CHAPTER XXVII
SUNSET BY THE SWEETWATER
And we count men brave who on land and wave fear not to die; but still, Still first on the rolls of the world's great souls are the men who have feared to kill.
--EDMUND VANCE COOKE.
Jean Pahusca turned at the sound of O'mie's step on the stone. The redsun had blinded his eyes and he could not see clearly at first. When hedid see, O'mie's presence and the captive unbound and staggering to hisfeet, surprised the Indian and held him a moment longer. The confusionat the change in war's grim front passed quickly, however,--he was onlyhalf Indian,--and he was himself again. He darted toward us, swift as aserpent. Clutching O'mie by the throat and lifting him clear of the rockshelf the Indian threw him headlong down the side of the bluff, crashingthe bushes as he fell. The knife that had cut the cords that bound me,the same knife that would have scalped Marjie and taken the boy's lifein the Hermit's Cave, was flung from O'mie's hand. It rang on the stoneand slid down in the darkness below. Then the half-breed hurled himselfupon me and we clinched there by the cliff's edge for our last conflict.
I was in Jean's land now. I had come to my final hour with him. TheBaronets were never cowardly. Was it inherited courage, or was it thespirit of power in that letter, Marjie's message of love to me, thatgave me grace there? Followed then a battle royal, brute strengthagainst brute strength. All the long score of defeated effort, all thejealousy and hate of years, all the fury of final conflict, all the madfrenzy of the instinct of self-preservation, all the savage lust forblood (most terrible in the human tiger), were united in Jean. Hecombined a giant's strength and an Indian's skill with the dominantcourage and coolness of a son of France. Against these things I put mystrength in that strange struggle on the rocky ledge in the gatheringtwilight of that February day. The little cove on the bluff-side, wasnot more than fifteen feet across at its widest place. The shelf ofsloping stone made a fairly even floor. In this little retreat I hadbeen bound and unable to move for an hour. My muscles were tense atfirst. I was dazed, too, by a sudden deliverance from the slow torturethat had seemed inevitable for me. The issue, however, was no less awfulthan swift. I had just cause for wreaking vengeance on my foeman. Twicehe had attempted to take O'mie's life. The boy might be dead from theheadlong fall at this very minute, for all I knew. The clods were onlytwo days old on Bud Anderson's grave. Nothing but the skill andsacrifice of O'mie had saved Marjie from this brute's lust six yearsbefore. While he lived, my own life was never for one moment safe. Andmore than everything else was the possibility of a fate for Marjie toohorrible for me to dwell upon. All these things swept through my mindlike a lightning flash.
If ever the Lord in the moment of supreme peril gave courage andself-control, these good and perfect gifts were mine in that evening'sstrife. With the first plunge he had thrown me, and he was struggling tofree his hand from my grasp to get at my throat; his knee was on mychest.
"You're in my land now," he hissed in my ear.
"Yes, but this is Phil Baronet still," I answered with a calmness sodominant, it stayed the struggle for a moment. I was playing on him thesame trick by which he had so often deceived us,--the pretendedrelaxation of all effort, and indifference to further strife. In thatmoment's pause I gained my lost vantage. Quick as thought I freed myother hand, and, holding still his murderous grip from my throat, Icaught him by the neck, and pushing his head upward, I gave him such athrust that his hold on me loosened a bit. A bit only, but that wasenough, for when he tightened it again, I was on my feet and the strifewas renewed--renewed with the fierceness of maddened brutes, lashed intofury. Life for one of us meant death for the other, and I lost everyhumane instinct in that terrible struggle except the instinct to saveMarjie first, and my own life after hers. Civilization slips away insuch a battle, and the fighter is only a jungle beast, knowing no lawbut the unquenchable thirst for blood. The hand that holds this pen isclean to-day, clean and strong and gentle. It was a tiger's claw thatnight, and Jean's hot blood following my terrific blow full in his faceonly thrilled me with savage courage. I hurled him full length on thestone, my heavy cavalry boot was on his neck, and I would have stampedthe life out of him in an instant. But with the motion of a serpent hewriggled himself upward; then, catching me by the leg, he had me on oneknee, and his long arms, like the tentacles of a devil-fish, tightenedabout me. Then we rolled together over and under, under and over. Hishard white teeth were sunk in my shoulder to cut my life artery. I hadhim by the long soft hair, my fingers tangled in the handfuls I had tornfrom his head. And every minute I was possessed with a burning frenzyto strangle him. Every desire had left my being now, save the eagernessto conquer, and the consciousness of my power to fight until that endshould come.
We were at the cliff's edge now, my head hanging over; the blood wasrushing toward my clogging brain; the sharp rock's rim, like a stoneknife, was cutting my neck. Jean loosened his teeth from my shoulder,and his murderous hand was on my throat. In that supreme crisis Isummoned the very last atom of energy, the very limit of physicalprowess, the quickness and cunning which can be called forth only by theconflict with the swift approach of death.
Nature had given me a muscular strength far beyond that of most men. Andall my powers had been trained to swift obedience and almost unlimitedendurance. With this was a nervous system that matched the years of ayoung man's greatest vigor. Strong drink and tobacco had never had thechance to play havoc with my steady hand or to sap the vitality of myreserve forces. Even as Jean lifted me by the throat to crush my headbackward over that sharp stone ledge, I put forth this burst of power ina fierceness so irresistible that it hurled him from me, and thestruggle was still unended. We were on our feet again in a rage to reachthe finish. I had almost ceased to care to live. I wanted only to chokethe breath from the creature before me. I wanted only to save from hishellish power the victims who would become his prey if he were allowedto live.
Instinct led me to wrestle with my assailant across the ledge toward thewall that shut in about the sanctuary, just as, a half-year before, onour "Rockport" fighting ground, I strove to drag him through the bushestoward Cliff Street, while he tried to fling me off the projecting rock.And so we locked limb and limb in the horrible contortion of thissavage strife. Every muscle had been so wrenched, no pain or woundreported itself fairly to the congested brain. I had nearly reached thewall, and I was making a frantic effort to fling the Indian against it.I had his shoulder almost upon the rocky side, and my grip was tightabout him, when he turned on me the same trick I had played in the earlypart of this awful game. A sudden relaxation threw me off my guard. Theblood was streaming from a wound on my forehead, and I loosed my hold tothrow back my long hair from my face and wipe the trickling drops frommy eyes. In that fatal moment my mind went blank, whether from loss ofblood or a sudden blow from Jean, I do not know. When I did know myself,I seemed to have fallen through leagues of space, to be falling still,until a pain, so sharp that it was a blessing, brought me to my senses.The light was very dim, but my right hand was free. I aimed one blow atJean's shoulder, and he fell by the cliff's edge, dragging me with him,my weight on his body. His left hand hung over the cliff-side. I shouldhave finished with him then, but that the fallen hand, down in the blackshadows, had closed over a knife sticking in the crevice just below theedge of the bluff--Jean Le Claire's knife, that had been flung fromO'mie's grip as he fell.
I caught its gleam as the half-breed flashed it upward in a swift stabat my heart and my breath hung back. I leaped from him in time to savemy life, but not quickly enough to keep the villainous thing fromcutting a long jagged track across my thigh, from which spurted acrimson flood. There could be only one thing evermore for us two. Aredoubled fury seized me, and then there swept up in me a power forwhich I cannot account, unless it may be that the Angel of Life, whoguards all the passes of the valley of the shadow, sometimes turns backthe tide for us. A sudden calmness filled me, a cool courage contrastingwith Jean's frenzy, an
d I set my teeth together with the grip of abulldog. Jean had leaped to his feet as I sprang back from hisknife-thrust, and for the first time since the fight began we stoodapart for half a minute.
"I may die, but I'll never be cut to death. It must be an equal fight,and when I go, Jean Pahusca, you are going with me. I'll have that knifefirst and then I'll kill you with my own hands, if my breath goes out atthat same instant."
There must have been something terrible in my voice for it was the voiceof a strong man going down to death, firm of purpose, and unafraid.
The feel of the weapon gave the Indian renewed energy. He sprang at mewith a maniac's might. He was a maniac henceforth. Three times we ragedacross the narrow fighting ground. Three times I struck that murderousblade aside, but not without a loss of my own blood for each thrust,until at last by sheer virtue of muscle against muscle, I wrenched itfrom Jean's hand, dripping with my red life-tide. And even as I seizedit, it slipped from me and fell, this time to the ledges far below. Thenhell broke all bounds for us, and what followed there in that shadowytwilight, I care not to recall much less to set it down here.
