_The Return of the Gold Diggers._
They were now nearing the station at a mile back from The Front.
Cameron had acquainted LeClare with the simple funeral arrangements
he wished carried out as soon after their arrival as possible. One
precaution he insisted must be taken, and that was, to allow no
indication to appear of their possession of wealth. The significance
of this request LeClare well understood. At the call of the station
stop for The Front, the two men alighted, and hurrying forward,
superintended the removal of the copper-lined casket beneath whose
sealed cover was the body of the courageous woman that so lately had
gone in search of the husband who now would live to do for those in
kind who had done for the departed.
Cameron stood by the side of the rough box upon the platform, as the
noise from the fast disappearing express train grew faint and died away
in the distance. For a moment he was lost in thought. Knowing him to
be in the company of Cameron, the keeper of the small depot approached
LeClare, and with a jerk of his head toward a farm wagon and driver
cautiously nearing, as if fearing to obtrude, he said in a hushed
voice,—
“It’s Andy’s Dan. He’s been a-waitin’ fer ’im.”
Twice a week and sometimes oftener during the October month, so Cameron
was afterward told by the neighbors, Andy’s Dan was seen regularly to
drive back to the railroad station, and there remaining at a respectful
distance, watch for a passenger who might alight from the through train
from the West. Then seeing no familiar face to reward his coming, he
would turn away and drive back to the farm at The Nole to come again
another day.
Startled from his reverie by the remark of the station master, Cameron
turned to see the conveyance drawn up by the platform at his side.
Andy’s Dan alighted from the vehicle and clasped the outstretched hand
of his bereaved brother in silence. Still without exchanging a word,
they walked over to the side of the long box. Then, as if suddenly
remembering, Dan looked into his brother’s face, a sad smile playing
upon his features.
“We can take her home, Andy,” he said. “Bill Blakely told me to tell ye
that when you come.”
* * * * *
In the centre of the burying-ground, set back from the roadway and
raising its spire heavenward above the tombstones at either side,
the church at The Front reposes among the graves. One by one these
monuments had been reared, till now they marked a place where a loved
one had been taken to rest from each of the families at The Front.
A mound of freshly dug earth, thrown up upon the sod in one corner of
the inclosure, told of a newly made grave. A cold November rain had
been falling, accompanied by a chilling wind, which came in fitful
gusts. The over ripe, deadened stalks of the golden-rod beat against
the board fence, rapping at intervals like the weather strips upon a
deserted house. The drops of water fell aslant from the eaves of the
church roof, and a horse, meagrely covered, shivered beneath the shed
at the rear. Bill Blakely had placed in a convenient corner of the
shed the pick and shovel he had been using, then backing his horse
from under cover, he drove over to the farm at The Nole. Information
had spread among the neighbors that Cameron had returned to The Front
bringing with him the remains of his wife. No further news were they
able to gather, but to Davy Simpson, Angus Ferguson, Bill Blakely and a
few others, Cameron had sent a special message, saying that as friends
to himself and the departed he wished them to be present at the funeral
to take place from The Nole the following afternoon.
Meanwhile Cameron had also dispatched his friend LeClare with Dan
as his driver, bearing a note to his lawyer friend up at the county
village. To them the import of the note appeared to be nothing more
than a request for his friend to attend upon the following day, but
later, at the farm, as he saw the lawyer place upon the coffin in the
front room a beautiful wreath of the purest white lilies, LeClare
knew that Andy’s orders had been telegraphed to the city. The best
undertaker the county afforded was in charge of the details, with
instructions to slight nothing in the arrangements and the assurance
that his bill of expenses would be promptly met.
Cameron greeted his friends by a cordial grasp of the hand. A new
dignity of manner impressed itself upon his old neighbors. His bearing
at this time was that of a man of a great reserve force, softened
through the medium of sorrow. Kindly he thanked the few friends who
had come to him, and together upon the arrival of the clergyman
they assembled in the front room to fulfill the last request of the
departed—that, surrounded by her friends and family, her pastor should
offer a prayer, and then in the graveyard by the small church near her
home they should lay her at rest.