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
pages. $1.50.
No book published in recent years has more of tremendous import between
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continent, should have a lasting place in the esteem of every American.