Final Proof Part 40

"There is no danger. Did I not tell you that the affair ended?"

"So you did. I forgot that. This paper is entertaining. I will read on."

The statement went on as follows:

"I was born and reared and spent all my life in Texas. In fact, you may consider me a cowboy, though it is long since I have thrown a lariat, and one would hardly count me a boy now. What a life do we lead down there on the Texas plains! Miles and miles of country stretching in easy undulations from the rising-place to the set of the sun. Day after day in the saddle, till one imagines himself a part of the animal which he bestrides. How often in play have I dropped a red bandana, and then picked it from the gra.s.s as I galloped my horse by at top speed!

"One day I was riding along, free from all worldly care, happy, contented. My horse was going easily, though we had several miles yet to cover. Glancing carelessly ahead, neither seeking nor expecting adventure of any kind, I thought I saw, a hundred yards or more ahead of me, the bright red of a handkerchief in the gra.s.s. A bandana dropped by a cowboy perhaps. With nothing better to do, I touched my horse's flank, and with instant response his head was down and we charged the spot. Leaning so low on one side that I could have touched the ground easily with my hand, we rapidly neared that bit of color, and I was almost upon it before I realized that it was something more than a lost handkerchief,--that it was really a bundle of some sort. Yet in time I noted this, and therefore exerted enough strength when I clutched it to lift it firmly from the ground, though the weight of it astonished me. Swinging myself back upon my horse, I brought him to a walk, that I might better examine my prize.

Imagine my feelings when I found that the little bundle contained a thing of life--a baby girl!

"There is no need to extend this part of my tale. How the child got there I never learned. Whether it was dropped from a wagon travelling along the trail, or deposited there purposely by one of those fiends who accept the pleasures of life and shirk its responsibilities, I do not know. Indeed, at the time I took but a pa.s.sing interest in the affair. I had picked up a baby on the plains. What of it? How could a cowboy like myself be expected to evince any great interest in a baby? My father was rich, and I had always been indulged in all things, though always held rigidly by what I was taught to consider the rules of honor. I had had a taste of the big world too, for I had been first at a military academy, and afterwards had graduated from Harvard.

Then I had gone back to Texas, back to the life on horseback in the open air, the life that I loved best. So you can understand that women and babies had not yet come into my mind as necessary adjuncts to life.

"The child was given into the care of the very negro mammy who had practically reared me, my mother having died when I was yet a boy. Thus it was not until Juanita--I forget how she got the name, but so she was called--was twelve, that I began to feel some personal responsibility in relation to her future. My father meantime had died, and I was master of the old home, the ranch and all the stock. Thus there was no lack of money to carry out whatever plan might seem best. I took counsel with some women of our town, and the end of it was that Juanita was sent as far north as Atlanta to boarding-school. Here she remained until she was sixteen, but she never really enjoyed herself. A child of the plains almost literally, one might say, living through her earlier girlhood with little if any restraint, the duties of the school-room were irksome to her, and she longed to be back in Texas. This yearning grew upon her so that at length she began to make references to her feelings in her letters. I had missed her from about the place more than I should have imagined possible, and the strong inclination was to grant her wishes and bring her back; but I knew the value of education, and felt in duty bound to urge her continuance of her studies. When first she went, it had been arranged that she should remain in Atlanta studying for eight years, but finally I offered as a compromise that she might come home at the end of six, at which time she would have been eighteen. You may guess my surprise when one morning on my return from a long ride after the cattle, I saw a horse dashing swiftly towards me, and when close enough, recognized Juanita on his back. Breathless she pulled up beside me, and before I could speak cried out:

"'Now don't say you are going to send me back. Don't say it!

Don't! Don't! Don't! It would break my heart!'

"What could I do? There she was, exuberant in her happiness, all the wild energy of her animal spirits aroused by the exhilaration of that liberty for which she had so long yearned.

Of course I thought a good deal, but I said nothing.

"'Watch me!' she exclaimed. 'I haven't forgotten how to ride.