I do not know how long we battled there, nor whose blood most stainedthe stone of that sanctuary, nor how many times I was underneath, norhow often on top of my assailant. Not all the struggles of my sixtyyears combined, and I have known many, could equal that fight for life.
There came a night in later time when for what seemed an age to me, Imatched my physical power and endurance against the terrible weight ofbroken timbers of a burning bridge that was crushing out human lives, ina railroad wreck. And every second of that eternity-long time, I facedthe awful menace of death by fire. The memory of that hour is a pleasureto me when contrasted with this hand to hand battle with a murderer.
It ended at last--such strife is too costly to endure long--ended with aform stretched prone and helpless and whining for mercy before aconqueror, whose life had been well-nigh threshed out of him; but thefallen fighter was Jean Pahusca, and the man who towered over him wasPhil Baronet.
The half-breed deserved to die. Life for him meant torturing death towhatever lay in his path. It meant untold agony for whomsoever his handfell upon. And greater to me than these then was the murderous conflictjust ended, in which I had by very miracle escaped death again andagain. Men do not fight such battles to weep forgiving tears on oneanother's necks when the end comes. When the spirit of mortal strifepossesses a man's soul, the demons of hell control it. The moment for along overdue retribution was come. As we had clinched and torn oneanother there Jean's fury had driven him to a maniac's madness. Theblessed heritage of self-control, my endowment from my father, had notdeserted me. But now my hand was on his throat, my knee was planted onhis chest, and by one twist I could end a record whose further writingwould be in the blood of his victims.
I lifted my eyes an instant to the western sky, out of which a clear,sweet air was softly fanning my hot blood-smeared face. The sun had setas O'mie cut my bonds. And now the long purple twilight of the Southwestheld the land in its soft hues. Only one ray of iridescent lightpointed the arch above me--the sun's good-night greeting to the Plains.Its glory held me by a strange power. God's mercy was in that radiantshaft of beauty reaching far up the sky, keeping me back from wilfulmurder.
And then, because all pure, true human love is typical of God's eternallove for his children, then, all suddenly, the twilight scene slippedfrom me. I was in my father's office on an August day, and Marjie wasbeside me. The love light in her dear brown eyes, as they lookedsteadily into mine, was thrilling my soul with joy. I felt again thetouch of her hand as I felt it that day when I presented her to RachelMelrose. Her eyes were looking deep into my soul, her hand was in myhand, the hand that in a moment more would take the life of a humanbeing no longer able to give me blow for blow. I loosed my clutch asfrom a leprous wound, and the Indian gasped again for mercy. Standingupright, I spurned the form grovelling now at my feet.
Lifting my bloody right hand high above me, I thanked God I hadconquered in a greater battle. I had won the victory over my worserself.
But I was too wise to think that Jean should have his freedom. Steppingto where the cut thongs that had bound me lay, I took the longest piecesand tied the half-breed securely.
All this time I had fogotten O'mie. Now it dawned upon me that he mustbe found. He might be alive still. The fall must have been brokensomehow by the bushes. I peered over the edge of the bluff into thedarkness of the valley below.
"O'mie!" I called, "O'mie!"
"Present!" a voice behind me responded.
I turned quickly. Standing there in the dim light, with torn clothing,and tumbled red hair, and scratched face was the Irish boy, bruised, butnot seriously hurt.
"I climbed down and round and up and got back as soon as I come too," hesaid, with that happy-go-lucky smile of his. "Bedad! but you've beenmakin' some history, I see. Git up, you miserable cur, and we'll marchye down to General Custer. You take entirely too many liberties wid aSpringvale boy what's knowed you too darned long already."
We lifted Jean, and keeping him before us we hurried him into thepresence of the fair-haired commander to whom we told our story, failingnot to report on the incident witnessed by O'mie on the river bank twonights before, when Jean sent his murdered father's body into the watersbelow him.
"And so that French renegade is dead, is he," Custer mused, neverlifting his eyes from the ground. He had heard us through without queryor comment, until now. "I knew him well. First as a Missionary priest tothe Osages. He was a fine man then, but the Plains made a devil of him;and he deserved what he got, no doubt.
"Now, as to this half-breed, why the devil didn't you kill him when youhad the chance? Dead Indians tell no tales; but the holy Church and theUnited States Government listen to what the live ones tell. You couldhave saved me any amount of trouble, you infernal fool."
I stood up before the General. There was as great a contrast in ourappearance as in our rank. The slight, dapper little commander in fullofficial dress and perfect military bearing looked sternly up at thehuge, rough private with his torn, bloody clothing and lacerated hands.Custer's yellow locks had just been neatly brushed. My own dark hair,uncut for months, hung in a curly mass thrown back from my scarredface.
I gave him a courteous, military salute. Then standing up to my fullheight, and looking steadily down at the slender, graceful man beforeme, I said:
"I may be a fool, General, but I am a soldier, not a murderer."
Custer made no reply for a time.
He sat down and, turning toward Jean Pahusca, he studied the younghalf-breed carefully. Then he said briefly,
"You may go now."
We saluted and passed from his tent. Outside we had gone only a fewsteps, when the General overtook us.
"Baronet," he said, "you did right. You are a soldier, the kind thatwill yet save the Plains."
He turned and entered his tent again.
"Golly!" O'mie whistled softly. "It's me that thinks Jean Pahusca, sonav whoever his father may be, 's got to the last and worst piece av hisjourney. I'm glad you didn't kill him, Phil. You're claner 'n ever in myeyes."
We strolled away together in the soft evening shadows, silent for atime.
"Tell me, O'mie," I said at last, "how you happened to find me up theretwo hours ago?"
"I was trailin' you to your hidin'-place. Bud, Heaven bless him, told mewhere your little sanctuary was, the night before he--went away." Therewere tears in O'mie's voice, but soldiers do not weep. "I had hard workto find the path. But it was better so maybe."
"You were just in time, you red-headed angel. Life is sweet." I breatheddeeply of the pleasant air. "Oh, why did Bud have to give it up, Iwonder."
We sat down behind the big bowlder round which Bud, wounded unto death,had staggered toward me only a few days before.
"Talk, O'mie; I can't," I said, stretching myself out at full length.
"I was just in time to see Jean spring his trap
on you. I waited andswore, and swore and waited, for him to give me the chance to getbetwane you and the pollutin' pup! It didn't come until the sun took hisface full and square, and I see my chance to make two steps. He's sodoggoned quick he'd have caught me, if it hadn't been for that blessedgleam in his eyes. He wa'n't takin' no chances. By the way," he added asan afterthought, "the General says we break camp soon. Didn't say it tome, av course. Good-night now. Sleep sweet, and don't get too far fromyour chest protector,--that's me." He smiled good-bye with as light aheart as though the hours just past had been full of innocent playinstead of grim tragedy.
* * * * *
February on the Plains was slipping into March when the garrison at FortSill broke up for the final movement. This winter campaign, as warrecords run, had been marked by only one engagement, Custer's attack onthe Cheyenne village on the Washita River. But the hurling of so large aforce as the Fort Sill garrison into the Indian stronghold in the depthof winter carried to the savage mind and spirit a deeper conviction ofour power than could have been carried by a score of victories on thegreen prairies of summer. For the Indian stronghold, be it understood,consisted not in mountain fastnesses, cunning hiding-places, caves inthe earth, and narrow passes guarded by impregnable cliffs. This was norepetition of the warfare of the Celts among the rugged rocks of Wales,nor of the Greeks at Thermopylae, nor of the Swiss on Alpine footpaths.This savage stronghold was an open, desolate, boundless plain, fortifiedby distances and equipped with the slow sure weapons of starvation.That Government was a terror to the Indian mind whose soldiers dared torisk its perils and occupy the land at this season of the year. Thewithered grasses; the lack of fuel; the absence of game; the saltycreeks, which mock at thirst; the dreary waves of wilderness sand; thebarren earth under a wide bleak sky; the never-ending stretch ofunbroken plain swept by the fierce winter blizzard, whose furious blastwas followed by a bitter perishing weight of cold,--these were the foeswe had had to fight in that winter campaign. Our cavalry horses hadfallen before them, dying on the way. Only a few of those that reachedFort Sill had had the strength to survive even with food and care. JohnMac prophesied truly when he declared to us that our homesick horseswould never cross the Arkansas River again. Not one of them ever cameback, and we who had gone out mounted now found ourselves a helplessintantry.
