Produced by Al Haines
[Frontispiece: "SHE'S MY GIRL!"]
THE WESTERNERS
By
Stewart Edward White
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
Copyright, 1900 and 1901, by
STEWART EDWARD WHITE
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
CONTENTS
I. THE HALF-BREED
II. THE WOMAN
III. THE MAN WHO STOOD "99"
IV. ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER
V. LAFOND DESERTS
VI. THE WOMAN AND THE MAN
VII. THE REINS OF POWER
VIII. THE MAKING OF A HOSTILE
IX. THE BROTHER OF GODS
X. THE PRICE OF A CLAIM
XI. THE BEGINNING OF LAFOND'S REVENGE
XII. THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS
XIII. THE DISSOLVING VIEW
XIV. INTO THE SHADOW OF THE HILLS
XV. IN WHICH CHEYENNE HARRY LOSES HIS PISTOL
XVI. AND GETS IT BACK AGAIN
XVII. BLACK MIKE MEETS AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE AND STARTS A COLLECTION
XVIII. TIRED WINGS
XIX. THE BROAD WHITE ROAD
XX. THE EATING OF THE APPLE
XXI. LAFOND MAKES A FRIEND
XXII. IN WHICH THE TENDERFEET CONDUCT A SHOOTING MATCH AND
GLORIFY PETER
XXIII. A FOOL FOR LUCK
XXIV. BILLY STARTS IN ON HIS FIFTY THOUSAND
XXV. JACK GRAHAM SPEAKS OUT
XXVI. AND HAS TO GO TO WORK
XXVII. PROSPERITY
XXVIII. LAFOND GOES EAST
XXIX. BISMARCK ANNE ARRIVES
XXX. ANCESTRAL VOICES
XXXI. LAFOND'S FIRST CARD
XXXII. IN WHICH THERE IS SOME SHOOTING
XXXIII. FUTILITY
XXXIV. LOVE'S EYES UNBANDAGED
XXXV. OUT OF THE PAST
XXXVI. UNDER THE ETERNAL STARS
XXXVII. ASHES
ILLUSTRATIONS
"SHE'S MY GIRL!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . _Frontispiece_
A SIOUX COUNCIL
THAT BABY CRY, "MAMA!"
"COME ACROSS, OR I'LL..."
"WATCH ME HIT THAT SQUIRREL!"
JIM PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT.
"ARE YOU STILL MAD?"
"MY LITTLE MOLLY," HE CHOKED.
I
THE HALF-BREED
A tourist of to-day, peering from the window of his vestibule train at
the electric-lit vision of Three Rivers, as it stars the banks of the
Missouri like a constellation against the blackness of the night, would
never recognize, in the trim little modern town, the old Three Rivers
of the early seventies.
To restore the latter, he should first of all sweep the ground bare of
the buildings which now adorn it, leaving, perhaps, here and there an
isolated old shanty of boards far advanced toward dissolution. He
would be called upon to substitute, in place of the brick stores and
dwellings of to-day, a motley collection of lean-tos, dug-outs, tents,
and shacks, scattered broadcast over the virgin prairie without the
slightest semblance of order. Where the Oriole furniture factory now
stands, he must be prepared to see--and hear--a great drove of horses
and oxen feeding on bottom-land grass. And for the latter-day
citizens, whose police record is so discouraging to the ambitious
chief, and so creditable to themselves, he must imagine a multitude
more heterogeneous, perhaps, than could be gathered anywhere else in
the world--tenderfeet from the East; mountaineers from Tennessee and
Kentucky, bearing their historic long pea rifles; soft-voiced
Virginians; keen, alert woodsmen from the North; wiry, silent trappers
and scouts from the West; and here and there a straight Indian,
stalking solemnly toward some one of the numerous "whiskey joints."
The court-house site he would find crowded with canvas wagons, noisy
with the shrill calling of women and children. Where Judge Oglethorpe
has recently erected his stone mansion, Frank Byers would be running a
well-patronized saloon. Were he to complete the picture by placing
himself mentally at the exact period of our story's opening, he would
find the whole town, if such it might be called, seething, turbulent,
eager, and--it must be confessed--ready for trouble.
For all these varied swarms had gathered from three points of the
compass for the purpose of pushing on to the gold discoveries of the
Black Hills. They had rushed eagerly to this extremest point--and
stopped. As far as the border of the great wilderness it was possible
to journey individually; beyond that mysterious boundary nothing could
be accomplished alone. Trained scouts and plainsmen there became
necessary, and these skilled men declined to attempt the journey.
Their reasons were simple and cogent. Throughout all of the previous
winter unusual snows had covered the pasturage to such a depth that
much of the range stock, on which the plainsman relied to draw his
heavy "schooners," had died of cold and exhaustion, while of the
survivors but an insignificant remnant was fit to travel. After
causing this damage, the snow had melted in four days, leaving the
streams swollen, and the trails in an awful state, especially in the
Bad Lands, where, in the deeper gullies, they must have been quite
washed out. As an incidental climax, piled on top to make good
measure, the Ogallalas were on the war-path; and of all the Sioux the
Ogallalas are the worst.
Nobody gave a thought to the Ogallalas. That was part of the game.
But a blind man could see that those emaciated cattle couldn't stand
the racket. And so Three Rivers steadily congested, and the conditions
of life daily became more exacting.
