Chapter XLIII: Jean Is Happy—and Another Person 307 (7)

“Not till—” He checked the word that was in his heart. “I first went to Montreal, where I fell in with a company of Hudson Bay traders, with whom I went to the Great Northern Lakes. I soon made, and lost, several fortunes. I have always intended to return to my mother, but the years have come and gone; and now, at the age of twenty-four, you find me, as you see, with another fortune to make. But it seems an uphill struggle.”

“Do you write regularly to your mother, sir?”

“I am sorry to be compelled to answer no; but I promise you to do better hereafter. And now, as the evening wanes, and I must leave you to the privileges of my castle for the night, will you tell me your name?”

“Certainly. It is Ranger,—Jean Robinson Ranger. And you are Mr.—?”

“Ashleigh; Ashton Ashleigh, of Ashton Place, London, England.”

“May I write to your mother from my Oregon home, when I get there, and tell her all I know about you?”

“Isn’t that an odd request, Miss Ranger?”

Jean blushed to the tips of her ears.

“Nobody ever called me Miss Ranger before,” she said, to hide her confusion. “My sister Mary is the Miss Ranger of our family. Yes, I did make an unusual request; but I thought of your mother pining for news of her son, and fancied she might be glad to hear about him, even from a stranger. But I see that it would hardly be proper for me to write; so please do it yourself.”

“Write to her by all means, Miss Ranger, as I assure you I surely will. And now,” he added, rising, “I hear your Indian maid tapping outside, and it is time to say good-night. I trust you will sleep well and have pleasant dreams.”

“Good-night, Mr. Ashleigh. I thank you ever so much for all your kindness.”

XXVI

_LE-LE, THE INDIAN GIRL_

“Nika klosh cloochman!” clucked the Indian girl.

Jean looked at her inquiringly.

“Nika wake cumtux Siwah wa-wa?” asked the dusky maiden, offering her hand.

“She says she is a good Indian girl, and asks if you understand her,” said Siwash, who was leisurely putting the room to rights. “She’s my little sister; heap good. Ugh! Nika speak jargon?”

“No, Siwash.”

But the maiden’s manner, though coy, was assuring, and Jean clasped her hand eagerly. She was a graceful, nimble, and pretty creature; and Jean thought with a sigh of regret of the ugly transformation awaiting her under the cares and burdens of maturity and maternity, when, no longer like “the wild gazelle, with its nimble feet,” she would resemble other elderly Indian women.

“What is your name, little girl?” she asked, as the maiden dropped gracefully upon the hearth at her feet.

“Nika wake cumtux Boston wa-wa.”

“She says she doesn’t understand you,” grunted Siwash.

“Ah-to-ke-nika a-it sewar.”

“She says she has a good heart.”

“Why doesn’t she speak her name?”

The girl crouched low on the hearth and spread her shapely brown fingers before the dying embers.

“Nika Le-Le. Nika caid.”

“She says her name is Le-Le, and she is a slave.”

“Your sister? and a slave?”

“I, too, was a slave,” said Siwash, “but I bought my freedom; and when I get ten horses of my own, I will buy Le-Le’s. Could you help us? Your father is good.”

“A good heart isn’t always accompanied by a full purse,” thought Jean.

“Who imagines that he has a property interest in your sister?” she asked aloud.

“Our chief, Tyee of the Nootkas. He captured both of us in a war with our people, the Seattles, many, many moons ago.”

“Ugh! Way-siyah! Whulge!” cried the girl, writhing like a captured eel.

“Mac-kam-mah-shish, copa-nika?”

“She asks if you cannot buy her.”

“Nowitka! Mika! Closh potlatch hy-u chickamin?”

“God knows I wish I could buy her,” said Jean.

No painter could have done justice to the varying expressions that alternately lighted and clouded the Madonna-like face of Le-Le, as she strained every nerve to comprehend the conversation. And when at last every vestige of her awakening hope had settled into a conviction of failure, she buried her face in her hands, and, bending forward, shook her black abundant hair over her face and body to the floor, and uttered a piercing wail, making Jean’s blood curdle.

“Le-Le’s cold!” cried the girl, crouching lower, till the embers singed the ends of her straying locks.

“Don’t cry, Le-Le dear. You have come to spend the night with me,” exclaimed Jean, seizing her gently by the arm.

“Nika wake cumtux,” cried the girl.

“You have come to sleep,” pointing to the bed in the corner.

“Nowitka! sleep! Nika cumtux.”

“She understands,” said Jean, rising and turning to Siwash. “Good-night.”

Jean was too full of contending emotions for sleep. She lingered long upon the hearth. “I could stay here always,” she exclaimed in a low voice, but loud enough to awaken the wary maiden from her slumbers on the bed. But the mutual vocabulary of the twain did not admit of satisfactory conversation, and the Indian girl sank back into unconsciousness.

As she sat there thinking, a pair of kindly eyes seemed watching her every movement with a tender devotion that made her heart beat wildly. “I wish I’d never teased or laughed at Mame,” she sighed, as the Reverend Thomas Rogers flitted past her inner vision. “What is Life but Love? And who and what is Love but God? And what is God but the wonderful Mystery that is both Life and Love?”

Le-Le was away in dreamland, on the enchanted shores of Whulge,—the Indian name for the magnificent body of water known to the civilized world as Puget Sound.