Slowly the tribes had come to Custer's terms. When delay and cunningdevice were no longer of any avail they submitted--all except theCheyennes, who had escaped to the Southwest.
Spring was coming, and the Indians and their ponies could live incomfort then. It was only in the winter that United States rations andtents were vital. With the summer they could scorn the white man's help,and more: they could raid again the white man's land, seize hisproperty, burn his home, and brain him with their cruel tomahawks; whileas to his wife and children, oh, the very fiends of hell could notdevise an equal to their scheme of life for them. The escape of theCheyennes from Custer's grasp was but an earnest of what Kiowa, Arapahoeand Comanche could do later. These Cheyennes were setting an exampleworthy of their emulation. Not quite, to the Cheyenne's lordly spirit,not quite had the cavalry conquered the Plains. And now the Cheyennecould well gloat over the failure of the army after all it had endured;for spring was not very far away, the barren Staked Plains, in which thesoldier could but perish, were between them and the arm of theGovernment, and our cavalrymen were now mere undisciplinedfoot-soldiers. It was to subdue this very spirit, to strike the one mosteffectual blow, the conquest of the Cheyennes, that the last act of thatwinter campaign was undertaken. This, and one other purpose. I had beentaught in childhood under Christian culture that it is for the welfareof the home the Government exists. Bred in me through many generationsof ancestry was the high ideal of a man's divine right to protect hisroof-tree and to foster under it those virtues that are built into thenation's power and honor. I had had thrust upon me in the day of myyoung untried strength a heavy sense of responsibility. I had known thecrushing anguish of feeling that one I loved had fallen a prey to asavage foe before whose mastery death is a joy. I was now to learn thetruth of all the teaching along the way. I was to see in the days ofthat late winter the finest element of power the American flag cansymbolize--the value set upon the American home, over which it is atoken of protection. This, then, was that other purpose of thiscampaign--the rescue of two captive women, seized and dragged away onthat afternoon when Bud and O'mie and I leaned against the south wall ofold Fort Hays in the October sunshine and talked of the hazard of Plainswarfare. But of this other purpose the privates knew nothing at all. TheIndian tribes, now full of fair promises, were allowed to take up theirabode on their reservations without further guarding. General Custer,with the Seventh United States Regiment, and Colonel Horace L. Moore,in full command of the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, were directed to reachthe Cheyenne tribe and reduce it to submission.
A thousand men followed the twenty-one buglers on their handsome horses,in military order, down Kansas Avenue in Topeka, on that November day in1868, when the Kansas volunteers began this campaign. Four months later,on a day in early March, Custer's regiment with the Nineteenth, nowdismounted cavalry, filed out of Fort Sill and set their facesresolutely to the westward. Infantry marching was new business for theKansas men, but they bent to their work like true soldiers. After fourdays a division came, and volunteers from both regiments were chosen tocontinue the movement. The remainder, for lack of marching strength, wassent up on the Washita River to await our return in a camp establishedup there under Colonel Henry Inman.
Reed, one of my Topeka comrades, was of those who could not go farther.O'mie was not considered equal to the task. I fell into Reed's placewith Hadley and John Mac and Pete, when we started out at last toconquer the Cheyennes, who were slipping ever away from us somewherebeyond the horizon's rim. The days that followed, finishing up thatwinter campaign, bear a record of endurance unsurpassed in the annals ofAmerican warfare.
I have read the fascinating story of Coronado and his three hundredSpanish knights in their long weary march over a silent desolate levelwaste day after day, pushing grimly to the northward in their fruitlesssearch for gold. What did this band of a thousand weary men go seekingas they took the reverse route of Coronado's to the Southwest over theseceaslessly crawling sands? Not the discoverer's fame, not thegold-seeker's treasure led them forth through gray interminable reachesof desolation. They were going now to put the indelible mark ofconquest by a civilized Government, on a crafty and dangerous foe, toplough a fire-guard of safety about the frontier homes.
Small heed we gave to this history-making, it is true, as we pressedsilently onward through those dreary late winter days. It was asoldier's task we had accepted, and we were following the flag. And inspite of the sins committed in its name, of the evil deeds protected byits power, wherever it unfurls its radiant waves of light "the breath ofheaven smells wooingly"; gentle peace, and rich prosperity, and holylove abide ever more under its caressing shadow.
We were prepared with rations for a five days' expedition only. Butweary, ragged, barefoot, hungry, sleepless, we pressed on throughtwenty-five days, following a trail sometimes dim, sometimes clearlywritten, through a region the Indians never dreamed we could cross andlive. The nights chilled our famishing bodies. The short hours of brokenrest led only to another day of moving on. There were no breakfasts tohinder our early starting. The meagre bit of mule meat doled outsparingly when there was enough of this luxury to be given out, eatennow without salt, was our only food. Our clothing tattered with wear andtear, hung on our gaunt frames. Our lips did not close over our teeth;our eyes above hollow cheeks stared out like the eyes of dead men. Thebloom of health had turned to a sickly yellow hue; but we were allalike, and nobody noted the change.
As we passed from one deserted camp to another, it began to seem awill-o'-the-wisp business, an elusive dream, a long fruitless chasingafter what would escape and leave us to perish at last in this desert.But the slender y
ellow-haired man at the head of the column had anindomitable spirit, and an endurance equalled only by his courage andhis military cunning. Under him was the equally indomitable KansasColonel, Horace L. Moore, tried and trained in Plains warfare. Behindthem straggled a thousand soldiers. And still the March days dragged on.
Then the trails began to tell us that the Indians were gathering inlarger groups and the command was urged forward with more persistentpurpose. We slept at night without covering under the open sky. Wehardly dared to light fires. We had nothing to cook, and a fire wouldreveal our whereabouts to the Indians we were pursuing. A thousandsoldiers is a large number; but even a thousand men, starving day afterday, taxing nerve and muscle, with all the reserve force of the bodyfeeding on its own unfed store of energy; a thousand men destitute ofsupplies, cut off by leagues of desert sands from any base ofreinforcement, might put up only a weak defence against the hundreds ofsavages in their own habitat. It was to prevent another Arickaree thatCuster's forces kept step in straggling lines when rations had becomeonly a taunting mockery of the memory.
The map of that campaign is kept in the archives of war and its officialtale is all told there, told as the commander saw it. I can tell it hereonly as a private down in the ranks.
In the middle of a March afternoon, as we were silently swinging forwardover the level Plains, a low range of hills loomed up. Beyond them laythe valley of the Sweetwater, a tributary of the Canadian River. Here,secure in its tepees, was the Cheyenne village, its inhabitants neverdreaming of the white man's patience and endurance. Fifteen hundredstrong it numbered, arrogant, cunning, murderous. The sudden appearanceof our army of skeleton men was not without its effect on the savagemind. Men who had crossed the Staked Plains in this winter time, men wholooked like death already, such men might be hard to kill. But lying andtrickery still availed.
There was only one mind in the file that day. We had come so far, we hadsuffered such horrors on the way, these men had been guilty of suchatrocious crimes, we longed fiercely now to annihilate this band ofwretches in punishment due for all it had cost the nation. I thought ofthe young mother and her baby boy on the frozen earth between the driftsof snow about Satanta's tepee on the banks of the Washita, as Bud and Ifound her on the December day when we searched over Custer's battlefield. I pictured the still forms lying on their blankets, and the longline of soldiers passing reverently by, to see if by chance she might beknown to any of us--this woman, murdered in the very hour of herrelease; and I gripped my arms in a frenzy. Oh, Satan takes fast hold onthe heart of a man in such a time, and the Christ dying on the cross upon Calvary, praying "Father forgive them for they know not what theydo," seems only a fireside story of unreal things.
In the midst of this opportunity for vengeance just, and long overdue,comes Custer's lieutenant with military courtesy to Colonel Moore, anddelivers the message, "The General sends his compliments, with theinstructions not to fire on the Indians."
Courtesy! Compliments! Refrain from any rudeness to the wards of theGovernment! I was nearly twenty-two and I knew more than Custer andSheridan and even President Grant himself just then. I had a sense ofobedience. John Baronet put that into me back in Springvale years ago.Also I had extravagant notions of military discipline and honor. Butfor one brief moment I was the most lawless mutineer, the rankestanarchist that ever thirsted for human gore to satisfy a wrong. Nor wasI alone. Beside me were those stanch fellows, Pete and John Mac, andHadley. And beyond was the whole line of Kansas men with a cause oftheir own here. Before my fury left me, however, we were all about face,and getting up the valley to a camping-place.
