of those boys was Bill Ascott, whom I've known twenty years, an' he's
brought those cattle so cleverly all the way from Montana that they are
in as good condition now as they were the day they started. And I had a
fine gallop with them, too."
He had more to say, but he stopped when he noticed her deeply frowning
face.
"What is wrong, Mrs. Grayson?" he asked, in apprehension.
"Oh, you had a fine gallop, did you!" she said, in a tone of biting
irony. "I am glad of it. Mr. William Plummer ought to have his gallop,
under any circumstances!"
He stared at her in increasing amazement.
"I don't know that I'm counted a dull man, but you've got me now, Mrs.
Grayson."
She pointed to the station platform, where the two brown heads were
still not far apart.
"Without a word you left the woman that you are going to marry to look
at a lot of cattle."
"Why, Sylvia is only a child, an' we've been used to each other for
years. She understands."
"Yes, she will understand, or she isn't a woman," said Mrs. Grayson, and
if possible the biting irony of her tone increased. "You will see, too,
Mr. William Plummer, that one man at least did not neglect her for the
sake of some dusty cattle."
Mr. Plummer stared again at the pair on the platform, and a mingled look
of pain and apprehension came into his eyes.
"You surely can't mean anything of that kind! Why, little Sylvia has
promised--"
"All things are possible, Mr. Plummer. My husband is a lawyer, and I
have heard him quote often a maxim of the law which runs something like
this, 'He must keep who can.'"
She turned away and would not have another word to say to him then,
leaving Mr. Plummer in much perplexity and trouble.
Mrs. Grayson herself was in a similar perplexity and trouble throughout
the day. Her doubts about the letter she had written to "King" Plummer
increased. Perhaps it would have been wiser to let affairs take their
own course. The sight of the two brown heads and the two young faces on
the station platform had made her very thoughtful, and she drew
comparisons with "King" Plummer; there might be days in autumn which
resembled those of spring, but it was only a fleeting resemblance,
because autumn was itself, with its own coloring, its own fruits, and
its own days, and nothing could turn it into spring. "I will not meddle
again," she resolved, and then her mind was taken off the matter by an
incident in her husband's progress. In Nebraska the men left the train
for a few days, travelling by carriage, and here occurred the event
which created a great stir in its time.
IX
JIMMY GRAYSON'S SPELL
A night, after a beautiful, brown October day, came on dark and rainy,
with fierce winds off the Rocky Mountains; and Harley, who was in the
first carriage with the candidate, could barely see the heads of the
horses, gently rising and falling as they splashed through the mud.
Behind him he heard faintly the sound of wheels amid the wind and rain,
and he knew that the other correspondents and the politicians, who
always hung on the trail of Jimmy Grayson, shifting according to
locality, were following their leader in single file.
Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia had remained on the special car, and expected to
join them on the following day, although Sylvia was quite prepared to
take the carriage journey across the country and dare all the risks of
the darkness and possible bad weather. Indeed, with the fine spirit of
the West and her own natural high courage, she wanted to go, saying that
she could stand as much as a man, and only Mrs. Grayson's refusal to
accompany her and the consequent lack of a chaperone compelled her to
abandon the idea. Now Harley and Mr. Grayson were very glad that she was
not out in the storm.
Although the hood of the carriage was down and the collar of Harley's
heavy coat was turned up to his ears, the cold rain, lashed by the
wind, struck him in the face now and then.
"You don't do anything by halves out here on these Western plains," he
said.
"No," replied Jimmy Grayson, "we don't deal in disguises; when we're hot
we're hot, and when we're cold we're cold. Now, after a perfect day,
we're having the wildest kind of a night. It's our way."
It was then ten o'clock, and they had expected to reach Speedwell at
midnight, crossing the Platte River on the big wooden bridge; but the
rain, the darkness, and the singularly sticky quality of the black
Nebraska mud would certainly delay them until one o'clock in the
morning, and possibly much later. It was not a cheerful prospect for
tired and sleepy men.
"Mr. Grayson," said Harley, "without seeking to discredit you, I wish I
had gone to another war instead of coming out here with you. That would
have been less wearing."
The candidate laughed.
"But you are seeing the West as few men from New York ever see it," he
said.
The driver turned, and a little stream of water ran off his hat-brim
into Harley's face.
