The little green tent is made of sod,And it is not long, and it is not broad,But the soldiers have lots of room.And the sod is a part of the land they saved,When the flag of the enemy darkly waved,A symbol of dole and gloom.—WALT MASON.
"Baronet, we must have that spade we left over there this morning. Are you the man to get it?" Sharp Grover said to me just after dusk. "We've got to have water or die, and Burke here can't dig a well with his toe nails, though he can come about as near to it as anybody." Burke was an industrious Irishman who had already found water for us. "And then we must take care of these." He motioned toward a still form at my feet, and his tone was reverent.
"Over there" was the camp ground of the night before. It had been trampled by hundreds of feet. Our camp was small, and finding the spade by day might be easy enough. To grope in the dark and danger was another matter. Twenty-four hours before, I would not have dared to try. Nothing counted with me now. I had just risen from the stiffening body of a comrade whom I had been trying to compose for his final rest. I had no more sentiment for myself than I had for him. My time might come at any moment.
"Yes, sir, I'll go," I answered the scout, and I felt of my revolvers; my own and the one I had taken from the man who lay at my feet.
"Well, take no foolish chances. Come back if the way is blocked, but get the spade if you can. Take your time. You'd better wait an hour than be dead in a minute," and he turned to the next work before him.
He was guide, commander, and lieutenant all in one, and his duties were many. I slipped out in the danger-filled shadows toward our camping place of the night before. Every step was full of peril. The Indians had no notion of letting us slip through their fingers in the dark. Added to their day's defeats, we had slain their greatest warrior, and they would have perished by inches rather than let us escape now. So our island was guarded on every side. The black shadowed Plains were crossed and re-crossed by the braves silently gathering in their lost ones for burial. My scalp would have been a joy to them who had as yet no human trophy to gloat over. Surely a spade was never so valuable before. My sense of direction is fair and to my great relief I found that precious implement marvellously soon, but the creek lay between me and the island. Just at its bank I was compelled to drop into a clump of weeds as three forms crept near me and straightened themselves up in the gloom. They were speaking in low tones, and as they stood upright I caught their words.
"You made that bugle talk, anyhow, Dodd."
So Dodd was the renegade whom I had heard three times in the conflict. My vision at the gorge was not the insanity of the Plains, after all. I was listening ravenously now. The man who had spoken stood nearest me. There was a certain softness of accent and a familiar tone in his speech. As he turned toward the other two,even in the dim light, the outline of his form and the set of his uncovered head I knew.
"That's Le Claire, as true as heaven, all but the voice," I said to myself. "But I'll never believe that metallic ring is the priest's. It is Le Claire turned renegade, too, or it's a man on a pattern so like him, they couldn't tell themselves apart."
I recalled all the gentleness and manliness of the Father. Never an act of his was cruel, or selfish, or deceptive. True to his principles, he had warned us again and again not to trust Jean. And yet he had always seemed to protect the boy, always knew his comings and goings, and the two had grown yearly to resemble each other more and more in face and form and gesture. Was Le Claire a villain in holy guise?
I did not meditate long, for the third man spoke. Oh, the "good Indian"! Never could he conceal his voice from me.
"Now, what I want you to do is to tell them all which one he is. I've just been clear around their hole in the sand. I could have hit my choice of the lot. But he wasn't there."
No, I had just stepped out after the spade.
"If he had been, I'd have shot him right then, no matter what come next. But I don't want him shot. He's mine. Now tell every brave to leave him to me, the big one, nearly as big as Roman Nose, whiter than the others, because he's not been out here long. But he's no coward. The one with thick dark curly hair; it would make a beautiful scalp. But I want him."
"What will you do with him?" the man nearest to me queried.
"Round the bend below the gorge the Arickaree runs over a little strip of gravel with a ripple that sounds justlike the Neosho above the Deep Hole. I'll stake him out there where he can hear it and think of home until he dies. And before I leave him I've got a letter to read to him. It'll help to keep Springvale in his mind if the water fails. I've promised him what to expect when he comes into my country."
"Do it," the smallest of the three spoke up. "Do it. It'll pay him for setting Bud Anderson on me and nearly killing me in the alley back of the courthouse the night we were going to burn up Springvale. I was making for the courthouse to get the papers to burn sure. I'd got the key and could have got them easy—and there's some needed burning specially—when that lispin' tow-head caught my arm and gave my head such a cut that I'll always carry the scar, and twisted my wrist so I've never been able to lift anything heavier than an artillery bugle since. Nobody ever knew it back there but Mapleson and Conlow and Judson. Funny nobody ever guessed Judson's part in that thing except his wife, and she kept it to herself and broke her heart and died. Everybody else said he was water-bound away from home. He wasn't twenty feet from his own house when the Whately girl come out. He was helpin' Jean then. Thought her mother'd be killed, and Whately'd never get home alive—as he didn't—and he'd get the whole store; greediest man on earth for money. He's got the store anyhow, now, and he's going to marry the girl he was helpin' Jean to take out of his way. That store never would have been burnt that night. I wish Jean had got her, though. Then I'd turned things against Tell Mapleson and run him out of town instead of his driving me from Springvale. Tell played a double game damned well. I'm outlawed and he's gettin' richer every day at home."
So spoke the Rev. Mr. Dodd, pastor of the MethodistChurch South. It may be I needed the discipline of that day's fighting to hold me motionless and silent in the clump of grass beside these three men.
"Well, let's get up there and watch the fool women cry for their men." It was none other than Father Le Claire's form before me, but this man's voice was never that soft French tone of the good man's—low and musical, matching his kindly eyes and sweet smile. As the three slipped away I did the only foolish act of mine in the whole campaign: I rose from my hiding place, shouldered that spade, and stalked straight down the bank, across the creek, and up to our works in the centre of the island as upright and free as if I were walking up Cliff Street to Judge Baronet's front door. Jean's words had put into me just what I needed—not acceptance of the inevitable, but a power of resistance, the indomitable spirit that overcomes.
History is stranger than fiction, and the story of the Kansas frontier is more tragical than all the Wild West yellow-backed novels ever turned off the press. To me this campaign of the Arickaree has always read like a piece of bloody drama, so terrible in its reality, it puts the imagination out of service.
We had only one chance for deliverance, we must get the tidings of our dreadful plight to Fort Wallace, a hundred miles away. Jack Stillwell and another brave scout were chosen for the dangerous task. At midnight they left us, moving cautiously away into the black blank space toward the southwest, and making a wide detour from their real line of direction. The Indians were on the alert, and a man must walk as noiselessly as a panther to slip between their guards.
The scouts wore blankets to resemble the Indians more closely in the shadows of the night. They made moccasins out of boot tops, that their footprints might tell no story. In sandy places they even walked backward that they should leave no tell-tale trail out of the valley.
