"What is it?" came the query.

I pointed upward.

"The nicest set of hand-holds and steps clear up," I called. "You can't see for the shelf. But right under there where Bud's head is, is the best place to get a grip and there's a foothold all the way down." I stared up again. "There's a rope fastened right under there. Bend over, Bud, careful, and you'll find it. It will let you over to the steps. Swing in on it."

In truth, a set of points for hand and foot partly natural, partly cut there, rude but safe enough for boy climbers like ourselves, led down to my tree lodge.

"And what's below you?" shouted Tell.

"Another tree like this. I don't know how far down if you jump right," I answered back.

"Well, jump right, for I'm nekth. Ever thee a tow-headed flying thquirrel?" And Bud was shinning down over the edge clawing tightly the stone points of vantage.

Many a time in these sixty years have I seen a difficult and dreaded way grow suddenly easy when the time came to travel it. When we were only boys idling away the long summer afternoons the cliff was always impossible. We had rarely tried the downward route, and from below with the river, always dangerously deep and swift, at the base, our exploring had brought failure. That hand-hold of leather thongs, braided into a rope and fastened securely under the ledge out of sight from above, gave the one who knew how the easy passage to the points of rock. Then for nearly a hundred feet zigzagging up stream by leaping cautiously to the right place, by clinging and swinging, the way opened before us. I took the first twenty feet at a slide. The others caught the leather rope, testing to see if it was securely fastened. Its two ends were tied around the deeply grooved stone.

Father Le Claire and Jim Conlow stayed at the top. The one to help us back again; the other, as the swiftest-footed boy among us, to run to town with any message needful to be sent. The rest of us, taking all manner of fearful risks, crashed down over the side of that bluff in headlong haste.

The Hermit's Cave opened on a narrow ledge such as runs below the "Rockport" point, where Marjie and I used to play, off Cliff Street. We reached this ledge at last, hot and breathless, hardly able to realize that we were really here in the place that had baffled us so long. It was an almost inaccessible climb to the crest above us, and the cliff had to be taken at an angle even then. I believe any one accustomed only to the prairie would never have dared to try it.

The Hermit's Cave was merely a deep recess under the overhanging shelf. It penetrated far enough to offer a retreat from the weather. The thick tangle of vines before it so concealed the place that it was difficult to find it at first. Just beyond it the rock projected over the line of wall and overhung the river. It was on this point that the old Hermit had been wont to sit, and from which tradition says he fell to his doom. It was here we had seen Jean Pahusca on that hot August afternoon the summer before. How long ago all that seemed now as the memory of it flashed up in my mind, and I recalled O'mie's quiet boast, "If he can get up there, so can I!"

I was a careless boy that day. I felt myself a man now, with human destiny resting on my shoulders. As we came to this rocky projection I was leading the file of cliff-climbers. The cave was concealed by the greenery. I stared about and then I called, "O'mie! O'mie!"

Faintly, just beside me, came the reply: "Phil, you 've come? Thank God!"

I tore through the bushes and vines into the deep recess. The dimness blinded me at first. What I saw when the glare left my eyes was O'mie stretched on the bare stones, bound hand and foot. His eyes were burning like stars in the gloom. His face was white and drawn with suffering, but he looked up bravely and smiled upon me as I bent over him to lift him. Before I could speak, Bud had cut the bands and freed him. He could not move, and I lifted him like a child in my strong arms.

"Is the town safe?" he asked feebly.

"Yes, now we've found you," Dave Mead replied.

"How did you get here, O'mie?" Clayton Anderson asked.

But O'mie, lying limply in my arms, murmured deliriously of the ladder by the shop, and wondered feebly if it could reach from the river up to the Hermit's Cave. Then his head fell forward and he lay as one dead on my knee.

A year before we would have been a noisy crew that worked our way to this all but inaccessible place, and we would have filled the valley with whoops of surprise at finding anything in the cavern. To-day we hardly spoke as we carried O'mie out into the light. He shivered a little, though still unconscious, and then I felt the hot fever begin to pulse throughout his body.

Dave Mead was half way up the cliff to Father Le Claire. Out on the point John Anderson waved, to the crest above, the simple message, "We've found him."

Bud dived into the cavern and brought out an empty jug, relic of Jean Pahusca's habitation there.

"What he needth ith water," Bud declared. "I'll bet he'th not had a drop for two dayth."

"How can you get some, Bud? We can't reach the river from here," I said.

"Bah! all mud, anyhow. I'll climb till I find a thpring. They're all around in the rockth. The Lord give Motheth water. I'll hunt till He thoweth me where it ith."

Bud put off in the bushes. Presently his tow head bobbed through the greenery again and a jug dripping full of cool water was in his hands.

"Thame leadin' that brought uth here done it," he lisped, moistening O'mie's lips with the precious liquid.

Bud had a quaint use of Bible reference, although he disclaimed Dr. Hemingway's estimate of him as the best scholar in the Presbyterian Sunday-school.

It seemed hours before relief came. I held O'mie all that time, hoping that the gracious May sunshine might win him to us again, but his delirium increased. He did not know any of us, but babbled of strange things.

At length many shouts overhead told us that half of Springvale was above us, and a rude sort of hammock was being lowered. "It's the best we can do," shouted Father Le Claire. "Tie him in and we'll pull him up."

It was rough handling even with the tenderest of care, and a very dangerous feat as well. I watched those above draw up O'mie's body and I was the last to leave the cave. As I turned to go, by merest chance, my eye caught sight of a knife handle protruding from a crevice in the rock. I picked it up. It was the short knife Jean Pahusca always wore at his belt. As I looked closely, I saw cut in script letters across the steel blade the name, Jean Le Claire.

I put the thing in my pocket and soon overtook the other boys, who were leaping and clinging on their way to the crest.

That night Kansas was swept across by the very worst storm I have known in all these sixty years. It lifted above the town and spared the beautiful oak grove in the bottom lands beside us. Further down it swept the valley clean, and the bluff about the cave had not one shrub on its rough sides. The lightning, too, played strange pranks. The thunderbolts shattered trees and rocks, up-rooting the one and rending and tumbling the other in huge masses of debris upon the valley. It broke even the rough way we had traversed to the Hermit's Cave, and a great heap of fallen stone now shut the cavern in like a rock tomb. Where O'mie had lain was sealed to the world, and it was a full quarter of a century before a path was made along that dangerous cliff-side again.



CHAPTER X

O'MIE'S CHOICE

And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers And the temples of his gods?

—MACAULAY.

There was only one church bell in Springvale for many years. It called to prayers, or other public service. It sounded the alarm of fire, and tolled for the dead. It was our school-bell and wedding-bell. It clanged in terror when the Cheyennes raided eastward in '67, and it pealed out solemnly for the death of Abraham Lincoln. It chimed on Christmas Eve and rang in each New Year. Its two sad notes that were tolled for the years of the little Judson baby had hardly ceased their vibrations when it broke forth into a ringing, joyous resonance for the finding of O'mie alive.

O'mie was taken to our home. No other woman's hands were so strong and gentle as the hands of Candace Baronet. Everybody felt that O'mie could be trusted nowhere else. It was hard for Cam and Dollie at first, but when Dollie found she might cook every meal and send it up to my aunt, she was more reconciled; while Cam came and went, doing a multitude of kindly acts. This was long before the days of telephones, and a hundred steps were needed for every one taken to-day.

In the weeks that followed, O'mie hung between life and death. With all the care and love given him, his strength wasted away. He had been cruelly beaten, and cuts and bruises showed how terrible had been his fight for freedom.

At first he talked deliriously, but in the weakness that followed he lay motionless hour on hour. And with the fever burning out his candle of life, we waited the end. How heavy-hearted we were in those days! It seemed as though all Springvale claimed the orphan boy. And daily, morning and evening, a messenger from Red Range came for word of him, bearing always offers of whatever help we would accept from the kind-hearted neighborhood.

Father Le Claire had come into our home with the bringing of O'mie, and gentle as a woman's were his ministrations. One evening, when the end of earthly life seemed near for O'mie, the priest took me by the arm, and we went down to the "Rockport" point together. The bushes were growing very rank about my old playground and trysting place. I saw Marjie daily, for she came and went about our house with quiet usefulness. But our hands and hearts were full of the day's sad burden, and we hardly spoke to each other. Marjie's nights were spent mostly with poor Mrs. Judson, whose grief was wearing deep grooves into the young mother face.

To-night Le Claire and I sat down on the rock and breathed deeply of the fresh June air. Below us, for many a mile, the Neosho lay like a broad belt of silver in the deepening shadows of the valley, while all the West Prairie was aflame with the sunset lights. The world was never more beautiful, and the spirit of the Plains seemed reaching out glad hands to us who were so strong and full of life. All day we had watched beside the Irish boy. His weakened pulse-beat showed how steadily his strength was ebbing. He had fallen asleep now, and we dared not think what the waking might be for us.

