Harrisofi Robertson RED BLOOD AND BLUE Red Blood and Blue BY HARRISON ROBERTSON AUTHOR OF "HOW THE DERBY WAS WON "IF I WERE A MAN," ETC. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1900 Copyright, 1900 JY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS rights reserved UNIVERSITY PRESS JOHN WILSOIf AND SON CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. Red Blood and Blue i THE electric whir of fifty wings ; the brown covey's level flight, as a charge of canister- shot ; a flash from a quickly raised gun, and then a tanned, sturdily-stepping boy, after having noted where the flushed quails had sunk again into the yellow sedge, made his way to his spoil, which, with one last tremor, was lying on the grass. The boy picked up the bird, holding it in his palm and inspecting its plump beauty, the gleam of the hunter in his eyes. " Hello, Andrew ! What luck ? " Arthur Feme, a lad of Andrew's own age, which was not more than fourteen, pulled up his horse as he was galloping across the fields, and thus accosted the young sportsman. Andrew looked up with a frank nod. " Not what I expected," he answered. " I blazed bang into the covey, and I thought I 'd bring down more 'n one." 2 Red Blood and Blue " I reckon the birds are satisfied, if you 're not all except that one you have there. Poor little fellow ! It seems a shame to kill them so, doesn't it?" There was about young Feme the easy air of one who fell naturally into the confidence of those with whom he talked, anticipating and agreeing with them before they expressed themselves. It was a winning manner, espe- cially with those who, as in this instance, were classed as his social inferiors. Andrew Outcault gazed at the handsome figure on the horse in silence for a second, as if he did not fully comprehend. Then the smile that lit his eyes parted his ample lips and showed the ends of his big, white teeth. " What were they put here for if it was n't to be killed ? " was his response. He turned over the dead bird in his hand and eyed it again. " And I reckon this one ought to be the best satisfied one in the lot. He won't have to scratch for a livin' and starve to death when the big snow comes. Fact, he '11 never know what snow is ; he 's a this year's bird." " How do you know that ? " " Look. Can't you see? " holding up the young cock for Arthur's examination. Red Blood and Blue 3 Arthur bent over the quail. " Why, how can you tell But he did not finish his question. He drew back, raising himself erect in the saddle and turning away his paling face. " I don't want to look at it," he said authori- tatively. " Put it in your bag. Don't you see there is blood on it ? " On the prettily marked head of the bird a crimson bead had welled from the puncture of a shot. Andrew's eyes fell to the quail and then lifted again, widening, to Arthur. " Of course there is blood ! " astonished that it should provoke any comment, and recogniz- ing that he had somehow been placed on the defensive. "I shot him I shot him fair and square, on the wing. I did n't trap him, or drive him through wet weeds into a net. I don't hunt that way." Andrew was defending himself the more aggressively because he did not understand what was the accusation against him. With him the blood of his quarry was only the badge of his victory. His scant experience had not yet taught him that there were people in the world who sickened at the mere sight of blood. " Oh, I did n't mean that ! " Arthur replied, 4 Red Blood and Blue leaning over his horse's neck and carefully adjusting a wisp of the mane which had blown to the wrong side. " I just never could bear to see blood ; that 's all." The other boy was speechless for a moment. Then his mouth twitched and he was on the point of breaking into loud laughter. But something checked him perhaps the instinct of the true gentleman in the heart of this son of the soil and he simply commented: " Well, that is funny ! " " Father says I '11 outgrow it," Arthur added cheerfully. " I certainly do hope so. It 's awfully uncomfortable." Then, gathering up the reins, " Have you seen anything of Lee Torrance over this way ? " " No ; I ain't seen him this evenin'." Young Feme rode off toward " The Mounds," the Torrances' home, whose chimneys could be seen above the trees a mile to the east ; while Andrew, leaning against his gun, looked after the receding horseman. " He 's a dadburned good rider, anyhow," was the boy's tribute, " if he is skeered of a little blood." After which he proceeded to re-charge with powder, wad, and shot his old muzzle-loading gun. Red Blood and Blue 5 Andrew knew. Arthur Feme was a good rider ; and as he trotted briskly across the fields the slender stalks of the broom-sedge through which he rode did not give themselves more gracefully to the motion of the wind than he to the motion of his horse. He was an uncommonly handsome boy. His flesh had much of the whiteness and the firmness of the young hickory under the bark. Already there was in his development the assurance of a comely and strong manhood that would be conspicuous even among the products of this luxuriant Tennessee limestone. His hair, dusky and thick, and his eyes, soft and dark, accentuated the clarity of his skin. His face was faultless in its lines, unless it might be criticised as a trifle too narrow in its lower part