The Girl at the Halfway House by Emerson Hough

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THE GIRL AT THE HALFWAY HOUSE

A Story of the Plains

by

EMERSON HOUGH

Author of _The Covered Wagon_, _54-40 or Fight_, _North of 36_, etc.

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York

1900

TO EDWARD KEMEYS,

SOLDIER, HUNTER, AND SCULPTOR,

WHO KNEW AND LOVED THE WEST,

AND WHO HAS PRESERVED ITS SPIRIT IMPERISHABLY,

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED WITH MANY GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

CONTENTS

BOOK I

THE DAY OF WAR

CHAPTER

I. THE BRAZEN TONGUES
II. THE PLAYERS OF THE GAME
III. THE VICTORY

BOOK II

THE DAY OF THE BUFFALO

IV. BATTERSLEIGH OF THE RILE IRISH
V. THE TURNING OF THE ROAD
VI. EDWARD FRANKLIN, LAWYER
VII. THE NEW WORLD
VIII. THE BEGINNING
IX. THE NEW MOVERS
X. THE CHASE
XI. THE BATTLE
XII. WHAT THE HAND HAD TO DO
XIII. PIE AND ETHICS
XIV. THE FIRST BALL AT ELLISVILLE
XV. ANOTHER DAY
XVI. ANOTHER HOUR

BOOK III

THE DAY OF THE CATTLE

XVII. ELLISVILLE THE RED
XVIII. STILL A REBEL
XIX. THAT WHICH HE WOULD
XX. THE HALFWAY HOUSE
XXI. THE ADVICE OF AUNT LUCY
XXII. EN VOYAGE
XXIII. MARY ELLEN
XXIV. THE WAY OF A MAID
XXV. BILL WATSON
XXVI. IKE ANDERSON
XXVII. THE BODY OF THE CRIME
XXVIII. THE TRIAL
XXIX. THE VERDICT

BOOK IV

THE DAY OF THE PLOUGH

XXX. THE END OF THE TRAIL
XXXI. THE SUCCESS OF BATTERSLEIGH
XXXII. THE CALLING
XXXIII. THE GREAT COLD
XXXIV. THE ARTFULNESS OF SAM
XXXV. THE HILL OF DREAMS
XXXVI. AT THE GATEWAY

BOOK I

THE DAY OF WAR

CHAPTER I

THE BRAZEN TONGUES

The band major was a poet. His name is lost to history, but it
deserves a place among the titles of the great. Only in the soul of a
poet, a great man, could there have been conceived that thought by
which the music of triumph should pass the little pinnacle of human
exultation, and reach the higher plane of human sympathy.

Forty black horses, keeping step; forty trumpeters, keeping unison;
this procession, headed by a mere musician, who none the less was a
poet, a great man, crossed the field of Louisburg as it lay dotted with
the heaps of slain, and dotted also with the groups of those who sought
their slain; crossed that field of woe, meeting only hatred and
despair, yet leaving behind only tears and grief. Tears and grief, it
is true, yet grief that knew of sympathy, and tears that recked of
other tears.

For a long time the lines of invasion had tightened about the old city
of Louisburg, and Louisburg grew weaker in the coil. When the clank of
the Southern cavalry advancing to the front rang in the streets, many
were the men swept away with the troops asked to go forward to silence
the eternally throbbing guns. Only the very old and the very young
were left to care for the homes of Louisburg, and the number of these
grew steadily less as the need increased for more material at the
front. Then came the Southern infantry, lean, soft-stepping men from
Georgia and the Carolinas, their long black hair low on their necks,
their shoes but tattered bits of leather bound upon their feet, their
blankets made of cotton, but their rifles shining and their drill
perfection. The wheat lay green upon the fields and the odours of the
blossoms of the peach trees hung heavy on the air; but there was none
who thought of fruitage or of harvest. Out there in front, where the
guns were pulsing, there went on that grimmer harvest with which the
souls of all were intimately concerned. The boys who threw up their
hats to greet the infantry were fewer than they had been before the
blossoming of the peach. The war had grown less particular of its
food. A boy could speed a bullet, or could stop one. There were yet
the boys.

