CHAPTER XII.

JACK WEDDED.

'Twas the last of June, the wedding bells pealed joyously, the church organ bellowed noisily, the formality of congratulations followed along with the flutter of praises for the bride and groom, which they received because it was eminently proper and expected; a hurried breakfast, still more hasty good-byes, the whistle of an approaching train amid the excitement of baggage checked, lost or forgotten, a rush of depot farewells, a waving of handkerchiefs, a few misty eyes, then Hazel had a chance to breathe a long sigh of relief and Jack to unburden some pent-up adjectives as he picked rice out of his wife's hair and removed the tell-tale labels, ribbons and signs which decorated umbrellas, suit cases and wraps.

"Jack," whispered Hazel, as she nestled close to him in the railroad coach in which was no one but an old man, the train attendant being on the platform. "I was 'skeert' until you squeezed my hand, and I trembled all over. I thought I should faint, but I'm your wife, ain't I, Jack?"

"Yes, you are an old married lady now," answered Jack, dogmatically.

"An old married lady," repeated Hazel slowly, lapsing into a brown study for a moment. "Jack, is it such an awful long time since I was a little girl and you pulled my sled on the hill for me?"

"No, dear, it is but yesterday and it will be yesterday always, even if we live for a hundred years. Don't you know, 'It's only once in life one's boots have copper toes,' and my 'copper-toed' age was the happiest part of my life."

"Until today, Jack," interrupted Hazel, very decidedly.

"Yes?" inquiringly replied Jack.

The time for Jack to make his regular visit to the mine had also been selected for his wedding trip and Chiquita was to join the newly married pair at Denver, then all three were to "do" Colorado, finishing by spending a few weeks in Estes Park and the Buena Vista ranch, as Chiquita called her wonderful summer abode, later going on to California. Jack had purchased a fine equipment of split bamboo fly rods and all the necessary accompaniments, while Hazel, equally ardent in her admiration of the sport so fascinating to the disciples of Izaak Walton, fashioned, with her own hands, elegant rod cases, fly books and natty garments for the outing. Conspicuous among the latter was a short walking skirt and Eton jacket of brown duck, trimmed with bands of white and studded with brass buttons, in which she arrayed herself and practiced fly casting for imaginary trout on the lawn. A stop of an hour in Boston gave them barely time to transfer across the city of crooked streets to the Albany station and to settle themselves for the long ride to Chicago. Jack provided in advance for plenty of room, engaging a sleeper section.

By the time the train had shot past the beautiful suburban cities of Auburn and the Newtons and rolled into Framingham Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard were quite at home. They commenced to congratulate themselves on looking like old married folks and that no one would suspect them of being bride and groom.

"Jack, you know something?" said Hazel in her speculative way that always meant a favor to come.

"Well, sweetheart, what is it?" Jack presumed it was a glass of water or apples or that her pillow was not right.

"Well, you know."

Jack knew then that something more than ordinary was coming; that "you know" indicated not an uncertainty, but was the usual signal for a "hold up"--nothing short of opera tickets--and the young man wondered what unsatisfied desire was about to be "you knowed."

"Well, you know that little descriptive story you wrote of Estes Park, read it to me."

So Mr. Jack resurrected the tale from its pocket in his suit case and in his rich, modulated voice, read the story for the x--th time, he thought:

"Peerless Estes! That miniature world wilderness of wonder and delight! Set apart for the tired brain and careworn wreck from the sepulchers of business activity! A sweet paradise nestled amidst the encircling snow-capped peaks whose somber heads rise far above the habitat of microbe and parasite. Those silent peaks silhouetted against an ethereal dome of deepest blue or blackest star-bespangled canopy of night! The mountain air of Estes; the elixir compounded by nature for reinvigorating battling civilization!

"This enchanted arena, which pen fails adequately to drape in poetical luxury, was dedicated for combats between rest and toil, health and sickness, vitality and decay. The angler revels in luxury with the numbers of easily accessible pools, riffles, meadows, canons, the most distant an hour's drive and the majority but ten minutes' walk. Occasionally deer may be seen and the 'Big Horn' come down their aerial stairway from the clouds to lick from the alkali waters in Horseshoe. Wait until you see the chattering magpie, with its bronze equipment and saucy manners. The foe of this long-tailed, noisy inhabitant is a blue jay (the one James Whitcomb Riley calls the 'bird with soldier clothes.') Hours may be spent witnessing the strategy, diplomacy, anger, spite and vindictiveness waged by these bird robbers and desperadoes, for both are notorious house breakers, murderers and thieves in bird land, as well as clever in appropriating kitchen supplies which they surreptitiously seize when opportunity is presented.

