and going. We hardly noted that for +ten days Springvale had not been without them.</p> + +<p>"Come in, gentlemen," called Cam. "Here, Dollie, take care of these +friends. O'mie, take their horses."</p> + +<p>They passed inside and the talk outside went eagerly on.</p> + +<p>"Father Le Claire, how do the Injuns feel about this fracas now?" +inquired Tell Mapleson.</p> + +<p>The priest spoke carefully.</p> + +<p>"We always counsel peace. You know we do not belong to either faction."</p> + +<p>His smile was irresistible, and the most partisan of us could not +dislike him that he spoke for neither North nor South.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p> + +<p>"But," Tell persisted, "how do the Injuns themselves feel?"</p> + +<p>Tell seemed to have lost his usual insight, else he could have seen that +quick, shrewd, penetrating glance of the good Father's reading him +through and through.</p> + +<p>"I have just come from the Mission," he said. "The Osages are always +loyal to the Union. The Verdigris River was too high for me to hear from +the villages in the southwest."</p> + +<p>Tell was listening eagerly. So also were the two strangers who stood in +the doorway now. If the priest noted this he gave no sign. Mr. Dodd +spoke here for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Well," he said in his pious intonation, "if the Osages are loyal, that +clears Jean here. He's an Osage, isn't he?"</p> + +<p>Jean made no reply; neither did Le Claire, and Tell Mapleson turned +casually to the strangers, engaging them in conversation.</p> + +<p>"We shall want our horses at four sharp in the morning," one of the two +came out to say to Cam. "We have a long hard day before us."</p> + +<p>"At your service," answered Cam. "O'mie, take the order in your head."</p> + +<p>"Is that the biggest hostler you've got?" looking contemptuously at +little O'mie standing beside me. "If you Kansas folks weren't such +damned abolitionists you'd have some able-bodied niggers to do your work +right."</p> + +<p>O'mie winked at me and gave a low whistle. Neither the wink nor the +whistle was lost on the speaker, who frowned darkly at the boy.</p> + +<p>Cam squinted up at the men good-naturedly. "Them horses dangerous?" he +asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, they are," the stranger replied. "Can we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> a room downstairs? +We want to go to bed early. We have had a hard day."</p> + +<p>"You can begin to say your 'Now I lay me' right away in here if you +like," and the landlord led the way into a room off the veranda. One of +the two lingered outside in conversation with Mapleson for a brief time.</p> + +<p>"Come, go home with me, O'mie," I said later, when the crowd began to +thin out.</p> + +<p>"Not me," he responded. "Didn't ye hear, 'four A. M. sharp'? It's me +flat on me bed till the dewy morn an' three-thirty av it. Them's vicious +horses. An' they'll be to curry clane airly. Phil," he added in a lower +voice, "this town's a little overrun wid strangers wid no partic'lar +business av their own, an' we don't need 'em in ours. For one private +citizen, I don't like it. The biggest one of them two men in there's +named Yeager, an' he's been here three toimes lately, stayin' only a few +hours each toime."</p> + +<p>O'mie looked so little to me this evening! I had hardly noted how the +other boys had outgrown him.</p> + +<p>"You're not very big for a horseman after all, my son, but you're grit +clear through. You may do something yet the big fellows couldn't do," I +said affectionately.</p> + +<p>He was Irish to the bone, and never could entirely master his brogue, +but we had no social caste lines, and Springvale took him at face value, +knowing his worth.</p> + +<p>At Marjie's gate I stopped to make sure everything was all right. +Somehow when I knew the Indian was in town I could never feel safe for +her. She hurried out in response to my call.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad to see you to-night, Phil," she said, a little tremulously. +"I wish father were here. Do you think he is safe?"</p> + +<p>She was leaning on the gate, looking eagerly into my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> eyes. The shadows +of the May twilight were deepening around us, and Marjie's white face +looked never so sweet to me as now, in her dependence on my assurance.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure Mr. Whately is all right. It is the bad news that gets here +first. I'm so glad our folks weren't at Chancellorsville."</p> + +<p>"But they may be in as dreadful a battle soon. Oh, Phil, I'm so—what? +lonesome and afraid to-night. I wish father could come home."</p> + +<p>It was not like Marjie, who had been a dear brave girl, always cheering +her dependent mother and hopefully expecting the best. To-night there +swept over me anew that sense of the duty every man owes to the home. It +was an intense feeling then. Later it was branded with fire into my +consciousness. I put one of my big hands over her little white hand on +the gate.</p> + +<p>"Marjie," I said gently, "I promised your father I would let no harm +come to you. Don't be afraid, little girl. You can trust me. Until he +comes back I will take care of you."</p> + +<p>The twilight was sweet and dewy and still. About the house the shadows +were darkening. I opened the gate, and drawing her hand through my arm, +I went up the walk with her.</p> + +<p>"Is that the lilac that is so fragrant?" I caught a faint perfume in the +air.</p> + +<p>"Yes," sadly, "what there is of it." And then she laughed a little. +"That miserable O'mie came up here the day after we went to Red Range +and persuaded mother to cut it all down except one straight stick of a +bush. He told her it was dying, and that it needed pruning, and I don't +know what. And you know mother. I was over at the Anderson's, and when I +came home the whole clump was gone. I dreamed the other night that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +somebody was hiding in there. It was all dead in the middle. Do you +remember when we played hide-and-seek in there?"</p> + +<p>"I never forget anything you do, Marjie," I answered; "but I'm glad the +bushes are thinned out."</p> + +<p>She broke off some plumes of the perfumy blossoms.</p> + +<p>"Take those to Aunt Candace. Tell her I sent them. Don't let her think +you stole them," she was herself now, and her fear was gone.</p> + +<p>"May I take something else to Aunt Candace, too, Marjie?"</p> + +<p>"What else?" She looked up innocently into my face. We were at the +door-step now.</p> + +<p>"A good-night kiss, Marjie."</p> + +<p>"I'll see her myself about that," she replied mischievously but +confusedly, pushing me away. I knew her cheek was flushed as my own, and +I caught her hand and held it fast.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Phil." That sweet voice of hers I could not disobey. In a +moment I was gone, happy and young and confident. I could have fought +the whole Confederate army for the sake of this girl left in my care—my +very own guardianship.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>THE FORESHADOWING OF PERIL</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So calm and strong!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lend strength to weakness, teach us how</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sleepless eyes of God look through</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">This night of wrong!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—WHITTIER.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>While these May days were slipping by, strange history was making itself +in Kansas. I marvel now, as I recall the slender bonds that stayed us +from destruction, that we ever dared to do our part in that +record-building day. And I rejoice that we did not know the whole peril +that menaced us through those uncertain hours, else we should have lost +all courage.</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire held himself neutral to the North and the South, and +was sometimes distrusted by both factions in our town; but he went +serenely on his way, biding his time patiently. At sunrise on the +morning after O'mie had surprised Jean Pahusca with Marjie's wreath of +faded blossoms held caressingly in his brown hands, Le Claire met him in +the little chapel. What he confessed led the priest to take him at once +to the Osages farther down on the Neosho.</p> + +<p>"I had hoped to persuade Jean to stay at the Mission," Le Claire said +afterwards. "He is the most intelligent one of his own tribe I have ever +known, and he could be invaluable to the Osages, but he would not stay +away<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> from Springvale. And I thought it best to come back with him."</p> + +<p>The good man did not say why he thought it best to keep Jean under his +guardianship. Few people in Springvale would have dreamed how dangerous +a foe we had in this superbly built, picturesque, handsome Indian.</p> + +<p>In the early hours of the morning after his return, the priest was +roused from a sound sleep by O'mie. A storm had broken over the town +just after midnight. When it had spent itself and roared off down the +valley, the rain still fell in torrents, and O'mie's clothes were +dripping when he rushed into Le Claire's room.</p> + +<p>"For the love av Heaven," he cried, "they's a plot so pizen I must git +out of me constitution quick. They're tellin' it up to Conlow's shop. +Them two strangers, Yeager and his pal, that's s'posed to be sleepin' +now to get an airly start, put out 'fore midnight for a prowl an' found +theirsilves right up to Conlow's. An' I wint along behind +'em—respectful," O'mie grinned; "an' there was Mapleson an' Conlow an' +the holy Dodd, mind ye. M. E. South's his rock o' defence. An' Jean was +there too. They're promisin' him somethin', the strangers air. Tell an' +Conlow seemed to kind o' dissent, but give in finally."</p> + +<p>"Is it whiskey?" asked the priest.</p> + +<p>"No, no. Tell says he can't have nothin' from the 'Last Chance.' Says +the old Roman Catholic'll fix his agency job at Washington if he lets +Jean get drunk. It's somethin' else; an' Tell wants to git aven with +you, so he gives in."</p> + +<p>The priest's face grew pale.</p> + +<p>"Well, go on."</p> + +<p>"There's a lot of carrion birds up there I never see in this town. Just +lit in there somehow. But here's the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> schame. The Confederates has it +all planned, an' they're doin' it now to league together all the Injun +tribes av the Southwest. They's more 'n twinty commissioned officers, +Rebels, ivery son av 'em, now on their way to meet the chiefs av these +tribes. An' all the Kansas settlements down the river is to be fell upon +by the Ridskins, an' nobody to be spared. Wid them Missouri raiders on +the east and the Injuns in the southwest where'll anybody down there be, +begorra, betwixt two sich grindin' millstones? I couldn't gather it all +in, ye see. I was up on a ladder peeking in through a long hole laid +down sideways. But that's the main f'ature av the rumpus. They're +countin' big on the Osages becase the Gov'mint trusts 'em to do scout +duty down beyont Humboldt, and Jean says the Osages is sure to join 'em. +Said it is whispered round at the Mission now. And phwat's to be nixt?"</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire listened intently to O'mie's hurried recital. Then he +rose up before the little Irishman, and taking both of the boy's hands +in his, he said: "O'mie, you must do your part now."</p> + +<p>"Phwat can I do? Show me, an' bedad, I'll do it."</p> + +<p>"You will keep this to yourself, because it would only make trouble if +it were repeated now, and we may outwit the whole scheme without any +unnecessary anxiety and fright. Also, you must keep your eyes and ears +open to all that's done and said here. Don't let anything escape you. If +I can get across the Neosho this morning I can reach the Mission in time +to keep the Osages from the plot, and maybe break it up. Then I'll come +back here. They might need me if Jean"—he did not finish the sentence. +"In two days I can do everything needful; while if the word were started +here now, it might lead to a Rebel uprising, and you would be +outnumbered by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> Copperheads here, backed by the Fingal's Creek +crowd. You could do nothing in an open riot."</p> + +<p>"I comprehend ye," said O'mie. "It's iverything into me eyes an' ears +an' nothin' out av me mouth."</p> + +<p>"Meanwhile," the priest spoke affectionately, "you must be strong, my +son, to choose the better part. If it's life or death,—O God, that +human life should be held so cheap!—if it's left to you to choose who +must be the sacrifice, you will choose right. I can trust you. Remember, +in two or three days at most, I can be back; but keep your watch, +especially of Jean. He means mischief, but I cannot stay here now, much +less take him with me. He would not go."</p> + +<p>So it happened that Father Le Claire hurried away in the darkness and +the driving rain, and at a fearful risk swam his horse across the +Neosho, and hastened with all speed to the Mission.</p> + +<p>When that midnight storm broke over the town, on the night when O'mie +followed the strangers and found out their plot, I helped Aunt Candace +to fasten the windows and make sure against it until I was too wide +awake to go to bed. I sat down by my window, in the lightning flashes +watching the rain, wind-driven across the landscape. The night was pitch +black. In all the southwest there was only one light, a sullen red bar +of flame that came up from Conlow's forge fire. I watched it +indifferently at first because it was there. Then I began to wonder why +it should gleam there red and angry at this dead hour of darkness. As I +watched, the light flared up as though it were fanned into a blaze. Then +it began to blink and I knew some one was inside the shop. It was +blotted out for a time, then it glowed again, as if there were many +passing and re-passing. I wondered what it could all mean in such an +hour, on such a night<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> as this. Then I thought of old Conlow's children, +of "Possum" in his weak, good-natured homeliness, and of Lettie. How I +disliked her, and wished she would keep out of my way, which she never +would do. Her face was clear to me, there in the dark. It grew +malicious; then it hardened into wickedness, and I slipped from watching +into a drowsy, half-waking sleep in my chair. The red bar of light +became the flame of cannon on a battlefield, I saw our men in a +life-and-death struggle with the enemy on a rough, wild mountainside. +Everywhere my father was leading them on, and by his side Irving Whately +bore the Springvale flag aloft. And then beside me lay the color-bearer +with white, agonized face, pleading with me. His words were ringing in +my ears, "Take care of Marjie, Phil; keep her from harm."</p> + +<p>I woke with a start, stiff and shivering. With one half-dazed glance at +the black night and that sullen tell-tale light below me, I groped my +way to my bed and slept then the dreamless sleep of vigorous youth.</p> + +<p>The rain continued for many hours. Yeager and his company could not get +away from town on account of the booming Neosho. Also several other +strange men seemed to have rained down from nobody asked where, and +while the surface of affairs was smooth there was a troubled +undercurrent. Nobody seemed to know just what to expect, yet a sense of +calamity pervaded the air. Meanwhile the rain poured down in +intermittent torrents. On the second evening of this miserable gloom I +strolled down to the tavern stables to find O'mie. Bud and John Anderson +and both the Mead boys were there, sprawled out on the hay. O'mie sat on +a keg in the wagon way, and they were all discussing affairs of State +like sages. I joined in and we fought the Civil War to a finish in half +an hour. In all the "solid North"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> there was no more loyal company on +that May night than that group of brawny young fellows full of the fire +of patriotism, who swore anew their eternal allegiance to the Union.</p> + +<p>"It's a crime and a disgrace," declared Dave Mead, "that because we're +only boys we can't go to the War, and every one of us, except O'mie +here, muscled like oxen; while older, weaker men are being shot down at +Chancellorsville or staggering away from Bull Run."</p> + +<p>"O'mie 'thgot the thtuff in him though. I'd back him againth David and +Goliath," Bud Anderson insisted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or some other Bible characters," observed +Bill Mead. "You'd better join the Methodist Church South, Bud, and let +old Dodd labor with you."</p> + +<p>Then O'mie spoke gravely:</p> + +<p>"Boys, we've got a civil war now in our middust. Don't ask me how I +know. The feller that clanes the horses around the tavern stables, trust +him fur findin' which way the Neosho runs, aven if he is small an' +insignificant av statoor. I've seen an' heard too much in these two +dirty wet days."</p> + +<p>He paused, and there came into his eyes a pathetic pleading look as of +one who sought protection. It gave place instantly to a fearless, heroic +expression that has been my inspiration in many a struggle. I know now +how he longed to tell us all he knew, but his word to Le Claire held him +back.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell you exactly phwat's in the air, fur I don't know it all +yit. But there's trouble brewin' here, an' we must be ready, as we +promised we would be when our own wint to the front."</p> + +<p>O'mie had hit home. Had we not sworn our fealty to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> the flag, and +protection to our town in our boyish patriotism the Summer before?</p> + +<p>"Boys," O'mie went on, "if the storm breaks here in Springvale we've got +to forgit ourselves an' ivery son av us be a hero for the work that's +laid before him. Safe or dangerous, it's duty we must be doin', like the +true sons av a glorious commonwealth, an' we may need to be lightnin' +swift about it, too."</p> + +<p>Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow had come in as O'mie was speaking. We knew +their fathers were bitter Rebels, although the men made a pretence to +loyalty, which kept them in good company. But somehow the boys had not +broken away from young Tell and Jim. From childhood we had been +playmates, and boyish ties are strong. This evening the two seemed to be +burdened with something of which they dared not or would not speak. +There was a sort of defiance about them, such as an enemy may assume +toward one who has been his friend, but whom he means to harm. Was it +the will of Providence made O'mie appeal to them at the right moment?</p> + +<p>"Say, boys," he had a certain Celtic geniality, and a frank winning +smile that was irresistible. "Say, boys, all av the crowd's goin' to +stand together no matter what comes, just as we've done since we learned +how to swim in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. We're goin' to stand +shoulder to shoulder, an' we'll save this town from harm, whativer may +come in betwane, an' whoiver av us it's laid on to suffer, in the ind +we'll win. For why? We are on the right side, an' can count on the same +Power that's carried men aven to the inds av the earth to fight an' die +fur what's right. Will ye be av us, boys? We've niver had no split in +our gang yet. Will ye stay wid us?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tell and Jim looked at each other. Then Tell spoke. He had the right +stuff in him at the last test always.</p> + +<p>"Yes, boys, we will, come what will come."</p> + +<p>Jim grinned at Tell. "I'll stand by Tell, if it kills me," he declared.</p> + +<p>We put little trust in his ability. It is the way of the world to +overlook the stone the Master Builder sometimes finds useful for His +purpose.</p> + +<p>"An' you may need us real soon, too," Tell called back as the two went +out.</p> + +<p>"By cracky, I bet they know more 'n we do," Bud Anderson declared.</p> + +<p>Dave Mead looked serious.</p> + +<p>"Well, I believe they'll hold with us anyhow," he said. "What they know +may help us yet."</p> + +<p>The coming of another tremendous downpour sent us scampering homeward. +O'mie and I had started up the hill together, but the underside of the +clouds fell out just as we reached Judson's gate, and by the time we had +come to Mrs. Whately's we were ready to dive inside for shelter. When +the rain settled down for an all-night stay, Mrs. Whately would wrap us +against it before we left her. She put an old coat of Mr. Whately's on +me. I had gone out in my shirt sleeves. Marjie looked bravely up at my +tall form. I knew she was thinking of him who had worn that coat. The +only thing for O'mie was Marjie's big water proof cloak. The +old-fashioned black-and-silver mix with the glistening black buttons, +such as women wore much in those days. It had a hood effect, with a +changeable red silk lining, fastened at the neck. To my surprise O'mie +made no objection at all to wearing a girl's wrap. But I could never +fully forecast the Irish boy. He drew the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> circular garment round him +and pulled the hood over his head.</p> + +<p>"Come, Philip, me strong protector," he called, "let's be skiting."</p> + +<p>At the door he turned back to Marjie and said in a low voice, "Phil will +mistake me fur a girl an' be wantin' me to go flower-huntin' out on the +West Prairie, but I won't do it."</p> + +<p>Marjie blushed like the June roses, and slammed the door after him. A +moment later she opened it again and held the light to show us the +dripping path to the gate. Framed in the doorway with the light held up +by her round white arm, the dampness putting a softer curl in every +stray lock of her rich brown hair, the roses still blooming on her +cheeks, she sent us away. Too young and sweet-spirited she seemed for +any evil to assail her in the shelter of that home.</p> + +<p>Late at night again the red light of the forge was crossed and re-crossed +by those who moved about inside the shop. Aunt Candace and I had sat +long together talking of the War, and of the raiding on the Kansas +border. She was a balm to my spirit, for she was a strong, fearless +woman, always comforting in the hour of sorrow, and self-possessed in +the face of danger. I wonder how the mothers of Springvale could have +done without her. She decked the brides for their weddings, and tenderly +laid out the dead. The new-born babe she held in her arms, and dying +eyes looking back from the Valley of the Shadow, sought her face. That +night I slept little, and I welcomed the coming of day. When the morning +dawned the world was flooded with sunshine, and a cool steady west wind +blew the town clear of mud and wet, the while the Neosho Valley was +threshed with the swollen, angry waters.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p> + +<p>With the coming of the sunshine the strangers disappeared. Nowhere all +that day were there any but our own town's people to be seen. Some of +these, however, I knew afterwards, were very busy. I remember seeing +Conlow and Mapleson and Dodd sauntering carelessly about in different +parts of the town, especially upon Cliff Street, which was unusual for +them. Just at nightfall the town was filled with strangers again. Yeager +and his companion, who had been water-bound, returned with half a dozen +more to the Cambridge House, and other unknown men were washed in from +the west. That night I saw the red light briefly. Then it disappeared, +and I judged the shop was deserted. I did not dream whose head was +shutting off the light from me, nor whose eyes were peering in through +that crevice in the wall. The night was peacefully beautiful, but its +beauty was a mockery to me, filled as I was with a nameless anxiety. I +had no reason for it, yet I longed for the return of Father Le Claire. +He had not taken Jean with him, and I judged that the Indian was near us +somewhere and in the very storm centre of all this uneasiness.</p> + +<p>At midnight I wakened suddenly. Outside, a black starless sky bent over +a cool, quiet earth. A thick darkness hid all the world. Dead stillness +everywhere. And yet, I listened for a voice to speak again that I was +sure I had heard as I wakened. I waited only a moment. A quick rapping +under my window, and a low eager call came to my ears. I sprang up and +groped my way to the open casement.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter down there?" I called softly.</p> + +<p>"Phil, jump into your clothes and come down just as quick as you can." +It was Tell Mapleson's voice, full<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of suppressed eagerness. "For God's +sake, hurry. It's life and death. Hurry! Hurry!"</p> + +<p>"Run to the side door, Tell, and call Aunt Candace. She'll let you in."</p> + +<p>I heard him make a plunge for the side door. By the time my aunt wakened +to open it, I was down stairs. Tell stood inside the hallway, white and +haggard. Our house was like a stone fort in its security, and Aunt +Candace had fastened the door behind him. She seemed a perfect tower of +strength to me, standing there like a strong guardian of the home.</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute, Tell. We'll save time by knowing what we are about. +What's the matter?" My aunt's voice gave him self-control.</p> + +<p>He held himself by a great effort.</p> + +<p>"There's not a second to lose, but we can't do anything without Phil. He +must lead us. There's been a plot worked up here for three nights in +Conlow's shop, to burn' every Union man's house in town. Preacher Dodd +and that stranger named Yeager and the other fellow that's been stayin' +at the tavern are backin' the whole thing. The men that's been hanging +round here are all in the plot. They're to lay low a little while, and +at two o'clock the blazin's to begin. Jim's run to Anderson's and +Mead's, but we'll do just what Phil says. We'll get the boys together +and you'll tell us what to do. The men'll kill Jim an' me if they find +out we told, but we swore we'd stay by you boys. We'll help clear +through, but don't tell on us. Don't never tell who told on 'em. Please +don't." Tell never had seemed manly to me till that moment. "They're +awful against O'mie. They say he knows too much. He heard 'em talking +too free round the stables. They're<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> after you too, Phil. They think if +they get you out of the way, they can manage all the rest. I heard old +Dodd tell 'em to make sure of John Baronet's cub. Said you were the +worst in town, to come against. They'll kill you if they lay hands on +you. They'll come right here after you."</p> + +<p>"Then they'll go back without him," my aunt said firmly.</p> + +<p>"They say the Indians are to come from the south at daylight," Tell +hurried on, "an' finish up all that's left without homes. They're the +Kiowas. They'll not get here till just about daylight." Tell's teeth +were chattering, and he trembled as with an ague.</p> + +<p>"Worst of all,"—he choked now,—"Whately's home's to be left alone, and +Jean's to get Marjie and carry her off. They hate her father so, they've +let Jean have her. They know she was called over to Judson's late to +stay with Mrs. Judson. He's away, water-bound, and the baby's sick, and +just as she gets home, he's to get her. If she screams, or tries to get +away, he'll scalp her."</p> + +<p>I heard no more. My heart forgot to beat. I had seen Marjie's signal +light at ten o'clock and I was sure of her safety. The candle turned +black before me. The cry of my dreams, Irving Whately's pleading cry, +rang in my ears: "Take care of Marjie, Phil! Keep her from harm!"</p> + +<p>"Phil Baronet, you coward," Tell fairly hissed in my ear, "come and help +us! We can't do a thing without you."</p> + +<p>I, a coward! I sprang to the door and with Tell beside me we sped away +in the darkness. A faint light glimmered in the Whately home. At the +gate, Dave Mead hailed us.</p> + +<p>"It's too late, boys," he whispered, "Jean's gone and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> she's with him. +He rode by me like the devil, going toward the ford. They'll be drowned +and that's better than for her to live. The whole Indian Territory may +be here by morning."</p> + +<p>I lifted my face to the pitiless black sky above me, and a groan, the +agony of a breaking heart, burst from my lips. In that instant, I lived +ages of misery.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phil, what shall we do? The town's full of helpless folks." Dave +caught my arm to steady himself. "Can't you, can't you put us to work?"</p> + +<p>Could I? His appeal brought me to myself. In the right moment the Lord +sends us to our places, and forsakes us not until our task is finished. +On me that night, was laid the duty of leadership in a great crisis; and +He who had called me, gave me power. Every Union household in the town +must be roused and warned of the impending danger. And whatever was done +must be done quickly, noiselessly, and at a risk of life to him who did +it. My plan sprang into being, and Dave and Tell ran to execute it. In a +few minutes we were to meet under the tavern oak. I dashed off toward +the Cambridge House. Uncle Cam had not yet gone to bed.</p> + +<p>"Where's O'mie?" I gasped.</p> + +<p>"I dunno. He flew in here ten minutes or more ago, but he never lit. In +ten seconds he was out again an' gone. He's got some sense an' generally +keeps his red head level. I'm waitin' to see what's up."</p> + +<p>In a word I gave Cam the situation, all except Jean's part. As I hurried +out to meet the boys at the oak, I stumbled against something in the +dense darkness. Cam hastened after me. The flare of the light from the +opening of the door showed a horse, wet and muddy to the throat latch. +It stared at the light in fright and then dashed away in the darkness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p> + +<p>All the boys, Tell and Jim, the Meads, John, Clayton, and Bud +Anderson,—all but O'mie, met in the deep shadow of the oak before the +tavern door. Our plans fell into form with Cam's wiser head to shape +them here and there. The town was districted and each of us took his +portion. In the time that followed, I worked noiselessly, heroically, +taking the most dangerous places for my part. The boys rallied under my +leadership, for they would have it so. Everywhere they depended on my +word to direct them, and they followed my direction to the letter. It +was not I, in myself, but John Baronet's son on whom they relied. My +father's strength and courage and counsel they sought for in me. But all +the time I felt myself to be like a spirit on the edge of doom. I worked +as one who feels that when his task is ended, the blank must begin. Yet +I left nothing undone because of the dead weight on my soul.</p> + +<p>What happened in that hour, can never all be told. And only God himself +could have directed us among our enemies. Since then I have always felt +that the purpose crowns the effort. In Springvale that night was a band +of resolute lawless men, organized and armed, with every foot of their +way mapped out, every name checked, the lintel of every Union doorway +marked, men ready and sworn to do a work of fire and slaughter. Against +them was a group of undisciplined boys, unorganized, surprised, and +unequipped, groping in the darkness full of unseen enemies. But we were +the home-guard, and our own lives were nothing to us, if only we could +save the defenceless.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>THE COST OF SAFETY</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the dark and trying hour,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the breaking forth of power,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In the rush of steeds and men,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His right hand will shield thee then.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—LONGFELLOW.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>It was just half past one o'clock when the sweet-toned bell in the +Presbyterian Church steeple began to ring. Dr. Hemingway was at the rope +in the belfry. His part was to give us our signal. At the first peal the +windows of every Union home blazed with light. The doors were flung wide +open, and a song—one song—rose on the cool still night.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O say, can you see by the dawn's early light</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>It was sung in strong, clear tones as I shall never hear it sung again; +and the echoes of many voices, and the swelling music of that old church +bell, floated down the Neosho Valley, mingling with the rushing of the +turbulent waters.</p> + +<p>It was Cam Gentry's plan, this weapon of light and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> song. The Lord did +have a work for him to do, as Dr. Hemingway had said.</p> + +<p>"Boys," he had counselled us under the oak, "we can't match 'em in a +pitched battle. They're armed an' ready, and you ain't and you can't do +nothing in the dark. But let every house be ready, just as Phil has +planned. Warn them quietly, and when the church bell rings, let every +winder be full of light, every door wide open, and everybody sing."</p> + +<p>He could roar bass himself to be heard across the State line, and that +night he fairly boomed with song.</p> + +<p>"They're dirty cowards, and can't work only in the dark and secret +quiet. Give 'em light and song. Let 'em know we are wide awake and not +afraid, an' if Gideon ever had the Midianites on the hike, you'll have +them pisen Copperheads goin'. They'll never dast to show a coil, the +sarpents! cause that's not the way they fight; an' they'll be wholly +onprepared, and surprised."</p> + +<p>Just before the ringing of the signal bell, the boys had met again by +appointment under the tavern oak. Two things we had agreed upon when we +met there first. One was a pledge of secrecy as to the part of young +Tell and Jim in our work and to the part of Mapleson and Conlow in the +plot, for the sake of their boys, who were loyal to the town. The other +was to say nothing of Jean's act. Marjie was the light of Springvale, +and we knew what the news would mean. We must first save the homes, +quietly and swiftly. Other calamities would follow fast enough. In the +darkness now, Bud Anderson put both arms around me.</p> + +<p>"Phil," he whispered, "you're my king. You muth go to her mother now. In +the morning, your Aunt Candathe will come to her. Maybe in the daylight +we can find Marjie. He can't get far, unleth the river—"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> + +<p>He held me tight in his arms, that manly, tender-hearted boy. Then I +staggered away like one in a dream toward the Whately house. We had not +yet warned Mrs. Whately, for we knew her home was to be spared, and our +hands were full of what must be done on the instant. Time never seemed +so precious to me as in those dreadful minutes when we roused that +sleeping town. I know now how Paul Revere felt when he rode to +Lexington.</p> + +<p>But now my cold knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and +mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to +Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was +no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim +light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not +a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair that was outlined in +the gloom. And a voice, Marjie's sweet voice, called anxiously:</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Phil? I'll be right down." Then the light disappeared, and +I heard the patter of feet on the stairs; then the front door opened and +I walked straight into heaven. For there stood Marjie, safe and strong, +before me—my Marjie, escaped from the grave, or from that living hell +that is worse than death, captivity in the hands of an Indian devil.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Phil?"</p> + +<p>"Marjie, can it be you? How did you ever get back?"</p> + +<p>She looked at me wonderingly.</p> + +<p>"Why, I was only down there at Judson's. The baby's sick and Mrs. Judson +sent for me after ten o'clock. I didn't come away till midnight. She may +send for me again at any minute,—that's why I'm not in bed. I wanted to +stay with her, but she made me come home on mother's account. I ran home +by myself. I wasn't afraid.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> I heard a horse galloping away just before +I got up to the gate. But what is the matter, Phil?"</p> + +<p>I stood there wholly sure now that I was in Paradise. Jean had not tried +to get her after all. She was here, and no harm had touched her. Tell +had not understood. Jean had been in the middle of this night's business +somewhere, I felt sure, but he had done no one any harm. After all he +had been true to his promise to be a good Indian, and Le Claire had +misjudged him.</p> + +<p>"You didn't see who was on the horse, did you?"</p> + +<p>"No. Just as I started from Mrs. Judson's, O'mie came flying by me. He +looked so funny. He had on the waterproof cloak I loaned him last night, +hood and all, and his face was just as white as milk. I thought he was a +girl at first. He called to me almost in a whisper. 'Don't hurry a bit, +Marjie,' he said; 'I'm taking your cloak home.' But I couldn't find it +anywhere about the door. O'mie is always doing the oddest things!"</p> + +<p>Just then the church bell began to ring, and together we put on the +lights and joined in the song. Its inspiration drove everything before +it. I did not stay long with Marjie, however, for there was much for me +to do, and I seemed to have stepped from a world of horror and darkness +into a heaven of light. How I wished O'mie would come in! I had not +found him in all that hour, ages long to us, in which we had done this +much of our work for the town. But I was sure of O'mie.</p> + +<p>"He's doing good business somewhere," I said. "Bless his red head. He'll +never quit so long as there's a thing to do."</p> + +<p>There was no rest for anybody in Springvale that night. As Cam Gentry +had predicted, not a torch blazed; and the attacking party, thrown into +confusion by the sudden blocking of their secret plan of assault, did +not rally. Our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> next task was to make sure against the Indians, the +rumor of whose coming grew everywhere, and the fear of a daybreak +massacre kept us all keyed to the pitch of terrible expectancy.</p> + +<p>The town had four strongholds, the tavern, the Whately store, the +Presbyterian Church, and my father's house. All these buildings were of +stone, with walls of unusual thickness. Into these the women and +children were gathered as soon as we felt sure the enemy in our midst +was outdone. Dr. Hemingway took command of the church. Cam Gentry at his +own door was a host.</p> + +<p>"I can see who goes in and out of the Cambridge House; I reckon, if I +can't tell a Reb from a Bluecoat out in a battle," he declared, as he +opened his doors to the first little group of mothers and children who +came to him for protection. "I can see safety for every one of you +here," he added with that cheery laugh that made us all love him. Aunt +Candace was the strong guardian in our home up on Cliff Street. We +looked for O'mie to take care of the store, but he was nowhere to be +seen and that duty was given to Grandpa Mead, whose fiery Union spirit +did not accord with his halting step and snowy hair.</p> + +<p>A patrol guard was quickly formed, and sentinels were stationed on the +south and west. On the north and east the flooded Neosho was a perfect +wall of water round about us.</p> + +<p>Since that Maytime, I have lived through many days of peril and +suffering, and I have more than once walked bravely as I might along the +path at whose end I knew was an open grave, but never to me has come +another such night of terror. In all the town there were not a dozen +men, loyal supporters of the Union cause, who had a fighting strength. +On the eight stalwart boys, and the quickness and shrewdness of little +O'mie, the salvation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> of Springvale rested. After that awful night I was +never a boy again. Henceforth I was a man, with a man's work and a man's +spirit.</p> + +<p>The daylight was never so welcome before, and never a grander sunrise +filled the earth with its splendor. I was up on the bluff patrolling the +northwest boundary when the dawn began to purple the east. Oh, many a +time have I watched the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, but on this +rare May morning every shaft of light, every tint of roseate beauty +along the horizon, every heap of feathery mist that decked the Plains, +with the Neosho, bank-full, sweeping like molten silver below it—all +these took on a new loveliness. Eagerly, however, I scanned the +southwest where the level beams of day were driving back the gray +morning twilight, and the green prairie billows were swelling out of the +gloom. Point by point, I watched every landmark take form, waiting to +see if each new blot on the landscape might not be the first of the +dreaded Indian bands whose coming we so feared.</p> + +<p>With daybreak, came assurance. Somehow I could not believe that a land +so beautiful and a village so peaceful could be threshed and stained and +blackened by the fire and massacre of a savage band allied to a +disloyal, rebellious host. And yet, I had lived these stormy years in +Kansas and the border strife has never all been told. I dared not relax +my vigilance, so I watched the south and west, trusting to the river to +take care of the east.</p> + +<p>And so it happened that, sentinel as I was, I had not seen the approach +of a horseman from the northwest, until Father Le Claire came upon me +suddenly. His horse was jaded with travel, and he sat it wearily. A +pallor overspread his brown cheeks. His garments were wet and +mud-splashed.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Father Le Claire," I cried, "nobody except my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> own father could be +more welcome. Where have you been?"</p> + +<p>"I am not too late, then!" he exclaimed, ignoring my question. His eyes +quickly took in the town. No smoke was rising from the kitchen fires +this morning, for the homes were deserted. "You are safe still?" He gave +a great gasp of relief. Then he turned and looked steadily into my eyes.</p> + +<p>"It has been bought with a price," he said simply. "Three days ago I +left you a boy. I come back to find you a man. Where's O'mie?"</p> + +<p>"D—down there, I think."</p> + +<p>It dawned on me suddenly that not one of us had seen or heard of O'mie +since he left Tell and Jim at the shop just before midnight. Marjie had +seen him a few minutes later, and so had Cam Gentry. But where was he +after that? Much as we had needed him, we had had no time to hunt for +him. Places had to be filled by those at hand in the dreadful necessity +before us. We could count on O'mie, of course. He was no coward, nor +laggard; but where could he have kept himself?</p> + +<p>"What has happened, Philip?" the priest asked.</p> + +<p>Briefly I told him, ending with the story of the threatening terror of +an Indian invasion.</p> + +<p>"They will not come, Philip. Do not fear. That danger is cut off. The +Kiowas, who were on their way to Springvale, have all turned back and +they are far away. I know."</p> + +<p>His assurance was balm to my soul. And my nerves, on the rack for these +three days, with the culmination of the last six hours seemed suddenly +to snap within me.</p> + +<p>"Go home and rest now," said Father Le Claire. "I will take the word +along the line. Come down to the tavern at nine o'clock."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p> + +<p>Aunt Candace had hot coffee and biscuit and maple syrup from old +Vermont, with ham and eggs, all ready for me. The blessed comfort of a +home, safe from harm once more, filled me with a sense of rest. Not +until it was lifted did I realize how heavy was the burden I had carried +through those May nights and days.</p> + +<p>Long before nine o'clock, the tavern yard was full of excited people, +all eagerly talking of the events of the last few hours. We had hardly +taken our bearings yet, but we had an assurance that the perils of the +night no longer threatened us. The strange men who had filled the town +the evening before had all disappeared, but in the company here were +many whom we knew to be enemies in the dark. Yet they mingled boldly +with the others, assuming a loyalty for their own purposes. In the +crowd, too, was Jean Pahusca, impenetrable of countenance, indifferent +to the occasion as a thing that could not concern him. His red blanket +was gone and his leather trousers and dark flannel shirt displayed his +superb muscular form. There was no knife in his belt now, and he carried +no other weapon. With his soft dark hair and the ruddy color showing in +his cheeks, he was dangerously handsome to a romantic eye. Among all its +enemies, he had been loyal to Springvale. My better self rebuked my +distrust, and my heart softened toward him. His plan with the raiders to +seize Marjie must have been his crude notion of saving her from a worse +peril. When he knew she was safe he had dropped out of sight in the +darkness.</p> + +<p>The boys who had done the work of the night before suddenly became +heroes. Not all of us had come together here, however. Tell was keeping +store up at the "Last Chance," and Jim was seeing to the forge fire, +while the father of each boy sauntered about in the tavern yard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You won't tell anybody about father," Tell pleaded before he left us. +"He never planned it, indeed he didn't. It was old man Dodd and Yeager +and them other strangers."</p> + +<p>I can picture now the Reverend Mr. Dodd, piously serious, sitting on the +tavern veranda at that moment, a disinterested listener to what lay +below his spiritual plane of life. Just above his temple was a deep +bruise, and his right hand was bound with a white bandage. Five years +later, one dark September night, by the dry bed of the Arickaree Creek +in Colorado, I heard the story of that bandage and that bruise.</p> + +<p>"And you'll be sure to keep still about my dad, too, won't you?" Jim +Conlow urged. "He's bad, but—" as if he could find no other excuse, he +added grinning, "I don't believe he's right bright; and Tell and me done +our best anyhow."</p> + +<p>Their best! These two had braved the worst of foes, with those of their +own flesh and blood against them. We would keep their secret fast +enough, nor should anyone know from the boys who of our own townspeople +were in the plot. I believe now that Conlow would have killed Jim had he +suspected the boy's part in that night's work. I have never broken faith +with Jim, although Heaven knows I have had cause enough to wish never to +hear the name of Conlow again.</p> + +<p>One more boy was not in our line, O'mie, still missing from the ranks, +and now my heart was heavy. Everybody else seemed to forget him in the +excitement, however, and I hoped all was well.</p> + +<p>On the veranda a group was crowding about Father Le Claire, listening to +what he had to say. Nobody tried to do business in our town that day. +Men and women and children stood about in groups, glad to be alive and +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> know that their homes were safe. It was a sight one may not see +twice in a lifetime. And the thrill within me, that I had helped a +little toward this safety, brought a pleasure unlike any other joy I +have ever known.</p> + +<p>"Where's Aunt Candace?" I asked Dollie Gentry, who had grasped my arm as +if she would ring it from my shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't you heard?" Dollie's eyes filled with tears. "Judson's baby died +this mornin'. Judson he can't get across Fingal's Creek or some of the +draws, to get home, and the fright last night was too much for Mis' +Judson. She fainted away, an' when she come to, the baby was dead. I'm +cookin' a good meal for all of 'em. Land knows, carin' for the little +corpse is all they can do without botherin' to cook."</p> + +<p>Good Mrs. Gentry used her one talent for everybody's comfort. And as for +the Judsons, theirs was one of the wayside tragedies that keep ever +alongside the line of civil strife.</p> + +<p>They made room for us on the veranda, six husky Kansas bred fellows, +hardly more than half-way through our teens, and we fell in with the +group about Father Le Claire. He gave us a searching glance, and his +face clouded. Good Dr. Hemingway beside him was eager for his story.</p> + +<p>"Tell us the whole thing," he urged. "Then we can understand our part in +it. Surely the arm of the Lord was not shortened for us last night."</p> + +<p>"It is a strange story, Dr. Hemingway, with a strange and tragic +ending," replied the priest. He related then the plot which O'mie had +heard set forth by the strangers in our town. "I left at once to warn +the Osages, believing I could return before last night."</p> + +<p>"Them Osages is a cussed ornery lot, if that Jean out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> on the edge of +the crowd there is a sample," a man from the west side of town broke in.</p> + +<p>"They are true blue, and Jean is not an Osage; he's a Kiowa," Le Claire +replied quietly.</p> + +<p>"What of him ain't French," declared Cam Gentry. "That's where his +durned meanness comes in biggest. Not but what a Kiowa's rotten enough. +But sence he didn't seem to take part in this doings last night, I guess +we can stand him a little while longer."</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire's face flushed. Then a pallor overspread the flame. +His likeness to the Indian flashed up with that flush. So had I seen +Pahusca flush with anger, and a paleness cover his coppery countenance. +Self-mastery was a part of the good man's religion, however, and in a +voice calm but full of sympathy he told us of the tragic events whose +evil promise had overshadowed our town with an awful peril.</p> + +<p>It was a well-planned, cold-blooded horror, this scheme of the Southern +Confederacy, to unite the fierce tribes of the Southwest against the +unprotected Union frontier. And with the border raiders on the one side +and the hostile Indians on the other, small chance of life would have +been left to any Union man, woman, or child in all this wide, beautiful +Kansas. In the four years of the Civil War no cruelty could have +exceeded the consequences of this conspiracy.</p> + +<p>Unity of purpose has ever been lacking to the red race. No federation +has been possible to it except as that federation is controlled by the +European brain. The controlling power in the execution of this dastardly +crime lay with desperate but eminently able white men. Their appeal to +the Osages, however, was a fruitless one. For a third of a century the +faithful Jesuits had labored with this tribe. Not in vain was their +seed-sowing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p> + +<p>Le Claire reached the Osages only an hour before an emissary from the +leaders of this infamous plot came to the Mission. The presence of the +priest counted so mightily, that this call to an Indian confederacy fell +upon deaf ears, and the messenger departed to rejoin his superiors. He +never found them, for a sudden and tragic ending had come to the +conspiracy.</p> + +<p>It was a busy day in Kansas annals when that company of Rebel officers +came riding up from the South to band together the lawless savages and +the outlawed raiders against a loyal commonwealth. Humboldt was the most +southern Union garrison in Kansas at that time. South of it the Osages +did much scout duty for the Government, and it held them responsible for +any invasion of this strip of neutral soil between the North and the +South. Out in the Verdigris River country, in this Maytime, a little +company of Osage braves on the way from their village to visit the +Mission came face to face with this band of invaders in the neutral +land. The presence of a score of strange men armed and mounted, though +they were dressed as Union soldiers, must be accounted for, these +Indians reasoned.</p> + +<p>The scouts were moved only by an unlettered loyalty to the flag. They +had no notion of the real purpose of these invaders. The white men had +only contempt for the authority of a handful of red men calling them to +account, and they foolishly fired into the Indian band. It was a fatal +foolishness. Two braves fell to the earth, pierced by their bullets. The +little body of red men dropped over on the sides of their ponies and +were soon beyond gun range, while their opponents went on their way. But +briefly only, for, reinforced by a hundred painted braves, the whole +fighting strength of their little village, the Osages came out for +vengeance. Near a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> bend in the Verdigris River the two forces came +together. Across a scope five miles wide they battled. The white men +must have died bravely, for they fought stubbornly, foot by foot, as the +Indians drove them into that fatal loop of the river. It is deep and +swift here. Down on the sands by its very edge they fell. Not a white +man escaped. The Indians, after their savage fashion, gathered the +booty, leaving a score of naked, mutilated bodies by the river's side. +It was a cruel bit of Western warfare, yet it held back from Kansas a +diabolical outrage, whose suffering and horror only those who know the +Southwest tribes can picture. And strangely enough, the power that +stayed the evil lay with a handful of faithful Indian scouts.</p> + +<p>The story of the massacre soon reached the Mission. Dreadful as it was, +it lifted a burden from Le Claire's mind; but the news that the +Comanches and the Kiowas, unable to restrain their tribes, were already +on the war-path, filed him with dread.</p> + +<p>A twenty-four hours' rain, with cloudbursts along the way, was now +sending the Neosho and Verdigris Rivers miles wide, across their +valleys. It was impossible for him to intercept these tribes until the +stream should fall. The priest perfected his plans for overtaking them +by swift messengers to be sent out from the Mission at the earliest +moment, and then he turned his horse upstream toward Springvale. All day +he rode with all speed to the northward. The ways were sodden with the +heavy rains, and the smaller streams were troublesome to the horseman. +Night fell long before he had come to the upper Neosho Valley. With the +darkness his anxiety deepened. A thousand chances might befall to bring +disaster before he could reach us.</p> + +<p>The hours of the black night dragged on, and northward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> still the priest +hurried. It was long after midnight when he found himself on the bluff +opposite the town. Between him and Springvale the Neosho rushed madly, +and the oak grove of the bottom land was only black treetops above, and +water below. All hope of a safe passage across the river here vanished, +for he durst not try the angry waters.</p> + +<p>"There must have been heavier rains here than down the stream," he +thought. "Pray Heaven the messengers may reach the Kiowas before they +fall upon any of the settlements in the south. I must go farther up to +cross. O God, grant that no evil may threaten that town over there!"</p> + +<p>Turning to look once more at the dark valley his eye caught a gleam of +light far down the river.</p> + +<p>"That must be Jean down at the Hermit's Hole," he said to himself. "I +wonder I never tried to follow him there. But if he's down the river it +is better for Springvale, anyhow."</p> + +<p>All this the priest told to the eager crowd on the veranda of the +Cambridge House that morning. But regarding the light and his thought of +it, he did not tell us then, nor how, through all and all, his great +fear for Springvale was on account of Jean Pahusca's presence there. He +knew the Indian's power; and now that the fierce passion of love for a +girl and hatred of a rival, were at fever pitch, he dared not think what +might follow, neither did he tell us how bitterly he was upbraiding +himself for having charged O'mie with secrecy.</p> + +<p>He had not yet caught sight of the Irish boy; and Jean, who had himself +kept clear of the evil intent against Springvale the night before, had +studiously kept the crowd between the priest and himself. We did not +note this then, for we were spell-bound by the story of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> Confederate +conspiracy and of Father Le Claire's efforts for our safety.</p> + +<p>"The Kiowas, who were on the war-path, have been cut off by the +Verdigris," he concluded. "The waters, that kept me away from Springvale +on this side, kept them off in the southwest. The Osages did us God's +service in our peril, albeit their means were cruel after the manner of +the savage."</p> + +<p>A silence fell upon the group on the veranda, as the enormity of what we +had escaped dawned upon us.</p> + +<p>"Let us thank God that in his ways, past finding out, He has not +forsaken his children." Dr. Hemingway spoke fervently.</p> + +<p>I looked out on the broad street and down toward the river shining in +the May sunlight. The air was very fresh and sweet. The oak trees, were +in their heaviest green, and in the glorious light of day the commonest +things in this little frontier town looked good to me. Across my vision +there swept the picture of that wide, swift-flowing Verdigris River, and +of the dead whose blood stained darkly that fatal sand-bar, their naked +bodies hacked by savage fury, waiting the coming of pitiful hands to +give them shelter in the bosom of the earth. And then I thought of all +these beautiful prairies which the plough was beginning to subdue, of +the homesteads whose chimney smoke I had seen many a morning from my +windows up on Cliff Street. I thought of the little towns and +unprotected villages, and of what an Indian raid would mean to +these,—of murdered men and burning houses, and women dragged away into +a slavery too awful to picture. I thought of Marjie and of what she had +escaped. And then clear, as if he were beside me, I heard O'mie's voice:</p> + +<p>"Phil, oh, Phil, come, come!" it pleaded.</p> + +<p>I started up and stared around me.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Also Time runnin' into years—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A thousand Places left be'ind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An' Men from both two 'emispheres</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Discussin' things of every kind;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So much more near than I 'ad known,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So much more great than I 'ad guessed—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">An' me, like all the rest, alone,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But reachin' out to all the rest!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—KIPLING.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>"Uncle Cam, where is O'mie? I haven't seen him yet," I broke in upon the +older men in the council. "Could anything have happened to him?"</p> + +<p>The priest rose hurriedly.</p> + +<p>"I have been hoping to see him every minute," he said. "Has anybody seen +him this morning?"</p> + +<p>A flurry followed. Everybody thought he had seen somebody else who had +been with O'mie, but nobody, first hand, could report of him.</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought he was with the boys," Cam Gentry exclaimed. "Nobody +could keep track of nobody else last night."</p> + +<p>"I thought I saw him this morning," said Dr. Hemingway. +"But"—hesitatingly—"I do not believe I did either. I just had him in +mind as I watched Henry Anderson's boys go by."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p> + +<p>"All three of us are not equal to one O'mie," Clayton Anderson declared.</p> + +<p>"What part of town did he have, Philip?" asked Le Claire.</p> + +<p>"No part," I answered. "We had to take the boys that were out there +under the oak."</p> + +<p>Dr. Hemingway called a council at once, and all who knew anything of the +missing boy reported. I could give what had been told to Aunt Candace +and myself only in a general way, in order to shield Tell Mapleson. Cam +had seen O'mie only a minute, just before midnight.</p> + +<p>"He went racin' out draggin' somethin' after him, an' jumped over the +porch railin' here," pointing to the north, "stid o' goin' down the +steps. O'mie's double-geared lightin' for quickness anyhow, but last +night he jist made lightnin' seem slow the way he got off the +reservation an' into the street. It roused me up. I was half asleep +settin' here waitin' to put them strangers to bed again. So I set up an' +waited fur the boy to show up an' apologize fur his not bein' no +quicker, when in comes Phil; an' ye all know the rest. I've not laid an +eye on O'mie sence, but bein' short on range I took it he was here but +out of sight. Oh, Lord!" Cam groaned, "can anything have happened to +him?"</p> + +<p>While Cam was speaking I noticed that Jean Pahusca who had been loafing +about at the far side of the crowd, was standing behind Father Le +Claire. No one could have told from his set, still face what his +thoughts were just then.</p> + +<p>The last one who had seen O'mie was Marjie.</p> + +<p>"I had left the door open so I could find the way better," she said. "At +the gate O'mie came running up. I thought he was a girl, for he had my +cloak around him and the hood over his head. His face was very white.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I supposed it was just the light behind me, made it look so, for he +wasn't the least bit scared. He called to me twice. 'Don't hurry,' he +said; 'I'm taking your cloak home.' Mrs. Judson shut the door just then, +thinking I had gone on, and I ran home, but O'mie flew ahead of me. Just +before I came around the corner I heard a horse start up and dash off to +the river. I ran in to mother and shut the door."</p> + +<p>"I met a horse down by the river as I ran to grandpa's after Bill. He +was staying over there last night." It was Dave Mead who spoke. "I made +a grab at the rein. I was crazy to think of such a thing, but—" Dave +didn't say why he tried to stop the horse, for that would mean to repeat +what Tell had told us, and we had to keep Tell's part to ourselves. "The +horse knocked me twenty feet and tore off toward the river."</p> + +<p>And then for the first time we noticed Dave Mead's right arm in a sling. +Too much was asked of us in those hours for us to note the things that +mark our common days.</p> + +<p>"It put my shoulder out of place," Dave said simply. "Didn't get it in +again for so long, it's pretty sore. I was too busy to think about it at +first."</p> + +<p>Dave Mead never put his right hand to his head again. And to-day, if the +broad-shouldered, fine-looking American should meet you on the streets +of Hong Kong, he would offer you his left hand. For hours he forgot +himself to save others. It is his like that have filled Kansas and made +her story a record of heroism like to the story of no other State in all +the nation.</p> + +<p>But as to O'mie we could find nothing. There was something strange and +unusual about his returning the borrowed cloak at that late hour. The +whole thing was so unlike O'mie.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> + +<p>"They've killed him and put him in the river," wailed Dollie Gentry.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid he's been foully dealt with. They suspected he knew too +much," and Dr. Hemingway bowed his head in sorrow.</p> + +<p>"He's run straight into a coil of them pisen Copperheads an' they've +made way with him; an' to think we hadn't missed him," sobbed Cam in his +chair.</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire gripped his hands, and his face grew as expressionless +as the Indian's behind him. It dawned upon us now that O'mie was lost, +there was no knowing how. O'mie, who belonged to the town and was loved +as few orphan boys are loved. Oh, any of us would have suffered for him, +and to think that he should be made the victim of rebel hate, that the +blow should fall on him who had given no offence. All his manliness, his +abounding kindness, his sunny smile and joy in living, swept up in +memory in the instant. Instinctively the boys drew near to one another, +and there came back to me the memory of that pathetic look in his eyes +as we talked of our troubles down in the tavern stables two nights +before: "Whoiver it's laid on to suffer," I could almost hear him saying +it. And then I did hear his voice, low and clear, a faint call again, as +I had heard it before.</p> + +<p>"Phil, oh Phil, come!"</p> + +<p>It shot through my brain like an arrow. I turned and seized Le Claire by +the hand.</p> + +<p>"O'mie's not dead," I cried. "He's alive somewhere, and I'm going to +find him."</p> + +<p>"You bet your life he'th not dead," Bud Anderson echoed me. "Come on."</p> + +<p>The boys with Le Claire started in a body through the crowd; a shout +went up, a sudden determination that O'mie must be alive seemed to +possess Springvale.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Stay with Cam and Dollie," Le Claire turned Dr. Hemingway back with a +word. "They need you now. We can do all that can be done."</p> + +<p>He strode ahead of us; a stalwart leader of men he would make in any +fray. It flashed into my mind that it was not the Kiowa Indian blood +that made Jean Pahusca seem so stately and strong as he strode down the +streets of Springvale. A red blanket over Le Claire's broad shoulders +would have deceived us into thinking it was the Indian brave leading on +before us.</p> + +<p>The river was falling rapidly, and the banks were slimy. Fingal's Creek +was almost at its usual level and the silt was crusting along its +bedraggled borders. Just above where it empties into the Neosho we noted +a freshly broken embankment as though some weight had crushed over the +side and carried a portion of the bank with it. Puddles of water and +black mud filled the little hollows everywhere. Into one of these I +stepped as we were eagerly searching for a trace of the lost boy. My +foot stuck to something soft like a garment in the puddle. I kicked it +out, and a jet button shone in the ooze. I stooped and lifted the grimy +thing. It was Marjie's cloak.</p> + +<p>"This is the last of O'mie," Dave Mead spoke reverently.</p> + +<p>"Here's where they pushed him in," said John Anderson pointing to the +break in the bank.</p> + +<p>There was a buzzing in my ears, and the sunlight on the river was +dancing in ten thousand hideous curls and twists. The last of O'mie, +until maybe, a bloated sodden body might be found half buried in some +flood-wrought sand-bar. The May morning was a mockery, and every green +growing leaf seemed to be using the life force that should be in him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, there's where he went in." It was Father Le Claire's voice now, +"but he fought hard for his life."</p> + +<p>"Yeth, and by George, yonder'th where he come out. Thee that thaplin' +on the bank? It'th thplit, but it didn't break; an' that bank'th brokener'n +thith."</p> + +<p>Oh, blessed Bud! His tow head will always wear a crown to me.</p> + +<p>On the farther bank a struggle had wrenched the young trees and shrubs +away and a slide of slime marked where the victim of the waters had +fought for life. We knew how to swim, and we crossed the swollen creek +in a rush. But here all trace disappeared. Something or somebody had +climbed the bank. A horse's hoofs showed in the mud, but on the ground +beyond the horse's feet had not seemed to leave a track. The cruel +ruffians must have pushed him back when he tried to gain the bank here. +We hunted and hunted, but to no avail. No other mark of O'mie's having +passed beyond the creek could be found.</p> + +<p>It was nearly sunset before we came back to town. Not a mouthful had +been eaten, and with the tenseness of the night's excitement stretching +every nerve, the loss of sleep, the constant searching, and the +heaviness of despair, mud-stained, wearied, and haggard, we dragged +ourselves to the tavern again. Other searchers had been going in +different directions. In one of these parties, useful, quick and wisely +counselling, was Jean Pahusca. His companions were loud in their praise +of his efforts. The Red Range neighborhood had received the word at noon +and turned out in a mass, women and children joining in the quest. But +it was all in vain. Wild theories filled the air, stories of strangers +struggling with somebody in the dark; the sound of screams and of some +one running away. But none of these stories could be substantiated. And +all the while what Tell Mapleson had said to Aunt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> Candace and me when +he came to warn us, kept repeating itself to me. "They're awful against +O'mie. They think he knows too much."</p> + +<p>Early the next morning the search was renewed, but at nightfall no +further trace of the lost boy had been discovered. On the second +evening, when we gathered at the Cambridge House, Dr. Hemingway urged us +to take a little rest, and asked that we come later to a prayer meeting +in the church.</p> + +<p>"O'mie is our one sacrifice beside the dear little babe of Judson's. All +the rest of us have been spared to life, and our homes have been +protected. We must look to the Lord for comfort now, and thank Him for +His goodness to us."</p> + +<p>Then the Rev. Mr. Dodd spoke sneeringly:</p> + +<p>"You've made a big ado for two days about a little coward who cut and +run at the first sound of danger. Disguised himself like a girl to do +it. He will come sneaking in fast enough when he finds the danger is +over. A lot of us around town are too wise to be deceived. The Lord did +save us," how piously he spoke, "but we should not disgrace ourselves."</p> + +<p>He got no further. I had been leaning limply against the veranda post, +for even my strength was giving way, more under the mental strain than +the physical tax. But at the preacher's words all the blood of my +fighting ancestry took fire. There was a Baronet with Cromwell's +Ironsides, the regiment that was never defeated in battle. There was a +Baronet color-bearer at Bunker Hill and later at Saratoga, and it was a +Baronet who waited till the last boat crossed the Delaware when +Washington led his forces to safety. There were Baronets with Perry on +Lake Erie, and at that moment my father was fighting for the life of a +nation. I cleared the space between us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> at a bound, and catching the +Reverend Dodd by throat and thigh, I lifted him clear of the railing and +flung him sprawling on the blue-grass.</p> + +<p>"If you ever say another word against O'mie I'll break your neck," I +cried, as he landed.</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire was beside him at once.</p> + +<p>"He's killed me," groaned Dodd.</p> + +<p>"Then he ought to bury his dead," Dr. Hemingway said coldly, which was +the only time the good old man was ever known to speak unkindly to any +one among us.</p> + +<p>The fallen preacher gathered himself together and slipped away.</p> + +<p>Dollie Gentry had a royal supper for everybody that night. Jean Pahusca +sat by Father Le Claire with us at the long table in the dining-room. +Again my conscience, which upbraided me for doubting him, and my +instinct, which warned me to beware of him, had their battle within me.</p> + +<p>"I just had to do something or I'd have jumped into the Neosho myself," +Dollie explained in apology for the abundant meal, as if cooking were +too worldly for that grave time. "I know now," she said, "how that poor +woman felt whose little boy was took by the Kiowas years ago out on the +West Prairie. They said she did jump into the river. Anyhow, she +disappeared."</p> + +<p>"Did you know her or her husband?" Father Le Claire asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, in a way," Dollie replied. "He was a big, fine-looking man built +some like you, an' dark. He was a Frenchman. She was a little, +small-boned woman. I saw her in the 'Last Chance' store the day she got +here from the East. She was fair and had red hair, I should say; but +they said the woman that drowned herself was a black-haired French +woman. She didn't look French<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> to me. She lived in that little cabin up +around the bend toward Red Range, poor dear! That cabin's always been +haunted, they say."</p> + +<p>"Was she never heard of again?" the priest went on. We thought he was +keeping Dollie's mind off O'mie.</p> + +<p>"Ner him neither. He cut out west toward Santy Fee with some Mexican +traders goin' home from Westport. I heard he left 'em at Pawnee Rock, +where they had a regular battle with the Kiowas; some thought he might +have been killed by the Kiowas, and others by the Mexicans. Anyhow, he +never was heard of in Springvale no more."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Gentry," Le Claire asked abruptly, "where did you find O'mie?"</p> + +<p>"Why, we've had him so long I forget we never hadn't him." Dollie seemed +confused, for O'mie was a part of her life. "He was brought up here from +the South by a missionary. Seems to me he found the little feller (he +was only five years old) trudgin' off alone, an' sayin' he wouldn't stay +at the Mission 'cause there was Injuns there. Said the Injuns killed his +father, an' he kicked an' squalled till the missionary just brought him +up here. He was on his way to St. Mary's, up on the Kaw, an' he was +takin' the little one on with him. He stopped here with O'mie an' the +little feller was hungry—"</p> + +<p>"And you fed him; naked, and you clothed him," the priest added +reverently.</p> + +<p>"Poor O'mie!" and Dollie made a dive for the kitchen to weep out her +grief alone.</p> + +<p>It seemed to settle upon Springvale that O'mie was lost; had been +overcome in some way by the murderous raiders who had infested our town.</p> + +<p>In sheer weariness and hopelessness I fell on my bed, that night, and +sleep, the "sleep that knits up the ravelled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> sleave of care," fell upon +me. Just at daybreak I woke with a start. I had not dreamed once all +night, but now, wide awake, with my face to the open east window where +the rose tint of a grand new day was deepening into purple on the +horizon's edge, feeling and knowing everything perfectly, I saw O'mie's +face before me, white and drawn with pain, but gloriously brave. And his +pleading voice, "Phil, ye'll come soon, won't ye?" sounded low and clear +in my ears.</p> + +<p>I sprang up and dressed myself. I was so sure of O'mie, I could hardly +wait to begin another search. Something seemed to impel me to speed. "He +won't last long," was a vague, persistent thought that haunted me.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Phil?" my aunt called as I passed her door.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Candace, it's O'mie. He's not dead yet, I'm sure. But I must go at +once and hunt again."</p> + +<p>"Where will you go now?" she queried.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. I'm just being led," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Phil," Aunt Candace was at the door now, "have you thought of the +Hermit's Cave?"</p> + +<p>Her words went through me like a sword-thrust.</p> + +<p>"Why, why,—oh, Aunt Candace, let me think a minute."</p> + +<p>"I've been thinking for twelve hours," said my aunt. "Until you try that +place don't give up the hunt."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know how to get there."</p> + +<p>"Then make a way. You are not less able to do impossible things than the +Pilgrim Fathers were. If you ever find O'mie it will be in that place. I +feel it, I can't say why. But, Phil, you will need the boys and Father +Le Claire. Take time to get breakfast and get yourself together. You +will need all your energy. Don't squander it the first thing."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span></p> + +<p>Dear Aunt Candace! This many a year has her grave been green in the +Springvale cemetery, but greener still is her memory in the hearts of +those who knew her. She had what the scholars of to-day strive to +possess—the power of poise.</p> + +<p>I ate my breakfast as calmly as I could, and before I left home Aunt +Candace made me read the Ninety-first Psalm. Then she kissed me good-bye +and bade me God-speed. Something kept telling me to hurry, hurry, as I +tried to be deliberate, and quickened my thought and my step. At the +tavern Cam Gentry met us.</p> + +<p>"It ain't no use to try, boys, O'mie's down in the river where the +cussed Copperheads put him; but you're good to keep tryin'." He sat down +in a helpless resignation, so unlike his natural buoyant spirit it was +hard to believe that this was the same Cam we had always known.</p> + +<p>"Judson's baby's to be buried to-day, but we can't even bury O'mie. Oh, +it's cruel hard." Cam groaned in his chair.</p> + +<p>The dew had not ceased to glitter, and the sun was hardly more than +risen when Father Le Claire and the crowd of boys, reinforced now by +Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow, started bravely out, determined to find +the boy who had been missing for what seemed ages to us.</p> + +<p>"If we find O'mie, we'll send word by the fastest runner, and you must +ring the church bell," Le Claire arranged with Cam. "All the town can +have the word at once then."</p> + +<p>"We'll go to the Hermit's Cave first," I announced.</p> + +<p>The company agreed, but only Bud Anderson seemed to feel as I did. To +the others it was a wasted bit of heroism, for if none of us had yet +found the way to this retreat, why should we look for O'mie there? So +the boys argued as we hurried to the river. The Neosho was inside<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> its +banks again, but, deep and swift and muddy, it swept silently by us who +longed to know its secrets.</p> + +<p>"Philip, why do you consider the cave possible?" Le Claire asked as we +followed the river towards the cliff.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Candace says so," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's worth the trial if only to prove a woman's intuition—or +whim," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>The same old cliff confronted us, although the many uprooted trees +showed a jagged outcrop this side the sheer wall. We looked up +helplessly at the height. It seemed foolish to think of O'mie being in +that inaccessible spot.</p> + +<p>"If he is up there," Dave Mead urged, "and we can get to him, it will be +to put him alongside Judson's baby this afternoon."</p> + +<p>All the other boys were for turning back and hunting about Fingal's +Creek again, all except Bud. Such a pink and white boy he was, with a +dimple in each cheek and a blowsy tow head.</p> + +<p>"Will you stay with me, Bud, till I get up there?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>"Yeth thir! or down there. Let'th go round an' try the other thide."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess we'll all stay with Phil, you cottontop," Tell Mapleson +put in.</p> + +<p>We all began to circle round the bluff to get beyond this steep, +forbidding wall. Our plan was to go down the river beyond the cave, and +try to climb up from that point. Crossing along by the edge of the bluff +we passed the steepest part and were coming again to where the treetops +and bushes that clung to the side of the high wall reached above the +crest, as they do across the street from my own home. Just ahead of us, +as we hurried, I caught sight of a flat slab of the shelving rock +slipped<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> aside and barely balancing on the edge, one end of it bending +down the treetops as if newly slid into that place. All about the stone +the thin sod of the bluff's top was cut and trampled as if a struggle +had been there. We examined it carefully. A horse's tracks were plainly +to be seen.</p> + +<p>"Something happened here," Le Claire said. "Looks like a horse had been +urged up to the very edge and had kept pulling back."</p> + +<p>"And that stone is just slipped from its place," Clayton Anderson +declared. "Something has happened here since the rains."</p> + +<p>As we came to the edge, we saw a pile of earth recently scraped from the +stone outcrop above.</p> + +<p>"Somebody or something went over here not long ago," I cried.</p> + +<p>"Look out, Phil," Bill Mead called, "or somebody else will follow +somebody before 'em—"</p> + +<p>Bill's warning came too late. I had stepped on the balanced slab. It +tipped and went over the side with a crash. I caught at the edge and +missed it, but the effort threw me toward the cliff and I slid twenty +feet. The bushes seemed to part as by a well-made opening and I caught a +strong limb, and gained my balance. I looked back at the way I had come. +And then I gave a great shout. The anxious faces peering down at me +changed a little.</p> + +<p>"What is it?" came the query.</p> + +<p>I pointed upward.</p> + +<p>"The nicest set of hand-holds and steps clear up," I called. "You can't +see for the shelf. But right under there where Bud's head is, is the +best place to get a grip and there's a foothold all the way down." I +stared up again. "There's a rope fastened right under there. Bend<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> over, +Bud, careful, and you'll find it. It will let you over to the steps. +Swing in on it."</p> + +<p>In truth, a set of points for hand and foot partly natural, partly cut +there, rude but safe enough for boy climbers like ourselves, led down to +my tree lodge.</p> + +<p>"And what's below you?" shouted Tell.</p> + +<p>"Another tree like this. I don't know how far down if you jump right," I +answered back.</p> + +<p>"Well, jump right, for I'm nekth. Ever thee a tow-headed flying +thquirrel?" And Bud was shinning down over the edge clawing tightly the +stone points of vantage.</p> + +<p>Many a time in these sixty years have I seen a difficult and dreaded way +grow suddenly easy when the time came to travel it. When we were only +boys idling away the long summer afternoons the cliff was always +impossible. We had rarely tried the downward route, and from below with +the river, always dangerously deep and swift, at the base, our exploring +had brought failure. That hand-hold of leather thongs, braided into a +rope and fastened securely under the ledge out of sight from above, gave +the one who knew how the easy passage to the points of rock. Then for +nearly a hundred feet zigzagging up stream by leaping cautiously to the +right place, by clinging and swinging, the way opened before us. I took +the first twenty feet at a slide. The others caught the leather rope, +testing to see if it was securely fastened. Its two ends were tied +around the deeply grooved stone.</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire and Jim Conlow stayed at the top. The one to help us +back again; the other, as the swiftest-footed boy among us, to run to +town with any message needful to be sent. The rest of us, taking all +manner of fearful risks, crashed down over the side of that bluff in +headlong haste.</p> + +<p>The Hermit's Cave opened on a narrow ledge such as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> runs below the +"Rockport" point, where Marjie and I used to play, off Cliff Street. We +reached this ledge at last, hot and breathless, hardly able to realize +that we were really here in the place that had baffled us so long. It +was an almost inaccessible climb to the crest above us, and the cliff +had to be taken at an angle even then. I believe any one accustomed only +to the prairie would never have dared to try it.</p> + +<p>The Hermit's Cave was merely a deep recess under the overhanging shelf. +It penetrated far enough to offer a retreat from the weather. The thick +tangle of vines before it so concealed the place that it was difficult +to find it at first. Just beyond it the rock projected over the line of +wall and overhung the river. It was on this point that the old Hermit +had been wont to sit, and from which tradition says he fell to his doom. +It was here we had seen Jean Pahusca on that hot August afternoon the +summer before. How long ago all that seemed now as the memory of it +flashed up in my mind, and I recalled O'mie's quiet boast, "If he can +get up there, so can I!"</p> + +<p>I was a careless boy that day. I felt myself a man now, with human +destiny resting on my shoulders. As we came to this rocky projection I +was leading the file of cliff-climbers. The cave was concealed by the +greenery. I stared about and then I called, "O'mie! O'mie!"</p> + +<p>Faintly, just beside me, came the reply: "Phil, you 've come? Thank +God!"</p> + +<p>I tore through the bushes and vines into the deep recess. The dimness +blinded me at first. What I saw when the glare left my eyes was O'mie +stretched on the bare stones, bound hand and foot. His eyes were burning +like stars in the gloom. His face was white and drawn with suffering, +but he looked up bravely and smiled upon me as I bent over him to lift +him. Before I could speak,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> Bud had cut the bands and freed him. He +could not move, and I lifted him like a child in my strong arms.</p> + +<p>"Is the town safe?" he asked feebly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, now we've found you," Dave Mead replied.</p> + +<p>"How did you get here, O'mie?" Clayton Anderson asked.</p> + +<p>But O'mie, lying limply in my arms, murmured deliriously of the ladder +by the shop, and wondered feebly if it could reach from the river up to +the Hermit's Cave. Then his head fell forward and he lay as one dead on +my knee.</p> + +<p>A year before we would have been a noisy crew that worked our way to +this all but inaccessible place, and we would have filled the valley +with whoops of surprise at finding anything in the cavern. To-day we +hardly spoke as we carried O'mie out into the light. He shivered a +little, though still unconscious, and then I felt the hot fever begin to +pulse throughout his body.</p> + +<p>Dave Mead was half way up the cliff to Father Le Claire. Out on the +point John Anderson waved, to the crest above, the simple message, +"We've found him."</p> + +<p>Bud dived into the cavern and brought out an empty jug, relic of Jean +Pahusca's habitation there.</p> + +<p>"What he needth ith water," Bud declared. "I'll bet he'th not had a drop +for two dayth."</p> + +<p>"How can you get some, Bud? We can't reach the river from here," I said.</p> + +<p>"Bah! all mud, anyhow. I'll climb till I find a thpring. They're all +around in the rockth. The Lord give Motheth water. I'll hunt till He +thoweth me where it ith."</p> + +<p>Bud put off in the bushes. Presently his tow head bobbed through the +greenery again and a jug dripping full of cool water was in his hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Thame leadin' that brought uth here done it," he lisped, moistening +O'mie's lips with the precious liquid.</p> + +<p>Bud had a quaint use of Bible reference, although he disclaimed Dr. +Hemingway's estimate of him as the best scholar in the Presbyterian +Sunday-school.</p> + +<p>It seemed hours before relief came. I held O'mie all that time, hoping +that the gracious May sunshine might win him to us again, but his +delirium increased. He did not know any of us, but babbled of strange +things.</p> + +<p>At length many shouts overhead told us that half of Springvale was above +us, and a rude sort of hammock was being lowered. "It's the best we can +do," shouted Father Le Claire. "Tie him in and we'll pull him up."</p> + +<p>It was rough handling even with the tenderest of care, and a very +dangerous feat as well. I watched those above draw up O'mie's body and I +was the last to leave the cave. As I turned to go, by merest chance, my +eye caught sight of a knife handle protruding from a crevice in the +rock. I picked it up. It was the short knife Jean Pahusca always wore at +his belt. As I looked closely, I saw cut in script letters across the +steel blade the name, <i>Jean Le Claire</i>.</p> + +<p>I put the thing in my pocket and soon overtook the other boys, who were +leaping and clinging on their way to the crest.</p> + +<p>That night Kansas was swept across by the very worst storm I have known +in all these sixty years. It lifted above the town and spared the +beautiful oak grove in the bottom lands beside us. Further down it swept +the valley clean, and the bluff about the cave had not one shrub on its +rough sides. The lightning, too, played strange pranks. The thunderbolts +shattered trees and rocks, up-rooting the one and rending and tumbling +the other in huge masses of debris upon the valley. It broke even the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> +rough way we had traversed to the Hermit's Cave, and a great heap of +fallen stone now shut the cavern in like a rock tomb. Where O'mie had +lain was sealed to the world, and it was a full quarter of a century +before a path was made along that dangerous cliff-side again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + +<h3>O'MIE'S CHOICE</h3> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And how can man die better</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Than facing fearful odds</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For the ashes of his fathers</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the temples of his gods?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—MACAULAY.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>There was only one church bell in Springvale for many years. It called +to prayers, or other public service. It sounded the alarm of fire, and +tolled for the dead. It was our school-bell and wedding-bell. It clanged +in terror when the Cheyennes raided eastward in '67, and it pealed out +solemnly for the death of Abraham Lincoln. It chimed on Christmas Eve +and rang in each New Year. Its two sad notes that were tolled for the +years of the little Judson baby had hardly ceased their vibrations when +it broke forth into a ringing, joyous resonance for the finding of O'mie +alive.</p> + +<p>O'mie was taken to our home. No other woman's hands were so strong and +gentle as the hands of Candace Baronet. Everybody felt that O'mie could +be trusted nowhere else. It was hard for Cam and Dollie at first, but +when Dollie found she might cook every meal and send it up to my aunt, +she was more reconciled; while Cam came and went, doing a multitude of +kindly acts. This was long before the days of telephones, and a hundred +steps were needed for every one taken to-day.</p> + +<p>In the weeks that followed, O'mie hung between life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> and death. With all +the care and love given him, his strength wasted away. He had been +cruelly beaten, and cuts and bruises showed how terrible had been his +fight for freedom.</p> + +<p>At first he talked deliriously, but in the weakness that followed he lay +motionless hour on hour. And with the fever burning out his candle of +life, we waited the end. How heavy-hearted we were in those days! It +seemed as though all Springvale claimed the orphan boy. And daily, +morning and evening, a messenger from Red Range came for word of him, +bearing always offers of whatever help we would accept from the +kind-hearted neighborhood.</p> + +<p>Father Le Claire had come into our home with the bringing of O'mie, and +gentle as a woman's were his ministrations. One evening, when the end of +earthly life seemed near for O'mie, the priest took me by the arm, and +we went down to the "Rockport" point together. The bushes were growing +very rank about my old playground and trysting place. I saw Marjie +daily, for she came and went about our house with quiet usefulness. But +our hands and hearts were full of the day's sad burden, and we hardly +spoke to each other. Marjie's nights were spent mostly with poor Mrs. +Judson, whose grief was wearing deep grooves into the young mother face.</p> + +<p>To-night Le Claire and I sat down on the rock and breathed deeply of the +fresh June air. Below us, for many a mile, the Neosho lay like a broad +belt of silver in the deepening shadows of the valley, while all the +West Prairie was aflame with the sunset lights. The world was never more +beautiful, and the spirit of the Plains seemed reaching out glad hands +to us who were so strong and full of life. All day we had watched beside +the Irish boy. His weakened pulse-beat showed how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> steadily his strength +was ebbing. He had fallen asleep now, and we dared not think what the +waking might be for us.</p> + +<p>"Philip, when O'mie is gone, I shall leave Springvale," the priest +began. "I think that Jean Pahusca has at last decided to go to the +Osages. He probably will never be here again. But if he should come—" +Le Claire paused as if the words pained him—"remember you cannot trust +him. I have no tie that binds me to you. I shall go to the West. I feel +sure the Plains Indians need me now more than the Osages and the Kaws."</p> + +<p>I listened silently, not caring to question why either O'mie or Jean +should bind him anywhere. The former was all but lost to me already. Of +the latter I did not care to think.</p> + +<p>"And before I go, I want to tell you something I know of O'mie," Le +Claire went on.</p> + +<p>I had wondered often at the strange sort of understanding I knew existed +between himself and O'mie. I began to listen more intently now, and for +the first time since leaving the Hermit's Cave I thought of the knife +with the script lettering. I shrank from questioning him or showing him +the thing. I had something of my father's patience in letting events +tell me what I wanted to know. So I asked no questions, but let him +speak.</p> + +<p>"O'mie comes by natural right into a dislike, even hatred, of the red +race. It may be I know something more of him than anyone else in +Springvale knows. His story is a romance and a tragedy, stranger than +fiction. In the years to come, when hate shall give place to love in our +nation, when the world is won to the church, a younger generation will +find it hard to picture the life their forefathers lived."</p> + +<p>The priest's brow darkened and his lips were com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>pressed, as if he found +it hard to speak what he would say.</p> + +<p>"I come to you, Philip, because your experience here has made you a man +who were only a boy yesterday; because you love O'mie; because you have +been able to keep a quiet tongue; and most of all, because you are John +Baronet's son, and heir, I believe, to his wisdom. Most of O'mie's story +is known to your father. He found it out just before he went to the war. +It is a tragical one. The boy was stolen by a band of Indians when he +was hardly more than a baby. It was a common trick of the savages then; +it may be again as our frontier creeps westward."</p> + +<p>The priest paused and looked steadily out over the Neosho Valley, +darkening in the twilight.</p> + +<p>"You know how you felt when O'mie was lost. Can you imagine what his +mother felt when she found her boy was stolen? Her husband was away on a +trapping tour, had been away for a long time, and she was alone. In a +very frenzy, she started out on the prairie to follow the Indians. She +suffered terrible hardship, but Providence brought her at last to the +Osage Mission, whose doors are always open to the distressed. And here +she found a refuge. A strange thing happened then. While Patrick +O'Meara, O'mie's father, was far from home, word had reached him that +his wife was dead. Coming down the Arkansas River, O'Meara chanced to +fall in with some Mexicans who had a battle with a band of Indians at +Pawnee Rock. With these Indians was a little white boy, whom O'Meara +rescued. It was his own son, although he did not know it, and he brought +the little one to the Mission on the Neosho.</p> + +<p>"Philip, it is vouchsafed to some of us to know a bit of heaven here on +earth. Such a thing came to Patrick<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> O'Meara when he found his wife +alive, and the baby boy was restored to her. They were happy together +for a little while. But Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from her hardships +on the prairie, and her husband was killed by the Comanches a month +after her death. Little O'mie, dying up there now, was left an orphan at +the Mission. You have heard Mrs. Gentry tell of his coming here. Your +father is the only one here who knows anything of O'mie's history. If he +never comes back, you must take his place."</p> + +<p>The purple shadows of twilight were folding down upon the landscape. In +the soft light the priest's face looked dark and set.</p> + +<p>"Why not tell me now what father knows?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"I cannot tell you that now, Philip. Some day I may tell you another +story. But it does not concern you or O'mie. What I want you to do is +what your father will do if he comes home. If he should not come, he has +written in his will what you must do. I need not tell you to keep this +to yourself."</p> + +<p>"Father Le Claire, can you tell me anything about Jean Pahusca, and +where he is now?"</p> + +<p>He rose hastily.</p> + +<p>"We must not stay here." Then, kindly, he took my hand. "Yes, some day, +but not now, not to-night." There was a choking in his voice, and I +thought of O'mie.</p> + +<p>We stood up and let the cool evening air ripple against our faces. The +Neosho Valley was black now. Only here and there did we catch the +glitter of the river. The twilight afterglow was still pink, but the +sweep of the prairie was only a purple blur swathed in gray mist. Out of +this purple softness, as we parted the bushes, we saw Marjie hurrying +toward us.</p> + +<p>"Phil, Phil!" she cried, "O'mie's taken a change for the better. He's +been asleep for three hours, and now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> he is awake. He knew Aunt Candace +and he asked for you. The doctor says he has a chance to live. Oh, +Phil!" and Marjie burst into tears.</p> + +<p>Le Claire took her hand and, putting it through my arm, he said, gently +as my father might have done, "You are both too young for such a strain +as this. Oh, this civil war! It robs you of your childhood. Too soon, +too soon, you are men and women. Philip, take Marjory home. Don't +hurry." He smiled as he spoke. "It will do you good to leave O'mie out +of mind for a little while."</p> + +<p>Then he hurried off to the sick room, leaving us together. It seemed +years since that quiet April sunset when we gathered the pink flowers +out in the draw, and I crowned Marjie my queen. It was now late June, +and the first little yellow leaves were on the cottonwoods, telling that +midsummer was near.</p> + +<p>"Marjie," I said, putting the hand she had withdrawn through my arm +again, "the moon is just coming up. Let's go out on the prairie a little +while. Those black shadows down there distress me. I must have some rest +from darkness."</p> + +<p>We walked slowly out on Cliff Street and into the open prairie, which +the great summer moon was flooding with its soft radiance. No other +light is ever so regal as the full moon above the prairie, where no +black shadows can checker and blot out and hem in its limitless glory. +Marjie and I were young and full of vigor, but the steady drain on mind +and heart, and the days and nights of broken rest, were not without +effect. And yet to-night, with hope once more for O'mie's life, with a +sense of lifted care, and with the high tide of the year pouring out its +riches round about us, the peace of the prairies fell like a benediction +on us, as we loitered about the grassy spaces, quiet and very happy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p> + +<p>Then the care for others turned our feet homeward. I must relieve Aunt +Candace to-night by O'mie's side, and Marjie must be with her mother. +The moonlight tempted us to linger a little longer as we passed by +"Rockport," and we parted the bushes and stood on our old playground +rock.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, the moonlight makes a picture of you always," I said gently.</p> + +<p>She did not answer, but gazed out across the valley, above whose dark +greenery the silvery mists lay fold on fold. When she turned her face to +mine, something in her eyes called up in me that inspiration that had +come to be a part of my thought of her, that sense of a woman's worth +and of her right to tenderest guardianship.</p> + +<p>"Marjie"—I put both arms around her and drew her to me—"the best thing +in the world is a good girl, and you are the best girl in the world." I +held her close. It was no longer a boy's admiration, but a man's love +that filled my soul that night. Marjie drew gently away.</p> + +<p>"We must go now, Phil, indeed we must. Mother needs me."</p> + +<p>Oh, I could wait her time. I took her arm and led her out to the street. +The bushes closed behind us, and we went our way together. It was well +we could not look back upon the rock. We had hardly left it when two +figures climbed up from the ledge below and stood where we had been—two +for whom the night had no charm and the prairie and valley had no +beauty, a low-browed, black-eyed girl with a heart full of jealousy, and +a tall, graceful, picturesquely handsome young Indian. They had joined +forces, just as I had once felt they would sometime do. As I came +whistling up the street on my way home I paused by the bushes, half +inclined to go beyond them again. I was happy in every fiber of my +being. But duty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> prodded me sharply to move on. I believe now that Jean +Pahusca would have choked the life out of me had I met him face to face +that moonlit night. Heaven turns our paths away from many an unknown +peril, and we credit it all to our own choice of ways.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Slowly but steadily O'mie came back to us. So far had he gone down the +valley of the shadow, he groped with difficulty up toward the light +again. He slept much, but it was life-giving sleep, and he was not +overcome by delirium after that turning point in his illness. I think I +never fully knew my father's sister till in those weeks beside the +sickbed. It was not the medicine, nor the careful touch, it was +herself—her wholesome, hopeful, trustful spirit—that seemed to enter +into the very life of the sick one, and build him to health. I had +rarely known illness, I who had muscles like iron, and the frame of a +giant. My father was a man of wonderful vigor. It was not until O'mie +was brought to our house that I understood why he should have been +trusted to no one else.</p> + +<p>We longed to know his story. The town had settled into its old groove. +The victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had thrilled us, as the loss +at Chancellorsville had depressed our spirits; and the war was our +constant theme. And then the coming and going of traders and strangers +on the old trail, the undercurrent of anxiety lest another conspiracy +should gather, the Quantrill raid at Lawrence, all helped to keep us +from lethargy. We had had our surprise, however. Strangers had to give +an account of themselves to the home guard now. But we were softened +toward our own townspeople. They were very discreet, and we must meet +and do business with them daily. For the sake of young Tell and Jim, we +who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> knew would say nothing. Jean came into town at rare intervals, +meeting the priest down in the chapel. Attending to his own affairs, +walking always like a very king, or riding as only a Plains Indian can +ride, he came and went unmolested. I never could understand that strange +power he had of commanding our respect. He seldom saw Marjie, and her +face blanched at the mention of his name. I do not know when he last +appeared in our town that summer. Nobody could keep track of his +movements. But I do know that after the priest's departure, his +disappearance was noted, and the daylight never saw him in Springvale +again. What the dark hours of the night could have told is another +story.</p> + +<p>With O'mie out of danger, Le Claire left us. His duties, he told us, lay +far to the west. He might go to the Kiowas or the Cheyennes. In any +event, it would be long before he came again.</p> + +<p>"I need not ask you, Philip, to take good care of O'mie. He could not +have better care. You will guard his interests. Until you know more than +you do now, you will say nothing to him or any one else of what I have +told you."</p> + +<p>He looked steadily into my eyes, and I understood him.</p> + +<p>"I think Jean Pahusca will never trouble you, nor even come here now. I +have my reasons for thinking so. But, Philip, if you should know of his +being here, keep on your guard. He is a man of more than savage nature. +What he loves, he will die for. What he hates, he will kill. Cam Gentry +is right. The worst blood of the Kiowas and of the French nationality +fills his veins. Be careful."</p> + +<p>Brave little O'mie struggled valiantly for health again. He was patient +and uncomplaining, but the days ran<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> into weeks before his strength +began to increase. Only one want was not supplied: he longed for the +priest.</p> + +<p>"You're all so good, it's mighty little in me to say it, an' Dr. +Hemingway's gold, twenty-four karat gold; but me hair's red, an' me rale +name's O'Meara, an' naturally I long for the praist, although I'm a +proper Presbyterian."</p> + +<p>"How about Brother Dodd?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>"All the love in his heart fur me put in the shell of a mustard seed +would rattle round loike a walnut in a tin bushel box, begorra," the +sick boy declared.</p> + +<p>It was long before he could talk much and we did not ask a question we +could avoid, but waited his own time to know how he had been taken from +us and how he had found himself a prisoner in that cavern whence we had +barely cheated Death of its pitiful victim. As he could bear it he told +us, at length, of his part in the night the town was marked for doom. +Propped up on his pillows, his face to the open east window, his thin, +white hands folded, he talked quietly as of a thing in which he had had +little part.</p> + +<p>"Ye see, Phil, the Almighty made us all different, so He could know us, +an' use us when He wanted some partic'lar thing that some partic'lar one +could do. When folks puts on a uniform in their dress or their thinkin', +they belong to one av two classes—them as is goin' to the devil like +convicts an' narrow churchmen, or them as is goin' after 'em hard to +bring 'em into line again, like soldiers an' sisters av charity; an' +they just have to act as one man. But mainly we're singular number. The +Lord didn't give me size."</p> + +<p>He looked up at my broad shoulders. I had carried him in my arms from +his bed to the east window day after day.</p> + +<p>"I must do me own stunt in me own way. You know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> mebby, how I tagged +thim strangers till, if they'd had the chance at me they'd have fixed +me. Specially that Dick Yeager, the biggest av the two who come to the +tavern."</p> + +<p>"The chance! Didn't they have their full swing at you?"</p> + +<p>"Well, no, not regular an' proper," he replied.</p> + +<p>I wondered if the cruelty he had suffered might not have injured his +brain and impaired his memory.</p> + +<p>"You know I peeked through that hole up in the shop that Conlow seems to +have left fur such as me. Honorable business, av coorse. But Tell and +Jim, they was hid behind the stack av wagon wheels in the dark +corner—just as honorable an' high-spirited as meself, on their social +level. I was a high-grader up on that ladder. Well, annyhow, I peeked +an' eavesdropped, as near as I could get to the eaves av the shop, an' I +tould Father Le Claire all I could foind out. An' then he put it on me +to do my work. 'You can be spared,' he says. 'If it's life and death, +ye'll choose the better part.' Phil, it was laid on all av us to choose +that night."</p> + +<p>His thin, blue-veined hand sought mine where he lay reclining against +the pillows. I took it in my big right hand, the hand that could hold +Jean Pahusca with a grip of iron.</p> + +<p>"There was only one big enough an' brainy enough an' brave enough to +lead the crowd to save this town an' that was Philip Baronet. There was +only one who could advise him well an' that was Cam Gentry. Poor old +Cam, too near-sighted to tell a cow from a catfish tin feet away. Without +you, Cam and the boys couldn't have done a thing.</p> + +<p>"Can ye picture what would be down there now? I guess not, fur you'd not +be making pictures now, You'd<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> be a picture yourself, the kind they put +on the carbolic acid bottle an' mark 'pizen.'"</p> + +<p>O'mie paused and looked out dreamily across the valley to the east +plains beyond them.</p> + +<p>"I can't tell how fast things wint through me moind that night. You did +some thinkin' yourself, an' you know. 'I can't do Phil's part if I stay +here,' I raisoned, 'an' bedad, I don't belave he can do my part. Bein' +little counts sometimes. It's laid on me to be the sacrifice, an' I'll +kape me promise an' choose the better part. I'll cut an' run.'"</p> + +<p>He looked up at my questioning face with a twinkle in his eye.</p> + +<p>"'There's only one to save this town. That's Phil's stunt,' I says; 'an' +there's only one to save Marjie. That's my stunt.'"</p> + +<p>I caught my breath, for my heart stood still, and I felt I must +strangle.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say, Thomas O'Meara—?" I could get no fuither.</p> + +<p>"I mane, either you or me's got to tell this. If you know it better'n I +do, go ahead." And then more gently he went on: "Yes, I mane to say, +kape still, dear; I'm not very strong yet. If I'd gone up to Cliff +Street afther you to come to her, she'd be gone. If Jean got hands on +her an' she struggled or screamed, as she'd be like to do, bein' a +sensible girl, he had that murderous little short knife, an' he'd swore +solemn he'd have her or her scalp. He's not got her, nor her scalp, nor +that knife nather now. I kept that much from doin' harm. I dunno where +the cruel thing wint to, but it wint, all right.</p> + +<p>"And do ye mane to say, Philip Baronet, that ye thought I'd lost me +nerve an' was crude enough to fall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> in wid a nest av thim Copperheads +an' let 'em do me to me ruin? Or did you think His Excellency, the +Reverend Dodd was right, an' I'd cut for cover till the fuss was over? +Well, honestly now, I'm not that kind av an Irishman."</p> + +<p>My mind was in a tumult as I listened. I wondered how O'mie could be so +calm when I durst not trust myself to speak.</p> + +<p>"So I run home, thinkin' ivery jump, an' I grabbed the little girl's +waterproof cloak. Your lady friends' wraps comes in handy sometimes. +Don't niver despise 'em, Phil, nor the ladies nather. You woman-hater!" +O'mie's laugh was like old times and very good to hear.</p> + +<p>"I flung that thing round me, hood on me brown curls, an' all, an' then +I flew. I made the ground just three times in thim four blocks and a +half to Judson's. You know how the kangaroo looks in the geography +picture av Australia, illustratin' the fauna an' flora, with a tall, +thin tree beyont, showin' lack of vegetation in that tropic, an' a +little quilly cus they call a ornithorynchus, its mouth like Jim +Conlow's? Well, no kangaroo'd had enough self-respect to follow me that +night. I caught Marjie just in time, an' I puts off before her toward +her home. At the corner I quit kangarooin' an' walks quick an' a little +timid-like, just Marjie to a dimple. If you'd been there, you'd wanted +to put some more pink flowers round where they'd do the most good."</p> + +<p>I squeezed his hand.</p> + +<p>"Quit that, you ugly bear. That's a lady's hand yet a whoile an' can't +stand too much pressure.</p> + +<p>"It was to save her loife, Phil." O'mie spoke solemnly now. "You could +save the town. I couldn't. I could save her. You couldn't. In a minute, +there in the dark by the gate, Jean Pahusca grabs me round me dainty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> +waist. His horse was ready by him an' he swung me into the saddle, not +harsh, but graceful like, an' gintle. I never said a word, but gave a +awful gasp like I hadn't no words, appreciative enough. 'I'm saving' +you, Star-face,' he says. 'The Copperheads will burn your mother's house +an' the Kiowas will come and steal Star-face—' an' he held me close as +if he would protect me—he got over that later—an' I properly fainted. +That's the only way the abducted princess can do in the novel—just +faint. It saves hearin' what you don't want to know. An' me size just +suited the case. Don't never take on airs, you big hulkin' fellow. No +graceful prince is iver goin' to haul you over the saddle-bow thinkin' +you're the choice av his heart. It saved Marjie, an' it got Jean clear +av town before he found his mistake, which wa'n't bad for Springvale. +Down by Fingal's Creek I come to, an' we had a rumpus. Bein' a dainty +girl, I naturally objected to goin' into that swirlin' water, though I +didn't object to Jean's goin'—to eternity. In the muss I lost me +cloak—the badge av me business there. I never could do nothin' wid thim +cussed hooks an' eyes on a collar an' the thing wasn't anchored +securely at me throat. It was awful then. I can't remember it all. But +it was dark, and Jean had found me out, and the waters was deep and +swift. The horse got away on the bank an' slid back, I think. It must +have been then it galloped up to town; but findin' Jean didn't follow, +it came back to him. I didn't know annything fur some toime. I'd got +too much av Fingal's Creek mixed into me constitution an' by-laws to +kape my thoughts from floatin' too. I'll never know rightly whin I rode +an' whin I was dragged, an' whin I walked. It was a runnin' fight av +infantry and cavalry, such as the Neosho may never see again, betwixt +the two av us."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p> + +<p>Blind, trustful fool that I had been, thinking after all Le Claire's +warnings that Jean had been a good, loyal, chivalrous Indian, protecting +Marjie from harm.</p> + +<p>"And to think we have thought all this time there were a dozen Rebels +making away with you, and never dreamed you had deliberately put +yourself into the hands of the strongest and worst enemy you could +have!"</p> + +<p>"It was to save a woman, Phil," O'mie said simply. "He could only kill +me. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd done the same yoursilf +to save anny woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see."</p> + +<p>How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. There +came to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jean +had sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after I +talked with my father of love and of my mother. That night two women +whom I had never seen before were in my dreams, and I had struggled to +save them from peril as though they were of my own flesh and blood.</p> + +<p>"You will do it," O'mie went on. "You were doing more. Who was it wint +down along the creek side av town where the very worst pro-slavery +fellows is always coiled and ready to spring, wint in the dark to wake +up folks that lived betwixt them on either side, who was ready to light +on 'em at a minute's notice? Who wint upstairs above thim as was gettin' +ready to burn 'em in their beds, an' walked quiet and cool where one +wrong step meant to be throttled in the dark? Don't talk to me av +courage."</p> + +<p>"But, O'mie, it was all chance with us. You went where danger was +certain."</p> + +<p>"It was my part, Phil, an' I ain't no shirker just because I'm not tin +feet tall an' don't have to be weighed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> on Judson's stock scales." O'mie +rested awhile on the pillows. Then he continued his story.</p> + +<p>"They was more or less border raidin' betwixt Jean an' me till we got +beyont the high cliff above the Hermit's Cave. When I came to after one +of his fists had bumped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn't +want. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as the +grave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in the +hostilities, I caught the faint refrain:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">'Does the star-spangled banner yit wave,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O'er the land av the free and the home av the brave?'</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"I didn't see your lights. They was tin thousand star-spangled banners +wavin' before me eyes ivery second. But that strain av song put new +courage into me soul though I had no notion what it really meant. I was +half dead an' wantin' to go the other half quick, an' it was like a +drame, till that song sent a sort of life-givin' pulse through me. The +next minute we were goin' over an' over an' over, betwane rocks, an' +hanging to trees, down, down, down, wid that murderous river roarin' +hungry below us. Jean jumpin' from place to place an' me clingin' to him +an' hittin' iverything that could be hit at ivery jump. An' then come +darkness over me again. There was a light somewhere when I come to. I +was free an' I made a quick spring. I got that knife, an' like a flash I +slid the blade down a crack somewhere. An' then he tied me solid, an' +standin' over me he says slow an' cruel: +'You—may—stay—here—till—you—starve—to—death. +Nobody—can—get—to—you—but—me—an'—I'm—niver—comin'—back. I +hate you.' An' his eyes were just loike that noight whin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> I found him +with thim faded pink flowers out on the prairie."</p> + +<p>"O'mie, dear, you are the greatest hero I ever heard of. You poor, +beaten, tortured sacrifice."</p> + +<p>I put my arm around his shoulder and my tears fell on his red hair.</p> + +<p>"I didn't do no more than ivery true American will do—fight an' die to +protect his home; or if not his'n, some other man's. Whin the day av +choosin' comes we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it. +Whin Jean put it on me to lay there helpless an' die o' thirst, I know'd +I could do it. Same as you know'd you'd outwit that gang ready to burn +an' kill, that I'd run from. I just looked straight up at Jean—the +light was gettin' dim—an' I says, 'You—may—go—plum—to—the—divil, +—but—you—can't—hurt—that—part—av—me—that's—never—hungry—nor +—thirsty.' When you git face to face wid a thing like that," O'mie spoke +reverently, "somehow the everlastin' arms, Dr. Hemingway's preaches of, +is strong underneath you. The light wint out, an' Jean in his still way +had slid off, an' I was alone. Alone wid me achin' and me bonds, an' wid +a burnin' longin' fur water, wid a wish to go quick if I must go; but +most av all—don't never furgit it, Phil, whin the thing overtakes you +aven in your strength—most av all, above all sufferin' and natural +longin' to live—there comes the reality av the words your Aunt Candace +taught us years ago in the little school:</p> + +<p>"'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fear +no evil.'</p> + +<p>"I called for you, Phil, in my misery, as' I know'd somehow you'd hear +me. An' you did come.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>"</p> + +<p>His thin hand closed over mine, and we sat long in silence—two boys +whom the hand of Providence was leading into strange, hard lines, +shaping us each for the work the years of our manhood were waiting to +bring to us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<h3>GOLDEN DAYS</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">There are days that are kind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As a mother to man, showing pathways that wind</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Only luring us on, since the way must be trod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Over meadows of green with their velvety sod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The original beauty of Eden; so tender,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They woo every soul to a willing surrender</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Of feverish longing; so holy withal,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On the world.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>We were a busy folk in those years that followed the close of the war. +The prairies were boundless, and the constant line of movers' wagons +reaching out endlessly on the old trail, with fathers and mothers and +children, children, children, like the ghosts of Banquo's lineal issue +to King Macbeth, seemed numerous enough to people the world and put to +the plough every foot of the virgin soil of the beautiful Plains. With +the downfall of slavery the strife for commercial supremacy began in +earnest here, and there are no idle days in Kansas.</p> + +<p>When I returned home after two years' schooling in Massachusetts, I +found many changes. I had beaten my bars like a caged thing all those +two years. Rockport, where I made my home and spent much of my time, +was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> so unlike Springvale, so wofully and pridefully ignorant of all +Kansas, so unable to get any notion of my beautiful prairies and of the +free-spirited, cultured folk I knew there, that I suffered out my time +there and was let off a little early for good behavior. Only one person +did I know who had any real interest in my West, a tall, dark-eyed, +haughty young lady, to whom I talked of Kansas by the hour. Her mother, +who was officiously courteous to me, didn't approve of that subject, but +the daughter listened eagerly.</p> + +<p>When I left Rockport, Rachel—that was her name, Rachel Melrose—asked +me when I was coming back. I assured her, never, and then courteously +added if she would come to Kansas.</p> + +<p>"Well, I may go," she replied, "not to your Springvale, but to my aunt +in Topeka for a visit next Fall. Will you come up to Topeka?"</p> + +<p>Of course, I would go to Topeka, but might she not come to Springvale? +There were the best people on earth in Springvale. I could introduce her +to boys who were gentlemen to the core. I'd lived and laughed and +suffered with them, and I knew.</p> + +<p>"But I shouldn't care for any of them except you." Rachel's voice +trembled and I couldn't help seeing the tears in her proud dark eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I've a girl of my own there," I said impulsively, for I was always +longing for Marjie, "but Clayton Anderson and Dave Mead are both college +men now." And then I saw how needlessly rude I had been.</p> + +<p>"Of course I want you to come to Springvale. Come to our house. Aunt +Candace will make you royally welcome. The Baronets and Melroses have +been friends for generations. I only wanted the boys to know you; I +should be proud to present my friend to them. I would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> take care of you. +You have been so kind to me this year, I should be glad to do much for +you." I had taken her hand to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>"And you would let that other girl take care of herself, wouldn't you, +while I was there? Promise me that when I go to Kansas you will come up +to Topeka to see me, and when I go to your town, if I do, you will not +neglect me but will let that Springvale girl entirely alone."</p> + +<p>I did not know much of women then—nor now—although I thought then I +knew everything. I might have read behind that fine aristocratic face a +supremely selfish nature, a nature whose pleasure increased only as her +neighbor's pleasure decreased. There are such minds in the world.</p> + +<p>I turned to her, and taking both of her willing hands in mine, I said +frankly: "When you visit your aunt, I'll be glad to see you there. If +you visit my aunt I would be proud to show you every courtesy. As for +that little girl, well, when you see her you will understand. She has a +place all her own with me." I looked straight into her eyes as I said +this.</p> + +<p>She smiled coquettishly. "Oh, I'm not afraid of her," she said +indifferently; "I can hold my own with any Kansas, girl, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>She was dangerously handsome, with a responsive face, a winning smile +and gracious manners. She seemed never to accept anything as a gift, but +to take what was her inherent right of admiration and devotion. When I +bade her good-bye a look of sadness was in her eyes. It rebuked my +spirit somehow, although Heaven knows I had given her no cause to miss +me. But my carriage was waiting and I hurried away. For a moment only +her image lingered with me, and then I forgot her entirely; for every +turn of the wheel was bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>ing me to Kansas, to the prairies, to the +beautiful Neosho Valley, to the boys again, to my father and home, but +most of all to Marjie.</p> + +<p>It was twenty months since I had seen her. She had spent a year in Ohio +in the Girls' College at Glendale, and had written me she would reach +Springvale a month before I did. After that I had not heard from her +except through a marked copy of the <i>Springvale Weekly Press</i>, telling +of her return. She had not marked that item, but had pencilled the news +that "Philip Baronet would return in three weeks from Massachusetts, +where he had been enjoying the past two years in school."</p> + +<p>Enjoying! Under this Marjie had written in girlish hand, "Hurry up, +Phil."</p> + +<p>On the last stage of my journey I was wild with delight. It was +springtime on the prairies, and a verdure clothed them with its richest +garments. I did not note the growing crops, and the many little +freeholds now, where there had been only open unclaimed land two years +before. I was longing for the Plains again, for one more ride, reckless +and free, across their broad stretches, for one more gorgeous sunset out +on Red Range, one more soft, iridescent twilight purpling down to the +evening darkness as I had seen it on "Rockport" all those years. How the +real Rockport, the Massachusetts town, faded from me, and the sea, and +the college halls, and city buildings. The steam and steel and brick and +marble of an older civilization, all gave place to Nature's broad +handiwork and the generous-hearted, capable, unprejudiced people of this +new West. However crude and plain Springvale might have seemed to an +Eastern boy suddenly transplanted here, it was fair and full of delight +for me.</p> + +<p>The stage driver, Dever, by name, was a stranger to me, but he knew all +about my coming. Also he was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> proud to be the first to give me the +freshest town gossip. That's the stage-driver's right divine always. I +was eager to hear of everybody and in this forty miles' ride I was +completely informed. The story rambled somewhat aimlessly from topic to +topic, but it never lagged.</p> + +<p>"Did I know Judson? He'd got a controlling interest now in Whately's +store. He was great after money, Judson was. They do say he's been a +little off the square getting hold of the store. The widder Whately kept +only about one-third, or maybe one-fourth of the stock. Mrs. Whately, +she wa'n't no manager. Marjie'd do better, but Marjie wa'n't twenty yet. +And yet if all they say's true she wouldn't need to manage. Judson is +about the sprucest widower in town, though he did seem to take it so +hard when poor Mis' Judson was taken." She never overcame the loss of +her baby, and the next Summer they put her out in the prairie graveyard +beside it. "But Judson now, he's shyin' round Marjie real coltish.</p> + +<p>"It'd be fine fur her, of course," my driver went on, "an' she was old +a-plenty to marry. Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh +crazy about her. Did I know her?"</p> + +<p>I did; oh, yes, I remembered her.</p> + +<p>"They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's—lemme see, +uh—common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky—uh—Tillhurst, +Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from +Virginny to Illinois. Got near dead with consumption 'nd come on to +Kansas to die. Saw Springvale 'nd thought better of it right away. Was +teachin' school and payin' plenty of attention to the girls, especially +Marjie. They was an old man Tillhurst when I was a boy. He was from +Virginny, too—" but I pass that story.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mapleson's pickin' up sence he's got the post-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>office up in the +'Last Chance'; put that doggery out'n his sullar, had in wall paper now, +an' drugs an' seeds, an' nobody was right sure where he got his funds to +stock up, so—they was some sort of story goin' about a half-breed named +Pahusky when I first come here, bein' 'sociated with Mapleson—Cam +Gentry's same old Cam, squintin' round an' jolly as ever. O'mie? Oh, +he's leadin' the band now. By jinks, that band of his'n will just take +the cake when it goes up to Topeky this Fall to the big political +speak-in's." On and on the driver went, world without end, until we +caught the first faint line along the west that marked the treetops of +the Neosho Valley. We were on the Santa Fé Trail now, and we were coming +to the east bluff where I had first seen the little Whately girl climb +out of the big wagon and stretch the stiffness out of her fat little +legs. The stage horses were bracing for the triumphal entry into town, +when a gang of young outlaws rushed up over the crest of the east slope. +They turned our team square across the way and in mock stage-robbery +style called a halt. The driver threw up his hands in mock terror and +begged for mercy, which was granted if he would deliver up one Philip +Baronet, student and tenderfoot. But I was already down from the stage +and O'mie was hugging me hard until Bud Anderson pulled him away and all +the boys and girls were around me. Oh, it was good to see them all +again, but best of all was it to see Marjie. She had been a pretty +picture of a young girl. She was beautiful now. No wonder she had many +admirers. She was last among the girls to greet me. I took her hand and +our eyes met. Oh, I had no fear of widower nor of school-teacher, as I +helped her to a seat beside me in the stage.</p> + +<p>"I'm so glad to see you again, Phil," she looked up into my face. "You +are bigger than ever."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And you are just the same Marjie."</p> + +<p>The crowd piled promiscuously about us and we bumped down the slope and +into the gurgling Neosho, laughing and happy.</p> + +<p>With all the rough and tumble years of a boyhood and youth on the +frontier, the West has been good to me, and I look back along the way +glad that mine was the pioneer's time, and that the experiences of those +early days welded into my building and being something of their +simplicity, and strength, and capacity for enjoyment. But of all the +seasons along the way of these sixty years, of all the successes and +pleasures, I remember best and treasure most that glorious summer after +my return from the East. My father was on the Judge's bench now and his +legal interests and property interests were growing. I began the study +of law under him at once, and my duties were many, for he put +responsibility on me from the first. But I was in the very heyday of +life, and had no wish ungratified.</p> + +<p>"Phil, I want you to go up the river and take a look at two quarters of +Section 29, range 14, this afternoon. It lies just this side of the big +cottonwood," my father said to me one June day.</p> + +<p>"Make a special note of the land, and its natural appurtenances. I want +the information at once, or you needn't go out on such a hot day. It's +like a furnace in the courthouse. It may be cooler out that way." He +fanned his face with his straw hat, and the light breeze coming up the +valley lifted the damp hair about his temples.</p> + +<p>"There's a bridle path over the bluff a mile or so out, where you can +ride a horse down and go up the river in the bottom. It's a much shorter +way, but you'd better<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> go out the Red Range road and turn north at the +third draw well on to the divide. It gets pretty steep near the river, +so you have to keep to the west and turn square at the draw. If it +wasn't so warm you might go on to Red Range for some depositions for me. +But never mind, Dave Mead is going up there Monday, anyhow. Will you +ride the pony?"</p> + +<p>"No, I'll go out in the buggy."</p> + +<p>"And take some girl along? Well, don't forget your errand. Be sure to +note the lay of the land. There's no building, I believe, but a little +stone cabin and it's been empty for years; but you can see. Be sure to +examine everything in that cabin carefully. Stop at the courthouse as +you go out, and get the surveyor's map and some other directions."</p> + +<p>It was a hot summer day, with that thin, dry burning in the air that the +light Kansas zephyr fanned back in little rippling waves. My horses were +of the Indian pony breed, able to go in heat or cold. Most enduring and +least handsome of the whole horse family, with temper ranging from +moderately vicious to supremely devilish, is this Indian pony of the +Plains.</p> + +<p>Marjie was in the buggy beside me when I stopped at the courthouse for +instructions. Lettie Conlow was passing and came to the buggy's side.</p> + +<p>"Where are you going, Marjie?" she asked. There was a sullen minor tone +in her voice.</p> + +<p>"With Phil, out somewhere. Where is it you are going, Phil?"</p> + +<p>I was tying the ponies. They never learned how to stand unanchored a +minute.</p> + +<p>"Out north on the Red Range prairie to buy a couple of quarters," I +replied carelessly and ran up the courthouse steps.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 374px;"> +<img src="images/i158.jpg" width="374" height="550" alt=""Baronet, I think we are marching straight into Hell's +jaws"" title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Baronet, I think we are marching straight into Hell's +jaws"</span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, well, well," Cam Gentry roared as he ambled up to the buggy. +Cam's voice was loud in proportion as his range of vision was short. +"You two gettin' ready to elope? An' he's goin' to git his dad to back +him up gettin' a farm. Now, Marjie, why'd you run off? Let us see the +performance an' hear Dr. Hemingway say the words in the Presbyterian +Church. Or maybe you're goin' to hunt up Dodd. He went toward Santy Fee +when he put out of here after the War."</p> + +<p>Cam could be heard in every corner of the public square. I was at the +open window of my father's office. Looking out, I saw Lettie staring +angrily at Cam, who couldn't see her face. She had never seemed less +attractive to me. She had a flashy coloring, and she made the most of +ornaments. Some people called her good-looking. Beside Marjie, she was +as the wild yoncopin to the calla lily. Marjie knew how to dress. +To-day, shaded by the buggy-top, in her dainty light blue lawn, with the +soft pink of her cheeks and her clear white brow and throat, she was a +most delicious thing to look upon in that hot summer street. Poor Lettie +suffered by contrast. Her cheeks were blazing, and her hair, wet with +perspiration, was adorned with a bow of bright purple ribbon tied +butterfly-fashion, and fastened on with a pin set with flashing +brilliants.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Uncle Cam," Marjie cried, blushing like the pink rambler roses +climbing the tavern veranda, "Phil's just going out to look at some land +for his father. It's up the river somewhere and I'm going to hold the +ponies while he looks."</p> + +<p>"Well, he'd ort to have somebody holdin' 'em fur him. I'll bet ye I'd +want a hostler if I had the lookin' to do. Land's a mighty small thing +an' hard to look at, sometimes; 'specially when a feller's head's in the +clouds an'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> he's walkin' on air. Goin' northwest? Look out, they's a +ha'nted house up there. But, by hen, I'd never see a ha'nt long's I had +somethin' better to look at."</p> + +<p>I saw Lettie turn quickly and disappear around the corner. My father was +busy, so I sat in the office window and whistled and waited, watching +the ponies switch lazily at the flies.</p> + +<p>When we were clear of town, and the open plain swept by the summer +breezes gave freedom from the heat, Marjie asked:</p> + +<p>"Where is Lettie Conlow going on such a hot afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"Nowhere, is she? She was talking to you at the courthouse."</p> + +<p>"But she rushed away while Uncle Cam was joking, and I saw her cross the +alley back of the courthouse on Tell's pony, and in a minute she was +just flying up toward Cliff Street. She doesn't ride very well. I +thought she was afraid of that pony. But she was making it go sailing +out toward the bluff above town."</p> + +<p>"Well, let her go, Marjie. She always wears on my nerves."</p> + +<p>"Phil, she likes you, I know. Everybody knows."</p> + +<p>"Well, I know and everybody knows that I never give her reason to. I +wish she would listen to Tell. I thought when I first came home they +were engaged."</p> + +<p>"Before he went up to Wyandotte to work they were—he said so, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Then we forgot Lettie. She wasn't necessary to us that day, for there +were only two in our world.</p> + + + +<p>Out on the prairie trail a mile or more is the point where the bridle +path leading to the river turns northwest, and passing over a sidling +narrow way down the bluff, it follows the bottom lands upstream. As we +passed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> this point we did not notice Tell Mapleson's black pony just +making the top from the sidling bluff way, nor how quickly its rider +wheeled and headed back again down beyond sight of the level prairie +road. We had forgotten Lettie Conlow and everybody else.</p> + +<p>The draw was the same old verdant ripple in the surface of the Plains. +The grasses were fresh and green. Toward the river the cottonwoods were +making a cool, shady way, delightfully refreshing in this summer +sunshine.</p> + +<p>We did not hurry, for the draw was full of happy memories for us.</p> + +<p>"I'll corral these bronchos up under the big cottonwood, and we'll +explore appurtenances down by the river later," I said. "Father says +every foot of the half-section ought to be viewed from that tree, except +what's in the little clump about the cabin."</p> + +<p>We drove up to the open prairie again and let the horses rest in the +shade of this huge pioneer tree of the Plains. How it had escaped the +prairie fires through its years of sturdy growth is a marvel, for it +commanded the highest point of the whole divide. Its shade was delicious +after the glare of the trail.</p> + +<p>For once the ponies seemed willing to stand quiet, and Marjie and I +looked long at the magnificent stretch of sky and earth. There were a +few white clouds overhead, deepening to a dull gray in the southwest. +All the sunny land was swathed in the midsummer yellow green, darkening +in verdure along the river and creeks, and in the deepest draws. Even as +we rested there the clouds rolled over the horizon's edge, piling higher +and higher, till they hid the afternoon sun, and the world was cool and +gray. Then down the land sped a summer shower; and the sweet damp odor +of its refreshing the south wind bore to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> us, who saw it all. Sheet +after sheet of glittering raindrops, wind-driven, swept across the +prairie, and the cool green and the silvery mist made a scene a master +could joy to copy.</p> + +<p>I didn't forget my errand, but it was not until the afternoon was +growing late that we left the higher ground and drove down the shady +draw toward the river. The Neosho is a picture here, with still expanses +that mirror the trees along its banks, and stony shallows where the +water, even in midsummer, prattles merrily in the sunshine, as it +hurries toward the deep stillnesses.</p> + +<p>We sat down in a cool, grassy space with the river before us, and the +green trees shading the little stone cabin beyond us, while down the +draw the vista of still sunlit plains was like a dream of beauty.</p> + +<p>"Marjie,"—I took her hand in mine—"since you were a little girl I have +known you. Of all the girls here I have known you longest. In the two +years I was East I met many young ladies, both in school and at +Rockport. There were some charming young folks. One of them, Rachel +Melrose, was very pretty and very wealthy. Her mother made considerable +fuss over me, and I believe the daughter liked me a little; for she—but +never mind; maybe it was all my vanity. But, Marjie, there has never +been but one girl for me in all this world; there will never be but one. +If Jean Pahusca had carried you off—Oh, God in Heaven! Marjie, I wonder +how my father lived through the days after my mother lost her life. Men +do, I know."</p> + +<p>I was toying with her hand. It was soft and beautifully formed, although +she knew the work of our Springvale households.</p> + +<p>"Marjie," my voice was full of tenderness, "you are dear to me as my +mother was to my father. I loved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> you as my little playmate; I was fond +of you as my girl when I was first beginning to care for a girl as boys +will; as my sweetheart, when the liking grew to something more. And now +all the love a man can give, I give to you."</p> + +<p>I rose up before her. They call me vigorous and well built to-day. I was +in my young manhood's prime then. I looked down at her, young and +dainty, with the sweet grace of womanhood adorning her like a garment. +She stood up beside me and lifted her fair face to mine. There was a +bloom on her cheeks and her brown eyes were full of peace. I opened my +arms to her and she nestled in them and rested her cheek against my +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Marjie," I said gently, "will you kiss me and tell me that you love +me?"</p> + +<p>Her arms were about my neck a moment. Sometimes I can feel them there +now. All shy and sweet she lifted her lips to mine.</p> + +<p>"I do love you, Phil," she murmured, and then of her own will, just +once, she kissed me.</p> + +<p>"It is vouchsafed sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on earth," Le +Claire had said to me when he talked of O'mie's father.</p> + +<p>It came to me that day; the cool, green valley by the river, the +vine-covered old stone cabin, the sunlit draw opening to a limitless +world of summer peace and beauty, and Marjie with me, while both of us +were young and we loved each other.</p> + +<p>The lengthening shadows warned me at last.</p> + +<p>"Well, I must finish up this investigation business of Judge Baronet's," +I declared. "Come, here's a haunted house waiting for us. Father says it +hasn't been inhabited since the Frenchman left it. Are you afraid of +ghosts?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> + +<p>We were going up a grass-grown way toward the little stone structure, +half buried in climbing vines and wild shrubbery.</p> + +<p>"What a cunning place, Phil! It doesn't look quite deserted to me, +somehow. No, I'm not afraid of anything but Indians."</p> + +<p>My arm was about her in a moment. She looked up laughing, but she did +not put it away.</p> + +<p>"Why, there are no Indians here, Phil," and she looked out on the sunny +draw.</p> + +<p>My face was toward the cabin. I was in a blissful waking dream, else I +should have taken quicker note. For sure as I had eyes, I caught a flash +of red between the far corner of the cabin and the thick underbrush +beyond it. It was just a narrow space, where one might barely pass, +between the corner of the little building and the surrounding shrubbery; +but for an instant, a red blanket with a white centre flashed across +this space, and was gone. So swift was its flight and so full was my +mind of the joy of living, I could not be sure I had seen anything. It +was just a twitch of the eyelid. What else could it be?</p> + +<p>We pushed open the solid oak door, and stood inside the little room. The +two windows let in a soft green light. It was a rude structure of the +early Territorial days, made for shelter and warmth. There was a dark +little attic or loft overhead. A few pieces of furniture—a chair, a +table, a stone hearth by the fireplace, and a sort of cupboard—these, +with a strong, old worn chest, were all that the room held. Dust was +everywhere, as might have been expected. And yet Marjie was right. The +spirit of occupation was there.</p> + +<p>"Do you know, Marjie, this cabin has hardly been opened since the poor +woman drowned herself in the river,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> down there. They found her body in +the Deep Hole. The Frenchman left the place, and it has been called +haunted. An Indian and a ghost can't live together. The race fears them +of all things. So the Indians would never come here."</p> + +<p>"But look there, Phil!"—Marjie had not heeded my words—"there's a +stick partly burned, and these ashes look fresh." She was bending over +the big stone hearth.</p> + +<p>As I started forward, my eye caught a bit of color behind the chair by +the table. I stooped to see a purple bow of ribbon, tied butterfly +fashion—Lettie Conlow's ribbon. I put it in my pocket, determined to +find out how it had found its way here.</p> + +<p>"Ugh! Let's go," said Marjie, turning to me. "I'm cold in here. I'd want +a home up under the cottonwood, not down in this lonely place. Maybe +movers on the trail camp in here." Marjie was at the door now.</p> + +<p>I looked about once more and then we went outside and stood on the +broad, flat step. The late afternoon was dreamily still here, and the +odor of some flowers, faint and woodsy, came from the thicket beside the +doorway.</p> + +<p>"It is dreary in there, Marjie, but I'll always love this place outside. +Won't you?" I said, and with a lover's happiness in my face, I drew her +close to me.</p> + +<p>She smiled and nodded. "I'll tell you all I think after a while. I'll +write it to you in a letter."</p> + +<p>"Do, Marjie, and put it in our 'Rockport' post-office, just like we used +to do. I'll write you every day, too, and you'll find my letter in the +same old crevice. Come, now, we must go home."</p> + +<p>"We'll come again." Marjie waved her hand to the silent gray cabin. And +slowly, as lovers will, we strolled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> down the walk and out into the open +where the ponies neighed a hurry-up call for home.</p> + +<p>Somehow the joy of youth and hope drove fear and suspicion clear from my +mind, and with the opal skies above us and the broad sweet prairies +round about us for an eternal setting of peace and beauty, we two came +home that evening, lovers, who never afterwards might walk alone, for +that our paths were become one way wherein we might go keeping step +evermore together down the years.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<h3>A MAN'S ESTATE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">When I became a man I put away childish things.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>The next day was the Sabbath. I was twenty-one that day. Marjie and I +sang in the choir, and most of the solo work fell to us. Dave Mead was +our tenor, and Bess Anderson at the organ sang alto. Dave was away that +day. His girl sweetheart up on Red Range was in her last illness then, +and Dave was at her bedside. Poor Dave! he left Springvale that Fall, +and he never came back. And although he has been honored and courted of +women, I have been told that in his luxurious bachelor apartments in +Hong Kong there is only one woman's picture, an old-fashioned +daguerreotype of a sweet girlish face, in an ebony frame.</p> + +<p>Dr. Hemingway always planned the music to suit his own notions. What he +asked for we gave. On this Sabbath morning there was no surprise when he +announced, "Our tenor being absent, we will omit the anthem, and I shall +ask brother Philip and sister Marjory to sing Number 549, 'Oh, for a +Closer Walk with God.'"</p> + +<p>He smiled benignly upon us. We were accustomed to his way, and we knew +everybody in that little congregation. And yet, somehow, a flutter went +through the company when we stood up together, as if everybody knew our +thoughts. We had stood side by side on Sabbath mornings and had sung +from the same book since child<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>hood, with never a thought of +embarrassment. It dawned on Springvale that day as a revelation what +Marjie meant to me. All the world, including our town, loves a lover, +and it was suddenly clear to the town that the tall, broad-shouldered +young man who looked down at the sweet-browed little girl-woman beside +him as he looked at nobody else, whose hand touched hers as they turned +the leaves, and who led her by the arm ever so gently down the steps +from the choir seats, was reading for himself</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That old fair story</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Set round in glory</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wherever life is found.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And Marjie, in spotless white, with her broad-brimmed hat set back from +her curl-shaded forehead, the tinted lights from the memorial window +which Amos Judson had placed there for his wife, falling like an aureole +about her, who could keep from loving her?</p> + +<p>"Her an' Phil Baronet's jist made fur one another," Cam Gentry declared +to a bunch of town gossips the next day.</p> + +<p>"Now'd ye ever see a finer-lookin' couple?" broke in Grandpa Mead. "An' +the way they sung that hymn yesterday—well, I just hope they'll repeat +it over my remains." And Grandpa began to sing softly in his quavering +voice:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Oh, for a closer walk with God,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A cam and heavenli frame,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A light toe shine upon tha road</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That leads me toe tha Lamb.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Everybody agreed with Cam except Judson. He was very cross with O'mie +that morning. O'mie was clerk and manager for him now, as Judson himself +had been for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> Irving Whately. He rubbed his hands and joined the group, +smiling a trifle scornfully.</p> + +<p>"Seems to me you're all gossiping pretty freely this morning. The young +man may be pretty well fixed some day. But he's young, he's young. Mrs. +Whately's my partner, and I know their affairs very well, very well. +She'll provide her daughter with a man, not a mere boy."</p> + +<p>"Well, he was man enough to keep this here town from burnin' up, an' no +tellin' how many bloodsheds," Grandpa Mead piped in.</p> + +<p>"He was man enough to find O'mie and save his life," Cam protested.</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll leave it to Dr. Hemingway," Judson declared, as the good +doctor entered the doorway. Judson paid liberally into the church fund +and accounted that his wishes should weigh much with the good minister. +"We—these people here—were just coupling the name of Marjory Whately +with that boy of Judge Baronet's. Now I know how Mrs. Whately is +circumstanced. She is peculiarly situated, and it seems foolish to even +repeat such gossip about this young man, this very young man, Philip."</p> + +<p>The minister smiled upon the group serenely. He knew the life-purpose of +every member of it, and he could have said, as Kipling wrote of the +Hindoo people:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have eaten your bread and salt,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I have drunk your water and wine;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The deaths ye died I have watched beside,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the lives ye led were mine.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>"I never saw a finer young man and woman in my life," he said gently. "I +know nothing of their intentions—as yet. They haven't been to me," his +eyes twinkled, "but they are good to look upon when they stand up +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>gether. Our opinions, however, will cut little figure in their +affairs. Heaven bless them and all the boys and girls! How soon they +grow to be men and women."</p> + +<p>The good man made his purchase and left the store.</p> + +<p>"But he's a young man, a very boy yet," Amos Judson insisted, unable to +hide his disappointment at the minister's answer.</p> + +<p>The very boy himself walked in at that instant. Judson turned a scowling +face at O'mie, who was chuckling among the calicoes, and frowned upon +the group as if to ward off any further talk. I nodded good-morning and +went to O'mie.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Candace wants some Jane P. Coats's thread, number 50 white, two +spools."</p> + +<p>"That's J. & P. Coats, young man." Judson spoke more sharply than he +need to have done. "Goin' East to school doesn't always finish a boy; +size an' learnin' don't count," and he giggled.</p> + +<p>I was whistling softly, "Oh, for a Closer Walk with God," and I turned +and smiled down on the little man. I was head and shoulders above him.</p> + +<p>"No, not always. I can still learn," I replied good-naturedly, and went +whistling on my way to the courthouse.</p> + +<p>I was in a good humor with all the world that morning. Out on "Rockport" +in the purple twilight of the Sabbath evening I had slipped my mother's +ring on Marjie's finger. I was on my way now for a long talk with my +father. I was twenty-one, a man in years, as I had been in spirit since +the night the town was threatened by the Rebel raiders—aye, even since +the day Irving Whately begged me to take care of Marjie. I had no time +to quarrel with the little widower.</p> + +<p>"He's got the best of you, Judson," Cam declared.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> "No use to come, +second hand, fur a girl like that when a handsome young feller like Phil +Baronet, who's run things his own way in this town sence he was a little +feller, 's got the inside track. Why, the young folks, agged on by some +older ones, 'ud jist natcherly mob anybody that 'ud git in Phil's way of +whatever he wanted. Take my word, if he wants Marjie he kin have her; +and likewise take it, he does want her."</p> + +<p>"An' then," Grandpa spoke with mock persuasion, "Amos, ye know ye've +been married oncet. An' ye're not so young an' ye're a leetle bald. D'ye +just notice Phil's hair, layin' in soft thick waves? Allers curled that +way sence he was a little feller."</p> + +<p>Amos Judson went into an explosive combustion.</p> + +<p>"I've treated my wife's memory and remains as good as a man ever did. +She's got the biggest stone in the cemet'ry, an' I've put a memorial +window in the church. An' what more could a man do? It's more than any +of you have done." Amos was too wrought up to reason.</p> + +<p>"Well, I acknowledge," said Cam, "I've ben a leetle slack about gittin' +a grave-stun up fur Dollie, seein' she's still livin', but I have +threatened her time an' agin to put a winder to her memory in the church +an' git her in shape to legalize it if she don't learn how to git me up +a good meal. Darned poor cook my wife is."</p> + +<p>"An' as for this boy," Judson broke in, not noticing Cam's joke, "as to +his looks," he stroked his slick light brown hair, "a little baldness +gives dignity, makes a man look like a man. Who'd want to have hair like +a girl's? But Mrs. Whately's too wise not to do well by her daughter. +She knows the value of a dollar, and a man makin' it himself."</p> + +<p>"Well, why not set your cap fur the widder? You'd make a good father to +her child, an' Phil would jest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> na'chelly be proud of you for a +daddy-in-law." This from the stage driver, Dever, who had caught the +spirit of the game in hand. "Anyhow you'd orter seen them two young +folks meet when he first got back home, out there where the crowd of 'em +helt up the stage. Well, sir, she was the last to say 'howdy do.' +Everybody was lookin' the other way then, 'cept me, and I didn't have +sense enough. Well, sir, he jist took her hand like somethin' he'd been +reachin' fur about two year, an' they looked into each other's eyes, +hungry like, an' a sort of joy such as any of us 'ud long to possess +come into them two young faces. I tell you, if you're goin' to gossip +jist turn it onto Judson er me, but let them two alone."</p> + +<p>Judson was too violently angry to be discreet.</p> + +<p>"It's all silly scand'lous foolishness, and I won't hear another word of +it," he shouted.</p> + +<p>Just as he spoke, Marjie herself came in. Judson stepped forward in an +officious effort to serve her, and unable to restrain himself, he called +out to O'mie, "Put four yards of towelling, twelve and a half cents a +yard, to Mrs. Whately's standing account."</p> + +<p>It was not the words that offended, so much as the tone, the proprietary +sound, the sense of obligation it seemed to put upon the purchaser, +unrelieved by his bland smile and attempt at humor in his after remark, +"We don't run accounts with everybody, but I guess we can trust you."</p> + +<p>It cut Marjie's spirit. A flush mounted to her cheeks, as she took her +purchase and hurried out of the door and plump into my father, who was +passing just then.</p> + +<p>Judge Baronet was a man of courtly manners. He gently caught Marjie's +arm to steady her.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Marjie. How is your mother to-day?"</p> + +<p>The little girl did not speak for a moment. Her eyes were full of tears. +Presently she said, "May I come up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> to your office pretty soon? I want +to ask you something—something of our business matters."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, come now," he replied, taking her bundle and putting himself +on the outer side of the walk. He had forgotten my appointment for the +moment.</p> + +<p>When they reached the courthouse he said: "Just run into my room there; +I've got to catch Sheriff Karr before he gets away."</p> + +<p>He opened the door of his private office, thrusting her gently inside, +and hurried away. I turned to meet my father, and there was Marjie. Tear +drops were on her long brown lashes, and her cheeks were flushed.</p> + +<p>"Why, my little girl!" I exclaimed in surprise as she started to hurry +away.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were in here; your father sent me in"—and then the +tears came in earnest.</p> + +<p>I couldn't stand for that.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Marjie?" I had put her in my father's chair and was bending +over her, my face dangerously near her cheek.</p> + +<p>"It's Amos Judson—Oh, Phil, I can't tell you. I was going to talk to +your father."</p> + +<p>"All right," I said gayly. "Ask papa. It's the proper thing. He must be +consulted, of course. But as to Judson, don't worry. O'mie promised me +just this morning to sew him up in a sack and throw him off the cliff +above the Hermit's Cave into the river. O'mie says it's safe; he's so +light he'll float."</p> + +<p>Marjie smiled through her tears. A noise in the outer office reminded us +that some one was there, and that the outer door was half ajar. Then my +father came in. His face was kindly impenetrable.</p> + +<p>"I had forgotten my son was here. Phil, take these papers over to the +county attorney's office. I'll call you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> later." He turned me out and +gave his attention to Marjie.</p> + +<p>I loafed about the outer office until she and my father came out. He led +her to the doorway and down the steps with a courtesy he never forgot +toward women. When we were alone in his private office I longed to ask +Marjie's errand, but I knew my father too well.</p> + +<p>"You wanted to see me, Phil?" He was seated opposite to me, his eyes +were looking steadily into mine, and clear beyond them down into my +soul.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Father," I replied; "I am a man now—twenty-one years and one day +over. And there are a few things, as a man, I want to know and to have +you know."</p> + +<p>He was sharpening a pencil carefully. "I'm listening," he said kindly.</p> + +<p>"Well, Father—" I hesitated. It was so much harder to say than I had +thought it would be. I toyed with the tassel of the window cord +confusedly. "Father, you remember when you were twenty-one?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my son, I was just out of Harvard. And like you I had a father to +whom I went to tell him I was in love, just as you are. When your own +son comes to you some day, help him a little."</p> + +<p>I felt a weight lifted from my mind. It was good of him to open the way.</p> + +<p>"Father, I have never seen any other girl like Marjie."</p> + +<p>"No, there isn't any—for you. But how about her?"</p> + +<p>"I think, I know she—does care. I think—" I was making poor work of it +after all his help. "Well, she said she did, anyhow." I blurted out +defiantly.</p> + +<p>"The court accepts the evidence," he remarked, and then more seriously +he went on: "My son, I am happy in your joy. I may have been a little +slow. There was much harmless coupling of her name with young +Till<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>hurst's while you were away. I did not give it much thought. +Letters from Rockport were also giving you and Rachel Melrose some +consideration. Rachel is an only child and pretty well fixed +financially."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Father, I never gave her two thoughts."</p> + +<p>"So the letters intimated, but added that the Melrose blood is +persistent, and that Rachel's mother was especially willing. She is of a +good family, old friends of Candace's and mine. She will have money in +her own right, is handsome and well educated. I thought you might be +satisfied there."</p> + +<p>"But I don't care for her money nor anybody else's. Nobody but Marjie +will ever suit me," I cried.</p> + +<p>"So I saw when I looked at you two in church yesterday. It was a +revelation, I admit; but I took in the situation at once." And then more +affectionately he added: "I was very proud of you, Phil. You and Marjie +made a picture I shall keep. When you want my blessing, I have part of +it in the strong box in my safe. All I have of worldly goods will be +yours, Phil, if you do it no dishonor; and as to my good-will, my son, +you are my wife's child, my one priceless treasure. When by your own +efforts you can maintain a home, nor feel yourself dependent, then bring +a bride to me. I shall do all I can to give you an opportunity. I hope +you will not wait long. When Irving Whately lay dying at Chattanooga he +told me his hopes for Marjie and you. But he charged me not to tell you +until you should of your own accord come to me. You have his blessing, +too."</p> + +<p>How good he was to me! His hand grasped mine.</p> + +<p>"Phil, let me say one thing; don't ever get too old to consult your +father. It may save some losses and misunderstandings and heart-aches. +And now, what else?"</p> + +<p>"Father, when O'mie seemed to be dying, Le Claire told<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> me something of +his story one evening. He said you knew it."</p> + +<p>My father looked grave.</p> + +<p>"How does this concern you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>"Only in this. I promised Le Claire I would see that O'mie's case was +cared for if he lived and you never came back," I replied. "He is of age +now, and if he knows his rights he does not use them."</p> + +<p>"Have you talked to O'mie of this?" he asked quickly.</p> + +<p>"No, sir; I promised not to speak of it."</p> + +<p>"Phil, did Le Claire suggest any property?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir. Is there any?"</p> + +<p>My father smiled. "You have a lawyer's nose," he said, "but fortunately +you can keep a still tongue. I'm taking care of O'mie's case right now. +By the way," he went on after a short pause. "I sent you out on an +errand Saturday. That's another difficult case, a land claim I'm trying +to prove for a party. There are two claimants. Tell Mapleson is the +counsel for the other one. It's a really dangerous case in some ways. +You were to go and spy out the land. What did you see? Anything except a +pretty girl?" My face was burning. "Oh, I understand. You found a place +out there to stand, and now you think you can move the world."</p> + +<p>"I found something I want to speak of besides. Oh, well—I'm not ashamed +of caring for Marjie."</p> + +<p>"No, no, my boy. You are right. You found the best thing in the world. I +found it myself once, by a moonlit sea, not on the summer prairie; but +it is the same eternal blessing. Now go on."</p> + +<p>"Well, father, you said the place was uninhabited. But it isn't. +Somebody is about there now."</p> + +<p>"Did you see any one, or is it just a wayside camp for movers going out +on the trail?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I am not sure that I saw any one, and yet—"</p> + +<p>"Tell me all you know, and all you suspect, and why you have +conclusions," he said gravely.</p> + +<p>"I caught just a glimpse, a mere flirt of a red blanket with a white +centre, the kind Jean Pahusca used to wear. It was between the corner of +the house and the hazel-brush thicket, as if some one were making for +the timber."</p> + +<p>"Did you follow it?"</p> + +<p>"N—no, I could hardly say I saw anything; but thinking about it +afterwards, I am sure somebody was getting out of sight."</p> + +<p>"I see." My father looked straight at me. I knew his mind, and I blushed +and pulled at the tassel of the window cord. "Be careful. The county has +to pay for curtain fixtures. What else?"</p> + +<p>"Well, inside the cabin there were fresh ashes and a half-burned stick +on the hearth. By a chair under the table I picked this up." I handed +him the bow of purple ribbon with the flashing pin.</p> + +<p>"It must be movers, and as to that red flash of color, are you real sure +it was not just a part of the rose-hued world out there?" He smiled as +he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Father, that bow was on Lettie Conlow's head not an hour before it was +lost out there. She found out where we were going, and she put out +northwest on Tell Mapleson's pony. She may have taken the river path. It +is the shortest way. Why should she go out there?"</p> + +<p>"Do some thinking for yourself. You are a man now, twenty-one, and one +day over. You can unravel this part." He sat with impenetrable face, +waiting for me to speak.</p> + +<p>"I do not know. Lettie Conlow has always been silly about—about the +boys. All the young folks say she likes me, has always liked me."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span></p> + +<p>"How much cause have you given her? Be sure your memory is clear." My +father spoke sternly.</p> + +<p>"Father," I stood before him now, "I am a man, as you say, and I have +come up through a boyhood no better nor worse than the other boys whom +you know here. We were a pretty decent gang even before you went away to +the War. After that we had to be men. But all these years, Father, there +has been only one girl for me. I never gave Lettie Conlow a ghost of a +reason for thinking I cared for her. But she is old Conlow's own child, +and she has a bitter, jealous nature."</p> + +<p>"Well, what took her to the—to the old cabin out there?"</p> + +<p>"I do not know. She may have been hidden out there to spy what we—I was +doing."</p> + +<p>"Did she have on a red blanket too, Saturday afternoon?"</p> + +<p>"Well, now I wonder—." My mind was in a whirl. Could she be in league +against me? What did it mean? I sat down to think.</p> + +<p>"Father, there's something I've never yet understood about this town," I +burst out impetuously. "If it is to have anything to do with my future I +ought to know it. Father Le Claire would tell me only half his story. +You know more of O'mie than you will tell me. And here is a jealous girl +whose father consented to give Marjie to a brutal Indian out of hatred +for her father; and it is his daughter who trails me over the prairie +because I am with Marjie. Why not tell me now what you know?"</p> + +<p>My father sat looking thoughtfully at me. At last he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I know nothing of girls' love affairs and jealousies," he said; "pass +that now. I am O'mie's attorney and am trying to adjust his claims for +him as I can discover them.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> I cannot get hold of the case myself as I +should like. If Le Claire were here I might find out something."</p> + +<p>"Or nothing," I broke in. "It would depend on circumstances."</p> + +<p>"You are right. He has never told me all he knows, but I know much +without his telling."</p> + +<p>"Do you know how Jean Pahusca came to carry a knife for years with the +name, 'Jean Le Claire,' cut in the blade? Do you know why the half-breed +and the priest came to look so much alike, same square-cut forehead, +same build, same gait, same proud way of throwing back the head? You've +only to look at them to see all this, except that with a little +imagination the priest's face would fit a saint and Jean's is a very +devil's countenance."</p> + +<p>"I do not know the exact answer to any of these questions. They are +points for us to work out together now you are a man. Jean is in some +way bound to Le Claire. If by blood ties, why does the priest not own, +or entirely disown him? If not, why does the priest protect him?</p> + +<p>"In some way, too, both are concerned with O'mie. Le Claire is eager to +protect the Irishman. I do not know where Jean is, but I believe +sometimes he is here in concealment. He and Tell Mapleson are +counselling together. I think he furnishes Tell with some booty, for +Tell is inordinately prosperous. I look at this from a lawyer's place. +You have grown up with the crowd here, and you see as a young man from +the social side, where personal motives count for much. Together we must +get this thing unravelled; and it may be in doing it some love matters +and some church matters may get mixed and need straightening. You must +keep me informed of every thing you know." He paused a moment, then +added: "I am glad you have let me know how it is with you, Phil. In your +life I can live my own again. Children do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> so bless us. Be happy in your +love, my boy. But be manly, too. There are some hard climbs before you +yet. Learn to bear and wait. Yours is an open sunlit way to-day. If the +shadows creep across it, be strong. They will lift again. Run home now +and tell Aunt Candace I'll be home at one o'clock. Tell her what you +have told me, too. She will be glad to know it."</p> + +<p>"She does know it; she has known it ever since the night we came into +Springvale in 1854."</p> + +<p>My father turned to the door. Then he put his arms about me and kissed +my forehead. "You have your mother's face, Phil." How full of tenderness +his tones were!</p> + +<p>In the office I saw Judson moving restlessly before the windows. He had +been waiting there for some time, and he frowned on me as I passed him. +He was a man of small calibre. His one gift was that of money-getting.</p> + +<p>By the careful management of the Whately store in the owner's absence he +began to add to his own bank account. With the death of Mr. Whately he +had assumed control, refusing to allow any investigation of affairs +until, to put it briefly, he was now in entire possession. Poor Mrs. +Whately hardly knew what was her own, while her husband's former clerk +waxed pompous and well-to-do. Being a vain man, he thought the best +should come to him in social affairs, and being a man of medium +intellect, he lacked self-control and tact.</p> + +<p>This was the nature of the creature who strode into Judge Baronet's +private office, slamming the door behind him and presenting himself +unannounced. The windows front the street leading down to where the +trail crossed the river, and give a view of the glistening Neosho +winding down the valley. My father was standing by one of these windows +when Judson fired himself into the room. John<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> Baronet's mind was not on +Springvale, nor on the river. His thoughts were of his son and of her +who had borne him, the sweet-browed woman whose image was in the +sacredest shrine of his heart.</p> + +<p>Judson's advent was ill-timed, and his excessive lack of tact made the +matter worse.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Baronet," he began pompously enough, "I must see you on a very +grave matter, very grave indeed."</p> + +<p>Judge Baronet gave him a chair and sat down across the table from him to +listen. Judson had grated harshly on his mood, but he was a man of +poise.</p> + +<p>"I'll be brief and blunt. That's what you lawyers want, ain't it?" The +little man giggled. "But I must advise this step at once as a necessary, +a very necessary one."</p> + +<p>My father waited. Judson hadn't the penetration to feel embarrassed.</p> + +<p>"You see it's like this. If you'll just keep still a minute I can show +you, though I ain't no lawyer; I'm a man of affairs, a commercialist, as +you would say. A producer maybe is a better term. In short, I'm a +money-maker."</p> + +<p>My father smiled. "I see," he remarked. "I'll keep still. Go on."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, I'm a widower that has provided handsome for my first wife's +remains. I've earned and paid for the right to forget her."</p> + +<p>The great broad-shouldered, broad-minded man before the little boaster +looked down to hide his contempt.</p> + +<p>"I've did my part handsome now, you'll admit; and being alone in the +world, with no one to enjoy my prosperity with me, I'm lonesome. That's +it, I'm lonesome. Ain't you sometimes?"</p> + +<p>"Often," my father replied.</p> + +<p>"Now I know'd it. We're in the same boat barring<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> a great difference in +ages. Why, hang it, Judge, let's get married!" He giggled explosively +and so failed to see the stern face of the man before him.</p> + +<p>"I want a young woman, a pretty girl, I've a right to a pretty girl, I +think. In fact, I want Marjory Whately. And what's more, I'm going to +have her. I've all but got the widder's consent now. She's under +considerable obligation to me."</p> + +<p>Across John Baronet's mind there swept a picture of the Chattanooga +battle field. The roar of cannon, the smoke of rifles, the awful charge +on charge, around him. And in the very heart of it all, Irving Whately +wounded unto death, his hands grasping the Springvale flag, his voice +growing faint.</p> + +<p>"You will look after them, John? Phil promised to take care of Marjie. +It makes this easier. I believe they will love each other, John. I hope +they may. When they do, give them my blessing. Good-bye." Across this +vision Judson's thin sharp voice was pouring out words.</p> + +<p>"Now, Baronet, you see, to be plain, it's just this way. If I marry +Marjory, folks'll say I'm doing it to get control of the widder's stock. +It's small; but they'll say it."</p> + +<p>"Why should it be small?" My father's voice was penetrating as a +knife-thrust. Judson staggered at it a little.</p> + +<p>"Business, you know, management you couldn't understand. She's no hand +at money matters."</p> + +<p>"So it seems," my father said dryly.</p> + +<p>"But you'd not understand it. To resume. Folks'll say I'm trying to get +the whole thing, when all I really want is the girl, the girl now. +She'll not have much at best; and divided between her and her mother, +there'll be little left for Mrs. Whately to go on livin' on, with Mrs. +Judson's share taken out. Now, here's my point precisely, precisely. You +take the widder yourself. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> need a wife, and Mrs. Whately's still +good-looking most ways. She was always a pretty, winsome-faced woman.</p> + +<p>"You've got a plenty and getting more all the time. You could provide +handsome for her the rest of her life. You'd enjoy a second wife, an' +she'd be out of my way. You see it, don't you? I'll marry Marjie, an' +you marry her mother, kind of double wedding. Whew! but we'd make a fine +couple of grooms. What's in gray hair and baldness, anyhow? But there's +one thing I can't stand for. Gossip has begun to couple the name of your +boy with Miss Whately. Now he's just a very boy, only a year or two +older'n she, and nowise able to take care of her properly, you'll admit; +and it's silly. Besides, Conlow was telling me just an hour or more ago, +that Phil and Lettie was old-time sweethearts. I've nothing to do with +Phil's puppy love, however. I'm here to advise with you. Shall we clinch +the bargain now, or do you want to think about it a little while? But +don't take long. It's a little sudden maybe to you. It's been on my mind +since the day I got that memorial window in an' Marjory sang 'Lead +Kindly Light,' standing there in the light of it. It was a service for +my first wife sung by her that was to be my second, you might almost +say. Dr. Hemingway talked beautiful, too, just beautiful. But I've got +to go. Business don't bother you lawyers,"—he was growing very familiar +now,—"but us merchants has to keep a sharp eye to time. When shall I +call?" He rose briskly. "When shall I call?" he repeated.</p> + +<p>My father rose up to his full height. His hands were clasped hard behind +his back. He did not lift his eyes to the expectant creature before him, +and the foxy little widower did not dream how near to danger he was. +With the self-control that was a part of John Baronet's character, he +replied in an even voice:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You will come when I send for you."</p> + +<p>That evening my father told me all that had taken place.</p> + +<p>"You are a man now, and must stand up against this miserable cur. But +you must proceed carefully. No hot-headed foolishness will do. He will +misjudge your motives and mine, and he can plant some ugly seeds along +your way. Property is his god. He is daily defrauding the defenceless to +secure it. When I move against him it will be made to appear that I do +it for your sake. Put yourself into the place where, of your own +wage-earning power, you can keep a wife in comfort, not luxury yet. That +will come later, maybe. And then I'll hang this dog with a rope of his +own braiding. But I'll wait for that until you come fully into a man's +estate, with the power to protect what you love."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<h3>THE TOPEKA RALLY</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And men may say what things they please, and none dare stay their tongue.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But who has spoken out for these—the women and the young?</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—KIPLING.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Henceforth I had one controlling purpose. Mine was now the task to prove +myself a man with power to create and defend the little kingdom whose +throne is builded on the hearthstone. I put into my work all the energy +of my youth and love and hope.</p> + +<p>I applied myself to the study of law, and I took hold of my father's +business interests with a will. I was to enter into a partnership with +him when I could do a partner's work. He forebore favors, but he gave me +opportunity to prove myself. Stories of favoritism on account of my +father's position, of my wasteful and luxurious habits, ludicrous enough +in a little Kansas town in the sixties, were peddled about by the +restless little widower. By my father's advice I let him alone and went +my way. I knew that silently and persistently John Baronet was trailing +him. And I knew the cause was a righteous one. I had lived too long in +the Baronet family to think the head of it would take time to follow +after a personal dislike, or pursue a petty purpose.</p> + +<p>There may have been many happy lovers on these sunny prairies that +idyllic summer, now forty years gone by.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> The story of each, though like +that of all the others, seems best to him who lived it. Marjie and I +were going through commonplace days, but we were very happy with the joy +of life and love. Our old playground was now our trysting place. +Together on our "Rockport" we planned a future wherein there were no +ugly shadows.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, I'll always keep 'Rockport' for my shrine now," I said to her +one evening as we were watching the sunset lights on the prairie and the +river upstream. "If you ever hear me say I don't care for 'Rockport,' +you will know I do not care for you. Now, think of that!"</p> + +<p>"Don't ever say it, Phil, please, if you can help it." Marjie's mood was +more serious than mine just then. "I used to be afraid of Indians. I am +still, if there were need to be, and I looked to you always somehow to +keep them away. Do you remember how I would always get on your side of +the game when Jean Pahusca played with us?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Marjie. That's where you belong—on my side. That's the kind of +game I'm playing."</p> + +<p>"Phil, I am troubled a little with another game. I wish Amos Judson +would stay away from our house. He can make mother believe almost +anything. I don't feel safe about some matters. Judge Baronet tells me +not to worry, that he will keep close watch."</p> + +<p>"Well, take it straight from me that he will do it," I assured her. +"Let's let the widower go his way. He talks about me; says I'm 'callow, +that's it, just callow.' I don't mind being callow, as long as it's not +catching. Look at the river, how it glistens now. We can almost see the +shallows up by the stone cabin below the big cottonwood. The old tree is +shapely, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>We were looking upstream to where the huge old tree stood out against +the golden horizon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Let's buy that land, Phil, and build a house under the big cottonwood +some day."</p> + +<p>"All right, I'm to go out there again soon. Will you go too?"</p> + +<p>"Of course," Marjie assented, "if you want me to."</p> + +<p>"I am sure I'd never want to take any other girl out there, but just +you, dear," I declared.</p> + +<p>And then we talked of other things, and promised to put our letters next +day, into the deep crevice we had called our post-office these many +years. Before we parted that night, I said:</p> + +<p>"I'm thinking of going up to Topeka when the band goes to the big +political speaking, next week. I will write to you. And be sure to let +me find a letter in 'Rockport' when I get back. I'll be so lonely up +there."</p> + +<p>"Well, find some pretty girl and let her kill time for you."</p> + +<p>"Will you and Judson kill time down here?"</p> + +<p>"Ugh! no," Marjie shivered in disgust. "I can't bear the sight of his +face any more."</p> + +<p>"Good! I'll not try to be any more miserable by being bored with +somebody I don't care for at Topeka. But don't forget the letter. +Good-night, little sweetheart," and after the fashion of lovers, I said +good-bye.</p> + +<p>Kansas is essentially a land of young politicians. When O'mie took his +band to the capital city to play martial music for the big political +rally, there were more young men than gray beards on the speakers' stand +and on the front seats. I had gone with the Springvale crowd on this +jaunt, but I did not consider myself a person of importance.</p> + +<p>"There's Judge Baronet's son; he's just out of Harvard. He's got big +influence with the party down his way. His father always runs away ahead +of his ticket<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> and has the whole district about as he wants it. That's +the boy that saved Springvale one night when the pro-slavery crowd was +goin' to burn it, the year of the Quantrill raid."</p> + +<p>So, I heard myself exploited in the hotel lobby of the old Teft House.</p> + +<p>"What's Tell Mapleson after this year, d'ye reckon? Come in a week ago. +He's the doggondest feller to be after somethin', an' gets it, too, +somehow." The speaker was a seasoned politician of the hotel lobby +variety.</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's got a big suit of some kind back East. It's a case of money +bein' left to heirs, and he's looking out that the heirs don't get it."</p> + +<p>"Ain't it awful about the Saline country?" a bystander broke in here. +"Just awful! Saw a man from out there last night by the name of Morton. +He said that them Cheyennes are raidin' an' murderin' all that can't get +into the towns. Lord pity the unprotected settlers way out in that +lonely country. This man said they just killed the little children +before their mothers' eyes, after they'd scalped and tomahawked the +fathers. Just beat them to death, and then carried off the women. Oh, +God! but it's awful."</p> + +<p>Awful! I lived through the hours of that night from the time young Tell +Mapleson had told of Jean Pahusca's plan to seize Marjie, to the moment +when I saw her safe in the shelter of her mother's doorway. Awful! And +this sort of thing was going on now in the Saline Valley. How could God +permit it?</p> + +<p>"There was one family out there, they got the mother and baby and just +butchered the other children right before her eyes. They hung the baby +to a tree later, and when they got ready they killed its mother. It was +the only merciful thing they done, I guess, in all their raid,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> for they +made her die a thousand deaths before they really cut off her poor +pitiful life."</p> + +<p>So I heard the talk running on, and I wondered at the bluff committeeman +who broke up the group to get the men in line for a factional caucus.</p> + +<p>Did the election of a party favorite, the nomination of a man whose turn +had come, or who would be favorable to "our crowd" in his appointments +match in importance this terrible menace to life on our Indian frontier? +I had heard much of the Saline and the Solomon River valleys. Union +soldiers were homesteading those open plains. My father's +comrades-in-arms they had been, and he was intensely interested in their +welfare. These Union men had wounds still unhealed from service in the +Civil War. And the nation they bore these wounds to save, the Government +at Washington, was ignorant or indifferent to this danger that +threatened them hourly—a danger infinitely worse than death to women. +And the State in the vital throes of a biennial election was treating +the whole affair as a deplorable incident truly, but one the national +government must look out for.</p> + +<p>I was young and enthusiastic, but utterly without political ambition. I +was only recently out of college, with a scholar's ideals of civic duty. +And with all these, I had behind me the years of a frontier life on the +border, in which years my experience and inspiration had taught me the +value of the American home, and a strong man's duty toward the weak and +defenceless. The memories of my mother, the association and training of +my father's sister, and my love for Marjie made all women sacred to me. +And while these feelings that stirred the finest fibres of my being, and +of which I never spoke then, may have been the mark of a less practical +nature than most young<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> men have to-day, I account my life stronger, +cleaner and purer for having had them.