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Title: From the West to the West
Across the plains to Oregon
Author: Abigail Scott Duniway
Release date: January 17, 2025 [eBook #75131]
Language: English
Original publication: Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co, 1905
Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM THE WEST TO THE WEST ***
FROM THE WEST TO THE WEST
[Illustration: _Jean beheld a tall, sunburned young man._—_Page 185_]
FROM THE WEST
TO THE WEST
Across the Plains to
Oregon
BY
ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY
With Frontispiece in Color
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1905
COPYRIGHT
A. C. MCCLURG & CO.
1905
Published April 7, 1905
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A.
TO
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF OREGON
AND HER RISEN AND REMAINING PIONEERS
I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE
THIS BOOK
ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY
PREFACE
Not from any desire for augmented fame, or for further notoriety than has
long been mine (at least within the chosen bailiwick of my farthest and
best beloved West), have I consented to indite these pages.
The events of pioneer life, which form the groundwork of this story, are
woven into a composite whole by memory and imagination. But they are not
personal, nor do they present the reader, except in a fragmentary and
romantic sense, with the actual, individual lives of borderers I have
known. The story, nevertheless, is true to life and border history; and,
no matter what may be the fate of the book, the facts it delineates will
never die.
Fifty years ago, as an illiterate, inexperienced settler, a busy,
overworked child-mother and housewife, an impulse to write was born
within me, inherited from my Scottish ancestry, which no lack of
education or opportunity could allay. So I wrote a little book which I
called “Captain Gray’s Company, or Crossing the Plains and Living in
Oregon.”
Measured by time and distance as now computed, that was ages ago. The
iron horse and the telegraph had not crossed the Mississippi; the
telephone and the electric light were not; and there were no cables under
the sea.
Life’s twilight’s shadows are around me now. The good husband who shaped
my destiny in childhood has passed to the skies; my beloved, beautiful,
and only daughter has also risen; my faithful sons have founded homes
and families of their own. Sitting alone in my deserted but not lonely
home, I have yielded to a demand that for several years has been reaching
me by person, post, and telephone, requesting the republication of my
first little story, which passed rapidly through two editions, and for
forty years has been out of print. In its stead I have written this
historical novel.
Among the relics of the border times that abound in the rooms of the
Oregon Historical Society may be seen an immigrant wagon, a battered
ox-yoke, a clumsy, home-made hand-loom, an old-fashioned spinning-wheel,
and a rusty Dutch oven. Such articles are valuable as relics, but they
would not sell in paying quantities in this utilitarian age if duplicated
and placed upon the market. Just so with “Captain Gray’s Company.” It
accomplished its mission in its day and way. By its aid its struggling
author stumbled forward to higher aims. Let it rest, and let the world go
marching on.
A. S. D.
PORTLAND, OREGON, January 15, 1905.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. A REMOVAL IS PLANNED 15
II. EARLY LIFE IN THE MIDDLE WEST 22
III. MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE 28
IV. OLD BLOOD AND NEW 35
V. SALLY O’DOWD 43
VI. THE BEGINNING OF A JOURNEY 50
VII. SCOTTY’S FIRST ROMANCE 55
VIII. A BORDER INCIDENT 62
IX. THE CAPTAIN DEFENDS THE LAW 68
X. THE CAPTAIN MAKES A DISTINCTION 76
XI. MRS. MCALPIN SEEKS ADVICE 84
XII. JEAN BECOMES A WITNESS 92
XIII. AN APPROACHING STORM 99
XIV. A CAMP IN CONSTERNATION 106
XV. CHOLERA RAGES 113
XVI. JEAN’S VISIT BEYOND THE VEIL 121
XVII. FATHER AND DAUGHTER 128
XVIII. THE LITTLE DOCTOR 134
XIX. A BRIEF MESSAGE FOR MRS. BENSON 142
XX. THE TEAMSTERS DESERT 148
XXI. AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER 156
XXII. THE SQUAW MAN 163
XXIII. THE SQUAW ASSERTS HER RIGHTS 170
XXIV. A MORMON WOMAN 177
XXV. JEAN LOSES HER WAY 184
XXVI. LE-LE, THE INDIAN GIRL 191
XXVII. JEAN TRANSFORMED 197
XXVIII. THE STAMPEDE 203
XXIX. IN THE LAND OF DROUTH 209
XXX. BOBBIE GOES TO HIS MOTHER 217
XXXI. THROUGH THE OREGON MOUNTAINS 223
XXXII. LETTERS FROM HOME 229
XXXIII. LOVE FINDS A WAY 238
XXXIV. HAPPY JACK INTRODUCES HIMSELF 246
XXXV. ASHLEIGH MAKES NEW PLANS 253
XXXVI. HAPPY JACK IS SURPRISED 258
XXXVII. NEWS FOR JEAN 264
XXXVIII. THE BROTHERS JOURNEY HOMEWARD TOGETHER 271
XXXIX. THE OLD HOMESTEAD 283
XL. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 290
XLI. “IN PRISON AND YE VISITED ME” 299
XLII. TOO BUSY TO BE MISERABLE 303
XLIII. JEAN IS HAPPY—AND ANOTHER PERSON 307
FROM THE WEST TO THE WEST
I
_A REMOVAL IS PLANNED_
On the front veranda of a rectangular farmhouse, somewhat pretentious for
its time and place, stood a woman in expectant attitude. The bleak wind
of a spent March day played rudely with the straying ends of her bright,
abundant red-brown hair, which she brushed frequently from her careworn
face as she peered through the thickening shadows of approaching night.
The ice-laden branches of a leafless locust swept the latticed corner
behind which she had retreated for protection from the wind. A great
white-and-yellow watch-dog crouched expectantly at her feet, whining and
wagging his tail.
Indoors, the big living-room echoed with the laughter and prattle of many
voices. At one end of a long table, littered with books and slates and
dimly lighted by flickering tallow dips, sat the older children of the
household, busy with their lessons for the morrow’s recitations. A big
fire of maple logs roared on the hearth in harmony with the roaring of
the wind outside.
“Yes, Rover, he’s coming,” exclaimed the watcher on the veranda, as the
dog sprang to his feet with a noisy proclamation of welcome.
A shaggy-bearded horseman, muffled to the ears in a tawny fur coat,
tossed his bridle to a stable-boy and, rushing up the icy steps, caught
the gentle woman in his arms. “It’s all settled, mother. I’ve made terms
with Lije. He’s to take my farm and pay me as he can. I’ve made a liberal
discount for the keep of the old folks; and we’ll sell off the stock, the
farming implements, the household stuff, and the sawmill, and be off in
less than a month for the Territory of Oregon.”
Mrs. Ranger shrank and shivered. “Oregon is a long way off, John,” she
said, nestling closer to his side and half suppressing a sob. “There’s
the danger and the hardships of the journey to be considered, you know.”
“I will always protect you and the children under all circumstances,
Annie. Can’t you trust me?”
“Haven’t I always trusted you, John? But—”
“What is it, Annie? Don’t be afraid to speak your mind.”
“I was thinking, dear,—you know we’ve always lived on the frontier, and
civilization is just now beginning to catch up with us,—mightn’t it be
better for us to stay here and enjoy it? Illinois is still a new country,
you know. We’ve never had any advantages to speak of, and none of the
children, nor I, have ever seen a railroad.”
“Don’t be foolish, Annie! We’ll take civilization with us wherever we go,
railroads or no railroads.”
“But we’ll be compelled to leave our parents behind, John. They’re old
and infirm now, and we’ll be going so far away that we’ll never see them
again. At least, I sha’n’t.”
The husband cleared his throat, but did not reply. The wife continued her
protest.
“Just think of the sorrow we’ll bring upon ’em in their closing days,
dear! Then there’s that awful journey for us and the children through
more than two thousand miles of unsettled country, among wild beasts and
wilder Indians. Hadn’t we better let well-enough alone, and remain where
we are comfortable?”
“A six months’ journey across the untracked continent, with ox teams
and dead-ax wagons, won’t be a summer picnic; I’ll admit that. But the
experience will come only one day at a time, and we can stand it. It will
be like a whipping,—it will feel good when it is over and quits hurting.”
“You are well and strong, John, but you know I have never been like
myself since that awful time when your brother Joe got into that trouble.
It was at the time of Harry’s birth, you know. You didn’t mean to neglect
me, dear, but you had to do it.”
“There, there, little wife!” placing his hand over her mouth. “Let the
dead past bury its dead. Never mention Joe to me again. And never fear
for a minute that you and the children won’t be taken care of.”
“I beg your pardon, John!” and the wife shrank back against the lattice
and shivered. The protruding thorn of a naked locust bough scratched her
cheek, and the red blood trickled down.
“I need your encouragement, in this time of all times, Annie. You mustn’t
fail me now,” he said, speaking in an injured tone.
“Have I ever failed you yet, my husband?”
“I can’t say that you have, Annie. But you worry too much; you bore a
fellow so. Just brace up; don’t anticipate trouble. It’ll come soon
enough without your meeting it halfway. You ought to consider the welfare
of the children.”
“Have I ever lived for myself, John?”
“No, no; but you fret too much. I suppose it’s a woman’s way, though,
and I must stand it. There’s the chance of a lifetime before us, Annie.”
He added after a pause, “The Oregon Donation Land Law that was passed
by Congress nearly two years ago won’t be a law always. United States
Senators in the farthest East are already urging its repeal. We’ve barely
time, even by going now, to get in on the ground-floor. Then we’ll get,
in our own right, to have and to hold, in fee simple, as the lawyers
say, a big square mile of the finest land that ever rolled out o’ doors.”
“Will there be no mortgage to eat us up with interest, and no malaria to
shake us to pieces, John? And will you keep the woodpile away from the
front gate, and make an out-of-the-way lane for the cows, so they won’t
come home at night through the front avenue?”
“There’ll be no mortgage and no malaria. One-half of the claim will
belong to you absolutely; and you can order the improvements to suit
yourself. Only think of it! A square mile o’ land is six hundred and
forty acres, and six hundred and forty acres is a whole square mile! We
wouldn’t be dealing justly by our children if we let the opportunity
slip. We’ll get plenty o’ land to make a good-sized farm for every child
on the plantation, and it won’t cost us a red cent to have and to hold
it!”
“That was the plan our parents had in view when they came here from
Kentucky, John. They wanted land for their children, you know. They
wanted us all to settle close around ’em, and be the stay and comfort of
their old age.” And Mrs. Ranger laughed hysterically.
“You shiver, Annie. You oughtn’t to be out in this bleak March wind.
Let’s go inside.”
“I’m not minding the wind, dear. I was thinking of the way people’s
plans so often miscarry. Children do their own thinking and planning
nowadays, as they always did, regardless of what their parents wish. Look
at us! We’re planning to leave your parents and mine, for good and all,
after they’ve worn themselves out in our service; and we needn’t expect
different treatment from our children when we get old and decrepit.”
“But I’ve already arranged for our parents’ keep with Lije and Mary,”
said the husband, petulantly. “Didn’t I tell you so?”
“But suppose Lije fails in business; or suppose he gets the far Western
fever too; or suppose he tires of his bargain and quits?”
A black cloud scudded away before the wind, uncovering the face of the
moon. The silver light burst suddenly upon the pair.
“What’s the matter, Annie?” cried the husband, in alarm. “Are you sick?”
Her upturned face was like ashes.
“No; it’s nothing. I was only thinking.”
They entered the house together, their brains busy with unuttered
thoughts. The baby of less than a year extended her chubby hands to her
father, and the older babies clamored for recognition in roistering glee.
“Take my coat and hat, Hal; and get my slippers, somebody. Don’t all jump
at once! Gals, put down your books, and go to the kitchen and help your
mother. Don’t sit around like so many cash boarders! You oughtn’t to let
your mother do a stroke of work at anything.”
“You couldn’t help it unless you caged her, or bound her hand and foot,”
answered Jean, who strongly resembled her father in disposition, voice,
and speech. But the command was obeyed; and the pale-faced mother,
escorted from the kitchen amid much laughter by Mary, Marjorie, and Jean,
was soon seated before the roaring fire beside her husband, enjoying
with him the frolics of the babies, and banishing for the nonce the
subject which had so engrossed their thoughts outside. The delayed meal
was soon steaming on the long table in the low, lean-to kitchen, and
was despatched with avidity by the healthy and ravenous brood which
constituted the good old-fashioned household of John Ranger and Annie
Robinson, his wife.
“Children,” said Mrs. Ranger, as an interval of silence gave her a chance
to be heard, “did you know your father had sold the farm?”
A thunderbolt from a clear sky would hardly have created greater
astonishment. True, John Ranger had been talking “new country” ever since
the older children could remember anything; the theme was an old story,
invoking no comment. But now there was an ominous pause, followed with
exclamations of mingled dissent and approval, to which the parents gave
unrestricted liberty.
“I’m not going a single step; so there!” exclaimed Mary, a gentle girl of
seventeen, who did not look her years, but who had a reason of her own
for this unexpected avowal.
“My decision will depend on where we’re going,” cried Jean.
“Maybe your mother and I can be consulted,—just a little bit,” said the
father, laughing.
“We’re going to Oregon; that’s what,” exclaimed Harry, who was as
impulsive as he was noisy.
“How did you come to know so much?” asked Marjorie, the youngest of John
Ranger’s “Three Graces,” as he was wont to style his trio of eldest
daughters, who had persisted in coming into his household—much to his
discomfort—before the advent of Harry, the fourth in his catalogue of
seven, of whom only two were boys.
“I get my learning by studying o’ nights!” answered Hal, in playful
allusion to his success as a sound sleeper, especially during study hours.
“Of course you don’t want to emigrate, Miss Mame,” cried Jean, “but you
can’t help yourself, unless you run away and get married; and then you’ll
have to help everybody else through the rest of your life and take what’s
left for yourself,-if there’s anything left to take! At least, that is
mother’s and Aunt Mary’s lot.”
“Jean speaks from the depths of long experience,” laughed Mary, blushing
to the roots of her hair.
“I’m sick to death of this cold kitchen,” cried Jean, snapping her
tea-towel in the frosty air of the unplastered lean-to. “Hurrah for
Oregon! Hurrah for a warmer climate, and a snug cabin home among the
evergreen trees!”
“Good for Jean!” exclaimed her father. “The weather’ll be so mild in
Oregon we shall not need a tight kitchen.”
“Is Oregon a tight house?” asked three-year-old Bobbie, whose brief
life had many a time been clouded by the complaints of his mother and
sisters,—complaints such as are often heard to this day from women in the
country homes of the frontier and middle West, where more than one-half
of their waking hours are spent in the unfinished and uncomfortable
kitchens peculiar to the slave era, in which—as almost any makeshift was
considered “good enough for niggers”—the unfinished kitchen came to stay.
The vigorous barking of Rover announced the approach of visitors; and
the circle around the fireside was enlarged, amid the clatter of moving
chairs and tables, to make room for Elijah Robinson and his wife,—the
former a brother of Annie Ranger, and the latter a sister of John.
The meeting between the sisters-in-law was expectant, anxious, and
embarrassing.
“How did you like the news?” asked Mrs. Robinson, after an awkward
silence.
“How did you like it?” was the evasive reply, as the twain withdrew to a
distant corner, where they could exchange confidences undisturbed.
“I haven’t had time to think it over yet,” said Mrs. Ranger. “My greatest
trouble is about leaving our parents. It seems as if I could not bear to
break the news to them.”
“Don’t worry, Annie; they know already. When Lije told his mother that
John was going to Oregon, she fainted dead away. When she revived and sat
up, she wanted to come right over to see you, in spite of the storm.”
“Just listen! How the wind does roar!”
“I don’t see how your mother can live without you, Annie. I tried very
hard to persuade Lije to refuse to buy John’s farm; but he would have
his way, as he always does. Of course, we’ll do all we can for the
old folks, but Lije is heavily in debt again, with the ever-recurring
interest staring us all in the face. John will want his money, with
interest,—they all do,—and we know how rapidly it accumulates, from our
own dearly bought experience, the result of poor Joe’s troubles!”
“I hope my dear father and mother won’t live very long,” sighed Mrs.
Ranger. “If John would only let me make them a deed to my little ten-acre
farm! But I can’t get him to talk about it.”
II
_EARLY LIFE IN THE MIDDLE WEST_
The surroundings of the budding daughters of the Ranger and Robinson
families had thus far been limited, outside of their respective homes,
to attendance at the district school on winter week-days when weather
permitted, and on Sundays at the primitive church services held by
itinerant clergymen in the same rude edifice.
Oh, that never-to-be-forgotten schoolhouse of the borderland and the
olden time! Modelled everywhere after the same one-roomed, quadrangular
pattern,—and often the only seat of learning yet to be seen in school
districts of the far frontier,—the building in which the children of
these chronicles received the rudimentary education which led to the
future weal of most of them was built of logs unhewn, and roofed with
“shakes” unshaven. One rough horizontal log was omitted from the western
wall when the structure was raised by the men of the district, who
purposely left the space for the admission of a long line of little
window-panes above the rows of desks. A huge open fireplace occupied
the whole northern end of the room; rude benches rocked on the uneven
puncheon floor and creaked as the students turned upon them to face the
long desks beneath the little window-panes, or to confront the centre
of the room. The children’s feet generally swung to and fro in a sort
of rhythmic consonance with the audible whispers in which they studied
their lessons,—when not holding sly conversation, amid much suppressed
giggling, with their neighbors at elbow, if the teacher’s back was turned.
The busy agricultural seasons of springtime and summer, and often
extending far into the autumn, prevented the regular attendance at school
of the older children of the district, who were usually employed early
and late, indoors and out, with the ever-exacting labors of the farm.
Up to the time of the departure of the Ranger family for the Pacific
coast and for a brief time thereafter, the most of the summer and all
of the winter clothing worn in the country districts of the middle West
was the product of the individual housewife’s skill in the use of the
spinning-wheel, dye-kettle, and clumsy, home-made hand-loom.
But, few and far between as were the schoolhouses and schooldays of the
border times, of which the present-day grandparent loves to boast, there
was a rigorous course of primitive study then in vogue which justifies
their boasting. Oh, that old-fashioned pedagogue! What resident of the
border can fail to remember—if his early lot was cast anywhere west of
the Alleghanies, at any time antedating the era of railroads—the austere
piety and stately dignity of that mighty master of the rod and the rule,
who never by any chance forgot to use the rod, lest by so doing he should
spoil the child!
The terror of those days lingers now only as an amusing memory. The pain
of which the rod and the rule were the instruments has long since lost
its sting; but the sound morals inculcated by the teacher (whose example
never strayed from his precept) have proved the ballast needed to hold a
level head on many a pair of shoulders otherwise prone to push their way
into forbidden places.
And the old-fashioned singing-school! How tenderly the memory of the
time-dulled ear recalls the doubtful harmony of many youthful voices, as
they ran the gamut in a jangling merry-go-round! Did any other musical
entertainment ever equal it? Then, when the exercises were over, and the
stars hung high and glittering above the frosty branches of the naked
treetops, and the crisp white snow crunched musically beneath the feet of
fancy-smitten swains, hurrying homeward with ruddy-visaged sweethearts
on their pulsing arms, did any other joy ever equal the stolen kisses of
the youthful lovers at the parting doorstep,—the one to return to the
parental home with an exultant throbbing at his heart, and the other to
creep noiselessly to her cold, dark bedroom to blush unseen over her
first little secret from her mother.
And there is yet another memory.
Can anybody who has enjoyed it ever forget the school of metrical
geography which sometimes alternated, on winter evenings, with the
singing-school? What could have been more enchanting, or more instructive
withal, than those exercises wherein the States and their capitals were
chanted over and over to a sort of rhymeless rhythm, so often repeated
that to this day the old-time student finds it only necessary to mention
the name of any State then in the Union to call to mind the name of its
capital. After the States and their capitals, the boundaries came next
in order, chanted in the same rhythmic way, until the youngest pupil had
conquered all the names by sound, and localities on the map by sight, of
all the continents, islands, capes, promontories, peninsulas, mountains,
kingdoms, republics, oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, harbors, and cities
then known upon the planet.
In its season, beginning with the New Year, came the regular religious
revival. No chronicles like these would be complete without its
mention, since no rural life on the border exists without it. Much to
the regret of doting parents who failed to get all their dear ones
“saved”—especially the boys—before the sap began to run in the sugar
maples, the revival season was sometimes cut short by the advent of an
early spring. The meetings were then brought to a halt, notwithstanding
the fervent prayers of the righteous, who in vain besought the Lord of
the harvest to delay the necessary seed-time, so that the work of saving
souls might not be interrupted by the sports and labors of the sugar
camp, which called young people together for collecting fagots, rolling
logs, and gathering and boiling down the sap.
Many were the matches made at these rural gatherings, as the lads and
lasses sat together on frosty nights and replenished the open fires under
the silent stars.
To depict one revival season is to give a general outline of all. The
itinerant preacher was generally a young man and a bachelor. In his
annual returns to the scenes of his emotional endeavors to save the
unconverted, he would find that many had backslidden; and the first week
was usually spent in getting those who had not “held out faithful” up to
the mourners’ bench for re-conversion.
Agnostics, of whom John Ranger was an example, were many, who took a
humorous or good-naturedly critical view of the situation. But the
preacher’s efforts to arouse the emotional nature, especially of the
women, began to bear fruit generally after the first week’s praying,
singing, and exhorting; and the excitement, once begun, went on without
interruption as long as temporal affairs permitted. The rankest infidel
in the district kept open house, in his turn, for the preacher and
exhorter; and once, when the schoolhouse was partly destroyed by fire,
John Ranger permitted the meetings to be held in his house till the
damage was repaired by the tax-payers of the district.
The kindly preacher who most frequently visited the Ranger district as a
revivalist would not knowingly have given needless pain to a fly. But,
when wrought up to great tension by religious frenzy, he seemed to find
delight in holding the frightened penitent spellbound, while he led
him to the very brink of perdition, where he would hang him suspended,
mentally, as by a hair, over a liquid lake of fire and brimstone, with
the blue blazes shooting, like tongues of forked lightning, beneath his
writhing body; while overhead, looking on, sat his Heavenly Father, as a
benignant and affectionate Deity, pictured to the speaker’s imagination,
nevertheless, as waiting with scythe in hand to snip that hair.
“I can’t see a bit of logic in any of it!” exclaimed Jean Ranger, as she
and Mary, accompanied by Hal, were returning home one night from such a
meeting.
“God’s ways are not our ways,” sighed Mary, as she tripped over the
frozen path under the denuded maple-trees, where night owls hooted and
wild turkeys slept.
Harry laughed immoderately. “Jean, you’re right,” he exclaimed. “I’m
going to get religion myself some day before I die, but I’ve got first to
find a Heavenly Father who’s better’n I am. There’s no preacher on top o’
dirt can make me believe that the great Author of all Creation deserves
the awful character they’re giving Him at the schoolhouse!”
“Don’t blaspheme, Hal. It’s wicked!” said Mary.
“I’m not blaspheming; I’m defending God!” retorted Hal.
“You used to be a sensible girl, Mame,” said Jean; “and you could then
see the ridiculous side of all this excitement just as Hal and I now see
it. But you’re in love with the preacher now, and that has turned your
head.”
Jean was cold and sleepy and cross; but she did not mean to be unkind,
and on reflection added, “Forgive me, sister dear. I was only in fun.
I have no right to meddle with your love affairs or your religious
feelings, and neither has Hal. S’pose we talk about maple sugar.”
Mary did not reply, but her thoughts went toward heaven in silent,
self-satisfying prayer.
The Reverend Thomas Rogers—so he must be designated in these pages,
because he yet lives—was the avowed suitor for the hand and heart of
Mary Ranger; and the winsome girl, with whose prematurely aroused
affections her parents had no patience,—and with reason, for she was
but a child,—was the envy of all the older girls of the district, any
one of whom, while censuring her for her folly in encouraging the
poverty-stricken preacher’s suit, would gladly have found like favor in
his eyes, if the opportunity had been given her.
But while romantic maidens were going into rhapsodies over their hero,
and many of the dowager mothers echoed their sentiments, most of the
unmarried men of the district remained aloof from his persuasions and
unmoved by his fiery eloquence. But they took him out “sniping” one
off-night in true schoolboy fashion; and while Mary Ranger dreamed of him
in the seclusion of her snug chamber, the poor fellow stood half frozen
at the end of a gulch, holding a bag to catch the snipes that never came.
“If I were not too poor in worldly goods to pay my way in your father’s
train, I’d go to Oregon,” he said, a few nights after the “sniping”
episode, as he walked homeward with Mary after coaxing Jean and Hal to
keep the little episode a secret from their parents,—a promise they made
after due hesitation, but with much sly chuckling, as they munched the
red-and-white-striped sugar sticks with which they had been bribed.
III
_MARRYING AND GIVING IN MARRIAGE_
The destinies of the Ranger and Robinson families had been linked
together by the double ties of affinity and consanguinity in the first
third of the nineteenth century. Their broad and fertile lands, to
which they held the original title-deeds direct from the government,
bore the signature and seal of Andrew Jackson, seventh President of
the United States; and their children and children’s children, though
scattered now in the farthest West, from Alaska and the Hawaiian Islands
to the Philippine Archipelago, treasure to this day among their most
valued heirlooms the historic parchments. For these were signed by Old
Hickory when the original West was bounded on its outermost verge by the
Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and when the new West, though discovered
in the infancy of the century by Lewis and Clark (aided by Sacajawea,
their one woman ally and pathfinder), was to the average American citizen
an unknown country, quite as obscure to his understanding as was the Dark
Continent of Africa in the days antedating Sir Samuel Baker, Oom Paul,
and Cecil Rhodes.
The elder Rangers, who claimed Knickerbocker blood, and the Robinsons,
who boasted of Scotch ancestry, though living in adjoining counties
in Kentucky in their earlier years, had never met until, as if by
accident,—if accident it might be called through which there seems to
have been an original, interwoven design,—the fates of the two families
became interlinked through their settlement upon adjoining lands,
situated some fifty miles south of old Fort Dearborn, in the days when
Chicago was a mosquito-beleaguered swamp, and Portland, Oregon, an
unbroken forest of pointed firs.
There was a double wedding on the memorable day when John Ranger, Junior,
and pretty Annie Robinson, the belle of Pleasant Prairie, linked their
destinies together in marriage; and when, without previous notice to the
assembled multitude or any other parties but their parents, the preacher,
and the necessary legal authorities, Elijah Robinson and Mary Ranger took
their allotted places beside their brother and sister, as candidates for
matrimony, the festivities were doubled in interest and rejoicing.
“It seems but yesterday since our bonnie bairns were babes in arms,” said
the elder Mrs. Robinson, as she advanced with Mrs. Ranger _mère_ to give
a tearful greeting to each newly wedded pair. And there was scarcely a
dry eye in the assembled multitude when the mother’s voice arose in a
shrill treble as she sang, in the ears of the startled listeners, from an
old Scottish ballad the words,—
“An’ I can scarce believe it true,
So late thy life began,
The playful bairn I fondled then
Stands by me now, a man!”
Her voice, which at first was as clear as the tones of a silver bell,
quavered at the close of the first stanza and then ceased altogether.
But by this time old Mrs. Ranger had caught the spirit of the ballad,
and though her voice was husky, she cleared her throat and added, in a
low contralto, the impressive lines, paraphrased somewhat to suit the
occasion,—
“Oh, fondly cherish her, dearie;
She is sae young and fair!
She hasna known a single cloud,
Nor felt a single care.
And if a cauld world’s storms should come,
Thy way to overcast,
Oh, ever stan’—thou art a man—
Between her an’ the blast!”
At the close of this stanza, Mrs. Ranger’s voice broke also; and the good
circuit rider, parson of many a scattered flock, who had pronounced the
double ceremony, caught the tune and, in a mellow barytone that rose upon
the air like an inspired benediction, added most impressively another
stanza:
“An’ may the God who reigns above
An’ sees ye a’ the while,
Look down upon your plighted troth
An’ bless ye wi’ His smile.”[1]
“It’s high time there was a little change o’ sentiment in all this!”
cried a bachelor uncle, whose eyes were suspiciously red notwithstanding
his affected gayety. “I move that we march in a solid phalanx on the
victuals!”
The primitive cabin homes of the borderers of no Western settlement
were large enough to hold the crowds that were invariably bidden to a
neighborhood merrymaking. The ceremonies of this occasion, including
a most sumptuous feast, were held on the sloping green beneath an
overtopping elm, which, rising high above its fellows, made a noted
landmark for a circumference of many miles.
People who live apart from markets, in fertile regions where the very
forests drop richness, subsist literally on the fat of the land. Having
no sale for their surplus products, they feast upon them in the most
prodigal way. Although through gormandizing they beget malaria, not
to say dyspepsia and rheumatic ails, they boast of “living well”; and
the sympathy they bestow upon the city denizen who in his wanderings
sometimes feasts at their hospitable boards, and praises without stint
their prodigal display of viands, is often more sincere than wise.
The lands of the early settlers, with whom these chronicles have to
deal, had been surrounded, as soon as possible after occupancy, with
substantial rail fences, laid in zigzag fashion along dividing lines,
marking the boundaries between neighbors who lived at peace with each
other and with all the world. These fences, built to a sufficient height
to discourage all attempts at trespass by man or beast, were securely
staked at the corners, and weighted with heavy top rails, or “riders,”
so stanchly placed that many miles of such enclosures remain to this
day, long surviving the brawny hands that felled the trees and split the
rails. In their mute eloquence they reveal the lasting qualities of the
hardwood timber that abounded in the many and beautiful groves which
flourished in the prairie States in the early part of the nineteenth
century, when Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri comprised all that was
generally known as the West.
Much of the primitive glory of these diversified landscapes departed long
ago with the trees. The “Hook-and-Eye Dutch,” as the thrifty followers
of ancient Ohm are called by their American neighbors (with whom they
do not assimilate), are rapidly replacing the old-time maple and black
walnut fences with the modern barbed-wire horror; they are selling off
the historical rails, stakes and riders and all, to the equally thrifty
and not a whit more sentimental timber-dealers of Chicago, Milwaukee,
and Grand Rapids, to be manufactured into high-grade lumber, which is
destined to find lodgment as costly furniture in the palatial homes,
gilded churches, great club-houses, and mammoth modern hostelries that
abound on the shores of Lake Michigan, Massachusetts Bay, Manhattan
Island, and Long Island Sound. But no vandalism yet invented by man can
wholly despoil the rolling lands of the middle West of their beauty, nor
rob Mother Nature of her power to rehabilitate them with the living green
of cultivated loveliness.
Original settlers of the border-lands had little time and less
opportunity for the observation of the beautiful in art or nature. Their
lives were spent in toil, which blunted many of the finer sensibilities
of a more leisurely existence. The hardy huntsman who spent his only
hours of relaxation in chasing the wild game, and the weary mother
who scarcely ever left her wheel or loom and shuttle by the light of
day, except to bake her brain before a great open fire while preparing
food, or to nurse to sleep the future lawmakers of a coming world-round
republic, were alike too busy to ponder deeply the far-reaching
possibilities of the lives they led.
Such men of renown as Lincoln, Douglas, Baker, Grant, Logan, and Oglesby
were evolved from environments similar to these, as were also the
numerous adventurous borderers not known to fame (many of whom are yet
living) who crossed the continent with ox teams, and whose patient and
enduring wives nursed the future statesmen of a coming West in fear and
trembling, as they protected their camps from the depredations of the
wily Indian or the frenzy of the desert’s storms.
Rail-making in the middle West was long a diversion and an art. The
destruction of the hardwood timber, which if spared till to-day would be
almost priceless, could not have been prevented, even if this commercial
fact had been foreseen. The urgent need of fuel, shelter, bridges, public
buildings, and fences allowed no consideration for future values to
intervene and save the trees.
In times of a temporary lull in a season’s activities, when, for a
wonder, there were days together that the stroke of the woodman’s ax was
not heard and the music of the cross-cut saw had ceased, the settler
would take advantage of the interim to draw a bead with unerring aim upon
the eye of a squirrel in a treetop, or bring down a wild turkey from its
covert in the lower branches; or, if favored by a fall of virgin snow,
it would be his delight to track the wild deer, and drag it home as a
trophy of his marksmanship,—an earnest of the feast in which all his
neighbors were invited to partake.
Then, too, there were the merrymakings of the border. What modern banquet
can equal the festive board at which a genial hostess, in a homespun
cotton or linsey-woolsey gown, presided over her own stuffed turkey, huge
corn-pone, and wild paw-paw preserves? What array of glittering china,
gleaming cut-glass, or burnished silver, can give the jaded appetite of
the _blasé_ reveller of to-day the enjoyment of a home-set table, laden
with the best and sweetest “salt-rising” bread spread thick with golden
butter, fresh from the old-fashioned churn? The freshest of meats and
fish regularly graced the well-laden board, in localities where the
modern _chef_ was unknown, where ice-cream was unheard of, and terrapin
sauce and lobster salad found no place. House-raisings, log-rollings,
barn-raisings, quilting bees, weddings, christenings, and even funerals,
were times of feasting, though these last were divested of the gayety,
but not of the gossip, that at other times abounded; and the sympathetic
aid of an entire neighborhood was always voluntarily extended to any
house of mourning. There were few if any wage-earners, the accommodating
method of exchanging work among neighbors being generally in vogue.
Such, in brief, were the daily customs of the early settlers of the
middle West, whose children wandered still farther westward in the
forties and fifties, carrying with them the habits in which they had
been reared to the distant Territory afterwards known as the “Whole of
Oregon,” which originally comprised the great Northwest Territory, where
now flourish massive blocks of mighty States.
* * * * *
Prior to the time of the departure of the subjects of these chronicles
for the goal of John Ranger’s ambition, but one unusual occurrence had
marred the lives and prosperity of the rising generation of Rangers and
Robinsons. To the progenitors of the two families the mutations of time
had brought problems serious and difficult, not the least of which was
the infirmity of advancing years. This they had made doubly annoying
through having assigned to their children, when they themselves needed it
most, everything of value which they had struggled to accumulate during
their years of vigorous effort to raise and educate their families.
In the two households under review, all dependent upon the energies and
bounty of the second generation of Rangers and Robinsons, there were
besides the great-grandmother (a universal favorite) two sexagenarian
bachelor uncles and two elderly spinsters, the latter remote cousins
of uncertain age, uncertain health, and still more uncertain temper,
who had long outlived their usefulness, after having missed, in their
young and vigorous years, the duties and responsibilities that accompany
the founding of families and homes of their own. It was little wonder
that drones like these were out of place in the overcrowded households
of their more provident kinspeople, to whom the modern “Home of the
Friendless” was unknown. What plan to pursue in making necessary
provision for these outside incumbents, even John Ranger, the optimistic
leader of the related hosts, could not conjecture.
“We’ve fixed it,—Mame and I,” said Jean, one evening, after an anxious
discussion of the question had been carried on with some warmth between
the two family heads, in which no conclusion had been reached except a
flat refusal on the part of Elijah Robinson to quadruple the quota of
dependants in his own household.
“And how have you fixed it?” asked her father, who often called Jean his
“Heart’s Delight.”
“Our bachelor uncles and cousins are just rusting out with
irresponsibility!” she cried with characteristic Ranger vehemence. “They
ought to have a home of their own and be compelled to take care of it.
There’s that house and garden where you board and lodge the mill-hands.
Why not give ’em that and let ’em keep boarders? The boarders, the four
acres of ground, and the cow and garden ought to keep them in modest
comfort. This would make them free and independent, as everybody ought to
be.”
“But the boarding-house belongs with the farm. I’ve sold it to your
uncle.”
“Then let Uncle Lije lease or sell it to them, share and share alike.”
“What is it worth?” asked Mary.
“Only about three hundred dollars, the way property sells now,” said her
uncle.
“Then let ’em pay you rent. The place ought to support them and pay
interest and taxes.”
“Yes,” cried Mary; “the old bachelor contingent, that worry you all so
much because you keep ’em dependent on your bounty, can take care of
themselves for twenty years to come, if you’ll only let ’em.”
“The proposition is worth considering, certainly,” said their father,
smiling admiringly upon his daughters.
“And we’ll consider it, too,” said the uncle. “That much is settled.”
IV
_OLD BLOOD AND NEW_
“I can’t see why old folks like us will persist in living after we’ve
outgrown our usefulness,” exclaimed Grandfather Ranger, one sloppy March
evening, as he entered the little kitchen and placed a pail of foaming
milk upon the clean white table. The severely cold weather had given way
to a springtime thaw; but a wet snow had begun falling at sundown, and
a soft, muddy liquid made dirty pools wherever his feet pressed the
polished floor.
“You’re right, father; we’ve lived long enough,” sighed the feeble mother
of many children, following her husband’s footprints with mop and broom.
“If you and John think you’ve lived long enough, what do you think of
me?” cried the great-grandmother, who had passed her fourscore years and
ten, but who still amply supported herself (if only she and the rest of
the family had thought so) as she sat from early morning till late at
night in her corner, knitting, always knitting.
“Never mind, grannie,” said her son, swallowing a lump that rose unbidden
in his throat. “You’ve as good a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness as any fellow that ever put his name to a Declaration of
Independence! There’ll be room for you in the cosiest corner of this
little house as long as there’s a corner for anybody. Don’t worry.”
“But this state of things isn’t just or fair!” exclaimed the wife,
folding her last bit of mending and dropping back into her chair. “It
seems to me that we, as parents, deserve a better fate in our old days
than any set of bachelor hangers-on on earth, who’ve never had anybody
but themselves to provide for. If Joseph would only come back, or the
good Lord would let us know his fate, I could endure the rest.”
“There, there, mother! Not another word. Haven’t I forbidden the mention
of his name?”
“But he was our darling, father. I can’t dismiss him from my thoughts as
you say you can.”
“We must keep the grandchildren in ignorance of his existence, wife. It’s
bad enough in all conscience for the stain of his misguided life to rest
on older heads. We must forget our unfortunate son.”
“I can never forget my bonnie boy,—not even to obey you, father!”
The back door, which had been unintentionally left ajar, flew open, and
Jean, who had for the first time in her life heard a word of complaint
from her grandparents, or a word from them concerning her mysterious
Uncle Joe, burst suddenly into the room and knelt at the feet of her
grandmother, her whole frame convulsed with sobs.
“Forgive us, darlings, do!” she cried as soon as she could control her
voice to speak. “You’ve borne so much sorrow, and we never knew it! We
never meant to be thoughtless or unkind, but I see now how ungrateful we
have been. We must have hurt your feelings often.”
“Don’t cry, Jean,” and the thin hand of the grandmother stroked the
girl’s bright hair. “We don’t often repine at our lot. I am sorry you
overheard a word.”
“But I am not sorry a single bit, grandma. We children have been
thoughtless and impudent. I can see it all now. We didn’t ever mean to
complain, though, about you, or grandpa, or you either, grannie dear.
We only meant to draw the line at bachelor great-uncles and meddlesome
second and third cousins, who ought to have provided themselves in their
youth with homes of their own, as our parents did.”
“Do you think they can help themselves hereafter, Jean?”
“Why, of course! The feeling of self-dependence will make ’em young and
strong again,—though they don’t deserve good treatment, for they ought to
have had homes and families of their own in their youth, as you did.”
“It’s too late to lodge a complaint of that kind against them now, Jean,”
said the grandmother, with a smile.
“Did you overhear all we were talking about?” asked the grandfather, his
head bowed upon his cane.
“I am afraid I did, grandpa. I was cleaning the slush from my shoes, and
I couldn’t help overhearing, though I hate eavesdroppers, on general
principles. They never hear any good of themselves. But, say, grandpa,
what about our Uncle Joe, whom I heard you denounce so bitterly? You
haven’t said _I_ mustn’t speak his name, you know.”
“Don’t talk about him, child, to us or anybody else. He’s an outlaw.
Dismiss him from your thoughts, just as I have.”
“Your uncle may not be living now, Jean; if he is alive, I hope he’ll
find a better friend than his father,” exclaimed the great-grandmother,
speaking in a tone of reproach that surprised none more than herself.
“Tell me all about it, grand-daddie darling! Do! I know there’s a sad
secret somewhere in the family. Something unusual must have happened a
long time ago to bring us all under the ban of poverty. I have heard
hints of it now and then all my life; and now I must hear the whole
story. The schoolmaster will tell me if you don’t.”
“No, no, Jean,” exclaimed her grandfather, anxiously. “Don’t speak of
family affairs outside. It is never seemly.”
“Neither is it seemly or just to keep members of the family in ignorance
of family affairs when all the rest of the neighborhood knows all about
’em! We ought to know all, grandma darling. The reason children are so
often unreasonable is that they don’t understand.”
“‘I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken nor his seed begging bread,’” said the grandfather, his head
still bowed low upon his staff and his white locks falling over his
stooping shoulders. “Let us not repine, mother.”
“I am not repining, father, but I do feel so—so disappointed with the
outcome of all our hard struggles that I can’t always be cheerful.”
“We’d just begun to get our heads above water when it happened, Jean,”
said the old man. “We’d been making a new farm. You see, we’d manumitted
our slaves before we left Kaintuck, and we had to begin with our bare
hands in this new country and work our way from the ground up. We’d only
got a part o’ the children raised when the older ones began to get it in
their heads to get married. But our second son took to book-learning, and
we sent him off to Tennessee to finish his schooling. That cost a pile o’
money. Then we had to set out the married ones. We’d got things going in
tol’ble shape and was beginning to get on our feet again, when Joseph—”
“Do stop, husband. Don’t tell any more; please don’t,” cried the
grandmother, nervously stroking the bright young head that nestled in her
lap. “I cannot bear to hear it, though I thought I could.”
“Let him go on, grandmother dear! I don’t want to be driven to the
schoolmaster for the information that I am bound to get someway. When I
have grandchildren of my own, I’ll tell ’em everything they ought to know
about the family, and then they won’t be teased by the school-children,
as we are.”
“We had to mortgage the farm,” continued the grandfather; “and then there
came a financial panic. The wild-cat banks of the country all went to
pieces, and the bottom kind o’ fell out o’ things.”
“But why did you borrow money, grandpa? Why was it necessary to mortgage
the farms?”
“We did it because we had to stand by Joe in his trouble.”
“What did you hear at school, darling?” asked the grandmother.
“Oh, nothing much. But one day Jim Danover got mad at me because I
went head in the class; and he said I needn’t be puttin’ on airs, for
everybody knew that my uncle had been hung.”
“Good Lord! has it come to that?” cried the great-grandmother, dropping
her knitting to the floor and clasping her withered hands over her
knees. “I’ve always told you that you’d better tell the older children
about it yourself, John.”
“No, Jean; your uncle wasn’t hung,” said the old man; “but he got into
trouble, and we all believe he is dead. He was the pride and joy of us
all. He was so promising that we gave him all the education that ought to
have been distributed evenly through the family.”
“But John and Mollie took a notion to get married young, and you know
that ended their chances,” interposed the mother.
“Your uncle’s trouble would never have come upon him and us if he had
stayed out o’ that college,” exclaimed the great-grandmother, who did not
approve of the course the family had taken with Joseph at the beginning
of his college days.
“That’s true, grannie,” replied the father; “but he ought to have kept
out o’ the scrape, college or no college.”
“Do go on,” cried Jean.
“Your Uncle Joe got mixed up in a hazing frolic, or something o’ that
sort,” resumed the grandfather. “One or two of the students got hurt,
one of ’em so bad that he died,—or it was given out that he died,—and
the blame fell on Joe. He declared he wasn’t guilty, but the college
authorities had to fix the blame somewhere, though the case was
uncertain. They never proved that the boy was dead, but we raised the
money and bailed Joe out o’ jail. When the story was started that the
fellow had died, Joe skipped his bail and left us all in a hole. That was
what made and has kept us poor.”
“Did you never hear of the other man, grandpa?”
“Oh, yes; he turned up, but too late to do Joe or the rest of us any
good.”
“Poor dear Uncle Joe!”
“You’d better say poor dear all the rest of us,” cried the
great-grandmother, who had staked and lost her little all in the great
calamity.
“But Uncle Joe was sinned against, grannie dear. How he must have
suffered!”
“Them that’s sinned against are often greater sufferers than them that
sins,” was the sad reply.
“When the bail was jumped, the hard times set in with all of us,” resumed
the grandfather. “The banks, as I was saying, went broke, the interest on
the mortgages piled up, and the notes fell due. The crops got the rust
and the weevil, and everything else went wrong. You see, Jean, when a man
starts down hill, everybody tries to give him a kick. The long and the
short of it is that mother, here, and grannie and I have been the same as
paupers for more than a dozen years.”
“I must be going, though you must first tell me how you two and dear old
grannie are going to live when we are away in Oregon. Your way seems very
uncertain,” said Jean.
“Your father has made some kind of a bargain for our support with your
Uncle Lije. But he’s sort o’ visionary, and he never has much luck. If he
loses the property, we can go to the poorhouse.”
“Are you to be allowed no stated sum to live on? Will you have no means
of your own to gratify your individual wishes or tastes?”
“No, child; not a picayune.”
“What’s a picayune?”
“A six-and-a-quarter-cent piece.”
“I’m just as wise as I was before.”
“They’re wellnigh out o’ circulation nowadays, though I used to come
across ’em frequently when I was sheriff,” said the old man.
Jean covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.
“Don’t worry about us, dearie,” said the old man. “There is One above us
who heareth even the young ravens when they cry. There is not a sparrow
that falleth to the ground without His knowledge. Your Uncle Lije will
move into the old homestead when you are all gone. Your father built this
cottage for us when he assumed the mortgage, as you know. We won’t be
entirely alone, but we’ll miss you all; and we’ll try to remember that we
are of more value than many sparrows.”
“I’ve heard such talk as that all my life, grandpa. But I can’t help
thinking that it would have been better to keep the ravens from having
anything to cry about in the first place, and to save the sparrows from
falling.”
“If none o’ God’s creatures ever had any hard experiences, they’d never
know enough to enjoy their blessings, Jean. A child has to stumble and
hurt itself many times before it learns to walk steady. We’ve all got
to be purified and saved, as by fire, before we are fit to stand in the
presence of the awful God.”
“The God I love and worship isn’t an awful God,” cried Jean. “I couldn’t
love Him if He were awful. My earthly daddie whipped me once. No doubt
I deserved the punishment, but I couldn’t love him for a whole month
afterwards. And I’d have hated him for the rest of my life if I hadn’t
deserved the whipping.”
“Didn’t it do you any good?”
Jean confronted her grandfather, her eyes flashing. “No, sir!” she cried.
“I ought not to have been whipped, and I wasn’t a bit repentant after the
punishment. I was sorry beforehand, though, and said so.”
“What was your offence, Jean?”
“I dropped a pan full of dishes and broke more than half o’ the lot. They
fell to the floor with a crash, and scared me half to death.”
“Didn’t the whipping make you more careful afterwards?”.
“Not at all; it only made me mad and afraid and nervous, so I broke
more dishes. But the next time it happened, I hid the broken pieces in
the ash hopper, and when they were found, I saved myself a whipping by
telling my first lie.”
“The Lord chasteneth whom He loveth, my child.”
“I once saw a mill-hand strike his wife,” retorted Jean, “and he said, as
she rubbed her bruises, ‘I love you, Mollie. Take another kick!’ But I
must go now. Be of good cheer. And remember, when I get to Oregon and get
to making money, you shall have every cent that I can spare.”
V
_SALLY O’DOWD_
Great excitement prevailed in the rural neighborhood when it became
generally known that John Ranger, Junior, had sold the farm and was
preparing to dispose of his sawmill and all his personal belongings, with
the intention of departing to the new and far-away West in an ox-wagon
train with his family,—an undertaking that seemed to his friends as
foolhardy as would have been an attempt to reach the North Pole with his
wife and children in a balloon.
Of more than ordinary ability, enterprise, and daring, John Ranger had
long been a man of note in his bailiwick. Twice he had represented his
county in the State Legislative Assembly; but when the Old Line Whigs of
his district offered to nominate him for Congress,—“No, gentlemen!” he
exclaimed. “I started out early in life to assist my good wife in rearing
and educating a big family of young Americans. I frankly admit that we’ve
got a bigger job on hand than either of us imagined it would be when we
made the bargain; but that doesn’t lessen our mutual responsibility.
There is always a regiment, more or less, of unencumbered men in waiting
in every locality, ready and willing to wear the toga of office; so, with
thanks for the proffered honor, I must beg to be excused.”
But there was one office, that of justice of the peace, which he
never refused, and to which he had been so often re-elected that the
appellation of “Squire” had grown to belong to him as a matter of course.
One room of the great barnlike farmhouse had long been set apart as his
office; and many were the litigants who remained after office hours to be
entertained at his hospitable board.
“It’s a lot of trouble, having so much extra company on account of your
office being in the house,” his wife said at times; “but it’s better than
having you away two-thirds of your time down town, so it is all right.”
“There’s a woman going round the corner to the office,” exclaimed Mary,
one evening, just as her father had settled himself before the fire to
enjoy a frolic with the little ones.
“It’s that grass widow, Sally O’Dowd,” said Mrs. Ranger.
“She’s booked for a solid hour,” snapped Marjorie, “and we’ll have to
delay supper till nine o’clock.”
The Squire had barely time to reach his office by an inner passage and
seat himself before the fire, when Mrs. O’Dowd—an oversized, plainly
dressed, intelligent-looking woman, who was remarkably handsome,
notwithstanding the expression of pain upon her face—entered the office
and stood silent before the open fire.
“Well,” exclaimed the Squire, impatiently, motioning her to a chair,
“what can I do for you now?”
“Oh, Squire!” she cried, ignoring the proffered chair and dropping on her
knees at his feet, her wealth of rippling hair falling about her face and
over her shapely shoulders like a deluge of gold, “I want you to take me
with you to Oregon.”
“What! And leave your children to the care of others? I didn’t think that
of you, Mrs. O’Dowd.”
“But what else can I do? You know the court has assigned the custody of
all three of my babies to Sam.”
“Yes, Sally; but you can see them once in a while if you stay here.”
“The court gave them to Samuel and his mother absolutely, you know.”
“Yes, yes, child; and while in one way it is hard, if you look at it
in a practical light, you will see that it was best for the children.
You couldn’t keep them with you and go out as hired help in anybody’s
kitchen; and you have no other means of support any more.”
“If I stay here, I cannot have even the poor privilege of caring for
them, except when they’re sick. I must get entirely away from their
vicinity, or lose my senses altogether.”
“I thought that was what was the matter when you married the fellow,
Sally. You certainly had lost your senses then.”
“But love is blind, Squire—till it gets its eyes open; and then it is
generally too late to see to any advantage. Little did my dear father
think, when he made a will leaving his homestead, his bank account, and
all his belongings to me, that he was reducing my dear mother and me to
beggary.”
“But that wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t married that worthless
fellow, Sally.”
“But the _if_ exists, Squire. I married the fellow. It was an awful
blunder,—I’ll admit that. But it wasn’t a crime. It should have been no
reason for robbing me. And yet this marriage was made the legal pretext
for permitting the robbery. Oh, I was so glad when my dear mother died!
I couldn’t have shed a tear at her grave if I’d been hung for my seeming
heartlessness. Poor mother! I was made an unwilling party to a robbery
that beggared her and myself. Then, when I could no longer endure the
presence of the robber and his accomplice, and live, I was doubly, yes,
trebly robbed, by being deprived of my children.”
The Squire cleared his throat and spoke huskily.
“That will was a sad mistake of your father’s, Sally. He should have left
his property to your mother. It was wrong to put her means of livelihood
in jeopardy by leaving all to you. He ought to have known you’d marry,
and that the property would accrue to your husband.”
“But mother insisted that all should be left to me. She even waived her
right of dower, in my interest—as she thought.”
“Well, Sally, you can’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
The woman laughed hysterically. “Much good that warning can do me now!”
she cried, rising to her feet and unconsciously assuming a dramatic pose.
“We hadn’t been married a week when he ordered my mother out of my house.
And then he installed his own mother in my home, and expected me to be
silent. Oh, I am so glad my dear mother is dead! I would rejoice if my
poor, defrauded children were all dead also.”
The Squire cleared his throat again and leaned forward on his hands. “The
law recognizes the husband and wife as one, and the husband as that one,
Mrs. O’Dowd.”
“Yes, yes, I know that, to my bitter sorrow,” she said with a meaning
smile, her white teeth shining through her parted lips and her eyes
flashing. The woman sank upon the hearth, looking strangely white and
calm.
John Ranger sighed helplessly. “I worked the underground railroad last
night for all it was worth, in the interest of some runaway niggers,”
he said under his breath; then audibly, “The laws of the land must be
obeyed, my child.”
“The law is a fiend,” cried Jean, who had entered the room unobserved
and had stood listening in the shadow of the chimney jamb. “I’ll never
rest till this awful one-sided power is broken. You know yourself that
it’s a monster, daddie. I know you know it, or you’d never help a run—”
He put his finger on his lips, and the girl changed the subject. The
underground railroad was a forbidden topic in the Ranger household.
“Because Sally Danover knew no better than to become the wife of an
unworthy man,—who knew what he was about, though she didn’t,—the law
declares that all the benefits resulting from the fraudulent transaction
must accrue to the villain in the case, and all the penalties must be
borne by his victim. What would you do to such a fellow, daddie, if I
should marry him?”
John Ranger did not answer, but gazed steadily into the fire, his brow
contracted and his thoughts gloomy.
“Sally, cheer up!” cried Jean, shaking the woman by the shoulder.
“Daddie’s a whole lot better man than he thinks he is. I’ve seen him
tested. You’re as good as a nigger, if you _are_ white, and he’ll help
you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, my daughter. It’s a crime to
break the law, and crime must be followed by fitting punishment.”
“If you get caught, you get punished,” cried Jean, laughing in her
father’s face. “To break such a law would be an act of heroism for which
I should be glad to be arrested and sent to jail! It would be an act
of heroism beside which the defence of the Stars and Stripes would be
cowardice!” she cried in a transport of fury.
“Come, Jean,” said her father, rising, “we must go to supper. Won’t you
join us, Mrs. O’Dowd?”
“Food would choke me,” said the visitor, bowing herself out.
“Hang the luck!” said the Squire, as the door slammed behind her.
“What are you going to do to help the poor woman, John?” asked Mrs.
Ranger, as the family sat at the belated meal.
“Ask Jean.”
“What do you know about the case, daughter?”
“She thinks she knows a lot,” interrupted her father. “She’d ’a’ made a
plaguy good lawyer if she’d only been born a boy.”
“Who knew best what I ought to be,—you or God?” asked Jean, her eyes
glowing like stars.
“I give it up,” replied her father, smiling.
“I was reading to-day,” said Mrs. Ranger, “of a man down East who lured
his runaway wife back home by stealing the babies and then warning
everybody through the papers, and by posters, not to trust or harbor her,
under penalty of the law. The woman held out quite a spell, but cold and
hunger got the better of her at last; and when the stolen children fell
sick, she went back to her lawful protector and stayed till she died, as
meek as any lamb.”
“Sally Danover won’t go back to Sam O’Dowd; she’ll die first,” cried
Mary; “and I glory in her grit.”
“You haven’t answered my question, John,” said Mrs. Ranger. “What do you
propose to do with Sally O’Dowd?”
“I s’pose I’ll have to take her to Oregon and let her take a new start.
She says she must get away from here, or go insane.”
“I’d go crazy if I had to leave my children, John.”
“You can boast, Annie; you can afford to. But if you were in Sally’s
shoes, you’d sing a different song.”
Mrs. Ranger shrugged her shoulders.
“I can’t see why women with good husbands and happy homes are so ready
to censure less fortunate women for breaking bonds that are unbearable,”
said her husband. “Women are women’s worst enemies.”
“Sam O’Dowd’s no woman,” exclaimed Jean. “There’s not a woman on top o’
dirt that’d treat any man as he’s treated Sally.”
“I guess it’s about an even stand-off,” rejoined her mother.
“No,” cried Jean. “The conditions are not equal. No woman has the power
to turn her husband out of doors. Even if it is her own house, he is its
lawful master. Women don’t stand any show at all compared with men.”
“Jean is going to-morrow to see Sam O’Dowd’s mother. She can make matters
smooth for Sally if anybody can,” said the Squire.
* * * * *
“The sale of our effects is only two weeks off, John,” said his wife,
when they were alone. “I want to reserve a few things that are sacred.
There’s Baby Jamie’s cradle, that you made from the hollow section of
that old gum-tree that stood in the back pasture. Do you remember how
nicely I lined it with the back breadths of my wedding dress?”
“Could I forget it, Annie?”
“Then there’s my mother’s little old spinning-wheel. It was my
grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s. May I keep it for Mary?”
