She knew what was in his mind, and said reproachfully:
“You don't like Stephen.”
“No, I don't,” he answered frankly. His tone was one of bitter hostility.
“But why? You always seemed to like him up to the time he enlisted,” said Virginia.
“Didn't that furnish me with sufficient excuse to change in my feelings toward him, what more was needed?” demanded Benson harshly. “He should have remained with you, Virginia, he had no right to enlist; that hedid, was sheer wrong-headedness. We quarrelled over that; at least, I told him what I thought of his conduct, and I suppose he was offended by it.”
“But he was carried away by the enthusiasm of those times. He was only a boy—he became involved before he knew what he was doing, and then it was too late to draw back. Remember, he had all a boy's foolish pride,” she urged gently.
“I offered to take his place if he would stay here with you,” said Benson almost roughly. He wanted her to know just what he would have done for her, he was hungry for approval.
“You offered to take his place?” she said in surprise; yet not quite understanding what he meant by this.
“Yes, I was willing to go in his place. Can't you guess what prompted me to make the offer?”
They were silent for a moment, then Virginia raised her eyes to his, and he met her glance with a look of dumb appeal.
“I thank you as much for what you have sought to do for me, as for what you have actually done, Mr. Benson. If I have seemed ungrateful—”
“If you would let me—” he burst out. “There—forgive me, Virginia, I don't want to offend you. What were we saying? Oh, Stephen—he had as little business to marry as he had to enlist. I'd have prevented that if I could, but I couldn't. His folly was all of a piece, I am angry whenever I think of it.”
“I wonder what he will do when he comes back,” said Virginia.
Benson said nothing. The farm would not have been lost but for
Stephen's selfishness. This, had there been any other lacking, would have given him an excuse to hate the young fellow, and he was ready now to hate all the world.
“It is not too late for him to take up the study of the law again,” suggested Virginia.
“Not too late if he thinks that is what he wants,” said Benson briefly. He went on in a gentler tone, “But why do you worry about him, Virginia, what's the use? He will have his own plans, and you will forgive me, he will prefer them to any plans you can make for him. You know him well enough to know that.”
“But may I not think that you will aid him where you can? That you will interest yourself in his future?”
The lawyer shrugged his shoulders moodily and frowned.
“I told you I have not forgiven him for his selfish ingratitude to you; but, well—I shall probably end by doing whatever you want me to do. Perhaps that was not very generously said. We have gotten away from the land; you are satisfied with the offer, you think you will accept it?”
“You advise me to; do you not?”
He did not answer her directly, but took up his hat from the chair where he had placed it when he entered the room.
“To-morrow, perhaps, I shall bring the deed for you to look over and sign,” he said, as he made ready to take his leave of her.
“But who wishes to buy the land?” asked Virginia.
“Page Stark,” said Benson, turning back into the room. “You probably know that he has always dabbled in cheap lands.”
Page Stark was the old banker's son, a reserved and silent fellow; and Benson had arranged with him to act for him in the purchase of the land. There was no one else whom he could so fully trust to hold his tongue.
“I can't go on with this,” he told himself as he quitted the house, and for the moment he felt that he must abandon the whole project. But when he reached his office he found a telegram on his desk. It was from Southerland, reminding him of the promise he had made that he would be back in Wheeling by the first of the week. It was now Saturday. This moved Benson to a furious anger; he tore up the telegram with swift nervous jerks, and tossed the scraps into his waste-paper basket. “Damn the fool, why does he bother me!” he cried. “Does he suppose I have nothing else to think of! He'll be surprised when I write him that the deal's off.”
But did he dare write Southerland this?
On Monday came another telegram; the Wheeling man was evidently growing restive under the delay. This second telegram threw Benson into something of a panic. Suppose Southerland should come to see Virginia! He had not thought of the possibility of this before, and he realized in spite of the spacious promises he had made himself, that the transaction would have to be brought to a conclusion of some sort; for clearly Southerland was not a man whom it would be safe to ignore.
Benson did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances. He wired, putting him off until the end of the week; which brought an immediate reply. Southerland now wished to know if his offer was accepted; and to this, Benson could only answer in the affirmative.
But even after the deed was drawn up, it lay on his desk for two days; and then it was only the apprehension that Southerland might present himself to Virginia, that induced the lawyer to conclude the purchase.
When he reached Wheeling, and Southerland saw the deed, he was not a little surprised. But he was an excellent man of business himself, in all that the term could imply by the most liberal construction that could be put upon it; and he decided that the smooth-faced lawyer was a sharp hand himself; and made no comment.
IT was an April morning, mild and warm, in the rutted roads, in the pillaged, trampled fields the sassafras and honey-locust had claimed for their abiding place, two armies were drawn up. Between them, skirmishers moved with the brisk rattle of musketry; while at intervals dull echoes woke to flow reverberatingly across the wasted land.
Suddenly the firing ceased. The long line of advancing men in blue halted. The enemy was withdrawing and was rapidly disappearing from view in the direction of Appomattox Court House.
In front of many of the regiments the officers had formed in groups, and from group to group spread the news that the expected battle was not to be fought.
