Produced by Donald Lainson
TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN
By Bret Harte
CONTENTS
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY
TWO AMERICANS
THE JUDGMENT OF BOLINAS PLAIN
THE STRANGE EXPERIENCE OF ALKALI DICK
A NIGHT ON THE DIVIDE
THE YOUNGEST PROSPECTOR IN CALAVERAS
A TALE OF THREE TRUANTS
TALES OF TRAIL AND TOWN
THE ANCESTORS OF PETER ATHERLY
CHAPTER I
It must be admitted that the civilizing processes of Rough and Readywere not marked by any of the ameliorating conditions of other improvedcamps. After the discovery of the famous "Eureka" lead, there was theusual influx of gamblers and saloon-keepers; but that was accepted as amatter of course. But it was thought hard that, after a church was builtand a new school erected, it should suddenly be found necessary to havedoors that locked, instead of standing shamelessly open to the criticismand temptation of wayfarers, or that portable property could no longerbe left out at night in the old fond reliance on universal brotherhood.The habit of borrowing was stopped with the introduction of more moneyinto the camp, and the establishment of rates of interest; the poorerpeople either took what they wanted, or as indiscreetly bought oncredit. There were better clothes to be seen in its one long stragglingstreet, but those who wore them generally lacked the grim virtue of theold pioneers, and the fairer faces that were to be seen were generallyrouged. There was a year or two of this kind of mutation, in which theyouthful barbarism of Rough and Ready might have been said to strugglewith adult civilized wickedness, and then the name itself disappeared.By an Act of the Legislature the growing town was called "Atherly,"after the owner of the Eureka mine,--Peter Atherly,--who had givenlargess to the town in its "Waterworks" and a "Gin Mill," as the newAtherly Hotel and its gilded bar-rooms were now called. Even at the lastmoment, however, the new title of "Atherly" hung in the balance. Theromantic daughter of the pastor had said that Mr. Atherly shouldbe called "Atherly of Atherly," an aristocratic title so stronglysuggestive of an innovation upon democratic principles that it was notuntil it was discreetly suggested that everybody was still free to callhim "Atherly, late of Rough and Ready," that opposition ceased.
Possibly this incident may have first awakened him to the value of hisname, and some anxiety as to its origin. Roughly speaking, Atherly'sfather was only a bucolic emigrant from "Mizzouri," and his mother haddone the washing for the camp on her first arrival. The Atherlys hadsuffered on their overland journey from drought and famine, with theaddition of being captured by Indians, who had held them captive for tenmonths. Indeed, Mr. Atherly, senior, never recovered from the effectsof his captivity, and died shortly after Mrs. Atherly had given birthto twins, Peter and Jenny Atherly. This was scant knowledge for Peterin the glorification of his name through his immediate progenitors; but"Atherly of Atherly" still sounded pleasantly, and, as the young ladyhad said, smacked of old feudal days and honors. It was believedbeyond doubt, even in their simple family records,--the flyleaf of aBible,--that Peter Atherly's great-grandfather was an Englishman whobrought over to his Majesty's Virginian possessions his only son, thena boy. It was not established, however, to what class of deportationhe belonged: whether he was suffering exile from religious or judicialconviction, or if he were only one of the articled "apprentices"who largely made up the American immigration of those days. Howbeit,"Atherly" was undoubtedly an English name, even suggesting respectableand landed ancestry, and Peter Atherly was proud of it. He lookedsomewhat askance upon his Irish and German fellow citizens, and talkeda good deal about "race." Two things, however, concerned him: he was notin looks certainly like any type of modern Englishman as seen eitheron the stage in San Francisco, or as an actual tourist in the miningregions, and his accent was undoubtedly Southwestern. He was tall anddark, with deep-set eyes in a singularly immobile countenance; he hadan erect but lithe and sinewy figure even for his thirty odd years,and might easily have been taken for any other American except for thesingle exception that his nose was distinctly Roman, and gave him adistinguished air. There was a suggestion of Abraham Lincoln (and evenof Don Quixote) in his tall, melancholy figure and length of limb, butnothing whatever that suggested an Englishman.
It was shortly after the christening of Atherly town that an incidentoccurred which at first shook, and then the more firmly established, hismild monomania. His widowed mother had been for the last two yearsan inmate of a private asylum for inebriates, through certain habitscontracted while washing for the camp in the first year of herwidowhood. This had always been a matter of open sympathy to Rough andReady; but it was a secret reproach hinted at in Atherly, althoughit was known that the rich Peter Atherly kept his mother liberallysupplied, and that both he and his sister "Jinny" or Jenny Atherlyvisited her frequently. One day he was telegraphed for, and on going tothe asylum found Mrs. Atherly delirious and raving. Through her son'sliberality she had bribed an attendant, and was fast succumbing to aprivate debauch. In the intervals of her delirium she called Peterby name, talked frenziedly and mysteriously of his "highconnections"--alluded to himself and his sister as being of the"true breed"--and with a certain vigor of epithet, picked up in thefamiliarity of the camp during the days when she was known as "Old Ma'amAtherly" or "Aunt Sally," declared that they were "no corn-crackingHoosiers," "hayseed pikes," nor "northern Yankee scum," and that sheshould yet live to see them "holding their own lands again and the landsof their forefathers." Quieted at last by opiates, she fell into a morelucid but scarcely less distressing attitude. Recognizing her son again,as well as her own fast failing condition, she sarcastically thankedhim for coming to "see her off," congratulated him that he would soon bespared the lie and expense of keeping her here on account of his pride,under the thin pretext of trying to "cure" her. She knew that SallyAtherly of Rough and Ready wasn't considered fit company for "Atherly ofAtherly" by his fine new friends. This and much more in a voice minglingmaudlin sentiment with bitter resentment, and with an ominous glitter inher bloodshot and glairy eyes. Peter winced with a consciousness of thehalf-truth of her reproaches, but the curiosity and excitement awakenedby the revelations of her frenzy were greater than his remorse. He saidquickly:--
"You were speaking of father!--of his family--his lands and possessions.Tell me again!"
"Wot are ye givin' us?" she ejaculated in husky suspicion, opening uponhim her beady eyes, in which the film of death was already gathering.
"Tell me of father,--my father and his family! hisgreat-grandfather!--the Atherlys, my relations--what you were saying.What do you know about them?"
"THAT'S all ye wanter know--is it? THAT'S what ye'r' comin' to the oldwasher-woman for--is it?" she burst out with the desperation of disgust."Well--give it up! Ask me another!"
"But, mother--the old records, you know! The family Bible--what you oncetold us--me and Jinny!"
Something gurgled in her throat like a chuckle. With the energy ofmalevolence, she stammered: "There wasn't no records--there wasn't nofamily Bible! it's all a lie--you hear me! Your Atherly that you're soproud of was just a British bummer who was kicked outer his family inEngland and sent to buzz round in Americky. He honey-fogled me--SallyMagregor--out of a better family than his'n, in Kansas, and skyugled meaway, but it was a straight out marriage, and I kin prove it. It wasin the St. Louis papers, and I've got it stored away safe enough inmy trunk! You hear me! I'm shoutin'! But he wasn't no old settler inMizzouri--he wasn't descended from any settler, either! He was a new manouter England--fresh caught--and talked down his throat. And he fooledME--the darter of an old family that was settled on the right bankof the Mizzouri afore Dan'l Boone came to Kentucky--with his newphilanderi
ngs. Then he broke up, and went all to pieces when we struckCaliforny, and left ME--Sally Magregor, whose father had niggers of hisown--to wash for Rough and Ready! THAT'S your Atherly! Take him! I don'twant him--I've done with him! I was done with him long afore--afore"--acough checked her utterance,--"afore"--She gasped again, but the wordsseemed to strangle in her throat. Intent only on her words and scarcelyheeding her sufferings, Peter was bending over her eagerly, when thedoctor rudely pulled him away and lifted her to a sitting posture. Butshe never spoke again. The strongest restoratives quickly administeredonly left her in a state of scarcely breathing unconsciousness.
"Is she dying? Can't you bring her to," said the anxious Peter, "if onlyfor a moment, doctor?"
"I'm thinkin'," said the visiting doctor, an old Scotch army surgeon,looking at the rich Mr. Atherly with cool, professional contempt, "thatyour mother willna do any more washing for me as in the old time, norgive up her life again to support her bairns. And it isna my eententionto bring her back to pain for the purposes of geeneral conversation!"
Nor, indeed, did she ever come back to any purpose, but passed away withher unfinished sentence. And her limbs were scarcely decently composedby the attendants before Peter was rummaging the trunk in her room forthe paper she had spoken of. It was in an old work-box--a now fadedyellow clipping from a newspaper, lying amidst spoils of cotton thread,buttons, and beeswax, which he even then remembered to have seen uponhis mother's lap when she superadded the sewing on of buttons to herwashing of the miners' shirts. And his dark and hollow cheek glowed withgratified sentiment as he read the clipping.
"We hear with regret of the death of Philip Atherly, Esq., of Rough andReady, California. Mr. Atherly will be remembered by some of our readersas the hero of the romantic elopement of Miss Sallie Magregor, daughterof Colonel 'Bob' Magregor, which created such a stir in well-to-docircles some thirty years ago. It was known vaguely that the youngcouple had 'gone West,'--a then unknown region,--but it seems thatafter severe trials and tribulations on the frontier with savages, theyemigrated early to Oregon, and then, on the outbreak of the gold fever,to California. But it will be a surprise to many to know that it hasjust transpired that Mr. Atherly was the second son of Sir AshleyAtherly, an English baronet, and by the death of his brother might havesucceeded to the property and title."
He remained for some moments looking fixedly at the paper, until thecommonplace paragraph imprinted itself upon his brain as no line ofsage or poet had ever done, and then he folded it up and put it in hispocket. In his exaltation he felt that even the mother he had neverloved was promoted to a certain respect as his father's wife, althoughhe was equally conscious of a new resentment against her for hercontemptuous allusions to HIS father, and her evident hopeless inabilityto comprehend his position. His mother, he feared, was indeed low!--butHE was his father's son! Nevertheless, he gave her a funeral at Atherly,long remembered for its barbaric opulence and display. Thirty carriages,procured from Sacramento at great expense, were freely offered to hisfriends to join in the astounding pageant. A wonderful casket ofiron and silver, brought from San Francisco, held the remains of theex-washerwoman of Rough and Ready. But a more remarkable innovation wasthe addition of a royal crown to the other ornamentation of the casket.Peter Atherly's ideas of heraldry were very vague,--Sacramento at thattime offered him no opportunity of knowing what were the arms of theAtherlys,--and the introduction of the royal crown seemed to satisfyPeter's mind as to what a crest MIGHT be, while to the ordinarydemocratic mind it simply suggested that the corpse was English!Political criticism being thus happily averted, Mrs. Atherly's bodywas laid in the little cemetery, not far away from certain rude woodencrosses which marked the burial-place of wanderers whose very names wereunknown, and in due time a marble shaft was erected over it. Butwhen, the next day, the county paper contained, in addition tothe column-and-a-half description of the funeral, the more formalannouncement of the death of "Mrs. Sallie Atherly, wife of the latePhilip Atherly, second son of Sir Ashley Atherly, of England," criticismand comment broke out. The old pioneers of Rough and Ready felt thatthey had been imposed upon, and that in some vague way the unfortunatewoman had made them the victims of a huge practical joke during allthese years. That she had grimly enjoyed their ignorance of her positionthey did not doubt. "Why, I remember onct when I was sorter bullyraggin'her about mixin' up my duds with Doc Simmons's, and sendin' me WhiskeyDick's old rags, she turned round sudden with a kind of screech, and ranout into the brush. I reckoned, at the time, that it was either 'drink'or feelin's, and could hev kicked myself for being sassy to theold woman, but I know now that all this time that air critter--thatbarrownet's daughter-in-law--was just laughin' herself into fits in thebrush! No, sir, she played this yer camp for all it was worth, year inand out, and we just gave ourselves away like speckled idiots! and nowshe's lyin' out thar in the bone yard, and keeps on p'intin' the joke,and a-roarin' at us in marble."
Even the later citizens in Atherly felt an equal resentment against her,but from different motives. That her drinking habits and her powerfulvocabulary were all the effect of her aristocratic alliance they neverdoubted. And, although it brought the virtues of their own superiorrepublican sobriety into greater contrast, they felt a scandal at havingbeen tricked into attending this gilded funeral of dissipated rank.Peter Atherly found himself unpopular in his own town. The sober whodrank from his free "Waterworks," and the giddy ones who imbibed athis "Gin Mill," equally criticised him. He could not understand it; hispeculiar predilections had been accepted before, when they were merepresumptions; why should they not NOW, when they were admitted facts?He was conscious of no change in himself since the funeral! Yet thecriticism went on. Presently it took the milder but more contagious formof ridicule. In his own hotel, built with his own money, and in his ownpresence, he had heard a reckless frequenter of the bar-room declinesome proffered refreshment on the ground that "he only drank with histitled relatives." A local humorist, amidst the applause of an admiringcrowd at the post-office window, had openly accused the postmaster ofwithholding letters to him from his only surviving brother, "the Dook ofDoncherknow." "The ole dooky never onct missed the mail to let meknow wot's goin' on in me childhood's home," remarked the humoristplaintively; "and yer's this dod-blasted gov'ment mule of a postmasterkeepin' me letters back!" Letters with pretentious and gilded coats ofarms, taken from the decorated inner lining of cigar-boxes, were postedto prominent citizens. The neighboring and unregenerated settlement ofRed Dog was more outrageous in its contribution. The Red Dog "Sentinel,"in commenting on the death of "Haulbowline Tom," a drunken Englishman-o'-war's man, said: "It may not be generally known that ourregretted fellow citizen, while serving on H. M. S. Boxer, was secretlymarried to Queen Kikalu of the Friendly Group; but, unlike some ofour prosperous neighbors, he never boasted of his royal alliance, andresisted with steady British pluck any invitation to share the throne.Indeed, any allusion to the subject affected him deeply. There are thoseamong us who will remember the beautiful portrait of his royal bridetattooed upon his left arm with the royal crest and the crossed flags ofthe two nations." Only Peter Atherly and his sister understood the stinginflicted either by accident or design in the latter sentence. Bothhe and his sister had some singular hieroglyphic branded on theirarms,--probably a reminiscence of their life on the plains in theirinfant Indian captivity. But there was no mistaking the generalsentiment. The criticisms of a small town may become inevasible. Atherlydetermined to take the first opportunity to leave Rough and Ready. Hewas rich; his property was secure; there was no reason why he shouldstay where his family pretensions were a drawback. And a furthercircumstance determined his resolution.
