Chapter X - The Supreme Court

If remorse, mental or physical, affected any of the dwellers at Jefferson Barracks on the morning following the officers' ball, at least neither was in evidence. By noon all traces of the late festivities had been removed from the parade ground, and the routine of the Post went on with the usual mechanical precision. The Army had entertained, it now labored. In a few hours it would again be ready to be entertained; the next little event of interest being the pigeon match between Orme and myself, which swift rumor seemed to have magnified into an importance not wholly welcome to myself.

We had a late breakfast at Number 16, and my friend Stevenson, who was to handle me in the match, saw to it that I had a hard tubbing before breakfast and a good run afterward, and later a hearty luncheon with no heavy wines. I was surprised at these business-like proceedings, which were all new to me, and I reflected with no satisfaction that my hot-headedness in accepting Orme's challenge might result in no glory to myself, and worse than that, let in my friends for loss; for Stevenson informed me that in spite of the fact that I had never shot in a race, a number of wagers were backing me against the Englishman. I reasoned, however, that these responsibilities should not be considered by one who needed perfect command of himself. Moreover, although I had never shot at trapped birds, I reasoned that a bird in the air was a flying bird after all, whether from trap or tree. Then, again, I was offended at Orme's air of superiority. Lastly, though it might be the fault of the Cowles' blood to accept any sort of challenge, it was not our way to regret that so soon as the day following.

The grounds for the match had been arranged at the usual place, near to the edge of the military reservation, and here, a half hour before the time set, there began to gather practically all of the young officers about the Post, all the enlisted men who could get leave, with cooks, strikers, laundresses, and other scattered personnel of the barracks. There came as well many civilians from the city, and I was surprised to see a line of carriages, with many ladies, drawn up back of the score. Evidently our little matter was to be made a semi-fashionable affair, and used as another expedient to while away ennui-ridden Army time.

My opponent, accompanied by Major Williams, arrived at about the same time that our party reached the grounds. Orme shook hands with me, and declared that he was feeling well, although Williams laughingly announced that he had not been able to make his man go to bed for more than an hour that morning, or to keep him from eating and drinking everything he could lay his hands upon. Yet now his eye was bright, his skin firm, his step light and easy. That the man had a superb constitution was evident, and I knew that my work was cut out for me, for Orme, whatever his profession, was an old one at the game of speedy going. As a man I disliked and now suspected him. As an opponent at any game one was obliged to take account of him.

"What boundary do we use, gentlemen?" Orme asked, as he looked out over the field. This question showed his acquaintance, but none the less his confidence and his courtesy as well, for in closely made matches all details are carefully weighed before the issue is joined. "I am more used to the Monaco bounds of eighteen yards," he added, "but whatever is your custom here will please me. I only want to have a notion of your sport."

"Our races here have usually been shot at fifty yards bounds," said Stevenson.

"As you like," said Orme, "if that pleases Mr. Cowles."

"Perfectly," said I, who indeed knew little about the matter.

Orme stepped over to the coops where the birds were kept—splendid, iridescent creatures, with long tails, clean, gamy heads and all the colors of the rainbow on their breasts. "By Jove!" he said, "they're rippers for looks, and they should fly a bit, I'm thinking. I have never seen them before, much less shot a race at them."

"Still your advantage," said I, laughing, "for I never shot a race at any sort in my life."

"And yet you match against me? My dear fellow, I hardly like—"

"The match is made, Captain Orme, and I am sure Mr. Cowles would not ask for any readjustment," commented Stevenson stiffly.

"Don't understand me to wish to urge anything," said Orme. "I only wish it so we shall all have a chance at revenge. Is there any one who wishes to back me, perhaps, or to back Mr. Cowles? Sometimes in England we shoot at a guinea a bird or five, or ten." Stevenson shook his head. "Too gaited for me at this time of the month," he said; "but I'll lay you a hundred dollars on the issue."

"Five if you like, on the Virginian, sir," said young Belknap of the Ninth to Orme.

"Done, and done, gentlemen. Let it be dollars and not guineas if you like. Would any one else like to lay a little something? You see, I'm a stranger here, but I wish to do what will make it interesting for any of you who care to wager something."

A few more wagers were laid, and the civilian element began to plunge a bit on Orme, word having passed that he was an old hand at the game, whereas I was but a novice. Orme took some of these wagers carelessly.

"Now as to our referee, Captain," said Stevenson. "You are, as you say, something of a stranger among us, and we wish your acquaintance were greater, so that you might name some one who would suit you."

"I'm indifferent," said Orme politely. "Any one Mr. Cowles may name will please me."

His conduct was handsome throughout, and his sporting attitude made him many friends among us. I suspect some Army money went on him, quietly, although little betting was now done in our presence.

"I see Judge Reeves, of the Supreme Court of the State, over there in a carriage," suggested Major Williams. "I've very much a notion to go and ask him to act as our referee."

"God bless my soul!" said Orme, "this is an extraordinary country! What—a judge of the Supreme Court?"

Williams laughed. "You don't know this country, Captain, and you don't know Judge Reeves. He's a trifle old, but game as a fighting cock, and not to mention a few duels in his time, he knows more even about guns and dogs to-day than he does about law. He'll not be offended if I ask him, and here goes."

He edged off through the crowd, and we saw him engaged in earnest conversation with the judge. To our surprise and amusement we observed the judge climb hastily down out of his carriage and take Major Williams' arm.

Judge Reeves was a tall, thin man, whose long hair and beard were silvery white, yet his stature was erect and vigorous. It was always said of him that he was the most dignified man in the State of Missouri, and that he carried this formality into every detail of his daily life. The story ran that each night, when he and his aged consort retired, they stood, each with candle in hand, on either side of the great bed which all their married life they had occupied in harmony. She, formally bowing to him across the bed, said "Good-night, Judge Reeves"; whereat he, bowing with yet greater formality, replied, "Good-night, Mrs. Reeves." Each then blew out the candle, and so retired! I cannot vouch as to the truth of this story, or of the further report that they carried out their ceremony when seating themselves at table, each meal of the day; but I will say that the appearance of this gentleman would have given such stories likelihood.