for the imposing breadth of forehead. The nose was straight, with thin, sensitive nostrils, and the expression, when animated, was full of brilliant change ; when in repose, thoughtful, often to sadness. He was in ap- pearance certainly the worthy representative of a family that, exclusive of the Torrances, was esteemed as the first, in position and lineage, in a community which, had it always been impressed as much by the virtues of 6 Red Blood and Blue pedigreed hogs as of pedigreed humans, would have fared better materially. Andrew Outcault, having loaded his gun, swung it across his knees as he sat upon a stump, and idly kicking his heel against its side, whistled " Dandy Jim o' Caroline " and followed with his eyes Arthur Feme's prog- ress to The Mounds. The long-sought covey of quails seemed now forgotten. Andrew's back was turned upon it. His puckered face was set to The Mounds, forbidden territory to an Outcault, which Arthur Feme entered almost daily with as much freedom as if he had been a son of James York Torrance himself. Lee Torrance was the son of James York Torrance, and Arthur Feme was Lee's friend, but it was not of Lee, nor of even James York Torrance, that Andrew Outcault thought when he thought of The Mounds ; and he felt in his riotous young heart that it was not of these that such as Arthur Feme thought when they went, as he so often saw them go, to the Torrance planta- tion. For there was the home of Lee's sister and James York Torrance's daughter, Victoria Torrance, who had set aflame in Andrew Outcault the first fierce, secret passion of a Red Blood and Blue 7 boy's love, which by day drew his feet and his eyes in one direction, which by night fevered his pillow with longing void and ecstatic dreams, and which stirred within him the awakening forces of desire and awe, feroc- ity and tenderness, mastery and abasement, that have been the lot of man since the breath of life was blown into another sex, and that ever lift boyhood to the stress of manhood, as later they lift manhood to the simplicity of boyhood. Such a passion as that of this healthy, plainly-living lad could only be intensified by his knowledge, indefinite and yet oppressive, that she who had inspired it was in a world so far removed from his that he was not even privileged to see her except by chance and at a distance, as he met her on some public high- way, as he gazed at her across the pews at church, or prowled among the thickets near The Mounds to catch a far glimpse of her at door or window, or among the oaks and magnolias in which the house was set. He had no clear conception of the reasons, indeed, his mind was too immature as yet to seek reasons, but he did have some concep- tion of the disparity in which the Torrances 8 Red Blood and Blue and the Outcaults were held by those who knew both families, and he realized that as an Outcault the place to which he was popularly assigned in the social scale was hardly above that of the negroes who tilled the Torrances' cotton-fields. There is little melody in " Dandy Jim o' Caroline," and there was less as Andrew whistled it, finishing it as Arthur disappeared through the gates of The Mounds. Andrew had loosened a slab of the dead stump's bark as he kept time with his heel, and this he doggedly continued kicking until it fell off, after which he jumped to the ground and with a laugh and a "Shoulder arms!" started in the direction in which the quails had flown. For a few steps he marched like a soldier, except that he glanced back once. Then when a platoon of mullein stalks obstructed his advance he clubbed them aside with his gun. That done, his eyes wandered again toward The Mounds, and the gleam of the hunter had gone out of them as they shifted back toward the waiting covey. A couple of kildees, flying by out of range, alighted with their shrill challenge on the banks of the creek a quarter of a mile nearer The Mounds. Ordinarily he Red Blood and Blue 9 would not have noticed a kildee while he had a chance for a quail, but now he turned and watched the white and dun birds as they ran over the ground, rocky and bare except for patches of short grass, beyond the farthest fringe of the sedge. He suddenly tossed his gun in air, and catching it as it came down, sang out the old air of the children's kissing game : " Fly to the east and fly to the west, And kneel to the one you love the best." The kildees had flown to the east, the quails to the west, and Andrew with resolute strides started toward the kildees. But he never got a shot at them. The birds were wary, the stalker indifferent, and after they had twice taken wing before he drew in reach they scudded northwest toward the "Dead Sea," instead of east toward The Mounds. Andrew made no pretence of fol- lowing them further, but loitered along the creek that came from the great spring at The Mounds. The spell of October was in the air; the day, with all its out-door freedom, was his own ; and he thrashed aimlessly through the fallen leaves on the bank of the stream ; through the brush and bramble that crowded to to Red Blood and Blue the water's edge ; through the screening withes of the willows; through the soft green grass where the creek spread out, at the foot of the gorge, between undulant, beech-studded meadows; through the gorge itself, whose cool blue rock-walls