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MISS DIVIDENDS
A Novel
BY ARCHIBALD CLAVERING GUNTER
AUTHOR OF "MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK," "MR. POTTER OF TEXAS," "THAT
FRENCHMAN!" "MISS NOBODY OF NOWHERE," "SMALL BOYS IN BIG BOOTS," "A
FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK
THE HOME PUBLISHING COMPANY
3 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET
1892
COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY A. C. GUNTER.
_All rights reserved._
Press of J. J. Little & Co.
Astor Place, New York
CONTENTS.
BOOK I. THE GIRL FROM NEW YORK.
I.--Mr. West 7
II.--Miss East 17
III.--Her Father's Friend 30
IV.--Mr. Ferdie begins his Western Investigations 38
V.--The Grand Island Eating-House 54
VI.--Mr. Ferdie Discovers a Vigilante 66
VII.--What Manner of Man is This? 77
BOOK II. A CURIOUS CLUB MAN.
VIII.--The City of Saints 101
IX.--The Ball in Salt Lake 115
X.--"Papa!" 135
XI.--"For Business Purposes" 153
XII.--A Daughter of the Church 166
XIII.--The Love of a Bishop 179
XIV.--A Rare Club Story 197
BOOK III. OUT OF A STRANGE COUNTRY.
XV.--The Snow-Bound Pullman 217
XVI.--"To the Girl I Love!" 233
XVII.--A Voice in the Night 240
XVIII.--The Last of the Danites 251
XIX.--Orange Blossoms among the Snow 264
MISS DIVIDENDS.
BOOK I.
THE GIRL FROM NEW YORK.
CHAPTER I.
MR. WEST.
"Five minutes behind your appointment," remarks Mr. Whitehouse Southmead
in kindly severity; then he laughs and continues: "You see, your oysters
are cold."
"As they should be, covered up with ice," returns Captain Harry Storey
Lawrence. A moment after, however, he adds more seriously, "I had a good
excuse."
"An excuse for keeping _this_ waiting?" And Whitehouse pours out
lovingly a glass of Chateau Yquem.
"Yes, and the best in the world, though probably not one that would be
considered good by a lawyer."
"Aha! a woman?" rejoins Mr. Southmead.
"The most beautiful I have ever seen!" cries Lawrence, the enthusiasm of
youth beaming in his handsome dark eyes.
"Pooh!" returns the other, "you have only been from the Far West for
three days."
"True," remarks Lawrence. "Three days ago I was incompetent, but am not
now. You see, I have been living in a mining camp in Southern Utah for
the last year, where all women are scarce and none beautiful. For my
first three days in New York, every woman I met on the streets seemed to
me a houri. Now, however, I am beginning to discriminate. My taste has
become normal, and I pronounce the young lady whose fan I picked up on
the stairs a few moments ago, just what I have called her. Wouldn't you,
if she had eyes----"
"Oh, leave the eyes and devote yourself to the oysters," interjects the
more practical Southmead. "You cannot have fallen in love with a girl
while picking up her fan; besides, I have business to talk to you about
this evening,--business upon which the success of your present
transaction may depend."
"You do not think the financial effort France is making to pay its war
indemnity to Germany will stop the sale of my mine?" says the young man
hurriedly, seating himself opposite his companion, and the two begin to
discuss the charming _petit souper_, such as one bachelor gave to
another in old Delmonico's on Fourteenth Street and Fifth Avenue before
canvas-back ducks had become quite as expensive as they now are, and
terrapin had become so scarce that mud-turtles frequently masquerade for
diamond-backs, even in our most expensive restaurants. For this
conversation and this supper took place in the autumn of 1871, before
fashionable New York had moved above Twenty-third Street, when Neilson
was about to enter into the glory of her first season at the Academy,
when Capoul was to be the idol of the ladies, and dear little Duval was
getting ready to charm the public by her polonaise in "Mignon."
This year, 1871, had marked several changes in the business of these
United States of America. During the War of the Confederacy,
speculators, under the guise of Government contractors, had stolen great
sums from Uncle Sam. In 1865 the Government changed its policy, and
began to make presents of fortunes to speculators, thus saving them the
trouble of robbing it.
In 1868 it had just finished presenting a syndicate of Boston
capitalists with the Union Pacific Railway, many millions of dollars in
solid cash, and every alternate section of Government land for twenty
miles on each side of their thousand miles of track. It had, also, been
equally generous to five small Sacramento capitalists, and had presented
them with the Central Pacific Railway, the same amount of Government
land, and some fifty-five millions of dollars, and had received in
return for all this--not even thanks.
The opening of these railroads, however, had brought the West and East
in much more intimate connection. Mines had been developed in Utah and
Colorado, and the Western speculator, with his indomitable energy, had
opened up a promising market for various silver properties in the West,
not only in New York and other Eastern cities, but in Europe itself.
One of the results of this is the appearance in New York of the young
man, Captain Harry Storey Lawrence, who has come to complete the
negotiations for the sale of a silver property in which he is
interested, to an English syndicate, the lawyer representing the same in
America being Mr. Whitehouse Southmead, who is now seated opposite to
him.
As the two men discuss their oysters, champagne, partridges and salad,
their appearances are strikingly dissimilar. Southmead, who is perhaps
fifty, is slightly gray and slightly bald, and has the characteristics
of an easy-going family lawyer,--one to whom family secrets, wealth and
investments, might be implicitly trusted, though he is distinctly not
that kind of advocate one would choose to fight a desperate criminal
case before a jury, where it was either emotional insanity or murder.
The man opposite to him, however, were he a lawyer, would have been just
the one for the latter case, for the most marked characteristic in Harry
Storey Lawrence's bearing, demeanor and appearance is that of
resolution, unflinching, indomitable,--not the resolution of a stubborn
man, but one whose fixed purpose is dominated by reason and directed by
wisdom.
He has a broad, intellectual forehead, a resolute chin and lower lip.
These would be perhaps too stern did not his dark, flashing eyes have in
them intelligence as well as passion, humanity as well as firmness. His
hair is of a dark brown, for this man is a brunette, not of the Spanish
type, but of the Anglo-Saxon. His mustache, which is long and drooping,
conceals a delicate upper lip, which together with the eyes give
softness and humanity to a countenance that but for them would look too
combative. His figure, considerably over the middle height, has that
peculiar activity which is produced only by training in open air,--not
the exercise of the athlete, but that of the soldier, the pioneer, the
adventurer; for Harry Lawrence has had a great deal of this kind of life
in his twenty-nine years of existence.
Leaving his engineering studies at college, he had entered the army as a
lieutenant at the opening of the rebellion, and in two years had found
himself the captain of an Iowa battery--the only command which gives to
a young officer that independence which makes him plan as well as act.
But, having fought for his country and not for a career, as soon as the
rebellion had finished, this citizen soldier had resigned, and until
1868 had been one of the division engineers of the Union Pacific
Railway. On the completion of that great road, he had found himself at
Ogden, and had devoted himself to mining in Utah.
Altogether, he looks like a man who could win a woman's heart and take
very good care of it; though, perhaps his appearance would hardly
please one of the strong-minded sisterhood, for there is an indication
of command and domination in his manner, doubtless arising from his
military experience.
As the two gentlemen discuss their supper, their conversation first
turns on business; though, from Lawrence's remarks it is apparent there
is a conflicting interest in his mind, that of the young lady whom he
has just seen down-stairs.
"You don't think that _milliard_ going to the Germans will affect the
sale of the Mineral Hill Mine," asks Harry, earnestly, opening the
conversation.
"Not at all," replies the lawyer. "No fluctuation in funds can affect
the capital the English company is about to invest, and has already
deposited in the bank for that purpose."
"Then what more do they want? The mine has already been reported upon
favorably by their experts and engineers."
"They insist, however, upon a title without contest," returns Southmead.
"Why, you yourself have stated that our title to the Mineral Hill was
without flaw," interjects the young man hastily.
"Certainly," answers the lawyer; "but not without _contest_. I have
to-day received a letter from Utah, stating that there is apt to be
litigation in regard to your property. If so, it must certainly delay
its sale."
"Oh, I know what you mean," cries Harry, a determined expression coming
into his eyes. "It is those infernal Mormons! When we made the locations
in Tintic, there was not a stake driven in the District, but now word
has been given out by Father Brigham to his followers that as it is
impossible to stop the entry of Gentiles into Utah for the purpose of
mining, the Latter-Day Saints had best claim all the mines they can
under prior locations and get these properties for themselves, as far
as possible. Consequently, a Mormon company has been started, who have
put in a claim of prior location to a portion of one of our mines,
without any more right to it than I have to this restaurant. And what do
you think the beggars call themselves? Why, Zion's Co-operative Mining
Company." Here he laughs a little bitterly and continues: "It was Zion's
Co-operative Commercial Institutions, and now it is Zion's Co-operative
Mining Companies. Those fellows drag in the Lord to help them in every
iniquitous scheme for despoiling the Gentile."
"All the same," replies the lawyer, "if you wish to make the sale of
your property to the English company that I represent, you had better
compromise the matter with them. I sharn't permit my clients to buy a
lawsuit."
"Compromise? Never!" answers the other impulsively. Then he goes on more
contemplatively: "And yet I wish to make the sale more than ever. You
see, the price we name for the property is an honest one. It is worth
every dollar of the five hundred thousand we ask for it."
"Then, why not work it yourself?" asks the lawyer.
"Simply because I have got tired of living the life of a
barbarian--surrounded by barbarians. It was well enough to spend four
years of early manhood in camps and battles, three others in building a
big railroad, and three more in the excitement of mining, away from the
_convenances_ and graces of life that only come with the presence of
refined women; but now I am tired of it, more so than ever since I have
seen that young lady down-stairs."
"Ah! still going back to Miss Travenion?" laughs the lawyer.
"You know her name then?" cries the captain, suddenly.
"Yes," says the other. "I happened to be impatient for your coming. The
evening was sultry. I walked out of the room, looked down the stairs and
saw your act of gallantry."
"Ah, since you know her name, you must know her!"
"Quite well; I am her trustee."
"Her trustee!" cries Harry Lawrence impulsively. "Her guardian? You will
introduce me to her? This is luck," and before the old gentleman can
interrupt him, the Westerner has seized his hand and given it a squeeze
which he remembers for some five minutes.
"I said her trustee; not her guardian," answers the lawyer cautiously.
"If, as your manner rather indicates, you have designs upon the young
lady's heart, you had better get a reply from her father."
"Her father is living then?"
"Certainly. Last January you could have seen him any afternoon in the
windows of the Unity Club looking at the ladies promenading on the
Avenue, just as he used to do when he lived here, and was a man about
town, and club _habitue_ and heavy swell. Ralph Travenion has gone West
again, however, but I have not heard of his death."
"Then for what reason does his daughter need a trustee?"
"Well, if you will listen to me and smoke your cigar in silence," says
Southmead, for they have arrived at that stage of the meal. "Erma
Lucille Travenion----"
"Erma--Lucille--Travenion!" mutters the young man, turning the words
over very tenderly as if they were sweet morsels on his tongue.
"Erma--Lucille--Travenion,--what a beautiful name."
"Hang it, don't interrupt me and don't look romantic," laughs the
lawyer.
But here a soft-treading waiter knocks upon the door and says: "Mr.
Ferdinand Rives Chauncey would like to see you half a minute, Mr.
Southmead."
And with the words, the young gentleman announced, a dapper boy of about
nineteen, faultlessly clad in the evening dress of that period, enters
hastily and says: "My dear Mr. Southmead, Mrs. Livingston has
commissioned me to ask you if you won't come down and join her for a few
moments. Oh, I beg pardon--" He pauses and gives a look expectant of
introduction towards Harry Lawrence. The lawyer, following his glance,
presents the two young men, and after acknowledging it, Chauncey
proceeds glibly, "Awful sorry to have interrupted you."
"Won't you sit down and have a glass of wine and a cigar?" says
Southmead hospitably.
"Yes, just one glass and one cigar--a baby cigar--they remind me of
cigarettes. I have not more than a moment to deliver my message. You
see, Mrs. Ogden Livingston has just come back from Newport, and to-night
gave a little theatre party: Daly's 'Divorce,' Clara Morris, Fanny
Davenport, Louis James and James Lewis, etc. Have you seen Lewis's
Templeton Jitt? It is immense. That muff, Oliver, actually giggled,"
babbles this youth, commonly called by his intimates Ferdie.
"So, Mr. Oliver Livingston laughed? It must have been very funny,"
remarks Whitehouse affably.
"Didn't he, when Jitt, the lawyer, got his ears boxed instead of the
husband he was suing for divorce. You want to see that play, Southmead;
it might give you points in your next application for alimony."
"I am not a divorce lawyer," cries the attorney rather savagely.
"Oh, no telling what might happen in your swell clientele, some day,"
giggles Ferdie. "But Ollie was scandalized at the placing of a minister
on the stage--an Episcopal minister, too."
"Does he expect to use an Episcopal minister soon?" asks the lawyer,
suggestively.
"Not very soon, judging by the young lady," grins Ferdie. "The only time
Miss Dividends----"
"What the dickens do you call Miss Travenion Miss Dividends for?"
interrupts Whitehouse testily.
"You ought to know best; you're her trustee," returns the youth.
"Besides, every one called her that at Newport this season, especially
the other girls, she is so stunning and they envied her so. Lots of
money, lots of beaux and more of beauty. If she didn't have a level
head, it would be turned."
"Yes, she has got a brain like her father. Besides, Mrs. Livingston
keeps a very sharp eye on her," remarks Southmead.
"Don't she though?" chimes in Mr. Chauncey. "Look at to-night. The widow
invited your humble servant to take care of the Amory girl, so that
Ollie could have full swing with Miss Dividends--I mean Erma. We are all
having supper in the Chinese-room. Mrs. Livingston wishes to see you for
a moment on business; Miss Travenion on more important business. They
chanced to mention it, and knowing your habits, I thought it very
probable you were at supper here. I told them I could find you if you
were in the building. I roamed through the _cafe_ and inquired of
Rimmer, and he suggested you were up-stairs. The head waiter in the
restaurant corroborated him. It won't keep you long. Miss Travenion and
Mrs. Livingston wish to see you particularly. They are very busy."
"Busy!" cries the lawyer. "What have those two birds of Paradise to do
with business?"
"They are packing. They wish to know if you can possibly call on them
to-morrow afternoon."
"To-morrow afternoon, Captain Lawrence's business compels my
attention."
"Ah, then, to-morrow evening."
"Unfortunately I have promised to deliver an address at the Bar
Association Dinner."
"Very well, to-morrow morning."
"Still this young gentleman's business," remarks Mr. Southmead. "It is
important and immediate."
"Oh, very well, then," returns Ferdie; "suppose you come down to our
supper party _now_! I know what Mrs. Livingston wants to say to you,
won't take over three minutes, and Miss Travenion won't occupy you five.
Come down and join us? We are pretty well finished."
"But this young gentleman," remarks Whitehouse, smiling at Lawrence.
"Oh, bring Captain Lawrence down with you," and before Southmead can
reply to this request, which is given in an off-hand, snappy kind of a
way, Ferdie finds his hand grasped warmly in a set of bronzed maniples
and Harry Storey Lawrence looking into his eyes with a face full of
gratitude, and saying to him, "Certainly! I will run down with you with
the greatest pleasure."
"But--" interjects Southmead.
"Oh, it will not inconvenience me in the slightest. It will be rather a
pleasure," cries the Westerner.
And before he can urge any further objection to Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey's
proposed move, the two younger men have left the room and are walking
down-stairs, and the lawyer has nothing to do but to follow after them
as rapidly as possible.
The door of the Chinese-room is opened for Mr. Chauncey. As he looks in
one thought strikes the mind of the mining man, and that is,--If you
would thoroughly appreciate the beauty of women, be without their
society for a few months. Then you will know why men rave about them,
why men die for them.
No prettier sight has ever come before the eyes of this young
Westerner,--who has still the fire of youth in his veins, but whose life
has kept him away from nearly all such scenes as this,--than this one he
gazes on with beaming eyes, flushed face, a slight trembling of his
stalwart limbs. This room, made bright by Chinese decorations and
Oriental color, illuminated by the soft wax lights of the supper table,
and made radiant by the presence of lovely women--one of whom--the one
his eyes seek--the like of which he has never seen before--Erma
Travenion.
CHAPTER II.
MISS EAST.
The girl stands in an easy, but vivacious, attitude. She has just been
telling some story, and growing excited, has got to acting it, to the
derangement but beauty of her toilet, as a little bonnet made all of
pansies has fallen, and hanging by two light blue ribbons, adorns her
white neck instead of her fair hair, which, disordered by her
enthusiasm, has become wavy, floating and gold in the light, and red
bronze in the shadow.
The party having left the supper table with its fruit, flowers, crystal,
silverware and decorated china, are grouped about, looking at her.
The chaperon, Mrs. Livingston, standing near the door, is a widow and
forty-five, though still comely to look upon, and the girl behind her is
interesting in her own peculiar style, being piquant and pretty. Though
it is late in September the weather is still quite warm, and dressed in
the light summer costumes of 1871, which gave as charming glimpses of
white necks and dazzling arms as those of to-day, either lady would
attract the eyes of men: but the glorious beauty of Erma Travenion still
holds the Westerner's gaze.
Eyes draw eyes, and the young lady returns his glance for a second.
Then Mrs. Livingston speaks: "Why, Chauncey," she says, "I thought you
were going to bring Mr. Southmead."
"And I have brought his client," laughs Ferdie. "Mr. Southmead will be
here in a minute. He was engaged with Captain Lawrence and could not
leave him. So I took the liberty and persuaded Captain Lawrence to join
us also. But permit me," and he presents his companion in due form to
the hostess of the evening.
While Harry is making his bow, Mr. Southmead enters.
