He says: "Sheriff, step off a leetle; I'll reason with this child, to see if I can't get from her the locality of the stolen goods."
So, coming to her again, he mutters: "Ye'd better take things reasonable, an' tell me where that ar' stock is!I will know!"
But she laughs in his face, and cries: "Find it!"
"Now," he says, "I ain't 'customed to bein' sassed by women. I'll have it out o' ye! Tell me, or I'll treat ye as I do my own darters, when they disobey me!"
His brutal hand is upraised, and in another second this exotic from far-away Murray Hill will receive what she had never felt before—a box on her dainty ear. But she, forgetting prudence, forgetting Harry's counsel, pants, "I dare you! Do you think I have no one here to avenge me?"
"Who?" asks Kruger, suspiciously, his hand still lifted.
"Who?" echoes Erma—"who?" Then, remembering in time, she turns her speech and laughs. "That stock is safe in the hands of Wells, Fargo & Co., where you dare not touch it!" and unwittingly paves the way for her own escape.
"Oh ho!" guffaws Lot. "It's on the train. We'll see if we dare not touch it!"
He calls to his men, who are in the smoking-room: "Two of ye look after her here, though there ain't any great danger of Miss Dainty's running very far in this snow. That stock is in Wells, Fargo & Co.'s safe, an' we'll have it now. It's right here on the train, boys. We've got a warrant that will hold us up in this business!"
For some of the men have turned pale at the thought of making a raid on Wells, Fargo & Co., an institution that has gained a reputation for being implacable in its pursuit of train robbers, highwaymen, and others that raid the precious things the business community intrust to it.
Then whispering to her: "I'll come back for ye! We'll take ye an' the stock together, back to Utah!" he leaves the girl, followed by all but the two men, whom Lawrence sees watching her, as he peers into the gloom.
Harry is thinking of how to get these two guardians of Miss Travenion away, and has half made up his mind to kill them, when Buck Powers comes sneaking to him, and whispers: "Cap, the engine's ready!"
"Where are Kruger and the rest of his gang?"
"They're making a raid on Wells, Fargo. They're demandin' some stock, or somethin' or other, an' the agent is standin' them off. He thinks they're road agents."
With these words comes an idea to Harry Lawrence.
He whispers quickly to Buck, then says: "You understand?"
"All right, Cap, I'm on to you!" and Mr. Powers disappears.
Thirty seconds after Buck bangs at the door of the sleeper with great noise, though he is careful not to enter, and from its end nearest to the express car, yells: "Come on! you're needed. Wells, Fargo's agent is standin' the bishop off. The bishop says the gal's safe and he wants you!"
"All right!" answers one of the men, and handling their guns, the two disappear to take part in the trouble with the express agent, which is now creating a great commotion on the train, the passengers in Lawrence's Pullman crying out: "Road agents!" and the young lady in Miss Travenion's car, who has been awakened by the noise, screaming for help.
This excitement aids Lawrence. He steps into the car, and touching his sweetheart on the shoulder, whispers: "Come!"
And she following him to the platform, he springs into the snow-drift, and says: "I must carry you!"
"Certainly!" Her arms clasp themselves trustingly round his neck, as he trudges through the snow, bearing his happiness with him.
The locomotive on the Y is just moving as he reaches it, for he crosses directly to it, not daring to carry her past Kruger and his men, who are still about Wells, Fargo & Co.'s car.
"Ah, you're going to carry me away on the locomotive!" whispers Erma, as Lawrence puts her on board.
"Yes, we'll take care of you!" mutters the engineer, giving Harry a helping hand.
In another moment they are in the cab of the locomotive, which is slowly running over the Y towards the main track, which leads to the East, and safety.
This has been kept open as far as the snow-shed, and they will probably not meet a great deal of drift until they get beyond it, but the steam is light in the engine, and it cannot move very fast.
The other locomotive stands behind them, on the Y. Lawrence notices, as they leave it, that its fires are banked, and some one is on board it, though apparently asleep.
A second after, they pass Mr. Buck Powers, who switches them to the main track, they running so slowly that he easily follows them, and jumps on board.
