Roebuck was an old friend, though they had not met in years; and it was Roebuck himself, who, hearing the rattle of wheels before his door, hurried out from the bar, lantern in hand, to bid his guest welcome. He was a burly figure of a man, florid of face, but bland and smiling.
“John,” cried Mr. Tucker weakly, “John, I wonder if you'll know me!”
“Know you?” swinging up the lantern. “Know you?” scrutinizing doubtfully the limp figure in the buggy. “Why, God bless me—it's Tucker, of the Red Brick at Benson!”
He seized Tucker's cold fingers in a friendly grasp, and fell to bawling for his hostler. When the latter appeared, he assisted his friend to alight, and bore him indoors.
“Why, man, you're wet to the skin!” he cried. “You'll be after having something to eat, a drop to drink, and a pipe.”
“A dish of licker right now, if you please, John,” said Tucker, turning his eyes in the direction of the bar; and though he doubted if Roebuck would have anything to tell him, he made his inquiries concerning the runaways. Roebuck nodded.
“They stopped here for supper. Gibbs I knowed by sight, but his lady was a stranger to me.”
“Where are they now?” cried Tucker fiercely. “Here?”
“Nay, man, they only stopped for supper, as I told you. When they were leaving they asked me about the road to Washington in Fayette County; but they'll have to stop for the night on the way; their team wa'n'. good for ten miles more when they drove away from here.”
Mr. Tucker groaned aloud. “I'd keep on after them, but I ain't fit, John,” he said.
“You do look beat,” agreed his friend.
“I been after them since early morning,” said Tucker.
“Your daughter, maybe?”
“My wife,” answered Tucker briefly.
“You don't tell me!” cried Roebuck. “Let's see, it was your first wife I knowed, wa'n'. it?”
“My second,” said Tucker. “Sarah.”
“So it was. I mind now that was her name.”
“A good woman,” said Tucker, and said no more.
Presently, however, when he had eaten, and his eating included much drinking, they established themselves for privacy's sake in the tavern parlour near a small table, where as the night wore on, there was a steady accumulation of empty bottles, “Dead soldiers,” Roebuck called them.
It was then that Tucker poured the narrative of his wrongs into the listening ear of his ancient friend.
“I mind now I heard of your second wife's death, and that you'd married again,” said Roebuck, when he had finished.
“It was once too often, John,” said Tucker sadly. “I know it now though I didn't think so then. She was a tidy-looking girl when I carried her home to the Red Brick.”
“She's an uncommon fine looker yet,” Roebuck assured him.
“She is,” agreed Tucker. “I seen her the first time at her father's farm, I'd gone there to buy grain. Only to buy grain, mind you; I had no more idea of marrying again than nothing at all; but being married once makes a man bold, and I allow being married twice makes him downright reckless; so while old Tom Gough, her father—”
“I knowed him,” said Roebuck, interrupting him. “One eye missing,” he added, wishing to establish Mr. Gough's identity beyond peradventure.
“Fourth of July,” said Tucker. “Breach of his rifle blowed out.”
“That's him,” said Roebuck nodding. “Go on—old Tom Gough—”
“Went down to the barn to hook up,” said Tucker, resuming his narrative, “you see he wanted to show me his crops, I was intending buying in the field, and he left me setting on his front porch where I could see her through the hall whisking about helping her mother at the back of the house. Watching her I got so lonely that presently I called to her to come out where I was, and she called back that there was more between us than the house. 'More than the house between us,' says I, 'perhaps you mean a man.' 'Not a man,' says she, 'but I don't know as I fancy your looks, Mr. Tucker.' 'The liking of looks,' says I, 'is a matter of habit. Give me time and perhaps you'll like such looks as I have well enough.' That,” added Mr. Tucker savagely, “was the beginning.”
“And you married her,” said Roebuck.
“Damn her, I did,” said Tucker.
“Trouble from the start?” asked Roebuck.
“No, we got along satisfactory, you might say, with now and then a spat as is to be expected, and which signifies little enough.”
“Little enough surely,” agreed Roebuck.
“And then along came this scalawag Gibbs.”
