The Price of the Prairie Part 24

I asked Rachel for her company home, but she laughingly refused me.

"I must punish you," she said. "When do you go home?"

"Not for two days," I replied. "I have business for my father and the person I am to see is called out of town."

"Then there will be plenty of time later for you. You go home to-morrow, Mr. Tillhurst," she said coquettishly. "Tell his friends in Springvale, he is busy up here." She was a pretty girl, but slow as I was, I began to see method in her manner of procedure. I could not be rude to her, but I resolved then not to go one step beyond the demands of actual courtesy.

In the crowd pa.s.sing up to the hotel that night, I fell into step with my father's soldier friend, Morton.

"When you get ready to leave Springvale, come out and take a claim on the Saline," he said. "That will be a garden of Eden some day."

"It seems to have its serpent already, Mr. Morton," I replied.

"Well, the serpent can be crushed. Come out and help us do it. We need numbers, especially in men of endurance." We were at the hotel door.

Morton bade me good-bye by saying, "Don't forget; come our way when you get the Western fever."

Governor Crawford returned too late for me to catch the stage for Springvale on the same day. Having a night more to spend in the capital, it seemed proper for me to make amends for my unpardonable forgetfulness of Rachel Melrose's invitation to tea by calling on her in the evening.

Her aunt's home was at the far side of the town beyond the modest square stone building that was called Lincoln College then. It was only a stone's throw from the State Capitol, the walls of the east wing of which were then being built.

I remember it was a beautiful moonlit night, in early August, and Rachel asked me to take a stroll over the prairie to the southwest. The day had been very hot, and the west had piled up some threatening thunderheads.

But the evening breezes fanned them away over the far horizon line and the warm night air was light and dry. The sky was white with the clear luminous moonlight of the open Plains country.

Rachel and I had wandered idly along the gentle rise of ground until we could quite overlook the little treeless town with this Lincoln College and the jagged portion of the State House wing gleaming up beyond.

"Hadn't we better turn back now? Your aunt cautioned us two strangers here not to get lost." I was only hinting my wishes.

"Oh, let's go on to that tree. It's the only one here in this forsaken country. Let's pay our respects to it," Rachel urged.

She was right. To an Easterner's eye it was a forsaken country. From the Shunganunga Creek winding beneath a burden of low, black underbrush, northward to the river with its fringe of huge cottonwoods, not a tree broke the line of vision save this one st.u.r.dy young locust spreading its lacy foliage in dainty grace on the very summit of the gentle swell of land between the two streams. Up to its pretty shadowed s.p.a.ces we took our way. The gra.s.s was dry and brown with the August heat, and we rested awhile on the moonlit prairie.

Rachel was strikingly handsome, and the soft light lent a certain tone to her beauty. Her hair and eyes were very dark, and her face was clear cut. There was a dash of boldness, an a.s.sumption of authority all prettily accented with smiles and dimples that was very bewitching. She was a subtle flatterer, and even the wisest men may be caught by that bait. It was the undercurrent of sympathy, product of my life-long ideals, my intense pity for the defenceless frontier, that divided my mind and led me away from temptation that night.

"Rachel Melrose, we must go home," I insisted at last. "This tree is all right, but I could show you a cottonwood out above the Neosho that dwarfs this puny locust. And yet this is a gritty sort of sapling to stand up here and grow and grow. I wonder if ever the town will reach out so far as this."

I am told the tree is green and beautiful to-day, and that it is far inside the city limits, standing on the old Huntoon road. About it are substantial homes. South of it is a pretty park now, while near it on the west is a handsome church, one of the city's lions to the stranger, for here the world-renowned author of "In His Steps" has preached every Sabbath for many years. But on that night it seemed far away from the river and the town nestling beside it.

"I'll go down and take a look at your cottonwood before I go home. May I? You promised me last Spring." Rachel's voice was pleasant to hear.

"Why, of course. Come on. Mr. Tillhurst will be there, I am sure, and glad as I shall be to see you."

"Oh, you rogue! always hunting for somebody else. I am not going to loose you from your promise. Remember that you said you'd let everybody else alone when I came. Now your Mr. Tillhurst can look after all the girls you have been flirting with down there, but you are my friend.

Didn't we settle that in those days together at dear old Rockport? We'll just have the happiest time together, you and I, and n.o.body shall interfere to mar our pleasure."

She was leaning toward me and her big dark eyes were full of feeling. I stood up before her. "My dear friend," I took her hand and she rose to her feet. "You have been very, very good to me. But I want to tell you now before you come to Springvale"--she was close beside me, her hand on my arm, gentle and trembling. I seemed like a brute to myself, but I went on. "I want you to know that as my aunt's guest and mine, your pleasure will be mine. But I am not a flirt, and I do not care to hide from you the fact that my little Springvale girl is the light of my life. You will understand why some claims are unbreakable. Now you know this, let me say that it will be my delight to make your stay in the West pleasant." She bowed her proud head on my arm and the tears fell fast. "Oh, Rachel, I'm a beast, a coa.r.s.e, crude Westerner. Forgive my plain speech. I only wanted you to know."