“This is holy ground,” cried Jean, so softly to herself that none but Cupid heard. “These lowly walls will be a sacred memory to me through all the rest of my life. But life will mean worse than nothing to me without my one hero. Must I go away to-morrow? Oh, my God! can I ever live again, away from this lodge in the wilderness? Guard and guide my love, O Spirit of Life, and shield him with Thine everlasting arms!”

Then, recollecting that she had not prayed, as usual, for the dear ones in camp, she lovingly invoked divine protection for each and all, and was soon in a sound, refreshing sleep.

* * * * *

“Yes, daddie dear, I’m safe and sound,” she cried, as she awoke to consciousness, to find that the sun was shining and her father’s familiar voice was calling her name in vigorous tones at the door.

Jean hastily donned her clothing, which, simple as it was, excited the envy of Le-Le. “Mika klosh, cultus potlatch?” she said inquiringly, as she fondled a blue-and-white neck-ribbon, which was not over clean.

“Cultus potlatch?” she asked again.

Although Jean was not certain as to the maiden’s meaning, she gave her the ribbon and tried to think her excusable.

“Did you want it? Was that what you meant?”

“Nowitka! Cultus potlatch! Hy-as klosh!”

Jean tied the ribbon in a double bow-knot around the girl’s tawny neck, and Le-Le, studying its effect in the little mirror on the wall, exclaimed with a low chuckle, “Hi-yu klosh!”

* * * * *

“Oh, daddie darling,” exclaimed Jean, opening the door and springing to his embrace, “did you think your historian was lost?”

“Yes; or worse!” replied her father, his anger displacing anxiety as soon as he saw that she was safe. “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost yourself on this trip. If it happens again, I’ll—”

“Don’t chide or punish the young lady, please!” interposed her obliging host. “If you had seen how badly frightened and anxious she was last night when she found herself left alone among strangers, you’d forgive her without a word.”

“That’s so, daddie,” sobbed Jean.

“I surrendered my country-seat to her, and sent for this little Indian maiden to keep her company.”

There was a touch of humor in his tone, augmented by a kindly smile, which sent the hot blood into the truant’s face and made her heart beat hard.

“Won’t you thank the gentleman, daddie? I might have been murdered but for him.”

“Of course I thank the gentleman; but that doesn’t lessen your offence. You deserve a good thrashing!”

“Which I’ll never get, daddie dear!” Then turning to her host, she added, “Daddie never whips us, but he threatens us sometimes.”

“I think I owe you a little explanation, Captain,” said the host. “I might have risked taking your daughter across the river in a rowboat last night if it had been safe to trust her on the other side after dark. There are Indians camped along the way; and, though they are peaceful enough when they are compelled to be, they are not trustworthy under all circumstances. But my servant, Siwash, has breakfast ready and waiting. I can’t allow you to go on till you have broken your fast.”

The host conducted his guests into the dugout to a table loaded with a bountiful supply of coffee, fish, venison, hot biscuit, beans, and wapatoes,—the last two dishes being deftly exhumed from the depths of a bed of ashes, where they had been cooked to perfection during the night.

“Your servant is an artist in his business,” said the Captain, in praise of the food.

“Yes, Captain. I found him a slave, and, seeing he was superior to most of his class, I purchased him for what you would consider a trifle. Then, as time wore on, I encouraged him to buy his freedom from me. He is now trying to purchase his sister; but he finds it slow work, as her value increases as she gets older and better able to dig camas and tan buffalo hides.”

“It is awful to enslave the Indians!” cried Jean. “The Government ought to stop it!”

“Slavery among the Indians is no worse than among the negroes,” said her host, with an admiring smile.

“Women are not responsible for slavery, sir,” said Jean.

“But women are very ardent defenders of slavery wherever it exists, my daughter,” added her father, gravely.

“That’s because they themselves are servants without wages, daddie. Mother used to say that the worst slave-drivers she ever saw down South were the overseers who were slaves themselves. Women are not angels, but they are doing the best they can without political power.”

“I don’t know but you are right, Miss Ranger. Women ought to have power. My sovereign is a woman, and we have no slavery in England.”

“Thank you for giving me the best of the argument, Mr. Ashleigh. But I see that daddie is impatient, and we must be going.”

“I hope you’ll pardon me for referring to a proposition you made last evening, although you may have changed your mind, Miss Ranger. You proposed writing to my mother. Will you do it?”

“Ask daddie.”

“I have no objection, of course,” said her father, “if it is understood that I shall see the letters.”

“Of course,” responded Jean.

“May I have the pleasure of corresponding with your daughter, sir?”

“Yes, if I can see the correspondence.”

This was a greater concession than Jean had dared to hope for.

“Thank you, Captain Ranger. I am sure my mother will be delighted with the young lady’s letters. She has awakened my dormant sense of filial duty and inspired me with a determination to return to it. I shall not neglect my mother again.”

“Come, Jean! It is high time we were off!”

As her father spoke, the possible termination to this peculiar meeting gave him a heartache.

The last good-byes were spoken, and Captain Ranger heaved a sigh of relief. “It will be out of sight, out of mind, with both of ’em in less than a month!” he said, _sotto voce_.

XXVII

_JEAN TRANSFORMED_

“Where did you spend the night, Jean?” asked Mary.

“In heaven,” answered Jean, her cheeks glowing.

“Nonsense.”

“I mean exactly what I say, Mame. I lodged with an Indian princess, and ate my meals with a member of the British aristocracy. The princess couldn’t speak English, but her brother acted as interpreter, so we got on all right. She is a slave of an old chief of the Seattles. I wish I had the money; I’d buy her, and send her back to her people.”

“You might as well wish you owned the moon!”

