Part 17

"Why, Joe!" she exclaimed, "why, _Joe_! Is that my own boy speaking like this? You would keep the knowledge that must be of such inestimable value to Nina away from her because, perchance, we should lose her, lest she should leave us--to further her own happiness and prosperity in life?"

Joe bent his head and his face crimsoned.

"I know I'm selfish, Mother," he blurted out; "I know I shouldn't even allow myself to think of such a thing. But when I think of her leaving us--of--of going off to live with some one else--I--I just can't stand it." Then raising his head and fixing his deep grey eyes upon his mother's face, "I'd rather die than live without Nina."

When she had at last sent him away to bed Hannah Peniman sat for a long time before the dying fire.

Joe--her Joe--her son--her baby--was not a boy any more--he was a man!

The eyes that had looked into hers this night, the voice that had spoken out of a heart yet unknown to itself, were not the eyes, the voice of a child. And the knowledge left pain in her heart, and wonder.

She rose presently and going to the door called Nina.

As the girl came bounding into the room Hannah Peniman looked at her with new eyes. The little Princess was now a slender, graceful, beautiful girl of fourteen, with a head of rippling gold, eyes like wood-violets, and a face so entrancingly lovely that Mrs. Peniman's heart sank as she looked at it.

She drew the girl gently down on a chair beside her.

"Listen, dear," her voice was low, almost sad, as she spoke, "you never knew the Indian that Ruth found on the prairies to-day and that Father and the boys buried this evening, but he has done you a great, an inestimable service. You have heard us speak of him, and how we took care of Eagle Eye when he was wounded. That was at the time that both you and Joe were away, after you were kidnapped by the Indians. Father Peniman trusted Eagle Eye, and told him your story. He went away without a word, but in some way he got possession of the box containing your papers----"

Nina started up from her chair.

"The box--_the dispatch-box_--that Mother left me?"

"Yes, Nina. He got it, and he was bringing it back to us when he became lost in the blizzard. He gave his life in the effort to restore it."

"But the box--the box--Mother's box?" cried Nina, her hands clasped, her face white, her eyes wide and pleading.

"That was the box that Ruth found this afternoon lying on the prairie beside Eagle Eye's body."

"And you have it--you got it--it--it----" her agitation was too great for words.

Mrs. Peniman laid her hand over the little shaking hands that were clasped against Nina's breast.

"Yes, dear, we have it." She rose and going to her trunk brought forth the box and put it into Nina's hands.

The girl clasped it, bent over it, pressed it to her bosom, and burst into a flood of tears.

"It is all I have of them," she whispered, "all that I have to remember either of them. Oh, I hope there is a picture of Mother in the box, some letters, something to make me know more about my dear, dear father and mother!"

At this moment Mr. Peniman entered the room. He crossed silently to the table and stood beside it while Nina with shaking fingers unfastened the thongs that were wound about the box and raised the lid. On the top were two long folded papers. She opened these and glanced at them hastily, then threw them on the table. They were deeds, executed many years before, to Lee C. Carroll, by his father, Edgar M. Carroll, conveying to him and his heirs forever sole title to certain properties in St. Louis and New York.

There was a tray in the box, and with trembling hands Nina raised this eagerly, hoping to find the treasures she had coveted in the space below.

_There was nothing in it but a heap of ashes._

The base, vindictive nature of the renegade, while leaving in the box the deeds to a property he dared not claim, incited him with devilish malice to destroy all the personal papers, all data, every scrap of information that could lead to the restoration of the child to her friends and relatives, or her place in society.

When the full realization of what had been done came upon her Nina uttered a heartbroken cry and cast herself into Mrs. Peniman's arms.

With eyes that could scarce credit the evidence of their senses the man and woman gazed into the box.

Nothing there but ashes.

Nothing to pay for the life that had been given. Nothing to bring to the helpless young girl the knowledge without which she was cut off from all family relation, or connection with the life from which she came. Nothing to help her to establish her identity, or enable her to claim the property, the deeds of which had been so sardonically left in the box.

