WILD WEST ADVENTURES – Boxed Set: 9 Western Classics in One Volume (Illustrated) E-Book
Emerson Hough
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- Herausgeber: e-artnow
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017
This carefully crafted ebook: "THE WILD WEST ADVENTURES – Boxed Set: 9 Western Classics in One Volume (Illustrated)" is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: The Girl at the Halfway House The Law of the Land Heart's Desire The Way of a Man 54-40 or Fight The Man Next Door The Magnificent Adventure The Sagebrusher The Covered Wagon Emerson Hough (1857–1923) was an American author best known for writing western stories, adventure tales and historical novels. His best known works include western novels The Mississippi Bubble and The Covered Wagon, The Young Alaskans series of adventure novels, and historical works The Way to the West and The Story of the Cowboy.
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WILD WEST ADVENTURES – Boxed Set: 9 Western Classics in One Volume (Illustrated)
Table of Contents
The Girl at the Halfway House
The Law of the Land
Heart's Desire
The Way of a Man
54-40 or Fight
The Man Next Door
The Magnificent Adventure
The Sagebrusher
The Covered Wagon
The Girl at the Halfway House
Table of Contents
BOOK I: THE DAY OF WAR
CHAPTER I. THE BRAZEN TONGUES
CHAPTER II. THE PLAYERS OF THE GAME
CHAPTER III. THE VICTORY
BOOK II: THE DAY OF THE BUFFALO
CHAPTER IV. BATTERSLEIGH OF THE RILE IRISH
CHAPTER V. THE TURNING OF THE ROAD
CHAPTER VI. EDWARD FRANKLIN, LAWYER
CHAPTER VII. THE NEW WORLD
CHAPTER VIII. THE BEGINNING
CHAPTER IX. THE NEW MOVERS
CHAPTER X. THE CHASE
CHAPTER XI. THE BATTLE
CHAPTER XII. WHAT THE HAND HAD TO DO
CHAPTER XIII. PIE AND ETHICS
CHAPTER XIV. THE FIRST BALL AT ELLISVILLE
CHAPTER XV. ANOTHER DAY
CHAPTER XVI. ANOTHER HOUR
BOOK III: THE DAY OF THE CATTLE
CHAPTER XVII. ELLISVILLE THE RED
CHAPTER XVIII. STILL A REBEL
CHAPTER XIX. THAT WHICH HE WOULD
CHAPTER XX. THE HALFWAY HOUSE
CHAPTER XXI. THE ADVICE OF AUNT LUCY
CHAPTER XXII. EN VOYAGE
CHAPTER XXIII. MARY ELLEN
CHAPTER XXIV. THE WAY OF A MAID
CHAPTER XXV. BILL WATSON
CHAPTER XXVI. IKE ANDERSON
CHAPTER XXVII. THE BODY OF THE CRIME
CHAPTER XXVIII. THE TRIAL
CHAPTER XXIX. THE VERDICT
BOOK IV: THE DAY OF THE PLOUGH
CHAPTER XXX. THE END OF THE TRAIL
CHAPTER XXXI. THE SUCCESS OF BATTERSLEIGH
CHAPTER XXXII. THE CALLING
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE GREAT COLD
CHAPTER XXXIV. THE ARTFULNESS OF SAM
CHAPTER XXXV. THE HILL OF DREAMS
CHAPTER XXXVI. AT THE GATEWAY
BOOK I
THE DAY OF WAR
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I THE BRAZEN TONGUES
Table of Contents
The band major was a poet. His name is lost to history, but it deserves a place among the titles of the great. Only in the soul of a poet, a great man, could there have been conceived that thought by which the music of triumph should pass the little pinnacle of human exultation, and reach the higher plane of human sympathy.
Forty black horses, keeping step; forty trumpeters, keeping unison; this procession, headed by a mere musician, who none the less was a poet, a great man, crossed the field of Louisburg as it lay dotted with the heaps of slain, and dotted also with the groups of those who sought their slain; crossed that field of woe, meeting only hatred and despair, yet leaving behind only tears and grief. Tears and grief, it is true, yet grief that knew of sympathy, and tears that recked of other tears.
For a long time the lines of invasion had tightened about the old city of Louisburg, and Louisburg grew weaker in the coil. When the clank of the Southern cavalry advancing to the front rang in the streets, many were the men swept away with the troops asked to go forward to silence the eternally throbbing guns. Only the very old and the very young were left to care for the homes of Louisburg, and the number of these grew steadily less as the need increased for more material at the front. Then came the Southern infantry, lean, soft-stepping men from Georgia and the Carolinas, their long black hair low on their necks, their shoes but tattered bits of leather bound upon their feet, their blankets made of cotton, but their rifles shining and their drill perfection. The wheat lay green upon the fields and the odours of the blossoms of the peach trees hung heavy on the air; but there was none who thought of fruitage or of harvest. Out there in front, where the guns were pulsing, there went on that grimmer harvest with which the souls of all were intimately concerned. The boys who threw up their hats to greet the infantry were fewer than they had been before the blossoming of the peach. The war had grown less particular of its food. A boy could speed a bullet, or could stop one. There were yet the boys.
Of all the old-time families of this ancient little city none held position more secure or more willingly accorded than the Fairfaxes and the Beauchamps. There had always been a Colonel Fairfax, the leader at the local bar, perhaps the representative in the Legislature, or in some position of yet higher trust. The Beauchamps had always had men in the ranks of the professions or in stations of responsibility. They held large lands, and in the almost feudal creed of the times they gave large services in return. The curse of politics had not yet reached this land of born politicians. Quietly, smoothly, yet withal keyed to a high standard of living, the ways of this old community, as of these two representative families, went on with little change from generation to generation.