were draped with velvets of moss and laces of ferns ; but all the time, with his wayward steps, slides, and leaps, inching nearer the source of the brook at The Mounds. At the head of the gorge the water, before plunging down it, eddied aside into a wide, smooth pool, which, under high summer skies, mirrored the fleece of every cloud above and the frond and leaf of every vine and branch with the exquisitely idealizing fidelity with which it revealed the markings of the young bass in its depths. But this afternoon the pool, while still apparently pure, had no longer the transparence of June and July. Sumptu- ously dyed leaves had drifted around its rim and sunk to its bottom, and the shadows of the airy clouds which had flitted across its sur- face in summer as fleeting fancies now seemed to have been caught and held in its very heart as brooding memories, pervading the October water with the same mystic softness that ever pervades the October sunshine. Red Blood and Blue 1 1 It may be that something of its spirit momentarily touched the chaotic currents that were coursing through the boy's veins. He threw himself upon the dry leaves by the side of the pool, stirring them rhythmically with his foot, for no manifest purpose except to hear them rustle, and watching one little crimson shallop that had fallen from a maple and lay seemingly becalmed on still water, yet which, sighted by the spear of a cat-tail on the bank, was slowly swinging toward the sluice that shot into the gorge. Andrew followed with his gaze the leaf as it circled outward and was caught by the swift race, disappearing over the timbers of a rude fish-trap which he now discovered for the first time. An ejaculation of impatience broke from his throat, and he threw a stone at the trap as he got to his feet and went toward it. " No sneak-fishin' here ! " he exclaimed, as he kicked the trap to pieces and sent it spinning down the stream. After which, with unwitting inconsistency and the zest of the slayer for slaughter's sake, he shot a kingfisher that had swooped down boldly for its dinner. When his eyes fell again on the pool the place of the maple leaf had been taken by a 12 Red Blood and Blue great green-enamelled magnolia leaf, and his face shone with a new light. There were no magnolia-trees nearer than The Mounds, and he knew that the leaf must have floated thence. He went to the narrowest point of the race, and, standing on rocks that projected from the water, waited until the leaf came swirling down, when he seized it and bore it trium- phantly to the bank. Lying on his back, with the moist leaf cooling his closed eyelids, he dreamed some of those dreams that come to sound-hearted boys, from the days when in skirts they mount stick horses and rout armed legions to the years when the lengthening shadows bring them dreams of only what has been or might have been. For the time the magnolia leaf was to Andrew an argosy of fine and gallant things. The creek, for in- stance, flowed as a moat around the grim walls of a Castle of Evil imprisoning Innocence- and-Beauty-and- High-Degree ; and the leaf was dropped into the water by her own fair hand, which had traced upon it an appeal to chiv- alry and a prayer for deliverance ; and it had come to him in the far greenwood, a poor and simple gentleman, with no retainers but his wits, no fortune but his sword : and fasten- Red Blood and Blue 13 ing the leaf of lustrous Lincoln-green in his cockade, with faith Above and consecration to Her he had ridden away to find the walls these errant waters guarded ; and he had fol- lowed the stream toward its source through untracked forests and gruesome fens and mountain fastnesses, braving all manner of perils and overcoming countless foes, until the very water ran red, red, red, and the castle was reached and stormed, and Innocence-and- Beauty-and-High-Degree was borne trium- phantly away, to bind his wounds and adore him evermore. He sprang up with a short laugh. It was a laugh at himself, and ended abruptly, after the manner of the snort of a frolicsome colt. He looked about him a little shamefully, as if half-suspecting that he might have been de- tected in his deeds of prowess. Then with another laugh he stuck the magnolia leaf in his hat-band and walked along the creek to a shoal where he knew that the doves, at this hour of the afternoon, were in the habit of flying to drink. It had the additional attraction of being very near The Mounds. Here, at the edge of the stream, stood an 14 Red Blood and Blue ash with a dead top, on which the doves usually alighted to reconnoitre before ventur- ing down to the water. Andrew could see now from where he was a graceful silhouette on the highest point of the ash, but he trudged openly ahead, with no effort to conceal his approach, and before he got within range the bird took flight. Reaching the shoal, a casual glance revealed the presence of no other doves, and he stopped in a clump of bushes to await newcomers. But instead of facing the shoal and the ash, he was soon eying The Mounds, the picket fence enclosing which was hardly a stone's throw distant. The house, of brownish-gray brick, was large and square, two and a half stories high, with a roof so flat that it could not be seen over the wooden cornice. The mortar showed dingily that it had once been " pencilled " with lime. The cornice had long ago been painted white ; the outer blinds were yet green ; the great fluted pillars of the porch, which were hollow and had been the hiding places of such treas- ure as the family silver and the family wheat during the Civil War, indicated at close in- spection that they had originally been painted in imitation of marble. About fifty yards to Red Blood and Blue 15 one side was the small one-story structure known as " the office." In the rear of the main building, and connected by a plank walk, was the kitchen, flanked by the smoke-house. In front was a spacious park of forest trees, rooted in blue-grass, which was neglected and partially covered with dead leaves. The ground rolled gently to the great " bottom- less" spring, a beautiful pool of cold water that found its outlet in the creek which Andrew had ascended. The spring welled up between two immense hillocks, covered with turf and studded with trees whose size attested the growth of centuries. These mounds, relics of a mysterious prehistoric race, gave the plantation its name. At the far end of the park, gates opened into a tree- lined lane, called Torrance Avenue, whose other extremity was the main street of the little town of Feme Run, a mile or two away. Nature had done much to make The Mounds a beautiful home, but man for many years had done little to aid her. Except for the smoke rising from the kitchen, the chant of a negro song, and the lazy plaint of a washboard somewhere near, there were no signs of life about the sleepy place as Andrew 1 6 Red Blood and Blue surveyed it, a touch of disappointment sober- ing his usually cheerful face. Then there was the sibilant beat of wings behind him ; and, turning quickly, he discharged bis gun at what he mistook for a dove flying between himself and the sun. But he saw almost instantly that it was not a d9ve. A few loosened feathers floating in the air and the swerve of the bird showed that it had been hit, and as it continued its flight and suddenly dropped in the high-fenced inclosure of The Mounds Andrew realized that he had killed one of James York Torrance's pigeons. His sun-burned face grew a little whiter as he stared at the dead bird on the grass. He stood in awe of James York Torrance. Beyond the distance-compelling reputation of the master of The Mounds, Andrew knew, though he did not understand why, that being an Outcault he was in particular disfavor with James York Torrance. Moreover, it was rumored every- where that James York Torrance prized, above all his worldly possessions, his pigeons ; and an Outcault had shot one of James York Torrance's pigeons! The boy's first impulse was to run away, and he did turn as if to flee ; but he had not Red Blood and Blue 17 taken more than one step before he whirled and with a sniff of sudden resolution went immediately to the fence between him and The Mounds. It was of cedar pickets, ten feet high, set deep in the ground and close to- gether, sharpened to points at the top. Hold- ing his gun in one hand, Andrew scaled this formidable barrier and dropped to the ground on the other side. He had killed one of James York Torrance's pigeons, but he had mistaken it for a wild dove ; he would not sneak away like a marauder or a coward ; he would carry the dead pigeon to the house and explain, if necessary, to James York Torrance himself, the circumstances of the catastrophe. The pigeon had fallen about fifty yards from the house, and Andrew, just as he picked up the bird, was transfixed by the spectacle of two old men coming toward him from around the corner of " the office." One he knew to be no less a personage than James York Torrance, white-haired, cleanly-shaven, martial, yet walking with the uncertain steps of poor eyesight. With one hand he was arranging on his nose his glasses, and with the other he carried, as always, a gold-headed ebony cane. By his side was " Uncle " Bev, 1 8 Red Blood and Blue an aged negro, as straight and dignified as his master. " Yonder he is, Marse Jeems York," Andrew could hear the negro say ; " an' de young varmint is shootin' our pijins, lak I tole you ! " James York Torrance's form seemed to stiffen a little more, and his lips moved, but Andrew could not hear the words that came from them. " Yess 'r," Bev replied, " he done kilt one un um already ; he got it in his han' dis minnit he sutny is." Andrew stood chilled and motionless. He appeared as much a fixture as the oak by his side. " My Ian ' ! Marse Jeems York," Bev next exclaimed, " who you reckon it is ? Hit hit ain't nobody but dat outdacious Outcault boy, da 's who ! " They were only a few yards away now, and James York Torrance abruptly halted at these words of Bev's. The pink of apple- blossoms came into his pale cheeks, and he dug his cane into the ground, the hand with which he held it gripping it so tightly that the knuckles stood out bloodlessly white, the stick trembling in his clutch Red Blood and Blue 19 " What Outcault ? " he asked, in a voice so low that it was plainly the result of an effort at self-control. " Not the son of Jerry Outcault ? " " Yess 'r ; hit 's des dat ve'y brat ! " James York Torrance's gentle blue eyes, now piercingly set and fiercely magnified behind his powerful glasses, were fixed upon Andrew with what seemed to the boy a merciless glare. Then