Dawn found them only three miles away from their starting place. A hollow bank overhung with long, dry grasses, and fronted with rank sunflowers, gave them a place of concealment through the daylight hours. Again on the second night they hurried cautiously forward. The second morning they were near an Indian village. Their only retreat was in the tall growth of a low, marshy place. Here they crouched through another long day. The unsuspecting squaws, hunting fuel, tramped the grasses dangerously near to them, but a merciful Providence guarded their hiding-place.
On the third night they pushed forward more boldly, hoping that the next day they need not waste the precious hours in concealment. In the early morning they saw coming down over the prairie the first guard of a Cheyenne village moving southward across their path. The Plains were flat and covertless. No tall grass, nor friendly bank, nor bush, nor hollow of ground was there to cover them from their enemies. But out before them lay the rotting carcass of an old buffalo. Its hide still hung about its bones. And inside the narrow shelter of this carcass the two concealed themselves while a whole village passed near them trailing off toward the south.
Insufficient food, lack of sleep, and poisonous water from the buffalo wallows brought nausea and weakness to the faithful men making their way across the hostile land to bring help to us in our dire extremity. It is all recorded in history how these two men fared in that hazardous undertaking. No hundred miles of sandy plain were ever more fraught with peril; and yet these two pressed on with that fearless and indomitable couragethat has characterized the Saxon people on every field of conquest.
Meanwhile day crept over the eastern horizon, and the cold chill of the shadows gave place to the burning glare of the September sun. Hot and withering it beat down upon us and upon the unburied dead that lay all about us. The braves that had fallen in the strife strewed the island's edges. Their blood lay dark on the sandy shoals of the stream and stained to duller brown the trampled grasses. Daylight brought the renewal of the treacherous sharpshooting. The enemy closed in about us and from their points of vantage their deadly arrows and bullets were hurled upon our low wall of defence. And so the unequal struggle continued. Ours was henceforth an ambush fight. The redskins did not attack us in open charge again, and we durst not go out to meet them. And so the thing became a game of endurance with us, a slow wearing away of ammunition and food, a growing fever from weakness and loss of blood, a festering of wounds, the ebbing out of strength and hope; while putrid mule meat and muddy water, the sickening stench from naked bloated bodies under the blazing heat of day, the long, long hours of watching for deliverance that came not, and the certainty of the fate awaiting us at last if rescue failed us—these things marked the hours and made them all alike. As to the Indians, the passing of Roman Nose had broken their fighting spirit; and now it was a mere matter of letting us run to the end of our tether and then—well, Jean had hinted what would happen.
On the third night two more scouts left us. It seemed an eternity since Stillwell and his comrade had started from the camp. We felt sure that they must have fallen by the way, and the second attempt was doubly hazardous. The two who volunteered were quiet men. Theyknew what the task implied, and they bent to it like men who can pay on demand the price of sacrifice. Their names were Donovan and Pliley, recorded in the military roster as private scouts, but the titles they bear in the memory of every man who sat in that grim council on that night, has a grander sound than the written records declare.
"Boys," Forsyth said, lifting himself on his elbow where he lay in his sand bed, "this is the last chance. If you can get to the fort and send us help we can hold out a while. But it must come quickly. You know what it means for you to try, and for us, if you succeed."
The two men nodded assent, then girding on their equipments, they gave us their last messages to be repeated if deliverance ever came to us and they were never heard of again. We were getting accustomed to this now, for Death stalked beside us every hour. They said a brief good-bye and slipped out from us into the dangerous dark on their chosen task. Then the chill of the night, with its uncertainty and gloom, with its ominous silences broken only by the howl of the gray wolves, who closed in about us and set up their hunger wails beyond the reach of our bullets; and the heat of the day with its peril of arrow and rifle-ball filled the long hours. Hunger was a terror now. Our meat was gone save a few decayed portions which we could barely swallow after we had sprinkled them over with gunpowder. For the stomach refused them even in starvation. Dreams of banquets tortured our short, troubled sleep, and the waking was a horror. A luckless little coyote wandered one day too near our fold. We ate his flesh and boiled his bones for soup. And one day a daring soldier slipped out from our sand pit in search of food—anything—to eat in place of that rotting horseflesh. In the bushes at the end of theisland, he found a few wild plums. Oh, food for the gods was that portion of stewed plums carefully doled out to each of us.
Six days went by. I do not know on which one the Sabbath fell, for God has no holy day in the Plains warfare. Six days, and no aid had come from Fort Wallace. That our scouts had failed, and our fate was decreed, was now the settled conclusion in every mind.
On the evening of this sixth day our leader called us about him. How gray and drawn his face looked in the shadowy gray light, but his eyes were clear and his voice steady.
"Boys, we've got to the end of our rope, now. Over there," pointing to the low hills, "the Indian wolves are waiting for us. It's the hazard of war; that's all. But we needn't all be sacrificed. You, who aren't wounded, can't help us who are. You have nothing here to make our suffering less. To stay here means—you all know what. Now the men who can go must leave us to what's coming. I feel sure now that you can get through together somehow, for the tribes are scattering. It is only the remnant left over there to burn us out at last. There is no reason why you should stay here and die. Make your dash for escape together to-night, and save your lives if you can. And"—his voice was brave and full of cheer—"I believe you can."
Then a silence fell. There were two dozen of us gaunt, hungry men, haggard from lack of sleep and the fearful tax on mind and body that tested human endurance to the limit—two dozen, to whom escape was not impossible now, though every foot of the way was dangerous. Life is sweet, and hope is imperishable. We looked into one another's face grimly, for the crisis of a lifetime was upon us. Beside me lay Morton. The handkerchief hehad bound about his head in the first hour of battle had not once been removed. There was no other handkerchief to take its place.
"Go, Baronet," he said to me. "Tell your father, if you see him again, that I remembered Whately and how he went down at Chattanooga."
His voice was low and firm and yet he knew what was awaiting him. Oh! men walked on red-hot ploughshares in the days of the winning of the West.
Sharp Grover was sitting beside Forsyth. In the silence of the council the guide turned his eyes toward each of us. Then, clenching his gaunt, knotted hands with a grip of steel, he said in a low, measured voice:
"It's no use asking us, General. We have fought together, and, by Heaven, we'll die together."
In the great crises of life the only joy is the joy of self-sacrifice. Every man of us breathed freer, and we were happier now than we had been at any time since the conflict began. And so another twenty-four hours, and still another twenty-four went by.
The sun came up and the sun went down,And day and night were the same as one.
And any evil chance seemed better than this slow dragging out of misery-laden time.
"Nature meant me to defend the weak and helpless. The West needs me," I had said to my father. And now I had given it my best. A slow fever was creeping upon me, and weariness of body was greater than pain and hunger. Death would be a welcome thing now that hope seemed dead. I thought of O'mie, bound hand and foot in the Hermit's Cave, and like him, I wished that I might go quickly if I must go. For back of my stolid mentalstate was a frenzied desire to outwit Jean Pahusca, who was biding his time, and keeping a surer watch on our poor battle-wrecked, starving force than any other Indian in the horde that kept us imprisoned.
