54-40 or Fight

WHEN A WOMAN WOULD

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

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

One old brown woman, unhappily astride a native pony, I took to be Threlka, my lady's servant, but she rode with her class, at the rear. I looked again, until I found the baroness, clad in buckskins and blue cloth, brave as any in finery of the frontier. Doctor McLaughlin saw fit to present us formally, or rather carelessly, it not seeming to him that two so different would meet often in the future; and of course there being 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 was but a common emigrant farmer, camping like my kind. She, being of distinction, 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 must say. I grew to like well enough those blunt young fellows of the Navy. With young Lieutenant Peel especially I struck up something of a friendship. If he remained hopelessly British, at least I presume I remained quite as hopelessly American; so that we came to set aside the topic of conversation on which we could not agree.

"There is something about which you don't know," he said to me, one evening. "I am wholly unacquainted with the interior of your country. What would you say, for instance, regarding its safety for a lady traveling across—a small party, you know, of her own? I presume of course 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 her on shipboard as we could, although a lady has no place on board a warship. She had with her complete furnishings for a suite of apartments, and these were delivered ashore at Fort Vancouver. Doctor McLaughlin gave her quarters. Of course you do not know anything of this?"

I allowed him to proceed.

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

"That could not possibly be!" I declared.

"Quite so. The old trappers tell me that the mountains are impassable even in the fall. They say that unless she met some west-bound train and came back with it, the chance would be that she would never be heard of again."

"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 done my turn at living, and have seen my share of women, but never her like in any part of the world! So when she proposed to make this absurd journey, I offered to go with her. It meant of course my desertion from the Navy, and so I told her. She would not listen to it. She gives me no footing which leaves it possible for me to accompany her or to follow her. Frankly, I do not know what to do."

"It seems to me, Lieutenant Peel," I ventured, "that the most sensible thing in the world for us to do is to get together an expedition to follow 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 her in any case," said he, at length. "We don't know how long it will be before we leave the mouth of the Columbia, and then I could not count on 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 men are 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 give her every possible chance for success."

"It looks an awfully slender chance," he sighed. "You will follow as close 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 not hope to cover more than twenty-five miles a day, many days not so much as that. To be sure, there might be such a thing as her meeting wagons coming 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.

IN EXCHANGE

For sufficient reasons of my own, which have been explained, I did not care to mingle more than was necessary with the party of the Hudson Bay folk who made their quarters with the missionary families. I kept close to my own camp when not busy with my inquiries in the neighborhood, where I now began to see what could be done in the preparation of a proper outfit for the baroness. Herself I did not see for the next two days; but one evening I met her on the narrow log gallery of one of the mission houses. Without much speech we sat and looked over the pleasant prospect of the wide flats, the fringe of willow trees, the loom of the mountains off toward the east.

"Continually you surprise me, Madam," I began, at last. "Can we not persuade you to abandon this foolish plan of your going east?"

"I see no reason for abandoning it," said she. "There are some thousands of your people, men, women and children, who have crossed that trail. Why should not I?"

"But they come in large parties; they come well prepared. Each helps his neighbor."

"The distance is the same, and the method is the same."

I ceased to argue, seeing that she would not be persuaded. "At least, Madam," said I, "I have done what little I could in securing you a party. You are to have eight mules, two carts, six horses, and two men, beside old Joe Meek, the best guide now in Oregon. He would not go to save his life. He goes to save yours."

"You are always efficient," said she. "But why is it that we always have some unpleasant argument? Come, let us have tea!"

"Many teas together, Madam, if you would listen to me. Many a pot brewed deep and black by scores of camp-fires."

"Fie! Monsieur proposes a scandal."

"No, Monsieur proposes only a journey to Washington—with you, or close after you."

"Of course I can not prevent your following," she said.

"Leave it so. But as to pledges—at least I want to keep my little slipper. Is Madam's wardrobe with her? Could she humor a peevish friend so much as that? Come, now, I will make fair exchange. I will trade you again my blanket clasp for that one little shoe!"

I felt in the pocket of my coat, and held out in my hand the remnants of the same little Indian ornament which had figured between us the first night we had met. She grasped at it eagerly, turning it over in her hand.

