The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas

  CHAPTER XIII

  THE TOPEKA RALLY

  And men may say what things they please, and none dare stay their tongue. But who has spoken out for these--the women and the young?

  --KIPLING.

  Henceforth I had one controlling purpose. Mine was now the task to provemyself a man with power to create and defend the little kingdom whosethrone is builded on the hearthstone. I put into my work all the energyof my youth and love and hope.

  I applied myself to the study of law, and I took hold of my father'sbusiness interests with a will. I was to enter into a partnership withhim when I could do a partner's work. He forebore favors, but he gave meopportunity to prove myself. Stories of favoritism on account of myfather's position, of my wasteful and luxurious habits, ludicrous enoughin a little Kansas town in the sixties, were peddled about by therestless little widower. By my father's advice I let him alone and wentmy way. I knew that silently and persistently John Baronet was trailinghim. And I knew the cause was a righteous one. I had lived too long inthe Baronet family to think the head of it would take time to followafter a personal dislike, or pursue a petty purpose.

  There may have been many happy lovers on these sunny prairies thatidyllic summer, now forty years gone by. The story of each, though likethat of all the others, seems best to him who lived it. Marjie and Iwere going through commonplace days, but we were very happy with the joyof life and love. Our old playground was now our trysting place.Together on our "Rockport" we planned a future wherein there were nougly shadows.

  "Marjie, I'll always keep 'Rockport' for my shrine now," I said to herone evening as we were watching the sunset lights on the prairie and theriver upstream. "If you ever hear me say I don't care for 'Rockport,'you will know I do not care for you. Now, think of that!"

  "Don't ever say it, Phil, please, if you can help it." Marjie's mood wasmore serious than mine just then. "I used to be afraid of Indians. I amstill, if there were need to be, and I looked to you always somehow tokeep them away. Do you remember how I would always get on your side ofthe game when Jean Pahusca played with us?"

  "Yes, Marjie. That's where you belong--on my side. That's the kind ofgame I'm playing."

  "Phil, I am troubled a little with another game. I wish Amos Judsonwould stay away from our house. He can make mother believe almostanything. I don't feel safe about some matters. Judge Baronet tells menot to worry, that he will keep close watch."

  "Well, take it straight from me that he will do it," I assured her."Let's let the widower go his way. He talks about me; says I'm 'callow,that's it, just callow.' I don't mind being callow, as long as it's notcatching. Look at the river, how it glistens now. We can almost see theshallows up by the stone cabin below the big cottonwood. The old tree isshapely, isn't it?"

  We were looking upstream to where the huge old tree stood out againstthe golden horizon.

  "Let's buy that land, Phil, and build a house under the big cottonwoodsome day."

  "All right, I'm to go out there again soon. Will you go too?"

  "Of course," Marjie assented, "if you want me to."

  "I am sure I'd never want to take any other girl out there, but justyou, dear," I declared.

  And then we talked of other things, and promised to put our letters nextday, into the deep crevice we had called our post-office these manyyears. Before we parted that night, I said:

  "I'm thinking of going up to Topeka when the band goes to the bigpolitical speaking, next week. I will write to you. And be sure to letme find a letter in 'Rockport' when I get back. I'll be so lonely upthere."

  "Well, find some pretty girl and let her kill time for you."

  "Will you and Judson kill time down here?"

  "Ugh! no," Marjie shivered in disgust. "I can't bear the sight of hisface any more."

  "Good! I'll not try to be any more miserable by being bored withsomebody I don't care for at Topeka. But don't forget the letter.Good-night, little sweetheart," and after the fashion of lovers, I saidgood-bye.

  Kansas is essentially a land of young politicians. When O'mie took hisband to the capital city to play martial music for the big politicalrally, there were more young men than gray beards on the speakers' standand on the front seats. I had gone with the Springvale crowd on thisjaunt, but I did not consider myself a person of importance.

  "There's Judge Baronet's son; he's just out of Harvard. He's got biginfluence with the party down his way. His father always runs away aheadof his ticket and has the whole district about as he wants it. That'sthe boy that saved Springvale one night when the pro-slavery crowd wasgoin' to burn it, the year of the Quantrill raid."

  So, I heard myself exploited in the hotel lobby of the old Teft House.

  "What's Tell Mapleson after this year, d'ye reckon? Come in a week ago.He's the doggondest feller to be after somethin', an' gets it, too,somehow." The speaker was a seasoned politician of the hotel lobbyvariety.