But she didn't want to know. She wanted me to quit saying anything to her and her beautiful dark hair was almost against my cheek. Gently as I could, I put her from me. Drawing her hand through my arm, I patted it softly, and again I declared myself the bluntest of speakers. She only wept the more, and asked me to take her to her aunt's. I was glad to do it, and I bade her a humble good-bye at the door. She said not a word, but the pressure of her hand had speech. It made me feel that I had cruelly wronged her.

As I started for town beyond the college, I shook my fist at that lone locust tree. "You blamed old sapling! If you ever tell what you saw to-night I hope you'll die by inches in a prairie fire."

Then I hurried to my room and put in the hours of the night, wakeful and angry at all the world, save my own Springvale and the dear little girl so modest and true to me. The next day I left Topeka, hoping never to see it again.

CHAPTER XIV

DEEPENING GLOOM

A yellow moon in splendor drooping, A tired queen with her state oppressed, Low by rushes and sword-gra.s.s stooping, Lies she soft on the waves at rest.

The desert heavens have felt her sadness; The earth will weep her some dewy tears; The wild beck ends her tune of gladness, And goeth stilly, as soul that fears.

--JEAN INGELOW.

The easiest mental act I ever performed was the act of forgetting the existence of Rachel Melrose. Before the stage had reached the divide beyond the Wakarusa on its southward journey, I was thinking only of Springvale and of what would be written in the letter that I knew was waiting for me in our "Rockport." Oh, I was a fond and foolish lover. I was only twenty-one and Judson may have been right about my being callow. But I was satisfied with myself, as youth and inexperience will be.

Travelling was slow in those rough-going times, and a breakdown on a steep bit of road delayed us. Instead of reaching home at sunset, we did not reach the ford of the Neosho until eight o'clock. As I went up Cliff Street I turned by the bushes and slid down the rough stairway to the ledge below "Rockport." I had pa.s.sed under the broad, overhanging shelf that made the old playground above, when I suddenly became aware of the nearness of some one to me, the peculiar consciousness of the presence of a human being. The place was in deep shadow, although the full moon was sailing in glory over the prairies, as it had done above the lone Topeka locust tree. My daily visits here had made each step familiar, however. I was only a few feet from the cunningly hidden crevice that had done post-office duty for Marjie and me in the days of our childhood. Just beside it was a deep niche in the wall. Ordinarily I was free and noisy enough in my movements, but to-night I dropped silently into the niche as some one hurried by me, groping to find the way.

Instinctively I thought of Jean Pahusca, but Jean never blundered like this. I had had cause enough to know his swift motion. And besides, he had been away from Springvale so long that he was only a memory now. The figure scrambled to the top rapidly.

"I'll guess that's petticoats going up there," I said mentally, "but who's hunting wild flowers out here alone this time of night? Somebody just as curious about me as I am about her, no doubt. Maybe some girl has a lover's haunt down that ledge. I'll have to find out. Can't let my stairway out to the general climbing public."

I was feeling for the letter in the crevice.

"Well, Marjie has tucked it in good and safe. I didn't know that hole was so deep."

I found my letter and hurried home. It was just a happy, loving message written when I was away, and a tinge of loneliness was in it. But Marjie was a cheery, wholesome-spirited la.s.s always, and took in the world from the sunny side.

"There's a party down at Anderson's to-night, Phil," Aunt Candace announced, when I was eating my late supper. "The boys sent word for you to come over even if you did get home late. You are pretty tired, aren't you?"

"Never, if there's a party on the carpet," I answered gayly.

I had nearly reached the Anderson home, and the noisy gayety of the party was in my ears, when two persons met at the gate and went slowly in together.

It was Amos Judson and Lettie Conlow.

"Well, of all the arrangements, now, that is the best," I exclaimed, as I went in after them.

Tillhurst was talking to Marjie, who did not see me enter.

"Phil Baronet! 'The handsome young giant of the Neosho,'" O'mie shouted.

"Ladies and gentlemen: This is the very famous orator who got more applause in Topeka this week than the very biggest man there. Oh, my prophetic soul! but we were proud av him."

"Well, I guess we were," somebody else chimed in. "Why didn't you come home with the crowd, handsome giant?"

"He was charmed by that pretty girl, an old sweetheart of his from Ma.s.sachusetts." Tillhurst was speaking. "You ought to have seen him with her, couldn't even leave when the rest of us did."

There was a sudden silence. Marjie was across the room from me, but I could see her face turn white. My own face flamed, but I controlled myself. And Bud, the blessed old tow-head, came to my rescue.

"Good for you, Phil. Bet we've got one fellow to make a Bothton girl open her eyeth even if Tillhurtht couldn't. He'th jutht jealouth. But we all know Phil! n.o.body'll ever doubt old Philip!"