</p> + +<p>I could take only a perfunctory interest in the political game about me, +and I felt little elation at the courteous request that I should take a +seat in the speakers' stand, when the clans did finally gather for a +grand struggle for place.</p> + +<p>The meeting opened with O'mie's band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." +It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platform +stood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous, +least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too, +I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party's +virtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers +extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the +hour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State's +most pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through it +all my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the Saline +Valley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now in +the cruel slavery of Indian captivity.</p> + +<p>I knew only a few people in the capital city and I looked at the +audience with the indifference of a stranger who seeks for no familiar +face. And yet, subconsciously, I felt the presence of some one who was +watching me, some one who knew me well. Presently the master of +ceremonies called for the gifted educator, Richard Tillhurst of +Springvale. I knew he was in Topeka, but I had not hunted for him any +more than he had sought me out. We mutually didn't need each other. And +yet local pride is strong, and I led the hand-clapping that greeted his +appearance. He was visibly embarrassed, and ultra-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>dignified. Education +had a representative above reproach in him. Pompously, after the manner +of the circumscribed instructor, he began, and for a limited time the +travelling was easy. But he made the fatal error of keeping on his feet +after his ideas were exhausted. He lost the trail and wandered aimlessly +in the barren, trackless realms of thought, seeking relief and finding +none, until at length in sheer embarrassment he forced himself to +retreat to his seat. Little enthusiasm was expressed and failure was +written all over his banner.</p> + +<p>The next speaker was a politician of the rip-roaring variety who pounded +the table and howled his enthusiasm, whose logic was all expressed in +the short-story form, sometimes witty, sometimes far-fetched and often +profane. He interested me least of all, and my mind abstracted by the +Tillhurst feature went back again to the Plains. I could not realize +what was going on when the politician had finished amid uproarious +applause, and the chairman was introducing the next speaker, until I +caught my father's name, coupled with lavish praise of his merits. There +was a graceful folding of his mantle on the shoulders of "his gifted +son, just out of Harvard, but a true child of Kansas, with a record for +heroism in the war time, and a growing prominence in his district, and +an altogether good-headed, good-hearted, and, the ladies all agree, +good-looking young man, the handsome giant of the Neosho." And I found +myself thrust to the front of the speakers' stand, with applause +following itself, and O'mie, the mischievous rascal, striking off a few +bars of "See, the Conquering Hero Comes!"</p> + +<p>I was taken so completely by surprise that I thought the earth +especially unkind not to open at once and let me in. It must have been +something of my inheritance of my father's self-control, coupled with my +life experience of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> having to meet emergencies quickly, which all the +children of Springvale knew, that pulled me through. The prolonged +cheering gave me a moment to get the mastery. Then like an inspiration +came the thought to break away from the beaten path of local politics +and to launch forth into a plea for larger political ideals. I cited the +Civil War as a crucible, testing men. I did not once mention my father, +but the company knew his proud record, and there were many present who +had fought and marched and starved and bled beside him, men whom his +genius and his kindness had saved from peril, even the peril of death. +And then out of the fulness of a heart that had suffered, I pled for the +lives and homes of the settlers on our Plains frontier. I pictured, for +I knew how to picture, the anguish of soul an Indian raid can leave in +its wake, and the duty we owe to the homes, our high privilege as strong +men and guardians to care for the defenceless, and our opportunity to +repay a part at least of the debt we owe to the Union soldier by giving +a State's defence to these men, who were homesteading our hitherto +unbroken, trackless plains, and building empire westward toward the +baths of sunset.</p> + +<p>The effort was so boyish, so unlike every other speech that had been +made, and yet so full of a young man's honest zeal and profound +convictions from a soul stirred to its very depths, that the audience +rose to their feet at my closing words, and cheer followed cheer, making +the air ring with sound.</p> + +<p>When the meeting had finished, I found myself in the centre of a group +of men who knew John Baronet and just wouldn't let his son get away +without a handshake. I was flushed with the pleasure of such a reception +and was doing my best to act well, when a man grasped my hand with a +grip unlike any other hand I had ever felt, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> firm, so full of +friendship, and yet so undemonstrative, that I instinctively returned +the clasp. He was a man of some thirty years, small beside me, and there +was nothing unusual in his face or dress or manner to attract my +attention. A stranger might not turn to him a second time in a crowd, +unless they had once spoken and clasped hands.</p> + +<p>"My name is Morton," he said. "I know your father, I knew him in the +army and before, back in Massachusetts. I am from the Saline River +country, and I came down here hoping to find the State more interested +in the conditions out our way. You were the only speaker who thought of +the needs of the settlers. There are terrible things being done right +now."</p> + +<p>He spoke so simply that a careless ear would not have detected the +strength of the feeling back of the words.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell my father I met you," I said cordially, "and I hope, I hope +to heaven the captives may be found soon, and the Indians punished. How +can a man live who has lost his wife, or his sweetheart, in that way?"</p> + +<p>I knew I was blushing, but the matter was so terrible to me. Before he +could answer, Richard Tillhurst pushed through the crowd and caught my +arm.</p> + +<p>"There's an old friend of yours here, who wants to meet you, Mr. +Baronet," and he pulled me away.</p> + +<p>"I hope I'll see you again," I turned to Mr. Morton to say, and in a +moment more, I was face to face with Rachel Melrose. It was she whose +presence I had somehow felt in that crowd of strangers. She was +handsomer even than I had remembered her, and she had a style of dress +new and attractive. One would know that she was fresh from the East, for +our own girls and women for the most part had many things to consider +besides the latest fashions.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> + +<p>I think Tillhurst mistook my surprise for confusion. He was a man of +good principles, but he was a human being, not a saint, and he pursued a +purpose selfishly as most of us who are human do.</p> + +<p>The young lady grasped my hand in both of hers impulsively.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Baronet, I'm so glad to see you again. I knew you would come to +Topeka as soon as you knew I had come West. I just got here two days +ago, and I could hardly wait until you came. It's just like old times to +see you again."</p> + +<p>Then she turned to Tillhurst, standing there greedily taking in every +word, his face beaming as one's face may who finds an obstacle suddenly +lifted from his way.</p> + +<p>"We are old friends, the best kind of friends, Mr. Tillhurst. Mr. +Baronet and I have recollections of two delightful years when he was in +Harvard, haven't we?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," I replied. "Miss Melrose was the only girl who would listen +to my praising Kansas while I was in Massachusetts. Naturally I found +her delightful company."</p> + +<p>"Did he tell you about his girl here?" Tillhurst asked, a trifle +maliciously, maybe.</p> + +<p>"Of course, I didn't," I broke in. "We don't tell all we know when we go +East."</p> + +<p>"Nor all you have done in the East when you come back home, evidently," +Tillhurst spoke significantly. "I've never heard him mention your name +once, Miss Melrose."</p> + +<p>"Has he been flirting with some one, Mr. Tillhurst? He promised me +faithfully he wouldn't." Her tone took on a disappointed note.</p> + +<p>"I'll promise anybody not to flirt, for I don't do it," I cried. "I came +home and found this young educator<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> trying to do me mischief with the +little girl I told you about the last time I saw you. Naturally he +doesn't like me."</p> + +<p>All this in a joking manner, and yet a vein of seriousness ran through +it somewhere.</p> + +<p>Rachel Melrose was adroit.</p> + +<p>"We won't quarrel," she said sweetly, "now we do meet again, and when I +go down to Springvale to visit your aunt, as you insisted I must do, +we'll get all this straightened out. You'll come and take tea with us of +course. Mr. Tillhurst has promised to come, too."</p> + +<p>The young man looked curiously at me at the mention of Rachel's visit to +Springvale. A group of politicians broke in just here.</p> + +<p>"We can't have you monopolize 'the handsome giant of the Neosho' all the +time," they said, laughing, with many a compliment to the charming young +monopolist. "We don't blame him, of course, now, but we need him badly. +Come, Baronet," and they hurried me away, giving me time only to thank +her for the invitation to dine with her.</p> + +<p>At the Teft House letters were waiting for me. One from my father asking +me to visit Governor Crawford and take a personal message of some +importance to him, with the injunction, "Stay till you do see him." The +other was a fat little envelope inscribed in Marjie's handwriting. +Inside were only flowers, the red blossoms that grow on the vines in the +crevices of our "Rockport," and a sheet of note paper about them with +the simple message:</p> + +<p>"Always and always yours, Marjie."</p> + +<p>Willing or unwilling, I found myself in the thick of the political +turmoil, and had it not been for that Indian raiding in Northwest +Kansas, I should have plunged into politics then and there, so strong a +temptation it is to control<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> men, if opportunity offers. It was late +before I could get out of the council and rush to my room to write a +hurried but loving letter to Marjie. I had to be brief to get it into +the mails. So I wrote only of what was first in my thoughts; herself, +and my longing to see her, of the noisy political strife, and of the +Saline River and Solomon River outrages, I hurried this letter to the +outgoing stage and fell in with the crowd gathering late in the +dining-room. I was half way through my meal before I remembered Rachel's +invitation.</p> + +<p>"I can only be rude to her, it seems, but I'll offer my excuses, and +maybe she will let me have the honor of her company home. She will hunt +me up before I get out of the hall, I am sure." So I satisfied myself +and prepared for the evening gathering.</p> + +<p>It was much on the order of the other meeting, except that only seasoned +party leaders were given place on the programme.</p> + +<p>I asked Rachel for her company home, but she laughingly refused me.</p> + +<p>"I must punish you," she said. "When do you go home?"</p> + +<p>"Not for two days," I replied. "I have business for my father and the +person I am to see is called out of town."</p> + +<p>"Then there will be plenty of time later for you. You go home to-morrow, +Mr. Tillhurst," she said coquettishly. "Tell his friends in Springvale, +he is busy up here." She was a pretty girl, but slow as I was, I began +to see method in her manner of procedure. I could not be rude to her, +but I resolved then not to go one step beyond the demands of actual +courtesy.</p> + +<p>In the crowd passing up to the hotel that night, I fell into step with +my father's soldier friend, Morton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> + +<p>"When you get ready to leave Springvale, come out and take a claim on +the Saline," he said. "That will be a garden of Eden some day."</p> + +<p>"It seems to have its serpent already, Mr. Morton," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, the serpent can be crushed. Come out and help us do it. We need +numbers, especially in men of endurance." We were at the hotel door. +Morton bade me good-bye by saying, "Don't forget; come our way when you +get the Western fever."</p> + +<p>Governor Crawford returned too late for me to catch the stage for +Springvale on the same day. Having a night more to spend in the capital, +it seemed proper for me to make amends for my unpardonable forgetfulness +of Rachel Melrose's invitation to tea by calling on her in the evening. +Her aunt's home was at the far side of the town beyond the modest square +stone building that was called Lincoln College then. It was only a +stone's throw from the State Capitol, the walls of the east wing of +which were then being built.</p> + +<p>I remember it was a beautiful moonlit night, in early August, and Rachel +asked me to take a stroll over the prairie to the southwest. The day had +been very hot, and the west had piled up some threatening thunderheads. +But the evening breezes fanned them away over the far horizon line and +the warm night air was light and dry. The sky was white with the clear +luminous moonlight of the open Plains country.</p> + +<p>Rachel and I had wandered idly along the gentle rise of ground until we +could quite overlook the little treeless town with this Lincoln College +and the jagged portion of the State House wing gleaming up beyond.</p> + +<p>"Hadn't we better turn back now? Your aunt cau<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>tioned us two strangers +here not to get lost." I was only hinting my wishes.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let's go on to that tree. It's the only one here in this forsaken +country. Let's pay our respects to it," Rachel urged.</p> + +<p>She was right. To an Easterner's eye it was a forsaken country. From the +Shunganunga Creek winding beneath a burden of low, black underbrush, +northward to the river with its fringe of huge cottonwoods, not a tree +broke the line of vision save this one sturdy young locust spreading its +lacy foliage in dainty grace on the very summit of the gentle swell of +land between the two streams. Up to its pretty shadowed spaces we took +our way. The grass was dry and brown with the August heat, and we rested +awhile on the moonlit prairie.</p> + +<p>Rachel was strikingly handsome, and the soft light lent a certain tone +to her beauty. Her hair and eyes were very dark, and her face was clear +cut. There was a dash of boldness, an assumption of authority all +prettily accented with smiles and dimples that was very bewitching. She +was a subtle flatterer, and even the wisest men may be caught by that +bait. It was the undercurrent of sympathy, product of my life-long +ideals, my intense pity for the defenceless frontier, that divided my +mind and led me away from temptation that night.</p> + +<p>"Rachel Melrose, we must go home," I insisted at last. "This tree is all +right, but I could show you a cottonwood out above the Neosho that +dwarfs this puny locust. And yet this is a gritty sort of sapling to +stand up here and grow and grow. I wonder if ever the town will reach +out so far as this."</p> + +<p>I am told the tree is green and beautiful to-day, and that it is far +inside the city limits, standing on the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> Huntoon road. About it are +substantial homes. South of it is a pretty park now, while near it on +the west is a handsome church, one of the city's lions to the stranger, +for here the world-renowned author of "In His Steps" has preached every +Sabbath for many years. But on that night it seemed far away from the +river and the town nestling beside it.</p> + +<p>"I'll go down and take a look at your cottonwood before I go home. May +I? You promised me last Spring." Rachel's voice was pleasant to hear.</p> + +<p>"Why, of course. Come on. Mr. Tillhurst will be there, I am sure, and +glad as I shall be to see you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you rogue! always hunting for somebody else. I am not going to +loose you from your promise. Remember that you said you'd let everybody +else alone when I came. Now your Mr. Tillhurst can look after all the +girls you have been flirting with down there, but you are my friend. +Didn't we settle that in those days together at dear old Rockport? We'll +just have the happiest time together, you and I, and nobody shall +interfere to mar our pleasure."</p> + +<p>She was leaning toward me and her big dark eyes were full of feeling. I +stood up before her. "My dear friend," I took her hand and she rose to +her feet. "You have been very, very good to me. But I want to tell you +now before you come to Springvale"—she was close beside me, her hand on +my arm, gentle and trembling. I seemed like a brute to myself, but I +went on. "I want you to know that as my aunt's guest and mine, your +pleasure will be mine. But I am not a flirt, and I do not care to hide +from you the fact that my little Springvale girl is the light of my +life. You will understand why some claims are unbreakable. Now you know +this, let me say that it will be my delight to make your stay in the +West<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> pleasant." She bowed her proud head on my arm and the tears fell +fast. "Oh, Rachel, I'm a beast, a coarse, crude Westerner. Forgive my +plain speech. I only wanted you to know."</p> + +<p>But she didn't want to know. She wanted me to quit saying anything to +her and her beautiful dark hair was almost against my cheek. Gently as I +could, I put her from me. Drawing her hand through my arm, I patted it +softly, and again I declared myself the bluntest of speakers. She only +wept the more, and asked me to take her to her aunt's. I was glad to do +it, and I bade her a humble good-bye at the door. She said not a word, +but the pressure of her hand had speech. It made me feel that I had +cruelly wronged her.</p> + +<p>As I started for town beyond the college, I shook my fist at that lone +locust tree. "You blamed old sapling! If you ever tell what you saw +to-night I hope you'll die by inches in a prairie fire."</p> + +<p>Then I hurried to my room and put in the hours of the night, wakeful and +angry at all the world, save my own Springvale and the dear little girl +so modest and true to me. The next day I left Topeka, hoping never to +see it again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<h3>DEEPENING GLOOM</h3> + + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A yellow moon in splendor drooping,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A tired queen with her state oppressed,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Low by rushes and sword-grass stooping,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lies she soft on the waves at rest.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The desert heavens have felt her sadness;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The earth will weep her some dewy tears;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wild beck ends her tune of gladness,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And goeth stilly, as soul that fears.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—JEAN INGELOW.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The easiest mental act I ever performed was the act of forgetting the +existence of Rachel Melrose. Before the stage had reached the divide +beyond the Wakarusa on its southward journey, I was thinking only of +Springvale and of what would be written in the letter that I knew was +waiting for me in our "Rockport." Oh, I was a fond and foolish lover. I +was only twenty-one and Judson may have been right about my being +callow. But I was satisfied with myself, as youth and inexperience will +be.</p> + +<p>Travelling was slow in those rough-going times, and a breakdown on a +steep bit of road delayed us. Instead of reaching home at sunset, we did +not reach the ford of the Neosho until eight o'clock. As I went up Cliff +Street I turned by the bushes and slid down the rough stairway to the +ledge below "Rockport." I had passed under the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> broad, overhanging shelf +that made the old playground above, when I suddenly became aware of the +nearness of some one to me, the peculiar consciousness of the presence +of a human being. The place was in deep shadow, although the full moon +was sailing in glory over the prairies, as it had done above the lone +Topeka locust tree. My daily visits here had made each step familiar, +however. I was only a few feet from the cunningly hidden crevice that +had done post-office duty for Marjie and me in the days of our +childhood. Just beside it was a deep niche in the wall. Ordinarily I was +free and noisy enough in my movements, but to-night I dropped silently +into the niche as some one hurried by me, groping to find the way. +Instinctively I thought of Jean Pahusca, but Jean never blundered like +this. I had had cause enough to know his swift motion. And besides, he +had been away from Springvale so long that he was only a memory now. The +figure scrambled to the top rapidly.</p> + +<p>"I'll guess that's petticoats going up there," I said mentally, "but +who's hunting wild flowers out here alone this time of night? Somebody +just as curious about me as I am about her, no doubt. Maybe some girl +has a lover's haunt down that ledge. I'll have to find out. Can't let my +stairway out to the general climbing public."</p> + +<p>I was feeling for the letter in the crevice.</p> + +<p>"Well, Marjie has tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole +was so deep."</p> + +<p>I found my letter and hurried home. It was just a happy, loving message +written when I was away, and a tinge of loneliness was in it. But Marjie +was a cheery, wholesome-spirited lass always, and took in the world from +the sunny side.</p> + +<p>"There's a party down at Anderson's to-night, Phil," Aunt Candace +announced, when I was eating my late sup<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>per. "The boys sent word for +you to come over even if you did get home late. You are pretty tired, +aren't you?"</p> + +<p>"Never, if there's a party on the carpet," I answered gayly.</p> + +<p>I had nearly reached the Anderson home, and the noisy gayety of the +party was in my ears, when two persons met at the gate and went slowly +in together.</p> + +<p>It was Amos Judson and Lettie Conlow.</p> + +<p>"Well, of all the arrangements, now, that is the best," I exclaimed, as +I went in after them.</p> + +<p>Tillhurst was talking to Marjie, who did not see me enter.</p> + +<p>"Phil Baronet! 'The handsome young giant of the Neosho,'" O'mie shouted. +"Ladies and gentlemen: This is the very famous orator who got more +applause in Topeka this week than the very biggest man there. Oh, my +prophetic soul! but we were proud av him."</p> + +<p>"Well, I guess we were," somebody else chimed in. "Why didn't you come +home with the crowd, handsome giant?"</p> + +<p>"He was charmed by that pretty girl, an old sweetheart of his from +Massachusetts." Tillhurst was speaking. "You ought to have seen him with +her, couldn't even leave when the rest of us did."</p> + +<p>There was a sudden silence. Marjie was across the room from me, but I +could see her face turn white. My own face flamed, but I controlled +myself. And Bud, the blessed old tow-head, came to my rescue.</p> + +<p>"Good for you, Phil. Bet we've got one fellow to make a Bothton girl +open her eyeth even if Tillhurtht couldn't. He'th jutht jealouth. But we +all know Phil! Nobody'll ever doubt old Philip!"</p> + +<p>It took the edge off the embarrassment, and O'mie, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> had sidled over +into Marjie's neighborhood, said in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"Tillhurst is a consummit liar, beautiful to look upon. That girl tagged +Phil. He couldn't get away an' be a gintleman."</p> + +<p>I did not know then what he was saying, but I saw her face bloom again.</p> + +<p>Later I had her alone a moment. We were eating water melon on the back +porch, half in the shadow, which we didn't mind, of course.</p> + +<p>"May I take you home, Marjie, and tell you how sweet that letter was?" I +asked.</p> + +<p>"Phil, I didn't know you were coming, and Richard Tillhurst asked me +just as you came in. I saw Amos Judson coming my way, so I made for the +nearest port."</p> + +<p>"And you did right, dearie," I said very softly; "but, Marjie, don't +forget you are my girl, my only girl, and I'll tell you all about this +Topeka business to-morrow night. No, I'll write you a letter to-night +when I go home. You'll find it at 'Rockport' to-morrow."</p> + +<p>She smiled up at me brightly, saying contentedly, "Oh, you are always +all right, Phil."</p> + +<p>As we trailed into the kitchen from the water melon feast, Lettie +Conlow's dress caught on a nail in the floor. I stooped to loose it, and +rasped my hand against a brier clinging to the floppy ruffle (Lettie was +much given to floppy things in dress), and behold, a sprig of little red +blossoms was sticking to the prickles. These blooms were the kind Marjie +had sent me in her letter to Topeka. They grew only in the crevices +about the cliff. It flashed into my mind instantly that it was Lettie +who had passed me down on that ledge.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'll find her under my plate some morning when I go to +breakfast," I said to myself. "She is a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> trailer of the Plains. Why +should she be forever haunting my way, though?"</p> + +<p>Fate was against me that night. Judson was called from the party to open +the store. A messenger from Red Range had come posthaste for some +merchandise. We did not know until the next day that it was the burial +clothes for the beautiful young girl whose grave held Dave Mead's heart.</p> + +<p>Before Judson left, he came to me with Lettie.</p> + +<p>"Will you take this young lady home for me? I must go to the store at +once. Business before pleasure with me. That's it, business first. Very +sorry, Miss Lettie; Phil will see you safely home."</p> + +<p>I was in for the obligation. The Conlows lived four blocks beyond the +shop down toward the creek. The way was shadowy, and Lettie clung to my +arm. I was tired from my stage ride of a day and a half, and I had not +slept well for two nights. I distrusted Lettie, for I knew her +disposition as I knew her father's before her.</p> + +<p>"Phil, why do you hate me?" she asked at the gate.</p> + +<p>"I don't hate you, Lettie. You use an ugly word when you say 'hate,'" I +replied.</p> + +<p>"There's one person I do hate," she said bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Has he given you cause?"</p> + +<p>"It's not a man; it's a woman. It's Marjie Whately," she burst out. "I +hate her."</p> + +<p>"Well, Lettie, I'm sorry, for I don't believe Marjie deserves your +hate."</p> + +<p>"Of course, you'd say so. But never mind. Marjie's not going to have my +hate alone. You'll feel like I do yet, when her mother forces her away +from you. Marjie's just a putty ball in her mother's hands, and her +mother is crazy about Amos Judson. Oh, I've said too much," she +exclaimed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You have, Lettie; but stop saying any more." I spoke sternly. +"Good-night."</p> + +<p>She did not return my greeting, and I heard her slam the door behind +her.</p> + +<p>That night, late as it was, I wrote a long letter to Marjie. I had no +pangs of jealousy, and I felt that she knew me too well to doubt my +faith, and yet I wanted just once more to assure her. When I had +finished, I went out softly and took my way down to "Rockport." It was +one of those glorious midsummer moonlit nights that have in their +subdued splendor something more regal than the most gorgeous midday. I +was thankful afterwards for the perfect beauty of that peaceful night, +with never a hint of the encroaching shadows, the deep gloom of sorrow +creeping toward me and my loved one. The town was sleeping quietly. The +Neosho was "chattering over stony ways," and whispering its midnight +melody. The wooded bottoms were black and glistening, and all the +prairies were a gleaming, silvery sea of glory. The peace of God was on +the world, the broad benediction of serenity and love. Oh, many a +picture have I in my memory's treasure house, that imperishable art +gallery of the soul. And among them all, this one last happy night with +its setting of Nature's grand handiwork stands clear evermore.</p> + +<p>I had put my letter safe in its place, deep where nobody but Marjie +would find it. I knew that if even the slightest doubt troubled her this +letter would lift it clean away. I told her of Rachel Melrose and of my +fear of her designing nature, a fear that grew, as I reflected on her +acts and words. I did not believe the young lady cared for me. It was a +selfish wish to take what belonged to somebody else. I assured my little +girl that only as a gentleman should be courteous, had been my courtesy +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> Rachel. And then for the first time, I told Marjie of her father's +dying message. I had wanted her to love me for myself. I did not want +any sense of duty to her father's wishes to sway her. I knew now that +she did love me. And I closed the affectionate missive with the words:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"To my father and Aunt Candace you are very dear. Your mother has +always been kind to me. I believe she likes me. But most of all, +Marjie, your father, who lies wrapped in the folds of that +Springvale flag, who gave his life to make safe and happy the land +we love and the home we hope to build, your father, sent us his +blessing. When the roar of cannon was changing for him to the chant +of seraphim, and the glare of the battle field was becoming 'a sea +of glass mingled with fire' that burst in splendor over the +jewelled walls and battlements of the New Jerusalem, even in that +moment, his last thought was of us two. 'I hope they will love each +other,' he said to my father. 'If they do, give them my blessing.' +And then the night shut down for him. But in the eternal day where +he waits our coming and loves us, Marjie, if he knows of what we do +here, he is blessing our love.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know +now and always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or +shadow-checkered paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other +than as I do now. You are life of my life. And so again, +good-night."</p></blockquote> + +<p>I had climbed to the rock above the crevice and was standing still as +the night about me for the moment when a grip like steel suddenly closed +on my neck and an arm like the tentacle of a devilfish slid round my +waist. Then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> the swift adroitness of knee and shoulder bent me backward +almost off my feet. I gave a great wrench, and with a power equal to my +assailant, struggled with him. It was some moments before I caught sight +of his face. It was Jean Pahusca. I think my strength grew fourfold +with that glimpse. It was the first time in our lives that we had +matched muscle. He must have been the stronger of the two, but +discipline and temperate habits had given me endurance and judgment. It +was a life-and-death strife between us. He tried to drag me to the edge +of the rock. I strove to get him through the bushes into the street. At +length I gained the mastery and with my hand on his throat and my knee +on his chest I held him fast.</p> + +<p>"You miserable devil!" I muttered, "you have the wrong man. You think me +weak as O'mie, whose body you could bind. I have a mind to choke you +here, you murderer. I could do it and rid the world of you, now." He +struggled and I gave him air. There was something princely about him +even as he lay in my power. And, fiend as he was, he never lost the +spirit of a master. To me also, brute violence was repulsive now that +the advantage was all mine.</p> + +<p>"You deserve to die. Heaven is saving you for a fate you may well dread. +You would be in jail in ten minutes if you ever showed your face here in +the daylight, and hanged by the first jury whose verdict could be given. +I could save all that trouble now in a minute, but I don't want to be a +murderer like you. For the sake of my own hands and for the sake of the +man whose son I believe you to be, I'll spare your life to-night on one +condition!"</p> + +<p>I loosed my hold and stepped away from him. He rose with an effort, but +he could not stand at first.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Leave this country to-night, and never show your face here again. There +are friends of O'mie's sworn to shoot you on sight. Go now to your own +tribe and do it quickly."</p> + +<p>Slowly, like a promise made before high heaven, he answered me.</p> + +<p>"I will go, but I shall see you there. When we meet again, my hand will +have you by the throat. And—I don't care whose son you are."</p> + +<p>He slid down the cliff-side like a lizard, and was gone. I turned and +stumbled through the bushes full into Lettie Conlow crouching among +them.</p> + +<p>"Lettie, Lettie," I cried, "go home."</p> + +<p>"I won't unless you will come with me," she answered coaxingly.</p> + +<p>"I have taken you home once to-night," I said. "Now you may go alone or +stay here as you choose," and I left her.</p> + +<p>"You'll live to see the day you'll wish you hadn't said that," I heard +her mutter threateningly behind me.</p> + +<p>A gray mist had crept over the low-hanging moon. The world, so glorious +in its softened radiance half an hour ago, was dull and cheerless now. +And with a strange heartache and sense of impending evil I sought my +home.</p> + +<p>The next day was a busy one in the office. My father was deep in the +tangle of a legal case and more than usually grave. Early in the +afternoon, Cam Gentry had come into the courthouse, and the two had a +long conference. Toward evening he called me into his private office.</p> + +<p>"Phil, this land case is troubling me. I believe the papers we want are +in that old cabin. Could you go out again to-morrow?" He smiled now. "Go +and make<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> a careful search of the premises. If there are any boxes, open +them. I will give you an order from Sheriff Karr. And Phil, I believe I +wouldn't take Marjie this time. I want to have a talk with her +to-morrow, anyhow. You can't monopolize all her time. I saw Mrs. Whately +just now and made an appointment with her for Marjie."</p> + +<p>When he spoke again, his words startled me.</p> + +<p>"Phil, when did you see Jean Pahusca last?"</p> + +<p>"Last night, no, this morning, about one o'clock," I answered +confusedly.</p> + +<p>My father swung around in his chair and stared at me. Then his face grew +stern, and I knew my safety lay in the whole truth. I learned that when +I was a boy.</p> + +<p>"Where was he?" The firing had begun.</p> + +<p>"On the point of rock by the bushes on Cliff Street."</p> + +<p>"What were you doing there?"</p> + +<p>"Looking at the moonlight on the river."</p> + +<p>"Did you see him first?"</p> + +<p>"No, or he would not have seen me."</p> + +<p>"Phil, save my time now. It's a matter of great importance to my +business. Also, it is serious with you. Begin at the party. Whose escort +were you?"</p> + +<p>"Lettie Conlow's."</p> + +<p>My father looked me straight in the eyes. I returned his gaze steadily.</p> + +<p>"Go on. Tell me everything." He spoke crisply.</p> + +<p>"I was late to the party. Tillhurst asked Marjie for her company just as +I went in. Judson was going her way, and she chose the lesser of +two—pleasures, we'll say. Just before the party broke up, Judson was +called out. He had asked Lettie for her company, and he shoved her over +to my tender mercies."</p> + +<p>"And you went strolling up on Cliff Street in the moonlight with her +till after midnight. Is that fair to Marjie?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> I had never heard his +voice sound so like resonant iron before.</p> + +<p>"I, strolling? I covered the seven blocks from Anderson's to Conlow's in +seven minutes, and stood at the gate long enough to let the young lady +through, and to pinch my thumb in the blamed old latch, I was in such a +hurry; and then I made for the Baronets' roost."</p> + +<p>"But why didn't you stay there?" he asked.</p> + +<p>I blushed for a certainty now. My actions seemed so like a brain-sick +fool's.</p> + +<p>"Now, Phil," my father said more kindly, "you remember I told you when +you came to let me know you were twenty-one, that you must not get too +old to make a confidant of me. It is your only safe course now."</p> + +<p>"Father, am I a fool, or is it in the Baronet blood to love deeply and +constantly even unto death?"</p> + +<p>The strong man before me turned his face to the window.</p> + +<p>"Go on," he said.</p> + +<p>"I had been away nearly a week. I sat up and wrote a long letter to +Marjie. It would stand as clean evidence in court. I'm not ashamed of +what I put on paper, although it is my own business. Then I went out to +a certain place under the cliff where Marjie and I used to hide our +valentines and put little notes for each other years ago."</p> + +<p>"The post-office is safer, Phil."</p> + +<p>"Not with Tell Mapleson as postmaster."</p> + +<p>He assented, and I went on. "I had come to the top again and was looking +at the beauty of the night, when somebody caught me by the throat. It +was Jean Pahusca."</p> + +<p>Briefly then I related what had taken place.</p> + +<p>"And after that?" queried my questioner.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I ran into Lettie Conlow. She may have been there all the time. I do +not know, but I felt no obligation to take care of a girl who will not +take care of herself. It was rude, I know, and against my creed, but +that's the whole truth. I may be a certain kind of a fool about a girl I +know. But I'm not the kind of gay fool that goes out after divers and +strange women. Bill Mead told me this morning that he and Bud Anderson +passed Lettie somewhere out west alone after one o'clock. He was in a +hurry, but he stopped her and asked her why she should be out alone. I +think Bud went home with her. None of the boys want harm to come to her, +but she grows less pleasant every day. Bill would have gone home with +her, but he was hurrying out to Red Range. Dave's girl died out there +last night. Poor Dave!"</p> + +<p>"Poor Dave!" my father echoed, and we sat in silence with our sympathy +going out to the fine young man whose day was full of sorrow.</p> + +<p>"Well," my father said, "to come back to our work now. There are some +ugly stories going that I have yet to get hold of. Cam Gentry is helping +me toward it all he can. This land case will never come to court if +Mapleson can possibly secure the land in any other way. He'd like to +ruin us and pay off that old grudge against you for your part in +breaking up the plot against Springvale back in '63 and the suspicion it +cast on him. Do you see?"</p> + +<p>I was beginning to see a little.</p> + +<p>"Now, you go out to the stone cabin to-morrow afternoon and make a +thorough search for any papers or other evidence hidden there. The man +who owned that land was a degenerate son of a noble house. There are +some missing links in the evidence that our claim is incontestable. The +other claimant to the land is entirely un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span>der Tell Mapleson's control. +That's the way it shapes up to me. Meanwhile if it gets into court, two +or more lines are ready to tighten about you. Keep yourself in straight +paths and you are sure at last to win. I have no fear for you, Phil, but +be a man every minute."</p> + +<p>I understood him. As I left the courthouse, I met O'mie. There was a +strange, pathetic look in his eyes. He linked his arm in mine, and we +sauntered out under the oak trees of the courthouse grounds.</p> + +<p>"Phil, do ye remimber that May mornin' when ye broke through the vines +av the Hermit's Cave? I know now how the pityin' face av the Christ +looked to the man who had been blind. I know how the touch av his hands +felt to them as had been lepers. They was made free and safe. Wake as I +was that sorry mornin' I had one thought before me brain wint dark, the +thought that I might some day help you aven a little. I felt that way in +me wakeness thin. To-day in me strength I feel it a hundred times more. +Ye may not nade me, but whin ye do, I'm here. Whin I was a poor lost +orphan boy, worth nothin' to nobody, you risked life an' limb to drag me +back from the agony av a death by inches. And now, while I'm only a +rid-headed Irishman, I can do a dale more thinkin' and I know a blamed +lot more 'n this blessed little burg iver drames of. They ain't no +bloodhound on your track, but a ugly octopus of a devilfish is gittin' +its arms out after you. They's several av 'em. Don't forgit, Phil; I +know I'd die for your sake."</p> + +<p>"O'mie, I believe you, but don't be uneasy about me. You know me as well +as anybody in this town. What have I to fear?"</p> + +<p>"Begorra, there was niver a purer-hearted boy than you iver walked out +of a fun-lovin', rollickin' boyhood into a clane, honest manhood. You +can't be touched."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p> + +<p>Just then the evening stage swung by and swept up the hill.</p> + +<p>"Look at the ould man, now, would ye? Phil, he's makin' fur Bar'net's. +Bet some av your rich kin's comin' from the East, bringing you their +out-av-style clothes, an' a few good little books and Sunday-school +tracts to improve ye."</p> + +<p>There was only one passenger in the stage, a woman whose face I could +not see.</p> + +<p>That evening O'mie went to Judson at closing time.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Judson, I want a lave of absence fur a week or tin days," he said.</p> + +<p>"What for?" Judson was the kind of man who could never be pleasant to +his employees, for fear of losing his authority over them.</p> + +<p>"I want to go out av town on business," O'mie replied.</p> + +<p>"Whose business?" snapped Judson.</p> + +<p>"Me own," responded O'mie calmly.</p> + +<p>"I can't have it. That's it. I just can't have my clerks and underlings +running around over the country taking my time."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll lave your time here whin I go," O'mie spoke coolly. He had +always been respectful toward his employer, but he had no servile fear +of him.</p> + +<p>"I just can't allow it," Judson went on. "I need you here." O'mie was +the life of the business, the best asset in the store. "It may be a +slack time, but I can't have it; that's it, I just can't put up with it. +Besides," he simpered a little, in spite of himself, "besides, I'm +likely to be off a few days myself, just any time, I can get ready for a +step I have in mind, an important step, just any minute, but it's +different with some others, and we have to regard some others, you know; +have to let some others<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> have their way once in a while. We'll consider +it settled now. You are to stay right here."</p> + +<p>"Ye'll consider it settled that I'm nadin' a tin days' vacation right +away, an' must have it."</p> + +<p>"I can't do it, O'Meara; that's it. I would not give you your place +again, and I won't pay you a cent of this quarter's salary."</p> + +<p>Judson's foolish temper was always his undoing.</p> + +<p>"You say you won't?" O'mie asked with a smile.</p> + +<p>"No, I won't. Hereafter you may beg your way or starve!" Judson fairly +shouted.</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, Mr. Amos Judson, but I'm not to thim straits yit. Not yit. +I've a little bank account an' a good name at Cris Mead's bank. Most as +good as yours."</p> + +<p>The shot went home. Judson had but recently failed to get the bank's +backing in a business dealing he had hoped to carry through on loans, +and it had cut his vanity deeply.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Amos, I'll be back, but not any sooner than ye nade me," and +he was gone.</p> + +<p>The next day Dever the stage driver told us O'mie was going up to +Wyandotte on business.</p> + +<p>"Whose business?" I asked. "He doesn't know a soul in Wyandotte, except +Tell and Jim, who were working up there the last I knew. Tell may be in +Fort Scott now. Whose business was it?"</p> + +<p>"That's what I asked him," Dever answered with a grin, "and he said, his +own."</p> + +<p>Whatever it was, O'mie was back again before the end of the week. But he +idled about for the full ten days, until Judson grew frantic. The store +could not be managed without him, and it was gratifying to O'mie's +mischievous spirit to be solicited with pledge and courtesy to take his +place again.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p> + +<p>After O'mie had left me in the courthouse yard, the evening after the +party, I stopped on my way home to see Marjie a moment. She had gone +with the Meads out to Red Range, her mother said, and might not be back +till late, possibly not till to-morrow. Judson was sitting in the room +when I came to the door. I had no especial reason to think Mrs. Whately +was confused by my coming. She was always kind to everybody. But somehow +the gray shadows of the clouded moon of the night before were chilling +me still, and I was bitterly disappointed at missing my loved one's face +in her home. It seemed ages since I had had her to myself; not since the +night before my trip to Topeka. I stopped long enough to visit the +"Rockport" letter-box for the answer to my letter I knew she would leave +before she went out of town. There was no letter there. My heart grew +heavy with a weight that was not to lift again for many a long day. Up +on the street I met Dr. Hemingway. His kind eyes seemed to penetrate to +my very soul.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Philip," he said pleasantly, grasping my hand with a firm +pressure. "Your face isn't often clouded."</p> + +<p>I tried to look cheerful. "Oh, it's just the weather and some loss of +sleep. Kansas Augusts are pretty trying."</p> + +<p>"They should not be to a young man," he replied. "All weathers suit us +if we are at peace within. That's where the storm really begins."</p> + +<p>"Maybe so," I said. "But I'm all right, inside and out."</p> + +<p>"You look it, Philip." He took my hand affectionately. "You are the very +image of clean, strong manhood. Let not your heart be troubled."</p> + +<p>I returned his hand-clasp and went my way. How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>ever much courage it may +take to push forward to victory or death on the battle field, not the +least of heroism does it sometimes require to walk bravely toward the +deepening gloom of an impending ill. I have followed both paths and I +know what each one demands.</p> + +<p>At our doorway, waiting to welcome me, stood Rachel Melrose, smiling, +sure, and effusively demonstrative in her friendship. She must have +followed me on the next stage out of Topeka. Behind her stood Candace +Baronet, the only woman I have ever known who never in all my life +doubted me nor misunderstood me. Somehow the sunset was colorless to me +that night, and all the rippling waves of wide West Prairie were shorn +of their glory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<h3>ROCKPORT AND "ROCKPORT"</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Glitters the dew, and shines the river,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Up comes the lily and dries her bell;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But two are walking apart forever,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And wave their hands in a mute farewell.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—JEAN INGELOW.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>The Melrose family was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house +of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to +its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much +staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing +to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the +best things of life never found their way. She took everything in +Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem that Kansas +should give its best to her; and withal she was a woman who delighted in +conquest.</p> + +<p>Her arrival in Springvale made a topic that was soon on everybody's +tongue. In the afternoon of the day following her coming, when I went to +my father's office before starting out to the stone cabin, I found +Marjie there. I had not seen her since the party, and I went straight to +her chair.</p> + +<p>"Well, little girl, it's ten thousand years since I saw you last," I +spoke in a low voice. My father was searching for some papers in his +cabinet, and his back was toward us. "Why didn't I get a letter, +dearie?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> + +<p>She looked up with eyes whose brown depths were full of pain and sorrow, +but with an expression I had never seen on her face before, a kind of +impenetrable coldness. It cut me like a sword-thrust, and I bent over +her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Marjie, my Marjie, what is wrong?"</p> + +<p>"Here is that paper at last," my father said before he turned around. +Even as he spoke, Rachel Melrose swept into the room.</p> + +<p>"Why, Philip, I missed you after all. I didn't mean to keep you waiting, +but I can never get accustomed to your Western hurry."</p> + +<p>She was very handsome and graceful, and always at ease with me, save in +our interviews alone.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know you were coming," I said frankly; "but I want you to meet +Miss Whately. This is the young lady I have told you about."</p> + +<p>I took Marjie's hand as I spoke. It was cold, and I gave it the gentle +pressure a lover understands as I presented her. She gave me a momentary +glance. Oh, God be thanked for the love-light in those brown eyes! The +memory of it warmed my heart a thousand times when long weary miles were +between us, and a desolate sky shut down around the far desolate plains +of a silent, featureless land.</p> + +<p>"And this is Miss Melrose, the young lady I told you of in my letter," I +said to Marjie. A quick change came into her eyes, a look of surprise +and incredulity and scorn. What could have happened to bring all this +about?</p> + +<p>Rachel Melrose had made the fatal mistake of thinking that no girl +reared west of the Alleghenies could be very refined or at ease or +appear well dressed in the company of Eastern people. She was not +prepared for the quiet courtesy and self-possession with which the +Kansas girl greeted her; nor had she expected, as she told me +after<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>ward, to find in a town like Springvale such good taste and +exquisite neatness in dress. True, she had many little accessories of an +up-to-date fashion that had not gotten across the Mississippi River to +our girls as yet, but Marjie had the grace of always choosing the right +thing to wear. I was very proud of my loved one at that moment. There +was a show of cordiality between the two; then Rachel turned to me.</p> + +<p>"I'm going with you this afternoon. Excuse me, Miss Whately, Mr. Baronet +promised me up at Topeka to take me out to see a wonderful cottonwood +tree that he said just dwarfed the little locust there, that we went out +one glorious moonlight night to see. It was a lovely stroll though, +wasn't it, Philip?"</p> + +<p>This time it was my father's eyes that were fixed upon me in surprise +and stern inquiry.</p> + +<p>"He will believe I am a flirt after all. It isn't possible to make any +man understand how that miserable girl can control things, unless he is +on the ground all the time." So ran my thoughts.</p> + +<p>"Father, must that trip be made to-day? Because I'd rather get up a +party and go out when Miss Melrose goes."</p> + +<p>But my father was in no mood to help me then. He had asked me to go +alone. Evidently he thought I had forgotten business and constancy of +purpose in the presence of this pretty girl.</p> + +<p>"It must be done to-day. Miss Melrose will wait, I'm sure. It is a +serious business matter—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I won't, Mr. Baronet. Your son promised me to do everything for +me if I would only come to Springvale; that was away last Spring, and my +stay will be short at best. I must go back to-morrow afternoon. Don't +rob us of a minute."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p> + +<p>She spoke with such a pretty grace, and yet her words were so trifling +that my father must have felt as I did. He could have helped me then had +he thought that I deserved help, for he was a tactful man. But he merely +assented and sent us away. When we were gone Marjie turned to him +bravely.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet, I think I will go home. I came in from Red Range this +noon with the Meads. It was very warm, coming east, and I am not very +well." She was as white as marble. "I will see you again; may I?"</p> + +<p>John Baronet was a man of deep sympathy as well as insight. He knew why +the bloom had left her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"All right, Marjie. You will be better soon."</p> + +<p>He had risen and taken her cold hand. There was a world of cheer and +strength in that rich resonant voice of his. "Little girl, you must not +worry over anything. All the tangles will straighten for you. Be +patient, the sunshine is back of all shadows. I promised your father, +Marjory, that no harm should come to you. I will keep my promise. 'Let +not your heart be troubled.'" His words were to her what the good +minister's had been to me.</p> + +<p>In the months that came after that my father was her one strong defence. +Poor Marjie! her days as well as mine were full of creeping shadows. I +had no notion of the stories being poured into her ears, nor did I dream +of the mischief and sorrow that can be wrought by a jealous-hearted +girl, a grasping money lover, and a man whose business dealings will not +bear the light of day.</p> + +<p>It has ever been the stage-driver's province to make the town acquainted +with the business of each passenger whom he imports or exports. Our man, +Dever, was no exception. Judson's store had become the centre of all the +gossip in Springvale. Judson himself was the prince<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> of scandalmongers, +who with a pretence of refusing to hear gossip, peddled it out most +industriously. He had hurried to Mrs. Whately with the story of our +guest, and here I found him when I went to see Marjie, before I myself +knew what passenger the stage had carried up to Cliff Street.</p> + +<p>After the party at Anderson's, Tillhurst had not lost the opportunity of +giving his version of all he had seen and heard in Topeka. Marjie +listened in amazement but sure in her trustful heart that I would make +it all clear to her in my letter. And yet she wondered why I had never +mentioned that name to her, nor given her any hint of any one with claim +enough on me to keep me for two days in Topeka. After all, she did +recall the name—something forgotten in the joy and peace of that sweet +afternoon out by the river in the draw where the haunted house was. Had +I tried to tell her and lost my courage, she wondered. Oh, no, it could +not be so.</p> + +<p>The next day Marjie spent at Red Range. It was noon of the day following +Rachel's arrival before she reached home. The ride in the midday heat, +sympathy for Dave Mead, and the sad funeral rites in the morning, +together with the memory of Tillhurst's gossip and the long time since +we had talked with each other alone, had been enough to check even her +sunny spirit. Gentle Mrs. Whately, willing to believe everybody, met her +daughter with a sad face.</p> + +<p>"My dear, I have some unwelcome news for you," she said when Marjie was +resting in the cool sitting-room after the hot ride. "There's an old +sweetheart of Phil's came here last evening to visit him. Mr. Dever, the +stage-driver, says she is the handsomest girl he ever saw. They say she +and Phil were engaged and had a falling out back East. They met again in +Topeka, and Phil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> stayed a day or two to visit with her after the +political meeting was over. And now she has come down here at his +request to meet his folks. Marjie, daughter, you need not care. There +are more worthy men who would be proud to marry you."</p> + +<p>Marjie made no reply.</p> + +<p>"Oh, daughter, he isn't worth your grief. Be strong. Your life will get +into better channels now. There are those who care for you more than you +dream of. And you cannot care for Phil when I tell you all I must tell."</p> + +<p>"I will be strong, mother. What else?" Marjie said quietly. In the +shadows of the room darkened to keep out the noonday heat, Mrs. Whately +did not note the white face and the big brown eyes burning with pain.</p> + +<p>"It's too bad, but you ought to know it. Judge Baronet's got some kind +of a land case on hand. There's a fine half-section he's trying to get +away from a young man who is poor. The Judge is a clever lawyer and he +is a rich man. Mr. Judson says Tell Mapleson is this young man's +counsel, and he's fighting to keep the land for its real owner. Well, +Phil was strolling around until nearly morning with Lettie Conlow, and +they met this young man somewhere. He doesn't live about here. And, +Marjie, right before Lettie, Phil gave him an awful beating and made him +promise never to show himself in Springvale again. You know Judge +Baronet could do anything in that court-room he wants to. He is a fine +man. How your father loved him! But Phil goes out and does the dirty +work to help him win. So Amos Judson says."</p> + +<p>"Did Amos Judson tell you all this, Mother?" Marjie asked faintly.</p> + +<p>"Most of it. And he is so interested in your welfare, daughter."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marjie rose to her feet. "Mother, I don't know how much truth there may +be in the circumstances, but I'll wait until somebody besides Amos +Judson tells me before I accept these stories."</p> + +<p>"Well, Marjie, you are young. You must lean on older counsel. There is +no man living as good and true as your father was to me. Remember that."</p> + +<p>"Yes, there is," Marjie declared.</p> + +<p>"Who is he, daughter?"</p> + +<p>"Philip Baronet," Marjie answered proudly.</p> + +<p>That afternoon Richard Tillhurst called and detained Marjie until she +was late in keeping her appointment with Judge Baronet. Tillhurst's tale +of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew +better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize +if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous +rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with +these things in mind that Marjie had met me. Rachel Melrose had swept in +on us, and I who had declared to my dear one that I should never care to +take another girl out to that sunny draw full of hallowed memories for +us two, I was going again with this beautiful woman, my sweetheart from +the East. And yet Marjie was quick enough to note that I had tried to +evade the company of Miss Melrose, and she had seen in my eyes the same +look that they had had for her all these years. Could I be deceiving her +by putting Rachel off in her presence? She did not want to think so. Had +Judge Baronet not been my father, he could have taken her into his +confidence. She could not speak to him of me, nor could he discuss his +son's actions with her.</p> + +<p>But love is strong and patient, and Marjie determined not to give up at +the first onslaught against it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I'll write to him now," she said. "There will be sure to be a letter +for me up under 'Rockport.' He said something about a letter this +afternoon, the letter he promised to write after the party at +Anderson's. He couldn't be deceiving me, I'm sure. I'll tell him +everything, and if he really doesn't care for me,"—the blank of life +lay sullen and dull before her,—"I'll know it any how. But if he does +care, he'll have a letter for me all right."</p> + +<p>And so she wrote, a loving, womanly letter, telling in her own sweet way +all her faith and the ugly uncertainty that was growing up against it.</p> + +<p>"But I know you, Phil, and I know you are all my own." So she ended the +letter, and in the purple twilight she hastened up to the cliff and +found her way down to our old shaded corner under the rock. There was no +letter awaiting her. She held her own a minute and then she thrust it +in.</p> + +<p>"I'll do anything for Phil," she murmured softly. "I cannot help it. He +was my own—he must be mine still."</p> + +<p>A light laugh sounded on the rock above her.</p> + +<p>"Are you waiting for me here?" a musical voice cried out. It was +Rachel's voice. "Your aunt said you were gone out and would be back +soon. I knew you would like me to meet you half way. It is beautiful +here, you must love the place, but"—she added so softly that the +unwilling listener did not catch her words—"it isn't so fine as our old +Rockport!"</p> + +<p>Quickly came the reply in a voice Marjie knew too well, although the +tone was unlike any she had ever heard before.</p> + +<p>"I hate Rockport; I did not tell you so when I left last Spring, but I +hated it then."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p> + +<p>Swiftly across the listener's mind swept the memory of my words. "If you +ever hear me say I don't like 'Rockport' you will know I don't care for +you."</p> + +<p>She had heard me say these words, had heard them spoken in a tone of +vehement feeling. There was no mistaking the speaker's sincerity, and +then the quick step and swing of the bushes told her I had gone. The +Neosho Valley turned black before her eyes, and she sank down on the +stone shelving of the ledge.</p> + +<p>My ride that afternoon had been a miserable one. Rachel was coy and +sweet, yet cunningly bold. I felt indignant at my father for forcing her +company on me, and I resented the circumstance that made me a victim to +injustice. I detested the beautiful creature beside me for her +assumption of authority over my actions, and above all, I longed with an +aching, starved heart for Marjie. I knew she had only to read my letter +to understand. She might not have gone after it yet, but I could see her +that evening and all would be well.</p> + +<p>I did not go near the old stone cabin. My father had failed to know his +son if he thought I would obey under these hard conditions. We merely +drove about beyond the draw. Then we rested briefly under the old +cottonwood before we started home.</p> + +<p>In the twilight I hurried out to our "Rockport" to wait for Marjie. I +was a little late and so I did not know that Marjie was then under the +point of rock. My rudeness to Rachel was unpardonable, but she had +intruded one step too far into the sacred precincts of my life. I would +not endure her in the place made dear to me from childhood, by +association with Marjie. So I rashly blurted out my feelings and left +her, never dreaming who had heard me nor what meaning my words would +carry.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p> + +<p>Down at the Whately home Richard Tillhurst sat, bland and smiling, +waiting for Miss Whately's return. I sat down to wait also.</p> + +<p>The August evening was dry and the day's hot air was rippling now into a +slight breeze. The shadows deepened and the twilight had caught its last +faint glow, when Marjie, white and cold, came slowly up the walk. Her +brown hair lay in little curls about her temples and her big dark eyes +were full of an utterable sorrow. I hurried out to the gate to meet her, +but she would have passed by me with stately step.</p> + +<p>"Marjie," I called softly, holding the gate.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Philip. Please don't speak to me one word." Her voice was +low and sweet as of yore save that it was cold and cutting.</p> + +<p>She stood beside me for a moment. "I cannot be detained now. You will +find your mother's ring in a package of letters I shall send you +to-morrow. For my sake as well as for your own, please let this matter +end here without any questions."</p> + +<p>"But I will ask you questions," I declared.</p> + +<p>"Then they will not be answered. You have deceived me and been untrue to +me. I will not listen to one word. You may be very clever, but I +understand you now. This is the end of everything for you and me." And +so she left me.</p> + +<p>I stood at the gate only long enough to hear her cordial greeting of +Tillhurst. My Marjie, my own, had turned against me. The shadows of the +deepening twilight turned to horrid shapes, and all the purple richness +with that deep crimson fold low in the western sky became a chill gloom +bordered on the horizon by the flame of hate. So the glory of a world +gone wrong slips away,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> and the creeping shadows are typical only of +pain and heartache.</p> + +<p>I turned aimlessly away. I had told Marjie she was the light of my life: +I did not understand the truth of the words until the light went out. +Heavily, as I had staggered toward her mother's house on the night when +I was sure Jean Pahusca had stolen her, I took my way now into the +gathering shadows, slowly, to where I could hear the Neosho whispering +and muttering in the deep gloom.</p> + +<p>It comes sometimes to most of us, the wild notion that life, the gift of +God alone, is a cheap thing not worth the keeping, and the impulse to +fling it away uprears its ugly suggestion. Out in a square of light by +the ford I saw Dave Mead standing, looking straight before him. The +sorrows of the day were not all mine. I went to him, and we stood there +silent together. At length we turned about in a purposeless way toward +the open West Prairie. How many a summer evening we had wandered here! +How often had our ponies come tramping home side by side, in the days +when we brought the cows in late from the farthest draw! It seemed like +another world now.</p> + +<p>"Phil, you are very good to me. Don't pity me! I can't stand that." We +never had a tenor in our choir with a voice so clear and rich as his.</p> + +<p>"I don't pity you, Dave, I envy you." I spoke with an effort. "You have +not lost, you have only begun a long journey. There is joy at the end of +it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that is easy for you to say, who have everything to make you +happy."</p> + +<p>"I? Oh, Dave! I have not even a grave." The sudden sense of loss, driven +back by the thought of another's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> sorrow, swept over me again. It was +his turn now to forget himself.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Phil? Have you and Marjie quarrelled? You never were meant +for that, either of you. It can't be."</p> + +<p>"No, Dave. I don't know what is wrong. I only wish—no, I don't. It is +hard to be a man with the heart of a boy still, a foolish boy with +foolish ideals of love and constancy. I can't talk to-night, Dave, only +I envy you the sure possession, the eternal faith that will never be +lost."</p> + +<p>He pressed my hand in his left hand. His right arm had had only a +limited usefulness since the night he tried to stop Jean Pahusca down by +the mad floods of the Neosho. I have never seen him since we parted on +the prairie that August evening. The next day he went to Red Range to +stay for a short time. By the end of a week I had left Springvale, and +we are to each other only boyhood memories now.</p> + +<p>Out on the open prairie, where there was room to think and be alone, I +went to fight my battle. There was only a sweep of silver sky above me +and a sweep of moonlit plain about me. Dim to the southwest crept the +dark shadow of the wooded Fingal's Creek Valley, while against the +horizon the big cottonwood tree was only a gray blur. The mind can act +swiftly. By the time the moon had swung over the midnight line I had +mapped out my course. And while I seemed to have died, and another being +had my personality, with only memory the same in both, I rose up armed +in spirit to do a man's work in the world. But it cost me a price. I +have been on a battle field with a thousand against fifty, and I was one +of the fifty. Such a strife as I pray Heaven may never be in our land +again. I have looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> Death in the face day after day creeping slowly, +surely toward me while I must march forward to meet it. Did the struggle +this night out on the prairie strengthen my soul to bear it all, I +wonder.</p> + +<p>The next morning a package addressed in Marjie's round girlish hand was +put before me. Forgetful of resolve, I sent back by its bearer an +imploring appeal for a chance to meet her and clear up the terrible +misunderstanding. The note came back unopened. I gave it with the bundle +to Aunt Candace.</p> + +<p>"Keep this for me, auntie, dear," I said, and my voice trembled. She +took it from my hand.</p> + +<p>"All right, Phil, I'll keep it. You are not at the end of things, +dearie. You are only at the beginning. I'll keep this. It is only +keeping, remember." She pointed to a stain on the unopened note, the +round little blot only a tear can make. "It isn't yours, I know."</p> + +<p>It was the first touch of comfort I had felt. However slender the +thread, Hope will find it strong to cling to. Rachel's visit ended that +day. Self-centred always, she treated me as one who had been foolish, +but whom she considered her admirer still. It was not in her nature to +be rejected. She shaped things to fit her vanity, and forgot what could +not be controlled. I refused to allow myself to be alone with her again. +Nobody was ever so tied to a woman's presence as I kept myself by Aunt +Candace so long as I remained in the house.</p> + +<p>My father, I knew, was grieved and indignant. With all my fair promises +and pretended loyalty I seemed to be an idle trifler. How could my +relation to Lettie Conlow be explained away in the light of this visit +from a handsome cultured young lady, who had had an assurance of welcome +or she would not have come. He loved Marjie as the daughter of his +dearest friend. He had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> longed to call her, "daughter," and I had +foolishly thrown away a precious prize.</p> + +<p>Serious, too, was my reckless neglect of business. I had disregarded his +request to manage a grave matter. Instead of going alone to the cabin, I +had gone off with a pretty girl and reported that I had found nothing.</p> + +<p>"Did you go near the cabin?" He drove the question square at me, and I +had sullenly answered, "No, sir." Clearly I needed more discipline than +the easy life in Springvale was giving me. I went down to the office in +the afternoon, hoping for something, I hardly knew what. He was alone, +and I asked for a few words with him. Somehow I seemed more of a man to +myself than I had ever felt before in his presence.</p> + +<p>"Father," I began. "When the sea did its worst for you—fifteen years +ago—you came to the frontier here, and somehow you found peace. You +have done your part in the making of the lawless Territory into a +law-abiding State, this portion of it at least. The frontier moves +westward rapidly now."</p> + +<p>"Well?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"I have lost—not by the sea—but, well, I've lost. I want to go to the +frontier too. I must get away from here. The Plains—somewhere—may help +me."</p> + +<p>"But why leave here?" he asked. After all, the father-heart was +yearning to keep his son.</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave Massachusetts?" I could not say Rockport. I hated the +sound of the name.</p> + +<p>"Where will you go, my boy?" He spoke with deepest sorrow, and love +mingled in his tones.</p> + +<p>"Out to the Saline Country. They need strong men out there. I must have +been made to defend the weak." It was not a boast, but the frank +expression of my young manhood's ideal. "Your friend Mr. Morton urged me +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> come. May I go to him? It may be I can find my place out in that +treeless open land; that there will come to me, as it came to you, the +help that comes from helping others."</p> + +<p>Oh, I had fought my battle well. I was come into a man's estate now and +had put away childish things.</p> + +<p>My father sitting before me took both my hands in his.</p> + +<p>"My son, you are all I have. You cannot long deceive me. I have trusted +you always. I love you even unto the depths of disgrace. Tell me truly, +have you done wrong? I will soon know it. Tell me now."</p> + +<p>"Father," I held his hands and looked steadily into his eyes. "I have no +act to conceal from you, nor any other living soul. I must leave here +because I cannot stay and see—Father, Marjie is lost to me. I do not +know why."</p> + +<p>"Well, find out." He spoke cheerily.</p> + +<p>"It is no use. She has changed, and you know her father's firmness. She +is his mental image."</p> + +<p>"There is no stain somewhere, no folly of idle flirtation, no weakness? +I hear much of you and Lettie."</p> + +<p>"Father, I have done nothing to make me ashamed. Last night when I +fought my battle to the finish, for the first time in my life I knew my +mother was with me. Somehow it was her will guiding me. I know my place. +I cannot stay here. I will go where the unprotected need a strength like +mine."</p> + +<p>The stage had stopped at the courthouse door, and Rachel Melrose ran up +the steps and entered the outer office. My father went out to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Are you leaving us?" he asked kindly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I had only a day or two that I could spend here. But where is +Philip?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> + +<p>John Baronet had closed his door behind him. I thanked him fervently in +my heart for his protection. How could I meet this woman now? And yet +she had seemed only selfishly mischievous, and I must not be a coward, +so I came out of the inner room at once. A change swept over her face +when I appeared. The haughty careless spirit gave place to gentleness, +and, as always, she was very pretty. Nothing of the look or manner was +lost on John Baronet, and his pity for her only strengthened his opinion +of my insincerity.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Philip. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Good-bye, Judge +Baronet." Her voice was soft and full of sadness. She smiled upon us +both and turned to go.</p> + +<p>My father led her down the courthouse steps and helped her into the +stage. When he came back I did not look up. There was nothing for me to +say. Quietly, as though nothing had occurred, he took up his work, his +face as impenetrable as Jean Pahusca's.</p> + +<p>My resemblance to my mother is strong. As I bent over his desk to gather +up some papers for copying, my heavy dark hair almost brushed his cheek. +I did not know then how his love for me was struggling with his sense of +duty.</p> + +<p>"I have trusted him too much, and given him too free a rein. He doesn't +know yet how to value a woman's feelings. He must learn his lesson now. +But he shall not go away without my blessing."</p> + +<p>So he mused.</p> + +<p>"Philip," his voice was as kind as it was firm, "we shall see what the +days will bring. Your mother's spirit may be guiding you, and your +father's love is always with you. Whatever snarls and tangles have +gotten into your threads, time and patience will straighten and +un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>ravel. Whatever wrong you may have done, willingly or unwillingly, +you must make right. There is no other way."</p> + +<p>"Father," I replied in a voice as firm as his own. "Father, I have done +no wrong."</p> + +<p>Once more he looked steadily into my eyes and through them down into my +very soul. "Phil, I believe you. These things will soon pass away."</p> + +<p>In the early twilight I went for the last time to "Rockport." There are +sadder things than funeral rites. The tragedies of life do not always +ring down the curtain leaving the stage strewn with the forms of the +slain. Oftener they find the living actor following his lines and doing +his part of the play as if all life were a comedy. The man of sixty +years may smile at the intensity of feeling in the boy of twenty-one, +but that makes it no easier for the boy. I watched the sun go down that +night, and then I waited through the dark hour till the moon, now past +the full, should once more illumine the Neosho Valley. Although I have +always been a lover of nature, that sunset and the purple twilight +following, the darkness of the early evening hour and the glorious +moonrise are tinged with a sorrow I have never quite lost even in the +happier years since then. I sat alone on the point of rock. At last the +impulse to go down below and search for a letter from Marjie overcame +me, although I laughed bitterly at the folly of such a notion. In the +crevice where her letter had been placed for me the night before, I +found nothing. What a different story I might have to tell had I gone +down at sunset instead of waiting through that hour of darkness before +the moon crept above the eastern horizon line! And yet I believe that in +the final shaping-up the best thing for each one comes to all of us. +Else the universe is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> without a plan and Love unwavering and eternal is +only a vagary of the dreamer.</p> + +<p>Early the next morning I left Springvale, and set my face to the +westward, as John Baronet had done a decade and a half before, to begin +life anew where the wilderness laps the frontier line. My father held my +hand long when I said good-bye, and love and courage and trust were all +in that hand-clasp.</p> + +<p>"You'll win out, my boy. Keep your face to the light. The world has no +place for the trifler, the coward, or the liar. It is open to homestead +claims for all the rest. You will not fail." And with his kiss on my +forehead he let me go.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Anything is news in a little town, and especially interesting in the +dull days of late Summer. The word that I had gone away started from +Conlow's shop and swept through the town like a prairie fire through a +grassy draw.</p> + +<p>No one man is essential to any community. Springvale didn't need me so +much as I needed it. But when I left it there were many more than I +deserved who not only had a good word for me; they went further, and +demanded that good reason for my going must be shown, or somebody would +be made to suffer. Foremost among these were Cam Gentry, Dr. Hemingway, +and Cris Mead, president of the Springvale Bank, the father of Bill and +Dave. Of course, the boys, the blessed old gang, who had played together +and worked together and been glad and sorry with each other down the +years, the boys were loyal to the last limit.</p> + +<p>But we had our share of gossips who had a tale they could unfold—a +dreadful tale! Beginning with my forging my father's name to get money +to spend on Rachel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Melrose and other Topeka girls, and to pay debts I +had contracted at Harvard, on and on the tale ran, till, by the time the +Fingal's Creek neighborhood got hold of the "real facts," it developed +that I had all but murdered a man who stood in the way of a rich fee my +father was to get out of a land suit somewhere; and lastly came an +ominous shaking of the head and a keeping back of the "worst truth," +about my gay escapades with girls of shady reputation whom I had +deceived, and cruelly wronged, trusting to my standing as a rich man's +son to pull me through all right.</p> + +<p>Marjie was the last one in Springvale to be told of my sudden +leave-taking. The day had been intolerably long for her, and the evening +brought an irresistible temptation to go up to our old playground. +Contrary to his daily habit my father had passed the Whately house on +his way home, and Marjie had seen him climb the hill. I was as like him +in form as Jean Pahusca was like Father Le Claire. Six feet and two +inches he stood, and so perfectly proportioned that he never looked +corpulent. I matched him in height and weight, but I had not his fine +bearing, for I had seen no military service then. I do not marvel that +Springvale was proud of him, for his character matched the graces Nature +had given him.</p> + +<p>As Marjie watched him going the way I had so often taken, her resolve to +forget what we had been to each other suddenly fell to pieces. Her +feelings could not change at once. Mental habits are harder to break up +than physical appetites. For fourteen years my loved one had known me, +first as her stanch defender in our plays, then as her boy sweetheart +and lastly as her lover and betrothed husband. Could twenty-four hours +of distrust and misunderstanding displace these fourteen years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> of happy +thinking? And so after sunset Marjie went up the slope, hardly knowing +why she should do so or what she would say to me if she should meet me +there. It was a poor beginning for the new life she had carefully mapped +out, but impulse was stronger than resolve in her just then. Just at the +steep bend in the street she came face to face with Lettie Conlow. The +latter wore a grin of triumph as the two met.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Marjie. I s'pose you've heard the news?"</p> + +<p>"What news?" asked Marjie. "I haven't heard anything new to-day."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, you have, too. You know all about it; but I'd not care if I +was you."</p> + +<p>Marjie was on her guard in a moment.</p> + +<p>"I don't care for what I don't know, Lettie," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Nor what you do, neither. I wouldn't if I was you. He ain't worth it; +and it gives better folks a chance for what they want, anyhow."</p> + +<p>Lettie's low brows and cunning black eyes were unendurable to the girl +she was tormenting.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know what you are talking about," and Marjie would have +passed on, but Lettie intercepted her.</p> + +<p>"You know that rich Melrose girl's gone back to Topeka?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Marjie spoke indifferently; "she went last evening, I was +told."</p> + +<p>"Well, this morning Phil Baronet went after her, left Springvale for +good and all. O'mie says so, and he knows all Phil knows. Marjie, she's +rich; and Phil won't marry nobody but a rich girl. You know you ain't +got what you had when your pa was alive."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> + +<p>Yes, Marjie knew that.</p> + +<p>"Well he's gone anyhow, and I don't care."</p> + +<p>"Why should you care?" Marjie could not help the retort. She was stung +to the quick in every nerve. Lettie's face blazed with anger.</p> + +<p>"Or you?" she stormed. "He was with me last. I can prove it, and a lot +more things you'd never want to hear. But you'll never be his girl +again."</p> + +<p>Marjie turned toward the cliff just as O'mie appeared through the bushes +and stepped behind Lettie.</p> + +<p>"Oh, good-evening, lovely ladies; delighted to meet you," he hailed +them.</p> + +<p>Marjie smiled at him, but Lettie gave a sudden start.</p> + +<p>"Oh, O'mie, what are you forever tagging me for?" She spoke angrily and +without another word to Marjie she hurried down the hill.</p> + +<p>"I tag!" O'mie grinned. "I'd as soon tag Satan, only I've just got to do +it." But his face changed when he turned to Marjie. "Little girl, I +overheard the lady. Lovely spirit that! I just can't help dancin' +attendance on it. But, Marjie, I've come up here, knowin' Phil had gone +and wasn't in my way, 'cause I wanted to show you somethin'. Yes, he's +gone. Left early this mornin'. Never mind that, right now."</p> + +<p>He led the way through the bushes and they sat down together. I cannot +say what Marjie thought as she looked out on the landscape I had watched +in loneliness the night before. It was O'mie, and not his companion, who +told me long afterwards of this evening.</p> + +<p>"I thought you were away on a ten days' vacation, O'mie. Dever said you +were." She could not bear the silence.</p> + +<p>"I'm on a tin days' vacation, but I'm not away, Marjie, darlin'," O'mie +replied.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, O'mie, don't joke. I can't stand it to-night." Her face was white +and her eyes were full of pain.</p> + +<p>"Indade, I'm not jokin'. I came up here to show you somethin' and to +tell you somethin'."</p> + +<p>He took an old note book from his pocket and opened it to where a few +brown blossoms lay flatly pressed between the leaves.</p> + +<p>"Thim's not pretty now, Marjie, but the day I got 'em they was dainty +an' pink as the dainty pink-cheeked girl whose brown curls they was +wreathed about. These are the flowers Phil Baronet put on your hair out +in the West Draw by the big cottonwood one April evenin' durin' the war; +the flowers Jean Pahusca kissed an' throwed away. But I saved 'em +because I love you, Marjie."</p> + +<p>She shivered and bent her head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, not like thim two ornery tramps who had these blossoms 'fore I got +'em, but like I'd love a sister, if I had one; like Father Le Claire +loves me. D'ye see?"</p> + +<p>"You are a dear, good brother, O'mie," Marjie murmured, without lifting +her head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yis, I'm all av that an' more. Marjie, I'm goin' to kape these +flowers till—well, now, Marjie, shall I tell you whin?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, O'mie," Marjie said faintly.</p> + +<p>"Well, till I see the pretty white veil lifted fur friends to kiss the +bride an' I catch the scent av orange blossoms in thim soft little +waves." He put his hand gently on her bowed head. "I'll get to do it, +too," he went on, "not right away, but not fur off, nather; an' it won't +be a little man, ner a rid-headed Irishman, ner a sharp-nosed +school-teacher; but—Heaven bless an' kape him to-night!—it'll be a +big, broad-shouldered, handsome rascal, whose heart has niver changed +an' niver can change toward<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> you, little sister, 'cause he's his +father's own son—lovin', constant, white an' clane through an' through. +Be patient. It's goin' to be all right for you two." He closed the book +and put it back in its place. "But I mustn't stay here. I've got to tag +Lettie some more. Her an' some others. That's what my tin days' +vacation's fur, mostly." And O'mie leaped through the bushes and was +gone.</p> + +<p>The twilight was deepening when Marjie at last roused herself.</p> + +<p>"I'll go down and see if he did get my letter," she murmured, taking her +way down the rough stair. There was no letter in the crevice where she +had placed it securely two nights before. Lifting her face upward she +clasped her hands in sorrow.</p> + +<p>"He took it away, but he did not come to me. He knows I love him." Then +remembering herself, "I would not let him speak. But he said he hated +'Rockport.' Oh, what can it all mean? How could he be so good to me and +then deceive me so? Shall I believe Lettie, or O'mie?"</p> + +<p>Kneeling there in the deep shadows of the cliff-side with the Neosho +gurgling darkly below her, and the long shafts of pink radiance from the +hidden sunset illumining the sky above her, Marjie prayed for strength +to bear her burden, for courage to meet whatever must come to her, and +for the assurance of divine Love although now her lover, as well as her +father, was lost to her. The simple pleading cry of a grief-stricken +heart it was. Heaven heard that prayer, and Marjie went down the hill +with womanly grace and courage and faith to face whatever must befall +her in the new life opening before her.</p> + +<p>In the days that followed my little girl was more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> ever the idol of +Springvale. Her sweet, sunny nature now had a new beauty. Her sorrow she +hid away so completely there were few who guessed what her thoughts +were. Lettie Conlow was not deceived, for jealousy has sharp eyes. O'mie +understood, for O'mie had carried a sad, hungry heart underneath his +happy-go-lucky carelessness all the years of his life. Aunt Candace was +a woman who had overcome a grief of her own, and had been cheery and +bright down the years. She knew the mark of conquest in the face. And +lastly, my father, through his innate power to read human nature, +watched Marjie as if she were his own child. Quietly, too, so quietly +that nobody noticed it, he became a guardian over her. Where she went +and what she did he knew as well as Jean Pahusca, watching in the lilac +clump, long ago. For fourteen years he had come and gone to our house on +Cliff Street up and down the gentler slope two blocks to the west of +Whately's. Nobody knew, until it had become habitual, when he changed +his daily walk homeward up the steeper climb that led him by Marjie's +house farther down the street. Nobody realized, until it was too common +for comment, how much a part of all the social life of Springvale my +father had become. He had come to Kansas a widower, but gossip long ago +gave up trying to do anything with him. And now, as always, he was a +welcome factor everywhere, a genial, courteous gentleman, whose dignity +of character matched his stern uprightness and courage in civic matters. +Among all the things for which I bless his memory, not the least of them +was this strong, unostentatious guardianship of a girl when her need for +protection was greatest, as that Winter that followed proved.</p> + +<p>I knew nothing of all this then. I only knew my loved one had turned +against me. Of course I knew that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> Rachel was the cause, but I could not +understand why Marjie would listen to no explanation, why she should +turn completely from me when I had told her everything in the letter I +wrote the night of the party at Anderson's. And now I was many miles +from Springvale, and the very thought of the past was like a +knife-thrust. All my future now looked to the Westward. I longed for +action, for the opportunity to do something, and they came swiftly, the +opportunity and the action.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<h3>BEGINNING AGAIN</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It matters not what fruit the hand may gather,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If God approves, and says, "This is the best."</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It matters not how far the feet may wander,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If He says, "Go, and leave to Me the rest."</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—ALBERT MACY.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>I stood in the August twilight by the railway station in the little +frontier town of Salina, where the Union Pacific train had abandoned me +to my fate. Turning toward the unmapped, limitless Northwest, I suddenly +realized that I was at the edge of the earth now. Behind me were +civilization and safety. Beyond me was only a waste of gray nothingness. +Yet this was the world I had come hither to conquer. Here were the +spaces wherein I should find peace. I set my face with grim +determination to work now, out of the thing before me, a purpose that +controlled me.</p> + +<p>Morton's claim was a far day's journey up the Saline Valley. It would be +nearly a week before I could find a man to drive me thither; so I +secured careful directions, and the next morning I left the town on foot +and alone. I did not mind the labor of it. I was as vigorous as a young +giant, fear of personal peril I had never known, and the love of +adventure was singing its siren's song to me. I was clad in the strong, +coarse garments, suited to the Plains. I was armed with two heavy +revolvers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> and a small pistol. Hidden inside of my belt as a last +defence was the short, sharp knife bearing Jean Le Claire's name in +script lettering.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the moment when a low bluff beyond a bend in the +Saline River shut off the distant town from my view and I stood utterly +alone in a wide, silent world, left just as God had made it. Humility +and uplift mingle in the soul in such a time and place. One question ran +back and forth across my mind: What conquering power can ever bring the +warmth of glad welcome to the still, hostile, impenetrable beauty of +these boundless plains?</p> + +<p>"The air is full of spirits out here," I said to myself. "There is no +living thing in sight, and yet the land seems inhabited, just as that +old haunted cabin down on the Neosho seemed last June."</p> + +<p>And then with the thought of that June day Memory began to play her +tricks on me and I cried out, "Oh, perdition take that stone cabin and +the whole Neosho Valley if that will make me forget it all!"</p> + +<p>I strode forward along the silent, sunshiny way, with a thousand things +on my mind's surface and only one thought in its inner deeps. The sun +swung up the sky, and the thin August air even in its heat was light and +invigorating. The river banks were low and soft where the stream cuts +through the alluvial soil a channel many feet below the level of the +Plains. The day was long, but full of interest to me, who took its sight +as a child takes a new picture-book, albeit a certain sense of peril +lurked in the shadowing corners of my thought.</p> + +<p>The August sun was low in the west when I climbed up the grassy slope to +Morton's little square stone cabin. It stood on a bold height +overlooking the Saline River. Far away in every direction the land +billows lay fold on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> fold. Treeless and wide they stretched out to the +horizon, with here and there a low elevation, and here and there the +faint black markings of scrubby bushes clinging to the bank of a stream. +The stream itself, now only a shallow spread of water, bore witness to +the fierce thirst of the summer sun. Up and down the Saline Valley only +a few scattered homesteads were to be seen, and a few fields of slender, +stunted corn told the story of the first struggle for conquest in a +beautiful but lonely and unfriendly land.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 371px;"> +<img src="images/i244.jpg" width="371" height="550" alt="Every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts</span> +</div> + + +<p>Morton was standing at the door of his cabin looking out on that sweep +of plains with thoughtful eyes. He did not see me until I was fairly up +the hill, and when he did he made no motion towards me, but stood and +waited for my coming. In those few moments as I swung forward +leisurely—for I was very tired now—I think we read each other's +character and formed our estimates more accurately than many men have +done after years of close business association.</p> + +<p>He was a small man beside me, as I have said, and his quiet manner, and +retiring disposition, half dignity, half modesty, gave the casual +acquaintance no true estimate of his innate force. Three things, +however, had attracted me to him in our brief meeting at Topeka: his +voice, though low, had a thrill of power in it; his hand-clasp was firm +and full of meaning; and when I looked into his blue eyes I recalled the +words which the Earl of Kent said to King Lear:</p> + +<p>"You have that in your countenance which I would fain call master."</p> + +<p>And when King Lear asked, "What's that?" Kent replied, "Authority."</p> + + +<p>It was in Morton's face. Although he was not more than a dozen years my +senior, I instinctively looked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> upon him as a leader of men, and he +became then and has always since been one of my manhood's ideals.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to see you, Baronet. Come in." He grasped my hand firmly and +led the way into the house. I sat down wearily in the chair he offered +me. It was well that I had walked the last stage of my journey. Had I +been twenty-four hours later I should have missed him, and this one +story of the West might never have been told.</p> + +<p>The inside of the cabin was what one would expect to find in a +Plainsman's home who had no one but himself to consider.</p> + +<p>While I rested he prepared our supper. Disappointment in love does not +always show itself in the appetite, and I was as hungry as a coyote. All +day new sights and experiences had been crowding in upon me. The +exhilaration of the wild Plains was beginning to pulse in my veins. I +had come into a strange, untried world. The past, with its broken ties +and its pain and loss, must be only a memory that at my leisure I might +call back; but here was a different life, under new skies, with new +people. The sunset lights, the gray evening shadows, and the dip and +swell of the purple distances brought their heartache; but now I was +hungry, and Morton was making johnny cakes and frying bacon; wild plums +were simmering on the fire, and coffee was filling the room with the +rarest of all good odors vouchsafed to mortal sense.</p> + +<p>At the supper table my host went directly to my case by asking, "Have +you come out here to prospect or to take hold?"</p> + +<p>"To take hold," I answered.</p> + +<p>"Are you tired after your journey?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"I? No. A night's sleep will fix me." I looked down at my strong arms, +and stalwart limbs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You sleep well?" His questions were brief.</p> + +<p>"I never missed but one night in twenty-one years, except when I sat up +with a sick boy one Summer," I replied.</p> + +<p>"When was that one night?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, during the war when the border ruffians and Copperheads terrorized +our town."</p> + +<p>"You are like your father, I see." He did not say in what particular; +and I added, "I hope I am."</p> + +<p>We finished the meal in silence. Then we sat down by the west doorway +and saw the whole Saline Valley shimmer through the soft glow of +twilight and lose itself at length in the darkness that folded down +about it. A gentle breeze swept along from somewhere in the far +southwest, a thousand insects chirped in the grasses. Down by the river +a few faint sounds of night birds could be heard, and then loneliness +and homesickness had their time, denied during every other hour of the +twenty-four.</p> + +<p>After a time my host turned toward me in the gloom and looked steadily +into my eyes.</p> + +<p>"He's taking my measure," I thought.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "will I do?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he answered. "Your father told me once in the army that his boy +could ride like a Comanche, and turn his back to a mark and hit it over +his shoulder." He smiled.</p> + +<p>"That's because one evening I shot the head off a scarecrow he had put +up in the cherry tree when I was hiding around a corner to keep out of +his sight. All the Springvale boys learned how to ride and shoot and to +do both at once, although we never had any shooting to do that really +counted."</p> + +<p>"Baronet"—there was a tone in Morton's voice that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> gripped and held +me—"you have come here in a good time. We need you now. Men of your +build and endurance and skill are what this West's got to have."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm here," I answered seriously.</p> + +<p>"I shall leave for Fort Harker to-morrow with a crowd of men from the +valley to join a company Sheridan has called for," he went on. "You know +about the Indian raid the first of this month. The Cheyennes came across +here, and up on Spillman Creek and over on the Solomon they killed a +dozen or more people. They burned every farm-house, and outraged every +woman, and butchered every man and child they could lay hands on. You +heard about it at Topeka."</p> + +<p>"Hasn't that Indian massacre been avenged yet?" I cried.</p> + +<p>Clearly in my memory came the two women of my dream of long ago. How +deeply that dream had impressed itself upon my mind! And then there +flashed across my brain the image of Marjie, as she looked the night +when she stood in the doorway with the lamplight on her brown curls, and +it became clear to me that she was safe at home. Oh, the joy of that +moment! The unutterable thankfulness that filled my soul was matched in +intensity only by the horror that fills it even now when I think of a +white woman in Indian slave-bonds. And while I was thinking of this I +was listening to Morton's more minute account of what had been taking +place about him, and why he and his neighbors were to start on the next +day for Fort Harker down on the Smoky Hill River.</p> + +<p>Early in that memorable August of 1868 a band of forty Cheyenne braves, +under their chief Black Kettle, came riding up from their far-away +villages in the southwest, bent on a merciless murdering raid upon the +un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>guarded frontier settlements. They were a dirty, ragged, sullen crew +as ever rode out of the wilderness. Down on the Washita River their own +squaws and papooses were safe in their tepees too far from civilization +for any retaliatory measure to reach them.</p> + +<p>When Black Kettle's band came to Fort Hays, after the Indian custom they +made the claim of being "good Indians."</p> + +<p>"Black Kettle loves his white soldier brothers, and his heart feels glad +when he meets them," the Chief declared. "We would be like white +soldiers, but we cannot, for we are Indians; but we can all be brothers. +It is a long way that we have come to see you. Six moons have come and +gone, and there has been no rain; the wind blows hot from the south all +day and all night; the ground is hot and cracked; the grass is burned +up; the buffalo wallows are dry; the streams are dry; the game is +scarce; Black Kettle is poor, and his band is hungry. He asks the white +soldiers for food for his braves and their squaws and papooses. All +other Indians may take the war-trail, but Black Kettle will forever keep +friendship with his white brothers."</p> + +<p>Such were his honeyed words. The commander of the fort issued to each +brave a bountiful supply of flour and bacon and beans and coffee. Beyond +the shadow of the fort they feasted that night. The next morning they +had disappeared, these loving-hearted, loyal Indians, over whom the home +missionary used to weep copious tears of pity. They had gone—but +whither? Black Kettle and his noble braves were not hurrying southward +toward their squaws and papooses with the liberal supplies issued to +them by the Government. Crossing to the Saline Valley, not good Indians, +but a band of human fiends, they swept down on the unsuspecting +settlements.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> A homestead unprotected by the husband and father was +their supreme joy. Then before the eyes of the mother, little children +were tortured to death, while the mother herself—God pity her—was not +only tortured, but what was more cruel, was kept alive.</p> + +<p>Across the Saline Valley, over the divide, and up the Solomon River +Valley this band of demons pushed their way. Behind them were hot ashes +where homes had been, and putrid, unburied bodies of murdered men and +children, mutilated beyond recognition. On their ponies, bound hand and +foot, were wretched, terror-stricken women. The smiling Plains lay +swathed in the August sunshine, and the richness of purple twilights, +and of rose-hued day dawns, and the pitiless noontime skies of brass +only mocked them in their misery. Did a merciful God forget the Plains +in those days of prairie conquest? No force rose up to turn Black Kettle +and his murderous horde back from the imperilled settlements until +loaded with plunder, their savage souls sated with cruelty, with +helpless captives for promise of further fiendish sport, they headed +southward and escaped untouched to their far-away village in the +pleasant, grassy lands that border the Washita River.</p> + +<p>Not all their captives went with them, however. With these "good +Indians," recipients of the Fort Hays bounty, were two women, mothers of +a few months, not equal to the awful tax of human endurance. These, +bound hand and foot, they staked out on the solitary Plains under the +blazing August skies, while their tormentors rode gayly away to join +their fat, lazy squaws awaiting them in the southland by the winding +Washita.</p> + +<p>This was the story Morton was telling to me as we sat in the dusk by his +cabin door. This was the condition of those fair Kansas River valleys, +for the Cheyennes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> under Black Kettle were not the only foes here. Other +Cheyenne bands, with the Sioux, the Brules, and the Dog Indians from +every tribe were making every Plains trail a warpath.</p> + +<p>"The captives are probably all dead by this time; but the crimes are not +avenged, and the settlers are no safer than they were before the raid," +Morton was saying. "Governor Crawford and the Governor of Colorado have +urged the authorities at Washington to protect our frontier, but they +have done nothing. Now General Sheridan has decided to act anyhow. He +has given orders to Colonel George A. Forsyth of the U. S. Cavalry, to +make up a company of picked men to go after the Cheyennes at once. There +are some two hundred of them hiding somewhere out in the Solomon or the +Republican River country. It is business now. No foolishness. A lot of +us around here are going down to Harker to enlist. Will you go with us, +Baronet? It's no boys' play. The safety of our homes is matched against +the cunning savagery of the redskins. We paid fifteen million dollars +for this country west of the Mississippi. If these Indians aren't driven +out and made to suffer, and these women's wrongs avenged, we'd better +sell the country back to France for fifteen cents. But it's no easy +piece of work. Those Cheyennes know these Plains as well as you know the +streets of Springvale. They are built like giants, and they fight like +demons. Don't underestimate the size of the contract. I know John +Baronet well enough to know that if his boy begins, he won't quit till +the battle is done. I want you to go into this with your eyes open. +Whoever fights the Indians must make his will before the battle begins. +Forsyth's company will be made up of soldiers from the late war, +frontiersmen, and scouts. You're not any one of these, but—" he +hesitated a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>—"when I heard your speech at Topeka I knew you had +the right metal. Your spirit is in this thing. You are willing to pay +the price demanded here for the hearthstones of the West."</p> + +<p>My spirit! My blood was racing through every artery in leaps and bounds. +Here was a man calmly setting forth the action that had been my very +dream of heroism, and here was a call to duty, where duty and ideal +blend into one. And then I was young, and thought myself at the +beginning of a new life; pain of body was unknown to me; the lure of the +Plains was calling to me—daring adventure, the need for courage, the +patriotism that fires the young man's heart, and, at the final analysis, +my loyalty to the defenceless, my secret notions of the value of the +American home, my horror of Indian captivity, a horror I had known when +my mind was most impressible—all these were motives driving me on. I +wondered that my companion could be so calm, sitting there in the dim +twilight explaining carefully what lay before me; and yet I felt the +power of that calmness building up a surer strength in me. I did not +dream of home that night. I chased Indians until I wakened with a +scream.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Baronet?" Morton asked.</p> + +<p>"I thought the Cheyennes had me," I answered sleepily.</p> + +<p>"Don't waste time in dreaming it. Better go to sleep and let 'em alone," +he advised; and I obeyed.</p> + +<p>The next morning we were joined by half a dozen settlers of that +scattered community, and together we rode across the Plains toward Fort +Harker. I had expected to find a fortified stronghold at the end of our +ride. Something in imposing stone on a commanding height. Something of +frowning, impenetrable strength. Out on the open plain by the lazy, +slow-crawling Smoky Hill River were low buildings forming a quadrangle +about a parade<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> ground. Officers' quarters, soldiers' barracks, and +stables for the cavalry horses and Government mules, there were, but no +fortifications were there anywhere. Yet the fort was ample for the needs +of the Plains. The Indian puts up only a defensive fight in the region +of Federal power. It is out in the wide blank lands where distance mocks +at retreat that he leads out in open hostility against the white man. +Here General Sheridan had given Colonel Forsyth commission to organize a +Company of Plainsmen. And this Company was to drive out or annihilate +the roving bands of redskins who menaced every home along the +westward-creeping Kansas frontier in the years that followed the Civil +War. It was to offer themselves to this cause that the men from Morton's +community, whom I had joined, rode across the divide from the Saline +Valley on that August day, and came in the early twilight to the +solitary unpretentious Federal post on the Smoky Hill.</p> + +<p>It is only to a military man in the present time that this picture of +Fort Harker would be interesting, and there is nothing now in all that +peaceful land to suggest the frontier military station which I saw on +that summer day, now nearly four decades ago. But everything was +interesting to me then, and my greatest study was the men gathered there +for a grim and urgent purpose. My impression of frontiersmen had been +shaped by the loud threats, the swagger, and much profanity of the +border people of the Territorial and Civil War days. Here were quiet men +who made no boasts. Strong, wiry men they were, tanned by the sun of the +Plains, their hands hardened, their eyes keen. They were military men +who rode like centaurs, scouts who shot with marvellous accuracy, and +the sturdy settlers, builders of empire in this stubborn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> West. Had I +been older I would have felt my own lack of training among them. My +hands, beside theirs, were soft and white, and while I was accounted a +good marksman in Springvale I was a novice here. But since the night +long ago when Jean Pahusca frightened Marjie by peering through our +schoolroom window I had felt myself in duty bound to drive back the +Indians. I had a giant's strength, and no Baronet was ever seriously +called a coward.</p> + +<p>The hours at Fort Barker were busy ones for Colonel Forsyth and +Lieutenant Fred Beecher, first in command under him. Their task of +selecting men for the expedition was quickly performed. My heart beat +fast when my own turn came. Forsyth's young lieutenant was one of the +Lord's anointed. Soft-voiced, modest, handsome, with a nature so +lovable, I find it hard to-day to think of him in the military ranks +where war and bloodshed are the ultimate business. But young Beecher was +a soldier of the highest order, fearless and resourceful. I cannot say +how much it lay in Morton's recommendation, and how much in the +lieutenant's kind heart that I was able to pass muster and be written +into that little company of less than threescore picked men. The +available material at Fort Harker was quickly exhausted, and the men +chosen were hurried by trains to Fort Hays, where the remainder of the +Company was made up.</p> + +<p>Dawned then that morning in late Summer when we moved out from the Fort +and fronted the wilderness. On the night before we started I wrote a +brief letter to Aunt Candace, telling her what I was about to do.</p> + +<p>"If I never come back, auntie," I added, "tell the little girl down on +the side of the hill that I tried to do for Kansas what her father did +for the nation, that I gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> up my life to establish peace. And tell +her, too, if I really do fall out by the way, that I'll be lonely even +in heaven till she comes."</p> + +<p>But with the morning all my sentiment vanished and I was eager for the +thing before me. Two hundred Indians we were told we should find and +every man of us was accounted good for at least five redskins. At +sunrise on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year of our Lord 1868, +Colonel Forsyth's little company started on its expedition of defence +for the frontier settlements, and for just vengeance on the Cheyennes of +the plains and their allied forces from kindred bands. Fort Hays was the +very outpost of occupation. To the north and west lay a silent, pathless +country which the finger of the white man had not touched. We knew we +were bidding good-bye to civilization as we marched out that morning, +were turning our backs on safety and comfort and all that makes life +fine. Before us was the wilderness, with its perils and lonely +desolation and mysteries.</p> + +<p>But the wilderness has a siren's power over the Anglo-Saxon always. The +strange savage land was splendid even in its silent level sweep of +distance. When I was a boy I used to think that the big cottonwood +beyond the West Draw was the limit of human exploration. It marked the +world's western bound for me. Here were miles on miles of landscape +opening wide to more stretches of leagues and leagues of far boundless +plains, and all of it was weird, unconquerable, and very beautiful. The +earth was spread with a carpet of gold splashed with bronze and scarlet +and purple, with here and there a shimmer of green showing through the +yellow, or streaking the shallow waterways. Far and wide there was not a +tree to give the eye a point of attachment; neither orchard nor forest +nor lonely sentinel to show that Nature had ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> cherished the land for +the white man's home and joy. The buffalo herd paid little heed to our +brave company marching out like the true knights of old to defend the +weak and oppressed. The gray wolf skulked along in the shadows of the +draws behind us and at night the coyotes barked harshly at the invading +band. But there was no mark of civilized habitation, no friendly hint +that aught but the unknown and unconquerable lay before us.</p> + +<p>I was learning quickly in those days of marching and nights of dreamless +sleep under sweet, health-giving skies. After all, Harvard had done me +much service; for the university training, no less than the boyhood on +the Territorial border, had its part in giving me mental discipline for +my duties now. Camp life came easy to me, and I fell into the soldier +way of thinking, more readily than I had ever hoped to do.</p> + +<p>On we went, northward to the Saline Valley, and beyond that to where the +Solomon River winds down through a region of summer splendor, its +rippling waves of sod a-tint with all the green and gold and russet and +crimson hues of the virgin Plains, while overhead there arched the sky, +tenderly blue in the morning, brazen at noonday, and pink and gray and +purple in the evening lights. But we found no Indians, though we +followed trail on trail. Beyond the Solomon we turned to the southwest, +and the early days of September found us resting briefly at Fort +Wallace, near the western bound of Kansas.</p> + +<p>The real power that subdues the wilderness may be, nay, is, the spirit +of the missionary, but the mark of military occupation is a tremendous +convincer of truth. The shotgun and the Bible worked side by side in the +conquest of the Plains; the smell of powder was often the only incense +on the altars, and human blood was sprinkled for holy water. Fort +Wallace, with the Stars and Stripes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> afloat, looked good to me after +that ten days in the trackless solitude. And yet I was disappointed, for +I thought our quest might end here with nothing to show in results for +our pains. I did not know Forsyth and his band, as the next twenty days +were to show me.</p> + +<p>While we were resting at the Fort, scouts brought in the news of an +Indian attack on a wagon train a score of miles eastward, and soon we +were away again, this time equipped for the thing in hand, splendidly +equipped, it seemed, for what we should really need to do. We were all +well mounted, and each of us carried a blanket, saddle, bridle, +picket-pin, and lariat; each had a haversack, a canteen, a butcher +knife, a tin plate and tin cup. We had Spencer rifles and Colt's +revolvers, with rounds of ammunition for both; and each of us carried +seven days' rations. Besides this equipment the pack mules bore a large +additional store of ammunition, together with rations and hospital +supplies.</p> + +<p>Northward again we pushed, alert for every faint sign of Indians. Those +keen-eyed scouts were a marvel to me. They read the ground, the streams, +the sagebrush, and the horizon as a primer set in fat black type. Leader +of them, and official guide, was a man named Grover, who could tell by +the hither side of a bluff what was on the farther side. But for five +days the trails were illusive, finally vanishing in a spread of faint +footprints radiating from a centre telling us that the Indians had +broken up and scattered over separate ways. And so again we seemed to +have been deceived in this unmapped land.</p> + +<p>We were beyond the Republican River now, in the very northwest corner of +Kansas, and the thought of turning back toward civilization had come to +some of us, when a fresh trail told us we were still in the Indian +country. We headed our horses toward the southwest, following the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> trail +that hugged the Republican River. It did not fade out as the others had +done, but grew plainer each mile.</p> + +<p>The whole command was in a fever of expectancy. Forsyth's face was +bright and eager with the anticipation of coming danger. Lieutenant +Beecher was serious and silent, while the guide, Sharp Grover, was alert +and cool. A tenseness had made itself felt throughout the command. I +learned early not to ask questions; but as we came one noon upon a broad +path leading up to the main trail where from this union we looked out on +a wide, well-beaten way, I turned an inquiring face toward Morton, who +rode beside me. There was strength in the answer his eyes gave mine. He +had what the latter-day students of psychology call "poise," a grip on +himself. It is by such men that the Plains have been won from a desert +demesne to fruitful fields.</p> + +<p>"I gave you warning it was no boy's play," he said simply.</p> + +<p>I nodded and we rode on in silence. We pressed westward to where the +smaller streams combine to form the Republican River. The trail here led +us up the Arickaree fork, a shallow stream at this season of the year, +full of sand-bars and gravelly shoals. Here the waters lost themselves +for many feet in the underflow so common in this land of aimless, +uncertain waterways.</p> + +<p>On the afternoon of the sixteenth of September the trail led to a little +gorge through which the Arickaree passes in a narrower channel. Beyond +it the valley opened out with a level space reaching back to low hills +on the north, while an undulating plain spread away to the south. The +grass was tall and rank in this open space, which closed in with a bluff +a mile or more to the west. Although it was hardly beyond midafternoon, +Colonel Forsyth halted the company, and we went into camp. We were +almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> out of rations. Our horses having no food now, were carefully +picketed out to graze at the end of their lariats. A general sense of +impending calamity pervaded the camp. But the Plainsmen were accustomed +to this kind of thing, and the Civil War soldiers had learned their +lesson at Gettysburg and Chickamauga and Malvern Hill. I was the green +hand, and I dare say my anxiety was greater than that of any other one +there. But I had a double reason for apprehension.</p> + +<p>As we had come through the little gorge that afternoon, I was riding +some distance in the rear of the line. Beside me was a boy of eighteen, +fair-haired, blue-eyed, his cheek as smooth as a girl's. His trim little +figure, clad in picturesque buckskin, suggested a pretty actor in a Wild +West play. And yet this boy, Jack Stillwell, was a scout of the +uttermost daring and shrewdness. He always made me think of Bud +Anderson. I even missed Bud's lisp when he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Stillwell," I said in a low tone as we rode along, "tell me what you +think of this. Aren't we pretty near the edge? I've felt for three days +as if an Indian was riding beside me and I couldn't see him. It's not +the mirage, and I'm not locoed. Did you ever feel as if you were near +somebody you couldn't see?"</p> + +<p>The boy turned his fair, smooth face toward mine and looked steadily at +me.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't get to seein' things," he murmured. "This country turns +itself upside down for the fellow who does that. And in Heaven's name we +need every man in his right senses now. What do I think? Good God, +Baronet! I think we are marching straight into Hell's jaws. Sandy knows +it"—"Sandy" was Forsyth's military pet name—"but he's too set to back +out now. Besides, who wants to back out? or what's to be gained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> by it? +We've come out here to fight the Cheyennes. We're gettin' to 'em, that's +all. Only there's too damned many of 'em. This trail's like the old +Santa Fé Trail, wide enough for a Mormon church to move along. And as to +feelin' like somebody's near you, it's more 'n feelin'; it's fact. +There's Injuns on track of this squad every minute. I'm only eighteen, +but I've been in the saddle six years, and I know a few things without +seein' 'em. Sharp Grover knows, too. He's the doggondest scout that ever +rode over these Plains. He knows the trap we've got into. But he's like +Sandy, come out to fight, and he'll do it. All we've got to do is to +keep our opinions to ourselves. They don't want to be told nothin'; they +know."</p> + +<p>The remainder of the company was almost out of sight as we rounded the +shoulder of the gorge. The afternoon sunlight dazzled me. Lifting my +eyes just then I saw a strange vision. What I had thought to be only a +piece of brown rock, above and beyond me, slowly rose to almost a +sitting posture before my blinking eyes, and a man, no, two men, seemed +to gaze a moment after our retreating line of blue-coats. It was but an +instant, yet I caught sight of two faces. Stillwell was glancing +backward at that moment and did not see anything. At the sound of our +horses' feet on the gravel the two figures changed to brown rock again. +In the moment my eye had caught the merest glint of sunlight on an +artillery bugle, a gleam, and nothing more.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Baronet? You're white as a ghost. Are you scared or +sick?" Stillwell spoke in a low voice. We didn't do any shouting in +those trying days.</p> + +<p>"Neither one," I answered, but I had cause to wonder whether I was +insane or not. As I live, and hope to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> keep my record clear, the two +figures I had seen were not strangers to me. The smaller of the two had +the narrow forehead and secretive countenance of the Reverend Mr. Dodd. +In his hand was an artillery bugle. Beyond him, though he wore an Indian +dress, rose the broad shoulders and square, black-shadowed forehead of +Father Le Claire.</p> + +<p>"It is the hallucination of this mirage-girt land," I told myself. "The +Plains life is affecting my vision, and then the sun has blinded me. I'm +not delirious, but this marching is telling on me. Oh, it is at a +fearful price that the frontier creeps westward, that homes are planted, +and peace, blood-stained, abides with them."</p> + +<p>So I meditated as I watched the sun go down on that September night on +the far Colorado Plains by the grassy slopes and yellow sands and thin, +slow-moving currents of the Arickaree.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<h3>IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARICKAREE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A blush as of roses</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where rose never grew!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Great drops on the bunch grass.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But not of the dew!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A taint in the sweet air</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For wild bees to shun!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A stain that shall never</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bleach out in the sun!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;">—WHITTIER.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Stillwell was right. Sharp Grover knew, as well as the boy knew, that we +were trapped, that before us now were the awful chances of unequal +Plains warfare. A mere handful of us had been hurrying after a host, +whose numbers the broad beaten road told us was legion. There was no +mirth in that little camp that night in mid-September, and I thought of +other things besides my strange vision at the gorge. The camp was the +only mark of human habitation in all that wide and utterly desolate +land. For days we had noted even the absence of all game—strong +evidence that a host had driven it away before us. Everywhere, save +about that winking camp fire was silence. The sunset was gorgeous, in +the barbaric sublimity of its seas of gold and crimson atmosphere. And +then came the rich coloring of that purple twilight. It is no wonder +they call it regal. Out on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> the Plains that night it swathed the +landscape with a rarer hue than I have ever seen anywhere else, although +I have watched the sun go down into the Atlantic off the Rockport coast, +and have seen it lost over the edge of the West Prairie beyond the big +cottonwood above the farther draw. As I watched the evening shadows +deepen, I remembered what Morton had told me in the little cabin back in +the Saline country, "Who ever fights the Indians must make his will +before the battle begins." Now that I was face to face with the real +issue, life became very sweet to me. How grand over war and hate were +the thoughts of peace and love! And yet every foot of this beautiful +land must be bought with a price. No matter where the great blame lies, +nor who sinned first in getting formal possession, the real occupation +is won only by sacrifice. And I was confronted with my part of the +offering. Strange thoughts come in such an hour. Sitting there in the +twilight, I asked myself why I should want to live; and I realized how +strong, after all, was the tie that bound me to Springvale; how under +all my pretence of beginning a new life I had not really faced the +future separated from the girl I loved. And then I remembered that it +would mean nothing serious to her how this campaign ended. Oh! I was in +the crucible now. I must prove myself the thing I always meant to be. +God knew the heroic spirit I needed that lonely September night. As I +sat looking out toward the west the years of my boyhood came back to me, +and then I remembered O'mie's words when he told me of his struggle:</p> + +<p>"It was to save a woman, Phil. He could only kill me. He wouldn't have +been that good to her. You'd have done the same to save any woman, aven +a stranger to you. Wait an' see."</p> + +<p>I thought of the two women in the Solomon Valley,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> whom Black Kettle's +band had dragged from their homes, tortured inhumanly, and at last +staked out hand and foot on the prairie to die in agony under pitiless +skies.</p> + +<p>"When the day av choosin' comes," O'mie said, "we can't do no more 'n to +take our places. We all do it. When you git face to face with a thing +like that, somehow the everlastin' arms Dr. Hemingway preaches about is +strong underneath you."</p> + +<p>Oh, blessed O'mie! Had he told me that to give me courage in my hour of +shrinking? Wherever he was to-night I knew his heart was with me, who so +little deserved the love he gave me. At last I rolled myself snugly in +my blanket, for the September evenings are cold in Colorado. The simple +prayers of childhood came back to me, and I repeated the "Now I lay me" +I used to say every night at Aunt Candace's knee. It had a wonderful +meaning to me to-night. And once more I thought of O'mie and how his +thin hand gripped mine when he said: "Most av all, don't niver forgit +it, Phil, when the thing comes to you, aven in your strength. Most av +all, above all sufferin', and natural longin' to live, there comes the +reality av them words Aunt Candace taught us: 'Though I walk through the +valley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'"</p> + +<p>"It may be that's the Arickaree Valley for me," I said to myself. "If it +is, I will fear no evil." And I stretched out on the brown grasses and +fell asleep.</p> + +<p>About midnight I wakened suddenly. A light was gleaming near. Some one +stood beside me, and presently I saw Colonel Forsyth looking down into +my face with kindly eyes. I raised myself on my elbow and watched him +passing among the slumbering soldiers. Even now I can see Jack +Stillwell's fair girl-face with the dim light on it as he slept beside +me. What a picture that face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> would make if my pen were an artist's +brush! At three in the morning I wakened again. It was very dark, but I +knew some one was near me, and I judged instinctively it was Forsyth. It +was sixty hours before I slept again.</p> + +<p>For five days every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts. +Night and day they had hung on our borders, just out of sight, waiting +their time to strike. Had we made a full march on that sixteenth day of +September, instead of halting to rest and graze our horses, we should +have gone, as Stillwell predicted, straight into Hell's jaws. As it was, +Hell rose up and crept stealthily toward us. For while our little band +slept, and while our commander passed restlessly among us on that night, +the redskins moved upon our borders.</p> + +<p>Morning was gray in the east and the little valley was full of shadows, +when suddenly the sentinel's cry of "Indians! Indians!" aroused the +sleeping force. The shouts of our guards, the clatter of ponies' hoofs, +the rattling of dry skins, the swinging of blankets, the fierce yells of +the invading foe made a scene of tragic confusion, as a horde of +redskins swept down upon us like a whirlwind. In this mad attempt to +stampede our stock nothing but discipline saved us. A few of the mules +and horses not properly picketed, broke loose and galloped off before +the attacking force, the remaining animals held as the Indians fled away +before the sharp fire of our soldiers.</p> + +<p>"Well, we licked them, anyhow," I said to myself exultantly as we obeyed +the instant orders to get into the saddle.</p> + +<p>The first crimson line of morning was streaking the east and I lifted my +face triumphantly to the new day. Sharp Grover stood just before me; his +hand was on Forsyth's shoulder.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> + +<p>Suddenly he uttered a low exclamation. "Oh, heavens! General, look at +the Indians."</p> + +<p>This was no vision of brown rock and sun-blinded eyes. From every +direction, over the bluff, out from the tall grass, across the slope on +the south, came Indians, hundreds on hundreds. They seemed to spring +from the sod like Roderick Dhu's Highland Scots, and people every curve +and hollow. Swift as the wind, savage as hate, cruel as hell, they bore +down upon us from every way the wind blows. The thrill of that moment is +in my blood as I write this. It was then I first understood the tie +between the commanding officer and his men. It is easy to laud the file +of privates on dress parade, but the man who directs the file in the +hour of battle is the real power. In that instant of peril I turned to +Forsyth with that trust that the little child gives to its father. How +cool he was, and yet how lightning-swift in thought and action.</p> + +<p>In all the valley there was no refuge where we might hide, nor height on +which we might defend ourselves. The Indians had counted on our making a +dash to the eastward, and had left that way open for us. They had not +reckoned well on Colonel Forsyth. He knew intuitively that the gorge at +the lower end of the valley was even then filled with a hidden foe, and +not a man of us would ever have passed through it alive. To advance +meant death, and there was no retreat possible. Out in the middle of the +Arickaree, hardly three feet above the river-bed, lay a little island. +In the years to be when the history of the West shall be fully told, it +may become one of the Nation's shrines. But now in this dim morning +light it showed only an insignificant elevation. Its sandy surface was +grown over with tall sage grasses and weeds.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p> + +<p>A few wild plums and alder bushes, a clump of low willow shrubs, and a +small cottonwood tree completed its vegetation.</p> + +<p>"How about that island, Grover?" I heard Forsyth ask.</p> + +<p>"It's all we can do," the scout answered; and the command: "Reach the +island! hitch the horses!" rang through the camp.</p> + +<p>It takes long to tell it, this dash for the island. The execution of the +order was like the passing of a hurricane. Horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place, but in the rush the hospital supplies and +rations were lost. The Indians had not counted on the island, and they +raged in fury at their oversight. There were a thousand savage warriors +attacking half a hundred soldiers, and they had gloated over the fifty +scalps to be taken in the little gorge to the east. The break in their +plans confused them but momentarily, however.</p> + +<p>On the island we tied our horses in the bushes and quickly formed a +circle. The soil was all soft sand. We cut the thin sod with our butcher +knives and began throwing up a low defence, working like fiends with our +hands and elbows and toes, scooping out the sand with our tin plates, +making the commencement of shallow pits. We were stationed in couples, +and I was beside Morton when the onslaught came. Up from the undulating +south, and down over the north bluff swept the furious horde. On they +came with terrific speed, their blood-curdling yells of hate mingling +with the wild songs, and cries and taunts of hundreds of squaws and +children that crowded the heights out of range of danger, watching the +charge and urging their braves to battle. Over the slopes to the very +banks of the creek, into the sandy bed of the stream, and up to the +island they hurled their forces, while bullets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> crashed murderously, and +arrows whizzed with deadly swiftness into our little sand-built defence.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the charge, twice above the din, I caught the clear +notes of an artillery bugle. It was dim daylight now. Rifle-smoke and +clouds of dust and gray mist shot through with flashes of powder, and +the awful rage, as if all the demons of Hell were crying vengeance, are +all in that picture burned into my memory with a white-hot brand. And +above all these there come back to me the faces of that little band of +resolute men biding the moment when the command to charge should be +given. Such determination and such splendid heroism, not twice in a +lifetime is it vouchsafed to many to behold.</p> + +<p>We held our fire until the enemy was almost upon us. At the right +instant our rifles poured out a perfect billow of death. Painted bodies +reeled and fell; horses sank down, or rushed mad with pain, upon their +fallen riders; shrieks of agony mingled with the unearthly yells; while +above all this, the steady roar of our guns—not a wasted bullet in all +the line—carried death waves out from the island thicket. To me that +first defence of ours was more tragic than anything in the days and +nights that followed it. The first hour's struggle seasoned me for the +siege.</p> + +<p>The fury of the Indian warriors and of the watching squaws is +indescribable. The foe deflected to left and right, vainly seeking to +carry their dead from the field with them. The effort cost many Indian +lives. The long grass on either side of the stream was full of +sharpshooters. The morning was bright now, and we durst not lift our +heads above our low entrenchment. Our position was in the centre of a +space open to attack from every arc of the circle. Caution counted more +than courage here. Whoever stood upright was offering his life<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> to his +enemy. Our horses suffered first. By the end of an hour every one of +them was dead. My own mount, a fine sorrel cavalry horse, given to me at +Fort Hays, was the last sacrifice. He was standing near me in the brown +bushes. I could see his superb head and chest as, with nostrils wide, +and flashing eyes, he saw and felt the battle charge. Subconsciously I +felt that so long as he was unhurt I had a sure way of escape. +Subconsciously, too, I blessed the day that Bud Anderson taught O'mie +and me to drop on the side of Tell Mapleson's pony and ride like a +Plains Indian. But even as I looked up over my little sand ridge a +bullet crashed into his broad chest. He plunged forward toward us, +breaking his tether. He staggered to his knees, rose again with a lunge, +and turning half way round reared his fore feet in agony and seemed +about to fall into our pit. At that instant I heard a laugh just beyond +the bushes, and a voice, not Indian, but English, cried exultingly, +"There goes the last damned horse, anyhow."</p> + +<p>It was the same voice that I had heard up on "Rockport" one evening, +promising Marjie in pleading tones to be a "good Indian." The same hard, +cold voice I had heard in the same place saying to me, as a promise +before high heaven: "I will go. But I shall see you there. When we meet +again my hand will be on your throat and—I don't care whose son you +are."</p> + +<p>Well, we were about to meet. The wounded animal was just above our pit. +Morton rose up with lifted carbine to drive him back when from the same +gun that had done for my horse came a bullet full into the man's face. +It ploughed through his left eye and lodged in the bones beyond it. He +uttered no cry, but dropped into the pit beside me, his blood, streaming +from the wound, splashed hot on my forehead as he fell. I was stunned by +his dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>aster, but he never faltered. Taking his handkerchief from his +pocket, he bound it tightly about his head and set his rifle ready for +the next charge. After that, nothing counted with me. I no longer shrank +in dread of what might happen. All fear of life, or death, of pain, or +Indians, or fiends from Hades fell away from me, and never again did my +hand tremble, nor my heart-beat quicken in the presence of peril. By the +warm blood of the brave man beside me I was baptized a soldier.</p> + +<p>The force drew back from this first attempt to take the island, but the +fire of the hidden enemy did not cease. In this brief breathing spell we +dug deeper into our pits, making our defences stronger where we lay. +Disaster was heavy upon us. The sun beat down pitilessly on the hot, dry +earth where we burrowed. Out in the open the Indians were crawling like +serpents through the tall grasses toward our poor house of sand, hoping +to fall upon us unseen. They had every advantage, for we did not dare to +let our bodies be exposed above the low breastworks, and we could not +see their advance. Nearly one-half of our own men were dead or wounded. +Each man counted for so much on that battle-girt island that day. Our +surgeon had been struck in the first round and through all the rest of +his living hours he was in a delirium. Forsyth himself, grievously +wounded in both lower limbs, could only drag his body about by his arms. +A rifle ball had grazed his scalp and fractured his skull. The pain from +this wound was almost unbearable. But he did not loosen his grip on the +military power delegated to him. From a hastily scooped-out pit where we +laid him he directed the whole battle.</p> + +<p>And now we girded on our armor for the supreme ordeal. The unbounded +wrath of the Indians at their unlooked-for failure in their first attack +told us what to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> expect. Our own guns were ready for instant use. The +arms of our dead and wounded comrades were placed beside our own. No +time was there in those awful hours to listen to the groans of the +stricken ones nor to close the dying eyes. Not a soul of us in those +sand-pits had any thought that we should ever see another sunset. All we +could do was to put the highest price upon our lives. It was ten o'clock +in the forenoon. The firing about the island had almost ceased, and the +silence was more ominous than the noise of bullets. Over on the bluff +the powers were gathering. The sunlight glinted on their arms and +lighted up their fantastic equipments of war. They formed in battle +array. And then there came a sight the Plains will never see again, a +sight that history records not once in a century. There were hundreds of +these warriors, the flower of the fierce Cheyenne tribe, drawn up in +military order, mounted on great horses, riding bareback, their rifles +held aloft in their right hands, the left hand grasping the flowing +mane, their naked bodies hideously adorned with paint, their long +scalp-locks braided and trimmed with plumes and quills. They were the +very acme of grandeur in a warfare as splendid as it was barbaric. And +I, who live to write these lines, account myself most fortunate that I +saw it all.</p> + +<p>They were arrayed in battle lines riding sixty abreast. It was a man of +genius who formed that military movement that day. On they came in +orderly ranks but with terrific speed, straight down the slope, across +the level, and on to the island, as if by their huge weight and terrible +momentum they would trample it into the very level dust of the earth, +that the winds of heaven might scatter it broadcast on the Arickaree +waters. Till the day of my death I shall hear the hoof-beats of that +cavalry charge.</p> + +<p>Down through the centuries the great commanders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> have left us their +stories of prowess, and we have kept their portraits to adorn our +stately halls of fame; and in our historic shrines we have preserved +their records—Cyrus, Alexander, Leonidas at Thermopylæ, Hannibal +crossing the Alps, Charles Martel at Tours, the white-plumed Henry of +Navarre leading his soldiers in the battle of Ivry, Cromwell with his +Ironsides—godly men who chanted hymns while they fought—Napoleon's +grand finale at Waterloo, with his three thousand steeds mingling the +sound of hoof-beats with the clang of cuirasses and the clash of sabres; +Pickett's grand sweep at Gettysburg, and Hooker's charge up Lookout +Mountain.</p> + +<p>But who shall paint the picture of that terrific struggle on that +September day, or write the tale of that swirl of Indian warriors, a +thousand strong, as they swept down in their barbaric fury upon the +handful of Anglo-Saxon soldiers crouching there in the sand-pits +awaiting their onslaught? It was the old, old story retold that day on +the Colorado plains by the sunlit waters of the Arickaree—the white +man's civilization against the untamed life of the wilderness. And for +that struggle there is only one outcome.</p> + +<p>Before the advancing foe, in front of the very centre of the foremost +line, was their leader, Roman Nose, chief warrior of the Cheyennes. He +was riding a great, clean-limbed horse, his left hand grasping its mane. +His right hand was raised aloft, directing his forces. If ever the +moulds of Nature turned out physical perfection, she realized her ideal +in that superb Cheyenne. He stood six feet and three inches in his +moccasins. He was built like a giant, with a muscular symmetry that was +artistically beautiful. About his naked body was a broad, blood-red +silken sash, the ends of which floated in the wind. His war bonnet, with +its two short, curved, black buffalo<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> horns, above his brow, was a +magnificent thing crowning his head and falling behind him in a sweep of +heron plumes and eagle feathers. The Plains never saw a grander warrior, +nor did savage tribe ever claim a more daring and able commander. He was +by inherent right a ruler. In him was the culmination of the intelligent +prowess and courage and physical supremacy of the free life of the +broad, unfettered West.</p> + +<p>On they rushed that mount of eager warriors. The hills behind them +swarmed with squaws and children. Their shrieks of grief and anger and +encouragement filled the air. They were beholding the action that down +to the last of the tribe would be recounted a victory to be chanted in +all future years over the graves of their dead, and sung in heroic +strain when their braves went forth to conquest. And so, with all the +power of heart and voice, they cried out from the low hill-tops. Just at +the brink of the stream the leader, Roman Nose, turned his face a moment +toward the watching women. Lifting high his right hand he waved them a +proud salute. The gesture was so regal, and the man himself so like a +king of men, that I involuntarily held my breath. But the set +blood-stained face of the wounded man beside me told what that kingship +meant.</p> + +<p>As he faced the island again, Roman Nose rose up to his full height and +shook his clenched fist toward our entrenchment. Then suddenly lifting +his eyes toward the blue sky above him, he uttered a war-cry, unlike any +other cry I have ever heard. It was so strong, so vehement, so full of +pleading, and yet so dominant in its certainty, as if he were invoking +the gods of all the tribes for their aid, yet sure in his defiant soul +that victory was his by right of might. The unearthly, blood-chilling +cry was caught up by all his command and reëchoed by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> watchers on +the hills till, away and away over the undulating plains it rolled, +dying out in weird cadences in the far-off spaces of the haze-wreathed +horizon.</p> + +<p>Then came the dash for our island entrenchment. As the Indians entered +the stream I caught the sound of a bugle note, the same I had heard +twice before. On the edge of the island through a rift in the +dust-cloud, I saw in the front line on the end nearest me a horse a +little smaller than the others, making its rider a trifle lower than his +comrades. And then I caught one glimpse of the rider's face. It was the +man whose bullet had wounded Morton—Jean Pahusca.</p> + +<p>We held back our fire again, as in the first attack, until the foe was +almost upon us. With Forsyth's order, "Now! now!" our part of the drama +began. I marvel yet at the power of that return charge. Steady, +constant, true to the last shot, we swept back each advancing wave of +warriors, maddened now to maniac fury. In the very moment of victory, +defeat was breaking the forces, mowing down the strongest, and spreading +confusion everywhere. A thousand wild beasts on the hills, frenzied with +torture, could not have raged more than those frantic Indian women and +shrieking children watching the fray.</p> + +<p>With us it was the last stand. We wasted no strength in this grim +crisis; each turn of the hand counted. While fearless as though he bore +a charmed life, the gallant savage commander dared death at our hands, +heeding no more our rain of rifle balls than if they had been the drops +of a summer shower. Right on he pressed regardless of his fallen braves. +How grandly he towered above them in his great strength and superb +physique, a very prince of prowess, the type of leader in a land where +the battle is always to the strong. And no shot of our men was able to +reach him until our finish seemed certain,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> and the time-limit closing +in. But down in the thick weeds, under a flimsy rampart of soft sand, +crouched a slender fair-haired boy. Trim and pink-cheeked as a girl, +young Stillwell was matching his cool nerve and steady marksmanship +against the exultant dominance of a savage giant. It was David and +Goliath played out in the Plains warfare of the Western continent. At +the crucial moment the scout's bullet went home with unerring aim, and +the one man whose power counted as a thousand warriors among his own +people received his mortal wound. Backward he reeled, and dead, or +dying, he was taken from the field. Like one of the anointed he was +mourned by his people, for he had never known fear, and on his banners +victory had constantly perched.</p> + +<p>In the confusion over the loss of their leader the Indians again divided +about the island and fell back out of range of our fire. As the tide of +battle ebbed out, Colonel Forsyth, helpless in his sand pit, watching +the attack, called to his guide.</p> + +<p>"Can they do better than that, Grover?"</p> + +<p>"I've been on the Plains since I was a boy and I never saw such a charge +as that. I think they have done their level best," the scout replied.</p> + +<p>"All right, then, we are good for them." How cheery the Colonel's voice +was! It thrilled my spirits with its courage. And we needed courage, for +just then, Lieutenant Beecher was stretching himself wearily before his +superior officer, saying briefly:</p> + +<p>"I have my death-wound; good-night." And like a brave man who had done +his best he pillowed his head face downward on his arms, and spoke not +any more on earth forever.</p> + +<p>It has all been told in history how that day went by. When evening fell +upon that eternity-long time, our out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>look was full of gloom. Hardly +one-half of our company was able to bear arms. Our horses had all been +killed, our supplies and hospital appliances were lost. Our wounds were +undressed; our surgeon was slowly dying; our commander was helpless, and +his lieutenant dead. We had been all day without food or water. We were +prisoners on this island, and every man of us had half a hundred +jailers, each one a fiend in the high art of human torture.</p> + +<p>I learned here how brave and resourceful men can be in the face of +disaster. One of our number had already begun to dig a shallow well. It +was a muddy drink, but, God be praised, it was water! Our supper was a +steak cut from a slaughtered horse, but we did not complain. We gathered +round our wounded commander and did what we could for each other, and no +man thought of himself first. Our dead were laid in shallow graves, +without a prayer. There was no time here for the ceremonies of peace; +and some of the men, before they went out into the Unknown that night, +sent their last messages to their friends, if we should ever be able to +reach home again.</p> + +<p>At nightfall came a gentle shower. We held out our hands to it, and +bathed our fevered faces. It was very dark and we must make the most of +every hour. The Indians do not fight by night, but the morrow might +bring its tale of battles. So we digged, and shaped our stronghold, and +told over our resources, and planned our defences, and all the time +hunger and suffering and sorrow and peril stalked about with us. All +night the Indians gathered up their dead, and all night they chanted +their weird, blood-chilling death-songs, while the lamentations of the +squaws through that dreadful night filled all the long hours with +hideous mourning unlike any other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> earthly discord. But the darkness +folded us in, and the blessed rain fell softly on all alike, on skilful +guide, and busy soldier, on the wounded lying helpless in their beds of +sand, on the newly made graves of those for whom life's fitful fever was +ended. And above all, the loving Father, whose arm is never shortened +that He cannot save, gave His angels charge over us to keep us in all +our ways.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE SUNLIGHT ON OLD GLORY</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The little green tent is made of sod,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And it is not long, and it is not broad,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But the soldiers have lots of room.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sod is a part of the land they saved,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When the flag of the enemy darkly waved,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A symbol of dole and gloom.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—WALT MASON.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>"Baronet, we must have that spade we left over there this morning. Are +you the man to get it?" Sharp Grover said to me just after dusk. "We've +got to have water or die, and Burke here can't dig a well with his toe +nails, though he can come about as near to it as anybody." Burke was an +industrious Irishman who had already found water for us. "And then we +must take care of these." He motioned toward a still form at my feet, +and his tone was reverent.</p> + +<p>"Over there" was the camp ground of the night before. It had been +trampled by hundreds of feet. Our camp was small, and finding the spade +by day might be easy enough. To grope in the dark and danger was another +matter. Twenty-four hours before, I would not have dared to try. Nothing +counted with me now. I had just risen from the stiffening body of a +comrade whom I had been trying to compose for his final rest. I had no +more sentiment for myself than I had for him. My time might come at any +moment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, I'll go," I answered the scout, and I felt of my revolvers; +my own and the one I had taken from the man who lay at my feet.</p> + +<p>"Well, take no foolish chances. Come back if the way is blocked, but get +the spade if you can. Take your time. You'd better wait an hour than be +dead in a minute," and he turned to the next work before him.</p> + +<p>He was guide, commander, and lieutenant all in one, and his duties were +many. I slipped out in the danger-filled shadows toward our camping +place of the night before. Every step was full of peril. The Indians had +no notion of letting us slip through their fingers in the dark. Added to +their day's defeats, we had slain their greatest warrior, and they would +have perished by inches rather than let us escape now. So our island was +guarded on every side. The black shadowed Plains were crossed and +re-crossed by the braves silently gathering in their lost ones for +burial. My scalp would have been a joy to them who had as yet no human +trophy to gloat over. Surely a spade was never so valuable before. My +sense of direction is fair and to my great relief I found that precious +implement marvellously soon, but the creek lay between me and the +island. Just at its bank I was compelled to drop into a clump of weeds +as three forms crept near me and straightened themselves up in the +gloom. They were speaking in low tones, and as they stood upright I +caught their words.</p> + +<p>"You made that bugle talk, anyhow, Dodd."</p> + +<p>So Dodd was the renegade whom I had heard three times in the conflict. +My vision at the gorge was not the insanity of the Plains, after all. I +was listening ravenously now. The man who had spoken stood nearest me. +There was a certain softness of accent and a familiar tone in his +speech. As he turned toward the other two,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> even in the dim light, the +outline of his form and the set of his uncovered head I knew.</p> + +<p>"That's Le Claire, as true as heaven, all but the voice," I said to +myself. "But I'll never believe that metallic ring is the priest's. It +is Le Claire turned renegade, too, or it's a man on a pattern so like +him, they couldn't tell themselves apart."</p> + +<p>I recalled all the gentleness and manliness of the Father. Never an act +of his was cruel, or selfish, or deceptive. True to his principles, he +had warned us again and again not to trust Jean. And yet he had always +seemed to protect the boy, always knew his comings and goings, and the +two had grown yearly to resemble each other more and more in face and +form and gesture. Was Le Claire a villain in holy guise?</p> + +<p>I did not meditate long, for the third man spoke. Oh, the "good Indian"! +Never could he conceal his voice from me.</p> + +<p>"Now, what I want you to do is to tell them all which one he is. I've +just been clear around their hole in the sand. I could have hit my +choice of the lot. But he wasn't there."</p> + +<p>No, I had just stepped out after the spade.</p> + +<p>"If he had been, I'd have shot him right then, no matter what come next. +But I don't want him shot. He's mine. Now tell every brave to leave him +to me, the big one, nearly as big as Roman Nose, whiter than the others, +because he's not been out here long. But he's no coward. The one with +thick dark curly hair; it would make a beautiful scalp. But I want him."</p> + +<p>"What will you do with him?" the man nearest to me queried.</p> + +<p>"Round the bend below the gorge the Arickaree runs over a little strip +of gravel with a ripple that sounds just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> like the Neosho above the Deep +Hole. I'll stake him out there where he can hear it and think of home +until he dies. And before I leave him I've got a letter to read to him. +It'll help to keep Springvale in his mind if the water fails. I've +promised him what to expect when he comes into my country."</p> + +<p>"Do it," the smallest of the three spoke up. "Do it. It'll pay him for +setting Bud Anderson on me and nearly killing me in the alley back of +the courthouse the night we were going to burn up Springvale. I was +making for the courthouse to get the papers to burn sure. I'd got the +key and could have got them easy—and there's some needed burning +specially—when that lispin' tow-head caught my arm and gave my head +such a cut that I'll always carry the scar, and twisted my wrist so I've +never been able to lift anything heavier than an artillery bugle since. +Nobody ever knew it back there but Mapleson and Conlow and Judson. Funny +nobody ever guessed Judson's part in that thing except his wife, and she +kept it to herself and broke her heart and died. Everybody else said he +was water-bound away from home. He wasn't twenty feet from his own house +when the Whately girl come out. He was helpin' Jean then. Thought her +mother'd be killed, and Whately'd never get home alive—as he +didn't—and he'd get the whole store; greediest man on earth for money. +He's got the store anyhow, now, and he's going to marry the girl he was +helpin' Jean to take out of his way. That store never would have been +burnt that night. I wish Jean had got her, though. Then I'd turned +things against Tell Mapleson and run him out of town instead of his +driving me from Springvale. Tell played a double game damned well. I'm +outlawed and he's gettin' richer every day at home."</p> + +<p>So spoke the Rev. Mr. Dodd, pastor of the Methodist<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> Church South. It +may be I needed the discipline of that day's fighting to hold me +motionless and silent in the clump of grass beside these three men.</p> + +<p>"Well, let's get up there and watch the fool women cry for their men." +It was none other than Father Le Claire's form before me, but this man's +voice was never that soft French tone of the good man's—low and +musical, matching his kindly eyes and sweet smile. As the three slipped +away I did the only foolish act of mine in the whole campaign: I rose +from my hiding place, shouldered that spade, and stalked straight down +the bank, across the creek, and up to our works in the centre of the +island as upright and free as if I were walking up Cliff Street to Judge +Baronet's front door. Jean's words had put into me just what I +needed—not acceptance of the inevitable, but a power of resistance, the +indomitable spirit that overcomes.</p> + +<p>History is stranger than fiction, and the story of the Kansas frontier +is more tragical than all the Wild West yellow-backed novels ever turned +off the press. To me this campaign of the Arickaree has always read like +a piece of bloody drama, so terrible in its reality, it puts the +imagination out of service.</p> + +<p>We had only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our +dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell +and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight +they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward +the southwest, and making a wide detour from their real line of +direction. The Indians were on the alert, and a man must walk as +noiselessly as a panther to slip between their guards.</p> + +<p>The scouts wore blankets to resemble the Indians more closely in the +shadows of the night. They made moc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>casins out of boot tops, that their +footprints might tell no story. In sandy places they even walked +backward that they should leave no tell-tale trail out of the valley.</p> + +<p>Dawn found them only three miles away from their starting place. A +hollow bank overhung with long, dry grasses, and fronted with rank +sunflowers, gave them a place of concealment through the daylight hours. +Again on the second night they hurried cautiously forward. The second +morning they were near an Indian village. Their only retreat was in the +tall growth of a low, marshy place. Here they crouched through another +long day. The unsuspecting squaws, hunting fuel, tramped the grasses +dangerously near to them, but a merciful Providence guarded their +hiding-place.</p> + +<p>On the third night they pushed forward more boldly, hoping that the next +day they need not waste the precious hours in concealment. In the early +morning they saw coming down over the prairie the first guard of a +Cheyenne village moving southward across their path. The Plains were +flat and covertless. No tall grass, nor friendly bank, nor bush, nor +hollow of ground was there to cover them from their enemies. But out +before them lay the rotting carcass of an old buffalo. Its hide still +hung about its bones. And inside the narrow shelter of this carcass the +two concealed themselves while a whole village passed near them trailing +off toward the south.</p> + +<p>Insufficient food, lack of sleep, and poisonous water from the buffalo +wallows brought nausea and weakness to the faithful men making their way +across the hostile land to bring help to us in our dire extremity. It is +all recorded in history how these two men fared in that hazardous +undertaking. No hundred miles of sandy plain were ever more fraught with +peril; and yet these two pressed on with that fearless and indomitable +courage<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> that has characterized the Saxon people on every field of +conquest.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile day crept over the eastern horizon, and the cold chill of the +shadows gave place to the burning glare of the September sun. Hot and +withering it beat down upon us and upon the unburied dead that lay all +about us. The braves that had fallen in the strife strewed the island's +edges. Their blood lay dark on the sandy shoals of the stream and +stained to duller brown the trampled grasses. Daylight brought the +renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us +and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were +hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle +continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not +attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them. +And so the thing became a game of endurance with us, a slow wearing away +of ammunition and food, a growing fever from weakness and loss of blood, +a festering of wounds, the ebbing out of strength and hope; while putrid +mule meat and muddy water, the sickening stench from naked bloated +bodies under the blazing heat of day, the long, long hours of watching +for deliverance that came not, and the certainty of the fate awaiting us +at last if rescue failed us—these things marked the hours and made them +all alike. As to the Indians, the passing of Roman Nose had broken their +fighting spirit; and now it was a mere matter of letting us run to the +end of our tether and then—well, Jean had hinted what would happen.</p> + +<p>On the third night two more scouts left us. It seemed an eternity since +Stillwell and his comrade had started from the camp. We felt sure that +they must have fallen by the way, and the second attempt was doubly +hazardous. The two who volunteered were quiet men. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> knew what the +task implied, and they bent to it like men who can pay on demand the +price of sacrifice. Their names were Donovan and Pliley, recorded in the +military roster as private scouts, but the titles they bear in the +memory of every man who sat in that grim council on that night, has a +grander sound than the written records declare.</p> + +<p>"Boys," Forsyth said, lifting himself on his elbow where he lay in his +sand bed, "this is the last chance. If you can get to the fort and send +us help we can hold out a while. But it must come quickly. You know what +it means for you to try, and for us, if you succeed."</p> + +<p>The two men nodded assent, then girding on their equipments, they gave +us their last messages to be repeated if deliverance ever came to us and +they were never heard of again. We were getting accustomed to this now, +for Death stalked beside us every hour. They said a brief good-bye and +slipped out from us into the dangerous dark on their chosen task. Then +the chill of the night, with its uncertainty and gloom, with its ominous +silences broken only by the howl of the gray wolves, who closed in about +us and set up their hunger wails beyond the reach of our bullets; and +the heat of the day with its peril of arrow and rifle-ball filled the +long hours. Hunger was a terror now. Our meat was gone save a few +decayed portions which we could barely swallow after we had sprinkled +them over with gunpowder. For the stomach refused them even in +starvation. Dreams of banquets tortured our short, troubled sleep, and +the waking was a horror. A luckless little coyote wandered one day too +near our fold. We ate his flesh and boiled his bones for soup. And one +day a daring soldier slipped out from our sand pit in search of +food—anything—to eat in place of that rotting horseflesh. In the +bushes at the end of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> island, he found a few wild plums. Oh, food +for the gods was that portion of stewed plums carefully doled out to +each of us.</p> + +<p>Six days went by. I do not know on which one the Sabbath fell, for God +has no holy day in the Plains warfare. Six days, and no aid had come +from Fort Wallace. That our scouts had failed, and our fate was decreed, +was now the settled conclusion in every mind.</p> + +<p>On the evening of this sixth day our leader called us about him. How +gray and drawn his face looked in the shadowy gray light, but his eyes +were clear and his voice steady.</p> + +<p>"Boys, we've got to the end of our rope, now. Over there," pointing to +the low hills, "the Indian wolves are waiting for us. It's the hazard of +war; that's all. But we needn't all be sacrificed. You, who aren't +wounded, can't help us who are. You have nothing here to make our +suffering less. To stay here means—you all know what. Now the men who +can go must leave us to what's coming. I feel sure now that you can get +through together somehow, for the tribes are scattering. It is only the +remnant left over there to burn us out at last. There is no reason why +you should stay here and die. Make your dash for escape together +to-night, and save your lives if you can. And"—his voice was brave and +full of cheer—"I believe you can."</p> + +<p>Then a silence fell. There were two dozen of us gaunt, hungry men, +haggard from lack of sleep and the fearful tax on mind and body that +tested human endurance to the limit—two dozen, to whom escape was not +impossible now, though every foot of the way was dangerous. Life is +sweet, and hope is imperishable. We looked into one another's face +grimly, for the crisis of a lifetime was upon us. Beside me lay Morton. +The handkerchief he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> had bound about his head in the first hour of +battle had not once been removed. There was no other handkerchief to +take its place.</p> + +<p>"Go, Baronet," he said to me. "Tell your father, if you see him again, +that I remembered Whately and how he went down at Chattanooga."</p> + +<p>His voice was low and firm and yet he knew what was awaiting him. Oh! +men walked on red-hot ploughshares in the days of the winning of the +West.</p> + +<p>Sharp Grover was sitting beside Forsyth. In the silence of the council +the guide turned his eyes toward each of us. Then, clenching his gaunt, +knotted hands with a grip of steel, he said in a low, measured voice:</p> + +<p>"It's no use asking us, General. We have fought together, and, by +Heaven, we'll die together."</p> + +<p>In the great crises of life the only joy is the joy of self-sacrifice. +Every man of us breathed freer, and we were happier now than we had been +at any time since the conflict began. And so another twenty-four hours, +and still another twenty-four went by.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The sun came up and the sun went down,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And day and night were the same as one.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>And any evil chance seemed better than this slow dragging out of +misery-laden time.</p> + +<p>"Nature meant me to defend the weak and helpless. The West needs me," I +had said to my father. And now I had given it my best. A slow fever was +creeping upon me, and weariness of body was greater than pain and +hunger. Death would be a welcome thing now that hope seemed dead. I +thought of O'mie, bound hand and foot in the Hermit's Cave, and like +him, I wished that I might go quickly if I must go. For back of my +stolid mental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> state was a frenzied desire to outwit Jean Pahusca, who +was biding his time, and keeping a surer watch on our poor +battle-wrecked, starving force than any other Indian in the horde that +kept us imprisoned.</p> + +<p>The sunrise of the twenty-fifth of September was a dream of beauty on +the Colorado Plains. I sat with my face to the eastward and saw the +whole pageantry of morning sweep up in a splendor of color through +stretches of far limitless distances. Oh! it was gorgeous, with a glory +fresh from the hand of the Infinite God, whose is the earth and the +seas. Mechanically I thought of the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, +but nothing there could be half so magnificent as this. And as I looked, +the thought grew firmer that this sublimity had been poured out for me +for the last time, and I gazed at the face of the morning as we look at +the face awaiting the coffin lid.</p> + +<p>And even as the thought clinched itself upon me came the sentinel's cry +of "Indians! Indians!"</p> + +<p>We grasped our weapons at the shrill warning. It was the death-grip now. +We knew as surely as we stood there that we could not resist this last +attack. The redskins must have saved themselves for this final blow, +when resistance on our part was a feeble mockery. The hills to the +northward were black with the approaching force, but we were determined +to make our last stand heroically, and to sell our lives as dearly as +possible. As with a grim last measure of courage we waited, Sharp +Grover, who stood motionless, alert, with arms ready, suddenly threw his +rifle high in air, and with a shout that rose to heaven, he cried in an +ecstasy of joy:</p> + +<p>"By the God above us, it's an ambulance!"</p> + +<p>To us for whom the frenzied shrieks of the squaws, the fiendish yells of +the savage warriors, and the weird, unearthly wailing for the dead were +the only cries that had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> resounded above the Plains these many days, +this shout from Grover was like the music of heaven. A darkness came +before me, and my strength seemed momentarily to go from me. It was but +a moment, and then I opened my eyes to the sublimest sight it is given +to the Anglo-American to look upon.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 369px;"> +<img src="images/i288.jpg" width="369" height="550" alt="Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place" title="" /> +<span class="caption">Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place</span> +</div> + +<p>Down from the low bluffs there poured a broad surge of cavalry, in +perfect order, riding like the wind, the swift, steady hoof-beats of +their horses marking a rhythmic measure that trembled along the ground +in musical vibration, while overhead—oh, the grandeur of God's gracious +dawn fell never on a thing more beautiful—swept out by the free winds +of heaven to its full length, and gleaming in the sunlight, Old Glory +rose and fell in rippling waves of splendor.</p> + +<p>On they came, the approaching force, in a mad rush to reach us. And we +who had waited for the superb charge of Roman Nose and his savage +warriors, as we wait for death, saw now this coming in of life, and the +regiment of the unconquerable people.</p> + +<p>We threw restraint to the winds and shouted and danced and hugged each +other, while we laughed and cried in a very transport of joy.</p> + +<p>It was Colonel Carpenter and his colored cavalry who had made a dash +across the country rushing to our rescue. Beside the Colonel at their +head, rode Donovan the scout, whom we had accounted as dead. It was his +unerring eye that had guided this command, never varying from the +straight line toward our danger-girt entrenchment on the Arickaree.</p> + +<p>Before Carpenter's approaching cavalry the Indians fled for their lives, +and they who a few hours hence would have been swinging bloody tomahawks +above our heads were now scurrying to their hiding-places far away.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p> + +<p>Never tenderer hands cared for the wounded, and never were bath and +bandage and food and drink more welcome. Our command was shifted to a +clean spot where no stench of putrid flesh could reach us. Rest and +care, such as a camp on the Plains can offer, was ours luxuriously; and +hardtack and coffee, food for the angels, we had that day, to our +intense satisfaction. Life was ours once more, and hope, and home, and +civilization. Oh, could it be true, we asked ourselves, so long had we +stood face to face with Death.</p> + +<p>The import of this struggle on the Arickaree was far greater than we +dreamed of then. We had gone out to meet a few foemen. What we really +had to battle with was the fighting strength of the northern Cheyenne +and Sioux tribes. Long afterwards it came to us what this victory meant. +The broad trail we had eagerly followed up the Arickaree fork of the +Republican River had been made by bands on bands of Plains Indians +mobilizing only a little to the westward, gathering for a deadly +purpose. At the full of the moon the whole fighting force, two thousand +strong, was to make a terrible raid, spreading out on either side of the +Republican River, reaching southward as far as the Saline Valley and +northward to the Platte, and pushing eastward till the older settlements +turned them back. They were determined to leave nothing behind them but +death and desolation. Their numbers and leadership, with the defenceless +condition of the Plains settlers, give broad suggestion of what that +raid would have done for Kansas. Our victory on the Arickaree broke up +that combination of Indian forces, for all future time. It was for such +an unknown purpose, and against such unguessed odds, that fifty of us +led by the God of all battle lines, had gone out to fight. We had met +and vanquished a foe two hun<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>dred times our number, aye, crippled its +power for all future years. We were lifting the fetters from the +frontier; we were planting the standards westward, westward. In the +history of the Plains warfare this fight on the Arickaree, though not +the last stroke, was one of the decisive struggles in breaking the +savage sovereignty, a sovereignty whose wilderness demesne to-day is a +land of fruit and meadow and waving grain, of peaceful homes and wealth +and honor.</p> + +<p>It was impossible for our wounded comrades to begin the journey to Fort +Wallace on that day. When evening came, the camp settled down to quiet +and security: the horses fed at their rope tethers, the fires smouldered +away to gray ashes, the sun swung down behind the horizon bar, the gold +and scarlet of evening changed to deeper hues and the long, purple +twilight was on the silent Colorado Plains. Over by the Arickaree the +cavalry men lounged lazily in groups. As the shades of evening gathered, +the soldiers began to sing. Softly at first, but richer, fuller, sweeter +their voices rose and fell with that cadence and melody only the negro +voice can compass. And their song, pulsing out across the undulating +valley wrapped in the twilight peace, made a harmony so wonderfully +tender that we who had dared danger for days unflinchingly now turned +our faces to the shadows to hide our tears.</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Give us a song to cheer</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our weary hearts, a song of home</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And friends we love so dear.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Many are the hearts that are weary to-night,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Wishing for this war to cease,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Many are the hearts looking for the right</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To see the dawn of peace.</span><br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p> + +<p>So the cavalry men sang, and we listened to their singing with hearts +stirred to their depths. And then with prayers of thankfulness for our +deliverance, we went to sleep. And over on the little island, under the +shallow sands, the men who had fallen beside us lay with patient, folded +hands waiting beside the Arickaree waters till the last reveille shall +sound for them and they enter the kingdom of Eternal Peace.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>A MAN'S BUSINESS</h3> + + +<blockquote><p>Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; +charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business; +the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the +comprehensive ocean of my business.</p> + +<p> +—DICKENS. +</p> + +</blockquote> + + +<p>Every little community has its customs peculiar to itself. With the +people of Springvale the general visiting-time was on Sunday between the +afternoon Sabbath-school and the evening service. The dishes that were +prepared on Saturday for the next day's supper excelled the warm Sunday +dinner.</p> + +<p>We come to know the heart and soul of the folks that fill up a little +town, and when we get into the larger city we miss them oftener than we +have the courage to say. Unselfishness and integrity and stalwart +principles of right are not confined to the higher circles of society. A +man may be hungry for friends on the crest of his popularity; he may +long for the strong right hand of Christian fellowship in the centre of +a brotherhood of churchmen. Cam Gentry and his good wife are among those +whom in all my busy years of wide acquaintance with people of all ranks +I account as genuine stuff. They were only common clay, generous, +unselfish, clean of thought and act. Uneducated, with no high ideals, +they gauged their way by the golden rule, and made the most of their +time. A journey to Topeka was their "trip abroad"; beyond<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> the +newspapers they read little except the Bible; and they built their faith +on the Presbyterian Church and the Republican party. But the cosy +lighted tavern on winter nights, and its clean, cool halls and +resting-places in the summer heat, are still a green spot in the memory +of many a traveller. Transients and regulars at the Cambridge House +delighted in this Sabbath evening spread.</p> + +<p>"Land knows," Dollie Gentry used to declare, "if ever a body feels +lonesome it's on Sunday afternoon between Sunday-school and evenin' +service. Why, the blues can get you then, when they'd stan' no show ary +other day er hour in the week. An' it stan's to reason a man, er woman, +either, is livin' in a hotel because they ain't got no home ner nobody +to make 'em feel glad to see 'em. If they're goin' to patronize the +Cambridge House they're goin' to get the best that's comin' to 'em right +then."</p> + +<p>So the old dining-room was a joy at this time of the week, with all that +a good cook can make attractive to the appetite.</p> + +<p>Mary Gentry, sweet-tempered and credulous as in her childhood, grew up +into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying +medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been +a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But +the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, +are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one +in Seattle, and one in New York City. Both in high places of trust and +financial importance.</p> + +<p>One October Sabbath afternoon, O'mie fell into step beside Marjie on the +way from Sabbath-school. Since his terrible experience in the Hermit's +Cave five years before, he had never been strong. We became so +accustomed to his little hacking cough we did not notice<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> it until there +came a day to all of us when we looked back and wondered how we could +have been so inattentive to the thing growing up before our eyes. O'mie +was never anything but a good-hearted Irishman, and yet he had a keener +insight into character and trend of events than any other boy or man I +ever knew. I've always thought that if his life had been spared to +mature manhood—but it wasn't.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, I'm commissioned to invite you to the Cambridge House for +lunch," O'mie said. "Mary wants to see you. She's got a lame arm, fell +off a step ladder in the pantry. The papers on the top shelves had been +on there fifteen minutes, and Aunt Dollie thought they'd better put up +clean ones. That's the how. Dr. John Anderson's most sure to call +professionally this evening, and Bill Mead's going to bring Bess over +for tea, and there's still others on the outskirts, but you're specially +wanted, as usual. Bud will be there, too. Says he wants to see all the +Andersons once more before he leaves town, and he knows it's his last +chance; for John's forever at the tavern, and Bill Mead is monopolizing +Bess at home; and you know, Star-face, how Clayton divides himself +around among the Whatelys and Grays over at Red Range and a girl he's +got up at Lawrence."</p> + +<p>"All this when I'm starving for one of Aunt Dollie's good lunches. Offer +some other inducement, O'mie," Marjie replied laughingly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, Tillhurst'll be there, and one or two of the new folks, all +eligible."</p> + +<p>"What makes you call me 'Star-face'? That's what Jean Pahusca used to +call me." She shivered.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it fits you; but if you object, I can make it, 'Moon-face,' or +'Sun-up.'"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Or 'Skylight,' or 'Big Dipper'; so you can keep to the blue firmament. +Where's Bud going?"</p> + +<p>Out of the tail of his eye O'mie caught sight of Judson falling in +behind them here and he answered carelessly:</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know where Bud is going exactly. Kansas City or St. Louis, +or somewhere else. You'll come of course?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course," Marjie answered, just as Judson in his pompous little +manner called to her:</p> + +<p>"Marjory, I have invited myself up to your mother's for tea."</p> + +<p>"Why, there's nobody at home, Mr. Judson," the girl said kindly; "I'm +going down to Mary Gentry's, and mother went up to Judge Baronet's with +Aunt Candace for lunch."</p> + +<p>Nobody called my father's sister by any other name. To Marjie, who had +played about her knee, Aunt Candace was a part of the day's life in +Springvale. But the name of Baronet was a red rag to Judson's temper. He +was growing more certain of his cause every day; but any allusion to our +family was especially annoying, and this remark of Marjie's fired him to +hasten to something definite in his case of courtship.</p> + +<p>"When she's my wife," he had boasted to Tell Mapleson, "I'll put a stop +to all this Baronet friendship. I won't even let her go there. Marjie's +a fine girl, but a wife must understand and obey her lord and master. +That's it; a wife must obey, or your home's ruined."</p> + +<p>Nobody had ever accused Tell Mapleson's wife of ruining a home on that +basis; for she had been one of the crushed-down, washed-out women who +never have two ideas above their dish-pan. She had been dead some years, +and Tell was alone. People said he was too selfish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> to marry again. +Certainly matrimony was not much in his thoughts.</p> + +<p>The talk at the tavern table that evening ran on merrily among the young +people. Albeit, the Sabbath hour was not too frivolous, for we were +pretty stanch in our Presbyterianism there. I think our love for Dr. +Hemingway in itself would have kept the Sabbath sacred. He never found +fault with our Sunday visiting. All days were holy to him, and his +evening sermons taught us that frivolity, and idle gossip, and scandal +are as unforgivable on week days as on the Sabbath Day. Somewhere in the +wide courts of heaven there must be reserved an abode of inconceivable +joy and peace for such men as he, men who preach the Word faithfully +through the years, whose hand-clasp means fellowship, and in whose +tongue is the law of kindness.