“I own the earth,—as much of it as I need. Everybody does.”

“Then the most of us get cheated out of our patrimony,” laughed Sally O’Dowd.

“I wish you could all have had a chance to look in on me and my princess last night; we were as snug as two bugs in a rug. The crickets sang on the hearth, just as they used to do of nights in the old home. The wind roared like a storm at sea, and the rush of the river was grand. I can shut my eyes and live it all over again.”

“You’ve gone stark mad!” laughed Hal.

“As mad as a March hare,” said Sally O’Dowd. “I know the symptoms from sad experience.”

“You ought to be repenting in sackcloth and ashes. Why are you not sorry?” asked Mary.

“Because in losing myself I found my fate.”

“Was it an Indian brave in a breech-cloth, with a bow and arrow, a shirt-collar, and a pair of spurs?” asked Hal.

The roar of laughter that greeted this query made Jean fairly frantic. “You’re worse than a lot of savages yourselves,” she cried. “If I had my way, I’d go back to that lodge in the wilderness and stay there!”

Jean climbed into the wagon, buried her face in her hands, and abandoned herself to a deep, absorbing reverie. “Oh, mother dear,” she said softly, “if you could speak, you would sympathize with me, I am sure. If I only had your love and sympathy, I wouldn’t care what anybody else might think or say,—not even daddie. A new light and a new life have come into my soul. Though a cruel fate may separate us through this life, we shall always be one. But God made us for each other, and we shall surely meet again.”

* * * * *

There was no longer any game to be had for the shooting; the little extra food the company could purchase from the Indians, or from the few white borderers at infrequent trading-posts, was held at almost prohibitive prices. Dead cattle continued to abound at the roadside, filling the air with an intolerable stench through every hour of the day and night. No camping-spot could be found where the surroundings were not thus polluted. Captain Ranger’s teams were giving out from sheer exhaustion, induced by starvation rather than overwork, and two or more of his weaker oxen were dying daily.

“I’ll break the horrible monotony of this diary,” said Jean at last, “or I’ll die trying.” And for many days her jottings were confined to minute, and sometimes glowing, descriptions of snow-capped mountains, bald hills, tree-studded lesser heights, and vast and desolate wastes of sand and sage and rocks. Sterile valleys, verdant banks of little rivers, mighty streams, and running brooks received attention, in their turn, from her pen, the whole making a record surprisingly akin to the journals kept by Lewis and Clark, and left on record half a century earlier, of the existence of which she had no knowledge. There was one theme of which her father enforced daily mention,—a regular account of the scarcity of grass and game and wood and water.

A murder by the roadside, and the consequent trial, conviction, and execution of the murderer by a “provisional government” temporarily organized for the purpose received a painstaking record, as did also a difficulty with some thieving and beggarly Indians, whose hostility was awakened by the rashness of one of a trio of bachelors, who were encamped one night near the Ranger wagons. Captain Ranger made the Indians a pacifying speech, but only by the aid of some trifling present among the women of the tribe, and a gift of a pair of blankets to their chieftain, was the impending danger averted. A double guard was placed outside that night; and, for several nights following, a corral was made of the wagons in the shape of a hollow square, into which the cattle were driven to rest and sleep.

The now famous Soda Springs, known to the commercial world as Idanha, next caught the coloring of Jean’s pen. The different geysers rising from the tops of the gutter-sided mounds of soda-stone were carefully and graphically described. The crater of a long-extinct volcano received special mention. The bad water of alkali-infected streams and swamps, left by slowly evaporating pools and ponds, through which cattle and wagons labored with the greatest difficulty; the dreary wastes of sagebrush, sand, and rock, through which everybody who was able to walk at all was compelled to trudge on foot; the devastations of prairie fires; the endless wastes of stunted sage and greasewood; the struggling aspens on the margins of tiny streams,—all met graphic and detailed delineation, such as nobody can appreciate to the full who to-day traverses these vast and wondrous wilds in a railway coach, or gazes upon them from a Pullman car.

* * * * *

“Captain Ranger,” said Sally O’Dowd one evening, “do you notice that Jean is growing strikingly beautiful?”

They were halting for the night after a day’s hard drive; and the jaded oxen, weak and sick from the combined effects of hard labor, cruel whippings, and an insufficient supply of grass and water, were necessarily the chief objects of his attention and solicitude. A broken wagon-tongue added to his perplexities, as good timber for repairs was not available; and the mileage of the day’s travel had been much shortened by the necessity of stopping to mend the break, or, as the Little Doctor not inaptly said, “to reduce the compound fracture of a most important part of the wagon’s anatomy.”

“All my girls are handsome,” said the Captain, as he tested the strength of a splice on the broken tongue by jumping upon it with both feet.

“But Jean has been transformed, Captain. The change has been growing upon her daily since the date of that Green River episode. The child is hopelessly infatuated with that young Englishman.”

“Much good it’ll do her,” he exclaimed, mopping his brow with a soiled bandanna. “It is painfully evident that three of my girls will soon be women. If their mother were here, it wouldn’t be so hard to manage them. No, Sally, I’ve noticed no particular change in Jean.”

“Because you are too busy for observation, sir. She hasn’t been a particle like herself of late.”

The Captain hurried away to his work, muttering, “Nonsense!”

Jean had seated herself on the most distant wagon-tongue, her battered, ink-bespattered journal in her lap, her pen in one hand, her inkstand in the other, her knitted brows and glowing face expressing deep concentration of thought and feeling.