“It won’t pay to haul such things over the plains, Annie. Better let your
mother keep ’em here till there’s a transcontinental railroad.”
“But that won’t come in my time, John.”
VI
_THE BEGINNING OF A JOURNEY_
The sale of Squire Ranger’s effects proceeded without unnecessary delay.
The sawmill, the first portable structure of its kind ever seen west of
the Wabash River, was eagerly purchased on credit by a waiting customer,
and work at the mill went on without interruption. What a primitive
affair it was! And how like a pygmy it seems as the resident on the
North Pacific’s border recalls its littleness, and contrasts it with the
mammoth mills of Oregon, the lower Columbia, and Puget Sound, which grasp
in their giant arms the dead leviathans of the primeval forest, and set
their teeth to work tearing to pieces the patient upbuilding of the ages
gone!
The motive power of John Ranger’s sawmill consisted of about a dozen
superannuated horses, some spavined, some ringboned, some wind-broken,
all more or less disabled in some way; these were regularly harnessed,
each in his turn, to a set of horizontal radiating shafts attached to a
rotating centre, above which, on a little platform, stood the driver,
with a whip.
“I know it’s wicked to kill the trees and cut them up into boards; it’s
just as wicked as it is to kill pigs and cattle,” was Mary Ranger’s
comment when she first beheld the frantic work of the raging saw, which,
screaming like a demon, ate its way through hearts of oak and hickory,
or tore the slabs from the sides of the black-walnut and sugar-maple
patriarchs with ever unsated ferocity.
But this sawmill had long been a boon to the entire country, as was
evidenced by the multiplication, since its advent, of framed houses,
barns, bridges, schoolhouses, and churches, which suddenly sprang into
vogue, not to mention the many miles of planked highways that rushed into
fashion before the railroad era in the days when “good roads conventions”
were unheard of.
Children born and reared in cities—subject, if of the tenant class, to
frequent changes of habitation, or, if their homes are permanent, to
frequent intervals of travel—can have little idea of the love which
children of the country cherish for the farms and homes to which they are
born, and in which their brief lives are spent. The very soil on which
they have trodden is dear to them, and seems instinct with sentience.
They make a boon companion of everything with which they come in contact,
whether pertaining to the earth, the water, or the air. Their little
gardens are familiar friends; the flowers of the wildwood are loving
entities; the brook that sings in summer through the tangled grass and
sleeps in winter under a bed of ice is always a communing spirit. The
sighing winds chant rhythmic lullabies in the treetops, and the language
of every insect, bird, and beast has, to them, a distinctive meaning. The
blue heavens are their delight, and the passing clouds their friends. The
sun, the moon, and the stars hold converse with them, and the changing
seasons bring to them, each in its turn, peculiar joy.
But, dearly as they loved the old home and its surroundings, the Ranger
children, who had never crossed the boundary of township number twelve,
range three west, in which they were born, looked forward eagerly to
the forthcoming journey. Once only had Mrs. Ranger ventured beyond the
township limits since leaving the Kentucky home of her childhood; and
that was many years before, when she went with her husband to the county
seat to attach her mark to the fateful mortgage, upon which the accruing
interest seemed always to be maturing at the time when she or the
children were the most in need of books or shoes or clothing.
“I wasn’t allowed to learn to write in my childhood,” she falteringly
explained to the notary, when, after affixing her mark, she watched him
as he attached his seal to the document which was to be as a millstone
about her neck forever after. “My father always thought that education
was bad for girls,” she added. “He said if they knew how to write they’d
be forging their husbands’ names and getting their money out of the bank.
And he said, too, that if girls learned to write, they’d be sending love
letters to the boys.”
“It’s never too late to learn,” was the notary’s reply. “If I were you, I
would learn to write when the children learn. You can do it if you try.”
“I’d be glad to, if I could find the time; but it’s hard to learn
anything for one’s own especial benefit with a baby always in one’s arms.
When the children get big enough to learn to write, I’ll try, though.”
And she did; with such success that she never after signed her name with
a cross.
* * * * *
“I’m glad we’ve got that mortgage off our hands at last, Annie,” said her
husband as they counted up the somewhat disappointing returns after the
sale of their personal effects was over.
“But you’re not morally free from it, John, or even legally so. If the
purchaser should fail, the load would then revert to Lije, you know.
Say, John, can’t I deed my little ten-acre farm to my father and mother?
It never cost you anything. I took care of old man Eustis for six long
years; and you know he gave the little farm to me as pay for my services,
absolutely.”
“Haven’t I paid its taxes all along, Annie?”
“And have I earned nothing all this time, my husband?”
“Oh, yes, you’ve earned a living; and you’ve got it as you went along,
haven’t you?”
Mrs. Ranger made no reply, but being silenced was not being convinced.
“Be patient,” said Jean, aside. “I’ll manage it.”
* * * * *
Several pairs of great brown-eyed oxen, with which the children had
become familiar in their days of logging about the sawmill, were easily
trained for the long journey; but others, untamed and terrified, as if
pre-sensing the trials awaiting them through untracked deserts, submitted
to the yoke only under the cruelest compulsion. New wagons, stanchly
built and covered with white canvas hoods, stretched tightly over hickory
bows, were ranged on the lawn, under the naked, creaking branches of
the big elm-tree. Provisions, resembling in quantity the supplies for
a small army, were carted to the front veranda, awaiting shipment down
the Illinois and Mississippi rivers to St. Louis, to be reshipped up the
Missouri to the final point of loading into wagons for crossing the Great
American Desert, as the Great Plains were then known.
Visitors, including friends and relatives from far and near, came to the
dismantled house in great relays, and the business of Squire Ranger’s
office as justice of the peace increased a dozen fold. All this commotion
involved increasing labor for Mrs. Ranger, who faded visibly as she
silently counted the intervening days before the hour of final separation
from her sorrowing parents. If the Squire suffered at the thought of
parting with anybody, he made no sign except to complain of a “pesky
cold” that made his eyes water, which he attributed to the “beastly
climate.”
“The spirit of adventure that inspires my husband to emigrate does not
permit him to foresee danger,” was Mrs. Ranger’s ever-ready reply to the
numerous prophets of evil who came to condole, but got only their labor
for their pains. “I will not try to interfere with his plans. I started
out as a bride to walk the road of life beside him, and I mean to do as I
agreed.”
But the good wife grew thinner and whiter as the days sped on; and when
at last the wagons were all ranged in line, with every yoke of oxen in
place; when the last farewell had been spoken; when the last audible
prayer had ascended heavenward, and the command to move on had been
given,—she sank on her feather bed in the great family wagon and closed
her eyes with a feeling of thankfulness akin to that of the sufferer from
a fatal malady who realizes that his last hour has come.
“‘He giveth His beloved sleep,’” said Mary, softly, as she covered her
mother with a heavy shawl.
* * * * *
It was now the first of April, a fitful, gray, and misty day. A soft
breeze was stirring from the south, and straggling rays of sunlight
struggled through occasional rifts in the straying clouds. The spring
thaw had at last set in. The sticky soil adhered to the feet of man and
beast, and clung in heavy masses to the wheels of wagons.
The dog, Rover, who had always willingly remained at home on watch during
the family’s absence at church or elsewhere, had hidden himself at
starting-time; but he was found waiting in the road when the party was
several miles out on the way, and, when discovered, approached his master
with drooping tail and piteous whine.
There were tears in the eyes of the strong man, of which he was not
ashamed, as he dismounted from the back of Sukie, his favorite mare, and,
stooping, patted the dog affectionately on the head.
“They didn’t fool ’oo, did ’ey, Rovie?” said Bobbie, as he hugged the
dog, unmindful of his muddy coat.
“Come to me, Rover,” exclaimed Mrs. Ranger, who had been refreshed by
her nap. The dog obeyed, and, wet and dirty as he was, attempted to hide
himself among the baggage. But his hopes were blasted by a peremptory
command from his master: “Go back home and stay with grandfather!” The
poor brute jumped, whining, to the ground and affected to obey; but he
reappeared a dozen miles farther on, at the Illinois River’s edge; and
when the ferry-boat, which he was forbidden to enter, was out of reach of
either command or missile, he sat on his haunches on the river-bank and
howled dismally.
“Don’t you think a dog has a soul, daddie?” asked Jean, through her tears.
“How should I know, daughter?” was the husky response. “I’m not yet
certain that a man has a soul.”
VII
_SCOTTY’S FIRST ROMANCE_
The home that was to be the abode of the Ranger family during the journey
was an over-jutting wagon-box,—Harry called it a “hurricane deck,”—made
to fit over the running gear of a substantial wagon, in which a dozen or
more persons might be stowed away at night in crosswise fashion. It was
named “the saloon” by the teamsters, in jocose recognition of its owner’s
well-known teetotal habits, and was assigned to the women and children as
their especial domicile.
“It will be your duty to keep a daily record of our journey, Jean.”
This was the first official order issued by Captain Ranger after he had
been formally elected as commander of the expedition, and was given under
the thickly falling snow, amid the bustle and confusion of making the
first camp.
“What sort of a record?”
“A daily write-up of current events. Here is a brand-new blank-book I
have bought for the purpose. And here’s a portable inkstand, with some
lead pencils, a pocket knife, and a box of pens. I’ve selected you as
scribe because you won the prize in that competitive contest over the
doings of Bismarck.”
“But that was a different proposition, daddie.”
“It’s all in the same line, Jean. You have a record to preserve now. You
must keep your credit good. Look to your laurels, and don’t forget!”
And Jean, partly from innate ambition, but chiefly because she was under
orders from which she knew there could be no appeal, kept, through all
the tedious journey, a diary, from which the chronicler of these pages
proposes to cull such fragments as may fit into the narrative, without
strict regard to chronology, though with due regard to facts.
* * * * *
“We made camp last night in the discomfort of a driving snowstorm,”
wrote the scribe under date of April 2. “But in spite of our sorrow
over our departure from home and loved ones, the most of us were jolly,
and we made the best we could of the situation. To-night, after a day’s
disagreeable wheeling through mud that freezes at night and thaws by day,
making travel nasty, sticky, and tedious, we stopped for camp near an
isolated farmhouse, where the goodwife is disheartened and sick, and the
children are ragged, dirty, and frightened.
“The storm has abated, and the sky is clear. Our teamsters are kneeling
on the ground around our mess-boxes, which are used for tables at
mealtime, and stored in the ends of the wagons when we are moving ahead.”
“There, I can’t think of another word to write.” She closed the book with
a bang.
For many minutes after gathering around the tables, all were too busy
with the supper to make any attempt at conversation.
Beans and bacon, coffee and crackers, and great heaps of stewed fruits,
were reinforced by mountains of steaming flapjacks, which Mary and
Marjorie took turns at baking, their eyes watery from the smoke of the
open fire, and their cheeks reddened by the wind.
“Wonder what’s become o’ Scotty,” said Captain Ranger, as he knelt in the
absent teamster’s place at table and helped himself bountifully.
“He filled our water-buckets and was off like a shot,” said Hal. “He
ought to show up at mealtime. Ah, there he comes.”
“Where’ve you been, Scotty?” asked the Captain. “Here’s plenty of room.
Kneel, and give an account of yourself.”
“So you’re in love, eh, Scotty? and with that pretty widow in the next
camp?”
The questioner was a tall, lanky teamster, answering to the appellation
of Shorty.
“Never in love before,” said Scotty, as he swallowed his coffee with a
gulp.
An uproarious laugh ran around the table.
“Her hair is like the flower o’ Scotia’s broom in springtime, and the
sheen o’ her eyes is like Loch Achray!” exclaimed Scotty, as he passed
his plate for a fresh relay of flapjacks.
“A love affair doesn’t spoil his appetite,” laughed Marjorie.
“I want you all to understand that no falling in love’ll be allowed on
this journey,” said the Captain, dryly. “There’ll be time enough for that
kind o’ nonsense after you get to Oregon and get settled.”
“Love, like death, has all seasons for its own, sir,” retorted Scotty,
with a deferential bow.
“Women and war don’t go together,” replied his employer. “And you’ll find
this journey is a good deal like war before you’re done with it.”
“Everything is fair in both love and war, sir.”
“Excuse me,” said a woman in black, with a low, mellow voice and blond
complexion, who might have heard herself discussed if she had listened.
The clatter around the table stopped instantly.
“We’re in a quandary, mamma and I,” she said, blushing. “Our matches are
damp and won’t burn. I thought perhaps—”
A half-dozen men were on their feet in an instant, and half-a-dozen hands
went suddenly into half-a-dozen pockets, while half-a-dozen blocks of
matches were forthcoming in less than half a minute.
“Here are more than I need, gentlemen, and I thank you ever so much,” she
said, taking the offer from Scotty; and, with a bow and a smile to all,
she was gone.
“The red of her lips is like rubies, the white of her teeth is like
pearls, and her voice is a symphony,” said Scotty, looking after her as
she ran.
“Scotty’s attack is as sudden as it is serious,” laughed Lengthy, a
short, stocky teamster, whose nickname was a ludicrous misfit.
“What freak o’ fate do you s’pose it was that brought that beauty out
here on a journey like this?” asked Yank, a Southern-born teamster, whose
accepted nickname was another palpable misnomer, and who dropped his
_r_’s, like a negro preacher.
“I know!” cried Bobbie, his fingers dripping with molasses. “She came to
meet Scotty.”
The laugh that followed disconcerted the child, who ran, abashed, to his
mother in the family wagon.
“I thought,” exclaimed Sambo,—a gaunt Vermonter, who dropped his _g_’s
as frequently as Yank dropped his _r_’s,—“I thought there’d be several
ladies comin’ along, to keep us company.”
“Can you tell us why Mrs. O’Dowd didn’t join us?” asked Yank, turning
deferentially to the Captain. “I thought we were to have the pleasure
of one woman’s company,—I mean in addition to the ladies present, of
course.”
Jean exchanged furtive glances with her father, who averted his face, and
said: “That’s a conundrum, Yank. Ask me something easy.”
* * * * *
The next noticeable entry in Jean’s diary was made on the fifth of April,
and was as follows:—
“The snow this morning is four inches deep. We camped last night in the
mud and slush, in a narrow lane, after a hard day’s wheeling through the
miry roads. Mother, dear woman, is weary and weak, but daddie got her a
warm room in the farmhouse near us, where we children are allowed to go
sometimes to thaw our marrow-bones by a pleasant fire.
“April 6. Cloudy to-day, with a threat of rain. But mother urges a
forward movement, so Mary and Marjorie are packing the mess-boxes, and
daddie says I must write up this horrid diary. There is nothing to write
about. The country through which we are struggling is swampy, monotonous,
muddy, and level. Cheap, rickety farmhouses are seen at intervals; the
bridges are gone from most of the swollen streams; our way goes through
narrow, muddy lanes, with crooked, tumble-down fences; and we see, every
now and then, a discouraged-looking woman and a lot of half-clad children
peeping through open doors, from the midst of a crowd of half-starved
dogs. Daddie says these frontier people (and dogs) are the forerunners of
all civilization; but I think they’re the embodiment of desolation and
discouragement.
“April 7. The ague has broken out among our teamsters. We stopped
to-night at a farmhouse, where suspicious women treated us like so many
thieves. The whole family were barefoot, and lacked everything but
numbers. Mother says that starvation has aroused their cupidity, and we
mustn’t mind their suspicious airs. They had no feed for sale for the
stock, and no supplies to sell for our table; but there were plenty of
guns and dogs,—the latter a thieving lot,—from which we shall be glad to
escape when we again see morning. Weather and roads no better.
“April 8. Mother quite ill again; but the skies are clear, and she
insists on moving forward.
“April 11. No food for man or beast to be had for love or money. We must
move onward, sick or well.
“April 12. A better-settled region. The scenery is often fine.
Pussy-willows peep at us from marshy edges, and birds are singing in
the budding treetops. Sick folks no better. Bought a liberal supply of
corn for the stock, and a lot of butter, eggs, and chickens for the rest
of us, so we have a feast in prospect. Camped on the edge of a pretty
little village, on a nice green grass-plat. Daddie took us girls to a
prayer-meeting. The good people eyed us askance. Evidently they thought
us freaks. Certainly our slat sunbonnets and soiled linsey-woolsey
dresses were not reassuring.”
* * * * *
The next day, at nightfall, the party reached Quincy, on the Mississippi,
and camped on a flat bit of upland outside of the city’s limits, where
many other wayfarers, like themselves, had halted and encamped.
“Did you notice Scotty?” asked Marjorie, approaching Jean, who sat on a
wagon-tongue, trying to think of something out of the ordinary to jot in
her journal.
“What’s he up to now?”
“He’s been preening his feathers like a turkey-gobbler for the last
half-hour. Guess our pretty widow and her aristocratic mamma have
caught up with our train. Just watch him! See how the ex-scientist,
ex-statesman, ex-orator, and now ex-almost-anything is making a fool of
himself!”
“All people, of both sexes, get a spell of the simples, sooner or later,”
laughed Jean. “Daddie says that when the system is in the right condition
to catch it, one gets it bad.”
“Guess I’ll ride out and look over the town a little, Annie,” said the
Captain to his wife after the family had retired for the night. “I want
to look out a little for our Scotty. He seems to need a guardian.”
Scotty, though a characteristic specimen of the educated Scotchman, was
a loyal adherent of the institutions of his adopted country. He had been
a member of the constitutional conventions of two border States, and was
known as a writer and orator of no mean ability. But, like many another
brilliant man, he had passed his fortieth year without acquiring a home,
a family, or a competence. He was well versed in the “Rise and Fall of
Republics,” and had travelled much in foreign lands,—themes of which he
never tired. But he could never reduce ox-driving to a science.
Captain Ranger rode to the top of the bluffs, where he leisurely
contemplated the scene. Lights reflected from town and river danced and
gleamed, but barely made the darkness visible in the muddy streets.
Church bells rang, steamers whistled, and longshoremen tugged at heavy
loads. Powerful horses propelled great, clumsy freight-wagons through the
unpaved streets. Foot passengers picked their way through slop and mud.
“Railroads will come here some day,” said the Captain to himself. “They
will compete with the river traffic and cripple it. Other towns, like
Chicago, will divert the trade, and there is no telling what the end will
be. What a busy, bustling world it is, anyhow!”
“Halloa, Captain!”
“Well, I’m blanked if it isn’t Scotty!”
“I’ve been to call upon the widows we met in the beginning of our
journey, sir, and I’ve been thinking it would be a handsome thing for you
to do if you’d take them into our company, Captain Ranger.”
“We’ll see about it, Scotty; but I’m afraid you won’t earn your salt if I
let them join us. I s’pose I’ll have to risk it, though.”
VIII
_A BORDER INCIDENT_
The public roads or thoroughfares through which the party floundered when
crossing the sparsely settled counties of western Illinois, which had
noticeably improved during the day or two of travel from the East toward
Quincy, grew almost impassable on the Missouri side of the Mississippi
River. Heavy freight-wagons, each bearing an immense load of merchandise,
chiefly hides and furs from the Northwest Territory, had stirred the mud
in the narrow lane to a seemingly inexhaustible depth; and the long spell
of freezing by night, followed daily by the inevitable thaw, caused the
many unbridged streams to overflow their banks and inundate the wide
wastes of bottom land through which the ox teams were compelled to wander
blindly, in continual danger of disaster. But the most disagreeable
experiences resulted from the frequent snow-storms, which generally
occurred at camping-time, accompanied by chilling winds and intermittent
falls of rain or sleet, covering the earth with a glare of ice.
“When I get to heaven, I mean to ask Saint Peter to assign all cooks to
high seats,” said Jean one evening, as, balancing a tray laden with tin
cups and saucers, she paused above the heads of the men kneeling at the
mess-boxes, and in apparent innocence upset a steaming cup upon the head
of Yank.
“No harm done, I assure you, Miss Rangeah. Don’t mention it!” he said,
affecting not to feel the burn at the back of his neck, whereat Jean grew
repentant.
“Do you s’pose Saint Peter will pay any heed to the request of a slip of
a girl like you?” asked Hal.
“I’ll not be a slip of a girl when I go through the gates o’ heaven, but
a mature matron, famous and honored.”
* * * * *
“We are in a slave State now,” wrote Jean, under date of April 16; “and
from my limited experience I am forced to conclude that slavery is more
deteriorating in its effects upon the white people we meet than it is
upon the blacks. The primitive cultivating of the soil we saw in central
Illinois, where the white men do their own farming, was bad enough, God
knows; but the shiftless, aimless, happy-go-lucky work of the Missouri
‘niggers,’ as they style themselves, is even worse. The white men we
see at times are idle, pompous, and lazy. The white women are idle and
apathetic; and the children are aimless and discouraged. Daddie says
slavery is wrong, and no contingency can make it right; but I notice that
he doesn’t propose any remedy.”
* * * * *
Prairie schooners were not known as “ships of the desert” then, for
Joaquin Miller had not yet sought or acquired fame; and no Huntington
or Holladay had made a transcontinental railway track, or tunnelled the
sierras of the mighty West to open the way for the iron horse. Even the
overland stage was an improvement as yet unknown; for Holladay had not
yet established his relay stations, or sent his intrepid drivers out
among the savages as heralds of approaching civilization.
“Daddy says humanity’s a hog,” was the leader in Jean’s next entry in
her diary. “The weather continued so bad, mother was so wan and weak,
and the stock were so nearly starved, that he decided to stop over for
a day or two near a farmhouse and barnyard, where there seemed a chance
to purchase food for man and beast. But we were glad to move on after
a rather brief experience. The farmer doubled the price of his hay and
grain every morning after ‘worship,’ reminding those of us who could not
choose but hear his daily dole of advice to God, of Grandpa Ranger’s
story of a planter and merchant he knew in his youth, of whom it was said
that he would call his slaves to their devotions in the morning with a
preamble like this: ‘Have you wet the leather? Have you sanded the sugar?
Have you put meal in the pepper and chicory in the coffee? Have you
watered the whiskey? Then come in to prayers!’”
The necessities of these farmers were born of isolation; and the
opportunities for barter and dicker with passing emigrants stirred the
acquisitive spirit within them into vigorous action. The prices of their
hitherto unsalable commodities went up to unheard-of figures, increasing
in geometrical progression. But Captain Ranger, having created a market
in the remote country places in Illinois for supplies of coffee, tea,
calico, and unbleached cotton cloth, had prepared himself at Quincy with
such commodities, and was able to adjust his trade somewhat to the law of
supply and demand.
* * * * *
Oh, those teamsters of the plains! No jollier crowd of brave,
enduring, accommodating men ever cracked cruel whips over the backs of
long-enduring oxen, or plodded more patiently than they beside the slowly
moving wagons, as, wading often over shoe-tops through the muck and mire
of the Missouri roads of early springtime, they jollied one another
and cracked their whips and sang. Each misfit nickname was accepted as
a joke, and none of the men inquired as to the origin of his peculiar
cognomen. But Hal, being more inquisitive than they, asked troublesome
questions of his sisters, who were in the secret.
“Better tell him, girls,” said their mother. “He’ll be in honor bound to
keep the secret then. Won’t you, dear?”
“Jean did it,” said Marjorie.
“Then suppose you confess,” said Hal.
“It was this way,” she explained after a pause of mock seriousness. “The
first night we were in camp, after we had washed the dishes, it occurred
to me to write each teamster’s name and paste it to the bottom of his
plate. I didn’t know the real name of one of ’em from Adam’s, so I wrote
them down as Scotty, Limpy, Yank, Shorty, Sawed-off, and so on. We didn’t
intend to perpetrate a misfit, but a joke, and we struck both. Scotty
got the correct title, though it merely happened so. But you just watch
’em! Limpy’s as straight as an Indian; Sawed-off stands six feet two
in his socks; Lengthy is no taller when he stands up than when he lies
down; Yank is a characteristic slave-owner; and Sambo is an ingrained
abolitionist!”
“We couldn’t have made such a lot o’ misfits if we had tried a week,”
said Mary. “But the men all think Hal did it; so the suspicion doesn’t
fall on us; and you get the credit for being somewhat of a wag, Mr. Hal.”
“It’s nothing new for men or boys to take the credit for what their
sisters do,” said Jean, as Hal strode away, satisfied that in protecting
his sisters from a piece of folly, by accepting it as his own, he was
acting the part of a man. “Adam set the example; and where would Herschel
have been if he hadn’t had a sister?”
“Adam might have been in a box if he couldn’t have had Eve,” laughed
Marjorie; “for there would then have been nobody to raise Cain.”
“Or the Ranger family,” added Jean.
* * * * *
Several days of tedious, laborious travel brought the wanderers into an
open, sparsely timbered, almost unsettled part of the State of Missouri.
The snow and sleet gave way to brighter skies, the roads and sloughs were
drying up, and the higher grounds were gradually arraying themselves in
robes of green and gold.
“Here is vacant land, and lots of it,” said Mary, as she viewed the
virgin prospect of a mighty settlement in undisguised admiration. “This
is a beautiful world!” and she sighed deeply, her face toward the rising
sun.
“Don’t look backward,” cried Jean. “Remember Lot’s wife.”
“There’s no use in trying to look backward,” urged Hal. “Dad will never
halt till he lands us on the western shore of the continent, on the
eastern hem of the Pacific Ocean. He says this country’s too old for him.
The wild turkeys are all killed off, or scared out o’ sight; the deer and
elk are gone for good; and the country’s played out.”
“Wait a few years, and there’ll be railroads gridironing this whole great
valley of the Mississippi,” said Jean. “There’ll be towns and cities
springing up in a hundred places. Farms and orchards and handsome country
homes will cover these rolling prairies. The native groves will be more
than quadrupled by cultivation, and schoolhouses and churches will spring
into existence everywhere.”
“I wish you’d talk like this to your father! Won’t you, Jean?” asked Mrs.
Ranger.
“You couldn’t hire him to live in a slave State!” cried Jean.
“The Reverend Thomas Rogers might manage to get this far on the way
toward the setting sun without much money,” smiled Mrs. Ranger,
meaningly. “The children favor our stopping here, on Missouri soil,” she
added, as her husband joined the group. “Don’t you think the idea a good
one, John?”
“What! And let the word go back among our people at home that we’d
flunked? No! I’d die first, and then I wouldn’t do it,” exclaimed her
husband, petulantly.
Mrs. Ranger burst into tears.
“There, there, Annie! Don’t worry. But don’t ask me to settle, with my
children, in a slave State. Father left Kentucky when I was a boy to get
away from slavery and its inevitable accompaniment of poor white trash.
There is an irrepressible conflict between freedom and every form of
involuntary servitude that exists under the sun. This nigger business
will lead to a bloody war long before Uncle Sam is done with it, and I
doubt if even war will settle it.”
“But Oregon may come into the Union as a slave State, John. You know that
the extension of slavery is the chief theme that is agitating Congress
now.”
“I’ll have a chance to fight the curse in Oregon, Annie. But it is a
settled condition here. I’ll fight it to the bitter end, if I get a
chance!” He strode away to look after the cattle and men.
“Dear, patient mother!” cried Jean, stroking her mother’s cheek tenderly.
“Your head is as clear as a bell. But there’s a whole lot o’ common-sense
in what daddie says, too. We’ll soon have settled weather; then you won’t
mind travelling. We all think you’ll be well and strong as soon as we get
settled in Oregon.”
“Maybe so, if I could only live to get there,” faltered the feeble woman.
“But—”
“But what, mother?”
“Nothing. I was only thinking.”
Jean’s heart sank. “You must get to bed, mother dear,” she said lovingly.
The Ranger children, tired out with the fatigue and excitement of the
day, were soon locked in the deep sleep of healthy youth and vigor. Not
so Mrs. Ranger. The regular breathing of her sleeping loved ones soothed
her nerves, but she seemed preternaturally awake.
A gentle breeze stirred the white wagon-hood overhead. Sukie, who was
tethered near, neighed gently as Mrs. Ranger spoke her name, and came
closer to be stroked.
“Is de Cap’n heah?” asked a dusky figure with a child on its hip, as it
edged its way between the mare and the wagon-wheel.
“He’s out with the cattle at present. Is there anything I can do for
you?”
“Hide me, quick! De houn’s is aftah me, honey. I’ve jes’ waded de crick,
and dey’ve lost de trail. Quick, missus; an’ I’ll sarve ye forever!”
The low baying of the bloodhounds proclaimed that they were again on the
trail.
“Climb in here! Be quick!” exclaimed Mrs. Ranger, making room for the
quaking fugitive. “I’ve never tried to sleep with a nigger and her baby,
but I can stand it if I have to,” she said to herself, as the refugee
took the place assigned to her.
* * * * *
“What in thunder are you up to now?” asked her husband when he looked
in upon his wife and children in the morning and discovered the dusky
intruder.
“Trying to help you to circumvent the institution you are so ready to
fight, which, as you say, is wrong, and no contingency can make right,”
replied his wife, her cheeks and eyes aglow with mingled satisfaction and
excitement.
IX
_THE CAPTAIN DEFENDS THE LAW_
“Don’t you know it’s against the laws of your country to harbor a runaway
nigger?” asked the Captain, in genuine alarm. “We’ll never get off o’
Missouri soil in this world if we’re caught hiding this wench and her
pickaninny among our traps. She’s got to get away from here in a hurry.”
“So far as the laws go, I don’t care a rap, John. I, nor no other woman,
ever took a hand in making any of ’em. And as for Missouri soil, it’s
good enough for anybody. I’m quite enamored of it; and I feel perfectly
willing to stay here as long as I live.”
“I don’t want to make no trouble for nobody, massa,” sobbed the fugitive,
peeping from her covert like a beast at bay. “De missus done tuk keep o’
me ’dout ’siderin’ any consikenses. Didn’t ye, honey?”
“There was nothing else I could do,” said Mrs. Ranger, firmly, though her
cheeks blanched with an unspoken fear.
“Dey was goin’ to sell me down Souf, an’ keep my coon for a body-servant
for his own pappy’s new bride dat’s a-comin’ to de plantation nex’ week.
Wusn’t dey, dawlin’?” holding aloft her mulatto offspring, who blinked at
the rising sun. “’Fo’ God, massa, I won’t make a speck o’ trouble. I’ll
jest keep a hidin’ till we git across de Missouri Ribbah. Take me ’long
to Oregon, an’ ye won’t nebbah be sorry.”
“I’ve already agreed to take along one widow and her babies,” said the
Captain, exchanging glances with Jean. “It doesn’t seem possible to add
to the number.”
“Jes’ le’ me ride a hidin’ in a wagon till I get across de Missouri
Ribbah, massa! I kin take keer o’ myself an’ my pickaninny too, if you’ll
turn me loose among de Injuns.”
“It is the slaveholding, free American white man that the poor creature’s
afraid of,” said Mrs. Ranger, with a bitter smile.
Again the deep baying of the bloodhounds betokened the finding of the
trail.
“Climb back into the wagon, quick,” cried the Captain, “and take care
that you keep out o’ sight! Deluge the wagon-wheel and all around it
with water, gals. Don’t let the wench put her nose out, Annie. Hang the
luck! When it comes to such a pass that a runaway wench would rather
trust herself and her brat among the red savages of the plains than
among her white owners in a free country, I get ashamed of a white man’s
government. What’s the wench’s name?”
“She said it was Dugs.”
“The devil!”
“Don’t swear, John. She didn’t name herself.”
“And the name of the coon?”
“Geo’ge Washin’t’n, sah. I named him for de faddah o’ de kentry. He’s as
han’some a coon as ebber had a white daddy. Ain’t ye, honey?” And the
mother held him close. “Yo’s a flower o’ slavery, ain’t ye, dawlin’?” a
hidden meaning in her voice.
Again the deep baying of the bloodhounds was heard. But they were taking
the back trail. The fugitive laughed.
“De way we larn ’em dat trick is a niggah’s secret,” she said, as she
again hid herself and child.
“My massa didn’t use to b’lieve in slavery, missus,” she said, as the
baying of the dogs grew faint and distant. “When massa first ’herited
his slaves, he used to tell us he’d set us free. But he got a habit o’
holdin’ on to us, an’ it jist growed on him. It was like de whiskey
habit. It got fastened on him good an’ ha’d, and he didn’t talk ’bout
manumittin’ us no mo’. He didn’t want to sell me, he said, but I was
prope’ty, an’ times got bad, an’ he was ’bleeged to have money to pay his
debts. His new wife’s ’spensive, awful, an’ he had to sell some o’ de
niggahs. If he’d sol’ me an’ Geo’dy Wah too, I wouldn’t ’a’ runned away.
But when he said he’d sell me, an’ keep my coon to be his new wife’s
niggah, I couldn’t stan’ it nohow, so I scooted!” and the negress laughed
heartily.
“Do you think you can hide her for a week, Annie? We’ll be across the
Missouri River, by that time.”
“I’ll do my best, John. We’re running a terrible risk, though. Sometimes,
when I think of the sins of this so-called free government, all committed
in the name of Liberty, I long to turn rebel, and do my best to destroy
it, root and branch.”
“I had a husban’ once, suh. But massa tuk a liken’ to me, so he sol’ him
down Souf,” said the fugitive.
“And this baby?”
“Is my massa’s own coon. Massa wouldn’t ’a’ sol’ him nohow.”
“Be quick!” cried Jean, her breath hot with indignation. “Hide yourself!
You mustn’t let the teamsters see you here. They’re coming in with the
cattle now.”
“Gimme some quilts an’ blankets, honey. Dah! Hol’ ’em up, so! Now lemme
make an Injun wickiup in one end o’ dis yah wagon. Geo’ge Washin’t’n ’ll
be still as a lamb. Won’t ye, my putty ’ittle yallow coon?”
The baby, with its tawny skin, blue eyes, and blackish-brown, tangled
curls, looked elfish as he nestled close to his mother’s breast and gazed
affrighted into her turban-shaded eyes.
“Sh-sh-sh!” cried Jean; “the men are almost here. Keep close to your den
and be very quiet.”
* * * * *
Day after day passed wearily along; but if the teamsters suspected aught,
they made no sign. And day after day the teams wended their way westward
without betraying the commission of this crime against the commonwealth
of the great new State of Missouri and the free government of the United
States of America, which it would have been base flattery to call a
misdemeanor; as its perpetrators would have learned to their cost if they
had been caught in the act.
* * * * *
“You don’t seem as happy as formerly,” said Captain Ranger to his wife
at the close of a long and trying day. “If the risk we’re running by
harboring that runaway nigger is making you uneasy, we can turn her out.
A man’s first duty is to his own flesh and blood.”
“It isn’t that, John. The woman is no trouble; and her baby’s so afraid
of bloodhounds that she keeps him as quiet as a mouse. I’m willing to
risk my life to get them both away from their white owners and out into
the Indians’ country, where they may have at least comparative freedom. I
am not afraid.”
“Then what is the matter, dear?”
She toyed caressingly with his hair and beard, but said nothing. They
were seated on a log by the roadside, and a laughing rivulet sprawled at
their feet.
“Speak, Annie; don’t hesitate. I can hear your heart beat. What’s the
matter?”
“You remember my little farm, John? It’s only ten acres, you know.”
“Yes; what of it?”
“You won’t be angry, John?”
“Of course not. What about it?”
“I want to deed the place over to my mother before we leave the State o’
Missouri.”
His manner changed instantly.
“I thought that matter was settled,” he said tersely. “Can’t you let me
have a little peace?”
“I have held my peace as long as my conscience will let me, dear. You
didn’t settle anything about it. You merely put me off, you know.”
“Well?”
A man can put a world of meaning into a monosyllable sometimes.
“I want you to let me deed that piece of property to my mother. If the
deed were made to my father, and she should outlive him, she’d be only
allowed to occupy it free from rent for one year after his death; but if
it is made hers absolutely, and he should outlive her, he’ll be allowed
to have a home and get his living off it as long as he lives. You see, it
makes a difference whether it is a cow or an ox that is gored,” and she
smiled grimly.
“The women are all getting their heads turned over the question of
property,” said Captain Ranger to himself as he watched the rivulet
playing at his feet.
“Jean’s been putting this into your head, Annie,” he said after a painful
silence.
“The child has a strong sense of justice, inherited from you, John. You
know she is wonderfully like you.”
“Yes, yes, Annie. I wish she had been a boy instead o’ Hal. She’d have
made a rackin’ good lawyer.”
“I’ll admit that she advised me to urge you to make the deed, John.”
“Very well; we’ll see about it sometime, Annie” and he arose to go.
Mrs. Ranger’s heart sank.
“Why is it that men who are proverbially just and upright in their
dealings with their fellow-men are so often derelict in duty where women,
especially their own wives, are concerned?” she asked herself as she
tottered by his side in silence.
The next morning found her unable to rise. A racking cough, which had
disturbed her all through the night, was followed at daybreak by a
burning fever. Her husband, who had slept like a top in an adjoining
tent, was startled when he saw the ravages the night had left upon her
pinched, white face.
“You caught cold last night, darling,” he said, as he prescribed a simple
remedy. “You ought not to have been sitting out in the night air.”
“That didn’t hurt me, John.”
“Then it is the apprehension you suffer on account o’ that wench that is
making you sick.”
“No, John; it isn’t that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“Ask Jean. I have nothing more to say.”
But there was no time for further parleying. The breakfast was ready, and
the hurry of preparation for departure was the theme of the hour.
* * * * *
“We reached camp in a pouring rain last night and pitched our tents, amid
much discomfort, on the outskirts of the little town of St. Joseph,”
wrote Jean on the morning of the fifth of May. “But I haven’t much time
for you, my journal, for there are other things to claim attention,” and
she shut the book with the usual impatient bang.
“Got any blank deeds along with you, daddie?” she asked, after it was
announced that they were to be ready to break camp the next morning.
“Yes; why?”
“Because we must have that deed of Grandma Robinson’s all ready for
mother to acknowledge before a notary in the morning, as we go through
town on our way to the ferry.”
“Your mother isn’t able to attend to any business.”
“She isn’t able to put it off, daddie dear.”
“Very well; I’ll see about it.”
“But I want the blank form now, so I can have it all ready when we go
through town. Mother has the original deed, and I can easily duplicate
it. I’ll search for a blank among your papers, if you don’t object.”
“You have no idea how this little act of justice will help mother to
regain her health,” said Mary. “She’s been haunted by a fear that you’d
put it off till it would be too late.”
Captain Ranger did not reply; but his silence was considered as consent,
and Jean hurried away to prepare the deed.
“I’ve been dreaming about an island somewhere in mid-ocean,” said
Marjorie, “where women could hold their own earnings, just as men do in
the United States; where they had full liberty to help the men to make
the laws, for which they paid their full quota of taxes, just as the
women do in Missouri and Illinois and, for aught I know, in Oregon.”
“I’ve paid the taxes on that ten-acre farm for a dozen years,” said her
father.
“Yes, out of mother’s income from it,” retorted Marjorie. “It has always
been rented, you know.”
The subject was dropped for the nonce, though John Ranger did not feel
wholly at ease, he hardly realized why. But the next day, as the train
was moving through the principal street on its way to the river-front,
he stopped his team hard by a notary’s office and tenderly assisted his
wife to alight. Here, with her thin and trembling fingers, Annie Ranger
affixed her signature to her last earthly deed of conveyance, her eyes
beaming with joy.
“Are you satisfied now?” asked her husband, as he lifted her to her seat
in the wagon, where she watched Harry rushing away to the post-office
with a big envelope containing the precious deed.
“Yes, dear; and I am so glad I didn’t have to make my mark! When I get to
Oregon, I’ll manage somehow to earn the money to pay you what I owe on my
taxes, John.”
“Don’t speak of that,” her husband exclaimed, feeling half ashamed of
himself, for a reason he did not divine.
“Then you’ll never try to hold those old tax receipts as a lien on the
property?”
“Nonsense, Annie! Do you think I’m a brute beast?”
“No, darling. I would to God all men were as good as you are, my own
dear, precious husband.”
* * * * *
They were nearing the Missouri River now, and in the rush that ensued,
the family had no opportunity for further exchange of confidences for
many hours.
“Look!” cried Marjorie, after the last loaded wagon had been crowded on
to the big ferry-boat, and they had started to a point several miles
up the river to make a landing on the opposite bank. “There’s a posse
of officers. They’re after Dugs, I know they are, ’cause they’ve got
bloodhounds with ’em, and they’re signalling the boat to stop and come
back.”
“She can’t do it,” said the captain of the ferry, after a hurried
conference with the captain of the train, as he suspiciously thrust his
closed hand into the breeches pocket over his hip.
“You can come out of hiding now, Sally O’Dowd,” exclaimed Captain Ranger,
as soon as the last team was safely up the opposite bank.
“I thought it was Dugs they were after,” said Mary.
“So ’twas; and me too,” cried the grass widow, as she jumped to the
ground, surrounded by her three children. “Sam O’Dowd was one o’ the
posse. I saw him. He couldn’t have taken me; but he was after my babies.”
She hugged her children, as she laughed and wept by turns in a transport
of joy.
“Don’t cry, Sally,” said the Captain, coaxingly. “You’re in the Indian
country, safe and sound.”
“Before Sam can get a requisition from the Governor of Illinois to
reclaim your babies, and before the Governor o’ Missouri can give that
party o’ slave-catchers the power to arrest Dugs and her coon, we’ll have
you out under the protection of the Indians!” said Mrs. Ranger, with a
meaning smile.
X
_THE CAPTAIN MAKES A DISTINCTION_
“I thought it was arranged that Sally was to join us at Quincy, on the
Mississippi,” said Captain Ranger, after they were safely landed in the
Indians’ territory.
“That was the agreement between Jean and myself,” interposed the
frightened fugitive, still holding her babies close; “but I overheard
a conversation at St. Louis that changed my plans. I was in hiding,
down among the wharf-rats and niggers on the river-bank, in a cheap
hash-house, half scow and half log cabin. The walls were thin, and I
couldn’t sleep much, so I heard most everything that was going on, out o’
doors and in. And one night by the help of the good Lord I overheard a
voice that I knew was Sam’s. He was telling a pal that he was hunting his
runaway wife. He said she had stolen his babies, and he meant to get ’em,
dead or alive.”
“I thought you’d led him off on an altogether different scent,” exclaimed
Jean.
“So did I. But it appears that his mother got on the scent somehow, and
betrayed me. I don’t know why she did it, for she was over-anxious to be
rid of the children. But I suppose she was moved by an impulse of spite
or revenge. I heard Sam say he’d overhaul us at Quincy, so I had good
reason to change my route.”
“You had a close call, Mrs. O’Dowd!” exclaimed the Captain, earnestly.
“I don’t know as he could have put me in limbo for harboring you, but
he could have made it go hard with me for hiding the children. I hate a
law-breaker; but what is a fellow to do in such a case?”
“God has been merciful to me, Squire. I felt all along that I would get
away safe and sound.”
“Wouldn’t God have done a better job to have saved you in the first
place?” asked the Captain, dryly.
“How did you get money to pay your travelling expenses?” asked Mary.
“I’ve a confession to make to you and Mrs. Ranger, Captain. Will you
promise not to scold?”
“I’ll know better what to promise after I’ve learned the provocation.
Don’t be afraid to tell the truth. Speak out. Don’t mind the gals.”
“I stole three hundred dollars—it was my own money—from Mother O’Dowd,”
she whispered. “It didn’t seem so very wicked. She got my home without
any equivalent, you know.”
“Oh, Sally! How could you?” asked Mrs. Ranger, her cheeks blanching.
“Do you think it was wicked to take my own money and my own children,
when I had the opportunity?”
“It was a theft, certainly, under the law; and it is always wrong to
steal,” retorted Mrs. Ranger.
“We must uphold the majesty of the law, if necessary, at the muzzle of
our guns!” said the Captain, loftily.
“How about Dugs and her coon?” asked Jean, with a silvery laugh.
“That was different. Slavery, as I have often said before, is wrong, and
no contingency can make it right.”
“You are making a distinction where there is no perceptible difference,
except in the matter of complexion,” exclaimed Mrs. Ranger.
“Did Dugs, the slave, have money?” asked Mrs. O’Dowd.
“Dugs hasn’t taken me into her confidence,” said the Captain. “What in
creation are we to do with you all?”
“There’ll be a way, John; don’t worry,” said his wife. “‘Trust in the
Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed.’”
“Do you know,” said Sally, turning to the Captain, “that the pretty
little blonde in black, whom I see over yonder, is a jewel? I met her on
the street this morning, on her way to the ferry, with her mother and her
carriage and wagons and drivers. I was getting desperate with the fear
that I couldn’t overtake you; and I knew there was no time to be lost.
So I told her my story. I may have exaggerated somewhat, for I told her
you had agreed to take me and the babies to Oregon. I said I had been
detained (which was true) and I must overtake you before you crossed the
river. She didn’t wait to ask a question, but bundled us all into her
carriage without a word.”
“Didn’t I tell you you could trust my daddie?” asked Jean, aside. “He’s a
whole lot better than he thinks he is.”
“Father thinks he is a stickler for the law,” said Mary, with a chuckle.
* * * * *
Indians came and went in great numbers around and into the company’s
first night’s camp on the plains, sometimes growing insolent in their
persistent demands for food and articles of clothing, but on the whole
peaceable and friendly. Every man, woman, and child was under orders to
give them no cause for offence, the Captain hoping, by example, to disarm
hostility. But he soon learned that this liberal policy brought hordes
of beggars; and the necessity of carefully guarding their freight was
made apparent the next morning, when they found their breakfast supplies
had been stolen, and with them the cooking utensils. The Captain found
it necessary to send a messenger back to St. Joseph to purchase fresh
supplies before they could go on.
The next day’s drive over the beautiful prairie was without unusual
incident. The roads were good, the soil rich, and the undulating
landscape perfect.
“Lengthy and Sawed-off are bringing in a buffalo,” cried Hal.
“We had one yesterday,” said Mrs. Ranger. “The game ought not to be
slaughtered in this wasteful manner. You ought to stop it, John.”
“Men are still in a state of savagery,” replied her husband.
“The instinct to kill is as strong in us as it was in the days of
Agamemnon,” said Scotty.
“Or the Cæsars,” exclaimed the little widow.
“We’ll need this meat for food before we get to Oregon,” said Mrs.
Ranger, surveying the huge carcass of the fallen monarch thoughtfully.
“We must cut the flesh into strips and dry it, Indian fashion, in the
sun.”
“But we can’t stop to dry it, Annie,” exclaimed her husband.
“We needn’t stop, John. We can get the men to cut it into strips while
in camp. Here is a ball of strong cord. We can string the strips of meat
on the cord and festoon it along the outsides of the wagon covers.”
“A woman is a born provider,” exclaimed Scotty. “We men may take to
ourselves the credit for the care of women and children, but we’d soon be
on the road to starvation if it were not for the protecting care of the
mother sex, to help us out.”
Mrs. Ranger, pleased with the praises of her family and the teamster,
sank back on her pillows and slept fitfully.
“It pays a mother to rear a family of loyal children,” said Mrs. O’Dowd
to Mrs. McAlpin, with whom she had become quite intimate. “I’d rather
be an honored mother, like Mrs. Ranger, than be a Queen Elizabeth or a
Madame de Staël.”
* * * * *
“I believe I’ll reconnoitre a little, Annie, if you don’t mind,” said the
Captain, after the camp was still. “I’d like to study the lay o’ the land
from the adjacent heights. You won’t miss me?”
“No, John. Or, I mean, I won’t mind it. You must learn, sooner or later,
to depend upon yourself for company, my dear. And you’d better practise a
little beforehand.”
“What do you mean, Annie?”
“Can’t you see that I’ll not be able to finish this journey, John?”
“Nonsense, Annie! Just be patient till we get to Oregon. I mean to build
you a pretty room, away from the noise of the household, where you’ll
enjoy the fruits of your labors. I’ve hired Dugs to be your body-servant
during the remainder of your days.”
“I’ll change her name, John. I’ll have nobody around me that answers to
the name of Dugs. It isn’t a good name for a dog.”
“What’ll you call her?”
“Susannah.”
“What if she objects?”
“She’s already agreed to the change, if it suits you and the girls.”
John Ranger laughed.
“So-long!” he cried, and galloped away to a point overlooking a bend in
the river, where he loosened the reins and allowed the mare to nibble the
tender herbage, which, tempted by the sunshine, was clothing the moist
earth in a covering of grass and buttercups.
“O life,” he cried, “what a mystery you are! How puny, yet how mighty!
The living rain comes down in silent majesty upon the sleeping earth; the
living sunshine melts the ice and snow; and the living earth, awakening
from her season of hibernation, answers back to rain and sun with a power
of reproduction that defies the mighty law of gravitation, and sends
outward and up toward the living sky the living vegetation that sustains
the living man. O sky, all a-twinkle with your myriads of stars, how
inscrutable you are in your infinitude! And how like a worm of the dust
is man, who has no power to hold in the precious body of even the woman
he loves the mystery of existence, of which Creation is the only master!”
Below him, so far away that it gleamed like a silver ribbon in the
starlight, ran the muddy Missouri, carrying in its turbid waves the
_débris_ of the Mandan district, and bearing on its troubled breast the
throng of river craft at whose little windows hundreds of lights were
twinkling, like diamonds on parade. Beyond gleamed the moving steamers
and their accompanying hosts of lesser boats, now nestling close to the
water’s edge, and now climbing in irregular fashion toward the uplands at
the town of St. Joseph; and, far beyond, his mental eyes beheld the homes
of his own and his Annie’s beloved parents.
“I do wonder if it is really wrong for me to leave them in their old
age, and take Annie away also,” he said to himself, half audibly, as he
continued his gaze over the dim expanse of silence that surrounded him on
every hand.
There was no answer. He gave Sukie the rein and bowed his head upon his
hands, and wept. How long he remained alone, absorbed in the mingled
emotions that possessed him, he did not know. He took no note of time,
and Sukie moved leisurely over the plain, daintily cropping the tender
grass.
“I was ambitious, selfish, and exacting,” he exclaimed at last, as a
sharp gust of wind slapped him in the face. “Annie doesn’t complain; but
she is fading from my sight. It is all my fault. If she could be happy,
she would soon be well. I wonder if I ought not to take her back to her
father and mother and her childhood’s home. Everybody would laugh; but
what should I care? Are not the life and happiness of my wife worth more
to me than all the world’s approval?” Then, after a long silence, he
tightened the reins and said: “Come, Sukie; let’s go back to camp. Right
or wrong, I must go ahead. I’ve burned my bridges behind me.”
As he expected, Scotty was found sitting in the midst of an audience at
Mrs. McAlpin’s camp-fire. He was discoursing on his travels in Egypt, and
had collected about him quite a crowd.
“The earth is old, very, very old,” the teamster was saying. He arose to
make room for Captain Ranger, as he passed the reins to Jean, who, with
Mary and Marjorie, had been an enraptured listener. “The comparative
topography of Central America and northern Africa excites the liveliest
speculation. When I was in Darien, I found many features among the ruins
abounding in the jungles of the isthmus, strikingly similar to those
one sees in the land of the Pyramids. True, the analogy is not always
apparent, because the almost total absence of rain in Egypt is exchanged
for an almost total lack of dry skies in Panama and Yucatan. Science
scoffs at my assumptions, because I cannot prove them; but I’d bet a
million if I had it, and wait for the fact to be proven—as it surely will
be some day—that there was once a continuous continent between the homes
of the early Pharaohs and those of a prehistoric people who inhabited the
two Americas.”
“I’ve often reached a similar conclusion myself when visiting the
prehistoric scenes of both hemispheres,” said Mrs. McAlpin. “Sometime,
not so very remote in the history of the planet, there must have been a
sudden and awful cataclysm, such as might result from a change in the
inclination of the earth’s axis, of which history can as yet give no
authentic account.”
“Then the fabled Atlantis may not be so much of a fable, after all,”
exclaimed Mary.
“Do you suppose any of you know what you are talking about?” asked
Captain Ranger.
“The world has scarcely yet begun to read the testimony of the air, the
earth, the water, and the rocks,—especially of this Western Continent,”
said Scotty, with a respectful bow to his captain.
“That’s true,” remarked Mrs. McAlpin, rising to end the interview.
“Travel in any direction broadens and enlightens anybody who has eyes to
see or ears to hear.”
“Or a soul to think,” echoed Jean.
“Say, Scotty, have you watered your steers?” asked Captain Ranger, in a
sarcastic tone.
“By Jove! I forgot. Good-evening, ladies!” The teamster turned away,
crestfallen.
“Excuse me, madam; I didn’t intend to be rude,” said the Captain, as
he paused to say good-night; “but we’ve embarked on a journey in which
theories must be set aside for duties sometimes,—that is, if we’re ever
to see Oregon.”
XI
_MRS. McALPIN SEEKS ADVICE_
The next forenoon Captain Ranger rode up alongside the carriage of Mrs.
McAlpin and her mother, in which Jean was posing as driver and guest, and
said: “I hope I gave you no offence in speaking as I did to Mr. Burns
last night.”
“No offence at all, Captain. Don’t mention it; you were simply
discharging your duty. But”—and Mrs. McAlpin hesitated a little—“would
you mind exchanging your mount with Jean for a little while? I am quite
sure she will enjoy a canter on the back of Sukie, and I wish to counsel
with you a little. I am sorry to impose upon your good nature.”
Mrs. Benson took little notice of the Captain or of her daughter, but
leaned back on the cushions, apparently absorbed in a book.
“I want your candid opinion,” said Mrs. McAlpin. “Do you consider the
marriage ceremony infallible? Is it an unpardonable sin to break it,
except for a nameless reason? I have an object in asking this question
that is not born of mere curiosity.”
“Nothing of human origin is infallible, madam; and, for aught I can see
to the contrary, nothing is infallible anywhere.”
“Do you believe it is better to break a bad bargain than to keep it?”
“That depends upon circumstances.”
“Why do you evade my question?”
“Because I can’t see what you’re driving at.”
“Then I’ll come at once to the point. Suppose you had been born a woman?”
“That isn’t a supposable case.”
“But we’ll let it rest for the present as if it were. Suppose you
were born to be a woman,—we’ll put it that way for the sake of
illustration,—and suppose, while you were yet a child, you had been
married to a man many years your senior—married just to please somebody
else—in defiance of your own judgment or desires?”
“Millions of women are married in that way every year, madam. Look at
India, at China, at Turkey, and at many modern homes, even in England and
America! It would seem to be the exception and not the rule where women
get the husbands of their choice. I know it is the fashion to pretend
they do; for a woman has to become desperately weary of her bargain
before she’ll own up honestly to a matrimonial mistake.”
“But suppose one of those women had been yourself; don’t you think if you
had been so married in childhood, that you would have rebelled openly as
soon as you reached the years of discretion?”
“Nonsense, Daphne!” interrupted Mrs. Benson. “You harp forever on a
single string. Suppose you discuss the weather, for a change.”
“There are points on which my estimable mother and myself do not agree,”
said the daughter, with a sad smile. “Don’t mind her, please. I have
learned that you are a wise and just man, and I am in need of advice.
What would you do if, although you had obeyed the letter of the human
law, you knew in your own soul that your marriage was a sin?”
“Don’t talk like that in my presence, Daphne! I cannot bear it!”
exclaimed her mother, petulantly.
“When I left the States I hoped to get away from everybody’s domestic
troubles,” said the Captain, earnestly. “Please don’t tell me about
yours—if you have any—unless it is in my power to assist you.”
They had reached a narrow and rocky grade, where careful driving was
necessary to avoid disaster.
“We must turn aside here, ladies,” the Captain exclaimed suddenly, as he
dexterously alighted and guided the horses by the bits to the only point
of advantage in sight. “Cattle and horses ought never to be compelled to
travel together. You can’t hurry a steer except in a stampede, and then
Old Nick himself couldn’t stop him.”
“They remind me of more than one pair of mismated bipeds I have met,”
said Mrs. McAlpin.
The Captain stood at the horses’ heads till the last of the jolting and
complaining wagons had safely passed the perilous bit of roadway. Then,
guiding the team back to the road, he resumed his seat in the carriage,
his lips compressed like a trap.
“Don’t you think Mr. Burns is a wonderful man?” asked Mrs. McAlpin, in a
desperate effort to rekindle a conversation.
“He’s a fellow of considerable genius in some ways, but a mighty poor
ox-driver.”
“He reminds me of many a woman I have seen,” continued Mrs. McAlpin, “who
has failed to get fitted into her proper niche. His mind isn’t fitted to
his work. I have seen women chained by circumstances to the kitchen sink,
the wash-tub, the churn-dash, and the ironing-board, who never could make
a success of any one of these lines of effort, though they might have
made excellent astronomers, first-class architects, capable lawyers, good
preachers, capital teachers, or splendid financiers. It is a pity to
spoil a natural statesman or stateswoman to make a poor ox-driver or an
indifferent housekeeper.”
