“I don't see what I can do for him now, I wish I did, for your sake, Virginia.”
But there was a notable lack of warmth in what he said that did not escape Virginia.
“Tell me,” she said. “How do you feel about General Gibbs?” Benson smiled.
“I've no doubt if Stephen joins him he will help him in every way he can. There are much worse men than Gibbs.”
It occurred to him that he should feel safer with Stephen removed to a distance; if he stayed in Benson there was always the danger that he might blunder into a knowledge of the advantage he had taken of Virginia.
“And you can do nothing?”
“For Stephen? I fear not, Virginia.”
“Are you not interested in Marian?” she asked.
Benson shrugged his shoulders.
“Perhaps I should regret it; but such ties mean very little to me; and they are meaning less and less all the time.”
“You have changed,” she said almost resentfully. “Once I could come to you feeling that you would do all in your power—”
“You still may,” he interrupted quickly.
“No, it is not as it was. I have not the same confidence.”
He bit his lip.
“Perhaps the change has been in you, Virginia,” he said. “My feeling toward you remains the same—”
“I do not mean that.”
“What is the change you think you see?” he asked curiously. “You are less kind, for one thing.”
“Nonsense, Virginia! You don't mean that. Whatever I can do, whatever I have is yours! You know this—and you have asked so little where you might have asked so much; I would have lifted every burden!”
“You could not; they were a part of my life,” she said quietly. But after she had gone, he fell to wondering if he had changed.
Not quite a year had elapsed since he had bought the land of her, and yet he was finding that his business sense, his inherited taste for a good bargain, was enabling him to invest the proceeds of his fraud to the utmost advantage. He did not seek to justify or excuse himself; his moral perceptions were not weakened in the least; but he was conscious that a hardening process was going on in his own nature. He was less kind—as she had said—more willing to seize on an advantage; less under the influence of his generous impulses.
Stephen heard again from Gibbs, and what the general had to offer became the deciding influence that took him West.
He parted from Virginia regretfully enough, since he was aware that his return to Benson must be uncertain, and he was depressed by this conviction. It was true she was not entirely alone, she had Jane and Harriett, but he felt that in spite of love and gratitude, he had failed miserably in his relation to her.
Yet his spirits rose as he travelled West through the autumn landscape; he seemed to be leaving disappointment, failure, behind; and a larger hope than he had known came to him as the horizon lifted and widened.
They reached Kansas City, where following Gibbs's instruction they lodged at the small hotel from which departed the tri-weekly stage for Grant City. Taking the Saturday's stage they journeyed south and west.
The first day took them through a pleasant settled land dotted with prosperous looking farms; but it was rather in the nature of a shock to Stephen that none of their fellow-travellers in the Concord coach had ever heard of Gibbs or of Grant City. Still the consensus of opinion seemed to be that this was nothing against either Gibbs or Grant City—there might be such a man, and there might be such a town.
The driver, however, proved to be better informed; and from him Stephen gleaned certain facts that went far toward reassuring him. He had been able to secure a seat at his side the second day, he and Marian alone remaining of those who had filled the coach at its start. According to the driver, Grant City was right smart of a place; did he know General Gibbs? Yes, he knew Gibbs—everyone knew Gibbs, he was right smart of a man, a busy bossy sort of a cuss who was always hollering; it was Fourth of July every day in the week and Sunday, too, with him.
He had been very successful, Stephen ventured. Well, yes, the man supposed so, but he only had Gibbs own word for it.
They lapsed into silence after this, but whether or not his informant entirely approved of Gibbs, Stephen was unable to decide. The driver slowly considered Stephen out of the corner of his eye, then he drawled:
“You going to Grant City?”
“Yes.”
“Going to start up in business, maybe?”
“Perhaps.”
“Know Gibbs?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess you're all right then.”
“There is a hotel, I suppose?” said Stephen.
His question moved his companion to something like enthusiasm.
“You bet there is—the Metropolitan—Jim Youtsey runs it; it's the best place in three counties to get a square meal of well-cooked vittles!”
“The town is very new?” suggested Stephen.