He was awaiting his sister in his new house on a little crest abovethe town. She had been at the time of her mother's death, and since, aprivate boarder in the Sacred Heart Convent at Santa Clara, whence shehad been summoned to the funeral, but had returned the next day. Fewpeople had noticed in her brother's carriage the veiled figure whichmight have b
elonged to one of the religious orders; still less did theyremember the dark, lank, heavy-browed girl who had sometimes been seenabout Rough and Ready. For she had her brother's melancholy, and greaterreticence, and had continued of her own free will, long after hergirlish pupilage at the convent, to live secluded under its maternalroof without taking orders. A general suspicion that she was either areligious "crank," or considered herself too good to live in a mountainmining town, had not contributed to her brother's popularity. In herabstraction from worldly ambitions she had, naturally, taken no partin her brother's family pretensions. He had given her an independentallowance, and she was supposed to be equally a sharer in his goodfortune. Yet she had suddenly declared her intention of returningto Atherly, to consult him on affairs of importance. Peter was bothsurprised and eager; there was but little affection between them, but,preoccupied with his one idea, he was satisfied that she wanted to talkabout the family.
But he was amazed, disappointed, and disconcerted. For Jenny Atherly,the sober recluse of Santa Clara, hidden in her sombre draperies at thefuneral, was no longer to be recognized in the fashionable, smartly butsomewhat over-dressed woman he saw before him. In spite of her largefeatures and the distinguishing Roman nose, like his own, she lookedeven pretty in her excitement. She had left the convent, she was tiredof the life there, she was satisfied that a religious vocation would notsuit her. In brief, she intended to enjoy herself like other women.If he really felt a pride in the family he ought to take her out, likeother brothers, and "give her a show." He could do it there if he liked,and she would keep house for him. If he didn't want to, she must haveenough money to keep her fashionably in San Francisco. But she wantedexcitement, and that she WOULD HAVE! She wanted to go to balls,theatres, and entertainments, and she intended to! Her voice grew quitehigh, and her dark cheek glowed with some new-found emotion.
Astounded as he was, Peter succumbed. It was better that she shouldindulge her astounding caprice under his roof than elsewhere. Itwould not do for the sister of an Atherly to provoke scandal. He gaveentertainments, picnics, and parties, and "Jinny" Atherly plunged intothese mild festivities with the enthusiasm of a schoolgirl. She not onlycould dance with feverish energy all night, but next day could mounta horse--she was a fearless rider--and lead the most accomplishedhorsemen. She was a good shot, she walked with the untiring foot of acoyote, she threaded the woods with the instinct of a pioneer. Peterregarded her with a singular mingling of astonishment and fear. Surelyshe had not learned this at school! These were not the teachings nor thesports of the good sisters! He once dared to interrogate her regardingthis change in her habits. "I always FELT like it," she answeredquickly, "but I kept it down. I used sometimes to feel that I couldn'tstand it any longer, but must rush out and do something," she saidpassionately; "but," she went on with furtive eyes, and a sudden wildtimidity like that of a fawn, "I was afraid! I was afraid IT WAS LIKEMOTHER! It seemed to me to be HER blood that was rising in me, and Ikept it down,--I didn't want to be like her,--and I prayed and struggledagainst it. Did you," she said, suddenly grasping his hand, "ever feellike that?"
But Peter never had. His melancholy faith in his father's race hadleft no thought of his mother's blood mingling with it. "But," he saidgravely, "believing this, why did you change?"
"Because I could hold out no longer. I should have gone crazy. Times Iwanted to take some of those meek nuns, some of those white-faced pupilswith their blue eyes and wavy flaxen hair, and strangle them. I couldn'tstrive and pray and struggle any longer THERE, and so I came here tolet myself out! I suppose when I get married--and I ought to, with mymoney--it may change me! You don't suppose," she said, with a return ofher wild-animal-like timidity, "it is anything that was in FATHER, inthose ATHERLYS,--do you?"
But Peter had no idea of anything but virtue in the Atherly blood; hehad heard that the upper class of Europeans were fond of fieldsports and of hunting; it was odd that his sister should inherit thispropensity and not he. He regarded her more kindly for this evidence ofrace. "You think of getting married?" he said more gently, yet with acertain brotherly doubt that any man could like her enough, evenwith her money. "Is there any one here would--suit you?" he addeddiplomatically.
"No--I hate them all!" she burst out. "There isn't one I don't despisefor his sickening, foppish, womanish airs."
Nevertheless, it was quite evident that some of the men were attractedby her singular originality and a certain good comradeship in her ways.And it was on one of their riding excursions that Peter noticed that shewas singled out by a good-looking, blond-haired young lawyer of the townfor his especial attentions. As the cavalcade straggled in climbingthe mountain, the young fellow rode close to her saddle-bow, and asthe distance lengthened between the other stragglers, they at last werequite alone. When the trail became more densely wooded, Peter quitelost sight of them. But when, a few moments later, having lost thetrail himself, they again appeared in the distance before him, he wasso amazed that he unconsciously halted. For the two horses were walkingside by side, and the stranger's arm was round his sister's waist.
Had Peter any sense of humor he might have smiled at this weakness inhis Amazonian sister, but he saw only the serious, practical side ofthe situation, with, of course, its inevitable relation to his onecontrolling idea. The young man was in good practice, and would havemade an eligible husband to any one else. But was he fit to mate with anAtherly? What would those as yet unknown and powerful relatives sayto it? At the same time he could not help knowing that "Jinny," inthe eccentricities of her virgin spinsterhood, might be equallyobjectionable to them, as she certainly was a severe trial to him here.If she were off his hands he might be able to prosecute his search forhis relatives with more freedom. After all, there were mesalliances inall families, and being a woman she was not in the direct line. Instead,therefore, of spurring forward to join them, he lingered a little untilthey passed out of sight, and until he was joined by a companion frombehind. Him, too, he purposely delayed. They were walking slowly,breathing their mustangs, when his companion suddenly uttered a cry ofalarm, and sprang from his horse. For on the trail before them lay theyoung lawyer quite unconscious, with his riderless steed nipping theyoung leaves of the underbrush. He was evidently stunned by a fall,although across his face was a livid welt which might have been causedby collision with the small elastic limb of a sapling, or a blow froma riding-whip; happily the last idea was only in Peter's mind. As theylifted him up he came slowly to consciousness. He was bewildered anddazed at first, but as he began to speak the color came back freshly tohis face. He could not conceive, he stammered, what had happened. Hewas riding with Miss Atherly, and he supposed his horse had slipped uponsome withered pine needles and thrown him! A spasm of pain crossed hisface suddenly, and he lifted his hand to the top of his head. Was hehurt THERE? No, but perhaps his hair, which was flowing and curly, hadcaught in the branches--like Absalom's! He tried to smile, and evenbegged them to assist him to his horse that he might follow his faircompanion, who would be wondering where he was; but Peter, satisfiedthat he had received no serious injury, hurriedly enjoined him to stay,while he himself would follow his sister. Putting spurs to his horse,he succeeded, in spite of the slippery trail, in overtaking her nearthe summit. At the sound of his horse's hoofs she wheeled quickly, camedashing furiously towards him, and only pulled up at the sound of hisvoice. But she had not time to change her first attitude and expression,which was something which perplexed and alarmed him. Her long lithefigure was half crouching, half clinging to the horse's back, herloosened hair flying over her shoulders, her dark eyes gleaming with anodd nymph-like mischief. Her white teeth flashed as she recognizedhim, but her laugh was still mocking and uncanny. He took refuge inindignation.
"What has happened?" he said sharply.
"The fool tried to kiss me!" she said simply. "And I--I--let out athim--like mother!"
Nevertheless, she gave him one of those shy, timid glances he hadnoticed before, and began coiling something around he
r fingers, witha suggestion of coy embarrassment, indescribably inconsistent with herprevious masculine independence.
"You might have killed him," said Peter angrily.
"Perhaps I might! OUGHT I have killed him, Peter?" she said anxiously,yet with the same winning, timid smile. If she had not been his sister,he would have thought her quite handsome.
"As it is," he said impetuously, "you have made a frightful scandalhere."
"HE won't say anything about it--will he?" she inquired shyly, stilltwisting the something around her finger.
Peter did not reply; perhaps the young lawyer really loved her and wouldkeep her secret! But he was vexed, and there was something maniacal inher twisting fingers. "What have you got there?" he said sharply.
She shook the object in the air before her with a laugh. "Only a lock ofhis hair," she said gayly; "but I didn't CUT it off!"
"Throw it away, and come here!" he said angrily.
But she only tucked the little blond curl into her waist belt and shookher head. He urged his horse forward, but she turned and fled, laughingas he pursued her. Being the better rider she could easily evade himwhenever he got too near, and in this way they eventually reached thetown and their house long before their companions. But she was farenough ahead of her brother to be able to dismount and hide her trophywith childish glee before he arrived.
She was right in believing that her unfortunate cavalier would make norevelation of her conduct, and his catastrophe passed as an accident.But Peter could not disguise the fact that much of his unpopularitywas shared by his sister. The matrons of Atherly believed that she was"fast," and remembered more distinctly than ever the evil habits of hermother. That she would, in the due course of time, "take to drink," theynever doubted. Her dancing was considered outrageous in its unfetteredfreedom, and her extraordinary powers of endurance were looked upon as"masculine" by the weaker girls whose partners she took from them. Shereciprocally looked down upon them, and made no secret of her contemptfor their small refinements and fancies. She affected only the societyof men, and even treated them with a familiarity that was both fearlessand scornful. Peter saw that it was useless to face the opposition;Miss Atherly did not seem to encourage the renewal of the young lawyer'sattentions, although it was evident that he was still attracted by her,nor did she seem to invite advances from others. He must go away--andhe would have to take her with him. It seemed ridiculous that a woman ofthirty, of masculine character, should require a chaperon in a brotherof equal age; but Peter knew the singular blending of childlikeignorance with this Amazonian quality. He had made his arrangementsfor an absence from Atherly of three or four years, and they departedtogether. The young fair-haired lawyer came to the stage-coach office tosee them off. Peter could detect no sentiment in his sister's familiarfarewell of her unfortunate suitor. At New York, however, it wasarranged that "Jinny" should stay with some friends whom they had madeen route, and that, if she wished, she could come to Europe later, andjoin him in London.
Thus relieved of one, Peter Atherly of Atherly started on his cherishedquest of his other and more remote relations.
CHAPTER II
Peter Atherly had been four months in England, but knew little of thecountry until one summer afternoon when his carriage rolled along thewell-ordered road between Nonningsby Station and Ashley Grange.
In that four months he had consulted authorities, examined records,visited the Heralds' College, written letters, and made a few friends. Arich American, tracing his genealogical tree, was not a new thing--evenin that day--in London; but there was something original and simple inhis methods, and so much that was grave, reserved, and un-American inhis personality, that it awakened interest. A recognition that he was aforeigner, but a puzzled doubt, however, of his exact nationality, whichhe found everywhere, at first pained him, but he became reconciled toit at about the same time that his English acquaintances abandoned theirown reserve and caution before the greater reticence of this melancholyAmerican, and actually became the questioners! In this way his questbecame known only as a disclosure of his own courtesy, and offersof assistance were pressed eagerly upon him. That was why Sir EdwardAtherly found himself gravely puzzled, as he sat with his familysolicitor one morning in the library of Ashley Grange.
"Humph!" said Sir Edward. "And you say he has absolutely no otherpurpose in making these inquiries?"
"Positively none," returned the solicitor. "He is even willing to sign arenunciation of any claim which might arise out of this information. Itis rather a singular case, but he seems to be a rich man and quite ableto indulge his harmless caprices."
"And you are quite sure he is Philip's son?"
"Quite, from the papers he brings me. Of course I informed him thateven if he should be able to establish a legal marriage he could expectnothing as next of kin, as you had children of your own. He seemed toknow that already, and avowed that his only wish was to satisfy his ownmind."
"I suppose he wants to claim kinship and all that sort of thing forsociety's sake?"
"I do not think so," said the solicitor dryly. "I suggested an interviewwith you, but he seemed to think it quite unnecessary, if I could givehim the information he required."
"Ha!" said Sir Edward promptly, "we'll invite him here. Lady Atherly canbring in some people to see him. Is he--ahem--What is he like? The usualAmerican, I suppose?"
"Not at all. Quite foreign-looking--dark, and rather like an Italian.There is no resemblance to Mr. Philip," he said, glancing at thepainting of a flaxen-haired child fondling a greyhound under the elms ofAshley Park.
"Ah! Yes, yes! Perhaps the mother was one of those Southern creoles, ormulattoes," said Sir Edward with an Englishman's tolerant regard forthe vagaries of people who were clearly not English; "they're ratherattractive women, I hear."
"I think you do quite well to be civil to him," said the solicitor. "Heseems to take an interest in the family, and being rich, and apparentlyonly anxious to enhance the family prestige, you ought to know him. Now,in reference to those mortgages on Appleby Farm, if you could get"--
"Yes, yes!" said Sir Edward quickly; "we'll have him down here; and, Isay! YOU'LL come too?"