We uncovered as the judge approached us, and he shook hands with us in the most solemn way, his own wide black hat in his hand. "A—a—hem, gentlemen," he said, "a somewhat unusual situation for one on the bench—most unusual, I may say. But the Court can see no harm in it, since no law of the land is violated. Neither does the Court hold it beneath the dignity of its office to witness this little trial of skill between gentlemen. Further speaking, the Court does not here pass upon questions of law, but sits rather as jury in matters of ocular evidence, with the simple duty of determining whether certain flying objects fall upon this or the other side of that certain line marked out as the boundaries. Gentlemen, I am, a—hem, yours with great pleasure." If there was a twinkle in his eye it was a very solemn one. I venture to say he would have lost no votes at the next election were he up for office.

"Is the case ready for argument?" presently asked the judge, benignly. Williams and Stevenson both replied "All ready."

"I suggest that the gentlemen place their ammunition and loading tools upon the head of the cask at my right," said the judge. "I presume it to be understood that each may employ such charge as he prefers, and that each shall load his own piece?" The seconds assented to this. Of course, in those days only muzzle loaders were used, although we had cut-felt wads and all the improvements in gunnery known at that time. My weapon was supplied me by Captain Stevenson—a good Manton, somewhat battered up from much use, but of excellent even pattern. Orme shot a Pope-made gun of London, with the customary straight hand and slight drop of the English makes. I think he had brought this with him on his travels.

"Shall the firing be with the single barrel, or with both barrels?" inquired our referee. In those days many American matches were shot from plunge traps, and with the single barrel.

"I'm more used to the use of both barrels," suggested Orme, "but I do not insist."

"It is the same to me," I said. So finally we decided that the rise should be at twenty-eight yards, the use of both barrels allowed, and the boundary at fifty yards—such rules as came to be later more generally accepted in this country.

"Gentlemen, I suggest that you agree each bird to be gathered fairly by the hand, each of you to select a gatherer. Each gentleman may remunerate his gatherer, but the said remuneration shall in each case remain the same. Is that satisfactory?" We agreed, and each tossed a silver dollar to a grinning darky boy.

"Now, then, gentlemen, the Court is informed that this match is to be for the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars, wagered by Captain Orme, against a certain black stallion horse, the same not introduced in evidence, but stated by Mr. Cowles to be of the value of twenty-five hundred dollars in the open market. As the match is stated to be on even terms, the said John Cowles guarantees this certain horse to be of such value, or agrees to make good any deficit in that value. Is that understood, gentlemen?"

"I did not ask any guarantee," said Orme. "I know the horse, and he is worth more than twice that sum. You are using me very handsomely, gentlemen."

"Judge Reeves is right," said I. "The match is to be even." We bowed to each other.

The judge felt in his pockets. "Ahem, gentlemen," he resumed. "The Court being, as it were, broke, will some one be so good as to lend the Court a silver coin? Thank you," to Williams, "and now, gentlemen, will you toss for the order of precedence?"

We threw the coin, and I lost the toss. Orme sent me to the score first, with the purpose, as I knew, of studying his man.

I loaded at the open bowls, and adjusted the caps as I stepped to the score. I was perhaps a bit too tense and eager, although my health and youth had never allowed me to be a victim of what is known as nervousness. Our birds were to be flown by hand from behind a screen, and my first bird started off a trifle low, but fast, and I knew I was not on with the first barrel, the hang of Stevenson's gun being not quite the same as my own. I killed it with the second, but it struggled over the tape.

"Lost bird!" called out Judge Reeves sharply and distinctly; and it was evident that now he would be as decisive as he had hitherto been deliberate.

Under the etiquette of the game no comment was made on my mishap, and my second, Stevenson, did not make the mistake of commiserating me. No one spoke a word as Orme stepped to the score. He killed his bird as clean as though he had done nothing else all his life, and indeed, I think he was half turned about from the score before the bird was down. "Dead bird!" called the referee, with jaw closing like a steel trap.

Stevenson whispered to me this time. "Get full on with your first," he said. "They're lead-packers—old ones, every one, and a picked lot."

I was a trifle angry with myself by this time, but it only left me well keyed. My bird fell dead inside of Orme's. A murmur of applause ran down the line. "Silence in the court," thundered Judge Reeves.

We shot along for ten birds, and Orme was straight, to my nine killed. Stevenson whispered to me once more. "Take it easy, and don't be worried about it. It's a long road to a hundred. Don't think about your next bird, and don't worry whether he kills his or not. Just you kill 'em one at a time and kill each one dead. You mustn't think of anything on earth but that one bird before you."

This was excellent advice in the game, and I nodded to him. Whatever the cause, I was by this time perfectly calm. I was now accustomed to my gun, and had confidence in it. I knew I could shoot to the top of my skill, and if I were beaten it would be through no fault of my own nerves and muscles, but through the luck of the birds or the greater skill of the other man.

Orme went on as though he could kill a hundred straight. His time was perfect, and his style at the trap beautiful. He shot carelessly, but with absolute confidence, and more than half the time he did not use his second barrel.

"Old Virginia never tires," whispered Stevenson. "He'll come back to you before long, never fear."

But Orme made it twenty straight before he came back. Then he caught a strong right-quarterer, which escaped altogether, apparently very lightly hit. No one spoke a word of sympathy or exultation, but I caught the glint of Stevenson's eye. Orme seemed not in the least disturbed.

We were now tied, but luck ran against us both for a time, since out of the next five I missed three and Orme two, and the odds again were against me. It stood the same at thirty, and at thirty-five. At forty the fortune of war once more favored me, for although Orme shot like a machine, with a grace and beauty of delivery I have never seen surpassed, he lost one bird stone dead over the line, carried out by a slant of the rising wind, which blew from left to right across the field. Five birds farther on, yet another struggled over for him, and at sixty-five I had him back of me two birds. The interest all along the line was now intense. Stevenson later told me that they had never seen such shooting as we were doing. For myself, it did not seem that I could miss. I doubt not that eventually I must have won, for fate does not so favor two men at the same hour.