I might have saved the strength the passion of fury costs. Custer knewhis business and mine also. Down in that Cheyenne village, closelyguarded, were two captive women, the women of my boyhood dream, maybe.The same two women who had been carried from their homes up in theSolomon River country in the early Fall. What they had endured in thesemonths of captivity even the war records that set down plain things donot deem fit to enter. One shot from our rifles that day on theSweetwater would have meant for them the same fate that befell thesacrifice on the Washita, the dead woman on the deserted battle field.It was to save these two, then, that we had kept step heavily across thecold starved Plains. For two women we had marched and suffered on dayafter day. Who shall say, at the last analysis, that this young queen ofnations, ruling a beautiful land under the Stars and Stripes, sets novalue on the homes of its people, nor holds as priceless the life andsafety even of two unknown women.
Very adroitly General Custer visited, and exchanged compliments, andparleyed and waited, playing his game faultlessly till even thequick-witted Cheyennes were caught by it. When the precise moment camethe shrewd commander seized the chief men of the village and gave hisultimatum--a life for a life. The two white women safe from harm must bebrought to him or these mighty men must become degraded captives. Thenfollowed an Indian hurricane of wrath and prayers and trickery. Itavailed nothing except to prolong the hours, and hunger and cold filledanother night in our desolate camp.
Day brought a renewal of demand, a renewal of excuse and delay and anattempt to outwit by promises. But a second command was more telling.The yellow-haired general's word now went forth: "If by sunset to-morrownight these two women are not returned to my possession, these chiefswill hang."
So Custer said, and the grim selection of the gallows and thepreparation for fulfilment of his threat went swiftly forward. Thechiefs were terror-stricken, and anxious messages were sent to theirpeople. Meanwhile the Cheyenne forces were moving farther and fartheraway. The squaws and children were being taken to a safe distance, and aquick flight was in preparation. So another night of hunger and waitingfell upon us. Then came the day of my dream long ago. The same people Iknew first on the night after Jean Pahusca's attempt on Marjie's life,when we were hunting our cows out on the West Prairie, came now inreality before me.
The Sweetwater Valley spread out under the late sunshine of a March daywas rimmed about by low hills. Beyond these, again, were the Plains, thesame monotony of earth beneath and sky above, the two meeting away andaway in an amethyst fold of mist around the world's far bound. Therewere touches of green in the brown valley, but the hill slopes and allthe spread of land about them were gray and splotched and dull against ablue-gray sickly sky. The hours went by slowly to each anxious soldier,for endurance was almost at its limit. More heavily still they must havedragged for the man on whom the burden of command rested. High noon, andthen the afternoon interminably long and dull, and by and by came thesunset on the Sweetwater Valley, and a new heaven and a new earth wererevealed to the sons of men. Like a chariot of fire, the great sunrolled in all its gorgeous beauty down the west. The eastern sky grewradiant with a pink splendor, and every brown and mottled stretch ofdistant landscape was touched with golden light or deepened into richestpurple, or set with a roseate bound of flame. Somewhere far away, afeathery gray mist hung like a silvery veil toning down the earth fromthe noonday glare to the sunset glory. Down in the very middle of allthis was a band of a thousand men; their faded clothing, their uncertainstep, their knotted hands, and their great hungry eyes told the pricethat had been paid for the drama this sunset hour was to bring. Slowlythe moments passed as when in our little sanctuary above the pleasantparks at Fort Sill I had watched the light measured out. And then thelow hills began to rise up and shut out the crimson west as twilightcrept toward the Sweetwater Valley.
Suddenly, for there had been nothing there a moment before, allsuddenly, an Indian scout was outlined on the top of the low bluffnearest us. Motionless he sat on his pony a moment, then he waved asignal to the farther height beyond him. A second pony and a secondIndian scout appeared. Another signal and then came a third Indian on athird pony farther away. Each Indian seemed to call out another until aline of them had been signalled from the purple mist, out of which theyappeared to be created. Last of all and farthest away, was a pony onwhich two figures were faintly outlined. Down in the valley
we waited,all eyes looking toward the hills as these two drew nearer. Up in agroup on the bluff beyond the valley the Indians halted. The two ridersof the pony slipped to the ground. With their arms about each other, inclose embrace, they came slowly toward us, the two captive women forwhom we waited. It was a tragic scene, such as our history has rarelyknown, watched by a thousand men, mute and motionless, under its spell.Even now, after the lapse of nearly four decades, the picture is asvivid as if it were but yesterday that I stood on the Texas Plains asoldier of twenty-two years, feeling my heart throbs quicken as thatsunset scene is enacted before me.
We had thought ourselves the victims of a hard fate in that winter ofterrible suffering; but these two women, Kansas girls, no older thanMarjie, home-loving, sheltered, womanly, a maiden and a bride of only afew months--shall I ever forget them as they walked into my life on thatMarch day in the sunset hour by the Sweetwater? Their meagre clothingwas of thin flour sacks with buckskin moccasins and leggins. Their hairhung in braids Indian fashion. Their haggard faces and sad eyes toldonly the beginning of their story. They were coming now to freedom andprotection. The shadow of Old Glory would be on them in a moment; amoment, and the life of an Indian captive would be but a horror-searedmemory.
Then it was that Custer did a graceful thing. The subjection of theCheyennes could have been accomplished by soldiery from Connecticut orSouth Carolina, but it was for the rescue of these two, for theprotection of Kansas homes, that the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry hadvolunteered. Stepping to our commander, Colonel Moore, Custer asked thatthe Kansas man should go forward to meet the captives. With a courtesy aqueen might have coveted the Colonel received them--two half-naked,wretched, fate-buffeted women.
The officers nearest wrapped their great coats about them. Then, as thetwo, escorted by Colonel Moore and his officers next of rank, movedforward toward General Custer, who was standing apart on a little knollwaiting to receive them, a thousand men watching breathless withuncovered heads the while, the setting sun sent down athwart the valleyits last rich rays of glory, the motionless air was full of anopalescent beauty; while softly, sweetly, like dream music never heardbefore in that lonely land of silence, the splendid Seventh Cavalry bandwas playing "Home Sweet Home."
CHAPTER XXVII
THE HERITAGE
It is morning here in Kansas, and the breakfast bell is rung! We are not yet fairly started on the work we mean to do; We have all the day before us, and the morning is but young, And there's hope in every zephyr, and the skies are bright and blue.
--WALT MASON.
It was over at last, the long painful marching; the fight with thewinter's blizzard, the struggle with starvation, the sunrise and sunsetand starlight on wilderness ways--all ended after a while. Of the threeboys who had gone out from Springvale and joined in the sacrifice forthe frontier, Bud sleeps in that pleasant country at Fort Sill. Thesummer breezes ripple the grasses on his grave, the sunbeams caress itlovingly and the winter snows cover it softly over--the quiet grave hehad wished for and found all too soon. Dear Bud, "not changed, butglorified," he holds his place in all our hearts. For O'mie, the wintercampaign was the closing act of a comic tragedy, and I can never thinksadly of the brave-hearted happy Irishman. He was too full of the sunnyjoy of existence, his heart beat with too much of good-will toward men,to be remembered otherwise than as a bright-faced, sweet-spirited boywhose span of years was short. How he ever endured the hardships andreached Springvale again is a miracle, and I wonder even now, how,waiting patiently for the inevitable, he could go peacefully throughthe hours, making us forget everything but his cheery laugh, hisaffectionate appreciation of the good things of the world, and hischildlike trust in the Saviour of men.
His will was a simple thing, containing the bequest of all hispossessions, including the half-section of land so long in litigation,and the requests regarding his funeral. The latter had three wishes:that Marjie would sing "Abide With Me" at the burial service, that hemight lie near to John Baronet's last resting-place in the Springvalecemetery, and that Dave and Bill Mead, and the three Andersons, withmyself would be his pall bearers. Dave was on the Pacific slope then,and O'mie himself had helped to bear Bud to his final earthly home. Oneof the Red Range boys and Jim Conlow filled these vacant places.Reverently, as for one of the town's distinguished men, there walkedbeside us Father Le Claire and Judge Baronet, Cris Mead and HenryAnderson, father of the Anderson boys, Cam Gentry and Dever. Behindthese came the whole of Springvale. It was May time, a year after ourSouthwest campaign, and the wild flowers of the prairie lined his graveand wreaths of the pink blossoms that grow out in the West Draw weretwined about his casket. He had no next of kin, there were no especialmourners. His battle was ended and we could not grieve for his abundantentrance into eternal peace.