Of all the old-time families of this ancient little city none held
position more secure or more willingly accorded than the Fairfaxes and
the Beauchamps. There had always been a Colonel Fairfax, the leader at
the local bar, perhaps the representative in the Legislature, or in
some position of yet higher trust. The Beauchamps had always had men
in the ranks of the professions or in stations of responsibility. They
held large lands, and in the almost feudal creed of the times they gave
large services in return. The curse of politics had not yet reached
this land of born politicians. Quietly, smoothly, yet withal keyed to
a high standard of living, the ways of this old community, as of these
two representative families, went on with little change from generation
to generation.

It was not unknown that these two families should intermarry, a Fairfax
finding a wife among the Beauchamps, or perchance a Beauchamp coming to
the Fairfax home to find a mistress for his own household. It was
considered a matter of course that young Henry Fairfax, son of Colonel
Fairfax, should, after completing his studies at the ancient
institution of William and Mary College, step into his father's law
office, eventually to be admitted to the bar and to become his father's
partner; after which he should marry Miss Ellen Beauchamp, loveliest
daughter of a family noted for its beautiful women. So much was this
taken for granted, and so fully did it meet the approval of both
families, that the tide of the young people's plans ran on with little
to disturb its current. With the gallantry of their class the young
men of the plantations round about, the young men of the fastidiously
best, rode in to ask permission of Mary Ellen's father to pay court to
his daughter. One by one they came, and one by one they rode away
again, but of them all not one remained other than Mary Ellen's loyal
slave. Her refusal seemed to have so much reason that each
disappointed suitor felt his own defeat quite stingless. Young Fairfax
seemed so perfectly to represent the traditions of his family, and his
future seemed so secure; and Mary Ellen herself, tall and slender,
bound to be stately and of noble grace, seemed so eminently fit to be a
Beauchamp beauty and a Fairfax bride.

For the young people themselves it may be doubted if there had yet
awakened the passion of genuine, personal love. They met, but, under
the strict code of that land and time, they never met alone. They rode
together under the trees along the winding country roads, but never
without the presence of some older relative whose supervision was
conventional if careless. They met under the honeysuckles on the
gallery of the Beauchamp home, where the air was sweet with the
fragrance of the near-by orchards, but with correct gallantry Henry
Fairfax paid his court rather to the mother than to the daughter. The
hands of the lovers had touched, their eyes had momentarily
encountered, but their lips had never met. Over the young girl's soul
there sat still the unbroken mystery of life; nor had the reverent
devotion of the boy yet learned love's iconoclasm.

For two years Colonel Fairfax had been with his regiment, fighting for
what he considered the welfare of his country and for the institutions
in whose justice he had been taught to believe. There remained at the
old Fairfax home in Louisburg only the wife of Colonel Fairfax and the
son Henry, the latter chafing at a part which seemed to him so
obviously ignoble. One by one his comrades, even younger than himself,
departed and joined the army hastening forward toward the throbbing
guns. Spirited and proud, restive under comparisons which he had never
heard but always dreaded to hear. Henry Fairfax begged his mother to
let him go, though still she said, "Not yet."

But the lines of the enemy tightened ever about Louisburg. Then came a
day--a fatal day--fraught with the tidings of what seemed a double
death. The wife of Colonel Henry Fairfax was grande dame that day,
when she buried her husband and sent away her son. There were yet
traditions to support.

Henry Fairfax said good-bye to Mary Ellen upon the gallery of the old
home, beneath a solemn, white-faced moon, amid the odours of the
drooping honeysuckle. Had Mary Ellen's eyes not been hid beneath the
lids they might have seen a face pale and sad as her own. They sat
silent, for it was no time for human speech. The hour came for
parting, and he rose. His lips just lightly touched her cheek. It
seemed to him he heard a faint "good-bye." He stepped slowly down the
long walk in the moonlight, and his hand was at his face. Turning at
the gate for the last wrench of separation, he gazed back at a drooping
form upon the gallery. Then Mrs. Beauchamp came and took Ellen's head
upon her bosom, seeing that now she was a woman, and that her
sufferings had begun.

CHAPTER II

THE PLAYERS OF THE GAME

When the band major was twenty miles away in front of Louisburg his
trumpets sounded always the advance. The general played the game
calmly. The line of the march was to be along the main road leading
into the town. With this course determined, the general massed his
reserves, sent on the column of assault, halted at the edge of the
wood, deployed his skirmishers, advanced them, withdrew them, retreated
but advanced again, ever irresistibly sweeping the board in toward the
base of Louisburg, knight meeting knight, pawn meeting pawn, each side
giving and taking pieces on the red board of war.