It was not unknown that these two families should intermarry, a Fairfax finding a wife among the Beauchamps, or perchance a Beauchamp coming to the Fairfax home to find a mistress for his own household. It was considered a matter of course that young Henry Fairfax, son of Colonel Fairfax, should, after completing his studies at the ancient institution of William and Mary College, step into his father's law office, eventually to be admitted to the bar and to become his father's partner; after which he should marry Miss Ellen Beauchamp, loveliest daughter of a family noted for its beautiful women. So much was this taken for granted, and so fully did it meet the approval of both families, that the tide of the young people's plans ran on with little to disturb its current. With the gallantry of their class the young men of the plantations round about, the young men of the fastidiously best, rode in to ask permission of Mary Ellen's father to pay court to his daughter. One by one they came, and one by one they rode away again, but of them all not one remained other than Mary Ellen's loyal slave. Her refusal seemed to have so much reason that each disappointed suitor felt his own defeat quite stingless. Young Fairfax seemed so perfectly to represent the traditions of his family, and his future seemed so secure; and Mary Ellen herself, tall and slender, bound to be stately and of noble grace, seemed so eminently fit to be a Beauchamp beauty and a Fairfax bride.
For the young people themselves it may be doubted if there had yet awakened the passion of genuine, personal love. They met, but, under the strict code of that land and time, they never met alone. They rode together under the trees along the winding country roads, but never without the presence of some older relative whose supervision was conventional if careless. They met under the honeysuckles on the gallery of the Beauchamp home, where the air was sweet with the fragrance of the near-by orchards, but with correct gallantry Henry Fairfax paid his court rather to the mother than to the daughter. The hands of the lovers had touched, their eyes had momentarily encountered, but their lips had never met. Over the young girl's soul there sat still the unbroken mystery of life; nor had the reverent devotion of the boy yet learned love's iconoclasm.
For two years Colonel Fairfax had been with his regiment, fighting for what he considered the welfare of his country and for the institutions in whose justice he had been taught to believe. There remained at the old Fairfax home in Louisburg only the wife of Colonel Fairfax and the son Henry, the latter chafing at a part which seemed to him so obviously ignoble. One by one his comrades, even younger than himself, departed and joined the army hastening forward toward the throbbing guns. Spirited and proud, restive under comparisons which he had never heard but always dreaded to hear. Henry Fairfax begged his mother to let him go, though still she said, "Not yet."
But the lines of the enemy tightened ever about Louisburg. Then came a day — a fatal day — fraught with the tidings of what seemed a double death. The wife of Colonel Henry Fairfax was grande dame that day, when she buried her husband and sent away her son. There were yet traditions to support.
Henry Fairfax said good-bye to Mary Ellen upon the gallery of the old home, beneath a solemn, white-faced moon, amid the odours of the drooping honeysuckle. Had Mary Ellen's eyes not been hid beneath the lids they might have seen a face pale and sad as her own. They sat silent, for it was no time for human speech. The hour came for parting, and he rose. His lips just lightly touched her cheek. It seemed to him he heard a faint "good-bye." He stepped slowly down the long walk in the moonlight, and his hand was at his face. Turning at the gate for the last wrench of separation, he gazed back at a drooping form upon the gallery. Then Mrs. Beauchamp came and took Ellen's head upon her bosom, seeing that now she was a woman, and that her sufferings had begun.
CHAPTER II THE PLAYERS OF THE GAME
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When the band major was twenty miles away in front of Louisburg his trumpets sounded always the advance. The general played the game calmly. The line of the march was to be along the main road leading into the town. With this course determined, the general massed his reserves, sent on the column of assault, halted at the edge of the wood, deployed his skirmishers, advanced them, withdrew them, retreated but advanced again, ever irresistibly sweeping the board in toward the base of Louisburg, knight meeting knight, pawn meeting pawn, each side giving and taking pieces on the red board of war.
The main intrenchments erected in the defences of Louisburg lay at right angles to the road along which came the Northern advance, and upon the side of the wood nearest to the town. Back of the trenches lay broken fields, cut up by many fences and dotted with occasional trees. In the fields both the wheat and the flowers were now trampled down, and a thousand industrious and complaining bees buzzed protest at the losing of their commerce. The defences themselves were but earthworks, though skilfully laid out. Along their front, well hidden by the forest growth, ran a line of entangling abattis of stakes and sharpened interwoven boughs.
In the centre of the line of defence lay the reserves, the boys of Louisburg, flanked on either side by regiments of veterans, the lean and black-haired Georgians and Carolinians, whose steadiness and unconcern gave comfort to more than one bursting boyish heart. The veterans had long played the game of war. They had long since said good-bye to their women. They had seen how small a thing is life, how easily and swiftly to be ended. Yellow-pale, their knees standing high in front of them as they squatted about on the ground, their long black hair hanging down uncared for, they chewed, smoked, swore, and cooked as though there was no jarring in the earth, no wide foreboding on the air. One man, sitting over his little fire, alternately removed and touched his lips to the sooty rim of his tin cup, swearing because it was too hot. He swore still more loudly and in tones more aggrieved when a bullet, finding that line, cut off a limb from a tree above and dropped it into his fire, upsetting the frying pan in which he had other store of things desirable. Repairing all this damage as he might, he lit his pipe and leaned against the tree, sitting with his knees high in front of him. There came other bullets, singing, sighing. Another bullet found that same line as the man sat there smoking.
Overhead were small birds, chirping, singing, twittering. A long black line of crows passed, tumbling in the air, with much confusion of chatter and clangour of complaint that their harvest, too, had been disturbed. They had been busy. Why should men play this game when there were serious things of life?