See!'

"Like a flash she was off towards a clump of bushes fifty yards away. I called after her, fearing that four years of school life would have left her less of a horsewoman than she imagined. But she only laughed, and when near the hedge raised her horse with the skill of an adept and cleared it by a foot.

"During the next two years the whole tenor of my life was changed. Juanita went with me everywhere. Like myself she lived in the saddle, and soon she could throw a lariat or round up a herd of cattle as well as almost any of my men.

"What wonder that I learned to love the girl? Philosophers tell us that two may meet, exchange glances, and love. Madness! That is admiration, magnetic attraction, pa.s.sionate desire,--what you please,--it is not love. Love may spring from such beginning, but not in an instant, a day, an hour. Too many have been wrecked by that delusion, wedding while intoxicated with this momentary delirium, and awaking later to a realization of a dread future. For what can be worse misery than to be married and not mated? No, love thrives on what it feeds on. Daily companionship, hourly contact breeds a habit in a man's life, creates a need that can but be filled by the presence of the one who excites such heart longings. Thus we learn to love our horse or dog, and the possession of the animal satisfies us. So when we come to love a woman, to love her with that love which once born never dies, so, too, possession is the only salve, the only solution. After two years I realized this, and began to think of marrying my little one. 'Why not?' I asked myself. True, I was forty, while she was but eighteen. But I was young in heart, energy, and vitality. And who had a greater right to possess her than myself? None. Then a dreadful thought came to me. What if she did not love me in return? My heart turned cold, but I never dreamed of coercing her. I would tell her my wish, my hope, and as she should answer so should it be.

"This was my determination. You will admit that I was honorable.

Having formed my conclusion I sought a favorable moment for its execution. At this you may wonder. Were we not together daily, riding side by side, often alone with G.o.d and Nature for hours together? True! But I dreaded a mistake. Should I speak when her heart was not ready, the answer might blight my life.

"So I waited day after day, no moment seeming more propitious than another. Yet when I did speak, it was all so simple, that I wondered at myself for my long anxiety. We had been riding together for three or four hours, when, reaching a shaded knoll in which I knew there was a cold spring where we might refresh ourselves and our horses, we stopped. As she jumped from her horse, Juanita stood a moment looking back and forth across the plains, and then, in full enjoyment of the scene, she exclaimed:

"'Isn't it all grand! I could live here forever!'

"My heart leaped, and my tongue moved unbidden:

"'With me?' I cried. 'With me, Juanita?'

"'Why, yes; with you, of course. With whom else?'

"She turned and gazed into my eyes frankly, wondering at my question, and my hand burned as with a fever as I took hers in mine, and almost whispered:

"'But with me, little one, as my own? As my very own? As my little wife, I mean?'

"A dainty blush beautified her cheek, but she did not turn away her eyes as she answered:

"'Why, yes. As your wife, of course. I have always thought you meant it should be. Always lately, I mean.'

"So she had understood before I had known myself. She had been simply waiting, while I had been worrying. I had but to reach forth my hand and grasp my happiness. Well, I had been an a.s.s not to know, but at last the joy was mine.

"Be sure there was little further delay. The wedding was simple yet impressive. Cowboys came from miles around, and one and all they kissed the bride. We had a feast on the gra.s.s, the tables extending a quarter of a mile, and all were welcome. There were no cards of invitation; all within fifty miles were my neighbors, and all neighbors were expected at the cowboy's wedding. The ceremony was held out in the open air, and five hundred men stood with bared heads as the worthy father gave me my treasure and declared her mine before G.o.d and them.

"Thus Juanita came to be mine own. First given to me by that Providence who rules the Universe, when the unguided steps of my horse carried me to the tiny bundle lying on a boundless plain, and lastly given to me with her own consent by the worthy man who united us in the name of the Father of us all. Was she not mine then, and thenceforward forever? Could any man rightly take her from me? You shall hear.