We went on slowly, as such a match must, occasionally pausing to cool our barrels, and taking full time with the loading. Following my second's instructions perfectly, I looked neither to the right nor to the left, not even watching Orme. I heard the confusion of low talk back of us, and knew that a large crowd had assembled, but I did not look toward the row of carriages, nor pay attention to the new arrivals which constantly came in. We shot on steadily, and presently I lost a bird, which came in sharply to the left.

The heap of dead birds, some of them still fluttering in their last gasps, now grew larger at the side of the referee, and the negro boys were perhaps less careful to wring the necks of the birds as they gathered them. Occasionally a bird was tossed in such a way as to leave a fluttering wing. Wild pigeons decoy readily to any such sign, and I noticed that several birds, rising in such position that they headed toward the score, were incomers, and very fast. My seventieth bird was such, and it came straight and swift as an arrow, swooping down and curving about with the great speed of these birds when fairly on the wing. I covered it, lost sight of it, then suddenly realized that I must fire quickly if I was to reach it before it crossed the score. It was so close when I fired that the charge cut away the quills of a wing. It fell, just inside the line, with its head up, and my gatherer pounced upon it like a cat. The decision of the referee was prompt, but even so, it was almost lost in the sudden stir and murmur which arose behind us.

Some one came pushing through the crowd, evidently having sprung down from one of the carriages. I turned to see a young girl, clad in white lawn, a thin silver-gray veil drawn tight under her chin, who now pushed forward through the men, and ran up to the black boy who stood with the bird in his hand, hanging by one wing. She caught it from him, and held it against her breast, where its blood drabbled her gown and hands. I remember I saw one drop of blood at its beak, and remember how glad I was that the bird was in effect dead, so that a trying scene would soon be ended.

"Stop this at once!" cried the girl, raising an imperative hand. "Aren't you ashamed, all of you? Look, look at this!" She held out the dying bird in her hand. "Judge Reeves," she cried, "what are you doing there?"

Our decisive referee grew suddenly abashed. "Ah—ah, my dear young lady—my very dear young lady," he began.

"Captain Stevenson," exclaimed the girl, whirling suddenly on my second, "stop this at once! I'm ashamed of you."

"Now, now, my dear Miss Ellen," began Stevenson, "can't you be a good fellow and run back home? We're off the reservation, and really—this, you see, is a judge of the Supreme Court! We're doing nothing unlawful." He motioned toward Judge Reeves, who looked suddenly uncomfortable.

Major Williams added his counsel. "It is a little sport between Captain Orme and Mr. Cowles, Miss Ellen."

"Sport, great sport, isn't it?" cried the girl, holding out her drabbled hands. "Look there"—she pointed toward the pile of dead birds—"hundreds of these killed, for money, for sport. It isn't sport. You had all these birds once, you owned them."

And there she hit a large truth, with a woman's guess, although none of us had paused to consider it so before.

"The law, Miss Ellen," began Judge Reeves, clearing his throat, "allows the reducing to possession of animals feroe naturoe, that is to say, of wild nature, and ancient custom sanctions it."

"They were already reduced" she flashed. "The sport was in getting them the first time, not in butchering them afterward."

Stevenson and Williams rubbed their chins and looked at each other. As for me, I was looking at the girl; for it seemed to me that never in my life had I seen one so beautiful.

Her hair, reddish brown in the sunlight, was massed up by the binding veil, which she pushed back now from her face. Her eyes, wide and dark, were as sad as they were angry. Tears streamed from them down her cheek, which she did not dry. Fearless, eager, she had, without thought, intruded where the average woman would not have ventured, and she stood now courageously intent only upon having the way of what she felt was right and justice. There came to me as I looked at her a curious sense that I and all my friends were very insignificant creatures; and it was so, I think, in sooth, she held us.

"Captain Orme," said I to my opponent, "you observe the actual Supreme Court of America!" He bowed to me, with a questioning raising of his eyebrows, as though he did not like to go on under the circumstances.

"I am unfortunate to lead by a bird," said I, tentatively. For some reason the sport had lost its zest to me.

"And I being the loser as it stands," replied Orme, "do not see how I can beg off." Yet I thought him as little eager to go on as I myself.

"Miss Ellen," said Judge Reeves, removing the hat from his white hair, "these gentlemen desire to be sportsmen as among themselves, but of course always gentlemen as regards the wish of ladies. Certain financial considerations are involved, so that both feel a delicacy in regard to making any motion looking to the altering of the original conditions of this contract. Under these circumstances, then, appeal is taken from this lower Court"—and he bowed very low—"to what my young friend very justly calls the Supreme Court of the United States. Miss Ellen, it is for you to say whether we shall resume or discontinue."

The girl bowed to Judge Reeves, and then swept a sudden hand toward Stevenson and Williams. "Go home, all of you!" she said.

And so, in sooth, much shamefaced, we did go home, Judge of the Supreme Court, officers of the Army, and all, vaguely feeling we had been caught doing some ignoble thing. For my part, although I hope mawkishness no more marks me than another, and although I made neither then nor at any time a resolution to discontinue sports of the field, I have never since then shot in a pigeon match, nor cared to see others do so, for it has never again seemed to me as actual sport. I think the intuitive dictum of the Army girl was right.

"Now wasn't that like Ellen!" exclaimed Kitty, when finally we found ourselves at her carriage—"just like that girl. Just wasn't it like that girl! To fly in the face of the Supreme Court of the State, and all the laws of sport as well! Jack, I was keeping count," she held out her ivory tablets. "You'd have beaten him sure, and I wanted to see you do it. You were one ahead, and would have made it better in the next twenty-five. Oh, won't I talk to that girl when I see her!"

"So that was Ellen!" I said to Kitty.

"The very same. Now you've seen her. What you think I don't know, but what she thinks of you is pretty evident."

"You were right, Mrs. Kitty," said I. "She's desperately good looking. But that isn't the girl I danced with last night. In the name of Providence, let me get away from this country, for I know not what may happen to me! No man is safe in this neighborhood of beauties."