The general played calmly, and ever the points and edges and fronts of his advance came on, pressing in toward the last row of the board, toward the line where lay the boys of Louisburg. Many a boy was pale and sick that day, in spite of the encouraging calm or the biting jests of the veterans. The strange sighings in the air became more numerous and more urgent. Now and then bits of twigs and boughs and leaves came sifting down, cut by invisible shears, and now and then a sapling jarred with the thud of an unseen blow. The long line in the trenches moved and twisted restlessly.
In front of the trenches were other regiments, out ahead in the woods, unseen, somewhere toward that place whence came the steadiest jarring of artillery and the loudest rattling of the lesser arms. It was very hard to lie and listen, to imagine, to suspect, to dread. For hours the game went on, the reserves at the trenches hearing now distinctly and now faintly the tumult of the lines, now receding, now coming on. But the volume of the tumult, and its separation into a thousand distinct and terrifying sounds, became in the average ever an increasing and not a lessening thing. The cracker-popping of the musketry became less and less a thing of sport, of reminiscences. The whinings that passed overhead bore more and more a personal message. These young men, who but lately had said good-bye to the women of their kin, began to learn what war might mean. It had been heretofore a distant, unmeasured, undreaded thing, conquerable, not to be feared. It seemed so sweet and fit to go forth, even though it had been hard to say good-bye!
Now there began to appear in the woods before the trenches the figures of men, at first scattered, then becoming steadily more numerous. There came men bearing other men whose arms lopped loosely. Some men walked with a hand gripped tightly to an arm; others hobbled painfully. Two men sometimes supported a third, whose head, heavy and a-droop, would now and then be kept erect with difficulty, the eyes staring with a ghastly, sheepish gaze, the face set in a look of horrified surprise. This awful rabble, the parings of the defeated line in front, dropped back through the woods, dropped back upon the young reserves, who lay there in the line. Some of them could go no farther, but fell there and lay silent. Others passed back into the fields where droned the protesting bees, or where here and there a wide tree offered shelter. Suddenly all the summer air was filled with anguish and horror. Was this, then, the War?
And now there appeared yet other figures among the trees, a straggling, broken line, which fell back, halted, stood and fired always calmly, coolly, at some unseen thing in front of them. But this line resolved itself into individuals, who came back to the edge of the wood, methodically picking their way through the abattis, climbing the intervening fences, and finally clambering into the earthworks to take their places for the final stand. They spoke with grinning respect of that which was out there ahead, coming on. They threw off their coats and tightened their belts, making themselves comfortable for what time there yet remained. One man saw a soldier sitting under a tree, leaning against the trunk, his knees high in front of him, his pipe between his lips. Getting no answer to his request for the loan of the pipe, he snatched it without leave, and then, discovering the truth, went on none the less to enjoy the luxury of a smoke, it seeming to him desirable to compass this while it yet remained among the possibilities of life.
At last there came a continued, hoarse, deep cheering, a roaring wave of menace made up of little sounds. An officer sprang up to the top of the breastworks and waved his sword, shouting out something which no one heard or cared to hear. The line in the trenches, boys and veterans, reserves and remnants of the columns of defence, rose and poured volley after volley, as they could, into the thick and concealing woods that lay before them. None the less, there appeared soon a long, dusty, faded line, trotting, running, walking, falling, stumbling, but coming on. It swept like a long serpent parallel to the works, writhing, smitten but surviving. It came on through the wood, writhing, tearing at the cruel abattis laid to entrap it. It writhed, roared, but it broke through. It swept over the rail fences that lay between the lines and the abattis, and still came on! This was not war, but Fate!
There came a cloud of smoke, hiding the face of the intrenchments. Then the boys of Louisburg saw bursting through this suffocating curtain a few faces, many faces, long rows of faces, some pale, some red, some laughing, some horrified, some shouting, some swearing — a long row of faces that swept through the smoke, following a line of steel — a line of steel that flickered, waved, and dipped.
CHAPTER III THE VICTORY
Table of Contents
The bandmaster marshalled his music at the head of the column of occupation which was to march into Louisburg. The game had been admirably played. The victory was complete. There was no need to occupy the trenches, for those who lay in them or near them would never rally for another battle. The troops fell back behind the wood through which they had advanced on the preceding day. They were to form upon the road which had been the key of the advance, and then to march, horse and foot in column, into Louisburg, the place of honour at the head being given to those who had made the final charge to the last trench and through the abattis. Gorged with what it had eaten, the dusty serpent was now slothful and full of sleep. There was no longer need for hurry. Before the middle of the morning the lines would start on the march of the few short miles.
During the delay a young officer of engineers, Captain Edward Franklin by name, asked permission of his colonel to advance along the line of march until he came to the earthworks, to which he wished to give some examination, joining his regiment as it passed beyond the fortifications on its march. The colonel gave his consent, not altogether willingly. "You may see more over there than you want to see, young man," said he.
Franklin went on, following as nearly as he could the line of the assault of the previous day, a track all too boldly marked by the horrid debris of the fight. As he reached the first edge of the wood, where the victorious column had made its entrance, it seemed to him that there could have been no such thing as war. A gray rabbit hopped comfortably across the field. Merry squirrels scampered and scolded in the trees overhead. The jays jangled and bickered, it is true, but a score of sweet-voiced, peaceful-throated birds sang bravely and contentedly as though there had never been a sound more discordant than their own speech. The air was soft and sweet, just cold enough to stir the leaves upon the trees and set them whispering intimately. The sky, new washed by the rain which had fallen in the night, was clean and bright and sweet to look upon, and the sun shone temperately warm. All about was the suggestion of calm and rest and happiness. Surely it had been a dream! There could have been no battle here.
