BENSON was not mistaken. He had achieved a permanent place in Virginia Landray's regard. She had definitely accepted him, and in the exact degree in which he had wished he might be accepted. She came to rely on him as she relied on no one else; his words, his opinions, always on the one momentous subject of Stephen's return, had weight with her. He took her such maps as he could find, and together they followed the course of the gold-seekers. He dilated upon the possible obstacles and difficulties they had encountered, while making light of the dangers. Whatever could account for their silence he dwelt upon and exaggerated; and this in spite of his own growing conviction that Stephen Landray and his companions had gone to their death in that rush across the plains.
“What if she never hears from him?” he asked himself this over and over, not coldly and without calculation, but as one who might be brought face to face with an altered condition.
Virginia was young and beautiful; there would be no dearth of suitors if she were widowed. Yet, could she be made to realize, that for her, Stephen Landray and Stephen Landray's love had ceased to be, in all but memory? There was something horrible and unnatural in the thought that for her, life might cease to have any special meaning beyond passive endurance. If she had been less beautiful; less radiantly youthful; if a casual if compassionate interest had been possible where she was concerned; he might have found something in the nature of compensation in this conception of his as to what her devotion would be; now he saw it only as an unmitigated tragedy. Yet he ended by glorifying her for those very qualities that made him despair most.
He contrasted her with Anna, for whom he was feeling nothing but contempt; a contempt, however, that was not unmixed with pity, for he realized the impermanency of her emotions; she had adjusted herself to a cheerful acceptance of the situation; they would hear from their adventurers in the spring; it was folly to expect letters now that winter had set in, and she was not going to mope.
Benson was constantly irritated by her requests for money; and when he finally refused to yield to them out of simple justice to Virginia, whose interests he felt were threatened by her extravagance, she quietly worsted him by gaining Virginia's sanction to her demands.
It was in vain that he remonstrated with the latter. She listened patiently enough to his explanation, but with an apathy that included all worldly concerns.
He was exasperated and annoyed, since the situation promised to present certain very tangible difficulties. The mill had been a dubious enterprise in the hands of Paxon, the new man. In January he was to have made his second payment, but was unable to do so, and turned back the mill. The brothers had directed that this money be used to take up their note to Mr. Stark; and Benson took up the note himself.
He showed the note to Anna the very next time she came to the office, hoping it would prove an impressive argument in favour of greater economy; but was much chagrined to find that she regarded the matter as settled, now that the note had passed out of Mr. Stark's hands into his.
“But, my dear Mrs. Landray,” he urged, “suppose anything should happen; suppose I should die suddenly; the note would be found among my papers—it might be very inconvenient, you know.”
“But you are not going to die, Mr. Benson,” said Anna cheerfully. “I have just been remarking how well you look,” and she rose reluctantly to go.
“We never know,” said the lawyer, rising with evident alacrity. He followed her to the door. Anna sighed and frowned.
“If only Bush were here, I shouldn't have to bother you; I can manage Bush, but I don't seem able to do so very much with you, Mr. Benson. I wonder why it is?” she turned to him smilingly.
“I am fortified by the necessities of the case,” he said.
“You are a very determined character; I don't wonder people have such confidence in you,” she hoped this flattery might move him, but the lawyer merely bowed. “Can't we mortgage something? Bush and Stephen were always doing that.”
“They were almost too successful, Mrs. Landray,” said Benson.
“Well, I shall see Virginia,” and Anna sighed again.
“I shall see Virginia, too,” muttered the lawyer, after Anna had taken her leave of him. “The little idiot cares for nothing but money!” and he turned back into his office again.
The house Benson occupied was on the north side of the public square. It was a two story frame structure having an ungenerous porch across the front. Everything about it spoke for a depressing utility, a meagre sufficiency. Its walls were mere husks which enclosed large barren rooms, which successfully resisted all attempts at adornment. A narrow strip of turf separated the house from the sidewalk, this was divided by a gravel walk which led from the gate to the front door; the edges of this path were bordered by whitewashed stones the size of a man's two fists.
Since his father's death, Benson had used the large double parlours as offices; a side door from the rear room, over which his modest sign was displayed, opened on Water Street; and by this door his clients came and went in steadily increasing numbers.
He had few pleasant memories of his boyhood to attach him to the place. His mother had died when he was a child; and his father, who had his own ideas about the rearing of children, had made his up-bringing stern and rigorous; he yet recalled the latter with greater awe than affection; indeed, a certain fear of the old pioneer had followed him into manhood.
He still remembered vividly his first trial; how glancing up from his brief, he had found his father's dark restless eyes fixed upon him; their coldly critical glance had filled him with something very like terror; and when he had spoken his voice faltered, and he had seen the shaven lips curl contemptuously; afterward, his father had said with that frank unsparing candour of his, “I suppose you can't help it that you are a fool, Jacob;” then he had added, “I always thought you took after your mother's folks; none of them ever amounted to much that I heard tell of.” But he had lived to reconsider this hasty judgment; he had seen his son grow steadily in men's esteem.
Old Jacob Benson had been a very rich man, his opportunities considered. The big brick warehouses on Front Street had been his, and for years he had been the principal merchant in the town.
On coming into this property, young Jacob had disposed of the store; and he was content to collect his rents from the warehouses without any speculative interest in the grain and produce they housed. He was studious and ambitious. He might have done many things with the fortune that was his, but he had preferred to remain in Benson where the very men who had distrusted his father, the men who had reason to remember him as hard and close, Had every liking for the son.