One of the many who had reached the frontier town, only to find himself
checked in his desire to push ahead, was a young man of twenty-two or
three. He had made a long journey, and he was correspondingly
disappointed when he foresaw, as his immediate prospect, a summer's
sojourn in a sun-baked, turbulent, unprofitable region. Not that he
was content with a superficial proof of its necessity. He sought the
preventing causes at the very sources of them: he examined the cattle
carefully; he questioned closely the men who knew the trails, the
fords, the Indians. When he had quite finished his patient
investigations, he swore briefly and gustily, and then went on a
three-days' spree, from which he sobered into a quiet cigarette-smoking
lounger, waiting for what might turn up. Nothing did.
The days followed one another until a month had passed, which seemed as
long as a year. Men gambled away one another's small store of wealth,
drank away their own disappointments, shot each other's lives out
unmolested. Three spasmodic vigilance committees hanged six men by the
neck until they were dead, but speedily allowed themselves to dissolve
and the town to relapse, because of a happy combination of sheer
laziness and sympathy with the offenders.
Rumors of an advance flew thick. They were always brought heavily to
earth by a charge of common-sense or investigation. Nevertheless,
others were speedily on the wing; and men looked at them. Ensuing
disappointment came in time to possess a cumulative force that amounted
to a dull, sullen anger against nothing in particular.
The young man of whom mention has already been made, took his month
with an outward seeming of imperturbability, but with an increasing
inner tension. He was a tall, dark, straight young man,
broad-shouldered and clean built; strong, but with fine hands and feet.
His hair was straight and black; his features clean-cut and swarthy.
By his restless eye and a certain indefinable cast of expression you
knew him for a half-breed. He gave out his name as Michail Lafond, and
he lived much in himself. Toward the close of the troublous thirty
days, a practised observer might have noticed that his slender fingers
were rarely still. Otherwise the half-breed appeared the most
indifferent member of the community.
His apparent idleness did not prevent him from investigating in his
painstaking manner each rumor as it took form. This was the reason
why, when finally the formation of a genuine train was undertaken by
three of the specialists known as scouts, Michail Lafond was one of the
earliest to know of it, and one of the first to apply for admission.
He owned four strong little horses of mustang stock, and a light,
two-wheeled wagon of the bob-tailed type. Most of his life had been
spent in the great Northern wilderness. He was expert in his own kind
of woodcraft, accustomed to hardships, and a good shot. In every
respect he knew himself fitted to become a member of such an expedition
as the present. He had no doubt of his acceptance. When he realized
that at last his waiting was ended, he saddled one of his horses, and
rode three miles out on the lonely prairie, where he jumped up and
down, shook his fists in the air, and screamed with delight. This was
the half-breed of it. Impassibility may be stupid or intensely
nervous. Then, all a-tremble, he rode back to where the three
specialists in question were camped, just on the border of the town,
and proffered his formal application.
The three to whom he addressed himself were practically at the head of
their profession. It was not a profession of easy access, but one to
which only a long and dangerous apprenticeship gave admittance. Its
members were men who had lived their lives on the frontier, either as
express riders, hunters, trappers, army scouts, or as members of the
Indian tribes themselves. They were a hardy, bold, self-reliant race,
equal to all emergencies, and exacting from the men in their charge the
most implicit obedience. To their wonderful resourcefulness is due the
fact that so many comparatively weak forces were enabled to penetrate
in safety a hostile country teeming with the most treacherous and wily
foes.
As with all crafts, they had their big men--the masters, as it
were--whose deeds they emulated, whose feats of skill and divination
they spoke of with awe, whose names they worshipped. Of such were Kit
Carson, Wild Bill, Jim Clarke, Buffalo Bill, Slade, and the three men
with whom we have to deal--Jim Buckley, Alfred, and Billy Knapp.
Billy Knapp was dark, tall, broad-shouldered, long-haired, wearing a
bristly mustache and goatee. A stranger might have remarked his
frowning, beetling brow with a little uneasiness, but would have taken
heart from the energetic kindliness of the eyes beneath. In fact,
eager, autocratic energy was the dominant note in Billy's character.
He succeeded because this energy carried him through--with some to
spare.
Jim Buckley was also tall and large, but he gave one less the idea of
nervous force than of a certain static power. He was a mass which
moved slowly but irresistibly. His seal-brown beard, his broad
forehead, the distance between his wide, steady eyes strengthened this
impression. One felt that his decisions would be hardly come at, but
stubbornly held. Success was inevitable, but it would be the result of
slow thinking, deep purpose, and a quiet tenacity of grip that never
let go.
As for Alfred--everybody has heard of him. His place in the annals of
the West is assured, and his peculiarities of person and character have
been many times described. Surely no one is unfamiliar with his short,
bandy legs, his narrow, sloping little shoulders, his contracted chest,
his queer pink and white face, with its bashful smile, his high bald
head. Everybody knows his fear of women. Everybody knows, too, that
he never had an opinion of his own on any subject. His speciality was
making the best of other people's, no matter how bad they were; and
competent judges say he could accomplish a more gloriously perfect best
out of some tenderfoot's fool notion than another man with the advice
of experts. Some people even maintain that Alfred was the best scout
the plains ever produced, only he was so bashful that it took an expert
to appreciate the fact.
