Chapter XVI

WILLIAM DOW’S REVENGE--SEEKING THE UNKNOWN.

Almost a fortnight had elapsed, and New York had forgotten James Gobson’s case, although the identity of the drowned woman had not been discovered, and her assassin was unknown, when, one evening the hotel stage brought to the Union Hotel, at Jefferson City, Mo., three travelers, whom fate seemed to have united for pleasure by the love of contrasts.

One was of medium height, of an intelligent countenance, and distinguished bearing. The other was tall, with a bony frame and surly expression. The third was stout, florid, with a good, placid face and innocent look. Our readers have already recognized William Dow, Captain Young, and poor Saunders.

These three travelers had left New York only three days before, under the following circumstances: One morning William Dow paid an unexpected visit to the cracker-merchant, for the latter had not seen him since James Gobson was reinstated.

“Is it you, Mr. Dow?” cried Saunders; “then you haven’t quite forgotten me?”

“I have scarcely thought of you, on the contrary,” answered the detective, clasping the hand of the merchant.

“Where were you?”

“I have been to Buffalo.”

“To Buffalo?”

“Yes, the city where Miss Ada and her husband used to live before the divorce. I will tell you later about this little trip. At present there is something else to think of. Do you still wish to avenge yourself upon the man who carried off Miss Ada?”

“Certainly. I wish also to be avenged on the cheat herself.”

All the anger, and perhaps all the love of the susceptible Yankee awoke at the memory of the woman, and the indifferent way in which she forsook him.

“Then,” resumed Dow, “regulate your business for an absence of about ten days. I will take you with me.”

Saunders had not asked his friend where he wished to take him; he simply went, valise in hand and a pocket-book stuffed with bank notes, to meet him at the Washington depot. It was the same with Young. Mr. Kelly having notified the chief of detectives that he might go with William Dow when the latter desired, the terrible captain had not ventured a remark. When he received the order to meet him at the station he merely announced his departure at the central office, and he manifested but little surprise when he met Mr. Saunders at the railway station.

During the journey from New York to Washington, from Washington to St. Louis, and from St. Louis to Jefferson, Saunders had ventured several questions from time to time, but William Dow was non-committal. The only information which he gave Ada’s former lover was that they should stop at Jefferson City. The worthy merchant sighed twice as often after their arrival in the first place, because he liked his ease and the journey had fatigued him extremely, and next, because he hoped his friend Dow would not delay much longer in telling him the object of his journey. Therefore, he questioned him.

“Dear sir,” answered our hero, “I needed to have two aids and two witnesses with me in what I am undertaking. You and Young, of all others, were most suitable, because of your honorable character and energy.”

Flattered by this praise, to his share of which he was entitled, Saunders smilingly said:

“No doubt; but aids in what way--witnesses of what?”

“I do not know yet, as everything will depend on circumstances. We have reached only the first stopping-place in our journey.”

“The first. Where are we going, then?”

“I cannot tell you now.”

“I suppose, however, that we shall not make the tour of the world?”

“Oh! not quite.”

“What, not quite; but I do not wish to make even a part of it.”

The stout man said this with so disturbed a face and with such a comical accent of fear that William Dow, who was always grave, could not help smiling as he answered:

“Calm yourself; after to-morrow you will beg me not to interrupt our journey. Let us dine.”

Somewhat reassured, but not convinced, Saunders then decided to go to dinner, and did such justice to it that two hours afterwards he went to his bed and instantly forgot that he was three hundred miles from New York, trying to solve a problem to which he had not the least clue.

The next morning after an excellent night, and as he was about to join Dow and Young, they were announced by one of the hotel servants, and ascended to his room. Before they had closed the door the Yankee thought he saw half a dozen individuals who had stopped in the hall following his companions. He went to inquire what they wanted, but he had not time, for William Dow immediately said to him, clasping his hand:

“Dear sir, will you allow us to receive some visitors in your room?”

“Certainly,” answered the cracker-merchant, who had wisely decided to ask no explanation of his mysterious friend. The latter had seated himself at a table and drawn a large packet from his pocket, in which were papers and photographs.

