THE town bell had struck the hour, three clanging strokes, and even as their echoes lingered in the silence and the night, a candle blinked like a solitary eye in an upper window of Levi Tucker's red-brick tavern.
The night wind, an evil searching wind, that cut like a knife and chilled to the bone, swept both snow and rain in troubled gusts across the square; while the last quarter of an April moon gave a faint uncertain radiance. Smoke, illumined by a few flying sparks, which the wind promptly extinguished, issued from the tavern's kitchen chimney, and diffused itself low over the adjacent housetops. It seemed to bring with it certain domestic odours, as if a breakfast were being prepared, and so it was, the last which three members of the Benson and California Mining and Trading Company anticipated sitting down to in the town of Benson in many a long day.
The three wagons containing' the company's property stood before the tavern door, their white canvas covers tightly drawn; and Robert Dunlevy who, with young Walsh and Bingham, was to accompany the Landrays, was already busy in the stable putting their harness on the horses. He wondered why Bingham and Jim, Mr. Tucker's stableman, after promising over night to help him with the teams, had failed to appear; but evidently they had overslept themselves.
Across the yard in the inn he heard Mr. Tucker, his voice pitched in a most unusual key; but he was far too intent on his work to even pause to listen to what was passing there.
Presently, Jacob Benson and Bushrod Landray, well muffled in their great coats, hurried across the square; by the wagons they paused.
“This looks like business, don't it?” said Landray cheerfully.
“I guess we are the first,” remarked the lawyer, glancing about.
“No, Rogers is stirring; I saw a light in his room a moment ago. Let's go in; Tucker promised to have a breakfast for us.”
A few minutes later, when Stephen Landray pulled up before the tavern with Sam and the man who was to help back from Cincinnati with the horses and gear, he found that the teams were being led from the inn stable by Dunlevy and the tardy Bingham; they were whistling, “O, Susanna!” but they paused to hail him with boisterous good-will, and he returned their greeting with curt civility; their cheerfulness being the reverse of agreeable to him just then, for his thoughts were all of Virginia; each word and look of her's, each eloquent gesture, seemed to burn in his memory. To part from her had been so hard and cruel a thing to do, that his courage had almost failed him; and he had driven into town hoping, absurd as he knew the hope was, that something might have occurred to block the venture; and under his breath he cursed the implacable zeal of his teamsters, who were leaving nothing they desired not to leave, since no ties bound them to one spot of earth more than another. He would have welcomed with joy, a single day's delay; but that was not to be, and he looked about him with a feeling of utter helplessness.
Under the parted hood of one of the wagons, and holding a lantern between his knees, he saw the Californian with Benny at his side. Two spots of vivid colour burned on Rogers's hollow cheeks; his dark eyes were wondrously brilliant; a smile hovered about the corners of his mouth; he was knowing a foretaste of success. At last, out of talk and argument, endless considering and planning, out of the deluge of words that had preceded any actual doing, he had been able to get these men started. Seeing Stephen, he cried triumphantly:
“I'll show you California before you see this again, Mr. Landray!” and he swept the square with a fine free gesture.
“Is Bush here—and where is Walsh?” asked Stephen.
“Your brother's indoors, I haven't seen Walsh.”
“He hasn't come yet, Mr. Landray,” said Dunlevy, tightening a hame strap.
“Something's gone wrong with Tucker,” said Rogers, “but I didn't stay to see what it was. I'm off for California, and we don't climb down out of here until the first stage of the journey's done; do we, son?”
In the tavern, as he had intimated, all was confusion. Levi Tucker, powerfully excited, was stamping back and forth in front of his bar; while Landray and the lawyer were vainly seeking to calm him.
“Here's a pretty mess,” said the former as Stephen entered the room. “Tucker's wife seems to be missing.”
“Seems to be missing!” cried the innkeeper furiously. “I tell you, Bush, she's skipped clean out! Left me, do you hear? Left me! Well, I hope he'll trim the nonsense out of her—I do that!”
“What's this?” demanded Stephen, looking first from one to the other of the three men.
“He thinks Julia has run away,” said Benson quietly, but his face was rather white. Mrs. Tucker was his cousin.
“Thinks!” snorted the innkeeper contemptuously. “What sort of proofs may you be looking for, Jacob? Ain't I furnishing them by the cartloads? She's kin to you, and you don't want to think ill of her; but just hear me, all of you—”
“He's been drinking,” whispered Bushrod; but Tucker, whose senses appeared to be wonderfully acute all at once, heard him.