"Let's all go home and get a bite to eat," said Stevenson, with much common sense. "You've got glory enough just the way it stands."

So that was Ellen! And it moreover was none less than Ellen Meriwether, daughter of my father's friend and business associate, whom I had traveled thus far to see, and whom, as I now determined, I must meet at the very first possible opportunity. Perhaps, then, it might very naturally come about that—but I dismissed this very rational supposition as swiftly as I was able.

Chapter XI - The Morning After

Events had somewhat hurried me in the two days since my arrival at Jefferson Barracks, but on the morning following the awkward ending of my match with Orme I had both opportunity and occasion to take stock of myself and of my plans. The mails brought me two letters, posted at Wallingford soon after my departure; one from Grace Sheraton and one from my mother. The first one was—what shall I say? Better perhaps that I should say nothing, save that it was like Grace Sheraton herself, formal, correct and cold. It was the first written word I had ever received from my fiancée, and I had expected—I do not know what. At least I had thought to be warmed, comforted, consoled in these times of my adversity. It seemed to my judgment, perhaps warped by sudden misfortune, that possibly my fiancée regretted her hasty promise, rued an engagement to one whose affairs had suddenly taken an attitude of so little promise. I was a poor man now, and worse than poor, because lately I had been rich, as things went in my surroundings. In this letter, I say, I had expected—I do not know what. But certainly I had not expected to see sitting on the page written in my fiancée's hand, the face of another woman. I hated myself for it.

The second letter was from my mother, and it left me still more disconcerted and sad. "Jack," it said, "I grieve unspeakably. I am sad beyond all imaginings of sadness. I need thee. Come back the first day thee can to thy mother."

There was indeed need for me at home. Yet here was I with my errand not yet well begun; for Captain Stevenson told me this morning that the Post Adjutant had received word from Colonel Meriwether saying that he would be gone for some days or weeks on the upper frontier. Rumor passed about that a new man, Sherman, was possibly to come on to assume charge of Jefferson, a man reported to be a martinet fit to stamp out any demonstration in a locality where secession sentiment was waxing strong. Meriwether, a Virginian, and hence suspected of Southern sympathy, was like many other Army officers at the time, shifted to points where his influence would be less felt, President Buchanan to the contrary notwithstanding. The sum of all which was that if I wished to meet Colonel Meriwether and lay before him my own personal request, I would be obliged to seek for him far to the West, in all likelihood at Fort Leavenworth, if not at the lower settlements around the old town of Independence. Therefore I wrote at once both to my fiancée and to my mother that it would be impossible for me to return at the time, nor at any positive future time then determinable. I bade a hasty good-by to my host and hostess, and before noon was off for the city. That night I took passage on the River Belle, a boat bound up the Missouri.

Thus, somewhat against my will, I found myself a part of that motley throng of keen-faced, fearless American life then pushing out over the frontiers. About me were men bound for Oregon, for California, for the Plains, and not a few whose purpose I took to be partisanship in the border fighting between slavery and free soil. It was in the West, and on the new soils, that the question of slavery was really to be debated and settled finally.

The intenseness, the eagerness, the compelling confidence of all this west-bound population did not fail to make the utmost impression upon my own heart, hitherto limited by the horizon of our Virginia hills. I say that I had entered upon this journey against my will. Our churning wheels had hardly reached the turbid flood of the Missouri before the spell of the frontier had caught me. In spite of sadness, trouble, doubt, I would now only with reluctance have resigned my advance into that country which offered to all men, young and old, a zest of deeds bold enough to banish sadness, doubt and grief.

Chapter XII - The Wreck On The River

I made friends with many of these strange travelers, and was attracted especially by one, a reticent man of perhaps sixty odd years, in Western garb, full of beard and with long hair reaching to his shoulders. He had the face of an old Teuton war chief I had once seen depicted in a canvas showing a raid in some European forest in years long before a Christian civilization was known—a face fierce and eager, aquiline in nose, blue of eye; a figure stalwart, muscular, whose every movement spoke courage and self-confidence. Auberry was his name, and as I talked with him he told me of days passed with my heroes—Fremont, Carson, Ashley, Bill Williams, Jim Bridger, even the negro ruffian Beckwourth—all men of the border of whose deeds I had read. Auberry had trapped from the St. Mary's to the sources of the Red, and his tales, told in simple and matter-of-fact terms, set my very blood atingle. He was bound, as he informed me, for Laramie; always provided that the Sioux, now grown exceedingly restless over the many wagon-trains pushing up the Platte to all the swiftly-opening West, had not by this time swooped down and closed all the trails entirely. I wished nothing then so much as that occasion might permit me to join him in a journey across the Plains.

Among all these west-bound travelers the savage and the half-civilized seemed to me to preponderate; this not to say that they were so much coarse and crude as they were fierce, absorbed, self-centered. Each man depended upon himself and needed to do so. The crew on the decks were relics from keel-boat days, surly and ugly of temper. The captain was an ex-pilot of the lower river, taciturn and surly of disposition. Our pilot had been drunk for a week at the levee of St. Louis and I misdoubt that all snags and sandbars looked alike to him.

Among the skin-clad trappers, hunters and long-haired plainsmen, I saw but one woman, and she certainly was fit to bear them company. I should say that she was at least sixty years of age, and nearly six feet in height, thin, angular, wrinkled and sinewy. She wore a sunbonnet of enormous projection, dipped snuff vigorously each few moments, and never allowed from her hands the long squirrel rifle which made a part of her equipage. She was accompanied by her son, a tall, thin, ague-smitten youth of perhaps seventeen years and of a height about as great as her own. Of the two the mother was evidently the controlling spirit, and in her case all motherly love seemed to have been replaced by a vast contempt for the inefficiency and general lack of male qualities in her offspring. When I first saw them she was driving her son before her to a spot where an opening offered near the bow of the boat, in full sight of all the passengers, of whose attention she was quite oblivious.

"Git up, there, Andy Jackson!" she said. "Stan' up!"