All this time Harry has both ears and eyes fixed on the forward end of the train, to see if their absence is discovered.
But the Wells, Fargo & Co.'s man is still standing the Mormons and their bishop off, and threatening to shoot; and his movements interest them so much they do not notice the great mass of iron that has come on to the main track, and is now plunging away from them down the incline towards the long snow-shed.
"Now," Harry says to the engineer, giving a sigh of relief, "you can light your headlight."
Just then a cry comes out from behind them. It is that of the conductor of the train, who is screaming: "Great Scott! who's run away with the locomotive?" and some of Kruger's men run shouting through the snow.
Then Lawrence cries, "Give her steam!"
The locomotive dashes through little drifts, and drowns sound, but he knows that in a very few moments Lot Kruger will have discovered that what he values more than the stock of the Utah Central Railway is passing away from him.
The engine is already flying through the snow-shed—one of the two long ones that line the steep decline leading towards Piedmont and the East.
In it they find little snow to impede them, but at the end of the shed their trouble begins, for on this track, which has not been passed by trains for twenty-four hours, they encounter deep drifts, and once or twice the locomotive nearly stops, and the engineer tells Lawrence that if it were not for the steep down grade, they would never be able to make it.
Several times they have to back, and push on again, though the sheet-iron covered cow-catcher, which acts as a snow-plow, helps them tremendously. Still it is a long time before they reach the second big snow-shed, and looking at his watch, Lawrence finds that they have been half an hour doing what ought only to have taken them ten minutes.
But just as they are entering the second snow-shed, where the track makes an enormous bend, almost running back upon itself, in the form of a U, something comes out of the snow-shed—not much over a mile away—that they have left behind them. Something that makes Lawrence's heart jump, and then grow cold, as with hoarse voice he cries, pointing back: "My God! what is that?"
And the engineer sets his teeth, and says: "They're after us! It's the headlight of the other locomotive! They have got up steam, and they have the advantage of us, because we have to bore the way through drifts and clear the track for them. They're bound to catch us!"
"Not if steam'll beat them," mutters Harry, and assisted by Buck, he piles the engine fire with coal, and helped by the rapid descent, they forge through drift after drift, none of these being very deep in the second long snow-shed.
Then they come out of it, into the open country once more, and meet deeper drifts, into which the engine plunges with a slow thud, throwing the snow higher than its smoke-stack, as it struggles through. Here the other engine must have the best of it, for they clear its track for it, and they haven't left the second snow-shed half a mile behind when, like the eye of a demon, the glow of the yellow headlight of their pursuer comes gliding after them.
The engineer mutters: "They're goin' to catch us!"
"Never!" cries Lawrence, and piles on more coal—though his heart is cold as the snow-drifts through which the engine plunges.
"We'll be up to the Piedmont switch in a minute. I might as well stop there!" mutters the engineer. "We can't clear the track for 'em and beat 'em too!"
"Put your hand on the reversing lever and you're dead!" cries Lawrence, his pistol at the man's ear.
"Not for my sake!" screams Erma, for she has the man's child in her arms.
"For all our sakes!" answers Harry. "Keep her going—till we can move no more! Then——"
"What?" asks his sweetheart.
"Then Kruger'll trouble you no more; of that be certain!"
"Butyou?"
"Oh, that doesn't matter."
They are moving quite slowly now, and the girl suddenly cries, "Buck, where are you going?" for the boy has just said, "Good-bye! God bless you, Miss Beauty!"
"What are you going to do?"
"Show you how a Chicago railroad man treats chumps!"
And though Erma cries: "Don't! You risk your life!" and Lawrence puts out a detaining hand, even as they come to the Piedmont side-track, the boy jumps from the cab, unlocks the switch, and hides himself in the snow-drift.
"My God! He's going to run 'em off the track! My pard's the boss of that locomotive!" screams the engineer. "He'll be smashed to pieces!"
"Go on!" answers Lawrence, and his pistol again threatens.
The locomotive dashes forward, for there is a roar two hundred yards behind them, and over the noise they hear Kruger's yell of triumph, which, even as he utters it, is turned into a howl of rage.