The sunrise of the twenty-fifth of September was a dream of beauty on the Colorado Plains. I sat with my face to the eastward and saw the whole pageantry of morning sweep up in a splendor of color through stretches of far limitless distances. Oh! it was gorgeous, with a glory fresh from the hand of the Infinite God, whose is the earth and the seas. Mechanically I thought of the sunrise beyond the Neosho Valley, but nothing there could be half so magnificent as this. And as I looked, the thought grew firmer that this sublimity had been poured out for me for the last time, and I gazed at the face of the morning as we look at the face awaiting the coffin lid.
And even as the thought clinched itself upon me came the sentinel's cry of "Indians! Indians!"
We grasped our weapons at the shrill warning. It was the death-grip now. We knew as surely as we stood there that we could not resist this last attack. The redskins must have saved themselves for this final blow, when resistance on our part was a feeble mockery. The hills to the northward were black with the approaching force, but we were determined to make our last stand heroically, and to sell our lives as dearly as possible. As with a grim last measure of courage we waited, Sharp Grover, who stood motionless, alert, with arms ready, suddenly threw his rifle high in air, and with a shout that rose to heaven, he cried in an ecstasy of joy:
"By the God above us, it's an ambulance!"
To us for whom the frenzied shrieks of the squaws, the fiendish yells of the savage warriors, and the weird, unearthly wailing for the dead were the only cries that hadresounded above the Plains these many days, this shout from Grover was like the music of heaven. A darkness came before me, and my strength seemed momentarily to go from me. It was but a moment, and then I opened my eyes to the sublimest sight it is given to the Anglo-American to look upon.
Like the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all dashed toward the placeLike the passing of a hurricane, horses, mules, men, all dashed toward the place
Down from the low bluffs there poured a broad surge of cavalry, in perfect order, riding like the wind, the swift, steady hoof-beats of their horses marking a rhythmic measure that trembled along the ground in musical vibration, while overhead—oh, the grandeur of God's gracious dawn fell never on a thing more beautiful—swept out by the free winds of heaven to its full length, and gleaming in the sunlight, Old Glory rose and fell in rippling waves of splendor.
On they came, the approaching force, in a mad rush to reach us. And we who had waited for the superb charge of Roman Nose and his savage warriors, as we wait for death, saw now this coming in of life, and the regiment of the unconquerable people.
We threw restraint to the winds and shouted and danced and hugged each other, while we laughed and cried in a very transport of joy.
It was Colonel Carpenter and his colored cavalry who had made a dash across the country rushing to our rescue. Beside the Colonel at their head, rode Donovan the scout, whom we had accounted as dead. It was his unerring eye that had guided this command, never varying from the straight line toward our danger-girt entrenchment on the Arickaree.
Before Carpenter's approaching cavalry the Indians fled for their lives, and they who a few hours hence would have been swinging bloody tomahawks above our heads were now scurrying to their hiding-places far away.
Never tenderer hands cared for the wounded, and never were bath and bandage and food and drink more welcome. Our command was shifted to a clean spot where no stench of putrid flesh could reach us. Rest and care, such as a camp on the Plains can offer, was ours luxuriously; and hardtack and coffee, food for the angels, we had that day, to our intense satisfaction. Life was ours once more, and hope, and home, and civilization. Oh, could it be true, we asked ourselves, so long had we stood face to face with Death.
The import of this struggle on the Arickaree was far greater than we dreamed of then. We had gone out to meet a few foemen. What we really had to battle with was the fighting strength of the northern Cheyenne and Sioux tribes. Long afterwards it came to us what this victory meant. The broad trail we had eagerly followed up the Arickaree fork of the Republican River had been made by bands on bands of Plains Indians mobilizing only a little to the westward, gathering for a deadly purpose. At the full of the moon the whole fighting force, two thousand strong, was to make a terrible raid, spreading out on either side of the Republican River, reaching southward as far as the Saline Valley and northward to the Platte, and pushing eastward till the older settlements turned them back. They were determined to leave nothing behind them but death and desolation. Their numbers and leadership, with the defenceless condition of the Plains settlers, give broad suggestion of what that raid would have done for Kansas. Our victory on the Arickaree broke up that combination of Indian forces, for all future time. It was for such an unknown purpose, and against such unguessed odds, that fifty of us led by the God of all battle lines, had gone out to fight. We had met and vanquished a foe two hundred times our number, aye, crippled its power for all future years. We were lifting the fetters from the frontier; we were planting the standards westward, westward. In the history of the Plains warfare this fight on the Arickaree, though not the last stroke, was one of the decisive struggles in breaking the savage sovereignty, a sovereignty whose wilderness demesne to-day is a land of fruit and meadow and waving grain, of peaceful homes and wealth and honor.
It was impossible for our wounded comrades to begin the journey to Fort Wallace on that day. When evening came, the camp settled down to quiet and security: the horses fed at their rope tethers, the fires smouldered away to gray ashes, the sun swung down behind the horizon bar, the gold and scarlet of evening changed to deeper hues and the long, purple twilight was on the silent Colorado Plains. Over by the Arickaree the cavalry men lounged lazily in groups. As the shades of evening gathered, the soldiers began to sing. Softly at first, but richer, fuller, sweeter their voices rose and fell with that cadence and melody only the negro voice can compass. And their song, pulsing out across the undulating valley wrapped in the twilight peace, made a harmony so wonderfully tender that we who had dared danger for days unflinchingly now turned our faces to the shadows to hide our tears.
We are tenting to-night on the old camp ground.Give us a song to cheerOur weary hearts, a song of homeAnd friends we love so dear.Many are the hearts that are weary to-night,Wishing for this war to cease,Many are the hearts looking for the rightTo see the dawn of peace.
So the cavalry men sang, and we listened to their singing with hearts stirred to their depths. And then with prayers of thankfulness for our deliverance, we went to sleep. And over on the little island, under the shallow sands, the men who had fallen beside us lay with patient, folded hands waiting beside the Arickaree waters till the last reveille shall sound for them and they enter the kingdom of Eternal Peace.
Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business; the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.—DICKENS.
Mankind was my business; the common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business; the dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.
—DICKENS.
Every little community has its customs peculiar to itself. With the people of Springvale the general visiting-time was on Sunday between the afternoon Sabbath-school and the evening service. The dishes that were prepared on Saturday for the next day's supper excelled the warm Sunday dinner.
We come to know the heart and soul of the folks that fill up a little town, and when we get into the larger city we miss them oftener than we have the courage to say. Unselfishness and integrity and stalwart principles of right are not confined to the higher circles of society. A man may be hungry for friends on the crest of his popularity; he may long for the strong right hand of Christian fellowship in the centre of a brotherhood of churchmen. Cam Gentry and his good wife are among those whom in all my busy years of wide acquaintance with people of all ranks I account as genuine stuff. They were only common clay, generous, unselfish, clean of thought and act. Uneducated, with no high ideals, they gauged their way by the golden rule, and made the most of their time. A journey to Topeka was their "trip abroad"; beyondthe newspapers they read little except the Bible; and they built their faith on the Presbyterian Church and the Republican party. But the cosy lighted tavern on winter nights, and its clean, cool halls and resting-places in the summer heat, are still a green spot in the memory of many a traveller. Transients and regulars at the Cambridge House delighted in this Sabbath evening spread.
