Part 8

Scotty was nowhere to be found. An organized search was begun at once, and all thought of moving on was abandoned till the Captain should learn his fate. The cattle and horses were turned out on the range for another badly needed half-holiday. Through all the remainder of the day the anxious quest continued. Mrs. McAlpin was as pale as death. Her sombre weeds, worn for no known reason, formed a fitting frame for her pinched and anxious face and bright, abundant hair. Her mother was visibly agitated. Mrs. Ranger lay on her feather bed all through the trying afternoon, her eyes closed and her lips moving as if in prayer.

“Night again, and no Scotty!” exclaimed Captain Ranger, his voice husky with feeling. As no trace of the man had been discovered, the organized search was called off.

“Scotty’s death was one of the freaks of the flood,” said Hal.

“None of you ever did Scotty justice,” exclaimed Mary, as she descended upon the party with a heaped plate of their staple food.

“That’s what,” echoed Jean, as she brought on the beans and bacon.

“Scotty knew more in a minute than half of us can ever learn,” cried Marjorie, with whom he was a favorite.

“Yes,” said the Captain, dryly. “He’s a genius, Scotty is! He’ll turn up presently. Doubtless he’s off somewhere studying a new stratum of storm-clouds. He has killed two of my leaders already by making them start the whole load while his mind was on the incomprehensible and unknowable in nature. But I’ll wager he knows enough to look out for himself in a crisis.”

“He was a whole mine of information about other things, if he didn’t know much about driving oxen,” sobbed Jean.

“He isn’t dead!” exclaimed Mrs. McAlpin. “I mean to continue the search myself to-night.”

“You’ll get caught by a panther!” cried Bobbie. “I haven’t seen ’em, but I know they’re there!”

“Where, Bobbie?” asked Marjorie.

“Up in the gulch. I can see ’em with my eyes shut!” and the child, not understanding the laugh that followed at his expense, hastened to the wagon where his mother lay, to receive the consolation that never failed him.

* * * * *

“It won’t be against the laws of God or man for me to love Rollin if he is dead,” said Mrs. McAlpin to herself, as she crept shivering from her retreat in her wagon to the ground. Throwing a shawl over her head, she hastened out in the direction in which Scotty was hurrying when she had last seen him. The cattle, quite satisfied from the unusual effects of a day’s rest and a full meal, chewed their cuds quietly, or lay asleep in the best sheltered spots they could command, breathing heavily. She wandered fearlessly among them, calling frequently for the lost man, but received no response save an occasional “moo” from an awakened cow, or a friendly neigh from Sukie, who was tethered near.

The morning star rose in the clear blue of the bending sky as her search went on, and she knew that the long June day was breaking. Flowers of every hue, newly born from the convulsions of the recent storm, smiled at her in their dewy fragrance; and in the branches of a crippled cottonwood a robin began his matin song. A meadow lark, disturbed in its languorous wooing by the lone watcher’s footsteps, soared upward in the crystal ether, sending back, when out of her sight, a swelling note of triumph, prolonged, triumphant, sweet.

“Rollin! Rollin Burns!” she called, repeating the name in every note of the scale.

At length a long, low moan startled her. She listened eagerly for a moment, and repeated her call. Whence had come that moan? There was no repetition of the sound. She spoke again, calling the name in a higher key.

Another moan—it might have been an echo from the canyon’s walls—came, more distinct than the first, but the echoing gulch gave no indication of its location.

“Call again, Rollin! It is I,—your own Daphne!”

“Is it indeed you, Daphne?”

She pinched herself to see if she was really awake. She had never heard her Christian name spoken by Burns before. The name sounded strangely sweet in the breaking twilight, and in spite of her apprehension and uncertainty her soul was glad.

“Call again, Rollin! Help is near.”

“Come this way, Daphne! I am in a cave, almost under your feet. A bowlder that I stepped upon rolled over, loosened by the storm, and let me through into the bowels of the earth. My leg is broken. I must have been unconscious. I have swooned or slept, or both. Be careful how you tread. There are badgers in this hole, and I have heard rattlesnakes.”

“Which way, Rollin? Where are you?”

The sound of his voice seemed to come from beneath her feet.

“Is the storm over?”

“Yes, long ago. It’s been over for thirty-six hours. But I can’t locate you.”