“As new as a two day's beard,” agreed the driver.
“But a thriving, growing place.”
“A perfect mushroom.”
Just at sundown Stephen caught his first glimpse of Grant City; a huddle of houses on a slight eminence; and as they drew nearer he saw that these houses were mostly unpainted frame structures that straggled along two sides of a dusty country road, their rear doors and back-yards boldly facing the wide-flung prairie.
The coach drew up in front of the largest building in the place. It gave out a pleasant odour as of new pine and clean shavings; across its front was hung a large sign which announced it to be the Metropolitan Hotel.
A tall man in his shirt-sleeves, with a sandy beard, and a quill toothpick held negligently between his teeth, stepped to the coach. Stephen conjectured that this was no less a person than Mr. Jim Youtsey himself.
“Friends of the general's?” he inquired affably.
“Yes,” said Stephen, stepping to the ground.
“The general asked me to keep an eye peeled for you. He's over in the next county, will be back to-morrow if nothing happens—a splendid man! You couldn't have a stronger indorsement, sir, I'm glad to know you, glad to welcome you into our midst!” And Mr. Youtsey shot him a sunny smile over the tip of his toothpick and held out his hand. “Present me to the Madame—Youtsey's my name.”
Stephen did so, and Mr. Youtsey removed his hat with one hand and his toothpick with the other; his hat was returned to his head, and his toothpick to his mouth by a common movement of his two hands, and he led the way toward his hotel.
“What you see, sir, is the newest thing in Kansas. A year ago there was nothing here but sunshine and jack-rabbits.”
He further begged Stephen to particularly note that Grant City was not a cow town; its wealth being derived entirely from the cultivation of the soil; where were the farms? Just scattered about. Yonder was the general's office; and through the falling twilight down the street, Stephen, following the direction of Mr. Youtsey's useful toothpick, was able to distinguish a very small building with a very large sign; indeed the number and size of these signs greatly astonished him, since no building seemed complete without one. Commenting upon this fact, Mr. Youtsey kindly paused to explain that Grant City had assembled itself on the prairie with such haste, and with so little regard for the proper housing of its citizens, that such buildings as had been erected were not only places of residence, but were used as offices and stores as well—hence the signs. Having made this point clear, Mr. Youtsey personally conducted them to their room, still accompanied by his hat and toothpick, with both of which he seemed loath to part.
He left them, and presently a small coloured boy appeared with a pitcher of ice-water, and the information that supper was served. On going down-stairs to the dining-room, they found Mr. Youtsey at the head of a long table at which were seated half a score of men. There immediately followed numerous introductions. Of the ten men, five, Stephen gathered, were in the real estate business; four were recent arrivals like himself who were looking about.
The last to be introduced was a small elderly man with a very red face and a generally dissipated air, whom Mr. Youtsey presented as Dr. Arling.
“I hope you'll find things home-like here, ma'am,” and Mr. Youtsey addressed himself to Marian. “We are shy on ladies, it's strictly a voting population.” Then he permitted his duties as host to absorb him, and when he had seen that his guests were served, he seated himself with a pleasant:
“Any one that hasn't had, just holler!”
Stephen's first impression of Grant City had been distinctly unfavourable, but he said nothing of this to Marian; he felt it would be wiser to wait until he saw Gibbs before he committed himself to an opinion.
He saw Gibbs the next morning; on going down to the hotel office he was welcomed by his friend who fell upon him and fairly embraced him, then he held him at arm's length.
“Well, Landray, I am glad indeed,” he ejaculated.
The general was not less florid than of yore, but his face had a battered look; for the rest, he was sleek and prosperous to the eye.
“They tell me you've brought your wife, Landray—that looks as though you'd come to stay! I'm so sorry my Julia ain't here, but she's visiting friends in St. Louis. What do you think of this year-old child of mine? Something to have accomplished in a twelve month?” and the general patted Stephen affectionately on the back.
Then Stephen must drink with him, and they retired to Mr. Yout-sey's bar accompanied by Dr. Arling.