the cane of the old man was given an- other shove further into the sod and his dry lips contracted as if shrivelled by heat. " Come here, sir ! " he ordered, his usually sweet tones husky with repressed emotion. Andrew felt powerless to stir. There was something so ominous in the lean, majestic person of the speaker, in its stilled passion, that the boy was cowed as he had never been in all his life. " Come here, sir ! Do you not hear me ? " Andrew continued to stare helplessly at the disks of the ogreish glasses. Then the spell was broken by the lilt of a young voice somewhere near, and like a flash Andrew turned his face from that of the man to the figure of a girl skipping and singing toward them over the lawn. It was a repetition by 20 Red Blood and Blue youth and femininity of the beautiful old man. She was not more than ten years old. She had her father's air of distinction and blood. She had his slender form, his flat back, his long legs, with the elasticity and sureness of motion which had been his before his sight had begun to fail. She had his firm lips, full but not thick, with a carnation and dew all their own. She had his solid, symmetrical chin, a fundamental part and not a superfluous append- age of the clear-cut, sensitive face which rose from it as a base to the smooth brow. She had hair that was his in luxuriance, but was the October woods' in its shadows and tints. She had eyes that were his only in their gentleness and fire, but in their color were deeper, and in their colors were no- body's whose eyes could be described one hour with words that would describe them the next. But she had a voice that was not her father's a voice that had made irresist- ible many Torrance women, and which genera- tion after generation had been the most unmistakable and purely preserved heritage of the Torrance family. As she came near, her laughing eyes looking in curosity from Andrew to her father, her Red Blood and Blue 21 quick steps were suddenly checked, and the shadow of a cloud flitted over her face. It was not the first time she had seen that rigid- ity of his body, that blaze in the eyes, those apple-blossoms upon the wintry cheeks. She slipped to his side silently, and with a motion that was tenderly maternal, laid her hand upon his as it gripped the head of the cane, and raised to him eyes that were solicitously questioning. But he, beyond an almost im- perceptible start as she touched him, betrayed no consciousness of her presence, or of any presence except that of the boy. At sight of Victoria Torrance Andrew was no longer motionless and speechless in the pres- ence of her father. Lifting up his face and flinging back his shoulders, as he did some- times in the exuberance of vitality when breasting wind and rain, he walked forward, with the dead pigeon in his hand, and stopping in front of James York Torrance, said, in a voice whose slight agitation was the result more of the preceding than the present moment: " I reckon this is your pigeon, sir. I was comin' to tell you how it happened." " What are you doing on this place, sir ; and what do you mean by shooting my pigeons ? " 22 Red Blood and Blue " That 's what I wanted to tell you, sir. I did n't go to do it." There was a scoffing grunt from Bev, who was instantly silenced by a stern glance from James York Torrance. " Indeed ! " the old gentleman replied to Andrew. " Continue. Let us hear the rest of this remarkable story." "I was huntin' doves over there on the creek," Andrew went on. " The pigeon flew between me and the sun and I thought it was a dove. After I shot it I saw that it was n't. It fell over here in the yard, and I climbed the fence and was goin' to take the pigeon to the house and explain to somebody how it was. That 's all. I am very sorry, sir." Bev had turned away and the convulsive heaving of his shoulders indicated that he was struggling to keep to himself his keen appre- ciation of the ridiculous. Even the visage of James York Torrance yielded to a faint smile. Andrew was quick to note these evidences of incredulity ; his skin flamed, and a belliger- ent light kindled in his eyes. " Extraordinary ; quite extraordinary," was James York Torrance's even comment. " But you must see that it does not happen again. Red Blood and Blue 23 If you kill any more of my pigeons I shall have to put you in the calaboose, and if I catch you on my place again I shall have you switched by one of the negroes." The boy appeared to gain in age and dignity. The flame died out of his face ; his chest slowly broadened; he looked at James York Tor- ranee steadily, with resolute defiance; then he dropped to the ground the dead pigeon which he had been holding in his hand and said, with a deliberation that was beyond his years : " I 'm sorry, sir, I took the trouble to try to explain it." " You may go now," James York Torrance informed him, without change of tone or man- ner. " Line, put down that axe and come here" this to a strapping young negro who was crossing the lawn, and who obeyed with alacrity, his teeth glistening in a white grin as he approached. " Take this boy, Line," James York Torrance directed, " and put him through the gate." Andrew gave one glance at Line and then turned again to Mr. Torrance. " I can go very well, sir, without Line, by the way I come." The faint smile again showed