THE letters which the brothers and Walsh had written at Fort Laramie, and which they had entrusted to a party of returning emigrants, were the last that reached the town of Benson. They were poured over in secret; and afterward Colonel Sharp was permitted to print in thePioneersuch descriptive passages as were deemed of general public interest.
They marked the end of what had seemed as permanent as anything can seem in this world; and all that remained in record of what three men in their varying ways had counted of supreme worth, was the yellowing paper with the many seals and the words that meant so little or so much.
One month, then two, then three, dragged by in silence; a silence which Virginia, and Jane, and Anna, bore with differing degrees of fear and uncertainty, as they waited from day to day for some sign from the gold-seekers; but no word came. The trail and the campfire with the love that watched beside them had spoken for the last time.
Each day Virginia with Jane, from the white porch of the farmhouse, anticipated the coming of the north bound stage which carried the western mails. They heard it with its squeaking brake block hard set against the wheels the moment it began the long descent of Landray's Hill; they watched it with anxious glances as it came careening into sight, tossed and troubled in the ruts of the Little River road; and their eyes, now filled with a world of hope and yearning, followed it until it was lost in the depths of the covered bridge at the foot of Main Street.
Sam West, sometimes dusty, and sometimes muddy—for they would not let him start for town until they saw the last of the coach since they found some comfort in sending him off post-haste, and in bidding him ride hard, and above all things be sure and bring back the letters—would each day present his honest red face at the little square window in the post-office, with a cheerful, “Anything to-day, Mr. Bently?” And Mr. Bendy, who knew there was nothing for him would answer, “No, I think not, Sam, but I won't be sure; just wait a minute and I'll look.” And he would search through the letters only to lay them down with a regretful shake of the head. “I am sorry, Sam, but there don't seem to be as much as the scratch of a pen,” he would say.
At first, Sam, by a variety of ingenious theories strove to explain away the repetition of this tragic fact; then theories being exhausted, he fixed his faith for a time on the inherent weakness of human nature.
“I didn't think it of Stephen Landray—I vow I didn't! Looks like out of sight out of mind, don't it? Well, I'm dummed!” However, the cynic's mood endured but briefly. “I wish she wouldn't send me,” he told the postmaster one rainy day late in September. “I'd give a good deal not to have to go back and tell her there's nothing; why don't he write; what's to hinder him, anyway?”
“I don't know what's to hinder, Sam, but something is a-hinder-ing,” said Mr. Bently.
“Mighty singular; ain't it?” and Sam meditated in silence for a moment. “Do you reckon anything's wrong with them?” he asked, dropping his voice to a confidential whisper. He could never quite rid himself of the conviction that the postmaster, with all those letters, must have a means of knowing.
“I hope not; I'd hate to think that,” said Mr. Bently.
“You don't reckon the letters could be lost?” Sam ventured hesitatingly, for to him the question somehow seemed to argue lack of faith in Mr. Bently's official ability.
“That might happen, Sam; I won't say it is at all likely; still it might happen.”
“Can I tell her that, Mr. Bently, that you said so? I got to tell her something; she just listens to any fool thing I say, and turns back into the house without a word except a 'Thank you, Sam.' She's got to stop sending me, or I'll quit the place! It don't make no difference if Stephen Landray did tell me he wanted me to stay on. He ain't acting right, not letting her know where he's at.”
“I am afraid the boys made a big mistake,” said Mr. Bently. “They was well fixed here.”
“They was indeed,” agreed Sam. “Say, would you mind looking at them letters again to make sure, Mr. Bently? No? Don't it beat all why she don't hear from him! Well, I must be getting along, she's waiting for me. You think there is some sort of a slim chance that the letters are lost? It will be a comfort for them to think that. Indians, maybe?”
“No, I wouldn't say a word about Indians, Sam,” objected Mr. Bently hastily.
“Well, then, they are just lost, you reckon.”
“That may be, Sam, I don't say it's so, but the western mails are very oncertain. They probably had to give their letters to some party that was coming East, and they may have lost them.”
“Then I'd like to put my hands on the cuss that done it! I'd make him jump clean out of his skin to get shut of me.”
