“I've watched 'em together,” raged the wronged husband. “I've seen her blushing and giggling. They thought I didn't see; getting too old to notice or have good sense, I reckon; but I ain't been married three times not to know what a pair of fools look like when they are in love.” and he stormed back and forth in front of his bar. “I had good luck with all of my wives but her; they were perfect ladies, each of them, and to think she'd serve me a trick like this!” Then he calmed down. “You and Bush come into the sitting-room; and you too, Jacob.”
The three men silently followed him into the adjoining room, where he threw open the door of a cupboard, and fell to rumaging among its contents. Presently he brought to light two huge horse-pistols, relics of the War of 1812. As they were much too large to go into his pockets he wrapped them in a gaily-coloured quilt.
“I'll have satisfaction,” he remarked grimly. “I'll blow him as full of holes as he'll stick. They got my bay team and six hours start; but I'll be after them hot-footed with that fractious mare of mine, and when I come up with them it will be him or me.”
“I hope you'll not do anything hasty, Tucker,” said Stephen gravely.
“Don't you worry about me, Steve. The right's on my side.”
He seemed so weak despite his rage and brave boastings, and he had aged, too, in that single night, that Stephen, feeling only pity for him, rested his strong hand on his shoulder with a kindly pressure.
“Come, Tucker, why go after him at all?” he said.
“Thank'ee Steve,” cried the tavernkeeper in a husky voice, and his bleary eyes sought the handsome face of the younger man. “Thank'ee—but you can't keep me back. She's my wife, she's skipped out with another man, and now I'm going to make her skip back, and I reckon she'll do quite a little skipping one way and another before this affair's settled,” and he shook his head ominously.
Then he said:
“Them deeds covering the transfers of that land, and the distillery, are in Jake's hands. He can get 'em recorded. It's all right to leave it with him to close up the deal, ain't it, boys?”
“Yes, certainly. He will have to attend to it,” said Stephen.
Jim appeared at the door. “Well, Tucker, if you are going, look spry. The mare's hooked to the light fix.”
Mr. Tucker, who had been standing by the window with his head sunk on his breast, turned quickly, roused by his words.
“Thank'ee, Jim, I'm ready. You'll look after things until I get back?” and he gathered up the gaily-coloured quilt that hid the horse pistols. Jim seemed slightly crestfallen.
“Don't I go too, Tucker?” he asked. “You know when it comes to the madam you ain't no match for her. Don't you reckon you'll want me?”
“I'll attend to her. You do as you're told.” said the old man with a touch of unexpected dignity. He crossed the room to where the Lan-drays stood with Benson. “Good-bye, boys, and good luck to you!” he gave a tremulous hand to each in turn. “I'm mighty sorry to see you go.”
“And we are sorry to see you in this trouble,” said Stephen.
“I trust you'll not do anything hasty,” urged Benson.
“Well, I won't be too everlasting slow, Jacob,” said Tucker grimly. Then he followed Jim from the room. A moment later they heard him issue his final commands to his stableman, the crack of a whip, the clatter of four shod hoofs on the brick pavement, the rattle of wheels, and Mr. Tucker, his hat awry, and his two wisps of white hair streaming out behind his ears like a pair of cupid's wings, whirled out of the inn-yard, and down the street, the fractious mare at a wild gallop.
The three men looked from one to another in silence. Stephen spoke first.
“Do you think she's gone with Gibbs?” he asked.
“I shouldn't wonder, there's been a good deal of talk,” It was Benson who answered his question.
“We should not have allowed him to start off after them,” said Stephen.
“I imagine we would have had our hands full if we had tried to stop him,” responded Bushrod with a shrug. Here, Jasper Walsh entered the room.
“Let us be off, Mr. Landray,” he cried. He was a boyish-looking young fellow, with a refined and gentle face, that was now working piteously enough. A stranger in Benson, fresh from an eastern college, he had come west—bringing with him a young wife—to teach school and in his leisure time study law, but he had decided that a year or so in California would furnish him with the means to carry out his ambitions, and from the savings of his slender earnings he had purchased a few shares in the company. “They are waiting for us, they are all ready—can't we start?” he asked.