"In Estes a Sabbath quiet broods at all times, broken only by the swish of the angler's rod, the merry peal of frightened laughter as some maiden lands her first trout, or the crunching of horses' hoofs in the hard gravel roads as a pleasure party clatters by. Children romp and play without fear of mosquitoes or snakes, troublesome poisonous insects being banished as thoroughly as if destroyed by some mysterious necromancer.

"Where in all the world can the lover go"--

"Stop, Jack, look into the depth of my eyes and skip those charming nooks, bowers and rock girt dens where so many rehearse the preliminary episode which leads to the altar. I know that by heart; skip the 'lover' pages and read about the coach ride from Lyons, for we will get to Lyons Friday, won't we?"

So after a glass of water, an orange and readjusting of pillows, Jack picked up his book again.

"The ride from Lyons is so fraught with surprises that one becomes distracted. Situated as it is in a veritable fiery furnace of red, rough, ragged precipices, monuments of the eruptive age when volcanoes vomited billowy lava over the face of the earth, Lyons is the antithesis of what the traveler expected at the end of a tortuously curved railroad track, over which the 'mixed' train of freight and disgruntled humanity has been jerked, jostled and jumped along for about three hours, covering forty miles.

"But a delicious dinner awaits; generally fried chicken, southern style. This does not mean a sun dried remnant of a wing, or the active extremity of a leg with a burnt bone protruding through gristly skin, but a nice, big piece of a yellow-legged Plymouth Rock, the real article, hatched by a mother hen acquainted with the business and not one of those Illinois river incubators that furnish spring chickens at all seasons of the year to be kept well frozen in cold storage until called for. This chicken is fried in ranch butter to a golden russet brown, if you happen to know what color cooking calls for, and a whole lot of it comes in on one great big platter, so you get a chance to pick a good joint, but any part of such a chicken is good."

"Jack, you are putting in a whole lot that is not in that book just to make me hungry. My mouth has been puckered up for half an hour to get a bite of that 'yaller leg.' We are near Springfield; let's eat."

Suiting the action to the word they joined the motley throng in the rush for the dining-room, as the train came to a stop for forty minutes.

Fresh Connecticut River shad and roe, new green peas, new potatoes in cream, lettuce, radishes.

"There, that will kill your chicken fever for a time," said Jack, as he ordered for both.

"You may order me a piece of lemon pie, Jack. I see some on the sideboard and the meringue is about two inches thick."

"We want to go over and see the train for the north pull out; might see some Bozrah people, Hazel," said Jack, after the dinner, "it leaves five minutes before we do."

"Oh, sure enough, and there are a lot of students just going home. I suppose Chiquita is in Denver by this time."

"Hazel, there is old Deacon Petherbridge and Elam Tucker. I'll bet they've been down to New Haven on a horse trade. You know Elam had the big livery stable that burned down when you were eight and I was just eleven. You remember the Tucker boy was foolish and set fire to the hay, 'Wanted to see it burn,' he told the town marshal. But we must get aboard."

The last beams of rose-tinted sunlight percolated through the gathering darkness as the train sped on its way, winding in and out among the hills of western Massachusetts. Hazel watched the fading panorama as it dissolved in the gloom of the night. She was thinking of her happy school days among those very hills through which she was now gliding, a one-day bride, wife of her childhood lover. As the scenes vanished she shyly snuggled a little closer and whispered, "Jack, we will always be happy, won't we?"

"Why, yes; but what made you ask it?"

"Oh, just 'cause," continuing, "I kinder wish we had gone around by Hoosac tunnel, we could have seen 'Old Bozrah' hills and"--

"I guess my new wife is a little homesick," consolingly interrupted Jack. "Suppose we visit Old Bozrah when we come back and have a famous time going nutting and picking autumn leaves"--

"And getting ivy poisoned so my face will be all spots next winter. I guess not."