  "Oh, he's got a big suit of some kind back East. It's a case of moneybein' left to heirs, and he's looking out that the heirs don't get it."

  "Ain't it awful about the Saline country?" a bystander broke in here."Just awful! Saw a man from out there last night by the name of Morton.He said that them Cheyennes are raidin' an' murderin' all that can't getinto the towns. Lord pity the unprotected settlers way out in thatlonely country. This man said they just killed the little childrenbefore their mothers' eyes, after they'd scalped and tomahawked thefathers. Just beat them to death, and then carried off the women. Oh,God! but it's awful."

  Awful! I lived through the hours of that night from the time young TellMapleson had told of Jean Pahusca's plan to seize Marjie, to the momentwhen I saw her safe in the shelter of her mother's doorway. Awful! Andthis sort of thing was going on now in the Saline Valley. How could Godpermit it?

  "There was one family out there, they got the mother and baby and justbutchered the other children right before her eyes. They hung the babyto a tree later, and when they got ready they killed its mother. It wasthe only merciful thing they done, I guess, in all their raid, for theymade her die a thousand deaths before they really cut off her poorpitiful life."

  So I heard the talk running on, and I wondered at the bluff committeemanwho broke up the group to get the men in line for a factional caucus.

  Did the election of a party favorite, the nomination of a man whose turnhad come, or who would be favorable to "our crowd" in his appointmentsmatch in importance this terrible menace to life on our Indian frontier?I had heard much of the Saline and the Solomon River valleys. Unionsoldiers were homesteading those open plains. My father'scomrades-in-arms they had been, and he was intensely interested in theirwelfare. These Union men had wounds still unhealed from service in theCivil War. And the nation they bore these wounds to save, the Governmentat Washington, was ignorant or indifferent to this danger thatthreatened them hourly--a danger infinitely worse than death to women.And the State in the vital throes of a biennial election was treatingthe whole affair as a deplorable incident truly, but one the nationalgovernment must look out for.

  I was young and enthusiastic, but utterly without political ambition. Iwas only recently out of college, with a scholar's ideals of civic duty.And with all these, I had behind me the years of a frontier life on theborder, in which years my experience and inspiration had taught me thevalue of the American home, and a strong man's duty toward the weak anddefenceless. The memories of my mother, the association and training ofmy father's sister, and my love for Marjie made all women sacred to me.And while these feelings that stirred the finest fibres of my being, andof which I never spoke then, may have been the mark of a less practicalnature than most young men have to-day, I account my life stronger,cleaner and purer for having had them.

  I could take only a perfunctory interest in the political game about me,and I felt little elation at the courteous request that I should take aseat in the speakers' stand, when the clans did finally gather for agrand struggle for place.

  The meeting opened wi
th O'mie's band playing "The Star-Spangled Banner."It brought the big audience to their feet, and the men on the platformstood up. I was the tallest one among them. Also I was least nervous,least anxious, and least important to that occasion. Perfunctorily, too,I listened to the speeches, hearing the grand old Republican party'svirtues lauded, and the especial fitness of certain of its color-bearersextolled as of mighty men of valor, with "the burning question of thehour" and "the vital issue of the time" enlarged upon, and "the State'smost pernicious evil" threatened with dire besetments. And through itall my mind was on the unprotected, scattered settlements of the SalineValley, and the murdered children and the defenceless women, even now inthe cruel slavery of Indian captivity.

  I knew only a few people in the capital city and I looked at theaudience with the indifference of a stranger who seeks for no familiarface. And yet, subconsciously, I felt the presence of some one who waswatching me, some one who knew me well. Presently the master ofceremonies called for the gifted educator, Richard Tillhurst ofSpringvale. I knew he was in Topeka, but I had not hunted for him anymore than he had sought me out. We mutually didn't need each other. Andyet local pride is strong, and I led the hand-clapping that greeted hisappearance. He was visibly embarrassed, and ultra-dignified. Educationhad a representative above reproach in him. Pompously, after the mannerof the circumscribed instructor, he began, and for a limited time thetravelling was easy. But he made the fatal error of keeping on his feetafter his ideas were exhausted. He lost the trail and wandered aimlesslyin the barren, trackless realms of thought, seeking relief and findingnone, until at length in sheer embarrassment he forced himself toretreat to his seat. Little enthusiasm was expressed and failure waswritten all over his banner.