There is a shriek of terror from the engineer of the pursuing locomotive, for Buck Powers, in the moonlight, has risen up beside the switch, and turned it, just as the engine dashes to it, not so as to side-track it, but only half way, to dash it over ties and snow-drifts to destruction.
As the locomotive passes, Kruger, who has his pistol in his hand, turns it from the direction of Lawrence and the flying locomotive straight at the breast of the boy at the switch, and fires upon him! And Buck Powers, giving a shriek, staggers and falls into a snow-bank, reddening it with his blood.
But even as Buck does so, he is avenged. The locomotive, plunging forward off the track into the drifting snow, topples over, and though the engineer and fireman jump free, Kruger, with his eye in grim triumph on the dying boy, is thrown beneath the ponderous mass of iron, that topples over him, crushing his body, and sending his soul to where the souls of the Danites go.
The engineer and fireman clamber out of the snow-drift unharmed, though shaken up. Three of the Mormonpossewho have been with Kruger come out of the snow unarmed, for their Winchesters are buried deep in a white bank; and Lawrence, knowing they are helpless, makes the engineer run his locomotive back to the switch. Springing out, he has the boy in his arms in a minute, and getting into the cab, he holds Buck Powers to his breast, while his locomotive goes on its way unhindered now, though followed by the curses of its Mormon pursuers.
Then Erma whispers to Harry, "What chance?" But he shakes his head, for he knows what those gray-blue lips mean—he has seen them too often on battlefields.
As he does so, the boy, whose face has already grown pallid, and upon whose forehead the dew of death is standing, gasps: "I saved ye, Miss Beauty!—Didn't I do the trick like—like a Chicago railroad man?"
"Yes," sobs the girl, bending over him. "What can I do for you?"
"The Cap won't be jealous—just give me one kiss—that's all. I've never been kissed—by—a—beautiful—young lady."
And two sweet lips come to his, that are already cold, and he gasps: "You're pretty as a Chicago girl—that's where I'm goin'!"
And delirium coming on him, he laughs; for his old life is coming back to him! And the railroad, and the city that he loves so well and is so proud of, getting into his mind, he cries: "I'm braking on the Burlington again, an' we're bound for Chicago. Hoop! we're at the Rock Island crossin'—we've whistled first an' got the right o' way. C. B. & Q.'s always ahead!—Two long toots and two short toots! Town whistle! We're goin' into Aurorie an' out of it again. Now we whiz through Hinsdale an' Riverside!—I can see the lights of the city.—Engine has whistled for the Fort Wayne crossin'! Sixteenth Street! Slow down! The bell's beginning to ring—the lights are dancin'—Michigan Avenue! We're runnin' for the old Lake Street Station! I'm a-folding up the flags and takin' in the red lights—the bell's ringin' fainter—the whistle's blowin' for brakes—the wheels are goin' slower—slower—slower—the lights is dancin' about me—the wheels are stopped. The train is dead—the lights is goin' out! CHICAGO!!"
And with this cry, Buck Powers goes to Heaven.
Then Erma, bending over him, and wringing her hands, and tears dropping on his dead face, whispers: "Let us take him to Chicago, Harry, and bury him in the city he loved so well!"
And so they do, some months afterward; and there he lies, entombed in that silent city of the dead, beside the waters of the blue lake, and that great city of the living. And no truer heart, nor nobler soul, will ever tread the streets of that grand metropolis of the West, than that of this boy, who loved it so well, and who gave his life for gratitude—now nor to come, even if it grows to have ten millions.
So holding the dead boy in his arms, the engineer contriving to do the firing, they journey slowly along the road to Bridger.
Here, finding telegraphic communication is still cut off with Evanston, they know it is safe to run on to Carter.
From the freight train at this point they fortunately get a man to do the firing of the locomotive, Lawrence paying him for the same.
The sun is rising as they pass the Carter tank, and the engineer tells them he thinks they have got coal enough, as they are on a down grade, to take them to Granger, for the snow is not so deep here as it was up the mountain.
