Chapter 2

“Yes,” the Elder agreed thoughtfully, doubting whether he should follow her lead eastwards, “I reckon that's so. I'll see about it right off, Loo. I oughter hev thought of it before. But now, right off,” and as he spoke he laid his large hand with studied carelessness on her shoulder--he was afraid that an intentional caress might be inopportune.

“I'm cert'in Mr. Bancroft's sisters play, an' I--” she looked down nervously for a moment, and then, still blushing deeply, changed the attack: “He's smart, ain't he, father? He'd make a good lawyer, wouldn't he?”

“I reckon he would,” replied the Elder.

“I'm so glad,” the girl went on hurriedly, as if afraid to give herself time to think of what she was about to say, “for, father, he wants to study in an office East and he hain't got the money, and--oh, father!” she threw her arms round his neck and hid her face on his shoulder, “I want to go with him.”

The Elder's heart seemed to stop beating, but he could not hold his loved one in his arms and at the same time realize his own pain. He stroked the bowed head gently, and after a pause:

“He could study with Lawyer Barkman in Wichita, couldn't he? and then you'd be to hum still. No. Wall! Thar!” and again came a pause of silence. “I reckon, anyhow, you knew I'd help you. Didn't you now?”

His daughter drew herself out of his embrace. Recalled thus to the matter in hand he asked: “Did he say how much money 'twould take?”

“Two or three thousand dollars”--and she scanned his face anxiously--“for studyin' and gettin' an office and everythin' in New York. Things are dearer there.”

“Wall, I guess we kin about cover that with a squeeze. It'll be full all I kin manage to onc't--that and the pianner. I've no one to think of but you, Loo, only you. That's what I've bin workin' for, to give you a fair start, and I'm glad I kin jess about do it. I'd sorter take it better if he'd done the studyin' by himself before. No! wall, it don't make much difference p'r'aps. Anyway he works, and Mr. Crew thinks him enough eddicated even for the Ministry. He does, and that's a smart lot. I guess he'll get along all right.” Delighted with the expression of intent happiness in his daughter's eyes, he continued: “He's young yet, and couldn't be expected to hev done the studyin' and law and everythin'. You kin be sartin that the old man'll do all he knows to help start you fair. All I kin. If you're sot upon it! That's enough fer me, I guess, ef you're rale sot on it, and you don't think 'twould be better like to wait a little. He could study with Barkman fer a year anyway without losin' time. No! wall, wall. I'm right thar when you want me. I'll go to work to do what I kin....

“P'r'aps we might sell off and go East, too. The farm's worth money now it's all settled up round hyar. The mother and me and Jake could get along, I reckon, East or West. I know more'n I did when I came out in '59.

“I'm glad you've told me. I think a heap more of him now. There must be a pile of good in any one you like, Loo. Anyhow he's lucky.” And he stroked her crumpled dress awkwardly, but with an infinite tenderness.

“I've got to go now, father,” she exclaimed, suddenly remembering the time. “But there!”--and again she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. “You've made me very happy. I've got to go right off, and you've all the chores to do, so I mustn't keep you any longer.”

She hurried to the road along which Jake would have to come with the news of the fight. When she reached the top of the bluff whence the road fell rapidly to the creek, no one was in sight. She sat down and gave herself up to joyous anticipations.

“What would George say to her news? Where should they be married?”----a myriad questions agitated her. But a glance down the slope from time to time checked her pleasure. At last she saw her brother running towards her. He had taken off his boots and stockings; they were slung round his neck, and his bare feet pattered along in the thick, white dust of the prairie track. His haste made his sister's heart beat in gasps of fear. Down the hill she sped, and met him on the bridge.

“Wall?” she asked quietly, but the colour had left her cheeks, and Jake was not to be deceived so easily.

“Wall what?” he answered defiantly, trying to get breath. “I hain't said nothin'.”

“Oh, you mean boy!” she cried indignantly. “I'll never help you again when father wants to whip you--never! Tell me this minute what happened. Is _he_ hurt?”

“Is who hurt?” asked her brother, glorying in superiority of knowledge, and the power to tease with impunity.