“One man's as good as another until the other heaves into sight, I've noticed that,” observed Roebuck.
“Exactly,” said Tucker moodily.
Mr. Tucker left Columbus at dawn the next day, and in a pouring rain, which rendered the roads all but impassible.
The runaways kept their lead of him, and again he dined where they had breakfasted and supped where they had dined. This brought him to Washington. He followed them to Leesburg, almost due south, and he feared they were directing their course to some river point. At Leesburg, however, they turned north again taking the Wilmington Pike. He was now convinced that Gibbs had in mind reaching some station on the Little Miama railroad, and felt that if he was to overtake them he must do so that day.
Just beyond Wilmington where they had stopped at a cross-road blacksmith shop, the runaways caught their first sight of Mr. Tucker, who like a battered fate, toiled into view. They had scarcely reckoned on the old tavernkeeper showing such tenacity of purpose; indeed, he was within a hundred yards of them, when Gibbs happening to glance back up the road, descried the fractious mare, urged on by the injured husband, charging down upon them, and at a speed, which had this backward glance of his been delayed another moment would have brought the chase to a conclusion of some sort then and there. With a muttered oath he tossed a handful of change to the smith who had just replaced the shoe one of the bays had cast, and lashed his horses with the whip. Yet prompt as their flight was, he heard Tucker call, bidding him stop.
First the mare gained slowly inch by inch. Then the bays worked ahead. But they in their turn lost ground and the mare gained on them once more, until Mr. Tucker's voice could be heard again. He was calling to them to stop or take the consequences; but they did not stop and there were no consequences; for the bays quickly recovered their lead.
Gibbs stood in no actual fear of the old tavernkeeper, but he felt that under the circumstances a meeting with him would have its disagreeable features; and to do him justice, he was not lacking in the wish to spare the woman at his side the distress of such an interview.
The bays now drew steadily ahead, and Tucker dropped back until a good quarter of a mile separated him from the pair in the buggy; this grew to half a mile—three-quarters—though he plied the whip with desperate energy.
Suddenly he was surprised to see the bays slow down to a walk, but a moment later he realized what the difficulty was. They were approaching a ford. He had already experienced both difficulty and danger in fording swollen streams; perhaps this one would force the runaways to turn and face him. He slipped the quilt from about the pistols with one hand while he guided his horse with the other, for he had caught the glint of the angry current where it ran level with the bank, sending a placid stretch of dirty yellow water down the road to meet the fugitives. An instant later the bays splashed into this.
Gibbs drew in his horses. He had no intention of attempting the ford.
“I am sorry,” he said to his companion, “but we shall have to meet him here, the ford is not safe.”
Tucker saw the bays come to a stand, and shaking with excitement and rage, snatched up one of the pistols and sought to cock it; but his fingers were numb with cold, the lock rusted and stiff, and he could not start the hammer. He put the reins between his knees, and took both hands to the task. The hammer rose slowly from the cap. Then suddenly his fingers seemed to lose all power and strength, the hammer fell, the piece exploded.
When the smoke that for a moment enveloped him cleared away, he saw that Gibbs had changed his mind about waiting for him to come up. The bays were struggling in midstream, and when he reached the ford were just emerging on the other bank. He reined in his horse and considered. The stream had an ugly look. It was quite narrow, however, and he could see plainly where the wheels of the buggy had left their impress on the soft bank opposite. But his fury got the better of a constitutional timidity that usually turned him back from any hazardous undertaking. He touched the mare sharply with the whip; she started forward; and then as she felt the water deepen about her, flung back. He jerked her round savagely, and she plunged forward once more; but when she felt the force of the current, veered sharply, overturning the buggy. Tucker was pitched headlong from his seat. He gained a footing, but the water was waist deep, and the current instantly twisted his feet from under him, and he was rolled over and over like a cork. To have extricated himself would have been an easy task for a strong swimmer; but Mr. Tucker was not a strong swimmer. The current was sweeping him toward the opposite shore, and perhaps safety; but he was entirely possessed by the confused idea that he must recover his horse, which, rid of its master had kicked itself free of buggy and harness, and was now galloping down the road toward Wilmington.