"Philip, when O'mie is gone, I shall leave Springvale," the priest began. "I think that Jean Pahusca has at last decided to go to the Osages. He probably will never be here again. But if he should come—" Le Claire paused as if the words pained him—"remember you cannot trust him. I have no tie that binds me to you. I shall go to the West. I feel sure the Plains Indians need me now more than the Osages and the Kaws."

I listened silently, not caring to question why either O'mie or Jean should bind him anywhere. The former was all but lost to me already. Of the latter I did not care to think.

"And before I go, I want to tell you something I know of O'mie," Le Claire went on.

I had wondered often at the strange sort of understanding I knew existed between himself and O'mie. I began to listen more intently now, and for the first time since leaving the Hermit's Cave I thought of the knife with the script lettering. I shrank from questioning him or showing him the thing. I had something of my father's patience in letting events tell me what I wanted to know. So I asked no questions, but let him speak.

"O'mie comes by natural right into a dislike, even hatred, of the red race. It may be I know something more of him than anyone else in Springvale knows. His story is a romance and a tragedy, stranger than fiction. In the years to come, when hate shall give place to love in our nation, when the world is won to the church, a younger generation will find it hard to picture the life their forefathers lived."

The priest's brow darkened and his lips were compressed, as if he found it hard to speak what he would say.

"I come to you, Philip, because your experience here has made you a man who were only a boy yesterday; because you love O'mie; because you have been able to keep a quiet tongue; and most of all, because you are John Baronet's son, and heir, I believe, to his wisdom. Most of O'mie's story is known to your father. He found it out just before he went to the war. It is a tragical one. The boy was stolen by a band of Indians when he was hardly more than a baby. It was a common trick of the savages then; it may be again as our frontier creeps westward."

The priest paused and looked steadily out over the Neosho Valley, darkening in the twilight.

"You know how you felt when O'mie was lost. Can you imagine what his mother felt when she found her boy was stolen? Her husband was away on a trapping tour, had been away for a long time, and she was alone. In a very frenzy, she started out on the prairie to follow the Indians. She suffered terrible hardship, but Providence brought her at last to the Osage Mission, whose doors are always open to the distressed. And here she found a refuge. A strange thing happened then. While Patrick O'Meara, O'mie's father, was far from home, word had reached him that his wife was dead. Coming down the Arkansas River, O'Meara chanced to fall in with some Mexicans who had a battle with a band of Indians at Pawnee Rock. With these Indians was a little white boy, whom O'Meara rescued. It was his own son, although he did not know it, and he brought the little one to the Mission on the Neosho.

"Philip, it is vouchsafed to some of us to know a bit of heaven here on earth. Such a thing came to Patrick O'Meara when he found his wife alive, and the baby boy was restored to her. They were happy together for a little while. But Mrs. O'Meara never recovered from her hardships on the prairie, and her husband was killed by the Comanches a month after her death. Little O'mie, dying up there now, was left an orphan at the Mission. You have heard Mrs. Gentry tell of his coming here. Your father is the only one here who knows anything of O'mie's history. If he never comes back, you must take his place."

The purple shadows of twilight were folding down upon the landscape. In the soft light the priest's face looked dark and set.

"Why not tell me now what father knows?" I asked.

"I cannot tell you that now, Philip. Some day I may tell you another story. But it does not concern you or O'mie. What I want you to do is what your father will do if he comes home. If he should not come, he has written in his will what you must do. I need not tell you to keep this to yourself."

"Father Le Claire, can you tell me anything about Jean Pahusca, and where he is now?"

He rose hastily.

"We must not stay here." Then, kindly, he took my hand. "Yes, some day, but not now, not to-night." There was a choking in his voice, and I thought of O'mie.

We stood up and let the cool evening air ripple against our faces. The Neosho Valley was black now. Only here and there did we catch the glitter of the river. The twilight afterglow was still pink, but the sweep of the prairie was only a purple blur swathed in gray mist. Out of this purple softness, as we parted the bushes, we saw Marjie hurrying toward us.

"Phil, Phil!" she cried, "O'mie's taken a change for the better. He's been asleep for three hours, and now he is awake. He knew Aunt Candace and he asked for you. The doctor says he has a chance to live. Oh, Phil!" and Marjie burst into tears.

Le Claire took her hand and, putting it through my arm, he said, gently as my father might have done, "You are both too young for such a strain as this. Oh, this civil war! It robs you of your childhood. Too soon, too soon, you are men and women. Philip, take Marjory home. Don't hurry." He smiled as he spoke. "It will do you good to leave O'mie out of mind for a little while."

Then he hurried off to the sick room, leaving us together. It seemed years since that quiet April sunset when we gathered the pink flowers out in the draw, and I crowned Marjie my queen. It was now late June, and the first little yellow leaves were on the cottonwoods, telling that midsummer was near.

"Marjie," I said, putting the hand she had withdrawn through my arm again, "the moon is just coming up. Let's go out on the prairie a little while. Those black shadows down there distress me. I must have some rest from darkness."

We walked slowly out on Cliff Street and into the open prairie, which the great summer moon was flooding with its soft radiance. No other light is ever so regal as the full moon above the prairie, where no black shadows can checker and blot out and hem in its limitless glory. Marjie and I were young and full of vigor, but the steady drain on mind and heart, and the days and nights of broken rest, were not without effect. And yet to-night, with hope once more for O'mie's life, with a sense of lifted care, and with the high tide of the year pouring out its riches round about us, the peace of the prairies fell like a benediction on us, as we loitered about the grassy spaces, quiet and very happy.

Then the care for others turned our feet homeward. I must relieve Aunt Candace to-night by O'mie's side, and Marjie must be with her mother. The moonlight tempted us to linger a little longer as we passed by "Rockport," and we parted the bushes and stood on our old playground rock.

"Marjie, the moonlight makes a picture of you always," I said gently.

She did not answer, but gazed out across the valley, above whose dark greenery the silvery mists lay fold on fold. When she turned her face to mine, something in her eyes called up in me that inspiration that had come to be a part of my thought of her, that sense of a woman's worth and of her right to tenderest guardianship.

"Marjie"—I put both arms around her and drew her to me—"the best thing in the world is a good girl, and you are the best girl in the world." I held her close. It was no longer a boy's admiration, but a man's love that filled my soul that night. Marjie drew gently away.

"We must go now, Phil, indeed we must. Mother needs me."

Oh, I could wait her time. I took her arm and led her out to the street. The bushes closed behind us, and we went our way together. It was well we could not look back upon the rock. We had hardly left it when two figures climbed up from the ledge below and stood where we had been—two for whom the night had no charm and the prairie and valley had no beauty, a low-browed, black-eyed girl with a heart full of jealousy, and a tall, graceful, picturesquely handsome young Indian. They had joined forces, just as I had once felt they would sometime do. As I came whistling up the street on my way home I paused by the bushes, half inclined to go beyond them again. I was happy in every fiber of my being. But duty prodded me sharply to move on. I believe now that Jean Pahusca would have choked the life out of me had I met him face to face that moonlit night. Heaven turns our paths away from many an unknown peril, and we credit it all to our own choice of ways.

* * * * *

Slowly but steadily O'mie came back to us. So far had he gone down the valley of the shadow, he groped with difficulty up toward the light again. He slept much, but it was life-giving sleep, and he was not overcome by delirium after that turning point in his illness. I think I never fully knew my father's sister till in those weeks beside the sickbed. It was not the medicine, nor the careful touch, it was herself—her wholesome, hopeful, trustful spirit—that seemed to enter into the very life of the sick one, and build him to health. I had rarely known illness, I who had muscles like iron, and the frame of a giant. My father was a man of wonderful vigor. It was not until O'mie was brought to our house that I understood why he should have been trusted to no one else.

We longed to know his story. The town had settled into its old groove. The victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had thrilled us, as the loss at Chancellorsville had depressed our spirits; and the war was our constant theme. And then the coming and going of traders and strangers on the old trail, the undercurrent of anxiety lest another conspiracy should gather, the Quantrill raid at Lawrence, all helped to keep us from lethargy. We had had our surprise, however. Strangers had to give an account of themselves to the home guard now. But we were softened toward our own townspeople. They were very discreet, and we must meet and do business with them daily. For the sake of young Tell and Jim, we who knew would say nothing. Jean came into town at rare intervals, meeting the priest down in the chapel. Attending to his own affairs, walking always like a very king, or riding as only a Plains Indian can ride, he came and went unmolested. I never could understand that strange power he had of commanding our respect. He seldom saw Marjie, and her face blanched at the mention of his name. I do not know when he last appeared in our town that summer. Nobody could keep track of his movements. But I do know that after the priest's departure, his disappearance was noted, and the daylight never saw him in Springvale again. What the dark hours of the night could have told is another story.