The utter maliciousness of it, the cold, cruel, calculating vindictiveness of the deed left them stunned.

"Don't grieve so, darling," Hannah Peniman murmured, stroking the golden head and pressing it to her breast, "you have the deeds, and they mean a great deal. Property in those two big cities must be worth a great deal of money now."

"But I don't want money," sobbed Nina broken-heartedly. "I don't care anything about the deeds, he might as well have burned them, too. What do I want of property in New York or St. Louis? I'll probably never go there. I don't want to go there. I want to stay here with you. But what I wanted--what I hoped we would find in the box--were pictures of Papa and Mama, letters from them--things about them and me--so that I would know something about them--about myself, so that I wouldn't feel myself a poor forsaken, friendless waif, dependent upon your charity for all I have and am."

Joshua Peniman crossed the room and laid his hand upon her head.

"You are not a friendless waif, Princess," he said in his low, gentle voice, "you are our daughter, beloved, cherished, as much as Sara or Ruth." Then taking up the deeds from the table he examined them carefully.

"This is very strange," he mused; "I can't understand it. Why should he have left the deeds and destroyed everything else in the box? There is a considerable quantity of ashes here. The box must have been full of papers. Why should that villain have destroyed them all and left these deeds? I cannot understand it."

He puzzled over it long after Nina had sobbed herself to sleep in Ruth's loving arms.

Where was Red Snake?

Why had he burned the contents of this box?

How had the box come to be in the possession of Eagle Eye?

What had they to expect from this new complication in a mystery he was unable to unravel?

Little could he guess, as he went abstractedly about his work the next day, how those questions were to be answered, or how closely that mystery was to affect the lives of himself and those who were dear to him.

*CHAPTER XXVI*

*TROUBLE BREWING*

The spring of 1857 was a time of promise for the Nebraska settlers. Timely rains had fallen. The few little fields of wheat and corn promised good harvests. Elk, deer, antelope, grouse, and wild turkey were abundant. Buffaloes came close to their settlement and they were fortunate enough to get many hides and much meat. The Sioux had fought a great battle with the whites at Ash Hollow and been badly beaten and wanted nothing so much as peace. Fifty thousand dollars had been voted by Congress to build a capitol at Omaha, and fifty thousand more to build roads through the Territory.

With the advance of spring more settlers began to come in. There was now a little settlement at Beaver Creek, some five miles away, and during the summer several families located along the Blue, and a thriving settlement started up on the Little Blue, some three or four miles away, which was called "Milford."

Meanwhile the friendship of the Peniman family and their new neighbors, the Jameses, was growing apace.

To Mr. Peniman the presence of a neighbor, a man who was concerned with the same problems, the same dangers, and the same experiments as himself, was a great boon. He now had another man to talk to, to plan with, to rely upon in case the danger of which he was in continual fear should come upon them.

To Mrs. Peniman the companionship of another woman was a blessing almost beyond expression, and to the girls the presence of another young girl in the neighborhood brought a new interest in life.

But it was to Lige and Joe that the coming of the new homesteaders brought the greatest significance.

The James boys had always lived in towns and had a knowledge and sophistication of which the country-raised Peniman lads were entirely lacking. They had also had much better educational facilities, and there was much that Joe and Lige could learn from them. The four boys became staunch friends, and in talking with Herbert, Joe again felt his ambitions stimulated to study law.

When the snow had gone and the bright spring sunshine had dried up the prairies sufficiently to allow of travel Joshua Peniman proposed to Joe that he should go to Omaha in his place, have the wagon mended and bring back some spring supplies.

"There is so much work to be done this spring that I don't feel that I can go," he said. "I would not like to have you make the trip alone, but the Jameses are needing some things, too, and you and Herbert can make the trip together."