  The next speaker was a politician of the rip-roaring variety who poundedthe table and howled his enthusiasm, whose logic was all expressed inthe short-story form, sometimes witty, sometimes far-fetched and oftenprofane. He interested me least of all, and my mind abstracted by theTillhurst feature went back again to the Plains. I could not realizewhat was going on when the politician had finished amid uproariousapplause, and the chairman was introducing the next speaker, until Icaught my father's name, coupled with lavish praise of his merits. Therewas a graceful folding of his mantle on the shoulders of "his giftedson, just out of Harvard, but a true child of Kansas, with a record forheroism in the war time, and a growing prominence in his district, andan altogether good-headed, good-hearted, and, the ladies all agree,good-looking young man, the handsome giant of the Neosho." And I foundmyself thrust to the front of the speakers' stand, with applausefollowing itself, and O'mie, the mischievous rascal, striking off a fewbars of "See, the Conquering Hero Comes!"

  I was taken so completely by surprise that I thought the earthespecially unkind not to open at once and let me in. It must have beensomething of my inheritance of my father's self-control, coupled with mylife experience of having to meet emergencies quickly, which all thechildren of Springvale knew, that pulled me through. The prolongedcheering gave me a moment to get the mastery. Then like an inspirationcame the thought to break away from the beaten path of local politicsand to launch forth into a plea for larger political ideals. I cited theCivil War as a crucible, testing men. I did not once mention my father,but the company knew his proud record, and there were many present whohad fought and marched and starved and bled beside him, men whom hisgenius and his kindness had saved from peril, even the peril of death.And then out of the fulness of a heart that had suffered, I pled for thelives and homes of the settlers on our Plains frontier. I pictured, forI knew how to picture, the anguish of soul an Indian raid can leave inits wake, and the duty we owe to the homes, our high privilege as strongmen and guardians to care for the defenceless, and our opportunity torepay a part at least of the debt we owe to the Union soldier by givinga State's defence to these men, who were homesteading our hithertounbroken, trackless plains, and building empire westward toward thebaths of sunset.

  The effort was so boyish, so unlike every other speech that had beenmade, and yet so full of a young man's honest zeal and profoundconvictions from a soul stirred to its very depths, that the audiencerose to their feet at my closing words, and cheer followed cheer, makingthe air ring with sound.

  When the meeting had finished, I found myself in the centre of a groupof men who knew John Baronet and just wouldn't let his son get awaywithout a handshake. I was flushed with the pleasure of such a receptionand was doing my best to act well, when a man grasped my hand with agrip unlike any other hand I had ever felt, so firm, so full offriendship, and yet so undemonstrative, that I instinctively returnedthe clasp. He was a man of some thirty years, small beside me, and therewas nothing unusual in his face or dress or manner to attract myattention. A stranger might not turn to him a second time in a crowd,unless they had once spoken and clasped hands.

  "My name is Morton," he said. "I know your father, I knew him in thearmy and before, back in Massachusetts. I am from the Saline Rivercountry, and I came down here hoping to find the State more interestedin the conditions out our way. You were the only speaker who thought ofthe needs of the settlers. There are terrible things being done rightnow."

  He spoke so simply that a careless ear would not have detected thestrength of the feeling back of the words.

  "I'll tell my father I met you," I said cordially, "and I hope, I hopeto heaven the captives may be found soon, and the Indians punished. Howcan a man live who has lost his wife, or his sweetheart, in that way?"

  I knew I was blushing, but the matter was so terrible to me. Before hecould answer, Richard Tillhurst pushed through the crowd and caught myarm.

  "There's an old friend of yours here, who wants to meet you, Mr.Baronet," and he pulled me away.

  "I hope I'll see you again," I turned to Mr. Morton to say, and in amoment more, I was face to face with Rachel Melrose. It was she whosepresence I had somehow felt in that crowd of strangers. She washandsomer even than I had remembered her, and she had a style of dressnew and attractive. One would know that she was fresh from the East, forour own girls and women for the most part had many things to considerbesides the latest fashions.

  I think Tillhurst mistook my surprise for confusion. He was a man ofgood principles, but he was a human being, not a saint, and he pursued apurpose selfishly as most of us who are human do.

  The young lady grasped my hand in both of hers impulsively.

  "Oh, Mr. Baronet, I'm so glad to see you again. I knew you would come toTopeka as soon as you knew I had come West. I just got here two daysago, and I could hardly wait until you came. It's just like old times tosee you again."

  Then she turned to Tillhurst, standing there greedily taking in everyword, his face beaming as one's face may who finds an obstacle suddenlylifted from his way.