"Ah, Chauncey," he says laughingly, "you have made the introduction, I
see. But still, Mrs. Livingston, I think I can give you some information
about Captain Lawrence which Ferdinand does not possess. He is a _rara
avis_. He has not opened his mouth to a beautiful woman for eight
months."
"Excuse me," interposes Lawrence gallantly. "That was before I had
spoken to Mrs. Livingston."
This happy shot makes the widow his friend at once. She says: "Not
spoken to a beautiful woman for eight months! Surely there could be no
beautiful women about," and her eyes emphasize her words as she looks
with admiration on the athletic symmetry the young Western man displays
under his broadcloth evening dress.
"Not spoken to a beautiful woman for eight months!" This is an
astonished echo from the two young ladies.
"Yes," replies Southmead laughing. "He has been in southern Utah. He
only stopped over night in Salt Lake City on his trip to New York; he
comes from the wilds of the Rocky Mountains."
"The Rocky Mountains?" cries Erma, whose eyes seem to take sudden
interest at the locality mentioned.
A moment after, Mrs. Livingston hastily presents the Western engineer.
"Miss Amory--Miss Travenion: Captain Lawrence."
"Not heard the voice of beauty for eight months? That is severe for a
military man, Captain Lawrence," laughs Miss Amory, her eyes growing
bright, for she is in the habit of going to West Point, to graduating
exercises, and loving cadets and brass buttons generally and awfully.
"I was once Captain of an Iowa battery," answers Harry; "for some years
after that I was a civil engineer on the Union Pacific Railway, and for
the last three I have been a mining engineer in Utah."
"On the Union Pacific Railway," says Miss Travenion, her eyes growing
more interested. "Then perhaps you know my father. Won't you sit beside
me? I should like to ask you a few questions. But let me present Mr.
Oliver Ogden Livingston, Captain Lawrence." She introduces in the easy
manner of one accustomed to society the Westerner to a gentleman who has
arisen from beside her.
This being remarks, "Awh! delighted," with a slight English affectation
of manner, which in 1871 was very uncommon in America, and reseats
himself beside Miss Travenion.
"There is another chair on my other hand," says the young lady,
indicating the article in question, and looking rather sneeringly at Mr.
Oliver for his by no means civil performance.
Consequently, a moment after the young man finds himself beside Miss
Travenion, though Mr. Livingston has destroyed a _tete-a-tete_ by
sitting upon the other hand of the beauty.
Ferdie has grouped himself with Miss Amory and is entering into some
society small talk or gossip that apparently interests her greatly, as
she gives out every now and then excited giggles and exclamations at
the young man's flippant sentences.
Mrs. Livingston is occupied with Mr. Southmead, who has just said: "You
brought Louise with you from Newport?"
"Of course," answers the widow. "We have left there for the season."
Then noticing that the gentleman's glance is wandering about the room,
she continues: "You need not hope to find Louise here. She is only
sixteen--too young for theatre parties. The child is in bed and asleep."
A moment after their voices are lowered, apparently discussing some
business matter.
During this, Erma Travenion appears to be considering some proposition
in her mind. This gives Lawrence a chance to contemplate her more
minutely than when he picked up her fan on the staircase or as he
entered the room. He repeats the inspection, with the same decision
intensified: she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen; but,
dominating even her beauty, is that peculiar and radiant thing we call
the charm of manner.
Seated in a languid, careless, dreamy way, as if her thoughts were far
from this brilliant supper-room, the unstudied pose of her attitude,
gives additional femininity to her graceful figure; for, when
self-conscious, Miss Travenion has an appearance of coldness, even
_hauteur_; but there is none of this now.
Her well-proportioned head, supported by a neck of enchanting whiteness,
is lighted by two eyes which would be sapphires, were they not made
dazzling by the soul that shines through them, reflecting each emotion
of her vivacious yet brilliant mind. Her forehead has that peculiar
breadth, which denotes that intellect would always dominate passion,
were it not for her lips that indicate when she loves, she will love
with her whole heart. Her figure, betwixt girlhood and womanhood,
retains the graces of one and the contours of the other. The dress she
wears brings all this out with wonderful distinctness, for it is jet
black, even to its laces,--a color which segregates her from the more
brilliant decorations of the room, outlining her exquisite arms,
shoulders and bust, in a way that would make her seem a statue of ebony
and ivory, were it not for the delicate pink of her lips and nostrils as
she softly breathes, the slight compression of her brows, and the
nervous tapping of her little foot that just shows itself in dainty boot
beneath the laces of her robe. These indicate that youthful and
enthusiastic life will in a moment make this dreaming figure a vivacious
woman.
As Lawrence thinks this, action comes to her. She says impulsively: "You
must let me thank you again for the attention you showed me on the
stairway."
"What attention?" asks Mr. Oliver Livingston, waking up also.
"Something you were too occupied with yourself to notice," smiles the
young lady. "I dropped my fan as we entered this evening, and this
gentleman, though he did not know me, was kind enough to pick it up.
But," she continues suddenly, "Captain Lawrence, you can do me a much
greater favor."
"Indeed! How?" is Harry's eager answer.
"You say that you have been an engineer upon the Union Pacific Railway.
What portion of it?"
"From Green River to Ogden, though I was employed as assistant at one
time at Cheyenne."
"From Green River to Ogden! Then you must have met my father, Ralph
Harriman Travenion."
"No, I never had that pleasure," answers the young man, after a moment's
consideration.
"But you must have!" cries the girl impulsively. "He was one of the
largest contractors on that portion of the road."
"Your father--a railroad contractor?" answers Harry, opening his eyes,
which appear to the young lady very large, earnest, and flashing
compared to the rather effeminate ones of Mr. Livingston.
"Not in New York," laughs Ollie, waving his white hands. "When here, Mr.
Travenion is one of our leading fashionables. Did you see any one dance
more gracefully than your father did last winter, Miss Erma?--though I
believe he did have something to do with the building of the railway out
there."
"I don't see how that was possible," suggests Lawrence. "I and my
assistants figured all the cross-sectionings of that portion of the
work, and I know that none were accredited to Ralph Travenion. Our
largest contractors were Little & Co., Tranyon & Co., Amos Jennings,
George H. Smith, and Brigham Young--nearly all Mormons."
"You are sure?" says the young lady, knitting her brows as if in
thought.
"Certainly!"
"This is very curious. Why, I have even had letters from him on Union
Pacific paper."
"Perhaps he was a silent partner in one of the companies," suggests
Lawrence, who is very much astonished to find a girl in New York's most
exclusive set, as Miss Travenion evidently is, connected so intimately
with one of the builders of a railway in the Far West.
"Perhaps you are right," says the young lady contemplatively. "However,
I will know all about it myself in a few weeks."
"He is coming to visit you, I presume?"
"No, but I am going to take a trip to California with Mrs. Livingston
and her party," remarks Erma, "and _en route_ I expect to meet him--my
dear father, whom I haven't seen for half a year!" and the girl's eyes
light up with sudden tenderness and pleasure. "_Apropos_ of the
trip--excuse me." Here she rises suddenly and passes to the family
lawyer.
At his side she says: "Mr. Southmead, if you have finished your business
with Mrs. Livingston, I have some for you. I want to inform you that
Mrs. Livingston, her daughter Miss Louise, her son Mr. Chauncey, and
myself, intend to take a trip to California, and to ask you, as my
trustee, if you have any objection to the same. I presume that it is a
mere form, as you are not my guardian."
"You have written to your father?" asks Whitehouse hastily.
"No," laughs the girl. "I intend it to be a surprise to papa."
"Then, let me suggest," answers the lawyer, something of a shade passing
over his brow, "that you write to Mr. Travenion first."
"Impossible! We have not time! We leave in three days! Fancy--in a
little over a week I shall see my father. You wouldn't deprive me of
that pleasure, would you, Mr. Southmead?"
"No! but I would suggest that you telegraph him."
"I can't. I have not heard from papa for two weeks, and I do not know
his address. Besides, it will be such a surprise!" Miss Travenion has
thrown away contemplation from her, and is all brightness and gayety.
"Of course I can have no objections," says Whitehouse.
"Then you don't think it wise?" mutters the girl, with a pout.
"I don't say that. I have no doubt it is all right, and I know your
father will be pleased to see you."
"I should think so! The idea of anything else! You know I am the apple
of his eye!"
"Yes, I know that," remarks Southmead decidedly.
"Very well, then," returns Miss Travenion; "will you be kind enough to
get me a letter of credit on California and the West for--for twenty
thousand dollars."
This amount for a two or three months' pleasure trip makes Lawrence open
his eyes, and the lawyer gives a little deprecating shrug of the
shoulders.
"Oh, I don't mean to spend it _all_," cries Erma. "I am not so
extravagant as that. Still, it might be convenient. I might want to buy
something in the West. Please get it by to-morrow for me."
"Not later, any way, than the day after," interjects Mrs. Livingston.
"It is impossible to put off our trip."
"Oh, it had all been decided before you saw me?" laughs Southmead.
"Certainly. We didn't propose to have any objection made to our taking
Erma with us on our trip," says Mrs. Livingston, leaving Mr. Ferdie and
Miss Amory, and placing a plump arm round Miss Travenion's waist.
The party have all now risen, apparently ready to leave, and Lawrence
and Southmead are compelled to say "Good evening."
As he departs, however, Harry astonishes Miss Travenion. She is a little
in advance of her party, and offers him her hand cordially, saying,
"Were we not in disorder on account of our preparations for departure, I
should ask you to come and see me, Captain Lawrence."
"As it is," answers the young man, "I hope to see you in the West."
"Ah, you expect to be there?"
"Yes; my headquarters must be in Salt Lake for the next month or two."
"Why, _we_ shall be there also," cries Erma. "You shall show me over
your city."
"Excuse me, I am not a Mormon!" answers Lawrence grimly, biting the end
of his moustache.
"Oh, of course not! I--I beg your pardon. Yes; I remember now--that
awful sect live there--" stammers Miss Travenion. "You'll forgive my
ignorance, won't you?" Her eyes have a playful pleading in them that
makes her judge very mild.
"On one condition!" he answers eagerly: "that you surely come to Salt
Lake."
"Certainly," answers Miss Penitent; "it is there or in Ogden or
somewhere about the Rocky Mountains I hope to meet my father."
"I also hope to meet your father some day," replies Harry, in a tone
that astonishes the girl, for her beautiful eyes have made him forget he
has only met her ten minutes.
She raises these to his inquiringly, and what she sees makes her cheeks
grow red. A cordial grip upon her fingers is emphasizing this rapid
gentleman's speech.
Miss Travenion draws her hand hastily from his; then says with
thoroughbred coldness and _hauteur_, "Perhaps. Good evening!" turns her
pretty back upon him and begins to converse with Mrs. Livingston and her
party as if no such being as Harry Storey Lawrence existed upon this
earth.
A moment after the Westerner finds himself beside Southmead strolling up
Fifth Avenue, _en route_ for his hotel.
"I'll go with you as far as the Fifth Avenue," remarks the lawyer.
"There may be some telegrams awaiting you on your mining business."
"Delighted," says the young man. Then he breaks out hurriedly: "How the
dickens does Miss Travenion, who is apparently a butterfly of New York
fashion, have a father who, she says, was a contractor on the Union
Pacific Railway? You, as her trustee, ought to know."
"Yes--I know!" returns Southmead. Then after a second's pause of
contemplation he continues: "And I'll tell you--it may save you getting
a wild idea in your head, young man. Only don't look romantic, because
the young lady we are discussing is half-way engaged to another, Mr.
Oliver Ogden Livingston."
"Half-way engaged," ejaculates Harry with a sigh. Then he says suddenly,
a look of determination coming into his eyes: "Half-way is sometimes a
long distance from the winning post," and lapses into silence, smoking
his cigar in a nervous but savage manner, while the lawyer continues his
conversation.
"Miss Erma Travenion's history is rather a curious one. Her father is an
old friend of mine. Her mother was an old friend of mine." This last
with a slight sigh of recollection. "Both came of families who have from
colonial times occupied leading positions in Manhattan society. Nearly
twenty-five years ago, Ralph Harriman Travenion married Ella Travers
Schuyler, one of the prettiest girls in the Manhattan set of New York
society. Four years after, the young lady we are discussing came into
the world. When she was about ten, her mother died, and her father
concentrated his affection, apparently, on his only daughter. He was a
man of very large fortune, a member of the leading clubs, on the
governing committee of one or two of them, a man about town and a swell
among swells.--But perhaps to forget his wife, whom I know he loved;
during the sea of speculation that came with the Rebellion, he entered
largely into dealing in stocks and gold, in an easy-going sybaritic kind
of a way--and Wall Street made almost a wreck of what had once been a
very fine fortune. This blow to his pocket was a blow to his pride. He
could not endure to live in diminished style among the people who had
known him as millionnaire, aristocrat, and _bon vivant_. Shortly after
he sold his horses, yacht, villa in Newport, house in town, in short,
his whole extensive establishment, and placing his daughter, who was
about fourteen years of age at that time, at Miss Hines' Fashionable
Academy, in Gramercy Park, he went West.
"When he did so, I thought it was wholly from pride. Now I have become
satisfied that it was in the hope of making another fortune, so that
when she arrived at young ladyhood, Erma Travenion could assume the
position in New York society to which she had been born."
"What makes you think this?" asks Lawrence hurriedly.
"Her father's actions since that time. You see, the Travenions and
Livingstons had always been great friends, second cousins in fact, and
it had been a kind of family matter and understanding that when Erma
grew up, she should marry Mr. Oliver Ogden Livingston, who was then but
a boy."
"A--ah! He is the son of the lady we met this evening!"
"Of course!" says the lawyer sharply. "It had been mutually understood
between the fathers of the two children that each should settle what was
considered in those days a most enormous sum upon their children, that
is, one million dollars. The two fathers fondly hoped and expected in
those days of smaller fortunes that this would put the young couple on
the very top of New York society. When Travenion went West, Oliver's
father was still alive. What the interview between the two men was, I do
not know; but shortly afterwards, Livingston settled his one million
dollars upon his son, and during the succeeding year died. As Mrs.
Livingston was very ambitious for her son to make what is called a grand
match, it was generally supposed the compact would come to nothing,
when, some three years later, in 1868, Mr. Travenion returned from the
West and settled on his daughter three hundred thousand dollars, making
the Union Trust Company of New York and myself co-trustees. One year
after that he again made his appearance here and settled two hundred
thousand dollars more, and only eight months ago he once more returned
and deposited five hundred thousand in addition, completing the sum of
one million dollars, which the Union Trust Company and myself hold as
co-trustees for his daughter. One half of the income from this is to be
paid to Erma Travenion until she is twenty-five or her marriage. In case
of her marriage before that time or upon her arrival at the age of
twenty-five, we are to pay the full dividends of this one million dollar
investment to the young lady, and at the age of thirty, we are to make
the principal over to her, subject to her sole control, use and
bequest."
"I am sorry you told me this," says Harry, a trace of agitation in his
eyes, and a slight tremble on his moustachioed lip.
"Sorry? Why?" asks the lawyer, turning and looking at the young man.
The answer he gets astonishes him.
"Because I mean to marry her," says the Westerner determinedly, "and I
would sooner have a fortune equal to that of my bride; perhaps sooner
have her with nothing."
"You are a very extraordinary young man, then," comments Southmead. "But
I think her father would not care about her marrying any one except
Oliver Ogden Livingston."
"I don't imagine any father would care about seeing his daughter marry
that young man I saw at supper," remarks Lawrence, contemplatively,
between puffs of his cigar.
"And why not?"
"Because I do not think he is a man, anyway."
"Still, I think Ralph Travenion wishes his daughter to marry Oliver
Livingston, because he has settled his million on her."
Here Harry astonishes the lawyer again. He says shortly: "Might not
Ralph Travenion have some other reason for settling the million dollars
on his daughter?"
"By Jove!" ejaculates Southmead in astonishment. "What do you mean?"
"I don't mean anything except the suggestion," remarks the young man.
"But here we are in the Fifth Avenue," and the two stride into that
great hostelry together, and go to the office, where the clerk says,
"Captain Lawrence, a telegram for you." After a glance at its address
Harry tears it open, and with a suppressed exclamation passes the
despatch to his companion.
"Aha, as I thought," remarks Southmead, glancing over the message. "The
Zion's Co-operative Mining Institution has brought suit for part of your
Mineral Hill property. Unless you compromise, this will delay the
English sale."
"Yes, this takes me back to Utah at once," says the young man. Then he
adds with a laughing sigh: "I need that five hundred thousand dollars,
or rather my share of it, as soon as possible."
"Ah! But why this hurry?"
"Because I'm impatient to make Erma Travenion my wife," says the young
man determinedly; "but I must go up-stairs to pack my trunk, so as to
get off by the morning train." Then, after a few minutes' hurried
conversation on the details of the business, he bids Southmead good-bye,
adding: "Telegraph me any further information at the Sherman House,
Chicago."
"You are going to Utah to compromise this matter?" asks the lawyer,
shaking the young man's hand.
"Never!" says Lawrence. "But, for all that, I am going to have a try for
the girl."
With that he steps into the elevator of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, leaving
Whitehouse Southmead to saunter to the Unity Club and cards in rather a
contemplative, though by no means legal, mood, for he chuckles to
himself: "Jove! If that rapid Mr. West should capture rich and lovely
Miss East? wouldn't it make Mrs. Livingston wild?"
CHAPTER III.
HER FATHER'S FRIEND.
"Mr. Kruger, how do you do?" says Miss Erma Travenion, some three days
after; turning suddenly from the Cerberus who stands at the gate leading
to the out-going trains of the Hudson River Railroad, in the Grand
Central Depot, New York, waiting to punch her ticket. Then she calls
again with the bright, fresh voice of youth: "Mr. Kruger! Mr. Kruger!
Don't you recognize me?" and drawing up her dainty white skirts to give
her pretty feet room for rapid movement, pursues a gentleman who, in the
rush of the great station, apparently does not notice her.