</p> + +<p>"Say, Clate, where's Bud going?" Somebody called across the table. Bud +was beside Marjie, whose company was always at a premium in any +gathering.</p> + +<p>"Let him tell; it's his secret," Clayton answered. "I'll be glad when +he's gone"—he was speaking across to Marjie now—"then I'll get some +show, maybe."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to hunt a wife," Bud sang out. "Can't find a thoul here +who'll thtay with me long enough to get acquainted. I'm going out Wetht +thomewhere."</p> + +<p>"I'd stay with you a blamed sight longer if I wasn't acquainted with you +than if I was," Bill Mead broke in. "It's because they do get acquainted +that they don't stay, Bud; and anyhow, they can run faster out there +than here, the girls can; they have to, to keep away from the Indians. +And there's no tepee ring for the ponies to stumble over. Marjie, do you +remember the time Jean Pahusca nearly got you? I remember it, for when I +came to after the shock, I was standing square on my head<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> with both +feet in the air. All I could see was Bud dragging Jean's pony out of the +muss. I thought he was upside down at first and the horses were walking +like flies on the ceiling."</p> + +<p>Marjie's memories of that moment were keen. So were O'mie's.</p> + +<p>"Well, what ever did become of that Jean, anyhow? Anybody here seen him +for five years?"</p> + +<p>The company looked at one another. Bud's face was as innocent as a +baby's. Lettie Conlow at the foot of the table encountered O'mie's eyes +and her face flamed. Dr. John Anderson was explaining the happening to +Tillhurst and some newcomers in Springvale to whom the story was +interesting, and the whole table began to recall old times and old +escapades of Jean's.</p> + +<p>"Wasn't afraid of anything on earth," Bill Mead declared.</p> + +<p>"Yeth he wath, brother," Bud broke in, while Bess Anderson blushed +deeply at Bud's teasing name. Bill and Bess were far along the happy way +of youth and love.</p> + +<p>"Why, what did he fear?" Judson asked Dave Mead at the head of the +table.</p> + +<p>"Phil Baronet. He never would fight Phil. He didn't dare. He couldn't +bear to be licked."</p> + +<p>And then the conversation turned on me, and my virtues and shortcomings +were reviewed in friendly gossip. Only Judson's face wore a sneer.</p> + +<p>"I don't wonder this Jean was afraid of him," a recent-comer to the town +declared.</p> + +<p>"Oh, if he was afraid of this young man, this boy," Judson declared, "he +would have feared something else; that's it, he'd been afraid of other +things."</p> + +<p>"He was," O'mie spoke up.</p> + +<p>"Well, what was it, O'mie?" Dr. John queried.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Ghosts," O'mie replied gravely. "Oh, I know," he declared, as the crowd +laughed. "I can prove it to you and tell you all about it. I'll do it +some day, but I'll need the schoolhouse and some lantern slides to make +it effective. I may charge a small admission fee and give a benefit to +defray Bud's expenses home from this trip."</p> + +<p>"Would you really do that, O'mie?" Mary Gentry asked him.</p> + +<p>But the query, "Where's Phil, now?" was going the rounds, and the +answers were many. My doings had not been reported in the town, and +gossip still was active concerning me.</p> + +<p>"Up at Topeka," "Gone to St. Louis," "Back in Massachusetts." These were +followed by Dave Mead's declaration:</p> + +<p>"The best boy that ever went out of Springvale. Just his father over +again. He'll make some place prouder than it would have been without +him."</p> + +<p>Nobody knew who started the story just then, but it grew rapidly from +Tillhurst's side of the table that I had gone to Rockport, +Massachusetts, to settle in my father's old home-town.</p> + +<p>"Stands to reason a boy who can live in Kansas would go back to +Massachusetts, doesn't it?" Dr. John declared scornfully.</p> + +<p>"But Phil's to be married soon, to that stylish Miss Melrose. She's got +the money, and Phil would become a fortune. Besides, she was perfectly +infatuated with him."</p> + +<p>"Well," somebody else asserted, "if he does marry her, he can bring her +back here to live. My! but Judge Baronet's home will be a grand place to +go to then. It was always good enough."</p> + +<p>Amid all this clatter Marjie was as indifferent and self-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>possessed as +if my name were a stranger's. Those who had always known her did not +dream of what lay back of that sweet girl-face. She was the belle of +Springvale, and she had too many admirers for any suspicion of the truth +to find a place.</p> + +<p>While the story ran on Bud turned to her and said in a low voice, +"Marjie, I'm going to Phil. He needth me now."</p> + +<p>Nobody except Bud noticed how white the girl was, as the company rising +from the table swept her away from him.</p> + +<p>That night Dr. Hemingway's prayer was fervent with love. The boys were +always on his heart, and he called us all by name. He prayed for the +young men of Springvale, who had grown up to the life here and on whom +the cares of citizenship, and the town's good name were soon to rest; +and for the young men who would not be with us again: for Tell Mapleson, +that the snares of a great city like St. Louis might not entrap him; for +James Conlow, whose lines had led him away from us; for David Mead, +going soon to the far-away lands where the Sierras dip down the golden +slope to the Pacific seas; for August Anderson, also about to go away +from us, that life and health might be his; and last of all for Philip +Baronet. A deeper hush fell upon the company bowed in prayer.</p> + +<p>"For Philip Baronet, the strong, manly boy whom we all love, the +brave-hearted hero who has gone out from among us, and as his father did +before him for the homes of a nation, so now the son has gone to fight +the battles of the prairie domain, and to build up a wall of safety +before the homes and hearthstones of our frontier." And then he offered +thanksgiving to a merciful Father that, "in the awful conflict which +Philip, with a little handful of heroes, has helped to wage against the +savage red<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> man, a struggle in which so many lives have gone out, our +Philip has been spared." His voice broke here, and he controlled it by +an effort, as in calm, low tones he finished his simple prayer with the +earnest petition, "Keep Thou these our boys; and though they may walk +through the valley of the shadow of death, may they fear no evil, for +Thou art with them. Amen."</p> + +<p>It was the first intimation the town had had of what I was doing. +Springvale was not without a regard for me who had loved it always, and +then the thought of danger to a fellow citizen is not without its +appeal. I have been told that Judge Baronet and Aunt Candace could not +get down the aisle after service until after ten o'clock that night and +that the tears of men as well as women fell fast as my father gave the +words of the message sent to him by Governor Crawford on the evening +before. Even Chris Mead, always a quiet, stern man, sat with head bowed +on the railing of the pew before him during the recital. It was noted +afterwards that Judson did not remain, but took Lettie Conlow home as +soon as the doxology was ended. The next day my stock in Springvale was +at a premium; for a genuine love, beside which fame and popularity are +ashes and dust, was in the heart of that plain, good little Kansas town.</p> + +<p>Bud called to say good-bye to Marjie, before he left home.</p> + +<p>"Are you going out West to stay?" Marjie asked.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to try it out there. Clate'th got all the law here a young +man can get; he'th gobbled up Dave and Phil'th share of the thing. John +will be the coming M. D. of the town, and Bill Mead already taketh to +the bank like a duck to water. I'm going to try the Wetht. What word may +I take to Phil for you?"</p> + +<p>"There's nothing to say," Marjie answered.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> + +<p>To his words, "I hoped there might be," she only said gayly, "Good-bye, +Bud. Be a good boy, and be sure not to forget Springvale, for we'll +always love your memory."</p> + +<p>And so he left her. He was a good boy, nor did he forget the town where +his memory is green still in the hearts of all who knew him. His last +thought was of Springvale, and he babbled of the Neosho, and fancied +himself in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. He clung to me, as in his +childhood, and begged me to carry him on my shoulders when waters of +Death were rolling over him. I held his hand to the last, and when the +silence fell, I stretched myself on the brown curly mesquite beside him +and thanked God that He had let me know this boy. Ever more my life will +be richer for the remembrance it holds of him.</p> + +<p>Bud left Springvale in one of those dripping, chilly, wet days our +Kansas Octobers sometimes mix in with their opal-hued hours of Indian +summer. That evening Tell Mapleson dropped into Judson's store and O'mie +was let off early.</p> + +<p>The little Irishman ran up the street at once to the Whately home. Mrs. +Whately had retired. Eight o'clock was bed time for middle-aged people +in our town. Marjie sat alone by the fire. How many times that summer we +had talked of the long winter evenings we should spend together by that +fireplace in Marjie's cosy sitting-room. And now she was beside the +hearth, and I was far away. I might have been forgiven without a word +had I walked in that evening and found her, as O'mie did, alone with her +sad thoughts. Marjie never tried to hide anything from O'mie. She knew +he could see through any pretence of hers. She knew, too, that he would +keep sacred anything he saw.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, I'm lonesome to-night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span></p> + +<p>Marjie gave him a seat beside the fire.</p> + +<p>"What makes you lonesome, O'mie?" she asked gravely.</p> + +<p>"The wrongs av the world bear heavily upon me."</p> + +<p>Marjory looked at him curiously to see if he was joking.</p> + +<p>"What I need to do is to shrive myself, I guess, and then get up an +inquisition, with myself as chief inquisitor."</p> + +<p>Marjie, studying the pictures in the burning coals, said nothing. O'mie +also sat silent for a time.</p> + +<p>"Marjie," he said at length, "when you see things goin' all wrong end +to, and you know what's behind 'em, drivin' 'em wrong, what's your rale +Presbyterian duty then? Let 'em go? or tend to somethin' else besides +your own business? Honest, now, what's what?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know what you're up to, O'mie." She was looking dreamily into +the grate, the firelight on her young face and thoughtful brown eyes +making a picture tenderly sweet and fair. In her mind was the image of +Judge Baronet as he looked the night before, when he lifted his head +after Dr. Hemingway's prayer for his son. And then maybe a picture of +the graceless son himself came unbidden, and his eyes were full of love +as when they looked down into hers on the day Rachel Melrose came into +Judge Baronet's office demanding his attention. "What's the matter, +O'mie? Is Uncle Cam being imposed on? You'd never stand that, I know."</p> + +<p>"No, little girl, Cambridge Gentry can still take care of Cam's interest +and do a kind act to more folks off-hand better than any other man I +know. Marjie, it's Phil Baronet."</p> + +<p>Marjie gave a start, but she made no effort to hide her interest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Little girl, he's been wronged, and lied about, and misunderstood, by a +crowd av us who have knowed him day in and day out since he was a little +boy. Marjory Whately, did anybody iver catch him in a lie? Did he iver +turn coward in a place where courage was needed? Did he iver do a +cruelty to a helpless thing, or fight a smaller boy? Did he iver +decaive? Honestly, now, was there iver anything in all the years we run +together that wasn't square and clane and fearless and lovin'?"</p> + +<p>Marjie sat with bowed head before the flickering fire. When O'mie spoke +again his voice was husky.</p> + +<p>"Little girl, when I was tied hand and foot, and left to die in that +dark Hermit's Cave, it was Phil Baronet who brought in the sunlight and +a face radiant with love. When Jean Pahusca, drunk as a fury, was after +you out on the prairie with that cruel knife ready, the knife I've seen +him kill many a helpless thing with when he was drunk, when this Jean +was ridin' like a fiend after you, Phil turned to me that day and his +white agonized face I'll never forget. Now, Marjie, it's to right his +wrong, and the wrongs of some he loves that I'm studyin' about. The week +Phil came home from the rally I took a vacation. Shall I tell you why?"</p> + +<p>Marjie nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, Star-face, it was laid on me conscience heavy to pay a part av +the debt I owe to the boy who saved me life. I ain't got eyes fur +nothin', and I see the clouds gatherin' black about that boy's head. +Back of 'em was jealousy, that was a girl; hate, that was a man whose +cruel, ugly deeds Phil had knocked down and trampled on and prevented +from comin' to a harvest of sufferin'; and revenge, that was a +rebel-hearted scoundrel who'd have destroyed this town but for Phil; and +last, a selfish, money-lovin' son of a horse-thief who was grabbing for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> +riches and pulling hard at the covers to hide some sins he'd never want +to come to the light, being a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. All +thim in one cloud makes a hurricane, and with 'em comes a shallow, +selfish, pretty girl. Oh, it was a sight, Marjie. If I can do somethin' +to keep shipwreck not only from them the storm's aimed at, but them +that's pilin' up trouble fur themselves, too, I'm goin' to do it."</p> + +<p>Marjie made no reply.</p> + +<p>"So I took a vacation and wint off on a visit to me rich relatives in +Westport."</p> + +<p>Marjie could not help smiling now. O'mie had not a soul to call his next +of kin.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yis, I wint," he continued, "on tin days' holiday. The actual start +to it was on the evenin' Phil got home from Topeka. The night of the +party at Anderson's Lettie Conlow comes into the store just at closin'. +I was behind a pile of ginghams fixin' some papers and cord below the +counter. And Judson, being a fool by inheritance and choice of +profession, takes no more notice of me than if I was a dog; says things +he oughtn't to when he knows I'm 'round. But he forgits me in the pride +of his stuck-uppityness. And I heard Judson say to her low, 'Now be sure +to go right after dark and look in there again. You're sure you know +just which crevice of the rock it is?' Lettie laughed and said, she'd +watched it too long not to know. And so they arranged it, and I arranged +my wrappin'-cord, and when I straightened up (I'm little, ye know), they +didn't see my rid head by the pile of ginghams; and so she went away. +When I got ready I wint, too. I trailed round after dark until I found +meself under that point av rock by the bushes in the steep bend +up-street. I was in a little corner full of crevices, when along comes +Lettie. She seemed to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> tryin' to get somethin' out of 'em, and her +short fat arm couldn't reach it. Blamed inconvanient bein' little and +short! She tried and tried and thin she said some ugly words only a boy +has a right to say when he's cussin' somethin'. Just thin somethin' made +a noise between her and the steps, and she made a rush for 'em and was +gone. My eyes was gettin' catty and used to the dark now, and I could +make out pretty sure it was Phil who sails up nixt, aisy, like he knowed +the premises, and in his hand goes and he got out somethin' sayin' to +himself—and me:</p> + +<p>"'Well, Marjie tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole was +so deep.'</p> + +<p>"Marjie, maybe if that hole's too deep for Lettie to reach clear in, +there might be somethin' she's missed. I dunno'. But niver moind. I took +me vacation, went sailin' out with Dever fur a rale splurge to Kansas +City. Across the Neosho Dever turns the stage aside, U. S. mail and all, +and lands me siven miles up the river and ferries me on this side again. +Dever can keep the stillest of any livin' stage-driver whose business is +to drive stage on the side and gossip on the main line. He never cheeped +a chirp. I come back that same day and put in tin days studyin' things. +I just turned myself into a holy inquisition for tin mortial days. Now, +what I know has a value to Phil's good name, who has been accused of +doing more diviltry than the thief on the cross. Marjie, I'm goin' to +proceed now and turn on screws till the heretics squeal. It's not +exactly my business; but—well, yes, it's the Lord's business to right +the wrongs, and we must do His work now and then, 'unworthy though we +be,' as Grandpa Mead says, in prayer meetin'."</p> + +<p>"O'mie, you heard Dr. Hemingway's prayer last night?" Marjie asked, in a +voice that quivered with tears.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Oh, good God! Marjie, the men that's fighting the battles on the +frontier, the fire-guards around them prairie homes, they are the salt +of the earth." He dropped his head between his hands and groaned. +Presently he rose to say good-night.</p> + +<p>"Shall I do it, little sister? See to what's not my business at all, at +all, and start a fire in this town big enough to light the skies clear +to where Phil is this rainy night, and he can read a welcome home in +it?"</p> + +<p>"They said last night that he's going to be married soon to that +Massachusetts girl. Maybe he wouldn't want to come if he did see it," +Marjie murmured, turning her face away.</p> + +<p>"Oh, maybe not, maybe not. Niver did want to get back when he was away. +But, say, Marjie Star-face, Fort Wallace away out on the Plains ain't +Rockport; and rich men's homes and all that gabble they was desecratin' +the Sabbath with at supper last night—" O'mie broke off and took the +girl's trembling hand in his. "Oh! I can look after that rascal's good +name, but I don't dare to fix things up for you two, no matter what I +know." So ran his thoughts.</p> + +<p>The rain blew in a bitter gust as he opened the door. "Good-night, +Marjie. It's an ugly night. Any old waterproof cloak to lend me, +girlie?" he asked, but Marjie did not smile. She held the light as in +the olden time she had shown us the dripping path, and watched the +little Irishman trotting away in the darkness.</p> + +<p>The Indian summer of 1868 in Kansas was as short as it was glorious. The +next day was gorgeous after the rain, and the warm sunshine and light +breeze drove all the dampness and chill away. In the middle of the +afternoon Judson left the store to O'mie and went up to Mrs. Whately's +for an important business conference. These<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> conferences were growing +frequent now, and dear Mrs. Whately's usually serene face wore a deeply +anxious look after each one. Marjie had no place in them. It was not a +part of Judson's plan to have her understand the business.</p> + +<p>Fortune favored O'mie's inquisition scheme. Judson had hardly left the +store when Lettie Conlow walked in. Evidently Judson's company on the +Sunday evening before had given her a purpose in coming. In our play as +children Lettie was the first to "get mad and call names." In her young +womanhood she was vindictive and passionate.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Lettie. Nice day after the rain," O'mie said, +pleasantly.</p> + +<p>She did not respond to his greeting, but stood before him with flashing +eyes. She had often been called pretty, and her type is always +considered handsome, for her coloring was brilliant, and her form +attractive. This year she was the best dressed girl in town, although +her father was not especially prosperous. Whether transplanting in a +finer soil with higher culture might have changed her I cannot say, for +the Conlow breed ran low and the stamp of the common grade was on +Lettie. I've seen the same on a millionaire's wife; so it is in the +blood, and not in the rank. No other girl in town broke the law as +Lettie did, and kept her good name, but we had always known her. The +boys befriended her more than the girls did, partly because we knew more +of her escapades, and partly because she would sometimes listen to us. A +pretty, dashing, wilful, untutored, and ill-principled girl, she was +sowing the grain of a certain harvest.</p> + +<p>"O'mie," she began angrily, "you've been talking about me, and you've +been spying on me long enough; and I'm going to settle you now. You are +a con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>temptible spy, and you're the biggest rascal in this town. That's +what you are."</p> + +<p>"Not by the steelyards, I ain't," O'mie replied. Passing from behind the +counter and courteously offering her a chair. Then jumping upon the +counter beside her he sat swinging his heels against it, fingering the +yard-stick beside the pile of calicoes. "Not by the steelyards, I ain't +the biggest. Tell Mapleson's lots longer, and James Conlow, blacksmith, +and Cam Gentry, and Cris Mead are all bigger. But if you want to settle +me, I'm ready. Who says I've been talking about you?"</p> + +<p>"Amos Judson, and he knows. He's told me all about you."</p> + +<p>O'mie's irrepressible smile spread over his face. "All about me? I +didn't give him credit for that much insight."</p> + +<p>"I'm not joking, and you must listen to me. I want to know why you tag +after me every place I go. No gentleman would do that."</p> + +<p>"Maybe not, nor a lady nather," O'mie interposed.</p> + +<p>Lettie's face burned angrily.</p> + +<p>"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a +dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do."</p> + +<p>She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little +knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies +have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a +monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the +sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The +twinkle in his eye only angered her the more.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've +fixed her. You two have al<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>ways been against me, I know. I've heard what +you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody +away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and +her mother."</p> + +<p>"Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but +all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said, +leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you +please—Lord, it couldn't hurt me—but you, nor nobody else, man or +woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in +controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by +any evil names. If you've come here to settle me, settle away, and when +you get through my turn's comin' to settle; but if you say another word +against Marjie or any other woman, by the holy Joe Spooner, and all the +other saints, you'll walk right out that door, or I'll throw you out as +I'd do anybody else in the same case, no matter if they was masculine, +feminine, or neuter gender. Now you understand me. If you have anything +more to say, say it quick."</p> + +<p>Lettie was furious now, but the Conlow blood is not courageous, and she +only ground her teeth and muttered: "Always the same. Nobody dares to +say a word against her. What makes some folks so precious, I wonder? +There's Phil Baronet, now,—the biggest swindle in this town. Oh, I +could tell you a lot about him. I'll do it some day, too. It'll take +more money to keep me still than Baronet's bank notes."</p> + +<p>"Lettie," said O'mie in an even voice, "I'm waitin' here to be settled."</p> + +<p>"Then let me alone. I'm not goin' to be forever tracked 'round like a +thief. I'll fix you so you'll keep still. Who are you, anyhow? A nobody, +poor as sin, living off of this town all these years; never knowing who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> +your father nor mother is, nor nobody to care for you; the very trash of +the earth, somebody's doorstep foundling, to set yourself up over me! +You'd ought to 'a been run out of town long ago."</p> + +<p>"I was, back in '63, an' half the town came after me, had to drag me +back with ropes, they was so zealous to get me. I wasn't worth it, all +the love and kindness the town's give me. Now, Lettie, what else?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing except this. After what Dr. Hemingway said last night +Springvale's gone crazy about Phil again. Just crazy, and he's sure to +come back here. If he does"—she broke off a moment—"well, you know +what you've been up to for four months, trackin' me, and tellin' things +you don't know. Are you goin' to quit it? That's all."</p> + +<p>"The evidence bein' in an' the plaintiff restin'," O'mie said gravely, +"it's time for the defence in the case to begin.</p> + +<p>"You saved me a trip, my lady, for I was comin' over this very evenin' +to settle with you. But never mind, we can do it now. Judson's havin' +one of his M. E. quarterly conferences up at the Whately house and we +are free to talk this out. You say I'm a contemptible spy. Lettie, we're +a pair of 'em, so we'll lave off the adjective or adverb, which ever it +is, that does that for names of 'persons, places, and things that can be +known or mentioned.' Some of 'em that can be known, can't aven be +mentioned, though. Where were you, Lettie, whin I was spyin' and what +were you doin' at the time yoursilf?"</p> + +<p>"I guess I had a right to be there. It's a free country, and it was my +own business, not somebody else's," the girl retorted angrily, as the +situation dawned on her.</p> + +<p>"Exactly," O'mie went on. "It's a free country and we both have a right +to tend to our own business. No<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>body has a right to tend to a business +of sin and evil-doin' toward his neighbor, though, my girl. If I've +tagged you and spied, and played the dirty coward, and ain't no +gintleman, it was to save a good name, and to keep from exposure a +name—maybe it's a girl's, none too good, I'm afraid—but it would niver +come to the gossips through me. You know that."</p> + +<p>Lettie did know it. O'mie and she had made mud pies together in the days +when they still talked in baby words. It was because he was true and +kind, because he was a friend to every man, woman, and child there, that +Springvale loves his memory to-day.</p> + +<p>"Second, I wish to Heaven I could make things right, but I can't. I wish +you could, but some of 'em you won't and, Lettie, some of 'em you can't +now.</p> + +<p>"Third, you've heard what I said about you. Why, child, I've said the +worst to you. No words comin' straight nor crooked to you, have I said +of you I'd not say to yoursilf, face to face.</p> + +<p>"And again now, girlie, you've talked plain here; came pretty near +callin' me names, in fact. I can stand it, and I guess I deserve some of +'em. I am something of a rascal, and a consummate liar, I admit; but +when you talk about a lot of scandal up your sleeve, more 'n bank notes +can pay by blackmail, and your chance of fixin' Phil Baronet's +character, Lettie, you just can't do it. You are too mad to be anything +but foolish to-day, but I'm glad you did come to me; it may save more 'n +Phil's name. Your own is in the worst jeopardy right now. You said, in +conclusion, that I was trackin' you, and you ask, am I goin' to quit it? +The defendant admits the charge, pleads guilty on that count, and throws +himself on the mercy av the coort. But as to the question, am I goin' to +quit it, I answer yes. Whin? Whin there's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> no more need fur it, and not +one minute sooner. I may be the very trash av the earth, with no father +nor mother nor annybody to care for me" (I can see, even now, the +pathetic look that came sometimes into his laughing gray eyes. It must +have been in them at that moment); "but I have sometimes been 'round +when things I could do needed doin', and I'm goin' to be prisent now, +and in the future, to put my hand up against wrong-doin' if I can." +O'mie paused, while that little dry cough that brought a red spot to +each cheek had its way.</p> + +<p>"Now, Lettie, you've had your say with me, and your mind's relieved. +It's my time to say a few things, and you must listen."</p> + +<p>Lettie sat looking at the floor.</p> + +<p>"I don't know why I have to listen," she spoke defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Nor do I know why I had to listen to what you said. You don't need to, +but I would if I was you. It may be all the better for you in a year if +you do. You spake av bein' tagged wherever you go. Who begun it? I'll +tell you. Back in the summer one day, two people drove out to the stone +cabin, the haunted one, by the river in the draw below the big +cottonwood. Somebody made his home there, somebody who didn't dare to +show his face in Springvale by day, 'cause his hand's been lifted to +murder his fellow man. But he hangs 'round here, skulkin' in by night to +see the men he does business with, and meetin' foolish girls who ought +never to trust him a minute. This man's waiting his chance to commit +murder again, or worse. I know, fur I've laid fur him too many times. +There's no cruel-hearted savage on the Plains more dangerous to the +settlers on the frontier; not one av 'em 'ud burn a house, and kill men +and children, and torture and carry off women, quicker than this +miserable dog that a girl who should value her good name has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> been +counsellin' with time and again, this summer, partly on account of +jealousy, and partly because of a silly notion of bein' romantic. Back +in June she made a trip to the cabin double quick to warn the varmint +roostin' there. In her haste she dropped a bow of purple ribbon which +with some other finery a certain little store-keeper gives her to do his +spyin' fur him. It's a blamed lovely cabal in this town. I know 'em all +by name.</p> + +<p>"Spakin' of bein' paupers and bein' kept by Judson, Lettie—who is +payin' the wages of sin, in money and fine clothes, right now? It's on +the books, and I kape the books. But, my dear girl,"—O'mie looked +straight into her black eyes—"they's books bein' kept of the purpose, +price av the goods, and money. And you and him may answer for that. I +can swear in coort only to what Judson spends on you; you know what +for."</p> + +<p>Lettie cowered down before her inquisitor, and her anger was mingled +with fear and shame.</p> + +<p>"This purple bow was found, identified. Aven Uncle Cam, short-sighted as +he is, remembered who wore it that day; aven see her gallopin' into town +and noticed she'd lost it. This same girl hung around the cliff till she +found a secret place where two people put their letters. She comes in +here and tells me I've no business taggin' her. What business had she +robbin' folks of letters, stealin' 'em out, and givin' 'em into wicked +hands? Lettie, you know whose letter you took when you could reach far +enough to git it out, and you know where you put it.</p> + +<p>"You said you could ruin Phil. It's aisy for a woman to do that, I +admit. No matter how hard the church may be on 'em, and how much other +women may cut 'em dead for doin' wrong things, a woman can go into a +coort-room and swear a man's character away, an' the jury'll give her +judgment every time. The law's a lot aisier with the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> women than the +crowd you associate with is." O'mie's speech was broken off by his +cough.</p> + +<p>"Now to review this case a bit. The night av the Anderson's party you +tried to get the letter Marjie'd put up for Phil. You didn't do it."</p> + +<p>"I never tried," Lettie declared.</p> + +<p>"How come the rid flowers stuck with the little burrs on your dress? +They don't grow anywhere round here only on that cliff side. I pulled +off one bunch, and I saw Phil pull off another when your skirts caught +on a nail in the door. But I saw more 'n that. I stood beside you when +you tried to get the letter, and I heard you tell Judson you had failed. +I can't help my ears; the Almighty made 'em to hear with, and as you've +said, I am a contemptible spy.</p> + +<p>"You have given hints, mean ugly little hints, of what you could tell +about Phil on that night. He took you home, as he was asked to do. But +what took you to the top of the cliff at midnight? It was to meet Jean +Pahusca, the dog the gallows is yappin' for now. You waited while he +tried to kill Phil. He'd done it, too, if Phil hadn't been too strong to +be killed by such as him. And then you and Jean were on your way out to +his cabin whin the boys found you. You know Bill and Bud was goin' to +Red Range, that night in the carriage when they overtook you. It was +moonlight, you remember; and ridin' on the back seat was Cris Mead, +silent as he always is, but he heard every word that was said. Bud come +all the way back with you to keep your good name a little while longer; +took chances on his own to save a girl's. It's Phil Baronet put that +kind of loyalty into the boys av this town. No wonder they love him. +Bud's affidavit's on file ready, when needed; and Bill is here to +testify; and Cris Mead's name's good on paper, or in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> coort, or prayer +meetin'. Lettie, you have sold yourself to two of the worst men ever set +foot in this town."</p> + +<p>"Amos Judson is my best friend; I'll tell him you said he's one of the +two worst men in this town," Lettie cried.</p> + +<p>"It's a waste av time; he knows it himself. Now, a girl who visits in +lonely cabins at dead hours av the night, with men she knows is +dangerous, oughtn't to ask why some folks are so precious. It's because +they keep their bodies and souls sacred before Almighty God, and don't +sell aither. You've accused me of tryin' to protect Phil, and of keepin' +Marjie's name out of everything, and that I've been spyin' on you. Good +God! Lettie, it's to keep you more 'n them. I was out after my own +business, after things other folks ought to a' looked after and didn't, +things strictly belongin' to me, whin I run across you everywhere, and +see your wicked plan to ruin good names and break hearts and get money +by blackmail. Lettie, it's not too late to turn back now. You've done +wrong; we all do. But, little girl, we've knowed each other since the +days I used to tie your apron strings when your short little fat arms +couldn't reach to tie 'em, and I know you now. What have you done with +Marjie's letter that you stole before it got to Phil?" His voice was +kind, even tender.</p> + +<p>"I'll never tell you!" Lettie blazed up like a fire brand.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you willing to right the wrongs you've done, and save yourself, +too?" His voice did not change.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to leave here when I get ready. I'm going away, but not till +I am ready, and—" She had almost yielded, but evil desire is a strong +master. The spirit of her low-browed father gained control again, and +she raised a stormy face to him who would have befriended her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> "I'm +going to do what I please, and go where I please; and I'll fix some +precious saints so they'll never want to come back to this town; and +some others'll wish they could leave it."</p> + +<p>"All right, then," O'mie replied, as Lettie flung herself out of the +door, "if you find me among those prisent when you turn some corner +suddenly don't be surprised. I wonder," he went on, "who got that letter +the last night the miserable Melrose girl was here, or the night after. +I wonder how she could reach it when she couldn't get the other one. +Maybe the hole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who +knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her +thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the +mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good +and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added +seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p> + + + +<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3> + +<h3>THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And yet I know past all doubting truly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A knowledge greater than grief can dim,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I know as he loved, he will love me duly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yea, better, e'en better, than I love him.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—JEAN INGELOW.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>While O'mie and Lettie were acting out their little drama in the store +that afternoon, Judson was up in Mrs. Whately's parlor driving home +matters of business with a hasty and masterful hand. Marjie had slipped +away at his coming, and for the second time since I had left Springvale +she took the steep way up to our "Rockport." Had she known what was +going on at home she might have stayed there in spite of her prejudices.</p> + +<p>"It's just this way, Mrs. Whately," Judson declared, when he had +formally opened the conference, "it's just this way. With all my efforts +in your behalf, your business interest in the store has been eaten up by +your expenditures. Of course I know you have always lived up to a +certain kind of style whether you had the money or not; and I can +understand, bein' a commercialist, how easy those things go. But that +don't alter the fact that you'll have no more income from the store in a +very few months. I'm planning extensive changes in the Winter for next +Spring, and it'll take all the income. Do you see now?"</p> + +<p>"Partly," Mrs. Whately replied faintly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> + +<p>She was a sweet-spirited, gentle woman. She had been reared in a home of +luxury. Her own home had been guarded by a noble, loving husband, and +her powers of resource had never been called out. Of all the women I +have ever known, she was least fitted to match her sense of honor, her +faith in mankind, and her inexperience and lack of business knowledge +against such an unprincipled, avaricious man as the one who domineered +over her affairs.</p> + +<p>Judson had been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened +circumstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he +became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is +poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's +character and leads an erring nature into consummate villainy.</p> + +<p>"Well, now, if you can see what I'm tellin' you, that you are just about +penniless (you will be in a few months; that's it, you will be soon), +then you can see how magnanimous a man can be, even a busy merchant, +a—a commercialist, if I must use the word again. You'll not only be +poor with nobody to support you, but you'll be worse, my dear woman, +you'll be disgraced. That's it, just disgraced. I've kept stavin' it off +for you, but it's comin'—ugly disgrace for you and Marjory."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whately looked steadily at him with a face so blanched with grief +only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have gone on.</p> + +<p>"I've been gettin' you ready for this for months, have laid my plans +carefully, and I've been gradually puttin' the warnin' of it in your +mind."</p> + +<p>This was true. Judson had been most skilfully paving the way, else Mrs. +Whately would not have had that troubled face and burdened spirit after +each conference.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> The intimation of disaster had grown gradually to +dreaded expectation with her.</p> + +<p>"Do tell me what it is, Amos. Anything is better than this suspense. +I'll do anything to save Marjie from disgrace."</p> + +<p>"Now, that's what I've been a-waitin' for. Just a-waitin' till you was +ready to say you'd do what's got to be done anyhow. Well, it's this. +Whately, your deceased first husband"—Judson always used the numeral +when speaking of a married man or woman who had passed away—"Whately, +he made a will before he went to the war. Judge Baronet drawed it up, +and I witnessed it. Now that will listed and disposed of an amount of +property, enough to keep you and Marjie in finery long as you lived. +That will and some other valuable papers was lost durin' the war (some +says just when they was taken, but they don't know), and can't nowhere +be found. Havin' entire care of the business in his absence, and bein' +obliged to assoom control on his said demise at Chattanoogy, I naturally +found out all about his affairs. To be short, Mrs. Whately, he never had +the property he said he had. Nobody could find the money. There was an +awful shortage. You can't understand, but in a word, he was a disgraced, +dishonest man—a thief—that's it."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whately buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud.</p> + +<p>"Now, Mrs. Whately, you mustn't take on and you must forget the past. +It's the present day we're livin' in, and the future that's a-comin'. +Nobody can control what's comin', but me." He rose up to his five feet +and three inches, and swelled to the extent of his power. "Me." He +tapped his small chest. "I'll come straight to the end of this thing. +Phil Baronet's been quite a friend here, quite a friend. I've explained +to you all about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> him. Now you know he's left town to keep from bein' +mixed up in some things. They's some business of his father's he was +runnin' crooked. You know they say, I heard it out at Fingal's Creek, +that he left here on account of a girl he wanted to get rid of. And if +they'd talk that way about one girl, they'll say Marjie was doin' wrong +to go with him. You've all been friends of the Baronets. I never could +see why; but now—well, you know Phil left. Now, it rests with me"—more +tapping on that little quart-measure chest—"with me to keep things +quiet and save his name from further talk, and save Marjie, too. Many a +man, a business man, now, wouldn't have done as I'm doin'. I'll marry +Marjie. That saves you from poverty. It saves Irving Whately's name from +lastin' disgrace, and it saves Baronet's boy. I can control the men +that's against Baronet, in the business matter—some land case—and I +know the girl that the talk's all about; and it saves Marjory's name +bein' mixed up with this boy of Judge Baronet's."</p> + +<p>Had Judson been before Aunt Candace, she would have thrust him from the +door with one lifting of her strong, shapely hand. Dollie Gentry would +have cracked his head with her rolling pin before she let him go. Cris +Mead's wife would have chased him clear to the Neosho; she was Bill +Mead's own mother when it came to whooping things; but poor, gentle Mrs. +Whately sat dumb and dazed in a grief-stricken silence.</p> + +<p>"Give me your consent, and the thing's done. Marjie's only twenty. +She'll come to me for safety soon as she knows what you do. She'll have +to, to save them that's dearest to her. You and her father and her +friendship for the Baronets ought to do somethin'; besides, Marjie needs +somebody to look after her. She's a pretty girl and everybody runs after +her. She'd be spoiled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> And she's fond of me, always was fond of me. I +don't know what it is about some men makes girls act so; but now, +there's Lettie Conlow, she's just real fond of me." (Oh, the popinjay!) +"You'll say yes, and say it now." There was a ring of authority in his +last words, to which Mrs. Whately had insensibly come to yield.</p> + +<p>She sat for a long time trying to see a way out of all this tangled web +of her days. At last, she said slowly: "Marjie isn't twenty-one, but +she's old for her years. I won't command her. If she will consent, so +will I, and I'll do all I can."</p> + +<p>Judson was jubilant. He clapped his hands and giggled hysterically.</p> + +<p>"Good enough, good enough! I'll let it be quietly understood we are +engaged, and I'll manage the rest. You must use all the influence you +can with her. Leave nothing undid that you can do. Oh, joy! You'll +excuse my pleasure, Mrs. Whately. The prize is as good as mine right +now, though it may take a few months even to get it all completely +settled. I'll go slow and quiet and careful. But I've won."</p> + +<p>Could Mrs. Whately have seen clear into the man's cruel, cunning little +mind, she would have been unutterably shocked at the ugly motives +contending there. But she couldn't see. She was made for sunshine and +quiet ways. She could never fathom the gloom. It was from her father +that Marjie inherited all that strong will and courage and power to walk +as bravely in the shadows as in the light, trusting and surefooted +always.</p> + +<p>Judson waited only until some minor affairs had been considered, and +then he rose to go.</p> + +<p>"I'm so sure of the outcome now," he said gleefully, "I'll put a crimp +in some stories right away; and I'll just<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> let it be known quietly at +once that the matter's settled, then Marjie can't change it," he added +mentally. "And you're to use all your influence. Good-evening, my dear +Mrs. W. It'll soon be another name I may have for you."</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, Marjie sat up on "Rockport," looking out over the landscape, +wrapped in the autumn peace. Every inch of the cliff-side was sacred to +her. The remembrance of happy childhood and the sweet and tender +memories of love's young dream had hallowed all the ground and made the +view of the whole valley a part of the life of the days gone by. The +woodland along the Neosho was yellow and bronze and purple in the +afternoon sunshine, the waters swept along by verdant banks, for the +fall rains had given life to the brown grasses of August. Far up the +river, the shapely old cottonwood stood in the pride of its autumn gold, +outlined against a clear blue sky, while all the prairie lay in seas of +golden haze about it. On the gray, jagged rocks of the cliff, the +blood-red leaves of the vines made a rich warmth of color.</p> + +<p>For a long time Marjie sat looking out over the valley. Its beauty +appealed to her now as it had done in the gladsome days, only the appeal +touched other depths of her nature and fitted her sadder mood. At last +the thought of what might have been filled her eyes with tears.</p> + +<p>"I'll go down to our post-office, as O'mie suggested," she declared to +herself. "Oh, anything to break away from this hungry longing for what +can never be!"</p> + +<p>The little hidden cleft was vine-covered now, and the scarlet leaves +clung in a lacework about the gray stone under which the crevice ran +back clean and dry for an arm's length. It was a reflex action, and not +a choice of will, that led Marjie to thrust her hand in as she had done +so often before. Only cold stone received her touch.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> She recalled +O'mie's picture of Lettie, short-necked, stubby Lettie, down there in +the dark trying to stretch her fat arm to the limit of the crevice, and +as she thought, Marjie slipped her own arm to its full length, down the +cleft. Something touched her hand. She turned it in her fingers. It was +paper—a letter—and she drew it out. A letter—my letter—the long, +loving message I had penned to her on the night of the party at +Anderson's. Clear and white, as when I put it there that moonlit +midsummer night, when I thrust it in too far for my little girl to find +without an effort.</p> + +<p>Marjie carried it up to "Rockport" and sat down. She had no notion of +when it was put there. She only knew it was from my pen.</p> + +<p>"It's his good-bye for old times' sake," she mused.</p> + +<p>And then she read it, slowly at first, as one would drink a last cup of +water on the edge of a desert, for this was a voice from the old happy +life she had put all away now. I had done better than I dreamed of doing +in that writing. Here was Rachel Melrose set in her true light, the +possibility of a visit, and the possibility of her words and actions, +just as direct as a prophecy of what had really happened. Oh! it cleared +away every reason for doubt. Even the Rockport of Rachel's rapturous +memory, I declared I detested because only our "Rockport" meant anything +to me. And then she read of her father's dying message. It was the first +time she had known of that, and the letter in her trembling hands pulsed +visibly with her strong heart-throbs. Then came the closing words:</p> + +<p>"Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know now and +always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or shadow-checkered +paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other than as I do now. You are +life of my life; and so again, good-night."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span></p> + +<p>The sun was getting low in the west when Marjie with shining face came +slowly down Cliff Street toward her home. Near the gate she met my +father. His keen eyes caught something of the Marjie he had loved to +see. Something must have happened, he knew, and his heartbeats quickened +at the thought. Down the street he had met Judson with head erect +walking with a cocksure step.</p> + +<p>The next day the word was brought directly to him that Amos Judson and +Marjory Whately were engaged to be married.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In George Eliot's story of "The Mill on the Floss," the author gives to +one chapter the title, "How a Hen Takes to Stratagem." The two cases are +not parallel; and yet I always think of this chapter-heading when I +recall what followed Amos Judson's admonition to Mrs. Whately, to use +her influence in his behalf. When Marjie's mother had had time to +think over what had come about, her conscience upbraided her. Away +from the little widower and with Marjie innocent of all the +trouble—free-spirited, self-dependent Marjie—the question of influence +did not seem so easy. And yet, she knew Amos Judson well enough to know +that he was already far along in fulfilling his plans for the future. +For once in her life Mrs. Whately resolved to act on her own judgment, +and to show that she had been true to her promise to use all her +influence.</p> + +<p>"Daughter, Judge Baronet wants to see you this afternoon. I'm going down +to his office now on a little matter of business. Will you go over and +see how Mary Gentry's arm is, and come up to the courthouse in about +half an hour?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Whately's face was beaming, for she felt somehow that my father +could help her out of any tangle, and if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> he should advise Marjie to +this step, it would surely be the right thing for her to do.</p> + +<p>"All right, mother, I'll be there," Marjie answered.</p> + +<p>The hours since she found that precious letter had been alternately full +of joy and sadness. There was no question in her mind about the message +in the letter. But now that she was the wrong-doer in her own +estimation, she did not spare herself. She had driven me away. She had +refused to hear any explanation from me, she had returned my last note +unopened. Oh, she deserved all that had come to her. And bitterest of +all was the thought that her own letter that should have righted +everything with me, I must have taken from the rock. How could I ever +care for a girl so mean-spirited and cruel as she had been to me? Lettie +couldn't get letters out, O'mie had said; and in the face of what she +had written, she had still refused to see me, had shown how +jealous-hearted and narrow-minded she could be. What could I do but +leave town? So ran the little girl's sad thoughts; and then hope had its +way again, for hers was always a sunny spirit.</p> + +<p>"I can only wait and see what will come. Phil is proud and strong, and +everybody loves him. He will make new friends and forget me."</p> + +<p>And then the words of my letter, "In sunny ways, or shadow-checkered +paths, I cannot think of you other than as I do now. You are life of my +life," she read over and over. And so with shining eyes and a buoyant +step, she went to do her mother's bidding that afternoon.</p> + +<p>Judge Baronet had had a hard day. Coupled with unusual business cares +was the story being quietly circulated regarding Judson's engagement. He +had not thought how much his son's happiness could mean to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And yet, I let him go to discipline him. Oh, we are never wise enough +to be fathers. It is only a mother who can understand," and the memory +of the woman glorified to him now, the one love of all his years, came +back to him.</p> + +<p>It was in this mood that Mrs. Whately found him.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet, I've come to get you to help me." She went straight to +her errand as soon as she was seated in the private office. "Marjie will +be here soon, and I want you to counsel her to do what I've promised to +help to bring about. She loves you next to her own father, and you can +have great influence with her."</p> + +<p>And then directly and frankly came the whole story of Judson's plan. +Mrs. Whately did not try to keep anything back, not even the effort to +shield my reputation, and she ended with the assurance that it must be +best for everybody for this wedding to take place, and Amos Judson hoped +it might be soon to save Irving's name.</p> + +<p>"I've not seen Marjie so happy in weeks as she was last night," she +added. "You know Mr. Tillhurst has been paying her so much attention +this Fall, and so has Clayton Anderson. And Amos has been going to +Conlow's to see Lettie quite frequently lately. I guess maybe that has +helped to bring Marjie around a little, when she found he could go with +others. It's the way with a girl, you know. You'll do what you can to +make Marjie see the right if she seems unwilling to do what I've agreed +she may do. For after all," Mrs. Whately said thoughtfully, "I can't +feel sure she's willing, because she never did encourage Amos any. But +you'll promise, won't you, for the sake of my husband? Oh, could he do +wrong! I don't believe he did, but he can't defend himself now, and I +must protect Marjie's name from any dishonor."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was a hard moment for the man before her, the keen discriminating +intelligent master of human nature. The picture of the battle field at +Missionary Ridge came before his eyes, the rush and roar of the conflict +was in his ears, and Irving Whately was dying there. "I hope they will +love each other. If they do, give them my blessing." Clearly came the +words again as they sounded on that day. And here was Irving Whately's +wife, Marjie's mother, in the innocence of her soul, asking that he +should help to give his friend's daughter to a man whom he was about to +call to judgment for heinous offences. And maybe,—oh, God forbid +it,—maybe the girl herself was not unwilling, since it was meant for +the family's welfare. What else could that look on her face last night +have meant? Oh, he had been a foolish father, over-fond, maybe, of a +foolish boy; but somehow he had hoped that sweet smile and the light in +Marjie's eyes might have meant word from Fort Wallace. What he might +have said to the mother, he never knew, for Marjie herself came in at +that moment, and Mrs. Whately took her leave at once.</p> + +<p>Marjie was never so fair and womanly as now. The brisk walk in the +October air had put a pink bloom on her cheeks. Her hair lay in soft +fluffy little waves about her head, and her big brown eyes, clear honest +eyes, were full of a radiant light. My father brought my face and form +back to her as he always did, and the last hand-clasp in that very room, +the last glance from eyes full of love; and the memory was sweet to her.</p> + +<p>"Mother said you wanted to see me," she said, "so I came in."</p> + +<p>My father put her in his big easy-chair and sat down near her. His back +was toward the window, and his face<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> was shadowed, while his visitor's +face was full in the light.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Marjie, your mother has asked me to talk with you." I wonder at +the man's self-control. "She is planning, or consenting to plans for +your future, and she wants me to tell you I approve them. You seem very +happy to-day."</p> + +<p>A blush swept over the girl's face, and then the blood ebbed back +leaving it white as marble. Men may abound in wisdom, but the wisest of +them may not always interpret the swift bloom that lights the face of a +girl and fades away as swiftly as it comes.</p> + +<p>"She is consenting," my father assumed.</p> + +<p>"If you are satisfied with the present arrangement, I do not need to say +anything. I do not want to, anyhow. I only do it for the sake of your +mother, for the sake of the wife of my best friend. For his sake too, +God bless his memory!"</p> + +<p>Marjie's confusion deepened. The words of my letter telling of her +father's wishes were burning in her brain. With the thought of them, +this hesitancy on the part of Judge Baronet brought a chill that made +her shiver. Could it be that her mother was trying to influence my +father in her favor? Her good judgment and the knowledge of her mother's +sense of propriety forbade that. So she only murmured,</p> + +<p>"I don't understand. I have no plans. I would do anything for my father, +I don't know why I should be called to say anything," and then she broke +down entirely and sat white and still with downcast eyes, her two +shapely little hands clenched together.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, this is very embarrassing for me," my father said kindly, "and +as I say, it is only for Irving's sake I speak at all. If you feel you +can manage your own affairs,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> it is not right for anybody to interfere," +how tender his tones were, "but, my dear girl, maybe years and +experience can give me the right to say a word or two for the sake of +the friendship that has always been between us, a friendship future +relations will of necessity limit to a degree. But if you have your +plans all settled, I wish to know it. It will change the whole course of +some proceedings I have been preparing ever since the war; and I want to +know, too, this much for the sake of the man who died in my arms. I want +to know if you are perfectly satisfied to accept the life now opening to +you."</p> + +<p>Marjie had seen my father every day since I left home. Every day he had +spoken to her, and a silent sort of parental and filial love had grown +up between the two. The sudden break in it had come to both now.</p> + +<p>Women also may abound in wisdom but the wisest of them may not always +interpret correctly.</p> + +<p>"He had planned for Phil to marry Rachel, had sent him East on purpose. +He was so polite to her when she was here. I have broken up his plans +and his friendship is to be limited." So ran the girl's thoughts. "But I +have no plans. I don't know what he means. Nothing new is opening to +me."</p> + +<p>A new phase of womanhood began suddenly for her, a call for +self-dependence, for a judgment of her own, not the acceptance of +events. When she spoke again, her sweet voice had a clear ring in it +that startled the man before her.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet, I do not know what you are talking about. I do not know +of any plans for the future. I do not know what mother said to you. If I +am concerned in the plans you speak of, I have a right to know what they +are. If you are asked to approve of my doing, I certainly ought to know +of what you mean to approve."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span></p> + +<p>She had risen from her chair and was standing before him. Oh, she was +pretty, and with this grace of womanly self-control, her beauty and her +dignity combined into a new charm.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, Marjie," my father said in kind command. "You know the +purpose of Amos Judson's visit with your mother yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Business, I suppose," Marjie answered carelessly, "I am not admitted to +these conferences." She smiled. "You know I wanted to talk with you +about some business affairs some time ago, but—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know, I understand," my father assured her. They both remembered +only too well what had happened in that room on her last visit. For she +had not been inside of the courthouse since the day of Rachel's sudden +appearance there.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet thinks I have nothing to bring Phil. I've heard +everywhere how Phil wants a rich wife, and yet the Baronets have more +property than anybody else here." So Marjie concluded mentally and then +she asked innocently:</p> + +<p>"How can Amos Judson's visit make this call here necessary?"</p> + +<p>At last the light broke in. "She doesn't know anything yet, that's +certain. But, by heavens, she must know. It's her right to know," my +father thought.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, your mother, in the goodness of her heart, and because of some +sad and bitter circumstances, came here to-day to ask me to talk with +you. I do this for her sake. You must not misunderstand me." He laid his +hand a moment on her arm, lying on the table.</p> + +<p>And then he told her all that her mother had told to him. Told it +without comment or coloring, sparing neither Phil, nor himself nor her +father in the recital. If ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> a story was correctly reported in word +and spirit, this one was.</p> + +<p>"She shall have Judson's side straight from me first, and we'll depend +on events for further statement," he declared to himself.</p> + +<p>"Now, little girl, I'm asked to urge you for your own good name, for +your mother's maintenance, and your own, for the sake of that boy of +mine, and for my own good, as well, and most of all for the sake of your +father's memory, revered here as no other man who ever lived in +Springvale—for all these reasons, I'm asked to urge you to take this +man for your husband."</p> + +<p>He was standing before her now, strong, dignified, handsome, courteous. +Nature's moulds hold not many such as he. Before him rose up Marjie. Her +cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and lay over the arm of her chair. +Looking steadily into his face with eyes that never wavered in their +gaze, she replied:</p> + +<p>"I may be poor, but I can work for mother and myself. I'm not afraid to +work. You and your son may have done wrong. If you have, I cannot cover +it by any act of mine, not even if I died for you. I don't believe you +have done wrong. I do not believe one word of the stories about Phil. He +may want to marry a rich girl," her voice wavered here, "but that is his +choice; it is no sin. And as to protecting my father's name, Judge +Baronet, it needs no protection. Before Heaven, he never did a dishonest +thing in all his life. There has been a tangling of his affairs by +somebody, but that does not change the truth. The surest way to bring +dishonor to his name is for me to marry a man I do not and could not +love; a man I believe to be dishonest in money matters, and false to +everybody. It is no disgrace to work for a living here in Kansas. Better +girls than I am do it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> But it is a disgrace here and through all +eternity to sell my soul. As I hope to see my father again, I believe he +would not welcome me to him if I did. Good and just as you are, you are +using your influence all in vain on me."</p> + +<p>Judge Baronet felt his soul expand with every word she uttered. Passing +round the table, he took both her cold hands in his strong, warm palms.</p> + +<p>"My daughter," neither he nor the girl misunderstood the use of the word +here, "my dear, dear girl, you are worthy of the man who gave up his +life on Missionary Ridge to save his country. God bless you for the +true-hearted, noble woman that you are." He gently stroked the curly +brown locks away from her forehead, and stooping kissed it, softly, as +he would kiss the brow of a saint.</p> + +<p>Marjie sank down in her seat, and as she did so my letter fell from the +pocket of the cloak she had thrown aside. As Judge Baronet stooped to +pick it up, he caught sight of my well-known handwriting on the +envelope. He looked up quickly and their eyes met. The wild roses were +in her cheeks now, and the dew of teardrops on her downcast lashes. He +said not a word, but laid the letter face downward in her lap. She put +it in her pocket and rose to go.</p> + +<p>"If you need me, Marjie, I have a force to turn loose against your +enemies, and ours. And you will need me. As a man in this community I +can assure you of that. You never needed friends as you will in the days +before you now. I am ready at your call. And let me assure you also, +that in the final outcome, there is nothing to fear. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>He looked down into her upturned face. Something neither would have put +into words came to both, and the same picture came before each mind. It +was the picture of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> a young soldier out at Fort Wallace, gathering back +the strength the crucial test of a Plains campaign had cost him.</p> + +<p>"There'll be the devil to pay," my father said to himself, as he watched +Marjie passing down the leaf-strewn walk, "but not a hair of her head +shall suffer. When the time comes, I'll send for Judson, as I promised +to do."</p> + +<p>And Marjie, holding the letter in her hand thrust deep in her cloak +pocket, felt strength and hope and courage pulsing in her veins, and a +peace that she had not known for many days came with its blessing to her +troubled soul.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>THE CALL TO SERVICE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We go to rear a wall of men on Freedom's Southern line,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And plant beside the cotton-tree the rugged Northern pine!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—WHITTIER.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>"Phil Baronet, you thon of a horthe-thief, where have you been keeping +yourthelf? We've been waiting here thinthe Thummer before latht to meet +you."</p> + +<p>That was Bud Anderson's greeting. Pink-cheeked, sturdy, and stubby as a +five-year-old, he was standing in my path as I slipped from my horse in +front of old Fort Hays one October day a fortnight after the rescue of +Colonel Forsyth's little company.</p> + +<p>"Bud, you tow-headed infant, how the dickens and tomhill did you manage +to break into good society out here?" I cried, as we clinched in each +other's arms, for Bud's appearance was food to my homesick hunger.</p> + +<p>"When you git through, I'm nixt into the barber's chair."</p> + +<p>I had not noticed O'mie leaning against a post beside the way, until +that Irish brogue announced him.</p> + +<p>"Why, boys, what's all this delegation mean?"</p> + +<p>"Aw," O'mie drawled. "You've been elected to Congress and we're the +proud committy av citizens in civilians' clothes, come to inform you av +your elevation."</p> + +<p>"You mean you've come to get first promise of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> office under me. +Sorry, but I know you too well to jeopardize the interest of the +Republican party and the good name of Kansas by any rash promises. It's +dinner time, and I'm hungry. I don't believe I'll ever get enough to eat +again."</p> + +<p>Oh, it was good to see them, albeit our separation had amounted to +hardly sixty days. Bud had been waiting for me almost a week; and O'mie, +to Bud's surprise, had come upon him unannounced that morning. The +dining-room was crowded; and as soon as dinner was over we went outside +and sat down together where we could visit our fill unmolested. They +wanted to know about my doings, but I was too eager to hear all the home +news to talk of myself.</p> + +<p>"Everybody all right when I left," Bud asserted. "I got off a few dayth +before thith mitherable thon of Erin. Didn't know he'd tag me, or I'd +have gone to Canada." He gave O'mie an affectionate slap on the shoulder +as he spoke.</p> + +<p>"Your father and Aunt Candace are well, and glad you came out of the +campaign you've been makin' a record av unfadin' glory in. Judge Baronet +was the last man I saw when I left town," O'mie said.</p> + +<p>"Why, where was Uncle Cam?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Oh, pretendin' to be busy somewheres. Awful busy man, that Cam Gentry." +O'mie smiled at the remembrance. He knew why tender-hearted Cam had fled +from a good-bye scene. "Dave Mead's goin' to start to California in a +few days." He rattled on, "The church supper in October was the biggest +they've had yet. Dever's got a boil on the back of his neck, and Jim +Conlow's drivin' stage for him. Jim had a good job in Topeka, but come +back to Springvale. Can't keep the Conlows corralled anywhere else. +Everybody else is doing fine ex<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span>cept Grandma Mead. She's failin'. Old +town looked pretty good to me when I looked back at it from the east +bluff of the Neosho."</p> + +<p>It had looked good to each one of us at the same place when each started +out to try the West alone. Somehow we did not care to talk, for a few +minutes.</p> + +<p>"What brought you out here, Bud?" I asked to break the spell.</p> + +<p>"Oh, three or four thingth. I wanted to thee you," Bud answered. "You +never paid me that fifteen thenth you borrowed before you went to +college."</p> + +<p>"And then," he continued, "the old town on the Neosho'th too thmall for +me. Our family ith related to the Daniel Boone tribe of Indianth, and +can't have too big a crowd around. Three children of the family are at +home, and I wanted to come out here anyhow. I'd like to live alwayth on +the Plainth and have a quiet grave at the end of the trail where the +wind blowth thteady over me day after day."</p> + +<p>We were lounging against the side of the low building now in the warm +afternoon sunshine, and Bud's eyes were gazing absently out across the +wide Plains. Although I had been away from home only two months, I felt +twenty years older than this fair-haired, chubby boy, sitting there so +full of blooming life and vigor. I shivered at the picture his words +suggested.</p> + +<p>"Don't joke, Bud. There's a grave at the end of most of the trails out +here. The trails aren't very long, some of 'em. The wind sweeps over 'em +lonely and sad day after day. They're quiet enough, Heaven knows. The +wrangle and noise are all on the edge of 'em, just as you're getting +ready to get in."</p> + +<p>"I'm not joking, Phil. All my life I have wanted to get out here. It'th +a fever in the blood."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span></p> + +<p>We talked a while of the frontier, of the chances of war, and of the +Indian raids with their trail of destruction, death, torture and +captivity of unspeakable horror.</p> + +<p>The closing years of the decade of the sixties in American history saw +the closing events of the long and bitter, but hopeless struggle of a +savage race against a superior civilized force. From the southern bound +of British America to the northern bound of old Mexico the Plains +warfare was waged.</p> + +<p>The Western tribes, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe, and Kiowa, and Brule, and +Sioux and Comanche were forced to quarter themselves on their +reservations again and again with rations and clothing and equipments +for all their needs. With fair, soft promises in return from their chief +men these tribes settled purringly in their allotted places. Through +each fall and winter season they were "good Indians," wards of the +nation; their "untutored mind saw God in clouds, or heard him in the +wind."</p> + +<p>Eastern churches had an "Indian fund" in their contribution boxes, and +very pathetic and beautifully idyllic was the story the sentimentalists +told, the story of the Indian as he looked in books and spoke on paper. +But the Plains had another record, and the light called History is +pitiless. When the last true story is written out, it has no favoring +shadows for sentimentalists who feel more than they know.</p> + +<p>Each Winter the "good Indians" were mild and gentle. But with the warmth +of Spring and the fruitfulness of summer, with the green grasses of the +Plains for their ponies, with wild game in the open, and the labor of +the industrious settler of the unprotected frontier as a stake for the +effort, the "good Indian" came forth from his reservation. Like the +rattlesnake from its crevice, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> uncoiled in the warm sunshine, grew +and flourished on what lay in his pathway, and full of deadly venom he +made a trail of terror and death.</p> + +<p>This sort of thing went on year after year until, in the late Summer of +1868, the crimes of the savages culminated in those terrible raids +through western Kansas, whose full particulars even the official war +records deem unfit to print.</p> + +<p>Such were the times the three of us from Springvale were discussing on +the south side of the walls of old Fort Hays in the warm sunshine of an +October afternoon.</p> + +<p>We were new to the Plains and we did not dream of the tragedies that +were taking place not many miles away from the shadow of the Fort on +that October afternoon, tragedies whose crimes we three would soon be +called forth to help to avenge. For even as we lounged idly there in the +soft sunshine, and looked away through shimmering seas of autumn haze +toward the still land where Bud was to find his quiet grave at the end +of the trail—as we talked of the frontier and its needs, up in the +Saline Valley, a band of Indians was creeping stealthily upon a +cornfield where a young man was gathering corn. In his little home just +out of sight was a pretty, golden-haired girl, the young settler's bride +of a few months. Through the window she caught sight of her husband's +horse racing wildly toward the house. She did not know that her husband, +wounded and helpless, lay by the river bank, pierced by Indian arrows. +Only one thought was hers, the thought that her husband had been +hurt—maybe killed—in a runaway. What else could this terrified horse +with its flying harness ends mean? She rushed from the house and started +toward the field.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span></p> + +<p>A shout of fiendish glee fell on her ears. She was surrounded by painted +savage men, human devils, who caught her by the arms, dragged her about +by her long silky, golden hair, beat her brutally in her struggles to +free herself, bound her at last, and thrusting her on a pony, rode as +only Indians ride, away toward the sunset. And their captive, the sweet +girl-wife of gentle birth and gentle rearing, the happy-hearted young +home-maker on the prairie frontier, singing about her work an hour +before, dreaming of the long, bright years with her loved one—God pity +her! For her the gates of a living Hell had swung wide open, and she, +helpless and horror-stricken, was being dragged through them into a +perdition no pen can picture. And so they rode away toward the sunset.</p> + +<p>On and on they went through days and days of unutterable blackness, of +suffering and despair. On, until direction and space were lost to +measure. For her a new, pitiless, far-off heaven looked down on a new +agonized earth. The days ran into months, and no day had in it a ray of +hope, a line of anything but misery.</p> + +<p>And again beyond the Saline, where the little streams turn toward the +Republican River, in another household the same tragedy of the times was +being played, with all its settings of terror and suffering. Here the +grown-up daughter of the home, a girl of eighteen years, was wrenched +from arms that clung to her, and, bound on a pony's back, was hurried +three hundred miles away into an unknown land. For her began the life of +a slave. She was the victim of brute lust, the object of the vengeful +jealousy of the squaws. The starved, half-naked, wretched girl, whose +eighteen years had been protected in the shelter of a happy Christian +home, was now the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> captive laborer whose tasks strong men would stagger +under. God's providence seemed far away in those days of the winning of +the prairie.</p> + +<p>Fate, by and by, threw these two women together. Their one ray of +comfort was the sight of one another. And for both the days dragged +heavily by, the two women of my boyhood's dreams. Women of whose fate I +knew nothing as we sat by the south side of old Fort Hays that afternoon +forty years ago.</p> + +<p>"Did you know, boys, that General Sheridan is not going to let those +tribes settle down to a quiet winter as they've been allowed to do every +year since they were put on their reservations?" I asked O'mie and Bud. +"I've been here long enough to find out that these men out here won't +stand for it any longer," I went on. "They're MEN on these Plains, who +are doing this homesteading up and down these river valleys, and you +write every letter of the word with a capital."</p> + +<p>"What'th going to be done?" Bud queried.</p> + +<p>"Sheridan's going to carry a campaign down into their own country and +lick these tribes into behaving themselves right now, before another +Summer and another outbreak like that one two months ago."</p> + +<p>"What's these Kansas men with their capital letters got to do with it?" +put in O'mie.</p> + +<p>"Governor Crawford has issued a call at Sheridan's command, for a Kansas +regiment to go into service for six months, and help to do this thing up +right. It means more to these settlers on the boundary out here than to +anybody else. And you just see if that regiment isn't made up in a +hurry."</p> + +<p>I was full of my theme. My two months beyond the soft, sheltered life of +home had taught me much; and then I was young and thought I knew much, +anyhow.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span></p> + +<p>"What are you going to do, Phil?" O'mie asked.</p> + +<p>"I? I'm going to stay by this thing for a while. The Baronets were +always military folks. I'm the last of the line, and I'm going to give +my fighting strength, what little I have, to buy these prairies for +homes and civilization. I'm going to see the Indian rule broken here, or +crawl into the lonely grave Bud talks about and pull the curly mesquite +over me for a coverlet. I go to Topeka to-morrow to answer Governor +Crawford's call for volunteers for a cavalry company to go out on a +winter campaign against the rascally redskins. They're going to get what +they need. If you mix up with Custer, you'll see."</p> + +<p>"And when the campaign's over," queried O'mie, "will you stay in the +army?"</p> + +<p>"No, O'mie, I'll find a place. The world is wide. But look here, boy. +You haven't told me how you got pried loose and kicked out yet. Bud's an +exception. The rest of us boys had a reason for leaving the best town on +earth."</p> + +<p>"You're just right, begorra!" O'mie replied with warmth. "I was kicked +out av town by His Majesty, the prophet Amos, only you've got to spell +it with an 'f' instead av a 'ph.'"</p> + +<p>"Now, O'mie, confess the whole sin at once, please."</p> + +<p>O'mie looked up with that sunshiny face that never stayed clouded long, +and chuckled softly. "Judson's on the crest right now. Oh, let him ride. +He's doomed, so let him have his little strut. He comes to me a few days +backward into the gone on, and says, says he, important and commercial +like, 'O'mie, I shall not need you any more. I've got a person to take +your place.' 'All right,' I responds, respectful, 'just as you please. +When shall I lave off?' 'To-morrow mornin',' he answers, an' looks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> at +me as if to say, 'Nothin' left for you but the poor-house.' And indade, +a clerk under Judson don't make no such bank account as he made under +Irving Whately. I ain't ready to retire yet."</p> + +<p>"And do you mean to say that because Amos Judson turned you off and cut +you out of his will, you had to come out to this forsaken land? I +thought better of the town," I declared.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't you mind! Cris Mead offered me a place in the bank. Dr. +Hemingway was fur havin' me fill his pulpit off an' on. He's gettin' +old. An' Judge Baronet was all but ready to adopt me in the place av a +son he'd lost. But I knowed the boy'd soon be back."</p> + +<p>O'mie gave me a sidelong glance, but I gave no hint of any feeling.</p> + +<p>"No, I was like Bud, ready to try the frontier," he added more +seriously. "I'm goin' down with you to join this Kansas regiment."</p> + +<p>"Now what the deuce can you do in the army, O'mie?" I could not think of +him anywhere but in Springvale.</p> + +<p>"I want to live out av doors till I get rid av this cough," he answered. +"And ye know I can do a stunt in the band. Don't take giants to fiddle +and fife. Little runts can do that. Who do you reckon come to Springvale +last month?"</p> + +<p>"Give it up," I answered.</p> + +<p>"Father Le Claire."</p> + +<p>"Oh, the good man!" Bud exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Where has he been? and where was he going?" I asked coldly.</p> + +<p>O'mie looked at me curiously. He was shrewder than Bud, and he caught +the tone I had meant to conceal.</p> + +<p>"Where? Just now he's gone to St. Louis. He's in a hospital there. He's +been sick. I never saw him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span> so white and thin as whin he left. He told +me he expected to be with the Osages this Winter."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that," I remarked.</p> + +<p>"Why?" O'mie spoke quickly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I was afraid he might go out West. It's hard on priests in the +West."</p> + +<p>O'mie looked steadily at me, but said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Who taketh your plathe, O'mie?" Bud asked.</p> + +<p>"That's the beauty av it. It's a lady," O'mie answered.</p> + +<p>Somehow my heart grew sick. Could it be Marjie, I wondered. I knew money +matters were a problem with the Whatelys, but I had hoped for better +fortune through my father's help. Maybe, though, they would have none of +him now any more than of myself. When Marjie and I were engaged I did +not care for her future, for it was to be with me, and my burden was my +joy then. Not that earning a living meant any disgrace to the girl. We +all learned better than that early in the West.</p> + +<p>"Well, who be thaid lady?" Bud questioned.</p> + +<p>"Miss Letitia Conlow," O'mie answered with a grave face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, don't grieve, O'mie; it might be worse. Cheer up!" I said +gayly.</p> + +<p>"It couldn't be, by George! It just couldn't be no worse." O'mie was +more than grave, he was sad now. "Not for me, bedad! I'm glad." He +breathed deeply of the sweet, pure air of the Plains. "I can live out +here foine, but there's goin' to be the divil to pay in the town av +Springvale in the nixt six months. I'm glad to be away."</p> + +<p>The next day I left the fort for Topeka. My determination to stay in the +struggle was not merely a young man's love of adventure, nor was my +declaration of what would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> be done to the Indian tribes an idle boast. +The tragic days of Kansas were not all in its time of territorial strife +and border ruffianism. The story of the Western Plains—the short grass +country we call it now—in the decade following the Civil War is a +tragedy of unparalleled suffering and danger and heroism. In the cold +calculation of the official reports the half-year I had entered on has +its tabulated record of one hundred and fifty-eight men murdered, +sixteen wounded, forty-one scalped, fourteen women tortured, four women +and twenty-four children carried into captivity. And nearly all this +record was made in the Saline and Solomon and Republican River valleys +in Kansas.</p> + +<p>The Summer of the preceding year a battalion of soldiers called the +Eighteenth Kansas Cavalry spent four months on the Plains. Here they met +and fought two deadly foes, the Indians and the Asiatic cholera. Theirs +was a record of bravery and endurance; and their commander, Major Horace +L. Moore, keeps always a place in my own private hall of fame.</p> + +<p>Winter had made good Indians out of the savage wretches, as usual; but +the Summer of 1868 brought that official count of tragedy with all the +unwritten horror that history cannot burden itself to carry. Only one +thing seemed feasible now, to bear the war straight into the heart of +the Indian country in a winter campaign, to deal an effectual blow to +the scourge of the Plains, this awful menace to the frontier homes. +General Sheridan had asked Kansas to furnish a cavalry regiment for +United States military service for six months.</p> + +<p>The capital city was a wide-awake place that October. The call for +twelve hundred men was being answered by the veterans of the Plains and +by the young men of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> Kansas. The latter took up the work as many a +volunteer in the Civil War began it—in a sort of heyday of excitement +and achievement. They gave little serious thought to the cost, or the +history their record was to make. But in the test that followed they +stood, as the soldiers of the nation had stood before them, courageous, +unflinching to the last. Little notion had those rollicking young +fellows of what lay before them—a winter campaign in a strange country +infested by a fierce and cunning foe who observed no etiquette of +civilized warfare.</p> + +<p>At the Teft House, where Bud and O'mie and I stopped, I met Richard +Tillhurst. We greeted each other cordially enough.</p> + +<p>"So you're here to enlist, too," he said. "I thought maybe you were on +your way home. I am going to enlist myself and give up teaching +altogether if I can pass muster." He was hardly of the physical build +for a soldier. "Have you heard the news?" he went on. "Judson and +Marjory are engaged. Marjie doesn't speak of it, of course, but Judson +told Dr. Hemingway and asked him to officiate when the time comes. Mrs. +Whately says it's between the young people, and that means she has given +her consent. Judson spends half his time at Whately's, whether Marjie's +there or not. There's something in the air down there this Fall that's +got everybody keyed up one way or another. Tell Mapleson's been like a +boy at a circus, he's so pleased over something; and Conlow has a grin +on his face all the time. Everybody seems just unsettled and anxious, +except Judge Baronet. Honestly, I don't see how that town could keep +balanced without him. He sails along serene and self-possessed. Always +knows more than he tells."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I guess Springvale is safe with him, and we can go out and save the +frontier," I said carelessly.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, who goes there?" Tillhurst pushed me aside and made +a rush out of doors, as a lady passed before the windows. I followed and +caught a glimpse of the black hair and handsome form of Rachel Melrose. +At the same moment she saw me. Her greeting lacked a little of its +former warmth, but her utter disregard of anything unpleasant having +been between us was positively admirable. Her most coquettish smiles, +however, were for Tillhurst, but that didn't trouble me. Our interview +was cut short by the arrival of the stage from the south just then, and +I turned from Tillhurst to find myself in my father's embrace. What +followed makes one of the sacred memories a man does not often put into +print.</p> + +<p>We wanted to be alone, so we left the noisy hotel and strolled out +toward the higher level beyond the town. There was only brown prairie +then stretching to the westward and dipping down with curve and ravine +to the Kaw River on the one side and the crooked little Shunganunga +Creek on the other. Away in the southwest the graceful curve of +Burnett's Mound, a low height like a tiny mountain-peak, stood out +purple and hazy in the October sunlight. A handful of sturdy young +people were taking their way to Lincoln College, the little stone +structure that was to be dignified a month later by a new title, +Washburn College, in honor of its great benefactor, Ichabod Washburn.</p> + +<p>"Why did the powers put the State Capitol and the College so far from +town, I wonder," I said as we loitered about the walls of the former.</p> + +<p>"For the same reason that the shortsighted colonists of the Revolution +put Washington away off up the Po<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span>tomac, west of the thirteen States," +my father answered. "We can't picture a city here now, but it will be +built in your day if not in mine."</p> + +<p>And then we walked on until before us stood that graceful little locust +tree, the landmark of the prairie. Its leaves were falling in golden +showers now, save as here and there a more protected branch still held +its summer green foliage.</p> + +<p>"What a beautiful, sturdy little pioneer!" my father exclaimed. "It has +earned a first settler's right to the soil. I hope it will be given the +chance to live, the chance most of the settlers have had to fight for, +as it has had to stand up against the winds and hold its own against the +drouth. Any enterprising city official who would some day cut it down +should be dealt with by the State."</p> + +<p>We sat down by the tree and talked of many things, but my father +carefully avoided the mention of Marjie's name. When he gave the little +girl the letter that had fallen from her cloak pocket he read her story +in her face, but he had no right or inclination to read it aloud to me. +I tried by all adroit means to lead him to tell me of the Whatelys. It +was all to no purpose. On any other topic I would have quitted the game, +but—oh, well, I was just the same foolish-hearted boy that put the pink +blossoms on a little girl's brown curls and kissed her out in the purple +shadows of the West Draw one April evening long ago. And now I was about +to begin a dangerous campaign where the hazard of war meant a nameless +grave for a hundred, where it brought after years of peace and honor to +one. I must hear something of Marjie. The love-light in her brown eyes +as she gave me one affectionate glance when I presented her to Rachel +Melrose in my father's office—that pledge of her heart, I pictured over +and over in my memory.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Father, Tillhurst says he has heard that Amos Judson and Marjie are +engaged. Are they?" I put the question squarely. My father was stripping +the gold leaves one by one off a locust spray.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have heard it, too," he replied, and to save my life I could not +have judged by word or manner whether he cared one whit or not. He was +studying me, if toying with a locust branch and whistling softly and +gazing off at Burnett's Mound are marks of study. He had nothing of +himself to reveal. "I have heard it several times," he went on. "Judson +has made the announcement quietly, but generally."</p> + +<p>He threw away the locust branch, shook down his cuff and settled it in +his sleeve, lifted his hat from his forehead and reset it on his head, +and then added as a final conclusion, "I don't believe it."</p> + +<p>He had always managed me most skilfully when he wanted to find out +anything; and when the time came that I began in turn to manage him, +being of his own blood, the game was interesting. But before I knew it, +we had drifted far away from the subject, and I had no opportunity to +come back to it. My father had found out all he wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"Phil, I must leave on the train for Kansas City this evening," he said +as we rose to go back to town. "I'm to meet Morton there, and we may go +on East together. He will have the best surgeons look after that wound +of his, Governor Crawford tells me."</p> + +<p>Then laying his hand affectionately on my shoulder he said, "I +congratulate you on the result of your first campaign. I had hoped it +would be your last; but you are a man, and must choose for yourself. +Yet, if you mean to give yourself to your State now, if you choose a +man's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> work, do it like a man, not like a schoolboy on a picnic +excursion. The history of Kansas is made as much by the privates down in +the ranks as by the men whose names and faces adorn its record. You are +making that record now. Make it strong and clean. Let the glory side go, +only do your part well. When you have finished this six months and are +mustered out, I want you to come home at once. There are some business +matters and family matters demanding it. But I must go to Kansas City, +and from there to New York on important business. And since nobody has a +lease on life, I may as well say now that if you get back and I'm not +there, O'mie left his will with me before he went away."</p> + +<p>"His will? Now what had he to leave? And who is his beneficiary?"</p> + +<p>"That's all in the will," my father said, smiling, "but it is a matter +that must not be overlooked. In the nature of things the boy will go +before I do. He's marked, I take it; never has gotten over the hardships +of his earliest years and that fever in '63. Le Claire came back to see +him and me in September."</p> + +<p>"He did? Where did he come from?"</p> + +<p>My father looked at me quickly. "Why do you ask?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you when we have more time. Just now I'm engaged to fight the +Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Comanches, and the Kiowas, in which last +tribe my friend Jean Pahusca has pack right. He was in that gang of +devils that fought us out on the Arickaree."</p> + +<p>For once I thought I knew more than my father, but he replied quietly, +"Yes, I knew he was there. His tether may be long, but its limit will be +reached some day."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Who told you he was there, father?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Le Claire said so," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Where was he at that time?" I was getting excited now.</p> + +<p>"He spent the week in the little stone cabin out by the big cottonwood. +Took cold and had to go to St. Louis to a hospital for a week or two."</p> + +<p>"He was in the haunted cabin the third week in September," I repeated +slowly; "then I don't know black from white any more."</p> + +<p>My father smiled at me. "They call that being 'locoed' out on the +Plains, don't they?" he said with a twinkle in his eye. "You have a +delusion mixed up in your gray matter somewhere. One thing more," he +added as an unimportant afterthought, "I see Miss Melrose is still in +Topeka."</p> + +<p>"Yes," I answered.</p> + +<p>"And Tillhurst, too," he went on. "Well, there has been quite a little +story going around Conlow's shop and the post-office and Fingal's Creek +and other social centres about you two; and now when Tillhurst gets back +(he'll never make the cavalry), he's square, but a little vain and +thin-skinned, and he may add something of color and interest to the +story. Let it go. Just now it may be better so."</p> + +<p>I thought his words were indefinite, for one whose purposes were always +definite, and in the wisdom of my youth I wondered whether he really +wanted me to follow Rachel's leading, or whether he was, after all, +inclined to believe Judson's assertion about his engagement, and family +pride had a little part to play with him. It was unlike John Baronet to +stoop to a thing like that.</p> + +<p>"Father," I said, "I'm going away, too. I may never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> come back, and for +my own sake I want to assure you of one thing: no matter what Tillhurst +may say, if Rachel Melrose were ten times more handsome, if she had in +her own name a fortune such as I can never hope to acquire myself, she +would mean nothing to me. I care nothing for the stories now"—a +hopelessness would come into my voice—"but I do not care for her +either. I never did, and I never could."</p> + +<p>My eyes were away on Burnett's Mound, and the sweet remembrance of +Marjie's last affectionate look made a blur before them. We stood in +silence for some time.</p> + +<p>"Phil," said John Baronet in a deep, fervent tone, "I have a matter I +meant to take up later, but this is a good time. Let the young folks go +now. This is a family matter. Years ago a friend of the older Baronets +died in the East leaving some property that should sooner or later come +to me to keep in trust for you. This time was to be at the death of the +man and his wife who had the property for their lifetime. Philip, you +have been accused by the Conlow-Judson crowd of wanting a rich wife. I +also am called grasping by Tell Mapleson's class. And," he smiled a +little, "indeed, Iago's advice to Roderigo, 'Put money in thy purse,' +was sound philosophy if the putting be honestly done. But this little +property in the East that should come to you is in the hands of a man +who is now ill, probably in his last sickness. He has one child that +will have nothing else left to her. Shall we take this money at her +father's death?"</p> + +<p>"Why, father, no. I don't want it. Do you want it?"</p> + +<p>I knew him too well to ask the question. Had I not seen the unselfish, +kindly, generous spirit that had marked all his business career? +Springvale never called him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</a></span> grasping, save as his prosperity grated on +men of Mapleson's type.</p> + +<p>"Will you sign a relinquishment to your claim, and trust to me that it +is the best for us to do?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Just as soon as we get to an inkstand," I answered. Nor did I ever hold +that such a relinquishment is anything but Christian opportunity.</p> + +<p>That evening I said good-bye to my father, and when I saw him again it +was after I had gone through the greatest crisis of these sixty years. +On the same train that bore my father to the East were his friend Morton +and his political and professional antagonist, Tell Mapleson. The next +day I enlisted in Troop A of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and was +quartered temporarily in the State House, north of Fifth Street, on +Kansas Avenue. Tillhurst was not admitted to the regiment, as my father +had predicted. Neither was Jim Conlow, who had come up to Topeka for +that purpose. Good-natured, shallow-pated "Possum," no matter where he +found work to do, he sooner or later drifted back to Springvale to his +father's forge. He did not realize that no Conlow of the Missouri breed +ought ever to try anything above a horse's hoofs, in cavalry matters. +The Lord made some men to shoe horses, and some to ride them. The +Conlows weren't riders, and Jim's line was turned again to his father's +smithy.</p> + +<p>Tillhurst took his failure the more grievously that Rachel, who had been +most gracious to him at first, transferred her attentions to me. And I, +being only a man and built of common clay, with my lifetime hope +destroyed, gave him good reason to believe in my superior influence with +the beautiful Massachusetts girl. I had a game to play with Rachel, for +Topeka was full of pretty girls, and I made the most of my time. I knew +somewhat of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</a></span> gayety the Winter on the Plains was about to offer. As +long as I could I held to the pleasures of the civilized homes and +sheltered lives. And with all and all, one sweet girl-face, enshrined in +my heart's holy of holies, held me back from idle deception and turned +me from temptation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>THE NINETEENTH KANSAS CAVALRY</h3> + +<blockquote><p>"The regiments of Kansas have glorified our State on a hundred +battle fields, but none served her more faithfully, or endured more +in her cause than the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry."</p> + +<p> +—HORACE L. MOORE. +</p> + +</blockquote> + + +<p>When Camp Crawford was opened, northeast of town, between the Kaw River +and the Shunganunga Creek, I went into training for regular cavalry +service, thinking less of pretty girls and more of good horses with the +passing days. I had plenty of material for both themes. Not only were +there handsome young ladies in the capital city, but this call for +military supplies had brought in superb cavalry mounts. Every day the +camp increased its borders. The first to find places were the men of the +Eighteenth Kansas Regiment, veterans of the exalted order of the wardens +of civilization. Endurance was their mark of distinction, and Loyalty +their watchword. It was the grief of this regiment, and especially of +the men directly under his leadership, that Captain Henry Lindsey was +not made a Major for the Nineteenth. No more capable or more popular +officer than Lindsey ever followed an Indian trail across the Plains.</p> + +<p>It was from the veterans of this Eighteenth Cavalry, men whom Lindsey +had led, that we younger soldiers learned our best lessons in the months +that followed. Those were my years of hero-worship. I had gone into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</a></span> +this service with an ideal, and the influence of such men as Morton and +Forsyth, the skill of Grover, and the daring of Donovan and Stillwell +were an inspiration to me. And now my captain was the same Pliley, who +with Donovan had made that hundred-mile dash to Fort Wallace to start a +force to the rescue of our beleaguered few in that island citadel of +sand.</p> + +<p>The men who made up Pliley's troop were, for the most part, older than +myself, and they are coming now to the venerable years; but deep in the +heart of each surviving soldier of that company is admiration and +affection for the fearless, adroit, resourceful Captain, the modest, +generous-hearted soldier.</p> + +<p>On the last evening of our stay in Topeka there was a gay gathering of +young people, where, as usual, the soldier boys were the lions. Brass +buttons bearing the American Eagle and the magic inscription "U. S." +have ever their social sway.</p> + +<p>Rachel had been assigned to my care by the powers that were. After +Tillhurst's departure I had found my companions mainly elsewhere, and I +would have chosen elsewhere on this night had I done the choosing. On +the way to her aunt's home Rachel was more charming than I had ever +found her before. It was still early, and we strolled leisurely on our +way and talked of many things. At the gate she suddenly exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Philip, you leave to-morrow. Maybe I shall never see you again; but I'm +not going to think that." Her voice was sweet, and her manner sincere. +"May I ask you one favor?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a dozen," I said, rashly.</p> + +<p>"Let's take one more walk out to our locust tree."</p> + +<p>"Oh, blame the locust tree! What did it ever grow for?" That was my +thought but I assented with a show<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</a></span> of pleasure, as conventionality +demands. It was a balmy night in early November, not uncommon in this +glorious climate. The moon was one quarter large, and the dim light was +pleasant. Many young people were abroad that evening. When we reached +the swell where the tree threw its lacy shadows on its fallen yellow +leaves, my companion grew silent.</p> + +<p>"Cheer up, Rachel," I said. "We'll soon be gone and you'll be free from +the soldier nuisance. And Dick Tillhurst is sure to run up here again +soon. Besides, you have all Massachusetts waiting to be conquered."</p> + +<p>She put her little gloved hand on my arm.</p> + +<p>"Philip Baronet, I'm going to ask you something. You may hate me if you +want to."</p> + +<p>"But I don't want to," I assured her.</p> + +<p>"I had a letter from Mr. Tillhurst to-day. He does want to come up," she +went on; "he says also that the girl you introduced to me in your +father's office, what's her name?—I've forgotten it."</p> + +<p>"So have I. Go on!"</p> + +<p>"He says she is to be married at Christmas to somebody in Springvale. +You used to like her. Tell me, do you care for her still? You could like +somebody else just as well, couldn't you, Phil?"</p> + +<p>I put my hand gently over her hand resting on my arm, and said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Could you, Phil? She doesn't want you any more. How long will you care +for her?"</p> + +<p>"Till death us do part," I answered, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>She dropped my arm, and even in the shadows I could see her eyes flash.</p> + +<p>"I hate you," she cried, passionately.</p> + +<p>"I don't blame you," I answered like a cold-blooded brute. "But, Rachel, +this is the last time we shall be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</a></span> together. Let's be frank, now. You +don't care for me. It is for the lack of one more scalp to dangle at +your door that you grieve. You want me to do all the caring. You could +forget me before we get home."</p> + +<p>Then the tears came, a woman's sure weapon, and I hated myself more than +she hated me.</p> + +<p>"I can only wound your feelings, I always make you wretched. Now, +Rachel, let's say good-bye to-night as the best of enemies and the worst +of friends. I haven't made your stay in Kansas happy. You will forget me +and remember only the pleasant people here."</p> + +<p>When she bade me good-bye at her aunt's door, there was a harshness in +her voice I had not noted before.</p> + +<p>"If she really did care for me she wouldn't change so quickly. By +Heaven, I believe there is something back of all this love-making. +Charming a dog as he is, Phil Baronet in himself hasn't that much +attraction for her," I concluded, and I breathed freer for the thought. +When I came long afterwards to know the truth about her, I understood +this sudden change, as I understood the charming pretensions to +admiration and affection that preceded it.</p> + +<p>The next day our command started on its campaign against the unknown +dangers and hardships and suffering of the winter Plains. It was an +imposing cavalcade that rode down the broad avenue of the capital city +that November day when we began our march. Up from Camp Crawford we +passed in regular order, mounted on our splendid horses, riding in +platoon formation. At Fourth Street we swung south on Kansas Avenue. At +the head of the column twenty-one buglers rode abreast, Bud Anderson and +O'mie among them. Our Lieutenant-Colonel, Horace L. Moore, and his staff +followed in order behind the buglers. Then came the cavalry, troop<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</a></span> +after troop, a thousand strong, in dignified military array, while from +door and window, side-walk and side-street, the citizens watched our +movements and cheered us as we passed. Six months later the remnants of +that well-appointed regiment straggled into Topeka like stray dogs, and +no demonstration was given over their return. But they had done their +work, and in God's good time will come the day "to glean up their +scattered ashes into History's golden urn."</p> + +<p>A few miles out from Topeka we were overtaken by Governor Crawford. He +had resigned the office of Chief Executive of Kansas to take command of +our regiment. The lustre of the military pageantry began to fade by the +time we had crossed the Wakarusa divide, and the capital city, nestling +in its hill-girt valley by the side of the Kaw, was lost to our view. +Ours was to be a campaign of endurance, of dogged patience, of slow, +grinding inactivity, the kind of campaign that calls for every resource +of courage and persistence from the soldier, giving him in return little +of the inspiration that stimulates to conquest on battle fields. The +years have come and gone, and what the Nineteenth Kansas men were called +to do and to endure is only now coming into historical recognition.</p> + +<p>Our introduction to what should befall us later came in the rainy +weather, bitter winds, insufficient clothing, and limited rations of our +journey before we reached Fort Beecher, on the Arkansas River. To-day, +the beautiful city of Wichita marks the spot where the miserable little +group of tents and low huts, called Fort Beecher, stood then. Fifty +miles east of this fort we had passed the last house we were to see for +half a year.</p> + +<p>The Arkansas runs bottomside up across the Plains. Its waters are mainly +under its bed, and it seems to wan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</a></span>der aimlessly among the flat, lonely +sand-bars, trying helplessly to get right again. Beyond this river we +looked off into the Unknown. Somewhere back of the horizon in that +shadowy illimitable Southwest General Sheridan had established a +garrison on the Canadian River, and here General Custer and his Seventh +United States Cavalry were waiting for us. They had forage for our +horses and food and clothing for ourselves. We had left Topeka with +limited supplies expecting sufficient reinforcement of food and grain at +Fort Beecher to carry us safely forward until we should reach Camp +Supply, Sheridan's stopping-place, wherever in the Southwest that might +be. Then the two regiments, Custer's Seventh and the Kansas Nineteenth, +were together to fall upon the lawless wild tribes and force them into +submission.</p> + +<p>Such was the prearranged plan of campaign, but disaster lay between us +and this military force on the Canadian River. Neither the Nineteenth +Cavalry commanders, the scouts, nor the soldiers knew a foot of that +pathless mystery-shrouded, desolate land stretching away to the +southward beyond the Arkansas River. We had only a meagre measure of +rations, less of grain in proportion, and there was no military depot to +which we could resort. The maps were all wrong, and in the trackless +wastes and silent sand-dunes of the Cimarron country gaunt Starvation +was waiting to clutch our vitals with its gnarled claws; while with all +our nakedness and famine and peril, the winter blizzard, swirling its +myriad whips of stinging cold came raging across the land and caught us +in its icy grip.</p> + +<p>I had learned on the Arickaree how men can face danger and defy death; I +had only begun to learn how they can endure hardship.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</a></span></p> + +<p>It was mid-November when our regiment, led by Colonel Crawford, crossed +the Arkansas River and struck out resolutely toward the southwest. Our +orders were to join Custer's command at Sheridan's camp in the Indian +Territory, possibly one hundred and fifty miles away. We must obey +orders. It is the military man's creed. That we lacked rations, forage, +clothing, and camp equipment must not deter us, albeit we had not +guides, correct maps, or any knowledge of the land we were invading.</p> + +<p>My first lesson in this campaign was the lesson of comradeship. My +father had put me on a horse and I had felt at home when I was so short +and fat my legs spread out on its back as if I were sitting on a floor. +I was accounted a fair rider in Springvale. I had loved at first sight +that beautiful sorrel creature whose bones were bleaching on the little +island in Colorado, whose flesh a gnawing hunger had forced me to eat. +But my real lessons in horsemanship began in Camp Crawford, with four +jolly fellows whom I came to know and love in a way I shall never know +or love other men—my comrades. Somebody struck home to the soldier +heart ever more when he wrote:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">There's many a bond in this world of ours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Ties of friendship, and wreaths of flowers,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And true-lover's knots, I ween;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The boy and girl are sealed with a kiss;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">But there's never a bond, old friend, like this,—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We have drunk from the same canteen.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>Such a bond is mine for these four comrades. Reed and Pete, Hadley and +John Mac were their camp names, and I always think of them together. +These four made a real cavalry man of me. It may be the mark of old age +upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</a></span> me now, for even to-day the handsome automobile and the great +railway engine can command my admiration and awe; but the splendid +thoroughbred, intelligent, and quivering with power, I can command and +love.</p> + +<p>The bond between the cavalry man and his mount is a strong one, and the +spirit of the war-horse is as varied and sensitive as that of his rider. +When our regiment had crossed the Arkansas River and was pushing its way +grimly into the heart of the silent stretches of desolation, our horses +grew nervous, and a restless homesickness possessed them. Troop A were +great riders, and we were quick to note this uneasiness.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with these critters, Phil?" Reed, who rode next to +me, asked as we settled into line one November morning.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Reed," I replied. "This one is a dead match for the horse +I rode with Forsyth. The man that killed him laughed and said, 'There +goes the last damned horse, anyhow.'"</p> + +<p>"Just so it ain't the first's all I'm caring for. You'll be in luck if +you have the last," the rider next to Reed declared.</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so, John?" I inquired.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's John Mac for you," Reed said laughing. "He's homesick."</p> + +<p>"No, it's the horses that's homesick," John Mac answered. "They've got +horse sense and that's what some of us ain't got. They know they'll +never get across the Arkansas River again."</p> + +<p>"Cheerful prospect," I declared. "That means we'll never get across +either, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," John answered grimly, "we'll get back all right. Don't know +as this lot'd be any special ornament to kingdom come, anyhow; but we'll +go through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</a></span> hell on the way comin' or goin'; now, mark me, Reed, and +stop your idiotic grinning."</p> + +<p>Whatever may have given this nervousness to the horses, so like a +presentiment of coming ill, they were all possessed with the same +spirit, and we remembered it afterwards when their bones were bleaching +on the high flat lands long leagues beyond the limits of civilization.</p> + +<p>The Plains had no welcoming smile for us. The November skies were +clouded over, and a steady rain soaked the land with all its +appurtenances, including a straggling command of a thousand men +floundering along day after day among the crooked canyons and gloomy +sandhills of the Cimarron country. In vain we tried to find a trail +that should lead us to Sheridan's headquarters at Camp Supply, on the +Canadian River. Then the blizzard had its turn with us. Suddenly, as is +the blizzard's habit, it came upon us, sheathing our rain-sodden +clothing in ice. Like a cloudburst of summer was this winter cloudburst +of snow, burying every trail and covering every landmark with a mocking +smoothness. Then the mercury fell, and a bitter wind swept the open +Plains.</p> + +<p>We had left Fort Beecher with five days' rations and three days' forage. +Seven days later we went into bivouac on a crooked little stream that +empties its salty waters into the Cimarron. It was a moonless, freezing +night. Fires were impossible, for there was no wood, and the buffalo +chips soaked with rain were frozen now and buried under the snow. A +furious wind threshed the earth; the mercury hovered about the zero +mark. Alkali and salt waters fill the streams of that land, and our food +supply was a memory two days old.</p> + +<p>How precious a horse can become, the Plains have taught us. The man on +foot out there is doomed. All<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</a></span> through this black night of perishing +cold we clung to our frightened, freezing, starving horses. We had put +our own blankets about them, and all night long we led them up and down. +The roar of the storm, the confusion from the darkness, the frenzy from +hunger drove them frantic. A stampede among them there would have meant +instant death to many of us, and untold suffering to the dismounted +remainder. How slowly the cold, bitter hours went by! I had thought the +burning heat of the Colorado September unendurable. I wondered in that +time of freezing torment if I should ever again call the heat a burden.</p> + +<p>There were five of us tramping together in one little circle that +night—Reed and John Mac, and Pete and Hadley, with myself. In all the +garrison I came to know these four men best. They were near my own age; +their happy-go-lucky spirit and their cheery laughter were food and +drink. They proved to me over and over how kind-hearted a soldier can +be, and how hard it is to conquer a man who wills himself unconquerable. +Without these four I think I should never have gotten through that +night.</p> + +<p>Morning broke on our wretched camp at last, and we took up the day's +march, battling with cold and hunger over every foot of ground. On the +tenth day after we crossed the Arkansas River the crisis came. Our army +clothes were waiting for us at Camp Supply. Rain and ice and the rough +usage of camp life had made us ragged already, and our shoes were worn +out. And still the cold and storm stayed with us. We wrapped pieces of +buffalo hide about our bare feet and bound the horses' nose-bags on them +in lieu of cavalry boots. Our blankets we had donated to our mounts, and +we had only dog tents, well adapted to ventilation, but a very mockery +at sheltering.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</a></span></p> + +<p>Our provisions were sometimes reduced to a few little cubes of sugar +doled out to each from the officers' stores. The buffalo, by which we +had augmented our food supply, were gone now to any shelter whither +instinct led them. It was rare that even a lone forsaken old bull of the +herd could be found in some more sheltered spot.</p> + +<p>At last with hungry men and frenzied horses, with all sense of direction +lost, with a deep covering of snow enshrouding the earth, and a +merciless cold cutting straight to the life centres, we went into camp +on the tenth night in a little ravine running into Sand Creek, another +Cimarron tributary, in the Indian Territory. We were unable to move any +farther. For ten days we had been on the firing line, with hunger and +cold for our unconquerable foes. We could have fought Indians even to +the death. But the demand on us was for endurance. It is a woman's +province to suffer and wait and bear. We were men, fighting men, but +ours was the struggle of resisting, not attacking, and the tenth night +found us vanquished. Somebody must come to our rescue now. We could not +save ourselves. In the dangerous dark and cold, to an unknown place, +over an unknown way, somebody must go for us, somebody must be the +sacrifice, or we must all perish. The man who went out from the camp on +Sand Creek that night was one of the two men I had seen rise up from the +sand-pits of the Arickaree Island and start out in the blackness and the +peril to carry our cry to Fort Wallace—Pliley, whose name our State +must sometime set large in her well-founded, well-written story.</p> + +<p>With fifty picked men and horses he went for our sakes, and more, aye, +more than he ever would claim for himself. He was carrying rescue to +homes yet to be, he was winning the frontier from peril, he was paying +the price<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</a></span> for the prairie kingdom whose throne and altar are the +hearthstone.</p> + +<p>"Camp Starvation," we christened our miserable, snow-besieged +stopping-place. We had fire but we were starving for food. Our horses +were like wild beasts in their ravenous hunger, tearing the clothing +from the men who came too carelessly near to their rope tethers.</p> + +<p>That splendid group of mounts that had pranced proudly down Kansas +Avenue less than a month before, moving on now nearly seven days without +food, dying of cruel starvation, made a feature of this tragical winter +campaign that still puts an ache into my soul. Long ago I lost most of +the sentiment out of my life, but I have never seen a hungry horse since +that Winter of '68 that I let go unfed if it lay within my power to +bring it food.</p> + +<p>The camp was well named. It was Hadley and Reed and Pete and John Mac, +that good-natured quartet, who stood sponsors for that title. We were a +pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour +given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a +sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, +as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few +little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the +bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we found was wasted. Even the +entrails cleansed in the snow and eaten raw gives hint of how hungry we +were.</p> + +<p>At last in our dire extremity it was decided to choose five hundred of +the strongest men and horses to start under the command of +Lieutenant-Colonel Horace L. Moore, without food or tents, through the +snow toward the Beulah Land of Camp Supply. Pliley had been gone for +three days. We had no means of knowing whether<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</a></span> his little company had +found Sheridan's Camp or were lost in the pathless snows of a +featureless land, and we could not hold out much longer.</p> + +<p>I was among the company of the fittest chosen to make this journey. I +was not yet twenty-two, built broad and firm, and with all the heritage +of the strength and endurance of the Baronet blood, I had a power of +resistance and recoil from conditions that was marvellous to the +veterans in our regiment.</p> + +<p>It was mid-forenoon of the fifth of November when the Nineteenth Kansas +moved out of Camp Crawford by the Shunganunga and marched proudly down +the main thoroughfare of Topeka at the auspicious beginning of its +campaign. Twenty days later, Lieutenant-Colonel Moore again headed a +marching column, this time, moving out of Camp Starvation on Sand +Creek—five hundred ragged, hungry men with famishing horses, bearing no +supplies, going, they could only guess whither, and unable even to +surmise how many days and nights the going would consume. It was well +for me that I had an ideal. I should have gone mad otherwise, for I was +never meant for the roving chance life of a Plains scout.</p> + +<p>When our division made its tentless bivouac with the sky for a covering +on the first night out beyond the Cimarron River from Camp Starvation, +the mercury was twenty degrees below zero. Even a heart that could pump +blood like mine could hardly keep the fires of the body from going out. +There was a full moon somewhere up in the cold, desolate heavens +lighting up a frozen desolate land. I shiver even now at the picture my +memory calls up. In the midst of that night's bitter chill came a dream +of home, of the warm waters of the Neosho on August afternoons, of the +sunny draw, and—Marjie. Her arms were about my neck, her curly head was +nestling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</a></span> against my shoulder, the little ringlets about her temples +touched my cheek. I lifted her face to kiss her, but a soft shadowy +darkness crept between us, and I seemed to be sinking into it deeper and +deeper. It grew so black I longed to give up and let it engulf me. It +was so easy a thing to do.</p> + +<p>Then in a blind stupidity I began to hear a voice in my ears, and to +find myself lunging back and forth and stumbling lamely on my left foot. +The right foot had no feeling, no power of motion, and I forgot that I +had it.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing, Pete?" I asked, when I recognized who it was that +was holding me.</p> + +<p>Pete was like an elder brother, always doing me a kind service.</p> + +<p>"Trying to keep you from freezing to death," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Oh, let me go. It's so easy," I answered back drowsily.</p> + +<p>"By golly, I've a notion to do it." Pete's laugh was a tonic in itself. +"Here you and your horse are both down, and you can't stand on one of +your feet. I'll bet it's froze, and you about to go over the River; and +when a fellow tries to pull you back you say, 'Oh, let me go!' You +darned renegade! you ought to go."</p> + +<p>He was doing his best for me all the time, and he had begun none too +soon, for Death had swooped down near me, and I was ready to give up the +struggle. The warmth of the horse's body had saved one foot, but as to +the other—the little limp I shall always have had its beginning in that +night's work.</p> + +<p>The next day was Thanksgiving, although we did not know it. There are no +holy days or gala days to men who are famishing. That day the command +had no food except the few hackberries we found and the bark of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</a></span> +trees we gnawed upon. It was the hardest day of all the march.</p> + +<p>Pete, who had pulled me back from the valley of the shadow the night +before, in his search for food that day, found a luckless little +wild-cat. And that cat without sauce or dressing became his Thanksgiving +turkey.</p> + +<p>The second night was bitterly cold, and then came a third day of +struggling through deep snows on hilly prairies, and across +canyon-guarded bridgeless streams. The milestones of our way were the +poor bodies of our troop horses that had given up the struggle, while +their riders pushed resolutely forward.</p> + +<p>On the fourth day out from Camp Starvation we came at sundown to the +edge of a low bluff, beyond which lay a fertile valley. If Paradise at +life's eventide shall look as good to me, it will be worth all the cares +of the journey to make an abundant entrance therein.</p> + +<p>Out of the bitter cold and dreary snow fields, trackless and treeless, +whereon we had wandered starving and uncertain, we looked down on a +broad wooded valley sheltering everything within it. Two converging +streams glistening in the evening light lay like great bands of silver +down this valley's length. Below us gleamed the white tents of +Sheridan's garrison, while high above them the Stars and Stripes in +silent dignity floated lightly in the gentle breeze of sunset.</p> + +<p>That night I slept under a snug tent on a soft bed of hay. And again I +dreamed as I had dreamed long ago of the two strange women whom I was +struggling to free from a great peril.</p> + +<p>General Sheridan had expected the Kansas regiment to make the journey +from Fort Beecher on the Arkansas to his station on the Canadian River +in four or five days. Our detachment of five hundred men had covered it +in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</a></span> fourteen days, but we had done it on five days' rations, and three +days' forage. Small wonder that our fine horses had fallen by the way. +It is only the human organism backed by a soul, that can suffer and +endure.</p> + +<p>Pliley and his fifty men who had left us the night we went into camp on +Sand Creek had reached Sheridan three days in advance of us, and already +relief was on its way to those whom we had left beyond the +snow-beleaguered canyons of the Cimarron. The whole of our regiment was +soon brought in and this part of the journey and its hardships became +but a memory. Official war reports account only for things done. No +record is kept of the cost of effort. The glory is all for the battle +lists of the killed or wounded, and yet I account it the one heroic +thing of my life that I was a Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry man through that +November of 1868 on the Plains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>IN JEAN'S LAND</h3> + +<blockquote><p>All these regiments made history and left records of unfading +glory.</p></blockquote> + + +<p>While the Kansas volunteers had been floundering in the snow-heaped +sand-dunes of the Cimarron country, General Sheridan's anxiety for our +safety grew to gravest fears. General Custer's feeling was that of +impatience mingled with anxiety. He knew the tribes were getting farther +away with every twenty-four hours' delay, and he shaped his forces for a +speedy movement southward. The young general's military genius was as +strong in minute detail as in general scope. His command was well +directed. Enlisted under him were a daring company of Osage scouts, led +by Hard Rope and Little Beaver, two of the best of this ever loyal +tribe. Forty sharpshooters under Colonel Cook, and a company of citizen +scouts recruited by their commanding officer, Pepoon, were added to the +regular soldiery of the Seventh Cavalry.</p> + +<p>These citizen scouts had been gathered from the Kansas river valleys. +They knew why they had come hither. Each man had his own tragic picture +of the Plains. They were a silent determined force which any enemy might +dread, for they had a purpose to accomplish—even the redemption of the +prairie from its awful peril.</p> + +<p>The November days had slipped by without our regi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</a></span>ment's appearance. The +finding of an Indian trail toward the southwest caused Sheridan to loose +Custer from further delay. Eagerly then he led forth his willing command +out of Camp Supply and down the trail toward the Washita Valley, +determined to begin at once on the winter's work.</p> + +<p>The blizzard that had swept across the land had caught the Indian tribes +on their way to the coverts of the Wichita Mountains, and forced them +into winter quarters. The villages of the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, and the +Arapahoe extended up and down the sheltering valley of the Washita for +many miles. Here were Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne braves—they +of the loving heart at Fort Hays, they who had filled all the fair +northern prairie lands with terror, whose hands reeked with the hot +blood of the white brothers they professed to love. In their snug tepees +were their squaws, fat and warm, well clothed and well fed. Dangling +from the lodge poles were scalps with the soft golden curls of babyhood. +No comfort of savage life was lacking to the papooses here. And yet, in +the same blizzards wherein we had struggled and starved, half a score of +little white children torn from their mothers' clinging arms, these +Indians had allowed to freeze to death out on the Plains, while the +tribes were hurrying through the storm to the valley. The fathers of +some of these lost children were in that silent company under Pepoon, +marching now with the Seventh Cavalry down upon the snow-draped tepees +of Black Kettle and his tribe.</p> + +<p>Oh, the cost of it all! The price paid out for a beautiful land and +sheltered homes, and school privileges and Sabbath blessings! It was for +these that men fought and starved and dared, and at last died, leaving +only a long-faded ripple in the prairie sod where an unmarked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</a></span> grave +holds human dust returned to the dust of the earth.</p> + +<p>In the shelter of the Washita Valley on that twenty-seventh day of +November, God's vengeance came to these Indians at the hands of General +Custer. He had approached their village undiscovered. As the Indians had +swooped down on Forsyth's sleeping force; as the yells of Black Kettle's +braves had startled the sleeping settlers at dawn on Spillman Creek, the +daybreak now marked the beginning of retribution. While the Seventh +Cavalry band played "Garry Owen" as a signal for closing in, Custer's +soldiery, having surrounded the village, fell upon it and utterly +destroyed it. Black Kettle and many of his braves were slain, the tepees +were burned, the Indians' ponies were slaughtered, and the squaws and +children made captives.</p> + +<p>News of this engagement reached Sheridan's garrison on the day after our +arrival, with the word also that Custer, unable to cope with the tribes +swarming down the Washita River, was returning to Camp Supply with his +spoils of battle.</p> + +<p>"Did you know, Phil," Bud Anderson said, "that Cuthter'th to have a +grand review before the General and hith thtaff when he geth here +to-morrow, and that'th all we'll thee of the thircuth. My! but I wish we +could have been in that fight; don't you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Bud, I'd hate to come down here for nothing, after all +we've gone through; but don't you worry about that; there'll be plenty +to be done before the whole Cheyenne gang is finished."</p> + +<p>"It'll be a sight worth seein' anyhow, this parade," O'mie declared. "Do +you remember the day Judge Baronet took his squad out av Springvale, +Phil? What a careless set av young idiots we were then?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</a></span></p> + +<p>Did I remember? Could I be the same boy that watched that line of +blue-coats file out of Springvale and across the rocky ford of the +Neosho that summer day? It seemed so long ago; and this snow-clad valley +seemed the earth's end from that warm sunny village. But Custer's review +was to come, and I should see it.</p> + +<p>It was years ago that this review was made, and I who write of it have +had many things crowded into the memory of each year. And yet, I recall +as if it were but yesterday that parade of a Plains military review. It +was a magnificent sunlit day. The Canadian Valley, smooth and white with +snow, rose gently toward the hills of the southwest. Across this slope +of gleaming whiteness came Custer's command, and we who watched it saw +one of those bits of dramatic display rare even among the stirring +incidents of war.</p> + +<p>Down across the swell, led by Hard Rope and Little Beaver, came the +Osage scouts tricked out in all the fantastic gear of Indian war +coloring, riding hard, as Indians ride, cutting circles in the snow, +firing shots into the air, and chanting their battle songs of victory. +Behind them came Pepoon's citizen scouts. Men with whom I had marched +and fought on the Arickaree were in that stern, silent company, and my +heart thumped hard as I watched them swinging down the line.</p> + +<p>And then that splendid cavalry band swept down the slope riding abreast, +their instruments glistening in the sunlight, and their horses stepping +proudly to the music as the strains of "Garry Owen to Glory" filled the +valley.</p> + +<p>Behind the band were the prisoners of war, the Cheyenne widows and +orphans of Black Kettle's village riding on their own ponies in an +irregular huddle, their bright blankets and Indian trinkets of dress +making a division in that parade, the mark of the untrained and +uncivilized.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</a></span> After these were the sharpshooters led by their commander, +Cook, and then—we had been holding our breath for this—then rode by +column after column in perfect order, dressed to the last point of +military discipline, that magnificent Seventh Cavalry, the flower of the +nation's soldiery, sent out to subdue the Plains. At their head was +their commander, a slender young man of twenty-nine summers, lacking +much the fine physique one pictures in a leader of soldiers. But his +face, from which a tangle of long yellow curls fell back, had in it the +mark of a master.</p> + +<p>This parade was not without its effect on us, to whom the ways of war +were new. Well has George Eliot declared "there have been no great +nations without processions." The unwritten influence of that thrilling +act of dramatic display somehow put a stir in the blood and loyalty and +patriotism took stronger hold on us.</p> + +<p>We had come out to break the red man's power by a winter invasion. Camp +Supply was abandoned, and the whole body made its way southward to Fort +Cobb. To me ours seemed a tremendous force. We were two thousand +soldiers, with commanders, camp officials, and servants. Our wagon train +had four hundred big Government wagons, each drawn by six mules. We +trailed across the Plains leaving a wide and well marked path where +twenty-five hundred cavalry horses, with as many mules, tramped the +snow.</p> + +<p>The December of the year 1868 was a terror on the Plains. No fiercer +blizzard ever blew out of the home of blizzards than the storms that +fell upon us on the southward march.</p> + +<p>Down in the Washita Valley we came to the scene of Custer's late +encounter. Beyond it was a string of recently abandoned villages +clustering down the river in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</a></span> the sheltering groves where had dwelt +Kiowa, Arapahoe, and Comanche, from whose return fire Custer saved +himself by his speedy retreat northward after his battle with Black +Kettle's band.</p> + +<p>A little company of us were detailed to investigate these deserted +quarters. The battle field had a few frozen bodies of Indians who had +been left by the tribe in their flight before the attack of the Seventh +Cavalry. There were also naked forms of white soldiers who had met death +here. In the villages farther on were heaps of belongings of every +description, showing how hasty the exodus had been. In one of these +villages I dragged the covering from a fallen snow-covered tepee. +Crouched down in its lowest place was the body of a man, dead, with a +knife wound in the back.</p> + +<p>"Poor coward! he tried hard to get away," Bud exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"Some bigger coward tried to make a shield out of him, I'll guess," I +replied, lifting the stiff form with more carefulness than sentiment. As +I turned the body about, I caught sight of the face, which even in death +was marked with craven terror. It was the face of the Rev. Mr. Dodd, +pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South. In his clenched dead +hands he still held a torn and twisted blanket. It was red, with a +circle of white in the centre.</p> + +<p>On the desolate wind-swept edge of a Kiowa village Bud and I came upon +the frozen body of a young white woman. Near her lay her two-year-old +baby boy. With her little one, she had been murdered to prevent her +rescue, on the morning of Custer's attack on the Cheyennes, murdered +with the music of the cavalry band sounding down the valley, and with +the shouts and shots of her own people, ringing a promise of life and +hope to her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</a></span></p> + +<p>Bud hadn't been with Forsyth, and he was not quite ready for this. He +stooped and stroked the woman's hair tenderly and then lifted a white +face up toward me. "It would have happened to Marjie, Phil, long ago, +but for O'mie. They were Kiowath, too," he said in a low voice.</p> + +<p>After that moment there was no more doubt for me. I knew why I had been +spared in Colorado, and I consecrated myself to the fighting duty of an +American citizen, "Through famine and fire and frost," I vowed to +myself, "I give my strength to this work, even unto death if God wills +it."</p> + +<p>Tenderly, for soldiers can be tender, the body of the mother and her +baby were wrapped in a blanket and placed in one of the wagons, to be +carried many miles and to wait many days before they were laid to rest +at last in the shadow of Fort Arbuckle.</p> + +<p>I saw much of O'mie. In the army as in Springvale, he was everybody's +friend. But the bitter winter did not alleviate that little hacking +cough of his. Instead of the mild vigor of the sunny Plains, that we had +looked for was the icy blast with its penetrating cold, as sudden in its +approach as it was terrible in its violence. Sometimes even now on +winter nights when the storms sweep across the west prairie and I hear +them hurl their wrathful strength against this stanch stone house with +its rounded turret-like corners, I remember how the wind blew over our +bivouacs, and how we burrowed like prairie dogs in the river bank, where +the battle with the storm had only one parallel in all this campaign. +That other battle comes later.</p> + +<p>But with all and all we could live and laugh, and I still bless the men, +Reed and Hadley and John Mac and Pete, whose storm cave was near mine. +Without the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</a></span> loud, cheery laugh from their nest I should have died. But +nobody said "die." Troop A had the courage of its convictions and a +breezy sense of the ludicrous. I think I could turn back at Heaven's +gate to wait for the men who went across the Plains together in that +year of Indian warfare.</p> + +<p>This is only one man's story. It is not an official report. The books of +history tell minutely how the scattered tribes submitted. Overwhelmed by +the capture of their chief men, on our march to Fort Cobb, induced +partly by threatened danger to these captive chiefs, but mostly by +bewilderment at the presence of such a large force in their country in +midwinter, after much stratagem and time-gaining delays they came at +last to the white commander's terms, and pitched their tepees just +beyond our camp. Only one tribe remained unsubdued: the Cheyennes, who +with trick and lie, had managed to elude all the forces and escape to +the southwest.</p> + +<p>We did not stay long at Fort Cobb. The first week of the new year found +us in a pleasanter place, on the present site of Fort Sill. It was not +until after the garrison was settled here that I saw much of these +Indian tribes, whom Custer's victory on the Washita, and diplomatic +handling of affairs afterwards, had brought into villages under the guns +of our cantonment.</p> + +<p>I knew that Satanta and Lone Wolf, chief men of the Kiowas, were held as +hostages, but I had not been near them. Satanta was the brute for whom +the dead woman with her little one had been captured. Her form was +mouldering back to earth in her grave at Fort Arbuckle, while he, well +clothed and well fed, was a gentleman prisoner of war in a comfortable +lodge in our midst.</p> + +<p>The East knew little of the Plains before the railroads crossed them. +Eastern religious papers and church mis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</a></span>sion secretaries lauded Satanta +as a hero, and Black Kettle, whom Custer had slain, as a martyr; while +they urged that the extreme penalty of the civil law be meted out to +Custer and Sheridan in particular, and to the rest of us at wholesale.</p> + +<p>One evening I was sent by an officer on some small errand to Satanta's +tent. The chief had just risen from his skin couch, and a long band of +black fur lay across his head. In the dim light it gave his receding +forehead a sort of square-cut effect. He threw it off as I entered, but +the impression it made I could not at once throw off. The face of the +chief was for the moment as suggestive of Jean Pahusca's face as ever +Father Le Claire's had been.</p> + +<p>"If Jean is a Kiowa," I said to myself, "then this scoundrel here must +be his mother's brother." I had only a few words with the man, but a +certain play of light on his cunning countenance kept Jean in my mind +continually.</p> + +<p>When I turned to go, the tent flap was pulled back for me from the +outside and I stepped forth and stood face to face with Jean Pahusca +himself, standing stolidly before me wrapped in a bright new red +blanket. We looked at each other steadily.</p> + +<p>"You are in my land now. This isn't Springvale." There was still that +French softness in his voice that made it musical, but the face was +cruel with a still relentless, deadly cruelty that I had never seen +before even in his worst moods.</p> + +<p>The Baronets are not cowardly by nature, but something in Jean always +made me even more fearless. To his taunting words, "This isn't +Springvale," I replied evenly, "No, but this is Phil Baronet still."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</a></span></p> + +<p>He gave me a swift searching look, and turning, disappeared in the +shadows beyond the tents.</p> + +<p>"I owe him a score for his Arickaree plans," I said to myself, "and his +scalp ought to come off to O'mie for his attempt to murder the boy in +the Hermit's Cave. Oh, it's a grim game this. I hope it will end here +soon."</p> + +<p>As I turned away I fell against Hard Rope, chief of the Osage scouts. I +had seen little of him before, but from this time on he shadowed my +pathway with a persistence I had occasion to remember when the soldier +life was forgotten.</p> + +<p>The beginning of the end was nearer than I had wished for. All about +Fort Sill the bluffy heights looked down on pleasant little valleys. +White oak timber and green grass made these little parks a delight to +the eye. The soldiers penetrated all the shelving cliffs about them in +search of game and time-killing leisure.</p> + +<p>The great lack of the soldier's day is seclusion. The mess life and tent +life and field life may develop comradeship, but it cannot develop +individuality. The loneliness of the soldier is in the barracks, not in +the brief time he may be by himself.</p> + +<p>Beyond a little brook Bud and I had by merest chance found a small cove +in the low cliff looking out on one of these valleys, a secluded nook +entered by a steep, short climb. We kept the place a secret and called +it our sanctuary. Here on the winter afternoons we sat in the warm +sunshine sheltered from the winds by the rocky shelf, and talked of home +and the past; and sometimes, but not often, of the future. On the day +after I saw Jean at the door of Satanta's tent, Bud stole my cap and +made off to our sanctuary. I had adorned it with turkey quills, and made +a fantastic head-gear out of it. Sol<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</a></span>diers do anything to kill time; and +jokes and pranks and child's play, stale and silly enough in civil life, +pass for fun in lieu of better things in camp.</p> + +<p>It was a warm afternoon in February, and the soldiers were scattered +about the valley hunting, killing rattlesnakes that the sunshine had +tempted out on the rocks before their cave hiding-places, or tramping up +and down about the river banks. Hearing my name called, I looked out, +only to see Bud disappearing and John Mac, who had mistaken him for me, +calling after him. John Mac, leading the other three, Hadley and Reed +and Pete, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one before him, +were marching in locked step across the open space.</p> + +<p>"The rascal's heading for the sanctuary," I said to myself. "I'll +follow and surprise him."</p> + +<p>I had nearly reached the foot of the low bluff when a pistol shot, clear +and sharp, sounded out; and I thought I heard a smothered cry in the +direction Bud had taken. "Somebody hunting turkey or killing snakes," +was my mental comment. Rifles and revolvers were popping here and there, +telling that the boys were out on a hunting bout or at target practice. +As I rounded a huge bowlder, beyond which the little climb to our cove +began, I saw Bud staggering toward me. At the same time half a dozen of +the boys, Pete and Reed and John Mac among them, came hurrying around +the angle of another projecting rock shelf.</p> + +<p>Bud's face was pallid, and his blue eyes were full of pathos. I leaped +toward him, and he fell into my arms. A hole in his coat above his heart +told the story,—a bullet and internal bleeding. I stretched him out on +the grassy bank and the soldiers gathered around him.</p> + +<p>"Somebody's made an awful mistake," John Mac said bitterly. "The boys +are hunting over on the other side<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</a></span> of the bluff. We heard them shooting +turkey, and then we heard one shot and a scream. The boys don't know +what they've done."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad they don't," I murmured.</p> + +<p>"We were back there; you can't get down in front," Reed said. They did +not know of our little nest on the front side of the bluff.</p> + +<p>"I'm all right, Phil," Bud said, and smiled up at me and reached for my +hand. "I'm glad you didn't come. I told O'mie latht night where to find +it." And then his mind wandered, and he began to talk of home.</p> + +<p>"Run for the surgeon, somebody," one of the boys urged; and John Mac was +off at the word.</p> + +<p>"It ain't no use," Pete declared, kneeling beside the wounded boy. "He's +got no need for a surgeon."</p> + +<p>And I knew he was right. I had seen the same thing before on reeking +sands under a blazing September sky.</p> + +<p>I took the boy's head in my lap and held his hand and stroked that shock +of yellow hair. He thought he was at Springvale and we were in the Deep +Hole below the Hermit's Cave. He gripped my hand tightly and begged me +not to let him go down. It did not last long. He soon looked up and +smiled.</p> + +<p>"I'm thafe," he lisped. "Your turn, now, Phil."</p> + +<p>The soldiers had fallen back and left us two together. John Mac and Reed +had hastened to the cantonment for help, but Pete knew best. It was +useless. Even now, after the lapse of nearly forty years, the sorrow of +that day lies heavy on me. "Accidental death" the official record was +made, and there was no need to change it, when we knew better.</p> + +<p>That evening O'mie and I sat together in the shadowy twilight. There was +just a hint of spring in the balmy air, and we breathed deeply, +realizing, as never before,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</a></span> how easy a thing it is to cut off the +breath of life. We talked of Bud in gentle tones, and then O'mie said: +"Lem me tell you somethin', Phil. I was over among the Arapahoes this +afternoon, an' I saw a man, just a glimpse was all; but you never see a +face so like Father Le Claire's in your life. It couldn't be nobody else +but that praist; and yet, it couldn't be him, nather."</p> + +<p>"Why, O'mie?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"It was an evil-soaked face. And yet it was fine-lookin'. It was just +like Father Le Claire turned bad."</p> + +<p>"Maybe it was Father Le Claire himself turned bad," I said. "I saw the +same man up on the Arickaree, voice and all. Men sometimes lead double +lives. I never thought that of him. But who is this shadow of Jean +Pahusca's—a priest in civilization, a renegade on the Plains? Not only +the face and voice of the man I saw, but his gait, the set of his +shoulders, all were Le Claire to a wrinkle."</p> + +<p>"Phil, it couldn't have been him in September. The praist was at +Springvale then, and he went out on Dever's stage white and sick, +hurrying to Kansas City. Oh, begorra, there's a few extry folks more 'n I +can use in this world, annyhow."</p> + +<p>We sat in silence a few minutes, the shadow of the bowlder concealing +us. I was just about to rise when two men came soft-footed out of the +darkness from beyond the cliff. Passing near us they made their way +along the little stream toward the river. They were talking in low tones +and we caught only a sentence or two.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to leave?" It was Jean Pahusca's voice.</p> + +<p>"Not till I get ready."</p> + +<p>The tone had that rich softness I heard so often when Father Le Claire +chatted with our gang of boys in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">[Pg 383]</a></span> Springvale, but there was an insolence +in it impossible to the priest. O'mie squeezed my hand in the dark and +rising quickly he followed them down the stream. The boy never did know +what fear meant. They were soon lost in the darkness and I waited for +O'mie's return. He came presently, running swiftly and careless of the +noise he made. Beyond, I heard the feet of a horse in a gallop, a sound +the bluff soon shut off.</p> + +<p>"Come, Phil, let's get into camp double quick for the love av all the +saints."</p> + +<p>Inside the cantonment we stopped for breath, and as soon as we could be +alone, O'mie explained.</p> + +<p>"Whoiver that man with Jean was, he's a 'was' now for good. Jean fixed +him."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, O'mie, what's he done?" I asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"They seemed to be quarrellin'. I heard Jean say, 'You can't get off too +quick; Satanta has got men hired to scalp you; now take my word.' An' +the Le Claire one laughed, oh, hateful as anything could be, and says, +'I'm not afraid of Satanta. He's a prisoner.' Bedad! but his voice is +like the praist's. They're too much alike to be two and too different +somehow to be one. But Phil, d'ye know that in the rumpus av Custer's +wid Black Kittle, Jean stole old Satanta's youngest wife and made off +wid her, and wid his customary cussedness let her freeze to death in +them awful storms. Now he's layin' the crime on this praist-renegade and +trying to git the Kiowas to scalp the holy villain. That's the row as I +made it out between 'em. They quarrelled wid each other quite fierce, +and the Imitation says, 'You are Satanta's tool yourself'; and Jean said +somethin' I couldn't hear. Then the Imitation struck at him. It was +dark, but I heard a groan and something like the big man went plunk into +the river. Then Jean made a dash by me, and he's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">[Pg 384]</a></span> on a horse now, and a +mile beyont the South Pole by this time. 'Tain't no pony, I bet you, but +a big cavalry horse he's stole. He put a knife into what went into the +river, so it won't come out. That Imitation isn't Le Claire, but nather +is he anybody else now. Phil, d'ye reckon this will iver be a dacent +civilized country? D'ye reckon these valleys will iver have orchards and +cornfields and church steeples and schoolhouses in 'em, and little +homes, wid children playin' round 'em not afraid av their lives?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," I answered, "but orchards and cornfields and church +steeples and schoolhouses and little homes with children unafraid, have +been creeping across America for a hundred years and more."</p> + +<p>"So they have; but oh, the cost av it all! The Government puts the land +at a dollar and a quarter an acre, wid your courage and fightin' +strength and quickest wits, and by and by your heart's blood and a grave +wid no top cover, like a fruit tart, sometimes, let alone a tomb-stone, +as the total cost av the prairie sod. It's a great story now, aven if +nobody should care to read it in a gineration or so."</p> + +<p>So O'mie philosophized and I sat listening, whittling the while a piece +of soft pine, the broken end of a cracker box.</p> + +<p>"Now, Phil, where did you get that knife?" O'mie asked suddenly.</p> + +<p>"That's the knife I found in the Hermit's Cave one May day nearly six +years ago, when I went down there after a lazy red-headed Irishman. I +found it to-day down in my Saratoga trunk. See the name?" I pointed to +the script lettering, spelling out slowly—"Jean Le Claire."</p> + +<p>"Well, give it to me. I got it away from the 'good<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[Pg 385]</a></span> Injun' first." O'mie +deftly wrenched it out of my hand. "Let me kape it, Phil. I've a sort +of fore-warnin' I may nade it soon."</p> + +<p>"Keep it if you want to, you grasping son of Erin," I replied +carelessly.</p> + +<p>We were talking idly now, to hide the heaviness of our sorrow as we +thought of Bud down under the clods, whose going had left us two so +lonely and homesick.</p> + +<p>Two days later when I found time to slip away to our sanctuary and be +alone for a little while, my eye fell upon my feather-decked hat, +crushed and shapeless as if it had been trampled on, lying just at the +corner where I came into the nook. I turned it listlessly in my hands +and stood wrapped in sorrowful thought. A low chuckle broke the spell, +and at the same moment a lariat whizzed through the air and encircled my +body. A jerk and I was thrown to the ground, my arms held to my sides. +Almost before I could begin to struggle the coils of the rope were +deftly bound about me and I was helpless as a mummy. Then Jean Pahusca, +deliberate, cruel, mocking, sat down beside me. The gray afternoon was +growing late, and the sun was showing through the thin clouds in the +west. Down below us was a beautiful little park with its grove of +white-oak trees, and beyond was the river. I could see it all as I lay +on the sloping shelf of stone—the sky, and the grove and the bit of +river with the Arapahoe and Kiowa tepees under the shadow of the fort, +and the flag floating lazily above the garrison's tents. It was a +peaceful scene, but near me was an enemy cutting me off from all this +serenity and safety. In his own time he spoke deliberately. He had sat +long preparing his thought.</p> + +<p>"Phil Baronet, you may know now you are at the end of your game. I have +waited long. An Indian learns to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[Pg 386]</a></span> wait. I have waited ever since the +night you put the pink flowers on her head—Star-face's. You are strong, +you are not afraid, you are quick and cunning, you are lucky. But you +are in my land now. You have no more strength, and your cunning and +courage and luck are useless. They don't know where you are. They don't +know about this place." He pointed toward the tents as he spoke. "When +they do find you, you won't do them any good." He laughed mockingly but +not unmusically. "They'll say, 'accidental death by hunters,' as they +said of Bud. Bah! I was fooled by his hat. I thought he was you. But he +deserved it, anyhow."</p> + +<p>So that was what had cut him off. Innocent Bud! wantonly slain, by one +the law might never reach. The thought hurt worse than the thongs that +bound me.</p> + +<p>"Before I finish with you I'll let you have more time to think, and here +is something to think about. It was given to me by a girl who loved you, +or thought she did. She found it in a hole in the rock where Star-face +had put it. Do you know the writing?"</p> + +<p>He held a letter before my eyes. In Marjie's well known hand I read the +inscription, "Philip Baronet, Rockport, Cliff Street."</p> + +<p>"It's a letter Star-face put in the place you two had for a long time. I +never could find it, but Lettie did. She gave it to me. There was +another letter deeper in, but this was the only one she could get out. +Her arm was too short. Star-face and Amos Judson were married Christmas +Day. You didn't know that."</p> + +<p>How cruelly slow he was, but it was useless to say a word. He had no +heart. No plea for mercy would move him to anything but fiendish joy +that he could call it forth. At last he opened the letter and read +aloud. He was a good reader. All his schooling had developed his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[Pg 387]</a></span> power +over the English language, but it gave him nothing else.</p> + +<p>Slowly he read, giving me time to think between the sentences. It was +the long loving letter Marjie wrote to me on the afternoon that Rachel +and I went to the old stone cabin together. It told me all the stories +she had heard, and it assured me that in spite of them all her faith in +me was unshaken.</p> + +<p>"I know you, Phil," she had written at the end, "and I know that you are +all my own."</p> + +<p>I understood everything now. Oh, if I must die, it was sweet to hear +those words. She had not gotten my letter. She had heard all the +misrepresentation, and she knew all the circumstances entangling +everything. What had become of my letter made no difference; it was +lost. But she loved me still. And I who should have read this letter out +on "Rockport" in the August sunset, I was listening to it now out on +this gray rock in a lonely land as I lay bound for the death awaiting +me. But the reading brought joy. Jean watching my face saw his mistake +and he cursed me in his anger.</p> + +<p>"You care so much for another man's wife? So! I can drive away your +happiness as easily as I brought it to you," he argued. "I go back to +Springvale. Nobody knows when I go. Bud's out of the way; O'mie won't be +there. Suddenly, silently, I steal upon Star-face when she least thinks +of me. I would have been good to her five years ago. I can get her away +long and long before anybody will know it. Tell Mapleson will help me +sure. Now I sell her, on time, to one buck. When I get ready I redeem +her, and sell her to another. You know that woman you and Bud found in +Satanta's tepee on the Washita? I killed her myself. The soldiers went +by five minutes afterwards,—she was that near getting<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[Pg 388]</a></span> away. That's +what Star-face will come to by and by. Satanta is my mother's brother. I +can surpass him. I know your English ways also. When you die a little +later, remember what Star-face is coming to. When I get ready I will +torture her to death. You couldn't escape me. No more can she. Remember +it!"</p> + +<p>The sun was low in the west now, and the pain of my bonds was hard to +bear, but this slow torture of mind made them welcome. They helped me +not to think. After a long silence Jean turned his face full toward me. +I had not spoken a word since his first quick binding of my limbs.</p> + +<p>"When the last pink is in the sky your time will come," he laughed. "And +nobody will know. I'll leave you where the hunter accidentally shot you. +Watch that sunset and think of home."</p> + +<p>He shoved me rudely about that I might see the western sky and the level +rays of the sun, as it sank lower and lower. I had faced death before. I +must do it sometime, once for all. But life was very dear to me. Home +and Marjie's love. Oh, the burden of the days had been more grievous +than I had dreamed, now that I understood. And all the time the sun was +sinking. Keeping well in the shadow that no eye from below might see +him, Jean walked toward the edge of the shelf.</p> + +<p>"It will be down in a minute more; look and see," he said, in that soft +tone that veiled a fiend's purpose. Then he turned away, and glancing +out over the valley he made a gesture of defiance at the cantonment. His +back was toward me. The red sun was on the horizon bar, half out of +sight.</p> + +<p>"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no +evil." The arm of the All Father was round about me then, and I put my +trust in Him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">[Pg 389]</a></span></p> + +<p>As Jean turned to face the west the glow of the sinking ball of fire +dazzled his eyes a moment. But that was long enough, for in that instant +a step fell on the rock beside me. A leap of lightning swiftness put a +form between my eyes and the dying day; the flash of a knife—Jean Le +Claire's short sharp knife—glittered here; my bonds were cut in a +twinkling; O'mie, red-headed Irish O'mie, lifted me to my feet, and I +was free.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">[Pg 390]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE CRY OF WOMANHOOD</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The women have no voice to speak, but none can check your pen—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Turn for a moment from your strife and plead their cause, O men!</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—KIPLING.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>After all, it was not Tillhurst, but Jim Conlow, who had a Topeka story +to tell when he went back to Springvale; and it was Lettie who edited +and published her brother's story. Lettie had taken on a new degree of +social importance with her elevation to a clerkship in Judson's store, +and she was quick to take advantage of it.</p> + +<p>Tillhurst, when he found his case, like my own, was hopeless with +Marjie, preferred that Rachel's name and mine should not be linked +together. Also a degree of intimacy had developed suddenly between Tell +Mapleson and the young teacher. The latter had nothing to add when +Lettie enlarged on Rachel's preference for me and my devotion to her +while the Nineteenth Kansas was mobilizing in Topeka.</p> + +<p>"And everybody knows," Lettie would declare, "that she's got the money, +and Phil will never marry a poor girl. No, sir! No Baronet's going to do +that."</p> + +<p>Although it was only Lettie who said it, yet the impression went about +and fixed itself somehow, that I had given myself over to a life of +luxury. I, who at this very time was starving of hunger and almost +perishing of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[Pg 391]</a></span> cold in a bleak wind-swept land. And to me for all this, +there were neither riches nor glory, nor love.</p> + +<p>Springvale was very gay that winter. Two young lawyers from Michigan, +fresh from the universities, set up a new firm over Judson's store where +my father's office had been before "we planted him in the courthouse, +where he belongs," as Cam Gentry used to declare. A real-estate and +money-loaning firm brought three more young men to our town, while half +a dozen families moved out to Kansas from Indiana and made a "Hoosiers' +Nest" in our midst. And then Fingal's Creek and Red Range and all the +fertile Neosho lands were being taken by settlers. The country +population augmented that of the town, nor was the social plane of +Springvale lowered by these farmers' sons and daughters, who also were +of the salt of the earth.</p> + +<p>"For an engaged girl, Marjory Whately's about the most popular I ever +see," Dollie Gentry said to Cam one evening, when the Cambridge House +was all aglow with light and full of gay company.</p> + +<p>Marjie, in a dainty white wool gown with a pink sash about her waist, +and pink ribbons in her hair, had just gone from the kitchen with three +or four admiring young fellows dancing attendance upon her.</p> + +<p>"How can anybody help lovin' her?" Dollie went on.</p> + +<p>Cam sighed, "O Lordy! A girl like her to marry that there pole cat! How +can the Good Bein' permit it?"</p> + +<p>"'Tain't between her and her Maker; it's all between Mrs. Whately and +Amos," Dollie asserted. "Now, Cam, has anybody ever heard her say she +was engaged? She goes with one and another. Cris Mead's wife says she +always has more company'n she can make use of any ways. It's like too +much canned fruit a'most. Mis' Mead loves Marjie, and she's so proud of +her. Marjie don't wear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[Pg 392]</a></span> no ring, neither, not a one, sence she took off +Phil Baronet's."</p> + +<p>Springvale had sharp eyes; and the best-hearted among us could tell just +how many rings any girl did or didn't wear.</p> + +<p>"Well, by hen!" Cam declared, "I'm just goin' to ask herself myself."</p> + +<p>"No, you ain't, Cam Gentry," Dollie said decisively.</p> + +<p>"Now, Dollie, don't you dictate to your lord and master no more. I won't +stand it." Cam squinted up at her from his chair in a ludicrous attempt +to frown. "Worst hen-pecked man in town, by golly."</p> + +<p>"I ain't goin' to dictate to no fool, Cam. If you want to be one, I +can't help it. I must go and set bread now." And Dollie pattered off +singing "Come Thou Fount," in a soft little old-fashioned tune.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Marjie, girl, I knowed you when you was in bib aperns, and I knowed +your father long ago. Best man ever went out to fight and never got +back. They's as good a one comin' back, though, some day," he added +softly, and smiled as the pink bloom on Marjie's cheeks deepened. +"Marjie, don't git mad at an old man like your Uncle Cam. I mean no +harm."</p> + +<p>It was the morning after the party. Marjie, who had been helping Mary +Gentry "straighten up," was resting now by the cosy fireplace, while +Dollie and Mary prepared lunch.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, Uncle Cam," the girl said, smiling. "I couldn't get mad at +you, because you never would do anything unkind."</p> + +<p>"Well, little sweetheart, honest now, and I won't tell, and it's none of +my doggoned business neither; but be you goin' to marry Amos Judson?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[Pg 393]</a></span></p> + +<p>There was no resentment in the girl's face when she heard his halting +question, but the pink color left it, and her white cheeks and big brown +eyes gave her a stateliness Cam had never seen in her before.</p> + +<p>"No, Uncle Cam. It makes no difference what comes to me, I could not +marry such a man. I never will."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Lord bless you, Marjie!" Cam closed his eyes a moment. "They's a +long happy road ahead of you. I can see it with my good inside eyes that +sees further'n these things I use to run the Cambridge House with. +'Tain't my business, I'm a gossipin' inquisitive old pokeyer-nose, but +I've always been so proud of you, little blossom. Yes, we're comin', +Dollie, if you've got a thing a dyspeptic can eat."</p> + +<p>He held the door for Marjie to pass before him to the dining-room. Cam +was not one of the too-familiar men. There was a gentleman's heart under +the old spotted velvet "weskit," as he called his vest, and with all his +bad grammar, a quaint dignity and purity of manner and speech to women.</p> + +<p>But for all this declaration of Marjie's, Judson was planning each day +for the great event with an assurance that was remarkable.</p> + +<p>"She'll be so tangled up in this, she'll have to come to terms. There +ain't no way out, if she wants to save old Whately's name from dishonor +and keep herself out of the hired-girl class," he said to Tell Mapleson. +"And besides, there's the durned Baronet tribe that all the Whatelys +have been so devoted to. That's it, just devoted to 'em. Now they'll +come in for a full share of disgrace, too."</p> + +<p>The little man had made a god of money so long he could not understand +how poverty and freedom may bring infinitely more of blessing than +wealth and bonds. So<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[Pg 394]</a></span> many years, too, he had won his way by trickery +and deception, he felt himself a man of Destiny in all he under-took. +But one thing he never could know—I wonder if men ever do know—a +woman's heart. He had not counted on having to reckon with Marjie, +having made sure of her mother. It was not in his character to +understand an abiding love.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 373px;"> +<img src="images/i394.jpg" width="373" height="550" alt="They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited" title="" /> +<span class="caption">They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited</span> +</div> + +<p>There was another type of woman whom he misjudged—that of Lettie +Conlow. In his dictatorial little spirit, he did not give a second +thought beyond the use he could make of her in his greedy swooping in of +money.</p> + +<p>"O'mie knows too much," Judson informed his friend. "He's better out of +this town. And Lettie, now, I can just do anything with Lettie. You +know, Mapleson, a widower's really more attractive to a girl than a +young man; and as for me, well, it's just in me, that's all. Lettie +likes me."</p> + +<p>Whatever Tell thought, he counselled care.</p> + +<p>"You can't be too careful, Judson. Girls are the unsafest cattle on this +green earth. My boy fancied Conlow's girl once. I sent him away. He's +married now, and doing well. Runs on a steamboat from St. Louis to New +Orleans. I'd go a little slow about gettin' a girl like Lettie in here."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I can manage any girl on earth. Old maids and young things'll come +flockin' round a man with money. Beats all."</p> + +<p>This much O'mie had overheard as the two talked together in tones none +too low, in Judson's little cage of an office, forgetting the clerk +arranging the goods for the night.</p> + + + +<p>When Judson had found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause +by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who +had meant only for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[Pg 395]</a></span> the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to +Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to +pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened +whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond +between them was stronger than ever.</p> + +<p>"She is such a loving, kind daughter, Amos," Mrs. Whately said to the +anxious suitor. "She fills the house with sunshine, and she is so strong +and self-reliant. When I spoke to her about our coming poverty, she only +laughed and held up her little hands, and said, 'They 're equal to it.' +The very day I spoke to her she began to do something. She found three +music pupils right away. She's been giving lessons all this Fall, and +has all she can give the time to. And when I hinted about her father's +name being disgraced, she kissed his picture and put it on the Bible and +said, 'He was true as truth. I won't disgrace myself by ever thinking +anything else.' And last of all, because she did so love Phil once" +(poor Mrs. Whately was the worst of strategists here), "when I tried to +put his case she said indifferently, 'If he did wrong, let him right it. +But he didn't.' Now, Amos, you must talk to her yourself. I don't know +what John Baronet advised her to do."</p> + +<p>Talking to Marjie was the thing Amos could not do, and the mention of +John Baronet was worse than the recollection of that callow stripling, +Phil. The widower stormed and scolded and threatened, until Mrs. Whately +turned to him at last and said quietly:</p> + +<p>"Amos, I think we will drop the matter now. Go home and think it over."</p> + +<p>He knew he had gone too far, and angry as he was, he had the prudence to +hold his tongue. But his purpose was undaunted. His temper was not +settled, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[Pg 396]</a></span>ever, when Mapleson called on him later in the day. Lettie +was busy marking down prices on a counter full of small articles and the +two men did not know how easily they could be overheard. Judson had no +reason to control himself with Tell, and his wrath exploded then and +there. Neither did Mapleson have need for temperance, and their angry +tones rose to a pitch they did not note at the time.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Amos," Lettie heard Tell saying, "you've got to get rid of +this Conlow girl, or you're done for. Phil's lost that Melrose case +entirely; and he's out where a certain Kiowa brave we know is creepin' +on his trail night and day. He'll never come back. If his disappearance +is ever checked up to Jean, I'll clear the Injun. You can't do a thing +to the Baronets. If this thing gets up to Judge John, you're done for. +I'll never stand by it a minute. You can't depend on me. Now, let her +go."</p> + +<p>"I tell you I'm going to marry Marjie, Lettie or no Lettie. Good Lord, +man! I 've got to, or be ruined. It's too late now. I can get rid of +this girl when I want to, but I'll keep her a while."</p> + +<p>Lettie dropped her pencil and crept nearer to the glass partition over +the top of which the angry words were coming to her ears. Her black eyes +dilated and her heart beat fast, as she listened to the two men in angry +wrangle.</p> + +<p>"He's going to marry Marjie. He'll be ruined if he doesn't. And he says +that after all he has promised me all this Fall and Winter! Oh!" She +wrung her hands in bitterness of soul. Judson had not counted on having +to reckon with Lettie, any more than with Marjie.</p> + +<p>That night at prayer meeting, a few more prominent people were quietly +let into the secret of the coming<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[Pg 397]</a></span> event, and the assurance with which +the matter was put left little room for doubt.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>John Baronet sat in his office looking out on the leafless trees of the +courthouse yard and down the street to where the Neosho was glittering +coldly. It was a gray day, and the sharp chill in the air gave hint of +coming rough weather.</p> + +<p>Down the street came Cris Mead on his way to the bank, silent Cris, +whose business sense and moral worth helped to make Springvale. He saw +my father at the window, and each waved the other a military salute. +Presently Father Le Claire, almost a stranger to Springvale now, came up +the street with Dr. Hemingway, but neither of them looked toward the +courthouse. Other folks went up and down unnoted, until Marjie passed by +with her music roll under her arm. Her dark blue coat and scarlet cap +made a rich bit of color on the gray street, and her fair face with the +bloom of health on her cheek, her springing step, and her quiet grace, +made her a picture good to see. John Baronet rose and stood at the +window watching her. She lifted her eyes and smiled a pleasant +good-morning greeting and went on her way. Some one entered the room, +and with the picture of Marjie still in his eyes, he turned to see +Lettie Conlow. She was flashily dressed, and a handsome new fur cape was +clasped about her shoulders. Self-possession, the lifetime habit of the +lawyer and judge, kept his countenance impassive. He bade her a +courteous good-morning and gave her a chair, but the story he had +already read in her face made him sick at heart. He knew the ways of the +world, of civil courts, of men, and of some women; so he waited to see +what turn affairs would take. His manner, however, had that habitual +dignified kindliness that bound<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[Pg 398]</a></span> people to him, and made them trust him +even when he was pitted with all his strength against their cause.</p> + +<p>Lettie had boasted much of what she could do. She had refused all of +O'mie's well-meant counsel, and she had been friends with envy and +hatred so long that they had become her masters.</p> + +<p>It must have been a strange combination of events that could take her +now to the man upon whom she would so willingly have brought sorrow and +disgrace. But a passionate, wilful nature such as hers knows little of +consistency or control.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet," Lettie began in a voice not like the bold belligerent +Lettie of other days, "I've come to you for help."</p> + +<p>He sat down opposite her, with his back to the window.</p> + +<p>"What can I do for you, Lettie?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," the girl answered confusedly. "I don't know—how much to +tell you."</p> + +<p>John Baronet looked steadily at her a moment. Then he drew a deep breath +of relief. He was a shrewd student of human nature, and he could +sometimes read the minds of men and women better than they read +themselves. "She has not come to accuse, but to get my help," was his +conclusion.</p> + +<p>"Tell me the truth, Lettie, and as much of it as I need to know," he +said kindly. "Otherwise, I cannot help you at all."</p> + +<p>Lettie sat silent a little while. A struggle was going on within her, +the strife of ill-will against submission and penitent humiliation. Some +men might not have been able to turn the struggle, but my father +understood. The girl looked up at length with a pleading glance. She had +helped to put misery in two lives dear to the man before her. She had +even tried to drag down to disgrace the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[Pg 399]</a></span> son on whom his being centred. +In no way could she interest him, for his ideals of life were all at +variance with hers. Small wonder, if distrust and an unforgiving spirit +should be his that day. But as this man of wide experience and large +ideals of right and justice looked at this poor erring girl, he put away +everything but the determination to help her.</p> + +<p>"Lettie," he said in that deep strong voice that carried a magnetic +power, "I know some things you do not want to tell. It is not what you +have done, but what you are to do that you must consider now."</p> + +<p>"That's just it, Mr. Baronet," Lettie cried. "I've done wrong, I know, +but so have other people. I can't help some things I've done to some +folks now. It's too late. And I hated 'em."</p> + +<p>The old sullen look was coming back, and her black brows were drawn in a +frown. My father was quick to note the change.</p> + +<p>"Never mind what can't be helped, Lettie," he said gravely. "A good many +things right themselves in spite of our misdoing. But let's keep now to +what you can do, to what I can do for you." His voice was full of a +stern kindness, the same voice that had made me walk the straight line +of truth and honor many a time in my boyhood.</p> + +<p>"You can summon Amos Judson here and make him do as he has promised to +do." Lettie cried, the hot tears filling her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Tell me his promise first," her counsel said. And Lettie told him her +story. As she went on from point to point, she threw reserve to the +winds, and gave word to many thoughts she had meant to keep from him. +When she had finished, John Baronet sat with his eyes on the floor a +little while.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_400" id="Page_400">[Pg 400]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Lettie, you want help, and you need it; and you deserve it on one +condition only," he said slowly.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" she asked eagerly.</p> + +<p>"That you also be just to others. That's fair, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," she agreed. Her soul was possessed with a selfish longing +for her own welfare, but she was before a just and honorable judge now, +in an atmosphere of right thinking.</p> + +<p>"You know my son Phil, have known him many years. Although he is my boy, +I cannot shield him if he does wrong. Sin carries its own penalty sooner +or later. Tell me the truth now, as you must answer for yourself +sometime before the almighty and ever-living God, has Philip Baronet +ever wronged you?"</p> + +<p>How deep and solemn his tones were. They drove the frivolous trifling +spirit out of Lettie, and a sense of awe and fear of lying suddenly +possessed her. She dropped her eyes. The old trickery and evil plotting +were of no avail here. She durst do nothing but tell the truth.</p> + +<p>"He never did mistreat me," she murmured, hardly above a whisper.</p> + +<p>"He took you home from the Andersons' party the night Dave Mead was at +Red Range?" queried my father.</p> + +<p>Lettie nodded.</p> + +<p>"Of his own choice?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. "Amos asked him to," she said.</p> + +<p>"And you told him good-bye at your own door?"</p> + +<p>Another nod.</p> + +<p>"Did you see him again that night?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." Lettie's cheeks were scarlet.</p> + +<p>"Who took you home the second time?"</p> + +<p>A confusion of face, and then Lettie put her head on the table before +her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_401" id="Page_401">[Pg 401]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Tell me, Lettie. It will open the way for me to help you. Don't spare +anybody except yourself. You need not be too hard on yourself. Those who +should befriend you can lay all the blame you can bear on your +shoulders." He smiled kindly on her.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet, I was a bad girl. It was Amos promising me jewelry and +ribbons if I'd do what he wanted, making me think he would marry me if +he could. I hated a girl because—" She stopped, and her cheeks flamed +deeply.</p> + +<p>"Never mind about the girl. Tell me where you were, and with whom."</p> + +<p>"I was out on the West Prairie, just a little way, not very far. I was +coming home."</p> + +<p>"With Phil?" My father did not comment on the imprudence of a girl out +on the West Prairie at this improper hour.</p> + +<p>"No, no. I—I came home with Bud Anderson." Then, seeing only the kind +strong pitying face of the man before her, she told him all he wanted to +know. Would have told him more, but he gently prevented her, sparing her +all he could. When she had finished, he spoke, and his tones were full +of feeling.</p> + +<p>"In no way, then, has Philip ever done you any wrong? Have you ever +known him to deceive anybody? Has he been a young man of double dealing, +coarse and rude with some company and refined with others? A father +cannot know all that his children do. James Conlow has little notion of +what you have told me of yourself. Now don't spare my boy if you know +anything."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Judge Baronet, Phil never did a thing but be a gentleman all his +life. It made me mad to see how everybody liked him, and yet I don't +know how they could help it." The tears were streaming down her cheeks +now.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_402" id="Page_402">[Pg 402]</a></span></p> + +<p>And then the thought of her own troubles swept other things away, and +she would again have begged my father to befriend her, but his kind face +gave her comfort.</p> + +<p>"Lettie, go back to the store now. I'll send a note to Judson and call +him here. If I need you, I will let you know. If I can do it, I will +help you. I think I can. But most of all, you must help yourself. When +you are free of this tangle, you must keep your heart with all +diligence. Good-bye, and take care, take care of every step. Be a good +woman, Lettie, and the mistakes and wrong-doing of your girlhood will be +forgotten."</p> + +<p>As Lettie went slowly down the walk, to the street, my father looked +steadily after her. "Wronged, deceived, neglected, undisciplined," he +murmured. "If I set her on her feet, she may only drop again. She's a +Conlow, but I'll do my best. I can't do otherwise. Thank God for a son +free from her net."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_403" id="Page_403">[Pg 403]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>JUDSON SUMMONED</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Though the mills of the gods grind slowly,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yet they grind exceeding small.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a +lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking +his immediate presence in the Judge's office.</p> + +<p>The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the +wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience, +leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The +little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside +the door of the private office. "You sent for me, I see."</p> + +<p>My father returned his greeting and pointed to a chair. "Yes, I sent for +you. I told you I would when I wanted to see you," he said, sitting down +across the table from the sleek little man.