When Anna took her leave of him, the lawyer turned to his desk. He had scarcely settled himself at his work again, when a carriage drew up at the curb. Sam West was on the box, and Benson hurried into the street and was just in time to open the carriage door for Virginia.
“I have wanted to see you for several days, Mr. Benson,” she said.
“Is anything wrong? What can I do?” He had led the way into the office; now he found a chair for her.
“There is something you can do,” said Virginia, seating herself.
“What, Mrs. Landray?”
She put out her gloved hand and rested it lightly on his arm.
“It's the one thing,” she said, smiling sadly. “I want your advice now; for later I shall want your help. It will soon be spring again, the Ohio will be open, the ice gone—”
“Yes, it can't be long now until you hear,” he prompted encouragingly. .
“But I am not going to wait to hear,” she said slowly.
“Not going to wait to hear?” he repeated, vaguely disquieted by her words and manner.
“No. I am going West to find Stephen.”
“Impossible, Mrs. Landray!” he burst out; but she checked him by a gesture, a gesture that imposed silence while it banished his objections as trivial.
“I have waited. I can wait no longer. I must know.” Her look had become one of settled determination.
“But, Mrs. Landray, pray hear me—”
“I know you will wish to dissuade me; so will Anna, and Jane, and what you will say will be prompted only by kindness; but it will be of no use, Mr. Benson. Don't you understand I shall never be satisfied unless this is done? I must hear again—even if the message is from the dead.” Her voice faltered, but she went bravely on after an instant's silence. “It is quite useless to reason with me; for this is not a matter that can be reached by reason.”
There was a long pause. Benson saw that while she was in her present mood there was nothing he could say in opposition to this plan of hers that would have any weight with her.
“I know Anna and Jane will think it foolish, so I came here to win you to my purpose first.”
“I fear you can't do that, Mrs. Landray,” and he smiled doubtfully.
“It will be possible to find the money, will it not?” And Benson regretted that Anna's extravagance had made it necessary for him to exaggerate the difficulties of raising money. He felt a sudden guilty pang that he had imposed this further burden on Virginia; he hastened to reassure her.
“I did not mean in that way,” he said.
“How, then, Mr. Benson? No—I want you to say just what you think. If you are to help me with the others you must think and believe with me.”
“But you cannot go alone, Mrs. Landray.”
She smiled superior. She was already prepared for this objection.
“No, of course not. I shall join some party. Other women have gone. In the spring other women will be going again; I will join some such party.”
He seated himself in a chair at her side.
“I know you will listen to me, even if you had rather not hear what I am going to say; but have you really considered the difficulties, the hardships, the actual dangers?” he asked.
“They are nothing, compared with what I am suffering now,” she said simply. He hurried on.
“If you will only wait, you may hear from him. Indeed you must make up your mind to wait until the river opens; you cannot start until then. I beg of you wait just a little longer; pray don't misunderstand me, I am not going to oppose any project you may have set your heart upon; that would be quite without my province.”
“Then you really think I should go—”
“No, Mrs. Landray, I can scarcely conceive—you will pardon me for saying it—a more ill-advised undertaking; but I think you will see it this way, too, when I have pointed out some of the difficulties.”
Virginia's face fell.
“I will do anything to help you,” he went on warmly. “But how can your quest prove conclusive? You will be a member of some party whose whole interest will be to cross the plains as quickly as possible. They will not want to stop to prosecute such a search; and do you realize the magnitude of such a task? You will have to cross hundreds of miles of desert, and explore a region that will some day be divided into seven or eight States larger than Ohio.”
“Men can be hired to go where I can not,” said Virginia reluctantly. Then she drew herself up imperiously, “I have thought of all you say, Mr. Benson, and in spite of obstacles the means of success will not be lacking, I am sure of that.”
There was a long silence. Benson rose and paced the floor. Virginia watched him gravely.
“It will be possible for you to raise sufficient money?” she asked at last. “I shall need a large sum.”
“I beg your pardon—oh, yes,” when she had repeated her question. Benson paused in his rapid walk.
“I suppose you know how absolutely helpless you will be,” he said. “How dependent on mere chance kindness, on mercenary interest, Mrs. Landray? I appreciate your heroism—it is beautiful—believe me I am not unmindful of that; but it is altogether impractical. If any one goes, a man must go. A man who will be superior to chance kindness or purchased interest, who can conduct the search himself from beginning to end, and who will not have to trust any one.”
“But where could I find such a man?”
The lawyer's face flushed.
“Would you trust me, Mrs. Landray?”
“You—Mr. Benson?”
“Yes.”
“Oh,” rising and going quickly to his side. “You are not serious, you could not go; so many people need you here!”
“They can very well get along without me,” he said shortly.
She searched his face eagerly; there was a faint wistful smile on her lips. It was plain she was uncertain as to how she might take his words.
“I am quite in earnest, Mrs. Landray,” he said. “You could trust me.”
“Oh, yes—implicitly.”
A swift sense of joy came to him. He was about to do a very foolish thing; but the fact that it would be for her, dignified the folly; it became desirable, a privilege.
“But can you go?” doubtfully.
“Why not?” and he laughed boyishly. “What's to keep me if I wish to go? However, you must understand that I am making a promise that future events will probably render void; so you need not thank me, since I can't think I'll have the opportunity to earn your thanks.”
“But I do thank you!”
“And you agree to my going if it's necessary?” he questioned eagerly.