“A white flag,” one would say, and then they would fall to shaking hands, silently, ceremoniously. If there was any doubt expressed, there was the answer ready: “It's so—I tell you it's so! They got it from a staff-officer who said it was so!”
Further afield small parties of men, medical attendants, and stretcher-bearers, were moving to and fro, gathering in the wounded who had fallen on the skirmish line.
At one point, on the edge of a strip of woodland, lounged the members of a company that had been recalled from the front. Their captain had gone down into the woods, fifty yards distant perhaps, to a spring that gushed out of a bank at the foot of an old oak. This captain was Stephen Landray. Having satisfied his thirst he now sat on the trunk of a fallen tree with a battered tin-cup held idly in his hand. There was nothing of the boy left; and in other ways as well, the physical strain, the hardship, and the suffering he had endured had told on him. His skin was dry and sallow and his worn uniform hung loosely to his erect, nervous figure. Now and again his glance sought the men on the edge of the wood. He had seen soldiers resting before in their intervals of inaction, but he realized that there was a difference now; some subtle change had taken place in their mental relation to their surroundings that said as plainly as words—it is over. Yet curiously enough the realization of this seemed not entirely satisfactory. With it had come a sense of loss at the sudden withdrawal of a purpose, that had been all absorbing and to which they had clung tenaciously; but now that the accomplishment of this purpose was immanent they seemed to feel only the loss of what for four years had been the main motive in their lives.
Landray had gone through that very process himself, only he had carried his speculations beyond the immediate present, and into the future. He would go back to Benson to his wife, and to the old ties; and then what? He had said many times that he would be glad enough when the war was over; and yet now that it seemed the general conviction that it was over, he was conscious of no special satisfaction, and he felt neither enthusiasm nor elation; on the contrary he was strangely quiet, strangely repressed. He wondered what he would take with him from his four years of soldiering that would be useful in the struggle he saw before him; he wondered how these thousands of men would be absorbed in the ordinary channels of life. There was a movement among his men, and he glanced again in their direction, and saw that an officer followed by an orderly, had ridden up and was speaking to one of the loungers. The distance was too great for Stephen to hear what was said; suddenly, however, the new-comer swung himself from his saddle, and leaving his horse in charge of his orderly, came striding across the open woodland toward him. He was a pompous red-faced man, middle-aged, but vigorous and sturdy, and dressed in a handsome well-fitting uniform. Landray scrambled to his feet and saluted. His salute was graciously returned by the stranger, who said:
“I see you have a tin-cup, captain—” pausing, and bestowing an instant's scrutiny on the young man. “Would you mind letting me get a drink with it?”
For answer, Stephen stooped and filled his cup and handed it to him. .
“Rather warm for so early in the spring, general,” he said.
“Thanks—eh? Oh, yes, very warm indeed. The season's unusually well advanced.” He sat down on one of the exposed roots of the oak, and removing his hat carefully, polished his bald head with his handkerchief.
Stephen had seated himself on the fallen tree again. The stranger tossed his handkerchief into the crown of his hat, and fixed the latter on his head with a decided rake over one eye; then he looked across at Stephen and smiled, showing a row of white even teeth.
“Well, young man,” he observed briskly, and with an air of pleasant patronage, “I reckon you're beginning to think of the home folks, and I reckon the home folks are beginning to think of you; but maybe there's some one else you're thinking of hardest of all! I guess she'll be glad enough to see you back, eh?”
“That was all settled when I got my first furlough,” said Stephen laughing, “and that was over three years ago.”
“Was it though! Well, I guess we can consider this rumpus at an end; I understand General Grant and General Lee are going to get together and see what can be done to stop the effusion of blood. I hope Grant will be in a complaisant mood, there's never any harm in making it easy for the other fellow to quit.” He paused, and looked the young man over attentively. “Ah—Ohio regiment! An Ohio man yourself, captain?” interrogated the general beaming blandly upon him.
“Yes, born there, and lived there until I enlisted,” answered Stephen.
“What part of the state do you come from?” inquired the general after another brief pause.
“The central part of the state, a little place called Benson.”
“Benson—the devil!” cried his questioner, starting. “I lived there myself once—owned a paper there, in fact.”
“Did you indeed?” said Stephen.
“Yes, sir, I did, and I had a pretty wide acquaintance. Dabbled a bit in politics, too, and knew everybody in the town, and pretty near everybody in the county—what's your name, sir?”
“Landray, Stephen Landray.”
“Landray?” cried the other. “Why, God bless my soul, young man, I knew your father well—we were the same as brothers, for I take it you're Bushrod Landray's son—yes, of course you're Bush-rod Landray's son, for Stephen had no children.”
“Yes, my father was Bushrod Landray,” said Stephen; he wondered who the stranger might be.
“He was one of my most intimate friends, a man I admired immensely. I'm pleased to know you;” and he held out his hand. His delight seemed unbounded, for he wrung Stephen's hand with a hearty good-will. “Well, it is a small world, ain't it? And to think I should meet you here after all these years! Eh, you want to know who I am? Gibbs is my name— General Gibbs of Missouri, formerly of Lyon's staff.” It rolled sonorously from his lips.