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes, I remember, so you did. That's it, you did. I've not been +back since, knowing you'd send for me; and then, I'm a business man and +can't be loafing. But now this means business. That's it, business; when +a man like Baronet calls for a man like me, it means some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_404" id="Page_404">[Pg 404]</a></span>thing. After +all, I'm right glad that the widow did speak to you. I was a little hard +on her, maybe. But, confound it, a mother-in-law's like a wife, only +worse. Your wife's got to obey, anyhow. The preacher settles that, but +you must up and make your mother-in-law obey. Now ain't that right? You +waited a good while; but I says, 'Let him think. Give him time.' That's +it, 'give him time.' But to tell the truth I was getting a little +nervous, because matters must be fixed up right away. I don't like to +boast, but I've got the whip hand right now. Funny how a man gets to the +top in a town like this." Oh, the poor little knave! Whom the gods +destroy they first make silly, at least.</p> + +<p>"And by the way, did you settle it with the widow, too? I hope you did. +You'd be proud of me for a son, now Phil's clear out of it. And you and +Mrs. Whately'd make the second handsomest couple in this town." He +giggled at his own joke. "But say now, Baronet, it's took you an awful +time to make up your mind. What's been the matter?" His familiarity and +impudence were insufferable in themselves.</p> + +<p>"I hadn't all the evidence I needed," my father answered calmly.</p> + +<p>In spite of his gay spirits and lack of penetration that word "evidence" +grated on Judson a little.</p> + +<p>"Don't call it 'evidence'; sounds too legal, and nobody understands the +law, not even the lawyers." He giggled again. "Let's get to business." A +harsher tone in spite of himself was in his voice.</p> + +<p>"We will begin at once," my father declared. "When you were here last +Summer I was not ready to deal with you. The time has come for us to +have an understanding. Do you prefer any witness or counsel, or shall we +settle this alone?"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_405" id="Page_405">[Pg 405]</a></span></p> + +<p>Judson looked up nervously into my father's face, but he read nothing +there.</p> + +<p>"I—well, I don't know quite what you mean. No, I don't want no +witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man +to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know +law books. This is our own business and nobody else's. I'd knock my best +friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, +man alive! this is sacred. That's it—an affair of the heart. Now be +careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control was +slipping.</p> + +<p>"Amos Judson, I've listened patiently to your words. Patiently, too, I +have watched your line of action, for three years. Ever since I came +home from the war I have followed your business methods carefully."</p> + +<p>The little man before him was turning yellow in spite of his +self-assurance and reliance on his twin gods, money and deception, to +carry him through any vicissitude. He made one more effort to bring the +matter to his own view.</p> + +<p>"Now, don't be so serious, Baronet. This is a little love affair of +mine. If you're interested, all right; if not, let it go. That's it, let +it go, and I'm through with you." He rose to his feet.</p> + +<p>"But I'm not through with you. Sit down. I sent for you because I +wanted to see you. I am not through with this interview. Whether it's to +be the last or not will depend on conditions."</p> + +<p>Judson was very uncomfortable and blindly angry, but he sat as directed.</p> + +<p>"When I came home, I found you in possession of all the funds left by my +friend, Irving Whately, to his wife and child. A friend's interest led +me to investigate the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_406" id="Page_406">[Pg 406]</a></span> business fallen to you. Irving begged me, when +his mortal hours were few, to befriend his loved ones. It didn't take +long to discover how matters were shaping themselves. But understanding +and belief are one thing, and legal evidence is another."</p> + +<p>"What was it your business?" Judson stormed. My father rose and, going +to his cabinet, he took from an inner drawer a folded yellow bit of +paper torn from a note book. Through the centre of it was a ragged +little hole, the kind a bullet might have cut.</p> + +<p>"This," he said, "was in Whately's notebook. We found it in his pocket. +The bullet that killed him went through it, and was deadened a trifle by +it, sparing his life a little longer. These words he had written in camp +the night before that battle at Missionary Ridge:</p> + +<p>"'If I am killed in battle I want John Baronet to take care of my wife +and child.' It was witnessed by Cris Mead and Howard Morton. Morton's in +the hospital in the East now, but Cris is down in the bank. Both of +their signatures are here."</p> + +<p>Judson sat still and sullen.</p> + +<p>"This is why it was my business to find out, at least, if all was well +with Mrs. Whately and her daughter. It wasn't well, and I set about +making it well. I had no further personal interest than this then. +Later, when my son became interested in the Whately family, I dropped +the matter—first, because I could not go on without giving a wrong +impression of my motives; and secondly, because I knew my boy could make +up to Marjie the loss of their money."</p> + +<p>"Phil hasn't any property," the widower broke in, the ruling passion +still controlling him.</p> + +<p>"None of Whately's property, no," my father replied; "but he has a +wage-earning capacity which is better than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_407" id="Page_407">[Pg 407]</a></span> all the ill-begotten +property anybody may fraudulently gather together. Anyhow, I reasoned +that if my boy and Whately's girl cared for each other, I would not be +connected with any of their property matters. I have, however, secured a +widow's pension and some back-pay for Mrs. Whately, and not a minute too +soon." He smiled a little. "Oh, yes, Tell Mapleson went East on the same +train I did in October. I just managed to outwit him in time, and all +his affidavits and other documents were useless. He would have cut off +that bit of assistance from a soldier's widow to help your cause. It +would have added much value to your stock if Irving Whately's name +should have been so dishonored at Washington that his wife should +receive no pension for his service and his last great sacrifice. But so +long as Phil and Marjie were betrothed, I let your business alone."</p> + +<p>Judson could not suppress a grin of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Now that there is no bond other than friendship between the two +families, and especially since Marjie has begged me to take hold of it, +I have probed this business of yours to the bottom. Don't make any +mistake," he added, as Judson took on a sly look of disbelief. "You will +be safer to accept that fact now. Drop the notion that your tracks are +covered. I've waited for some time, so that one sitting would answer."</p> + +<p>There was a halting between cowardly cringing and defiance, overlaid all +with a perfect insanity of anger; for Judson had lost all self-control.</p> + +<p>"You don't know one thing about my business, and you can't prove a word +you say, you infernal, lying, old busybody, not one thing," he fairly +hissed in his rage.</p> + +<p>John Baronet rose to his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping +his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the +little man trembled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_408" id="Page_408">[Pg 408]</a></span> No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the +supremacy of that graceful motion and that penetrating look.</p> + +<p>"It takes cannon for the soldier, the rope for the assassin, the fist +for the rowdy; but, by Heaven! it's a ludicrous thing to squander +gunpowder when insect powder will accomplish the same results. I told +you, I had waited until I had the evidence," he said. "Now you are going +to listen while I speak."</p> + +<p>It isn't the fighter, but the man with the fighting strength, who wins +the last battle. Judson cowered down in his chair and dropped his eyes, +while my father seated himself and went on.</p> + +<p>"Before Irving Whately went to the war he had me draw up a will. You +witnessed it. It listed his property—the merchandise, the real estate, +the bank stock, the cash deposits, and the personal effects. One half of +this was to become Marjie's at the age of twenty (Marjie was twenty on +Christmas Day), and the whole of it in the event of her mother's death. +He did not contemplate his wife's second marriage, you see. That will, +with other valuable papers, was put into the vault here in the +courthouse for safe keeping, and you carried the key. While most of the +loyal, able-bodied men were fighting for their country's safety, you +were steadily drawing on the bank account in the pretence of using it +for the store. Nobody can find from your bookkeeping how matters were in +that business during those years.</p> + +<p>"On the night Springvale was to be burned, you raided the courthouse, +taking these and other papers away, because you thought the courthouse +was to be burned that night. Mapleson got mixed up in his instructions, +you remember, and Dodd nearly lost his good name in his effort to get +these same papers out of the courthouse to burn them. You and Tell +didn't 'tote fair' with him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_409" id="Page_409">[Pg 409]</a></span> and he thought you were here in town. You +wouldn't have treated the parson well, had your infamous scheme +succeeded. But you were not in town. You left your sick baby and +faithful wife to carry that will and that property-list out to the old +stone cabin, where you hid them. You meant to go back and destroy them +after you had examined them more carefully. But you never could find +them again. They were taken from your hiding-place and put in another +place. You thought you were alone out there; also you thought you had +outwitted Dodd. You could manage the Methodist Church South, but you +failed to reckon with the Roman Catholics. While you were searching the +draw to get back across the flood, Father Le Claire, wet from having +swum the Neosho up above there, stopped to rest in the gray of the +morning. You didn't see him, but he saw you."</p> + +<p>My father paused and, turning his back on the cowardly form in the +chair, walked to the window. Presently he sat down again.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Whately was crushed with grief over her husband's death; she was +trustful and utterly ignorant in business matters; and in these +circumstances you secured her signature to a deed for the delivery of +all her bank stock to you. She had no idea what all that paper meant. +She only wanted to be alone with her overwhelming sorrow. I need not go +through that whole story of how steadily, by fraud, and misuse, and +downright lie, you have eaten away her property, getting everything into +your own name, until now you would turn the torture screw and force a +marriage to secure the remnant of the Whately estate, you greedy, +grasping villain!</p> + +<p>"But defrauding Irving Whately's heirs and getting possession of that +store isn't the full limit of your 'business.' You and Tell Mapleson, +after cutting Dodd and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_410" id="Page_410">[Pg 410]</a></span> Conlow out of the game, using Conlow only as a +cat's paw, you two have been conducting a systematic commerce on +commission with one Jean Pahusca, highway robber and cut-throat, who +brings in money and small articles of value stolen in Topeka and Kansas +City and even St. Louis, with the plunder that could be gathered along +the way, all stored in the old stone cabin loft and slipped in here +after dark by as soft-footed a scoundrel as ever wore a moccasin. You +and Tell divide the plunder and promise Jean help to do his foes to +death—fostering his savage blood-thirsty spirit."</p> + +<p>"You can't prove that. Jean's word's no good in law; and you never found +it out through Le Claire. He's Jean's father; Dodd says so." Judson was +choking with rage.</p> + +<p>"The priest can answer that charge for himself," my father said calmly. +"No, it was your head clerk, Thomas O'Meara, who took a ten days' +vacation and stayed at night up in the old stone cabin for his health. +You know he has weak lungs. He found out many things, even Jean's fear +of ghosts. That's the Indian in Jean. The redskin doesn't live that +isn't afraid of a ghost, and O'mie makes a good one. This traffic has +netted you and Mapleson shamefully large amounts.</p> + +<p>"Where's my evidence?" he asked, as Judson was about to speak. "Ever +since O'mie went into the store, your books have been kept, and +incidentally your patronage has increased. That Irishman is shrewd and +to the last penny accurate. All your goods delivered by Dever's stage, +or other freight, with receipts for the same are recorded. All the goods +brought in through Jean's agency have been carefully tabulated. This +record, sworn to before old Joseph Mead, Cris's father, as notary, and +wit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_411" id="Page_411">[Pg 411]</a></span>nessed by Cam Gentry, Cris Mead, and Dr. Hemingway, lies sealed and +safe in the bank vault.</p> + +<p>"One piece of your trickery has a double bearing; here, and in another +line. Your books show that gold rings, a watch chain, sundry articles of +a woman's finery charged to Marjory Whately, taken from her mother's +income, were given as presents to another girl. Among them are a +handsome fur collar which Lettie Conlow had on this very morning, and +some beautiful purple ribbon, a large bow of which fastened with a +valuable pin set with brilliants I have here."</p> + +<p>He opened a drawer of his desk and lifted out the big bow of purple +ribbon which Lettie lost on the day Marjie and I went out to the haunted +cabin. "In your stupid self-conceit you refused to grant a measure of +good common sense and powers of observation to those about you. I have +seen your kind before; but not often, thank God!"</p> + +<p>My father paused, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. Judson +evidently fancied his case closed and he was beginning to hunt for a way +out, when his accuser spoke again.</p> + +<p>"Your business transactions, however, rank as they are, cannot equal +your graver deeds. Human nature is selfish, and a love of money has +filled many a man's soul with moth and rust. You are not the only man +who, to get a fortune, turned the trick so often that when an +opportunity came to steal, he was ready and eager for the chance. Some +men never get caught, or being known, are never brought to the bar of +account; but you have been found out as a thief and worse than a thief; +you have tried to destroy a good man's reputation. With words that were +false, absolutely false, you persuaded a defenceless woman that her +noble husband—wearing now the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_412" id="Page_412">[Pg 412]</a></span> martyr's crown of victory—you persuaded +her, I say, that this man had done the things you yourself have done in +his name—that he was a business failure, a trickster, and an embezzler. +With Tell Mapleson and James Conlow and some of that Confederate gang +from Fingal's Creek, swearing to false affidavits, you made Mrs. Whately +believe that his name was about to be dishonored for wrongs done in his +business and for fraudulent dealing which you, after three years of +careful sheltering, would no longer hide unless she gave her daughter to +you in marriage. For these days of wearing grief to Mrs. Whately you can +never atone. You and Tell, as I said a while ago, almost succeeded in +your scheme at Washington. To my view this is infinitely worse than +taking Irving Whately's property.</p> + +<p>"All this has been impersonal to me, except as the wrongs and sorrows of +a friend can hurt. But I come now to my own personal interest. And where +that is concerned a man may always express himself."</p> + +<p>Judson broke out at this point unable to restrain himself further.</p> + +<p>"Baronet, you needn't mind. You and me have nothing in the world in +common."</p> + +<p>My father held back a smile of assent to this.</p> + +<p>"All I ever did was to suggest a good way for you to help Mrs. Whately, +best way in the world you could help her if you really feel so bad about +her. But you wouldn't do it. I just urged it as good for all parties. +That's it, just good for all of us; and it would have been, but I didn't +command you to it, just opened the way to help you."</p> + +<p>My father did not repress the smile this time, for the thought of Judson +commanding him was too much to bear unsmilingly. The humor faded in a +moment, how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_413" id="Page_413">[Pg 413]</a></span>ever, and the stern man of justice went on with his charge.</p> + +<p>"You tried to bring dishonor upon my son by plans that almost won, did +win with some people. You adroitly set on foot a tale of disgraceful +action, and so well was your work done that only Providence prevented +the fulfilling of your plans."</p> + +<p>"He is a fast young man; I have the evidence," Judson cried defiantly. +"He's been followed and watched by them that know. I guess if you take +Jean Pahusca's word about the goods you'll have to about the doings of +Phil Baronet."</p> + +<p>"No doubt about Phil being followed and watched, but as to taking Jean +Pahusca's word, I wouldn't take it on oath about anything, not a whit +more than I would take yours. When a man stands up in my court and +swears to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he +must first understand what truth is before his oath is of any effect. +Neither Jean nor you have that understanding. Let me tell you a story: +You asked Phil to escort Lettie Conlow home one night in August. About +one o'clock in the morning Phil went from his home down to the edge of +the cliff where the bushes grow thick. What took him there is his own +business. It is all written in a letter that I can get possession of at +any time that I need it, Lettie was there. Why, I do not know. She asked +him to go home with her, but he refused to do so."</p> + +<p>Judson would have spoken but my father would not permit it here.</p> + +<p>"She started out to that cabin at that hour of the night to meet you, +started with Jean Pahusca, as you had commanded her to do, and you know +he is a dangerous, villainous brute. He had some stolen goods at the +cabin,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_414" id="Page_414">[Pg 414]</a></span> and you wanted Lettie to see them, you said. If she could not +entrap Phil that night, Jean must bring her out to this lonely haunted +house. You led the prayer meeting that week for Dr. Hemingway. Amos +Judson, so long as such men as you live, there is still need for +guardian angels. One came to this poor wilful erring girl that night in +the person of Bud Anderson, who not only made her tell where she was +going, but persuaded her to turn back, and he saw her safe within her +own home."</p> + +<p>"It's Phil that's deceived her and been her downfall. I can prove it by +Lettie herself. She's a very warm friend and admirer of mine."</p> + +<p>"She told me in this room not two hours ago that Phil had never done her +wrong. It was she who asked to have you summoned here this morning, +although I was ready for you anyhow."</p> + +<p>The end of Judson's rope was in sight now. He collapsed in his chair +into a little heap of whining fear and self-abasement.</p> + +<p>"Your worst crime, Judson, is against this girl. You have used her for +your tool, your accomplice, and your villainously base purposes. You +bribed her, with gifts she coveted, to do your bidding. You lived a +double life, filling her ears with promises you meant only to break. +Even your pretended engagement to Marjie you kept from her, and when she +found it out, you declared it was false. And more, when with her own +ears she heard you assert it as a fact, you sought to pacify her with +promises of pleasures bought with sin. You are a property thief, a +receiver of stolen goods, a defamer of character. Your hand was on the +torch to burn this town. You juggled with the official records in the +courthouse. You would basely deceive and marry a girl whose consent +could be given only to save her father's memory from stain, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_415" id="Page_415">[Pg 415]</a></span> her +mother from a broken heart. And greatest and blackest of all, you would +utterly destroy the life and degrade the soul of one whose erring feet +we owe it to ourselves to lead back to straight paths. On these charges +I have summoned you to this account. Every charge I have evidence to +prove beyond any shadow of question. I could call you before the civil +courts at once. That I have not done it has not been for my son's sake, +nor for Marjie's, nor her mother's, but for the sake of the one I have +no personal cause to protect, the worst one connected with this business +outside of yourself and that scoundrel Mapleson—for the sake of a +woman. It is a man's business to shield her, not to drag her down to +perdition. I said I would send for you when it was time for you to come +again, when I was ready for you. I have sent for you. Now you must +answer me."</p> + +<p>Judson, sitting in a crumpled-up heap in the big armchair in John +Baronet's private office, tried vainly for a time to collect his forces. +At last he turned to the one resource we all seek in our misdoing: he +tried to justify himself by blaming others.</p> + +<p>"Judge Baronet," his high thin voice always turned to a whine when he +lowered it. "Judge Baronet, I don't see why I'm the only one you call to +account. There's Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow and the Rev. Dodd and a +lot more done and planned to do what I'd never 'a dreamed of. Now, why +do I have to bear all of it?"</p> + +<p>"You have only your part to bear, no more; and as to Tell Mapleson, his +time is coming."</p> + +<p>"I think I might have some help. You know all the law, and I don't know +any law." My father did not smile at the evident truth of the last +clause.</p> + +<p>"You can have all the law, evidence, and witnesses you choose. You may +carry your case up to the highest court.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_416" id="Page_416">[Pg 416]</a></span> Law is my business; but I'll +be fair and say to you that a man's case is sometimes safer settled out +of court, if mercy is to play any part. I've no cause to shield you, but +I'm willing you should know this."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to go to court. Tell's told me over and over I'd never +have a ghost of a show"—he was talking blindly now—"I want somebody to +shake you loose from me. That's it, I want to get rid of you."</p> + +<p>"How much time will it require to get your counsel and come here again?"</p> + +<p>If a man sells his soul for wealth, the hardest trial of his life comes +when he first gets face to face with the need of what money cannot buy; +that is, loyalty. Such a trial came to Judson at this moment. Mapleson +had warned him about Baronet, but in his puny egotistic narrowness he +thought himself the equal of the best. Now he knew that neither Mapleson +nor any other of the crew with whom he had been a law-breaker would +befriend him.</p> + +<p>"They ain't one of 'em 'll stand by a fellow when he's down, not a one," +the little man declared.</p> + +<p>"No, they never do; remember that," John Baronet replied.</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it you want?" he whined.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do? Settle this in court or out of it?"</p> + +<p>"Out of it, out of it," Judson fairly shrieked. "I'd be put out of the +Presbyterian Church if this gets into the courts. I've got a bank +account I'm not ashamed of. How much is it going to take to settle it? +What's the least will satisfy you?"</p> + +<p>"Settle it? Satisfy me? Great heavens! Can a career like this be atoned +for with a bank check and interest at eight per cent?" My father's +disgust knew no bounds.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_417" id="Page_417">[Pg 417]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You are going to turn over to the account of Marjory Whately an amount +equal to one-half the value of Whately's estate at the time of his +death, with a legal rate of interest, which according to his will she +was to receive at the age of twenty. The will," my father went on, as he +read a certain look in Judson's face, "is safe in the vault of the +courthouse, and there are no keys available to the box that holds it. +Also, you are going to pay in money the value of all the articles +charged to Marjory Whately's account and given to other people, mostly +young ladies, and especially to Lettie Conlow. Your irregular business +methods in the management of that store since O'mie began to keep your +records you are going to make straight and honest by giving all that is +overdue to your senior partner, Mrs. Irving Whately. Furthermore, you +are going to give an account for the bank stock fraudulently secured in +the days of Mrs. Whately's deep sorrow. This much for your property +transactions. You can give it at once or stand suit for embezzlement. I +have the amounts all listed here. I know your bank account and property +possession. Will you sign the papers now?"</p> + +<p>"But—but," Judson began. "I can't. It'll take more than half, yes, all +but two-thirds, I've got to my name. I can't do it. I'll have to hire to +somebody if I do."</p> + +<p>"You miserable cur, the pity is you can't make up all that you owe but +that cannot be proved by any available record. Only one thing keeps me +back from demanding a full return for all your years of thieving +stewardship."</p> + +<p>"Isn't that all?" Judson asked.</p> + +<p>"Not yet. You cannot make returns for some things. If it were all a +money proposition it would be simple. The other thing you are going to +do, now mark me, I've left you the third of your gains for it. You are +going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_418" id="Page_418">[Pg 418]</a></span> make good your promise to Lettie Conlow, and you will do it +now. You will give her your name, the title of wife. Your property under +the Kansas law becomes hers also; her children become the heirs to your +estate. These, with an honest life following, are the only conditions +that can save you from the penitentiary, as an embezzler, a receiver of +stolen goods, a robber of county records, a defamer of innocent men, an +accomplice in helping an Indian to steal a white girl, and a libertine.</p> + +<p>"I shall not release the evidence, nor withdraw the power to bring you +down the minute you break over the restrictions. Amos Judson," (there +was a terrible sternness in my father's voice, as he stood before the +wretched little man), "there is an assize at which you will be tried, +there is a bar whose Judge knows the heart as well as the deed, and for +both you must answer to Him, not only for the things in which I give you +now the chance to redeem yourself, but for those crimes for which the +law may not now punish you. There is here one door open beside the one +of iron bars, and that is the door to an honest life. Redeem your past +by the future."</p> + +<p>For the person who could have seen John Baronet that day, who could have +heard his deep strong voice and felt the power of his magnetic +personality, who could have been lifted up by the very strength of his +nobility so as to realize what a manhood such as his can mean—for one +who could have known all this it were easy to see to how hard a task I +have set my pen in trying to picture it here.</p> + +<p>"No man's life is an utter failure until he votes it so himself." My +father did not relax his hold for a moment. "You must square yours by a +truer line and lift up to your own plane the girl you have promised to +marry, and prosperity and happiness such as you could never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_419" id="Page_419">[Pg 419]</a></span> know +otherwise will come to you. On this condition only will you escape the +full penalty of the law."</p> + +<p>The little widower stood up at last. It had been a terrible grilling, +but his mind and body, cramped together, seemed now to expand.</p> + +<p>"I'll do it, Judge Baronet. Will you help me?"</p> + +<p>He put out his hand hesitatingly.</p> + +<p>My father took it in his own strong right hand. No man or woman, whether +clothed upon with virtue or steeped in vice, ever reached forth a hand +to John Baronet and saw in his face any shadow of hesitancy to receive +it. So supreme to him was the ultimate value of each human soul. He did +not drop the hand at once, but standing there, as father to son he +spoke:</p> + +<p>"I have been a husband. Through all these long years I have walked alone +and lonely, yearning ever for the human presence of my loved one lying +these many years under the churchyard grasses back at old Rockport. +Judson, be good to your wife. Make her happy. You will be blessed +yourself and you will make her a true good woman."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was a quiet wedding at the Presbyterian parsonage that evening. +The name of only one witness appeared on the marriage certificate, the +name in a bold hand of John Baronet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_420" id="Page_420">[Pg 420]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>O'MIE'S INHERITANCE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In these cases we still have judgment here.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">—SHAKESPEARE.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>True to his word, Tell Mapleson's time followed hard on the finishing up +of Judson. My father did not make a step until he was sure of what the +next one would be. That is why the supreme court never reversed his +decisions. When at last he had perfected his plans, Tell Mapleson grew +shy of pushing his claims. But Tell was a shrewd pettifogger, and his +was a different calibre of mind from Judson's. It was not until my +father was about to lay claim in his client's behalf to the valuable +piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that +Tell came out of hiding. This happened on the afternoon following the +morning scene with Judson. And aside from the task of the morning, the +news of Bud Anderson's untimely death had come that day. Nobody could +foretell what next this winter's campaign might hold for the Springvale +boys out on the far Southwest Plains, and my father's heart was heavy.</p> + +<p>Tell Mapleson was tall and slight. He was a Southern man by birth, and +he always retained something of the Southern air in his manner. Active, +nervous, quick-witted, but not profound, he made a good impression +generally, especially where political trickery or nice turns in the law +count for coin. Professionally he and my father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_421" id="Page_421">[Pg 421]</a></span> were competitors; and +he might have developed into a man of fine standing, had he not kept +store, become postmaster, run for various offices, and diffused himself +generally, while John Baronet held steadily to his calling.</p> + +<p>In the early afternoon Tell courteously informed my father that he +desired an interview with the idea of adjusting differences between the +two. His request was granted, and a battle royal was to mark the second +half of the day. John Baronet always called this day, which was Friday, +his black but good Friday.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Mr. Mapleson, have a chair."</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Judge. Pretty stiff winter weather for Kansas."</p> + +<p>So the two greeted each other.</p> + +<p>"You wanted to see me?" my father queried.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Judge. We might as well get this matter between us settled here as +over in the court-room, eh?"</p> + +<p>My father smiled. "Yes, we can afford to do that," he said. "Now, +Mapleson, you represent a certain client in claiming a piece of property +known as the north half of section 29, range 14. I also represent a +claim on the same property. You want this settled out of court. I have +no reason to refuse settlement in this way. State your claim."</p> + +<p>Mapleson adjusted himself in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Judge, the half section of land lying upon the Neosho, the one +containing among other appurtenances the big cottonwood tree and the +stone cabin, was set down in the land records as belonging to one +Patrick O'Meara, the man who took up the land. He was a light-headed +Irishman; he ran off with a Cheyenne squaw, and not long afterwards was +killed by the Comanches. This property, however, he gave over to a +friend of his, a Frenchman named Le Claire, connected in a busi<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_422" id="Page_422">[Pg 422]</a></span>ness way +with the big Choteau Fur-trading Company in St. Louis. This Frenchman +brought his wife and child here to live. I knew them, for they traded at +the 'Last Chance' store. That was before your day here, Baronet. Le +Claire didn't live out in that cabin long, for his only child was stolen +by the Kiowas, and his wife, in a frenzy of grief drowned herself in the +Neosho. Then Le Claire plunged off into the Plains somewhere. Later he +was reported killed by the Kiowas. Now I have the evidence, the written +statement signed by this Irishman, of the turning of the property into +Le Claire's hands. Also the evidence that Le Claire was not killed by +the Indians. Instead, he was legally married to a Kiowa squaw, a sister +of Chief Satanta, who is now a prisoner of war with General Custer in +the Indian Territory. By this union there was one child, a son, Jean +Pahusca he is called. To this son this property now belongs. There can +be no question about it. The records show who entered the land. Here is +the letter sworn to in my store by this same man, left by him to be +given to Le Claire when he should come on from St. Louis. The Irishman +was impatient to join these Cheyennes he'd met on a fur-hunting trip way +up on the Platte, and with his affidavit before old Judge Fingal (he +also was here before you) he left this piece of land to the Frenchman."</p> + +<p>Mapleson handed my father a torn greasy bit of paper, duly setting forth +what he had claimed.</p> + +<p>"Now, to go on," he resumed. "This Kiowa marriage was a legal one, for +the Frenchman had a good Catholic conscience. This marriage was all +right. I have also here the affidavit of the Rev. J. J. Dodd, former +pastor of the Methodist Church South in Springvale. At the time of this +marriage Dodd, who was then stationed out near Santa Fé, New Mexico, was +on his way east with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_423" id="Page_423">[Pg 423]</a></span> a wagon train. Near Pawnee Rock Le Claire with a +pretty squaw came to the train legally equipped and was legally married +by Dodd. As a wedding fee he gave this letter of land grant to Dodd. +'Take it,' he said, 'I'll never use it. Keep it, or give it away.' Dodd +kept it."</p> + +<p>"Until when?" my father asked.</p> + +<p>Mapleson's hands twitched nervously.</p> + +<p>"Until he signed it over to me," he replied. "I have everything +secured," he added, smiling, and then he went on.</p> + +<p>"Le Claire soon got tired of the Kiowas of course, and turned priest, +repented of all his sins, renounced his wife and child, and all his +worldly goods. It will be well for him to keep clear of old Satanta in +his missionary journeys to the heathen, however. You know this priest's +son, Jean Pahusca. He got into some sort of trouble here during the war, +and he never comes here any more. He has assigned to me all his right to +this property, on a just consideration and I am now ready to claim my +own, by force, if necessary, through the courts. But knowing your +position, and that you also have a claim on the same property, I figured +it could be adjusted between us. Baronet, there isn't a ghost of a show +for anybody else to get a hold on this property. Every legal claimant is +dead except this half-breed. I have papers for every step in the way to +possession; and as a man whose reputation for justice has never been +diminished, I don't believe you will pile up costs on your client, nor +deal unfairly with him. Have you any answer to my claim?"</p> + +<p>At that moment the door opened quietly and Father Le Claire entered. He +was embarrassed by his evident intrusion and would have retreated but my +father called him in.</p> + +<p>"You come at a most opportune time, Father Le Claire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_424" id="Page_424">[Pg 424]</a></span> Mapleson here has +been proving some things to me through your name. You can help us both."</p> + +<p>John Baronet looked at both men keenly. Mapleson's face had a look of +pleasure as if he saw not only the opportunity to prove his cause, but +the chance to grill the priest, whose gentle power had time and again +led the Indians from his "Last Chance" saloon on annuity days, when the +peaceful Osages and Kaws came up for their supplies. The good Father's +face though serious, even apprehensive, had an undercurrent of serenity +in its expression hard to reconcile with fear of accusation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mapleson, will you repeat to Le Claire what you have just told me +and show him your affidavits and records?" John Baronet asked.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," Tell replied, and glibly he again set forth his basis to a +claim on the valuable property. "Now, Le Claire," he added, "Baronet and +I have about agreed to arbitrate for ourselves. Your name will never +appear in this. The records are seldom referred to, and you are as safe +with us as if you'd never married that squaw of old Satanta's household. +We are all men here, if one is a priest and one a judge and the other a +land-owner."</p> + +<p>Le Claire's face never twitched a muscle. He turned his eyes upon the +judge inquiringly, but unabashed.</p> + +<p>"Will you help us out of this, Le Claire?" my father asked. "If you +choose I will give you my claim first."</p> + +<p>"Good," said Mapleson. "Let him hear us both, and his word will show us +what to do."</p> + +<p>"Well, gentlemen," my father began, "by the merest chance a few years +ago I came upon the entry of the land in question. It was entered in the +name of Patrick O'Meara. Happening to recall that the little red-headed +orphan chore-boy down at the Cambridge House bore the same name, I made +some inquiry of Cam Gentry about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_425" id="Page_425">[Pg 425]</a></span> the boy's origin and found that he was +an orphan from the Osage Mission, and had been brought up here by one of +the priests who stopped here a day or two on his way from the Osage to +St. Mary's, up on the Kaw. Cam and Dollie were kind to the child, and he +begged the priest to stay with them. The good man consented, and while +the guardianship remained with the people of the Mission, O'mie grew up +here. It seemed not impossible that he might have some claim on this +land. Everything kept pointing the fact more and more clearly to me. +Then I was called to the war."</p> + +<p>Tell Mapleson's mobile face clouded up a bit at this.</p> + +<p>"But I had by this time become so convinced that I called in Le Claire +here and held a council with him. He told me some of what he knew, not +all, for reasons he did not explain" (my father's eyes were on the +priest's face), "but if it is necessary he will tell."</p> + +<p>"Now that sounds like a threat," Mapleson urged. Somehow, shrewd as he +was, solid as his case appeared to himself, the man was growing +uncomfortable. "I've known Le Claire's story for years. I never +questioned him once. I had my papers from Dodd. Le Claire long ago +renounced the world. His life has proved it. The world includes the +undivided north half of section 29, range 14. That's Jean Pahusca's. +It's too late now for his father to try to get it away from him, +Baronet. You know the courts won't stand for it." Adroit as he was, the +Southern blood was beginning to show in Tell's nervous manner and +flashing eyes.</p> + +<p>"When I came back from the war," my father went on, ignoring the +interruption, "I found that the courthouse records had been juggled +with. Some of them, with some other papers, had been stolen. It happened +on a night when for some reason O'mie, a harmless, uninfluential<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_426" id="Page_426">[Pg 426]</a></span> Irish +orphan, was hunted for everywhere in order to be murdered. Why? He stood +in the way of a land-claim, and human life was cheap that night."</p> + +<p>Tell Mapleson's face was ashy gray with anger; but no heed was given to +him, as my father continued.</p> + +<p>"It happened that Jean Pahusca, who took him out of town by mistake and +left him unconscious and half dead on the bank of Fingal's Creek, was +ordered back by the ruffians to find his body, and if he was alive to +finish him in any way the Indian chose. That same night the courthouse +was entered, and the record of this land-entry was taken."</p> + +<p>"I have papers showing O'Meara's signing it over—" Tell began; but my +father waved his hand and proceeded.</p> + +<p>"Briefly put, it was concealed in the old stone cabin by one Amos +Judson. Le Claire here was a witness to the transaction."</p> + +<p>The priest nodded assent.</p> + +<p>"But for reasons of his own he did not report the theft. He did, +however, remove the papers from their careless hiding-place in an old +chest to a more secure nook in the far corner of the dark loft. Before I +came home he had left Springvale, and business matters called him to +France. He has not been here since, until last September when he spent a +few days out at the cabin. The lead box had been taken from the loft and +concealed under the flat stone that forms the door step, possibly by +some movers who camped there and did some little harm to the property.</p> + +<p>"I have the box in the bank vault now. Le Claire turned it over to me. +There is no question as to the record. Two points must be settled, +however. First, did O'Meara give up the land he entered? And second, is +the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_427" id="Page_427">[Pg 427]</a></span> young man we call O'mie heir to the same? Le Claire, you are just +back from the Osage Mission?"</p> + +<p>The priest assented.</p> + +<p>"Now, will you tell us what you know of this case?"</p> + +<p>A sudden fear seized Tell Mapleson. Would this man lie now to please +Judge Baronet? Tell was a good reader of human nature, and he had +thoroughly believed in the priest as a holy man, one who had renounced +sin and whose life was one long atonement for a wild, tragic, and +reckless youth. He disliked Le Claire, but he had never doubted the +priest's sincerity. He could have given any sort of bribe had he deemed +the Frenchman purchasable.</p> + +<p>"Just one word please, Judge," he said suavely. "Look here, Le Claire, +Baronet's a good lawyer, a rich man, and a popular man with a fine +reputation; but by jiminy! if you try any tricks with me and vary one +hair from the truth, I'll have you before the civil and church courts so +quick you'll think the Holy Inquisition's no joke. If you'll just tell +the truth nobody's going to know through me anything about your former +wives, nor how many half-breed papooses claim you. And I know Baronet +here well enough to know he never gossips."</p> + +<p>Le Claire turned his dark face toward Mapleson, and his piercing black +eyes seemed to look through the restless lawyer fidgeting in his chair. +In the old days of the "Last Chance" saloon the two had played a quiet +game, each trying to outwit the other—the priest for the spiritual and +financial welfare of the Indian pensioners, Mapleson for his own +financial gain. Yet no harsh word had ever passed between them. Not even +after Le Claire had sent his ultimatum to the proprietor of the "Last +Chance," "Sell Jean Pahusca another drink of whiskey and you'll be +removed from the Indian agency by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_428" id="Page_428">[Pg 428]</a></span> order from the Secretary of Indian +affairs at Washington."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mapleson, I hope the truth will do you no harm. It is the only +thing that will avail now, even the truth I have for years kept back. I +am no longer a young man, and my severe illness in October forced me to +get this business settled. Indeed, I in part helped to bring matters to +an issue to-day."</p> + +<p>Mapleson was disarmed at once by the priest's frankness. He had waited +long to even up scores with the Roman Catholic who had kept many a +dollar from his till.</p> + +<p>"You are right, gentlemen, in believing that I hold the key to this +situation. The Judge has asked two questions: 'Did Patrick O'Meara ever +give up his title to the land?' and 'Is O'mie his heir, and therefore +the rightful owner?' Let me tell you first what I know of O'mie.</p> + +<p>"His mother was a dear little Irish woman who had come, a stranger, to +New York City and was married to Patrick O'Meara when she was quite +young. They were poor, and after O'mie was born, his father decided to +try the West. Fate threw him into the way of a Frenchman who sent him to +St. Louis to the employment of a fur-trading company in the upper +Missouri River country. O'Meara knew that the West held large +possibilities for a poor man. He hoped in a short time to send for his +wife and child to join him."</p> + +<p>The priest paused, and his brow darkened.</p> + +<p>"This Frenchman, although he was of noble birth, had all the evil traits +and none of the good ones of all the generations, and withal he was a +wild, restless, romantic dreamer and adventurer. You two do not know +what heartlessness means. This man had no heart, and yet," the holy +man's voice trembled, "his people loved him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_429" id="Page_429">[Pg 429]</a></span>—will always love his +memory, for he could be irresistibly charming and affectionate when he +chose. To make this painful story short, he fell in love—madly as only +he could love—with this pretty little auburn-haired Irish woman. He had +a wife in France, but Mrs. O'Meara pleased him for the time; and he was +that kind of a beast.</p> + +<p>"O'Meara came to Springvale, and finding here a chance to get hold of a +good claim, he bought it. He built a little cabin and sent money to New +York for his wife and child to join him here. Mails were slow in +preterritorial days. The next letter O'Meara had from New York was from +this Frenchman telling him that his wife and child were dead. Meanwhile +the villain played the kind friend and brother to the little woman and +helped her to prepare for her journey to the West. He had business +himself in St. Louis. He would precede her there and accompany her to +her husband's new home. Oh, he knew how to deceive, and he was as +charming in manner as he was dominant in spirit. No king ever walked the +earth with a prouder step. You have seen Jean Pahusca stride down the +streets of Springvale, and you know his regal bearing. Such was this +Frenchman.</p> + +<p>"In truth," the priest went on, "he had cause to leave New York. Word +had come to him that his deserted French wife was on her way to America. +This French woman was quick-tempered and jealous, and her anger was +something to flee from.</p> + +<p>"It is a story of utter baseness. From St. Louis to Springvale Mrs. +O'Meara's escort was more like a lover than a friend and business +director of her affairs. This land was an Osage reservation then. +O'Meara's half-section claim was west of here. The home he built was +that little stone cabin near where the draw breaks through the bluff up +the river, this side of the big cottonwood."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_430" id="Page_430">[Pg 430]</a></span></p> + +<p>Le Claire paused and sat in silence for a while.</p> + +<p>"Much as I have dealt with all sorts of people," he continued, "I never +could understand this Frenchman's nature. Fickle and heartless he was to +the very core. The wild frontier life attracted him, and he, who could +have adorned the court of France or been a power in New York's high +circles, plunged into this wilderness. When they reached the cabin the +cause for his devoted attentions was made plain. O'Meara was not there, +had indeed been gone for weeks. Letters left at Springvale directed to +this Frenchman read:</p> + +<p>"'I'm gone for good. A pretty Cheyenne squaw away up on the Platte is +too much for me. Tell Kathleen I'm never coming back. So she is free to +do what she wants to. You may have this ground I have preëmpted, for +your trouble. Good-bye.'</p> + +<p>"This letter, scrawled on a greasy bit of paper, was so unlike anything +Patrick O'Meara had ever said, its spirit was so unlike his genial +true-hearted nature that his wife might have doubted it. But she was +young and inexperienced, alone and penniless with her baby boy in a +harsh wilderness. The message broke her heart. And then this man used +all the force of his power to win her. He showed her how helpless she +was, how the community here would look upon her as his wife, and now +since she was deserted by her husband, the father of her child, her only +refuge lay with him, her true lover.</p> + +<p>"The woman's heart was broken, but her fidelity and honor were founded +on a rock. She scorned the villain before her and drove him from her +door. That night she and O'mie were alone in that lonely little cabin. +The cruel dominant nature of the man was aroused now, and he determined +to crush the spirit of the only woman who had ever resisted him. Two +days later a band of Kiowas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_431" id="Page_431">[Pg 431]</a></span> was passing peaceably across the Plains. +Here the Frenchman saw his chance for revenge by conniving with the +Indians to seize little O'mie playing on the prairie beyond the cabin.</p> + +<p>"The women out in Western Kansas have had the same agony of soul that +Kathleen O'Meara suffered when she found her boy was stolen. In her +despair she started after the tribe, wandering lost and starving many +days on the prairie until a kind-hearted Osage chief found her and took +her to our blessed Mission down the river. Here a strange thing +happened. Before she had been there a week, her husband, Thomas O'Meara, +came from a trapping tour on the Arkansas River. With him was a little +child he had rescued from the Kiowas in a battle at Pawnee Rock. It was +his own child, although he did not know it then. In this battle he was +told that a Frenchman had been killed. The name was the same as that of +the Frenchman he had known in New York. Can you picture the joy of that +reunion? You who have had a wife to love, a son to cherish?"</p> + +<p>My father's heart was full. All day his own boy's face had been before +him, a face so like to the woman whose image he held evermore in sacred +memory.</p> + +<p>"But their joy was short-lived, for Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from +her hardships on the prairie; she died in a few weeks. Her husband was +killed by the Comanches shortly after her death. His claim here he left +to his son, over whom the Mission assumed guardianship. O'mie was +transferred to St. Mary's for some reason, and the priest who started to +take him there stopped here to find out about his father's land. But the +records were not available. Fingal, for whom Fingal's Creek was named, +also known as Judge Fingal, held possession of all the records, +and—how, I never knew—but in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_432" id="Page_432">[Pg 432]</a></span> way he prevented the priest from +finding out anything. Fingal was a Southern man; he met a violent death +that year. You know O'mie's story after that." Le Claire paused, and a +sadness swept over his face.</p> + +<p>"But that doesn't finish the Frenchman's story," he continued presently.</p> + +<p>"The night that O'mie's mother left her home in the draw, the French +woman who had journeyed far to find her husband came to Springvale. You +know what she found. The belongings of another woman. It was she who +slipped into the Neosho that night. The Frenchman was in the fight at +Pawnee Rock. After that he disappeared. But he had entered a formal +claim to the land as the husband of Patrick O'Meara's widow, heir to her +property. You see he held a double grip. One through the letter—forged, +of course—the other through the claim to a union that never existed."</p> + +<p>"Seems to me you've a damned lot to answer for," Tell Mapleson hissed in +rage. "If the Church can make a holy man out of such a villain, I'm glad +I'm a heretic."</p> + +<p>"I'm answering for it," the priest said meekly. Only my father sat with +face impassive and calm.</p> + +<p>"This half-section of land in question is the property of Thomas +O'Meara, son and heir to Patrick O'Meara, as the records show. These +stolen records I found where Amos Judson had hastily concealed them, as +Judge Baronet has said. I put them in the dark loft for safer keeping, +for I felt sure they were valuable. When I came to look for them, they +had been moved again. I supposed the one who first took them had +recovered them, and I let the matter go. Meanwhile I was called home. +When I came here last Fall I found matters still unsettled, and O'mie +still without his own. I spent several days in the stone cabin searching +for the lost papers.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_433" id="Page_433">[Pg 433]</a></span> The weather was bad, and you know of my severe +attack of pneumonia. But I found the box. In the illness that followed I +was kept from Springvale longer than I wished. When I came again O'mie +had gone."</p> + +<p>The priest paused and sat with eyes downcast, and a sorrowful face.</p> + +<p>"Is this your story?" Tell queried. "Your proof of O'mie's claim you +consider incontestable, but how about these affidavits from the Rev. Mr. +Dodd who married you to the Kiowa squaw? How—"</p> + +<p>But Le Claire lifted his hand in commanding gesture. A sudden sternness +of face and attitude of authority seemed to clothe him like a garment.</p> + +<p>"Gentlemen, there is another story. A bitter, painful story. I have +never told it, although it has sometimes almost driven me from the holy +sanctuary because of my silence."</p> + +<p>It was a deeply impressive moment, for all three of the men realized the +importance of the occasion.</p> + +<p>"My name," said the priest, "is Pierre Rousseau Le Claire. I am of a +titled house of France. We have only the blood of the nobility in our +veins. My father had two sons, twins—Pierre the priest, and Jean the +renegade, outlawed even among the savages; for his scalp will hang from +Satanta's tepee pole if the chance ever comes. Mapleson, here, has told +you the truth about his being married to a sister of Chief Satanta. He +also is the father of Jean Pahusca. You have noticed the boy's likeness +to me. If he, being half Indian, has such a strong resemblance to his +family, you can imagine how much alike we are, my brother and myself. In +form and gesture, everything—except—well, I have told you what his +nature was, and—you have known me for many years. And yet, I have never +ceased to pray for him, wicked as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_434" id="Page_434">[Pg 434]</a></span> he is. We played together about the +meadows and vine-clad hill slopes of old France, in our happy boyhood. +We grew up and loved and might both have been happily wedded +there,—but—I've told you his story. There is nothing of myself that +can interest you. That letter of Mapleson's, purporting to be from +Patrick O'Meara, is a mere forgery. I have just come up from the +Mission. The records and letters of O'Meara have all been kept there. +This handwriting would not stand, in court, Mapleson. The land was +O'Meara's. It is now O'mie's."</p> + +<p>Mapleson sat with rigid countenance. For almost fifteen years he had +matched swords with John Baronet. He had felt so sure of his game, he +had guarded every possible loophole where success might escape him, he +had paved every step so carefully that his mind, grown to the habitual +thought of winning, was stunned by the revelation. Like Judson in the +morning, his only defence lay In putting blame on somebody else.</p> + +<p>"You are the most accomplished double-dealer I ever met," he declared to +the priest. "You pretend to follow a holy calling, you profess a love +for your brother, and yet you are trying to rob his child of his +property. You are against Jean Pahusca, son of the man you love so much. +Is that the kind of a priest you are?"</p> + +<p>"The very kind—even worse," Le Claire responded. "I went back to France +before my aged father died. My mother died of a broken heart over Jean +long ago. While our father yet lived I persuaded him to give all his +estate—it was large—to the Holy Church. He did it. Not a penny of it +can ever be touched."</p> + +<p>Mapleson caught his breath like a drowning man.</p> + +<p>"It spoiled a beautiful lawsuit, I know," Le Claire continued looking +meaningly at him. "For that fortune in France, put into the hands of +Jean Pahusca's attorneys<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_435" id="Page_435">[Pg 435]</a></span> here, would have been rich plucking. It can +never be. I fixed that before our father's death. Why?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you narrow, grasping robber of orphans, why?" Tell shouted in his +passion.</p> + +<p>"For the same reason that I stood between Jean Pahusca and this town +until he was outlawed here. The half-breed cares nothing for property +except as it can buy revenge and feed his appetites. He would sell +himself for a drink of whiskey. You know how dangerous he is when drunk. +Every man in this town except Judge Baronet and myself has had to flee +from him at some time or other. Sober, he is a devil—half Indian, half +French, and wholly fiendish. Neither he nor his father has any property. +I used my influence to prevent it. I would do it again. Jean Le Claire +has forfeited all claims to inheritance. So have I. Among the Indians he +is a renegade. I am only a missionary priest trying as I may to atone +for my own sins and for the sins of my father's son, my twin brother. +That, gentlemen, is all I can say."</p> + +<p>"We are grateful to you, Le Claire," John Baronet said. "Mapleson said +before you began that your word would show us what to do. It has shown +us. It is now time, when some deeds long past their due, must be +requited." He turned to Tell sitting defiantly there casting mentally in +every direction for some legal hook, some cunning turn, by which to win +victory away from defeat.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mapleson, the hour has come for us to settle more than a property +claim between an Irish orphan and a half-breed Kiowa. And now, if it was +wise to settle the other matter out of court, it will be a hundred times +safer to settle this here this afternoon. You have grown prosperous in +Springvale. In so far as you have done it honestly, I rejoice. You know +yourself that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_436" id="Page_436">[Pg 436]</a></span> have more than once proved my sincerity by turning +business your way, that I could as easily have put elsewhere."</p> + +<p>Tell did know, and with something of Southern politeness, he nodded +assent.</p> + +<p>"You are here now to settle with me or to go before my court for some +counts you must meet. You have been the headpiece for all the evil-doing +that has wrecked the welfare of Springvale and that has injured +reputation, brought lasting sorrow, even cost the life of many citizens. +Sooner or later the man who does that meets his own crimes face to face, +and their ugly powers break loose on him."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?" Tell's voice was suppressed, and his face was livid.</p> + +<p>"I mean first: you with Dick Yeager and others, later in Quantrill's +band, in May of 1863 planned the destruction of this town by mob +violence. The houses were to be burned, every Union man was to be +murdered with his wife and children, except such as the Kiowa and +Comanche Indians chose to spare. My own son was singled out as the +choicest of your victims. Little O'mie, for your own selfish ends, was +not to be spared; and Marjory Whately, just blooming into womanhood, you +gave to Jean Pahusca as his booty. Your plan failed, partly through the +efforts of this good man here, partly through the courage and quick +action of the boys of the town, but mainly through the mercy of +Omnipotent God, who sent the floods to keep back the forces of Satan. +That Marjory escaped even in the midst of it all is due to the +shrewdness and sacrifice of the young man you have been trying to +defraud—O'mie.</p> + +<p>"In the midst of this you connived with others to steal the records from +the courthouse. You were a treble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_437" id="Page_437">[Pg 437]</a></span> villain, for you set the Rev. Mr. +Dodd to a deed you afterwards held over him as a threat and drove him +from the town for fear of exposure, forcing him to give you the papers +he held against Jean Le Claire's claims to the half-section on the +Neosho. Not that his going was any loss to Springvale. But Dodd will +never trouble you again. He cast his lot with the Dog Indians of the +plains, and one of them used him for a shield in Custer's battle with +Black Kettle's band last December. He had not even Indian burial.</p> + +<p>"Those deeds against Springvale belong to the days of the Civil War, but +your record since proves that the man who planned them cannot be trusted +as a safe citizen in times of peace. Into your civil office you carried +your war-time methods, until the Postmaster-General cannot deal longer +with you. Your term of office expires in six days. Your successor's +commission is already on its way here. This much was accomplished in the +trip East last Fall." My father spoke significantly.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't all that was accomplished, by Heaven! There's a lawsuit +coming; there's a will that's to be broken that can't stand when I get +at it. You are mighty good and fine about money when other folks are +getting it; but when it's coming to you, you're another man." Tell's +voice was pitched high now.</p> + +<p>"Father Le Claire, let me tell you a story. Baronet's a smooth rascal +and nobody can find him out easily. But I know him. He has called me a +thief. It takes that kind to catch a thief, maybe. Anyhow, back at +Rockport the Baronets were friends of the Melrose family. One of them, +Ferdinand, was drowned at sea. He had some foolish delusion or other in +his head, for he left a will bequeathing all his property to his brother +James Melrose during his lifetime. At his death all Ferdinand's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_438" id="Page_438">[Pg 438]</a></span> money +was to go to John Baronet in trust for his son Phil. Baronet, here, sent +his boy back East to school in hopes that Phil would marry Rachel +Melrose, James's daughter, and so get the fortune of both Ferdinand and +James Melrose. He went crazy over the girl; and, to be honest, for +Phil's a likable young fellow, the girl was awfully in love with him. +Baronet's had her come clear out here to visit them. But, you'll excuse +me for saying it, Judge, Phil is a little fast. He got tangled up with a +girl of shady reputation here, and Rachel broke off the match. Now, last +October the Judge goes East. You see, he's well fixed, but that nice +little sum looks big to him, and he's bound Phil shall have it, wife or +no wife. But there's a good many turns in law. While Baronet was at +Rockport before I could get there, being detained at Washington" (my +father smiled a faint little gleam of a smile in his eyes more than on +his lip)—"before I could get to Rockport, Mr. Melrose dies, leaving his +wife and Rachel alone in the world. Now, I'm retained here as their +attorney. Tillhurst is going on to see to things for me. It's only a few +thousand that Baronet is after, but it's all Rachel and her mother have. +The Melroses weren't near as rich as the people thought. That will of +Ferdinand's won't hold water, not even salt water. It'll go to pieces in +court, but it'll show this pious Judge, who calls his neighbors to +account, what kind of a man he is. The money's been tied up in some +investments and it will soon be released."</p> + +<p>Le Claire looked anxiously toward my father, whose face for the first +time that day was pale. Rising he opened his cabinet of private papers +and selected a legal document.</p> + +<p>"This seems to be the day for digging up records,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_439" id="Page_439">[Pg 439]</a></span> he said in a low +voice. "Here is one that may interest you and save time and money. What +Mapleson says about Ferdinand Melrose is true. We'll pass by the motives +I had in sending Phil East, and some other statements. When I became +convinced that love played no part in Phil's mind toward Rachel Melrose, +I met him in Topeka in October and gave him the opportunity of signing a +relinquishment to all claims on the estate of Ferdinand Melrose. Phil +didn't care for the girl; and as to the money gotten in that way" (my +father drew himself up to his full height), "the oxygen of Kansas breeds +a class of men out here who can make an honest fortune in spite of any +inheritance, or the lack of it. I put my boy in that class."</p> + +<p>I was his only child, and a father may be pardoned for being proud of +his own.</p> + +<p>"When I reached Rockport," he continued, "Mr. Melrose was ill. I hurried +to him with my message, and it may be his last hours were more peaceful +because of my going. Rachel will come into her full possessions in a +short time, as you say. Mapleson, will you renounce your retainer's fees +in your interest in the orphaned?"</p> + +<p>It was Tell's bad day, and he swore sulphureously in a low tone.</p> + +<p>"Now I'll take up this matter where I left off," John Baronet said. +"While O'mie was taking a vacation in the heated days of August, he +slept up in the stone cabin. Jean Pahusca, thief, highwayman, robber, +and assassin, kept his stolen goods there. Mapleson and his mercantile +partner divided the spoils. O'mie's sense of humor is strong, and one +night he played ghost for Jean. You know the redskin's inherent fear of +ghosts. It put Jean out of the commission goods business. No persuasion +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_440" id="Page_440">[Pg 440]</a></span> Mapleson's or his partner's could induce Jean to go back after night +to the cabin after this reappearance of the long quiet ghost of the +drowned woman."</p> + +<p>Le Claire could not repress a smile.</p> + +<p>"I think I unconsciously played the same role in September out there, +frightening a little man away one night. I was innocent of any harm +intended."</p> + +<p>"It did the work," my father replied. "Jean cut for the West at once, +and joined the Cheyennes for a time—and with a purpose." Then as he +looked straight at Tell, his voice grew stern, and that mastery of men +that his presence carried made itself felt.</p> + +<p>"Jean has bought the right to the life of my son. His pay for the +hundreds of dollars he has turned into the hands of this man was that +Mapleson should defame my son's good name and drive him from Springvale, +and that Jean in his own time was to follow and assassinate him. +Mapleson here was in league to protect Jean from the law if the deed +should ever be traced to his door. With these conditions in addition, +Mapleson was to receive the undivided one-half of section 29, range 14.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mapleson, I pass by the crime of forging lies against the name of +Irving Whately; I pass by the plotted crimes against this town in '63; I +ignore the systematic thievery of your dealings with the half-breed Jean +Pahusca; but, by the God in heaven, my boy is my own. For the crime of +seeking to lay stain upon his name, the crime of trying to entangle him +hopelessly in a scandal and a legal prosecution with a sinful erring +girl, the crime of lending your hand to hold the coat of the man who +should stone him to death,—for these things, I, the father of Philip +Baronet, give you now twenty-four hours to leave Springvale and the +State. If at the end of that time you are within the limits of Kansas, +you must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_441" id="Page_441">[Pg 441]</a></span> answer to me in the court-room over there; and, Tell Mapleson, +you know what's before you. I came to the West to help build it up. I +cannot render my State a greater service than by driving you from its +borders; and so long as I live I shall bar your entrance to a land that, +in spite of all it has to bear, grows a larger crop of honest men with +the conquest of each acre of the prairie soil."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_442" id="Page_442">[Pg 442]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>SUNSET BY THE SWEETWATER</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And we count men brave who on land and wave fear not to die; but still,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Still first on the rolls of the world's great souls are the men who have feared to kill.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—EDMUND VANCE COOKE.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>Jean Pahusca turned at the sound of O'mie's step on the stone. The red +sun had blinded his eyes and he could not see clearly at first. When he +did see, O'mie's presence and the captive unbound and staggering to his +feet, surprised the Indian and held him a moment longer. The confusion +at the change in war's grim front passed quickly, however,—he was only +half Indian,—and he was himself again. He darted toward us, swift as a +serpent. Clutching O'mie by the throat and lifting him clear of the rock +shelf the Indian threw him headlong down the side of the bluff, crashing +the bushes as he fell. The knife that had cut the cords that bound me, +the same knife that would have scalped Marjie and taken the boy's life +in the Hermit's Cave, was flung from O'mie's hand. It rang on the stone +and slid down in the darkness below. Then the half-breed hurled himself +upon me and we clinched there by the cliff's edge for our last conflict.</p> + +<p>I was in Jean's land now. I had come to my final hour with him. The +Baronets were never cowardly. Was it inherited courage, or was it the +spirit of power in that letter, Marjie's message of love to me, that +gave me grace<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_443" id="Page_443">[Pg 443]</a></span> there? Followed then a battle royal, brute strength +against brute strength. All the long score of defeated effort, all the +jealousy and hate of years, all the fury of final conflict, all the mad +frenzy of the instinct of self-preservation, all the savage lust for +blood (most terrible in the human tiger), were united in Jean. He +combined a giant's strength and an Indian's skill with the dominant +courage and coolness of a son of France. Against these things I put my +strength in that strange struggle on the rocky ledge in the gathering +twilight of that February day. The little cove on the bluff-side, was +not more than fifteen feet across at its widest place. The shelf of +sloping stone made a fairly even floor. In this little retreat I had +been bound and unable to move for an hour. My muscles were tense at +first. I was dazed, too, by a sudden deliverance from the slow torture +that had seemed inevitable for me. The issue, however, was no less awful +than swift. I had just cause for wreaking vengeance on my foeman. Twice +he had attempted to take O'mie's life. The boy might be dead from the +headlong fall at this very minute, for all I knew. The clods were only +two days old on Bud Anderson's grave. Nothing but the skill and +sacrifice of O'mie had saved Marjie from this brute's lust six years +before. While he lived, my own life was never for one moment safe. And +more than everything else was the possibility of a fate for Marjie too +horrible for me to dwell upon. All these things swept through my mind +like a lightning flash.</p> + +<p>If ever the Lord in the moment of supreme peril gave courage and +self-control, these good and perfect gifts were mine in that evening's +strife. With the first plunge he had thrown me, and he was struggling to +free his hand from my grasp to get at my throat; his knee was on my +chest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_444" id="Page_444">[Pg 444]</a></span></p> + +<p>"You're in my land now," he hissed in my ear.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but this is Phil Baronet still," I answered with a calmness so +dominant, it stayed the struggle for a moment. I was playing on him the +same trick by which he had so often deceived us,—the pretended +relaxation of all effort, and indifference to further strife. In that +moment's pause I gained my lost vantage. Quick as thought I freed my +other hand, and, holding still his murderous grip from my throat, I +caught him by the neck, and pushing his head upward, I gave him such a +thrust that his hold on me loosened a bit. A bit only, but that was +enough, for when he tightened it again, I was on my feet and the strife +was renewed—renewed with the fierceness of maddened brutes, lashed into +fury. Life for one of us meant death for the other, and I lost every +humane instinct in that terrible struggle except the instinct to save +Marjie first, and my own life after hers. Civilization slips away in +such a battle, and the fighter is only a jungle beast, knowing no law +but the unquenchable thirst for blood. The hand that holds this pen is +clean to-day, clean and strong and gentle. It was a tiger's claw that +night, and Jean's hot blood following my terrific blow full in his face +only thrilled me with savage courage. I hurled him full length on the +stone, my heavy cavalry boot was on his neck, and I would have stamped +the life out of him in an instant. But with the motion of a serpent he +wriggled himself upward; then, catching me by the leg, he had me on one +knee, and his long arms, like the tentacles of a devil-fish, tightened +about me. Then we rolled together over and under, under and over. His +hard white teeth were sunk in my shoulder to cut my life artery. I had +him by the long soft hair, my fingers tangled in the handfuls I had torn +from his head. And every minute I was possessed with a burning frenzy +to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_445" id="Page_445">[Pg 445]</a></span> strangle him. Every desire had left my being now, save the eagerness +to conquer, and the consciousness of my power to fight until that end +should come.</p> + +<p>We were at the cliff's edge now, my head hanging over; the blood was +rushing toward my clogging brain; the sharp rock's rim, like a stone +knife, was cutting my neck. Jean loosened his teeth from my shoulder, +and his murderous hand was on my throat. In that supreme crisis I +summoned the very last atom of energy, the very limit of physical +prowess, the quickness and cunning which can be called forth only by the +conflict with the swift approach of death.</p> + +<p>Nature had given me a muscular strength far beyond that of most men. And +all my powers had been trained to swift obedience and almost unlimited +endurance. With this was a nervous system that matched the years of a +young man's greatest vigor. Strong drink and tobacco had never had the +chance to play havoc with my steady hand or to sap the vitality of my +reserve forces. Even as Jean lifted me by the throat to crush my head +backward over that sharp stone ledge, I put forth this burst of power in +a fierceness so irresistible that it hurled him from me, and the +struggle was still unended. We were on our feet again in a rage to reach +the finish. I had almost ceased to care to live. I wanted only to choke +the breath from the creature before me. I wanted only to save from his +hellish power the victims who would become his prey if he were allowed +to live.</p> + +<p>Instinct led me to wrestle with my assailant across the ledge toward the +wall that shut in about the sanctuary, just as, a half-year before, on +our "Rockport" fighting ground, I strove to drag him through the bushes +toward Cliff Street, while he tried to fling me off the projecting rock. +And so we locked limb and limb in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_446" id="Page_446">[Pg 446]</a></span> horrible contortion of this +savage strife. Every muscle had been so wrenched, no pain or wound +reported itself fairly to the congested brain. I had nearly reached the +wall, and I was making a frantic effort to fling the Indian against it. +I had his shoulder almost upon the rocky side, and my grip was tight +about him, when he turned on me the same trick I had played in the early +part of this awful game. A sudden relaxation threw me off my guard. The +blood was streaming from a wound on my forehead, and I loosed my hold to +throw back my long hair from my face and wipe the trickling drops from +my eyes. In that fatal moment my mind went blank, whether from loss of +blood or a sudden blow from Jean, I do not know. When I did know myself, +I seemed to have fallen through leagues of space, to be falling still, +until a pain, so sharp that it was a blessing, brought me to my senses. +The light was very dim, but my right hand was free. I aimed one blow at +Jean's shoulder, and he fell by the cliff's edge, dragging me with him, +my weight on his body. His left hand hung over the cliff-side. I should +have finished with him then, but that the fallen hand, down in the black +shadows, had closed over a knife sticking in the crevice just below the +edge of the bluff—Jean Le Claire's knife, that had been flung from +O'mie's grip as he fell.</p> + +<p>I caught its gleam as the half-breed flashed it upward in a swift stab +at my heart and my breath hung back. I leaped from him in time to save +my life, but not quickly enough to keep the villainous thing from +cutting a long jagged track across my thigh, from which spurted a +crimson flood. There could be only one thing evermore for us two. A +redoubled fury seized me, and then there swept up in me a power for +which I cannot account, unless it may be that the Angel of Life, who +guards all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_447" id="Page_447">[Pg 447]</a></span> passes of the valley of the shadow, sometimes turns back +the tide for us. A sudden calmness filled me, a cool courage contrasting +with Jean's frenzy, and I set my teeth together with the grip of a +bulldog. Jean had leaped to his feet as I sprang back from his +knife-thrust, and for the first time since the fight began we stood +apart for half a minute.</p> + +<p>"I may die, but I'll never be cut to death. It must be an equal fight, +and when I go, Jean Pahusca, you are going with me. I'll have that knife +first and then I'll kill you with my own hands, if my breath goes out at +that same instant."</p> + +<p>There must have been something terrible in my voice for it was the voice +of a strong man going down to death, firm of purpose, and unafraid.</p> + +<p>The feel of the weapon gave the Indian renewed energy. He sprang at me +with a maniac's might. He was a maniac henceforth. Three times we raged +across the narrow fighting ground. Three times I struck that murderous +blade aside, but not without a loss of my own blood for each thrust, +until at last by sheer virtue of muscle against muscle, I wrenched it +from Jean's hand, dripping with my red life-tide. And even as I seized +it, it slipped from me and fell, this time to the ledges far below. Then +hell broke all bounds for us, and what followed there in that shadowy +twilight, I care not to recall much less to set it down here.</p> + +<p>I do not know how long we battled there, nor whose blood most stained +the stone of that sanctuary, nor how many times I was underneath, nor +how often on top of my assailant. Not all the struggles of my sixty +years combined, and I have known many, could equal that fight for life.</p> + +<p>There came a night in later time when for what seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_448" id="Page_448">[Pg 448]</a></span> an age to me, I +matched my physical power and endurance against the terrible weight of +broken timbers of a burning bridge that was crushing out human lives, in +a railroad wreck. And every second of that eternity-long time, I faced +the awful menace of death by fire. The memory of that hour is a pleasure +to me when contrasted with this hand to hand battle with a murderer.</p> + +<p>It ended at last—such strife is too costly to endure long—ended with a +form stretched prone and helpless and whining for mercy before a +conqueror, whose life had been well-nigh threshed out of him; but the +fallen fighter was Jean Pahusca, and the man who towered over him was +Phil Baronet.</p> + +<p>The half-breed deserved to die. Life for him meant torturing death to +whatever lay in his path. It meant untold agony for whomsoever his hand +fell upon. And greater to me than these then was the murderous conflict +just ended, in which I had by very miracle escaped death again and +again. Men do not fight such battles to weep forgiving tears on one +another's necks when the end comes. When the spirit of mortal strife +possesses a man's soul, the demons of hell control it. The moment for a +long overdue retribution was come. As we had clinched and torn one +another there Jean's fury had driven him to a maniac's madness. The +blessed heritage of self-control, my endowment from my father, had not +deserted me. But now my hand was on his throat, my knee was planted on +his chest, and by one twist I could end a record whose further writing +would be in the blood of his victims.</p> + +<p>I lifted my eyes an instant to the western sky, out of which a clear, +sweet air was softly fanning my hot blood-smeared face. The sun had set +as O'mie cut my bonds. And now the long purple twilight of the Southwest +held the land in its soft hues. Only one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_449" id="Page_449">[Pg 449]</a></span> ray of iridescent light +pointed the arch above me—the sun's good-night greeting to the Plains. +Its glory held me by a strange power. God's mercy was in that radiant +shaft of beauty reaching far up the sky, keeping me back from wilful +murder.</p> + +<p>And then, because all pure, true human love is typical of God's eternal +love for his children, then, all suddenly, the twilight scene slipped +from me. I was in my father's office on an August day, and Marjie was +beside me. The love light in her dear brown eyes, as they looked +steadily into mine, was thrilling my soul with joy. I felt again the +touch of her hand as I felt it that day when I presented her to Rachel +Melrose. Her eyes were looking deep into my soul, her hand was in my +hand, the hand that in a moment more would take the life of a human +being no longer able to give me blow for blow. I loosed my clutch as +from a leprous wound, and the Indian gasped again for mercy. Standing +upright, I spurned the form grovelling now at my feet.</p> + +<p>Lifting my bloody right hand high above me, I thanked God I had +conquered in a greater battle. I had won the victory over my worser +self.</p> + +<p>But I was too wise to think that Jean should have his freedom. Stepping +to where the cut thongs that had bound me lay, I took the longest pieces +and tied the half-breed securely.</p> + +<p>All this time I had fogotten O'mie. Now it dawned upon me that he must +be found. He might be alive still. The fall must have been broken +somehow by the bushes. I peered over the edge of the bluff into the +darkness of the valley below.</p> + +<p>"O'mie!" I called, "O'mie!"</p> + +<p>"Present!" a voice behind me responded.</p> + +<p>I turned quickly. Standing there in the dim light,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_450" id="Page_450">[Pg 450]</a></span> with torn clothing, +and tumbled red hair, and scratched face was the Irish boy, bruised, but +not seriously hurt.</p> + +<p>"I climbed down and round and up and got back as soon as I come too," he +said, with that happy-go-lucky smile of his. "Bedad! but you've been +makin' some history, I see. Git up, you miserable cur, and we'll march +ye down to General Custer. You take entirely too many liberties wid a +Springvale boy what's knowed you too darned long already."</p> + +<p>We lifted Jean, and keeping him before us we hurried him into the +presence of the fair-haired commander to whom we told our story, failing +not to report on the incident witnessed by O'mie on the river bank two +nights before, when Jean sent his murdered father's body into the waters +below him.</p> + +<p>"And so that French renegade is dead, is he," Custer mused, never +lifting his eyes from the ground. He had heard us through without query +or comment, until now. "I knew him well. First as a Missionary priest to +the Osages. He was a fine man then, but the Plains made a devil of him; +and he deserved what he got, no doubt.</p> + +<p>"Now, as to this half-breed, why the devil didn't you kill him when you +had the chance? Dead Indians tell no tales; but the holy Church and the +United States Government listen to what the live ones tell. You could +have saved me any amount of trouble, you infernal fool."</p> + +<p>I stood up before the General. There was as great a contrast in our +appearance as in our rank. The slight, dapper little commander in full +official dress and perfect military bearing looked sternly up at the +huge, rough private with his torn, bloody clothing and lacerated hands. +Custer's yellow locks had just been neatly brushed. My own dark hair, +uncut for months, hung in a curly mass thrown back from my scarred +face.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_451" id="Page_451">[Pg 451]</a></span></p> + +<p>I gave him a courteous, military salute. Then standing up to my full +height, and looking steadily down at the slender, graceful man before +me, I said:</p> + +<p>"I may be a fool, General, but I am a soldier, not a murderer."</p> + +<p>Custer made no reply for a time.</p> + +<p>He sat down and, turning toward Jean Pahusca, he studied the young +half-breed carefully. Then he said briefly,</p> + +<p>"You may go now."</p> + +<p>We saluted and passed from his tent. Outside we had gone only a few +steps, when the General overtook us.</p> + +<p>"Baronet," he said, "you did right. You are a soldier, the kind that +will yet save the Plains."</p> + +<p>He turned and entered his tent again.</p> + +<p>"Golly!" O'mie whistled softly. "It's me that thinks Jean Pahusca, son +av whoever his father may be, 's got to the last and worst piece av his +journey. I'm glad you didn't kill him, Phil. You're claner 'n ever in my +eyes."</p> + +<p>We strolled away together in the soft evening shadows, silent for a +time.</p> + +<p>"Tell me, O'mie," I said at last, "how you happened to find me up there +two hours ago?"</p> + +<p>"I was trailin' you to your hidin'-place. Bud, Heaven bless him, told me +where your little sanctuary was, the night before he—went away." There +were tears in O'mie's voice, but soldiers do not weep. "I had hard work +to find the path. But it was better so maybe."</p> + +<p>"You were just in time, you red-headed angel. Life is sweet." I breathed +deeply of the pleasant air. "Oh, why did Bud have to give it up, I +wonder."</p> + +<p>We sat down behind the big bowlder round which Bud, wounded unto death, +had staggered toward me only a few days before.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_452" id="Page_452">[Pg 452]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Talk, O'mie; I can't," I said, stretching myself out at full length.</p> + +<p>"I was just in time to see Jean spring his trap on you. I waited and +swore, and swore and waited, for him to give me the chance to get +betwane you and the pollutin' pup! It didn't come until the sun took his +face full and square, and I see my chance to make two steps. He's so +doggoned quick he'd have caught me, if it hadn't been for that blessed +gleam in his eyes. He wa'n't takin' no chances. By the way," he added as +an afterthought, "the General says we break camp soon. Didn't say it to +me, av course. Good-night now. Sleep sweet, and don't get too far from +your chest protector,—that's me." He smiled good-bye with as light a +heart as though the hours just past had been full of innocent play +instead of grim tragedy.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>February on the Plains was slipping into March when the garrison at Fort +Sill broke up for the final movement. This winter campaign, as war +records run, had been marked by only one engagement, Custer's attack on +the Cheyenne village on the Washita River. But the hurling of so large a +force as the Fort Sill garrison into the Indian stronghold in the depth +of winter carried to the savage mind and spirit a deeper conviction of +our power than could have been carried by a score of victories on the +green prairies of summer. For the Indian stronghold, be it understood, +consisted not in mountain fastnesses, cunning hiding-places, caves in +the earth, and narrow passes guarded by impregnable cliffs. This was no +repetition of the warfare of the Celts among the rugged rocks of Wales, +nor of the Greeks at Thermopylæ, nor of the Swiss on Alpine footpaths. +This savage stronghold was an open, desolate, boundless plain, fortified +by distances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_453" id="Page_453">[Pg 453]</a></span> and equipped with the slow sure weapons of starvation. +That Government was a terror to the Indian mind whose soldiers dared to +risk its perils and occupy the land at this season of the year. The +withered grasses; the lack of fuel; the absence of game; the salty +creeks, which mock at thirst; the dreary waves of wilderness sand; the +barren earth under a wide bleak sky; the never-ending stretch of +unbroken plain swept by the fierce winter blizzard, whose furious blast +was followed by a bitter perishing weight of cold,—these were the foes +we had had to fight in that winter campaign. Our cavalry horses had +fallen before them, dying on the way. Only a few of those that reached +Fort Sill had had the strength to survive even with food and care. John +Mac prophesied truly when he declared to us that our homesick horses +would never cross the Arkansas River again. Not one of them ever came +back, and we who had gone out mounted now found ourselves a helpless +intantry.</p> + +<p>Slowly the tribes had come to Custer's terms. When delay and cunning +device were no longer of any avail they submitted—all except the +Cheyennes, who had escaped to the Southwest.</p> + +<p>Spring was coming, and the Indians and their ponies could live in +comfort then. It was only in the winter that United States rations and +tents were vital. With the summer they could scorn the white man's help, +and more: they could raid again the white man's land, seize his +property, burn his home, and brain him with their cruel tomahawks; while +as to his wife and children, oh, the very fiends of hell could not +devise an equal to their scheme of life for them. The escape of the +Cheyennes from Custer's grasp was but an earnest of what Kiowa, Arapahoe +and Comanche could do later. These Cheyennes were setting an example +worthy of their emulation. Not quite,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_454" id="Page_454">[Pg 454]</a></span> to the Cheyenne's lordly spirit, +not quite had the cavalry conquered the Plains. And now the Cheyenne +could well gloat over the failure of the army after all it had endured; +for spring was not very far away, the barren Staked Plains, in which the +soldier could but perish, were between them and the arm of the +Government, and our cavalrymen were now mere undisciplined +foot-soldiers. It was to subdue this very spirit, to strike the one most +effectual blow, the conquest of the Cheyennes, that the last act of that +winter campaign was undertaken. This, and one other purpose. I had been +taught in childhood under Christian culture that it is for the welfare +of the home the Government exists. Bred in me through many generations +of ancestry was the high ideal of a man's divine right to protect his +roof-tree and to foster under it those virtues that are built into the +nation's power and honor. I had had thrust upon me in the day of my +young untried strength a heavy sense of responsibility. I had known the +crushing anguish of feeling that one I loved had fallen a prey to a +savage foe before whose mastery death is a joy. I was now to learn the +truth of all the teaching along the way. I was to see in the days of +that late winter the finest element of power the American flag can +symbolize—the value set upon the American home, over which it is a +token of protection. This, then, was that other purpose of this +campaign—the rescue of two captive women, seized and dragged away on +that afternoon when Bud and O'mie and I leaned against the south wall of +old Fort Hays in the October sunshine and talked of the hazard of Plains +warfare. But of this other purpose the privates knew nothing at all. The +Indian tribes, now full of fair promises, were allowed to take up their +abode on their reservations without further guarding. General Custer, +with the Seventh United States Regiment, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_455" id="Page_455">[Pg 455]</a></span> Colonel Horace L. Moore, +in full command of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, were directed to reach +the Cheyenne tribe and reduce it to submission.</p> + +<p>A thousand men followed the twenty-one buglers on their handsome horses, +in military order, down Kansas Avenue in Topeka, on that November day in +1868, when the Kansas volunteers began this campaign. Four months later, +on a day in early March, Custer's regiment with the Nineteenth, now +dismounted cavalry, filed out of Fort Sill and set their faces +resolutely to the westward. Infantry marching was new business for the +Kansas men, but they bent to their work like true soldiers. After four +days a division came, and volunteers from both regiments were chosen to +continue the movement. The remainder, for lack of marching strength, was +sent up on the Washita River to await our return in a camp established +up there under Colonel Henry Inman.</p> + +<p>Reed, one of my Topeka comrades, was of those who could not go farther. +O'mie was not considered equal to the task. I fell into Reed's place +with Hadley and John Mac and Pete, when we started out at last to +conquer the Cheyennes, who were slipping ever away from us somewhere +beyond the horizon's rim. The days that followed, finishing up that +winter campaign, bear a record of endurance unsurpassed in the annals of +American warfare.</p> + +<p>I have read the fascinating story of Coronado and his three hundred +Spanish knights in their long weary march over a silent desolate level +waste day after day, pushing grimly to the northward in their fruitless +search for gold. What did this band of a thousand weary men go seeking +as they took the reverse route of Coronado's to the Southwest over these +ceaslessly crawling sands? Not the discoverer's fame, not the +gold-seeker's treasure led them forth through gray interminable reaches +of desolation.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_456" id="Page_456">[Pg 456]</a></span> They were going now to put the indelible mark of +conquest by a civilized Government, on a crafty and dangerous foe, to +plough a fire-guard of safety about the frontier homes.</p> + +<p>Small heed we gave to this history-making, it is true, as we pressed +silently onward through those dreary late winter days. It was a +soldier's task we had accepted, and we were following the flag. And in +spite of the sins committed in its name, of the evil deeds protected by +its power, wherever it unfurls its radiant waves of light "the breath of +heaven smells wooingly"; gentle peace, and rich prosperity, and holy +love abide ever more under its caressing shadow.</p> + +<p>We were prepared with rations for a five days' expedition only. But +weary, ragged, barefoot, hungry, sleepless, we pressed on through +twenty-five days, following a trail sometimes dim, sometimes clearly +written, through a region the Indians never dreamed we could cross and +live. The nights chilled our famishing bodies. The short hours of broken +rest led only to another day of moving on. There were no breakfasts to +hinder our early starting. The meagre bit of mule meat doled out +sparingly when there was enough of this luxury to be given out, eaten +now without salt, was our only food. Our clothing tattered with wear and +tear, hung on our gaunt frames. Our lips did not close over our teeth; +our eyes above hollow cheeks stared out like the eyes of dead men. The +bloom of health had turned to a sickly yellow hue; but we were all +alike, and nobody noted the change.</p> + +<p>As we passed from one deserted camp to another, it began to seem a +will-o'-the-wisp business, an elusive dream, a long fruitless chasing +after what would escape and leave us to perish at last in this desert. +But the slender yellow-haired man at the head of the column had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_457" id="Page_457">[Pg 457]</a></span> an +indomitable spirit, and an endurance equalled only by his courage and +his military cunning. Under him was the equally indomitable Kansas +Colonel, Horace L. Moore, tried and trained in Plains warfare. Behind +them straggled a thousand soldiers. And still the March days dragged on.</p> + +<p>Then the trails began to tell us that the Indians were gathering in +larger groups and the command was urged forward with more persistent +purpose. We slept at night without covering under the open sky. We +hardly dared to light fires. We had nothing to cook, and a fire would +reveal our whereabouts to the Indians we were pursuing. A thousand +soldiers is a large number; but even a thousand men, starving day after +day, taxing nerve and muscle, with all the reserve force of the body +feeding on its own unfed store of energy; a thousand men destitute of +supplies, cut off by leagues of desert sands from any base of +reinforcement, might put up only a weak defence against the hundreds of +savages in their own habitat. It was to prevent another Arickaree that +Custer's forces kept step in straggling lines when rations had become +only a taunting mockery of the memory.</p> + +<p>The map of that campaign is kept in the archives of war and its official +tale is all told there, told as the commander saw it. I can tell it here +only as a private down in the ranks.</p> + +<p>In the middle of a March afternoon, as we were silently swinging forward +over the level Plains, a low range of hills loomed up. Beyond them lay +the valley of the Sweetwater, a tributary of the Canadian River. Here, +secure in its tepees, was the Cheyenne village, its inhabitants never +dreaming of the white man's patience and endurance. Fifteen hundred +strong it numbered, arrogant, cunning, murderous. The sudden appearance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_458" id="Page_458">[Pg 458]</a></span> +of our army of skeleton men was not without its effect on the savage +mind. Men who had crossed the Staked Plains in this winter time, men who +looked like death already, such men might be hard to kill. But lying and +trickery still availed.</p> + +<p>There was only one mind in the file that day. We had come so far, we had +suffered such horrors on the way, these men had been guilty of such +atrocious crimes, we longed fiercely now to annihilate this band of +wretches in punishment due for all it had cost the nation. I thought of +the young mother and her baby boy on the frozen earth between the drifts +of snow about Satanta's tepee on the banks of the Washita, as Bud and I +found her on the December day when we searched over Custer's battle +field. I pictured the still forms lying on their blankets, and the long +line of soldiers passing reverently by, to see if by chance she might be +known to any of us—this woman, murdered in the very hour of her +release; and I gripped my arms in a frenzy. Oh, Satan takes fast hold on +the heart of a man in such a time, and the Christ dying on the cross up +on Calvary, praying "Father forgive them for they know not what they +do," seems only a fireside story of unreal things.</p> + +<p>In the midst of this opportunity for vengeance just, and long overdue, +comes Custer's lieutenant with military courtesy to Colonel Moore, and +delivers the message, "The General sends his compliments, with the +instructions not to fire on the Indians."</p> + +<p>Courtesy! Compliments! Refrain from any rudeness to the wards of the +Government! I was nearly twenty-two and I knew more than Custer and +Sheridan and even President Grant himself just then. I had a sense of +obedience. John Baronet put that into me back in Springvale years ago. +Also I had extravagant notions of military<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_459" id="Page_459">[Pg 459]</a></span> discipline and honor. But +for one brief moment I was the most lawless mutineer, the rankest +anarchist that ever thirsted for human gore to satisfy a wrong. Nor was +I alone. Beside me were those stanch fellows, Pete and John Mac, and +Hadley. And beyond was the whole line of Kansas men with a cause of +their own here. Before my fury left me, however, we were all about face, +and getting up the valley to a camping-place.</p> + +<p>I might have saved the strength the passion of fury costs. Custer knew +his business and mine also. Down in that Cheyenne village, closely +guarded, were two captive women, the women of my boyhood dream, maybe. +The same two women who had been carried from their homes up in the +Solomon River country in the early Fall. What they had endured in these +months of captivity even the war records that set down plain things do +not deem fit to enter. One shot from our rifles that day on the +Sweetwater would have meant for them the same fate that befell the +sacrifice on the Washita, the dead woman on the deserted battle field. +It was to save these two, then, that we had kept step heavily across the +cold starved Plains. For two women we had marched and suffered on day +after day. Who shall say, at the last analysis, that this young queen of +nations, ruling a beautiful land under the Stars and Stripes, sets no +value on the homes of its people, nor holds as priceless the life and +safety even of two unknown women.</p> + +<p>Very adroitly General Custer visited, and exchanged compliments, and +parleyed and waited, playing his game faultlessly till even the +quick-witted Cheyennes were caught by it. When the precise moment came +the shrewd commander seized the chief men of the village and gave his +ultimatum—a life for a life. The two white women safe from harm must be +brought to him or these mighty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_460" id="Page_460">[Pg 460]</a></span> men must become degraded captives. Then +followed an Indian hurricane of wrath and prayers and trickery. It +availed nothing except to prolong the hours, and hunger and cold filled +another night in our desolate camp.</p> + +<p>Day brought a renewal of demand, a renewal of excuse and delay and an +attempt to outwit by promises. But a second command was more telling. +The yellow-haired general's word now went forth: "If by sunset to-morrow +night these two women are not returned to my possession, these chiefs +will hang."</p> + +<p>So Custer said, and the grim selection of the gallows and the +preparation for fulfilment of his threat went swiftly forward. The +chiefs were terror-stricken, and anxious messages were sent to their +people. Meanwhile the Cheyenne forces were moving farther and farther +away. The squaws and children were being taken to a safe distance, and a +quick flight was in preparation. So another night of hunger and waiting +fell upon us. Then came the day of my dream long ago. The same people I +knew first on the night after Jean Pahusca's attempt on Marjie's life, +when we were hunting our cows out on the West Prairie, came now in +reality before me.</p> + +<p>The Sweetwater Valley spread out under the late sunshine of a March day +was rimmed about by low hills. Beyond these, again, were the Plains, the +same monotony of earth beneath and sky above, the two meeting away and +away in an amethyst fold of mist around the world's far bound. There +were touches of green in the brown valley, but the hill slopes and all +the spread of land about them were gray and splotched and dull against a +blue-gray sickly sky. The hours went by slowly to each anxious soldier, +for endurance was almost at its limit. More heavily still they must have +dragged for the man on whom the burden of command rested. High noon, and +then<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_461" id="Page_461">[Pg 461]</a></span> the afternoon interminably long and dull, and by and by came the +sunset on the Sweetwater Valley, and a new heaven and a new earth were +revealed to the sons of men. Like a chariot of fire, the great sun +rolled in all its gorgeous beauty down the west. The eastern sky grew +radiant with a pink splendor, and every brown and mottled stretch of +distant landscape was touched with golden light or deepened into richest +purple, or set with a roseate bound of flame. Somewhere far away, a +feathery gray mist hung like a silvery veil toning down the earth from +the noonday glare to the sunset glory. Down in the very middle of all +this was a band of a thousand men; their faded clothing, their uncertain +step, their knotted hands, and their great hungry eyes told the price +that had been paid for the drama this sunset hour was to bring. Slowly +the moments passed as when in our little sanctuary above the pleasant +parks at Fort Sill I had watched the light measured out. And then the +low hills began to rise up and shut out the crimson west as twilight +crept toward the Sweetwater Valley.</p> + +<p>Suddenly, for there had been nothing there a moment before, all +suddenly, an Indian scout was outlined on the top of the low bluff +nearest us. Motionless he sat on his pony a moment, then he waved a +signal to the farther height beyond him. A second pony and a second +Indian scout appeared. Another signal and then came a third Indian on a +third pony farther away. Each Indian seemed to call out another until a +line of them had been signalled from the purple mist, out of which they +appeared to be created. Last of all and farthest away, was a pony on +which two figures were faintly outlined. Down in the valley we waited, +all eyes looking toward the hills as these two drew nearer. Up in a +group on the bluff beyond the valley the Indians halted. The two riders +of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_462" id="Page_462">[Pg 462]</a></span> the pony slipped to the ground. With their arms about each other, in +close embrace, they came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited. It was a tragic scene, such as our history has rarely +known, watched by a thousand men, mute and motionless, under its spell. +Even now, after the lapse of nearly four decades, the picture is as +vivid as if it were but yesterday that I stood on the Texas Plains a +soldier of twenty-two years, feeling my heart throbs quicken as that +sunset scene is enacted before me.</p> + +<p>We had thought ourselves the victims of a hard fate in that winter of +terrible suffering; but these two women, Kansas girls, no older than +Marjie, home-loving, sheltered, womanly, a maiden and a bride of only a +few months—shall I ever forget them as they walked into my life on that +March day in the sunset hour by the Sweetwater? Their meagre clothing +was of thin flour sacks with buckskin moccasins and leggins. Their hair +hung in braids Indian fashion. Their haggard faces and sad eyes told +only the beginning of their story. They were coming now to freedom and +protection. The shadow of Old Glory would be on them in a moment; a +moment, and the life of an Indian captive would be but a horror-seared +memory.</p> + +<p>Then it was that Custer did a graceful thing. The subjection of the +Cheyennes could have been accomplished by soldiery from Connecticut or +South Carolina, but it was for the rescue of these two, for the +protection of Kansas homes, that the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry had +volunteered. Stepping to our commander, Colonel Moore, Custer asked that +the Kansas man should go forward to meet the captives. With a courtesy a +queen might have coveted the Colonel received them—two half-naked, +wretched, fate-buffeted women.</p> + +<p>The officers nearest wrapped their great coats about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_463" id="Page_463">[Pg 463]</a></span> them. Then, as the +two, escorted by Colonel Moore and his officers next of rank, moved +forward toward General Custer, who was standing apart on a little knoll +waiting to receive them, a thousand men watching breathless with +uncovered heads the while, the setting sun sent down athwart the valley +its last rich rays of glory, the motionless air was full of an +opalescent beauty; while softly, sweetly, like dream music never heard +before in that lonely land of silence, the splendid Seventh Cavalry band +was playing "Home Sweet Home."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_464" id="Page_464">[Pg 464]</a></span></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>THE HERITAGE</h3> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">It is morning here in Kansas, and the breakfast bell is rung!</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We are not yet fairly started on the work we mean to do;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We have all the day before us, and the morning is but young,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And there's hope in every zephyr, and the skies are bright and blue.</span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 11em;">—WALT MASON.</span><br /> +</p> + + +<p>It was over at last, the long painful marching; the fight with the +winter's blizzard, the struggle with starvation, the sunrise and sunset +and starlight on wilderness ways—all ended after a while. Of the three +boys who had gone out from Springvale and joined in the sacrifice for +the frontier, Bud sleeps in that pleasant country at Fort Sill. The +summer breezes ripple the grasses on his grave, the sunbeams caress it +lovingly and the winter snows cover it softly over—the quiet grave he +had wished for and found all too soon. Dear Bud, "not changed, but +glorified," he holds his place in all our hearts. For O'mie, the winter +campaign was the closing act of a comic tragedy, and I can never think +sadly of the brave-hearted happy Irishman. He was too full of the sunny +joy of existence, his heart beat with too much of good-will toward men, +to be remembered otherwise than as a bright-faced, sweet-spirited boy +whose span of years was short. How he ever endured the hardships and +reached Springvale again is a miracle, and I wonder even now, how, +waiting patiently for the inevitable, he could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_465" id="Page_465">[Pg 465]</a></span> go peacefully through +the hours, making us forget everything but his cheery laugh, his +affectionate appreciation of the good things of the world, and his +childlike trust in the Saviour of men.</p> + +<p>His will was a simple thing, containing the bequest of all his +possessions, including the half-section of land so long in litigation, +and the requests regarding his funeral. The latter had three wishes: +that Marjie would sing "Abide With Me" at the burial service, that he +might lie near to John Baronet's last resting-place in the Springvale +cemetery, and that Dave and Bill Mead, and the three Andersons, with +myself would be his pall bearers. Dave was on the Pacific slope then, +and O'mie himself had helped to bear Bud to his final earthly home. One +of the Red Range boys and Jim Conlow filled these vacant places. +Reverently, as for one of the town's distinguished men, there walked +beside us Father Le Claire and Judge Baronet, Cris Mead and Henry +Anderson, father of the Anderson boys, Cam Gentry and Dever. Behind +these came the whole of Springvale. It was May time, a year after our +Southwest campaign, and the wild flowers of the prairie lined his grave +and wreaths of the pink blossoms that grow out in the West Draw were +twined about his casket. He had no next of kin, there were no especial +mourners. His battle was ended and we could not grieve for his abundant +entrance into eternal peace.</p> + +<p>Three of us had gone out with the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and I am +the third. While we were creeping back to life at Camp Inman on the +Washita after that well-nigh fatal expedition across the Staked Plains +to the Sweetwater, I saw much of Hard Rope, chief man of the Osage +scouts. I had been accustomed to the Osages all my years in Kansas. +Neither this tribe, nor our nearer<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_466" id="Page_466">[Pg 466]</a></span> neighbors, the Kaws, had ever given +Springvale any serious concern. Sober, they were law-abiding enough, and +drunk, they were no more dangerous than any drunken white man. Bitter as +my experience with the Indian has been, I have always respected the +loyal Osage. But I never sought one of this or any other Indian tribe +for the sake of his company. Race prejudice in me is still strong, even +when I give admiration and justice free rein. Indians had frequent +business in the Baronet law office in my earlier years, and after I was +associated with my father there was much that brought them to us. +Possibly the fact that I did not dislike the Osages is the reason I +hardly gave them a thought at Fort Sill. It was not until afterwards +that I recalled how often I had found the Osage scouts there crossing my +path unexpectedly. On the day before we broke camp at the Fort, Hard +Rope came to my tent and sat down beside the door. I did not notice him +until he said slowly:</p> + +<p>"Baronet?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I replied.</p> + +<p>"Tobacco?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"No, Hard Rope," I answered, "I have every other mark of a great man +except this. I don't smoke."</p> + +<p>"I want tobacco," he continued.</p> + +<p>What made me accommodating just then I do not know, but I suddenly +remembered some tobacco that Reed had left in my tent.</p> + +<p>"Hard Rope," I said, "here is some tobacco. I forgot I had it, because I +don't care for it. Take it all."</p> + +<p>The scout seized it with as much gratitude as an Indian shows, but he +did not go away at once.</p> + +<p>"Something else now?" I questioned not unkindly.</p> + +<p>"You Judge Baronet's son?"</p> + +<p>I nodded and smiled.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_467" id="Page_467">[Pg 467]</a></span></p> + +<p>He came very close to me, putting both hands on my shoulders, and +looking steadily into my eyes he said solemnly, "You will be safe. No +evil come near you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Hard Rope, but I will keep my powder dry just the same," I +answered.</p> + +<p>All the time in the Inman camp the scout shadowed me. On the evening +before our start for Fort Hays to be mustered out of service he came to +me as I sat alone beside the Washita, breathing deeply the warm air of +an April twilight. I had heard no word from home since I left Topeka in +October. Marjie must be married, as Jean had said. I had never known the +half-breed to tell a lie. It was so long ago that that letter of hers to +me had miscarried. She thought of course that I had taken it and even +then refused to stay at home. Oh, it was all a hopeless tangle, and now +I might be dreaming of another man's wife. I had somehow grown utterly +hopeless now. Jean—oh, the thought was torture—I could not feel sure +about him. He might be shadowing her night and day. Custer did not tell +me what had become of the Indian, and I had seen on the Sweetwater what +such as he could do for a Kansas girl. As I sat thus thinking, Hard Rope +squatted beside me.</p> + +<p>"You go at sunrise?" pointing toward the east.</p> + +<p>I merely nodded.</p> + +<p>"I want to talk," he went on.</p> + +<p>"Well, talk away, Hard Rope." I was glad to quit thinking.</p> + +<p>What he told me there by the rippling Washita River I did not repeat for +many months, but I wrung his hand when I said good-bye. Of all the +scouts with Custer that we left behind when we started northward, none +had so large a present of tobacco as Hard Rope.</p> + +<p>My father had demanded that I return to Springvale<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_468" id="Page_468">[Pg 468]</a></span> as soon as our +regiment was mustered out. Morton was still in the East, and I had no +foothold in the Saline Valley as I had hoped in the Fall to have. Nor +was there any other place that opened its doors to me. And withal I was +homesick—desperately, ravenously homesick. I wanted to see my father +and Aunt Candace, to look once more on the peaceful Neosho and the huge +oak trees down in its fertile valley. For nearly half a year I had not +seen a house, nor known a civilized luxury. No child ever yearned for +home and mother as I longed for Springvale. And most of all came an +overwhelming eagerness to see Marjie once more. She was probably Mrs. +Judson now, unless Jean—but Hard Rope had eased my mind a little +there—and I had no right even to think of her. Only I was young, and I +had loved her so long. All that fierce battle with myself which I fought +out on the West Prairie on the night she refused to let me speak to her +had to be fought over again. And this time, marching northward over the +April Plains toward Fort Hays, this time, I was hopelessly vanquished. +I, Philip Baronet, who had fought with fifty against a thousand on the +Arickaree; who had gone with Custer to the Sweetwater in the dreary +wastes of the Texas desert; I who had a little limp now and then in my +right foot, left out too long in the cold, too long made to keep step in +weary ways on endlessly wearing marches; I who had lost the softness of +the boy's physique and who was muscled like a man, with something of the +military bearing hammered mercilessly upon me in the days of soldier +life—I was still madly in love with a girl who had refused all my +pleadings and was even now, maybe, another man's wife. Oh, cold and +terror and starvation were all bad enough, but this was unendurable.</p> + +<p>"I will go home as my father wishes," I said. "I do<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_469" id="Page_469">[Pg 469]</a></span> not need to stay +there, but I will go now for a while and feel once more what +civilization means. Then—I will go to the Plains, or somewhere else." +So I argued as we came one April day into Fort Hays. Letters from home +were awaiting me, urging me to come at once; and I went, leaving O'mie +to follow later when he should have rested at the Fort a little.</p> + +<p>All Kansas was in its Maytime glory. From the freshly ploughed earth +came up that sweet wholesome odor that like the scent of new-mown hay +carries its own traditions of other days to each of us. The young +orchards—there were not many orchards in Kansas then—were all a blur +of pink on the hill slopes. A thousand different blossoms gemmed the +prairies, making a perfect kaleidoscope of brilliant hues, that blended +with the shifting shades of green. Along the waterways the cottonwood's +silvery branches, tipped with tender young leaves fluttering in the soft +wind, stood up proudly above the scrubby bronze and purple growths +hardly yet in bud and leaf. From every gentle swell the landscape swept +away to the vanishing line of distances in billowy seas of green and +gold, while far overhead arched the deep-blue skies of May. Fleecy +clouds, white and soft as foam, drifted about in the limitless fields of +ether. The glory of the new year, the fresh sweet air, the spirit of +budding life, set the pulses a-tingle with the very joy of being. Like a +dream of Paradise lay the Neosho Valley in its wooded beauty, with field +and farm, the meadow, and the open unending prairie rolling away from +it, wave on wave, in the Maytime grace and grandeur. Through this valley +the river itself wound in and out, glistening like molten silver in the +open spaces, and gliding still and shadowy by overhanging cliff and +wooded covert.</p> + +<p>"Dever," I said to the stage driver when we had reached<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_470" id="Page_470">[Pg 470]</a></span> the top of the +divide and looked southward to where all this magnificence of nature was +lavishly spread out, "Dever, do you remember that passage in the Bible +about the making of the world long ago, 'And God saw that it was good'? +Well, here's where all that happened."</p> + +<p>Dever laughed a crowing laugh of joy. He had hugged me when I took the +stage, I didn't know why. When it came to doing the nice thing, Dever +had a sense of propriety sometimes that better-bred folk might have +envied. And this journey home proved it.</p> + +<p>"I've got a errant up west. D'ye's lief come into town that way?" he +asked me.</p> + +<p>Would I? I was longing to slip into my home before I ran the gantlet of +all the streets opening on the Santa Fé Trail. I never did know what +Dever's "errant" was, that led him to swing some miles to the west, out +of the way to the ford of the Neosho above the old stone cabin where +Father Le Claire swam his horse in the May flood six years before. He +gave no reason for the act that brought me over a road, every foot +sacred to the happiest moments of my life. Past the big cottonwood, down +into the West Draw where the pink blossoms called in sweet insistent +tones to me to remember a day when I had crowned a little girl with +blooms like these, a day when my life was in its Maytime joy. On across +the prairie we swung to the very borders of Springvale, which was +nestling by the river and stretching up the hillslope toward where the +bluff breaks abruptly. I could see "Rockport" gray and sun-flecked +beyond its sheltering line of green bushes.</p> + +<p>Just as we turned toward Cliff Street Dever said carelessly,</p> + +<p>"Lots of changes some ways sence I took you out of here last August. +Judson, he's married two months ago."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_471" id="Page_471">[Pg 471]</a></span></p> + +<p>The warm sunny glorious world turned drab and cold to me with the words.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter, Baronet?—you're whiter'n a dead man!"</p> + +<p>"Just a little faint. Got that way in the army," I answered, which was a +lie.</p> + +<p>"Better now? As I was sayin', Judson and Lettie has been married two +months now. Kinder surprised folks by jinin' up sudden; but—oh, well, +it's a lot better quick than not at all sometimes."</p> + +<p>I caught my breath. My "spell" contracted in the army was passing. And +here were Cliff Street and the round turret-like corners of Judge +Baronet's stone-built domicile. It was high noon, and my father had just +gone into the house. I gave Dever his fare and made the hall door at a +leap. My father turned at the sound and—I was in his arms. Then came +Aunt Candace, older by more than ten months. Oh, the women are the ones +who suffer most. I had not thought until that moment what all this +winter of absence meant to Candace Baronet. I held her in my strong arms +and looked down into her love-hungry eyes. Men are such stupid unfeeling +brutes. I am, at least; for I had never read in this dear woman's face +until that instant what must have been written there all these +years,—the love that might have been given to a husband and children of +her own, this lonely, childless woman had given to me.</p> + +<p>"Aunty, I'll never leave you again," I declared, as she clung to me, and +patted my cheeks and stroked my rough curly hair.</p> + +<p>We sat down together to the midday meal, and my father's blessing was +like the benediction of Heaven to my ears.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_472" id="Page_472">[Pg 472]</a></span></p> + +<p>Springvale also had its measure of good breeding. My coming was the +choicest news that Dever had had to give out for many a day, and the +circulation was amazing in its rapid transit. I had a host of friends +here where I had grown to manhood, and the first impulse was to take +Cliff Street by storm. It was Cam Gentry who counselled better methods.</p> + +<p>"Now, by hen, let's have some sense," he urged, "the boy's jest got +here. He's ben through life and death, er tarnation nigh akin to it. +Let's let him be with his own till to-morror. Jest ac like we'd had a +grain o' raisin' anyhow, and wait our turn. Ef he shows hisself down on +this 'er street we'll jest go out and turn the Neoshy runnin' north for +an hour and a half while we carry him around dry shod. But now, to-day, +let him come out o' hidin', and we'll give him welcome; but ef he stays +up there with Candace, we'll be gentlemen fur oncet ef it does purty +nigh kill some of us."</p> + +<p>"Cam is right," Cris Mead urged. "If he comes down here he'll take his +chances, but we'll hold our fire on the hill till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Well, by cracky, the Baronets never miss prayer meeting, I guess. +Springvale will turn out to-night some," Grandpa Mead declared.</p> + +<p>And so while I revelled in a home-coming, thankful to be alone with my +own people, the best folks on earth were waiting and dodging about, but +courteously abstaining from rushing in on our sacred home rights.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the afternoon Cam Gentry called to Dollie to come to +his aid.</p> + +<p>"Jest tie the end of this rope good and fast around this piazzer post," +he said.</p> + +<p>His wife obeyed before she noted that the other end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_473" id="Page_473">[Pg 473]</a></span> was fastened around +Cam's right ankle. To her wondering look he responded:</p> + +<p>"Ef I don't lariat myself to something, like a old hen wanting to steal +off with her chickens, I'll be up to Baronet's spite of my efforts, I'm +that crazy to see Phil once more."</p> + +<p>Through the remainder of the May afternoon he sat on the veranda, or +hopped the length of his tether to the side-walk and looked longingly up +toward the high street, that faced the cliff, but his purpose did not +change.</p> + +<p>Springvale showed its sense of delicacy in more ways than this. Marjie +was the last to hear of my leaving when all suddenly I turned my back on +the town nearly ten months before. And now, while almost every family +had discussed my return—anything furnishes a little town a +sensation—the Whately family had had no notice served of the +momentarily interesting topic. And so it was that Marjie, innocent of +the suppressed interest, went about her home, never dreaming of anything +unusual in the town talk of that day.</p> + +<p>The May evening was delicious in its balmy air and the deepening purple +of its twilight haze. The spirit of the springtime, wooing in its tone +of softest music, voiced a message to the sons and daughters of men. +Marjie came out at sunset and slowly took her way through the sweetness +of it all up to the "Rockport" of our childhood, the trysting place of +our days of love's young dream. Her fair face had a womanly strength and +tenderness now, and her form an added grace over the curves of girlhood. +But her hair still rippled about her brow and coiled in the same soft +folds of brown at the back of her head. Her cheeks had still the pink of +the wild rose bloom, and the dainty neatness in dress was as of old.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_474" id="Page_474">[Pg 474]</a></span></p> + +<p>She came to the rock beyond the bushes and sat down alone looking +dreamily out over the Neosho Valley.</p> + +<p>"You'll go to prayer meeting, Phil?" Aunt Candace asked at supper.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I believe I'll go down the street first. Save a place for me. +I want to see Dr. Hemingway next to you of all Springvale." Which was my +second falsehood for that day. I needed prayer meeting.</p> + +<p>The sunset hour was more than I could withstand. All the afternoon I had +been subconsciously saying that I must keep close to the realities. +These were all that counted now. And yet when the evening came, all the +past swept my soul and bore every resolve before it. I did not stop to +ask myself any questions. I only knew that, lonely as it must be, I must +go now to "Rockport" as I had done so many times in the old happy past, +a past I was already beginning numbly to feel was dead and gone forever. +And yet my step was firm and my head erect, as with eager tread I came +to the bushes guarding our old happy playground. I only wanted to see it +once more, that was all.</p> + +<p>The limp had gone from my foot. It was intermittent in the earlier +years. I was combed and groomed again for social appearing. Aunt Candace +had hung about my tie and the set of my coat, and for my old army +head-gear she had resurrected the jaunty cap I had worn home from +Massachusetts. With my hands in my pockets, whistling softly to abstract +my thoughts, I slipped through the bushes and stood once more on +"Rockport."</p> + +<p>And there was Marjie, still looking dreamily out over the valley. She +had not heard my step, so far away were her thoughts. And the picture, +as I stood a moment looking at her—will the world to come hold anything +more fair, I wondered. It was years ago, I know,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_475" id="Page_475">[Pg 475]</a></span> but so clearly I +recall it now it could have been a dream of yesterday. Before me were +the gray rock, the dark-green valley, the gleaming waters of the Neosho, +the silvery mist on the farther bluff iridescent with the pink tints of +sunset reflected on the eastern sky, the quiet loveliness of the May +twilight, and Marjie, beautiful with a girlish winsomeness, a woman's +grace, a Madonna's tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Were you waiting for me, dearie? I am a little late, but I am here at +last."</p> + +<p>I spoke softly, and she turned quickly at the sound of my voice. A look +of dazed surprise as she leaped to her feet, and then the reality dawned +upon her.</p> + +<p>"Come, sweetheart," I said. "I have been away so long, I'm hungering for +your welcome."</p> + +<p>I held out my hands to her. Her face was very white as she made one step +toward me, and then the love-light filled her brown eyes, the glorious +beauty of the pink blossoms swept her cheek. I put my arms around her +and drew her close to me, my own little girl, whom I had loved and +thought I had lost forever.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Phil, Phil, are you here again? Are you—" she put her little hand +against my hair curling rebelliously over my cap's brim. "Are you mine +once more?"</p> + +<p>"Am I, Marjie? Six feet of me has come back; but, little girl, I have +never been away. I have never let you go out of my life. It was only the +mechanical action that went away. Phil Baronet stayed here! Oh, I know +it now—I was acting out there; I was really living here with you, my +Marjie, my own."</p> + +<p>I held her in my arms as I spoke, and we looked out at the sweet sunset +prairie. The big cottonwood, shapely as ever, was outlined against the +horizon, which was illumined now with all the gorgeous grandeur of the +May<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_476" id="Page_476">[Pg 476]</a></span> evening. The level rays of golden light fell on us, as we stood +there, baptizing us with its splendor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Marjie, it was worth all the suffering and danger to have such a +home-coming as this!" I kissed her lips and pushed back the little +ringlets from her white forehead.</p> + +<p>"It is vouchsafed to a man sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on +earth," Father Le Claire had said to me out on this rock six years +before. It was a bit of heaven that came down to me in the purple +twilight of that May evening, and I lifted my face to the opal skies +above me with a prayer of thankfulness for the love that was mine once +more. In that hour of happiness we forgot that there was ever a storm +cloud to darken the blue heavens, or ever a grief or a sin to mar the +joy of living. We were young, and we were together. Over the valley +swept the sweet tones of the Presbyterian Church bell. Marjie's face, +radiant with light, was lifted to mine.</p> + +<p>"I must go to prayer meeting, Phil. I shall see you again—to-morrow?" +She put the question hesitatingly, even longingly.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and to-night. Let's go together. I haven't been to prayer meeting +regularly. We lost out on that on the Staked Plains."</p> + +<p>"I must run home and comb my hair," she declared; and indeed it was a +little tumbled. But from the night I first saw her, a little girl in her +father's moving-wagon, with her pink sun-bonnet pushed back from her +blowsy curls, her hair, however rebellious, was always a picture.</p> + +<p>"Go ahead, little girl. I will run home, too. I forgot something. I will +be down right away."</p> + +<p>Going home, I may have walked on Cliff Street, but my head was in the +clouds, and all the songs that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_477" id="Page_477">[Pg 477]</a></span> morning-stars sing together—all the +music of the spheres—was playing itself out for me in the shadowy +twilight as I went along.</p> + +<p>At the gate Aunt Candace and my father were waiting for me.</p> + +<p>"You needn't wait," I cried. "I will be there presently."</p> + +<p>"Oh, joined the regular army this time," my father said, smiling. "Sorry +we can't keep you, Phil." But I gave no heed to him.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Candace," I said in a low voice. "May I see you just a minute? I +want to get something."</p> + +<p>"It's in the top drawer in my room, Phil. The key is in the little tray +on my dresser," Aunt Candace said quietly. She always understood me.</p> + +<p>When I reached the Whately home, Marjie was waiting for me at the gate. +I took her little hand in my own strong big one.</p> + +<p>"Will you wear it again for me, dearie?" I asked, holding up my mother's +ring before her.</p> + +<p>"Always and always, Phil," she murmured.</p> + +<p>Isn't it Longfellow who speaks of "the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots +of the angels," blossoming "in the infinite meadows of heaven"? They +were all a-bloom that May night, and dewy and sweet lay the earth +beneath them. We were a little late to prayer meeting. The choir was in +its place and the audience was gathered in the pews. Judge Baronet +always sat near the front, and my place was between him and Aunt Candace +when I wasn't in the choir. Bess Anderson was just finishing a voluntary +as we two went up the aisle together. I hadn't thought of making a +sensation, I thought only of Marjie. Passing around the end of the +chancel rail I gently led her by the arm up the three steps to the +choir<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_478" id="Page_478">[Pg 478]</a></span> place, and turning, faced all the town as I went to my seat +beside my father. I was as happy as a lover can be; but I didn't know +how much of all this was written on my countenance, nor did I notice the +intense hush that fell on the company. I had faced the oncoming of Roman +Nose and his thousand Cheyenne warriors; there was no reason why I +should feel embarrassed in a prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Church +at Springvale. The service was short. I remember not one word of it +except the scripture lesson. That was the Twenty-third Psalm:</p> + +<p> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He leadeth me beside the still waters.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He restoreth my soul;</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.</span><br /> +</p> + +<p>These words had sounded in my ears on the night before the battle on the +Arickaree, and again in the little cove on the low bluff at Fort Sill, +the night Jean Pahusca was taunting me through the few minutes he was +allowing me to live. That Psalm belonged to the days when I was doing my +part toward the price paid out for the prairie homes and safety and +peace. But never anybody read for me as Dr. Hemingway read it that +evening. With the close of the service came a prayer of thanksgiving for +my return. Then for the first time I was self-conscious. What had I done +to be so lovingly and reverently welcomed home? I bowed my head in deep +humility, and the tears welled up. Oh, I could look death calmly between +the eyes as I had watched it creeping toward me on the heated Plains of +the Arickaree, and among the cold starved sand dunes of the Cimarron, +but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_479" id="Page_479">[Pg 479]</a></span> to be lauded as a hero here in Springvale—the tears would come. +Where were Custer, and Moore, and Forsyth, and Pliley, and Stillwell, +and Morton, if such as I be called a hero?</p> + +<p>Cam Gentry didn't lead the Doxology that night, he chased it clear into +the belfry and up into the very top of the steeple; and his closing +burst of melody "Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," had, as Bill Mead +declared afterwards, a regular +"You-couldn't-have-done-it-better-Lord-if-you-had-been-there-yourself" +ring to it.</p> + +<p>Then came the benediction, fervent, holy, gentle, with Dr. Hemingway's +white face (crowned now with snowy hair) lifted up toward heaven. After +that I never could remember, save that there was a hush, then a clamor, +that was followed pretty soon by embraces from the older men and women, +pounding thumps from the younger men and handshaking with the girls. And +all the while, with a proprietary sense I had found myself near Marjie, +whom I kept close beside me now, her brown head just above my shoulder.</p> + +<p>More than once in the decades since then it has been my fortune to +return to Springvale and be met at the railway station and escorted home +by the town band. Sometimes for political service, sometimes for civic +effort, and once because by physical strength and great daring and quick +cool courage I saved three human lives in a terrible wreck; but never +any ovation was like that prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Church +nearly forty years ago.</p> + +<p>The days that followed my home-coming were busy ones, for my place in +the office had been vacant. Clayton Anderson had devoted himself to the +Whately affairs, although nobody but those in the secret knew when +Judson gave up proprietorship and went on a clerk's pay<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_480" id="Page_480">[Pg 480]</a></span> again where he +belonged. Springvale was kind to Judson, as it has always been to the +man who tries honestly to make good in this life's struggle. It is in +the Kansas air, this broader charity, this estimation of character, +redeemed or redeemable.</p> + +<p>My father did not tell me of his part in the Whately business affairs at +once, and I did not understand when, one evening, some time later, Aunt +Candace said at the supper table:</p> + +<p>"Dollie Gentry tells me Dr. John (so we called John Anderson now), +reports a twelve-pound boy over at Judsons'. They are going to christen +him 'John Baronet Judson.' Aren't you proud of the name, John?"</p> + +<p>"I am of the Judson part," my father answered, with that compression of +the lips that sometimes kept back a smile, and sometimes marked a +growing sternness.</p> + +<p>I met O'mie at Topeka and brought him to Springvale. It was not until in +May of the next year that he went away from us and came not back any +more, save in loving remembrance.</p> + +<p>In August Tillhurst went East. Somehow I was not at all surprised when +the Rockport, Massachusetts, weekly newspaper, that had come to our +house every Tuesday while we had lived on Cliff Street, contained the +notice of the marriage of Richard Tillhurst and Rachel Agnes Melrose. +The happy couple, the paper said, would reside in Rockport.</p> + +<p>"They may reside at the bottom of the sea for all that I care," I said +thoughtlessly, not understanding then the shadow that fell for the +moment on my aunt's serene face.</p> + +<p>Long afterwards when she slept beside my father in the quiet Springvale +cemetery on the bluff beyond Fingal's Creek, I found among her letters +the romance of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_481" id="Page_481">[Pg 481]</a></span> her life. I knew then for the first time that Rachel's +uncle, the Ferdinand Melrose whose life was lost at sea, was the one for +whom this brave kind woman had mourned. Loving as the Baronets do, even +unto death, she had gone down the lonely years, forgetting herself in +the broad, beautiful, unselfish life she gave to those about her.</p> + +<p>It was late in the August of the following year, when the Kansas +prairies were brownest and the summer heat the fiercest, that I was met +at the courthouse door one afternoon by a lithe, coppery Osage Indian +boy, who handed me a bundle, saying, "From Hard Rope, for John Baronet's +son."</p> + +<p>"Well, all right, sonny; only it's about time for the gentleman in there +to be known as Philip Baronet's father. He never fought the Cheyennes. +He's just the father of the man who did. What's the tariff due on this +junk?"</p> + +<p>The Osage did not smile, but he answered mildly enough, "What you will +pay."</p> + +<p>I was not cross with the world. I could afford to be generous, even at +the risk of having the whole Osage tribe trailing at my heels, and +begging for tobacco and food and trinkets. I loaded that young buck to +the guards with the things an Indian prizes, and sent him away.</p> + +<p>Then in my own office I undid the bundle. It was the old scarlet blanket +with the white circular centre, the pattern Jean Pahusca always wore. +This one was dirty and frayed and splotched. I turned from it with +loathing. In the folds of the cloth a sealed letter was securely +fastened. Some soldier had written it for Hard Rope, and the penmanship +and language were more than average fine. But the story it told I could +not exult over, although<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_482" id="Page_482">[Pg 482]</a></span> a sense of lifted pressure in some corner of +my mind came with the reading.</p> + +<p>Briefly it recited that Jean Pahusca, Kiowa renegade, was dead. Custer's +penalty for him had been to give him over to the Kiowas as their +captive. When the tribe left Fort Sill in March, Satanta had had him +brought bound to the Kiowa village then on the lower Washita. His crime, +committed on the day of Custer's fight with Black Kettle, was the +heinous one of stealing his Uncle Satanta's youngest and favorite wife, +and leaving her to perish miserably in the cold of that December month +in which we also had suffered. His plan had been to escape from the +Kiowas and reach the Cheyennes on the Sweetwater before we did, to meet +me there, and this time, to give no moment for my rescue. So Hard Rope's +message ran. But this was not all. The punishment that fell on Jean +Pahusca was in proportion to his crime, as an Indian counts justice. He +was sold as a slave to the Apaches and carried captive to the mountains +of Old Mexico. Nor was he ever liberated again. Up above the snow line, +with the passes guarded (for Jean was as dangerous to his mother's race +as to his father's), he had fretted away his days, dying at last of cold +and cruel neglect among the dreary rocks of the icy peaks. This much +information Hard Rope's letter brought. I burned both the letter and the +blanket, telling no one of them except my father.</p> + +<p>"This Hard Rope was for some reason very friendly to me on your +account," I said. "He told me on the Washita the night before we left +Camp Inman that he had shadowed Jean all the time he was at Fort Sill, +and had more than once prevented the half-breed from making an attack on +me. He promised to let me know what became of Pahusca if he ever found +out. He has kept his word."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_483" id="Page_483">[Pg 483]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know Hard Rope," my father said. "I saved his life one annuity day +long ago. Tell Mapleson had made Jean Pahusca drunk. You know what kind +of a beast he was then. And Tell had run this Osage into Jean's path, +where he would be sure to lose his life, and Tell would have the big +pile of money Hard Rope carried. That's the kind of beast Tell was. An +Indian has his own sense of obligation; and then it is a good asset to +be humane all along the line anyhow, although I never dreamed I was +saving the man who was to save my boy."</p> + +<p>"Shall we tell Le Claire?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Only that both Jean and his father are dead. We'll spare him the rest. +Le Claire has gone to St. Louis to a monastery. He will never be strong +again. But he is one of the kings of the earth; he has given the best +years of his manhood to build up a kingdom of peace between the white +man and the savage. No record except the Great Book of human deeds will +ever be able to show how much we owe to men like Le Claire whose +influence has helped to make a loyal peaceful tribe like the Osages. The +brutal fiendishness of the Plains Indians is the heritage of Spanish +cruelty toward the ancestors of the Apache and Kiowa and Arapahoe and +Comanche, and you can see why they differ from our tribes here in +Eastern Kansas. Le Claire has done his part toward the purchase of the +Plains, and I am glad for the quiet years before him."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was the custom in Springvale for every girl to go up to Topeka for +the final purchases of her bridal belongings. We were to be married in +October. In the late September days Mrs. Whately and her daughter spent +a week at the capital city. I went up at the end of the visit to come +home with them. Since the death of Irving<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_484" id="Page_484">[Pg 484]</a></span> Whately nothing had ever +roused his wife to the pleasure of living like this preparation for +Marjie's marriage, and Mrs. Whately, still a young and very pretty +woman, bloomed into that mature comeliness that carries a grace of +permanence the promise of youth may only hint at. She delighted in every +detail of the coming event, and we two most concerned were willing to +let anybody look after the details. We had other matters to think about.</p> + +<p>"Come, little sweetheart," I said one night after supper at the Teft +House, "your mother is to spend the evening with a friend of hers. I +want to take you for a walk."</p> + +<p>Strange how beautiful Topeka looked to me this September. It had all the +making of a handsome city even then, although the year since I came up +to the political rally had brought no great change except to extend the +borders somewhat. Like two happy young lovers we strolled out toward the +southwest, past the hole in the ground that was to contain the +foundation of the new wings for the State Capitol, past Washburn +College, and on to where the slender little locust tree waved its dainty +lacy branches in graceful welcome.</p> + +<p>"Marjie, I want you to see this tree. It's not the first time I have +been here. Rachel—Mrs. Tillhurst—and I came here a few times." +Marjie's hand nestled softly against my arm. "I always made faces at it +as soon as I got away from it; but it is a beautiful little tree, and I +want to put you with it in my mind. It was here last Fall that my father +said he didn't believe that you were engaged to Amos Judson."</p> + +<p>"Didn't believe," Marjie cried; "why, Phil, he knew I wasn't. I told him +so when he was asked to urge me to marry Amos."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_485" id="Page_485">[Pg 485]</a></span></p> + +<p>"He urge you to marry Amos! Now Marjie, girl, I hate to be hard on the +gentleman; but if he did that it's my duty to scalp him, and I will go +home and do it."</p> + +<p>But Marjie explained. We sat in the moonlight by the locust-tree just as +Rachel and I had done; only now Topeka and the tree and the silvery +prairie and the black-shadowed Shunganunga Creek, winding down toward +the Kaw through many devious turns, all seemed a fairy land which the +moonbeams touched and glorified for us two. I can never think of Topeka, +even to-day, with its broad avenues and beautiful shaded parks and paved +ways, its handsome homes and churches and colleges, with all these to +make it a proud young city—I can never think of it and leave out that +sturdy young locust, grown now to a handsome tree. And when I think of +it I do not think of the beautiful black-haired Eastern girl, with her +rich dress and aristocratic manner. But always that sweet-faced, +brown-eyed Kansas girl is with me there. And the open prairie dipping +down to the creek, and the purple tip of Burnett's Mound, make a setting +for the picture.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>One October day when the wooded valley of the Neosho was in its autumn +glory, when the creeping vines on the gray stone bluff were aflame with +the frost's rich scarlet painting, and the west prairies were all one +shimmering sea of gold flecked with emerald and purple; while above all +these curved the wide magnificent skies of Kansas, unclouded, +fathomless, and tenderly blue; when the peace of God was in the air and +his benediction of love was on all the land,—on such a day as this, the +clear-toned old Presbyterian Church bell rang the wedding chimes for +Marjory Whately and Philip Baronet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_486" id="Page_486">[Pg 486]</a></span> Loving hands had made the church a +bower of autumn coloring with the dainty relief of pink and white asters +against the bronze richness of the season. Bess Anderson played the +wedding march, as we two came up the aisle together and met Dr. +Hemingway at the chancel rail. I was in my young manhood's zenith, and I +walked the earth like a king. Marjie wore my mother's wedding veil. Her +white gown was soft and filmy, a fabric of her mother's own choosing, +and her brown wavy hair was crowned with orange blossoms.</p> + +<p>Springvale talked of that wedding for many a moon, for there was not a +feature of the whole beautiful service, even to the very least +appointment, that was not perfect in its simplicity and harmonious in +its blending with everything about it.</p> + +<p>Among the guests in the Baronet home, where everybody came to wish us +happiness, was my father's friend and my own hero, Morton of the Saline +Valley. Somehow I needed his presence that day. It kept me in touch with +my days of greatest schooling. The quiet, forceful friend, who had +taught me how to meet the realities of life like a man, put into my +wedding a memory I shall always treasure. O'mie was still with us then. +When his turn came to greet us he held Marjie's hand a moment while he +slyly showed her a poor little bunch of faded brown blossoms which he +crumpled to dust in his fingers.</p> + +<p>"I told you I wouldn't keep them no longer'n till I caught the odor of +them orange blooms. They are the little pink wreath two other fellows +threw away out in the West Draw long ago. The rale evidence of my +good-will to you two is locked up in Judge Baronet's safe."</p> + +<p>We laughed, but we did not understand. Not until the Irish boy's will +was read, more than half a year later,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_487" id="Page_487">[Pg 487]</a></span> when the pink flowers were +blooming again in the West Draw, did we comprehend the measure of his +good-will. For by his legal last wish all his possessions, including the +land, with the big cottonwood and the old stone cabin, became the +property of Marjory Whately and her heirs and assigns forever.</p> + +<p>Out there in later years we built our country home. The breezes of +summer are always cool there, and from every wide window we can see the +landscape the old cottonwood still watches over. Above the gateway to +the winding road leading up from the West Draw is inscribed the name we +gave the place,</p> + +<p class="center"> +O'MIE-HEIM. +</p> + +<p>Sixty years, and a white-haired, young-hearted young man I am who write +these lines. For many seasons I have sat on the Judge's bench. Law has +been my business on the main line, with land dealings on the side, and +love for my fellowmen all along the way. Half a century of my life has +run parallel with the story of Kansas, whose beautiful prairies have +been purchased not only with the coin of the country, but with the coin +of courage and unparalleled endurance. To-day the rippling billows of +yellow wheat, the walls on walls of black-green corn, the stretches of +emerald alfalfa set with its gems of amethyst bloom; orchard and meadow, +grove and grassy upland, where cattle pasture; populous cities and +churches and stately college halls; the whirring factory wheels, the +dust of the mines, the black oil derrick and the huge reservoirs of +natural gas, with the slender steel pathways of the great trains of +traffic binding these together; and above all, the sheltered happy +homes, where little children<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_488" id="Page_488">[Pg 488]</a></span> play never dreaming of fear; where +sweet-browed mothers think not of loneliness and anguish and peril—all +these are the splendid heritage of a land whose law is for the whole +people, a land whose God is the Lord.</p> + +<p>Slowly, through tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine, +and nakedness, and peril, and sword; through fire and flood; through +summer's drought and winter's blizzard; through loneliness, and fear, +and heroism, and martyrdom too often at last, the brave-hearted, +liberty-loving, indomitable people have come into their own, paying foot +by foot, the price that won this prairie kingdom in the heart of the +West.</p> + +<p>Down through the years of busy cares, of struggle and achievement, of +hopes deferred and victories counted, my days have run in shadow and +sunshine, with more of practical fact than of poetic dreaming. And +through them all, the call of the prairie has sounded in my soul, the +voice of a beautiful land, singing evermore its old, old song of victory +and peace. Aye, and through it all, beside me, cheering each step, +holding fast my hand, making life always fine and beautiful and gracious +for me, has been my loved one, Marjie, the bride of my young manhood, +the mother of my sons and daughters, the light of my life.</p> + +<p>It is for such as she, for homes her kind have made, that men have +fought and dared and died, fulfilling the high privilege of the American +citizen, the privilege to safeguard the hearthstones of the land above +which the flag floats a symbol of light and law and love.</p> + +<p>And I who write this know—for I have learned in the years whose story +is here only a half-told thing under my halting pen—I know that however +fiercely the storms may beat, however wildly the tempests may blow, +how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_489" id="Page_489">[Pg 489]</a></span>ever bitter the fighting hours of the day may be, beyond the heat +and burden of it all will come the quiet eventide for me, and for all +the sons and daughters of this prairie land I love. Though the roar of +battle fill all the noontime, in the blessed twilight will come the +music of "<i>HOME, SWEET HOME</i>."</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 31524-h.txt or 31524-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/5/2/31524">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/5/2/31524</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/31524-h/images/004.jpg b/31524-h/images/004.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..048c7de --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-h/images/004.jpg diff --git a/31524-h/images/i158.jpg b/31524-h/images/i158.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2243877 --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-h/images/i158.jpg diff --git a/31524-h/images/i244.jpg b/31524-h/images/i244.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..36688de --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-h/images/i244.jpg diff --git a/31524-h/images/i288.jpg b/31524-h/images/i288.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2c84b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-h/images/i288.jpg diff --git a/31524-h/images/i394.jpg b/31524-h/images/i394.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2f3eb7 --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-h/images/i394.jpg diff --git a/31524-h/images/ifpc.jpg b/31524-h/images/ifpc.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..318c128 --- /dev/null +++ b/31524-h/images/ifpc.jpg diff --git a/31524.txt b/31524.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..68a8c4c --- /dev/null +++ b/31524.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15570 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Price of the Prairie, by Margaret Hill +McCarter, Illustrated by J. N. Marchand + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Price of the Prairie + A Story of Kansas + + +Author: Margaret Hill McCarter + + + +Release Date: March 6, 2010 [eBook #31524] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE*** + + +E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.fadedpage.com) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 28711-h.htm or 28711-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h/28711-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/28711/28711-h.zip) + + + + + +THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE + +"AT EVENING TIME IT SHALL BE LIGHT" + + +[Illustration: "Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May +here in April!"] + + +THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE + +A Story Of Kansas + +by + +MARGARET HILL McCARTER + +Author of "The Cottonwood's Story," "Cuddy's Baby," Etc. + +With Five Illustrations in Color by J. N. Marchand + +Fifteenth Edition + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +Chicago +A. C. McClurg & Co. +1912 + +Copyright +A. C. McClurg & Co. +1910 + +Published October 8, 1910 +Second Edition, October 29, 1910 +Third Edition, November 16, 1910 +Fourth Edition, December 3, 1910 +Fifth Edition, December 10, 1910 +Sixth Edition, December 17, 1910 +Seventh Edition, January 25, 1911 +Eighth Edition, February 25, 1911 +Ninth Edition, April 5, 1911 +Tenth Edition, May 3, 1911 +Eleventh Edition, September 23, 1911 +Twelfth Edition, December 9, 1911 +Thirteenth Edition, February 17, 1912 +Fourteenth Edition, August 10, 1912 +Fifteenth Edition, December 28, 1912 + +Copyrighted in Great Britain + +Press of the Vail Company +Coshocton, U. S. A. + + + + +This little love story of the prairies is dedicated to all who believe +that the defence of the helpless is heroism; that the protection of the +home is splendid achievement; and, that the storm, and stress, and +patient endurance of the day will bring us at last to the peace of the +purple twilight. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + Chapter Page + + PROEM ix + + I Springvale by the Neosho 13 + + II Jean Pahusca 25 + + III The Hermit's Cave 32 + + IV In the Prairie Twilight 43 + + V A Good Indian 56 + + VI When the Heart Beats Young 73 + + VII The Foreshadowing of Peril 85 + + VIII The Cost of Safety 99 + + IX The Search for the Missing 114 + + X O'Mie's Choice 132 + + XI Golden Days 150 + + XII A Man's Estate 166 + + XIII The Topeka Rally 184 + + XIV Deepening Gloom 200 + + XV Rockport and "Rockport" 217 + + XVI Beginning Again 242 + + XVII In the Valley of the Arickaree 261 + + XVIII The Sunlight on Old Glory 277 + + XIX A Man's Business 292 + + XX The Cleft in the Rock 317 + + XXI The Call to Service 334 + + XXII The Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry 354 + + XXIII In Jean's Land 370 + + XXIV The Cry of Womanhood 390 + + XXV Judson Summoned 403 + + XXVI O'Mie's Inheritance 420 + + XXVII Sunset by the Sweetwater 442 + + XXVIII The Heritage 464 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + Page + + "Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen + of May here in April!" _Frontispiece_ + + "Baronet, I think we are marching straight 158 + into Hell's jaws" + + Every movement of ours had been watched by 244 + Indian scouts + + Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, 288 + men, all dashed toward the place + + They came slowly toward us, the two captive 394 + women for whom we waited + + + + +PROEM + +"Nature never did betray the heart that loved her" + + +I can hear it always--the Call of the Prairie. The passing of sixty +Winters has left me a vigorous man, although my hair is as white as the +January snowdrift in the draws, and the strenuous events of some of the +years have put a tax on my strength. I shall always limp a little in my +right foot--that was left out on the plains one freezing night with +nothing under it but the earth, and nothing over it but the sky. Still, +considering that although the sixty years were spent mainly in that +pioneer time when every day in Kansas was its busy day, I am not even +beginning to feel old. Neither am I sentimental and inclined to poetry. +Life has given me mostly her prose selections for my study. + +But this love of the Prairie is a part of my being. All the comedy and +tragedy of these sixty years have had them for a setting, and I can no +more put them out of my life than the Scotchman can forget the heather, +or the Swiss emigrant in the flat green lowland can forget the icy +passes of the glacier-polished Alps. Geography is an element of every +man's life. The prairies are in the red corpuscles of my blood. Up and +down their rippling billows my memory runs. For always I see +them,--green and blossom-starred in the Springtime; or drenched with the +driving summer deluge that made each draw a brimming torrent; or golden, +purple, and silver-rimmed in the glorious Autumn. I have seen them gray +in the twilight, still and tenderly verdant at noonday, and cold and +frost-wreathed under the white star-beams. I have seen them yield up +their rich yellow sheaves of grain, and I have looked upon their dreary +wastes marked with the dull black of cold human blood. Plain practical +man of affairs that I am, I come back to the blessed prairies for my +inspiration as the tartan warmed up the heart of Argyle. + + + + +THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +SPRINGVALE BY THE NEOSHO + + Sweeter to me than the salt sea spray, the fragrance of summer rains; + Nearer my heart than the mighty hills are the wind-swept Kansas plains. + Dearer the sight of a shy wild rose by the road-side's dusty way, + Than all the splendor of poppy-fields ablaze in the sun of May. + Gay as the bold poinsettia is, and the burden of pepper trees, + The sunflower, tawny and gold and brown, is richer to me than these; + And rising ever above the song of the hoarse, insistent sea, + The voice of the prairie calling, calling me. + + --ESTHER M. CLARKE. + + +Whenever I think of these broad Kansas plains I think also of Marjie. I +cannot now remember the time when I did not care for her, but the day +when O'mie first found it out is as clear to me as yesterday, although +that was more than forty years ago. O'mie was the reddest-haired, +best-hearted boy that ever laughed in the face of Fortune and made +friends with Fate against the hardest odds. His real name was O'Meara, +Thomas O'Meara, but we forgot that years ago. + +"If O'mie were set down in the middle of the Sahara Desert," my Aunt +Candace used to say, "there'd be an oasis a mile across by the next day +noon, with never failing water and green trees right in the middle of +it, and O'mie sitting under them drinking the water like it was Irish +rum." + +O'mie would always grin at this saying and reply that, "by the nixt day +noon follerin' that, the rascally gover'mint at Washin'ton would come +along an' kick him out into the rid san', claimin' that that particular +oasis was an Injun riservation, specially craayted by Providence fur the +dirthy Osages,--the bastes!" + +O'mie hated the Indians, but he was a friend to all the rest of mankind. +Indeed if it had not been for him I should not have had that limp in my +right foot, for both of my feet would have been mouldering these many +years under the curly mesquite of the Southwest plains. But that comes +later. + +We were all out on the prairie hunting for our cows that evening--the +one when O'mie guessed my secret. Marjie's pony was heading straight to +the west, flying over the ground. The big red sun was slipping down a +flame-wreathed sky, touching with fire the ragged pennons of a +blue-black storm cloud hanging sullenly to the northward, and making an +indescribable splendor in the far southwest. + +Riding hard after Marjie, coming at an angle from the bluff above the +draw, was an Osage Indian, huge as a giant, and frenzied with whiskey. I +must have turned a white despairing face toward my comrades, and I was +glad afterward that I was against the background of that flaming sunset +so that my features were in the shadow. It was then that O'mie, who was +nearest me, looking steadily in my eyes said in a low voice: + +"Bedad, Phil! so that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to kill +that Injun jist fur grandeur." + +I knew O'mie for many years, and I never saw him show a quiver of fear, +not even in those long weary days when, white and hollow-cheeked, he +waited for his last enemy, Death,--whom he vanquished, looking up into +my face with eyes of inexpressible peace, and murmuring softly, + +"Safe in the arms of Jasus." + +Old men are prone to ramble in their stories, and I am not old. To prove +that, I must not jiggle with these heads and tails of Time, but I must +begin earlier and follow down these eventful years as if I were a real +novel-writer with consecutive chapters to set down. + +Springvale by the Neosho was a favorite point for early settlers. It +nestled under the sheltered bluff on the west. There were never-failing +springs in the rocky outcrop. A magnificent grove of huge oak trees, +most rare in the plains country, lined the river's banks and covered the +fertile lowlands. It made a landmark of the spot, this beautiful natural +forest, and gave it a place on the map as a meeting-ground for the wild +tribes long before the days of civilized occupation. The height above +the valley commands all that wide prairie that ripples in treeless +fertility from as far as even an Indian can see until it breaks off with +that cliff that walls the Neosho bottom lands up and down for many a +mile. To the southwest the open black lowlands along Fingal's Creek +beckoned as temptingly to the settler as did the Neosho Valley itself. +The divide between the two, the river and its tributary, coming down +from the northwest makes a high promontory. Its eastern side is the +rocky ledge of the bluff. On the west it slopes off to the fertile draws +of Fingal's Creek, and the sunset prairies that swell up and away +beyond them. + +Just where the little stream joins the bigger one Springvale took root +and flourished amazingly. It was an Indian village site and +trading-point since tradition can remember. The old tepee rings show +still up in the prairie cornfield where even the plough, that great +weapon of civilization and obliteration, has not quite made a dead level +of the landmarks of the past. I've bumped across those rings many a time +in the days when we went from Springvale up to the Red Range schoolhouse +in the broken country where Fingal's Creek has its source. It was the +hollow beyond the tepee ring that caused his pony to stumble that night +when Jean Pahusca, the big Osage, was riding like fury between me and +that blood-red sky. + +The early Indians always built on the uplands although the valleys ran +close beneath them. They had only arrows and speed to protect them from +their foes. It was not until they had the white man's firearms that they +dared to make their homes in the lowlands. Black Kettle in the sheltered +Washita Valley might never have fallen before General Custer had the +Cheyennes kept to the high places after the custom of their fathers. But +the early white settlers had firearms and skill in building +block-houses, so they took to the valleys near wood and water. + +On the day that Kansas became a Territory, my father, John Baronet, with +all his household effects started from Rockport, Massachusetts, to begin +life anew in the wild unknown West. He was not a poor man, heaven bless +his memory! He never knew want except the pinch of pioneer life when +money is of no avail because the necessities are out of reach. In the +East he had been a successful lawyer and his success followed him. They +will tell you in Springvale to-day that "if Judge Baronet were alive and +on the bench things would go vastly better," and much more to like +effect. + +My mother was young and beautiful, and to her the world was full of +beauty. Especially did she love the sea. All her life was spent beside +it, and it was ever her delight. It must have been from her that my own +love of nature came as a heritage to me, giving me capacity to take and +keep those prairie scenes of idyllic beauty that fill my memory now. + +In the Summer of 1853 my father's maiden sister Candace had come to live +with us. Candace Baronet was the living refutation of all the unkind +criticism ever heaped upon old maids. She was a strong, comely, +unselfish woman who lived where the best thoughts grow. + +One day in late October, a sudden squall drove landward, capsizing the +dory in which my mother was returning from a visit to old friends on an +island off the Rockport coast. She was in sight of home when that +furious gust of wind and rain swept across her path. The next morning +the little waves rippled musically against the beach whither they had +borne my dead mother and left her without one mark of cruel usage. +Neither was there any sign of terror on her face, white and peaceful +under her damp dark hair. + +I know now that my father and his sister tried hard to suppress their +sorrow for my sake, but the curtains on the seaward side of the house +were always lowered now and my father's face looked more and more to the +westward. The sea became an unbearable thing to him. Yet he was a brave, +unselfish man and in all the years following that one Winter he lived +cheerfully and nobly--a sunshiny life. + +In the early Spring he gave up his law practice in Rockport. + +"The place for me is on the frontier," he said to my Aunt Candace one +day. "I'm sick of the sight of that water. I want to try the prairies +and I want to be in the struggle that is beginning beyond the Missouri. +I want to do one man's part in the making of the West." + +Aunt Candace looked steadily into her brother's face. + +"I am sick of the sea, too, John," she said. "Will the prairies be +kinder to us, I wonder." + +I did not know till long afterward, when the Kansas blue-grass had +covered both their graves, that the blue Atlantic had in its keeping the +form of the one love of my aunt's life. Rich am I, Philip Baronet, to +have had such a father and such a mother-hearted aunt. They made life +full and happy for me with never from that day any doleful grieving over +the portion Providence had given them. And the blessed prairie did bring +them peace. Its spell was like a benediction on their lives who lived to +bless many lives. + +It was late June when our covered wagon and tired ox-team stopped on the +east bluff above the Neosho just outside of Springvale. The sun was +dropping behind the prairie far across the river valley when another +wagon and ox-team with pioneers like ourselves joined us. They were +Irving Whately and his wife and little daughter, Marjory. I was only +seven and I have forgotten many things of these later years, but I'll +never forget Marjie as I first saw her. She was stiff from long sitting +in the big covered wagon, and she stretched her pudgy little legs to get +the cramp out of them, as she took in the scene. Her pink sun-bonnet had +fallen back and she was holding it by both strings in one hand. Her +rough brown hair was all in little blowsy ringlets round her face and +the two braids hanging in front of her shoulders ended each in a big +blowsy curl. Her eyes were as brown as her hair. But what I noted then +and many a time afterward was the exceeding whiteness of her face. From +St. Louis I had seen nothing but dark-skinned Mexicans, tanned +Missourians, and Indian, Creole, and French Canadian, all coppery or +bronze brown, in this land of glaring sunshine. Marjie made me think of +Rockport and the pink-cheeked children of the country lanes about the +town. But most of all she called my mother back, white and beautiful as +she looked in her last peaceful sleep, the day the sea gave her to us +again. "Star Face," Jean Pahusca used to call Marjie, for even in the +Kansas heat and browning winds she never lost the pink tint no miniature +painting on ivory could exaggerate. + +We stood looking at one another in the purple twilight. + +"What's your name?" + +"Marjory Whately. What's yours?" + +"Phil Baronet, and I'm seven years old." This, a shade boastingly. + +"I'm six," Marjory said. "Are you afraid of Indians?" + +"No," I declared. "I won't let the Indians hurt you. Let's run a race," +pointing toward where the Neosho lay glistening in the last light of +day, a gap in the bluff letting the reflection from great golden clouds +illumine its wave-crumpled surface. + +We took hold of hands and started down the long slope together, but our +parents called us back. "Playmates already," I heard them saying. + +In the gathering evening shadows we all lumbered down the slope to the +rock-bottomed ford and up into the little hamlet of Springvale. + +That night when I said my prayers to Aunt Candace I cried softly on her +shoulder. "Marjie makes me homesick," I sobbed, and Aunt Candace +understood then and always afterward. + +The very air about Springvale was full of tradition. The town had been +from the earliest times a landmark of the old Santa Fe trail. When the +freighters and plainsmen left the village and climbed to the top of the +slope and set their faces to the west there lay before them only the +wilderness wastes. Here Nature, grown miserly, offered not even a stick +of timber to mend a broken cart-pole in all the thousand miles between +the Neosho and the Spanish settlement of New Mexico. + +Here the Indians came with their furs and beaded garments to exchange +for firearms and fire-water. People fastened their doors at night for a +purpose. No curfew bell was needed to call in the children. The wooded +Neosho Valley grew dark before the evening lights had left the prairies +beyond the west bluff, and the waters that sang all day a song of cheer +as they rippled over the rocky river bed seemed always after nightfall +to gurgle murderously as they went their way down the black-shadowed +valley. + +The main street was as broad as an Eastern boulevard. Space counted for +nothing in planning towns in a land made up of distances. At the end of +this street stood the "Last Chance" general store, the outpost of +civilization. What the freighter failed to get here he would do without +until he stood inside the brown adobe walls of the old city of Santa Fe. +Tell Mapleson, the proprietor of the "Last Chance," was a tall, slight, +restless man, quick-witted, with somewhat polished manners and a gift +of persuasion in his speech. + +Near this store was Conlow's blacksmith shop, where the low-browed, +black-eyed Conlow family have shod horses and mended wagons since +anybody can remember. They were the kind of people one instinctively +does not trust, and yet nobody could find a true bill against them. The +shop had thick stone walls. High up under the eaves on the north side a +long narrow slit, where a stone was missing, let out a bar of sullen red +light. Old Conlow did not know about that chink for years, for it was +only from the bluff above the town that the light could be seen. + +Our advent in Springvale was just at the time of its transition from a +plains trading-post to a Territorial town with ambition for settlement +and civilization. I can see now that John Baronet deserved the place he +came to hold in that frontier community, for he was a State-builder. + +"I should feel more dacent fur all etarnity jist to be buried in the +same cimet'ry wid Judge Bar'net," O'mie once declared. "I should walk +into kingdom-come, dignified and head up, saying to the kaper av the +pearly gates, kind o' careless-like, 'I'm from that little Kansas town +av Springvale an' ye'll check up my mortial remains over in the +cimet'ry, be my neighbor, Judge Bar'net, if ye plaze.'" + +It was O'mie's way of saying what most persons of the community felt +toward my father from the time he drove into Springvale in the purple +twilight of that June evening in 1854. + +Irving Whately's stock of merchandise was installed in the big stone +building on the main corner of the village, where the straggling Indian +trails from the south and the trail from the new settlement out on +Fingal's Creek converged on the broad Santa Fe trail. Amos Judson, a +young settler, became his clerk and general helper. In the front room +over this store was John Baronet's law office, and his sign swinging +above Whately's seemed always to link those two names together. + +Opposite this building was the village tavern. It was a wide two-story +structure, also of stone, set well back from the street, with a double +veranda along the front and the north side. A huge oak tree grew before +it, and a flagstone walk led up to the veranda steps. In big black +lettering its inscription over the door told the wayfarer on the old +trail that this was + + THE CAMBRIDGE HOUSE. + C. C. GENTRY, PROP. + +Cam Gentry (his real name was Cambridge, christened from the little +Indiana town of Cambridge City) was a good-souled, easy-going man, +handicapped for life by a shortness of vision no spectacle lens could +overcome. It might have been disfiguring to any other man, but Cam's +clear eye at close range, and his comical squint and tilt of the head to +study out what lay farther away, were good-natured and unique. He was in +Kansas for the fun of it, while his wife, Dollie, kept tavern from pure +love of cooking more good things to eat than opportunity afforded in a +home. She was a Martha whose kitchen was "dukedom large enough." +Whatever motive, fine or coarse, whatever love of spoils or love of +liberty, brought other men hither, Cam had come to see the joke--and he +saw it. While as to Dollie, "Lord knows," she used to say, "there's +plenty of good cooks in old Wayne County, Indiany; but if they can get +anything to eat out here they need somebody to cook it for 'em, and cook +it right." + +Doing chores about the tavern for his board and keep was the little +orphan boy, Thomas O'Meara, whose story I did not know for many years. +We called him O'mie. That was all. Marjie and O'mie and Mary Gentry, Cam +and Dollie's only child, were my first Kansas playmates. Together we +waded barefoot in the shallow ripples of the Neosho, and little by +little we began to explore that wide, sweet prairie land to the west. +There was just one tree standing up against the horizon; far away to us +it seemed, a huge cottonwood, that kept sentinel guard over the plains +from the highest level of the divide. + +Whately built a home a block or more beyond that of his young clerk, +Amos Judson. It was farther up the slope than any other house in +Springvale except my father's. That was on the very crest of the west +bluff, overlooking the Neosho Valley. It fronted the east, and across +the wide street before it the bluff broke precipitously four hundred +feet to the level floor of the valley below. Sometimes the shelving +rocks furnished a footing where one could clamber down half way and walk +along the narrow ledge. Here were cunning hiding-places, deep crevices, +and vine-covered heaps of jagged stone outcrop invisible from the height +above or the valley below. It was a bit of rugged, untamable cliff +rarely found in the plains country; and it broke so suddenly from the +level promontory sloping down to the south and away to the west, that a +stranger sitting by our east windows would never have guessed that the +seeming bushes peering up across the street were really the tops of tall +trees with their roots in the side of the bluff not half way to the +bottom. + +From our west window the green glory of the plains spread out to the +baths of sunset. No wonder this Kansas land is life of my life. The sea +is to me a wavering treachery, but these firm prairies are the joy of my +memory. + +Our house was of stone with every corner rounded like a turret wall. It +was securely built against the winter winds that swept that bluff when +the Kansas blizzard unchained its fury, for it stood where it caught the +full wrath of the elements. It caught, too, the splendor of all the +sunrise beyond the mist-filled valley, and the full moon in the level +east above the oak treetops made a dream of chastened glory like the +silver twilight gleams in Paradise. + +"I want to watch the world coming and going," my father said when his +house was finished; "and it is coming down that Santa Fe trail. It is +State-making that is begun here. The East doesn't understand it yet, +outside of New England. And these Missourians, Lord pity them! they +think they can kill human freedom with a bullet, like thrusting daggers +into the body of Julius Caesar to destroy the Roman Empire. What do they +know of the old Puritan blood, and the strength of the grip of a +Massachusetts man? Heaven knows where they came from, these Missouri +ruffians; but," he added, "the devil has it arranged where they will go +to." + +"Oh, John, be careful," exclaimed Aunt Candace. + +"Are you afraid of them, Candace?" + +"Well, no, I don't believe I am," replied my aunt. + +She was not one of those blustering north-northwest women. She squared +her life by the admonition of Isaiah, "In quietness and in confidence +shall be your strength." But she was a Baronet, and although they have +their short-comings, fear seems to have been left out of their make-up. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +JEAN PAHUSCA + + In even savage bosoms + There are longings, yearnings, strivings + For the good they comprehend not. + + --LONGFELLOW. + + +The frontier broke all lines of caste. There was no aristocrat, +autocrat, nor plutocrat in Springvale; but the purest democracy was +among the children. Life was before us; we loved companionship, and the +same dangers threatened us all. The first time I saw Marjie she asked, +"Are you afraid of Indians?" They were the terror of her life. Even +to-day the mere press despatch of an Indian uprising in Oklahoma or +Arizona will set the blood bounding through my veins and my first +thought is of her. + +I shall never forget the day my self-appointed guardianship of her +began. Before we had a schoolhouse, Aunt Candace taught the children of +the community in our big living-room. One rainy afternoon, late in the +Fall, the darkness seemed to drop down suddenly. We could not see to +study, and we were playing boisterously about the benches of our +improvised schoolroom, Marjie, Mary Gentry, Lettie and Jim Conlow, Tell +Mapleson,--old Tell's boy,--O'mie, both the Mead boys, and the four +Anderson children. Suddenly Marjie, who was watching the rain beating +against the west window, called, "Phil, come here! What is that long, +narrow, red light down by the creek?" + +Marjie had the softest voice. Amid the harsh jangle of the Andersons and +Bill Mead's big whooping shouts it always seemed like music to me. I +stared hard at the sullen block of flame in the evening shadows. + +"I don't know what it is," I said. + +She slipped her fingers into the pocket of my coat as I turned away, and +her eyes looked anxiously into mine. "Could it be an Indian camp-fire?" +she queried. + +I looked again, flattening my nose against the window pane. "I don't +know, Marjie, but I'll find out. Maybe it's somebody's kitchen fire down +west. I'll ask O'mie." + +In truth, that light had often troubled me. It did not look like the +twinkling candle-flare I could see in so many windows of the village. I +turned to O'mie, who, with his face to the wall, waited in a game of +hide-and-seek. Before I could call him Marjie gave a low cry of terror. +We all turned to her in an instant, and I saw outside a dark face close +against the window. It was gone so quickly that only O'mie and I caught +sight of it. + +"What was it, Marjie?" the children cried. + +"An Indian boy," gasped Marjie. "He was right against the window." + +"I'll bet it was a spook," shouted Bill Mead. + +"I'll bet it wasn't nothin' at all," grinned Jim Conlow. "Possum Conlow" +we called him for that secretive grin on his shallow face. + +"I'll bet it wath a whole gang of Thiennes," lisped tow-headed Bud +Anderson. + +"They ain't no Injuns nearer than the reserve down the river, and ain't +been no Injuns in Springvale for a long time, 'cept annuity days," +declared Tell Mapleson. + +"Well, let's foind out," shouted O'mie, "I ain't afraid av no Injun." + +"Neither am I," I cried, starting after O'mie, who was out of the door +at the word. + +But Marjie caught my arm, and held it. + +"Let O'mie go. Don't go, Phil, please don't." + +I can see her yet, her brown eyes full of pleading, her soft brown hair +in rippling waves about her white temples. Did my love for her spring +into being at that instant? I cannot tell. But I do know that it was a +crucial moment for me. Sixty years have I seen, and my life has grown +practical and barren of sentiment. But I know that the boy, Phil +Baronet, who stood that evening with Marjie and the firelight and safety +on one side, and darkness and uncertainty on the other, had come to one +of those turning-points in a life, unrecognized for the time, whose +decision controls all the years that follow. For suddenly came the query +"How can I best take care of her? Shall I stay with her in the light, or +go into the dark and strike the danger out of it?" I didn't frame all +this into words. It was all only an intense feeling, but the mental +judgment was very real. I turned from her and cleared the doorstep at a +leap, and in a moment was by O'mie's side, chasing down the hill-slope +toward town. + +We never thought to run to the bluff's edge and clamber down the +shelving, precipitous sides. Here was the only natural hiding-place, but +like children we all ran the other way. When we had come in again with +the report of "No enemy in sight," and had shut the door against the +rain, I happened to glance out of the east window. Climbing up to the +street from the cliff I saw the lithe form of a young Indian. He came +straight to the house and stood by the east window where he could see +inside. Then with quick, springing step he walked down the slope. I +crossed to the west window and watched him shutting out that red bar of +light now and then, till he melted into the shadows. + +Meanwhile the children were chattering like sparrows and had not noticed +me. + +"Would you know it, Marjie, if you thaw it again?" lisped Bud Anderson. + +"Oh, yes! His hair was straight across like this." Marjie drew one hand +across her curl-shaded forehead, to show how square the black hair grew +about the face she had seen. + +"That's nothin'," said Bill Mead. "They change scalps every time they +catch a white man,--just take their own off an' put his on, an' it +grows. There's lots of men in Kansas look like white men's just Injuns +growed a white scalp on 'em." + +"Really, is there?" asked Mary Gentry credulously. + +"Sure, I've seen 'em," went on Bill with a boy's love of that kind of +lying. + +"Wouldn't a Injun look funny with my thcalp?" Bud Anderson put in. "I'll +bet I'm jutht a Injun mythelf." + +"Then you've got some little baby girl's scalp," grinned Jim Conlow. + +"'Tain't no 'pothum'th, anyhow," rejoined Bud; and we laughed our fears +away. + +That evening Aunt Candace sent me home with Marjie to take some fresh +doughnuts to Mrs. Whately. I can see the little girl now as we splashed +sturdily down Cliff Street through the wet gloom, her face like a white +blossom in the shadowy twilight, her crimson jacket open at the throat, +and the soft little worsted scarf about her damp fluffy curls making a +glow of rich coloring in the dim light. + +"You'll never let the Indians get you, will you, Phil?" she asked, when +we stood a moment by the bushes just at the steepest bend of the street. + +I stood up proudly. I was growing very fast in this gracious climate. +"The finest-built boy in Springvale," the men called me. "No, Marjie. +The Indians won't get me, nor anybody else I don't want them to have." + +She drew close to me, and I caught her hand in mine a moment. Then, +boylike, I flipped her heavy braid of hair over her shoulder and shook +the wettest bushes till their drops scattered in a shower about her. +Something, a dog we thought, suddenly slid out from the bush and down +the cliff-side. When I started home after delivering the cakes, Marjie +held the candle at the door to light my way. As I turned at the edge of +the candle's rays to wave my hand, I saw her framed in the doorway. +Would that some artist could paint that picture for me now! + +"I'll whistle up by the bushes," I cried, and strode into the dark. + +On the bend of the crest, where the street drops down almost too steep +for a team of horses to climb, I turned and saw Marjie's light in the +window, and the shadow of her head on the pane. I gave a long, low +whistle, the signal call we had for our own. It was not an echo, it was +too near and clear, the very same low call in the bushes just over the +cliff beside me as though some imitator were trying to catch the notes. +A few feet farther on my path I came face to face with the same Indian +whom I had seen an hour before. He strode by me in silence. + +Without once looking back I said to myself, "If you aren't afraid of me, +I'm not afraid of you. But who gave that whistle, I wonder. That's my +call to Marjie." + +"Marjie's awful 'fraid of Injuns," I said to Aunt Candace that night. +"Didn't want me to find who it was peeked, but I went after him, clear +down to Amos Judson's house, because I thought that was the best way, if +it was an Injun. She isn't afraid of anything else. She's the only girl +that can ride Tell Mapleson's pony, and only O'mie and Tell and I among +the boys can ride him. And she killed the big rattlesnake that nearly +had Jim Conlow, killed it with a hoe. And she can climb where no other +girl dares to, on the bluff below town toward the Hermit's Cave. But +she's just as 'fraid of an Injun! I went to hunt him, though." + +"And you did just right, Phil. The only way to be safe is to go after +what makes you afraid. I guess, though, there really was nobody. It was +just Marjie's imagination, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, there was, Auntie; I saw him climb up from the cliff over there +and go off down the hill after we came in." + +"Why didn't you say so?" asked my aunt. + +"We couldn't get him, and it would have scared Marjie," I answered. + +"That's right, Phil. You are a regular Kansas boy, you are. The best of +them may claim to come from Massachusetts,"--with a touch of +pride,--"but no matter where they come from, they must learn how to be +quick-witted and brave and manly here in Kansas. It's what all boys need +to be here." + +A few days later the door of our schoolroom opened and an Indian boy +strode in and seated himself on the bench beside Tell Mapleson. He was a +lad of fifteen, possibly older. His dress was of the Osage fashion and +round his neck he wore a string of elk teeth. His face was thoroughly +Indian, yet upon his features something else was written. His long black +hair was a shade too jetty and soft for an Indian's, and it grew +squarely across his forehead, suggesting the face of a French priest. +We children sat open-mouthed. Even Aunt Candace forgot herself a +moment. Bud Anderson first found his voice. + +"Well, I'll thwan!" he exclaimed in sheer amazement. + +Bill Mead giggled and that broke the spell. + +"How do you do?" said my aunt kindly. + +"How," replied the young brave. + +"What is your name, and what do you want?" asked our teacher. + +"Jean Pahusca. Want school. Want book--" He broke off and finished in a +jargon of French and Indian. + +"Where is your home, your tepee?" queried Aunt Candace. + +The Indian only shook his head. Then taking from his beads a heavy +silver cross, crudely shaped and wrought, he rose and placed it on the +table. Taking up a book at the same time he seated himself to study like +the rest of us. + +"He has paid his tuition," said my aunt, smiling. "We'll let him stay." + +So Jean Pahusca was established in our school. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE HERMIT'S CAVE + + The secret which the mountains kept + The river never told. + + +The bluff was our continual delight. It was so difficult, so full of +surprises, so enchanting in its dangers. All manner of creeping things +in general, and centipedes and rattlesnakes in particular, made their +homes in its crevices. Its footing was perilous to the climber, and its +hiding-places had held outlaws and worse. Then it had its haunted spots, +where tradition told of cruel tragedies in days long gone by; and of the +unknown who had found here secret retreat, who came and went, leaving +never a name to tell whom they were nor what their story might be. All +these the old cliff had in its keeping for the sturdy boys and girls of +parents who had come here to conquer the West. + +Just below the town where the Neosho swings away to the right, the +bottom lands narrow down until the stream sweeps deep and swift against +a stone wall almost two hundred feet in height. From the top of the +cliff here the wall drops down nearly another hundred feet, leaving an +inaccessible heap of rough cavernous rocks in the middle stratum. + +Had the river been less deep and dangerous we could not have gotten up +from below; while to come down from above might mean a fall of three +hundred feet or more to the foam-torn waters and the jagged rocks +beneath them. Here a stranger hermit had hidden himself years before. +Nobody knew his story, nor how he had found his way hither, for he spoke +in a strange tongue that nobody could interpret. That this inaccessible +place was his home was certain. Boys bathing in the shallows up-stream +sometimes caught a glimpse of him moving about among the bushes. And +sometimes at night from far to the east a light could be seen twinkling +half way up the dark cliff-side. Every boy in Springvale had an ambition +to climb to the Hermit's Cave and explore its mysteries; for the old man +died as he had lived, unknown. One winter day his body was found on the +sand bar below the rapids where the waters had carried him after his +fall from the point of rock above the deep pool. There was no mark on +his coarse clothing to tell a word of his story, and the Neosho kept his +secret always. + +What boy after that would not have braved any danger to explore the +depths of this hiding-place? But we could not do it. Try as we might, +the hidden path leading up, or down, baffled us. + +After Jean Pahusca came into our school we had a new interest and for a +time we forgot that tantalizing river wall below town. Jean was +irregular in his attendance and his temper. He learned quickly, for an +Indian. Sometimes he was morose and silent; sometimes he was affable and +kind, chatting among us like one of our own; and sometimes he found the +white man's fire-water. Then he murdered as he went. He was possessed of +a demon to kill, kill the moment he became drunk. Every living thing in +his way had to flee or perish then. He would stop in his mad chase to +crush the life out of a sleeping cat, or to strike at a bird or a +chicken. Whiskey to him meant death, as we learned to our sorrow. +Nobody knew where he lived. He dressed like an Osage but he was +supposed to make his home with the Kaws, whose reservation was much +nearer to us. Sometimes in the cool weather he slept in our sheds. In +warm weather he lay down on the ground wherever he chose to sleep. There +was a fascination about him unlike all the other Indians who came up to +the village, many of whom we knew. He could be so gentle and winning in +his manner at times, one forgot he was an Indian. But the spirit of the +Red Man was ever present to overcome the strange European mood in a +moment. + +"He's no Osage, that critter ain't," Cam Gentry said to a group on his +tavern veranda one annuity day when the tribes had come to town for +their quarterly allowances. "He's second cousin on his father's side to +some French missionary, you bet your life. He's got a gait like a Jessut +priest. An' he's not Osage on't other side, neither. I'll bet his mother +was a Kiowa, an' that means his maternal grandad was a rattlesnake, even +if his paternal grandpop was a French markis turned religious an' gone +a-missionaryin' among the red heathen. You dig fur enough into that +buck's hide an' you'll find cussedness big as a sheep, I'm tellin' you." + +"Where does he live?" inquired my father. + +"Lord knows!" responded Cam. "Down to the Kaws' nests, I reckon." + +"He was cuttin' east along the Fingal Creek bluff after he'd made off to +the southwest, the other night, when I was after the cows," broke in +O'mie, who was sitting on the lowest step listening with all his ears. +"Was cuttin' straight to the river. Only that's right by the Hermit's +Cave an' he couldn't cross to the Osages there." + +"Reckon he zigzagged back to town to get somethin' he forgot at Conlow's +shop," put in Cam. "Didn't find any dead dogs nor children next +mornin', did ye, O'mie?" + +Conlow kept the vilest whiskey ever sold to a poor drink-thirsty +Redskin. Everybody knew it except those whom the grand jury called into +counsel. I saw my father's brow darken. + +"Conlow will meet his match one of these days," he muttered. + +"That's why we are runnin' you for judge," said Cam. "This cussed +country needs you in every office it's got to clean out that gang that +robs an' cheats the Injuns, an' then makes 'em ravin' crazy with +drinkin'. They's more 'n Conlow to blame, though, Judge. Keep one eye on +the Government agents and Indian traders." + +"I wonder where Jean did go anyhow," O'mie whispered to me. "Let's foind +out an' give him a surprise party an' a church donation some night." + +"What does he come here so much for, anyhow?" I questioned. + +"I don't know," replied O'mie. "Why can't he stay Injun? What'll he do +wid the greatest common divisor an' the indicative mood an' the Sea of +Azov, an' the Zambezi River, when he's learned 'em, anyhow? Phil, +begorra, I b'lave that cussed Redskin is in this town fur trouble, an' +you jist remember he'll git it one av these toimes. He ain't natural +Injun. Uncle Cam is right. He's not like them Osages that comes here +annuity days. All that's Osage about him is his clothes." + +While we were talking, Jean Pahusca came silently into the company and +sat down under the oak tree shading the walk. He never looked less like +an Indian than he did that summer morning lounging lazily in the shade. +The impenetrable savage face had now an expression of ease and superior +self-possession, making it handsome. Unlike the others of his race who +came and went about Springvale, Jean's trappings were always bright and +fresh, and his every muscle had the poetry of motion. In all our games +he was an easy victor. He never clambered about the cliff as we did, he +simply slid up and down like a lizard. Jim Conlow was built to race, but +Jean skimmed the ground like a bird. He could outwrestle every boy +except O'mie (nobody had ever held that Irishman if he wanted to get +away), and his grip was like steel. We all fought him by turns and he +defeated everyone until my turn came. From me he would take no chance of +defeat, however much the boys taunted him with being afraid of Phil +Baronet. For while he had a quickness that I lacked, I knew I had a +muscular strength he could not break. I disliked him at first on +Marjie's account; and when she grew accustomed to his presence and +almost forgot her fear, I detested him. And never did I dislike him so +much before as on this summer morning when we sat about the shady +veranda of the Cambridge House. Nobody else, however, gave any heed to +the Indian boy picturesquely idling there on the blue-grass. + +Down the street came Lettie Conlow and Mary Gentry with Marjory Whately, +all chatting together. They turned at the tavern oak and came up the +flag-stone walk toward the veranda. I could not tell you to-day what my +lady wears in the social functions where I sometimes have the honor to +be a guest. I am a man, and silks and laces confuse me. Yet I remember +three young girls in a frontier town more than forty years ago. Mary +Gentry was slender--"skinny," we called her to tease her. Her dark-blue +calico dress was clean and prim. Lettie Conlow was fat. Her skin was +thick and muddy, and there was a brown mole below her ear. Her black, +slick braids of hair were my especial dislike. She had no neck to speak +of, and when she turned her head the creases above her fat shoulders +deepened. I might have liked Lettie but for her open preference for me. +Everybody knew this preference, and she annoyed me exceedingly. This +morning she wore a thin old red lawn cut down from her mother's gown. A +ruffle of the same lawn flopped about her neck. As they came near, her +black eyes sought mine as usual, but I saw only the floppy red +ruffle--and Marjie. Marjie looked sweet and cool in a fresh starched +gingham, with her round white arms bare to the elbows, and her white +shapely neck, with its dainty curves and dimples. The effect was +heightened by the square-cut bodice, with its green and white gingham +bands edged with a Hamburg something, narrow and spotless. How unlike +she was to Lettie in her flimsy trimmings! Marjie's hair was coiled in a +knot on the top of her head, and the little ringlets curved about her +forehead and at the back of her neck. Somehow, with her clear pink +cheeks and that pale green gown, I could think only of the wild roses +that grew about the rocks on the bluff this side of the Hermit's Cave. + +Marjie smiled kindly down at Jean as she passed him. There was always a +tremor of fear in that smile; and he knew it and gloried in it. + +"Good-morning, Jean," she said in that soft voice I loved to hear. + +"Good-morning, Star-face," Jean smiled back at her; and his own face was +transfigured for the instant, as his still black eyes followed her. The +blood in my veins turned to fire at that look. Our eyes met and for one +long moment we gazed steadily at each other. As I turned away I saw +Lettie Conlow watching us both, and I knew instinctively that she and +Jean Pahusca would sometime join forces against me. + +"Well, if you lassies ain't a sight good for sore eyes, I'll never tell +it," Cam shouted heartily, squinting up at the girls with his +good-natured glance. "You're cool as October an' twicet as sweet an' +fine. Go in and let Dollie give you some hot berry pie." + +"To cool 'em off," O'mie whispered in my ear. "Nothin' so coolin' as a +hot berry pie in July. Let's you and me go to the creek an' thaw out." + +That evening Jean Pahusca found the jug supposed to be locked in +Conlow's chest of tools inside his shop. I had found where that red +forge light came from, and had watched it from my window many a night. +When it winked and blinked, I knew somebody inside the shop was passing +between it and the line of the chink. I did not speak of it. I was never +accused of telling all I knew. My father often said I would make a good +witness for my attorney in a suit at law. + +Among the Indians who had come for their stipend on this annuity day was +a strong young Osage called Hard Rope, who always had a roll of money +when he went out of town. I remember that night my father did not come +home until very late; and when Aunt Candace asked him if there was +anything the matter, I heard him answer carelessly: + +"Oh, no. I've been looking after a young Osage they call Hard Rope, who +needed me." + +I was sleepy, and forgot all about his words then. Long afterwards I had +good reason for knowing through this same Hard Rope, how well an Indian +can remember a kindness. He never came to Springvale again. And when I +next saw him I had forgotten that I had ever known him before. However, +I had seen the blinking red glare down the slope that evening and I knew +something was going on. Anyhow, Jean Pahusca, crazed with drink, had +stolen Tell Mapleson's pony and created a reign of terror in the street +until he disappeared down the trail to the southwest. + +"It's a wonder old Tell doesn't shoot that Injun," Irving Whately +remarked to a group in his store. "He's quick enough with firearms." + +"Well," said Cam Gentry, squinting across the counter with his +shortsighted eyes, "there's somethin' about that 'Last Chance' store and +about this town I don't understand. There's a nigger in the wood-pile, +or an Injun in the blankets, somewhere. I hope it won't be long till +this thing is cleared up and we can know whether we do know anything, or +don't know it. I'm gettin' mystifieder daily." And Cam sat down +chuckling. + +"Anyhow, we won't see that Redskin here for a spell, I reckon," broke in +Amos Judson, Whately's clerk. And with this grain of comfort, we forgot +him for a time. + +One lazy Saturday afternoon in early August, O'mie and I went for a swim +on the sand-bar side of the Deep Hole under the Hermit's Cave. I had +something to tell O'mie. All the boys trusted him with their +confidences. We had slid quietly down the river; somehow, it was too hot +to be noisy, and we were lying on a broad, flat stone letting the warm +water ripple over us. A huge bowlder on the sand just beyond us threw a +sort of shadow over our brown faces as we rested our heads on the sand. + +"O'mie," I began, "I saw something last night." + +"Well, an' phwat did somethin' do to you?" He was blowing at the water, +which was sliding gently over his chest. + +"That's what I want to tell you if you will shut up that red flannel +mouth a minute." + +"The crimson fabric is now closed be order av the Coort," grinned +O'mie. + +"O'mie, I waked up suddenly last night. It was clear moonlight, and I +looked out of the window. There right under it, on a black pony just +like Tell Mapleson's, was Jean Pahusca. He was staring up at the window. +He must have seen me move for he only stayed a minute and then away he +went. I watched him till he had passed Judson's place and was in the +shadows beyond the church. He had on a new red blanket with a circle of +white right in the middle, a good target for an arrow, only I'd never +sneak up behind him. If I fight him I'll do it like a white man, from +the front." + +"Then ye'll be dead like a white man, from the front clear back," +declared O'mie. "But hadn't ye heard? This mornin' ould Tell was showin' +Tell's own pony he said he brought back from down at Westport. He got +home late las' night. An' Tell, he pipes up an' says, 'There was a arrow +fastened in its mane when I see it this mornin', but his dad took no +notice whatsoever av the boy's sayin'; just went on that it was the one +Jean Pahusca had stole when he was drunk last. What does it mean, Phil? +Is Jean hidin' out round here again? I wish the cuss would go to Santy +Fee with the next train down the trail an' go to Spanish bull fightin'. +He's just cut out for that, begorra; fur he rides like a Comanche. It ud +be a sort av disgrace to the bull though. I've got nothin' agin bulls." + +"O'mie, I don't understand; but let's keep still. Some day when he gets +so drunk he'll kill one of the grand jury, maybe the rest of them and +the coroner can indict him for something." + +We lay still in the warm water. Sometimes now in the lazy hot August +afternoons I can hear the rippling song of the Neosho as it prattled and +gurgled on its way. Suddenly O'mie gave a start and in a voice low and +even but intense he exclaimed: + +"For the Lord's sake, wud ye look at that? And kape still as a snake +while you're doin' it." + +Lying perfectly still, I looked keenly about me, seeing nothing unusual. + +"Look up across yonder an' don't bat an eye," said O'mie, low as a +whisper. + +I looked up toward the Hermit's Cave. Sitting on a point of rock +overhanging the river was an Indian. His back was toward us and his +brilliant red blanket had a white circle in the centre. + +"He's not seen us, or he'd niver set out there like that," and O'mie +breathed easier. "He could put an arrow through us here as aisy as to +snap a string, an' nobody'd live to tell the tale. Phil Bar'net, he's +kapin' den in that cave, an' the devil must have showed him how to git +up there." + +A shout up-stream told of other boys coming down to our swimming place. +You have seen a humming bird dart out of sight. So the Indian on the +rock far above us vanished at that sound. + +"That's Bill Mead comin'; I know his whoop. I wish I knew which side av +that Injun's head his eyes is fastened on," said O'mie, still motionless +in the water. "If he's watchin' us up there, I'm a turtle till the sun +goes down." + +A low peal of thunder rolled out of the west and a heavy black cloud +swept suddenly over the sun. The blue shadow of the bluff fell upon the +Neosho and under its friendly cover we scrambled into our clothes and +scudded out of sight among the trees that covered the east bottom land. + +"Now, how did he ever get to that place, O'mie?" I questioned. + +"I don't know. But if he can get there, I can too." + +Poor O'mie! he did not know how true a prophecy he was uttering. + +"Let's kape this to oursilves, Phil," counselled my companion. "If too +many knows it Tell may lose another pony, or somebody's dead dog may +float down the stream like the ould hermit did. Let's burn him out av +there oursilves. Then we can adorn our own tepee wid that soft black La +Salle-Marquette-Hennepin French scalp." + +I agreed, and we went our way burdened by a secret dangerous but +fascinating to boys like ourselves. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +IN THE PRAIRIE TWILIGHT + + The spacious prairie is helper to a spacious life. + Big thoughts are nurtured here, with little friction. + + --QUAYLE. + + +By the time I was fifteen I was almost as tall and broad-shouldered as +my father. Boy-like, I was prodigal of my bounding vigor, which had not +tempered down to the strength of my mature manhood. It was well for me +that a sobering responsibility fell on me early, else I might have +squandered my resources of endurance, and in place of this sturdy +story-teller whose sixty years sit lightly on him, there would have been +only a ripple in the sod of the curly mesquite on the Plains and a +little heap of dead dust, turned to the inert earth again. The West +grows large men, as it grows strong, beautiful women; and I know that +the boys and girls then differed only in surroundings and opportunity +from the boys and girls of Springvale to-day. Life is finer in its +appointments now; but I doubt if it is any more free or happy than it +was in those days when we went to oyster suppers and school exhibitions +up in the Red Range neighborhood. Among us there was the closest +companionship, as there needs must be in a lonely and spacious land. +What can these lads and lasses of to-day know of a youth nurtured in the +atmosphere of peril and uncertainty such as every one of us knew in +those years of border strife and civil war? Sometimes up here, when I +see the gay automobile parties spinning out upon the paved street and +over that broad highway miles and miles to the west, I remember the time +when we rode our Indian ponies thither, and the whole prairie was our +boulevard. + +Marjie could ride without bridle or saddle, and she sat a horse like a +cattle queen. The four Anderson children were wholesome and +good-natured, as they were good scholars, and they were good riders. +They were all tow-headed and they all lisped, and Bud was the most +hopeless case among them. Flaxen-haired, baby-faced youngster that he +was, he was the very first in all our crowd to learn to drop on the side +of his pony and ride like a Comanche. O'mie and I also succeeded in +learning that trick; Tell Mapleson broke a collar-bone, attempting it; +and Jim Conlow, as O'mie said, "knocked the 'possum' aff his mug thryin' +to achave the art." He fractured the bones of his nose, making his face +a degree more homely than it was before. Then there were the Mead boys +to be counted on everywhere. Dave went West years ago, made his fortune, +and then began to traffic with the Orient. His name is better known in +Hong-Kong now than it is in Springvale. He never married, and it used to +be said that a young girl's grave up in the Red Range graveyard held all +his hope and love. I do not know; for he left home the year I came up to +Topeka to enlist, and Springvale was like the bitter waters of Marah to +my spirit. But that comes later. + +Bill Mead married Bessie Anderson, and the seven little tow-headed +Meads, stair-stepping down the years, played with the third generation +here as we used to play in the years gone by. Bill is president of the +bank on the corner where the old Whately store stood and is a +share-holder in several big Kansas City concerns. Bessie lost her rosy +cheeks years ago, but she has her seven children; the youngest of them, +Phil, named for me, will graduate from the Kansas University this year. +Lettie Conlow was always on the uncertain list with us. No Conlow could +do much with a horse except to put shoes under it. It was a trick of +hers to lag behind and call to me to tighten a girth, while Marjie raced +on with Dave Mead or Tell Mapleson. Tell liked Lettie, and it rasped my +spirit to be made the object of her preference and his jealousy. Once +when we were alone his anger boiled hot, and he shook his fist at me and +cried: + +"You mean pup! You want to take my girl from me. I can lick you, and I'm +going to do it." + +I was bigger than Tell, and he knew my strength. + +"I wish to goodness you would," I said. "I'd rather be licked than to +have a girl I don't care for always smiling at me." + +Tell's face fell, and he grinned sheepishly. + +"Don't you really care for Lettie, Phil? She says you like Bess +Anderson." + +Was that a trick of Lettie's to put Marjie out of my thought, I +wondered, or did she really know my heart? I distrusted Lettie. She was +so like her black-eyed father. But I had guarded my own feelings, and +the boys and girls had not guessed what Marjie was to me. + +It was about this time that Father Le Claire, a French priest who had +been a missionary in the Southwest, began to come and go about +Springvale. His work lay mostly with the Osages farther down the Neosho, +but he labored much among the Kaws. He was a kindly-spirited man, +reserved, but gentle and courteous ever, and he was very fond of +children. He was always in town on annuity days, when the tribes came up +for their quarterly stipend from the Government. Mapleson was the Indian +agent. The "Last Chance," unable to compete with its commercial rival, +the Whately house, had now a drug store in the front, a harness shop in +the rear and a saloon in the cellar. It was to this "Last Chance" that +the Indians came for their money; and it was Father Le Claire who +piloted many of them out to the trails leading southward and started +them on the way to their villages, sober and possessed of their +Government allowance or its equivalent in honest merchandise. + +From the first visit the good priest took to Jean Pahusca, and he helped +to save the young brave from many a murdering spell. + +To O'mie and myself, however, remained the resolve to drive him from +Springvale; for, boylike, we watched him more closely than the men did, +and we knew him better. He was not the only one of our town who drank +too freely. Four decades ago the law was not the righteous force it is +to-day, and we looked upon many sights which our children, thank Heaven, +never see in Kansas. + +"Keep out of that Redskin's way when he's drunk," was Cam Gentry's +advice to us. "You know he'd scalp his grandmother if he could get hold +of her then." + +We kept out of his way, but we bided our time. + +Father Le Claire had another favorite in Springvale, and that was O'mie. +He said little to the Irish orphan lad, but there sprang up a sort of +understanding between the two. Whenever he was in town, O'mie was not +far away from him; and the boy, frank and confidential in everything +else, grew strangely silent when we talked of the priest. I spoke of +this to my father one day. He looked keenly at me and said quietly: + +"You would make a good lawyer, Phil, you seem to know what a lawyer must +know; that is, what people think as well as what they say." + +"I don't quite understand, father," I replied. + +"Then you won't make a good lawyer. It's the understanding that makes +the lawyer," and he changed the subject. + +My mind was not greatly disturbed over O'mie, however. I was young and +neither I nor my companions were troubled by anything but the realities +of the day. Limited as we were by circumstances in this new West, we +made the most of our surroundings and of one another. How much the +prairies meant to us, as they unrolled their springtime glory! From the +noonday blue of the sky overhead to the deep verdure of the land below, +there ranged every dainty tint of changeful coloring. Nature lavished +her wealth of loveliness here, that the dream of the New Jerusalem might +not seem a mere phantasy of the poet disciple who walked with the Christ +and was called of Him "The Beloved." + +The prairies were beautiful to me at any hour, but most of all I loved +them in the long summer evenings when the burst of sunset splendor had +deepened into twilight. Then the afterglow softened to that purple +loveliness indescribably rare and sweet, wreathed round by gray +cloudfolds melting into exquisite pink, the last far echo of the +daylight's glory. It is said that any land is beautiful to us only by +association. Was it the light heart of my boyhood, and my merry +comrades, and most of all, the little girl who was ever in my thoughts, +that gave grandeur to these prairies and filled my memory with pictures +no artist could ever color on canvas? I cannot say, for all these have +large places in my mind's treasury. + +From early spring to late October it was a part of each day's duty for +the youngsters of Springvale to go in the evening after the cows that +ranged on the open west. We went together, of course, and, of course, we +rode our ponies. Sometimes we went far and hunted long before we found +the cattle. The tenderest grasses grew along the draws, and these often +formed a deep wrinkle on the surface where our whole herd was hidden +until we came to the very edge of the depression. Sometimes the herd was +scattered, and every one must be rounded up and headed toward town +before we left the prairie. And then we loitered on the homeward way and +sang as only brave, free-spirited boys and girls can sing. And the +prairie caught our songs and sent them rippling far and far over its +clear, wide spaces. + +As the twilight deepened, we drew nearer together, for comradeship meant +protection. Some years before, a boy had been stolen out on these +prairies one day by a band of Kiowas, and that night the mother drowned +herself in the Neosho above town. Her home had been in a little stone +cabin round the north bend of the river. It was in the sheltered draw +just below where the one lone cottonwood tree made a landmark on the +Plains--a deserted habitation now, and said to be haunted by the spirit +of the unhappy mother. The child's father, a handsome French Canadian, +had turned Plainsman and gone to the Southwest and had not been heard of +afterwards. While we had small grounds for fear, we kept our ponies in a +little group coming in side by side on the home stretch. All the purple +shadows of those sweet summer twilights are blended with the memories of +those happy care-free hours. + +In the long summer days the cows ranged wider to the west, and we +wandered farther in our evening jaunts and lingered later in the +fragrant draws where the sweet grasses were starred with many brilliant +blossoms. That is how we happened to be away out on the northwest +prairie that evening when Jean Pahusca found us, the evening when O'mie +read my secret in my tell-tale face. Even to-day a storm cloud in the +northwest with the sunset flaming against its jagged edges recalls that +scene. The cattle had all been headed homeward, and we were racing our +ponies down the long slope to the south. On the right the draw, watched +over by the big cottonwood, breaks through the height and finds its way +to the Neosho. The watershed between the river and Fingal's Creek is +here only a high swell, and straight toward the west it is level as a +floor. + +The air of a hot afternoon had begun to ripple in cool little waves +against our faces. All the glory of the midsummer day was ending in +the grandeur of a crimson sunset shaded northward by that threatening +thundercloud. With our ponies lined up for one more race we were just on +the point of starting, when a whoop, a savage yell, and Jean Pahusca +rose above the edge of the draw behind us and dashed toward us headlong. +We knew he was drunk, for since Father Le Claire's coming among us he +had come to be a sort of gentleman Indian when he was sober; and we +caught the naked gleam of the short sharp knife he always wore in a +leather sheath at his belt. We were thrown into confusion, and some +ponies became unmanageable at once. It is the way of their breed to turn +traitor with the least sign of the rider's fear. At Jean's second whoop +there was a stampede. Marjie's pony gave a leap and started off at full +gallop toward the level west. Hers was the swiftest horse of all, but +the Indian coming at an angle had the advantage of space, and he singled +her out in a moment. Her hair hung down in two heavy braids, and as she +gave one frightened glance backward I saw her catch them both in one +hand and draw them over her shoulder as if to save them from the +scalping knife. + +My pony leaped to follow her but my quick eye caught the short angle of +the Indian's advantage. I turned, white and anguish-stricken, toward my +companions. Then it was that I heard O'mie's low words: + +"Bedad, Phil, an' that's how it is wid ye, is it? Then we've got to kill +that Injun, just for grandeur." + +His voice set a mighty force tingling in every nerve. The thrill of that +moment is mine after all these years, for in that instant I was born +again. I believe no terror nor any torture could have stayed me then, +and death would have seemed sublime if only I could have flung myself +between the girl and this drink-crazed creature seeking in his +irresponsible madness to take her life. It was not alone that this was +Marjie, and there swept over me the full realization of what she meant +to me. Something greater than my own love and life leaped into being +within me. It was the swift, unworded comprehension of a woman's worth, +of the sacredness of her life, and her divine right to the protection of +her virtue; a comprehension of the beauty and blessing of the American +home, of the obedient daughter, the loving wife, the Madonna mother, of +all that these mean as the very foundation rock of our nation's strength +and honor. It swept my soul like a cleansing fire. The words for this +came later, but the force of it swayed my understanding in that +instant's crisis. Some boys grow into manhood as the years roll along, +and some leap into it at a single bound. It was a boy, Phil Baronet, who +went out after the cows that careless summer day so like all the other +summer days before it. It was a man, Philip Baronet, who followed them +home that dark night, fearing neither the roar of the angry storm cloud +that threshed in fury above us, nor any human being, though he were +filled with the rage of madness. + +At O'mie's word I dashed after Marjie. Behind me came Bud Anderson and +Dave Mead, followed by every other boy and girl. O'mie rode beside me, +and not one of us thought of himself. It was all done in a flash, and I +marvel that I tell its mental processes as if they were a song sung in +long-metre time. But it is all so clear to me. I can see the fiery +radiance of that sky blotted by the two riders before me. I can hear the +crash of the ponies' feet, and I can even feel the sweep of wind out of +that storm-cloud turning the white under-side of the big cottonwood's +leaves uppermost and cutting cold now against the hot air. And then +there rises up that ripple of ground made by the ring of the Osage's +tepee in the years gone by. Marjie deftly swerved her pony to the south +and skirted that little ridge of ground with a graceful curve, as though +this were a mere racing game and not a life-and-death ride. Jean's horse +plunged at the tepee ring, leaped to the little hollow beyond it, +stumbled and fell, and, pellmell, like a stampede of cattle, we were +upon him. + +I never could understand how Dave Mead headed the crowd back and kept +the whole mass from piling up on the fallen Indian and those nearest to +him. Nor do I understand why some of us were not crushed or kicked out +of life in that _melee_ of ponies and riders struggling madly together. +What I do know is that Bud Anderson, who was not thrown from his horse, +caught Jean's pony by the bridle and dragged it clear of the mass. It +was O'mie's quick hand that wrested that murderous knife from the +Indian's grasp, and it was my strong arm that held him with a grip of +iron. The shock sobered him instantly. He struggled a moment, and then +the cunning that always deceived us gained control. The Indian spirit +vanished, and with something masterful in his manner he relaxed all +effort. Lifting his eyes to mine with no trace of resentment in their +impenetrable depths, he said evenly: + +"Let me go. I was drunk. I was fool." + +"Let him go, Phil. He did act kinder drunk," Bill Mead urged, and I +loosed my hold. I knew instinctively that we were safe now, as I knew +also that this submission of Jean Pahusca's must be paid for later with +heavy interest by somebody. + +"Here'th your horth; s'pothe you thkite," lisped Bud Anderson. + +Jean sprang upon his pony and dashed off. We watched him ride away down +the long slope. In a few moments another horseman joined him, and they +took the trail toward the Kaw reservation. It was Father Le Claire +riding with the Indian into the gathering shadows of the south. + +I turned to Marjie standing beside me. Her big brown eyes were luminous +with tears, and her face was as white as my mother's face was on the day +the sea left its burden on the Rockport sands. It was hate that made +Jean Pahusca veil his countenance for me a moment before. Something of +which hate can never know made me look down at her calmly. O'mie's hand +was on my shoulder and his eyes were on us both. There was a quaint +approval in his glance toward me. He knew the self-control I needed +then. + +"Phil saved you, Marjie," Mary Gentry exclaimed. + +"No, he saved Jean," put in Lettie. + +"And O'mie saved Phil," Bess Anderson urged. "Just grabbed that knife in +time." + +"Well, I thaved mythelf," Bud piped in. + +He never could find any heroism in himself who, more than any other boy +among us, had a record for pulling drowning boys out of the Deep Hole by +the Hermit's Cave, and killing rattlesnakes in the cliff's crevices, +and daring the dark when the border ruffians were hiding about +Springvale. + +An angry growl of thunder gave us warning of the coming storm. In our +long race home before its wrath, in the dense darkness wrapping the +landscape, we could only trust to the ponies to keep the way. Marjie +rode close by my side that night, and more than once my hand found hers +in the darkness to assure her of protection. O'mie, bless his red head! +crowded Lettie to the far side of the group, keeping Tell on the other +side of her. + +When I climbed the hill on Cliff Street that night I turned by the +bushes and caught the gleam of Marjie's light. I gave the whistling call +we had kept for our signal these years, and I saw the light waver as a +good-night signal. + +That night I could not sleep. The storm lasted for hours, and the rain +swept in sheets across the landscape. The darkness was intense, and the +midsummer heat of the day was lost in the chill of that drouth-breaking +torrent. After midnight I went to my father's room. He had not retired, +but was sitting by the window against which the rain beat heavily. The +light burned low, and his fine face was dimly outlined in the shadows. I +sat down beside his knee as I was wont to do in childhood. + +"Father," I began hesitatingly, "Father, do you still love my mother? +Could you care for anybody else? Does a man ever--" I could not say +more. Something so like tears was coming into my voice that my cheeks +grew hot. + +My father's hand rested gently on my head, his fingers stroking the +ripples of my hair. White as it is now, it was dark and wavy then, as my +mother's had been. It was the admiration of the women and girls, which +admiration always annoyed and embarrassed me. In and out of those set +waves above my forehead his fingers passed caressingly. He knew the +heart of a boy, and he sat silent there, letting me feel that I could +tell him anything. + +"Have you come to the cross-roads, Phil?" he asked gently. "I was +thinking of you as I sat here. Maybe that brought you in. Your boyhood +must give way to manhood soon. These times of civil war change +conditions for our children," he mused to himself, rather than spoke to +me. "We expect a call to the front soon, Phil. When I am gone, I want +you to do a man's part in Springvale. You are only a boy, I know, but +you have a man's strength, my son." + +"And a man's spirit, too," I cried, springing up and standing erect +before him. "Let me go with you, Father." + +"No, Phil, you must stay here and help to protect these homes, just as +we men must go out to fight for them. To the American people war doesn't +mean glory nor conquest. It means safety and freedom, and these begin +and end in the homes of our land." + +The impulse wakened on the prairie that evening at the sight of Marjie's +peril leaped up again within me. + +"I'll do my best. But tell me, Father," I had dropped down beside him +again, "do you still love my mother? Does a man love the same woman +always?" + +Few boys of my age would have asked such a question of a man. My father +took both of my hands into his own strong hands and in the dim light he +searched my face with his keen eyes. + +"Men differ in their natures, my boy. Even fathers and sons do not +always think alike. I can speak only for myself. Do I love the woman who +gave you birth? Oh, Phil!" + +No need for him to say more. Over his face there swept an expression of +tenderness such as I have never seen save as at long intervals I have +caught it on the face of a sweet-browed mother bending above a sleeping +babe. I rose up before him, and stooping, I kissed his forehead. It was +a sacred hour, and I went out from his presence with a new bond binding +us together who had been companions all my days. My dreams when I fell +asleep at last were all of Marjie, and through them all her need for a +protector was mingled with a still greater need for my guardianship. It +came from two women who were strangers to me, whose faces I had never +seen before. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A GOOD INDIAN + + Underneath that face like summer's ocean, + Its lips as moveless, and its brow as clear, + Slumbers a whirlwind of the heart's emotion, + Love, hatred, pride, hope, sorrow,--all save fear. + + +Cast in the setting of to-day, after such an attempt on human life as we +broke up on the prairie, Jean Pahusca would have been hiding in the +coverts of Oklahoma, or doing time at the Lansing penitentiary for +attempted assault with intent to kill. The man who sold him the whiskey +would be in the clutches of the law, carrying his case up to the Supreme +Court, backed by the slush fund of the brewers' union. The Associated +Press would give the incident a two-inch heading and a one-inch story; +and the snail would stay on the thorn, and the lark keep on the wing. + +Even in that time Springvale would not have tolerated the Indian among +us had it not been that the minds of the people were fermenting with +other things. We were on the notorious old border between free and slave +lands, whose tragedies rival the tales of the Scottish border. Kansas +had been a storm centre since the day it became a Territory, and the +overwhelming theme was negro slavery. Every man was marked as "pro" or +"anti." There was no neutral ground. Springvale was by majority a +Free-State town. A certain element with us, however, backed up by the +Fingal's Creek settlement, declared openly and vindictively for slavery. +It was from this class that we had most to fear. While the best of our +people were giving their life-blood to save a nation, these men connived +with border raiders who would not hesitate to take the life and property +of every Free-State citizen. When our soldiers marched away to fields of +battle, they knew they were leaving an enemy behind them, and no man's +home was safe. Small public heed was paid then to the outbreak of a +drunken Indian boy who had been overcome in a scrap out on the prairie +when the youngsters were hunting their cows. + +Where the bushes grow over the edge of the bluff at the steep bend in +Cliff Street, a point of rock projects beyond the rough side. By a rude +sort of stone steps beside this point we could clamber down many feet to +the bush-grown ledge below. This point had been a meeting-place and +playground for Marjie and myself all those years. We named it +"Rockport" after the old Massachusetts town. Marjie could hear my call +from the bushes and come up to the half-way place between our two homes. +The stratum of rock below this point was full of cunning little crevices +and deep hiding-places. One of these, known only to Marjie and myself, +we called our post-office, and many a little note, scrawled in childish +hand, but always directed to "Rockport" like a real address on the +outside fold, we left for each other to find. Sometimes it was a +message, sometimes it was only a joke, and sometimes it was just a line +of childish love-making. We always put our valentines in this private +house of Uncle Sam's postal service. Maybe that was why the other boys +and girls did not couple our names together oftener. Everybody knew who +got valentines at the real post-office and where they came from. + +On the evening after the storm there was no loitering on the prairie. +While we knew there was no danger, a half-dozen boys brought the cows +home long before the daylight failed. At sunset I went down to +"Rockport," intending to whistle to Marjie. How many a summer evening +together here we had watched the sunset on the prairie! To-night, for no +reason that I could give, I parted the bushes and climbed down to the +ledge below, intending in a moment to come up again. I paused to listen +to the lowing of some cows down the river. All the sweet sounds and +odors of evening were in the air, and the rain-washed woodland of the +Neosho Valley was in its richest green. I did not notice that the bushes +hid me until, as I turned, I caught a glimpse of a red blanket, with a +circular white centre, sliding up that stairway. An instant later, a +call, my signal whistle, sounded from the rock above. I stood on the +ledge under the point, my heart the noisiest thing in all that summer +landscape full of soft twilight utterances. I was too far below the +cliff's edge to catch any answering call, but I determined to fling that +blanket and its wearer off the height if any harm should even threaten. +Presently I heard a light footstep, and Marjie parted the bushes above +me. Before she could cry out, Jean spoke to her. His voice was clear and +sweet as I had never heard it before, and I do not wonder it reassured +her. + +"No afraid, Star-face, no afraid. Jean wants one word." + +Marjie did not move, and I longed to let her know how near I was to her, +and yet I dared not till I knew his purpose. + +"Star-face," he began, "Jean drink no more. Jean promise Padre Le +Claire, never, never, Star-face, not be afraid anymore, never, never. +Jean good Indian now. Always keep evil from Star-face." + +How full of affection were his tones. I wondered at his broken Indian +tongue, for he had learned good English, and sometimes he surpassed us +all in the terse excellence and readiness of his language. Why should he +hesitate so now? + +"Star-face,"--there was a note of self-control in his pleading +voice,--"I will never drink again. I would not do harm to you. Don't be +afraid." + +I heard her words then, soft and sweet, with that tremor of fear she +could never overcome. + +"I hope you won't, Jean." + +Then the bushes crackled, as she turned and sped away. + +I was just out of sight again when that red blanket slipped down the +rocks and disappeared over the side of the ledge in the jungle of bushes +below me. + +A little later, when Mary Gentry and O'mie and I sat with Marjie on the +Whately doorstep, she told us what Jean had said. + +"Do you really think he will be good now?" asked Mary. She was always +credulous. + +"Yes, of course," Marjie answered carelessly. + +Her reply angered me. She seemed so ready to trust the word of this +savage who twenty-four hours before had tried to scalp her. Did his +manner please Marjie? Was the foolish girl attracted by this picturesque +creature? I clenched my fists in the dark. + +"Girls are such silly things," I said to myself. "I thought better of +Marjie, but she is like all the rest." And then I blushed in the dark +for having such mean thoughts. + +"Don't you think he will be good now, Phil?" + +I did not know how eagerly she waited for my answer. Poor Marjie! To her +the Indian name was always a terror. Before I could reply O'mie broke +in: + +"Marjory Whately, ye'll excuse me fur referrin' to it, but I ain't no +bigger than you are." + +O'mie had not grown as the most of us had, and while he had a lightning +quickness of movement, and a courage that never faltered, he was no +match for the bigger boys in strength and endurance. Marjie was rounding +into graceful womanhood now, but she was not of the slight type. She +never lost her dimples, and the vigorous air of the prairies gave her +that splendid physique that made her a stranger to sickness and kept the +wild-rose bloom on her fair cheeks. O'mie did not outweigh her. + +"Ye'll 'scuse me," O'mie went on, "fur the embarrassin' statement; but I +ain't big, I run mostly to brains, while Phil here, an' Bill, an' Dave, +an' Bud, an' Possum Conlow runs mostly to beef; an' yet, bein' small, I +ain't afraid none of your good Injun. But take this warnin' from me, an +old friend that knew your grandmother in long clothes, that you kape +wide of Jean Pahusca's trail. Don't you trust him." + +Marjie gave a little shiver. Had I been something less a fool then I +should have known that it was a shiver of fear, but I was of the age to +know everything, and O'mie sitting there had learned my heart in a +moment on the prairie the evening before. And then I wanted Marjie to +trust to me. Her eyes were like stars in the soft twilight, and her +white face lost its color, but she did not look at me. + +"Don't you trust that mock-turtle Osage, Marjorie, don't." O'mie was +more deeply in earnest than we thought. + +"But O'mie," Marjie urged, "Jean was just as earnest as you are now; +and you'd say so, too, Phil, if you had heard him." + +She was right. The words I had heard from above the rock rang true. + +"And if he really wants to do better, what have we all been told in the +Sunday-school? 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'" + +I could have caught that minor chord of fear had I been more master of +myself at that moment. + +"Have ye talked wid Father Le Claire?" asked O'mie. "Let's lave the +baste to him. Phil, whin does your padre and his Company start to subdue +the rebillious South?" + +"Pretty soon, father says." + +"My father is going too," Marjie said gently, "and Henry Anderson and +Cris Mead, and all the men." + +"Oh, well, we'll take care of the widders an' orphans." O'mie spoke +carelessly, but he added, "It's grand whin such min go out to foight fur +a country. Uncle Cam wants to go if he's aqual to the tests; you know +he's too near-sighted to see a soldier. Why don't you go too, Phil? +You're big as your dad, an' not half so essential to Springvale. Just +lave it to sich social ornimints as me an' Marjie's 'good Injun.'" + +Again Marjie shivered. + +"I want to go, but father won't let me leave--Aunt Candace." + +"An' he's right, as is customary wid him. You nade your aunt to take +care of you. He couldn't be stoppin' the battle to lace up your shoes +an' see that you'd washed your neck. Come, Mary, little girls must be +gettin' home." And he and Mary trotted down the slope toward the +twinkling lights of the Cambridge House. + +Before I reached home, O'mie had overtaken me, saying: + +"Come, Phil, let's rest here a minute." + +We were just by the bushes that shut off my "Rockport," so we parted +them and sat down on the point of rock. The moon was rising, red in the +east, and the Neosho Valley below us was just catching its gleams on the +treetops, while each point of the jagged bluff stood out silvery white +above the dark shadows. A thousand crickets and katydids were chirping +in the grass. It was only on the town side that the bushes screened this +point. All the west prairie was in that tender gloom that would roll +back in shadowy waves before the rising moon. + +"Phil," O'mie began, "don't be no bigger fool than nature cut you out +fur to be. Don't you trust that 'good Injun' of Marjie's, but kape one +eye on him comin' an t' other 'n on him goin'." + +"I don't trust him, O'mie, but he has a voice that deceives. I don't +wonder, being a girl, Marjie is caught by it." + +"An' you, bein' a boy," O'mie mimicked,--"Phil, you're enough to turn my +hair rid. But never mind, ye can't trust him. Fur why? He's not to be +trusted. If he was aven Injun clean through you could a little, maybe. +Some Osages has honor to shame a white man,--aven an Irishman,--but he's +not Osage. He's a Kiowa, the kind that stole that little chap years ago +up toward Rid Range. An' he ain't Kiowa altogether nather. The Injun +blood gives him cuteness, but half his cussedness is in that soft black +scalp an' that soft voice sayin', 'Good Injun.' There's some old Louis +XIV somewhere in his family tree. The roots av it may be in the Plains +out here, but some branch is a graft from a Orleans rose-bush. He's got +the blossoms an' the thorns av a Frenchman. An' besides," O'mie added, +"as if us two wise men av the West didn't know, comes Father Le Claire +to me to-day. He's Jean's guide an' counsellor. An' Phil, begorra, them +two looks alike. Same square-cut kind o' foreheads they've got. Annyhow, +I was waterin' the horses down to the ford, an' Father Le Claire comes +on me sudden, ridin' up on the Kaw trail from the south. He blessed me +wid his holy hand and then says quick: + +"'O'mie, ye are a lad I can trust!'" + +"I nodded, not knowin' why annybody can't be trusted who goes swimmin' +once a week, an' never tastes whiskey, an' don't practise lyin', nor +shirkin' his stunt at the Cambridge House." + +"'O'mie,' says he, 'I want to tell you who you must not trust. It is +Jean Pahusca,' says he; 'I wish I didn't nade to say it, but it is me +duty to warn ye. Don't mistreat him, but O'mie, for Heaven's sake, kape +your eyes open, especially when he promises to be good.' It's our stunt, +Phil, to watch him close now he's took to reformin' to the girls." + +"O'mie, we know, and Father Le Claire knows, but how can we make those +foolish girls understand? Mary believes everything that's said to her +anyhow, and you heard Marjie to-night. She thinks she should take Jean +at his word." + +"Phil, you are all right, seemin'ly. You can lick any av us. You've got +the build av a giant, an' you've beautiful hair an' teeth. An' you are +son an' heir to John Bar'net, which is an asset some av us would love to +possess, bein' orphans, an' the lovely ladies av Springvale is all +bewitched by you; but you are a blind, blitherin' ijit now an' again." + +"Well, you heard what Marjie said, and how careless she was." + +"Yes, an' I seen her shiver an' turn white the instant too. Phil, she's +doin' that to kape us from bein' unaisy, an' it's costin' her some to +do it. Bless her pretty face! Phil, don't be no bigger fool than ye can +kape from." + +In less than a week after the incident on the prairie my father's +Company was called to the firing line of the Civil War and the +responsibilities of life fell suddenly upon me. There was a great +gathering in town on the day the men marched away. Where the opera house +stands now was the corner of a big vacant patch of ground reaching out +toward the creek. To-day it was filled with the crowd come to see the +soldiers and bid them good-bye. A speaker's stand was set up in the yard +of the Cambridge House and the boys in blue were in the broad street +before it. It was the last civilian ceremony for many of them, for that +Kansas Company went up Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga, led the line as +Kansans will ever do, and in the face of a murderous fire they drove the +foeman back. But many of them never came home to wear their laurels of +victory. They lie in distant cemeteries under the shadow of tall +monuments. They lie in old neglected fields, in sunken trenches, by +lonely waysides, and in deep Southern marshes, waiting all the last +great Reunion. If I should live a thousand years, the memory of that +bright summer morning would not fade from my mind. + +Dr. Hemingway, pastor of the Presbyterian Church, presided over the +meeting, and the crowd about the soldiers was reinforced by all the +countryside beyond the Neosho and the whole Red Range neighborhood. + +Skulking about the edge of the company, or gathered in little groups +around the corners just out of sight, were the pro-slavery sympathizers, +augmented by the Fingal's Creek crowd, who were of the Secession element +clear through. In the doorway of the "Last Chance" sat the Rev. Dodd, +pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South, taking no part in this +patriotic occasion. Father Le Claire was beside Dr. Hemingway. He said +not a word, but Springvale knew he was a power for peace. He did not +sanction bloodshed even in a righteous cause. Neither would he allow +those who followed his faith to lift a hand against those who did go out +to battle. We trusted him and he never betrayed that trust. This morning +I recalled what O'mie had said about his looking like Jean Pahusca. His +broad hat was pushed back from his square dark forehead; and the hair, +soft and jetty, had the same line about the face. But not one feature +there bespoke an ignoble spirit. I did not understand him, but I was +drawn toward him, as I was repelled by the Indian from the moment I +first saw his head above the bluff on the rainy October evening long +ago. + +How little the Kansas boys and girls to-day can understand what that +morning meant to us, when we saw our fathers riding down the Santa Fe +Trail to the east, and waving good-bye to us at the far side of the +ford! How the fire of patriotism burned in our hearts, and how the +sudden loss of all our strongest and best men left us helpless among +secret cruel enemies! And then that spirit of manhood leaped up within +us, the sudden sense of responsibility come to "all the able-bodied +boys" to stand up as a wall of defence about the homes of Springvale. +Too well we knew the dangers. Had we not lived on this Kansas border in +all those plastic years when the mind takes deepest impressions? The +ruffianism of Leavenworth and Lawrence and Osawatomie had been repeated +in the unprotected surroundings of Springvale. The Red Range schoolhouse +had been burned, and the teacher, a Massachusetts man, had been drowned +in a shallow pool near the source of Fingal's Creek, his body fastened +face downward so that a few inches of water were enough for the fiendish +purpose. Eastward the settlers had fled to our town, time and again, to +escape the border raiders, whose coming meant death to the free-spirited +father, and a widow and orphans left destitute beside the smoking embers +of what had been a home. Those were busy days in Kansas, and the memory +of them can yet stir the heart of a man of sixty years. + +That morning Dr. Hemingway offered prayer, the prayer of a godly man, +for the souls of men about to be baptized with a baptism of blood that +other men might be free, and a peaceful generation might walk with ease +where their feet trod red-hot ploughshares; a prayer for the strong arm +of God Almighty, to uphold every soldier's hands until the cause of +right should triumph; a prayer for the heavenly Father's protection +about the homes left fatherless for the sake of His children. + +And then he prayed for us, "for Philip Baronet, the strong and manly son +of his noble father, John Baronet; for David and William Mead, for John +and Clayton and August Anderson." He prayed for Tell Mapleson, too (Tell +was always square in spite of his Copperhead father), and for "Thomas +O'Meara." We hardly knew whom he meant. + +Bud Anderson whispered later, "Thay, O'mie, you'll never get into +kingdom come under an athumed name. Better thtick to 'O'mie.'" + +And last of all the good Doctor prayed for the wives and daughters, that +they "be strong and very courageous," doing their part of working and +waiting as bravely as they do who go out to stirring action. Then +ringing speeches followed. I remember them all; but most of all the +words of my father and of Irving Whately are fixed in my mind. My father +lived many years and died one sunset hour when the prairies were in +their autumn glory, died with his face to the western sky, his last +earthly scene that peaceful prairie with the grandeur of a thousand +ever-changing hues building up a wall like to the walls of the New +Jerusalem which Saint John saw in a vision on the Isle of Patmos. There +was + + No moaning of the bar + When he put out to sea + +for he died beautifully, as he had lived. I never saw Irving Whately +again, for he went down before the rebel fire at Chattanooga; but the +sound of his voice I still can hear. + +The words of these men seemed to lift me above the clouds, and what +followed is like a dream. I know that when the speeches were done, +Marjie went forward with the beautiful banner the women of Springvale +had made with their own hands for this Company. I could not hear her +words. They were few and simple, no doubt, for she was never given to +display. But I remember her white dress and her hair parted in front and +coiled low on her neck. I remember the sweet Madonna face of the little +girl, and how modestly graceful she was. I remember how every man held +his breath as she came up to the group seated on the stage, how pink her +cheeks were and how white the china aster bloom nestling against the +ripples of her hair, and how the soldiers cheered that flag and its +bearer. I remember Jean Pahusca, Indian-like, standing motionless, never +taking his eyes from Marjie's face. It was that flag that this Company +followed in its awful charge up Missionary Ridge. And it was Irving +Whately who kept it aloft, the memory of his daughter making it doubly +sacred to him. + +And then came the good-byes. Marjie's father gripped my hand, and his +voice was full of tears. + +"Take care of them, Phil. I have no son to guard my home, and if we +never come back you will not let harm come to them. You will let me feel +when I am far away that you are shielding my little girl from evil, +won't you, Phil?" + +I clenched his hand in mine. "You know I'll do that, Mr. Whately." I +stood up to my full height, young, broad-shouldered, and muscular. + +"It will be easier for me, Phil, to know you are here." + +I understood him. Mrs. Whately was, of all the women I knew, least able +to do for herself. Marjie was like her father, and, save for her fear of +Indians, no Kansas girl was ever more capable and independent. It has +been my joy that this father trusted me. The flag his daughter put into +his hands that day was his shroud at Chattanooga, and his last moments +were happier for the thought of his little girl in my care. + +Aunt Candace and I walked home together after we had waved the last +good-byes to the soldiers. From our doorway up on Cliff Street we +watched that line of men grow dim and blend at last into the eastern +horizon's purple bound. When I turned then and looked down at the town +beyond the slope, it seemed to me that upon me alone rested the burden +of its protection. Driven deep in my boyish soul was the sense of the +sacredness of these homes, and of a man's high duty to keep harm from +them. My father had gone out to battle, not alone to set free an +enslaved race, but to make whole and strong a nation whose roots are in +the homes it defends. So I, left to fill his place, must be the valiant +defender of the defenceless. Such moments of exaltation come to the +young soul, and by such ideals a life is squared. + +That evening our little crowd of boys strolled out on the west prairie. +The sunset deepened to the rich afterglow, and all the soft shadows of +evening began to unfold about us. In that quiet, sacred time, standing +out on the wide prairie, with the great crystal dome above us, and the +landscape, swept across by the free winds of heaven, unrolled in all its +dreamy beauty about us, our little company gripped hands and swore our +fealty to the Stars and Stripes. And then and there we gave sacred +pledge and promise to stand by one another and to give our lives if need +be for the protection and welfare of the homes of Springvale. + +Busy days followed the going of the soldiers. Somehow the gang of us who +had idled away the summer afternoons in the sand-bar shallows beyond the +Deep Hole seemed suddenly to grow into young men who must not neglect +school nor business duties. Awkwardly enough but earnestly we strove to +keep Springvale a pushing, prosperous community, and while our efforts +were often ludicrous, the manliness of purpose had its effect. It gave +us breadth, this purpose, and broke up our narrow prejudices. I believe +in those first months I would have suffered for the least in Springvale +as readily as for the greatest. Even Lettie Conlow, whose father kept on +shoeing horses as though there were no civil strife in the nation, found +such favor with me as she had never found before. I know now it was only +a boy's patriotic foolishness, but who shall say it was ignoble in its +influence? Marjie was my especial charge. That Fall I did not retire at +night until I had run down to the bushes and given my whistle, and had +seen her window light waver a good-night answer, and I knew she was +safe. I was not her only guardian, however. One crisp autumn night there +was no response to my call, and I sat down on the rocky outcrop of the +steep hill to await the coming of her light in the window. It was a +clear starlight night, and I had no thought of being unseen as I was +quietly watching. Presently, up through the bushes a dark form slid. It +did not stand erect when the street was reached, but crawled with head +up and alert in the deeper shadow of the bluff side of the road. I knew +instinctively that it was Jean Pahusca, and that he had not been +expecting me to be there after my call and had failed to notice me in +his eagerness to creep unseen down the slope. Sometimes in these later +years in a great football game I have watched the Haskell Indians +crawling swiftly up and down the side-lines following the surge of the +players on the gridiron, and I always think of Jean as he crept down the +hill that night. It was late October and the frost was glistening, but I +pulled off my boots in a moment and silently followed the fellow. Inside +the fence near Marjie's window was a big circle of lilac bushes, +transplanted years ago from the old Ohio home of the Whatelys. Inside +this clump Jean crept, and I knew by the quiet crackle of twigs and dead +leaves he was making his bed there. My first thought was to drag him out +and choke him. And then my better judgment prevailed. I slipped away to +find O'mie for a council. + +"Phil, I'd like to kill him wid a hoe, same as Marjie did that other +rattlesnake that had Jim Conlow charmed an' flutterin' toward his pisen +fangs, only we'd better wait a bit. By Saint Patrick, Philip, we can't +hang up his hide yet awhoile. I know what the baste's up to annyhow." + +"Well, what is it?" I queried eagerly. + +"He's bein' a good Injun he is, an' he's got a crude sort o' notion he's +protectin' that dear little bird. She may be scared o' him, an' he knows +it; but bedad, I'd not want to be the border ruffian that went prowlin' +in there uninvited; would you?" + +"Well, he's a dear trusty old Fido of a watchdog, O'mie. We will take +Father Le Claire's word, and keep an eye on him though. He will sleep +where he will sleep, but we'll see if the sight of water affects him +any. A dog of his breed may be subject to rabies. You can't always trust +even a 'good Injun.'" + +After that I watched for Jean's coming and followed him to his lilac +bed, a half-savage, half-educated Indian brave, foolishly hoping to win +a white girl for his own. + +All that Fall Jean never missed a night from the lilac bush. As long as +he persisted in passing the dark hours so near to the Whately home my +burden of anxiety and responsibility was doubled. In silent faithfulness +he kept sentinel watch. I dared not tell Marjie, for I knew it would +fill her nights with terror, and yet I feared her accidental discovery +of his presence. Jean was doing more than this, however. His promise to +be good seemed to belie Father Le Claire's warning. In and out of the +village all that winter he went, orderly, at times even affable, quietly +refusing every temptation to drunkenness. "A good Indian" he was, even +to the point where O'mie and I wondered if we might not have been wrong +in our judgment of him. He was growing handsomer too. He stood six feet +in his moccasins, stalwart as a giant, with grace in every motion. +Somehow he seemed more like a picturesque Gipsy, a sort of +semi-civilized grandee, than an Indian of the Plains. There was a +dominant courtliness in his manner and his bearing was kingly. People +spoke kindly of him. Regularly he took communion in the little Catholic +chapel at the south edge of town on the Kaw trail. Quietly but +persistently he was winning his way to universal favor. Only the Irish +lad and I kept our counsel and, waited. + +After the bitterly cold New Year's Day of '63 the Indian forsook the +lilac bush for a time. But I knew he never lost track of Marjie's coming +and going. Every hour of the day or night he could have told just where +she was. We followed him down the river sometimes at night, and lost him +in the brush this side the Hermit's Cave. We did not know that this was +a mere trick to deceive us. To make sure of him we should have watched +the west prairie and gone up the river for his real landing place. How +he lived I do not know. An Indian can live on air and faith in a +promise, or hatred of a foe. At last he lulled even our suspicion to +sleep. + +"Ask the priest what to do," I suggested to O'mie when we grew ashamed +of our spying. "They are together so much the rascal looks and walks +like him. See him on annuity day and tell him we feel like chicken +thieves and kidnappers." + +O'mie obeyed me to the letter, and ended with the query to the good +Father: + +"Now phwat should a couple of young sleuth-hounds do wid such a dacent +good Injun?" + +Father Le Claire's reply stunned the Irish boy. + +"He just drew himself up a mile high an' more," O'mie related to me, +"just stood up like the angel av the flamin' sword, an' his eyes blazed +a black, consumin' fire. 'Watch him,' says the praist, 'for God's sake, +watch him. Don't ask me again phwat to do. I've told you twice. Thirty +years have I lived and labored with his kind. I know them.' An' then," +O'mie went on, "he put both arms around me an' held me close as me own +father might have done, somewhere back, an' turned an' left me. So +there's our orders. Will ye take 'em?" + +I took them, but my mind was full of queries. I did not trust the +Indian, and yet I had no visible reason to doubt his sincerity. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +WHEN THE HEART BEATS YOUNG + + A patch of green sod 'neath the trees brown and bare, + A smell of fresh mould on the mild southern air, + A twitter of bird song, a flutter, a call, + And though the clouds lower, and threaten and fall-- + There's Spring in my heart! + + --BERTA ALEXANDER GARVEY. + + +When the prairies blossomed again, and the Kansas springtime was in its +daintiest green, when a blur of pink was on the few young orchards in +the Neosho Valley, and the cottonwoods in the draws were putting forth +their glittering tender leaves--in that sweetest time of all the year, a +new joy came to me. Most girls married at sixteen in those days, and +were grandmothers at thirty-five. Marjie was no longer a child. No +sweeter blossom of young womanhood ever graced the West. All Springvale +loved her, except Lettie Conlow. And Cam Gentry summed it all up in his +own quaint way, brave old Cam fighting all the battles of the war over +again on the veranda of the Cambridge House, since his defective range +of vision kept him from the volunteer service. Watching Marjie coming +down the street one spring morning Cam declared solemnly: + +"The War's done decided, an' the Union has won. A land that can grow +girls like Marjory Whately's got the favorin' smile of the Almighty upon +it." + +For us that season all the world was gay and all the skies were +opal-hued, and we almost forgot sometimes that there could be sorrow and +darkness and danger. Most of all we forgot about an alien down in the +Hermit's Cave, "a good Indian" turned bad in one brief hour. Dear are +the memories of that springtide. Many a glorious April have I seen in +this land of sunshine, but none has ever seemed quite like that one to +me. Nor waving yellow wheat, nor purple alfalfa bloom, nor ramparts of +dark green corn on well-tilled land can hold for me one-half the beauty +of the windswept springtime prairie. No sweet odor of new-ploughed +ground can rival the fragrance of the wild grasses in their waving seas +of verdure. + +We were coming home from Red Range late one April day, where we had gone +to a last-day-of-school affair. The boys and girls did not ride in a +group now, but broke up into twos and twos sauntering slowly homeward. +The tender pink and green of the landscape with the April sunset tinting +in the sky overhead, and all the far south and west stretching away into +limitless waves of misty green blending into the amethyst of the world's +far bound, gave setting for young hearts beating in tune with the year's +young beauty. + +Tell Mapleson and Lettie had been with Marjie and me for a time, but at +last Tell had led Lettie far away. When we reached the draw beyond the +big cottonwood where Jean Pahusca threw us into such disorder on that +August evening the year before, we found a rank profusion of spring +blossoms. Leading our ponies by the bridle rein we lingered long in the +fragrant draw, gathering flowers and playing like two children among +them. At length Marjie sat down on the sloping ground and deftly wove +into a wreath the little pink blooms of some frail wild flower. + +"Come, Phil," she cried, "come, crown me Queen of May here in April!" + +I was as tall then as I am now, and Marjie at her full height came only +to my shoulder. I stooped to lay that dainty string of blossoms above +her brow. They fell into place in her wavy hair and nestled there, +making a picture only memory can keep. The air was very sweet and the +whole prairie about the little draw was still and dewy. The purple +twilight, shot through with sunset coloring, made an exquisite glory +overhead, and far beyond us. It is all sacred to me even now, this +moment in Love's young dream. I put both my hands gently against her +fair round cheeks and looked down her into her brown eyes. + +"Oh, Marjie," I said softly, and kissed her red lips just once. + +She said never a word while we stood for a moment, a moment we never +forgot. The day's last gleam of gold swept about us, and the ripple of a +bird's song in the draw beyond the bend fell upon the ear. An instant +later both ponies gave a sudden start. We caught their bridle reins, and +looked for the cause. Nothing was in sight. + +"It must have been a rattlesnake in that tall grass, Phil," Marjie +exclaimed. "The ponies don't like snakes, and they don't care for +flowers." + +"There are no snakes here, Marjie. This is the garden of Eden without +the Serpent," I said gayly. + +All the homeward way was a dream of joy. We forgot there was a Civil +War; that this was a land of aching hearts and dreary homes, and +bloodshed and suffering and danger and hate. We were young, it was April +on the prairies, and we had kissed each other in the pink-wreathed +shadows of the twilight. Oh, it was good to live! + +The next morning O'mie came grinning up the hill. + +"Say, Phil, ye know I cut the chape Neosho crowd last evening up to Rid +Range fur that black-eyed little Irish girl they call Kathleen. So I +came home afterwhoile behind you, not carin' to contaminate meself wid +such a common set after me pleasant company at Rid Range." + +"Well, we managed to pull through without you, O'mie, but don't let it +happen again. It's too hard on the girls to be deprived of your +presence. Do be more considerate of us, my lord." + +O'mie grinned more broadly than ever. + +"Well, I see a sight worth waitin' fur on my homeward jaunt in the +gloamin'." + +"What was it, a rattlesnake?" + +"Yes, begorra, it was just that, an' worse. You remember the draw this +side of the big cottonwood, the one where the 'good Injun' come at us +last August, the time he got knocked sober at the old tepee ring?" + +I gave a start and my cheeks grew hot. O'mie pretended not to notice me. + +"Well," he went on, "just as I came beyont that ring on this side and +dips down toward the draw where Jean come from when he was aimin' to +hang a certain curly brown-haired scalp--" + +A thrill of horror went through me at the picture. + +"Ye needn't shiver. Injuns do that; even little golden curls from +babies' heads. You an' me may live to see it, an' kill the Injun that +does it, yit. Now kape quiet. In this draw aforesaid, just like a rid +granite gravestone sat a rid granite Injun, 'a good Injun,' mind you. In +his hands was trailin' a broken wreath of pink blossoms, an' near as an +Injun can, an' a Frenchman can't, he was lovin' 'em fondly. My +appearance, unannounced by me footman, disconcerted him extramely. He +rose up an' he looked a mile tall. They moved some clouds over a little +fur his head up there," pointing toward the deep blue April sky where +white cumulus clouds were heaped, "an' his eyes was one blisterin' +grief, an' blazin' hate. He walks off proud an' erect, but some like a +wounded bird too. But mostly and importantly, remember, and renew your +watchfulness. It's hate an' a bad Injun now. Mark my words. The 'good +Injun' went out last night wid the witherin' of them pink flowers lyin' +limp in his cruel brown hands." + +"But whose flower wreath could it have been?" I asked carelessly. + +"O, phwat difference! Just some silly girl braided 'em up to look sweet +for some silly boy. An' maybe he kissed her fur it. I dunno. Annyhow she +lost this bauble, an' looking round I found it on the little knoll where +maybe she sat to do her flower wreathin'." + +He held up an old-fashioned double silver scarf-pin, the two pins held +together by a short silver chain, such as shawls were fastened with in +those days. Marjie had had the pin in the light scarf she carried on her +arm. It must have slipped out when she laid the scarf beside her and sat +down to make the wreath. I took the pin from O'mie's hand, my mind clear +now as to what had frightened the ponies. A new anxiety grew up from +that moment. The "good Indian" was passing. And yet I was young and +joyously happy that day, and I did not feel the presence of danger then. + +The early May rains following that April were such as we had never known +in Kansas before. The Neosho became bank-full; then it spread out over +the bottom lands, flooding the wooded valley, creeping up and up towards +the bluffs. It raced in a torrent now, and the song of its rippling over +stony ways was changed to the roar of many waters, rushing headlong down +the valley. On the south of us Fingal's Creek was impassable. Every +draw was brimming over, and the smaller streams became rivers. All these +streams found their way to the Neosho and gave it impetus to +destroy--which it did, tearing out great oaks and sending them swirling +and plunging, in its swiftest currents. It found the soft, uncertain +places underneath its burden of waters and with its millions of unseen +hands it digged and scooped and shaped the thing anew. When at last the +waters were all gone down toward the sea and our own beautiful river was +itself again, singing its happy song on sunny sands and in purple +shadows, the valley contour was much changed. To the boys who had known +it, foot by foot, the differences would have been most marked. +Especially would we have noted the change about the Hermit's Cave, had +not that Maytime brought its burden of strife to us all. + +That was the black year of the Civil War, with Murfreesboro, +Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Chattanooga and Chickamauga all on its +record. Here in Kansas the minor tragedies are lost in the great horror +of the Quantrill raid at Lawrence. But the constant menace of danger, +and the strain of the thousand ties binding us to those from every part +of the North who had gone out to battle, filled every day with its own +care. When the news of Chancellorsville reached us, Cam Gentry sat on +the tavern veranda and wept. + +"An' to think of me, strong, an' able, an' longin' to fight for the +Union, shut out because I can only see so far." + +"But Uncle Cam," Dr. Hemingway urged, "Stonewall Jackson was killed by +his own men just when victory was lost to us. You might do the same +thing,--kill some man the country needs. And I believe, too, you are +kept here for a purpose. Who knows how soon we may need strong men in +this town, men who can do the short-range work? The Lord can use us all, +and your place is here. Isn't that true, Brother Dodd?" + +I was one of the group on the veranda steps that evening where the men +were gathered in eager discussion of the news of the great Union loss at +Chancellorsville, brought that afternoon by the stage from Topeka. I +glanced across at Dodd, pastor of the Methodist Church South. A small, +secretive, unsatisfactory man, he seemed to dole out the gospel +grudgingly always, and never to any outside his own denomination. + +He made no reply and Dr. Hemingway went on: "We have Philip here, and +I'd count on him and his crowd against the worst set of outlaws that +ever rode across the border. Yet they need your head, Uncle Cam, +although their arms are strong." + +He patted my shoulder kindly. + +"We need you, too," he continued, "to keep us cheered up. When the Lord +says to some of us, 'So far shalt thou see, and no farther,' he may give +to that same brother the power to scatter sunshine far and wide. Oh, we +need you, Brother Gentry, to make us laugh if for nothing else." + +Uncle Cam chuckled. He was built for chuckling, and we all laughed with +him, except Mr. Dodd. I caught a sneer on his face in the moment. + +Presently Father Le Claire and Jean Pahusca joined the group. I had not +seen the latter since the day of O'mie's warning. Indian as he was, I +could see a change in his impassive face. It made me turn cold, me, to +whom fear was a stranger. Father Le Claire, too, was not like himself. +Self-possessed always, with his native French grace and his inward +spiritual calm, this evening he seemed to be holding himself by a +mighty grip, rather than by that habitual self-mastery that kept his +life in poise. + +I tell these impressions as a man, and I analyze them as a man, but, boy +as I was, I felt them then with keenest power. Again the likeness of +Indian and priest possessed me, but raised no query within me. In form, +in gait and especially in the shape of the head and the black hair about +their square foreheads they were as like as father and son. Just once I +caught Jean's eye. The eye of a rattlesnake would have been more +friendly. O'mie was right. The "good Indian" had vanished. What had come +in his stead I was soon to know. But withal I could but admire the fine +physique of this giant. + +While the men were still full of the Union disaster, two horsemen came +riding up to the tavern oak. Their horses were dripping wet. They had +come up the trail from the southwest, where the draws were barely +fordable. Strangers excited no comment in a town on the frontier. The +trail was always full of them coming and going. We hardly noted that for +ten days Springvale had not been without them. + +"Come in, gentlemen," called Cam. "Here, Dollie, take care of these +friends. O'mie, take their horses." + +They passed inside and the talk outside went eagerly on. + +"Father Le Claire, how do the Injuns feel about this fracas now?" +inquired Tell Mapleson. + +The priest spoke carefully. + +"We always counsel peace. You know we do not belong to either faction." + +His smile was irresistible, and the most partisan of us could not +dislike him that he spoke for neither North nor South. + +"But," Tell persisted, "how do the Injuns themselves feel?" + +Tell seemed to have lost his usual insight, else he could have seen that +quick, shrewd, penetrating glance of the good Father's reading him +through and through. + +"I have just come from the Mission," he said. "The Osages are always +loyal to the Union. The Verdigris River was too high for me to hear from +the villages in the southwest." + +Tell was listening eagerly. So also were the two strangers who stood in +the doorway now. If the priest noted this he gave no sign. Mr. Dodd +spoke here for the first time. + +"Well," he said in his pious intonation, "if the Osages are loyal, that +clears Jean here. He's an Osage, isn't he?" + +Jean made no reply; neither did Le Claire, and Tell Mapleson turned +casually to the strangers, engaging them in conversation. + +"We shall want our horses at four sharp in the morning," one of the two +came out to say to Cam. "We have a long hard day before us." + +"At your service," answered Cam. "O'mie, take the order in your head." + +"Is that the biggest hostler you've got?" looking contemptuously at +little O'mie standing beside me. "If you Kansas folks weren't such +damned abolitionists you'd have some able-bodied niggers to do your work +right." + +O'mie winked at me and gave a low whistle. Neither the wink nor the +whistle was lost on the speaker, who frowned darkly at the boy. + +Cam squinted up at the men good-naturedly. "Them horses dangerous?" he +asked. + +"Yes, they are," the stranger replied. "Can we have a room downstairs? +We want to go to bed early. We have had a hard day." + +"You can begin to say your 'Now I lay me' right away in here if you +like," and the landlord led the way into a room off the veranda. One of +the two lingered outside in conversation with Mapleson for a brief time. + +"Come, go home with me, O'mie," I said later, when the crowd began to +thin out. + +"Not me," he responded. "Didn't ye hear, 'four A. M. sharp'? It's me +flat on me bed till the dewy morn an' three-thirty av it. Them's vicious +horses. An' they'll be to curry clane airly. Phil," he added in a lower +voice, "this town's a little overrun wid strangers wid no partic'lar +business av their own, an' we don't need 'em in ours. For one private +citizen, I don't like it. The biggest one of them two men in there's +named Yeager, an' he's been here three toimes lately, stayin' only a few +hours each toime." + +O'mie looked so little to me this evening! I had hardly noted how the +other boys had outgrown him. + +"You're not very big for a horseman after all, my son, but you're grit +clear through. You may do something yet the big fellows couldn't do," I +said affectionately. + +He was Irish to the bone, and never could entirely master his brogue, +but we had no social caste lines, and Springvale took him at face value, +knowing his worth. + +At Marjie's gate I stopped to make sure everything was all right. +Somehow when I knew the Indian was in town I could never feel safe for +her. She hurried out in response to my call. + +"I'm so glad to see you to-night, Phil," she said, a little tremulously. +"I wish father were here. Do you think he is safe?" + +She was leaning on the gate, looking eagerly into my eyes. The shadows +of the May twilight were deepening around us, and Marjie's white face +looked never so sweet to me as now, in her dependence on my assurance. + +"I'm sure Mr. Whately is all right. It is the bad news that gets here +first. I'm so glad our folks weren't at Chancellorsville." + +"But they may be in as dreadful a battle soon. Oh, Phil, I'm so--what? +lonesome and afraid to-night. I wish father could come home." + +It was not like Marjie, who had been a dear brave girl, always cheering +her dependent mother and hopefully expecting the best. To-night there +swept over me anew that sense of the duty every man owes to the home. It +was an intense feeling then. Later it was branded with fire into my +consciousness. I put one of my big hands over her little white hand on +the gate. + +"Marjie," I said gently, "I promised your father I would let no harm +come to you. Don't be afraid, little girl. You can trust me. Until he +comes back I will take care of you." + +The twilight was sweet and dewy and still. About the house the shadows +were darkening. I opened the gate, and drawing her hand through my arm, +I went up the walk with her. + +"Is that the lilac that is so fragrant?" I caught a faint perfume in the +air. + +"Yes," sadly, "what there is of it." And then she laughed a little. +"That miserable O'mie came up here the day after we went to Red Range +and persuaded mother to cut it all down except one straight stick of a +bush. He told her it was dying, and that it needed pruning, and I don't +know what. And you know mother. I was over at the Anderson's, and when I +came home the whole clump was gone. I dreamed the other night that +somebody was hiding in there. It was all dead in the middle. Do you +remember when we played hide-and-seek in there?" + +"I never forget anything you do, Marjie," I answered; "but I'm glad the +bushes are thinned out." + +She broke off some plumes of the perfumy blossoms. + +"Take those to Aunt Candace. Tell her I sent them. Don't let her think +you stole them," she was herself now, and her fear was gone. + +"May I take something else to Aunt Candace, too, Marjie?" + +"What else?" She looked up innocently into my face. We were at the +door-step now. + +"A good-night kiss, Marjie." + +"I'll see her myself about that," she replied mischievously but +confusedly, pushing me away. I knew her cheek was flushed as my own, and +I caught her hand and held it fast. + +"Good-night, Phil." That sweet voice of hers I could not disobey. In a +moment I was gone, happy and young and confident. I could have fought +the whole Confederate army for the sake of this girl left in my care--my +very own guardianship. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FORESHADOWING OF PERIL + + O clear-eyed Faith, and Patience thou + So calm and strong! + Lend strength to weakness, teach us how + The sleepless eyes of God look through + This night of wrong! + + --WHITTIER. + + +While these May days were slipping by, strange history was making itself +in Kansas. I marvel now, as I recall the slender bonds that stayed us +from destruction, that we ever dared to do our part in that +record-building day. And I rejoice that we did not know the whole peril +that menaced us through those uncertain hours, else we should have lost +all courage. + +Father Le Claire held himself neutral to the North and the South, and +was sometimes distrusted by both factions in our town; but he went +serenely on his way, biding his time patiently. At sunrise on the +morning after O'mie had surprised Jean Pahusca with Marjie's wreath of +faded blossoms held caressingly in his brown hands, Le Claire met him in +the little chapel. What he confessed led the priest to take him at once +to the Osages farther down on the Neosho. + +"I had hoped to persuade Jean to stay at the Mission," Le Claire said +afterwards. "He is the most intelligent one of his own tribe I have ever +known, and he could be invaluable to the Osages, but he would not stay +away from Springvale. And I thought it best to come back with him." + +The good man did not say why he thought it best to keep Jean under his +guardianship. Few people in Springvale would have dreamed how dangerous +a foe we had in this superbly built, picturesque, handsome Indian. + +In the early hours of the morning after his return, the priest was +roused from a sound sleep by O'mie. A storm had broken over the town +just after midnight. When it had spent itself and roared off down the +valley, the rain still fell in torrents, and O'mie's clothes were +dripping when he rushed into Le Claire's room. + +"For the love av Heaven," he cried, "they's a plot so pizen I must git +out of me constitution quick. They're tellin' it up to Conlow's shop. +Them two strangers, Yeager and his pal, that's s'posed to be sleepin' +now to get an airly start, put out 'fore midnight for a prowl an' found +theirsilves right up to Conlow's. An' I wint along behind +'em--respectful," O'mie grinned; "an' there was Mapleson an' Conlow an' +the holy Dodd, mind ye. M. E. South's his rock o' defence. An' Jean was +there too. They're promisin' him somethin', the strangers air. Tell an' +Conlow seemed to kind o' dissent, but give in finally." + +"Is it whiskey?" asked the priest. + +"No, no. Tell says he can't have nothin' from the 'Last Chance.' Says +the old Roman Catholic'll fix his agency job at Washington if he lets +Jean get drunk. It's somethin' else; an' Tell wants to git aven with +you, so he gives in." + +The priest's face grew pale. + +"Well, go on." + +"There's a lot of carrion birds up there I never see in this town. Just +lit in there somehow. But here's the schame. The Confederates has it +all planned, an' they're doin' it now to league together all the Injun +tribes av the Southwest. They's more 'n twinty commissioned officers, +Rebels, ivery son av 'em, now on their way to meet the chiefs av these +tribes. An' all the Kansas settlements down the river is to be fell upon +by the Ridskins, an' nobody to be spared. Wid them Missouri raiders on +the east and the Injuns in the southwest where'll anybody down there be, +begorra, betwixt two sich grindin' millstones? I couldn't gather it all +in, ye see. I was up on a ladder peeking in through a long hole laid +down sideways. But that's the main f'ature av the rumpus. They're +countin' big on the Osages becase the Gov'mint trusts 'em to do scout +duty down beyont Humboldt, and Jean says the Osages is sure to join 'em. +Said it is whispered round at the Mission now. And phwat's to be nixt?" + +Father Le Claire listened intently to O'mie's hurried recital. Then he +rose up before the little Irishman, and taking both of the boy's hands +in his, he said: "O'mie, you must do your part now." + +"Phwat can I do? Show me, an' bedad, I'll do it." + +"You will keep this to yourself, because it would only make trouble if +it were repeated now, and we may outwit the whole scheme without any +unnecessary anxiety and fright. Also, you must keep your eyes and ears +open to all that's done and said here. Don't let anything escape you. If +I can get across the Neosho this morning I can reach the Mission in time +to keep the Osages from the plot, and maybe break it up. Then I'll come +back here. They might need me if Jean"--he did not finish the sentence. +"In two days I can do everything needful; while if the word were started +here now, it might lead to a Rebel uprising, and you would be +outnumbered by the Copperheads here, backed by the Fingal's Creek +crowd. You could do nothing in an open riot." + +"I comprehend ye," said O'mie. "It's iverything into me eyes an' ears +an' nothin' out av me mouth." + +"Meanwhile," the priest spoke affectionately, "you must be strong, my +son, to choose the better part. If it's life or death,--O God, that +human life should be held so cheap!--if it's left to you to choose who +must be the sacrifice, you will choose right. I can trust you. Remember, +in two or three days at most, I can be back; but keep your watch, +especially of Jean. He means mischief, but I cannot stay here now, much +less take him with me. He would not go." + +So it happened that Father Le Claire hurried away in the darkness and +the driving rain, and at a fearful risk swam his horse across the +Neosho, and hastened with all speed to the Mission. + +When that midnight storm broke over the town, on the night when O'mie +followed the strangers and found out their plot, I helped Aunt Candace +to fasten the windows and make sure against it until I was too wide +awake to go to bed. I sat down by my window, in the lightning flashes +watching the rain, wind-driven across the landscape. The night was pitch +black. In all the southwest there was only one light, a sullen red bar +of flame that came up from Conlow's forge fire. I watched it +indifferently at first because it was there. Then I began to wonder why +it should gleam there red and angry at this dead hour of darkness. As I +watched, the light flared up as though it were fanned into a blaze. Then +it began to blink and I knew some one was inside the shop. It was +blotted out for a time, then it glowed again, as if there were many +passing and re-passing. I wondered what it could all mean in such an +hour, on such a night as this. Then I thought of old Conlow's children, +of "Possum" in his weak, good-natured homeliness, and of Lettie. How I +disliked her, and wished she would keep out of my way, which she never +would do. Her face was clear to me, there in the dark. It grew +malicious; then it hardened into wickedness, and I slipped from watching +into a drowsy, half-waking sleep in my chair. The red bar of light +became the flame of cannon on a battlefield, I saw our men in a +life-and-death struggle with the enemy on a rough, wild mountainside. +Everywhere my father was leading them on, and by his side Irving Whately +bore the Springvale flag aloft. And then beside me lay the color-bearer +with white, agonized face, pleading with me. His words were ringing in +my ears, "Take care of Marjie, Phil; keep her from harm." + +I woke with a start, stiff and shivering. With one half-dazed glance at +the black night and that sullen tell-tale light below me, I groped my +way to my bed and slept then the dreamless sleep of vigorous youth. + +The rain continued for many hours. Yeager and his company could not get +away from town on account of the booming Neosho. Also several other +strange men seemed to have rained down from nobody asked where, and +while the surface of affairs was smooth there was a troubled +undercurrent. Nobody seemed to know just what to expect, yet a sense of +calamity pervaded the air. Meanwhile the rain poured down in +intermittent torrents. On the second evening of this miserable gloom I +strolled down to the tavern stables to find O'mie. Bud and John Anderson +and both the Mead boys were there, sprawled out on the hay. O'mie sat on +a keg in the wagon way, and they were all discussing affairs of State +like sages. I joined in and we fought the Civil War to a finish in half +an hour. In all the "solid North" there was no more loyal company on +that May night than that group of brawny young fellows full of the fire +of patriotism, who swore anew their eternal allegiance to the Union. + +"It's a crime and a disgrace," declared Dave Mead, "that because we're +only boys we can't go to the War, and every one of us, except O'mie +here, muscled like oxen; while older, weaker men are being shot down at +Chancellorsville or staggering away from Bull Run." + +"O'mie 'thgot the thtuff in him though. I'd back him againth David and +Goliath," Bud Anderson insisted. + +"Yes, or Sodom and Gomorrah, or some other Bible characters," observed +Bill Mead. "You'd better join the Methodist Church South, Bud, and let +old Dodd labor with you." + +Then O'mie spoke gravely: + +"Boys, we've got a civil war now in our middust. Don't ask me how I +know. The feller that clanes the horses around the tavern stables, trust +him fur findin' which way the Neosho runs, aven if he is small an' +insignificant av statoor. I've seen an' heard too much in these two +dirty wet days." + +He paused, and there came into his eyes a pathetic pleading look as of +one who sought protection. It gave place instantly to a fearless, heroic +expression that has been my inspiration in many a struggle. I know now +how he longed to tell us all he knew, but his word to Le Claire held him +back. + +"I can't tell you exactly phwat's in the air, fur I don't know it all +yit. But there's trouble brewin' here, an' we must be ready, as we +promised we would be when our own wint to the front." + +O'mie had hit home. Had we not sworn our fealty to the flag, and +protection to our town in our boyish patriotism the Summer before? + +"Boys," O'mie went on, "if the storm breaks here in Springvale we've got +to forgit ourselves an' ivery son av us be a hero for the work that's +laid before him. Safe or dangerous, it's duty we must be doin', like the +true sons av a glorious commonwealth, an' we may need to be lightnin' +swift about it, too." + +Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow had come in as O'mie was speaking. We knew +their fathers were bitter Rebels, although the men made a pretence to +loyalty, which kept them in good company. But somehow the boys had not +broken away from young Tell and Jim. From childhood we had been +playmates, and boyish ties are strong. This evening the two seemed to be +burdened with something of which they dared not or would not speak. +There was a sort of defiance about them, such as an enemy may assume +toward one who has been his friend, but whom he means to harm. Was it +the will of Providence made O'mie appeal to them at the right moment? + +"Say, boys," he had a certain Celtic geniality, and a frank winning +smile that was irresistible. "Say, boys, all av the crowd's goin' to +stand together no matter what comes, just as we've done since we learned +how to swim in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. We're goin' to stand +shoulder to shoulder, an' we'll save this town from harm, whativer may +come in betwane, an' whoiver av us it's laid on to suffer, in the ind +we'll win. For why? We are on the right side, an' can count on the same +Power that's carried men aven to the inds av the earth to fight an' die +fur what's right. Will ye be av us, boys? We've niver had no split in +our gang yet. Will ye stay wid us?" + +Tell and Jim looked at each other. Then Tell spoke. He had the right +stuff in him at the last test always. + +"Yes, boys, we will, come what will come." + +Jim grinned at Tell. "I'll stand by Tell, if it kills me," he declared. + +We put little trust in his ability. It is the way of the world to +overlook the stone the Master Builder sometimes finds useful for His +purpose. + +"An' you may need us real soon, too," Tell called back as the two went +out. + +"By cracky, I bet they know more 'n we do," Bud Anderson declared. + +Dave Mead looked serious. + +"Well, I believe they'll hold with us anyhow," he said. "What they know +may help us yet." + +The coming of another tremendous downpour sent us scampering homeward. +O'mie and I had started up the hill together, but the underside of the +clouds fell out just as we reached Judson's gate, and by the time we had +come to Mrs. Whately's we were ready to dive inside for shelter. When +the rain settled down for an all-night stay, Mrs. Whately would wrap us +against it before we left her. She put an old coat of Mr. Whately's on +me. I had gone out in my shirt sleeves. Marjie looked bravely up at my +tall form. I knew she was thinking of him who had worn that coat. The +only thing for O'mie was Marjie's big water proof cloak. The +old-fashioned black-and-silver mix with the glistening black buttons, +such as women wore much in those days. It had a hood effect, with a +changeable red silk lining, fastened at the neck. To my surprise O'mie +made no objection at all to wearing a girl's wrap. But I could never +fully forecast the Irish boy. He drew the circular garment round him +and pulled the hood over his head. + +"Come, Philip, me strong protector," he called, "let's be skiting." + +At the door he turned back to Marjie and said in a low voice, "Phil will +mistake me fur a girl an' be wantin' me to go flower-huntin' out on the +West Prairie, but I won't do it." + +Marjie blushed like the June roses, and slammed the door after him. A +moment later she opened it again and held the light to show us the +dripping path to the gate. Framed in the doorway with the light held up +by her round white arm, the dampness putting a softer curl in every +stray lock of her rich brown hair, the roses still blooming on her +cheeks, she sent us away. Too young and sweet-spirited she seemed for +any evil to assail her in the shelter of that home. + +Late at night again the red light of the forge was crossed and re-crossed +by those who moved about inside the shop. Aunt Candace and I had sat +long together talking of the War, and of the raiding on the Kansas +border. She was a balm to my spirit, for she was a strong, fearless +woman, always comforting in the hour of sorrow, and self-possessed in +the face of danger. I wonder how the mothers of Springvale could have +done without her. She decked the brides for their weddings, and tenderly +laid out the dead. The new-born babe she held in her arms, and dying +eyes looking back from the Valley of the Shadow, sought her face. That +night I slept little, and I welcomed the coming of day. When the morning +dawned the world was flooded with sunshine, and a cool steady west wind +blew the town clear of mud and wet, the while the Neosho Valley was +threshed with the swollen, angry waters. + +With the coming of the sunshine the strangers disappeared. Nowhere all +that day were there any but our own town's people to be seen. Some of +these, however, I knew afterwards, were very busy. I remember seeing +Conlow and Mapleson and Dodd sauntering carelessly about in different +parts of the town, especially upon Cliff Street, which was unusual for +them. Just at nightfall the town was filled with strangers again. Yeager +and his companion, who had been water-bound, returned with half a dozen +more to the Cambridge House, and other unknown men were washed in from +the west. That night I saw the red light briefly. Then it disappeared, +and I judged the shop was deserted. I did not dream whose head was +shutting off the light from me, nor whose eyes were peering in through +that crevice in the wall. The night was peacefully beautiful, but its +beauty was a mockery to me, filled as I was with a nameless anxiety. I +had no reason for it, yet I longed for the return of Father Le Claire. +He had not taken Jean with him, and I judged that the Indian was near us +somewhere and in the very storm centre of all this uneasiness. + +At midnight I wakened suddenly. Outside, a black starless sky bent over +a cool, quiet earth. A thick darkness hid all the world. Dead stillness +everywhere. And yet, I listened for a voice to speak again that I was +sure I had heard as I wakened. I waited only a moment. A quick rapping +under my window, and a low eager call came to my ears. I sprang up and +groped my way to the open casement. + +"What's the matter down there?" I called softly. + +"Phil, jump into your clothes and come down just as quick as you can." +It was Tell Mapleson's voice, full of suppressed eagerness. "For God's +sake, hurry. It's life and death. Hurry! Hurry!" + +"Run to the side door, Tell, and call Aunt Candace. She'll let you in." + +I heard him make a plunge for the side door. By the time my aunt wakened +to open it, I was down stairs. Tell stood inside the hallway, white and +haggard. Our house was like a stone fort in its security, and Aunt +Candace had fastened the door behind him. She seemed a perfect tower of +strength to me, standing there like a strong guardian of the home. + +"Stop a minute, Tell. We'll save time by knowing what we are about. +What's the matter?" My aunt's voice gave him self-control. + +He held himself by a great effort. + +"There's not a second to lose, but we can't do anything without Phil. He +must lead us. There's been a plot worked up here for three nights in +Conlow's shop, to burn' every Union man's house in town. Preacher Dodd +and that stranger named Yeager and the other fellow that's been stayin' +at the tavern are backin' the whole thing. The men that's been hanging +round here are all in the plot. They're to lay low a little while, and +at two o'clock the blazin's to begin. Jim's run to Anderson's and +Mead's, but we'll do just what Phil says. We'll get the boys together +and you'll tell us what to do. The men'll kill Jim an' me if they find +out we told, but we swore we'd stay by you boys. We'll help clear +through, but don't tell on us. Don't never tell who told on 'em. Please +don't." Tell never had seemed manly to me till that moment. "They're +awful against O'mie. They say he knows too much. He heard 'em talking +too free round the stables. They're after you too, Phil. They think if +they get you out of the way, they can manage all the rest. I heard old +Dodd tell 'em to make sure of John Baronet's cub. Said you were the +worst in town, to come against. They'll kill you if they lay hands on +you. They'll come right here after you." + +"Then they'll go back without him," my aunt said firmly. + +"They say the Indians are to come from the south at daylight," Tell +hurried on, "an' finish up all that's left without homes. They're the +Kiowas. They'll not get here till just about daylight." Tell's teeth +were chattering, and he trembled as with an ague. + +"Worst of all,"--he choked now,--"Whately's home's to be left alone, and +Jean's to get Marjie and carry her off. They hate her father so, they've +let Jean have her. They know she was called over to Judson's late to +stay with Mrs. Judson. He's away, water-bound, and the baby's sick, and +just as she gets home, he's to get her. If she screams, or tries to get +away, he'll scalp her." + +I heard no more. My heart forgot to beat. I had seen Marjie's signal +light at ten o'clock and I was sure of her safety. The candle turned +black before me. The cry of my dreams, Irving Whately's pleading cry, +rang in my ears: "Take care of Marjie, Phil! Keep her from harm!" + +"Phil Baronet, you coward," Tell fairly hissed in my ear, "come and help +us! We can't do a thing without you." + +I, a coward! I sprang to the door and with Tell beside me we sped away +in the darkness. A faint light glimmered in the Whately home. At the +gate, Dave Mead hailed us. + +"It's too late, boys," he whispered, "Jean's gone and she's with him. +He rode by me like the devil, going toward the ford. They'll be drowned +and that's better than for her to live. The whole Indian Territory may +be here by morning." + +I lifted my face to the pitiless black sky above me, and a groan, the +agony of a breaking heart, burst from my lips. In that instant, I lived +ages of misery. + +"Oh, Phil, what shall we do? The town's full of helpless folks." Dave +caught my arm to steady himself. "Can't you, can't you put us to work?" + +Could I? His appeal brought me to myself. In the right moment the Lord +sends us to our places, and forsakes us not until our task is finished. +On me that night, was laid the duty of leadership in a great crisis; and +He who had called me, gave me power. Every Union household in the town +must be roused and warned of the impending danger. And whatever was done +must be done quickly, noiselessly, and at a risk of life to him who did +it. My plan sprang into being, and Dave and Tell ran to execute it. In a +few minutes we were to meet under the tavern oak. I dashed off toward +the Cambridge House. Uncle Cam had not yet gone to bed. + +"Where's O'mie?" I gasped. + +"I dunno. He flew in here ten minutes or more ago, but he never lit. In +ten seconds he was out again an' gone. He's got some sense an' generally +keeps his red head level. I'm waitin' to see what's up." + +In a word I gave Cam the situation, all except Jean's part. As I hurried +out to meet the boys at the oak, I stumbled against something in the +dense darkness. Cam hastened after me. The flare of the light from the +opening of the door showed a horse, wet and muddy to the throat latch. +It stared at the light in fright and then dashed away in the darkness. + +All the boys, Tell and Jim, the Meads, John, Clayton, and Bud +Anderson,--all but O'mie, met in the deep shadow of the oak before the +tavern door. Our plans fell into form with Cam's wiser head to shape +them here and there. The town was districted and each of us took his +portion. In the time that followed, I worked noiselessly, heroically, +taking the most dangerous places for my part. The boys rallied under my +leadership, for they would have it so. Everywhere they depended on my +word to direct them, and they followed my direction to the letter. It +was not I, in myself, but John Baronet's son on whom they relied. My +father's strength and courage and counsel they sought for in me. But all +the time I felt myself to be like a spirit on the edge of doom. I worked +as one who feels that when his task is ended, the blank must begin. Yet +I left nothing undone because of the dead weight on my soul. + +What happened in that hour, can never all be told. And only God himself +could have directed us among our enemies. Since then I have always felt +that the purpose crowns the effort. In Springvale that night was a band +of resolute lawless men, organized and armed, with every foot of their +way mapped out, every name checked, the lintel of every Union doorway +marked, men ready and sworn to do a work of fire and slaughter. Against +them was a group of undisciplined boys, unorganized, surprised, and +unequipped, groping in the darkness full of unseen enemies. But we were +the home-guard, and our own lives were nothing to us, if only we could +save the defenceless. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE COST OF SAFETY + + In the dark and trying hour, + In the breaking forth of power, + In the rush of steeds and men, + His right hand will shield thee then. + + --LONGFELLOW. + + +It was just half past one o'clock when the sweet-toned bell in the +Presbyterian Church steeple began to ring. Dr. Hemingway was at the rope +in the belfry. His part was to give us our signal. At the first peal the +windows of every Union home blazed with light. The doors were flung wide +open, and a song--one song--rose on the cool still night. + + O say, can you see by the dawn's early light + What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?-- + Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight + O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming! + O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave + O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave? + +It was sung in strong, clear tones as I shall never hear it sung again; +and the echoes of many voices, and the swelling music of that old church +bell, floated down the Neosho Valley, mingling with the rushing of the +turbulent waters. + +It was Cam Gentry's plan, this weapon of light and song. The Lord did +have a work for him to do, as Dr. Hemingway had said. + +"Boys," he had counselled us under the oak, "we can't match 'em in a +pitched battle. They're armed an' ready, and you ain't and you can't do +nothing in the dark. But let every house be ready, just as Phil has +planned. Warn them quietly, and when the church bell rings, let every +winder be full of light, every door wide open, and everybody sing." + +He could roar bass himself to be heard across the State line, and that +night he fairly boomed with song. + +"They're dirty cowards, and can't work only in the dark and secret +quiet. Give 'em light and song. Let 'em know we are wide awake and not +afraid, an' if Gideon ever had the Midianites on the hike, you'll have +them pisen Copperheads goin'. They'll never dast to show a coil, the +sarpents! cause that's not the way they fight; an' they'll be wholly +onprepared, and surprised." + +Just before the ringing of the signal bell, the boys had met again by +appointment under the tavern oak. Two things we had agreed upon when we +met there first. One was a pledge of secrecy as to the part of young +Tell and Jim in our work and to the part of Mapleson and Conlow in the +plot, for the sake of their boys, who were loyal to the town. The other +was to say nothing of Jean's act. Marjie was the light of Springvale, +and we knew what the news would mean. We must first save the homes, +quietly and swiftly. Other calamities would follow fast enough. In the +darkness now, Bud Anderson put both arms around me. + +"Phil," he whispered, "you're my king. You muth go to her mother now. In +the morning, your Aunt Candathe will come to her. Maybe in the daylight +we can find Marjie. He can't get far, unleth the river--" + +He held me tight in his arms, that manly, tender-hearted boy. Then I +staggered away like one in a dream toward the Whately house. We had not +yet warned Mrs. Whately, for we knew her home was to be spared, and our +hands were full of what must be done on the instant. Time never seemed +so precious to me as in those dreadful minutes when we roused that +sleeping town. I know now how Paul Revere felt when he rode to +Lexington. + +But now my cold knuckles fell like lead against Mrs. Whately's door, and +mechanically I gave the low signal whistle I had been wont to give to +Marjie. Like a mockery came the clear trill from within. But there was +no mockery in the quick opening of the casement above me, where a dim +light now gleamed, nor in the flinging up of the curtain, and it was not +a spirit but a real face with a crown of curly hair that was outlined in +the gloom. And a voice, Marjie's sweet voice, called anxiously: + +"Is that you, Phil? I'll be right down." Then the light disappeared, and +I heard the patter of feet on the stairs; then the front door opened and +I walked straight into heaven. For there stood Marjie, safe and strong, +before me--my Marjie, escaped from the grave, or from that living hell +that is worse than death, captivity in the hands of an Indian devil. + +"What's the matter, Phil?" + +"Marjie, can it be you? How did you ever get back?" + +She looked at me wonderingly. + +"Why, I was only down there at Judson's. The baby's sick and Mrs. Judson +sent for me after ten o'clock. I didn't come away till midnight. She may +send for me again at any minute,--that's why I'm not in bed. I wanted to +stay with her, but she made me come home on mother's account. I ran home +by myself. I wasn't afraid. I heard a horse galloping away just before +I got up to the gate. But what is the matter, Phil?" + +I stood there wholly sure now that I was in Paradise. Jean had not tried +to get her after all. She was here, and no harm had touched her. Tell +had not understood. Jean had been in the middle of this night's business +somewhere, I felt sure, but he had done no one any harm. After all he +had been true to his promise to be a good Indian, and Le Claire had +misjudged him. + +"You didn't see who was on the horse, did you?" + +"No. Just as I started from Mrs. Judson's, O'mie came flying by me. He +looked so funny. He had on the waterproof cloak I loaned him last night, +hood and all, and his face was just as white as milk. I thought he was a +girl at first. He called to me almost in a whisper. 'Don't hurry a bit, +Marjie,' he said; 'I'm taking your cloak home.' But I couldn't find it +anywhere about the door. O'mie is always doing the oddest things!" + +Just then the church bell began to ring, and together we put on the +lights and joined in the song. Its inspiration drove everything before +it. I did not stay long with Marjie, however, for there was much for me +to do, and I seemed to have stepped from a world of horror and darkness +into a heaven of light. How I wished O'mie would come in! I had not +found him in all that hour, ages long to us, in which we had done this +much of our work for the town. But I was sure of O'mie. + +"He's doing good business somewhere," I said. "Bless his red head. He'll +never quit so long as there's a thing to do." + +There was no rest for anybody in Springvale that night. As Cam Gentry +had predicted, not a torch blazed; and the attacking party, thrown into +confusion by the sudden blocking of their secret plan of assault, did +not rally. Our next task was to make sure against the Indians, the +rumor of whose coming grew everywhere, and the fear of a daybreak +massacre kept us all keyed to the pitch of terrible expectancy. + +The town had four strongholds, the tavern, the Whately store, the +Presbyterian Church, and my father's house. All these buildings were of +stone, with walls of unusual thickness. Into these the women and +children were gathered as soon as we felt sure the enemy in our midst +was outdone. Dr. Hemingway took command of the church. Cam Gentry at his +own door was a host. + +"I can see who goes in and out of the Cambridge House; I reckon, if I +can't tell a Reb from a Bluecoat out in a battle," he declared, as he +opened his doors to the first little group of mothers and children who +came to him for protection. "I can see safety for every one of you +here," he added with that cheery laugh that made us all love him. Aunt +Candace was the strong guardian in our home up on Cliff Street. We +looked for O'mie to take care of the store, but he was nowhere to be +seen and that duty was given to Grandpa Mead, whose fiery Union spirit +did not accord with his halting step and snowy hair. + +A patrol guard was quickly formed, and sentinels were stationed on the +south and west. On the north and east the flooded Neosho was a perfect +wall of water round about us. + +Since that Maytime, I have lived through many days of peril and +suffering, and I have more than once walked bravely as I might along the +path at whose end I knew was an open grave, but never to me has come +another such night of terror. In all the town there were not a dozen +men, loyal supporters of the Union cause, who had a fighting strength. +On the eight stalwart boys, and the quickness and shrewdness of little +O'mie, the salvation of Springvale rested. After that awful night I was +never a boy again. Henceforth I was a man, with a man's work and a man's +spirit. + +The daylight was never so welcome before, and never a grander sunrise +filled the earth with its splendor. I was up on the bluff patrolling the +northwest boundary when the dawn began to purple the east. Oh, many a +time have I watched the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, but on this +rare May morning every shaft of light, every tint of roseate beauty +along the horizon, every heap of feathery mist that decked the Plains, +with the Neosho, bank-full, sweeping like molten silver below it--all +these took on a new loveliness. Eagerly, however, I scanned the +southwest where the level beams of day were driving back the gray +morning twilight, and the green prairie billows were swelling out of the +gloom. Point by point, I watched every landmark take form, waiting to +see if each new blot on the landscape might not be the first of the +dreaded Indian bands whose coming we so feared. + +With daybreak, came assurance. Somehow I could not believe that a land +so beautiful and a village so peaceful could be threshed and stained and +blackened by the fire and massacre of a savage band allied to a +disloyal, rebellious host. And yet, I had lived these stormy years in +Kansas and the border strife has never all been told. I dared not relax +my vigilance, so I watched the south and west, trusting to the river to +take care of the east. + +And so it happened that, sentinel as I was, I had not seen the approach +of a horseman from the northwest, until Father Le Claire came upon me +suddenly. His horse was jaded with travel, and he sat it wearily. A +pallor overspread his brown cheeks. His garments were wet and +mud-splashed. + +"Oh, Father Le Claire," I cried, "nobody except my own father could be +more welcome. Where have you been?" + +"I am not too late, then!" he exclaimed, ignoring my question. His eyes +quickly took in the town. No smoke was rising from the kitchen fires +this morning, for the homes were deserted. "You are safe still?" He gave +a great gasp of relief. Then he turned and looked steadily into my eyes. + +"It has been bought with a price," he said simply. "Three days ago I +left you a boy. I come back to find you a man. Where's O'mie?" + +"D--down there, I think." + +It dawned on me suddenly that not one of us had seen or heard of O'mie +since he left Tell and Jim at the shop just before midnight. Marjie had +seen him a few minutes later, and so had Cam Gentry. But where was he +after that? Much as we had needed him, we had had no time to hunt for +him. Places had to be filled by those at hand in the dreadful necessity +before us. We could count on O'mie, of course. He was no coward, nor +laggard; but where could he have kept himself? + +"What has happened, Philip?" the priest asked. + +Briefly I told him, ending with the story of the threatening terror of +an Indian invasion. + +"They will not come, Philip. Do not fear. That danger is cut off. The +Kiowas, who were on their way to Springvale, have all turned back and +they are far away. I know." + +His assurance was balm to my soul. And my nerves, on the rack for these +three days, with the culmination of the last six hours seemed suddenly +to snap within me. + +"Go home and rest now," said Father Le Claire. "I will take the word +along the line. Come down to the tavern at nine o'clock." + +Aunt Candace had hot coffee and biscuit and maple syrup from old +Vermont, with ham and eggs, all ready for me. The blessed comfort of a +home, safe from harm once more, filled me with a sense of rest. Not +until it was lifted did I realize how heavy was the burden I had carried +through those May nights and days. + +Long before nine o'clock, the tavern yard was full of excited people, +all eagerly talking of the events of the last few hours. We had hardly +taken our bearings yet, but we had an assurance that the perils of the +night no longer threatened us. The strange men who had filled the town +the evening before had all disappeared, but in the company here were +many whom we knew to be enemies in the dark. Yet they mingled boldly +with the others, assuming a loyalty for their own purposes. In the +crowd, too, was Jean Pahusca, impenetrable of countenance, indifferent +to the occasion as a thing that could not concern him. His red blanket +was gone and his leather trousers and dark flannel shirt displayed his +superb muscular form. There was no knife in his belt now, and he carried +no other weapon. With his soft dark hair and the ruddy color showing in +his cheeks, he was dangerously handsome to a romantic eye. Among all its +enemies, he had been loyal to Springvale. My better self rebuked my +distrust, and my heart softened toward him. His plan with the raiders to +seize Marjie must have been his crude notion of saving her from a worse +peril. When he knew she was safe he had dropped out of sight in the +darkness. + +The boys who had done the work of the night before suddenly became +heroes. Not all of us had come together here, however. Tell was keeping +store up at the "Last Chance," and Jim was seeing to the forge fire, +while the father of each boy sauntered about in the tavern yard. + +"You won't tell anybody about father," Tell pleaded before he left us. +"He never planned it, indeed he didn't. It was old man Dodd and Yeager +and them other strangers." + +I can picture now the Reverend Mr. Dodd, piously serious, sitting on the +tavern veranda at that moment, a disinterested listener to what lay +below his spiritual plane of life. Just above his temple was a deep +bruise, and his right hand was bound with a white bandage. Five years +later, one dark September night, by the dry bed of the Arickaree Creek +in Colorado, I heard the story of that bandage and that bruise. + +"And you'll be sure to keep still about my dad, too, won't you?" Jim +Conlow urged. "He's bad, but--" as if he could find no other excuse, he +added grinning, "I don't believe he's right bright; and Tell and me done +our best anyhow." + +Their best! These two had braved the worst of foes, with those of their +own flesh and blood against them. We would keep their secret fast +enough, nor should anyone know from the boys who of our own townspeople +were in the plot. I believe now that Conlow would have killed Jim had he +suspected the boy's part in that night's work. I have never broken faith +with Jim, although Heaven knows I have had cause enough to wish never to +hear the name of Conlow again. + +One more boy was not in our line, O'mie, still missing from the ranks, +and now my heart was heavy. Everybody else seemed to forget him in the +excitement, however, and I hoped all was well. + +On the veranda a group was crowding about Father Le Claire, listening to +what he had to say. Nobody tried to do business in our town that day. +Men and women and children stood about in groups, glad to be alive and +to know that their homes were safe. It was a sight one may not see +twice in a lifetime. And the thrill within me, that I had helped a +little toward this safety, brought a pleasure unlike any other joy I +have ever known. + +"Where's Aunt Candace?" I asked Dollie Gentry, who had grasped my arm as +if she would ring it from my shoulder. + +"Hadn't you heard?" Dollie's eyes filled with tears. "Judson's baby died +this mornin'. Judson he can't get across Fingal's Creek or some of the +draws, to get home, and the fright last night was too much for Mis' +Judson. She fainted away, an' when she come to, the baby was dead. I'm +cookin' a good meal for all of 'em. Land knows, carin' for the little +corpse is all they can do without botherin' to cook." + +Good Mrs. Gentry used her one talent for everybody's comfort. And as for +the Judsons, theirs was one of the wayside tragedies that keep ever +alongside the line of civil strife. + +They made room for us on the veranda, six husky Kansas bred fellows, +hardly more than half-way through our teens, and we fell in with the +group about Father Le Claire. He gave us a searching glance, and his +face clouded. Good Dr. Hemingway beside him was eager for his story. + +"Tell us the whole thing," he urged. "Then we can understand our part in +it. Surely the arm of the Lord was not shortened for us last night." + +"It is a strange story, Dr. Hemingway, with a strange and tragic +ending," replied the priest. He related then the plot which O'mie had +heard set forth by the strangers in our town. "I left at once to warn +the Osages, believing I could return before last night." + +"Them Osages is a cussed ornery lot, if that Jean out on the edge of +the crowd there is a sample," a man from the west side of town broke in. + +"They are true blue, and Jean is not an Osage; he's a Kiowa," Le Claire +replied quietly. + +"What of him ain't French," declared Cam Gentry. "That's where his +durned meanness comes in biggest. Not but what a Kiowa's rotten enough. +But sence he didn't seem to take part in this doings last night, I guess +we can stand him a little while longer." + +Father Le Claire's face flushed. Then a pallor overspread the flame. +His likeness to the Indian flashed up with that flush. So had I seen +Pahusca flush with anger, and a paleness cover his coppery countenance. +Self-mastery was a part of the good man's religion, however, and in a +voice calm but full of sympathy he told us of the tragic events whose +evil promise had overshadowed our town with an awful peril. + +It was a well-planned, cold-blooded horror, this scheme of the Southern +Confederacy, to unite the fierce tribes of the Southwest against the +unprotected Union frontier. And with the border raiders on the one side +and the hostile Indians on the other, small chance of life would have +been left to any Union man, woman, or child in all this wide, beautiful +Kansas. In the four years of the Civil War no cruelty could have +exceeded the consequences of this conspiracy. + +Unity of purpose has ever been lacking to the red race. No federation +has been possible to it except as that federation is controlled by the +European brain. The controlling power in the execution of this dastardly +crime lay with desperate but eminently able white men. Their appeal to +the Osages, however, was a fruitless one. For a third of a century the +faithful Jesuits had labored with this tribe. Not in vain was their +seed-sowing. + +Le Claire reached the Osages only an hour before an emissary from the +leaders of this infamous plot came to the Mission. The presence of the +priest counted so mightily, that this call to an Indian confederacy fell +upon deaf ears, and the messenger departed to rejoin his superiors. He +never found them, for a sudden and tragic ending had come to the +conspiracy. + +It was a busy day in Kansas annals when that company of Rebel officers +came riding up from the South to band together the lawless savages and +the outlawed raiders against a loyal commonwealth. Humboldt was the most +southern Union garrison in Kansas at that time. South of it the Osages +did much scout duty for the Government, and it held them responsible for +any invasion of this strip of neutral soil between the North and the +South. Out in the Verdigris River country, in this Maytime, a little +company of Osage braves on the way from their village to visit the +Mission came face to face with this band of invaders in the neutral +land. The presence of a score of strange men armed and mounted, though +they were dressed as Union soldiers, must be accounted for, these +Indians reasoned. + +The scouts were moved only by an unlettered loyalty to the flag. They +had no notion of the real purpose of these invaders. The white men had +only contempt for the authority of a handful of red men calling them to +account, and they foolishly fired into the Indian band. It was a fatal +foolishness. Two braves fell to the earth, pierced by their bullets. The +little body of red men dropped over on the sides of their ponies and +were soon beyond gun range, while their opponents went on their way. But +briefly only, for, reinforced by a hundred painted braves, the whole +fighting strength of their little village, the Osages came out for +vengeance. Near a bend in the Verdigris River the two forces came +together. Across a scope five miles wide they battled. The white men +must have died bravely, for they fought stubbornly, foot by foot, as the +Indians drove them into that fatal loop of the river. It is deep and +swift here. Down on the sands by its very edge they fell. Not a white +man escaped. The Indians, after their savage fashion, gathered the +booty, leaving a score of naked, mutilated bodies by the river's side. +It was a cruel bit of Western warfare, yet it held back from Kansas a +diabolical outrage, whose suffering and horror only those who know the +Southwest tribes can picture. And strangely enough, the power that +stayed the evil lay with a handful of faithful Indian scouts. + +The story of the massacre soon reached the Mission. Dreadful as it was, +it lifted a burden from Le Claire's mind; but the news that the +Comanches and the Kiowas, unable to restrain their tribes, were already +on the war-path, filed him with dread. + +A twenty-four hours' rain, with cloudbursts along the way, was now +sending the Neosho and Verdigris Rivers miles wide, across their +valleys. It was impossible for him to intercept these tribes until the +stream should fall. The priest perfected his plans for overtaking them +by swift messengers to be sent out from the Mission at the earliest +moment, and then he turned his horse upstream toward Springvale. All day +he rode with all speed to the northward. The ways were sodden with the +heavy rains, and the smaller streams were troublesome to the horseman. +Night fell long before he had come to the upper Neosho Valley. With the +darkness his anxiety deepened. A thousand chances might befall to bring +disaster before he could reach us. + +The hours of the black night dragged on, and northward still the priest +hurried. It was long after midnight when he found himself on the bluff +opposite the town. Between him and Springvale the Neosho rushed madly, +and the oak grove of the bottom land was only black treetops above, and +water below. All hope of a safe passage across the river here vanished, +for he durst not try the angry waters. + +"There must have been heavier rains here than down the stream," he +thought. "Pray Heaven the messengers may reach the Kiowas before they +fall upon any of the settlements in the south. I must go farther up to +cross. O God, grant that no evil may threaten that town over there!" + +Turning to look once more at the dark valley his eye caught a gleam of +light far down the river. + +"That must be Jean down at the Hermit's Hole," he said to himself. "I +wonder I never tried to follow him there. But if he's down the river it +is better for Springvale, anyhow." + +All this the priest told to the eager crowd on the veranda of the +Cambridge House that morning. But regarding the light and his thought of +it, he did not tell us then, nor how, through all and all, his great +fear for Springvale was on account of Jean Pahusca's presence there. He +knew the Indian's power; and now that the fierce passion of love for a +girl and hatred of a rival, were at fever pitch, he dared not think what +might follow, neither did he tell us how bitterly he was upbraiding +himself for having charged O'mie with secrecy. + +He had not yet caught sight of the Irish boy; and Jean, who had himself +kept clear of the evil intent against Springvale the night before, had +studiously kept the crowd between the priest and himself. We did not +note this then, for we were spell-bound by the story of the Confederate +conspiracy and of Father Le Claire's efforts for our safety. + +"The Kiowas, who were on the war-path, have been cut off by the +Verdigris," he concluded. "The waters, that kept me away from Springvale +on this side, kept them off in the southwest. The Osages did us God's +service in our peril, albeit their means were cruel after the manner of +the savage." + +A silence fell upon the group on the veranda, as the enormity of what we +had escaped dawned upon us. + +"Let us thank God that in his ways, past finding out, He has not +forsaken his children." Dr. Hemingway spoke fervently. + +I looked out on the broad street and down toward the river shining in +the May sunlight. The air was very fresh and sweet. The oak trees, were +in their heaviest green, and in the glorious light of day the commonest +things in this little frontier town looked good to me. Across my vision +there swept the picture of that wide, swift-flowing Verdigris River, and +of the dead whose blood stained darkly that fatal sand-bar, their naked +bodies hacked by savage fury, waiting the coming of pitiful hands to +give them shelter in the bosom of the earth. And then I thought of all +these beautiful prairies which the plough was beginning to subdue, of +the homesteads whose chimney smoke I had seen many a morning from my +windows up on Cliff Street. I thought of the little towns and +unprotected villages, and of what an Indian raid would mean to +these,--of murdered men and burning houses, and women dragged away into +a slavery too awful to picture. I thought of Marjie and of what she had +escaped. And then clear, as if he were beside me, I heard O'mie's voice: + +"Phil, oh, Phil, come, come!" it pleaded. + +I started up and stared around me. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING + + Also Time runnin' into years-- + A thousand Places left be'ind; + An' Men from both two 'emispheres + Discussin' things of every kind; + So much more near than I 'ad known, + So much more great than I 'ad guessed-- + An' me, like all the rest, alone, + But reachin' out to all the rest! + + --KIPLING. + + +"Uncle Cam, where is O'mie? I haven't seen him yet," I broke in upon the +older men in the council. "Could anything have happened to him?" + +The priest rose hurriedly. + +"I have been hoping to see him every minute," he said. "Has anybody seen +him this morning?" + +A flurry followed. Everybody thought he had seen somebody else who had +been with O'mie, but nobody, first hand, could report of him. + +"Why, I thought he was with the boys," Cam Gentry exclaimed. "Nobody +could keep track of nobody else last night." + +"I thought I saw him this morning," said Dr. Hemingway. +"But"--hesitatingly--"I do not believe I did either. I just had him in +mind as I watched Henry Anderson's boys go by." + +"All three of us are not equal to one O'mie," Clayton Anderson declared. + +"What part of town did he have, Philip?" asked Le Claire. + +"No part," I answered. "We had to take the boys that were out there +under the oak." + +Dr. Hemingway called a council at once, and all who knew anything of the +missing boy reported. I could give what had been told to Aunt Candace +and myself only in a general way, in order to shield Tell Mapleson. Cam +had seen O'mie only a minute, just before midnight. + +"He went racin' out draggin' somethin' after him, an' jumped over the +porch railin' here," pointing to the north, "stid o' goin' down the +steps. O'mie's double-geared lightin' for quickness anyhow, but last +night he jist made lightnin' seem slow the way he got off the +reservation an' into the street. It roused me up. I was half asleep +settin' here waitin' to put them strangers to bed again. So I set up an' +waited fur the boy to show up an' apologize fur his not bein' no +quicker, when in comes Phil; an' ye all know the rest. I've not laid an +eye on O'mie sence, but bein' short on range I took it he was here but +out of sight. Oh, Lord!" Cam groaned, "can anything have happened to +him?" + +While Cam was speaking I noticed that Jean Pahusca who had been loafing +about at the far side of the crowd, was standing behind Father Le +Claire. No one could have told from his set, still face what his +thoughts were just then. + +The last one who had seen O'mie was Marjie. + +"I had left the door open so I could find the way better," she said. "At +the gate O'mie came running up. I thought he was a girl, for he had my +cloak around him and the hood over his head. His face was very white. + +"I supposed it was just the light behind me, made it look so, for he +wasn't the least bit scared. He called to me twice. 'Don't hurry,' he +said; 'I'm taking your cloak home.' Mrs. Judson shut the door just then, +thinking I had gone on, and I ran home, but O'mie flew ahead of me. Just +before I came around the corner I heard a horse start up and dash off to +the river. I ran in to mother and shut the door." + +"I met a horse down by the river as I ran to grandpa's after Bill. He +was staying over there last night." It was Dave Mead who spoke. "I made +a grab at the rein. I was crazy to think of such a thing, but--" Dave +didn't say why he tried to stop the horse, for that would mean to repeat +what Tell had told us, and we had to keep Tell's part to ourselves. "The +horse knocked me twenty feet and tore off toward the river." + +And then for the first time we noticed Dave Mead's right arm in a sling. +Too much was asked of us in those hours for us to note the things that +mark our common days. + +"It put my shoulder out of place," Dave said simply. "Didn't get it in +again for so long, it's pretty sore. I was too busy to think about it at +first." + +Dave Mead never put his right hand to his head again. And to-day, if the +broad-shouldered, fine-looking American should meet you on the streets +of Hong Kong, he would offer you his left hand. For hours he forgot +himself to save others. It is his like that have filled Kansas and made +her story a record of heroism like to the story of no other State in all +the nation. + +But as to O'mie we could find nothing. There was something strange and +unusual about his returning the borrowed cloak at that late hour. The +whole thing was so unlike O'mie. + +"They've killed him and put him in the river," wailed Dollie Gentry. + +"I'm afraid he's been foully dealt with. They suspected he knew too +much," and Dr. Hemingway bowed his head in sorrow. + +"He's run straight into a coil of them pisen Copperheads an' they've +made way with him; an' to think we hadn't missed him," sobbed Cam in his +chair. + +Father Le Claire gripped his hands, and his face grew as expressionless +as the Indian's behind him. It dawned upon us now that O'mie was lost, +there was no knowing how. O'mie, who belonged to the town and was loved +as few orphan boys are loved. Oh, any of us would have suffered for him, +and to think that he should be made the victim of rebel hate, that the +blow should fall on him who had given no offence. All his manliness, his +abounding kindness, his sunny smile and joy in living, swept up in +memory in the instant. Instinctively the boys drew near to one another, +and there came back to me the memory of that pathetic look in his eyes +as we talked of our troubles down in the tavern stables two nights +before: "Whoiver it's laid on to suffer," I could almost hear him saying +it. And then I did hear his voice, low and clear, a faint call again, as +I had heard it before. + +"Phil, oh Phil, come!" + +It shot through my brain like an arrow. I turned and seized Le Claire by +the hand. + +"O'mie's not dead," I cried. "He's alive somewhere, and I'm going to +find him." + +"You bet your life he'th not dead," Bud Anderson echoed me. "Come on." + +The boys with Le Claire started in a body through the crowd; a shout +went up, a sudden determination that O'mie must be alive seemed to +possess Springvale. + +"Stay with Cam and Dollie," Le Claire turned Dr. Hemingway back with a +word. "They need you now. We can do all that can be done." + +He strode ahead of us; a stalwart leader of men he would make in any +fray. It flashed into my mind that it was not the Kiowa Indian blood +that made Jean Pahusca seem so stately and strong as he strode down the +streets of Springvale. A red blanket over Le Claire's broad shoulders +would have deceived us into thinking it was the Indian brave leading on +before us. + +The river was falling rapidly, and the banks were slimy. Fingal's Creek +was almost at its usual level and the silt was crusting along its +bedraggled borders. Just above where it empties into the Neosho we noted +a freshly broken embankment as though some weight had crushed over the +side and carried a portion of the bank with it. Puddles of water and +black mud filled the little hollows everywhere. Into one of these I +stepped as we were eagerly searching for a trace of the lost boy. My +foot stuck to something soft like a garment in the puddle. I kicked it +out, and a jet button shone in the ooze. I stooped and lifted the grimy +thing. It was Marjie's cloak. + +"This is the last of O'mie," Dave Mead spoke reverently. + +"Here's where they pushed him in," said John Anderson pointing to the +break in the bank. + +There was a buzzing in my ears, and the sunlight on the river was +dancing in ten thousand hideous curls and twists. The last of O'mie, +until maybe, a bloated sodden body might be found half buried in some +flood-wrought sand-bar. The May morning was a mockery, and every green +growing leaf seemed to be using the life force that should be in him. + +"Yes, there's where he went in." It was Father Le Claire's voice now, +"but he fought hard for his life." + +"Yeth, and by George, yonder'th where he come out. Thee that thaplin' +on the bank? It'th thplit, but it didn't break; an' that bank'th brokener'n +thith." + +Oh, blessed Bud! His tow head will always wear a crown to me. + +On the farther bank a struggle had wrenched the young trees and shrubs +away and a slide of slime marked where the victim of the waters had +fought for life. We knew how to swim, and we crossed the swollen creek +in a rush. But here all trace disappeared. Something or somebody had +climbed the bank. A horse's hoofs showed in the mud, but on the ground +beyond the horse's feet had not seemed to leave a track. The cruel +ruffians must have pushed him back when he tried to gain the bank here. +We hunted and hunted, but to no avail. No other mark of O'mie's having +passed beyond the creek could be found. + +It was nearly sunset before we came back to town. Not a mouthful had +been eaten, and with the tenseness of the night's excitement stretching +every nerve, the loss of sleep, the constant searching, and the +heaviness of despair, mud-stained, wearied, and haggard, we dragged +ourselves to the tavern again. Other searchers had been going in +different directions. In one of these parties, useful, quick and wisely +counselling, was Jean Pahusca. His companions were loud in their praise +of his efforts. The Red Range neighborhood had received the word at noon +and turned out in a mass, women and children joining in the quest. But +it was all in vain. Wild theories filled the air, stories of strangers +struggling with somebody in the dark; the sound of screams and of some +one running away. But none of these stories could be substantiated. And +all the while what Tell Mapleson had said to Aunt Candace and me when +he came to warn us, kept repeating itself to me. "They're awful against +O'mie. They think he knows too much." + +Early the next morning the search was renewed, but at nightfall no +further trace of the lost boy had been discovered. On the second +evening, when we gathered at the Cambridge House, Dr. Hemingway urged us +to take a little rest, and asked that we come later to a prayer meeting +in the church. + +"O'mie is our one sacrifice beside the dear little babe of Judson's. All +the rest of us have been spared to life, and our homes have been +protected. We must look to the Lord for comfort now, and thank Him for +His goodness to us." + +Then the Rev. Mr. Dodd spoke sneeringly: + +"You've made a big ado for two days about a little coward who cut and +run at the first sound of danger. Disguised himself like a girl to do +it. He will come sneaking in fast enough when he finds the danger is +over. A lot of us around town are too wise to be deceived. The Lord did +save us," how piously he spoke, "but we should not disgrace ourselves." + +He got no further. I had been leaning limply against the veranda post, +for even my strength was giving way, more under the mental strain than +the physical tax. But at the preacher's words all the blood of my +fighting ancestry took fire. There was a Baronet with Cromwell's +Ironsides, the regiment that was never defeated in battle. There was a +Baronet color-bearer at Bunker Hill and later at Saratoga, and it was a +Baronet who waited till the last boat crossed the Delaware when +Washington led his forces to safety. There were Baronets with Perry on +Lake Erie, and at that moment my father was fighting for the life of a +nation. I cleared the space between us at a bound, and catching the +Reverend Dodd by throat and thigh, I lifted him clear of the railing and +flung him sprawling on the blue-grass. + +"If you ever say another word against O'mie I'll break your neck," I +cried, as he landed. + +Father Le Claire was beside him at once. + +"He's killed me," groaned Dodd. + +"Then he ought to bury his dead," Dr. Hemingway said coldly, which was +the only time the good old man was ever known to speak unkindly to any +one among us. + +The fallen preacher gathered himself together and slipped away. + +Dollie Gentry had a royal supper for everybody that night. Jean Pahusca +sat by Father Le Claire with us at the long table in the dining-room. +Again my conscience, which upbraided me for doubting him, and my +instinct, which warned me to beware of him, had their battle within me. + +"I just had to do something or I'd have jumped into the Neosho myself," +Dollie explained in apology for the abundant meal, as if cooking were +too worldly for that grave time. "I know now," she said, "how that poor +woman felt whose little boy was took by the Kiowas years ago out on the +West Prairie. They said she did jump into the river. Anyhow, she +disappeared." + +"Did you know her or her husband?" Father Le Claire asked quietly. + +"Yes, in a way," Dollie replied. "He was a big, fine-looking man built +some like you, an' dark. He was a Frenchman. She was a little, +small-boned woman. I saw her in the 'Last Chance' store the day she got +here from the East. She was fair and had red hair, I should say; but +they said the woman that drowned herself was a black-haired French +woman. She didn't look French to me. She lived in that little cabin up +around the bend toward Red Range, poor dear! That cabin's always been +haunted, they say." + +"Was she never heard of again?" the priest went on. We thought he was +keeping Dollie's mind off O'mie. + +"Ner him neither. He cut out west toward Santy Fee with some Mexican +traders goin' home from Westport. I heard he left 'em at Pawnee Rock, +where they had a regular battle with the Kiowas; some thought he might +have been killed by the Kiowas, and others by the Mexicans. Anyhow, he +never was heard of in Springvale no more." + +"Mrs. Gentry," Le Claire asked abruptly, "where did you find O'mie?" + +"Why, we've had him so long I forget we never hadn't him." Dollie seemed +confused, for O'mie was a part of her life. "He was brought up here from +the South by a missionary. Seems to me he found the little feller (he +was only five years old) trudgin' off alone, an' sayin' he wouldn't stay +at the Mission 'cause there was Injuns there. Said the Injuns killed his +father, an' he kicked an' squalled till the missionary just brought him +up here. He was on his way to St. Mary's, up on the Kaw, an' he was +takin' the little one on with him. He stopped here with O'mie an' the +little feller was hungry--" + +"And you fed him; naked, and you clothed him," the priest added +reverently. + +"Poor O'mie!" and Dollie made a dive for the kitchen to weep out her +grief alone. + +It seemed to settle upon Springvale that O'mie was lost; had been +overcome in some way by the murderous raiders who had infested our town. + +In sheer weariness and hopelessness I fell on my bed, that night, and +sleep, the "sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care," fell upon +me. Just at daybreak I woke with a start. I had not dreamed once all +night, but now, wide awake, with my face to the open east window where +the rose tint of a grand new day was deepening into purple on the +horizon's edge, feeling and knowing everything perfectly, I saw O'mie's +face before me, white and drawn with pain, but gloriously brave. And his +pleading voice, "Phil, ye'll come soon, won't ye?" sounded low and clear +in my ears. + +I sprang up and dressed myself. I was so sure of O'mie, I could hardly +wait to begin another search. Something seemed to impel me to speed. "He +won't last long," was a vague, persistent thought that haunted me. + +"What is it, Phil?" my aunt called as I passed her door. + +"Aunt Candace, it's O'mie. He's not dead yet, I'm sure. But I must go at +once and hunt again." + +"Where will you go now?" she queried. + +"I don't know. I'm just being led," I replied. + +"Phil," Aunt Candace was at the door now, "have you thought of the +Hermit's Cave?" + +Her words went through me like a sword-thrust. + +"Why, why,--oh, Aunt Candace, let me think a minute." + +"I've been thinking for twelve hours," said my aunt. "Until you try that +place don't give up the hunt." + +"But I don't know how to get there." + +"Then make a way. You are not less able to do impossible things than the +Pilgrim Fathers were. If you ever find O'mie it will be in that place. I +feel it, I can't say why. But, Phil, you will need the boys and Father +Le Claire. Take time to get breakfast and get yourself together. You +will need all your energy. Don't squander it the first thing." + +Dear Aunt Candace! This many a year has her grave been green in the +Springvale cemetery, but greener still is her memory in the hearts of +those who knew her. She had what the scholars of to-day strive to +possess--the power of poise. + +I ate my breakfast as calmly as I could, and before I left home Aunt +Candace made me read the Ninety-first Psalm. Then she kissed me good-bye +and bade me God-speed. Something kept telling me to hurry, hurry, as I +tried to be deliberate, and quickened my thought and my step. At the +tavern Cam Gentry met us. + +"It ain't no use to try, boys, O'mie's down in the river where the +cussed Copperheads put him; but you're good to keep tryin'." He sat down +in a helpless resignation, so unlike his natural buoyant spirit it was +hard to believe that this was the same Cam we had always known. + +"Judson's baby's to be buried to-day, but we can't even bury O'mie. Oh, +it's cruel hard." Cam groaned in his chair. + +The dew had not ceased to glitter, and the sun was hardly more than +risen when Father Le Claire and the crowd of boys, reinforced now by +Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow, started bravely out, determined to find +the boy who had been missing for what seemed ages to us. + +"If we find O'mie, we'll send word by the fastest runner, and you must +ring the church bell," Le Claire arranged with Cam. "All the town can +have the word at once then." + +"We'll go to the Hermit's Cave first," I announced. + +The company agreed, but only Bud Anderson seemed to feel as I did. To +the others it was a wasted bit of heroism, for if none of us had yet +found the way to this retreat, why should we look for O'mie there? So +the boys argued as we hurried to the river. The Neosho was inside its +banks again, but, deep and swift and muddy, it swept silently by us who +longed to know its secrets. + +"Philip, why do you consider the cave possible?" Le Claire asked as we +followed the river towards the cliff. + +"Aunt Candace says so," I replied. + +"Well, it's worth the trial if only to prove a woman's intuition--or +whim," he said quietly. + +The same old cliff confronted us, although the many uprooted trees +showed a jagged outcrop this side the sheer wall. We looked up +helplessly at the height. It seemed foolish to think of O'mie being in +that inaccessible spot. + +"If he is up there," Dave Mead urged, "and we can get to him, it will be +to put him alongside Judson's baby this afternoon." + +All the other boys were for turning back and hunting about Fingal's +Creek again, all except Bud. Such a pink and white boy he was, with a +dimple in each cheek and a blowsy tow head. + +"Will you stay with me, Bud, till I get up there?" I asked him. + +"Yeth thir! or down there. Let'th go round an' try the other thide." + +"Well, I guess we'll all stay with Phil, you cottontop," Tell Mapleson +put in. + +We all began to circle round the bluff to get beyond this steep, +forbidding wall. Our plan was to go down the river beyond the cave, and +try to climb up from that point. Crossing along by the edge of the bluff +we passed the steepest part and were coming again to where the treetops +and bushes that clung to the side of the high wall reached above the +crest, as they do across the street from my own home. Just ahead of us, +as we hurried, I caught sight of a flat slab of the shelving rock +slipped aside and barely balancing on the edge, one end of it bending +down the treetops as if newly slid into that place. All about the stone +the thin sod of the bluff's top was cut and trampled as if a struggle +had been there. We examined it carefully. A horse's tracks were plainly +to be seen. + +"Something happened here," Le Claire said. "Looks like a horse had been +urged up to the very edge and had kept pulling back." + +"And that stone is just slipped from its place," Clayton Anderson +declared. "Something has happened here since the rains." + +As we came to the edge, we saw a pile of earth recently scraped from the +stone outcrop above. + +"Somebody or something went over here not long ago," I cried. + +"Look out, Phil," Bill Mead called, "or somebody else will follow +somebody before 'em--" + +Bill's warning came too late. I had stepped on the balanced slab. It +tipped and went over the side with a crash. I caught at the edge and +missed it, but the effort threw me toward the cliff and I slid twenty +feet. The bushes seemed to part as by a well-made opening and I caught a +strong limb, and gained my balance. I looked back at the way I had come. +And then I gave a great shout. The anxious faces peering down at me +changed a little. + +"What is it?" came the query. + +I pointed upward. + +"The nicest set of hand-holds and steps clear up," I called. "You can't +see for the shelf. But right under there where Bud's head is, is the +best place to get a grip and there's a foothold all the way down." I +stared up again. "There's a rope fastened right under there. Bend over, +Bud, careful, and you'll find it. It will let you over to the steps. +Swing in on it." + +In truth, a set of points for hand and foot partly natural, partly cut +there, rude but safe enough for boy climbers like ourselves, led down to +my tree lodge. + +"And what's below you?" shouted Tell. + +"Another tree like this. I don't know how far down if you jump right," I +answered back. + +"Well, jump right, for I'm nekth. Ever thee a tow-headed flying +thquirrel?" And Bud was shinning down over the edge clawing tightly the +stone points of vantage. + +Many a time in these sixty years have I seen a difficult and dreaded way +grow suddenly easy when the time came to travel it. When we were only +boys idling away the long summer afternoons the cliff was always +impossible. We had rarely tried the downward route, and from below with +the river, always dangerously deep and swift, at the base, our exploring +had brought failure. That hand-hold of leather thongs, braided into a +rope and fastened securely under the ledge out of sight from above, gave +the one who knew how the easy passage to the points of rock. Then for +nearly a hundred feet zigzagging up stream by leaping cautiously to the +right place, by clinging and swinging, the way opened before us. I took +the first twenty feet at a slide. The others caught the leather rope, +testing to see if it was securely fastened. Its two ends were tied +around the deeply grooved stone. + +Father Le Claire and Jim Conlow stayed at the top. The one to help us +back again; the other, as the swiftest-footed boy among us, to run to +town with any message needful to be sent. The rest of us, taking all +manner of fearful risks, crashed down over the side of that bluff in +headlong haste. + +The Hermit's Cave opened on a narrow ledge such as runs below the +"Rockport" point, where Marjie and I used to play, off Cliff Street. We +reached this ledge at last, hot and breathless, hardly able to realize +that we were really here in the place that had baffled us so long. It +was an almost inaccessible climb to the crest above us, and the cliff +had to be taken at an angle even then. I believe any one accustomed only +to the prairie would never have dared to try it. + +The Hermit's Cave was merely a deep recess under the overhanging shelf. +It penetrated far enough to offer a retreat from the weather. The thick +tangle of vines before it so concealed the place that it was difficult +to find it at first. Just beyond it the rock projected over the line of +wall and overhung the river. It was on this point that the old Hermit +had been wont to sit, and from which tradition says he fell to his doom. +It was here we had seen Jean Pahusca on that hot August afternoon the +summer before. How long ago all that seemed now as the memory of it +flashed up in my mind, and I recalled O'mie's quiet boast, "If he can +get up there, so can I!" + +I was a careless boy that day. I felt myself a man now, with human +destiny resting on my shoulders. As we came to this rocky projection I +was leading the file of cliff-climbers. The cave was concealed by the +greenery. I stared about and then I called, "O'mie! O'mie!" + +Faintly, just beside me, came the reply: "Phil, you 've come? Thank +God!" + +I tore through the bushes and vines into the deep recess. The dimness +blinded me at first. What I saw when the glare left my eyes was O'mie +stretched on the bare stones, bound hand and foot. His eyes were burning +like stars in the gloom. His face was white and drawn with suffering, +but he looked up bravely and smiled upon me as I bent over him to lift +him. Before I could speak, Bud had cut the bands and freed him. He +could not move, and I lifted him like a child in my strong arms. + +"Is the town safe?" he asked feebly. + +"Yes, now we've found you," Dave Mead replied. + +"How did you get here, O'mie?" Clayton Anderson asked. + +But O'mie, lying limply in my arms, murmured deliriously of the ladder +by the shop, and wondered feebly if it could reach from the river up to +the Hermit's Cave. Then his head fell forward and he lay as one dead on +my knee. + +A year before we would have been a noisy crew that worked our way to +this all but inaccessible place, and we would have filled the valley +with whoops of surprise at finding anything in the cavern. To-day we +hardly spoke as we carried O'mie out into the light. He shivered a +little, though still unconscious, and then I felt the hot fever begin to +pulse throughout his body. + +Dave Mead was half way up the cliff to Father Le Claire. Out on the +point John Anderson waved, to the crest above, the simple message, +"We've found him." + +Bud dived into the cavern and brought out an empty jug, relic of Jean +Pahusca's habitation there. + +"What he needth ith water," Bud declared. "I'll bet he'th not had a drop +for two dayth." + +"How can you get some, Bud? We can't reach the river from here," I said. + +"Bah! all mud, anyhow. I'll climb till I find a thpring. They're all +around in the rockth. The Lord give Motheth water. I'll hunt till He +thoweth me where it ith." + +Bud put off in the bushes. Presently his tow head bobbed through the +greenery again and a jug dripping full of cool water was in his hands. + +"Thame leadin' that brought uth here done it," he lisped, moistening +O'mie's lips with the precious liquid. + +Bud had a quaint use of Bible reference, although he disclaimed Dr. +Hemingway's estimate of him as the best scholar in the Presbyterian +Sunday-school. + +It seemed hours before relief came. I held O'mie all that time, hoping +that the gracious May sunshine might win him to us again, but his +delirium increased. He did not know any of us, but babbled of strange +things. + +At length many shouts overhead told us that half of Springvale was above +us, and a rude sort of hammock was being lowered. "It's the best we can +do," shouted Father Le Claire. "Tie him in and we'll pull him up." + +It was rough handling even with the tenderest of care, and a very +dangerous feat as well. I watched those above draw up O'mie's body and I +was the last to leave the cave. As I turned to go, by merest chance, my +eye caught sight of a knife handle protruding from a crevice in the +rock. I picked it up. It was the short knife Jean Pahusca always wore at +his belt. As I looked closely, I saw cut in script letters across the +steel blade the name, _Jean Le Claire_. + +I put the thing in my pocket and soon overtook the other boys, who were +leaping and clinging on their way to the crest. + +That night Kansas was swept across by the very worst storm I have known +in all these sixty years. It lifted above the town and spared the +beautiful oak grove in the bottom lands beside us. Further down it swept +the valley clean, and the bluff about the cave had not one shrub on its +rough sides. The lightning, too, played strange pranks. The thunderbolts +shattered trees and rocks, up-rooting the one and rending and tumbling +the other in huge masses of debris upon the valley. It broke even the +rough way we had traversed to the Hermit's Cave, and a great heap of +fallen stone now shut the cavern in like a rock tomb. Where O'mie had +lain was sealed to the world, and it was a full quarter of a century +before a path was made along that dangerous cliff-side again. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +O'MIE'S CHOICE + + And how can man die better + Than facing fearful odds + For the ashes of his fathers + And the temples of his gods? + + --MACAULAY. + + +There was only one church bell in Springvale for many years. It called +to prayers, or other public service. It sounded the alarm of fire, and +tolled for the dead. It was our school-bell and wedding-bell. It clanged +in terror when the Cheyennes raided eastward in '67, and it pealed out +solemnly for the death of Abraham Lincoln. It chimed on Christmas Eve +and rang in each New Year. Its two sad notes that were tolled for the +years of the little Judson baby had hardly ceased their vibrations when +it broke forth into a ringing, joyous resonance for the finding of O'mie +alive. + +O'mie was taken to our home. No other woman's hands were so strong and +gentle as the hands of Candace Baronet. Everybody felt that O'mie could +be trusted nowhere else. It was hard for Cam and Dollie at first, but +when Dollie found she might cook every meal and send it up to my aunt, +she was more reconciled; while Cam came and went, doing a multitude of +kindly acts. This was long before the days of telephones, and a hundred +steps were needed for every one taken to-day. + +In the weeks that followed, O'mie hung between life and death. With all +the care and love given him, his strength wasted away. He had been +cruelly beaten, and cuts and bruises showed how terrible had been his +fight for freedom. + +At first he talked deliriously, but in the weakness that followed he lay +motionless hour on hour. And with the fever burning out his candle of +life, we waited the end. How heavy-hearted we were in those days! It +seemed as though all Springvale claimed the orphan boy. And daily, +morning and evening, a messenger from Red Range came for word of him, +bearing always offers of whatever help we would accept from the +kind-hearted neighborhood. + +Father Le Claire had come into our home with the bringing of O'mie, and +gentle as a woman's were his ministrations. One evening, when the end of +earthly life seemed near for O'mie, the priest took me by the arm, and +we went down to the "Rockport" point together. The bushes were growing +very rank about my old playground and trysting place. I saw Marjie +daily, for she came and went about our house with quiet usefulness. But +our hands and hearts were full of the day's sad burden, and we hardly +spoke to each other. Marjie's nights were spent mostly with poor Mrs. +Judson, whose grief was wearing deep grooves into the young mother face. + +To-night Le Claire and I sat down on the rock and breathed deeply of the +fresh June air. Below us, for many a mile, the Neosho lay like a broad +belt of silver in the deepening shadows of the valley, while all the +West Prairie was aflame with the sunset lights. The world was never more +beautiful, and the spirit of the Plains seemed reaching out glad hands +to us who were so strong and full of life. All day we had watched beside +the Irish boy. His weakened pulse-beat showed how steadily his strength +was ebbing. He had fallen asleep now, and we dared not think what the +waking might be for us. + +"Philip, when O'mie is gone, I shall leave Springvale," the priest +began. "I think that Jean Pahusca has at last decided to go to the +Osages. He probably will never be here again. But if he should come--" +Le Claire paused as if the words pained him--"remember you cannot trust +him. I have no tie that binds me to you. I shall go to the West. I feel +sure the Plains Indians need me now more than the Osages and the Kaws." + +I listened silently, not caring to question why either O'mie or Jean +should bind him anywhere. The former was all but lost to me already. Of +the latter I did not care to think. + +"And before I go, I want to tell you something I know of O'mie," Le +Claire went on. + +I had wondered often at the strange sort of understanding I knew existed +between himself and O'mie. I began to listen more intently now, and for +the first time since leaving the Hermit's Cave I thought of the knife +with the script lettering. I shrank from questioning him or showing him +the thing. I had something of my father's patience in letting events +tell me what I wanted to know. So I asked no questions, but let him +speak. + +"O'mie comes by natural right into a dislike, even hatred, of the red +race. It may be I know something more of him than anyone else in +Springvale knows. His story is a romance and a tragedy, stranger than +fiction. In the years to come, when hate shall give place to love in our +nation, when the world is won to the church, a younger generation will +find it hard to picture the life their forefathers lived." + +The priest's brow darkened and his lips were compressed, as if he found +it hard to speak what he would say. + +"I come to you, Philip, because your experience here has made you a man +who were only a boy yesterday; because you love O'mie; because you have +been able to keep a quiet tongue; and most of all, because you are John +Baronet's son, and heir, I believe, to his wisdom. Most of O'mie's story +is known to your father. He found it out just before he went to the war. +It is a tragical one. The boy was stolen by a band of Indians when he +was hardly more than a baby. It was a common trick of the savages then; +it may be again as our frontier creeps westward." + +The priest paused and looked steadily out over the Neosho Valley, +darkening in the twilight. + +"You know how you felt when O'mie was lost. Can you imagine what his +mother felt when she found her boy was stolen? Her husband was away on a +trapping tour, had been away for a long time, and she was alone. In a +very frenzy, she started out on the prairie to follow the Indians. She +suffered terrible hardship, but Providence brought her at last to the +Osage Mission, whose doors are always open to the distressed. And here +she found a refuge. A strange thing happened then. While Patrick +O'Meara, O'mie's father, was far from home, word had reached him that +his wife was dead. Coming down the Arkansas River, O'Meara chanced to +fall in with some Mexicans who had a battle with a band of Indians at +Pawnee Rock. With these Indians was a little white boy, whom O'Meara +rescued. It was his own son, although he did not know it, and he brought +the little one to the Mission on the Neosho. + +"Philip, it is vouchsafed to some of us to know a bit of heaven here on +earth. Such a thing came to Patrick O'Meara when he found his wife +alive, and the baby boy was restored to her. They were happy together +for a little while. But Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from her hardships +on the prairie, and her husband was killed by the Comanches a month +after her death. Little O'mie, dying up there now, was left an orphan at +the Mission. You have heard Mrs. Gentry tell of his coming here. Your +father is the only one here who knows anything of O'mie's history. If he +never comes back, you must take his place." + +The purple shadows of twilight were folding down upon the landscape. In +the soft light the priest's face looked dark and set. + +"Why not tell me now what father knows?" I asked. + +"I cannot tell you that now, Philip. Some day I may tell you another +story. But it does not concern you or O'mie. What I want you to do is +what your father will do if he comes home. If he should not come, he has +written in his will what you must do. I need not tell you to keep this +to yourself." + +"Father Le Claire, can you tell me anything about Jean Pahusca, and +where he is now?" + +He rose hastily. + +"We must not stay here." Then, kindly, he took my hand. "Yes, some day, +but not now, not to-night." There was a choking in his voice, and I +thought of O'mie. + +We stood up and let the cool evening air ripple against our faces. The +Neosho Valley was black now. Only here and there did we catch the +glitter of the river. The twilight afterglow was still pink, but the +sweep of the prairie was only a purple blur swathed in gray mist. Out of +this purple softness, as we parted the bushes, we saw Marjie hurrying +toward us. + +"Phil, Phil!" she cried, "O'mie's taken a change for the better. He's +been asleep for three hours, and now he is awake. He knew Aunt Candace +and he asked for you. The doctor says he has a chance to live. Oh, +Phil!" and Marjie burst into tears. + +Le Claire took her hand and, putting it through my arm, he said, gently +as my father might have done, "You are both too young for such a strain +as this. Oh, this civil war! It robs you of your childhood. Too soon, +too soon, you are men and women. Philip, take Marjory home. Don't +hurry." He smiled as he spoke. "It will do you good to leave O'mie out +of mind for a little while." + +Then he hurried off to the sick room, leaving us together. It seemed +years since that quiet April sunset when we gathered the pink flowers +out in the draw, and I crowned Marjie my queen. It was now late June, +and the first little yellow leaves were on the cottonwoods, telling that +midsummer was near. + +"Marjie," I said, putting the hand she had withdrawn through my arm +again, "the moon is just coming up. Let's go out on the prairie a little +while. Those black shadows down there distress me. I must have some rest +from darkness." + +We walked slowly out on Cliff Street and into the open prairie, which +the great summer moon was flooding with its soft radiance. No other +light is ever so regal as the full moon above the prairie, where no +black shadows can checker and blot out and hem in its limitless glory. +Marjie and I were young and full of vigor, but the steady drain on mind +and heart, and the days and nights of broken rest, were not without +effect. And yet to-night, with hope once more for O'mie's life, with a +sense of lifted care, and with the high tide of the year pouring out its +riches round about us, the peace of the prairies fell like a benediction +on us, as we loitered about the grassy spaces, quiet and very happy. + +Then the care for others turned our feet homeward. I must relieve Aunt +Candace to-night by O'mie's side, and Marjie must be with her mother. +The moonlight tempted us to linger a little longer as we passed by +"Rockport," and we parted the bushes and stood on our old playground +rock. + +"Marjie, the moonlight makes a picture of you always," I said gently. + +She did not answer, but gazed out across the valley, above whose dark +greenery the silvery mists lay fold on fold. When she turned her face to +mine, something in her eyes called up in me that inspiration that had +come to be a part of my thought of her, that sense of a woman's worth +and of her right to tenderest guardianship. + +"Marjie"--I put both arms around her and drew her to me--"the best thing +in the world is a good girl, and you are the best girl in the world." I +held her close. It was no longer a boy's admiration, but a man's love +that filled my soul that night. Marjie drew gently away. + +"We must go now, Phil, indeed we must. Mother needs me." + +Oh, I could wait her time. I took her arm and led her out to the street. +The bushes closed behind us, and we went our way together. It was well +we could not look back upon the rock. We had hardly left it when two +figures climbed up from the ledge below and stood where we had been--two +for whom the night had no charm and the prairie and valley had no +beauty, a low-browed, black-eyed girl with a heart full of jealousy, and +a tall, graceful, picturesquely handsome young Indian. They had joined +forces, just as I had once felt they would sometime do. As I came +whistling up the street on my way home I paused by the bushes, half +inclined to go beyond them again. I was happy in every fiber of my +being. But duty prodded me sharply to move on. I believe now that Jean +Pahusca would have choked the life out of me had I met him face to face +that moonlit night. Heaven turns our paths away from many an unknown +peril, and we credit it all to our own choice of ways. + + * * * * * + +Slowly but steadily O'mie came back to us. So far had he gone down the +valley of the shadow, he groped with difficulty up toward the light +again. He slept much, but it was life-giving sleep, and he was not +overcome by delirium after that turning point in his illness. I think I +never fully knew my father's sister till in those weeks beside the +sickbed. It was not the medicine, nor the careful touch, it was +herself--her wholesome, hopeful, trustful spirit--that seemed to enter +into the very life of the sick one, and build him to health. I had +rarely known illness, I who had muscles like iron, and the frame of a +giant. My father was a man of wonderful vigor. It was not until O'mie +was brought to our house that I understood why he should have been +trusted to no one else. + +We longed to know his story. The town had settled into its old groove. +The victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had thrilled us, as the loss +at Chancellorsville had depressed our spirits; and the war was our +constant theme. And then the coming and going of traders and strangers +on the old trail, the undercurrent of anxiety lest another conspiracy +should gather, the Quantrill raid at Lawrence, all helped to keep us +from lethargy. We had had our surprise, however. Strangers had to give +an account of themselves to the home guard now. But we were softened +toward our own townspeople. They were very discreet, and we must meet +and do business with them daily. For the sake of young Tell and Jim, we +who knew would say nothing. Jean came into town at rare intervals, +meeting the priest down in the chapel. Attending to his own affairs, +walking always like a very king, or riding as only a Plains Indian can +ride, he came and went unmolested. I never could understand that strange +power he had of commanding our respect. He seldom saw Marjie, and her +face blanched at the mention of his name. I do not know when he last +appeared in our town that summer. Nobody could keep track of his +movements. But I do know that after the priest's departure, his +disappearance was noted, and the daylight never saw him in Springvale +again. What the dark hours of the night could have told is another +story. + +With O'mie out of danger, Le Claire left us. His duties, he told us, lay +far to the west. He might go to the Kiowas or the Cheyennes. In any +event, it would be long before he came again. + +"I need not ask you, Philip, to take good care of O'mie. He could not +have better care. You will guard his interests. Until you know more than +you do now, you will say nothing to him or any one else of what I have +told you." + +He looked steadily into my eyes, and I understood him. + +"I think Jean Pahusca will never trouble you, nor even come here now. I +have my reasons for thinking so. But, Philip, if you should know of his +being here, keep on your guard. He is a man of more than savage nature. +What he loves, he will die for. What he hates, he will kill. Cam Gentry +is right. The worst blood of the Kiowas and of the French nationality +fills his veins. Be careful." + +Brave little O'mie struggled valiantly for health again. He was patient +and uncomplaining, but the days ran into weeks before his strength +began to increase. Only one want was not supplied: he longed for the +priest. + +"You're all so good, it's mighty little in me to say it, an' Dr. +Hemingway's gold, twenty-four karat gold; but me hair's red, an' me rale +name's O'Meara, an' naturally I long for the praist, although I'm a +proper Presbyterian." + +"How about Brother Dodd?" I inquired. + +"All the love in his heart fur me put in the shell of a mustard seed +would rattle round loike a walnut in a tin bushel box, begorra," the +sick boy declared. + +It was long before he could talk much and we did not ask a question we +could avoid, but waited his own time to know how he had been taken from +us and how he had found himself a prisoner in that cavern whence we had +barely cheated Death of its pitiful victim. As he could bear it he told +us, at length, of his part in the night the town was marked for doom. +Propped up on his pillows, his face to the open east window, his thin, +white hands folded, he talked quietly as of a thing in which he had had +little part. + +"Ye see, Phil, the Almighty made us all different, so He could know us, +an' use us when He wanted some partic'lar thing that some partic'lar one +could do. When folks puts on a uniform in their dress or their thinkin', +they belong to one av two classes--them as is goin' to the devil like +convicts an' narrow churchmen, or them as is goin' after 'em hard to +bring 'em into line again, like soldiers an' sisters av charity; an' +they just have to act as one man. But mainly we're singular number. The +Lord didn't give me size." + +He looked up at my broad shoulders. I had carried him in my arms from +his bed to the east window day after day. + +"I must do me own stunt in me own way. You know mebby, how I tagged +thim strangers till, if they'd had the chance at me they'd have fixed +me. Specially that Dick Yeager, the biggest av the two who come to the +tavern." + +"The chance! Didn't they have their full swing at you?" + +"Well, no, not regular an' proper," he replied. + +I wondered if the cruelty he had suffered might not have injured his +brain and impaired his memory. + +"You know I peeked through that hole up in the shop that Conlow seems to +have left fur such as me. Honorable business, av coorse. But Tell and +Jim, they was hid behind the stack av wagon wheels in the dark +corner--just as honorable an' high-spirited as meself, on their social +level. I was a high-grader up on that ladder. Well, annyhow, I peeked +an' eavesdropped, as near as I could get to the eaves av the shop, an' I +tould Father Le Claire all I could foind out. An' then he put it on me +to do my work. 'You can be spared,' he says. 'If it's life and death, +ye'll choose the better part.' Phil, it was laid on all av us to choose +that night." + +His thin, blue-veined hand sought mine where he lay reclining against +the pillows. I took it in my big right hand, the hand that could hold +Jean Pahusca with a grip of iron. + +"There was only one big enough an' brainy enough an' brave enough to +lead the crowd to save this town an' that was Philip Baronet. There was +only one who could advise him well an' that was Cam Gentry. Poor old +Cam, too near-sighted to tell a cow from a catfish tin feet away. Without +you, Cam and the boys couldn't have done a thing. + +"Can ye picture what would be down there now? I guess not, fur you'd not +be making pictures now, You'd be a picture yourself, the kind they put +on the carbolic acid bottle an' mark 'pizen.'" + +O'mie paused and looked out dreamily across the valley to the east +plains beyond them. + +"I can't tell how fast things wint through me moind that night. You did +some thinkin' yourself, an' you know. 