"It's the wind that holds us back, Mr. Grayson," he said; "if we leave
the road and cut across the prairie on the hard ground it will save at
least an hour."
"By all means, turn out at once," said the candidate, "and the others
will follow."
"Wise driver; considerate man!" remarked Harley.
There was marked relief the moment the wheels of the carriage struck the
brown grass. They rolled easily once more, and the off horse, lifting up
his head, neighed cheerfully.
"It means midnight, and not later, Harley," said the candidate, in a
reassuring tone.
Harley leaned back in his seat, and trusted all now to the wise and
considerate driver who had proposed such a plan. The night was just as
black as a hat, and the wind and rain moaned over the bleak and lonesome
plains. They were far out in Nebraska, and, although they were near the
Platte River, it was one of the most thinly inhabited sections of the
state. They had not seen a light since leaving the last speaking-place
at sundown. Harley wondered at the courage of the pioneers who crossed
the great plains amid such a vast loneliness. He and the candidate were
tired, and soon ceased to talk. The driver confined his attention to his
business. Harley fell into a doze, from which he was awakened after a
while by the sudden stoppage of the carriage. The candidate awoke at the
same time. The rain had decreased, there was a partial moonlight, and
the driver was turning upon them a shamefaced countenance.
"What's the matter?" asked the candidate.
"To tell you the truth, Mr. Grayson," replied the driver, in an
apologetic tone. "I've gone wrong somehow or other, and I don't know
just where we're at."
"Lost?" said Harley.
"If you wish to put it that way, I reckon you're right," said the
driver, with a touch of offence.
"What has become of the other carriages?" asked Harley, looking back for
them.
"I reckon they didn't see us when we turned out, and they kept on along
the road."
There was no doubt about the plight into which they had got themselves.
The plain seemed no less lonely than it was before the white man came.
"What's that line of trees across yonder?" asked the candidate.
"I guess it marks where the Platte runs," replied the driver.
"Then drive to it; if we follow the trees we must reach the bridge, and
then things will be simple."
The driver became more cheerful, the rain ceased and the moonlight
increased; but Harley lacked confidence. He had a deep distrust of the
Platte River. It seemed to him the most ridiculous stream in the United
States, making a presumptuous claim upon the map, and flowing often in a
channel a mile wide with only a foot of water. But he feared the marshes
and quicksands that bordered its shallow course.
They reached the line of gaunt trees, dripping with water and whipped by
the wind, and Harley's fears were justified. The river was there, but
they could not approach it, lest they be swallowed up in the sand, and
they turned back upon the prairie.
"We must find a house," said the candidate; "if it comes to the pinch we
can pass the night in the carriage, but I don't like to sleep sitting."
They bore away from the river, driving at random, and after an hour saw
a faint light under the dusky horizon.
"The lone settler!" exclaimed Harley, who began to cherish fond
anticipations of a bed. "Go straight for it, driver."
The driver was not loath, and even the horses, seeming to have renewed
hope, changed their sluggish walk to a trot. They had no hesitation in
seeking shelter at that hour, entire strangers though they were, such an
act being in perfect accordance with the laws of Western hospitality.
As they approached, a bare wooden house, unprotected by trees, rose out
of the plain. A wire fence enclosed a half-acre or so about it, and
apparently there had been a few rather futile attempts to make a lawn.
"Looks cheerless," said Harley.
"But it holds beds," said the candidate.
"You save your voice," said Harley; "I'll call the farmer, and I hope it
will be a man who can speak English, and not some new Russian or
Bohemian citizen."
He sprang out of the carriage, glad to relieve himself from his cramped
and stiff position, and walked towards the little gate in the wire
fence. There was a sudden rush of light feet, a stream of fierce barks
and snarls, and Harley sprang back in alarm as two large bull-dogs,
red-mouthed, flung themselves against the fence.
"I said you had no cause to regret that war," called the candidate from
the carriage.
The wires were strong, and they held the dogs; but the animals hung to
the fence, as fierce as wolves; and Harley, lifting up his voice, added
to the chorus with a "Hi! Hi! Mr. Farmer! Strangers want to stop with
you!"
The din was tremendous, and presently a window in the second story was
shoved up, and a man, fully dressed, carrying a long-barrelled rifle in
his hands, appeared at it. He called to the dogs, which ceased at once
their barking and snarling, and then he gazed down at the intruders in
no friendly manner. Harley saw him clearly, a tall, gaunt old man,
white-haired, but muscular and strong. He held the rifle as if he were
ready to use it--a most unusual thing in this part of the country, where
householders seldom kept fire-arms.