The honest fellow galloped back to the farm through the mud, and in the face of a cold rain that drenched him to the skin. It was early candle-light when he entered the lane, and he walked his horse up the strip of soggy turf while he meditated on what he should tell Mrs. Landray. The storm had driven her from the porch, but as he turned the corner of the house on his way to the barn he saw her face at the library window, and merely shook his head.
When he had stabled and fed his horse he hurried into the kitchen. Martha, his wife, met him with a look of inquiry on her broad, good-natured face.
“No letters?” she asked, and he answered her with her own words, “No letters.”
“There's a drink of brandy for you, Sam,” she said. “Mrs. Landray wanted you should have it.”
Sam stalked to the table and emptied the glass at a swallow.
“Best French spirits! The Landrays always was gentlemen when it came to their drinks.”
“We are expecting things, we are,” said his wife. “You're to be ready to go into town after supper for the doctor, if he's wanted.”
In the dining-room with its dark walnut wainscoating, doubly sombre in the half light of the flickering candles that burnt on the mantel, Virginia watched and waited alone. No sound came from the room above; silence filled the house with a hush that was like expectation. But a moment before she had heard Martha moving to and fro; a chair had been pushed across the floor; and she had heard the sound of voices. She had listened intently but the words they spoke had been indistinguishable; perhaps Jane was resting more quietly now.
An hour had elapsed since Sam had rattled out of the yard in the covered cart, the beat of his horse's hoofs on the spongy earth soon dying away in the distance. He had been dispatched in urgent haste into town to bring Dr. Harrison.
Meanwhile Martha had the care of the sick woman; for Virginia had no heart to go near her. If she should be needed, or if Jane asked for her, then she would go; but not unless. The situation with its hope and uncertainty baffled her usually ready courage; she could only think of that boyish husband, for so Jane described him, and his absence and silence. Why had he gone—he of all men? What fitness had he, with his impractical Latin and Greek, for the hard actualities of the plains?
From her seat before the fire, she heard the sullen insistent rush of the wind outside; and at intervals the dull surging echoes the wooded heights of Landray's Hill gave to the storm. They had roared among those oaks for perhaps a thousand years, as now, when the grey clouds and slanted mists of the equinox were tossed and twisted in the face of the night. She rested her cheek in the palm of her hand; she heard the fall of the rain in a lull of the storm; and again rising out of the silence, the wind, as it roared on the hill and sweeping nearer beat against the shuttered windows high up in the gable of the old stone mill: then it dribbled and died away on the brown meadow land of the Little River bottom.
Jane was quite happy; how happy, Virginia had only her woman's instinct to tell her; she had talked incessantly all day of the future when her husband should have returned. But what if he did not return, what was in store for her then? This doubt now took possession of Virginia's fancy, for her own hope had crumbled; perhaps it was only the night, the loneliness; perhaps later when all was over, her courage would come back; and then there was the morrow, it might bring the looked-for letters; it surely would, she had waited patiently; but now—now she could endure no longer.
Presently disturbing her revery the brass knocker on the front door sounded discordantly. She rose hurriedly, and picking up a candle hastened out into the hall to admit Dr. Harrison; but she admitted more than the doctor; for there in the portly physician's shadow, bowing and smiling, not quite diffident and not quite confident, stood young Jacob Benson.
The doctor was saying as Virginia opened the door, “So it was you, Jacob; we heard your horse floundering through the mud after us all the way out from town and wondered who it was.”
“Yes, it was I, doctor,” but Benson looked past him to Virginia, who stood in the doorway shading the light she held with one hand. There was a brief silence; the doctor seemed to smile behind the turned-up collar of his great coat. The lawyer spoke first.
“I trust you are not ill, Mrs. Landray?” he said.
“I? Oh, no, Mr. Benson—pray come in.”
The doctor grinned at Virginia, who gave him a slightly embarrassed glance; and Benson noting it, felt somehow that he was in the way; yet he followed the physician into the hall and closed the door. In the library, Dr. Harrison promptly divested himself of his outer coat and fell to warming his hands before the fire. Benson stood at a little distance fingering the rim of his hat, and wondering who was ill since it was not Virginia.
“You must have had a very disagreeable ride, doctor,” Virginia was saying.
“I'll leave Jacob to speak of that; he couldn't have enjoyed it any more than I did.” He smiled again; then picking up his case of medicines he quitted the room.