"A year pa.s.sed. A year of happiness such as poets prate of and ardent men and maids hope for, but rarely realize. Then the serpent entered my Eden. The tempter came, in the form of this man who tells you that his name is Odell, but who lies when he tells you so. He was from the North, and he had a fine form and a fair face. Fair, I mean, in the sense that it was attractive to women. He soon had the few young women of our neighborhood dangling after him, like captured fish on a blade of palmetto. I saw all this, and, seeing, had no suspicion that with the chance to choose from so many who were still unclaimed, he would seek to win my own dear one.

"I cannot dwell on this. Indeed, I never knew the details, only the finale. The blow came as unsuspected as might an earthquake in a land where tranquillity had reigned for centuries. I had been away all day, and for once my wife had not ridden with me.

I had myself bidden her remain at home, because of the intense heat of an August sun. She had begged to go with me, perhaps fearing to be left alone. But I knew nothing, suspected nothing of the ache and terror in her heart. When I got back, it was already dark, and having been away from Juanita all day, I called for her at once. The empty echoes of my voice coming back as the only answer to my cry struck my heart with a chill, and a nameless, hideous dread seized me. Had anything happened? Was she ill, or dead? Dead it must be, I thought, or she would have answered. I wandered through the house; I searched the whole place; I sprang back upon my horse and rode from house to house throughout that whole awful night. I discovered nothing. No one could tell me aught. At daybreak I returned f.a.gged out, with a vague hope that perhaps I had made some blunder and that she was still at home. At last, in the room where I kept my accounts and transacted business, I found a note upon my desk which explained the horrible truth. Here is a copy of it. Note the hideous braggadocio. It read:

"'I. O. U. One wife. (Signed) L---- R----.'

"That you may fully appreciate how this taunt stung, I must remind you that, as I have said, my father had taught me to follow most rigidly the rules of honor. In transactions involving even very great sums of money, it was not uncommon amongst us cattlemen to acknowledge an indebtedness in this primitive, informal way,--simply writing upon a slip of paper, perhaps torn from the edge of a newspaper, 'I. O. U.', giving the amount, and adding the signature. No dates were really necessary, though sometimes added, because the possession of the paper proved the debt, the cancellation by payment always leading to the destruction of the I. O. U.

"Thus this heartless young brute from the North had not only stolen from me my chief treasure, but he had left behind an acknowledgment of his debt in that form which was most binding among us.

"Does it cause you surprise to have me say that I carefully preserved that bit of paper, and swore to make him meet the obligation when the day of reckoning might come? This explains to you that cause, which at the outset I said brings with it a result which now is, and always has been, inevitable.

"Of course it is certain that had I been able to find my betrayer while my anger still raged, and my anguish yet at its most acute point, I would simply have shot the man on sight, recklessly, thoughtlessly. But I could not get trace of him, and so had time to think.

"Too late I learned that I had made one dreadful error. I have told you my views of love, how engendered and how nourished. My mistake was in thinking that such a love is the necessary rather than merely the possible result of constant companionship between congenial spirits. In my own heart the fire of true love burned only too brightly, but with Juanita, poor child, it was but the glow reflected from my own inward fires that warmed her heart. She was happy with me, sharing my life, and when I asked her to marry me, mistook her calm friendship for what she had heard called love. Love she had never experienced. When later the younger man devoted himself to her, she was probably first merely intoxicated by an overpowering animal magnetism, which was nothing but pa.s.sion. But even as I have admitted that this impulsive desire may drift into the truer, n.o.bler quality of love, so, later, I found, must have been the case with my cherished one.

"A full year pa.s.sed before I had the least idea of the whereabouts of the elopers. Then one day the mail brought me a brief, plaintive note from her. All she wrote was, 'Dear one, forgive me. Juanita.' The date showed that it had been written on the anniversary of our wedding, and from this I knew that the day had brought to her remorseful memories of me. But the envelope bore a postmark, and I knew at last that they were in a suburb of the great metropolis.