“This is to success, Landray!” said Gibbs smiling over the rim of his glass, and Stephen smiled and nodded, too; Dr. Arling merely tilted his glass into a toothless cavity and drew the back of his hand across his lips, for as Mr. Youtsey was accustomed to observe, “He shot his slugs without a rest.”
“Another round, Jim!” commanded the doctor.
Mr. Youtsey took the toothpick from between his teeth, he had apparently acquired it along with his clothes when he was dressed, and said affably:
“Ain't you a little early, Doc? You'll have a pair of hard-boiled eyes for breakfast if you keep on.”
“Shove along the drinks, don't keep the gentlemen waiting!” ordered the doctor huskily.
And Mr. Youtsey spun the glasses jingling across the bar.
The breakfast bell sounded a moment or two later, and they left Dr. Arling leaning limply against the bar, while they repaired to the dining-room where Gibbs met Marian, and did the honours with great gallantry.
“Now, my dear lady,” said he, as they rose from the table, his manner breathing benevolence and urbanity, “I am going to take this husband of yours down to my office for a chat and smoke.”
When they reached the street, Landray said:
“Well, general, prosperity seems to be smiling on you.”
“It's grinning from ear to ear; Grant City ain't pretty; architecturally she belongs to the year one—she's about the way Rome was when Remus got himself disliked by jumping over the wall; but it's as good as money in the bank.”
“It seems to offer an inviting field for real estate agents,” said Stephen.
The general laughed.
“Oh, don't let that trouble you, Landray! It's Gibbs's eggs that'll hatch out first, so don't you worry. We'll stand shoulder to shoulder. You haven't any capital? Well, no matter—here brains and character will see you far; and you got both, for you're a Landray.”
They had reached the office by this time, and Gibbs forced his friend into his best chair; he then provided Stephen and himself with cigars, and was ready for business.
“I want you to take right hold, Landray, and look after things,” he said. “I'm going to branch out; I find I can't tie myself down—the office work don't suit me. We're not only going to sell lots, we're going to put up the buildings on them as well—this will be in your department. I'm going to make it my business to keep Grant City before the public. I'll have a weekly paper running here inside of the next thirty days, and I got my eye on a seat in the State Legislature, too; I want to play strong for that, or a worse man may fill it; but you ain't interested in all this yet; naturally you're wanting to know where you come in and what I got to offer you. I'm going to make you the right sort of a proposition here and now, a proposition you can't afford to turn down.”
And Gibbs was rather better than his word, for just twenty-four hours later Stephen was established in his office with a satisfactory salary and an interest in the business as well.
He had been inclined to look upon the town as something of a farce, but he soon decided that in this hasty opinion he had formed, his judgment had been at fault. Men straggled in by stage and prairie schooner; there was a steady demand for lots, indeed the demand was only exceeded by the supply; and he was rather dubious as to the wisdom of the town-site speculators who with the aid of tape line and stakes seemed willing to apportion the greater part of Kansas to the future needs of Grant City.
“They'll overdo it,” he told Gibbs.
“I guess not,” said Gibbs. “You can't really overdo a good thing, and Grant City's the best thing in Kansas. It's getting about that it is, too—the public's waking up to the fact.”
But while Stephen never quite believed in the methods Gibbs seemed to consider so admirable, he saw that the cheap and hastily erected houses they were building, principally on credit, all found tenants the moment they were habitable.
He and Marian lived in one of these houses, one of several that formed an unpainted row that overlooked the dusty Main Street which later when the winter rains set in, became a bog that the citizens—knowing its perils—navigated with caution. It was here that a son was born them, who was christened Stephen Mason Landray.
Gibbs would have had this event celebrated in some public manner; for, as he said, little Stephen was the first native-born citizen of Grant City, but out of consideration for Stephen's wishes in the matter, he compromised by deeding the child a town lot.
“It will probably be worth thousands by the time he comes of age, Landray,” he told the father. “But how is Marian?”
Stephen looked grave.
“Why, she don't seem to rally,” he said.
“What does Dr. Arling say?” asked Gibbs.
“He seems to think she will have her strength back as soon as it gets warmer.”