"But see," she said, "one of the clasps is gone."

"Yes, I parted with it. But come, do I have my little slipper?"

"Wait!" said she, and left me for a moment. Presently she returned, laughing, with the little white satin foot covering in her hand.

"I warrant it is the only thing of the sort ever was seen in these buildings," she went on. "Alas! I fear I must leave most of my possessions here! I have already disposed of the furnishings of my apartment to Mr. James Douglas at Fort Vancouver. I hear he is to replace this good Doctor McLaughlin. Well, his half-breed wife will at least have good setting up for her household. Tell me, now," she concluded, "what became of the other shell from this clasp?"

"I gave it to an old man in Montreal," I answered. I went on to show her the nature of the device, as it had been explained to me by old Doctor von Rittenhofen.

"How curious!" she mused, as it became more plain to her. "Life, love, eternity! The beginning and the end of all this turmoil about passing on the torch of life. It is old, old, is it not? Tell me, who was the wise man who described all this to you?"

"Not a stranger to this very country, I imagine," was my answer. "He spent some years here in Oregon with the missionaries, engaged, as he informed me, in classifying the butterflies of this new region. A German scientist, I think, and seemingly a man of breeding."

"If I were left to guess," she broke out suddenly, "I would say it must have been this same old man who told you about the plans of the Canadian land expedition to this country."

"Continually, Madam, we find much in common. At least we both know that the Canadian expedition started west. Tell me, when will it arrive on the Columbia?"

"It will never arrive. It will never cross the Rockies. Word has gone up the Columbia now that for these men to appear in this country would bring on immediate war. That does not suit the book of England more than it does that of America."

"Then the matter will wait until you see Mr. Pakenham?"

She nodded. "I suppose so."

"You will find facts enough. Should you persist in your mad journey and get far enough to the east, you will see two thousand, three thousand men coming out to Oregon this fall. It is but the beginning. But you and I, sitting here, three thousand miles and more away from Washington, can determine this question. Madam, perhaps yet you may win your right to some humble home, with a couch of husks or straw. Sleep, then, by our camp-fires across America, and let our skies cover you at night. Our men will watch over you faithfully. Be our guest—our friend!"

"You are a good special pleader," said she; "but you do not shake me in my purpose, and I hold to my terms. It does not rest with you and me, but with another. As I have told you—as we have both agreed—"

"Then let us not speak her name," said I.

Again her eyes looked into mine, straight, large and dark. Again the spell of her beauty rose all around me, enveloped me as I had felt it do before. "You can not have Oregon, except through me," she said at last. "You can not have—her—except through me!"

"It is the truth," I answered. "In God's name, then, play the game fair."

COUNTER CURRENTS

The Oregon immigration for 1845 numbered, according to some accounts, not less than three thousand souls. Our people still rolled westward in a mighty wave. The history of that great west-bound movement is well known. The story of a yet more decisive journey of that same year never has been written—that of Helena von Ritz, from Oregon to the east. The price of that journey was an empire; its cost—ah, let me not yet speak of that.

Although Meek and I agreed that he should push east at the best possible speed, it was well enough understood that I should give him no more than a day or so start. I did not purpose to allow so risky a journey as this to be undertaken by any woman in so small a party, and made no doubt that I would overtake them at least at Fort Hall, perhaps five hundred miles east of the Missions, or at farthest at Fort Bridger, some seven hundred miles from the starting point in Oregon.

The young wife of one of the missionaries was glad enough to take passage thus for the East; and there was the silent Threlka. Those two could offer company, even did not the little Indian maid, adopted by the baroness, serve to interest her. Their equipment and supplies were as good as any purchasable. What could be done, we now had done.

Yet after all Helena von Ritz had her own way. I did not see her again after we parted that evening at the Mission. I was absent for a couple of days with a hunting party, and on my return discovered that she was gone, with no more than brief farewell to those left behind! Meek was anxious as herself to be off; but he left word for me to follow on at once.

Gloom now fell upon us all. Doctor Whitman, the only white man ever to make the east-bound journey from Oregon, encouraged us as best he could; but young Lieutenant Peel was the picture of despair, nor did he indeed fail in the prophecy he made to me; for never again did he set eyes on the face of Helena von Ritz, and never again did I meet him. I heard, years later, that he died of fever on the China coast.