"What do you want?" he called, in a sharp, high voice.
"Beds!" cried Harley. "We are lost, and if you don't take us in we'll
have to sleep on the prairie, which is a trifle damp."
"Waal, I 'low it hez rained a right smart," said the old man, grimly.
Harley noticed at once the man's use of "right smart," an expression
with which he had been familiar in another part of the country, and it
encouraged him. He was sure now of hospitality.
"Who are you?" the old man called.
"Mr. Grayson, the nominee for President of the United States, is in the
carriage, and I am his friend, one of the newspaper correspondents
travelling with him."
"Wait a minute."
The window was closed, and in a few moments the old man came out at the
front door. He carried the rifle on his shoulder, but Harley attributed
the fact to his haste at the mention of Jimmy Grayson's name.
"My name is Simpson--Daniel Simpson," he said, hospitably. "Tell the
driver to put the horses in the barn."
He waved his hand towards a low building in the rear of his residence,
and then he invited the candidate and the correspondent to enter. He
looked curiously, but with reverence, at the candidate.
"You are really Jimmy Grayson," he said. "I'd know you off-hand by your
picture, which I guess hez been printed in ev'ry newspaper in the United
States. I 'low it's a powerful honor to me to hev you here."
"And it's a tremendous accommodation to us for you to take us," said
Jimmy Grayson, with his usual easy grace.
But Harley was looking at Simpson with a gaze no less intent than the
old man had bent upon Grayson. The accent and inflection of the host
were of a region far distant from Nebraska, but Harley, who was born
near that wild country, knew the long, lean, narrow type of face, with
the high cheek-bones and the watchful black eyes. Moreover, there was
something directly and personally familiar in the figure before him.
Under any circumstances the manner of the old man would have drawn the
attention of Harley, whose naturally keen observation was sharpened by
the training of his profession. The old man seemed abstracted. His
fingers moved absently on the stock of his rifle, and Harley inferred at
once that he had something of unusual weight on his mind.
"Me an' the ol' woman hev been settin' late," said Simpson. "When you
git ol' you don't sleep much. But it'll be a long time, Mr. Grayson,
before that fits you."
He led the way into a room better furnished than Harley had expected to
see. A coal fire smouldered on the hearth, and the arrangement of the
room showed some evidences of refinement and taste. An old woman was
bent over the fire, but she rose when the men entered, and turned upon
them a face which Harley knew at once to be that of one who had been
frightened by something. Her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping.
Harley looked from host to hostess with curious glance, but he was still
silent.
"This is Marthy, my wife, gen'lemen," said Simpson. "Marthy, this is Mr.
Grayson, the greatest man in this here United States, and the other is
one of the newspaper fellers that travels with him."
Jimmy Grayson bowed with great courtesy, and apologized so gracefully
for the intrusion that an ordinary person would have been glad to be
intruded upon in such a manner. The woman said nothing, but stared
vacantly at her guests. The old man came to her relief.
"Marthy ain't used to visitors, least of all a man like you, Mr.
Grayson, and it kind o' upsets her," he said. "You see, Marthy an' me
lives here all by ourselves."
The woman started and looked at him.
"All by ourselves," repeated the man, firmly; "but we'll do the best we
kin."
"Daniel," suddenly exclaimed the old woman, in high, shrill tones, "why
don't you put down your gun? Mr. Grayson'll think you're a-goin' to
shoot him."
The old man laughed, but the ever-watchful Harley saw that the laugh was
not spontaneous.
"I 'clar' to gracious," he said, "I clean forgot I had old Deadeye. You
see, Mr. Grayson, when I heerd the dogs barkin', sez I to myself 'it's
robbers, shore'; and before I h'ists the window up-stairs I reaches old
Deadeye off the hooks, and then, if it had 'a' been robbers, it wouldn't
'a' been healthy for 'em."
"I'm sure of that, Mr. Simpson," said Jimmy Grayson; "you don't look
like a man who would allow himself to be run over."