“Yes, I know, Walsh,” said Stephen, then he added, “See here, why don't you throw it over? I'll see that your interests are well looked to. Come, be sensible, and stay here with your wife.”
“No,” answered the boy determinedly. “It's my chance. It's best for her, and it's best for me that I go, and I've parted from her and the worst is over,” his lips quivered. “What's keeping us?” he asked anxiously.
“Nothing,” said Stephen, but he did not move. Bushrod laughed dismally.
“Walsh is right, let's start. I don't want to hang about here until Anna's awake, and sees us go past the house.”
Stephen looked at him in wonder.
“Until Anna's what?” he demanded sharply.
“Awake. Thank God, she was fast asleep when I left home.”
Stephen's glance dwelt sadly upon his brother for a brief instant, then he moved to the door and they passed out through the bar, where Jim had put out the lights and was already opening the heavy wooden shutters.
When they emerged upon the square, they found the wind had lulled. The rain was tailing in a quiet drizzle, with here and there an occasional snow-flake that melted the instant it touched the ground. Bushrod and Walsh said good-bye to the lawyer, and took their places in the wagons, while Stephen turned back for a last word.
“I'm leaving everything in your care, Jake,” he said, in a voice of stifled emotion, as he wrung Benson's hand.
“I understand, Landray. I'll do for her in everyway I can.”
“I know you will. God bless you, and good-bye.”
They passed down the silent street that echoed dismally to the beat of their horses' hoofs, they crossed the covered bridge and began the long ascent of Landray's Hill. As they neared the summit, the vapours lifted from the valley below them, and the first long level rays of the sun shot across it, just touching the woods that were its furthest boundary.
Stephen, who was driving the first wagon, leaned far out from under the canvas hood, for down in the valley he saw the dark bulk of the old stone mill; then the farm-house flanked by its great barns and lesser buildings, came into view; and, last of all, the white porch of his home, and on the porch a figure, that he knew had been waiting there since the day broke. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and waved it frantically: there was an answering flutter of white, and then a turn in the road brought the leafless woods about him, and he had looked his last upon the valley.
As the sun swept higher in the heavens, and as the day advanced and the miles grew behind them, the drooping spirits of the party seemed to revive. Dunlevy and Bingham whistled or sang or chaffed poor Walsh who rode in their wagon; while Bushrod Landray and Rogers discussed the latest news from California, with an interest and cheerfulness that had been but temporarily eclipsed.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT Cincinnati, a dilapidated wharf boat absorbed the wagons of The Benson and California Mining and Trading Company, and an affable shipping agent, after dwelling with enthusiasm on the fact that freights were steadily advancing, and the oldest river men unwilling to predict their ultimate figure, agreed to furnish transportation for the party on the “Caledonia,” which was due to arrive some time the following day, and at a price which represented but a slight advance on the regular western rate; indeed, he assured Stephen he might reasonably consider the increase merely nominal, in view of the peculiar and extraordinary advantages this particular boat had to offer in the way of safety, speed, and comfort.
But in spite of the ample promises of this individual, Stephen found he had purchased a very limited amount of space indeed, for the steamer was crowded when they boarded it, and each stop it made added to the numbers who stamped the decks when the weather permitted, and at other times clustered about the smoky wood stoves in the dingy cabins.
As they steamed down the Ohio, they passed, or were passed, by other boats, each crowded with its adventurers. They entered the Missouri, and on its banks saw the camps and canvas-covered wagons of those who had come overland to join in the epic march of the gold-seekers. At first, it was two or three wagons—further along the two or three became a score—this score grew to fifty—the fifty to a hundred—a long, slow-moving monotonous line.
Late one afternoon they reached Independence, and tied up to the bank. A tall black-bearded man of thirty-eight or forty, in greasy buckskins, had established himself at a near-by wood-pile, from which he could command an excellent prospect of the river and what was passing there. He had kept his watch from dawn until dark for a week or more. It was only when some steamer made a landing in his vicinity that he would forsake his post; then he would hurry along the bank, thrusting his vigorous way among the passengers, eagerly questioning from whence they came. During those intervals when there were no boats arriving, he cultivated a measure of intimacy with the proprietor of the wood-yard; and the latter had hospitably urged him to make free with a shelter of blankets he had devised in the rear of one of the wood ranks. But his impatience had increased as the days passed, and the good-nature which had at first expressed itself in ill-flavoured jests at the expense of the emigrants seemed to leave him; this was Basil Landray. He saw the “Caledonia” tie up to the shore; and he watched her passengers as they made their way to land, laden with the more easily portable of their belongings; suddenly, however, he uttered an exclamation and strode down the bank.