With O'mie out of danger, Le Claire left us. His duties, he told us, lay far to the west. He might go to the Kiowas or the Cheyennes. In any event, it would be long before he came again.

"I need not ask you, Philip, to take good care of O'mie. He could not have better care. You will guard his interests. Until you know more than you do now, you will say nothing to him or any one else of what I have told you."

He looked steadily into my eyes, and I understood him.

"I think Jean Pahusca will never trouble you, nor even come here now. I have my reasons for thinking so. But, Philip, if you should know of his being here, keep on your guard. He is a man of more than savage nature. What he loves, he will die for. What he hates, he will kill. Cam Gentry is right. The worst blood of the Kiowas and of the French nationality fills his veins. Be careful."

Brave little O'mie struggled valiantly for health again. He was patient and uncomplaining, but the days ran into weeks before his strength began to increase. Only one want was not supplied: he longed for the priest.

"You're all so good, it's mighty little in me to say it, an' Dr. Hemingway's gold, twenty-four karat gold; but me hair's red, an' me rale name's O'Meara, an' naturally I long for the praist, although I'm a proper Presbyterian."

"How about Brother Dodd?" I inquired.

"All the love in his heart fur me put in the shell of a mustard seed would rattle round loike a walnut in a tin bushel box, begorra," the sick boy declared.

It was long before he could talk much and we did not ask a question we could avoid, but waited his own time to know how he had been taken from us and how he had found himself a prisoner in that cavern whence we had barely cheated Death of its pitiful victim. As he could bear it he told us, at length, of his part in the night the town was marked for doom. Propped up on his pillows, his face to the open east window, his thin, white hands folded, he talked quietly as of a thing in which he had had little part.

"Ye see, Phil, the Almighty made us all different, so He could know us, an' use us when He wanted some partic'lar thing that some partic'lar one could do. When folks puts on a uniform in their dress or their thinkin', they belong to one av two classes—them as is goin' to the devil like convicts an' narrow churchmen, or them as is goin' after 'em hard to bring 'em into line again, like soldiers an' sisters av charity; an' they just have to act as one man. But mainly we're singular number. The Lord didn't give me size."

He looked up at my broad shoulders. I had carried him in my arms from his bed to the east window day after day.

"I must do me own stunt in me own way. You know mebby, how I tagged thim strangers till, if they'd had the chance at me they'd have fixed me. Specially that Dick Yeager, the biggest av the two who come to the tavern."

"The chance! Didn't they have their full swing at you?"

"Well, no, not regular an' proper," he replied.

I wondered if the cruelty he had suffered might not have injured his brain and impaired his memory.

"You know I peeked through that hole up in the shop that Conlow seems to have left fur such as me. Honorable business, av coorse. But Tell and Jim, they was hid behind the stack av wagon wheels in the dark corner—just as honorable an' high-spirited as meself, on their social level. I was a high-grader up on that ladder. Well, annyhow, I peeked an' eavesdropped, as near as I could get to the eaves av the shop, an' I tould Father Le Claire all I could foind out. An' then he put it on me to do my work. 'You can be spared,' he says. 'If it's life and death, ye'll choose the better part.' Phil, it was laid on all av us to choose that night."

His thin, blue-veined hand sought mine where he lay reclining against the pillows. I took it in my big right hand, the hand that could hold Jean Pahusca with a grip of iron.

"There was only one big enough an' brainy enough an' brave enough to lead the crowd to save this town an' that was Philip Baronet. There was only one who could advise him well an' that was Cam Gentry. Poor old Cam, too near-sighted to tell a cow from a catfish tin feet away. Without you, Cam and the boys couldn't have done a thing.

"Can ye picture what would be down there now? I guess not, fur you'd not be making pictures now, You'd be a picture yourself, the kind they put on the carbolic acid bottle an' mark 'pizen.'"

O'mie paused and looked out dreamily across the valley to the east plains beyond them.

"I can't tell how fast things wint through me moind that night. You did some thinkin' yourself, an' you know. 'I can't do Phil's part if I stay here,' I raisoned, 'an' bedad, I don't belave he can do my part. Bein' little counts sometimes. It's laid on me to be the sacrifice, an' I'll kape me promise an' choose the better part. I'll cut an' run.'"

He looked up at my questioning face with a twinkle in his eye.

"'There's only one to save this town. That's Phil's stunt,' I says; 'an' there's only one to save Marjie. That's my stunt.'"

I caught my breath, for my heart stood still, and I felt I must strangle.

"Do you mean to say, Thomas O'Meara—?" I could get no fuither.

"I mane, either you or me's got to tell this. If you know it better'n I do, go ahead." And then more gently he went on: "Yes, I mane to say, kape still, dear; I'm not very strong yet. If I'd gone up to Cliff Street afther you to come to her, she'd be gone. If Jean got hands on her an' she struggled or screamed, as she'd be like to do, bein' a sensible girl, he had that murderous little short knife, an' he'd swore solemn he'd have her or her scalp. He's not got her, nor her scalp, nor that knife nather now. I kept that much from doin' harm. I dunno where the cruel thing wint to, but it wint, all right.

"And do ye mane to say, Philip Baronet, that ye thought I'd lost me nerve an' was crude enough to fall in wid a nest av thim Copperheads an' let 'em do me to me ruin? Or did you think His Excellency, the Reverend Dodd was right, an' I'd cut for cover till the fuss was over? Well, honestly now, I'm not that kind av an Irishman."

My mind was in a tumult as I listened. I wondered how O'mie could be so calm when I durst not trust myself to speak.

"So I run home, thinkin' ivery jump, an' I grabbed the little girl's waterproof cloak. Your lady friends' wraps comes in handy sometimes. Don't niver despise 'em, Phil, nor the ladies nather. You woman-hater!" O'mie's laugh was like old times and very good to hear.

"I flung that thing round me, hood on me brown curls, an' all, an' then I flew. I made the ground just three times in thim four blocks and a half to Judson's. You know how the kangaroo looks in the geography picture av Australia, illustratin' the fauna an' flora, with a tall, thin tree beyont, showin' lack of vegetation in that tropic, an' a little quilly cus they call a ornithorynchus, its mouth like Jim Conlow's? Well, no kangaroo'd had enough self-respect to follow me that night. I caught Marjie just in time, an' I puts off before her toward her home. At the corner I quit kangarooin' an' walks quick an' a little timid-like, just Marjie to a dimple. If you'd been there, you'd wanted to put some more pink flowers round where they'd do the most good."

I squeezed his hand.

"Quit that, you ugly bear. That's a lady's hand yet a whoile an' can't stand too much pressure.

"It was to save her loife, Phil." O'mie spoke solemnly now. "You could save the town. I couldn't. I could save her. You couldn't. In a minute, there in the dark by the gate, Jean Pahusca grabs me round me dainty waist. His horse was ready by him an' he swung me into the saddle, not harsh, but graceful like, an' gintle. I never said a word, but gave a awful gasp like I hadn't no words, appreciative enough. 'I'm saving' you, Star-face,' he says. 'The Copperheads will burn your mother's house an' the Kiowas will come and steal Star-face—' an' he held me close as if he would protect me—he got over that later—an' I properly fainted. That's the only way the abducted princess can do in the novel—just faint. It saves hearin' what you don't want to know. An' me size just suited the case. Don't never take on airs, you big hulkin' fellow. No graceful prince is iver goin' to haul you over the saddle-bow thinkin' you're the choice av his heart. It saved Marjie, an' it got Jean clear av town before he found his mistake, which wa'n't bad for Springvale. Down by Fingal's Creek I come to, an' we had a rumpus. Bein' a dainty girl, I naturally objected to goin' into that swirlin' water, though I didn't object to Jean's goin'—to eternity. In the muss I lost me cloak—the badge av me business there. I never could do nothin' wid thim cussed hooks an' eyes on a collar an' the thing wasn't anchored securely at me throat. It was awful then. I can't remember it all. But it was dark, and Jean had found me out, and the waters was deep and swift. The horse got away on the bank an' slid back, I think. It must have been then it galloped up to town; but findin' Jean didn't follow, it came back to him. I didn't know annything fur some toime. I'd got too much av Fingal's Creek mixed into me constitution an' by-laws to kape my thoughts from floatin' too. I'll never know rightly whin I rode an' whin I was dragged, an' whin I walked. It was a runnin' fight av infantry and cavalry, such as the Neosho may never see again, betwixt the two av us."

Blind, trustful fool that I had been, thinking after all Le Claire's warnings that Jean had been a good, loyal, chivalrous Indian, protecting Marjie from harm.