“Drinking!” he exploded, in a thin shriek of anguish. “Of course I been drinking. What was good, red licker made for if it wa'n'. for a time like this when you're publicly made a fool of by a trifling no-account woman, whose head never held an ounce of sense in all her born days! She's your cousin, Jake, I mind that, and my word! she's damn little credit to you—but she's worse shame to me.”
Stephen, with some difficulty, possessed himself of these facts. The night before, the faithful Jim had taken Mrs. Tucker out to her father's farm on the South Road. She had sent him back with the message that her father would drive her home when she should be ready to return. Midnight came, and she did not appear; Mr. Tucker, somewhat alarmed for her safety, dispatched Jim in quest of her. He had shortly returned with the information that Captain Gibbs had called at the farm early in the evening and had proposed driving her home, and they had ridden away together, behind a most excellent span of horses which the perfidious Gibbs had hired of Mr. Tucker. This was the last any one had seen of them.
The tavernkeeper told Stephen this between sobs, and oaths, and threats.
“Think of it, Steve—she's quit me for that infernal scalawag!”
“You are too willing to think ill of her, Tucker,” said Landray. “It may turn out all right, and then you will be the first to regret your haste.”
“Man, I know she's gone with him!” cried the tavernkeeper.
“Ain't he been hanging about here for days past, and all to get a word with her—I seen it!”
“Perhaps they've stopped somewhere on the way into town, they may have had a breakdown, or their horses may have run off,” suggested Benson.
“Run off? That team? No, sir! They have lit out together—damn her foolishness, and him just next door to nothing! I'll catch them yet, though! Jim! You Jim!” he bawled. The stableman appeared at the door.
“What do you want now, Tucker?” he asked.
“What I been wanting for the last half hour—a horse and fix!”
“That's what I'm trying to get for you, if you'd just leave off yelling for me,” said Jim.
But Tucker paid no heed to him, he was threatening again.
“When I catch up with them it will go hard with him! I'll learn him he can't run off with no wife of mine! You hear me? Him or me'll go down!”
“But you are sure of nothing yet,” interposed Stephen, shocked at the readiness he was displaying to think the worst of his wife.
“I've watched 'em together,” raged the wronged husband. “I've seen her blushing and giggling. They thought I didn't see; getting too old to notice or have good sense, I reckon; but I ain't been married three times not to know what a pair of fools look like when they are in love.” and he stormed back and forth in front of his bar. “I had good luck with all of my wives but her; they were perfect ladies, each of them, and to think she'd serve me a trick like this!” Then he calmed down. “You and Bush come into the sitting-room; and you too, Jacob.”
The three men silently followed him into the adjoining room, where he threw open the door of a cupboard, and fell to rumaging among its contents. Presently he brought to light two huge horse-pistols, relics of the War of 1812. As they were much too large to go into his pockets he wrapped them in a gaily-coloured quilt.
“I'll have satisfaction,” he remarked grimly. “I'll blow him as full of holes as he'll stick. They got my bay team and six hours start; but I'll be after them hot-footed with that fractious mare of mine, and when I come up with them it will be him or me.”
“I hope you'll not do anything hasty, Tucker,” said Stephen gravely.
“Don't you worry about me, Steve. The right's on my side.”
He seemed so weak despite his rage and brave boastings, and he had aged, too, in that single night, that Stephen, feeling only pity for him, rested his strong hand on his shoulder with a kindly pressure.
“Come, Tucker, why go after him at all?” he said.
“Thank'ee Steve,” cried the tavernkeeper in a husky voice, and his bleary eyes sought the handsome face of the younger man. “Thank'ee—but you can't keep me back. She's my wife, she's skipped out with another man, and now I'm going to make her skip back, and I reckon she'll do quite a little skipping one way and another before this affair's settled,” and he shook his head ominously.
Then he said:
“Them deeds covering the transfers of that land, and the distillery, are in Jake's hands. He can get 'em recorded. It's all right to leave it with him to close up the deal, ain't it, boys?”
“Yes, certainly. He will have to attend to it,” said Stephen.
Jim appeared at the door. “Well, Tucker, if you are going, look spry. The mare's hooked to the light fix.”
Mr. Tucker, who had been standing by the window with his head sunk on his breast, turned quickly, roused by his words.
“Thank'ee, Jim, I'm ready. You'll look after things until I get back?” and he gathered up the gaily-coloured quilt that hid the horse pistols. Jim seemed slightly crestfallen.
“Don't I go too, Tucker?” he asked. “You know when it comes to the madam you ain't no match for her. Don't you reckon you'll want me?”