“You seem to take great interest in Scotty,” remarked the Captain.
“I do. We have travelled extensively through the same lands, though we
had never met until our orbits chanced to coincide on this journey. He
has a retentive memory, a wide experience, and a keen appreciation of the
beautiful, both in nature and art, and so have I. He is as much out of
place as an ox-driver as I should be in a cotton-field. He’s a perfect
mine of information, though, about a lot of things.”
“Then why not take counsel of him, instead o’ me?”
“He would hardly be a disinterested adviser.”
“Ah, I see!”
Mrs. McAlpin blushed. “He has not spoken to me one word of love,
Captain,—if that is what you mean. I am not an eligible party,” and the
lady used her handkerchief to wipe away a tear. “I want your opinion
about getting a divorce from a union that I detested long before I ever
met Mr. Burns. It is unbearable now.”
“Hush, Daphne! Not another word,” interposed her mother. “Strangers have
no right to an insight into our family affairs.”
“But I must speak to somebody. Stay, Captain!” laying her hand upon his
arm as he was about to leave the carriage.
“Are you running away from your husband, madam?” he asked, resuming his
seat.
“You guess correctly, sir.”
“I suspected it all along; but it was none of my business in the
beginning, nor is it now. But I confess that it looks as if I were making
it my business to conduct a caravan of grass widows to Oregon, judging
from the present aspect of affairs.”
“To make a long story short,—for I see you are growing restless,—I was
married in my callow childhood, married in obedience to my mother’s wish.
She was a widow and poor; my suitor was accomplished and rich. If he’d
been a sensible man he would have courted and married my mother, who
adores him. But old men are such idiots! They’re always hunting young
women, or children, for wives.”
“You’re complimentary.”
“Beg your pardon; present company is always excepted. They imagine that
young and silly girls will make happy and contented wives,—when any
person not overcome by vanity knows that no young man or young woman can
be truly enamored of anybody that’s in the sere and yellow leaf. What
would you think of a woman of mamma’s age, for instance, making love to a
boy? And if such a boy should consent to marry her, who believes that he
would be content with his bargain after his beard was grown?”
“Ask me something easy,” said the Captain.
“My father was a physician; and it was my childhood’s delight to study
his books, attend his clinics, and make myself generally useful among
his patients. I never dreamed of surrendering my person, my liberty, my
will, and the absolute control of my individuality to the commands of any
human being on earth except myself, till after the deed was done for me
by another. No wonder I rebelled when I reached the years of maturity and
discretion.”
“Mr. McAlpin was a good man and a gentleman, Captain Ranger,” interrupted
Mrs. Benson.
“Yes, mamma; he was always ‘good.’ He never whipped his wife; he gave
her everything that money could buy. There is no reason that the law can
recognize for me to be dissatisfied. But I don’t belong primarily to
myself, and I don’t like it. Mamma here, with her ideas of woman’s place
in life, would have made him an excellent and happy wife.”
“He was always a gentleman, Daphne,” repeated her mother. “Don’t do him
an injustice.”
“Yes; and I was his personal and private property. I was a beautiful
animal, as he thought, to bedeck with his trinkets and show off his
wealth; but I was nobody on my own account. I was simply his echo,—or
supposed to be,—and nothing else.”
“Daphne, you forget that this carriage, these horses, our wagons and
oxen, and the supplies for this journey are all the product of his
bounty.”
“They are the product of my jewels, Captain. This outfit is mine; it was
bought with my own heart’s blood! I owe nothing to Donald McAlpin.”
“Do you think you have dealt justly by your husband?” asked the Captain.
There was reproof and impatience in his tone.
“I owe him nothing, sir. I am in the same line with Dugs,—a runaway
chattel. That is all.”
“But Dugs, whose name now is Susannah, did not enter into her bargain
voluntarily.”
“Neither did I. My mother made the bargain.”
“How did you escape, Mrs. McAlpin? And why did you undertake this
journey?”
“Mr. McAlpin was called away to England last year, to inherit an
additional estate. Mamma was too ill to go, so I stayed to nurse her. I
had been his body vassal for four years, and was at last a woman grown.
One taste of liberty was enough. I will never be his vassal again. I
decided to make this very unusual journey to elude pursuit. He’d not
think of searching for me outside of the United States or Canada; least
of all in the Great American Desert, whither we are bound. I mean to lose
myself for good and all in Oregon.”
“And so now you are seeking a divorce?”
“Yes, sir; that is, when I reach Oregon.”
“Thousands of other women have borne far worse conjugal conditions all
their lives, and died, making no outward sign, Mrs. McAlpin. Men also
have their full share of these afflictions, which they bear in silence to
the bitter end.”
“That is their own affair, sir. If other people choose to wear a ball
and chain through life, that is their privilege. I would not do their
choosing for them if I could.”
“What course would you pursue if you had children?”
“Then I suppose I should be compelled to die with my feet in the stocks.
Children might have diverted my mind and helped to save my sanity,
though. I’ve prayed for them without ceasing, but in vain. I’m going to a
remote country, a new country, where new environments make newer and more
plastic conditions. The laws of men, one-sided as they are, will divorce
me after seven years.”
“And what is Scotty going to do during all this time?”
“If he loves me as he thinks he does, he’ll wait. If it’s only a passing
fancy, he’ll get over it in time. I will not permit his attentions now,
nor until Donald McAlpin divorces me and gets another wife.”
* * * * *
Captain Ranger’s union with the gentle bride of his choice had been
so natural, and their lives together had been so harmonious, despite
their many cares and sorrows, that neither of them had ever harbored
a thought of living apart from the other. Differences of opinion they
had sometimes, and now and then a brief, angry dispute, but the end was
always peace; and he remembered now, with a pang of self-reproach, that
in all such encounters he, whether right or wrong, had invariably gained
his point.
“You are my guiding star, my faithful wife,” he whispered, as he gently
assisted her from the wagon after they had halted for the night. “Come
with me, dear, and get some exercise, while Sally and Susannah help the
other girls to get supper.”
“I don’t see why we mightn’t end our journey here, John,” said his wife,
as they gazed abroad over the vast expanse of table-land that stretched
away on every side, intersected here and there with streams, their
courses marked by stately rows of cottonwood just bursting into leaf,
their bases hedged with pussy-willows. “Here are land and wood and water
as good as any we passed yesterday. This surely will be a rich and
thickly settled country some day.”
“But it is all Indian country, my dear. I wish you would talk about
something else.”
They returned to the camp in silence.
“I wish the girls were as tractable as you are, Annie,” he said an hour
later, after having had a heated dispute with his daughters over some
trifling disagreement. “They are as headstrong as mules.”
“Being girls, they take after you, John,” replied his wife, with a smile.
“I’m afraid their husbands won’t find them as tractable as I have been.”
* * * * *
“Bring on more of your flapjacks and bacon, Miss Mary,” cried Scotty, as
Mary poised a big pile of the steaming cakes over the heads of the hungry
men who knelt at the mess-boxes.
“You seem to be regaining your lost appetite,” exclaimed Sawed-off. “Have
you and the widder cried quits?”
“That’s our business,” was the curt reply.
It was late when Mary sought her mother’s couch for a brief visit that
night. She was weeping silently, and her mother caressed her tenderly.
“I know your heart is troubled, darling,” said Mrs. Ranger, “but do not
be discouraged. Be of good cheer. Every cloud has a silver lining.” And
Mary’s heart was comforted, though her reason could not tell her why.
XII
_JEAN BECOMES A WITNESS_
“How’s your journal getting on, Jean?” asked her father, one evening,
after all was still in camp.
Mrs. Ranger had been unusually nervous and timid all day, and Susannah
had been in constant attendance upon the wagon-bed full of little
ones,—seven in all,—who had been more than usually unruly, fretful, and
quarrelsome.
Jean looked ruefully at her father. “The pesky thing isn’t getting along
at all!” she exclaimed. “There’s nothing to inspire one to write. There’s
no grass for the cattle, no wood for the fires, and no comfort anywhere.”
“Then write up the facts. Don’t allow yourself to get morbid. Don’t be so
listless and lackadaisical.”
* * * * *
It was now the twentieth of May; and under this date, in restive
obedience to her father’s command, Jean began her entries again:—
“We came about eighteen miles to-day. And such a day! It has been
drizzly, disagreeable, and cold from morning till night, with no cheery
prospects ahead. We hear of an epidemic of measles having broken out on
the road, endangering much life among children and such grown folks as
didn’t have sense enough to get the disgusting disease before they left
their mothers’ apron-strings. We passed several newly made graves by the
roadside to-day,—a melancholy fact which interested mother deeply.
“Indians, for some reason, are keeping out of our sight. As we are right
in the midst of the summer haunts of many tribes, we are shunned,
possibly on account of the contagious diseases among the whites, which
are said to kill off Indians as the Asiatic plague kills Europeans. Our
company has escaped the epidemic so far; so there is one blessing for
which we may be thankful.
“We forded a stream to-day, called the Little Sandy, in the midst of
a driving rainstorm, and are now encamped in a deep, dry gulch; that
is, we call it dry, because the water runs away nearly as fast as it
falls. There is a fine spring on the hillside; and some green cottonwood
which we found at the head of the gulch is being slowly coaxed into the
semblance of a fire.
“May 21. The skies cleared this morning, and we have found some good
grazing for the poor, half-famished stock. We haven’t travelled over a
dozen miles, but we must stop and give the animals a feed. We have passed
extensive beds of iron ore to-day, outcroppings of which are seen in
every direction.
“May 22. We yoked up early this morning and came three miles, to the
banks of the Big Sandy. The day is clear, but the roads are still muddy
after the rain. The early morning was dark and foggy, the air was raw and
cold, and the outlook was cheerless in the extreme. Some of the horses in
a neighbor’s outfit stampeded, and it has taken nearly the whole day to
recapture them.
“May 23. We hear rumors of Indian raids ahead of us, and mother is much
alarmed. We must not stop for Sunday, but must hurry on to get past the
danger-point. If the Indians knew how defenceless we really are, they
would rout the camp before morning.
“The sluggish waters of the Big Sandy are swarming with larvæ. Daddie
says it’s lucky they’re not mosquitoes yet; but the trains coming along a
week hence will be terribly annoyed by the intruders, who are now unable
to molest us.
“May 24. We are following the Little Blue,—a muddy stream about a hundred
feet in width.
“May 25. We met to-day a long train of heavily loaded wagons coming
from Fort Laramie with great mountains of buffalo robes. At this rate,
the buffalo will all be killed off in a very few years. The frightened
creatures are now so wild that it is next to impossible to get a shot
at one of them; and the antelope are even more timid. Why is man such a
destructive animal, I wonder?
“The men driving the freight-teams we met were a mixed-up lot of Indians,
Spaniards, and French and Indian half-breeds. Their speech was to us an
unintelligible jargon in everything but its profanity, which was English,
straight. There was one white man in the crowd, or maybe two of them.
They were on horseback, and kept aloof from the common herd. A peculiar
apprehension overcame me as I gazed at one of these strangers. He was
large, bronzed, and portly, and sat his horse like a centaur; or perhaps
I should come nearer the truth if I said like an Englishman. My heart
beat a strange tattoo as I watched him. Somehow, it seemed to me that he
was in some way concerned with some of our company. I did not understand
the feeling, but it wasn’t comfortable.”
“There, daddie!” she cried, exhibiting the written pages. “Don’t say I’m
neglecting my journal now!”
* * * * *
The twilight had deepened. Below the camp ran a deep ravine, at the
base of which a little brook sang merrily. Clumps of cottonwood, badly
crippled by wayfarers’ axes, struggled for existence here and there.
In her haste to reach the covert of the bushes unobserved, Jean ran
diagonally over a settlement of prairie dogs, near which the campers
had inadvertently pitched their tents. The Lilliputian municipality was
evidently well disciplined, for at the sound of approaching footsteps the
same sharp, staccato bark, of mingled warning and authority, that had
for an instant startled the foremost team at camping-time, was heard, and
every little rodent dropped instantly out of sight. Profound silence fell
at once upon the little city, which had before been a bedlam of voices.
Jean reached the foot of the ravine and stopped to listen, her heart
beating hard. “I am sure Sally made an appointment to meet somebody in
this ravine to-night,” she said to herself, “and I’m just as sure she’ll
need a friend. Women are such fools where men are concerned.” She heard
the sound of human voices, and pressed her hand hard over her heart.
“I know you think you’re safe from arrest,” said a voice she knew to be
Sally O’Dowd’s. “As your wife, I may not be able to give legal testimony
that will send you to the gallows; but you’re not beyond the pale of
lynch law.”
A mocking laugh was the only audible response.
“I haven’t even told the Squire,” resumed the woman’s voice. “Nobody
knows about it but you and me and the unseen messengers of God.”
Again that mocking, brutal laugh, followed by oaths, with words of
commingled anger and exultation. Jean held her breath.
“S’posing you could testify,—which you can’t, for that divorce is tied
up on appeal,— my oath would be as binding as yours, Mrs. O’Dowd. And I
would swear to God that it was you did the deed. It would be easy enough
to make any court believe my story, for it was common talk that you
rebelled all the time against such a litter of babies.”
“O God, have mercy!”
“Nobody saw me kill the brat but you, Sally. It would have been bad
enough if the young ones had come one at a time, being only a year apart;
but when it came to two pairs of twins inside o’ thirteen months, it was
time to call a halt.”
“Are you never to have any mercy on me, Sam?”
“Come back to me as my lawful wife, and you’ll see. I’ll be easy enough
to get along with if you’ll treat me right.”
The wife was struck dumb with astonishment.
“Come back to me, darling!” The mocking tone gave way to one of cooing
tenderness. Jean saw his dusky figure through the shadows. “You see
you’re in my power, Sally. Better make a virtue of necessity. You can
coax the Squire to let me join his train. I will even be a teamster, if
necessary, for your sake and the children’s.”
“What?” cried the woman, in sincere alarm. “Could I be your wife after
I’ve seen you kill one of our children before my very eyes? No, no! Go
your way, and let me go mine in peace. If you will leave me and the three
surviving babies alone, I’ll never tell anybody about the murder. I swear
it!”
Again that brutal laugh.
“Do your worst, Sally O’Dowd! You can’t prove that I killed the brat. You
haven’t any witness.”
“I have the silent witness of my own conscience; and so have you, Sam
O’Dowd. Do you think that I am such an idiot as to come out here to meet
you alone?”
“She knows he’s a coward,” thought Jean, “and she’s bluffing.”
“Now see here, Sally! You love me; you know you do; you’ve told me so a
thousand times.”
“I did love you once, Sam; but that was so long ago that it seems like a
far-off dream. I despise, I loathe, I abhor you now!”
“Then this’ll settle it. I’ll go to the Squire and tell him we’ve buried
the hatchet, and I’m going with you to Oregon. I don’t care a rap whether
you hate me or not. But if you give me any trouble, I’ll swear that you
did that killing.”
“Oh, help me, pitying Christ!” wailed the unhappy woman. “Is there, in
all this world, no Canada to which a fugitive wife may flee, and no
underground railroad by which to reach it?”.
Again arose that brutal laugh upon the air. The belated bird in the
bushes cooed to its mate, and the prairie dogs chattered in the distance.
“Don’t be afraid of him, Sally,” cried a clear voice from the depths of
the cottonwoods. “A tyrant is always a coward. I heard your confession,
Sam O’Dowd; and as I am not your wife, I can be a witness.”
There was no more brutal laughter. A horse stood picketed and stamping
at the head of the gulch, and the murderer hurried toward it with heavy
strides. Jean listened with eager attention till he mounted and rode
rapidly away.
“Are you still there, Sally?” she asked, as the hoof-beats died away in
the distance.
“Yes, Jean; but where are you, and why are you here?”
“The Holy Spirit guided me, I reckon. I was just possessed to come. I
didn’t know I was following you, or why I came; but I just did it ’cause
I had to.”
“It was hazardous, Jean. He might have killed us both.”
“He’s too big a coward to kill a more formidable foe than his own baby.
But you were an idiot to meet him out here, Sally.”
“He was with that freighters’ outfit, but on horseback. He came to me
a few minutes before camping-time, when I was walking for exercise. I
didn’t want a scene at camp, so I agreed to meet him out here alone, if
he would keep out of sight.”
“You’re a bigger fool than Thompson’s colt, and he swam the river to
get a drink,” said Jean. “But we mustn’t linger here. He may have a
confederate.”
“Not he, Jean. He’s too suspicious to trust a confederate.”
“Let’s go back to camp, anyhow, Sally; mother will be missing us. But
you needn’t be afraid of Sam again. I’ve settled his hash,” she said, as
they hurried to the open. “Isn’t it a terrible thing to be married?” she
added, as soon as she could speak again.
“No, Jean. Marriage under right conditions is the world’s greatest
blessing. All enlightened men and women prefer to live in pairs, and
make each other and their children as happy as possible. I admit that I
made a big mistake when I married; but your mother didn’t, because your
father is one of God’s noblemen. The fault isn’t in marriage, but in the
couple, one or both of whom make the trouble, when there is trouble. But
the conditions between husbands and wives are not equal. Law and usage
make the husband and wife one, and the husband that one. Where both
the parties to the compact are better than the law, it doesn’t pinch
either one; but when a woman finds herself chained for life to a sordid,
disagreeable, stingy, domineering man, the advantages of law and custom
are all on his side. It is no wonder that trouble ensues in such cases.”
“But, young as I am, I have seen wives that could discount almost any man
for meanness,” said Jean. “There are women, now and then, who take all
the rights in the matrimonial category, and their husbands haven’t any
rights at all.”
“Women sometimes inherit the strongest traits of their fathers; I admit
that. And such women can outwit the very best husbands.”
“I’ve read of a woman,” said Jean, musingly, “Elizabeth Cady Stanton by
name, who went before a legislative assembly in New York a few years
ago, and secured the passage of a law enabling a married woman of that
State to hold, in her own right, the property bequeathed to her by her
father. And then, as if to prove that women are idiots, there were women
in Albany who refused to associate with their financial savior any more.
They said she had left her sphere. But never mind. The world is moving,
and women are moving with it.”
The camp-fires had died to heaps of embers, the lights were out in the
tents and wagons, and all except themselves were settled for the night.
“Don’t say anything to anybody about my meeting with Sam, will you, Jean?”
“Not unless he annoys you again. Then I’ll be ready to meet him with
facts.”
“He might put your life in jeopardy, my dear.”
“Jeopardy nothin’!” cried Jean, adopting the slang of the road. “He’s too
big a coward to put his neck in danger. But just you wait! I’ll live to
see an end to one-sided laws and a one-sexed government. See if I don’t!
And the men will fight our battle for us, too, as soon as they are wise
enough.”
“If you don’t come across a matrimonial fate that’ll change your tune, my
name isn’t Sally O’Dowd,” exclaimed her companion, as they drew near the
camp.
“Your name isn’t O’Dowd, but Danover,” cried Jean. “You’re safe in making
such a prophecy on such a basis.”
XIII
_AN APPROACHING STORM_
“We came eighteen miles to-day,” wrote Jean, under date of May 28, “and
halted for the night opposite Grand Island, in the Platte River, where
we find both wood and pasture. All day we floundered through the muddy
roads, occasionally getting almost swamped in heavy and treacherous
bogs, with ‘water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.’ I’m too
tired to write, and too sleepy to think.”
On the evening of May 29 she added: “We started early, and reached
Fort Kearney after eight miles of heavy wheeling, where we halted to
write letters for the folks at home, and examine many things quaint and
crude and curious. The old fort is weather-worn, and a general air of
dilapidation pervades its very atmosphere. There are two substantial
dwellings for the officers, though; and they (I mean the officers) keep
up a show of military pomp, very amusing to us, but quite necessary to
maintain in an Indian country, to hold the savage instinct in check. The
officers were very gracious to daddie, and very kind and condescending
to the rest of us. They made us a present of some mounted buffalo-horns,
some elks’ antlers, and the stuffed head of a mountain sheep, all of
which, mother says, we’ll be glad to leave at the roadside before the
weary oxen haul them very far.
“A week ago a party passed us, going westward with a four-wheeled wagon,
two yokes of discouraged oxen, two anxious-looking men, two dispirited
women, and about fourteen snub-nosed, shaggy-headed children. On their
wagon-cover was a sign, done in yellow ochre, which read: ‘Oregon or
bust!’ To-day we met the same outfit coming back, and no description
from my unpractised pen can do it justice. The party, doubtless from
over-crowding, had quarrelled; and the two families had settled their
dispute by dividing the wagon into two parts of two wheels each. On the
divided and dilapidated cover of each cart were smeared in yellow ochre
the words, ‘Busted, by thunder!’
“May 30. We forded the Platte to-day. It is a broad, lazy, milky sheet of
silt-thickened water, with a quicksand bottom. It is about two miles wide
at this season of the year at the ford, and is three feet deep.
“The day was as hot as a furnace, and the sunshine burned us like
blisters of Spanish flies. Our wagon-beds were hoisted to the tops of
their standards to keep them from taking water, and at a given signal
from daddie, they were all plunged pell-mell into the quicksand, over
which teams, drivers, wagons, and all were compelled to move quickly to
avoid catastrophe.
“Poor dear mother suffered from constant nervous fear because of the
quicksand and the danger that some of the children might be drowned.
It took us two and a half hours to ford the stream; but we reached the
opposite bank without accident, and camped near an old buffalo wallow,
where we get clearer water than that of the Platte, but we are not
allowed to drink it till it has been boiled. Cholera has broken out in
the trains both before and behind us; and daddie lays our escape from
attack thus far to drinking boiled water. We have no fuel but buffalo
chips, and almost no grass for the poor stock. The game has disappeared
altogether, and the fishes in the Platte don’t bite. But we have plenty
of beans and bacon, coffee, flour, and dried apples; so we shall not
starve.
“June 1. The day has been intensely hot. The stifling air shimmers, and
the parched earth glitters as it bakes in the sun. The mud has changed to
a fine, impalpable dust, and the loaded air is too oppressive to breathe,
if it could be avoided. We passed a number of newly made graves during
the day. We meet returning teams every day that have given up the journey
as a bad job. Daddie often says he’d die before he’d retrace his tracks,
and then he wouldn’t do it! We found at sundown, just as we were losing
hope, a bountiful spring of clear, cold water, beside which we have
halted for the night.
“June 3. Another insufferably hot day. But we encountered at nightfall
a stiff west wind, which soon arose to a gale, in the teeth of which we
with difficulty made camp and cooked our food. Heavy clouds blacken the
sky as I write, and vivid flashes of sheet lightning, which blind us for
a moment, are followed by thunder that startles and stuns.
“June 4. The storm passed to the south of us, on the other side of the
Platte. But daddie has ordered the tents and wagons staked to the ground
hereafter every night, as long as we are travelling in these treeless,
unsheltered bottom-lands, as he says we would have been swept away _en
masse_ into the river if last night’s storm had squarely struck our camp.”
The hoods of the wagons, so white and clean at the outset, were now of an
ashen hue, disfigured by spots of grease, and askew in many places from
damage to their supporting arches of hickory bows. Heavy log-chains, for
use in possible emergencies, dangled between axles, and the inevitable
tar-bucket rode adjacent on a creaking hook, from which it hung suspended
by a complaining iron bail.
* * * * *
“The incessant heat by day, followed by the chilly air of night, is
perilous to health, John,” said Mrs. Ranger, one evening, as she
lay wrapped in blankets in the big family wagon, watching the usual
preparations for the evening meal.
He gazed into her pinched, white face with sudden apprehension.
“Don’t be afraid of the cholera, dear,” he said tenderly. “I understand
the nature of the epidemic, and I don’t fear it at all. Cholera is a
filth disease, and we are guarding against it at every point. Your blood
is pure, darling. There’s nothing the matter with you but a little
debility, the result of past years of overwork. Time and rest and change
of climate will cure all that. No uncooked food or unboiled water is used
by any of us, and no cold victuals are allowed to be eaten after long
exposure to this pernicious, cholera-laden air. You can’t get the germs
of cholera unless you eat or drink them.”
That Captain Ranger should have thus imbibed the germ theory of cholera
long in advance of its discovery by medical schools, is only another
proof that there is nothing new under the sun. A newer system of medical
treatment than that of the Allopathic School, styled the Eclectic by its
founders, had come into vogue before his departure from the States.
Many different decoctions of fiery liquid, of which capsicum was supposed
to be the base,—conspicuous among them a compound called “Number
Six,”—proved efficacious in effecting many cures in the early stages of
cholera; and the contents of Captain Ranger’s medicine chest were in
steady demand long after his supplies for general distribution had been
exhausted.
* * * * *
“Can you imagine what this wild-goose chase of ours is for?” asked Mrs.
Benson.
“I undertook it to gratify my good husband,” was Mrs. Ranger’s prompt
reply.
“And I to gratify my daughter.”
“Excuse me, ladies; but I came along to please myself,” interposed Mrs.
O’Dowd.
“I, too, came to please myself,” cried Jean; “that is, I made a virtue of
necessity, and compelled myself to be pleased. There are two things that
mother says we must never fret about: one is what we can, and the other
what we cannot, help. Every human being belongs primarily to himself or
herself, and to satisfy one’s self is sure to please somebody.”
“But a married couple belong, secondarily, at least, to each other,” said
Mrs. Ranger. “No couple can pull in double and single harness at the same
time.”
“Some day,” said Mrs. Benson, “it will become the fashion to read your
journal, Jean; and then the dear public will both praise and pity our
unsophisticated Captain, who led these hapless emigrants out on these
plains to die.”
“That’s so, Mrs. Benson,” exclaimed Jean; “and they won’t see that it’s
all a part of the eternal programme. Evolution is the order of nature,
and one generation of human beings is a very small fraction of the race
at large.”
“Haven’t you gossiped long enough, mamma?” asked Mrs. McAlpin,
petulantly. “Your supper is ready and waiting. What has detained you so
long?”
“I was listening to the chat of the Ranger family. They are an uncommon
lot; very clever and original.”
“Yes, mamma; they talk like oracles. A little brusque and unpolished,
but that will be outgrown in time. You’re looking splendid, mamma! The
society of your neighbors is a tonic. You must take it often.”
“I wish we might all stop here, Daphne.”
“We’ve no more right to these lands of the Indians than we have to—”
“Oregon,” interrupted her mother. “Oregon was Indian territory
originally.”
Jean approached with a plate of hot cakes, saying: “I fell to thinking so
deeply over the problems we had been talking about that I forgot what I
was doing, and baked too many cakes. They’re sweet and light, and we hope
you’ll like them.”
“Thank you ever so much, Miss Jean!” said Mrs. McAlpin. “I congratulate
you with all my heart upon the way you cheer your mother, my dear. You
are a jewel of the first water!”
“We all try to keep mother in good spirits,” replied Jean. “Dear soul!
she’s weak and nervous; and what seem trifles to us often appear like
mountains to her. Never can I forget, to my dying day, the look of terror
that came into her gentle eyes when we were crossing the Platte that day
in the quicksands. The raised wagon-bed had tilted, for some cause. I
suppose the weight of so many of us was not evenly distributed; and we
should all have been pitched into the water if it had not been that dear
mother hustled us to the other side. She forgot her own danger in her
effort to save the children, giving her orders like a sea captain in a
storm. Each of us grabbed a baby,—Susannah’s coon fell to my lot,—and we
clung like death to the upper edge of the wagon-bed till the danger was
over, and the great lopsided thing settled back to its place.
“But I must go now. Daddie’s calling me to write up that pestilent old
journal!”
* * * * *
On the evening of the 4th of June, the train had its first encounter with
a blizzard.
Captain Ranger, seeing the approach of the storm, as did the cattle and
horses, ordered a sudden halt a little way from the banks of the Platte.
The day, like a number of its predecessors, had been oppressively hot;
but about five o’clock a sudden squall came up, though not without
premonitory warning in the way of a calm so dead that not a blade of
grass was quivering. The wagon-hoods flapped idly, like sails becalmed in
the tropics. Suddenly the air grew icy cold, bringing at first a moment
of relief to suffocating man and beast.
“Gather your buffalo chips in a hurry,” exclaimed the Captain, addressing
the girls. “Get ’em under cover in the tents, under the wagon-beds;
anywhere so they’ll keep dry. Turn out the stock in a jiffy, boys. Head
’em away from the river. Drive ’em up yonder gulch. Be on the alert,
everybody!”
XIV
_A CAMP IN CONSTERNATION_
“Stake down the wagons,” was the next order. “Don’t stop to pitch any
more tents. Don’t try to kindle any fires.”
Scarcely had the orders been obeyed before a darkness as black as Erebus
had settled upon the camp like a gigantic pall. It was a peculiar
darkness, permeated by an ominous, silent, intangible, vibrating,
appalling Something! A silence that could be felt was in the air. The
oxen in the gulch bellowed in terror; the horses neighed. The stillness
of the air was oppressive, portentous, awful. The women clasped the
children in close embrace. The children clung to their protectors in
silent terror. All hands save the teamsters, who were out with the stock
at the mouth of the ravine, where they were stationed to guard the
animals against stampede, crouched under the wagons in the Cimmerian
blackness. Anon, a blinding flash of sheet lightning, followed by others
and yet others in bewildering succession, awoke a rolling, roaring,
reverberating cannonade of thunder. Guided by the flashes of lightning,
the frightened men left the cattle to their fate and, returning to the
camp, took refuge under the wagons. Hailstones as big as hens’ eggs fell
by hundreds of tons, displacing the awful silence with a cannonade like
unto the heaviest artillery of a great army in battle.
The wind blew a terrific gale. The chained wagons rocked like cradles.
Several heavy vehicles in a neighboring train, not being chained to the
ground, as the Ranger wagons had been, were upset and their contents
ruined by the hail and rain. Others were blown bodily into the river.
Luckily no lives were lost. The cattle and horses, pelted by the hail
till their bodies were bruised and bleeding, huddled together at the head
of the gulch for mutual protection.
The storm lasted less than twenty minutes, and ceased as suddenly as it
began. The black clouds soared away to the northward, leaving a blue
starlit sky overhead, and underfoot a mass of hail and mud. The Platte,
having caught the full fury of a cloud-burst a few miles above the camp,
rose rapidly, threatening the frightened refugees in the wagons with a
new danger. But the shallow banks were high enough to confine the mad
rush of muddy water within an inch or two of the top, thus averting the
horror of a flood which, had it come, would have completed the havoc of
the storm.
The lightning, as though weary of its display of power, retreated to the
distant hills, and played at hide-and-seek on the horizon’s edge, while
Heaven’s Gatling guns answered each pyrotechnic display with a distant,
growling, intermittent roar.
Mrs. McAlpin’s carriage was a total wreck; but her wagons remained
intact, and she and her mother escaped to them in safety.
The morning revealed a scene of desolation. The earth in all directions
as far as the eye could see had been torn into gulleys by the mad rush
of falling hail and rain, each seeking its level in frantic haste.
Hailstones lay in heaps, some soiled by contact with the liquid mud, some
as clean and white as freshly fallen snow.
The contents of Mrs. McAlpin’s carriage were entirely gone. Nothing
remained of the vehicle but one of its wheels and some shreds of its
cover, which were found half buried in the mud. Of the harness, nothing
was left but a bridle bit, in which was lodged a woman’s glove, and near
it the remains of a palm-leaf fan.
“We should all be thankful that no lives were lost,” said Mrs. Ranger,
who was looking on while Sally O’Dowd and Susannah assisted her
daughters, who, with Mrs. Benson and Mrs. McAlpin, were exposing the wet
and dilapidated paraphernalia of the camp to the hot rays of the morning
sun.
“But we’d have a heap mo’ to thank Gahd fo’, missus, if He’d hel’ off dat
stawm,” exclaimed Susannah, with a characteristic “yah! yah! yah!”
At eleven o’clock the order was given to bring in the stock, and prepare
to move on, when it was discovered that Scotty was missing.
“We s’posed he was helpin’ Mrs. McAlpin’s men, as he generally does, to
get her things to rights, so we didn’t bother our heads about him,” said
Sawed-off, who was Scotty’s partner of the whip and yoke. “I’ve been
doing the most of his share of the work ever since we’ve been on the
road.”
Scotty was nowhere to be found. An organized search was begun at once,
and all thought of moving on was abandoned till the Captain should learn
his fate. The cattle and horses were turned out on the range for another
badly needed half-holiday. Through all the remainder of the day the
anxious quest continued. Mrs. McAlpin was as pale as death. Her sombre
weeds, worn for no known reason, formed a fitting frame for her pinched
and anxious face and bright, abundant hair. Her mother was visibly
agitated. Mrs. Ranger lay on her feather bed all through the trying
afternoon, her eyes closed and her lips moving as if in prayer.
“Night again, and no Scotty!” exclaimed Captain Ranger, his voice husky
with feeling. As no trace of the man had been discovered, the organized
search was called off.
“Scotty’s death was one of the freaks of the flood,” said Hal.
“None of you ever did Scotty justice,” exclaimed Mary, as she descended
upon the party with a heaped plate of their staple food.
“That’s what,” echoed Jean, as she brought on the beans and bacon.
“Scotty knew more in a minute than half of us can ever learn,” cried
Marjorie, with whom he was a favorite.
“Yes,” said the Captain, dryly. “He’s a genius, Scotty is! He’ll turn
up presently. Doubtless he’s off somewhere studying a new stratum of
storm-clouds. He has killed two of my leaders already by making them
start the whole load while his mind was on the incomprehensible and
unknowable in nature. But I’ll wager he knows enough to look out for
himself in a crisis.”
“He was a whole mine of information about other things, if he didn’t know
much about driving oxen,” sobbed Jean.
“He isn’t dead!” exclaimed Mrs. McAlpin. “I mean to continue the search
myself to-night.”
“You’ll get caught by a panther!” cried Bobbie. “I haven’t seen ’em, but
I know they’re there!”
“Where, Bobbie?” asked Marjorie.
“Up in the gulch. I can see ’em with my eyes shut!” and the child, not
understanding the laugh that followed at his expense, hastened to the
wagon where his mother lay, to receive the consolation that never failed
him.
* * * * *
“It won’t be against the laws of God or man for me to love Rollin if he
is dead,” said Mrs. McAlpin to herself, as she crept shivering from her
retreat in her wagon to the ground. Throwing a shawl over her head, she
hastened out in the direction in which Scotty was hurrying when she had
last seen him. The cattle, quite satisfied from the unusual effects of
a day’s rest and a full meal, chewed their cuds quietly, or lay asleep
in the best sheltered spots they could command, breathing heavily. She
wandered fearlessly among them, calling frequently for the lost man, but
received no response save an occasional “moo” from an awakened cow, or a
friendly neigh from Sukie, who was tethered near.
The morning star rose in the clear blue of the bending sky as her search
went on, and she knew that the long June day was breaking. Flowers of
every hue, newly born from the convulsions of the recent storm, smiled at
her in their dewy fragrance; and in the branches of a crippled cottonwood
a robin began his matin song. A meadow lark, disturbed in its languorous
wooing by the lone watcher’s footsteps, soared upward in the crystal
ether, sending back, when out of her sight, a swelling note of triumph,
prolonged, triumphant, sweet.
“Rollin! Rollin Burns!” she called, repeating the name in every note of
the scale.
At length a long, low moan startled her. She listened eagerly for a
moment, and repeated her call. Whence had come that moan? There was no
repetition of the sound. She spoke again, calling the name in a higher
key.
Another moan—it might have been an echo from the canyon’s walls—came,
more distinct than the first, but the echoing gulch gave no indication of
its location.
“Call again, Rollin! It is I,—your own Daphne!”
“Is it indeed you, Daphne?”
She pinched herself to see if she was really awake. She had never heard
her Christian name spoken by Burns before. The name sounded strangely
sweet in the breaking twilight, and in spite of her apprehension and
uncertainty her soul was glad.
“Call again, Rollin! Help is near.”
“Come this way, Daphne! I am in a cave, almost under your feet. A bowlder
that I stepped upon rolled over, loosened by the storm, and let me
through into the bowels of the earth. My leg is broken. I must have been
unconscious. I have swooned or slept, or both. Be careful how you tread.
There are badgers in this hole, and I have heard rattlesnakes.”
“Which way, Rollin? Where are you?”
The sound of his voice seemed to come from beneath her feet.
“Is the storm over?”
“Yes, long ago. It’s been over for thirty-six hours. But I can’t locate
you.”
“Here, I tell you! Under this rock. If it had fallen directly on me, I
should have been a goner. For God’s sake, be careful, or you’ll break
your own dear neck! Don’t get excited. Run for help, and don’t stir up
the rattlesnakes.”
The injured man had fallen at first by the turning of the rock, as he had
stated, giving his leg a twist that broke it, and, by the turning of his
body in falling farther, had overturned the bowlder again, and thus was
held a prisoner.
Mrs. McAlpin peered into a narrow aperture through which the coming
daylight had entered. Their eyes met.
“Daphne!”
“Rollin!”
“So near and yet so far!” cried the prisoner, as he struggled to free
himself. A spasm of pain overspread his face, and a dew, like the death
damp, settled on his hair and forehead.
“O God! he has fainted again!” she cried, running with all her might and
screaming for help.
“What in thunder is the matter now?” exclaimed Captain Ranger, as he
emerged, half dressed, from his tent.
“I’ve found Rollin! He’s imprisoned in a cave, with a broken leg! Fetch
spades and a mattock to dig away the dirt from the rock! Be quick!” cried
Mrs. McAlpin, leading the way.
Nobody heard the robins sing, or paused to enjoy the triumphant melody of
the lark.
Scotty was still in a merciful swoon. Very carefully the men loosened the
rock from its hold on his legs, and with their united strength rolled it
away from the mouth of the cave.
“It’s damned lucky you are, old boy!” cried Yank, as the crippled man
regained consciousness. “That rock would have crushed you to pulp if the
walls of the cave hadn’t saved you.”
“A miss would have been as good as a mile!” replied Scotty, as he fainted
again.
“Who’s going to set these bones?” asked Sawed-off. “It’s a bad fracture,
compound and nasty. There’s no severed artery, though, which is lucky, or
he’d ’a’ bled to death. Captain Ranger, did you ever set a broken bone?”
“Never.”
“I’ll do it,” exclaimed Mrs. McAlpin. “Cut away his boot. Bring a cot
from the camp. Bring some adhesive plaster. Captain, can you make some
splints? Stay! I’ll cut away the boot. There! Steady! Slow! If we can set
the bones before he recovers consciousness, so much the better.”
The cot with its unconscious burden was carried to the side of the
widow’s wagon.
“Bring water and more bandages, girls.”
“Where did you get your skill?” asked the Captain, as Mrs. McAlpin felt
cautiously for the broken bones and deftly snapped them into place.
“It isn’t a very bad fracture,” she said, unheeding the question, as she
held the bones together while the orders for splints and bandages were
being obeyed.
“Some water, quick, and some brandy!” she said in a firm voice, though
her cheeks were blanching. She held stoutly to her work till the limb was
securely encased in the proper supports. But when her patient recovered
consciousness and looked inquiringly into her eyes, she fell, fainting,
into the Captain’s arms, and was carried to his family wagon, her eyelids
twitching and her muscles limp. When she recovered, she found herself
reclining in the wagon beside Mrs. Ranger, who was gently chafing her
face and hands.
“All this has been too much for you, dearie,” said the good woman.
“Where’s Rollin?”
“In your mother’s wagon. We have rigged him up a swinging bed, and Mrs.
Benson will see that he wants for nothing. You are to ride here, in the
big wagon, with me.”
“You have no room for me in here. You and I, and Mary and Jean, and
Marjorie and Bobbie, and Sadie and the baby and Sally, and the three
little O’Dowds, and Susannah and George Washington can’t all ride and
sleep in this narrow space. We’d offend the open-air ordinances of
heaven.”
“It is all arranged, my dear; don’t worry. Our overflow has gone to
another wagon. We’ll have plenty of room.”
“But Mr. Burns?”
“Your good mother has taken entire charge of him. She is behaving as
beautifully in this crisis as you are, my dear.”
XV
_CHOLERA RAGES_
“Cholera is epidemic everywhere along the road,” wrote Jean in her diary
on the 8th of June. “Our company is not yet attacked, but our dear mother
is seriously alarmed. She counts all the graves we pass during the day,
and sums them up at night for us to think about. Some days there is a
formidable aggregate.”
The fame of Mrs. McAlpin’s skill as a physician and surgeon, and of
Captain Ranger’s marvellous medicine-chest, grew rapidly in the front and
rear of the Ranger train as the epidemic spread.
“It is lamentable to note the lack of forethought in many people,”
Captain Ranger would say, as he dealt out his supplies of “Number Six,”
podophyllin and capsicum, which grew alarmingly scant as the demand
increased, and his patience was sorely tried. But he never refused aid
to any who applied for it; and the “woman doctor,” who because of her
proficiency was considered little else than a witch, was scarcely given
time to eat or sleep.
“How do you keep your company from catching the cholera?” asked the
anxious father of a numerous family, most of whom had fallen victims to
the scourge.
“Common-sense should teach us to allow no uncooked or stale food to be
eaten, and no surface or unboiled water to be drunk. Let all companies
be broken into small trains, and keep as far apart from each other as
possible. Rest a while in the heat of every noonday. Don’t be afraid
of the Indians, or of anything or anybody else. The greatest enemy of
mankind is fear.”
But in spite of both his precept and his example, the cholera continued
its ravages; and Captain Ranger, to avoid contact with the epidemic, and,
if possible, relieve Mrs. Ranger’s mind of apprehension, changed his
course from the main travelled road, and turned off to the north by west,
leaving the multitude to their fate.
“The other trains can follow if they choose, and we can’t help it,” he
said to his wife; “but I must get my family away from the crowd, as the
best way to save us all from the nasty epidemic.”
“Isn’t there danger of getting lost, John, or of getting captured by
the Indians?” asked Mrs. Ranger, as the teams were headed for the Black
Hills,—a long, undulating line, which looked in the shimmering distance
like low banks of dense fog.
“My compass will point the way, Annie. The Indians will give us no
trouble if we treat them kindly. They’re a plaguy sight more afraid of us
than we have any reason to be of them.”
Mrs. Ranger, blessed with full confidence in her husband’s ability
to accomplish whatsoever he undertook, leaned back on her pillows and
guarded the children from danger, as was her wont.
On June 15, Jean made another entry in her much-neglected journal, as
follows:—
“We have travelled all day between and over and around, and then back
again, among low ranges of the Black Hills. The scenery is grand beyond
description, and the road we are making as we go along, for others to
follow if they are wise, is good. Lilliputian forests of prickly pears
spread in all directions, and are very troublesome. Their thorns, barbed,
and sharp as needle-points, are in a degree poisonous. We laugh together
over our frequent encounters with the little pests, though our poor
wounded feet refuse to be comforted. But we are missing the long lines
of moving wagons, before and behind us, swaying and jolting over the
dusty roads we’ve left to the southward, and we are glad to be alone,
or as nearly so as our big company will permit. The streams we cross at
intervals are clear, and the water is sweet and cold.
“Mother seems in better health and spirits since we have removed her from
the constant sight of so much suffering and death.
“Dear, patient, faithful, loving mother! Will her true history, and
that of the thousands like her, who are heroically enduring the dangers
and hardships of this long, long journey, be ever given to the world, I
wonder?”
Near nightfall, on their second day’s journey away from the main
thoroughfare, they encountered a long freight-train, in charge of
fur-traders, the second thus met since their travels began. Every wagon
was heavily loaded with buffalo robes which had been prepared for market
by the tedious, patient labor of Indian women. As the wives and slaves
of English, French, Spanish, and Canadian hunters and traders, these
women followed the fates of their grumbling and often cruel lords and
masters through the vicissitudes of a precarious existence, with which
nevertheless they seemed strangely content.
The leader or captain of the freighters’ outfit was a tall, bronzed, and
handsome Scotchman, whose nationality was betrayed at a glance. Captain
Ranger bargained with him for a big, handsomely dressed buffalo robe,
paying therefor in dried apples and potatoes.
“Our men are getting scurvy from the lack of fruit and vegetables,” the
leader said, as the exchange was concluded. “When they are in camp the
squaws keep them supplied with berries, camas, and wapatoes. But they
can’t bring the women out on a trip like this, away from the scenes of
their labors.”
“Here’s a present for you, Annie,” said Captain Ranger, bringing a soft,
heavy, furry robe to his wife, and spreading it over her much-prized
feather bed. “It will help you to bear the rough jolting over the rocky
roads.”
“Thanks, darling. You are very kind and thoughtful, but I shall not need
it long.”
“Oh, yes, you will, Annie! We’ve passed the cholera belt. The sun rides
higher every day; and I’m sure you’ll soon be all right.”
* * * * *
“Did you notice that big handsome Scotchman who seemed to be the boss
of that freighters’ outfit?” asked Mrs. McAlpin, addressing Jean, and
emerging from her hiding-place in one of the wagons after the outfit had
passed out of sight and hearing and the Ranger company had encamped.
“Yes, Mrs. McAlpin. He seemed master of the situation.”
“Do you think he discovered me or mamma?”
“I didn’t think to notice whether he saw either of you or not.”
“I kept out of his sight, and made mamma do likewise.”
“Did you know him?”
“May I trust you, Jean?”
“Why, certainly! What’s up?”
“I need you, Jeanie; I need a friend with a level head.”
Mrs. McAlpin’s face was gray, like ashes, and her aspect of fear was
startling.
“What under heaven is the matter?” asked Jean.
“That man is my husband!”
“Then I congratulate you. Daddie was much pleased with him. But I thought
your husband was a man of leisure, travelling in Europe, or Asia, or
among the ruins of Central America. You told me he was an archæologist.
Did you expect to find him here on these plains?”
“No, Jean, or I should not have been here myself. Only think of it! I
started on this journey on purpose to hide myself away from him for
good and all. He had gone to England a year ago to claim a vast estate,
and I planned to leave Chicago for this wild-goose chase on purpose to
avoid him. I had no idea he’d ever think of taking up a business like
freighting in a fur company. But there is no way to foresee the acts of a
man who has more money than he knows what to do with. I suppose he grew
weary of the Old World.” Mrs. McAlpin sighed.
“Are you quite sure it was he?”
“It could not have been anybody else. I’d know that voice if I heard it
in Kamchatka. And I saw him, too. I cannot be mistaken.”
“And you are determined not to live as his wife any more?”
“I simply cannot, will not, live a lie any longer.”
“Why do you tell me about this, Mrs. McAlpin? I’m nothing but an
inexperienced girl.”
“But you have more discretion than most grown-up people.”
“That’s ’cause I’ve never been in love, I guess. They say that all people
when in love are fools.”
“I want you to go with me to meet that man to-night, Jean.”
“I? What for?”
“I’m going to talk it out; and I’ll need a witness.”
“Absurd! You remind me of a moth around a candle. Does your mother know
about this?”
“No. I let her think an Indian was wanting me for a wife, and she
remained hidden till the freighters had gone. The rest was easy. She is
mortally afraid of Indians.”
“I can’t imagine why you desire an interview with a man you are trying to
avoid. How did you arrange a meeting?”
“I sent him a note by Hal, who thinks I want to buy a buffalo robe like
your mother’s.”
“To be plain with you, Mrs. McAlpin, you’re a fool.”
“I know it. But I confess to you that I want to see him so I can defy
him.”
“If you want sensible advice, go to daddie.”
“I don’t want anybody’s advice. I just want you to accompany me, and keep
hidden so as to be close at hand during the interview. He has no idea
that he is going to meet Daphne Benson.”
As Jean had been forbidden by her father to continue her rides in Mrs.
McAlpin’s company, she did not feel satisfied with herself during this
stolen interview.
“Then you didn’t let your husband know it was you who wanted to see him?”
“Of course not. What do you take me for?”
“I’ll certainly take you for one of the silliest women on earth if you
don’t give up this interview.”
“I believe, after all, that you’re right, Jeanie. But I thought, if I met
him unexpectedly out here in these wilds and put him upon his honor, he
would never try to trouble me again. I have something very important to
say to him.”
“Then wait till we get to Oregon. We must go back to camp at once. It is
time all honest folks were at home in bed.”
They found Mrs. Ranger sitting alone on a wagon-tongue, shivering in the
sharp night air.
“I’m very ill, my daughter,” she said; “dangerously so. I’ve been
watching and waiting for you the past half-hour. Where have you been?”
“She’s been pommelling a little common-sense into my addled noddle,” said
Mrs. McAlpin.
“I’ve been taking a little walk with Mrs. McAlpin, mother dear, that’s
all. But what’s the matter, mother? Where’s daddie?”
“Asleep, poor man. I don’t want him disturbed. Get me the bottle of
‘Number Six.’ There!” taking a draught of the fiery liquid. “I’ll soon be
better. Go to bed.”
Jean never could forgive herself for not sounding an alarm. During the
remainder of the short summer night Mrs. Ranger wrestled with her fate,
suffering and unattended. The heavy breathing of the weary oxen as they
slept, or the low chewing of their cuds in the silence, the occasional
hoot of an owl, or the sharp scream of a belated eagle, the sighing of
the wind in the juniper-trees, and the acute pangs of her suffering
body occupied her half conscious thoughts as she patiently awaited the
dawn, which broke at last, spreading over earth and sky the radiance of
approaching sunrise.
“John dear, come quickly; I’m very sick, and I believe I’m dying!” cried
the lone sufferer at last.
Her husband was instantly aroused.
“Why didn’t you call me long ago, darling?” he asked, crawling from
beneath a tent and rubbing his eyes to accustom them to the light. A
deadly fear blanched his cheeks as his wife fell back in convulsions in
his arms.
She opened her eyes after a prolonged spasm of pain and gave him a look
of melting tenderness.
“Make the biggest tent ready, boys!” he called, holding her close.
“Fetch the feather bed and the buffalo robe. Get hot water, Sally. Get
everything, everybody,” he exclaimed, carrying her in his arms and pacing
excitedly to and fro.
“Oh, why did I bring you out here into this wilderness?” he sobbed, as he
laid her on the bed and chafed her stiffening fingers. “Only live, and
the remainder of your days shall be as free from care as a bird’s!”
“But I shall not live, John,” she whispered during a brief lucid
interval, her eyes beaming with love and devotion. “Or, rather, I shall
not die, but awake into newness of life. This body is worn out, but that
is all. The life that animates it will never die, though I am going away.”
No effort that circumstances permitted was spared to retain the vital
spark. Not a man, woman, or child in the company would have hesitated at
any possible sacrifice to keep her spirit within the body, or to give her
ease and comfort in passing to the land of souls.
The afternoon was wellnigh spent when she grew easier. A prolonged
interval of consciousness followed.
“Where’s Bobbie?” she asked in a whisper.
“Here, mother!” cried the child, who had been a dazed and silent watcher
all the day.
“Bless his little life!” she whispered with a look of unutterable love.
“Come, Bobbie dear,” said Jean, “let’s go out and see if we can’t find
heaven, where God is. Mother is going there to live with the angels.
Let’s see if there’ll be any room for us.”
“There’ll be room for me, Jeanie; there’ll have to be, for I’m going to
die before long.”
“Why do you think so, Bobbie?”
“Cos I just am. I dreamed I went to heaven. It was a tight house, too,
like Oregon, or Texas.”
“You mustn’t think you’re going to die, Bobbie.”
“There isn’t any surely death,” said the child. “It is just going to
heaven.”
XVI
_JEAN’S VISIT BEYOND THE VEIL_
To the surprise of her sorrowing loved ones, Mrs. Ranger rallied before
sundown, after a stupor of several hours, her eyes bright and her
faculties wonderfully clear.
“It seems hard to leave you alone in this wilderness, John,” she said in
a low whisper, while feebly clasping her husband’s hand.
The sun’s expiring rays fell upon the open tent, illuminating her angelic
face, settling like an aureole upon her bright brown hair, and causing
her eyes to glow like stars. “I’m not afraid of death, dear. I am not
even afraid to leave you alone with the children in the wilderness, for I
know you’ll do your duty. But I am sorry to leave all the burden for you
to carry alone. There is One who heareth even the young ravens when they
cry. Trust in Him, dearest. He doeth all things well.”
“How can I give you up?” cried the distracted husband, stroking her pale
cheeks and forehead tenderly.
“You won’t be giving me up, John. God will let me come to you sometimes
to bless and comfort you. I know He will; for He is good, and His mercy
endureth forever. I couldn’t leave you to go far away if I tried, dear,
and I’ll never try. Do try to be a Christian, John.”
“I’ve always been a Christian, according to my lights, my darling; and
God Himself can’t keep me away from you in heaven,—if there is a God and
a heaven,” he added under his breath, unable, even in that trying hour,
to lay aside his doubts.
“God is just, and He will give you the benefit of every honest doubt,
John.”
“But He ought to let me keep you, darling; I need you, oh, I need you!”
“All is well, my husband. I am safe, and so are you, in the Everlasting
Arms. Call the children; I must be going. Don’t you hear the angels sing?”
The children were aroused, but she had relapsed into unconsciousness, and
it was fully an hour before her reason again returned.
“Mother,” she said once, while her mind was wandering, “did you get my
deed? Are you snugly settled in the little house? I tried very hard
to provide for your and father’s welfare in your last days, and—” Her
concluding words were inaudible.
“Yes, darling, your parents are provided for; there is no doubt about
it,” cried her husband, as she awoke again to semi-consciousness. And if
ever a man experienced a thrill of supreme satisfaction in the midst of
a grave sorrow, that man was Captain John Ranger, of the overland wagon
train.
“Mary!”
It was her next word of consciousness.
“Come close, dear; and Jean, and Marjorie, and Harry. The light has
faded, and I cannot see you, darlings. But be good. Obey your father.
Take good care of Bobbie, Sadie, and Baby Annie. God bless—” The sentence
was not finished.
There was another prolonged convulsion. Her husband released her hand
and closed her eyes, believing all was over. But while they all waited,
silent and awe-stricken, as if expecting a resolute move from some one,
she opened her eyes again and whispered, “John!”
“Yes, Annie. John is here.”
For an instant she beamed upon him with a look of unutterable love. Then,
as if attracted by a familiar voice, she turned her gaze toward the only
space in the tent where no one was standing.
“Yes,” she cried in clear, ringing tones; and her brightening eyes grew
strangely full of eager expectation. “I’m coming! Tell grannie I’ll be
ready for her when she comes to heaven!”
“Leave me alone with my dead!” said the bereaved husband, as he cleared
the tent of other occupants and threw himself upon the ground beside the
still and cold and irresponsive body. No longer animated by the invisible
power that for forty years had thrilled it with the mystery of being, it
lay with closed eyes and folded hands beneath its drapings of white, upon
the heavy, furry buffalo robe, placed beneath the inanimate form by the
husband’s loving hands.
Through all the years of John Ranger’s sturdy manhood, that self-denying
life had been his, devoted with all its tenderness to his interests and
those of the sweet pledges of their love, for whose sake he must now live
on, alone.
* * * * *
Months after, when the remnant of the Ranger family had reached the
land “where rolls the Oregon,” a letter came to the bereaved husband
and father, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, bringing tidings of the
dear great-grandmother’s transition; and John Ranger, still an agnostic,
awaiting the proofs of immortality that had never come to his physical
senses in such a manner as to be recognized, wandered out alone among the
whispering firs, and cried in bitterness of spirit: “Man giveth up the
ghost, and where is he?”
* * * * *
“I ought to have known better than to bring you out here to die in the
wilderness, Annie darling!” cried the grief-stricken husband, caressing
the attenuated fingers that lay stiff and cold upon the pulseless
breast. “You would never have undertaken the journey but to gratify me;
and the end is here! If you had positively refused to come, that might
have settled it. But I knew your wishes, and disregarded them; so all the
blame is mine. If I had always taken counsel of you, my better self, as
I ought to have done, I should not now have been left with our precious
little ones in these wild fastnesses, in danger of I know not what.”
“Daddie!” cried an anxious voice, “may I come in?”
He heard, but did not answer. Jean opened the door of the tent, and knelt
beside the still, white form of her mother.
“Couldn’t you sleep, my daughter?” asked her father, reaching across the
shrouded figure of his dead and tenderly caressing her tear-wet face.
“No, daddie; at least, not any more. I’ve had one short nap. When I woke
and heard you moaning, I thought maybe you’d be glad to have me come in.
I want to tell you my dream. May I, daddie dear, for mother’s sake?”
“Yes, child.”
“I dreamed that I was all alone in a great park. I have never seen
anything half so beautiful when awake, so I can’t tell you what it was
like. But there were flowers and trees and fountains, and birds of
paradise that sang heavenly songs. It seemed that I could understand the
language of every bird and butterfly and tree and flower. The birds did
not seem the least bit afraid of me; and the memory of their music is
sweet in my ears now.