Captain Ranger, having finished his work of repairs, dropped wearily upon an axle-tree, and, for the first time in several days, prompted doubtless by the words of Sally O’Dowd, took a long and searching look at Jean.

“Yes, indeed; Sally is right,” he soliloquized. “Jean is developing a wonderfully beautiful style of womanhood. What a pity it is that she cannot have her mother at the very time when she needs her most!”

Pangs of anxiety akin to jealousy shot through his heart as he studied her features; her downcast eyes were hidden by the heavy lashes as she bent over her work. “She doesn’t resemble her mother as Mary does, but she must be the almost exact counterpart of what my mother was at her age,” he mused, as he noted for the first time the ripening lips, the rosy and yet transparent hue of her cheeks, and the sunny sheen of her hair. He was surprised that he had not before observed the soft, exquisite contour of her face and neck, the full rounded bust, and the shapely development of her feet and hands.

As he sat watching the lights and shadows of thought and feeling that played upon her features, the remembrance of the girlhood of her mother, whose arduous married years had all been spent in his service, arose before him with startling power. “Dear, patient, tender, self-sacrificing Annie!” he exclaimed, as he arose from his rocking seat and strode away in the gloaming. “I never half appreciated your worth until I lost you for ever!”

“No, not for ever,” softly sung a still, small voice in the depths of his inner consciousness. “Do not reproach yourself. All eternity is yet to be.”

Jean felt, rather than saw, the pressure of his eyes, and half divined his thoughts. She felt the telltale blood as it rushed unbidden to her cheeks, and was seized with a great longing to throw herself into his arms and breathe out the full secret of her great awakening in his ears; but something in his manner repelled her advances, and she withdrew more than ever into herself.

“O Love!” she cried in a tone so low and sweet that none but a messenger from the Unseen might hear, “how ungovernable art thou, and how incomprehensible! The worldly-wise may decry thee; the misanthropic may deride thee; the vulgar may make of thy existence an unholy jest; the selfish and ignorant may trample upon thee; human laws may crush thee; but thou remainest still a thing of life, to fill thy votaries with a holy joy and endow them with the very attributes of God. An imperishable entity art thou, O Love! Thou art interblended with every fibre of my being now, and I accept thee as a sweet fulfilment of my earthly destiny.”

Of course Jean was young and fond and inexperienced and foolish; and these chronicles would offer her rhapsodies as the utterances of no worldly-wise oracle. But her thoughts were fresh and pure; and who shall say they did not emanate from the very fountain of life itself, whose presence she could sense but could not understand?

She wandered off toward the rushing, maddening torrent of Snake River, whose music had for her, in these moods of introspection, but one interpretation.

“Daddie may denounce, Hal and Mame may tease, and Marjorie,—yes, and all the world deride me,” she said, as she sat upon a bowlder and abandoned herself to reverie; “but henceforth there shall be nothing in this world for me to cherish but Love and its handmaiden, Duty.”

Snake River, full at this point of jutting rocky islands, through which the foaming, roaring waters rushed like a thousand mill-races on parade, dashed madly against its banks beneath her feet, and rushing on again, roared and laughed and shrieked and sang. Lichens clung to the uplifted rocks, which, hoary with age and massive in proportions, held vigil in the midst of the eternal grandeur. Mountains clambered over mountains in the dimly lighted distance, and reaching to the red horizon, overlooked the Pacific seas.

“The antelope and elk are gone,” she thought, “and we are lone watchers amid the eternal vastness. But the sage-hen, the lizard, the owl, and the jaybird linger; and yonder, among the everlasting rocks, are the homes of the Indian, the rattlesnake, the badger, and the wolf.”

Rustling footsteps startled her. “Why, it’s daddie!” she exclaimed, her heart beating audibly. “I thought you were an Indian or a bear!”

“You oughtn’t to go off alone, my daughter. There is some hidden danger threatening us; I feel, but cannot divine it. Something is going wrong somewhere or somehow. Let’s hurry back to camp.”

“You’re the last person on earth I’d suspect of giving way to a morbid fancy, daddie dear. You must be very tired.”

“It isn’t that, my daughter. I am sad because you have allowed your heart to stray, and I do need you so much—so much!”

She answered not a word.

XXVIII

_THE STAMPEDE_

The next morning brought unexpected delays. The repairs about the camp and wagons consumed more time than had been anticipated, and it was ten o’clock before the cattle, which had been allowed to stray farther from camp than usual, in search of the dried and scanty herbage that alone staved off starvation, were driven into camp and hurried down to the river-bank to drink. The swiftness, foam, and sudden chill of the water, its depth and roaring, confused and frightened the half-sick and half-starved animals; and one, a patriarchal bull, the master and leader of the herd, who had often before made trouble, gave vent to a deep, sonorous bellow like the roar of an ancient aurochs. Then, with nose in air, he struck out across the stream, the herd following. A small, rocky cape crept out into the water on the opposite bank, affording the only visible landing-place; and up this the panic-stricken creatures scrambled in a mad stampede, which the helpless occupants of the camp surveyed with the calmness of despair.

“I had no idea that the poor creatures had enough life left in them to run a dozen rods on level ground,” said Captain Ranger, after a grim silence. “Boys,” he added in a husky voice, as he swallowed a great lump in his throat, “are any of you able to swim Snake River?”

“I can do it,” answered John Brownson, an obliging young teamster, who had joined the company early in the journey and had made himself useful on many trying occasions.