Three of us had gone out with the Nineteenth Kansas Cavalry, and I amthe third. While we were creeping back to life at Camp Inman on theWashita after that well-nigh fatal expedition across the Staked Plainsto the Sweetwater, I saw much of Hard Rope, chief man of the Osagescouts. I had been accustomed to the Osages all my years in Kansas.Neither this tribe, nor our nearer neighbors, the Kaws, had ever givenSpringvale any serious concern. Sober, they were law-abiding enough, anddrunk, they were no more dangerous than any drunken white man. Bitter asmy experience with the Indian has been, I have always respected theloyal Osage. But I never sought one of this or any other Indian tribefor the sake of his company. Race prejudice in me is still strong, evenwhen I give admiration and justice free rein. Indians had frequentbusiness in the Baronet law office in my earlier years, and after I wasassociated with my father there was much that brought them to us.Possibly the fact that I did not dislike the Osages is the reason Ihardly gave them a thought at Fort Sill. It was not until afterwardsthat I recalled how often I had found the Osage scouts there crossing mypath unexpectedly. On the day before we broke camp at the Fort, HardRope came to my tent and sat down beside the door. I did not notice himuntil he said slowly:
"Baronet?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Tobacco?" he asked.
"No, Hard Rope," I answered, "I have every other mark of a great manexcept this. I don't smoke."
"I want tobacco," he continued.
What made me accommodating just then I do not know, but I suddenlyremembered some tobacco that Reed had left in my tent.
"Hard Rope," I said, "here is some tobacco. I forgot I had it, because Idon't care for it. Take it all."
The scout seized it with as much gratitude as an Indian shows, but hedid not go away at once.
"Something else now?" I questioned not unkindly.
"You Judge Baronet's son?"
I nodded and smiled.
He came very close to me, putting both hands on my shoulders, andlooking steadily into my eyes he said solemnly, "You will be safe. Noevil come near you."
"Thank you, Hard Rope, but I will keep my powder dry just the same," Ianswered.
All the time in the Inman camp the scout shadowed me. On the eveningbefore our start for Fort Hays to be mustered out of service he came tome as I sat alone beside the Washita, breathing deeply the warm air ofan April twilight. I had heard no word from home since I left Topeka inOctober. Marjie must be married, as Jean had said. I had never known thehalf-breed to tell a lie. It was so long ago that that letter of hers tome had miscarried. She thought of course that I had taken it and eventhen refused to stay at home. Oh, it was all a hopeless tangle, and nowI might be dreaming of another man's wife. I had somehow grown utterlyhopeless now. Jean--oh, the thought was torture--I could not feel sureabout him. He might be shadowing her night and day. Custer did not tellme what had become of the Indian, and I had seen on the Sweetwater whatsuch as he could do for a Kansas girl. As I sat thus thinking, Hard Ropesquatted beside me.
"You go at sunrise?" pointing toward the east.
I merely nodded.
"I want to talk," he went on.
"Well, talk away, Hard Rope." I was glad to quit thinking.
/>
What he told me there by the rippling Washita River I did not repeat formany months, but I wrung his hand when I said good-bye. Of all thescouts with Custer that we left behind when we started northward, nonehad so large a present of tobacco as Hard Rope.
My father had demanded that I return to Springvale as soon as ourregiment was mustered out. Morton was still in the East, and I had nofoothold in the Saline Valley as I had hoped in the Fall to have. Norwas there any other place that opened its doors to me. And withal I washomesick--desperately, ravenously homesick. I wanted to see my fatherand Aunt Candace, to look once more on the peaceful Neosho and the hugeoak trees down in its fertile valley. For nearly half a year I had notseen a house, nor known a civilized luxury. No child ever yearned forhome and mother as I longed for Springvale. And most of all came anoverwhelming eagerness to see Marjie once more. She was probably Mrs.Judson now, unless Jean--but Hard Rope had eased my mind a littlethere--and I had no right even to think of her. Only I was young, and Ihad loved her so long. All that fierce battle with myself which I foughtout on the West Prairie on the night she refused to let me speak to herhad to be fought over again. And this time, marching northward over theApril Plains toward Fort Hays, this time, I was hopelessly vanquished.I, Philip Baronet, who had fought with fifty against a thousand on theArickaree; who had gone with Custer to the Sweetwater in the drearywastes of the Texas desert; I who had a little limp now and then in myright foot, left out too long in the cold, too long made to keep step inweary ways on endlessly wearing marches; I who had lost the softness ofthe boy's physique and who was muscled like a man, with something of themilitary bearing hammered mercilessly upon me in the days of soldierlife--I was still madly in love with a girl who had refused all mypleadings and was even now, maybe, another man's wife. Oh, cold andterror and starvation were all bad enough, but this was unendurable.
"I will go home as my father wishes," I said. "I do not need to staythere, but I will go now for a while and feel once more whatcivilization means. Then--I will go to the Plains, or somewhere else."So I argued as we came one April day into Fort Hays. Letters from homewere awaiting me, urging me to come at once; and I went, leaving O'mieto follow later when he should have rested at the Fort a little.
All Kansas was in its Maytime glory. From the freshly ploughed earthcame up that sweet wholesome odor that like the scent of new-mown haycarries its own traditions of other days to each of us. The youngorchards--there were not many orchards in Kansas then--were all a blurof pink on the hill slopes. A thousand different blossoms gemmed theprairies, making a perfect kaleidoscope of brilliant hues, that blendedwith the shifting shades of green. Along the waterways the cottonwood'ssilvery branches, tipped with tender young leaves fluttering in the softwind, stood up proudly above the scrubby bronze and purple growthshardly yet in bud and leaf. From every gentle swell the landscape sweptaway to the vanishing line of distances in billowy seas of green andgold, while far overhead arched the deep-blue skies of May. Fleecyclouds, white and soft as foam, drifted about in the limitless fields ofether. The glory of the new year, the fresh sweet air, the spirit ofbudding life, set the pulses a-tingle with the very joy of being. Like adream of Paradise lay the Neosho Valley in its wooded beauty, with fieldand farm, the meadow, and the open unending prairie rolling away fromit, wave on wave, in the Maytime grace and grandeur. Through this valleythe river itself wound in and out, glistening like molten silver in theopen spaces, and gliding still and shadowy by overhanging cliff andwooded covert.
"Dever," I said to the stage driver when we had reached the top of thedivide and looked southward to where all this magnificence of nature waslavishly spread out, "Dever, do you remember that passage in the Bibleabout the making of the world long ago, 'And God saw that it was good'?Well, here's where all that happened."
Dever laughed a crowing laugh of joy. He had hugged me when I took thestage, I didn't know why. When it came to doing the nice thing, Deverhad a sense of propriety sometimes that better-bred folk might haveenvied. And this journey home proved it.
"I've got a errant up west. D'ye's lief come into town that way?" heasked me.
Would I? I was longing to slip into my home before I ran the gantlet ofall the streets opening on the Santa Fe Trail. I never did know whatDever's "errant" was, that led him to swing some miles to the west, outof the way to the ford of the Neosho above the old stone cabin whereFather Le Claire swam his horse in the May flood six years before. Hegave no reason for the act that brought me over a road, every footsacred to the happiest moments of my life. Past the big cottonwood, downinto the West Draw where the pink blossoms called in sweet insistenttones to me to remember a day when I had crowned a little girl withblooms like these, a day when my life was in its Maytime joy. On acrossthe prairie we swung to the very borders of Springvale, which wasnestling by the river and stretching up the hillslope toward where thebluff breaks abruptly. I could see "Rockport" gray and sun-fleckedbeyond its sheltering line of green bushes.
Just as we turned toward Cliff Street Dever said carelessly,
"Lots of changes some ways sence I took you out of here last August.Judson, he's married two months ago."
The warm sunny glorious world turned drab and cold to me with the words.
"What's the matter, Baronet?--you're whiter'n a dead man!"
"Just a little faint. Got that way in the army," I answered, which was alie.
"Better now? As I was sayin', Judson and Lettie has been married twomonths now. Kinder surprised folks by jinin' up sudden; but--oh, well,it's a lot better quick than not at all sometimes."