“To be sure she will, a few mild days will see her up and about. I have all confidence in Arling; I know—I know, his habits are not what you'd look for in a man of his attainments; but it's no use to expect him to be different from what he is.”
Gibbs had established his newspaper, the Kansas Epoch, which he conducted with much noise and vigour.
“There's no use my denying it,” he told Stephen, “but I got the editorial faculty. A newspaper in my hands becomes a personal organ in the best sense. I reckon you can see me in every line. I take the responsibility pretty seriously, too. I know you don't just believe in the Epoch, because it don't show a profit in dollars and cents; but the loss in money's a gain in prestige.”
Which was quite true, for Gibbs was the great man locally; an admired and respected presence at Mr. Youtsey's bar. It was the general here, and the general there; the echo of his name constantly filled the ear. He was vain, bustling, ostentatious; the small fry of struggling country newspapers heralded his passing to and fro in the State with much noise; for that fall there had been a hotly contested State election, and Gibbs with an eye single to his own advancement had taken the stump. Even so far away as St. Louis one of the big dailies had chanced to speak of him as “General Gibbs of Kansas,” a tribute to his growing fame which seemed to argue that he had already become almost a national figure. Perhaps it was this divided interest that was responsible for his business methods, for they struck Stephen as being entirely haphazard, nor could he induce him to make any change here.
Mrs. Gibbs had returned to Grant City during the winter fully prepared to make friends with Marian; but Marian conceived a dislike for her which she was at no pains to conceal, and in the end Julia informed Gibbs that Landray's wife was a stuck-up little fool, which seemed to amuse the general immensely.
Stephen felt that it might have been to their advantage had Marian sought to conciliate Mrs. Gibbs, since he did not know how Gibbs himself might be affected; but Gibbs was affected not at all; he commented upon their mutual hostility with characteristic candour.
“God bless 'em! The ladies can't help it, Landray, and it might be worse if they were intimate. Now, my Julia can't carry to Marian any little thing I chance to let drop about you, and Marian can't take up any slighting criticism you may make of me. I don't know but that we have a good deal to be thankful for; anyhow—God bless 'em, let 'em fight it out! It won't upset our friendship. I knew from the first that we were cut out for a business connection; you're long-headed and conservative; I own I'm something of an idealist—my imagination runs away with me. You're the steady hand, and by the time we've talked a scheme over we get together on a pretty sane conclusion.”
To Stephen this was a flattering opinion that he hoped the general might never have cause to reconsider.
Apart from his anxiety concerning Marian, Stephen was on the whole, happy and well content in Grant City. But Marian grew no better; indeed as the summer advanced, he sometimes fancied he noted a change for the worse, though Arling, still the only doctor in the place, pooh-poohed this fear of his.
“Yes, but why don't she get better?” Stephen would demand.
“She will, Landray; give her time. I'm free to say it ain't just a usual case, but there's no organic trouble, she ought to be a well woman.” And he would scuttle off in the direction of Mr. Youtsey's bar, where he could always be found when wanted.
And all this while Grant City seemed to grow and prosper. The huddle of houses increased by the roadside; there were side streets sparsely built upon it is true, but there was the beginning of a perceptible movement in this direction. The place was taking on the semblance of a town.
The stage carried a constantly increasing traffic; the tri-weekly gave place to a daily service; next there was both a midmorning and afternoon stage, but even this failed to entirely meet local needs, for as Mr. Youtsey said, the town was throwing a fifty-inch chest.
There was talk of issuing bonds for what Gibbs called municipal improvements; the town-site speculators clamoured for graded streets and gas, and the general, in the Epoch, demanded a speedy settlement of the vexing question of the county seat. More than this he announced that he would personally make it his business to see that they secured the county seat; and he took himself together with the logic of the situation to the capital there to lobby for the measure; and all this while the wilderness of pegs grew out upon the prairie.
Winter came again and brought a lull to the trafficking; but early in the spring a corps of railroad engineers pitched their camp on the outskirts of the town, and more additions were plotted and more pegs driven to keep pace with the impetus given by this most recent development.