in the old 24 Red Blood and Blue gentleman's eyes as he modified his order to Line. " Certainly ; Line, if he prefers it take him and lift him over the fence." Andrew now was pale. His gun, which he was holding by the barrel, its stock resting on the ground, he suddenly raised a few inches and set down again firmly. " I will go, Mr. Torrance," he declared : " I will go myself; but I won't allow any of your niggers to lay hands on me." Line, who with a gurgling laugh deep in his throat had started toward Andrew, paused, his eyes on the gun ; while James York Torrance slightly elevated his voice as he exclaimed : " Why, I believe the young scamp is capable of murder ! " The girl, her hand still on her father's as it held the cane, took a sudden step forward, while the pink came and went in her fresh young face. " Father ! " she protested impulsively. " He is a white boy ! And he is telling the truth ; I am sure he is telling the truth ! " Mr. Torrance's eyes fell to his daughter, and they rested on her with smiling admiration and unfathomable love, for the moment apparently Red Blood and Blue 25 oblivious of the trespasser. Andrew's eyes, too, turned to Victoria, and their defiance melted into a softness which was very near tears, and which might have been tears if there had not been in them something stronger than mere gratitude. He opened his mouth to speak to her, but there was a choking paralysis in his throat, and he wheeled toward the fence over which he had climbed. But he had only gone a few paces when he abruptly returned, walking swiftly, and, picking up the dead pigeon, went up to Victoria Torrance and held it out to her. " You will take it," were his words, confident and grateful: "you believed what I said." He remembered the moment as long as he lived the radiant face of the child grown deeply grave, the radiant eyes grown rarely sweet, the radiant voice grown very gentle as she simply answered : "Yes." Andrew now left her as swiftly as he had approached her. He did not look back until, having reached the top of the picket fence, he was about to swing down on the other side. Then he saw father and daughter going slowly toward the house, she carrying the pigeon at 26 Red Blood and Blue her side, while the old gentleman walked by her, with one hand caressing her hair falling free to the shoulders, and laughing with a mellow cadence that betrayed no traces of the paroxysm of passion through which he had so recently passed. Red Blood and Blue 27 II SOMETIMES the periods of a human being's development are as sharply defined as the stratification of the earth's evolution. When Andrew Outcault left The Mounds that after- noon he had ceased to be the boy he had been when he crossed its boundaries a few minutes before. He was not a man yet, but he had stepped upon a plane where the quickening beams of coming manhood broke upon him. He would never again be the lad content to idle away his days in pursuit of the wild things of the woods and water, or in watching for the sight of a girl. As he walked rapidly across the fields from The Mounds the red blood which hastened and steadied his stride surged to his head and rang in his ears with the clear trumpet note of battle. The throb of insurrection was in his heart* the new-born sovereignty of will was in his brain, the tension of combat in sinew and nerve. He would fight. He would fight his way upward. He would fight down obstruc- tions. He would fight to death enemies. No 28 Red Blood and Blue one had a right to speak to him with the con- tempt of that autocratic old man at The Mounds. No one should have reason to mis- take such a right. He was hot in the memory of the man's scorn, he was thrilled by the memory of the girl's sweetness ; but the sweet- ness of the one, appealing to all that was best in him, and the scorn of the other, appealing to all that was fiercest, both invoked in him the spirit of battle. In an hour and un- consciously he had stumbled upon the key of nature, which is conflict and the dominance of the victor. He walked on, blind to the vast reaches of feathery forest spreading eastward beyond The Mounds and merging into the haze where the mystery of the hills met the mystery of the sky ; the wide fields to the northward, whitening with cotton, sear with ripened corn, vivid with young wheat ; the winding trail of the creek to the northwest, as it made its way through fertile valleys and darkening ravines to the river, which shone here and there be- tween the autumn-dyed foliage ; to the left of the junction of the two streams, the sombre basin of the " Dead Sea," above which even the clouds seemed wraiths of desolation ; to the Red Blood and Blue 29 west and southwest, the meadows stretching away to the foot of the barrens ; to the south, the roofs and spires of the little embowered village of Feme Run. Andrew walked on, without turning his head, past the pool where he had caught the magnolia leaf; into the covey of quails without a motion to shoot them as they started up at his feet ; on across the sedge and into the turnpike, on which, a quarter of a mile away, he lived with Cap'n Pow Halli- burton, who in war had served with Forrest's troopers, and who in peace practised law, farmed on a small scale, and made a home for Mrs. Rearden, his widowed sister, with her little daughter, Janet. Janet, a