The obsequious, ebony-hued gem'man, in white coat with black buttons, interrupted the first family differences.

"If yoh doan mind, I'd laik to fix up yoh section; got so much to do won't git through 'fore midnight."

"All right, where can we go? This one across here is unoccupied," replied Jack, wishing to accommodate.

"Dat section, sah, will not be taken until we neah Albany, sah," came from the man of tips and corporation dignity.

They had been seated but a few moments when the occupant of the section next forward of their own was obliged to find temporary quarters as the ever-obliging servant of monopoly touched his cap for permission. A lady of prepossessing countenance, faultlessly gowned and of gracious manner, knocked, as it were, at Jack's door, addressing him, "May I occupy this vacant seat while the porter arranges my domicile? Pardon the intrusion, but all other avenues seem already taxed."

"Certainly, it is no intrusion; in fact, we shall be glad to have you, as you have had a long siege of solitaire," replied Jack.

"I do get so lonesome on my trips that I sometimes wish some one else had the position," answered the lady with that assurance which accompanies experience.

"Gathering from that, I judge you travel for business instead of pleasure," said Jack.

"Yes, I make two trips a year on business. I am buyer for Stoddersmith of Boston, and am on my way to Colorado and California. I shall visit Estes Park, Manitou and other points, then go to India and China."

Jack was no more surprised than if she had told him she was quartermaster in the navy, or a field marshal in the German army. He looked incredulous. The lady handed him her card, which read, "Miss Asquith, Stoddersmith's, Boston," remarking that if it would be agreeable she would tell them how it happened a woman occupied so important a position, and naively added, "The only firm in the world who employs one of our sex in this department, even as a saleslady."

"Oh, do tell us," said Hazel, and to Jack, "Just think of a woman going alone to India to buy goods!"

"This trip is really a part of my twenty-fifth anniversary with the firm,"--

Hazel interrupted. "Pardon me, but do you mean to say you have been twenty-five years with one firm?"

"Yes, and I am but forty-five. I went to work, a girl of fifteen, in one of the then larger western cities and after five years concluded I would prefer an eastern house. New York did not offer the inducement which I found in Boston. I was placed in the fur stock in winter and lighter wraps in summer. For some reason, after I had been with them ten years, they transferred me temporarily into the present department, later returning me for one winter to the furs. At the end of that season I was given the option of management of the entire wrap stock or a permanent place in the other line. I preferred the latter. I did not feel confidence enough in myself to be a buyer. You see, if certain styles of goods fail to 'go,' fail to become popular or to bring a good profit, there is a vacancy and a new buyer takes up the department. My sales in the new stock increased steadily. It became positively embarrassing to me at times when customers refused to have their wants attended to by the men in the stock, men who had been there many years longer than I had. But the fact was, it finally became necessary for me to make appointments just the same as dentists do in order to give the attention necessary to the trade. Three years ago I made my first attempt in buying from manufacturers in France. That trip was one continual round of 'stage fright,' and even after the goods were in the house I worried myself sick for fear the end of the season would be a 'blank,' as the boys say about lottery tickets, but the books showed a very profitable period in the face of grave reverses to the general trade. And now, to show their confidence in me as well as making me the magnificent present of a trip to India, I am on my way to buy goods. Isn't it lovely of them?"

"Well, you deserve it, even more if anything. Just imagine working for one firm a quarter of a century," spoke up Hazel very energetically.

"Many firms," said Jack, weighing his words, "send 'style hunters' abroad for the effect the mail from a foreign port has on their customers. Half the time these 'hunters' stay long enough to mail their announcements, like as not printed in the United States, look at a few hats or garments, perhaps buy a 'pattern' or two, and then return home. Other firms do send buyers into various ports abroad. Some have resident buyers, but I never knew before of any firm sending a buyer from the ranks of the fair sex to the Orient. Let me compliment you, Miss Asquith, on your high achievement. It certainly demonstrates the advancement of woman's sphere. But may I ask you a pertinent question regarding the social part of your life?"