“I'll attend to her. You do as you're told.” said the old man with a touch of unexpected dignity. He crossed the room to where the Lan-drays stood with Benson. “Good-bye, boys, and good luck to you!” he gave a tremulous hand to each in turn. “I'm mighty sorry to see you go.”
“And we are sorry to see you in this trouble,” said Stephen.
“I trust you'll not do anything hasty,” urged Benson.
“Well, I won't be too everlasting slow, Jacob,” said Tucker grimly. Then he followed Jim from the room. A moment later they heard him issue his final commands to his stableman, the crack of a whip, the clatter of four shod hoofs on the brick pavement, the rattle of wheels, and Mr. Tucker, his hat awry, and his two wisps of white hair streaming out behind his ears like a pair of cupid's wings, whirled out of the inn-yard, and down the street, the fractious mare at a wild gallop.
The three men looked from one to another in silence. Stephen spoke first.
“Do you think she's gone with Gibbs?” he asked.
“I shouldn't wonder, there's been a good deal of talk,” It was Benson who answered his question.
“We should not have allowed him to start off after them,” said Stephen.
“I imagine we would have had our hands full if we had tried to stop him,” responded Bushrod with a shrug. Here, Jasper Walsh entered the room.
“Let us be off, Mr. Landray,” he cried. He was a boyish-looking young fellow, with a refined and gentle face, that was now working piteously enough. A stranger in Benson, fresh from an eastern college, he had come west—bringing with him a young wife—to teach school and in his leisure time study law, but he had decided that a year or so in California would furnish him with the means to carry out his ambitions, and from the savings of his slender earnings he had purchased a few shares in the company. “They are waiting for us, they are all ready—can't we start?” he asked.
“Yes, I know, Walsh,” said Stephen, then he added, “See here, why don't you throw it over? I'll see that your interests are well looked to. Come, be sensible, and stay here with your wife.”
“No,” answered the boy determinedly. “It's my chance. It's best for her, and it's best for me that I go, and I've parted from her and the worst is over,” his lips quivered. “What's keeping us?” he asked anxiously.
“Nothing,” said Stephen, but he did not move. Bushrod laughed dismally.
“Walsh is right, let's start. I don't want to hang about here until Anna's awake, and sees us go past the house.”
Stephen looked at him in wonder.
“Until Anna's what?” he demanded sharply.
“Awake. Thank God, she was fast asleep when I left home.”
Stephen's glance dwelt sadly upon his brother for a brief instant, then he moved to the door and they passed out through the bar, where Jim had put out the lights and was already opening the heavy wooden shutters.
When they emerged upon the square, they found the wind had lulled. The rain was tailing in a quiet drizzle, with here and there an occasional snow-flake that melted the instant it touched the ground. Bushrod and Walsh said good-bye to the lawyer, and took their places in the wagons, while Stephen turned back for a last word.
“I'm leaving everything in your care, Jake,” he said, in a voice of stifled emotion, as he wrung Benson's hand.
“I understand, Landray. I'll do for her in everyway I can.”
“I know you will. God bless you, and good-bye.”
They passed down the silent street that echoed dismally to the beat of their horses' hoofs, they crossed the covered bridge and began the long ascent of Landray's Hill. As they neared the summit, the vapours lifted from the valley below them, and the first long level rays of the sun shot across it, just touching the woods that were its furthest boundary.
Stephen, who was driving the first wagon, leaned far out from under the canvas hood, for down in the valley he saw the dark bulk of the old stone mill; then the farm-house flanked by its great barns and lesser buildings, came into view; and, last of all, the white porch of his home, and on the porch a figure, that he knew had been waiting there since the day broke. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and waved it frantically: there was an answering flutter of white, and then a turn in the road brought the leafless woods about him, and he had looked his last upon the valley.
As the sun swept higher in the heavens, and as the day advanced and the miles grew behind them, the drooping spirits of the party seemed to revive. Dunlevy and Bingham whistled or sang or chaffed poor Walsh who rode in their wagon; while Bushrod Landray and Rogers discussed the latest news from California, with an interest and cheerfulness that had been but temporarily eclipsed.
AT Cincinnati, a dilapidated wharf boat absorbed the wagons of The Benson and California Mining and Trading Company, and an affable shipping agent, after dwelling with enthusiasm on the fact that freights were steadily advancing, and the oldest river men unwilling to predict their ultimate figure, agreed to furnish transportation for the party on the “Caledonia,” which was due to arrive some time the following day, and at a price which represented but a slight advance on the regular western rate; indeed, he assured Stephen he might reasonably consider the increase merely nominal, in view of the peculiar and extraordinary advantages this particular boat had to offer in the way of safety, speed, and comfort.