So it was arranged, and on a brilliant spring morning, when the sky arched like a bowl of sapphire above their heads, when the meadow-larks sang in the grass and the wind whispered softly over the prairies that here and there were already showing a touch of green, the two lads set off together.

It was a long drive, and on the way they talked of many things. Herbert, who was a fine, quiet, serious-minded boy, was thinking much of the political situation of the country, which this spring was showing signs of much bitterness and agitation.

"I tell you things are in a serious condition," he said. "We are going on indifferently living over a volcano. And it's going to burst out some day when people are least expecting it. Slavery is a curse that no civilized country can exist under. Are we going to keep quiet and let Kansas come into the Union as a slave State?"

Joe's eyes blazed. "Of course we're not. That would be a terrible thing," he cried.

"Then what are we going to do about it? Are men like Douglas going to blind the eyes and muffle the ears of the American people until we get all tied up in legislation that will give a preponderance of the Western States to slavery?"

When they reached Omaha they found the entire community asking the same question. On street corners, in stores, in halls, churches, meeting-places of all kinds the question of slavery was being discussed, not calmly and dispassionately, but with a bitterness that was disturbing business, separating families, setting father and sons, brother and brother apart.

Joe listened to it all with a growing feeling of anxiety. In spite of himself he found himself constantly being drawn into arguments, contending hotly on a question that he felt keenly that he knew too little about.

In a store where the two lads went to buy their provisions they ran into a group of a dozen men or more who were hotly debating the slavery question. They intended to do their trading and get out as soon as possible, but the proprietor of the store was one of the principal arguers, so leaning his back against the counter while he waited to have his order filled, Joe listened to the discussion.

Before he was aware of what he was doing he had answered a tall, gangling Missourian with a tuft of whiskers on his chin, who was arguing for State rights, and the first thing he knew he was in the midst of a fiery controversy, in which all the bystanders took violent sides.

Among them was a man whose appearance had drawn his attention from the first moment he entered the store. At his first glance it had startled him with a strange sense of familiarity. Then the argument had claimed all his attention and he noticed the man no more, until, having abruptly terminated his part in it he gathered up his provisions and was leaving the store when the gentleman stepped up to him.

"I congratulate you, young man," he said, holding out his hand. "You are a born orator. It does my heart good to hear the young fellows of our country take the stand that you just did. You are what I should call a real American. I'm afraid we have some tough times ahead of us before this thing is over, and it is to the young fellows like you that we may have to look for its settlement."

"Do you mean that you think it will come to war?"

"I begin to fear so. There is too much of a pull being made by the slave-owners and slave States,--and, I regret to say, by men in Congress, who ought to have a stronger sense of humanity and the country's danger."

"I agree with you," answered Joe eagerly, and before he knew it he was speaking out his thoughts to this stranger, the long, silent thoughts that had been forming themselves in his mind in the silence of the prairies, when he had brooded by himself about the subject of slavery and the danger of secession.

When they had remained talking for some time the gentleman laid his hand on Joe's arm.

"I like you, my young friend," he said; "you are a boy of much promise. Come up to my office with me. I am a lawyer. I'd like to talk with you further."

Joe hesitated. He had much to do, but something in the man's face and manner, some strange, haunting sense of familiarity, the fascination of his presence, his smooth and elegant manner of speech, made an appeal to him that he could not resist. They went together to the lawyer's office, and Joe saw for the first time a real law office and a law library.

When he saw the rows of shelves his eyes brightened.

"Oh," he cried, "what a library! How splendid! How I should like to read them all!"

The lawyer laughed. "I'm afraid you would find some of those books rather dry reading. They are all law books. A good many of them are reports."

"I know. That is what interests me so much. All my life my greatest ambition has been to be a lawyer."

"Is that possible!" cried the gentleman, evidently much pleased. "Well, well! So you would like to be a lawyer, would you? Why don't you, then? I am sure you would make a good one."

Joe's face flushed with pleasure.

