XXIAN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
“Oh, this wonderful Western country!” wrote Jean in her diary, under date of midnight, July 4. “After travelling so long on the banks of the Platte that we had come to look upon it as a familiar friend, we left it to the southward and turned our course up the valley of the Sweet Water, through a succession of low, wooded hills. This little river, though not more than a hundred feet wide, is quite deep, and runs like a mill-race. The water is as clear as ether, and agreeably cold.
“Nobody can conceive the vastness of this country, or imagine its future possibilities, until he has crossed the great unsettled part of this continent to the westward and seen it for himself.
“Some days we move for many hours over great stretches of alluvial soil, which only needs the impulse of cultivation to make it yield of the fruits of the earth like magic. Again, we are in the midst of big fields of crude saleratus, or salt, or sulphur. Now and then our cattle are compelled to wade through an alkali swamp, suggesting more foot-ail; but our Little Doctor says that danger is past for this year; she has not stated why, and maybe she doesn’t know.
“We encamped last night near Independence Rock,—a huge pile of gray basalt, covering an area of perhaps ten acres, and looking to be about three hundred feet high. Its sides are formed of great irregular bowlders, worn smooth by the warring elements of ages.
“July 5. Yesterday was Independence Day, and aswe had camped near Independence Rock, daddie laid over to celebrate.
“About noon, Mary, Marjorie, and I concluded that we would climb the rock to its summit, carrying with us the only star-spangled banner the train could boast. But our scheme failed through the fickleness and fury of the same elements that have been smoothing the surface of the rock during the ages gone.
“We had climbed over halfway to the top when a low, dense cloud, as blue-black as a kettle of indigo dye, enveloped us. It came upon us so suddenly that we hardly realized our danger till we were surrounded by semi-darkness in the midst of a pelting hailstorm. We retreated so blindly and hastily that it is a miracle we didn’t break our necks.
“Thunder and lightning followed, or rather accompanied the hail, and were succeeded by a deluge of rain. Sudden squalls of wind would fairly lift us off our feet at times as we hurried downward, making the descent doubly perilous. But the storm soon spent its fury, leaving the air as clear and sweet as a chime of bells.
“A roaring fire welcomed us at camp, by which we warmed our chilled marrow-bones and dried our sodden toggery.
“Daddie scolded; Mame charged our mishap all to me; Marj blamed both of us, and excused herself. It is the way of the world, or of most people in it, but it is sometimes very provoking. I hadn’t thought of attempting the climb till the other girls proposed it; but I took the brunt of the blame, and, as usual, got all the scolding.
“The storm wouldn’t let us try to float the flag, but it got very wet, and we had our labor for our pains.
“Sally and Susannah prepared a Fourth of July banquet of antelope steaks, to go with our regulation diet of beans and coffee. After dinner Mrs. McAlpin sang ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ the rest of us joining in the chorus. Susannah sang a lot of negro melodies, andGeorge Washington danced for us, his white teeth shining, and eyeballs gleaming. Hal read the Declaration of Independence, and daddie ‘made the eagle scream.’
“He was in the midst of his oration, and I was wondering where all the men of valor came from, seeing they had had no mothers to assist in getting up this spread-eagle scheme we call a republic, when I was compelled to leave the crowd and poise myself on a wet wagon-tongue to write the thing up. Scotty, who is still on crutches, delivered an oration on the side, of which I heard but little, owing to my banishment.
“But I won’t always be so meek and silent on the Fourth of July. I’ll write a Declaration of Independence for women some day.
“Daddie burned some powder after dark, ‘to amuse the children,’ he said, but I noticed that the men enjoyed the noise even more than the children did. Poor Bobbie got some powder burns about the face, and Sadie and the babies gave us a squalling chorus, prompted by fright, causing me to wonder why men must always celebrate our patriotism with the emblems of death and destruction.”
On July 6 she wrote: “We have reached the edges of the Rocky Mountains now; and as we climb slowly and almost imperceptibly toward their summits, our road winds in and out along the meandering bases of a great divide, down which many little streams of icy water dash with foam and roar, forever in a hurry, always trying to go somewhere, and never reaching any settled goal.
“Now and then we get glimpses of distant summits, but we are reaching them by an ascent so gradual that daddie says we shall not realize that we have crossed the great divide till we see the water has changed its course from east to west.
“We passed a trading-post to-day, belonging to a company having its headquarters at Salt Lake. The men in charge wore big sombreros, buckskin trousers, andmoccasins of buffalo hide. They all smoked incessantly and affected the airs of the genus cowboy, orvaqueroof the plains, of whom we often see specimens roving over hill and plain on horseback, their shoulders covered with gayly colored serapes, flapping in the wind like wings.
“We pass daily from six to a dozen graves, but not so newly made as those noticed heretofore; so we conclude the cholera is abating.
“There, old Journal! I’ve done my level best to write you up to date. But it’s like climbing these mountains,—uphill work, and dreadfully monotonous!”
“Did you buy a fresh stock of provisions, Captain?” asked Sally O’Dowd, as they were preparing to leave the trading-post which Jean had mentioned, after he had held a long parley with a big, bronzed, and heavily bearded mountaineer, who was strikingly handsome despite his peculiar make-up.
“Yes, Sally. I bought a couple o’ hundred pounds o’ flour, for which I paid a twenty-dollar gold-piece.”
“I was feeding the children, and didn’t get a chance to make my purchases at the proper time. Won’t you hold the teams back a few minutes for me?”
“Yes, but hurry up.”
“Let me have a hundred pounds of flour, sir,” she said, approaching the counter, behind which the trader stood, smoking a huge meerschaum.
“Anything else?”
“Yes; the balance of this twenty-dollar gold-piece in dried peaches, please.”
