THE REALIZATION OF THE DREAM.
We have followed Major Robison and his daughter through some of the
stormy scenes in their history, and now are fast approaching the
completion of our work.
Though the story told to him by the renegade, on the night when he was
urging escape, had much of probability in it, yet, from having had his
hopes so often dashed, he feared to place too much confidence in it,
or to allow too high expectations to be raised in his breast. For all
that, he felt a lingering belief that now, perhaps, his wishes would
be realized, and a stern determination to test, to the fullest extent,
the truth of the revelation. Then, with Waving Plume and Stevens, and
the rest of the trappers, he would journey in search of the since much
quoted Pike’s Peak.
A journey of a week and they were safely at the fort; a stay of
another week, and then Robison and Archer were travelling back to the
hunting-ground of the Crows, there to meet with the remainder of the
formidable little band of _voyageurs_, who were to accompany them on
their exploring tour.
Days and weeks passed before Adele and her brother, in safe-keeping
at the fort, heard from the wanderers. Then, alone, with his arm in
a sling, and a deep arrow wound in his back, came Howell. He brought
good intelligence, though. The rest of the party were safe, and in good
spirits--more, they were successful.
Having brought this intelligence, and having remained a week or so
to recruit from the effects of his wounds and the fatigues of a long
journey, Howell again mounted his horse, slung on his rifle, looked
well to his canteen and provision bag, and turned westward again,
leaving Hugh and his sister to watch and hope.
Summer faded away, autumn came, and November’s winds were fiercely
humming over the plain, when the next intelligence of the absentees
was received. One evening, as the sun was dropping behind the far-off
mountains, a single horseman was seen approaching, along the westerly
trail, to the fort. Hugh and Adele, by chance looking out, saw him
coming, and both, at the same time, recognized him. A few moments later
and he was clasping their hands, responding to their eager enquiries
concerning the remainder of the party.
Successful beyond their highest anticipations, they might be expected
on the following day.
The morrow came, and with it Major Robison and his hardy, sun-browned,
toil-worn band of attaches; and here, the family reunited, and all the
characters safe, we might take leave of the reader, with the assurance
that all the greater difficulties which had clung around the pathway
of the Major had been surmounted. He had found the secret, and was,
even now, a comparatively rich man. In fact, was there nothing more
to relate than that they journeyed eastward to spend the winter,
and transact some, to him, necessary business, returning again in
the spring, to toil through many ensuing months; then perhaps our
chronicles would here end. As it is, we shall not linger long before
writing the inevitable “finis.”
The connection between Robison and Waving Plume had been essentially
a financial one. Robison, at one time wealthy, had been involved in
ruinous losses by a financial crisis, being left, not only broken in
fortune, but heavily in debt. Impelled by various reasons, he sought
the western confines of civilization, bringing with him his children,
and a few thousands which, being settled on them, he did not feel
himself called upon to deliver up to his creditors. Engaging in the
fur trade to some extent, having intercourse with trappers, hunters,
_voyageurs_, and Indians, he heard much of wandering life and wandering
manners. From an old trapper, who, in a not over sober moment, became
loquacious, he gathered a few points which determined him to drop his
business and search for gold. This was, perhaps, as much on account
of his health as anything else--his spirits, and consequently his
constitution, being much broken by the tempestuous life-storms through
which he had lately passed. Starting out with Ned Hawkins and another,
a man well versed in all western mysteries, he had roamed far and wide,
hunting and trapping, yet all the time prosecuting his search and his
inquiries. Returning to the region of the trading-posts, he there found
Charles Archer, a young man of twenty-one or two, with plenty of means,
a go-ahead disposition, and who had sought the great west for the sake
of life and adventure. Unfolding to him his plans and hopes, the Major
had induced him to enter into the formation of a small, but selected
company, and to penetrate into the regions lying along the Rocky
Mountains. It was this company whom the reader has found introduced in
these pages, and for the past three years they had clung well together,
traversing all the region thereabouts, and even scouring the Oregon
territory, and the streams that flow into the Columbia. These three
years of life had made of Archer a perfect adventurer, while they had
endeared him to all with whom he had come in contact.
* * * * *
One evening Adele and Archer stood together, looking through the dim
twilight, out over the far-stretching plains. There was a smile on her
face, both bright and joyous, for Waving Plume held her hand in his,
and whispered into her ear, both low and softly:
“Yes, Adele, I have seen much of the ruder elements of life; I have
drained the cup of danger, and lived in an atmosphere of hardship; but
shall I not have my reward?”
What more he said we know not, but when her answer came, he printed a
kiss upon her ripe, red lips, and then, with his arm twined around her
waist, the two stood in the fast-fading twilight of the deep embrasure,
whispering of hope, and love, and bright days to come.
THE END.
Printed by James Jackson,
and Published by him at his Publishing Office,
2 RED LION COURT, Fleet Street, London, E.C.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Free Trapper's Pass, by William R. Eyster