54-40 or Fight Part 15

"You are therefore," he concluded, "to go to Montreal, and find your own way into that meeting of the directors of the Hudson Bay Company. There is a bare chance that in this intrigue Mexico will have an emissary on the ground as well. There is reason to suspect her hostility to all our plans of extension, southwest and northwest. Naturally, it is the card of Mexico to bring on war, or accept it if we urge; but only in case she has England as her ally. England will get her pay by taking Texas, and what is more, by taking California, which Mexico does not value. She owes England large sums now. That would leave England owner of the Pacific coast; for, once she gets California, she will fight us then for _all_ of Oregon. It is your duty to learn all of these matters--who is there, what is done; and to do this without making known your own ident.i.ty."

I sat for a moment in thought. "It is an honor," said I finally; "an honor so large that under it I feel small."

"Now," said Doctor Ward, placing a gnarled hand on my shoulder, "you begin to talk like a Marylander. It's a race, my boy, a race across this continent. There are two trails--one north and one mid-continent. On these paths two nations contend in the greatest Marathon of all the world. England or the United States--monarchy or republic--aristocracy or humanity'? These are some of the things which hang on the issue of this contest. Take then your duty and your honor, humbly and faithfully."

"Good-by," he said, as we steamed into Baltimore station. I turned, and he was gone.

CHAPTER XIII

ON SECRET SERVICE

If the world was lost through woman, she alone can save it.--_Louis de Beaufort._

In the days of which I write, our civilization was, as I may say, so embryonic, that it is difficult for us now to realize the conditions which then obtained. We had great men in those days, and great deeds were done; but to-day, as one reflects upon life as it then was, it seems almost impossible that they and their deeds could have existed in a time so crude and immature.

The means of travel in its best form was at that time at least curious.

We had several broken railway systems north and south, but there were not then more than five thousand miles of railway built in America. All things considered, I felt lucky when we reached New York less than twenty-four hours out from Washington.

From New York northward to Montreal one's journey involved a choice of routes. One might go up the Hudson River by steamer to Albany, and thence work up the Champlain Lake system, above which one might employ a short stretch of rails between St. John and La Prairie, on the banks of the St. Lawrence opposite Montreal. Or, one might go from Albany west by rail as far as Syracuse, up the Mohawk Valley, and so to Oswego, where on Lake Ontario one might find steam or sailing craft.

Up the Hudson I took the crack steamer _Swallow_, the same which just one year later was sunk while trying to beat her own record of nine hours and two minutes from New York to Albany. She required eleven hours on our trip. Under conditions then obtaining, it took me a day and a half more to reach Lake Ontario. Here, happily, I picked up a frail steam craft, owned by an adventurous soul who was not unwilling to risk his life and that of others on the uncertain and ice-filled waters of Ontario. With him I negotiated to carry me with others down the St.

Lawrence. At that time, of course, the Lachine Ca.n.a.l was not completed, and the Victoria Bridge was not even conceived as a possibility. One delay after another with broken machinery, lack of fuel, running ice and what not, required five days more of my time ere I reached Montreal.

I could not be called either officer or spy, yet none the less I did not care to be recognized here in the capacity of one over-curious. I made up my costume as that of an innocent free trader from the Western fur country of the states, and was able, from my earlier experiences, to answer any questions as to beaver at Fort Hall or buffalo on the Yellowstone or the Red. Thus I pa.s.sed freely in and about all the public places of the town, and inspected with a certain personal interest all its points of interest, from the Gray Nunneries to the new cathedrals, the Place d'Armes, the Champ de Mars, the barracks, the vaunted brewery, the historic mountain, and the village lying between the arms of the two rivers--a point where history for a great country had been made, and where history for our own now was planning.

As I moved about from day to day, making such acquaintance as I could, I found in the air a feeling of excitement and expectation. The hotels, bad as they were, were packed. The public places were noisy, the private houses crowded. Gradually the town became half-military and half-savage.

Persons of importance arrived by steamers up the river, on whose expanse lay boats which might be bound for England--or for some of England's colonies. The Government--not yet removed to Ottawa, later capital of Ontario--was then housed in the old Chateau Ramezay, built so long before for the French governor, Vaudreuil.

Here, I had reason to believe, was now established no less a personage than Sir George Simpson, Governor of the Hudson Bay Company. Rumor had it at the time that Lord Aberdeen of England himself was at Montreal.

That was not true, but I established without doubt that his brother really was there, as well as Lieutenant William Peel of the Navy, son of Sir Robert Peel, England's prime minister. The latter, with his companion, Captain Parke, was one time pointed out to me proudly by my inn-keeper--two young gentlemen, clad in the ultra fashion of their country, with very wide and tall bell beavers, narrow trousers, and strange long sack-coats unknown to us in the States--of little shape or elegance, it seemed to me.

There was expectancy in the air, that was sure. It was open secret enough in England, as well as in Montreal and in Washington, that a small army of American settlers had set out the foregoing summer for the valley of the Columbia, some said under leadership of the missionary Whitman. Britain was this year awakening to the truth that these men had gone thither for a purpose. Here now was a congress of Great Britain's statesmen, leaders of Great Britain's greatest monopoly, the Hudson Bay Company, to weigh this act of the audacious American Republic. I was not a week in Montreal before I learned that my master's guess, or his information, had been correct. The race was on for Oregon!