“And I too,” said John Jordan, another favorite of road and camp. The two intrepid volunteers shook hands with their anxious Captain and plunged boldly into the roaring, swirling, deafening torrent, through which Jordan swam with ease, his head now bobbing out of sight and now rising above the foaming current, to disappear again and again, till at last he was seen to emerge from the water on the opposite steep and ascend the almost sheer acclivity leading to the table-land above. It was a brave and daring feat, but it proved fruitless. The poor, panic-stricken cattle failed to recognize as a friend the stark white apparition, entirely bereft of clothing. It was all in vain that he called the leader of the herd by name; and when the frightened creature turned and charged him, and there was no shelter but some patriarchal sagebrush trees, he took refuge behind the biggest of them till the aurochs changed his mind and turned to follow the stampeding herd.

The panic continued. The stampede was irresistible. The cattle were lost, and most of them were never heard of more, though it is said that Flossie, the companion and patient of Jean during the hours of her vigil on that never-to-be-forgotten night in the Black Hills,—Flossie, the faithful, enduring, and kindly-eyed milch cow whose calf had been killed on the road,—reappeared long afterwards in the sagebrush wilds of Baker County, Oregon, with quite a following of her children, grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren, all but herself as wild as so many deer. Flossie herself was recognized, they say, by the Ranger brand; and her hide, with the letters J. R. still visible behind the shoulder-blade, is to-day a valued relic of departed years in the mansion of a prominent actor in the drama of that eventful summer.

But what of Brownson? All day the hapless watchers of the camp had strained their eyes and ears for sight or sound of him, in vain.

“He must have been caught with cramps, or been dashed against the rocks by the current, for I saw him drown,” said Jordan, at sundown, as he rejoined the helpless watchers near the wagons.

Meanwhile, the men and women of the camp had not been idle. The lightest wagon-box the train afforded was selected and pressed into service for a ferry-boat; and while the men made oars, rowlocks, and rudder as best they could with the materials at hand, the women skilfully caulked the seams of the wagon-bed with an improvised substitute for oakum, under the supervision of the Little Doctor, making it tolerably water-tight. The wagon-box was then replaced on wheels and hauled upstream about half-a-dozen miles to a little valley where the river was wide, the banks low, and the water comparatively shoal and calm.

It was conjectured by Captain Ranger that the entire force of men in the train might be able, by a concerted effort, to assist the watcher on the upland in his brave attempt to arrest the stampede and secure the cattle’s return. But their united efforts were unavailing; and long before they returned, disheartened, apprehensive, and weary, the helpless watchers at the camp saw the bruised body of Captain Ranger’s favorite mare rolling, tumbling, bumping, and thumping through the roaring waters and among the jagged rocks, near the very spot where Brownson had been drowned.

Noble, faithful, obedient Sukie! In her attempt to swim the river with her devoted master, who was seated in the stern of the novel boat leading her by the halter and encouraging her with kindly words, her strength failed utterly; and when she turned upon her side and Captain Ranger let go his hold upon the halter, she uttered a dying scream, rolled over, and was gone.

“If there isn’t any horse heaven, the creative Force has been derelict in duty,” sadly exclaimed the master, as he watched the lifeless body of his beloved and faithful servant floating down the stream.

Through the silent watches of the awful night that followed, John Ranger pondered, planned, and waited.

His three daughters and three younger children, Sally O’Dowd and her three babies, and Susannah and George Washington, all occupied the family wagon, around which he stalked through the silent hours as one in a dream.

“A formidable array of dependent ones,” he said to himself over and over again. “And what is to become of my Annie’s darlings? Was it for this that she started with me on this terrible journey?”

There was no audible answer to his anxious queries save the roaring of the river as it crashed its way between the rocks that formed its grim and tortuous channel.

Weary at last of walking, he crept into his tent beside Hal, who had been dead to the world from the moment he touched his bed, so sweet is the deep forgetfulness of childhood when “tired Nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” is preparing it for the further endurance of an exacting and ambitious life. But Captain Ranger could not sleep. He arose and faced again the silent horrors of the situation.

The stars twinkled overhead in their usual triumph over disturbing forces; and, slowly fading into the coming twilight, rode the gibbous moon.

In his helplessness the lonely watcher lifted up his voice and prayed.

“I’ve never felt much worry over original sin, O Lord!” he cried, standing with hands uplifted in the chilly air, “but you know I’ve generally been honest. I’ve tried hard to do my duty according to my lights. I didn’t mean to bring my Annie and her babies out here in the wilderness to die; but you understood the conditions, and because you understood, you took my wife away. I rebelled at first, but you helped me to bear it for her sake; and for this, for the first time, I thank you. And now, if you have the love for her children for which she always gave you credit, I am sure that you’ll guide me safely out of this present trouble. And if you do, O Lord, I’ll serve you as long as I live in whatever way you lead. Amen.”

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread!”

“Who spoke to me?” he asked, aloud. “Where did that voice come from? I could have sworn it was Annie! No; Annie is dead!”

In a flurry of excitement he peered in all directions, listening eagerly. But in his soul there slowly crept a quiet peace, and with it a sense of security and elation which he could not comprehend; neither could he doubt its reality.

Before him passed, in mental review, the strenuous days of his boyhood, awakening youth, and early manhood. The memory of his mother arose before him, inexpressibly sweet and tender. He thought lovingly of his father, strong in the religious faith of which he had often made a jest. His gentle Annie seemed so near that he could almost reach her. But closer to him than any other seemed the presence of his brother Joseph. What a promising lad he was, and with what joy had the whole family striven to bestow upon him the educational advantages to which none of the others had dared to aspire!