“I have heard of you, General Gibbs,” said Stephen.
“I bet you have!” said the general chuckling.
“I mean they have not forgotten you at Benson,” Stephen made haste to say. He was rather embarrassed, however, for he was aware that he had never heard anything of this old friend of his father's that was in any sense creditable; indeed he had not known until that moment that he had been a friend of his father's—but Gibbs himself seemed very sure of that point.
“Of course they ain't!” still chuckling and unabashed. “I usually manage to make myself felt in one way or another—ain't always the best way perhaps, but it's usually warranted to last. Tell me about everybody—your own folks—I love any man by the name of Landray!”
“I've not been home in two years,” said Stephen.
“How's your mother?”
“Didn't you know—but of course you couldn't, she is dead.”
“God bless my soul, you don't tell me! I'm shocked to hear it,” cried Gibbs. “Inexpressibly shocked to hear it, when did it happen?”
“Years ago, she died out in India. She had married again, and had gone there with her husband who was a missionary.”
“You don't tell me!” repeated Gibbs. “And your aunt, Stephen's widow?”
“She is well; or was when I heard from her last.”
“Never married again, eh?” said Gibbs.
“No.”
“Remarkable! but I reckon it wa'n'. for any lack of opportunity, she was a most beautiful woman as I recall her.”
“She is still a very beautiful woman,” said Stephen, but for some reason he did not care to discuss Virginia with Gibbs. He had felt no such reluctance where his own mother was concerned.
“What about Jake Benson? I've sort of lost track of him, we used to exchange occasional letters, but I drifted about a good deal. I was living in Alabama when the war broke out, but I got back to St. Louis in a hurry then, my politics were of the wrong complexion for down South. But what about Jake Benson? I reckon he's gone on piling up the dollars; give him a start and you'll never stop a Yankee doing that.”
“Of course you are not aware that I married his cousin.”
“Didn't know he had any cousin left when I took my wife,” said the general.
“His uncle's daughter, you know,” explained Stephen.
“Oh, yes, of course—Tom Benson's daughter—I recollect he had a daughter. I declare that sort of makes a tie, don't it? But how is Jake? He wa'n'. such a bad fellow as I knew him; he had his notions, that was the worst I ever had to say of him. I used to tell him that all he needed to make a right decent fellow was to limber up some. Well, you must look me up at headquarters, I'd like to show them there the sort of a chap I used to carry around in my arms when he wa'n'. no higher than a walking-stick.”
“If you all ain't using that tin-cup,” said a gentle voice, “will you kindly give it here a minute?” The speaker who had approached unnoticed and now stood at Stephen's elbow, was a lank loose-jointed young man of about Stephen's own age. A sandy stubble that had not known a razor in many days covered his chin and lips, his hair was long and almost swept his shoulders, but his eyes were mild, and in the corners of them lurked a humorous twinkle which softened his savage unkempt appearance, giving him an air of genial burlesque. He was clothed in tattered grey homespun, and halted on one foot as a man will who is footsore. On the damaged member he wore a list slipper, the other foot was encased in a soldier's rough brogan. “I've just been gathered in,” he said, with a slight deprecatory gesture and a pleasant twinkle. “They picked me up along with my whole company. We didn't know anything about the white flag until it was too late. Gentlemen, do you think it's over?”
“Yes,” said Gibbs promptly. “I think it is, the backbone's broken.”
“Well, the stomach's been empty for some time,” murmured the stranger with gentle melancholy. “And it got to us—yes, it certainly got to us bad!” He took the tin-cup Stephen had filled and now extended to him, and gulped down thirsty swallows of water. “Well, I'm glad it's over with, if it is over with,” he said, returning the cup to Stephen. “I done my share of fighting. I've run from you all; and I've run after you all when you were going in that direction.”
“Which happened now and then,” said Gibbs laughing good-naturedly.
“Oh some; but I don't wish to disparage what you've accomplished,” said the stranger, laughing too. “Taking it altogether, I'm satisfied. I don't care if I never see another war.”
Gibbs approved of his attitude, for he commended it highly. “That's the proper spirit! You stood out for your convictions, as long as you could; for it's safe to assume that General Lee is fully convinced of the futility of further resistance.”
“Well, I don't know as I had any convictions; I'm a Utah man myself; and it was just my contrary luck that I happened to be in Texas buying cattle when Mr. Davis and the rest was for going out, and I was asked by an intimate friend which I preferred—being hung or joining the army—he got my answer right off, and I joined.” He meditated for an instant in silence. “I reckon I must have thought they needed just such a soldier as I knew I'd make. But the war's been fought to a finish without any one higher than a corporal ever asking my opinion. Well, I'm glad to get acquainted with you, gentlemen; I been living on what I could just naturally pick up for the past week, and there was mighty little to pick up; but I hear you all have got grub, so I reckon it's a heap worse not to get captured than it is to get captured. I want somebody to set me down with a skillet and a coffee-pot, and leave me alone for a spell with plenty of Yankee groceries to my hand!”
Gibbs and Landray had risen to their feet while he was speaking, and now the three turned back out of the wood.
