"You're infant enough, I'm sure," said Albert, "and whether you are privileged or not, you certainly take liberties that almost any other man would get knocked down for."

"Oh! well, don't let's be cross. Spoils our faces and voices, Mr. Charlton, to be cross. For my part, I'm the laughin' philosopher—the giggling philosopher, by George! he! he! Come Katy, let's walk."

Katy was glad enough to get her lover away fro her brother. She hated quarreling, and didn't see why people couldn't be peaceable. And so she took Mr. Westcott's arm, and they walked out, that gentleman stopping to strike a match and light his cigar at the door, and calling back, "Dood by, all, dood by! Adieu, Monsieur Sawney, au revoir!" Before he had passed out of the gate he was singing lustily:

"Ten little, nine little, eight little Injun; Seven little, six little, five little Injun; Four, little, three little, two little Injun; One little Injun girl!

"He! he! By George! Best joke, for the time of the year, I ever heard."

"I think," said Mrs. Ferret, after Katy and her lover had gone—she spoke rapidly by jerks, with dashes between—"I think, Mr. Sawney—that you are worthy of commendation—I do, indeed—for your praiseworthy stand—against Romanism. I don't know what will become of our liberties—if the priests ever get control—of this country."

Sawney tried to talk, but was so annoyed by the quick effrontery with which Westcott had carried the day that he could not say anything quite to his own satisfaction. At last Dave rose to go, and said he had thought maybe he mout git a chance to explain things to Miss Charlton ef Mr. Westcott hadn't gone off with her. But he'd come agin. He wanted to know ef Albert thought her feelin's was hurt by what he'd done in offerin to make a cawntrack with Perritaut. And Albert assured him he didn't think they were in the least. He had never heard Katy mention the matter, except to laugh about it.

At the gate Mr. Sawney met the bland, gentlemanly Plausaby, Esq., who took him by the hand soothingly, and spoke of his services in the late election matter with the highest appreciation.

Dave asked the squire what he thought of the chance of his succeeding with Miss Charlton. He recited to Plausaby his early advantages. "You know, Squire, I was raised rich, cradled in the lap of luxury. Ef I ha'n't got much book-stuffin' in my head, 'ta'n't fer want of schoolin'. I never larnt much, but then I had plenty of edication; I went to school every winter hand-runnin' tell I was twenty-two, and went to singin' every Sunday arternoon. 'Ta'n't like as ef I'd been brought up poar, weth no chance to larn. I've had the schoolin' anyway, and it's all the same. An' I've got a good claim, half timber, and runnin' water onter it, and twenty acre of medder. I s'pose mebbe she don't like my going' arter that air Frenchman's gal. But I didn't mean no 'fense, you know—ten thousand in yaller gold's a nice thing to a feller like me what's been raised rich, and's kinder used to havin' and not much used to gittin'. I wouldn't want her to take no 'fense, you know. 'Ta'n't like's ef I'd a-loved the red-skin Catholic. I hadn' never seed 'er. It wasn't the gal, it was the money I hankered arter. So Miss Charlton needn' be jealous, nor juberous, like's ef I was agoin' to wish I'd a married the Injun. I'd feel satisfied with Kate Charlton ef you think she'd be with David Sawney!"

"That's a delicate subject—quite a delicate subject for me to speak about, Mr. Sawney. To say anything about. But I may assure you that I appreciate your services in our late battle. Appreciate them highly. Quite highly. Very, indeed. I have no friend that I think more highly of. None. I think I could indicate to you a way by which you might remove any unfavorable impression from Miss Charlton's mind. Any unfavorable impression."

"Anythin' you tell me to do, squire, I'll do. I'd mos' skelp the ole man Perritaut, and his darter too, ef you said it would help me to cut out that insultin' Smith Westcott, and carry off Miss Charlton. I don't know as I ever seed a gal that quite come up to her, in my way of thinkin'. Now, squire, what is it?"

"Well, Mr. Sawney, we carried the election the other day and got the county-seat. Got it fairly, by six majority. After a hard battle. A very hard battle. Very. Expensive contest, too. I pay men that work for me. Always pay 'em. Always. Now, then, we are going to have trouble to get possession, unless we do something bold. Something bold. They mean to contest the election. They've got the court on their side. On their side, I'm afraid. They will get an injunction if we try to move the records. Sure to. Now, if I was a young man I'd move them suddenly before they had time. Possession is nine points. Nine points of law. They may watch the records at night. But they could be moved in the daytime by some man that they did not suspect. Easily. Quite so. County buildings are in the edge of town. Nearly everybody away at noon. Nearly everybody."

"Wal, squire, I'd cawntrack to do it"

"I couldn't make a contract, you see. I'm a magistrate. Conspiracy and all that. But I always help a man that helps me. Always. In more ways than one. There are two reasons why a man might do that job. Two of them. One is love, and the other's money. Love and money. But I mustn't appear in the matter. Not at all. I'll do what I can for you. What I can. Katy will listen to me. She certainly will. Do what you think best."

"I a'n't dull 'bout takin' a hint, squire." And Dave winked his left eye at the squire in a way that said, "Trust me! I'm no fool!"



CHAPTER XVIII.

A COLLISION.

If this were a History of Metropolisville—but it isn't, and that is enough. You do not want to hear, and I do not want to tell you, how Dave Sawney, like another Samson, overthrew the Philistines; how he sauntered into the room where all the county officers did business together, he and his associates, at noon, when most of the officers were gone to dinner; how he seized the records—there were not many at that early day—loaded them into his wagon, and made off. You don't want to hear all that. If you do, call on Dave himself. He has told it over and over to everybody who would listen, from that time to this, and he would cheerfully get out of bed at three in the morning to tell it again, with the utmost circumstantiality, and with such little accretions of fictitious ornament as always gather about a story often and fondly told. Neither do you, gentle reader, who read for your own amusement, care to be informed of all the schemes devised by Plausaby for removing the county officers to their offices, nor of the town lots and other perquisites which accrued to said officers. It is sufficient for the purposes of this story that the county-seat was carted off to Metropolisville, and abode there in basswood tabernacles for a while, and that it proved a great advertisement to the town; money was more freely invested in Metropolisville, an "Academy" was actually staked out, and the town grew rapidly. Not alone on account of its temporary political importance did it advance, for about this time Plausaby got himself elected a director of the St. Paul and Big Gun River Valley Land Grant Railroad, and the speculators, who scent a railroad station at once, began to buy lots—on long time, to be sure, and yet to buy them. So much did the fortunes of Plausaby, Esq., prosper that he began to invest also—on time and at high rates of interest—in a variety of speculations. It was the fashion of '56 to invest everything you had in first payments, and then to sell out at an advance before the second became due.

But it is not about Plausaby or Metropolisville that I meant to tell you in this chapter. Nor yet about the wooing of Charlton. For in his case, true love ran smoothly. Too smoothly for the interest of this history. If Miss Minorkey had repelled his suit, if she had steadfastly remained cold, disdainful, exacting, it would have been better, maybe, for me who have to tell the story, and for you who have to read it. But disdainful she never was, and she did not remain cold. The enthusiasm of her lover was contagious, and she came to write and talk to him with much earnestness. Next to her own comfort and peace of mind and her own culture, she prized her lover. He was original, piquant, and talented. She was proud of him, and loved him with all her heart. Not as a more earnest person might have loved; but as heartily as she could. And she came to take on the color of her lover's habits of thought and feeling; she expressed herself even more warmly than she felt, so that Albert was happy, and this story was doomed to suffer because of his happiness. I might give zest to this dull love-affair by telling you that Mr. Minorkey opposed the match. Next to a disdainful lady-love, the best thing for a writer and a reader is a furious father. But I must be truthful at all hazards, and I am obliged to say that while Mr. Minorkey would have been delighted to have had for son-in-law some man whose investments might have multiplied Helen's inheritance, he was yet so completely under the influence of his admired daughter that he gave a consent, tacitly at least, to anything she chose to do. So that Helen became recognized presently as the prospective Mrs. Charlton. Mrs. Plausaby liked her because she wore nice dresses, and Katy loved her because she loved Brother Albert. For that matter, Katy did not need any reason for loving anybody. Even Isa stifled a feeling she was unable to understand, and declared that Miss Minorkey was smart, and just suited to Albert; and she supposed that Albert, with all his crotchets and theories, might make a person like Miss Minorkey happy. It wasn't every woman that could put up with them, you know.

But it was not about the prosperous but uninteresting courtship of two people with "idees" that I set out to tell in this chapter. If Charlton got on smoothly with Helen Minorkey, and if he had no more serious and one-sided outbreaks with his step-father, he did not get on with his sister's lover.