The solicitor bowed. "And, by the way," continued Sir Edward, "there wasa girl too,--wasn't there? He has a sister, I believe?"
"Yes, but he has left her in America."
"Ah, yes!--very good--yes!--of course. We'll have Lord Greyshott andSir Roger and old Lady Everton,--she knows all about Sir Ashley and thefamily. And--er--is he young or old?"
"About thirty, I should say, Sir Edward."
"Ah, well! We'll have Lady Elfrida over from the Towers."
Had Peter known of these preparations he might have turned back toNonningsby without even visiting the old church in Ashley Park, whichhe had been told held the ashes of his ancestors. For during these fourmonths the conviction that he was a foreigner and that he had little ornothing in common with things here had been clearly forced upon him. Hecould recognize some kinship in the manners and customs of the people tothose he had known in the West and on the Atlantic coast, but not to hisown individuality, and he seemed even more a stranger here--where he hadexpected to feel the thrill of consanguinity--than in the West. Hehad accepted the invitation of the living Atherly for the sake of theAtherlys long dead and forgotten. As the great quadrangle of stoneand ivy lifted itself out of the park, he looked longingly towards thelittle square tower which peeped from between the yews nearer the road.As the carriage drove up to the carved archway whence so many Atherlyshad issued into the world, he could not believe that any of his bloodhad gone forth from it, or, except himself, had ever entered it before.Once in the great house he felt like a prisoner as he wandered throughthe long corridors to his room; even the noble trees beyond hismullioned windows seemed of another growth than those he had known.
There was no doubt that he created a sensation at Ashley Grange, notonly from his singular kinship, but from his striking individuality. TheAtherlys and their guests
were fascinated and freely admiring. His veryoriginality, which prevented them from comparing him with any Englishor American standard of excellence, gave them a comfortable assuranceof safety in their admiration. His reserve, his seriousness, hissimplicity, very unlike their own, and yet near enough to suggest adelicate flattery, was in his favor. So was his naive frankness inregard to his status in the family, shown in the few words of greetingwith Sir Ashley, and in his later simple yet free admissions regardinghis obscure youth, his former poverty, and his present wealth. Heboasted of neither; he was disturbed by neither. Standing alone, astranger, for the first time in an assemblage of distinguished andtitled men and women, he betrayed no consciousness; surrounded for thefirst time by objects which he knew his wealth could not buy, he showedthe most unmistakable indifference,--the indifference of temperament.The ladies vied with each other to attack this unimpressiblenature,--this profound isolation from external attraction. Theyfollowed him about, they looked into his dark, melancholy eyes; it wasimpossible, they thought, that he could continue this superb actingforever. A glance, a smile, a burst of ingenuous confidence, a covertappeal to his chivalry would yet catch him tripping. But the melancholyeyes that had gazed at the treasures of Ashley Grange and theopulent ease of its guests without kindling, opened to their firstemotion,--wonder! At which Lady Elfrida, who had ingenuously admiredhim, hated him a little, as the first step towards a kindlier feeling.
The next day, having declared his intention of visiting Ashley Church,and, as frankly, his intention of going there alone, he slipped out inthe afternoon and made his way quietly through the park to the squareivied tower he had first seen. In this tranquil level length of the woodthere was the one spot, the churchyard, where, oddly enough, the greenearth heaved into little billows as if to show the turbulence of thatlife which those who lay below them had lately quitted. It was arelief to the somewhat studied and formal monotony of the well-orderedwoodland,--every rood, of which had been paced by visitors, keepers, orpoachers,--to find those decrepit and bending tombstones, lurchingat every angle, or deeply sinking into the green sea of forgetfulnessaround them. All this, and the trodden paths of the villagers towardsthat common place of meeting, struck him as being more human thananything he had left behind him at the Grange.
He entered the ivy-grown porch and stared for a moment at the half-legalofficial parochial notices posted on the oaken door,--his firstobtrusive intimation of the combination of church and state,--andhesitated. He was not prepared to find that this last resting-place ofhis people had something to do with taxes and tithes, and that a certainmaterial respectability and security attended his votive sigh. God andthe reigning sovereign of the realm preserved a decorous alliance in theroyal arms that appeared above the official notices. Presently he pushedopen the door gently and entered the nave. For a moment it seemed to himas if the arched gloom of the woods he had left behind was repeatedin the dim aisle and vaulted roof; there was an earthy odor, as if thechurch itself, springing from the fertilizing dust below, had taken rootin the soil; the chequers of light from the faded stained-glass windowsfell like the flicker of leaves on the pavement. He paused before thecold altar, and started, for beside him lay the recumbent figure ofa warrior pillowed on his helmet with the paraphernalia of his tradearound him. A sudden childish memory of the great Western plains, andthe biers of the Indian "braves" raised on upright poles against thestaring sky and above the sunbaked prairie, rushed upon him. There,too, had lain the weapons of the departed chieftain; there, too, lay theIndian's "faithful hound," here simulated by the cross-leggedcrusader's canine effigy. And now, strangest of all, he found that thisunlooked-for recollection and remembrance thrilled him more at thatmoment than the dead before him. Here they rested,--the Atherlys ofcenturies; recumbent in armor or priestly robes, upright in busts thatwere periwigged or hidden in long curls, above the marble record oftheir deeds and virtues. Some of these records were in Latin,--anunknown tongue to Peter,--some in a quaint English almost asunintelligible; but none as foreign to him as the dead themselves. Theirbanners waved above his head; their voices filled the silent church, butfell upon his vacant eye and duller ear. He was none of them.
Presently he was conscious of a footstep, so faint, so subtle, that itmight have come from a peregrinating ghost. He turned quickly and sawLady Elfrida, half bold, yet half frightened, halting beside a pillarof the chancel. But there was nothing of the dead about her: she wasradiating and pulsating with the uncompromising and material freshnessof English girlhood. The wild rose in the hedgerow was not more tangiblethan her cheek, nor the summer sky more clearly cool and blue than hereyes. The vigor of health and unfettered freedom of limb was in herfigure from her buckled walking-shoe to her brown hair topped by asailor hat. The assurance and contentment of a well-ordered life, ofsecured position and freedom from vain anxieties or expectations, werevisible in every line of her refined, delicate, and evenly quiescentfeatures. And yet Lady Elfrida, for the first time in her girlhood, felta little nervous.
Yet she was frank, too, with the frankness of those who have no thoughtof being misunderstood. She said she had come there out of curiosity tosee how he would "get on" with his ancestors. She had been watching himfrom the chancel ever since he came,--and she was disappointed. As faras emotion went she thought he had the advantage of the stoniest andlongest dead of them all. Perhaps he did not like them? But he must becareful what he SAID, for some of her own people were there,--manifestlythis one. (She put the toe of her buckled shoe on the crusader Peter hadjust looked at.) And then there was another in the corner. So she had aright to come there as well as he,--and she could act as cicerone! Thisone was a De Brecy, one of King John's knights, who married an Atherly.(She swung herself into a half-sitting posture on the effigy of thedead knight, composed her straight short skirt over her trim ankles,and looked up in Peter's dark face.) That would make them some kind ofrelations,--wouldn't it? He must come over to Bentley Towers and see therest of the De Brecys in the chapel there to-morrow. Perhaps there mightbe some he liked better, and who looked more like him. For there was noone here or at the Grange who resembled him in the least.
He assented to the truth of this with such grave, disarming courtesy,and yet with such undisguised wonder,--as she appeared to talk withgreater freedom to a stranger than an American girl would,--that she atonce popped off the crusader, and accompanied him somewhat more demurelyaround the church. Suddenly she stopped with a slight exclamation.
They had halted before a tablet to the memory of a later Atherly,an officer of his Majesty's 100th Foot, who was killed at Braddock'sdefeat. The tablet was supported on the one side by a weeping Fame,and on the other by a manacled North American Indian. She stammered andsaid: "You see there are other Atherlys who went to America even beforeyour father," and then stopped with a sense of having made a slip.
A wild and inexplicable resentment against this complacent historicaloutrage suddenly took possession of Peter. He knew that his rage wasinconsistent with his usual calm, but he could not help it! His swarthycheek glowed, his dark eyes flashed, he almost trembled with excitementas he hurriedly pointed out to Lady Elfrida that the Indians wereVICTORIOUS in that ill-fated expedition of the British forces, and thatthe captive savage was an allegorical lie. So swift and convincing washis emotion that the young girl, knowing nothing of the subject andcaring less, shared his indignation, followed him with anxious eyes, andtheir hands for an instant touched in innocent and generous sympathy.And then--he knew not how or why--a still more wild and terrible ideasprang up in his fancy. He knew it was madness, yet for a moment hecould only stand and grapple with it silently and breathlessly. Itwas to seize this young and innocent girl, this witness of hisdisappointment, this complacent and beautiful type of all they valuedhere, and bear her away--a prisoner, a hostage--he knew not why--on agalloping horse in the dust of the prairie--far beyond the seas! It wasonly when he saw her cheek flush and pale, when he saw her staring athim with helpless, frightened, but fascinated ey
es,--the eyes of thefluttering bird under the spell of the rattlesnake,--that he drew hisbreath and turned bewildered away. "And do you know, dear," she saidwith naive simplicity to her sister that evening, "that although he wasan American, and everybody says that they don't care at all for thosepoor Indians, he was so magnanimous in his indignation that I fanciedhe looked like one of Cooper's heroes himself rather than an Atherly. Itwas such a stupid thing for me to show him that tomb of Major Atherly,you know, who fought the Americans,--didn't he?--or was it later?--but Iquite forgot he was an American." And with this belief in her mind, andin the high expiation of a noble nature, she forbore her characteristicraillery, and followed him meekly, manacled in spirit like theallegorical figure, to the church porch, where they separated, to meeton the morrow. But that morrow never came.
For late in the afternoon a cable message reached him from Californiaasking him to return to accept a nomination to Congress from his owndistrict. It determined his resolution, which for a moment at the churchporch had wavered under the bright eyes of Lady Elfrida. He telegraphedhis acceptance, hurriedly took leave of his honestly lamenting kinsman,followed his dispatch to London, and in a few days was on the Atlantic.
How he was received in California, how he found his sister married tothe blond lawyer, how he recovered his popularity and won his election,are details that do not belong to this chronicle of his quest. And thatquest seems to have terminated forever with his appearance at Washingtonto take his seat as Congressman.
It was the night of a levee at the White House. The East Room wascrowded with smartly dressed men and women of the capital, quaintlysimple legislators from remote States in bygone fashions, officers inuniform, and the diplomatic circle blazing with orders. The invokerof this brilliant assembly stood in simple evening dress near thedoor,--unattended and hedged by no formality. He shook the hand ofthe new Congressman heartily, congratulated him by name, and turnedsmilingly to the next comer. Presently there was a slight stir at oneof the opposite doors, the crowd fell back, and five figures stalkedmajestically into the centre of the room. They were the leading chiefsof an Indian reservation coming to pay their respects to their"Great Father," the President. Their costumes were a mingling of thepicturesque with the grotesque; of tawdriness with magnificence; ofartificial tinsel and glitter with the regal spoils of the chase; ofchildlike vanity with barbaric pride. Yet before these the glitteringorders and ribbons of the diplomats became dull and meaningless, theuniforms of the officers mere servile livery. Their painted, immobilefaces and plumed heads towered with grave dignity above the meanercrowd; their inscrutable eyes returned no response to the timidglances directed towards them. They stood by themselves, alone andimpassive,--yet their presence filled the room with the sense of kings.The unostentatious, simple republican court suddenly seemed to havebecome royal. Even the interpreter who stood between their remotedignity and the nearer civilized world acquired the status of a courtchamberlain.
When their "Great Father," apparently the less important personage, hadsmilingly received them, a political colleague approached Peter and tookhis arm. "Gray Eagle would like to speak with you. Come on! Here's yourchance! You may be put on the Committee on Indian Relations, and pick upa few facts. Remember we want a firm policy; no more palaver about the'Great Father' and no more blankets and guns! You know what we used tosay out West, 'The only "Good Indian" is a dead one.' So wade in, andhear what the old plug hat has to say."
Peter permitted himself to be led to the group. Even at that moment heremembered the figure of the Indian on the tomb at Ashley Grange, andfelt a slight flash of satisfaction over the superior height and bearingof Gray Eagle.
"How!" said Gray Eagle. "How!" said the other four chiefs. "How!"repeated Peter instinctively. At a gesture from Gray Eagle theinterpreter said: "Let your friend stand back; Gray Eagle has nothing tosay to him. He wishes to speak only with you."
Peter's friend reluctantly withdrew, but threw a cautioning glancetowards him. "Ugh!" said Gray Eagle. "Ugh!" said the other chiefs. A fewguttural words followed to the interpreter, who turned, and facing Peterwith the monotonous impassiveness which he had caught from the chiefs,said: "He says he knew your father. He was a great chief,--with manyhorses and many squaws. He is dead."
"My father was an Englishman,--Philip Atherly!" said Peter, with an oddnervousness creeping over him.
The interpreter repeated the words to Grey Eagle, who, after a guttural"Ugh!" answered in his own tongue.
"He says," continued the interpreter with a slight shrug, yet relapsinginto his former impassiveness, "that your father was a great chief,and your mother a pale face, or white woman. She was captured with anEnglishman, but she became the wife of the chief while in captivity. Shewas only released before the birth of her children, but a year or twoafterwards she brought them as infants to see their father,--the GreatChief,--and to get the mark of their tribe. He says you and your sisterare each marked on the left arm."
Then Gray Eagle opened his mouth and uttered his first English sentence."His father, big Injin, take common white squaw! Papoose no good,--toomuch white squaw mother, not enough big Injin father! Look! He big man,but no can bear pain! Ugh!"
