Brother Brigham stepped from his carriage, and beckoning Ephriam to follow him, led the way out of hearing of the others.
“The Lord has greatly prospered you; not amongst our people have I seen such fields as yours,” and Young placed his hand on the older man's shoulder; there was real kindness and real regard in this involuntary gesture, and in the genial warmth of his companion's mood, Raymond seemed to expand and glow.
His memory harked back to their recent exodus, when the church had been removed over a thousand miles through an unmaped country full of dangers and difficulties. Like Moses of old, this man had led his people—men and women and children; destitute, poor, and illy prepared to meet the hardships of such a journey; yet, almost without a murmur, they had abandoned a land they knew, for a land they did not know, and had followed him. His unyielding determination had inspired them all; it alone had made that journey possible. Without him there could have been nothing but ruin and failure; they had seen the graves grow up by the trail, marking the course they had come; they had reached Salt Lake, their stores spent, their strength shattered by the sufferings they had undergone, to find their land of promise a desert; new and strange and terrible; death by starvation stared them in the face; but Young had been equal to that hour, and to their need. He silenced all their murmurs; he brought order out of impending discord; he plead, commanded, threatened, prophesied; while, with a restless and determined energy he set them to work. They had strengthened, and their desert had become a land of plenty. This was all so recent that Ephriam's wonder of it never failed him; surely this man had his gifts from God. Young spoke abruptly.
“Who is that child?” he demanded.
In a few words Ephriam told the little he knew of Benny's history. The other's cold, grey eyes never left his face. Once or twice he nodded slightly, as if Ephriam's words were confirming facts with which he was already acquainted.
“And he says it was the Indians! Brother Ephriam, they must be looked to.”
“But that seems to be a matter where there may be some doubt,” said Ephriam.
“Ah!” and Young turned on him quickly.
“The men who found him say that the horses of the murderers were, many of them shod.”
Young shrugged his shoulders.
“The boy should know better than they. I am surprised, Brother Ephriam, that you should give any credit to their crazy tales.” He spoke in a hard, rasping voice, and Raymond was aware, that for some reason which he did not understand, it was distasteful to Young that there should be any doubts entertained on this point.
“What are you going to do with him?” Young demanded, after a moment's silence. The old man looked blank.
“It rests with them, not me. I suppose they will try to find his kin.”
“Yes, but where, Brother Ephriam?”
“In Benson, wherever that is,” and Raymond looked puzzled. He added: “It will not be difficult to learn. I think—”
But Young cut him short.
“Brother Ephriam, don't think. The boy's father is dead; his friends are dead; what more do you want to know?”
Ephriam hesitated; he seemed about to speak, but was silent. There was a long pause. Young looked at him with his uncertain grey eyes, narrowed to a slit. Here was a good man, a man of scruples and convictions, and evidently capable of a most unsaintly stubbornness, in whom it would be neither wise nor expedient to fully confide. At last he said:
“It is best for the child that he should remain here with you, Brother Ephriam. Those men can do nothing for him.”
“Yet they may not wish to give him up,” interposed Raymond quickly. Young smiled.
“They may have to. And you, Brother Ephriam, must round up your shoulders to bear this burden.”
“I am willing enough to take the child, if—”
“You can't make terms with me. There are no ifs to obedience. Either you do as I wish, or you don't,” said Young, coldly. “This is a matter that has more to it than you can know now. It is not safe for those men to leave here with the child, no good can come of it to them. Do you understand, Brother Ephriam? You will be placing them in great danger. Now are you willing to do that?” There was a sinister significance to what he said beyond the mere meaning of his words that was not lost on the old man. Young continued. “Try them; tell them you are willing that the child should remain with you until such time as he can be sent back to the States. Satisfy them in what manner you choose, but keep the child; and, Brother Ephriam, advise them to remain silent concerning these foolish suspicions of their's. No good can come from talking of them,” and Young turned abruptly from him.
Raymond followed Young to his carriage; he meditated rebellion; but, in spite of this transient feeling of hostility to the other's commands, he knew that he would accept the responsibility he was seeking to fasten upon him. It would end in his keeping the child, through fear that a greater wrong might come of it if he did not.
