meanwhile the evening was proving of no less interest to harley than to churchill, although in a quite different way. he had noticed, when they parted at the hotel door, the apparent sadness, or, rather, the touch of the pathetic in the manner of miss morgan, and he observed it again when they were all reunited at the hotel table. heretofore she had been light, ironical, and bearing a full share in the talk, but now she merely replied when spoken to directly, and her tone had the tinge of melancholy. mr. and mrs. grayson looked at her more than once, as if they were about to refer to some particular subject, but always they refrained; instead, they sought by light talk to divert attention from her, and they succeeded in every case but that of harley.
it was not a long dinner, and as they returned to the ladies' parlor they were welcomed by a loud, joyous cry, and out of the dark of the room a big man projected himself to greet them. his first words were for miss morgan, whom he affectionately called "little girl," and whom he seized by the hands and kissed on the forehead. it was a loud voice, but round, full, and mellow, and harley judged that it came from a big nature as well as a big body.
when the man stepped into the light, harley saw that he was over six feet high, and with a width according. his broad face was covered with short, iron-gray beard, and his head was thatched with hair equally thick and of the same gray shade. in years he might have been fifty, and it was harley's first impression at this moment that the big man was miss morgan's father--it came to him with a rather queer feeling that it had never occurred to him to ask about her parents, whether they were living or dead, and what kind of people they were or had been.
the stranger shook hands with mr. and mrs. grayson, and expressed vocally the pleasure that his eyes also conveyed. harley and hobart were the only others present, and, turning to them, mr. grayson introduced the stranger, mr. william plummer--"king plummer, you know."
then harley remembered vaguely, and he began to place mr. plummer. he recalled allusions in the press to one william plummer, otherwise "king" plummer, who lived in the far northwest, and who, having amassed millions in ranching and mining, had also become a great power in the political world, hence his term "king," which was more fitting in his case than in that of many real kings. he had developed remarkable skill in politics, and, as the phrase went, held idaho, his own state, in the hollow of his hand, and in a close election could certainly swing montana and wyoming as he wished, and perhaps utah and washington, too.
harley's interest instantly became keen, and he did not take his eyes off "king" plummer. clearly he was a man of power; he fairly radiated it, not merely physically, but mentally. his gestures, his voice, every movement indicated a vast reserve strength. this was one of the great men whose development the rough field of the new west had permitted.
harley was not alone interested in "king" plummer, but also in the kiss that he had put upon the white forehead of sylvia morgan and his boisterous joy at seeing her. since he was not her father, it was likely that he was her uncle, not by blood, as jimmy grayson was, but as the husband of an aunt, perhaps. yes, this must be it, he concluded, and the kiss seemed more reasonable.
when "king" plummer was introduced to harley and hobart, he shook hands with them most cordially, but as keen a man as harley could see that he regarded them as mere youths, or "kids," as the "king" himself would have said. there was nothing depreciatory in this beyond the difference between age and great achievement and youth which had not yet had the time to fulfil its promise, and harley, because of it, felt no decrease of liking and respect for "king" plummer.
"the far northwest is for you solidly, jimmy," said the big man, with a joyous smile. "idaho is right in line at the head of the procession, and wyoming, montana, and the others are following close after. they haven't many votes, but they have enough to decide this election."
jimmy grayson smiled. he had reason to smile. he, too, liked "king" plummer, and, moreover, this was good news that he brought.
"i fancy that you have had something to do with this," he said. "you still know how to whisper a sweet word in the ear of the people."
the big man shook himself, laughed again, and looked satisfied.
"well, i have done a lot of whispering," he admitted, "if you call it whispering, though most people, i'll gamble, would say it is like the clatter of a mill. and i've done some riding, too, both train and horse. the mountains are going to be all right. don't you forget that, jimmy."
"and it's lucky for me that 'king' plummer is my friend," said mr. grayson, sincerely.
during this talk of politics, sylvia morgan was silent, and once, when "king" plummer laid his big hand protectingly on her arm, she shrank slightly, but so slightly that no one save harley noticed, not even the "king." the action roused doubts in his mind. surely a girl would not shrink from her uncle in this manner, not from a big, kindly uncle like plummer.