“I don’t know how I got across, but before I had time to think about it,
I found myself on the opposite side of a broad and shining river, as
clear as crystal and as blue as the sky. On the water, which I could see
through to a wonderful depth, were countless living things, reflecting
all the colors of the rainbow, and many more,—all swimming, as if
without effort, among the rarest foliage and flowers. Everything seemed
alive,—that is, sentient, if that’s the proper word,—and acted as if it
knew me, and was glad I had come.
“The park I had first entered was even prettier at a distance than it
had been at closer range. The river-bank, which was covered with grass
that looked like pea-green velvet spangled with diamonds, was furnished
in spots with vine-embowered seats. To sit or step upon them did not
crush the vines; and I noticed that after they had yielded to pressure,
they would rebound at its removal, like a rubber ball,—only, unlike the
rubber, they seemed to have a consciousness all their own. The bending
green of the trees was like emeralds, and their leaves shone like satin.
The hearts of the flowers glowed like balls of living fire; and when I
plucked a spray, there was left no broken stem to show what I had done. I
was too happy to think, and I closed my eyes in absolute peace.
“Suddenly a brilliant light permeated everything; the river looked like
melted silver, and the park glowed so brightly that I tried to shield my
eyes with my hand. But my hand was almost transparent, and I could see
everything as well when my eyes were closed as open. As I sat, quietly
inbreathing the wonderful beauty of it all, filled with a happiness that
I cannot express in words, there came to me, not audibly, but yet as if
spoken by somebody, the words of the last Sunday-school lesson I had
learned in the little log schoolhouse in the Illinois woods: ‘And there
shall be no night there!’
“‘Am I in heaven?’ I tried to ask aloud; but my words gave forth no
audible sound. And though I heard nothing in the way we hear sounds, a
reply reached my senses instantly. I heard it through and through me,
though not a word was spoken. Do you want to hear the rest of it, daddie
dear?”
“Yes, child. Go on.” His eager gaze betrayed his soul-hunger. He buried
his face in his hands. “I am listening, Jean.”
“Then I will go on. In a little while I found myself floating, but
I wasn’t the least bit afraid; I just trusted. Pretty soon I became
conscious that somebody was guiding me along. I did not stir; I hardly
breathed. I was too happy to move, lest I should break the spell and find
that I was only dreaming.
“Suddenly I found myself seated in a wonderful chair. It was clear,
like crystal, but white, like ivory. It was beautifully carved, and
the figures seemed instinct with life. They yielded readily beneath
my weight,—though I was not conscious of any weight,—and they always
returned to their proper shape when relieved of pressure. The crystal
river rippled at my feet. The beautiful park spread everywhere. A bird of
paradise alighted on a bough over my head and shook its plumage in the
air, exhaling a perfume that was like that of the tuberose.
“And now comes the part that you will most like to hear. As I sat, I
heard, or rather felt, a sound, as of a gentle wind. A white arm, thinly
covered with a filmy, lustrous lace, stole gently around my neck, and
mother glided down beside me into the chair. Her eyes were as blue as the
heavens and as bright as the morning star.
“I wasn’t the least bit surprised or startled. I did not care to speak,
nor did I expect her to utter a word. I did not want the heavenly silence
broken. I pressed her hand, which was as soft as down, and pink and
white, like a sea-shell. She put her finger to her lips, as if in token
of silence.
“Suddenly a light, different from any I had yet seen, surrounded us. We
looked upward, and a form like unto the Son of Man stood before us. He
was transparent, and as radiant as the sun. We lost ourselves in the
light of His presence, as the stars lose themselves in the light of the
sun. He did not speak an audible word; but as He outspread His hands
above our heads, I turned to gaze at mother, whose raiment was as sheer
as the finest gauze. It was all edged with luminous lace; and the sheen
on her hair was like spun gold, glistening in the sunshine.”
“Didn’t she say anything, Jean?”
This man, who had all his life refused to listen to any story which could
not be verified by physical law, had lost himself in the strange recital.
Jean looked as one transfigured. She resumed her story.
“Mother said: ‘You must go back to your duties, Jean.’ Her arms were
about my neck, and her shining draperies floated around us like a mist
with the sun shining on it. ‘You have a long and weary road before you,
Jean,’ she said, speaking silently, but in words that could be felt. ‘The
experiences you will encounter will all be good for your development,
my dear,’ she added, still inaudibly. ‘The time will come when you
will realize, no matter what befalls you, that every lesson in life is
necessary for your development. You are in the arms of the Infinite One,
whose kingdom is within you, and who doeth all things well. Go back to
your dear father, Jean. Tell him I am not dead. Tell Mary, Marjorie,
Harry, and all the rest—’ Just then I felt a sudden sensation, as of
floating downward, toward the earth.
“A cow lowed as I stirred myself in the wagon, and I remembered that you
had tied Flossie to a wheel to keep her from straying from camp. Bells
tinkled on the hillsides, the wind whistled in the trees, and I sat up,
wide awake. I heard you moaning, daddie, and my heart went out to you
with a longing that I cannot describe. I could not rest till I had told
you all. What do you suppose it means?”
“I can only say, like one of old, ‘Such knowledge is too wonderful for
me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.’ Leave me now, daughter. You are
weary and must sleep.”
XVII
_FATHER AND DAUGHTER_
Jean passed out silently into the night, and pausing a moment, looked up
to the silent stars, and whispered: “‘The heavens declare the glory of
God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork.’”
How long she stood meditating she never realized. The tethered cow lowed
again,—a plaintive, beseeching wail, that seemed almost human. She was
mourning for her slain calf, poor thing,—a calf left by the roadside at
its birth. It had been mercifully killed by Captain Ranger’s order, that
it might escape the hardships of a sure but lingering death in following
its ill-fated mother.
The cow’s udder was distended and feverish. Jean, as mindful of the
practical affairs of life as of its mysteries, knelt upon the ground,
and, with the skill of much practice in the art of milking, relieved the
poor bereft mother of her pain.
“Poor Flossie!” she said, as the patient animal drew a sigh of relief.
“Poor Flossie! It seemed cruel to deprive you of your baby. And they did
it, too, before your very eyes! You must be thirsty, Flossie; you’re so
feverish,” she said, as she brought the grateful animal a pail of clear,
cold water.
Jean crept shivering into bed between her sleeping sisters, where she
tried in vain to lie awake, to live over again the vivid experiences of
her dream.
“Was it a dream?” she asked herself as she cuddled close among the
blankets. “Who knows what dreams are, anyhow? And is there anybody on the
earth who can understand, define, or fathom the mystery of sleep?” In a
few minutes she was fast asleep, and when she awoke it was morning.
“There are, there must be, other senses finer and more acute than our
five physical ones,” she thought, as she crept from her bed, refreshed
and wide awake.
The stars had paled, and the clear gray of the early dawn lit up the
crests of the abounding hills.
* * * * *
The simple preparations for the funeral rites were made in silence. Men
and women moved mechanically about the camp. The very cattle seemed to
understand.
No casket was procurable, but every man in camp was ready to do all in
his power to supply the need. Junipers of goodly size abounded in the
neighboring woods. From two of these, felled for the purpose, thick
puncheons were hewn to form a crude but stanch enclosure for the good
woman’s final home. A grave was made, with hard labor, in the abounding
sandstone, and the women lined its vault and edges with flattened boughs
of evergreen, thus making an ideal resting-place for the still, white
form, as beautiful in death as it had been in youth.
There was no prayer or sermon. The simple rites were about to close when
Mary whispered to her father: “I have heard mother say she wanted us
all to sing when they should be laying her away.” And the three eldest
daughters of the peaceful dead and the storm-rent living sang with
tremulous but not unmusical tones:—
“Oh, heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with trembling dread
At the misty future that stretches on
From the silent home of the dead.
“’Tis no lone isle in a boundless main;
No brilliant but distant shore,
Where the loving ones who are called away
Must go to return no more.
“No, heaven is near us; the mighty veil
Of mortality blinds the eye,
That we see not the glorious angel bands,
On the shores of eternity.
“I know, when the silver cord is loosed,
When the veil is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be
To the realms of endless day.”
John Ranger looked upward with bared brow and streaming eyes, and in his
heart a flickering hope was born.
The Reverend Thomas Rogers, with all his fervent eloquence and well
grounded belief in the very orthodox scheme of salvation which he had so
constantly preached, had never shaken his doubts as did the plaintive
promises of that simple, impressive hymn.
His devoted wife, strong in her faith in the efficacy of prayer, had long
ceased to speak to him of her religious convictions, for which his ready
logic and quaint ridicule suggested no answer. At such times, consoling
herself with the command of her Master, she would enter into her closet,
shut the door, and pray for him and their children in secret, with never
a doubt that sometime, someway, her prayers would be answered openly. And
who shall say that her faith was not at last rewarded, in a way she least
expected, through that plaintive song, through which, being dead, she had
yet spoken?
After the burial, the remainder of the day was spent in the silent
performance of the many accumulated duties of the camp. There was no time
for the luxury of grief. The women and girls washed, ironed, cooked, did
the dishes, mended wearing apparel, sewed up rents in wagon-covers and
tents, and gathered heaps of wild flowers, with which they adorned the
fresh mound of earth that none of them expected ever to see again.
* * * * *
The men were not idle. A broken ox-yoke needed mending. Wagon-tires were
reset. Such heavy articles as could be dispensed with were discarded.
Jamie’s cradle, for which Mrs. Ranger had begged a place in their
effects, and her grandmother’s spinning-wheel, which she had stored in
one of the wagons, were among the articles ordered to be thrown away.
“Your mother will not miss them now,” said Captain Ranger, huskily.
“It is a shame to disregard our dear mother’s wishes, now that she cannot
speak for herself,” said Mary, in a whisper, aside to Jean.
“I know it; and I’ve already made a bargain with Mrs. McAlpin to store
them in one of her wagons. Daddie will thank us for it sometime.”
Sadly and silently the work went on; for the living had to be cared for,
and nothing more could be done for the dead.
When evening came Jean sought her journal, climbed to the rim of the
little natural amphitheatre overlooking the sparkling spring of icy water
near her mother’s last resting-place, and read in the last space she had
left blank, in her father’s bold chirography, some lines of a poem which
he had quoted from memory:—
“’Twas midnight, and he sat alone,
The husband of the dead.
That day the dark dust had been thrown
Above her buried head.
“Her orphaned children round him slept,
But in their sleep would moan;
In bitterness of soul he wept.
He was alone—alone.
“The world is full of life and light,
But, ah, no light for me!
My little world, once warm and bright,
Is cheerless as the sea.
“Where is her sweet and kindly face?
Where is her cordial tone?
I gaze upon her resting-place
And feel that I’m alone.
“The lovely wife, maternal care,
The self-denying zeal,
The smile of hope that chased despair,
And promised future weal;
“The clean, bright hearth, nice table spread,
The charm o’er all things thrown,
The sweetness in whate’er she said,—
All gone! I am alone.
“I slept last night, and then I dreamed;
Perchance her spirit woke;
A soft light o’er my pillow gleamed,
A voice in music spoke:
“‘Forgot, forgiven, all neglect,
Thy love recalled, alone;
The babes I loved, O love, protect,
I still am all thine own.’”
“Dear bereaved and sorrowing daddie!” sighed Jean, as she closed the
book. “I cannot write a word to-night. Sacred to him and his be the page
on which he has inscribed these echoes of his heart. But let nobody say,
after this, that daddie has no sentiment in his make-up. The trouble is
that he is too busy a man to give rein to his feelings, except under
extraordinary pressure. I wish he hadn’t tried to throw away those
heirlooms of mother’s, though. The oxen wouldn’t have felt the difference
in the load. It was an act that he’ll be ashamed of some day.”
Weeks after, when the memory-hallowed relics came to light, Captain
Ranger bowed his head upon his hands and gave way to such a convulsion of
grief as had not shaken him, even at the time of her transition. Jean had
good cause to recall the stanzas he had inscribed to her mother’s memory
in her battered journal, as she said to herself: “I knew all the time
that daddie’s heart was right. It is only necessary to touch it in the
proper place to show that it is tender.” Once more she closed the book
without having written a word.
But we must not anticipate.
On the 22d of June another entry is recorded,—Jean’s last memorandum of
their journey in the Black Hills: “The prickly pears still give us much
annoyance. The roads are heavy with sand, and the rocks over which our
wagons must bump and bound are terribly rough and jagged.
“Across the Platte, and away to the southward many miles, though they
seem much nearer, owing to the rarity of the air, are quaint and curious
formations in the rocky cliffs, worn by the winds of ages into rude
images of men and animals that stare at us with sunken eyes, their broken
noses, grinning skulls, and disfigured bodies reminding us of unhappy
phantoms risen from the under world.
“Sometimes the semblance of a great mosque or cathedral rears its domes
and minarets in the clear blue of the heavens; and sometimes what seems
a great embattled fortification is seen rising with realistic majesty
from a vast sage plain that looks, with a little aid of the imagination,
like the dried-up bed of a big moat. Of course, ‘’tis distance lends
enchantment to the view,’ as no doubt the images we see so distinctly
would resolve themselves into shapeless masses if we could see them at
close range.
“The grass we so much need for the stock has again disappeared, and
daddie says we shall return to-morrow to the main travelled road. Wild
flowers are blooming in profusion all around our camp, smiling at us as
if in mockery of the prevailing desolation. Wood is scarce again, and we
find few buffalo chips.
“We seldom see any more deer or antelope, and the buffalo have all
escaped to the distant hills; that is, all but the hapless multitudes
that have been cruelly and needlessly slaughtered by the unthinking and
greedy hunters of the plains.
“We passed half-a-dozen newly made graves again to-day, and it is evident
that we are getting back into the dreaded cholera belt. The day has been
extremely hot, but the evening is chilly and blustering. Daddie says the
most of the victims of the epidemic are women. I wonder if such sorrow as
ours pervades every family into whose ranks the Silent Messenger comes
unbidden and steals away its hope.
“The Indians seem to have all been scared away by the cholera. What must
they think of us, who claim to be civilized and even enlightened, who
have come to bring them our religion, and with it starvation, pestilence,
and death?
“Our world isn’t yet fit for the abode of anything but beasts of prey,
of which poorly civilized man is chief. No wonder the Indians fear and
hate us. We destroy their range, we scare away their game, we scatter
disease and death among them; and as rapidly as possible we seize and
possess their lands. ‘No quarter for man or beast’ should be written upon
our foreheads in letters of fire. But maybe we are merely fulfilling our
destiny. I cannot tell; it’s all a mystery.” She closed the book with a
sigh.
XVIII
_THE LITTLE DOCTOR_
After leaving the Black Hills and descending again into the valley of the
Platte, the Ranger company found travelling still more difficult than
before they had left the main travelled road. The cattle, from burning
their hoofs in the alkali pools, through which they were often compelled
to wade for hours at a stretch, became afflicted with a serious foot-ail.
“A more dangerous epidemic than the cholera menaces us now,” said Mrs.
McAlpin, as she watched the poor brutes limping along the road, many of
them bellowing with pain and writhing under the cruel lashes of the
drivers’ whips, as they hobbled wearily on toward the setting sun.
“Yes,” replied Captain Ranger, as he blanched with apprehension. “Our
very lives depend upon the cattle; we have no other means of getting out
of the wilderness. We must do something heroic to heal their feet, or
we’ll all be left to die together.”
Scotty, whose serious accident had been overshadowed by the death and
burial of Mrs. Ranger, and who had grown weary of receiving only such
attention as could be bestowed upon an invalid not considered dangerously
afflicted, began to demand the careful nursing he at first pretended to
disdain. The jolting of the wagon, in which he still lay upon a sort
of swinging stretcher, though it alleviated the roughness of constant
rebounds from the rocky roads, aggravated the inflammation of his wound;
and the pain grew more intolerable as the bones began to knit. His
ravings of discontent were often hard for Mrs. Benson to endure. But she
adhered resolutely to her purpose as her daughter’s chaperon to prevent
too frequent visits between the twain, and often kept Mrs. McAlpin away
from his side for many hours together.
“Scotty has managed somehow to disarrange his bandages, Little Doctor,”
said Captain Ranger; “and badly as our cattle need attention, you will be
obliged to look after his case this evening. I know how punctilious your
mother is over what she is pleased to call the proprieties, but you must
attend the fellow professionally, whether she consents or not.
“I do not want any more disagreeable encounters with my mother, Captain.”
“Damn it! I beg your pardon, ma’am! But I’m sure God swore in His wrath
under less provocation,—if there is any truth in Holy Writ. These are no
times for conventional hair-splittings. You are in duty bound to visit
Scotty as his physician. I will accompany you if it will help you out.”
“I shall be glad indeed of your company, Captain. But women are not
supposed to be doctors. We’ve always been taught to look upon the
profession as one beyond our comprehension.”
“And indeed it is beyond your comprehension. Men do not comprehend it any
more than you do. If they did, it would long ago have been developed into
a science, instead of what it is,—empiricism. I’m afraid I’ll swear again
if I hear any more nonsense about the things women are not supposed to
know because they are women.”
“Are you ready to accompany me now, Captain?”
“I’ll have to be. But our lunch is ready; and, by my beans and bacon, I
must have something to eat first! There! I didn’t mean to swear. It was a
sort of slip of the tongue.”
“I am free to admit that it isn’t polite to swear, Captain. But you
didn’t take the name of God in vain; so you are forgiven. You will grant
that swearing, even by beans and bacon, is a bad habit, though. Don’t set
a bad example before the children, to say nothing of the rest of us,” she
added, laughing.
They found the patient in a high fever.
“It is his impatience that does it,” said Mrs. Benson. “He fumes like a
madman sometimes.”
Mrs. McAlpin deftly unbound, dressed, and rebandaged the unfortunate limb.
“We’re doing nicely,” she said, when her work was finished. “You mustn’t
fret yourself into a fever again. A sick man should be as serene as a May
morning.”
“How in the name o’ Melchizedek and the Twelve Apostles is a man going
to keep cool when the thermometer is raging in the nineties, and one’s
self-elected nurse is scolding like a sitting hen? If she’d ride in
the other wagon and leave you to do the nursing, I’d stand a chance to
recover.”
“Mamma is getting on famously,” laughed the Little Doctor. “You are so
amiable and sweet-tempered yourself that I can’t see why she doesn’t fall
down before your injured foot and worship you. I feel almost tempted to
try it myself. You don’t think she is enduring all this for fun, do you?”
“I suppose I haven’t been acting the angel; but it was because I wanted
the society of my doctor.”
“You allude to Mrs. McAlpin, of course,” said the Captain, smiling.
“Who else in thunder should I mean? There is but one woman doctor in the
world, so far as I know. Didn’t she find me in that infernal hole, wedged
in it like a rat in a trap? And didn’t she patch my broken bones, like a
trained physician, when there wasn’t a man in a hundred miles that could
have done it?”
“It is never wise to argue a point with a man in a fever, Mr. Burns. We
can talk it out later on. See! Mamma has brought soap, fresh water, and
towels. You couldn’t have a better nurse. You must let her bathe your
face and hands and head.”
“Won’t you take her place, Daphne?”
Captain Ranger and Mrs. Benson were not listening or looking just then;
and as for an instant their eyes met, the patient felt upon his fevered
forehead the fluttering touch of a soft, cool hand.
“Delicious!” he whispered. “I shall get well now.”
“Allow me,” said Mrs. Benson, elbowing her daughter aside; “I am head
nurse in this ward.”
The patient groaned.
“The Captain says you ought to have been a man, Daphne,” said Mrs.
Benson, as her daughter yielded her place.
“If my father had lived to see this day, he would have rejoiced that I
didn’t allow my usefulness to run to waste because of my femininity. Of
that I am as certain as that my patient is better.”
“You are a disobedient and ungrateful girl, Daphne.”
“You are my mamma.”
“I am not to blame for that, Daphne.”
“Am _I_?” asked the daughter, seriously. “I don’t pretend to understand,
and so of course cannot explain the cause that leads to individual being,
mamma dear. I know, though, that I am; and if the time should ever come
that I can know why I am, I shall understand why I am a woman. I cannot
now see that anybody is to be blamed on account of the fact, or accident,
of sex.”
“You are to blame for being a thankless child, Daphne.”
“I am neither a child nor thankless, mamma dear. I simply desire to
be and act myself. You know I love and honor you; but I have learned,
by sad experience, that each human being exists primarily for himself
or herself; and not one of us can live for another. If I had been
taught this truth in my childhood, we might both have been spared much
suffering. But”—turning to her patient—“we have other duties. Your fever
has fallen several degrees in the past fifteen minutes. I must go. When
you want to rail at anybody just pitch into me and let mamma have a
rest. Jean will bring you some broth. I’ll send Mrs. O’Dowd to sit with
you sometimes, to give mamma a little liberty. You two have been forced
to keep each other’s company till you are both as cross as a pair of
imprisoned cats.”
“I believe I’ve been pursuing the wrong policy,” said Mrs. Benson to the
Captain, as they walked together on the burning sand. “If Daphne had been
compelled to endure that patient’s petulance for more than a week, as I
have, she would have been as weary of the sight of him as I am.”
“I am not so sure of that,” replied the Captain, “seeing they’re not
married yet. Two cats will agree together like two doves, as long as they
have their individual freedom; but if you tie ’em together, they’ll fight
like dogs and tigers.”
“Poor little mamma! She’s all tired out, so she is!” exclaimed Mrs.
McAlpin, as she and her mother were walking out together after they
had stopped for the night. “You must change places to-morrow with Mrs.
O’Dowd. Then you can ride in Captain Ranger’s big family wagon with the
children and me, and get your much-needed rest.”
“Do you mean to say that I shall ride in that widower’s wagon, Daphne,
and his wife only just buried? What would people say?”
“Why should you think or care what anybody says, so long as you do your
duty, mamma? Captain Ranger is a gentleman. His heart is buried with his
wife. Don’t be a silly! Beg pardon, mamma. I didn’t mean to be slangy or
saucy. We’ve other troubles in store, and ought not to be quarrelling
between ourselves. Do you know that Donald McAlpin is following, or at
least shadowing, this train?”
Mrs. Benson blanched.
“Why do you think that, Daphne?”
“I’ve seen him twice since we met that colony of freighters. If he
persists in his persecutions, I’ll kill him!”
“Do not talk that way, child. People have been made innocent victims of
the scaffold for having made threats which they never meant to and never
did fulfil.”
“I have nothing to say against him as a man. But before God he is not
my husband, no matter what the law may have decreed, and I am living a
lie when I permit the outrage. He would make you an agreeable husband,
because you love him. I’ve known this for many a day. If I were dead or
divorced, you could become his wife, and then you would both be happy. We
are all miserable as it is.”
“But think of the looks of it, daughter! What would people say?” Her
eyes grew suddenly aglow with a newly awakened hope, in spite of her
demurrer, and her heart beat hard.
“Do you intend to do what you know to be right in the sight of God? or
do you mean to remain a slave all the days of your life to the idle
words of men and women who care nothing for you, and to whom you owe no
allegiance? Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the
heart. At least, I so read the Scripture, which you say is your rule of
faith and practice.”
“But we owe allegiance to the English Church and to human law, my child.”
“That is true; and I for one intend to obey the laws of man till they
are amended, although I was allowed no voice in their construction. But,
thanks to the progressive spirit of the age, we have divorce courts
established almost everywhere throughout the civilized world, so anybody
can obey the law and still ‘to his own self be true.’”
“No divorce can be had in our church, Daphne, except for a nameless
crime.”
“That ruling is a relic of barbarism. I will see that the way is opened
for both you and Donald to obey the law and be honest with yourselves
also.”
“But how about Mr. Burns? Does your rule apply to him?”
“We won’t discuss that matter, mamma. Mr. Burns fully understands that I
am not a free woman, and he has no right to discuss with me a question
that I am not at liberty to consider. Although I despise the law that
holds me in its thrall, I will obey it till it is annulled.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying, child.”
“Yes, I do, mamma. I have studied the law carefully. I shall obey it in
everything I undertake.”
“Don’t you know that Rollin Burns is a pauper?”
“That’s neither here nor there. The possible future relations between Mr.
Burns and myself are neither supposable nor discussable under present
conditions. What a glorious world we live in!” she exclaimed, clinging
to her mother’s arm and pulling her along. “How happy everybody might
become if everybody could afford to be honest!”
“But public opinion is a moral safeguard, my child.”
“It has wellnigh made a lunatic of me,” exclaimed the daughter, with a
sigh. “I should have been in an insane asylum if I had not grown strong
enough to defy the thing you call public opinion. Now please remember,
mamma, you may meet Donald McAlpin at any time. I have told you that
he was shadowing us. But you are not to recognize him so long as I am
his lawful wife, or it will be the worse for all of us. God knows, I am
anxious enough to set him free; and I’ll do it as soon as the law will
let me. ‘All things come to him who waits.’ Be hopeful, be trustful, be
patient, mamma dear; and be sure ‘your own will come to you.’”
A solitary horseman galloped past them and halted at the camp.
“It’s Donald!” cried Mrs. Benson, nervously clutching her daughter’s arm.
“Why can’t we speak to him, Daphne?”
“Come this way.”
Reluctantly Mrs. Benson followed.
“Let’s sit behind these rocks,” said the daughter. “It is fortunate
that I gave Captain Ranger his latest name. He knows him only as Donald
McPherson.”
They watched the two men parleying. Captain Ranger pointed toward the
distant hills with one hand, and with the other was gesticulating
vigorously.
“Will you promise not to let him recognize you while we are on this
journey, mamma dear?”
“It would be an easy promise to make, my child, if I could know when,
where, and under what circumstances we might meet again in the future.”
XIX
_A BRIEF MESSAGE FOR MRS. BENSON_
“We’ll not be able to advance another mile unless something can be done
to cure the cattle’s feet,” exclaimed the Captain the next morning, when
his teamsters came together for consultation.
“I have been studying the case during the night,” said Mrs. McAlpin,
who was preparing breakfast. “It is cool and pleasant now, but it will
be terribly hot by nine o’clock. We must treat the sore feet of our
sufferers to a heroic cure, and get them out on the range, away from the
sand of the public road, before the sun gets over the hills. We can’t
drive a hoof over the road to-day.”
“I’d like to know how in blazes we’re going to doctor the cattle’s feet
without medicine,” cried Hal. “We haven’t even enough o’ ‘Number Six’ on
hand to give my off-leader’s left foot a thorough treatment.”
“I guess we have everything we need,” replied the Little Doctor.
“Bring me your fullest tar-bucket. There, that’s encouraging. Got any
turpentine, Captain? That’s good. Now bring me an iron pot, Susannah.
Here’s a good bed of glowing coals. There,” she cried, as she emptied the
liquid tar into the iron kettle. “Now let’s add the turpentine, and I’ll
heat the mixture as slowly as possible over these red-hot coals. It is
fortunate that the flames are dead, otherwise we might set our dish on
fire and spoil our broth. Have you any oakum?”
“Not a bit. Who’d ’a’ thought we’d need oakum on a land-lubbers’ journey
like this?” said the Captain.
The Little Doctor knitted her brows. “Have you some Manila rope and a big
pan?” she asked.
“We have mother’s clothes-line, if that will do,” said Jean.
“Yo’ uns not gwine to empty dat stuff in my dish-pan, honey?” exclaimed
Susannah, in indignant protest, as Mary was fetching the pan.
Mrs. McAlpin laughed.
The seething mixture was lifted dexterously from the coals in the nick
of time to prevent an accident by fire. It was then emptied into the
dish-pan and stirred to the consistency of blackstrap,—a commodity with
which the wayfarers were familiar,—and pieces of the tarred rope were
made ready for placing between the doctored hoofs.
“We’ll try our Little Doctor’s remedy on Scotty’s off-leader first,” said
Hal. “If it should kill him, there will be only one dead, and he’s nearly
dead anyhow.”
The poor beast bellowed pitifully as his hoof was plunged into the almost
scalding mixture; but like the lassoed victim of a branding iron, he
could not get away, and each hoof received its treatment in its turn.
By the doctor’s order, a tent had been cut into convenient patches; and
the seared feet of the afflicted brute, after a liberal supply of the
flour of sulphur had been added to the tar and turpentine, were securely
wrapped with the pieces and bound with rope, to protect them from the
dust and gravel of the roads.
By the time that each disabled animal had been subjected to this heroic
treatment, it was long past noon, and the Captain decided to turn the
teams back upon the range for the remainder of the day.
* * * * *
“May I take a ride on Sukie, daddie dear?” asked Jean. “I’ll find good
grass for her, and plenty of it.”
“Yes, Jean. Take her to yonder ravine, where you see a clump of
cottonwoods. You’ll be pretty sure to find some tender grass at their
roots.”
Jean leaped nimbly to the saddle and cantered leisurely away.
Suddenly a bronzed and handsome horseman rode up beside her and lifted
his hat,—a large sombrero, surmounting a pair of square shoulders that
sported a gay serape.
“Good-morning, little miss. Or would you call it afternoon? I had stopped
under the cottonwoods to graze my horse, and I couldn’t resist the
temptation to accost you. Going to California?”
“No; to Oregon.”
“A God-forsaken country that. Rains thirteen months in every year.”
“Have you ever been there?”
The stranger shook his head. “I’ve had rain enough in England to do me
for the rest of my life.”
“A little of the Oregon rains we’ve read about would be a godsend if
we could have it now,” said Jean, mopping her perspiring face with the
curtain of her sunbonnet, and glancing ruefully at the brazen sky.
“May I ride beside you for a little distance?”
“If we keep in sight of the wagons, sir.”
“You’re not afraid of me, I hope?”
He was close beside her now, so close he could have grasped her
bridle-rein.
“Afraid? Of course not. I am not afraid of any gentleman.”
“Do you belong to yonder camp?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And there are two ladies travelling with you,—a widow and her daughter?”
“There are a grass widow and a nigger, sir.”
“Now see here, little one,” and his voice grew harsh and loud, “you’ve
been coached; that’s evident. Don’t be frightened. I don’t mean to harm
you. But I am no longer deceived. Will you do me a favor?”
He was reading her face anxiously.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“Will you carry a note for me to Mrs. Benson?”
“I don’t know, sir. See! They’re bringing in the cattle. I must hurry
back to camp.”
“Wait a little, miss. I must write a note.”
“I haven’t promised to give it to anybody, sir.”
“But you’ll do it,” he said, thrusting a few hastily written, unsealed
lines into her hand. “Give that to the young lady’s mother. I feel that
I can trust you. Here’s a dollar. You will not read the note, nor say a
word about it to any one?”
“You can trust me, sir, but I do not want your dollar.”
“Keep it, child.”
He wheeled and was gone. She watched him disappear in a cloud of dust,
and hid the note away in the bosom of her dress.
“He trusted me, and I won’t read it, though I’d be glad to know its
contents,” she whispered to herself. “Why does Fate make me the
depositary of other people’s affairs and then burden me with secrecy? I’m
only an ignorant girl; but I know enough about the secrets of more than
one of our fellow-travellers to explode bombs in several directions if
I’d tell!”
* * * * *
“I am overjoyed at the success of my first practice as a veterinary
doctor,” said Mrs. McAlpin the next day.
“We’re all glad,” said the Captain. “Small use any man would have
for this world if it weren’t for the women to help him out under
difficulties.”
“Poor Captain! How he misses his wife!” she thought, as she sought the
wagon where Scotty lay.
“I’d get well a great deal faster if I had you for a nurse, Daphne,” he
said appealingly.
“Nature is doing her best for you. She’s mending your bones thoroughly.
If we patched you up in too big a hurry, we’d soon be in trouble again.”
“But I feel like a chained eagle, lying here.”
“Captain Ranger is making you a pair of crutches, Mr. Burns. You’ll soon
be out again on your well foot, if you obey orders. Where’s mamma?”
“In the shadow of the wagon, yonder.”
Mrs. Benson was resting in the shade, indulging in a silent reverie. “Are
all the teachings of my life to be overthrown?” she said, as she thrust
a note into her pocket and buried her face in her hands. “Can it be true
that Daphne was right and I was wrong? What will people say? Daphne has
good principles, but she’s as unsentimental as a Mandan squaw. She has no
more romance in her make-up than black Susannah. Yet,” and a fluttering
hope welled up in her heart, “she’s a true and faithful daughter. I would
to Heaven that all the people in the world were as good.”
She produced her treasured note again, and read it stealthily.
“Yes, yes! it can be managed, and none of the curious will ever be the
wiser,” she said, after due reflection. “It is indeed fortunate that he’s
been compelled by the law of entail to take his mother’s name. Nobody
will know him in Oregon.”
Mrs. McAlpin found Scotty at camping time with a voracious appetite and a
temper like a caged bear.
“Where have you kept yourself through all this blistering afternoon?” he
asked, munching his food heartily.
“I can’t stay with all my patients all the time, Mr. Burns, especially as
so many of them are quadrupeds, with the hoof-ail.”
“I suppose, then, that I am to be classed as a biped, with the leg-ail.”
“Exactly.”
“Ouch! oh!” he exclaimed with a grimace, as the knitting bones gave a
sudden twinge, reminding him that they were awake and on duty. “These
infernal bandages are loose again, I hope.”
“Your bandages are doing nicely, sir. The Captain will have your
crutches ready in a day or two. Then you can take some exercise.”
“What have you done with those hideous black garments, Daphne?”
“Do you like these gray ones better?”
“Yes, I like the gray ones better.”
“So does this abounding dust. My black clothes were getting rusty, so I
made a contribution of them to the water nymphs of the Platte.”
“Why did you wear those weeds?”
“They served my purpose, sir.”
“You almost provoke me into profanity, Mrs. McAlpin; you are so
mysteriously non-committal.”
“Glad to hear it. Men don’t feel like swearing when death is staring them
in the face.”
“Your supper is getting cold, and Mrs. Benson says you must hurry up.”
The intruder, as usual, was Jean.
“I will see you later, Mr. Burns,” said Mrs. McAlpin, and she ran away,
laughing.
“You seem very happy this evening, mamma,” she said, as with cup and
plate in hand she seated herself on a wagon-tongue.
Mrs. Benson blushed. “Why don’t you eat?” she asked, evading her
daughter’s question.
“I hardly know. But I am out of sorts. Just think of men coming out on
a journey like this, with ailing wives and unborn children, with no
adequate preparation for their needs! I left one woman, less than two
hours ago, with newly born twins, and a yearling squalling like mad at
the foot of her bed. The mother was as docile as a kitten, and a hundred
times more helpless.”
“Where was the father?”
“Oh, he was shambling around, helpless and in the way. He was kindness
personified; but he was as useless as a monkey. When woman’s true history
shall have been written, her part in the upbuilding of this nation
will astound the world. I’ve seen heroines on this journey who far
outrank the Alexanders, Washingtons, and Napoleons of any of our school
histories. Yonder’s a herald coming to announce another case! Will you
accompany me, mamma? I can ask Captain Ranger to stay with Mr. Burns.”
“Not to-night, Daphne. I am very tired. And you know I have no patience
with a woman doctor, anyway. Women were seen and not heard when I was a
girl.”
XX
_THE TEAMSTERS DESERT_
“You seem to be in trouble, my little man. What can I do to help you?”
asked the Little Doctor, as a shocky-headed, freckle-faced child, ragged,
barefoot, and dirty, paused in her presence, balancing himself first on
one foot and then on the other, and occasionally rubbing his eyes with a
grimy shirt-sleeve, open at the wrist and badly out at elbow.
“I hearn tell that you was a doctor, mum. Can you come to see my mam?
She’s sick, awful.”
The child led the way to a rickety wagon, which had halted at an
inconvenient distance from the creek, in the blazing sunshine, though a
friendly tree stood near that might have afforded a grateful shade for
an hour or more if the head of the family had thought to stop the wagon
in the right spot before unhitching his team. Three or four sallow,
barefoot, and ragged little children were playing in the sand. The scant
remains of a most uninviting repast littered the ground. A half-dozen
hungry dogs, tied to the wagon-wheels, out of reach of the poor remains
of food, whined piteously.
A loose-jointed man shambled aimlessly about, wiping his tear-stained
face on the buttonless sleeve of a very dirty shirt. “She’s got the
cholera, an’ she’ll die, an’ thar’ll be nobody left to keer fur her young
uns!” he sobbed within hearing of the writhing patient.
“When did this suffering begin?” asked the Little Doctor, trying hard not
to smile.
“Nigh on to half a day ago, mum. I druv like hell to git to this ’ere
crick. I’d hearn of it afore I left the last camp.”
“Have you a tent?”
“Lawd, no! nor nothin’ else to speak of.”
“But dogs and children!” the visitor thought, as she ruefully surveyed
the scene.
“The steers have got the foot-rot. Kin you kore ’em?”
“Yes, but we must first attend to the needs of your wife. Go to Captain
Ranger. Tell him I sent you. Tell him I must borrow one of his tents and
some physic and a bottle of ‘Number Six.’ Ask for Mrs. O’Dowd, and be
sure to say that Mrs. McAlpin wants her badly.”
When Captain Ranger and his man Limpy appeared on the scene, bringing the
tent and medicines, water was already boiling in a black iron kettle,
the only cooking utensil in sight. The tent was soon pitched, and a bed
prepared for the sufferer, who was writhing in convulsions.
“Any woman accustomed to the comforts of a well-ordered home would have
died,” said Mrs. McAlpin the next morning, after the crisis was past.
“But the average specimen of the poor white trash of the original slave
States has as many lives as a cat.”
“I didn’t have no doctor,” said the patient, as soon as she was able to
be on her feet. “Thar was a woman yar, an’ she giv’ me some hot truck,
but I jist kored myself.”
The woman was telling her story to a visitor, who had called, partly from
sympathy, but chiefly from curiosity; and Mrs. McAlpin, who was assisting
Captain Ranger to compound the mixture for the ailing feet of the
stranger’s cattle, overheard the shrill-voiced visitor add, “I never did
take no stock in them women doctors.”
“I wanted water,” continued the patient, “an’ couldn’t git none; so I
waited till nobody was watchin’ and jist stole out o’ the tent in the
night an’ swallered all I could hol’ from a canteen; and I mended from
the word ‘go.’ The stuff was as warm as dish-water, but I wanted it so
bad I didn’t stop to taste it.”
All day the convalescent wrestled with weakness; but as the afflicted
cattle could not go forward till the following morning, she moved
languidly about the camp and fed her family with beans and bacon, with
the never-failing accompaniment of black coffee, which Captain Ranger
declared was “strong enough to bear up an iron wedge.”
* * * * *
The scenery became more diversified as the travellers continued their
journey up the Platte. Gradually the heat became less suffocating. Desert
sands gave way to alluvial valleys, and the health of man and beast
improved. On the opposite, or south side of the river, the scenery was
strikingly unlike that of the plain through which the emigrant road ran,
winding its sinewy length in and out, over the vast, untilled fields that
lay asleep in the sunshine, awaiting the fructifying power of the autumn
rains, and the future labor of plough and seedsman.
It was now the first of July. The heavy duties of the day were over, the
short summer evening had come, and Captain Ranger lay upon the grass,
playing with his own little ones, Susannah’s George Washington, and the
three babies of Sally O’Dowd.
The evening breezes stirred his hair and beard and filed his lungs with
a sensation of vigor he had not enjoyed since bidding farewell to his
faithful wife.
“The story goes that some prospectors have discovered gold in the
foot-hills across the big drink,” said Yank, approaching the Captain
with a sort of half-military salute.
“What of it?” asked the Captain, as he shook himself loose from the
little group, and arose to his knees, a vague fear tugging at his heart.
“What does such a discovery mean to us?”
“Nothing; only the most of us are going to throw up our job and go off
a-prospecting.”
“What! and leave me alone in this wilderness, without teamsters, a
thousand miles from nowhere, with all these women and children on my
hands to starve to death or be captured by Indians?”
“That’ll have to be your own lookout, I reckon. The gold fever’s as
sudden as the cholera, and takes you off without warning when you get it
bad.”
“What’s the matter, daddie?” asked Jean. “Are you sick?”
“I’m face to face with an awful difficulty, daughter. Our ox-drivers have
caught the gold fever. They are all going to leave us in this wilderness
but Scotty; and he’d go too, no doubt, if he weren’t crippled and
helpless.”
“Don’t let the desertion of your teamsters worry you,” exclaimed Sally
O’Dowd. “I can drive one of the teams myself.”
“What! You?”
“Yes! Didn’t I tell you that you’d never be sorry if you’d let me travel
in your train to Oregon?”
“We can all drive oxen,” cried his three daughters, in a breath.
“But who will drive for Mrs. Benson and the Little Doctor? Their
teamsters have joined the stampede, and they can’t drive oxen.”
“Just try us and see if we can’t,” laughed the Little Doctor.
“But you have two teams, and your mother cannot drive one of them.”
“I’ll make a trailer of one of the wagons, just as the freighters do in
the Assiniboin country.”
“Does Mrs. Benson know about this?”
“Yes; we’ve talked it all over. It’s a genuine case of ‘have to,’
Captain.”
“What will you do with Scotty?”
“We’ve considered him! He’ll soon be on his feet again. Meanwhile, he’ll
have to stay on in his hammock.”
“He’s not good for anything there nor anywhere else!” said the Captain,
testily. “He doesn’t know beans about driving oxen, and I doubt if he can
ever learn!”
“He’s great on ‘intervention’ and ‘non-intervention,’ though,” laughed
Mrs. McAlpin. “He’s even greater on the Monroe Doctrine.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Jean, “and you ought to hear him rave over the nation’s
allegiance to Mason and Dixon’s Line. It’s on the troubles over the
slavery question, which he says are looming all along the national
horizon, that he comes out strong.”
“He’s taught me a lot about law and equity, courts and criminals,
constitutions and codes,” said Hal.
“You make light of the peril of our situation because you do not
comprehend its gravity,” exclaimed Captain Ranger. “We need our
teamsters. Scotty is a capital theorist, but he’ll never set a river
afire.”
“That’s a feat you’ve never accomplished yet, daddie,” laughed Jean.
“I’ve come as near it as any living man; for I boiled the Illinois dry,
once!” replied the Captain, alluding to an experience of a former year of
drouth, when a steam sawmill he was operating on the river-bank had to be
closed down for a season for want of water.
“Don’t worry, Captain,” cried Sally O’Dowd. “The women and children won’t
forsake you.”
“Because they can’t,” was the curt response, and he walked away to be
alone.
* * * * *
The next morning, the teamsters, notwithstanding the strike, were
standing around the camp-fires, waiting for breakfast. Some of them
looked a little ashamed, some were a little concerned as to the fate of
the train, and two or three seemed to enjoy the Captain’s predicament.
“Clear out, every last one of you!” he exclaimed, as they made a move for
the mess-boxes as soon as breakfast was ready. “The women folks are my
teamsters now, and they shall have the first seats at my table.”
As the men turned away, crestfallen and hungry, their resolution to “get
rich quick” began to drop toward zero; but their leader and spokesman
hurried them away, explaining that they would find a trading-post and
plenty of “grub” across the river.
Mrs. McAlpin paused to visit Scotty a moment at his hammock; and as Mrs.
Benson was busy with some duties at the fire, the couple were alone.
“Why these groanings, Mr. Burns?” she asked, placing her cool hand upon
his corrugated forehead.
“Because I’m a fool!”
“Did anybody ever dispute it?” she asked with a silvery laugh. “There!
Not another word. You are my patient, remember. You mustn’t talk back.”
“Your touch is the touch of an angel.”
“Did you ever see an angel?”
“I’m _vis-à-vis_ with one this holy minute. Ouch! Confound that pain!”
“I thought you enjoyed my surgery. You said you did.”
“I have just said I was a fool.”
“Did I dispute it?”
He laughed in spite of his pain. “Say, Little Doctor, are you never going
to let me talk it out?”
“Talk what out?”
“Our personal affairs.”
“Not yet. You must be patient. I am not a free woman yet.”
“But you’ll let me hope?”
“I cannot say. I am determined to obey the letter of the law.”
“I could leap for joy, Daphne!”
“Better not try it; might injure your knitting-bones.”
“Here,” said Mrs. Benson, who had been purposely busy at the fire, “is a
dish of savory stew. And here is some hardtack, soaked till it is light
and soft. It is hot and nicely buttered. The coffee is guiltless of
cream, but it is fresh and good.”
“And black and aromatic and Frenchy,” exclaimed Scotty. “Mrs. McAlpin,
will you dine with me to-day?”
“No, Mr. Burns; my meal awaits me at the fire.”
“What sort of game is this?” he asked, as he ate with relish.
“Captain Ranger called it a prairie bird.”
“Birds in my country don’t wear hair, but feathers,” he said, holding to
the light the hind-quarter of a prairie dog, and pointing to bits of hair
afloat in the gravy.
“Ask me no questions, for conscience’ sake,” cried Mrs. Benson, who was
laughing heartily. “It may be a prairie dog, or it may be a prairie
squirrel. But it is good for food, and much to be desired to make you
well and wise.”
“It is all right,” laughed Mrs. McAlpin. “When Lewis and Clark were on
the Oregon trail, nearly fifty years ago, away yonder to the north of us,
they were glad to trade with the Indians for mangy dogs, sometimes, if
they got any food at all.”
* * * * *
When Scotty awoke the following morning, after a sleep that was as
refreshing as it seemed brief, the sun was creeping over the wide
expanse of the Platte, making it shine like a gigantic mirror. The women
and girls, who had been up for an hour, were bringing in the stock.
Susannah, who had been detailed to cook the breakfast and mind the
children, was baking flapjacks, and the aroma of coffee was in the air.
“We can all eat at the first table now,” said Jean, as they knelt around
the mess-boxes.
Before the repast was finished, they were surprised to see the men who
had left them for the gold mines reappear at camp, looking cheap and
ashamed.
Sawed-off was the first to speak. “We talked it over with Brownson
and Jordan, and the four of us concluded that we couldn’t desert you,
Captain. So the rest of ’em joined in.”
“I reckon you got hungry,” said the Captain, dryly.
“No, Captain. It wasn’t hunger; it was conscience that sent us back.”
“How much cash can you put up as collateral, if I conclude to trust you
again?”
The crestfallen men were silent.
“Seeing the risk is all mine, and all the provisions and other parts of
the entire outfit are mine, and you are foot-loose and can play quits at
any time, I guess we’d better not make any new deal. My gals and these
widders can help drive the teams.”
The self-discharged teamsters withdrew beyond hearing of the camp, and
parleyed long and earnestly.
“We’ve got to do something!” exclaimed Sawed-off. “Just watch them gals
handle them cattle! They’ve the true grit.”
“Do you s’pose the Cap’n ’d take us back if we’d pungle say fifty dollars
apiece?” asked Limpy.
“We can’t do better than make the offer,” said Yank.
“This cash’ll come handy at the other end of the line,” said the Captain,
intrusting the gold to the care of his daughters and reinstating his men,
after a sharp exhortation to avoid repeating the offence.
XXI
_AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER_
“Oh, this wonderful Western country!” wrote Jean in her diary, under date
of midnight, July 4. “After travelling so long on the banks of the Platte
that we had come to look upon it as a familiar friend, we left it to the
southward and turned our course up the valley of the Sweet Water, through
a succession of low, wooded hills. This little river, though not more
than a hundred feet wide, is quite deep, and runs like a mill-race. The
water is as clear as ether, and agreeably cold.
“Nobody can conceive the vastness of this country, or imagine its future
possibilities, until he has crossed the great unsettled part of this
continent to the westward and seen it for himself.
“Some days we move for many hours over great stretches of alluvial soil,
which only needs the impulse of cultivation to make it yield of the
fruits of the earth like magic. Again, we are in the midst of big fields
of crude saleratus, or salt, or sulphur. Now and then our cattle are
compelled to wade through an alkali swamp, suggesting more foot-ail; but
our Little Doctor says that danger is past for this year; she has not
stated why, and maybe she doesn’t know.
“We encamped last night near Independence Rock,—a huge pile of gray
basalt, covering an area of perhaps ten acres, and looking to be about
three hundred feet high. Its sides are formed of great irregular
bowlders, worn smooth by the warring elements of ages.
“July 5. Yesterday was Independence Day, and as we had camped near
Independence Rock, daddie laid over to celebrate.
“About noon, Mary, Marjorie, and I concluded that we would climb the rock
to its summit, carrying with us the only star-spangled banner the train
could boast. But our scheme failed through the fickleness and fury of the
same elements that have been smoothing the surface of the rock during the
ages gone.
“We had climbed over halfway to the top when a low, dense cloud, as
blue-black as a kettle of indigo dye, enveloped us. It came upon us so
suddenly that we hardly realized our danger till we were surrounded
by semi-darkness in the midst of a pelting hailstorm. We retreated so
blindly and hastily that it is a miracle we didn’t break our necks.
“Thunder and lightning followed, or rather accompanied the hail, and
were succeeded by a deluge of rain. Sudden squalls of wind would fairly
lift us off our feet at times as we hurried downward, making the descent
doubly perilous. But the storm soon spent its fury, leaving the air as
clear and sweet as a chime of bells.
“A roaring fire welcomed us at camp, by which we warmed our chilled
marrow-bones and dried our sodden toggery.
“Daddie scolded; Mame charged our mishap all to me; Marj blamed both of
us, and excused herself. It is the way of the world, or of most people in
it, but it is sometimes very provoking. I hadn’t thought of attempting
the climb till the other girls proposed it; but I took the brunt of the
blame, and, as usual, got all the scolding.
“The storm wouldn’t let us try to float the flag, but it got very wet,
and we had our labor for our pains.
“Sally and Susannah prepared a Fourth of July banquet of antelope steaks,
to go with our regulation diet of beans and coffee. After dinner Mrs.
McAlpin sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ the rest of us joining in the
chorus. Susannah sang a lot of negro melodies, and George Washington
danced for us, his white teeth shining, and eyeballs gleaming. Hal read
the Declaration of Independence, and daddie ‘made the eagle scream.’
“He was in the midst of his oration, and I was wondering where all
the men of valor came from, seeing they had had no mothers to assist
in getting up this spread-eagle scheme we call a republic, when I was
compelled to leave the crowd and poise myself on a wet wagon-tongue
to write the thing up. Scotty, who is still on crutches, delivered an
oration on the side, of which I heard but little, owing to my banishment.
“But I won’t always be so meek and silent on the Fourth of July. I’ll
write a Declaration of Independence for women some day.
“Daddie burned some powder after dark, ‘to amuse the children,’ he said,
but I noticed that the men enjoyed the noise even more than the children
did. Poor Bobbie got some powder burns about the face, and Sadie and the
babies gave us a squalling chorus, prompted by fright, causing me to
wonder why men must always celebrate our patriotism with the emblems of
death and destruction.”
On July 6 she wrote: “We have reached the edges of the Rocky Mountains
now; and as we climb slowly and almost imperceptibly toward their
summits, our road winds in and out along the meandering bases of a great
divide, down which many little streams of icy water dash with foam and
roar, forever in a hurry, always trying to go somewhere, and never
reaching any settled goal.
“Now and then we get glimpses of distant summits, but we are reaching
them by an ascent so gradual that daddie says we shall not realize that
we have crossed the great divide till we see the water has changed its
course from east to west.
“We passed a trading-post to-day, belonging to a company having its
headquarters at Salt Lake. The men in charge wore big sombreros, buckskin
trousers, and moccasins of buffalo hide. They all smoked incessantly
and affected the airs of the genus cowboy, or _vaquero_ of the plains,
of whom we often see specimens roving over hill and plain on horseback,
their shoulders covered with gayly colored serapes, flapping in the wind
like wings.
“We pass daily from six to a dozen graves, but not so newly made as those
noticed heretofore; so we conclude the cholera is abating.
“There, old Journal! I’ve done my level best to write you up to date.
But it’s like climbing these mountains,—uphill work, and dreadfully
monotonous!”
* * * * *
“Did you buy a fresh stock of provisions, Captain?” asked Sally O’Dowd,
as they were preparing to leave the trading-post which Jean had
mentioned, after he had held a long parley with a big, bronzed, and
heavily bearded mountaineer, who was strikingly handsome despite his
peculiar make-up.
“Yes, Sally. I bought a couple o’ hundred pounds o’ flour, for which I
paid a twenty-dollar gold-piece.”
“I was feeding the children, and didn’t get a chance to make my purchases
at the proper time. Won’t you hold the teams back a few minutes for me?”
“Yes, but hurry up.”
“Let me have a hundred pounds of flour, sir,” she said, approaching the
counter, behind which the trader stood, smoking a huge meerschaum.
“Anything else?”
“Yes; the balance of this twenty-dollar gold-piece in dried peaches,
please.”
In filling her order, the trader raised the cloth partition of the tent
to reach his base of supplies, and in the middle of the tent Sally espied
an unkempt squaw and half-a-dozen dusky children.
“I’ll be compelled to hurry,” she said, as he leisurely weighed her
fruit. “Captain Ranger is always demanding haste.”
The trader started suddenly, his face blanching.
“Where does your train hail from?” he asked.
“From the middle West, sir. We are going from the West to the West.”
The trader balanced two sacks of Salt Lake flour on his shoulders, and
grasping the smaller package of peaches, strode out hurriedly toward the
wagon near which Captain Ranger was standing, impatient to be gone.
“These purchases are for the lady, sir. Where will you have them dumped?”
“Any place where there’s room, and don’t let any grass grow under your
feet!”
“The lady tells me your name is Ranger, sir.”
“Yes. What of it?”
“Will you walk with me a little way ahead of the wagons? I have something
important to say to you alone.”
“We are scarce of drivers,” replied the Captain, hesitating. “Two of my
men are out hunting.”
“I can drive,” exclaimed Jean, reaching for the whip, which she handled
with the skill of a freighter, finishing her flourishes with a series of
snaps at the end of a deerskin cracker, like the explosion of a bunch of
fire-crackers.
“If we’ll take this cut-off, we’ll come out a mile or more ahead of the
wagons,” said the trader. “Then we can rest by the roadside till they
catch up.”
The Captain strode by his side in silence.
“Don’t you know me, John?” asked the stranger, grasping him by the arm,
and speaking in a hoarse whisper.
Captain Ranger eyed him earnestly, his cheeks paling.
“Can it be possible that you are—Joe?” he asked, seizing his hand with a
vise-like grip.
“I am indeed your brother Joe,—an outlaw, now and always.”
“No, you are not an outlaw; the fellow over whom you got into that
trouble is alive and well. You’d have got out of that scrape all right if
you hadn’t jumped your bail and left all the rest of us in the lurch. Why
didn’t you stand your trial, like a man?”
John Ranger’s feelings overcame him, and he sank upon the ground, filled
with old-time memories. He buried his face in his hands. Time and
distance faded away, and he saw, with eyes of memory, the gentle, fading
face of his toiling, uncomplaining wife, whose life had been for years a
sacrifice to penury through the debt entailed by this brother’s cowardice.
“Do you mean to tell me that Elmer Edson is not dead?”
The question called him back to present conditions with a sudden start.
“Elmer Edson is not dead, but Annie Ranger is!” he said hoarsely. “We had
to leave her precious dust in the ground away back yonder in the Black
Hills. We started together on this terrible journey, hoping to escape the
consequences of that awful mortgage with which you left us in the lurch.
She had denied herself many comforts and all the luxuries of life for a
dozen years to feed the ever-eating cankerworm of interest. No, Joe, you
didn’t kill Edson; but through my efforts to help you out of a trouble in
which you should never have been entangled, you became accessory to the
lingering death of my wife.”
“Don’t reproach me, John! I loved Annie like a sister. I did indeed. She
was a sister to me from the day she became your wife. You don’t or won’t
see how it grieves me to hear of her death.”
“Why didn’t you write to us, like a man?”
The brother had risen to his feet, and was pacing nervously to and fro,
whittling aimlessly on a bit of sagebrush.
“I was afraid to write. There was a price upon my head, as you have no
need to be informed.”
“Yes, Joe; and to pay the interest on that price was the bane of my
existence for a dozen years. But you can write now. Our dear mother—God
bless her!—would forget all the terrible past if she could hold you in
her arms once more. It is your duty to return at once, and settle, as
well as you can, for the trouble you have caused. You ought at least to
lift that accursed mortgage from the farm, and let Lije Robinson and
Sister Mary and our parents spend the remainder of their lives in peace.
You are a free man, and can go where you please.”
“But I am not a free man, John. Even with that horrible load off my
shoulders, I still am bound, hand and foot.”
“Are you married, Joe?”