This that had been a dream was changed into a horrid nightmare as the young officer advanced into the wood. About him lay the awful evidences. Coats, caps, weapons, bits of gear, all marked and emphasized with many, many shapeless, ghastly things. Here they lay, these integers of the line, huddled, jumbled. They had all the contortions, all the frozen ultimate agonies left for survivors to see and remember, so that they should no more go to war. Again, they lay so peacefully calm that all the lesson was acclaim for happy, painless war. One rested upon his side, his arm beneath his head as though he slept. Another sat against a tree, his head fallen slightly forward, his lax arms allowing his hands to droop plaintively, palms upward and half spread, as though he sat in utter weariness. Some lay upon their backs where they had turned, thrusting up a knee in the last struggle. Some lay face downward as the slaughtered fall. Many had died with hands open, suddenly. Others sat huddled, the closed hand with its thumb turned under and covered by the fingers, betokening a gradual passing of the vital spark, and a slow submission to the conqueror. It was all a hideous and cruel dream. Surely it could be nothing more. It could not be reality. The birds gurgled and twittered. The squirrels barked and played. The sky was innocent. It must be a dream.
In this part of the wood the dead were mingled from both sides of the contest, the faded blue and the faded gray sometimes scarce distinguishable. Then there came a thickening of the gray, and in turn, as the traveller advanced toward the fences and abattis, the Northern dead predominated, though still there were many faces yellow-pale, dark-framed. At the abattis the dead lay in a horrid commingling mass, some hanging forward half through the entanglement, some still in the attitude of effort, still tearing at the spiked boughs, some standing upright as though to signal the advance. The long row of dead lay here as where the prairie wind drives rolling weeds, heaping them up against some fence that holds them back from farther travel.
Franklin passed over the abattis, over the remaining fences, and into the intrenchments where the final stand had been. The dead lay thick, among them many who were young. Out across the broken and trodden fields there lay some scattered, sodden lumps upon the ground. Franklin stood looking out over the fields, in the direction of the town. And there he saw a sight fitly to be called the ultimate horror of all these things horrible that he had seen.
Over the fields of Louisburg there came a fearful sound, growing, rising, falling, stopping the singing and the twitter of the birds. Across the land there came a horrible procession, advancing with short, uncertain, broken pauses — a procession which advanced, paused, halted, broke into groups; advanced, paused, stopped, and stooped; a procession which came with wailings and bitter cries, with wringing of hands, with heads now and then laid upon the shoulders of others for support; a procession which stooped uncertainly, horribly. It was the women of Louisburg coming to seek their slain — a sight most monstrous, most terrible, unknown upon any field of civilized war, and unfit to be tolerated even in the thought! It is for men, who sow the fields of battle, to attend also to the reaping.
Franklin stood at the inner edge of the earthworks, half hidden by a little clump of trees. It seemed to him that he could not well escape without being seen, and he hesitated at this thought, Yet as he stood it appeared that he must be an intruder even thus against his will. He saw approaching him, slowly but almost in direct line, two figures, an older lady and a girl. They came on, as did the others, always with that slow, searching attitude, the walk broken with pauses and stoopings. The quest was but too obvious. And even as Franklin gazed, uncertain and unable to escape, it seemed apparent that the two had found that which they had sought. The girl, slightly in advance, ran forward a few paces, paused, and then ran back. "Oh, there! there!" she cried. And then the older woman took the girl's head upon her bosom. With bared head and his own hand at his eyes, Franklin hurried away, hoping himself unseen, but bearing indelibly pictured on his brain the scene of which he had been witness. He wanted to cry out, to halt the advancing columns which would soon be here, to tell them that they must not come upon this field, made sacred by such woe.
The column of occupation had begun its movement. Far as the eye could see, the way was filled with the Northern troops now swinging forward in the march. Their course would be along this road, across these earthworks, and over the fields between the wood and the town. The rattle and rumble of the advance began. Upon the morning air there rose the gallant and forgetful music which bade the soldier think not of what had been or would be, but only of the present. The bugles and the cymbals sounded high and strong in the notes of triumph. The game was over. The army was coming to take possession of that which it had won.
It had won — what? Could the answer be told by this chorus of woe which arose upon the field of Louisburg? Could the value of this winning be summed by the estimate of these heaps of sodden, shapeless forms? Here were the fields, and here lay the harvest, the old and the young, the wheat and the flower alike cut down. Was this, then, what the conqueror had won?
Near the intrenchment where the bitter close had been, and where there was need alike for note of triumph, and forgetfulness, the band major marshalled his music, four deep and forty strong, and swung out into the anthem of the flag. The march was now generally and steadily begun. The head of the column broke from the last cover of the wood and came into full sight at the edge of the open country. Thus there came into view the whole panorama of the field, dotted with the slain and with those who sought the slain. The music of triumph was encountered by the concerted voice of grief and woe. There appeared for the feet of this army not a mere road, a mere battlefield, but a ground sacred, hedged high about, not rudely to be violated.
But the band major was a poet, a great man. There came to him no order telling him what he should do, but the thing was in his soul that should be done. There came to him, wafted from the field of sorrow, a note which was command, a voice which sounded to him above the voices of his own brasses, above the tapping of the kettledrums. A gesture of command, and the music ceased absolutely. A moment, and it had resumed.
The forty black horses which made up this regimental band were the pride of the division. Four deep, forty strong, with arching necks, with fore feet reaching far and drooping softly, each horse of the famous cavalry band passed on out upon the field of Louisburg with such carriage as showed it sensible of its mission. The reins lay loose upon their necks, but they kept step to the music which they felt. Forty horses paced slowly forward, keeping step. Forty trumpeters, each man with his right hand aloft, holding his instrument, his left hand at his side, bearing the cap which he had removed, rode on across the field of Louisburg. The music was no longer the hymn of triumph.