"And to think we have thought all this time there were a dozen Rebels making away with you, and never dreamed you had deliberately put yourself into the hands of the strongest and worst enemy you could have!"

"It was to save a woman, Phil," O'mie said simply. "He could only kill me. He wouldn't have been that good to her. You'd done the same yoursilf to save anny woman, aven a stranger to you. Wait an' see."

How easily forgotten things come back when we least expect them. There came to me, as O'mie spoke, the memory of my dream the night after Jean had sought Marjie's life out on the Red Range prairie. The night after I talked with my father of love and of my mother. That night two women whom I had never seen before were in my dreams, and I had struggled to save them from peril as though they were of my own flesh and blood.

"You will do it," O'mie went on. "You were doing more. Who was it wint down along the creek side av town where the very worst pro-slavery fellows is always coiled and ready to spring, wint in the dark to wake up folks that lived betwixt them on either side, who was ready to light on 'em at a minute's notice? Who wint upstairs above thim as was gettin' ready to burn 'em in their beds, an' walked quiet and cool where one wrong step meant to be throttled in the dark? Don't talk to me av courage."

"But, O'mie, it was all chance with us. You went where danger was certain."

"It was my part, Phil, an' I ain't no shirker just because I'm not tin feet tall an' don't have to be weighed on Judson's stock scales." O'mie rested awhile on the pillows. Then he continued his story.

"They was more or less border raidin' betwixt Jean an' me till we got beyont the high cliff above the Hermit's Cave. When I came to after one of his fists had bumped me head he was urgin' his pony to what it didn't want. The river was roarin' below somewhere an' it was black as the grave's insides. It was way up there that in a minute's lull in the hostilities, I caught the faint refrain:

'Does the star-spangled banner yit wave, O'er the land av the free and the home av the brave?'

"I didn't see your lights. They was tin thousand star-spangled banners wavin' before me eyes ivery second. But that strain av song put new courage into me soul though I had no notion what it really meant. I was half dead an' wantin' to go the other half quick, an' it was like a drame, till that song sent a sort of life-givin' pulse through me. The next minute we were goin' over an' over an' over, betwane rocks, an' hanging to trees, down, down, down, wid that murderous river roarin' hungry below us. Jean jumpin' from place to place an' me clingin' to him an' hittin' iverything that could be hit at ivery jump. An' then come darkness over me again. There was a light somewhere when I come to. I was free an' I made a quick spring. I got that knife, an' like a flash I slid the blade down a crack somewhere. An' then he tied me solid, an' standin' over me he says slow an' cruel: 'You—may—stay—here—till—you—starve—to—death. Nobody—can—get—to—you—but—me—an'—I'm—niver—comin'—back. I hate you.' An' his eyes were just loike that noight whin I found him with thim faded pink flowers out on the prairie."

"O'mie, dear, you are the greatest hero I ever heard of. You poor, beaten, tortured sacrifice."

I put my arm around his shoulder and my tears fell on his red hair.

"I didn't do no more than ivery true American will do—fight an' die to protect his home; or if not his'n, some other man's. Whin the day av choosin' comes we can't do no more 'n to take our places. We all do it. Whin Jean put it on me to lay there helpless an' die o' thirst, I know'd I could do it. Same as you know'd you'd outwit that gang ready to burn an' kill, that I'd run from. I just looked straight up at Jean—the light was gettin' dim—an' I says, 'You—may—go—plum—to—the—divil, —but—you—can't—hurt—that—part—av—me—that's—never—hungry—nor —thirsty.' When you git face to face wid a thing like that," O'mie spoke reverently, "somehow the everlastin' arms, Dr. Hemingway's preaches of, is strong underneath you. The light wint out, an' Jean in his still way had slid off, an' I was alone. Alone wid me achin' and me bonds, an' wid a burnin' longin' fur water, wid a wish to go quick if I must go; but most av all—don't never furgit it, Phil, whin the thing overtakes you aven in your strength—most av all, above all sufferin' and natural longin' to live—there comes the reality av the words your Aunt Candace taught us years ago in the little school:

"'Though I walk through the valley av the shadow av death, I will fear no evil.'

"I called for you, Phil, in my misery, as' I know'd somehow you'd hear me. An' you did come."

His thin hand closed over mine, and we sat long in silence—two boys whom the hand of Providence was leading into strange, hard lines, shaping us each for the work the years of our manhood were waiting to bring to us.



CHAPTER XI

GOLDEN DAYS

There are days that are kind As a mother to man, showing pathways that wind Out and in, like a dream, by some stream of delight; Never hinting of aught that they hold to affright; Only luring us on, since the way must be trod, Over meadows of green with their velvety sod, To the steeps, that are harder to climb, far before. There are nights so enchanting, they seem to restore The original beauty of Eden; so tender, They woo every soul to a willing surrender Of feverish longing; so holy withal, That a broad benediction seems sweetly to fall On the world.

We were a busy folk in those years that followed the close of the war. The prairies were boundless, and the constant line of movers' wagons reaching out endlessly on the old trail, with fathers and mothers and children, children, children, like the ghosts of Banquo's lineal issue to King Macbeth, seemed numerous enough to people the world and put to the plough every foot of the virgin soil of the beautiful Plains. With the downfall of slavery the strife for commercial supremacy began in earnest here, and there are no idle days in Kansas.

When I returned home after two years' schooling in Massachusetts, I found many changes. I had beaten my bars like a caged thing all those two years. Rockport, where I made my home and spent much of my time, was so unlike Springvale, so wofully and pridefully ignorant of all Kansas, so unable to get any notion of my beautiful prairies and of the free-spirited, cultured folk I knew there, that I suffered out my time there and was let off a little early for good behavior. Only one person did I know who had any real interest in my West, a tall, dark-eyed, haughty young lady, to whom I talked of Kansas by the hour. Her mother, who was officiously courteous to me, didn't approve of that subject, but the daughter listened eagerly.

When I left Rockport, Rachel—that was her name, Rachel Melrose—asked me when I was coming back. I assured her, never, and then courteously added if she would come to Kansas.

"Well, I may go," she replied, "not to your Springvale, but to my aunt in Topeka for a visit next Fall. Will you come up to Topeka?"

Of course, I would go to Topeka, but might she not come to Springvale? There were the best people on earth in Springvale. I could introduce her to boys who were gentlemen to the core. I'd lived and laughed and suffered with them, and I knew.

"But I shouldn't care for any of them except you." Rachel's voice trembled and I couldn't help seeing the tears in her proud dark eyes.

"Oh, I've a girl of my own there," I said impulsively, for I was always longing for Marjie, "but Clayton Anderson and Dave Mead are both college men now." And then I saw how needlessly rude I had been.

"Of course I want you to come to Springvale. Come to our house. Aunt Candace will make you royally welcome. The Baronets and Melroses have been friends for generations. I only wanted the boys to know you; I should be proud to present my friend to them. I would take care of you. You have been so kind to me this year, I should be glad to do much for you." I had taken her hand to say good-bye.

"And you would let that other girl take care of herself, wouldn't you, while I was there? Promise me that when I go to Kansas you will come up to Topeka to see me, and when I go to your town, if I do, you will not neglect me but will let that Springvale girl entirely alone."

I did not know much of women then—nor now—although I thought then I knew everything. I might have read behind that fine aristocratic face a supremely selfish nature, a nature whose pleasure increased only as her neighbor's pleasure decreased. There are such minds in the world.

I turned to her, and taking both of her willing hands in mine, I said frankly: "When you visit your aunt, I'll be glad to see you there. If you visit my aunt I would be proud to show you every courtesy. As for that little girl, well, when you see her you will understand. She has a place all her own with me." I looked straight into her eyes as I said this.

She smiled coquettishly. "Oh, I'm not afraid of her," she said indifferently; "I can hold my own with any Kansas, girl, I'm sure."

She was dangerously handsome, with a responsive face, a winning smile and gracious manners. She seemed never to accept anything as a gift, but to take what was her inherent right of admiration and devotion. When I bade her good-bye a look of sadness was in her eyes. It rebuked my spirit somehow, although Heaven knows I had given her no cause to miss me. But my carriage was waiting and I hurried away. For a moment only her image lingered with me, and then I forgot her entirely; for every turn of the wheel was bringing me to Kansas, to the prairies, to the beautiful Neosho Valley, to the boys again, to my father and home, but most of all to Marjie.

It was twenty months since I had seen her. She had spent a year in Ohio in the Girls' College at Glendale, and had written me she would reach Springvale a month before I did. After that I had not heard from her except through a marked copy of the Springvale Weekly Press, telling of her return. She had not marked that item, but had pencilled the news that "Philip Baronet would return in three weeks from Massachusetts, where he had been enjoying the past two years in school."

Enjoying! Under this Marjie had written in girlish hand, "Hurry up, Phil."

