"What is this?" he asked Barbara sternly, as she stood in the corner, twisting her ap.r.o.n and finding, suddenly, that it was very difficult to explain. Felix came in, the light of excitement still on his face, eager to tell the tale.

He began to recount what they had heard, so carried away that he never noticed the gathering thundercloud upon his brother's face. The plains, the mountains, the shining rivers running to the sea--he seemed to conjure up all of them as he told the story, but Ralph's face never changed.

"So," cut in the elder brother at last when the younger stopped for breath, "it is for a fairy tale like this that you have wasted your time and your substance, have emptied my money box. You bought bees with it--_bees_! To buy bees when the forest is full of them and you can have a swarm from any neighbor for the asking. You spend _my_ money that some lying rascal may be helped upon his way!"

"It was our money," Felix reminded him gently, beginning to be awakened from his dream by the bitter anger of the other's tone.

"Mine," repeated Ralph. A cold fury seemed to possess him, which discussions over money could alone bring forth. "Have you forgotten that everything here is mine, given me by our father? The bread you eat, the roof over your head, they belong to me; do you understand?"

Barbara saw, in the firelight, that Felix's face flushed, then turned white. No one but herself could know just how such words would hurt him, how his pride, his love for his brother, and his st.u.r.dy independence were all cut to the very quick. He went out of the room without a word and could be heard climbing the ladderlike stairs that led to the room he had made for himself under the eaves. Ralph sat down by the fire, muttering uneasily something about "it all blowing over." With lagging steps Barbara went on setting the table.

They were not prepared to see Felix come down the stairs a few minutes later with his coat and cap and with his violin under his arm.

"I will take no man's charity, not even my brother's," he said huskily, as he stood still for a moment on the threshold. Then he was gone.

Barbara leaned over the half door and watched him go down the path, saw him pa.s.s through the lane of tiny apple trees, saw the dusk gather about him as he went on, a smaller and smaller, plodding figure that disappeared at last into the dark. The autumn wind in the oak tree sounded bl.u.s.tering and cold as she closed the door and turned back to the room again.

"He has only gone down to the town, he will come back to-morrow,"

growled Ralph, but Barbara knew better.

"He has gone to look for gold," she cried, and, sitting down on the bench by the fire, she buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Felix used to think, as the days and weeks pa.s.sed, and as that strange journey upon which he had launched so suddenly dragged on and on, that the gra.s.sy slope above the orchard and the cool dark foliage of the oak tree must be the very greenest and fairest things on earth. There was no green now before his aching eyes, only the wide stretch of yellow-brown prairie, a rough trail, deep in dust, winding across it, a line of white-topped wagons crawling like ants over the vast plain, and a blue arch of sky above, blinding-bright with the heat.

It was October when he went away from home, it was a month later when, by leisurely stage and slow ca.n.a.l boat, he arrived at the Mississippi River, the outpost of established travel. Here he was obliged to wait until spring, for even in the rush of '49 there were few bold enough to attempt the overland trail in winter. He turned his hand to every sort of work, he did odd jobs during the day and played his violin for dancing at night, he grew lean and out-at-elbows and graver than he used to be. He slept in strange places and ate stranger food, he suffered pangs of hunger and of homesickness, but he never thought of going back. His violin went everywhere with him, and in more than one of the little towns along the big river, people began to demand the boy fiddler who could make such gay music for their merrymakings.

When at last the snow melted, the wild geese flew northward, and the wilderness trail was open again, he had no difficulty in finding an emigrant party to which to attach himself. Abner Blythe was a lean, hard Yankee, but he had lived for years in the Middle West and had made journeys out into the prairie, although he had never gone the whole of the way to the mountains and the coast. He knew how to drive cattle with the long black-snake whip, whose snapping lash alone can voice the master's orders and which can flick the ear or flank of a wandering steer at the outermost limit of reach. His frail, eager-eyed little wife was to go with them, their boy of five, and a company of helpers who were to drive the wagons of supplies and to serve for protection against Indians.

The road was crowded at first, and the prairie gra.s.s grew green and high, full of wild strawberries, pink wild roses, and meadow larks.