These thoughts occupied his mind to the exclusion of all else; and it was only later that he sought for an explanation for Young's interest in the matter, and this explanation was destined to come from a most unexpected source.
Moody and preoccupied, he watched Young and his bodyguard disappear down the trail. He was recalled by hearing the Missourian's drawling voice at his elbow.
“Well, elder, the boy was so tuckered out he plumb fell-asleep at table, and the lady she toted him off to bed; she allowed she knowed what he needed.”
“Were you going on to-day?” asked Ephriam quickly.
“Yes, but the lady's got the start of us; she's got the kid,” said the Missourian. It was plain he approved of the lady.
“What shall you do with him?” demanded Ephriam.
“Doggone if I know!” said the Missourian rather helplessly. “Send him back to the States, I reckon, as soon as we can.”
“Then you'd better leave him here with me.”
“We certainly are obliged to you,” cried the Missourian.
“But look here,” it was Jim who spoke. “What about them five men? If it was redskins, it was all right; but if it wasn't redskins, who the hell was it?” He glanced from one to the other.
“I reckon you got folks down in Salt Lake who'll make it their business to have a look at that trail?” said the Missourian.
“It is better that you say nothing of your suspicions,” said Ephriam.
The Missourian turned on Raymond swiftly, and pushing back the brim of his hat looked him squarely in the face.
“I'm a talking man, neighbour,” said he in his slow drawl. “I done a heap of talking in my time, and I allow to keep right on giving people the advantage of my opinions. I don't fancy being advised to keep my mouth shut about this.”
“You misunderstand me,” answered Ephriam quietly. “If it becomes known that there is reason to doubt the Indians were solely responsible for the killing of those men, it will make talk; and, supposing the guilty parties are in camp near the city—and many strangers are in camp there—we may have to look far for them when we want them.”
“That sounds a whole lot better,” said the Missourian. “Well, we'll tuck along into town, and we leave the boy with you to send back to the States.”
Ephriam led the way to the log stables. He wanted to see the last of these two men, before he repented of the part he was playing. They seemed simple, kindly fellows, who would have dealt fairly by the boy.
The Missourian wrung his hand with fervour at parting.
“You let us out easy, yet it ain't really fitting we should carry him on to California,” he said.
Ephriam stood by the corral as they rode away.
“They are honest fellows,” he muttered at last, and then he realized that he was staring at a stretch of empty road, they had passed from sight down the trail.
He went slowly back to the house. His daughter met him at the door.
“Why, have they gone?” she said in surprise.
“Yes—”
“But the boy, father?”
“He is to stay with us until I can send him to the States,” he told her. She saw nothing unusual in what he had done; since this kindness, for such it seemed to her, was wholly characteristic of him.
“That's just like you, father; you are always taking trouble for other people.”
“Am I? I didn't know.” He smiled at her. “Do you mind?” he added.
“No; poor little fellow. He fell asleep at the table, and I carried him up-stairs and put him to bed.”
Ephriam chuckled softly.
“I guess you're every bit as bad as I,” he said.
He seated himself on a bench by the ranch door, and fell to considering the child's story, seeking to fix some explanation to it, that would account for Young's interest in him.
Inside the house the girl came and went. Lost in thought the old man did not note the passing of time, and it was only when his daughter appeared in the doorway to tell him that supper was on the table, that he roused from his long revery, but with the problem as far as ever from solution.
“Bless me, it's almost candle-light,” he cried. “Where's the boy?”
“He's still asleep.”
“Then we'll let him be,” he said. But after they had eaten, he stole up-stairs where he found Benny still resting quietly.
“He's sleeping yet, but I'll go see him again before I go to bed,” he told his daughter when he rejoined her in the room below. But when, two hours later, he mounted to Benny's room, he found him wide awake and sitting up in bed. Seeing Ephriam he smiled in friendly recognition, and sank back on the pillow.
“You've had a long sleep, Benny,” said the old man. He seated himself on a low stool beside the bed, placing his candle on the floor at his feet. “Are you hungry?” he added.
“No, not a bit,” said Benny.