“Yes, John. You see, when a fellow is in hiding among the Indians, with a
price set upon his head, and is therefore afraid to go home, he’s nothing
but a fugitive from justice; he expects to spend his life there, and
never see the face of another white woman; and when there are scores of
pretty Indian girls in sight—”
John Ranger jumped to his feet, his fists clinched and his eyes glaring.
“You don’t mean to tell me that my brother is married to—to a—squaw?”
There was ineffable scorn in his tone and manner. It was now Joe’s turn
to sink upon the ground and bury his face in his hands. When he again
looked at his brother, there was an expression of age and anguish upon
his face which had not been there before.
“I am the husband of an Indian woman, and the father of seven half-breed
children,” he said with the air of a guilty man on trial for his life.
“But there are extenuating circumstances, John. My wife was no common
squaw. If you care for me at all, you will not apply that epithet to the
mother of my children. She was the daughter of a Mandan chief, who had
large dealings with the Hudson Bay Company, and who sent her to England
to be educated. You’d hardly think it to see her now, though; for the
Indian women fall back into aboriginal customs when they leave the haunts
of civilization to return to their people and take up life, especially as
mothers, among their own kind and kin. At least, that is what Wahnetta
did.”
John Ranger groaned. “My God! has it come to this?” he cried, looking the
picture of despair.
“If you had been in my place, you would have married her yourself, John.
Nobody has a right to judge another; for no one knows what he will do
till he is tried.”
“Don’t you regret the marriage, Joe?”
“It is too late for regrets. The deed is done, and I cannot get away from
my fate. Shall we part as friends and brothers? Or is there an impassable
gulf between us?”
There was an unspoken appeal in his tone, far stronger than words, which
John Ranger remembered for many a day. But he refused his brother’s
proffered hand, and said hoarsely, as he sprang to his feet: “Don’t, at
your peril, let anybody know that you are my brother!”
He wheeled upon his heel and was gone.
XXII
_THE SQUAW MAN_
Captain Ranger overtook his train at a late hour, still nursing his
towering wrath. His face was livid, and his breathing stertorous.
Snatching the ox-whip from the hands of Jean and frightening the
discouraged cattle into the semblance of an attempt at hurry by the cruel
vehemence with which he belabored their lash-beflecked hides, he urged
them forward, never once relaxing his attacks with the whip till he had
rushed them over the uneven road and rocks for six or seven miles.
“Daddie is in a terrible tantrum over something very unusual,” said Jean.
“Do you know what is the matter?” she asked aside, addressing Sally
O’Dowd.
“No, Jean; unless he had some hot words with that post-trader. I know
he thought ten dollars a hundred for flour was robbery. And think of a
dollar a pound for dried peaches!”
“Daddie’s not idiot enough to work himself into a fever over a trifle
like that,” answered Jean. “But suppose he has been thrown into a passion
by anybody, the poor half-sick and half-famished oxen ought not to be
punished for it. He reminds me of an old Kentucky slave-owner who got
so mad because one of his sons failed to pass his first exams at West
Point that he went out, as soon as he heard about it, and cruelly whipped
a nigger.” And falling back to the family team, beside which Hal was
trudging, whip in hand, striving to keep the jaded cattle close behind
his father’s oxen, she dropped hastily on one knee on the wagon-tongue
and climbed nimbly to a seat.
“That trader is still sitting by the roadside,” she cried to Sally, who
was trudging through the sand. “He’s digging the earth with a jack-knife
or dirk, or some other sharp implement, and seems quite as savage and out
of humor as daddie. Wonder what daddie said to him.”
One by one the wagons passed the solitary trader, who had climbed to a
low ledge of rocks, where he sat as silent as the sun. His knife had
fallen to the ground and lay glittering at his feet. His broad sombrero
shaded his face.
The sudden rebound from the great happiness that had been his when first
informed that he was not a murderer and an outlaw, to the abject position
of a spurned and degraded “squaw man” seemed more than he could bear. “I
am not a murderer, though, and that’s some comfort,” he moaned. “But
I am still a Pariah,—an outcast from my own people. What will my dear
mother think of me when John acquaints her with the facts? What will my
father say or do?”
It is well that Mother Nature, in her wisdom and mercy, has provided a
limit to human suffering, else everybody in this world would at times
become insane.
Cicadas gave forth their rasping notes in the dry grass, and a colony
of prairie dogs played hide-and-seek over the uneven streets above an
underground settlement hard by. A badger peeped cautiously from the mouth
of his sagebrush-guarded den, and a rattlesnake crawled unnoticed past
his feet.
“I don’t blame John for being disappointed and angry,” he said aloud,
“but I am amazed at his lack of charity. If he could have seen and known
Wahnetta as I did, at the time of our marriage, he would have been
pleased with my choice. But it is too late now. Her girlish grace and
beauty are gone, and one could hardly distinguish her from any of the
other pappoose-burdened, camas-digging squaws that abound in spots in the
land of the Latter-Day Saints. I might send her back, with the children,
to the remnant of her tribe among the Bad Lands, but the act would be
infamous. No, Joseph Ranger; you must take your medicine.”
He thought of his joyous exultation at the time he had won the
accomplished and graceful Indian princess, whom half-a-dozen
distinguished braves and as many handsome white traders had sought in
marriage; of her trusting preference for him; of their joyous honeymoon;
and of the herd of beautiful horses with which he had purchased her for
his chosen bride, thus making her a slave. He winced as he thought of the
legal status of his wife and children.
He blushed with shame as he thought of her loyalty to him through all the
years of her transformation from a lithe and pretty maiden of sixteen,
whom every man admired, to the shapeless and slovenly specimen of her
people, of whom he was now ashamed. He thought bitterly yet lovingly of
the numerous children she had borne him uncomplainingly, while wandering
from place to place in quest of roots and berries to save them from
starvation in their early married years, when game would be scarce and
his fickle fortunes had vanished for months at a stretch.
He remembered with what loving pride he had named his first two children
John and Annie, in honor of the brother and sister for whom his heart had
so often hungered. “And the end is this!” he cried, noting with a start
that the sun was down. “Why did I name them John and Annie? I might have
known better. I was a fool. And yet why should they be spurned on account
of their Indian blood? If, instead of marrying Wahnetta, I had refused to
make her my lawful wife, would my white relations have spurned me now?”
His childhood days passed and repassed before his mental vision like a
panorama.
His family had been proud of him. What sacrifices they had made to send
him to college, and with what base ingratitude he had repaid their
loyalty and love! He had worse than wasted his opportunities, he thought,
as he gazed abroad over the mighty landscape, bounded on the one hand by
the wide basin of the receded and still slowly receding waters of Great
Salt Lake, and on the other by the Rocky Mountains,—so near that they
obstructed his vision, though he well knew their extent and majesty.
“This won’t do!” cried the wretched man, as he started homeward, reeling
like a drunken man.
“Papa!” cried a childish voice. “Do hurry home! We are so hungry! Where
have you been for so long?”
“All right, Johnnie; I’m coming. Papa forgot.”
* * * * *
In a large military tent, or annex, at the rear end of the trader’s tent
sat Wahnetta, his wife. He shuddered at the thought. And yet why should
he? Was she not as good as he? Had all her years of faithful servitude
counted for nothing?
A meal of boiled buffalo meat and vegetables, with bread, coffee, butter,
and eggs, was waiting on a table of rough boards resting on trestles, and
covered with an oilcloth that had once been white.
In one corner, beside a big sheet-iron cook-stove, sat, or rather
crouched, the woman whom he had made his wife. She was not yet thirty
years of age, but all traces of her girlish youth and beauty of face
and figure were gone. Her dress, a cheap and garish print, was open at
the neck and arms, and hung in slovenly folds about her fat form and
moccasined feet.
“Why in thunder don’t you keep yourself and the young ones clean and
dressed up?” asked her husband, as he dropped into his seat at table.
“You keep yourself like a Digger squaw!”
“I should belie the customs of my people if I aped the airs of white
folks when I must live like an Indian, Joseph Addicks!” said the woman,
in well-modulated English, as she arose and approached the table,
coffee-pot in hand.
“I loathe and abhor the very sight of you!” he exclaimed with a savage
glare.
“You didn’t talk like that when I was young and pretty, Joseph! If you
had tried it once, you would not have had a chance to repeat it then.
Perhaps,” she added bitterly, a moment later, as she filled his plate,
“perhaps I could have retained my charms if you had taken me back to
London and kept me within the pale of civilization in which I was
educated. You said before you married me that you would take me back to
Canada, where you said your people lived, who would be glad to welcome
me. How well you have kept your promise let these surroundings answer. I
married you believing that your people would be my people, and your God
my God. And,” looking around her, “this is the result!”
The sleeves of her gaudy dress were rolled back above the elbows,
exposing her fat yet muscular arms, not over-clean; and the dingy pipe
she had been smoking protruded from the open bosom of her gown.
“Where have you been during all this busy afternoon, Joseph?” she asked,
still standing.
“To hell!”
“Your missionaries have taught me that people only go to hell from
choice, Joseph; that is, if there is any worse hell anywhere than we
are in all the time,—which I love the Great Spirit too well to believe.
It seems to me we are compelled to take the punishment we bring upon
ourselves here and now.”
“You haven’t any right to think, you loathsome, disgusting—”
“Stop, Joseph Addicks! This is, you say, a white man’s country now. Will
you prove it by behaving yourself like a gentleman? I didn’t live for
four years in a white man’s country for nothing.”
He arose and left the table without a word. His wife had seen him in
moods like this before.
“Come, John; come, Annie; take your seats at table. You must be half
famished.”
Four or five smaller children as dusky as herself were playing on the
earthen floor; and, leaning helplessly against a pyramid of flour sacks,
lashed in Indian style to its birchen cradle, was a pappoose of three
months, defencelessly enduring an attack of mosquitoes on its face and
eyes.
“My father was a fool for sending me to college,” thought Joseph Ranger,
who, like many others that go wrong, was ready to blame everything and
everybody except himself. “The university should have stopped that hazing
before it began, so I couldn’t have had that fracas.”
“Why didn’t you eat your dinner, Joseph?” asked his wife, after she had
fed the children.
“Because I hate this accursed life too heartily to have any appetite for
food.”
“Haven’t I always urged you to go with us back to civilization, Joseph?”
“With you for a wife? You don’t know what you are talking about.”
Then—but it was not the first time since Wahnetta had become his property
by purchase—he fired himself up with the vile whiskey his company held
in stock, and, taking advantage of the English common law, at that time
an acknowledged authority in every State and Territory in the Union,
he provided himself with a stick, no thicker than his thumb, and beat
Wahnetta, his wife, long and brutally.
* * * * *
Captain Ranger had allowed his anger to cool before the sun went down. To
his credit be it spoken, he was very much ashamed of himself. “I was like
an enraged, unreasoning animal,” he exclaimed aloud. “I might at least
have repulsed Joe with kindness. I will write to my father and mother and
tell them that my brother who was lost is alive and is found. But I’ll
say nothing about the domestic side of his history. It would only grieve
them all, and they couldn’t help matters. It is none of my business,
anyhow.”
But he could not sleep. The memory of his and Joseph’s boyhood days
reproached him, and he thought lovingly, in spite of himself, of the
younger brother of whom he had been so proud. Many incidents of their
childhood, long forgotten, passed before him with startling vividness.
“Joe saved my life once,” he said, half audibly. “I would have been
drowned as sure as fate, when I broke through the ice that day, if he
hadn’t saved me at the risk of his own life. Dear boy! I’ll saddle Sukie
and go back to see him in the morning.” With this resolution settled in
his mind, he fell asleep; but his sleep was fitful. Sometimes the sad,
sweet face of his gentle Annie would bend over him, awakening him with a
start. A conviction settled more and more strongly upon his mind that he
had cruelly wronged his brother, and he would be allowed no rest till he
should atone.
Once, long before morning, he saw himself face to face with a raging
buffalo bull. It was without eyes, and gazed at him through sightless
sockets, and shook its formidable head at him with as much certainty of
aim as though its thick and darkened skull were ablaze with light. The
beast held the only vantage-ground,—an open plain,—and at his back rose a
sheer and inaccessible mountain, up which there was no chance of escape.
XXIII
_THE SQUAW ASSERTS HER RIGHTS_
The morning found the post-trader with a raging headache. For several
minutes after awakening to consciousness he remained motionless, not
realizing time or place.
“Oh, mother! my head, my head!” he exclaimed, as he locked his fingers
above his throbbing temples. Never before since his marriage had he
uttered a cry of pain without bringing Wahnetta to his side. Now no one
noticed his groaning. He raised himself upon his elbow and gazed through
the open door of his sleeping apartment upon the broad and dusty plain.
The sun was already an hour high. Numerous campers had struck their
tents, and the teams were moving toward the farther West. He turned
his gaze within the tent and regarded Wahnetta with a look and feeling
of disgust. She had prepared his breakfast while he slept, and had fed
their ravenous brood,—all save the baby in its Indian basket, which was
whining pitifully as it blinked its eyes in a helpless attempt to drive
away the flies.
“Why don’t you keep your young one quiet?” roared her husband, savagely.
“I’ve been doing the best I could,” said the woman, meekly. “I’ve gotten
all the children settled outside in the shade, studying their lessons,
except this poor little pappoose, and I’ll ’tend to his wants as soon as
I have disposed of the worst baby in the lot,—and that’s you.”
“What in thunder has come over you, woman?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you had breakfast?”
“Food would choke me, Joseph Addicks! See what you did last night!” She
threw back her heavy mass of torn and tangled hair, exposing an ugly
bruise on her temple. “If it were not for these children, I’d leave you
and strike out for myself. But as I cannot get away from them, I will
stay by them, as many a woman in all countries is obliged to do under
like circumstances till she either dies or can run away. But I tell you
right here and now that I will never take another blow from you or any
other man.”
“I’d like to see you help yourself.”
“I’ll help myself by laying you dead at my feet! No man who respects
himself will marry a woman not his equal, or if she is of an inferior
race. I didn’t know this when I was a foolish young girl, but I
understand it now. In marrying an Indian girl you did not elevate her one
atom, but you degraded us both. I now tell you to your teeth that I hate
you, and you can’t help it.”
“I never would have married you if I had known that I was not an outlaw.
I thought myself a murderer till yesterday. I know better now. I am sorry
I beat you, though. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been in a drunken
frenzy. I’m in a better temper this morning; but oh, my head, my head!”
“Let it ache! So does mine, but I can’t lie abed and groan. I am
compelled to look after the family’s needs, sick or well.”
Then, womanlike, though the poor little pappoose fretted pitifully in
its Indian basket, his wife brought cold water and towels and bathed his
throbbing forehead.
“I’m better now,” he said, as his temples cooled. “Will you forgive me
for beating you last night, Wahnetta?”
She looked at him in astonishment. Never before, though he had often
bestowed indignities upon her that he would not have inflicted upon a
favorite dog or horse, had he addressed her thus, or shown any sign of
repentance.
“If I had kept my promise, Wahnetta, as I should have done, I would
have taken you as a bride to London or Montreal and replaced you in the
world of civilization, in which you were educated by your fond, mistaken
father. But I couldn’t do it, because of my daily dread of the hangman’s
rope. I do not wonder that you despise me. I did not realize that I had
become that thing that every self-respecting man of the West abhors,—a
‘squaw-man’!”
“Don’t you dare to say ‘squaw’ to me, Joseph Addicks! It is an epithet no
white man uses except in contempt. When we were married I was your equal
in education, your superior in personal appearance, and your match in
ambition. I now see that I was far ahead of you in moral character, for
I was never a fugitive from what the world calls justice. But why didn’t
you confide all this to me long ago?”
He laughed derisively. “I knew the treacherous Indian nature too well,
woman; and I wouldn’t trust you now if it were in your power to betray
me; but there is nothing now to betray.”
“And I am no longer afraid of you, Joseph Addicks.”
“My name is not Addicks. My brother passed through here yesterday. His
name is John Ranger, and I am his long-lost brother, Joseph. He is taking
his family to the Territory of Oregon.”
He arose finally and made a tolerable breakfast, she, for the first time
since their marriage, taking her seat at the table beside him as he ate.
“If you’d keep yourself clean and tidy, like a self-respecting white
woman, you wouldn’t appear so—so Injuny, and I wouldn’t be so very much
ashamed of you. I’m sick to death of this bondage, Wahnetta. I, too, was
a young and unsophisticated fool when we were married. What will you
take to let me out of it honorably? I want to do everything I can to
atone; but something must be done. I will not longer endure this mode of
existence.”
“I have an idea, Joseph. My inheritance from my father arrived several
days ago. I hadn’t thought of claiming it for myself, but I will now.
Give me a letter of credit for the whole of it, with an outfit for
travelling, and I will go, with the children, to a village on the
Willamette River called Portland, in the Territory of Oregon. You know
Dr. McLoughlin well, and so do I. There’s a convent in Portland, where I
can place the girls, and a brothers’ school near by for the boys. I’ll
get a boarding-place, not too far away, for myself and the little tots
that are too young to be in school. I will soon recruit if I can get a
chance to rest up and dress myself as the white women in my position do.
You won’t know me in three months after I have had a chance to live in
keeping with my station.”
She paused, panting because of her own audacity. Never before had she
ventured to give utterance to so long a speech in his presence. He saw a
ray of hope and pursued it eagerly.
“I have a good wagon, and a fine four-mule team that is idle,” he said
musingly. “I guess we can manage to make the change.”
“What will you do, Joseph? Can you stay here when we are gone?”
“I shouldn’t think you’d care to consider me after all that’s happened,
Wahnetta.”
“You cannot give me back my heart, my husband. I can never be happy
without you. But, savagely as I spoke a while ago, my heart is full of
love for you, and the thought of leaving you alone in this God-forsaken
wilderness brings back all the tenderness of the past.”
“I can take care of myself, I reckon.”
“Of course; if I can take care of myself and seven children, you ought to
be able to get along alone, or hire somebody to help you,” she exclaimed,
straightening her shoulders, and revealing long-lost or hidden traces
of her girlhood’s beauty in the light of an awakening hope. “I know the
tendency of my race, or any other, to hark back to primitive conditions
under adverse circumstances. The time has now come when the children must
have the social and educational advantages of a higher civilization, or
they’ll be Indians to the end of the chapter. As you will not permit me
to take them to the East, I am glad that I can take them to the farthest
West.”
“How soon can you be ready to start?”
“To-morrow, or as soon as the team is ready. We’ll pose as Indians till
we get to Oregon. We can camp in the Portland woods till an outfit of
clothing can be prepared in which you wouldn’t be ashamed to see your
wife and children appear before kings.”
The next morning early, while the Ranger team was yet in camp, and its
Captain was not yet awake, an Indian woman, with an unkempt swarm of
dusky children, passed him on their westward way, unrecognized.
* * * * *
“Daddie’s in a raging fever!” cried Jean, arousing the Little Doctor.
“We’ll fetch him out all right,” said the doctor, as the frightened
children shivered around the fire in the crisp morning air, silent and
awe-stricken. “I saw an Indian ‘sweat-house’ near the river-bank after
we had encamped last night. We’ll fumigate it, and give your father
a thorough steaming, children. Don’t be frightened. He’s caught the
mountain fever. Luckily, I have on hand a lot of crude brimstone. I
gathered it near Hell Gate.”
“But we mustn’t use the sweat-house without the consent of the Indians,”
said Scotty. “Yonder comes a lot of them on horseback now. I’ll see them
and make terms.”
The terms having been arranged satisfactorily, the Little Doctor
proceeded to make preparations for the reception of her patient.
When the inner surface of the dugout had reached a white heat, the fire
was permitted to die, and the place was cleansed of coals and ashes.
It was then tested by a thermometer; and when cooled to the proper
temperature, the Captain, now almost incoherent from fever, was wrapped
in blankets and placed, feet foremost, within its depths, where he lay
with his head enveloped with cold, wet towels, leaving only a small
aperture at the mouth of the “infernal pit,” as he called it, for air.
Thus situated, and perspiring at every pore, he fell asleep.
A delicious, restful languor followed his awakening, and he was aroused,
against his protest, to be removed by willing attendants to a closed
tent, where he was packed in cold, wet sheets, and left to rest for
another hour or more.
“His heart has good action, and he’ll come out all right; but we can’t
break camp to-day,” said the Little Doctor.
By evening the Captain found his fever conquered. But he was not strong
enough to ride back to his brother’s trading-post for the amicable
interview he had planned; so, like most of our “ships that pass in
the night,” his opportunity was gone; and as time wore on, his good
resolutions vanished also.
The long-drawn monotony of the journey caused the entries in her journal
to become exceedingly monotonous to Jean, who often neglected a duty she
would have highly prized had she been able to foresee the value of the
record she was making under constant protest.
On the tenth of July she wrote as follows: “We are now in Utah Territory,
which is the first organized part of Uncle Sam’s dominions we have set
foot upon since leaving the Missouri River. Our hunters to-day killed
an antelope and a brace of ‘fool’ hens, or sage-chickens, which our
half-famished crowd cooked and ate with relish.
“What a way we human animals have of preying upon the brute creation, as
we falsely name the mild-eyed entities which we must slay and eat that
we may live! I have no heart to write. I can only think of the beautiful
eyes of that antelope we have killed and eaten, and of the sage-hens
that were not enough afraid of a boot that Yank threw at them to get out
of his way. And we called them ‘fools’ because they trusted us, who, as
compared to them, are knaves.”
After crossing the Rocky Mountains through a huge and devious gap[2] by
ascents and descents so gradual that nothing but the changing trend of
the water-currents marked the point or points of demarcation, the train
reached a height overlooking the valley of the Great Salt Lake,—the
“Promised Land” of the Latter-Day Saints, who even in that early day had
made it, in many spots, to blossom as the rose.
The almost intolerable heat of midday was followed at night by cold and
marrow-piercing winds, making both day and night uncomfortable.
“No wonder the immigrants are ill, Mr. Burns,” said Mrs. McAlpin, one
evening, when, as she could not politely avoid him, she sought to control
the conversation. “Nothing saves any of us but the snow-laden air from
these grand old mountains. I have stood on the Himalayas, where the
Mahatmas are said to hold sway, I have beheld the shimmering beauty of
Egyptian skies, I have floated among the silent wonders of the Dead Sea;
but the majestic beauty of these Rocky Mountains transcends them all.”
“I’ve just left a family of Mormons, where there is a bishop ill with the
fever. The faithful were trying to cure him by the ridiculous custom of
laying on of hands,” said Burns, who had sought her company, hoping to
“talk it out.”
“Not necessarily ridiculous,” answered the lady. “If a faithful Catholic
crowd can change a little vial of mummy-dry blood into liquid form in
answer to faith and prayer, why can’t an equally faithful Mormon crowd
heal the sick through the same power of concentration, which is only
another name for faith?” and the Little Doctor hurried away.
XXIV
_A MORMON WOMAN_
Newly created Mormon settlements came occasionally into view, the long,
low, ashy-white adobe houses of the Latter-Day Saints proclaiming, by the
front doors to be counted in their dwellings, the number of wives each
patriarch possessed.
One cold, blustering evening a lone woman, middle-aged, swarthy, sinewy,
and tall, came into the camp afoot. A bundle of bedding strapped to her
back gave her an uncanny appearance as she shrank into the shadows. A
reticule of generous dimensions depended from her neck in front and
reached below her waist-line, containing her little stock of clothing and
provisions.
“I am making my way to the Northern Oregon country,” she said, meaning
the great expanse of territory which at that time embraced the present
States of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with a large slice of the
present State of Montana included. “President Young saw I was going
crazy,” she added, throwing aside her reticence after being warmed and
fed. “I wasn’t the least mite dangerous to have around, as I wasn’t
violent; but I cried and took on so, after I had to give my husband away
in marriage to another woman, that I scared the hull church into a fear
that I’d upset polygamy. So President Young said I might have a permit to
leave the country.”
“Do you mind telling us all about it?” asked Sally O’Dowd.
“It can all be summed up in one word,—polygamy,” she exclaimed, glancing
furtively around. “Are there any Mormons about?”
“No, madam,” said the Captain. “The boss of this combination is a pagan,
and he wouldn’t hurt a Christian. You have no cause to be afraid. But
you’d better not tell us any secrets. The proper way to keep a secret is
to keep it to one’s self, unless you want to keep it going.”
“I am a Mormon, good and true,” she began again, rising to her feet
and spreading her thin hands to the blaze; “but when my husband went
into polygamy, which it was his Christian duty to do, according to the
Scripture (and I’m not blaming him), the Devil got the upper hand of me,
and I couldn’t stand it. You see, they made me go to the Endowment House
and give my own husband away in marriage to another woman; and that, too,
after we had stood together at the altar, in the little church in my
father’s parish, ever so long before, and swore before God and a score
of witnesses that we would forsake all others and keep ourselves only to
each other as long as we both should live. Polygamy may be all right for
people who haven’t made such vows; but I know it was not right for us.
What do you think, Mr. Captain?”
“I think that women have had their hearts cultivated at the expense of
their heads quite long enough,” was his emphatic response.
“I thought the Mormons didn’t compel any woman to give her husband away
in marriage against her will,” said Jean.
The woman uttered a sharp, rasping, staccato laugh that betokened
incipient insanity.
“There are other ways to kill a dog besides choking him to death on
butter!” she cried, throwing her arms wildly about, and casting grotesque
shadows upon those sitting behind her. “They told me that as a good
Mormon I was bound to obey the mandates of the Church; that my eternal
salvation, and my husband’s also, depended upon obedience. And they said
it so often, and prayed over me so long and hard, that at last I said
I’d do it. Then they held me to my promise. But my heart would beat, and
the world would move; so in spite of what I did in the Endowment House,
I would go about and tell my woes to everybody that would listen. And I
was getting to be a scandal in Zion, so that by-and-by, when a lot of
Gentiles got to making a fuss about it,—they made it hot for polygamy
through my story,—the elders took it up. But they couldn’t tie my tongue,
for the Devil had hold of it, and he just kept it wagging. The cases of
Abraham and Jacob and David didn’t fit my case at all, for they hadn’t
made any such vows.”
The woman, as if suddenly recollecting herself, stopped speaking, and
glared at her awe-stricken listeners with an insane gleam in her fiery
eyes.
“Oh, my head, my head!” she cried, clasping her hands tightly over her
temples. “The Devil has caught me again!”
“You’d better not talk any more to-night,” said the Little Doctor,
soothingly. “And you cannot go on till morning. I’ll make a warm, snug
bed for you in one of the wagons. After you’ve had a sound sleep and a
good breakfast, you can go on your way refreshed.”
“But I’ve got to talk it out. You’re like all the rest! You want me to be
quiet, when the rocks and stones would cry out against me if I did!”
“You’ll take a drink of our ‘Number Six,’ won’t you?” asked the Little
Doctor. “Here it is. I’ve mixed and sweetened it for you.”
She grasped the decoction and gulped it eagerly.
“Thanks,” she said, returning the cup. “I must be going now. I’ve stayed
too long already. The Danites will be after me. Do you think any of them
are in hearing now? President Young put me under their surveillance
before they’d let me start. He put his hands on my head and blessed me,
too. Talk about your popes! Why, Brigham Young can discount a ten-acre
field full of Apostolic successors, and be the father of a whole regiment
of American progeny in the bargain. I know you think I’m crazy, but
there’s plenty of method in my madness. I’m not half as crazy as I act
and talk.”
“Will the Danites protect you till you reach the end of your journey?”
asked Jean. “Are you sure?”
“Not if they catch me among Gentiles. President Young took precautions
to prevent me from talking to outsiders, he thought. I mustn’t be seen
here. But I must tell you before I go that his blessing came direct from
God. It filled my very marrow-bones with light. It was like phosphorus in
the dark, or diamonds in the sunlight. I felt like a bird! No man can do
these things that President Young is doing unless God be with him.”
“Do you believe that Brigham Young is really inspired of God?” asked
Mary, incredulously.
“It is by their fruits that we know them, miss. Zion has been greatly
blessed under the ministrations and guidance of President Young.”
“Then why do you wish to escape from his kingdom?” asked Marjorie.
“Because I was not good enough to endure polygamy; I was too great a
sinner. I couldn’t obey the gospel and keep my senses.”
“Did the thought never strike you that the fault might be in the gospel,
instead of your heart or head?” asked Hal.
“The High and Holy One of Israel cannot err,” she replied, shaking her
head, and again waving her long arms to and fro in the smoky air. “There
are disbelievers in this camp, and I cannot tarry. May Heaven guide and
protect you all, and bring you into the holy faith of the Latter-Day
Saints! O blessed Lord, direct these souls into Thy kingdom before it is
everlastingly too late!”
She waved her arms over their heads once more, and turning suddenly,
vanished like a deer into the darkness.
“That poor misguided creature has the spirit of a martyr,” said Captain
Ranger, after a painful silence.
“It is a good deal easier for some folks to preach than to practise,”
exclaimed Sally O’Dowd.
“There are kernels of truth in all ’ologies,” said Scotty.
“As a man thinketh, so is he,” exclaimed Mary.
“She is striving to save her immortal soul. All religions have their
origin in human selfishness,” remarked the Captain, dryly.
“Better say they originate in human needs,” replied Jean; “but
selfishness is universal, all the same.”
“Yes. Selfishness is a necessary attribute of human existence,” said the
Little Doctor, punching the dying fire into a blaze. “Don’t you think so,
Mr. Burns?”
“I quite agree with you, madam. Selfishness belongs to human environment,
and is as much a part of us as hunger, thirst, love, or ambition. Nothing
is made in vain.”
“Not even sin?” asked Mary.
“Not even sin!” echoed Jean. “This would have been a very useless world
if there had been no wrongs to set right in it, and no suffering to
relieve. Nobody could appreciate heat if it were not for cold, or light
if there were no darkness. Hunger compels us to search for food; thirst
seeks satisfaction in drink, and ambition in the search for personal
advancement. It often unconsciously assists the weak by its efforts, when
it intends to help nothing but the personal selfishness that inspires it.
Everything, both good and evil, is a part of the eternal programme.”
“Where did you imbibe such ideas as you often express on this subject?”
asked her father, a great pride in her springing afresh in his heart.
“From the stars, I guess, or from the angels. Or maybe they were born
within me. I never could reconcile myself to the generally accepted idea
of gratitude. To thank God for blessings we enjoy that are not accessible
to others, to me is nothing else but blasphemy.”
“Then you cannot say with the poet,—
“‘Some hae meat, and canna eat,
And some would eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit!’”
said Mrs. Benson, who had been looking on in silence.
“Indeed I can’t!” exclaimed Jean. “But we’ve all heard just such prayers
and praises through all our lives.”
“Nobody in normal health has any right to be thankful for anything unless
he earns it,” said the Captain; “and then he has nobody to thank but
himself.”
“He ought to be thankful for health, at least,” suggested Marjorie.
“If you’d follow your logic to its natural sequence, Captain, my
occupation would be gone,” laughed the Little Doctor. “It is as unnatural
and unscientific to be sick as to be hungry; therefore there should be no
doctors.”
“I can see no analogy between your conclusions and my observations,” said
the Captain.
“I can,” cried Jean.
“Every error under the sun is mixed with good, or it couldn’t exist at
all,” said Scotty. “But the truth remains that the Universe with all that
it contains exemplifies the Divine Idea. God IS.
“‘All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose _mother_ Nature is, and God the soul.’
“You see, I’ve altered the thought a little, Mrs. McAlpin; but I look
to the shade of Pope for pardon. If he were with us to-day, he would
doubtless accept my amendment. We can’t know much about the mystery we
call God. It makes little difference to the humanity of the various
nations of the earth, all of whom must worship the Divine Idea, whether
it be called Vishnu, Chrishna, Isis, Allah, Jehovah—”
“These learned disquisitions over things unknown make me very weary,”
yawned Jean.
“And border on blasphemy,” added Mary.
“We had better go to bed,” exclaimed the Captain, rising. “These
questions have taken a wide range, and we’ve all followed that poor
Mormon devotee beyond her depth and our own.”
“But such discussions relieve the monotony of travel and sometimes lead
to independent thought,” said Lengthy, who had sat squat upon his heels
and haunches, a silent listener.
“God be with our Mormon sister,” said Scotty, rising and adjusting his
crutches. “Let us hope for her a safe journey to some friendly spot where
polygamy ceases from troubling, and the saints are at rest!”
“That’s from the Bible,” cried Hal.
“Nobody can conceive of a better method of expressing an idea than that
modelled after the language of the Bible,” was the ready retort. “If I
were as pronounced an agnostic as our Captain pretends to be, which I am
not, I’d read my Bible daily, if for no other reason than to improve
my vocabulary. Read it, Hal; study its precepts; imitate its language;
revere its antiquity; emulate the example of its good men; shun the sins
of its Davids and Solomons; fill your mind with the wisdom of its Isaiahs
and Deborahs; and, above all, obey its Ten Commandments and follow the
teachings of the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden Rule.”
“I’ll see spooks to-night!” cried Jean.
* * * * *
As these chronicles will have no further dealings with the Mormon
refugee, it is well to add, in closing the incident, that twenty years
after the episode had passed and was almost forgotten, some of the
members of the long disbanded Ranger train, who were passing through
eastern Oregon, on their way to the mines of northern Idaho, found
her keeping a “Travellers’ Rest” in the bunchgrass country, where, as
cook, chambermaid, waiter, and general scullion, she was supporting her
repentant consort, who dutifully received the cash given by her guests in
exchange for such food for man and beast as her unique hostelry afforded.
XXV
_JEAN LOSES HER WAY_
A stanch but frail-looking ferry-boat waited to carry the Ranger train
across Green River.
Jean, who, after her mother’s death, had developed a strong propensity
for daily hours of solitude, looked longingly at the desolate scenery
while her father’s train was awaiting its turn at the ferry, and, noting
the great table-rock that still overlooks the river, climbed unaided to
its top, where she became so deeply absorbed in contemplating the wild,
weird character of the scenery about her that she did not see that the
afternoon was waning, until the sun was down.
“The Psalmist wondered at the mystery of the heavens, but I marvel at
the mysteries of earth,” she said. “Tell me, ye rugged rocks, and you,
ye waters of the desert, the secret of existence, if you can. Am I alone
with Thee, O God? Or are these rough-ribbed rocks, like me, instinct with
life?”
“You’d better hurry, young lady, or you’ll miss the last trip of the
ferry-boat for the night,” cried a voice that seemed to come from beneath
her feet. Thoroughly frightened, she hastened to retrace her steps. How
she regained the river-bank she could never recollect; but when she stood
panting at the water’s edge, and beheld through the gloaming the last
of her father’s wagons ascending the opposite steep, it was past the
twilight hour, and one by one the stars came out amid the circling blue
of the bending sky. The roar of the waters was deafening.
“Can I do anything for you, miss?”
It was the same voice that had reached her from beneath the rock. She
looked up and beheld a tall, sunburned young man, bowing and lifting a
broad sombrero, who seemed as much embarrassed over the novel situation
as herself.
“I am glad to see the face of a white man, sir. I was frightened half out
of my senses till I saw you.”
“And are you not frightened now?”
“Yes, a little bit. There are too many Indians stalking about to allow me
to feel exactly comfortable. But I shall rely upon you for protection,
sir.”
“I suppose other trains will be along presently. They will encamp on this
side of the river for the night, so you will have company.”
“We are away ahead of the other trains, sir. We took a cut-off in the
mountains.”
“But you are afraid of the Indians?”
“No, sir; not now, because—” She stopped as she looked into his kindly
face and caught the amused gleam of a pair of piercing eyes.
“Because—why?”
“Because you talk and act like a gentleman, sir. I am not afraid of a
gentleman.” She paused again, surprised at her own composure. Her eyes
fell, and a deep flush overspread her features, as the thought flashed
through her mind that she was utterly in the power of this stranger.
“Can you ferry me across the river to-night, sir? My daddie will pay you
well for your trouble.”
“I could not attempt it. We never risk running the ferry after sundown.
Guess we can make you comfortable on this side till morning.”
“But there is no house where I can stop, and I haven’t any money. But
that’s nothing new for girls. They never have money.”
“Oh, yes, they do, often. In the old country, where I came from, girls
often inherit money; and some of them own very large estates.”
“But only by courtesy, sir.”
He smiled at her frank simplicity. “You are sure of a safe night’s
lodging and a speedy return to the custody of the man you call daddie.
What ever possessed you to bestow upon him such a name?”
“It was merely a notion, and is peculiar to myself in our family. But,
sir, what ever shall I do? Daddie will be frightened out of his wits; and
so will Mame and Marjorie and Hal!” and Jean began to weep convulsively.
“There, there, don’t cry! There is nothing to be afraid of. I have a home
in the bank yonder. It isn’t a palace,—only a cave, or dugout, in the
side of the rock,—but it is clean and dry and warm. You’ll be as securely
protected there as in your father’s camp. I could do no better, under the
circumstances, for my mother or my Queen.”
“Are you English, sir?”
“I am proud to answer, Yes.”
“You don’t look like the subject of a woman ruler.”
“Why not?”
“Because you seem like a sovereign in your own right.”
“So I am, in America.”
“I mean to be a sovereign American, myself, some day.”
He laughed and shook his head.
“I hope you are never going to become one of those discontented women
whom I’ve heard of in America, who are engaged in a perpetual quarrel
with their Creator because they were not born men.”
“Have you seen such women in America, sir?”
“No; but I have read some newspapers that made the charge.”
“Do you believe everything that you read in the papers? Daddie don’t.”
“I can’t say that I do.”
“God understands what He is about when He creates a girl, sir; and God
didn’t create us to be the vassals of anybody. All we ask is a chance to
do our best in everything, ourselves being the judges as to what that
best shall be.”
“How old are you?”
“Almost sixteen.”
“You act with the charm of a child, but you talk like a grown-up woman.
Are all the girls of your family equally clever?”
“God never made two trees, or even two leaves of a tree, exactly alike.
You couldn’t expect two persons to be alike.”
The stranger, conscious of a peculiar interest in this new and original
character, felt a tumultuous sensation in the region of his heart.
“I am hungry, sir. But as I haven’t any money, I must ask you to trust me
till to-morrow.”
He was leading her toward his dugout as they talked, or rather as he
listened. He had a school-day remembrance of a pair of brown eyes like
Jean’s. He had worshipped those eyes from a distance, for their possessor
was a nobleman’s daughter with whom he had never exchanged sentiments,
and she had never bestowed a thought upon him. And here was this artless,
untaught, but wonderfully intelligent maiden, in a travel-soiled blue
calico dress, and sunbonnet to match, who seemed to him possessed of
potentialities so far in advance of any promise ever given by the object
of his earlier dreams that he spurned the thought of comparing the two as
he dwelt upon her words. His heart continued its wild tattoo, and he felt
as if walking on air.
“Here! This way, Siwash,” he called to his Indian servant, as he paused
in front of his lodgings and tendered her a seat outside. “As you see, I
have company. Get up the very best meal the place affords. This guest and
I are to dine together.”
The Indian grunted assent; and the simple meal of pemmican, black coffee,
army biscuit, and baked beans fresh from the covering of hot ashes in
which they had been smothered till done to a turn, which formed the
ferryman’s usual bill of fare, was supplemented by a dessert of tea-cakes
and preserved ginger, the whole arranged on a small table covered with a
white oilcloth and furnished with tin dishes and steel cutlery.
“I trust you will excuse the accompaniments of a higher civilization,
little miss. You will find the fare plain but palatable.”
“It is fine,” cried Jean, as she ate with the zest that a life in the
open air alone can give. “Nobody need ask for better.”
“Will you favor me with your past history?” asked her host, after the
repast was finished.
“There isn’t much to tell, sir. My daddie got the farthest West fever
a good while ago; but he never sold out his farm and sawmill till last
March. Then he got ready, and we started across the continent. God
saw that the journey was too hard for my dear mother, so He took her
to heaven from the Black Hills. And now, sir, will you tell me about
yourself? Were you born in London?”
“Why do you think I was born in London?”
“Because you remind me of my great-grandmother. She was born in London.
We call her Grannie.”
The Indian servant had heaped some fagots of sagewood upon the hearth,
filling the little room with a pungent and not unpleasant odor, and
diffusing a delightful warmth and glow through the air, to which the
light of a pair of candles gave an eerie charm.
“To be plain with you, I grew weary of life at college, so I ran away and
went to sea. I was a headstrong boy, and gave my mother a whole lot of
trouble.”
He ceased speaking and bowed his head upon his hands, his elbows upon
the table. Jean saw that his fingers were long and shapely, his head was
large and well-balanced, and his abundant hair was brown and bright and
slightly curled.
“Were you never sorry, sir?”
“Having put my hand to the plough, or rather helm, I couldn’t afford to
turn back—or at least I thought I couldn’t—till I had made my fortune.”
“Did you make your fortune, sir?”
“Not till—” He checked the word that was in his heart. “I first went to
Montreal, where I fell in with a company of Hudson Bay traders, with
whom I went to the Great Northern Lakes. I soon made, and lost, several
fortunes. I have always intended to return to my mother, but the years
have come and gone; and now, at the age of twenty-four, you find me, as
you see, with another fortune to make. But it seems an uphill struggle.”
“Do you write regularly to your mother, sir?”
“I am sorry to be compelled to answer no; but I promise you to do better
hereafter. And now, as the evening wanes, and I must leave you to the
privileges of my castle for the night, will you tell me your name?”
“Certainly. It is Ranger,—Jean Robinson Ranger. And you are Mr.—?”
“Ashleigh; Ashton Ashleigh, of Ashton Place, London, England.”
“May I write to your mother from my Oregon home, when I get there, and
tell her all I know about you?”
“Isn’t that an odd request, Miss Ranger?”
Jean blushed to the tips of her ears.
“Nobody ever called me Miss Ranger before,” she said, to hide her
confusion. “My sister Mary is the Miss Ranger of our family. Yes, I did
make an unusual request; but I thought of your mother pining for news of
her son, and fancied she might be glad to hear about him, even from a
stranger. But I see that it would hardly be proper for me to write; so
please do it yourself.”
“Write to her by all means, Miss Ranger, as I assure you I surely will.
And now,” he added, rising, “I hear your Indian maid tapping outside,
and it is time to say good-night. I trust you will sleep well and have
pleasant dreams.”
“Good-night, Mr. Ashleigh. I thank you ever so much for all your
kindness.”
XXVI
_LE-LE, THE INDIAN GIRL_
“Nika klosh cloochman!” clucked the Indian girl.
Jean looked at her inquiringly.
“Nika wake cumtux Siwah wa-wa?” asked the dusky maiden, offering her hand.
“She says she is a good Indian girl, and asks if you understand her,”
said Siwash, who was leisurely putting the room to rights. “She’s my
little sister; heap good. Ugh! Nika speak jargon?”
“No, Siwash.”
But the maiden’s manner, though coy, was assuring, and Jean clasped her
hand eagerly. She was a graceful, nimble, and pretty creature; and Jean
thought with a sigh of regret of the ugly transformation awaiting her
under the cares and burdens of maturity and maternity, when, no longer
like “the wild gazelle, with its nimble feet,” she would resemble other
elderly Indian women.
“What is your name, little girl?” she asked, as the maiden dropped
gracefully upon the hearth at her feet.
“Nika wake cumtux Boston wa-wa.”
“She says she doesn’t understand you,” grunted Siwash.
“Ah-to-ke-nika a-it sewar.”
“She says she has a good heart.”
“Why doesn’t she speak her name?”
The girl crouched low on the hearth and spread her shapely brown fingers
before the dying embers.
“Nika Le-Le. Nika caid.”
“She says her name is Le-Le, and she is a slave.”
“Your sister? and a slave?”
“I, too, was a slave,” said Siwash, “but I bought my freedom; and when
I get ten horses of my own, I will buy Le-Le’s. Could you help us? Your
father is good.”
“A good heart isn’t always accompanied by a full purse,” thought Jean.
“Who imagines that he has a property interest in your sister?” she asked
aloud.
“Our chief, Tyee of the Nootkas. He captured both of us in a war with our
people, the Seattles, many, many moons ago.”
“Ugh! Way-siyah! Whulge!” cried the girl, writhing like a captured eel.
“Mac-kam-mah-shish, copa-nika?”
“She asks if you cannot buy her.”
“Nowitka! Mika! Closh potlatch hy-u chickamin?”
“God knows I wish I could buy her,” said Jean.
No painter could have done justice to the varying expressions that
alternately lighted and clouded the Madonna-like face of Le-Le, as she
strained every nerve to comprehend the conversation. And when at last
every vestige of her awakening hope had settled into a conviction of
failure, she buried her face in her hands, and, bending forward, shook
her black abundant hair over her face and body to the floor, and uttered
a piercing wail, making Jean’s blood curdle.
“Le-Le’s cold!” cried the girl, crouching lower, till the embers singed
the ends of her straying locks.
“Don’t cry, Le-Le dear. You have come to spend the night with me,”
exclaimed Jean, seizing her gently by the arm.
“Nika wake cumtux,” cried the girl.
“You have come to sleep,” pointing to the bed in the corner.
“Nowitka! sleep! Nika cumtux.”
“She understands,” said Jean, rising and turning to Siwash. “Good-night.”
Jean was too full of contending emotions for sleep. She lingered long
upon the hearth. “I could stay here always,” she exclaimed in a low
voice, but loud enough to awaken the wary maiden from her slumbers on the
bed. But the mutual vocabulary of the twain did not admit of satisfactory
conversation, and the Indian girl sank back into unconsciousness.
As she sat there thinking, a pair of kindly eyes seemed watching her
every movement with a tender devotion that made her heart beat wildly. “I
wish I’d never teased or laughed at Mame,” she sighed, as the Reverend
Thomas Rogers flitted past her inner vision. “What is Life but Love? And
who and what is Love but God? And what is God but the wonderful Mystery
that is both Life and Love?”
Le-Le was away in dreamland, on the enchanted shores of Whulge,—the
Indian name for the magnificent body of water known to the civilized
world as Puget Sound.
“This is holy ground,” cried Jean, so softly to herself that none but
Cupid heard. “These lowly walls will be a sacred memory to me through all
the rest of my life. But life will mean worse than nothing to me without
my one hero. Must I go away to-morrow? Oh, my God! can I ever live again,
away from this lodge in the wilderness? Guard and guide my love, O Spirit
of Life, and shield him with Thine everlasting arms!”
Then, recollecting that she had not prayed, as usual, for the dear ones
in camp, she lovingly invoked divine protection for each and all, and was
soon in a sound, refreshing sleep.
* * * * *
“Yes, daddie dear, I’m safe and sound,” she cried, as she awoke to
consciousness, to find that the sun was shining and her father’s familiar
voice was calling her name in vigorous tones at the door.
Jean hastily donned her clothing, which, simple as it was, excited the
envy of Le-Le. “Mika klosh, cultus potlatch?” she said inquiringly, as
she fondled a blue-and-white neck-ribbon, which was not over clean.
“Cultus potlatch?” she asked again.
Although Jean was not certain as to the maiden’s meaning, she gave her
the ribbon and tried to think her excusable.
“Did you want it? Was that what you meant?”
“Nowitka! Cultus potlatch! Hy-as klosh!”
Jean tied the ribbon in a double bow-knot around the girl’s tawny
neck, and Le-Le, studying its effect in the little mirror on the wall,
exclaimed with a low chuckle, “Hi-yu klosh!”
* * * * *
“Oh, daddie darling,” exclaimed Jean, opening the door and springing to
his embrace, “did you think your historian was lost?”
“Yes; or worse!” replied her father, his anger displacing anxiety as
soon as he saw that she was safe. “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost
yourself on this trip. If it happens again, I’ll—”
“Don’t chide or punish the young lady, please!” interposed her obliging
host. “If you had seen how badly frightened and anxious she was last
night when she found herself left alone among strangers, you’d forgive
her without a word.”
“That’s so, daddie,” sobbed Jean.
“I surrendered my country-seat to her, and sent for this little Indian
maiden to keep her company.”
There was a touch of humor in his tone, augmented by a kindly smile,
which sent the hot blood into the truant’s face and made her heart beat
hard.
“Won’t you thank the gentleman, daddie? I might have been murdered but
for him.”
“Of course I thank the gentleman; but that doesn’t lessen your offence.
You deserve a good thrashing!”
“Which I’ll never get, daddie dear!” Then turning to her host, she added,
“Daddie never whips us, but he threatens us sometimes.”
“I think I owe you a little explanation, Captain,” said the host. “I
might have risked taking your daughter across the river in a rowboat last
night if it had been safe to trust her on the other side after dark.
There are Indians camped along the way; and, though they are peaceful
enough when they are compelled to be, they are not trustworthy under all
circumstances. But my servant, Siwash, has breakfast ready and waiting. I
can’t allow you to go on till you have broken your fast.”
The host conducted his guests into the dugout to a table loaded with
a bountiful supply of coffee, fish, venison, hot biscuit, beans, and
wapatoes,—the last two dishes being deftly exhumed from the depths of a
bed of ashes, where they had been cooked to perfection during the night.
“Your servant is an artist in his business,” said the Captain, in praise
of the food.
“Yes, Captain. I found him a slave, and, seeing he was superior to most
of his class, I purchased him for what you would consider a trifle. Then,
as time wore on, I encouraged him to buy his freedom from me. He is now
trying to purchase his sister; but he finds it slow work, as her value
increases as she gets older and better able to dig camas and tan buffalo
hides.”
“It is awful to enslave the Indians!” cried Jean. “The Government ought
to stop it!”
“Slavery among the Indians is no worse than among the negroes,” said her
host, with an admiring smile.
“Women are not responsible for slavery, sir,” said Jean.
“But women are very ardent defenders of slavery wherever it exists, my
daughter,” added her father, gravely.
“That’s because they themselves are servants without wages, daddie.
Mother used to say that the worst slave-drivers she ever saw down South
were the overseers who were slaves themselves. Women are not angels, but
they are doing the best they can without political power.”
“I don’t know but you are right, Miss Ranger. Women ought to have power.
My sovereign is a woman, and we have no slavery in England.”
“Thank you for giving me the best of the argument, Mr. Ashleigh. But I
see that daddie is impatient, and we must be going.”
“I hope you’ll pardon me for referring to a proposition you made last
evening, although you may have changed your mind, Miss Ranger. You
proposed writing to my mother. Will you do it?”
“Ask daddie.”
“I have no objection, of course,” said her father, “if it is understood
that I shall see the letters.”
“Of course,” responded Jean.
“May I have the pleasure of corresponding with your daughter, sir?”
“Yes, if I can see the correspondence.”
This was a greater concession than Jean had dared to hope for.
“Thank you, Captain Ranger. I am sure my mother will be delighted with
the young lady’s letters. She has awakened my dormant sense of filial
duty and inspired me with a determination to return to it. I shall not
neglect my mother again.”
“Come, Jean! It is high time we were off!”
As her father spoke, the possible termination to this peculiar meeting
gave him a heartache.
The last good-byes were spoken, and Captain Ranger heaved a sigh of
relief. “It will be out of sight, out of mind, with both of ’em in less
than a month!” he said, _sotto voce_.
XXVII
_JEAN TRANSFORMED_
“Where did you spend the night, Jean?” asked Mary.
“In heaven,” answered Jean, her cheeks glowing.
“Nonsense.”
“I mean exactly what I say, Mame. I lodged with an Indian princess, and
ate my meals with a member of the British aristocracy. The princess
couldn’t speak English, but her brother acted as interpreter, so we got
on all right. She is a slave of an old chief of the Seattles. I wish I
had the money; I’d buy her, and send her back to her people.”
“You might as well wish you owned the moon!”
“I own the earth,—as much of it as I need. Everybody does.”
“Then the most of us get cheated out of our patrimony,” laughed Sally
O’Dowd.
“I wish you could all have had a chance to look in on me and my princess
last night; we were as snug as two bugs in a rug. The crickets sang on
the hearth, just as they used to do of nights in the old home. The wind
roared like a storm at sea, and the rush of the river was grand. I can
shut my eyes and live it all over again.”
“You’ve gone stark mad!” laughed Hal.
“As mad as a March hare,” said Sally O’Dowd. “I know the symptoms from
sad experience.”
“You ought to be repenting in sackcloth and ashes. Why are you not
sorry?” asked Mary.
“Because in losing myself I found my fate.”
“Was it an Indian brave in a breech-cloth, with a bow and arrow, a
shirt-collar, and a pair of spurs?” asked Hal.
The roar of laughter that greeted this query made Jean fairly frantic.
“You’re worse than a lot of savages yourselves,” she cried. “If I had my
way, I’d go back to that lodge in the wilderness and stay there!”
Jean climbed into the wagon, buried her face in her hands, and abandoned
herself to a deep, absorbing reverie. “Oh, mother dear,” she said softly,
“if you could speak, you would sympathize with me, I am sure. If I only
had your love and sympathy, I wouldn’t care what anybody else might think
or say,—not even daddie. A new light and a new life have come into my
soul. Though a cruel fate may separate us through this life, we shall
always be one. But God made us for each other, and we shall surely meet
again.”
* * * * *
There was no longer any game to be had for the shooting; the little extra
food the company could purchase from the Indians, or from the few white
borderers at infrequent trading-posts, was held at almost prohibitive
prices. Dead cattle continued to abound at the roadside, filling the
air with an intolerable stench through every hour of the day and night.
No camping-spot could be found where the surroundings were not thus
polluted. Captain Ranger’s teams were giving out from sheer exhaustion,
induced by starvation rather than overwork, and two or more of his weaker
oxen were dying daily.
“I’ll break the horrible monotony of this diary,” said Jean at last, “or
I’ll die trying.” And for many days her jottings were confined to minute,
and sometimes glowing, descriptions of snow-capped mountains, bald hills,
tree-studded lesser heights, and vast and desolate wastes of sand and
sage and rocks. Sterile valleys, verdant banks of little rivers, mighty
streams, and running brooks received attention, in their turn, from her
pen, the whole making a record surprisingly akin to the journals kept
by Lewis and Clark, and left on record half a century earlier, of the
existence of which she had no knowledge. There was one theme of which her
father enforced daily mention,—a regular account of the scarcity of grass
and game and wood and water.
A murder by the roadside, and the consequent trial, conviction, and
execution of the murderer by a “provisional government” temporarily
organized for the purpose received a painstaking record, as did also a
difficulty with some thieving and beggarly Indians, whose hostility was
awakened by the rashness of one of a trio of bachelors, who were encamped
one night near the Ranger wagons. Captain Ranger made the Indians a
pacifying speech, but only by the aid of some trifling present among the
women of the tribe, and a gift of a pair of blankets to their chieftain,
was the impending danger averted. A double guard was placed outside that
night; and, for several nights following, a corral was made of the wagons
in the shape of a hollow square, into which the cattle were driven to
rest and sleep.
The now famous Soda Springs, known to the commercial world as Idanha,
next caught the coloring of Jean’s pen. The different geysers rising
from the tops of the gutter-sided mounds of soda-stone were carefully
and graphically described. The crater of a long-extinct volcano received
special mention. The bad water of alkali-infected streams and swamps,
left by slowly evaporating pools and ponds, through which cattle and
wagons labored with the greatest difficulty; the dreary wastes of
sagebrush, sand, and rock, through which everybody who was able to walk
at all was compelled to trudge on foot; the devastations of prairie
fires; the endless wastes of stunted sage and greasewood; the struggling
aspens on the margins of tiny streams,—all met graphic and detailed
delineation, such as nobody can appreciate to the full who to-day
traverses these vast and wondrous wilds in a railway coach, or gazes upon
them from a Pullman car.
* * * * *
“Captain Ranger,” said Sally O’Dowd one evening, “do you notice that Jean
is growing strikingly beautiful?”
They were halting for the night after a day’s hard drive; and the
jaded oxen, weak and sick from the combined effects of hard labor,
cruel whippings, and an insufficient supply of grass and water, were
necessarily the chief objects of his attention and solicitude. A broken
wagon-tongue added to his perplexities, as good timber for repairs
was not available; and the mileage of the day’s travel had been much
shortened by the necessity of stopping to mend the break, or, as the
Little Doctor not inaptly said, “to reduce the compound fracture of a
most important part of the wagon’s anatomy.”
“All my girls are handsome,” said the Captain, as he tested the strength
of a splice on the broken tongue by jumping upon it with both feet.
“But Jean has been transformed, Captain. The change has been growing
upon her daily since the date of that Green River episode. The child is
hopelessly infatuated with that young Englishman.”
“Much good it’ll do her,” he exclaimed, mopping his brow with a soiled
bandanna. “It is painfully evident that three of my girls will soon be
women. If their mother were here, it wouldn’t be so hard to manage them.
No, Sally, I’ve noticed no particular change in Jean.”