Westcott had been drinking all of one night with some old cronies of the Elysian Club, and his merry time of the night was subsiding into a quarrelsome time in the morning. He was able, when he was sober, to smother his resentment towards Albert, for there is no better ambush than an entirely idiotic giggle. But drink had destroyed his prudence. And so when Albert stepped on the piazza of the hotel where Westcott stood rattling his pocketful of silver change and his keys for the amusement of the bystanders, as was his wont, the latter put himself in Charlton's way, and said, in a dreary, half-drunk style:



"Mornin', Mr. Hedgehog! By George! he! he! he! How's the purty little girl? My little girl. Don't you wish she wasn't? Hard feller, I am. Any gal's a fool to marry me, I s'pose. Katy's a fool. That's just what I want, by George I he! he! I want a purty fool. And she's purty, and she's—the other thing. What you goin' to do about it? He! he! he!"

"I'm going to knock you down," said Albert, "if you say another word about her."

"A'n't she mine? You can't help it, either. He! he! The purty little goose loves Smith Westcott like lots of other purty little—"

Before he could finish the sentence Charlton had struck him one savage blow full in the face, and sent him staggering back against the side of the house, but he saved himself from falling by seizing the window-frame, and immediately drew his Deringer. Charlton, who was not very strong, but who had a quick, lightning-like activity, knocked him down, seized his pistol, and threw it into the street. This time Charlton fell on him in a thoroughly murderous mood, and would perhaps have beaten and choked him to death in the frenzy of his long pent-up passion, for notwithstanding Westcott's struggles Albert had the advantage. He was sober, active, and angry enough to be ruthless. Westcott's friends interfered, but that lively gentleman's eyes and nose were sadly disfigured by the pummeling he had received, and Charlton was badly scratched and bruised.

Whatever hesitancy had kept Albert from talking to Katy about Smith Westcott was all gone now, and he went home to denounce him bitterly. One may be sure that the muddled remarks of Mr. Westcott about Katy—of which even he had grace to be a little ashamed when he was sober—were not softened in the repetition which Albert gave them at home. Even Mrs. Plausaby forgot her attire long enough to express her indignation, and as for Miss Marlay, she combined with Albert in a bayonet-charge on poor Katy.

Plausaby had always made it a rule not to fight a current. Wait till the tide turns, he used to say, and row with the stream when it flows your way. So now he, too, denounced Westcott, and Katy was fairly borne off her feet for a while by the influences about her. In truth, Katy was not without her own private and personal indignation against Westcott. Not because he had spoken of her as a fool. That hurt her feelings, but did not anger her much. She was not in the habit of getting angry on her own account. But when she saw three frightful scratches and a black bruise on the face of Brother Albert, she could not help thinking that Smith had acted badly. And then to draw a pistol, too! To threaten to kill her own dear, dear brother! She couldn't ever forgive him, she said. If she had seen the much more serious damage which poor, dear, dear Smith had suffered at the tender hands of her dear, dear brother, I doubt not she would have had an equally strong indignation against Albert.

For Westcott's face was in mourning, and the Privileged Infant had lost his cheerfulness. He did not giggle for ten days. He did not swear "by George" once. He did not he! he! The joyful keys and the cheerful ten-cent coins lay in his pocket with no loving hand to rattle them. He did not indulge in double-shuffles. He sang no high-toned negro-minstrel songs. He smoked steadily and solemnly, and he drank steadily and solemnly. His two clerks were made to tremble. They forgot Smith's bruised nose and swollen eye in fearing his awful temper. All the swearing he wanted to do and dared not do at Albert, he did at his inoffensive subordinates.

Smith Westcott had the dumps. No sentimental heart-break over Katy, though he did miss her company sadly in a town where there were no amusements, not even a concert-saloon in which a refined young man could pass an evening. If he had been in New York now, he wouldn't have minded it. But in a place like Metropolisville, a stupid little frontier village of pious and New Englandish tendencies—in such a place, as Smith pathetically explained to a friend, one can't get along without a sweetheart, you know.

A few days after Albert's row with Westcott he met George Gray, the Hoosier Poet, who had haunted Metropolisville, off and on, ever since he had first seen the "angel."

He looked more wild and savage than usual.

"Hello! my friend," said Charlton heartily. "I'm glad to see you. What's the matter?"

"Well, Mister Charlton, I'm playin' the gardeen angel."

"Guardian angel! How's that?"

"I'm a sorter gardeen of your sister. Do you see that air pistol? Hey? Jist as sure as shootin,' I'll kill that Wes'cott ef he tries to marry that angel. I don't want to marry her. I aint fit, mister, that's a fack. Ef I was, I'd put in fer her. But I aint. And ef she marries a gentleman, I haint got not a bit of right to object. But looky hyer! Devils haint got no right to angels. Ef I kin finish up a devil jest about the time he gits his claws onto a angel and let the angel go free, why, I say it's wuth the doin'. Hey?"

Charlton, I am ashamed to say, did not at first think the death of Smith Westcott by violence a very great crime or calamity, if it served to save Katy. However, as he walked and talked with Gray, the thought of murder made him shudder, and he made an earnest effort to persuade the Inhabitant to give up his criminal thoughts. But it is the misfortune of people like George Gray that the romance in their composition will get into their lives. They have not mental discipline enough to make the distinction between the world of sentiment and the world of action, in which inflexible conditions modify the purpose.

"Ef I hev to hang fer it I'll hang, but I'm goin' to be her gardeen angel."

"I didn't know that guardian angels carried pistols," said Albert, trying to laugh the half-crazed fellow out of a conceit from which he could not drive him by argument.

"Looky hyer, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, coloring, "I thought you was a gentleman, and wouldn' stoop to make no sech a remark. Ef you're goin' to talk that-a-way, you and me don't travel no furder on the same trail. The road forks right here, mister."

"Oh! I hope not, my dear friend. I didn't mean any offense. Give me your hand, and God bless you for your noble heart."

Gray was touched as easily one way as the other, and he took Charlton's hand with emotion, at the same time drawing his sleeve across his eyes and saying, "God bless you, Mr. Charlton. You can depend on me. I'm the gardeen, and I don't keer two cents fer life. It's a shadder, and a mush-room, as I writ some varses about it wonst. Let me say 'em over:

"Life's a shadder, Never mind it. A cloud kivers up the sun And whar is yer shadder gone? Ye'll hey to be peart to find it!

"Life's a ladder— What about it? You've clim half-way t' the top, Down comes yer ladder ke-whop! You can't scrabble up without it!

"Nothin's no sadder, Kordin to my tell, Than packin' yer life around. They's good rest under the ground Ef a feller kin on'y die well."

Charlton, full of ambition, having not yet tasted the bitterness of disappointment, clinging to life as to all, was fairly puzzled to understand the morbid sadness of the Poet's spirit. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Gray," he said. "But at any rate promise me you won't do anything desperate without talking to me."

"I'll do that air, Mr. Charlton," and the two shook hands again.



CHAPTER XIX.

STANDING GUARD IN VAIN.

It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again. Her practical intellect, bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its kindness to the individual.

Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present state of feeling. He saw how she would inevitably slip through his fingers. But what to do he knew not. So, like most men of earnest and half-visionary spirit, he did nothing. Unbeliever in Providence that he was, he waited in the belief that something must happen to help him out of the difficulty. Isa, believer that she was, set herself to be her own Providence.

Albert had been spending an evening with Miss Minorkey. He spent nearly all his evenings with Miss Minorkey. He came home, and stood a minute, as was his wont, looking at the prairie landscape. A rolling prairie is like a mountain, in that it perpetually changes its appearance; it is delicately susceptible to all manner of atmospheric effects. It lay before him in the dim moonlight, indefinite; a succession of undulations running one into the other, not to be counted nor measured. All accurate notions of topography were lost; there was only landscape, dim, undeveloped, suggestive of infinitude. Standing thus in the happiness of loving and being loved, the soft indefiniteness of the landscape and the incessant hum of the field-crickets and katydids, sounds which came out of the everywhere, soothed Charlton like the song of a troubadour.

"Mr. Charlton!"

Like one awaking from a dream, Albert saw Isa Marlay, her hand resting against one of the posts which supported the piazza-roof, looking even more perfect and picturesque than ever in the haziness of the moonlight. Figure, dress, and voice were each full of grace and sweetness, and if the face was not exactly beautiful, it was at least charming and full of a subtle magnetism. (Magnetism! happy word, with which we cover the weakness of our thoughts, and make a show of comprehending and defining qualities which are neither comprehensible nor definable!)

"Mr. Charlton, I want to speak to you about Katy."

It took Albert a moment or two to collect his thoughts. When he first perceived Miss Marlay, she seemed part of the landscape. There was about her form and motion an indefinable gracefulness that was like the charm of this hazy, undulant, moonlit prairie, and this blue sky seen through the lace of thin, milk-white clouds. It was not until she spoke Katy's name that he began to return to himself. Katy was the one jarring string in the harmony of his hopes.

