Viola Gwyn Part 13

The road wound down the hill and across a clumsily constructed bridge spanning the Run and thence along the flat shelf that rimmed the bottom-land, through a maze of wild plum and hazel brush squatting, as it were, at the feet of the towering forest giants that covered the hills.

Presently the travellers came upon widely separated cabins and gardens, and then, after pa.s.sing through a lofty grove, found themselves entering the town itself. Signs of life and enterprise greeted them from all sides. Here, there and everywhere houses were in process of erection,--log-cabins, frame structures, and even an occasional brick dwelling-place. Turning into what appeared to be a well-travelled road,--(he afterwards found it to be Wabash Street), Kenneth came in the course of a few minutes to the centre of the town. Here was the little brick courthouse and the jail, standing in the middle of a square which still contained the stumps of many of the trees that originally had flourished there. At the southwest corner of the square was the tavern, a long story and a half log house,--and it was a welcome sight to Gwynne and his servant, both of whom were ravenously hungry by this time.

The former observed, with considerable satisfaction, that there were quite a number of substantial looking buildings about the square, mostly stores, all of them with hitching-racks along the edge of the dirt sidewalks. As far as the eye could reach, in every direction, the muddy streets were lined with trees.

Half a dozen men were standing in front of the tavern when the newcomers rode up. Kenneth dismounted and threw the reins to his servant. Landlord Johnson hurried out to greet him.

CHAPTER VII

THE END OF THE LONG ROAD

"We've been expecting you, Mr. Gwynne," he said in his most genial manner. "Step right in. Dinner'll soon be ready, and I reckon you must be hungry. Take the hosses around to the stable, n.i.g.g.e.r, and put 'em up. I allowed you'd be delayed some by the bad roads, but I guess you must have got a late start this mornin' from Phin Striker's. Mrs.--er--ahem! I mean your step-mother sent word that you were on the way and to have accommodations ready for you. Say, I'd like to make you acquainted with--"

"My step-mother sent word to you?" demanded Kenneth, incredulously.

"She did. What would you expect her to do, long as she knew you were headed this way? I admit she isn't specially given to worryin'

about other people's comforts, but, when you get right down to it, I guess she considers you a sort of connection of hers, spite of everything, and so she lays herself out a little. But I want to tell you one thing, Mr. Gwynne, you're not going to find her particularly cordial, as the sayin' is. She's about as stand-offish and unneighbourly as a Kickapoo Indian. But, as I was sayin', I'd like to make you acquainted with some of our leadin' citizens. This is Daniel Bugher, the recorder, and Doctor Davis, Matt Scudder, Tom Benbridge and John McCormick. It was moved and seconded, soon as you heaved in sight, that we repair at once to Sol Hamer's grocery for a little--"

"Excuse me," broke in Kenneth, laughing; "I have heard of that grocery, and I think it would be wise for me to become a little better acquainted with my surroundings before I begin trading there."

The landlord rubbed his chin and the other gentlemen laughed uproariously.

"Well," said the former, "I can see one thing mighty plain. You're going to be popular with my wife and all the other women in town.

They'll point to you and say to practically nine-tenths of the married men in Lafayette: 'There's a man that don't drink, and goodness knows HE isn't a preacher!'"

"I am hardly what you would call a teetotaler, gentlemen," said Gwynne, still smiling.

"Wait till you get down with a spell of the Wabash shakes," said Mr. McCormick. "That'll make a new man of him, won't it, Doc?"

"Depends somewhat on his const.i.tution and the way he was brought up," said the doctor, with a professional frown which slowly relaxed into an unprofessional smile.

"I was brought up by my grandmother," explained Kenneth, vastly amused.

"That settles it," groaned Mr. Johnson. "You're not long for this world. Before we go in I wish you'd take a look at the new courthouse.

We're mighty proud of that building. There isn't a finer courthouse in the state of Indiana,--or maybe I'd better say there won't be if it's ever finished." "I noticed it as I came by," said the newcomer, dismissing the structure with a glance. "If you will conduct me to my room, Mr. Johnson, I--"

"Just a second," broke in the landlord, his gaze fixed on a horseman who had turned into the street some distance below. "Here comes Barry Lapelle,--down there by that clump of sugar trees. He's the most elegant fellow we've got in town, and you'll want to know him.

Makes Lafayette his headquarters most of the--"

"I have met Mr. Lapelle," interrupted Kenneth. "This morning, out in the country."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Johnson. The citizens exchanged a general look of surprise.

"Thought you said he went down the river on yesterday's boat," said Scudder.

"That's just what he did," said Johnson, puzzled. "Packed some of his things and said he'd be gone a week or so. He must have got off at Attica,--but, no, he couldn't have got here this soon by road.