Finding no orders have been received at this point, they keep on, and finally, about seven o'clock in the morning, they can see the passenger train from the East, side-tracked half a mile ahead of them at Granger.
"I can't take you any further—I have got no coal—and I don't know what the company will say to my doing what I have done!" mutters the engineer, who is now apparently anxious as to what the Union Pacific will think of his night's performance.
"Here's one hundred dollars!" remarks Lawrence.
"No, I did it because the young lady had been kind to my child!" and the man shakes his head.
"You must take it!" cries Harry. "You will probably be laid off for last night's work!"
"What? For running away from road agents?"
"Running away from sheriff's officers!"
"From officers of the law?" gasps the man of the throttle. Then he cries out suddenly: "They'll discharge me! You've ruined me and my child with your infernal lies!" and he looks at Lawrence with angry eyes.
But Harry says cheerfully: "If they discharge you, this young lady will give you enough money to buy a farm in Kansas. If she doesn't, I will! Besides," he continues, hoping to soothe the man's fears, "though those fellows we escaped from were Mormon officers, they were acting as bandits, and had no more legal right to do what they were doing in Wyoming, than road agents! I'll give you a bond for the money, if necessary, when we get to the station."
This promise, and the one hundred dollars in hand, makes the engineer feel more comfortable, as they run alongside the passenger train at Granger. Here many questions are asked them, and in return they discover the wires are still down towards Evanston, and there are, of course, no orders from division headquarters.
At this place Lawrence arranges for the transportation of the boy's body to the East, for he is very anxious to get it out of Miss Travenion's sight, who sits in the locomotive cab, half dazed, though when she looks upon what was once Buck Powers, she sometimes mutters with a shudder: "This time yesterday he was alive and happy—and now he's dead—for me," and fondles the boy's cold hand.
Lawrence is thus compelled to tell the story of the night's happenings, which he does to the station agent, who acts as constable at this place. This official looks serious, and rubs his head, and says: "Hanged if I know what I'd better do! Buck got his death killing the infernal Mormon in Uintah County, and this is Sweetwater! I guess you'd better take the young lady on to Green River, and then if they want you back for a coroner's inquest, or to try you for murder, you can go to Evanston, if you can get there—which looks almighty dubious just about now," for another snow-storm seems to be blowing up.
Thinking it best to follow the man's advice, and a locomotive being compelled to go to Green River, though the wires are still down to division headquarters, and consequently no orders, Lawrence takes the opportunity, and succeeds, about one o'clock in the day, in getting his sweetheart to the comforts of the Green River station, where there is quite a town, a pleasant hotel, and plenty to eat. For all the stations he has run by this day, at that time were but little more than telegraph offices and water tanks, with freight-house attachments at some of them, and have not much increased in size or importance, even to this day.
At Green River, snow comes upon them again, and the yard gets full of trains, though none leave for the East; for the Union Pacific is beginning to appreciate what the great blockade of 1871 means.
Telegraphic communication having been restored between Evanston and Green River, Lawrence wires the superintendent of the division a statement of what happened at Aspen and Piedmont, and receives the following characteristic reply:
"Shall hold you for damage to locomotive. The homicide part of the matter is not our business."
"Shall hold you for damage to locomotive. The homicide part of the matter is not our business."
A day or so after this, a passenger train gets through from the West to Green River, and walking out to meet it, Harry is astonished but delighted to see Mr. Ferdinand Chauncey step out of one of its sleepers.
This gentleman, being brought in to see Miss Travenion, informs her of her father's safety.
"I got him out of the mine within two hours," he says, "of Lawrence's leaving. Together we sneaked down through Mormondom to Ogden, where your papa concealed himself on a Central Pacific train, and is now in California, I imagine, unless the snow-drifts on the C. P. are as bad as on this!"
Relieved from anxiety about her father, Erma begins to pick up spirits again, for this young lady, in her life that has been so easy up to this time, has not been accustomed to seeing men die for her, and has not recovered from the death of the boy at the Piedmont switch.
A little while after, Mr. Chauncey, who has an Evanston "Age" in his pocket, pulls it out, and says: "Perhaps you may be interested in that!" pointing to an article in the newspaper which is an account of the inquest by coroner's jury held upon the body of Kruger at Evanston.