She looked at him doubtingly.
“I wonder when you speak so confidently of my hearing from Stephen in the spring, how much is conviction, how much kindness—the wish to put from me till the last moment a terrible, hopeless knowledge?”
His glance wavered under the intensity of the look she fixed upon him; he could not meet her eyes.
“I know you mean to be very kind, Mr. Benson. Your friendship has been my greatest comfort, and now you will make this sacrifice; I fear I am very selfish in allowing it, but don't you understand? This is the last, the only thing I can do; after this, there is nothing—nothing—everything will have ended for me; and so, in my extremity, I am willing to let you go for me.”
“Don't say that, Mrs. Landray!” he cried. “Nothing really ends; in some form or another the thing we cherish lives on.”
“But what will be left for me?” she asked simply; and he was silent.
It was all so recent, but later when time should have done its merciful work, some peace of mind would surely come to her; he could not believe that this tragedy could be wholly tragic.
“When I go,” he said gently, “I shall want you to believe that I shall leave nothing undone that devotion and singleness of purpose can suggest, or money accomplish. But we must wait a little longer; you will be patient, Mrs. Landray?”
“Haven't I been patient?” and she raised her sad eyes to his. “I only wonder how I have lived through the winter. Can you conceive anything more awful—some one you love, who is all in all to you; and for that person to take his living, breathing presence out of your life, and never to hear, never to know, only to wonder; to go on from fear to fear—”
“Yes,” he cried generously. “God knows, you have been patient, Mrs. Landray; but I only ask you to wait until we shall have had time to hear; until the river and western travel opens. Then if you do not hear from him, I will start at once. We will end this suspense. The more I think of it, the more it seems the reasonable thing to do.”
And now that he was determined to make this journey for her, he glowed with a generous enthusiasm. If Stephen Landray still lived he would bring to her the tidings, and would find it in his heart to rejoice with her.
“But I wonder if it is right of me to allow you to do this,” and her face was troubled. “Perhaps my first idea, to go myself, was best.”
“No, Mrs. Landray, you will wait here until I bring you word of him. Your idea was beautiful and devoted, but the very fact that you are a woman would stand in your way. So if any one goes, I must go. You can trust to my devotion, my friendship, where you could not trust another whose interest you had merely purchased. I shall go single hearted to find him; that will be my sole purpose.”
He felt exalted by the sacrifice to which he was committed. He wished it might be greater; then it would be the more worthy of her.
“I can only think of him as ill, with some terrible illness, or—or—” and speech failed her.
“I know,” he said softly.
“I wish you could know all you have been to me; the comfort you have given. I don't mean now, I mean since that night when you brought me the letter.” She rose as she spoke and gathered her wraps about her.
“It is nothing—nothing,” he assured her, as he walked with her to her carriage.
“I will be patient,” she said as she bade him good-bye. “And though you will not hear of it, I am aware of the sacrifice you will be making for his sake.”
“For his sake,” repeated Benson slowly, as the carriage rolled away; and he turned back in the twilight that had fallen, and reentered the house.
IWONDER if she will never understand!” Benson asked himself, as he stood by the window and watched the carriage roll across the square and disappear down Main Street.
With the twilight, silence had fallen also; not that the town ever expressed itself with any accumulated volume of sound, but the score of teams that had stood hitched by the curb all day while their owners traded or gossiped, were now seeking the lonely country roads that led toward home.
In the half light, Benson saw vaguely outlined, the court-house, the jail, two newspaper offices, four dry-goods stores, one grocery, two saloons, and the tavern; the mere externals of middle West civilization at the end of the first half of the nineteenth century. Along the fences, in the gutters, and beneath the sheltering eaves of the houses, were dirty patches of melting snow and ice; mud and slush filled the street, and over all, between the changing grey clouds, the rising moon sent a faint uncertain radiance.
The winter was almost at an end. If he went West it must be soon. He sought to recall all that had been said, and all that he, carried away by the stress of his own emotions—his pity, and his love, had promised Virginia.
“And people call me shrewd and capable! Well, one thing, it will never profit me,” he mused sadly. “She will never forget him. She's the sort of woman who doesn't forget; I must bear that in mind.” The conviction had come to him slowly and reluctantly that Stephen Landray and his brother and their companions had perished; for this was the only theory that could explain their silence. It had been either the Indians or the cholera; and the entire party must have been destroyed or they would have heard from the survivers. The wealth of the train, and the money Stephen and his brother had in their possession, might have induced dishonesty; but he was unwilling to believe that either Walsh, or Dunlevy, or Bingham, could have been guilty of the crime of silence if anything had happened to the brothers; of Rogers he felt he knew nothing.
“Stephen's dead; of course, he's dead.” Then his memory reverted to her gratitude when he had told her he would go, and his heart leaped again with a swift intoxicating sense of joy. Yes, he would go for her gladly—and perhaps—
The office door opened, and the lawyer turning quickly from the window confronted a muffled figure.
“Are you quite alone, Jake?” and the voice was strangely familiar.
“Quite,” said the lawyer. “But who the dickens are you?”
The man laughed, and pulling off his cap, smoothed his hair and turned down the collar of his ulster; and Benson had the uncertain pleasure of gazing on Captain Gibb's flushed and florid face.
“Well, how are you, Jake?” said that worthy, easily.
“What has brought you back?” demanded the lawyer with some sternness.
“Some damn bad roads, and hard travel,” said the captain; he moved a step nearer and half extended his hand.