The boy, his long legs braiding under him, and his peaked face still more pale, did as he was bid. He had no sooner taken his position than to my surprise I saw his mother cover him with the long barrel of a dragoon revolver.

"Pull your gun, you low-down coward," she commanded, in tones that might have been heard half the length of the boat. Reluctantly the boy complied, his own revolver trembling in his unready hand.

"Now, whut'd you do if a man was to kivver you like I'm a-doin' now?" demanded his mother.

"G-g-g-Gawd, Maw, I dunno! I think I'd j-j-j-jump off in the river," confessed the boy.

"Shore you would, and good luck if you'd git plumb drownded, you white-livered son of misery. Whatever in Gawd A'mighty's world you was borned for certainly is more'n I can tell—and I your Maw at that, that orto know if anybody could."

"Madam," I interrupted, astonished at this discourse, "what do you mean by such talk to your son—for I presume he is your son. Why do you abuse him in this way?" I was sorry for the shivering wretch whom she had made the object of her wrath.

"Shut up, and mind yore own business," answered the virago, swiftly turning the barrel of her weapon upon me. "Whut business is this here of yores?"

"None, madam," I bowed, "but I was only curious."

"You keep your own cur'osity to yourself ef you'r goin' to travel in these parts. That's a mighty good thing for you to learn."

"Very true, madam," said I, gently disengaging the revolver barrel from the line of my waist, "but won't you tell me why you do these things with your son?"

"It's none of your damned business," she answered, "but I don't mind tellin' you. I'm tryin' to make a man out'n him."

"Ah, and this is part of the drill?"

"Part of it. You, Andrew Jackson, stick yore pistol up agin your head the way I tol' you. Now snap it, damn you! Keep on a-snappin'! Quit that jumpin', I tell you! Snap, it till you git through bein' scared of it. Do it now, or by Gawd, I'll chase you over the side of the boat and feed you to the catfish, you low-down imertation of a he-thing. Mister," she turned to me again, "will you please tell me how come me to be the mother of a thing like this—me, a woman of ole Missoury; and me a cousin of ole Simon Kenton of Kentucky beside?"

"My good woman," said I, somewhat amused by her methods of action and speech, "do you mind telling me what is your name?"

"Name's Mandy McGovern; and I come from Pike," she answered, almost before the words were out of my mouth. "I've been merried three times and my first two husbands died a-fightin, like gentlemen, in diffikilties with friends. Then along come this Danny Calkins, that taken up some land nigh to me in the bottoms—low-downest coward of a, man that ever disgraced the sile of yearth—and then I merried him."

"Is he dead, too, my dear woman?" I asked.

"Don't you 'dear woman' me—I ain't free to merry agin yit," said she. "Naw, he ain't dead, and I ain't deevorced either. I just done left him. Why, every man in Pike has whupped Danny Calkins one time or other. When a man couldn't git no reputation any other way, he'd come erlong and whupped my husband. I got right tired of it."

"I should think you might."

"Yes, and me the wife of two real men befo' then. If ever a woman had hard luck the same is me," she went on. "I had eight chillen by my two husbands that was real men, and every one of them died, or got killed like a man, or went West like a man—exceptin' this thing here, the son of that there Danny Calkins. Why, he's afraid to go coon huntin' at night for fear the cats'll get him. He don't like to melk a keow for fear she'll kick him. He's afraid to court a gal. He kaint shoot, he kaint chop, he kaint do nothin'. I'm takin' him out West to begin over again where the plowin's easier; and whiles we go along, I'm givin' him a 'casional dose of immanuel trainin', to see if I can't make him part way intoe a man. I dunno!" Mrs. McGovern dipped snuff vigorously.

Thereafter she looked at me carefully. "Say, mister," said she, "how tall are you?"

"About six feet, I think."

"Hum! That's just about how tall my first husband was. You look some like him in the face, too. Say, he was the fightin'est man in Pike. How come him to get killed was a diffikilty with his brother-in-law, a Dutchman that kept a saloon and couldn't talk English. Jim, he went in there to get a bite to eat and asked this Dutchman what he could set up. Paul—that was the Dutchman's name—he says, 'Well, we got dawg—mallard dawg, and red head dawg, and canvas back dawg—what's the kind of dawg you like, Chim?'

"My husband thought he was pokin' fun at him, talkin' about eatin' dawg—not knowin' the Dutchman was tryin' to say 'duck,' and couldn't. 'I might have a piece of duck,' said Jim, 'bit I ain't eatin' no dawg.'

"'I said dawg,' says Paul, still a-tryin' to say 'duck.'

"'I know you did,' says Jim, and then they clinched. Jim He broke his knife off, and the Dutchman soaked him with a beer mallet. 'But Mandy,' says Jim to me, jest before he shet his eyes, 'I die content. That there fellow was the sweetest cuttin' man I ever did cut in all my life—he was jest like a ripe pumpkin.' Say, there was a man for you, was Jim—you look some like him." She dipped snuff again vigorously.

"You compliment me very much, Mrs. McGovern," I said.

"Say," she responded, "I got two thousand head o' hawgs runnin' around in the timber down there in Pike."

At the moment I did not see the veiled tenderness of this speech, but thought of nothing better than to tell her that I was going no further up the river than Fort Leavenworth.

"Um-hum!" she said. "Say, mister, mebbe that's yore wife back there in the kebbin in the middle of the boat?"

"No, indeed. In fact I did not know there was any other lady on the boat besides yourself. I am not much interested in young ladies, as it happens."

"You lie," said Mrs. McGovern promptly, "there ain't nothin' in the whole world you are ez much interested in as young wimmin. I'm a merried woman, and I know the signs. If I had a deevorce I might be a leetle jealous o' that gal in there. She's the best lookin' gal I ever did see in all my time. If I was merried to you I dunno but I'd be a leetle bit jealous o' you. Say, I may be a widder almost any day now. Somebody'll shore kill Danny Calkins 'fore long."

"And, according to you, I may be a married man almost any day," I replied, smiling.

"But you ain't merried yit."

"No, not yet," I answered.

"Well, if you git a chanct you take a look at that gal back there in the kebbin."