On the last stage of my journey I was wild with delight. It was springtime on the prairies, and a verdure clothed them with its richest garments. I did not note the growing crops, and the many little freeholds now, where there had been only open unclaimed land two years before. I was longing for the Plains again, for one more ride, reckless and free, across their broad stretches, for one more gorgeous sunset out on Red Range, one more soft, iridescent twilight purpling down to the evening darkness as I had seen it on "Rockport" all those years. How the real Rockport, the Massachusetts town, faded from me, and the sea, and the college halls, and city buildings. The steam and steel and brick and marble of an older civilization, all gave place to Nature's broad handiwork and the generous-hearted, capable, unprejudiced people of this new West. However crude and plain Springvale might have seemed to an Eastern boy suddenly transplanted here, it was fair and full of delight for me.

The stage driver, Dever, by name, was a stranger to me, but he knew all about my coming. Also he was proud to be the first to give me the freshest town gossip. That's the stage-driver's right divine always. I was eager to hear of everybody and in this forty miles' ride I was completely informed. The story rambled somewhat aimlessly from topic to topic, but it never lagged.

"Did I know Judson? He'd got a controlling interest now in Whately's store. He was great after money, Judson was. They do say he's been a little off the square getting hold of the store. The widder Whately kept only about one-third, or maybe one-fourth of the stock. Mrs. Whately, she wa'n't no manager. Marjie'd do better, but Marjie wa'n't twenty yet. And yet if all they say's true she wouldn't need to manage. Judson is about the sprucest widower in town, though he did seem to take it so hard when poor Mis' Judson was taken." She never overcame the loss of her baby, and the next Summer they put her out in the prairie graveyard beside it. "But Judson now, he's shyin' round Marjie real coltish.

"It'd be fine fur her, of course," my driver went on, "an' she was old a-plenty to marry. Marjie was a mighty purty girl. The boys was nigh crazy about her. Did I know her?"

I did; oh, yes, I remembered her.

"They's another chap hangin' round her, too; his name's—lemme see, uh—common enough name when I was a boy back in Kentucky—uh—Tillhurst, Richard Tillhurst. Tall, peaked, thin-visaged feller. Come out from Virginny to Illinois. Got near dead with consumption 'nd come on to Kansas to die. Saw Springvale 'nd thought better of it right away. Was teachin' school and payin' plenty of attention to the girls, especially Marjie. They was an old man Tillhurst when I was a boy. He was from Virginny, too—" but I pass that story.

"Tell Mapleson's pickin' up sence he's got the post-office up in the 'Last Chance'; put that doggery out'n his sullar, had in wall paper now, an' drugs an' seeds, an' nobody was right sure where he got his funds to stock up, so—they was some sort of story goin' about a half-breed named Pahusky when I first come here, bein' 'sociated with Mapleson—Cam Gentry's same old Cam, squintin' round an' jolly as ever. O'mie? Oh, he's leadin' the band now. By jinks, that band of his'n will just take the cake when it goes up to Topeky this Fall to the big political speak-in's." On and on the driver went, world without end, until we caught the first faint line along the west that marked the treetops of the Neosho Valley. We were on the Santa Fe Trail now, and we were coming to the east bluff where I had first seen the little Whately girl climb out of the big wagon and stretch the stiffness out of her fat little legs. The stage horses were bracing for the triumphal entry into town, when a gang of young outlaws rushed up over the crest of the east slope. They turned our team square across the way and in mock stage-robbery style called a halt. The driver threw up his hands in mock terror and begged for mercy, which was granted if he would deliver up one Philip Baronet, student and tenderfoot. But I was already down from the stage and O'mie was hugging me hard until Bud Anderson pulled him away and all the boys and girls were around me. Oh, it was good to see them all again, but best of all was it to see Marjie. She had been a pretty picture of a young girl. She was beautiful now. No wonder she had many admirers. She was last among the girls to greet me. I took her hand and our eyes met. Oh, I had no fear of widower nor of school-teacher, as I helped her to a seat beside me in the stage.

"I'm so glad to see you again, Phil," she looked up into my face. "You are bigger than ever."

"And you are just the same Marjie."

The crowd piled promiscuously about us and we bumped down the slope and into the gurgling Neosho, laughing and happy.

With all the rough and tumble years of a boyhood and youth on the frontier, the West has been good to me, and I look back along the way glad that mine was the pioneer's time, and that the experiences of those early days welded into my building and being something of their simplicity, and strength, and capacity for enjoyment. But of all the seasons along the way of these sixty years, of all the successes and pleasures, I remember best and treasure most that glorious summer after my return from the East. My father was on the Judge's bench now and his legal interests and property interests were growing. I began the study of law under him at once, and my duties were many, for he put responsibility on me from the first. But I was in the very heyday of life, and had no wish ungratified.

"Phil, I want you to go up the river and take a look at two quarters of Section 29, range 14, this afternoon. It lies just this side of the big cottonwood," my father said to me one June day.

"Make a special note of the land, and its natural appurtenances. I want the information at once, or you needn't go out on such a hot day. It's like a furnace in the courthouse. It may be cooler out that way." He fanned his face with his straw hat, and the light breeze coming up the valley lifted the damp hair about his temples.

"There's a bridle path over the bluff a mile or so out, where you can ride a horse down and go up the river in the bottom. It's a much shorter way, but you'd better go out the Red Range road and turn north at the third draw well on to the divide. It gets pretty steep near the river, so you have to keep to the west and turn square at the draw. If it wasn't so warm you might go on to Red Range for some depositions for me. But never mind, Dave Mead is going up there Monday, anyhow. Will you ride the pony?"

"No, I'll go out in the buggy."

"And take some girl along? Well, don't forget your errand. Be sure to note the lay of the land. There's no building, I believe, but a little stone cabin and it's been empty for years; but you can see. Be sure to examine everything in that cabin carefully. Stop at the courthouse as you go out, and get the surveyor's map and some other directions."

It was a hot summer day, with that thin, dry burning in the air that the light Kansas zephyr fanned back in little rippling waves. My horses were of the Indian pony breed, able to go in heat or cold. Most enduring and least handsome of the whole horse family, with temper ranging from moderately vicious to supremely devilish, is this Indian pony of the Plains.

Marjie was in the buggy beside me when I stopped at the courthouse for instructions. Lettie Conlow was passing and came to the buggy's side.

"Where are you going, Marjie?" she asked. There was a sullen minor tone in her voice.

"With Phil, out somewhere. Where is it you are going, Phil?"

I was tying the ponies. They never learned how to stand unanchored a minute.

"Out north on the Red Range prairie to buy a couple of quarters," I replied carelessly and ran up the courthouse steps.

"Well, well, well," Cam Gentry roared as he ambled up to the buggy. Cam's voice was loud in proportion as his range of vision was short. "You two gettin' ready to elope? An' he's goin' to git his dad to back him up gettin' a farm. Now, Marjie, why'd you run off? Let us see the performance an' hear Dr. Hemingway say the words in the Presbyterian Church. Or maybe you're goin' to hunt up Dodd. He went toward Santy Fee when he put out of here after the War."

Cam could be heard in every corner of the public square. I was at the open window of my father's office. Looking out, I saw Lettie staring angrily at Cam, who couldn't see her face. She had never seemed less attractive to me. She had a flashy coloring, and she made the most of ornaments. Some people called her good-looking. Beside Marjie, she was as the wild yoncopin to the calla lily. Marjie knew how to dress. To-day, shaded by the buggy-top, in her dainty light blue lawn, with the soft pink of her cheeks and her clear white brow and throat, she was a most delicious thing to look upon in that hot summer street. Poor Lettie suffered by contrast. Her cheeks were blazing, and her hair, wet with perspiration, was adorned with a bow of bright purple ribbon tied butterfly-fashion, and fastened on with a pin set with flashing brilliants.

"Oh, Uncle Cam," Marjie cried, blushing like the pink rambler roses climbing the tavern veranda, "Phil's just going out to look at some land for his father. It's up the river somewhere and I'm going to hold the ponies while he looks."

"Well, he'd ort to have somebody holdin' 'em fur him. I'll bet ye I'd want a hostler if I had the lookin' to do. Land's a mighty small thing an' hard to look at, sometimes; 'specially when a feller's head's in the clouds an' he's walkin' on air. Goin' northwest? Look out, they's a ha'nted house up there. But, by hen, I'd never see a ha'nt long's I had somethin' better to look at."

I saw Lettie turn quickly and disappear around the corner. My father was busy, so I sat in the office window and whistled and waited, watching the ponies switch lazily at the flies.

When we were clear of town, and the open plain swept by the summer breezes gave freedom from the heat, Marjie asked:

"Where is Lettie Conlow going on such a hot afternoon?"

"Nowhere, is she? She was talking to you at the courthouse."

