“Here,” said Jean, the next morning, approaching her father, who was hard at work by sunrise, “are the letters I promised to write to Mr. Ashleigh and his mother. You stipulated that you should see them, as you will remember.”
His head and heart were aching. “I don’t care a rap for your nonsense,” he exclaimed. “Nothing’ll ever come of it. The fellow has never written to you.”
“That’s so!” thought Jean, strolling off aimlessly into the woods. “Daddie gave him our address as Oregon City. Oh, my God! can it be possible that my other self has been married (or the same as married) to Le-Le, the Indian slave?”
Giant trees rose often to the height of three hundred feet,—one hundred and fifty feet from the ground without a limb,—and so straight that no hand-made colonnade could equal them for grace and symmetry. As Jean stood under these stately monarchs of the soil and listened to the soft sighing of the wind among their evergreen leaves, she heard the roar of rushing water. She clambered through a labyrinth of deciduous undergrowth till she came to a horseshoe bend at the head of a gulch, over which the water foamed and tumbled till lost from sight amid the tangled ferns and foliage.
“Halloa!” cried a voice from an unseen source.
She looked in the direction whence the call seemed to proceed, and beheld, standing on the opposite bluff, a typical young backwoodsman, tall and shapely.
She returned the salutation by waving her sunbonnet, which she had been swinging aimlessly by its strings, exposing her face and head to the caress of the balm-laden air.
A minute later, and the stranger was by her side. She noticed that he carried in a careless way a long, old-fashioned rifle; that a pipe was in his mouth, and a pistol of the “pepper-box” variety protruded from the leg of his boot.
“Are you the Ranger gal what got left at Green River?”
She turned ghastly pale at mention of the locality where her thoughts were centred, but made no audible reply.
“My name is Henry Jackman,—better known as Happy Jack,” he said, as he dropped the butt-end of his rifle to the ground with a thud, and stood waiting for her to speak.
“I’ve heard of you before,” said Jean; “you are the man who’s been talking sawmill to my daddie.”
“That’s what!”
“Then we may as well become acquainted. I am Jean Ranger, and I have an older sister Mary and a younger one named Marjorie, besides my brother Hal and two little sisters.”
“I seed yer dad yisti’dy an’ we talked things over. Thar’s a fine prospec’ hyer fur a sawmill.”
“So I perceive.”
“Yer dad an’ me’s goin’ to go snucks.”
“I do not understand.”
“I mean pardners. He’s got the sabé an’ I’ve got the rocks, so we can make a go of it. The kentry’s settlin’ up powerful fast, an’ thar’ll be lots o’ demand for lumber for bridges an’ barns an’ houses an’ fencin’ an’ sich.”
“I see. We had a lot of spavined, wind-broken old horses for our sawmill power in the States, sir.”
“Thar’s a water-power yander that beats hosses all to thunder, miss.”
“So I see, sir.”
“Thar’s millions o’ feet o’ logs in sight; an’ out yander in the mountains is a place to build a flume, so we kin raf’ the logs down to a lake that I found up thar in the woods. We’ll have a town here some day an’ make things hum.”
“Have you often met my daddie?” asked Jean.
“I’m lookin’ fur him now, every minute. We’re goin’ to survey some timber-land fur the mill-hands, farther up the crick. The curse o’ this kentry is bachelders. Ah! here’s the Cap’n now. It’s lucky you’ve brought along so many weemen folks, ole man; we’ll all be needin’ wives.”
This concluding remark brought the hot blood of indignation to the cheeks of Jean as she turned to meet her father, who was carrying an ax and a gun, followed by Mr. Burns, equipped with a clothes-line and a carpenter’s square.
“What in thunder are you doing out here, Jean?” asked her father, taking no notice of the stranger’s remark. “Don’t you know that the woods are full of wild beasts?”
“I’ve seen nothing wilder than your prospective ‘pardner,’” she answered aside. “He seems harmless; but he’s an ignoramus and a boor.”
“Very well, Jean. But ruin home now, and help the women folks. They have a whole lot o’ work on hand, getting settled, and you do like to shirk.”
“Thar’ll be lots more of it for ’em to do afore this timber is all sawed up,” added the prospective “pardner.” “It takes a mountain o’ grub to keep a lot o’ loggers in workin’ order. I’m mighty glad, Cap’n, that you’ve got a lot a weemin folks; we’ll need ’em in our business.”
“Yes,” retorted Jean. “They’re as handy to have in the house as a coffin with the proper combination of letters on the plate!”
Mr. Burns laughed; but Mr. Jackman dropped his lower jaw and looked the picture of an exaggerated interrogation point. “What’s the gal drivin’ at?” he asked under his breath; and her father said gravely, “Stop talking nonsense, Jean.”
It was mutually agreed upon that a logging-camp should be started at once, and the ground prepared during the coming rainy season for the foundation and erection of a combined sawmill, planer, and shingle-mill, and that Captain Ranger should return, as early as practicable, to the States, via the Isthmus, to purchase the necessary machinery, which could not at that time be procured on the Pacific Coast.