Opportunity did not offer, however, to accept Mrs. McGovern's kindly counsel, and, occupied with my own somewhat unhappy reflections, I resigned myself to the monotony of the voyage up the Missouri River. We plowed along steadily, although laboriously, all night, all the next day and the next night, passing through regions rich in forest growth, marked here and there by the many clearings of the advancing settlers. We were by this time far above the junction of the Missouri River with the Mississippi—a point traceable by a long line of discolored water stained with the erosion of the mountains and plains far up the Missouri. As the boat advanced, hour after hour, finally approaching the prairie country beyond the Missouri forests, I found little in the surroundings to occupy my mind; and so far as my communings with myself were concerned, they offered little satisfaction. A sort of shuddering self-reproach overcame me. I wondered whether or not I was less coarse, less a thing polygamous than these crowding Mormons hurrying out to their sodden temples in the West, because now (since I have volunteered in these pages to tell the truth regarding one man's heart), I must admit that in the hours of dusk I found myself dreaming not of my fiancée back in old Virginia, but of other women seen more recently. As to the girl of the masked ball, I admitted that she was becoming a fading memory; but this young girl who had thrust through the crowd and broken up our proceedings the other day—the girl with the white lawn gown and the silver gray veil and the tear-stained eyes—in some way, as I was angrily obliged to admit, her face seemed annoyingly to thrust itself again into my consciousness. I sat near a deck lamp. Grace Sheraton's letter was in my pocket. I did not draw it out to read it and re-read it. I contented myself with watching the masked shadows on the shores. I contented myself with dreams, dreams which I stigmatized as unwarranted and wrong.

We were running that night in the dark, before the rising of the moon, a thing which cautious steamboat men would not have ventured, although our pilot was confident that no harm could come to him. Against assurance such as this the dangerous Missouri with its bars and snags purposed a present revenge. Our whistle awakened the echoes along the shores as we plowed on up the yellow flood, hour after hour. Then, some time toward midnight, while most of the passengers were attempting some sort of rest, wrapped in their blankets along the deck, there came a slight shock, a grating slide, and a rasping crash of wood. With a forward churning of her paddles which sent water high along the rail, the River Belle shuddered and lay still, her engines throbbing and groaning.

In an instant every one on the boat was on his feet and running to the side. I joined the rush to the bows, and leaning over, saw that we were hard aground at the lower end of a sand bar. Imbedded in this bar was a long white snag, a tree trunk whose naked arms, thrusting far down stream, had literally impaled us. The upper woodwork of the boat was pierced quite through; and for all that one could tell at the moment, the hull below the line was in all likelihood similarly crushed. We hung and gently swung, apparently at the mercy of the tawny flood of old Missouri.

Chapter XIII - The Face In The Firelight

Sudden disaster usually brings sudden calm, the pause before resolution or resignation. For the first instant after the shock of the boat upon the impaling snag I stood irresolute; the next, I was busy with plans for escape. Running down the companionway, I found myself among a crowd of excited deck hands, most of whom, with many of the passengers, were pushing toward the starboard rail, whence could be seen the gloom of the forest along shore. The gangway door on the opposite side of the boat was open, and as I looked out I could see the long white arms of the giant snag reaching alongside. Without much plan or premeditation I sprang out, and making good my hold upon the nearest limb as I plunged, found myself, to my surprise, standing in not more than four feet of water, the foot of the bar evidently running down well under the boat.

Just as I turned to call to others I saw the tall figure of my plainsman, Auberry, appear at the doorway, and he also, with scarcely a moment's deliberation, took a flying leap and joined me on the snag. "It's better here than there," he said, "if she sinks or busts, and they're allus likely to do both."

As we pulled ourselves up into the fork of the long naked branch we heard a voice, and saw the face of a woman leaning over the rail of the upper deck. I recognized my whilom friend, Mandy McGovern. "Whut you all doin' down there?" she called. "Wait a minute; I'm comin', too." A moment later she appeared at the opening of the lower deck and craned out her long neck. I then saw at her side the figure of a young woman, her hair fallen from its coils, her feet bare, her body wrapped apparently only in some light silken dressing to be thrown above her nightwear. She, too, looked out into the darkness, but shrank back.

"Here, you," called out Mandy McGovern, "git hold of the end of this rope."

She tossed to me the end of the gang-plank rope, by which the sliding stage was drawn out and in at the boat landings. I caught this and passed it over a projection on the snag.

"Now, haul it out," commanded she; and as we pulled, she pushed, so that presently indeed we found that the end reached the edge of the limb on which we sat. Without any concern, Mrs. McGovern stepped out on the swaying bridge, sunbonnet hanging down her back, her long rifle under one arm, while by the other hand she dragged her tall son, Andrew Jackson, who was blubbering in terror.

This bridge, however, proved insecure, for as Mandy gave Andrew Jackson a final yank at its farther end, the latter stumbled, and in his struggles to lay hold upon the snag, pushed the end of the planks off their support. His mother's sinewy arm thrust him into safety, and she herself clambered up, very wet and very voluble in her imprecations on his clumsiness.

"Thar, now, look what ye did, ye low-down coward," she said. "Like to 'a' drownded both of us, and left the gal back there on the boat!"

The gang plank, confined by the rope, swung in the current alongside the snag, but it seemed useless to undertake to restore it to its position. The girl cowered against the side of the deck opening, undecided. "Wait," I called out to her; and slipping down into the water again, I waded as close as I could to the door, the water then catching me close to the shoulders.

"Jump!" I said to her, holding out my arms.

"I can't—I'm afraid," she said, in a voice hardly above a whisper.

"Do as I tell you!" I roared, in no gentle tones, I fear. "Jump at once!" She stooped, and sprang, and as I caught her weight with my arms under hers, she was for the moment almost immersed; but I staggered backwards and managed to hold my footing till Auberry's arms reached us from the snag, up which we clambered, the girl dripping wet and catching her breath in terror.

"That's right," said Mandy McGovern, calmly, "now here we be, all of us. Now, you men, git hold of this here rope an' haul up them boards, an' make a seat for us."