“Are you acquainted with this man,” he asked Saunders, handing him one of the pictures.

“No,” said the merchant, after a moment’s examination.

“And you, my good Young?”

“Why!” cried the chief of detectives, “it is James Gobson.”

“His very self, Miss Ada’s husband.”

He snatched the photograph from the hands of the detective, and with furious looks devoured the man whom his jealousy pictured at the feet of the woman.

“Captain,” cried William Dow, “do me the kindness to introduce each of the men who are there in the hall. Begin with Thomas Bernett.”

“Thomas Bernett,” called Young, in his grandest, most commanding tone, as he opened the door.

The man who bore this name hastened to appear. It was the porter of the Union Hotel.

“Were you in this establishment January last?” asked Dow.

“I have been interpreter and porter here for a year.”

“Then you have to do with all the travelers?”

“With all.”

“Do you remember this one?”

He showed him James Gobson’s photograph.

“Perfectly,” he affirmed; “as well as I can recollect I saw this gentleman in the first days of January. He remained here three or four days.”

“Thanks. The next, Tom Byng.” Tom Byng was the hotel stage-driver. He as well as his comrade, immediately recognized Gobson in the photograph, as a traveler whom he had driven to the Northern depot early in January. Then came the butler, the steward, the barber of the hotel, and a gunsmith, who all recognized in James Gobson’s picture the features of an individual with whom they had had various relations at the time about which they were questioned.

“My dear Mr. Saunders,” said the detective, after making a note of this information, “do me the kindness to give ten dollars to each of these men.”

Without venturing a remark, the cracker-merchant paid the sum and waited patiently until his fifty dollars had departed, to have a clue to the puzzle.

“You do not understand?” asked William Dow.

“No,” he answered frankly.

“Nor you, Young?”

“Not any,” said the captain with a smile, which he tried to render mocking.

“Well, my dear friends, I ask you only to exactly recall the words you have just heard. James Gobson was here at Jefferson City in the beginning of January, a few days before Miss Ada was carried off and the discovery of this drowned woman, whose name is still unknown. From that city the same person set out for Omaha; the stage-driver remembers it perfectly.”

“From which you conclude,” ventured the sceptical Young.

“I do not conclude, I state; and this first point being assured, I have decided to leave for Omaha.”

“For Omaha!” cried Saunders.

“Where, I hope, we shall find some trail more interesting still. The train leaves at noon; we shall reach there early to-morrow.”

While saying this, William Dow had carefully put James Gobson’s picture back in his pocket-book and had arisen. Mr. Saunders, having no objections to make, looked at the captain, and the latter shrugged his shoulders.

Not understanding his friend’s plans, the terrible but not very intelligent chief of detectives thought it wisest to affect a kind of ironical condescension toward him; but as he obeyed no less blindly than Saunders, they all three took the cars after breakfast.

The next morning they reached Omaha, the last stopping-place at that time for the cars, which soon went to the West, across the desert and the Rocky Mountains to San Francisco.

When Saunders was left alone by William Dow, under the piazza of the hotel at Omaha, he was asking himself what his friend had come to seek in this forsaken country, when he espied him crossing the garden of the establishment in company with Young and another strangely-accoutred being. One would have thought it one of Fenimore Cooper’s or Captain Mayne Reid’s heroes. He wore strong boots, into which were tucked brown ribbed velvet breeches, fastened by a broad leather belt, which seemed to be his arsenal and money-safe, for it was adorned by two revolvers and a long knife, and its thickness revealed the presence of a respectable quantity of change. His partly-opened hunting-jacket showed a red woolen shirt and his hairy bosom. He had on a soft felt hat with broad brim, and proudly carried in a shoulder strap a double-shot carbine. As well as his thick tawny beard enabled one to judge, the man must be about forty years old. His energy and vigor were plainly evident in his looks, voice, and broad shoulders.

While the cracker-merchant was examining him, the stranger, still talking to his companions, had reached the piazza.

“Mr. Saunders,” said the detective, when the two men joined him, “allow me to present to you John Butler, the bravest trapper on the shores of the Missouri.”