“There,” said Benson scornfully, “I don't need to shake hands with you.”
“Not if you feel that way about it, you don't;” and the captain laughed shortly, but he added, “Oh, come now, Jake, don't you be so high and mighty.”
He went to the fireplace and threw on a fresh log; the fire leaped up and its light filled the room. Benson gazed at him with some interest.
“That's better,” said Gibbs cheerfully. “We can see to talk now.”
“What do you want, Gibbs? What brings you skulking back?”
“You're making it very difficult for me to keep my temper, Jake,” said the captain blandly. “I didn't skulk. Can't you guess why I am here?”
“No.”
“Oh, try again, Jake, you didn't half try.”
“I am too indifferent to try,” retorted Benson. “You deserve—”
“Never mind what I deserve,” interposed the captain with a touch of sullenness.
“I was merely going to observe in a general way, that a coat of tar and feathers would not be unappropriate; and Tucker had a good many friends who probably think the same.”
The captain shifted his position before the fire, but his face turned a trifle pale.
“I came here to see about my wife's property.”
“Your wife? I didn't know you had a wife.”
“Well I have,” doggedly. “It's a damn funny thing you can't understand who I mean when I say my wife.”
“Then you have married her?”
Gibbs hitched his chin higher at this.
“I'm a man of honour,” he said briefly.
“Oh, are you!” retorted the lawyer contemptuously.
“Are you prepared to dispute it?” demanded Gibbs truculently. “It's hardly worth disputing,” said Benson. “But you haven't told me why you've come to see me.”
“Haven't I? Well, I hardly thought that would be necessary,” said the captain smilingly. In the main he was a cheerful person, and his resentments were for the most part short lived. “You were Tucker's lawyer, weren't you?”
“Oh, I see!” and the two men looked at each other in silence for a moment; then Benson spoke again.
“You say you have married Mrs. Tucker; I'll take your word for that when you produce the proofs.”
Captain Gibbs again laughed shortly, and took a large leather pocket-book from an inner pocket of his coat, and from one of its many compartments drew forth a folded slip of paper.
“Here they are,” he said.
Benson with great deliberation lighted a taper at the fire, and then the candles on the mantel; then he took the folded slip of paper from Gibbs and leisurely examined it.
“The lady's to be congratulated,” he observed sarcastically. “Thanks,” said the captain sententiously. “I am not mistaken, am I, in supposing that you were Mr. Tucker's lawyer at the time of his death?”
“No.”
“Did he leave a will?”
“He did.”
“As—as Mrs. Tucker's husband, have you any objection to telling me how he disposed of his property; and its extent?”
“Not the least in the world.”
There was another pause. The captain was waiting for Benson to go on; but Benson was silent.
“To whom was the property left?” Gibbs questioned.
“To your wife.” Benson suddenly handed back the paper the captain had given him. “Here, take this, I don't want it,” he said.
“How much did he leave?” inquired Gibbs, with illy-concealed eagerness.
“About fifteen thousand dollars.”
“You don't say! And it all goes to her?”
“Yes.”
Gibbs moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue.
“I didn't know the old fellow was so well off,” he said at last.
Benson shrugged his shoulders. The sordidness of the whole affair disgusted him.
“You don't ask any questions about her—I mean Mrs. Gibbs.”
“I am not curious.”
“Oh, come, she's a relative of yours, and the very last thing she said to me was, 'Tell Jake I am quite happy."'
But Benson seemed quite untouched by this mark of affection.
“Naturally you'll take an interest in her affairs.”
“Naturally I'll take in them no interest at all,” said Benson with much deliberation.
“A very uncousinly attitude on your part; and one to be deplored,” responded the captain, smiling and unabashed.
“Where is Mrs. Tucker?” asked Benson.
“Mrs. Gibbs,” corrected the captain reproachfully.
“Mrs. Gibbs, then—where is she?”
“She is in St. Louis,” said the captain. “We didn't know of Tucker's death until a month ago. Lucky we heard of it when we did, for if we hadn't, we should have been on our way to California as soon as the season opened; this will change our plans. There is no use going to California for what we can get nearer at hand, and with much less trouble; and it won't come amiss; your cousin is altogether lacking in Benson thrift.”
“She is not a Benson.”
“Well, that's so, too,” admitted the captain.
He stared into the fire in silence for a moment; a smile hovered about the comers of his mouth. He was thinking of this windfall, old Tucker's money, as he squinted and blinked at the dancing flames. At last he roused from his revery; a sigh of deep content burst from his swelling chest.
“I suppose it will be best for her to dispose of the property here?” he said.
The lawyer nodded slightly. Gibbs laughed.
“Oh, come now, Jake, wherever he is, Tuckers all right; God Almighty makes it up to the losers, I'm Christian enough to think that; so you'd better thaw out and take stock with the living. I'm happy clean through! I'd be an infernal cheat to pretend otherwise.”
“What do you wish me to do?” asked Benson coldly.
“Oh, come nearer to the fire, or your words will freeze to your lips. Let out a tuck in your morals, man; be human; be glad with me!”
“What do you wish me to do?” repeated Benson sternly.
“Wishing don't seem to do any good,” said the captain plaintively. “In enlightened society, to be the father of a baby, to be elected to a public office, or to inherit money—means whisky.”
“Not here,” said Benson shortly.
“So I discover,” said the captain. “The customs of refined society are in abeyance here. Next time I come, I'll bring a jug.”