"An' I wouldn't," said the old man, with sudden, fierce emphasis. But he
put the rifle on the hooks over the fireplace. Such hooks as these were
not usual in Nebraska; but Jimmy Grayson was too polite to say anything,
and Harley was still watching every movement of the old man. The driver
returned at this moment from the stable, and, reporting that he had fed
the horses, took his place with the others at the fire.
"I 'low you-uns would like to eat a little," said the old man, laughing
in the same unnatural way. "Marthy, tote in suthin' from the kitchen as
quick as you kin."
The old woman raised her startled, frightened eyes, and for a moment her
glance met Harley's; it seemed to him to be full of entreaty; the whole
atmosphere of the place was to him tense, strained, and tragic; why, he
did not know, but he shook himself and decided that it was only the
result of weariness, the long ride, and the night in the storm.
Nevertheless, the feeling did not depart because he willed that it
should go.
"No, we thank you," Jimmy Grayson was saying; "we are not hungry; but we
should like very much to go to bed."
"It's jest with you," said Simpson. "Marthy, I'll show the gen'lemen to
their room, and you kin stay here till I come back."
The old woman did not speak, but stood in a crouched attitude looking at
Grayson and then at Harley and then at the driver; it seemed to the
correspondent that she did not dare trust her voice, and he saw fear
still lurking in her eyes.
"Come along, gen'lemen," said Simpson, taking from the table a small
lamp, that had been lighted at their entrance, and leading the way.
Harley glanced back once at the door, and the woman's eyes met his in a
look that was like one last despairing appeal. But there was nothing
tangible, nothing that he could not say was the result of an overwrought
fancy.
It was a small and bare room, with only a single bed, to which the old
man took them. "It's the best I've got," he said, apologetically. "Mr.
Grayson, you an' the newspaper man kin sleep in the bed, an' t'other
feller, I reckon, kin curl up on the floor."
"It is good enough for anybody," said Jimmy Grayson, gallantly. As a
matter of fact, both he and Harley had known what it was to fare worse.
"Good-night," the man said, and left them rather hastily, Harley
thought; but the others took no notice, and were soon in sound slumber,
the candidate because he had the rare power of going to sleep whenever
there was a chance, and the driver because he was indifferent and tired.
But Harley lay awake. An hour ago his dream of heaven was a bed, and
now, the bed attained, sleep would not come near. Out of the stillness,
after a while, he heard the gentle moving of feet below, and he sat up
on the bed, all his suspicions confirmed. Something unusual was going on
in this lone house! And it had been going on even before he and the
candidate came!
He listened to the moving feet for a few moments. Then the noise ceased,
but Harley knew that there was no further chance of sleep for him, with
his nerves on edge, and likely to remain there. He lay back on the edge
of the bed, trying to accustom his eyes to the darkness, and presently
he heard a sound, the most chilling that a man can hear. It was the
sound of a woman, alone and in the dark, between midnight and morning,
crying gently, but crying deeply, uncontrollably, and from her chest.
Harley's resolve was taken at once. He slipped on his clothes and went
to the door. His eyes were used now to the dark, and there was a window
that shed a half-light.
He stopped with his hand on the bolt, because he heard the low, wailing
note more plainly, and he was sure that it came from another room
across the narrow hall. He turned the bolt, but the door refused to
open. There was no key on the inside! They had been locked in, and for a
purpose!
Harley was fully aroused--on edge with excitement, but able to restrain
it and to think clearly. There was an old grate in the room, apparently
used but seldom, and, leaning against the wall beside it, an iron poker.
Tiptoeing, he obtained the poker and returned to the door. The lock was
a flimsy affair, and, inserting the point of the poker under the catch,
he easily pried it off and put it gently on the floor.
Then he stepped out into the dusky hall and listened. The woman was yet
crying, monotonously, but with such a note of woe that Harley was
shaken. He had thought in his own room that it was the old woman who
wept thus; but now in the hall he knew it to be a younger and fresher
voice.
He saw farther down another door, and he knew that it led to the room
from which came the sounds of grief. He approached it cautiously, still
holding the poker in his hands, and noticed that there was no key in the
lock. The woman, whoever she might be, was locked in, as he and his
comrades had been; but the empty keyhole gave him an idea. He blew
through it, making a sort of whistling sound with his puckered lips. The
crying ceased, all save an occasional low, half-smothered sob, as if the
woman were making a supreme effort to control her feelings.