In the open fields, the long line of halted men were already in motion. They were being withdrawn from the front of what was to have been the Union position. Where they emerged there was considerable confusion. A battery had just come up from the rear, while a regiment recently arrived from the skirmish line had broken ranks and its thirsty members were hurrying down to the spring to fill their canteens. They left the Confederate captain with his men, a sparse handful as wildly tattered and unkempt as himself, with whom the blue-clad soldiers were already sharing the contents of their haversacks. Stephen extricated his company and prepared to march back to the camp he had quitted at four o'clock that morning. For a moment he and Gibbs lingered to speak with the stranger; to commend him to his captors and to wish him well; and then Gibbs turned to Stephen.
“Well, good-bye, Landray,” he said, as he swung himself into his saddle; then he leaned forward in the direction of the young man.
“Now, don't forget—be sure and look me up if you get the chance; I want to see more of you!”
“I will, with pleasure,” answered Stephen heartily, for he meant to see Gibbs again. The latter galloped away With his orderly at his heels.
“Landray!” muttered the Confederate, staring hard at Stephen. The name was strangely familiar—he had known some one once—“Landray!” he repeated, still under his breath, and watched Stephen and his men move briskly off across the field. They were about to disappear from sight behind a clump of trees, when he turned suddenly to one of his guards.
“Call him back!” he cried excitedly. “Tell, him a man by the name of Rogers wants a word with him! You won't? Well, maybe it wa'n'. him.”
STEPHEN was mustered out, and returned to Benson, where having nothing better in prospect he opened a real estate office; but from the very first this feeble enterprise was doomed to failure; and in disgust, at the end of a few weeks, he disposed of the business for a trifling sum to an aimless appearing stranger, who endured for perhaps a month in a small and dirty room at the back of a large gilt sign which read “Thomas Carrington, Successor to Stephen Landray, Real Estate and Insurance. Money to Loan.” The last being the merest fiction, and meant to meet a future contingency; and then Mr. Carrington, no more fortunate than Stephen had been, retired precipitously from business, and was successorless.
It was shortly after his retirement that he chanced to meet Stephen on the street.
“Anything doing, captain?” he asked casually, and with the happy unconcern of a gentleman the stress of whose condition was relieved by a temperament that rendered even failure endurable.
“No,” said Stephen; he was slightly embarrassed, he recalled the trifling sum he had taken in exchange for the fiction of good-will. Glancing furtively at his questioner, he was impressed by the fact that Mr. Carrington was looking the reverse of prosperous, his coat was shiny and the seams showed white in spite of the liberal inking he had given them with the last ink in the office ink-well.
“I didn't know but you might have hit on something. You got out easy, yet not so easy as I did; I was kicked out. Couldn't pay my rent. But I figure I'm saving ten a month; that's better than nothing.” Carrington said with a cheerful twinkle.
“Yes,” agreed Stephen, “that's better than nothing.”
“It only shows up on paper though,” said Carrington. “Now if I could live on paper—”
“Some of my friends are urging me to go into politics,” said Stephen. “They want me to run for county clerk.”
Carrington nodded; he had heard this it seemed.
“If I secure the nomination, I am certain of election. And I may be able to throw something in your way—I should like to,” said Stephen.
“Why?” asked Carrington.
“Well, our first transaction couldn't have been very satisfactory to you.”
“Don't worry about that, captain; bless your heart, I always knew the business wasn't worth a damn. When do you begin your canvass?”
“At once.”
“Say supposing you don't get the nomination?” and Mr. Carrington surveyed him critically. “Young man,” he said, “why don't you pull out of here while you can? Go West. What you want is a place where you can get out and hustle, and fill your lungs with fresh air. Politics! Why, sir, you're wasting time and money. You ain't cut out for that game—not the way they play it here.”
And Stephen remembered this when the nomination he had worked for through all of one hot summer, went to another. In his bitterness, Carrington's words remained with him, repeating themselves over and over again; go West—there he could make a start amid new surroundings, unhampered by the tradition of family riches and position. He broached the subject to Marian, and found her not only willing but anxious to consider some such change.
At this crisis in his fortunes Landray received a letter from Gibbs. The general was now located at a place called Grant City in Kansas; located permanently, he informed Stephen, and in a region destined soon to sustain a great and thriving population. He entreated Stephen not to waste life and energy in the overcrowded East, when he could come West and enjoy the more abundant opportunities offered by a new country. He imagined that Stephen's needs were somewhat similar to his own; and in his case, by all odds, the most urgent of those needs was the need to make money. He was convinced that Grant City was the place for this; he had gone there early—in fact, it appeared that he had actually preceded the town into Kansas; for with his clear vision he had detected the necessity for just such a centre as it was bound to become. It was on the projected line of a projected railroad, it was also the projected county seat of a projected county. It was many things besides; but most of all it was clearly and logically the spot for a town.
This letter gave Stephen what he lacked before, an objective point.