"About Katy? Certainly, Miss Marlay. Won't you sit down?"

"No, I thank you."

"Mr. Charlton, couldn't you get Katy away while her relations with Westcott are broken? You don't know how soon she'll slip back into her old love for him."

"If—" and Albert hesitated. To go, he must leave Miss Minorkey. And the practical difficulty presented itself to him at the same moment. "If I could raise money enough to get away, I should go. But Mr. Plausaby has all of my money and all of Katy's."

Isabel was on the point of complaining that Albert should lend to Mr. Plausaby, but she disliked to take any liberty, even that of reproof. Ever since she knew that the family had thought of marrying her to Albert, she had been an iceberg to him. He should not dare to think that she had any care for him. For the same reason, another reply died unuttered on her lips. She was about to offer to lend Mr. Charlton fifty dollars of her own. But her quick pride kept her back, and, besides, fifty dollars was not half-enough. She said she thought there must be some way of raising the money. Then, as if afraid she had been too cordial and had laid her motives open to suspicion in speaking thus to Charlton, she drew herself up and bade him good-night with stiff politeness, leaving him half-fascinated by her presence, half-vexed with something in her manner, and wholly vexed with himself for having any feeling one way or the other. What did he care for Isabel Marlay? What if she were graceful and full of a subtle fascination of presence? Why should he value such things? What were they worth, after all? What if she were kind one minute and repellent the next? Isa Marlay was nothing to him!

Lying in his little unfinished chamber, he dismissed intellectual Miss Minorkey from his mind with regret; he dismissed graceful but practical Miss Marlay from his mind also, wondering that he had to dismiss her at all, and gave himself to devising ways and means of eloping with little Katy. She must be gotten away. It was evident that Plausaby would make no effort to raise money to help him and Katy to get away. Plausaby would prefer to detain Katy. Clearly, to proceed to pre-empt his claim, to persuade Plausaby to raise money enough for him to buy a land-warrant with, and then to raise two hundred dollars by mortgaging his land to Minorkey or any other lover of mortgages with waiver clauses in them, was the only course open.

Plausaby, Esq., was ever prompt in dealing with those to whom he was indebted, so far as promises went. He would always give the most solemn assurance of his readiness to do anything one wished to have done; and so, when Albert explained to him that it was necessary for him to pre-empt because he wished to go East, Plausaby told him to go on and establish his residence on his claim, and when he got ready to prove up and pre-empt, to come to him. To come and let him know. To let him know at once. He made the promise so frankly and so repetitiously, and with such evident consciousness of his own ability and readiness to meet his debt to Albert on demand, that the latter went away to his claim in quietness and hopefulness, relying on Miss Marlay to stand guard over his sister's love affairs in his absence.

But standing guard was not of much avail. All of the currents that flowed about Katy's life were undermining her resolution not to see Smith Westcott. Katy, loving, sweet, tenderhearted, was far from being a martyr, in stubbornness at best; her resolutions were not worth much against her sympathies. And now that Albert's scratched face was out of sight, and there was no visible object to keep alive her indignation, she felt her heart full of ruth for poor, dear Mr. Westcott. How lonesome he must be without her! She could only measure his lonesomeness by her own. Her heart, ever eager to love, could not let go when once it had attached itself, and she longed for other evenings in which she could hear Smith's rattling talk, and in which he would tell her how happy she had made him. How lonesome he must be! What if he should drown himself in the lake?

Mr. Plausaby, at tea, would tell in the most incidental way of something that had happened during the day, and then, in his sliding, slipping, repetitious, back-stitching fashion, would move round from one indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over Smith Westcott's name.

"By the way," he would say, "poor Smith looks heartbroken. Absolutely heart-broken. I didn't know the fellow cared so much for Katy. Didn't think he had so much heart. So much faithfulness. But he looks down. Very much downcast. Never saw a fellow look so chopfallen. And, by the way, Albert did punish him awfully. He looks black and blue. Well, he deserved it. He did so. I suppose he didn't mean to say anything against Katy. But he had no business to let old friends coax him to drink. Still, Albert was pretty severe. Too severe, in fact. I'm sorry for Westcott. I am, indeed."

After some such talk as this, Cousin Isa would generally find Katy crying before bed-time.

"What is the matter, Katy, dear?" she would say in a voice so full of natural melody and genuine sympathy, that it never failed to move Katy to the depths of her heart. Then Katy would cry more than ever, and fling her arms about the neck of dear, dear, dear Cousin Isa, and lavish on her the tenderness of which her heart was full.

"O Cousin Isa! what must I do? I'm breaking poor Smith's heart. You don't know how much he loves me, and I'm afraid something dreadful will happen to him, you know. What shall I do?"

"I don't think he cares much, Katy. He's a bad man, I'm afraid, and doesn't love you really. Don't think any more of him." For Isabel couldn't find it in her heart to say to Katy just what she thought of Westcott.

"Oh! but you don't know him," Katy cries. "You don't know him. He says that he does naughty things sometimes, but then he's got such a tender heart. He made me promise I wouldn't throw him over, as he called it, for his faults. He said he'd come to be good if I'd only keep on loving him. And I said I would. And I haven't. Here's more than a week now that he hasn't been here, and I haven't been to the store. And he said he'd go to sleep in the lake some night if I ever, ever proved false to him. And I lie awake nearly all night thinking how hard and cruel I've been to him. And oh!"—here Katy cried awhile—"and oh! I think such awful things sometimes," she continued in a whisper broken by sobs. "You don't know, Cousin Isa. I think how cold, how dreadful cold the lake must be! Oo-oo!" And a shudder shook her frame. "If poor, dear Smith were to throw himself in! What if he is there now?" And she looked up at Isa with staring eyes. "Do you know what an awful thing I heard about that lake once?" She stopped and shivered. "There are leeches in it—nasty, black worms—and one of them bit my hand once. And they told me that if a person should be drowned in Diamond Lake the leeches would—oo!—take all their blood, and their faces would be white, and not black like other drowned people's faces. Oh! I can't bear to think about poor Smith. If I could only write him a note, and tell him I love him just a little! But I told Albert I wouldn't see him nor write to him. What shall I do? He mayn't live till morning. They say he looks broken-hearted. He'll throw himself into that cold lake to-night, maybe—and the leeches—the black worms—oo!—or else he'll kill himself with that ugly pistol."

It was in vain that Isabel talked to her, in vain that she tried to argue with a cataract of feeling. It was rowing against Niagara with a canoe-paddle. It was not wonderful, therefore, that before Albert got back, Isa Marlay found Katy reading little notes from Westcott, notes that ho had intrusted to one of his clerks, who was sent to the post-office three or four times a day on various pretexts, until he should happen to find Katy in the office. Then he would hand her the notes. Katy did not reply. She had promised Albert she wouldn't. But there was no harm in her reading them, just to keep Smith from drowning himself among those black leeches in Diamond Lake.

Isabel Marlay, in her distressful sense of responsibility to Albert, could yet find no means of breaking up this renewed communication. In sheer desperation, she appealed to Mrs. Plausaby.

"Well, now," said that lady, sitting in state with the complacent consciousness of a new and more stunning head-dress than usual, "I'll tell you what it is, Isabel, I think Albert makes altogether too much fuss over Katy's affairs. He'll break the girl's heart. He's got notions. His father had. Deliver me from notions! Just let Katy take her own course. Marryin's a thing everybody must attend to personally for themselves. You don't like to be meddled with, and neither does Albert. You won't either of you marry to suit me. I have had my plans about you and Albert. Now, Isabel, Mr. Westcott's a nice-looking man. With all his faults he's a nice man. Cheerful and good-natured in his talk, and a good provider. He's a store-keeper, too. It's nice to have a storekeeper for a husband. I want Plausaby to keep store, so that I can get dresses and such things without having to pay for them. I felt mad at Mr. Westcott about his taking out his pistol so at Albert. But if Albert had let Mr. Westcott alone, I'm sure Smith wouldn't a-touched him. But your folks with notions are always troubling somebody else. For my part, I shan't meddle with Katy. Do you think this bow's nice? Too low down, isn't it?" and Mrs. Plausaby went to the glass to adjust it.