The main intrenchments erected in the defences of Louisburg lay at
right angles to the road along which came the Northern advance, and
upon the side of the wood nearest to the town. Back of the trenches
lay broken fields, cut up by many fences and dotted with occasional
trees. In the fields both the wheat and the flowers were now trampled
down, and a thousand industrious and complaining bees buzzed protest at
the losing of their commerce. The defences themselves were but
earthworks, though skilfully laid out. Along their front, well hidden
by the forest growth, ran a line of entangling abattis of stakes and
sharpened interwoven boughs.

In the centre of the line of defence lay the reserves, the boys of
Louisburg, flanked on either side by regiments of veterans, the lean
and black-haired Georgians and Carolinians, whose steadiness and
unconcern gave comfort to more than one bursting boyish heart. The
veterans had long played the game of war. They had long since said
good-bye to their women. They had seen how small a thing is life, how
easily and swiftly to be ended. Yellow-pale, their knees standing high
in front of them as they squatted about on the ground, their long black
hair hanging down uncared for, they chewed, smoked, swore, and cooked
as though there was no jarring in the earth, no wide foreboding on the
air. One man, sitting over his little fire, alternately removed and
touched his lips to the sooty rim of his tin cup, swearing because it
was too hot. He swore still more loudly and in tones more aggrieved
when a bullet, finding that line, cut off a limb from a tree above and
dropped it into his fire, upsetting the frying pan in which he had
other store of things desirable. Repairing all this damage as he
might, he lit his pipe and leaned against the tree, sitting with his
knees high in front of him. There came other bullets, singing,
sighing. Another bullet found that same line as the man sat there
smoking.

Overhead were small birds, chirping, singing, twittering. A long black
line of crows passed, tumbling in the air, with much confusion of
chatter and clangour of complaint that their harvest, too, had been
disturbed. They had been busy. Why should men play this game when
there were serious things of life?

The general played calmly, and ever the points and edges and fronts of
his advance came on, pressing in toward the last row of the board,
toward the line where lay the boys of Louisburg. Many a boy was pale
and sick that day, in spite of the encouraging calm or the biting jests
of the veterans. The strange sighings in the air became more numerous
and more urgent. Now and then bits of twigs and boughs and leaves came
sifting down, cut by invisible shears, and now and then a sapling
jarred with the thud of an unseen blow. The long line in the trenches
moved and twisted restlessly.

In front of the trenches were other regiments, out ahead in the woods,
unseen, somewhere toward that place whence came the steadiest jarring
of artillery and the loudest rattling of the lesser arms. It was very
hard to lie and listen, to imagine, to suspect, to dread. For hours
the game went on, the reserves at the trenches hearing now distinctly
and now faintly the tumult of the lines, now receding, now coming on.
But the volume of the tumult, and its separation into a thousand
distinct and terrifying sounds, became in the average ever an
increasing and not a lessening thing. The cracker-popping of the
musketry became less and less a thing of sport, of reminiscences. The
whinings that passed overhead bore more and more a personal message.
These young men, who but lately had said good-bye to the women of their
kin, began to learn what war might mean. It had been heretofore a
distant, unmeasured, undreaded thing, conquerable, not to be feared.
It seemed so sweet and fit to go forth, even though it had been hard to
say good-bye!

Now there began to appear in the woods before the trenches the figures
of men, at first scattered, then becoming steadily more numerous.
There came men bearing other men whose arms lopped loosely. Some men
walked with a hand gripped tightly to an arm; others hobbled painfully.
Two men sometimes supported a third, whose head, heavy and a-droop,
would now and then be kept erect with difficulty, the eyes staring with
a ghastly, sheepish gaze, the face set in a look of horrified surprise.
This awful rabble, the parings of the defeated line in front, dropped
back through the woods, dropped back upon the young reserves, who lay
there in the line. Some of them could go no farther, but fell there
and lay silent. Others passed back into the fields where droned the
protesting bees, or where here and there a wide tree offered shelter.
Suddenly all the summer air was filled with anguish and horror. Was
this, then, the War?