His mind fastened itself upon Grant City. He wrote Gibbs asking for fuller particulars, and that there might be no misconception on the part of the latter, informed him frankly that he would have nothing to invest. Marian discussed the proposed change with him eagerly, and did not attempt to hide her impatience; for she knew that if they went at all it must be soon while the means remained to them, and if they went to Grant City it would not be quite like going to a strange place; General Gibbs would be there; they could count on him to help them where he could; indeed he had intimated that he had an opening already prepared for Stephen if he would only come and take it.
“You must decide quickly,” she urged. “Of course he can't wait for you, he will get some one else.”
“I suppose there is that danger,” said Stephen dubiously. “If it just wasn't for one or two things I shouldn't hesitate, we'd start West to-morrow.”
“Yes, I know—your aunt. But if it is for your good, Stephen.”
“I'll never be able to convince her of that, she just won't believe it; she thinks I should stay here in Benson, where I belong and am known.”
“But what good is there in being known?”
“Little enough, apparently; I'll write Gibbs to-morrow.”
“Don't be over-persuaded, Stephen,” she said, following him to the door. “Your aunt won't want you to go, but remember this does look like an opportunity.”
“I know it does,” he said as he left the house. He admitted to himself that he was terribly anxious, he felt singularly unfit for the struggle that was before him; he had no large adaptability, the power to push himself he was sensible he altogether lacked; but the West was still the West; there, muscle was capital. If his aunt could only be made to understand this; and that she might, he found himself preparing his arguments with such skill as he had. He was still doing this when he walked in on Virginia.
“I've just had a letter from General Gibbs,” he observed, sinking into a chair at her side. “You remember Gibbs, don't you? You know I told you how I met him, and that I saw a good deal of him afterward in Washington. He's gone to a place in Kansas called Grant City; it's a new town—he wants me to join him there.”
“But surely you are not going, Stephen—you have no thought of that?” said Virginia quickly. He realized with a touch of bitterness that much as he might wish it, it could not be otherwise, his purposes and desires would always be at variance with what she would have chosen for him.
“Well, I'm not so sure about that, Aunt Virginia,” he said, smiling moodily.
“What does Marian say?” she asked.
“She is willing enough. She knows I must do something. I've rather made a failure of it here.”
“I suppose if you and Marian have decided that this is the thing for you to do, Stephen, no argument of mine will have any weight with you.”
“I don't want you to feel that way about it; but what am I to do? I haven't any choice. There is nothing that I can get here that you would care to see me take.”
“I don't want you to go West, Stephen,” said Virginia.
“It's not likely that I shall remain there always.”
“If you go, the more successful you are the less likely your return will be.”
“If there was anything for me here, I wouldn't consider it—but there is nothing, and I've very little money left. Gibbs has something definite for me.”
“You'll have to decide for yourself, Stephen,” said Virginia with a touch of weariness. “I don't know what is best for you; you only can settle that point.”
“Well, then, I think it's Grant City,” he answered. “Fact is, I've felt it was Grant City ever since I heard there was such a place. It's too much of a problem for me here.”
“Would you mind if I saw Mr. Benson, and found if he knew of anything?” asked Virginia.
Stephen frowned but the frown cleared itself away almost immediately.
“No,” he answered. “Not if you are careful to let him understand that I don't ask you to, but I don't think he can or will do anything for me; still, if you want to see him, if it will be any satisfaction to you, I'm quite willing.”
Virginia saw Benson the next day, for while she had seemed to accept Stephen's decision, she was determined to keep him near her if she could. .
“He is arranging to go West to General Gibbs. I think I told you once of their meeting,” she said to the lawyer.
Benson remembered and smiled. He was rather amused that Lan-dray should have pinned his faith to Gibbs.
“Can nothing be done for him here, Mr. Benson—I mean will you do nothing? Can't you sec him and discuss matters with him?” she asked.
Benson moved impatiently.
“I don't see what I can do for him now, I wish I did, for your sake, Virginia.”
But there was a notable lack of warmth in what he said that did not escape Virginia.
“Tell me,” she said. “How do you feel about General Gibbs?” Benson smiled.
“I've no doubt if Stephen joins him he will help him in every way he can. There are much worse men than Gibbs.”
It occurred to him that he should feel safer with Stephen removed to a distance; if he stayed in Benson there was always the danger that he might blunder into a knowledge of the advantage he had taken of Virginia.
“And you can do nothing?”
“For Stephen? I fear not, Virginia.”
“Are you not interested in Marian?” she asked.
Benson shrugged his shoulders.
“Perhaps I should regret it; but such ties mean very little to me; and they are meaning less and less all the time.”
“You have changed,” she said almost resentfully. “Once I could come to you feeling that you would do all in your power—”
“You still may,” he interrupted quickly.
“No, it is not as it was. I have not the same confidence.”
He bit his lip.
“Perhaps the change has been in you, Virginia,” he said. “My feeling toward you remains the same—”
“I do not mean that.”
“What is the change you think you see?” he asked curiously. “You are less kind, for one thing.”
“Nonsense, Virginia! You don't mean that. Whatever I can do, whatever I have is yours! You know this—and you have asked so little where you might have asked so much; I would have lifted every burden!”
“You could not; they were a part of my life,” she said quietly. But after she had gone, he fell to wondering if he had changed.