“Won't you come nearer the fire, Mr. Benson?” said Virginia; her words were civil enough, but there was the old hostility in her manner, which Benson had never been able to explain.
“I rather fear I've chosen a poor time for my call,” he observed.
“If it is to see Mrs. Walsh—”
“It is to see Mrs. Walsh,” he replied.
“She is not well.”
“I'm very sorry. It's nothing serious, I hope?” he said.
He drew forward a chair, and seated himself with no little composure before the fire.
“I am not detaining you?” he said suddenly, half rising.
“No, I think not; Martha is with her.”
He wondered vaguely at her reticence regarding Jane.
“There's a good deal of sickness,” he said, as one presenting a valuable fact for her consideration.
“So I hear.”
“I fear her affairs are in a rather bad way,” he continued, suddenly recalled to the ostensible purpose of his visit.
“You have heard from her husband's brother then?” said Virginia quickly.
“Not from him personally, but from a lawyer in New York for whom I occasionally transact business here.”
“Oh!” and Virginia waited for him to go on.
“I gather that this brother of Walsh's is entirely irresponsible. In the first place his business did not fail; he disposed of it at a remunerative figure.”
“And the money which was left for Jane is lost?” asked Virginia.
“That seems to be the case. In fact Walsh has himself sailed for California.”
They were silent. Benson had said all there was to say, yet he made no move to go. That he had not seen Mrs. Walsh did not matter since the real purpose of his drive to the farm had been accomplished. He had seen Virginia; he had lacked the strength to deny himself this perilous joy. Away from her he forgot rebuffs and slights; he remembered only her beauty, the depths of her eyes; the poise of her head; some swift graceful gesture; and he lived in the spell of these things; and the desire, strong and not to be denied, to see her, would assert itself. To be near her was to feel himself ennobled, to thrill with a curious sense of purification; but he was conscious that his feeling for her, which had grown out of a boyish admiration for a woman's beauty that seemed finer and nobler than anything he had known in a woman before, was sweeping him away by imperceptible gradations from all his ideals of conduct and manhood; yet he would have been loath to call this secret ecstasy he knew in her presence, love. In his moments of self-searching he told himself that her indifference more than punished him for the pleasure he derived from being near her; but he expected to suffer; that was something he could not hope to escape.
Virginia moved impatiently.
“I will tell Jane all you have told me, when I think she is able to bear it. It will be a terrible disappointment to her.” Then she shot him a swift glance. “You have not heard from Stephen?” she spoke unsteadily, and to Benson it seemed reluctantly as well.
“Not since he left Fort Laramie. I suppose we can hardly realize the difficulties he encounters in sending his letters East for mailing, here we have every modern convenience; the stage each day—”
Her grave eyes were bent upon his face; she was seeking to determine the depth of his conviction.
“What would you do if it was one you loved who was so strangely silent, who had gone, and from whom you could not hear?” she asked.
He met her glance helplessly.
“Perhaps the letters are lost,” he said at last.
“That's what every one tells me,” she smiled wearily.
“It is not an unreasonable conjecture,” he urged.
“Nothing is unreasonable; but nothing will satisfy me until I hear from him.”
“No, of course not.”
“It was three months ago—three months ago—that I heard last!”
“But consider the difficulties, the distance; I wouldn't give way to—” he did not finish the sentence, for Virginia had risen, and moving swiftly to the window stood with her back to him, looking out into the night.
“Can't you explain his silence? I am dying for some word of comfort—why don't you speak and tell me he is safe!”
“Most assuredly I think he is safe, Mrs. Landray,” said Benson, who had also risen.
“What do you understand by their silence then? I've wanted to ask you,” she turned toward him as she spoke.
Benson fell back a step, and under her steady gaze his face lost colour.
“Why, I—I hope for the best,” he said at last.
“Then you do think this silence means something more than the mere loss of letters—you—” she choked and could not go on, and her hands went up to her white round throat.
“No, no!” he cried hastily. “God forbid that we should think anything but the best for them; we can hardly understand their situation, a thousand things might stand in the way of your hearing.”
Her hands fell at her side.
“You are a man; you should know more of these matters than we women; what are the dangers that they may meet?”