large-eyed, serious-faced child, was at the gate, waiting for Andrew as he re- turned. "What made you so late, Andrew?" she asked, with slow and grave enunciation. " Did you have good luck? " getting down from her perch and opening the gate for him. " Mighty poor luck, Janet," he answered ; " only brought home one bird." "Well, that will do for Uncle Pow's break- fast, won't it ? " she said with satisfied assur- ance, rather than interrogatively. " Supper is 30 Red Blood and Blue over," she added as she walked by his side toward the house, " but Aunt Dilsey is keep- ing yours warm for you in the stove." " I don't want any supper this evenin', Janet," Andrew said a little absently ; " I don't feel hungry a bit." Janet's big eyes grew bigger as she looked him over with sudden concern. "Then you must be sick, Andrew," she announced, with an air of finality. " You must come right straight to mamma and let her give you some medicine." If it had been anybody but Janet, Andrew would have laughed outright. He turned, to hide his smile, with the pretence of kicking a barrel-hoop from the path as he replied : "Now, never you mind, Janet. I am not sick at all. I'm just not hungry." "Aunt" Dilsey was even more moved than Janet by Andrew's declination of supper. " I ain't nuvver seed dat happen befo', " she de- clared. "Dat boy he sutny is ailin', er he done been in somebody's apple-tree an' gawge hisse'f, one er t'other. An' we got fried chicken an' batter-cakes fer supper, too, an' I done kep' 'em hot. No, sir ! tain't no apple- tree," she concluded. " He gwiner have a spell er sickness; he nuvver could er-stuff Red Blood and Blue 31 hisse'f so full er apples an' sich truck whut he could n't stan' a passel mo' er chicken an' batter-cakes." Later, that evening, Andrew took a seat on the steps of the front veranda, a few feet from Cap'n Pow, who was sitting in his usual place, his chair tilted back and his feet hanging over the railing. Andrew, slowly swinging his hat between his knees, seemed to study in silence the asters that fringed the gravelled walk before him. As Cap'n Pow glanced at him a second time, the hand which was meditatively descending over Cap'n Pow's beard stopped midway its course and his eyes remained fixed a little curiously upon the boy. It was then that Andrew, slapping his hat against his leg, turned abruptly toward Cap'n Pow and asked : " Cap'n Pow, how long have I been livin' with you ? " Cap'n Pow looked at the lad quizzically a moment before replying. "I reckon your memory don't carry quite that far back, does it, Andrew ? " he asked in a voice which might be described as having in it the same twinkle that his eyes had. 32 Red Blood and Blue " Well, sir, I remember the time I come, but I don't remember how long ago it was. It was not long before that spring when old Moujik took up with us." Moujik was one of the vagrant dogs that Cap'n Pow was in the habit of giving a home. "Let me see," Cap'n Pow reflected, "it must be about five years, Andrew; yes, it will be five years next January." " I remember it was when my father went away. Cap'n Pow, why don't people ever say anything to me about my father, unless it 's somethin' bad ? " Cap'n Pow looked off down the pike, ap- parently interested in the song a couple of negroes were singing as they sat on the fence. " Don't they ? " he asked, with af- fected indifference. " No, sir ; there was Cale Pelton, he throwed it up to me one time that my father had run away to keep from bein' put in the penitentiary." "Um ! " Cap'n Pow again turned to Andrew. " That was the time Cale got his eye closed and his shoulder dislocated, was n't it ? " " Well, sir, I was n't goin' to let him talk that way. And another time, when I was Red Blood and Blue 33 takin' a short cut through The Mounds beech- woods one day, I met old Uncle Bev, and he fired up and said if Mr. James York Torrance ever caught a son of Jerry Outcault on that plantation he would wear him out. Cap'n Pow, what is it Mr. Torrance has against my father?" Cap'n Pow, perhaps for the first time since Andrew had known him, seemed at a loss for a prompt reply. He nervously threaded his beard with his fingers for some seconds before he spoke. " Well, Andrew," he finally said more slowly than was his wont and with a new kindness in his tones, " I have always intended to tell you the straight about that when you got old enough for somebody would be bound to tell you the crooked of it sooner or later and I reckon you are old enough now." 34 Red Blood and Blue III THE story which Cap'n Pow told to Andrew is given here, but not in Cap'n Pow's words, for the elaborations and elisions which he deemed it advisable to make were not altogether such as are necessary to a comprehension of the circumstances by a non-resident of Feme Run or its vicinage. Middle Tennessee, according to Cap'n Pow, was well named, not only as being midway between the eastern and western sections of the State, but as being " the very centre of this world and maybe the next." This rolling pla- teau, lying between the alluvial levels of West Tennessee and the mountainous region of East Tennessee, is richly favored by nature, yielding abundantly side by side many of the products of the far South and most of those of the higher latitudes of North America. In one of the first settled counties