And so it happened that all Isa Marlay's watching could not keep Westcott away. For the land-office regulations at that time required that Albert should live on his claim thirty days. This gave him the right to buy it at a dollar and a quarter an acre, or to exchange a land-warrant for it. The land was already worth two or three times the government price. But that thirty days of absence, broken only by one or two visits to his home, was enough to overturn all that Charlton had done in breaking up his sister's engagement with Westcott. The latter knew how long Albert's absence must be, and arranged his approaches to correspond. He gave her fifteen days to get over her resentment, and to begin to pity him on account of the stories of his incurable melancholy she would hear. After he had thus suffered her to dream of his probable suicide for a fortnight, he contrived to send her one little lugubrious note, confessing that he had been intoxicated and begging her pardon. Then he waited three days, days of great anxiety to her. For Katy feared lest her neglect to return an answer should precipitate Westcott's suicide. But he did not need an answer. Her looks when she received the note had been reported to him. What could he need more? On the very evening after he had sent that contrite note to Katy, announcing that he would never drink again, he felt so delighted with what he had heard of its reception, that he treated a crony out of his private bottle as they played cards together in his room, and treated himself quite as liberally as he did his friend, got up in the middle of the floor, and assured his friend that he would be all right with his sweet little girl before the brother got back. By George! If folks thought he was going to commit suicide, they were fooled. Never broke his heart about a woman yet. Not much, by George! But when he set his heart on a thing, he generally got it. He! he! And he had set his heart on that little girl. As for jumping into the lake, any man was a fool to jump into the drink on account of a woman. When there were plenty of them. Large assortment constantly on hand. Pays yer money and takes yer ch'ice! Suicide? Not much, by George! he! he!

Hung his coat on a hickory limb, Then like a wise man he jumped in, My ole dad! My ole dad!

Wondered what tune Charlton would sing when he found himself beat? Guess 'twould be:

Can't stay in de wilderness. In a few days, in a few days, Can't stay in de wilderness, A few days ago.

Goin' to pre-empt my claim, too. I've got a month's leave, and I'll follow him and marry that girl before he gets far. Bruddern and sistern, sing de ole six hundredth toon. Ahem!

I wish I was a married man, A married man I'd be! An' ketch the grub fer both of us A-fishin' in the sea. Big fish, Little fish, It's all the same to me!

I got a organ stop in my throat. Can't sing below my breath to save my life. He! he!

After three days had elapsed, Westcott sent a still more melancholy note to Katy. It made her weep from the first line to the last. It was full of heartbreak, and Katy was too unobserving to notice how round and steady and commercial the penmanship was, and how large and fine were the flourishes. Westcott himself considered it his masterpiece. He punched his crony with his elbow as he deposited it in the office, and assured him that it was the techin'est note ever written. It would come the sympathies over her. There was nothing like the sympathies to fetch a woman to terms. He knew. Had lots of experience. By George! You could turn a woman round yer finger if you could only keep on the tender side. Tears was what done it. Love wouldn' keep sweet without it was pickled in brine. He! he! he! By George!



CHAPTER XX.

SAWNEY AND WESTCOTT.

David Sawney was delighted with the news that Albert Charlton and Smith Westcott had quarreled. "Westcott's run of luck in that quarter's broke. When a feller has a run of luck right along, and they comes a break, 'ts all up with him. Broke luck can't be spliced. It's David Sawney's turn now. Poor wind that blows no whar. I'll bet a right smart pile I'll pack the little gal off yet."

But if an inscrutable Providence had omitted to make any Smith Westcotts, Dave Sawney wouldn't have stood the ghost of a chance with Katy. His supreme self-complacency gave her no occasion to pity him. Her love was close of kin to her tender-heartedness, and all pity was wasted on Dave. He couldn't have been more entirely happy than he was if he had owned the universe in fee simple.

However, Dave was resolved to try his luck, and so, soon after Albert's departure, he blacked up his vast boots and slicked his hair, and went to Plausaby's. He had the good luck to find Katy alone.

"Howdy! Howdy! Howdy git along? Lucky, ain't I, to find you in? Haw! haw! I'm one of the luckiest fellers ever was born. Always wuz lucky. Found a fip in a crack in the hearth 'fore I was three year old. 'Ts a fack. Found a two-and-a-half gole piece wunst. Golly, didn't I feel some! Haw! haw! haw! The way of't wuz this." But we must not repeat the story in all its meanderings, lest readers should grow as tired of it as Katy did; for Dave crossed one leg over the other, looked his hands round his knee, and told it with many a complacent haw! haw! haw! When he laughed, it was not from a sense of the ludicrous: his guffaw was a pure eruption of delighted self-conceit.

"I thought as how as I'd like to explain to you somethin' that might 'a' hurt yer feelin's, Miss Charlton. Didn't you feel a little teched at sompin'?"

"No, Mr. Sawney, you never hurt my feelings."

"Well, gals is slow to own up that they're hurt, you know. But I'm shore you couldn't help bein', and I'm ever so sorry. Them Injin goin'-ons of mine wuz enough to 'a' broke your heart."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, my sellin' out to Perritaut for ten thousand dollars, only I didn't. Haw! haw!" and Dave threw his head back to laugh. "You had a right to feel sorter bad to think I would consent to marry a Injin. But 'tain't every feller as'll git ten thousand offered in five annooal payments; an' I wanted you to understand 'twan't the Injin, 'twas the cash as reached me. When it comes to gals, you're the posy fer me."

Katy grew red, but didn't know what to say or do.

"I heerd tell that that feller Westcott'd got his walkin' papers. Sarved him right, dancin' roun' like a rang-a-tang, and jos'lin' his keys and ten-cent pieces in his pocket, and sayin' imperdent things. But I could 'a' beat him at talk the bes' day he ever seed ef he'd on'y 'a' gi'n me time to think. I kin jaw back splendid of you gin me time. Haw! haw! haw! But he ain't far—don't never gin a feller time to git his thoughts gethered up, you know. He jumps around like the Frenchman's flea. Put yer finger on him an' he ain't thar, and never wuz. Haw! haw! haw! But jest let him stay still wunst tell I get a good rest on him like, and I'll be dog-on'd ef I don't knock the hine sights offen him the purtiest day he ever seed! Haw! haw! haw! Your brother Albert handled him rough, didn't he? Sarved him right. I say, if a man is onrespectful to a woman, her brother had orter thrash him; and your'n done it. His eye's blacker'n my boot. And his nose! Haw! haw! it's a-mournin' fer his brains! Haw I haw! haw! And he feels bad bekase you cut him, too. Jemently, ef he don' look like 's ef he'd kill hisself fer three bits."

Katy was so affected by this fearful picture of poor, dear Smith's condition, that she got up and hurried out of the room to cry.

"What on airth's the matter?" soliloquized Dave. "Bashful little creeter, I 'low. Thought I wuz a-comin to the p'int, maybe. Well, nex' time'll do. Haw! haw! Young things is cur'us now, to be shore. Mout's well be a gittin' on, I reckon. Gin her time to come round, I 'low."

With such wooing, renewed from time to time, the clumsy and complacent Dave whiled away his days, and comforted himself that he had the persimmon-tree all to himself, as he expressed it. Meanwhile, the notes of Westcott were fast undoing all that Albert had done to separate him from "the purty little girl."



Of course, when the right time came, he happened to meet Katy on the street, and to take off his hat and make a melancholy bow, the high-tragedy air of which confirmed Katy's suspicions that he meant to commit suicide at the first opportunity. Then he chanced to stop at the gate, and ask, in a tone sad enough to have been learned from the gatherers of cold victuals, if he might come in. In three days more, he was fully restored to favor and to his wonted cheerfulness. He danced, he sang, he chirruped, he rattled his keys, he was the Privileged Infant once more. He urged Katy to marry him at once, but her heart was now rent by pity for Albert and by her eager anxiety lest he should do something desperate when he heard of her reconciliation. She trembled every day at thought of what might happen when he should return.

"Goin' to pre-empt in a few days, Katy. Whisky Jim come plaguey near to gittin' that claim. He got Shamberson on his side, and if Shamberson's brother-in-law hadn't been removed from the Land Office before it was tried, he'd a got it. I'm going to pre-empt and build the cutest little bird's nest for you.

"If I was young and in my prime, I'd lead a different life, I'd save my money, and buy me a farm, Take Dinah for my wife. Oh! carry me back—

"Psha! Dat dah ain't de toon, bruddern. Ahem!

"When you and I get married, love, How jolly it will be! We'll keep house in a store-box, then, Just two feet wide by three! Store-box! Band-box! All the same to me!

"And when we want our breakfast, love, We'll nibble bread and chee— It's good enough for you, love, And most too good for me! White bread! Brown bread! All the same to me!

"Dog-on'd ef 'tain't. White bread's good as brown bread. One's jest as good as the other, and a good deal better. It's all the same to me, and more so besides, and something to carry. It's all the same, only 'tain't. Ahem:

"Jane and Sukey and July Ann— Too brown, too slim, too stout! You needn't smile on this 'ere man, Git out! git out! git out! But the maiden fair With bonny brown hair— Let all the rest git out!"—

"Get out yourself!" thundered Albert Charlton, bursting in at that moment. "If you don't get your pack of tomfoolery out of here quick, I'll get it out for you," and he bore down on Westcott fiercely.