When Lafond approached the camp of these men and threw himself from his
pony, he found only Jim Buckley, sitting in the shade of one of his
wagons, smoking his pipe.
"One says that you will tak' train through thees summer," began the
half-breed abruptly. "Ah lak' to go also."
Buckley looked his interlocutor over keenly.
"Yes," said he slowly, between puffs. "That's right. We aims to pull
through, but we don't aim to take no lumber with us. You married?"
Lafond shook his head. "No! No! No!" he cried vehemently.
"That's all right. Got any cattle?"
"Four horses."
"That one of them?"
"Yes."
The scout arose, still with the same appearance of deliberation, and
inspected the pony thoroughly, with the eye and movements of an expert.
"Others as good?" he inquired.
"Bettaire," assured Lafond.
"Wagon?" pursued the laconic Buckley.
"Bobtail," responded Lafond with equal brevity. Though young, he
already possessed some shrewdness in the reading of character.
Buckley sat down in the shade and relit his pipe.
"Where are you from?" he asked bluntly.
"Ontario."
"Woods?"
"Yes."
"Thought you wasn't no tenderfoot. Ever hit the trail?"
"Not on those plains. In the woods many times."
"We ain't takin' but damn few," went on Buckley dissertatively, "and
them that goes has to be right on to their job. No women; good cattle.
That's our motto. Reckon you-all fills the bill. Cyan't tell. Got to
ask the others."
Lafond knew that this, from a man of Buckley's stamp, was distinct
encouragement. At the moment, the other two members came up. Buckley,
in a few words, told them of the newcomer's desires and qualifications.
Billy looked him over briefly.
"Yo're a breed, ain't yo'?" he inquired with refreshing directness. "I
thought so." He turned to Buckley, with the air of ignoring Lafond
altogether. "That bars him," he said, with a little laugh.
"He's got a mighty good line of broncs," Buckley objected.
"Don't care if his hosses _are_ good," stated Billy decidedly. "He's a
breed, an' that's enough. I seen plenty of that crew, and I ain't
goin' to have one in the same country with me, if I can help it, let
alone the same outfit."
He began to whistle and rummage in the back of the wagon, with a
charming obliviousness to the presence of the subject of his remarks.
"That settles it," said Buckley, curtly and indifferently.
The half-breed, his nervous hands deep in his side-pockets, walked
slowly to his horse. Then, in sudden access of rapid motion, he leaped
on the animal's back and disappeared.
II
THE WOMAN
Barely had the dust of the half-breed's sudden departure sifted from
the air, when Buckley arose and announced his intention of "taking a
little look round." He was gone two hours, and returned looking solemn
and earnest. Billy and Alfred were cooking things over a small fire.
Buckley spat in a propitiatory manner toward seven small bushes, and
conversationally informed the northwest corner of the canvas top on a
nearby schooner that he, Jim Buckley, had decided to take along a woman.
Billy and Alfred thereupon spilled the coffee, and could not believe
their ears.
"She's goin', if I have to take her by myself," Buckley concluded. And
then Alfred and Billy looked up into his face, and saw that he was in
earnest.
Alfred turned pink and wriggled the bacon, trying immediately to think
how he was going to make the best of this. It did not look easy.
Billy Knapp exploded.
"You go to hell!" was his method of objection.
"She goes," repeated Jim, with even greater quietness of manner. "An'
if you-all don' like it, why, jest say so. I quits. You got to have
her, if you have me."
"I'd jest like to know why," complained Billy, a little sobered at this
threat.
Whereupon Jim found himself utterly at a loss. He had not thought as
far as that. He suddenly appreciated the logical weakness of his
position; but then, again, intuitively, he realized more subtly its
strength. So he said not a word, but arose lightly, and brought unto
them the woman herself.
She was a sweet little woman, with deep, trusting blue eyes, and she
accompanied Jim without a thought of the opposition she had excited.
Jim merely told her she was to meet the other two men. She intended
only to show her appreciation of their kindness.
She approached the fire, and assumed her most gracious manner.
"I want to thank you both, as well as Mr. Buckley, for being so good to
me," she began, with real feeling. "I know how hard it is for you to
take me just now, and I appreciate it more than I can say. I don't
know what we would have done. You need not be afraid that we shall be
much trouble, for we will all be brave, and not murmur. Your goodness
has made me very happy, and I am going to pray to God for you
to-night," said the little Puritan with simple reverence. It meant a
great deal to her.
Alfred, as usual, was wrigglingly shy. Billy Knapp several times
opened his mouth to object, but somehow closed it slowly each time
without having objected. The woman saw. She thought it meant that her
presence embarrassed them both, so with true tact she wished them a
gentle good-night, and went away.
The three looked at one another.
"Well?" asked Jim defiantly.
Billy coughed. He spat in the fire. He exploded. "Damn it! She
goes!" he roared with the voice of a bull.
They both looked expectantly toward Alfred. Alfred nodded his head.
He was wondering how long it had been since anyone had prayed for him.
"Thar is a man with her," remarked Jim, after a moment's silence.
"He's a tenderfoot. And a kid. The kid has blue eyes, too," he added
irrelevantly.
"The camp'll be mighty riled," put in Alfred.
"Let's go see the tenderfoot," suggested the practical Billy.