They had taken the evidence of some of the train-hands, and the verdict had been:
"That the boy Buck Powers killed Kruger, and Kruger killed Buck Powers! Consequently there is an all-roundnolle prosequiin the matter."
This rather unique finding pleases Harry immensely, for now, he imagines, he will not be delayed in getting his sweetheart to civilization.
Some two or three hours after, telegraphic orders being received, they board the same train that Mr. Ferdie has come into Green River on, and depart for the East.
Passing through Rawlings in the night, early the next day they find themselves halted by the snow blockade at Medicine Bow, about one hundred miles west of Laramie; and this time it seems to be a permanent stoppage.
Train after train comes in from the West, and none from the East, they being held there by snow, at Cooper's Lake, and tremendous drifts in the deep cuts from Laramie towards Sherman.
Fortunately they have plenty to eat. There is a grocery store, and they are the first of this snow blockade, and so they live on "the fat of the land," which means canned goods of every style, and ham and baconad libitum.
Though Ferdie rages at the delay, Lawrence, being near his sweetheart, would be content but for one thing: Erma's position, without a chaperon, and accompanied by two men, neither of them relatives, is "embarrassing."
Lawrence probably appreciates this even more than she does, as now and then remarks come to his ears, from some of the passengers on the other trains, that he would resent, if common sense did not tell him that he must in no way bring his sweetheart's name to any scandal.
It is partly this, and partly the natural impatience to call his own this being he loves so much, that he is desperately afraid some accident or chance will even now take her from him, that causes him to come to Erma one day, and explain the matter to her.
He urges: "Why should we wait for a grand wedding in New York, dear one? As your husband, I can show you much greater attentions, and can do things for you that I could not as your betrothed, in the privations and hardships of this blockade. Why not make me happy—why not marry me here?"
But the young lady, affecting a little laugh, murmurs: "What? Before you have given me the engagement ring you wish to use the wedding one?"
And he replies: "I wish to marry you!"
"Not by a justice of the peace!" cries the girl in horror.
"No, by a minister."
"Where will you find one?"
"On the next train behind us—the Reverend Mr. Millroy, of St. Paul. He's anxious to do some work; he has had no pastoral duties to perform for a month or two. Let us give him a chance—you know your father wished it!"
This mention of her father's views perhaps actuates Erma more than she imagines—but it also reminds her of him! She falters, "You are sure you will never repent? Remember, I am a Mormon's daughter!"
"So you are, and the belle of Newport and the sweetest—the dearest—the——"
But she cries, placing her patrician fingers on his moustache, "Stop!—no more compliments!"
"You consent?"
"P-e-r-haps! When do you wish it?"
"This evening!"
"Oh!" And blushes fly over her face and neck as Lawrence goes away to consult with Mr. Ferdie.
This young gentleman makes arrangements with the minister, and consents to act as best man on the occasion, crying: "Thank God, Harry, you've given me some excitement at last! I had finished my last novel and my last cigar, and thought I should die ofennuiin this everlasting, unending, eternal snow."
But even as Mr. Ferdinand makes his preparations for the nuptialfête, another train from the West comes in upon the crowded railroad tracks at Medicine Bow. On it, Oliver, Mrs. Livingston, and Louise. They do not see Lawrence and Miss Travenion, as their cars are some little distance apart. But Mr. Chauncey, who has a habit of visiting from one train to another, finds them out, and after a little chuckles to himself: "This will be the ceremony of the season! I'll—I'll have some Grace Church effects for Mr. Ollie's benefit and discomfiture."
So after exchanging greeting with his aunt and her family, he gets Miss Louise to one side, and explaining something to her that makes the child's eyes grow large, bright, and excited, she suddenly gives a scream of laughter and whispers: "I'll do it—if mother puts me on bread and water for a week. It will make Ollie crazy."
"That's right! You always were a lovely child!" returns Mr. Chauncey.