“Benny, you're sure it was the Indians that killed your father?”
Benny instantly sat erect again.
“Did they tell you to ask me that?” he demanded, with keen suspicion.
“They? Who do you mean, child?”
“The men.”
“No. They have gone; you are to stay here with me.”
Benny smiled, then his face fell.
“But they'll come back for me,” he said.
“No, you'll probably never see either of them again; they are going on to California.”
“And I'm to stay here with you?” he asked.
“Yes—”
“For always?” he demanded eagerly.
“Yes, as long as you like.”
“I shall like that—always,” he declared, with an air of settled conviction.
“Could you understand what the Indians said to you, Benny?” asked Ephriam.
“Oh, yes.”
“They spoke as I am speaking?”
Again the child nodded. Ephriam looked sorely puzzled.
“Hadn't you better tell me the truth, Benny?”
“But I am telling you the truth; and if I told you any different they would kill me.”
“Who, child? The Indians?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you afraid of those two men?”
“Because they know,” said the boy promptly.
“Know what?”
“Know all about it, where my pop was killed and Mr. Landray and his brother, they know all about it—”
A light broke on Ephriam.
“Oh, I see, and you think they were with the Indians?”
Benny nodded, and answered a whispered yes to this.
“Perhaps you had better not tell any one what you have told me, Benny; but some of them were Indians?”
“Some,” said Benny, still in a whisper.
Ephriam turned away.
“Wait!” cried the child. “I got something to give you.” And from about his neck he unfastened a string to which was attached a small buckskin bay. “He gave me that,” he said, extending the bag to Ephriam.
“Who, Benny? Your father?”
“No, Mr. Landray. He said I was to give it to some white man who'd know what to do with it. You must send it to Benson.”
“And do you know where Benson is, Benny?” asked Ephriam.
“No. I've forgotten. He told me, and he told me I mustn't forget, but I have. It was where my pop came from long ago when he was a little boy like me.”
Ephriam moved to the door, and the child stretched out his small limbs with a keen sense of physical comfort; an instant later he was fast asleep.
When Ephriam returned to the room below, he placed the candle on the table, drew up a chair, seated himself and opened the bag. He found that it contained nothing but papers which concerned themselves wholly with dry business details. All he gathered from his perusal of them was that they had belonged to a certain Stephen Landray.
He saw that the papers were of no actual value, and feeling convinced of this fact he was conscious of an immense sense of relief; he could withhold them, and no one would suffer because of his act.
He wondered if this Landray had been in any way involved in what he, in common with all Mormons, was wont to style the persecution of the church; for he believed just as other Mormons believed, that those inveterate enemies of the Saints who had dipped their hands in the blood of that chosen people, were doomed to a swift and terrible punishment. Such a theory satisfactorily explained Young's interest in Benny; for might it not have its origin in a wise benevolence; a wish to lift from him the guilt that had come to him as a birthright?
This was so comforting a thought that he dwelt long upon it. Suddenly, however, he was startled by hearing a sound at the outer door; it was as if some one had struck it sharply, and then a heavy object seemed to fall against it.
He hid the papers in the pocket of his coat, and snatching up the candle, hurried into the adjoining room. Midway of it he paused to listen. It might have been his fancy, but coming from beyond the closed and barred door he thought he could distinguish the sound of whispering voices.
He unfastened the door and threw it open, and in the circle of light cast by his candle he saw a tall figure swaying loosely just beyond the threshold, while off in the distance he caught the clatter of hoofs growing less and less audible as if several mounted men were riding rapidly away.
The swaying figure moaned.
“Who is it?” demanded Ephriam.
The man attempted to answer him, but the words he would have spoken failed him; he staggered toward the door and half fell into the room. The light shone full in his face.
“My God, Tom!” cried the old man.
Tom Raymond groaned again, and collapsed into a chair.
“Licker,” he gasped. “Bring me licker—”
When this was brought him and he had drunk of it, it seemed to give him strength.
“How are you, father?” he said, with a ghastly attempt at a smile.
“What has happened to you, Tom?” asked his father.
“I been shot. Oh, I got bored pretty,” he groaned. “But I'm a heap better than I was—-where you going?”
