The Purchase Price by Emerson Hough (ebook reader screen .txt) 📕

the county. There must be something up."

He advanced to meet the visitors. "Good morning, gentlemen. Light down, and come in."

All four got down, shook hands with Dunwody, gave their reins to servants, and joined him on his invitation to enter. Jamieson was known to all of them.

"Well, Colonel Dunwody," began the Honorable William Jones, "you didn't expect to see us so soon, did you? Reckon you'd ought to be all the gladder.

"You live here, my dear Colonel," he continued, looking about him, "in much the same state and seclusion remarked by Mr. Gibbon in his immortal work on the Decline and Fall of Rome—where he described the castles of them ancient days, located back in the mountainous regions. But it ain't no Roman road you've got, out thar."

"I was going to remark," interrupted Judge Clayton, "that Colonel Dunwody has anticipated all the modern requirements of hospitality as well as embodied all those of ancient sort. Thank you, I shall taste your bourbon, Colonel, with gladness. It is a long ride in from the river; but, following out our friend's thought, why do you live away back in here, when all your best plantations are down below? We don't see you twice a year, any more."

"Well," said the owner of Tallwoods, "my father might be better able to answer that question if he were alive. He built this for a summer place, and I use it all the year. I found the place here, and it always seemed too big to move away. We set three meals a day, even back here in the hills, and there's quite a bunch of leaves we can put on the table. The only drawback is, we don't see much company. I'm mighty glad to see you, and I'm going to keep you here now, until—"

"Until something pops open," remarked the Honorable William, over the rim of his glass. Dunwody's neighbors nodded also.

Their host looked at them for a moment. "Are you here on any special errand—but of course there must be something of the sort, to bring you two gentlemen so close on my trail."

"We met up with these gentlemen down at the river," began Yates, "and from what they done told us, we thought we'd all better ride in along together, and have a little talk with you. Looks like there might be trouble in these parts before long."

"What sort of trouble?"

"It's this-a-way," broke in the Honorable William Jones. "The jedge an' I laid off at Cairo when you-all went on through. Next day, along comes a steamer from up-river, an' she's full of northern men, headed west; a damned sight more like a fightin' army than so many settlers. They're goin' out into the purairie country beyant, an' I think it's just on the early-bird principle, to hold it ag'inst settlers from this state. They're a lot of those damned black abolitionists, that's what they are! What's more, that Lily gal of the jedge's here, she's got away agin—she turned up missin' at Cairo, too—an' she taken up with this bunch of Yankees, an' is mighty apt to git clar off."

Judge Clayton nodded gravely. "The whole North is stirred up and bound to make trouble. These men seem to have taken the girl in without hesitation. They don't intend to stand by any compromise, at least. The question is, what are we going to do about it? We can't stand here and see our property taken away by armed invaders, in this way. And yet—"

"It looks," he added slowly, a moment later, "just as Thomas Jefferson said long ago, as though this country had the wolf by the ear, and could neither hold it nor let it go. For myself—and setting aside this personal matter, which is at worst only the loss of a worthless girl—I admit I fear that this slavery wolf is going to mean trouble—big trouble—both for the South and the North, before long."

"Douglas, over there in Illinois, hasn't brought up anything in Congress yet that's stuck," broke in the ever-ready Jones. "Old Caroliny and Mississip'—them's the ones! Their conventions show where we're goin' to stand at. We'll let the wolf go, and take holt in a brand new place, that's exactly what we'll do!"

Dunwody remained silent for a time. Doctor Jamieson took snuff, and looked quietly from one to the other. "You can count me in, gentlemen," said he.

Silence fell as he went on. "If they mean fight, let them have fight. If we let in one army of abolitionists out here, to run off our property, another will follow. As soon as the railroad gets as far west as the Missouri River, they'll come out in swarms; and they will take that new country away from us. That's what they want.

"The South has been swindled all along the line," he exclaimed, rising and smiting a fist into a palm. "We got Texas, yes, but it had to be by war. We've been juggled out of California, which ought to have been a southern state. We don't want these deserts of Utah and New Mexico, for they won't raise cotton. When we try to get into Cuba, the North and all the rest of the world protests. We are cut off from growth to the south by Mexico. On the west we have these Indians located. The whole upper West is air-tight abolitionist by national law. Now, where shall we go? These abolitionists are even wedging in west of us. This damned compromise line ought to be cut off the map. We ought to have a chance to grow!"

Strange enough such speech sounds to-day,—speech demanding growth for a part of a country, denying it for the whole, speech ignoring the nationalist tendency so soon to overwhelm all bounds, all creeds in the making of a mighty America that should be a home for all the nations. But as the gray-headed old doctor went on he only voiced what was the earnest conviction of many of the ablest men of his time, both of the South and the North.

"The South has been robbed. We paid our share of the cost of this last war, in blood and in money! We paid for our share in the new territory won for the Union! And now they deny us any share of it! A little band of ranters, of fanatics, undertake to tell a great country what it shall do, what it shall think,—no matter even if that is against our own interests and against our traditions! Gentlemen, it's invasion, that's what it is, and that's my answer, so far as my honest conscience and all my wisdom go. It's war! What's the next thing to do? Judge, we can take back your girl—the legal right to do that is clean. But we all know that that may be only a beginning."

"To me, sir," ventured Judge Clayton, "the legal side of this is very clear, leaving aside our right to recover my property. They are trying to shove their fanatical beliefs down our throats with rifle barrels. We never used to stand that sort of thing down here. I don't think we will begin it now!"

The Honorable William Jones helped himself to whisky, altogether forgetting his principle of taking but one drink a day. "If them damned abolitionists would only stay at home, we could afford to sit quiet an' let 'em howl; but when they come into our dooryard an' begin to howl, it's time somethin' ought to be did. I 'low we'll have to fight."

"We will fight," said Dunwody slowly and gravely. A faint picture of the possible future was passing 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 glass 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 hello, 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 shell 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 assailed 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