And now there appeared yet other figures among the trees, a straggling,
broken line, which fell back, halted, stood and fired always calmly,
coolly, at some unseen thing in front of them. But this line resolved
itself into individuals, who came back to the edge of the wood,
methodically picking their way through the abattis, climbing the
intervening fences, and finally clambering into the earthworks to take
their places for the final stand. They spoke with grinning respect of
that which was out there ahead, coming on. They threw off their coats
and tightened their belts, making themselves comfortable for what time
there yet remained. One man saw a soldier sitting under a tree,
leaning against the trunk, his knees high in front of him, his pipe
between his lips. Getting no answer to his request for the loan of the
pipe, he snatched it without leave, and then, discovering the truth,
went on none the less to enjoy the luxury of a smoke, it seeming to him
desirable to compass this while it yet remained among the possibilities
of life.

At last there came a continued, hoarse, deep cheering, a roaring wave
of menace made up of little sounds. An officer sprang up to the top of
the breastworks and waved his sword, shouting out something which no
one heard or cared to hear. The line in the trenches, boys and
veterans, reserves and remnants of the columns of defence, rose and
poured volley after volley, as they could, into the thick and
concealing woods that lay before them. None the less, there appeared
soon a long, dusty, faded line, trotting, running, walking, falling,
stumbling, but coming on. It swept like a long serpent parallel to the
works, writhing, smitten but surviving. It came on through the wood,
writhing, tearing at the cruel abattis laid to entrap it. It writhed,
roared, but it broke through. It swept over the rail fences that lay
between the lines and the abattis, and still came on! This was not
war, but Fate!

There came a cloud of smoke, hiding the face of the intrenchments.
Then the boys of Louisburg saw bursting through this suffocating
curtain a few faces, many faces, long rows of faces, some pale, some
red, some laughing, some horrified, some shouting, some swearing--a
long row of faces that swept through the smoke, following a line of
steel--a line of steel that flickered, waved, and dipped.

CHAPTER III

THE VICTORY

The bandmaster marshalled his music at the head of the column of
occupation which was to march into Louisburg. The game had been
admirably played. The victory was complete. There was no need to
occupy the trenches, for those who lay in them or near them would never
rally for another battle. The troops fell back behind the wood through
which they had advanced on the preceding day. They were to form upon
the road which had been the key of the advance, and then to march,
horse and foot in column, into Louisburg, the place of honour at the
head being given to those who had made the final charge to the last
trench and through the abattis. Gorged with what it had eaten, the
dusty serpent was now slothful and full of sleep. There was no longer
need for hurry. Before the middle of the morning the lines would start
on the march of the few short miles.

During the delay a young officer of engineers, Captain Edward Franklin
by name, asked permission of his colonel to advance along the line of
march until he came to the earthworks, to which he wished to give some
examination, joining his regiment as it passed beyond the
fortifications on its march. The colonel gave his consent, not
altogether willingly. "You may see more over there than you want to
see, young man," said he.

Franklin went on, following as nearly as he could the line of the
assault of the previous day, a track all too boldly marked by the
horrid _debris_ of the fight. As he reached the first edge of the
wood, where the victorious column had made its entrance, it seemed to
him that there could have been no such thing as war. A gray rabbit
hopped comfortably across the field. Merry squirrels scampered and
scolded in the trees overhead. The jays jangled and bickered, it is
true, but a score of sweet-voiced, peaceful-throated birds sang bravely
and contentedly as though there had never been a sound more discordant
than their own speech. The air was soft and sweet, just cold enough to
stir the leaves upon the trees and set them whispering intimately. The
sky, new washed by the rain which had fallen in the night, was clean
and bright and sweet to look upon, and the sun shone temperately warm.
All about was the suggestion of calm and rest and happiness. Surely it
had been a dream! There could have been no battle here.

This that had been a dream was changed into a horrid nightmare as the
young officer advanced into the wood. About him lay the awful
evidences. Coats, caps, weapons, bits of gear, all marked and
emphasized with many, many shapeless, ghastly things. Here they lay,
these integers of the line, huddled, jumbled. They had all the
contortions, all the frozen ultimate agonies left for survivors to see
and remember, so that they should no more go to war. Again, they lay
so peacefully calm that all the lesson was acclaim for happy, painless
war. One rested upon his side, his arm beneath his head as though he
slept. Another sat against a tree, his head fallen slightly forward,
his lax arms allowing his hands to droop plaintively, palms upward and
half spread, as though he sat in utter weariness. Some lay upon their
backs where they had turned, thrusting up a knee in the last struggle.
Some lay face downward as the slaughtered fall. Many had died with
hands open, suddenly. Others sat huddled, the closed hand with its
thumb turned under and covered by the fingers, betokening a gradual
passing of the vital spark, and a slow submission to the conqueror. It
was all a hideous and cruel dream. Surely it could be nothing more.
It could not be reality. The birds gurgled and twittered. The
squirrels barked and played. The sky was innocent. It must be a dream.