The ticket puncher looks astonished for a moment, and then promptly and
savagely cries, "Next!"
But the "Next!" is Mr. Oliver Ogden Livingston, who has also turned from
the entrance, and is gazing after Miss Travenion, an occupation his eyes
have become quite used to in the last few months, since her father had
finished settling his million upon her.
Livingston, after a second's pause of consideration, says hurriedly to
the lady who comes immediately behind him, "Mother, you and Louise had
better go to our car. Ferdie will escort you. I will wait for Miss
Travenion and see her on board before the train starts."
To this, Mrs. Livingston, who, though fair, plump and forty-five, is of
a nervous tendency, cries out, "My Heaven! She's running out of the
depot--she is so impulsive--if anything happens to Erma, what shall I
say to her father?" And the chaperon casts anxious glances on her
charge, who is still moving in pursuit of the abstracted Mr. Kruger, who
is apparently looking for somebody himself.
"NEXT!" cries the ticket man savagely. "Don't block the way!"
"Ferdie, take us in," whispers Miss Livingston, who is immediately
behind her mother, and is sixteen, pretty and snippy. "That gateman
looks impatient."
"Quick, Louise, or the ticket puncher 'll mistake my head for a ticket,"
laughs the young man. Then he cries, "Come along, auntie. Don't be
frightened. You don't suppose Oliver will ever lose sight of Miss
Dividends?" And with a passing wink of inborn knowledge to Ollie, which
is returned by a stare prim and savage, Ferdie rushes his aunt and Miss
Louise past the portals, towards a private Pullman car, the last of an
express train standing ready to move out to Chicago, on a bright
September day, of the year of our Lord 1871.
Livingston, relieved of the care of the other ladies of his party,
watches his valet, assisted by two maid-servants in caps, carrying the
hand-satchels, shawls, and minor baggage of the party to the car, then
turns his glance towards Miss Travenion. The savageness leaves his eyes,
and a little soft passion takes its place. They follow the movements of
the girl with prim rapture, as well they may.
Miss Travenion is just overtaking the man she is pursuing; her eyes,
intent upon her chase, sparkle as blue diamonds. From her well-shaped
head float, after the fashion of that day, two long curls of hair that
would be golden, did not the sun seem to claim them as his own, and
permeating them with his fire, make each hair as brilliant as his own
bright rays. Above the curls, a summer hat, beneath this, waving locks
that crown a marble forehead, perhaps too broad for ancient sculptors'
taste, but ideal for modern artists, who love soul in woman; cheeks rosy
with health, lips red and moist as coral washed by sea-spray, the upper
one laughing, the under one eager; a chin that tells of resolution, a
figure light as a fairy's, but with the contours of a Venus; clothed in
a travelling gown that does not disguise the graces that it robes; one
eager hand outstretched towards the flitting Kruger, the other grasping
firmly, yet lightly, the skirt and draping it about her, plucking its
laces and broideries from out the dust, and showing as she trips along a
foot and ankle that a lover would rave about--a sculptor mould.
This is what makes Ollie Livingston's little heart beat one or two pats
to the second more rapidly than normal, showing how small his soul, how
puny his manhood, for no more charming girl has ever been looked upon
than Erma Travenion, as she lays her well-gloved patrician hand upon Lot
Kruger's big Western arm, even amid the crowds of this great railroad
station of New York, where beauties--American beauties at that--have
given forth to admiring humanity each glance and gesture, grace and
tone, that allure and conquer mankind.
Mr. Kruger, also in pursuit of some one, has just found his man, and
thus Erma is enabled to overtake him. As she comes up he is in such
earnest conversation with a small, weazened-face, ferret-like individual
that he does not note the approaching beauty.
Were Miss Travenion intent upon anything but speaking to the Westerner
she could hardly avoid appreciating the peculiarity of the interview she
is breaking in upon--Kruger all command, the other answering with a
docility unusual among Americans, and at times saluting in almost a
cringing manner the man addressing him. As Erma stands for a moment
behind Kruger, she hears him say tersely and sharply to his companion:
"Jenkins, there are four hundred more coming on the _Scotia_, due
to-morrow, and three hundred here now. We have contracted with the
Central for the U. P. to take them at forty dollars a head. The other
crowd I will wait for."
Mr. Jenkins's reply Miss Travenion does not catch, as she places her
hand on Lot Kruger's arm and he swings around suddenly and quickly to
see who interrupts him. His face for a moment has a startled and
annoyed, perhaps an angry, expression upon it, but as he turns and gazes
upon Erma, smiles chase sternness away from his features, even as they
did upon Livingston's flaccid face; the young lady's beauty seeming to
have a similar effect upon both men, though Kruger's virile passion is
ten times as strong as that of the prim New Yorker.
Miss Travenion says hurriedly: "Mr. Kruger, I saw you here. I couldn't
help following you. You have just come from the West--you have seen my
father lately? Tell me, is he well? I haven't had a letter from him for
a fortnight."
He cries, "Miss Ermie, I am mighty glad your daddy hain't written, for
if he had, I guess I shouldn't have heard your pretty voice, unless I
hunted you up at your boarding-school."
"Oh, you wouldn't have found me there. I have not been at Miss Hines'
for nearly ten months."
"Ah, I see: graduated in all the arts and sciences and music and
etceteras," remarks Kruger, his eyes, piercing, though gray, looking
over the exquisite girl before him, and growing red and inflamed with
some potent emotion, as he concludes rather huskily: "I might have seen
you have left school. You have developed as be-uti-fu-l-ly as one of the
lambs of Zion," though, even as he says this, Lot Kruger seems to
repress himself and from this time on to keep a tight rein upon some
peculiarity that is strong within him.
"But papa, papa; you haven't told me of him," exclaims the young lady,
who seems little interested in Mr. Kruger's remarks, and only intent
upon information as to her absent loved one, for as she speaks of her
father, the girl's voice grows soft, and tender tears come into her
eyes.
"Oh, your dad's all right, Sissy," goes on Kruger, in his easy Western
way. "You needn't water his grave yit. Reckon your pap has had too much
railroad and mine on his hands to be able to even eat for the last
month. I know, for I am interested in the mine a leetle." Then he tells
her quite shortly that her father has so many big enterprises beyond the
Rockies that he is an "uncommon busy man."
As he does so, Erma is gazing at him and thinking what an extraordinary
individual her father has found for a partner, beyond the Rocky
Mountains; for Lot Kruger, as he stands before her, would be a striking
figure, even in Western America, which produces curious types and more
curious individuals.
He stands six feet two in his stockings, and has proportionate shoulders
and limbs, which are covered with ample black broadcloth, after the
Sunday-best-clothes Southern and Western fashion of the year 1871; the
coat of Prince Albert style, open and unbuttoned and falling below the
knees of his trousers, that are cut in what was then called the
"peg-top" pattern; his shirt front as ample as his coat is large,
crumpled and protruding from out a low-cut vest and adorned by a splash
or two of tobacco juice; his hat a stove-pipe, its plush rumpled and
brushed against the grain,--all make him a man of mark. From off his
broad shoulders rises a neck strong as that of a buffalo, and supporting
a massive head covered with long red hair, and a face from the nose up
that of a good-natured Newfoundland, but below the jaws and teeth of a
bull-dog; the eyes gray as a grizzly's, and steely when in anger; while,
thrown over all this is a kind of indescribable, semi-Puritanical,
semi-theological air that makes one wonder, "Is this man a backwoods
preacher turned mining speculator, or a reformed cowboy made into a
missionary?"
At present, as he gazes at Miss Travenion, Lot Kruger's face is nearly
all that of the Newfoundland dog; and Erma, though she thinks him a
curious associate for her father, with his Eastern breeding and
education and New York manners, still considers Mr. Kruger, though
crude, very good-natured and rather meek.
Oh, these judgments of women, whose instinct _never_ mistakes
character,--where one out of ten women guesses the villain at sight and
brags of it forever, the other nine mistaken sisters are swindled and
perchance undone, and say nothing about woman's unfailing intuition, but
still keep on guessing wrong until the crack of doom.
As Erma gazes on Kruger he continues: "Bound for a summer jaunt, I
guess,--some watering place where the boys and gals will have a high
time--Nar-regani-set or Newport or Sarietogy, Miss Ermie. Your dad is
very liberal to you, I understand,--puts up the greenbacks in wads."
"My father is generosity itself to me," returns Miss Travenion rather
haughtily, for she is by no means pleased with the freedom of Mr.
Kruger's remarks. "But the Newport season is finished, and I have
accepted Mrs. Ogden Livingston's invitation to be one of her party.
Under her charge I am going to take a run across the continent, and _en
route_ for California I shall drop in upon papa, and astonish and
enrapture him."
"Wh--e--w!" This would be a prolonged whistle, did not Kruger check it
savagely, and cut it off in the middle. Then he goes on stammeringly,
but eagerly:--"Your dad doesn't know of--of your intention?" an amazed
expression lighting up his honest gray eyes, which is forced down by his
set, calm, repressive lower face.
"No, he doesn't guess that I'm coming. Won't it be a surprise to dear
papa when I step lightly into his office, and say: 'Behold your
daughter!'" laughs Erma.
"Yes,--I--reckon it will be a--sockdolager!" mutters her father's friend
contemplatively. Then says suddenly, "You haven't telegraphed him?"
"Certainly not; I wish to surprise him. Besides, I shall be with him
almost as soon as a telegram, now that this wonderful Pacific Railway is
finished," babbles the girl. "It will only take seven days to far-off
California, and Ogden is two days this side of San Francisco, I
understand."
"Yes, your time-table's all right," returns Mr. Kruger. Then he asks
quietly, "Who's in your party?"
"Oh, Mrs. Livingston, of course; her daughter, Louise; Mr. Ferdinand
Chauncey, her nephew, and her son, who is now just beside me. Mr.
Livingston, Mr. Lot Kruger, my father's friend."
The two men acknowledge this introduction; then Livingston says hastily,
"Miss Travenion, excuse me interrupting your conversation, but the train
leaves in five minutes, and I presume my mother is even now
anxious--perhaps already hysterical."
"Very well, then," returns Erma. "Good-bye, Mr. Kruger. I am so glad to
hear that papa is all right. Shall we see you in the West? We shall be
in California two months, and perhaps on our return--" And she extends a
gracious hand to the Westerner.
But Lot laughs: "You'll see me before then. I'm going on the same train.
You needn't have run after me, if you had known that I go out on the
Chicago express also." With this, he gives the little gloved hand that
is already in his a hearty squeeze, that makes the blood fly out of the
girl's fingers into her face, and turns hurriedly to the man he had
previously addressed, who has been waiting for him just out of
ear-shot.
A moment after, Miss Travenion is conducted by her escort through the
crowd of the great station, past the ticket man at the gate, and on
board the train, where Mrs. Livingston is already in a state of animated
nervous rhapsody, muttering, "The cars are moving! They _are_ left
behind! What'll I say to that girl's father?" and other exclamations
indicative of approaching spasms.
"Forgive me, dear Mrs. Livingston," says Erma, apologetically. "I
couldn't help asking about my father. I haven't seen him for so long,
and have had no letter for two weeks."
"He's a rather curious creature, that friend of papa," remarks Ollie
superciliously.
"Very," answers Erma. "But my father, in his railroad enterprises, must
be thrown among men of all ranks, grades and conditions."
"Oh, certainly," assents Oliver. "You remember that individual with the
free and easy manners who invited himself to mother's supper party the
other night."
"If you mean Captain Lawrence," remarks Ferdie, tossing himself into the
conversation, "I can tell you he didn't invite himself--I did that part
of the business myself. And as to his manners being free and easy, I
think, considering he hadn't spoken to a pretty woman for a year, he did
very well--under the circumstances. If I'd been in his place I'd have
probably kissed the ladies all round."
This assertion is greeted by a very horrified "Oh, Ferdinand!" from Mrs.
Livingston, and screams of laughter from Louise.
Miss Travenion, who remembers Captain Lawrence's last glance and hand
squeeze and words, grows slightly red about her cheeks and sinks upon a
seat and gazes out of an open car window.
As for Mr. Kruger, the moment he has left Erma Travenion, he has
dropped all the laziness of a Newfoundland dog, and assumes the activity
of a terrier. He has said hurriedly but determinedly to his satellite,
"Jenkins, you stay and wait for the four hundred coming on the Scotia.
Forward the other three hundred by Davis, who came from Wales with
them."
"But--" Jenkins is about to interrupt.
"No time to discuss this 'ere matter," says Kruger with a snap. "I must
go West on this train. It's somethin' you can't understand, but more
important than all the Welsh cows that we've brought over these ten
years--you do as I tell ye."
"Yes, Bishop," answers the man humbly and goes away, as Mr. Kruger,
whose plans the sudden meeting with Miss Travenion seems to have
changed, produces a pass from the New York Central Railway, hurries to
the sleeping-car office, buys a ticket to Chicago, and boards the train
almost as it begins to move out for the West, and placing himself in a
smoking compartment, goes to chewing tobacco in a meditative but
seemingly contented manner, as after a little time he remarks to
himself, "How things seem to be coming to Lot Kruger and Zion together."
CHAPTER IV.
MR. FERDIE BEGINS HIS WESTERN INVESTIGATIONS.
The train rattles out of New York, and crossing the Harlem, skirts that
pretty little salt water river; as Miss Travenion settles herself lazily
in her seat, with a graceful ease peculiar to her, for the girl has a
curious blending of both style and beauty, giving her a patrician
elegance of manner that makes gracious even the slight tendency to
_hauteur_ in her manner and voice.
The sun shines upon her face, and she turns it from the morning beams,
and gazing towards the West, thinks of her father. Her eyes grow gentle,
her mobile features expectant with hope, and tender with love; and
Oliver Livingston, who is reading a New York journal, glances up from
it, and noting Erma's face thinks, "She really does love me, dear girl,
though she is so cold, which is much better form till we are regularly
engaged," and decides to give her a chance to admit her affection to him
formally before the end of their summer tour, for this prim gentleman
actually adores the young lady he is looking at as much as his
diminutive soul can love anything, except himself.
At present he does not know how small his soul is, but rather thinks it
is large and noble and very magnanimous. He has had no occasion so far
to test its dimensions, his life up to this time having been quite
narrow; and though he has travelled, it has not brought much into his
brain, save some strong, high church notions he has imported from
Oxford, to which university this young gentleman had been sent to
complete his education after Harvard; his mother having an idea it might
get him into English society, and perhaps permit him to make a great
European match. This was before Erma's father had made his million
dollar settlement upon her; Mrs. Livingston having been one of the first
of those pioneers from New York who passed over to England and replaced
the social chains of the Mother Country upon her,--those her grandfather
and other American patriots had fought to throw off, together with the
political ones of George the Third, his Majesty of glorious memory.
Upon his return to New York, Mr. Ollie had signalized his advent by
dragging his mother and sister to Saint Agnes's from their old pew at
Grace Church, the ritual of that place not being sufficiently Puseyitic
for his views; his father, the elder Livingston, who had no religion to
mention save certain maxims of business and the rules of his club,
being, fortunately for his son's high church movement, dead.
This performance of the heir of the house had made his mother think him
a saint; as, indeed, to do the young man justice, he wished to be; and
had Ollie Livingston elected to follow any profession, he would
doubtless have turned to the ministry; but his million of dollars
perhaps dulled his incentive for work, and after his return from
England, the young man had done nothing; but as Ferdie had irreverently
expressed it, "had done that nothing GRANDLY."
And why should he work? He had money enough to command any ordinary
luxury of life. As for position, was he not a Livingston, and could he
add additional honor to that old Knickerbocker name? thought his mother.
There was only one trouble in all their family affairs, and that was
removed by the settlement Mr. Travenion had made upon Ollie's _fiancee_,
for as such Mrs. Livingston already regarded Erma. In order to make the
settlement upon his son, the elder Livingston had culled his best
securities and most gilded collaterals; those left for the support of
his widow and daughter, not being so stable, had depreciated in the last
few years, and Mrs. Livingston's income had dwindled until it was not
what she considered it should be for a lady of her station. Now, of
course, if Ollie married a very rich wife, he could be very liberal to
his mother and sister, and that point had been happily settled by the
million-dollar settlement upon Miss Travenion.
It is some thought of this that is in Erma's mind once or twice in her
first day's journey towards the West. The girl loves Mrs. Livingston,
who had been a companion of Erma's mother, and had been very kind to
the child even after her father's reverses, and had frequently visited
Miss Hines' Academy in Gramercy Park, and had the little Erma, now
wholly orphaned by her mother's death and father's absence, to her great
house on Madison Square, where she had been regaled _en princess_ and
sent back to the boarding school made happy with good things to eat and
presents that make children's hearts glad.
This, Miss Travenion does not forget, now that her father's settlements
upon her have made her probably as great an heiress in her own right as
any girl of her circle in Manhattan society.
This peculiar position of Mrs. Livingston had been pretty well known to
Erma, and it seemed to compel her to make no protest when the widow had
taken her from the seclusion of Miss Hines' Academy at the beginning of
the winter and brought her out, with much blowing of social trumpets and
flowers and fiddling at Mrs. Livingston's Madison Square mansion--and
also had chaperoned her at Newport.
Therefore, she has rather grown to consider herself set apart for
Oliver's wife, and as such has turned a deaf ear to the many men who, on
slight encouragement, would be more than happy and more than ready to
woo a young lady who has gorgeous beauty, a million of dollars of her
own and a father of indefinite Western wealth, which, magnified by
distance, has increased to such Monte Cristo proportions, that it has
gained for her the title, among her set, of "Miss Dividends."
Besides any notion of gratitude to Mrs. Livingston, Erma knows that this
match with Ollie is her father's wish. On one of his visits to New York,
she had once hinted her desire to visit and live with him in the West,
and had been promptly refused in terms as stern as Ralph Travenion could
bring himself to use to his daughter, for whom he seemed to have a very
tender love, and in doing so he had indicated that his wishes were that
she fulfil the arrangement he had made with his old-time friend, the
elder Livingston.