“I don't know. Really, Mrs. Landray, you exaggerate the gravity of their silence. You mustn't give way to your fears,” he said with gentle insistance.
“My pride, my courage, has kept me up till now, in Jane's presence and in Anna's; perhaps because they were weak too, weak and helpless as only women can be; but you are a man, and it makes no difference to you!”
“Pardon me, it makes every difference to me; if you mean by that, this fear you have that some harm has come to them. I regard your husband as my best friend,” his voice shook with real feeling. “He is one of the few men to whom I am sincerely attached. Of course, I grant it is impossible that I should feel this silence as deeply as you feel it—”
“Yet you urged him to go!”
“I—Mrs. Landray? Surely you cannot think that!”
“You told me so.”
Benson flushed hotly at her words. “Oh,” he said coldly and resentfully. “This accounts for a good deal I was at a loss to explain.”
“You mean—”
“Your quite evident dislike for me.”
“Well, was not that enough to make me hate you?” she cried fiercely. She was very beautiful in her wrath, as she stood before him drawn up to her fullest height, her head thrown back, and the quick colour coming and going on her face.
“It is very unworthy of you,” he said indignantly. “To hold this against me when I had nothing at all to do with his venture.”
“But you told me in the lane that day that he must go—”
“Pardon me, I told you he could not honourably withdraw.” It was plain that he was shaken by her words and manner. “I warned him in the first instance that he must be careful or he would become committed; I warned him repeatedly. Frankly, I thought the venture singularly ill-advised and rash. I told him so.”
“He owed a higher duty to me than to any one else! What does money count for beside my love? I have endured everything that a woman can endure, since he left; I have been a prey to every imaginable fear—”
“I am very unfortunate in that I have earned your dislike. I shall never cease to regret that,” he said at last, furious with himself that he should have harboured a moment's resentment against her, unjust as he felt her to be in her attitude toward him.
While he was speaking he had slipped his hand into an inner pocket of his coat where his fingers closed over a letter. He debated whether or not he should show it to Virginia.
“What is there to think, Mrs. Landray, but that he is safe and well wherever he is?” he said, after the lapse of a moment.
“Oh, I don't know, but why are there no letters? If we could only hear from them!”
“The letters will come if you will only have patience,” he said.
“Patience!” and she made him a scornful gesture.
Benson drew the letter from his pocket. “Of course it was quite unnecessary, and I can only explain it on the score of my sincere regard for Stephen—” he hesitated.
“A letter! It is from Stephen!” she cried.
“No, I only wish it were; but it is from the commandant at Fort Laramie. I wrote him last month. I thought since we were not hearing from them—my dear Mrs. Landray, you need not be alarmed,” for Virginia had grown white, and had uttered a startled exclamation. “This is the reply to my letter, I received it to-day.”
“May I read it?” she asked breathlessly.
“To be sure;” and he handed her the letter.
“Oh, thank you—but why did you not tell me before?” she added reproachfully. She did not wait for him to answer, she was already devouring the letter with eager eyes.
“You see he says he remembers the party perfectly, and he speaks of them as in excellent health. That's very encouraging, is it not?” He had feared she might ask him why he had written to Fort Laramie. His motive he would have found difficult to explain even to himself.
She finished reading the letter. “May I keep it?” she asked.
“Certainly, Mrs. Landray.”
“Oh, Mr. Benson, thank you so much for what you have done!” and she held out her hand.
He had passed into her confidence; and his heart throbbed with a sudden intoxication that was new and strange. But he still feared the questions she might ask, and turned reluctantly to the door.
“I thought the letter very encouraging,” he murmured.
“Must you go?”
“Yes, it is quite late.”
0151
She followed him into the hall, eager now to make amends for all her former unkindness.
“You have made me very happy, Mr. Benson, and it was so kind of you to come out through all this rain. I don't know how you thought to write! It seems a very natural thing to have done. It's not like hearing from him, but it is such a comfort to know that he was well!”
“You will hear from Stephen when he reaches Salt Lake City,” he assured her confidently. “Good-night, Mrs. Landray.”