"i wanted to get down to chicago and hear you at your first speech," went on "king" plummer, in his big, booming voice, that filled the room, "but i couldn't manage it. there was a convention at boise that needed a little attention--one likes to look on at those things, you know"--his left eye contracted slightly--"and as soon as that was over i hurried down as fast as an express could bring me. but i've read in all the papers what a howlin' success it was, an' i'm goin' to hear you give it to the other fellows to-night--won't we, sylvia?"
he turned to the girl for confirmation of what needed no confirmation, and her eyes smiled into his with a certain pride. she seemed to harley to admire his bigness, his openness of manner and speech, and his wholesome character. after all, he was her uncle; the look that she gave him then was that of one who received protection, half paternal and half elder-brotherly.
"and now, jimmy, i guess i've taken up enough of your time," exclaimed "king" plummer, his big, resonant chest-tones echoing in the room, "and it's for you to do all the talkin' that's left. but i'll be in a box listenin', and just you do your best for the credit of the west and the mountains."
grayson smiled and promised, and "king" plummer joined them in the carriage that bore them to the hall. he took his place with them in such a natural and matter-of-fact manner that harley was confirmed in his renewed opinion that he was sylvia morgan's uncle, or, at least, her next of kin, after mr. grayson.
at the hall "king" plummer, as he had promised, sat in a box with mrs. grayson and miss morgan, and always he led the applause, which in reality needed no leading, the triumph at chicago being repeated in full degree. harley, watching him from his desk, saw that the big man was filled with sanguine expectation of triumph, and, with the glow of jimmy grayson's oratory upon him, could not see any such result as defeat. but miss morgan was strangely silent, and all her vivacity of manner seemed to be gone.
when the speech was nearly over churchill sauntered in lazily by the stage entrance and took a seat near harley. harley had not noticed his previous absence until then.
"how's the speech to-night?" he asked, languidly; "same old chestnuts, i suppose."
"as this is mr. grayson's second speech," replied harley, sharply, "it is a little early to call anything that he says 'same old chestnuts.' besides, i don't think that repetition will ever be one of his faults. why haven't you been here?"
"oh, i've been cruising around a bit on the outside. the associated press, of course, will take care of the speech, which is mere routine."
he spoke with such an air of supercilious and supreme satisfaction that harley looked at him keenly.
"pick up anything?" he asked, briefly.
"oh, a trifle or two; nothing, however, that you would care about."
"now, i wonder what it is that makes him so content with himself," thought harley, but he had little time to devote to churchill, as his own despatch was occupying his attention.
harley could not go back to the hotel with the grayson party when the speech was over, as he had to file his despatch first, but he saw them all the next morning at the breakfast-table. "king" plummer was there, too, as expansive as ever, and showing mingled joy and sorrow--joy over the second triumph of the candidate, which was repeated at great length in the morning papers, and sorrow because he could not continue with them on the campaign, which moved to detroit for the third night.
"i'd be a happy man if i could do it," he said, in his booming tones, "happy for more reasons than one. it would be a big holiday to me. wouldn't i enjoy hearing you tear the enemy to pieces night after night, jimmy! and then i'd be with you right along, sylvia."
he looked at the girl, and his look was full of love and protection. she flushed and seemed embarrassed. but there was no hesitation or awkwardness about the big man.
"never you mind, little girl," he said; "when you are mrs. plummer--an' that ain't far away, i hope--you'll be with me all the time. besides, i'm goin' to join jimmy grayson when he comes out west, an' make the campaign there with him."
the color in miss morgan's face deepened, and she glanced, not at "king" plummer or her uncle, but at harley, and when her eyes met his the color in her cheeks deepened still further. then she looked down at her plate and was silent and embarrassed.
harley, as he heard these words of the "king," felt a strange thrill of disapproval. it was, as he told himself, because of the disparity in ages. it was true that a man of this type was the very kind to restrain sylvia morgan, but twenty and fifty should never wed, man and wife should be young together and should grow old together. it was no business of his, and there was no obligation upon him to look after the happiness of either of these people, but it was an arrangement that he did not like, violating as it did his sense of fitness.