I caught my breath. My "spell" contracted in the army was passing. Andhere were Cliff Street and the round turret-like corners of JudgeBaronet's stone-built domicile. It was high noon, and my father had justgone into the house. I gave Dever his fare and made the hall door at aleap. My father turned at the sound and--I was in his arms. Then cameAunt Candace, older by more than ten months. Oh, the women are the oneswho suffer most. I had not thought until that moment what all thiswinter of absence meant to Candace Baronet. I held her in my strong armsand looked down into her love-hungry eyes. Men are such stupid unfeelingbrutes. I am, at least; for I had never read in this dear woman's faceuntil that instant what must have been written there all theseyears,--the love that might have been given to a husband and children ofher own, this lonely, childless woman had given to me.
"Aunty, I'll never leave you again," I declared, as she clung to me, andpatted my cheeks and stroked my rough curly hair.
We sat down together to the midday meal, and my father's blessing waslike the benediction of Heaven to my ears.
Springvale also had its measure of good breeding. My coming was thechoicest news that Dever had had to give out for many a day, and thecirculation was amazing in its rapid transit. I had a host of friendshere where I had grown to manhood, and the first impulse was to takeCliff Street by storm. It was Cam Gentry who counselled better methods.
"Now, by hen, let's have some sense," he urged, "the boy's jest gothere. He's ben through life and death, er tarnation nigh akin to it.Let's let him be with his own till to-morror. Jest ac like we'd had agrain o' raisin' anyhow, and wait our turn. Ef he shows hisself down onthis 'er street we'll jest go out and turn the Neoshy runnin' north foran hour and a half while we carry him around dry shod. But now, to-day,let him come out o' hidin', and we'll give him welcome; but ef he staysup there with Candace, we'll be gentlemen fur oncet ef it does purtynigh kill some of us."
"Cam is right," Cris Mead urged. "If he comes down here he'll take hischances, but we'll hold our fire on the hill till to-morrow."
"Well, by cracky, the Baronets never miss prayer meeting, I guess.Springvale will turn out to-night some," Grandpa Mead declared.
And so while I revelled in a home-coming, thankful to be alone with myown people, the best folks on earth were waiting and dodging about, butcourteously abstaining from rushing in on our sacred home rights.
In the middle of the afternoon Cam Gentry
called to Dollie to come tohis aid.
"Jest tie the end of this rope good and fast around this piazzer post,"he said.
His wife obeyed before she noted that the other end was fastened aroundCam's right ankle. To her wondering look he responded:
"Ef I don't lariat myself to something, like a old hen wanting to stealoff with her chickens, I'll be up to Baronet's spite of my efforts, I'mthat crazy to see Phil once more."
Through the remainder of the May afternoon he sat on the veranda, orhopped the length of his tether to the side-walk and looked longingly uptoward the high street, that faced the cliff, but his purpose did notchange.
Springvale showed its sense of delicacy in more ways than this. Marjiewas the last to hear of my leaving when all suddenly I turned my back onthe town nearly ten months before. And now, while almost every familyhad discussed my return--anything furnishes a little town asensation--the Whately family had had no notice served of themomentarily interesting topic. And so it was that Marjie, innocent ofthe suppressed interest, went about her home, never dreaming of anythingunusual in the town talk of that day.
The May evening was delicious in its balmy air and the deepening purpleof its twilight haze. The spirit of the springtime, wooing in its toneof softest music, voiced a message to the sons and daughters of men.Marjie came out at sunset and slowly took her way through the sweetnessof it all up to the "Rockport" of our childhood, the trysting place ofour days of love's young dream. Her fair face had a womanly strength andtenderness now, and her form an added grace over the curves of girlhood.But her hair still rippled about her brow and coiled in the same softfolds of brown at the back of her head. Her cheeks had still the pink ofthe wild rose bloom, and the dainty neatness in dress was as of old.
She came to the rock beyond the bushes and sat down alone lookingdreamily out over the Neosho Valley.
"You'll go to prayer meeting, Phil?" Aunt Candace asked at supper.
"Yes, but I believe I'll go down the street first. Save a place for me.I want to see Dr. Hemingway next to you of all Springvale." Which was mysecond falsehood for that day. I needed prayer meeting.
The sunset hour was more than I could withstand. All the afternoon I hadbeen subconsciously saying that I must keep close to the realities.These were all that counted now. And yet when the evening came, all thepast swept my soul and bore every resolve before it. I did not stop toask myself any questions. I only knew that, lonely as it must be, I mustgo now to "Rockport" as I had done so many times in the old happy past,a past I was already beginning numbly to feel was dead and gone forever.And yet my step was firm and my head erect, as with eager tread I cameto the bushes guarding our old happy playground. I only wanted to see itonce more, that was all.
The limp had gone from my foot. It was intermittent in the earlieryears. I was combed and groomed again for social appearing. Aunt Candacehad hung about my tie and the set of my coat, and for my old armyhead-gear she had resurrected the jaunty cap I had worn home fromMassachusetts. With my hands in my pockets, whistling softly to abstractmy thoughts, I slipped through the bushes and stood once more on"Rockport."
And there was Marjie, still looking dreamily out over the valley. Shehad not heard my step, so far away were her thoughts. And the picture,as I stood a moment looking at her--will the world to come hold anythingmore fair, I wondered. It was years ago, I know, but so clearly Irecall it now it could have been a dream of yesterday. Before me werethe gray rock, the dark-green valley, the gleaming waters of the Neosho,the silvery mist on the farther bluff iridescent with the pink tints ofsunset reflected on the eastern sky, the quiet loveliness of the Maytwilight, and Marjie, beautiful with a girlish winsomeness, a woman'sgrace, a Madonna's tenderness.
"Were you waiting for me, dearie? I am a little late, but I am here atlast."
I spoke softly, and she turned quickly at the sound of my voice. A lookof dazed surprise as she leaped to her feet, and then the reality dawnedupon her.
"Come, sweetheart," I said. "I have been away so long, I'm hungering foryour welcome."
I held out my hands to her. Her face was very white as she made one steptoward me, and then the love-light filled her brown eyes, the gloriousbeauty of the pink blossoms swept her cheek. I put my arms around herand drew her close to me, my own little girl, whom I had loved andthought I had lost forever.
"Oh, Phil, Phil, are you here again? Are you--" she put her little handagainst my hair curling rebelliously over my cap's brim. "Are you mineonce more?"
"Am I, Marjie? Six feet of me has come back; but, little girl, I havenever been away. I have never let you go out of my life. It was only themechanical action that went away. Phil Baronet stayed here! Oh, I knowit now--I was acting out there; I was really living here with you, myMarjie, my own."
I held her in my arms as I spoke, and we looked out at the sweet sunsetprairie. The big cottonwood, shapely as ever, was outlined against thehorizon, which was illumined now with all the gorgeous grandeur of theMay evening. The level rays of golden light fell on us, as we stoodthere, baptizing us with its splendor.
"Oh, Marjie, it was worth all the suffering and danger to have such ahome-coming as this!" I kissed her lips and pushed back the littleringlets from her white forehead.
"It is vouchsafed to a man sometimes to know a bit of heaven here onearth," Father Le Claire had said to me out on this rock six yearsbefore. It was a bit of heaven that came down to me in the purpletwilight of that May evening, and I lifted my face to the opal skiesabove me with a prayer of thankfulness for the love that was mine oncemore. In that hour of happiness we forgot that there was ever a stormcloud to darken the blue heavens, or ever a grief or a sin to mar thejoy of living. We were young, and we were together. Over the valleyswept the sweet tones of the Presbyterian Church bell. Marjie's face,radiant with light, was lifted to mine.
"I must go to prayer meeting, Phil. I shall see you again--to-morrow?"She put the question hesitatingly, even longingly.
"Yes, and to-night. Let's go together. I haven't been to prayer meetingregularly. We lost out on that on the Staked Plains."
"I must run home and comb my hair," she declared; and indeed it was alittle tumbled. But from the night I first saw her, a little girl in herfather's moving-wagon, with her pink sun-bonnet pushed back from herblowsy curls, her hair, however rebellious, was always a picture.
"Go ahead, little girl. I will run home, too. I forgot something. I willbe down right away."
Going home, I may have walked on Cliff Street, but my head was in theclouds, and all the songs that the morning-stars sing together--all themusic of the spheres--was playing itself out for me in the shadowytwilight as I went along.
At the gate Aunt Candace and my father were waiting for me.
"You needn't wait," I cried. "I will be there presently."
"Oh, joined the regular army this time," my father said, smiling. "Sorrywe can't keep you, Phil." But I gave no heed to him.