They dropped everything, and went over to the "hotel," where they
viewed the woman's husband at a safe distance. He was a slight, bent
man, with near-sighted eyes behind thick spectacles, straight, light
hair, and a peering, abstracted expression of countenance. He wore a
rather shiny frock coat.
"Gee Christmas!" ejaculated Billy, and laughed loudly.
Alfred shook his head.
Jim looked grave.
They returned to camp, and began to discuss the question of ways and
means. There would surely be trouble when the affair became known.
The inclusion of a tenderfoot from Chicago, on account of his pinto
team, had almost resulted in a riot of the rejected. Not one of the
three was fatuous enough to imagine for a moment that Jack Snowie, for
instance, who had been refused because he wanted to take his wife,
would exactly rejoice over the scouts' decision. In fact, Jack had a
rather well-developed sense of injustice, and a summary method of
showing it. And he was by no means alone.
Jim agreed to transport the three in his schooner, which was one point
well settled. Billy suggested at least a dozen absurd methods of
keeping the camp in ignorance until the start had actually been made,
each one of which was laughed to scorn by the practical Jim.
"She might put on men's clothes," he concluded desperately.
"For the love of God, what for?" inquired Jim. "Stick to sense, Billy.
Besides, there's the kid."
Billy tried once more.
"They might meet us 'bout a hundred mile out. He could take Jim's
schooner, here, and mosey out nor'-west, and then jest nat'rally pick
us up after we gets good and started. That way, the camp thinks he
palavers with Jim and us to get a schooner, and maybe they thinks Jim
is a damn fool a whole lot, but Jim don't mind that; do you, Jim?"
"No, I don't mind that," said Jim, "but yore scheme's no good."
"Why?"
"He wouldn't get ten mile before somebody'd hold him up and lift his
schooner off him. They's a raft of bad men jest layin' fer a chance
like that to turn road agent."
Billy turned a slow brick-red, and got up suddenly, overturning the
coffee-pot. A dozen strides brought him to the camp of the Tennessee
outfit. There he raised his voice to concert pitch.
"We aims to pull out day arter to-morrow," he bellowed. "We also aims
to take with us two tenderfeet, a woman, and a kid. Them that has
objections can go to the devil."
So saying, he turned abruptly on his heel and returned to his friends.
Jim whistled; but Alfred smiled softly, and began to recap the nipples
of his old-fashioned Colt's revolvers. Alfred was at that time the
best shot with a six-shooter in the middle West.
Seeing this, Billy's frown relaxed into a grin.
"I'm thinkin' that them that does object probably will go to the
devil," said he.
In half an hour the news was all over camp. When Michail Lafond heard
of it, he left his dinner half eaten and went out to talk earnestly to
a great variety of people.
III
THE MAN WHO STOOD "99"
The three scouts would never have been able to explain satisfactorily
their reasons for being so easily persuaded, or their obstinacy in
adhering to the determination so suddenly made. Prue Welch would have
thanked a divine providence for it. The doctor, her husband, took it
as quite in the natural course of events.
He was a queer man, the doctor, a pathetic little figure in the world's
progress--an outgrowth of it, in a certain way of thinking.
Born of good old New England stock, he spent his studious, hard-working
boyhood on a farm. At sixteen he went to the high school, where he was
adored by his teachers because he stood ninety-nine in algebra.
Inconsequently, but inevitably, this rendered him shy in the presence
of girls, and unwarrantably conscious of his hands and feet. So, when
he went to college, he spent much time in the library, more in the
laboratory, and none at all in the elemental little chaos of a world
that can do so much for the wearers of queer clothes and queerer habits
of thought. He graduated, a spectacled grind, bowed of shoulder,
straight of hair, earnest of thought.
Much reading of abstract speculation had developed in him a reverence
for the impractical that amounted almost to obsession. Given a bit of
useless information and a chunk of solid wisdom, he would at once
bestow his preference on the former, provided, always, it were
theoretical enough. He knew the dips of strata from their premonitary
surface wiggles to their final plunges into unknown and heated depths.
He could deliver to you a cross-section of your pasture lot, streaked
like the wind-clouds of early winter; and he could explain it in the
most technical language. Nothing rock-ribbed and ancient escaped him
in his frequent walks. He saw everything--except, perchance, the
beauty that clothes the rock-ribbed and ancient as a delicate aura,
invisible to the eye of science--and he labelled what he saw, and
ticketed it away in the pigeon-holes of his many-chambered mind, where
he could put his finger on it at any given moment in the easiest
fashion in the world.
It is very pleasant to know where the Paleozoic has faulted, and how;
or why the stratifications of the ice age do not show glacial scorings
in certain New England localities. To verify in regard to lamination
green volumes of obese proportions, or to recognize the projection into
the geological physical world of the thought of a master, this is fine,
is noble; this makes to glow the kindly light in spectacled blue eyes.
Adoniram Welch left college with many honors. He returned to his
little New England village, and for a space was looked upon as a local
celebrity. This is a bad thing for most youths, but Adoniram it
affected not at all. It availed only to draw upon him, in sweet
contemplation, another pair of blue eyes, womanly, serious blue eyes,
under a tangle of curly golden hair.
And so, although Prue Welch was a homely name, and Prue Winterborne a
beautiful one, when Adoniram accepted the chair of geology offered him
by his alma mater, the owner of the blue eyes went with him, and the
new professor's thick spectacles somehow glowed with a kindly warmth,
which even fine specimens of the finest fossils had never been able to
kindle. He settled down into a little white house, in a little
blossomy "yard," under a very big, motherly elm, and gave his days to
the earnest mental dissection of the cuticle of the globe. His wife
attacked the problem of life on six hundred dollars a year.