"king" plummer was to leave them an hour later, taking a train for st. paul, and thence for idaho. he bade them all a hearty good-bye, shaking hands warmly with jimmy grayson, to whom he wished a career of unbroken triumph, repeating these good wishes to mrs. grayson, and again kissing sylvia morgan on the forehead--the proper kiss, harley thought, for fifty to bestow upon twenty, unless twenty should happen to be fifty's daughter.
"we won't be separated long, sylvia, girl," he said, and she flushed a deep red and then turned pale. to harley he said:
"and i'll try to show you the west, young man, when you come out there. this is no west; milwaukee ain't west by a jugful. just you wait till you get beyond the missouri, then we'll show you the real west, and real life at the same time."
there was a certain condescension in the tone of "king" plummer, but harley did not mind it; so far as the experience of life in the rough was concerned, the "king" had a right to condescend.
"i shall hold you to your promise," he said.
then "king" plummer, waving good-byes with a wide-armed sweep, large and hearty like himself, departed.
"there goes a true man," said mr. grayson, and harley spontaneously added confirmation. but miss morgan was silent. she waved back in response to the king of the mountains, but her face was still pale, and she was silent for some time. harley now knew that "king" plummer was not her uncle nor her next of kin after jimmy grayson in any way, but he was unable to tell why this marriage-to-be had been arranged.
but he quickly learned the secret, if secret it was; it was told to him on the train by mrs. grayson as they rode that afternoon to detroit.
"if you were ever in idaho," she said, "you would soon hear the story of "king" plummer and sylvia. it is a tragedy of our west; that is, it began in a great tragedy, one of those tragedies of the plains and the mountains so numerous and so like each other that the historians forget to tell about them. sylvia's mother was mr. grayson's eldest sister, much older than he. she and her husband and children were part of a wagon-train that was going up away into the northwest where the railroads did not then reach.
"it was long ago--when sylvia was a little girl, not more than seven or eight--and the train was massacred by utes just as they reached the idaho line. the utes were on the war-path--there had been some sort of an outbreak--and the train had been warned by the soldiers not to go on, but the emigrants were reckless. they laughed at danger, because they did not see it before their faces. they pushed on, and they were ambushed in a deep canyon.
"there was hardly any fight at all, the attack was so sudden and unexpected. before the people knew what was coming half of them were shot down, and then those awful savages were among them with tomahawk and knife. mr. harley, i've no use for the indian. it is easy enough to get sentimental about him when you are away off in the east, but when you are close to him in the west all that feeling goes. i heard sylvia tell about that massacre once, and only once. it was years ago, but i can't forget it; and if i can't forget it, do you think that she can? her father was killed at the first fire from the bushes, and then an indian, covered with paint and bears' claws, tomahawked both her mother and her little brother before her eyes--yes, and scalped them, too. he ran for the girl next, but sylvia--i think it was just physical impulse--dashed away into the scrub, and the indian turned aside for a victim nearer at hand.
"sylvia lay hid until night came, and there was silence over the mountain, the silence of death, mr. harley, because when she slipped back in the darkness to the emigrant train she found every soul that had been in it, besides herself, dead. think, mr. harley, of that little girl alone in all those vast mountains, with her dead around her! do you wonder that sometimes she seems hard?"
"no, i don't," replied harley. despite himself a mist came to his eyes over this pathetic tragedy of long ago.
"sylvia has never said much about that night she spent there with the dead, in the midst of the wrecked and plundered train, but when a number of border men, alarmed about the emigrants, pushed on the next day to save them if possible, what do you suppose they found her doing?"
"i can't guess."
"she had got a spade somewhere from one of the wagons, and, little as she was, she was trying to bury her own dead. she was so busy that she didn't see them ride up, and william plummer, their leader--he was a young man then--actually shed tears, so they say. well, these men finished the burial, and mr. plummer put sylvia on his horse before him and rode away. he adopted the little thing as his daughter. he said she was the bravest creature he had ever seen, and, as he was not likely to have any real daughter, she should take a place that ought to be filled.