"I beg pardon, Mr. Charlton. I'm here to see your sister with her consent and your mother's, and—"

"And I tell you," shouted Albert, "that my sister is a little girl, and my mother doesn't understand such puppies as you, and I am my sister's protector, and if you don't get out of here, I'll kill you if I can."

"Albert, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Plausaby, coming in at the instant. "I'm sure Mr. Westcott's a genteel man, and good-natured to Katy, and—"

"Out! out! I say, confound you! or I'll break your empty head," thundered Charlton, whose temper was now past all softening. "Put your hand on that pistol, if you dare," and with that he strode at the Privileged Infant with clenched fist, and the Privileged Infant prudently backed out the door into the yard, and then, as Albert kept up his fierce advance, the Privileged Infant backed out of the gate into the street. He was not a little mortified to see the grinning face of Dave Sawney in the crowd about the gate, and to save appearances, he called back at Albert, who was returning toward the house, that he would settle this affair with him yet. But he did not know how thoroughly Charlton's blood was up.

"Settle it?" said Albert—yelled Albert, I should say—turning back on him with more fury than ever. "Settle it, will you? I'll settle it right here and now, you cowardly villain! Let's have it through, now," and he walked swiftly at Westcott, who walked away; but finding that the infuriated Albert was coming after him, the Privileged Infant hurried on until his retreat became a run, Westcott running down street, Charlton hotly pursuing him, the spectators running pell-mell behind, laughing, cheering, and jeering.

"Don't come back again if you don't want to get killed," the angry Charlton called, as he turned at last and went toward home.

"Now, Katy," he said, with more energy than tenderness, as he entered the house, "if you are determined to marry that confounded rascal, I shall leave at once. You must decide now. If you will go East with me next week, well and good. If you won't give up Smith Westcott, then I shall leave you now forever."

Katy couldn't bear to be the cause of any disaster to anybody; and just at this moment Smith was out of sight, and Albert, white and trembling with the reaction of his passion, stood before her. She felt, somehow, that she had brought all this trouble on Albert, and in her pity for him, and remorse for her own course, she wept and clung to her brother, and begged him not to leave her. And Albert said: "There, don't cry any more. It's all right now. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. There, there!" There is nothing a man can not abide better than a woman in tears.



CHAPTER XXI.

ROWING.

To get away with Katy immediately. These were the terms of the problem now before Albert His plan was to take her to visit friends at the East, and to keep her there until Westcott should pass out of her mind, or until she should be forgotten by the Privileged Infant. This was not Westcott's plan of the campaign at all. He was as much bent on securing Katy as he could have been had he been the most constant, devoted, and disinterested lover. He would have gone through fire and flood. The vindictive love of opposition and lust for triumph is one of the most powerful of motives. Men will brave more from an empty desire to have their own way, than they could be persuaded to face by the most substantial motives.

Smith Westcott was not a man to die for a sentiment, but for the time he had the semblance of a most devoted lover. He bent everything to the re-conquest of Katy Charlton. His pride served him instead of any higher passion, and he plotted by night and managed by day to get his affairs into a position in which he could leave. He meant to follow Albert and Katy, and somewhere and somehow, by working on Katy's sympathies, to carry off the "stakes," as he expressed it. He almost ceased trifling, and even his cronies came to believe that he was really in love. They saw signs of intense and genuine feeling, and they mistook its nature. Mrs. Ferret expressed her sympathy for him—the poor man really loved Kate, and she believed that Kate had a right to marry anybody she pleased. She did not know what warrant there was in Scripcherr for a brother's exercising any authority. She thought Mrs. Plausaby ought to have brought up her son to have more respect for her authority, and to hold Scripcherral views. If he were her son, now! What she would have done with him in that case never fully appeared; for Mrs. Ferret could not bring herself to complete the sentence. She only said subjunctively: "If he were my son, now!" Then she would break off and give her head two or three awful and ominous shakes. What would have happened if such a young man as Albert had been her son, it would be hard to tell. Something unutterably dreadful, no doubt.

Even the charms of Miss Minorkey were not sufficient to detain Albert in his eager haste and passionate determination to rescue Katy. But to go, he must have money; to get money, he must collect it from Plausaby, or at least get a land-warrant with which he could pre-empt his claim. Then he would mortgage his land for money to pay his traveling expenses. But it was so much easier to lend money to Plausaby, Esq., than it was to collect it. Plausaby, Esq., was always just going to have the money; Plausaby, Esq., had ever ready so many excuses for past failure, and so many assurances of payment in the immediate future, that Charlton was kept hoping and waiting in agony from week to week. He knew that he was losing ground in the matter of Westcott and Katy. She was again grieving over Smith's possible suicide, was again longing for the cheerful rattle of flattery and nonsense which rendered the Privileged Infant so diverting even to those who hated him, much more to her who loved him.

Albert's position was the more embarrassing that he was obliged to spend a part of his time on his claim to maintain a residence. One night, after having suffered a disappointment for the fifth time in the matter of Plausaby and money, he was walking down the road to cool his anger in the night air, when he met the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, again.

"Well, Gray," he said, "how are you? Have you written any fresh verses lately?"

"Varses? See here, Mr. Charlton, do you 'low this 'ere's a time fer varses?"

"Why not?"

"To be shore! Why not? I should kinder think yer own heart should orter tell you. You don' know what I'm made of. You think I a'n't good fer nothin' but varses. Now, Mr. Charlton, I'm not one of them air fellers as lets theirselves all off in varses that don' mean nothin'. What my pomes says, that my heart feels. And that my hands does. No, sir, my po'try 's like the corn crap in August. It's laid by. I ha'n't writ nary line sence I seed you afore. The fingers that holds a pen kin pull a trigger."

"What do you mean, Gray?"

"This 'ere," and he took out a pistol. "I wuz a poet; now I'm a gardeen angel. I tole you I wouldn' do nothin' desperate tell I talked weth you. That's the reason I didn' shoot him t'other night. When you run him off, I draw'd on him, and he'd a been a gone sucker ef't hadn' been fer yore makin' me promise t'other day to hold on tell I'd talked weth you. Now, I've talked weth you, and I don't make no furder promises. Soon as he gits to makin' headway agin, I'll drap him."

It was in vain that Charlton argued with him. Gray said life wurn't no 'count no how; he had sot out to be a Gardeen Angel, and he wuz agoin' through. These 'ere Yankees tuck blam'd good keer of their hides, but down on the Wawbosh, where he come from, they didn't valley life a copper in a thing of this 'ere sort. Ef Smith Westcott kep' a shovin' ahead on his present trail, he'd fetch up kinder suddent all to wunst, weth a jolt.

After this, the dread of a tragedy of some sort did not decrease Albert's eagerness to be away. He began to talk violently to Plausaby, and that poor gentleman, harassed now by a suit brought by the town of Perritaut to set aside the county-seat election, and by a prosecution instituted against him for conspiracy, and by a suit on the part of the fat gentleman for damages on account of fraud in the matter of the two watery lots in block twenty-six, and by much trouble arising from his illicit speculation in claims—this poor Squire Plausaby, in the midst of this accumulation of vexations, kept his temper sweet, bore all of Albert's severe remarks with serenity, and made fair promises with an unruffled countenance. Smith Westcott had defeated Whisky Jim in his contest for the claim, because the removal of a dishonest receiver left the case to be decided according to the law and the regulations of the General Land Office, and the law gave the claim to Westcott. The Privileged Infant, having taken possession of Jim's shanty, made a feint of living in it, having moved his trunk, his bed, his whisky, and all other necessaries to the shanty. As his thirty days had expired, he was getting ready to pre-empt; the value of the claim would put him in funds, and he proposed, now that his blood was up, to give up his situation, if he should find it necessary, and "play out his purty little game" with Albert Charlton. It was shrewdly suspected, indeed, that if he should leave the Territory, he would not return. He knew nothing of the pistol which the Gardeen Angel kept under his wing for him, but Whisky Jim had threatened that he shouldn't enjoy his claim long. Jim had remarked to several people, in his lofty way, that Minnesoty wuz a healthy place fer folks weth consumption, but a dreffle sickly one fer folks what jumped other folks's claims when they wuz down of typus. And Jim grew more and more threatening as the time of Westcott's pre-emption drew near. While throwing the mail-bag off one day at the Metropolisville post-office he told Albert that he jest wished he knowed which mail Westcott's land-warrant would come in. He wouldn't steal it, but plague ef he wouldn't heave it off into the Big Gun River, accidentally a purpose, ef he had to go to penitensh'ry fer it.

