54-40 or Fight

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  WHEN A WOMAN WOULD

  The two pleasantest days of a woman are her marriage day and the day of her funeral.--_Hipponax_.

  My garden at the Willamette might languish if it liked, and my littlecabin might stand in uncut wheat. For me, there were other matters ofmore importance now. I took leave of hospitable Doctor McLaughlin atFort Vancouver with proper expressions of the obligation due for hishospitality; but I said nothing to him, of course, of having met themysterious baroness, nor did I mention definitely that I intended tomeet them both again at no distant date. None the less, I prepared toset out at once up the Columbia River trail.

  From Fort Vancouver to the missions at Wailatpu was a distance by trailof more than two hundred miles. This I covered horseback, rapidly, andarrived two or three days in advance of the English. Nothing disturbedthe quiet until, before noon of one day, we heard the gun fire and theshoutings which in that country customarily made announcement of thearrival of a party of travelers. Being on the lookout for these, I soondiscovered them to be my late friends of the Hudson Bay Post.

  One old brown woman, unhappily astride a native pony, I took to beThrelka, my lady's servant, but she rode with her class, at the rear. Ilooked again, until I found the baroness, clad in buckskins and bluecloth, brave as any in finery of the frontier. Doctor McLaughlin saw fitto present us formally, or rather carelessly, it not seeming to him thattwo so different would meet often in the future; and of course therebeing no dream even in his shrewd mind that we had ever met in the past.This supposition fitted our plans, even though it kept us apart. I wasbut a common emigrant farmer, camping like my kind. She, being ofdistinction, dwelt with the Hudson Bay party in the mission buildings.

  We lived on here for a week, visiting back and forth in amity, as I mustsay. I grew to like well enough those blunt young fellows of the Navy.With young Lieutenant Peel especially I struck up something of afriendship. If he remained hopelessly British, at least I presume Iremained quite as hopelessly American; so that we came to set aside thetopic of conversation on which we could not agree.

  "There is something about which you don't know," he said to me, oneevening. "I am wholly unacquainted with the interior of your country.What would you say, for instance, regarding its safety for a ladytraveling across--a small party, you know, of her own? I presume ofcourse you know whom I mean?"

  I nodded. "You must mean the Baroness von Ritz."

  "Yes. She has been traveling abroad. Of course we took such care of heron shipboard as we could, although a lady has no place on board awarship. She had with her complete furnishings for a suite ofapartments, and these were delivered ashore at Fort Vancouver. DoctorMcLaughlin gave her quarters. Of course you do not know anything ofthis?"

  I allowed him to proceed.

  "Well, she has told us calmly that she plans crossing this country fromhere to the Eastern States!"

  "That could not possibly be!" I declared.

  "Quite so. The old trappers tell me that the mountains are impassableeven in the fall. They say that unless she met some west-bound train andcame back with it, the chance would be that she would never be heard ofagain."

  "You have personal interest in this?" I interrupted.

  He nodded, flushing a little. "Awfully so," said he.

  "I would have the right to guess you were hit pretty hard?"

  "To the extent of asking her to become my wife!" said he firmly,although his fair face flushed again.

  "You do not in the least know her," he went on. "In my case, I have donemy turn at living, and have seen my share of women, but never her likein any part of the world! So when she proposed to make this absurdjourney, I offered to go with her. It meant of course my desertion fromthe Navy, and so I told her. She would not listen to it. She gives me nofooting which leaves it possible for me to accompany her or to followher. Frankly, I do not know what to do."

  "It seems to me, Lieutenant Peel," I ventured, "that the most sensiblething in the world for us to do is to get together an expedition tofollow her."

  He caught me by the hand. "You do not tell me _you_ would do that?"

  "It seems a duty."

  "But could you yourself get through?"

  "As to that, no one can tell. I did so coming west."

  He sat silent for a time. "It will be the last I shall ever see of herin any case," said he, at length. "We don't know how long it will bebefore we leave the mouth of the Columbia, and then I could not counton finding her. You do not think me a fool for telling you what I have?"

  "No," said I. "I do not blame you for being a fool. All men who are menare fools over women, one time or other."

  "Good luck to you, then! Now, what shall we do?"

  "In the first place," said I, "if she insists upon going, let us giveher every possible chance for success."

  "It looks an awfully slender chance," he sighed. "You will follow asclose on their heels as you can?"

  "Of that you may rest assured."

  "What is the distance, do you think?"

  "Two thousand miles at least, before she could be safe. She could nothope to cover more than twenty-five miles a day, many days not so muchas that. To be sure, there might be such a thing as her meeting wagonscoming out; and, as you say, she might return."

  "You do not know her!" said he. "She will not turn back."

  I had full reason to agree with him.