After this, throughout the day, Louise acts as if under intense but concealed excitement, for she says nothing to her mother and Oliver, but every now and then gives little giggles of laughter, which so astonishes Ollie that he remarks to Mrs. Livingston: "The privations of this snow blockade have made the child deranged." Then he says severely: "If I hear another insane giggle, Louise, I'll shut you up in the stateroom;" for this young gentleman is always happy to play the domestic tyrant.
These remarks so frighten Louise that she disappears.
About seven o'clock in the evening, Mr. Livingston remarks to Ferdie, who has dropped into his car: "It's dreadfully tiresome! Don't you think you could join us in a game of whist?"
"I would be delighted," replies Mr. Chauncey, "but there is going to be an entertainment in the train next to ours. Can't you come in and enjoy it? Eight o'clock is the hour."
"What are they going to do?"
"I don't know exactly, but I expect it's exciting."
"Well, anything is better than doing nothing," laughs Oliver, in which his mother agrees.
So it comes to pass that the two leave their Pullman and wade through the snow to another side track, where a palace car is brilliantly lighted, and apparently crowded with theéliteof the blockaded passengers, all in their blockade best.
At the door Oliver asks the porter: "What's going on?"
"A weddin', sah!" replies the negro. "An' they're havin' a very hard time inside; thar wasn't no weddin' ring—but I'se just cut off one of de curtain rings to give to de groom."
"Ah, some cowboy affair," remarks Ollie, who leads his mother into the car, and then gives a gasp, and sinks down on an unoccupied seat, while Mrs. Livingston, too much overcome for words, drops beside him.
For beneath a centre cluster of red and green coal-oil railroad lamps hung up as a decoration they see Erma Travenion and Harry Lawrence being joined in holy matrimony, and Ferdie and Louise acting as best man and bridesmaid.
A moment after the ceremony is finished.
Then Mr. Chauncey announces that a wedding breakfast, or, rather, wedding supper, is served in the grocery at the side of the track.
"It is not exactly a wedding breakfast," he says, "because it's evening, but there'll be plenty of champagne, and every one is cordially invited to attend!"
Just here, social diplomat as she is, Mrs. Livingston, gathering herself together, gets on her feet, and coming to Erma, gives her a kiss of congratulation, saying, "My dear, I hear you have no proper wedding-ring—let this be your first bridal present;" and places a magnificent ruby of her own on Mrs. Lawrence's finger.
Then they all go through the snow to the grocery, which has a back room that is fitted up as a dining-room, where the champagne flows like water in Western style, and a Nevada congressman with a silver tongue makes a little address to the bride, remarking on orange blossoms in the snow. "The snow we'll keep in the West—the orange blossoms go to the East with the bride, God bless her! But aWestern man goes with her!"
This sentiment appealing to Western hearts, and the champagne appealing to Western palates, the gentlemen of the party make a great night of it.
Three days after, the snow blockade at Sherman being broken for a little time, the trains all get under headway, and, with cheering passengers, leave Medicine Bow, run down to Laramie, and the next morning are out of the great snow blockade, and flying across Nebraska towards Omaha.
So, one evening just before Christmas, Harry Lawrence and his wife come into the Grand Central Depot, New York, Erma whispering, "Did ever girl have railroad trip like mine?—I went to find a father and found a husband!" and her eyes beam upon Harry, who is pressing her arm to his side.
From the station they drive to the Everett, where a telegram comes to them from California, announcing the safety of Ralph Travenion, and that he has shipped his Utah Central stock east by Wells, Fargo & Co., and is returning to New York via Panama, for he does not dare to trust himself in Utah.
Thirty days after this, Travenion strolls into their parlor at the Everett, and looking at him, no one would ever have thought that he was once a Mormon bishop, for he is now the same debonair exquisite of the Unity Club that he was years ago, and gives Lawrence his father's blessing, as one.
"My boy, we must make you an Eastern club man," he remarks. "I shall put you up at the Unity and Stuyvesant. We're rich enough to live in the East, and in order to make us richer, let's go over to Boston, and see the heads of the Union Pacific!"