He threw open the door and a sudden gust of mingled rain and wind assailed him. Apparently Virginia did not hear another door that was opened and closed somewhere in the silent house, but Benson did; and he was quite sure he caught the weak fretful cry of a new-born child. A look of sudden intelligence crossed his face; he blushed furiously as he hurried away.
“I should have known! Well, I guess I've plenty to learn, and especially about women!” he murmured.
TWO men had built a fire beside a boulder that half filled the narrow pass, and with their feet toward the cold ashes of this fire, still slept in the friendly shelter of the rock.
To the west the pass broadened, forming a miniature valley, where a partially dry watercourse circled about the base of the cliff; on the steep hillside above, stunted pines clung among the masses of rocks. The valley supported a scanty growth of coarse grass, and here two gaunt mules fed and shivered in the half light. Shadows filled the pass, but high above in the cloudless sky the birds sang; and long stretches of purple and gold and orange rested on the mountain side.
At last one of the sleepers rose stiffly from among his blankets and looked about him; then with a stick he searched the remains of the camp-fire until deep down in the ashes he discovered a live coal, he added some dry grass and an armful of fuel, and fanned the spark into a blaze, then he gravely took a chew of tobacco.
The builder of the fire was a lank, loose-jointed man of thirty, with a face disfigured by a ragged red beard of many days growth; his skin was sallow and his hair sun bleached.
As it had been dusk when he went into camp the night before, he now inspected his surroundings with mild incurious eyes. He seemed quite emotionless, to accept their forbidding aspect with a certain languid indifference, that was almost weariness; and yet with an inward secret satisfaction since they were as bad as he had anticipated; lastly his glance sought the ground and the figure of the sleeping man.
Then he went slowly up the pass and down into the dry bed of the stream and paused beside a muddy pool; he had been drawn thither by some consideration of personal cleanliness, but the pool did not tempt him, for he shook his head.
“No, I reckon not, it's bad enough inside,” he drawled softly; and he went back to the camp, where after making choice of what he knew to be a vulnerable spot, he gently kicked his companion.
“Get up, Jim!” he said, as the sleeper moved. “It's time we was stirring.”
Jim threw off his blankets and stood erect; he evidently had no lingering prejudice in favour of cleanliness, indeed he had gradually discarded each unessential labour, conserving himself for the hardship of the trail. He did not even go down to the stream as the other had done; he merely put on his hat, and his toilet was complete. His companion took stock of the omission.
“I notice that it ain't your day to wash,” he drawled.
“It ain't,” said the other shortly.
“I reckon it's a mortifying oversight to that pink skin of yours, Mr. Orphan. I'd rather fancy having you tuck along sweet and clean myself; but your habits is your own—”
“You bet they are.”
His friend surveyed him with a mild jocularity of mien.
“Well, they don't brag none for you, but I reckon maybe you're figuring on taking all of this heah God-forsaken country you can right along with you into California. I certainly am glad it suits you.”
Jim ignored this, and they ate their breakfast in silence.
“You ain't saying much,” observed Jim, as if this was an unwonted occurrence.
“Can't you wait until I thaw out?” demanded his friend with some asperity. “I like to froze last night; give me time; opinions will come to me right lively when the sun crawls up yonder above them rocks.”
He moved leisurely off in the direction of their mules, while Jim stowed away the blankets and cooking utensils in the packs. They were soon in the saddle, their mules limping wearily forward. They had gone half a mile when they crossed the dry bed of the stream; its general course until now had been nearly parallel with their trail.
“This must be the head waters of Flynn's Fork,” said Jim.
“I reckon Flynn was a pretty mean spirited cuss or he would never have named such a dribbling chuck hole after himself,” observed his companion. Then he added, “Perhaps he was killed by the Indians heah about and his friends did the naming; all I got to say is it was a mighty mean advantage to take of a dead man.”
“Thawed out?” inquired his companion.
“Not entirely,” and he lapsed into silence for another half mile.
They had met for the first time on the banks of the Missouri. In the party to which they had then belonged were forty wagons and over a hundred men, representing almost every state in the Union; but the cholera had broken out among them just as they were commencing their journey, and had followed them into the mountains beyond Fort Laramie. Their numbers had dwindled day by day; many died, but many more had turned back. Then their overloaded teams failed them; they had thrown away the bulk of their belongings, but still their stock gave out; for thousands of teams had been before them, and grass was scarce along the line of march. At last, these two, abandoning their wagons and taking two of the best mules remaining to them, set out alone for the land of promise.