The good man rose politely from the lolling-chair on which he had been stretched out, and gave Mr Dow so questioning a look that the latter knew that he was imploring an explanation. Therefore, beckoning the trapper and Young to sit down, and taking a chair himself, he said:

“This is a nice place for a chat. Mr. Butler, dear sir, knows better than even an Indian all the tribes who occupy the reserves to the north of Omaha, and the chiefs of the Dakota Sioux are his particular friends. As it is with these worthy men that we have to do, I have begged him to serve as a guide.”

Saunders, who had again stretched himself out in his arm-chair, sprang out of it in alarm.

“To the Sioux!” he repeated. And, with a very expressive gesture, he described around his head the circular motion in the operation of scalping.

“Have no fear, sir,” said John Butler, smiling. “With me there is no danger of that kind to run.”

The peaceful Yankee, who looked with eyes of terror at the murderous outfit of the trapper, seemed so plainly to say that it was not the Indians alone of whom he was afraid, that Captain Young himself burst out laughing. John Butler, without being offended at his suspicions, resumed with the same calmness:

“No, sir; you will have nothing to dread; we are at this moment at peace with the Indians of the plains. The chiefs who went to Washington in January have returned satisfied; one can cross Dakota and Iowa without the shadow of danger.”

“You hear, do you not, dear Mr. Saunders,” observed Dow, “the chiefs who went to Washington in the month of January? Retain these words in your memory--in the month of January.”

“The devil, yes. I hear well enough,” answered Miss Ada’s former lover, “but I do not understand what you are going to do among the Sioux.”

“That is my secret. Do you refuse to accompany me?”

“Heavens, no. You would say I was afraid. But if I understand a confounded word what it all means, I am willing to be hung some day.”

“You are not the one who will be hung.”

“I hope not. But who will be?”

“James Gobson.”

“James Gobson! Then Miss Ada will be free again. Do you know, I am certain that it was terror alone that united her to that wretch! James Gobson hung! But why, in order to bring this about, must we go among the Indians?”

“Because there the rope which I destine for him will be found.”

“Stop; I prefer not to question you any more, for you will answer me in a manner to make me lose my head again. Well, so be it. Let’s be off for the prairie. Ah! if ever any one had told me that I should become a trapper! When shall we start?”

“To-morrow, at daybreak,” answered Butler, to whom this question was particularly addressed. “The cars will leave us at Sioux City the same evening. We shall find horses there, and in a few hours we shall be on the reserves.”

“To-morrow, then,” said Saunders, with a heroic gesture.

“To-morrow, gentlemen,” repeated the trapper, “I will wake you.” And throwing his carbine over his shoulder he bowed to his future companions and left the piazza.

“Mr. Dow,” said Mr. Saunders, pointing to the adventurer who was crossing the garden, “can you depend upon that fellow?”

“My dear friend,” answered the detective, “I have made every inquiry about Butler. He has been traveling over this prairie ten years, hunting and trading, often serving as an intermediary between the commanders of forts and the Indians, and never has any one had to complain of him. Besides, what interest would it be to him to betray us? I shall give him one hundred dollars to-morrow when we arrive at Sioux City, one hundred dollars more when we return, and even another hundred dollars still if the information he furnishes me is correct and if I bring back what I am going to seek. Besides, as everything makes me suppose that Butler has some peccadillo on his conscience which has led him to this adventurous life, I have promised to arrange matters for him on my return to New York. He has my word and that of Young.”

“Positively,” answered the captain. “But what need have we of all these precautions? Are we three not equal to all the adventurers and Indians on the plains?”

This proud declaration of the intrepid captain cut short any last words which poor Saunders would have liked to venture. Putting a good face on a bad matter, he stood up straight and said to the chief of detectives, in a deliberate tone:

“Very well; I still do not understand why we are going in that direction, but I am with you; when I see Miss Ada again, I wish her to know what I have done for her.”

The next day the three travelers, accompanied by John Butler, took the first train, and reached in a few hours Sioux City, one of the railway stations which unites Omaha with Chicago. After passing the night there, the following day at sunrise they left it to take the route along the Sioux River as far as Fort Dakota. William Dow had a letter of recommendation to the commander of this advanced post.