But in spite of the ample promises of this individual, Stephen found he had purchased a very limited amount of space indeed, for the steamer was crowded when they boarded it, and each stop it made added to the numbers who stamped the decks when the weather permitted, and at other times clustered about the smoky wood stoves in the dingy cabins.
As they steamed down the Ohio, they passed, or were passed, by other boats, each crowded with its adventurers. They entered the Missouri, and on its banks saw the camps and canvas-covered wagons of those who had come overland to join in the epic march of the gold-seekers. At first, it was two or three wagons—further along the two or three became a score—this score grew to fifty—the fifty to a hundred—a long, slow-moving monotonous line.
Late one afternoon they reached Independence, and tied up to the bank. A tall black-bearded man of thirty-eight or forty, in greasy buckskins, had established himself at a near-by wood-pile, from which he could command an excellent prospect of the river and what was passing there. He had kept his watch from dawn until dark for a week or more. It was only when some steamer made a landing in his vicinity that he would forsake his post; then he would hurry along the bank, thrusting his vigorous way among the passengers, eagerly questioning from whence they came. During those intervals when there were no boats arriving, he cultivated a measure of intimacy with the proprietor of the wood-yard; and the latter had hospitably urged him to make free with a shelter of blankets he had devised in the rear of one of the wood ranks. But his impatience had increased as the days passed, and the good-nature which had at first expressed itself in ill-flavoured jests at the expense of the emigrants seemed to leave him; this was Basil Landray. He saw the “Caledonia” tie up to the shore; and he watched her passengers as they made their way to land, laden with the more easily portable of their belongings; suddenly, however, he uttered an exclamation and strode down the bank.
“If your name ain't Landray, I'll never guess again!” he said, when he had made his way to where Stephen and Bushrod stood.
“Basil?” cried the former, “Basil Landray?”
In spite of certain differences, which later on became so apparent that they seemed to destroy all family resemblance, the cousins were wonderfully alike.
“How long have you been here?” said Stephen.
“Not above a fortnight. I counted on your getting here sooner; but you're full early; there's no grass to speak of yet, and you can't start a hoof across the plains until that gets up.”
In a covert, secret fashion of his own he was taking careful stock of the brothers. When Stephen's letter had been put into his hands at Council Bluffs the previous fall, it had required an effort of memory on his part to determine who this Stephen Landray was, and just how they were related. Of the writer's circumstances he had known absolutely nothing, and of these the letter gave no hint; this was a point upon which he had felt certain misgivings, but the very appearance of the brothers was in itself reassuring. He noted, for nothing was lost on him, that the others of the party treated them with a marked respect, which he instantly attributed to superiority of fortune, that to him being the basis of all social differences.
“Well, now;” he cried, with boisterous heartiness, “and to think I should have known the pair of you the minute I clapped eyes on you! Singular, ain't it?”
“No,” said Stephen, surveying the fine muscular figure of the fur trader with frank approval. “No, it is not so singular after all; for we do look alike.”
“Aye, with this off,” running his fingers through his bushy heard. “As like as three peas in a pod.”
Their wagons, which were among the last loaded on the “Caledonia,” and consequently among the first to be put ashore, were soon drawn up the bank; and Dunlevy, with Bingham and Walsh busied themselves settling the camp.
“Now,” said Basil, “What are your plans?”
The Landrays had drawn apart from the others, and had thrown themselves down on the short turf which was already specked with flowers. They told him first of the return of Rogers, and of the formation of the company.
“Yonder tall fellow?” nodding in the direction of the Californian.
“Yes.”
Basil grinned. “You must have had right smart faith,” he said. “I should judge you'd have thought twice before trusting yourself to him.”
“We did.” said Stephen. “It was then I thought of you.”
“Well, if he drops off, I reckon I can fill his shoes.”
“God forbid that he should drop off!” cried Stephen quickly. “I want to see him successful. He's a tragic and pathetic figure, with his hope and patience.”
Basil stared at him blankly, “Oh! I reckon he'll pull through,” he said at length.
They were soon absorbed in the discussion of their plans. They kept nothing back from the fur trader, for was he not a Landray? They told him how much was invested in the enterprise, what had been spent in equipment, and what, remained in cash in hand, which they intended to invest when they should reach California, together with five thousand dollars of their own. His dark eyes sparkled, and the enthusiasm which worked up out of the sullen depths of his nature quite mastered him. He felt his heart warm toward these prosperous kinsmen of his.
“Well, freeze on to your money,” then he laughed as he added, “I didn't know any of the Landrays could round up so much. I suppose you sold clean out to do it?”