He put his might against the current's might. It swept him further and further away from the ford. Splinters and fragments of the wrecked buggy floated after him. He gave up all idea of regaining the Wilmington shore. He wondered desperately if Gibbs had not seen the accident, and if he would let him go to his death in that flood of rushing muddy water without an effort to save him; but Gibbs had passed about a turn in the road, and knew nothing of the tragedy that was being enacted so close at hand.
He snatched at the drooping boughs of willows and elms where they trailed about him in the water, but though his fingers touched them again and again, he lacked the power to retain his hold upon them. The cold was numbing him; his arms and legs had the weight of lead. Once he sank—then his dripping bald head, white scared face, and starting eyes appeared, and the fight for life went on. Twice he sank—and again he came to the surface, choking, strangling, his old face purple. A third time he sank—but this time he did not reappear.
CHAPTER TEN
THE weeks that followed Stephen's departure held for Virginia Landray the misery of a first separation. It was the uprooting of all she had counted on as most secure and abiding. That thousands of other men had left their homes on the same errand meant nothing to her, for it was not in her nature to generalize.
Her one comfort was his letters, which reached her at short and reasonably regular intervals. He was all buoyancy and hope; he seemed to think only of the success in store for them; and he so dwelt upon this need of money, a need he magnified to himself and to her, that it was not strange she ended by having a wholly wrong and exaggerated idea of the condition of the family fortunes.
“He is doing it all for me,” she told herself with quivering lips, “and that only makes it the more wicked and monstrous! He has left his home for my sake, becauses he wishes to give me every comfort and luxury; as if I cared for anything—but him!”
Inspired by this thought, she regulated her personal expenditures with an eye to the most rigid economy. These economies of hers threatened to become a scandal and a reproach to Anna, Bushrod's wife, who, however much she regretted her husband's absence, refused to believe that any sacrifice could be made even tributary to her comfort, or could in any way lighten the sorrow and apprehension, she declared she was knowing for the first time in her married life.
But Virginia, whose faith was rather less than her affection for this cheerful sufferer, determined to propose to her that they live together at the farm, and thus save the expense of one household. She planned it all in detail. Anna could have the big front room over the parlour with the smaller one adjoining that looked out upon the west meadow. It would do admirably as a nursery for little Stephen. She grew quite excited over this project, and was on the point of driving into town to see Anna, when Anna herself in all the ingenious gaiety of new spring finery, drove into the yard.
She swept up the steps to Virginia, who had hurried to the door to receive her, adjusting her bonnet with one neatly gloved hand, and gathering up her skirts out of the way with the other; her small person radiant with grace and charm.
She seemed to be thrilling with some pleasurable excitement; and Virginia immediately thought it must be a letter from Bushrod.
“Have you heard about Mr. Tucker?” she asked quite breathlessly.
“What about Mr. Tucker?” said Virginia disappointed.
“He's dead—drowned—my dear! I hurried out to tell you, for I knew you would be interested. One always is, in these dreadful shocking tragedies.”
“Dead! Drowned!” cried Virginia in horror.
“Yes, my dear, drowned!” said Anna, with a small air of triumph.
“Oh!” cried Virginia; and added, “Poor, poor old man!”
“He was following his wife and that dreadful Captain Gibbs—it's quite settled now that she ran off with him; he tracked them half across the state, it seems.”
“But how did he lose his life?” asked Virginia.
“It seems he attempted to ford a dangerously swollen stream and was swept away; no one has the full particulars yet, but I saw Mr. Benson, and he says there is no doubt but that Mr. Tucker is dead.”
“Poor old man!” repeated Virginia pityingly.
“Well!” said Anna, “Captain Gibbs will never dare to show his face here again. They say they will tar and feather him if he does; and I think myself that would be none too good for him.”
Virginia looked inquiringly at her. She wondered if she had come merely to tell her this.
“Did Stephen ever say anything to you about his and Bush's business with Mr. Tucker—the distillery, I mean?” asked Anna.
Virginia shook her head.