Gibbs was still at Topeka in the matter of the county seat which he had not been able to adjust, since Grant City had a rival that dared to claim this honour for itself, though no one seriously regarded its claim—certainly no one in Grant City, where the town-site speculators ridiculed the idea when it was advanced in their hearing, and Gibbs, in the Epoch, wrote sarcastic editorials that were much admired, and that proved as clearly as pen and ink can prove anything, the county seat must come to Grant City.
But one night after Stephen had gone home to his sick wife, he heard a loud knock at his door, and on going down to answer this summons, found Gibbs, whom he had supposed to be still in Topeka, standing on the threshold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
GIBBS, his battered face red and perspiring, tramped the length of the room without speech; then he turned and tramped back again.
“When did you get to town?” asked Stephen, putting down the lamp he carried. He knew that Gibbs had not come on the afternoon stage for he had been in the crowd at the hotel when it arrived.
“Oh, I missed the stage, and got a man to drive me across,” said the general, pausing and moodily mopping his face. “Well, what they did to us up at Topeka ain't a little. We don't get the county seat! I don't know who gets it, but we won't—you can everlastingly make up your mind to that!”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
“Do!” cried the general in a tone of infinite disgust. “I didn't have a chance to do!”
Stephen looked his dismay.
“A little public spirit and we might have landed it, but I was left to give my time and spend my money, as if my personal influence unsupported, was all that was needed! I been made to look foolish! Well, when they ask me where those county buildings are, I'll tell 'em they can search me!” and the general shrugged his shoulders to indicate the indifference he did not feel. “It's news to sleep on, ain't it?” continued Gibbs. “Grant City's given itself county seat airs from the start, now all we got to do is to lose the railroad, and we might just as well shut up shop. Well, we ain't lost the railroad.”
“No,” said Stephen clutching at this hope. “The engineers are in camp here now.”
“It's going to give us a set back,” said the general, who was still thinking of the county seat. “But I reckon we're strong enough to stand it—annoying though, ain't it?” and he paused in his tramping which he had resumed, to stare hard at Stephen. “How do you feel about it anyhow?” he asked.
“It's a calamity,” said Landray gravely.
“It certainly is,” agreed the general. “We thought we had it sure, didn't we? Well, there is such a thing as being too sure. I tell you, Steve, we ain't the only fellows in Kansas with land to sell; there was plenty of others in the same line, and I went up against 'em hard at the capital, and they sat down pat on our little scheme. We got to go slow, things will come steady presently, but until they do we got to slack off on the building. I am sorry I got you up to tell you nothing better than this; don't worry though. How's Mrs. Landray?”
“About the same.”
“Humph! What does Arling say? I wonder if you hadn't better get away from here, Steve?” asked the general with kindly concern.
“And leave you to face the crisis?”
“It won't be the first one I've faced,” and Gibbs expanded his chest. “Maybe the climate just don't agree with her.”
“No, I sha'n'. leave you; and I doubt if Marian could make the change now.”
“Well, you know best, Landray, only don't let any sense of honour hold you here when it's to your interest to leave. I'm willing to split with you to-morrow if you say the word, and I'll think none the less of you. I ain't always been above running away myself. Just remember there's some money to divide now, and there may not be a red cent six months hence.”
“I'll chance it,” said Stephen firmly.
“Just as you like, but I want you to know that I don't consider you in any ways obligated to me. You have earned all you have had out of the business; it wouldn't set well for me to pretend otherwise.”
“Thank you, general,” said the younger man gratefully.
“Well, it's so. You sleep on what I've said.”
Then the general took his leave, and Stephen went back to his bed, but not to sleep. He had thought himself on the high road to fortune, and all at once things began to look black. In the morning he went early to the office where Gibbs soon joined him. He looked into Stephen's grave face and smiled.
“I guess my call didn't give you pleasant dreams, Landray. I've thought it over and I guess we'll just keep quiet and see what happens.”
But before the day was over, it was evident that the information
Gibbs brought from Topeka was not held by him alone. Before night there was a well-developed stampede among the owners of lots. This acted on Gibbs rather differently from what might have been expected.