“If your name ain't Landray, I'll never guess again!” he said, when he had made his way to where Stephen and Bushrod stood.
“Basil?” cried the former, “Basil Landray?”
In spite of certain differences, which later on became so apparent that they seemed to destroy all family resemblance, the cousins were wonderfully alike.
“How long have you been here?” said Stephen.
“Not above a fortnight. I counted on your getting here sooner; but you're full early; there's no grass to speak of yet, and you can't start a hoof across the plains until that gets up.”
In a covert, secret fashion of his own he was taking careful stock of the brothers. When Stephen's letter had been put into his hands at Council Bluffs the previous fall, it had required an effort of memory on his part to determine who this Stephen Landray was, and just how they were related. Of the writer's circumstances he had known absolutely nothing, and of these the letter gave no hint; this was a point upon which he had felt certain misgivings, but the very appearance of the brothers was in itself reassuring. He noted, for nothing was lost on him, that the others of the party treated them with a marked respect, which he instantly attributed to superiority of fortune, that to him being the basis of all social differences.
“Well, now;” he cried, with boisterous heartiness, “and to think I should have known the pair of you the minute I clapped eyes on you! Singular, ain't it?”
“No,” said Stephen, surveying the fine muscular figure of the fur trader with frank approval. “No, it is not so singular after all; for we do look alike.”
“Aye, with this off,” running his fingers through his bushy heard. “As like as three peas in a pod.”
Their wagons, which were among the last loaded on the “Caledonia,” and consequently among the first to be put ashore, were soon drawn up the bank; and Dunlevy, with Bingham and Walsh busied themselves settling the camp.
“Now,” said Basil, “What are your plans?”
The Landrays had drawn apart from the others, and had thrown themselves down on the short turf which was already specked with flowers. They told him first of the return of Rogers, and of the formation of the company.
“Yonder tall fellow?” nodding in the direction of the Californian.
“Yes.”
Basil grinned. “You must have had right smart faith,” he said. “I should judge you'd have thought twice before trusting yourself to him.”
“We did.” said Stephen. “It was then I thought of you.”
“Well, if he drops off, I reckon I can fill his shoes.”
“God forbid that he should drop off!” cried Stephen quickly. “I want to see him successful. He's a tragic and pathetic figure, with his hope and patience.”
Basil stared at him blankly, “Oh! I reckon he'll pull through,” he said at length.
They were soon absorbed in the discussion of their plans. They kept nothing back from the fur trader, for was he not a Landray? They told him how much was invested in the enterprise, what had been spent in equipment, and what, remained in cash in hand, which they intended to invest when they should reach California, together with five thousand dollars of their own. His dark eyes sparkled, and the enthusiasm which worked up out of the sullen depths of his nature quite mastered him. He felt his heart warm toward these prosperous kinsmen of his.
“Well, freeze on to your money,” then he laughed as he added, “I didn't know any of the Landrays could round up so much. I suppose you sold clean out to do it?”
“Not quite,” said Bushrod a little stiffly, and he glanced quickly at his brother; but Stephen avoided meeting his eye, for somehow he felt responsible for Basil, and Basil, he feared, was not quite all he had expected.
“Well, it's a lot of money,” said the fur trader, “a lot of money. I've known one Landray who ain't seen so much in many a long day, how do you plan to lay it out?”
“If possible, in mining properties,” said Stephen.
“And lose every doggone cent of it, like enough. No sir, I'd put it in something surer.”
They looked at him in mute surprise. What could be surer?
He explained.
“Every one's crazy to dig, and while they dig they're going to be hungry—they're going to be mortal thirsty too. Start a store, or, better still, start a tavern; but keep your hands clean.”