It may be supposed that I myself now hurried in my plans. I was able to make up a small party of four men, about half the number Meek took with him; and I threw together such equipment as I could find remaining, not wholly to my liking, but good enough, I fancied, to overtake a party headed by a woman. But one thing after another cost us time, and we did not average twenty miles a day. I felt half desperate, as I reflected on what this might mean. As early fall was approaching, I could expect, in view of my own lost time, to encounter the annual wagon train two or three hundred miles farther westward than the object of my pursuit naturally would have done. As a matter of fact, my party met the wagons at a point well to the west of Fort Hall.

It was early in the morning we met them coming west,—that long, weary, dust-covered, creeping caravan, a mile long, slow serpent, crawling westward across the desert. In time I came up to the head of the tremendous wagon train of 1845, and its leader and myself threw up our hands in the salutation of the wilderness.

The leader's command to halt was passed back from one wagon to another, over more than a mile of trail. As we dismounted, there came hurrying up about us men and women, sunburned, lean, ragged, abandoning their wagons and crowding to hear the news from Oregon. I recall the picture well enough to-day—the sun-blistered sands all about, the short and scraggly sage-brush, the long line of white-topped wagons dwindling in the distance, the thin-faced figures which crowded about.

The captain stood at the head of the front team, his hand resting on the yoke as he leaned against the bowed neck of one of the oxen. The men and women were thin almost as the beasts which dragged the wagons. These latter stood with lolling tongues even thus early in the day, for water hereabout was scarce and bitter to the taste. So, at first almost in silence, we made the salutations of the desert. So, presently, we exchanged the news of East and West. So, I saw again my canvas of the fierce west-bound.

There is to-day no news of the quality which we then communicated. These knew nothing of Oregon. I knew nothing of the East. A national election had been held, regarding which I knew not even the names of the candidates of either party, not to mention the results. All I could do was to guess and to point to the inscription on the white top of the foremost wagon: "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!"

"Is Polk elected?" I asked the captain of the train.

He nodded. "He shore is," said he. "We're comin' out to take Oregon. What's the news?"

My own grim news was that Oregon was ours and must be ours. I shook hands with a hundred men on that, our hands clasped in stern and silent grip. Then, after a time, I urged other questions foremost in my own mind. Had they seen a small party east-bound?

Yes, I had answer. They had passed this light outfit east of Bridger's post. There was one chance in a hundred they might get over the South Pass that fall, for they were traveling light and fast, with good animals, and old Joe Meek was sure he would make it through. The women? Well, one was a preacher's wife, another an old Gipsy, and another the most beautiful woman ever seen on the trail or anywhere else. Why was she going east instead of west, away from Oregon instead of to Oregon? Did I know any of them? I was following them? Then I must hurry, for soon the snow would come in the Rockies. They had seen no Indians. Well, if I was following them, there would be a race, and they wished me well! But why go East, instead of West?

Then they began to question me regarding Oregon. How was the land? Would it raise wheat and corn and hogs? How was the weather? Was there much game? Would it take much labor to clear a farm? Was there any likelihood of trouble with the Indians or with the Britishers? Could a man really get a mile square of good farm land without trouble? And so on, and so on, as we sat in the blinding sun in the sage-brush desert until midday.

Of course it came to politics. Yes, Texas had been annexed, somehow, not by regular vote of the Senate. There was some hitch about that. My leader reckoned there was no regular treaty. It had just been done by joint resolution of the House—done by Tyler and Calhoun, just in time to take the feather out of old Polk's cap! The treaty of annexation—why, yes, it was ratified by Congress, and everything signed up March third, just one day before Polk's inaugural! Polk was on the warpath, according to my gaunt leader. There was going to be war as sure as shooting, unless we got all of Oregon. We had offered Great Britain a fair show, and in return she had claimed everything south to the Columbia, so now we had withdrawn all soft talk. It looked like war with Mexico and England both. Never mind, in that case we would whip them both!

"Do you see that writin' on my wagon top?" asked the captain. "Fifty-four Forty or Fight. That's us!"