“I really think it shocking the ignorance in which those men have kept us about their affairs! Just suppose anything should happen to them!”
“But nothing will,” said Virginia quickly.
“How does one know that, my dear? The papers say the cholera is at Independence.”
“Oh! Don't, Anna! How can you?” and Virginia put up her hands appealingly.
“Well, dear, one mustn't always look on the bright side: It's just as well to be serious sometimes. Goodness knows! You are always saying that I am not half serious enough, and now when I am willing to be—”
“But I never meant in this way!” cried Virginia.
“I know, dear, but there is absolutely nothing else to be serious about!”
“What do they say about Mrs. Tucker and Captain Gibbs?” asked Virginia, wishing to bring Anna back to her original theme.
“They kept on of course; isn't it scandalous! I knew that woman was no better than she should be, but Bush always wanted me to be civil on account of poor Mr. Tucker. Imagine, my dear, she was his third wife! You must admit there is a sort of levity about such marriages that prevents one being altogether serious in thinking of them; but did Stephen ever tell you anything about the distillery? Every one seems to think that all of Mr. Tucker's property will go to his wife; and I always understood that he had never finished paying for the distillery; but Mr. Benson seems to think there was a settlement just before Stephen and Bushrod started West. Did Stephen ever say anything to you about it?”
“No,” said Virginia, “or if he did, I have forgotten it. But what were those papers they had us sign just before they left, don't you remember, Anna?”
“Why, yes—I am sure that Bush told me that it had something to do with Mr. Tucker. Well, I hope they won't lose the distillery,” said Anna.
“Mr. Tucker's death will make no difference,” said Virginia. And then she outlined her plan, which Anna received coldly and with every outward evidence of disfavour.
“What, me bury myself in the country?” she cried. “And to save a few dollars? No, indeed; and I am sure Bush would not be pleased if I did. He begged me not to mope—he was always such a dear; you may feel quite sure that they are perfectly happy; men always get along very well when they are by themselves like that. I sometimes think we are of no special use to them except to keep their homes and to mother their children.”
“How is little Stephen, Anna?” Virginia asked, and a shade of constraint crept into her manner. This was one of her hidden griefs.
Her little nephew had been named in honour of his grandfather, and there could never be a son of hers who might bear that name. She never thought of this without a secret jealous pang.
“I had intended to bring him with me, but I came off in such haste—”
“If you were at the farm”—began Virginia.
“Now don't, dear,” and Anna put up her hands in pretty appeal. “I know all the many advantages of this dreadful lonely place; I spent the first year of my married life here, and I'm not likely to forget it, for I never gave Bush a moment's peace until he had bought the place in town and we had moved into it. That nearly broke up the family! General Landray—a terribly determined old man—never forgave me for that up to the very day of his death; he wanted us to stay on here. I know just what you would say, Virginia; I know all you would do for Stephen. It's such a pity you haven't children of your own.”
Virginia said nothing, but the colour came and went on her cheeks. There was a pause during which Anna moved restlessly in her chair; when Virginia was serious she was very depressing.
Anna was small and dark and pretty, and under the cloak of yielding pliant femininity hid a stout heart and certain strenuous characteristics, conspicuous among which was a really notable determination to have her own way in all small matters affecting her comfort and pleasure. Any large purpose was quite beyond her mental scope, but in the trivial doings of life, its little intrigues and sly manouvres, she was an industrious schemer for petty victories and petty spoils. These were her failings; but on the other hand her good nature rarely forsook her, and she was prolific with those kindnesses that involved no special self-denial.
When Virginia spoke again, it was still to urge the merits of the change. Anna listened patiently and when the other had finished, said, tempering her refusal with a compliment.
“I declare, I never knew you were such a manager, Virginia. You are positively clever. Candidly, dear, I couldn't think of it. It's quite awful; and it's coming summer, too, with all those frightful noisy bugs and frogs to keep one awake nights—I should positively die!”
“That's absurd, Anna,” retorted Virginia sharply. “I do wish you would be sensible, Think of the economy of the arrangement.”