But as they journeyed slowly westward, as spring pa.s.sed into summer, the green turned to brown under the burning sun, the low bluffs and tree-bordered water-courses were left behind, and they came to the wide, hot plains that seemed to have no end. At the beginning they sometimes pa.s.sed farmhouses to the right and left of the trail, built by some struggling pioneer, where there was a little stream of water and where a few trees were planted. The places looked to Felix like the Noah's Ark he used to play with when he was small--the tiny, toy trees, the square toy house, little toy animals set out on the bare, brown floor of the prairie. Even the gaunt women in shapeless garments who always came to the door to watch the wagon train go by were not unlike the stiff wooden figures of Mrs. Noah. At last, however, even the scattered houses came to an end and there was nothing before them but the wilderness.

It was desperately hot, with the blazing sun above and the scorching winds swooping over the prairie to blow in their faces like the blast of a furnace. They made long stops at noontime, resting in the shade of the wagons and pressed on late into the night, so that not an hour might be lost. They went by herds of buffalo, big, clumsy, inert creatures, that looked so formidable from in front and so insignificant from behind. They saw slim, swift little antelope and, on the far horizon, they sometimes made out moving dots that must be Indians. Their numbers and their vigilance, however, seemed great enough to keep them safe from attack.

A deadly weariness began to fall upon them all, so that Abner Blythe became morose and silent, his wife looked haggard and hollow-eyed, the men grew irritable, and the animals lagged more and more. Others who had pa.s.sed that way had left many of their footsore beasts behind them--horses, oxen, cows, and sheep--to fall a prey at once to the great gray prairie wolves that hung behind every wagon train, waiting for the stragglers who could not keep up.

"It is only the human beings who have the courage to go on," Abner Blythe said to Felix. "You would think that horses were stronger than men and oxen the strongest of all, but the beasts give up and lie down by the road to die, yet the men keep on. It is not strength but spirit that carries us all to our journey's end."

There was one high-spirited black mare, the dearly beloved of Felix's heart, who, whether dragging at the heavy wagon or cantering under the saddle, was always full of energy and fire. She was the boy's especial charge, and, as the weeks pa.s.sed, the two became such friends as are only produced by long companionship and unbelievable hardships endured together. It was a dreadful hour when, one night as they were making camp, the little mare lay down and not even for a feed of oats or the precious lump of sugar offered her, would she get up again. The very spirit that had driven her forward more bravely than the rest had produced greater exhaustion now.

"We will have to go on without her," said Abner Blythe dejectedly, as they sat about the camp fire.

Felix was feeding the flame with the spa.r.s.e fuel, and Anna Blythe, Abner's wife, was sitting on a roll of blankets with her child on her lap. The little boy was ill and lay wailing against her shoulder.

"Don't leave the mare," Felix begged. "A day or two of rest will cure her entirely. There is water here, and gra.s.s beside the stream. We could camp two or three days until she can go on."

Abner shook his head wearily.

"We have no time to waste," he declared. "It is August now and we must cross the mountains before the middle of September. We haven't a day, not even an hour, to lose."

Anna Blythe sighed a deep, quivering sigh. Felix knew that she loved the little horse, too, and, so he sometimes thought, she was herself so weary that she often longed to lie down beside the trail and perish as the tired dumb animals did. She had never made complaint before, but to-night, perhaps appalled by the thought of the mountains still to be crossed, she burst out into fierce questioning:

"Abner, why don't we turn back? What is it all for? Can gold, all the gold we could ever gather, repay us for this terrible journey? We are little more than halfway and the worst is still before us. We could go back while there is still time. Why do we go on?"

Abner, spreading his big hands upon his knees, sat staring into the fire.

"I don't know," he said at last, "I vow I don't know. It is not the excitement, nor the gold that drives us, there is no telling what it may be. Our country must go on, she must press forward to new opportunities, she must dwell in new places. It is through people like us that such growth comes about, we don't ourselves know why. A little ambition, a little hope, a great blind impulse, and we go forward.

That is all."

They sat very still while the fire died out into charring embers and darkness filled the wide sky above them, showing the whole circling march of the stars like a sky at sea.