“Not quite,” said Bushrod a little stiffly, and he glanced quickly at his brother; but Stephen avoided meeting his eye, for somehow he felt responsible for Basil, and Basil, he feared, was not quite all he had expected.
“Well, it's a lot of money,” said the fur trader, “a lot of money. I've known one Landray who ain't seen so much in many a long day, how do you plan to lay it out?”
“If possible, in mining properties,” said Stephen.
“And lose every doggone cent of it, like enough. No sir, I'd put it in something surer.”
They looked at him in mute surprise. What could be surer?
He explained.
“Every one's crazy to dig, and while they dig they're going to be hungry—they're going to be mortal thirsty too. Start a store, or, better still, start a tavern; but keep your hands clean.”
“We intend to,” said Stephen drily. The fur trader swore a mighty oath.
“The crowd here's one thing, but what will be left of it after it crosses the plains will be something else. The soft-headed and the soft-hearted will turn back, but a many a one 'll go through, and if money comes easy it will go easy. They'll be a long ways from home, most of 'em will forget they ever had homes; I've seen how that works in the fur country. Drink and cards will do for 'em: I've seen 'em gamble their last dollar away—their horses—their Indian women—the shirts off their backs—and once the scalps off their own heads, it's the traders and gamblers makes the money.” he broke off abruptly with a light laugh. “You'll figure it out to suit yourselves, I reckon, but there'll be other ways of getting gold than digging for it.”
His unlucky candour acted like a wet blanket on the brothers. The manner of each became stiff, their tone formal; their enthusiasm changed to a forced and tepid warmth; but apparently Basil did not notice this; relaxed and at ease in his greasy buckskins, and with a short black pipe between his teeth, he lounged on the soft flower-specked turf, his mind filled with pleasant fancies.
“We'll pick up our teams to-morrow;” he said. “Mules cost a heap more than cattle, but mules are what you want.”
“We heard at St. Louis that the cholera was here, and at St. Joseph,” said Bushrod.
“I reckon what you heard was near about so. That's one reason why we want to pull out of here as soon as we can. When the first man died, there was a right lively stampede.” he sucked at his pipe in silence for a moment. “I ain't partial to cholera myself,” he added.
Then he explained with some show of embarrassment that his reckoning at the tavern where he had lodged since his arrival in Independence, was still unpaid, and that he was looking to the brothers to settle it for him.
As evening fell, the open spaces about the town, common and waste, smoked with the fires of a thousand camps. The rolling upland rioted with feverish life, or vibrated with a boisterous cheerfulness, for hope was everywhere. Numberless white-topped wagons gleamed opaquely in the gathering darkness; black figures moved restlessly to and fro about the fires; there was the continual lowing of oxen; now a noisy chorus of men's voices could be heard; then nearer at hand a clear tenor voice took up the words.
“I soon shall be in 'Frisco,
And then I'll look around,
And when I see the gold lumps there,
I'll pick 'em off the ground.
I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys,
I'll drain the rivers dry,
A pocket full of rocks bring home,
So, brothers, don't you cry!”
A hundred men roared out the refrain:
“Oh! California,
That's the land for me!
I'm bound for San Francisco,
With my wash-bowl on my knee!”
The fur trader grinned and nodded over his tin cup of steaming coffee.
“Some of 'em will do their singing out the other side of their mouths before they finish the first five hundred miles; eh, California?”
“I reckon so,” said Rogers, sententiously.
“Stephen, here, tells me you've crossed the mountains?”
Again Rogers contented himself with a brief answer in the affirmative.
“Ever been in the fur trade?” asked Basil.
“No.”
“Oh, aye, just knocking about maybe?”
“Trying mighty hard to make a living,” corrected Rogers shortly.
“That's easy to pick up.”
“The kind I wanted wa'n'..”
“What kind were you looking for?” inquired Basil.
“Something a mighty sight different from what I got out of soldiering and ranching,” responded Rogers.
The fur trader devoted a moment to a close scrutiny of the Californian.
“It don't seem to have agreed with you specially well, for a fact,” he commented drily.
“Come, Basil,” said Stephen, “if you are ready, we'd better go into town before it gets any later.”
They found the town alive with the unwonted traffic of that season. Before the warehouses and stores, which for years past had outfitted the Santa Fe traders and the great fur companies, freight wagons from the river landings or from St. Louis were still discharging their loads. There were other wagons from the country about, each drawn by its six or eight oxen or mules, and laden with flour, pork, and farm produce; and from the distant trading posts were still other wagons, loaded with bales of beaver and buffalo robes. The teams blocked the street, and their drivers swore hoarsely at each other; and the crowds showered them with advice.