"Marry Oliver," he had said. "He is in your rank--the position to which
you were born, Erma. Live in the East. The West is, perhaps, the best
place to make money, but New York is _par excellence_ the place to enjoy
it. Some day--perhaps sooner than you expect, I shall join you here, and
settle down to my old life as club man again," and Ralph Travenion looks
towards the Unity Club, upon whose lists his name still stands, and of
whose smoking-room he is still an _habitue_ on his visits to Manhattan,
rather longingly from his parlor in the Brevoort House, at which hotel
he always stopped, in contradistinction to most of his comrades from the
Plains, who are more apt to register at the Fifth Avenue or the Hoffman.
It was on one of these visits at the Brevoort that Erma had chanced to
meet Mr. Lot Kruger, and circumstances compelling the same, had received
introduction to him.
"Ha! a new convert to Zion!" the Westerner had cried out, looking rather
curiously at the beautiful girl of nineteen, who had entered unannounced
into Ralph Travenion's apartments.
But her father had simply said: "My daughter, Miss Erma, let me present
Mr. Kruger, a business associate of mine," and had so dismissed the
affair, though several times afterward the Westerner had chanced to be
at Travenion's apartments when Erma called, and once or twice he had
appeared at Miss Hines' Academy, bearer, as he said, of news from her
father to Miss Travenion, to the amusement, astonishment and giggles of
her fellow-pupils and the dismay of the schoolmistress, who thought Mr.
Kruger a species of Western border ruffian or bandit.
However, as she sits and meditates, the thought that she is drawing
nearer and nearer to her loved father, drives all else out of Erma
Travenion's head, and she watches the wave-washed banks of the beautiful
Hudson, and as they pass by says, "One more tree nearer papa--one more
island nearer papa--one more town nearer papa," and later in the day,
they having got off the New York Central, she murmurs "_One more
railroad nearer papa_," and grows happier and happier as the cars bear
her on.
So the day passes. Her companions have settled down to their journey,
and are passing their time in cards or novel reading, and Miss Travenion
has plenty of opportunity for reflection, for Ollie notices that the
girl seems to wish to be left to herself, and only ventures occasional
remarks when passing objects demand them.
Mr. Kruger, awed perhaps by the private car, which was much more of a
rarity and luxury in 1871 than it is to-day, does not intrude upon the
young lady or her party, though Erma notices when she gets off at the
large stations for exercise that Lot's eyes seem to follow her about, as
if he were interested in her for her father's sake.
Thus the night comes and goes, and during the next day, the 1st of
October, the party pass through Chicago, just then waiting to be burned
in order that it may become great.
So, running over the prairies two days and a few hours after leaving New
York, they arrive at Council Bluffs, and take ferry across the Missouri
River, no bridge at this time crossing that great but uncertain and
shifting stream.
During this two days' journey from New York to the Missouri, a
considerable change has taken place in the minds of some of the members
of the party as to their proposed jaunt to the Rocky Mountains and
beyond. This has chiefly been brought about by Mr. Ferdie, who, having
purchased a book entitled "_Facts About the Far West_," has been
regaling himself with the same, and devoting a considerable portion of
his time explaining and elucidating the knowledge he thinks he has
gained from it to Mrs. Livingston, producing a very distressing effect
upon that plump lady's nervous system.
These "_Facts About the West_" consist chiefly of anecdotes of the
border ruffian kind, descriptions of various atrocities, Indian
massacres, Mormon outrages and vigilance committees, and are of such a
very highly colored and blood-curdling description that Mr. Chauncey
himself remarks, as he finishes the volume: "If these are _facts_ about
the West, I think the _fiction_ will be too rich for my blood!" Though
half-believing the same, this young gentleman imagines he has acquired
in his two days between New York and Council Bluffs, considerable
knowledge of the manners of the Western frontiersman, border-ruffians,
stage-drivers, Indians, Mormons, and buffaloes.
A number of the more blood-curdling anecdotes he has detailed to Mrs.
Livingston at odd times, enjoying her shudderings at such stories as
that of the waiter in the New Mexico hotel, who shot the Chicago drummer
to death because he declined to eat the eggs and said they were
incipient chickens; also, a few of the more cruel exploits of celebrated
Johnnie Slade, the murderous superintendent of a division of the Ben
Holliday's stage line, together with a full, true and accurate account
of the atrocious butchery of one hundred and thirty three men, women and
children by the notorious John D. Lee, of Utah, the Mormon bishop, and a
portion of the Mormon militia, disguised as Indians, that occurred in
1857, and now known under the head of the Mountain Meadow Massacre; "The
Last Shot of Joaquin, the California Bandit," etc., etc.
These revelations of Western atrocity Mr. Ferdinand is delighted to see
produce upon the nerves of Mrs. Livingston effects more demoralizing
than the morphine habit. And he would continue his narrations, with much
_gusto_, to the agitated Mrs. Livingston, did not Erma, who has been
listening indifferently to his tales of blood, suddenly, at her first
opportunity, lead the chuckling Ferdie aside, and, placing two flaming
eyes upon him, whisper: "Not another of your Western horrors to your
aunt!" Then her voice grows pathetic, and she mutters: "Would you
frighten her so that she retreats from her journey and takes me back to
New York, and deprives me of seeing my father--the joy I am looking
forward to minute by minute, and hour by hour."
This oration, emphasized by savage glances and made pathetic by flashing
eyes, has a great effect on Mr. Ferdinand, and he promises silence,
remarking to himself: "What a stunner that Erma is, and only out of
boarding school ten months."
As it is, when Ferdie first looks upon the Missouri River and utters,
"The West is now before me. I feel as if I knew it very well from my
guide-book," tapping his blood-curdling volume. "Now for a practical
experience of the same," adding to this one or two attempts at Indian
war-whoops, the effect of his narratives has been so great on Mrs.
Livingston that she puts her plump hands over her pale blue eyes and
shudderingly mutters: "The West--shall I ever live to come out of it?"
and would take train immediately for Eastern civilization, were it not
that she fears the laughter of her daughter, Louise, and the sneers of
Oliver, her son, who has several times pooh-poohed Ferdie's anecdotes of
Rocky Mountain life, and once or twice, during his more atrocious
recitals, has ejaculated "Bosh!"
As she descends from her car at Council Bluffs, she lays one trembling
hand on her son's arm, and makes one half-hearted expostulation, "Don't
you think, since we are compelled to leave our private car here, we had
better end the trip and return to New York immediately?"
This Mr. Oliver silences by a stern "What! Our tickets already bought
for San Francisco? Besides that, Van Wyke Stuyvesant has just come back
with his mother and sisters, and pronounces the trip delightful, and I
don't wish Van Wyke, who is something of a braggart, to be able to talk
of the Yosemite and Big-trees and I be unable to say I have been there
also. Besides, Erma is looking forward to meeting her father."
Thus compelled, Mrs. Livingston nervously accepts her son's escort to
the ferry boat, and the party cross the Missouri River to take cars at
Omaha on the Union Pacific Railway--Mr. Oliver, calmly indifferent to
his mother's feelings, and only intent upon using some of the chances of
the journey for making his romantic declaration to Miss Travenion.
It will give that young lady, he imagines, the opportunity she is
anxiously awaiting, to accept his distinguished name, large fortune and
small heart; though did he but guess it, Miss Travenion has but one
thought in her soul--fifteen hundred miles nearer papa!
Mr. Chauncey, however, is very anxious for the wonders of the border
land he has read about, crazy to see a herd of buffaloes, and determined
to investigate Western matters for himself generally, in order to have
some rare stories of frontier life with which to make his Eastern
college chums open their eyes over social spreads at the "D. K. E.," for
this young gentleman will enter Harvard as freshman next term. An Alma
Mater of which he is already very proud _in futuro_, and in which he is
very anxious to distinguish himself, not as a reading man, but as a
Harvard man--a being, who, this young gentleman fondly imagines, has the
beauty of an Adonis, the muscle of a Sullivan, the pluck of a
bull-terrier, the brain of a Macchiavelli, and the morals of a Don Juan,
disguised by the demeanor and bearing of a Lord Chesterfield.
So the young man springs eagerly ashore on the Nebraska side of the
Missouri, and cries out in a laughing voice: "Omaha! All aboard for the
Rockies and buffaloes and Indians and scalpings!" exclamations which
make the widow's nerves tingle and the widow's plump hands shake a
little, as her son assists her across the gang-plank.
Then, his mother being landed, Ollie turns to offer the same attention
to Erma, but to his astonishment he is anticipated in his act of
gallantry by the Western Mr. Kruger.
This gentleman, apparently, near his native heath, has grown bolder, and
as he expresses it to himself, "has been do'en the perlite" to Miss
Travenion, indicating to her the various points of interest in Omaha as
seen from the river, together with the Union Pacific Railway bridge,
which is at this time in process of construction.
"Your daddy and I once spent four hours in winter trying to get across
this river, Sissy, and were mighty nigh froze to death doing it, and if
it had not been for my U. S. blanket overcoat that I picked up when
Johnston was out thar invadin' us"--he checks himself shortly here and
mumbles: "I reckon your old man would have given in. But here we
air--Permit the hand of fellowship over the step-off!"
This allusion to her father is received by a grateful "thank you" from
the young lady, who, if she has read of Albert Sydney Johnston's
campaign in Utah has forgotten the same, and she accepts Mr. Kruger's
aid across the gang-plank in so easy and affable a manner that Lot
proffers his further escort to the omnibus waiting to bear this young
lady up the hill toward what is called the railroad depot in Omaha.
Having assisted her into the 'bus with rather effusive gallantry, and
noting during his attentions a ravishing ankle in silken hose that makes
his fatherly eyes grow red and watery, he remarks with a chuckle to
himself as he sees the New York beauty drive off: "If Miss
High-Fallutin' should come to Zion in the Far West, oh Saints of
Melchisedec!" and is so overcome by his emotions that he almost misses
the last transfer omnibus.
So, it comes to pass that in the course of a few minutes they all find
themselves at that ramshackle affair that was, and is now, for that
matter, termed the Western Union Depot in Omaha. Here the train is drawn
up, ready for its race towards the West. Attached to it are two Pullman
cars, in one of which Erma's party have engaged their accommodations,
which consist of a rear stateroom, occupied by Mrs. Livingston and her
daughter, a forward stateroom, which has been engaged for Miss Travenion
and her maid. The section next his mother's being occupied entirely by
Oliver, that young man always looking after his own comfort and luxury
very thoroughly; while a section in the forward end of the car, next
Miss Travenion's stateroom, has been set apart for Mr. Ferdinand
Chauncey in order that he may be situated so as to give Erma any
masculine assistance or protection she may require.
Of course, this is by no means so convenient for the New York party as
the private car, which had been placed at their service by a relative of
Mrs. Livingston, one of the magnates of the Pennsylvania Railway, but it
had been considered by Mr. Oliver best to submit to the more contracted
accommodations found upon a general sleeping car than to the exorbitant
charges of the Western railways.
Miss Travenion has already made herself comfortable in her stateroom by
the aid of her maid, a pretty French girl, who is about as useless a one
as could have been selected for this trip, save in the matter of
feminine toilet; when glancing into the open portion of the sleeping
car, Erma gets a little surprise. She sees Captain Harry Storey Lawrence
entering the same, and placing his _impedimenta_ in the section opposite
Ferdie's, which from its location is also next to her stateroom. She
gives the young man a slight bow, which he acknowledges with military
courtesy, a little red showing under the tan of the sun upon his hardy
cheeks; but thinks only passingly of the matter, judging it a mere
chance of travel, she having already heard the gentleman state that he
was returning to Utah.
She would probably pay more attention to the affair did she know that
what she considers a mere accident of travel, has been brought about on
the part of the young man by deliberate design.
Lawrence having finished his business in Chicago, and his telegrams from
Southmead received at the Sherman House indicating that there was no
immediate hurry for his presence in Salt Lake, that young gentleman had
said to himself, "Why not travel with _her_? Three days in a Pullman
sleeper are equal to a voyage at sea. Before my arrival at Salt Lake,
_she_ shall have better acquaintance with me than a few words in a
Delmonico supper room can produce." Actuated by this idea, the captain
had journeyed leisurely to Omaha, and discovering the location of Erma's
stateroom, had promptly selected the section next to it for the trip to
the West.
Very shortly after this, with much ringing of bell and much blowing of
whistle, the train gets into motion, and passing out of the Omaha depot,
in a few minutes is climbing a little ascent over which it will pass
into the valley of the Platte, to run along endless plains till the
snowy summits of the Rocky Mountains come into view on the Western
horizon.
To the south, a low range of hills is bordering the river; to the north
prairies, nothing but prairies; to the west nothing but prairies, save
two long lines of rails that run straight as an arrow towards the
setting sun till they seem to come together and be one.
Gazing at these, her eyes full of expectant happiness and hope, Miss
Travenion murmurs, "At the end of these, one thousand and odd miles
away, my father," and the green prairies of Nebraska grow very beautiful
to her, and the soft southern wind, as it enters the car windows, seems
very pleasant to her, and the rays of the setting sun make the green
grass lands and the long reaches of the Platte River flowing over its
yellow quicksands and dotted with its little cottonwood islands seem
like a landscape of Heaven to her.
Then Ferdie comes in, looking eagerly out of the car window, and
whispers: "Do you see any buffaloes yet? I have got a revolver and a
sporting rifle to kill them." A second after he ejaculates, "What's
that!"
And Erma starts and echoes "What's that?"
For it is a sound these two have never heard the like of before--the
shriek of the Western train book agent--not the pitiful note of the puny
Eastern vender, but the wild whoop of the genuine transcontinental
fiend, who in the earlier seventies went bellowing through a car like a
calliope on a Mississippi River boat.
"Bre-_own's_ prize candies! Twenty-five cents a box, warranted fresh and
something that'll make you feel pleased and slick in every one of
'em--Bre-own's prize candies."
Being of a speculative turn of mind, Ferdie invests in one or two of
these, and he and Erma open them together and laugh at their bad luck,
for Ferdie has won a Jew's harp, worth about a cent, and she is the
happy possessor of a brass thimble, and the candies, apparently, have
been manufactured before Noah's Ark put to sea. While joking about this,
a new idea seems to strike Ferdie.
The news-boy, who has gathered up his packages after making his trades
on the sharpest of business principles, is leaving the car. Mr. Chauncey
asks him if he has any Western literature.
"I always have everything," cries the young man. "Give you 'The Scout of
the Plains,' or 'Long Har, the Hermit of the Rockies,' for twenty-five
cents."
"I don't want fiction; facts are what I'm after," says Ferdie,
interrupting him.
"Then I'll accommodate also," remarks the youth, and going away, he
returns after a few minutes bearing four or five bound volumes,
entitled, "The Oatman Girls' Captivity among the Apaches," "The
Construction of the Union Pacific Railway," "The Life and Adventures of
Jim Beckworth, the Naturalized Crow Chief," "Kit Carson, the Pioneer,"
"Fremont's Explorations" and "Female Life among the Mormons, by the Wife
of an Elder of the Latter-Day Saints."
"Facts come higher," he says, "than lies. These are bound books, and
will cost you all the way from $1.50 up to $4. But you can turn 'em in
at the end of the trip, if you want, and I will let you have fifty per
cent. on them. I had sooner you did it that way, because then _I'll_ bag
the profit, not my boss."
Whereupon, Ferdie selects "Kit Carson," "The Building of the Union
Pacific Railway," and "Female Life among the Mormons," tendering a
ten-dollar bill, for which he receives very little change, but making
the agreement for the return of the books on arrival at Ogden, much to
the delight of the news-agent, who remarks oracularly, "Buck Powers is
never quite left."
"Oh, that is your name, is it?" says Mr. Chauncey. "Probably you know a
good deal about the West yourself?"
"I was born in Chicago," answers the boy proudly, "and railroaded ever
since I was corn high."
"Ah, a railroad man?"
"You bet! I've run on the C. B. & Q., I have," remarks Buck, his voice
growing proud, "and any man that has run on de boss road of the West out
of Chicago, can call himself a railroad man and nothin' else."
In this exaltation of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, Buck was by no
means alone in the early seventies, for somehow that was considered the
great road west of the Mississippi, and all who were connected with it
from a switchman up, seemed to be very proud of the C. B. & Q., and to
run upon it into Chicago, appeared to them to be the acme of railroad
bliss and happiness, which was the acme of all happiness. So they kicked
off tramps with a proud kick, and they coupled freight cars with a
self-satisfied air, and they received deaths with complaisance as
defective couplings broke and box cars crashed together, and they made
up passenger trains and ran locomotives with the haughty air of men
belonging to the most prominent road in that great country which centred
in Chicago, to which the rest of America, especially the East, was but
an attachment.
"Oh, you are a railroad man--a _Western_ railroad man. Perhaps you can
tell me about the Rocky Mountains?"
"What I can't tell you about the Rockies and the U. P. ain't worth
knowing," remarks Buck. "After I get through with this candy trip, and
give 'em a rattle or two on books, notions and fruit, I'll come back and
give you some eye-openers, because I can see you're going to be a good
trader." Thus tagging on business with pleasure and self-glorification,
Buck Powers proceeds on his way through the cars, shouting in a voice
that drowns the roll of the wheels and the tooting of the locomotive:
"Bre-_own's_ prize candies! Twenty-five cents a package! Warranted fresh
and _gen_uine, and each package guaran_teed_ to contain a donation! It
is your last chance to-night! Last chance to-night for _Bre_-OWN's prize
candy and Chicago chewing gum!"
During this interview, Miss Travenion has looked on with an amused
glance. She is astounded that one so small can make so great a noise,
for Mr. Buck Powers is but five feet and five inches high, and rather
slight, skinny, and wiry of frame, but his voice is like that of Goliath
of Gath, with occasional staccatos stolen from the midnight yelp of the
coyote of the plains.