"Land knows," Dollie Gentry used to declare, "if ever a body feels lonesome it's on Sunday afternoon between Sunday-school and evenin' service. Why, the blues can get you then, when they'd stan' no show ary other day er hour in the week. An' it stan's to reason a man, er woman, either, is livin' in a hotel because they ain't got no home ner nobody to make 'em feel glad to see 'em. If they're goin' to patronize the Cambridge House they're goin' to get the best that's comin' to 'em right then."
So the old dining-room was a joy at this time of the week, with all that a good cook can make attractive to the appetite.
Mary Gentry, sweet-tempered and credulous as in her childhood, grew up into a home-lover. We all wondered why John Anderson, who was studying medicine, should fancy Mary, plain good girl that she was. John had been a bashful boy and a hard student whom the girls failed to interest. But the home Mary made for him later, and her two sons that grew up in it, are justification of his choice of wife. The two boys are men now, one in Seattle, and one in New York City. Both in high places of trust and financial importance.
One October Sabbath afternoon, O'mie fell into step beside Marjie on the way from Sabbath-school. Since his terrible experience in the Hermit's Cave five years before, he had never been strong. We became so accustomed to his little hacking cough we did not noticeit until there came a day to all of us when we looked back and wondered how we could have been so inattentive to the thing growing up before our eyes. O'mie was never anything but a good-hearted Irishman, and yet he had a keener insight into character and trend of events than any other boy or man I ever knew. I've always thought that if his life had been spared to mature manhood—but it wasn't.
"Marjie, I'm commissioned to invite you to the Cambridge House for lunch," O'mie said. "Mary wants to see you. She's got a lame arm, fell off a step ladder in the pantry. The papers on the top shelves had been on there fifteen minutes, and Aunt Dollie thought they'd better put up clean ones. That's the how. Dr. John Anderson's most sure to call professionally this evening, and Bill Mead's going to bring Bess over for tea, and there's still others on the outskirts, but you're specially wanted, as usual. Bud will be there, too. Says he wants to see all the Andersons once more before he leaves town, and he knows it's his last chance; for John's forever at the tavern, and Bill Mead is monopolizing Bess at home; and you know, Star-face, how Clayton divides himself around among the Whatelys and Grays over at Red Range and a girl he's got up at Lawrence."
"All this when I'm starving for one of Aunt Dollie's good lunches. Offer some other inducement, O'mie," Marjie replied laughingly.
"Oh, well, Tillhurst'll be there, and one or two of the new folks, all eligible."
"What makes you call me 'Star-face'? That's what Jean Pahusca used to call me." She shivered.
"Oh, it fits you; but if you object, I can make it, 'Moon-face,' or 'Sun-up.'"
"Or 'Skylight,' or 'Big Dipper'; so you can keep to the blue firmament. Where's Bud going?"
Out of the tail of his eye O'mie caught sight of Judson falling in behind them here and he answered carelessly:
"Oh, I don't know where Bud is going exactly. Kansas City or St. Louis, or somewhere else. You'll come of course?"
"Yes, of course," Marjie answered, just as Judson in his pompous little manner called to her:
"Marjory, I have invited myself up to your mother's for tea."
"Why, there's nobody at home, Mr. Judson," the girl said kindly; "I'm going down to Mary Gentry's, and mother went up to Judge Baronet's with Aunt Candace for lunch."
Nobody called my father's sister by any other name. To Marjie, who had played about her knee, Aunt Candace was a part of the day's life in Springvale. But the name of Baronet was a red rag to Judson's temper. He was growing more certain of his cause every day; but any allusion to our family was especially annoying, and this remark of Marjie's fired him to hasten to something definite in his case of courtship.
"When she's my wife," he had boasted to Tell Mapleson, "I'll put a stop to all this Baronet friendship. I won't even let her go there. Marjie's a fine girl, but a wife must understand and obey her lord and master. That's it; a wife must obey, or your home's ruined."
Nobody had ever accused Tell Mapleson's wife of ruining a home on that basis; for she had been one of the crushed-down, washed-out women who never have two ideas above their dish-pan. She had been dead some years, and Tell was alone. People said he was too selfishto marry again. Certainly matrimony was not much in his thoughts.
The talk at the tavern table that evening ran on merrily among the young people. Albeit, the Sabbath hour was not too frivolous, for we were pretty stanch in our Presbyterianism there. I think our love for Dr. Hemingway in itself would have kept the Sabbath sacred. He never found fault with our Sunday visiting. All days were holy to him, and his evening sermons taught us that frivolity, and idle gossip, and scandal are as unforgivable on week days as on the Sabbath Day. Somewhere in the wide courts of heaven there must be reserved an abode of inconceivable joy and peace for such men as he, men who preach the Word faithfully through the years, whose hand-clasp means fellowship, and in whose tongue is the law of kindness.
"Say, Clate, where's Bud going?" Somebody called across the table. Bud was beside Marjie, whose company was always at a premium in any gathering.
"Let him tell; it's his secret," Clayton answered. "I'll be glad when he's gone"—he was speaking across to Marjie now—"then I'll get some show, maybe."
"I'm going to hunt a wife," Bud sang out. "Can't find a thoul here who'll thtay with me long enough to get acquainted. I'm going out Wetht thomewhere."
"I'd stay with you a blamed sight longer if I wasn't acquainted with you than if I was," Bill Mead broke in. "It's because they do get acquainted that they don't stay, Bud; and anyhow, they can run faster out there than here, the girls can; they have to, to keep away from the Indians. And there's no tepee ring for the ponies to stumble over. Marjie, do you remember the time Jean Pahusca nearly got you? I remember it, for when I came to after the shock, I was standing square on my headwith both feet in the air. All I could see was Bud dragging Jean's pony out of the muss. I thought he was upside down at first and the horses were walking like flies on the ceiling."
Marjie's memories of that moment were keen. So were O'mie's.
"Well, what ever did become of that Jean, anyhow? Anybody here seen him for five years?"
The company looked at one another. Bud's face was as innocent as a baby's. Lettie Conlow at the foot of the table encountered O'mie's eyes and her face flamed. Dr. John Anderson was explaining the happening to Tillhurst and some newcomers in Springvale to whom the story was interesting, and the whole table began to recall old times and old escapades of Jean's.
"Wasn't afraid of anything on earth," Bill Mead declared.
"Yeth he wath, brother," Bud broke in, while Bess Anderson blushed deeply at Bud's teasing name. Bill and Bess were far along the happy way of youth and love.
"Why, what did he fear?" Judson asked Dave Mead at the head of the table.