In the stores with their barbaric display of coloured cloths, blankets, and beads, and their stacks of rifles, an army might have been equipped and armed. In and out the crowds came and went, buying and trading with a feverish haste. In the stock-yards—which seemed to be everywhere—by lantern light, men bargained for teams. There was the slow drawl of the Southerner; the nasal twang of the Yankee; the French of dark-skinned Canadian voyagers; the Spanish of swarthy Mexican packers; the frank and loudly expressed wonder of the men of the frontier, teamsters, and trappers, at the sudden invasion of their trading centre.
Basil's reckoning at the tavern was settled, and the fur trader shouldered his pack and rifle, and they again sought the street.
“We'll go back to camp by a nearer way,” said he, and he led them down a narrow alley. Here a rapidly driven wagon caused them to draw to one side. A negro was driving the team of mules, and following him came a two-wheeled cart. In it were two men, one of whom held a lantern in his lap. In the light it gave they could see that the handles of a pick and shovel protruded from between his knees. His companion rocked drunkenly at his side.
Basil started back with an oath.
“The cholera!” he cried.
They were bearing a body to a grave on the plains, beyond the town and the camps of the gold-seekers.
MR. TUCKER took the south road out of Benson, his belief being that the runaways would drive across the State to Indiana. Events proved him so far right in this conjecture that he dined at the tavern where they had breakfasted, and supped where they had dined. Then, since they had gone on presumedly in the direction of Columbus, he mounted to his seat again and urged the fractious mare forward at the best pace which the condition of the roads rendered safe. He himself was now on the verge of exhaustion; and his desire to be revenged on the fugitives, alone sustained him; it was nothing that he ached in every bone and muscle, or that his old joints had stiffened so that as he swung forward over the rutted road, or splashed through mud-holes, he was tossed and jolted from side to side quite lacking the power to protect or save himself.
The bitter sense of shame never left him; and with each weary mile the wish to be avenged for the monstrous evil he was suffering grew in his sodden brain. Yet as darkness closed about him, between the paroxysms of his rage, he thought miserably enough of his own comfortable tavern bar, filled as he knew it must be with the pleasant odour of tobacco smoke—that soft familiar haze through which for thirty years he had looked each night. He thought of the long rows of bottles on the shelves back of the deal bar, and of what they held; of the open fireplace with its warmth and cheer, which Jim had heaped with great logs. There was something inspiring and of high domestic virtue even in the reek of the sperm oil in the brass lamps; indeed, there was not a single memory which his mind fed upon, that he would have had changed in the minutest particular, or that did not add to the wretchedness of his present plight.
He thought of the excellent and thirsty company that was gathering there, and the best company was always thirsty. He thought tenderly of the little cherished peculiarities of each of his cronies; of Mr. Harden the undertaker, and the accurate information he was always ready to impart touching the ravages of sickness and death in the county; of Mayor Kirby, and Squire Riley, and the argument on certain mooted points of constitutional law they had been carrying on almost nightly, for more years than he could remember; and which had become so intricate that these distinguished opponents were as often as not astonished to find themselves on the wrong side of the question, each upholding the opinions of the other with a most embarrassing force and logic; he thought of Mr. Bently, the postmaster, and his interesting political reminiscences, the chiefest gem being the narrative of his meeting with Andrew Jackson, and the wealth of whose impressions concerning that remarkable man—which might be said to have compounded themselves most industriously—now bore no relation whatever to the actual time which the victor of New Orleans had devoted to Mr. Bently's case, generally supposed to have been the Benson post-office. He thought of Colonel Sharp, stately but condescending, and his agreeable conversation embellished as it was by classical quotations, which never failed to carry a sense of conviction and fullness to the mental stomach: of the British bullet he had brought away from the disastrous fight at Fallen Timbers, but which no surgeon's probe had ever been able to locate, and concerning the outrageous behaviour of which Mr. Tucker was expected to show daily the keenest interest, since the most subtle change in the weather, a rise or fall in the temperature, a shift in the wind, affected this piece of lead in the most singular manner, enabling it, so the colonel stoutly averred, to travel up and down his leg between the knee and thigh quite at its own pleasure, but much to his discomfort.
Probably they were all at the tavern even now; and here was he, wet and wretched, with a cold wind and a yet colder rain beating in his face, miles and miles away!
Then at last, out of the darkness and mist and the falling rain, down the waste of muddy roads, and far across the desolate fields, one by one the lights of the capitol city blinked at him. He drove up High Street, past the Niel House, for he was prejudiced against so pretentious an establishment; and turning down a side street drew up in front of a small frame building, which a creaking sign announced to be Roebuck's Tavern.