All these things, I say, I saw go on about me. Yet in truth as to the inner workings of this I could gain but little actual information. I saw England's ships, but it was not for me to know whether they were to turn Cape Hope or the Horn. I saw Canada's _voyageurs_, but they might be only on their annual journey, and might go no farther than their accustomed posts in the West. In French town and English town, among common soldiers, _voyageurs_, inn-keepers and merchants, I wandered for more than one day and felt myself still helpless.

That is to say, such was the case until there came to my aid that greatest of all allies, Chance.

CHAPTER XIV

THE OTHER WOMAN

The world is the book of women.--_Rousseau_.

I needed not to be advised that presently there would be a meeting of some of the leading men of the Hudson Bay Company at the little gray stone, dormer-windowed building on Notre Dame Street. In this old building--in whose vaults at one time of emergency was stored the entire currency of the Canadian treasury--there still remained some government records, and now under the steep-pitched roof affairs were to be transacted somewhat larger than the dimensions of the building might have suggested. The keeper of my inn freely made me a list of those who would be present--a list embracing so many scores of prominent men whom he then swore to be in the city of Montreal that, had the old Chateau Ramezay afforded twice its room, they could not all have been accommodated. For myself, it was out of the question to gain admittance.

In those days all Montreal was iron-shuttered after nightfall, resembling a series of jails; and to-night it seemed doubly screened and guarded. None the less, late in the evening, I allowed seeming accident to lead me in a certain direction. Pa.s.sing as often as I might up and down Notre Dame Street without attracting attention, I saw more than one figure in the semi-darkness enter the low chateau door. Occasionally a tiny gleam showed at the edge of a shutter or at the top of some little window not fully screened. As to what went on within I could only guess.

I pa.s.sed the chateau, up and down, at different times from nine o'clock until midnight. The streets of Montreal at that time made brave pretense of lighting by virtue of the new gas works; at certain intervals flickering and wholly incompetent lights serving to make the gloom more visible. None the less, as I pa.s.sed for the last time, I plainly saw a shaft of light fall upon the half darkness from a little side door.

There emerged upon the street the figure of a woman. I do not know what led me to cast a second glance, for certainly my business was not with ladies, any more than I would have supposed ladies had business there; but, victim of some impulse of curiosity, I walked a step or two in the same direction as that taken by the cloaked figure.

Careless as I endeavored to make my movements, the veiled lady seemed to take suspicion or fright. She quickened her steps. Accident favored me.

Even as she fled, she caught her skirt on some object which lay hidden in the shadows and fell almost at full length. This I conceived to be opportunity warranting my approach. I raised my hat and a.s.sured her that her flight was needless.

She made no direct reply to me, but as she rose gave utterance to an expression of annoyance. "_Mon Dieu!_" I heard her say.

I stood for a moment trying to recall where I had heard this same voice!

She turned her face in such a way that the light illuminated it. Then indeed surprise smote me.

"Madam Baroness," said I, laughing, "it is wholly impossible for you to be here, yet you are here! Never again will I say there is no such thing as chance, no such thing as fate, no such thing as a miracle!"

She looked at me one brief moment; then her courage returned.

"Ah, then, my idiot," she said, "since it is to be our fortune always to meet of dark nights and in impossible ways, give me your arm."

I laughed. "We may as well make treaty. If you run again, I shall only follow you."

"Then I am again your prisoner?"

"Madam, I again am yours!"

"At least, you improve!" said she. "Then come."

"Shall I not call a _caleche?_--the night is dark."

"No, no!" hurriedly.

We began a midnight course that took us quite across the old French quarter of Montreal. At last she turned into a small, dark street of modest one-story residences, iron-shuttered, dark and cheerless. Here she paused in front of a narrow iron gate.

"Madam," I said, "you represent to me one of the problems of my life.

Why does your taste run to such quarters as these? This might be that same back street in Washington!"

She chuckled to herself, at length laughed aloud. "But wait! If you entered my abode once," she said, "why not again? Come."

Her hand was at the heavy knocker as she spoke. In a moment the door slowly opened, just as it had done that night before in Washington. My companion pa.s.sed before me swiftly. As she entered I saw standing at the opening the same brown and wrinkled old dame who had served that night before in Washington!

For an instant the light dazzled my eyes, but, determined now to see this adventure through, I stepped within. Then, indeed, I found it difficult to stifle the exclamation of surprise which came to my lips.

Believe it or not, as you like, we _were_ again in Washington!

I say that I was confronted by the identical arrangement, the identical objects of furnishing, which had marked the luxurious boudoir of Helena von Ritz in Washington! The tables were the same, the chairs, the mirrors, the consoles. On the mantel stood the same girandoles with glittering crystals. The pictures upon the walls, so far as I could remember their themes, did not deviate in any particular of detail or arrangement. The oval-backed chairs were duplicates of those I had seen that other night at midnight. Beyond these same amber satin curtains stood the tall bed with its canopy, as I could see; and here at the right was the same low Napoleon bed with its rolled ends. The figures of the carpets were the same, their deep-piled richness, soft under foot, the same. The flowered cups of the sconces were identical with those I had seen before. To my eye, even as it grew more studious, there appeared no divergence, no difference, between these apartments and those I had so singularly visited--and yet under circ.u.mstances so strangely akin to these--in the capital of my own country!