Not quite a year had elapsed since he had bought the land of her, and yet he was finding that his business sense, his inherited taste for a good bargain, was enabling him to invest the proceeds of his fraud to the utmost advantage. He did not seek to justify or excuse himself; his moral perceptions were not weakened in the least; but he was conscious that a hardening process was going on in his own nature. He was less kind—as she had said—more willing to seize on an advantage; less under the influence of his generous impulses.
Stephen heard again from Gibbs, and what the general had to offer became the deciding influence that took him West.
He parted from Virginia regretfully enough, since he was aware that his return to Benson must be uncertain, and he was depressed by this conviction. It was true she was not entirely alone, she had Jane and Harriett, but he felt that in spite of love and gratitude, he had failed miserably in his relation to her.
Yet his spirits rose as he travelled West through the autumn landscape; he seemed to be leaving disappointment, failure, behind; and a larger hope than he had known came to him as the horizon lifted and widened.
They reached Kansas City, where following Gibbs's instruction they lodged at the small hotel from which departed the tri-weekly stage for Grant City. Taking the Saturday's stage they journeyed south and west.
The first day took them through a pleasant settled land dotted with prosperous looking farms; but it was rather in the nature of a shock to Stephen that none of their fellow-travellers in the Concord coach had ever heard of Gibbs or of Grant City. Still the consensus of opinion seemed to be that this was nothing against either Gibbs or Grant City—there might be such a man, and there might be such a town.
The driver, however, proved to be better informed; and from him Stephen gleaned certain facts that went far toward reassuring him. He had been able to secure a seat at his side the second day, he and Marian alone remaining of those who had filled the coach at its start. According to the driver, Grant City was right smart of a place; did he know General Gibbs? Yes, he knew Gibbs—everyone knew Gibbs, he was right smart of a man, a busy bossy sort of a cuss who was always hollering; it was Fourth of July every day in the week and Sunday, too, with him.
He had been very successful, Stephen ventured. Well, yes, the man supposed so, but he only had Gibbs own word for it.
They lapsed into silence after this, but whether or not his informant entirely approved of Gibbs, Stephen was unable to decide. The driver slowly considered Stephen out of the corner of his eye, then he drawled:
“You going to Grant City?”
“Yes.”
“Going to start up in business, maybe?”
“Perhaps.”
“Know Gibbs?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I guess you're all right then.”
“There is a hotel, I suppose?” said Stephen.
His question moved his companion to something like enthusiasm.
“You bet there is—the Metropolitan—Jim Youtsey runs it; it's the best place in three counties to get a square meal of well-cooked vittles!”
“The town is very new?” suggested Stephen.
“As new as a two day's beard,” agreed the driver.
“But a thriving, growing place.”
“A perfect mushroom.”
Just at sundown Stephen caught his first glimpse of Grant City; a huddle of houses on a slight eminence; and as they drew nearer he saw that these houses were mostly unpainted frame structures that straggled along two sides of a dusty country road, their rear doors and back-yards boldly facing the wide-flung prairie.
The coach drew up in front of the largest building in the place. It gave out a pleasant odour as of new pine and clean shavings; across its front was hung a large sign which announced it to be the Metropolitan Hotel.
A tall man in his shirt-sleeves, with a sandy beard, and a quill toothpick held negligently between his teeth, stepped to the coach. Stephen conjectured that this was no less a person than Mr. Jim Youtsey himself.
“Friends of the general's?” he inquired affably.
“Yes,” said Stephen, stepping to the ground.
“The general asked me to keep an eye peeled for you. He's over in the next county, will be back to-morrow if nothing happens—a splendid man! You couldn't have a stronger indorsement, sir, I'm glad to know you, glad to welcome you into our midst!” And Mr. Youtsey shot him a sunny smile over the tip of his toothpick and held out his hand. “Present me to the Madame—Youtsey's my name.”
Stephen did so, and Mr. Youtsey removed his hat with one hand and his toothpick with the other; his hat was returned to his head, and his toothpick to his mouth by a common movement of his two hands, and he led the way toward his hotel.
“What you see, sir, is the newest thing in Kansas. A year ago there was nothing here but sunshine and jack-rabbits.”
He further begged Stephen to particularly note that Grant City was not a cow town; its wealth being derived entirely from the cultivation of the soil; where were the farms? Just scattered about. Yonder was the general's office; and through the falling twilight down the street, Stephen, following the direction of Mr. Youtsey's useful toothpick, was able to distinguish a very small building with a very large sign; indeed the number and size of these signs greatly astonished him, since no building seemed complete without one. Commenting upon this fact, Mr. Youtsey kindly paused to explain that Grant City had assembled itself on the prairie with such haste, and with so little regard for the proper housing of its citizens, that such buildings as had been erected were not only places of residence, but were used as offices and stores as well—hence the signs. Having made this point clear, Mr. Youtsey personally conducted them to their room, still accompanied by his hat and toothpick, with both of which he seemed loath to part.
He left them, and presently a small coloured boy appeared with a pitcher of ice-water, and the information that supper was served. On going down-stairs to the dining-room, they found Mr. Youtsey at the head of a long table at which were seated half a score of men. There immediately followed numerous introductions. Of the ten men, five, Stephen gathered, were in the real estate business; four were recent arrivals like himself who were looking about.