“Because you are too busy for observation, sir. She hasn’t been a
particle like herself of late.”
The Captain hurried away to his work, muttering, “Nonsense!”
Jean had seated herself on the most distant wagon-tongue, her battered,
ink-bespattered journal in her lap, her pen in one hand, her inkstand
in the other, her knitted brows and glowing face expressing deep
concentration of thought and feeling.
Captain Ranger, having finished his work of repairs, dropped wearily upon
an axle-tree, and, for the first time in several days, prompted doubtless
by the words of Sally O’Dowd, took a long and searching look at Jean.
“Yes, indeed; Sally is right,” he soliloquized. “Jean is developing a
wonderfully beautiful style of womanhood. What a pity it is that she
cannot have her mother at the very time when she needs her most!”
Pangs of anxiety akin to jealousy shot through his heart as he studied
her features; her downcast eyes were hidden by the heavy lashes as she
bent over her work. “She doesn’t resemble her mother as Mary does, but
she must be the almost exact counterpart of what my mother was at her
age,” he mused, as he noted for the first time the ripening lips, the
rosy and yet transparent hue of her cheeks, and the sunny sheen of
her hair. He was surprised that he had not before observed the soft,
exquisite contour of her face and neck, the full rounded bust, and the
shapely development of her feet and hands.
As he sat watching the lights and shadows of thought and feeling that
played upon her features, the remembrance of the girlhood of her mother,
whose arduous married years had all been spent in his service, arose
before him with startling power. “Dear, patient, tender, self-sacrificing
Annie!” he exclaimed, as he arose from his rocking seat and strode away
in the gloaming. “I never half appreciated your worth until I lost you
for ever!”
“No, not for ever,” softly sung a still, small voice in the depths of his
inner consciousness. “Do not reproach yourself. All eternity is yet to
be.”
Jean felt, rather than saw, the pressure of his eyes, and half divined
his thoughts. She felt the telltale blood as it rushed unbidden to her
cheeks, and was seized with a great longing to throw herself into his
arms and breathe out the full secret of her great awakening in his ears;
but something in his manner repelled her advances, and she withdrew more
than ever into herself.
“O Love!” she cried in a tone so low and sweet that none but a messenger
from the Unseen might hear, “how ungovernable art thou, and how
incomprehensible! The worldly-wise may decry thee; the misanthropic may
deride thee; the vulgar may make of thy existence an unholy jest; the
selfish and ignorant may trample upon thee; human laws may crush thee;
but thou remainest still a thing of life, to fill thy votaries with a
holy joy and endow them with the very attributes of God. An imperishable
entity art thou, O Love! Thou art interblended with every fibre of my
being now, and I accept thee as a sweet fulfilment of my earthly destiny.”
Of course Jean was young and fond and inexperienced and foolish; and
these chronicles would offer her rhapsodies as the utterances of no
worldly-wise oracle. But her thoughts were fresh and pure; and who shall
say they did not emanate from the very fountain of life itself, whose
presence she could sense but could not understand?
She wandered off toward the rushing, maddening torrent of Snake River,
whose music had for her, in these moods of introspection, but one
interpretation.
“Daddie may denounce, Hal and Mame may tease, and Marjorie,—yes, and all
the world deride me,” she said, as she sat upon a bowlder and abandoned
herself to reverie; “but henceforth there shall be nothing in this world
for me to cherish but Love and its handmaiden, Duty.”
Snake River, full at this point of jutting rocky islands, through which
the foaming, roaring waters rushed like a thousand mill-races on parade,
dashed madly against its banks beneath her feet, and rushing on again,
roared and laughed and shrieked and sang. Lichens clung to the uplifted
rocks, which, hoary with age and massive in proportions, held vigil in
the midst of the eternal grandeur. Mountains clambered over mountains in
the dimly lighted distance, and reaching to the red horizon, overlooked
the Pacific seas.
“The antelope and elk are gone,” she thought, “and we are lone watchers
amid the eternal vastness. But the sage-hen, the lizard, the owl, and the
jaybird linger; and yonder, among the everlasting rocks, are the homes of
the Indian, the rattlesnake, the badger, and the wolf.”
Rustling footsteps startled her. “Why, it’s daddie!” she exclaimed, her
heart beating audibly. “I thought you were an Indian or a bear!”
“You oughtn’t to go off alone, my daughter. There is some hidden danger
threatening us; I feel, but cannot divine it. Something is going wrong
somewhere or somehow. Let’s hurry back to camp.”
“You’re the last person on earth I’d suspect of giving way to a morbid
fancy, daddie dear. You must be very tired.”
“It isn’t that, my daughter. I am sad because you have allowed your heart
to stray, and I do need you so much—so much!”
She answered not a word.
XXVIII
_THE STAMPEDE_
The next morning brought unexpected delays. The repairs about the camp
and wagons consumed more time than had been anticipated, and it was
ten o’clock before the cattle, which had been allowed to stray farther
from camp than usual, in search of the dried and scanty herbage that
alone staved off starvation, were driven into camp and hurried down to
the river-bank to drink. The swiftness, foam, and sudden chill of the
water, its depth and roaring, confused and frightened the half-sick and
half-starved animals; and one, a patriarchal bull, the master and leader
of the herd, who had often before made trouble, gave vent to a deep,
sonorous bellow like the roar of an ancient aurochs. Then, with nose in
air, he struck out across the stream, the herd following. A small, rocky
cape crept out into the water on the opposite bank, affording the only
visible landing-place; and up this the panic-stricken creatures scrambled
in a mad stampede, which the helpless occupants of the camp surveyed with
the calmness of despair.
“I had no idea that the poor creatures had enough life left in them to
run a dozen rods on level ground,” said Captain Ranger, after a grim
silence. “Boys,” he added in a husky voice, as he swallowed a great lump
in his throat, “are any of you able to swim Snake River?”
“I can do it,” answered John Brownson, an obliging young teamster, who
had joined the company early in the journey and had made himself useful
on many trying occasions.
“And I too,” said John Jordan, another favorite of road and camp. The two
intrepid volunteers shook hands with their anxious Captain and plunged
boldly into the roaring, swirling, deafening torrent, through which
Jordan swam with ease, his head now bobbing out of sight and now rising
above the foaming current, to disappear again and again, till at last he
was seen to emerge from the water on the opposite steep and ascend the
almost sheer acclivity leading to the table-land above. It was a brave
and daring feat, but it proved fruitless. The poor, panic-stricken cattle
failed to recognize as a friend the stark white apparition, entirely
bereft of clothing. It was all in vain that he called the leader of the
herd by name; and when the frightened creature turned and charged him,
and there was no shelter but some patriarchal sagebrush trees, he took
refuge behind the biggest of them till the aurochs changed his mind and
turned to follow the stampeding herd.
The panic continued. The stampede was irresistible. The cattle were
lost, and most of them were never heard of more, though it is said that
Flossie, the companion and patient of Jean during the hours of her vigil
on that never-to-be-forgotten night in the Black Hills,—Flossie, the
faithful, enduring, and kindly-eyed milch cow whose calf had been killed
on the road,—reappeared long afterwards in the sagebrush wilds of Baker
County, Oregon, with quite a following of her children, grandchildren,
and great-great-grandchildren, all but herself as wild as so many deer.
Flossie herself was recognized, they say, by the Ranger brand; and her
hide, with the letters J. R. still visible behind the shoulder-blade, is
to-day a valued relic of departed years in the mansion of a prominent
actor in the drama of that eventful summer.
But what of Brownson? All day the hapless watchers of the camp had
strained their eyes and ears for sight or sound of him, in vain.
“He must have been caught with cramps, or been dashed against the rocks
by the current, for I saw him drown,” said Jordan, at sundown, as he
rejoined the helpless watchers near the wagons.
Meanwhile, the men and women of the camp had not been idle. The lightest
wagon-box the train afforded was selected and pressed into service for
a ferry-boat; and while the men made oars, rowlocks, and rudder as best
they could with the materials at hand, the women skilfully caulked the
seams of the wagon-bed with an improvised substitute for oakum, under
the supervision of the Little Doctor, making it tolerably water-tight.
The wagon-box was then replaced on wheels and hauled upstream about
half-a-dozen miles to a little valley where the river was wide, the banks
low, and the water comparatively shoal and calm.
It was conjectured by Captain Ranger that the entire force of men in
the train might be able, by a concerted effort, to assist the watcher
on the upland in his brave attempt to arrest the stampede and secure
the cattle’s return. But their united efforts were unavailing; and long
before they returned, disheartened, apprehensive, and weary, the helpless
watchers at the camp saw the bruised body of Captain Ranger’s favorite
mare rolling, tumbling, bumping, and thumping through the roaring waters
and among the jagged rocks, near the very spot where Brownson had been
drowned.
Noble, faithful, obedient Sukie! In her attempt to swim the river with
her devoted master, who was seated in the stern of the novel boat leading
her by the halter and encouraging her with kindly words, her strength
failed utterly; and when she turned upon her side and Captain Ranger let
go his hold upon the halter, she uttered a dying scream, rolled over, and
was gone.
“If there isn’t any horse heaven, the creative Force has been derelict in
duty,” sadly exclaimed the master, as he watched the lifeless body of his
beloved and faithful servant floating down the stream.
Through the silent watches of the awful night that followed, John Ranger
pondered, planned, and waited.
His three daughters and three younger children, Sally O’Dowd and her
three babies, and Susannah and George Washington, all occupied the family
wagon, around which he stalked through the silent hours as one in a dream.
“A formidable array of dependent ones,” he said to himself over and over
again. “And what is to become of my Annie’s darlings? Was it for this
that she started with me on this terrible journey?”
There was no audible answer to his anxious queries save the roaring of
the river as it crashed its way between the rocks that formed its grim
and tortuous channel.
Weary at last of walking, he crept into his tent beside Hal, who had
been dead to the world from the moment he touched his bed, so sweet is
the deep forgetfulness of childhood when “tired Nature’s sweet restorer,
balmy sleep,” is preparing it for the further endurance of an exacting
and ambitious life. But Captain Ranger could not sleep. He arose and
faced again the silent horrors of the situation.
The stars twinkled overhead in their usual triumph over disturbing
forces; and, slowly fading into the coming twilight, rode the gibbous
moon.
In his helplessness the lonely watcher lifted up his voice and prayed.
“I’ve never felt much worry over original sin, O Lord!” he cried,
standing with hands uplifted in the chilly air, “but you know I’ve
generally been honest. I’ve tried hard to do my duty according to my
lights. I didn’t mean to bring my Annie and her babies out here in the
wilderness to die; but you understood the conditions, and because you
understood, you took my wife away. I rebelled at first, but you helped me
to bear it for her sake; and for this, for the first time, I thank you.
And now, if you have the love for her children for which she always gave
you credit, I am sure that you’ll guide me safely out of this present
trouble. And if you do, O Lord, I’ll serve you as long as I live in
whatever way you lead. Amen.”
“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous
forsaken, nor his seed begging bread!”
“Who spoke to me?” he asked, aloud. “Where did that voice come from? I
could have sworn it was Annie! No; Annie is dead!”
In a flurry of excitement he peered in all directions, listening eagerly.
But in his soul there slowly crept a quiet peace, and with it a sense
of security and elation which he could not comprehend; neither could he
doubt its reality.
Before him passed, in mental review, the strenuous days of his boyhood,
awakening youth, and early manhood. The memory of his mother arose before
him, inexpressibly sweet and tender. He thought lovingly of his father,
strong in the religious faith of which he had often made a jest. His
gentle Annie seemed so near that he could almost reach her. But closer
to him than any other seemed the presence of his brother Joseph. What a
promising lad he was, and with what joy had the whole family striven to
bestow upon him the educational advantages to which none of the others
had dared to aspire!
Then passed before him, like scenes in a panorama, the awful pecuniary
straits that followed, when the beloved brother fell under the ban of the
law.
Then came in review his unexpected meeting with that brother in the
wilderness. “Forgive my pride, brutality, and selfishness, O Lord! and by
all that’s holy, I’ll make it right with Joe!”
And who shall say that this unique appeal to the great Source of Life
was less acceptable to the Infinite than the studied petitions of gowned
prelates? whose often conflicting appeals to Jehovah, if answered
literally, would plunge the world into confusion and chaos under the
diverse demands of the children of men.
His prayer ended, the chilled and worried wanderer returned to his bed
and readdressed himself to sleep, this time with such success that
when he awoke the sun was riding high in the heavens, and he heard the
familiar voice of a train-master, whom he had left in his rear by taking
the Green River cut-off, and who had now overtaken him.
“Hello, Captain!” exclaimed the new arrival, striking the wall of the
sleeper’s tent with the butt of his heavy ox-whip. “What’s all this I’ve
been hearing? Didn’t you get back any of your stampeded cattle?”
“Nary a hoof,” replied the Captain. “I tell you we’re in a mighty bad
fix, Harlan.”
“How are you going to get out?”
“Don’t know yet. It’s a ground-hog case, though, I’m bound to make it
somehow. Got any cattle to sell?”
“Possibly. Might spare two yoke and an odd steer. Got any money?”
“A few dollars. But I don’t want to get into Oregon dead broke. Can’t you
trust a fellow till we reach the settlements?”
“I could if we weren’t running short o’ grub. This journey has cost like
the dickens from the start; and it won’t get any cheaper on the home
stretch. Every fellow you strike wants money. It wasn’t so in the States.”
“We can swap accommodations if we like, Harlan. I have several bags of
jerked buffalo meat.” His voice faltered, as he remembered that this meat
had been prepared by the order of his vanished wife. “We laid in a lot of
flour and other stuff at our last Utah trading-post; so we’re not short.”
An old-fashioned game of barter and dicker was soon concluded; and
Captain Ranger set his men to work, rearranging the wagons and making
ready to move on.
XXIX
_IN THE LAND OF DROUTH_
All the wagons except the “saloon,” or family vehicle, were ruthlessly
stripped of their various appurtenances; the running gear of those
that had seemed to stand the wear and travel with the least injury
were selected to hold the absolute necessaries of the remainder of the
journey. Many articles of utility were compelled to find a lodgment in
the family wagon, causing Sally O’Dowd to ruefully survey the limited
space for the little flock who were too young in years to walk regularly.
“We’ll see what can be done,” said the Captain, thoughtfully. “I’ve
left the saloon wagon to the last, hoping somebody would come along who
could spare us a few more steers. We’ve thrown away everything we can do
without. But we’ll get the cattle.”
“It’s lucky we’ve got the money the teamsters paid us to get back after
they deserted us,” said Jean. The Captain’s face brightened.
“Why, surely!” he cried. “I had forgotten all about the financial end of
that incident. You have a business head on you, my girl!”
“Here it is,” cried Marjorie. “It is in our great-grandmother’s silver
spectacle-case. Jean put it there.”
“Sure enough,” said her father. “Your great-grandfather carried that
tarnished and battered spectacle-case all through the Revolutionary War.
It is indeed a lucky find.”
In less than an hour another train of dilapidated wagons came along,
accompanied by half-a-dozen loose oxen and a discouraged cow.
Then for the first time the faces of Mrs. Benson and Mrs. McAlpin
brightened. During all the hurry of the day they had wandered aimlessly
about, steadfastly refusing to accept any assistance until the Ranger
family should first be provided with oxen.
“Now, as we can get cattle enough to move one of our wagons, it is our
time to make preparations for a start,” said the Little Doctor.
“Did you think for a minute that you’d be abandoned to your fate?” asked
Captain Ranger.
“We didn’t allow ourselves to think at all; we just waited and trusted.”
In less than an hour what was left of the Ranger outfit was in motion.
And a sorry-looking outfit it was indeed.
One of Mrs. McAlpin’s wagons was abandoned after she had discarded
everything of appreciable weight that could be spared. But there
are exceptions to every rule, and the Little Doctor, watching
her opportunity, managed with the aid of Scotty to stow away the
long-secreted spinning-wheel and baby’s cradle which had been Mrs.
Ranger’s property.
“If we can complete our journey at all, we can carry these things,” the
Little Doctor said to Jean. “We are getting near the Columbia River, as
we can see by the topography of the country; and there’s a mission at
The Dalles, where we can get more help if we need it, I am sure. Mamma
and I will ride our horses as long as they are able to carry us. We have
provisions enough to feed our two teamsters and ourselves till we reach a
settlement.”
One woman at a time was detailed to ride in the family wagon and take
care of the babies; all the rest walked, stopping to ride only when the
frequent streams that were too deep to wade were to be crossed; at which
times the wearied oxen were compelled to do the double duty of pulling
the loads and carrying the footsore pedestrians on their backs.
The weather was now intensely hot during the long hours of sunshine.
The sandy wastes radiated the blistering heat under which the vast
sageplains lay staring at the unmerciful sun in apathetic stillness,
like a Lilliputian forest under a state of arrested development. But the
nights were chilly, and the storms of wind and dust that came up with the
going down of the sun were trying in the extreme. The men of the party no
longer had tents or wagon-covers for shelter, and were obliged to sleep
on the lee side of friendly rocks, beside which they awoke, sometimes, to
find themselves uncomfortably near a den of rattlesnakes or the decaying
carcass of an animal.
At every spot where a little grass was found, the cattle were unhitched
from the wagons and turned out in pairs, under the yoke, to feed.
Every stray bit of wood, every discarded ox-yoke or ox-bow, and not
infrequently the entire woodworks of an abandoned wagon, were split into
firewood and carried along among the baggage for camping purposes.
Unknown guides, in whom the prolonged hardships of the plains had not
destroyed the spirit of human kindness, left frequent notices on the
rocks by the wayside, giving valuable information in regard to springs
and streams, but for which there would have been terrible suffering at
times from thirst.
The cattle were too weak and their loads too heavy to permit long hours
of travel, and their progress was necessarily slow.
The beds of small streams had gradually dried under the fierce sunshine,
and it became necessary to keep as near as possible to the banks of
the Snake River, from which, however, the way often deviated for days
together because of intervening rocks, gulches, sand, and sheer bluffs.
On the third day of August Jean made entry as follows:—
“The fiery weather of the past fortnight has moderated somewhat; but
the roads are, as usual, rocky and dusty, with many stretches of sand,
through which the poor, weak cattle pull the wagons, which, though
lightened by the reduction of our loads, are far too heavy for their
strength, which decreases daily.
“Our road, during the afternoon of to-day, lay close to the almost dry
bed of a rocky-bottomed creek, beside which we camped for the night,
without food for our stock, and almost without water. I wonder what the
poor creatures think of us for bringing them out here in the wilderness,
face to face with such a fate?
“Some of our teamsters have been growing quarrelsome of late. Two men who
fell in with us shortly after our loss of cattle and have been following
us ever since and begging food, suddenly left the train yesterday; since
their departure some of our men are growing insubordinate.
“Their grievance arises from the inability of the cattle to haul them
when not on duty as drivers, they assuming that they made no bargain
with daddie to do any extra walking. Our teamster Yank, the aristocratic
son of Virginia, who claims to be an F.F.V., climbed on a wagon-tongue
early in the day, and compelled the oxen to pull his weight through the
rocks and sand, the added strain upon their neck yokes making their lot
doubly hard. Daddie is holding a conference with the fellow now. He said
before we halted for the night that he hoped the dissatisfied ones would
leave of their own accord, as otherwise he expected trouble. He announced
to-night that there would be no more riding on wagon-tongues; and
although we await the result of the conference with some anxiety, daddie
says he isn’t worried, since the dissatisfied fellows must stay with the
train or starve.
“August 4. We travelled seventeen miles to-day, having halted for two
hours to feast the cattle on a bed of dry bunchgrass, fortunately
discovered by Scotty in a ravine overlooked by trains ahead. It was a
great comfort to see the hungry animals fill themselves with the dry but
nutritious grass, and drink their fill from a trench made in the bed of
the dry creek.
“Three miles’ further travel brought us to a bend in the creek, where we
succeeded in digging again for water.
“August 5. We are in better spirits than at any time since our loss of
cattle. All traces of mutiny have disappeared, and even Yank trudges over
the road without protest. The animals, too, are stepping briskly.
“We find nothing at all for the cattle to eat to-day. The road continues
rough and rocky, and abounds in chuck-holes which the narrow track
will not permit the wheels to avoid. The tires are all loose on the
wagon-wheels, and it seems a miracle that the wheels do not fall to
pieces.
“After we halted for the night on the banks of the Snake River, once more
our men were compelled to drive the cattle down the stream for over a
mile to find an opening between the bluffs through which they could reach
water. And the men had to carry back a limited supply in their canteens
to relieve the distress at camp. We are in plain and provoking sight of
a foaming waterfall on the opposite bank, but as thoroughly out of reach
of it as if it were in the mountains of the moon. It bursts from a ledge
of rocks, and descends to the river with a roar that at this distance
is sweetly musical. Some day, in the years to come, some enterprising
individual will preëmpt that spring, and make a fortune by selling the
pure water to his less fortunate fellow-men.
“August 6. At ten o’clock to-day we were refreshed by a welcome shower.
“Oh, the blessed summer rain! How it cooled the parching air and arid
earth, and revived the drooping spirits of poor dear daddie, who is
growing hollow-eyed and thin, like the cattle!
“We find no game, and nothing for the stock to eat but some willows.”
* * * * *
“Yonder,” said Captain Ranger, in an excited tone, “are the falls of
Salmon River. Make a note of them, Jean!”
The dilapidated wagons were halted on a great plateau overlooking a rapid
river, spanned by a mighty ledge of rocks, over which a great torrent
of foamy-white water rolled and surged, glistening in the sunshine with
great schools of female salmon in quest of spawning-ground, followed by
the male contingent, fierce of aspect and in fighting mood, ready to
destroy one another or anything else that might impede their progress.
Indians were camped in great numbers below the bluffs, the women drying
the fish for winter use, and the men bartering the produce of their
skill with lance and spear for such articles of food and apparel as the
depleted stores of the wanderers could spare.
“August 7. We travelled eighteen miles to-day. At ten o’clock we found a
little plat of dry bunchgrass, and halted for an hour to allow the stock
to graze. It was well we did, for to-night we find no grass at all. The
river is over a mile from camp, and we are compelled to carry water all
that distance for domestic use. We don’t use very much.”
For many miles the road continued through a rocky canyon, where the way
was so perilous that the locked wagon-wheels had to be held in place by
men on the upper side of the grade to prevent the wagons from tumbling
down the bluffs into the raging current far below.
The entries in Jean’s journal were interrupted at this time by a serious
siege of toothache; and for this reason we find, under date of August
10 and 11, in Captain Ranger’s painstaking chirography, the following
entries:—
“We travelled about eight miles and again came to Snake River. The
weather has been insufferably hot; and, as our weak and famished cattle
were unable to go on, we were compelled to halt and await the coming of a
breeze.
“The general face of the country is barren in the extreme. No vegetation
is in sight except the ever abounding sagebrush. Gnarled, old, dwarfed,
and shaggy, this seemingly boundless waste of sage subsists without
apparent moisture; and for no conceivable purpose it lives on and on
forever, staring stolidly at the sun by day and keeping vigil with the
moon and stars by night.”
On the 12th of August Jean made the following entry: “We reached the
banks of the river every few miles to-day, and camped near it at night.
We find here no grass, game, or fuel; but, thank God, there is plenty of
water.
“After resting the cattle till sundown, daddie gave orders to yoke up and
move ahead to a plat of grass that he had heard of, about six miles to
the westward, and half a mile to the left of the main travelled road. We
were all packed, ready to start, when Shorty and Limpy came into camp,
bringing about half of the cattle, and reported all the others missing.
So we are compelled to await the morning with such forebodings as no pen
can portray; mine at least will not make the attempt.
“August 13. The missing cattle were found and brought in at an early hour
this morning; and after a hurried breakfast we started for the promised
feeding-grounds, where we found good grass and water, but no fuel. We
halted for a couple of hours, and then came on seven miles farther, when
we once more reached Snake River.
“The dust throughout the day has been almost unbearable. It is as fine as
the finest flour, and, being impregnated with alkali, is very irritating
to nostrils, throats, and lungs.
“August 14. This has been the hardest day yet upon the cattle,—poor
starved and wretched creatures! And I might add, poor alkalied and
used-up people!
“Not a person in our company is well. We are a fretful, impatient, and
anxious lot, and no wonder. And yet our journeyings even now have their
amusing side. Susannah sings like a nightingale, and ‘Geo’die Wah,’ as
her lisping coon calls himself, leads the chorus. Scotty quotes poetry
by the yard, and the Little Doctor seeks diversion in every incident.
Mrs. Benson continues amiable and obliging, showing a side to her nature
wholly unlike the waspish way she had when we first knew her. The men
often clear away the sagebrush from a level plat of ground after their
chores are finished for the night, and hold dancing carnivals among
themselves (daddie draws the line at dancing, so we don’t participate).
Sawed-off makes tolerable music on a fairly good violin. The humble
jotter of these chronicles finds her chief diversion in the fact that we
are every day drawing nearer to the Oregon City Post-office.”
XXX
_BOBBIE GOES TO HIS MOTHER_
Jean’s aching tooth suffered a relapse, and the suppuration that ensued
made her seriously ill.
On the 14th of August her father again made an entry:—
“Five of our escort have left us, taking with them a wagon-bed left by
the wayside by somebody whose cattle have died or strayed. They made a
clumsy boat of the square-bottomed thing; and with this frail craft,
which they successfully launched in the tortuous waters of the Snake,
they expect to find safe navigation to its confluence with the Columbia.
Although it was a relief to get rid of some of them, chiefly because
they thought they knew so much more about my business than I was able to
learn, I am apprehensive of results solely on their account. Snake River
doesn’t look to me like a safe stream to be trusted. But it was a relief
to see them go, because we are yet many hundreds of miles from our goal,
and our supplies of food and means of transportation are getting more
precarious daily.
“August 15. Lost another ox by drowning.
“August 16. Weather insufferably hot. Lost an ox to-day from eating a
poisonous herb. At this rate we shall soon be left with one wagon. The
cattle must hustle for food after every day’s pull, making it very hard
to keep life in their poor skeleton bodies.”
On the evening of the 18th Jean resumed her writing, which ran in part as
follows:—
“The long and dreary road is rough and hilly, and the yielding sand is
deep. We found to-day at noon a patch of dry grass, and stopped to graze
our famishing cattle. But we neglected, by some mischance, to fill our
water-casks in the morning, so we had a dry luncheon in the hot sand,
under the blistering sunshine. Our shoes have all given out from constant
walking, and we are reduced to moccasins, which we get by barter among
the Indian women. But the deerskin things afford us no protection from
the still abounding cacti, which seem to thrive best where there is the
least moisture.
“We are encamped once more on the banks of the Snake. It was quite dark
when a halt was ordered.
“August 19. Glory to God in the highest! We are once more within sight of
some trees that are not sagebrush. They are off to the westward, several
miles away, and their stately presence marks the course of a stream we
cannot see.
“August 20. The stream proved to be the Owyhee,—a lukewarm, clear, and
rapid little river with a pebbly bottom. The air is so foul from the
stench of decaying cattle, the water of the little river is so warm, and
the heat so intolerable that sickness and death must soon ensue if the
conditions do not change. It is no wonder that we see many graves by the
roadside. Most of them are the last resting-places of mothers who have
mercifully fallen asleep and been buried, often with their babes in their
arms.
“August 21. Old Fort Boisé lies opposite our camp, away beyond and
across Snake River, looming in the distance like a mediæval fortress
from the midst of a gray, dry moat. Our printed guide, a little pamphlet
written by General Palmer in the forties, tells us that this fort was
built by the Hudson Bay Company for shelter and storage, and as a means
of protection from the Indians, with whom the traders did a thriving
business when the century was young. It is now fallen into decay, and is
doubtless the abode of bats and birds and creeping things.
“The men who left our company on the 16th inst., in a boat made of a
wagon-bed, rejoined us to-day, having had all the navigation on the Snake
they seemed to care for. They were a woe-begone and God-and-man-forsaken
set; and their chief fear was that they would not be permitted to come
into our train again on the old footing. Daddie—dear, big-hearted,
hospitable man—took them in, though they deserved a different fate;
but we think they’ll be content to let the best that can be had alone
hereafter.
“August 23. After a long, hot, and arduous journey of over thirty miles,
and consuming two days of the most trying experience possible, we reached
Malheur River, another tributary of the Snake. But we failed to find
any food for the cattle, and were compelled to pull out again the next
morning before dawn, headed for what appeared to be a stream of water, as
we judged from a fringe of willows. But when we reached the bed of the
stream it was dry as a bone. We were compelled to stop, though, as it was
then high noon, and it was reported twelve miles to the next water. So
a part of our force was detailed to dig a well in the creek bottom for
water for domestic use, and the rest were sent back to the Malheur to
water the stock, as soon as they had eaten their fill of the dry grass,
which to us is more precious than gold, or anything else just now but
water.
“On the 24th we left this camp and travelled down the dry bed of the
creek for several miles, through a valley that had evidently been missed
by the trains ahead, as the grass was fine and abundant. After leaving
this valley, we travelled over a blind trail through a hot, dusty ravine
till ten o’clock at night, when we reached some sulphur springs and
encamped, feeling cross, half sick, and disgusted with all the world. The
air is heavy with the fumes of sulphur, and Limpy says we are less than
half a mile from hell.”
On the 25th of August Jean’s journal again gave evidence of Captain
Ranger’s chirography and style. His characteristic narrative follows:
“To-day we made eight miles, which brought us to a deep and rocky canyon
debouching into the Snake. This is to be our last encounter with this
tortuous, treacherous, and in every way terrible serpent, of whose
presence we long ago had much more than enough.
“Three miles farther brought us to Burnt River,—a small, rapid, and
crooked stream, with a sandy delta at its disproportionately extended
mouth. Here the country changes its entire topography. The bold and
abrupt foot-hills are covered to their tops with an abundant coat of
seed-bearing bunchgrass; and numerous juniper-trees which somehow in
the long ago gained a footing among the sloping shale and sand, lend a
peculiar beauty to the scene.”
* * * * *
“Mr. Burns, I’m going to die before long.”
These were the words of little Bobbie, the darling of the family and of
the entire company, and were spoken to Scotty on that memorable day in
the Black Hills when preparations were in progress for the burial of his
mother.
The blow came suddenly. The child had been overjoyed at the prospect
of reaching the end of the journey at an early day. The sight of Burnt
River filled him with pleasing anticipations. He was never more playful,
quaint, and original than when his father stood him on his shoulder to
view the last they should see of the Snake River.
“Where is it going now, papa?” he asked artlessly. “Is it always hungry?
Is that what makes it in such a hurry? What does it eat? And where does
it sleep o’ nights? It’s a sure enough snake, isn’t it?”
At midnight, when the weary party were sound asleep, Mary, who was lying
near him, was wakened by an ominous cough, which rapidly developed into
an acute attack of croup.
* * * * *
“It was a stubborn case, and quite beyond my poor skill,” said the Little
Doctor, as they all stood weeping around the still and beautiful form of
the precious dead.
“What do you imagine caused the child to predict his untimely taking off,
Mr. Burns?” asked Mrs. McAlpin, as they watched alone.
“I suppose it was merely a child’s fancy,—a coincidence, probably.”
“And I suppose it was a revelation. Many important lessons may be learned
from the artless utterances of a child.”
For many weeks Mrs. McAlpin had studiously avoided conversation on any
subject with the one man on earth whom she believed to be her counterpart.
“Wait till that human imperfection called the Law has made me legally
free,” was her invariable command whenever her suitor showed symptoms of
impatience.
But to-night, as they knelt together in the presence of what the world
calls Death, he seized her hand, and it was not withdrawn.
“Kneeling in this presence, may I have my answer, Daphne?”
The dim light of a sputtering tallow candle shed a faint glow across the
white sheet under which the still form of Bobbie lay in dreamless sleep.
She returned the pressure of his hand in silence. But when he would have
caught her in a close embrace, she gently withdrew and whispered: “We
will take our first kiss at the altar, darling.”
“I am happy now, and I can wait. God bless you!” he whispered; and as
others were about entering the tent, he arose from his knees and went out
silently among the stars.
The morning came at last. Amid the tearful silence of the company
the train moved on for a couple of miles and halted at the foot of a
mountain to consign the mortal remains of the little soul to their last
resting-place. High up on the mountain-side, on a natural terrace, the
grave was made under a spreading juniper-tree, in whose branches the wild
birds chant his requiem as the years roll on, and the eternal breezes
sing.
* * * * *
The next morning, August 29, found the face of Nature covered everywhere
with a thick coating of hoar-frost. Ice had formed during the night in
the water-pails, an eighth of an inch in thickness, and an inspiriting
sensation of chilliness filled the air. But as the sun rode high in the
brassy heavens, the day grew intensely hot. On and on and up and up the
ailing cattle labored; and on and on and up and up the dispirited company
toiled, footsore and weary, ragged and dirty. But hope was not dead; for
was not the goal of their ambition now almost in sight?
The mountains of Powder River were next crossed, and the weary pilgrims
emerged upon an open plain over which the pygmy sagebrush of the desert
ran riot. Here a quarter of a century later an enterprising city
was destined to arise, in the midst of abounding mines and burdened
wheatfields, wherein the irrigated lands would drop fatness and the
stockman grow rich among the cattle of a thousand hills.
“This valley,” wrote Jean, under date of September 1, “is beautiful
to look upon; but it is considered worthless, as it is too dry for
cultivation, and there is no way to rid the land of the ever-obtruding
sage. Daddie says it will never be made to sprout white beans.”
The ranchers, stock-raisers, mine-owners, merchants, artisans, mechanics,
speculators, newspaper men, politicians, and successful schemers in every
walk of life can well afford to forgive Daniel Webster, John Ranger,
and every other false prophet who in his day harped on the same string,
in view of the continuous fields of wheat, oats, barley, rye, vetch,
hops, and fruits of all kinds peculiar to the temperate zone which this
wonderfully fertile valley now produces under the impulse of irrigation,
not to mention the mines of gold and silver, precious stones, and baser
metals with which the hills and mountains are fabulously rich.
The descent of the Ranger company into the now famous Grande Ronde
valley was most perilous. It was made long after nightfall, through a
precipitous and rocky defile, where a slip of the wagon-wheel or the
misstep of an ox would have plunged the adventurous teams, wagons, men,
women, children, and all, over sheer bluffs.
Camp was pitched in the edge of the beautiful valley, then a reservation
belonging to the Nez Percé Indians. Rye-grass was growing as high as the
top of the head of a man on horseback; and at one end of the valley,
where now is a famous resort for health and pleasure, a number of hot
springs were outlined by great columns of steam, which, rising beneath
the arid air, hung low over the foot-hills, and, hanging lower yet in the
vale below, spread itself like an enormous fleece over a lake of seething
water.
XXXI
_THROUGH THE OREGON MOUNTAINS_
After moving across the Grande Ronde valley through a veritable Eden
of untamed verdure, and crossing the Grande Ronde River by ford, our
travellers began the ascent of the Blue Mountains.
The air was cool and delicious. The cattle, much refreshed by their
luscious feed in the bountiful and beautiful valley, moved more briskly
than had been their wont, and were soon in the midst of the grand old
forest trees, which, at that time untouched by the woodman’s ax, stood
in all their native grandeur upon the grass-grown slopes. In the midst
of one of these groves of stately whispering pines the company halted
for the night near a sparkling spring, with scenery all around them so
enchanting that Jean exclaimed in her journal, “Oh, this beautiful world!
how big it is compared to the pygmy mortals who roam over its surface;
and yet how little it is compared to the countless stars that gaze upon
us from above this ‘boundless contiguity of shade’!”
For several days she had written little. Her thoughts wandered to the
Green River experience that had awakened within her being a new life,
from which, for her at least, there was to be no ending. She could not
write, so she strolled aimlessly away to a mossy rock in a starlit
ravine, at the foot of which a rivulet was singing.
“Why can’t I see you, mother dear?” she asked. “And you, Bobbie, can’t
you say a word to your sister Jean?”
For a long time she sat thus, lost in reverie, while the eternal silence
around her was broken only by the low cadence of the whispering pines.
Suddenly there came into her inner consciousness a call, unspoken yet
heard, “Jean!”
She closed her eyes and saw, as plainly as with physical vision, Ashton
Ashleigh’s border home; and he was gazing hard at Le-Le, who was kneeling
at his feet in beseeching attitude.
“Jean!”
Gradually, as the demon Doubt aroused her senses, a wild, unreasoning
jealousy crept into her heart. She turned her face to the eastward and
sent out to him an answering call, “Ashleigh!”
She listened eagerly; but no response was felt or heard, and no mental
vision reappeared. With her heart like lead, she returned to the wagon
and crept into bed.
When she awoke the sun was shining, and she could not recall the vision
that had distressed her. Had her soul visited the abode of her heart’s
idol? Who knows? and who can tell?
* * * * *
On and on the teams kept crawling, until on the 6th of September the
summit of the Blue Mountains was passed, and the wearied travellers gazed
for the first time upon the Cascade Mountains, lying to the westward in
the purple distance; and in their midst arose, supported by a continuous
chain of undulating, tree-crowned, lesser heights, the majestic
proportions of Mount Hood, the patriarch of the solitudes, his hoary head
uplifted in the shimmering air, and at his feet a drapery of mist.
The Umatilla River left the gorges through which it had fought its
way, and glided peacefully through a sagebrush plain toward the great
Columbia. But no settlements were yet to be seen. No navigation had yet
been started on the broad bosom of the upper Columbia. The rock-ribbed
Dalles frowned far below in the misty distance; and no dream of a
fleet of palatial river craft, with portage railways around otherwise
impassable gorges, had yet taken practical shape. The Cascade locks had
not entered the liveliest imagination, and a transcontinental railroad
was considered an engineering impossibility, existing only in the mind of
an impractical theorist or incurable crank.
A vast and practically level plain or upland lay between the Blue and the
Cascade mountains. The Whitman settlement had already made the existence
of the infant city of Walla Walla possible. Wallula and Umatilla were
not, and the site of Pendleton was an unbroken plain.
But game was plenty and grass was good. Choke-cherries and salmon-berries
grew thickly among the deciduous groves that bordered the Umatilla River;
and but for the sad bereavements in the Ranger family, which time alone
could heal, the company would have been in exuberant spirits.
At Willow Creek station, which is now a veritable oasis in the desert,
the party found a trading-post, where some fresh potatoes and onions made
a welcome change in the diet.
On the 13th of September Jean wrote: “Old friends and relatives, tried
and true, have come to meet us from the Willamette valley, and their
unexpected coming fills us with gratitude unspeakable.”
After stopping merely to exchange greetings and gather what meagre
tidings they could obtain from each end of the long and tedious road, the
jaded immigrants pushed onward through the heat and dust till nightfall,
when they came to a small stream, where they were compelled to halt for
the night on account of the water, though the grass was poor and the
cattle fared badly.
The relief party reported the Willamette valley as the “Garden of Eden,”
and gave glowing accounts of the soil, climate, scenery, and plenty with
which the western part of the great Oregon country abounded. Even the
dumb animals seemed to understand and take courage; for they stepped more
briskly under the yoke and chewed the cud to a later hour than had been
their wont.
Guided by the advice of the relief party, the train was again put in
motion at midnight.
“It is fully twenty miles to the next camping-ground where there are wood
and water,” said a kindly recruit who had recently been over the road. It
was a forced march, but the animals were well repaid for making it, as
they found good water and a tolerable supply of grass.
“September 16. We are encamped near the mouth of the Des Chutes River,”
wrote Jean. “It is a clear, swift, and considerable stream which empties
its waters into the Columbia.
“I know to-night just how Balboa must have felt when he discovered the
Pacific Ocean. For have I not set eyes upon the lordly Columbia, the
mighty river of the West, which
“‘Hears no sound save its own dashings’?”
The Des Chutes was safely forded by the teams, under the direction of an
Indian guide, and the women and children were taken across it in a canoe.
The wild and broken desolation of the plains now gave way to vast
alluvial uplands,—dry, owing to the season, but giving promise of great
prosperity for future husbandmen. Numerous gulches intersected the
otherwise unbroken level, upon which the teams would often come without
warning; therefore travel was difficult and progress slow.
“If the season were not so far advanced, I’d like to stop over at The
Dalles and visit the mission,” said Captain Ranger; “but a storm is
threatening, and it will never do to risk such an experience in the
Cascade Mountains.”
“Quite right you air!” exclaimed a mountaineer, who visited the train
avowedly in search of a wife. None of the women or girls saw fit to
accept the negotiations proposed; but his advice as to a coming storm was
good. The train, in seeking to slip through the mountains by the way of
Barlow’s Gap,—a road made passable for teams by the indefatigable labors
of an honored pioneer, whose name it perpetuates,—was halted just in time
to prevent a disastrous ending.
Captain Ranger’s worn and famishing cattle were reinforced at Barlow’s
Gap by two yokes of fat oxen sent to the rescue by an immigrant of
1850,—a grand and enterprising preacher of the gospel, who, all unknown,
even to himself, was a striking example of a working parson, imbued with
the practical idea of what constitutes a “Church of the Big Licks.”
Not that he was pugnacious, but he was philanthropic and practical and
enterprising; and many are the beneficiaries of his industry and skill
who have long survived his ministry, and date their material progress in
Oregon, as well as their spiritual welfare, to this practical promoter of
an every-day religion.
Provisions were by this time running short, and the necessity of
reaching the settlements was imperative; but there was no appeal from
the borderer’s experience, and the impatient wayfarers were compelled to
remain in camp for four consecutive days and nights, while the excited
heavens warred among the serrated steeps, as
“From rock to rock leaped the live thunder.”
The storm, which condensed its forces into a deluge of rain at both the
eastern and western bases of the Cascade Mountains, had raged as snow in
the forest-studded heights; and this, melting rapidly under the sunny
skies which succeeded the heavy precipitation, made Barlow’s Gap so
slippery that the teamsters had to exercise the utmost care in guiding
the oxen and to keep their own feet.
Provisions ran lower every day, and finally gave out entirely; and one
jolly wayfarer, who had for many weeks professed to be enjoying the
prospect of a ten-days’ famine, grew so ravenous when compelled to face
the reality at the foot of Laurel Hill, that he begged piteously for some
coffee-grounds to ease the cravings of his stomach.
The next morning the three girls crossed the raging torrent of the
glacial river Sandy by jumping from rock to rock over the roaring and
perilous current, and gathered a bountiful supply of salal-berries for
the children; but it was almost night before the half-starved men (who
would not eat the purple fruit) were met by a packer, who brought beef
and flour; and as soon as a fire could be kindled, a meal was made ready.
On the 27th of September the company descended the last long and rocky
steep, and halted with a shout at the foot of the mountains on the famous
Foster Ranch, where fresh vegetables, milk, cream, and butter were
added to the beef and flour on which they had been glad to subsist when
necessary.
On the thirtieth day of the month they reached Oregon City, and were
royally welcomed by Dr. John McLoughlin,—the renowned, revered, and
idolized hero of Old Oregon.
XXXII
_LETTERS FROM HOME_
Oregon City, in the autumn of 1852 and for more than a decade thereafter,
consisted chiefly of a single narrow street bordering the Willamette
River and lying under the sheer bluffs of lichen-clad basaltic rock
that overlook the Falls of the Willamette, valued at that time only
as a fishing site for the wily Indian and a strenuous leaping-place
for schools of salmon. But future enterprise was destined to utilize
the stupendous water-power for the convenience of man in the city of
Portland, a dozen miles below. In this one narrow street the Ranger
company halted to read letters from the States. These letters, many
of them now nearly six months old, brought to them the first tidings
from the old home. The latest was dated August 1, and was from
Grandfather Ranger, announcing the transition of “Grannie,” the beloved
great-grandmother, whose demise was described with much detail:—
“She was in usual health up to the last day of her sojourn in the body,”
he wrote, “and retained her faculties to the last. She had walked to
Lijah’s and back during the day, with no companion but Rover, who deemed
her his especial charge from the time he took up his abode with us. But
she complained of being tired on her return, and ate less dinner than
usual. While your mother and I were sitting at the table, we heard a
peculiar gasp and gurgle from Grannie’s chair in the next room, and we
hastened to her side; but she never spoke again, except in whispered
messages of love to us all.
“We laid her precious remains in the family lot, in the dear, peaceful,
leafy burying-ground of Glen Eden, and returned to our lonely home,
and put away her empty chair. On the last morning of her earth-life,
as she sat at breakfast with us, she said, ‘I saw Joseph in my dreams
last night. I heard him speak as plainly as if he had been in this room.
He had a troubled look, but he said: “Tell mother I have written.”’ We
thought little of it at the time; but to-day we had a letter from him,
saying he is alive and well. He spoke of having seen you, John, but he
said you had quarrelled with him, or rather at him, and had left him in a
fit of anger. He did not say why you had quarrelled. But, oh, John, how
could you do it? We know he must have given you cause, but you should,
for our sakes, have risen above it. My old heart is heavy with sorrow.
And your dear, patient mother, who has prayed so long and earnestly for
this meeting between you two,—to think when her prayer is answered at
last that you would add to it such a sting! No matter which one of you is
the more to blame, you, my son, as the elder brother, should be the first
to make concessions. I know your gentle Annie joins me in this appeal.
She seems strangely near me as I write; and I can almost hear her say:
‘To err is human; to forgive divine.’ Give her and all the children our
messages of love and sympathy.”
The strong man wept convulsively. No tidings of his wife’s transition had
yet been despatched to the folks at home; nor could letters reach them
now for a month to come. There was no overland mail, and all “through”
letters sought transit _via_ Panama.
A long postscript was added, over which father and children shed tears in
unison. It said: “The dog, Rover, returned at nightfall on the memorable
day of your departure, weary, wet, and bedraggled. He would take no
notice of me, your mother, or Grannie, although we all tried to pet and
console him. But he went straight to your deserted doorstep, where he lay
for a long time moaning like a man in pain. Grannie regularly carried him
food, but he refused to eat for many days, and his wailing and howling
could be heard at all hours of the night. But finally your mother won
him over, and he now makes his home with us, and seems quite happy and
contented. We all thought he would want to leave us and go back to the
old house when Lijah took possession of it, but he didn’t. He just clung
all the closer to us old folks in the cottage; and it would have done
your soul good to see the faithful watch he kept over dear old Grannie
to the last day of her life. He was conspicuous among the chief mourners
at the burial, and lingered alone beside the grave long after we all had
returned to our homes.”
Jean, recalling her father’s words on that far-away ferry-boat, where
she had last seen the faithful animal watching and wailing from the
river-bank, said, as she looked up from reading her own letters: “Daddie,
don’t you think now that a dog has a soul?” And her father answered
huskily: “I don’t see why he hasn’t as good a right to a soul as I have.”
“Here, Mame,” said Jean, “is a letter from Cousin Annie Robinson. Listen.
She says: ‘Please break it gently to Cousin Mame that her _beau ideal_ of
a man, the Reverend Thomas Rogers, took to himself a wife before she had
been gone a week. And who should it have been but that detestable Agnes
Winter, who used to say such spiteful things about Mame? She won’t be as
happy after a while as she is now, but she’ll know a whole lot more. Who
could have believed that so saintly a sinner as the Reverend Thomas would
prove so fickle? I hope Mame will see him with our eyes after this. He
isn’t worthy of her passing thought.’”
Mary, whose dreams for long and weary months had been of a package of
letters from the preacher that never came at all, faced suddenly the
first great crisis in her life; and stilling, with a strong effort of the
will, the tumultuous beatings of her heart, she walked rapidly on, ahead
of the teams, from starting-time until nightfall, fighting her first
great battle with herself alone, and gaining the mastery at last without
human aid or sympathy.
The immigrants, having concluded their purchases, toiled up the narrow
grade to the table-land above the bluffs, and pursued their way through
the stately evergreen forests and level plains of the Willamette valley
to the homes of relatives, who awaited their coming with joy that was
changed to mourning when they learned for the first time of the death of
Mrs. Ranger.
After a few days of much-needed rest among the hospitable pioneers who
had preceded them by two years and were now installed on a beautiful and
valuable donation claim, the immigrant party decided to remain in each
other’s vicinity, and removed for the purpose to a beautiful vista of
vacant land under the friendly shadow of the Cascade Mountains, with a
westward outlook across the Willamette valley to the Coast Range, which
alone intervened to shut from sight the surging billows of the Pacific
Ocean.
It was here that the genius and education of Scotty, who will hereafter
be designated by his lawful name, proved of inestimable value. Supplied
only with a rope and a carpenter’s square, he led a private surveying
party through the woods and prairies, locating their claims with such
accuracy that the government survey, which was made years after, fully
approved his work.
“You may not be a success at driving oxen or taking care of steers at
night,” said Captain Ranger, “but you are an artist with a rope and a
square.”
“Didn’t I tell you he’d be worth his weight in gold when he reached
a place where he could have a chance to use his brains?” asked Mrs.
McAlpin, who took as kindly and intelligently to her surroundings as if
to the manner born.
“Women have a way of divination that I won’t attempt to analyze,” was the
laughing reply.
The donation claim of each settler, the acreage of which had by this time
been cut into halves by Act of Congress, was still of ample proportions,
being a mile long and half a mile wide, and was so surveyed as to allow
four families or claimants to settle on extreme corners of their land at
points where four corners met.
“This will enable each claimant to build a cabin on his own claim, so he
can reside upon and cultivate his own land, as required by the law, and
at the same time have neighbors within call in case of accident or other
need,” said Mr. Burns.
“What a grand and glorious prospect!” exclaimed Captain Ranger, standing
on an eminence where his new house was to go up, and gazing abroad over
the wide expanse of the Willamette valley, in which the winding river
was gleaming through the openings in the forest; “but I can sense one
drawback to your scheme, Mr. Burns.”
“What is it?”
“Some of us will be getting married before long and doubling our
opportunity for holding government lands; and as each must reside upon
and cultivate his claim and his wife’s, it will make it a little awkward,
won’t it?”
“Not if the contracting parties exercise a little ordinary business
ability and discretion, sir. They have but to locate their claims with a
view to matrimony and settle their own bargains to suit themselves.”
But the Captain, who had dealt with the domestic infelicities of his
neighbors too often to look upon all such bargains as imbued with
old-time stability, had his doubts.
“If an engaged couple should tire of their bargain, and their change of
sentiment should fail to fit the agreement,—what then?”
“It would be a blessing for them to discover their mistake in time to
forestall the divorce court,” was the ready reply.
“Mr. Burns is right,” said Mrs. McAlpin. “Two-thirds of the unhappy
marriages we hear about are the result of haste and lack of
understanding. A couple will marry, and when it is too late to recede
from the bargain they want to break it. I don’t mind telling you, Captain
Ranger, that Mr. Burns and I expect to marry each other some day, and our
claims were chosen accordingly; but we’ll wait until the law frees me
from a bargain which I repudiated in spirit before it was consummated.
And we’ll not marry then if we conclude we are making a mistake.”
“I am glad to hear you make so open and frank a statement in the presence
of so competent a witness,” exclaimed Mrs. Benson, who still carried an
important note in her pocket, frayed and travel-soiled, but none the less
precious from being scarcely legible.
“I think it is a shame to make a commercial bargain of a matrimonial
agreement,” exclaimed Mary Ranger.
“And so do I!” echoed Jean.
Nevertheless, when the boundaries of the several donation claims were
established, and the different allotments were assigned to the proper
claimants, it was noticed that, in addition to the Captain’s own quota of
virgin acres, an extra claim was reserved adjacent to that of each of his
daughters, Mary and Jean, and one next to that of Sally O’Dowd.
* * * * *
“Equality before the law is a fundamental idea in the government of the
United States of America,” the Captain explained at the Land Office; “and
I am glad to see it practically applied to the property rights of the
pioneer women of Oregon. It is a good beginning, and none can see the
end.”
“Sally O’Dowd isn’t a free woman, and she can’t get married, thank
goodness!” cried Jean, as she and her sisters talked the matter over
together between themselves alone.
“That’s so,” echoed Mary. “Sally has a husband living, and so there is no
danger of our losing father.”
“Let’s not be too certain,” cried Jean. “If you’d kept your eyes open for
the last month, as I have, you wouldn’t be surprised at anything. Sally’s
case was up on appeal when she left the States, but it has doubtless gone
by default. She has the custody of her children, and that was all she
asked of Sam O’Dowd.”
“Then Sally is a free woman,” said Marjorie.
“No woman is free when she is married,” retorted Jean. “The laws of men
do not recognize the individuality of a married woman. I, for instance,
am Jean Ranger to-day, but if I should marry to-morrow, I’d be—”
“Nothing but a nonentity named Mrs. Ashton Ashleigh,” interrupted Mary.
“Women delight in surrendering their names in marriage to the man they
love.”
“You’re right,” cried Jean, her eyes blazing. “I’d surrender to-morrow if
Ashton would come to claim his own. But it would be a partnership, and
not a one-sided agreement.”
“That’s what every woman thinks when she puts her neck in the noose,”
laughed Marjorie; “but when the man comes along who is able to capture
her heart, she is ready to make the venture.”
“That’s because the fundamental principle of matrimony is correct,”
retorted Jean.
“Dat’s so, honey,” said Susannah. “Women is jist like pigs. When one
of ’em burns his nose in a trough o’ hot mash, dey’ll all hurry to
’vestigate an’ git de same sperience.”
“Of course you’ll get some land,” said Jean.
“I’ve done axed de Cap’n ’bout it, an’ he’s looked up de law. He says I
can’t take up no lan’ ’cos I’m nothin’ but a niggah. De laws o’ Oregon
are ag’in it; so are de laws o’ de gen’ral gov’ment. A free country’s a
great blessin’ to women an’ niggahs! It’s a great blessin’ to be bawn in
a free country; ain’t it, Geo’die Wah?”
The coon, who had grown and flourished under his six months’ regimen of
flapjacks and bacon, shook his bright brown curls and grinned, displaying
an even set of polished ivories.
“I couldn’t git married if I wanted to,” added the negress, “’cos the law
is sot ag’in mixed matches; but da’hs no law nowhar ag’in coons”; and she
ended hers harangue with a characteristic “Yah! yah! yah!”
“Then, if you can’t marry, you can always work for wages, Susannah;
and you’ll be better off than Mrs. McAlpin,”—she was coming to join
the group,—“who is going to be married soon, if I can read the stars
correctly,” laughed Marjorie.
“No, Marjorie; I cannot even talk of marriage with the man whom God
created for me, and me only. I am not even a grass widow. I cannot
legally file upon a claim because I am the victim of a marriage I cannot
honor. And the law cannot set me free because the party of the second
part objects.”
“What’s that you were saying to the Ranger girls, Daphne?” asked Mrs.
Benson, who had been engaged in assisting Captain Ranger and Mr. Burns to
plan the two sets of log houses that were to be erected a mile apart, and
to be so arranged as to form separate abodes for four families.
“Nothing, mamma, only I was bewailing my fate.”
“Come with me, Daphne; I have something to show you,” said Mrs. Benson,
in a low tone.
“Listen to this letter,” said the mother, as soon as they were seated
among the trees. “The time has come for you to know its contents:—
“MY DEAR MRS. BENSON,—You have been a brave, devoted mother to
an unhappily environed daughter. I have long known that you
and I were made for each other. We became mismatched through
adherence to false customs. Daphne does not love me, and has
never willingly accepted our union, as you have painful reason
to know. You love me! Pardon this abrupt announcement. You have
never told me so, but I have known the truth for years. To have
this opportunity to tell you that I reciprocate, is at present
my only joy.
“I will meet you in the wilds of Oregon. Daphne’s latest
erratic movements to escape me have all along been known. To
follow you I became a wanderer in these Western wilds. I will
take measures to set your beautiful daughter free. A couple
whom God hath _not_ joined together it is man’s duty to put
asunder. Keep your own counsel till such time as you are strong
enough to take your life and destiny into your own hands, and
declare yourself accountable primarily to yourself and God for
your own actions.
“I will be in Portland, Oregon, by November first. We shall
surely meet again.
“Faithfully, through time and for eternity, your devoted but
never yet accredited counterpart,
“DONALD MCPHERSON.”
The daughter clasped her mother’s hand and fervently exclaimed, “Thank
God!”
Mrs. Benson wept.
“It will never do for you and me to meet again after this revelation,”
said the daughter, after a long silence. “I will take up my permanent
abode in this new country, and you can rejoin Donald in New York or
Philadelphia, _via_ the city of Panama. But you must go to Portland now.
We will not set idle tongues to wagging here. It is fortunate indeed that
Donald took his mother’s name as a part of his last inheritance.”
XXXIII
_LOVE FINDS A WAY_
“You needn’t select any lands for me, Captain,” said Mrs. Benson. “I
have decided to go to Portland to-morrow with the team that’s going down
for supplies. I shall not return. But my daughter will remain and take a
claim. She has decided to turn rancher, but I do not like the life.”