“If there is a next time,” said Benson angrily. “That poor old man you led to his death was my friend—”
“You needn't rub that in,” said Gibbs, his cheeks paling. “Do you suppose I'd have let him drown if I'd known what was going on? I didn't know it until months afterward. Don't speak of that again, I won't have it!”
The two men glared at each other, but Gibbs was the first to recover his temper; the ruddy tint came back to his cheeks.
“Well, since we can't drink, suppose we talk about the tavern and distillery. Do you think you can find a purchaser for them?” he asked.
“Yes.”
The captain spread his coat tails before the fire and beamed on Benson. He seemed in no haste to take his leave.
“I don't admire your manners, Jake, but I do respect your business ability. I suppose some correspondence will be necessary with Mrs. Gibbs touching these matters?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said the captain, “I'd better get back to St. Louis. I'll have to ask you to look out for her interests here. I don't bear malice. I put it all down to youth and inexperience. One of these days you'll master the great moral truth that there ain't any good in what's fun for you, and that there ain't any fun in what's good for you. I've cut my cloth accordingly.” He mused in silence for a moment, and then asked suddenly, “What do you hear from the Landrays?”
“We hear nothing,” said Benson briefly.
“That's odd,” and the captain fell silent again.
“Have Mrs. Gibbs inform me of her wishes,” said Benson, desiring to be rid of his caller.
“Oh, yes, but hold on, I was thinking about the Landrays. I didn't tell you, did I, that before we heard of Tucker's death, we'd gone up to St. Joseph; while there I fell in with a trapper in the employ of the American Fur Company—a French Canadian named LaTour—he had some fine beaver skins that Mrs. Gibbs was anxious I should buy for her; well, I didn't buy them, funds were too low; but I did make one purchase of him, and you'll never guess what it was! It was a sheath-knife with Stephen Landray's name cut in the horn handle.”
And now Benson was deeply interested; he forgot all about his righteous contempt for the captain, in his eagerness to learn more.
“Did you ask the trapper how he came by the knife?” he demanded.
“Naturally. LaTour said he had lost his own knife, and had bought this one of a Mormon freighter he met in the mountains near Salt Lake.”
“But did you learn how the knife came to be in possession of this Mormon?” asked Benson.
“Why, no. LaTour asked him no questions. I suppose Stephen must have lost the knife; it probably dropped out of its sheath, you know.”
“I dare say;” and Benson turned this over in his mind; he felt that it was a matter to be carefully thought out. For one thing, it meant that his search need not begin east of Salt Lake, and this was a very important point. He was grateful to Gibbs; and his manner became almost friendly.
“How long do you expect to remain here?” he asked.
Gibbs laughed uneasily.
“I left the stage at Columbus and hired a man to drive me over,” he explained. “I guess I'd better go back there the first thing in the morning. You were unkind enough to suggest tar and feathers; the hint wasn't wasted.”
“Perhaps I was a little severe, Gibbs,” said Benson grudgingly. “But you know she is my cousin.”
“I'm delighted at the connection,” and the captain bowed.
“Well, what are you going to do?” asked Benson.
“I was going to one of the taverns; but I guess that's hardly safe. Oh, I'll put in the night somehow.”
Benson hesitated a moment, and then he said:
“You'd better have supper with me, and spend the night here. I'll drive you back about day. You'll run no risk.” And he led the way into the dining-room, while his guest followed him with a hangdog look on his face. This unexpected kindness effected him more deeply than all Benson's previous contempt; and the man's heart was touched.
BENSON began his preparations for the journey West with some reluctance, and it was well into May before he felt he could even fix on a date for his departure; but one morning Sam West brought him a brief note from Virginia that made him repent the weeks he had wasted.
She feared he was finding his promise impossible of fulfillment. Would he not forget that he had ever made such a promise, and tell her what steps it would be necessary to take to raise money sufficient for her to make the journey.
This note resulted in immediate action on Benson's part. He saw Judge Bradly and told him he expected to leave for California the first of the following week; then he drove at once to the farm to inform Virginia of his decision.
When he reached the farm he found Virginia and Jane, with Jane's baby, seated under an old apple-tree that grew by the corner of the house. He had tied his horse in the lane by the bars; and as he crossed the yard toward them Virginia advanced to meet him.
“You received my note?” she asked, as they shook hands.
“Yes, and your doubt of me was not unmerited. I must have seemed horribly dilatory to you; but my plans are all made; I shall start this day week. I can understand that to you I have seemed to go forward very slowly in this matter.”
“Did I seem very impatient?” asked Virginia humbly; but he saw there were depths of suffering back of the light his words had kindled in her eyes; and his conscience troubled him not a little that he had withheld the comfort his departure on this mission of his, would have given her.
“Not in the least, I am fully alive to your anxiety; your patience has been greater than I expected,” he assured her.
“I fear I am too willing to let you go; but I shall never forget, Mr. Benson—never, as long as I live!” and she raised her beautiful face to his with a look of gratitude that went beyond mere words.
“I am ashamed,” he burst out generously, “to have let anything detain me.”
“It has been my terrible anxiety that has made the days so slow in passing. Won't you come and see Jane and the baby?—why, you have never seen the baby, Mr. Benson!” with a poor attempt at gaiety.