"Phil Baronet. He never would fight Phil. He didn't dare. He couldn't bear to be licked."
And then the conversation turned on me, and my virtues and shortcomings were reviewed in friendly gossip. Only Judson's face wore a sneer.
"I don't wonder this Jean was afraid of him," a recent-comer to the town declared.
"Oh, if he was afraid of this young man, this boy," Judson declared, "he would have feared something else; that's it, he'd been afraid of other things."
"He was," O'mie spoke up.
"Well, what was it, O'mie?" Dr. John queried.
"Ghosts," O'mie replied gravely. "Oh, I know," he declared, as the crowd laughed. "I can prove it to you and tell you all about it. I'll do it some day, but I'll need the schoolhouse and some lantern slides to make it effective. I may charge a small admission fee and give a benefit to defray Bud's expenses home from this trip."
"Would you really do that, O'mie?" Mary Gentry asked him.
But the query, "Where's Phil, now?" was going the rounds, and the answers were many. My doings had not been reported in the town, and gossip still was active concerning me.
"Up at Topeka," "Gone to St. Louis," "Back in Massachusetts." These were followed by Dave Mead's declaration:
"The best boy that ever went out of Springvale. Just his father over again. He'll make some place prouder than it would have been without him."
Nobody knew who started the story just then, but it grew rapidly from Tillhurst's side of the table that I had gone to Rockport, Massachusetts, to settle in my father's old home-town.
"Stands to reason a boy who can live in Kansas would go back to Massachusetts, doesn't it?" Dr. John declared scornfully.
"But Phil's to be married soon, to that stylish Miss Melrose. She's got the money, and Phil would become a fortune. Besides, she was perfectly infatuated with him."
"Well," somebody else asserted, "if he does marry her, he can bring her back here to live. My! but Judge Baronet's home will be a grand place to go to then. It was always good enough."
Amid all this clatter Marjie was as indifferent and self-possessed as if my name were a stranger's. Those who had always known her did not dream of what lay back of that sweet girl-face. She was the belle of Springvale, and she had too many admirers for any suspicion of the truth to find a place.
While the story ran on Bud turned to her and said in a low voice, "Marjie, I'm going to Phil. He needth me now."
Nobody except Bud noticed how white the girl was, as the company rising from the table swept her away from him.
That night Dr. Hemingway's prayer was fervent with love. The boys were always on his heart, and he called us all by name. He prayed for the young men of Springvale, who had grown up to the life here and on whom the cares of citizenship, and the town's good name were soon to rest; and for the young men who would not be with us again: for Tell Mapleson, that the snares of a great city like St. Louis might not entrap him; for James Conlow, whose lines had led him away from us; for David Mead, going soon to the far-away lands where the Sierras dip down the golden slope to the Pacific seas; for August Anderson, also about to go away from us, that life and health might be his; and last of all for Philip Baronet. A deeper hush fell upon the company bowed in prayer.
"For Philip Baronet, the strong, manly boy whom we all love, the brave-hearted hero who has gone out from among us, and as his father did before him for the homes of a nation, so now the son has gone to fight the battles of the prairie domain, and to build up a wall of safety before the homes and hearthstones of our frontier." And then he offered thanksgiving to a merciful Father that, "in the awful conflict which Philip, with a little handful of heroes, has helped to wage against the savage redman, a struggle in which so many lives have gone out, our Philip has been spared." His voice broke here, and he controlled it by an effort, as in calm, low tones he finished his simple prayer with the earnest petition, "Keep Thou these our boys; and though they may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, may they fear no evil, for Thou art with them. Amen."
It was the first intimation the town had had of what I was doing. Springvale was not without a regard for me who had loved it always, and then the thought of danger to a fellow citizen is not without its appeal. I have been told that Judge Baronet and Aunt Candace could not get down the aisle after service until after ten o'clock that night and that the tears of men as well as women fell fast as my father gave the words of the message sent to him by Governor Crawford on the evening before. Even Chris Mead, always a quiet, stern man, sat with head bowed on the railing of the pew before him during the recital. It was noted afterwards that Judson did not remain, but took Lettie Conlow home as soon as the doxology was ended. The next day my stock in Springvale was at a premium; for a genuine love, beside which fame and popularity are ashes and dust, was in the heart of that plain, good little Kansas town.
Bud called to say good-bye to Marjie, before he left home.
"Are you going out West to stay?" Marjie asked.
"I'm going to try it out there. Clate'th got all the law here a young man can get; he'th gobbled up Dave and Phil'th share of the thing. John will be the coming M. D. of the town, and Bill Mead already taketh to the bank like a duck to water. I'm going to try the Wetht. What word may I take to Phil for you?"
"There's nothing to say," Marjie answered.
To his words, "I hoped there might be," she only said gayly, "Good-bye, Bud. Be a good boy, and be sure not to forget Springvale, for we'll always love your memory."
And so he left her. He was a good boy, nor did he forget the town where his memory is green still in the hearts of all who knew him. His last thought was of Springvale, and he babbled of the Neosho, and fancied himself in the shallows down by the Deep Hole. He clung to me, as in his childhood, and begged me to carry him on my shoulders when waters of Death were rolling over him. I held his hand to the last, and when the silence fell, I stretched myself on the brown curly mesquite beside him and thanked God that He had let me know this boy. Ever more my life will be richer for the remembrance it holds of him.
Bud left Springvale in one of those dripping, chilly, wet days our Kansas Octobers sometimes mix in with their opal-hued hours of Indian summer. That evening Tell Mapleson dropped into Judson's store and O'mie was let off early.
The little Irishman ran up the street at once to the Whately home. Mrs. Whately had retired. Eight o'clock was bed time for middle-aged people in our town. Marjie sat alone by the fire. How many times that summer we had talked of the long winter evenings we should spend together by that fireplace in Marjie's cosy sitting-room. And now she was beside the hearth, and I was far away. I might have been forgiven without a word had I walked in that evening and found her, as O'mie did, alone with her sad thoughts. Marjie never tried to hide anything from O'mie. She knew he could see through any pretence of hers. She knew, too, that he would keep sacred anything he saw.
"Marjie, I'm lonesome to-night."
Marjie gave him a seat beside the fire.
"What makes you lonesome, O'mie?" she asked gravely.
"The wrongs av the world bear heavily upon me."
Marjory looked at him curiously to see if he was joking.
"What I need to do is to shrive myself, I guess, and then get up an inquisition, with myself as chief inquisitor."
Marjie, studying the pictures in the burning coals, said nothing. O'mie also sat silent for a time.
"Marjie," he said at length, "when you see things goin' all wrong end to, and you know what's behind 'em, drivin' 'em wrong, what's your rale Presbyterian duty then? Let 'em go? or tend to somethin' else besides your own business? Honest, now, what's what?"