Roebuck was an old friend, though they had not met in years; and it was Roebuck himself, who, hearing the rattle of wheels before his door, hurried out from the bar, lantern in hand, to bid his guest welcome. He was a burly figure of a man, florid of face, but bland and smiling.
“John,” cried Mr. Tucker weakly, “John, I wonder if you'll know me!”
“Know you?” swinging up the lantern. “Know you?” scrutinizing doubtfully the limp figure in the buggy. “Why, God bless me—it's Tucker, of the Red Brick at Benson!”
He seized Tucker's cold fingers in a friendly grasp, and fell to bawling for his hostler. When the latter appeared, he assisted his friend to alight, and bore him indoors.
“Why, man, you're wet to the skin!” he cried. “You'll be after having something to eat, a drop to drink, and a pipe.”
“A dish of licker right now, if you please, John,” said Tucker, turning his eyes in the direction of the bar; and though he doubted if Roebuck would have anything to tell him, he made his inquiries concerning the runaways. Roebuck nodded.
“They stopped here for supper. Gibbs I knowed by sight, but his lady was a stranger to me.”
“Where are they now?” cried Tucker fiercely. “Here?”
“Nay, man, they only stopped for supper, as I told you. When they were leaving they asked me about the road to Washington in Fayette County; but they'll have to stop for the night on the way; their team wa'n'. good for ten miles more when they drove away from here.”
Mr. Tucker groaned aloud. “I'd keep on after them, but I ain't fit, John,” he said.
“You do look beat,” agreed his friend.
“I been after them since early morning,” said Tucker.
“Your daughter, maybe?”
“My wife,” answered Tucker briefly.
“You don't tell me!” cried Roebuck. “Let's see, it was your first wife I knowed, wa'n'. it?”
“My second,” said Tucker. “Sarah.”
“So it was. I mind now that was her name.”
“A good woman,” said Tucker, and said no more.
Presently, however, when he had eaten, and his eating included much drinking, they established themselves for privacy's sake in the tavern parlour near a small table, where as the night wore on, there was a steady accumulation of empty bottles, “Dead soldiers,” Roebuck called them.
It was then that Tucker poured the narrative of his wrongs into the listening ear of his ancient friend.
“I mind now I heard of your second wife's death, and that you'd married again,” said Roebuck, when he had finished.
“It was once too often, John,” said Tucker sadly. “I know it now though I didn't think so then. She was a tidy-looking girl when I carried her home to the Red Brick.”
“She's an uncommon fine looker yet,” Roebuck assured him.
“She is,” agreed Tucker. “I seen her the first time at her father's farm, I'd gone there to buy grain. Only to buy grain, mind you; I had no more idea of marrying again than nothing at all; but being married once makes a man bold, and I allow being married twice makes him downright reckless; so while old Tom Gough, her father—”
“I knowed him,” said Roebuck, interrupting him. “One eye missing,” he added, wishing to establish Mr. Gough's identity beyond peradventure.
“Fourth of July,” said Tucker. “Breach of his rifle blowed out.”
“That's him,” said Roebuck nodding. “Go on—old Tom Gough—”
“Went down to the barn to hook up,” said Tucker, resuming his narrative, “you see he wanted to show me his crops, I was intending buying in the field, and he left me setting on his front porch where I could see her through the hall whisking about helping her mother at the back of the house. Watching her I got so lonely that presently I called to her to come out where I was, and she called back that there was more between us than the house. 'More than the house between us,' says I, 'perhaps you mean a man.' 'Not a man,' says she, 'but I don't know as I fancy your looks, Mr. Tucker.' 'The liking of looks,' says I, 'is a matter of habit. Give me time and perhaps you'll like such looks as I have well enough.' That,” added Mr. Tucker savagely, “was the beginning.”
“And you married her,” said Roebuck.
“Damn her, I did,” said Tucker.
“Trouble from the start?” asked Roebuck.
“No, we got along satisfactory, you might say, with now and then a spat as is to be expected, and which signifies little enough.”
“Little enough surely,” agreed Roebuck.
“And then along came this scalawag Gibbs.”
“One man's as good as another until the other heaves into sight, I've noticed that,” observed Roebuck.
“Exactly,” said Tucker moodily.
Mr. Tucker left Columbus at dawn the next day, and in a pouring rain, which rendered the roads all but impassible.