The last to be introduced was a small elderly man with a very red face and a generally dissipated air, whom Mr. Youtsey presented as Dr. Arling.
“I hope you'll find things home-like here, ma'am,” and Mr. Youtsey addressed himself to Marian. “We are shy on ladies, it's strictly a voting population.” Then he permitted his duties as host to absorb him, and when he had seen that his guests were served, he seated himself with a pleasant:
“Any one that hasn't had, just holler!”
Stephen's first impression of Grant City had been distinctly unfavourable, but he said nothing of this to Marian; he felt it would be wiser to wait until he saw Gibbs before he committed himself to an opinion.
He saw Gibbs the next morning; on going down to the hotel office he was welcomed by his friend who fell upon him and fairly embraced him, then he held him at arm's length.
“Well, Landray, I am glad indeed,” he ejaculated.
The general was not less florid than of yore, but his face had a battered look; for the rest, he was sleek and prosperous to the eye.
“They tell me you've brought your wife, Landray—that looks as though you'd come to stay! I'm so sorry my Julia ain't here, but she's visiting friends in St. Louis. What do you think of this year-old child of mine? Something to have accomplished in a twelve month?” and the general patted Stephen affectionately on the back.
Then Stephen must drink with him, and they retired to Mr. Yout-sey's bar accompanied by Dr. Arling.
“This is to success, Landray!” said Gibbs smiling over the rim of his glass, and Stephen smiled and nodded, too; Dr. Arling merely tilted his glass into a toothless cavity and drew the back of his hand across his lips, for as Mr. Youtsey was accustomed to observe, “He shot his slugs without a rest.”
“Another round, Jim!” commanded the doctor.
Mr. Youtsey took the toothpick from between his teeth, he had apparently acquired it along with his clothes when he was dressed, and said affably:
“Ain't you a little early, Doc? You'll have a pair of hard-boiled eyes for breakfast if you keep on.”
“Shove along the drinks, don't keep the gentlemen waiting!” ordered the doctor huskily.
And Mr. Youtsey spun the glasses jingling across the bar.
The breakfast bell sounded a moment or two later, and they left Dr. Arling leaning limply against the bar, while they repaired to the dining-room where Gibbs met Marian, and did the honours with great gallantry.
“Now, my dear lady,” said he, as they rose from the table, his manner breathing benevolence and urbanity, “I am going to take this husband of yours down to my office for a chat and smoke.”
When they reached the street, Landray said:
“Well, general, prosperity seems to be smiling on you.”
“It's grinning from ear to ear; Grant City ain't pretty; architecturally she belongs to the year one—she's about the way Rome was when Remus got himself disliked by jumping over the wall; but it's as good as money in the bank.”
“It seems to offer an inviting field for real estate agents,” said Stephen.
The general laughed.
“Oh, don't let that trouble you, Landray! It's Gibbs's eggs that'll hatch out first, so don't you worry. We'll stand shoulder to shoulder. You haven't any capital? Well, no matter—here brains and character will see you far; and you got both, for you're a Landray.”
They had reached the office by this time, and Gibbs forced his friend into his best chair; he then provided Stephen and himself with cigars, and was ready for business.
“I want you to take right hold, Landray, and look after things,” he said. “I'm going to branch out; I find I can't tie myself down—the office work don't suit me. We're not only going to sell lots, we're going to put up the buildings on them as well—this will be in your department. I'm going to make it my business to keep Grant City before the public. I'll have a weekly paper running here inside of the next thirty days, and I got my eye on a seat in the State Legislature, too; I want to play strong for that, or a worse man may fill it; but you ain't interested in all this yet; naturally you're wanting to know where you come in and what I got to offer you. I'm going to make you the right sort of a proposition here and now, a proposition you can't afford to turn down.”
And Gibbs was rather better than his word, for just twenty-four hours later Stephen was established in his office with a satisfactory salary and an interest in the business as well.
He had been inclined to look upon the town as something of a farce, but he soon decided that in this hasty opinion he had formed, his judgment had been at fault. Men straggled in by stage and prairie schooner; there was a steady demand for lots, indeed the demand was only exceeded by the supply; and he was rather dubious as to the wisdom of the town-site speculators who with the aid of tape line and stakes seemed willing to apportion the greater part of Kansas to the future needs of Grant City.
“They'll overdo it,” he told Gibbs.
“I guess not,” said Gibbs. “You can't really overdo a good thing, and Grant City's the best thing in Kansas. It's getting about that it is, too—the public's waking up to the fact.”
But while Stephen never quite believed in the methods Gibbs seemed to consider so admirable, he saw that the cheap and hastily erected houses they were building, principally on credit, all found tenants the moment they were habitable.
He and Marian lived in one of these houses, one of several that formed an unpainted row that overlooked the dusty Main Street which later when the winter rains set in, became a bog that the citizens—knowing its perils—navigated with caution. It was here that a son was born them, who was christened Stephen Mason Landray.