As the boy's howls die away in the next car, she says suddenly to
Ferdie, "What are you going to do with those books?"
"Amuse auntie with them."
"That I forbid you to do. No more fibs about the West to Mrs.
Livingston. Do you want her to have a nervous fever?"
"Very well," remarks Ferdinand, contemplatively. "If you object to my
instructing auntie, I will keep them for my own amusement and
knowledge." Then he cries suddenly, "By George, wasn't that a buffalo?"
and throws up the car window, and looks out excitedly, to the serious
danger of his caput, for the train is running through a small town.
And Erma laughs and says, "No, it's a cow."
Just here the conductor comes in and makes everybody on the car alert
and happy, for he cries: "GRAND ISLAND! THIRTY MINUTES FOR SUPPER!"
CHAPTER V.
THE GRAND ISLAND EATING-HOUSE.
But with this announcement comes another sensation to Miss Travenion.
Ollie Livingston has been engaged most of the afternoon trying to make
the trip comfortable for his mother, for, whatever may be his other
failings, he certainly is a dutiful and attentive son.
As the train slackens its speed, he passes to Miss Travenion's
stateroom, and remarks: "You have heard the conductor announce supper.
Ferdie, take care of Louise and her mother. I will see to Erma." A
moment after he ejaculates nervously: "I'll just wash my hands, and be
with you in a moment," and moves hurriedly back to the gentlemen's
wash-room at the rear of the car, leaving Erma alone.
Miss Travenion makes her own preparations in the privacy of her
stateroom, and steps out to find herself cut off from the rest of her
party by her fellow-passengers, who have risen hurriedly, and are
crowding _en masse_ through the aisles, anxious to get to their evening
meal as rapidly as possible, most of them being old Western travellers
and knowing that if they wish to get a good supper, it is best for them
to be among the first rush upon the viands of a Pacific railroad
eating-house.
The train has stopped, and caught in the crowd, Miss Travenion finds
herself swept out upon the front platform of the car; a couple of stout
Western women crowd past her, shoving her nearly off the platform. The
Pullman porter shouts to her to look out. She has a hurried vision of
Mr. Lot Kruger rushing to her assistance in the next car, and blocked in
the aisle and struggling to squeeze past Buck Powers, who has been
caught in the supper rush and who is dashing about like a fiend to save
his wares from destruction.
She hears a voice that is half-way familiar say incisively: "This way,
Miss Travenion, at once!" and looking down, sees Harry Lawrence's
stalwart arm uplifted to assist her from the car. She puts out two
little gloved hands. These are eagerly seized upon, and in an instant
she is lifted lightly to the ground.
Here, blushing very slightly, she murmurs, "Thank you, Captain
Lawrence!"
"I am glad you remember my name," answers the young man in a very happy
voice.
Then he continues rapidly, "Excuse me a second. Your maid does not
appear to know what to do." And he assists the French abigail to alight
with as much care, if perhaps not as much ceremony, as he did the
mistress.
"Yes," replies Erma. "We travelled by a private car as far as Omaha,
and, of course, had our meals on board of it. Therefore, Marie was
rather disconcerted--as, to tell the truth, so was I."
"Ah, then, you _do_ need my assistance, if you want a meal," says Harry
quickly, for the gong is sounding very wildly outside the eating-house,
and the throng from the long train of cars is moving bodily upon it.
Noting this, the young man cries shortly: "Indecision means hunger--at
all events, the leavings. Come with me!"
Then, perceiving that Erma is hesitating and looking towards the car
from which Ferdie and Louise are just appearing, and which still
conceals Mrs. Livingston and her son, he says hurriedly: "Quick; I'll
reserve a table for your party and get them a first chance at the meal.
Come at once if you want your supper!"
"Of course I want my supper," cries Miss Travenion with a laugh; for the
brisk Nebraska air, which is quite often cool toward evening, in
October, has stimulated the young lady's appetite, which, like that of
most healthy girls of her age, is generally a good one.
So the young lady, placing her hand upon his arm and followed by her
maid, turns away from the crowd and is led to a side door, Lawrence
seeming to know the by-ways of the hotel pretty well.
In front of this are lounging the station master and two or three
railroad employees. These spring up with ejaculations of welcome and
delight! One cries, "God bless you, Cap!" and another, "Harry, you're
doing well." A third guffaws _sotto voce_, "You bet he is."
Returning their salutes, he says shortly, "Please let me in at the side
door--before the rush. This young lady is hungry." A moment after they
are in the dining-room of the railroad hotel before the crowd of
passengers have entered by the main portal.
This is a large apartment filled with tables, each of which will
accommodate six people, and each presided over and waited upon by a
brisk moving, calico-clothed Nebraska maiden.
A moment after, Erma's escort says to a bright-eyed prairie-girl who is
flourishing a feather duster to keep the flies off an as yet unoccupied
table: "Sally, reserve this table for myself and party."
Then to Miss Travenion's astonishment the maid answers, giving him a
look of open-eyed admiration, "Yes, Cap!"
The next instant she finds herself seated beside him, and her maid,
under his direction, taken to another table and made comfortable by
another brisk Nebraska girl, who also answers deferentially, "Yes, Cap!"
Then the one employed at their table calmly but uncompromisingly waves
off both flies and passengers from the tempting seats with her feather
duster, remarking, "This 'ere table's engaged! This 'ere table's
engaged," to applying drummers and hungry cattlemen who would make a
raid upon the precious vacant chairs; for all the other seats in the
room are by this time in use and the viands are flying off the tables in
a manner peculiar to Western appetites; while over all this comes in
continual chorus from the waiting-girls: "Steaks--chops--ham and
eggs--tea or coffee--pie or pudding," with an occasional variation of
"stewed prunes or fruit."
In this chorus their attendant maid has already joined, singing out in a
business way, "Steaks, chops or ham and eggs," when to Miss Travenion's
awful blushes, the girl suddenly stops her song and giggles, after the
free and easy manner of the prairies, "I know what's the matter with
you, Cap; you've been going and gitting married, and are bringing your
wife West!" casting a look of identification on Erma as the imported
bride.
To this Harry, choking down a rising curse, mutters in a very hoarse
voice, "Steaks for two, and ham and eggs _turned_!"
Then Ferdie inserts himself into this scene of embarrassment to the
young lady, and from which she has half risen to fly in a sudden bashful
spasm, and says: "Erma, what the deuce have you been doing? Mrs.
Livingston is almost hysterical, and thinks the Indians have got you,
when it is only Captain Lawrence and--supper."
"Yes," answers Harry, who blesses the boy for his interruption; "I know
more about Western eating-houses than you do. I have rescued Miss
Travenion from the crowd, and reserved a table for the rest of your
party. Just bring them along, will you--that's a good fellow?"
To this, Mr. Chauncey, who has already met Lawrence upon the train
during the afternoon, answers: "Won't I? I have been hunting everywhere
for a place for our ladies. It was these vacant chairs that attracted
me."
Then the young New Yorker, having gone in search of his party, Miss
Travenion once more finds herself subject to the attentions of the
gentleman beside her. But these are so very respectful that her
embarrassment gradually vanishes, and she devotes herself with
considerable comfort of mind to the supper which has just been placed
before her, for Captain Lawrence is particularly careful from now on
that his attentions to her, though effective as regards her wants, shall
have not the slightest affectation of familiarity in them.
So the girl, looking at him, thinks: "Some men who might consider
themselves of perhaps higher breeding than this one beside me, would
have made a joke out of that awful _contretemps_, but Captain Lawrence
is a gentleman, and gentlemen are very much the same all the world
over," and once or twice, when he does not notice it, she turns grateful
eyes upon him during pauses in the meal.
A moment after, Mr. Chauncey re-appears, followed by the Livingstons.
Mrs. Livingston mutters: "Good gracious, Erma, how you frightened me. My
heart is beating yet. If anything had happened to you, what would I have
said to your father?"
She would continue her emotion, did not Miss Travenion quietly say, "You
owe your supper this evening to Captain Lawrence, who was kind enough to
take charge of me in the crush, and also to look after your interests in
the matter of chairs and vacant table."
To which Miss Louise ejaculates: "Oh, how good of you. I'm dying of
hunger!" and the widow, who still remembers the fortunate compliment of
the young man, remarks: "Captain, as I owe my meal to you, I will sit
beside you," giving him a grateful glance and taking the chair on the
young man's left hand.
Then, being compelled to it, Mr. Oliver Livingston suddenly remembers
that he has met the Westerner before,--a thing he has forgotten, though
he has passed him several times upon the train, and suddenly says: "How
are yer?" in an absent-minded sort of way, and seating himself enjoys
the pleasures of gastronomy.
As the party's appetites become satisfied, their tongues begin to move
in conversation, and Harry, taking advantage of the situation, proceeds
to make himself very agreeable to Mrs. Livingston; for this young man
has been thinking the matter over during his three or four hours on the
train, and has concluded that to be a friend of the chaperon's will be
very useful to him in his intercourse with Miss Travenion.
"I was afraid," says the New York widow, "that Erma had been carried off
by Indians."
"Indians," remarks Lawrence, "were plentiful enough about here four or
five years ago, but the railroad, with its settlements, has swept them
back. In 1867 there were too many of them at times," and the young man's
brow grows dark and his lips compressed with some recollection of the
past. Throwing this off, he explains lightly to Mr. Ferdie, who begins
eagerly questioning him on the point, that any buffalo that may be seen
will be probably far to the West of where they are now; their best hope
of catching sight of them being during the next day's journey. "If you
had wanted to see buffalo in quantities," he continues, "you should have
journeyed on the K. P., one hundred and fifty to two hundred miles south
of here. There they graze, sometimes, even now, in droves of ten
thousand by the side of the railway track."
"By Jove!" cries Ferdie to this information, looking with longing eyes
to the South. "But we will return by the K. P., auntie, won't we?" Then
he questions suddenly: "You have killed buffalo, haven't you, Captain
Lawrence?"
"A few," remarks the Westerner quietly, and from that time on he is a
hero in Ferdie's eyes.
Mr. Ollie having by this time finished his meal,--a business that he has
interspersed with a few curt remarks about the badness and greasiness of
Western cooking and the general inefficiency of frontier waiter-girls,
he arises and suggests, "If you wish to miss this train, you had all
better linger a little longer over the table."
To this, Mrs. Livingston suddenly gasps, "Hurry! The passengers are all
leaving the room!"
"Oh, no hurry! They are only gentlemen anxious to get at their cigars,"
says Harry, to whom the meal has been a very pleasant one, Miss
Travenion having made it brilliant by one or two glances from her bright
eyes and a few vivacious remarks.
But the chaperon suddenly cries in a voice of terror, "If we miss the
train, we are here on the prairies, unprotected and ALONE!"
This pathetic remark, in a rising young frontier city of two thousand
inhabitants, produces a giggle from Miss Louise. She titters, "Pooh, ma!
This is a metropolis. I saw a dozen trainmen, half a hundred loafers and
one or two tramps on the platform as we drew up."
But Mrs. Livingston having risen, the party saunter towards the door,
that lady thanking Lawrence for some information he has given, tending
to dissipate her fears of wild Western adventure on the railroad. She
concludes this by saying, "You must give us a little of your aid and
protection, we have had so little frontier experience, Captain,"--a
request that gentleman is very glad to accede to, and he promises that
he will look after them all, especially the widow, very thoroughly and
very faithfully during their journey.
Harry in conversation with Mrs. Livingston has left the room, so have
Ferdie and Louise, and Ollie is employed settling the score; Erma finds
herself alone. Actuated, perchance, by a wish to learn more of the
gentleman who has been kind to her this afternoon, and perhaps prompted
by some curiosity to know why he is treated with so much respect under
the familiar appellation of "Cap" by the Western waiter-girls, she turns
back, and walking up to the bright-eyed abigail who has waited on them,
says, "You seem to know the gentleman who brought me into supper this
evening very well."
"Oh, Cap Lawrence?" answers the girl. "I should think so; we all have a
pretty powerful liking and respect for him about this portion of the
country."
"And why?"
"Why?" cries the Western girl. "Don't you know? Well, five years back,
when this 'ere hotel was nothin' but a log cabin and I worked giving
meals to our section men, the Indians made a raid up thar at Elm Creek,"
she points towards the west, "and if it hadn't been for the Cap taking a
hand-car and going up the track they would have wiped out every section
hand to the last man. As it was, they killed five of them, and it ain't
every man out here that wants to run into a lot of Sioux on the
war-path, in an open hand-car, but Cap Lawrence is the man to do it. You
are married to him, ain't you, Missus?"
"No," replies Erma, growing very red. "I am married to no man," and
striding away from the girl joins Ollie, though she catches a prophetic,
"Wa-al, perhaps some day you will be. I seed him look at you once or
twice, and you'll be mighty lucky if you catch him."
The subject of this colloquy is standing on the platform smoking his
cigar; he sees Miss Travenion pass him upon the arm of Mr. Oliver
Livingston, and wonders why the girl blushes so deeply, though she gives
him a pleasant nod. Then he suddenly thinks, "It is that accursed remark
of that red-headed Sally in the eating-house," and does not know that
Sally has done him one of the best turns that have as yet come to him.
She has set the mind of the girl he loves running upon a subject that
had not as yet occurred to her. As it is, Erma gives a glance at the
stalwart figure of the Westerner as he stands, in athletic ease, puffing
his cigar, then catching sight of Ollie's rather diminutive figure,
compares the two, perhaps not altogether to the advantage of Mr.
Livingston.
As Miss Travenion is assisted into the train by her escort, Lawrence
looking at her himself hears a low but resonant whisper at his side, "By
Jove, Cap, ain't she purty? Reckon she must come from Chicago." Looking
around he sees Buck Powers standing at his side, gazing in admiration at
the beauty who has caught and entranced the engineer's soul. This would
make Harry angry did he not notice that the news-agent is very young,
though his face has that peculiar precocity that comes from an early
struggle with the world and an early battle for life and bread, and
notes that the tone of the boy is as respectful and loving as his would
be did he happen to speak of his divinity.
A moment after, Mr. Livingston returning from the car, Captain Lawrence
accosts him and offers him a cigar.
"Awh! thanks," remarks Ollie, being compelled to the same, and accepting
it, he finds it to his astonishment to be a very good one,--much better
than the average weed he would get in a New York club: for this young
man does not know that the Western mining man and speculator uses the
very best of cigars, wines, and all creature comforts, even when his
luck is hard and his pocket almost empty.
A moment after Mr. Lot Kruger passes the two, and gives Harry a by no
means kindly glance, for he has noticed the attentions of this gentleman
to the daughter of his old friend, and does not like them.
This feeling is perhaps also felt, though at this time in a lesser
degree, by Mr. Oliver Livingston, who somehow or other has arrived at
the conclusion that Miss Travenion likes to listen to the conversation
of this gentleman from the West, and does not like it very much more
than Mr. Kruger.
Consequently, when the engineer rings the bell and the conductor cries,
"All aboard!" Harry Lawrence has made one active and one at present
passive enemy, though he is rapidly growing to be a hero in Mr. Ferdie's
imagination; and as for Buck Powers, he has loved and admired this young
engineer of the Pacific Railway for years, as nearly every other
employee of the same, especially those engaged in its early building,
have done ever since he ran the lines in Nebraska when that State was a
howling wilderness of Indians, wild animals, trappers and prairies.
Then the train, getting under headway, passes with illuminated Pullmans
and flashing headlight into the night of the plains. Miss Travenion,
with a new interest in her mind as to this Western gentleman chance
seems to have thrown into her way, looks out of her stateroom--the car
is half empty, most of its male passengers being in the smoking room
with their after-dinner cigars. Among them, Ferdie and Ollie.
Captain Lawrence is at the other end of the car, conversing with Mrs.
Livingston and Louise.
Erma carelessly picks up a book,--one of Ferdie's purchases, the volume
on the Union Pacific Railway; and glancing languidly over its pages,
sees a picture of Indians attacking a hand-car, and reads, "Elm Creek
Massacre" in large type. Beneath it is an account of the heroism of
Captain Harry Storey Lawrence.
Then the brakeman cries out "Elm Creek." The train pauses for a moment,
and gazing out, she can see the station house on the side track. A
moment after, the locomotive dashing on again, she finds herself
peering into the darkness that lies upon the low stretch of prairie, and
wondering exactly whereabouts the man sitting so quietly and conversing
with Mrs. Livingston, made his fight; and her imagination getting the
better of her, she seems to see the stalwart figure, which is commencing
to interest her, standing on a little hand-car on that lone prairie,
surrounded by Indians and fighting them off, and saving the section men
surprised at their work, as they drop their tools and run from their
labor; and she sees his dark eyes, that she has commenced to know very
well, flashing with determination as he encourages the fleeing laborers,
and getting them on the car, they make their running fight towards the
station, and hears the cracking of the deadly rifles and the whoops of
the pursuing savages.
She is interrupted in this fantasie by Mr. Livingston's placid voice,
saying, "What are you reading, Erma?" for she still has the volume in
her hand.
"Only an account of the construction of this railway," says the young
lady, and she passes him the volume.
Looking over the account of the "Elm Creek Massacre," Ollie's eyes open
rather widely; but, a moment after, he remarks sneeringly: "This fiction
of the Rocky Mountains seems to make quite a hero of your friend
Lawrence. I wonder if he wrote the book himself?" And the gentleman
chuckles to himself, imagining he has been rather witty.
Miss Travenion's reply rather disconcerts him.
"I am glad you call him my friend," answers the girl, a gleam of
admiration in her blue eyes. "Any man who could do what is written
there, is worthy to be any woman's friend."
"Oh, indeed," says Mr. Livingston, rather nettled at this; partly
because he thinks his joke is not appreciated, and partly because he
does not care about Erma Travenion showing an interest in any other man
save his own small self. "I suppose you will soon make a first-class
border ruffian out of your hero?" Then he utters oracularly: "I wonder
how it is that some girls seem to take such interest in 'men of blood.'"