“Tell me right off,” she said, taking him by the collar in her exasperation, “or--”

“I'll tell you nothin' till you leave go of me,” was the sullen reply. But then the overmastering impulse ran away with him, and he broke out:

“Oh, Loo! I jest seed everythin'. 'Twar a high old fight! They wuz all there, Seth Stevens, Richards, Monkey Bill--all of 'em, when schoolmaster rode up. He was still--looked like he wanted to hear a class recite. He hitched up Jack and come to 'em, liftin' his hat. Oh, 'twas O.K., you bet! Then they took off their clo's. Seth Stevens jerked hisn loose on the ground, but schoolmaster stood by himself, and folded hisn up like ma makes me fold mine at night. Then they comed together and Seth Stevens he jest drew off and tried to land him one, but schoolmaster sorter moved aside and took him on the nose, an' Seth he sot down, with the blood runnin' all over him. An'--an'--that's all. Every time Seth Stevens hauled off to hit, schoolmaster was thar first. It war bully!--That's all. An' I seed everythin'. You kin bet your life on that! An' then Richards and the rest come to him an' said as how Seth Stevens was faintin', an' schoolmaster he ran to the crick an' brought water and put over him. An' then I runned to tell you--schoolmaster's strong, I guess, stronger nor pappa. I seed him put on his vest, an' Seth Stevens he was settin' up, all blood and water on his face, streaky like; he did look bad. But, Loo----say, Loo! Why didn't schoolmaster when he got him down the first time, jest stomp on his face with his heels?--he had his boots on--an' that's how Seth Stevens broke Tom Cooper's jaw when _they_ fit.”

The girl was white, and trembling from head to foot as the boy ended his narrative, and looked inquiringly into her face. She could not answer. Indeed, she had hardly heard the question. The thought of what might have happened to her lover appalled her, and terror and remorse held her heart as in a vice. But oh!--and the hot tears came into her eyes--she'd tell him when they met how sorry she was for it all, and how bad she had been, and how she hated herself. She had acted foolish, very; but she hadn't meant it. She'd be more careful in future, much more careful. How brave he was and kind! How like him it was to get the water! Oh! if he'd only come.

All this while Jake looked at her curiously; at length he said, “Say, Loo, s'pose he'd had his eye plugged out.”

“Go away--do!” she exclaimed angrily. “I believe you boys jest love fightin' like dogs.”

Jake disappeared to tell and retell the tale to any one who cared to listen.

Half an hour later Loo, who had climbed the bluff to command the view, heard the sound of Jack's feet on the wooden bridge. A moment or two more and the buggy drew up beside her; the schoolmaster bent forward and spoke, without a trace of emotion in his voice:

“Won't you get in and let me drive you home, Miss Loo?” His victory had put him in a good humour, without, however, altering his critical estimate of the girl. The quiet, controlled tone of his voice chilled and pained her, but her emotions were too recent and too acute to be restrained.

“Oh, George!” she said, leaning forward against the buggy, and scanning his face intently. “How can you speak so? You ain't hurt, are you?”

“No!” he answered lightly. “You didn't expect I should be, did you?” The tone was cold, a little sarcastic even.

Again she felt hurt; she scarcely knew why; the sneer was too far-fetched for her to understand it.

“Go and put the horse up, and then come back. I'll wait right here for you.”

He did as he was told, and in ten minutes was by her side again. After a long pause, she began, with quivering lips:

“George, I'm sorry--so sorry. 'Twas all my fault! But I didn't know”--and she choked down a sob--“I didn't think.

“I want you to tell me how your sisters act and--an' what they wear and do. I'll try to act like them. Then I'd be good, shouldn't I?

“They play the pianner, don't they?” He was forced to confess that one of them did.

“An' they talk like you?”

“Yes.”