"I don't know what you're up to, O'mie." She was looking dreamily into the grate, the firelight on her young face and thoughtful brown eyes making a picture tenderly sweet and fair. In her mind was the image of Judge Baronet as he looked the night before, when he lifted his head after Dr. Hemingway's prayer for his son. And then maybe a picture of the graceless son himself came unbidden, and his eyes were full of love as when they looked down into hers on the day Rachel Melrose came into Judge Baronet's office demanding his attention. "What's the matter, O'mie? Is Uncle Cam being imposed on? You'd never stand that, I know."
"No, little girl, Cambridge Gentry can still take care of Cam's interest and do a kind act to more folks off-hand better than any other man I know. Marjie, it's Phil Baronet."
Marjie gave a start, but she made no effort to hide her interest.
"Little girl, he's been wronged, and lied about, and misunderstood, by a crowd av us who have knowed him day in and day out since he was a little boy. Marjory Whately, did anybody iver catch him in a lie? Did he iver turn coward in a place where courage was needed? Did he iver do a cruelty to a helpless thing, or fight a smaller boy? Did he iver decaive? Honestly, now, was there iver anything in all the years we run together that wasn't square and clane and fearless and lovin'?"
Marjie sat with bowed head before the flickering fire. When O'mie spoke again his voice was husky.
"Little girl, when I was tied hand and foot, and left to die in that dark Hermit's Cave, it was Phil Baronet who brought in the sunlight and a face radiant with love. When Jean Pahusca, drunk as a fury, was after you out on the prairie with that cruel knife ready, the knife I've seen him kill many a helpless thing with when he was drunk, when this Jean was ridin' like a fiend after you, Phil turned to me that day and his white agonized face I'll never forget. Now, Marjie, it's to right his wrong, and the wrongs of some he loves that I'm studyin' about. The week Phil came home from the rally I took a vacation. Shall I tell you why?"
Marjie nodded.
"Well, Star-face, it was laid on me conscience heavy to pay a part av the debt I owe to the boy who saved me life. I ain't got eyes fur nothin', and I see the clouds gatherin' black about that boy's head. Back of 'em was jealousy, that was a girl; hate, that was a man whose cruel, ugly deeds Phil had knocked down and trampled on and prevented from comin' to a harvest of sufferin'; and revenge, that was a rebel-hearted scoundrel who'd have destroyed this town but for Phil; and last, a selfish, money-lovin' son of a horse-thief who was grabbing forriches and pulling hard at the covers to hide some sins he'd never want to come to the light, being a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. All thim in one cloud makes a hurricane, and with 'em comes a shallow, selfish, pretty girl. Oh, it was a sight, Marjie. If I can do somethin' to keep shipwreck not only from them the storm's aimed at, but them that's pilin' up trouble fur themselves, too, I'm goin' to do it."
Marjie made no reply.
"So I took a vacation and wint off on a visit to me rich relatives in Westport."
Marjie could not help smiling now. O'mie had not a soul to call his next of kin.
"Oh, yis, I wint," he continued, "on tin days' holiday. The actual start to it was on the evenin' Phil got home from Topeka. The night of the party at Anderson's Lettie Conlow comes into the store just at closin'. I was behind a pile of ginghams fixin' some papers and cord below the counter. And Judson, being a fool by inheritance and choice of profession, takes no more notice of me than if I was a dog; says things he oughtn't to when he knows I'm 'round. But he forgits me in the pride of his stuck-uppityness. And I heard Judson say to her low, 'Now be sure to go right after dark and look in there again. You're sure you know just which crevice of the rock it is?' Lettie laughed and said, she'd watched it too long not to know. And so they arranged it, and I arranged my wrappin'-cord, and when I straightened up (I'm little, ye know), they didn't see my rid head by the pile of ginghams; and so she went away. When I got ready I wint, too. I trailed round after dark until I found meself under that point av rock by the bushes in the steep bend up-street. I was in a little corner full of crevices, when along comes Lettie. She seemed to betryin' to get somethin' out of 'em, and her short fat arm couldn't reach it. Blamed inconvanient bein' little and short! She tried and tried and thin she said some ugly words only a boy has a right to say when he's cussin' somethin'. Just thin somethin' made a noise between her and the steps, and she made a rush for 'em and was gone. My eyes was gettin' catty and used to the dark now, and I could make out pretty sure it was Phil who sails up nixt, aisy, like he knowed the premises, and in his hand goes and he got out somethin' sayin' to himself—and me:
"'Well, Marjie tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole was so deep.'
"Marjie, maybe if that hole's too deep for Lettie to reach clear in, there might be somethin' she's missed. I dunno'. But niver moind. I took me vacation, went sailin' out with Dever fur a rale splurge to Kansas City. Across the Neosho Dever turns the stage aside, U. S. mail and all, and lands me siven miles up the river and ferries me on this side again. Dever can keep the stillest of any livin' stage-driver whose business is to drive stage on the side and gossip on the main line. He never cheeped a chirp. I come back that same day and put in tin days studyin' things. I just turned myself into a holy inquisition for tin mortial days. Now, what I know has a value to Phil's good name, who has been accused of doing more diviltry than the thief on the cross. Marjie, I'm goin' to proceed now and turn on screws till the heretics squeal. It's not exactly my business; but—well, yes, it's the Lord's business to right the wrongs, and we must do His work now and then, 'unworthy though we be,' as Grandpa Mead says, in prayer meetin'."
"O'mie, you heard Dr. Hemingway's prayer last night?" Marjie asked, in a voice that quivered with tears.
"Oh, good God! Marjie, the men that's fighting the battles on the frontier, the fire-guards around them prairie homes, they are the salt of the earth." He dropped his head between his hands and groaned. Presently he rose to say good-night.
"Shall I do it, little sister? See to what's not my business at all, at all, and start a fire in this town big enough to light the skies clear to where Phil is this rainy night, and he can read a welcome home in it?"
"They said last night that he's going to be married soon to that Massachusetts girl. Maybe he wouldn't want to come if he did see it," Marjie murmured, turning her face away.
"Oh, maybe not, maybe not. Niver did want to get back when he was away. But, say, Marjie Star-face, Fort Wallace away out on the Plains ain't Rockport; and rich men's homes and all that gabble they was desecratin' the Sabbath with at supper last night—" O'mie broke off and took the girl's trembling hand in his. "Oh! I can look after that rascal's good name, but I don't dare to fix things up for you two, no matter what I know." So ran his thoughts.
The rain blew in a bitter gust as he opened the door. "Good-night, Marjie. It's an ugly night. Any old waterproof cloak to lend me, girlie?" he asked, but Marjie did not smile. She held the light as in the olden time she had shown us the dripping path, and watched the little Irishman trotting away in the darkness.
The Indian summer of 1868 in Kansas was as short as it was glorious. The next day was gorgeous after the rain, and the warm sunshine and light breeze drove all the dampness and chill away. In the middle of the afternoon Judson left the store to O'mie and went up to Mrs. Whately's for an important business conference. Theseconferences were growing frequent now, and dear Mrs. Whately's usually serene face wore a deeply anxious look after each one. Marjie had no place in them. It was not a part of Judson's plan to have her understand the business.