"We must be moving," Abner said at last, "we can make a few miles more before it is time to sleep."

They all arose wearily and made ready to go on. Felix went to where the black mare lay and pa.s.sed his hand down her smooth neck. She whinnied and thrust her soft nose against his cheek, but would make no effort to move. He stood for a moment thinking deeply. Very clearly did he understand Abner's unreasoning desire to go forward, but, perhaps because he was only a boy, he did not feel that same wish so completely and pa.s.sionately. There were other ideas in his mind, and uppermost among them was the feeling that one can not desert a well-loved friend. Just as the foremost wagon creaked into motion and rumbled forward into the dark, his resolution found its way into words.

"I think I will stay with the mare," he said. "In three days at least she will be rested enough to go on, and then I can easily overtake you. We don't want to lose her." He tried to hide the depth of his feeling with commonplace words. "It wouldn't be sensible, when we have so few horses."

Abner did not consent willingly, but he agreed at last.

"She'll travel fast when she is on her feet again," he said, "and I don't like leaving her myself."

Felix took some provisions from the cook's wagon, gathered up his blankets, slung his gun over his shoulder, and, as a last thought, reached in for his violin. It would be good company in the dark, he thought.

"Keep your gun c.o.c.ked for Indians," were Abner's last instructions, "look out for rattlesnakes at the water holes, and catch us up when you can. Good luck to you."

The boy stood beside the trail and listened to the slow complaining of the wheels and the shuffling of the feet of horses and oxen in the dust as the whole train moved onward. For a little while he could hear them and could see the bulk of the wagon tops outlined against the stars, then the long roll of the prairie hid them and he was left all alone in the wide, wild, empty plain.

CHAPTER IX

THE FIDDLER OF APPLE TREE LANE (_Continued_)

Felix tended the little horse as best he could, bringing her gra.s.s, which she would not eat and water, which she drank gratefully. At last, unbelievably tired, he built up the fire and lay down to sleep.

His heavy eyes were just closing when he saw a black shadow move silently across the basin of the little watercourse and heard the crunch of a pebble dislodged by a softly padding foot. As he sat up, a big gray wolf, as unafraid as a dog, from long following at the heels of the emigrant trains, came out into the circle of light. With its head lowered and its eyes shining in the dark, it sat down--to wait.

The fire dwindled, for there was little to burn save the dried twigs from the bushes that lined the stream, nor did Felix dare to leave the horse long enough to gather a fresh supply. More gray figures came through the dark to gather in a wide, waiting circle all about the fire. Within the limits of their brutish minds lay the knowledge that fires would die down, that strength of man and beast would fail, and that, once a straggler could not go on, patient waiting always made him their prey at last. Felix c.o.c.ked his gun, took long aim at a pair of green eyes glittering in the dark, but in the end lowered the muzzle without firing. The flash of a rifle and its report carried far over the level prairie, and there were other eyes that might be watching for human stragglers, fiercer and hungrier eyes even than were the wolves'. As the foremost animal drew a little closer, he took up his violin and began to play.

He had a strange audience, the greedy white-fanged beasts that slunk away at the first strains of the unwonted sound, stole back, yet moved uneasily away again, the little fat, inquisitive prairie dogs that popped out of their burrows and sat up to listen, the circling nighthawks that wheeled and called overhead. Hour after hour he played, but whenever he paused the hungry circle drew in about him and he was forced to raise his aching arm and ply his bow again. The first hint of dawn was brightening the sky when the creatures of the night began to slip away, and Felix, laying down his violin, suddenly laughed aloud.

"I wish that Granny Fullerton, who thought that it wasn't quite safe for us to live on the Windy Hill," he said, "I wish that she could see me now!"

Then he lay down, pillowed his head upon his arm, and fell so fast asleep that, as he said afterward, "a whole tribe of Indians could have ridden over him and he would never have moved."

It was, indeed, horse's feet that aroused him, but not, by good fortune, the unshod hoofs of Indian ponies. A band of men was riding toward him from the westward, hard, grizzled men, weather-beaten and toil-worn beyond anything Felix had ever seen.