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.