But a pall was upon the three. Jane greeted him with a pathetic gentleness of manner that was meant to take the place of the words she dared not speak. He turned from her only to meet Virginia's laboured cheerfulness; and he was troubled and ill at ease; yet he made a tolerable success of maintaining that air of judicial composure in which he usually took refuge when he came near to suffering. He even made certain tentative and austere attempts at playfulness with the baby; and then he drifted into small talk which he felt to be as leaden as it was small. When at last he rose to take his leave he said to Mrs. Walsh:
“I hope I shall come back with good news for you,” and he held out his hand in farewell. His words brought them sharply back to the actualities. Jane looked up quickly from the sewing which her small hands now clutched despairingly.
“Good-bye!” and then a low cry broke from her. “You will bring them back?” and her tears began to fall.
“I shall try,” he said gravely. “But we must all be hopeful.” Then he looked into Virginia's serious eyes, and caught the tremor of her lips; and was silent. What right had he to speak his senseless platitudes; he who was on the outside of all this sorrow?
He turned away; Virginia followed him, and they moved in silence across the lawn. It was Virginia who spoke first.
“You will write me as each stage of your journey is finished; won't you, Mr. Benson? And you will leave nothing undone? You will not come back until you know?” She dwelt upon the last word with almost tragic insistence. Her wistful glance searched his face. “Forgive me, I know I have no right to question it, but you will not rest content until you have exhausted every source from which knowledge may be gleaned? Days and weeks, even months, will not count with you?”
“Neither weeks nor months shall count with me. I shall do all that money and devotion can do. I shall not turn back until I know,” he said simply.
“I am sure of it, Mr. Benson; and I thank you again and again!”
“I shall go direct to Fort Laramie,” he said. “We know they have reached there in safety; from there on I shall ransack the country for news of them. I may be able to send you letters after I leave Fort Laramie; I will if I meet any parties of returning emigrants. At any rate you will hear from me when I reach Salt Lake. If I find they passed through Salt Lake, I shall push on to the coast, and pursue my search in the various mining camps; at least, this is the plan I have decided upon; but when I get West, I may find it advisable to take a somewhat different course; but you will understand.”
“I shall know you are doing all any one can do, Mr. Benson.”
“The arrangement I have made with Judge Bradly admits of an indefinite absence on my part. I shall not be hurried; I shall take my time, and leave nothing undone that holds the shadow of a hope. You will need money before I return, and you are to go to the judge for that; your affairs are temporarily in his hands. There is just one thing I beg of you; don't let your sister take advantage of your kindness in money matters. Bush provided for her, and there is absolutely no reason why you should make sacrifices, or continue those you have already made.”
“I will remember.”
“I am glad to hear you say that. I hate injustice, I hate to see you the victim of it.”
“Have I been? It has all seemed so unimportant; but perhaps I have done wrong. I shall remember all you have said to me.”
“I wish you would,” he said. “And another matter, you have not told Mrs. Walsh just how matters stand with her, about that brother-in-law of hers?”
Virginia shook her head.
“I haven't had the courage.”
Benson gave a sigh of relief.
“I am glad you haven't. Well, let her go to the judge, too, he understands; it will be all right.”
“You are very generous,-Mr. Benson.”
He reddened at this.
“Oh, no, it's not that. What I may do is nothing to what you are doing; and I still reproach myself with that.”
“But you needn't. It has given me something to do, something to think of.”
They had reached the lane. He vaulted lightly over the low bars, and from the other side held out his hand.
“Good-bye, Mrs. Landray; I shall be very busy until I go, and unless you need me, it is doubtful if I find time to come out here again.”
“How shall you go?” she asked.
“By stage to Portsmouth.”
“And when?”
“This day week.”
There was a pause; then Virginia said slowly.
“I shall miss you, Mr. Benson. I begin to understand how dependent your kindness has made me.”
“You are to go to the judge for everything, you know?” he said. “Advice, and all that. You'll find him very kind.”
“Yes—but I do not think he can take your place.”
An unexpected joy shone in Benson's face.
Virginia's glance sought the wooded heights of Landray's Hill. There she had seen the last of Stephen Landray. Now a long line of freight wagons was just disappearing about the turn in the road where months before she had caught the flutter of his handkerchief. She pressed her hand to her heart. What had she been thinking of, why had she let him go? Even then she might have stopped him; it was not too late—but she had let him go. She rested her arms on the bars, while uncontrollable sobs shook her.
Benson watched her, white-faced and miserable, and with a bitter sense of the futility of words. A puff of wind showered the bowed head with the petals of the apple blossoms, which caught among the masses of her hair. For a moment Benson looked with all the hunger of his love in his eyes; and then he turned away.
He had begun to unfasten his horse when a hand was placed upon his arm, and Virginia was smiling on him through her tears.
“If I am not to see you again, I want to thank you once more for what you are doing for us.”
“It is nothing,” he assured her. “Please don't think of it.”
“But I do, I must, perhaps I am very cruel and heartless to allow you to go. If it was dangerous for them, it is equally dangerous for you. Suppose something should happen to you—I should have this to reproach myself with to the end of my days.”
“But nothing will happen to me!” and he laughed confidently, but she regarded him with questioning gravity. It occurred to her that he was very young, and that perhaps she had taken advantage of this quality of youth, and generous enthusiasm. She felt a pang of remorse at the thought.
“Please don't worry about me, Mrs. Landray,” he said. “Or I shall be quite desperate,” but he was too sane to misinterpret her interest; he accepted it at its full value; his vanity added nothing to it. But the next moment she had forgotten him.
“You will not neglect to write?” she repeated anxiously.
He understood the change, and, oddly enough was relieved by it.