"Aunt Candace," I said in a low voice. "May I see you just a minute? Iwant to get something."
"It's in the top drawer in my room, Phil. The key is in the little trayon my dresser," Aunt Candace said quietly. She always understood me.
When I reached the Whately home, Marjie was waiting for me at the gate.I took her little hand in my own strong big one.
"Will you wear it again for me, dearie?" I asked, holding up my mother'sring before her.
"Always and always, Phil," she murmured.
Isn't it Longfellow who speaks of "the lovely stars, the forget-me-notsof the angels," blossoming "in the infinite meadows of heaven"? Theywere all a-bloom that May night, and dewy and sweet lay the earthbeneath them. We were a little late to prayer meeting. The choir was inits place and the audience was gathered in the pews. Judge Baronetalways sat near the front, and my place was between him and Aunt Candacewhen I wasn't in the choir. Bess Anderson was just finishing a voluntaryas we two went up the aisle together. I hadn't thought of making asensation, I thought only of Marjie. Passing aroun
d the end of thechancel rail I gently led her by the arm up the three steps to thechoir place, and turning, faced all the town as I went to my seatbeside my father. I was as happy as a lover can be; but I didn't knowhow much of all this was written on my countenance, nor did I notice theintense hush that fell on the company. I had faced the oncoming of RomanNose and his thousand Cheyenne warriors; there was no reason why Ishould feel embarrassed in a prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Churchat Springvale. The service was short. I remember not one word of itexcept the scripture lesson. That was the Twenty-third Psalm:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me.
These words had sounded in my ears on the night before the battle on theArickaree, and again in the little cove on the low bluff at Fort Sill,the night Jean Pahusca was taunting me through the few minutes he wasallowing me to live. That Psalm belonged to the days when I was doing mypart toward the price paid out for the prairie homes and safety andpeace. But never anybody read for me as Dr. Hemingway read it thatevening. With the close of the service came a prayer of thanksgiving formy return. Then for the first time I was self-conscious. What had I doneto be so lovingly and reverently welcomed home? I bowed my head in deephumility, and the tears welled up. Oh, I could look death calmly betweenthe eyes as I had watched it creeping toward me on the heated Plains ofthe Arickaree, and among the cold starved sand dunes of the Cimarron,but to be lauded as a hero here in Springvale--the tears would come.Where were Custer, and Moore, and Forsyth, and Pliley, and Stillwell,and Morton, if such as I be called a hero?
Cam Gentry didn't lead the Doxology that night, he chased itclear into the belfry and up into the very top of the steeple;and his closing burst of melody "Praise Father, Son, andHoly Ghost," had, as Bill Mead declared afterwards, a regular"You-couldn't-have-done-it-better-Lord-if-you-had-been-there-yourself"ring to it.
Then came the benediction, fervent, holy, gentle, with Dr. Hemingway'swhite face (crowned now with snowy hair) lifted up toward heaven. Afterthat I never could remember, save that there was a hush, then a clamor,that was followed pretty soon by embraces from the older men and women,pounding thumps from the younger men and handshaking with the girls. Andall the while, with a proprietary sense I had found myself near Marjie,whom I kept close beside me now, her brown head just above my shoulder.
More than once in the decades since then it has been my fortune toreturn to Springvale and be met at the railway station and escorted homeby the town band. Sometimes for political service, sometimes for civiceffort, and once because by physical strength and great daring and quickcool courage I saved three human lives in a terrible wreck; but neverany ovation was like that prayer meeting in the Presbyterian Churchnearly forty years ago.
The days that followed my home-coming were busy ones, for my place inthe office had been vacant. Clayton Anderson had devoted himself to theWhately affairs, although nobody but those in the secret knew whenJudson gave up proprietorship and went on a clerk's pay again where hebelonged. Springvale was kind to Judson, as it has always been to theman who tries honestly to make good in this life's struggle. It is inthe Kansas air, this broader charity, this estimation of character,redeemed or redeemable.
My father did not tell me of his part in the Whately business affairs atonce, and I did not understand when, one evening, some time later, AuntCandace said at the supper table:
"Dollie Gentry tells me Dr. John (so we called John Anderson now),reports a twelve-pound boy over at Judsons'. They are going to christenhim 'John Baronet Judson.' Aren't you proud of the name, John?"
"I am of the Judson part," my father answered, with that compression ofthe lips that sometimes kept back a smile, and sometimes marked agrowing sternness.
I met O'mie at Topeka and brought him to Springvale. It was not until inMay of the next year that he went away from us and came not back anymore, save in loving remembrance.
In August Tillhurst went East. Somehow I was not at all surprised whenthe Rockport, Massachusetts, weekly newspaper, that had come to ourhouse every Tuesday while we had lived on Cliff Street, contained thenotice of the marriage of Richard Tillhurst and Rachel Agnes Melrose.The happy couple, the paper said, would reside in Rockport.
"They may reside at the bottom of the sea for all that I care," I saidthoughtlessly, not understanding then the shadow that fell for themoment on my aunt's serene face.
Long afterwards when she slept beside my father in the quiet Springvalecemetery on the bluff beyond Fingal's Creek, I found among her lettersthe romance of her life. I knew then for the first time that Rachel'suncle, the Ferdinand Melrose whose life was lost at sea, was the one forwhom this brave kind woman had mourned. Loving as the Baronets do, evenunto death, she had gone down the lonely years, forgetting herself inthe broad, beautiful, unselfish life she gave to those about her.
It was late in the August of the following year, when the Kansasprairies were brownest and the summer heat the fiercest, that I was metat the courthouse door one afternoon by a lithe, coppery Osage Indianboy, who handed me a bundle, saying, "From Hard Rope, for John Baronet'sson."
"Well, all right, sonny; only it's about time for the gentleman in thereto be known as Philip Baronet's father. He never fought the Cheyennes.He's just the father of the man who did. What's the tariff due on thisjunk?"
The Osage did not smile, but he answered mildly enough, "What you willpay."
I was not cross with the world. I could afford to be generous, even atthe risk of having the whole Osage tribe trailing at my heels, andbegging for tobacco and food and trinkets. I loaded that young buck tothe guards with the things an Indian prizes, and sent him away.
Then in my own office I undid the bundle. It was the old scarlet blanketwith the white circular centre, the pattern Jean Pahusca always wore.This one was dirty and frayed and splotched. I turned from it withloathing. In the folds of the cloth a sealed letter was securelyfastened. Some soldier had written it for Hard Rope, and the penmanshipand language were more than average fine. But the story it told I couldnot exult over, although a sense of lifted pressure in some corner ofmy mind came with the reading.
Briefly it recited that Jean Pahusca, Kiowa renegade, was dead. Custer'spenalty for him had been to give him over to the Kiowas as theircaptive. When the tribe left Fort Sill in March, Satanta had had himbrought bound to the Kiowa village then on the lower Washita. His crime,committed on the day of Custer's fight with Black Kettle, was theheinous one of stealing his Uncle Satanta's youngest and favorite wife,and leaving her to perish miserably in the cold of that December monthin which we also had suffered. His plan had been to escape from theKiowas and reach the Cheyennes on the Sweetwater before we did, to meetme there, and this time, to give no moment for my rescue. So Hard Rope'smessage ran. But this was not all. The punishment that fell on JeanPahusca was in proportion to his crime, as an Indian counts justice. Hewas sold as a slave to the Apaches and carried captive to the mountainsof Old Mexico. Nor was he ever liberated again. Up above the snow line,with the passes guarded (for Jean was as dangerous to his mother's raceas to his father's), he had fretted away his days, dying at last of coldand cruel neglect among the dreary rocks of the icy peaks. This muchinformation Hard Rope's letter brought. I burned both the letter and theblanket, telling no one of them except my father.
"This Hard Rope was for some reason very friendly to me on youraccount," I said. "He told me on the Washita the night before we leftCamp Inman that he had shadowed Jean all the time he was at Fort Sill,and had more than once prevented the half-breed from making an attack onme. He promised to let me know what became of Pahusca if he ever foundout. He has kept his word."
"I know Hard Rope," my father said. "I saved his life one annuity daylong ago. Tell Mapleson had made Jean Pahusca drunk. You k
now what kindof a beast he was then. And Tell had run this Osage into Jean's path,where he would be sure to lose his life, and Tell would have the bigpile of money Hard Rope carried. That's the kind of beast Tell was. AnIndian has his own sense of obligation; and then it is a good asset tobe humane all along the line anyhow, although I never dreamed I wassaving the man who was to save my boy."