“Isn’t this a rather sudden change in your programme, Mrs. Benson?”
“Not at all. I didn’t intend to remain when I came here. I wouldn’t have
come any farther than Oregon City, but I wanted to get a view of the
future home of Daphne; and now, as she has chosen for herself and has
a fair prospect of happiness ahead, I am ready to look out for myself.
I shall stop awhile in Portland, and be ready to take the next steamer
for San Francisco. I will go to New York by way of the Isthmus, and will
spend the evening of my days in Paris or London.”
“I’m sure I wish you well, Mrs. Benson.”
“Thank you, Captain. My heart is too full for words! I know you will
always be a friend to my dear daughter.”
“You surely do not mean to go where you can never see your daughter
again!”
“Yes, Captain. Do you recall that tall and bronzed and handsome man of
whom you bought the buffalo robe you gave to your wife a short time
before her death?”
“You mean Donald McPherson?”
“Yes, sir. The fates have settled it. He is to be my husband, and Daphne
and I must part.”
“You have my best wishes for success and happiness,” said the Captain,
earnestly, as he offered his hand.
“There is some peculiar mystery about all this!” he exclaimed to himself
the next day, as Mrs. Benson climbed into the wagon and started off to
meet her fate. “But it’s the way of women. They are as fickle as the
wind.” He thought bitterly of his own budding and now blighted hopes.
“Don’t grieve for her, Daphne,” said Mr. Burns, in a husky voice, as the
wagon disappeared. “She was kind to me when I was crippled and cross,
and I shall never forget her watchfulness and care for me under the most
trying conditions. She is your mother, too, and that of itself is enough
to inspire my everlasting gratitude. I have no respect for the man who
fails to appreciate the woman to whom he is indebted for his wife.”
“It is well for the three of us that we have learned our lesson, Rollin.
We are all young yet, and all eternity is before us.”
“Yes, Daphne! Eternity is both before and behind us. We are henceforth to
be all in all to each other, as I believe we have been in the past, my
darling.”
“No, Mr. Burns, do not ‘darling’ me yet. We must await the tardy action
of that human imperfection called the law before I can honorably become
your ‘darling.’”
Nevertheless, being human, she feigned not to notice the prolonged
pressure of his hand at parting, nor did she refrain from answering his
eager and tender gaze with a look that quickened every pulse and sent a
thrill of gladness to his heart.
* * * * *
At the primitive hotel in the primitive little city of Portland, Mrs.
Benson met an Indian woman, the mother of many children, who was
introduced to her as Mrs. Addicks. The woman was richly and stylishly
gowned and seemed much at home among the guests. Her mien and carriage
were queenly, as she moved about the little parlor, exchanging a word
here and there among the loiterers, with whom she seemed a general
favorite.
“Haven’t I met you somewhere before?” asked Mrs. Benson, with whom, in
truth, she had exchanged greetings on the plains under circumstances
quite different from the present, as one, at least, had cause to remember.
“I do not recall a former meeting, madam. But you might have met me on
the plains. I was on my way to Portland when you saw me, if you saw me
at all. A frontier trading-post is no proper place to bring up a lot of
Indian half-breeds. I came here to educate my children.”
“Then your husband is a white man?”
“Yes.”
“I beg your pardon, but you do not speak and act like the other Indians I
have met.”
“I am a chieftain’s daughter, and I was educated in London. You spoke of
travelling in the Ranger train. Mr. Ranger is my husband’s brother.”
“Does Captain Ranger know of this?”
“I neither know nor care! One thing is certain. I shall do my best to
train and educate my children in such a way that he will be proud some
day to own them as relatives. I have the girls in school at the Academy
of the Sacred Heart. The boys are at the Brothers’ School.”
“Do you know Dr. McLoughlin?”
“Yes, and my husband knows him well. I saw him as the children and I
passed through Oregon City. He was very kind, and bade me be of good
cheer. He has an Indian wife himself, as you know. But he did not ask me
in to see her, so we did not meet.”
* * * * *
As Donald McPherson had not yet arrived in Portland, Mrs. Benson had
ample leisure for letter-writing.
“My dear Daphne,” she wrote, “a letter from Mr. McPherson awaited me,
as I expected. He had sent it forward by a courier from the plains, in
care of one of Dr. McLoughlin’s agents. I need not repeat its contents.
Suffice it to say, that I am serene and calm. God has been very merciful
to us all. Within the letter was a letter of credit, upon which I am now
able to draw ample funds. I will place on deposit, subject to your order,
all the money you will need. Do not hesitate to accept it. It is mine,
to do with as I choose; and this is my choice of methods to expend the
portion I have assigned to you.
“I have decided not to meet him till after you are a free woman, Daphne.
I know you and Donald will guard our secret carefully; but I have doubts
about Jean Ranger. She brought me that unsealed note, and, as you know,
she is such a precocious little witch she might have read it before
giving it into my possession. Could you, in some way, get at the truth of
this without letting her see just what you are after?”
To which Mrs. McAlpin replied: “I will not do Jean the injustice to
imagine for a moment that she would read a private note that was
intrusted to her care and honor. Tell Donald that I will honor him as my
step-father, but I will never see his face again. He was very patient
with me during all the trying years when the Juggernaut of public
opinion, combined with the inquisition of the law, kept us in bondage;
and I thank him for his patience with all my heart. I am as painfully
aware of the unconventionality of our proceedings as yourself, dear
mamma, but as what the public doesn’t know doesn’t disturb that composite
being in the least, we’ll keep our own counsel and be happy.
“My donation claim lies parallel to Sally O’Dowd’s. Captain Ranger’s
claim adjoins hers on the south,—a plan that implies foreknowledge, if
not foreordination.
“Mr. Burns and Albert Evans, our faithful teamster, have selected their
land adjacent to mine. Evans has chosen a double allotment, having in
prospect a wife who is a mere child, belonging to a neighbor about three
miles away. I am disgusted with the venality of the transaction, which
the child’s father regards with satisfaction, and the mother with tears.”
A few days later, Mrs. Benson wrote to Captain Ranger, as follows:—
“I have met here an interesting and highly educated Indian woman, who
says she is the wife of the post-trader you met in Utah. She says that
trader is your brother Joseph, whom for many years you mourned as dead.
She is here to educate her boys at the Brothers’ School, and her girls at
the Academy of the Sacred Heart.
“When we saw her on the plains, she looked nothing but an ordinary
squaw. Now she and the children are well and fashionably dressed, and
as presentable in every way as any family in this primitive hostelry;
and that is saying a good deal, for there are ladies here of high rank
and breeding from the Eastern cities, and also from over the seas. Mrs.
Ranger (she still answers to the name of Addicks) was educated in London,
she says, where, as the daughter of an Indian chieftain of the land of
the Dakotas, she was admitted into the most aristocratic circles. After
completing her education she returned to her native haunts and met your
brother, who made her his wife. She seems to have plenty of money; her
children are bright and intelligent,—the girls especially so, they being,
she says, more like their father than the boys; and for this, as you
know, there is a physiological reason.”
“I’ll see that woman the very first time I go to Portland,” said the
Captain, aloud, as he folded the letter deliberately.
“What woman?” asked Sally O’Dowd.
“Nobody in particular,” he answered, thrusting the letter hurriedly into
his pocket, and looking confused and foolish as he returned to his work.
The labor of felling, hewing, hauling, and finally raising into houses
the timbers for the big log buildings which were to afford homes for the
half-dozen or more families who had, by common consent, adopted a sort of
corporate method for residing upon and cultivating their claims, told
heavily upon the men, who, already depleted in strength by much hardship,
were poorly equipped for their tasks. But there was no shirking of duties
nor complaint over backaches, and the borderers’ homes arose like magic.
“How do you like the appearance of the new buildings?” asked Captain
Ranger, addressing Sally O’Dowd.
“Why should you ask me?” was the curt response.
Surprised at her reply but disposed to be communicative, he added: “If
all goes well, I’ll have a sawmill up yonder in the timber by this time
next year.”
“That’s none of my business,” she retorted testily.
He looked at her for a moment in blank astonishment. “Why isn’t it your
business?” he asked, at length. “Haven’t we agreed to first get you free
from a bad bargain, and after that take up our line of march together?
And won’t your belongings then be mine, and mine yours?”
“What about that other woman you are going to Portland to see? Do you
take me for an idiot, Squire?”
He looked her in the face for an instant, nonplussed. Then as the reason
for her change of manner dawned upon him, he threw back his head and
laughed heartily.
“So that’s what the matter with us, is it?” he exclaimed, approaching her
with a proffered caress. “We’ve been a trifle jealous, haven’t we?”
“Behave yourself, sir!” elbowing him away. “Go to Portland and see that
other woman. No doubt a party by the name of Benson is expecting you.”
He guffawed again, making her angrier still.
“Come, Sally; let’s have no more nonsense,” he said, after his laughter
had ceased, motioning her to a seat beside him on the doorway.
She stood irresolute.
“Very well, if you prefer to do so, you can sit a-standing, like the
Dutchman’s hen. I’ve been keeping a letter that’s been burning my pocket
for three days waiting for an opportunity to show it to you, Mrs.
O’Dowd; but you’ve been so shy I couldn’t touch you with a forty-foot
pole.”
“What do you suppose I care for your letters from that other woman?”
she asked, dropping into the space in the doorway, all eagerness and
attention, in spite of her disclaimer.
“Read it yourself, Sally. It is from my brother-in-law, Lije Robinson.”
“The latest sensation is the suicide of Sam O’Dowd,” the letter went on
to say, after the usual preliminaries of the border scribe.
“No!” cried the widow, now such _de facto_, rising to her feet and
turning deathly pale. “Sam wouldn’t commit suicide. He’d be afraid to
meet his Maker.”
“But he did it, Sally. Read on.”
“He left a confession, saying it was remorse that drove him to it,
and extolling his wife as a model woman, whom he had wronged beyond
reparation in every way imaginable.
“His mother is wellnigh crazy. The home the two of them had wrested from
his wife and her mother, in which the old woman had allotted to spend her
days, goes back to Sally now, as, by his confession, his mother has no
right to it.”
“Poor Sam!” cried the widow, dropping again into the proffered space in
the doorway. “He had his faults, but he wasn’t all bad. This letter and
his confession prove it. I shall try hard to think that he atoned for his
greatest crime by his voluntary death. But I’d be sorry myself to meet
the reception that he’ll get in heaven!”
“Why, Sally? What do you mean?”
“Nothing. Let the dead past bury its dead.”
Captain Ranger, who, in first proposing matrimony, had stated earnestly
that his heart was still with Annie, gazed tenderly at the weeping woman,
who arose and stood before him in a mute yet beseeching attitude, while
a warm love for her sprang spontaneously within him.
“Come, Sally dear,” he pleaded; “sit down by me again, and let us talk it
out.”
She obeyed mechanically, her frame convulsed with weeping.
“I can never talk again about a platonic union,” he said feelingly. “I
know that Annie would sanction our marriage now if she could speak to us;
and I believe with all my heart that she knows of our proposed relations,
and that she will, under the peculiar circumstances, also approve.”
Ah, John Ranger! Materialist as you used always to proclaim yourself, you
cannot, in the deepest recesses of your soul, rebel against the faith
that is “the evidence of things not seen.” What have you done with your
agnosticism?
“Captain,” said Sally, in a subdued tone, “I have seen the day when
I would have followed Sam O’Dowd to the ends of the earth if he had
commanded. I could and would have lived on the acorns of the forest
rather than have failed to be his wife. Do not ask me to love you now. I
cannot be your wife.”
“Are we not engaged?” he asked, astonished.
“Yes; conditionally. But I cannot think about it now. If I can ever bring
myself to think it right for me to be your wife, I will not hesitate to
tell you so. But not now, Captain; not now.”
She arose abruptly, and was gone.
XXXIV
_HAPPY JACK INTRODUCES HIMSELF_
“Here,” said Jean, the next morning, approaching her father, who was hard
at work by sunrise, “are the letters I promised to write to Mr. Ashleigh
and his mother. You stipulated that you should see them, as you will
remember.”
His head and heart were aching. “I don’t care a rap for your nonsense,”
he exclaimed. “Nothing’ll ever come of it. The fellow has never written
to you.”
“That’s so!” thought Jean, strolling off aimlessly into the woods.
“Daddie gave him our address as Oregon City. Oh, my God! can it be
possible that my other self has been married (or the same as married) to
Le-Le, the Indian slave?”
Giant trees rose often to the height of three hundred feet,—one hundred
and fifty feet from the ground without a limb,—and so straight that no
hand-made colonnade could equal them for grace and symmetry. As Jean
stood under these stately monarchs of the soil and listened to the soft
sighing of the wind among their evergreen leaves, she heard the roar of
rushing water. She clambered through a labyrinth of deciduous undergrowth
till she came to a horseshoe bend at the head of a gulch, over which the
water foamed and tumbled till lost from sight amid the tangled ferns and
foliage.
“Halloa!” cried a voice from an unseen source.
She looked in the direction whence the call seemed to proceed, and
beheld, standing on the opposite bluff, a typical young backwoodsman,
tall and shapely.
She returned the salutation by waving her sunbonnet, which she had been
swinging aimlessly by its strings, exposing her face and head to the
caress of the balm-laden air.
A minute later, and the stranger was by her side. She noticed that he
carried in a careless way a long, old-fashioned rifle; that a pipe was in
his mouth, and a pistol of the “pepper-box” variety protruded from the
leg of his boot.
“Are you the Ranger gal what got left at Green River?”
She turned ghastly pale at mention of the locality where her thoughts
were centred, but made no audible reply.
“My name is Henry Jackman,—better known as Happy Jack,” he said, as he
dropped the butt-end of his rifle to the ground with a thud, and stood
waiting for her to speak.
“I’ve heard of you before,” said Jean; “you are the man who’s been
talking sawmill to my daddie.”
“That’s what!”
“Then we may as well become acquainted. I am Jean Ranger, and I have an
older sister Mary and a younger one named Marjorie, besides my brother
Hal and two little sisters.”
“I seed yer dad yisti’dy an’ we talked things over. Thar’s a fine
prospec’ hyer fur a sawmill.”
“So I perceive.”
“Yer dad an’ me’s goin’ to go snucks.”
“I do not understand.”
“I mean pardners. He’s got the sabé an’ I’ve got the rocks, so we can
make a go of it. The kentry’s settlin’ up powerful fast, an’ thar’ll be
lots o’ demand for lumber for bridges an’ barns an’ houses an’ fencin’
an’ sich.”
“I see. We had a lot of spavined, wind-broken old horses for our sawmill
power in the States, sir.”
“Thar’s a water-power yander that beats hosses all to thunder, miss.”
“So I see, sir.”
“Thar’s millions o’ feet o’ logs in sight; an’ out yander in the
mountains is a place to build a flume, so we kin raf’ the logs down to a
lake that I found up thar in the woods. We’ll have a town here some day
an’ make things hum.”
“Have you often met my daddie?” asked Jean.
“I’m lookin’ fur him now, every minute. We’re goin’ to survey some
timber-land fur the mill-hands, farther up the crick. The curse o’ this
kentry is bachelders. Ah! here’s the Cap’n now. It’s lucky you’ve brought
along so many weemen folks, ole man; we’ll all be needin’ wives.”
This concluding remark brought the hot blood of indignation to the
cheeks of Jean as she turned to meet her father, who was carrying an ax
and a gun, followed by Mr. Burns, equipped with a clothes-line and a
carpenter’s square.
“What in thunder are you doing out here, Jean?” asked her father, taking
no notice of the stranger’s remark. “Don’t you know that the woods are
full of wild beasts?”
“I’ve seen nothing wilder than your prospective ‘pardner,’” she answered
aside. “He seems harmless; but he’s an ignoramus and a boor.”
“Very well, Jean. But ruin home now, and help the women folks. They have
a whole lot o’ work on hand, getting settled, and you do like to shirk.”
“Thar’ll be lots more of it for ’em to do afore this timber is all sawed
up,” added the prospective “pardner.” “It takes a mountain o’ grub to
keep a lot o’ loggers in workin’ order. I’m mighty glad, Cap’n, that
you’ve got a lot a weemin folks; we’ll need ’em in our business.”
“Yes,” retorted Jean. “They’re as handy to have in the house as a coffin
with the proper combination of letters on the plate!”
Mr. Burns laughed; but Mr. Jackman dropped his lower jaw and looked the
picture of an exaggerated interrogation point. “What’s the gal drivin’
at?” he asked under his breath; and her father said gravely, “Stop
talking nonsense, Jean.”
It was mutually agreed upon that a logging-camp should be started at
once, and the ground prepared during the coming rainy season for the
foundation and erection of a combined sawmill, planer, and shingle-mill,
and that Captain Ranger should return, as early as practicable, to the
States, _via_ the Isthmus, to purchase the necessary machinery, which
could not at that time be procured on the Pacific Coast.
* * * * *
Soon thereafter Captain Ranger went to Portland to purchase the necessary
supplies for the winter’s use. Arriving there, he repaired, in his best
Sunday suit, to the primitive hotel, and inquired for Mrs. Addicks.
The lady appeared, after long waiting, fastidiously gowned and so
thoroughly at ease that all his thought of the superior quality of the
white man’s blood departed as he saw her, and he stood in her presence in
embarrassed silence.
“Won’t you be seated, Mr.—”
“Ranger,” he said, fumbling his hat awkwardly and shambling into the
proffered chair.
“To what am I indebted for this visit, Mr. Ranger?”
“You will please excuse me, ma’am,” he said, crossing his legs clumsily,
“but I have come to see you on a little business that concerns us both.
Your husband is my brother.”
“Then, sir, you can tell me something about his family. Do his parents
yet live?”
“They were alive and well at last accounts; but it takes two months or
more for a letter to go and come. Our grandmother died recently.”
“The dear old lady he calls ‘Grannie’?”
“Yes.”
“My husband will be grieved to hear of this. I must write to him at
once. Can you give me any particulars concerning her last days? Did she
remember Joseph?”
“She had a dream of him, and said his mother would live to see him again.”
“I used to wonder why my husband was so reticent about his family
affairs. I supposed when we were married that he would take me back to
live among his people. But he steadfastly refused to do it, and would not
even let me know their post-office address. But I know all about it now.
He left home under a cloud.”
“But it was not nearly so bad as he thought. I set his mind at rest on
that score when we had that last interview. The poor fellow was in daily
dread of discovery and pursuit for more than a dozen years.”
The woman arose and paced the floor in silence, the coppery hue of her
complexion enriched by the blood that rushed to her face. She paused
and stood before him, her hands folded over the back of a chair, as she
waited for him to speak again.
“I did your husband a grievous wrong when I saw him at the post, madam. I
must confess that I had no idea that the Indian woman he told me that he
had married was—”
She waved her hand in protest. “There, there, Mr. John; no flattery, if
you please. If you had seen me as I was that day, you would have felt
justified in spurning your brother’s wife. It was not my fault, though,
that he kept me like a common squaw. Your conduct is fully forgiven,
since it resulted in an open declaration of independence on my part.
“There were a dozen young chieftains and half as many white men who
aspired to my hand and heart in my girlhood; but Joseph was a king among
them all. But we had not been married a month before I found that I
was doomed to the same treatment, as his wife, that other Indian wives
endure. So I lost heart, and accepted the situation as stolidly as my
father would have done if he had been doomed to perpetual slavery.”
“Did Joseph always treat you badly after your marriage?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
“Hard times came to our tribe. The Hudson Bay Company’s business
languished. We had a succession of bitter cold winters, with dry, hot
summers following. The different tribes became involved in war. Then
famine came, and pestilence. We will draw a veil over what followed, Mr.
John. Joseph will never beat his wife again; I have sworn it!
“The fluctuations of fortune brought us at last to the Utah trading-post,
where you saw Joseph. We were prosperous then, and might have lived like
white folks; but he seemed to prefer to keep me situated like an ordinary
squaw, so I gave him all he bargained for. But, ugh! I did detest the
life. Finally my father died and left me an ample inheritance, which is
mine absolutely. I will educate my children and take them to London,
where there is no prejudice against my people such as abounds in this
‘land of the free and home of the brave’!”
“Do you think Joseph is able to repay a part of the money we lost on his
account?”
“My husband will waste more money in a single night sometimes, at the
gambling-table, than he will expend on his family in a year. I think he
is quite able to pay his debts.”
“How would you like to visit our people back in the old home?”
“When our children reach the age of six or seven years, they begin to
outgrow the Indian style and complexion,” she said; “but I’ll not take
them among my husband’s people while they look like little pappooses.”
“Why not take them out to my donation claim? My family will be glad to
welcome you.”
“Couldn’t I take my nurse along?”
“If you did, some fool would coax her to marry him, so he and she could
hold a double quota of land. Better leave her here with your little ones,
or set her to washing dishes.”
“In either case our landlord would marry her himself, I fear. But I’ll
risk it.”
The older girls were out of school for a walk, in the company of their
brother John and a black-robed Sister, and thus were permitted at this
juncture to enter their mother’s presence for an introduction to their
uncle.
“John and Annie are Rangers, as you see, sir. My husband is very proud of
them.”
“And well he might be,” thought the Captain, as he scanned them
critically.
* * * * *
The sun was sinking behind the Coast Range the next evening, throwing the
picturesque valley of the Willamette into deep shadows, and lighting up
the tops of the Cascade heights with tinges of rose and gold and purple,
when a carriage and pair were seen ascending the narrow grade leading
to the great log house occupied temporarily by all the families of the
Ranger colony. The unexpected arrival of the Captain created a sensation,
which was not at all abated when he vaulted to the ground, followed,
before he could turn to assist her, by a large, well-formed, and
faultlessly attired Indian woman, with a sheen of gold in her raven-hued
hair.
“Mrs. O’Dowd,” said the Captain, offering his hand, “allow me to
introduce Mrs. Ranger Number Two,—my brother Joseph’s wife.”
XXXV
_ASHLEIGH MAKES NEW PLANS_
When Henry Jackman saw the wife of Joseph Ranger, whom he had known
at the trading-post in Utah as Mr. Addicks, and understood the full
significance of her arrival as a welcome visitor and relative of the
Ranger family, he shrugged his shoulders and walked away, exclaiming:
“I’m dummed!”
“No wonder Uncle Joe was captured by that fine creature,” said Jean to
herself. “She must have been as handsome in her girlhood as Le-Le.” And
for the first time in her life she fainted away.
When she awoke to consciousness, which was not till the next morning,
she was on the big white bed in the spare chamber, whither she had been
carried by loving friends and treated through all the watches of the
night by the Little Doctor with the untiring faithfulness of a devoted
friend.
“Take that Indian away! I cannot bear the sight of her,” cried Jean, as
her copper-colored aunt approached her, proffering kindly offices.
“She must be humored in her whims till she has had time to recover,
Mrs. Ranger,” said Mrs. McAlpin, aside. “There’s a love story and a
disappointment behind all this. Her antipathy is not against you, but
another Indian princess whom she thinks she has cause to remember.”
“I didn’t come here to make wounds, but to heal them,” faltered Mrs.
Ranger, as, with an indistinct conception of the trouble, she left the
room, followed by Sally O’Dowd.
“I want you to know that you have healed my wounds,” said Sally. “I was
miserably and unreasonably jealous of—I didn’t know of whom—for a whole
week before you came to us. I shall never be such a simpleton again.”
“My wise brother says you and he have concluded to marry each other, Mrs.
O’Dowd.”
“We were engaged for a short time, but when I overheard him talking to
himself about going to Portland ‘to see a woman,’ and he wouldn’t take me
into his confidence about her, I got angry and jealous, and treated him
shabbily.”
They found the Captain, of whom they went in quest, in his favorite seat
on the front doorstep.
“I don’t see why you and Joseph cannot go together to visit your parents
this winter,” said Mrs. Ranger, coming at once to the point. “Your
partner can have ample time while you are away to get the foundations
ready for the mill and other buildings. I will write to Joseph this very
night and urge it if you say so.”
The Captain looked inquiringly at Mrs. O’Dowd.
“I quite agree with your brother’s wife,” she said, extending her hand.
“I was an idiot to act toward you as I did.”
“With your permission, I will write at once to Joseph, explaining
everything and urging him to come to the ranch at once. The courier goes
out to-night, so there is no time to lose.”
“Yes,” said Sally, whose eyes were blazing with a new joy, “it is just as
Wahnetta says. You can be spared better this winter than later. Will you
go if Joseph consents to accompany you?”
“And leave you behind?”
“It would be very humiliating to your family and embarrassing to both of
us for me to return as your wife to the old home of your Annie, John.”
“But you’ll marry me before I start?”
“No, John,” she said, the tears welling to her eyes; “we owe to your
Annie’s people a tender regard for their feelings. If we were to be
married before you visit them, they could never be reconciled to me.”
“I must consult my partner,” said the Captain. “He may not want me to
leave at this time. The fellow is terribly unreasonable at times.”
“Is that ‘fellow,’ as you call him, your master?” asked Mary, who was
passing, on her way to the milk-house. “He’s been hanging around the
house ever since sun-up, waiting for a chance to see Jean. He’s depending
on the three of us to keep the boarding-house, and he wants to marry
Jean, to stop her wages.”
“Excuse me, ladies; I must see my partner at once,” said the Captain, as
he hurried away.
It required much persuasive argument to secure the consent of Happy Jack
to Mrs. Joseph’s proposition; but he yielded at length, as men are wont
to do when women to whom they are not married combine to carry a point.
The outgoing courier was to leave Oregon City at sunset, and it was
necessary to write many letters for the overland mail, destined for Salt
Lake and the few intervening points along the route.
Among the missives was one from Jean to Ashton Ashleigh, containing only
a few sentences:—
“I have loved you more than life, but I have awaited tidings from you
till hope is dead. I wrote a letter for your mother, but it was not sent
to her because I had not heard from you. You will understand. I am deeply
wounded, but I shall not die. I shall do my duty and be honest with
myself, no matter what others may do or be.
“A man who styles himself Happy Jack has come among us, who wants to
make me his wife. He is forming a partnership with daddie in the sawmill
business; and he insinuates that you have married Le-Le. Does this
explain your silence?”
* * * * *
A fortnight passed, and Ashton Ashleigh read this letter by the
flickering light of a smoking kerosene lamp. Siwash lay on a buffalo robe
in a corner, reading; and near him sat Le-Le, making a cunningly wrought
moccasin.
The wind outside was rising. The ice-laden chains and pulleys of the
idle ferry-boat resounded to its attack like a thousand-stringed Æolian
harp. Suddenly, under a louder and more furious blast than any that had
preceded it, the ice-incrusted cables snapped asunder, and the frozen
boat crashed through the ice blockade, her timbers breaking as if made of
withes.
Ashleigh opened the door and peered out into the moonlight. White clouds
rolled over and over one another, and the stark white landscape seemed
alive with flurrying snow.
“Good-bye, Green River Ferry,” he said. “This is a fitting finale to my
cherished hopes. Oh, Jean! my bonnie Jean! To think that the end should
be like this!”
* * * * *
“The ferry-boat is gone, Le-Le,” he said the next morning. “Your ransom
price has been paid, and you are, as you know, a slave no longer. I am
going away. Take good care of Le-Le, Siwash, my boy; and take good care
of yourself also.”
The girl’s English vocabulary was too meagre to admit of much
expostulation in speech, but her wailing was blood-curdling as she knelt
at his feet, alternately embracing his knees and tearing her hair.
“I have made a terrible mistake, poor girl,” he cried, tearing himself
away, “but I meant only to be kind. It was my dream to set you free and
take you with me to—to—her. But now I see that it will be impossible!”
Le-Le, still wailing, prepared his breakfast. Siwash brought his mules to
the door, in stolid obedience to orders, his face as expressionless as
flint.
“The white man’s heart is hard, like the hoof of the buffalo,” he said
to Le-Le in her native tongue. “You mistook his kindness for love. But
never mind. You’ll get over it.”
* * * * *
Two days of steady travel through the solitudes brought Ashleigh to the
lodgings of the post-trader, Joseph Ranger, alias Addicks.
“Your wife,” John had written to his brother, “has come to visit us at
the Ranch of the Whispering Firs, as my girls have named our donation
claims, to hold which we have pooled our issues, and have filed upon them
as individuals. My family are charmed with her. Do join us here at once.
Take a donation claim near to one or more of ours. Forget bygones. And,
best of all, go with me this winter, by the Isthmus route, to the dear
old home. Do say yes, Joe, and we may all be happy yet.”
“Halloa!” cried Ashleigh, as he alighted at the post.
“Well,” cried Joseph Ranger, as he opened his canvas door; “it’s
Ashleigh. Come right in! You’re the very man I wanted to see.”
A savory odor of hot biscuits and frying ham greeted the nostrils of the
benumbed and hungry wayfarer.
“This supper smells good, Mr. Addicks.”
“Mr. Addicks no more, if you please, Mr. Ashleigh. My name is
Ranger,—Joseph Ranger. I have found myself, and I shall be known by my
real name hereafter. But help yourself to pot-luck. And please excuse me.
I have just begun to read a letter from the coast. The courier hasn’t
been gone five minutes.”
After Ashleigh had finished his meal his host thrust the letter in his
face and said, “What do you think of that?”
“What do you propose to do?” asked Ashleigh, after carefully considering
the missive.
“Why, go to Oregon, of course. What else could a fellow do? But I don’t
know what in the dickens to do with my stuff.”
“You can leave me in charge, if you like. You can invoice at your lowest
selling-price, and I’ll make what profit I can on the venture and close
it out in the spring; that is, if you do not care to return next year.”
“The good Lord has taken pity on me at last,” cried the delighted host.
“My luck has begun to turn.”
XXXVI
_HAPPY JACK IS SURPRISED_
“You don’t seem to like the idea of my going to the States this winter,
after all,” said Captain Ranger to his partner, who had been for several
days exhibiting a degree of ill temper not assuring to a man of peaceful
inclinations.
“Not by a darn sight. Business is business. Them weemen folks o’ yourn is
as independent as so many hogs on ice. They are goin’ back on me about
the cookin’ for the men. But say! I won’t object to your goin’ no more,
if you’ll make Jean marry me afore you start. I could manage her all
right if she was my wife; an’ then I could set the pace for the rest of
’em.”
The Captain paused a moment, in doubt whether to give the fellow the toe
of his boot or wipe the ground with his whole body. “My daughters are
to be their own choosers,” he said. “I have already engaged a crew of
loggers to work while I am absent. If the winter is open, we can have
everything shipshape by the time the machinery arrives.”
“Stay, daddie,” cried Jean, who, with Mary, had come up unobserved by
their father. She was ghastly pale and strangely tremulous. “Mame and I
have something important to say to you both before you part.”
“What is it, gals? Don’t hesitate to speak right out.”
“We—that is, Jean and I and Sally O’Dowd—have been talking things over;
and we have concluded that we had better settle our side of this business
proposition before matters go any further,” said Mary, speaking with
unusual decision. “As you, father, have arranged to have a partner, and
as—to use his own words—‘business is business,’ I want to say that I will
be your cook at the partnership mess-house, but only at a reasonable
salary. If you had no partner, the work would be all in the family, and
we could settle its dividend among ourselves.”
“I have engaged a dozen pupils and will open a little school in a few
days,” interrupted Jean, who had not heard the partner’s proposition in
regard to herself, and therefore spoke without embarrassment. “But I
shall have plenty of time to keep the books of the concern after school
hours, and I will see that everything is done on business principles.”
“The deuce you will!” thought the partner. Then aloud: “I was intendin’
to keep the books myself.”
“Are you a practical book-keeper?” asked Jean.
“No; that is, not edzactly. But I kin keep most any set o’ transactions
in my head. I never in my born days hearn tell of any woman or gal that
could keep books. An’ I never knowed any woman to git a salary.”
“That was because you never knew the Ranger family,” laughed Marjorie.
“It is arranged that Hal is to have employment in the mill at a salary,”
said Mary, “and he is very proud of the opportunity. We girls are all as
willing to work as he is. But we do not believe at all in the custom of
servitude without salary, to which all married women, and most of the
single ones, are subject.”
“Is that the way you look at it, Miss Jean?” asked her would-be suitor.
“Daddie has always taught us that the highest type of humanity is built
on the self-dependence of the individual. Haven’t you, daddie?”
“My daughters are right, Mr. Jackman. I have trained them to the idea
of self-government. I am glad indeed to see them taking hold of these
principles firmly.”
The partner turned away crestfallen. When he was fairly out of hearing,
he took off his hat and exclaimed: “I’ll be gol darned! What is the
weemin comin’ to?”
* * * * *
“I have engaged Susannah to live at my house,” said the Little Doctor,
addressing the Captain as he sauntered toward a spreading fir near the
front doorsteps, where the family were holding a consultation with Mrs.
Joseph Ranger prior to her departure.
“Then who will assist Mrs. O’Dowd while I am away?” asked the Captain.
“She’ll surely need both company and assistance at the Ranch of the
Whispering Firs as badly as you will need it at the Four Corners.”
“Don’t worry about me, Captain,” said Sally. “I can manage the whole
place without the help of anybody.”
“Thank you, Mrs. O’Dowd. You are a thoroughly unselfish woman.”
“Pardon me, daddie,” said Jean, as soon as she could address him
privately. “You make a great mistake if you imagine Sally O’Dowd isn’t as
selfish as the rest of us. The Little Doctor was quite taken aback by a
remark to the contrary that you made a while ago.”
“I’m sure I meant no offence, Jean. But I confess that I am disappointed
in both the Little Doctor and Susannah. They ought not to leave me in an
extremity like the present when I have been so kind to them.”
“Everything we attempt is actuated by selfishness, daddie.”
“I can’t agree with you, Jean.”
“Oh, yes, you can! You took the Little Doctor under your wing away back
in the States, because you could only hope by that means to get some help
that you needed out o’ Scotty. You smuggled Dugs out o’ Missouri because
it pleased you to please your wife. I am going to teach a little school
from a purely selfish motive.”
“Was it selfishness that prompted you to fall in love with your
unfaithful Green River hero, Jean?”
She turned deathly pale. “Yes, daddie dear. I thought I was going to
be happy; and that was selfishness, of course. But I’m getting my
punishment.”
“If selfishness is a natural attribute of humanity, we ought not to decry
it, but should seek to control and guide it, Jean.”
“That is right, daddie. We have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. But we also need toughening. I am getting my share of
toughening.”
“Do you object to my marrying Sally O’Dowd?”
“That is your affair, daddie; but there is no accounting for tastes.”
“Do you think your angel-mother would approve the step, my child?”
“Ah!” cried Jean, her face brightening, “there is one love that never
dies,—the love of a mother for her child. It is the same sort of
unselfish love that prompted the Son of Man to lay down His life for
the redemption of the race; it is the same love that prompted my mother
to risk and lose her life in the wilderness. You will please yourself
by marrying Sally O’Dowd. We children will pay her allegiance as our
father’s wife, chiefly because we know on which side our bread is
buttered. But we will not call her mother; nor do we believe you would
ask it.”
“I couldn’t think of taking the step, my child, unless I thought your
mother would approve it, if she could know. But I am very sure she
doesn’t know.”
“You do not want to believe she knows, daddie. It is always easier to
believe or disbelieve anything when the wish is father to the thought.”
“Well, Jean, it will not do to be loitering here. Yonder come the logging
crew. There’ll be a lot of hungry men to feed. Some of them are educated
men, quite equal in intelligence and culture to Mr. Burns. Don’t go to
losing your heart.”
“Don’t speak of hearts to me, daddie dear; mine is dead and buried. But
you have no idea how cruelly it was wrung.”
“There, there, daughter, don’t worry! There are as good fish in the sea
as any that have ever been caught.”
* * * * *
There was no time for loitering. There was an extra lodge to be built
in the wilderness for the crew of loggers, and a long dining-shed to be
added; the rails had to be made and fences built; the ground had to be
cleared and broken for the spring’s planting; and much rude furniture
for the homes had yet to be manufactured. The building of a skid road
was another pressing need; and, taken all together, the Captain did not
wonder that his partner should take his departure seriously.
That the partner was not lacking in executive ability was evident.
“I tell you, gals, that partner of mine is a corker for business,” said
the Captain.
“He may be, daddie,” said Jean, “but that is all he’s good for. If
there’s a chance to murder the Queen’s English, he’ll do it. He afflicts
me with nausea whenever he speaks.”
“But if you had a man like him for a husband, you would never lack means
for the indulgence of the selfish philanthropies you and I have been
talking about. You know you promised your grandfather that you would
assist him as soon as you could earn some money.”
“That’s so, daddie; but I must earn it honestly. And I’d be getting it
through the worst kind of fraudulent practice if I married Happy Jack.
Besides, he will be too stingy for anything after he’s married.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, Jean. He’s got good credentials.”
“And so had Sam O’Dowd. No, daddie, I won’t have any money unless I
can get it honestly. As soon as I can earn some cash by teaching, I’ll
send it to the dear old grandfolks. They capped the climax of their
selfishness in jeopardizing the property and happiness of all concerned
to gratify their selfish pride in Uncle Joe.”
“Your theories and practices don’t tally, Jean,” laughed her father as he
turned, and, with a tender good-bye aside for Sally O’Dowd and an open
and hearty adieu to the children, he seated himself in the buggy beside
his sister-in-law and drove rapidly away.
“I wonder how many years must elapse before the roads to Portland are as
snugly finished and kept in as good repair as they are to-day from one
suburb of London town to another?” asked Mrs. Joseph, merely to break an
embarrassing silence.
“In another fifty years the people’ll be awake to the need, mebbe. It
takes a hundred years to make a new country habitable.”
“My people always want their hunting-grounds to remain wild,” said Mrs.
Joseph. “I used to like the most primitive modes of life in my childhood;
but I learned a better way in London.”
“Did you learn to like the Indian life again, Wahnetta?”
“Never, sir. But I stooped to conquer, and I have succeeded. But I never
could have done the best that was in me, for myself and Joseph, to say
nothing of the children, if my father hadn’t made me, instead of my
husband, his legatee. It takes money to do things.”
XXXVII
_NEWS FOR JEAN_
The second meeting between the Ranger brothers was much more embarrassing
than cordial. Each at sight of the other recalled their last encounter.
They shook hands hesitatingly, and after an awkward pause sat down
together on the front porch of the primitive hotel.
Joseph, who had been awaiting the arrival of his wife and the Captain for
a couple of days, was displeased because his Wahnetta had not been within
call from the moment of his advent, as long habit had led him to expect.
That she met him now with the air of a friend and an equal, and after a
pleasant greeting on her part discreetly left the brothers to themselves
while she went in quest of her babies, was a display of good breeding
and motherly solicitude which Joseph Ranger would have commended in any
woman not his wife. But his will had so long been her only law that her
greeting, in connection with his embarrassment at meeting his brother,
put him in a very unamiable frame of mind.
“I concluded that you had gone back on your agreement, John,” he growled,
after a painful silence.
“Oh, did you? Since when have you made a new record for punctuality, Joe?”
“Since the arrival of the last courier at the trading-post, who brought
me your letter.”
“What did you think of my proposition?”
“I accepted it at once, or I would not have been here. Who is Wahnetta
going out driving with, I wonder?”
“I called the cab for a drive with the children a little before you came,
sir,” said the nurse.
“Oh!”
“You ought to be very proud of your wife, Joe.”
“I am beginning to be. Yet you never can tell what the Indian nature will
attempt. She seems to be all right when she lives with white people, but
she’d lapse at once into barbarism again if she got a chance. They all do
it. It is in the blood.”
“She doesn’t seems to want that sort of a chance, Joe.”
“An Indian is like a wild coyote, John.”
“But you have caught a tame one, Joe. She is above the average, even
of white women. Give her the chance she craves. Stand by her like a
gentleman. She is as thoroughly civilized as any of us.”
“Did you see her at the trading-post last summer?”
“No; but why do you ask?”
“Because you would have beheld her in her native element. You may
capture and tame a coyote, but when you turn him loose among his natural
environments, you can’t distinguish him in a short time from the wildest
wolf of the pack.”
“That being the case, there is strong need for keeping your wife in her
adopted home, among your own people.”
John was thawing toward his brother at a rapid rate; and Joseph, the
erring but encouraged and repenting brother, felt a pang of remorse as
he arose to welcome his wife and children upon their return from their
drive, resolving in his heart that he would never again allow himself to
regret the vows he had taken upon himself in his early manhood.
The paper was awaiting the Captain at his table the next morning, with
the announcement that the sailing of the ocean steamer was to be delayed
for a couple of days on account of an accident to her propeller.
“Then we’ll have time for a spin out to the Ranch of the Whispering Firs,
eh, Joe?” he asked, as his brother, accompanied by Wahnetta, who was
resplendent in a crimson cashmere robe, over which her black mantilla
was carelessly thrown, took his seat at his elbow at breakfast.
“I thought I’d like to take a spin through this embryo city,” was the
quiet response.
“But I want you to see the lay of the land. I’m hoping to make you a
partner in the ranch and sawmill business. You won’t want to buy a pig in
a poke.”
A visit to Joseph’s sons and daughters at school was first in order. Then
a carriage was called, and the entire party was conducted around and over
stumps, logs, and devious primitive roadways to the heights.
“Why anybody wants to go to the Old World for scenery, when he can enjoy
such a prospect as this right at his very door, is one of the mysteries
of modern existence,” said Wahnetta. “Away to the north by east of us,
in the home of my people, there is a land so different from this that it
might be a part of another planet, yet it is passing beautiful. Directly
to the north is the traditional Whulge, or Puget Sound, where the enemies
of my people live, who, like my own, are dying out. This mighty land is a
giant baby; wait half a century, and she will be a full-grown giantess.”
It was three o’clock when they returned to the hotel, but a fresh team
from the one livery stable the metropolis of Oregon Territory was able to
boast was placed at the disposal of the brothers, who spanned a distance
of thirty miles in three hours. A light rain had fallen in the early
morning, and the face of Nature was as pure as ether. Resplendent green
abounded in the valley, lighted here and there by gleams of the gliding
Willamette, on whose silvery current little white steamers were seen at
intervals, flitting to and fro like swans. In many spots in the valley,
and everywhere on the mountain-sides, stood rows on rows of forest firs,
and beyond these, coming frequently into view as the road wound in and
out among the trees, arose the snow-crowned monarch of the Cascades,
majestic Mount Hood, whose slowly dying glaciers discharged their silt
into the milk-white waters of the Sandy.
“What do you think of it all?” asked the elder brother, after a long
silence, in which each had been feasting his eyes upon the beauty of the
scene and filling his lungs with the exhilarating air.
“I’m thinking of the glories that await the later comers into this
beautiful land, after the pioneers have worn their bodies out in their
struggles with the native wilderness. I’ve been shutting my eyes and
seeing coal mines, iron mines, gold mines, oil mines, silver mines,
farms, fisheries, mills, factories, orchards, gardens, everything! I’ve
lived in Utah and witnessed the marvels of irrigation there; but God does
the irrigating in this country, and He does it well.”
“Did you see the fishes that swarmed in the Sandy, Joe?”
“Yes; and I’ve seen salmon and sturgeon struggling up the Columbia, so
thick in the current that they looked like Illinois saw-logs. I think I
know how Moses felt when he had
“‘Climbed to Pisgah’s top,
And viewed the landscape o’er.’”
“Wait till we reach the Ranch of the Whispering Firs. Then you will see
something worthy of all your rhapsodies. There!” cried the Captain, as
they sighted the broad and slightly sloping plateau on which his new log
house was built.
In front of it stood a towering fir-tree, like an ever-vigilant sentinel;
and behind it rose gigantic colonnades of evergreen forests. Foaming
waters surged and leaped through a ragged gulch; and tangled thickets of
hazel, alder, dogwood, and elder crowded the luxurious growth of ferns
that struggled for the mastery. “There!” he repeated, “what do you think
now?”
“That I’d like to transport the entire family of Rangers, root and
branch, to the Ranch of the Whispering Firs. Suppose we take your old
sawmill off Lije’s hands and remove the whole thing to Oregon, John? It
would be a good way to relieve him of his elephant.”
“The machinery is old and old-fashioned, Joe. We’d better buy everything
new, and the best of its kind.”
“I was merely thinking of relieving Lije; that’s all.”
As they made the last turn leading to the house, they were accosted
impatiently by the Captain’s junior partner.
“At this rate, you won’t git started to the States afore Christmas,
Cap’n.”
“This is my brother Joseph, Mr. Jackman. And this, Joseph, is my partner,
Mr. Jackman.”
The two men glared at each other for a moment in silence. Jackman was the
first to speak,—
“Well, I’m dummed!”
“How came you to be known as Jackman? You posed as Hankins in Utah.”
“An’ you was Joe Addicks, pard. Better not tell tales out o’ school.
That’s a game two can play at.”
“There are no tales to tell on my part. I am masquerading no more. Can
you say as much?”
“I’m just a-beginnin’, as it were.”
“How in the name of Fate did you come across that chap, John?” asked
Joseph, as they alighted from the buggy.
“He has taken a donation claim on the mountain-side which includes the
water-power for our mill site. At least, he says it does. Burns and I
haven’t had time to survey it yet.”
“Better go slow with that fellow, John.”
“What do you know about him, Joe?”
“Nothing; only he’s been a noted crook and jail-breaker.”
“Jean is to be our book-keeper. She’s been disappointed over that Green
River affair. Do you know what became of Ashleigh?”
“I left him at my station in charge of my business. He’s as honest as the
day. But, by the way, why didn’t Jean answer the letter he sent out in
care of your Happy Jack?”
“She received no letter. But what about Le-Le? Did he marry her?”
“Did Ashleigh marry Le-Le? What a question! Who said he did?”
“Jackman.”
“Jean must know of all this. Will you break it to her, Joe?”
* * * * *
Night had come; and the autumn rains were gently enwrapping the Ranch of
the Whispering Firs in a sheet of mist when Joseph Ranger sought Jean in
her little schoolroom for a private conversation.
The flickering light of a single kerosene lamp emitted a characteristic
odor. A rough table supported the lamp; and on a three-legged stool sat
the schoolma’am, trying to bring order out of the chaos of a score or
more of papers left by the children.
“Ah!” she said, arising. “Come in, Uncle Joe. You won’t find our crude
beginnings very inviting, but we mustn’t despise the day of small things.”
“You’re making a good beginning, Jean. But I have not come to talk about
your school. I have brought you some tidings from Mr. Ashleigh.”
Jean turned pale and would have fallen if her uncle had not caught her in
his arms.
“Here is a note which he gave me just as I was leaving for the West.”
Jean retained her composure by a supreme effort of the will.
“You were my dream,” the letter began; “I trusted and loved you as I can
never trust and love another. And the end is to be your marriage with
a fellow you call Happy Jack! Oh, Jean, my bonnie Jean! Why have you
been so fickle and so rash? I sent you a letter and a ring. It was my
great-great-grandmother’s ring, and a hereditary talisman. The messenger
was one Harry Hankins, a borderer and scout, who was going to Oregon
City. No, Jean; I did not marry Le-Le, but I did secure her ransom, and
I should before now have been on my way to you, but was awaiting your
letter. Good-bye, and may God guard and keep you! Think of me as your
heartbroken friend and lover.”
“I never received one single word from him,” said Jean; “and I never saw
or heard of Harry Hankins.”
“Oh, yes, you did, Jean. He is none other than your father’s partner.”
“How can I reach Mr. Ashleigh with a letter? It must be sent at once.”
“That will be impossible, Jean; there will be no courier going out for a
month yet. But we will take a letter to Portland, and leave it in care of
Wahnetta. She will see that it is forwarded at the first opportunity.”
* * * * *
Busily the work went forward. But Happy Jack was nowhere to be seen, and
the brothers were compelled to take their departure without making the
business settlement with him which they so much desired.
“Never mind! We’ll freeze him out, or scare him out, if he shows up
here again,” said the Captain, as he and his brother turned their faces
Portland-ward.
XXXVIII
_THE BROTHERS JOURNEY HOMEWARD TOGETHER_
The steamer in which the Ranger brothers embarked for San Francisco was
an ancient and somewhat decrepit tub, as much unlike the floating palaces
that plough the Pacific Ocean to-day as the long railway trains with
their Pullman coaches, cushioned seats, and electric bells are unlike
the prairie schooners which belabored oxen hauled across deserts and
mountains when the oldest pioneer of to-day was young, and Captain Ranger
was in his prime.
“We’re at the jumping-off place,” said the elder brother, when the
vessel stopped at Astoria. “There will never be a chance for the restive
American citizen to get any farther west than the eastern edge of the
Pacific Ocean. And yet who knows?” he added, after a pause. “Burns has
a theory in which, after all, there may be some logic. He says that the
entire planet will some day be under the management of an affiliated
government formed by a few great powers, who will organize an alliance to
control, and maybe protect, the weaker nationalities from one another.
Jean is enthusiastic over the theme.”
“You seem to set great store by Jean.”
“Oh, I don’t know. She’s about raking up a new engagement with that Green
River chap. If she does, she’ll marry soon, and get immersed in the cares
of a family, like all the rest of the girls. If so, she’ll never amount
to much.”
“No great general can do as much for the world, no matter how many
nations he conquers, as the mother who rears a family of noble men
and women, John. I would rather be in some mothers’ shoes than in the
President’s.”
“And so would I. But it is hard, when a man has raised a daughter of
great mental promise, to see her talents buried under the selfish
domination of some prig of a husband who has all the power though he
hasn’t half her sense.”
* * * * *
“Wait long enough,” said John, as they passed Tillamook Head and pursued
their undulating way southward; “wait long enough, and the genius of
American liberty and enterprise will settle yonder shores with a million
or more inhabitants. Railroads by the dozen will cross the continent in
time, sending out lateral branches in all directions, till the whole
country is gridironed with paths for the iron horse.”
“But the mountains are in the way, John.”
“They will be tunnelled or looped, Joe. New feats of engineering are
being developed constantly; and I should not be surprised to hear of the
discovery of some new force, or rather of the discovery of the utility
of some always existing force, which will revolutionize transportation
on the land and the sea. There are islands to the west of us, lots of
them. And who knows but they will become a part of the possessions of the
United States before the close of the century? I’d like to have Burns and
Jean and the Little Doctor here to help me talk it out.”
“I can’t let my mind get away from me, as you do,” laughed Joseph, and
they changed the subject.
* * * * *
Days passed, and the timber lines of southern Oregon and northern
California gave way to the extensive treeless regions that border the
central and southern edges of the Golden State. Immense stretches of
barren, sandy wastes rose high in the arid heavens, revealing a region
of desolation that seemed good for nothing but range for savage beasts
and poisonous serpents.
“It is now my turn to prophesy and philosophize,” said Joseph. “My
experience and observation in Utah, where irrigation has relieved the
barren soil of its drouth, has taught me that irrigation will develop
the latent power of the desert to sustain and perpetuate the race long
after the Mississippi basin has ceased to respond to the demands of the
husbandman and the vernal lands of the Willamette valley are worn out.”
“But the Willamette valley and the entire northwest coast will always
beat the world with the fruits and cereals that thrive in the temperate
zone.”
“‘Always’ is a good while, John. It is a pity that we can’t live always.”
“Jean declares that we do.”
“How came she to know so much?”
“I cannot tell; but she has evolved a theory from her studies and
conclusions that seems plausible. At any rate, we cannot disprove it; and
as it comforts her and hurts nobody, I am glad she can enjoy it. But the
gong has sounded for dinner, and I am as hungry as a bear.”
* * * * *
“It is a glorious thing to be alive,” exclaimed the Captain, when they
spied the lights of the Farallones to the leeward, while on their left
rose Mare Island; and they knew that they were nearing the Golden Gate.
Four days of happy, languorous idleness on a glassy sea had been theirs
to enjoy. But each decided that he had had enough of leisure, and was
glad when Telegraph Hill, the towering head of the city of San Francisco,
was seen among its myriads of sand-dunes and rioting patches of native
weeds.
“It is indeed a glorious thing to be alive!” said Joseph, as they were
being jostled in the streets of the city, where a babel of tongues kept
up a continuous clatter, as bewildering as it was unintelligible.
The hotel in which the brothers found lodgings was a little superior
to the Portland hostelry, being larger; but the food was far from
satisfactory, and they found the sand-fleas and Benicia Bay mosquitoes
more voracious than welcome. The sights of the truly cosmopolitan
city were new and alluring; and once, but for the intervention of the
police, the verdant pair would have been fleeced by a smooth-tongued
swindler. They were directed by a big policeman to an immense hardware
establishment, where they found a complete up-to-date outfit for their
plant. They then continued their journey toward the Isthmus with a
feeling of anticipation to which their frequent conversations concerning
the legendary lore of the peculiar country for which they were bound
possessed a fascinating interest.
“I have read of a lost continent, which is said to have existed in
a prehistoric age,” said the younger brother. “The Indians of the
Mandan district have many legends in regard to it. They say the Great
Spirit submerged the dry land in a fit of anger, thus separating the
so-called Old World from the so-called New, and driving the remnant of
the surviving inhabitants to the north as far as the Great Lakes, where
they speedily relapsed into the barbarism that ensues from isolation,
hardships, and necessity, until at last they perished from the face of
the earth.”
“But what of the origin of the Indian race?” asked John.
“Their legends tell us that their ancestors came originally from Russia,
by the way of Behring Strait, which in winter was closed by ice; that at
one time the ice gorges were suddenly broken up by a tremendous gale and
were never closed again. There were natives of the great Northland who
were caught on the south side of the gorge, and, being unable to return,
remained in what is now Alaska, whence they migrated, multiplied, and
spread till they covered what is now the United States of America.”
“When we return to Oregon, you must not fail to start Burns on some of
these legends, Joe. The Widow McAlpin, whom he means to marry as soon as
she will consent, is as deeply interested in the origin of the Indians as
he is.”
“But if we knew all about the immediate origin of the Indians, that
wouldn’t settle the question, John. Where did the Russians get their
start; and how did every island of the great oceans become inhabited?”
“You are carrying me away beyond my depth, Joe. Burns has a theory that
different races of people are indigenous to all countries. He calls the
story of Adam and Eve a myth, or a sort of cabalistic tale. That reminds
me that Jean once completely nonplussed the Reverend Thomas Rogers by
asking who were the daughters of men whom the sons of God took as wives.
‘And where,’ she asked, ‘did Cain get his wife?’”
“These speculations, which are by no means new, are as fruitless as they
are perplexing, John. We know no more about them than these donkeys do
that are floundering, with us on their backs, across this God-forsaken
Isthmus. Will there ever be a canal cut across it, I wonder?”
“Guess we’d better talk about spring. That is something we can
understand.”
“No, John. We can no more clearly comprehend the springtime, with its
many wondrous revelations, than we can comprehend anything else that is
unknowable. We know that sunshine, air, and moisture are necessary for
the sustenance of organic life; but we don’t know what life itself is. It
is as invisible to us, in all its wonderful activities, as God himself.
No; we know no more about the life that animates spring than we know
about the Atlantans. But we do know that travel is a great eye-opener;
and by showing us how little we know, or can learn, it helps to take away
much of our overweening self-conceit.”
There being no delay at Acapulco, and but little at New Orleans, our
voyagers were soon aboard one of the palatial steamers that ploughed the
waters of the Mississippi in the days when steamboating on the river was
in the height of its glory. Floating palaces, with hearts of fire and
arteries of steam, were equipped in the most sumptuous style. The cuisine
of their tables was never excelled in any land. Trained servants were on
duty at every hand in all departments, and such river races as the pen of
Mark Twain has made immortal infused an alluring element of danger into
the daily life of the adventurous traveller.
St. Louis was passed, and Cairo; and the voyage up the Illinois to Peoria
was speedily consummated.
The brothers struck out afoot for the old home, which they came into
sight of at sundown. A light snow covered the ground, and a bitter wind
was blowing hard.
* * * * *
“Down, Rover, down! Don’t you know your master?” exclaimed the returned
wanderer, as the great mastiff sprang at him with a low, savage growl,
which changed at once to vehement proclamations of welcome as the
faithful creature recognized his friend.
“Bless the dog! But be quiet! We want to surprise the old folks.”
In the cosey sitting-room of the little cottage sat a prematurely aged
woman, plying her needle and softly crooning a plaintive lullaby. A
couple of tallow candles burned dimly on a little table, and a much-worn
work-basket sat at her left. In the opposite corner an old man sat, his
head bowed, as if sleeping. An open Bible had fallen from his hand.
“There’s but one pair of stockings to mend to-night,” sighed the woman,
as she folded her finished work, her thoughts reverting to scenes long
vanished.