Now, from this state of affairs sprang two results. The professor
evolved a theory, and Mrs. Professor, although she did not in the least
understand what it was all about, came to believe in it, to champion
it, to consider it quite the most important affair of the age. The
professor thought so, too; and so they were happy and united.
The theory was a tremendous affair, having to do with nothing less than
the formation of our continent. It was revolutionary in the extreme,
but shed such illumination in hitherto dark corners of this and allied
subjects that its probability, _prima facie_, was practically assured.
To Prue Welch it seemed to be quite so; but the inexorable eye of
science discerned breaks in the chain of continuity, gaps in the
procession of proofs, which, while not of vast importance in a specious
argument designed to furnish with peptonized intellectual pabulum the
more frivolous-minded layman, nevertheless sufficed to destroy utterly
its worth as a serious hypothesis. These breaks, the professor
explained, could never be filled except by actual field-work. The
proper field, he assured her, was the country of the Black Hills of
South Dakota, then as distant as the antipodes. He proved this
scientifically. Prue agreed, but did not understand. A number of
years later she did understand, from hearing Billy Knapp joking with
Alfred.
"These yar hills," said Billy, "was made last. The Lo'd had a little
of everything left when he'd finished the rest, so he chucked it down
on the prairie, an' called it the Black Hills."
However, the mere fact of her comprehension mattered not one iota. If
Adoniram said a thing was so, to Prue its truth at once became age-old.
So it happened that the great theory hung fire wofully, and the country
of their dreams came to lie beyond the frontier wilderness, whose tide
was but just beginning to ebb back from the pine woods of Wisconsin and
the oak openings of Illinois. This was finality. What lay beyond they
did not trouble to inquire. The professor sighed the sigh of patient
abnegation. The professor's wife believed, with beautiful trust, that
a divine providence would provide, and that with the earth-wide fame
that must accrue to the author of _New World Erosions_ would come added
opportunity for added reputation.
For a number of years the kind-hearted little professor looked
steadfastly out of the window during examinations in geology, and
turned a resolute deaf ear to the rustling of leaves as the despairing
student manipulated a cleverly concealed volume. For a number of years
he came home at four o'clock in the afternoon, and feverishly corrected
blue books until six, in order to ransom from professional duties the
whole of the precious evening. For a number of years he consulted
authorities in German and other difficult languages, and waxed ever
more enthusiastic over the new theory of erosions. During the interim
the baby learned to walk, and Prue's belief in its father strengthened,
if such a thing were possible. In time the professor and his wife grew
to be quite old. He looked every bit of his thirty, and she was an
aged dowager of twenty-five. Little Miss Prue was just two and a half.
One day, early in the spring, the professor was called to the door of
his class-room to receive a telegram. He read it quietly, then
dismissed his class, and went home.
"Prue," said he to his wife, "my father has just died. I must go up
there at once, for he was all I had left in the world, and it is not
seemly that I should be from his side."
You can see from his manner of speech that the professor had by now
read a great many bookish books.
"We will go together," replied Prue.
So they put away mortality in the old Puritan fashion, standing
wistful, but tearless, hand in hand, on the hither side of grief; for
though in perspective the figure of the old New Englander loomed with a
certain gloomy and ascetic grandeur, in the daily contact he had always
held himself sternly and straitly in fear of God. For him the twin
lamps of Science and Love had burned but darkly.
Adoniram Welch found himself sole heir of a few thousands and the old
home.
On the way back to the college town, they planned the Western trip.
The professor was to resign his chair at once. He and Mrs. Prue and
little Miss Prue would travel by rail to Kansas or Iowa, there to join
one of the wagon-trains which now, in the height of the first great
gold excitement, continually braved savage warfare and brute thirst to
gain the dark shadows of the hills.
During the next three weeks, Prue was a busy woman. The professor
resigned, becoming thereby only "the doctor"; had an explanatory
interview with the president of the college, and gave himself over to a
series of delightful potterings. He pottered about among his
belongings, and personally superintended just how everything was not
stowed away. He pottered about among the faculty, to the members of
which he talked mysteriously with ill-concealed exultation, for the
theory was also a secret. He lovingly packed his books and papers and
a small portion of his clothes, all of which Prue had to hunt out and
repack. Altogether, he had a delightful, absent-minded time, seeing in
the actual world no further than the end of his nose, but in the
visionary world of his most technical hopes far beyond the farthest
star.
But Prue had a New England village to answer; she had the family's
belongings to take care of--no great task in itself; she had little
Miss Prue to oversee. Grave men who were professors of astronomy, or
Greek antiquities, or Hebrew, and who, therefore, knew all about it,
told her, in language of whose correctness Addison would have been
proud, that the aborigines of the American plains were bloodthirsty in
the extreme. Fluttering women detailed anecdotes of sudden death at
the hands of Indians. One and all bade her good-by with the firm
conviction, openly expressed, that she would never return; upon which
all whom weeping became wept, while others displayed their best
handkerchiefs as a sort of defiant substitute for more open emotion.