"I don't take interest in 'men of blood,'" cries Miss Travenion, rather
warmly, for this remark about border ruffians is not pleasing to her;
"but I do take interest in the men of courage, determination and
manhood, who are risking their lives to make this country a greater
America."
But here she gets a surprise from Ollie, who, incited by the beauty of
the girl, which is made greater by her enthusiasm, replies suddenly: "If
I thought you would like it, Erma, I myself would become a pioneer."
The idea of Mr. Ollie's turning frontiersman, proves too much for Miss
Travenion's control; she bursts into a fit of laughter, which
disconcerts the young man, and makes him retreat from her, with a
plaintive, "I meant what I said. I didn't believe you would treat my
expression of regard for you with a jeer."
Left to herself, however, Erma goes into more thought about this man who
has risked his life for others, and even after she has gone to bed, as
she turns upon her pillow, visions of Captain Harry Storey Lawrence,
fighting Indians, come to her, and she wakes up with a suppressed
scream, for he is about to be scalped, and finds that it is only the
shriek of the locomotive, and the war-whoops of the Indians are only the
outcries of the porter, announcing that they are approaching Sydney,
where they have thirty minutes for an early breakfast.
CHAPTER VI.
MR. FERDIE DISCOVERS A VIGILANTE.
So, making a hasty toilet, Miss Travenion steps out of her stateroom to
find the car empty, it having already arrived at the eating-station, and
the passengers having departed from it.
On the platform, however, she is greeted by Ferdie, who cries out: "Come
along, Miss Lazy Bird. All the rest are in at breakfast. I have got some
news for you."
"News about whom?" says the girl lightly.
"About the Indians. There's some off there. You needn't be afraid! I've
got my revolver on, and if they act nasty, I'll fix 'em as Cap Lawrence
does," says the boy, and he leads her a few steps to one side, where
Erma sees a Sioux buck, two squaws and a pappoose--the warrior on a pony
and flourishing about in a red blanket and soldier hat, though his
leggings are of the scantiest proportions.
The squaws, as is their wont, extend their hands for stray coins, though
the Sioux are by no means such beggars as their more degraded cousins,
the Piutes on the Central Pacific in Nevada. Looking at these unedifying
redskins, Miss Travenion finds that Cooper's novels, which she had once
regarded as facts, have immediately become fictions.
"I was going to get my rifle," babbles Ferdie at her ear, "but Buck
Powers told me I'd be jugged if I shot at 'em. They're at peace now."
Then he goes on confidentially: "I have interviewed Buck about Cap
Lawrence, and it cost me about two dollars in indigestible candies and
peanuts, but I got the information. Buck says the Cap is a snorter on
Injuns."
"Don't use such language in my presence, Mr. Chauncey," cries Erma
sternly.
"Oh, I am only quoting Buck," answers Ferdinand. "Buck says the Cap has
killed hundreds of buffalo and rafts of Indians--heaps of them. Say!
What's the matter with you? I thought you'd like to listen to the
history of your Indian killer," continues Ferdie, surprised; for the
girl has turned suddenly away from him and is passing on towards the
eating-house.
Then he suddenly ejaculates, "Well, I'm blizzarded!" a queer wild notion
having got into his brain. And he has guessed very nearly the truth; for
Miss Travenion, for some reason, which is at present indefinite to
herself, is not altogether pleased at hearing this Western gentleman's
name always connected with deeds of blood.
In the dining-room she finds her party seated at a table, at which a
chair has been reserved for her, but Captain Lawrence is not with them,
and looking about, she sees him at another table.
Then Ferdie, bolting his food, finishes his breakfast in about five
minutes, and departs in search of Western adventure and information, not
on the main platform of the station, but in out-of-the-way saloons and
shanty barrooms; methods of frontier slumming that are productive during
his trip of one or two decided sensations to this young gentleman, as
well as the rest of his party.
Shortly after Mr. Chauncey's departure, the meal being finished, Miss
Travenion wanders with Mr. Ollie to the platform, and notices Harry
smoking his cigar, and surrounded by a lot of the train men and station
officials, who seem to crowd around him at every stop they make, as if
anxious to do him honor, Buck Powers among the number.
A moment after, Mr. Livingston having left her, the news-boy sidles up
to her and remarks, having an eye to both business and pleasure, "I've
got some prime California peaches saved up for you. You weren't out when
I come through the train before breakfast--two dandies at ten cents
apiece. The Cap chewed one this morning and said it was fine. Ain't he a
stem-winder, though?" goes on the boy. "He was the most popular man on
the line when it was built. You needn't pay for them peaches unless
they're good."
"Thank you, Mr. Powers," answers the girl, giving the boy a bright
smile, for somehow she is quite pleased to note that Captain Lawrence
seems so well liked by all who know him.
"Call me Buck! Side-track the Mr. Powers! You make me feel as if you
were offish," says the youthful news-agent, giving Erma a glance of
admiration.
"Very well, Buck," laughs the girl. "You may bring me the peaches," and
would perhaps say more to him, did not Mr. Lot Kruger, who seems somehow
to always have his eyes upon her, casting a quid of tobacco out of his
ample mouth, approach her and suggest affably, "Prairie air seems to
bloom you up this morning, Miss."
Then her party being about her, Erma finds herself compelled to
introduce the Western Lot to them all. These introductions are very
affably received by Mr. Kruger, who insists on shaking hands with the
whole party, an attention not very well received by Oliver, though Mrs.
Livingston, thinking from his peculiar toilet he is in some degree a
Western border ruffian, and it will be best for her personal safety to
be very polite to him, receives him with effusive but nervous
politeness, to the joy of Lot's soul. So he seats himself beside her,
and goes into a free and easy conversation with the widow, giving her
his views of things in general and the West in particular.
Turning from them towards her own stateroom, Erma chances to meet
Captain Lawrence, who is just entering the car. Allured by the bright
nod she gives him, this gentleman ignores the pleasure of an
after-breakfast cigar, and sits down to a long conversation with the
young lady, which is interrupted by occasional visits from Mr. Oliver
Livingston, who comes up at odd times to ask Miss Travenion if he can do
anything for her comfort, for he is getting annoyed at Erma's giving her
time to an outsider, as he terms the engineer, and were it not that
Oliver Ogden Livingston has such an appreciation of his own charms,
intellect and social position, he would be jealous, which would be a
fearful tax on his placid nerves, that are not accustomed to violent
emotions.
As the train passes along, the captain incidentally mentions a few
things of interest in sight from the cars, stating to Miss Travenion
that they will soon be in sight of the Rockies, and this leads to the
girl's asking him about the "Elm Creek" affair, which he puts away,
saying that it was not much, though there were a great many wild doings,
both by the Indians and the whites, during the construction of the road,
and some recollection coming upon him from the past, the young man's
face grows dark, and he suddenly changes the subject, saying that Indian
fights are not generally half so desperate as some affairs that took
place in the late war.
This produces questions from Erma, and she learns a good deal of
Lawrence's early life; how his father emigrated from Massachusetts,
being a nephew of that celebrated seaman Lawrence, whose words are still
remembered--"Don't give up the ship"--and of this relationship and
memory the young man seems very proud.
He tells her that his father is now a large farmer in Eastern Iowa, and
the girl drawing him out by deft suggestions, learns that he was
educated for a civil engineer, but at the breaking out of the war, left
college and went to soldiering, and became, after a year or two of
fighting, captain of an Iowa battery.
The conversation goes on very pleasantly until he suddenly cries out,
"The Rocky Mountains!" and shows her snow-clad peaks looming up amid the
blue sky to the west, just as the train is running into Cheyenne, where
something occurs that gives Miss Travenion a great shock, and makes her
change her opinion considerably about this young gentleman, to whom she
has devoted so much of her thoughts in the last twenty-four hours.
Like most of the sensations of this life, it comes unexpectedly.
She has just finished a comfortable sort of dinner in the Cheyenne
eating-house, and is sauntering about, watching the change of
locomotives, and trying to get a good look at Long's Peak, which is so
distant that she can hardly tell whether it is snow or cloud, when she
is joined by Mr. Ferdinand, who shocks her by whispering these
astonishing words: "Come around the corner and I'll show you a telegraph
pole where Captain Lawrence hung a man."
"Hung a man? You are crazy," returns the young lady indignantly; then
she sneers, "Buck Powers invents silly stories to incite you to buy more
candy."
"Not at all crazy, but rather up to the snuff," retorts Ferdie, who
apparently is strongly excited and profoundly impressed. "Besides, Buck
didn't tell me this. I have just met a gambler in that barroom over
there"--he points to a shanty drinking saloon, some hundred yards down
the track--"and he says Cap Lawrence hung his pard, Nebraska Bill, to a
telegraph pole."
"Impossible," remarks Erma in angry scorn.
"So I thought at first, but the man showed me the telegraph pole and
said that was where Lawrence had murdered his pard."
"And you believe this gambler's likely story," sneers Miss Travenion.
"Of course I do. I am prepared for anything out here. I have been
making inquiries since I got the information, and they tell me around
here that Captain Lawrence was at the head of the Vigilantes out here
four years ago, and used to hang up gamblers in rows, at the rate of
about half-a-dozen a night," asserts Mr. Ferdie confidently. "What do
you say to that?"
"What do I say to it?" cries Miss Travenion with indignant eyes. "I say
that I will never believe such a thing until I have proof of it."
"And have not I proved it?" says Ferdie. "How can you prove it any
better?"
"By asking Captain Lawrence," cries Erma. Then, not heeding Mr.
Chauncey's expostulations that he does not think any less of the
captain, and that every one around says the Vigilantes were a necessity,
Miss Travenion goes hurriedly into her car and shuts herself in her
stateroom, for she is very much shocked at this revelation, as any girl,
brought up far away from the scenes of blood and combat and swift
justice of the frontier, would be.
A few moments after this, the train, drawn by two giant locomotives,
gets under way, and leaving Cheyenne, begins to ascend the Black Hills
towards Sherman.
As it does so, Miss Erma's privacy is invaded by Mrs. Livingston and
Ollie.
"You have heard Ferdie's awful tale?" gasps the widow.
"About the murderer you picked up on the train," interjects Mr.
Livingston, waving his white cuffs, as if throwing off all
responsibility in the matter.
"Picked up on the train?" cries Erma, very sternly, rising from her
seat, her figure growing more erect, and her eyes becoming burnished
steel. "What do you mean to insinuate?"
"Oh, nothing, of course, as regards you," replies Ollie, who is somewhat
quick of speech and also hasty of retraction. "Of course you did not
know who he was any more than I did when that duffer, Southmead, brought
him into our supper party at Delmonico's."
"Ah, you are referring to Captain Lawrence, Mr. Livingston," says the
girl, haughtily.
"Certainly. Mr. Kruger, that friend of your father, who seems very
affable and pleasant, though not a highly cultured man, confirms
Ferdinand's information," answers Mrs. Livingston, taking this interview
out of her son's hands, as he does not seem to be succeeding very well.
"This Mr. Kruger, who is acquainted with the West, has informed us that
this Captain Lawrence is a very blood-thirsty individual; that he is, in
fact, amenable to the laws of this country for the crime of murder."
"Yes, cold-blooded, deliberate assassination," interjects Ollie, anxious
to impress the girl. "Captain Lawrence headed the Vigilance Committee,
and hung up a number of unoffending citizens."
To this Miss Travenion says shortly, "I don't believe you."
"Not even your father's friend?" cries Mrs. Livingston.
"No, neither he nor any man else who would say such awful things of
Captain Lawrence. Oh, I cannot believe it!" Then she mutters, "The tones
of his voice are as gentle as a child's," and turns away.
"So were Johnny Slade's," inserts Ferdie, who has just now joined the
party and conversation. "Besides, Buck Powers says the Cap was a terror
to gamblers and desperadoes out here,--though I like him all the better
for it."
But here Miss Travenion astonishes them all. She says calmly, though
there is a tremor in her voice:
"I refuse to give any opinion of Captain Lawrence's conduct until I have
spoken to him."
"What! You are going to--to speak to that awful man again?" gasps the
widow, turning pale. Then she suddenly whispers, "Don't tell him what I
said about him. He might murder us." And seemingly frightened at the
thought of the blood-thirsty captain's vengeance, she takes her
departure hurriedly for her own stateroom, and locks herself in.
She is very shortly followed by Ferdie and her son, to whom his half-way
sweetheart says as he departs: "Permit me to satisfy myself upon this
affair in my own way!"
Then, they having gone from her, she sinks down and shudders, though all
the time she does justice to the man of her thoughts, and defends him,
and says, "I don't believe it. He is too gentle," and finally, having
persuaded herself that it is all a tissue of falsehoods, unlocks her
door and steps out into the main car, to find herself face to face with
this so-called desperado, who is calmly reading one of _Harper's
Monthlies_, his "deeds of blood" not seeming to hang very heavily on his
conscience.
A moment after, Miss Travenion remarks suddenly: "Captain Lawrence, will
you pardon me if I ask you a question?" and her eyes grow bright, but
her cheeks are pale, and her lips tremble as she speaks.
"Certainly," says Harry.
As he turns to her, the girl hesitates and falters, for it has suddenly
come to her, if this man is innocent, he will not forgive; but forcing
herself to the ordeal, she falters out: "People tell me what I will not
believe, that--that--you, while occupied here in the arts of peace, have
hung up men by the dozens to telegraph poles? Is it true, Captain
Lawrence?"
And he, some strange fear in his eyes, rises to her question, and though
he stands apparently calm, the strong fingers of his hand tremble a
little as they grasp the arm of the seat, and his face grows also pale,
and there is a slight twitch on one corner of his moustache as he
murmurs sadly: "And they say that of me?"
"Yes!--Is it true?"
Then, after a moment's pause, the young man answers firmly and perhaps
proudly: "In the troublous times of 1867 and '68, surrounded by
gamblers, desperadoes and cut-throats, who daily sacrificed the lives of
innocent men and made a mockery of both law and justice, I did what I
considered my duty as a good citizen. Do you blame me for it?"
"You--you hung men without trial by law?"
"Yes--do you blame me?"
But her only answer is a frightened, "Oh! how could you?" and Erma has
swept past him into her stateroom, the door of which closes suddenly
after her.
He makes one step after her, as if to say words of vindication or
defence; then bows his head and moves slowly out of the car, steadying
himself with his hand. So, standing upon the front platform, Harry
Lawrence looks down on the Laramie Plains, to which the train is
descending, and there are tears in his eyes. For the strong man is
thinking of the last words of Curley Jack just before they strung him up
for the murder of an unfortunate creature of whom he was jealous. "Some
day, Cap, some woman will make you crazy with misery as I was when I
shot Kansas Kate," and he wonders if the prophecy of the dying desperado
is coming home to him.
His meditation must be potent, for two hours afterwards, when the train
stops at Laramie for supper, and his old-time railroad friends gather
around him, they wonder what has happened, and the station agent
remarks, "The Cap looks as busted up as if he had lost on four aces,"
for he goes about in a broken kind of a way, and once or twice, seeing
some neighboring telegraph poles, turns from them with a shudder.
As for Miss Travenion, she has perhaps a harder two hours of it than
Harry Lawrence, for some indefinite emotion is in her mind that makes
her wildly nervous and extraordinarily excitable. Three or four times
she says to herself, "Why should I care if this man has all the crimes
of the Decalogue on his soul? A week ago I did not know him. Twenty-four
hours back I had seen his face but once. He shall pass out of my life as
quickly as he entered it." Next she remarks, "He said he did his duty as
a citizen." Then she laughs: "Pshaw, I am growing nervous! I am
defending this man!" and grows very angry at, and perchance unjust to,
Lawrence on account of this idea.
Anxious to get away from the subject, she comes out and joins the
Livingston party, and laughs and jokes with them, apparently in high
spirits, though there is a feverish flush upon her cheeks; and once to
the widow's remark, "Did he admit his crimes?" and Ferdie's laughing
inquiry, "How many did the Cap acknowledge to swinging up?" she replies
shortly:
"Enough for me to drop his acquaintance as rapidly as I made it. From
this time on I shall CUT HIM!" emphasizing the last with a wave of her
hand and an excited laugh, in so vigorous a manner that Ollie is quite
delighted and happy, thinking that Erma will have no further thoughts of
the man whom he has grown to imagine his rival--a conclusion he would
not so hastily have come to had he studied Miss Travenion in particular,
or the sex in general.
So the party stroll out to supper, but Erma, apparently gay, has no
appetite further than a cup of tea, and hardly tastes her supper.
Declining attendance, she walks back to her car, and, seated by an open
window, looks out upon the beautiful scene, gazing toward the north,
where the Black Hills fade away in the distance, and wonders, as the
setting sun shines upon her face, how this land, which seems to her so
peaceful and which might be so happy, is the home of men who regard
human life so lightly.
But even as she does so, as luck will have it, additional evidence on
the subject that is racking her brain and making her head ache, though
she will not admit it, comes to her.
Two men beside the track are in conversation. The breeze wafts their
words into the car.
One remarks: "Cap Lawrence came in from the East to-night, and I reckon
every gambler in town is hunting his hole."
"Why, are they afraid of him yet?"
"You bet! He put his mark on 'em so heavy they don't forget him. Why, I
remember one morning, three years ago, seeing Little Jimmie, the
bartender, hanging up as graceful as life to that telegraph pole, with
his natty white handkerchief tucked in his hip-pocket, and his white
sleeves, with rubber bands on 'em which held them up while he was mixing
drinks. He looked so all-fired natural that I called out: 'Give me a
whiskey cocktail, Jim.' You see, they took James from behind his bar so
quick he had no time to let down his sleeves and prepare himself for the
future."
But the girl hears no more; she has hurried to the other end of the
empty car.
Had she remained to listen, she would have also heard that Little
Jimmie, the barkeeper, was as bad a man as had lived or died in the
West, and the night before his sudden demise he had murdered and robbed
two railroad men who had just been paid off.