“Here, I tell you! Under this rock. If it had fallen directly on me, I should have been a goner. For God’s sake, be careful, or you’ll break your own dear neck! Don’t get excited. Run for help, and don’t stir up the rattlesnakes.”

The injured man had fallen at first by the turning of the rock, as he had stated, giving his leg a twist that broke it, and, by the turning of his body in falling farther, had overturned the bowlder again, and thus was held a prisoner.

Mrs. McAlpin peered into a narrow aperture through which the coming daylight had entered. Their eyes met.

“Daphne!”

“Rollin!”

“So near and yet so far!” cried the prisoner, as he struggled to free himself. A spasm of pain overspread his face, and a dew, like the death damp, settled on his hair and forehead.

“O God! he has fainted again!” she cried, running with all her might and screaming for help.

“What in thunder is the matter now?” exclaimed Captain Ranger, as he emerged, half dressed, from his tent.

“I’ve found Rollin! He’s imprisoned in a cave, with a broken leg! Fetch spades and a mattock to dig away the dirt from the rock! Be quick!” cried Mrs. McAlpin, leading the way.

Nobody heard the robins sing, or paused to enjoy the triumphant melody of the lark.

Scotty was still in a merciful swoon. Very carefully the men loosened the rock from its hold on his legs, and with their united strength rolled it away from the mouth of the cave.

“It’s damned lucky you are, old boy!” cried Yank, as the crippled man regained consciousness. “That rock would have crushed you to pulp if the walls of the cave hadn’t saved you.”

“A miss would have been as good as a mile!” replied Scotty, as he fainted again.

“Who’s going to set these bones?” asked Sawed-off. “It’s a bad fracture, compound and nasty. There’s no severed artery, though, which is lucky, or he’d ’a’ bled to death. Captain Ranger, did you ever set a broken bone?”

“Never.”

“I’ll do it,” exclaimed Mrs. McAlpin. “Cut away his boot. Bring a cot from the camp. Bring some adhesive plaster. Captain, can you make some splints? Stay! I’ll cut away the boot. There! Steady! Slow! If we can set the bones before he recovers consciousness, so much the better.”

The cot with its unconscious burden was carried to the side of the widow’s wagon.

“Bring water and more bandages, girls.”

“Where did you get your skill?” asked the Captain, as Mrs. McAlpin felt cautiously for the broken bones and deftly snapped them into place.

“It isn’t a very bad fracture,” she said, unheeding the question, as she held the bones together while the orders for splints and bandages were being obeyed.

“Some water, quick, and some brandy!” she said in a firm voice, though her cheeks were blanching. She held stoutly to her work till the limb was securely encased in the proper supports. But when her patient recovered consciousness and looked inquiringly into her eyes, she fell, fainting, into the Captain’s arms, and was carried to his family wagon, her eyelids twitching and her muscles limp. When she recovered, she found herself reclining in the wagon beside Mrs. Ranger, who was gently chafing her face and hands.

“All this has been too much for you, dearie,” said the good woman.

“Where’s Rollin?”

“In your mother’s wagon. We have rigged him up a swinging bed, and Mrs. Benson will see that he wants for nothing. You are to ride here, in the big wagon, with me.”

“You have no room for me in here. You and I, and Mary and Jean, and Marjorie and Bobbie, and Sadie and the baby and Sally, and the three little O’Dowds, and Susannah and George Washington can’t all ride and sleep in this narrow space. We’d offend the open-air ordinances of heaven.”

“It is all arranged, my dear; don’t worry. Our overflow has gone to another wagon. We’ll have plenty of room.”

“But Mr. Burns?”

“Your good mother has taken entire charge of him. She is behaving as beautifully in this crisis as you are, my dear.”

XV

_CHOLERA RAGES_

“Cholera is epidemic everywhere along the road,” wrote Jean in her diary on the 8th of June. “Our company is not yet attacked, but our dear mother is seriously alarmed. She counts all the graves we pass during the day, and sums them up at night for us to think about. Some days there is a formidable aggregate.”

The fame of Mrs. McAlpin’s skill as a physician and surgeon, and of Captain Ranger’s marvellous medicine-chest, grew rapidly in the front and rear of the Ranger train as the epidemic spread.

