The Port of Missing Men Part 19

Straining to the top, a new valley, hidden until now, was disclosed in long and beautiful vistas.

Armitage dropped the reins upon the neck of his panting horse.

"It is a fine valley--yes?" asked Oscar.

"It is a possession worthy of the n.o.blest G.o.ds!" replied Armitage. "There is a white building with colonnades away over there--is it the house of the reigning deity?"

"It is not, sir," answered Oscar, who spoke English with a kind of dogged precision, giving equal value to all words. "It is a vast hotel where the rich spend much money. That place at the foot of the hills--do you see?--it is there they play a foolish game with sticks and little b.a.l.l.s--"

"Golf? Is it possible!"

"There is no doubt of it, sir. I have seen the fools myself--men and women. The place is called Storm Valley."

Armitage slapped his thigh sharply, so that his horse started.

"Yes; you are probably right, Oscar, I have heard of the place. And those houses that lie beyond there in the valley belong to gentlemen of taste and leisure who drink the waters and ride horses and play the foolish game you describe with little white b.a.l.l.s."

"I could not tell it better," responded Oscar, who had dismounted, like a good trooper, to rest his horse.

"And our place--is it below there?" demanded Armitage.

"It is not, sir. It lies to the west. But a man may come here when he is lonesome, and look at the people and the gentlemen's houses. At night it is a pleasure to see the lights, and sometimes, when the wind is right, there is music of bands."

"Poor Oscar!" laughed Armitage.

His mood had not often in his life been so high.

On his flight northward from Washington and southward down the Atlantic capes, the thought that Shirley Claiborne and her family must now believe him an ign.o.ble scoundrel had wrought misgivings and pain in his heart; but at least he would soon be near her--even now she might be somewhere below in the lovely valley, and he drew off his hat and stared down upon what was glorified and enchanted ground.

"Let us go," he said presently.

Oscar saluted, standing bridle in hand.

"You will find it easier to walk," he said, and, leading their horses, they retraced their steps for several hundred yards along the ridge, then mounted and proceeded slowly down again until they came to a mountain road. Presently a high wire fence followed at their right, where the descent was sharply arrested, and they came to a barred wooden gate, and beside it a small cabin, evidently designed for a lodge.

"This is the place, sir," and Oscar dismounted and threw open the gate.

The road within followed the rough contour of the hillside, that still turned downward until it broadened into a wooded plateau. The flutter of wings in the underbrush, the scamper of squirrels, the mad lope of a fox, kept the eye busy. A deer broke out of a hazel thicket, stared at the hors.e.m.e.n in wide-eyed amazement, then plunged into the wood and disappeared.

"There are deer, and of foxes a great plenty," remarked Oscar.

He turned toward Armitage and added with lowered voice:

"It is different from our old hills and forests--yes? but sometimes I have been homesick."

"But this is not so bad, Oscar; and some day you shall go back!"

"Here," said the soldier, as they swung out of the wood and into the open, "is what they call the Port of Missing Men."

There was a broad park-like area that tended downward almost imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across the defile had once afforded a short cut to Storm Springs, but it was now in disrepair, and at either end was posted "No Thoroughfare." Armitage stepped upon the loose planking and felt the frail thing vibrate under his weight.

"It is a bad place," remarked Oscar, as the bridge creaked and swung, and Armitage laughed and jumped back to solid ground.

The surface of this harbor of the hills was rough with outcropping rock.

In some great stress of nature the trees had been destroyed utterly, and only a scant growth of weeds and wild flowers remained. The place suggested a battle-ground for the winds, where they might meet and struggle in wild combat; or more practically, it was large enough for the evolutions of a squadron of cavalry.

"Why the name?" asked Armitage.

"There were gray soldiers of many battles--yes?--who fought the long fight against the blue soldiers in the Valley of Virginia; and after the war was over some of them would not surrender--no; but they marched here, and stayed a long time, and kept their last flag, and so the place was called the Port of Missing Men. They built that stone wall over there beyond the patch of cedars, and camped. And a few died, and their graves are there by the cedars. Yes; they had brave hearts," and Oscar lifted his hat as though he were saluting the lost legion.

They turned again to the road and went forward at a gallop, until, half a mile from the gate, they came upon a clearing and a low, red-roofed bungalow.

"Your house, sir," and Oscar swung himself down at the steps of a broad veranda. He led the horses away to a barn beyond the house, while Armitage surveyed the landscape. The bungalow stood on a rough knoll, and was so placed as to afford a splendid view of a wide region. Armitage traversed the long veranda, studying the landscape, and delighting in the far-stretching pine-covered barricade of hills. He was aroused by Oscar, who appeared carrying the suit-cases.