Fortune favored O'mie's inquisition scheme. Judson had hardly left the store when Lettie Conlow walked in. Evidently Judson's company on the Sunday evening before had given her a purpose in coming. In our play as children Lettie was the first to "get mad and call names." In her young womanhood she was vindictive and passionate.
"Good-afternoon, Lettie. Nice day after the rain," O'mie said, pleasantly.
She did not respond to his greeting, but stood before him with flashing eyes. She had often been called pretty, and her type is always considered handsome, for her coloring was brilliant, and her form attractive. This year she was the best dressed girl in town, although her father was not especially prosperous. Whether transplanting in a finer soil with higher culture might have changed her I cannot say, for the Conlow breed ran low and the stamp of the common grade was on Lettie. I've seen the same on a millionaire's wife; so it is in the blood, and not in the rank. No other girl in town broke the law as Lettie did, and kept her good name, but we had always known her. The boys befriended her more than the girls did, partly because we knew more of her escapades, and partly because she would sometimes listen to us. A pretty, dashing, wilful, untutored, and ill-principled girl, she was sowing the grain of a certain harvest.
"O'mie," she began angrily, "you've been talking about me, and you've been spying on me long enough; and I'm going to settle you now. You are a contemptible spy, and you're the biggest rascal in this town. That's what you are."
"Not by the steelyards, I ain't," O'mie replied. Passing from behind the counter and courteously offering her a chair. Then jumping upon the counter beside her he sat swinging his heels against it, fingering the yard-stick beside the pile of calicoes. "Not by the steelyards, I ain't the biggest. Tell Mapleson's lots longer, and James Conlow, blacksmith, and Cam Gentry, and Cris Mead are all bigger. But if you want to settle me, I'm ready. Who says I've been talking about you?"
"Amos Judson, and he knows. He's told me all about you."
O'mie's irrepressible smile spread over his face. "All about me? I didn't give him credit for that much insight."
"I'm not joking, and you must listen to me. I want to know why you tag after me every place I go. No gentleman would do that."
"Maybe not, nor a lady nather," O'mie interposed.
Lettie's face burned angrily.
"And you've been saying things about me. You've got to quit it. Only a dirty coward would talk about a girl as you do."
She stamped her foot and her pudgy hands were clenched into hard little knots. It was a cheap kind of fury, a flimsy bit of drama, but tragedies have grown out of even a lesser degree of unbridled temper. O'mie was a monkey to whom the ludicrous side of life forever appealed, and the sight of Lettie as an accusing vengeance was too much for him. The twinkle in his eye only angered her the more.
"Oh, you needn't laugh, you and Marjie Whately. How I hate her! but I've fixed her. You two have always been against me, I know. I've heard what you say. She's a liar, and a mean flirt, always trying to take everybody away from me; and as good as a pauper if Judson didn't just keep her and her mother."
"Marjie'd never try to get Judson away from Lettie," O'mie thought, but all sense of humor had left his face now. "Lettie Conlow," he said, leaning toward her and speaking calmly, "you may call me what you please—Lord, it couldn't hurt me—but you, nor nobody else, man or woman, praist or pirate, is comin' into this store while I'm alone in controllin' it, and call Marjie Whately nor any other dacent woman by any evil names. If you've come here to settle me, settle away, and when you get through my turn's comin' to settle; but if you say another word against Marjie or any other woman, by the holy Joe Spooner, and all the other saints, you'll walk right out that door, or I'll throw you out as I'd do anybody else in the same case, no matter if they was masculine, feminine, or neuter gender. Now you understand me. If you have anything more to say, say it quick."
Lettie was furious now, but the Conlow blood is not courageous, and she only ground her teeth and muttered: "Always the same. Nobody dares to say a word against her. What makes some folks so precious, I wonder? There's Phil Baronet, now,—the biggest swindle in this town. Oh, I could tell you a lot about him. I'll do it some day, too. It'll take more money to keep me still than Baronet's bank notes."
"Lettie," said O'mie in an even voice, "I'm waitin' here to be settled."
"Then let me alone. I'm not goin' to be forever tracked 'round like a thief. I'll fix you so you'll keep still. Who are you, anyhow? A nobody, poor as sin, living off of this town all these years; never knowing whoyour father nor mother is, nor nobody to care for you; the very trash of the earth, somebody's doorstep foundling, to set yourself up over me! You'd ought to 'a been run out of town long ago."
"I was, back in '63, an' half the town came after me, had to drag me back with ropes, they was so zealous to get me. I wasn't worth it, all the love and kindness the town's give me. Now, Lettie, what else?"
"Nothing except this. After what Dr. Hemingway said last night Springvale's gone crazy about Phil again. Just crazy, and he's sure to come back here. If he does"—she broke off a moment—"well, you know what you've been up to for four months, trackin' me, and tellin' things you don't know. Are you goin' to quit it? That's all."
"The evidence bein' in an' the plaintiff restin'," O'mie said gravely, "it's time for the defence in the case to begin.
"You saved me a trip, my lady, for I was comin' over this very evenin' to settle with you. But never mind, we can do it now. Judson's havin' one of his M. E. quarterly conferences up at the Whately house and we are free to talk this out. You say I'm a contemptible spy. Lettie, we're a pair of 'em, so we'll lave off the adjective or adverb, which ever it is, that does that for names of 'persons, places, and things that can be known or mentioned.' Some of 'em that can be known, can't aven be mentioned, though. Where were you, Lettie, whin I was spyin' and what were you doin' at the time yoursilf?"
"I guess I had a right to be there. It's a free country, and it was my own business, not somebody else's," the girl retorted angrily, as the situation dawned on her.
"Exactly," O'mie went on. "It's a free country and we both have a right to tend to our own business. Nobody has a right to tend to a business of sin and evil-doin' toward his neighbor, though, my girl. If I've tagged you and spied, and played the dirty coward, and ain't no gintleman, it was to save a good name, and to keep from exposure a name—maybe it's a girl's, none too good, I'm afraid—but it would niver come to the gossips through me. You know that."
Lettie did know it. O'mie and she had made mud pies together in the days when they still talked in baby words. It was because he was true and kind, because he was a friend to every man, woman, and child there, that Springvale loves his memory to-day.
"Second, I wish to Heaven I could make things right, but I can't. I wish you could, but some of 'em you won't and, Lettie, some of 'em you can't now.
"Third, you've heard what I said about you. Why, child, I've said the worst to you. No words comin' straight nor crooked to you, have I said of you I'd not say to yoursilf, face to face.