“It is lamentable to note the lack of forethought in many people,” Captain Ranger would say, as he dealt out his supplies of “Number Six,” podophyllin and capsicum, which grew alarmingly scant as the demand increased, and his patience was sorely tried. But he never refused aid to any who applied for it; and the “woman doctor,” who because of her proficiency was considered little else than a witch, was scarcely given time to eat or sleep.

“How do you keep your company from catching the cholera?” asked the anxious father of a numerous family, most of whom had fallen victims to the scourge.

“Common-sense should teach us to allow no uncooked or stale food to be eaten, and no surface or unboiled water to be drunk. Let all companies be broken into small trains, and keep as far apart from each other as possible. Rest a while in the heat of every noonday. Don’t be afraid of the Indians, or of anything or anybody else. The greatest enemy of mankind is fear.”

But in spite of both his precept and his example, the cholera continued its ravages; and Captain Ranger, to avoid contact with the epidemic, and, if possible, relieve Mrs. Ranger’s mind of apprehension, changed his course from the main travelled road, and turned off to the north by west, leaving the multitude to their fate.

“The other trains can follow if they choose, and we can’t help it,” he said to his wife; “but I must get my family away from the crowd, as the best way to save us all from the nasty epidemic.”

“Isn’t there danger of getting lost, John, or of getting captured by the Indians?” asked Mrs. Ranger, as the teams were headed for the Black Hills,—a long, undulating line, which looked in the shimmering distance like low banks of dense fog.

“My compass will point the way, Annie. The Indians will give us no trouble if we treat them kindly. They’re a plaguy sight more afraid of us than we have any reason to be of them.”

Mrs. Ranger, blessed with full confidence in her husband’s ability to accomplish whatsoever he undertook, leaned back on her pillows and guarded the children from danger, as was her wont.

On June 15, Jean made another entry in her much-neglected journal, as follows:—

“We have travelled all day between and over and around, and then back again, among low ranges of the Black Hills. The scenery is grand beyond description, and the road we are making as we go along, for others to follow if they are wise, is good. Lilliputian forests of prickly pears spread in all directions, and are very troublesome. Their thorns, barbed, and sharp as needle-points, are in a degree poisonous. We laugh together over our frequent encounters with the little pests, though our poor wounded feet refuse to be comforted. But we are missing the long lines of moving wagons, before and behind us, swaying and jolting over the dusty roads we’ve left to the southward, and we are glad to be alone, or as nearly so as our big company will permit. The streams we cross at intervals are clear, and the water is sweet and cold.

“Mother seems in better health and spirits since we have removed her from the constant sight of so much suffering and death.

“Dear, patient, faithful, loving mother! Will her true history, and that of the thousands like her, who are heroically enduring the dangers and hardships of this long, long journey, be ever given to the world, I wonder?”

Near nightfall, on their second day’s journey away from the main thoroughfare, they encountered a long freight-train, in charge of fur-traders, the second thus met since their travels began. Every wagon was heavily loaded with buffalo robes which had been prepared for market by the tedious, patient labor of Indian women. As the wives and slaves of English, French, Spanish, and Canadian hunters and traders, these women followed the fates of their grumbling and often cruel lords and masters through the vicissitudes of a precarious existence, with which nevertheless they seemed strangely content.

The leader or captain of the freighters’ outfit was a tall, bronzed, and handsome Scotchman, whose nationality was betrayed at a glance. Captain Ranger bargained with him for a big, handsomely dressed buffalo robe, paying therefor in dried apples and potatoes.

“Our men are getting scurvy from the lack of fruit and vegetables,” the leader said, as the exchange was concluded. “When they are in camp the squaws keep them supplied with berries, camas, and wapatoes. But they can’t bring the women out on a trip like this, away from the scenes of their labors.”

“Here’s a present for you, Annie,” said Captain Ranger, bringing a soft, heavy, furry robe to his wife, and spreading it over her much-prized feather bed. “It will help you to bear the rough jolting over the rocky roads.”

“Thanks, darling. You are very kind and thoughtful, but I shall not need it long.”

“Oh, yes, you will, Annie! We’ve passed the cholera belt. The sun rides higher every day; and I’m sure you’ll soon be all right.”

* * * * *

“Did you notice that big handsome Scotchman who seemed to be the boss of that freighters’ outfit?” asked Mrs. McAlpin, addressing Jean, and emerging from her hiding-place in one of the wagons after the outfit had passed out of sight and hearing and the Ranger company had encamped.

“Yes, Mrs. McAlpin. He seemed master of the situation.”