“We intend to,” said Stephen drily. The fur trader swore a mighty oath.
“The crowd here's one thing, but what will be left of it after it crosses the plains will be something else. The soft-headed and the soft-hearted will turn back, but a many a one 'll go through, and if money comes easy it will go easy. They'll be a long ways from home, most of 'em will forget they ever had homes; I've seen how that works in the fur country. Drink and cards will do for 'em: I've seen 'em gamble their last dollar away—their horses—their Indian women—the shirts off their backs—and once the scalps off their own heads, it's the traders and gamblers makes the money.” he broke off abruptly with a light laugh. “You'll figure it out to suit yourselves, I reckon, but there'll be other ways of getting gold than digging for it.”
His unlucky candour acted like a wet blanket on the brothers. The manner of each became stiff, their tone formal; their enthusiasm changed to a forced and tepid warmth; but apparently Basil did not notice this; relaxed and at ease in his greasy buckskins, and with a short black pipe between his teeth, he lounged on the soft flower-specked turf, his mind filled with pleasant fancies.
“We'll pick up our teams to-morrow;” he said. “Mules cost a heap more than cattle, but mules are what you want.”
“We heard at St. Louis that the cholera was here, and at St. Joseph,” said Bushrod.
“I reckon what you heard was near about so. That's one reason why we want to pull out of here as soon as we can. When the first man died, there was a right lively stampede.” he sucked at his pipe in silence for a moment. “I ain't partial to cholera myself,” he added.
Then he explained with some show of embarrassment that his reckoning at the tavern where he had lodged since his arrival in Independence, was still unpaid, and that he was looking to the brothers to settle it for him.
As evening fell, the open spaces about the town, common and waste, smoked with the fires of a thousand camps. The rolling upland rioted with feverish life, or vibrated with a boisterous cheerfulness, for hope was everywhere. Numberless white-topped wagons gleamed opaquely in the gathering darkness; black figures moved restlessly to and fro about the fires; there was the continual lowing of oxen; now a noisy chorus of men's voices could be heard; then nearer at hand a clear tenor voice took up the words.
“I soon shall be in 'Frisco,
And then I'll look around,
And when I see the gold lumps there,
I'll pick 'em off the ground.
I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys,
I'll drain the rivers dry,
A pocket full of rocks bring home,
So, brothers, don't you cry!”
A hundred men roared out the refrain:
“Oh! California,
That's the land for me!
I'm bound for San Francisco,
With my wash-bowl on my knee!”
The fur trader grinned and nodded over his tin cup of steaming coffee.
“Some of 'em will do their singing out the other side of their mouths before they finish the first five hundred miles; eh, California?”
“I reckon so,” said Rogers, sententiously.
“Stephen, here, tells me you've crossed the mountains?”
Again Rogers contented himself with a brief answer in the affirmative.
“Ever been in the fur trade?” asked Basil.
“No.”
“Oh, aye, just knocking about maybe?”
“Trying mighty hard to make a living,” corrected Rogers shortly.
“That's easy to pick up.”
“The kind I wanted wa'n'..”
“What kind were you looking for?” inquired Basil.
“Something a mighty sight different from what I got out of soldiering and ranching,” responded Rogers.
The fur trader devoted a moment to a close scrutiny of the Californian.
“It don't seem to have agreed with you specially well, for a fact,” he commented drily.
“Come, Basil,” said Stephen, “if you are ready, we'd better go into town before it gets any later.”
They found the town alive with the unwonted traffic of that season. Before the warehouses and stores, which for years past had outfitted the Santa Fe traders and the great fur companies, freight wagons from the river landings or from St. Louis were still discharging their loads. There were other wagons from the country about, each drawn by its six or eight oxen or mules, and laden with flour, pork, and farm produce; and from the distant trading posts were still other wagons, loaded with bales of beaver and buffalo robes. The teams blocked the street, and their drivers swore hoarsely at each other; and the crowds showered them with advice.