Softly and sadly, sweetly and soothingly, the trumpets sang a melody of other days, an air long loved in the old-time South. And Annie Laurie, weeping, heard and listened, and wept the more, and blessed God for her tears!
BOOK II
THE DAY OF THE BUFFALO
Table of Contents
CHAPTER IV BATTERSLEIGH OF THE RILE IRISH
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Colonel Henry Battersleigh sat in his tent engaged in the composition of a document which occasioned him concern. That Colonel Battersleigh should be using his tent as office and residence — for that such was the fact even the most casual glance must have determined — was for him a circumstance offering no special or extraordinary features. His life had been spent under canvas. Brought up in the profession of arms, so long as fighting and forage were good it had mattered little to him in what clime he found his home. He had fought with the English in India, carried sabre in the Austrian horse, and on his private account drilled regiments for the Grand Sultan, deep within the interior of a country which knew how to keep its secrets. When the American civil war began he drifted to the newest scene of activity as metal to a magnet. Chance sent him with the Union army, and there he found opportunity for a cavalry command. "A gintleman like Battersleigh of the Rile Irish always rides," he said, and natural horseman as well as trained cavalryman was Battersleigh, tall, lean, flat-backed, and martial even under his sixty admitted years. It was his claim that no Sudanese spearsman or waddling assegai-thrower could harm him so long as he was mounted and armed, and he boasted that no horse on earth could unseat him. Perhaps none ever had — until he came to the Plains.
For this was on the Plains. When the bitter tide of war had ebbed, Battersleigh had found himself again without a home. He drifted with the disintegrating bodies of troops which scattered over the country, and in course of time found himself in the only portion of America which seemed to him congenial. Indeed, all the population was adrift, all the anchors of established things torn loose. In the distracted South whole families, detesting the new ways of life now thrust upon them, and seeing no way of retrieving their fortunes in the country which had borne them, broke away entirely from old associations and started on in the strange, vague American fashion of that day, in a hope of finding a newer and perhaps a better country. They moved by rail, by boat, by wagon, in such way as they could. The old Mountain Road from Virginia was trodden by many a disheartened family who found Kentucky also smitten, Missouri and Arkansas no better. The West, the then unknown and fascinating West, still remained beyond, a land of hope, perhaps a land of refuge. The men of the lower South, also stirred and unsettled, moved in long columns to the West and Southwest, following the ancient immigration into Texas. The men of Texas, citizens of a crude empire of unproved resources, likewise cast about them restlessly. Their cattle must some day find a market. To the north of them, still unknown and alluring, lay the new upper country known as the West.
In the North the story was the same. The young men, taken from the fields and marts to the camps and marches of the war, could not easily return to the staid ways of their earlier life. From New England to Michigan, from Michigan to Minnesota, many Northern families began to move also toward that West which offered at least opportunity for change. Thus there poured into the West from many different directions, but chiefly from two right-angling directions which intersected on the Plains, a diverse population whose integers were later with phenomenal swiftness to merge and blend. As in the war the boldest fought, so in emigration the boldest travelled, and the West had the pick of the land. In Illinois and Iowa, after the war had ended, you might have seen a man in flapping blue army overcoat hewing timber for fences on the forgotten farms, or guiding the plough across the black reeking sod; but presently you must have also seen the streams of white-topped wagons, sequel to the white tented fields, moving on, pushing toward the West, the land of action and adventure, the land of hope and promise.
As all America was under canvas, it was not strange that Colonel Battersleigh should find his home in a tent, and that this tent should be pitched upon the Western Plains. Not that he had gone directly to the West after the mustering out of his regiment. To the contrary, his first abode had been in the city of New York, where during his brief stay he acquired a certain acquaintance. Colonel Battersleigh was always a striking figure, the more so by reason of his costume, which was invariably the same. His broad cavalry hat, his shapely varnished boots, his gauntlets, his sweeping cloak, made him fairly historic about the clubs. His air, lofty, assured, yet ever suave, showed that he classified himself cheerfully as being of the natural aristocracy of the earth. When Colonel Battersleigh had occasion to sign his name it was worth a dinner to see the process, so seriously did he himself regard it. "Battersleigh" — so stood the name alone, unsupported and self-sufficient. Seeing which inscription in heavy black lines, many a man wondered, considering that he had discovered an Old-World custom, and joining in the belief of the owner of the name that all the world must know the identity of Battersleigh.
What were the financial resources of Battersleigh after the cessation of his pay as a cavalry officer not even his best friends could accurately have told. It was rumoured that he was the commissioner in America of the London Times. He was credited with being a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. That he had a history no one could doubt who saw him come down the street with his broad hat, his sweeping cloak, his gauntlets, his neatly varnished boots.
In reality Colonel Henry Battersleigh lived, during his city life, in a small, a very small room, up more than one night of stairs. This room, no larger than a tent, was military in its neatness. Battersleigh, bachelor and soldier, was in nowise forgetful of the truth that personal neatness and personal valour go well hand in hand. The bed, a very narrow one, had but meagre covering, and during the winter months its single blanket rattled to the touch. "There's nothing in the world so warm as newspapers, me boy," said Battersleigh. Upon the table, which was a box, there was displayed always an invariable arrangement. Colonel Battersleigh's riding whip (without which he was rarely seen in public) was placed upon the table first. Above the whip were laid the gauntlets, crossed at sixty degrees. On top of whip and gloves rested the hat, indented never more nor less. Beyond these, the personal belongings of Battersleigh of the Rile Irish were at best few and humble. In the big city, busy with reviving commerce, there were few who cared how Battersleigh lived. It was a vagrant wind of March that one day blew aside the cloak of Battersleigh as he raised his hat in salutation to a friend — a vagrant wind, cynical and merciless, which showed somewhat of the poverty with which Battersleigh had struggled like a soldier and a gentleman. Battersleigh, poor and proud, then went out into the West.