But not knowing this, Erma has a very stern look on her face a few
minutes after, when she sees Harry enter the car. He makes a movement as
if to approach and address her, but the young lady turns her head away
with a sudden shudder.
Noting this, the Westerner leaves the car and commences to walk about
the platform, chewing nervously the end of a cigar he has forgotten to
light. Then, curiously enough, the girl peeps after him, and stands
aghast, for there is indignation in his look as he strides about, his
athletic figure well displayed by a loose shooting coat, and he tosses
his brown locks back from his forehead, as if he were facing an enemy,
and his dark eyes are gleaming so potently that Erma gasps, "Why, he
looks like a Vigilante _now_!"
Soon the train is crowded once more, and they begin to run over the
Laramie Plains, where Ferdie excites them all by seeing a buffalo, and
would get his gun to shoot at it, did not Mr. Kruger remark: "The
critter is nigh onto three miles off, and you will throw away your lead,
sonny."
As for Captain Lawrence, he has not entered their car, and is now in a
forward smoker, puffing away desperately, and thinking with some regrets
of the early days of the building of the Union Pacific Railway, those
times which tried men's souls; but after turning over the matter in his
mind he exclaims to himself: "By Heaven! I am glad I did my duty, even
if it loses me--" Here he clenches his teeth, and a little spot of blood
comes upon his lip, where he has bitten it.
CHAPTER VII.
WHAT MANNER OF MAN IS THIS?
In the rear car, Miss Travenion, anxious to throw from her mind a
subject that is distressing, wanders to the organ,--for this Pullman was
supplied with one, as were many Western sleepers in those days,--and
seating herself at the instrument, runs her hands over the keys and
begins to sing. Softly at first, but afterwards made enthusiastic by
melody, this young lady, who has been very well taught and has a
brilliant mezzo voice, forgets all else, and warbles the beauties of
Balfe, Bellini, and Donizetti in a way that draws the attention of her
fellow-passengers.
Among them is the Western Lot, who, getting near to her, watches the
lithe movements and graceful poses of the girl's charming figure, and
seeing her soul beaming from her glorious eyes, mutters to himself,
"What an addition to our tabernacle choir after I have made her one of
the elect." For this young lady's loveliness has, of late, been putting
some very wild ideas into the head of this friend of her father.
She leaves the organ, and noting that Miss Travenion is somewhat alone,
for the interview of the afternoon seems to have produced a slight
coolness between Mr. Livingston and Erma, and perchance also Mrs.
Livingston, this Western product thinks he will devote himself to the
young lady's edification during the remainder of the evening, opening
his remarks by, "You're comin' to a great country, Miss Ermie."
"Ah, what is that?" asks the girl nonchalantly but politely.
"Utah," replies the enthusiastic Lot, "whar the people of Zion have made
the wilderness to blossom as a rose of Sharon."
"Oh yes, where my father is!" cries Miss Travenion, her eyes growing
bright. "To-morrow we will be there."
"Yes, in the evening," assents Kruger, an indefinite something coming in
his eyes that makes the young lady restless.
A moment after she suddenly asks: "Where is my father now?"
"How can I tell? I ain't seen your dad for nigh onto a month," returns
Lot, apparently somewhat discomposed by this point-blank question.
"But you can surely make a guess," suggests Erma, "where a telegram will
most probably reach him? I have concluded to wire him. Then he will meet
me at the station. I wish I had done so before."
"Wall, Salt Lake is the most likely p'int, I reckon," mutters Kruger,
who does not seem over pleased at the girl's idea. A second after he
suddenly says: "You write the message and I'll make inquiries along the
line. I reckon I'll find where he is and send it for you."
"Thank you," says Erma warmly. "I'll go and prepare it at once."
Then leaving Lot still pondering, she steps lightly away, and in a few
minutes returns with the following:
"U. P. TRAIN, _Oct. 3, 1871_.
"Arrive at Ogden, to-morrow, at five P.M. Will come through to Salt
Lake same night. Meet me at depot.
"Your loving daughter,
"ERMA TRAVENION."
"You'll add the right address to this when you find it, Mr. Kruger,"
says the girl, handing him the message.
"Yes, I'll make inquiries at Medicine Bow," returns Lot, taking the
message, "and your dad'll get it to-morrow morning."
"Oh, you are going to stay up to send it? We don't get to Medicine Bow
till late, I know by my time table. How kind you are! Papa shall thank
you for this, also, dear Mr. Kruger," and Erma holds out a soft
patrician hand, that is greedily seized in strong fingers made hard and
red by exposure and toil.
Retreating from the grip, however, this New York young lady says
earnestly, "Thank you once more, and _au revoir_ until to-morrow."
"Oh, thank me all you want, Sissy; gratitude becomes young maidens,"
mutters Lot, trying to get the beautiful white fingers once more in his.
"Indeed I am grateful," cries the girl, and giving him a look that
makes his eyes grow misty and watery, Miss Travenion closes the door of
her stateroom, and goes to bed thinking no more of Mr. Kruger's peculiar
expression and glances, for he is a friend of her father, and at the
least has fifty odd years to his credit on the book of time.
She would be perhaps more concerned about her father's friend did she
see Mr. Kruger, whose knowledge of French is very limited, after
pondering to himself, "What did that gal mean by O-ver?" finally answer
his query by "Guess ag'in, Lot," and betake himself to the smoking car,
where, after perusing the girl's telegram several times, he slyly
chuckles to himself, "What!--and spile my hopes for myself and my work
for the Church?" and with this curious but ambiguous remark places the
document coolly in his ample but well-worn pocketbook, between a list of
Welsh emigrants _en route_ for Salt Lake City and a despatch from
Brigham Young; and shortly after that turn in and sleep the sleep of the
just, making no attempt either to find her father's address nor to wire
her message, either at Medicine Bow or any other point on the line.
Notwithstanding this, the next morning at Green River, where the train
stops for breakfast, Mr. Kruger is on hand to help her from the car and
say with paternal voice, "Sissy, Dad's happy now. Dad's happy now!"
"Ah, you've sent the message," exclaims Erma with grateful eyes.
"Yes, it flewed away during the early morning," mutters Lot, which
happens to be the exact truth, as, thinking the thing over, he had
concluded it was best not to have the message on his person, and had
torn it and tossed it out of the car window to the winds of Heaven, as
the train had run down those alkaline, non-drinkable waters, cursed by
early emigrants and pioneers under the name of Bitter Creek.
But Erma Travenion hardly heeds him; her eyes are towards the West and
she is murmuring, "Papa--perhaps this afternoon,--certainly
to-night!--if not Ogden--surely Salt Lake!" and her face is so happy,
and she goes to thanking Mr. Kruger so heartily for his kindness in
sending the telegram, that he might have pangs of conscience as to what
he intends for this Eastern butterfly, who comes with brightness on her
wings into the West, had he not been used to dealing with all people
sternly, even himself, when acting for the glories of Zion, and the
smiting down of unbelievers.
Then being joined by the Livingstons and Mr. Chauncey, who have been
looking at the surprising scenery of this river, the first water they
have as yet met which flows into the blue Pacific, she goes in to
breakfast; Mr. Kruger, who seems to feel more at his ease as he nears
his native heath, walking alongside of Miss Beauty. Pointing to the
great elk heads with their branching antlers on the hotel walls, he
remarks, "Thar's any quantity of them critters up thar in the Wind River
Mountains, in which this 'ere stream heads."
"You've been up there?" asks Ferdie, always excited when big game is
mentioned.
"Wall rather," returns Lot. "I was up all about thar and the Rattlesnake
Hills and the Sweetwater Mountains and South Pass and Independence
Springs in 1857, when Johnston and the U.S. troops were comin' through,
and we rounded up and burnt--" But here he stops very suddenly.
"What did you burn?" queries Mr. Chauncey, anxiously.
"Oh, nothin' to speak of--brushwood and such truck," returns the
uncommunicative Lot. "But here's the dining-table, Sonny!"
Then the party being seated, notwithstanding Mr. Kruger's efforts at
conversation and the delights of gastronomy, Miss Travenion's eyes will
wander about, seeking an athletic figure that she sees not; for somehow
she misses the man of yesterday, and despises herself for it.
Towards the close of their meal there is a slight commotion outside, and
the man taking the money at the door as the wayfarers pass out, deserts
his post. Ferdie, who is so seated that he can look through the open
windows, suddenly says, "It's some accident;" next cries, "It's Buck
Powers!" and rushes from the room.
A moment after Erma finds herself outside among an excited crowd, gazing
at Captain Lawrence striding along the platform, bearing in his arms the
form of Buck, the news-agent.
"The boy was coupling the cars, and forgot till too late they had Miller
platforms that come together," says the captain, mentioning a kind of
accident very common on the first introduction of this life-saving
invention, which until railroad men got accustomed to it, was a source
of danger instead of safety, as it now is. Then he goes on quite
tenderly, "But I got there in time, didn't I, Buck?"
And the news-boy opens his red eyes and gasps, "You bet you did, pard,"
and there is a little cheer from the crowd, over which Lawrence's voice
is heard: "Get a doctor, quick!"
Then a looker-on says, "Take him to the hotel."
But Buck groans, "Keep me on the train, or they will steal all my stock
of goods and I'll be busted," and some one suggests the baggage car.
To this Lawrence quietly says, "No, I'll put him in my section," but on
arriving there with the boy in his arms, he finds Erma standing beside
him, and whispering, "My stateroom, please. It's quieter in there."
On hearing her voice, the young man looks at her a moment as if in
thought; then shortly says, "Yes, it is best as you say. Thank you, Miss
Travenion," and carries the boy in.
She can see him very tenderly brush the matted hair from off the
sufferer's face, and hears about her, from excited passengers, that
Captain Lawrence had risked his life to save that of a waif of the
railroad.
A moment after the doctor comes, and making a short examination, the man
of science says that the boy is only generally bruised and shaken up,
and will come around all right if he is made quiet and sent to sleep,
and would give him an opiate, did not Buck cry out piteously, "Don't
make me insensible, Doc. My box is open, and the train hands will eat
all my candies and peanuts and Californey fruit, and bust me up in
business."
"I'll attend to that, Buck," answers the captain quietly. "I'll lock up
your boxes," and getting the key from the boy, he bows slightly to Miss
Travenion and goes out of the car on his errand, pursued by the grateful
eyes of this Arab of the railroad. A moment after the doctor puts the
boy to sleep, and Erma steps out of her stateroom, to find that, Harry
having departed, the passengers on the car are discussing him very
generally, though in low tones of voice, as if fearing to disturb the
slumbering invalid.
Their conversation gives her a new idea of Captain Lawrence, for she
learns the opinion of those who have lived near him and are acquainted
with frontier habits and frontier methods; and they tell her that this
young man is respected and honored for the very deeds which she has
condemned in him and for which she has cut him off from the smiles of
her face and the words from her lips.
She hears expressions of admiration on all sides, and one man, a miner
from Colorado, and at present interested in the workings of a big coal
property near Evanston, says: "That fellow who risked his life to save
that foolish news-boy is 'clean-grit.' He and a few others like him,
made some of the towns on this railroad habitable. A man's life wasn't
safe in Cheyenne, but they wiped out every desperado, cut-throat and
bunco-steerer in that town, and now it is comfortable to live in."
A moment after expressing this opinion, this gentleman is rather
astonished to find the beautiful young lady from the East sitting beside
him and saying in anxious voice: "You think Vigilance Committees right?
You have had experience. Tell me all about them."
"They are right, if self-preservation is," he answers. Then, being a man
of wide Western experience, and noting the anxious look on the girl's
face, he tells her that the average frontier desperado is very careful
of his own life, though very careless of that of others, and if he is
certain of dying twenty-four hours afterwards, he will do no murder. And
he gives her a little history of Vigilance Committees in general, and
tells her how at White Pine, the first rush into that mining camp being
composed of old California and Nevada miners, they had said, "This will
be a red-hot place for cut-throats, bullies and blacklegs," and had
organized a Vigilance Committee _before_ they built the town of
Hamilton; and there had never been a murder in it, until long after the
Vigilance Committee and nearly all other inhabitants left it; and that
Pioche, one hundred and thirty miles away, with a population similar to
Hamilton, had averaged eighteen homicides a day, most of them wilful
murders, simply because the men who committed them knew that they would
not be avenged, there being no Vigilance Committee in that place; then,
warming to his subject, he goes on with the history of early Montana,
when it was impossible for any man to carry gold from Helena to Salt
Lake City and live through the trip; and people wondered why none of the
highwaymen who robbed, looted and murdered on that trail through
Southern Idaho to Utah were never brought to justice, and that a
Vigilance Committee was formed, and the first man they hung in the
Territory was the sheriff, and that after that they continued their work
with such success that for eight years thereafter no homicide was
committed in all Montana.
Next getting excited, he winds up by saying, "The best citizens of these
places were Vigilance men. There was no law, but they made peace; there
was no justice, but they made the land free from blood," and is
astonished at the end of this discourse to receive a grateful "Thank
you," from the young lady, whose eyes seem to have grown happier during
his lecture upon the morality of Lynch law.
Then, Miss Travenion, some load seeming to have been lifted from her
mind, turns to her stateroom, to watch over the sleeping news-boy. As
she sits gazing at the recumbent invalid, she wonders, "Why should I be
happy to hear that Harry Lawrence is not regarded as a murderer by those
who have seen him kill?" and while musing upon this, the boy opens his
eyes, for the effect of the opiate has passed off, Erma's conversation
with the Western man having been a long one.
A moment after, he says faintly, "If you please, Miss, I would like to
go back to business. This trip ain't goin' to pay me nothing."
"You lay quiet, Buck," whispers the girl. "I'll attend to your business
for you," for a sudden idea has come into Erma's head. She steps lightly
out into the car, and taking off her straw hat, throws a greenback into
it, and goes about among the passengers of the Pullmans, taking up a
collection for the injured waif, which nets him a great deal more than
the profits of his trip would have been, even were he in good health and
pursuing his business with his usual keenness.
Coming in from this, she shakes the money joyfully before the boy's eyes
and laughs, "What kind of a news-agent do you think I make? There are
the profits of the trip, Buck. Take some of this lemonade and go to
sleep again."
To which the boy murmurs, "You would make a corker. They'd buy
two-year-old peaches from you--they would," drinks down the beverage her
white hand places at his lips, and so goes to sleep again.
All this time the train, which seems to rattle along very merrily to the
girl, has been leaving the valley of the Green River--that stream which
flows between sandstones that, rising hundreds of feet above its banks,
have the appearance of domes and mediaeval castles and cathedrals, making
it as picturesque as the Rhine, only much more grand; for far below, on
its course to the blue Gulf of California, its cliffs from hundreds of
feet grow into thousands, and its cathedrals and domes and palaces and
ruins are those of giants, not of men, for this river is really the
Colorado, and its Grand Canyon is the most sublime spectacle of the whole
American continent, not even excepting the tremendous mountains and
glaciers of the British Northwest.
So, after a few hours' running over plateaux nearly as barren as the
Sahara Desert, though they would blossom like the garden of Gethsemane
could irrigation ever be brought to them, they approach the high
tablelands at Piedmont, and climbing through long snow sheds to Aspen
Hill, run down the valley of the Bear River, by which stream the train
winds its way to Evanston, the last town in Wyoming Territory.
As they progress westward, Miss Travenion leaves the sleeping boy, and
coming to Mrs. Livingston's stateroom, finds that lady in conversation
with Mr. Kruger, who seems to be very happy at getting back to his Utah
home.
"You will soon find yourself in a beautiful land," he says. "You see
them great mountains down thar?" He points to the Uintah Range, whose
peaks go up into the blue sky at the south like a great snowy saw.
"Down in thar is a valley, one of the purtiest pieces of grazing land
and farming property in the whole Territory, Kammas Praharie, and I've
got as pretty a ranch down there as in Utah, and lots of cattle and
horses, and in my house four as nice-looking young--" He checks himself
as suddenly at the last of this speech as if he were struck with a club.
Which Ferdie noticing, asks, "Why are you always snapping your jaws
together before you finish your sentences? One would think you had
something to conceal."
"Not much!" replies the accused, his face getting very red, however.
"Any one can investigate the life of Lot Kruger, and find that he's as
upright and above board as the Lot of the Scriptures, and what he has
done has been did with the advice and sanction of his church, and that's
more, I reckon, than you can say, young man, though you're not much over
kid high yit!"
But any further discussion is stopped by the train running into
Evanston, where are the great coal mines. Here they take dinner, and
Miss Travenion has hopes of gaining conversation with Captain Lawrence,
but she only succeeds in seeing him at a distance, and thinks he looks
very stern, which is the truth, for he has just received some telegrams
from Salt Lake about his mining property that by no means please him. He
would doubtless brighten up, however, did he but know that the girl is
very anxious to say a few words to him and even offer a generous apology
to this Vigilante,--this "man of blood."
After a little, a couple of locomotives helping them over a slight
grade, they come into Echo Canyon, and begin to descend to the valley of
the Great Salt Lake; then going on, the Weber River comes in from the
south, where the melting streams of the Uintah Mountains give it birth.
So skirting the willow and cottonwood banks of this beautiful stream,
they run by the Thousand Mile Tree and the Devil's Slide and the old
Mormon bridge; and many little hamlets and orchards, which seem very
green and beautiful to the girl after the long, weary stretches of
desert she has just left, till they come to the Narrows, where two great
mountains of the Wahsatch appear to bar the passage. But the cliffs
open, and the train bursts through to where the valley of Salt Lake is
spread before them, and Erma sees the inland sea she has often read
about, as the cars run down towards it 'mid green pastures and lowing
cattle and thrifty orchards, for it is where the Mormons have set their
home in the wilderness, and by the arts of peace have made a land of
plenty, in order to uphold a form of government which, like that of the
ancient Druids, is founded on blood atonement and the sacrifice of its
unbelievers and its enemies.
