Winning the Wilderness Part 16

"And you cannot promise that any more will be coming soon?" The pathos of the woman's voice was appealing.

"If you could only understand how poor and how brave those settlers are!"

"I thought your man had some little means to get you and him away, if he'd use it that way."

The sorrow of failure here and the suffering that must follow it made Virginia sick at heart. A homesick longing suddenly possessed her; a wish to get away from the country and forget it altogether. And Champers was cunning enough to understand.

"You'd just like to get away from it, now, wouldn't you?" he asked persuasively.

"I surely would, when I think of the suffering there will be," Virginia replied. "Our staying won't help matters any."

"Not a bit! Not a bit," Champers a.s.serted. "It's too bad you can't go."

Virginia looked up wonderingly.

"Madam, I haven't no supplies. They're all gone, I think. But if you'll come in right after dinner, I'll see if I can't do something. I'm a humane man."

"I'll be here at one o'clock," she replied.

It was the last hope, and anything was better than utter failure in her errand.

When she registered her name at the hotel for dinner, Virginia's eye was caught by the two names on the page. Both belonged to strangers, but it was the sharp contrast of the writing that made her read them. One recorded in a cramped little hand the name of Thomas Smith, Wilmington, Delaware. The other in big, even, backward slanting letters spelled out the name of John Jacobs, Cincinnati, Ohio.

The dining room was crowded with men when Virginia entered. Whoever is hunting for evidence of good breeding and unselfishness, must not expect too much in any eating-house, be it dining car on the Empire Limited or grub shack on the western frontier, if only men are accustomed to feed there. The best places were filled with noisy talkers and eaters, who stared at her indifferently, and it was not until Gretchen Wyker, tow-haired, pimpled, and short-necked like her father, chose to do so, that she finally pointed out a chair at a shabby side table and waved her empty tin waiter toward it. Virginia was pa.s.sing the long table of staring men to reach this seat, when a man rose from the small table at the other side of the room and crossed hastily to her.

"Excuse me, madam," he said politely. "Will you come over to our table? We are strangers to you, but you will get better service here than you might get alone. My name is Jacobs. I saw you in the store this morning, and I know nearly every man in your settlement."

It was a small service, truly, but to Virginia it was a grateful one in that embarra.s.sing moment.

"You can take Dr. Carey's place. He's away today, locating a claim on the upper fork of Gra.s.s River somewhere. He hasn't been back a month, but he's busy as ever. Tell me about your neighborhood," Jacobs said.

Virginia told the story of the community that differed little from the story of the whole frontier line of Kansas settlements in the early seventies.

"Do you have hope of help through Mr. Champers?" Jacobs asked.

"I don't know what to hope for from Mr. Champers. He seems kind-hearted,"

Virginia replied.

"I hope you will find him a real friend. He is pretty busy with a man from the East today," Jacobs answered, with a face so neutral in its expression that Virginia wondered what his thought might be.

As she rose to leave the table, Mr. Jacobs said:

"I shall be interested in knowing how you succeed this afternoon. I hope you may not be disappointed. I happen to know that there are funds and goods both on hand. It's a matter of getting them distributed without prejudice."

"You are very kind, Mr. Jacobs," Virginia replied. "It is a desperate case. I feel as if I should be ready to leave the West if I do not get relief for our neighborhood today."

Jacobs looked at her keenly. "Can you go?" he asked. "I wonder you have waited until now."

"I've never wanted to go before. I wouldn't now. I could stand it for our household." The dark eyes flashed with the old Thaine will to do as she pleased. "But it is my sympathy for other people, for our sick, for discouraged men."

Jacobs smiled kindly and bowed as she left the room.

When she returned to Champers' office Mr. Thomas Smith was already there, his small frame and narrow, close-set eyes and secretive manner seeming out of place in the breezy atmosphere of the plain, outspoken West of the settlement days. In the conversation that followed it seemed to Virginia that he controlled all of the real estate dealer's words.

"I am sorry to say that there ain't anything left in the way of supplies, Mrs. Aydelot, except what's reserved for worthy parties. I've looked over things carefully." Darley Champers broke the silence at once.

"Who draws the line between the worthy and the unworthy, Mr. Champers?"

Virginia asked. "I am told the relief supply is not exhausted."

"Oh, the distributin's in my hands in a way, but that don't change matters," Champers said.

"I read the rulings in the postoffice," Virginia began.

"Yes, I had 'em put there. It saves a lot of misunderstandin'," the guardian of supplies declared. "But it don't change anything here."

Virginia knew that her case was lost and she rose to leave the room. She had instinctively distrusted Darley Champers from their first meeting. She had disliked him as an ill-bred, bl.u.s.tering sort of man, but she had not thought him vindictive until now. Now she saw in him a stubborn, unforgiving man, small enough to work out of petty spite to the complete downfall of any who dared oppose his plans.

"Sit down, Mrs. Aydelot. As I said this mornin', it's too bad you can't go back East now," Champers said seriously.

"We can." Virginia could not keep back the words.

Champers and Smith exchanged glances.

"No, mom, you can't, Mrs. Aydelot. Let me show you why."

He opened the drawer of his rickety desk and out of a ma.s.s of papers he fished up a copy of the _Cincinnati Enquirer_, six weeks old. "Look at this," and he thrust it into Virginia's hand.

The head-lines were large, but the story was brief. The failure of the Cloverdale bank, the disappearance of the trusted cashier, the loss of deposits--a story too common to need detail. Virginia Aydelot never knew until that moment how much that reserve fund had really meant to her. She had need of the inherited pride of the Thaines now.

"The papers are not always accurate," she said quietly.

"No, mom. But Mr. Smith here has interests in Cloverdale. He's just come from there, and he says it's even worse than this states it."

Virginia looked toward Mr. Smith, who nodded a.s.sent.

"The failure is complete. Fortunately, I lost but little," he said.

"Why hasn't Mr. Aydelot been notified?" she demanded.

"It does seem queer he wasn't," Thomas Smith a.s.sented.

Something in his face made Virginia distrust him more than she distrusted Darley Champers.

"Now, Mrs. Aydelot, seein' your last bridge is burned, I'm humane enough to help you. You said this mornin' you wanted to get away. Mr. Smith and I control some funds together, and he's willing to take Shirley's place and I'll give you a reasonable figger, not quite so good as I could 'a done previous to this calamity--but I'll take the Aydelot place off your hands." Champers smiled triumphantly.

"The Aydelot place is not for sale. Good afternoon." And Virginia left the office without more words.

When she was gone Champers turned to Smith with a growl.