Prue saw the little town fade into distance with mingled feelings, of
which terror was the predominant, until her husband explained to her,
by the aid of an airy little octavo which he had stuffed into an
inadequate bag, that Professor Nincomb's theory of glacial action was
not only false, but would be conclusively proved to be so by the new
theory of erosion. At this she brightened. Prue owned to a vague
impression that glacial action had something to do with the North Pole,
so the argument _per se_ had little weight with her. But Prue was a
New Englander, and devout in the New England fashion, and she settled
back on Divine Providence with great thankfulness. She argued that no
scheme of things could dispense ruthlessly with so wonderful an affair
as the theory of erosions. Therefore the scheme of things would take
care of the only possessor of the theory. Indians lost their terrors,
she and little Miss Prue fell asleep together, leaving the doctor still
poring excitedly over the octavo of Professor Nincomb.
Their first serious difficulties were encountered at Three Rivers. Of
course, in the circumstances, the mild little doctor quite failed in
his attempts to secure transportation. How should he, a scientist,
know or care anything about gold excitements? The hustle confused him,
the crowd stunned him, the fierce self-reliance and lack of
consideration of these rough men alarmed him.
He came back to the board hotel very much discouraged. "There is not a
conveyance of any sort to be found," he informed Mrs. Prue, "and there
is great difficulty in estimating the precise duration of the present
state of affairs. It may continue into next summer; or so, at least, I
was informed by a very estimable person."
That was unbearable. Think of little Miss Prue being required, in the
third year of her diminutive life, to face the heat of the plains in
midsummer! Think of the cost of living a twelvemonth in such a place
as Three Rivers! Prue put on her hat and went out into the turbulent
camp. Until that moment she had deemed it wisest to remain in her room.
She was greeted only with respect. Men paused and looked after her.
You see, Prue had such grave, calm eyes, that looked straight at you
with so much confidence; and such a sensitive, serious mouth, that
argued such a capacity for making up quiet opinions of people--and
acting on them--that you were always very much inclined to take off
your hat, even if you were Tony Quinn and middling drunk. It was not
ten minutes before she had corroborated the doctor's bad news; but she
had also heard incidentally of Billy Knapp, Alfred, and Buckley. The
hotel-keeper pointed out the latter--that quiet man with the brown
beard. Prue went straight to him and stated her case.
In the statement she laid great stress on the importance of the dip of
strata. If the doctor did not get to work before long, he would be
unable to finish his explorations before his means had become
exhausted. Prue waxed quite technical. She used a number of long
words and a few long phrases, hoping thus to awe the calm and
contemplative individual in front of her.
Buckley did not comprehend the reasons. He did comprehend the
unutterable eloquence of the eyes, for though her logic went for naught
with the scout, it succeeded nevertheless in impressing Prue herself,
in bringing more vividly before her the importance of it all. She
clasped her hands, and tears choked her. When she had finished, Jim
said gravely that she should go.
IV
ALFRED USES HIS SIX-SHOOTER
Michail Lafond merely spread the news, and made it a subject of
discussion. In his statements he said nothing of his own grievance,
nor did he suggest a plan. He knew that this was not a case for
violence, nor did he care that it should become such. His actions
always depended very much on how an impulse hit his queerly constructed
nature. In the present instance he might either resolve to get even
with Billy Knapp by means of personal vengeance, or his anger might
take the direction of a cold, set determination to get through the
plains journey in spite of the scout's prohibition. That the latter,
rather than the former course happened to appeal to him, was purely a
matter of chance. So, though he said little to the direct point, the
plan finally adopted in secret by a choice few had a good deal of his
desire mingled in its substance.
The quiescence of the camp astonished and puzzled the three scouts.
They had expected an outbreak, and were prepared for it. It did not
come.
The three days slipped by; everything was packed; and early in the
morning, before the dawn's freshness had left the air, the little band
defiled across the prairie. A curious crowd gathered sleepily to watch
it go, but there was no demonstration. Billy openly congratulated
himself. Alfred looked to see that his revolvers were still capped.
The party comprised an even dozen "schooners," each drawn by four tough
ponies. Besides these, a dozen men rode on horseback. On occasion,
their mounts could be pressed into draft service. The men themselves
were a representative lot; tall, bronzed, silent. They had taken part
in the fierce Indian wars, then just beginning to lull; they had ridden
pony-express with Wild Bill; they had stalked revenue officers in the
mountains of Tennessee. As they strode with free grace beside their
teams, or sat, with loose-swaying shoulders, their wiry little broncos,
they drew to themselves in the early light the impressiveness of an
age--the age of pioneers.
At their head rode Billy Knapp. At their rear rode Jim Buckley.
Alfred was a little of everywhere at once. As a matter of habit, these
three carried their rifles cross-fashion in front of them, but the new
Winchesters and the old long-barrelled pieces of the other score of men
were still slung inside the canvas covers, for the Indian country was
yet to see. Beneath the axles hung pails. The wagons contained much
food, a good supply of ammunition, and a scanty equipment of the
comforts of life. In one of them were three wooden boxes, two trunks,
the doctor, Mrs. Prue, and little Miss Prue herself, laughingly proud
at being allowed to dangle along the dew-wet grass the heavy coil of a
black snake whip.
The men shouted suddenly, the horses leaned to their collars, the
wagons creaked, and the swaying procession began to loom huge and
ghost-like in the mist that steamed golden-white from the surface of
the prairie.