"There shall be breakfast," said the man.

He threw open the doors and they entered a wide, bare hall, with a fireplace, into which Oscar dropped a match.

"All one floor--plenty of sleeping-rooms, sir--a place to eat here--a kitchen beyond--a fair barracks for a common soldier; that is all."

"It is enough. Throw these bags into the nearest bedroom, if there is no choice, and camp will be established."

"This is yours--the baggage that came by express is there. A wagon goes with the place, and I brought the things up yesterday. There is a shower-bath beyond the rear veranda. The mountain water is off the ice, but--you will require hot water for shaving--is it not so?"

"You oppress me with luxuries, Oscar. Wind up the clock, and nothing will be wanting."

Oscar unstrapped the trunks and then stood at attention in the door. He had expected Armitage to condemn the place in bitter language, but the proprietor of the abandoned hunting preserve was in excellent spirits, and whistled blithely as he drew out his keys.

"The place was built by fools," declared Oscar gloomily.

"Undoubtedly! There is a saying that fools build houses and wise men live in them--you see where that leaves us, Oscar. Let us be cheerful!"

He tried the shower and changed his raiment, while Oscar prepared coffee and laid a cloth on the long table before the fire. When Armitage appeared, coffee steamed in the tin pot in which it had been made. Bacon, eggs and toast were further offered.

"You have done excellently well, Oscar. Go get your own breakfast."

Armitage dropped a lump of sugar into his coffee cup and surveyed the room.

A large map of Virginia and a series of hunting prints hung on the untinted walls, and there were racks for guns, and a work-bench at one end of the room, where guns might be taken apart and cleaned. A few novels, several three-year-old magazines and a variety of pipes remained on the shelf above the fireplace. The house offered possibilities of meager comfort, and that was about all. Armitage remembered what the agent through whom he had made the purchase had said--that the place had proved too isolated for even a hunting preserve, and that its only value was in the timber. He was satisfied with his bargain, and would not set up a lumber mill yet a while. He lighted a cigar and settled himself in an easy chair before the fire, glad of the luxury of peace and quiet after his circuitous journey and the tumult of doubt and question that had shaken him.

He slit the wrapper of the Washington newspaper that Oscar had brought from the mountain post-office and scanned the head-lines. He read with care a dispatch from London that purported to reflect the sentiment of the continental capitals toward Charles Louis, the new Emperor-king of Austria-Hungary, and the paper dropped upon his knees and he stared into the fire. Then he picked up a paper of earlier date and read all the foreign despatches and the news of Washington. He was about to toss the paper aside, when his eyes fell upon a boldly-headlined article that caused his heart to throb fiercely. It recited the sudden reappearance of the fraudulent Baron von Kissel in Washington, and described in detail the baron's escapades at Bar Harbor and his later career in California and elsewhere. Then followed a story, veiled in careful phrases, but based, so the article recited, upon information furnished by a gentleman of extensive acquaintance on both sides of the Atlantic, that Baron von Kissel, under a new pseudonym, and with even more daring effrontery, had within a fortnight sought to intrench himself in the most exclusive circles of Washington.

Armitage's cigar slipped from his fingers and fell upon the brick hearth as he read:

"The boldness of this clever adventurer is said to have reached a climax in this city within a few days. He had, under the name of Armitage, palmed himself off upon members of one of the most distinguished families of the capital, whom he had met abroad during the winter. A young gentleman of this family, who, it will suffice to say, bears a commission and t.i.tle from the American government, entertained a small company of friends at a Washington club only a few nights ago, and this plausible adventurer was among the guests. He was recognized at once by one of the foreigners present, who, out of consideration for the host and fellow guests, held his tongue; but it is understood that this gentleman sought Armitage privately and warned him to leave Washington, which accounts for the fact that the sumptuous apartments at the New American in which Mr.

John Armitage, alias Baron von Kissel, had established himself were vacated immediately. None of those present at the supper will talk of the matter, but it has been the subject of lively gossip for several days, and the German emba.s.sy is said to have laid before the Washington police all the information in its archives relating to the American adventures of this impudent scoundrel."

Armitage rose, dropped the paper into the fire, and, with his elbow resting on the mantel-shelf, watched it burn. He laughed suddenly and faced about, his back to the flames. Oscar stood at attention in the middle of the room.