The interpreter turned in time to catch Peter. He had fainted.
CHAPTER III
A hot afternoon on the plains. A dusty cavalcade of United Statescavalry and commissary wagons, which from a distance preserved a certainmilitary precision of movement, but on nearer view resolved itself intostraggling troopers in twos and fours interspersed between the wagons,two noncommissioned officers and a guide riding ahead, who had alreadyfallen into the cavalry slouch, but off to the right, smartly erect andcadet-like, the young lieutenant in command. A wide road that had theappearance of being at once well traveled and yet deserted, and that,although well defined under foot, still seemed to disappear and loseitself a hundred feet ahead in the monotonous level. A horizon thatin that clear, dry, hazeless atmosphere never mocked you, yet neverchanged, but kept its eternal rim of mountains at the same height anddistance from hour to hour and day to day. Dust--a parching alkalinepowder that cracked the skin--everywhere, clinging to the hubs andspokes of the wheels, without being disturbed by movement, incrustingthe cavalryman from his high boots to the crossed sabres of his cap;going off in small puffs like explosions under the plunging hoofs of thehorses, but too heavy to rise and follow them. A reeking smell of horsesweat and boot leather that lingered in the road long after the trainhad passed. An external silence broken only by the cough of a jadedhorse in the suffocating dust, or the cracking of harness leather.Within one of the wagons that seemed a miracle of military neatness andmethodical stowage, a lazy conversation carried on by a grizzled driverand sunbrowned farrier.
"'Who be you?' sezee. 'I'm Philip Atherly, a member of Congress,' sezthe long, dark-complected man, sezee, 'and I'm on a commissionfor looking into this yer Injin grievance,' sezee. 'You may be GodAlmighty,' sez Nebraska Bill, sezee, 'but you look a d--d sightmore like a hoss-stealin' Apache, and we don't want any of yourpsalm-singing, big-talkin' peacemakers interferin' with our ways oftreatin' pizen,--you hear me? I'm shoutin',' sezee. With that thedark-complected man's eyes began to glisten, and he sorter squirmed allover to get at Bill, and Bill outs with his battery.--Whoa, will ye;what's up with YOU now?" The latter remark was directed to the youngspirited near horse he was driving, who was beginning to be strangelyexcited.
"What happened then?" said the farrier lazily.
"Well," continued the driver, having momentarily quieted his horse, "Ireckoned it was about time for me to wheel into line, for fellers of theBill stripe, out on the plains, would ez leave plug a man in citizen'sclothes, even if he was the President himself, as they would drop onan Injin or a nigger. 'Look here, Bill,' sez I, 'I'm escortin' thisstranger under gov'ment orders, and I'm responsible for him. I ain'tallowed to waste gov'ment powder and shot on YOUR kind onless I'veorders, but if you'll wait till I strip off this shell* I'll lam thestuffin' outer ye, afore the str
anger.' With that Bill just danced withrage, but dassent fire, for HE knew, and I knew, that if he'd plugged mehe'd been a dead frontiersman afore the next mornin'."
* Cavalry jacket.
"But you'd have had to give him up to the authorities, and a jury of hisown kind would have set him free."
"Not much! If you hadn't just joined, you'd know that ain't the way o'30th Cavalry," returned the driver. "The kernel would have issued hisorders to bring in Bill dead or alive, and the 30th would have managedto bring him in DEAD! Then your jury might have sat on him! Tell youwhat, chaps of the Bill stripe don't care overmuch to tackle the yallerbraid."*
* Characteristic trimming of cavalry jacket.
"But what's this yer Congressman interferin' for, anyway?"
"He's a rich Californian. Thinks he's got a 'call,' I reckon, to lookarter Injins, just as them Abolitionists looked arter slaves. And gethated just as they was by the folks here,--and as WE are, too, for thematter of that."
"Well, I dunno," rejoined the farrier, "it don't seem nateral for whitemen to quarrel with each other about the way to treat an Injin, and thatInjin lyin' in ambush to shoot 'em both. And ef gov'ment would only makeup its mind how to treat 'em, instead of one day pretendin' to betheir 'Great Father' and treatin' them like babies, and the next makin'treaties with 'em like as they wos forriners, and the next sendin' outa handful of us to lick ten thousand of them--Wot's the use of ONEregiment--even two--agin a nation--on their own ground?"
"A nation,--and on their own ground,--that's just whar you've hit it,Softy. That's the argument of that Congressman Atherly, as I've heardhim talk with the kernel."
"And what did the kernel say?"
"The kernel reckoned it was his business to obey orders,--and so shouldyou. So shut your head! If ye wanted to talk about gov'ment ye mightsay suthin' about its usin' us to convoy picnics and excursion partiesaround, who come out here to have a day's shootin', under some big-wigof a political boss or a railroad president, with a letter to thegeneral. And WE'RE told off to look arter their precious skins, andkeep the Injins off 'em,--and they shootin' or skeerin' off the Injins'nat'ral game, and our provender! Darn my skin ef there'll be much toscout for ef this goes on. And b'gosh!--of they aren't now ringin' ina lot of titled forriners to hunt 'big game,' as they call it,--LordThis-and-That and Count So-and-So,--all of 'em with letters to thegeneral from the Washington cabinet to show 'hospitality,' or frommillionaires who've bin hobnobbin' with 'em in the old country. And darnmy skin ef some of 'em ain't bringin' their wives and sisters along too.There was a lord and lady passed through here under escort last week,and we're goin' to pick up some more of 'em at Fort Biggs tomorrow,--andI reckon some of us will be told off to act as ladies' maids ormilliners. Nothin' short of a good Injin scare, I reckon, would sendthem and us about our reg'lar business. Whoa, then, will ye? At itagain, are ye? What's gone of the d--d critter?"
Here the fractious near horse was again beginning to show signs ofdisturbance and active terror. His quivering nostrils were turnedtowards the wind, and he almost leaped the centre pole in his franticeffort to avoid it. The eyes of the two men were turned instinctively inthat direction. Nothing was to be seen,--the illimitable plain andthe sinking sun were all that met the eye. But the horse continued tostruggle, and the wagon stopped. Then it was discovered that the horseof an adjacent trooper was also laboring under the same mysteriousexcitement, and at the same moment wagon No. 3 halted. The infectionof some inexplicable terror was spreading among them. Then twonon-commissioned officers came riding down the line at a sharp canter,and were joined quickly by the young lieutenant, who gave an order.The trumpeter instinctively raised his instrument to his lips, but wasstopped by another order.
And then, as seen by a distant observer, a singular spectacle wasunfolded. The straggling train suddenly seemed to resolve itself into alarge widening circle of horsemen, revolving round and partly hidingthe few heavy wagons that were being rapidly freed from their strugglingteams. These, too, joined the circle, and were driven before thewhirling troopers. Gradually the circle seemed to grow smaller under the"winding-up" of those evolutions, until the horseless wagons reappearedagain, motionless, fronting the four points of the compass, thus makingthe radii of a smaller inner circle, into which the teams of the wagonsas well as the troopers' horses were closely "wound up" and denselypacked together in an immovable mass. As the circle became smaller thetroopers leaped from their horses,--which, however, continued to blindlyfollow each other in the narrower circle,--and ran to the wagons,carbines in hand. In five minutes from the time of giving the orderthe straggling train was a fortified camp, the horses corralled in thecentre, the dismounted troopers securely posted with their repeatingcarbines in the angles of the rude bastions formed by the desertedwagons, and ready for an attack. The stampede, if such it was, wasstopped.
And yet no cause for it was to be seen! Nothing in earth or skysuggested a reason for this extraordinary panic, or the marvelousevolution that suppressed it. The guide, with three men in open order,rode out and radiated across the empty plain, returning as empty ofresult. In an hour the horses were sufficiently calmed and fed, the campslowly unwound itself, the teams were set to and were led out of thecircle, and as the rays of the setting sun began to expand fanlikeacross the plain the cavalcade moved on. But between them and thesinking sun, and visible through its last rays, was a faint line of hazeparallel with their track. Yet even this, too, quickly faded away.
Had the guide, however, penetrated half a mile further to the westhe would have come upon the cause of the panic, and a spectacle moremarvelous than that he had just witnessed. For the illimitable plainwith its monotonous prospect was far from being level; a hundred yardsfurther on he would have slowly and imperceptibly descended intoa depression nearly a mile in width. Here he not only would havecompletely lost sight of his own cavalcade, but have come upon anotherthrice its length. For here was a trailing line of jog-trotting duskyshapes, some crouching on dwarf ponies half their size, some trailinglances, lodge-poles, rifles, women and children after them, all movingwith a monotonous rhythmic motion as marked as the military precisionof the other cavalcade, and always on a parallel line with it. They haddone so all day, keeping touch and distance by stealthy videttes thatcrept and crawled along the imperceptible slope towards the unconsciouswhite men. It was, no doubt, the near proximity of one of those watchersthat had touched the keen scent of the troopers' horses.
The moon came up; the two cavalcades, scarcely a mile apart, moved onin unison together. Then suddenly the dusky caravan seemed to arise,stretch itself out, and swept away like a morning mist towards the west.The bugles of Fort Biggs had just rung out.
*****
Peter Atherly was up early the next morning pacing the veranda of thecommandant's house at Fort Biggs. It had been his intention to visitthe new Indian Reservation that day, but he had just received a letterannouncing an unexpected visit from his sister, who wished to join him.He had never told her the secret of their Indian paternity, as it hadbeen revealed to him from the scornful lips of Gray Eagle a year ago;he knew her strangely excitable nature; besides, she was a wife now, andthe secret would have to be shared with her husband. When he himselfhad recovered from the shock of the revelation, two things had impressedthemselves upon his reserved and gloomy nature: a horror of his previousclaim upon the Atherlys, and an infinite pity and sense of duty towardshis own race. He had devoted himself and his increasing wealth to thisone object; it seemed to him at times almost providential that hisposition as a legislator, which he had accepted as a whim or fancy,should have given him this singular opportunity.
Yet it was not an easy task or an enviable position. He was obliged todivorce himself from his political party as well as keep clear of thewild schemes of impractical enthusiasts, too practical "contractors,"and the still more helpless bigotry of Christian civilizers, who wouldhave regenerated the Indian with a text which he did not understandand they were unable to illustrate by exa
mple. He had expected theopposition of lawless frontiersmen and ignorant settlers--as roughlyindicated in the conversation already recorded; indeed he had feltit difficult to argue his humane theories under the smoking roof ofa raided settler's cabin, whose owner, however, had forgotten hisown repeated provocations, or the trespass of which he was proud. ButAtherly's unaffected and unobtrusive zeal, his fixity of purpose,his undoubted courage, his self-abnegation, and above all the gentlemelancholy and half-philosophical wisdom of this new missionary, wonhim the respect and assistance of even the most callous or the mostskeptical of officials. The Secretary of the Interior had given himcarte blanche; the President trusted him, and it was said had grantedhim extraordinary powers. Oddly enough it was only his own Californianconstituency, who had once laughed at what they deemed his earlyaristocratic pretensions, who now found fault with his democraticphilanthropy. That a man who had been so well received in England--thenews of his visit to Ashley Grange had been duly recorded--should sinkso low as "to take up with the Injins" of his own country galled theirrepublican pride. A few of his personal friends regretted that he hadnot brought back from England more conservative and fashionable graces,and had not improved his opportunities. Unfortunately there was noessentially English policy of trusting aborigines that they knew of.
In his gloomy self-scrutiny he had often wondered if he ought not toopenly proclaim his kinship with the despised race, but he was alwaysdeterred by the thought of his sister and her husband, as well as by thepersistent doubt whether his advocacy of Indian rights with his fellowcountrymen would be as well served by such a course. And here again hewas perplexed by a singular incident of his early missionary effortswhich he had at first treated with cold surprise, but to which laterreflection had given a new significance. After Gray Eagle's revelationhe had made a pilgrimage to the Indian country to verify the statementsregarding his dead father,--the Indian chief Silver Cloud. Despitethe confusion of tribal dialects he was amazed to find that the Indiantongue came back to him almost as a forgotten boyish memory, so thathe was soon able to do without an interpreter; but not until thatfunctionary, who knew his secret, appeared one day as a more significantambassador. "Gray Eagle says if you want truly to be a brother to hispeople you must take a wife among them. He loves you--take one of his!"Peter, through whose veins--albeit of mixed blood--ran that Puritan iceso often found throughout the Great West, was frigidly amazed. Invain did the interpreter assure him that the wife in question, LittleDaybreak, was a wife only in name, a prudent reserve kept by GrayEagle in the orphan daughter of a brother brave. But Peter was adamant.Whatever answer the interpreter returned to Gray Eagle he never knew.But to his alarm he presently found that the Indian maiden LittleDaybreak had been aware of Gray Eagle's offer, and had with patheticsimplicity already considered herself Peter's spouse. During his stayat the encampment he found her sitting before his lodge every morning.A girl of sixteen in years, a child of six in intellect, she flashedher little white teeth upon him when he lifted his tent flap, contentto receive his grave, melancholy bow, or patiently trotted at his sidecarrying things he did not want, which she had taken from the lodge.When he sat down to work, she remained seated at a distance, looking athim with glistening beady eyes like blackberries set in milk, and softlyscratching the little bare brown ankle of one foot with the turned-intoes of the other, after an infantine fashion. Yet after he had left--astill single man, solely though his interpreter's diplomacy, as healways believed--he was very worried as to the wisdom of his course.Why should he not in this way ally himself to his unfortunate raceirrevocably? Perhaps there was an answer somewhere in his consciousnesswhich he dared not voice to himself. Since his visit to the EnglishAtherlys, he had put resolutely aside everything that related to thatepisode, which he now considered was an unhappy imposture. But therewere times when a vision of Lady Elfrida, gazing at him with wondering,fascinated eyes, passed across his fancy; even the contact with his ownrace and his thoughts of their wrongs recalled to him the tomb of thesoldier Atherly and the carven captive savage supporter. He could notpass the upright supported bier of an Indian brave--slowly desiccatingin the desert air--without seeing in the dead warrior's paraphernalia ofarms and trophies some resemblance to the cross-legged crusader on whosemarble effigy SHE had girlishly perched herself as she told the story ofher ancestors. Yet only the peaceful gloom and repose of the old churchtouched him now; even she, too, with all her glory of English girlhood,seemed to belong to that remote past. She was part of the restful quietof the church; the yews in the quaint old churchyard might have wavedover her as well.