The tent in which Colonel Battersleigh was now writing was an old one, yellow and patched in places. In size it was similar to that of the bedroom in New York, and its furnishings were much the same. A narrow bunk held a bed over which there was spread a single blanket. It was silent in the tent, save for the scratching of the writer's pen; so that now and then there might easily have been heard a faint rustling as of paper. Indeed, this rustling was caused by the small feet of the prairie mice, which now and then ran over the newspaper which lay beneath the blanket. Battersleigh's table was again a rude one, manufactured from a box. The visible seats were also boxes, two or three in number. Upon one of these sat Battersleigh, busy at his writing. Upon the table lay his whip, gloves, and hat, in exactly the same order as that which had been followed in the little chamber in the city. A strip of canvas made a carpet upon the hard earthen floor. A hanging cloth concealed a portion of the rear end of the tent. Such had been Battersleigh's quarters in many climes, under different flags, sometimes perhaps more luxurious, but nevertheless punctiliously neat, even when Fortune had left him servantless, as had happened now. Colonel Battersleigh as he wrote now and then looked out of the open door. His vision reached out, not across a wilderness of dirty roads, nor along a line of similar tents. There came to his ear no neighing of horses nor shouting of the captains, neither did there arise the din of the busy, barren city. He gazed out upon a sweet blue sky, unfretted by any cloud. His eye crossed a sea of faintly waving grasses. The liquid call of a mile-high mysterious plover came to him. In the line of vision from the tent door there could be seen no token of a human neighbourhood, nor could there be heard any sound of human life. The canvas house stood alone and apart. Battersleigh gazed out of the door as he folded his letter. "It's grand, just grand," he said. And so he turned comfortably to the feeding of his mice, which nibbled at his fingers intimately, as had many mice of many lands with Battersleigh.
CHAPTER V THE TURNING OF THE ROAD
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At the close of the war Captain Edward Franklin returned to a shrunken world. The little Illinois village which had been his home no longer served to bound his ambitions, but offered only a mill-round of duties so petty, a horizon of opportunities so restricted, as to cause in his mind a feeling of distress equivalent at times to absolute abhorrence. The perspective of all things had changed. The men who had once seemed great to him in this little world now appeared in the light of a wider judgment, as they really were — small, boastful, pompous, cowardly, deceitful, pretentious. Franklin was himself now a man, and a man graduated from that severe and exacting school which so quickly matured a generation of American youth. Tall, finely built, well set up, with the self-respecting carriage of the soldier and the direct eye of the gentleman, there was a swing in his step not commonly to be found behind a counter, and somewhat in the look of his grave face which caused men to listen when he spoke. As his hand had fitted naturally a weapon, so his mind turned naturally to larger things than those offered in these long-tilled fields of life. He came back from the war disillusionized, irreverent, impatient, and full of that surging fretfulness which fell upon all the land. Thousands of young men, accustomed for years to energy, activity, and a certain freedom from all small responsibility, were thrust back at once and asked to adjust themselves to the older and calmer ways of peace. The individual problems were enormous in the aggregate.
Before Franklin, as before many other young men suddenly grown old, there lay the necessity of earning a livelihood, of choosing an occupation. The paternal arm of the Government, which had guided and controlled so long, was now withdrawn. The young man must think for himself. He must choose his future, and work out his way therein alone and unsupported. The necessity of this choice, and the grave responsibility assumed in choosing, confronted and oppressed Edward Franklin as they did many another young man, whose life employment had not been naturally determined by family or business associations. He stood looking out over the way of life. There came to his soul that indefinite melancholy known by the young man not yet acquainted with the mysteries of life. Franklin had been taken away at the threshold of young manhood and crowded into a rude curriculum, which taught him reserve as well as self-confidence, but which robbed him of part of the natural expansion in experience which is the ordinary lot of youth. He had seen large things, and had become intolerant of the small. He wished to achieve life, success, and happiness at one assault, and rebelled at learning how stubborn a resistance there lies in that perpetual silent line of earth's innumerable welded obstacles. He grieved, but knew not why he grieved. He yearned, but named no cause.
To this young man, ardent, energetic, malcontent, there appeared the vision of wide regions of rude, active life, offering full outlet for all the bodily vigour of a man, and appealing not less powerfully to his imagination. This West — no man had come back from it who was not eager to return to it again! For the weak and slothful it might do to remain in the older communities, to reap in the long-tilled fields, but for the strong, for the unattached, for the enterprising, this unknown, unexplored, uncertain country offered a scene whose possibilities made irresistible appeal. For two years Franklin did the best he could at reading law in a country office. Every time he looked out of the window he saw a white-topped wagon moving West. Men came back and told him of this West. Men wrote letters from the West to friends who remained in the East. Presently these friends also, seized upon by some vast impulse which they could not control, in turn arranged their affairs and departed for the West. Franklin looked about him at the squat buildings of the little town, at the black loam of the monotonous and uninviting fields, at the sordid, set and undeveloping lives around him. He looked also at the white wagons moving with the sun. It seemed to him that somewhere out in the vast land beyond the Missouri there beckoned to him a mighty hand, the index finger of some mighty force, imperative, forbidding pause.