"Shall we tell Le Claire?" I asked.
"Only that both Jean and his father are dead. We'll spare him the rest.Le Claire has gone to St. Louis to a monastery. He will never be strongagain. But he is one of the kings of the earth; he has given the bestyears of his manhood to build up a kingdom of peace between the whiteman and the savage. No record except the Great Book of human deeds willever be able to show how much we owe to men like Le Claire whoseinfluence has helped to make a loyal peaceful tribe like the Osages. Thebrutal fiendishness of the Plains Indians is the heritage of Spanishcruelty toward the ancestors of the Apache and Kiowa and Arapahoe andComanche, and you can see why they differ from our tribes here inEastern Kansas. Le Claire has done his part toward the purchase of thePlains, and I am glad for the quiet years before him."
* * * * *
It was the custom in Springvale for every girl to go up to Topeka forthe final purchases of her bridal belongings. We were to be married inOctober. In the late September days Mrs. Whately and her daughter spenta week at the capital city. I went up at the end of the visit to comehome with them. Since the death of Irving Whately nothing had everroused his wife to the pleasure of living like this preparation forMarjie's marriage, and Mrs. Whately, still a young and very prettywoman, bloomed into that mature comeliness that carries a grace ofpermanence the promise of youth may only hint at. She delighted in everydetail of the coming event, and we two most concerned were willing tolet anybody look after the details. We had other matters to think about.
"Come, little sweetheart," I said one night after supper at the TeftHouse, "your mother is to spend the evening with a friend of hers. Iwant to take you for a walk."
Strange how beautiful Topeka looked to me this September. It had all themaking of a handsome city even then, although the year since I came upto the political rally had brought no great change except to extend theborders somewhat. Like two happy young lovers we strolled out toward thesouthwest, past the hole in the ground that was to contain thefoundation of the new wings for the State Capitol, past WashburnCollege, and on to where the slender little locust tree waved its daintylacy branches in graceful welcome.
"Marjie, I want you to see this tree. It's not the first time I havebeen here. Rachel--Mrs. Tillhurst--and I came here a few times."Marjie's hand nestled softly against my arm. "I always made faces at itas soon as I got away from it; but it is a beautiful little tree, and Iwant to put you with it in my mind. It was here last Fall that my fathersaid he didn't believe that you were engaged to Amos Judson."
"Didn't believe," Marjie cried; "why, Phil, he knew I wasn't. I told himso when he was asked to urge me to marry Amos."
"He urge you to marry Amos! Now Marjie, girl, I hate to be hard on thegentleman; but if he did that it's my duty to scalp him, and I will gohome and do it."
But Marjie explained. We sat in the moonlight by the locust-tree just asRachel and I had done; only now Topeka and the tree and the silveryprairie and the black-shadowed Shunganunga Creek, winding down towardthe Kaw through many devious turns, all seemed a fairy land which themoonbeams touched and glorified for us two. I can never think of Topeka,even to-day, with its broad avenues and beautiful shaded parks and pavedways, its handsome homes and churches and colleges, with all these tomake it a proud young city--I can never think of it and leave out thatsturdy young locust, grown now to a handsome tree. And when I think ofit I do not think of the beautiful black-haired Eastern girl, with herrich dress and aristocratic manner. But always that sweet-faced,brown-eyed Kansas girl is with me there. And the open prairie dippingdown to the creek, and the purple tip of Burnett's Mound, make a settingfor the picture.
* * * * *
One October day when the wooded valley of the Neosho was in its autumnglory, when the creeping vines on the gray stone bluff were aflame withthe frost's rich scarlet painting, and the west prairies were all oneshimmering sea of gold flecked with emerald and purple; while above allthese curved the wide magnificent skies of Kansas, unclouded,fathomless, and tenderly blue; when the peace of God was in the air andhis benediction of love was on all the land,--on such a day as this, theclear-toned old Presbyterian Church bell rang the wedding chimes forMarjory Whately and Philip Baronet. Loving hands had made the church abower of autumn coloring with the dainty relief of pink and white astersagainst the bronze richness of the season. Bess Anderson played thewedding march, as we two came up the aisle together and met Dr.Hemingway at the chancel rail. I was in my young manhood's zenith, and Iwalked the earth like a king. Marjie wore my mother's wedding veil. Herwhite gown was soft and filmy, a fabric of her mother's own choosing,and her brown wavy hair was crowned with orange blossoms.
Springvale talked of that wedding for many a moon, for there was not afeature of the whole beautiful service, even to the very leastappointment, that was not perfect in its simplicity and harmonious inits blending with everything about it.
Among the guests in the Baronet home, where everybody came to wish ushappiness, was my father's friend and my own hero, Morton of the SalineValley. Somehow I needed his presence that day. It kept me in touch withmy days of greatest schooling. The quiet, forceful friend, who hadtaught me how to meet the realities of life like a man, put into mywedding a memory I shall always treasure. O'mie was still with us then.When his turn came to greet us he held Marjie's hand a moment while heslyly showed her a poor little bunch of faded brown blossoms which hecrumpled to dust in his fingers.
"I told you I wouldn't keep them no longer'n till I caught the odor ofthem orange blooms. They are the little pink wreath two other fellowsthrew away out in the West Draw long ago. The rale evidence of mygood-will to you two is locked up in Judge Baronet's safe."
We laughed, but we did not understand. Not until the Irish boy's willwas read, more than half a year later, when the pink flowers wereblooming again in the West Draw, did we comprehend the measure of hisgood-will. For by his legal last wish all his possessions, including theland, with the big cottonwood and the old stone cabin, became theproperty of Marjory Whately and her heirs and assigns forever.
Out there in later years we built our country home. The breezes ofsummer are always cool there, and from every wide window we can see thelandscape the old cottonwood still watches over. Above the gateway tothe winding road leading up from the West Draw is inscribed the name wegave the place,
O'MIE-HEIM.
Sixty years, and a white-haired, young-hearted young man I am who writethese lines. For many seasons I have sat on the Judge's bench. Law hasbeen my business on the main line, with land dealings on the side, andlove for my fellowmen all along the way. Half a century of my life hasrun parallel with the story of Kansas, whose beautiful prairies havebeen purchased not only with the coin of the country, but with the coinof courage and unparalleled endurance. To-day the rippling billows ofyellow wheat, the walls on walls of black-green corn, the stretches ofemerald alfalfa set with its gems of amethyst bloom; orchard and meadow,grove and grassy upland, where cattle pasture; populous cities andchurches and stately college halls; the whirring factory wheels, thedust of the mines, the black oil derrick and the huge reservoirs ofnatural gas, with the slender steel pathways of the great trains oftraffic binding these together; and above all, the sheltered happyhomes, where little children play never dreaming of fear; wheresweet-browed mothers think not of loneliness and anguish and peril--allthese are the splendid heritage of a land whose law is for the wholepeople, a land whose God is the Lord.
Slowly, through tribulation, and distress, and persecution, and famine,and nakedness, and peril, and sword; through fire and flood; throughs
ummer's drought and winter's blizzard; through loneliness, and fear,and heroism, and martyrdom too often at last, the brave-hearted,liberty-loving, indomitable people have come into their own, paying footby foot, the price that won this prairie kingdom in the heart of theWest.
Down through the years of busy cares, of struggle and achievement, ofhopes deferred and victories counted, my days have run in shadow andsunshine, with more of practical fact than of poetic dreaming. Andthrough them all, the call of the prairie has sounded in my soul, thevoice of a beautiful land, singing evermore its old, old song of victoryand peace. Aye, and through it all, beside me, cheering each step,holding fast my hand, making life always fine and beautiful and graciousfor me, has been my loved one, Marjie, the bride of my young manhood,the mother of my sons and daughters, the light of my life.
It is for such as she, for homes her kind have made, that men havefought and dared and died, fulfilling the high privilege of the Americancitizen, the privilege to safeguard the hearthstones of the land abovewhich the flag floats a symbol of light and law and love.
And I who write this know--for I have learned in the years whose storyis here only a half-told thing under my halting pen--I know that howeverfiercely the storms may beat, however wildly the tempests may blow,however bitter the fighting hours of the day may be, beyond the heatand burden of it all will come the quiet eventide for me, and for allthe sons and daughters of this prairie land I love. Though the roar ofbattle fill all the noontime, in the blessed twilight will come themusic of "_HOME, SWEET HOME_."
The Price of the Prairie: A Story of Kansas Page 30