"I started for New York that very night, bent on vengeance. But one approaches a revengeful deed in a different spirit a year after the infliction of the wrong, and so by the time I reached my destination, my mind had attained a judicial att.i.tude, and my purpose was tempered by the evident wisdom of investigating before acting. I had little difficulty in finding the nest to which my bird had flown, and a happy nest it appeared to be. It seems like yesterday, and the picture is distinct before my vision. I came cautiously towards the cottage, which was surrounded by a gra.s.sy lawn, and my heart came into my throat with a choking sensation as suddenly I saw her there, my little Juanita, lazily swinging in a hammock under a great elm, singing! Singing so merrily that I could not doubt that she was, for the moment at least, happy. So, then, she was happy--happy with him. The thought affected me in a twofold manner. I resented her happiness for myself, and gloried in it for her own sake. I did not venture to interrupt her life by intruding myself into it. I quietly prosecuted my inquiries, and learned that she was known as his wife, indeed that a regular marriage had taken place. Thus at least he gave her the apparent protection of his name. Moreover, I found that he was still kind to her, and that the two were counted a happy couple.

"Therefore I returned to Texas, and never again set eyes upon my dear one, in life. But before leaving I perfected arrangements whereby I might receive regular communications, and so be in the position to know how it fared with Juanita, and I am bound to admit that the reports were ever favorable. So far as I know, he always treated her with loving kindness. In exchange for this, he must count that he has been left undisturbed by me. On that score, then, we are quits. But the paper on which he wrote that infamous I. O. U. remained, and so long as it was in my possession it was an obligation still to be met.

"Five years elapsed, and then one day suddenly I was summoned by telegraph. Juanita was ill--was likely to die. I sped North as fast as the swiftest express train could travel, but I arrived three hours after her sweet spirit had flown. He did not recognize me as I mingled with the crowd in the house at the funeral, and so got a last glimpse of her face. But after the grave was filled, and the little mound was covered with flowers, the mound which held all that had stood between him and fate, I stepped forward and stood where his eyes must meet mine.

"At first he did not recognize me, but presently he knew me, and the abject terror that came into his face brought to me the first sensation of pleasure that I had experienced since that hour in which I had found my home deserted. I stepped back into the crowd, and I saw him look about eagerly, and pa.s.s his hand across his eyes, as though brushing aside some horrible vision.

But he was soon to learn that it was no spectral fancy, but myself with whom he had to deal.

"I waited till nightfall and then sought him at his house, and told him my purpose. I showed him that bit of paper on which he had scrawled the words 'I. O. U. One wife,' and I told him that in exacting a settlement we would change the letter 'w' to the letter 'l.' That for my wife, I would expect his life, in return. I gave him a respite of a few days, but this he will explain to you. I know this, for twice have I seen him approach your offices, and then alter his mind and depart without going in. But his fate is now so near that by to-morrow, at the latest, he will no longer have the courage to delay. He will go to you. He will lie to you. He will endeavor to obtain your aid.

Fool! Of what avail? He cannot escape even if you undertake to a.s.sist him. But after reading the truth, as here written, will you?"

Mr. Mitchel put down the last page of the statement, and, turning to Mr.

Barnes, he said:

"And you say you have thwarted this man's purpose?"

"Yes; absolutely. Of course, that tale of his makes me sympathize with him, but the law does not grant a man the right to murder even when a wife is stolen. Certainly not after the lapse of five years."

"I should think that the author of that doc.u.ment would be a man who would carefully plan whatever scheme he might have decided upon, and if you have really thwarted him, then you have been very clever. Very clever, indeed. How was it?"

"To explain that," replied Mr. Barnes, "I must begin by telling you of the visit of this man who calls himself Odell. You will note that the Texan says that his adversary 'will explain,' etc. Thus he evidently intended his communication to reach me before the visit of my client.

But it was otherwise. Mr. Odell, as we must call him, came here two days ago, whereas that communication did not reach me until yesterday morning."