The letter of Battersleigh to his friend Captain Franklin fell therefore upon soil already well prepared. Battersleigh and Franklin had been friends in the army, and their feet had not yet wandered apart in the days of peace. Knowing the whimsicality of his friend, and trusting not at all in his judgment of affairs, Franklin none the less believed implicitly in the genuineness of his friendship, and counted upon his comradeship as a rallying point for his beginning life in the new land which he felt with strange conviction was to be his future abiding place. He read again and again the letter Battersleigh had written him, which, in its somewhat formal diction and informal orthography, was as follows:
"To Capt. Edw. Franklin, Bloomsbury, Ill.
"MY DEAR NED:
I have the honour to state to you that I am safely arrived and well-established at this place, Ellisville, and am fully disposed to remain. At present the Railway is built no further than this point, and the Labourers under charge of the Company Engineers make the most of the population. There is yet but one considerable building completed, a most surprising thing to be seen in this wild Region. It is of stone and built as if to last forever. It is large as a Courthouse of one of your usual Towns, and might seem absurd in this country did it not suggest a former civilization instead of one yet to come. It is full large enough for any Town of several thousand people. This is the property of the Co. that is building the Ry. It is said that the Co. will equip it fully, so that the country round about may depend upon it for Rations.
"There is another building, intended also for an Hotel, but of a different sort. This is called the Cottage, and is much frequented by fellows of the lower sort, the Labourers and others now stopping in this vicinity. It is the especial rendezvous of many men concerned with the handling of Cattle. I must tell you that this is to be a great market for these Western Beeves. Great numbers of these cattle are now coming in to this country from the far South, and since the Ry. is yet unable to transport these Animals as they arrive there is good Numbers of them in the country hereabout, as well as many strange persons curiously known as Cowboys or Cow-Punchers, which the same I may call a purely Heathan sort. These for the most part resort at the Cottage Hotel, and there is no peace in the Town at this present writing.
"For myself I have taken entry upon one hundred and sixty Acres Govt. Land, and live a little way out from the Town. Here I have my quarters under tent, following example of all men, for as yet there are scarce a dozen houses within fifty Miles. I find much opportunity for studies to be presented to the London Times, which paper as you know I represent, and I prosecute with great hopes the business of the British American Colonization Society, of which corporation I am resident Agent.
"I have Chosen this point because it was the furtherest one yet reached by Rail. Back of this, clean to the Missouri River, new Towns have grown up in most wonderful fashion. I have been advised that it is highly desirable to be in at the beginning in this Country if one is to stay in the Hunt, therefore I have come to a Town which has just Begun. Believe me, dear Ned, it is the beginning of a World. Such chances are here, I am Sure as do not exist in any other Land, for behind this land is all the Richer and older Parts, which are but waiting to pour money and men hither so soon as the Ry. shall be Fully completed. I have heard of many men who have made Fortunes since the War. It is truly a rapid Land.
"I am persuaded, my dear boy, that this is the place for you to come. There are an Hundred ways in which one may earn a Respectable living, and I find here no Class Distinction. It is an extraordinary fact that no man and no profession ranks another here. One man is quite good as another.
"Of society I regret to say we can not as yet offer you much. There is yet but four women in the place and for the men a Part seem mostly busy consuming Whisky at the Cottage, at which I wonder, for I have found the Whisky very bad. Let this not dishearten you, for many things will change when the Ry. is completed. We are to have Shops here, and I understand this is to be the seat of the county. A year from now, as I am told, we shall have 2,000 Persons living here, and in five years this will be a City. Conceive the opportunity meantime. The Cattle business is bound to grow, and I am advised that all this land will Ultimately be farmed and prove rich as that through which I Past in coming out. You are welcome, my dear Ned, as I am sure you know, to half my blankets and rations during your stay here, however long same may be, and I most cordially invite you to come out and look over this Country, nor do I have the smallest doubt that it will seem to you quite as it does to me, and I shall hope that we make a Citizen of you.
"Above all is this a man's country. For sport it has no equal I have ever seen, and as you know I have visited some Parts of the World. The Buffaloes is to be found by Millions within a few miles of this point, and certain of the savidge Tribes still live but a short journey from this point, though now the Army has pretty much Reduced them. Antelopes there is all around in thousands, and many Wolves. It is, indeed, my boy, as I have told you, a country entirely new. I have travelled much, as you know, and am not so Young as yourself, but I must say to you that your friend Batty feels like a boy again. There is something Strange in this air. The sky is mostly clear, and the Air very sweet. The wind is steady but pleasant, and a man may live in comfort the year round as I am told. I am but new here as yet myself, but am fully disposed, as they say in the strange language here, to drive my Stake. I want you, my dear boy, also to drive Yours beside me, and to that Effect I beg to extend you whatever Aid may lie in my Power.
"Hoping that you may receive this communication duly, and make reply to Same, and hoping above all things that I may soon meet again my Companion of the 47th., I beg to subscribe myself, my dear boy, ever your Obdt. & Affect. Friend,
"BATTERSLEIGH.
"P.S. — Pray Herild your advent by a letter & bring about 4 lbs. or 5 lbs. of your Favourite Tea, as I am Short of Same."
The letter ended with Battersleigh's best flourish. Franklin turned it over again and again in his hand and read it more than once as he pondered upon its message. "Dear old fellow," he said; "he's a good deal of a Don Quixote, but he never forgets a friend. Buffalo and Indians, railroads and hotels — it must at least be a land of contrasts!"