At Fort Bridger they had fallen in with a truthful trapper who had told them of a route into Salt Lake by way of the Weber, which he had declared to be practicable for mounted men; he had further drawn them a map of the country, whose accuracy was a source of constant joy to the red-whiskered man, who had himself written in the names of the mountains and rivers.
Jim came from Illinois. All his life had been passed on the frontier, where there was still the mystery and romance of new lands into which men went and from which they sometimes returned with tales of wonder for the credulous; and Jim, a meek and silent lad, had cherished a chilling fear that the last Indian would be killed, and the last beaver trapped before he could quit his home.
He had told his companion, while under the spell of the other's frank confidence concerning himself, that his father had only recently died.
“It was him being so old and all crippled up that held me,” he had said. “Or you bet I'd a been out here long ago. Of course I knew he couldn't last forever, but when he did go, I had such a heap of trouble settling up and selling out, some times I almost wished he hadn't died at all.”
And his friend, bearing in mind this recent bereavement, usually addressed him as “Mr. Orphan.”
After they crossed the dry bed of the stream, the valley narrowed to a pass again; and the jutting rocks seemed almost to touch high above their heads.
The red-whiskered man spoke again in his soft drawl.
“Ain't this the doggondest country? And I was well fixed back yonder in old Missouri. I owned as good a farm as ever lay out doors; right on the river it was, and I was selling rotten fence rails to steamboats at cord wood prices. I certainly wish I was roosting on that old punk pile of mine right now—I do so.”
Jim shrugged his shoulders. “Seems like I've heard of that farm of yours before, maybe it was yesterday,” he said with fine sarcasm.
“Why, you dough-faced son of a gun, I bet there ain't such land in the whole State of Illinoy. Illinoy! I like to bust when I hear a man talk of Illinoy!”
“Like enough,” said Jim stolidly.
The Missourian groaned aloud. “Eight head of mules gone to thunder, and they was good mules, too; two wagons, and a whole raft of other stuff; why, man, we began to chuck away dry-goods, and grub, and lickers, and tools, from the time we crossed the Platte!”
“Well, we wasn't the only one's done it,” retorted Jim.
“No,” said the Missourian, “we wasn't. I ain't complaining, but I want this heah country to know what I think of it; for I don't reckon I'll ever pass this way again—not any!” with emphasis; then he subsided into his usual drawl. “Say, I reckon it's a whole heap nearer hell than any other section of these heah United States.”
He relapsed into silence, and they rode on without speech for another half mile; then the Missourian spoke again, sadly, plaintively.
“I was certainly doing well back yonder. I was making money hand over fist; and like a doggone fool I had to lope off out heah. I had no more gumption than that!”
“Well, this suits me,” said Jim.
“I suspicioned it did; but I allow if any one had a told me a year ago that I'd be tackling a thousand miles of God knows what, with these heah legs of mine hung over a spavined, wind-broke, saddle-galled, caterpiller of a mule, I'd a been fighting mad; but the Lord's with us, Mr. Orphan, He says you mustn't be in any thing of a sweat for riches—and we all certainly ain't. My, what a country! Nary a drop of water fit to drink; nary a stick of timber fit to burn; nary a blade of grass; but I reckon it will get some better when we strike the Mormon country. Ever know anything about the Mormons in Illinoy, Jim?”
Jim shook his head.
The Missourian continued. “I know'd 'em in Missouri before they was run out of the State. It must be a mighty nourishing belief for a man who ain't no ways industrious himself and yet likes to see things going forward, but it must be powerful harassing on the ladies. Still, I reckon it's a lot easier for a dozen ladies to support one man, than for one man to support a dozen ladies. If I was a Mormon, I allow that's the way I would look at it.” He turned to his companion, but Jim's glance was fixed ahead; he was giving no heed to what his friend was saying, but the latter was in no wise discouraged by his lack of interest. “I seen Jo Smith before he was killed; I may say I knowed him slightly.”
“Did you have a hand in that?” asked Jim, and he now displayed a languid interest, but the Missourian shook his head.