Auberry and I found it difficult to execute this order, for the current of old Missouri, thrusting against so large an object, was incredibly strong; but at last, little by little edging the heavy staging up over the limb of the snag, we got its end upon another fork and so made a ticklish support, half in and half out of the water.

"That's better," said Mandy, climbing upon it. "Now come here, you pore child. You're powerful cold." She gathered the girl between her knees as she sat. "Here, you man, give me your coat," she said to me; and I complied, wishing it were not so wet.

None on the boat seemed to have any notion of what was going on upon our side of the vessel. We heard many shouts and orders, much trampling of feet, but for the most part on the opposite part of the boat. Then at once we heard the engines reverse, and were nearly swept from our insecure hold upon the snag by the surges kicked up under the wheel. The current caught the long underbody of the boat as she swung. We heard something rip and splinter and grate; and then the boat, backing free from the snag, gradually slipped down from the bar and swept into the current under steam again.

Not so lucky ourselves, for this wrenching free of the boat had torn loose the long imbedded roots of the giant snag, and the plowing current getting under the vast flat back of matted roots, now slowly forced it, grinding and shuddering, down from the toe of the bar. With a sullen roll it settled down into new lines as it reached the deeper water. Then the hiss of the water among the branches ceased. Rolling and swaying, we were going with the current, fully afloat on the yellow flood of the Missouri!

I held my breath for a moment, fearing lest the snag might roll over entirely; but no concern seemed to reach the mind of our friend Mrs. McGovern. "It's all right," said she, calmly. "No use gittin' skeered till the time comes. Boat's left us, so I reckon we'd better be gittin' somewhere for ourselves. You, Andrew Jackson, dem yer fool soul, if you don't quit snivelin' I'll throw you off into the worter."

Looking across the stream I could see the lights of the River Belle swing gradually into a longer line, and presently heard the clanging of her bells as she came to a full stop, apparently tied up along shore. From that direction the current seemed to come toward us with a long slant, so that as we dropped down stream, we also edged away.

We had traveled perhaps three quarters of a mile, when I noticed the dim loom of trees on our side of the stream, and saw that we were approaching a long point which ran out below us. This should have been the deep side of the river, but no one can account for the vagaries of the Missouri. When we were within a hundred yards or so of the point, we felt a long shuddering scrape under us, and after a series of slips and jerks, our old snag came to anchor again, its roots having once more laid hold upon a bar. The sand-wash seemed to have been deflected by the projecting mass of a heap of driftwood which I now saw opposite to us, its long white arms reaching out toward those of our floating craft. Once more the hissing of the water began among the buried limbs, and once more the snag rolled ominously, and then lay still, its giant, naked trunk, white and half submerged, reaching up stream fifty feet above us. We were apparently as far from safety as ever, although almost within touch of shore.

It occurred to me that as I had been able to touch bottom on the other bar, I might do so here. I crawled back along the trunk of the snag to a place as near the roots as I could reach, and letting myself down gently, found that I could keep my footing on the sand.

"Look out there! boy," cried Auberry to me. "This river's dangerous. If it takes you down, swim for the shore. Don't try to get back here." We could see that the set of the current below ran close inshore, although doubtless the water there was very deep.

Little by little I edged up the stream, and found presently that the water shoaled toward the heap of driftwood. It dropped off, I know not how deep, between the edge of the bar and the piled drift; but standing no more than waist deep; I could reach the outer limbs of the drift and saw that they would support my weight. After that I waded back to the snag carefully, and once more ordered the young woman to come to me.

She came back along the naked and slippery trunk of the snag, pulling herself along by her hands, her bare feet and limbs deep in the water alongside. I could hear the sob of her intaken breath, and saw that she trembled in fright.

"Come," I said, as she finally reached the mass of the roots. And more dead than alive, it seemed to me, she fell once more into my arms. I felt her grasp tighten about my neck, and her firm body crowd against me as we both sank down for an instant. Then I caught my feet and straightened, and was really the steadier for the added weight, as any one knows who has waded in fast water. Little by little I edged up on the bar, quite conscious of her very gracious weight, but sure we should thus reach safety.

"Put me down," she said at length, as she saw the water shoaling. It was hip deep to me, but waist deep to her; and I felt her shudder as she caught its chill. Her little hand gripped tight to mine.

By this time the others had also descended from the snag. I saw old Auberry plunging methodically along, at his side Mrs. McGovern, clasping the hand of her son. "Come on here, you boy," she said. "What ye skeered of? Tall as you air, you could wade the whole Missouri without your hair gettin' wet. Come along!"

"Get up, Auberry," I said to him as he approached, and motioned to the long, overhanging branches from the driftwood. He swung up, breaking off the more insecure boughs, and was of the belief that we could get across in that way. As he reached down, I swung the young woman up to him, and she clambered on as best she could. Thus, I scarce know how, we all managed to reach the solid drift, and so presently found ourselves ashore, on a narrow, sandy beach, hedged on the back by a heavy growth of willows.

"Now then, you men," ordered Mandy McGovern, "get some wood out and start a fire, right away. This here girl is shaking the teeth plumb out'n her head."

Auberry and I had dragged some wood from the edge of the drift and pulled it into a heap near by, before we realized that neither of us had matches.

"Humph!" snorted our leader, feeling in her pockets. She drew forth two flasks, each stoppered with a bit of corncob. The one held sulphur matches, thus kept quite dry, and this she passed to me. The other she handed to the young woman.

"Here," said she, "take a drink of that. It'll do you good."

I heard the girl gasp and choke as she obeyed this injunction; and then Mandy applied the bottle gurglingly to her own lips.

"I've got a gallon of that back there on the boat," said Auberry ruefully.

"Heap of good it'll do you there," remarked Mandy. "Looks to me like you all never did travel much. Fer me, I always go heeled. Wherever I gits throwed, there my rifle, and my matches, and my licker gits throwed too! Now I'll show you how to, light a fire."