Still, he was eager to see his sister, and if he should conclude toimpart to her his secret, she might advise him. At all events, hedecided to delay his departure until her arrival, a decision with whichthe commanding officer concurred, as a foraging party had that morningdiscovered traces of Indians in the vicinity of the fort, and the latelyarrived commissary train had reported the unaccountable but promptlyprevented stampede.
Unfortunately, his sister Jenny appeared accompanied by her husband, whoseized an early opportunity to take Peter aside and confide to him hisanxiety about her health, and the strange fits of excitement under whichshe occasionally labored. Remembering the episode of the Californianwoods three years ago, Peter stared at this good-natured, good-lookingman, whose life he had always believed she once imperiled, and wonderedmore than ever at their strange union.
"Do you ever quarrel?" asked Peter bluntly.
"No," said the good-hearted fellow warmly, "never! We have never had aharsh word; she's the dearest girl,--the best wife in the world to me,but"--he hesitated, "you know there are times when I think she confoundsme with somebody else, and is strange! Sometimes when we are in companyshe stands alone and stares at everybody, without saying a word, asif she didn't understand them. Or else she gets painfully excited anddances all night until she is exhausted. I thought, perhaps," he addedtimidly, "that you might know, and would tell me if she had any singularexperience as a child,--any illness, or," he went on still more gently,"if perhaps her mother or father"--
"No," interrupted Peter almost brusquely, with the sudden convictionthat this was no time for revelation of his secret, "no, nothing."
"The doctor says," continued Lascelles with that hesitating, almostmystic delicacy with which most gentlemen approach a subject upon whichtheir wives talk openly, "that it may be owing to Jenny's peculiar stateof health just now, you know, and that if--all went well, you know, andthere should be--don't you see--a little child"--
Peter interrupted him with a start. A child! Jenny's child! SilverCloud's grandchild! This was a complication he had not thought of.No! It was too late to tell his secret now. He only nodded his headabstractedly and said coldly, "I dare say he is right."
Nevertheless, Jenny was looking remarkably well. Perhaps it was theexcitement of travel and new surroundings; but her tall, lithe figure,nearly half a head taller than her husband's, was a striking one amongthe officers' wives in the commandant's sitting-room. Her olive cheekglowed with a faint illuminating color; there was something evenpatrician in her slightly curved nose and high cheek bones, and hersmile, rare even in her most excited moments, was, like her brother's,singularly fascinating. The officers evidently thought so too, and whenthe young lieutenant of the commissary escort, fresh from West Pointand Flirtation Walk, gallantly attached himself to her, the ladies wereslightly scandalized at the naive air of camaraderie with which Mrs.Lascelles received his attentions. Even Peter was a little disturbed.Only Lascelles, delighted with his wife's animation, and pleased at hersuccess, gazed at her with unqualified admiration. Indeed, he wasso satisfied with her improvement, and so sanguine of her ultimaterecovery, that he felt justified in leaving her with her brother andreturning to Omaha by the regular mail wagon next day. There was nodanger to be apprehended in her accompanying Peter; they would havea full escort; the reservation lay in a direction unfrequented bymarauding tribes; the road was the principal one used by the governmentt
o connect the fort with the settlements, and well traveled; theofficers' wives had often journeyed thither.
The childish curiosity and high spirits which Jenny showed on thejourney to the reservation was increased when she reached it and drewup before the house of the Indian agent. Peter was relieved; he had beenanxious and nervous as to any instinctive effect which might be producedon her excitable nature by a first view of her own kinsfolk, althoughshe was still ignorant of her relationship. Her interest and curiosity,however, had nothing abnormal in it. But he was not prepared for theeffect produced upon THEM at her first appearance. A few of the bravesgathered eagerly around her, and one even addressed her in his ownguttural tongue, at which she betrayed a slight feeling of alarm; andPeter saw with satisfaction that she drew close to him. Knowing that hisold interpreter and Gray Eagle were of a different and hostile tribe ahundred miles away, and that his secret was safe with them, he simplyintroduced her as his sister. But he presently found that the braves hadadded to their curiosity a certain suspiciousness and sullen demeanor,and he was glad to resign his sister into the hands of the agent's wife,while he prosecuted his business of examination and inspection. Later,on his return to the cabin, he was met by the agent, who seemed to bewith difficulty suppressing a laugh.
"Your sister is exciting quite a sensation here," he said. "Do you knowthat some of these idiotic braves and the Medicine Man insist upon itthat she's A SQUAW, and that you're keeping her in captivity againstyour plighted faith to them! You'll excuse me," he went on with anattempt to recover his gravity, "troubling you with their d--d fooltalk, and you won't say anything to HER about it, but I thought youought to know it on account of your position among 'em. You don't wantto lose their confidence, and you know how easily their skeery facultiesare stampeded with an idea!"
"Where is she now?" demanded Peter, with a darkening face.
"Somewhere with the squaws, I reckon. I thought she might be a littleskeered of the braves, and I've kept them away. SHE'S all right, youknow; only if you intend to stay here long I'd"--
But Peter was already striding away in the direction of a thicket ofcottonwood where he heard the ripple of women's and children's voices.When he had penetrated it, he found his sister sitting on a stump,surrounded by a laughing, gesticulating crowd of young girls and oldwomen, with a tightly swaddled papoose in her lap. Some of them hadalready half mischievously, half curiously possessed themselves of herdust cloak, hat, parasol, and gloves, and were parading before herin their grotesque finery, apparently as much to her childish excitedamusement as their own. She was even answering their gesticulations withequivalent gestures in her attempt to understand them, and trying amidstshouts of laughter to respond to the monotonous chant of the old womenwho were zigzagging a dance before her. With the gayly striped blanketslying on the ground, the strings of beads, wampum, and highly coloredfeathers hanging from the trees, and the flickering lights and shadows,it was an innocent and even idyllic picture, but the more experiencedPeter saw in the performances only the uncertain temper and want ofconsecutive idea of playing animals, and the stolid unwinking papoose inhis sister's lap gave his sentiment a momentary shock.
Seeing him approach she ran to meet him, the squaws and childrenslinking away from his grave face. "I have had such a funny time, Peter!Only to think of it, I believe they've never seen men or women withdecent clothes before,--of course the settlers' wives don't dressmuch,--and I believe they'd have had everything I possess if you hadn'tcome. But they're TOO funny for anything. It was killing to see them puton my hat wrong side before, and try to make one out of my parasol. ButI like them a great deal better than those gloomy chiefs, and I think Iunderstand them almost. And do you know, Peter, somehow I seem to haveknown them all before. And those dear little papooses, aren't theyridiculously lovely. I only wish"--she stopped, for Peter had somewhathurriedly taken the Indian boy from her arms and restored it to thefrightened mother. A singular change came over her face, and she glancedat him quickly. But she resumed, with a heightened color, "I like itever so much better here than down at the fort. And ever so much betterthan New York. I don't wonder that you like them so much, Peter, andare so devoted to them. Don't be angry, dear, because I let them havemy things; I'm sure I never cared particularly for them, and I thinkit would be such fun to dress as they do." Peter remembered keenly hissudden shock at her precipitate change to bright colors after leavingher novitiate at the Sacred Heart. "I do hope," she went on eagerly,"that we are going to stay a long time here."
"We are leaving to-morrow," he said curtly. "I find I have urgentbusiness at the fort."
And they did leave. None too soon, thought Peter and the Indian agent,as they glanced at the faces of the dusky chiefs who had gathered aroundthe cabin. Luckily the presence of their cavalry escort rendered anyoutbreak impossible, and the stoical taciturnity of the race keptPeter from any verbal insult. But Mrs. Lascelles noticed their loweringdissatisfaction, and her eyes flashed. "I wonder you don't punish them,"she said simply.
For a few days after their return she did not allude to her visit, andPeter was beginning to think that her late impressions were as volatileas they were childlike. He devoted himself to his government report, andwhile he kept up his communications with the reservation and the agent,for the present domiciled himself at the fort.
Colonel Bryce, the commandant though doubtful of civilians, was notslow to appreciate the difference of playing host to a man of Atherly'swealth and position and even found in Peter's reserve and melancholy anagreeable relief to the somewhat boisterous and material recreations ofgarrison life, and a gentle check upon the younger officers. For, whilePeter did not gamble or drink, there was yet an unobtrusive and gentledignity in his abstention that relieved him from the attitude of aprig or an "example." Mrs. Lascelles was popular with the officers,and accepted more tolerantly by the wives, since they recognized herharmlessness. Once or twice she was found apparently interested inthe gesticulations of a few "friendlies" who had penetrated the paradeground of the fort to barter beads and wampum. The colonel was obligedat last to caution her against this, as it was found that in herinexperience she had given them certain articles that were contraband ofthe rules, and finally to stop them from an intrusion which was becomingmore frequent and annoying. Left thus to herself, she relieved herisolation by walks beyond the precincts of the garrison, where shefrequently met those "friendly" wanderers, chiefly squaws and children.Here she was again cautioned by the commander,--
"Don't put too much faith in those creatures, Mrs. Lascelles."
Jenny elevated her black brows and threw up her arched nose like acharger. "I'm not afraid of old women and children," she said loftily.
"But I am," said the colonel gravely. "It's a horrible thing to thinkof, but these feeble old women and innocent children are always selectedto torture the prisoners taken by the braves, and, by Jove, they seem tolike it."
Thus restricted, Mrs. Lascelles fell back upon the attentions ofLieutenant Forsyth, whose gallantry was always as fresh as his smartcadet-like tunics, and they took some rides together. Whether it wasmilitary caution or the feminine discretion of the colonel's wife,--tothe quiet amusement of the other officers,--a trooper was added to theriding party by the order of the colonel, and thereafter it consistedof three. One night, however, the riders did not appear at dinner, andthere was considerable uneasiness mingled with some gossip throughoutthe garrison. It was already midnight before they arrived, and then withhorses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearingevery sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp,decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at hislittle moustache, but took the whole blame upon himself. HE and Mrs.Lascelles had, he said, outridden the trooper and got lost; it was latewhen Cassidy (the trooper) found them, but it was no fault of HIS, andthey had to ride at the top of their speed to cover the ground betweenthem and the fort. It was noticed that Mrs. Lascelles scarcely spoke toForsyth, and turned abruptly away fro
m the colonel's interrogations andwent to her room.
Peter, absorbed in his report, scarcely noticed the incident, northe singular restraint that seemed to fall upon the little militaryhousehold for a day or two afterwards. He had accepted the lieutenant'sstory without comment or question; he knew his own sister too well tobelieve that she had lent herself to a flirtation with Forsyth; indeed,he had rather pitied the young officer when he remembered Lascelles'experience in his early courtship. But he was somewhat astonished oneafternoon to find the trooper Cassidy alone in his office.
"Oi thought Oi'd make bould to have a word wid ye, sorr," he said,recovering from a stiff salute with his fingers nipping the cord of histrousers. "It's not for meeself, sorr, although the ould man washarrd on me, nor for the leddy, your sister, but for the sake of theleftenant, sorr, who the ould man was harrdest on of all. Oi was of theparrty that rode with your sister."
"Yes, yes, I remember, I heard the story," said Peter. "She and Mr.Forsyth got lost."
"Axin' your pardin, sorr, she didn't. Mr. Forsyth loid. Loid like anofficer and a jintleman--as he is, God bless him--to save a leddy, morebetoken your sister, sorr. They never got lost, sorr. We was all threetogether from the toime we shtarted till we got back, and it's the loveav God that we ever got back at all. And it's breaking me hearrt, sorr,to see HIM goin' round with the black looks of everybody upon him, andhe a-twirlin' his moustache and purtending not to mind."
"What do you mean?" said Peter, uneasily.
"Oi mane to be tellin' you what happened, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly."When we shtarted out Oi fell three files to the rear, as became me,so as not to be in the way o' their colloguing, but sorra a bit o'stragglin' was there, and Oi kept them afore me all the toime. When wegot to Post Oak Bottom the leddy p'ints her whip off to the roight,and sez she: 'It's a fine bit of turf there, Misther Forsyth,' invitin'like, and with that she gallops away to the right. The leftenant follysher, and Oi closed up the rear. So we rides away innoshent like amongstthe trees, me thinkin' only it wor a mighty queer place for manoovrin',until we seed, just beyond us in the hollow, the smoke of an Injin campand a lot of women and childer. And Mrs. Lascelles gets off and goesto discoursin' and blarneying wid 'em: and Oi sees Mr. Forsyth glancin'round and lookin' oneasy. Then he goes up and sez something to yoursister, and she won't give him a hearin'. And then he tells her she mustmount and be off. And she turns upon him, bedad, like a tayger, and bidshim be off himself. Then he comes to me and sez he, 'Oi don't like thelook o' this, Cassidy,' sez he; 'the woods behind is full of braves,'sez he. 'Thrue for you, leftenant,' sez Oi, 'it's into a trap that theleddy hez led us, God save her!' 'Whisht,' he sez, 'take my horse, it'sthe strongest. Go beside her, and when Oi say the word lift her up intothe saddle before ye, and gallop like blazes. Oi'll bring up the rearand the other horse.' Wid that we changed horses and cantered up towhere she was standing, and he gives the word when she isn't lookin',and Oi grabs her up--she sthrugglin' like mad but not utterin' acry--and Oi lights out for the trail agin. And sure enough the bravesmade as if they would folly, but the leftenant throws the reins of herhorse over the horn of his saddle, and whips out his revolver and houlds'em back till I've got well away to the trail again. And then they letfly their arrows, and begorra the next thing a BULLET whizzes by him.And then he knows they have arrms wid 'em and are 'hostiles,' and herowls the nearest one over, wheelin' and fightin' and coverin' ourretreat till we gets to the road agin. And they daren't folly us out ofcover. Then the lady gets more sinsible, and the leftenant pershuadesher to mount her horse agin. But before we comes to the fort, he sez tome: 'Cassidy,' sez he, 'not a word o' this on account of the leddy.'And I was mum, sorr, while he was shootin' off his mouth about him bein'lost and all that, and him bein' bully-ragged by the kernel, and meknowin' that but for him your sister wouldn't be between these wallshere, and Oi wouldn't be talkin' to ye. And shure, sorr, ye might betellin's the kernel as how the leddy was took by the hysterics, and wasthat loony that she didn't know whatever she was sayin', and so get theleftenant in favor again."