Then, from the haze of the town, six more wagons silently detached
themselves, and followed in the wake of the first.
This second caravan differed from the other in that it deployed no
outriders, and from the close-drawn canvas of its wagons came, once in
a while, the sharp cry of a child, followed immediately by the
comforting of a woman. The men drove from the seats, and across the
lap of each was a weapon.
About five miles out, the first caravan halted until the second drew
nearer. Billy Knapp cantered back to it. One of the men in the
foremost wagon thereupon clamped the brake and jumped to the ground,
where he stood, leaning on the muzzle of his big mountaineer's rifle,
chewing a nonchalant plug.
"What's this?" demanded Billy, reining in his horse.
The man shifted his quid.
"Nawthin'," he drawled, "'xcept that this yare outfit's a-goin' too."
Billy's eyes snapped.
"We settled all thet afore," said he, with outward calm.
"This yare outfit's a-goin' too," reiterated the man.
"The hell it is!" cried the scout angrily. "We all said no women and
no poor hosses, and that goes. Yore hosses are a lot of crowbait,
and----"
"The women is women as is women," cried another voice, "and not yore
leetle white-faced, yaller-haired sort that'd keel over if yo' said boo
to her!"
During the laconic dialogue, the schooners had gradually drawn nearer,
until now they were grouped in a rough crescent around the two men.
Billy looked up to see a tall woman in blue gingham haranguing him from
behind one of the seats.
"I reckon if she can go, we can; and you jest chalk that down, Mr.
Speckleface!" she went on. Billy was slightly pockmarked.
Other canvas flaps opened, and the audience was increased by half.
"We're goin'," went on the woman, "whether you want us to or not; an'
what's more, you got t' take care of us in the Injun country, an' if
you don't I'll curse you from the grave, you white-livered, no 'count
cradle robber, you! Folks has some rights on the plains, an' you know
it jest's well as I do, an' if you think you can shake yore ole pals
for a lot of no 'count tenderfeet, an' not find trouble, you jest fools
yoreself up a lot, let me tell you that. If Dave yere had th' sperrit
of a coyote, he'd fix you, Mr. Seoul!" with vast contempt.
"You men are all alike! A pretty face----" began the virago again, but
Billy had fled at speed.
The man, who had been chuckling silently, spat and threw the rifle into
the hollow of his arm.
"Good for you, Susie," he remarked.
"You shut up!" replied Susie with acerbity, and retired within. The
man had yet to learn that one should never voluntarily step within the
notice of an angry woman.
The two wagon-trains proceeded as before--one behind the other by about
half a mile.
At intervals Billy or Jim went back to expostulate. They might be able
to undertake the responsibility of one woman, hardly of nine! But they
never got a hearing, as all the conversation was vituperative and
one-sided.
Alfred led the party to a deep, swift crossing of the Platte. By the
aid of the extra ponies the ford was made without loss. The second
party had a hard struggle, but emerged dripping and triumphant.
Billy and Jim were again put to rout in an attempt at mere verbal
dissuasion.
Alfred took them roundabout through a piece of country, cut and gullied
by rains. Some hills they climbed by the help of long ropes. The
second party dragged their wagons up singly, using all their animals to
each wagon. They lost some time, but the evening of the day following
they strung out in the rear as imperturbably as ever. Alfred ordered
all the riders into the wagons, and, by alternating the ponies, made
forced marches, hoping thus to shake the others off. The others,
however, discovering that Alfred's party had been doubling and twisting
through the worst country, detached a single rider, whose business it
was to search out the directest and easiest route. Thus they caught
up. Alfred discovered it too late, for they were now on the borders of
the Indian country.
Here a serious problem presented itself. The second party had, up to
now, made no attempt to close in and join forces. On entering the
Indian country, they would certainly do so. The question was, whether
they should be resisted or received.
If they were not repulsed, could they be brought through successfully?
If they were resisted, would the resistance be effective? One thing or
the other must be decided immediately, for, whatever the policy
adopted, it must be a settled policy before entering hostile ground.
In the contest of endurance, the score of men comprising the main party
had taken part amusedly. They were under the command of the scouts.
When the scouts ordered speed, speed was made. When they said to climb
hills, hills were climbed. When they advised difficult fords, the
difficulties of crossing were overcome. If the other train had trouble
keeping up with the procession, why, that was good enough fun. But
actual resistance was a different matter. After all, according to
their lights, these other men were entirely in the right. They had
been excluded from the expedition, on the basis of a rule which had
been agreed to after some grumbling; and now that the rule had been
broken by the very framers of it, there seemed to be no longer fair
grounds of exclusion; and therefore a certain rough sense of justice
inclined them to take sides with the bearers of the pea rifles in the
rear. At the same time, they felt the truth of Billy's statement, that
it would be impossible to get so unwieldy a caravan over the rough
country and through the dangers to come. So, seeing reason on both
sides, they maintained a guarded neutrality.
Resistance being out of the question, the three next considered the
other horn of the dilemma. Alfred rode over to examine the prospective
addition to the party. He found the animals in poor condition, partly
because of the forced marches he had himself imposed. In his opinion
they would not last out the journey, and he so reported, to the great
consternation of the other two.