"Certainly, I can guess what you want to know, and let me say, at first, I used to feel dreadfully when I found that the working girl is to a great degree ostracised by what is called society. But I learned that society is treacherous. If one has lots of money to spend there are certain attractions that it takes money to enjoy or provide. The different degrees of wealth provide their respective scale of eligible members to make up their circle of society, and the lesser lights are eclipsed or paled into insignificance by the grander candle power. It is the same in business, professions, art and politics, so I found that my sphere was probably cast in just as pleasant places among my class of those who work for a living, as though I had been evolved by marriage or fortune into a society star of any magnitude, where the jealousies and 'snubs' are even harder to be endured because of the still greater lustre found or imagined among more brilliant or exclusive sets into which I could not enter. Do I make it clear?"

"Very; indeed, you echo my own theory. But I could not have expressed it as clearly as you have," replied Jack.

"After all," continued Miss Asquith, "I doubt if the very rich obtain as much unalloyed pleasure from life as do the middle classes who do not aspire to greatness and are educated from infancy to make themselves happy in the strata to which they are indigenous, as one may put it. They are free to come and go any and everywhere, while the wealthy commence life in charge of a nurse girl, are educated by private tutors, attended by chaperones in their courtship and graduate simply to be put in charge of the butler, footman, coachman and maid. But I guess I have worn you out with my sermon on riches, and will say good night."

Hazel and Jack joined in their good night and discussed the subject some time, deciding to ask Miss Asquith to meet Chiquita and the four go as one party to Estes Park. As Hazel said, "It will give Chiquita a grand chance to study another phase of the life of her white sister, and, Jack, I guess the red man's squaw is not alone in the field of drudgery, after all."

Owing to through tickets having been procured, it became necessary for Jack to go one route while Miss Asquith took another from Chicago to Denver, arrangements being made to that end the day following. Jack had to get his tickets vised at the Chicago office and for some technical reason the matter was of such a nature that it required the O. K. of the General Passenger Agent. As he awaited an audience, the official being for the moment engaged with another person, evidently a stranger to city methods and customs, Jack struggled with a long forgotten, dimly familiar something about the man that recalled brain impressions, which they say are never destroyed when once imprinted. He had been directed to see Mr. Lillis at such a room, in such a building, but that name carried no suggestion. It did not seem to fit the groping fancy of his mind. Still the name seemed to associate itself with the party then engaging the General Passenger Agent. As the stranger turned to go he stopped in front of Jack, looked at him a moment, then put out his hand, "Shake, old man; guess you don't re-cog-nize Cal Wagner in his store clothes. I jess cum out to God's country once more afore I pass in my chips to see how things look in civilization. How be ye?"

Of course Jack then remembered his quondam friend during the races on the Ute reservation, and the name Lillis puzzled him more than ever. He greeted Cal in a hearty manner, introducing Hazel.

"Wait a minute while I get my tickets fixed, then I'll have a chat with you," said Jack.

As he presented his tickets, stating the object of his errand, he noticed the official had a glass eye and scar near his ear. When the tickets were returned a name written across them identified so unmistakably a part of Jack's "vision" that he immediately recalled the story which Cal Wagner told him years before of the first grave in Silver Cliff. The name was "Bert Lillis." Allowing his curiosity to prevail, he asked abruptly, "Mr. Lillis, were you ever in Silver Cliff?"

The official started, a shiver ran through his frame, the color left his face until it was like a piece of Parian marble, while he replied just audibly, helplessly, "Yes," adding quickly, "Come in, I guess you must know. I--did you ever see me before?"

Jack shook his head, but turning to Cal said, "Cal, this is Bert Lillis, formerly of Silver Cliff."

Cal looked from one to the other and replied, "Guess you are mistaken. Lillis is dead many years."

"No, he is still alive," said the official. "Come in."

Upon being seated, no one seemed desirous of broaching the painful subject uppermost in their minds, while Hazel was completely mystified as to the conduct of the three men. Finally, with a great effort to restrain his feelings, his head bowed upon his breast, the railroad man said in broken sentences: "I--for fifteen years a blackened pall has shadowed my path, a floating, abandoned derelict moored to my heart has dragged me against the buffeting waves of the sea of life or held me helpless in the trough as storm crests broke over me in my misery. A man marked with the brand which God placed upon Cain for the murder of his brother, yet I was exonerated by the jury. I shot Les McAvoy in the discharge of my duty. I was a mere boy, without money, scantily clad, in search of wealth with which to support my mother, and had to accept the only opportunity presented in that lawless mining camp. I had no tools or trade and was not strong enough to do the work required of miners, and the camp had not advanced far enough to give employment to the ordinary run of commercial wage earners. It was instilled into me in early life to do my duty in whatever capacity I served, under all circumstances, and I considered it my duty to protect that gambling table even at the risk of my own life. The years of mental anguish which I have lived since that fatal moment, and the years which my poor old mother has had her head bowed in sorrow"--

"Wait a moment, Mr. Lillis," interrupted Cal. "You did not kill Les McAvoy."