CHAPTER VI EDWARD FRANKLIN, LAWYER
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Edward Franklin had taken up his law studies in the office of Judge Bradley, the leading lawyer of the little village of Bloomsbury, where Franklin was born, and where he had spent most of his life previous to the time of his enlistment in the army. Judge Bradley was successful, as such matters go in such communities, and it was his open boast that he owed his success to himself and no one else. He had no faith in such mythical factors as circumstances in the battle of life. This is the common doctrine of all men who have arrived, and Judge Bradley had long since arrived, in so far as the possibilities of his surroundings would admit. His was the largest law library in the town. He had the most imposing offices — a suite of three rooms, with eke a shiny base-burner in the reception room. His was one of the three silk hats in the town.
Thirty-five years earlier, a raw youth from old Vermont, Hollis N. Bradley had walked into the embryonic settlement of Bloomsbury with a single law book under his arm, and naught but down upon his chin. He pleaded his first cause before a judge who rode circuit over a territory now divided into three Congressional districts. He won his first case, for his antagonist was even more ignorant than he. As civilization advanced, he defended fewer men for stealing hogs, and more for murder and adultery. His practice grew with the growth of the population of the country about him. He was elected county attorney, local counsel for the railroad, and judge of the circuit court. He was mentioned for gubernatorial honours, and would perhaps have received the party nomination but for the breaking out of the civil war. Not fancying the personal risks of the army, he hired a substitute, and this sealed his political fate; for Illinois at that time did not put in power men who sent substitutes to the war. None the less, the lands and moneys of the most prominent lawyer of the place kept him secure, and human memories are short; so that, when Edward Franklin and others of the young men of Bloomsbury returned from the war, they saw upon the streets of the little town, as they had seen before they went away, the tall form, the portly front, the smooth-shaven face, and the tall silk hat of Judge Hollis N. Bradley, who had in every sense survived the war.
It was an immemorial custom in Bloomsbury for the youth who had aspirations for a legal career to "read law" in Judge Bradley's office. Two of his students had dropped their books to take up rifles, and they came not back to their places. They were forgotten, save once a year, upon Decoration Day, when Judge Bradley made eloquent tribute above their graves. Upon such times Judge Bradley always shed tears, and always alluded to the tears with pride. Indeed, his lachrymal ability was something of which he had much right to be proud, it being well known in the legal profession that one's fees are in direct proportion to his ability to weep. Judge Bradley could always weep at the right time before a Jury, and this facility won him many a case. Through no idle whim had public sentiment, even after the incident of the substitute, confirmed him in his position as the leading lawyer of Bloomsbury.
It was therefore predetermined that Edward Franklin should go into the office of Judge Bradley to begin his law studies, after he had decided that the profession of the law was the one likely to offer him the best career. In making his decision, Franklin was actuated precisely as are many young men who question themselves regarding their career. He saw the average results of the lives of others in a given calling, and conceived, without consulting in most jealous scrutiny his own natural fitnesses and preferences, that he might well succeed in that calling because he saw others so succeeding. Already there were two dozen lawyers in Bloomsbury, and it was to be questioned whether they all did so well as had Judge Bradley in the hog-stealing epoch of the local history. Yet it was necessary for him to take up something by way of occupation, and it resolved itself somewhat into a matter of cancellation. For the profession of medicine he had a horror, grounded upon scenes of contract surgery upon the fields of battle. The ministry he set aside. From commerce, as he had always seen it in his native town, twelve hours a day of haggling and smirking, he shrank with all the impulses of his soul. The abject country newspaper gave him no inkling of that fourth estate which was later to spring up in the land. Arms he loved, but there was now no field for arms. There were no family resources to tide him over the season of experiment, and, indeed, but for a brother and a sister, who lived in an adjoining farming community, he had no relatives to be considered in his plans. Perforce, then, Franklin went into the law, facing it somewhat as he had the silent abattis, as with a duty to perform. Certainly, of all students, Judge Bradley had never had a handsomer, a more mature, or a more reluctant candidate than this same Edward Franklin, late captain in the United States Army, now getting well on into his twenties, grave, silent, and preoccupied, perhaps a trine dreamy. He might or might not be good material for a lawyer; as to that, Judge Bradley did not concern himself. Young men came into his office upon their own responsibility.
It was one of the unvarying rules of Judge Bradley's office, and indeed this was almost the only rule which he imposed, that the law student within his gates, no matter what his age or earlier servitude, should each morning sweep out the office, and should, when so requested, copy out any law papers needing to be executed in duplicate. So long as a student did these things, he was welcome as long as he cared to stay. The judge never troubled himself about the studies of his pupil, never asked him a question, indeed never even told him what books it might be best to read, unless this advice were asked voluntarily by the student himself. He simply gave the candidate a broom, a chair, and the freedom of the library, which latter was the best law library in the town. What more could one ask who contemplated a career at law? It was for him to work out his own salvation; and to sweep the stairs each morning.
Edward Franklin accepted his seat in Judge Bradley's office without any reservations, and he paid his daily fee of tenure as had all the other students before him, scorning not the broom. Indeed, his conscience in small things augured well, for it was little cousin to his conscience in great things. Ardent, ambitious, and resolute, he fell upon Blackstone, Chitty, and Kent, as though he were asked to carry a redoubt. He read six, eight, ten hours a day, until his head buzzed, and he forgot what he had read. Then at it all over again, with teeth set. Thus through more than a year he toiled, lashed forward by his own determination, until at length he began to see some of the beautiful first principles of the law — that law, once noble and beneficent, now degraded and debased; once designed for the protection of the individual, now used by society as the instrument for the individual's extermination. So in his second year Franklin fared somewhat beyond principles merely, and got into notes and bills, torts, contracts, and remedies. He learned with a shiver how a promise might legally be broken, how a gift should be regarded with suspicion, how a sacred legacy might be set aside. He read these things again and again, and forced them into his brain, so that they might never be forgotten; yet this part of the law he loved not so much as its grand first principles of truth and justice.