And so they went on to tell us how this cry was spreading, South and West, and over the North as well; although the Whigs did not dare cry it quite so loudly.

"They want the land, just the same," said the captain. "We all want it, an', by God! we're goin' to git it!"

And so at last we parted, each the better for the information gained, each to resume what would to-day seem practically an endless journey. Our farewells were as careless, as confident, as had been our greetings. Thousands of miles of unsettled country lay east and west of us, and all around us, our empire, not then won.

History tells how that wagon train went through, and how its settlers scattered all along the Willamette and the Columbia and the Walla Walla, and helped us to hold Oregon. For myself, the chapter of accidents continued. I was detained at Fort Hall, and again east of there. I met straggling immigrants coming on across the South Pass to winter at Bridger's post; but finally I lost all word of Meek's party, and could only suppose that they had got over the mountains.

I made the journey across the South Pass, the snow being now beaten down on the trails more than usual by the west-bound animals and vehicles. Of all these now coming on, none would get farther west than Fort Hall that year. Our own party, although over the Rockies, had yet the Plains to cross. I was glad enough when we staggered into old Fort Laramie in the midst of a blinding snow-storm. Winter had caught us fair and full. I had lost the race!

Here, then, I must winter. Yet I learned that Joe Meek had outfitted at Laramie almost a month earlier, with new animals; had bought a little grain, and, under escort of a cavalry troop which had come west with the wagon train, had started east in time, perhaps, to make it through to the Missouri. In a race of one thousand miles, the baroness had already beaten me almost by a month! Further word was, of course, now unobtainable, for no trains or wagons would come west so late, and there were then no stages carrying mail across the great Plains. There was nothing for me to do except to wait and eat out my heart at old Fort Laramie, in the society of Indians and trappers, half-breeds and traders. The winter seemed years in length, so gladly I make its story brief.

It was now the spring of 1846, and I was in my second year away from Washington. Glad enough I was when in the first sunshine of spring I started east, taking my chances of getting over the Plains. At last, to make the long journey also brief, I did reach Fort Leavenworth, by this time a five months' loser in the transcontinental race. It was a new annual wagon train which I now met rolling westward. Such were times and travel not so long ago.

Little enough had come of my two years' journey out to Oregon. Like to the army of the French king, I had marched up the hill and then marched down again. As much might have been said of the United States; and the same was yet more true of Great Britain, whose army of occupation had not even marched wholly up the hill. So much as this latter fact I now could tell my own government; and I could say that while Great Britain's fleet held the sea entry, the vast and splendid interior of an unknown realm was open on the east to our marching armies of settlers. Now I could describe that realm, even though the plot of events advanced but slowly regarding it. It was a plot of the stars, whose work is done in no haste.

Oregon still was held in that oft renewed and wholly absurd joint occupancy, so odious and so dangerous to both nations. Two years were taken from my life in learning that—and in learning that this question of Oregon's final ownership was to be decided not on the Pacific, not on the shoulders of the Blues or the Cascades, but in the east, there at Washington, after all. The actual issue was in the hands of the God of Battles, who sometimes uses strange instruments for His ends. It was not I, it was not Mr. Calhoun, not any of the officers of our government, who could get Oregon for us. It was the God of Battles, whose instrument was a woman, Helena von Ritz. After all, this was the chief fruit of my long journey.

As to the baroness, she had long since left Fort Leavenworth for the East. I followed still with what speed I could employ. I could not reach Washington now until long after the first buds would be out and the creepers growing green on the gallery of Mr. Calhoun's residence. Yes, green also on all the lattices of Elmhurst Mansion. What had happened there for me?

THE PAYMENT

When I reached Washington it was indeed spring, warm, sweet spring. In the wide avenues the straggling trees were doing their best to dignify the city, and flowers were blooming everywhere. Wonderful enough did all this seem to me after thousands of miles of rude scenery of bare valleys and rocky hills, wild landscapes, seen often through cold and blinding storms amid peaks and gorges, or on the drear, forbidding Plains.

Used more, of late, to these wilder scenes, I felt awkward and still half savage. I did not at once seek out my own friends. My first wish was to get in touch with Mr. Calhoun, for I knew that so I would most quickly arrive at the heart of events.