The four excursionists mounted excellent horses, and Saunders looked superb in his war-like attire. Imitating the trapper, he had made a veritable arsenal of his belt, and he often looked affectionately at the carbine attached to his saddle. One would have thought he was setting out for the conquest of an enemy’s territory. But toward the middle of the morning, as the sun became higher and burning, his fine ardor began to decrease, and Dow regulated it by saying:

“If we keep up this gait our horses will be foundered before we have gone our twenty-five miles.”

“Besides,” observed Butler, “we cannot reach the fort to-day. The wisest thing is not to hurry, but to favor our horses. We shall have need enough of them on the prairie.”

These few words restored the good city man to calmness, and the little party pursued their course at a more moderate gait. Toward noon they had halted on the banks of the river in the shade of some sickly-looking trees, and Saunders ate with a very good appetite his share of the provisions with which the trapper had not failed to provide himself; then, after a few hours’ rest, our travelers started on their way again.

That evening they enjoyed, by means of their dollars, the hospitality of a German farm, and the next day, after fording one of the arms of the Sioux River, they finally reached Fort Dakota.

Captain Semmas, who commanded this military position, received William Dow with marvelous cordiality, and as the fort was admirably provisioned, Saunders, whom the length of the route had somewhat sobered, immediately recovered his warlike mood. The next morning, he had already been equipped for a long time, when Butler gave the signal for departure. An hour later, after pushing on straight to the north, our heroes were on the prairie. They now had for the horizon around them an immense plain without an undulation in the ground, of a dull green coloring, and gloomy enough to drive one to despair.

Only a few bushes broke the monotony here and there, rising above the thick grass, in which the horses sank to their knees. Disdaining in spite of the fog the paths made by the cattle, the trapper had led his companions across the plain, having for his guide in this complete desert only landmarks known to himself alone.

“Master John,” cried Saunders all at once, after having kept silence as well as his impatience would permit, “have we much more of this foolish ride?”

“Two hours, at least,” answered Butler, who was preceding him; “and I advise you to keep in my tracks, for if you go to one side or the other you might meet with some bog, in which you and your horse would disappear.”

“My God!” cried the poor man, frightened at this new danger which he had been running without knowing it ever since he entered the prairie. “You ought to have warned me sooner.”

“Come, be calm, dear Mr. Saunders,” advised William Dow. “Listen to the counsels of this excellent fellow, and take the captain and me for your models.”

“This excellent fellow! That is very well for you to say, Mr. Dow, for you know where you are going; you have your plan, but I don’t know anything about it. As for Mr. Young, it is in his profession to risk his skin, but it is not in mine.”

We do not know that the chief of detectives held this opinion, for the journey did not make him any more talkative than usual. Trimly seated in his saddle, with a cigar in his mouth, he concerned himself neither about his companions nor the route, nor the end of the excursion. Mr. Kelly had told him: “You will accompany Mr. William Dow,” and he accompanied William Dow. He would have accompanied him in the same way as far as the Pacific. The captain, therefore, did not answer the irascible cracker-merchant.

However, at the end of an hour the appearance of the prairie gradually changed. The grass was less thick, and the riders could distinguish before them a group of tall trees, which were like an oasis in the midst of this desert of grass. Soon they perceived cultivated fields, cattle, and every sign, in short, of a village not far away, probably, behind a little hill about a hundred yards off.

Saunders’ face became joyful again, and he was already dashing on when Butler stopped him brusquely. A man who had sprung up from the tall grass with a carbine on his shoulder seemed to wish to prevent the travelers from going further.

At this threatening apparition, the prudent merchant suddenly remembered that the trapper had advised him to follow in his traces, and he fell into file again.

Butler sprang to the ground, and approached the Indian, who was only one of those sentinels by whom the Sioux villages are surrounded within a large circle, and he said a few words to him which caused him to immediately change his attitude. Putting back his weapon, he held out his hand to the adventurer.

The latter then mounted his horse, and the little band, escorted by the Sioux, went at a walk through the fields of maize toward the village, whose first tents they soon saw.