“To call your sister.”
“You needn't. Plenty of time to see her in the morning. Give me another pull at that,” nodding toward the bottle which Ephriam still held in his hand.
“How did it happen, Tom?”
“Indians,” said Tom, speaking with difficulty. “I been in the army back at Fort Laramie, but I'm on the mend now.”
“But how did you get here in this condition?” demanded Ephriam.
“Friends brought me—was almost well, but coming in I got a fall from my horse, and my wound opened; had to lay by in camp on the Weber for a week,” he explained between gasps.
His father got him into his own room, where he propped him up on the edge of the bed and silently rendered him what aid he could in removing his clothes. Almost the first thing the wounded man did was to take from about his waist a heavy belt that gave out a metallic sound as it slipped from his weak fingers and fell to the floor.
“Pick it up, father, and shove it under my pillow. It's my savings,” he said, with a sickly nervous grin.
Once in bed, fatigue and great bodily weakness together with the generous stimulant he had taken, caused him to fall at once into a troubled doze.
Ephriam drew up a chair and seated himself at his son's bedside. Tom had been gone for over a year, and their parting had not been a friendly one; but his present anxiety made him forget all this. Tom seemed very ill to him, as he lay there pale and haggard in the light of the single candle, and though he slept he was neither silent nor motionless; he moved restlessly, with strange mutterings and chokings.
Ephriam could see the bloody, dirty bandages that swathed his right shoulder, where the collar of his shirt had been cut away, and he wondered how serious the wound was.
Suddenly he started. The name of Landray was on Tom's lips. Then the wounded man woke with a start, and seeing a look on his father's face which he did not understand, demanded:
“What am I saying, father?”
“Nothing, Tom, nothing,” said the old man brokenly. “Humph!” said Tom, and turning his face to the wall, slept again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
BENSON was not mistaken. He had achieved a permanent place in Virginia Landray's regard. She had definitely accepted him, and in the exact degree in which he had wished he might be accepted. She came to rely on him as she relied on no one else; his words, his opinions, always on the one momentous subject of Stephen's return, had weight with her. He took her such maps as he could find, and together they followed the course of the gold-seekers. He dilated upon the possible obstacles and difficulties they had encountered, while making light of the dangers. Whatever could account for their silence he dwelt upon and exaggerated; and this in spite of his own growing conviction that Stephen Landray and his companions had gone to their death in that rush across the plains.
“What if she never hears from him?” he asked himself this over and over, not coldly and without calculation, but as one who might be brought face to face with an altered condition.
Virginia was young and beautiful; there would be no dearth of suitors if she were widowed. Yet, could she be made to realize, that for her, Stephen Landray and Stephen Landray's love had ceased to be, in all but memory? There was something horrible and unnatural in the thought that for her, life might cease to have any special meaning beyond passive endurance. If she had been less beautiful; less radiantly youthful; if a casual if compassionate interest had been possible where she was concerned; he might have found something in the nature of compensation in this conception of his as to what her devotion would be; now he saw it only as an unmitigated tragedy. Yet he ended by glorifying her for those very qualities that made him despair most.
He contrasted her with Anna, for whom he was feeling nothing but contempt; a contempt, however, that was not unmixed with pity, for he realized the impermanency of her emotions; she had adjusted herself to a cheerful acceptance of the situation; they would hear from their adventurers in the spring; it was folly to expect letters now that winter had set in, and she was not going to mope.
Benson was constantly irritated by her requests for money; and when he finally refused to yield to them out of simple justice to Virginia, whose interests he felt were threatened by her extravagance, she quietly worsted him by gaining Virginia's sanction to her demands.
It was in vain that he remonstrated with the latter. She listened patiently enough to his explanation, but with an apathy that included all worldly concerns.
He was exasperated and annoyed, since the situation promised to present certain very tangible difficulties. The mill had been a dubious enterprise in the hands of Paxon, the new man. In January he was to have made his second payment, but was unable to do so, and turned back the mill. The brothers had directed that this money be used to take up their note to Mr. Stark; and Benson took up the note himself.