But after all his weary and impatient waiting on and badgering of Plausaby, Albert got his land-warrant, and hurried off to the land-office, made his pre-emption, gave Mr. Minorkey a mortgage with a waiver in it, borrowed two hundred dollars at three per cent a month and five after maturity, interest to be settled every six months.

Then, though it was Friday evening, he would have packed everything and hurried away the next morning; but his mother interposed her authority. Katy couldn't be got ready. What was the use of going to Red Owl to stay over Sunday? There was no boat down Sunday, and they could just as well wait till Monday, and take the Tuesday boat, and so Albeit reluctantly consented to wait.

But he would not let Katy be out of his sight. He was determined that in these last hours of her stay in the Territory, Smith Westcott should not have a moment's opportunity for conversation with her. He played the tyrannical brother to perfection. He walked about the house in a fighting mood all the time, with brows drawn down and fist ready to clench.

He must have one more boat-ride with Helen Minorkey, and he took Katy with him, because he dared not leave her behind. He took them both in the unpainted pine row-boat which belonged to nobody in particular, and he rowed away across the little lake, looking at the grassy-green shores on the one side, and at the basswood trees that shadowed the other. Albert had never had a happier hour. Out in the lake he was safe from the incursions of the tempter. Rowing on the water, he relaxed the strain of his vigilance; out on the lake, with water on every side, he felt secure. He had Katy, sweet and almost happy; he felt sure now that she would be able to forget Westcott, and be at peace again as in the old days when he had built play-houses for the sunny little child. He had Helen, and she seemed doubly dear to him on the eve of parting. When he was alone with her, he felt always a sense of disappointment, for he was ever striving by passionate speeches to elicit some expression more cordial than it was possible for Helen's cool nature to utter. But now that Katy's presence was a restraint upon him, this discord between the pitch of his nature and of hers did not make itself felt, and he was satisfied with himself, with Helen, and with Katy. And so round the pebbly margin of the lake he rowed, while they talked and laughed. The reaction from his previous state of mental tension put Albert into a sort of glee; he was almost as boisterous as the Privileged Infant himself. He amused himself by throwing spray on Katy with his oars, and he even ventured to sprinkle the dignified Miss Minorkey a little, and she unbent enough to make a cup of her white palm and to dip it into the clear water and dash a good, solid handful of it into the face of her lover. She had never in her life acted in so undignified a manner, and Charlton was thoroughly delighted to have her throw cold water upon him in this fashion. After this, he rowed down to the outlet, and showed them where the beavers had built a dam, and prolonged his happy rowing and talking till the full moon came up out of the prairie and made a golden pathway on the ripples. Albert's mind dwelt on this boat-ride in the lonely year that followed. It seemed to him strange that he could have had so much happiness on the brink of so much misery. He felt as that pleasure party did, who, after hours of happy sport, found that they had been merry-making in the very current of the great cataract.

There are those who believe that every great catastrophe throws its shadow before it, but Charlton was never more hopeful than when he lifted his dripping oars from the water at half-past nine o'clock, and said: "What a grand ride we've had! Let's row together again to-morrow evening. It is the last chance for a long time."



CHAPTER XXII.

SAILING.

On the Saturday morning after this Friday evening boat-ride, Charlton was vigilant as ever, and yet Saturday was not a dangerous day. It was the busy day at the Emporium, and he had not much to fear from Westcott, whose good quality was expressed by one trite maxim to which he rigidly adhered. "Business before pleasure" uttered the utmost self-denial of his life. He was fond of repeating his motto, with no little exultation in the triumph he had achieved over his pleasure-loving disposition. To this fidelity to business he owed his situation as "Agent," or head-clerk, of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co. If he could have kept from spending money as fast as he made it, he might have been a partner in the firm. However, he rejoiced in the success he had attained, and, to admiring neophytes who gazed in admiration on his perilous achievement of rather reckless living and success in gaining the confidence of his employers, he explained the marvel by uttering his favorite adage in his own peculiar style: "Business before pleasure! By George! That's the doctrine! A merchant don't care how fast you go to the devil out of hours, if you keep his business straight. Business before pleasure! That's the ticket! He! he! By George!"

When evening came, and Charlton felt that he had but one more day of standing guard, his hopes rose, he talked to Isabel Marlay with something of exultation. And he thought it due to Miss Marlay to ask her to make one of the boating-party. They went to the hotel, where Miss Minorkey joined them. Albert found it much more convenient walking with three ladies than with two. Isa and Katy walked on arm-in-arm, and left Albert to his tete-a-tete with Helen. And as Sunday evening would be the very last on which he should see her before leaving for the East, he found it necessary to walk slowly and say much. For lovers who see each other a great deal, have more to say the more they are together.

At the lake a disappointment met them. The old pine boat was in use. It was the evening of the launching of the new sail-boat, "The Lady of the Lake," and there was a party of people on the shore. Two young men, in a spirit of burlesque and opposition, had seized on the old boat and had chalked upon her bow, "The Pirate's Bride." With this they were rowing up and down the lake, and exciting much merriment in the crowd on the shore.

Ben Towle, who was one of the principal stockholders in "The Lady of the Lake," and who had been suspected of a tender regard for Isabel Marlay, promptly offered Albert and his party seats in the boat on her first trip. There were just four vacancies, he said. The three ladies had stepped aboard, and Albert was following, when the ex-sailor who held the rudder touched his arm and said, "I don't think it's safe, Mr. Charlton, fer nobody else to git in. She's got 'leven now, and ef the wind freshens, twelve would be dangerous."

"Oh! I'll stay out!" said Albert, retreating.

"Come, Albert, take my place," said Towle. "You're welcome to it."

"No, I won't, Ben; you sit still, and I'll stand on the shore and cheer."

Just as the boat was about to leave her moorings, Smith Westcott came up and insisted on getting in.

"'Twon't do, Mr. Wes'cott. 'Ta'n't safe," said the helmsman. "I jest begged Mr. Charlton not to go. She's got a full load now."

"Oh! I don't weigh anything. Lighter'n a feather. Only an infant. And besides, I'm going anyhow, by George!" and with that he started to get aboard. But Albert had anticipated him by getting in at the other end of the boat and taking the only vacant seat. The Privileged Infant scowled fiercely, but Charlton affected not to see him, and began talking in a loud tone to Ben Towle about the rigging. The line was thrown off and the boat pushed out, the wind caught the new white sail, and the "Lady of the Lake" started along in the shallows, gradually swinging round toward the open water. Soon after her keel had ceased to grind upon the gravel, Albert jumped out, and, standing over boot-top in water, waved his hat and wished them a pleasant voyage, and all the ladies in the boat waved their handkerchiefs at him, appreciating his efforts to keep the boat from being overloaded, but not thinking of the stronger motive Charlton had for keeping Smith Westcott ashore. They could not know how much exultation Albert felt as he sat down on the green grass and poured the water from his boots.

There was a fine breeze, the boat sailed admirably, the party aboard laughed and talked and sang; their voices made merry music that reached the shore. The merry music was irritating discord to the ears of Westcott, it made him sweur bitterly at Charlton. I am afraid that it made Charlton happy to think of Westcott swearing at him. There is great comfort in being the object of an enemy's curses sometimes—When the enemy is down, and you are above and master. I think the consciousness that Westcott was swearing at him made even the fine sunset seem more glorious to Charlton. The red clouds were waving banners of victory.

But in ten minutes the situation had changed. Albert saw Westcott walking across the beaver-dam at the lower end of the lake, and heard him hallooing to the young men who were rowing the "Pirate's Bride" up and down and around the "Lady of the Lake," for the ugly old boat was swiftest. The Pirate's Bride landed and took Westcott aboard, and all of Albert's rejoicing was turned to cursing, for there, right before his eyes, the Pirate's Bride ran her brown hull up alongside the white and graceful Lady of the Lake, and Smith Westcott stepped from the one to the other. The beauty of the sunset was put out. The new boat sailed up and down the little lake more swiftly and gracefully than ever as the breeze increased, but Albert hated it.

By some change or other in seats Westcott at last got alongside Katy. Albert distinctly saw the change made, and his anger was mingled with despair. For Isabel and Helen were in the other end of the boat, and there were none to help. And so on, on, in the gray dusk of the evening, the boat kept sailing from one end of the lake to the other, and as it passed now and then near him, he could see that Smith was in conversation with little Katy.

"You needn't worry, Mr. Charlton, I'll fix him." It was the voice of the Guardian Angel. "I'll fix him, shore as shootin'." And there he stood looking at Albert. For the first time now it struck Albert that George Gray was a little insane. There was a strange look in his eyes. If he should kill Westcott, the law would not hold him accountable. Nobody would be accountable, and Katy would be saved.