Then passed before him, like scenes in a panorama, the awful pecuniary straits that followed, when the beloved brother fell under the ban of the law.

Then came in review his unexpected meeting with that brother in the wilderness. “Forgive my pride, brutality, and selfishness, O Lord! and by all that’s holy, I’ll make it right with Joe!”

And who shall say that this unique appeal to the great Source of Life was less acceptable to the Infinite than the studied petitions of gowned prelates? whose often conflicting appeals to Jehovah, if answered literally, would plunge the world into confusion and chaos under the diverse demands of the children of men.

His prayer ended, the chilled and worried wanderer returned to his bed and readdressed himself to sleep, this time with such success that when he awoke the sun was riding high in the heavens, and he heard the familiar voice of a train-master, whom he had left in his rear by taking the Green River cut-off, and who had now overtaken him.

“Hello, Captain!” exclaimed the new arrival, striking the wall of the sleeper’s tent with the butt of his heavy ox-whip. “What’s all this I’ve been hearing? Didn’t you get back any of your stampeded cattle?”

“Nary a hoof,” replied the Captain. “I tell you we’re in a mighty bad fix, Harlan.”

“How are you going to get out?”

“Don’t know yet. It’s a ground-hog case, though, I’m bound to make it somehow. Got any cattle to sell?”

“Possibly. Might spare two yoke and an odd steer. Got any money?”

“A few dollars. But I don’t want to get into Oregon dead broke. Can’t you trust a fellow till we reach the settlements?”

“I could if we weren’t running short o’ grub. This journey has cost like the dickens from the start; and it won’t get any cheaper on the home stretch. Every fellow you strike wants money. It wasn’t so in the States.”

“We can swap accommodations if we like, Harlan. I have several bags of jerked buffalo meat.” His voice faltered, as he remembered that this meat had been prepared by the order of his vanished wife. “We laid in a lot of flour and other stuff at our last Utah trading-post; so we’re not short.”

An old-fashioned game of barter and dicker was soon concluded; and Captain Ranger set his men to work, rearranging the wagons and making ready to move on.

XXIX

_IN THE LAND OF DROUTH_

All the wagons except the “saloon,” or family vehicle, were ruthlessly stripped of their various appurtenances; the running gear of those that had seemed to stand the wear and travel with the least injury were selected to hold the absolute necessaries of the remainder of the journey. Many articles of utility were compelled to find a lodgment in the family wagon, causing Sally O’Dowd to ruefully survey the limited space for the little flock who were too young in years to walk regularly.

“We’ll see what can be done,” said the Captain, thoughtfully. “I’ve left the saloon wagon to the last, hoping somebody would come along who could spare us a few more steers. We’ve thrown away everything we can do without. But we’ll get the cattle.”

“It’s lucky we’ve got the money the teamsters paid us to get back after they deserted us,” said Jean. The Captain’s face brightened.

“Why, surely!” he cried. “I had forgotten all about the financial end of that incident. You have a business head on you, my girl!”

“Here it is,” cried Marjorie. “It is in our great-grandmother’s silver spectacle-case. Jean put it there.”

“Sure enough,” said her father. “Your great-grandfather carried that tarnished and battered spectacle-case all through the Revolutionary War. It is indeed a lucky find.”

In less than an hour another train of dilapidated wagons came along, accompanied by half-a-dozen loose oxen and a discouraged cow.

Then for the first time the faces of Mrs. Benson and Mrs. McAlpin brightened. During all the hurry of the day they had wandered aimlessly about, steadfastly refusing to accept any assistance until the Ranger family should first be provided with oxen.

“Now, as we can get cattle enough to move one of our wagons, it is our time to make preparations for a start,” said the Little Doctor.

“Did you think for a minute that you’d be abandoned to your fate?” asked Captain Ranger.

“We didn’t allow ourselves to think at all; we just waited and trusted.”

In less than an hour what was left of the Ranger outfit was in motion. And a sorry-looking outfit it was indeed.

One of Mrs. McAlpin’s wagons was abandoned after she had discarded everything of appreciable weight that could be spared. But there are exceptions to every rule, and the Little Doctor, watching her opportunity, managed with the aid of Scotty to stow away the long-secreted spinning-wheel and baby’s cradle which had been Mrs. Ranger’s property.

“If we can complete our journey at all, we can carry these things,” the Little Doctor said to Jean. “We are getting near the Columbia River, as we can see by the topography of the country; and there’s a mission at The Dalles, where we can get more help if we need it, I am sure. Mamma and I will ride our horses as long as they are able to carry us. We have provisions enough to feed our two teamsters and ourselves till we reach a settlement.”

One woman at a time was detailed to ride in the family wagon and take care of the babies; all the rest walked, stopping to ride only when the frequent streams that were too deep to wade were to be crossed; at which times the wearied oxen were compelled to do the double duty of pulling the loads and carrying the footsore pedestrians on their backs.

The weather was now intensely hot during the long hours of sunshine. The sandy wastes radiated the blistering heat under which the vast sageplains lay staring at the unmerciful sun in apathetic stillness, like a Lilliputian forest under a state of arrested development. But the nights were chilly, and the storms of wind and dust that came up with the going down of the sun were trying in the extreme. The men of the party no longer had tents or wagon-covers for shelter, and were obliged to sleep on the lee side of friendly rocks, beside which they awoke, sometimes, to find themselves uncomfortably near a den of rattlesnakes or the decaying carcass of an animal.