He was away when I called at his residence on Georgetown Heights, but at last I heard the wheels of his old omnibus, and presently he entered with his usual companion, Doctor Samuel Ward. When they saw me there, then indeed I received a greeting which repaid me for many things! This over, we all three broke out in laughter at my uncouth appearance. I was clad still in such clothing as I could pick up in western towns as I hurried on from the Missouri eastward; and I had as yet found no time for barbers.

"We have had no word from you, Nicholas," said Mr. Calhoun presently, "since that from Laramie, in the fall of eighteen forty-four. This is in the spring of eighteen forty-six! Meantime, we might all have been dead and buried and none of us the wiser. What a country! 'Tis more enormous than the mind of any of us can grasp."

"You should travel across it to learn that," I grinned.

"Many things have happened since you left. You know that I am back in the Senate once more?"

I nodded. "And about Texas?" I began.

"Texas is ours," said he, smiling grimly. "You have heard how? It was a hard fight enough—a bitter, selfish, sectional fight among politicians. But there is going to be war. Our troops crossed the Sabine more than a year ago. They will cross the Rio Grande before this year is done. The Mexican minister has asked for his passports. The administration has ordered General Taylor to advance. Mr. Polk is carrying out annexation with a vengeance. Seeing a chance for more territory, now that Texas is safe from England, he plans war on helpless and deserted Mexico! We may hear of a battle now at any time. But this war with Mexico may yet mean war with England. That, of course, endangers our chance to gain all or any of that great Oregon country. Tell me, what have you learned?"

I hurried on now with my own news, briefly as I might. I told them of the ships of England's Navy waiting in Oregon waters; of the growing suspicion of the Hudson Bay people; of the changes in the management at Fort Vancouver; of the change also from a conciliatory policy to one of half hostility. I told them of our wagon trains going west, and of the strength of our frontiersmen; but offset this, justly as I might, by giving facts also regarding the opposition these might meet.

"Precisely," said Calhoun, walking up and down, his head bent. "England is prepared for war! How much are we prepared? It would cost us the revenues of a quarter of a century to go to war with her to-day. It would cost us fifty thousand lives. We would need an army of two hundred and fifty thousand men. Where is all that to come from? Can we transport our army there in time? But had all this bluster ceased, then we could have deferred this war with Mexico; could have bought with coin what now will cost us blood; and we could also have bought Oregon without the cost of either coin or blood. Delay was what we needed! All of Oregon should have been ours!"

"But, surely, this is not all news to you?" I began. "Have you not seen the Baroness von Ritz? Has she not made her report?"

"The baroness?" queried Calhoun. "That stormy petrel—that advance agent of events! Did she indeed sail with the British ships from Montreal? Did you find her there—in Oregon?"

"Yes, and lost her there! She started east last summer, and beat me fairly in the race. Has she not made known her presence here? She told me she was going to Washington."

He shook his head in surprise. "Trouble now, I fear! Pakenham has back his best ally, our worst antagonist."

"That certainly is strange," said I. "She had five months the start of me, and in that time there is no telling what she has done or undone. Surely, she is somewhere here, in Washington! She held Texas in her shoes. I tell you she holds Oregon in her gloves to-day!"

I started up, my story half untold.

"Where are you going?" asked Mr. Calhoun of me. Doctor Ward looked at me, smiling. "He does not inquire of a certain young lady—"

"I am going to find the Baroness von Ritz!" said I. I flushed red under my tan, I doubt not; but I would not ask a word regarding Elisabeth.

Doctor Ward came and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Republics forget," said he, "but men from South Carolina do not. Neither do girls from Maryland. Do you think so?"

"That is what I am going to find out."

"How then? Are you going to Elmhurst as you look now?"

"No. I shall find out many things by first finding the Baroness von Ritz." And before they could make further protests, I was out and away.

I hurried now to a certain side street, of which I have made mention, and knocked confidently at a door I knew. The neighborhood was asleep in the warm sun. I knocked a second time, and began to doubt, but at last heard slow footsteps.