But in a moment Albert's better feeling was uppermost. The horribleness of murder came distinctly before him. He shuddered that he should have entertained the thought of suffering it.

"You see, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, with eyes having that strange mysterious look that only belongs to the eyes of people who are at least on the borders of insanity, "you see this 'ere pistol's got five bar'ls, all loadened. I tuck out the ole loads las' night and filled her up weth powder what's shore to go off. Now you leave that air matter to me, will you?"

"Let me see your revolver," said Albert.

Gray handed it to him, and Charlton examined it a minute, and then, with a sudden resolution, he got to his feet, ran forward a few paces, and hurled the pistol with all his might into the lake.

"Don't let us commit murder," he said, turning round and meeting the excited eyes of the half-insane poet.

"Well, maybe you're right, but I'll be hanged ef I think it's hardly far and squar and gentlemanly to wet a feller's catridges that-a-way."

"I had to," said Albert, trembling. "If I hadn't, you or I would have been a murderer before morning."

"Maybe so, but they ain't nothin else to be done. Ef you don't let me kill the devil, why, then the devil will pack your sister off, and that's the end on't."

The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake, and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs, and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless dejection. And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy. What he said need not be told: how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy's sympathies by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they must be married, and have it all over at once. Then, when it was all over, Albert wouldn't feel bad about it any more. Brothers never did. When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they'd get on splendidly. By George! Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up and down the lake. Just what it was will never be known, whether he planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows. Isabel Marlay, who saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points. He had convinced the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for Brother Albert as well as for themselves.

And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got in. The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully.

Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened suddenly and capsized.

There was a long, broken, mingled, discordant shriek as of a dozen voices on different keys uttering cries of terror and despair. There was the confusion of one person falling over another; there was the wild grasping for support, the seizing of each other's garments and arms, the undefined and undefinable struggle of the first desperate minute after a boat has capsized, the scream that dies to a gurgle in the water and then breaks out afresh, louder and sharper than before, and then is suddenly smothered into a gurgle again. There were all these things, there was an alarm on the shore, a rush of people, and then there came stillness, and those minutes of desperate waiting, in which the drowning people cling to rigging and boat, and test the problem of human endurance. It is a race between the endurance of frightened, chilled, drowning people, and the stupid lack of presence of mind of those on shore. All the inmates of the boat got hold of something, and for a minute all their heads were out of water. Their eyes were so near to the water, that not even the most self-possessed of them could see what exertions were being made by people on shore to help them. Thus they clung a minute, no one saying anything, when Jane Downing, who held to the rigging at some distance from the boat, paralyzed by fear, let go, and slowly sank out of sight, saying never a word as she went down, but looking with beseeching eyes at the rest, who turned away as the water closed over her, and held on more tenaciously than ever, and wondered whether help ever would reach them. And this was only at the close of the first minute. There were twenty-nine other minutes before help came.



CHAPTER XXIII.

SINKING.

Isabel Marlay's first care had been to see that little Katy had a good hold. Helen Minorkey was quite as self-possessed, but her chief care was to get into a secure position herself. Nothing brings out character more distinctly than an emergency such as this. Miss Minorkey was resolute and bent on self-preservation from the first moment. Miss Marlay was resolute, but full of sympathy for the rest. With characteristic practical sense, she did what she could to make herself and those within her reach secure, and then with characteristic faith she composed her mind to death if it should come, and even ventured with timid courage to exhort Katy and Miss Minorkey to put their trust in Christ, who could forgive their sins, and care for them living or dying. Even the most skeptical of us respect a settled belief in a time of trial. There was much broken praying from others, simply the cry of terror-stricken spirits. In all ages men have cried in their extremity to the Unseen Power, and the drowning passengers in Diamond Lake uttered the same old cry. Westcott himself, in his first terror, prayed a little and swore a little by turns.

The result of self-possession in the case of Isa Marlay and Helen Minorkey was the same. They did not waste their strength. When people drown, it is nearly always from a lack of economy of force. Here was poor little Katy so terrified at thoughts of drowning, and of the cold slimy bed at the bottom of the lake, and more than all at thoughts of the ugly black leeches that abounded at the bottom, that she was drawing herself up head and shoulders out of the water all the time, and praying brokenly to God and Brother Albert to come and help them. Isa tried to soothe her, but she shuddered, and said that the lake was so cold, and she knew she should drown, and Cousin Isa, and Smith, and all of them. Two or three times, in sheer desperation, little Katy let go, but each time Isa Marlay saved her and gave her a better hold, and cheered her with assurances that all would be well yet.

While one party on the shore were building a raft with which to reach the drowning people, Albert Charlton and George Gray ran to find the old boat. But the young men who had rowed in it, wishing to keep it for their own use, had concealed it in a little estuary on the side of the lake opposite to the village, so that the two rescuers were obliged to run half the circumference of the lake before they found it. And even when they reached it, there were no oars to be found, the party rowing last having carefully hidden them in the deep grass of the slough by the outlet. George Gray's quick frontiersman's instinct supplied the deficiency with sticks broken from a fallen tree. But with the time consumed in finding the boat, and the time lost in searching for the oars, and the slowness of the progress made in rowing with these clumsy poles, and the distance of the boat's starting-point from the scene of the disaster, the raft had greatly the advantage of them, though Charlton and Gray used their awkward paddles with the energy of desperation. The wrecked people had clung to their frail supports nearly a quarter of an hour, listening to the cries and shouts of their friends ashore, unable to guess what measures were being taken for their relief, and filled with a distrustful sense of having been abandoned by God and man. It just then occurred to Westcott, who had recovered from his first fright, and who for some time had neither prayed to God nor cursed his luck, that he might save himself by swimming. In his boyish days, before he had weakened his texture by self-indulgence and shattered his nerves by debauchery, he had been famous for his skill and endurance in the water, and it now occurred to him that he might swim ashore and save Katy Charlton at the same time. It is easy enough for us to see the interested motives he had in proposing to save little Katy. He would wipe out the censure sure to fall on him for overloading the boat, he would put Katy and her friends under lasting obligations to him, he would win his game. It is always easy to see the selfish motive. But let us do him justice, and say that these were not the only considerations. Just as the motives of no man are good without some admixture of evil, so are the motives of no man entirely bad. I do not think that Westcott, in taking charge of Katy, was wholly generous, yet there was a generous, and after a fashion, maybe, a loving feeling for the girl in the proposal. That good motives were uppermost, I will not say. They were somewhere in the man, and that is enough to temper our feeling toward him.

Isa Marlay was very unwilling to have Katy go. But the poor little thing was disheartened where she was—the shore did not seem very far away, looking along the water horizontally—the cries of the people on the bank seemed near—she was sure she could not hold on much longer—she was so anxious to get out of this cold lake—she was so afraid to die—she dreaded the black leeches at the bottom—she loved and trusted Smith as such women as she always love and trust—and so she was glad to accept his offer. It was so good of Smith to love her so and to save her. And so she took hold of his coat-collar as he bade her, and Westcott started to swim toward the nearest shore. He had swam his two miles once, when he was a boy, testing his endurance in the waters of the North River, and Diamond Lake was not a mile wide. There seemed no reason to doubt that he could swim to the shore, which could not in any event be more than half a mile away, and which seemed indeed much nearer as he looked over the surface of the water. But Westcott had not taken all the elements into the account. He had on his clothing, and before he had gone far, his boots seemed to fetter him, his saturated sleeves dragged through the water like leaden weights. His limbs, too, had grown numb from remaining so long in the water, and his physical powers had been severely taxed of late years by his dissipations. Add to this that he was encumbered by Katy, that his fright now returned, and that he made the mistake so often made by the best of swimmers under excitement, of wasting power by swimming too high, and you have the causes of rapid exhaustion.

"The shore seems so far away," murmured Katy. "Why don't Albert come and save us?" and she held on to Smith with a grasp yet more violent, and he seemed more and more embarrassed by her hold.

"Let go my arm, or we'll both drown," he cried savagely, and the poor little thing took her left hand off his arm, but held all the more firmly to his collar; but her heart sank in hopelessness. She had never heard him speak in that savage tone before She only called out feebly, "Brother Albert!" and the cry, which revealed to Westcott that she put no more trust in him, but turned now to the strong heart of her brother, angered him, and helped him to take the resolution he was already meditating. For his strength was fast failing; he looked back and could see the raft nearing the capsized boat, but he felt that he had not strength enough left to return; he began to sink, and Katy, frightened out of all self-control as they went under the water, clutched him desperately with both hands. With one violent effort Smith Westcott tore her little hands from him, and threw her off. He could not save her, anyhow. He must do that, or drown. He was no hero or martyr to drown with her. That is all. It cost him a pang to do it, I doubt not.