Soon thereafter Captain Ranger went to Portland to purchase the necessary supplies for the winter’s use. Arriving there, he repaired, in his best Sunday suit, to the primitive hotel, and inquired for Mrs. Addicks.
The lady appeared, after long waiting, fastidiously gowned and so thoroughly at ease that all his thought of the superior quality of the white man’s blood departed as he saw her, and he stood in her presence in embarrassed silence.
“Won’t you be seated, Mr.—”
“Ranger,” he said, fumbling his hat awkwardly and shambling into the proffered chair.
“To what am I indebted for this visit, Mr. Ranger?”
“You will please excuse me, ma’am,” he said, crossing his legs clumsily, “but I have come to see you on a little business that concerns us both. Your husband is my brother.”
“Then, sir, you can tell me something about his family. Do his parents yet live?”
“They were alive and well at last accounts; but it takes two months or more for a letter to go and come. Our grandmother died recently.”
“The dear old lady he calls ‘Grannie’?”
“Yes.”
“My husband will be grieved to hear of this. I must write to him at once. Can you give me any particulars concerning her last days? Did she remember Joseph?”
“She had a dream of him, and said his mother would live to see him again.”
“I used to wonder why my husband was so reticent about his family affairs. I supposed when we were married that he would take me back to live among his people. But he steadfastly refused to do it, and would not even let me know their post-office address. But I know all about it now. He left home under a cloud.”
“But it was not nearly so bad as he thought. I set his mind at rest on that score when we had that last interview. The poor fellow was in daily dread of discovery and pursuit for more than a dozen years.”
The woman arose and paced the floor in silence, the coppery hue of her complexion enriched by the blood that rushed to her face. She paused and stood before him, her hands folded over the back of a chair, as she waited for him to speak again.
“I did your husband a grievous wrong when I saw him at the post, madam. I must confess that I had no idea that the Indian woman he told me that he had married was—”
She waved her hand in protest. “There, there, Mr. John; no flattery, if you please. If you had seen me as I was that day, you would have felt justified in spurning your brother’s wife. It was not my fault, though, that he kept me like a common squaw. Your conduct is fully forgiven, since it resulted in an open declaration of independence on my part.
“There were a dozen young chieftains and half as many white men who aspired to my hand and heart in my girlhood; but Joseph was a king among them all. But we had not been married a month before I found that I was doomed to the same treatment, as his wife, that other Indian wives endure. So I lost heart, and accepted the situation as stolidly as my father would have done if he had been doomed to perpetual slavery.”
“Did Joseph always treat you badly after your marriage?”
The woman shrugged her shoulders.
“Hard times came to our tribe. The Hudson Bay Company’s business languished. We had a succession of bitter cold winters, with dry, hot summers following. The different tribes became involved in war. Then famine came, and pestilence. We will draw a veil over what followed, Mr. John. Joseph will never beat his wife again; I have sworn it!
“The fluctuations of fortune brought us at last to the Utah trading-post, where you saw Joseph. We were prosperous then, and might have lived like white folks; but he seemed to prefer to keep me situated like an ordinary squaw, so I gave him all he bargained for. But, ugh! I did detest the life. Finally my father died and left me an ample inheritance, which is mine absolutely. I will educate my children and take them to London, where there is no prejudice against my people such as abounds in this ‘land of the free and home of the brave’!”
“Do you think Joseph is able to repay a part of the money we lost on his account?”
“My husband will waste more money in a single night sometimes, at the gambling-table, than he will expend on his family in a year. I think he is quite able to pay his debts.”
“How would you like to visit our people back in the old home?”
“When our children reach the age of six or seven years, they begin to outgrow the Indian style and complexion,” she said; “but I’ll not take them among my husband’s people while they look like little pappooses.”
“Why not take them out to my donation claim? My family will be glad to welcome you.”
“Couldn’t I take my nurse along?”
“If you did, some fool would coax her to marry him, so he and she could hold a double quota of land. Better leave her here with your little ones, or set her to washing dishes.”
“In either case our landlord would marry her himself, I fear. But I’ll risk it.”
The older girls were out of school for a walk, in the company of their brother John and a black-robed Sister, and thus were permitted at this juncture to enter their mother’s presence for an introduction to their uncle.
“John and Annie are Rangers, as you see, sir. My husband is very proud of them.”
“And well he might be,” thought the Captain, as he scanned them critically.
The sun was sinking behind the Coast Range the next evening, throwing the picturesque valley of the Willamette into deep shadows, and lighting up the tops of the Cascade heights with tinges of rose and gold and purple, when a carriage and pair were seen ascending the narrow grade leading to the great log house occupied temporarily by all the families of the Ranger colony. The unexpected arrival of the Captain created a sensation, which was not at all abated when he vaulted to the ground, followed, before he could turn to assist her, by a large, well-formed, and faultlessly attired Indian woman, with a sheen of gold in her raven-hued hair.
“Mrs. O’Dowd,” said the Captain, offering his hand, “allow me to introduce Mrs. Ranger Number Two,—my brother Joseph’s wife.”