There appeared at the crack of the door the wrinkled visage of the old serving-woman, Threlka. I knew that she would be there in precisely this way, because there was every reason in the world why it should not have been. She paused, scanning me closely, then quickly opened the door and allowed me to step inside, vanishing as was her wont. I heard another step in a half-hidden hallway beyond, but this was not the step which I awaited; it was that of a man, slow, feeble, hesitating. I started forward as a face appeared at the parted curtains. A glad cry welcomed me in turn. A tall, bent form approached me, and an arm was thrown about my shoulder. It was my whilom friend, our ancient scientist, Von Rittenhofen! I did not pause to ask how he happened to be there. It was quite natural, since it was wholly impossible. I made no wonder at the Chinese dog Chow, or the little Indian maid, who both came, stared, and silently vanished. Seeing these, I knew that their strange protector must also have won through safe.

"Ach, Gott! Gesegneter Gott! I see you again, my friend!" Thus the old Doctor.

"But tell me," I interrupted, "where is the mistress of this house, the Baroness von Ritz?"

He looked at me in his mild way. "You mean my daughter Helena?"

Now at last I smiled. His daughter! This at least was too incredible! He turned and reached behind him to a little table. He held up before my eyes my little blanket clasp of shell. Then I knew that this last and most impossible thing also was true, and that in some way these two had found each other! But why? What could he now mean?

"Listen now," he began, "and I shall tell you. I wass in the street one day. When I walk alone, I do not much notice. But now, as I walk, before my eyes on the street, I see what? This—this, the Tah Gook! At first, I see nothing but it. Then I look up. Before me iss a woman, young and beautiful. Ach! what should I do but take her in my arms!"

"It was she; it was—"

"My daughter! Yess, my daughter. It iss Helena! I haf not seen her for many years, long, cruel years. I suppose her dead. But now there we were, standing, looking in each other's eyes! We see there—Ach, Gott! what do we not see? Yet in spite of all, it wass Helena. But she shall tell you." He tottered from the room.

I heard his footsteps pass down the hall. Then softly, almost silently, Helena von Ritz again stood before me. The light from a side window fell upon her face. Yes, it was she! Her face was thinner now, browner even than was its wont. Her hair was still faintly sunburned at its extremities by the western winds. Yet hers was still imperishable youth and beauty.

I held out my hands to her. "Ah," I cried, "you played me false! You ran away! By what miracle did you come through? I confess my defeat. You beat me by almost half a year."

"But now you have come," said she simply.

"Yes, to remind you that you have friends. You have been here in secret all the winter. Mr. Calhoun did not know you had come. Why did you not go to him?"

"I was waiting for you to come. Do you not remember our bargain? Each day I expected you. In some way, I scarce knew how, the weeks wore on."

"And now I find you both here—you and your father—where I would expect to find neither. Continually you violate all law of likelihood. But now, you have seen Elisabeth?"

"Yes, I have seen her," she said, still simply.

I could think of no word suited to that moment. I stood only looking at her. She would have spoken, but on the instant raised a hand as though to demand my silence. I heard a loud knock at the door, peremptory, commanding, as though the owner came.

"You must go into another room," said Helena von Ritz to me hurriedly.

"Who is it? Who is it at the door?" I asked.

She looked at me calmly. "It is Sir Richard Pakenham," said she. "This is his usual hour. I will send him away. Go now—quick!"

I rapidly passed behind the screening curtains into the hall, even as I heard a heavy foot stumbling at the threshold and a somewhat husky voice offer some sort of salutation.

PAKENHAM'S PRICE

The apartment into which I hurriedly stepped I found to be a long and narrow hall, heavily draped. A door or so made off on the right-hand side, and a closed door also appeared at the farther end; but none invited me to enter, and I did not care to intrude. This situation did not please me, because I must perforce hear all that went on in the rooms which I had just left. I heard the thick voice of a man, apparently none the better for wine.

"My dear," it began, "I—" Some gesture must have warned him.

"God bless my soul!" he began again. "Who is here, then? What is wrong?"