"But she rushed away while Uncle Cam was joking, and I saw her cross the alley back of the courthouse on Tell's pony, and in a minute she was just flying up toward Cliff Street. She doesn't ride very well. I thought she was afraid of that pony. But she was making it go sailing out toward the bluff above town."

"Well, let her go, Marjie. She always wears on my nerves."

"Phil, she likes you, I know. Everybody knows."

"Well, I know and everybody knows that I never give her reason to. I wish she would listen to Tell. I thought when I first came home they were engaged."

"Before he went up to Wyandotte to work they were—he said so, anyhow."

Then we forgot Lettie. She wasn't necessary to us that day, for there were only two in our world.



Out on the prairie trail a mile or more is the point where the bridle path leading to the river turns northwest, and passing over a sidling narrow way down the bluff, it follows the bottom lands upstream. As we passed this point we did not notice Tell Mapleson's black pony just making the top from the sidling bluff way, nor how quickly its rider wheeled and headed back again down beyond sight of the level prairie road. We had forgotten Lettie Conlow and everybody else.

The draw was the same old verdant ripple in the surface of the Plains. The grasses were fresh and green. Toward the river the cottonwoods were making a cool, shady way, delightfully refreshing in this summer sunshine.

We did not hurry, for the draw was full of happy memories for us.

"I'll corral these bronchos up under the big cottonwood, and we'll explore appurtenances down by the river later," I said. "Father says every foot of the half-section ought to be viewed from that tree, except what's in the little clump about the cabin."

We drove up to the open prairie again and let the horses rest in the shade of this huge pioneer tree of the Plains. How it had escaped the prairie fires through its years of sturdy growth is a marvel, for it commanded the highest point of the whole divide. Its shade was delicious after the glare of the trail.

For once the ponies seemed willing to stand quiet, and Marjie and I looked long at the magnificent stretch of sky and earth. There were a few white clouds overhead, deepening to a dull gray in the southwest. All the sunny land was swathed in the midsummer yellow green, darkening in verdure along the river and creeks, and in the deepest draws. Even as we rested there the clouds rolled over the horizon's edge, piling higher and higher, till they hid the afternoon sun, and the world was cool and gray. Then down the land sped a summer shower; and the sweet damp odor of its refreshing the south wind bore to us, who saw it all. Sheet after sheet of glittering raindrops, wind-driven, swept across the prairie, and the cool green and the silvery mist made a scene a master could joy to copy.

I didn't forget my errand, but it was not until the afternoon was growing late that we left the higher ground and drove down the shady draw toward the river. The Neosho is a picture here, with still expanses that mirror the trees along its banks, and stony shallows where the water, even in midsummer, prattles merrily in the sunshine, as it hurries toward the deep stillnesses.

We sat down in a cool, grassy space with the river before us, and the green trees shading the little stone cabin beyond us, while down the draw the vista of still sunlit plains was like a dream of beauty.

"Marjie,"—I took her hand in mine—"since you were a little girl I have known you. Of all the girls here I have known you longest. In the two years I was East I met many young ladies, both in school and at Rockport. There were some charming young folks. One of them, Rachel Melrose, was very pretty and very wealthy. Her mother made considerable fuss over me, and I believe the daughter liked me a little; for she—but never mind; maybe it was all my vanity. But, Marjie, there has never been but one girl for me in all this world; there will never be but one. If Jean Pahusca had carried you off—Oh, God in Heaven! Marjie, I wonder how my father lived through the days after my mother lost her life. Men do, I know."

I was toying with her hand. It was soft and beautifully formed, although she knew the work of our Springvale households.

"Marjie," my voice was full of tenderness, "you are dear to me as my mother was to my father. I loved you as my little playmate; I was fond of you as my girl when I was first beginning to care for a girl as boys will; as my sweetheart, when the liking grew to something more. And now all the love a man can give, I give to you."

I rose up before her. They call me vigorous and well built to-day. I was in my young manhood's prime then. I looked down at her, young and dainty, with the sweet grace of womanhood adorning her like a garment. She stood up beside me and lifted her fair face to mine. There was a bloom on her cheeks and her brown eyes were full of peace. I opened my arms to her and she nestled in them and rested her cheek against my shoulder.

"Marjie," I said gently, "will you kiss me and tell me that you love me?"

Her arms were about my neck a moment. Sometimes I can feel them there now. All shy and sweet she lifted her lips to mine.

"I do love you, Phil," she murmured, and then of her own will, just once, she kissed me.

"It is vouchsafed sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on earth," Le Claire had said to me when he talked of O'mie's father.

It came to me that day; the cool, green valley by the river, the vine-covered old stone cabin, the sunlit draw opening to a limitless world of summer peace and beauty, and Marjie with me, while both of us were young and we loved each other.

The lengthening shadows warned me at last.

"Well, I must finish up this investigation business of Judge Baronet's," I declared. "Come, here's a haunted house waiting for us. Father says it hasn't been inhabited since the Frenchman left it. Are you afraid of ghosts?"

We were going up a grass-grown way toward the little stone structure, half buried in climbing vines and wild shrubbery.

"What a cunning place, Phil! It doesn't look quite deserted to me, somehow. No, I'm not afraid of anything but Indians."

My arm was about her in a moment. She looked up laughing, but she did not put it away.

"Why, there are no Indians here, Phil," and she looked out on the sunny draw.

My face was toward the cabin. I was in a blissful waking dream, else I should have taken quicker note. For sure as I had eyes, I caught a flash of red between the far corner of the cabin and the thick underbrush beyond it. It was just a narrow space, where one might barely pass, between the corner of the little building and the surrounding shrubbery; but for an instant, a red blanket with a white centre flashed across this space, and was gone. So swift was its flight and so full was my mind of the joy of living, I could not be sure I had seen anything. It was just a twitch of the eyelid. What else could it be?

We pushed open the solid oak door, and stood inside the little room. The two windows let in a soft green light. It was a rude structure of the early Territorial days, made for shelter and warmth. There was a dark little attic or loft overhead. A few pieces of furniture—a chair, a table, a stone hearth by the fireplace, and a sort of cupboard—these, with a strong, old worn chest, were all that the room held. Dust was everywhere, as might have been expected. And yet Marjie was right. The spirit of occupation was there.

"Do you know, Marjie, this cabin has hardly been opened since the poor woman drowned herself in the river, down there. They found her body in the Deep Hole. The Frenchman left the place, and it has been called haunted. An Indian and a ghost can't live together. The race fears them of all things. So the Indians would never come here."

"But look there, Phil!"—Marjie had not heeded my words—"there's a stick partly burned, and these ashes look fresh." She was bending over the big stone hearth.

As I started forward, my eye caught a bit of color behind the chair by the table. I stooped to see a purple bow of ribbon, tied butterfly fashion—Lettie Conlow's ribbon. I put it in my pocket, determined to find out how it had found its way here.

"Ugh! Let's go," said Marjie, turning to me. "I'm cold in here. I'd want a home up under the cottonwood, not down in this lonely place. Maybe movers on the trail camp in here." Marjie was at the door now.

I looked about once more and then we went outside and stood on the broad, flat step. The late afternoon was dreamily still here, and the odor of some flowers, faint and woodsy, came from the thicket beside the doorway.

"It is dreary in there, Marjie, but I'll always love this place outside. Won't you?" I said, and with a lover's happiness in my face, I drew her close to me.

She smiled and nodded. "I'll tell you all I think after a while. I'll write it to you in a letter."

"Do, Marjie, and put it in our 'Rockport' post-office, just like we used to do. I'll write you every day, too, and you'll find my letter in the same old crevice. Come, now, we must go home."

"We'll come again." Marjie waved her hand to the silent gray cabin. And slowly, as lovers will, we strolled down the walk and out into the open where the ponies neighed a hurry-up call for home.

Somehow the joy of youth and hope drove fear and suspicion clear from my mind, and with the opal skies above us and the broad sweet prairies round about us for an eternal setting of peace and beauty, we two came home that evening, lovers, who never afterwards might walk alone, for that our paths were become one way wherein we might go keeping step evermore together down the years.



CHAPTER XII

A MAN'S ESTATE

When I became a man I put away childish things.

The next day was the Sabbath. I was twenty-one that day. Marjie and I sang in the choir, and most of the solo work fell to us. Dave Mead was our tenor, and Bess Anderson at the organ sang alto. Dave was away that day. His girl sweetheart up on Red Range was in her last illness then, and Dave was at her bedside. Poor Dave! he left Springvale that Fall, and he never came back. And although he has been honored and courted of women, I have been told that in his luxurious bachelor apartments in Hong Kong there is only one woman's picture, an old-fashioned daguerreotype of a sweet girlish face, in an ebony frame.