“Do you think he discovered me or mamma?”

“I didn’t think to notice whether he saw either of you or not.”

“I kept out of his sight, and made mamma do likewise.”

“Did you know him?”

“May I trust you, Jean?”

“Why, certainly! What’s up?”

“I need you, Jeanie; I need a friend with a level head.”

Mrs. McAlpin’s face was gray, like ashes, and her aspect of fear was startling.

“What under heaven is the matter?” asked Jean.

“That man is my husband!”

“Then I congratulate you. Daddie was much pleased with him. But I thought your husband was a man of leisure, travelling in Europe, or Asia, or among the ruins of Central America. You told me he was an archæologist. Did you expect to find him here on these plains?”

“No, Jean, or I should not have been here myself. Only think of it! I started on this journey on purpose to hide myself away from him for good and all. He had gone to England a year ago to claim a vast estate, and I planned to leave Chicago for this wild-goose chase on purpose to avoid him. I had no idea he’d ever think of taking up a business like freighting in a fur company. But there is no way to foresee the acts of a man who has more money than he knows what to do with. I suppose he grew weary of the Old World.” Mrs. McAlpin sighed.

“Are you quite sure it was he?”

“It could not have been anybody else. I’d know that voice if I heard it in Kamchatka. And I saw him, too. I cannot be mistaken.”

“And you are determined not to live as his wife any more?”

“I simply cannot, will not, live a lie any longer.”

“Why do you tell me about this, Mrs. McAlpin? I’m nothing but an inexperienced girl.”

“But you have more discretion than most grown-up people.”

“That’s ’cause I’ve never been in love, I guess. They say that all people when in love are fools.”

“I want you to go with me to meet that man to-night, Jean.”

“I? What for?”

“I’m going to talk it out; and I’ll need a witness.”

“Absurd! You remind me of a moth around a candle. Does your mother know about this?”

“No. I let her think an Indian was wanting me for a wife, and she remained hidden till the freighters had gone. The rest was easy. She is mortally afraid of Indians.”

“I can’t imagine why you desire an interview with a man you are trying to avoid. How did you arrange a meeting?”

“I sent him a note by Hal, who thinks I want to buy a buffalo robe like your mother’s.”

“To be plain with you, Mrs. McAlpin, you’re a fool.”

“I know it. But I confess to you that I want to see him so I can defy him.”

“If you want sensible advice, go to daddie.”

“I don’t want anybody’s advice. I just want you to accompany me, and keep hidden so as to be close at hand during the interview. He has no idea that he is going to meet Daphne Benson.”

As Jean had been forbidden by her father to continue her rides in Mrs. McAlpin’s company, she did not feel satisfied with herself during this stolen interview.

“Then you didn’t let your husband know it was you who wanted to see him?”

“Of course not. What do you take me for?”

“I’ll certainly take you for one of the silliest women on earth if you don’t give up this interview.”

“I believe, after all, that you’re right, Jeanie. But I thought, if I met him unexpectedly out here in these wilds and put him upon his honor, he would never try to trouble me again. I have something very important to say to him.”

“Then wait till we get to Oregon. We must go back to camp at once. It is time all honest folks were at home in bed.”

They found Mrs. Ranger sitting alone on a wagon-tongue, shivering in the sharp night air.

“I’m very ill, my daughter,” she said; “dangerously so. I’ve been watching and waiting for you the past half-hour. Where have you been?”

“She’s been pommelling a little common-sense into my addled noddle,” said Mrs. McAlpin.

“I’ve been taking a little walk with Mrs. McAlpin, mother dear, that’s all. But what’s the matter, mother? Where’s daddie?”

“Asleep, poor man. I don’t want him disturbed. Get me the bottle of ‘Number Six.’ There!” taking a draught of the fiery liquid. “I’ll soon be better. Go to bed.”

Jean never could forgive herself for not sounding an alarm. During the remainder of the short summer night Mrs. Ranger wrestled with her fate, suffering and unattended. The heavy breathing of the weary oxen as they slept, or the low chewing of their cuds in the silence, the occasional hoot of an owl, or the sharp scream of a belated eagle, the sighing of the wind in the juniper-trees, and the acute pangs of her suffering body occupied her half conscious thoughts as she patiently awaited the dawn, which broke at last, spreading over earth and sky the radiance of approaching sunrise.