"What is that--you say I did not? Oh! I wish--it is good of you to try to erase the stigma, but the evidence, the facts, the coroner's verdict, 'at the hands of Bert Lillis.' Oh, no, no"--sadly commented Lillis.

"Mr. Lillis, I will prove to you what I say is truth, and if the grave of Les McAvoy has remained untouched all these years, the evidence is in the coffin," replied Cal.

"Tell it! tell it! prove, first, that you were there; describe the scene"--

"You were dealing, you raised a Colt's old-fashioned, powder-and-ball navy six-shooter from yer lap"--

"Yes, I had cleaned up that old gun and loaded it with fresh powder, ball and new caps that day. They told me to"--interrupted Mr. Lillis.

"Sam Tupper sat in a chair on top of a dry-goods box; he was lookout. A man with mustache, dead black, like India ink. Les did not like your remarks and started to rise up in his chair, his hand goin' to his pistol pocket. You lifted that big Colt's with both hands and as soon as the muzzle of it was pintin' up and away from your own body you pulled the trigger. Les had his own weapon out; you saw it, was frightened, dropped your own gun and tried to slip under the table. As you went down Les placed the muzzle of his gun agin yer eye and cut loose. While this was goin' on Tupper never moved until he saw a chanst to open a drawer, grab a pearl-handled, silver-plated shootin' iron. He stood up, advanced one step, and fired downwardly at Les McAvoy's breast. Les writhed, turned completely around, his hand convulsively endeavoring to get an aim at Tupper, who stood with a malicious grin waiting for McAvoy again to face him, ready to fire again if need be, but he saw it was useless. As McAvoy finally pivoted, the pistol dropped to the floor, and with a crash he fell flat on his back, dead. You were under the table. Tupper stepped from the box, his six-shooter a smokin' and said, 'You got it that time,' then put the gun in his pocket."

"Where were you?" exclaimed Mr. Lillis.

"Right agin the wall, and McAvoy's head struck at my feet. One man saw this besides myself. He wore three gold nuggets on his shirt front, and me and him figgered it out that night and again the next morning, but mum was the word. We knew the gamblers would kill us both if we told what we seen. I left the place and returned just as the last testimony was being given. There was no evidence given of Tupper having fired a shot. As the body lay upon its side on the floor there was one wound in the breast near the left center. Just under the skin in the small of the back was a dark, cone-shaped substance. It was the lead bullet from that pearl-handled six-shooter. The round bullet from your Colt's navy went through the roof."

"Gentlemen," said Lillis, "I am now able to relieve my mind from this hideous vision, and it will bring happiness to my mother. I can see now why the gamblers removed me to Rosita and furnished me with transportation and money to leave Colorado when I recovered sufficiently to travel. The ball from McAvoy's pistol caught the lower portion of my eye, and the turning of my head just before he fired caused the bullet to pass out near my ear, instead of going into my brain."

"We must go now, as it is near train time," said Jack.

"Me, too," said Cal.

"Are you going west?" asked Jack.

"Same train you take, I guess," replied Cal.

"Gentlemen," said Mr. Lillis, "I regret you leave so soon. I would like to entertain you if you care to stay over. If not now, at some future time; and, Mr. Wagner, you have done me a great favor. My poor old mother can live the rest of her life peacefully. Good-bye! good-bye!"

As the train pulled out of the station on the way to Denver the principal topic of conversation was the remarkable coincidence of the rencounter of Jack and Cal, emphasized by the more remarkable meeting of Cal and Bert Lillis.

"Well, that beats me," said Cal.

"I've got another surprise in Denver for you," said Jack.

"Will it beat this one?"

"Wait until you see our old friend, Chiquita."

"Chiquita, the injun gal?" asked Cal, inquiringly.

"Yes, Yamanatz's daughter."