“An' they're good always? Oh, George, I'm jest too sorry for anythin', an' now--now I'm too glad!” and she burst into tears. He kissed and consoled her as in duty bound. He understood this mood as little as he had understood her challenge to love. He was not in sympathy with her; she had no ideal of conduct, no notion of dignity. Some suspicion of this estrangement must have dawned upon the girl, or else she was irritated by his acquiescence in her various phases of self-humiliation. All at once she dashed the tears from her eyes, and winding herself out of his arms, exclaimed:

“See here, George Bancroft! I'll jest learn all they know--pianner and all. I ken, and I will. I'll begin right now. You'll see!” And her blue eyes flashed with the glitter of steel, while her chin was thrown up in defiant vanity and self-assertion.

He watched her with indifferent curiosity; the abrupt changes of mood repelled him. His depreciatory thoughts of her, his resolution not to be led away again by her beauty influencing him, he noticed the keen hardness of the look, and felt, perhaps out of a spirit of antagonism, that he disliked it.

After a few quieting phrases, which, though they sprang rather from the head than the heart, seemed to achieve their aim, he changed the subject, by pointing across the creek and asking:

“Whose corn is that?”

“Father's, I guess!”

“I thought that was the Indian territory?”

“It is!”

“Is one allowed to sow corn there and to fence off the ground? Don't the Indians object?”

“'Tain't healthy for Indians about here,” she answered carelessly, “I hain't ever seen one. I guess it's allowed; anyhow, the corn's there an' father'll have it cut right soon.”

It seemed to Bancroft that they had not a thought in common. Wrong done by her own folk did not even interest her. At once he moved towards the house, and the girl followed him, feeling acutely disappointed and humiliated, which state of mind quickly became one of rebellious self-esteem. She guessed that other men thought big shucks of her anyway. And with this reflection she tried to comfort herself.

* * * * *

A week or ten days later, Bancroft came downstairs one morning early and found the ground covered with hoar-frost, though the sun had already warmed the air. Elder Conklin, in his shirt-sleeves, was cleaning his boots by the wood pile. When he had finished with the brush, but not a moment sooner, he put it down near his boarder. His greeting, a mere nod, had not prepared the schoolmaster for the question:

“Kin you drive kyows?”

“I think so; I've done it as a boy.”

“Wall, to-day's Saturday. There ain't no school, and I've some cattle to drive to the scales in Eureka. They're in the brush yonder, ef you'd help. That is, supposin' you've nothin' to do.”

“No. I've nothing else to do, and shall be glad to help you if I can.”

Miss Loo pouted when she heard that her lover would be away the greater part of the day, but it pleased her to think that her father had asked him for his help, and she resigned herself, stipulating only that he should come right back from Eureka.

After breakfast the two started. Their way lay along the roll of ground which looked down upon the creek. They rode together in silence, until the Elder asked:

“You ain't a Member, air you?”

“No.”

“That's bad. I kinder misdoubted it las' Sunday; but I wasn't sartin. Ef your callin' and election ain't sure, I guess Mr. Crew oughter talk to you.”

These phrases were jerked out with long pauses separating them, and then the Elder was ominously silent.

In various ways Bancroft attempted to draw him into conversation--in vain. The Elder answered in monosyllables, or not at all. Presently he entered the woods on the left, and soon halted before the shoot-entrance to a roughly-built corral.

“The kyows is yonder,” he remarked; “ef you'll drive them hyar, I'll count them as they come in.”

The schoolmaster turned his horse's head in the direction pointed out. He rode for some minutes through the wood without seeing a single animal. Under ordinary circumstances this would have surprised him; but now he was absorbed in thinking of Conklin and his peculiarities, wondering at his habit of silence and its cause:

“Has he nothing to say? Or does he think a great deal without being able to find words to express his thoughts?”

A prolonged moan, a lowing of cattle in pain, came to his ears. He made directly for the sound, and soon saw the herd huddled together by the snake-fence which zigzagged along the bank of the creek. He went on till he came to the boundary fence which ran at right angles to the water, and then turning tried to drive the animals towards the corral. He met, however, with unexpected difficulties. He had brought a stock-whip with him, and used it with some skill, though without result. The bullocks and cows swerved from the lash, but before they had gone ten yards they wheeled and bolted back. At first this manoeuvre amused him. The Elder, he thought, has brought me to do what he couldn't do himself; I'll show him I can drive. But no! in spite of all his efforts, the cattle would not be driven. He grew warm, and set himself to the work. In a quarter of an hour his horse was in a lather, and his whip had flayed one or two of the bullocks, but there they stood again with necks outstretched towards the creek, lowing piteously. He could not understand it. Reluctantly he made up his mind to acquaint the Elder with the inexplicable fact. He had gone some two hundred yards when his tired horse stumbled. Holding him up, Bancroft saw he had tripped over a mound of white dust. A thought struck him. He threw himself off the horse, and tasted the stuff; he was right; it was salt! No wonder he could not drive the cattle; no wonder they lowed as if in pain--the ground had been salted.