In this part of the wood the dead were mingled from both sides of the
contest, the faded blue and the faded gray sometimes scarce
distinguishable. Then there came a thickening of the gray, and in
turn, as the traveller advanced toward the fences and abattis, the
Northern dead predominated, though still there were many faces
yellow-pale, dark-framed. At the abattis the dead lay in a horrid
commingling mass, some hanging forward half through the entanglement,
some still in the attitude of effort, still tearing at the spiked
boughs, some standing upright as though to signal the advance. The
long row of dead lay here as where the prairie wind drives rolling
weeds, heaping them up against some fence that holds them back from
farther travel.

Franklin passed over the abattis, over the remaining fences, and into
the intrenchments where the final stand had been. The dead lay thick,
among them many who were young. Out across the broken and trodden
fields there lay some scattered, sodden lumps upon the ground.
Franklin stood looking out over the fields, in the direction of the
town. And there he saw a sight fitly to be called the ultimate horror
of all these things horrible that he had seen.

Over the fields of Louisburg there came a fearful sound, growing,
rising, falling, stopping the singing and the twitter of the birds.
Across the land there came a horrible procession, advancing with short,
uncertain, broken pauses--a procession which advanced, paused, halted,
broke into groups; advanced, paused, stopped, and stooped; a procession
which came with wailings and bitter cries, with wringing of hands, with
heads now and then laid upon the shoulders of others for support; a
procession which stooped uncertainly, horribly. It was the women of
Louisburg coming to seek their slain--a sight most monstrous, most
terrible, unknown upon any field of civilized war, and unfit to be
tolerated even in the thought! It is for men, who sow the fields of
battle, to attend also to the reaping.

Franklin stood at the inner edge of the earthworks, half hidden by a
little clump of trees. It seemed to him that he could not well escape
without being seen, and he hesitated at this thought, Yet as he stood
it appeared that he must be an intruder even thus against his will. He
saw approaching him, slowly but almost in direct line, two figures, an
older lady and a girl. They came on, as did the others, always with
that slow, searching attitude, the walk broken with pauses and
stoopings. The quest was but too obvious. And even as Franklin gazed,
uncertain and unable to escape, it seemed apparent that the two had
found that which they had sought. The girl, slightly in advance, ran
forward a few paces, paused, and then ran back. "Oh, there! there!"
she cried. And then the older woman took the girl's head upon her
bosom. With bared head and his own hand at his eyes, Franklin hurried
away, hoping himself unseen, but bearing indelibly pictured on his
brain the scene of which he had been witness. He wanted to cry out, to
halt the advancing columns which would soon be here, to tell them that
they must not come upon this field, made sacred by such woe.

The column of occupation had begun its movement. Far as the eye could
see, the way was filled with the Northern troops now swinging forward
in the march. Their course would be along this road, across these
earthworks, and over the fields between the wood and the town. The
rattle and rumble of the advance began. Upon the morning air there
rose the gallant and forgetful music which bade the soldier think not
of what had been or would be, but only of the present. The bugles and
the cymbals sounded high and strong in the notes of triumph. The game
was over. The army was coming to take possession of that which it had
won.

It had won--what? Could the answer be told by this chorus of woe which
arose upon the field of Louisburg? Could the value of this winning be
summed by the estimate of these heaps of sodden, shapeless forms? Here
were the fields, and here lay the harvest, the old and the young, the
wheat and the flower alike cut down. Was this, then, what the
conqueror had won?

Near the intrenchment where the bitter close had been, and where there
was need alike for note of triumph, and forgetfulness, the band major
marshalled his music, four deep and forty strong, and swung out into
the anthem of the flag. The march was now generally and steadily
begun. The head of the column broke from the last cover of the wood
and came into full sight at the edge of the open country. Thus there
came into view the whole panorama of the field, dotted with the slain
and with those who sought the slain. The music of triumph was
encountered by the concerted voice of grief and woe. There appeared
for the feet of this army not a mere road, a mere battlefield, but a
ground sacred, hedged high about, not rudely to be violated.

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