"There is nothing in the world I want so much," he answered. "But we have a big family, my father is not a rich man, and we have recently homesteaded on the Blue. There is an awful lot of work to be done by pioneers, and I don't get much chance to read." Then, after a pause, "And besides I haven't any books."

"Would you read them if you had?"

"Yes, sir, I would, indeed," Joe answered so promptly that the gentleman smiled.

He rose presently and went to a case.

"Here," he said, taking down two volumes; "here's a copy of Blackstone, and one of Kent's Commentaries. I'll lend them to you. Take them home with you, and after you have read and digested them come back to me, and if I find that you have understood what you have read I'll lend you some more."

Joe's face crimsoned with joy. He stammered his thanks, and after shaking hands with his new acquaintance and promising to call upon him the next time he came to Omaha, he left the office and joined Herbert, who was waiting for him at the store.

When he told him of his experience and showed him the books Herbert whistled. "Looks to me as if that was a lucky strike," he said. "Do you know who that man is? I saw that he had taken a notion to you and asked about him. He is Judge North, one of the leading men of the Territory and the most prominent lawyer in the West."

Joe was not surprised to hear that the man at whose office he had called and whose books he carried under his arm was one of the leading men of the Territory. There was that in his manner and appearance that proclaimed him a leader of men. Absently he opened one of the books. On the fly-leaf was written in a bold flowing hand, "John M. North, Attorney at Law."

Joe pointed to the last words. "I hope to write that after my name some day," he said musingly.

"I'll be your first client," laughed Herbert.

"There's no telling but that you might," grinned Joe; "I might have to get you out of jail some day."

As they hurried back to the place where they had left the wagon Joe was overjoyed to find Pashepaho standing beside it.

He greeted them with a broad grin.

"Me wait," he said, "me know horses."

Joe grasped his hand and shook it with the cordiality of an old friend. Then he introduced Herbert, who looked with some astonishment upon this manner of greeting the red man of the plains.

"Pashepaho is one of my best friends," Joe assured him; "he saved my life once, and probably the lives of the family. What are you doing here, Pashepaho?"

"Come trade skin. What you do?"

"We came in to get some provisions and get the wagon mended. It broke down in a blizzard last winter."

"Heap cold."

"It was an awful winter. Father and Sam almost got lost in the big blizzard." Then suddenly remembering, "Did you know that Eagle Eye is dead? He was coming to us---bringing Nina's dispatch-box--when the blizzard overtook him. We found him dead not far from our house this spring."

"Ai-ee! Eagle Eye dead?" The Indian's sharp face clouded. "Heap good man." Then suddenly, "You know 'bout Red Snake?"

"No," Joe turned on him sharply. "What about him? We have been awful uneasy ever since we knew that Eagle Eye got the box. We have been afraid he would come to take vengeance on us for it."

"He no come now," said Pashepaho gravely. Then with a tone of surprise, "You no hear?"

"No, we have heard nothing. We have been shut off there at the homestead with big snows all winter. What do you mean?"

"Red Snake dead."

Joe started, and leaned forward staring into his face.

"_Dead_? Red Snake dead? How? When? Where?"

"Eagle Eye keel heem."

"Eagle Eye killed him? When?"

"Many sleep ago. Shoot heem with arrow."

Joe stood as if transfixed, staring into his face.

"Eagle Eye heap white man friend," Pashepaho went on.

"I know he was, I know he was, he was our friend, our good, loyal friend; we felt awfully bad when we found him. But--how did it happen? How did he get the box, I wonder?"

In his halting, broken English Pashepaho told him the story as he had heard it from the men of his own tribe. Joe was deeply affected.

"Then he must have got the dispatch-box after Red Snake was dead, and was bringing it to us when the blizzard overtook him. Good, faithful Eagle Eye! We thought he was not grateful for all the folks had done in nursing him back to life, but look how mistaken we were! He was a faithful friend."