Then Harley put his lips to the keyhole again and whispered: "What is
the matter? It is a friend who asks." There was no reply, only a tense
silence, even the occasional sobs ceasing. Then, after a few moments of
waiting, Harley whispered, "Don't be alarmed; I am about to force the
door."
The door was of flimsy pine, and it gave quickly to the poker's
leverage. Then, this useful weapon still in hand, Harley stepped into
the room, where he heard a deep-drawn sigh that expressed mingled
emotions.
There was a window at the end of the room, and the moonlight shone
clearly through, clothing with its full radiance a tall, slim girl, who
had risen from a chair, and who stood trembling before Harley, fully
dressed, although her long hair hung down her back and her eyes were red
with weeping.
She was handsome, but not with the broad face of the West. Hers was
another type, a type that Harley knew well. The cheek-bones were a
little high, the features delicate, the figure slender, and there was on
her cheeks a rosy bloom that never grew under the cutting winds of the
great plains.
Harley knew at once that she was the daughter of the old couple below
stairs.
"Do not be afraid of me," he said, gently. "I know that you are in great
trouble, but I will help you. I, too, am from Kentucky. I was born
there, and I used to live there, though not in the mountains, as you
did."
The appeal and terror in her eyes changed to momentary surprise. "What
do you know of me?" she exclaimed.
"Very little of you, but more of your father. Years ago I was at his
house in the Kentucky mountains. He was a leader in the Simpson-Eversley
feud. I knew him to-night, but I have said nothing. Now, tell me, what
is the matter?"
His voice was soothing--that of a strong man who would protect, and the
girl yielded to its influence. Brokenly she told the story. Many men had
been killed in the feud, and the few Eversleys who were left had been
scattered far in the mountains. Then old Daniel Simpson said that he
would come out on the Great Plains, more than a thousand miles, and they
had come.
"There was one of the Eversleys--Henry Eversley--he was young and
handsome. People said he was not bad. He, too, came to Nebraska. He
found out where we lived; he has been here."
"Ah!" said Harley. He felt that they were coming to the gist of the
matter.
The girl, with a sudden passionate cry, threw herself upon her knees.
"He is here now! He is here now!" she cried. "He is in the cellar, bound
and gagged, and my father is going to kill him! But I love him! He came
here to-night, and my father caught us together, and struck him down.
But we meant nothing wrong. I declare before God that we did not! We
were getting ready to run away together and to be married at Speedwell!"
Harley shuddered. The impending tragedy was more terrible than he had
feared.
"You can do nothing!" exclaimed the girl. "My father is armed. He will
have no interference! He cares nothing for what may come after! He
thinks--"
She could not say it all; but Harley knew well that what she would say
was, "He thinks that he has been robbed of his honor by a mortal enemy."
"Can you stay quietly in this room until morning?" he asked. "I know it
is hard to wait under such circumstances, but you must do it for the
sake of Henry Eversley."
"And will you save him?"
"He shall be saved."
"I will wait," she said.
Harley slipped noiselessly out, and, closing the door behind him, went
to his room, where he at once awakened the candidate.
Jimmy Grayson listened with intense attention to Harley's story. When
the tale was over, he and Harley whispered together long and earnestly,
and Jimmy Grayson frequently nodded his head in assent. Then they awoke
the driver, a heavy man, but with a keen Western mind that at once
became alert at the news of danger.
"Yes, I got my bearings now," he said, in reply to a question of
Harley's. "I asked the old fellow about it when I came up from the
stable, and Speedwell is straight north from here. I can take one of the
horses and hit the town before daylight. I know everybody there."
"But how about the dogs?" asked Jimmy Grayson. "Can you get past them?"
"No trouble there at all. After we came, the old fellow locked 'em up in
a stall in the stable and left 'em there. I guess he didn't want to look
to us as if he was too suspicious."
"Then go, and God go with you!" said Jimmy Grayson, with deep feeling.
The driver left at once, not by the stairway, near the foot of which the
old man might be watching, but by a much simpler road. He raised the
window of the room and swung out, sustained by Jimmy Grayson's powerful
arms until his feet were within a yard of the ground. Then he dropped,
ran lightly across the lawn, sprang over the wire fence, and soon
disappeared in the grove where the girl had said that the horses were
waiting. Jimmy Grayson closed the window with a deep sigh of relief.
"He will do his part," he said; "now for ours."