He showed the note to Anna the very next time she came to the office, hoping it would prove an impressive argument in favour of greater economy; but was much chagrined to find that she regarded the matter as settled, now that the note had passed out of Mr. Stark's hands into his.
“But, my dear Mrs. Landray,” he urged, “suppose anything should happen; suppose I should die suddenly; the note would be found among my papers—it might be very inconvenient, you know.”
“But you are not going to die, Mr. Benson,” said Anna cheerfully. “I have just been remarking how well you look,” and she rose reluctantly to go.
“We never know,” said the lawyer, rising with evident alacrity. He followed her to the door. Anna sighed and frowned.
“If only Bush were here, I shouldn't have to bother you; I can manage Bush, but I don't seem able to do so very much with you, Mr. Benson. I wonder why it is?” she turned to him smilingly.
“I am fortified by the necessities of the case,” he said.
“You are a very determined character; I don't wonder people have such confidence in you,” she hoped this flattery might move him, but the lawyer merely bowed. “Can't we mortgage something? Bush and Stephen were always doing that.”
“They were almost too successful, Mrs. Landray,” said Benson.
“Well, I shall see Virginia,” and Anna sighed again.
“I shall see Virginia, too,” muttered the lawyer, after Anna had taken her leave of him. “The little idiot cares for nothing but money!” and he turned back into his office again.
The house Benson occupied was on the north side of the public square. It was a two story frame structure having an ungenerous porch across the front. Everything about it spoke for a depressing utility, a meagre sufficiency. Its walls were mere husks which enclosed large barren rooms, which successfully resisted all attempts at adornment. A narrow strip of turf separated the house from the sidewalk, this was divided by a gravel walk which led from the gate to the front door; the edges of this path were bordered by whitewashed stones the size of a man's two fists.
Since his father's death, Benson had used the large double parlours as offices; a side door from the rear room, over which his modest sign was displayed, opened on Water Street; and by this door his clients came and went in steadily increasing numbers.
He had few pleasant memories of his boyhood to attach him to the place. His mother had died when he was a child; and his father, who had his own ideas about the rearing of children, had made his up-bringing stern and rigorous; he yet recalled the latter with greater awe than affection; indeed, a certain fear of the old pioneer had followed him into manhood.
He still remembered vividly his first trial; how glancing up from his brief, he had found his father's dark restless eyes fixed upon him; their coldly critical glance had filled him with something very like terror; and when he had spoken his voice faltered, and he had seen the shaven lips curl contemptuously; afterward, his father had said with that frank unsparing candour of his, “I suppose you can't help it that you are a fool, Jacob;” then he had added, “I always thought you took after your mother's folks; none of them ever amounted to much that I heard tell of.” But he had lived to reconsider this hasty judgment; he had seen his son grow steadily in men's esteem.
Old Jacob Benson had been a very rich man, his opportunities considered. The big brick warehouses on Front Street had been his, and for years he had been the principal merchant in the town.
On coming into this property, young Jacob had disposed of the store; and he was content to collect his rents from the warehouses without any speculative interest in the grain and produce they housed. He was studious and ambitious. He might have done many things with the fortune that was his, but he had preferred to remain in Benson where the very men who had distrusted his father, the men who had reason to remember him as hard and close, Had every liking for the son.
When Anna took her leave of him, the lawyer turned to his desk. He had scarcely settled himself at his work again, when a carriage drew up at the curb. Sam West was on the box, and Benson hurried into the street and was just in time to open the carriage door for Virginia.
“I have wanted to see you for several days, Mr. Benson,” she said.
“Is anything wrong? What can I do?” He had led the way into the office; now he found a chair for her.
“There is something you can do,” said Virginia, seating herself.
“What, Mrs. Landray?”
She put out her gloved hand and rested it lightly on his arm.
“It's the one thing,” she said, smiling sadly. “I want your advice now; for later I shall want your help. It will soon be spring again, the Ohio will be open, the ice gone—”
“Yes, it can't be long now until you hear,” he prompted encouragingly. .
“But I am not going to wait to hear,” she said slowly.
“Not going to wait to hear?” he repeated, vaguely disquieted by her words and manner.
“No. I am going West to find Stephen.”