The runaways kept their lead of him, and again he dined where they had breakfasted and supped where they had dined. This brought him to Washington. He followed them to Leesburg, almost due south, and he feared they were directing their course to some river point. At Leesburg, however, they turned north again taking the Wilmington Pike. He was now convinced that Gibbs had in mind reaching some station on the Little Miama railroad, and felt that if he was to overtake them he must do so that day.
Just beyond Wilmington where they had stopped at a cross-road blacksmith shop, the runaways caught their first sight of Mr. Tucker, who like a battered fate, toiled into view. They had scarcely reckoned on the old tavernkeeper showing such tenacity of purpose; indeed, he was within a hundred yards of them, when Gibbs happening to glance back up the road, descried the fractious mare, urged on by the injured husband, charging down upon them, and at a speed, which had this backward glance of his been delayed another moment would have brought the chase to a conclusion of some sort then and there. With a muttered oath he tossed a handful of change to the smith who had just replaced the shoe one of the bays had cast, and lashed his horses with the whip. Yet prompt as their flight was, he heard Tucker call, bidding him stop.
First the mare gained slowly inch by inch. Then the bays worked ahead. But they in their turn lost ground and the mare gained on them once more, until Mr. Tucker's voice could be heard again. He was calling to them to stop or take the consequences; but they did not stop and there were no consequences; for the bays quickly recovered their lead.
Gibbs stood in no actual fear of the old tavernkeeper, but he felt that under the circumstances a meeting with him would have its disagreeable features; and to do him justice, he was not lacking in the wish to spare the woman at his side the distress of such an interview.
The bays now drew steadily ahead, and Tucker dropped back until a good quarter of a mile separated him from the pair in the buggy; this grew to half a mile—three-quarters—though he plied the whip with desperate energy.
Suddenly he was surprised to see the bays slow down to a walk, but a moment later he realized what the difficulty was. They were approaching a ford. He had already experienced both difficulty and danger in fording swollen streams; perhaps this one would force the runaways to turn and face him. He slipped the quilt from about the pistols with one hand while he guided his horse with the other, for he had caught the glint of the angry current where it ran level with the bank, sending a placid stretch of dirty yellow water down the road to meet the fugitives. An instant later the bays splashed into this.
Gibbs drew in his horses. He had no intention of attempting the ford.
“I am sorry,” he said to his companion, “but we shall have to meet him here, the ford is not safe.”
Tucker saw the bays come to a stand, and shaking with excitement and rage, snatched up one of the pistols and sought to cock it; but his fingers were numb with cold, the lock rusted and stiff, and he could not start the hammer. He put the reins between his knees, and took both hands to the task. The hammer rose slowly from the cap. Then suddenly his fingers seemed to lose all power and strength, the hammer fell, the piece exploded.
When the smoke that for a moment enveloped him cleared away, he saw that Gibbs had changed his mind about waiting for him to come up. The bays were struggling in midstream, and when he reached the ford were just emerging on the other bank. He reined in his horse and considered. The stream had an ugly look. It was quite narrow, however, and he could see plainly where the wheels of the buggy had left their impress on the soft bank opposite. But his fury got the better of a constitutional timidity that usually turned him back from any hazardous undertaking. He touched the mare sharply with the whip; she started forward; and then as she felt the water deepen about her, flung back. He jerked her round savagely, and she plunged forward once more; but when she felt the force of the current, veered sharply, overturning the buggy. Tucker was pitched headlong from his seat. He gained a footing, but the water was waist deep, and the current instantly twisted his feet from under him, and he was rolled over and over like a cork. To have extricated himself would have been an easy task for a strong swimmer; but Mr. Tucker was not a strong swimmer. The current was sweeping him toward the opposite shore, and perhaps safety; but he was entirely possessed by the confused idea that he must recover his horse, which, rid of its master had kicked itself free of buggy and harness, and was now galloping down the road toward Wilmington.
He put his might against the current's might. It swept him further and further away from the ford. Splinters and fragments of the wrecked buggy floated after him. He gave up all idea of regaining the Wilmington shore. He wondered desperately if Gibbs had not seen the accident, and if he would let him go to his death in that flood of rushing muddy water without an effort to save him; but Gibbs had passed about a turn in the road, and knew nothing of the tragedy that was being enacted so close at hand.
He snatched at the drooping boughs of willows and elms where they trailed about him in the water, but though his fingers touched them again and again, he lacked the power to retain his hold upon them. The cold was numbing him; his arms and legs had the weight of lead. Once he sank—then his dripping bald head, white scared face, and starting eyes appeared, and the fight for life went on. Twice he sank—and again he came to the surface, choking, strangling, his old face purple. A third time he sank—but this time he did not reappear.