“No, you bloodthirsty cuss, and I'm mighty glad I didn't.”
By a glance Jim inquired why.
“Well, you see, there's been a right smart fatality among them that did; considerable many of them has died since. This heah Smith was a prophet; he run the whole doggone shootin' match; he done it by revelation; and no matter what he'd said before, or promised, or sworn to, if he changed his mind, all he done, was to get a new revelation; and in the end it was these heah revelations that soured his dough; a man who got his orders direct from the Lord, people found wa'n'. a good neighbour. It made him too blame arrogant, for one thing.”
They had ascended a long, rocky incline, and had gone down a steep boulder-strewn declivity; now the walls of the pass fell away and they entered a wide valley; it was crescent-shaped, and possibly fifteen miles in length, while its breadth was half that. It was without timber except for a sparse growth which could be distinguished toward the west. Both men knew there would be no water until they reached this timber, for, as they moved along, the level plain became more and more barren, while from under the feet of their mules a fine white dust arose and enveloped them.
Presently the Missourian reined in his mule, and pointed with a long forefinger to something on the ground in front of of him.
“Look heah, Mr. Orphan, what do you make of those there?”
Jim answered with a slightly nettled air.
“Wagon tracks. What did you suppose I'd make of them?”
“Yes, but they are going our way—see where that mule planted a hoof beside yonder bunch of cactus? How do you reckon they got heah? They couldn't have come up the trail we came by; you couldn't drag a wagon through there for the rocks, not to save your neck!”
“That's so!” agreed Jim. “But I reckon there's a way in below.” He glanced over his shoulder. “You can see where their trail runs off to the south.”
“I reckon that's it.” said the Missourian.
It was some hours later when the afternoon was wearing to a close, that the Missourian called his friend's attention to a low hill which rose from the perfectly level plain. As they neared it, two buzzards rose lazily from the summit of this hill; and a grey object, the size of a mongrel dog, fled down its nearest slope and skurried away toward the timber. The Missourian noticed this; nothing escaped his mild, incurious eyes.
“I wonder what's up yonder. Hello! Right smart of a crowd's been heah. How old do you reckon them signs is, Jim?” and he drew in his mule.
Jim scrutinized the ground before he answered.
“Horses this time; ain't it? Maybe they are a week old,” but he unslung the long rifle he carried attached to his saddle; seeing which the Missourian laughed.
“Now, what do you allow to use that on, Jim? Don't you see it ain't Indians? Most of these hosses had their forefeet shod. Emigrants, don't you reckon?”
He pushed back his hat, and leaned languidly forward in his saddle.
“They seem to have been doing right smart cavorting about heah, don't they? Some pretty aimless riding for folks who was going anywhere in particular—no—” slowly, “they certainly seemed pushed for time—these hosses was on the jump. Say, Jim, why do you reckon they was on the jump?” He moved forward a step or two, with his mild eyes still fixed on the ground. “Fact is, they seem to have been riding in a sort of a circle about this heah hill—”
A dark shadow slipped across the sandy plain, and the Missourian glanced up quickly. It was another buzzard; but it was winging its way toward the hill. His glance followed it—it flew straight, with large lazy flappings.
“That bird certainly knows where it's going, and it ain't wasting no time in getting there; what do you reckon's on that hill, Jim?”
Jim moved uneasily in his saddle, but he managed to say with tolerable composure.
“If you're so blame curious, why don't you go see?”
“Well, I'm doggone certain if I left it to you we'd never know.”
“We wouldn't,” the other said positively.
“Well, you hold my mule; I'm going up.” He swung himself out of the saddle, and strode off up the hill. He gained the summit, and paused there, a tall dark figure against the red of the sunset.
“Oh, Jim! Come heah!” he presently called.
“What in blazes do you expect me to do with my mule and yours?” Jim answered angrily.
“Turn them loose, they'll make for the water, it ain't more than a mile or two from heah,” advised the Missourian, with placid good nature. “Bring your gun,” he added, and then he stepped forward a pace, and Jim saw only the top of his battered hat bobbing about.
When Jim joined him he was digging in a great pile of ashes with the charred spoke of a wagon-wheel. At a little distance from him were the remains of numerous mules. The Missourian looked up from his work as Jim approached.