In filling her order, the trader raised the cloth partition of the tent to reach his base of supplies, and in the middle of the tent Sally espied an unkempt squaw and half-a-dozen dusky children.
“I’ll be compelled to hurry,” she said, as he leisurely weighed her fruit. “Captain Ranger is always demanding haste.”
The trader started suddenly, his face blanching.
“Where does your train hail from?” he asked.
“From the middle West, sir. We are going from the West to the West.” The trader balanced two sacks of Salt Lake flour on his shoulders, and grasping the smaller package of peaches, strode out hurriedly toward the wagon near which Captain Ranger was standing, impatient to be gone.
“These purchases are for the lady, sir. Where will you have them dumped?”
“Any place where there’s room, and don’t let any grass grow under your feet!”
“The lady tells me your name is Ranger, sir.”
“Yes. What of it?”
“Will you walk with me a little way ahead of the wagons? I have something important to say to you alone.”
“We are scarce of drivers,” replied the Captain, hesitating. “Two of my men are out hunting.”
“I can drive,” exclaimed Jean, reaching for the whip, which she handled with the skill of a freighter, finishing her flourishes with a series of snaps at the end of a deerskin cracker, like the explosion of a bunch of fire-crackers.
“If we’ll take this cut-off, we’ll come out a mile or more ahead of the wagons,” said the trader. “Then we can rest by the roadside till they catch up.”
The Captain strode by his side in silence.
“Don’t you know me, John?” asked the stranger, grasping him by the arm, and speaking in a hoarse whisper.
Captain Ranger eyed him earnestly, his cheeks paling.
“Can it be possible that you are—Joe?” he asked, seizing his hand with a vise-like grip.
“I am indeed your brother Joe,—an outlaw, now and always.”
“No, you are not an outlaw; the fellow over whomyou got into that trouble is alive and well. You’d have got out of that scrape all right if you hadn’t jumped your bail and left all the rest of us in the lurch. Why didn’t you stand your trial, like a man?”
John Ranger’s feelings overcame him, and he sank upon the ground, filled with old-time memories. He buried his face in his hands. Time and distance faded away, and he saw, with eyes of memory, the gentle, fading face of his toiling, uncomplaining wife, whose life had been for years a sacrifice to penury through the debt entailed by this brother’s cowardice.
“Do you mean to tell me that Elmer Edson is not dead?”
The question called him back to present conditions with a sudden start.
“Elmer Edson is not dead, but Annie Ranger is!” he said hoarsely. “We had to leave her precious dust in the ground away back yonder in the Black Hills. We started together on this terrible journey, hoping to escape the consequences of that awful mortgage with which you left us in the lurch. She had denied herself many comforts and all the luxuries of life for a dozen years to feed the ever-eating cankerworm of interest. No, Joe, you didn’t kill Edson; but through my efforts to help you out of a trouble in which you should never have been entangled, you became accessory to the lingering death of my wife.”
“Don’t reproach me, John! I loved Annie like a sister. I did indeed. She was a sister to me from the day she became your wife. You don’t or won’t see how it grieves me to hear of her death.”
“Why didn’t you write to us, like a man?”
The brother had risen to his feet, and was pacing nervously to and fro, whittling aimlessly on a bit of sagebrush.
“I was afraid to write. There was a price upon my head, as you have no need to be informed.”
“Yes, Joe; and to pay the interest on that price was the bane of my existence for a dozen years. But you can write now. Our dear mother—God bless her!—would forget all the terrible past if she could hold you in her arms once more. It is your duty to return at once, and settle, as well as you can, for the trouble you have caused. You ought at least to lift that accursed mortgage from the farm, and let Lije Robinson and Sister Mary and our parents spend the remainder of their lives in peace. You are a free man, and can go where you please.”
“But I am not a free man, John. Even with that horrible load off my shoulders, I still am bound, hand and foot.”
“Are you married, Joe?”
“Yes, John. You see, when a fellow is in hiding among the Indians, with a price set upon his head, and is therefore afraid to go home, he’s nothing but a fugitive from justice; he expects to spend his life there, and never see the face of another white woman; and when there are scores of pretty Indian girls in sight—”
John Ranger jumped to his feet, his fists clinched and his eyes glaring.
“You don’t mean to tell me that my brother is married to—to a—squaw?”
There was ineffable scorn in his tone and manner. It was now Joe’s turn to sink upon the ground and bury his face in his hands. When he again looked at his brother, there was an expression of age and anguish upon his face which had not been there before.
“I am the husband of an Indian woman, and the father of seven half-breed children,” he said with the air of a guilty man on trial for his life. “But there are extenuating circumstances, John. My wife was no common squaw. If you care for me at all, you will not apply that epithet to the mother of my children. She was the daughter of a Mandan chief, who had large dealings with the Hudson Bay Company, and who sent her to Englandto be educated. You’d hardly think it to see her now, though; for the Indian women fall back into aboriginal customs when they leave the haunts of civilization to return to their people and take up life, especially as mothers, among their own kind and kin. At least, that is what Wahnetta did.”
John Ranger groaned. “My God! has it come to this?” he cried, looking the picture of despair.
“If you had been in my place, you would have married her yourself, John. Nobody has a right to judge another; for no one knows what he will do till he is tried.”
“Don’t you regret the marriage, Joe?”
“It is too late for regrets. The deed is done, and I cannot get away from my fate. Shall we part as friends and brothers? Or is there an impassable gulf between us?”
There was an unspoken appeal in his tone, far stronger than words, which John Ranger remembered for many a day. But he refused his brother’s proffered hand, and said hoarsely, as he sprang to his feet: “Don’t, at your peril, let anybody know that you are my brother!”
He wheeled upon his heel and was gone.