'I can't do Phil's part if I stay +here,' I raisoned, 'an' bedad, I don't belave he can do my part. Bein' +little counts sometimes. It's laid on me to be the sacrifice, an' I'll +kape me promise an' choose the better part. I'll cut an' run.'" + +He looked up at my questioning face with a twinkle in his eye. + +"'There's only one to save this town. That's Phil's stunt,' I says; 'an' +there's only one to save Marjie. That's my stunt.'" + +I caught my breath, for my heart stood still, and I felt I must +strangle. + +"Do you mean to say, Thomas O'Meara--?" I could get no fuither. + +"I mane, either you or me's got to tell this. If you know it better'n I +do, go ahead." And then more gently he went on: "Yes, I mane to say, +kape still, dear; I'm not very strong yet. If I'd gone up to Cliff +Street afther you to come to her, she'd be gone. If Jean got hands on +her an' she struggled or screamed, as she'd be like to do, bein' a +sensible girl, he had that murderous little short knife, an' he'd swore +solemn he'd have her or her scalp. He's not got her, nor her scalp, nor +that knife nather now. I kept that much from doin' harm. I dunno where +the cruel thing wint to, but it wint, all right. + +"And do ye mane to say, Philip Baronet, that ye thought I'd lost me +nerve an' was crude enough to fall in wid a nest av thim Copperheads +an' let 'em do me to me ruin? Or did you think His Excellency, the +Reverend Dodd was right, an' I'd cut for cover till the fuss was over? +Well, honestly now, I'm not that kind av an Irishman." + +My mind was in a tumult as I listened. I wondered how O'mie could be so +calm when I durst not trust myself to speak. + +"So I run home, thinkin' ivery jump, an' I grabbed the little girl's +waterproof cloak. Your lady friends' wraps comes in handy sometimes. +Don't niver despise 'em, Phil, nor the ladies nather. You woman-hater!" +O'mie's laugh was like old times and very good to hear. + +"I flung that thing round me, hood on me brown curls, an' all, an' then +I flew. I made the ground just three times in thim four blocks and a +half to Judson's. You know how the kangaroo looks in the geography +picture av Australia, illustratin' the fauna an' flora, with a tall, +thin tree beyont, showin' lack of vegetation in that tropic, an' a +little quilly cus they call a ornithorynchus, its mouth like Jim +Conlow's? Well, no kangaroo'd had enough self-respect to follow me that +night. I caught Marjie just in time, an' I puts off before her toward +her home. At the corner I quit kangarooin' an' walks quick an' a little +timid-like, just Marjie to a dimple. If you'd been there, you'd wanted +to put some more pink flowers round where they'd do the most good." + +I squeezed his hand. + +"Quit that, you ugly bear. That's a lady's hand yet a whoile an' can't +stand too much pressure. + +"It was to save her loife, Phil." O'mie spoke solemnly now. "You could +save the town. I couldn't. I could save her. You couldn't. In a minute, +there in the dark by the gate, Jean Pahusca grabs me round me dainty +waist. His horse was ready by him an' he swung me into the saddle, not +harsh, but graceful like, an' gintle. I never said a word, but gave a +awful gasp like I hadn't no words, appreciative enough. 'I'm saving' +you, Star-face,' he says. 'The Copperheads will burn your mother's house +an' the Kiowas will come and steal Star-face--' an' he held me close as +if he would protect me--he got over that later--an' I properly fainted. +That's the only way the abducted princess can do in the novel--just +faint. It saves hearin' what you don't want to know. An' me size just +suited the case. Don't never take on airs, you big hulkin' fellow. No +graceful prince is iver goin' to haul you over the saddle-bow thinkin' +you're the choice av his heart. It saved Marjie, an' it got Jean clear +av town before he found his mistake, which wa'n't bad for Springvale. +Down by Fingal's Creek I come to, an' we had a rumpus. Bein' a dainty +girl, I naturally objected to goin' into that swirlin' water, though I +didn't object to Jean's goin'--to eternity. In the muss I lost me +cloak--the badge av me business there. I never could do nothin' wid thim +cussed hooks an' eyes on a collar an' the thing wasn't anchored +securely at me throat. It was awful then. I can't remember it all. But +it was dark, and Jean had found me out, and the waters was deep and +swift. The horse got away on the bank an' slid back, I think. It must +have been then it galloped up to town; but findin' Jean didn't follow, +it came back to him. I didn't know annything fur some toime. I'd got +too much av Fingal's Creek mixed into me constitution an' by-laws to +kape my thoughts from floatin' too. I'll never know rightly whin I rode +an' whin I was dragged, an' whin I walked. It was a runnin' fight av +infantry and cavalry, such as the Neosho may never see again, betwixt +the two av us." + +Blind, trustful fool that I had been, thinking after all Le Claire's +warnings that Jean had been a good, loyal, chivalrous Indian, protecting +Marjie from harm. + +"And to think we have thought all this time there were a dozen Rebels +making away with you, and never dreamed you had deliberately put +yourself into the hands of the strongest and worst enemy you could +have!" + +"It was to save a woman, Phil," O'mie said simply. "He could only kill +me. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd done the same yoursilf +to save anny woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see." + +How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. There +came to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jean +had sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after I +talked with my father of love and of my mother. That night two women +whom I had never seen before were in my dreams, and I had struggled to +save them from peril as though they were of my own flesh and blood. + +"You will do it," O'mie went on. "You were doing more. Who was it wint +down along the creek side av town where the very worst pro-slavery +fellows is always coiled and ready to spring, wint in the dark to wake +up folks that lived betwixt them on either side, who was ready to light +on 'em at a minute's notice? Who wint upstairs above thim as was gettin' +ready to burn 'em in their beds, an' walked quiet and cool where one +wrong step meant to be throttled in the dark? Don't talk to me av +courage." + +"But, O'mie, it was all chance with us. You went where danger was +certain." + +"It was my part, Phil, an' I ain't no shirker just because I'm not tin +feet tall an' don't have to be weighed on Judson's stock scales." O'mie +rested awhile on the pillows. Then he continued his story. + +"They was more or less border raidin' betwixt Jean an' me till we got +beyont the high cliff above the Hermit's Cave. When I came to after one +of his fists had bumped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn't +want. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as the +grave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in the +hostilities, I caught the faint refrain: + + 'Does the star-spangled banner yit wave, + O'er the land av the free and the home av the brave?' + +"I didn't see your lights. They was tin thousand star-spangled banners +wavin' before me eyes ivery second. But that strain av song put new +courage into me soul though I had no notion what it really meant. I was +half dead an' wantin' to go the other half quick, an' it was like a +drame, till that song sent a sort of life-givin' pulse through me. The +next minute we were goin' over an' over an' over, betwane rocks, an' +hanging to trees, down, down, down, wid that murderous river roarin' +hungry below us. Jean jumpin' from place to place an' me clingin' to +him an' hittin' iverything that could be hit at ivery jump. An' then +come darkness over me again. There was a light somewhere when I +come to. I was free an' I made a quick spring. I got that knife, +an' like a flash I slid the blade down a crack somewhere. An' +then he tied me solid, an' standin' over me he says slow an' +cruel: 'You--may--stay--here--till--you--starve--to--death. +Nobody--can--get--to--you--but--me--an'--I'm--niver--comin'--back. I +hate you.' An' his eyes were just loike that noight whin I found him +with thim faded pink flowers out on the prairie." + +"O'mie, dear, you are the greatest hero I ever heard of. You poor, +beaten, tortured sacrifice." + +I put my arm around his shoulder and my tears fell on his red hair. + +"I didn't do no more than ivery true American will do--fight an' die to +protect his home; or if not his'n, some other man's. Whin the day av +choosin' comes we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it. +Whin Jean put it on me to lay there helpless an' die o' thirst, I know'd +I could do it. Same as you know'd you'd outwit that gang ready to burn +an' kill, that I'd run from. I just looked straight up at Jean--the +light was gettin' dim--an' I says, 'You--may--go--plum--to--the--divil, +--but--you--can't--hurt--that--part--av--me--that's--never--hungry--nor +--thirsty.' When you git face to face wid a thing like that," O'mie spoke +reverently, "somehow the everlastin' arms, Dr. Hemingway's preaches of, +is strong underneath you. The light wint out, an' Jean in his still way +had slid off, an' I was alone. Alone wid me achin' and me bonds, an' wid +a burnin' longin' fur water, wid a wish to go quick if I must go; but +most av all--don't never furgit it, Phil, whin the thing overtakes you +aven in your strength--most av all, above all sufferin' and natural +longin' to live--there comes the reality av the words your Aunt Candace +taught us years ago in the little school: + +"'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fear +no evil.' + +"I called for you, Phil, in my misery, as' I know'd somehow you'd hear +me. An' you did come." + +His thin hand closed over mine, and we sat long in silence--two boys +whom the hand of Providence was leading into strange, hard lines, +shaping us each for the work the years of our manhood were waiting to +bring to us. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +GOLDEN DAYS + + There are days that are kind + As a mother to man, showing pathways that wind + Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight; + Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright; + Only luring us on, since the way must be trod, + Over meadows of green with their velvety sod, + To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before. + There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore + The original beauty of Eden; so tender, + They woo every soul to a willing surrender + Of feverish longing; so holy withal, + That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall + On the world. + + +We were a busy folk in those years that followed the close of the war. +The prairies were boundless, and the constant line of movers' wagons +reaching out endlessly on the old trail, with fathers and mothers and +children, children, children, like the ghosts of Banquo's lineal issue +to King Macbeth, seemed numerous enough to people the world and put to +the plough every foot of the virgin soil of the beautiful Plains. With +the downfall of slavery the strife for commercial supremacy began in +earnest here, and there are no idle days in Kansas. + +When I returned home after two years' schooling in Massachusetts, I +found many changes. I had beaten my bars like a caged thing all those +two years. Rockport, where I made my home and spent much of my time, +was so unlike Springvale, so wofully and pridefully ignorant of all +Kansas, so unable to get any notion of my beautiful prairies and of the +free-spirited, cultured folk I knew there, that I suffered out my time +there and was let off a little early for good behavior. Only one person +did I know who had any real interest in my West, a tall, dark-eyed, +haughty young lady, to whom I talked of Kansas by the hour. Her mother, +who was officiously courteous to me, didn't approve of that subject, but +the daughter listened eagerly. + +When I left Rockport, Rachel--that was her name, Rachel Melrose--asked +me when I was coming back. I assured her, never, and then courteously +added if she would come to Kansas. + +"Well, I may go," she replied, "not to your Springvale, but to my aunt +in Topeka for a visit next Fall. Will you come up to Topeka?" + +Of course, I would go to Topeka, but might she not come to Springvale? +There were the best people on earth in Springvale. I could introduce her +to boys who were gentlemen to the core. I'd lived and laughed and +suffered with them, and I knew. + +"But I shouldn't care for any of them except you." Rachel's voice +trembled and I couldn't help seeing the tears in her proud dark eyes. + +"Oh, I've a girl of my own there," I said impulsively, for I was always +longing for Marjie, "but Clayton Anderson and Dave Mead are both college +men now." And then I saw how needlessly rude I had been. + +"Of course I want you to come to Springvale. Come to our house. Aunt +Candace will make you royally welcome. The Baronets and Melroses have +been friends for generations. I only wanted the boys to know you; I +should be proud to present my friend to them. I would take care of you. +You have been so kind to me this year, I should be glad to do much for +you." I had taken her hand to say good-bye. + +"And you would let that other girl take care of herself, wouldn't you, +while I was there? Promise me that when I go to Kansas you will come up +to Topeka to see me, and when I go to your town, if I do, you will not +neglect me but will let that Springvale girl entirely alone." + +I did not know much of women then--nor now--although I thought then I +knew everything. I might have read behind that fine aristocratic face a +supremely selfish nature, a nature whose pleasure increased only as her +neighbor's pleasure decreased. There are such minds in the world. + +I turned to her, and taking both of her willing hands in mine, I said +frankly: "When you visit your aunt, I'll be glad to see you there. If +you visit my aunt I would be proud to show you every courtesy. As for +that little girl, well, when you see her you will understand. She has a +place all her own with me." I looked straight into her eyes as I said +this. + +She smiled coquettishly. "Oh, I'm not afraid of her," she said +indifferently; "I can hold my own with any Kansas, girl, I'm sure." + +She was dangerously handsome, with a responsive face, a winning smile +and gracious manners. She seemed never to accept anything as a gift, but +to take what was her inherent right of admiration and devotion. When I +bade her good-bye a look of sadness was in her eyes. It rebuked my +spirit somehow, although Heaven knows I had given her no cause to miss +me. But my carriage was waiting and I hurried away. For a moment only +her image lingered with me, and then I forgot her entirely; for every +turn of the wheel was bringing me to Kansas, to the prairies, to the +beautiful Neosho Valley, to the boys again, to my father and home, but +most of all to Marjie. + +It was twenty months since I had seen her. She had spent a year in Ohio +in the Girls' College at Glendale, and had written me she would reach +Springvale a month before I did. After that I had not heard from her +except through a marked copy of the _Springvale Weekly Press_, telling +of her return. She had not marked that item, but had pencilled the news +that "Philip Baronet would return in three weeks from Massachusetts, +where he had been enjoying the past two years in school." + +Enjoying! Under this Marjie had written in girlish hand, "Hurry up, +Phil." + +On the last stage of my journey I was wild with delight. It was +springtime on the prairies, and a verdure clothed them with its richest +garments. I did not note the growing crops, and the many little +freeholds now, where there had been only open unclaimed land two years +before. I was longing for the Plains again, for one more ride, reckless +and free, across their broad stretches, for one more gorgeous sunset out +on Red Range, one more soft, iridescent twilight purpling down to the +evening darkness as I had seen it on "Rockport" all those years. How the +real Rockport, the Massachusetts town, faded from me, and the sea, and +the college halls, and city buildings. The steam and steel and brick and +marble of an older civilization, all gave place to Nature's broad +handiwork and the generous-hearted, capable, unprejudiced people of this +new West. However crude and plain Springvale might have seemed to an +Eastern boy suddenly transplanted here, it was fair and full of delight +for me. + +The stage driver, Dever, by name, was a stranger to me, but he knew all +about my coming. Also he was proud to be the first to give me the +freshest town gossip. That's the stage-driver's right divine always. I +was eager to hear of everybody and in this forty miles' ride I was +completely informed. The story rambled somewhat aimlessly from topic to +topic, but it never lagged. + +"Did I know Judson? He'd got a controlling interest now in Whately's +store. He was great after money, Judson was. They do say he's been a +little off the square getting hold of the store. The widder Whately kept +only about one-third, or maybe one-fourth of the stock. Mrs. Whately, +she wa'n't no manager. Marjie'd do better, but Marjie wa'n't twenty yet. +And yet if all they say's true she wouldn't need to manage. Judson is +about the sprucest widower in town, though he did seem to take it so +hard when poor Mis' Judson was taken." She never overcame the loss of +her baby, and the next Summer they put her out in the prairie graveyard +beside it. "But Judson now, he's shyin' round Marjie real coltish. + +"It'd be fine fur her, of course," my driver went on, "an' she was old +a-plenty to marry. Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh +crazy about her. Did I know her?" + +I did; oh, yes, I remembered her. + +"They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's--lemme see, +uh--common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky--uh--Tillhurst, +Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from +Virginny to Illinois. Got near dead with consumption 'nd come on to +Kansas to die. Saw Springvale 'nd thought better of it right away. Was +teachin' school and payin' plenty of attention to the girls, especially +Marjie. They was an old man Tillhurst when I was a boy. He was from +Virginny, too--" but I pass that story. + +"Tell Mapleson's pickin' up sence he's got the post-office up in the +'Last Chance'; put that doggery out'n his sullar, had in wall paper now, +an' drugs an' seeds, an' nobody was right sure where he got his funds to +stock up, so--they was some sort of story goin' about a half-breed named +Pahusky when I first come here, bein' 'sociated with Mapleson--Cam +Gentry's same old Cam, squintin' round an' jolly as ever. O'mie? Oh, +he's leadin' the band now. By jinks, that band of his'n will just take +the cake when it goes up to Topeky this Fall to the big political +speak-in's." On and on the driver went, world without end, until we +caught the first faint line along the west that marked the treetops of +the Neosho Valley. We were on the Santa Fe Trail now, and we were coming +to the east bluff where I had first seen the little Whately girl climb +out of the big wagon and stretch the stiffness out of her fat little +legs. The stage horses were bracing for the triumphal entry into town, +when a gang of young outlaws rushed up over the crest of the east slope. +They turned our team square across the way and in mock stage-robbery +style called a halt. The driver threw up his hands in mock terror and +begged for mercy, which was granted if he would deliver up one Philip +Baronet, student and tenderfoot. But I was already down from the stage +and O'mie was hugging me hard until Bud Anderson pulled him away and all +the boys and girls were around me. Oh, it was good to see them all +again, but best of all was it to see Marjie. She had been a pretty +picture of a young girl. She was beautiful now. No wonder she had many +admirers. She was last among the girls to greet me. I took her hand and +our eyes met. Oh, I had no fear of widower nor of school-teacher, as I +helped her to a seat beside me in the stage. + +"I'm so glad to see you again, Phil," she looked up into my face. "You +are bigger than ever." + +"And you are just the same Marjie." + +The crowd piled promiscuously about us and we bumped down the slope and +into the gurgling Neosho, laughing and happy. + +With all the rough and tumble years of a boyhood and youth on the +frontier, the West has been good to me, and I look back along the way +glad that mine was the pioneer's time, and that the experiences of those +early days welded into my building and being something of their +simplicity, and strength, and capacity for enjoyment. But of all the +seasons along the way of these sixty years, of all the successes and +pleasures, I remember best and treasure most that glorious summer after +my return from the East. My father was on the Judge's bench now and his +legal interests and property interests were growing. I began the study +of law under him at once, and my duties were many, for he put +responsibility on me from the first. But I was in the very heyday of +life, and had no wish ungratified. + +"Phil, I want you to go up the river and take a look at two quarters of +Section 29, range 14, this afternoon. It lies just this side of the big +cottonwood," my father said to me one June day. + +"Make a special note of the land, and its natural appurtenances. I want +the information at once, or you needn't go out on such a hot day. It's +like a furnace in the courthouse. It may be cooler out that way." He +fanned his face with his straw hat, and the light breeze coming up the +valley lifted the damp hair about his temples. + +"There's a bridle path over the bluff a mile or so out, where you can +ride a horse down and go up the river in the bottom. It's a much shorter +way, but you'd better go out the Red Range road and turn north at the +third draw well on to the divide. It gets pretty steep near the river, +so you have to keep to the west and turn square at the draw. If it +wasn't so warm you might go on to Red Range for some depositions for me. +But never mind, Dave Mead is going up there Monday, anyhow. Will you +ride the pony?" + +"No, I'll go out in the buggy." + +"And take some girl along? Well, don't forget your errand. Be sure to +note the lay of the land. There's no building, I believe, but a little +stone cabin and it's been empty for years; but you can see. Be sure to +examine everything in that cabin carefully. Stop at the courthouse as +you go out, and get the surveyor's map and some other directions." + +It was a hot summer day, with that thin, dry burning in the air that the +light Kansas zephyr fanned back in little rippling waves. My horses were +of the Indian pony breed, able to go in heat or cold. Most enduring and +least handsome of the whole horse family, with temper ranging from +moderately vicious to supremely devilish, is this Indian pony of the +Plains. + +Marjie was in the buggy beside me when I stopped at the courthouse for +instructions. Lettie Conlow was passing and came to the buggy's side. + +"Where are you going, Marjie?" she asked. There was a sullen minor tone +in her voice. + +"With Phil, out somewhere. Where is it you are going, Phil?" + +I was tying the ponies. They never learned how to stand unanchored a +minute. + +"Out north on the Red Range prairie to buy a couple of quarters," I +replied carelessly and ran up the courthouse steps. + +"Well, well, well," Cam Gentry roared as he ambled up to the buggy. +Cam's voice was loud in proportion as his range of vision was short. +"You two gettin' ready to elope? An' he's goin' to git his dad to back +him up gettin' a farm. Now, Marjie, why'd you run off? Let us see the +performance an' hear Dr. Hemingway say the words in the Presbyterian +Church. Or maybe you're goin' to hunt up Dodd. He went toward Santy Fee +when he put out of here after the War." + +Cam could be heard in every corner of the public square. I was at the +open window of my father's office. Looking out, I saw Lettie staring +angrily at Cam, who couldn't see her face. She had never seemed less +attractive to me. She had a flashy coloring, and she made the most of +ornaments. Some people called her good-looking. Beside Marjie, she was +as the wild yoncopin to the calla lily. Marjie knew how to dress. +To-day, shaded by the buggy-top, in her dainty light blue lawn, with the +soft pink of her cheeks and her clear white brow and throat, she was a +most delicious thing to look upon in that hot summer street. Poor Lettie +suffered by contrast. Her cheeks were blazing, and her hair, wet with +perspiration, was adorned with a bow of bright purple ribbon tied +butterfly-fashion, and fastened on with a pin set with flashing +brilliants. + +"Oh, Uncle Cam," Marjie cried, blushing like the pink rambler roses +climbing the tavern veranda, "Phil's just going out to look at some land +for his father. It's up the river somewhere and I'm going to hold the +ponies while he looks." + +"Well, he'd ort to have somebody holdin' 'em fur him. I'll bet ye I'd +want a hostler if I had the lookin' to do. Land's a mighty small thing +an' hard to look at, sometimes; 'specially when a feller's head's in the +clouds an' he's walkin' on air. Goin' northwest? Look out, they's a +ha'nted house up there. But, by hen, I'd never see a ha'nt long's I had +somethin' better to look at." + +I saw Lettie turn quickly and disappear around the corner. My father was +busy, so I sat in the office window and whistled and waited, watching +the ponies switch lazily at the flies. + +When we were clear of town, and the open plain swept by the summer +breezes gave freedom from the heat, Marjie asked: + +"Where is Lettie Conlow going on such a hot afternoon?" + +"Nowhere, is she? She was talking to you at the courthouse." + +"But she rushed away while Uncle Cam was joking, and I saw her cross the +alley back of the courthouse on Tell's pony, and in a minute she was +just flying up toward Cliff Street. She doesn't ride very well. I +thought she was afraid of that pony. But she was making it go sailing +out toward the bluff above town." + +"Well, let her go, Marjie. She always wears on my nerves." + +"Phil, she likes you, I know. Everybody knows." + +"Well, I know and everybody knows that I never give her reason to. I +wish she would listen to Tell. I thought when I first came home they +were engaged." + +"Before he went up to Wyandotte to work they were--he said so, anyhow." + +Then we forgot Lettie. She wasn't necessary to us that day, for there +were only two in our world. + +[Illustration: "Baronet, I think we are marching straight into Hell's +jaws"] + +Out on the prairie trail a mile or more is the point where the bridle +path leading to the river turns northwest, and passing over a sidling +narrow way down the bluff, it follows the bottom lands upstream. As we +passed this point we did not notice Tell Mapleson's black pony just +making the top from the sidling bluff way, nor how quickly its rider +wheeled and headed back again down beyond sight of the level prairie +road. We had forgotten Lettie Conlow and everybody else. + +The draw was the same old verdant ripple in the surface of the Plains. +The grasses were fresh and green. Toward the river the cottonwoods were +making a cool, shady way, delightfully refreshing in this summer +sunshine. + +We did not hurry, for the draw was full of happy memories for us. + +"I'll corral these bronchos up under the big cottonwood, and we'll +explore appurtenances down by the river later," I said. "Father says +every foot of the half-section ought to be viewed from that tree, except +what's in the little clump about the cabin." + +We drove up to the open prairie again and let the horses rest in the +shade of this huge pioneer tree of the Plains. How it had escaped the +prairie fires through its years of sturdy growth is a marvel, for it +commanded the highest point of the whole divide. Its shade was delicious +after the glare of the trail. + +For once the ponies seemed willing to stand quiet, and Marjie and I +looked long at the magnificent stretch of sky and earth. There were a +few white clouds overhead, deepening to a dull gray in the southwest. +All the sunny land was swathed in the midsummer yellow green, darkening +in verdure along the river and creeks, and in the deepest draws. Even as +we rested there the clouds rolled over the horizon's edge, piling higher +and higher, till they hid the afternoon sun, and the world was cool and +gray. Then down the land sped a summer shower; and the sweet damp odor +of its refreshing the south wind bore to us, who saw it all. Sheet +after sheet of glittering raindrops, wind-driven, swept across the +prairie, and the cool green and the silvery mist made a scene a master +could joy to copy. + +I didn't forget my errand, but it was not until the afternoon was +growing late that we left the higher ground and drove down the shady +draw toward the river. The Neosho is a picture here, with still expanses +that mirror the trees along its banks, and stony shallows where the +water, even in midsummer, prattles merrily in the sunshine, as it +hurries toward the deep stillnesses. + +We sat down in a cool, grassy space with the river before us, and the +green trees shading the little stone cabin beyond us, while down the +draw the vista of still sunlit plains was like a dream of beauty. + +"Marjie,"--I took her hand in mine--"since you were a little girl I have +known you. Of all the girls here I have known you longest. In the two +years I was East I met many young ladies, both in school and at +Rockport. There were some charming young folks. One of them, Rachel +Melrose, was very pretty and very wealthy. Her mother made considerable +fuss over me, and I believe the daughter liked me a little; for she--but +never mind; maybe it was all my vanity. But, Marjie, there has never +been but one girl for me in all this world; there will never be but one. +If Jean Pahusca had carried you off--Oh, God in Heaven! Marjie, I wonder +how my father lived through the days after my mother lost her life. Men +do, I know." + +I was toying with her hand. It was soft and beautifully formed, although +she knew the work of our Springvale households. + +"Marjie," my voice was full of tenderness, "you are dear to me as my +mother was to my father. I loved you as my little playmate; I was fond +of you as my girl when I was first beginning to care for a girl as boys +will; as my sweetheart, when the liking grew to something more. And now +all the love a man can give, I give to you." + +I rose up before her. They call me vigorous and well built to-day. I was +in my young manhood's prime then. I looked down at her, young and +dainty, with the sweet grace of womanhood adorning her like a garment. +She stood up beside me and lifted her fair face to mine. There was a +bloom on her cheeks and her brown eyes were full of peace. I opened my +arms to her and she nestled in them and rested her cheek against my +shoulder. + +"Marjie," I said gently, "will you kiss me and tell me that you love +me?" + +Her arms were about my neck a moment. Sometimes I can feel them there +now. All shy and sweet she lifted her lips to mine. + +"I do love you, Phil," she murmured, and then of her own will, just +once, she kissed me. + +"It is vouchsafed sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on earth," Le +Claire had said to me when he talked of O'mie's father. + +It came to me that day; the cool, green valley by the river, the +vine-covered old stone cabin, the sunlit draw opening to a limitless +world of summer peace and beauty, and Marjie with me, while both of us +were young and we loved each other. + +The lengthening shadows warned me at last. + +"Well, I must finish up this investigation business of Judge Baronet's," +I declared. "Come, here's a haunted house waiting for us. Father says it +hasn't been inhabited since the Frenchman left it. Are you afraid of +ghosts?" + +We were going up a grass-grown way toward the little stone structure, +half buried in climbing vines and wild shrubbery. + +"What a cunning place, Phil! It doesn't look quite deserted to me, +somehow. No, I'm not afraid of anything but Indians." + +My arm was about her in a moment. She looked up laughing, but she did +not put it away. + +"Why, there are no Indians here, Phil," and she looked out on the sunny +draw. + +My face was toward the cabin. I was in a blissful waking dream, else I +should have taken quicker note. For sure as I had eyes, I caught a flash +of red between the far corner of the cabin and the thick underbrush +beyond it. It was just a narrow space, where one might barely pass, +between the corner of the little building and the surrounding shrubbery; +but for an instant, a red blanket with a white centre flashed across +this space, and was gone. So swift was its flight and so full was my +mind of the joy of living, I could not be sure I had seen anything. It +was just a twitch of the eyelid. What else could it be? + +We pushed open the solid oak door, and stood inside the little room. The +two windows let in a soft green light. It was a rude structure of the +early Territorial days, made for shelter and warmth. There was a dark +little attic or loft overhead. A few pieces of furniture--a chair, a +table, a stone hearth by the fireplace, and a sort of cupboard--these, +with a strong, old worn chest, were all that the room held. Dust was +everywhere, as might have been expected. And yet Marjie was right. The +spirit of occupation was there. + +"Do you know, Marjie, this cabin has hardly been opened since the poor +woman drowned herself in the river, down there. They found her body in +the Deep Hole. The Frenchman left the place, and it has been called +haunted. An Indian and a ghost can't live together. The race fears them +of all things. So the Indians would never come here." + +"But look there, Phil!"--Marjie had not heeded my words--"there's a +stick partly burned, and these ashes look fresh." She was bending over +the big stone hearth. + +As I started forward, my eye caught a bit of color behind the chair by +the table. I stooped to see a purple bow of ribbon, tied butterfly +fashion--Lettie Conlow's ribbon. I put it in my pocket, determined to +find out how it had found its way here. + +"Ugh! Let's go," said Marjie, turning to me. "I'm cold in here. I'd want +a home up under the cottonwood, not down in this lonely place. Maybe +movers on the trail camp in here." Marjie was at the door now. + +I looked about once more and then we went outside and stood on the +broad, flat step. The late afternoon was dreamily still here, and the +odor of some flowers, faint and woodsy, came from the thicket beside the +doorway. + +"It is dreary in there, Marjie, but I'll always love this place outside. +Won't you?" I said, and with a lover's happiness in my face, I drew her +close to me. + +She smiled and nodded. "I'll tell you all I think after a while. I'll +write it to you in a letter." + +"Do, Marjie, and put it in our 'Rockport' post-office, just like we used +to do. I'll write you every day, too, and you'll find my letter in the +same old crevice. Come, now, we must go home." + +"We'll come again." Marjie waved her hand to the silent gray cabin. And +slowly, as lovers will, we strolled down the walk and out into the open +where the ponies neighed a hurry-up call for home. + +Somehow the joy of youth and hope drove fear and suspicion clear from my +mind, and with the opal skies above us and the broad sweet prairies +round about us for an eternal setting of peace and beauty, we two came +home that evening, lovers, who never afterwards might walk alone, for +that our paths were become one way wherein we might go keeping step +evermore together down the years. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +A MAN'S ESTATE + + When I became a man I put away childish things. + + +The next day was the Sabbath. I was twenty-one that day. Marjie and I +sang in the choir, and most of the solo work fell to us. Dave Mead was +our tenor, and Bess Anderson at the organ sang alto. Dave was away that +day. His girl sweetheart up on Red Range was in her last illness then, +and Dave was at her bedside. Poor Dave! he left Springvale that Fall, +and he never came back. And although he has been honored and courted of +women, I have been told that in his luxurious bachelor apartments in +Hong Kong there is only one woman's picture, an old-fashioned +daguerreotype of a sweet girlish face, in an ebony frame. + +Dr. Hemingway always planned the music to suit his own notions. What he +asked for we gave. On this Sabbath morning there was no surprise when he +announced, "Our tenor being absent, we will omit the anthem, and I shall +ask brother Philip and sister Marjory to sing Number 549, 'Oh, for a +Closer Walk with God.'" + +He smiled benignly upon us. We were accustomed to his way, and we knew +everybody in that little congregation. And yet, somehow, a flutter went +through the company when we stood up together, as if everybody knew our +thoughts. We had stood side by side on Sabbath mornings and had sung +from the same book since childhood, with never a thought of +embarrassment. It dawned on Springvale that day as a revelation what +Marjie meant to me. All the world, including our town, loves a lover, +and it was suddenly clear to the town that the tall, broad-shouldered +young man who looked down at the sweet-browed little girl-woman beside +him as he looked at nobody else, whose hand touched hers as they turned +the leaves, and who led her by the arm ever so gently down the steps +from the choir seats, was reading for himself + + That old fair story + Set round in glory + Wherever life is found. + +And Marjie, in spotless white, with her broad-brimmed hat set back from +her curl-shaded forehead, the tinted lights from the memorial window +which Amos Judson had placed there for his wife, falling like an aureole +about her, who could keep from loving her? + +"Her an' Phil Baronet's jist made fur one another," Cam Gentry declared +to a bunch of town gossips the next day. + +"Now'd ye ever see a finer-lookin' couple?" broke in Grandpa Mead. "An' +the way they sung that hymn yesterday--well, I just hope they'll repeat +it over my remains." And Grandpa began to sing softly in his quavering +voice: + + Oh, for a closer walk with God, + A cam and heavenli frame, + A light toe shine upon tha road + That leads me toe tha Lamb. + +Everybody agreed with Cam except Judson. He was very cross with O'mie +that morning. O'mie was clerk and manager for him now, as Judson himself +had been for Irving Whately. He rubbed his hands and joined the group, +smiling a trifle scornfully. + +"Seems to me you're all gossiping pretty freely this morning. The young +man may be pretty well fixed some day. But he's young, he's young. Mrs. +Whately's my partner, and I know their affairs very well, very well. +She'll provide her daughter with a man, not a mere boy." + +"Well, he was man enough to keep this here town from burnin' up, an' no +tellin' how many bloodsheds," Grandpa Mead piped in. + +"He was man enough to find O'mie and save his life," Cam protested. + +"Well, we'll leave it to Dr. Hemingway," Judson declared, as the good +doctor entered the doorway. Judson paid liberally into the church fund +and accounted that his wishes should weigh much with the good minister. +"We--these people here--were just coupling the name of Marjory Whately +with that boy of Judge Baronet's. Now I know how Mrs. Whately is +circumstanced. She is peculiarly situated, and it seems foolish to even +repeat such gossip about this young man, this very young man, Philip." + +The minister smiled upon the group serenely. He knew the life-purpose of +every member of it, and he could have said, as Kipling wrote of the +Hindoo people: + + I have eaten your bread and salt, + I have drunk your water and wine; + The deaths ye died I have watched beside, + And the lives ye led were mine. + +"I never saw a finer young man and woman in my life," he said gently. "I +know nothing of their intentions--as yet. They haven't been to me," his +eyes twinkled, "but they are good to look upon when they stand up +together. Our opinions, however, will cut little figure in their +affairs. Heaven bless them and all the boys and girls! How soon they +grow to be men and women." + +The good man made his purchase and left the store. + +"But he's a young man, a very boy yet," Amos Judson insisted, unable to +hide his disappointment at the minister's answer. + +The very boy himself walked in at that instant. Judson turned a scowling +face at O'mie, who was chuckling among the calicoes, and frowned upon +the group as if to ward off any further talk. I nodded good-morning and +went to O'mie. + +"Aunt Candace wants some Jane P. Coats's thread, number 50 white, two +spools." + +"That's J. & P. Coats, young man." Judson spoke more sharply than he +need to have done. "Goin' East to school doesn't always finish a boy; +size an' learnin' don't count," and he giggled. + +I was whistling softly, "Oh, for a Closer Walk with God," and I turned +and smiled down on the little man. I was head and shoulders above him. + +"No, not always. I can still learn," I replied good-naturedly, and went +whistling on my way to the courthouse. + +I was in a good humor with all the world that morning. Out on "Rockport" +in the purple twilight of the Sabbath evening I had slipped my mother's +ring on Marjie's finger. I was on my way now for a long talk with my +father. I was twenty-one, a man in years, as I had been in spirit since +the night the town was threatened by the Rebel raiders--aye, even since +the day Irving Whately begged me to take care of Marjie. I had no time +to quarrel with the little widower. + +"He's got the best of you, Judson," Cam declared. "No use to come, +second hand, fur a girl like that when a handsome young feller like Phil +Baronet, who's run things his own way in this town sence he was a little +feller, 's got the inside track. Why, the young folks, agged on by some +older ones, 'ud jist natcherly mob anybody that 'ud git in Phil's way of +whatever he wanted. Take my word, if he wants Marjie he kin have her; +and likewise take it, he does want her." + +"An' then," Grandpa spoke with mock persuasion, "Amos, ye know ye've +been married oncet. An' ye're not so young an' ye're a leetle bald. D'ye +just notice Phil's hair, layin' in soft thick waves? Allers curled that +way sence he was a little feller." + +Amos Judson went into an explosive combustion. + +"I've treated my wife's memory and remains as good as a man ever did. +She's got the biggest stone in the cemet'ry, an' I've put a memorial +window in the church. An' what more could a man do? It's more than any +of you have done." Amos was too wrought up to reason. + +"Well, I acknowledge," said Cam, "I've ben a leetle slack about gittin' +a grave-stun up fur Dollie, seein' she's still livin', but I have +threatened her time an' agin to put a winder to her memory in the church +an' git her in shape to legalize it if she don't learn how to git me up +a good meal. Darned poor cook my wife is." + +"An' as for this boy," Judson broke in, not noticing Cam's joke, "as to +his looks," he stroked his slick light brown hair, "a little baldness +gives dignity, makes a man look like a man. Who'd want to have hair like +a girl's? But Mrs. Whately's too wise not to do well by her daughter. +She knows the value of a dollar, and a man makin' it himself." + +"Well, why not set your cap fur the widder? You'd make a good father to +her child, an' Phil would jest na'chelly be proud of you for a +daddy-in-law." This from the stage driver, Dever, who had caught the +spirit of the game in hand. "Anyhow you'd orter seen them two young +folks meet when he first got back home, out there where the crowd of 'em +helt up the stage. Well, sir, she was the last to say 'howdy do.' +Everybody was lookin' the other way then, 'cept me, and I didn't have +sense enough. Well, sir, he jist took her hand like somethin' he'd been +reachin' fur about two year, an' they looked into each other's eyes, +hungry like, an' a sort of joy such as any of us 'ud long to possess +come into them two young faces. I tell you, if you're goin' to gossip +jist turn it onto Judson er me, but let them two alone." + +Judson was too violently angry to be discreet. + +"It's all silly scand'lous foolishness, and I won't hear another word of +it," he shouted. + +Just as he spoke, Marjie herself came in. Judson stepped forward in an +officious effort to serve her, and unable to restrain himself, he called +out to O'mie, "Put four yards of towelling, twelve and a half cents a +yard, to Mrs. Whately's standing account." + +It was not the words that offended, so much as the tone, the proprietary +sound, the sense of obligation it seemed to put upon the purchaser, +unrelieved by his bland smile and attempt at humor in his after remark, +"We don't run accounts with everybody, but I guess we can trust you." + +It cut Marjie's spirit. A flush mounted to her cheeks, as she took her +purchase and hurried out of the door and plump into my father, who was +passing just then. + +Judge Baronet was a man of courtly manners. He gently caught Marjie's +arm to steady her. + +"Good-morning, Marjie. How is your mother to-day?" + +The little girl did not speak for a moment. Her eyes were full of tears. +Presently she said, "May I come up to your office pretty soon? I want +to ask you something--something of our business matters." + +"Yes, yes, come now," he replied, taking her bundle and putting himself +on the outer side of the walk. He had forgotten my appointment for the +moment. + +When they reached the courthouse he said: "Just run into my room there; +I've got to catch Sheriff Karr before he gets away." + +He opened the door of his private office, thrusting her gently inside, +and hurried away. I turned to meet my father, and there was Marjie. Tear +drops were on her long brown lashes, and her cheeks were flushed. + +"Why, my little girl!" I exclaimed in surprise as she started to hurry +away. + +"I didn't know you were in here; your father sent me in"--and then the +tears came in earnest. + +I couldn't stand for that. + +"What is it, Marjie?" I had put her in my father's chair and was bending +over her, my face dangerously near her cheek. + +"It's Amos Judson--Oh, Phil, I can't tell you. I was going to talk to +your father." + +"All right," I said gayly. "Ask papa. It's the proper thing. He must be +consulted, of course. But as to Judson, don't worry. O'mie promised me +just this morning to sew him up in a sack and throw him off the cliff +above the Hermit's Cave into the river. O'mie says it's safe; he's so +light he'll float." + +Marjie smiled through her tears. A noise in the outer office reminded us +that some one was there, and that the outer door was half ajar. Then my +father came in. His face was kindly impenetrable. + +"I had forgotten my son was here. Phil, take these papers over to the +county attorney's office. I'll call you later." He turned me out and +gave his attention to Marjie. + +I loafed about the outer office until she and my father came out. He led +her to the doorway and down the steps with a courtesy he never forgot +toward women. When we were alone in his private office I longed to ask +Marjie's errand, but I knew my father too well. + +"You wanted to see me, Phil?" He was seated opposite to me, his eyes +were looking steadily into mine, and clear beyond them down into my +soul. + +"Yes, Father," I replied; "I am a man now--twenty-one years and one day +over. And there are a few things, as a man, I want to know and to have +you know." + +He was sharpening a pencil carefully. "I'm listening," he said kindly. + +"Well, Father--" I hesitated. It was so much harder to say than I had +thought it would be. I toyed with the tassel of the window cord +confusedly. "Father, you remember when you were twenty-one?" + +"Yes, my son, I was just out of Harvard. And like you I had a father to +whom I went to tell him I was in love, just as you are. When your own +son comes to you some day, help him a little." + +I felt a weight lifted from my mind. It was good of him to open the way. + +"Father, I have never seen any other girl like Marjie." + +"No, there isn't any--for you. But how about her?" + +"I think, I know she--does care. I think--" I was making poor work of it +after all his help. "Well, she said she did, anyhow." I blurted out +defiantly. + +"The court accepts the evidence," he remarked, and then more seriously +he went on: "My son, I am happy in your joy. I may have been a little +slow. There was much harmless coupling of her name with young +Tillhurst's while you were away. I did not give it much thought. +Letters from Rockport were also giving you and Rachel Melrose some +consideration. Rachel is an only child and pretty well fixed +financially." + +"Oh, Father, I never gave her two thoughts." + +"So the letters intimated, but added that the Melrose blood is +persistent, and that Rachel's mother was especially willing. She is of a +good family, old friends of Candace's and mine. She will have money in +her own right, is handsome and well educated. I thought you might be +satisfied there." + +"But I don't care for her money nor anybody else's. Nobody but Marjie +will ever suit me," I cried. + +"So I saw when I looked at you two in church yesterday. It was a +revelation, I admit; but I took in the situation at once." And then more +affectionately he added: "I was very proud of you, Phil. You and Marjie +made a picture I shall keep. When you want my blessing, I have part of +it in the strong box in my safe. All I have of worldly goods will be +yours, Phil, if you do it no dishonor; and as to my good-will, my son, +you are my wife's child, my one priceless treasure. When by your own +efforts you can maintain a home, nor feel yourself dependent, then bring +a bride to me. I shall do all I can to give you an opportunity. I hope +you will not wait long. When Irving Whately lay dying at Chattanooga he +told me his hopes for Marjie and you. But he charged me not to tell you +until you should of your own accord come to me. You have his blessing, +too." + +How good he was to me! His hand grasped mine. + +"Phil, let me say one thing; don't ever get too old to consult your +father. It may save some losses and misunderstandings and heart-aches. +And now, what else?" + +"Father, when O'mie seemed to be dying, Le Claire told me something of +his story one evening. He said you knew it." + +My father looked grave. + +"How does this concern you, Phil?" + +"Only in this. I promised Le Claire I would see that O'mie's case was +cared for if he lived and you never came back," I replied. "He is of age +now, and if he knows his rights he does not use them." + +"Have you talked to O'mie of this?" he asked quickly. + +"No, sir; I promised not to speak of it." + +"Phil, did Le Claire suggest any property?" + +"No, sir. Is there any?" + +My father smiled. "You have a lawyer's nose," he said, "but fortunately +you can keep a still tongue. I'm taking care of O'mie's case right now. +By the way," he went on after a short pause. "I sent you out on an +errand Saturday. That's another difficult case, a land claim I'm trying +to prove for a party. There are two claimants. Tell Mapleson is the +counsel for the other one. It's a really dangerous case in some ways. +You were to go and spy out the land. What did you see? Anything except a +pretty girl?" My face was burning. "Oh, I understand. You found a place +out there to stand, and now you think you can move the world." + +"I found something I want to speak of besides. Oh, well--I'm not ashamed +of caring for Marjie." + +"No, no, my boy. You are right. You found the best thing in the world. I +found it myself once, by a moonlit sea, not on the summer prairie; but +it is the same eternal blessing. Now go on." + +"Well, father, you said the place was uninhabited. But it isn't. +Somebody is about there now." + +"Did you see any one, or is it just a wayside camp for movers going out +on the trail?" + +"I am not sure that I saw any one, and yet--" + +"Tell me all you know, and all you suspect, and why you have +conclusions," he said gravely. + +"I caught just a glimpse, a mere flirt of a red blanket with a white +centre, the kind Jean Pahusca used to wear. It was between the corner of +the house and the hazel-brush thicket, as if some one were making for +the timber." + +"Did you follow it?" + +"N--no, I could hardly say I saw anything; but thinking about it +afterwards, I am sure somebody was getting out of sight." + +"I see." My father looked straight at me. I knew his mind, and I blushed +and pulled at the tassel of the window cord. "Be careful. The county has +to pay for curtain fixtures. What else?" + +"Well, inside the cabin there were fresh ashes and a half-burned stick +on the hearth. By a chair under the table I picked this up." I handed +him the bow of purple ribbon with the flashing pin. + +"It must be movers, and as to that red flash of color, are you real sure +it was not just a part of the rose-hued world out there?" He smiled as +he spoke. + +"Father, that bow was on Lettie Conlow's head not an hour before it was +lost out there. She found out where we were going, and she put out +northwest on Tell Mapleson's pony. She may have taken the river path. It +is the shortest way. Why should she go out there?" + +"Do some thinking for yourself. You are a man now, twenty-one, and one +day over. You can unravel this part." He sat with impenetrable face, +waiting for me to speak. + +"I do not know. Lettie Conlow has always been silly about--about the +boys. All the young folks say she likes me, has always liked me." + +"How much cause have you given her? Be sure your memory is clear." My +father spoke sternly. + +"Father," I stood before him now, "I am a man, as you say, and I have +come up through a boyhood no better nor worse than the other boys whom +you know here. We were a pretty decent gang even before you went away to +the War. After that we had to be men. But all these years, Father, there +has been only one girl for me. I never gave Lettie Conlow a ghost of a +reason for thinking I cared for her. But she is old Conlow's own child, +and she has a bitter, jealous nature." + +"Well, what took her to the--to the old cabin out there?" + +"I do not know. She may have been hidden out there to spy what we--I was +doing." + +"Did she have on a red blanket too, Saturday afternoon?" + +"Well, now I wonder--." My mind was in a whirl. Could she be in league +against me? What did it mean? I sat down to think. + +"Father, there's something I've never yet understood about this town," I +burst out impetuously. "If it is to have anything to do with my future I +ought to know it. Father Le Claire would tell me only half his story. +You know more of O'mie than you will tell me. And here is a jealous girl +whose father consented to give Marjie to a brutal Indian out of hatred +for her father; and it is his daughter who trails me over the prairie +because I am with Marjie. Why not tell me now what you know?" + +My father sat looking thoughtfully at me. At last he spoke. + +"I know nothing of girls' love affairs and jealousies," he said; "pass +that now. I am O'mie's attorney and am trying to adjust his claims for +him as I can discover them. I cannot get hold of the case myself as I +should like. If Le Claire were here I might find out something." + +"Or nothing," I broke in. "It would depend on circumstances." + +"You are right. He has never told me all he knows, but I know much +without his telling." + +"Do you know how Jean Pahusca came to carry a knife for years with the +name, 'Jean Le Claire,' cut in the blade? Do you know why the half-breed +and the priest came to look so much alike, same square-cut forehead, +same build, same gait, same proud way of throwing back the head? You've +only to look at them to see all this, except that with a little +imagination the priest's face would fit a saint and Jean's is a very +devil's countenance." + +"I do not know the exact answer to any of these questions. They are +points for us to work out together now you are a man. Jean is in some +way bound to Le Claire. If by blood ties, why does the priest not own, +or entirely disown him? If not, why does the priest protect him? + +"In some way, too, both are concerned with O'mie. Le Claire is eager to +protect the Irishman. I do not know where Jean is, but I believe +sometimes he is here in concealment. He and Tell Mapleson are +counselling together. I think he furnishes Tell with some booty, for +Tell is inordinately prosperous. I look at this from a lawyer's place. +You have grown up with the crowd here, and you see as a young man from +the social side, where personal motives count for much. Together we must +get this thing unravelled; and it may be in doing it some love matters +and some church matters may get mixed and need straightening. You must +keep me informed of every thing you know." He paused a moment, then +added: "I am glad you have let me know how it is with you, Phil. In your +life I can live my own again. Children do so bless us. Be happy in your +love, my boy. But be manly, too. There are some hard climbs before you +yet. Learn to bear and wait. Yours is an open sunlit way to-day. If the +shadows creep across it, be strong. They will lift again. Run home now +and tell Aunt Candace I'll be home at one o'clock. Tell her what you +have told me, too. She will be glad to know it." + +"She does know it; she has known it ever since the night we came into +Springvale in 1854." + +My father turned to the door. Then he put his arms about me and kissed +my forehead. "You have your mother's face, Phil." How full of tenderness +his tones were! + +In the office I saw Judson moving restlessly before the windows. He had +been waiting there for some time, and he frowned on me as I passed him. +He was a man of small calibre. His one gift was that of money-getting. + +By the careful management of the Whately store in the owner's absence he +began to add to his own bank account. With the death of Mr. Whately he +had assumed control, refusing to allow any investigation of affairs +until, to put it briefly, he was now in entire possession. Poor Mrs. +Whately hardly knew what was her own, while her husband's former clerk +waxed pompous and well-to-do. Being a vain man, he thought the best +should come to him in social affairs, and being a man of medium +intellect, he lacked self-control and tact. + +This was the nature of the creature who strode into Judge Baronet's +private office, slamming the door behind him and presenting himself +unannounced. The windows front the street leading down to where the +trail crossed the river, and give a view of the glistening Neosho +winding down the valley. My father was standing by one of these windows +when Judson fired himself into the room. John Baronet's mind was not on +Springvale, nor on the river. His thoughts were of his son and of her +who had borne him, the sweet-browed woman whose image was in the +sacredest shrine of his heart. + +Judson's advent was ill-timed, and his excessive lack of tact made the +matter worse. + +"Mr. Baronet," he began pompously enough, "I must see you on a very +grave matter, very grave indeed." + +Judge Baronet gave him a chair and sat down across the table from him to +listen. Judson had grated harshly on his mood, but he was a man of +poise. + +"I'll be brief and blunt. That's what you lawyers want, ain't it?" The +little man giggled. "But I must advise this step at once as a necessary, +a very necessary one." + +My father waited. Judson hadn't the penetration to feel embarrassed. + +"You see it's like this. If you'll just keep still a minute I can show +you, though I ain't no lawyer; I'm a man of affairs, a commercialist, as +you would say. A producer maybe is a better term. In short, I'm a +money-maker." + +My father smiled. "I see," he remarked. "I'll keep still. Go on." + +"Well, now, I'm a widower that has provided handsome for my first wife's +remains. I've earned and paid for the right to forget her." + +The great broad-shouldered, broad-minded man before the little boaster +looked down to hide his contempt. + +"I've did my part handsome now, you'll admit; and being alone in the +world, with no one to enjoy my prosperity with me, I'm lonesome. That's +it, I'm lonesome. Ain't you sometimes?" + +"Often," my father replied. + +"Now I know'd it. We're in the same boat barring a great difference in +ages. Why, hang it, Judge, let's get married!" He giggled explosively +and so failed to see the stern face of the man before him. + +"I want a young woman, a pretty girl, I've a right to a pretty girl, I +think. In fact, I want Marjory Whately. And what's more, I'm going to +have her. I've all but got the widder's consent now. She's under +considerable obligation to me." + +Across John Baronet's mind there swept a picture of the Chattanooga +battle field. The roar of cannon, the smoke of rifles, the awful charge +on charge, around him. And in the very heart of it all, Irving Whately +wounded unto death, his hands grasping the Springvale flag, his voice +growing faint. + +"You will look after them, John? Phil promised to take care of Marjie. +It makes this easier. I believe they will love each other, John. I hope +they may. When they do, give them my blessing. Good-bye." Across this +vision Judson's thin sharp voice was pouring out words. + +"Now, Baronet, you see, to be plain, it's just this way. If I marry +Marjory, folks'll say I'm doing it to get control of the widder's stock. +It's small; but they'll say it." + +"Why should it be small?" My father's voice was penetrating as a +knife-thrust. Judson staggered at it a little. + +"Business, you know, management you couldn't understand. She's no hand +at money matters." + +"So it seems," my father said dryly. + +"But you'd not understand it. To resume. Folks'll say I'm trying to get +the whole thing, when all I really want is the girl, the girl now. +She'll not have much at best; and divided between her and her mother, +there'll be little left for Mrs. Whately to go on livin' on, with Mrs. +Judson's share taken out. Now, here's my point precisely, precisely. You +take the widder yourself. You need a wife, and Mrs. Whately's still +good-looking most ways. She was always a pretty, winsome-faced woman. + +"You've got a plenty and getting more all the time. You could provide +handsome for her the rest of her life. You'd enjoy a second wife, an' +she'd be out of my way. You see it, don't you? I'll marry Marjie, an' +you marry her mother, kind of double wedding. Whew! but we'd make a fine +couple of grooms. What's in gray hair and baldness, anyhow? But there's +one thing I can't stand for. Gossip has begun to couple the name of your +boy with Miss Whately. Now he's just a very boy, only a year or two +older'n she, and nowise able to take care of her properly, you'll admit; +and it's silly. Besides, Conlow was telling me just an hour or more ago, +that Phil and Lettie was old-time sweethearts. I've nothing to do with +Phil's puppy love, however. I'm here to advise with you. Shall we clinch +the bargain now, or do you want to think about it a little while? But +don't take long. It's a little sudden maybe to you. It's been on my mind +since the day I got that memorial window in an' Marjory sang 'Lead +Kindly Light,' standing there in the light of it. It was a service for +my first wife sung by her that was to be my second, you might almost +say. Dr. Hemingway talked beautiful, too, just beautiful. But I've got +to go. Business don't bother you lawyers,"--he was growing very familiar +now,--"but us merchants has to keep a sharp eye to time. When shall I +call?" He rose briskly. "When shall I call?" he repeated. + +My father rose up to his full height. His hands were clasped hard behind +his back. He did not lift his eyes to the expectant creature before him, +and the foxy little widower did not dream how near to danger he was. +With the self-control that was a part of John Baronet's character, he +replied in an even voice: + +"You will come when I send for you." + +That evening my father told me all that had taken place. + +"You are a man now, and must stand up against this miserable cur. But +you must proceed carefully. No hot-headed foolishness will do. He will +misjudge your motives and mine, and he can plant some ugly seeds along +your way. Property is his god. He is daily defrauding the defenceless to +secure it. When I move against him it will be made to appear that I do +it for your sake. Put yourself into the place where, of your own +wage-earning power, you can keep a wife in comfort, not luxury yet. That +will come later, maybe. And then I'll hang this dog with a rope of his +own braiding. But I'll wait for that until you come fully into a man's +estate, with the power to protect what you love." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE TOPEKA RALLY + + And men may say what things they please, and none dare stay their tongue. + But who has spoken out for these--the women and the young? + + --KIPLING. + + +Henceforth I had one controlling purpose. Mine was now the task to prove +myself a man with power to create and defend the little kingdom whose +throne is builded on the hearthstone. I put into my work all the energy +of my youth and love and hope. + +I applied myself to the study of law, and I took hold of my father's +business interests with a will. I was to enter into a partnership with +him when I could do a partner's work. He forebore favors, but he gave me +opportunity to prove myself. Stories of favoritism on account of my +father's position, of my wasteful and luxurious habits, ludicrous enough +in a little Kansas town in the sixties, were peddled about by the +restless little widower. By my father's advice I let him alone and went +my way. I knew that silently and persistently John Baronet was trailing +him. And I knew the cause was a righteous one. I had lived too long in +the Baronet family to think the head of it would take time to follow +after a personal dislike, or pursue a petty purpose. + +There may have been many happy lovers on these sunny prairies that +idyllic summer, now forty years gone by. The story of each, though like +that of all the others, seems best to him who lived it. Marjie and I +were going through commonplace days, but we were very happy with the joy +of life and love. Our old playground was now our trysting place. +Together on our "Rockport" we planned a future wherein there were no +ugly shadows. + +"Marjie, I'll always keep 'Rockport' for my shrine now," I said to her +one evening as we were watching the sunset lights on the prairie and the +river upstream. "If you ever hear me say I don't care for 'Rockport,' +you will know I do not care for you. Now, think of that!" + +"Don't ever say it, Phil, please, if you can help it." Marjie's mood was +more serious than mine just then. "I used to be afraid of Indians. I am +still, if there were need to be, and I looked to you always somehow to +keep them away. Do you remember how I would always get on your side of +the game when Jean Pahusca played with us?" + +"Yes, Marjie. That's where you belong--on my side. That's the kind of +game I'm playing." + +"Phil, I am troubled a little with another game. I wish Amos Judson +would stay away from our house. He can make mother believe almost +anything. I don't feel safe about some matters. Judge Baronet tells me +not to worry, that he will keep close watch." + +"Well, take it straight from me that he will do it," I assured her. +"Let's let the widower go his way. He talks about me; says I'm 'callow, +that's it, just callow.' I don't mind being callow, as long as it's not +catching. Look at the river, how it glistens now. We can almost see the +shallows up by the stone cabin below the big cottonwood. The old tree is +shapely, isn't it?" + +We were looking upstream to where the huge old tree stood out against +the golden horizon. + +"Let's buy that land, Phil, and build a house under the big cottonwood +some day." + +"All right, I'm to go out there again soon. Will you go too?" + +"Of course," Marjie assented, "if you want me to." + +"I am sure I'd never want to take any other girl out there, but just +you, dear," I declared. + +And then we talked of other things, and promised to put our letters next +day, into the deep crevice we had called our post-office these many +years. Before we parted that night, I said: + +"I'm thinking of going up to Topeka when the band goes to the big +political speaking, next week. I will write to you. And be sure to let +me find a letter in 'Rockport' when I get back. I'll be so lonely up +there." + +"Well, find some pretty girl and let her kill time for you." + +"Will you and Judson kill time down here?" + +"Ugh! no," Marjie shivered in disgust. "I can't bear the sight of his +face any more." + +"Good! I'll not try to be any more miserable by being bored with +somebody I don't care for at Topeka. But don't forget the letter. +Good-night, little sweetheart," and after the fashion of lovers, I said +good-bye. + +Kansas is essentially a land of young politicians. When O'mie took his +band to the capital city to play martial music for the big political +rally, there were more young men than gray beards on the speakers' stand +and on the front seats. I had gone with the Springvale crowd on this +jaunt, but I did not consider myself a person of importance. + +"There's Judge Baronet's son; he's just out of Harvard. He's got big +influence with the party down his way. His father always runs away ahead +of his ticket and has the whole district about as he wants it. That's +the boy that saved Springvale one night when the pro-slavery crowd was +goin' to burn it, the year of the Quantrill raid." + +So, I heard myself exploited in the hotel lobby of the old Teft House. + +"What's Tell Mapleson after this year, d'ye reckon? Come in a week ago. +He's the doggondest feller to be after somethin', an' gets it, too, +somehow." The speaker was a seasoned politician of the hotel lobby +variety. + +"Oh, he's got a big suit of some kind back East. It's a case of money +bein' left to heirs, and he's looking out that the heirs don't get it." + +"Ain't it awful about the Saline country?" a bystander broke in here. +"Just awful! Saw a man from out there last night by the name of Morton. +He said that them Cheyennes are raidin' an' murderin' all that can't get +into the towns. Lord pity the unprotected settlers way out in that +lonely country. This man said they just killed the little children +before their mothers' eyes, after they'd scalped and tomahawked the +fathers. Just beat them to death, and then carried off the women. Oh, +God! but it's awful." + +Awful! I lived through the hours of that night from the time young Tell +Mapleson had told of Jean Pahusca's plan to seize Marjie, to the moment +when I saw her safe in the shelter of her mother's doorway. Awful! And +this sort of thing was going on now in the Saline Valley. How could God +permit it? + +"There was one family out there, they got the mother and baby and just +butchered the other children right before her eyes. They hung the baby +to a tree later, and when they got ready they killed its mother. It was +the only merciful thing they done, I guess, in all their raid, for they +made her die a thousand deaths before they really cut off her poor +pitiful life." + +So I heard the talk running on, and I wondered at the bluff committeeman +who broke up the group to get the men in line for a factional caucus. + +Did the election of a party favorite, the nomination of a man whose turn +had come, or who would be favorable to "our crowd" in his appointments +match in importance this terrible menace to life on our Indian frontier? +I had heard much of the Saline and the Solomon River valleys. Union +soldiers were homesteading those open plains. My father's +comrades-in-arms they had been, and he was intensely interested in their +welfare. These Union men had wounds still unhealed from service in the +Civil War. And the nation they bore these wounds to save, the Government +at Washington, was ignorant or indifferent to this danger that +threatened them hourly--a danger infinitely worse than death to women. +And the State in the vital throes of a biennial election was treating +the whole affair as a deplorable incident truly, but one the national +government must look out for. + +I was young and enthusiastic, but utterly without political ambition. I +was only recently out of college, with a scholar's ideals of civic duty. +And with all these, I had behind me the years of a frontier life on the +border, in which years my experience and inspiration had taught me the +value of the American home, and a strong man's duty toward the weak and +defenceless. The memories of my mother, the association and training of +my father's sister, and my love for Marjie made all women sacred to me. +And while these feelings that stirred the finest fibres of my being, and +of which I never spoke then, may have been the mark of a less practical +nature than most young men have to-day, I account my life stronger, +cleaner and purer for having had them. + +I could take only a perfunctory interest in the political game about me, +and I felt little elation at the courteous request that I should take a +seat in the speakers' stand, when the clans did finally gather for a +grand struggle for place. + +The meeting opened with O'mie's band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner." +It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platform +stood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous, +least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too, +I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party's +virtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearers +extolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of the +hour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State's +most pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through it +all my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the Saline +Valley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now in +the cruel slavery of Indian captivity. + +I knew only a few people in the capital city and I looked at the +audience with the indifference of a stranger who seeks for no familiar +face. And yet, subconsciously, I felt the presence of some one who was +watching me, some one who knew me well. Presently the master of +ceremonies called for the gifted educator, Richard Tillhurst of +Springvale. I knew he was in Topeka, but I had not hunted for him any +more than he had sought me out. We mutually didn't need each other. And +yet local pride is strong, and I led the hand-clapping that greeted his +appearance. He was visibly embarrassed, and ultra-dignified. Education +had a representative above reproach in him. Pompously, after the manner +of the circumscribed instructor, he began, and for a limited time the +travelling was easy. But he made the fatal error of keeping on his feet +after his ideas were exhausted. He lost the trail and wandered aimlessly +in the barren, trackless realms of thought, seeking relief and finding +none, until at length in sheer embarrassment he forced himself to +retreat to his seat. Little enthusiasm was expressed and failure was +written all over his banner. + +The next speaker was a politician of the rip-roaring variety who pounded +the table and howled his enthusiasm, whose logic was all expressed in +the short-story form, sometimes witty, sometimes far-fetched and often +profane. He interested me least of all, and my mind abstracted by the +Tillhurst feature went back again to the Plains. I could not realize +what was going on when the politician had finished amid uproarious +applause, and the chairman was introducing the next speaker, until I +caught my father's name, coupled with lavish praise of his merits. There +was a graceful folding of his mantle on the shoulders of "his gifted +son, just out of Harvard, but a true child of Kansas, with a record for +heroism in the war time, and a growing prominence in his district, and +an altogether good-headed, good-hearted, and, the ladies all agree, +good-looking young man, the handsome giant of the Neosho." And I found +myself thrust to the front of the speakers' stand, with applause +following itself, and O'mie, the mischievous rascal, striking off a few +bars of "See, the Conquering Hero Comes!" + +I was taken so completely by surprise that I thought the earth +especially unkind not to open at once and let me in. It must have been +something of my inheritance of my father's self-control, coupled with my +life experience of having to meet emergencies quickly, which all the +children of Springvale knew, that pulled me through. The prolonged +cheering gave me a moment to get the mastery. Then like an inspiration +came the thought to break away from the beaten path of local politics +and to launch forth into a plea for larger political ideals. I cited the +Civil War as a crucible, testing men. I did not once mention my father, +but the company knew his proud record, and there were many present who +had fought and marched and starved and bled beside him, men whom his +genius and his kindness had saved from peril, even the peril of death. +And then out of the fulness of a heart that had suffered, I pled for the +lives and homes of the settlers on our Plains frontier. I pictured, for +I knew how to picture, the anguish of soul an Indian raid can leave in +its wake, and the duty we owe to the homes, our high privilege as strong +men and guardians to care for the defenceless, and our opportunity to +repay a part at least of the debt we owe to the Union soldier by giving +a State's defence to these men, who were homesteading our hitherto +unbroken, trackless plains, and building empire westward toward the +baths of sunset. + +The effort was so boyish, so unlike every other speech that had been +made, and yet so full of a young man's honest zeal and profound +convictions from a soul stirred to its very depths, that the audience +rose to their feet at my closing words, and cheer followed cheer, making +the air ring with sound. + +When the meeting had finished, I found myself in the centre of a group +of men who knew John Baronet and just wouldn't let his son get away +without a handshake. I was flushed with the pleasure of such a reception +and was doing my best to act well, when a man grasped my hand with a +grip unlike any other hand I had ever felt, so firm, so full of +friendship, and yet so undemonstrative, that I instinctively returned +the clasp. He was a man of some thirty years, small beside me, and there +was nothing unusual in his face or dress or manner to attract my +attention. A stranger might not turn to him a second time in a crowd, +unless they had once spoken and clasped hands. + +"My name is Morton," he said. "I know your father, I knew him in the +army and before, back in Massachusetts. I am from the Saline River +country, and I came down here hoping to find the State more interested +in the conditions out our way. You were the only speaker who thought of +the needs of the settlers. There are terrible things being done right +now." + +He spoke so simply that a careless ear would not have detected the +strength of the feeling back of the words. + +"I'll tell my father I met you," I said cordially, "and I hope, I hope +to heaven the captives may be found soon, and the Indians punished. How +can a man live who has lost his wife, or his sweetheart, in that way?" + +I knew I was blushing, but the matter was so terrible to me. Before he +could answer, Richard Tillhurst pushed through the crowd and caught my +arm. + +"There's an old friend of yours here, who wants to meet you, Mr. +Baronet," and he pulled me away. + +"I hope I'll see you again," I turned to Mr. Morton to say, and in a +moment more, I was face to face with Rachel Melrose. It was she whose +presence I had somehow felt in that crowd of strangers. She was +handsomer even than I had remembered her, and she had a style of dress +new and attractive. One would know that she was fresh from the East, for +our own girls and women for the most part had many things to consider +besides the latest fashions. + +I think Tillhurst mistook my surprise for confusion. He was a man of +good principles, but he was a human being, not a saint, and he pursued a +purpose selfishly as most of us who are human do. + +The young lady grasped my hand in both of hers impulsively. + +"Oh, Mr. Baronet, I'm so glad to see you again. I knew you would come to +Topeka as soon as you knew I had come West. I just got here two days +ago, and I could hardly wait until you came. It's just like old times to +see you again." + +Then she turned to Tillhurst, standing there greedily taking in every +word, his face beaming as one's face may who finds an obstacle suddenly +lifted from his way. + +"We are old friends, the best kind of friends, Mr. Tillhurst. Mr. +Baronet and I have recollections of two delightful years when he was in +Harvard, haven't we?" + +"Yes, yes," I replied. "Miss Melrose was the only girl who would listen +to my praising Kansas while I was in Massachusetts. Naturally I found +her delightful company." + +"Did he tell you about his girl here?" Tillhurst asked, a trifle +maliciously, maybe. + +"Of course, I didn't," I broke in. "We don't tell all we know when we go +East." + +"Nor all you have done in the East when you come back home, evidently," +Tillhurst spoke significantly. "I've never heard him mention your name +once, Miss Melrose." + +"Has he been flirting with some one, Mr. Tillhurst? He promised me +faithfully he wouldn't." Her tone took on a disappointed note. + +"I'll promise anybody not to flirt, for I don't do it," I cried. "I came +home and found this young educator trying to do me mischief with the +little girl I told you about the last time I saw you. Naturally he +doesn't like me." + +All this in a joking manner, and yet a vein of seriousness ran through +it somewhere. + +Rachel Melrose was adroit. + +"We won't quarrel," she said sweetly, "now we do meet again, and when I +go down to Springvale to visit your aunt, as you insisted I must do, +we'll get all this straightened out. You'll come and take tea with us of +course. Mr. Tillhurst has promised to come, too." + +The young man looked curiously at me at the mention of Rachel's visit to +Springvale. A group of politicians broke in just here. + +"We can't have you monopolize 'the handsome giant of the Neosho' all the +time," they said, laughing, with many a compliment to the charming young +monopolist. "We don't blame him, of course, now, but we need him badly. +Come, Baronet," and they hurried me away, giving me time only to thank +her for the invitation to dine with her. + +At the Teft House letters were waiting for me. One from my father asking +me to visit Governor Crawford and take a personal message of some +importance to him, with the injunction, "Stay till you do see him." The +other was a fat little envelope inscribed in Marjie's handwriting. +Inside were only flowers, the red blossoms that grow on the vines in the +crevices of our "Rockport," and a sheet of note paper about them with +the simple message: + +"Always and always yours, Marjie." + +Willing or unwilling, I found myself in the thick of the political +turmoil, and had it not been for that Indian raiding in Northwest +Kansas, I should have plunged into politics then and there, so strong a +temptation it is to control men, if opportunity offers. It was late +before I could get out of the council and rush to my room to write a +hurried but loving letter to Marjie. I had to be brief to get it into +the mails. So I wrote only of what was first in my thoughts; herself, +and my longing to see her, of the noisy political strife, and of the +Saline River and Solomon River outrages, I hurried this letter to the +outgoing stage and fell in with the crowd gathering late in the +dining-room. I was half way through my meal before I remembered Rachel's +invitation. + +"I can only be rude to her, it seems, but I'll offer my excuses, and +maybe she will let me have the honor of her company home. She will hunt +me up before I get out of the hall, I am sure." So I satisfied myself +and prepared for the evening gathering. + +It was much on the order of the other meeting, except that only seasoned +party leaders were given place on the programme. + +I asked Rachel for her company home, but she laughingly refused me. + +"I must punish you," she said. "When do you go home?" + +"Not for two days," I replied. "I have business for my father and the +person I am to see is called out of town." + +"Then there will be plenty of time later for you. You go home to-morrow, +Mr. Tillhurst," she said coquettishly. "Tell his friends in Springvale, +he is busy up here." She was a pretty girl, but slow as I was, I began +to see method in her manner of procedure. I could not be rude to her, +but I resolved then not to go one step beyond the demands of actual +courtesy. + +In the crowd passing up to the hotel that night, I fell into step with +my father's soldier friend, Morton. + +"When you get ready to leave Springvale, come out and take a claim on +the Saline," he said. "That will be a garden of Eden some day." + +"It seems to have its serpent already, Mr. Morton," I replied. + +"Well, the serpent can be crushed. Come out and help us do it. We need +numbers, especially in men of endurance." We were at the hotel door. +Morton bade me good-bye by saying, "Don't forget; come our way when you +get the Western fever." + +Governor Crawford returned too late for me to catch the stage for +Springvale on the same day. Having a night more to spend in the capital, +it seemed proper for me to make amends for my unpardonable forgetfulness +of Rachel Melrose's invitation to tea by calling on her in the evening. +Her aunt's home was at the far side of the town beyond the modest square +stone building that was called Lincoln College then. It was only a +stone's throw from the State Capitol, the walls of the east wing of +which were then being built. + +I remember it was a beautiful moonlit night, in early August, and Rachel +asked me to take a stroll over the prairie to the southwest. The day had +been very hot, and the west had piled up some threatening thunderheads. +But the evening breezes fanned them away over the far horizon line and +the warm night air was light and dry. The sky was white with the clear +luminous moonlight of the open Plains country. + +Rachel and I had wandered idly along the gentle rise of ground until we +could quite overlook the little treeless town with this Lincoln College +and the jagged portion of the State House wing gleaming up beyond. + +"Hadn't we better turn back now? Your aunt cautioned us two strangers +here not to get lost." I was only hinting my wishes. + +"Oh, let's go on to that tree. It's the only one here in this forsaken +country. Let's pay our respects to it," Rachel urged. + +She was right. To an Easterner's eye it was a forsaken country. From the +Shunganunga Creek winding beneath a burden of low, black underbrush, +northward to the river with its fringe of huge cottonwoods, not a tree +broke the line of vision save this one sturdy young locust spreading its +lacy foliage in dainty grace on the very summit of the gentle swell of +land between the two streams. Up to its pretty shadowed spaces we took +our way. The grass was dry and brown with the August heat, and we rested +awhile on the moonlit prairie. + +Rachel was strikingly handsome, and the soft light lent a certain tone +to her beauty. Her hair and eyes were very dark, and her face was clear +cut. There was a dash of boldness, an assumption of authority all +prettily accented with smiles and dimples that was very bewitching. She +was a subtle flatterer, and even the wisest men may be caught by that +bait. It was the undercurrent of sympathy, product of my life-long +ideals, my intense pity for the defenceless frontier, that divided my +mind and led me away from temptation that night. + +"Rachel Melrose, we must go home," I insisted at last. "This tree is all +right, but I could show you a cottonwood out above the Neosho that +dwarfs this puny locust. And yet this is a gritty sort of sapling to +stand up here and grow and grow. I wonder if ever the town will reach +out so far as this." + +I am told the tree is green and beautiful to-day, and that it is far +inside the city limits, standing on the old Huntoon road. About it are +substantial homes. South of it is a pretty park now, while near it on +the west is a handsome church, one of the city's lions to the stranger, +for here the world-renowned author of "In His Steps" has preached every +Sabbath for many years. But on that night it seemed far away from the +river and the town nestling beside it. + +"I'll go down and take a look at your cottonwood before I go home. May +I? You promised me last Spring." Rachel's voice was pleasant to hear. + +"Why, of course. Come on. Mr. Tillhurst will be there, I am sure, and +glad as I shall be to see you." + +"Oh, you rogue! always hunting for somebody else. I am not going to +loose you from your promise. Remember that you said you'd let everybody +else alone when I came. Now your Mr. Tillhurst can look after all the +girls you have been flirting with down there, but you are my friend. +Didn't we settle that in those days together at dear old Rockport? We'll +just have the happiest time together, you and I, and nobody shall +interfere to mar our pleasure." + +She was leaning toward me and her big dark eyes were full of feeling. I +stood up before her. "My dear friend," I took her hand and she rose to +her feet. "You have been very, very good to me. But I want to tell you +now before you come to Springvale"--she was close beside me, her hand on +my arm, gentle and trembling. I seemed like a brute to myself, but I +went on. "I want you to know that as my aunt's guest and mine, your +pleasure will be mine. But I am not a flirt, and I do not care to hide +from you the fact that my little Springvale girl is the light of my +life. You will understand why some claims are unbreakable. Now you know +this, let me say that it will be my delight to make your stay in the +West pleasant." She bowed her proud head on my arm and the tears fell +fast. "Oh, Rachel, I'm a beast, a coarse, crude Westerner. Forgive my +plain speech. I only wanted you to know." + +But she didn't want to know. She wanted me to quit saying anything to +her and her beautiful dark hair was almost against my cheek. Gently as I +could, I put her from me. Drawing her hand through my arm, I patted it +softly, and again I declared myself the bluntest of speakers. She only +wept the more, and asked me to take her to her aunt's. I was glad to do +it, and I bade her a humble good-bye at the door. She said not a word, +but the pressure of her hand had speech. It made me feel that I had +cruelly wronged her. + +As I started for town beyond the college, I shook my fist at that lone +locust tree. "You blamed old sapling! If you ever tell what you saw +to-night I hope you'll die by inches in a prairie fire." + +Then I hurried to my room and put in the hours of the night, wakeful and +angry at all the world, save my own Springvale and the dear little girl +so modest and true to me. The next day I left Topeka, hoping never to +see it again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +DEEPENING GLOOM + + A yellow moon in splendor drooping, + A tired queen with her state oppressed, + Low by rushes and sword-grass stooping, + Lies she soft on the waves at rest. + The desert heavens have felt her sadness; + The earth will weep her some dewy tears; + The wild beck ends her tune of gladness, + And goeth stilly, as soul that fears. + + --JEAN INGELOW. + + +The easiest mental act I ever performed was the act of forgetting the +existence of Rachel Melrose. Before the stage had reached the divide +beyond the Wakarusa on its southward journey, I was thinking only of +Springvale and of what would be written in the letter that I knew was +waiting for me in our "Rockport." Oh, I was a fond and foolish lover. I +was only twenty-one and Judson may have been right about my being +callow. But I was satisfied with myself, as youth and inexperience will +be. + +Travelling was slow in those rough-going times, and a breakdown on a +steep bit of road delayed us. Instead of reaching home at sunset, we did +not reach the ford of the Neosho until eight o'clock. As I went up Cliff +Street I turned by the bushes and slid down the rough stairway to the +ledge below "Rockport." I had passed under the broad, overhanging shelf +that made the old playground above, when I suddenly became aware of the +nearness of some one to me, the peculiar consciousness of the presence +of a human being. The place was in deep shadow, although the full moon +was sailing in glory over the prairies, as it had done above the lone +Topeka locust tree. My daily visits here had made each step familiar, +however. I was only a few feet from the cunningly hidden crevice that +had done post-office duty for Marjie and me in the days of our +childhood. Just beside it was a deep niche in the wall. Ordinarily I was +free and noisy enough in my movements, but to-night I dropped silently +into the niche as some one hurried by me, groping to find the way. +Instinctively I thought of Jean Pahusca, but Jean never blundered like +this. I had had cause enough to know his swift motion. And besides, he +had been away from Springvale so long that he was only a memory now. The +figure scrambled to the top rapidly. + +"I'll guess that's petticoats going up there," I said mentally, "but +who's hunting wild flowers out here alone this time of night? Somebody +just as curious about me as I am about her, no doubt. Maybe some girl +has a lover's haunt down that ledge. I'll have to find out. Can't let my +stairway out to the general climbing public." + +I was feeling for the letter in the crevice. + +"Well, Marjie has tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole +was so deep." + +I found my letter and hurried home. It was just a happy, loving message +written when I was away, and a tinge of loneliness was in it. But Marjie +was a cheery, wholesome-spirited lass always, and took in the world from +the sunny side. + +"There's a party down at Anderson's to-night, Phil," Aunt Candace +announced, when I was eating my late supper. "The boys sent word for +you to come over even if you did get home late. You are pretty tired, +aren't you?" + +"Never, if there's a party on the carpet," I answered gayly. + +I had nearly reached the Anderson home, and the noisy gayety of the +party was in my ears, when two persons met at the gate and went slowly +in together. + +It was Amos Judson and Lettie Conlow. + +"Well, of all the arrangements, now, that is the best," I exclaimed, as +I went in after them. + +Tillhurst was talking to Marjie, who did not see me enter. + +"Phil Baronet! 'The handsome young giant of the Neosho,'" O'mie shouted. +"Ladies and gentlemen: This is the very famous orator who got more +applause in Topeka this week than the very biggest man there. Oh, my +prophetic soul! but we were proud av him." + +"Well, I guess we were," somebody else chimed in. "Why didn't you come +home with the crowd, handsome giant?" + +"He was charmed by that pretty girl, an old sweetheart of his from +Massachusetts." Tillhurst was speaking. "You ought to have seen him with +her, couldn't even leave when the rest of us did." + +There was a sudden silence. Marjie was across the room from me, but I +could see her face turn white. My own face flamed, but I controlled +myself. And Bud, the blessed old tow-head, came to my rescue. + +"Good for you, Phil. Bet we've got one fellow to make a Bothton girl +open her eyeth even if Tillhurtht couldn't. He'th jutht jealouth. But we +all know Phil! Nobody'll ever doubt old Philip!" + +It took the edge off the embarrassment, and O'mie, who had sidled over +into Marjie's neighborhood, said in a low voice: + +"Tillhurst is a consummit liar, beautiful to look upon. That girl tagged +Phil. He couldn't get away an' be a gintleman." + +I did not know then what he was saying, but I saw her face bloom again. + +Later I had her alone a moment. We were eating water melon on the back +porch, half in the shadow, which we didn't mind, of course. + +"May I take you home, Marjie, and tell you how sweet that letter was?" I +asked. + +"Phil, I didn't know you were coming, and Richard Tillhurst asked me +just as you came in. I saw Amos Judson coming my way, so I made for the +nearest port." + +"And you did right, dearie," I said very softly; "but, Marjie, don't +forget you are my girl, my only girl, and I'll tell you all about this +Topeka business to-morrow night. No, I'll write you a letter to-night +when I go home. You'll find it at 'Rockport' to-morrow." + +She smiled up at me brightly, saying contentedly, "Oh, you are always +all right, Phil." + +As we trailed into the kitchen from the water melon feast, Lettie +Conlow's dress caught on a nail in the floor. I stooped to loose it, and +rasped my hand against a brier clinging to the floppy ruffle (Lettie was +much given to floppy things in dress), and behold, a sprig of little red +blossoms was sticking to the prickles. These blooms were the kind Marjie +had sent me in her letter to Topeka. They grew only in the crevices +about the cliff. It flashed into my mind instantly that it was Lettie +who had passed me down on that ledge. + +"I suppose I'll find her under my plate some morning when I go to +breakfast," I said to myself. "She is a trailer of the Plains. Why +should she be forever haunting my way, though?" + +Fate was against me that night. Judson was called from the party to open +the store. A messenger from Red Range had come posthaste for some +merchandise. We did not know until the next day that it was the burial +clothes for the beautiful young girl whose grave held Dave Mead's heart. + +Before Judson left, he came to me with Lettie. + +"Will you take this young lady home for me? I must go to the store at +once. Business before pleasure with me. That's it, business first. Very +sorry, Miss Lettie; Phil will see you safely home." + +I was in for the obligation. The Conlows lived four blocks beyond the +shop down toward the creek. The way was shadowy, and Lettie clung to my +arm. I was tired from my stage ride of a day and a half, and I had not +slept well for two nights. I distrusted Lettie, for I knew her +disposition as I knew her father's before her. + +"Phil, why do you hate me?" she asked at the gate. + +"I don't hate you, Lettie. You use an ugly word when you say 'hate,'" I +replied. + +"There's one person I do hate," she said bitterly. + +"Has he given you cause?" + +"It's not a man; it's a woman. It's Marjie Whately," she burst out. "I +hate her." + +"Well, Lettie, I'm sorry, for I don't believe Marjie deserves your +hate." + +"Of course, you'd say so. But never mind. Marjie's not going to have my +hate alone. You'll feel like I do yet, when her mother forces her away +from you. Marjie's just a putty ball in her mother's hands, and her +mother is crazy about Amos Judson. Oh, I've said too much," she +exclaimed. + +"You have, Lettie; but stop saying any more." I spoke sternly. +"Good-night." + +She did not return my greeting, and I heard her slam the door behind +her. + +That night, late as it was, I wrote a long letter to Marjie. I had no +pangs of jealousy, and I felt that she knew me too well to doubt my +faith, and yet I wanted just once more to assure her. When I had +finished, I went out softly and took my way down to "Rockport." It was +one of those glorious midsummer moonlit nights that have in their +subdued splendor something more regal than the most gorgeous midday. I +was thankful afterwards for the perfect beauty of that peaceful night, +with never a hint of the encroaching shadows, the deep gloom of sorrow +creeping toward me and my loved one. The town was sleeping quietly. The +Neosho was "chattering over stony ways," and whispering its midnight +melody. The wooded bottoms were black and glistening, and all the +prairies were a gleaming, silvery sea of glory. The peace of God was on +the world, the broad benediction of serenity and love. Oh, many a +picture have I in my memory's treasure house, that imperishable art +gallery of the soul. And among them all, this one last happy night with +its setting of Nature's grand handiwork stands clear evermore. + +I had put my letter safe in its place, deep where nobody but Marjie +would find it. I knew that if even the slightest doubt troubled her this +letter would lift it clean away. I told her of Rachel Melrose and of my +fear of her designing nature, a fear that grew, as I reflected on her +acts and words. I did not believe the young lady cared for me. It was a +selfish wish to take what belonged to somebody else. I assured my little +girl that only as a gentleman should be courteous, had been my courtesy +to Rachel. And then for the first time, I told Marjie of her father's +dying message. I had wanted her to love me for myself. I did not want +any sense of duty to her father's wishes to sway her. I knew now that +she did love me. And I closed the affectionate missive with the words: + + "To my father and Aunt Candace you are very dear. Your mother has + always been kind to me. I believe she likes me. But most of all, + Marjie, your father, who lies wrapped in the folds of that + Springvale flag, who gave his life to make safe and happy the land + we love and the home we hope to build, your father, sent us his + blessing. When the roar of cannon was changing for him to the chant + of seraphim, and the glare of the battle field was becoming 'a sea + of glass mingled with fire' that burst in splendor over the + jewelled walls and battlements of the New Jerusalem, even in that + moment, his last thought was of us two. 'I hope they will love each + other,' he said to my father. 'If they do, give them my blessing.' + And then the night shut down for him. But in the eternal day where + he waits our coming and loves us, Marjie, if he knows of what we do + here, he is blessing our love. + + "Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know + now and always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or + shadow-checkered paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other + than as I do now. You are life of my life. And so again, + good-night." + +I had climbed to the rock above the crevice and was standing still as +the night about me for the moment when a grip like steel suddenly closed +on my neck and an arm like the tentacle of a devilfish slid round my +waist. Then the swift adroitness of knee and shoulder bent me backward +almost off my feet. I gave a great wrench, and with a power equal to my +assailant, struggled with him. It was some moments before I caught sight +of his face. It was Jean Pahusca. I think my strength grew fourfold +with that glimpse. It was the first time in our lives that we had +matched muscle. He must have been the stronger of the two, but +discipline and temperate habits had given me endurance and judgment. It +was a life-and-death strife between us. He tried to drag me to the edge +of the rock. I strove to get him through the bushes into the street. At +length I gained the mastery and with my hand on his throat and my knee +on his chest I held him fast. + +"You miserable devil!" I muttered, "you have the wrong man. You think me +weak as O'mie, whose body you could bind. I have a mind to choke you +here, you murderer. I could do it and rid the world of you, now." He +struggled and I gave him air. There was something princely about him +even as he lay in my power. And, fiend as he was, he never lost the +spirit of a master. To me also, brute violence was repulsive now that +the advantage was all mine. + +"You deserve to die. Heaven is saving you for a fate you may well dread. +You would be in jail in ten minutes if you ever showed your face here in +the daylight, and hanged by the first jury whose verdict could be given. +I could save all that trouble now in a minute, but I don't want to be a +murderer like you. For the sake of my own hands and for the sake of the +man whose son I believe you to be, I'll spare your life to-night on one +condition!" + +I loosed my hold and stepped away from him. He rose with an effort, but +he could not stand at first. + +"Leave this country to-night, and never show your face here again. There +are friends of O'mie's sworn to shoot you on sight. Go now to your own +tribe and do it quickly." + +Slowly, like a promise made before high heaven, he answered me. + +"I will go, but I shall see you there. When we meet again, my hand will +have you by the throat. And--I don't care whose son you are." + +He slid down the cliff-side like a lizard, and was gone. I turned and +stumbled through the bushes full into Lettie Conlow crouching among +them. + +"Lettie, Lettie," I cried, "go home." + +"I won't unless you will come with me," she answered coaxingly. + +"I have taken you home once to-night," I said. "Now you may go alone or +stay here as you choose," and I left her. + +"You'll live to see the day you'll wish you hadn't said that," I heard +her mutter threateningly behind me. + +A gray mist had crept over the low-hanging moon. The world, so glorious +in its softened radiance half an hour ago, was dull and cheerless now. +And with a strange heartache and sense of impending evil I sought my +home. + +The next day was a busy one in the office. My father was deep in the +tangle of a legal case and more than usually grave. Early in the +afternoon, Cam Gentry had come into the courthouse, and the two had a +long conference. Toward evening he called me into his private office. + +"Phil, this land case is troubling me. I believe the papers we want are +in that old cabin. Could you go out again to-morrow?" He smiled now. "Go +and make a careful search of the premises. If there are any boxes, open +them. I will give you an order from Sheriff Karr. And Phil, I believe I +wouldn't take Marjie this time. I want to have a talk with her +to-morrow, anyhow. You can't monopolize all her time. I saw Mrs. Whately +just now and made an appointment with her for Marjie." + +When he spoke again, his words startled me. + +"Phil, when did you see Jean Pahusca last?" + +"Last night, no, this morning, about one o'clock," I answered +confusedly. + +My father swung around in his chair and stared at me. Then his face grew +stern, and I knew my safety lay in the whole truth. I learned that when +I was a boy. + +"Where was he?" The firing had begun. + +"On the point of rock by the bushes on Cliff Street." + +"What were you doing there?" + +"Looking at the moonlight on the river." + +"Did you see him first?" + +"No, or he would not have seen me." + +"Phil, save my time now. It's a matter of great importance to my +business. Also, it is serious with you. Begin at the party. Whose escort +were you?" + +"Lettie Conlow's." + +My father looked me straight in the eyes. I returned his gaze steadily. + +"Go on. Tell me everything." He spoke crisply. + +"I was late to the party. Tillhurst asked Marjie for her company just as +I went in. Judson was going her way, and she chose the lesser of +two--pleasures, we'll say. Just before the party broke up, Judson was +called out. He had asked Lettie for her company, and he shoved her over +to my tender mercies." + +"And you went strolling up on Cliff Street in the moonlight with her +till after midnight. Is that fair to Marjie?" I had never heard his +voice sound so like resonant iron before. + +"I, strolling? I covered the seven blocks from Anderson's to Conlow's in +seven minutes, and stood at the gate long enough to let the young lady +through, and to pinch my thumb in the blamed old latch, I was in such a +hurry; and then I made for the Baronets' roost." + +"But why didn't you stay there?" he asked. + +I blushed for a certainty now. My actions seemed so like a brain-sick +fool's. + +"Now, Phil," my father said more kindly, "you remember I told you when +you came to let me know you were twenty-one, that you must not get too +old to make a confidant of me. It is your only safe course now." + +"Father, am I a fool, or is it in the Baronet blood to love deeply and +constantly even unto death?" + +The strong man before me turned his face to the window. + +"Go on," he said. + +"I had been away nearly a week. I sat up and wrote a long letter to +Marjie. It would stand as clean evidence in court. I'm not ashamed of +what I put on paper, although it is my own business. Then I went out to +a certain place under the cliff where Marjie and I used to hide our +valentines and put little notes for each other years ago." + +"The post-office is safer, Phil." + +"Not with Tell Mapleson as postmaster." + +He assented, and I went on. "I had come to the top again and was looking +at the beauty of the night, when somebody caught me by the throat. It +was Jean Pahusca." + +Briefly then I related what had taken place. + +"And after that?" queried my questioner. + +"I ran into Lettie Conlow. She may have been there all the time. I do +not know, but I felt no obligation to take care of a girl who will not +take care of herself. It was rude, I know, and against my creed, but +that's the whole truth. I may be a certain kind of a fool about a girl I +know. But I'm not the kind of gay fool that goes out after divers and +strange women. Bill Mead told me this morning that he and Bud Anderson +passed Lettie somewhere out west alone after one o'clock. He was in a +hurry, but he stopped her and asked her why she should be out alone. I +think Bud went home with her. None of the boys want harm to come to her, +but she grows less pleasant every day. Bill would have gone home with +her, but he was hurrying out to Red Range. Dave's girl died out there +last night. Poor Dave!" + +"Poor Dave!" my father echoed, and we sat in silence with our sympathy +going out to the fine young man whose day was full of sorrow. + +"Well," my father said, "to come back to our work now. There are some +ugly stories going that I have yet to get hold of. Cam Gentry is helping +me toward it all he can. This land case will never come to court if +Mapleson can possibly secure the land in any other way. He'd like to +ruin us and pay off that old grudge against you for your part in +breaking up the plot against Springvale back in '63 and the suspicion it +cast on him. Do you see?" + +I was beginning to see a little. + +"Now, you go out to the stone cabin to-morrow afternoon and make a +thorough search for any papers or other evidence hidden there. The man +who owned that land was a degenerate son of a noble house. There are +some missing links in the evidence that our claim is incontestable. The +other claimant to the land is entirely under Tell Mapleson's control. +That's the way it shapes up to me. Meanwhile if it gets into court, two +or more lines are ready to tighten about you. Keep yourself in straight +paths and you are sure at last to win. I have no fear for you, Phil, but +be a man every minute." + +I understood him. As I left the courthouse, I met O'mie. There was a +strange, pathetic look in his eyes. He linked his arm in mine, and we +sauntered out under the oak trees of the courthouse grounds. + +"Phil, do ye remimber that May mornin' when ye broke through the vines +av the Hermit's Cave? I know now how the pityin' face av the Christ +looked to the man who had been blind. I know how the touch av his hands +felt to them as had been lepers. They was made free and safe. Wake as I +was that sorry mornin' I had one thought before me brain wint dark, the +thought that I might some day help you aven a little. I felt that way in +me wakeness thin. To-day in me strength I feel it a hundred times more. +Ye may not nade me, but whin ye do, I'm here. Whin I was a poor lost +orphan boy, worth nothin' to nobody, you risked life an' limb to drag me +back from the agony av a death by inches. And now, while I'm only a +rid-headed Irishman, I can do a dale more thinkin' and I know a blamed +lot more 'n this blessed little burg iver drames of. They ain't no +bloodhound on your track, but a ugly octopus of a devilfish is gittin' +its arms out after you. They's several av 'em. Don't forgit, Phil; I +know I'd die for your sake." + +"O'mie, I believe you, but don't be uneasy about me. You know me as well +as anybody in this town. What have I to fear?" + +"Begorra, there was niver a purer-hearted boy than you iver walked out +of a fun-lovin', rollickin' boyhood into a clane, honest manhood. You +can't be touched." + +Just then the evening stage swung by and swept up the hill. + +"Look at the ould man, now, would ye? Phil, he's makin' fur Bar'net's. +Bet some av your rich kin's comin' from the East, bringing you their +out-av-style clothes, an' a few good little books and Sunday-school +tracts to improve ye." + +There was only one passenger in the stage, a woman whose face I could +not see. + +That evening O'mie went to Judson at closing time. + +"Mr. Judson, I want a lave of absence fur a week or tin days," he said. + +"What for?" Judson was the kind of man who could never be pleasant to +his employees, for fear of losing his authority over them. + +"I want to go out av town on business," O'mie replied. + +"Whose business?" snapped Judson. + +"Me own," responded O'mie calmly. + +"I can't have it. That's it. I just can't have my clerks and underlings +running around over the country taking my time." + +"Then I'll lave your time here whin I go," O'mie spoke coolly. He had +always been respectful toward his employer, but he had no servile fear +of him. + +"I just can't allow it," Judson went on. "I need you here." O'mie was +the life of the business, the best asset in the store. "It may be a +slack time, but I can't have it; that's it, I just can't put up with it. +Besides," he simpered a little, in spite of himself, "besides, I'm +likely to be off a few days myself, just any time, I can get ready for a +step I have in mind, an important step, just any minute, but it's +different with some others, and we have to regard some others, you know; +have to let some others have their way once in a while. We'll consider +it settled now. You are to stay right here." + +"Ye'll consider it settled that I'm nadin' a tin days' vacation right +away, an' must have it." + +"I can't do it, O'Meara; that's it. I would not give you your place +again, and I won't pay you a cent of this quarter's salary." + +Judson's foolish temper was always his undoing. + +"You say you won't?" O'mie asked with a smile. + +"No, I won't. Hereafter you may beg your way or starve!" Judson fairly +shouted. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Amos Judson, but I'm not to thim straits yit. Not yit. +I've a little bank account an' a good name at Cris Mead's bank. Most as +good as yours." + +The shot went home. Judson had but recently failed to get the bank's +backing in a business dealing he had hoped to carry through on loans, +and it had cut his vanity deeply. + +"Good-bye, Amos, I'll be back, but not any sooner than ye nade me," and +he was gone. + +The next day Dever the stage driver told us O'mie was going up to +Wyandotte on business. + +"Whose business?" I asked. "He doesn't know a soul in Wyandotte, except +Tell and Jim, who were working up there the last I knew. Tell may be in +Fort Scott now. Whose business was it?" + +"That's what I asked him," Dever answered with a grin, "and he said, his +own." + +Whatever it was, O'mie was back again before the end of the week. But he +idled about for the full ten days, until Judson grew frantic. The store +could not be managed without him, and it was gratifying to O'mie's +mischievous spirit to be solicited with pledge and courtesy to take his +place again. + +After O'mie had left me in the courthouse yard, the evening after the +party, I stopped on my way home to see Marjie a moment. She had gone +with the Meads out to Red Range, her mother said, and might not be back +till late, possibly not till to-morrow. Judson was sitting in the room +when I came to the door. I had no especial reason to think Mrs. Whately +was confused by my coming. She was always kind to everybody. But somehow +the gray shadows of the clouded moon of the night before were chilling +me still, and I was bitterly disappointed at missing my loved one's face +in her home. It seemed ages since I had had her to myself; not since the +night before my trip to Topeka. I stopped long enough to visit the +"Rockport" letter-box for the answer to my letter I knew she would leave +before she went out of town. There was no letter there. My heart grew +heavy with a weight that was not to lift again for many a long day. Up +on the street I met Dr. Hemingway. His kind eyes seemed to penetrate to +my very soul. + +"Good-evening, Philip," he said pleasantly, grasping my hand with a firm +pressure. "Your face isn't often clouded." + +I tried to look cheerful. "Oh, it's just the weather and some loss of +sleep. Kansas Augusts are pretty trying." + +"They should not be to a young man," he replied. "All weathers suit us +if we are at peace within. That's where the storm really begins." + +"Maybe so," I said. "But I'm all right, inside and out." + +"You look it, Philip." He took my hand affectionately. "You are the very +image of clean, strong manhood. Let not your heart be troubled." + +I returned his hand-clasp and went my way. However much courage it may +take to push forward to victory or death on the battle field, not the +least of heroism does it sometimes require to walk bravely toward the +deepening gloom of an impending ill. I have followed both paths and I +know what each one demands. + +At our doorway, waiting to welcome me, stood Rachel Melrose, smiling, +sure, and effusively demonstrative in her friendship. She must have +followed me on the next stage out of Topeka. Behind her stood Candace +Baronet, the only woman I have ever known who never in all my life +doubted me nor misunderstood me. Somehow the sunset was colorless to me +that night, and all the rippling waves of wide West Prairie were shorn +of their glory. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ROCKPORT AND "ROCKPORT" + + Glitters the dew, and shines the river, + Up comes the lily and dries her bell; + But two are walking apart forever, + And wave their hands in a mute farewell. + + --JEAN INGELOW. + + +The Melrose family was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house +of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to +its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much +staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing +to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the +best things of life never found their way. She took everything in +Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem that Kansas +should give its best to her; and withal she was a woman who delighted in +conquest. + +Her arrival in Springvale made a topic that was soon on everybody's +tongue. In the afternoon of the day following her coming, when I went to +my father's office before starting out to the stone cabin, I found +Marjie there. I had not seen her since the party, and I went straight to +her chair. + +"Well, little girl, it's ten thousand years since I saw you last," I +spoke in a low voice. My father was searching for some papers in his +cabinet, and his back was toward us. "Why didn't I get a letter, +dearie?" + +She looked up with eyes whose brown depths were full of pain and sorrow, +but with an expression I had never seen on her face before, a kind of +impenetrable coldness. It cut me like a sword-thrust, and I bent over +her. + +"Oh, Marjie, my Marjie, what is wrong?" + +"Here is that paper at last," my father said before he turned around. +Even as he spoke, Rachel Melrose swept into the room. + +"Why, Philip, I missed you after all. I didn't mean to keep you waiting, +but I can never get accustomed to your Western hurry." + +She was very handsome and graceful, and always at ease with me, save in +our interviews alone. + +"I didn't know you were coming," I said frankly; "but I want you to meet +Miss Whately. This is the young lady I have told you about." + +I took Marjie's hand as I spoke. It was cold, and I gave it the gentle +pressure a lover understands as I presented her. She gave me a momentary +glance. Oh, God be thanked for the love-light in those brown eyes! The +memory of it warmed my heart a thousand times when long weary miles were +between us, and a desolate sky shut down around the far desolate plains +of a silent, featureless land. + +"And this is Miss Melrose, the young lady I told you of in my letter," I +said to Marjie. A quick change came into her eyes, a look of surprise +and incredulity and scorn. What could have happened to bring all this +about? + +Rachel Melrose had made the fatal mistake of thinking that no girl +reared west of the Alleghenies could be very refined or at ease or +appear well dressed in the company of Eastern people. She was not +prepared for the quiet courtesy and self-possession with which the +Kansas girl greeted her; nor had she expected, as she told me +afterward, to find in a town like Springvale such good taste and +exquisite neatness in dress. True, she had many little accessories of an +up-to-date fashion that had not gotten across the Mississippi River to +our girls as yet, but Marjie had the grace of always choosing the right +thing to wear. I was very proud of my loved one at that moment. There +was a show of cordiality between the two; then Rachel turned to me. + +"I'm going with you this afternoon. Excuse me, Miss Whately, Mr. Baronet +promised me up at Topeka to take me out to see a wonderful cottonwood +tree that he said just dwarfed the little locust there, that we went out +one glorious moonlight night to see. It was a lovely stroll though, +wasn't it, Philip?" + +This time it was my father's eyes that were fixed upon me in surprise +and stern inquiry. + +"He will believe I am a flirt after all. It isn't possible to make any +man understand how that miserable girl can control things, unless he is +on the ground all the time." So ran my thoughts. + +"Father, must that trip be made to-day? Because I'd rather get up a +party and go out when Miss Melrose goes." + +But my father was in no mood to help me then. He had asked me to go +alone. Evidently he thought I had forgotten business and constancy of +purpose in the presence of this pretty girl. + +"It must be done to-day. Miss Melrose will wait, I'm sure. It is a +serious business matter--" + +"Oh, but I won't, Mr. Baronet. Your son promised me to do everything for +me if I would only come to Springvale; that was away last Spring, and my +stay will be short at best. I must go back to-morrow afternoon. Don't +rob us of a minute." + +She spoke with such a pretty grace, and yet her words were so trifling +that my father must have felt as I did. He could have helped me then had +he thought that I deserved help, for he was a tactful man. But he merely +assented and sent us away. When we were gone Marjie turned to him +bravely. + +"Judge Baronet, I think I will go home. I came in from Red Range this +noon with the Meads. It was very warm, coming east, and I am not very +well." She was as white as marble. "I will see you again; may I?" + +John Baronet was a man of deep sympathy as well as insight. He knew why +the bloom had left her cheeks. + +"All right, Marjie. You will be better soon." + +He had risen and taken her cold hand. There was a world of cheer and +strength in that rich resonant voice of his. "Little girl, you must not +worry over anything. All the tangles will straighten for you. Be +patient, the sunshine is back of all shadows. I promised your father, +Marjory, that no harm should come to you. I will keep my promise. 'Let +not your heart be troubled.'" His words were to her what the good +minister's had been to me. + +In the months that came after that my father was her one strong defence. +Poor Marjie! her days as well as mine were full of creeping shadows. I +had no notion of the stories being poured into her ears, nor did I dream +of the mischief and sorrow that can be wrought by a jealous-hearted +girl, a grasping money lover, and a man whose business dealings will not +bear the light of day. + +It has ever been the stage-driver's province to make the town acquainted +with the business of each passenger whom he imports or exports. Our man, +Dever, was no exception. Judson's store had become the centre of all the +gossip in Springvale. Judson himself was the prince of scandalmongers, +who with a pretence of refusing to hear gossip, peddled it out most +industriously. He had hurried to Mrs. Whately with the story of our +guest, and here I found him when I went to see Marjie, before I myself +knew what passenger the stage had carried up to Cliff Street. + +After the party at Anderson's, Tillhurst had not lost the opportunity of +giving his version of all he had seen and heard in Topeka. Marjie +listened in amazement but sure in her trustful heart that I would make +it all clear to her in my letter. And yet she wondered why I had never +mentioned that name to her, nor given her any hint of any one with claim +enough on me to keep me for two days in Topeka. After all, she did +recall the name--something forgotten in the joy and peace of that sweet +afternoon out by the river in the draw where the haunted house was. Had +I tried to tell her and lost my courage, she wondered. Oh, no, it could +not be so. + +The next day Marjie spent at Red Range. It was noon of the day following +Rachel's arrival before she reached home. The ride in the midday heat, +sympathy for Dave Mead, and the sad funeral rites in the morning, +together with the memory of Tillhurst's gossip and the long time since +we had talked with each other alone, had been enough to check even her +sunny spirit. Gentle Mrs. Whately, willing to believe everybody, met her +daughter with a sad face. + +"My dear, I have some unwelcome news for you," she said when Marjie was +resting in the cool sitting-room after the hot ride. "There's an old +sweetheart of Phil's came here last evening to visit him. Mr. Dever, the +stage-driver, says she is the handsomest girl he ever saw. They say she +and Phil were engaged and had a falling out back East. They met again in +Topeka, and Phil stayed a day or two to visit with her after the +political meeting was over. And now she has come down here at his +request to meet his folks. Marjie, daughter, you need not care. There +are more worthy men who would be proud to marry you." + +Marjie made no reply. + +"Oh, daughter, he isn't worth your grief. Be strong. Your life will get +into better channels now. There are those who care for you more than you +dream of. And you cannot care for Phil when I tell you all I must tell." + +"I will be strong, mother. What else?" Marjie said quietly. In the +shadows of the room darkened to keep out the noonday heat, Mrs. Whately +did not note the white face and the big brown eyes burning with pain. + +"It's too bad, but you ought to know it. Judge Baronet's got some kind +of a land case on hand. There's a fine half-section he's trying to get +away from a young man who is poor. The Judge is a clever lawyer and he +is a rich man. Mr. Judson says Tell Mapleson is this young man's +counsel, and he's fighting to keep the land for its real owner. Well, +Phil was strolling around until nearly morning with Lettie Conlow, and +they met this young man somewhere. He doesn't live about here. And, +Marjie, right before Lettie, Phil gave him an awful beating and made him +promise never to show himself in Springvale again. You know Judge +Baronet could do anything in that court-room he wants to. He is a fine +man. How your father loved him! But Phil goes out and does the dirty +work to help him win. So Amos Judson says." + +"Did Amos Judson tell you all this, Mother?" Marjie asked faintly. + +"Most of it. And he is so interested in your welfare, daughter." + +Marjie rose to her feet. "Mother, I don't know how much truth there may +be in the circumstances, but I'll wait until somebody besides Amos +Judson tells me before I accept these stories." + +"Well, Marjie, you are young. You must lean on older counsel. There is +no man living as good and true as your father was to me. Remember that." + +"Yes, there is," Marjie declared. + +"Who is he, daughter?" + +"Philip Baronet," Marjie answered proudly. + +That afternoon Richard Tillhurst called and detained Marjie until she +was late in keeping her appointment with Judge Baronet. Tillhurst's tale +of woe was in the main a repetition of Mrs. Whately's, but he knew +better how to make it convincing, for he had hopes of winning the prize +if I were out of the way. He was too keen to think Judson a dangerous +rival with a girl of Marjie's good sense and independence. It was with +these things in mind that Marjie had met me. Rachel Melrose had swept in +on us, and I who had declared to my dear one that I should never care to +take another girl out to that sunny draw full of hallowed memories for +us two, I was going again with this beautiful woman, my sweetheart from +the East. And yet Marjie was quick enough to note that I had tried to +evade the company of Miss Melrose, and she had seen in my eyes the same +look that they had had for her all these years. Could I be deceiving her +by putting Rachel off in her presence? She did not want to think so. Had +Judge Baronet not been my father, he could have taken her into his +confidence. She could not speak to him of me, nor could he discuss his +son's actions with her. + +But love is strong and patient, and Marjie determined not to give up at +the first onslaught against it. + +"I'll write to him now," she said. "There will be sure to be a letter +for me up under 'Rockport.' He said something about a letter this +afternoon, the letter he promised to write after the party at +Anderson's. He couldn't be deceiving me, I'm sure. I'll tell him +everything, and if he really doesn't care for me,"--the blank of life +lay sullen and dull before her,--"I'll know it any how. But if he does +care, he'll have a letter for me all right." + +And so she wrote, a loving, womanly letter, telling in her own sweet way +all her faith and the ugly uncertainty that was growing up against it. + +"But I know you, Phil, and I know you are all my own." So she ended the +letter, and in the purple twilight she hastened up to the cliff and +found her way down to our old shaded corner under the rock. There was no +letter awaiting her. She held her own a minute and then she thrust it +in. + +"I'll do anything for Phil," she murmured softly. "I cannot help it. He +was my own--he must be mine still." + +A light laugh sounded on the rock above her. + +"Are you waiting for me here?" a musical voice cried out. It was +Rachel's voice. "Your aunt said you were gone out and would be back +soon. I knew you would like me to meet you half way. It is beautiful +here, you must love the place, but"--she added so softly that the +unwilling listener did not catch her words--"it isn't so fine as our old +Rockport!" + +Quickly came the reply in a voice Marjie knew too well, although the +tone was unlike any she had ever heard before. + +"I hate Rockport; I did not tell you so when I left last Spring, but I +hated it then." + +Swiftly across the listener's mind swept the memory of my words. "If you +ever hear me say I don't like 'Rockport' you will know I don't care for +you." + +She had heard me say these words, had heard them spoken in a tone of +vehement feeling. There was no mistaking the speaker's sincerity, and +then the quick step and swing of the bushes told her I had gone. The +Neosho Valley turned black before her eyes, and she sank down on the +stone shelving of the ledge. + +My ride that afternoon had been a miserable one. Rachel was coy and +sweet, yet cunningly bold. I felt indignant at my father for forcing her +company on me, and I resented the circumstance that made me a victim to +injustice. I detested the beautiful creature beside me for her +assumption of authority over my actions, and above all, I longed with an +aching, starved heart for Marjie. I knew she had only to read my letter +to understand. She might not have gone after it yet, but I could see her +that evening and all would be well. + +I did not go near the old stone cabin. My father had failed to know his +son if he thought I would obey under these hard conditions. We merely +drove about beyond the draw. Then we rested briefly under the old +cottonwood before we started home. + +In the twilight I hurried out to our "Rockport" to wait for Marjie. I +was a little late and so I did not know that Marjie was then under the +point of rock. My rudeness to Rachel was unpardonable, but she had +intruded one step too far into the sacred precincts of my life. I would +not endure her in the place made dear to me from childhood, by +association with Marjie. So I rashly blurted out my feelings and left +her, never dreaming who had heard me nor what meaning my words would +carry. + +Down at the Whately home Richard Tillhurst sat, bland and smiling, +waiting for Miss Whately's return. I sat down to wait also. + +The August evening was dry and the day's hot air was rippling now into a +slight breeze. The shadows deepened and the twilight had caught its last +faint glow, when Marjie, white and cold, came slowly up the walk. Her +brown hair lay in little curls about her temples and her big dark eyes +were full of an utterable sorrow. I hurried out to the gate to meet her, +but she would have passed by me with stately step. + +"Marjie," I called softly, holding the gate. + +"Good-evening, Philip. Please don't speak to me one word." Her voice was +low and sweet as of yore save that it was cold and cutting. + +She stood beside me for a moment. "I cannot be detained now. You will +find your mother's ring in a package of letters I shall send you +to-morrow. For my sake as well as for your own, please let this matter +end here without any questions." + +"But I will ask you questions," I declared. + +"Then they will not be answered. You have deceived me and been untrue to +me. I will not listen to one word. You may be very clever, but I +understand you now. This is the end of everything for you and me." And +so she left me. + +I stood at the gate only long enough to hear her cordial greeting of +Tillhurst. My Marjie, my own, had turned against me. The shadows of the +deepening twilight turned to horrid shapes, and all the purple richness +with that deep crimson fold low in the western sky became a chill gloom +bordered on the horizon by the flame of hate. So the glory of a world +gone wrong slips away, and the creeping shadows are typical only of +pain and heartache. + +I turned aimlessly away. I had told Marjie she was the light of my life: +I did not understand the truth of the words until the light went out. +Heavily, as I had staggered toward her mother's house on the night when +I was sure Jean Pahusca had stolen her, I took my way now into the +gathering shadows, slowly, to where I could hear the Neosho whispering +and muttering in the deep gloom. + +It comes sometimes to most of us, the wild notion that life, the gift of +God alone, is a cheap thing not worth the keeping, and the impulse to +fling it away uprears its ugly suggestion. Out in a square of light by +the ford I saw Dave Mead standing, looking straight before him. The +sorrows of the day were not all mine. I went to him, and we stood there +silent together. At length we turned about in a purposeless way toward +the open West Prairie. How many a summer evening we had wandered here! +How often had our ponies come tramping home side by side, in the days +when we brought the cows in late from the farthest draw! It seemed like +another world now. + +"Phil, you are very good to me. Don't pity me! I can't stand that." We +never had a tenor in our choir with a voice so clear and rich as his. + +"I don't pity you, Dave, I envy you." I spoke with an effort. "You have +not lost, you have only begun a long journey. There is joy at the end of +it." + +"Oh, that is easy for you to say, who have everything to make you +happy." + +"I? Oh, Dave! I have not even a grave." The sudden sense of loss, driven +back by the thought of another's sorrow, swept over me again. It was +his turn now to forget himself. + +"What is it, Phil? Have you and Marjie quarrelled? You never were meant +for that, either of you. It can't be." + +"No, Dave. I don't know what is wrong. I only wish--no, I don't. It is +hard to be a man with the heart of a boy still, a foolish boy with +foolish ideals of love and constancy. I can't talk to-night, Dave, only +I envy you the sure possession, the eternal faith that will never be +lost." + +He pressed my hand in his left hand. His right arm had had only a +limited usefulness since the night he tried to stop Jean Pahusca down by +the mad floods of the Neosho. I have never seen him since we parted on +the prairie that August evening. The next day he went to Red Range to +stay for a short time. By the end of a week I had left Springvale, and +we are to each other only boyhood memories now. + +Out on the open prairie, where there was room to think and be alone, I +went to fight my battle. There was only a sweep of silver sky above me +and a sweep of moonlit plain about me. Dim to the southwest crept the +dark shadow of the wooded Fingal's Creek Valley, while against the +horizon the big cottonwood tree was only a gray blur. The mind can act +swiftly. By the time the moon had swung over the midnight line I had +mapped out my course. And while I seemed to have died, and another being +had my personality, with only memory the same in both, I rose up armed +in spirit to do a man's work in the world. But it cost me a price. I +have been on a battle field with a thousand against fifty, and I was one +of the fifty. Such a strife as I pray Heaven may never be in our land +again. I have looked Death in the face day after day creeping slowly, +surely toward me while I must march forward to meet it. Did the struggle +this night out on the prairie strengthen my soul to bear it all, I +wonder. + +The next morning a package addressed in Marjie's round girlish hand was +put before me. Forgetful of resolve, I sent back by its bearer an +imploring appeal for a chance to meet her and clear up the terrible +misunderstanding. The note came back unopened. I gave it with the bundle +to Aunt Candace. + +"Keep this for me, auntie, dear," I said, and my voice trembled. She +took it from my hand. + +"All right, Phil, I'll keep it. You are not at the end of things, +dearie. You are only at the beginning. I'll keep this. It is only +keeping, remember." She pointed to a stain on the unopened note, the +round little blot only a tear can make. "It isn't yours, I know." + +It was the first touch of comfort I had felt. However slender the +thread, Hope will find it strong to cling to. Rachel's visit ended that +day. Self-centred always, she treated me as one who had been foolish, +but whom she considered her admirer still. It was not in her nature to +be rejected. She shaped things to fit her vanity, and forgot what could +not be controlled. I refused to allow myself to be alone with her again. +Nobody was ever so tied to a woman's presence as I kept myself by Aunt +Candace so long as I remained in the house. + +My father, I knew, was grieved and indignant. With all my fair promises +and pretended loyalty I seemed to be an idle trifler. How could my +relation to Lettie Conlow be explained away in the light of this visit +from a handsome cultured young lady, who had had an assurance of welcome +or she would not have come. He loved Marjie as the daughter of his +dearest friend. He had longed to call her, "daughter," and I had +foolishly thrown away a precious prize. + +Serious, too, was my reckless neglect of business. I had disregarded his +request to manage a grave matter. Instead of going alone to the cabin, I +had gone off with a pretty girl and reported that I had found nothing. + +"Did you go near the cabin?" He drove the question square at me, and I +had sullenly answered, "No, sir." Clearly I needed more discipline than +the easy life in Springvale was giving me. I went down to the office in +the afternoon, hoping for something, I hardly knew what. He was alone, +and I asked for a few words with him. Somehow I seemed more of a man to +myself than I had ever felt before in his presence. + +"Father," I began. "When the sea did its worst for you--fifteen years +ago--you came to the frontier here, and somehow you found peace. You +have done your part in the making of the lawless Territory into a +law-abiding State, this portion of it at least. The frontier moves +westward rapidly now." + +"Well?" he queried. + +"I have lost--not by the sea--but, well, I've lost. I want to go to the +frontier too. I must get away from here. The Plains--somewhere--may help +me." + +"But why leave here?" he asked. After all, the father-heart was +yearning to keep his son. + +"Why did you leave Massachusetts?" I could not say Rockport. I hated the +sound of the name. + +"Where will you go, my boy?" He spoke with deepest sorrow, and love +mingled in his tones. + +"Out to the Saline Country. They need strong men out there. I must have +been made to defend the weak." It was not a boast, but the frank +expression of my young manhood's ideal. "Your friend Mr. Morton urged me +to come. May I go to him? It may be I can find my place out in that +treeless open land; that there will come to me, as it came to you, the +help that comes from helping others." + +Oh, I had fought my battle well. I was come into a man's estate now and +had put away childish things. + +My father sitting before me took both my hands in his. + +"My son, you are all I have. You cannot long deceive me. I have trusted +you always. I love you even unto the depths of disgrace. Tell me truly, +have you done wrong? I will soon know it. Tell me now." + +"Father," I held his hands and looked steadily into his eyes. "I have no +act to conceal from you, nor any other living soul. I must leave here +because I cannot stay and see--Father, Marjie is lost to me. I do not +know why." + +"Well, find out." He spoke cheerily. + +"It is no use. She has changed, and you know her father's firmness. She +is his mental image." + +"There is no stain somewhere, no folly of idle flirtation, no weakness? +I hear much of you and Lettie." + +"Father, I have done nothing to make me ashamed. Last night when I +fought my battle to the finish, for the first time in my life I knew my +mother was with me. Somehow it was her will guiding me. I know my place. +I cannot stay here. I will go where the unprotected need a strength like +mine." + +The stage had stopped at the courthouse door, and Rachel Melrose ran up +the steps and entered the outer office. My father went out to meet her. + +"Are you leaving us?" he asked kindly. + +"Yes, I had only a day or two that I could spend here. But where is +Philip?" + +John Baronet had closed his door behind him. I thanked him fervently in +my heart for his protection. How could I meet this woman now? And yet +she had seemed only selfishly mischievous, and I must not be a coward, +so I came out of the inner room at once. A change swept over her face +when I appeared. The haughty careless spirit gave place to gentleness, +and, as always, she was very pretty. Nothing of the look or manner was +lost on John Baronet, and his pity for her only strengthened his opinion +of my insincerity. + +"Good-bye, Philip. We shall meet again soon, I hope. Good-bye, Judge +Baronet." Her voice was soft and full of sadness. She smiled upon us +both and turned to go. + +My father led her down the courthouse steps and helped her into the +stage. When he came back I did not look up. There was nothing for me to +say. Quietly, as though nothing had occurred, he took up his work, his +face as impenetrable as Jean Pahusca's. + +My resemblance to my mother is strong. As I bent over his desk to gather +up some papers for copying, my heavy dark hair almost brushed his cheek. +I did not know then how his love for me was struggling with his sense of +duty. + +"I have trusted him too much, and given him too free a rein. He doesn't +know yet how to value a woman's feelings. He must learn his lesson now. +But he shall not go away without my blessing." + +So he mused. + +"Philip," his voice was as kind as it was firm, "we shall see what the +days will bring. Your mother's spirit may be guiding you, and your +father's love is always with you. Whatever snarls and tangles have +gotten into your threads, time and patience will straighten and +unravel. Whatever wrong you may have done, willingly or unwillingly, +you must make right. There is no other way." + +"Father," I replied in a voice as firm as his own. "Father, I have done +no wrong." + +Once more he looked steadily into my eyes and through them down into my +very soul. "Phil, I believe you. These things will soon pass away." + +In the early twilight I went for the last time to "Rockport." There are +sadder things than funeral rites. The tragedies of life do not always +ring down the curtain leaving the stage strewn with the forms of the +slain. Oftener they find the living actor following his lines and doing +his part of the play as if all life were a comedy. The man of sixty +years may smile at the intensity of feeling in the boy of twenty-one, +but that makes it no easier for the boy. I watched the sun go down that +night, and then I waited through the dark hour till the moon, now past +the full, should once more illumine the Neosho Valley. Although I have +always been a lover of nature, that sunset and the purple twilight +following, the darkness of the early evening hour and the glorious +moonrise are tinged with a sorrow I have never quite lost even in the +happier years since then. I sat alone on the point of rock. At last the +impulse to go down below and search for a letter from Marjie overcame +me, although I laughed bitterly at the folly of such a notion. In the +crevice where her letter had been placed for me the night before, I +found nothing. What a different story I might have to tell had I gone +down at sunset instead of waiting through that hour of darkness before +the moon crept above the eastern horizon line! And yet I believe that in +the final shaping-up the best thing for each one comes to all of us. +Else the universe is without a plan and Love unwavering and eternal is +only a vagary of the dreamer. + +Early the next morning I left Springvale, and set my face to the +westward, as John Baronet had done a decade and a half before, to begin +life anew where the wilderness laps the frontier line. My father held my +hand long when I said good-bye, and love and courage and trust were all +in that hand-clasp. + +"You'll win out, my boy. Keep your face to the light. The world has no +place for the trifler, the coward, or the liar. It is open to homestead +claims for all the rest. You will not fail." And with his kiss on my +forehead he let me go. + + * * * * * + +Anything is news in a little town, and especially interesting in the +dull days of late Summer. The word that I had gone away started from +Conlow's shop and swept through the town like a prairie fire through a +grassy draw. + +No one man is essential to any community. Springvale didn't need me so +much as I needed it. But when I left it there were many more than I +deserved who not only had a good word for me; they went further, and +demanded that good reason for my going must be shown, or somebody would +be made to suffer. Foremost among these were Cam Gentry, Dr. Hemingway, +and Cris Mead, president of the Springvale Bank, the father of Bill and +Dave. Of course, the boys, the blessed old gang, who had played together +and worked together and been glad and sorry with each other down the +years, the boys were loyal to the last limit. + +But we had our share of gossips who had a tale they could unfold--a +dreadful tale! Beginning with my forging my father's name to get money +to spend on Rachel Melrose and other Topeka girls, and to pay debts I +had contracted at Harvard, on and on the tale ran, till, by the time the +Fingal's Creek neighborhood got hold of the "real facts," it developed +that I had all but murdered a man who stood in the way of a rich fee my +father was to get out of a land suit somewhere; and lastly came an +ominous shaking of the head and a keeping back of the "worst truth," +about my gay escapades with girls of shady reputation whom I had +deceived, and cruelly wronged, trusting to my standing as a rich man's +son to pull me through all right. + +Marjie was the last one in Springvale to be told of my sudden +leave-taking. The day had been intolerably long for her, and the evening +brought an irresistible temptation to go up to our old playground. +Contrary to his daily habit my father had passed the Whately house on +his way home, and Marjie had seen him climb the hill. I was as like him +in form as Jean Pahusca was like Father Le Claire. Six feet and two +inches he stood, and so perfectly proportioned that he never looked +corpulent. I matched him in height and weight, but I had not his fine +bearing, for I had seen no military service then. I do not marvel that +Springvale was proud of him, for his character matched the graces Nature +had given him. + +As Marjie watched him going the way I had so often taken, her resolve to +forget what we had been to each other suddenly fell to pieces. Her +feelings could not change at once. Mental habits are harder to break up +than physical appetites. For fourteen years my loved one had known me, +first as her stanch defender in our plays, then as her boy sweetheart +and lastly as her lover and betrothed husband. Could twenty-four hours +of distrust and misunderstanding displace these fourteen years of happy +thinking? And so after sunset Marjie went up the slope, hardly knowing +why she should do so or what she would say to me if she should meet me +there. It was a poor beginning for the new life she had carefully mapped +out, but impulse was stronger than resolve in her just then. Just at the +steep bend in the street she came face to face with Lettie Conlow. The +latter wore a grin of triumph as the two met. + +"Good-evening, Marjie. I s'pose you've heard the news?" + +"What news?" asked Marjie. "I haven't heard anything new to-day." + +"Oh, yes, you have, too. You know all about it; but I'd not care if I +was you." + +Marjie was on her guard in a moment. + +"I don't care for what I don't know, Lettie," she replied. + +"Nor what you do, neither. I wouldn't if I was you. He ain't worth it; +and it gives better folks a chance for what they want, anyhow." + +Lettie's low brows and cunning black eyes were unendurable to the girl +she was tormenting. + +"Well, I don't know what you are talking about," and Marjie would have +passed on, but Lettie intercepted her. + +"You know that rich Melrose girl's gone back to Topeka?" + +"Oh, yes," Marjie spoke indifferently; "she went last evening, I was +told." + +"Well, this morning Phil Baronet went after her, left Springvale for +good and all. O'mie says so, and he knows all Phil knows. Marjie, she's +rich; and Phil won't marry nobody but a rich girl. You know you ain't +got what you had when your pa was alive." + +Yes, Marjie knew that. + +"Well he's gone anyhow, and I don't care." + +"Why should you care?" Marjie could not help the retort. She was stung +to the quick in every nerve. Lettie's face blazed with anger. + +"Or you?" she stormed. "He was with me last. I can prove it, and a lot +more things you'd never want to hear. But you'll never be his girl +again." + +Marjie turned toward the cliff just as O'mie appeared through the bushes +and stepped behind Lettie. + +"Oh, good-evening, lovely ladies; delighted to meet you," he hailed +them. + +Marjie smiled at him, but Lettie gave a sudden start. + +"Oh, O'mie, what are you forever tagging me for?" She spoke angrily and +without another word to Marjie she hurried down the hill. + +"I tag!" O'mie grinned. "I'd as soon tag Satan, only I've just got to do +it." But his face changed when he turned to Marjie. "Little girl, I +overheard the lady. Lovely spirit that! I just can't help dancin' +attendance on it. But, Marjie, I've come up here, knowin' Phil had gone +and wasn't in my way, 'cause I wanted to show you somethin'. Yes, he's +gone. Left early this mornin'. Never mind that, right now." + +He led the way through the bushes and they sat down together. I cannot +say what Marjie thought as she looked out on the landscape I had watched +in loneliness the night before. It was O'mie, and not his companion, who +told me long afterwards of this evening. + +"I thought you were away on a ten days' vacation, O'mie. Dever said you +were." She could not bear the silence. + +"I'm on a tin days' vacation, but I'm not away, Marjie, darlin'," O'mie +replied. + +"Oh, O'mie, don't joke. I can't stand it to-night." Her face was white +and her eyes were full of pain. + +"Indade, I'm not jokin'. I came up here to show you somethin' and to +tell you somethin'." + +He took an old note book from his pocket and opened it to where a few +brown blossoms lay flatly pressed between the leaves. + +"Thim's not pretty now, Marjie, but the day I got 'em they was dainty +an' pink as the dainty pink-cheeked girl whose brown curls they was +wreathed about. These are the flowers Phil Baronet put on your hair out +in the West Draw by the big cottonwood one April evenin' durin' the war; +the flowers Jean Pahusca kissed an' throwed away. But I saved 'em +because I love you, Marjie." + +She shivered and bent her head. + +"Oh, not like thim two ornery tramps who had these blossoms 'fore I got +'em, but like I'd love a sister, if I had one; like Father Le Claire +loves me. D'ye see?" + +"You are a dear, good brother, O'mie," Marjie murmured, without lifting +her head. + +"Oh, yis, I'm all av that an' more. Marjie, I'm goin' to kape these +flowers till--well, now, Marjie, shall I tell you whin?" + +"Yes, O'mie," Marjie said faintly. + +"Well, till I see the pretty white veil lifted fur friends to kiss the +bride an' I catch the scent av orange blossoms in thim soft little +waves." He put his hand gently on her bowed head. "I'll get to do it, +too," he went on, "not right away, but not fur off, nather; an' it won't +be a little man, ner a rid-headed Irishman, ner a sharp-nosed +school-teacher; but--Heaven bless an' kape him to-night!--it'll be a +big, broad-shouldered, handsome rascal, whose heart has niver changed +an' niver can change toward you, little sister, 'cause he's his +father's own son--lovin', constant, white an' clane through an' through. +Be patient. It's goin' to be all right for you two." He closed the book +and put it back in its place. "But I mustn't stay here. I've got to tag +Lettie some more. Her an' some others. That's what my tin days' +vacation's fur, mostly." And O'mie leaped through the bushes and was +gone. + +The twilight was deepening when Marjie at last roused herself. + +"I'll go down and see if he did get my letter," she murmured, taking her +way down the rough stair. There was no letter in the crevice where she +had placed it securely two nights before. Lifting her face upward she +clasped her hands in sorrow. + +"He took it away, but he did not come to me. He knows I love him." Then +remembering herself, "I would not let him speak. But he said he hated +'Rockport.' Oh, what can it all mean? How could he be so good to me and +then deceive me so? Shall I believe Lettie, or O'mie?" + +Kneeling there in the deep shadows of the cliff-side with the Neosho +gurgling darkly below her, and the long shafts of pink radiance from the +hidden sunset illumining the sky above her, Marjie prayed for strength +to bear her burden, for courage to meet whatever must come to her, and +for the assurance of divine Love although now her lover, as well as her +father, was lost to her. The simple pleading cry of a grief-stricken +heart it was. Heaven heard that prayer, and Marjie went down the hill +with womanly grace and courage and faith to face whatever must befall +her in the new life opening before her. + +In the days that followed my little girl was more than ever the idol of +Springvale. Her sweet, sunny nature now had a new beauty. Her sorrow she +hid away so completely there were few who guessed what her thoughts +were. Lettie Conlow was not deceived, for jealousy has sharp eyes. O'mie +understood, for O'mie had carried a sad, hungry heart underneath his +happy-go-lucky carelessness all the years of his life. Aunt Candace was +a woman who had overcome a grief of her own, and had been cheery and +bright down the years. She knew the mark of conquest in the face. And +lastly, my father, through his innate power to read human nature, +watched Marjie as if she were his own child. Quietly, too, so quietly +that nobody noticed it, he became a guardian over her. Where she went +and what she did he knew as well as Jean Pahusca, watching in the lilac +clump, long ago. For fourteen years he had come and gone to our house on +Cliff Street up and down the gentler slope two blocks to the west of +Whately's. Nobody knew, until it had become habitual, when he changed +his daily walk homeward up the steeper climb that led him by Marjie's +house farther down the street. Nobody realized, until it was too common +for comment, how much a part of all the social life of Springvale my +father had become. He had come to Kansas a widower, but gossip long ago +gave up trying to do anything with him. And now, as always, he was a +welcome factor everywhere, a genial, courteous gentleman, whose dignity +of character matched his stern uprightness and courage in civic matters. +Among all the things for which I bless his memory, not the least of them +was this strong, unostentatious guardianship of a girl when her need for +protection was greatest, as that Winter that followed proved. + +I knew nothing of all this then. I only knew my loved one had turned +against me. Of course I knew that Rachel was the cause, but I could not +understand why Marjie would listen to no explanation, why she should +turn completely from me when I had told her everything in the letter I +wrote the night of the party at Anderson's. And now I was many miles +from Springvale, and the very thought of the past was like a +knife-thrust. All my future now looked to the Westward. I longed for +action, for the opportunity to do something, and they came swiftly, the +opportunity and the action. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +BEGINNING AGAIN + + It matters not what fruit the hand may gather, + If God approves, and says, "This is the best." + It matters not how far the feet may wander, + If He says, "Go, and leave to Me the rest." + + --ALBERT MACY. + + +I stood in the August twilight by the railway station in the little +frontier town of Salina, where the Union Pacific train had abandoned me +to my fate. Turning toward the unmapped, limitless Northwest, I suddenly +realized that I was at the edge of the earth now. Behind me were +civilization and safety. Beyond me was only a waste of gray nothingness. +Yet this was the world I had come hither to conquer. Here were the +spaces wherein I should find peace. I set my face with grim +determination to work now, out of the thing before me, a purpose that +controlled me. + +Morton's claim was a far day's journey up the Saline Valley. It would be +nearly a week before I could find a man to drive me thither; so I +secured careful directions, and the next morning I left the town on foot +and alone. I did not mind the labor of it. I was as vigorous as a young +giant, fear of personal peril I had never known, and the love of +adventure was singing its siren's song to me. I was clad in the strong, +coarse garments, suited to the Plains. I was armed with two heavy +revolvers and a small pistol. Hidden inside of my belt as a last +defence was the short, sharp knife bearing Jean Le Claire's name in +script lettering. + +I shall never forget the moment when a low bluff beyond a bend in the +Saline River shut off the distant town from my view and I stood utterly +alone in a wide, silent world, left just as God had made it. Humility +and uplift mingle in the soul in such a time and place. One question ran +back and forth across my mind: What conquering power can ever bring the +warmth of glad welcome to the still, hostile, impenetrable beauty of +these boundless plains? + +"The air is full of spirits out here," I said to myself. "There is no +living thing in sight, and yet the land seems inhabited, just as that +old haunted cabin down on the Neosho seemed last June." + +And then with the thought of that June day Memory began to play her +tricks on me and I cried out, "Oh, perdition take that stone cabin and +the whole Neosho Valley if that will make me forget it all!" + +I strode forward along the silent, sunshiny way, with a thousand things +on my mind's surface and only one thought in its inner deeps. The sun +swung up the sky, and the thin August air even in its heat was light and +invigorating. The river banks were low and soft where the stream cuts +through the alluvial soil a channel many feet below the level of the +Plains. The day was long, but full of interest to me, who took its sight +as a child takes a new picture-book, albeit a certain sense of peril +lurked in the shadowing corners of my thought. + +The August sun was low in the west when I climbed up the grassy slope to +Morton's little square stone cabin. It stood on a bold height +overlooking the Saline River. Far away in every direction the land +billows lay fold on fold. Treeless and wide they stretched out to the +horizon, with here and there a low elevation, and here and there the +faint black markings of scrubby bushes clinging to the bank of a stream. +The stream itself, now only a shallow spread of water, bore witness to +the fierce thirst of the summer sun. Up and down the Saline Valley only +a few scattered homesteads were to be seen, and a few fields of slender, +stunted corn told the story of the first struggle for conquest in a +beautiful but lonely and unfriendly land. + +Morton was standing at the door of his cabin looking out on that sweep +of plains with thoughtful eyes. He did not see me until I was fairly up +the hill, and when he did he made no motion towards me, but stood and +waited for my coming. In those few moments as I swung forward +leisurely--for I was very tired now--I think we read each other's +character and formed our estimates more accurately than many men have +done after years of close business association. + +He was a small man beside me, as I have said, and his quiet manner, and +retiring disposition, half dignity, half modesty, gave the casual +acquaintance no true estimate of his innate force. Three things, +however, had attracted me to him in our brief meeting at Topeka: his +voice, though low, had a thrill of power in it; his hand-clasp was firm +and full of meaning; and when I looked into his blue eyes I recalled the +words which the Earl of Kent said to King Lear: + +"You have that in your countenance which I would fain call master." + +And when King Lear asked, "What's that?" Kent replied, "Authority." + +[Illustration: Every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts] + +It was in Morton's face. Although he was not more than a dozen years my +senior, I instinctively looked upon him as a leader of men, and he +became then and has always since been one of my manhood's ideals. + +"I'm glad to see you, Baronet. Come in." He grasped my hand firmly and +led the way into the house. I sat down wearily in the chair he offered +me. It was well that I had walked the last stage of my journey. Had I +been twenty-four hours later I should have missed him, and this one +story of the West might never have been told. + +The inside of the cabin was what one would expect to find in a +Plainsman's home who had no one but himself to consider. + +While I rested he prepared our supper. Disappointment in love does not +always show itself in the appetite, and I was as hungry as a coyote. All +day new sights and experiences had been crowding in upon me. The +exhilaration of the wild Plains was beginning to pulse in my veins. I +had come into a strange, untried world. The past, with its broken ties +and its pain and loss, must be only a memory that at my leisure I might +call back; but here was a different life, under new skies, with new +people. The sunset lights, the gray evening shadows, and the dip and +swell of the purple distances brought their heartache; but now I was +hungry, and Morton was making johnny cakes and frying bacon; wild plums +were simmering on the fire, and coffee was filling the room with the +rarest of all good odors vouchsafed to mortal sense. + +At the supper table my host went directly to my case by asking, "Have +you come out here to prospect or to take hold?" + +"To take hold," I answered. + +"Are you tired after your journey?" he queried. + +"I? No. A night's sleep will fix me." I looked down at my strong arms, +and stalwart limbs. + +"You sleep well?" His questions were brief. + +"I never missed but one night in twenty-one years, except when I sat up +with a sick boy one Summer," I replied. + +"When was that one night?" + +"Oh, during the war when the border ruffians and Copperheads terrorized +our town." + +"You are like your father, I see." He did not say in what particular; +and I added, "I hope I am." + +We finished the meal in silence. Then we sat down by the west doorway +and saw the whole Saline Valley shimmer through the soft glow of +twilight and lose itself at length in the darkness that folded down +about it. A gentle breeze swept along from somewhere in the far +southwest, a thousand insects chirped in the grasses. Down by the river +a few faint sounds of night birds could be heard, and then loneliness +and homesickness had their time, denied during every other hour of the +twenty-four. + +After a time my host turned toward me in the gloom and looked steadily +into my eyes. + +"He's taking my measure," I thought. + +"Well," I said, "will I do?" + +"Yes," he answered. "Your father told me once in the army that his boy +could ride like a Comanche, and turn his back to a mark and hit it over +his shoulder." He smiled. + +"That's because one evening I shot the head off a scarecrow he had put +up in the cherry tree when I was hiding around a corner to keep out of +his sight. All the Springvale boys learned how to ride and shoot and to +do both at once, although we never had any shooting to do that really +counted." + +"Baronet"--there was a tone in Morton's voice that gripped and held +me--"you have come here in a good time. We need you now. Men of your +build and endurance and skill are what this West's got to have." + +"Well, I'm here," I answered seriously. + +"I shall leave for Fort Harker to-morrow with a crowd of men from the +valley to join a company Sheridan has called for," he went on. "You know +about the Indian raid the first of this month. The Cheyennes came across +here, and up on Spillman Creek and over on the Solomon they killed a +dozen or more people. They burned every farm-house, and outraged every +woman, and butchered every man and child they could lay hands on. You +heard about it at Topeka." + +"Hasn't that Indian massacre been avenged yet?" I cried. + +Clearly in my memory came the two women of my dream of long ago. How +deeply that dream had impressed itself upon my mind! And then there +flashed across my brain the image of Marjie, as she looked the night +when she stood in the doorway with the lamplight on her brown curls, and +it became clear to me that she was safe at home. Oh, the joy of that +moment! The unutterable thankfulness that filled my soul was matched in +intensity only by the horror that fills it even now when I think of a +white woman in Indian slave-bonds. And while I was thinking of this I +was listening to Morton's more minute account of what had been taking +place about him, and why he and his neighbors were to start on the next +day for Fort Harker down on the Smoky Hill River. + +Early in that memorable August of 1868 a band of forty Cheyenne braves, +under their chief Black Kettle, came riding up from their far-away +villages in the southwest, bent on a merciless murdering raid upon the +unguarded frontier settlements. They were a dirty, ragged, sullen crew +as ever rode out of the wilderness. Down on the Washita River their own +squaws and papooses were safe in their tepees too far from civilization +for any retaliatory measure to reach them. + +When Black Kettle's band came to Fort Hays, after the Indian custom they +made the claim of being "good Indians." + +"Black Kettle loves his white soldier brothers, and his heart feels glad +when he meets them," the Chief declared. "We would be like white +soldiers, but we cannot, for we are Indians; but we can all be brothers. +It is a long way that we have come to see you. Six moons have come and +gone, and there has been no rain; the wind blows hot from the south all +day and all night; the ground is hot and cracked; the grass is burned +up; the buffalo wallows are dry; the streams are dry; the game is +scarce; Black Kettle is poor, and his band is hungry. He asks the white +soldiers for food for his braves and their squaws and papooses. All +other Indians may take the war-trail, but Black Kettle will forever keep +friendship with his white brothers." + +Such were his honeyed words. The commander of the fort issued to each +brave a bountiful supply of flour and bacon and beans and coffee. Beyond +the shadow of the fort they feasted that night. The next morning they +had disappeared, these loving-hearted, loyal Indians, over whom the home +missionary used to weep copious tears of pity. They had gone--but +whither? Black Kettle and his noble braves were not hurrying southward +toward their squaws and papooses with the liberal supplies issued to +them by the Government. Crossing to the Saline Valley, not good Indians, +but a band of human fiends, they swept down on the unsuspecting +settlements. A homestead unprotected by the husband and father was +their supreme joy. Then before the eyes of the mother, little children +were tortured to death, while the mother herself--God pity her--was not +only tortured, but what was more cruel, was kept alive. + +Across the Saline Valley, over the divide, and up the Solomon River +Valley this band of demons pushed their way. Behind them were hot ashes +where homes had been, and putrid, unburied bodies of murdered men and +children, mutilated beyond recognition. On their ponies, bound hand and +foot, were wretched, terror-stricken women. The smiling Plains lay +swathed in the August sunshine, and the richness of purple twilights, +and of rose-hued day dawns, and the pitiless noontime skies of brass +only mocked them in their misery. Did a merciful God forget the Plains +in those days of prairie conquest? No force rose up to turn Black Kettle +and his murderous horde back from the imperilled settlements until +loaded with plunder, their savage souls sated with cruelty, with +helpless captives for promise of further fiendish sport, they headed +southward and escaped untouched to their far-away village in the +pleasant, grassy lands that border the Washita River. + +Not all their captives went with them, however. With these "good +Indians," recipients of the Fort Hays bounty, were two women, mothers of +a few months, not equal to the awful tax of human endurance. These, +bound hand and foot, they staked out on the solitary Plains under the +blazing August skies, while their tormentors rode gayly away to join +their fat, lazy squaws awaiting them in the southland by the winding +Washita. + +This was the story Morton was telling to me as we sat in the dusk by his +cabin door. This was the condition of those fair Kansas River valleys, +for the Cheyennes under Black Kettle were not the only foes here. Other +Cheyenne bands, with the Sioux, the Brules, and the Dog Indians from +every tribe were making every Plains trail a warpath. + +"The captives are probably all dead by this time; but the crimes are not +avenged, and the settlers are no safer than they were before the raid," +Morton was saying. "Governor Crawford and the Governor of Colorado have +urged the authorities at Washington to protect our frontier, but they +have done nothing. Now General Sheridan has decided to act anyhow. He +has given orders to Colonel George A. Forsyth of the U. S. Cavalry, to +make up a company of picked men to go after the Cheyennes at once. There +are some two hundred of them hiding somewhere out in the Solomon or the +Republican River country. It is business now. No foolishness. A lot of +us around here are going down to Harker to enlist. Will you go with us, +Baronet? It's no boys' play. The safety of our homes is matched against +the cunning savagery of the redskins. We paid fifteen million dollars +for this country west of the Mississippi. If these Indians aren't driven +out and made to suffer, and these women's wrongs avenged, we'd better +sell the country back to France for fifteen cents. But it's no easy +piece of work. Those Cheyennes know these Plains as well as you know the +streets of Springvale. They are built like giants, and they fight like +demons. Don't underestimate the size of the contract. I know John +Baronet well enough to know that if his boy begins, he won't quit till +the battle is done. I want you to go into this with your eyes open. +Whoever fights the Indians must make his will before the battle begins. +Forsyth's company will be made up of soldiers from the late war, +frontiersmen, and scouts. You're not any one of these, but--" he +hesitated a little--"when I heard your speech at Topeka I knew you had +the right metal. Your spirit is in this thing. You are willing to pay +the price demanded here for the hearthstones of the West." + +My spirit! My blood was racing through every artery in leaps and bounds. +Here was a man calmly setting forth the action that had been my very +dream of heroism, and here was a call to duty, where duty and ideal +blend into one. And then I was young, and thought myself at the +beginning of a new life; pain of body was unknown to me; the lure of the +Plains was calling to me--daring adventure, the need for courage, the +patriotism that fires the young man's heart, and, at the final analysis, +my loyalty to the defenceless, my secret notions of the value of the +American home, my horror of Indian captivity, a horror I had known when +my mind was most impressible--all these were motives driving me on. I +wondered that my companion could be so calm, sitting there in the dim +twilight explaining carefully what lay before me; and yet I felt the +power of that calmness building up a surer strength in me. I did not +dream of home that night. I chased Indians until I wakened with a +scream. + +"What's the matter, Baronet?" Morton asked. + +"I thought the Cheyennes had me," I answered sleepily. + +"Don't waste time in dreaming it. Better go to sleep and let 'em alone," +he advised; and I obeyed. + +The next morning we were joined by half a dozen settlers of that +scattered community, and together we rode across the Plains toward Fort +Harker. I had expected to find a fortified stronghold at the end of our +ride. Something in imposing stone on a commanding height. Something of +frowning, impenetrable strength. Out on the open plain by the lazy, +slow-crawling Smoky Hill River were low buildings forming a quadrangle +about a parade ground. Officers' quarters, soldiers' barracks, and +stables for the cavalry horses and Government mules, there were, but no +fortifications were there anywhere. Yet the fort was ample for the needs +of the Plains. The Indian puts up only a defensive fight in the region +of Federal power. It is out in the wide blank lands where distance mocks +at retreat that he leads out in open hostility against the white man. +Here General Sheridan had given Colonel Forsyth commission to organize a +Company of Plainsmen. And this Company was to drive out or annihilate +the roving bands of redskins who menaced every home along the +westward-creeping Kansas frontier in the years that followed the Civil +War. It was to offer themselves to this cause that the men from Morton's +community, whom I had joined, rode across the divide from the Saline +Valley on that August day, and came in the early twilight to the +solitary unpretentious Federal post on the Smoky Hill. + +It is only to a military man in the present time that this picture of +Fort Harker would be interesting, and there is nothing now in all that +peaceful land to suggest the frontier military station which I saw on +that summer day, now nearly four decades ago. But everything was +interesting to me then, and my greatest study was the men gathered there +for a grim and urgent purpose. My impression of frontiersmen had been +shaped by the loud threats, the swagger, and much profanity of the +border people of the Territorial and Civil War days. Here were quiet men +who made no boasts. Strong, wiry men they were, tanned by the sun of the +Plains, their hands hardened, their eyes keen. They were military men +who rode like centaurs, scouts who shot with marvellous accuracy, and +the sturdy settlers, builders of empire in this stubborn West. Had I +been older I would have felt my own lack of training among them. My +hands, beside theirs, were soft and white, and while I was accounted a +good marksman in Springvale I was a novice here. But since the night +long ago when Jean Pahusca frightened Marjie by peering through our +schoolroom window I had felt myself in duty bound to drive back the +Indians. I had a giant's strength, and no Baronet was ever seriously +called a coward. + +The hours at Fort Barker were busy ones for Colonel Forsyth and +Lieutenant Fred Beecher, first in command under him. Their task of +selecting men for the expedition was quickly performed. My heart beat +fast when my own turn came. Forsyth's young lieutenant was one of the +Lord's anointed. Soft-voiced, modest, handsome, with a nature so +lovable, I find it hard to-day to think of him in the military ranks +where war and bloodshed are the ultimate business. But young Beecher was +a soldier of the highest order, fearless and resourceful. I cannot say +how much it lay in Morton's recommendation, and how much in the +lieutenant's kind heart that I was able to pass muster and be written +into that little company of less than threescore picked men. The +available material at Fort Harker was quickly exhausted, and the men +chosen were hurried by trains to Fort Hays, where the remainder of the +Company was made up. + +Dawned then that morning in late Summer when we moved out from the Fort +and fronted the wilderness. On the night before we started I wrote a +brief letter to Aunt Candace, telling her what I was about to do. + +"If I never come back, auntie," I added, "tell the little girl down on +the side of the hill that I tried to do for Kansas what her father did +for the nation, that I gave up my life to establish peace. And tell +her, too, if I really do fall out by the way, that I'll be lonely even +in heaven till she comes." + +But with the morning all my sentiment vanished and I was eager for the +thing before me. Two hundred Indians we were told we should find and +every man of us was accounted good for at least five redskins. At +sunrise on the twenty-ninth day of August in the year of our Lord 1868, +Colonel Forsyth's little company started on its expedition of defence +for the frontier settlements, and for just vengeance on the Cheyennes of +the plains and their allied forces from kindred bands. Fort Hays was the +very outpost of occupation. To the north and west lay a silent, pathless +country which the finger of the white man had not touched. We knew we +were bidding good-bye to civilization as we marched out that morning, +were turning our backs on safety and comfort and all that makes life +fine. Before us was the wilderness, with its perils and lonely +desolation and mysteries. + +But the wilderness has a siren's power over the Anglo-Saxon always. The +strange savage land was splendid even in its silent level sweep of +distance. When I was a boy I used to think that the big cottonwood +beyond the West Draw was the limit of human exploration. It marked the +world's western bound for me. Here were miles on miles of landscape +opening wide to more stretches of leagues and leagues of far boundless +plains, and all of it was weird, unconquerable, and very beautiful. The +earth was spread with a carpet of gold splashed with bronze and scarlet +and purple, with here and there a shimmer of green showing through the +yellow, or streaking the shallow waterways. Far and wide there was not a +tree to give the eye a point of attachment; neither orchard nor forest +nor lonely sentinel to show that Nature had ever cherished the land for +the white man's home and joy. The buffalo herd paid little heed to our +brave company marching out like the true knights of old to defend the +weak and oppressed. The gray wolf skulked along in the shadows of the +draws behind us and at night the coyotes barked harshly at the invading +band. But there was no mark of civilized habitation, no friendly hint +that aught but the unknown and unconquerable lay before us. + +I was learning quickly in those days of marching and nights of dreamless +sleep under sweet, health-giving skies. After all, Harvard had done me +much service; for the university training, no less than the boyhood on +the Territorial border, had its part in giving me mental discipline for +my duties now. Camp life came easy to me, and I fell into the soldier +way of thinking, more readily than I had ever hoped to do. + +On we went, northward to the Saline Valley, and beyond that to where the +Solomon River winds down through a region of summer splendor, its +rippling waves of sod a-tint with all the green and gold and russet and +crimson hues of the virgin Plains, while overhead there arched the sky, +tenderly blue in the morning, brazen at noonday, and pink and gray and +purple in the evening lights. But we found no Indians, though we +followed trail on trail. Beyond the Solomon we turned to the southwest, +and the early days of September found us resting briefly at Fort +Wallace, near the western bound of Kansas. + +The real power that subdues the wilderness may be, nay, is, the spirit +of the missionary, but the mark of military occupation is a tremendous +convincer of truth. The shotgun and the Bible worked side by side in the +conquest of the Plains; the smell of powder was often the only incense +on the altars, and human blood was sprinkled for holy water. Fort +Wallace, with the Stars and Stripes afloat, looked good to me after +that ten days in the trackless solitude. And yet I was disappointed, for +I thought our quest might end here with nothing to show in results for +our pains. I did not know Forsyth and his band, as the next twenty days +were to show me. + +While we were resting at the Fort, scouts brought in the news of an +Indian attack on a wagon train a score of miles eastward, and soon we +were away again, this time equipped for the thing in hand, splendidly +equipped, it seemed, for what we should really need to do. We were all +well mounted, and each of us carried a blanket, saddle, bridle, +picket-pin, and lariat; each had a haversack, a canteen, a butcher +knife, a tin plate and tin cup. We had Spencer rifles and Colt's +revolvers, with rounds of ammunition for both; and each of us carried +seven days' rations. Besides this equipment the pack mules bore a large +additional store of ammunition, together with rations and hospital +supplies. + +Northward again we pushed, alert for every faint sign of Indians. Those +keen-eyed scouts were a marvel to me. They read the ground, the streams, +the sagebrush, and the horizon as a primer set in fat black type. Leader +of them, and official guide, was a man named Grover, who could tell by +the hither side of a bluff what was on the farther side. But for five +days the trails were illusive, finally vanishing in a spread of faint +footprints radiating from a centre telling us that the Indians had +broken up and scattered over separate ways. And so again we seemed to +have been deceived in this unmapped land. + +We were beyond the Republican River now, in the very northwest corner of +Kansas, and the thought of turning back toward civilization had come to +some of us, when a fresh trail told us we were still in the Indian +country. We headed our horses toward the southwest, following the trail +that hugged the Republican River. It did not fade out as the others had +done, but grew plainer each mile. + +The whole command was in a fever of expectancy. Forsyth's face was +bright and eager with the anticipation of coming danger. Lieutenant +Beecher was serious and silent, while the guide, Sharp Grover, was alert +and cool. A tenseness had made itself felt throughout the command. I +learned early not to ask questions; but as we came one noon upon a broad +path leading up to the main trail where from this union we looked out on +a wide, well-beaten way, I turned an inquiring face toward Morton, who +rode beside me. There was strength in the answer his eyes gave mine. He +had what the latter-day students of psychology call "poise," a grip on +himself. It is by such men that the Plains have been won from a desert +demesne to fruitful fields. + +"I gave you warning it was no boy's play," he said simply. + +I nodded and we rode on in silence. We pressed westward to where the +smaller streams combine to form the Republican River. The trail here led +us up the Arickaree fork, a shallow stream at this season of the year, +full of sand-bars and gravelly shoals. Here the waters lost themselves +for many feet in the underflow so common in this land of aimless, +uncertain waterways. + +On the afternoon of the sixteenth of September the trail led to a little +gorge through which the Arickaree passes in a narrower channel. Beyond +it the valley opened out with a level space reaching back to low hills +on the north, while an undulating plain spread away to the south. The +grass was tall and rank in this open space, which closed in with a bluff +a mile or more to the west. Although it was hardly beyond midafternoon, +Colonel Forsyth halted the company, and we went into camp. We were +almost out of rations. Our horses having no food now, were carefully +picketed out to graze at the end of their lariats. A general sense of +impending calamity pervaded the camp. But the Plainsmen were accustomed +to this kind of thing, and the Civil War soldiers had learned their +lesson at Gettysburg and Chickamauga and Malvern Hill. I was the green +hand, and I dare say my anxiety was greater than that of any other one +there. But I had a double reason for apprehension. + +As we had come through the little gorge that afternoon, I was riding +some distance in the rear of the line. Beside me was a boy of eighteen, +fair-haired, blue-eyed, his cheek as smooth as a girl's. His trim little +figure, clad in picturesque buckskin, suggested a pretty actor in a Wild +West play. And yet this boy, Jack Stillwell, was a scout of the +uttermost daring and shrewdness. He always made me think of Bud +Anderson. I even missed Bud's lisp when he spoke. + +"Stillwell," I said in a low tone as we rode along, "tell me what you +think of this. Aren't we pretty near the edge? I've felt for three days +as if an Indian was riding beside me and I couldn't see him. It's not +the mirage, and I'm not locoed. Did you ever feel as if you were near +somebody you couldn't see?" + +The boy turned his fair, smooth face toward mine and looked steadily at +me. + +"You mustn't get to seein' things," he murmured. "This country turns +itself upside down for the fellow who does that. And in Heaven's name we +need every man in his right senses now. What do I think? Good God, +Baronet! I think we are marching straight into Hell's jaws. Sandy knows +it"--"Sandy" was Forsyth's military pet name--"but he's too set to back +out now. Besides, who wants to back out? or what's to be gained by it? +We've come out here to fight the Cheyennes. We're gettin' to 'em, that's +all. Only there's too damned many of 'em. This trail's like the old +Santa Fe Trail, wide enough for a Mormon church to move along. And as to +feelin' like somebody's near you, it's more 'n feelin'; it's fact. +There's Injuns on track of this squad every minute. I'm only eighteen, +but I've been in the saddle six years, and I know a few things without +seein' 'em. Sharp Grover knows, too. He's the doggondest scout that ever +rode over these Plains. He knows the trap we've got into. But he's like +Sandy, come out to fight, and he'll do it. All we've got to do is to +keep our opinions to ourselves. They don't want to be told nothin'; they +know." + +The remainder of the company was almost out of sight as we rounded the +shoulder of the gorge. The afternoon sunlight dazzled me. Lifting my +eyes just then I saw a strange vision. What I had thought to be only a +piece of brown rock, above and beyond me, slowly rose to almost a +sitting posture before my blinking eyes, and a man, no, two men, seemed +to gaze a moment after our retreating line of blue-coats. It was but an +instant, yet I caught sight of two faces. Stillwell was glancing +backward at that moment and did not see anything. At the sound of our +horses' feet on the gravel the two figures changed to brown rock again. +In the moment my eye had caught the merest glint of sunlight on an +artillery bugle, a gleam, and nothing more. + +"What's the matter, Baronet? You're white as a ghost. Are you scared or +sick?" Stillwell spoke in a low voice. We didn't do any shouting in +those trying days. + +"Neither one," I answered, but I had cause to wonder whether I was +insane or not. As I live, and hope to keep my record clear, the two +figures I had seen were not strangers to me. The smaller of the two had +the narrow forehead and secretive countenance of the Reverend Mr. Dodd. +In his hand was an artillery bugle. Beyond him, though he wore an Indian +dress, rose the broad shoulders and square, black-shadowed forehead of +Father Le Claire. + +"It is the hallucination of this mirage-girt land," I told myself. "The +Plains life is affecting my vision, and then the sun has blinded me. I'm +not delirious, but this marching is telling on me. Oh, it is at a +fearful price that the frontier creeps westward, that homes are planted, +and peace, blood-stained, abides with them." + +So I meditated as I watched the sun go down on that September night on +the far Colorado Plains by the grassy slopes and yellow sands and thin, +slow-moving currents of the Arickaree. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARICKAREE + + A blush as of roses + Where rose never grew! + Great drops on the bunch grass. + But not of the dew! + A taint in the sweet air + For wild bees to shun! + A stain that shall never + Bleach out in the sun! + + --WHITTIER. + + +Stillwell was right. Sharp Grover knew, as well as the boy knew, that we +were trapped, that before us now were the awful chances of unequal +Plains warfare. A mere handful of us had been hurrying after a host, +whose numbers the broad beaten road told us was legion. There was no +mirth in that little camp that night in mid-September, and I thought of +other things besides my strange vision at the gorge. The camp was the +only mark of human habitation in all that wide and utterly desolate +land. For days we had noted even the absence of all game--strong +evidence that a host had driven it away before us. Everywhere, save +about that winking camp fire was silence. The sunset was gorgeous, in +the barbaric sublimity of its seas of gold and crimson atmosphere. And +then came the rich coloring of that purple twilight. It is no wonder +they call it regal. Out on the Plains that night it swathed the +landscape with a rarer hue than I have ever seen anywhere else, although +I have watched the sun go down into the Atlantic off the Rockport coast, +and have seen it lost over the edge of the West Prairie beyond the big +cottonwood above the farther draw. As I watched the evening shadows +deepen, I remembered what Morton had told me in the little cabin back in +the Saline country, "Who ever fights the Indians must make his will +before the battle begins." Now that I was face to face with the real +issue, life became very sweet to me. How grand over war and hate were +the thoughts of peace and love! And yet every foot of this beautiful +land must be bought with a price. No matter where the great blame lies, +nor who sinned first in getting formal possession, the real occupation +is won only by sacrifice. And I was confronted with my part of the +offering. Strange thoughts come in such an hour. Sitting there in the +twilight, I asked myself why I should want to live; and I realized how +strong, after all, was the tie that bound me to Springvale; how under +all my pretence of beginning a new life I had not really faced the +future separated from the girl I loved. And then I remembered that it +would mean nothing serious to her how this campaign ended. Oh! I was in +the crucible now. I must prove myself the thing I always meant to be. +God knew the heroic spirit I needed that lonely September night. As I +sat looking out toward the west the years of my boyhood came back to me, +and then I remembered O'mie's words when he told me of his struggle: + +"It was to save a woman, Phil. He could only kill me. He wouldn't have +been that good to her. You'd have done the same to save any woman, aven +a stranger to you. Wait an' see." + +I thought of the two women in the Solomon Valley, whom Black Kettle's +band had dragged from their homes, tortured inhumanly, and at last +staked out hand and foot on the prairie to die in agony under pitiless +skies. + +"When the day av choosin' comes," O'mie said, "we can't do no more 'n to +take our places. We all do it. When you git face to face with a thing +like that, somehow the everlastin' arms Dr. Hemingway preaches about is +strong underneath you." + +Oh, blessed O'mie! Had he told me that to give me courage in my hour of +shrinking? Wherever he was to-night I knew his heart was with me, who so +little deserved the love he gave me. At last I rolled myself snugly in +my blanket, for the September evenings are cold in Colorado. The simple +prayers of childhood came back to me, and I repeated the "Now I lay me" +I used to say every night at Aunt Candace's knee. It had a wonderful +meaning to me to-night. And once more I thought of O'mie and how his +thin hand gripped mine when he said: "Most av all, don't niver forgit +it, Phil, when the thing comes to you, aven in your strength. Most av +all, above all sufferin', and natural longin' to live, there comes the +reality av them words Aunt Candace taught us: 'Though I walk through the +valley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'" + +"It may be that's the Arickaree Valley for me," I said to myself. "If it +is, I will fear no evil." And I stretched out on the brown grasses and +fell asleep. + +About midnight I wakened suddenly. A light was gleaming near. Some one +stood beside me, and presently I saw Colonel Forsyth looking down into +my face with kindly eyes. I raised myself on my elbow and watched him +passing among the slumbering soldiers. Even now I can see Jack +Stillwell's fair girl-face with the dim light on it as he slept beside +me. What a picture that face would make if my pen were an artist's +brush! At three in the morning I wakened again. It was very dark, but I +knew some one was near me, and I judged instinctively it was Forsyth. It +was sixty hours before I slept again. + +For five days every movement of ours had been watched by Indian scouts. +Night and day they had hung on our borders, just out of sight, waiting +their time to strike. Had we made a full march on that sixteenth day of +September, instead of halting to rest and graze our horses, we should +have gone, as Stillwell predicted, straight into Hell's jaws. As it was, +Hell rose up and crept stealthily toward us. For while our little band +slept, and while our commander passed restlessly among us on that night, +the redskins moved upon our borders. + +Morning was gray in the east and the little valley was full of shadows, +when suddenly the sentinel's cry of "Indians! Indians!" aroused the +sleeping force. The shouts of our guards, the clatter of ponies' hoofs, +the rattling of dry skins, the swinging of blankets, the fierce yells of +the invading foe made a scene of tragic confusion, as a horde of +redskins swept down upon us like a whirlwind. In this mad attempt to +stampede our stock nothing but discipline saved us. A few of the mules +and horses not properly picketed, broke loose and galloped off before +the attacking force, the remaining animals held as the Indians fled away +before the sharp fire of our soldiers. + +"Well, we licked them, anyhow," I said to myself exultantly as we obeyed +the instant orders to get into the saddle. + +The first crimson line of morning was streaking the east and I lifted my +face triumphantly to the new day. Sharp Grover stood just before me; his +hand was on Forsyth's shoulder. + +Suddenly he uttered a low exclamation. "Oh, heavens! General, look at +the Indians." + +This was no vision of brown rock and sun-blinded eyes. From every +direction, over the bluff, out from the tall grass, across the slope on +the south, came Indians, hundreds on hundreds. They seemed to spring +from the sod like Roderick Dhu's Highland Scots, and people every curve +and hollow. Swift as the wind, savage as hate, cruel as hell, they bore +down upon us from every way the wind blows. The thrill of that moment is +in my blood as I write this. It was then I first understood the tie +between the commanding officer and his men. It is easy to laud the file +of privates on dress parade, but the man who directs the file in the +hour of battle is the real power. In that instant of peril I turned to +Forsyth with that trust that the little child gives to its father. How +cool he was, and yet how lightning-swift in thought and action. + +In all the valley there was no refuge where we might hide, nor height on +which we might defend ourselves. The Indians had counted on our making a +dash to the eastward, and had left that way open for us. They had not +reckoned well on Colonel Forsyth. He knew intuitively that the gorge at +the lower end of the valley was even then filled with a hidden foe, and +not a man of us would ever have passed through it alive. To advance +meant death, and there was no retreat possible. Out in the middle of the +Arickaree, hardly three feet above the river-bed, lay a little island. +In the years to be when the history of the West shall be fully told, it +may become one of the Nation's shrines. But now in this dim morning +light it showed only an insignificant elevation. Its sandy surface was +grown over with tall sage grasses and weeds. + +A few wild plums and alder bushes, a clump of low willow shrubs, and a +small cottonwood tree completed its vegetation. + +"How about that island, Grover?" I heard Forsyth ask. + +"It's all we can do," the scout answered; and the command: "Reach the +island! hitch the horses!" rang through the camp. + +It takes long to tell it, this dash for the island. The execution of the +order was like the passing of a hurricane. Horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place, but in the rush the hospital supplies and +rations were lost. The Indians had not counted on the island, and they +raged in fury at their oversight. There were a thousand savage warriors +attacking half a hundred soldiers, and they had gloated over the fifty +scalps to be taken in the little gorge to the east. The break in their +plans confused them but momentarily, however. + +On the island we tied our horses in the bushes and quickly formed a +circle. The soil was all soft sand. We cut the thin sod with our butcher +knives and began throwing up a low defence, working like fiends with our +hands and elbows and toes, scooping out the sand with our tin plates, +making the commencement of shallow pits. We were stationed in couples, +and I was beside Morton when the onslaught came. Up from the undulating +south, and down over the north bluff swept the furious horde. On they +came with terrific speed, their blood-curdling yells of hate mingling +with the wild songs, and cries and taunts of hundreds of squaws and +children that crowded the heights out of range of danger, watching the +charge and urging their braves to battle. Over the slopes to the very +banks of the creek, into the sandy bed of the stream, and up to the +island they hurled their forces, while bullets crashed murderously, and +arrows whizzed with deadly swiftness into our little sand-built defence. + +In the midst of the charge, twice above the din, I caught the clear +notes of an artillery bugle. It was dim daylight now. Rifle-smoke and +clouds of dust and gray mist shot through with flashes of powder, and +the awful rage, as if all the demons of Hell were crying vengeance, are +all in that picture burned into my memory with a white-hot brand. And +above all these there come back to me the faces of that little band of +resolute men biding the moment when the command to charge should be +given. Such determination and such splendid heroism, not twice in a +lifetime is it vouchsafed to many to behold. + +We held our fire until the enemy was almost upon us. At the right +instant our rifles poured out a perfect billow of death. Painted bodies +reeled and fell; horses sank down, or rushed mad with pain, upon their +fallen riders; shrieks of agony mingled with the unearthly yells; while +above all this, the steady roar of our guns--not a wasted bullet in all +the line--carried death waves out from the island thicket. To me that +first defence of ours was more tragic than anything in the days and +nights that followed it. The first hour's struggle seasoned me for the +siege. + +The fury of the Indian warriors and of the watching squaws is +indescribable. The foe deflected to left and right, vainly seeking to +carry their dead from the field with them. The effort cost many Indian +lives. The long grass on either side of the stream was full of +sharpshooters. The morning was bright now, and we durst not lift our +heads above our low entrenchment. Our position was in the centre of a +space open to attack from every arc of the circle. Caution counted more +than courage here. Whoever stood upright was offering his life to his +enemy. Our horses suffered first. By the end of an hour every one of +them was dead. My own mount, a fine sorrel cavalry horse, given to me at +Fort Hays, was the last sacrifice. He was standing near me in the brown +bushes. I could see his superb head and chest as, with nostrils wide, +and flashing eyes, he saw and felt the battle charge. Subconsciously I +felt that so long as he was unhurt I had a sure way of escape. +Subconsciously, too, I blessed the day that Bud Anderson taught O'mie +and me to drop on the side of Tell Mapleson's pony and ride like a +Plains Indian. But even as I looked up over my little sand ridge a +bullet crashed into his broad chest. He plunged forward toward us, +breaking his tether. He staggered to his knees, rose again with a lunge, +and turning half way round reared his fore feet in agony and seemed +about to fall into our pit. At that instant I heard a laugh just beyond +the bushes, and a voice, not Indian, but English, cried exultingly, +"There goes the last damned horse, anyhow." + +It was the same voice that I had heard up on "Rockport" one evening, +promising Marjie in pleading tones to be a "good Indian." The same hard, +cold voice I had heard in the same place saying to me, as a promise +before high heaven: "I will go. But I shall see you there. When we meet +again my hand will be on your throat and--I don't care whose son you +are." + +Well, we were about to meet. The wounded animal was just above our pit. +Morton rose up with lifted carbine to drive him back when from the same +gun that had done for my horse came a bullet full into the man's face. +It ploughed through his left eye and lodged in the bones beyond it. He +uttered no cry, but dropped into the pit beside me, his blood, streaming +from the wound, splashed hot on my forehead as he fell. I was stunned by +his disaster, but he never faltered. Taking his handkerchief from his +pocket, he bound it tightly about his head and set his rifle ready for +the next charge. After that, nothing counted with me. I no longer shrank +in dread of what might happen. All fear of life, or death, of pain, or +Indians, or fiends from Hades fell away from me, and never again did my +hand tremble, nor my heart-beat quicken in the presence of peril. By the +warm blood of the brave man beside me I was baptized a soldier. + +The force drew back from this first attempt to take the island, but the +fire of the hidden enemy did not cease. In this brief breathing spell we +dug deeper into our pits, making our defences stronger where we lay. +Disaster was heavy upon us. The sun beat down pitilessly on the hot, dry +earth where we burrowed. Out in the open the Indians were crawling like +serpents through the tall grasses toward our poor house of sand, hoping +to fall upon us unseen. They had every advantage, for we did not dare to +let our bodies be exposed above the low breastworks, and we could not +see their advance. Nearly one-half of our own men were dead or wounded. +Each man counted for so much on that battle-girt island that day. Our +surgeon had been struck in the first round and through all the rest of +his living hours he was in a delirium. Forsyth himself, grievously +wounded in both lower limbs, could only drag his body about by his arms. +A rifle ball had grazed his scalp and fractured his skull. The pain from +this wound was almost unbearable. But he did not loosen his grip on the +military power delegated to him. From a hastily scooped-out pit where we +laid him he directed the whole battle. + +And now we girded on our armor for the supreme ordeal. The unbounded +wrath of the Indians at their unlooked-for failure in their first attack +told us what to expect. Our own guns were ready for instant use. The +arms of our dead and wounded comrades were placed beside our own. No +time was there in those awful hours to listen to the groans of the +stricken ones nor to close the dying eyes. Not a soul of us in those +sand-pits had any thought that we should ever see another sunset. All we +could do was to put the highest price upon our lives. It was ten o'clock +in the forenoon. The firing about the island had almost ceased, and the +silence was more ominous than the noise of bullets. Over on the bluff +the powers were gathering. The sunlight glinted on their arms and +lighted up their fantastic equipments of war. They formed in battle +array. And then there came a sight the Plains will never see again, a +sight that history records not once in a century. There were hundreds of +these warriors, the flower of the fierce Cheyenne tribe, drawn up in +military order, mounted on great horses, riding bareback, their rifles +held aloft in their right hands, the left hand grasping the flowing +mane, their naked bodies hideously adorned with paint, their long +scalp-locks braided and trimmed with plumes and quills. They were the +very acme of grandeur in a warfare as splendid as it was barbaric. And +I, who live to write these lines, account myself most fortunate that I +saw it all. + +They were arrayed in battle lines riding sixty abreast. It was a man of +genius who formed that military movement that day. On they came in +orderly ranks but with terrific speed, straight down the slope, across +the level, and on to the island, as if by their huge weight and terrible +momentum they would trample it into the very level dust of the earth, +that the winds of heaven might scatter it broadcast on the Arickaree +waters. Till the day of my death I shall hear the hoof-beats of that +cavalry charge. + +Down through the centuries the great commanders have left us their +stories of prowess, and we have kept their portraits to adorn our +stately halls of fame; and in our historic shrines we have preserved +their records--Cyrus, Alexander, Leonidas at Thermopylae, Hannibal +crossing the Alps, Charles Martel at Tours, the white-plumed Henry of +Navarre leading his soldiers in the battle of Ivry, Cromwell with his +Ironsides--godly men who chanted hymns while they fought--Napoleon's +grand finale at Waterloo, with his three thousand steeds mingling the +sound of hoof-beats with the clang of cuirasses and the clash of sabres; +Pickett's grand sweep at Gettysburg, and Hooker's charge up Lookout +Mountain. + +But who shall paint the picture of that terrific struggle on that +September day, or write the tale of that swirl of Indian warriors, a +thousand strong, as they swept down in their barbaric fury upon the +handful of Anglo-Saxon soldiers crouching there in the sand-pits +awaiting their onslaught? It was the old, old story retold that day on +the Colorado plains by the sunlit waters of the Arickaree--the white +man's civilization against the untamed life of the wilderness. And for +that struggle there is only one outcome. + +Before the advancing foe, in front of the very centre of the foremost +line, was their leader, Roman Nose, chief warrior of the Cheyennes. He +was riding a great, clean-limbed horse, his left hand grasping its mane. +His right hand was raised aloft, directing his forces. If ever the +moulds of Nature turned out physical perfection, she realized her ideal +in that superb Cheyenne. He stood six feet and three inches in his +moccasins. He was built like a giant, with a muscular symmetry that was +artistically beautiful. About his naked body was a broad, blood-red +silken sash, the ends of which floated in the wind. His war bonnet, with +its two short, curved, black buffalo horns, above his brow, was a +magnificent thing crowning his head and falling behind him in a sweep of +heron plumes and eagle feathers. The Plains never saw a grander warrior, +nor did savage tribe ever claim a more daring and able commander. He was +by inherent right a ruler. In him was the culmination of the intelligent +prowess and courage and physical supremacy of the free life of the +broad, unfettered West. + +On they rushed that mount of eager warriors. The hills behind them +swarmed with squaws and children. Their shrieks of grief and anger and +encouragement filled the air. They were beholding the action that down +to the last of the tribe would be recounted a victory to be chanted in +all future years over the graves of their dead, and sung in heroic +strain when their braves went forth to conquest. And so, with all the +power of heart and voice, they cried out from the low hill-tops. Just at +the brink of the stream the leader, Roman Nose, turned his face a moment +toward the watching women. Lifting high his right hand he waved them a +proud salute. The gesture was so regal, and the man himself so like a +king of men, that I involuntarily held my breath. But the set +blood-stained face of the wounded man beside me told what that kingship +meant. + +As he faced the island again, Roman Nose rose up to his full height and +shook his clenched fist toward our entrenchment. Then suddenly lifting +his eyes toward the blue sky above him, he uttered a war-cry, unlike any +other cry I have ever heard. It was so strong, so vehement, so full of +pleading, and yet so dominant in its certainty, as if he were invoking +the gods of all the tribes for their aid, yet sure in his defiant soul +that victory was his by right of might. The unearthly, blood-chilling +cry was caught up by all his command and reechoed by the watchers on +the hills till, away and away over the undulating plains it rolled, +dying out in weird cadences in the far-off spaces of the haze-wreathed +horizon. + +Then came the dash for our island entrenchment. As the Indians entered +the stream I caught the sound of a bugle note, the same I had heard +twice before. On the edge of the island through a rift in the +dust-cloud, I saw in the front line on the end nearest me a horse a +little smaller than the others, making its rider a trifle lower than his +comrades. And then I caught one glimpse of the rider's face. It was the +man whose bullet had wounded Morton--Jean Pahusca. + +We held back our fire again, as in the first attack, until the foe was +almost upon us. With Forsyth's order, "Now! now!" our part of the drama +began. I marvel yet at the power of that return charge. Steady, +constant, true to the last shot, we swept back each advancing wave of +warriors, maddened now to maniac fury. In the very moment of victory, +defeat was breaking the forces, mowing down the strongest, and spreading +confusion everywhere. A thousand wild beasts on the hills, frenzied with +torture, could not have raged more than those frantic Indian women and +shrieking children watching the fray. + +With us it was the last stand. We wasted no strength in this grim +crisis; each turn of the hand counted. While fearless as though he bore +a charmed life, the gallant savage commander dared death at our hands, +heeding no more our rain of rifle balls than if they had been the drops +of a summer shower. Right on he pressed regardless of his fallen braves. +How grandly he towered above them in his great strength and superb +physique, a very prince of prowess, the type of leader in a land where +the battle is always to the strong. And no shot of our men was able to +reach him until our finish seemed certain, and the time-limit closing +in. But down in the thick weeds, under a flimsy rampart of soft sand, +crouched a slender fair-haired boy. Trim and pink-cheeked as a girl, +young Stillwell was matching his cool nerve and steady marksmanship +against the exultant dominance of a savage giant. It was David and +Goliath played out in the Plains warfare of the Western continent. At +the crucial moment the scout's bullet went home with unerring aim, and +the one man whose power counted as a thousand warriors among his own +people received his mortal wound. Backward he reeled, and dead, or +dying, he was taken from the field. Like one of the anointed he was +mourned by his people, for he had never known fear, and on his banners +victory had constantly perched. + +In the confusion over the loss of their leader the Indians again divided +about the island and fell back out of range of our fire. As the tide of +battle ebbed out, Colonel Forsyth, helpless in his sand pit, watching +the attack, called to his guide. + +"Can they do better than that, Grover?" + +"I've been on the Plains since I was a boy and I never saw such a charge +as that. I think they have done their level best," the scout replied. + +"All right, then, we are good for them." How cheery the Colonel's voice +was! It thrilled my spirits with its courage. And we needed courage, for +just then, Lieutenant Beecher was stretching himself wearily before his +superior officer, saying briefly: + +"I have my death-wound; good-night." And like a brave man who had done +his best he pillowed his head face downward on his arms, and spoke not +any more on earth forever. + +It has all been told in history how that day went by. When evening fell +upon that eternity-long time, our outlook was full of gloom. Hardly +one-half of our company was able to bear arms. Our horses had all been +killed, our supplies and hospital appliances were lost. Our wounds were +undressed; our surgeon was slowly dying; our commander was helpless, and +his lieutenant dead. We had been all day without food or water. We were +prisoners on this island, and every man of us had half a hundred +jailers, each one a fiend in the high art of human torture. + +I learned here how brave and resourceful men can be in the face of +disaster. One of our number had already begun to dig a shallow well. It +was a muddy drink, but, God be praised, it was water! Our supper was a +steak cut from a slaughtered horse, but we did not complain. We gathered +round our wounded commander and did what we could for each other, and no +man thought of himself first. Our dead were laid in shallow graves, +without a prayer. There was no time here for the ceremonies of peace; +and some of the men, before they went out into the Unknown that night, +sent their last messages to their friends, if we should ever be able to +reach home again. + +At nightfall came a gentle shower. We held out our hands to it, and +bathed our fevered faces. It was very dark and we must make the most of +every hour. The Indians do not fight by night, but the morrow might +bring its tale of battles. So we digged, and shaped our stronghold, and +told over our resources, and planned our defences, and all the time +hunger and suffering and sorrow and peril stalked about with us. All +night the Indians gathered up their dead, and all night they chanted +their weird, blood-chilling death-songs, while the lamentations of the +squaws through that dreadful night filled all the long hours with +hideous mourning unlike any other earthly discord. But the darkness +folded us in, and the blessed rain fell softly on all alike, on skilful +guide, and busy soldier, on the wounded lying helpless in their beds of +sand, on the newly made graves of those for whom life's fitful fever was +ended. And above all, the loving Father, whose arm is never shortened +that He cannot save, gave His angels charge over us to keep us in all +our ways. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE SUNLIGHT ON OLD GLORY + + The little green tent is made of sod, + And it is not long, and it is not broad, + But the soldiers have lots of room. + And the sod is a part of the land they saved, + When the flag of the enemy darkly waved, + A symbol of dole and gloom. + + --WALT MASON. + + +"Baronet, we must have that spade we left over there this morning. Are +you the man to get it?" Sharp Grover said to me just after dusk. "We've +got to have water or die, and Burke here can't dig a well with his toe +nails, though he can come about as near to it as anybody." Burke was an +industrious Irishman who had already found water for us. "And then we +must take care of these." He motioned toward a still form at my feet, +and his tone was reverent. + +"Over there" was the camp ground of the night before. It had been +trampled by hundreds of feet. Our camp was small, and finding the spade +by day might be easy enough. To grope in the dark and danger was another +matter. Twenty-four hours before, I would not have dared to try. Nothing +counted with me now. I had just risen from the stiffening body of a +comrade whom I had been trying to compose for his final rest. I had no +more sentiment for myself than I had for him. My time might come at any +moment. + +"Yes, sir, I'll go," I answered the scout, and I felt of my revolvers; +my own and the one I had taken from the man who lay at my feet. + +"Well, take no foolish chances. Come back if the way is blocked, but get +the spade if you can. Take your time. You'd better wait an hour than be +dead in a minute," and he turned to the next work before him. + +He was guide, commander, and lieutenant all in one, and his duties were +many. I slipped out in the danger-filled shadows toward our camping +place of the night before. Every step was full of peril. The Indians had +no notion of letting us slip through their fingers in the dark. Added to +their day's defeats, we had slain their greatest warrior, and they would +have perished by inches rather than let us escape now. So our island was +guarded on every side. The black shadowed Plains were crossed and +re-crossed by the braves silently gathering in their lost ones for +burial. My scalp would have been a joy to them who had as yet no human +trophy to gloat over. Surely a spade was never so valuable before. My +sense of direction is fair and to my great relief I found that precious +implement marvellously soon, but the creek lay between me and the +island. Just at its bank I was compelled to drop into a clump of weeds +as three forms crept near me and straightened themselves up in the +gloom. They were speaking in low tones, and as they stood upright I +caught their words. + +"You made that bugle talk, anyhow, Dodd." + +So Dodd was the renegade whom I had heard three times in the conflict. +My vision at the gorge was not the insanity of the Plains, after all. I +was listening ravenously now. The man who had spoken stood nearest me. +There was a certain softness of accent and a familiar tone in his +speech. As he turned toward the other two, even in the dim light, the +outline of his form and the set of his uncovered head I knew. + +"That's Le Claire, as true as heaven, all but the voice," I said to +myself. "But I'll never believe that metallic ring is the priest's. It +is Le Claire turned renegade, too, or it's a man on a pattern so like +him, they couldn't tell themselves apart." + +I recalled all the gentleness and manliness of the Father. Never an act +of his was cruel, or selfish, or deceptive. True to his principles, he +had warned us again and again not to trust Jean. And yet he had always +seemed to protect the boy, always knew his comings and goings, and the +two had grown yearly to resemble each other more and more in face and +form and gesture. Was Le Claire a villain in holy guise? + +I did not meditate long, for the third man spoke. Oh, the "good Indian"! +Never could he conceal his voice from me. + +"Now, what I want you to do is to tell them all which one he is. I've +just been clear around their hole in the sand. I could have hit my +choice of the lot. But he wasn't there." + +No, I had just stepped out after the spade. + +"If he had been, I'd have shot him right then, no matter what come next. +But I don't want him shot. He's mine. Now tell every brave to leave him +to me, the big one, nearly as big as Roman Nose, whiter than the others, +because he's not been out here long. But he's no coward. The one with +thick dark curly hair; it would make a beautiful scalp. But I want him." + +"What will you do with him?" the man nearest to me queried. + +"Round the bend below the gorge the Arickaree runs over a little strip +of gravel with a ripple that sounds just like the Neosho above the Deep +Hole. I'll stake him out there where he can hear it and think of home +until he dies. And before I leave him I've got a letter to read to him. +It'll help to keep Springvale in his mind if the water fails. I've +promised him what to expect when he comes into my country." + +"Do it," the smallest of the three spoke up. "Do it. It'll pay him for +setting Bud Anderson on me and nearly killing me in the alley back of +the courthouse the night we were going to burn up Springvale. I was +making for the courthouse to get the papers to burn sure. I'd got the +key and could have got them easy--and there's some needed burning +specially--when that lispin' tow-head caught my arm and gave my head +such a cut that I'll always carry the scar, and twisted my wrist so I've +never been able to lift anything heavier than an artillery bugle since. +Nobody ever knew it back there but Mapleson and Conlow and Judson. Funny +nobody ever guessed Judson's part in that thing except his wife, and she +kept it to herself and broke her heart and died. Everybody else said he +was water-bound away from home. He wasn't twenty feet from his own house +when the Whately girl come out. He was helpin' Jean then. Thought her +mother'd be killed, and Whately'd never get home alive--as he +didn't--and he'd get the whole store; greediest man on earth for money. +He's got the store anyhow, now, and he's going to marry the girl he was +helpin' Jean to take out of his way. That store never would have been +burnt that night. I wish Jean had got her, though. Then I'd turned +things against Tell Mapleson and run him out of town instead of his +driving me from Springvale. Tell played a double game damned well. I'm +outlawed and he's gettin' richer every day at home." + +So spoke the Rev. Mr. Dodd, pastor of the Methodist Church South. It +may be I needed the discipline of that day's fighting to hold me +motionless and silent in the clump of grass beside these three men. + +"Well, let's get up there and watch the fool women cry for their men." +It was none other than Father Le Claire's form before me, but this man's +voice was never that soft French tone of the good man's--low and +musical, matching his kindly eyes and sweet smile. As the three slipped +away I did the only foolish act of mine in the whole campaign: I rose +from my hiding place, shouldered that spade, and stalked straight down +the bank, across the creek, and up to our works in the centre of the +island as upright and free as if I were walking up Cliff Street to Judge +Baronet's front door. Jean's words had put into me just what I +needed--not acceptance of the inevitable, but a power of resistance, the +indomitable spirit that overcomes. + +History is stranger than fiction, and the story of the Kansas frontier +is more tragical than all the Wild West yellow-backed novels ever turned +off the press. To me this campaign of the Arickaree has always read like +a piece of bloody drama, so terrible in its reality, it puts the +imagination out of service. + +We had only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our +dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell +and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight +they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward +the southwest, and making a wide detour from their real line of +direction. The Indians were on the alert, and a man must walk as +noiselessly as a panther to slip between their guards. + +The scouts wore blankets to resemble the Indians more closely in the +shadows of the night. They made moccasins out of boot tops, that their +footprints might tell no story. In sandy places they even walked +backward that they should leave no tell-tale trail out of the valley. + +Dawn found them only three miles away from their starting place. A +hollow bank overhung with long, dry grasses, and fronted with rank +sunflowers, gave them a place of concealment through the daylight hours. +Again on the second night they hurried cautiously forward. The second +morning they were near an Indian village. Their only retreat was in the +tall growth of a low, marshy place. Here they crouched through another +long day. The unsuspecting squaws, hunting fuel, tramped the grasses +dangerously near to them, but a merciful Providence guarded their +hiding-place. + +On the third night they pushed forward more boldly, hoping that the next +day they need not waste the precious hours in concealment. In the early +morning they saw coming down over the prairie the first guard of a +Cheyenne village moving southward across their path. The Plains were +flat and covertless. No tall grass, nor friendly bank, nor bush, nor +hollow of ground was there to cover them from their enemies. But out +before them lay the rotting carcass of an old buffalo. Its hide still +hung about its bones. And inside the narrow shelter of this carcass the +two concealed themselves while a whole village passed near them trailing +off toward the south. + +Insufficient food, lack of sleep, and poisonous water from the buffalo +wallows brought nausea and weakness to the faithful men making their way +across the hostile land to bring help to us in our dire extremity. It is +all recorded in history how these two men fared in that hazardous +undertaking. No hundred miles of sandy plain were ever more fraught with +peril; and yet these two pressed on with that fearless and indomitable +courage that has characterized the Saxon people on every field of +conquest. + +Meanwhile day crept over the eastern horizon, and the cold chill of the +shadows gave place to the burning glare of the September sun. Hot and +withering it beat down upon us and upon the unburied dead that lay all +about us. The braves that had fallen in the strife strewed the island's +edges. Their blood lay dark on the sandy shoals of the stream and +stained to duller brown the trampled grasses. Daylight brought the +renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us +and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were +hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle +continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not +attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them. +And so the thing became a game of endurance with us, a slow wearing away +of ammunition and food, a growing fever from weakness and loss of blood, +a festering of wounds, the ebbing out of strength and hope; while putrid +mule meat and muddy water, the sickening stench from naked bloated +bodies under the blazing heat of day, the long, long hours of watching +for deliverance that came not, and the certainty of the fate awaiting us +at last if rescue failed us--these things marked the hours and made them +all alike. As to the Indians, the passing of Roman Nose had broken their +fighting spirit; and now it was a mere matter of letting us run to the +end of our tether and then--well, Jean had hinted what would happen. + +On the third night two more scouts left us. It seemed an eternity since +Stillwell and his comrade had started from the camp. We felt sure that +they must have fallen by the way, and the second attempt was doubly +hazardous. The two who volunteered were quiet men. They knew what the +task implied, and they bent to it like men who can pay on demand the +price of sacrifice. Their names were Donovan and Pliley, recorded in the +military roster as private scouts, but the titles they bear in the +memory of every man who sat in that grim council on that night, has a +grander sound than the written records declare. + +"Boys," Forsyth said, lifting himself on his elbow where he lay in his +sand bed, "this is the last chance. If you can get to the fort and send +us help we can hold out a while. But it must come quickly. You know what +it means for you to try, and for us, if you succeed." + +The two men nodded assent, then girding on their equipments, they gave +us their last messages to be repeated if deliverance ever came to us and +they were never heard of again. We were getting accustomed to this now, +for Death stalked beside us every hour. They said a brief good-bye and +slipped out from us into the dangerous dark on their chosen task. Then +the chill of the night, with its uncertainty and gloom, with its ominous +silences broken only by the howl of the gray wolves, who closed in about +us and set up their hunger wails beyond the reach of our bullets; and +the heat of the day with its peril of arrow and rifle-ball filled the +long hours. Hunger was a terror now. Our meat was gone save a few +decayed portions which we could barely swallow after we had sprinkled +them over with gunpowder. For the stomach refused them even in +starvation. Dreams of banquets tortured our short, troubled sleep, and +the waking was a horror. A luckless little coyote wandered one day too +near our fold. We ate his flesh and boiled his bones for soup. And one +day a daring soldier slipped out from our sand pit in search of +food--anything--to eat in place of that rotting horseflesh. In the +bushes at the end of the island, he found a few wild plums. Oh, food +for the gods was that portion of stewed plums carefully doled out to +each of us. + +Six days went by. I do not know on which one the Sabbath fell, for God +has no holy day in the Plains warfare. Six days, and no aid had come +from Fort Wallace. That our scouts had failed, and our fate was decreed, +was now the settled conclusion in every mind. + +On the evening of this sixth day our leader called us about him. How +gray and drawn his face looked in the shadowy gray light, but his eyes +were clear and his voice steady. + +"Boys, we've got to the end of our rope, now. Over there," pointing to +the low hills, "the Indian wolves are waiting for us. It's the hazard of +war; that's all. But we needn't all be sacrificed. You, who aren't +wounded, can't help us who are. You have nothing here to make our +suffering less. To stay here means--you all know what. Now the men who +can go must leave us to what's coming. I feel sure now that you can get +through together somehow, for the tribes are scattering. It is only the +remnant left over there to burn us out at last. There is no reason why +you should stay here and die. Make your dash for escape together +to-night, and save your lives if you can. And"--his voice was brave and +full of cheer--"I believe you can." + +Then a silence fell. There were two dozen of us gaunt, hungry men, +haggard from lack of sleep and the fearful tax on mind and body that +tested human endurance to the limit--two dozen, to whom escape was not +impossible now, though every foot of the way was dangerous. Life is +sweet, and hope is imperishable. We looked into one another's face +grimly, for the crisis of a lifetime was upon us. Beside me lay Morton. +The handkerchief he had bound about his head in the first hour of +battle had not once been removed. There was no other handkerchief to +take its place. + +"Go, Baronet," he said to me. "Tell your father, if you see him again, +that I remembered Whately and how he went down at Chattanooga." + +His voice was low and firm and yet he knew what was awaiting him. Oh! +men walked on red-hot ploughshares in the days of the winning of the +West. + +Sharp Grover was sitting beside Forsyth. In the silence of the council +the guide turned his eyes toward each of us. Then, clenching his gaunt, +knotted hands with a grip of steel, he said in a low, measured voice: + +"It's no use asking us, General. We have fought together, and, by +Heaven, we'll die together." + +In the great crises of life the only joy is the joy of self-sacrifice. +Every man of us breathed freer, and we were happier now than we had been +at any time since the conflict began. And so another twenty-four hours, +and still another twenty-four went by. + + The sun came up and the sun went down, + And day and night were the same as one. + +And any evil chance seemed better than this slow dragging out of +misery-laden time. + +"Nature meant me to defend the weak and helpless. The West needs me," I +had said to my father. And now I had given it my best. A slow fever was +creeping upon me, and weariness of body was greater than pain and +hunger. Death would be a welcome thing now that hope seemed dead. I +thought of O'mie, bound hand and foot in the Hermit's Cave, and like +him, I wished that I might go quickly if I must go. For back of my +stolid mental state was a frenzied desire to outwit Jean Pahusca, who +was biding his time, and keeping a surer watch on our poor +battle-wrecked, starving force than any other Indian in the horde that +kept us imprisoned. + +The sunrise of the twenty-fifth of September was a dream of beauty on +the Colorado Plains. I sat with my face to the eastward and saw the +whole pageantry of morning sweep up in a splendor of color through +stretches of far limitless distances. Oh! it was gorgeous, with a glory +fresh from the hand of the Infinite God, whose is the earth and the +seas. Mechanically I thought of the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, +but nothing there could be half so magnificent as this. And as I looked, +the thought grew firmer that this sublimity had been poured out for me +for the last time, and I gazed at the face of the morning as we look at +the face awaiting the coffin lid. + +And even as the thought clinched itself upon me came the sentinel's cry +of "Indians! Indians!" + +We grasped our weapons at the shrill warning. It was the death-grip now. +We knew as surely as we stood there that we could not resist this last +attack. The redskins must have saved themselves for this final blow, +when resistance on our part was a feeble mockery. The hills to the +northward were black with the approaching force, but we were determined +to make our last stand heroically, and to sell our lives as dearly as +possible. As with a grim last measure of courage we waited, Sharp +Grover, who stood motionless, alert, with arms ready, suddenly threw his +rifle high in air, and with a shout that rose to heaven, he cried in an +ecstasy of joy: + +"By the God above us, it's an ambulance!" + +To us for whom the frenzied shrieks of the squaws, the fiendish yells of +the savage warriors, and the weird, unearthly wailing for the dead were +the only cries that had resounded above the Plains these many days, +this shout from Grover was like the music of heaven. A darkness came +before me, and my strength seemed momentarily to go from me. It was but +a moment, and then I opened my eyes to the sublimest sight it is given +to the Anglo-American to look upon. + +Down from the low bluffs there poured a broad surge of cavalry, in +perfect order, riding like the wind, the swift, steady hoof-beats of +their horses marking a rhythmic measure that trembled along the ground +in musical vibration, while overhead--oh, the grandeur of God's gracious +dawn fell never on a thing more beautiful--swept out by the free winds +of heaven to its full length, and gleaming in the sunlight, Old Glory +rose and fell in rippling waves of splendor. + +On they came, the approaching force, in a mad rush to reach us. And we +who had waited for the superb charge of Roman Nose and his savage +warriors, as we wait for death, saw now this coming in of life, and the +regiment of the unconquerable people. + +We threw restraint to the winds and shouted and danced and hugged each +other, while we laughed and cried in a very transport of joy. + +It was Colonel Carpenter and his colored cavalry who had made a dash +across the country rushing to our rescue. Beside the Colonel at their +head, rode Donovan the scout, whom we had accounted as dead. It was his +unerring eye that had guided this command, never varying from the +straight line toward our danger-girt entrenchment on the Arickaree. + +Before Carpenter's approaching cavalry the Indians fled for their lives, +and they who a few hours hence would have been swinging bloody tomahawks +above our heads were now scurrying to their hiding-places far away. + +[Illustration: Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all +dashed toward the place] + +Never tenderer hands cared for the wounded, and never were bath and +bandage and food and drink more welcome. Our command was shifted to a +clean spot where no stench of putrid flesh could reach us. Rest and +care, such as a camp on the Plains can offer, was ours luxuriously; and +hardtack and coffee, food for the angels, we had that day, to our +intense satisfaction. Life was ours once more, and hope, and home, and +civilization. Oh, could it be true, we asked ourselves, so long had we +stood face to face with Death. + +The import of this struggle on the Arickaree was far greater than we +dreamed of then. We had gone out to meet a few foemen. What we really +had to battle with was the fighting strength of the northern Cheyenne +and Sioux tribes. Long afterwards it came to us what this victory meant. +The broad trail we had eagerly followed up the Arickaree fork of the +Republican River had been made by bands on bands of Plains Indians +mobilizing only a little to the westward, gathering for a deadly +purpose. At the full of the moon the whole fighting force, two thousand +strong, was to make a terrible raid, spreading out on either side of the +Republican River, reaching southward as far as the Saline Valley and +northward to the Platte, and pushing eastward till the older settlements +turned them back. They were determined to leave nothing behind them but +death and desolation. Their numbers and leadership, with the defenceless +condition of the Plains settlers, give broad suggestion of what that +raid would have done for Kansas. Our victory on the Arickaree broke up +that combination of Indian forces, for all future time. It was for such +an unknown purpose, and against such unguessed odds, that fifty of us +led by the God of all battle lines, had gone out to fight. We had met +and vanquished a foe two hundred times our number, aye, crippled its +power for all future years. We were lifting the fetters from the +frontier; we were planting the standards westward, westward. In the +history of the Plains warfare this fight on the Arickaree, though not +the last stroke, was one of the decisive struggles in breaking the +savage sovereignty, a sovereignty whose wilderness demesne to-day is a +land of fruit and meadow and waving grain, of peaceful homes and wealth +and honor. + +It was impossible for our wounded comrades to begin the journey to Fort +Wallace on that day. When evening came, the camp settled down to quiet +and security: the horses fed at their rope tethers, the fires smouldered +away to gray ashes, the sun swung down behind the horizon bar, the gold +and scarlet of evening changed to deeper hues and the long, purple +twilight was on the silent Colorado Plains. Over by the Arickaree the +cavalry men lounged lazily in groups. As the shades of evening gathered, +the soldiers began to sing. Softly at first, but richer, fuller, sweeter +their voices rose and fell with that cadence and melody only the negro +voice can compass. And their song, pulsing out across the undulating +valley wrapped in the twilight peace, made a harmony so wonderfully +tender that we who had dared danger for days unflinchingly now turned +our faces to the shadows to hide our tears. + + We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground. + Give us a song to cheer + Our weary hearts, a song of home + And friends we love so dear. + Many are the hearts that are weary to-night, + Wishing for this war to cease, + Many are the hearts looking for the right + To see the dawn of peace. + +So the cavalry men sang, and we listened to their singing with hearts +stirred to their depths. And then with prayers of thankfulness for our +deliverance, we went to sleep. And over on the little island, under the +shallow sands, the men who had fallen beside us lay with patient, folded +hands waiting beside the Arickaree waters till the last reveille shall +sound for them and they enter the kingdom of Eternal Peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A MAN'S BUSINESS + + Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; + charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business; + the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the + comprehensive ocean of my business. + + --DICKENS. + + +Every little community has its customs peculiar to itself. With the +people of Springvale the general visiting-time was on Sunday between the +afternoon Sabbath-school and the evening service. The dishes that were +prepared on Saturday for the next day's supper excelled the warm Sunday +dinner. + +We come to know the heart and soul of the folks that fill up a little +town, and when we get into the larger city we miss them oftener than we +have the courage to say. Unselfishness and integrity and stalwart +principles of right are not confined to the higher circles of society. A +man may be hungry for friends on the crest of his popularity; he may +long for the strong right hand of Christian fellowship in the centre of +a brotherhood of churchmen. Cam Gentry and his good wife are among those +whom in all my busy years of wide acquaintance with people of all ranks +I account as genuine stuff. They were only common clay, generous, +unselfish, clean of thought and act. Uneducated, with no high ideals, +they gauged their way by the golden rule, and made the most of their +time. A journey to Topeka was their "trip abroad"; beyond the +newspapers they read little except the Bible; and they built their faith +on the Presbyterian Church and the Republican party. But the cosy +lighted tavern on winter nights, and its clean, cool halls and +resting-places in the summer heat, are still a green spot in the memory +of many a traveller. Transients and regulars at the Cambridge House +delighted in this Sabbath evening spread. + +"Land knows," Dollie Gentry used to declare, "if ever a body feels +lonesome it's on Sunday afternoon between Sunday-school and evenin' +service. Why, the blues can get you then, when they'd stan' no show ary +other day er hour in the week. An' it stan's to reason a man, er woman, +either, is livin' in a hotel because they ain't got no home ner nobody +to make 'em feel glad to see 'em. If they're goin' to patronize the +Cambridge House they're goin' to get the best that's comin' to 'em right +then." + +So the old dining-room was a joy at this time of the week, with all that +a good cook can make attractive to the appetite. + +Mary Gentry, sweet-tempered and credulous as in her childhood, grew up +into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying +medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been +a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But +the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, +are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one +in Seattle, and one in New York City. Both in high places of trust and +financial importance. + +One October Sabbath afternoon, O'mie fell into step beside Marjie on the +way from Sabbath-school. Since his terrible experience in the Hermit's +Cave five years before, he had never been strong. We became so +accustomed to his little hacking cough we did not notice it until there +came a day to all of us when we looked back and wondered how we could +have been so inattentive to the thing growing up before our eyes. O'mie +was never anything but a good-hearted Irishman, and yet he had a keener +insight into character and trend of events than any other boy or man I +ever knew. I've always thought that if his life had been spared to +mature manhood--but it wasn't. + +"Marjie, I'm commissioned to invite you to the Cambridge House for +lunch," O'mie said. "Mary wants to see you. She's got a lame arm, fell +off a step ladder in the pantry. The papers on the top shelves had been +on there fifteen minutes, and Aunt Dollie thought they'd better put up +clean ones. That's the how. Dr. John Anderson's most sure to call +professionally this evening, and Bill Mead's going to bring Bess over +for tea, and there's still others on the outskirts, but you're specially +wanted, as usual. Bud will be there, too. Says he wants to see all the +Andersons once more before he leaves town, and he knows it's his last +chance; for John's forever at the tavern, and Bill Mead is monopolizing +Bess at home; and you know, Star-face, how Clayton divides himself +around among the Whatelys and Grays over at Red Range and a girl he's +got up at Lawrence." + +"All this when I'm starving for one of Aunt Dollie's good lunches. Offer +some other inducement, O'mie," Marjie replied laughingly. + +"Oh, well, Tillhurst'll be there, and one or two of the new folks, all +eligible." + +"What makes you call me 'Star-face'? That's what Jean Pahusca used to +call me." She shivered. + +"Oh, it fits you; but if you object, I can make it, 'Moon-face,' or +'Sun-up.'" + +"Or 'Skylight,' or 'Big Dipper'; so you can keep to the blue firmament. +Where's Bud going?" + +Out of the tail of his eye O'mie caught sight of Judson falling in +behind them here and he answered carelessly: + +"Oh, I don't know where Bud is going exactly. Kansas City or St. Louis, +or somewhere else. You'll come of course?" + +"Yes, of course," Marjie answered, just as Judson in his pompous little +manner called to her: + +"Marjory, I have invited myself up to your mother's for tea." + +"Why, there's nobody at home, Mr. Judson," the girl said kindly; "I'm +going down to Mary Gentry's, and mother went up to Judge Baronet's with +Aunt Candace for lunch." + +Nobody called my father's sister by any other name. To Marjie, who had +played about her knee, Aunt Candace was a part of the day's life in +Springvale. But the name of Baronet was a red rag to Judson's temper. He +was growing more certain of his cause every day; but any allusion to our +family was especially annoying, and this remark of Marjie's fired him to +hasten to something definite in his case of courtship. + +"When she's my wife," he had boasted to Tell Mapleson, "I'll put a stop +to all this Baronet friendship. I won't even let her go there. Marjie's +a fine girl, but a wife must understand and obey her lord and master. +That's it; a wife must obey, or your home's ruined." + +Nobody had ever accused Tell Mapleson's wife of ruining a home on that +basis; for she had been one of the crushed-down, washed-out women who +never have two ideas above their dish-pan. She had been dead some years, +and Tell was alone. People said he was too selfish to marry again. +Certainly matrimony was not much in his thoughts. + +The talk at the tavern table that evening ran on merrily among the young +people. Albeit, the Sabbath hour was not too frivolous, for we were +pretty stanch in our Presbyterianism there. I think our love for Dr. +Hemingway in itself would have kept the Sabbath sacred. He never found +fault with our Sunday visiting. All days were holy to him, and his +evening sermons taught us that frivolity, and idle gossip, and scandal +are as unforgivable on week days as on the Sabbath Day. Somewhere in the +wide courts of heaven there must be reserved an abode of inconceivable +joy and peace for such men as he, men who preach the Word faithfully +through the years, whose hand-clasp means fellowship, and in whose +tongue is the law of kindness. + +"Say, Clate, where's Bud going?" Somebody called across the table. Bud +was beside Marjie, whose company was always at a premium in any +gathering. + +"Let him tell; it's his secret," Clayton answered. "I'll be glad when +he's gone"--he was speaking across to Marjie now--"then I'll get some +show, maybe." + +"I'm going to hunt a wife," Bud sang out. "Can't find a thoul here +who'll thtay with me long enough to get acquainted. I'm going out Wetht +thomewhere." + +"I'd stay with you a blamed sight longer if I wasn't acquainted with you +than if I was," Bill Mead broke in. "It's because they do get acquainted +that they don't stay, Bud; and anyhow, they can run faster out there +than here, the girls can; they have to, to keep away from the Indians. +And there's no tepee ring for the ponies to stumble over. Marjie, do you +remember the time Jean Pahusca nearly got you? I remember it, for when I +came to after the shock, I was standing square on my head with both +feet in the air. All I could see was Bud dragging Jean's pony out of the +muss. I thought he was upside down at first and the horses were walking +like flies on the ceiling." + +Marjie's memories of that moment were keen. So were O'mie's. + +"Well, what ever did become of that Jean, anyhow? Anybody here seen him +for five years?" + +The company looked at one another. Bud's face was as innocent as a +baby's. Lettie Conlow at the foot of the table encountered O'mie's eyes +and her face flamed. Dr. John Anderson was explaining the happening to +Tillhurst and some newcomers in Springvale to whom the story was +interesting, and the whole table began to recall old times and old +escapades of Jean's. + +"Wasn't afraid of anything on earth," Bill Mead declared. + +"Yeth he wath, brother," Bud broke in, while Bess Anderson blushed +deeply at Bud's teasing name. Bill and Bess were far along the happy way +of youth and love. + +"Why, what did he fear?" Judson asked Dave Mead at the head of the +table. + +"Phil Baronet. He never would fight Phil. He didn't dare. He couldn't +bear to be licked." + +And then the conversation turned on me, and my virtues and shortcomings +were reviewed in friendly gossip. Only Judson's face wore a sneer. + +"I don't wonder this Jean was afraid of him," a recent-comer to the town +declared. + +"Oh, if he was afraid of this young man, this boy," Judson declared, "he +would have feared something else; that's it, he'd been afraid of other +things." + +"He was," O'mie spoke up. + +"Well, what was it, O'mie?" Dr. John queried. + +"Ghosts," O'mie replied gravely. "Oh, I know," he declared, as the crowd +laughed. "I can prove it to you and tell you all about it. I'll do it +some day, but I'll need the schoolhouse and some lantern slides to make +it effective. I may charge a small admission fee and give a benefit to +defray Bud's expenses home from this trip." + +"Would you really do that, O'mie?" Mary Gentry asked him. + +But the query, "Where's Phil, now?" was going the rounds, and the +answers were many. My doings had not been reported in the town, and +gossip still was active concerning me. + +"Up at Topeka," "Gone to St. Louis," "Back in Massachusetts." These were +followed by Dave Mead's declaration: + +"The best boy that ever went out of Springvale. Just his father over +again. He'll make some place prouder than it would have been without +him." + +Nobody knew who started the story just then, but it grew rapidly from +Tillhurst's side of the table that I had gone to Rockport, +Massachusetts, to settle in my father's old home-town. + +"Stands to reason a boy who can live in Kansas would go back to +Massachusetts, doesn't it?" Dr. John declared scornfully. + +"But Phil's to be married soon, to that stylish Miss Melrose. She's got +the money, and Phil would become a fortune. Besides, she was perfectly +infatuated with him." + +"Well," somebody else asserted, "if he does marry her, he can bring her +back here to live. My! but Judge Baronet's home will be a grand place to +go to then. It was always good enough." + +Amid all this clatter Marjie was as indifferent and self-possessed as +if my name were a stranger's. Those who had always known her did not +dream of what lay back of that sweet girl-face. She was the belle of +Springvale, and she had too many admirers for any suspicion of the truth +to find a place. + +While the story ran on Bud turned to her and said in a low voice, +"Marjie, I'm going to Phil. He needth me now." + +Nobody except Bud noticed how white the girl was, as the company rising +from the table swept her away from him. + +That night Dr. Hemingway's prayer was fervent with love. The boys were +always on his heart, and he called us all by name. He prayed for the +young men of Springvale, who had grown up to the life here and on whom +the cares of citizenship, and the town's good name were soon to rest; +and for the young men who would not be with us again: for Tell Mapleson, +that the snares of a great city like St. Louis might not entrap him; for +James Conlow, whose lines had led him away from us; for David Mead, +going soon to the far-away lands where the Sierras dip down the golden +slope to the Pacific seas; for August Anderson, also about to go away +from us, that life and health might be his; and last of all for Philip +Baronet. A deeper hush fell upon the company bowed in prayer. + +"For Philip Baronet, the strong, manly boy whom we all love, the +brave-hearted hero who has gone out from among us, and as his father did +before him for the homes of a nation, so now the son has gone to fight +the battles of the prairie domain, and to build up a wall of safety +before the homes and hearthstones of our frontier." And then he offered +thanksgiving to a merciful Father that, "in the awful conflict which +Philip, with a little handful of heroes, has helped to wage against the +savage red man, a struggle in which so many lives have gone out, our +Philip has been spared." His voice broke here, and he controlled it by +an effort, as in calm, low tones he finished his simple prayer with the +earnest petition, "Keep Thou these our boys; and though they may walk +through the valley of the shadow of death, may they fear no evil, for +Thou art with them. Amen." + +It was the first intimation the town had had of what I was doing. +Springvale was not without a regard for me who had loved it always, and +then the thought of danger to a fellow citizen is not without its +appeal. I have been told that Judge Baronet and Aunt Candace could not +get down the aisle after service until after ten o'clock that night and +that the tears of men as well as women fell fast as my father gave the +words of the message sent to him by Governor Crawford on the evening +before. Even Chris Mead, always a quiet, stern man, sat with head bowed +on the railing of the pew before him during the recital. It was noted +afterwards that Judson did not remain, but took Lettie Conlow home as +soon as the doxology was ended. The next day my stock in Springvale was +at a premium; for a genuine love, beside which fame and popularity are +ashes and dust, was in the heart of that plain, good little Kansas town. + +Bud called to say good-bye to Marjie, before he left home. + +"Are you going out West to stay?" Marjie asked. + +"I'm going to try it out there. Clate'th got all the law here a young +man can get; he'th gobbled up Dave and Phil'th share of the thing. John +will be the coming M. D. of the town, and Bill Mead already taketh to +the bank like a duck to water. I'm going to try the Wetht. What word may +I take to Phil for you?" + +"There's nothing to say," Marjie answered. + +To his words, "I hoped there might be," she only said gayly, "Good-bye, +Bud. Be a good boy, and be sure not to forget Springvale, for we'll +always love your memory." + +And so he left her. He was a good boy, nor did he forget the town where +his memory is green still in the hearts of all who knew him. His last +thought was of Springvale, and he babbled of the Neosho, and fancied +himself in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. He clung to me, as in his +childhood, and begged me to carry him on my shoulders when waters of +Death were rolling over him. I held his hand to the last, and when the +silence fell, I stretched myself on the brown curly mesquite beside him +and thanked God that He had let me know this boy. Ever more my life will +be richer for the remembrance it holds of him. + +Bud left Springvale in one of those dripping, chilly, wet days our +Kansas Octobers sometimes mix in with their opal-hued hours of Indian +summer. That evening Tell Mapleson dropped into Judson's store and O'mie +was let off early. + +The little Irishman ran up the street at once to the Whately home. Mrs. +Whately had retired. Eight o'clock was bed time for middle-aged people +in our town. Marjie sat alone by the fire. How many times that summer we +had talked of the long winter evenings we should spend together by that +fireplace in Marjie's cosy sitting-room. And now she was beside the +hearth, and I was far away. I might have been forgiven without a word +had I walked in that evening and found her, as O'mie did, alone with her +sad thoughts. Marjie never tried to hide anything from O'mie. She knew +he could see through any pretence of hers. She knew, too, that he would +keep sacred anything he saw. + +"Marjie, I'm lonesome to-night." + +Marjie gave him a seat beside the fire. + +"What makes you lonesome, O'mie?" she asked gravely. + +"The wrongs av the world bear heavily upon me." + +Marjory looked at him curiously to see if he was joking. + +"What I need to do is to shrive myself, I guess, and then get up an +inquisition, with myself as chief inquisitor." + +Marjie, studying the pictures in the burning coals, said nothing. O'mie +also sat silent for a time. + +"Marjie," he said at length, "when you see things goin' all wrong end +to, and you know what's behind 'em, drivin' 'em wrong, what's your rale +Presbyterian duty then? Let 'em go? or tend to somethin' else besides +your own business? Honest, now, what's what?" + +"I don't know what you're up to, O'mie." She was looking dreamily into +the grate, the firelight on her young face and thoughtful brown eyes +making a picture tenderly sweet and fair. In her mind was the image of +Judge Baronet as he looked the night before, when he lifted his head +after Dr. Hemingway's prayer for his son. And then maybe a picture of +the graceless son himself came unbidden, and his eyes were full of love +as when they looked down into hers on the day Rachel Melrose came into +Judge Baronet's office demanding his attention. "What's the matter, +O'mie? Is Uncle Cam being imposed on? You'd never stand that, I know." + +"No, little girl, Cambridge Gentry can still take care of Cam's interest +and do a kind act to more folks off-hand better than any other man I +know. Marjie, it's Phil Baronet." + +Marjie gave a start, but she made no effort to hide her interest. + +"Little girl, he's been wronged, and lied about, and misunderstood, by a +crowd av us who have knowed him day in and day out since he was a little +boy. Marjory Whately, did anybody iver catch him in a lie? Did he iver +turn coward in a place where courage was needed? Did he iver do a +cruelty to a helpless thing, or fight a smaller boy? Did he iver +decaive? Honestly, now, was there iver anything in all the years we run +together that wasn't square and clane and fearless and lovin'?" + +Marjie sat with bowed head before the flickering fire. When O'mie spoke +again his voice was husky. + +"Little girl, when I was tied hand and foot, and left to die in that +dark Hermit's Cave, it was Phil Baronet who brought in the sunlight and +a face radiant with love. When Jean Pahusca, drunk as a fury, was after +you out on the prairie with that cruel knife ready, the knife I've seen +him kill many a helpless thing with when he was drunk, when this Jean +was ridin' like a fiend after you, Phil turned to me that day and his +white agonized face I'll never forget. Now, Marjie, it's to right his +wrong, and the wrongs of some he loves that I'm studyin' about. The week +Phil came home from the rally I took a vacation. Shall I tell you why?" + +Marjie nodded. + +"Well, Star-face, it was laid on me conscience heavy to pay a part av +the debt I owe to the boy who saved me life. I ain't got eyes fur +nothin', and I see the clouds gatherin' black about that boy's head. +Back of 'em was jealousy, that was a girl; hate, that was a man whose +cruel, ugly deeds Phil had knocked down and trampled on and prevented +from comin' to a harvest of sufferin'; and revenge, that was a +rebel-hearted scoundrel who'd have destroyed this town but for Phil; and +last, a selfish, money-lovin' son of a horse-thief who was grabbing for +riches and pulling hard at the covers to hide some sins he'd never want +to come to the light, being a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. All +thim in one cloud makes a hurricane, and with 'em comes a shallow, +selfish, pretty girl. Oh, it was a sight, Marjie. If I can do somethin' +to keep shipwreck not only from them the storm's aimed at, but them +that's pilin' up trouble fur themselves, too, I'm goin' to do it." + +Marjie made no reply. + +"So I took a vacation and wint off on a visit to me rich relatives in +Westport." + +Marjie could not help smiling now. O'mie had not a soul to call his next +of kin. + +"Oh, yis, I wint," he continued, "on tin days' holiday. The actual start +to it was on the evenin' Phil got home from Topeka. The night of the +party at Anderson's Lettie Conlow comes into the store just at closin'. +I was behind a pile of ginghams fixin' some papers and cord below the +counter. And Judson, being a fool by inheritance and choice of +profession, takes no more notice of me than if I was a dog; says things +he oughtn't to when he knows I'm 'round. But he forgits me in the pride +of his stuck-uppityness. And I heard Judson say to her low, 'Now be sure +to go right after dark and look in there again. You're sure you know +just which crevice of the rock it is?' Lettie laughed and said, she'd +watched it too long not to know. And so they arranged it, and I arranged +my wrappin'-cord, and when I straightened up (I'm little, ye know), they +didn't see my rid head by the pile of ginghams; and so she went away. +When I got ready I wint, too. I trailed round after dark until I found +meself under that point av rock by the bushes in the steep bend +up-street. I was in a little corner full of crevices, when along comes +Lettie. She seemed to be tryin' to get somethin' out of 'em, and her +short fat arm couldn't reach it. Blamed inconvanient bein' little and +short! She tried and tried and thin she said some ugly words only a boy +has a right to say when he's cussin' somethin'. Just thin somethin' made +a noise between her and the steps, and she made a rush for 'em and was +gone. My eyes was gettin' catty and used to the dark now, and I could +make out pretty sure it was Phil who sails up nixt, aisy, like he knowed +the premises, and in his hand goes and he got out somethin' sayin' to +himself--and me: + +"'Well, Marjie tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole was +so deep.' + +"Marjie, maybe if that hole's too deep for Lettie to reach clear in, +there might be somethin' she's missed. I dunno'. But niver moind. I took +me vacation, went sailin' out with Dever fur a rale splurge to Kansas +City. Across the Neosho Dever turns the stage aside, U. S. mail and all, +and lands me siven miles up the river and ferries me on this side again. +Dever can keep the stillest of any livin' stage-driver whose business is +to drive stage on the side and gossip on the main line. He never cheeped +a chirp. I come back that same day and put in tin days studyin' things. +I just turned myself into a holy inquisition for tin mortial days. Now, +what I know has a value to Phil's good name, who has been accused of +doing more diviltry than the thief on the cross. Marjie, I'm goin' to +proceed now and turn on screws till the heretics squeal. It's not +exactly my business; but--well, yes, it's the Lord's business to right +the wrongs, and we must do His work now and then, 'unworthy though we +be,' as Grandpa Mead says, in prayer meetin'." + +"O'mie, you heard Dr. Hemingway's prayer last night?" Marjie asked, in a +voice that quivered with tears. + +"Oh, good God! Marjie, the men that's fighting the battles on the +frontier, the fire-guards around them prairie homes, they are the salt +of the earth." He dropped his head between his hands and groaned. +Presently he rose to say good-night. + +"Shall I do it, little sister? See to what's not my business at all, at +all, and start a fire in this town big enough to light the skies clear +to where Phil is this rainy night, and he can read a welcome home in +it?" + +"They said last night that he's going to be married soon to that +Massachusetts girl. Maybe he wouldn't want to come if he did see it," +Marjie murmured, turning her face away. + +"Oh, maybe not, maybe not. Niver did want to get back when he was away. +But, say, Marjie Star-face, Fort Wallace away out on the Plains ain't +Rockport; and rich men's homes and all that gabble they was desecratin' +the Sabbath with at supper last night--" O'mie broke off and took the +girl's trembling hand in his. "Oh! I can look after that rascal's good +name, but I don't dare to fix things up for you two, no matter what I +know." So ran his thoughts. + +The rain blew in a bitter gust as he opened the door. "Good-night, +Marjie. It's an ugly night. Any old waterproof cloak to lend me, +girlie?" he asked, but Marjie did not smile. She held the light as in +the olden time she had shown us the dripping path, and watched the +little Irishman trotting away in the darkness. + +The Indian summer of 1868 in Kansas was as short as it was glorious. The +next day was gorgeous after the rain, and the warm sunshine and light +breeze drove all the dampness and chill away. In the middle of the +afternoon Judson left the store to O'mie and went up to Mrs. Whately's +for an important business conference. These conferences were growing +frequent now, and dear Mrs. Whately's usually serene face wore a deeply +anxious look after each one. Marjie had no place in them. It was not a +part of Judson's plan to have her understand the business. + +Fortune favored O'mie's inquisition scheme. Judson had hardly left the +store when Lettie Conlow walked in. Evidently Judson's company on the +Sunday evening before had given her a purpose in coming. In our play as +children Lettie was the first to "get mad and call names." In her young +womanhood she was vindictive and passionate. + +"Good-afternoon, Lettie. Nice day after the rain," O'mie said, +pleasantly. + +She did not respond to his greeting, but stood before him with flashing +eyes. She had often been called pretty, and her type is always +considered handsome, for her coloring was brilliant, and her form +attractive. This year she was the best dressed girl in town, although +her father was not especially prosperous. Whether transplanting in a +finer soil with higher culture might have changed her I cannot say, for +the Conlow breed ran low and the stamp of the common grade was on +Lettie. I've seen the same on a millionaire's wife; so it is in the +blood, and not in the rank. No other girl in town broke the law as +Lettie did, and kept her good name, but we had always known her. The +boys befriended her more than the girls did, partly because we knew more +of her escapades, and partly because she would sometimes listen to us. A +pretty, dashing, wilful, untutored, and ill-principled girl, she was +sowing the grain of a certain harvest. + +"O'mie," she began angrily, "you've been talking about me, and you've +been spying on me long enough; and I'm going to settle you now. You are +a contemptible spy, and you're the biggest rascal in this town. That's +what you are." + +"Not by the steelyards, I ain't," O'mie replied. Passing from behind the +counter and courteously offering her a chair. Then jumping upon the +counter beside her he sat swinging his heels against it, fingering the +yard-stick beside the pile of calicoes. "Not by the steelyards, I ain't +the biggest. Tell Mapleson's lots longer, and James Conlow, blacksmith, +and Cam Gentry, and Cris Mead are all bigger. But if you want to settle +me, I'm ready. Who says I've been talking about you?" + +"Amos Judson, and he knows. He's told me all about you." + +O'mie's irrepressible smile spread over his face. "All about me? I +didn't give him credit for that much insight." + +"I'm not joking, and you must listen to me. I want to know why you tag +after me every place I go. No gentleman would do that." + +"Maybe not, nor a lady nather," O'mie interposed. + +Lettie's face burned angrily. + +"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a +dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do." + +She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little +knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies +have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a +monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the +sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The +twinkle in his eye only angered her the more. + +"Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've +fixed her. You two have always been against me, I know. I've heard what +you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody +away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and +her mother." + +"Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but +all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said, +leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you +please--Lord, it couldn't hurt me--but you, nor nobody else, man or +woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in +controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by +any evil names. If you've come here to settle me, settle away, and when +you get through my turn's comin' to settle; but if you say another word +against Marjie or any other woman, by the holy Joe Spooner, and all the +other saints, you'll walk right out that door, or I'll throw you out as +I'd do anybody else in the same case, no matter if they was masculine, +feminine, or neuter gender. Now you understand me. If you have anything +more to say, say it quick." + +Lettie was furious now, but the Conlow blood is not courageous, and she +only ground her teeth and muttered: "Always the same. Nobody dares to +say a word against her. What makes some folks so precious, I wonder? +There's Phil Baronet, now,--the biggest swindle in this town. Oh, I +could tell you a lot about him. I'll do it some day, too. It'll take +more money to keep me still than Baronet's bank notes." + +"Lettie," said O'mie in an even voice, "I'm waitin' here to be settled." + +"Then let me alone. I'm not goin' to be forever tracked 'round like a +thief. I'll fix you so you'll keep still. Who are you, anyhow? A nobody, +poor as sin, living off of this town all these years; never knowing who +your father nor mother is, nor nobody to care for you; the very trash of +the earth, somebody's doorstep foundling, to set yourself up over me! +You'd ought to 'a been run out of town long ago." + +"I was, back in '63, an' half the town came after me, had to drag me +back with ropes, they was so zealous to get me. I wasn't worth it, all +the love and kindness the town's give me. Now, Lettie, what else?" + +"Nothing except this. After what Dr. Hemingway said last night +Springvale's gone crazy about Phil again. Just crazy, and he's sure to +come back here. If he does"--she broke off a moment--"well, you know +what you've been up to for four months, trackin' me, and tellin' things +you don't know. Are you goin' to quit it? That's all." + +"The evidence bein' in an' the plaintiff restin'," O'mie said gravely, +"it's time for the defence in the case to begin. + +"You saved me a trip, my lady, for I was comin' over this very evenin' +to settle with you. But never mind, we can do it now. Judson's havin' +one of his M. E. quarterly conferences up at the Whately house and we +are free to talk this out. You say I'm a contemptible spy. Lettie, we're +a pair of 'em, so we'll lave off the adjective or adverb, which ever it +is, that does that for names of 'persons, places, and things that can be +known or mentioned.' Some of 'em that can be known, can't aven be +mentioned, though. Where were you, Lettie, whin I was spyin' and what +were you doin' at the time yoursilf?" + +"I guess I had a right to be there. It's a free country, and it was my +own business, not somebody else's," the girl retorted angrily, as the +situation dawned on her. + +"Exactly," O'mie went on. "It's a free country and we both have a right +to tend to our own business. Nobody has a right to tend to a business +of sin and evil-doin' toward his neighbor, though, my girl. If I've +tagged you and spied, and played the dirty coward, and ain't no +gintleman, it was to save a good name, and to keep from exposure a +name--maybe it's a girl's, none too good, I'm afraid--but it would niver +come to the gossips through me. You know that." + +Lettie did know it. O'mie and she had made mud pies together in the days +when they still talked in baby words. It was because he was true and +kind, because he was a friend to every man, woman, and child there, that +Springvale loves his memory to-day. + +"Second, I wish to Heaven I could make things right, but I can't. I wish +you could, but some of 'em you won't and, Lettie, some of 'em you can't +now. + +"Third, you've heard what I said about you. Why, child, I've said the +worst to you. No words comin' straight nor crooked to you, have I said +of you I'd not say to yoursilf, face to face. + +"And again now, girlie, you've talked plain here; came pretty near +callin' me names, in fact. I can stand it, and I guess I deserve some of +'em. I am something of a rascal, and a consummate liar, I admit; but +when you talk about a lot of scandal up your sleeve, more 'n bank notes +can pay by blackmail, and your chance of fixin' Phil Baronet's +character, Lettie, you just can't do it. You are too mad to be anything +but foolish to-day, but I'm glad you did come to me; it may save more 'n +Phil's name. Your own is in the worst jeopardy right now. You said, in +conclusion, that I was trackin' you, and you ask, am I goin' to quit it? +The defendant admits the charge, pleads guilty on that count, and throws +himself on the mercy av the coort. But as to the question, am I goin' to +quit it, I answer yes. Whin? Whin there's no more need fur it, and not +one minute sooner. I may be the very trash av the earth, with no father +nor mother nor annybody to care for me" (I can see, even now, the +pathetic look that came sometimes into his laughing gray eyes. It must +have been in them at that moment); "but I have sometimes been 'round +when things I could do needed doin', and I'm goin' to be prisent now, +and in the future, to put my hand up against wrong-doin' if I can." +O'mie paused, while that little dry cough that brought a red spot to +each cheek had its way. + +"Now, Lettie, you've had your say with me, and your mind's relieved. +It's my time to say a few things, and you must listen." + +Lettie sat looking at the floor. + +"I don't know why I have to listen," she spoke defiantly. + +"Nor do I know why I had to listen to what you said. You don't need to, +but I would if I was you. It may be all the better for you in a year if +you do. You spake av bein' tagged wherever you go. Who begun it? I'll +tell you. Back in the summer one day, two people drove out to the stone +cabin, the haunted one, by the river in the draw below the big +cottonwood. Somebody made his home there, somebody who didn't dare to +show his face in Springvale by day, 'cause his hand's been lifted to +murder his fellow man. But he hangs 'round here, skulkin' in by night to +see the men he does business with, and meetin' foolish girls who ought +never to trust him a minute. This man's waiting his chance to commit +murder again, or worse. I know, fur I've laid fur him too many times. +There's no cruel-hearted savage on the Plains more dangerous to the +settlers on the frontier; not one av 'em 'ud burn a house, and kill men +and children, and torture and carry off women, quicker than this +miserable dog that a girl who should value her good name has been +counsellin' with time and again, this summer, partly on account of +jealousy, and partly because of a silly notion of bein' romantic. Back +in June she made a trip to the cabin double quick to warn the varmint +roostin' there. In her haste she dropped a bow of purple ribbon which +with some other finery a certain little store-keeper gives her to do his +spyin' fur him. It's a blamed lovely cabal in this town. I know 'em all +by name. + +"Spakin' of bein' paupers and bein' kept by Judson, Lettie--who is +payin' the wages of sin, in money and fine clothes, right now? It's on +the books, and I kape the books. But, my dear girl,"--O'mie looked +straight into her black eyes--"they's books bein' kept of the purpose, +price av the goods, and money. And you and him may answer for that. I +can swear in coort only to what Judson spends on you; you know what +for." + +Lettie cowered down before her inquisitor, and her anger was mingled +with fear and shame. + +"This purple bow was found, identified. Aven Uncle Cam, short-sighted as +he is, remembered who wore it that day; aven see her gallopin' into town +and noticed she'd lost it. This same girl hung around the cliff till she +found a secret place where two people put their letters. She comes in +here and tells me I've no business taggin' her. What business had she +robbin' folks of letters, stealin' 'em out, and givin' 'em into wicked +hands? Lettie, you know whose letter you took when you could reach far +enough to git it out, and you know where you put it. + +"You said you could ruin Phil. It's aisy for a woman to do that, I +admit. No matter how hard the church may be on 'em, and how much other +women may cut 'em dead for doin' wrong things, a woman can go into a +coort-room and swear a man's character away, an' the jury'll give her +judgment every time. The law's a lot aisier with the women than the +crowd you associate with is." O'mie's speech was broken off by his +cough. + +"Now to review this case a bit. The night av the Anderson's party you +tried to get the letter Marjie'd put up for Phil. You didn't do it." + +"I never tried," Lettie declared. + +"How come the rid flowers stuck with the little burrs on your dress? +They don't grow anywhere round here only on that cliff side. I pulled +off one bunch, and I saw Phil pull off another when your skirts caught +on a nail in the door. But I saw more 'n that. I stood beside you when +you tried to get the letter, and I heard you tell Judson you had failed. +I can't help my ears; the Almighty made 'em to hear with, and as you've +said, I am a contemptible spy. + +"You have given hints, mean ugly little hints, of what you could tell +about Phil on that night. He took you home, as he was asked to do. But +what took you to the top of the cliff at midnight? It was to meet Jean +Pahusca, the dog the gallows is yappin' for now. You waited while he +tried to kill Phil. He'd done it, too, if Phil hadn't been too strong to +be killed by such as him. And then you and Jean were on your way out to +his cabin whin the boys found you. You know Bill and Bud was goin' to +Red Range, that night in the carriage when they overtook you. It was +moonlight, you remember; and ridin' on the back seat was Cris Mead, +silent as he always is, but he heard every word that was said. Bud come +all the way back with you to keep your good name a little while longer; +took chances on his own to save a girl's. It's Phil Baronet put that +kind of loyalty into the boys av this town. No wonder they love him. +Bud's affidavit's on file ready, when needed; and Bill is here to +testify; and Cris Mead's name's good on paper, or in coort, or prayer +meetin'. Lettie, you have sold yourself to two of the worst men ever set +foot in this town." + +"Amos Judson is my best friend; I'll tell him you said he's one of the +two worst men in this town," Lettie cried. + +"It's a waste av time; he knows it himself. Now, a girl who visits in +lonely cabins at dead hours av the night, with men she knows is +dangerous, oughtn't to ask why some folks are so precious. It's because +they keep their bodies and souls sacred before Almighty God, and don't +sell aither. You've accused me of tryin' to protect Phil, and of keepin' +Marjie's name out of everything, and that I've been spyin' on you. Good +God! Lettie, it's to keep you more 'n them. I was out after my own +business, after things other folks ought to a' looked after and didn't, +things strictly belongin' to me, whin I run across you everywhere, and +see your wicked plan to ruin good names and break hearts and get money +by blackmail. Lettie, it's not too late to turn back now. You've done +wrong; we all do. But, little girl, we've knowed each other since the +days I used to tie your apron strings when your short little fat arms +couldn't reach to tie 'em, and I know you now. What have you done with +Marjie's letter that you stole before it got to Phil?" His voice was +kind, even tender. + +"I'll never tell you!" Lettie blazed up like a fire brand. + +"Aren't you willing to right the wrongs you've done, and save yourself, +too?" His voice did not change. + +"I'm going to leave here when I get ready. I'm going away, but not till +I am ready, and--" She had almost yielded, but evil desire is a strong +master. The spirit of her low-browed father gained control again, and +she raised a stormy face to him who would have befriended her. "I'm +going to do what I please, and go where I please; and I'll fix some +precious saints so they'll never want to come back to this town; and +some others'll wish they could leave it." + +"All right, then," O'mie replied, as Lettie flung herself out of the +door, "if you find me among those prisent when you turn some corner +suddenly don't be surprised. I wonder," he went on, "who got that letter +the last night the miserable Melrose girl was here, or the night after. +I wonder how she could reach it when she couldn't get the other one. +Maybe the hole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who +knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her +thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the +mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good +and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added +seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now." + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK + + And yet I know past all doubting truly, + A knowledge greater than grief can dim, + I know as he loved, he will love me duly, + Yea, better, e'en better, than I love him. + + --JEAN INGELOW. + + +While O'mie and Lettie were acting out their little drama in the store +that afternoon, Judson was up in Mrs. Whately's parlor driving home +matters of business with a hasty and masterful hand. Marjie had slipped +away at his coming, and for the second time since I had left Springvale +she took the steep way up to our "Rockport." Had she known what was +going on at home she might have stayed there in spite of her prejudices. + +"It's just this way, Mrs. Whately," Judson declared, when he had +formally opened the conference, "it's just this way. With all my efforts +in your behalf, your business interest in the store has been eaten up by +your expenditures. Of course I know you have always lived up to a +certain kind of style whether you had the money or not; and I can +understand, bein' a commercialist, how easy those things go. But that +don't alter the fact that you'll have no more income from the store in a +very few months. I'm planning extensive changes in the Winter for next +Spring, and it'll take all the income. Do you see now?" + +"Partly," Mrs. Whately replied faintly. + +She was a sweet-spirited, gentle woman. She had been reared in a home of +luxury. Her own home had been guarded by a noble, loving husband, and +her powers of resource had never been called out. Of all the women I +have ever known, she was least fitted to match her sense of honor, her +faith in mankind, and her inexperience and lack of business knowledge +against such an unprincipled, avaricious man as the one who domineered +over her affairs. + +Judson had been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened +circumstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he +became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is +poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's +character and leads an erring nature into consummate villainy. + +"Well, now, if you can see what I'm tellin' you, that you are just about +penniless (you will be in a few months; that's it, you will be soon), +then you can see how magnanimous a man can be, even a busy merchant, +a--a commercialist, if I must use the word again. You'll not only be +poor with nobody to support you, but you'll be worse, my dear woman, +you'll be disgraced. That's it, just disgraced. I've kept stavin' it off +for you, but it's comin'--ugly disgrace for you and Marjory." + +Mrs. Whately looked steadily at him with a face so blanched with grief +only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have gone on. + +"I've been gettin' you ready for this for months, have laid my plans +carefully, and I've been gradually puttin' the warnin' of it in your +mind." + +This was true. Judson had been most skilfully paving the way, else Mrs. +Whately would not have had that troubled face and burdened spirit after +each conference. The intimation of disaster had grown gradually to +dreaded expectation with her. + +"Do tell me what it is, Amos. Anything is better than this suspense. +I'll do anything to save Marjie from disgrace." + +"Now, that's what I've been a-waitin' for. Just a-waitin' till you was +ready to say you'd do what's got to be done anyhow. Well, it's this. +Whately, your deceased first husband"--Judson always used the numeral +when speaking of a married man or woman who had passed away--"Whately, +he made a will before he went to the war. Judge Baronet drawed it up, +and I witnessed it. Now that will listed and disposed of an amount of +property, enough to keep you and Marjie in finery long as you lived. +That will and some other valuable papers was lost durin' the war (some +says just when they was taken, but they don't know), and can't nowhere +be found. Havin' entire care of the business in his absence, and bein' +obliged to assoom control on his said demise at Chattanoogy, I naturally +found out all about his affairs. To be short, Mrs. Whately, he never had +the property he said he had. Nobody could find the money. There was an +awful shortage. You can't understand, but in a word, he was a disgraced, +dishonest man--a thief--that's it." + +Mrs. Whately buried her face in her hands and groaned aloud. + +"Now, Mrs. Whately, you mustn't take on and you must forget the past. +It's the present day we're livin' in, and the future that's a-comin'. +Nobody can control what's comin', but me." He rose up to his five feet +and three inches, and swelled to the extent of his power. "Me." He +tapped his small chest. "I'll come straight to the end of this thing. +Phil Baronet's been quite a friend here, quite a friend. I've explained +to you all about him. Now you know he's left town to keep from bein' +mixed up in some things. They's some business of his father's he was +runnin' crooked. You know they say, I heard it out at Fingal's Creek, +that he left here on account of a girl he wanted to get rid of. And if +they'd talk that way about one girl, they'll say Marjie was doin' wrong +to go with him. You've all been friends of the Baronets. I never could +see why; but now--well, you know Phil left. Now, it rests with me"--more +tapping on that little quart-measure chest--"with me to keep things +quiet and save his name from further talk, and save Marjie, too. Many a +man, a business man, now, wouldn't have done as I'm doin'. I'll marry +Marjie. That saves you from poverty. It saves Irving Whately's name from +lastin' disgrace, and it saves Baronet's boy. I can control the men +that's against Baronet, in the business matter--some land case--and I +know the girl that the talk's all about; and it saves Marjory's name +bein' mixed up with this boy of Judge Baronet's." + +Had Judson been before Aunt Candace, she would have thrust him from the +door with one lifting of her strong, shapely hand. Dollie Gentry would +have cracked his head with her rolling pin before she let him go. Cris +Mead's wife would have chased him clear to the Neosho; she was Bill +Mead's own mother when it came to whooping things; but poor, gentle Mrs. +Whately sat dumb and dazed in a grief-stricken silence. + +"Give me your consent, and the thing's done. Marjie's only twenty. +She'll come to me for safety soon as she knows what you do. She'll have +to, to save them that's dearest to her. You and her father and her +friendship for the Baronets ought to do somethin'; besides, Marjie needs +somebody to look after her. She's a pretty girl and everybody runs after +her. She'd be spoiled. And she's fond of me, always was fond of me. I +don't know what it is about some men makes girls act so; but now, +there's Lettie Conlow, she's just real fond of me." (Oh, the popinjay!) +"You'll say yes, and say it now." There was a ring of authority in his +last words, to which Mrs. Whately had insensibly come to yield. + +She sat for a long time trying to see a way out of all this tangled web +of her days. At last, she said slowly: "Marjie isn't twenty-one, but +she's old for her years. I won't command her. If she will consent, so +will I, and I'll do all I can." + +Judson was jubilant. He clapped his hands and giggled hysterically. + +"Good enough, good enough! I'll let it be quietly understood we are +engaged, and I'll manage the rest. You must use all the influence you +can with her. Leave nothing undid that you can do. Oh, joy! You'll +excuse my pleasure, Mrs. Whately. The prize is as good as mine right +now, though it may take a few months even to get it all completely +settled. I'll go slow and quiet and careful. But I've won." + +Could Mrs. Whately have seen clear into the man's cruel, cunning little +mind, she would have been unutterably shocked at the ugly motives +contending there. But she couldn't see. She was made for sunshine and +quiet ways. She could never fathom the gloom. It was from her father +that Marjie inherited all that strong will and courage and power to walk +as bravely in the shadows as in the light, trusting and surefooted +always. + +Judson waited only until some minor affairs had been considered, and +then he rose to go. + +"I'm so sure of the outcome now," he said gleefully, "I'll put a crimp +in some stories right away; and I'll just let it be known quietly at +once that the matter's settled, then Marjie can't change it," he added +mentally. "And you're to use all your influence. Good-evening, my dear +Mrs. W. It'll soon be another name I may have for you." + +Meanwhile, Marjie sat up on "Rockport," looking out over the landscape, +wrapped in the autumn peace. Every inch of the cliff-side was sacred to +her. The remembrance of happy childhood and the sweet and tender +memories of love's young dream had hallowed all the ground and made the +view of the whole valley a part of the life of the days gone by. The +woodland along the Neosho was yellow and bronze and purple in the +afternoon sunshine, the waters swept along by verdant banks, for the +fall rains had given life to the brown grasses of August. Far up the +river, the shapely old cottonwood stood in the pride of its autumn gold, +outlined against a clear blue sky, while all the prairie lay in seas of +golden haze about it. On the gray, jagged rocks of the cliff, the +blood-red leaves of the vines made a rich warmth of color. + +For a long time Marjie sat looking out over the valley. Its beauty +appealed to her now as it had done in the gladsome days, only the appeal +touched other depths of her nature and fitted her sadder mood. At last +the thought of what might have been filled her eyes with tears. + +"I'll go down to our post-office, as O'mie suggested," she declared to +herself. "Oh, anything to break away from this hungry longing for what +can never be!" + +The little hidden cleft was vine-covered now, and the scarlet leaves +clung in a lacework about the gray stone under which the crevice ran +back clean and dry for an arm's length. It was a reflex action, and not +a choice of will, that led Marjie to thrust her hand in as she had done +so often before. Only cold stone received her touch. She recalled +O'mie's picture of Lettie, short-necked, stubby Lettie, down there in +the dark trying to stretch her fat arm to the limit of the crevice, and +as she thought, Marjie slipped her own arm to its full length, down the +cleft. Something touched her hand. She turned it in her fingers. It was +paper--a letter--and she drew it out. A letter--my letter--the long, +loving message I had penned to her on the night of the party at +Anderson's. Clear and white, as when I put it there that moonlit +midsummer night, when I thrust it in too far for my little girl to find +without an effort. + +Marjie carried it up to "Rockport" and sat down. She had no notion of +when it was put there. She only knew it was from my pen. + +"It's his good-bye for old times' sake," she mused. + +And then she read it, slowly at first, as one would drink a last cup of +water on the edge of a desert, for this was a voice from the old happy +life she had put all away now. I had done better than I dreamed of doing +in that writing. Here was Rachel Melrose set in her true light, the +possibility of a visit, and the possibility of her words and actions, +just as direct as a prophecy of what had really happened. Oh! it cleared +away every reason for doubt. Even the Rockport of Rachel's rapturous +memory, I declared I detested because only our "Rockport" meant anything +to me. And then she read of her father's dying message. It was the first +time she had known of that, and the letter in her trembling hands pulsed +visibly with her strong heart-throbs. Then came the closing words: + +"Good-night, my dear, dear girl, my wife that is to be, and know now and +always there is for me only one love. In sunny ways or shadow-checkered +paths, whatever may come, I cannot think other than as I do now. You are +life of my life; and so again, good-night." + +The sun was getting low in the west when Marjie with shining face came +slowly down Cliff Street toward her home. Near the gate she met my +father. His keen eyes caught something of the Marjie he had loved to +see. Something must have happened, he knew, and his heartbeats quickened +at the thought. Down the street he had met Judson with head erect +walking with a cocksure step. + +The next day the word was brought directly to him that Amos Judson and +Marjory Whately were engaged to be married. + + * * * * * + +In George Eliot's story of "The Mill on the Floss," the author gives to +one chapter the title, "How a Hen Takes to Stratagem." The two cases are +not parallel; and yet I always think of this chapter-heading when I +recall what followed Amos Judson's admonition to Mrs. Whately, to use +her influence in his behalf. When Marjie's mother had had time to +think over what had come about, her conscience upbraided her. Away +from the little widower and with Marjie innocent of all the +trouble--free-spirited, self-dependent Marjie--the question of influence +did not seem so easy. And yet, she knew Amos Judson well enough to know +that he was already far along in fulfilling his plans for the future. +For once in her life Mrs. Whately resolved to act on her own judgment, +and to show that she had been true to her promise to use all her +influence. + +"Daughter, Judge Baronet wants to see you this afternoon. I'm going down +to his office now on a little matter of business. Will you go over and +see how Mary Gentry's arm is, and come up to the courthouse in about +half an hour?" + +Mrs. Whately's face was beaming, for she felt somehow that my father +could help her out of any tangle, and if he should advise Marjie to +this step, it would surely be the right thing for her to do. + +"All right, mother, I'll be there," Marjie answered. + +The hours since she found that precious letter had been alternately full +of joy and sadness. There was no question in her mind about the message +in the letter. But now that she was the wrong-doer in her own +estimation, she did not spare herself. She had driven me away. She had +refused to hear any explanation from me, she had returned my last note +unopened. Oh, she deserved all that had come to her. And bitterest of +all was the thought that her own letter that should have righted +everything with me, I must have taken from the rock. How could I ever +care for a girl so mean-spirited and cruel as she had been to me? Lettie +couldn't get letters out, O'mie had said; and in the face of what she +had written, she had still refused to see me, had shown how +jealous-hearted and narrow-minded she could be. What could I do but +leave town? So ran the little girl's sad thoughts; and then hope had its +way again, for hers was always a sunny spirit. + +"I can only wait and see what will come. Phil is proud and strong, and +everybody loves him. He will make new friends and forget me." + +And then the words of my letter, "In sunny ways, or shadow-checkered +paths, I cannot think of you other than as I do now. You are life of my +life," she read over and over. And so with shining eyes and a buoyant +step, she went to do her mother's bidding that afternoon. + +Judge Baronet had had a hard day. Coupled with unusual business cares +was the story being quietly circulated regarding Judson's engagement. He +had not thought how much his son's happiness could mean to him. + +"And yet, I let him go to discipline him. Oh, we are never wise enough +to be fathers. It is only a mother who can understand," and the memory +of the woman glorified to him now, the one love of all his years, came +back to him. + +It was in this mood that Mrs. Whately found him. + +"Judge Baronet, I've come to get you to help me." She went straight to +her errand as soon as she was seated in the private office. "Marjie will +be here soon, and I want you to counsel her to do what I've promised to +help to bring about. She loves you next to her own father, and you can +have great influence with her." + +And then directly and frankly came the whole story of Judson's plan. +Mrs. Whately did not try to keep anything back, not even the effort to +shield my reputation, and she ended with the assurance that it must be +best for everybody for this wedding to take place, and Amos Judson hoped +it might be soon to save Irving's name. + +"I've not seen Marjie so happy in weeks as she was last night," she +added. "You know Mr. Tillhurst has been paying her so much attention +this Fall, and so has Clayton Anderson. And Amos has been going to +Conlow's to see Lettie quite frequently lately. I guess maybe that has +helped to bring Marjie around a little, when she found he could go with +others. It's the way with a girl, you know. You'll do what you can to +make Marjie see the right if she seems unwilling to do what I've agreed +she may do. For after all," Mrs. Whately said thoughtfully, "I can't +feel sure she's willing, because she never did encourage Amos any. But +you'll promise, won't you, for the sake of my husband? Oh, could he do +wrong! I don't believe he did, but he can't defend himself now, and I +must protect Marjie's name from any dishonor." + +It was a hard moment for the man before her, the keen discriminating +intelligent master of human nature. The picture of the battle field at +Missionary Ridge came before his eyes, the rush and roar of the conflict +was in his ears, and Irving Whately was dying there. "I hope they will +love each other. If they do, give them my blessing." Clearly came the +words again as they sounded on that day. And here was Irving Whately's +wife, Marjie's mother, in the innocence of her soul, asking that he +should help to give his friend's daughter to a man whom he was about to +call to judgment for heinous offences. And maybe,--oh, God forbid +it,--maybe the girl herself was not unwilling, since it was meant for +the family's welfare. What else could that look on her face last night +have meant? Oh, he had been a foolish father, over-fond, maybe, of a +foolish boy; but somehow he had hoped that sweet smile and the light in +Marjie's eyes might have meant word from Fort Wallace. What he might +have said to the mother, he never knew, for Marjie herself came in at +that moment, and Mrs. Whately took her leave at once. + +Marjie was never so fair and womanly as now. The brisk walk in the +October air had put a pink bloom on her cheeks. Her hair lay in soft +fluffy little waves about her head, and her big brown eyes, clear honest +eyes, were full of a radiant light. My father brought my face and form +back to her as he always did, and the last hand-clasp in that very room, +the last glance from eyes full of love; and the memory was sweet to her. + +"Mother said you wanted to see me," she said, "so I came in." + +My father put her in his big easy-chair and sat down near her. His back +was toward the window, and his face was shadowed, while his visitor's +face was full in the light. + +"Yes, Marjie, your mother has asked me to talk with you." I wonder at +the man's self-control. "She is planning, or consenting to plans for +your future, and she wants me to tell you I approve them. You seem very +happy to-day." + +A blush swept over the girl's face, and then the blood ebbed back +leaving it white as marble. Men may abound in wisdom, but the wisest of +them may not always interpret the swift bloom that lights the face of a +girl and fades away as swiftly as it comes. + +"She is consenting," my father assumed. + +"If you are satisfied with the present arrangement, I do not need to say +anything. I do not want to, anyhow. I only do it for the sake of your +mother, for the sake of the wife of my best friend. For his sake too, +God bless his memory!" + +Marjie's confusion deepened. The words of my letter telling of her +father's wishes were burning in her brain. With the thought of them, +this hesitancy on the part of Judge Baronet brought a chill that made +her shiver. Could it be that her mother was trying to influence my +father in her favor? Her good judgment and the knowledge of her mother's +sense of propriety forbade that. So she only murmured, + +"I don't understand. I have no plans. I would do anything for my father, +I don't know why I should be called to say anything," and then she broke +down entirely and sat white and still with downcast eyes, her two +shapely little hands clenched together. + +"Marjie, this is very embarrassing for me," my father said kindly, "and +as I say, it is only for Irving's sake I speak at all. If you feel you +can manage your own affairs, it is not right for anybody to interfere," +how tender his tones were, "but, my dear girl, maybe years and +experience can give me the right to say a word or two for the sake of +the friendship that has always been between us, a friendship future +relations will of necessity limit to a degree. But if you have your +plans all settled, I wish to know it. It will change the whole course of +some proceedings I have been preparing ever since the war; and I want to +know, too, this much for the sake of the man who died in my arms. I want +to know if you are perfectly satisfied to accept the life now opening to +you." + +Marjie had seen my father every day since I left home. Every day he had +spoken to her, and a silent sort of parental and filial love had grown +up between the two. The sudden break in it had come to both now. + +Women also may abound in wisdom but the wisest of them may not always +interpret correctly. + +"He had planned for Phil to marry Rachel, had sent him East on purpose. +He was so polite to her when she was here. I have broken up his plans +and his friendship is to be limited." So ran the girl's thoughts. "But I +have no plans. I don't know what he means. Nothing new is opening to +me." + +A new phase of womanhood began suddenly for her, a call for +self-dependence, for a judgment of her own, not the acceptance of +events. When she spoke again, her sweet voice had a clear ring in it +that startled the man before her. + +"Judge Baronet, I do not know what you are talking about. I do not know +of any plans for the future. I do not know what mother said to you. If I +am concerned in the plans you speak of, I have a right to know what they +are. If you are asked to approve of my doing, I certainly ought to know +of what you mean to approve." + +She had risen from her chair and was standing before him. Oh, she was +pretty, and with this grace of womanly self-control, her beauty and her +dignity combined into a new charm. + +"Sit down, Marjie," my father said in kind command. "You know the +purpose of Amos Judson's visit with your mother yesterday?" + +"Business, I suppose," Marjie answered carelessly, "I am not admitted to +these conferences." She smiled. "You know I wanted to talk with you +about some business affairs some time ago, but--" + +"Yes, I know, I understand," my father assured her. They both remembered +only too well what had happened in that room on her last visit. For she +had not been inside of the courthouse since the day of Rachel's sudden +appearance there. + +"Judge Baronet thinks I have nothing to bring Phil. I've heard +everywhere how Phil wants a rich wife, and yet the Baronets have more +property than anybody else here." So Marjie concluded mentally and then +she asked innocently: + +"How can Amos Judson's visit make this call here necessary?" + +At last the light broke in. "She doesn't know anything yet, that's +certain. But, by heavens, she must know. It's her right to know," my +father thought. + +"Marjie, your mother, in the goodness of her heart, and because of some +sad and bitter circumstances, came here to-day to ask me to talk with +you. I do this for her sake. You must not misunderstand me." He laid his +hand a moment on her arm, lying on the table. + +And then he told her all that her mother had told to him. Told it +without comment or coloring, sparing neither Phil, nor himself nor her +father in the recital. If ever a story was correctly reported in word +and spirit, this one was. + +"She shall have Judson's side straight from me first, and we'll depend +on events for further statement," he declared to himself. + +"Now, little girl, I'm asked to urge you for your own good name, for +your mother's maintenance, and your own, for the sake of that boy of +mine, and for my own good, as well, and most of all for the sake of your +father's memory, revered here as no other man who ever lived in +Springvale--for all these reasons, I'm asked to urge you to take this +man for your husband." + +He was standing before her now, strong, dignified, handsome, courteous. +Nature's moulds hold not many such as he. Before him rose up Marjie. Her +cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and lay over the arm of her chair. +Looking steadily into his face with eyes that never wavered in their +gaze, she replied: + +"I may be poor, but I can work for mother and myself. I'm not afraid to +work. You and your son may have done wrong. If you have, I cannot cover +it by any act of mine, not even if I died for you. I don't believe you +have done wrong. I do not believe one word of the stories about Phil. He +may want to marry a rich girl," her voice wavered here, "but that is his +choice; it is no sin. And as to protecting my father's name, Judge +Baronet, it needs no protection. Before Heaven, he never did a dishonest +thing in all his life. There has been a tangling of his affairs by +somebody, but that does not change the truth. The surest way to bring +dishonor to his name is for me to marry a man I do not and could not +love; a man I believe to be dishonest in money matters, and false to +everybody. It is no disgrace to work for a living here in Kansas. Better +girls than I am do it. But it is a disgrace here and through all +eternity to sell my soul. As I hope to see my father again, I believe he +would not welcome me to him if I did. Good and just as you are, you are +using your influence all in vain on me." + +Judge Baronet felt his soul expand with every word she uttered. Passing +round the table, he took both her cold hands in his strong, warm palms. + +"My daughter," neither he nor the girl misunderstood the use of the word +here, "my dear, dear girl, you are worthy of the man who gave up his +life on Missionary Ridge to save his country. God bless you for the +true-hearted, noble woman that you are." He gently stroked the curly +brown locks away from her forehead, and stooping kissed it, softly, as +he would kiss the brow of a saint. + +Marjie sank down in her seat, and as she did so my letter fell from the +pocket of the cloak she had thrown aside. As Judge Baronet stooped to +pick it up, he caught sight of my well-known handwriting on the +envelope. He looked up quickly and their eyes met. The wild roses were +in her cheeks now, and the dew of teardrops on her downcast lashes. He +said not a word, but laid the letter face downward in her lap. She put +it in her pocket and rose to go. + +"If you need me, Marjie, I have a force to turn loose against your +enemies, and ours. And you will need me. As a man in this community I +can assure you of that. You never needed friends as you will in the days +before you now. I am ready at your call. And let me assure you also, +that in the final outcome, there is nothing to fear. Good-bye." + +He looked down into her upturned face. Something neither would have put +into words came to both, and the same picture came before each mind. It +was the picture of a young soldier out at Fort Wallace, gathering back +the strength the crucial test of a Plains campaign had cost him. + +"There'll be the devil to pay," my father said to himself, as he watched +Marjie passing down the leaf-strewn walk, "but not a hair of her head +shall suffer. When the time comes, I'll send for Judson, as I promised +to do." + +And Marjie, holding the letter in her hand thrust deep in her cloak +pocket, felt strength and hope and courage pulsing in her veins, and a +peace that she had not known for many days came with its blessing to her +troubled soul. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE CALL TO SERVICE + + We go to rear a wall of men on Freedom's Southern line, + And plant beside the cotton-tree the rugged Northern pine! + + --WHITTIER. + + +"Phil Baronet, you thon of a horthe-thief, where have you been keeping +yourthelf? We've been waiting here thinthe Thummer before latht to meet +you." + +That was Bud Anderson's greeting. Pink-cheeked, sturdy, and stubby as a +five-year-old, he was standing in my path as I slipped from my horse in +front of old Fort Hays one October day a fortnight after the rescue of +Colonel Forsyth's little company. + +"Bud, you tow-headed infant, how the dickens and tomhill did you manage +to break into good society out here?" I cried, as we clinched in each +other's arms, for Bud's appearance was food to my homesick hunger. + +"When you git through, I'm nixt into the barber's chair." + +I had not noticed O'mie leaning against a post beside the way, until +that Irish brogue announced him. + +"Why, boys, what's all this delegation mean?" + +"Aw," O'mie drawled. "You've been elected to Congress and we're the +proud committy av citizens in civilians' clothes, come to inform you av +your elevation." + +"You mean you've come to get first promise of an office under me. +Sorry, but I know you too well to jeopardize the interest of the +Republican party and the good name of Kansas by any rash promises. It's +dinner time, and I'm hungry. I don't believe I'll ever get enough to eat +again." + +Oh, it was good to see them, albeit our separation had amounted to +hardly sixty days. Bud had been waiting for me almost a week; and O'mie, +to Bud's surprise, had come upon him unannounced that morning. The +dining-room was crowded; and as soon as dinner was over we went outside +and sat down together where we could visit our fill unmolested. They +wanted to know about my doings, but I was too eager to hear all the home +news to talk of myself. + +"Everybody all right when I left," Bud asserted. "I got off a few dayth +before thith mitherable thon of Erin. Didn't know he'd tag me, or I'd +have gone to Canada." He gave O'mie an affectionate slap on the shoulder +as he spoke. + +"Your father and Aunt Candace are well, and glad you came out of the +campaign you've been makin' a record av unfadin' glory in. Judge Baronet +was the last man I saw when I left town," O'mie said. + +"Why, where was Uncle Cam?" I asked. + +"Oh, pretendin' to be busy somewheres. Awful busy man, that Cam Gentry." +O'mie smiled at the remembrance. He knew why tender-hearted Cam had fled +from a good-bye scene. "Dave Mead's goin' to start to California in a +few days." He rattled on, "The church supper in October was the biggest +they've had yet. Dever's got a boil on the back of his neck, and Jim +Conlow's drivin' stage for him. Jim had a good job in Topeka, but come +back to Springvale. Can't keep the Conlows corralled anywhere else. +Everybody else is doing fine except Grandma Mead. She's failin'. Old +town looked pretty good to me when I looked back at it from the east +bluff of the Neosho." + +It had looked good to each one of us at the same place when each started +out to try the West alone. Somehow we did not care to talk, for a few +minutes. + +"What brought you out here, Bud?" I asked to break the spell. + +"Oh, three or four thingth. I wanted to thee you," Bud answered. "You +never paid me that fifteen thenth you borrowed before you went to +college." + +"And then," he continued, "the old town on the Neosho'th too thmall for +me. Our family ith related to the Daniel Boone tribe of Indianth, and +can't have too big a crowd around. Three children of the family are at +home, and I wanted to come out here anyhow. I'd like to live alwayth on +the Plainth and have a quiet grave at the end of the trail where the +wind blowth thteady over me day after day." + +We were lounging against the side of the low building now in the warm +afternoon sunshine, and Bud's eyes were gazing absently out across the +wide Plains. Although I had been away from home only two months, I felt +twenty years older than this fair-haired, chubby boy, sitting there so +full of blooming life and vigor. I shivered at the picture his words +suggested. + +"Don't joke, Bud. There's a grave at the end of most of the trails out +here. The trails aren't very long, some of 'em. The wind sweeps over 'em +lonely and sad day after day. They're quiet enough, Heaven knows. The +wrangle and noise are all on the edge of 'em, just as you're getting +ready to get in." + +"I'm not joking, Phil. All my life I have wanted to get out here. It'th +a fever in the blood." + +We talked a while of the frontier, of the chances of war, and of the +Indian raids with their trail of destruction, death, torture and +captivity of unspeakable horror. + +The closing years of the decade of the sixties in American history saw +the closing events of the long and bitter, but hopeless struggle of a +savage race against a superior civilized force. From the southern bound +of British America to the northern bound of old Mexico the Plains +warfare was waged. + +The Western tribes, the Cheyenne and Arapahoe, and Kiowa, and Brule, and +Sioux and Comanche were forced to quarter themselves on their +reservations again and again with rations and clothing and equipments +for all their needs. With fair, soft promises in return from their chief +men these tribes settled purringly in their allotted places. Through +each fall and winter season they were "good Indians," wards of the +nation; their "untutored mind saw God in clouds, or heard him in the +wind." + +Eastern churches had an "Indian fund" in their contribution boxes, and +very pathetic and beautifully idyllic was the story the sentimentalists +told, the story of the Indian as he looked in books and spoke on paper. +But the Plains had another record, and the light called History is +pitiless. When the last true story is written out, it has no favoring +shadows for sentimentalists who feel more than they know. + +Each Winter the "good Indians" were mild and gentle. But with the warmth +of Spring and the fruitfulness of summer, with the green grasses of the +Plains for their ponies, with wild game in the open, and the labor of +the industrious settler of the unprotected frontier as a stake for the +effort, the "good Indian" came forth from his reservation. Like the +rattlesnake from its crevice, he uncoiled in the warm sunshine, grew +and flourished on what lay in his pathway, and full of deadly venom he +made a trail of terror and death. + +This sort of thing went on year after year until, in the late Summer of +1868, the crimes of the savages culminated in those terrible raids +through western Kansas, whose full particulars even the official war +records deem unfit to print. + +Such were the times the three of us from Springvale were discussing on +the south side of the walls of old Fort Hays in the warm sunshine of an +October afternoon. + +We were new to the Plains and we did not dream of the tragedies that +were taking place not many miles away from the shadow of the Fort on +that October afternoon, tragedies whose crimes we three would soon be +called forth to help to avenge. For even as we lounged idly there in the +soft sunshine, and looked away through shimmering seas of autumn haze +toward the still land where Bud was to find his quiet grave at the end +of the trail--as we talked of the frontier and its needs, up in the +Saline Valley, a band of Indians was creeping stealthily upon a +cornfield where a young man was gathering corn. In his little home just +out of sight was a pretty, golden-haired girl, the young settler's bride +of a few months. Through the window she caught sight of her husband's +horse racing wildly toward the house. She did not know that her husband, +wounded and helpless, lay by the river bank, pierced by Indian arrows. +Only one thought was hers, the thought that her husband had been +hurt--maybe killed--in a runaway. What else could this terrified horse +with its flying harness ends mean? She rushed from the house and started +toward the field. + +A shout of fiendish glee fell on her ears. She was surrounded by painted +savage men, human devils, who caught her by the arms, dragged her about +by her long silky, golden hair, beat her brutally in her struggles to +free herself, bound her at last, and thrusting her on a pony, rode as +only Indians ride, away toward the sunset. And their captive, the sweet +girl-wife of gentle birth and gentle rearing, the happy-hearted young +home-maker on the prairie frontier, singing about her work an hour +before, dreaming of the long, bright years with her loved one--God pity +her! For her the gates of a living Hell had swung wide open, and she, +helpless and horror-stricken, was being dragged through them into a +perdition no pen can picture. And so they rode away toward the sunset. + +On and on they went through days and days of unutterable blackness, of +suffering and despair. On, until direction and space were lost to +measure. For her a new, pitiless, far-off heaven looked down on a new +agonized earth. The days ran into months, and no day had in it a ray of +hope, a line of anything but misery. + +And again beyond the Saline, where the little streams turn toward the +Republican River, in another household the same tragedy of the times was +being played, with all its settings of terror and suffering. Here the +grown-up daughter of the home, a girl of eighteen years, was wrenched +from arms that clung to her, and, bound on a pony's back, was hurried +three hundred miles away into an unknown land. For her began the life of +a slave. She was the victim of brute lust, the object of the vengeful +jealousy of the squaws. The starved, half-naked, wretched girl, whose +eighteen years had been protected in the shelter of a happy Christian +home, was now the captive laborer whose tasks strong men would stagger +under. God's providence seemed far away in those days of the winning of +the prairie. + +Fate, by and by, threw these two women together. Their one ray of +comfort was the sight of one another. And for both the days dragged +heavily by, the two women of my boyhood's dreams. Women of whose fate I +knew nothing as we sat by the south side of old Fort Hays that afternoon +forty years ago. + +"Did you know, boys, that General Sheridan is not going to let those +tribes settle down to a quiet winter as they've been allowed to do every +year since they were put on their reservations?" I asked O'mie and Bud. +"I've been here long enough to find out that these men out here won't +stand for it any longer," I went on. "They're MEN on these Plains, who +are doing this homesteading up and down these river valleys, and you +write every letter of the word with a capital." + +"What'th going to be done?" Bud queried. + +"Sheridan's going to carry a campaign down into their own country and +lick these tribes into behaving themselves right now, before another +Summer and another outbreak like that one two months ago." + +"What's these Kansas men with their capital letters got to do with it?" +put in O'mie. + +"Governor Crawford has issued a call at Sheridan's command, for a Kansas +regiment to go into service for six months, and help to do this thing up +right. It means more to these settlers on the boundary out here than to +anybody else. And you just see if that regiment isn't made up in a +hurry." + +I was full of my theme. My two months beyond the soft, sheltered life of +home had taught me much; and then I was young and thought I knew much, +anyhow. + +"What are you going to do, Phil?" O'mie asked. + +"I? I'm going to stay by this thing for a while. The Baronets were +always military folks. I'm the last of the line, and I'm going to give +my fighting strength, what little I have, to buy these prairies for +homes and civilization. I'm going to see the Indian rule broken here, or +crawl into the lonely grave Bud talks about and pull the curly mesquite +over me for a coverlet. I go to Topeka to-morrow to answer Governor +Crawford's call for volunteers for a cavalry company to go out on a +winter campaign against the rascally redskins. They're going to get what +they need. If you mix up with Custer, you'll see." + +"And when the campaign's over," queried O'mie, "will you stay in the +army?" + +"No, O'mie, I'll find a place. The world is wide. But look here, boy. +You haven't told me how you got pried loose and kicked out yet. Bud's an +exception. The rest of us boys had a reason for leaving the best town on +earth." + +"You're just right, begorra!" O'mie replied with warmth. "I was kicked +out av town by His Majesty, the prophet Amos, only you've got to spell +it with an 'f' instead av a 'ph.'" + +"Now, O'mie, confess the whole sin at once, please." + +O'mie looked up with that sunshiny face that never stayed clouded long, +and chuckled softly. "Judson's on the crest right now. Oh, let him ride. +He's doomed, so let him have his little strut. He comes to me a few days +backward into the gone on, and says, says he, important and commercial +like, 'O'mie, I shall not need you any more. I've got a person to take +your place.' 'All right,' I responds, respectful, 'just as you please. +When shall I lave off?' 'To-morrow mornin',' he answers, an' looks at +me as if to say, 'Nothin' left for you but the poor-house.' And indade, +a clerk under Judson don't make no such bank account as he made under +Irving Whately. I ain't ready to retire yet." + +"And do you mean to say that because Amos Judson turned you off and cut +you out of his will, you had to come out to this forsaken land? I +thought better of the town," I declared. + +"Oh, don't you mind! Cris Mead offered me a place in the bank. Dr. +Hemingway was fur havin' me fill his pulpit off an' on. He's gettin' +old. An' Judge Baronet was all but ready to adopt me in the place av a +son he'd lost. But I knowed the boy'd soon be back." + +O'mie gave me a sidelong glance, but I gave no hint of any feeling. + +"No, I was like Bud, ready to try the frontier," he added more +seriously. "I'm goin' down with you to join this Kansas regiment." + +"Now what the deuce can you do in the army, O'mie?" I could not think of +him anywhere but in Springvale. + +"I want to live out av doors till I get rid av this cough," he answered. +"And ye know I can do a stunt in the band. Don't take giants to fiddle +and fife. Little runts can do that. Who do you reckon come to Springvale +last month?" + +"Give it up," I answered. + +"Father Le Claire." + +"Oh, the good man!" Bud exclaimed. + +"Where has he been? and where was he going?" I asked coldly. + +O'mie looked at me curiously. He was shrewder than Bud, and he caught +the tone I had meant to conceal. + +"Where? Just now he's gone to St. Louis. He's in a hospital there. He's +been sick. I never saw him so white and thin as whin he left. He told +me he expected to be with the Osages this Winter." + +"I'm glad of that," I remarked. + +"Why?" O'mie spoke quickly. + +"Oh, I was afraid he might go out West. It's hard on priests in the +West." + +O'mie looked steadily at me, but said nothing. + +"Who taketh your plathe, O'mie?" Bud asked. + +"That's the beauty av it. It's a lady," O'mie answered. + +Somehow my heart grew sick. Could it be Marjie, I wondered. I knew money +matters were a problem with the Whatelys, but I had hoped for better +fortune through my father's help. Maybe, though, they would have none of +him now any more than of myself. When Marjie and I were engaged I did +not care for her future, for it was to be with me, and my burden was my +joy then. Not that earning a living meant any disgrace to the girl. We +all learned better than that early in the West. + +"Well, who be thaid lady?" Bud questioned. + +"Miss Letitia Conlow," O'mie answered with a grave face. + +"Oh, well, don't grieve, O'mie; it might be worse. Cheer up!" I said +gayly. + +"It couldn't be, by George! It just couldn't be no worse." O'mie was +more than grave, he was sad now. "Not for me, bedad! I'm glad." He +breathed deeply of the sweet, pure air of the Plains. "I can live out +here foine, but there's goin' to be the divil to pay in the town av +Springvale in the nixt six months. I'm glad to be away." + +The next day I left the fort for Topeka. My determination to stay in the +struggle was not merely a young man's love of adventure, nor was my +declaration of what would be done to the Indian tribes an idle boast. +The tragic days of Kansas were not all in its time of territorial strife +and border ruffianism. The story of the Western Plains--the short grass +country we call it now--in the decade following the Civil War is a +tragedy of unparalleled suffering and danger and heroism. In the cold +calculation of the official reports the half-year I had entered on has +its tabulated record of one hundred and fifty-eight men murdered, +sixteen wounded, forty-one scalped, fourteen women tortured, four women +and twenty-four children carried into captivity. And nearly all this +record was made in the Saline and Solomon and Republican River valleys +in Kansas. + +The Summer of the preceding year a battalion of soldiers called the +Eighteenth Kansas Cavalry spent four months on the Plains. Here they met +and fought two deadly foes, the Indians and the Asiatic cholera. Theirs +was a record of bravery and endurance; and their commander, Major Horace +L. Moore, keeps always a place in my own private hall of fame. + +Winter had made good Indians out of the savage wretches, as usual; but +the Summer of 1868 brought that official count of tragedy with all the +unwritten horror that history cannot burden itself to carry. Only one +thing seemed feasible now, to bear the war straight into the heart of +the Indian country in a winter campaign, to deal an effectual blow to +the scourge of the Plains, this awful menace to the frontier homes. +General Sheridan had asked Kansas to furnish a cavalry regiment for +United States military service for six months. + +The capital city was a wide-awake place that October. The call for +twelve hundred men was being answered by the veterans of the Plains and +by the young men of Kansas. The latter took up the work as many a +volunteer in the Civil War began it--in a sort of heyday of excitement +and achievement. They gave little serious thought to the cost, or the +history their record was to make. But in the test that followed they +stood, as the soldiers of the nation had stood before them, courageous, +unflinching to the last. Little notion had those rollicking young +fellows of what lay before them--a winter campaign in a strange country +infested by a fierce and cunning foe who observed no etiquette of +civilized warfare. + +At the Teft House, where Bud and O'mie and I stopped, I met Richard +Tillhurst. We greeted each other cordially enough. + +"So you're here to enlist, too," he said. "I thought maybe you were on +your way home. I am going to enlist myself and give up teaching +altogether if I can pass muster." He was hardly of the physical build +for a soldier. "Have you heard the news?" he went on. "Judson and +Marjory are engaged. Marjie doesn't speak of it, of course, but Judson +told Dr. Hemingway and asked him to officiate when the time comes. Mrs. +Whately says it's between the young people, and that means she has given +her consent. Judson spends half his time at Whately's, whether Marjie's +there or not. There's something in the air down there this Fall that's +got everybody keyed up one way or another. Tell Mapleson's been like a +boy at a circus, he's so pleased over something; and Conlow has a grin +on his face all the time. Everybody seems just unsettled and anxious, +except Judge Baronet. Honestly, I don't see how that town could keep +balanced without him. He sails along serene and self-possessed. Always +knows more than he tells." + +"I guess Springvale is safe with him, and we can go out and save the +frontier," I said carelessly. + +"For goodness' sake, who goes there?" Tillhurst pushed me aside and made +a rush out of doors, as a lady passed before the windows. I followed and +caught a glimpse of the black hair and handsome form of Rachel Melrose. +At the same moment she saw me. Her greeting lacked a little of its +former warmth, but her utter disregard of anything unpleasant having +been between us was positively admirable. Her most coquettish smiles, +however, were for Tillhurst, but that didn't trouble me. Our interview +was cut short by the arrival of the stage from the south just then, and +I turned from Tillhurst to find myself in my father's embrace. What +followed makes one of the sacred memories a man does not often put into +print. + +We wanted to be alone, so we left the noisy hotel and strolled out +toward the higher level beyond the town. There was only brown prairie +then stretching to the westward and dipping down with curve and ravine +to the Kaw River on the one side and the crooked little Shunganunga +Creek on the other. Away in the southwest the graceful curve of +Burnett's Mound, a low height like a tiny mountain-peak, stood out +purple and hazy in the October sunlight. A handful of sturdy young +people were taking their way to Lincoln College, the little stone +structure that was to be dignified a month later by a new title, +Washburn College, in honor of its great benefactor, Ichabod Washburn. + +"Why did the powers put the State Capitol and the College so far from +town, I wonder," I said as we loitered about the walls of the former. + +"For the same reason that the shortsighted colonists of the Revolution +put Washington away off up the Potomac, west of the thirteen States," +my father answered. "We can't picture a city here now, but it will be +built in your day if not in mine." + +And then we walked on until before us stood that graceful little locust +tree, the landmark of the prairie. Its leaves were falling in golden +showers now, save as here and there a more protected branch still held +its summer green foliage. + +"What a beautiful, sturdy little pioneer!" my father exclaimed. "It has +earned a first settler's right to the soil. I hope it will be given the +chance to live, the chance most of the settlers have had to fight for, +as it has had to stand up against the winds and hold its own against the +drouth. Any enterprising city official who would some day cut it down +should be dealt with by the State." + +We sat down by the tree and talked of many things, but my father +carefully avoided the mention of Marjie's name. When he gave the little +girl the letter that had fallen from her cloak pocket he read her story +in her face, but he had no right or inclination to read it aloud to me. +I tried by all adroit means to lead him to tell me of the Whatelys. It +was all to no purpose. On any other topic I would have quitted the game, +but--oh, well, I was just the same foolish-hearted boy that put the pink +blossoms on a little girl's brown curls and kissed her out in the purple +shadows of the West Draw one April evening long ago. And now I was about +to begin a dangerous campaign where the hazard of war meant a nameless +grave for a hundred, where it brought after years of peace and honor to +one. I must hear something of Marjie. The love-light in her brown eyes +as she gave me one affectionate glance when I presented her to Rachel +Melrose in my father's office--that pledge of her heart, I pictured over +and over in my memory. + +"Father, Tillhurst says he has heard that Amos Judson and Marjie are +engaged. Are they?" I put the question squarely. My father was stripping +the gold leaves one by one off a locust spray. + +"Yes, I have heard it, too," he replied, and to save my life I could not +have judged by word or manner whether he cared one whit or not. He was +studying me, if toying with a locust branch and whistling softly and +gazing off at Burnett's Mound are marks of study. He had nothing of +himself to reveal. "I have heard it several times," he went on. "Judson +has made the announcement quietly, but generally." + +He threw away the locust branch, shook down his cuff and settled it in +his sleeve, lifted his hat from his forehead and reset it on his head, +and then added as a final conclusion, "I don't believe it." + +He had always managed me most skilfully when he wanted to find out +anything; and when the time came that I began in turn to manage him, +being of his own blood, the game was interesting. But before I knew it, +we had drifted far away from the subject, and I had no opportunity to +come back to it. My father had found out all he wanted to know. + +"Phil, I must leave on the train for Kansas City this evening," he said +as we rose to go back to town. "I'm to meet Morton there, and we may go +on East together. He will have the best surgeons look after that wound +of his, Governor Crawford tells me." + +Then laying his hand affectionately on my shoulder he said, "I +congratulate you on the result of your first campaign. I had hoped it +would be your last; but you are a man, and must choose for yourself. +Yet, if you mean to give yourself to your State now, if you choose a +man's work, do it like a man, not like a schoolboy on a picnic +excursion. The history of Kansas is made as much by the privates down in +the ranks as by the men whose names and faces adorn its record. You are +making that record now. Make it strong and clean. Let the glory side go, +only do your part well. When you have finished this six months and are +mustered out, I want you to come home at once. There are some business +matters and family matters demanding it. But I must go to Kansas City, +and from there to New York on important business. And since nobody has a +lease on life, I may as well say now that if you get back and I'm not +there, O'mie left his will with me before he went away." + +"His will? Now what had he to leave? And who is his beneficiary?" + +"That's all in the will," my father said, smiling, "but it is a matter +that must not be overlooked. In the nature of things the boy will go +before I do. He's marked, I take it; never has gotten over the hardships +of his earliest years and that fever in '63. Le Claire came back to see +him and me in September." + +"He did? Where did he come from?" + +My father looked at me quickly. "Why do you ask?" he queried. + +"I'll tell you when we have more time. Just now I'm engaged to fight the +Cheyennes, the Arapahoes, the Comanches, and the Kiowas, in which last +tribe my friend Jean Pahusca has pack right. He was in that gang of +devils that fought us out on the Arickaree." + +For once I thought I knew more than my father, but he replied quietly, +"Yes, I knew he was there. His tether may be long, but its limit will be +reached some day." + +"Who told you he was there, father?" I asked. + +"Le Claire said so," he answered. + +"Where was he at that time?" I was getting excited now. + +"He spent the week in the little stone cabin out by the big cottonwood. +Took cold and had to go to St. Louis to a hospital for a week or two." + +"He was in the haunted cabin the third week in September," I repeated +slowly; "then I don't know black from white any more." + +My father smiled at me. "They call that being 'locoed' out on the +Plains, don't they?" he said with a twinkle in his eye. "You have a +delusion mixed up in your gray matter somewhere. One thing more," he +added as an unimportant afterthought, "I see Miss Melrose is still in +Topeka." + +"Yes," I answered. + +"And Tillhurst, too," he went on. "Well, there has been quite a little +story going around Conlow's shop and the post-office and Fingal's Creek +and other social centres about you two; and now when Tillhurst gets back +(he'll never make the cavalry), he's square, but a little vain and +thin-skinned, and he may add something of color and interest to the +story. Let it go. Just now it may be better so." + +I thought his words were indefinite, for one whose purposes were always +definite, and in the wisdom of my youth I wondered whether he really +wanted me to follow Rachel's leading, or whether he was, after all, +inclined to believe Judson's assertion about his engagement, and family +pride had a little part to play with him. It was unlike John Baronet to +stoop to a thing like that. + +"Father," I said, "I'm going away, too. I may never come back, and for +my own sake I want to assure you of one thing: no matter what Tillhurst +may say, if Rachel Melrose were ten times more handsome, if she had in +her own name a fortune such as I can never hope to acquire myself, she +would mean nothing to me. I care nothing for the stories now"--a +hopelessness would come into my voice--"but I do not care for her +either. I never did, and I never could." + +My eyes were away on Burnett's Mound, and the sweet remembrance of +Marjie's last affectionate look made a blur before them. We stood in +silence for some time. + +"Phil," said John Baronet in a deep, fervent tone, "I have a matter I +meant to take up later, but this is a good time. Let the young folks go +now. This is a family matter. Years ago a friend of the older Baronets +died in the East leaving some property that should sooner or later come +to me to keep in trust for you. This time was to be at the death of the +man and his wife who had the property for their lifetime. Philip, you +have been accused by the Conlow-Judson crowd of wanting a rich wife. I +also am called grasping by Tell Mapleson's class. And," he smiled a +little, "indeed, Iago's advice to Roderigo, 'Put money in thy purse,' +was sound philosophy if the putting be honestly done. But this little +property in the East that should come to you is in the hands of a man +who is now ill, probably in his last sickness. He has one child that +will have nothing else left to her. Shall we take this money at her +father's death?" + +"Why, father, no. I don't want it. Do you want it?" + +I knew him too well to ask the question. Had I not seen the unselfish, +kindly, generous spirit that had marked all his business career? +Springvale never called him grasping, save as his prosperity grated on +men of Mapleson's type. + +"Will you sign a relinquishment to your claim, and trust to me that it +is the best for us to do?" he asked. + +"Just as soon as we get to an inkstand," I answered. Nor did I ever hold +that such a relinquishment is anything but Christian opportunity. + +That evening I said good-bye to my father, and when I saw him again it +was after I had gone through the greatest crisis of these sixty years. +On the same train that bore my father to the East were his friend Morton +and his political and professional antagonist, Tell Mapleson. The next +day I enlisted in Troop A of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and was +quartered temporarily in the State House, north of Fifth Street, on +Kansas Avenue. Tillhurst was not admitted to the regiment, as my father +had predicted. Neither was Jim Conlow, who had come up to Topeka for +that purpose. Good-natured, shallow-pated "Possum," no matter where he +found work to do, he sooner or later drifted back to Springvale to his +father's forge. He did not realize that no Conlow of the Missouri breed +ought ever to try anything above a horse's hoofs, in cavalry matters. +The Lord made some men to shoe horses, and some to ride them. The +Conlows weren't riders, and Jim's line was turned again to his father's +smithy. + +Tillhurst took his failure the more grievously that Rachel, who had been +most gracious to him at first, transferred her attentions to me. And I, +being only a man and built of common clay, with my lifetime hope +destroyed, gave him good reason to believe in my superior influence with +the beautiful Massachusetts girl. I had a game to play with Rachel, for +Topeka was full of pretty girls, and I made the most of my time. I knew +somewhat of the gayety the Winter on the Plains was about to offer. As +long as I could I held to the pleasures of the civilized homes and +sheltered lives. And with all and all, one sweet girl-face, enshrined in +my heart's holy of holies, held me back from idle deception and turned +me from temptation. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE NINETEENTH KANSAS CAVALRY + + "The regiments of Kansas have glorified our State on a hundred + battle fields, but none served her more faithfully, or endured more + in her cause than the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry." + + --HORACE L. MOORE. + + +When Camp Crawford was opened, northeast of town, between the Kaw River +and the Shunganunga Creek, I went into training for regular cavalry +service, thinking less of pretty girls and more of good horses with the +passing days. I had plenty of material for both themes. Not only were +there handsome young ladies in the capital city, but this call for +military supplies had brought in superb cavalry mounts. Every day the +camp increased its borders. The first to find places were the men of the +Eighteenth Kansas Regiment, veterans of the exalted order of the wardens +of civilization. Endurance was their mark of distinction, and Loyalty +their watchword. It was the grief of this regiment, and especially of +the men directly under his leadership, that Captain Henry Lindsey was +not made a Major for the Nineteenth. No more capable or more popular +officer than Lindsey ever followed an Indian trail across the Plains. + +It was from the veterans of this Eighteenth Cavalry, men whom Lindsey +had led, that we younger soldiers learned our best lessons in the months +that followed. Those were my years of hero-worship. I had gone into +this service with an ideal, and the influence of such men as Morton and +Forsyth, the skill of Grover, and the daring of Donovan and Stillwell +were an inspiration to me. And now my captain was the same Pliley, who +with Donovan had made that hundred-mile dash to Fort Wallace to start a +force to the rescue of our beleaguered few in that island citadel of +sand. + +The men who made up Pliley's troop were, for the most part, older than +myself, and they are coming now to the venerable years; but deep in the +heart of each surviving soldier of that company is admiration and +affection for the fearless, adroit, resourceful Captain, the modest, +generous-hearted soldier. + +On the last evening of our stay in Topeka there was a gay gathering of +young people, where, as usual, the soldier boys were the lions. Brass +buttons bearing the American Eagle and the magic inscription "U. S." +have ever their social sway. + +Rachel had been assigned to my care by the powers that were. After +Tillhurst's departure I had found my companions mainly elsewhere, and I +would have chosen elsewhere on this night had I done the choosing. On +the way to her aunt's home Rachel was more charming than I had ever +found her before. It was still early, and we strolled leisurely on our +way and talked of many things. At the gate she suddenly exclaimed: + +"Philip, you leave to-morrow. Maybe I shall never see you again; but I'm +not going to think that." Her voice was sweet, and her manner sincere. +"May I ask you one favor?" + +"Yes, a dozen," I said, rashly. + +"Let's take one more walk out to our locust tree." + +"Oh, blame the locust tree! What did it ever grow for?" That was my +thought but I assented with a show of pleasure, as conventionality +demands. It was a balmy night in early November, not uncommon in this +glorious climate. The moon was one quarter large, and the dim light was +pleasant. Many young people were abroad that evening. When we reached +the swell where the tree threw its lacy shadows on its fallen yellow +leaves, my companion grew silent. + +"Cheer up, Rachel," I said. "We'll soon be gone and you'll be free from +the soldier nuisance. And Dick Tillhurst is sure to run up here again +soon. Besides, you have all Massachusetts waiting to be conquered." + +She put her little gloved hand on my arm. + +"Philip Baronet, I'm going to ask you something. You may hate me if you +want to." + +"But I don't want to," I assured her. + +"I had a letter from Mr. Tillhurst to-day. He does want to come up," she +went on; "he says also that the girl you introduced to me in your +father's office, what's her name?--I've forgotten it." + +"So have I. Go on!" + +"He says she is to be married at Christmas to somebody in Springvale. +You used to like her. Tell me, do you care for her still? You could like +somebody else just as well, couldn't you, Phil?" + +I put my hand gently over her hand resting on my arm, and said nothing. + +"Could you, Phil? She doesn't want you any more. How long will you care +for her?" + +"Till death us do part," I answered, in a low voice. + +She dropped my arm, and even in the shadows I could see her eyes flash. + +"I hate you," she cried, passionately. + +"I don't blame you," I answered like a cold-blooded brute. "But, Rachel, +this is the last time we shall be together. Let's be frank, now. You +don't care for me. It is for the lack of one more scalp to dangle at +your door that you grieve. You want me to do all the caring. You could +forget me before we get home." + +Then the tears came, a woman's sure weapon, and I hated myself more than +she hated me. + +"I can only wound your feelings, I always make you wretched. Now, +Rachel, let's say good-bye to-night as the best of enemies and the worst +of friends. I haven't made your stay in Kansas happy. You will forget me +and remember only the pleasant people here." + +When she bade me good-bye at her aunt's door, there was a harshness in +her voice I had not noted before. + +"If she really did care for me she wouldn't change so quickly. By +Heaven, I believe there is something back of all this love-making. +Charming a dog as he is, Phil Baronet in himself hasn't that much +attraction for her," I concluded, and I breathed freer for the thought. +When I came long afterwards to know the truth about her, I understood +this sudden change, as I understood the charming pretensions to +admiration and affection that preceded it. + +The next day our command started on its campaign against the unknown +dangers and hardships and suffering of the winter Plains. It was an +imposing cavalcade that rode down the broad avenue of the capital city +that November day when we began our march. Up from Camp Crawford we +passed in regular order, mounted on our splendid horses, riding in +platoon formation. At Fourth Street we swung south on Kansas Avenue. At +the head of the column twenty-one buglers rode abreast, Bud Anderson and +O'mie among them. Our Lieutenant-Colonel, Horace L. Moore, and his staff +followed in order behind the buglers. Then came the cavalry, troop +after troop, a thousand strong, in dignified military array, while from +door and window, side-walk and side-street, the citizens watched our +movements and cheered us as we passed. Six months later the remnants of +that well-appointed regiment straggled into Topeka like stray dogs, and +no demonstration was given over their return. But they had done their +work, and in God's good time will come the day "to glean up their +scattered ashes into History's golden urn." + +A few miles out from Topeka we were overtaken by Governor Crawford. He +had resigned the office of Chief Executive of Kansas to take command of +our regiment. The lustre of the military pageantry began to fade by the +time we had crossed the Wakarusa divide, and the capital city, nestling +in its hill-girt valley by the side of the Kaw, was lost to our view. +Ours was to be a campaign of endurance, of dogged patience, of slow, +grinding inactivity, the kind of campaign that calls for every resource +of courage and persistence from the soldier, giving him in return little +of the inspiration that stimulates to conquest on battle fields. The +years have come and gone, and what the Nineteenth Kansas men were called +to do and to endure is only now coming into historical recognition. + +Our introduction to what should befall us later came in the rainy +weather, bitter winds, insufficient clothing, and limited rations of our +journey before we reached Fort Beecher, on the Arkansas River. To-day, +the beautiful city of Wichita marks the spot where the miserable little +group of tents and low huts, called Fort Beecher, stood then. Fifty +miles east of this fort we had passed the last house we were to see for +half a year. + +The Arkansas runs bottomside up across the Plains. Its waters are mainly +under its bed, and it seems to wander aimlessly among the flat, lonely +sand-bars, trying helplessly to get right again. Beyond this river we +looked off into the Unknown. Somewhere back of the horizon in that +shadowy illimitable Southwest General Sheridan had established a +garrison on the Canadian River, and here General Custer and his Seventh +United States Cavalry were waiting for us. They had forage for our +horses and food and clothing for ourselves. We had left Topeka with +limited supplies expecting sufficient reinforcement of food and grain at +Fort Beecher to carry us safely forward until we should reach Camp +Supply, Sheridan's stopping-place, wherever in the Southwest that might +be. Then the two regiments, Custer's Seventh and the Kansas Nineteenth, +were together to fall upon the lawless wild tribes and force them into +submission. + +Such was the prearranged plan of campaign, but disaster lay between us +and this military force on the Canadian River. Neither the Nineteenth +Cavalry commanders, the scouts, nor the soldiers knew a foot of that +pathless mystery-shrouded, desolate land stretching away to the +southward beyond the Arkansas River. We had only a meagre measure of +rations, less of grain in proportion, and there was no military depot to +which we could resort. The maps were all wrong, and in the trackless +wastes and silent sand-dunes of the Cimarron country gaunt Starvation +was waiting to clutch our vitals with its gnarled claws; while with all +our nakedness and famine and peril, the winter blizzard, swirling its +myriad whips of stinging cold came raging across the land and caught us +in its icy grip. + +I had learned on the Arickaree how men can face danger and defy death; I +had only begun to learn how they can endure hardship. + +It was mid-November when our regiment, led by Colonel Crawford, crossed +the Arkansas River and struck out resolutely toward the southwest. Our +orders were to join Custer's command at Sheridan's camp in the Indian +Territory, possibly one hundred and fifty miles away. We must obey +orders. It is the military man's creed. That we lacked rations, forage, +clothing, and camp equipment must not deter us, albeit we had not +guides, correct maps, or any knowledge of the land we were invading. + +My first lesson in this campaign was the lesson of comradeship. My +father had put me on a horse and I had felt at home when I was so short +and fat my legs spread out on its back as if I were sitting on a floor. +I was accounted a fair rider in Springvale. I had loved at first sight +that beautiful sorrel creature whose bones were bleaching on the little +island in Colorado, whose flesh a gnawing hunger had forced me to eat. +But my real lessons in horsemanship began in Camp Crawford, with four +jolly fellows whom I came to know and love in a way I shall never know +or love other men--my comrades. Somebody struck home to the soldier +heart ever more when he wrote: + + There's many a bond in this world of ours, + Ties of friendship, and wreaths of flowers, + And true-lover's knots, I ween; + The boy and girl are sealed with a kiss; + But there's never a bond, old friend, like this,-- + We have drunk from the same canteen. + +Such a bond is mine for these four comrades. Reed and Pete, Hadley and +John Mac were their camp names, and I always think of them together. +These four made a real cavalry man of me. It may be the mark of old age +upon me now, for even to-day the handsome automobile and the great +railway engine can command my admiration and awe; but the splendid +thoroughbred, intelligent, and quivering with power, I can command and +love. + +The bond between the cavalry man and his mount is a strong one, and the +spirit of the war-horse is as varied and sensitive as that of his rider. +When our regiment had crossed the Arkansas River and was pushing its way +grimly into the heart of the silent stretches of desolation, our horses +grew nervous, and a restless homesickness possessed them. Troop A were +great riders, and we were quick to note this uneasiness. + +"What's the matter with these critters, Phil?" Reed, who rode next to +me, asked as we settled into line one November morning. + +"I don't know, Reed," I replied. "This one is a dead match for the horse +I rode with Forsyth. The man that killed him laughed and said, 'There +goes the last damned horse, anyhow.'" + +"Just so it ain't the first's all I'm caring for. You'll be in luck if +you have the last," the rider next to Reed declared. + +"What makes you think so, John?" I inquired. + +"Oh, that's John Mac for you," Reed said laughing. "He's homesick." + +"No, it's the horses that's homesick," John Mac answered. "They've got +horse sense and that's what some of us ain't got. They know they'll +never get across the Arkansas River again." + +"Cheerful prospect," I declared. "That means we'll never get across +either, doesn't it?" + +"Oh, yes," John answered grimly, "we'll get back all right. Don't know +as this lot'd be any special ornament to kingdom come, anyhow; but we'll +go through hell on the way comin' or goin'; now, mark me, Reed, and +stop your idiotic grinning." + +Whatever may have given this nervousness to the horses, so like a +presentiment of coming ill, they were all possessed with the same +spirit, and we remembered it afterwards when their bones were bleaching +on the high flat lands long leagues beyond the limits of civilization. + +The Plains had no welcoming smile for us. The November skies were +clouded over, and a steady rain soaked the land with all its +appurtenances, including a straggling command of a thousand men +floundering along day after day among the crooked canyons and gloomy +sandhills of the Cimarron country. In vain we tried to find a trail +that should lead us to Sheridan's headquarters at Camp Supply, on the +Canadian River. Then the blizzard had its turn with us. Suddenly, as is +the blizzard's habit, it came upon us, sheathing our rain-sodden +clothing in ice. Like a cloudburst of summer was this winter cloudburst +of snow, burying every trail and covering every landmark with a mocking +smoothness. Then the mercury fell, and a bitter wind swept the open +Plains. + +We had left Fort Beecher with five days' rations and three days' forage. +Seven days later we went into bivouac on a crooked little stream that +empties its salty waters into the Cimarron. It was a moonless, freezing +night. Fires were impossible, for there was no wood, and the buffalo +chips soaked with rain were frozen now and buried under the snow. A +furious wind threshed the earth; the mercury hovered about the zero +mark. Alkali and salt waters fill the streams of that land, and our food +supply was a memory two days old. + +How precious a horse can become, the Plains have taught us. The man on +foot out there is doomed. All through this black night of perishing +cold we clung to our frightened, freezing, starving horses. We had put +our own blankets about them, and all night long we led them up and down. +The roar of the storm, the confusion from the darkness, the frenzy from +hunger drove them frantic. A stampede among them there would have meant +instant death to many of us, and untold suffering to the dismounted +remainder. How slowly the cold, bitter hours went by! I had thought the +burning heat of the Colorado September unendurable. I wondered in that +time of freezing torment if I should ever again call the heat a burden. + +There were five of us tramping together in one little circle that +night--Reed and John Mac, and Pete and Hadley, with myself. In all the +garrison I came to know these four men best. They were near my own age; +their happy-go-lucky spirit and their cheery laughter were food and +drink. They proved to me over and over how kind-hearted a soldier can +be, and how hard it is to conquer a man who wills himself unconquerable. +Without these four I think I should never have gotten through that +night. + +Morning broke on our wretched camp at last, and we took up the day's +march, battling with cold and hunger over every foot of ground. On the +tenth day after we crossed the Arkansas River the crisis came. Our army +clothes were waiting for us at Camp Supply. Rain and ice and the rough +usage of camp life had made us ragged already, and our shoes were worn +out. And still the cold and storm stayed with us. We wrapped pieces of +buffalo hide about our bare feet and bound the horses' nose-bags on them +in lieu of cavalry boots. Our blankets we had donated to our mounts, and +we had only dog tents, well adapted to ventilation, but a very mockery +at sheltering. + +Our provisions were sometimes reduced to a few little cubes of sugar +doled out to each from the officers' stores. The buffalo, by which we +had augmented our food supply, were gone now to any shelter whither +instinct led them. It was rare that even a lone forsaken old bull of the +herd could be found in some more sheltered spot. + +At last with hungry men and frenzied horses, with all sense of direction +lost, with a deep covering of snow enshrouding the earth, and a +merciless cold cutting straight to the life centres, we went into camp +on the tenth night in a little ravine running into Sand Creek, another +Cimarron tributary, in the Indian Territory. We were unable to move any +farther. For ten days we had been on the firing line, with hunger and +cold for our unconquerable foes. We could have fought Indians even to +the death. But the demand on us was for endurance. It is a woman's +province to suffer and wait and bear. We were men, fighting men, but +ours was the struggle of resisting, not attacking, and the tenth night +found us vanquished. Somebody must come to our rescue now. We could not +save ourselves. In the dangerous dark and cold, to an unknown place, +over an unknown way, somebody must go for us, somebody must be the +sacrifice, or we must all perish. The man who went out from the camp on +Sand Creek that night was one of the two men I had seen rise up from the +sand-pits of the Arickaree Island and start out in the blackness and the +peril to carry our cry to Fort Wallace--Pliley, whose name our State +must sometime set large in her well-founded, well-written story. + +With fifty picked men and horses he went for our sakes, and more, aye, +more than he ever would claim for himself. He was carrying rescue to +homes yet to be, he was winning the frontier from peril, he was paying +the price for the prairie kingdom whose throne and altar are the +hearthstone. + +"Camp Starvation," we christened our miserable, snow-besieged +stopping-place. We had fire but we were starving for food. Our horses +were like wild beasts in their ravenous hunger, tearing the clothing +from the men who came too carelessly near to their rope tethers. + +That splendid group of mounts that had pranced proudly down Kansas +Avenue less than a month before, moving on now nearly seven days without +food, dying of cruel starvation, made a feature of this tragical winter +campaign that still puts an ache into my soul. Long ago I lost most of +the sentiment out of my life, but I have never seen a hungry horse since +that Winter of '68 that I let go unfed if it lay within my power to +bring it food. + +The camp was well named. It was Hadley and Reed and Pete and John Mac, +that good-natured quartet, who stood sponsors for that title. We were a +pitiful lot of fellows in this garrison. We mixed the handful of flour +given to us with snow water, and, wrapping the unsalted dough around a +sagebrush spike, we cooked it in the flames, and ate it from the stick, +as a dog would gnaw a bone. The officers put a guard around the few +little hackberry trees to keep the men from eating the berries and the +bark. Not a scrap of the few buffalo we found was wasted. Even the +entrails cleansed in the snow and eaten raw gives hint of how hungry we +were. + +At last in our dire extremity it was decided to choose five hundred of +the strongest men and horses to start under the command of +Lieutenant-Colonel Horace L. Moore, without food or tents, through the +snow toward the Beulah Land of Camp Supply. Pliley had been gone for +three days. We had no means of knowing whether his little company had +found Sheridan's Camp or were lost in the pathless snows of a +featureless land, and we could not hold out much longer. + +I was among the company of the fittest chosen to make this journey. I +was not yet twenty-two, built broad and firm, and with all the heritage +of the strength and endurance of the Baronet blood, I had a power of +resistance and recoil from conditions that was marvellous to the +veterans in our regiment. + +It was mid-forenoon of the fifth of November when the Nineteenth Kansas +moved out of Camp Crawford by the Shunganunga and marched proudly down +the main thoroughfare of Topeka at the auspicious beginning of its +campaign. Twenty days later, Lieutenant-Colonel Moore again headed a +marching column, this time, moving out of Camp Starvation on Sand +Creek--five hundred ragged, hungry men with famishing horses, bearing no +supplies, going, they could only guess whither, and unable even to +surmise how many days and nights the going would consume. It was well +for me that I had an ideal. I should have gone mad otherwise, for I was +never meant for the roving chance life of a Plains scout. + +When our division made its tentless bivouac with the sky for a covering +on the first night out beyond the Cimarron River from Camp Starvation, +the mercury was twenty degrees below zero. Even a heart that could pump +blood like mine could hardly keep the fires of the body from going out. +There was a full moon somewhere up in the cold, desolate heavens +lighting up a frozen desolate land. I shiver even now at the picture my +memory calls up. In the midst of that night's bitter chill came a dream +of home, of the warm waters of the Neosho on August afternoons, of the +sunny draw, and--Marjie. Her arms were about my neck, her curly head was +nestling against my shoulder, the little ringlets about her temples +touched my cheek. I lifted her face to kiss her, but a soft shadowy +darkness crept between us, and I seemed to be sinking into it deeper and +deeper. It grew so black I longed to give up and let it engulf me. It +was so easy a thing to do. + +Then in a blind stupidity I began to hear a voice in my ears, and to +find myself lunging back and forth and stumbling lamely on my left foot. +The right foot had no feeling, no power of motion, and I forgot that I +had it. + +"What are you doing, Pete?" I asked, when I recognized who it was that +was holding me. + +Pete was like an elder brother, always doing me a kind service. + +"Trying to keep you from freezing to death," he replied. + +"Oh, let me go. It's so easy," I answered back drowsily. + +"By golly, I've a notion to do it." Pete's laugh was a tonic in itself. +"Here you and your horse are both down, and you can't stand on one of +your feet. I'll bet it's froze, and you about to go over the River; and +when a fellow tries to pull you back you say, 'Oh, let me go!' You +darned renegade! you ought to go." + +He was doing his best for me all the time, and he had begun none too +soon, for Death had swooped down near me, and I was ready to give up the +struggle. The warmth of the horse's body had saved one foot, but as to +the other--the little limp I shall always have had its beginning in that +night's work. + +The next day was Thanksgiving, although we did not know it. There are no +holy days or gala days to men who are famishing. That day the command +had no food except the few hackberries we found and the bark of the +trees we gnawed upon. It was the hardest day of all the march. + +Pete, who had pulled me back from the valley of the shadow the night +before, in his search for food that day, found a luckless little +wild-cat. And that cat without sauce or dressing became his Thanksgiving +turkey. + +The second night was bitterly cold, and then came a third day of +struggling through deep snows on hilly prairies, and across +canyon-guarded bridgeless streams. The milestones of our way were the +poor bodies of our troop horses that had given up the struggle, while +their riders pushed resolutely forward. + +On the fourth day out from Camp Starvation we came at sundown to the +edge of a low bluff, beyond which lay a fertile valley. If Paradise at +life's eventide shall look as good to me, it will be worth all the cares +of the journey to make an abundant entrance therein. + +Out of the bitter cold and dreary snow fields, trackless and treeless, +whereon we had wandered starving and uncertain, we looked down on a +broad wooded valley sheltering everything within it. Two converging +streams glistening in the evening light lay like great bands of silver +down this valley's length. Below us gleamed the white tents of +Sheridan's garrison, while high above them the Stars and Stripes in +silent dignity floated lightly in the gentle breeze of sunset. + +That night I slept under a snug tent on a soft bed of hay. And again I +dreamed as I had dreamed long ago of the two strange women whom I was +struggling to free from a great peril. + +General Sheridan had expected the Kansas regiment to make the journey +from Fort Beecher on the Arkansas to his station on the Canadian River +in four or five days. Our detachment of five hundred men had covered it +in fourteen days, but we had done it on five days' rations, and three +days' forage. Small wonder that our fine horses had fallen by the way. +It is only the human organism backed by a soul, that can suffer and +endure. + +Pliley and his fifty men who had left us the night we went into camp on +Sand Creek had reached Sheridan three days in advance of us, and already +relief was on its way to those whom we had left beyond the +snow-beleaguered canyons of the Cimarron. The whole of our regiment was +soon brought in and this part of the journey and its hardships became +but a memory. Official war reports account only for things done. No +record is kept of the cost of effort. The glory is all for the battle +lists of the killed or wounded, and yet I account it the one heroic +thing of my life that I was a Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry man through that +November of 1868 on the Plains. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +IN JEAN'S LAND + + All these regiments made history and left records of unfading + glory. + + +While the Kansas volunteers had been floundering in the snow-heaped +sand-dunes of the Cimarron country, General Sheridan's anxiety for our +safety grew to gravest fears. General Custer's feeling was that of +impatience mingled with anxiety. He knew the tribes were getting farther +away with every twenty-four hours' delay, and he shaped his forces for a +speedy movement southward. The young general's military genius was as +strong in minute detail as in general scope. His command was well +directed. Enlisted under him were a daring company of Osage scouts, led +by Hard Rope and Little Beaver, two of the best of this ever loyal +tribe. Forty sharpshooters under Colonel Cook, and a company of citizen +scouts recruited by their commanding officer, Pepoon, were added to the +regular soldiery of the Seventh Cavalry. + +These citizen scouts had been gathered from the Kansas river valleys. +They knew why they had come hither. Each man had his own tragic picture +of the Plains. They were a silent determined force which any enemy might +dread, for they had a purpose to accomplish--even the redemption of the +prairie from its awful peril. + +The November days had slipped by without our regiment's appearance. The +finding of an Indian trail toward the southwest caused Sheridan to loose +Custer from further delay. Eagerly then he led forth his willing command +out of Camp Supply and down the trail toward the Washita Valley, +determined to begin at once on the winter's work. + +The blizzard that had swept across the land had caught the Indian tribes +on their way to the coverts of the Wichita Mountains, and forced them +into winter quarters. The villages of the Cheyenne, the Kiowa, and the +Arapahoe extended up and down the sheltering valley of the Washita for +many miles. Here were Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne braves--they +of the loving heart at Fort Hays, they who had filled all the fair +northern prairie lands with terror, whose hands reeked with the hot +blood of the white brothers they professed to love. In their snug tepees +were their squaws, fat and warm, well clothed and well fed. Dangling +from the lodge poles were scalps with the soft golden curls of babyhood. +No comfort of savage life was lacking to the papooses here. And yet, in +the same blizzards wherein we had struggled and starved, half a score of +little white children torn from their mothers' clinging arms, these +Indians had allowed to freeze to death out on the Plains, while the +tribes were hurrying through the storm to the valley. The fathers of +some of these lost children were in that silent company under Pepoon, +marching now with the Seventh Cavalry down upon the snow-draped tepees +of Black Kettle and his tribe. + +Oh, the cost of it all! The price paid out for a beautiful land and +sheltered homes, and school privileges and Sabbath blessings! It was for +these that men fought and starved and dared, and at last died, leaving +only a long-faded ripple in the prairie sod where an unmarked grave +holds human dust returned to the dust of the earth. + +In the shelter of the Washita Valley on that twenty-seventh day of +November, God's vengeance came to these Indians at the hands of General +Custer. He had approached their village undiscovered. As the Indians had +swooped down on Forsyth's sleeping force; as the yells of Black Kettle's +braves had startled the sleeping settlers at dawn on Spillman Creek, the +daybreak now marked the beginning of retribution. While the Seventh +Cavalry band played "Garry Owen" as a signal for closing in, Custer's +soldiery, having surrounded the village, fell upon it and utterly +destroyed it. Black Kettle and many of his braves were slain, the tepees +were burned, the Indians' ponies were slaughtered, and the squaws and +children made captives. + +News of this engagement reached Sheridan's garrison on the day after our +arrival, with the word also that Custer, unable to cope with the tribes +swarming down the Washita River, was returning to Camp Supply with his +spoils of battle. + +"Did you know, Phil," Bud Anderson said, "that Cuthter'th to have a +grand review before the General and hith thtaff when he geth here +to-morrow, and that'th all we'll thee of the thircuth. My! but I wish we +could have been in that fight; don't you?" + +"I don't know, Bud, I'd hate to come down here for nothing, after all +we've gone through; but don't you worry about that; there'll be plenty +to be done before the whole Cheyenne gang is finished." + +"It'll be a sight worth seein' anyhow, this parade," O'mie declared. "Do +you remember the day Judge Baronet took his squad out av Springvale, +Phil? What a careless set av young idiots we were then?" + +Did I remember? Could I be the same boy that watched that line of +blue-coats file out of Springvale and across the rocky ford of the +Neosho that summer day? It seemed so long ago; and this snow-clad valley +seemed the earth's end from that warm sunny village. But Custer's review +was to come, and I should see it. + +It was years ago that this review was made, and I who write of it have +had many things crowded into the memory of each year. And yet, I recall +as if it were but yesterday that parade of a Plains military review. It +was a magnificent sunlit day. The Canadian Valley, smooth and white with +snow, rose gently toward the hills of the southwest. Across this slope +of gleaming whiteness came Custer's command, and we who watched it saw +one of those bits of dramatic display rare even among the stirring +incidents of war. + +Down across the swell, led by Hard Rope and Little Beaver, came the +Osage scouts tricked out in all the fantastic gear of Indian war +coloring, riding hard, as Indians ride, cutting circles in the snow, +firing shots into the air, and chanting their battle songs of victory. +Behind them came Pepoon's citizen scouts. Men with whom I had marched +and fought on the Arickaree were in that stern, silent company, and my +heart thumped hard as I watched them swinging down the line. + +And then that splendid cavalry band swept down the slope riding abreast, +their instruments glistening in the sunlight, and their horses stepping +proudly to the music as the strains of "Garry Owen to Glory" filled the +valley. + +Behind the band were the prisoners of war, the Cheyenne widows and +orphans of Black Kettle's village riding on their own ponies in an +irregular huddle, their bright blankets and Indian trinkets of dress +making a division in that parade, the mark of the untrained and +uncivilized. After these were the sharpshooters led by their commander, +Cook, and then--we had been holding our breath for this--then rode by +column after column in perfect order, dressed to the last point of +military discipline, that magnificent Seventh Cavalry, the flower of the +nation's soldiery, sent out to subdue the Plains. At their head was +their commander, a slender young man of twenty-nine summers, lacking +much the fine physique one pictures in a leader of soldiers. But his +face, from which a tangle of long yellow curls fell back, had in it the +mark of a master. + +This parade was not without its effect on us, to whom the ways of war +were new. Well has George Eliot declared "there have been no great +nations without processions." The unwritten influence of that thrilling +act of dramatic display somehow put a stir in the blood and loyalty and +patriotism took stronger hold on us. + +We had come out to break the red man's power by a winter invasion. Camp +Supply was abandoned, and the whole body made its way southward to Fort +Cobb. To me ours seemed a tremendous force. We were two thousand +soldiers, with commanders, camp officials, and servants. Our wagon train +had four hundred big Government wagons, each drawn by six mules. We +trailed across the Plains leaving a wide and well marked path where +twenty-five hundred cavalry horses, with as many mules, tramped the +snow. + +The December of the year 1868 was a terror on the Plains. No fiercer +blizzard ever blew out of the home of blizzards than the storms that +fell upon us on the southward march. + +Down in the Washita Valley we came to the scene of Custer's late +encounter. Beyond it was a string of recently abandoned villages +clustering down the river in the sheltering groves where had dwelt +Kiowa, Arapahoe, and Comanche, from whose return fire Custer saved +himself by his speedy retreat northward after his battle with Black +Kettle's band. + +A little company of us were detailed to investigate these deserted +quarters. The battle field had a few frozen bodies of Indians who had +been left by the tribe in their flight before the attack of the Seventh +Cavalry. There were also naked forms of white soldiers who had met death +here. In the villages farther on were heaps of belongings of every +description, showing how hasty the exodus had been. In one of these +villages I dragged the covering from a fallen snow-covered tepee. +Crouched down in its lowest place was the body of a man, dead, with a +knife wound in the back. + +"Poor coward! he tried hard to get away," Bud exclaimed. + +"Some bigger coward tried to make a shield out of him, I'll guess," I +replied, lifting the stiff form with more carefulness than sentiment. As +I turned the body about, I caught sight of the face, which even in death +was marked with craven terror. It was the face of the Rev. Mr. Dodd, +pastor of the Springvale Methodist Church South. In his clenched dead +hands he still held a torn and twisted blanket. It was red, with a +circle of white in the centre. + +On the desolate wind-swept edge of a Kiowa village Bud and I came upon +the frozen body of a young white woman. Near her lay her two-year-old +baby boy. With her little one, she had been murdered to prevent her +rescue, on the morning of Custer's attack on the Cheyennes, murdered +with the music of the cavalry band sounding down the valley, and with +the shouts and shots of her own people, ringing a promise of life and +hope to her. + +Bud hadn't been with Forsyth, and he was not quite ready for this. He +stooped and stroked the woman's hair tenderly and then lifted a white +face up toward me. "It would have happened to Marjie, Phil, long ago, +but for O'mie. They were Kiowath, too," he said in a low voice. + +After that moment there was no more doubt for me. I knew why I had been +spared in Colorado, and I consecrated myself to the fighting duty of an +American citizen, "Through famine and fire and frost," I vowed to +myself, "I give my strength to this work, even unto death if God wills +it." + +Tenderly, for soldiers can be tender, the body of the mother and her +baby were wrapped in a blanket and placed in one of the wagons, to be +carried many miles and to wait many days before they were laid to rest +at last in the shadow of Fort Arbuckle. + +I saw much of O'mie. In the army as in Springvale, he was everybody's +friend. But the bitter winter did not alleviate that little hacking +cough of his. Instead of the mild vigor of the sunny Plains, that we had +looked for was the icy blast with its penetrating cold, as sudden in its +approach as it was terrible in its violence. Sometimes even now on +winter nights when the storms sweep across the west prairie and I hear +them hurl their wrathful strength against this stanch stone house with +its rounded turret-like corners, I remember how the wind blew over our +bivouacs, and how we burrowed like prairie dogs in the river bank, where +the battle with the storm had only one parallel in all this campaign. +That other battle comes later. + +But with all and all we could live and laugh, and I still bless the men, +Reed and Hadley and John Mac and Pete, whose storm cave was near mine. +Without the loud, cheery laugh from their nest I should have died. But +nobody said "die." Troop A had the courage of its convictions and a +breezy sense of the ludicrous. I think I could turn back at Heaven's +gate to wait for the men who went across the Plains together in that +year of Indian warfare. + +This is only one man's story. It is not an official report. The books of +history tell minutely how the scattered tribes submitted. Overwhelmed by +the capture of their chief men, on our march to Fort Cobb, induced +partly by threatened danger to these captive chiefs, but mostly by +bewilderment at the presence of such a large force in their country in +midwinter, after much stratagem and time-gaining delays they came at +last to the white commander's terms, and pitched their tepees just +beyond our camp. Only one tribe remained unsubdued: the Cheyennes, who +with trick and lie, had managed to elude all the forces and escape to +the southwest. + +We did not stay long at Fort Cobb. The first week of the new year found +us in a pleasanter place, on the present site of Fort Sill. It was not +until after the garrison was settled here that I saw much of these +Indian tribes, whom Custer's victory on the Washita, and diplomatic +handling of affairs afterwards, had brought into villages under the guns +of our cantonment. + +I knew that Satanta and Lone Wolf, chief men of the Kiowas, were held as +hostages, but I had not been near them. Satanta was the brute for whom +the dead woman with her little one had been captured. Her form was +mouldering back to earth in her grave at Fort Arbuckle, while he, well +clothed and well fed, was a gentleman prisoner of war in a comfortable +lodge in our midst. + +The East knew little of the Plains before the railroads crossed them. +Eastern religious papers and church mission secretaries lauded Satanta +as a hero, and Black Kettle, whom Custer had slain, as a martyr; while +they urged that the extreme penalty of the civil law be meted out to +Custer and Sheridan in particular, and to the rest of us at wholesale. + +One evening I was sent by an officer on some small errand to Satanta's +tent. The chief had just risen from his skin couch, and a long band of +black fur lay across his head. In the dim light it gave his receding +forehead a sort of square-cut effect. He threw it off as I entered, but +the impression it made I could not at once throw off. The face of the +chief was for the moment as suggestive of Jean Pahusca's face as ever +Father Le Claire's had been. + +"If Jean is a Kiowa," I said to myself, "then this scoundrel here must +be his mother's brother." I had only a few words with the man, but a +certain play of light on his cunning countenance kept Jean in my mind +continually. + +When I turned to go, the tent flap was pulled back for me from the +outside and I stepped forth and stood face to face with Jean Pahusca +himself, standing stolidly before me wrapped in a bright new red +blanket. We looked at each other steadily. + +"You are in my land now. This isn't Springvale." There was still that +French softness in his voice that made it musical, but the face was +cruel with a still relentless, deadly cruelty that I had never seen +before even in his worst moods. + +The Baronets are not cowardly by nature, but something in Jean always +made me even more fearless. To his taunting words, "This isn't +Springvale," I replied evenly, "No, but this is Phil Baronet still." + +He gave me a swift searching look, and turning, disappeared in the +shadows beyond the tents. + +"I owe him a score for his Arickaree plans," I said to myself, "and his +scalp ought to come off to O'mie for his attempt to murder the boy in +the Hermit's Cave. Oh, it's a grim game this. I hope it will end here +soon." + +As I turned away I fell against Hard Rope, chief of the Osage scouts. I +had seen little of him before, but from this time on he shadowed my +pathway with a persistence I had occasion to remember when the soldier +life was forgotten. + +The beginning of the end was nearer than I had wished for. All about +Fort Sill the bluffy heights looked down on pleasant little valleys. +White oak timber and green grass made these little parks a delight to +the eye. The soldiers penetrated all the shelving cliffs about them in +search of game and time-killing leisure. + +The great lack of the soldier's day is seclusion. The mess life and tent +life and field life may develop comradeship, but it cannot develop +individuality. The loneliness of the soldier is in the barracks, not in +the brief time he may be by himself. + +Beyond a little brook Bud and I had by merest chance found a small cove +in the low cliff looking out on one of these valleys, a secluded nook +entered by a steep, short climb. We kept the place a secret and called +it our sanctuary. Here on the winter afternoons we sat in the warm +sunshine sheltered from the winds by the rocky shelf, and talked of home +and the past; and sometimes, but not often, of the future. On the day +after I saw Jean at the door of Satanta's tent, Bud stole my cap and +made off to our sanctuary. I had adorned it with turkey quills, and made +a fantastic head-gear out of it. Soldiers do anything to kill time; and +jokes and pranks and child's play, stale and silly enough in civil life, +pass for fun in lieu of better things in camp. + +It was a warm afternoon in February, and the soldiers were scattered +about the valley hunting, killing rattlesnakes that the sunshine had +tempted out on the rocks before their cave hiding-places, or tramping up +and down about the river banks. Hearing my name called, I looked out, +only to see Bud disappearing and John Mac, who had mistaken him for me, +calling after him. John Mac, leading the other three, Hadley and Reed +and Pete, each with his hands on the shoulders of the one before him, +were marching in locked step across the open space. + +"The rascal's heading for the sanctuary," I said to myself. "I'll +follow and surprise him." + +I had nearly reached the foot of the low bluff when a pistol shot, clear +and sharp, sounded out; and I thought I heard a smothered cry in the +direction Bud had taken. "Somebody hunting turkey or killing snakes," +was my mental comment. Rifles and revolvers were popping here and there, +telling that the boys were out on a hunting bout or at target practice. +As I rounded a huge bowlder, beyond which the little climb to our cove +began, I saw Bud staggering toward me. At the same time half a dozen of +the boys, Pete and Reed and John Mac among them, came hurrying around +the angle of another projecting rock shelf. + +Bud's face was pallid, and his blue eyes were full of pathos. I leaped +toward him, and he fell into my arms. A hole in his coat above his heart +told the story,--a bullet and internal bleeding. I stretched him out on +the grassy bank and the soldiers gathered around him. + +"Somebody's made an awful mistake," John Mac said bitterly. "The boys +are hunting over on the other side of the bluff. We heard them shooting +turkey, and then we heard one shot and a scream. The boys don't know +what they've done." + +"I'm glad they don't," I murmured. + +"We were back there; you can't get down in front," Reed said. They did +not know of our little nest on the front side of the bluff. + +"I'm all right, Phil," Bud said, and smiled up at me and reached for my +hand. "I'm glad you didn't come. I told O'mie latht night where to find +it." And then his mind wandered, and he began to talk of home. + +"Run for the surgeon, somebody," one of the boys urged; and John Mac was +off at the word. + +"It ain't no use," Pete declared, kneeling beside the wounded boy. "He's +got no need for a surgeon." + +And I knew he was right. I had seen the same thing before on reeking +sands under a blazing September sky. + +I took the boy's head in my lap and held his hand and stroked that shock +of yellow hair. He thought he was at Springvale and we were in the Deep +Hole below the Hermit's Cave. He gripped my hand tightly and begged me +not to let him go down. It did not last long. He soon looked up and +smiled. + +"I'm thafe," he lisped. "Your turn, now, Phil." + +The soldiers had fallen back and left us two together. John Mac and Reed +had hastened to the cantonment for help, but Pete knew best. It was +useless. Even now, after the lapse of nearly forty years, the sorrow of +that day lies heavy on me. "Accidental death" the official record was +made, and there was no need to change it, when we knew better. + +That evening O'mie and I sat together in the shadowy twilight. There was +just a hint of spring in the balmy air, and we breathed deeply, +realizing, as never before, how easy a thing it is to cut off the +breath of life. We talked of Bud in gentle tones, and then O'mie said: +"Lem me tell you somethin', Phil. I was over among the Arapahoes this +afternoon, an' I saw a man, just a glimpse was all; but you never see a +face so like Father Le Claire's in your life. It couldn't be nobody else +but that praist; and yet, it couldn't be him, nather." + +"Why, O'mie?" I asked. + +"It was an evil-soaked face. And yet it was fine-lookin'. It was just +like Father Le Claire turned bad." + +"Maybe it was Father Le Claire himself turned bad," I said. "I saw the +same man up on the Arickaree, voice and all. Men sometimes lead double +lives. I never thought that of him. But who is this shadow of Jean +Pahusca's--a priest in civilization, a renegade on the Plains? Not only +the face and voice of the man I saw, but his gait, the set of his +shoulders, all were Le Claire to a wrinkle." + +"Phil, it couldn't have been him in September. The praist was at +Springvale then, and he went out on Dever's stage white and sick, +hurrying to Kansas City. Oh, begorra, there's a few extry folks more 'n I +can use in this world, annyhow." + +We sat in silence a few minutes, the shadow of the bowlder concealing +us. I was just about to rise when two men came soft-footed out of the +darkness from beyond the cliff. Passing near us they made their way +along the little stream toward the river. They were talking in low tones +and we caught only a sentence or two. + +"When are you going to leave?" It was Jean Pahusca's voice. + +"Not till I get ready." + +The tone had that rich softness I heard so often when Father Le Claire +chatted with our gang of boys in Springvale, but there was an insolence +in it impossible to the priest. O'mie squeezed my hand in the dark and +rising quickly he followed them down the stream. The boy never did know +what fear meant. They were soon lost in the darkness and I waited for +O'mie's return. He came presently, running swiftly and careless of the +noise he made. Beyond, I heard the feet of a horse in a gallop, a sound +the bluff soon shut off. + +"Come, Phil, let's get into camp double quick for the love av all the +saints." + +Inside the cantonment we stopped for breath, and as soon as we could be +alone, O'mie explained. + +"Whoiver that man with Jean was, he's a 'was' now for good. Jean fixed +him." + +"Tell me, O'mie, what's he done?" I asked eagerly. + +"They seemed to be quarrellin'. I heard Jean say, 'You can't get off too +quick; Satanta has got men hired to scalp you; now take my word.' An' +the Le Claire one laughed, oh, hateful as anything could be, and says, +'I'm not afraid of Satanta. He's a prisoner.' Bedad! but his voice is +like the praist's. They're too much alike to be two and too different +somehow to be one. But Phil, d'ye know that in the rumpus av Custer's +wid Black Kittle, Jean stole old Satanta's youngest wife and made off +wid her, and wid his customary cussedness let her freeze to death in +them awful storms. Now he's layin' the crime on this praist-renegade and +trying to git the Kiowas to scalp the holy villain. That's the row as I +made it out between 'em. They quarrelled wid each other quite fierce, +and the Imitation says, 'You are Satanta's tool yourself'; and Jean said +somethin' I couldn't hear. Then the Imitation struck at him. It was +dark, but I heard a groan and something like the big man went plunk into +the river. Then Jean made a dash by me, and he's on a horse now, and a +mile beyont the South Pole by this time. 'Tain't no pony, I bet you, but +a big cavalry horse he's stole. He put a knife into what went into the +river, so it won't come out. That Imitation isn't Le Claire, but nather +is he anybody else now. Phil, d'ye reckon this will iver be a dacent +civilized country? D'ye reckon these valleys will iver have orchards and +cornfields and church steeples and schoolhouses in 'em, and little +homes, wid children playin' round 'em not afraid av their lives?" + +"I don't know," I answered, "but orchards and cornfields and church +steeples and schoolhouses and little homes with children unafraid, have +been creeping across America for a hundred years and more." + +"So they have; but oh, the cost av it all! The Government puts the land +at a dollar and a quarter an acre, wid your courage and fightin' +strength and quickest wits, and by and by your heart's blood and a grave +wid no top cover, like a fruit tart, sometimes, let alone a tomb-stone, +as the total cost av the prairie sod. It's a great story now, aven if +nobody should care to read it in a gineration or so." + +So O'mie philosophized and I sat listening, whittling the while a piece +of soft pine, the broken end of a cracker box. + +"Now, Phil, where did you get that knife?" O'mie asked suddenly. + +"That's the knife I found in the Hermit's Cave one May day nearly six +years ago, when I went down there after a lazy red-headed Irishman. I +found it to-day down in my Saratoga trunk. See the name?" I pointed to +the script lettering, spelling out slowly--"Jean Le Claire." + +"Well, give it to me. I got it away from the 'good Injun' first." O'mie +deftly wrenched it out of my hand. "Let me kape it, Phil. I've a sort +of fore-warnin' I may nade it soon." + +"Keep it if you want to, you grasping son of Erin," I replied +carelessly. + +We were talking idly now, to hide the heaviness of our sorrow as we +thought of Bud down under the clods, whose going had left us two so +lonely and homesick. + +Two days later when I found time to slip away to our sanctuary and be +alone for a little while, my eye fell upon my feather-decked hat, +crushed and shapeless as if it had been trampled on, lying just at the +corner where I came into the nook. I turned it listlessly in my hands +and stood wrapped in sorrowful thought. A low chuckle broke the spell, +and at the same moment a lariat whizzed through the air and encircled my +body. A jerk and I was thrown to the ground, my arms held to my sides. +Almost before I could begin to struggle the coils of the rope were +deftly bound about me and I was helpless as a mummy. Then Jean Pahusca, +deliberate, cruel, mocking, sat down beside me. The gray afternoon was +growing late, and the sun was showing through the thin clouds in the +west. Down below us was a beautiful little park with its grove of +white-oak trees, and beyond was the river. I could see it all as I lay +on the sloping shelf of stone--the sky, and the grove and the bit of +river with the Arapahoe and Kiowa tepees under the shadow of the fort, +and the flag floating lazily above the garrison's tents. It was a +peaceful scene, but near me was an enemy cutting me off from all this +serenity and safety. In his own time he spoke deliberately. He had sat +long preparing his thought. + +"Phil Baronet, you may know now you are at the end of your game. I have +waited long. An Indian learns to wait. I have waited ever since the +night you put the pink flowers on her head--Star-face's. You are strong, +you are not afraid, you are quick and cunning, you are lucky. But you +are in my land now. You have no more strength, and your cunning and +courage and luck are useless. They don't know where you are. They don't +know about this place." He pointed toward the tents as he spoke. "When +they do find you, you won't do them any good." He laughed mockingly but +not unmusically. "They'll say, 'accidental death by hunters,' as they +said of Bud. Bah! I was fooled by his hat. I thought he was you. But he +deserved it, anyhow." + +So that was what had cut him off. Innocent Bud! wantonly slain, by one +the law might never reach. The thought hurt worse than the thongs that +bound me. + +"Before I finish with you I'll let you have more time to think, and here +is something to think about. It was given to me by a girl who loved you, +or thought she did. She found it in a hole in the rock where Star-face +had put it. Do you know the writing?" + +He held a letter before my eyes. In Marjie's well known hand I read the +inscription, "Philip Baronet, Rockport, Cliff Street." + +"It's a letter Star-face put in the place you two had for a long time. I +never could find it, but Lettie did. She gave it to me. There was +another letter deeper in, but this was the only one she could get out. +Her arm was too short. Star-face and Amos Judson were married Christmas +Day. You didn't know that." + +How cruelly slow he was, but it was useless to say a word. He had no +heart. No plea for mercy would move him to anything but fiendish joy +that he could call it forth. At last he opened the letter and read +aloud. He was a good reader. All his schooling had developed his power +over the English language, but it gave him nothing else. + +Slowly he read, giving me time to think between the sentences. It was +the long loving letter Marjie wrote to me on the afternoon that Rachel +and I went to the old stone cabin together. It told me all the stories +she had heard, and it assured me that in spite of them all her faith in +me was unshaken. + +"I know you, Phil," she had written at the end, "and I know that you are +all my own." + +I understood everything now. Oh, if I must die, it was sweet to hear +those words. She had not gotten my letter. She had heard all the +misrepresentation, and she knew all the circumstances entangling +everything. What had become of my letter made no difference; it was +lost. But she loved me still. And I who should have read this letter out +on "Rockport" in the August sunset, I was listening to it now out on +this gray rock in a lonely land as I lay bound for the death awaiting +me. But the reading brought joy. Jean watching my face saw his mistake +and he cursed me in his anger. + +"You care so much for another man's wife? So! I can drive away your +happiness as easily as I brought it to you," he argued. "I go back to +Springvale. Nobody knows when I go. Bud's out of the way; O'mie won't be +there. Suddenly, silently, I steal upon Star-face when she least thinks +of me. I would have been good to her five years ago. I can get her away +long and long before anybody will know it. Tell Mapleson will help me +sure. Now I sell her, on time, to one buck. When I get ready I redeem +her, and sell her to another. You know that woman you and Bud found in +Satanta's tepee on the Washita? I killed her myself. The soldiers went +by five minutes afterwards,--she was that near getting away. That's +what Star-face will come to by and by. Satanta is my mother's brother. I +can surpass him. I know your English ways also. When you die a little +later, remember what Star-face is coming to. When I get ready I will +torture her to death. You couldn't escape me. No more can she. Remember +it!" + +The sun was low in the west now, and the pain of my bonds was hard to +bear, but this slow torture of mind made them welcome. They helped me +not to think. After a long silence Jean turned his face full toward me. +I had not spoken a word since his first quick binding of my limbs. + +"When the last pink is in the sky your time will come," he laughed. "And +nobody will know. I'll leave you where the hunter accidentally shot you. +Watch that sunset and think of home." + +He shoved me rudely about that I might see the western sky and the level +rays of the sun, as it sank lower and lower. I had faced death before. I +must do it sometime, once for all. But life was very dear to me. Home +and Marjie's love. Oh, the burden of the days had been more grievous +than I had dreamed, now that I understood. And all the time the sun was +sinking. Keeping well in the shadow that no eye from below might see +him, Jean walked toward the edge of the shelf. + +"It will be down in a minute more; look and see," he said, in that soft +tone that veiled a fiend's purpose. Then he turned away, and glancing +out over the valley he made a gesture of defiance at the cantonment. His +back was toward me. The red sun was on the horizon bar, half out of +sight. + +"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no +evil." The arm of the All Father was round about me then, and I put my +trust in Him. + +As Jean turned to face the west the glow of the sinking ball of fire +dazzled his eyes a moment. But that was long enough, for in that instant +a step fell on the rock beside me. A leap of lightning swiftness put a +form between my eyes and the dying day; the flash of a knife--Jean Le +Claire's short sharp knife--glittered here; my bonds were cut in a +twinkling; O'mie, red-headed Irish O'mie, lifted me to my feet, and I +was free. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE CRY OF WOMANHOOD + + The women have no voice to speak, but none can check your pen-- + Turn for a moment from your strife and plead their cause, O men! + + --KIPLING. + + +After all, it was not Tillhurst, but Jim Conlow, who had a Topeka story +to tell when he went back to Springvale; and it was Lettie who edited +and published her brother's story. Lettie had taken on a new degree of +social importance with her elevation to a clerkship in Judson's store, +and she was quick to take advantage of it. + +Tillhurst, when he found his case, like my own, was hopeless with +Marjie, preferred that Rachel's name and mine should not be linked +together. Also a degree of intimacy had developed suddenly between Tell +Mapleson and the young teacher. The latter had nothing to add when +Lettie enlarged on Rachel's preference for me and my devotion to her +while the Nineteenth Kansas was mobilizing in Topeka. + +"And everybody knows," Lettie would declare, "that she's got the money, +and Phil will never marry a poor girl. No, sir! No Baronet's going to do +that." + +Although it was only Lettie who said it, yet the impression went about +and fixed itself somehow, that I had given myself over to a life of +luxury. I, who at this very time was starving of hunger and almost +perishing of cold in a bleak wind-swept land. And to me for all this, +there were neither riches nor glory, nor love. + +Springvale was very gay that winter. Two young lawyers from Michigan, +fresh from the universities, set up a new firm over Judson's store where +my father's office had been before "we planted him in the courthouse, +where he belongs," as Cam Gentry used to declare. A real-estate and +money-loaning firm brought three more young men to our town, while half +a dozen families moved out to Kansas from Indiana and made a "Hoosiers' +Nest" in our midst. And then Fingal's Creek and Red Range and all the +fertile Neosho lands were being taken by settlers. The country +population augmented that of the town, nor was the social plane of +Springvale lowered by these farmers' sons and daughters, who also were +of the salt of the earth. + +"For an engaged girl, Marjory Whately's about the most popular I ever +see," Dollie Gentry said to Cam one evening, when the Cambridge House +was all aglow with light and full of gay company. + +Marjie, in a dainty white wool gown with a pink sash about her waist, +and pink ribbons in her hair, had just gone from the kitchen with three +or four admiring young fellows dancing attendance upon her. + +"How can anybody help lovin' her?" Dollie went on. + +Cam sighed, "O Lordy! A girl like her to marry that there pole cat! How +can the Good Bein' permit it?" + +"'Tain't between her and her Maker; it's all between Mrs. Whately and +Amos," Dollie asserted. "Now, Cam, has anybody ever heard her say she +was engaged? She goes with one and another. Cris Mead's wife says she +always has more company'n she can make use of any ways. It's like too +much canned fruit a'most. Mis' Mead loves Marjie, and she's so proud of +her. Marjie don't wear no ring, neither, not a one, sence she took off +Phil Baronet's." + +Springvale had sharp eyes; and the best-hearted among us could tell just +how many rings any girl did or didn't wear. + +"Well, by hen!" Cam declared, "I'm just goin' to ask herself myself." + +"No, you ain't, Cam Gentry," Dollie said decisively. + +"Now, Dollie, don't you dictate to your lord and master no more. I won't +stand it." Cam squinted up at her from his chair in a ludicrous attempt +to frown. "Worst hen-pecked man in town, by golly." + +"I ain't goin' to dictate to no fool, Cam. If you want to be one, I +can't help it. I must go and set bread now." And Dollie pattered off +singing "Come Thou Fount," in a soft little old-fashioned tune. + + * * * * * + +"Marjie, girl, I knowed you when you was in bib aperns, and I knowed +your father long ago. Best man ever went out to fight and never got +back. They's as good a one comin' back, though, some day," he added +softly, and smiled as the pink bloom on Marjie's cheeks deepened. +"Marjie, don't git mad at an old man like your Uncle Cam. I mean no +harm." + +It was the morning after the party. Marjie, who had been helping Mary +Gentry "straighten up," was resting now by the cosy fireplace, while +Dollie and Mary prepared lunch. + +"Go ahead, Uncle Cam," the girl said, smiling. "I couldn't get mad at +you, because you never would do anything unkind." + +"Well, little sweetheart, honest now, and I won't tell, and it's none of +my doggoned business neither; but be you goin' to marry Amos Judson?" + +There was no resentment in the girl's face when she heard his halting +question, but the pink color left it, and her white cheeks and big brown +eyes gave her a stateliness Cam had never seen in her before. + +"No, Uncle Cam. It makes no difference what comes to me, I could not +marry such a man. I never will." + +"Oh, Lord bless you, Marjie!" Cam closed his eyes a moment. "They's a +long happy road ahead of you. I can see it with my good inside eyes that +sees further'n these things I use to run the Cambridge House with. +'Tain't my business, I'm a gossipin' inquisitive old pokeyer-nose, but +I've always been so proud of you, little blossom. Yes, we're comin', +Dollie, if you've got a thing a dyspeptic can eat." + +He held the door for Marjie to pass before him to the dining-room. Cam +was not one of the too-familiar men. There was a gentleman's heart under +the old spotted velvet "weskit," as he called his vest, and with all his +bad grammar, a quaint dignity and purity of manner and speech to women. + +But for all this declaration of Marjie's, Judson was planning each day +for the great event with an assurance that was remarkable. + +"She'll be so tangled up in this, she'll have to come to terms. There +ain't no way out, if she wants to save old Whately's name from dishonor +and keep herself out of the hired-girl class," he said to Tell Mapleson. +"And besides, there's the durned Baronet tribe that all the Whatelys +have been so devoted to. That's it, just devoted to 'em. Now they'll +come in for a full share of disgrace, too." + +The little man had made a god of money so long he could not understand +how poverty and freedom may bring infinitely more of blessing than +wealth and bonds. So many years, too, he had won his way by trickery +and deception, he felt himself a man of Destiny in all he under-took. +But one thing he never could know--I wonder if men ever do know--a +woman's heart. He had not counted on having to reckon with Marjie, +having made sure of her mother. It was not in his character to +understand an abiding love. + +There was another type of woman whom he misjudged--that of Lettie +Conlow. In his dictatorial little spirit, he did not give a second +thought beyond the use he could make of her in his greedy swooping in of +money. + +"O'mie knows too much," Judson informed his friend. "He's better out of +this town. And Lettie, now, I can just do anything with Lettie. You +know, Mapleson, a widower's really more attractive to a girl than a +young man; and as for me, well, it's just in me, that's all. Lettie +likes me." + +Whatever Tell thought, he counselled care. + +"You can't be too careful, Judson. Girls are the unsafest cattle on this +green earth. My boy fancied Conlow's girl once. I sent him away. He's +married now, and doing well. Runs on a steamboat from St. Louis to New +Orleans. I'd go a little slow about gettin' a girl like Lettie in here." + +"Oh, I can manage any girl on earth. Old maids and young things'll come +flockin' round a man with money. Beats all." + +This much O'mie had overheard as the two talked together in tones none +too low, in Judson's little cage of an office, forgetting the clerk +arranging the goods for the night. + +[Illustration: They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited] + +When Judson had found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause +by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who +had meant only for the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to +Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to +pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened +whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond +between them was stronger than ever. + +"She is such a loving, kind daughter, Amos," Mrs. Whately said to the +anxious suitor. "She fills the house with sunshine, and she is so strong +and self-reliant. When I spoke to her about our coming poverty, she only +laughed and held up her little hands, and said, 'They 're equal to it.' +The very day I spoke to her she began to do something. She found three +music pupils right away. She's been giving lessons all this Fall, and +has all she can give the time to. And when I hinted about her father's +name being disgraced, she kissed his picture and put it on the Bible and +said, 'He was true as truth. I won't disgrace myself by ever thinking +anything else.' And last of all, because she did so love Phil once" +(poor Mrs. Whately was the worst of strategists here), "when I tried to +put his case she said indifferently, 'If he did wrong, let him right it. +But he didn't.' Now, Amos, you must talk to her yourself. I don't know +what John Baronet advised her to do." + +Talking to Marjie was the thing Amos could not do, and the mention of +John Baronet was worse than the recollection of that callow stripling, +Phil. The widower stormed and scolded and threatened, until Mrs. Whately +turned to him at last and said quietly: + +"Amos, I think we will drop the matter now. Go home and think it over." + +He knew he had gone too far, and angry as he was, he had the prudence to +hold his tongue. But his purpose was undaunted. His temper was not +settled, however, when Mapleson called on him later in the day. Lettie +was busy marking down prices on a counter full of small articles and the +two men did not know how easily they could be overheard. Judson had no +reason to control himself with Tell, and his wrath exploded then and +there. Neither did Mapleson have need for temperance, and their angry +tones rose to a pitch they did not note at the time. + +"I tell you, Amos," Lettie heard Tell saying, "you've got to get rid of +this Conlow girl, or you're done for. Phil's lost that Melrose case +entirely; and he's out where a certain Kiowa brave we know is creepin' +on his trail night and day. He'll never come back. If his disappearance +is ever checked up to Jean, I'll clear the Injun. You can't do a thing +to the Baronets. If this thing gets up to Judge John, you're done for. +I'll never stand by it a minute. You can't depend on me. Now, let her +go." + +"I tell you I'm going to marry Marjie, Lettie or no Lettie. Good Lord, +man! I 've got to, or be ruined. It's too late now. I can get rid of +this girl when I want to, but I'll keep her a while." + +Lettie dropped her pencil and crept nearer to the glass partition over +the top of which the angry words were coming to her ears. Her black eyes +dilated and her heart beat fast, as she listened to the two men in angry +wrangle. + +"He's going to marry Marjie. He'll be ruined if he doesn't. And he says +that after all he has promised me all this Fall and Winter! Oh!" She +wrung her hands in bitterness of soul. Judson had not counted on having +to reckon with Lettie, any more than with Marjie. + +That night at prayer meeting, a few more prominent people were quietly +let into the secret of the coming event, and the assurance with which +the matter was put left little room for doubt. + + * * * * * + +John Baronet sat in his office looking out on the leafless trees of the +courthouse yard and down the street to where the Neosho was glittering +coldly. It was a gray day, and the sharp chill in the air gave hint of +coming rough weather. + +Down the street came Cris Mead on his way to the bank, silent Cris, +whose business sense and moral worth helped to make Springvale. He saw +my father at the window, and each waved the other a military salute. +Presently Father Le Claire, almost a stranger to Springvale now, came up +the street with Dr. Hemingway, but neither of them looked toward the +courthouse. Other folks went up and down unnoted, until Marjie passed by +with her music roll under her arm. Her dark blue coat and scarlet cap +made a rich bit of color on the gray street, and her fair face with the +bloom of health on her cheek, her springing step, and her quiet grace, +made her a picture good to see. John Baronet rose and stood at the +window watching her. She lifted her eyes and smiled a pleasant +good-morning greeting and went on her way. Some one entered the room, +and with the picture of Marjie still in his eyes, he turned to see +Lettie Conlow. She was flashily dressed, and a handsome new fur cape was +clasped about her shoulders. Self-possession, the lifetime habit of the +lawyer and judge, kept his countenance impassive. He bade her a +courteous good-morning and gave her a chair, but the story he had +already read in her face made him sick at heart. He knew the ways of the +world, of civil courts, of men, and of some women; so he waited to see +what turn affairs would take. His manner, however, had that habitual +dignified kindliness that bound people to him, and made them trust him +even when he was pitted with all his strength against their cause. + +Lettie had boasted much of what she could do. She had refused all of +O'mie's well-meant counsel, and she had been friends with envy and +hatred so long that they had become her masters. + +It must have been a strange combination of events that could take her +now to the man upon whom she would so willingly have brought sorrow and +disgrace. But a passionate, wilful nature such as hers knows little of +consistency or control. + +"Judge Baronet," Lettie began in a voice not like the bold belligerent +Lettie of other days, "I've come to you for help." + +He sat down opposite her, with his back to the window. + +"What can I do for you, Lettie?" + +"I don't know," the girl answered confusedly. "I don't know--how much to +tell you." + +John Baronet looked steadily at her a moment. Then he drew a deep breath +of relief. He was a shrewd student of human nature, and he could +sometimes read the minds of men and women better than they read +themselves. "She has not come to accuse, but to get my help," was his +conclusion. + +"Tell me the truth, Lettie, and as much of it as I need to know," he +said kindly. "Otherwise, I cannot help you at all." + +Lettie sat silent a little while. A struggle was going on within her, +the strife of ill-will against submission and penitent humiliation. Some +men might not have been able to turn the struggle, but my father +understood. The girl looked up at length with a pleading glance. She had +helped to put misery in two lives dear to the man before her. She had +even tried to drag down to disgrace the son on whom his being centred. +In no way could she interest him, for his ideals of life were all at +variance with hers. Small wonder, if distrust and an unforgiving spirit +should be his that day. But as this man of wide experience and large +ideals of right and justice looked at this poor erring girl, he put away +everything but the determination to help her. + +"Lettie," he said in that deep strong voice that carried a magnetic +power, "I know some things you do not want to tell. It is not what you +have done, but what you are to do that you must consider now." + +"That's just it, Mr. Baronet," Lettie cried. "I've done wrong, I know, +but so have other people. I can't help some things I've done to some +folks now. It's too late. And I hated 'em." + +The old sullen look was coming back, and her black brows were drawn in a +frown. My father was quick to note the change. + +"Never mind what can't be helped, Lettie," he said gravely. "A good many +things right themselves in spite of our misdoing. But let's keep now to +what you can do, to what I can do for you." His voice was full of a +stern kindness, the same voice that had made me walk the straight line +of truth and honor many a time in my boyhood. + +"You can summon Amos Judson here and make him do as he has promised to +do." Lettie cried, the hot tears filling her eyes. + +"Tell me his promise first," her counsel said. And Lettie told him her +story. As she went on from point to point, she threw reserve to the +winds, and gave word to many thoughts she had meant to keep from him. +When she had finished, John Baronet sat with his eyes on the floor a +little while. + +"Lettie, you want help, and you need it; and you deserve it on one +condition only," he said slowly. + +"What's that?" she asked eagerly. + +"That you also be just to others. That's fair, isn't it?" + +"Yes, it is," she agreed. Her soul was possessed with a selfish longing +for her own welfare, but she was before a just and honorable judge now, +in an atmosphere of right thinking. + +"You know my son Phil, have known him many years. Although he is my boy, +I cannot shield him if he does wrong. Sin carries its own penalty sooner +or later. Tell me the truth now, as you must answer for yourself +sometime before the almighty and ever-living God, has Philip Baronet +ever wronged you?" + +How deep and solemn his tones were. They drove the frivolous trifling +spirit out of Lettie, and a sense of awe and fear of lying suddenly +possessed her. She dropped her eyes. The old trickery and evil plotting +were of no avail here. She durst do nothing but tell the truth. + +"He never did mistreat me," she murmured, hardly above a whisper. + +"He took you home from the Andersons' party the night Dave Mead was at +Red Range?" queried my father. + +Lettie nodded. + +"Of his own choice?" + +She shook her head. "Amos asked him to," she said. + +"And you told him good-bye at your own door?" + +Another nod. + +"Did you see him again that night?" + +"Yes." Lettie's cheeks were scarlet. + +"Who took you home the second time?" + +A confusion of face, and then Lettie put her head on the table before +her. + +"Tell me, Lettie. It will open the way for me to help you. Don't spare +anybody except yourself. You need not be too hard on yourself. Those who +should befriend you can lay all the blame you can bear on your +shoulders." He smiled kindly on her. + +"Judge Baronet, I was a bad girl. It was Amos promising me jewelry and +ribbons if I'd do what he wanted, making me think he would marry me if +he could. I hated a girl because--" She stopped, and her cheeks flamed +deeply. + +"Never mind about the girl. Tell me where you were, and with whom." + +"I was out on the West Prairie, just a little way, not very far. I was +coming home." + +"With Phil?" My father did not comment on the imprudence of a girl out +on the West Prairie at this improper hour. + +"No, no. I--I came home with Bud Anderson." Then, seeing only the kind +strong pitying face of the man before her, she told him all he wanted to +know. Would have told him more, but he gently prevented her, sparing her +all he could. When she had finished, he spoke, and his tones were full +of feeling. + +"In no way, then, has Philip ever done you any wrong? Have you ever +known him to deceive anybody? Has he been a young man of double dealing, +coarse and rude with some company and refined with others? A father +cannot know all that his children do. James Conlow has little notion of +what you have told me of yourself. Now don't spare my boy if you know +anything." + +"Oh, Judge Baronet, Phil never did a thing but be a gentleman all his +life. It made me mad to see how everybody liked him, and yet I don't +know how they could help it." The tears were streaming down her cheeks +now. + +And then the thought of her own troubles swept other things away, and +she would again have begged my father to befriend her, but his kind face +gave her comfort. + +"Lettie, go back to the store now. I'll send a note to Judson and call +him here. If I need you, I will let you know. If I can do it, I will +help you. I think I can. But most of all, you must help yourself. When +you are free of this tangle, you must keep your heart with all +diligence. Good-bye, and take care, take care of every step. Be a good +woman, Lettie, and the mistakes and wrong-doing of your girlhood will be +forgotten." + +As Lettie went slowly down the walk, to the street, my father looked +steadily after her. "Wronged, deceived, neglected, undisciplined," he +murmured. "If I set her on her feet, she may only drop again. She's a +Conlow, but I'll do my best. I can't do otherwise. Thank God for a son +free from her net." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +JUDSON SUMMONED + + Though the mills of the gods grind slowly, + Yet they grind exceeding small. + + --FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN. + + +Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a +lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking +his immediate presence in the Judge's office. + +The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the +wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience, +leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The +little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse. + +"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside +the door of the private office. "You sent for me, I see." + +My father returned his greeting and pointed to a chair. "Yes, I sent for +you. I told you I would when I wanted to see you," he said, sitting down +across the table from the sleek little man. + +"Yes, yes, I remember, so you did. That's it, you did. I've not been +back since, knowing you'd send for me; and then, I'm a business man and +can't be loafing. But now this means business. That's it, business; when +a man like Baronet calls for a man like me, it means something. After +all, I'm right glad that the widow did speak to you. I was a little hard +on her, maybe. But, confound it, a mother-in-law's like a wife, only +worse. Your wife's got to obey, anyhow. The preacher settles that, but +you must up and make your mother-in-law obey. Now ain't that right? You +waited a good while; but I says, 'Let him think. Give him time.' That's +it, 'give him time.' But to tell the truth I was getting a little +nervous, because matters must be fixed up right away. I don't like to +boast, but I've got the whip hand right now. Funny how a man gets to the +top in a town like this." Oh, the poor little knave! Whom the gods +destroy they first make silly, at least. + +"And by the way, did you settle it with the widow, too? I hope you did. +You'd be proud of me for a son, now Phil's clear out of it. And you and +Mrs. Whately'd make the second handsomest couple in this town." He +giggled at his own joke. "But say now, Baronet, it's took you an awful +time to make up your mind. What's been the matter?" His familiarity and +impudence were insufferable in themselves. + +"I hadn't all the evidence I needed," my father answered calmly. + +In spite of his gay spirits and lack of penetration that word "evidence" +grated on Judson a little. + +"Don't call it 'evidence'; sounds too legal, and nobody understands the +law, not even the lawyers." He giggled again. "Let's get to business." A +harsher tone in spite of himself was in his voice. + +"We will begin at once," my father declared. "When you were here last +Summer I was not ready to deal with you. The time has come for us to +have an understanding. Do you prefer any witness or counsel, or shall we +settle this alone?" + +Judson looked up nervously into my father's face, but he read nothing +there. + +"I--well, I don't know quite what you mean. No, I don't want no +witnesses, and I won't have 'em, confound it. This is between us as man +to man; and don't you try to bring in no law on this, because you know +law books. This is our own business and nobody else's. I'd knock my best +friend out of the door if he come poking into my private matters. Why, +man alive! this is sacred. That's it--an affair of the heart. Now be +careful." His voice was high and angry and his self-control was +slipping. + +"Amos Judson, I've listened patiently to your words. Patiently, too, I +have watched your line of action, for three years. Ever since I came +home from the war I have followed your business methods carefully." + +The little man before him was turning yellow in spite of his +self-assurance and reliance on his twin gods, money and deception, to +carry him through any vicissitude. He made one more effort to bring the +matter to his own view. + +"Now, don't be so serious, Baronet. This is a little love affair of +mine. If you're interested, all right; if not, let it go. That's it, let +it go, and I'm through with you." He rose to his feet. + +"But I'm not through with you. Sit down. I sent for you because I +wanted to see you. I am not through with this interview. Whether it's to +be the last or not will depend on conditions." + +Judson was very uncomfortable and blindly angry, but he sat as directed. + +"When I came home, I found you in possession of all the funds left by my +friend, Irving Whately, to his wife and child. A friend's interest led +me to investigate the business fallen to you. Irving begged me, when +his mortal hours were few, to befriend his loved ones. It didn't take +long to discover how matters were shaping themselves. But understanding +and belief are one thing, and legal evidence is another." + +"What was it your business?" Judson stormed. My father rose and, going +to his cabinet, he took from an inner drawer a folded yellow bit of +paper torn from a note book. Through the centre of it was a ragged +little hole, the kind a bullet might have cut. + +"This," he said, "was in Whately's notebook. We found it in his pocket. +The bullet that killed him went through it, and was deadened a trifle by +it, sparing his life a little longer. These words he had written in camp +the night before that battle at Missionary Ridge: + +"'If I am killed in battle I want John Baronet to take care of my wife +and child.' It was witnessed by Cris Mead and Howard Morton. Morton's in +the hospital in the East now, but Cris is down in the bank. Both of +their signatures are here." + +Judson sat still and sullen. + +"This is why it was my business to find out, at least, if all was well +with Mrs. Whately and her daughter. It wasn't well, and I set about +making it well. I had no further personal interest than this then. +Later, when my son became interested in the Whately family, I dropped +the matter--first, because I could not go on without giving a wrong +impression of my motives; and secondly, because I knew my boy could make +up to Marjie the loss of their money." + +"Phil hasn't any property," the widower broke in, the ruling passion +still controlling him. + +"None of Whately's property, no," my father replied; "but he has a +wage-earning capacity which is better than all the ill-begotten +property anybody may fraudulently gather together. Anyhow, I reasoned +that if my boy and Whately's girl cared for each other, I would not be +connected with any of their property matters. I have, however, secured a +widow's pension and some back-pay for Mrs. Whately, and not a minute too +soon." He smiled a little. "Oh, yes, Tell Mapleson went East on the same +train I did in October. I just managed to outwit him in time, and all +his affidavits and other documents were useless. He would have cut off +that bit of assistance from a soldier's widow to help your cause. It +would have added much value to your stock if Irving Whately's name +should have been so dishonored at Washington that his wife should +receive no pension for his service and his last great sacrifice. But so +long as Phil and Marjie were betrothed, I let your business alone." + +Judson could not suppress a grin of satisfaction. + +"Now that there is no bond other than friendship between the two +families, and especially since Marjie has begged me to take hold of it, +I have probed this business of yours to the bottom. Don't make any +mistake," he added, as Judson took on a sly look of disbelief. "You will +be safer to accept that fact now. Drop the notion that your tracks are +covered. I've waited for some time, so that one sitting would answer." + +There was a halting between cowardly cringing and defiance, overlaid all +with a perfect insanity of anger; for Judson had lost all self-control. + +"You don't know one thing about my business, and you can't prove a word +you say, you infernal, lying, old busybody, not one thing," he fairly +hissed in his rage. + +John Baronet rose to his full height, six feet and two inches. Clasping +his hands behind his back he looked steadily down at Judson until the +little man trembled. No bluster, nor blows, could have equalled the +supremacy of that graceful motion and that penetrating look. + +"It takes cannon for the soldier, the rope for the assassin, the fist +for the rowdy; but, by Heaven! it's a ludicrous thing to squander +gunpowder when insect powder will accomplish the same results. I told +you, I had waited until I had the evidence," he said. "Now you are going +to listen while I speak." + +It isn't the fighter, but the man with the fighting strength, who wins +the last battle. Judson cowered down in his chair and dropped his eyes, +while my father seated himself and went on. + +"Before Irving Whately went to the war he had me draw up a will. You +witnessed it. It listed his property--the merchandise, the real estate, +the bank stock, the cash deposits, and the personal effects. One half of +this was to become Marjie's at the age of twenty (Marjie was twenty on +Christmas Day), and the whole of it in the event of her mother's death. +He did not contemplate his wife's second marriage, you see. That will, +with other valuable papers, was put into the vault here in the +courthouse for safe keeping, and you carried the key. While most of the +loyal, able-bodied men were fighting for their country's safety, you +were steadily drawing on the bank account in the pretence of using it +for the store. Nobody can find from your bookkeeping how matters were in +that business during those years. + +"On the night Springvale was to be burned, you raided the courthouse, +taking these and other papers away, because you thought the courthouse +was to be burned that night. Mapleson got mixed up in his instructions, +you remember, and Dodd nearly lost his good name in his effort to get +these same papers out of the courthouse to burn them. You and Tell +didn't 'tote fair' with him, and he thought you were here in town. You +wouldn't have treated the parson well, had your infamous scheme +succeeded. But you were not in town. You left your sick baby and +faithful wife to carry that will and that property-list out to the old +stone cabin, where you hid them. You meant to go back and destroy them +after you had examined them more carefully. But you never could find +them again. They were taken from your hiding-place and put in another +place. You thought you were alone out there; also you thought you had +outwitted Dodd. You could manage the Methodist Church South, but you +failed to reckon with the Roman Catholics. While you were searching the +draw to get back across the flood, Father Le Claire, wet from having +swum the Neosho up above there, stopped to rest in the gray of the +morning. You didn't see him, but he saw you." + +My father paused and, turning his back on the cowardly form in the +chair, walked to the window. Presently he sat down again. + +"Mrs. Whately was crushed with grief over her husband's death; she was +trustful and utterly ignorant in business matters; and in these +circumstances you secured her signature to a deed for the delivery of +all her bank stock to you. She had no idea what all that paper meant. +She only wanted to be alone with her overwhelming sorrow. I need not go +through that whole story of how steadily, by fraud, and misuse, and +downright lie, you have eaten away her property, getting everything into +your own name, until now you would turn the torture screw and force a +marriage to secure the remnant of the Whately estate, you greedy, +grasping villain! + +"But defrauding Irving Whately's heirs and getting possession of that +store isn't the full limit of your 'business.' You and Tell Mapleson, +after cutting Dodd and Conlow out of the game, using Conlow only as a +cat's paw, you two have been conducting a systematic commerce on +commission with one Jean Pahusca, highway robber and cut-throat, who +brings in money and small articles of value stolen in Topeka and Kansas +City and even St. Louis, with the plunder that could be gathered along +the way, all stored in the old stone cabin loft and slipped in here +after dark by as soft-footed a scoundrel as ever wore a moccasin. You +and Tell divide the plunder and promise Jean help to do his foes to +death--fostering his savage blood-thirsty spirit." + +"You can't prove that. Jean's word's no good in law; and you never found +it out through Le Claire. He's Jean's father; Dodd says so." Judson was +choking with rage. + +"The priest can answer that charge for himself," my father said calmly. +"No, it was your head clerk, Thomas O'Meara, who took a ten days' +vacation and stayed at night up in the old stone cabin for his health. +You know he has weak lungs. He found out many things, even Jean's fear +of ghosts. That's the Indian in Jean. The redskin doesn't live that +isn't afraid of a ghost, and O'mie makes a good one. This traffic has +netted you and Mapleson shamefully large amounts. + +"Where's my evidence?" he asked, as Judson was about to speak. "Ever +since O'mie went into the store, your books have been kept, and +incidentally your patronage has increased. That Irishman is shrewd and +to the last penny accurate. All your goods delivered by Dever's stage, +or other freight, with receipts for the same are recorded. All the goods +brought in through Jean's agency have been carefully tabulated. This +record, sworn to before old Joseph Mead, Cris's father, as notary, and +witnessed by Cam Gentry, Cris Mead, and Dr. Hemingway, lies sealed and +safe in the bank vault. + +"One piece of your trickery has a double bearing; here, and in another +line. Your books show that gold rings, a watch chain, sundry articles of +a woman's finery charged to Marjory Whately, taken from her mother's +income, were given as presents to another girl. Among them are a +handsome fur collar which Lettie Conlow had on this very morning, and +some beautiful purple ribbon, a large bow of which fastened with a +valuable pin set with brilliants I have here." + +He opened a drawer of his desk and lifted out the big bow of purple +ribbon which Lettie lost on the day Marjie and I went out to the haunted +cabin. "In your stupid self-conceit you refused to grant a measure of +good common sense and powers of observation to those about you. I have +seen your kind before; but not often, thank God!" + +My father paused, and the two sat in silence for a few moments. Judson +evidently fancied his case closed and he was beginning to hunt for a way +out, when his accuser spoke again. + +"Your business transactions, however, rank as they are, cannot equal +your graver deeds. Human nature is selfish, and a love of money has +filled many a man's soul with moth and rust. You are not the only man +who, to get a fortune, turned the trick so often that when an +opportunity came to steal, he was ready and eager for the chance. Some +men never get caught, or being known, are never brought to the bar of +account; but you have been found out as a thief and worse than a thief; +you have tried to destroy a good man's reputation. With words that were +false, absolutely false, you persuaded a defenceless woman that her +noble husband--wearing now the martyr's crown of victory--you persuaded +her, I say, that this man had done the things you yourself have done in +his name--that he was a business failure, a trickster, and an embezzler. +With Tell Mapleson and James Conlow and some of that Confederate gang +from Fingal's Creek, swearing to false affidavits, you made Mrs. Whately +believe that his name was about to be dishonored for wrongs done in his +business and for fraudulent dealing which you, after three years of +careful sheltering, would no longer hide unless she gave her daughter to +you in marriage. For these days of wearing grief to Mrs. Whately you can +never atone. You and Tell, as I said a while ago, almost succeeded in +your scheme at Washington. To my view this is infinitely worse than +taking Irving Whately's property. + +"All this has been impersonal to me, except as the wrongs and sorrows of +a friend can hurt. But I come now to my own personal interest. And where +that is concerned a man may always express himself." + +Judson broke out at this point unable to restrain himself further. + +"Baronet, you needn't mind. You and me have nothing in the world in +common." + +My father held back a smile of assent to this. + +"All I ever did was to suggest a good way for you to help Mrs. Whately, +best way in the world you could help her if you really feel so bad about +her. But you wouldn't do it. I just urged it as good for all parties. +That's it, just good for all of us; and it would have been, but I didn't +command you to it, just opened the way to help you." + +My father did not repress the smile this time, for the thought of Judson +commanding him was too much to bear unsmilingly. The humor faded in a +moment, however, and the stern man of justice went on with his charge. + +"You tried to bring dishonor upon my son by plans that almost won, did +win with some people. You adroitly set on foot a tale of disgraceful +action, and so well was your work done that only Providence prevented +the fulfilling of your plans." + +"He is a fast young man; I have the evidence," Judson cried defiantly. +"He's been followed and watched by them that know. I guess if you take +Jean Pahusca's word about the goods you'll have to about the doings of +Phil Baronet." + +"No doubt about Phil being followed and watched, but as to taking Jean +Pahusca's word, I wouldn't take it on oath about anything, not a whit +more than I would take yours. When a man stands up in my court and +swears to tell the truth the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, he +must first understand what truth is before his oath is of any effect. +Neither Jean nor you have that understanding. Let me tell you a story: +You asked Phil to escort Lettie Conlow home one night in August. About +one o'clock in the morning Phil went from his home down to the edge of +the cliff where the bushes grow thick. What took him there is his own +business. It is all written in a letter that I can get possession of at +any time that I need it, Lettie was there. Why, I do not know. She asked +him to go home with her, but he refused to do so." + +Judson would have spoken but my father would not permit it here. + +"She started out to that cabin at that hour of the night to meet you, +started with Jean Pahusca, as you had commanded her to do, and you know +he is a dangerous, villainous brute. He had some stolen goods at the +cabin, and you wanted Lettie to see them, you said. If she could not +entrap Phil that night, Jean must bring her out to this lonely haunted +house. You led the prayer meeting that week for Dr. Hemingway. Amos +Judson, so long as such men as you live, there is still need for +guardian angels. One came to this poor wilful erring girl that night in +the person of Bud Anderson, who not only made her tell where she was +going, but persuaded her to turn back, and he saw her safe within her +own home." + +"It's Phil that's deceived her and been her downfall. I can prove it by +Lettie herself. She's a very warm friend and admirer of mine." + +"She told me in this room not two hours ago that Phil had never done her +wrong. It was she who asked to have you summoned here this morning, +although I was ready for you anyhow." + +The end of Judson's rope was in sight now. He collapsed in his chair +into a little heap of whining fear and self-abasement. + +"Your worst crime, Judson, is against this girl. You have used her for +your tool, your accomplice, and your villainously base purposes. You +bribed her, with gifts she coveted, to do your bidding. You lived a +double life, filling her ears with promises you meant only to break. +Even your pretended engagement to Marjie you kept from her, and when she +found it out, you declared it was false. And more, when with her own +ears she heard you assert it as a fact, you sought to pacify her with +promises of pleasures bought with sin. You are a property thief, a +receiver of stolen goods, a defamer of character. Your hand was on the +torch to burn this town. You juggled with the official records in the +courthouse. You would basely deceive and marry a girl whose consent +could be given only to save her father's memory from stain, and her +mother from a broken heart. And greatest and blackest of all, you would +utterly destroy the life and degrade the soul of one whose erring feet +we owe it to ourselves to lead back to straight paths. On these charges +I have summoned you to this account. Every charge I have evidence to +prove beyond any shadow of question. I could call you before the civil +courts at once. That I have not done it has not been for my son's sake, +nor for Marjie's, nor her mother's, but for the sake of the one I have +no personal cause to protect, the worst one connected with this business +outside of yourself and that scoundrel Mapleson--for the sake of a +woman. It is a man's business to shield her, not to drag her down to +perdition. I said I would send for you when it was time for you to come +again, when I was ready for you. I have sent for you. Now you must +answer me." + +Judson, sitting in a crumpled-up heap in the big armchair in John +Baronet's private office, tried vainly for a time to collect his forces. +At last he turned to the one resource we all seek in our misdoing: he +tried to justify himself by blaming others. + +"Judge Baronet," his high thin voice always turned to a whine when he +lowered it. "Judge Baronet, I don't see why I'm the only one you call to +account. There's Tell Mapleson and Jim Conlow and the Rev. Dodd and a +lot more done and planned to do what I'd never 'a dreamed of. Now, why +do I have to bear all of it?" + +"You have only your part to bear, no more; and as to Tell Mapleson, his +time is coming." + +"I think I might have some help. You know all the law, and I don't know +any law." My father did not smile at the evident truth of the last +clause. + +"You can have all the law, evidence, and witnesses you choose. You may +carry your case up to the highest court. Law is my business; but I'll +be fair and say to you that a man's case is sometimes safer settled out +of court, if mercy is to play any part. I've no cause to shield you, but +I'm willing you should know this." + +"I don't want to go to court. Tell's told me over and over I'd never +have a ghost of a show"--he was talking blindly now--"I want somebody to +shake you loose from me. That's it, I want to get rid of you." + +"How much time will it require to get your counsel and come here again?" + +If a man sells his soul for wealth, the hardest trial of his life comes +when he first gets face to face with the need of what money cannot buy; +that is, loyalty. Such a trial came to Judson at this moment. Mapleson +had warned him about Baronet, but in his puny egotistic narrowness he +thought himself the equal of the best. Now he knew that neither Mapleson +nor any other of the crew with whom he had been a law-breaker would +befriend him. + +"They ain't one of 'em 'll stand by a fellow when he's down, not a one," +the little man declared. + +"No, they never do; remember that," John Baronet replied. + +"Well, what is it you want?" he whined. + +"What are you going to do? Settle this in court or out of it?" + +"Out of it, out of it," Judson fairly shrieked. "I'd be put out of the +Presbyterian Church if this gets into the courts. I've got a bank +account I'm not ashamed of. How much is it going to take to settle it? +What's the least will satisfy you?" + +"Settle it? Satisfy me? Great heavens! Can a career like this be atoned +for with a bank check and interest at eight per cent?" My father's +disgust knew no bounds. + +"You are going to turn over to the account of Marjory Whately an amount +equal to one-half the value of Whately's estate at the time of his +death, with a legal rate of interest, which according to his will she +was to receive at the age of twenty. The will," my father went on, as he +read a certain look in Judson's face, "is safe in the vault of the +courthouse, and there are no keys available to the box that holds it. +Also, you are going to pay in money the value of all the articles +charged to Marjory Whately's account and given to other people, mostly +young ladies, and especially to Lettie Conlow. Your irregular business +methods in the management of that store since O'mie began to keep your +records you are going to make straight and honest by giving all that is +overdue to your senior partner, Mrs. Irving Whately. Furthermore, you +are going to give an account for the bank stock fraudulently secured in +the days of Mrs. Whately's deep sorrow. This much for your property +transactions. You can give it at once or stand suit for embezzlement. I +have the amounts all listed here. I know your bank account and property +possession. Will you sign the papers now?" + +"But--but," Judson began. "I can't. It'll take more than half, yes, all +but two-thirds, I've got to my name. I can't do it. I'll have to hire to +somebody if I do." + +"You miserable cur, the pity is you can't make up all that you owe but +that cannot be proved by any available record. Only one thing keeps me +back from demanding a full return for all your years of thieving +stewardship." + +"Isn't that all?" Judson asked. + +"Not yet. You cannot make returns for some things. If it were all a +money proposition it would be simple. The other thing you are going to +do, now mark me, I've left you the third of your gains for it. You are +going to make good your promise to Lettie Conlow, and you will do it +now. You will give her your name, the title of wife. Your property under +the Kansas law becomes hers also; her children become the heirs to your +estate. These, with an honest life following, are the only conditions +that can save you from the penitentiary, as an embezzler, a receiver of +stolen goods, a robber of county records, a defamer of innocent men, an +accomplice in helping an Indian to steal a white girl, and a libertine. + +"I shall not release the evidence, nor withdraw the power to bring you +down the minute you break over the restrictions. Amos Judson," (there +was a terrible sternness in my father's voice, as he stood before the +wretched little man), "there is an assize at which you will be tried, +there is a bar whose Judge knows the heart as well as the deed, and for +both you must answer to Him, not only for the things in which I give you +now the chance to redeem yourself, but for those crimes for which the +law may not now punish you. There is here one door open beside the one +of iron bars, and that is the door to an honest life. Redeem your past +by the future." + +For the person who could have seen John Baronet that day, who could have +heard his deep strong voice and felt the power of his magnetic +personality, who could have been lifted up by the very strength of his +nobility so as to realize what a manhood such as his can mean--for one +who could have known all this it were easy to see to how hard a task I +have set my pen in trying to picture it here. + +"No man's life is an utter failure until he votes it so himself." My +father did not relax his hold for a moment. "You must square yours by a +truer line and lift up to your own plane the girl you have promised to +marry, and prosperity and happiness such as you could never know +otherwise will come to you. On this condition only will you escape the +full penalty of the law." + +The little widower stood up at last. It had been a terrible grilling, +but his mind and body, cramped together, seemed now to expand. + +"I'll do it, Judge Baronet. Will you help me?" + +He put out his hand hesitatingly. + +My father took it in his own strong right hand. No man or woman, whether +clothed upon with virtue or steeped in vice, ever reached forth a hand +to John Baronet and saw in his face any shadow of hesitancy to receive +it. So supreme to him was the ultimate value of each human soul. He did +not drop the hand at once, but standing there, as father to son he +spoke: + +"I have been a husband. Through all these long years I have walked alone +and lonely, yearning ever for the human presence of my loved one lying +these many years under the churchyard grasses back at old Rockport. +Judson, be good to your wife. Make her happy. You will be blessed +yourself and you will make her a true good woman." + + * * * * * + +There was a quiet wedding at the Presbyterian parsonage that evening. +The name of only one witness appeared on the marriage certificate, the +name in a bold hand of John Baronet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +O'MIE'S INHERITANCE + + In these cases we still have judgment here. + + --SHAKESPEARE. + + +True to his word, Tell Mapleson's time followed hard on the finishing up +of Judson. My father did not make a step until he was sure of what the +next one would be. That is why the supreme court never reversed his +decisions. When at last he had perfected his plans, Tell Mapleson grew +shy of pushing his claims. But Tell was a shrewd pettifogger, and his +was a different calibre of mind from Judson's. It was not until my +father was about to lay claim in his client's behalf to the valuable +piece of land containing the big cottonwood and the haunted cabin, that +Tell came out of hiding. This happened on the afternoon following the +morning scene with Judson. And aside from the task of the morning, the +news of Bud Anderson's untimely death had come that day. Nobody could +foretell what next this winter's campaign might hold for the Springvale +boys out on the far Southwest Plains, and my father's heart was heavy. + +Tell Mapleson was tall and slight. He was a Southern man by birth, and +he always retained something of the Southern air in his manner. Active, +nervous, quick-witted, but not profound, he made a good impression +generally, especially where political trickery or nice turns in the law +count for coin. Professionally he and my father were competitors; and +he might have developed into a man of fine standing, had he not kept +store, become postmaster, run for various offices, and diffused himself +generally, while John Baronet held steadily to his calling. + +In the early afternoon Tell courteously informed my father that he +desired an interview with the idea of adjusting differences between the +two. His request was granted, and a battle royal was to mark the second +half of the day. John Baronet always called this day, which was Friday, +his black but good Friday. + +"Good-afternoon, Mr. Mapleson, have a chair." + +"Good-afternoon, Judge. Pretty stiff winter weather for Kansas." + +So the two greeted each other. + +"You wanted to see me?" my father queried. + +"Yes, Judge. We might as well get this matter between us settled here as +over in the court-room, eh?" + +My father smiled. "Yes, we can afford to do that," he said. "Now, +Mapleson, you represent a certain client in claiming a piece of property +known as the north half of section 29, range 14. I also represent a +claim on the same property. You want this settled out of court. I have +no reason to refuse settlement in this way. State your claim." + +Mapleson adjusted himself in his chair. + +"Judge, the half section of land lying upon the Neosho, the one +containing among other appurtenances the big cottonwood tree and the +stone cabin, was set down in the land records as belonging to one +Patrick O'Meara, the man who took up the land. He was a light-headed +Irishman; he ran off with a Cheyenne squaw, and not long afterwards was +killed by the Comanches. This property, however, he gave over to a +friend of his, a Frenchman named Le Claire, connected in a business way +with the big Choteau Fur-trading Company in St. Louis. This Frenchman +brought his wife and child here to live. I knew them, for they traded at +the 'Last Chance' store. That was before your day here, Baronet. Le +Claire didn't live out in that cabin long, for his only child was stolen +by the Kiowas, and his wife, in a frenzy of grief drowned herself in the +Neosho. Then Le Claire plunged off into the Plains somewhere. Later he +was reported killed by the Kiowas. Now I have the evidence, the written +statement signed by this Irishman, of the turning of the property into +Le Claire's hands. Also the evidence that Le Claire was not killed by +the Indians. Instead, he was legally married to a Kiowa squaw, a sister +of Chief Satanta, who is now a prisoner of war with General Custer in +the Indian Territory. By this union there was one child, a son, Jean +Pahusca he is called. To this son this property now belongs. There can +be no question about it. The records show who entered the land. Here is +the letter sworn to in my store by this same man, left by him to be +given to Le Claire when he should come on from St. Louis. The Irishman +was impatient to join these Cheyennes he'd met on a fur-hunting trip way +up on the Platte, and with his affidavit before old Judge Fingal (he +also was here before you) he left this piece of land to the Frenchman." + +Mapleson handed my father a torn greasy bit of paper, duly setting forth +what he had claimed. + +"Now, to go on," he resumed. "This Kiowa marriage was a legal one, for +the Frenchman had a good Catholic conscience. This marriage was all +right. I have also here the affidavit of the Rev. J. J. Dodd, former +pastor of the Methodist Church South in Springvale. At the time of this +marriage Dodd, who was then stationed out near Santa Fe, New Mexico, was +on his way east with a wagon train. Near Pawnee Rock Le Claire with a +pretty squaw came to the train legally equipped and was legally married +by Dodd. As a wedding fee he gave this letter of land grant to Dodd. +'Take it,' he said, 'I'll never use it. Keep it, or give it away.' Dodd +kept it." + +"Until when?" my father asked. + +Mapleson's hands twitched nervously. + +"Until he signed it over to me," he replied. "I have everything +secured," he added, smiling, and then he went on. + +"Le Claire soon got tired of the Kiowas of course, and turned priest, +repented of all his sins, renounced his wife and child, and all his +worldly goods. It will be well for him to keep clear of old Satanta in +his missionary journeys to the heathen, however. You know this priest's +son, Jean Pahusca. He got into some sort of trouble here during the war, +and he never comes here any more. He has assigned to me all his right to +this property, on a just consideration and I am now ready to claim my +own, by force, if necessary, through the courts. But knowing your +position, and that you also have a claim on the same property, I figured +it could be adjusted between us. Baronet, there isn't a ghost of a show +for anybody else to get a hold on this property. Every legal claimant is +dead except this half-breed. I have papers for every step in the way to +possession; and as a man whose reputation for justice has never been +diminished, I don't believe you will pile up costs on your client, nor +deal unfairly with him. Have you any answer to my claim?" + +At that moment the door opened quietly and Father Le Claire entered. He +was embarrassed by his evident intrusion and would have retreated but my +father called him in. + +"You come at a most opportune time, Father Le Claire. Mapleson here has +been proving some things to me through your name. You can help us both." + +John Baronet looked at both men keenly. Mapleson's face had a look of +pleasure as if he saw not only the opportunity to prove his cause, but +the chance to grill the priest, whose gentle power had time and again +led the Indians from his "Last Chance" saloon on annuity days, when the +peaceful Osages and Kaws came up for their supplies. The good Father's +face though serious, even apprehensive, had an undercurrent of serenity +in its expression hard to reconcile with fear of accusation. + +"Mr. Mapleson, will you repeat to Le Claire what you have just told me +and show him your affidavits and records?" John Baronet asked. + +"Certainly," Tell replied, and glibly he again set forth his basis to a +claim on the valuable property. "Now, Le Claire," he added, "Baronet and +I have about agreed to arbitrate for ourselves. Your name will never +appear in this. The records are seldom referred to, and you are as safe +with us as if you'd never married that squaw of old Satanta's household. +We are all men here, if one is a priest and one a judge and the other a +land-owner." + +Le Claire's face never twitched a muscle. He turned his eyes upon the +judge inquiringly, but unabashed. + +"Will you help us out of this, Le Claire?" my father asked. "If you +choose I will give you my claim first." + +"Good," said Mapleson. "Let him hear us both, and his word will show us +what to do." + +"Well, gentlemen," my father began, "by the merest chance a few years +ago I came upon the entry of the land in question. It was entered in the +name of Patrick O'Meara. Happening to recall that the little red-headed +orphan chore-boy down at the Cambridge House bore the same name, I made +some inquiry of Cam Gentry about the boy's origin and found that he was +an orphan from the Osage Mission, and had been brought up here by one of +the priests who stopped here a day or two on his way from the Osage to +St. Mary's, up on the Kaw. Cam and Dollie were kind to the child, and he +begged the priest to stay with them. The good man consented, and while +the guardianship remained with the people of the Mission, O'mie grew up +here. It seemed not impossible that he might have some claim on this +land. Everything kept pointing the fact more and more clearly to me. +Then I was called to the war." + +Tell Mapleson's mobile face clouded up a bit at this. + +"But I had by this time become so convinced that I called in Le Claire +here and held a council with him. He told me some of what he knew, not +all, for reasons he did not explain" (my father's eyes were on the +priest's face), "but if it is necessary he will tell." + +"Now that sounds like a threat," Mapleson urged. Somehow, shrewd as he +was, solid as his case appeared to himself, the man was growing +uncomfortable. "I've known Le Claire's story for years. I never +questioned him once. I had my papers from Dodd. Le Claire long ago +renounced the world. His life has proved it. The world includes the +undivided north half of section 29, range 14. That's Jean Pahusca's. +It's too late now for his father to try to get it away from him, +Baronet. You know the courts won't stand for it." Adroit as he was, the +Southern blood was beginning to show in Tell's nervous manner and +flashing eyes. + +"When I came back from the war," my father went on, ignoring the +interruption, "I found that the courthouse records had been juggled +with. Some of them, with some other papers, had been stolen. It happened +on a night when for some reason O'mie, a harmless, uninfluential Irish +orphan, was hunted for everywhere in order to be murdered. Why? He stood +in the way of a land-claim, and human life was cheap that night." + +Tell Mapleson's face was ashy gray with anger; but no heed was given to +him, as my father continued. + +"It happened that Jean Pahusca, who took him out of town by mistake and +left him unconscious and half dead on the bank of Fingal's Creek, was +ordered back by the ruffians to find his body, and if he was alive to +finish him in any way the Indian chose. That same night the courthouse +was entered, and the record of this land-entry was taken." + +"I have papers showing O'Meara's signing it over--" Tell began; but my +father waved his hand and proceeded. + +"Briefly put, it was concealed in the old stone cabin by one Amos +Judson. Le Claire here was a witness to the transaction." + +The priest nodded assent. + +"But for reasons of his own he did not report the theft. He did, +however, remove the papers from their careless hiding-place in an old +chest to a more secure nook in the far corner of the dark loft. Before I +came home he had left Springvale, and business matters called him to +France. He has not been here since, until last September when he spent a +few days out at the cabin. The lead box had been taken from the loft and +concealed under the flat stone that forms the door step, possibly by +some movers who camped there and did some little harm to the property. + +"I have the box in the bank vault now. Le Claire turned it over to me. +There is no question as to the record. Two points must be settled, +however. First, did O'Meara give up the land he entered? And second, is +the young man we call O'mie heir to the same? Le Claire, you are just +back from the Osage Mission?" + +The priest assented. + +"Now, will you tell us what you know of this case?" + +A sudden fear seized Tell Mapleson. Would this man lie now to please +Judge Baronet? Tell was a good reader of human nature, and he had +thoroughly believed in the priest as a holy man, one who had renounced +sin and whose life was one long atonement for a wild, tragic, and +reckless youth. He disliked Le Claire, but he had never doubted the +priest's sincerity. He could have given any sort of bribe had he deemed +the Frenchman purchasable. + +"Just one word please, Judge," he said suavely. "Look here, Le Claire, +Baronet's a good lawyer, a rich man, and a popular man with a fine +reputation; but by jiminy! if you try any tricks with me and vary one +hair from the truth, I'll have you before the civil and church courts so +quick you'll think the Holy Inquisition's no joke. If you'll just tell +the truth nobody's going to know through me anything about your former +wives, nor how many half-breed papooses claim you. And I know Baronet +here well enough to know he never gossips." + +Le Claire turned his dark face toward Mapleson, and his piercing black +eyes seemed to look through the restless lawyer fidgeting in his chair. +In the old days of the "Last Chance" saloon the two had played a quiet +game, each trying to outwit the other--the priest for the spiritual and +financial welfare of the Indian pensioners, Mapleson for his own +financial gain. Yet no harsh word had ever passed between them. Not even +after Le Claire had sent his ultimatum to the proprietor of the "Last +Chance," "Sell Jean Pahusca another drink of whiskey and you'll be +removed from the Indian agency by order from the Secretary of Indian +affairs at Washington." + +"Mr. Mapleson, I hope the truth will do you no harm. It is the only +thing that will avail now, even the truth I have for years kept back. I +am no longer a young man, and my severe illness in October forced me to +get this business settled. Indeed, I in part helped to bring matters to +an issue to-day." + +Mapleson was disarmed at once by the priest's frankness. He had waited +long to even up scores with the Roman Catholic who had kept many a +dollar from his till. + +"You are right, gentlemen, in believing that I hold the key to this +situation. The Judge has asked two questions: 'Did Patrick O'Meara ever +give up his title to the land?' and 'Is O'mie his heir, and therefore +the rightful owner?' Let me tell you first what I know of O'mie. + +"His mother was a dear little Irish woman who had come, a stranger, to +New York City and was married to Patrick O'Meara when she was quite +young. They were poor, and after O'mie was born, his father decided to +try the West. Fate threw him into the way of a Frenchman who sent him to +St. Louis to the employment of a fur-trading company in the upper +Missouri River country. O'Meara knew that the West held large +possibilities for a poor man. He hoped in a short time to send for his +wife and child to join him." + +The priest paused, and his brow darkened. + +"This Frenchman, although he was of noble birth, had all the evil traits +and none of the good ones of all the generations, and withal he was a +wild, restless, romantic dreamer and adventurer. You two do not know +what heartlessness means. This man had no heart, and yet," the holy +man's voice trembled, "his people loved him--will always love his +memory, for he could be irresistibly charming and affectionate when he +chose. To make this painful story short, he fell in love--madly as only +he could love--with this pretty little auburn-haired Irish woman. He had +a wife in France, but Mrs. O'Meara pleased him for the time; and he was +that kind of a beast. + +"O'Meara came to Springvale, and finding here a chance to get hold of a +good claim, he bought it. He built a little cabin and sent money to New +York for his wife and child to join him here. Mails were slow in +preterritorial days. The next letter O'Meara had from New York was from +this Frenchman telling him that his wife and child were dead. Meanwhile +the villain played the kind friend and brother to the little woman and +helped her to prepare for her journey to the West. He had business +himself in St. Louis. He would precede her there and accompany her to +her husband's new home. Oh, he knew how to deceive, and he was as +charming in manner as he was dominant in spirit. No king ever walked the +earth with a prouder step. You have seen Jean Pahusca stride down the +streets of Springvale, and you know his regal bearing. Such was this +Frenchman. + +"In truth," the priest went on, "he had cause to leave New York. Word +had come to him that his deserted French wife was on her way to America. +This French woman was quick-tempered and jealous, and her anger was +something to flee from. + +"It is a story of utter baseness. From St. Louis to Springvale Mrs. +O'Meara's escort was more like a lover than a friend and business +director of her affairs. This land was an Osage reservation then. +O'Meara's half-section claim was west of here. The home he built was +that little stone cabin near where the draw breaks through the bluff up +the river, this side of the big cottonwood." + +Le Claire paused and sat in silence for a while. + +"Much as I have dealt with all sorts of people," he continued, "I never +could understand this Frenchman's nature. Fickle and heartless he was to +the very core. The wild frontier life attracted him, and he, who could +have adorned the court of France or been a power in New York's high +circles, plunged into this wilderness. When they reached the cabin the +cause for his devoted attentions was made plain. O'Meara was not there, +had indeed been gone for weeks. Letters left at Springvale directed to +this Frenchman read: + +"'I'm gone for good. A pretty Cheyenne squaw away up on the Platte is +too much for me. Tell Kathleen I'm never coming back. So she is free to +do what she wants to. You may have this ground I have preempted, for +your trouble. Good-bye.' + +"This letter, scrawled on a greasy bit of paper, was so unlike anything +Patrick O'Meara had ever said, its spirit was so unlike his genial +true-hearted nature that his wife might have doubted it. But she was +young and inexperienced, alone and penniless with her baby boy in a +harsh wilderness. The message broke her heart. And then this man used +all the force of his power to win her. He showed her how helpless she +was, how the community here would look upon her as his wife, and now +since she was deserted by her husband, the father of her child, her only +refuge lay with him, her true lover. + +"The woman's heart was broken, but her fidelity and honor were founded +on a rock. She scorned the villain before her and drove him from her +door. That night she and O'mie were alone in that lonely little cabin. +The cruel dominant nature of the man was aroused now, and he determined +to crush the spirit of the only woman who had ever resisted him. Two +days later a band of Kiowas was passing peaceably across the Plains. +Here the Frenchman saw his chance for revenge by conniving with the +Indians to seize little O'mie playing on the prairie beyond the cabin. + +"The women out in Western Kansas have had the same agony of soul that +Kathleen O'Meara suffered when she found her boy was stolen. In her +despair she started after the tribe, wandering lost and starving many +days on the prairie until a kind-hearted Osage chief found her and took +her to our blessed Mission down the river. Here a strange thing +happened. Before she had been there a week, her husband, Thomas O'Meara, +came from a trapping tour on the Arkansas River. With him was a little +child he had rescued from the Kiowas in a battle at Pawnee Rock. It was +his own child, although he did not know it then. In this battle he was +told that a Frenchman had been killed. The name was the same as that of +the Frenchman he had known in New York. Can you picture the joy of that +reunion? You who have had a wife to love, a son to cherish?" + +My father's heart was full. All day his own boy's face had been before +him, a face so like to the woman whose image he held evermore in sacred +memory. + +"But their joy was short-lived, for Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from +her hardships on the prairie; she died in a few weeks. Her husband was +killed by the Comanches shortly after her death. His claim here he left +to his son, over whom the Mission assumed guardianship. O'mie was +transferred to St. Mary's for some reason, and the priest who started to +take him there stopped here to find out about his father's land. But the +records were not available. Fingal, for whom Fingal's Creek was named, +also known as Judge Fingal, held possession of all the records, +and--how, I never knew--but in some way he prevented the priest from +finding out anything. Fingal was a Southern man; he met a violent death +that year. You know O'mie's story after that." Le Claire paused, and a +sadness swept over his face. + +"But that doesn't finish the Frenchman's story," he continued presently. + +"The night that O'mie's mother left her home in the draw, the French +woman who had journeyed far to find her husband came to Springvale. You +know what she found. The belongings of another woman. It was she who +slipped into the Neosho that night. The Frenchman was in the fight at +Pawnee Rock. After that he disappeared. But he had entered a formal +claim to the land as the husband of Patrick O'Meara's widow, heir to her +property. You see he held a double grip. One through the letter--forged, +of course--the other through the claim to a union that never existed." + +"Seems to me you've a damned lot to answer for," Tell Mapleson hissed in +rage. "If the Church can make a holy man out of such a villain, I'm glad +I'm a heretic." + +"I'm answering for it," the priest said meekly. Only my father sat with +face impassive and calm. + +"This half-section of land in question is the property of Thomas +O'Meara, son and heir to Patrick O'Meara, as the records show. These +stolen records I found where Amos Judson had hastily concealed them, as +Judge Baronet has said. I put them in the dark loft for safer keeping, +for I felt sure they were valuable. When I came to look for them, they +had been moved again. I supposed the one who first took them had +recovered them, and I let the matter go. Meanwhile I was called home. +When I came here last Fall I found matters still unsettled, and O'mie +still without his own. I spent several days in the stone cabin searching +for the lost papers. The weather was bad, and you know of my severe +attack of pneumonia. But I found the box. In the illness that followed I +was kept from Springvale longer than I wished. When I came again O'mie +had gone." + +The priest paused and sat with eyes downcast, and a sorrowful face. + +"Is this your story?" Tell queried. "Your proof of O'mie's claim you +consider incontestable, but how about these affidavits from the Rev. Mr. +Dodd who married you to the Kiowa squaw? How--" + +But Le Claire lifted his hand in commanding gesture. A sudden sternness +of face and attitude of authority seemed to clothe him like a garment. + +"Gentlemen, there is another story. A bitter, painful story. I have +never told it, although it has sometimes almost driven me from the holy +sanctuary because of my silence." + +It was a deeply impressive moment, for all three of the men realized the +importance of the occasion. + +"My name," said the priest, "is Pierre Rousseau Le Claire. I am of a +titled house of France. We have only the blood of the nobility in our +veins. My father had two sons, twins--Pierre the priest, and Jean the +renegade, outlawed even among the savages; for his scalp will hang from +Satanta's tepee pole if the chance ever comes. Mapleson, here, has told +you the truth about his being married to a sister of Chief Satanta. He +also is the father of Jean Pahusca. You have noticed the boy's likeness +to me. If he, being half Indian, has such a strong resemblance to his +family, you can imagine how much alike we are, my brother and myself. In +form and gesture, everything--except--well, I have told you what his +nature was, and--you have known me for many years. And yet, I have never +ceased to pray for him, wicked as he is. We played together about the +meadows and vine-clad hill slopes of old France, in our happy boyhood. +We grew up and loved and might both have been happily wedded +there,--but--I've told you his story. There is nothing of myself that +can interest you. That letter of Mapleson's, purporting to be from +Patrick O'Meara, is a mere forgery. I have just come up from the +Mission. The records and letters of O'Meara have all been kept there. +This handwriting would not stand, in court, Mapleson. The land was +O'Meara's. It is now O'mie's." + +Mapleson sat with rigid countenance. For almost fifteen years he had +matched swords with John Baronet. He had felt so sure of his game, he +had guarded every possible loophole where success might escape him, he +had paved every step so carefully that his mind, grown to the habitual +thought of winning, was stunned by the revelation. Like Judson in the +morning, his only defence lay In putting blame on somebody else. + +"You are the most accomplished double-dealer I ever met," he declared to +the priest. "You pretend to follow a holy calling, you profess a love +for your brother, and yet you are trying to rob his child of his +property. You are against Jean Pahusca, son of the man you love so much. +Is that the kind of a priest you are?" + +"The very kind--even worse," Le Claire responded. "I went back to France +before my aged father died. My mother died of a broken heart over Jean +long ago. While our father yet lived I persuaded him to give all his +estate--it was large--to the Holy Church. He did it. Not a penny of it +can ever be touched." + +Mapleson caught his breath like a drowning man. + +"It spoiled a beautiful lawsuit, I know," Le Claire continued looking +meaningly at him. "For that fortune in France, put into the hands of +Jean Pahusca's attorneys here, would have been rich plucking. It can +never be. I fixed that before our father's death. Why?" + +"Yes, you narrow, grasping robber of orphans, why?" Tell shouted in his +passion. + +"For the same reason that I stood between Jean Pahusca and this town +until he was outlawed here. The half-breed cares nothing for property +except as it can buy revenge and feed his appetites. He would sell +himself for a drink of whiskey. You know how dangerous he is when drunk. +Every man in this town except Judge Baronet and myself has had to flee +from him at some time or other. Sober, he is a devil--half Indian, half +French, and wholly fiendish. Neither he nor his father has any property. +I used my influence to prevent it. I would do it again. Jean Le Claire +has forfeited all claims to inheritance. So have I. Among the Indians he +is a renegade. I am only a missionary priest trying as I may to atone +for my own sins and for the sins of my father's son, my twin brother. +That, gentlemen, is all I can say." + +"We are grateful to you, Le Claire," John Baronet said. "Mapleson said +before you began that your word would show us what to do. It has shown +us. It is now time, when some deeds long past their due, must be +requited." He turned to Tell sitting defiantly there casting mentally in +every direction for some legal hook, some cunning turn, by which to win +victory away from defeat. + +"Tell Mapleson, the hour has come for us to settle more than a property +claim between an Irish orphan and a half-breed Kiowa. And now, if it was +wise to settle the other matter out of court, it will be a hundred times +safer to settle this here this afternoon. You have grown prosperous in +Springvale. In so far as you have done it honestly, I rejoice. You know +yourself that I have more than once proved my sincerity by turning +business your way, that I could as easily have put elsewhere." + +Tell did know, and with something of Southern politeness, he nodded +assent. + +"You are here now to settle with me or to go before my court for some +counts you must meet. You have been the headpiece for all the evil-doing +that has wrecked the welfare of Springvale and that has injured +reputation, brought lasting sorrow, even cost the life of many citizens. +Sooner or later the man who does that meets his own crimes face to face, +and their ugly powers break loose on him." + +"What do you mean?" Tell's voice was suppressed, and his face was livid. + +"I mean first: you with Dick Yeager and others, later in Quantrill's +band, in May of 1863 planned the destruction of this town by mob +violence. The houses were to be burned, every Union man was to be +murdered with his wife and children, except such as the Kiowa and +Comanche Indians chose to spare. My own son was singled out as the +choicest of your victims. Little O'mie, for your own selfish ends, was +not to be spared; and Marjory Whately, just blooming into womanhood, you +gave to Jean Pahusca as his booty. Your plan failed, partly through the +efforts of this good man here, partly through the courage and quick +action of the boys of the town, but mainly through the mercy of +Omnipotent God, who sent the floods to keep back the forces of Satan. +That Marjory escaped even in the midst of it all is due to the +shrewdness and sacrifice of the young man you have been trying to +defraud--O'mie. + +"In the midst of this you connived with others to steal the records from +the courthouse. You were a treble villain, for you set the Rev. Mr. +Dodd to a deed you afterwards held over him as a threat and drove him +from the town for fear of exposure, forcing him to give you the papers +he held against Jean Le Claire's claims to the half-section on the +Neosho. Not that his going was any loss to Springvale. But Dodd will +never trouble you again. He cast his lot with the Dog Indians of the +plains, and one of them used him for a shield in Custer's battle with +Black Kettle's band last December. He had not even Indian burial. + +"Those deeds against Springvale belong to the days of the Civil War, but +your record since proves that the man who planned them cannot be trusted +as a safe citizen in times of peace. Into your civil office you carried +your war-time methods, until the Postmaster-General cannot deal longer +with you. Your term of office expires in six days. Your successor's +commission is already on its way here. This much was accomplished in the +trip East last Fall." My father spoke significantly. + +"It wasn't all that was accomplished, by Heaven! There's a lawsuit +coming; there's a will that's to be broken that can't stand when I get +at it. You are mighty good and fine about money when other folks are +getting it; but when it's coming to you, you're another man." Tell's +voice was pitched high now. + +"Father Le Claire, let me tell you a story. Baronet's a smooth rascal +and nobody can find him out easily. But I know him. He has called me a +thief. It takes that kind to catch a thief, maybe. Anyhow, back at +Rockport the Baronets were friends of the Melrose family. One of them, +Ferdinand, was drowned at sea. He had some foolish delusion or other in +his head, for he left a will bequeathing all his property to his brother +James Melrose during his lifetime. At his death all Ferdinand's money +was to go to John Baronet in trust for his son Phil. Baronet, here, sent +his boy back East to school in hopes that Phil would marry Rachel +Melrose, James's daughter, and so get the fortune of both Ferdinand and +James Melrose. He went crazy over the girl; and, to be honest, for +Phil's a likable young fellow, the girl was awfully in love with him. +Baronet's had her come clear out here to visit them. But, you'll excuse +me for saying it, Judge, Phil is a little fast. He got tangled up with a +girl of shady reputation here, and Rachel broke off the match. Now, last +October the Judge goes East. You see, he's well fixed, but that nice +little sum looks big to him, and he's bound Phil shall have it, wife or +no wife. But there's a good many turns in law. While Baronet was at +Rockport before I could get there, being detained at Washington" (my +father smiled a faint little gleam of a smile in his eyes more than on +his lip)--"before I could get to Rockport, Mr. Melrose dies, leaving his +wife and Rachel alone in the world. Now, I'm retained here as their +attorney. Tillhurst is going on to see to things for me. It's only a few +thousand that Baronet is after, but it's all Rachel and her mother have. +The Melroses weren't near as rich as the people thought. That will of +Ferdinand's won't hold water, not even salt water. It'll go to pieces in +court, but it'll show this pious Judge, who calls his neighbors to +account, what kind of a man he is. The money's been tied up in some +investments and it will soon be released." + +Le Claire looked anxiously toward my father, whose face for the first +time that day was pale. Rising he opened his cabinet of private papers +and selected a legal document. + +"This seems to be the day for digging up records," he said in a low +voice. "Here is one that may interest you and save time and money. What +Mapleson says about Ferdinand Melrose is true. We'll pass by the motives +I had in sending Phil East, and some other statements. When I became +convinced that love played no part in Phil's mind toward Rachel Melrose, +I met him in Topeka in October and gave him the opportunity of signing a +relinquishment to all claims on the estate of Ferdinand Melrose. Phil +didn't care for the girl; and as to the money gotten in that way" (my +father drew himself up to his full height), "the oxygen of Kansas breeds +a class of men out here who can make an honest fortune in spite of any +inheritance, or the lack of it. I put my boy in that class." + +I was his only child, and a father may be pardoned for being proud of +his own. + +"When I reached Rockport," he continued, "Mr. Melrose was ill. I hurried +to him with my message, and it may be his last hours were more peaceful +because of my going. Rachel will come into her full possessions in a +short time, as you say. Mapleson, will you renounce your retainer's fees +in your interest in the orphaned?" + +It was Tell's bad day, and he swore sulphureously in a low tone. + +"Now I'll take up this matter where I left off," John Baronet said. +"While O'mie was taking a vacation in the heated days of August, he +slept up in the stone cabin. Jean Pahusca, thief, highwayman, robber, +and assassin, kept his stolen goods there. Mapleson and his mercantile +partner divided the spoils. O'mie's sense of humor is strong, and one +night he played ghost for Jean. You know the redskin's inherent fear of +ghosts. It put Jean out of the commission goods business. No persuasion +of Mapleson's or his partner's could induce Jean to go back after night +to the cabin after this reappearance of the long quiet ghost of the +drowned woman." + +Le Claire could not repress a smile. + +"I think I unconsciously played the same role in September out there, +frightening a little man away one night. I was innocent of any harm +intended." + +"It did the work," my father replied. "Jean cut for the West at once, +and joined the Cheyennes for a time--and with a purpose." Then as he +looked straight at Tell, his voice grew stern, and that mastery of men +that his presence carried made itself felt. + +"Jean has bought the right to the life of my son. His pay for the +hundreds of dollars he has turned into the hands of this man was that +Mapleson should defame my son's good name and drive him from Springvale, +and that Jean in his own time was to follow and assassinate him. +Mapleson here was in league to protect Jean from the law if the deed +should ever be traced to his door. With these conditions in addition, +Mapleson was to receive the undivided one-half of section 29, range 14. + +"Tell Mapleson, I pass by the crime of forging lies against the name of +Irving Whately; I pass by the plotted crimes against this town in '63; I +ignore the systematic thievery of your dealings with the half-breed Jean +Pahusca; but, by the God in heaven, my boy is my own. For the crime of +seeking to lay stain upon his name, the crime of trying to entangle him +hopelessly in a scandal and a legal prosecution with a sinful erring +girl, the crime of lending your hand to hold the coat of the man who +should stone him to death,--for these things, I, the father of Philip +Baronet, give you now twenty-four hours to leave Springvale and the +State. If at the end of that time you are within the limits of Kansas, +you must answer to me in the court-room over there; and, Tell Mapleson, +you know what's before you. I came to the West to help build it up. I +cannot render my State a greater service than by driving you from its +borders; and so long as I live I shall bar your entrance to a land that, +in spite of all it has to bear, grows a larger crop of honest men with +the conquest of each acre of the prairie soil." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +SUNSET BY THE SWEETWATER + + And we count men brave who on land and wave fear not to die; but still, + Still first on the rolls of the world's great souls are the men who + have feared to kill. + + --EDMUND VANCE COOKE. + + +Jean Pahusca turned at the sound of O'mie's step on the stone. The red +sun had blinded his eyes and he could not see clearly at first. When he +did see, O'mie's presence and the captive unbound and staggering to his +feet, surprised the Indian and held him a moment longer. The confusion +at the change in war's grim front passed quickly, however,--he was only +half Indian,--and he was himself again. He darted toward us, swift as a +serpent. Clutching O'mie by the throat and lifting him clear of the rock +shelf the Indian threw him headlong down the side of the bluff, crashing +the bushes as he fell. The knife that had cut the cords that bound me, +the same knife that would have scalped Marjie and taken the boy's life +in the Hermit's Cave, was flung from O'mie's hand. It rang on the stone +and slid down in the darkness below. Then the half-breed hurled himself +upon me and we clinched there by the cliff's edge for our last conflict. + +I was in Jean's land now. I had come to my final hour with him. The +Baronets were never cowardly. Was it inherited courage, or was it the +spirit of power in that letter, Marjie's message of love to me, that +gave me grace there? Followed then a battle royal, brute strength +against brute strength. All the long score of defeated effort, all the +jealousy and hate of years, all the fury of final conflict, all the mad +frenzy of the instinct of self-preservation, all the savage lust for +blood (most terrible in the human tiger), were united in Jean. He +combined a giant's strength and an Indian's skill with the dominant +courage and coolness of a son of France. Against these things I put my +strength in that strange struggle on the rocky ledge in the gathering +twilight of that February day. The little cove on the bluff-side, was +not more than fifteen feet across at its widest place. The shelf of +sloping stone made a fairly even floor. In this little retreat I had +been bound and unable to move for an hour. My muscles were tense at +first. I was dazed, too, by a sudden deliverance from the slow torture +that had seemed inevitable for me. The issue, however, was no less awful +than swift. I had just cause for wreaking vengeance on my foeman. Twice +he had attempted to take O'mie's life. The boy might be dead from the +headlong fall at this very minute, for all I knew. The clods were only +two days old on Bud Anderson's grave. Nothing but the skill and +sacrifice of O'mie had saved Marjie from this brute's lust six years +before. While he lived, my own life was never for one moment safe. And +more than everything else was the possibility of a fate for Marjie too +horrible for me to dwell upon. All these things swept through my mind +like a lightning flash. + +If ever the Lord in the moment of supreme peril gave courage and +self-control, these good and perfect gifts were mine in that evening's +strife. With the first plunge he had thrown me, and he was struggling to +free his hand from my grasp to get at my throat; his knee was on my +chest. + +"You're in my land now," he hissed in my ear. + +"Yes, but this is Phil Baronet still," I answered with a calmness so +dominant, it stayed the struggle for a moment. I was playing on him the +same trick by which he had so often deceived us,--the pretended +relaxation of all effort, and indifference to further strife. In that +moment's pause I gained my lost vantage. Quick as thought I freed my +other hand, and, holding still his murderous grip from my throat, I +caught him by the neck, and pushing his head upward, I gave him such a +thrust that his hold on me loosened a bit. A bit only, but that was +enough, for when he tightened it again, I was on my feet and the strife +was renewed--renewed with the fierceness of maddened brutes, lashed into +fury. Life for one of us meant death for the other, and I lost every +humane instinct in that terrible struggle except the instinct to save +Marjie first, and my own life after hers. Civilization slips away in +such a battle, and the fighter is only a jungle beast, knowing no law +but the unquenchable thirst for blood. The hand that holds this pen is +clean to-day, clean and strong and gentle. It was a tiger's claw that +night, and Jean's hot blood following my terrific blow full in his face +only thrilled me with savage courage. I hurled him full length on the +stone, my heavy cavalry boot was on his neck, and I would have stamped +the life out of him in an instant. But with the motion of a serpent he +wriggled himself upward; then, catching me by the leg, he had me on one +knee, and his long arms, like the tentacles of a devil-fish, tightened +about me. Then we rolled together over and under, under and over. His +hard white teeth were sunk in my shoulder to cut my life artery. I had +him by the long soft hair, my fingers tangled in the handfuls I had torn +from his head. And every minute I was possessed with a burning frenzy +to strangle him. Every desire had left my being now, save the eagerness +to conquer, and the consciousness of my power to fight until that end +should come. + +We were at the cliff's edge now, my head hanging over; the blood was +rushing toward my clogging brain; the sharp rock's rim, like a stone +knife, was cutting my neck. Jean loosened his teeth from my shoulder, +and his murderous hand was on my throat. In that supreme crisis I +summoned the very last atom of energy, the very limit of physical +prowess, the quickness and cunning which can be called forth only by the +conflict with the swift approach of death. + +Nature had given me a muscular strength far beyond that of most men. And +all my powers had been trained to swift obedience and almost unlimited +endurance. With this was a nervous system that matched the years of a +young man's greatest vigor. Strong drink and tobacco had never had the +chance to play havoc with my steady hand or to sap the vitality of my +reserve forces. Even as Jean lifted me by the throat to crush my head +backward over that sharp stone ledge, I put forth this burst of power in +a fierceness so irresistible that it hurled him from me, and the +struggle was still unended. We were on our feet again in a rage to reach +the finish. I had almost ceased to care to live. I wanted only to choke +the breath from the creature before me. I wanted only to save from his +hellish power the victims who would become his prey if he were allowed +to live. + +Instinct led me to wrestle with my assailant across the ledge toward the +wall that shut in about the sanctuary, just as, a half-year before, on +our "Rockport" fighting ground, I strove to drag him through the bushes +toward Cliff Street, while he tried to fling me off the projecting rock. +And so we locked limb and limb in the horrible contortion of this +savage strife. Every muscle had been so wrenched, no pain or wound +reported itself fairly to the congested brain. I had nearly reached the +wall, and I was making a frantic effort to fling the Indian against it. +I had his shoulder almost upon the rocky side, and my grip was tight +about him, when he turned on me the same trick I had played in the early +part of this awful game. A sudden relaxation threw me off my guard. The +blood was streaming from a wound on my forehead, and I loosed my hold to +throw back my long hair from my face and wipe the trickling drops from +my eyes. In that fatal moment my mind went blank, whether from loss of +blood or a sudden blow from Jean, I do not know. When I did know myself, +I seemed to have fallen through leagues of space, to be falling still, +until a pain, so sharp that it was a blessing, brought me to my senses. +The light was very dim, but my right hand was free. I aimed one blow at +Jean's shoulder, and he fell by the cliff's edge, dragging me with him, +my weight on his body. His left hand hung over the cliff-side. I should +have finished with him then, but that the fallen hand, down in the black +shadows, had closed over a knife sticking in the crevice just below the +edge of the bluff--Jean Le Claire's knife, that had been flung from +O'mie's grip as he fell. + +I caught its gleam as the half-breed flashed it upward in a swift stab +at my heart and my breath hung back. I leaped from him in time to save +my life, but not quickly enough to keep the villainous thing from +cutting a long jagged track across my thigh, from which spurted a +crimson flood. There could be only one thing evermore for us two. A +redoubled fury seized me, and then there swept up in me a power for +which I cannot account, unless it may be that the Angel of Life, who +guards all the passes of the valley of the shadow, sometimes turns back +the tide for us. A sudden calmness filled me, a cool courage contrasting +with Jean's frenzy, and I set my teeth together with the grip of a +bulldog. Jean had leaped to his feet as I sprang back from his +knife-thrust, and for the first time since the fight began we stood +apart for half a minute. + +"I may die, but I'll never be cut to death. It must be an equal fight, +and when I go, Jean Pahusca, you are going with me. I'll have that knife +first and then I'll kill you with my own hands, if my breath goes out at +that same instant." + +There must have been something terrible in my voice for it was the voice +of a strong man going down to death, firm of purpose, and unafraid. + +The feel of the weapon gave the Indian renewed energy. He sprang at me +with a maniac's might. He was a maniac henceforth. Three times we raged +across the narrow fighting ground. Three times I struck that murderous +blade aside, but not without a loss of my own blood for each thrust, +until at last by sheer virtue of muscle against muscle, I wrenched it +from Jean's hand, dripping with my red life-tide. And even as I seized +it, it slipped from me and fell, this time to the ledges far below. Then +hell broke all bounds for us, and what followed there in that shadowy +twilight, I care not to recall much less to set it down here. + +I do not know how long we battled there, nor whose blood most stained +the stone of that sanctuary, nor how many times I was underneath, nor +how often on top of my assailant. Not all the struggles of my sixty +years combined, and I have known many, could equal that fight for life. + +There came a night in later time when for what seemed an age to me, I +matched my physical power and endurance against the terrible weight of +broken timbers of a burning bridge that was crushing out human lives, in +a railroad wreck. And every second of that eternity-long time, I faced +the awful menace of death by fire. The memory of that hour is a pleasure +to me when contrasted with this hand to hand battle with a murderer. + +It ended at last--such strife is too costly to endure long--ended with a +form stretched prone and helpless and whining for mercy before a +conqueror, whose life had been well-nigh threshed out of him; but the +fallen fighter was Jean Pahusca, and the man who towered over him was +Phil Baronet. + +The half-breed deserved to die. Life for him meant torturing death to +whatever lay in his path. It meant untold agony for whomsoever his hand +fell upon. And greater to me than these then was the murderous conflict +just ended, in which I had by very miracle escaped death again and +again. Men do not fight such battles to weep forgiving tears on one +another's necks when the end comes. When the spirit of mortal strife +possesses a man's soul, the demons of hell control it. The moment for a +long overdue retribution was come. As we had clinched and torn one +another there Jean's fury had driven him to a maniac's madness. The +blessed heritage of self-control, my endowment from my father, had not +deserted me. But now my hand was on his throat, my knee was planted on +his chest, and by one twist I could end a record whose further writing +would be in the blood of his victims. + +I lifted my eyes an instant to the western sky, out of which a clear, +sweet air was softly fanning my hot blood-smeared face. The sun had set +as O'mie cut my bonds. And now the long purple twilight of the Southwest +held the land in its soft hues. Only one ray of iridescent light +pointed the arch above me--the sun's good-night greeting to the Plains. +Its glory held me by a strange power. God's mercy was in that radiant +shaft of beauty reaching far up the sky, keeping me back from wilful +murder. + +And then, because all pure, true human love is typical of God's eternal +love for his children, then, all suddenly, the twilight scene slipped +from me. I was in my father's office on an August day, and Marjie was +beside me. The love light in her dear brown eyes, as they looked +steadily into mine, was thrilling my soul with joy. I felt again the +touch of her hand as I felt it that day when I presented her to Rachel +Melrose. Her eyes were looking deep into my soul, her hand was in my +hand, the hand that in a moment more would take the life of a human +being no longer able to give me blow for blow. I loosed my clutch as +from a leprous wound, and the Indian gasped again for mercy. Standing +upright, I spurned the form grovelling now at my feet. + +Lifting my bloody right hand high above me, I thanked God I had +conquered in a greater battle. I had won the victory over my worser +self. + +But I was too wise to think that Jean should have his freedom. Stepping +to where the cut thongs that had bound me lay, I took the longest pieces +and tied the half-breed securely. + +All this time I had fogotten O'mie. Now it dawned upon me that he must +be found. He might be alive still. The fall must have been broken +somehow by the bushes. I peered over the edge of the bluff into the +darkness of the valley below. + +"O'mie!" I called, "O'mie!" + +"Present!" a voice behind me responded. + +I turned quickly. Standing there in the dim light, with torn clothing, +and tumbled red hair, and scratched face was the Irish boy, bruised, but +not seriously hurt. + +"I climbed down and round and up and got back as soon as I come too," he +said, with that happy-go-lucky smile of his. "Bedad! but you've been +makin' some history, I see. Git up, you miserable cur, and we'll march +ye down to General Custer. You take entirely too many liberties wid a +Springvale boy what's knowed you too darned long already." + +We lifted Jean, and keeping him before us we hurried him into the +presence of the fair-haired commander to whom we told our story, failing +not to report on the incident witnessed by O'mie on the river bank two +nights before, when Jean sent his murdered father's body into the waters +below him. + +"And so that French renegade is dead, is he," Custer mused, never +lifting his eyes from the ground. He had heard us through without query +or comment, until now. "I knew him well. First as a Missionary priest to +the Osages. He was a fine man then, but the Plains made a devil of him; +and he deserved what he got, no doubt. + +"Now, as to this half-breed, why the devil didn't you kill him when you +had the chance? Dead Indians tell no tales; but the holy Church and the +United States Government listen to what the live ones tell. You could +have saved me any amount of trouble, you infernal fool." + +I stood up before the General. There was as great a contrast in our +appearance as in our rank. The slight, dapper little commander in full +official dress and perfect military bearing looked sternly up at the +huge, rough private with his torn, bloody clothing and lacerated hands. +Custer's yellow locks had just been neatly brushed. My own dark hair, +uncut for months, hung in a curly mass thrown back from my scarred +face. + +I gave him a courteous, military salute. Then standing up to my full +height, and looking steadily down at the slender, graceful man before +me, I said: + +"I may be a fool, General, but I am a soldier, not a murderer." + +Custer made no reply for a time. + +He sat down and, turning toward Jean Pahusca, he studied the young +half-breed carefully. Then he said briefly, + +"You may go now." + +We saluted and passed from his tent. Outside we had gone only a few +steps, when the General overtook us. + +"Baronet," he said, "you did right. You are a soldier, the kind that +will yet save the Plains." + +He turned and entered his tent again. + +"Golly!" O'mie whistled softly. "It's me that thinks Jean Pahusca, son +av whoever his father may be, 's got to the last and worst piece av his +journey. I'm glad you didn't kill him, Phil. You're claner 'n ever in my +eyes." + +We strolled away together in the soft evening shadows, silent for a +time. + +"Tell me, O'mie," I said at last, "how you happened to find me up there +two hours ago?" + +"I was trailin' you to your hidin'-place. Bud, Heaven bless him, told me +where your little sanctuary was, the night before he--went away." There +were tears in O'mie's voice, but soldiers do not weep. "I had hard work +to find the path. But it was better so maybe." + +"You were just in time, you red-headed angel. Life is sweet." I breathed +deeply of the pleasant air. "Oh, why did Bud have to give it up, I +wonder." + +We sat down behind the big bowlder round which Bud, wounded unto death, +had staggered toward me only a few days before. + +"Talk, O'mie; I can't," I said, stretching myself out at full length. + +"I was just in time to see Jean spring his trap on you. I waited and +swore, and swore and waited, for him to give me the chance to get +betwane you and the pollutin' pup! It didn't come until the sun took his +face full and square, and I see my chance to make two steps. He's so +doggoned quick he'd have caught me, if it hadn't been for that blessed +gleam in his eyes. He wa'n't takin' no chances. By the way," he added as +an afterthought, "the General says we break camp soon. Didn't say it to +me, av course. Good-night now. Sleep sweet, and don't get too far from +your chest protector,--that's me." He smiled good-bye with as light a +heart as though the hours just past had been full of innocent play +instead of grim tragedy. + + * * * * * + +February on the Plains was slipping into March when the garrison at Fort +Sill broke up for the final movement. This winter campaign, as war +records run, had been marked by only one engagement, Custer's attack on +the Cheyenne village on the Washita River. But the hurling of so large a +force as the Fort Sill garrison into the Indian stronghold in the depth +of winter carried to the savage mind and spirit a deeper conviction of +our power than could have been carried by a score of victories on the +green prairies of summer. For the Indian stronghold, be it understood, +consisted not in mountain fastnesses, cunning hiding-places, caves in +the earth, and narrow passes guarded by impregnable cliffs. This was no +repetition of the warfare of the Celts among the rugged rocks of Wales, +nor of the Greeks at Thermopylae, nor of the Swiss on Alpine footpaths. +This savage stronghold was an open, desolate, boundless plain, fortified +by distances and equipped with the slow sure weapons of starvation. +That Government was a terror to the Indian mind whose soldiers dared to +risk its perils and occupy the land at this season of the year. The +withered grasses; the lack of fuel; the absence of game; the salty +creeks, which mock at thirst; the dreary waves of wilderness sand; the +barren earth under a wide bleak sky; the never-ending stretch of +unbroken plain swept by the fierce winter blizzard, whose furious blast +was followed by a bitter perishing weight of cold,--these were the foes +we had had to fight in that winter campaign. Our cavalry horses had +fallen before them, dying on the way. Only a few of those that reached +Fort Sill had had the strength to survive even with food and care. John +Mac prophesied truly when he declared to us that our homesick horses +would never cross the Arkansas River again. Not one of them ever came +back, and we who had gone out mounted now found ourselves a helpless +intantry. + +Slowly the tribes had come to Custer's terms. When delay and cunning +device were no longer of any avail they submitted--all except the +Cheyennes, who had escaped to the Southwest. + +Spring was coming, and the Indians and their ponies could live in +comfort then. It was only in the winter that United States rations and +tents were vital. With the summer they could scorn the white man's help, +and more: they could raid again the white man's land, seize his +property, burn his home, and brain him with their cruel tomahawks; while +as to his wife and children, oh, the very fiends of hell could not +devise an equal to their scheme of life for them. The escape of the +Cheyennes from Custer's grasp was but an earnest of what Kiowa, Arapahoe +and Comanche could do later. These Cheyennes were setting an example +worthy of their emulation. Not quite, to the Cheyenne's lordly spirit, +not quite had the cavalry conquered the Plains. And now the Cheyenne +could well gloat over the failure of the army after all it had endured; +for spring was not very far away, the barren Staked Plains, in which the +soldier could but perish, were between them and the arm of the +Government, and our cavalrymen were now mere undisciplined +foot-soldiers. It was to subdue this very spirit, to strike the one most +effectual blow, the conquest of the Cheyennes, that the last act of that +winter campaign was undertaken. This, and one other purpose. I had been +taught in childhood under Christian culture that it is for the welfare +of the home the Government exists. Bred in me through many generations +of ancestry was the high ideal of a man's divine right to protect his +roof-tree and to foster under it those virtues that are built into the +nation's power and honor. I had had thrust upon me in the day of my +young untried strength a heavy sense of responsibility. I had known the +crushing anguish of feeling that one I loved had fallen a prey to a +savage foe before whose mastery death is a joy. I was now to learn the +truth of all the teaching along the way. I was to see in the days of +that late winter the finest element of power the American flag can +symbolize--the value set upon the American home, over which it is a +token of protection. This, then, was that other purpose of this +campaign--the rescue of two captive women, seized and dragged away on +that afternoon when Bud and O'mie and I leaned against the south wall of +old Fort Hays in the October sunshine and talked of the hazard of Plains +warfare. But of this other purpose the privates knew nothing at all. The +Indian tribes, now full of fair promises, were allowed to take up their +abode on their reservations without further guarding. General Custer, +with the Seventh United States Regiment, and Colonel Horace L. Moore, +in full command of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, were directed to reach +the Cheyenne tribe and reduce it to submission. + +A thousand men followed the twenty-one buglers on their handsome horses, +in military order, down Kansas Avenue in Topeka, on that November day in +1868, when the Kansas volunteers began this campaign. Four months later, +on a day in early March, Custer's regiment with the Nineteenth, now +dismounted cavalry, filed out of Fort Sill and set their faces +resolutely to the westward. Infantry marching was new business for the +Kansas men, but they bent to their work like true soldiers. After four +days a division came, and volunteers from both regiments were chosen to +continue the movement. The remainder, for lack of marching strength, was +sent up on the Washita River to await our return in a camp established +up there under Colonel Henry Inman. + +Reed, one of my Topeka comrades, was of those who could not go farther. +O'mie was not considered equal to the task. I fell into Reed's place +with Hadley and John Mac and Pete, when we started out at last to +conquer the Cheyennes, who were slipping ever away from us somewhere +beyond the horizon's rim. The days that followed, finishing up that +winter campaign, bear a record of endurance unsurpassed in the annals of +American warfare. + +I have read the fascinating story of Coronado and his three hundred +Spanish knights in their long weary march over a silent desolate level +waste day after day, pushing grimly to the northward in their fruitless +search for gold. What did this band of a thousand weary men go seeking +as they took the reverse route of Coronado's to the Southwest over these +ceaslessly crawling sands? Not the discoverer's fame, not the +gold-seeker's treasure led them forth through gray interminable reaches +of desolation. They were going now to put the indelible mark of +conquest by a civilized Government, on a crafty and dangerous foe, to +plough a fire-guard of safety about the frontier homes. + +Small heed we gave to this history-making, it is true, as we pressed +silently onward through those dreary late winter days. It was a +soldier's task we had accepted, and we were following the flag. And in +spite of the sins committed in its name, of the evil deeds protected by +its power, wherever it unfurls its radiant waves of light "the breath of +heaven smells wooingly"; gentle peace, and rich prosperity, and holy +love abide ever more under its caressing shadow. + +We were prepared with rations for a five days' expedition only. But +weary, ragged, barefoot, hungry, sleepless, we pressed on through +twenty-five days, following a trail sometimes dim, sometimes clearly +written, through a region the Indians never dreamed we could cross and +live. The nights chilled our famishing bodies. The short hours of broken +rest led only to another day of moving on. There were no breakfasts to +hinder our early starting. The meagre bit of mule meat doled out +sparingly when there was enough of this luxury to be given out, eaten +now without salt, was our only food. Our clothing tattered with wear and +tear, hung on our gaunt frames. Our lips did not close over our teeth; +our eyes above hollow cheeks stared out like the eyes of dead men. The +bloom of health had turned to a sickly yellow hue; but we were all +alike, and nobody noted the change. + +As we passed from one deserted camp to another, it began to seem a +will-o'-the-wisp business, an elusive dream, a long fruitless chasing +after what would escape and leave us to perish at last in this desert. +But the slender yellow-haired man at the head of the column had an +indomitable spirit, and an endurance equalled only by his courage and +his military cunning. Under him was the equally indomitable Kansas +Colonel, Horace L. Moore, tried and trained in Plains warfare. Behind +them straggled a thousand soldiers. And still the March days dragged on. + +Then the trails began to tell us that the Indians were gathering in +larger groups and the command was urged forward with more persistent +purpose. We slept at night without covering under the open sky. We +hardly dared to light fires. We had nothing to cook, and a fire would +reveal our whereabouts to the Indians we were pursuing. A thousand +soldiers is a large number; but even a thousand men, starving day after +day, taxing nerve and muscle, with all the reserve force of the body +feeding on its own unfed store of energy; a thousand men destitute of +supplies, cut off by leagues of desert sands from any base of +reinforcement, might put up only a weak defence against the hundreds of +savages in their own habitat. It was to prevent another Arickaree that +Custer's forces kept step in straggling lines when rations had become +only a taunting mockery of the memory. + +The map of that campaign is kept in the archives of war and its official +tale is all told there, told as the commander saw it. I can tell it here +only as a private down in the ranks. + +In the middle of a March afternoon, as we were silently swinging forward +over the level Plains, a low range of hills loomed up. Beyond them lay +the valley of the Sweetwater, a tributary of the Canadian River. Here, +secure in its tepees, was the Cheyenne village, its inhabitants never +dreaming of the white man's patience and endurance. Fifteen hundred +strong it numbered, arrogant, cunning, murderous. The sudden appearance +of our army of skeleton men was not without its effect on the savage +mind. Men who had crossed the Staked Plains in this winter time, men who +looked like death already, such men might be hard to kill. But lying and +trickery still availed. + +There was only one mind in the file that day. We had come so far, we had +suffered such horrors on the way, these men had been guilty of such +atrocious crimes, we longed fiercely now to annihilate this band of +wretches in punishment due for all it had cost the nation. I thought of +the young mother and her baby boy on the frozen earth between the drifts +of snow about Satanta's tepee on the banks of the Washita, as Bud and I +found her on the December day when we searched over Custer's battle +field. I pictured the still forms lying on their blankets, and the long +line of soldiers passing reverently by, to see if by chance she might be +known to any of us--this woman, murdered in the very hour of her +release; and I gripped my arms in a frenzy. Oh, Satan takes fast hold on +the heart of a man in such a time, and the Christ dying on the cross up +on Calvary, praying "Father forgive them for they know not what they +do," seems only a fireside story of unreal things. + +In the midst of this opportunity for vengeance just, and long overdue, +comes Custer's lieutenant with military courtesy to Colonel Moore, and +delivers the message, "The General sends his compliments, with the +instructions not to fire on the Indians." + +Courtesy! Compliments! Refrain from any rudeness to the wards of the +Government! I was nearly twenty-two and I knew more than Custer and +Sheridan and even President Grant himself just then. I had a sense of +obedience. John Baronet put that into me back in Springvale years ago. +Also I had extravagant notions of military discipline and honor. But +for one brief moment I was the most lawless mutineer, the rankest +anarchist that ever thirsted for human gore to satisfy a wrong. Nor was +I alone. Beside me were those stanch fellows, Pete and John Mac, and +Hadley. And beyond was the whole line of Kansas men with a cause of +their own here. Before my fury left me, however, we were all about face, +and getting up the valley to a camping-place. + +I might have saved the strength the passion of fury costs. Custer knew +his business and mine also. Down in that Cheyenne village, closely +guarded, were two captive women, the women of my boyhood dream, maybe. +The same two women who had been carried from their homes up in the +Solomon River country in the early Fall. What they had endured in these +months of captivity even the war records that set down plain things do +not deem fit to enter. One shot from our rifles that day on the +Sweetwater would have meant for them the same fate that befell the +sacrifice on the Washita, the dead woman on the deserted battle field. +It was to save these two, then, that we had kept step heavily across the +cold starved Plains. For two women we had marched and suffered on day +after day. Who shall say, at the last analysis, that this young queen of +nations, ruling a beautiful land under the Stars and Stripes, sets no +value on the homes of its people, nor holds as priceless the life and +safety even of two unknown women. + +Very adroitly General Custer visited, and exchanged compliments, and +parleyed and waited, playing his game faultlessly till even the +quick-witted Cheyennes were caught by it. When the precise moment came +the shrewd commander seized the chief men of the village and gave his +ultimatum--a life for a life. The two white women safe from harm must be +brought to him or these mighty men must become degraded captives. Then +followed an Indian hurricane of wrath and prayers and trickery. It +availed nothing except to prolong the hours, and hunger and cold filled +another night in our desolate camp. + +Day brought a renewal of demand, a renewal of excuse and delay and an +attempt to outwit by promises. But a second command was more telling. +The yellow-haired general's word now went forth: "If by sunset to-morrow +night these two women are not returned to my possession, these chiefs +will hang." + +So Custer said, and the grim selection of the gallows and the +preparation for fulfilment of his threat went swiftly forward. The +chiefs were terror-stricken, and anxious messages were sent to their +people. Meanwhile the Cheyenne forces were moving farther and farther +away. The squaws and children were being taken to a safe distance, and a +quick flight was in preparation. So another night of hunger and waiting +fell upon us. Then came the day of my dream long ago. The same people I +knew first on the night after Jean Pahusca's attempt on Marjie's life, +when we were hunting our cows out on the West Prairie, came now in +reality before me. + +The Sweetwater Valley spread out under the late sunshine of a March day +was rimmed about by low hills. Beyond these, again, were the Plains, the +same monotony of earth beneath and sky above, the two meeting away and +away in an amethyst fold of mist around the world's far bound. There +were touches of green in the brown valley, but the hill slopes and all +the spread of land about them were gray and splotched and dull against a +blue-gray sickly sky. The hours went by slowly to each anxious soldier, +for endurance was almost at its limit. More heavily still they must have +dragged for the man on whom the burden of command rested. High noon, and +then the afternoon interminably long and dull, and by and by came the +sunset on the Sweetwater Valley, and a new heaven and a new earth were +revealed to the sons of men. Like a chariot of fire, the great sun +rolled in all its gorgeous beauty down the west. The eastern sky grew +radiant with a pink splendor, and every brown and mottled stretch of +distant landscape was touched with golden light or deepened into richest +purple, or set with a roseate bound of flame. Somewhere far away, a +feathery gray mist hung like a silvery veil toning down the earth from +the noonday glare to the sunset glory. Down in the very middle of all +this was a band of a thousand men; their faded clothing, their uncertain +step, their knotted hands, and their great hungry eyes told the price +that had been paid for the drama this sunset hour was to bring. Slowly +the moments passed as when in our little sanctuary above the pleasant +parks at Fort Sill I had watched the light measured out. And then the +low hills began to rise up and shut out the crimson west as twilight +crept toward the Sweetwater Valley. + +Suddenly, for there had been nothing there a moment before, all +suddenly, an Indian scout was outlined on the top of the low bluff +nearest us. Motionless he sat on his pony a moment, then he waved a +signal to the farther height beyond him. A second pony and a second +Indian scout appeared. Another signal and then came a third Indian on a +third pony farther away. Each Indian seemed to call out another until a +line of them had been signalled from the purple mist, out of which they +appeared to be created. Last of all and farthest away, was a pony on +which two figures were faintly outlined. Down in the valley we waited, +all eyes looking toward the hills as these two drew nearer. Up in a +group on the bluff beyond the valley the Indians halted. The two riders +of the pony slipped to the ground. With their arms about each other, in +close embrace, they came slowly toward us, the two captive women for +whom we waited. It was a tragic scene, such as our history has rarely +known, watched by a thousand men, mute and motionless, under its spell. +Even now, after the lapse of nearly four decades, the picture is as +vivid as if it were but yesterday that I stood on the Texas Plains a +soldier of twenty-two years, feeling my heart throbs quicken as that +sunset scene is enacted before me. + +We had thought ourselves the victims of a hard fate in that winter of +terrible suffering; but these two women, Kansas girls, no older than +Marjie, home-loving, sheltered, womanly, a maiden and a bride of only a +few months--shall I ever forget them as they walked into my life on that +March day in the sunset hour by the Sweetwater? Their meagre clothing +was of thin flour sacks with buckskin moccasins and leggins. Their hair +hung in braids Indian fashion. Their haggard faces and sad eyes told +only the beginning of their story. They were coming now to freedom and +protection. The shadow of Old Glory would be on them in a moment; a +moment, and the life of an Indian captive would be but a horror-seared +memory. + +Then it was that Custer did a graceful thing. The subjection of the +Cheyennes could have been accomplished by soldiery from Connecticut or +South Carolina, but it was for the rescue of these two, for the +protection of Kansas homes, that the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry had +volunteered. Stepping to our commander, Colonel Moore, Custer asked that +the Kansas man should go forward to meet the captives. With a courtesy a +queen might have coveted the Colonel received them--two half-naked, +wretched, fate-buffeted women. + +The officers nearest wrapped their great coats about them. Then, as the +two, escorted by Colonel Moore and his officers next of rank, moved +forward toward General Custer, who was standing apart on a little knoll +waiting to receive them, a thousand men watching breathless with +uncovered heads the while, the setting sun sent down athwart the valley +its last rich rays of glory, the motionless air was full of an +opalescent beauty; while softly, sweetly, like dream music never heard +before in that lonely land of silence, the splendid Seventh Cavalry band +was playing "Home Sweet Home." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE HERITAGE + + It is morning here in Kansas, and the breakfast bell is rung! + We are not yet fairly started on the work we mean to do; + We have all the day before us, and the morning is but young, + And there's hope in every zephyr, and the skies are bright and blue. + + --WALT MASON. + + +It was over at last, the long painful marching; the fight with the +winter's blizzard, the struggle with starvation, the sunrise and sunset +and starlight on wilderness ways--all ended after a while. Of the three +boys who had gone out from Springvale and joined in the sacrifice for +the frontier, Bud sleeps in that pleasant country at Fort Sill. The +summer breezes ripple the grasses on his grave, the sunbeams caress it +lovingly and the winter snows cover it softly over--the quiet grave he +had wished for and found all too soon. Dear Bud, "not changed, but +glorified," he holds his place in all our hearts. For O'mie, the winter +campaign was the closing act of a comic tragedy, and I can never think +sadly of the brave-hearted happy Irishman. He was too full of the sunny +joy of existence, his heart beat with too much of good-will toward men, +to be remembered otherwise than as a bright-faced, sweet-spirited boy +whose span of years was short. How he ever endured the hardships and +reached Springvale again is a miracle, and I wonder even now, how, +waiting patiently for the inevitable, he could go peacefully through +the hours, making us forget everything but his cheery laugh, his +affectionate appreciation of the good things of the world, and his +childlike trust in the Saviour of men. + +His will was a simple thing, containing the bequest of all his +possessions, including the half-section of land so long in litigation, +and the requests regarding his funeral. The latter had three wishes: +that Marjie would sing "Abide With Me" at the burial service, that he +might lie near to John Baronet's last resting-place in the Springvale +cemetery, and that Dave and Bill Mead, and the three Andersons, with +myself would be his pall bearers. Dave was on the Pacific slope then, +and O'mie himself had helped to bear Bud to his final earthly home. One +of the Red Range boys and Jim Conlow filled these vacant places. +Reverently, as for one of the town's distinguished men, there walked +beside us Father Le Claire and Judge Baronet, Cris Mead and Henry +Anderson, father of the Anderson boys, Cam Gentry and Dever. Behind +these came the whole of Springvale. It was May time, a year after our +Southwest campaign, and the wild flowers of the prairie lined his grave +and wreaths of the pink blossoms that grow out in the West Draw were +twined about his casket. He had no next of kin, there were no especial +mourners. His battle was ended and we could not grieve for his abundant +entrance into eternal peace. + +Three of us had gone out with the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and I am +the third. While we were creeping back to life at Camp Inman on the +Washita after that well-nigh fatal expedition across the Staked Plains +to the Sweetwater, I saw much of Hard Rope, chief man of the Osage +scouts. I had been accustomed to the Osages all my years in Kansas. +Neither this tribe, nor our nearer neighbors, the Kaws, had ever given +Springvale any serious concern. Sober, they were law-abiding enough, and +drunk, they were no more dangerous than any drunken white man. Bitter as +my experience with the Indian has been, I have always respected the +loyal Osage. But I never sought one of this or any other Indian tribe +for the sake of his company. Race prejudice in me is still strong, even +when I give admiration and justice free rein. Indians had frequent +business in the Baronet law office in my earlier years, and after I was +associated with my father there was much that brought them to us. +Possibly the fact that I did not dislike the Osages is the reason I +hardly gave them a thought at Fort Sill. It was not until afterwards +that I recalled how often I had found the Osage scouts there crossing my +path unexpectedly. On the day before we broke camp at the Fort, Hard +Rope came to my tent and sat down beside the door. I did not notice him +until he said slowly: + +"Baronet?" + +"Yes," I replied. + +"Tobacco?" he asked. + +"No, Hard Rope," I answered, "I have every other mark of a great man +except this. I don't smoke." + +"I want tobacco," he continued. + +What made me accommodating just then I do not know, but I suddenly +remembered some tobacco that Reed had left in my tent. + +"Hard Rope," I said, "here is some tobacco. I forgot I had it, because I +don't care for it. Take it all." + +The scout seized it with as much gratitude as an Indian shows, but he +did not go away at once. + +"Something else now?" I questioned not unkindly. + +"You Judge Baronet's son?" + +I nodded and smiled. + +He came very close to me, putting both hands on my shoulders, and +looking steadily into my eyes he said solemnly, "You will be safe. No +evil come near you." + +"Thank you, Hard Rope, but I will keep my powder dry just the same," I +answered. + +All the time in the Inman camp the scout shadowed me. On the evening +before our start for Fort Hays to be mustered out of service he came to +me as I sat alone beside the Washita, breathing deeply the warm air of +an April twilight. I had heard no word from home since I left Topeka in +October. Marjie must be married, as Jean had said. I had never known the +half-breed to tell a lie. It was so long ago that that letter of hers to +me had miscarried. She thought of course that I had taken it and even +then refused to stay at home. Oh, it was all a hopeless tangle, and now +I might be dreaming of another man's wife. I had somehow grown utterly +hopeless now. Jean--oh, the thought was torture--I could not feel sure +about him. He might be shadowing her night and day. Custer did not tell +me what had become of the Indian, and I had seen on the Sweetwater what +such as he could do for a Kansas girl. As I sat thus thinking, Hard Rope +squatted beside me. + +"You go at sunrise?" pointing toward the east. + +I merely nodded. + +"I want to talk," he went on. + +"Well, talk away, Hard Rope." I was glad to quit thinking. + +What he told me there by the rippling Washita River I did not repeat for +many months, but I wrung his hand when I said good-bye. Of all the +scouts with Custer that we left behind when we started northward, none +had so large a present of tobacco as Hard Rope. + +My father had demanded that I return to Springvale as soon as our +regiment was mustered out. Morton was still in the East, and I had no +foothold in the Saline Valley as I had hoped in the Fall to have. Nor +was there any other place that opened its doors to me. And withal I was +homesick--desperately, ravenously homesick. I wanted to see my father +and Aunt Candace, to look once more on the peaceful Neosho and the huge +oak trees down in its fertile valley. For nearly half a year I had not +seen a house, nor known a civilized luxury. No child ever yearned for +home and mother as I longed for Springvale. And most of all came an +overwhelming eagerness to see Marjie once more. She was probably Mrs. +Judson now, unless Jean--but Hard Rope had eased my mind a little +there--and I had no right even to think of her. Only I was young, and I +had loved her so long. All that fierce battle with myself which I fought +out on the West Prairie on the night she refused to let me speak to her +had to be fought over again. And this time, marching northward over the +April Plains toward Fort Hays, this time, I was hopelessly vanquished. +I, Philip Baronet, who had fought with fifty against a thousand on the +Arickaree; who had gone with Custer to the Sweetwater in the dreary +wastes of the Texas desert; I who had a little limp now and then in my +right foot, left out too long in the cold, too long made to keep step in +weary ways on endlessly wearing marches; I who had lost the softness of +the boy's physique and who was muscled like a man, with something of the +military bearing hammered mercilessly upon me in the days of soldier +life--I was still madly in love with a girl who had refused all my +pleadings and was even now, maybe, another man's wife. Oh, cold and +terror and starvation were all bad enough, but this was unendurable. + +"I will go home as my father wishes," I said. "I do not need to stay +there, but I will go now for a while and feel once more what +civilization means. Then--I will go to the Plains, or somewhere else." +So I argued as we came one April day into Fort Hays. Letters from home +were awaiting me, urging me to come at once; and I went, leaving O'mie +to follow later when he should have rested at the Fort a little. + +All Kansas was in its Maytime glory. From the freshly ploughed earth +came up that sweet wholesome odor that like the scent of new-mown hay +carries its own traditions of other days to each of us. The young +orchards--there were not many orchards in Kansas then--were all a blur +of pink on the hill slopes. A thousand different blossoms gemmed the +prairies, making a perfect kaleidoscope of brilliant hues, that blended +with the shifting shades of green. Along the waterways the cottonwood's +silvery branches, tipped with tender young leaves fluttering in the soft +wind, stood up proudly above the scrubby bronze and purple growths +hardly yet in bud and leaf. From every gentle swell the landscape swept +away to the vanishing line of distances in billowy seas of green and +gold, while far overhead arched the deep-blue skies of May. Fleecy +clouds, white and soft as foam, drifted about in the limitless fields of +ether. The glory of the new year, the fresh sweet air, the spirit of +budding life, set the pulses a-tingle with the very joy of being. Like a +dream of Paradise lay the Neosho Valley in its wooded beauty, with field +and farm, the meadow, and the open unending prairie rolling away from +it, wave on wave, in the Maytime grace and grandeur. Through this valley +the river itself wound in and out, glistening like molten silver in the +open spaces, and gliding still and shadowy by overhanging cliff and +wooded covert. + +"Dever," I said to the stage driver when we had reached the top of the +divide and looked southward to where all this magnificence of nature was +lavishly spread out, "Dever, do you remember that passage in the Bible +about the making of the world long ago, 'And God saw that it was good'? +Well, here's where all that happened." + +Dever laughed a crowing laugh of joy. He had hugged me when I took the +stage, I didn't know why. When it came to doing the nice thing, Dever +had a sense of propriety sometimes that better-bred folk might have +envied. And this journey home proved it. + +"I've got a errant up west. D'ye's lief come into town that way?" he +asked me. + +Would I? I was longing to slip into my home before I ran the gantlet of +all the streets opening on the Santa Fe Trail. I never did know what +Dever's "errant" was, that led him to swing some miles to the west, out +of the way to the ford of the Neosho above the old stone cabin where +Father Le Claire swam his horse in the May flood six years before. He +gave no reason for the act that brought me over a road, every foot +sacred to the happiest moments of my life. Past the big cottonwood, down +into the West Draw where the pink blossoms called in sweet insistent +tones to me to remember a day when I had crowned a little girl with +blooms like these, a day when my life was in its Maytime joy. On across +the prairie we swung to the very borders of Springvale, which was +nestling by the river and stretching up the hillslope toward where the +bluff breaks abruptly. I could see "Rockport" gray and sun-flecked +beyond its sheltering line of green bushes. + +Just as we turned toward Cliff Street Dever said carelessly, + +"Lots of changes some ways sence I took you out of here last August. +Judson, he's married two months ago." + +The warm sunny glorious world turned drab and cold to me with the words. + +"What's the matter, Baronet?--you're whiter'n a dead man!" + +"Just a little faint. Got that way in the army," I answered, which was a +lie. + +"Better now? As I was sayin', Judson and Lettie has been married two +months now. Kinder surprised folks by jinin' up sudden; but--oh, well, +it's a lot better quick than not at all sometimes." + +I caught my breath. My "spell" contracted in the army was passing. And +here were Cliff Street and the round turret-like corners of Judge +Baronet's stone-built domicile. It was high noon, and my father had just +gone into the house. I gave Dever his fare and made the hall door at a +leap. My father turned at the sound and--I was in his arms. Then came +Aunt Candace, older by more than ten months. Oh, the women are the ones +who suffer most. I had not thought until that moment what all this +winter of absence meant to Candace Baronet. I held her in my strong arms +and looked down into her love-hungry eyes. Men are such stupid unfeeling +brutes. I am, at least; for I had never read in this dear woman's face +until that instant what must have been written there all these +years,--the love that might have been given to a husband and children of +her own, this lonely, childless woman had given to me. + +"Aunty, I'll never leave you again," I declared, as she clung to me, and +patted my cheeks and stroked my rough curly hair. + +We sat down together to the midday meal, and my father's blessing was +like the benediction of Heaven to my ears. + +Springvale also had its measure of good breeding. My coming was the +choicest news that Dever had had to give out for many a day, and the +circulation was amazing in its rapid transit. I had a host of friends +here where I had grown to manhood, and the first impulse was to take +Cliff Street by storm. It was Cam Gentry who counselled better methods. + +"Now, by hen, let's have some sense," he urged, "the boy's jest got +here. He's ben through life and death, er tarnation nigh akin to it. +Let's let him be with his own till to-morror. Jest ac like we'd had a +grain o' raisin' anyhow, and wait our turn. Ef he shows hisself down on +this 'er street we'll jest go out and turn the Neoshy runnin' north for +an hour and a half while we carry him around dry shod. But now, to-day, +let him come out o' hidin', and we'll give him welcome; but ef he stays +up there with Candace, we'll be gentlemen fur oncet ef it does purty +nigh kill some of us." + +"Cam is right," Cris Mead urged. "If he comes down here he'll take his +chances, but we'll hold our fire on the hill till to-morrow." + +"Well, by cracky, the Baronets never miss prayer meeting, I guess. +Springvale will turn out to-night some," Grandpa Mead declared. + +And so while I revelled in a home-coming, thankful to be alone with my +own people, the best folks on earth were waiting and dodging about, but +courteously abstaining from rushing in on our sacred home rights. + +In the middle of the afternoon Cam Gentry called to Dollie to come to +his aid. + +"Jest tie the end of this rope good and fast around this piazzer post," +he said. + +His wife obeyed before she noted that the other end was fastened around +Cam's right ankle. To her wondering look he responded: + +"Ef I don't lariat myself to something, like a old hen wanting to steal +off with her chickens, I'll be up to Baronet's spite of my efforts, I'm +that crazy to see Phil once more." + +Through the remainder of the May afternoon he sat on the veranda, or +hopped the length of his tether to the side-walk and looked longingly up +toward the high street, that faced the cliff, but his purpose did not +change. + +Springvale showed its sense of delicacy in more ways than this. Marjie +was the last to hear of my leaving when all suddenly I turned my back on +the town nearly ten months before. And now, while almost every family +had discussed my return--anything furnishes a little town a +sensation--the Whately family had had no notice served of the +momentarily interesting topic. And so it was that Marjie, innocent of +the suppressed interest, went about her home, never dreaming of anything +unusual in the town talk of that day. + +The May evening was delicious in its balmy air and the deepening purple +of its twilight haze. The spirit of the springtime, wooing in its tone +of softest music, voiced a message to the sons and daughters of men. +Marjie came out at sunset and slowly took her way through the sweetness +of it all up to the "Rockport" of our childhood, the trysting place of +our days of love's young dream. Her fair face had a womanly strength and +tenderness now, and her form an added grace over the curves of girlhood. +But her hair still rippled about her brow and coiled in the same soft +folds of brown at the back of her head. Her cheeks had still the pink of +the wild rose bloom, and the dainty neatness in dress was as of old. + +She came to the rock beyond the bushes and sat down alone looking +dreamily out over the Neosho Valley. + +"You'll go to prayer meeting, Phil?" Aunt Candace asked at supper. + +"Yes, but I believe I'll go down the street first. Save a place for me. +I want to see Dr. Hemingway next to you of all Springvale." Which was my +second falsehood for that day. I needed prayer meeting. + +The sunset hour was more than I could withstand. All the afternoon I had +been subconsciously saying that I must keep close to the realities. +These were all that counted now. And yet when the evening came, all the +past swept my soul and bore every resolve before it. I did not stop to +ask myself any questions. I only knew that, lonely as it must be, I must +go now to "Rockport" as I had done so many times in the old happy past, +a past I was already beginning numbly to feel was dead and gone forever. +And yet my step was firm and my head erect, as with eager tread I came +to the bushes guarding our old happy playground. I only wanted to see it +once more, that was all. + +The limp had gone from my foot. It was intermittent in the earlier +years. I was combed and groomed again for social appearing. Aunt Candace +had hung about my tie and the set of my coat, and for my old army +head-gear she had resurrected the jaunty cap I had worn home from +Massachusetts. With my hands in my pockets, whistling softly to abstract +my thoughts, I slipped through the bushes and stood once more on +"Rockport." + +And there was Marjie, still looking dreamily out over the valley. She +had not heard my step, so far away were her thoughts. And the picture, +as I stood a moment looking at her--will the world to come hold anything +more fair, I wondered. It was years ago, I know, but so clearly I +recall it now it could have been a dream of yesterday. Before me were +the gray rock, the dark-green valley, the gleaming waters of the Neosho, +the silvery mist on the farther bluff iridescent with the pink tints of +sunset reflected on the eastern sky, the quiet loveliness of the May +twilight, and Marjie, beautiful with a girlish winsomeness, a woman's +grace, a Madonna's tenderness. + +"Were you waiting for me, dearie? I am a little late, but I am here at +last." + +I spoke softly, and she turned quickly at the sound of my voice. A look +of dazed surprise as she leaped to her feet, and then the reality dawned +upon her. + +"Come, sweetheart," I said. "I have been away so long, I'm hungering for +your welcome." + +I held out my hands to her. Her face was very white as she made one step +toward me, and then the love-light filled her brown eyes, the glorious +beauty of the pink blossoms swept her cheek. I put my arms around her +and drew her close to me, my own little girl, whom I had loved and +thought I had lost forever. + +"Oh, Phil, Phil, are you here again? Are you--" she put her little hand +against my hair curling rebelliously over my cap's brim. "Are you mine +once more?" + +"Am I, Marjie? Six feet of me has come back; but, little girl, I have +never been away. I have never let you go out of my life. It was only the +mechanical action that went away. Phil Baronet stayed here! Oh, I know +it now--I was acting out there; I was really living here with you, my +Marjie, my own." + +I held her in my arms as I spoke, and we looked out at the sweet sunset +prairie. The big cottonwood, shapely as ever, was outlined against the +horizon, which was illumined now with all the gorgeous grandeur of the +May evening. The level rays of golden light fell on us, as we stood +there, baptizing us with its splendor. + +"Oh, Marjie, it was worth all the suffering and danger to have such a +home-coming as this!" I kissed her lips and pushed back the little +ringlets from her white forehead. + +"It is vouchsafed to a man sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on +earth," Father Le Claire had said to me out on this rock six years +before. It was a bit of heaven that came down to me in the purple +twilight of that May evening, and I lifted my face to the opal skies +above me with a prayer of thankfulness for the love that was mine once +more. In that hour of happiness we forgot that there was ever a storm +cloud to darken the blue heavens, or ever a grief or a sin to mar the +joy of living. We were young, and we were together. Over the valley +swept the sweet tones of the Presbyterian Church bell. Marjie's face, +radiant with light, was lifted to mine. + +"I must go to prayer meeting, Phil. I shall see you again--to-morrow?" +She put the question hesitatingly, even longingly. + +"Yes, and to-night. Let's go together. I haven't been to prayer meeting +regularly. We lost out on that on the Staked Plains." + +"I must run home and comb my hair," she declared; and indeed it was a +little tumbled. But from the night I first saw her, a little girl in her +father's moving-wagon, with her pink sun-bonnet pushed back from her +blowsy curls, her hair, however rebellious, was always a picture. + +"Go ahead, little girl. I will run home, too. I forgot something. I will +be down right away." + +Going home, I may have walked on Cliff Street, but my head was in the +clouds, and all the songs that the morning-stars sing together--all the +music of the spheres--was playing itself out for me in the shadowy +twilight as I went along. + +At the gate Aunt Candace and my father were waiting for me. + +"You needn't wait," I cried. "I will be there presently." + +"Oh, joined the regular army this time," my father said, smiling. "Sorry +we can't keep you, Phil." But I gave no heed to him. + +"Aunt Candace," I said in a low voice. "May I see you just a minute? I +want to get something." + +"It's in the top drawer in my room, Phil. The key is in the little tray +on my dresser," Aunt Candace said quietly. She always understood me. + +When I reached the Whately home, Marjie was waiting for me at the gate. +I took her little hand in my own strong big one. + +"Will you wear it again for me, dearie?" I asked, holding up my mother's +ring before her. + +"Always and always, Phil," she murmured. + +Isn't it Longfellow who speaks of "the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots +of the angels," blossoming "in the infinite meadows of heaven"? They +were all a-bloom that May night, and dewy and sweet lay the earth +beneath them. We were a little late to prayer meeting. The choir was in +its place and the audience was gathered in the pews. Judge Baronet +always sat near the front, and my place was between him and Aunt Candace +when I wasn't in the choir. Bess Anderson was just finishing a voluntary +as we two went up the aisle together. I hadn't thought of making a +sensation, I thought only of Marjie. Passing around the end of the +chancel rail I gently led her by the arm up the three steps to the +choir place, and turning, faced all the town as I went to my seat +beside my father. I was as happy as a lover can be; but I didn't know +how much of all this was written on my countenance, nor did I notice the +intense hush that fell on the company. I had faced the oncoming of Roman +Nose and his thousand Cheyenne warriors; there was no reason why I +should feel embarrassed in a prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Church +at Springvale. The service was short. I remember not one word of it +except the scripture lesson. That was the Twenty-third Psalm: + + The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. + He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; + He leadeth me beside the still waters. + He restoreth my soul; + He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. + Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, + I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me. + +These words had sounded in my ears on the night before the battle on the +Arickaree, and again in the little cove on the low bluff at Fort Sill, +the night Jean Pahusca was taunting me through the few minutes he was +allowing me to live. That Psalm belonged to the days when I was doing my +part toward the price paid out for the prairie homes and safety and +peace. But never anybody read for me as Dr. Hemingway read it that +evening. With the close of the service came a prayer of thanksgiving for +my return. Then for the first time I was self-conscious. What had I done +to be so lovingly and reverently welcomed home? I bowed my head in deep +humility, and the tears welled up. Oh, I could look death calmly between +the eyes as I had watched it creeping toward me on the heated Plains of +the Arickaree, and among the cold starved sand dunes of the Cimarron, +but to be lauded as a hero here in Springvale--the tears would come. +Where were Custer, and Moore, and Forsyth, and Pliley, and Stillwell, +and Morton, if such as I be called a hero? + +Cam Gentry didn't lead the Doxology that night, he chased it +clear into the belfry and up into the very top of the steeple; +and his closing burst of melody "Praise Father, Son, and +Holy Ghost," had, as Bill Mead declared afterwards, a regular +"You-couldn't-have-done-it-better-Lord-if-you-had-been-there-yourself" +ring to it. + +Then came the benediction, fervent, holy, gentle, with Dr. Hemingway's +white face (crowned now with snowy hair) lifted up toward heaven. After +that I never could remember, save that there was a hush, then a clamor, +that was followed pretty soon by embraces from the older men and women, +pounding thumps from the younger men and handshaking with the girls. And +all the while, with a proprietary sense I had found myself near Marjie, +whom I kept close beside me now, her brown head just above my shoulder. + +More than once in the decades since then it has been my fortune to +return to Springvale and be met at the railway station and escorted home +by the town band. Sometimes for political service, sometimes for civic +effort, and once because by physical strength and great daring and quick +cool courage I saved three human lives in a terrible wreck; but never +any ovation was like that prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Church +nearly forty years ago. + +The days that followed my home-coming were busy ones, for my place in +the office had been vacant. Clayton Anderson had devoted himself to the +Whately affairs, although nobody but those in the secret knew when +Judson gave up proprietorship and went on a clerk's pay again where he +belonged. Springvale was kind to Judson, as it has always been to the +man who tries honestly to make good in this life's struggle. It is in +the Kansas air, this broader charity, this estimation of character, +redeemed or redeemable. + +My father did not tell me of his part in the Whately business affairs at +once, and I did not understand when, one evening, some time later, Aunt +Candace said at the supper table: + +"Dollie Gentry tells me Dr. John (so we called John Anderson now), +reports a twelve-pound boy over at Judsons'. They are going to christen +him 'John Baronet Judson.' Aren't you proud of the name, John?" + +"I am of the Judson part," my father answered, with that compression of +the lips that sometimes kept back a smile, and sometimes marked a +growing sternness. + +I met O'mie at Topeka and brought him to Springvale. It was not until in +May of the next year that he went away from us and came not back any +more, save in loving remembrance. + +In August Tillhurst went East. Somehow I was not at all surprised when +the Rockport, Massachusetts, weekly newspaper, that had come to our +house every Tuesday while we had lived on Cliff Street, contained the +notice of the marriage of Richard Tillhurst and Rachel Agnes Melrose. +The happy couple, the paper said, would reside in Rockport. + +"They may reside at the bottom of the sea for all that I care," I said +thoughtlessly, not understanding then the shadow that fell for the +moment on my aunt's serene face. + +Long afterwards when she slept beside my father in the quiet Springvale +cemetery on the bluff beyond Fingal's Creek, I found among her letters +the romance of her life. I knew then for the first time that Rachel's +uncle, the Ferdinand Melrose whose life was lost at sea, was the one for +whom this brave kind woman had mourned. Loving as the Baronets do, even +unto death, she had gone down the lonely years, forgetting herself in +the broad, beautiful, unselfish life she gave to those about her. + +It was late in the August of the following year, when the Kansas +prairies were brownest and the summer heat the fiercest, that I was met +at the courthouse door one afternoon by a lithe, coppery Osage Indian +boy, who handed me a bundle, saying, "From Hard Rope, for John Baronet's +son." + +"Well, all right, sonny; only it's about time for the gentleman in there +to be known as Philip Baronet's father. He never fought the Cheyennes. +He's just the father of the man who did. What's the tariff due on this +junk?" + +The Osage did not smile, but he answered mildly enough, "What you will +pay." + +I was not cross with the world. I could afford to be generous, even at +the risk of having the whole Osage tribe trailing at my heels, and +begging for tobacco and food and trinkets. I loaded that young buck to +the guards with the things an Indian prizes, and sent him away. + +Then in my own office I undid the bundle. It was the old scarlet blanket +with the white circular centre, the pattern Jean Pahusca always wore. +This one was dirty and frayed and splotched. I turned from it with +loathing. In the folds of the cloth a sealed letter was securely +fastened. Some soldier had written it for Hard Rope, and the penmanship +and language were more than average fine. But the story it told I could +not exult over, although a sense of lifted pressure in some corner of +my mind came with the reading. + +Briefly it recited that Jean Pahusca, Kiowa renegade, was dead. Custer's +penalty for him had been to give him over to the Kiowas as their +captive. When the tribe left Fort Sill in March, Satanta had had him +brought bound to the Kiowa village then on the lower Washita. His crime, +committed on the day of Custer's fight with Black Kettle, was the +heinous one of stealing his Uncle Satanta's youngest and favorite wife, +and leaving her to perish miserably in the cold of that December month +in which we also had suffered. His plan had been to escape from the +Kiowas and reach the Cheyennes on the Sweetwater before we did, to meet +me there, and this time, to give no moment for my rescue. So Hard Rope's +message ran. But this was not all. The punishment that fell on Jean +Pahusca was in proportion to his crime, as an Indian counts justice. He +was sold as a slave to the Apaches and carried captive to the mountains +of Old Mexico. Nor was he ever liberated again. Up above the snow line, +with the passes guarded (for Jean was as dangerous to his mother's race +as to his father's), he had fretted away his days, dying at last of cold +and cruel neglect among the dreary rocks of the icy peaks. This much +information Hard Rope's letter brought. I burned both the letter and the +blanket, telling no one of them except my father. + +"This Hard Rope was for some reason very friendly to me on your +account," I said. "He told me on the Washita the night before we left +Camp Inman that he had shadowed Jean all the time he was at Fort Sill, +and had more than once prevented the half-breed from making an attack on +me. He promised to let me know what became of Pahusca if he ever found +out. He has kept his word." + +"I know Hard Rope," my father said. "I saved his life one annuity day +long ago. Tell Mapleson had made Jean Pahusca drunk. You know what kind +of a beast he was then. And Tell had run this Osage into Jean's path, +where he would be sure to lose his life, and Tell would have the big +pile of money Hard Rope carried. That's the kind of beast Tell was. An +Indian has his own sense of obligation; and then it is a good asset to +be humane all along the line anyhow, although I never dreamed I was +saving the man who was to save my boy." + +"Shall we tell Le Claire?" I asked. + +"Only that both Jean and his father are dead. We'll spare him the rest. +Le Claire has gone to St. Louis to a monastery. He will never be strong +again. But he is one of the kings of the earth; he has given the best +years of his manhood to build up a kingdom of peace between the white +man and the savage. No record except the Great Book of human deeds will +ever be able to show how much we owe to men like Le Claire whose +influence has helped to make a loyal peaceful tribe like the Osages. The +brutal fiendishness of the Plains Indians is the heritage of Spanish +cruelty toward the ancestors of the Apache and Kiowa and Arapahoe and +Comanche, and you can see why they differ from our tribes here in +Eastern Kansas. Le Claire has done his part toward the purchase of the +Plains, and I am glad for the quiet years before him." + + * * * * * + +It was the custom in Springvale for every girl to go up to Topeka for +the final purchases of her bridal belongings. We were to be married in +October. In the late September days Mrs. Whately and her daughter spent +a week at the capital city. I went up at the end of the visit to come +home with them. Since the death of Irving Whately nothing had ever +roused his wife to the pleasure of living like this preparation for +Marjie's marriage, and Mrs. Whately, still a young and very pretty +woman, bloomed into that mature comeliness that carries a grace of +permanence the promise of youth may only hint at. She delighted in every +detail of the coming event, and we two most concerned were willing to +let anybody look after the details. We had other matters to think about. + +"Come, little sweetheart," I said one night after supper at the Teft +House, "your mother is to spend the evening with a friend of hers. I +want to take you for a walk." + +Strange how beautiful Topeka looked to me this September. It had all the +making of a handsome city even then, although the year since I came up +to the political rally had brought no great change except to extend the +borders somewhat. Like two happy young lovers we strolled out toward the +southwest, past the hole in the ground that was to contain the +foundation of the new wings for the State Capitol, past Washburn +College, and on to where the slender little locust tree waved its dainty +lacy branches in graceful welcome. + +"Marjie, I want you to see this tree. It's not the first time I have +been here. Rachel--Mrs. Tillhurst--and I came here a few times." +Marjie's hand nestled softly against my arm. "I always made faces at it +as soon as I got away from it; but it is a beautiful little tree, and I +want to put you with it in my mind. It was here last Fall that my father +said he didn't believe that you were engaged to Amos Judson." + +"Didn't believe," Marjie cried; "why, Phil, he knew I wasn't. I told him +so when he was asked to urge me to marry Amos." + +"He urge you to marry Amos! Now Marjie, girl, I hate to be hard on the +gentleman; but if he did that it's my duty to scalp him, and I will go +home and do it." + +But Marjie explained. We sat in the moonlight by the locust-tree just as +Rachel and I had done; only now Topeka and the tree and the silvery +prairie and the black-shadowed Shunganunga Creek, winding down toward +the Kaw through many devious turns, all seemed a fairy land which the +moonbeams touched and glorified for us two. I can never think of Topeka, +even to-day, with its broad avenues and beautiful shaded parks and paved +ways, its handsome homes and churches and colleges, with all these to +make it a proud young city--I can never think of it and leave out that +sturdy young locust, grown now to a handsome tree. And when I think of +it I do not think of the beautiful black-haired Eastern girl, with her +rich dress and aristocratic manner. But always that sweet-faced, +brown-eyed Kansas girl is with me there. And the open prairie dipping +down to the creek, and the purple tip of Burnett's Mound, make a setting +for the picture. + + * * * * * + +One October day when the wooded valley of the Neosho was in its autumn +glory, when the creeping vines on the gray stone bluff were aflame with +the frost's rich scarlet painting, and the west prairies were all one +shimmering sea of gold flecked with emerald and purple; while above all +these curved the wide magnificent skies of Kansas, unclouded, +fathomless, and tenderly blue; when the peace of God was in the air and +his benediction of love was on all the land,--on such a day as this, the +clear-toned old Presbyterian Church bell rang the wedding chimes for +Marjory Whately and Philip Baronet. Loving hands had made the church a +bower of autumn coloring with the dainty relief of pink and white asters +against the bronze richness of the season. Bess Anderson played the +wedding march, as we two came up the aisle together and met Dr. +Hemingway at the chancel rail. I was in my young manhood's zenith, and I +walked the earth like a king. Marjie wore my mother's wedding veil. Her +white gown was soft and filmy, a fabric of her mother's own choosing, +and her brown wavy hair was crowned with orange blossoms. + +Springvale talked of that wedding for many a moon, for there was not a +feature of the whole beautiful service, even to the very least +appointment, that was not perfect in its simplicity and harmonious in +its blending with everything about it. + +Among the guests in the Baronet home, where everybody came to wish us +happiness, was my father's friend and my own hero, Morton of the Saline +Valley. Somehow I needed his presence that day. It kept me in touch with +my days of greatest schooling. The quiet, forceful friend, who had +taught me how to meet the realities of life like a man, put into my +wedding a memory I shall always treasure. O'mie was still with us then. +When his turn came to greet us he held Marjie's hand a moment while he +slyly showed her a poor little bunch of faded brown blossoms which he +crumpled to dust in his fingers. + +"I told you I wouldn't keep them no longer'n till I caught the odor of +them orange blooms. They are the little pink wreath two other fellows +threw away out in the West Draw long ago. The rale evidence of my +good-will to you two is locked up in Judge Baronet's safe." + +We laughed, but we did not understand. Not until the Irish boy's will +was read, more than half a year later, when the pink flowers were +blooming again in the West Draw, did we comprehend the measure of his +good-will. For by his legal last wish all his possessions, including the +land, with the big cottonwood and the old stone cabin, became the +property of Marjory Whately and her heirs and assigns forever. + +Out there in later years we built our country home. The breezes of +summer are always cool there, and from every wide window we can see the +landscape the old cottonwood still watches over. Above the gateway to +the winding road leading up from the West Draw is inscribed the name we +gave the place, + + O'MIE-HEIM. + +Sixty years, and a white-haired, young-hearted young man I am who write +these lines. For many seasons I have sat on the Judge's bench. Law has +been my business on the main line, with land dealings on the side, and +love for my fellowmen all along the way. Half a century of my life has +run parallel with the story of Kansas, whose beautiful prairies have +been purchased not only with the coin of the country, but with the coin +of courage and unparalleled endurance. To-day the rippling billows of +yellow wheat, the walls on walls of black-green corn, the stretches of +emerald alfalfa set with its gems of amethyst bloom; orchard and meadow, +grove and grassy upland, where cattle pasture; populous cities and +churches and stately college halls; the whirring factory wheels, the +dust of the mines, the black oil derrick and the huge reservoirs of +natural gas, with the slender steel pathways of the great trains of +traffic binding these together; and above all, the sheltered happy +homes, where little children play never dreaming of fear; where +sweet-browed mothers think not of loneliness and anguish and peril--all +these are the splendid heritage of a land whose law is for the whole +people, a land whose God is the Lord. + +Slowly, through tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine, +and nakedness, and peril, and sword; through fire and flood; through +summer's drought and winter's blizzard; through loneliness, and fear, +and heroism, and martyrdom too often at last, the brave-hearted, +liberty-loving, indomitable people have come into their own, paying foot +by foot, the price that won this prairie kingdom in the heart of the +West. + +Down through the years of busy cares, of struggle and achievement, of +hopes deferred and victories counted, my days have run in shadow and +sunshine, with more of practical fact than of poetic dreaming. And +through them all, the call of the prairie has sounded in my soul, the +voice of a beautiful land, singing evermore its old, old song of victory +and peace. Aye, and through it all, beside me, cheering each step, +holding fast my hand, making life always fine and beautiful and gracious +for me, has been my loved one, Marjie, the bride of my young manhood, +the mother of my sons and daughters, the light of my life. + +It is for such as she, for homes her kind have made, that men have +fought and dared and died, fulfilling the high privilege of the American +citizen, the privilege to safeguard the hearthstones of the land above +which the flag floats a symbol of light and law and love. + +And I who write this know--for I have learned in the years whose story +is here only a half-told thing under my halting pen--I know that however +fiercely the storms may beat, however wildly the tempests may blow, +however bitter the fighting hours of the day may be, beyond the heat +and burden of it all will come the quiet eventide for me, and for all +the sons and daughters of this prairie land I love. Though the roar of +battle fill all the noontime, in the blessed twilight will come the +music of "_HOME, SWEET HOME_." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICE OF THE PRAIRIE*** + + +******* This file should be named 31524.txt or 31524.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/1/5/2/31524 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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