From the West to the West

“Don’t you know it’s against the laws of your country to harbor a runaway nigger?” asked the Captain, in genuine alarm. “We’ll never get off o’ Missouri soil in this world if we’re caught hiding this wench and her pickaninny among our traps. She’s got to get away from here in a hurry.”

“So far as the laws go, I don’t care a rap, John. I, nor no other woman, ever took a hand in making any of ’em. And as for Missouri soil, it’s good enough for anybody. I’m quite enamored of it; and I feel perfectly willing to stay here as long as I live.”

“I don’t want to make no trouble for nobody, massa,” sobbed the fugitive, peeping from her covert like a beast at bay. “De missus done tuk keep o’ me ’dout ’siderin’ any consikenses. Didn’t ye, honey?”

“There was nothing else I could do,” said Mrs. Ranger, firmly, though her cheeks blanched with an unspoken fear.

“Dey was goin’ to sell me down Souf, an’ keep my coon for a body-servant for his own pappy’s new bride dat’s a-comin’ to de plantation nex’ week. Wusn’t dey, dawlin’?” holding aloft her mulatto offspring, who blinked at the rising sun. “’Fo’ God, massa, I won’t make a speck o’ trouble. I’ll jest keep a hidin’ till we git across de Missouri Ribbah. Take me ’long to Oregon, an’ ye won’t nebbah be sorry.”

“I’ve already agreed to take along one widow and her babies,” said the Captain, exchanging glances with Jean. “It doesn’t seem possible to add to the number.”

“Jes’ le’ me ride a hidin’ in a wagon till I get across de Missouri Ribbah, massa! I kin take keer o’ myself an’ my pickaninny too, if you’ll turn me loose among de Injuns.”

“It is the slaveholding, free American white man that the poor creature’s afraid of,” said Mrs. Ranger, with a bitter smile.

Again the deep baying of the bloodhounds betokened the finding of the trail.

“Climb back into the wagon, quick,” cried the Captain, “and take care that you keep out o’ sight! Deluge the wagon-wheel and all around it with water, gals. Don’t let the wench put her nose out, Annie. Hang the luck! When it comes to such a pass that a runaway wench would rather trust herself and her brat among the red savages of the plains than among her white owners in a free country, I get ashamed of a white man’s government. What’s the wench’s name?”

“She said it was Dugs.”

“The devil!”

“Don’t swear, John. She didn’t name herself.”

“And the name of the coon?”

“Geo’ge Washin’t’n, sah. I named him for de faddah o’ de kentry. He’s as han’some a coon as ebber had a white daddy. Ain’t ye, honey?” And the mother held him close. “Yo’s a flower o’ slavery, ain’t ye, dawlin’?” a hidden meaning in her voice.

Again the deep baying of the bloodhounds was heard. But they were taking the back trail. The fugitive laughed.

“De way we larn ’em dat trick is a niggah’s secret,” she said, as she again hid herself and child.

“My massa didn’t use to b’lieve in slavery, missus,” she said, as the baying of the dogs grew faint and distant. “When massa first ’herited his slaves, he used to tell us he’d set us free. But he got a habit o’ holdin’ on to us, an’ it jist growed on him. It was like de whiskey habit. It got fastened on him good an’ ha’d, and he didn’t talk ’bout manumittin’ us no mo’. He didn’t want to sell me, he said, but I was prope’ty, an’ times got bad, an’ he was ’bleeged to have money to pay his debts. His new wife’s ’spensive, awful, an’ he had to sell some o’ de niggahs. If he’d sol’ me an’ Geo’dy Wah too, I wouldn’t ’a’ runned away. But when he said he’d sell me, an’ keep my coon to be his new wife’s niggah, I couldn’t stan’ it nohow, so I scooted!” and the negress laughed heartily.

“Do you think you can hide her for a week, Annie? We’ll be across the Missouri River, by that time.”

“I’ll do my best, John. We’re running a terrible risk, though. Sometimes, when I think of the sins of this so-called free government, all committed in the name of Liberty, I long to turn rebel, and do my best to destroy it, root and branch.”

“I had a husban’ once, suh. But massa tuk a liken’ to me, so he sol’ him down Souf,” said the fugitive.