"My father is here to-day," I heard her clear voice answer, "and, as you suggest, it might perhaps be better—"

"God bless my soul!" he repeated. "But, my dear, then I must go! To-night, then! Where is that other key? It would never do, you know—"

"No, Sir Richard, it would never do. Go, then!" spoke a low and icy voice, hers, yet not hers. "Hasten!" I heard her half whisper. "I think perhaps my father—"

But it was my own footsteps they heard. This was something to which I could not be party. Yet, rapidly as I walked, her visitor was before me. I caught sight only of his portly back, as the street door closed behind him. She stood, her back against the door, her hand spread out against the wall, as though to keep me from passing.

I paused and looked at her, held by the horror in her eyes. She made no concealment, offered no apologies, and showed no shame. I repeat that it was only horror and sadness mingled which I saw upon her face.

"Madam," I began. And again, "Madam!" and then I turned away.

"You see," she said, sighing.

"Yes, I fear I see; but I wish I did not. Can I not—may I not be mistaken?"

"No, it is true. There is no mistake."

"What have you done? Why? Why?"

"Did you not always credit me with being the good friend of Mr. Pakenham years ago—did not all the city? Well, then I was not; but I am, now! I was England's agent only—until last night. Monsieur, you have come too soon, too late, too late. Ah, my God! my God! Last night I gave at last that consent. He comes now to claim, to exact, to take—possession—of me ... Ah, my God!"

"I can not, of course, understand you, Madam. What is it? Tell me!"

"For three years England's minister besought me to be his, not England's, property. It was not true, what the town thought. It was not true in the case either of Yturrio. Intrigue—yes—I loved it. I intrigued with England and Mexico both, because it was in my nature; but no more than that. No matter what I once was in Europe, I was not here—not, as I said, until last night. Ah, Monsieur! Ah, Monsieur!" Now her hands were beating together.

"But why then? Why then? What do you mean?" I demanded.

"Because no other way sufficed. All this winter, here, alone, I have planned and thought about other means. Nothing would do. There was but the one way. Now you see why I did not go to Mr. Calhoun, why I kept my presence here secret."

"But you saw Elisabeth?"

"Yes, long ago. My friend, you have won! You both have won, and I have lost. She loves you, and is worthy of you. You are worthy of each other, yes. I saw I had lost; and I told you I would pay my wager. I told you I would give you her—and Oregon! Well, then, that last was—hard." She choked. "That was—hard to do." She almost sobbed. "But I have—paid! Heart and soul ... and body ... I have ... paid! Now, he comes ... for ... the price!"

"But then—but then!" I expostulated. "What does this mean, that I see here? There was no need for this. Had you no friends among us? Why, though it meant war, I myself to-night would choke that beast Pakenham with my own hands!"

"No, you will not."

"But did I not hear him say there was a key—his key—to-night?"

"Yes, England once owned that key. Now, he does. Yes, it is true. Since yesterday. Now, he comes ..."

"But, Madam—ah, how could you so disappoint my belief in you?"

"Because"—she smiled bitterly—"in all great causes there are sacrifices."

"But no cause could warrant this."

"I was judge of that," was her response. "I saw her—Elisabeth—that girl. Then I saw what the future years meant for me. I tell you, I vowed with her, that night when I thought you two were wedded. I did more. I vowed myself to a new and wider world that night. Now, I have lost it. After all, seeing I could not now be a woman and be happy, I—Monsieur—I pass on to others, after this, not that torture of life, but that torturing principle of which we so often spoke. Yes, I, even as I am; because by this—this act—this sacrifice—I can win you for her. And I can win that wider America which you have coveted; which I covet for you—which I covet with you!"

I could do no more than remain silent, and allow her to explain what was not in the least apparent to me. After a time she went on.

"Now—now, I say—Pakenham the minister is sunk in Pakenham the man. He does as I demand—because he is a man. He signs what I demand because I am a woman. I say, to-night—but, see!"

She hastened now to a little desk, and caught up a folded document which lay there. This she handed to me, unfolded, and I ran it over with a hasty glance. It was a matter of tremendous importance which lay in those few closely written lines.

England's minister offered, over the signature of England, a compromise of the whole Oregon debate, provided this country would accept the line of the forty-ninth degree! That, then, was Pakenham's price for this key that lay here.

"This—this is all I have been able to do with him thus far," she faltered. "It is not enough. But I did it for you!"