“No, Mrs. Landray, you shall hear from me as often as you could wish.”
He held out his hand again.
“Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
She stood watching him as he rode down the lane; and she was still watching him when he turned from the lane into the road.
Benson was as good as his word. Just one week later he left by stage for Columbus. From there he went to Portsmouth, still by stage, where he took a fast river packet for St. Louis. Arrived at St. Louis he first established himself at a hotel and then hunted up Gibbs, whom he finally located in a dingy room over a grocery store. A sign announced it to be a “Printing Office,” and when he had mounted a long, and exceedingly steep flight of stairs, he found himself in a small room, furnished with a desk, two chairs, and a dictionary; while in a larger room that opened off from it were presses and tables. In the far corner of the larger room he descried an inky youth who was busy setting type; to him Benson made his presence known.
“You want the colonel? Well, I'll have him here in no time.” And he stuck his head out of the open window at his elbow, and called to some one in the street below.
“Hi, there! Just step round to the licker store in the next block and ask Colonel Gibbs to step this way! Gentleman wants to see him! It's right handy for him,” he explained to the lawyer.
“So it's Colonel Gibbs?” said the latter smiling.
“Yes, sir, Colonel Gibbs.”
“Since when?” asked Benson.
The youth seemed to regard this as an excellent joke.
“I reckon he was born that way,” he answered facetiously.
Here they were interrupted by a vociferous protest from the street, and the youth again stuck his head out of the window.
“You say he ain't there? Did you look for him good?” he demanded being assured on this point he requested the person in the street to go over to James's drug store. “I shouldn't wonder if he ain't playing checkers there,” he added.
This quest proved successful, for two minutes later the captain, wearing an air of cheerful and contented prosperity, bustled into the room.
“Bless me! Is it you, Jake?” he cried in astonishment, on seeing whom his visitor was.
Benson's greeting was curt but civil.
“Where are you stopping?” asked Gibbs. “And what are you doing here, anyhow? Not that it is any of my business, for it ain't.”
Benson briefly explained the nature of the mission that was taking him West, and as he did so, the captain rubbed the tip of his nose with his forefinger, regarding him the while with a growing wonder.
“Have a drink?” he demanded, when the lawyer had finished.
“No.”
“Signed the pledge?”
“No.”
“Oh! Joined the Infant Bands of Hope?”
Benson smiled at this sally, and the captain laughed.
“So you're going to find Stephen Landray?” he said, suddenly checking his mirth. “Considering the size of your contract, you take it easy enough, but I guess you don't know what you're in for.”
“Have you still that knife, Gibbs?”
“Yes, it's in my desk here.”
“I'd like to look at it if you have no objection.”
“Not the least in the world,” and he produced it from the disorder of a pigeonhole. Benson took it and examined it.
“I wish you'd give me this,” he said.
“Want it for yourself?”
Benson shook his head.
“Well, present it to her as coming from me, will you?”
“Certainly,” and Benson slipped the blade back into the sheath, and the sheath into his pocket. Gibbs watched him with a smile that constantly widened.
“So you are going across the plains to look for Stephen Landray?” he observed drily.
“Yes.”
“Interested in finding any of the others of the party?” asked the captain.
“I am as much interested in the others as I am in him,” said Benson quickly.
“Oh, no you ain't, you don't give more than a casual damn about the others. I can tell you why you're going—no—you don't want me to? Well, I'll tell you anyhow; she asked you to.” He shook his finger playfully in Benson's face. “Oh, fie—fie, my dear young friend, and you would have me think your motive purely disinterested.”
Benson shrugged his shoulders, and said rather sternly:
“I'm sorry you find it difficult to believe in my disinterestedness.”
The captain closed one eye, he was in a most jocular mood.
“Not for a beautifully sane character like you, Jake; there's a lake down in Georgia that's six miles across and four inches deep, but you ain't like that lake; there's a good deal of your father in you. It will come out one of these days, and when it does you will take the skin right off of people's backs, and you will do it without a pang.”
“Thanks,” said Benson.
“Don't mention it,” retorted the captain airily. “It ain't worth while. I can't let you claim all the virtues, something's due fallen humanity.”
“I have disposed of the tavern for Julia.” The lawyer was willing to change the subject.
“First the man of sentiment, now the man of affairs.” And Gibbs beamed upon him. “How much will it fetch?”
“Four thousand dollars. I have brought the papers for Julia to sign.”
The captain beamed upon him afresh.
“That's good; but before I forget it I want to tell you a thing or two that may be of use to you. You don't quite like me yet, but you'll like me better when you know me better, and meantime I am going to serve you in several ways, all touching this mission of yours. I happen to know a trader who is outfitting for Fort Bridger; I am going to introduce you to him and you can cross the plains with him. My advice is that you begin your search at Salt Lake; that knife was purchased of a freighter who was coming out, so Stephen must have reached Salt Lake, or some point near there. If he passed through the city he must have had dealings with the Mormons; you may find some one who will remember him.”
“Yes,” said Benson, “you are working it out just about as I worked it out. I am glad to have your opinion,” he concluded frankly.
“Now we'll go to the house and see Julia,” said Gibbs. “It isn't far, and then I'll take you to the tavern where the trader I spoke of is stopping; that's not far either.”