“And this baby?”

“Is my massa’s own coon. Massa wouldn’t ’a’ sol’ him nohow.”

“Be quick!” cried Jean, her breath hot with indignation. “Hide yourself! You mustn’t let the teamsters see you here. They’re coming in with the cattle now.”

“Gimme some quilts an’ blankets, honey. Dah! Hol’ ’em up, so! Now lemme make an Injun wickiup in one end o’ dis yah wagon. Geo’ge Washin’t’n ’ll be still as a lamb. Won’t ye, my putty ’ittle yallow coon?”

The baby, with its tawny skin, blue eyes, and blackish-brown, tangled curls, looked elfish as he nestled close to his mother’s breast and gazed affrighted into her turban-shaded eyes.

“Sh-sh-sh!” cried Jean; “the men are almost here. Keep close to your den and be very quiet.”

Day after day passed wearily along; but if the teamsters suspected aught, they made no sign. And day after day the teams wended their way westward without betraying the commission of this crime against the commonwealth of the great new State of Missouri and the free government of the United States of America, which it would have been base flattery to call a misdemeanor; as its perpetrators would have learned to their cost if they had been caught in the act.

“You don’t seem as happy as formerly,” said Captain Ranger to his wife at the close of a long and trying day. “If the risk we’re running by harboring that runaway nigger is making you uneasy, we can turn her out. A man’s first duty is to his own flesh and blood.”

“It isn’t that, John. The woman is no trouble; and her baby’s so afraid of bloodhounds that she keeps him as quiet as a mouse. I’m willing to risk my life to get them both away from their white owners and out into the Indians’ country, where they may have at least comparative freedom. I am not afraid.”

“Then what is the matter, dear?”

She toyed caressingly with his hair and beard, but said nothing. They were seated on a log by the roadside, and a laughing rivulet sprawled at their feet.

“Speak, Annie; don’t hesitate. I can hear your heart beat. What’s the matter?”

“You remember my little farm, John? It’s only ten acres, you know.”

“Yes; what of it?”

“You won’t be angry, John?”

“Of course not. What about it?”

“I want to deed the place over to my mother before we leave the State o’ Missouri.”

His manner changed instantly.

“I thought that matter was settled,” he said tersely. “Can’t you let me have a little peace?”

“I have held my peace as long as my conscience will let me, dear. You didn’t settle anything about it. You merely put me off, you know.”

“Well?”

A man can put a world of meaning into a monosyllable sometimes.

“I want you to let me deed that piece of property to my mother. If the deed were made to my father, and she should outlive him, she’d be only allowed to occupy it free from rent for one year after his death; but if it is made hers absolutely, and he should outlive her, he’ll be allowed to have a home and get his living off it as long as he lives. You see, it makes a difference whether it is a cow or an ox that is gored,” and she smiled grimly.

“The women are all getting their heads turned over the question of property,” said Captain Ranger to himself as he watched the rivulet playing at his feet.

“Jean’s been putting this into your head, Annie,” he said after a painful silence.

“The child has a strong sense of justice, inherited from you, John. You know she is wonderfully like you.”

“Yes, yes, Annie. I wish she had been a boy instead o’ Hal. She’d have made a rackin’ good lawyer.”

“I’ll admit that she advised me to urge you to make the deed, John.”

“Very well; we’ll see about it sometime, Annie” and he arose to go.

Mrs. Ranger’s heart sank.

“Why is it that men who are proverbially just and upright in their dealings with their fellow-men are so often derelict in duty where women, especially their own wives, are concerned?” she asked herself as she tottered by his side in silence.

The next morning found her unable to rise. A racking cough, which had disturbed her all through the night, was followed at daybreak by a burning fever. Her husband, who had slept like a top in an adjoining tent, was startled when he saw the ravages the night had left upon her pinched, white face.

“You caught cold last night, darling,” he said, as he prescribed a simple remedy. “You ought not to have been sitting out in the night air.”

“That didn’t hurt me, John.”

“Then it is the apprehension you suffer on account o’ that wench that is making you sick.”

“No, John; it isn’t that at all.”

“Then what is it?”

“Ask Jean. I have nothing more to say.”