"I will speak with the colonel to-night," said Peter gloomily.
"Lord save yer honor," returned the trooper gratefully, "and if ye couldbe sayin' that the LEDDY tould you,--it would only be the merest tasteof a loi ye'd be tellin',--and you'd save me from breakin' me word tothe leftenant."
"I shall of course speak to my sister first," returned Peter, with aguilty consciousness that he had accepted the trooper's story mainlyfrom his previous knowledge of his sister's character. Nevertheless, inspite of this foregone conclusion, he DID speak to her. To hissurprise she did not deny it. Lieutenant Forsyth,--a vain and conceitedfool,--whose silly attentions she had accepted solely that she might getrecreation beyond the fort,--had presumed to tell her what SHE must do!As if SHE was one of those stupid officers' wives or sisters! Andit never would have happened if he--Peter--had let her remain at thereservation with the Indian agent's wife, or if "Charley" (the gentleLascelles) were here! HE would have let her go, or taken her there.Besides all the while she was among friends; HIS, Peter's ownfriends,--the people whose cause he was championing! In vain did Petertry to point out to her that these "people" were still children in mindand impulse, and capable of vacillation or even treachery. He rememberedhe was talking to a child in mind and impulse, who had shown the samequalities, and in trying to convince her of her danger he felt he wasonly voicing the common arguments of his opponents.
He spoke also to the colonel, excusing her through her ignorance, hertrust in his influence with the savages, and the general derangement ofher health. The colonel, relieved of his suspicions of a promisingyoung officer, was gentle and sympathetic, but firm as to Peter's futurecourse. In a moment of caprice and willfulness she might imperil thegarrison as she had her escort, and, more than that, she was imperilingPeter's influence with the Indians. Absurd stories had come to his earsregarding the attitude of the reservation towards him. He thought sheought to return home as quickly as possible. Fortunately an opportunityoffered. The general commanding had advised him of the visit to the fortof a party of English tourists who had been shooting in the vicinity,and who were making the fort the farthest point of their westernexcursion. There were three or four ladies in the party, and as theywould be returning to the line of railroad under escort, she couldeasily accompany them. This, added Colonel Carter, was also Mrs.Carter's opinion,--she was a woman of experience, and had a marrieddaughter of her own. In the mean time Peter had better not broach thesubject to his sister, but trust to the arrival of the strangers,who would remain for a week, and who would undoubtedly divert Mrs.Lascelles' impressible mind, and eventually make the proposition morenatural and attractive.
In the interval Peter revisited the reservation, and endeavored topacify the irritation that had sprung from his previous inspection.The outrage at Post Oak Bottom he was assured had no relation to theincident at the reservation, but was committed by some stragglers fromother tribes who had not yet accepted the government bounty, yet had notbeen thus far classified as "hostile." There had been no "Ghost Dancing"nor other indication of disturbance. The colonel had not deemedit necessary to send out an exemplary force, or make a counterdemonstration. The incident was allowed to drop. At the reservationPeter had ignored the previous conduct of the chiefs towards him;had with quiet courage exposed himself fully--unarmed andunattended--amongst them, and had as fully let it be known that thisprevious incident was the reason that his sister had not accompanied himon his second visit. He left them at the close of the second day moresatisfied in his mind, and perhaps in a more enthusiastic attitudetowards his report.
As he came within sound of the sunset bugles, he struck a narrower trailwhich led to the fort, through an oasis of oaks and cottonwoods anda small stream or "branch," which afterwards lost itself in the dustyplain. He had already passed a few settler's cabins, a sutler's shop,and other buildings that had sprung up around this armed nucleus ofcivilization--which, in due season, was to become a frontier
town. Butas yet the brief wood was wild and secluded; frequented only by thewomen and children of the fort, within whose protecting bounds itstood, and to whose formal "parade," and trim white and green cottage"quarters," it afforded an agreeable relief. As he rode abstractedlyforward under the low cottonwood vault he felt a strange influencestealing over him, an influence that was not only a present experiencebut at the same time a far-off memory. The concave vault above deepened;the sunset light from the level horizon beyond streamed through theleaves as through the chequers of stained glass windows; through the twoshafts before him stretched the pillared aisles of Ashley Church! Hewas riding as in a dream, and when a figure suddenly slipped across hispathway from a column-like tree trunk, he woke with the disturbance andsense of unreality of a dream. For he saw Lady Elfrida standing beforehim!
It was not a mere memory conjured up by association, for although thefigure, face, and attitude were the same, there were certain changesof costume which the eye of recollection noticed. In place of the smartnarrow-brimmed sailor hat he remembered, she was wearing a slouchedcavalry hat with a gold cord around its crown, that, with all itsbecomingness and picturesque audacity, seemed to become characteristicand respectable, as a crest to her refined head, and as historic as aLely canvas. She wore a flannel shirt, belted in at her slight waistwith a band of yellow leather, defining her small hips, and shortstraight pleatless skirts that fell to her trim ankles and buckledleather shoes. She was fresh and cool, wholesome and clean, free andunfettered; indeed, her beauty seemed only an afterthought or accident.So much so that when Peter saw her afterwards, amidst the billowy,gauzy, and challenging graces of the officer's wives, who were dressedin their best and prettiest frocks to welcome her, the eye turnednaturally from that suggestion of enhancement to the girl who seemed todefy it. She was clearly not an idealized memory, a spirit or a ghost,but naturalistic and rosy; he thought a trifle rosier, as she laughinglyaddressed him:--
"I suppose it isn't quite fair to surprise you like that," she said,with an honest girlish hand-shake, "for you see I know all about younow, and what you are doing here, and even when you were expected; andI dare say you thought we were still in England, if you remembered usat all. And we haven't met since that day at Ashley Church when I put myfoot in it,--or rather on your pet protege's, the Indian's: you rememberMajor Atherly's tomb? And to think that all the while we didn't knowthat you were a public man and a great political reformer, and had a fadlike this. Why, we'd have got up meetings for you, and my father wouldhave presided,--he's always fond of doing these things,--and we'd havepassed resolutions, and given you subscriptions, and Bibles, and flannelshirts, and revolvers--but I believe you draw the line at that. Mybrother was saying only the other day that you weren't half praisedenough for going in for this sort of thing when you were so rich,and needn't care. And so that's why you rushed away from AshleyGrange,--just to come here and work out your mission?"
His whole life, his first wild Californian dream, his English visit, therevelation of Gray Eagle, the final collapse of his old beliefs, werewhirling through his brain to the music of this clear young voice. Andby some cruel irony of circumstance it seemed now to even mock his laterdreams of expiation as it also called back his unhappy experience of thelast week.
"Have you--have you"--he stammered with a faint smile, "seen my sister?"
"Not yet," said Lady Elfrida. "I believe she is not well and is confinedto her room; you will introduce me, won't you?" she added eagerly. "Ofcourse, when we heard that there was an Atherly here we inquired aboutyou; and I told them you were a relation of ours," she went on with ahalf-mischievous shyness,--"you remember the de Bracys,--and they seemedsurprised and rather curious. I suppose one does not talk so much aboutthese things over here, and I dare say you have so much to occupy yourmind you don't talk of us in England." With the quickness of a refinedperception she saw a slight shade in his face, and changed the subject."And we have had such a jolly time; we have met so many pleasant people;and they've all been so awfully good to us, from the officials andofficers down to the plainest working-man. And all so naturally too--sodifferent from us. I sometimes think we have to work ourselves up tobe civil to strangers." "No," she went on gayly, in answer to hisprotesting gesture, and his stammered reminder of his own reception."No. You came as a sort of kinsman, and Sir Edward knew all about youbefore he asked you down to the Grange--or even sent over for me fromthe Towers. No! you Americans take people on their 'face value,' asmy brother Reggy says, and we always want to know what are the'securities.' And then American men are more gallant, though," shedeclared mischievously, "I think you are an exception in that way.Indeed," she went on, "the more I see of your countrymen the less youseem like them. You are more like us,--more like an Englishman--indeed,more like an Englishman than most Englishmen,--I mean in the matter ofreserve and all that sort of thing, you know. It's odd,--isn't it? Isyour sister like you?"
"You shall judge for yourself," said Peter with a gayety that was forcedin proportion as his forebodings became more gloomy. Would his sister'speculiarities--even her secret--be safe from the clear eyes of the younggirl?
"I know I shall like her," said Lady Elfrida, simply. "I mean to makefriends with her before we leave, and I hope to see a great deal of her;and," she said with a naive non sequitur, that, however, had its painfulsignificance to Peter, "I do want you to show me some Indians--yourIndians, you know YOUR friends. I've seen some of them, of course; Iam afraid I am a little prejudiced, for I did not like them. You seemy taste has to be educated, I suppose; but I thought them so foolishlyvain and presuming."
"That is their perfect childishness," said Peter quickly. "It is not, Ibelieve, considered a moral defect," he added bitterly.
Lady Elfrida laughed, and yet at the same moment a look of appeal thatwas in itself quite as childlike shone in her blue eyes. "There, Ihave blundered again, I know; but I told you I have such ridiculousprejudices! And I really want to like them as you do. Only," she laughedagain, "it seems strange that YOU, of all men, should have interestedyourself in people so totally different to you. But what will be theresult if your efforts are successful? Will they remain a distinct race?Will you make citizens, soldiers, congressmen, governors of them? Willthey intermarry with the whites? Is that a part of your plan? I hopenot!"
It was a part of Peter's sensitive excitement that even through theunconscious irony of this speech he was noticing the difference betweenthe young English girl's evident interest in a political problem and theutter indifference of his own countrywomen. Here was a girl scarcely outof her teens, with no pretension to being a blue stocking, with halfthe aplomb of an American girl of her own age, gravely consideringa question of political economy. Oddly enough, it added to his otherirritation, and he said almost abruptly, "Why not?"
She took the question literally and with a little youthful timidity."But these mixed races never attain to anything, do they? I thought thatwas understood. But," she added with feminine quickness, "and I supposeit's again only a PERSONAL argument, YOU wouldn't like your sister tohave married an Indian, would you?"
The irony of the situation had reached its climax to Peter. It didn'tseem to be his voice that said, "I can answer by an argument still morepersonal. I have even thought myself of marrying an Indian woman."
It seemed to him that what he said was irrevocable, but he wasdesperate. It seemed to him that in a moment more he would have told herhis whole secret. But the young girl drew back from him with a slightstart of surprise. There may have been something in the tone of hisvoice and in his manner that verged upon a seriousness she was nevercontemplating in her random talk; it may have been an uneasiness ofsome youthful imprudence in pressing the subject upon a man of hissuperiority, and that his abrupt climax was a rebuke. But it was onlyfor a moment; her youthful buoyancy, and, above all, a certain commonsense that was not incompatible to her high nature, came to her rescue."But that," she said with quick mischievousness, "would be a SACRIFICEtaken in the interest of these
people, don't you see; and being asacrifice, it's no argument."
Peter saw his mistake, but there was something so innocent anddelightful in the youthful triumph of this red-lipped logician, thathe was forced to smile. I have said that his smile was rare andfascinating, a concession wrung from his dark face and calm beardlesslips that most people found irresistible, but it was odd, nevertheless,that Lady Elfrida now for the first time felt a sudden and notaltogether unpleasant embarrassment over the very subject she hadapproached with such innocent fearlessness. There was a new light in hereyes, a fresher color in her cheeks as she turned her face--she knew notwhy--away from him. But it enabled her to see a figure approaching themfrom the fort. And I grieve to say that, perhaps for the first time inher life, Lady Elfrida was guilty of an affected start.
"Oh, here's Reggy coming to look for me. I'd quite forgotten, but I'mso glad. I want you to know my brother Reggy. He was always so sorry hemissed you at the Grange."