  "We are old friends, the best kind of friends, Mr. Tillhurst. Mr.Baronet and I have recollections of two delightful years when he was inHarvard, haven't we?"

  "Yes, yes," I replied. "Miss Melrose was the only girl who would listento my praising Kansas while I was in Massachusetts. Naturally I foundher delightful company."

  "Did he tell you about his girl here?" Tillhurst asked, a triflemaliciously, maybe.

  "Of course, I didn't," I broke in. "We don't tell all we know when we goEast."

  "Nor all you have done in the East when you come back home, evidently,"Tillhurst spoke significantly. "I've never heard him mention your nameonce, Miss Melrose."

  "Has he been flirting with some one, Mr. Tillhurst? He promised mefaithfully he wouldn't." Her tone took on a disappointed note.

  "I'll promise anybody not to flirt, for I don't do it," I cried. "I camehome and found this young educator trying to do me mischief with thelittle girl I told you about the last time I saw you. Naturally hedoesn't like me."

  All this in a joking manner, and yet a vein of seriousness ran throughit somewhere.

  Rachel Melrose was adroit.

  "We won't quarrel," she said sweetly, "now we do meet again, and
when Igo down to Springvale to visit your aunt, as you insisted I must do,we'll get all this straightened out. You'll come and take tea with us ofcourse. Mr. Tillhurst has promised to come, too."

  The young man looked curiously at me at the mention of Rachel's visit toSpringvale. A group of politicians broke in just here.

  "We can't have you monopolize 'the handsome giant of the Neosho' all thetime," they said, laughing, with many a compliment to the charming youngmonopolist. "We don't blame him, of course, now, but we need him badly.Come, Baronet," and they hurried me away, giving me time only to thankher for the invitation to dine with her.

  At the Teft House letters were waiting for me. One from my father askingme to visit Governor Crawford and take a personal message of someimportance to him, with the injunction, "Stay till you do see him." Theother was a fat little envelope inscribed in Marjie's handwriting.Inside were only flowers, the red blossoms that grow on the vines in thecrevices of our "Rockport," and a sheet of note paper about them withthe simple message:

  "Always and always yours, Marjie."

  Willing or unwilling, I found myself in the thick of the politicalturmoil, and had it not been for that Indian raiding in NorthwestKansas, I should have plunged into politics then and there, so strong atemptation it is to control men, if opportunity offers. It was latebefore I could get out of the council and rush to my room to write ahurried but loving letter to Marjie. I had to be brief to get it intothe mails. So I wrote only of what was first in my thoughts; herself,and my longing to see her, of the noisy political strife, and of theSaline River and Solomon River outrages, I hurried this letter to theoutgoing stage and fell in with the crowd gathering late in thedining-room. I was half way through my meal before I remembered Rachel'sinvitation.

  "I can only be rude to her, it seems, but I'll offer my excuses, andmaybe she will let me have the honor of her company home. She will huntme up before I get out of the hall, I am sure." So I satisfied myselfand prepared for the evening gathering.

  It was much on the order of the other meeting, except that only seasonedparty leaders were given place on the programme.

  I asked Rachel for her company home, but she laughingly refused me.

  "I must punish you," she said. "When do you go home?"

  "Not for two days," I replied. "I have business for my father and theperson I am to see is called out of town."

  "Then there will be plenty of time later for you. You go home to-morrow,Mr. Tillhurst," she said coquettishly. "Tell his friends in Springvale,he is busy up here." She was a pretty girl, but slow as I was, I beganto see method in her manner of procedure. I could not be rude to her,but I resolved then not to go one step beyond the demands of actualcourtesy.

  In the crowd passing up to the hotel that night, I fell into step withmy father's soldier friend, Morton.

  "When you get ready to leave Springvale, come out and take a claim onthe Saline," he said. "That will be a garden of Eden some day."

  "It seems to have its serpent already, Mr. Morton," I replied.

  "Well, the serpent can be crushed. Come out and help us do it. We neednumbers, especially in men of endurance." We were at the hotel door.Morton bade me good-bye by saying, "Don't forget; come our way when youget the Western fever."

  Governor Crawford returned too late for me to catch the stage forSpringvale on the same day. Having a night more to spend in the capital,it seemed proper for me to make amends for my unpardonable forgetfulnessof Rachel Melrose's invitation to tea by calling on her in the evening.Her aunt's home was at the far side of the town beyond the modest squarestone building that was called Lincoln College then. It was only astone's throw from the State Capitol, the walls of the east wing ofwhich were then being built.

