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.