In the stores with their barbaric display of coloured cloths, blankets, and beads, and their stacks of rifles, an army might have been equipped and armed. In and out the crowds came and went, buying and trading with a feverish haste. In the stock-yards—which seemed to be everywhere—by lantern light, men bargained for teams. There was the slow drawl of the Southerner; the nasal twang of the Yankee; the French of dark-skinned Canadian voyagers; the Spanish of swarthy Mexican packers; the frank and loudly expressed wonder of the men of the frontier, teamsters, and trappers, at the sudden invasion of their trading centre.
Basil's reckoning at the tavern was settled, and the fur trader shouldered his pack and rifle, and they again sought the street.
“We'll go back to camp by a nearer way,” said he, and he led them down a narrow alley. Here a rapidly driven wagon caused them to draw to one side. A negro was driving the team of mules, and following him came a two-wheeled cart. In it were two men, one of whom held a lantern in his lap. In the light it gave they could see that the handles of a pick and shovel protruded from between his knees. His companion rocked drunkenly at his side.
Basil started back with an oath.
“The cholera!” he cried.
They were bearing a body to a grave on the plains, beyond the town and the camps of the gold-seekers.
CHAPTER NINE
MR. TUCKER took the south road out of Benson, his belief being that the runaways would drive across the State to Indiana. Events proved him so far right in this conjecture that he dined at the tavern where they had breakfasted, and supped where they had dined. Then, since they had gone on presumedly in the direction of Columbus, he mounted to his seat again and urged the fractious mare forward at the best pace which the condition of the roads rendered safe. He himself was now on the verge of exhaustion; and his desire to be revenged on the fugitives, alone sustained him; it was nothing that he ached in every bone and muscle, or that his old joints had stiffened so that as he swung forward over the rutted road, or splashed through mud-holes, he was tossed and jolted from side to side quite lacking the power to protect or save himself.
The bitter sense of shame never left him; and with each weary mile the wish to be avenged for the monstrous evil he was suffering grew in his sodden brain. Yet as darkness closed about him, between the paroxysms of his rage, he thought miserably enough of his own comfortable tavern bar, filled as he knew it must be with the pleasant odour of tobacco smoke—that soft familiar haze through which for thirty years he had looked each night. He thought of the long rows of bottles on the shelves back of the deal bar, and of what they held; of the open fireplace with its warmth and cheer, which Jim had heaped with great logs. There was something inspiring and of high domestic virtue even in the reek of the sperm oil in the brass lamps; indeed, there was not a single memory which his mind fed upon, that he would have had changed in the minutest particular, or that did not add to the wretchedness of his present plight.
He thought of the excellent and thirsty company that was gathering there, and the best company was always thirsty. He thought tenderly of the little cherished peculiarities of each of his cronies; of Mr. Harden the undertaker, and the accurate information he was always ready to impart touching the ravages of sickness and death in the county; of Mayor Kirby, and Squire Riley, and the argument on certain mooted points of constitutional law they had been carrying on almost nightly, for more years than he could remember; and which had become so intricate that these distinguished opponents were as often as not astonished to find themselves on the wrong side of the question, each upholding the opinions of the other with a most embarrassing force and logic; he thought of Mr. Bently, the postmaster, and his interesting political reminiscences, the chiefest gem being the narrative of his meeting with Andrew Jackson, and the wealth of whose impressions concerning that remarkable man—which might be said to have compounded themselves most industriously—now bore no relation whatever to the actual time which the victor of New Orleans had devoted to Mr. Bently's case, generally supposed to have been the Benson post-office. He thought of Colonel Sharp, stately but condescending, and his agreeable conversation embellished as it was by classical quotations, which never failed to carry a sense of conviction and fullness to the mental stomach: of the British bullet he had brought away from the disastrous fight at Fallen Timbers, but which no surgeon's probe had ever been able to locate, and concerning the outrageous behaviour of which Mr. Tucker was expected to show daily the keenest interest, since the most subtle change in the weather, a rise or fall in the temperature, a shift in the wind, affected this piece of lead in the most singular manner, enabling it, so the colonel stoutly averred, to travel up and down his leg between the knee and thigh quite at its own pleasure, but much to his discomfort.
Probably they were all at the tavern even now; and here was he, wet and wretched, with a cold wind and a yet colder rain beating in his face, miles and miles away!