Dr. Hemingway always planned the music to suit his own notions. What he asked for we gave. On this Sabbath morning there was no surprise when he announced, "Our tenor being absent, we will omit the anthem, and I shall ask brother Philip and sister Marjory to sing Number 549, 'Oh, for a Closer Walk with God.'"

He smiled benignly upon us. We were accustomed to his way, and we knew everybody in that little congregation. And yet, somehow, a flutter went through the company when we stood up together, as if everybody knew our thoughts. We had stood side by side on Sabbath mornings and had sung from the same book since childhood, with never a thought of embarrassment. It dawned on Springvale that day as a revelation what Marjie meant to me. All the world, including our town, loves a lover, and it was suddenly clear to the town that the tall, broad-shouldered young man who looked down at the sweet-browed little girl-woman beside him as he looked at nobody else, whose hand touched hers as they turned the leaves, and who led her by the arm ever so gently down the steps from the choir seats, was reading for himself

That old fair story Set round in glory Wherever life is found.

And Marjie, in spotless white, with her broad-brimmed hat set back from her curl-shaded forehead, the tinted lights from the memorial window which Amos Judson had placed there for his wife, falling like an aureole about her, who could keep from loving her?

"Her an' Phil Baronet's jist made fur one another," Cam Gentry declared to a bunch of town gossips the next day.

"Now'd ye ever see a finer-lookin' couple?" broke in Grandpa Mead. "An' the way they sung that hymn yesterday—well, I just hope they'll repeat it over my remains." And Grandpa began to sing softly in his quavering voice:

Oh, for a closer walk with God, A cam and heavenli frame, A light toe shine upon tha road That leads me toe tha Lamb.

Everybody agreed with Cam except Judson. He was very cross with O'mie that morning. O'mie was clerk and manager for him now, as Judson himself had been for Irving Whately. He rubbed his hands and joined the group, smiling a trifle scornfully.

"Seems to me you're all gossiping pretty freely this morning. The young man may be pretty well fixed some day. But he's young, he's young. Mrs. Whately's my partner, and I know their affairs very well, very well. She'll provide her daughter with a man, not a mere boy."

"Well, he was man enough to keep this here town from burnin' up, an' no tellin' how many bloodsheds," Grandpa Mead piped in.

"He was man enough to find O'mie and save his life," Cam protested.

"Well, we'll leave it to Dr. Hemingway," Judson declared, as the good doctor entered the doorway. Judson paid liberally into the church fund and accounted that his wishes should weigh much with the good minister. "We—these people here—were just coupling the name of Marjory Whately with that boy of Judge Baronet's. Now I know how Mrs. Whately is circumstanced. She is peculiarly situated, and it seems foolish to even repeat such gossip about this young man, this very young man, Philip."

The minister smiled upon the group serenely. He knew the life-purpose of every member of it, and he could have said, as Kipling wrote of the Hindoo people:

I have eaten your bread and salt, I have drunk your water and wine; The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives ye led were mine.

"I never saw a finer young man and woman in my life," he said gently. "I know nothing of their intentions—as yet. They haven't been to me," his eyes twinkled, "but they are good to look upon when they stand up together. Our opinions, however, will cut little figure in their affairs. Heaven bless them and all the boys and girls! How soon they grow to be men and women."

The good man made his purchase and left the store.

"But he's a young man, a very boy yet," Amos Judson insisted, unable to hide his disappointment at the minister's answer.

The very boy himself walked in at that instant. Judson turned a scowling face at O'mie, who was chuckling among the calicoes, and frowned upon the group as if to ward off any further talk. I nodded good-morning and went to O'mie.

"Aunt Candace wants some Jane P. Coats's thread, number 50 white, two spools."

"That's J. & P. Coats, young man." Judson spoke more sharply than he need to have done. "Goin' East to school doesn't always finish a boy; size an' learnin' don't count," and he giggled.

I was whistling softly, "Oh, for a Closer Walk with God," and I turned and smiled down on the little man. I was head and shoulders above him.

"No, not always. I can still learn," I replied good-naturedly, and went whistling on my way to the courthouse.

I was in a good humor with all the world that morning. Out on "Rockport" in the purple twilight of the Sabbath evening I had slipped my mother's ring on Marjie's finger. I was on my way now for a long talk with my father. I was twenty-one, a man in years, as I had been in spirit since the night the town was threatened by the Rebel raiders—aye, even since the day Irving Whately begged me to take care of Marjie. I had no time to quarrel with the little widower.

"He's got the best of you, Judson," Cam declared. "No use to come, second hand, fur a girl like that when a handsome young feller like Phil Baronet, who's run things his own way in this town sence he was a little feller, 's got the inside track. Why, the young folks, agged on by some older ones, 'ud jist natcherly mob anybody that 'ud git in Phil's way of whatever he wanted. Take my word, if he wants Marjie he kin have her; and likewise take it, he does want her."

"An' then," Grandpa spoke with mock persuasion, "Amos, ye know ye've been married oncet. An' ye're not so young an' ye're a leetle bald. D'ye just notice Phil's hair, layin' in soft thick waves? Allers curled that way sence he was a little feller."

Amos Judson went into an explosive combustion.

"I've treated my wife's memory and remains as good as a man ever did. She's got the biggest stone in the cemet'ry, an' I've put a memorial window in the church. An' what more could a man do? It's more than any of you have done." Amos was too wrought up to reason.

"Well, I acknowledge," said Cam, "I've ben a leetle slack about gittin' a grave-stun up fur Dollie, seein' she's still livin', but I have threatened her time an' agin to put a winder to her memory in the church an' git her in shape to legalize it if she don't learn how to git me up a good meal. Darned poor cook my wife is."

"An' as for this boy," Judson broke in, not noticing Cam's joke, "as to his looks," he stroked his slick light brown hair, "a little baldness gives dignity, makes a man look like a man. Who'd want to have hair like a girl's? But Mrs. Whately's too wise not to do well by her daughter. She knows the value of a dollar, and a man makin' it himself."

"Well, why not set your cap fur the widder? You'd make a good father to her child, an' Phil would jest na'chelly be proud of you for a daddy-in-law." This from the stage driver, Dever, who had caught the spirit of the game in hand. "Anyhow you'd orter seen them two young folks meet when he first got back home, out there where the crowd of 'em helt up the stage. Well, sir, she was the last to say 'howdy do.' Everybody was lookin' the other way then, 'cept me, and I didn't have sense enough. Well, sir, he jist took her hand like somethin' he'd been reachin' fur about two year, an' they looked into each other's eyes, hungry like, an' a sort of joy such as any of us 'ud long to possess come into them two young faces. I tell you, if you're goin' to gossip jist turn it onto Judson er me, but let them two alone."

Judson was too violently angry to be discreet.

"It's all silly scand'lous foolishness, and I won't hear another word of it," he shouted.

Just as he spoke, Marjie herself came in. Judson stepped forward in an officious effort to serve her, and unable to restrain himself, he called out to O'mie, "Put four yards of towelling, twelve and a half cents a yard, to Mrs. Whately's standing account."

It was not the words that offended, so much as the tone, the proprietary sound, the sense of obligation it seemed to put upon the purchaser, unrelieved by his bland smile and attempt at humor in his after remark, "We don't run accounts with everybody, but I guess we can trust you."

It cut Marjie's spirit. A flush mounted to her cheeks, as she took her purchase and hurried out of the door and plump into my father, who was passing just then.

Judge Baronet was a man of courtly manners. He gently caught Marjie's arm to steady her.

"Good-morning, Marjie. How is your mother to-day?"

The little girl did not speak for a moment. Her eyes were full of tears. Presently she said, "May I come up to your office pretty soon? I want to ask you something—something of our business matters."

"Yes, yes, come now," he replied, taking her bundle and putting himself on the outer side of the walk. He had forgotten my appointment for the moment.

When they reached the courthouse he said: "Just run into my room there; I've got to catch Sheriff Karr before he gets away."

He opened the door of his private office, thrusting her gently inside, and hurried away. I turned to meet my father, and there was Marjie. Tear drops were on her long brown lashes, and her cheeks were flushed.

"Why, my little girl!" I exclaimed in surprise as she started to hurry away.

"I didn't know you were in here; your father sent me in"—and then the tears came in earnest.

I couldn't stand for that.

"What is it, Marjie?" I had put her in my father's chair and was bending over her, my face dangerously near her cheek.

"It's Amos Judson—Oh, Phil, I can't tell you. I was going to talk to your father."

"All right," I said gayly. "Ask papa. It's the proper thing. He must be consulted, of course. But as to Judson, don't worry. O'mie promised me just this morning to sew him up in a sack and throw him off the cliff above the Hermit's Cave into the river. O'mie says it's safe; he's so light he'll float."