"And again now, girlie, you've talked plain here; came pretty near callin' me names, in fact. I can stand it, and I guess I deserve some of 'em. I am something of a rascal, and a consummate liar, I admit; but when you talk about a lot of scandal up your sleeve, more 'n bank notes can pay by blackmail, and your chance of fixin' Phil Baronet's character, Lettie, you just can't do it. You are too mad to be anything but foolish to-day, but I'm glad you did come to me; it may save more 'n Phil's name. Your own is in the worst jeopardy right now. You said, in conclusion, that I was trackin' you, and you ask, am I goin' to quit it? The defendant admits the charge, pleads guilty on that count, and throws himself on the mercy av the coort. But as to the question, am I goin' to quit it, I answer yes. Whin? Whin there'sno more need fur it, and not one minute sooner. I may be the very trash av the earth, with no father nor mother nor annybody to care for me" (I can see, even now, the pathetic look that came sometimes into his laughing gray eyes. It must have been in them at that moment); "but I have sometimes been 'round when things I could do needed doin', and I'm goin' to be prisent now, and in the future, to put my hand up against wrong-doin' if I can." O'mie paused, while that little dry cough that brought a red spot to each cheek had its way.
"Now, Lettie, you've had your say with me, and your mind's relieved. It's my time to say a few things, and you must listen."
Lettie sat looking at the floor.
"I don't know why I have to listen," she spoke defiantly.
"Nor do I know why I had to listen to what you said. You don't need to, but I would if I was you. It may be all the better for you in a year if you do. You spake av bein' tagged wherever you go. Who begun it? I'll tell you. Back in the summer one day, two people drove out to the stone cabin, the haunted one, by the river in the draw below the big cottonwood. Somebody made his home there, somebody who didn't dare to show his face in Springvale by day, 'cause his hand's been lifted to murder his fellow man. But he hangs 'round here, skulkin' in by night to see the men he does business with, and meetin' foolish girls who ought never to trust him a minute. This man's waiting his chance to commit murder again, or worse. I know, fur I've laid fur him too many times. There's no cruel-hearted savage on the Plains more dangerous to the settlers on the frontier; not one av 'em 'ud burn a house, and kill men and children, and torture and carry off women, quicker than this miserable dog that a girl who should value her good name hasbeen counsellin' with time and again, this summer, partly on account of jealousy, and partly because of a silly notion of bein' romantic. Back in June she made a trip to the cabin double quick to warn the varmint roostin' there. In her haste she dropped a bow of purple ribbon which with some other finery a certain little store-keeper gives her to do his spyin' fur him. It's a blamed lovely cabal in this town. I know 'em all by name.
"Spakin' of bein' paupers and bein' kept by Judson, Lettie—who is payin' the wages of sin, in money and fine clothes, right now? It's on the books, and I kape the books. But, my dear girl,"—O'mie looked straight into her black eyes—"they's books bein' kept of the purpose, price av the goods, and money. And you and him may answer for that. I can swear in coort only to what Judson spends on you; you know what for."
Lettie cowered down before her inquisitor, and her anger was mingled with fear and shame.
"This purple bow was found, identified. Aven Uncle Cam, short-sighted as he is, remembered who wore it that day; aven see her gallopin' into town and noticed she'd lost it. This same girl hung around the cliff till she found a secret place where two people put their letters. She comes in here and tells me I've no business taggin' her. What business had she robbin' folks of letters, stealin' 'em out, and givin' 'em into wicked hands? Lettie, you know whose letter you took when you could reach far enough to git it out, and you know where you put it.
"You said you could ruin Phil. It's aisy for a woman to do that, I admit. No matter how hard the church may be on 'em, and how much other women may cut 'em dead for doin' wrong things, a woman can go into a coort-room and swear a man's character away, an' the jury'll give her judgment every time. The law's a lot aisier with thewomen than the crowd you associate with is." O'mie's speech was broken off by his cough.
"Now to review this case a bit. The night av the Anderson's party you tried to get the letter Marjie'd put up for Phil. You didn't do it."
"I never tried," Lettie declared.
"How come the rid flowers stuck with the little burrs on your dress? They don't grow anywhere round here only on that cliff side. I pulled off one bunch, and I saw Phil pull off another when your skirts caught on a nail in the door. But I saw more 'n that. I stood beside you when you tried to get the letter, and I heard you tell Judson you had failed. I can't help my ears; the Almighty made 'em to hear with, and as you've said, I am a contemptible spy.
"You have given hints, mean ugly little hints, of what you could tell about Phil on that night. He took you home, as he was asked to do. But what took you to the top of the cliff at midnight? It was to meet Jean Pahusca, the dog the gallows is yappin' for now. You waited while he tried to kill Phil. He'd done it, too, if Phil hadn't been too strong to be killed by such as him. And then you and Jean were on your way out to his cabin whin the boys found you. You know Bill and Bud was goin' to Red Range, that night in the carriage when they overtook you. It was moonlight, you remember; and ridin' on the back seat was Cris Mead, silent as he always is, but he heard every word that was said. Bud come all the way back with you to keep your good name a little while longer; took chances on his own to save a girl's. It's Phil Baronet put that kind of loyalty into the boys av this town. No wonder they love him. Bud's affidavit's on file ready, when needed; and Bill is here to testify; and Cris Mead's name's good on paper, or incoort, or prayer meetin'. Lettie, you have sold yourself to two of the worst men ever set foot in this town."
"Amos Judson is my best friend; I'll tell him you said he's one of the two worst men in this town," Lettie cried.
"It's a waste av time; he knows it himself. Now, a girl who visits in lonely cabins at dead hours av the night, with men she knows is dangerous, oughtn't to ask why some folks are so precious. It's because they keep their bodies and souls sacred before Almighty God, and don't sell aither. You've accused me of tryin' to protect Phil, and of keepin' Marjie's name out of everything, and that I've been spyin' on you. Good God! Lettie, it's to keep you more 'n them. I was out after my own business, after things other folks ought to a' looked after and didn't, things strictly belongin' to me, whin I run across you everywhere, and see your wicked plan to ruin good names and break hearts and get money by blackmail. Lettie, it's not too late to turn back now. You've done wrong; we all do. But, little girl, we've knowed each other since the days I used to tie your apron strings when your short little fat arms couldn't reach to tie 'em, and I know you now. What have you done with Marjie's letter that you stole before it got to Phil?" His voice was kind, even tender.
"I'll never tell you!" Lettie blazed up like a fire brand.
"Aren't you willing to right the wrongs you've done, and save yourself, too?" His voice did not change.
"I'm going to leave here when I get ready. I'm going away, but not till I am ready, and—" She had almost yielded, but evil desire is a strong master. The spirit of her low-browed father gained control again, and she raised a stormy face to him who would have befriended her."I'm going to do what I please, and go where I please; and I'll fix some precious saints so they'll never want to come back to this town; and some others'll wish they could leave it."
"All right, then," O'mie replied, as Lettie flung herself out of the door, "if you find me among those prisent when you turn some corner suddenly don't be surprised. I wonder," he went on, "who got that letter the last night the miserable Melrose girl was here, or the night after. I wonder how she could reach it when she couldn't get the other one. Maybe the hole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But," he added seriously, "this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now."