At every spot where a little grass was found, the cattle were unhitched from the wagons and turned out in pairs, under the yoke, to feed. Every stray bit of wood, every discarded ox-yoke or ox-bow, and not infrequently the entire woodworks of an abandoned wagon, were split into firewood and carried along among the baggage for camping purposes.

Unknown guides, in whom the prolonged hardships of the plains had not destroyed the spirit of human kindness, left frequent notices on the rocks by the wayside, giving valuable information in regard to springs and streams, but for which there would have been terrible suffering at times from thirst.

The cattle were too weak and their loads too heavy to permit long hours of travel, and their progress was necessarily slow.

The beds of small streams had gradually dried under the fierce sunshine, and it became necessary to keep as near as possible to the banks of the Snake River, from which, however, the way often deviated for days together because of intervening rocks, gulches, sand, and sheer bluffs.

On the third day of August Jean made entry as follows:—

“The fiery weather of the past fortnight has moderated somewhat; but the roads are, as usual, rocky and dusty, with many stretches of sand, through which the poor, weak cattle pull the wagons, which, though lightened by the reduction of our loads, are far too heavy for their strength, which decreases daily.

“Our road, during the afternoon of to-day, lay close to the almost dry bed of a rocky-bottomed creek, beside which we camped for the night, without food for our stock, and almost without water. I wonder what the poor creatures think of us for bringing them out here in the wilderness, face to face with such a fate?

“Some of our teamsters have been growing quarrelsome of late. Two men who fell in with us shortly after our loss of cattle and have been following us ever since and begging food, suddenly left the train yesterday; since their departure some of our men are growing insubordinate.

“Their grievance arises from the inability of the cattle to haul them when not on duty as drivers, they assuming that they made no bargain with daddie to do any extra walking. Our teamster Yank, the aristocratic son of Virginia, who claims to be an F.F.V., climbed on a wagon-tongue early in the day, and compelled the oxen to pull his weight through the rocks and sand, the added strain upon their neck yokes making their lot doubly hard. Daddie is holding a conference with the fellow now. He said before we halted for the night that he hoped the dissatisfied ones would leave of their own accord, as otherwise he expected trouble. He announced to-night that there would be no more riding on wagon-tongues; and although we await the result of the conference with some anxiety, daddie says he isn’t worried, since the dissatisfied fellows must stay with the train or starve.

“August 4. We travelled seventeen miles to-day, having halted for two hours to feast the cattle on a bed of dry bunchgrass, fortunately discovered by Scotty in a ravine overlooked by trains ahead. It was a great comfort to see the hungry animals fill themselves with the dry but nutritious grass, and drink their fill from a trench made in the bed of the dry creek.

“Three miles’ further travel brought us to a bend in the creek, where we succeeded in digging again for water.

“August 5. We are in better spirits than at any time since our loss of cattle. All traces of mutiny have disappeared, and even Yank trudges over the road without protest. The animals, too, are stepping briskly.

“We find nothing at all for the cattle to eat to-day. The road continues rough and rocky, and abounds in chuck-holes which the narrow track will not permit the wheels to avoid. The tires are all loose on the wagon-wheels, and it seems a miracle that the wheels do not fall to pieces.

“After we halted for the night on the banks of the Snake River, once more our men were compelled to drive the cattle down the stream for over a mile to find an opening between the bluffs through which they could reach water. And the men had to carry back a limited supply in their canteens to relieve the distress at camp. We are in plain and provoking sight of a foaming waterfall on the opposite bank, but as thoroughly out of reach of it as if it were in the mountains of the moon. It bursts from a ledge of rocks, and descends to the river with a roar that at this distance is sweetly musical. Some day, in the years to come, some enterprising individual will preëmpt that spring, and make a fortune by selling the pure water to his less fortunate fellow-men.

“August 6. At ten o’clock to-day we were refreshed by a welcome shower.

“Oh, the blessed summer rain! How it cooled the parching air and arid earth, and revived the drooping spirits of poor dear daddie, who is growing hollow-eyed and thin, like the cattle!

“We find no game, and nothing for the stock to eat but some willows.”

* * * * *

“Yonder,” said Captain Ranger, in an excited tone, “are the falls of Salmon River. Make a note of them, Jean!”

The dilapidated wagons were halted on a great plateau overlooking a rapid river, spanned by a mighty ledge of rocks, over which a great torrent of foamy-white water rolled and surged, glistening in the sunshine with great schools of female salmon in quest of spawning-ground, followed by the male contingent, fierce of aspect and in fighting mood, ready to destroy one another or anything else that might impede their progress.

Indians were camped in great numbers below the bluffs, the women drying the fish for winter use, and the men bartering the produce of their skill with lance and spear for such articles of food and apparel as the depleted stores of the wanderers could spare.

“August 7. We travelled eighteen miles to-day. At ten o’clock we found a little plat of dry bunchgrass, and halted for an hour to allow the stock to graze. It was well we did, for to-night we find no grass at all. The river is over a mile from camp, and we are compelled to carry water all that distance for domestic use. We don’t use very much.”

For many miles the road continued through a rocky canyon, where the way was so perilous that the locked wagon-wheels had to be held in place by men on the upper side of the grade to prevent the wagons from tumbling down the bluffs into the raging current far below.

The entries in Jean’s journal were interrupted at this time by a serious siege of toothache; and for this reason we find, under date of August 10 and 11, in Captain Ranger’s painstaking chirography, the following entries:—

“We travelled about eight miles and again came to Snake River. The weather has been insufferably hot; and, as our weak and famished cattle were unable to go on, we were compelled to halt and await the coming of a breeze.

