The Purchase Price Part 19

"We will fight," said Dunwody slowly and gravely. A faint picture of the possible future was pa.s.sing before his mind.

"What boat are these men using?" asked Doctor Jamieson, turning to young Desha.

"Little old scow named the _Helen Bell_. She can't steam up-stream a hundred miles a week. She ties up every night. We can easy catch her, up above St. Genevieve, if we ride fast."

"That looks feasible to me," remarked Judge Clayton, and the others nodded their approval.

Judge Clayton dropped into a seat, as he replaced his gla.s.s on the nearest table. "By the way, Colonel Dunwody," said he, "there was something right strange happened on the Vernon, coming down the Ohio, and I thought maybe you could help us figure it out. There was another disappearance--that extraordinarily beautiful young lady who was there--you remember her? No one knew what became of her. When I heard about that Lily girl's escape, I sent my men with the two bucks on down home, with instructions for a little training, so they would not try the underground again right soon.

But now--"

"Now about that Lily girl," interrupted the Honorable William Jones, who had once more forgotten his temperance resolutions,--"But h.e.l.lo, Colonel, what's this, wha-a-at's this?"

He picked up and exposed to view a small object which he saw lying on the hall floor. It was a small pin of sh.e.l.l and silver, such as ladies sometimes used for fastening the hair.

"Somehow, I got the idea you was a bachelor man," went on the Honorable William cheerfully. "Thought you lived here all alone in solitary splenjure; never looked at a woman in your whole life in the whole memory of man. But, looky-here, now, what's this?"

Dunwody, suddenly confused, could only wonder whether his face showed what he really felt. His guest continued his investigation.

"An' looky-there on the table!" pointing, where some servant apparently had placed, yet another article of ladies' apparel, dropped by accident, a dainty glove of make such as no servant of that country ever saw, much less used. "Come now," blithely went on the gentleman from Belmont. "Things is lookin' mighty suspicious, mighty suspicious. Why didn't you tell us when you-all was married?"

A sudden start might have drawn attention to Judge Clayton, but he controlled himself. And if a slight smile a.s.sailed his lips, at least he was able to suppress it. Nothing, however, could suppress the curiosity of the able student of Roman history. "I'll just take a little prowl around," said he.

He was rewarded in his search. A little hair-pin lay at the first step of the stair. He fell upon it with uproarious glee.

"Trail's gittin' hot," said he. "I reckon I'll go on up."

"No!" cried Dunwody suddenly, and sprang to the foot of the stair.

"Please!--that is,--" he hesitated. "If you will kindly wait a moment, I will have the servants put your room in order for you before you go up."

"Oho!" cried the Honorable William. "Don't want us to find out a single thing! House o' mystery, ah, ha! Doctor here, too! Tell us, anybody died here to-day?"

Doctor Jamieson answered by quietly stepping to the side of Dunwody. Judge Clayton, without comment, joined them, and the three edged in between the exhilarated gentleman and the stairway which he sought to ascend.

"I was just saying, gentlemen," remarked Judge Clayton quietly, "that I was sure it would give us all much pleasure to take a stroll around these beautiful grounds with Colonel Dunwody."

He looked Dunwody calmly in the eye, and the latter knew he had a friend. He knew perfectly well that Judge Clayton did not for an instant suppose that these articles ever had belonged to any servant. On the contrary; it was possible he remembered where and in whose possession he had seen them before. But nothing more was said about the beautiful young lady of the _Mount Vernon_.

"You have a beautiful place here, Colonel Dunwody, beautiful!" said Clayton carelessly, casting an arm over the other's shoulders and leading the way to the front door. "It reminds me of our old family home back in Virginia. Come, gentlemen; let us have a more careful look at so well-chosen a locality. It is improved--improved, gentlemen, as well as it originally was chosen. But look at those hills!"

CHAPTER XIV

THE ARGUMENT

To the heated imagination of the Honorable William Jones something still remained to be explained, and he remained anxious to continue the conversation on the topic foremost in his mind.

"Look around here, gentlemen," said he, extending an eloquent arm.

"Behold them mountings. Look at them trees surrounding this valley of secrets. The spoils of war belongs to him that has fit--the captives of the bow and spear are his'n. How said Brennus the Gaul, when he done vanquished Rome? 'Woe to the conquered!' said he. 'Woe to them that has fell to our arms!' Now it's the same right here. Look at--"

"I was just going to remark," suavely broke in Judge Clayton, "that of the many mountain views of our southern country, this seems to me one of the most satisfactory. I have never seen a more restful scene than this, nor a morning more beautiful. But, Missouri!" he added almost with mournfulness. "What a record of strife and turmoil!"