Marjie smiled through her tears. A noise in the outer office reminded us that some one was there, and that the outer door was half ajar. Then my father came in. His face was kindly impenetrable.

"I had forgotten my son was here. Phil, take these papers over to the county attorney's office. I'll call you later." He turned me out and gave his attention to Marjie.

I loafed about the outer office until she and my father came out. He led her to the doorway and down the steps with a courtesy he never forgot toward women. When we were alone in his private office I longed to ask Marjie's errand, but I knew my father too well.

"You wanted to see me, Phil?" He was seated opposite to me, his eyes were looking steadily into mine, and clear beyond them down into my soul.

"Yes, Father," I replied; "I am a man now—twenty-one years and one day over. And there are a few things, as a man, I want to know and to have you know."

He was sharpening a pencil carefully. "I'm listening," he said kindly.

"Well, Father—" I hesitated. It was so much harder to say than I had thought it would be. I toyed with the tassel of the window cord confusedly. "Father, you remember when you were twenty-one?"

"Yes, my son, I was just out of Harvard. And like you I had a father to whom I went to tell him I was in love, just as you are. When your own son comes to you some day, help him a little."

I felt a weight lifted from my mind. It was good of him to open the way.

"Father, I have never seen any other girl like Marjie."

"No, there isn't any—for you. But how about her?"

"I think, I know she—does care. I think—" I was making poor work of it after all his help. "Well, she said she did, anyhow." I blurted out defiantly.

"The court accepts the evidence," he remarked, and then more seriously he went on: "My son, I am happy in your joy. I may have been a little slow. There was much harmless coupling of her name with young Tillhurst's while you were away. I did not give it much thought. Letters from Rockport were also giving you and Rachel Melrose some consideration. Rachel is an only child and pretty well fixed financially."

"Oh, Father, I never gave her two thoughts."

"So the letters intimated, but added that the Melrose blood is persistent, and that Rachel's mother was especially willing. She is of a good family, old friends of Candace's and mine. She will have money in her own right, is handsome and well educated. I thought you might be satisfied there."

"But I don't care for her money nor anybody else's. Nobody but Marjie will ever suit me," I cried.

"So I saw when I looked at you two in church yesterday. It was a revelation, I admit; but I took in the situation at once." And then more affectionately he added: "I was very proud of you, Phil. You and Marjie made a picture I shall keep. When you want my blessing, I have part of it in the strong box in my safe. All I have of worldly goods will be yours, Phil, if you do it no dishonor; and as to my good-will, my son, you are my wife's child, my one priceless treasure. When by your own efforts you can maintain a home, nor feel yourself dependent, then bring a bride to me. I shall do all I can to give you an opportunity. I hope you will not wait long. When Irving Whately lay dying at Chattanooga he told me his hopes for Marjie and you. But he charged me not to tell you until you should of your own accord come to me. You have his blessing, too."

How good he was to me! His hand grasped mine.

"Phil, let me say one thing; don't ever get too old to consult your father. It may save some losses and misunderstandings and heart-aches. And now, what else?"

"Father, when O'mie seemed to be dying, Le Claire told me something of his story one evening. He said you knew it."

My father looked grave.

"How does this concern you, Phil?"

"Only in this. I promised Le Claire I would see that O'mie's case was cared for if he lived and you never came back," I replied. "He is of age now, and if he knows his rights he does not use them."

"Have you talked to O'mie of this?" he asked quickly.

"No, sir; I promised not to speak of it."

"Phil, did Le Claire suggest any property?"

"No, sir. Is there any?"

My father smiled. "You have a lawyer's nose," he said, "but fortunately you can keep a still tongue. I'm taking care of O'mie's case right now. By the way," he went on after a short pause. "I sent you out on an errand Saturday. That's another difficult case, a land claim I'm trying to prove for a party. There are two claimants. Tell Mapleson is the counsel for the other one. It's a really dangerous case in some ways. You were to go and spy out the land. What did you see? Anything except a pretty girl?" My face was burning. "Oh, I understand. You found a place out there to stand, and now you think you can move the world."

"I found something I want to speak of besides. Oh, well—I'm not ashamed of caring for Marjie."

"No, no, my boy. You are right. You found the best thing in the world. I found it myself once, by a moonlit sea, not on the summer prairie; but it is the same eternal blessing. Now go on."

"Well, father, you said the place was uninhabited. But it isn't. Somebody is about there now."

"Did you see any one, or is it just a wayside camp for movers going out on the trail?"

"I am not sure that I saw any one, and yet—"

"Tell me all you know, and all you suspect, and why you have conclusions," he said gravely.

"I caught just a glimpse, a mere flirt of a red blanket with a white centre, the kind Jean Pahusca used to wear. It was between the corner of the house and the hazel-brush thicket, as if some one were making for the timber."

"Did you follow it?"

"N—no, I could hardly say I saw anything; but thinking about it afterwards, I am sure somebody was getting out of sight."

"I see." My father looked straight at me. I knew his mind, and I blushed and pulled at the tassel of the window cord. "Be careful. The county has to pay for curtain fixtures. What else?"

"Well, inside the cabin there were fresh ashes and a half-burned stick on the hearth. By a chair under the table I picked this up." I handed him the bow of purple ribbon with the flashing pin.

"It must be movers, and as to that red flash of color, are you real sure it was not just a part of the rose-hued world out there?" He smiled as he spoke.

"Father, that bow was on Lettie Conlow's head not an hour before it was lost out there. She found out where we were going, and she put out northwest on Tell Mapleson's pony. She may have taken the river path. It is the shortest way. Why should she go out there?"

"Do some thinking for yourself. You are a man now, twenty-one, and one day over. You can unravel this part." He sat with impenetrable face, waiting for me to speak.

"I do not know. Lettie Conlow has always been silly about—about the boys. All the young folks say she likes me, has always liked me."

"How much cause have you given her? Be sure your memory is clear." My father spoke sternly.

"Father," I stood before him now, "I am a man, as you say, and I have come up through a boyhood no better nor worse than the other boys whom you know here. We were a pretty decent gang even before you went away to the War. After that we had to be men. But all these years, Father, there has been only one girl for me. I never gave Lettie Conlow a ghost of a reason for thinking I cared for her. But she is old Conlow's own child, and she has a bitter, jealous nature."

"Well, what took her to the—to the old cabin out there?"

"I do not know. She may have been hidden out there to spy what we—I was doing."

"Did she have on a red blanket too, Saturday afternoon?"

"Well, now I wonder—." My mind was in a whirl. Could she be in league against me? What did it mean? I sat down to think.

"Father, there's something I've never yet understood about this town," I burst out impetuously. "If it is to have anything to do with my future I ought to know it. Father Le Claire would tell me only half his story. You know more of O'mie than you will tell me. And here is a jealous girl whose father consented to give Marjie to a brutal Indian out of hatred for her father; and it is his daughter who trails me over the prairie because I am with Marjie. Why not tell me now what you know?"

My father sat looking thoughtfully at me. At last he spoke.

"I know nothing of girls' love affairs and jealousies," he said; "pass that now. I am O'mie's attorney and am trying to adjust his claims for him as I can discover them. I cannot get hold of the case myself as I should like. If Le Claire were here I might find out something."

"Or nothing," I broke in. "It would depend on circumstances."

"You are right. He has never told me all he knows, but I know much without his telling."

"Do you know how Jean Pahusca came to carry a knife for years with the name, 'Jean Le Claire,' cut in the blade? Do you know why the half-breed and the priest came to look so much alike, same square-cut forehead, same build, same gait, same proud way of throwing back the head? You've only to look at them to see all this, except that with a little imagination the priest's face would fit a saint and Jean's is a very devil's countenance."

"I do not know the exact answer to any of these questions. They are points for us to work out together now you are a man. Jean is in some way bound to Le Claire. If by blood ties, why does the priest not own, or entirely disown him? If not, why does the priest protect him?

"In some way, too, both are concerned with O'mie. Le Claire is eager to protect the Irishman. I do not know where Jean is, but I believe sometimes he is here in concealment. He and Tell Mapleson are counselling together. I think he furnishes Tell with some booty, for Tell is inordinately prosperous. I look at this from a lawyer's place. You have grown up with the crowd here, and you see as a young man from the social side, where personal motives count for much. Together we must get this thing unravelled; and it may be in doing it some love matters and some church matters may get mixed and need straightening. You must keep me informed of every thing you know." He paused a moment, then added: "I am glad you have let me know how it is with you, Phil. In your life I can live my own again. Children do so bless us. Be happy in your love, my boy. But be manly, too. There are some hard climbs before you yet. Learn to bear and wait. Yours is an open sunlit way to-day. If the shadows creep across it, be strong. They will lift again. Run home now and tell Aunt Candace I'll be home at one o'clock. Tell her what you have told me, too. She will be glad to know it."