“That's the very thing I refuse to think of. Do be reasonable, Virginia; what will our petty scrimpings amount to in the course of a year? And Stephen—he must be kept at school, he is awfully backward for a child of his years,” and her face assumed a pretty look of maternal anxiety. “This fall I want to enter him at Doctor Long's Academy, and if he were at the farm that would be impossible.”
“It's easy enough to find objections,” said Virginia resentfully.
“No, dear, the whole difficulty is to overcome them,” answered Anna sweetly. “If I really thought it was for the best, I would gladly sacrifice my personal preference; but I don't think it is for the best. Besides, I have asked Mr. Benson to see Doctor Long, and arrange for Stephen's admission to the Academy in the fall.”
“I should have thought you would have preferred to attend to that yourself,” said Virginia, who cherished no little resentment where the lawyer was concerned, because of the innocent part he had been forced to play in the organization of the hated company.
“He is always very kind and considerate,” murmured Anna, who by nature was a lukewarm champion.
“Is he?” said Virginia, but the look on her face was cold and repellent.
“You don't like him!”
“There is no reason why I should either like or dislike him. He is merely my husband's lawyer. So you feel, Anna, that you cannot give up the house in town?”
“Impossible, dear,” briskly. Her conviction as to what was needed for her happiness was always perfectly clear; she seldom had cause to reconsider.
Anna was now ready to return to town; Virginia urged her to stay to dinner, but she had many reasons why her presence was needed at her own home, and Virginia saw that it was useless to insist. At parting she reached up to kiss Virginia, she had to stand on tiptoe to do this, but the latter with the stateliest of inclinations presented her cheek for the caress.
“Why, I believe you are angry with me, Virginia,” she cried. “Let me look at you; yes, you are. Oh! How unfair of you, Virginia—and it is all on account of Stephen, I am sure you wouldn't have him grow up an ignoramus when he has his uncle's name, now would you?”
From her seat on the porch Virginia watched Anna drive away. She rested her chin in the palm of her hand and gazed out across the fields. She wondered if it were true, as Anna had suggested; if Stephen had wearied of the life that to her had seemed perfect in its peace and happiness.
“He didn't leave me because he would be happier away from me! he has gone to earn money for me—as if I cared for money! I hate it!”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT was not until the morning of the third day following their arrival in Independence that the members of the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company fell in at the rear of the wagon train that since midnight had been moving in one unbroken line out from the town and its environs.
Day was just breaking when their three wagons, drawn by stout mules, wheeled briskly into place, and as the sun came up and they saw the train stretching out ahead of them, they felt afresh the inspiration of their common hope in this peaceful conquest of fortune. A wave of joyous exultation seemed to sweep along the line; whips cracked, the mounted men galloped to and fro; while out of the uncertain light beyond, as the sun crept up above the horizon, the white lurching tops of the great wagons burst into view, one by one; but growing always smaller until finally they became mere white specks, dropping back in the track of the receding mist.
For the first two hundred miles west from the Missouri the country presented vast reaches of freshest green, gently rolling and intersected at intervals by streams, along whose banks grew scattered elms and cottonwoods. Hidden away in the fertile bottoms they came upon farms or ranches, each with its patch of cultivated land; but as they advanced these became less and less frequent; the uniform view was now one wide, rolling plain, with a distant fringe of timber marking the water-courses.
Then the waves of land ceased, the soil seemed to lose its fertility; and a dead level spread before the unresisting eye. They were entering upon the region of the Platte River and the plains proper. Long ere this the slow-moving oxen had fallen to the rear of the line of white-topped wagons; the mules had outstripped them as they, in their turn, were outstripped by the mounted men. But a greater change was making itself manifest throughout the caravan. The enthusiasm of the gold-seekers was waning in the face of unlooked for hardship and suffering. The cholera had caught them as they left the Missouri, and their line of march was dotted with newly-made graves.
Then, even as Basil Landray had foretold, the faint-hearted sickened of their enterprise, and with the stricken ones who had lost friends or relatives, turned back. The fur trader, giving way to boistrous merriment, showed an inclination to chaff these as they passed; but Stephen sternly bade him keep silent.