The tall, young, good-looking brown Englishman who had sauntered upbestowed a far more critical glance upon Peter's horse than upon Peter,but nevertheless grasped his hand heartily as his sister introduced him.Perhaps both men were equally undemonstrative, although the reserve ofone was from temperament and the other from education. Nevertheless LordReginald remarked, with a laugh, that it was awfully jolly to be there,and that it had been a beastly shame that he was in Scotland whenAtherly was at the Grange. That none of them had ever suspected tillthey came to the fort that he, Atherly, was one of those governmentchappies, and so awfully keen on Indian politics. "Friddy" had beenthe first to find it out, but they thought she was chaffing. At which"Friddy," who had suddenly resolved herself into the youthfulest ofschoolgirls in the presence of her brother, put her parasol like anIndian club behind her back, and still rosy, beamed admiringly uponReggy. Then the three, Peter leading his horse, moved on towards thefort, presently meeting "Georgy," the six-foot Guardsman cousin inextraordinary tweeds and flannel shirt; Lord Runnybroke, uncleof Friddy, middle-aged and flannel-shirted, a mighty hunter; LadyRunnybroke, in a brown duster, but with a stately head that suggestedostrich feathers; Moyler-Spence, M. P., with an eyeglass, and the Hon.Evelyn Kayne, closely attended by the always gallant Lieutenant Forsyth.Peter began to feel a nervous longing to be alone on the burning plainand the empty horizon beyond them, until he could readjust himself tothese new conditions, and glanced half-wearily around him. But his eyemet Friddy's, who seemed to have evoked this gathering with a wave ofher parasol, like the fairy of a pantomime, and he walked on in silence.
A day or two of unexpected pleasure passed for Peter. In these newsurroundings he found he could separate Lady Elfrida from his miserablepast, and the conventional restraint of Ashley Grange. Again, therevelation of her familiar name Friddy seemed to make her moreaccessible and human to him than her formal title, and suited thegirlish simplicity that lay at the foundation of her character, of whichhe had seen so little before. At least so he fancied, and so excusedhimself; it was delightful to find her referring to him as an olderfriend; pleasant, indeed, to see that her family tacitly recognized it,and frequently appealed to him with the introduction, "Friddy says youcan tell us," or "You and Friddy had better arrange it between you."Even the dreaded introduction of his sister was an agreeable surprise,owing to Lady Elfrida's frank and sympathetic prepossession, which Jennycould not resist. In a few moments they were walking together in seriousand apparently confidential conversation. For to Peter's wonder it wasthe "Lady Elfrida" side of the English girl's nature that seemed tohave attracted Jenny, and not the playfulness of "Friddy," and he wasdelighted to see that the young girl had assumed a grave chaperonshipof the tall Mrs. Lascelles that would have done credit to Mrs. Carteror Lady Runnybroke. Had he been less serious he might have been amused,too, at the importance of his own position in the military outpost,through the arrival of the strangers. That this grave politicalenthusiast and civilian should be on familiar terms with a youngEnglishwoman of rank was at first inconceivable to the officers.And that he had never alluded to it before seemed to them still moreremarkable.
Nevertheless, there was much liveliness and good fellowship at the fort.Captains and lieutenants down to the youngest "cub," Forsyth, viedwith each other to please the Englishmen, supplied them with thatcharacteristic American humor and anecdote which it is an Englishman'sprivilege to bring away with him, and were picturesquely andchivalrously devoted in their attentions to the ladies, who were pleasedand amused by it, though it is to be doubted if it increased theirrespect for the giver, although they were more grateful for it thanthe average American woman. Lady Elfrida found the officers veryentertaining and gallant. Accustomed to the English officer, and hissomewhat bored way of treating his profession and his duties, she mayhave been amused at the zeal, earnestness, and enthusiasm of theseyouthful warriors, who aspired to appear as nothing but soldiers, whenshe contrasted them with her Guardsmen relatives who aspired tobe everything else but that; but she kept it to herself. It was arecognized, respectable, and even superior occupation for gentlemen inEngland; what it might be in America,--who knows? She certainly foundPeter, the civilian, more attractive, for there really was nothingEnglish to compare him with, and she had something of the same feelingin her friendship for Jenny, except the patronage which Jenny seemed tosolicit, and perhaps require, as a foreigner.
One afternoon the English guests, accompanied by a few of their hostsand a small escort, were making a shooting expedition to the vicinity ofGreen Spring, when Peter, plunged in his report, looked up to find hissister entering his office. Her face was pale, and there was somethingin her expression which reawakened his old anxiety. Nevertheless hesmiled, and said gently:--
"Why are you not enjoying yourself with the others?"
"I have a headache," she said, languidly, "but," lifting her eyessuddenly to his, "why are YOU not? You are their good friend, youknow,--even their relation."
"No more than you are," he returned, with affected gayety. "But look atthe report--it is only half finished! I have already been shirking itfor them."
"You mustn't let your devotion to the Indians keep you from your olderfriends," said Mrs. Lascelles, with an odd laugh. "But you never toldme about these people before, Peter; tell me now. They were very kind toyou, weren't they, on account of your relationship?"
"Entirely on account of that," said Peter, with a sudden bitterness hecould not repress. "But they are very pleasant," he added quickly, "andvery simple and unaffected, in spite of their rank; perhaps I ought tosay, BECAUSE of it."
"You mean they are kind to us because they feel themselvessuperior,--just as you are kind to the Indians, Peter."
"I am afraid they have no such sense of political equality towards us,Jenny, as impels me to be just to the Indian," he said with affectedlightness. "But Lady Elfrida sympathizes with the Indians--very much."
"She!" The emphasis which his sister put upon the personal pronoun wasunmistakable, but Peter ignored it, and so apparently did she, as shesaid the next moment in a different voice, "She's very pretty, don't youthink?"
"Very," said Peter coldly.
There was a long pause. Peter slightly fingered one of the sheets of hisdelayed report on his desk. His sister looked up. "I'm afraid I'm as badas Lady Elfrida in keeping you from your Indians; but I had something tosay to you. No matter, another time will do when you're not so busy."
"Please go on now," said Peter, with affected unconcern, yet with afeeling of uneasiness creeping over him.
"It was only this," said Jenny, seating herself with her elbow on thedesk and her chin in a cup-like hollow of her hand, "did you ever thinkthat in the interests of these poor Indians, you know, purely for thesake of your belief in them, and just to show that you were above vulgarprejudices,--did you ever think you could marry one of them?"
Two thoughts flashed quickly on Peter's mind,--first, that Lady Elfridahad repeated something of their conversation to his sister; secondly,that some one had told her of Little
Daybreak. Each was equallydisturbing. But he recovered himself quickly and said, "I might if Ithought it was required. But even a sacrifice is not always an example."
"Then you think it would be a sacrifice?" she said, slowly raising herdark eyes to his.
"If I did something against received opinion, against precedent, andfor aught I know against even the prejudices of those I wish to serve,however lofty my intention was and however great the benefit to them inthe end, it would still be a sacrifice in the present." He saw his ownmiserable logic and affected didactics, but he went on lightly, "Butwhy do you ask such a question? You haven't any one in your mind for me,have you?"
She had risen thoughtfully and was moving towards the door. Suddenly sheturned with a quick, odd vivacity: "Perhaps I had. Oh, Peter, there wassuch a lovely little squaw I saw the last time I was at Oak Bottom! Shewas no darker than I am, but so beautiful. Even in her little cottongown and blanket, with only a string of beads around her throat, shewas as pretty as any one here. And I dare say she could be educated andappear as well as any white woman. I should so like to have you see her.I would have tried to bring her to the fort, but the braves are veryjealous of their wives or daughters seeing white men, you know, and Iwas afraid of the colonel."
She had spoken volubly and with a strange excitement, but even at themoment her face changed again, and as she left the office, with a quicklaugh and parting gesture, there were tears in her eyes.
Accustomed to her moods and caprices, Peter thought little of theintrusion, relieved as he was of his first fears. She had come to himfrom loneliness and curiosity, and, perhaps, he thought with a sadsmile, from a little sisterly jealousy of the young girl who had evincedsuch an interest in him, and had known him before. He took up his penand continued the interrupted paragraph of his report.
"I am satisfied that much of the mischievous and extravagant prejudiceagainst the half breed and all alliances of the white and redraces springs from the ignorance of the frontiersman and his hastygeneralization of facts. There is no doubt that an intermixture of bloodbrings out purely superficial contrasts the more strongly, and thatagainst the civilizing habits and even costumes of the half breed,certain Indian defects appear the more strongly as in the case of thecolor line of the quadroon and octoroon, but it must not be forgottenthat these are only the contrasts of specific improvement, and theinference that the borrowed defects of a half breed exceed the originaldefects of the full-blooded aborigine is utterly illogical." He stoppedsuddenly and laid down his pen with a heightened color; the bugle hadblown, the guard was turning out to receive the commandant and hisreturning party, among whom was Friddy.
*****
Through the illusions of depression and distance the "sink" of ButternutCreek seemed only an incrustation of blackish moss on the dull grayplain. It was not until one approached within half a mile of it that itresolved itself into a copse of butternut-trees sunken below the distantlevels. Here once, in geological story, the waters of Butternut Creek,despairing of ever crossing the leagues of arid waste before them, hadsuddenly disappeared in the providential interposition of an area oflooser soil, and so given up the effort and the ghost forever, theirgrave being marked by the butternut copse, chance-sown by bird or beastin the saturated ground. In Indian legend the "sink" commemorated theequally providential escape of a great tribe who, surrounded by enemies,appealed to the Great Spirit for protection, and was promptly conveyedby subterraneous passages to the banks of the Great River a hundredmiles away. Its outer edges were already invaded by the dust of theplain, but within them ran cool recesses, a few openings, and theashes of some long-forgotten camp-fires. To-day its sombre shadows wererelieved by bright colored dresses, the jackets of the drivers of alarge sutler's wagon, whose white canvas head marked the entrance of thecopse, and all the paraphernalia of a picnic. It was a party gotten upby the foreign guests to the ladies of the fort, prepared and arrangedby the active Lady Elfrida, assisted by the only gentleman of the party,Peter Atherly, who, from his acquaintance with the locality, was allowedto accompany them. The other gentlemen, who with a large party ofofficers and soldiers were shooting in the vicinity, were sufficientlynear for protection. They would rejoin the ladies later.
"It does not seem in the least as if we were miles away from any townor habitation," said Lady Runnybroke, complacently seating herself on astump, "and I shouldn't be surprised to see a church tower through thosetrees. It's very like the hazel copse at Longworth, you know. Not at allwhat I expected."
"For the matter of that neither are the Indians," said the Hon. EvelynRayne. "Did you ever see such grotesque creatures in their cast-offboots and trousers? They're no better than gypsies. I wonder what Mr.Atherly can find in them."
"And he a rich man, too,--they say he's got a mine in California wortha million,--to take up a craze like this," added the lively Mrs. CaptainJoyce, "that's what gets me! You know," she went on confidentially,"that cranks and reformers are always poor--it's quite natural; butI don't see what he, a rich man, expects to make by his reforms, I'msure."
"He'll get over it in time," said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, "they all do.At least he expects to get the reforms he wants in a year, and then he'scoming over to England again."
"Indeed, how very nice," responded Lady Runnybroke quickly. "Did he sayso?"
"No. But Friddy says he is."
The two officers' wives glanced at each other. Lady Runnybroke put upher eyeglass in default of ostrich feathers, and said didactically, "I'msure Mr. Atherly is very much in earnest, and sincerely devoted to hiswork. And in a man of his wealth and position here it's most estimable.My dear," she said, getting up and moving towards Mrs. Lascelles, "wewere just saying how good and unselfish your brother was in his work forthese poor people."
But Jenny Lascelles must have been in one of those abstracted moodswhich so troubled her husband, for she seemed to be staring straightbefore her into the recesses of the wood. In her there was a certainresemblance to the attitude of a listening animal.
"I wish Mr. Atherly was a little more unselfish to US poor people,"said the Hon. Evelyn Kayne, "for he and Friddy have been nearly an hourlooking for a place to spread our luncheon baskets. I wish they'd leavethe future of the brown races to look after itself and look a littlemore after us. I'm famished."
"I fancy they find it difficult to select a clear space for so largea party as we will be when the gentlemen come in," returned LadyRunnybroke, glancing in the direction of Jenny's abstracted eyes.
"I suppose you must feel like chicken and salad, too, Lady Runnybroke,"suggested Mrs. Captain Joyce.
"I don't think I quite know HOW chicken and salad feel, dear," saidLady Runnybroke with a puzzled air, "but if that's one of your husband'sdelightful American stories, do tell us. I never CAN get Runnybroke totell me any, although he roars over them all. And I dare say he getsthem all wrong. But look, here comes our luncheon."
Peter and Lady Elfrida were advancing towards them. The scrutiny of adozen pairs of eyes--wondering, mischievous, critical, impertinent, orresentful--would have been a trying ordeal to any errant couple; butthere was little if any change in Peter's grave and gentle demeanor,albeit his dark eyes were shining with a peculiar light, and LadyElfrida had only the animation, color, and slight excitability thatbecame the responsible leader of the little party. They neitherapologized or alluded to their delay. They had selected a spot on theother side of the copse, and the baskets could be sent around by thewagon; they had seen a slight haze on the plain towards the east whichbetokened the vicinity of the rest of the party, and they were about topropose that as the gentlemen were so near they had better postponethe picnic until they came up. Lady Runnybroke smiled affably; the onlything she had noticed was that Lady Elfrida in joining them had gonedirectly to the side of the abstracted Jenny, and placed her arm aroundher waist. At which Lady Runnybroke airily joined them.