He remounted and hastened to the corral. He found the Elder sitting on his horse by the shoot, the bars of which were down.

“I can't move those cattle!”

“You said you knew how to drive.”

“I do, but they are mad with thirst; no one can do anything with them. Besides, in this sun they might die on the road.”

“Hum.”

“Let them drink; they'll go on afterwards.”

“Hum.” And the Elder remained for some moments silent. Then he said, as if thinking aloud: “It's eight miles to Eureka; they'll be thirsty again before they get to the town.”

Bancroft, too, had had his wits at work, and now answered the other's thought. “I guess so; if they're allowed just a mouthful or two they can be driven, and long before they reach Eureka they'll be as thirsty as ever.”

Without a word in reply the Elder turned his horse and started off at a lope. In ten minutes the two men had taken down the snake fence for a distance of some fifty yards, and the cattle had rushed through the gap and were drinking greedily.

After they had had a deep draught or two, Bancroft urged his horse into the stream and began to drive them up the bank. They went easily enough now, and ahead of them rode the Elder, his long whitey-brown holland coat fluttering behind him. In half an hour Bancroft had got the herd into the corral. The Elder counted the three hundred and sixty-two beasts with painstaking carefulness as they filed by.

The prairie-track to Eureka led along the creek, and in places ran close to it without any intervening fence. In an hour under that hot October sun the cattle had again become thirsty, and it needed all Bancroft's energy and courage to keep them from dashing into the water. Once or twice indeed it was a toss-up whether or not they would rush over him. He was nearly exhausted when some four hours after the start they came in sight of the little town. Here he let the herd into the creek. Glad of the rest, he sat on his panting horse and wiped the perspiration from his face. After the cattle had drunk their fill, he moved them quietly along the road, while the water dripped from their mouths and bodies. At the scales the Elder met the would-be purchaser, who as soon as he caught sight of the stock burst into a laugh.

“Say, Conklin,” he cried out, “I guess you've given them cattle enough to drink, but I don't buy water for meat. No, sir; you bet, I don't.”

“I didn't allow you would,” replied the Elder gravely; “but the track was long and hot; so they drank in the crik.”

“Wall,” resumed the dealer, half disarmed by this confession, which served the Elder's purpose better than any denial could have done, “I guess you'll take off fifty pound a head for that water.”

“I guess not,” was the answer. “Twenty pound of water's reckoned to be about as much as a kyow kin drink.”

The trading began and continued to Bancroft's annoyance for more than half an hour. At last it was settled that thirty pounds' weight should be allowed on each beast for the water it had drunk. When this conclusion had been arrived at, it took but a few minutes to weigh the animals and pay the price agreed upon.

The Elder now declared himself ready to go “to hum” and get somethin' to eat. In sullen silence Bancroft remounted, and side by side they rode slowly towards the farm. The schoolmaster's feelings may easily be imagined. He had been disgusted by the cunning and hypocrisy of the trick, and the complacent expression of the Elder's countenance irritated him intensely. As he passed place after place where the cattle had given him most trouble in the morning, anger took possession of him, and at length forced itself to speech.

“See here, Elder Conklin!” he began abruptly, “I suppose you call yourself a Christian. You look down on me because I'm not a Member. Yet, first of all, you salt cattle for days till they're half mad with thirst, then after torturing them by driving them for hours along this road side by side with water, you act lies with the man you've sold them to, and end up by cheating him. You know as well as I do that each of those steers had drunk sixty-five pounds' weight of water at least; so you got” (he couldn't use the word “stole” even in his anger, while the Elder was looking at him) “more than a dollar a head too much. That's the kind of Christianity you practise. I don't like such Christians, and I'll leave your house as soon as I can. I am ashamed that I didn't tell the dealer you were deceiving him. I feel as if I had been a party to the cheat.”