Which they do, and sell the control of the Utah Central, out of which Brigham Young and his fellows go, with wailing and gnashing of teeth, for they know that the hand of the Union Pacific is upon them in railroad matters, and it is a grasping Gentile corporation; in proof of which the Mormon Church does not control one railroad in Utah—though it built nearly all of them.
Some time afterwards, over their dinner-table in New York, Travenion, whose instincts are those of a business man yet, says: "I should have stayed in California. There's a fortune there! Even while in San Francisco, I made some money in mining stocks. Belcher, for instance, had gone up very much."
"Belcher!" cries Lawrence. "Good Heavens! I've got two hundred shares of that stock in my pocketbook, and have forgotten all about it!"
"Oh!" says Erma, "that was the stock you had when you first heard that I was Bishop Tranyon's daughter—and you forgot your investment for me!"
"Well, Providence has rewarded him for it, for I think Belcher must be up to a thousand dollars a share, by this time!" laughs Ralph.
And telegraphing San Francisco, Lawrence finds this is the fact, and sells out his Belcher stock for something over eleven hundred dollars a share, making nearly two hundred thousand dollars by the transaction.
"Luck is upon you, young man!" says the ex-bishop. "Your election comes up at the Unity Club to-morrow. I've no doubt you'll go in—but that Oliver Livingston may give you trouble."
"Oh, I think not!" cries Erma, "his mother has been so very kind to me, as, in fact, have all my old friends."
For some rumors of the peculiar adventures that have made Miss Travenion Mrs. Lawrence have got into circulation, and in them Harry has been made a Western hero and a frontier demi-god. Besides, society is generally very nice to a young and beautiful woman who has sixty thousand a year of her own, a rich husband, and richer father, and who is going to have a fine mansion on Fifth Avenue, and give many dinner parties and a german or two each season.
"I differ with you, my dear," returns Ralph. "Oliver Livingston is an infamous cad."
"Why, what has he done now?" asks Lawrence, noting the excitement in his father-in-law's manner.
"What has he done?" cries Travenion. "The miserable sneak has told in the Unity the story of the Mormon club man—the story I risked my life to originate. I told it to-day with graphic elaboration, and Larry Jerry and the rest only half smiled, and said they believed Mr. Livingston had told them that yarn about a month ago. I shall never tell it again!"
"Don't!" cries his daughter. "Don't make me ashamed of you." Then she says more calmly: "What have you done about your families out there?"
"Oh, they're provided forwell!" remarks Ralph. "I believe one of them, the genuine Mrs. Travenion"—he winces a little at the title—"would have made me trouble, but I think the Church instructed her to let me alone; I know a few secrets of theirs that make them quite amiable to me, now I'm out of their clutches. Their delegate to congress, the one who has four wives in Utah, and declares he is not a polygamist in Washington, might not like me to explain what I know of his large family," chuckles the old gentleman.
But for all this, he does not tell the story of Bishop Tranyon, the New York dandy, very often.
His guess about Oliver Livingston, however, was a shrewd one. For chancing to be on the Governing Committee of the Unity when Lawrence's name comes up for membership, he sneaks in a black-ball, as many another prig and coward, from envy and malice and uncharitableness, has done before, and will do to come.
But this doesn't count much, for Ferdie, who chances to be its youngest member, has gone about with his winning manner and boyish frankness, and has button-holed everybody, saying, "Hang it! You must put Harry Lawrence through. He's the man who saved my life. He's from the wild and woolly West, but some day he's going to make New York howl!"
So Lawrence goes in.
Though he doesn't do quite as much as Ferdie has promised for him—for he is too happy to be inordinately ambitious—and is contented to be a successful railroad director, and have a yacht on the water and a villa in Newport, and a town-house on the avenue, and to be the husband of Miss Dividends.
MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK.MR. POTTER OF TEXAS.THAT FRENCHMAN!MISS NOBODY OF NOWHERE.A FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT.
MR. BARNES OF NEW YORK.MR. POTTER OF TEXAS.THAT FRENCHMAN!MISS NOBODY OF NOWHERE.A FLORIDA ENCHANTMENT.
SMALL BOYS IN BIG BOOTS.
SMALL BOYS IN BIG BOOTS.