Gibbs would have had this event celebrated in some public manner; for, as he said, little Stephen was the first native-born citizen of Grant City, but out of consideration for Stephen's wishes in the matter, he compromised by deeding the child a town lot.
“It will probably be worth thousands by the time he comes of age, Landray,” he told the father. “But how is Marian?”
Stephen looked grave.
“Why, she don't seem to rally,” he said.
“What does Dr. Arling say?” asked Gibbs.
“He seems to think she will have her strength back as soon as it gets warmer.”
“To be sure she will, a few mild days will see her up and about. I have all confidence in Arling; I know—I know, his habits are not what you'd look for in a man of his attainments; but it's no use to expect him to be different from what he is.”
Gibbs had established his newspaper, theKansas Epoch, which he conducted with much noise and vigour.
“There's no use my denying it,” he told Stephen, “but I got the editorial faculty. A newspaper in my hands becomes a personal organ in the best sense. I reckon you can see me in every line. I take the responsibility pretty seriously, too. I know you don't just believe in theEpoch, because it don't show a profit in dollars and cents; but the loss in money's a gain in prestige.”
Which was quite true, for Gibbs was the great man locally; an admired and respected presence at Mr. Youtsey's bar. It was the general here, and the general there; the echo of his name constantly filled the ear. He was vain, bustling, ostentatious; the small fry of struggling country newspapers heralded his passing to and fro in the State with much noise; for that fall there had been a hotly contested State election, and Gibbs with an eye single to his own advancement had taken the stump. Even so far away as St. Louis one of the big dailies had chanced to speak of him as “General Gibbs of Kansas,” a tribute to his growing fame which seemed to argue that he had already become almost a national figure. Perhaps it was this divided interest that was responsible for his business methods, for they struck Stephen as being entirely haphazard, nor could he induce him to make any change here.
Mrs. Gibbs had returned to Grant City during the winter fully prepared to make friends with Marian; but Marian conceived a dislike for her which she was at no pains to conceal, and in the end Julia informed Gibbs that Landray's wife was a stuck-up little fool, which seemed to amuse the general immensely.
Stephen felt that it might have been to their advantage had Marian sought to conciliate Mrs. Gibbs, since he did not know how Gibbs himself might be affected; but Gibbs was affected not at all; he commented upon their mutual hostility with characteristic candour.
“God bless 'em! The ladies can't help it, Landray, and it might be worse if they were intimate. Now, my Julia can't carry to Marian any little thing I chance to let drop about you, and Marian can't take up any slighting criticism you may make of me. I don't know but that we have a good deal to be thankful for; anyhow—God bless 'em, let 'em fight it out! It won't upset our friendship. I knew from the first that we were cut out for a business connection; you're long-headed and conservative; I own I'm something of an idealist—my imagination runs away with me. You're the steady hand, and by the time we've talked a scheme over we get together on a pretty sane conclusion.”
To Stephen this was a flattering opinion that he hoped the general might never have cause to reconsider.
Apart from his anxiety concerning Marian, Stephen was on the whole, happy and well content in Grant City. But Marian grew no better; indeed as the summer advanced, he sometimes fancied he noted a change for the worse, though Arling, still the only doctor in the place, pooh-poohed this fear of his.
“Yes, but why don't she get better?” Stephen would demand.
“She will, Landray; give her time. I'm free to say it ain't just a usual case, but there's no organic trouble, she ought to be a well woman.” And he would scuttle off in the direction of Mr. Youtsey's bar, where he could always be found when wanted.
And all this while Grant City seemed to grow and prosper. The huddle of houses increased by the roadside; there were side streets sparsely built upon it is true, but there was the beginning of a perceptible movement in this direction. The place was taking on the semblance of a town.
The stage carried a constantly increasing traffic; the tri-weekly gave place to a daily service; next there was both a midmorning and afternoon stage, but even this failed to entirely meet local needs, for as Mr. Youtsey said, the town was throwing a fifty-inch chest.
There was talk of issuing bonds for what Gibbs called municipal improvements; the town-site speculators clamoured for graded streets and gas, and the general, in theEpoch, demanded a speedy settlement of the vexing question of the county seat. More than this he announced that he would personally make it his business to see that they secured the county seat; and he took himself together with the logic of the situation to the capital there to lobby for the measure; and all this while the wilderness of pegs grew out upon the prairie.
Winter came again and brought a lull to the trafficking; but early in the spring a corps of railroad engineers pitched their camp on the outskirts of the town, and more additions were plotted and more pegs driven to keep pace with the impetus given by this most recent development.
Gibbs was still at Topeka in the matter of the county seat which he had not been able to adjust, since Grant City had a rival that dared to claim this honour for itself, though no one seriously regarded its claim—certainly no one in Grant City, where the town-site speculators ridiculed the idea when it was advanced in their hearing, and Gibbs, in theEpoch, wrote sarcastic editorials that were much admired, and that proved as clearly as pen and ink can prove anything, the county seat must come to Grant City.
But one night after Stephen had gone home to his sick wife, he heard a loud knock at his door, and on going down to answer this summons, found Gibbs, whom he had supposed to be still in Topeka, standing on the threshold.