"were the utes who did this massacre punished?"
"no one knows; the soldiers killed a number of them in battle, but whether the slain were those who ambushed the train is not decided in border history."
"i think i understand the rest of the story of mr. plummer and miss morgan," said harley.
"yes, it is not hard to guess. mr. grayson and her other relatives farther east did not hear of her rescue until long afterwards; they supposed her dead--but no one could have cared for her better than mr. plummer. he kept her first at his mining-hut in the mountains, but after two or three years he took her into town to boise; he put her in the care of a woman there and sent her to school. he loved her already like a real daughter. she was just the kind to appeal to him, so brave and so fond of the wild life. they say that at first she refused to stay in boise. she ran away and tried to go on foot to him away up in the mountains, where the mining-camp was. when he heard of it, they say he laughed, and i suspect that he swore an oath or two--he lived among rough men you know--but if he did, they were swear words of admiration; he said it was just like her independence and pluck. but he made her stay in boise."
"he knew what was right and what was due both him and her, because now he was becoming a great man in the northwest. he rose to power in both financial and public life, and his daughter must be equal to her fortune. but he spoiled her, you can see that, and how could he help it?"
"she was fifteen before we heard that she was alive, and then mr. grayson and her other relatives wanted to take her and care for her, but mr. plummer refused to give her up, and he was right. he had saved her when he found her a little girl alone in all those vast mountains, and he was entitled to her. don't you think so, mr. harley?"
"i do," replied harley, with conviction.
"we yielded to his superior claim, but he sent her more than once to see us. we loved her from the first, and we love her yet."
here mrs. grayson paused and hesitated over her words, as if in embarrassment.
"but it is not you and mr. grayson alone who love her," suggested harley.
"it is not we alone; in boise everybody loves her, and at the mines and on mr. plummer's ranches they all love her, too."
"i did not mean just that kind of love."
mrs. grayson flushed a little, but she continued:
"you are speaking of mr. plummer himself; she was his daughter at first, and so long as she was a little girl i suppose that he never dreamed of her in any other light. but when she began to grow into a young woman, mr. harley--and a beautiful one, too, as beautiful as she is good--he began to look at her in a different way. when these elderly men, who have been so busy that they have not had time to fall in love, do fall in love, the fall is sudden and complete. mr. plummer was like the others. and what else could she do? she was too young to have seen much of the world. there was no young man, none of her own age, who had taken her heart. mr. plummer is a good man, and she owed him everything. of course, she accepted him. i ask you, what else could she do?"
there was a defensive note in her voice when she said: "i ask you, what else could she do?" and harley replied, with due deliberation:
"perhaps she could do nothing else, but sometimes, mrs. grayson, i have my doubts whether twenty and fifty can ever go happily together."
"we like mr. plummer, and he is a great friend of my husband's."
harley said nothing, but he, too, liked mr. plummer, and he held him in the highest respect. it required little effort of the imagination to draw a picture of the brave mountaineer riding from the indian massacre with that little girl upon his saddle-bow. and much of his criticism of sylvia morgan herself was disarmed. she was more a child of the mountains even than his first fancy had made her, and it was not a wonder that her spirit was often masculine in its strength and boldness. it was involuntary, but he thought of her with new warmth and admiration. incited by this feeling, he soon joined her and the group that was with her. he had expected to find her sad and comparatively silent, but he had never seen her in a more lively mood, full of light talk and jest and a gay good-humor that could not have failed to infect the most hardened cynic. certainly he did not escape its influence, nor did he seek to do so, but as he watched her he thought there was a slight touch of feverishness to her high spirits, as if she had just escaped from some great danger.
before they reached detroit he talked a while with mr. grayson, in the private drawing-room of the car--mrs. grayson had joined the others--and "king" plummer was the subject of their talk.
"is he really such a great political power in the northwest?" asked harley.
"he is. even greater than popular report makes him. i believe that in a presidential election he could decide the vote of five or six of those lightly populated states. he has so many interests, so many strings that he holds, and he is a man of so much energy and will. you see, i want to keep "king" plummer my friend."
"i surely would, if i were in your place," said harley, with conviction.