But here the girl suddenly thinks of her invalid, and going back to her
stateroom, finds Buck sitting up, and again ready to battle with the
world.
"You and the Cap has done me a good turn," he says. "Some day I'll even
up on you," and his gray eyes speak more strongly than his words, that
some day the deeds of this Bedouin of the railroad will tell her more
than he mutters.
"You're beautiful enough to be a Chicago gal," he mutters. "The Cap
thinks so too!" This compliment drives her away from him, and she has
red cheeks, though she is laughing.
But the train is now running into Ogden, and murmuring, "My father!"
Miss Travenion darts to the platform of the car and searches with all
her eyes for his loved form and dear face. After a little,
disappointment comes upon the girl, and she mutters, "He is not here."
Next she says to herself, "Only three hours more to Salt Lake. There he
must be!"
Then Mrs. Livingston and Louise attempt consolation, and shortly after
the party make their way some three hundred yards north of the Union and
Central depots, to where at that time the station of the Utah Central
was located, and prepare to board the train that is standing ready to
run thirty odd miles to the south to the city over which the Mormon
Hierarchy is still dominant, though their power is beginning to wane
under the assaults of migrating Gentiles, who have come to this
Territory, brought by the Pacific railroads, to search for the silver
and gold in its mountains.
At this little station Captain Lawrence's cause gets another and most
happy advancement in the girl's mind. Some five minutes before the train
is ready, Mr. Ferdie wanders off from the party, and a few moments after
Miss Travenion notices him in earnest conversation with a gentleman
apparently of the cowboy order.
Exchanging a few words, the young man and his chance acquaintance walk
down a sidewalk to a saloon, standing about a hundred yards from the
railroad.
At this moment, Erma also notes Captain Lawrence walking rapidly over
from the Union Depot, apparently having made up his mind to catch this
train for Salt Lake also, and hopes to herself, "This will be my time
for explanation."
But even while she does so, the gentleman upon whom she is gazing casts
two quick, sharp glances at Ferdie and his companion, and instantly
changing his direction and quickening his pace, makes straight for the
saloon just as the two disappear behind its door.
"He will give me no opportunity for apology," says Erma to herself.
"Very well, the next advance shall come from him!" and her pretty foot
tapping the platform impatiently, she turns away and watches the
baggage-men loading their trunks upon the Utah Central train.
A moment after, she is aroused from her reverie by the sound of the bell
upon the station, which always heralds out-going trains, and Mrs.
Livingston, coming to her, gasps, "Where is Ferdie? The conductor tells
us we have only a minute more. He is not here. My Heaven, not here!"
"I know where he is, and I'll find him," answers Erma, and runs hastily
down the sidewalk to where she has last seen the errant youth. As she
approaches, however, she pauses a moment, for the thought suddenly
strikes her, "If Captain Lawrence is there, perhaps he'll think I want
to speak to him."
But remembering that haste is vital, she hastily opens the saloon door,
and stands appalled; for a sight meets her such as seldom comes to a New
York young lady. The signs of combat are about her--a table has been
thrown over, a broken spittoon and scattered cards are lying on the
floor--and Ferdie, his light suit in the sawdust of the barroom, is held
down upon his back, while over him, one knee upon his chest, is a man
with black sombrero and buckskin leggings and red shirt, and awful hand
with uplifted bowie, ready to strike the young heart that is panting
beneath his grasp, did not Harry Lawrence grasp it with his left, and
with his right hand press the cold muzzle of a Colt's revolver against
the desperado's forehead.
Then Lawrence's voice speaks clear as a bell: "Drop that knife! You know
me, Texas Jack. I hung up your pard in Laramie. Drop that knife or I
fire."
At his word the bowie-knife comes to the floor. Then Harry says coolly:
"Throw up your hands and walk out in front of me," and keeping the man
before his pistol, marches him out of the saloon. On the sidewalk he
remarks:
"Don't look back until you have gone a hundred yards, or you are a dead
man. _March!_" And Texas Jack, his spurs clinking in the dust, and a
deck of monte cards slipping from his clothes as he walks, proceeds on
his way, and does not turn back till he has got out of sight.
Then the bell of the locomotive is suddenly heard. Lawrence cries:
"Hurry. You'll miss the cars!" and waves Erma, who is too much agitated,
and Ferdie, who is too much out of breath, to speak, to follow him. And
they all run to the station of the Utah Central, where Miss Travenion
gives a gasp, for the train has already run out, and they can see it
making its way to the bridge across the Weber bound for the city of the
Saints.
"Anyway, God bless you!" cries Ferdie, who has gained his wind. "You
saved my life."
"Yes," says Harry shortly, "this time; but perhaps the next there will
be no one there to help you. And take my advice, young man: don't go
hunting adventures out here, not even if they tell you there is a
grizzly bear chained in the back-yard."
"Why!" says Mr. Chauncey with a little gasp, "that is just what he did
tell me."
"Ah, I guessed right," says Lawrence with a slight sneer, for Mr.
Ferdinand had been made a victim of the notorious bear game, as were
many others about that time in Ogden. Then he goes on: "Don't play three
card monte, and if they rob you, don't knock the villain down, for he is
sure to be armed, and your life is pleasant to you still, I guess, young
man."
With this he turns away, but Erma is after him, and puts her hand on his
arm, whispering, "How bravely you saved him! I have learned the truth
about you. Forgive me!"
But the man she addresses is apparently not easy to conciliate, and he
remarks curtly, "You did not give me the right even a Vigilance
Committee would give!"
"What right?"
"The right to defend myself!" And he heeds not Erma's pleading eyes.
Then she whispers, "Give me the justice I denied you. Let me explain
also. How was I, a girl brought up in a land of peace, to know that men
could exist like that one from whom you saved Ferdie just now; that to
protect the innocent it was necessary to slay the guilty, and _right_,
too?" and then bursts forth impetuously, "_Wretches like that murderer I
saw out there I would kill also!_"
But the young man does not seem to heed her; and muttering, "You don't
forgive me any more than you did the murderers," she falters away and
says piteously, "And I--alone here!" And there are tears in her
beautiful eyes; for at this moment Ferdie seems very little of a
protector.
This last affects Lawrence. He steps to her, ejaculating huskily, "Not
as long as I am here!"
"Oh, thank you," cries the girl. "You will take care of me. How nice!"
her smiles overcoming her tears.
"Certainly. That is my duty," answers Harry, still coldly, for he has
been very deeply wounded.
"I don't want your duty!" answers Erma hotly.
"What do you want?"
"Forgiveness! Don't punish me with kindness, and still be implacable.
Forgive me," pleads the young lady, her little hand held out towards her
judge.
Then Miss Travenion gives a startled little "Ough!" for her fingers
receive a grip that makes her wince, and as their hands meet, piquant
gaiety comes over the young lady, and the gentleman begins to smile, and
his eyes grow sunny.
A second after he says, "If I am responsible for you, I must look after
you. You must have dinner, and so must Ferdie," and he calls cheerily to
the youth, who has been brushing the sawdust of barroom floor and the
dirt of combat from his light travelling suit. "You are up to a bite,
young bantam, ain't you, after your scrimmage?"
"Yes, I'm dead hungry," answers Mr. Chauncey. "But Erma, your French
maid is in the waiting-room, crying her eyes out. She says my aunt left
her with your hand-baggage."
"Clothes!" screams Miss Travenion. "There's a new dress in my travelling
bag! Oh! to get rid of the dust of travel," and growing very happy at
this find--as what woman would not?--she and Lawrence walk across the
tracks to the railroad hotel, followed by the maid and Ferdie, who
brings up the rear, stopping at every other step to examine his summer
suit for rent of combat, and to give it another brush from barroom dirt,
and shortly arrive at the hostelry that lies between the tracks of the
Union and Central Pacific Railways.
Here Lawrence suggests that Erma send a telegram to Mrs. Livingston, and
dissipate any fears her chaperon may have for her safety. So, going into
the telegraph office, she hastily writes the following:
"TO MRS. LIVINGSTON,
"On train bound for Salt Lake City:
"Detained by Ferdie. We are both well, and will follow on first
train in the morning. Please tell papa,--who will meet you at the
depot.
"ERMA TRAVENION."
This being despatched, she comes out and stands by Lawrence, and watches
the Central Pacific train, with its yellow silver palace sleeping cars,
that is just about to run for the West and California, and laughs: "In
two weeks I will be once more on my way to the Golden Land."
"So soon!" says the young man, a sigh in his voice.
"Oh," says the girl, airily; "by that time I shall have seen papa, and
we have to do California and get back to New York for the first
Patriarch's Ball." Then she babbles, "Oh, the delights of New York
society. You must come on next winter and see how gay our city is,
Captain Lawrence, to a young lady who--who isn't _always_ a wall
flower."
"That I will," answers Harry, heartily. A moment after, he goes on more
considerately, "If I can arrange my mining business,"--this last by no
means so confidently spoken.
As he says this, the train dashes off on its way to the Pacific, and
Ferdie coming out of the hotel, where he has been generally put in
order, the three, accompanied by the maid, go in to dinner. The mentor
of the party registers their names, and tells the proprietor, who seems
to know him very well, to give Miss Travenion the best rooms in the
house.
At this, the young lady says, "Excuse me for a few minutes. I have
clothes with me now." And despite Lawrence's laughing protestations that
no change can be for the better, she runs up-stairs, and a few minutes
after returns, having got the dust of travel from her in some marvellous
way, and appearing in a new toilet--one of those half dress, half every
day affairs, something with lace on it and ribbons, which makes her
beauty fresh as that of a new-blown rosebud.
Their dinner is a merry meal; Miss Travenion coming out afterwards on
the platform, and watching out-going freight trains and switching
locomotives, as the two gentlemen smoke. Then the moon comes up over the
giant mountains that wall in this Ogden Valley, save where it opens on
the Great Salt Lake, and shadows fall on the distant gorges and canyons.
Illumined by the soft light, the girl looks radiantly lovely and
piquantly happy, for somehow this evening seems to her a pleasant one.
After a little, Mr. Chauncey wanders away, perhaps in search of further
frontier adventure, though Lawrence notes that he sticks very close to
the main hotel, and does not investigate outlying barrooms. Then Erma
and Harry being alone, the young man's talk grows confidential, and he
tells the girl a good deal of his mining business, which seems to be
upon his mind. How he had expected to sell his claim to an English
company, but now fears that he shall not, on account of the accursed
Mormons--this last under his breath, for nearly every one in the
community they are now in are members of that church.
On being questioned, he goes on to explain that a claim has been made to
a portion of his mine by a Mormon company, remarking that he has bad
news from Salt Lake City that day. He has learned that a Mormon of great
influence, called Tranyon, has purchased nearly all the other interests
in Zion's Co-operative Mining Institution, which has brought suit for a
portion of his property.
"How will that affect you?" queries Erma, who apparently has grown
anxious for her mentor's speculation.
"Why, this Tranyon is a man of wonderful sagacity,--more, I think, than
any other business Mormon in this country. He made nearly as much
grading the Union Pacific Railway as Brigham Young himself. He has
blocks of stock in the road upon which we will travel to-morrow morning
to Salt Lake City. I have now money, brains and a Mormon jury against
me!" says Lawrence, with a sigh.
He would perhaps continue this subject, did not Ferdie come excitedly to
them, his eyes big with wonder, and whisper: "Kruger is in the hotel.
Buck Powers and I have been investigating your father's friend, Erma,
and have discovered that he is a full-fledged Mormon bishop."
"A Mormon! Impossible," says the young lady, with a start.
"Your father's friend?" exclaims Lawrence.
"Certainly," replies Miss Travenion. "I met him with my father several
times in New York."
To this the Western man does not answer, but a shade passes over his
brow and he grows thoughtful.
Then Ferdie, who is very full of his news, says: "There's no doubt of
it. I talked with the man who keeps the bar, and he said Lot Kruger was
as good a Mormon as any man in Salt Lake Valley, and I asked him if he
didn't think we could arrest Kruger, and he cursed me and said he'll
blow my infernal Gentile head off."
Here Harry interrupts the boy sternly: "Don't you know that the man in
the hotel and nearly every one else about here are Mormons? If you make
many more remarks of that kind, you'll never see New York again."
This advice puts Mr. Chauncey in a brown study, and he wanders away
whistling, while Lawrence turns to Miss Travenion and asks her with a
serious tone in his voice: "You are sure this man Kruger is interested
with your father in business?"
"I am certain," falters the girl. "In some way. I don't know how much."
"I am very sorry for that!"
"Sorry for it? How can it affect my father?" returns Miss Travenion,
growing haughty.
"That I can't see myself," rejoins her escort, and the two both go into
contemplation.
A minute after the girl smiles and says, "Why, in another minute,
perhaps you will think I am Miss Mormon myself." This seeming to her a
great joke, she laughs very heartily.
But her laugh would be a yellow one, did she know that Lot Kruger,
bishop in the Mormon Church, high up in the Seventies, Councilor of the
Prophet, Brigham Young; and ex-Danite and Destroying Angel to boot, has
stayed in Ogden on her account, and has just sent a telegram to one who
holds the Latter-Day Saints in his hand, which reads:
"OGDEN, _October 4, 1871_.
"She is here. I am watching her. She will arrive in Salt Lake on
the morning train. See my letter from Chicago, due to-night."
Not knowing this, the girl's laughter is light and happy, and seems to
be infectious, for Lawrence joins in it, and their conversation grows
low, as if they would keep it to themselves, and perhaps slightly
romantic, for there is a fire in the young man's dark eyes that seems to
be reflected in the beautiful blue ones of Miss Travenion, as she tells
him of life in New York society, and about Mrs. Livingston and her son.
This discantation on the absent Oliver Lawrence enjoys so little,
however, that he turns the conversation to his own prospects once more.
On which the girl asks him if his mine is so rich, why does he not work
it himself.
"Because I am tired of barbarism!" he cries. "I want a home and a wife,
and I wouldn't ask any woman to share a mining cabin with me."
"What matters," says Erma airily, "if she loved you?"
"Do you mean that?" remarks Harry, a peculiar ring coming into his
voice.
"Yes," says the girl, rising; "if I loved a man I believe I could give
up for him--even New York. But it is growing late. You tell me we have
an early breakfast to-morrow morning, Captain Lawrence?"
"Yes, six o'clock," he says shortly, and escorts his charge to the door
of the hotel, where her maid is waiting for her. Here she nonchalantly
says, "Good-night. Thank you so much!" Then, a sudden impulse impelling
her, she steps to the man who is just turning from her and whispers, her
eyes glowing gratefully, "God bless you for saving Ferdie's life! God
bless you for being kind to me!"
Next, seemingly frightened at herself, she runs lightly up the stairs to
her bedroom, where she goes to sleep; but once she is awakened by the
clanging of freight trains in the night, and this thought comes into her
head: "What manner of man is this who two days ago was a stranger to me,
but who has built railroads and slain desperadoes and Indians and whom I
think about waking and sleeping?" Then she utters a little affrighted
cry, "WHY, HE HAS EVEN MADE ME FORGET MY FATHER!"
The gentleman she has slighted has been under discussion on the railroad
platform below.
Mr. Chauncey and Lawrence, strolling out before going to bed to take a
preliminary smoke, the Captain suddenly asks, between puffs of his
cigar: "Miss Travenion's father was quite a swell in New York?"
"Was?--IS!" cries Ferdie. "I only know him by sight, but I inspected him
once or twice last year when he was in town, sitting in the Unity
windows, chewing a cane, and following with his eyes any likely ankle up
the Avenue. In fact, he's about as heavy a swell now as you'd want to
see, though they say when he lived in New York permanently he used to be
heavier."
"Ah," replies Harry, taking a long puff at his Havana, "a thorough club
man?"
"I should think so!" returns Mr. Chauncey. "He is an out and outer.
There are some curious stories extant that would make your hair stand on
end about Ralph Travenion in the old days. They say----"
But Ferdie stops here in sudden surprise, for Lawrence's hand is on his
arm, and he is whispering: "Don't tell me anything that would make me
think less of her father!"
"Oh, of course not, if you don't wish it," replies the boy. Then he
laughingly says: "You're not going to judge of Miss Beauty up there by
her paternal, are you, old man? That would be _rather_ a heavy
handicap." A moment later he goes on, the other not replying: "But she'd
stand it. She's a good girl; even a big fortune and the adoration of
Newport's smart set couldn't give her airs. She's liable to marry some
fellow just for love."
"You think so?" asks Lawrence with a hearty voice.
"Certainly. Did you notice her thanking you for saving my life?" returns
the boy. "Could she have shown more gratitude if you'd been an English
duke? And I thank you for it also. We Harvard men are not apt to gush,
my boy; but we feel just the same. If I was in love with Erma Travenion,
I'd sooner have what you did to-day to my credit than a million in
bonds."
"Would you!" cries the captain. "Would you!" and his clasp is so cordial
as he shakes Ferdie's hand on bidding him good-night that the boy goes
away and mutters, "He's got a grip like a prize-fighter--but hang it, I
sent him to bed happy for saving my life--and he did save it. Good Lord,
if it hadn't been for him, where would yours truly have been now? Oh
ginger!" And this idea making him serious, he goes to bed and sleeps, a
thing that Harry finds more difficult.
The next morning there is a very happy smile on Miss Travenion's face as
she trips down to her breakfast, where she is met by Captain Lawrence
and Ferdie, and the three shortly after go to the Utah Central and take
train there for Salt Lake, and after running through prosperous Mormon
villages and outlying farms for about an hour and a half, Erma suddenly
cries, "What is that great turtle rising out of the trees?"
To this Lawrence answers, "The Mormon Tabernacle!" and a few minutes
after they run into the "City of the Saints," where certain things shall
come to Erma Travenion such as this young lady of New York society wots
not are in the heavens above the earth, nor in the waters that are
beneath it.
BOOK II.
A CURIOUS CLUB MAN.