  I remember it was a beautiful moonlit night, in early August, and Rachelasked me to take a stroll over the prairie to the southwest. The day hadbeen very hot, and the west had piled up some threatening thunderheads.But the evening breezes fanned them away over the far horizon line andthe warm night air was light and dry. The sky was white with the clearluminous moonlight of the open Plains country.

  Rachel and I had wandered idly along the gentle rise of ground until wecould quite overlook the little treeless town with this Lincoln Collegeand the jagged portion of the State House wing gleaming up beyond.

  "Hadn't we better turn back now? Your aunt cautioned us two strangershere not to get lost." I was only hinting my wishes.

  "Oh, let's go on to that tree. It's the only one here in this forsakencountry. Let's pay our respects to it," Rachel urged.

  She was right. To an Easterner's eye it was a forsaken country. From theShunganunga Creek winding beneath a burden of low, black underbrush,northward to the river with its fringe of huge cottonwoods, not a treebroke the line of vision save this one sturdy young locust spreading itslacy foliage in dainty grace on the very summit of the gentle swell ofland between the two streams. Up to its pretty shadowed spaces we tookour way. The grass was dry and brown with the August heat, and we restedawhile on the moonlit prairie.

  Rachel was strikingly handsome, and the soft light lent a certain toneto her beauty. Her hair and eyes were very dark, and her face was clearcut. There was a dash of boldness, an assumption of authority allprettily accented with smiles and dimples that was very bewitching. Shewas a subtle flatterer, and even the wisest men may be caught by thatbait. It was the undercurrent of sympathy, product of my life-longideals, my intense pity for the defenceless frontier, that divided mymind and led me away from temptation that night.

  "Rachel Melrose, we must go home," I insisted at last. "This tree is allright, but I could show you a cottonwood out above the Neosho thatdwarfs this puny locust. And yet this is a gritty sort of sapling tostand up here and grow and grow. I wonder if ever the town will reachout so far as this."

  I am told the tree is green and beautiful to-day, and that it is farinside the city limits, standing on the old Huntoon road. About it aresubstantial homes. South of it is a pretty park now, while near it onthe west is a handsome church, one of the city's lions to the stranger,for here the world-renowned author of "In His Steps" has preached everySabbath for many years. But on that night it seemed far away from theriver and the town nestling beside it.

  "I'll go down and take a look at your cottonwood before I go home. MayI? You promised me last Spring." Rachel's voice was pleasant to hear.

  "Why, of course. Come on. Mr. Tillhurst will be there, I am sure, andglad as I shall be to see you."

  "Oh, you rogue! always hunting for somebody else. I am not going toloose you from your promise. Remember that you said you'd let everybodyelse alone when I came. Now your Mr. Tillhurst can look after all thegirls you have been flirting with down there, but you are my friend.Didn't we settle that in those days together at dear old Rockport? We'lljust have the happiest time together, you and I, and nobody shallinterfere to mar our pleasure."

  She was leaning toward me and her big dark eyes were full of feeling. Istood up before her. "My dear friend," I took her hand and she rose toher feet. "You have been very, very good to me. But I want to tell younow before you come to Springvale"--she was close beside me, her hand onmy arm, gentle and trembling. I seemed like a brute to myself, but Iwent on. "I want you to know that as my aunt's guest and mine, yourpleasure will be mine. But I am not a flirt, and I do not care to hidefrom you the fact that my little Springvale girl is the light of mylife. You will understand why some claims are unbreakable. Now you knowthis, let me say that it will be my delight to make your stay in theWest pleasant." She bowed her proud head on my arm and the tears fellfast. "Oh, Rachel, I'm a beast, a coarse, crude Westerner. Forgive myplain speech. I only wanted you to know."

  But she didn't want to know. She wanted me to quit saying anything toher and her beautiful dark hair was almost against my cheek. Gently as Icould, I put her from me. Drawing her hand through my arm, I patted itsoftly, and again I declared myself the bluntest of speakers. She onlywept the more, and asked me to take her to her aunt's.
I was glad to doit, and I bade her a humble good-bye at the door. She said not a word,but the pressure of her hand had speech. It made me feel that I hadcruelly wronged her.

  As I started for town beyond the college, I shook my fist at that lonelocust tree. "You blamed old sapling! If you ever tell what you sawto-night I hope you'll die by inches in a prairie fire."

  Then I hurried to my room and put in the hours of the night, wakeful andangry at all the world, save my own Springvale and the dear little girlso modest and true to me. The next day I left Topeka, hoping never tosee it again.