Presently we had a roaring blaze started, which added much to the comfort of all, for the chill of night was over the river, despite the fact that this was in the springtime. Mandy seated herself comfortably upon a log, and producing a corncob pipe and a quantity of natural leaf tobacco, proceeded to enjoy herself in her own fashion. "This here's all right," she remarked. "We might be a heap worse off'n we air."

I could not help pitying the young woman who crouched near her at the fireside, still shivering; she seemed so young and helpless and so out of place in such surroundings. As presently the heat of the flame made her more comfortable, she began to tuck back the tumbled locks of her hair, which I could see was thick and dark. The firelight showed in silhouette the outlines of her face. It seemed to me I had never seen one more beautiful. I remembered the round firmness of her body in my arms, the clasp of her hands about my neck, her hair blown across my cheek, and I reflected that since fortune had elected me to be a rescuer, it was not ill that so fair an object had been there for the rescuing.

Perhaps she felt my gaze, for presently she turned and said to me, in as pleasant a speaking voice as I had ever heard, "Indeed, it might be worse. I thank you so much. It was very brave of you."

"Listen at that!" grunted Mandy McGovern. "What'd them men have to do with it? Where'd you all be now if it wasn't for me?"

"You'd be much better off," I ventured, "if I hadn't done any rescuing at all, and if we'd all stayed over there on the boat." I pointed to the lights of the River Belle, lying on the opposite shore, something like a mile above us.

"We're all right now," said old Auberry after a time. "If we can't get across to the boat, it's only four or five miles up to the settlements on this side, opposite the old Independence landing."

"I couldn't walk," said the girl. She shyly looked down at the edge of her thin wrapper, and I saw the outline of an uncovered toe.

"Here, ma'am," said Auberry, unknotting from his neck a heavy bandana. "This is the best I can do. You and the woman see if you can tie up your feet somehow."

The girl hesitated, laughed, and took the kerchief. She and Mandy bent apart, and I heard the ripping of the handkerchief torn across. The girl turned back to the fire and put out a little foot for us to see, muffled now in the red folds of the kerchief. Her thin garments by this time were becoming dry, and her spirits now became more gay. She fell into a ready comradeship with us.

As she stood at the fire, innocent of its defining light, I saw that she was a beautiful creature, apparently about twenty years of age. Given proper surroundings, I fancied, here was a girl who might make trouble for a man. Eyes like hers, I imagined, had before this set some man's heart astir; and one so fair as she never waited long in this world for admirers.

She stooped and spread out her hands before the flames. I could see that her hands were small and well formed, could see the firelight shine pink at the inner edges of her fingers. On one finger, as I could not avoid noticing, was a curious ring of plain gold. The setting, also of gold, was deeply cut into the figure of a rose. I recalled that I had never seen a ring just similar. Indeed, it seemed to me, as I stole a furtive glance at her now and then, I had never seen a girl just similar.

They Fought Furiously The Yelling Charging Redskin Warriors

They Fought Furiously The Yelling Charging Redskin Warriors

The Wagons Draw Into A Defensive Circle

The Wagons Draw Into A Defensive Circle

We had waited perhaps not over an hour at our fireside, undecided what to do, when Auberry raised a hand. "Listen," he said. "There's a boat coming"; and presently we all heard the splash of oars. Our fire had been seen by one of the boats of the River Belle, out picking up such stragglers as could be found.

"Hello, there!" called a rough voice to us, as the boat grated at our beach. Auberry and I walked over and found that it was the mate of the boat, with a pair of oarsmen in a narrow river skiff.

"How many's there of you?" asked the mate—"Five?—I can't take you all."

"All right," said Auberry, "this gentleman and I will walk up to the town on this side. You take the women and the boy. We'll send down for our things in the morning, if you don't come up."

So our little bivouac on the beach came to an end. A moment later the passengers were embarked, and Auberry and I, standing at the bow, were about to push off the boat for them.

"A moment, sir," exclaimed our friend of the fireside, rising and stepping toward me as I stood alongside the boat. "You are forgetting your coat."

She would have taken it from her shoulders, but I forbade it. She hesitated, and finally said, "I thank you so much"; holding out her hand.

I took it. It was a small hand, with round fingers, firm of clasp. I hate a hard-handed woman, or one with mushy fingers, but this, as it seemed to me, was a hand excellently good to clasp—warm now, and no longer trembling in the terrors of the night.

"I do not know your name, sir," she said, "but I should like my father to thank you some day."

"All ready!" cried the mate.

"My name is Cowles," I began, "and sometime, perhaps—"

"All aboard!" cried the mate; and so the oars gave way.

So I did not get the name of the girl I had seen there in the firelight. What did remain—and that not wholly to my pleasure, so distinct it seemed—was the picture of her high-bred profile, shown in chiaroscuro at the fireside, the line of her chin and neck, the tumbled masses of her hair. These were things I did not care to remember; and I hated myself as a soft-hearted fool, seeing that I did so.

"Son," said old Auberry to me, after a time, as we trudged along up the bank, stumbling over roots and braided grasses, "that was a almighty fine lookin' gal we brung along with us there."

"I didn't notice," said I.

"No," said Auberry, solemnly, "I noticed you didn't take no notice; so you can just take my judgment on it, which I allow is safe. Are you a married man?"

"Not yet," I said.

"You might do a heap worse than that gal," said Auberry.

"I suppose you're married yourself," I suggested.

"Some," said Auberry, chuckling in the dark. "In fact, a good deal, I reckon. My present woman's a Shoshone—we're livin' up Horse Creek, below Laramie. Them Shoshones make about the best dressers of 'em all."

"I don't quite understand—"

"I meant hides. They can make the best buckskin of any tribe I know." He walked on ahead in the dark for some time, before he added irrelevantly, "Well, after all, in some ways, women is women, my son, and men is men; that bein' the way this world is made just at these here present times. As I was sayin', that's a powerful nice lookin' gal."

I shuddered in my soul. I glanced up at the heavens, studded thick with stars. It seemed to me that I saw gazing down directly at me one cold, bright, reproving star, staring straight into my soul, and accusing me of being nothing more than a savage, nothing better than a man.