But there was no time for further parleying. The breakfast was ready, and the hurry of preparation for departure was the theme of the hour.

“We reached camp in a pouring rain last night and pitched our tents, amid much discomfort, on the outskirts of the little town of St. Joseph,” wrote Jean on the morning of the fifth of May. “But I haven’t much time for you, my journal, for there are other things to claim attention,” and she shut the book with the usual impatient bang.

“Got any blank deeds along with you, daddie?” she asked, after it was announced that they were to be ready to break camp the next morning.

“Yes; why?”

“Because we must have that deed of Grandma Robinson’s all ready for mother to acknowledge before a notary in the morning, as we go through town on our way to the ferry.”

“Your mother isn’t able to attend to any business.”

“She isn’t able to put it off, daddie dear.”

“Very well; I’ll see about it.”

“But I want the blank form now, so I can have it all ready when we go through town. Mother has the original deed, and I can easily duplicate it. I’ll search for a blank among your papers, if you don’t object.”

“You have no idea how this little act of justice will help mother to regain her health,” said Mary. “She’s been haunted by a fear that you’d put it off till it would be too late.”

Captain Ranger did not reply; but his silence was considered as consent, and Jean hurried away to prepare the deed.

“I’ve been dreaming about an island somewhere in mid-ocean,” said Marjorie, “where women could hold their own earnings, just as men do in the United States; where they had full liberty to help the men to make the laws, for which they paid their full quota of taxes, just as the women do in Missouri and Illinois and, for aught I know, in Oregon.”

“I’ve paid the taxes on that ten-acre farm for a dozen years,” said her father.

“Yes, out of mother’s income from it,” retorted Marjorie. “It has always been rented, you know.”

The subject was dropped for the nonce, though John Ranger did not feel wholly at ease, he hardly realized why. But the next day, as the train was moving through the principal street on its way to the river-front, he stopped his team hard by a notary’s office and tenderly assisted his wife to alight. Here, with her thin and trembling fingers, Annie Ranger affixed her signature to her last earthly deed of conveyance, her eyes beaming with joy.

“Are you satisfied now?” asked her husband, as he lifted her to her seat in the wagon, where she watched Harry rushing away to the post-office with a big envelope containing the precious deed.

“Yes, dear; and I am so glad I didn’t have to make my mark! When I get to Oregon, I’ll manage somehow to earn the money to pay you what I owe on my taxes, John.”

“Don’t speak of that,” her husband exclaimed, feeling half ashamed of himself, for a reason he did not divine.

“Then you’ll never try to hold those old tax receipts as a lien on the property?”

“Nonsense, Annie! Do you think I’m a brute beast?”

“No, darling. I would to God all men were as good as you are, my own dear, precious husband.”

They were nearing the Missouri River now, and in the rush that ensued, the family had no opportunity for further exchange of confidences for many hours.

“Look!” cried Marjorie, after the last loaded wagon had been crowded on to the big ferry-boat, and they had started to a point several miles up the river to make a landing on the opposite bank. “There’s a posse of officers. They’re after Dugs, I know they are, ’cause they’ve got bloodhounds with ’em, and they’re signalling the boat to stop and come back.”

“She can’t do it,” said the captain of the ferry, after a hurried conference with the captain of the train, as he suspiciously thrust his closed hand into the breeches pocket over his hip.

“You can come out of hiding now, Sally O’Dowd,” exclaimed Captain Ranger, as soon as the last team was safely up the opposite bank.

“I thought it was Dugs they were after,” said Mary.

“So ’twas; and me too,” cried the grass widow, as she jumped to the ground, surrounded by her three children. “Sam O’Dowd was one o’ the posse. I saw him. He couldn’t have taken me; but he was after my babies.” She hugged her children, as she laughed and wept by turns in a transport of joy.

“Don’t cry, Sally,” said the Captain, coaxingly. “You’re in the Indian country, safe and sound.”

“Before Sam can get a requisition from the Governor of Illinois to reclaim your babies, and before the Governor o’ Missouri can give that party o’ slave-catchers the power to arrest Dugs and her coon, we’ll have you out under the protection of the Indians!” said Mrs. Ranger, with a meaning smile.