By glory, I hope the boat didn't strike a snag or a rock, or run ash.o.r.e somewhere. Looks kind of serious, boys."

"Couldn't he have landed almost anywhere in a skiff?" inquired Gwynne, his eyes on the approaching horseman.

"Certainly he could,--but why? He had business down at Covington, he said."

"He told me this morning he had very important business here.

That is why he could not ride in with me," said Kenneth, affecting indifference. "By the way, is he riding his own horse?"

"Yes," said Benbridge. "That's his mare Fancy,--thoroughbred filly by King Philip out of Shawnee Belle. He sent her down to Joe Fell's to stud yesterday and--Say, that accounts for him being on her now. You made a good guess, Mr. Gwynne. He must have landed at La Grange, rowed across the river, and hoofed it up to Fell's farm. But what do you suppose made him change his mind so suddenly?"

"He'll probably tell you to go to thunder if you ask him," said the landlord.

"I'm not going to ask him anything," retorted Benbridge.

"He's working tooth and nail against the Wabash and Erie Ca.n.a.l that's projected to run from Lake Erie to the mouth of the Tippecanoe, Mr. Gwynne," said one of the citizens. "But it's coming through in spite of him and all the rest of the river hogs."

"I see," said the young man, a grim smile playing about his lips.

He knew that the mare Fancy had been in waiting for her master when he clambered ash.o.r.e on the river bank opposite La Grange, and he also suspected that the little steamboat had remained tied up at the landing all night long and well into the morning, expecting two pa.s.sengers who failed to come aboard. He could not suppress a chuckle of satisfaction.

Lapelle rode up at this instant and, throwing the bridle rein to a boy who had come running up from the stable, dismounted quickly.

He came straight to Gwynne, smiling cordially.

"I see you beat me in. After we parted I decided to cut through the woods to have a look at Jack Moxley's keel boat, stuck in the mud on this side of the river. You'd think the blame fool would have sense enough to keep well out in mid stream at a time like this. Happy to have you here with us, and I hope you will like us well enough to stay."

"Thank you. I shall like you all better after I have had something to eat," said Kenneth.

"And drink," added Lapelle. It was then that Kenneth noticed that his eyes were slightly blurred and his voice a trifle thick. He had been drinking.

"What turned you back, Barry?" inquired McCormick. "Thought you were to be gone a week or--"

"Changed my mind," said Lapelle curtly, and then, apparently on second thought, added: "I got off the boat at La Grange and crossed over to spend the night at Martin Hawk's, the man you saw with me this morning, Mr. Gwynne. He is a hunter down Middleton way. I fish and hunt with him a good deal. Well, I reckon I'd better go in and get out of these muddy boots and pants."

Without another word, he strode up the steps, across the porch and into the tavern, his head high, his gait noticeably unsteady.

"Martin Hawk!" growled the landlord. "The orneriest cuss this side of h.e.l.l. Plain no-good scalawag. Barry'll find it out some day, and then maybe he'll wish he had paid some attention to what I've been tellin' him."

"Wouldn't surprise me a bit if Mart knows a whole lot more about what became of some mighty good yearlin' colts that used to belong to honest men down on the Wea," said one of the group, darkly.

"I wouldn't trust Mart Hawk as far as I could throw a thousand pound rock," observed Mr. Johnson, compressing his lips. "Well, come on in, Mr. Gwynne, and slick up a bit. The dinner bell will be ringin'

in a few minutes, and I want you to meet the cook before you risk eatin' any of her victuals. My wife's the cook, so you needn't look scared. Governor n.o.ble almost died of over-feedin' the last time he was here,--but that wasn't her fault. And my daughters, big and little, seem anxious to get acquainted with the celebrated Kenneth Gwynne. People have been talkin' so much about you for the last six months that nearly everybody calls you by your first name, and Jim Crouch's wife is so taken with it that she has made up her mind to call her baby Kenneth,--that is, providing nature does the right thing. Next week some time, ain't it, Doc?"

"That's what most everybody in town says, Bob," replied the doctor solemnly, "so I guess it must be true."

"We begin counting the inhabitants of the town as far as a month ahead sometimes," explained Mr. McCormick drily. "I don't know as we've been out of the way more than a day or a day-and-a-half on any baby that's been born here in the last two years. Hope to see you in my store down there, Mr. Gwynne--any time you're pa.s.sing that way. You can't miss it. It's just across the street from that white frame building with the green stripes running criss-cross on the front door,--Joe Hanna's store."

"Robert Gwyn's son is always welcome at my store and my home," said another cordially. "We didn't know till last fall that he had a son, and--well, I hope you don't mind my saying we couldn't believe it at first."