The surmises of Peter and Friddy appeared to be correct. The transferof the provisions and the party to the other
side was barely concludedbefore they could see the gentlemen coming; they were riding a littlemore rapidly than when they had set out, and were arriving fullythree hours before their time. They burst upon the ladies a littleboisterously but gayly; they had had a glorious time, but little sport;they had hurried back to join the ladies so as to be able to return withthem betimes. They were ravenously hungry; they wanted to fall to atonce. Only the officers' wives noticed that the two files of troopersDID NOT DISMOUNT, but filed slowly before the entrance to the woods.Lady Elfrida as hostess was prettily distressed by it, but was told byCaptain Joyce that it was "against rules," and that she could "feed"them at the fort. The officers' wives put a few questions in whispers,and were promptly frowned down. Nevertheless, the luncheon was asuccessful festivity: the gentlemen were loud in the praises of theirgracious hostess; the delicacies she had provided by express fromdistant stations, and much that was distinctly English and despoiledfrom her own stores, were gratefully appreciated by the officers ofa remote frontier garrison. Lady Elfrida's health was toasted bythe gallant colonel in a speech that was the soul of chivalry. LordRunnybroke responded, perhaps without the American abandon, but withthe steady conscientiousness of an hereditary legislator, but the M. P.summed up a slightly exaggerated but well meaning episode by pointingout that it was on occasions like this that the two nations showed theircommon ancestry by standing side by side. Only one thing troubled therosy, excited, but still clear-headed Friddy; the plates were whiskedaway like magic after each delicacy, by the military servants, andvanished; the tables were in the same mysterious way cleared as rapidlyas they were set, and any attempt to recall a dish was met by thedeclaration that it was already packed away in the wagon. As theyat last rose from the actually empty board, and saw even the tablesdisappear, Lady Elfrida plaintively protested that she felt as if shehad been presiding over an Arabian Nights entertainment, served bygenii, and she knew that they would all awaken hungry when they werewell on their way back. Nevertheless, in spite of this expedition, theofficers lounged about smoking until every trace of the festivity hadvanished. Reggy found himself standing near Peter. "You know," he said,confidentially, "I don't think the colonel has a very high opinion ofyour pets,--the Indians. And, by Jove, if the 'friendlies' are as nastytowards you as they were to us this morning, I wonder what you call the'hostile' tribes."
"Did you have any difficulty with them?" said Peter quickly.
"No, not exactly, don't you know--we were too many, I fancy; but, byJove, the beggars whenever we met them,--and we met one or two gypsybands of them,--you know, they seemed to look upon us as TRESPASSERS,don't you know."
"And you were, in point of fact," said Peter, smiling grimly.
"Oh, I say, come now!" said Reggy, opening his eyes. After a moment helaughed. "Oh, yes, I see--of course, looking at it from their pointof view. By Jove, I dare say the beggars were right, you know; all thesame,--don't you see,--YOUR people were poaching too."
"So we were," said Peter gravely.
But here, at a word from the major, the whole party debouched fromthe woods. Everything appeared to be awaiting them,--the large coveredcarryall for the guests, and the two saddle horses for Mrs. Lascellesand Lady Elfrida, who had ridden there together. Peter, also mounted,accompanied the carryall with two of the officers; the troopers andwagons brought up the rear.
It was very hot, with little or no wind. On this part of the plain thedust seemed lighter and finer, and rose with the wheels of the carryalland the horses of the escort, trailing a white cloud over the cavalcadelike the smoke of an engine over a train. It was with difficulty thetroopers could be kept from opening out on both sides of the highway toescape it. The whole atmosphere seemed charged with it; it even appearedin a long bank to the right, rising and obscuring the declining sun. Butthey were already within sight of the fort and the little copse besideit. Then trooper Cassidy trotted up to the colonel, who was riding in adusty cloud beside the carryall, "Captain Fleetwood's compliments, sorr,and there are two sthragglers,--Mrs. Lascelles and the English lady." Hepointed to the rapidly flying figures of Jenny and Friddy making towardsthe wood.
The colonel made a movement of impatience. "Tell Mr. Forsyth to bringthem back at once," he said.
But here a feminine chorus of excuses and expostulations rose fromthe carryall. "It's only Mrs. Lascelles going to show Friddy where thesquaws and children bathe," said Lady Runnybroke, "it's near the fort,and they'll be there as quick as we shall."
"One moment, colonel," said Peter, with mortified concern. "It's anotherfolly of my sister's! pray let me take it upon myself to bring themback."
"Very well, but see you don't linger, and," turning to Cassidy, as Petergalloped away, he added, "you follow him."
Peter kept the figures of the two women in view, but presently sawthem disappear in the wood. He had no fear for their safety, but he wasindignant at this last untimely caprice of his sister. He knew the ideahad originated with her, and that the officers knew it, and yet she hadmade Lady Elfrida bear an equal share of the blame. He reached the edgeof the copse, entered the first opening, but he had scarcely plungedinto its shadow and shut out the plain behind him before he felt hisarms and knees quickly seized from behind. So sudden and unexpected wasthe attack that he first thought his horse had stumbled against a coilof wild grapevine and was entangled, but the next moment he smelled therank characteristic odor and saw the brown limbs of the Indian who hadleaped on his crupper, while another rose at his horse's head. Then awarning voice in his ear said in the native tongue:--
"If the great white medicine man calls to his fighting men, thepale-faced girl and the squaw he calls his sister die! They are here, heunderstands."
But Peter had neither struggled nor uttered a cry. At that touch, andwith the accents of that tongue in his ears, all his own Indian bloodseemed to leap and tingle through his veins. His eyes flashed; pinionedas he was he drew himself erect and answered haughtily in his captor'sown speech:--
"Good! The great white medicine man obeys, for he and his sister haveno fear. But if the pale-face girl is not sent back to her people beforethe sun sets, then the yellow jackets will swarm the woods, and theywill follow her trail to the death. My brother is wise; let the girl go.I have spoken."
"My brother is very cunning too. He would call to his fighting menthrough the lips of the pale-face girl."
"He will not. The great white medicine man does not lie to his redbrother. He will tell the pale-face girl to say to the chief of theyellow jackets that he and his sister are with his brothers, and all ispeace. But the pale-face girl must not see the great white medicine manin these bonds, nor as a captive! I have spoken."
The two Indians fell back. There was so much of force and dignity in theman, so much of their own stoic calmness, that they at once mechanicallyloosened the thongs of plaited deer hide with which they had bound him,and side by side led him into the recesses of the wood.
*****
There was some astonishment, although little alarm at the fort, whenLady Elfrida returned accompanied by the orderly who had followed Peterto the wood, but without Peter and his sister. The reason given wasperfectly natural and conceivable. Mrs. Lascelles had preceded LadyElfrida in entering the wood and taken another opening, so that LadyElfrida had found herself suddenly lost, and surrounded by two or threewarriors in dreadful paint. They motioned her to dismount, and saidsomething she did not understand, but she declined, knowing that she hadheard Mr. Atherly and the orderly following her, and feeling no fear.And sure enough Mr. Atherly presently came up with a couple of braves,apologized to her for their mistake, but begged her to return to thefort at once and assure the colonel that everything was right, and thathe and his sister were safe. He was perfectly cool and collected andlike himself; she blushed slightly, as she said she thought that hewished to impress upon her, for some reason she could not understand,that he did not want the colonel to send any assistance. She waspositive of that. She told her story unexcitedly; it was evident
thatshe had not been frightened, but Lady Runnybroke noticed that there wasa shade of anxious abstraction in her face.
When the officers were alone the colonel took hurried counsel of them."I think," said Captain Fleetwood, "that Lady Elfrida's story quiteexplains itself. I believe this affair is purely a local one, and hasnothing whatever to do with the suspicious appearances we noticed thisafternoon, or the presence of so large a body of Indians near Butternut.Had this been a hostile movement they would have scarcely allowed sovaluable a capture as Lady Elfrida to escape them."
"Unless they kept Atherly and his sister as a hostage," said CaptainJoyce.
"But Atherly is one of their friends; indeed he is their mediatorand apostle, a non-combatant, and has their confidence," returned thecolonel. "It is much more reasonable to suppose that Atherly has noticedsome disaffection among these 'friendlies,' and he fears that oursending a party to his assistance might precipitate a collision. Or hemay have reason to believe that this stopping of the two women underthe very walls of the fort is only a feint to draw our attention fromsomething more serious. Did he know anything of our suspicions of theconduct of those Indians this morning?"
"Not unless he gathered it from what Lord Reginald foolishly toldhim. We said nothing, of course," returned Captain Fleetwood, with asoldier's habitual distrust of the wisdom of the civil arm.
"That will do, gentlemen," said the colonel, as the officers dispersed;"send Cassidy here."
The colonel was alone on the veranda as Cassidy came up.
"You followed Mr. Atherly to-day?"
"Yes sorr."
"And you saw him when he gave the message to the young lady?"
"Yes sorr."
"Did you form any opinion from anything else you saw, of his object insending that message?"
"Only from what I saw of HIM."
"Well, what was that?"
"I saw him look afther the young leddy as she rode away, and then wheelabout and go straight back into the wood."
"And what did you think of that?" said the colonel, with a half smile.
"I thought it was shacrifice, sorr."
"What do you mean?" said the colonel sharply.
"I mane, sorr," said Cassidy stoutly, "that he was givin' up hisself andhis sister for that young leddy."
The colonel looked at the sergeant. "Ask Mr. Forsyth to come to meprivately, and return here with him."
As darkness fell, some half a dozen dismounted troopers, headed byForsyth and Cassidy, passed quietly out of the lower gate and enteredthe wood. An hour later the colonel was summoned from the dinner table,and the guests heard the quick rattle of a wagon turning out of the roadgate--but the colonel did not return. An indefinable uneasiness creptover the little party, which reached its climax in the summoning of theother officers, and the sudden flashing out of news. The reconnoitringparty had found the dead bodies of Peter Atherly and his sister on theplains at the edge of the empty wood.
The women were gathered in the commandant's quarters, and for themoment seemed to have been forgotten. The officers' wives talked withprofessional sympathy and disciplined quiet; the English ladies wereequally sympathetic, but collected. Lady Elfrida, rather white, butpatient, asked a few questions in a voice whose contralto was ratherdeepened. One and all wished to "do something"--anything "to help"--andone and all rebelled that the colonel had begged them to remain withindoors. There was an occasional quick step on the veranda, or theclatter of a hoof on the parade, a continued but subdued murmur from thewhitewashed barracks, but everywhere a sense of keen restraint.
When they emerged on the veranda again, the whole aspect of the garrisonseemed to have changed in that brief time. In the faint moonlight theycould see motionless files of troopers filling the parade, the officersin belted tunics and slouched hats,--but apparently not the same men;the half lounging ease and lazy dandyism gone, a grim tension in alltheir faces, a set abstraction in all their acts. Then there was therolling of heavy wheels in the road, and the two horses of the ambulanceappeared. The sentries presented arms; the colonel took off his hat;the officers uncovered; the wagon wheeled into the parade; the surgeonstepped out. He exchanged a single word with the colonel, and lifted thecurtain of the ambulance.
As the colonel glanced within, a deep but embarrassed voice fellupon his ear. He turned quickly. It was Lord Reginald, flushed andsympathetic.
"He was a friend,--a relation of ours, you know," he stammered. "Mysister would like--to look at him again."
"Not now," said the colonel in a low voice. The surgeon added somethingin a voice still lower, which scarcely reached the veranda.
Lord Reginald turned away with a white face.
"Fall back there!" Captain Fleetwood rode up.
"All ready, sir."
"One moment, captain," said the colonel quietly. "File your first halfcompany before that ambulance, and bid the men look in."
The singular order was obeyed. The men filed slowly forward, each inturn halting before the motionless wagon and its immobile freight. Theywere men inured to frontier bloodshed and savage warfare; some haltedand hurried on; others lingered, others turned to look again. One manburst into a short laugh, but when the others turned indignantly uponhim, they saw that in his face that held them in awe. What they saw inthe ambulance did not transpire; what they felt was not known. Strangelyenough, however, what they repressed themselves was mysteriouslycommunicated to their horses, who snorted and quivered with eagernessand impatience as they rode back again. The horse of the trooper whohad laughed almost leaped into the air. Only Sergeant Cassidy wascommunicative; he took a larger circuit in returning to his place, andmanaged to lean over and whisper hoarsely in the ear of a camp followerspectator, "Tell the young leddy that the torturin' divvils couldn'ttake the smile off him!"
The little column filed out of the gateway into the road. As CaptainFleetwood passed Colonel Carter the two men's eyes met. The colonel saidquietly, "Good night, captain. Let us have a good report from you."
The captain replied only with his gauntleted hand against the brim ofhis slouched hat, but the next moment his voice was heard strong andclear enough in the road. The little column trotted away as evenly as onparade. But those who climbed the roof of the barracks a quarter of anhour later saw, in the moonlight, a white cloud drifting rapidly acrossthe plain towards the west. It was a small cloud in that bare,menacing, cruel, and illimitable waste; but in its breast was crammed athunderbolt.
It fell thirty miles away, blasting and scattering a thousand warriorsand their camp, giving and taking no quarter, vengeful, exterminating,and complete. Later there were different opinions about it and thehorrible crime that had provoked it: the opposers of Peter's policyjubilant over the irony of the assassination of the Apostle ofPeace, Peter's disciples as actively deploring the merciless andindiscriminating vengeance of the military; and so the problem thatPeter had vainly attempted to solve was left an open question. Therewere those, too, who believed that Peter had never sacrificed himselfand his sister for the sake of another, but had provoked and incensedthe savages by the blind arrogance of a reformer. There were wildstories by scouts and interpreters how he had challenged his fate byan Indian bravado; how himself and his sister had met torture withan Indian stoicism, and how the Indian braves themselves at last in aturmoil of revulsion had dipped their arrows and lances in the heroicheart's blood of their victims, and worshiped their still palpitatingflesh.
But there was one honest loyal little heart that carried back--threethousand miles--to England the man as it had known and loved him. LadyElfrida Runnybroke never married; neither did she go into retirement,but lived her life and fulfilled her duties in her usual clear-eyedfashion. She was particularly kind to all Americans,--barring, I fear, afew pretty-faced, finely-frocked title-hunters,--told stories of theFar West, and had theories of a people of which they knew little, caredless, and believed to be vulgar. But I think she found a new pleasure inthe old church at Ashley Grange, and loved to linger over the e
ffigy ofthe old Crusader,--her kinsman, the swashbuckler De Bracy,--with a vaguebut pretty belief that devotion and love do not die with brave men, butlive and flourish even in lands beyond the seas.