While the young man was speaking the Elder looked at him intently. At certain parts of the accusation Conklin's face became rigid, but he said nothing. A few minutes later, having skirted the orchard, they dismounted at the stable-door.

After he had unsaddled his horse and thrown it some Indian corn, Bancroft hastened to the house; he wanted to be alone. On the stoop he met Loo and said to her hastily:

“I can't talk now, Loo; I'm tired out and half crazy. I must go to my room and rest. After supper I'll tell you everything. Please don't keep me now.”

Supper that evening was a silent meal. The Elder did not speak once; the two young people were absorbed in their own reflections, and Mrs. Conklin's efforts to make talk were effectual only when she turned to Jake. Mrs. Conklin, indeed, was seldom successful in anything she attempted. She was a woman of fifty, or thereabouts, and her face still showed traces of former good looks, but the light had long left her round, dark eyes, and the colour her cheeks, and with years her figure had grown painfully thin. She was one of the numerous class who delight in taking strangers into their confidence. Unappreciated, as a rule, by those who know them, they seek sympathy from polite indifference or curiosity. Before he had been a day in the house Bancroft had heard from Mrs. Conklin all about her early life. Her father had been a large farmer in Amherst County, Massachusetts; her childhood had been comfortable and happy: “We always kept one hired man right through the winter, and in summer often had eight and ten; and, though you mightn't think it now, I was the belle of all the parties.” Dave (her husband) had come to work for her father, and she had taken a likin' to him, though he was such a “hard case.” She told of Dave's gradual conversion and of the Revivalist Minister, who was an Abolitionist as well, and had proclaimed the duty of emigrating to Kansas to prevent it from becoming a slave state. Dave, it appeared, had taken up the idea zealously, and had persuaded her to go with him. Her story became pathetic in spite of her self-pity as she related the hardships of that settlement in the wilds, and described her loneliness, her shivering terror when her husband was away hauling logs for their first home, and news came that the slave-traders from Missouri had made another raid upon the scattered Abolitionist farmers. The woman had evidently been unfit for such rude transplanting. She dwelt upon the fact that her husband had never understood her feelings. If he had, she wouldn't have minded so much. Marriage was not what girls thought; she had not been happy since she left her father's house, and so forth. The lament was based on an unworthy and futile egoism, but her whining timidity appeared to Bancroft inexplicable. He did not see that just as a shrub pales and dies away under the branches of a great tree, so a weak nature is apt to be further enfeebled by association with a strong and self-contained character. In those early days of loneliness and danger the Elder's steadfastness and reticence had prevented him from affording to his wife the sympathy which might have enabled her to overcome her fears. “He never talked anythin' over with me,” was the burden of her complaint. Solitude had killed every power in her save vanity, and the form her vanity took was peculiarly irritating to her husband, and in a lesser degree to her daughter, for neither the Elder nor Loo would have founded self-esteem on adventitious advantages of upbringing. Accordingly, Mrs. Conklin was never more than an uncomfortable shadow in her own house, and this evening her repeated attempts to bring about a semblance of conversation only made the silence and preoccupation of the others painfully evident.

As soon as the supper things were cleared away, Loo signalled to Bancroft to accompany her to the stoop, where she asked him what had happened.

“I insulted the Elder,” he said, “and I told him I should leave his house as soon as I could.”

“You don't mean that!” she exclaimed. “You must take that back, George. I'll speak to pappa; he'll mind me.”

“No,” he replied firmly; “speaking won't do any good. I've made up my mind. It's impossible for me to stay here.”

“Then you don't care for me. But that's not so. Say it's not so, George. Say you'll stay--and I'll come down this evening after the old folks have gone to bed, and sit with you. There!”

Of course the man yielded to a certain extent, the pleading face upturned to his was too seductive to be denied, but he would not promise more than that he would tell her what had taken place, and consult with her.