While they lamented, Prue came up and heard a part. She demanded the
whole, and they told her frankly. The heroine of romance, realizing
herself the cause of the trouble, would have offered to return with the
other women, and so the whole question would have been resolved; but
Prue was only a very nice little woman, in love with her husband. Her
chief concern was not the triumph of eternal justice, but whether the
whole expedition would come to nothing. She pondered.
"If you can't keep them from going with us, and if you can't get
through if they do go with us," she said finally, "it seems to me that
the only way to fix it would be to do something so they couldn't
go"--with which vague hint this Puritan looked wickedly at them all,
and went away, clinching her small hands with anger. From the hint,
they made a plan to which all three agreed.
Next morning Jim roused the camp an hour earlier than usual, and
insisted on an immediate departure. The horses were hitched, and the
breakfast things put away. Then Alfred rode over to the other camp,
with Jim and Billy following at a little distance.
People start a camp on the plains, in a safe country, by arranging the
wagons in a rough semicircle. Behind this semicircle the horses are
hobbled, and left to graze. In front of it the cooking-fire is built.
During the night, besides the regular sentinels, one man is assigned to
ride herd, but this is unnecessary in full daylight; so at breakfast
the horses are left to graze quite unprotected. In a hostile country,
picket ropes and more care are needed. This party had so hobbled
twenty-four animals--four for each wagon, which is a scant supply.
Alfred cantered rapidly up to the herd from the east. He had made a
long detour, so as to approach in the eye of the sun. With the twelve
chambers of his revolvers he killed eleven horses. As I have said,
Alfred was one of the best pistol shots in the middle West; After this,
he put spurs to his mount, and shot away like an arrow in the direction
of his own camp.
The unsuspicious mountaineers, at breakfast, did not gather their wits
until too late. Then eight of them leaped fiercely upon some of the
remaining animals, and pursued the wagon-train, which, under the
frantic urging of Billy and Jim, was already under way in close order.
A few of their bullets spattered against the wagon-bodies, and they
wounded a horse.
This roused the other men. Neutrality was all right enough, but they
could not afford to lose horses, so they made such a brave show of
rifle muzzles that the eight fell back. Three to one was too big odds;
but their rage was great.
Then Jim took his life in his hands, and rode a little way out on the
prairie toward them, waving a white handkerchief. Somebody shot at
him, and bored a hole through the looseness of his flannel shirt,
whereupon he dismounted and dropped two horses with his new-model
Winchester. His own horse was killed in the exchange, but Jim could
take care of himself in frontier fashion.
Before the men could reload or move, Jim, imperturbably, arose from
behind his dead mount, and waved his white handkerchief again. There
was a moment's hesitation, then someone returned the signal. Jim
promptly advanced. His remarks were brief and businesslike, and were
received in sullen silence.
"You fellows have got to go back," said he. "You have hosses enough
left to get your women back with, by goin' slow. If you try to shoot
us up any, we'll kill every hoof you have. So don't come any funny
business."
He turned squarely on his heel, and walked away rapidly. He wanted to
get his distance before the reaction came. Michail Lafond, no longer
impassive, shook his rifle after him.
"You damn skunk!" he shouted, hoarse with anger. "Tell your damn woman
I'll pull every hair from her head!"
Jim did not turn his head, but ducked into the long grass, where he
wriggled along Indian fashion. Lafond, who had thrown his rifle into
position for a shot, started forward in pursuit, his face twisted with
passion, but he was dragged back by main strength. Two of the horses
bore double, and the little group turned sullenly toward the east.
The mood of the original party, after this incident, was grim. The
bonds of plains brotherhood had been lightly broken.
Alfred had resorted to such desperate measures in making the best of
undesirable conditions brought to pass by someone else.
Billy Knapp had done so because he had entered into a game, and
declined to be beaten by anyone.
Jim alone was happy. He had done it solely and simply for a woman; and
the woman had seen him fight for her.
V
LAFOND DESERTS
The eight men of the attacking party returned slowly to the little dip
of land which held the temporary camp. They were defeated, baffled,
and angry. If a stranger had accosted them at that moment, he would
probably have been gruffly answered one minute and assaulted the next.
But for the present they were silent. They were Anglo-Saxons and
Tennessee mountaineers for the most part; hence they were also
adaptable, and attuned to the fatalism that comes from much
contemplating of cloud-capped peaks and wind-swept pines.
Not so with Michail Lafond, who alternately raved and wept, frantically
brandishing his rifle. An impassive mountaineer sat behind him,
holding him to the party. If not thus restrained, he would, in the
heat of anger, have attacked the whole train single-handed, for he was
brave enough in his way. The sober second-thought of the Indian in him
might perhaps have caused him to pause on the brink of the charge and
sink into the long grasses to await the chance of a more silent blow;
but the impulse up to that point would have been real and whole-souled.
So it was now. The man raved as a maniac might. He called down the
curses of heaven on his companions for cowards.
And in this, when he reached camp, he was ably seconded by the women.
They surrounded him in a voluble and indignant group, and listened to
him with sympathy, casting glances of scorn toward their passive lords
and masters in the background. In their way they became as excited as
Lafond. One or two wept. Most employed the variety of their
vocabularies in giving the world what is known as a "piece of their
minds."
In the still air of a prairie morning their hysterical cackle rose like
the crying of an indignant band of brant. Lafond told, dramatically,
what should have been done. The women, in turn, told how effectively
they would have done it. The men were taking stock of the situation.