“There was at least three wagons burnt heah; I can tell that by the iron work I've found; but most of their loads must have been carried off, or else they was pretty nearly empty.”
Jim received this information with stolid indifference; had the Missourian called him there to tell him that?
“I wonder why they took the trouble to burn their wagons?” continued the Missourian. “You'd a thought if they had wanted to get shut of them they'd just left them.”
And now Jim's ill-temper mastered him.
“They was probably figuring on some damn fool happening along this way—” he began, but the Missourian cut him short.
“They must have had you in mind then,” he said. “Hold on, Mr. Orphan, can you tell me why these heah parties pulled up to the top of this heah hill?”
“To burn their wagons,” retorted Jim sarcastically. “Ain't that plain?”
“And why did they want to burn their outfit?”
“Because their stock had all give out; that's plain, ain't it?” said Jim promptly.
“Exactly; and the stock gave out the minute the wagons was burnt; but I don't reckon you see anything curious in that,” retorted the Missourian triumphantly.
While they were speaking, he had been pursuing his investigations in a constantly widening circle. Now he stepped quickly toward a shallow ditch the rains had cut in the south slope of the hill. Jim was at his side, and the two men came to a sudden pause on the bank of this ditch.
“I guess it's a bundle of bedding—or clothes—” said Jim nervously, and with a tremor in his voice.
“I reckon there's another guess coming to you,” said the Missourian as he cautiously slipped into the ditch.
“I'd be careful if it was me. Maybe it was the cholera,” cautioned Jim.
“Hell! I never thought of that!” and the Missourian sprang back to the bank. There was silence while they looked into each other's eyes.
“Man, there was five of them!” said the Missourian at last in a hoarse, shocked whisper, and his bearded lips quivered. “I noticed a part of a shovel and a right good pick back by where the wagons was burnt; don't you reckon we could spare the time to heave this heah bank in on top of them—those damn buzzards—”
“Look here, pardner, I'm all for getting out of this. I wouldn't expect any one to bury me if I up and died of the cholera,” said Jim.
“I'm not so doggone sure it was the cholera; hand me that stick, I'm going to find out,” and he slid back into the ditch. He worked in silence with the stick for a moment while Jim watched spellbound, fearing to stay and yet not daring to leave, for their discovery had filled that wide solitude with a sudden chilling horror. “No, this gentleman's got a bullet hole in his head—that ain't the cholera.” There was another pause while the Missourian was busy with the stick; then perspiring but indefatigable he spoke once more.
“Look heah, Jim, right through the heart; you can see where his shirt's all bloody. Me and you have seen enough of cholera to know that ain't the way it takes a man.” The stick was used again. “This heah consumptive looking chap's all shot to pieces; whoever done it made a sieve out of him.” He gained the ditch bank.
“I wish I had a good drink of licker right now,” said Jim weakly.
“Same here,” echoed the Missourian. “Well,” said he, after a moment's reflection, “it ain't a job I hanker for, but I'm going through their pockets. I am going to see who they was and where they come from. You go fetch that pick and shovel; we'll be ready for them in a minute.”
But he was white faced and shaking when his fruitless search was finished. He had found nothing that served to throw any light on the identity of the dead men.
“There ain't the scratch of a pen about any of them; no letters—no papers—no nothing. Somebody's been ahead of me.”
“I wouldn't have did what you just done for five hundred dollars!” declared Jim.
“I wouldn't either—for the money,” said the Missourian. “Give me the pick.”
The two men attacked the bank with feverish energy and their task was soon finished; then the Missourian said:
“Now we'll just take one more look about among those cinders and then we'll get away from heah just as fast as the Lord will let us. I seen places I liked a heap better.”
But the search revealed nothing new.
“Who do you allow done it? Indians?” asked Jim, as they hurried away in the direction their mules had taken.
“Who else would it be?”
“No one else, judging from the way they'd been used. They—”
“Shut up!” cried the Missourian with sudden fierceness, “I ain't likely to forget how they was used! Good God! That's going to stick in my crop to the end of my days, I reckon—don't you rub it in!”
“Well, you done what was white!” said Jim, with unexpected and generous enthusiasm.
But for the rest of that day and far into the night, they could talk and think of nothing else than those dead men in the ditch.