As Pashepaho shook his hand and rode away Joe stood still in a profound reverie. A relief so great that it was almost like the falling of a great load from his shoulders, came over him.

_Red Snake was dead!_

The danger that had hung so darkly and fearsomely over them was now removed, the menacing figure that had shadowed all their days and filled their nights with terror was gone forever!

He could scarcely wait to get back home and tell the glad news to the family. As he hurriedly began to load the provisions into the wagon two men in earnest conversation passed him.

"We shall have war," one of them was saying, "there is no escaping it. The South is bound to secede."

The South is bound to secede!

The two lads turned and looked at one another, and into the consciousness of both some strange prescience seemed to fall.

"War!" said Herbert in an awed tone.

"_War!_" repeated Joe; "I wonder what it would mean to me?"

*CHAPTER XXVII*

*WAR*

The news that Joe brought back from his trip to Omaha that Red Snake was dead and the dark menace so long hanging over them was removed forever, brought great relief to the whole Peniman family. To Nina especially did it seem to bring a sense of security she had never known since the day she had been kidnapped. She had recovered in a measure from the bitter disappointment of the violated dispatch-box, though many nights, and often when she was alone she felt deeply unhappy over her situation, and the unsolved mystery that seemed to cut her off from her own.

As the summer advanced the young people of the two families were much together, and Hannah Peniman noticed with a smile--and yet a sigh--that the boys no longer went off by themselves on hunting or fishing or exploring expeditions, but that wherever they went the girls were usually with them, and that as the party came home, strolling across the prairies or along the river bank in the moonlight, that Nina and Joe were always together, that Herbert walked with Ruth, and that Lige larked and sang and frolicked with pretty, gay little Beatrice.

Joe found little time for reading during the summer, but the law books which Judge North had lent him were his constant companions in the evening, and while he plowed and harrowed the fields in which their first crops were to be planted he propped the Blackstone up at one end of the furrow, and while he traveled its length he recited over and over again a paragraph he had read at the start. When he reached the end of the furrow that paragraph was usually committed to memory, and he took another, reciting it over and over all down the long black furrow and back. In this way he read Blackstone through, acquiring so perfect a knowledge of its contents that he knew it almost by heart, and could quote from it verbatim to the very end of his life.

His mind and thoughts were much occupied with the ominous news that continually reached them. Everywhere trouble seemed to be in the air. The violence and disorder in Kansas, where a state of civil war practically existed, as the result of the pro-slavery demonstration at Lawrence, communicated itself across the border to the sister territory of Nebraska, and bitter arguments and controversy were heard wherever two or three people were gathered together.

Such papers as they were able to obtain were full of menace. A seething current of excitement and unrest seemed permeating the whole nation. The North bitterly accusing the South of trying by trickery and treachery to force slavery upon the nation, the South maintaining that the North was fostering abolition, and that the real intent and purpose of the abolitionists was to arouse a slave insurrection and bring devastation to the whole South.

The decision in the Dred Scott case and the framing of the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas increased the agitation of the slavery question to a burning issue; and Joe and Herbert, sometimes accompanied by Arthur and Lige, fell into the habit of riding over to the little cross-road store at Milford evenings, to hear the latest news and listen to the discussion they always found going on there.

Joshua Peniman made few comments on the situation, but he seized upon the papers with an eagerness that showed his interest, and read them with set lips and frowning brow.

In October that year the little settlement of which the Peniman family had been the pioneers was increased by six families, who homesteaded upon the West Blue and Middle Creek.

A demand soon rose among them for a school which the children of the community could attend during the cold weather, and as there were no funds to provide such a school or pay a teacher the settlers all came together at the Peniman homestead to discuss the matter and see what could be done.

After much discussion it was agreed that they should build a little sod schoolhouse, large enough to accommodate the children of the neighborhood, and as Joshua Peniman was a natural leader among them and the best equipped for the purpose, that the men of the settlement should take upon themselves his work for certain hours of each day, while he in exchange should teach the school.