Katy came up once, and looked at him. It was not terror at thought of death, so much as it was heart-break at being thus cast off, that looked at him out of her despairing eyes. Then she clasped her hands, and cried aloud, in broken voice: "Brother Albert!"

And then with a broken cry she sank.

Oh! Katy! Katy! It were better to sink. I can hardly shed a tear for thee, as I see thee sink to thy cold bed at the lake-bottom among the slimy water-weeds and leeches; but for women who live to trust professions, and who find themselves cast off and sinking—neglected and helpless in life—for them my heart is breaking.

Oh! little Katy. Sweet, and loving, and trustful! It were better to sink among the water-weeds and leeches than to live on. God is more merciful than man.



CHAPTER XXIV.

DRAGGING.

Yes, God is indeed more merciful than man. There are many things worse than death. There is a fold where no wolves enter; a country where a loving heart shall not find its own love turned into poison; a place where the wicked cease from troubling—yes, even in this heretical day, let us be orthodox enough to believe that there is a land where no Smith Westcotts ever come.

There are many cases in which it were better to die. It is easy enough to say it before it comes. Albert Charlton had said—how many times!—that he would rather see Katy dead than married to Westcott. But, now that Katy was indeed dead, how did he feel?

Charlton and Gray had paddled hard with crooked limbs, the boat was unmanageable, and they could with difficulty keep her in her coarse. As they neared the capsized boat, they saw that the raft had taken the people from it, and Albert heard the voice—there could be no mistake as to the voice, weak and shivering as it was—of Isa Marlay, calling to him from the raft:

"We are all safe. Go and save Katy and—him!"

"There they air!" said Gray, pointing to two heads just visible above the water. "Pull away, by thunder!" And the two half-exhausted young men swung the boat round, and rowed. How they longed for the good oars that had sent the "Pirate's Bride" driving through the water that afternoon! How they grudged the time spent in righting her when she veered to right or left! At last they heard Katy's voice cry out, "Brother Albert!"

"O God!" groaned Charlton, and bent himself to his oar again.

"Alb—" The last cry was half-drowned in the water, and when the boat, with half-a-dozen more strokes, reached the place where Westcott was, so that he was able to seize the side, there was no Kate to be seen. Without waiting to lift the exhausted swimmer into the boat, Charlton and Gray dived. But the water was twenty feet deep, the divers were utterly out of breath with rowing, and their diving was of no avail. They kept trying until long after all hope had died out of their hearts. At last Charlton climbed back into the boat, and sat down. Then Gray got in. Westcott was so numb and exhausted from staying in the water so long that he could not get in, but he held to the boat desperately, and begged them to help him.

"Help him in," said Charlton to Gray. "I can't."

"I'd like to help him out ef he wuz in, mighty well. I can't kill a drownin' man, but blamed ef I gin him a leetle finger of help. I'd jest as soon help a painter outen the water when I know'd he'd swaller the fust man he come to."

But Charlton got up and reached a hand to the sinking Westcott. He shut his eyes while he pulled him in, and was almost sorry he had saved him. Let us not be too hard on Albert. He was in the first agony of having reached a hand to save little Katy and missed her. To come so near that you might have succeeded by straining a nerve a little more somewhere—that is bitterest of all. If Westcott had only held on a minute!

It was with difficulty that Albert and Gray rowed to the shore, where Plausaby met them, and persuaded them to change their clothes. They were both soon on the shore again, where large fires were blazing, and the old boat that had failed to save little Katy alive, was now in use to recover her body. There is no more hopeless and melancholy work than dragging for the body of a drowned person. The drag moves over the bottom; the man who holds the rope, watching for the faintest sensation of resistance in the muscles of his arm, at last feels something drawing against the drag, calls to the oarsmen to stop rowing, lets the line slip through his fingers till the boat's momentum is a little spent, lest he should lose his hold, then he draws on his line gently, and while the boat drifts back, he reverently, as becomes one handling the dead, brings the drag to the surface, and finds that its hooks have brought up nothing but water-weeds, or a waterlogged bough. And when at last, after hours of anxious work, the drag brings the lifeless body to the surface, the disappointment is bitterest of all. For all the time you have seemed to be seeking the drowned person, and now at last you have got—what?

It was about eleven o'clock when they first began to drag. Albert had a sort of vague looking for something, a superstitious feeling that by some sort of a miracle Katy would yet be found alive. It is the hardest work the imagination has to do—this realizing that one who has lived by us will never more be with us. It is hard to project a future for ourselves, into which one who has filled a large share of our thought and affection shall never come. And so there lingers a blind hope, a hopeless hope of something that shall make unreal that which our impotent imaginations refuse to accept as real. It is a means by which nature parries a sudden blow.

Charlton walked up and down the shore, and wished he might take the drag-line into his own hands; but the mistaken kindness of our friends refuses us permission to do for our own dead, when doing anything would be a relief, and when doing for the dead would be the best possible utterance to the hopeless love which we call grief.

Mrs. Plausaby, weak and vain though she was, was full of natural affection. Her love for Albert was checked a little by her feeling that there was no perfect sympathy between him and her. But upon Katy she had lavished all her mother's love. People are apt to think that a love which is not intelligent is not real; there could be no greater mistake. And the very smallness of the area covered by Mrs. Plausaby's mind made her grief for Kate all the more passionate. Katy occupied Albert's mind jointly with Miss Minorkey, with ambition, with benevolence, with science, with literature, and with the great Philanthropinum that was to be built and to revolutionize the world by helping it on toward its "goal." But the interests that shared Mrs. Plausaby's thoughts along with Katy were very few. Of Albert she thought, and of her husband. But she gave the chief place to Katy and her own appearance. And so when the blow had come it was a severe one. At midnight, Albert went back to try to comfort his mother, and received patiently all her weeping upbraidings of him for letting his sister go in the boat, he might have known it was not safe. And then he hastened back again to the water, and watched the men in the boat still dragging without result. Everybody on the shore knew just where the "Lady of the Lake" had capsized, and if accurate information, plentifully given, could have helped to find the bodies, it would soon have been accomplished. The only difficulty was that this accurate information was very conflicting, no two of the positive eye-witnesses being able to agree. So there was much shouting along shore, and many directions given, but all the searching for a long time proved vain. All the shouting people hushed their shouting, and spoke in whispers whenever Albert came near. To most men there is nothing more reverend than grief. At half-past two o'clock, the man who held the rope felt a strange thrill, a sense of having touched one of the bodies. He drew up his drag, and one of the hooks held a piece of a black silk cape. When three or four more essays had been made, the body itself was brought to the surface, and the boat turned toward the shore. There was no more shouting of directions now, not a single loud word was spoken, the oarsman rowed with a steady funereal rhythm, while Ben Towle, who had held the drag-rope, now held half out of water the recovered corpse. Albert leaned forward anxiously to see the face of Katy, but it was Jane Downing, the girl who was drowned first. Her father took the body in his arms, drew it out on shore, and wept over it in a quiet fashion for a while. Then strong and friendly neighbors lifted it, and bore it before him to his house, while the man followed in a dumb grief.

Then the dragging for Katy was resumed; but as there was much more doubt in regard to the place where she went down than there was about the place of the accident, the search was more difficult and protracted. George Gray never left Albert for a moment. George wanted to take the drag-rope himself, but a feeling that he was eccentric, if not insane, kept those in charge of the boat from giving it to him.

When Sunday morning came, Katy's body had not yet been found, and the whole village flocked to the lake shore. These were the first deaths in Metropolisville, and the catastrophe was so sudden and tragic that it stirred the entire village in an extraordinary manner. All through that cloudy Sunday forenoon, in a weary waiting, Charlton sat on the bank of Diamond Lake.

"Mr. Charlton," said Gray, "git me into that air boat and I'll git done with this. I've watched them fellers go round the place tell I can't stan' it no longer."

The next time the boat faced toward the place where Charlton stood he beckoned to them, and the boat came to the shore.

"Let Mr. Gray row a few times, won't you?" whispered Albert. "I think he knows the place."

With that deference always paid to a man in grief, the man who had the oars surrendered them to the Hoosier Poet, who rowed gently and carefully toward the place where he and Albert had dived for Katy the night before. The quick instinct of the trapper stood him in good stead now. The perception and memory of locality and direction are developed to a degree that seems all but supernatural in a man who lives a trapper's life.

"Now, watch out!" said Gray to the man with the rope, as they passed what he thought to be the place. But the drag did not touch anything. Gray then went round and pulled at right angles across his former course, saying again, "Now, watch out!" as they passed the same spot. The man who held the rope advised him to turn a little to the right, but Gray stuck to his own infallible instinct, and crossed and re-crossed the same point six times without success.