Dunwody nodded. "As when Missouri was admitted, for instance," he said smilingly.

"Precisely!" rejoined Clayton, biting meditatively at a plucked gra.s.s stem. "The South gets a state, the North demands one! When Missouri came in, Illinois also was admitted--one free against one slave state. Politics,--nothing more. Missouri would break the balance of power if she came alone and unpaired as a slave state, so the North paired her with Maine, and let her in, with a string tied to her! Slavery already existed here, as in all these other states that had been admitted with it existent. What the North tried to do was to abolish slavery where it had _already_ existed, legally, and under the full permission of the Const.i.tution. All of the Louisiana Purchase had slavery when we bought it, and under the Const.i.tution Congress could not legislate slavery _out_ of it."

The younger men of the party listened to him gravely, even eagerly.

Regarding the personal arbitrament of arms which they now faced, they were indifferent; but always they were ready to hear the arguments pro and con of that day, when indeed this loosely organized republic had the giant wolf of slavery by the ear.

"But they claimed the right of the moral law!" said Dunwody finally.

"The moral law! Who is the judge of that? Governments are not run by that. If we overthrow our whole system of jurisprudence, why, I've nothing to say. That's anarchy, not government. The South is growing faster relatively than the North. The politicians on both sides are scared about the balance of power, and they're simply taking advantage of this cry of morality. They're putting the moralists out as cat's-paws to the fire!" Judge Clayton almost abandoned his usual calm.

"I imagine," ventured Doctor Jamieson, "that Missouri had as good a right to come in unrestricted as Louisiana had in 1812, or Arkansas in 1836."

"That argument was admitted by statesmen, but it was denied by politicians: I make a distinction between the two," commented Dunwody.

"Yes," rejoined Judge Clayton. "The politicians of the House, controlled by the North, would not give up the intention to regulate us into a place where it could hold us down. 'Very well,'

said the Senate--and there were a few statesmen in the Senate the--'then you shall not have Maine admitted on your own side of the line!' And that was how Missouri sneaked into this Union--this state, one of the richest parts of the Union--by virtue of a compromise which even waited until Maine was ready to come in!

Talk of principles--it was _politics_, and nothing less. That's your Missouri Compromise; but has the North ever considered it so sacred? She's stuck to it when it was good politics, and forgotten it when that was more to her interest. The Supreme Court of the United States will declare the whole Missouri Compromise unconst.i.tutional at no late date. And what it is going to do with Mr. Clay's compromise, of this year, the Lord only knows."

It was young Yates who at length ventured to interrupt in his soft and drawling tones, "I don't see how the No'th can charge us up with much. Whenever they get into trouble and want help in a trade, or a fight, or a argument, why, they come south!"

Doctor Jamieson calmly took snuff. "Time was, when we first came in as a state," said he, "that we didn't take these attempts of the North to regulate us any too tamely."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Doctor Jamieson calmly took snuff.]

"I don't know about that," commented Judge Clayton. "Your 'moral law,' your 'higher law,' gentlemen, I don't find in my legal reading. It was personal liberty that took every man west, but we've stood and stickled for the actual law, and we've been robbed under it: robbed as a state, and now they want to rob us as individuals. Gentlemen, these men are carrying off a girl of mine worth, say fifteen hundred to two thousand. I say deliberately that, when these armed invaders come to cross this state with purposes such as that, there is full process of law under which they can be turned back. For instance, you, Colonel Dunwody, are a United States marshal. I've the honor to represent the Judiciary of this state. We haven't time now to put the matter in the hands of the courts or of the legislature. But it seems to me--"

"Men," said young Desha tersely, "we're wastin' time. We've made our medicine. Let's. .h.i.t the war trail."

Dunwody smiled at him. "You boys are hot-headed," said he.

"To h.e.l.l with the Const.i.tution!" exclaimed the Honorable William Jones suddenly.

"Well, it's one Const.i.tution against the other, anyhow," said Clayton. "You can see the intent of the North now plainly enough.

Indiana openly says she's going to make the Fugitive Slave Act impossible of enforcement. All over the North they call it immoral and unchristian--they reserve the right of interpreting both the Bible and the Const.i.tution for us--as though we weren't grown men ourselves. That's the sort of law there is back of this boat load of fools down there."

"Men, we're wastin' time!" repeated young Desha.

"Get the horses!" ordered Dunwody of the nearest black.

CHAPTER XV

THE ARBITRAMENT