The white-bearded man aroused himself at her words and spoke.
“John is forty-three to-night,” he said huskily, his finger pointing to
the family record.
“God be with him till we meet again!” was the sighing response as the
mother struggled to thread her needle by the flickering light.
“Mary is a year younger than John; and Joseph came to us two years
later than Mary,” said the patriarch, his finger still pointing to the
cherished page.
“Oh, father!” cried the wife, “do you think I shall ever hold my Joseph
in my arms again?”
“God knows best,” was the sad reply.
A cat purred contentedly at the woman’s feet, and crickets sang upon the
hearth. Outside, the wind sighed dolefully.
“Wonder what’s the matter with Rover?” said the old man, rising to his
feet, after repeated efforts, and hobbling toward the door. “He’s acting
strangely to-night.”
“Don’t open the door, father,” pleaded the wife. “The whole country is
infested with tramps and robbers. We’d better be cautious. I’m sure I saw
faces at the window a while ago.”
“Rover knows what he’s about, wife. He never speaks like that to an
enemy. I will open the door.”
It seemed to the men outside that the door was long in opening. “My
fingers are all thumbs!” they heard the old man exclaim, after a
fruitless effort to withdraw the bolt.
“Good-evening!” exclaimed Joseph, in a husky voice. “We are a pair of
belated travellers, and seek a night’s lodging. Can we be accommodated?”
“We’re not used to keeping travellers,” said the patriarch, “but it is
late, and another storm is brewing. Come right in. Wife can fix you a
shake-down somewhere, I reckon; and we always have a bite on hand to eat.”
“We have two sons of our own out in the world somewhere, father,” said
the wife. “I will trust the Lord to do by them as we will do by these
strangers.”
John Ranger threw back his heavy coat and hat and stood before the pair
erect and motionless.
“Mother!” he exclaimed, after a moment’s waiting, as he caught her in his
arms, “don’t you know your boy?”
“Why, bless my soul, it’s our John,—my firstborn baby boy!” faltered the
mother, as she resigned herself to his realistic “bear hug.” “I thought
you was in Oregon.”
“So I was a few weeks ago; but I am here now! How are you, mother dear?
And you, father? I am so glad to see you again! How goes the world with
both of you?”
“All right, son, considering. That is, it’s all right now you are here.
We can bear poverty and hardship now. Eh, wife?”
“Yes, father. If the Lord sees fit to afflict us, we can now bear it
without complaining. Blessed be His holy name! But how did it happen,
John dear? I was thinking about you to-night as being far away on this,
your forty-third birthday.”
“We do things in a hurry on the Pacific coast, mother mine. This is an
unexpected visit. But you are neglecting somebody.”
“That is so,” exclaimed the old man. “What might your name be, stranger?”
The tall man in the shadow took a faltering step forward and removed his
hat.
“Don’t you know me, father?”
“Good God! Can it be possible that this is Joseph?”
“Don’t let him deceive us, John!” pleaded the mother. “I couldn’t live
and bear it!”
“Yes, mother dear, it is indeed your Joseph,—your long-lost son,” cried
the prodigal. “Don’t you recognize me now?”
John, who had released his mother, stood by in silence; while Joseph,
secure in his welcome, gathered his mother in his arms and exclaimed,
“It is now my turn to give you a bear hug. Take this, and this!” and he
clasped her with half-savage tenderness again and again.
“Yes, mother!” cried the father, who, overcome by his emotions, dropped
feebly into his chair. Then, controlling his feelings by a strong effort
of the will, he added with a laugh, “Hadn’t we better kill the prodigal,
seeing the calf has come home?”
At a late hour a frugal meal was spread, to which the weary home-comers
did enforced justice, the mother on one side of the table weeping and
laughing by turns, and the father on the other side endeavoring with
indifferent success to be dignified and calm.
The brothers eyed each other askance as the supper proceeded, especially
noticing the absence of the many little luxuries for which the Ranger
tables had formerly been noted throughout the township.
“Father and I don’t have much appetite, so we don’t lay in many extras
nowadays,” said the mother.
“We’ve been having a hard time of it since you left us, John,” broke in
the father. “The fellow that bought the sawmill didn’t understand the
business, and he soon swamped it. So Lije had to take it off his hands,
and it left us mighty hard up. Lije has a big family, and the gals want
clothes and schoolin’, and Mary is poorly and needs medicines; so mother
and I do without lots of things we need. It was lucky for all hands,
though, that Annie sent back that deed to the Robinson old folks. They’re
independent now, in a small way. They have their own garden and cow and
fruit and poultry, and they made enough off of their truck-patch last
summer to pay their taxes and buy groceries. They don’t need many new
clothes. They have bought a sleigh and a horse, so they can go to meetin’
Sundays; and next summer, Daddie Robinson says, he’ll be able to buy a
buggy.”
“I meant to let you have that little place, father,” said John, trying in
vain to eat his food. “But Annie claimed it as her own; and Mary and Jean
insisted that she had a right to deed it to her own parents. If you had
such a little home now, could you be contented?”
“Oh, John,” cried his mother, “if we only had a place as good! I never
covet what is my neighbor’s, but I do want to be independent.”
“Can’t you pack your little effects and go with us to Oregon?” asked
Joseph, a great lump rising in his throat.
The old man looked anxiously at his wife. The wife looked inquiringly at
her husband.
“It will be just as father says,” said the wife, submissively.
“An old man is like an old tree,” began the father, bowing his head upon
the table. “You can transplant a man or a tree, but you can’t make ’em
take root to do much good in new soil after they get old. With the young
it’s different. It’s out o’ sight, out o’ mind, with them. They can take
root anywhere if the conditions are favorable and they want to change.”
“That’s right, father,” echoed the wife. “We’re too old to make a new
start in a new country. Besides, the expense of transplanting us to so
great a distance would go a long way toward taking care of us nearer
home. I’d like it mighty well if we could live near all our children
in our old days; but if it is better for them,—and I reckon it is,—the
sacrifices we must make to bear the separation mustn’t count. We ought to
be used to privation and poverty by this time.”
“We have all heard of the Irishman’s way of feeding, or not feeding, his
horse!” exclaimed Joseph. “The plan seemed successful for a few days,
but just when the animal was supposed to be used to the treatment, the
ungrateful creature died.”
“I could keep the wolf from the door a few years longer if it wasn’t for
my rheumatism,” said the father. “The after-clap of old hardships gets
the better of me now and then. I’m only able, much of the time, to potter
round the place and help your mother at odd jobs. I reckon she would miss
me if I should be called away, however.”
“God grant that we may be called away together when we are wanted in
the land o’ the leal,” said the good wife, fervently; and her husband
responded with a hearty “Amen.”
“You are not to be allowed to worry any more!” exclaimed Joseph, rising
to his feet and straightening himself to his full height. “I am not rich,
but I am amply able to place you above want; and, so help me God, I’ll
do it. I’ve been the stray sheep. I’ve wandered far from the fold, and
I’ve been a long time coming to my senses. But I have put the past behind
me, and, come what will, my dear father and mother shall be provided for
during the remainder of their lives.”
“But you have a family, my son. Don’t make any promises that will
interfere with your obligations to your wife and children.”
“I have some gold mines in Utah, mother dear, and an interest in several
trading-posts on the frontier. I will never neglect you again.”
“Jean went away under a promise to assist us as soon as she could earn
some money of her own,” said the father; “but we can look for no help
from that quarter for some time to come. It isn’t right to expect it of
her, either. Oh, boys, if you could only know how it has stung us to be
treated as mendicants, after we have worn ourselves out in the service of
our children, you would appreciate our joy over this cheering news!”
“Who is treating you as mendicants, mother, I should like to know?”
exclaimed the elder son. “Didn’t I leave you provided for when I started
for Oregon?”
“You did your best to make provision for our needs, my son. We are
blaming nobody. Don’t allow yourself to feel unhappy. We are not
complaining of anything but Fate.”
“But you ought to blame me,” cried Joseph. “It was I who brought all
these calamities upon my nearest and dearest. But God knows I do repent
in sackcloth and ashes.”
“Oh, father, we can never be unhappy now! Our boy that was lost is found.
He that we mourned as dead is with us, alive and well. There is no
blood-guiltiness upon his head, and no shadow of murder or hatred in his
heart. The Lord be praised for all His tender mercies to the children of
men!”
“Yes, yes, the Lord be praised!” echoed the father, fervently. “Surely,
after all the blessings that have been showered upon us this night, we
can take all the balance on trust.”
“We have the promise, father: ‘Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily
thou shalt be fed.’”
* * * * *
“I’d give the world, if I had it, for the simple, child-like faith of our
father and mother,” said John, as soon as the brothers were alone.
“And I’d give the world, if I had it, for a chance to live my life over,
that I might have an opportunity to atone for the suffering I have caused
you all.”
“Dear Joe, you have suffered too.”
He turned his face to the wall and relapsed into silence. And as he
secretly invoked the presence of his beloved dead, he saw himself in an
emigrant’s camp far away in the Black Hills. Again the tethered Flossie
lowed plaintively at the wagon-wheel, bemoaning the death of her calf;
again the still, white-robed form of his Annie appeared before his mental
vision. And the sorrowing husband fell asleep.
XXXIX
_THE OLD HOMESTEAD_
The gray dawn of a bleak December morning found the Ranger brothers
alternately stamping the snow from their feet on the front veranda of
the old homestead, and listening for the first sounds of awakening
within. The same denuded locust-boughs swept the lattice as of yore; and
it seemed but yesterday to John Ranger as he recalled the time he had
caught his gentle Annie in his arms on that momentous and well-remembered
evening, and made the startling announcement, “It’s all settled, mother.
Brother Lije has bought the farm, and we’ll be off in less than a month
for Oregon.”
He turned to his brother, whose face was like marble as he stood in the
shadow of the wall, as silent as the Sphinx.
“Who in thunder is coming here to rout a fellow out o’ bed at this time
of a Sunday morning?” growled Lije Robinson, as he opened the door an
inch or so and peeped out into the biting air.
“It is I and another,” cried John Ranger, pushing the door wide open. For
a moment the brothers-in-law faced each other in silence. One was dumb
with many conflicting emotions, the other with simple wonder.
“Your conscience must have troubled you,” said Lije, after an awkward
pause, “or you wouldn’t have come back. But come in! I’ll start up the
fire. Who’s this?” looking hard at Joseph, whose bronzed and bearded face
was more than half concealed by the upturned collar of his fur-lined
overcoat.
“Don’t you know him, Lije?”
“Naw, nor I don’t want to.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Robinson had emerged from her room after a hurried toilet.
“Sister Mollie!”
“Brother John!”
For half a minute not another word was spoken.
“I never expected to set eyes on you again,” cried the sister at last,
as, half crying and half laughing, she held him at arm’s length for a
better view. “It seemed as if you had left the world when you went to
Oregon; and now you are back again,—the same old John.”
“This is an age of progress, Mollie. The planet doesn’t seem so very big,
if you know how to get around it.”
“Will you introduce the stranger, John?” asked his sister, in a welcoming
tone.
“I’ve been waiting to see if he would be recognized. There is another
surprise in store for you, Mollie. Did you ever see this man before?”
“Can it be possible,” she asked, her face deathly pale, “that this is my
brother Joseph?”
“Yes, Mollie,” he cried, as he caught her in his arms, “I’m your
long-lost brother.”
“Then I hope you’ve come prepared to pay your honest debts,” growled the
brother-in-law. “I’ve wrestled with that old mortgage till I’m demnition
tired!”
“I hope you’ll permit me to atone as best I can, Lije. That’s what I’m
here for.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, Lije!” pleaded the sister, as she helped the
prodigal to remove his overcoat. “You’re all right now, brother, aren’t
you?”
“I will be as soon as I have settled some old scores with your bear of a
husband.”
“Don’t mind Lije!” said his sister, aside. “His losses and obligations
have made him discouraged and cross. It wasn’t natural that he should
endure our hardships resignedly, as we did. Blood is thicker than water,
you know. Oh, Joseph, if I only could buy for our parents a nice little
farm, such as Annie deeded to her father and mother! There’s a ten-acre
farm adjoining theirs; I cannot sleep for thinking about it. But my
whole lifework has been devoted to Lije, and must count for nothing, so
far as father and mother are concerned. Father gave me a cow and calf
for a wedding present, as you will remember. They would have made me
comfortable long ago if I could have kept them and one-half of their
increase as mine.”
“Yes, Mollie; and I acted the brute beast over that gift. I was a
bumptious boy then; and I encouraged Lije in the idea that he mustn’t
allow his wife to own property. I waxed eloquent, as I thought, over
coverture, and such other archaic injustice as merges the existence of a
wife into that of her husband. Men are more appreciative of women on the
Pacific coast than they are here; but there are laws and usages out there
yet that call loudly for a change, the Lord knows.”
“I am not complaining of Lije, Joe. He has never offered me any bodily
injury in his life, and I’ve learned not to mind the explosions from his
mouth. I have everything I need for my own simple wants; but, no matter
how hard I struggle, I can never help my parents to a penny unless I
steal it”; and she laid her head on her brother’s shoulder and sobbed
aloud.
“What’s the matter now?” growled her husband. “Can’t you stop your
bawling when you have company?”
“Breakfast is ready,” said Annie Robinson, a tall and handsome girl, who
had been busy in the lean-to kitchen.
“Annie, this is Uncle Joseph,” said her mother, smiling through her tears.
“I don’t want to see him,” retorted the girl, rudely, turning to Uncle
John with extended hands and a smile of welcome, and saying in a
half-whisper, “What did you bring him here for?”
“The hair of the dog is good for the bite sometimes, my girl. Your Uncle
Joseph is all right. He’ll atone for everything if we’ll give him half a
chance.”
“You owe Joseph an apology for your rudeness, Annie; I am surprised at
you!” said her mother. Then, turning to Joseph: “Don’t mind Annie. She
is unhappy and cross because she could not go to boarding-school this
winter.”
“If I didn’t deserve what I’m getting I wouldn’t stand it, sister; but
I’ve come to atone, and I must take my punishment.”
The room was severely cold, and the hot breakfast filled the air with a
vapor that obscured the window-panes. The lighted candles, in their tall
receivers, reflected translucent halos, and lit the lithe figure of Annie
Robinson, who flitted silently between the table and the great black
stove, serving the food, and looking like a weird, uncanny shade.
“The way of the transgressor is hard,” thought Joseph. “We must be ready
to take the back track to-morrow, John,” he said, rising from his chair,
and leaving his food almost untasted. “Whatever business you and Lije may
have between you must be agreed upon to-day. Where can I hire a horse and
sleigh?”
“I’ve a cutter in the barn,” said Lije, beginning to relax a little as
his breakfast stirred his heart and warmed his spirits. “You’ll find
half-a-dozen old sawmill horses in the big shed back of the barn. They’re
spavined and ringboned, and one of ’em is knock-kneed; but you can take
your pick of the lot.”
“Won’t you let me go along, Joe?” asked his brother, as they left the
house together. “Where are you going, anyhow?”
“Of course you can go along if you are not needed here. I am going to
see about buying that ten-acre tract that Mollie told me about. If it
is suitable for the needs of our parents, I will see them installed in
a home of their own before another week passes. Why, John, I’d rather
murder our dear old father and mother in cold blood than leave them under
the heel of that parsimonious—”
“Don’t be too hard on Lije, Joe. He’s had a whole lot to contend with
since the sawmill, the debts, and other double loads have been left on
his hands.”
“And no wonder,” was the significant rejoinder. “He deserves his fate.”
The sun arose in splendor, warming the air, and making the drive of
three or four miles keenly invigorating and enjoyable. They found the
little farm they had come to inspect in fair condition, though in need of
some modern improvements, of which the brothers took note. The land had
originally belonged to the senior Ranger, who had secured a title to the
half-section of which it was a part, directly from the government.
“If father had been content with smaller land holdings, it might have
been better for him and all the rest of us,” said John.
“There is danger that we may make the same mistake in Oregon,” replied
Joseph.
“What a wealthy man father might have been, though, if he had held on to
all the land he acquired in this country in an early day!” added John.
“But he’d be a happier man to-day on this ten-acre plat, with prosperous
small farmers all around him and all the improvements and conveniences
on the plat that it can be made to carry, than he would be with a whole
township on his shoulders under the burdens of taxation and a careless
tenantry.”
“I don’t know but you are right,” echoed John; “it isn’t what we own, or
imagine that we own, in this world, but what we can utilize, that makes
up our real possessions. Oregon will surely suffer, in years to come, as
a result of the present system of land-grabbing. Most of the unhappiness
of the farmers’ wives results from isolation, which small farms would
remedy. This little home is a perfect gem. Mother will be delighted.”
“And the Robinson old folks will have congenial neighbors. I can shut my
eyes and see father now, hobbling about the place with his cane, pulling
a weed here and a flower there, tending the horse and cow and garden,
planting his onions and potatoes in the dark of the moon, as of old, and
his cabbage and peas and beans when it is full.”
“And think how mother will enjoy her poultry and posies! But we must do
something to relieve Lije of his burden of debt, or he’ll drive Mollie to
suicide.”
“I feel under no obligation to Lije, God knows! But for Mollie’s sake,
I’ll see about helping him out.”
“Do you still intend to leave for the coast to-morrow?”
“No,” said Joseph. “I spoke hastily. This is Sunday. We can’t complete
our business to-day. I will see the agent and settle about this little
farm in the morning. After we get the old folks comfortable it will be
time to consider Lije. He must wait.”
“I’ve been thinking all day,” said John, as they were journeying
homeward, “that the entire running machinery of the home should be
intrusted to women, who are the real home-makers. My Annie planned for
the support of her parents, and made them modestly independent by a
stroke of her pen. But she could not have done it if I had continued
obstinate about signing the deed; and I am very much afraid I could not
have been prevailed upon to do it if it hadn’t been for the persistence
of Jean. She gave me no peace till the conveyance was made. If women
possessed law-making power, these matters would in time be adjusted, and
both men and women would be the gainers in the long run. But both men
and women are as short-sighted as they are selfish. Solomon was right
when he said: ‘There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there
is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty.’ It
is noticeable that men of the frontier are more inclined to be just with
their co-workers, the mothers, than the men of the older States.”
“It’s all settled, mother,” exclaimed Joseph, as he alighted at the
cottage doorstep and threw the reins to John; “I’ve been to see that
little farm adjoining Pap Robinson’s, and I’ve made terms. The little
place is yours from now on, and I will not leave you till you are settled
in it.”
“Your father will be so happy, son! He started to meeting a little while
ago. I stayed at home to have a nice, warm supper ready. It isn’t many
more meals I’ll get a chance to cook for my boys.”
“You did your share in that line long ago, mother dear.”
In the family reunion in the little cottage home that night there were no
intruders. John, Mary, and Joseph held sweet communion with their parents
alone.
“Our Father in Heaven,” prayed the old man, before retiring, “we thank
Thee for all Thy tender mercies to us-ward. We realize Thy hand in our
chastening; and we behold Thy love in our sorrows, since, but for them,
we could not appreciate our joys. We thank Thee for John, for Mary, for
Joseph, and for this night’s reunion. We also thank Thee for our absent
dear ones, and for those whose bodies are under the snow, whose spirits
are with Thee.
“Animate us all with the Christ spirit, O God; and grant that in Thine
own good time we all may meet again.”
And the brothers echoed aloud the good father’s “Amen.”
XL
_THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS_
A year has passed, and the autumn of 1853 has arrived. It has been a
most strenuous twelve months on the Ranch of the Whispering Firs. Rapid
changes, unlooked-for vicissitudes, improvements upon the virgin soil,
annoying delays, and happy reunions have made the seasons fly.
The house was now surrounded by a cultivated field, through the centre
of which a broad, tree-lined avenue wound upward from the grade below.
The cattle whose labor had saved the lives of the immigrants the previous
year were now sleek and fat.
Behind the dwelling rose the foot-hills of the Cascade Mountains, their
sides and summits clothed with the majestic forest of pointed firs from
which the ranch had derived its name. Still higher up, and yet up, above
the serrated steeps, loomed hoary old Mount Hood, spreading his snowy
robes over the misty lesser heights, the top of his white turban hidden
among the clouds, his flowing beard resting upon the pointed crests of
the most distant trees.
The music of machinery filled the air. The sawmill was at its best,
running day and night to supply the ever-increasing demand for lumber.
The original plant had already been greatly increased.
“It is a glorious thing to be alive!” said Jean, pausing in the perusal
of a letter. “The air is as balmy as springtime. What a blessed change it
will be for Ashton, who has seen nothing but sagebrush, bald mountains,
jack-rabbits, sage-hens, Indians, immigrants, and cacti the summer long!
Oh, my darling, it is a whole year since our first meeting!
“My last day in the schoolroom is over. I have enjoyed my work. Many of
the little tots are better for the training I have given them. But best
of all is the improvement the experience has brought to me. Every good
deed reacts upon the doer. Ashton will hardly realize the progress I have
made in education, physical appearance, and culture during the vanished
year”; and she smiled approvingly at her reflection in the little mirror.
“And to think that to-morrow is our wedding-day!” She resumed the reading
of her cherished missive.
“It will interest you to know that the fellow Hankins, whose villany came
so near to wrecking our happiness, my beloved, has been sent to the Pen.
at Salt Lake for forgery. What a splendid man he might have been if he
had improved his opportunities! He still has a penitentiary term to serve
in New York, which, added to his twenty years in Utah, will take him into
the sere and yellow leaf.”
“And I’d have allowed myself to marry that fellow, I fear, if you had
proved false to me, my Ashton,” exclaimed Jean, as she turned from her
musings to survey her _trousseau_, upon which she and Mary had spent much
time and skill.
“Are you at leisure, sister?” asked Mary.
“Of course I am always at leisure to see you, Mary. But what is the
matter? You are as red as a rose and bright as a diamond!” and she
fondled the sparkling gem upon her own finger lovingly.
“Something sweet and momentous has happened, my dear. Wish me joy! Mr.
Buckingham and I are to make the fourth couple to join the matrimonial
combination at the fateful hour to-morrow.”
“Isn’t this rather sudden, Mame? Won’t you be leaving Marjorie in
the lurch at the cook-house? And, above all, what will you do for a
_trousseau_?”
“No, dear, this change is not sudden. As you know, we have been
engaged for over six months. But my _fiancé_, being under orders
from the government, has not been certain of a permanency before. We
will take Marjorie with us to Washington, and keep her in school. And
now as to _trousseau_. My white dimity dress is fresh and new, and so
is Marjorie’s. When we get to Washington, where Mr. Buckingham must
spend the winter under orders from the Land Department, he says we can
patronize the _modiste_ to our heart’s content. It was a fortunate
day for me when my husband that is to be was sent out to Oregon to
investigate alleged land frauds; and more fortunate still that he
discovered that fellow Hankins.”
“I wish we’d known this a week ago, Mame. You might have had an
ivory-white, all-wool delaine, with lace and satin trimmings, just like
mine.”
“My little sister, notwithstanding her reputation for strong-mindedness,
is a charming bit of femininity, after all,” laughed Mary, as she hurried
away.
* * * * *
The near approach of a creaking wagon caused the sisters to approach the
window.
“As I live!” cried Jean, “it’s the Reverend Thomas Rogers coming up the
grade. And that is his little doll-faced wife. Wonder where they came
from, and what in creation they’re coming here for.”
“You must go out to meet them, Jean,” said Mary. “I never want to see
them again; but we mustn’t be remiss in hospitality.”
“He looks as if the world had gone hard with him, poor fellow,” laughed
Jean. “Don’t you wish you had to pull in double harness with the like of
him for the rest of your life?”
“I would never have fancied him in the first place if I had had any
sense,” said Mary. “Wonder who paid their bills,” she cried with a
hysterical little laugh, as she watched the preacher’s wife while she
alighted over the wagon-wheel without any attention or assistance.
“Yonder goes Mrs. O’Dowd to the rescue. Do you know, Mame, I think it is
a wise step for daddie to hitch up with Sally O’Dowd? He might go farther
and fare a whole lot worse.”
Although the greeting the Rogers family received from the Ranger
household was not exactly in keeping with the open-hearted hospitality
of the border, it seemed to satisfy the preacher, who made himself as
agreeable as possible.
“I went, Squire, to see your parents and Mrs. Ranger’s a few days before
I left the States,” said the preacher. “The dear old people were well
and prosperous and contented. They have imbibed a new theory about time
and distance. They talk learnedly about vibrations, a fourth dimension
in space, and other such nonsense; and they declare that there can be no
real separation of souls that are in perfect accord with one another.
Their new belief is making them as happy as birds. I would have no
objection to such speculations if they didn’t tend to undermine the
gospel. All such theories detract from the faith of our fathers.”
“Not necessarily,” said Jean. “I think that we ought always to accept
truth for authority; but you want everybody to accept authority for
truth.”
“I see it is the same little ‘doubting Thomas’ we used to have in the
Pleasant Prairie schoolhouse,” said the minister.
“There is a whole lot of common-sense in Jean’s religion,” cried Hal; “I
mean to accept her manufacture of the article as straight goods, full
measure and a yard wide.”
“These discussions are not profitable,” said Captain Ranger, dryly.
“Your father and mother are certainly very happy in their theories; I
can say that much for them,” said Mrs. Rogers, who, from her nook in
the corner, had seldom ventured a word. “Their cottage was as neat as
a new pin. It was the springtime, and climbing roses were clambering
over the little porch. The old people seemed to lack for nothing but the
companionship of their children.” And the little woman, amazed at her own
loquacity, shrank back abashed.
“God has been very kind and gracious to both of the good old couples,”
said the preacher, in a sonorous voice.
“Some people have an unlimited supply of gall,” said Hal, aside to Mary,
alluding to the preacher and his wife.
“I don’t see but they are all right,” was the smiling reply of the
rosy-cheeked maiden. “They have placed me under everlasting obligations,
I do assure you.” She arose to greet a handsome visitor, whom she proudly
introduced to them as “my affianced husband.”
The preacher’s joy was unbounded when Captain Ranger invited him to
perform a quadruple marriage ceremony on the morrow,—an incident he
hailed as an augury of the further social and financial assistance of
which he felt so much in need that he began at once to solicit aid for
the erection of a church and parsonage.
“For heaven’s sake, don’t begin to bother us about this innovation for
a week or two!” exclaimed the Captain. “I’ll see that you are fed and
housed for the present. As Jean will be leaving us, we shall need a
school-teacher. My wife will not want an outsider to use our house for
the school; so we must make a schoolhouse and meeting-house combined, and
let it suffice for the present.”
The morning brought a scene of hurry, bustle, and happiness. Long
tables were spread upon the lawn, under the wide-spread branches of the
luxuriant fir-tree the woodman had spared when the land was cleared.
Flowers and ferns from the wildwood added glow and fragrance to the
loaded tables. Mary and Jean, rosy with expectation, flitted everywhere.
“Did you ever in all your born days see such a wonderful man as my
daddie?” asked Jean, addressing Sally O’Dowd; and the happy woman
answered, “I never did.”
Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Ranger, the latter resplendent in a satin gown of
latest fashion, were conspicuous assistants; and their children, all of
whom were gotten up for the occasion by their happy mother regardless of
expense, were the observed of all observers. These children, added to the
younger members of Captain Ranger’s brood, the three children of Mrs.
O’Dowd, and Susannah’s “coon,” made a formidable array of young Americans.
At the appointed hour, Mrs. McAlpin, who had arrived early on horseback
to assist in the preparations, was joined by Mr. Burns, who brought to
her a sealed package, long overdue, concerning which they kept their
own counsel. But in anticipation of its arrival, they had allowed a
“personal” to appear in the local paper in due season, as follows: “Mrs.
Adele Benson, the handsome widow who spent a few days in this city after
crossing the plains last year, and whose widowed daughter, Mrs. Daphne
McAlpin, is soon to be the bride of our distinguished fellow-citizen,
Mr. Rollin Burns, recently astonished her friends in Oregon with the
announcement of her marriage in London to the Right Honorable Donald
McPherson, only son and heir of Lady Mary McPherson, whose extensive
estates are the pride and envy of High-Head on the Thames.”
* * * * *
The appointed hour had come, and the four brides expectant were beaming
and beautiful in their simple and becoming array. Mr. Burns and Mr.
Buckingham awaited the signal to descend with their brides. But where was
Ashton Ashleigh?
Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed, and he did not come. The dinner was
spoiling, and Susannah was furious.
“I allus ’lowed dah’d nothin’ come o’ dat co’tship!” she said to Hal.
“Go ahead and get the ceremonies over,” said Jean. “Don’t allow this
interruption to mar the enjoyment of anybody.”
And while her father was leading Mrs. O’Dowd to the marriage altar,
with Mr. Burns and Mrs. McAlpin following, and Mary and her chosen
one bringing up the rear, she sank, white-faced and benumbed upon her
bed, and gave no sign of life except in the nervous fluttering of her
half-closed eyelids.
For a long time she lay thus, mercifully bereft of the power to suffer.
“There is some unavoidable reason for this delay,” she said over and over
to herself. “I’ll understand it all in time.”
The afternoon waned, and darkness fell upon the Ranch of the Whispering
Firs.
“Jean!”
“Is that you, daddie dear?”
“Yes, darling.”
“What do you think has delayed Ashton?”
“Try to forget him, Jean. His failure to be on hand at his own marriage
ought to prove to you that he is faithless. You will live to thank God
that the knowledge of Ashton’s faithlessness did not come upon you after
marriage.”
“Ashton is not faithless!” she cried, springing to her feet. Then she
fell quivering to the floor.
“Run, quick, Hal! Saddle a horse and go for the Little Doctor,” cried
Mary.
* * * * *
A heavy mist that had rolled up from the ocean in the afternoon had
settled now into a steady downpour. There was no moon, and the dense
darkness of the forest through which Hal’s road lay was as black as
Erebus. “Jean loves you, Sukie,” he would say, patting the mare on the
shoulder. “We must get the Little Doctor at all hazards”; and the mare,
as if sensing the importance of her mission, would leap forward with a
sympathetic whinny.
The door was opened by Mr. Burns, revealing a scene of domestic comfort.
A little table, covered with a snowy cloth and spread with light
refreshments, stood before a blazing fire; and at its head sat Mrs.
Burns, daintily attired in a light blue wrapper of exquisite workmanship.
“Why, Harry Ranger!” she exclaimed, as the lad stood inside the door,
shaking his dripping garments. “I hope Jean isn’t worse? I left her calm
and seemingly out of danger.”
“She’s fallen in a fit! I’ve come for the Doctor!”
The wind had lulled a little as the little party hurried down the muddy
highway toward the Ranch of the Whispering Firs. The Little Doctor,
nattily arrayed in a rain suit, hood and all, sat her horse securely
and plunged headlong through the darkness, while Hal rode by her side,
followed at a distance by her husband, who bumped up and down in
Scotch-English fashion on a heavy trotter, reminding himself of John
Gilpin, as his hat blew off and his stirrup slipped from his foot.
“I’ve heard rumors of the ‘coming woman’ many a time,” he thought,
bracing himself by clinging to the horn of his Spanish saddle. “But
the deuce take me if I like the article in practice, though I’ve long
advocated her cause in theory.”
He said as much in an injured tone to his wife, as they alighted at the
Ranger home, and received for answer, “We must always consider what is
the greatest good for the greatest number, dear. Won’t we be well repaid
for this night’s adventure if Jean is saved?”
The Little Doctor found her patient in a rigid, trance-like state, her
eyelids fluttering and her breathing stertorous.
“The heart’s action is fairly good,” she said, after a careful
examination. “The most we can do is to keep her quiet. I will administer
an opiate, and I think nature will do the rest. Meanwhile, somebody must
go after that recalcitrant bridegroom. She would soon recover her tone if
she could lose faith in him altogether. It is suspense that kills.”
“Brother Joseph started across the Cascade Mountains after him early in
the afternoon,” the Captain explained. “He declared that nothing but foul
play or some unavoidable accident could have detained so ardent a suitor.”
At the hour of midnight, when the Ranch of the Whispering Firs was
wrapped in silence, Jean awoke, dismissed Susannah, and rose from her bed.
“O my God,” she cried inwardly, “if it be possible, let this cup pass
from both of us! I know, O Spirit of Good, that my own has not, of his
own accord, deserted his counterpart, his other self. Give me strength
equal to my day! Let me not fail him now, when I know he needs me most.
“I must have been in your presence, Ashton, while my body was asleep,”
she said half audibly. “For, in spite of my seeming duty to be miserable,
I cannot be unhappy or hopeless. I seem to have been on a journey; but my
recollection of it is indistinct and disjointed.”
She went to the window and looked out into the night. The clouds had
rolled away, the wind had ceased, and the silent stars were looking down.
XLI
“_IN PRISON AND YE VISITED ME_”
Joseph Ranger left the scene of the triple wedding early in the afternoon
in quest of the missing bridegroom, and was overtaken by the storm before
riding a dozen miles. But the hospitable welcome of the pioneers awaited
him at Foster’s; and a substantial breakfast was ready for him before the
dawn. The sun was barely up before he left the valley and entered the
mountain pass. His faithful horse, who seemed to understand that he was
bound on no ordinary errand, carefully chose his steps among the rocks
and gullies, and bore him onward with gratifying speed.
Night overtook him long before he had descended the last of the rugged
steeps that crossed his path after passing the summit of the range.
Bands of elk and antelope crossed his track at intervals; and at night,
when he stopped to camp under a great pine-tree, when his fire was built,
and his faithful horse and himself had feasted together upon the bag of
roasted wheat he had brought along for sustenance, a band of deer, kindly
eyed, graceful, and not afraid, came near him, attracted by the blaze and
smoke, and circled around his bed at a respectful distance long after he
had retired among his blankets upon a couch of evergreen boughs.
“That’s right! Come close, my beauties!” he exclaimed, as a doe and her
daughter came close enough to breathe in his face. “I wouldn’t shoot one
of you for the world. Your confidence is not misplaced.” But when he put
out his hand to fondle them, they bounded away as light as birds, only to
approach again and paw the blankets with their nimble hoofs, and awaken
him from his coveted sleep. Finally, to frighten them away, he fired
his revolver into the air, and the entire herd scampered away into the
darkness.
“The gun is the wild animal’s master,” he said as he fell asleep, to be
awakened again by the neighing of his tethered horse.
The fire of pitch-pine was still burning, and a pair of eyes glowed near
his face like coals.
“This is no deer,” he thought, as he very cautiously clasped his
“pepper-box” repeater.
A heavy paw was placed upon his breast, and the hot breath of a bear
came close enough to nauseate him. There was no time to lose. As a
mountaineer, he knew the nature of his foe too well to await the
inevitable embrace of Bruin. Little by little he moved his repeater, and,
when the weight of the animal was wellnigh crushing him, he sent a bullet
through his eye. But the danger was by no means past, as the beast,
though wounded unto death, was yet alive, and furious with rage and pain.
Just how he extricated himself from the peril of that eventful encounter,
Joseph Ranger never knew, but he lived to narrate the adventure to
children and grandchildren, and preserved to his dying day that
long-outdated “pepper-box” revolver with which his great-grandchildren
now delight to fire a volley in his honor on Washington’s Birthday and
the Fourth of July.
Once safely through the Cascade Mountains, Joseph found little to impede
his progress. Some friendly Indians were encountered at the base of the
Blue Mountains, who gave him a hearty meal of bear-meat and wapatoes, and
supplied his weary horse with hay and oats.
“Mika closh cumtux Wahnetta. Heap good Injun squaw! Ugh! Wake Mika
potlatch chickimin! Hy-as closh muck-a-muck! Heap good. Cultus potlatch!”
was the way in which his Indian host expressed his hospitality and
refused compensation. And Joseph Ranger, acquainted with the jargon of
many native tribes, further ingratiated himself in the Indian’s favor by
presenting his squaw with a few gaudy trinkets such as an experienced
borderer always carries when crossing an Indian country.
On and on he hurried toward the valley of Great Salt Lake, impelled by an
irresistible impulse he could not have explained to any one. The weather
was in his favor in crossing the Blue Mountains, though the air was cold,
and the wind sometimes blew furiously. Water was low in all the smaller
streams, and the beds of many of them were dry. Ice formed at night in
swampy places and thawed by day, making travelling slippery and tedious;
but on and on he hurried, knowing time was precious and yet not clearly
understanding why.
At the Ogden Gateway he gained some information that doubled his
impatience and quickened his speed. A man was being held on a charge of
murder at Salt Lake City who he instinctively felt was Ashleigh. His
informant, a Spanish half-breed, did not know his name, but he said an
Indian girl was the victim, and her name was Le-Le.
On and on he journeyed, till he reached the verge of the little border
city of Salt Lake. The Mormon Temple was not yet built, but a tabernacle
had already arisen as its herald; and the Bee Hive House and Lion House
were filled with wives and children of the prophet, who regularly toiled
and spun. Joseph hastened to the adobe jail, where, after a brief delay,
which seemed to him like an age, he was conducted to a dingy little cell,
reserved for criminals of the lowest type.
A tall man, unshaven and in his shirt-sleeves, was pacing back and forth
in his narrow quarters like a caged animal. He paused as the bolt flew
back; and, as the light fell upon the face of his astonished visitor, he
exclaimed, “Good God! Joseph Addicks! Can this be you?”
“I am Joseph Ranger, my boy! And I have come here all the way from the
farthest West. But sit down here on the edge of your bed, and tell me all
about it.”
“You remember the Indian maiden, Le-Le, whom I purchased and ransomed?”
“Yes.”
“And you recall the fact that I left her with her brother, Siwash, at my
Green River cave at the time I came to you?”
“I remember that you said so.”
“Can you recall the date of my visit to you at the trading-post?”
“No; but there must be memoranda somewhere that will settle that. Why?”
“Because nothing will save me, Joseph, from the hangman’s rope unless I
can prove an alibi. I forwarded a letter to you at Oregon City—or tried
to—after this mishap befell me; but a courier can be bribed sometimes,
you know, and Henry Hankins, who failed to capture my bride, is bent upon
revenge. His incarceration doesn’t keep him out of reach of pals. But how
is my bonnie Jean?”
“I left home too hurriedly to get much information. But her father said
she was strangely calm, and full of faith in you.”
“Then my darling is not ill?”
“I certainly did not leave her well, Ashleigh, but she is in good hands.
Do you know the particulars of Le-Le’s death?”
“I only know that her body was found in an eddy in Green River about a
fortnight after I last saw her. Just as I was on the eve of starting
to Oregon to claim my bride, I was arrested, charged with murder, and
brought to this villanous den.”
“Be of good cheer, Ashleigh; I will find Siwash. Say nothing to any one.
The darkest hour of the night is just before the morning. Good-bye, and
may God bless you!”
XLII
_TOO BUSY TO BE MISERABLE_
Jean met her father and his wife at the breakfast-table with a welcoming
smile, though her head ached, and on her countenance there was a deathly
pallor.
“The last night’s storm played havoc with the cherished plans of Mr. and
Mrs. Burns,” said Mary’s husband, adroitly turning the conversation into
a diverting channel. “They were intending to spend their honeymoon with
their camping outfit in the open air among the spicy odors of the October
woods.”
“They are old enough, and ought to be wise enough, by this time, to spend
their honeymoon at home. No bridegroom ever dreamed of taking his bride
away from home during the honeymoon in my younger days; that is, nobody
did with whom my lot was cast,” said Captain Ranger, beaming tenderly
upon his wife, who, being a sensible woman, was not displeased to note
the far-away look in his eyes which betrayed his straying thoughts.
“You needn’t make any plans for a new teacher, for the present at least,
daddie,” said Jean; “I shall resume my duties in the schoolroom next
week. Will you post the required notices for me at the Four Corners, and
at the sawmill, sometime during the day?”
“I wouldn’t be in a hurry about teaching, daughter. Your Uncle Joseph has
gone by private pony express in quest—”
He paused, uncertain as to the propriety of speaking the name that was
uppermost in all their thoughts.
“I know it, daddie. I knew all that was going on when I lay yesterday in
what seemed to you as a stupor. I can’t explain it, but I seemed to have
a double, or second, self that told me everything. Ashton is in trouble,
but he is not in bodily danger, and he will not die. I do not understand
it clearly, for I saw conditions only as through a glass, darkly. I would
have remained in that state of seeming torpor for a whole month if it
had been possible, for my mind and body were in different places. But in
spite of myself I am again in a normal condition.”
“I shall be able to devote two weeks’ work to the erection of that
combined schoolhouse and meeting-house,” said Mary’s husband. “Can’t you
wait, sister, to begin your school till then?”
“No, Mr. Buckingham. You are very kind, and I thank you from the bottom
of my heart, but I cannot wait. There will be time enough for you to take
the reins when I am gone, Mr. Rogers.”
During the remainder of the week she performed prodigies of labor, but
the work lagged at the mess-house. The new cook was not a success, and
there was much dissatisfaction among the workingmen. But the Chinaman
learned his lessons rapidly under the guidance of the Ranger sisters, and
was soon able to load the long tables with plain but savory food.
The storm left the face of Nature fresh and green and joyous, and Mr.
Burns and the Little Doctor repaired to the woods and foot-hills for
their honeymoon, after all.
Jean’s complexion grew more delicately beautiful, her form more and more
symmetrical, and her eyes sparkled like stars. But her girlish exuberance
of spirit was gone, and in its place had come a womanly dignity,
commanding, gracious, and sweet. The departure of Mary and her husband,
with Marjorie, added heavily to Jean’s duties as superintendent of the
Sunday-school. But her spirit craved work; so she opened a singing-school
and a metrical geography class.
“Still no tidings!” she cried to herself, after an unusually strenuous
day. “But I will not despair, and I will do my duty though the heavens
fall. The whole of this month’s salary goes to Grandpa and Grandma
Ranger. And for this opportunity to show my appreciation of their lives
of self-denial in the service of others, I devoutly thank God.”
A shadow darkened the door of the deserted schoolroom.
“Who is it? And what is wanted?” asked Jean, with a start.
“It is I,—the Reverend Thomas Rogers,” said a voice, as, stepping out of
the shadow, the preacher met her face to face.
“I have just completed my day’s work, and was about to shut up shop,” she
said, moving toward the door.
“Very well. I will walk homeward with you, if I may.”
“No, you won’t!” piped a tremulous, complaining voice; and Mrs. Rogers
stepped between them and the doorsill.
“I came to see Miss Jean about a change in the management of the
Sunday-school,” said the preacher, meekly.
“And I’ve come to remind you that you must chop some stove-wood and milk
the cow.”
The voice was not tremulous now, but commanding. “I’ll teach you to
be running after the schoolma’am at unseemly hours!” she said with a
vehemence that startled Jean, who had thought her the personification of
submission and humility. “And I’ll teach you to be courting my husband,
Miss Jean!”
“You can divest yourself of all anxiety on that score, Mrs. Rogers. I
never saw the time when I would have dreamed of ‘courting’ the Reverend
Thomas Rogers, even before he was married; and I wouldn’t ‘court’ any
woman’s husband.”
“To be explicit,” said the preacher, in a submissive tone, “I think it is
high time for the pastor of this church to manage his Sunday-school. Miss
Jean’s methods are not strictly orthodox. I didn’t mean to speak of this
to her in the presence of any third person, but since you have come upon
the scene, Mrs. Rogers, we may as well settle it here and now.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Jean, laughing irreverently.
“The hymns she teaches the children are not solemn enough. They are all
about happy days and care-free birds and joyous children, whose chief
duty lies in obeying their parents and loving one another. I’ve looked
on during the proceedings, carefully and anxiously, for four consecutive
Sundays now, and I haven’t heard one word about eternal punishment, nor
has she exhorted anybody to flee from the wrath to come!”
“Aren’t you ashamed of your fit of jealousy in the light of this
revelation, Mrs. Rogers?” asked Jean, laughing aloud.
“I know he was once in love with your sister Mary!” was the evasive but
crestfallen reply.
“Well, Mr. Rogers,” said Jean, closing and locking the door, “we may as
well be ending this interview. I founded the Sunday-school, and I will
not abdicate till I get ready to leave the country. I never could be made
to believe by your preaching or teaching that God wasn’t as good as my
daddie, or even yourself. I am teaching the children to love and serve
a beneficent God, and to love their neighbors as themselves. If that is
heresy, make the most of it. Good-night! And, Mrs. Rogers, the next time
you feel the unseemly pangs of jealousy, don’t make a fool of yourself
before folks.”
XLIII
_JEAN IS HAPPY—AND ANOTHER PERSON_
December, gloomiest month in the year, had settled over the Ranch of the
Whispering Firs. The steady mist of the rainy season was at its best,
or worst, according to the point of view, mental and physical, of its
beholder. The mighty colonnades of trees, that reared their pointed
crests in the mist-enwrapped heavens, were busily engaged, at the foot of
the Cascade Mountains, in storing away the moisture of the skies among
the countless layers of vegetable mould and moss from which to draw their
supplies for the next summer’s drouth.
The sawmill, planing-mill, and shingle-loom were running day and night.
The skid roads, upon which the leviathans of the forest were dragged
to their final doom, were sodden, slippery, and already badly worn.
Relays of oxen tugged at the creaking chains and complaining logs. The
mill-pond, a lake upon the mountain-side, very much enlarged by a dam,
lay half asleep under a soft coating of ice; and higher up, at the snow
line, lay the ice-clad creek that fed it, sheathed in a coat of mail
which held in check the waters that were destined, when a thaw should
come, to overflow their banks and send a flood into the valley below.
* * * * *
“Are you an angel from heaven, or are you Ashton Ashleigh?” cried
Jean, as a tall man entered at the open door and stood before her with
outstretched arms. The color faded from her cheeks, and her heart gave a
violent thump and then stood still.
“Nothing angelic about me or near me this holy minute, unless it is Jean,
my bonnie Jean!” exclaimed the intruder, as he clasped her tenderly in
his arms. Jean was speechless for the moment with surprise and joy.
“Why don’t you ask for an explanation, little one?” he asked after an
interval. “An explanation is due you, God knows!”
“I knew you would come,” she whispered timidly. “You have been forcibly
detained, Ashton. Nothing else would, or could, have kept you away from
your own.”
“Yes, darling; it was all the evil-doing of that man Hankins, to whom I
intrusted my letter and my ring. Come in, Uncle Joseph. Tell the whole
cruel story.”
“He was on his way to his wedding when he was arrested and thrown into
prison!” exclaimed the uncle.
“You remember the slave girl Le-Le, my bonnie Jean? I was falsely accused
of being her murderer; and they would surely have convicted me of the
crime if your uncle had not appeared upon the scene, and after much delay
and difficulty proved an alibi. Do you wonder that my hair has turned
white?”
“Why, so it has, Ashton! I had not noticed it before; the light is dim.
But you are all right. Your hair is beautiful. I like it best as it is.”
“I had a deuce of a time proving that alibi!” interrupted the uncle. “Our
only witness was Siwash, who had left the scene of the tragedy and was
nowhere to be found, though I sent scouts out for him in every direction.
He had no idea that he was wanted, when he finally appeared upon the
scene, but he came just in the nick of time.
“‘I saw my sister make the fatal leap into Green River,’” he deposed in
excellent English. ‘She had been very despondent after Mr. Ashleigh left
us, and I was often afraid she would take her life. But as the weeks
passed, she apparently grew more reconciled; and I had ceased to worry
about her, when one day, after getting my luncheon, she refused to wait
upon the table, and left our cave in a manner that excited my alarm.
So I followed her. I saw the fatal leap. She plunged into the rushing
water through a hole in the ice, under which her body was imprisoned
till last summer, when it was found three miles from the fatal scene. I
never dreamed of anybody being accused of killing her,—least of all Mr.
Ashleigh, our benefactor and friend.’
“‘Do the citizens of the village near the scene of the tragedy know of
the suicide?’ asked the Court.
“‘They do, your Honor, a dozen of them!’ said the boy.
“No argument was offered on either side. Hankins was sent back to the
penitentiary. Ashton was allowed to go forth a free man; and here, after
a hard journey, are both of us to tell the tale!”
* * * * *
Sunday morning at the Ranch of the Whispering Firs. The skies, which
have been humid and lowering for many days, are once more on their good
behavior. The clouds have rolled away to the Northland, and the air and
sunshine are as balmy as in springtime.
Once more there is a gathering,—this time at the combined schoolhouse
and meeting-house; and Jean Ranger, handsomely attired in a well-made
travelling suit of gray, with hat to match,—the handiwork of her
stepmother and the Little Doctor,—is superintending for the last time
(at least the last till after her return from abroad) her beloved
Sunday-school. The tidings of the bridegroom’s arrival had spread from
house to house, and everybody within a radius of a dozen miles had
appeared upon the scene. The children of the district had decorated the
room profusely with wild flowers, ferns, and evergreens.
Jean, in surrendering her school to the pastor, made a felicitous speech,
exhorting her pupils to continue in the ways of well-doing. Then, bidding
them a loving and hopeful good-bye, she formally resigned her post, and
the Reverend Thomas Rogers assumed control.
At a given signal from Captain Ranger, a tall and handsome young
Englishman, whose youthful face contrasted strangely with his snowy hair,
stepped proudly down the aisle, where he was joined by his radiant bride,
leaning on the arm of her father; and the preacher pronounced the words
that legalized a union made in heaven. The tears that rose unbidden to
the eyes of bronzed and bearded men and toilworn, plainly attired women
were tears of joy and peace, good-will and gladness.
A bountiful basket-dinner, contributed, as by a common impulse, from
the home of almost every family in the district, was served within the
building.
“We leave to-morrow, by steamer from Portland, going by way of San
Francisco, Acapulco, and the Isthmus, up the Atlantic coast to New York,”
said the happy bridegroom, in his post-prandial speech, “whence we shall
sail for Liverpool. I shall take my wife to London to visit my mother.
Then, on our return to Oregon (for we will make this neighborhood of the
Ranch of the Whispering Firs our permanent home), we shall stop over at
Washington to see her sisters,—Mrs. Buckingham and Marjorie; and after
that we can visit the home of her childhood.”
“But I prefer going first to the home of my grandparents, dearest,” said
the bride. “We can get there easily by the way of the Gulf of Mexico and
the Mississippi River and the Illinois, if we’ll be on hand before the
rivers are frozen over. We can then go on to Washington, and to England
afterwards. Don’t you think this will be the more economical, convenient,
and reasonable plan?”
“As this journey is to be in your honor, it shall be as you say, my
bonnie Jean.”
The bride blushed and beamed bewitchingly, while the crowd laughed and
applauded, and her husband bowed and smiled in approval.
All eyes then turned upon the father, who took the happy and exultant
bridegroom by the hand and said in a voice tremulous with emotion:
“Ashton Ashleigh, my son through marriage, you have taken to yourself the
priceless jewel that I once fondly thought was mine! Value not lightly
the radiant gem of womanhood you guard!” Then to the bride he said,
embracing her tenderly, while the eyes of the multitude filled afresh
with tears: “Beloved daughter of thy sainted mother, go thy way with the
husband of thy choice. But do not forget to hold thyself always as his
equal before God and man. Then shalt thou be his best counsellor, his
real helpmate, and his wisest friend.” To both he added, as he folded
their clasped hands between his own broad palms: “Keep step together, my
children; and, whether your way shall lead you up the mountain-sides of
difficulty, or through the quagmires of sorrow, or into the glad valleys
of happiness and peace, always march side by side, in time and tune
to the eternal harmonies of religion, liberty, equality, justice, and
progression.”
And here, patient reader, with Life before them, and Love leading the
way, these chronicles shall bid adieu to the happy pair while they take
temporary leave of the remnant of the Ranger household and the Ranch of
the Whispering Firs.
THE END
FOOTNOTES
[1] The writer has not been able to trace the date or origin of these
stanzas. She learned them in her childhood of a Scotchwoman who recited
them on a winter evening in her chimney corner, and who has long been
dead. She herself has often recited the whole ballad at weddings within
the past fifty years.
[2] Since called the Ogden Gateway.
BOOKS RELATING TO THE NORTHWEST
THE JOURNALS OF LEWIS AND CLARK
GASS’S JOURNAL OF THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
THE CONQUEST
THE BRIDGE OF THE GODS
McLOUGHLIN AND OLD OREGON
LETTERS FROM AN OREGON RANCH
FROM THE WEST TO THE WEST
A SHORT HISTORY OF OREGON
(OVER)
These books are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the
publishers on receipt of price. An extra for postage will be made on
“net” books.
A. C. McCLURG & CO., PUBLISHERS, CHICAGO
The Conquest
By EVA EMERY DYE. Being the True Story of Lewis and Clark. Third Edition,
with frontispiece in full color by Charlotte Weber. 12mo, gilt top, 504
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No book published in recent years has more of tremendous import between
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“No one who wishes to know the true story of the conquest of the greater
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“A vivid picture of the Indian wars preceding the Louisiana purchase, of
the expedition of Lewis and Clark, and of events following the occupation
of Oregon.”—_The Congregationalist._
“It may not be the great American novel we have been waiting for so long,
but it certainly looks as though it would be very near it.”—_Rochester
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“The characters that are assembled in ‘The Conquest’ belong to the
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McLoughlin and Old Oregon
By EVA EMERY DYE. A Chronicle. Fifth Edition. 12mo, 381 pages. $1.50.
This is a most graphic and interesting chronicle of the movement which
added to the United States that vast territory, previously a British
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“A spirited narrative of what life in the wilderness meant in the early
days, a record of heroism, self-sacrifice, and dogged persistence; a
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The Bridge of the Gods
By F. H. BALCH. A Romance of Indian Oregon. New (seventh) Edition,
enlarged size. With eight full-page illustrations by Laurens Maynard
Dixon. Cloth, 12mo, 280 pages, gilt top. $1.50. Paper edition, without
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Encouraged by the steady demand for this powerful story, since its
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Columbia River and the mystical “bridge of the gods,” the author has
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inhabited the Oregon country two centuries ago.
The _Syracuse Herald_ calls the author of “The Bridge of the Gods” “the
best writer of Indian romance since the days of Fenimore Cooper.”
A Short History of Oregon
By SIDONA V. JOHNSON. With seventeen illustrations from photographs, and
a map of the Lewis and Clark route. 16mo, 320 pages, indexed. $1.00 _net_.
FROM HENRY E. DOSCH, _Director of Exhibits at Lewis and Clark Exposition
at Portland_.
“Every home in Oregon might well welcome this condensed, readable
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history of the State and the great and memorable achievement of Lewis
and Clark may be intelligently understood and appreciated by every man,
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Letters from an Oregon Ranch
By “KATHARINE.” With twelve full-page illustrations from photographs.
Square 8vo. $1.25 _net_.
The hours of delight, as well as those of trial, which fall to the lot
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From the West to the West
Across the Plains to Oregon
By ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY. With frontispiece in color. 12mo. $1.50.
A chronicle and remarkable picture of a group of pioneers in their
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of several romances to a successful end.
The Journals of Captains Lewis and Clark, 1804-5-6 (McClurg Library
Reprints of Americana)
Reprinted from the Edition of 1814. With an Introduction by JAMES K.
HOSMER, LL.D., an analytical Index, and photogravure portraits and maps.
In two volumes, boxed, 1,083 pages, gilt top. $5.00 _net_. Large-paper
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“The celebrated story of the expedition of Lewis and Clark has now been
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“Of the several new editions of this valuable narrative, this is by far
the best and most complete.”—_Minneapolis Journal._
“We have nothing but praise for this clear and handsome reprint.”—_The
Nation._
Gass’s Journal of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (McClurg Library
Reprints of Americana)
Reprinted from the Edition of 1811. With an Introduction by DR. JAMES K.
HOSMER, an analytical Index, facsimiles of the original illustrations,
and a rare portrait of Patrick Gass. In one square octavo volume, boxed,
350 pages, gilt top. $3.50 _net_. Large-paper edition, on Brown’s
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The appearance of this volume in the period of Lewis and Clark
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been available of the “Journal of Patrick Gass.” His narrative was for
seven years the only source from which any authentic knowledge of the
great enterprise could be obtained. When at last the work based on the
diaries of the Captains was given to the world, the earlier book, so far
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not ceased to be held in high estimation up to the present moment.
“Several picturesque details Dr. Hosmer mentions (in the ‘Introduction’)
which had eluded the argus eyes of Coues through a lifetime of waiting
and watching. Whatever he learns he sets forth with a vivacity which
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on.”—_New York Evening Post._
“It restores Gass’s Journal to a common use. The portrait of Gass, which
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Review._
“No edition of Lewis and Clark is complete unless accompanied by the
Journal of Patrick Gass. The work has been well edited, and the mechanics
are of a superior character.”—_Baltimore Sun._
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