“The general face of the country is barren in the extreme. No vegetation is in sight except the ever abounding sagebrush. Gnarled, old, dwarfed, and shaggy, this seemingly boundless waste of sage subsists without apparent moisture; and for no conceivable purpose it lives on and on forever, staring stolidly at the sun by day and keeping vigil with the moon and stars by night.”

On the 12th of August Jean made the following entry: “We reached the banks of the river every few miles to-day, and camped near it at night. We find here no grass, game, or fuel; but, thank God, there is plenty of water.

“After resting the cattle till sundown, daddie gave orders to yoke up and move ahead to a plat of grass that he had heard of, about six miles to the westward, and half a mile to the left of the main travelled road. We were all packed, ready to start, when Shorty and Limpy came into camp, bringing about half of the cattle, and reported all the others missing. So we are compelled to await the morning with such forebodings as no pen can portray; mine at least will not make the attempt.

“August 13. The missing cattle were found and brought in at an early hour this morning; and after a hurried breakfast we started for the promised feeding-grounds, where we found good grass and water, but no fuel. We halted for a couple of hours, and then came on seven miles farther, when we once more reached Snake River.

“The dust throughout the day has been almost unbearable. It is as fine as the finest flour, and, being impregnated with alkali, is very irritating to nostrils, throats, and lungs.

“August 14. This has been the hardest day yet upon the cattle,—poor starved and wretched creatures! And I might add, poor alkalied and used-up people!

“Not a person in our company is well. We are a fretful, impatient, and anxious lot, and no wonder. And yet our journeyings even now have their amusing side. Susannah sings like a nightingale, and ‘Geo’die Wah,’ as her lisping coon calls himself, leads the chorus. Scotty quotes poetry by the yard, and the Little Doctor seeks diversion in every incident. Mrs. Benson continues amiable and obliging, showing a side to her nature wholly unlike the waspish way she had when we first knew her. The men often clear away the sagebrush from a level plat of ground after their chores are finished for the night, and hold dancing carnivals among themselves (daddie draws the line at dancing, so we don’t participate). Sawed-off makes tolerable music on a fairly good violin. The humble jotter of these chronicles finds her chief diversion in the fact that we are every day drawing nearer to the Oregon City Post-office.”

XXX

_BOBBIE GOES TO HIS MOTHER_

Jean’s aching tooth suffered a relapse, and the suppuration that ensued made her seriously ill.

On the 14th of August her father again made an entry:—

“Five of our escort have left us, taking with them a wagon-bed left by the wayside by somebody whose cattle have died or strayed. They made a clumsy boat of the square-bottomed thing; and with this frail craft, which they successfully launched in the tortuous waters of the Snake, they expect to find safe navigation to its confluence with the Columbia. Although it was a relief to get rid of some of them, chiefly because they thought they knew so much more about my business than I was able to learn, I am apprehensive of results solely on their account. Snake River doesn’t look to me like a safe stream to be trusted. But it was a relief to see them go, because we are yet many hundreds of miles from our goal, and our supplies of food and means of transportation are getting more precarious daily.

“August 15. Lost another ox by drowning.

“August 16. Weather insufferably hot. Lost an ox to-day from eating a poisonous herb. At this rate we shall soon be left with one wagon. The cattle must hustle for food after every day’s pull, making it very hard to keep life in their poor skeleton bodies.”

On the evening of the 18th Jean resumed her writing, which ran in part as follows:—

“The long and dreary road is rough and hilly, and the yielding sand is deep. We found to-day at noon a patch of dry grass, and stopped to graze our famishing cattle. But we neglected, by some mischance, to fill our water-casks in the morning, so we had a dry luncheon in the hot sand, under the blistering sunshine. Our shoes have all given out from constant walking, and we are reduced to moccasins, which we get by barter among the Indian women. But the deerskin things afford us no protection from the still abounding cacti, which seem to thrive best where there is the least moisture.

“We are encamped once more on the banks of the Snake. It was quite dark when a halt was ordered.

“August 19. Glory to God in the highest! We are once more within sight of some trees that are not sagebrush. They are off to the westward, several miles away, and their stately presence marks the course of a stream we cannot see.

“August 20. The stream proved to be the Owyhee,—a lukewarm, clear, and rapid little river with a pebbly bottom. The air is so foul from the stench of decaying cattle, the water of the little river is so warm, and the heat so intolerable that sickness and death must soon ensue if the conditions do not change. It is no wonder that we see many graves by the roadside. Most of them are the last resting-places of mothers who have mercifully fallen asleep and been buried, often with their babes in their arms.

“August 21. Old Fort Boisé lies opposite our camp, away beyond and across Snake River, looming in the distance like a mediæval fortress from the midst of a gray, dry moat. Our printed guide, a little pamphlet written by General Palmer in the forties, tells us that this fort was built by the Hudson Bay Company for shelter and storage, and as a means of protection from the Indians, with whom the traders did a thriving business when the century was young. It is now fallen into decay, and is doubtless the abode of bats and birds and creeping things.

“The men who left our company on the 16th inst., in a boat made of a wagon-bed, rejoined us to-day, having had all the navigation on the Snake they seemed to care for. They were a woe-begone and God-and-man-forsaken set; and their chief fear was that they would not be permitted to come into our train again on the old footing. Daddie—dear, big-hearted, hospitable man—took them in, though they deserved a different fate; but we think they’ll be content to let the best that can be had alone hereafter.