"Madam, this is more than all America has been able to do before! This has not been made public?"

"No, no! It is not enough. But to-night I shall make him surrender all—all north, to the very ice, for America, for the democracy! See, now, I was born to be devoted, immolated, after all, as my mother was before me. That is fate! But I shall make fate pay! Ah, Monsieur! Ah, Monsieur!"

She flung herself to her feet. "I can get it all for you, you and yours!" she reiterated, holding out her hands, the little pink fingers upturned, as was often her gesture. "You shall go to your chief and tell him that Mr. Polk was right—that you yourself, who taught Helena von Ritz what life is, taught her that after all she was a woman—are able, because she was a woman, to bring in your own hands all that country, yes, to fifty-four forty, or even farther. I do not know what all can be done. I only know that a fool will part with everything for the sake of his body."

I stood now looking at her, silent, trying to fathom the vastness of what she said, trying to understand at all their worth the motives which impelled her. The largeness of her plan, yes, that could be seen. The largeness of her heart and brain, yes, that also. Then, slowly, I saw yet more. At last I understood. What I saw was a horror to my soul.

"Madam," said I to her, at last, "did you indeed think me so cheap as that? Come here!" I led her to the central apartment, and motioned her to a seat.

"Now, then, Madam, much has been done here, as you say. It is all that ever can be done. You shall not see Pakenham to-night, nor ever again!"

"But think what that will cost you!" she broke out. "This is only part. It should all be yours."

I flung the document from me. "This has already cost too much," I said. "We do not buy states thus."

"But it will cost you your future! Polk is your enemy, now, as he is Calhoun's. He will not strike you now, but so soon as he dares, he will. Now, if you could do this—if you could take this to Mr. Calhoun, to America, it would mean for you personally all that America could give you in honors."

"Honors without honor, Madam, I do not covet," I replied. Then I would have bit my tongue through when I saw the great pallor cross her face at the cruelty of my speech.

"And myself?" she said, spreading out her hands again. "But no! I know you would not taunt me. I know, in spite of what you say, there must be a sacrifice. Well, then, I have made it. I have made my atonement. I say I can give you now, even thus, at least a part of Oregon. I can perhaps give you all of Oregon—to-morrow! The Pakenhams have always dared much to gain their ends. This one will dare even treachery to his country. To-morrow—if I do not kill him—if I do not die—I can perhaps give you all of Oregon—bought—bought and ... paid!" Her voice trailed off into a whisper which seemed loud as a bugle call to me.

"No, you can not give us Oregon," I answered. "We are men, not panders. We fight; we do not traffic thus. But you have given me Elisabeth!"

"My rival!" She smiled at me in spite of all. "But no, not my rival. Yes, I have already given you her and given you to her. To do that—to atone, as I said, for my attempt to part you—well, I will give Mr. Pakenham the key that Sir Richard Pakenham of England lately held. I told you a woman pays, body and soul! In what coin fate gave me, I will pay it. You think my morals mixed. No, I tell you I am clean! I have only bought my own peace with my own conscience! Now, at last, Helena von Ritz knows why she was born, to what end! I have a work to do, and, yes, I see it now—my journey to America after all was part of the plan of fate. I have learned much—through you, Monsieur."

Hurriedly she turned and left me, passing through the heavy draperies which cut off the room where stood the great satin couch. I saw her cast herself there, her arms outflung. Slow, deep and silent sobs shook all her body.

"Madam! Madam!" I cried to her. "Do not! Do not! What you have done here is worth a hundred millions of dollars, a hundred thousand of lives, perhaps. Yes, that is true. It means most of Oregon, with honor, and without war. That is true, and it is much. But the price paid—it is more than all this continent is worth, if it cost so much as that Nor shall it!"

Black, with a million pin-points of red, the world swam around me. Millions of dead souls or souls unborn seemed to gaze at me and my unhesitating rage. I caught up the scroll which bore England's signature, and with one clutch cast it in two pieces on the floor. As it lay, we gazed at it in silence. Slowly, I saw a great, soft radiance come upon her face. The red pin-points cleared away from my own vision.

THE STORY OF HELENA VON RITZ