“John dear, come quickly; I’m very sick, and I believe I’m dying!” cried the lone sufferer at last.

Her husband was instantly aroused.

“Why didn’t you call me long ago, darling?” he asked, crawling from beneath a tent and rubbing his eyes to accustom them to the light. A deadly fear blanched his cheeks as his wife fell back in convulsions in his arms.

She opened her eyes after a prolonged spasm of pain and gave him a look of melting tenderness.

“Make the biggest tent ready, boys!” he called, holding her close. “Fetch the feather bed and the buffalo robe. Get hot water, Sally. Get everything, everybody,” he exclaimed, carrying her in his arms and pacing excitedly to and fro.

“Oh, why did I bring you out here into this wilderness?” he sobbed, as he laid her on the bed and chafed her stiffening fingers. “Only live, and the remainder of your days shall be as free from care as a bird’s!”

“But I shall not live, John,” she whispered during a brief lucid interval, her eyes beaming with love and devotion. “Or, rather, I shall not die, but awake into newness of life. This body is worn out, but that is all. The life that animates it will never die, though I am going away.”

No effort that circumstances permitted was spared to retain the vital spark. Not a man, woman, or child in the company would have hesitated at any possible sacrifice to keep her spirit within the body, or to give her ease and comfort in passing to the land of souls.

The afternoon was wellnigh spent when she grew easier. A prolonged interval of consciousness followed.

“Where’s Bobbie?” she asked in a whisper.

“Here, mother!” cried the child, who had been a dazed and silent watcher all the day.

“Bless his little life!” she whispered with a look of unutterable love.

“Come, Bobbie dear,” said Jean, “let’s go out and see if we can’t find heaven, where God is. Mother is going there to live with the angels. Let’s see if there’ll be any room for us.”

“There’ll be room for me, Jeanie; there’ll have to be, for I’m going to die before long.”

“Why do you think so, Bobbie?”

“Cos I just am. I dreamed I went to heaven. It was a tight house, too, like Oregon, or Texas.”

“You mustn’t think you’re going to die, Bobbie.”

“There isn’t any surely death,” said the child. “It is just going to heaven.”

XVI

_JEAN’S VISIT BEYOND THE VEIL_

To the surprise of her sorrowing loved ones, Mrs. Ranger rallied before sundown, after a stupor of several hours, her eyes bright and her faculties wonderfully clear.

“It seems hard to leave you alone in this wilderness, John,” she said in a low whisper, while feebly clasping her husband’s hand.

The sun’s expiring rays fell upon the open tent, illuminating her angelic face, settling like an aureole upon her bright brown hair, and causing her eyes to glow like stars. “I’m not afraid of death, dear. I am not even afraid to leave you alone with the children in the wilderness, for I know you’ll do your duty. But I am sorry to leave all the burden for you to carry alone. There is One who heareth even the young ravens when they cry. Trust in Him, dearest. He doeth all things well.”

“How can I give you up?” cried the distracted husband, stroking her pale cheeks and forehead tenderly.

“You won’t be giving me up, John. God will let me come to you sometimes to bless and comfort you. I know He will; for He is good, and His mercy endureth forever. I couldn’t leave you to go far away if I tried, dear, and I’ll never try. Do try to be a Christian, John.”

“I’ve always been a Christian, according to my lights, my darling; and God Himself can’t keep me away from you in heaven,—if there is a God and a heaven,” he added under his breath, unable, even in that trying hour, to lay aside his doubts.

“God is just, and He will give you the benefit of every honest doubt, John.”

“But He ought to let me keep you, darling; I need you, oh, I need you!”

“All is well, my husband. I am safe, and so are you, in the Everlasting Arms. Call the children; I must be going. Don’t you hear the angels sing?”

The children were aroused, but she had relapsed into unconsciousness, and it was fully an hour before her reason again returned.

“Mother,” she said once, while her mind was wandering, “did you get my deed? Are you snugly settled in the little house? I tried very hard to provide for your and father’s welfare in your last days, and—” Her concluding words were inaudible.

“Yes, darling, your parents are provided for; there is no doubt about it,” cried her husband, as she awoke again to semi-consciousness. And if ever a man experienced a thrill of supreme satisfaction in the midst of a grave sorrow, that man was Captain John Ranger, of the overland wagon train.

“Mary!”

It was her next word of consciousness.