To Benson, this meeting with his cousin was an embarrassing ordeal, for she received him with an effusive cordiality that was quite unexpected, and to which he found it next to impossible to respond, but Gibbs came at once to his rescue. He fell to explaining the purpose that had brought him West, and with a secret relish and a significance of manner that made Benson's cheeks redden with anger. Mrs. Gibbs, however, was, fortunately, quite oblivious to his meaning, and his studied reiteration of Stephen Landray's name conveyed no idea to her; she evidently accepted her cousin's mission at its face value, a fact which only added to the captain's amusement. When Gibbs finally subsided, Benson quickly concluded his business, and announced that he was ready to go in search of the trader.
“Rodney, my dear,” explained the captain.
“Such a nice man, Jacob; I'll go, too, and ask him to take the best of care of you,” said Mrs. Gibbs.
Benson entered a feeble protest; he was mainly concerned in wishing to escape from this rascally pair, but the captain cut his protest short by saying:
“Then hurry into your bonnet, Julia, for Jake's got no time to spare.”
And presently they emerged upon the street, accompanied by Mrs. Gibbs, resplendent as to dress, and affectionately leaning on the captain's arm, the very picture of wifely devotion. The moral squalor of the pair moved Benson to a disgust so deep that he found it necessary to cloak his sense of outraged decency in a lofty silence.
They found Rodney lodged at a small tavern near the outskirts of the city. To him Gibbs explained the case, and introduced Benson, and the black browed trader professed himself as delighted at the prospect of the latter's company.
“When do you start?” asked Benson.
“At daybreak to-morrow,” answered Rodney.
“You'll need a horse and arms,” said Gibbs. “We'll go buy them now, and you'd better arrange to sleep here to-night.”
“Indeed, he'll do nothing of the kind,” expostulated Mrs. Gibbs.
“My dear, I'm thinking only of his comfort,” said the captain meekly. “He'll spend the evening with us.” And to this the helpless Benson yielded a reluctant assent, but he saw an end to the civilities they were thrusting upon him; this fact alone made the situation tolerable.
Gibbs was a real help, however; he knew the proprietor of a stockyard who had for sale just such a horse as Benson would require, and to this man's place of business the three now repaired, where the captain drove a sharp bargain, and secured what afterward proved to be a most serviceable animal; next he selected a saddle and a rifle and two pistols, and then he relinquished Benson to Mrs. Gibbs, who shopped industriously in half a dozen stores in his interest, and with such vigour and decision that at the end of two hours she had accumulated what her husband declared to be an entirely adequate outfit. By way of a gift, Julia added a case of needles and thread and the captain, not to be outdone, a drinking flask, and the purchases were bundled up and a negro dispatched with them to the tavern, there to await Benson's arrival.
While this questionable pair had been exerting themselves in his behalf, Benson's righteous disapproval of them had slowly dissipated itself. There was something bohemian and reckless about them, a suggestion of easy improvidence, a joyous freedom from responsibility, that was new to him. The captain, swaggering much, his hat cocked well over one ear, and with manfully swelling chest under a vivid velvet vest, twirled a light walking-stick with happy nonchalance. He was assertive and noisy, perhaps, but eminently good-natured. Benson smiled and wondered. Evidently the next best thing to having a good conscience was to have no conscience at all. And Julia, with her fine eyes and clear skin, a handsome, dashing figure, cousined him with a confiding affection that quite disarmed him; he couldn't approve, but they seemed happy and well satisfied with each other; and he allowed them to bear him back to their home in triumph.
It was quite late when he reached the tavern, whither the captain had insisted on accompanying him, and as they shook hands cordially at parting, the latter said:
“I'll see you in the morning, Jake, so I won't say good-bye now.”
“I wish you wouldn't bother, Gibbs, it will be very early, you know.”
“I shan't mind that, Jake. I'm going to see you off.”
Before Benson went to bed that night he wrote to Virginia, and arranged his purchases, stowing them away in the canvas packs he had bought for that purpose; then he undressed and stretched himself out on the bed.
It was barely dawn, and he seemed to have slept but an hour or so, when he heard Rodney pounding on his door, bidding him be stirring. He dressed by candle-light, and hurried downstairs, where he found the trader and his two Mexican packers already at breakfast.
In the inn yard their horses were being saddled and the heavy packs with which the trader's mules were to be freighted were ready to be strapped to the backs of the animals.
When they had finished their breakfast, Benson followed Rodney into the yard. As he swung himself into the saddle the lawyer felt he was about to turn his back on the decorous, and, as he would have expressed it, the civilized life of the East, and he gave a last thought to his clients, and hoped the judge would do his best by them.
But he had no sooner left the yard than he dismounted hastily, for there, hurrying up the street, was the captain and Mrs. Gibbs.
“She would come, Jake!” panted the captain. “I told her you wouldn't expect it, but she would come!”
“It was very kind of you,” said Benson, “but I don't know that I deserved it.”
“Law!” cried Mrs. Gibbs briskly. “Do you think I'd let you go off like this without seeing the last of you?” and she bestowed a vigorous embrace upon him.
“I fear I'm keeping them waiting,” said Benson. “Good-bye, Gibbs—good-bye, Julia—God bless you both! I shall see you when I return. Good-bye.” He kissed Mrs. Gibbs, shook hands warmly with the captain, and mounted his horse again.
Now that he was really going, and the parting over with, Mrs. Gibbs wept copiously, while the captain endeavoured to console her.
As he rode away after Rodney, Benson looked back more than once, and saw them move slowly off up the street, arm in arm; the captain with expanding chest and twirling cane, and Mrs. Gibbs still plying her handkerchief; and this was the last he saw of them in many a long day.