of this part of the State, a county as yet unbroken by a railroad, was Feme Run. The village had been founded by Hilary Feme, who had been a member of the little Red Blood and Blue 35 band of pioneers who, having committed their wives and children to the perils of a long voyage by river, between banks of ambushing savages, had pushed on westward through the still greater perils of an unexplored wilderness to the shores of the Cumberland, where they established, at the point now known as Nash- ville, the nucleus of the civilization that ulti- mately redeemed an empire from barbarism. Feme Run had never done much more than come into the world and nestle contentedly in a pretty nook of it. It was a town of old families and old memories; a town whose grandfathers in the shaded serenity of the cemetery counted for more than its grandsons in the shaded serenity of the streets. For most of the grandsons, when they set forth for themselves, left Feme Run for the cities, or Texas, or the West ; the result being that when the pronouns " she " and " her " were employed in the personification of the village it was with more than ordinary appropriateness. Feme Run was predominantly feminine in population. Young girls with arms around each other strolled up and down its sidewalks, their con- fidences infrequently disturbed by masculine intrusion. They flitted among the flowers of 36 Red Blood and Blue the front yards at dusk and chattered on the front porches of evenings, in gardens that were Adamless. They rustled into church every one of them on Sunday, and filled it with their simple finery, delicately fra- grant of orris or of newness, almost submerg- ing from sight the few males that dotted the congregation. In winter, besides the church, at all times their chief resource, they had their reading club and an occasional after- noon tea, while there was always the exhaust- less privilege of spending the night with each other. As they grew older, their slender waists becoming less pliant and their soft voices becoming richer with the burden of unexpended maternity, they took more to church work; they sewed much and exqui- sitely; they made delicious things of fruits and sugar, of eggs, butter, and flour; and they fondled little children with a tenderness beyond the comprehension of most men and some mothers. Lovely in spirit and person, gentle, refined, uncomplaining, there are many such women as those of Feme Run, whose lives, incomplete though they may be, are yet so contented, beneficent, and beautiful that they ought to convince all men of the exaggeration Red Blood and Blue 37 of their own self-estimated importance in the plan of existence. In a community which lived so much within itself and so much in the past, and whose con stituents, from the freed slaves and the thrift- less " poor whites," up a long way up to the leisurely artisans, tradesmen, and small farmers, and up another long way to the landed aristocracy of the " old families " and once wealthy planters, class distinctions were clearly defined. There was an unquestioning defer- ence of the lower class to the higher, and there was an inoffensive assumption of superiority by the higher in its relations to the lower; though these demarcations were somewhat like fissures in the rocky bed of a stream, rather than like dams, visible, but not dividing, the water. The demarcations of class among these people were ever visible, but they were overflowed by common brotherhood pro- vided each member of a class always kept his place. Instead, therefore, of being hostilely envious of such families as the Femes and the Tor- ranees, the people of Torrance County were proud of them : proud of their breeding, their history, their physical distinction, their classical 38 Red Blood and Blue culture, their estates. The James York Tor- ranee for whom the county was named had been one of the pioneers who founded "the State of Franklin," and before pushing on to Middle Tennessee had been one of that dauntless band of" Backwater Men " in which every member was a leader and which, riding night and day through the mountain wilds, tireless and irresistible, fell upon and crushed the British at King's Mountain with such splendid valor that it turned back the fast ad- vancing tide of invasion, to recede northward and eastward until it broke and spent itself at the very foot of the throne of the fatuous George. In honor of this heroic exploit of the " Backwater Men," an exploit which illus- trated then, as has been illustrated many a time before and since, the rugged hardihood and above all the individual resourcefulness that make the American alike the best pioneer and the best soldier, the original Torrance plan- tation in Torrance County had been called Backwater. Here the James York Torrances had lived one generation after another until the present representative of the name had sacri- ficed the property to satisfy debts that he had assumed, debts the incurrence of which consti- Red Blood and Blue 39 tuted the basis of the story which Cap'n Pow told to Andrew Outcault. This James York Torrance was a very "proud" man, though not arrogantly or pat- ronizingly so, and was acutely sensitive in the conception and maintenance of the honor and responsibilities he believed to be his heritage. Reserved almost to the point of austerity, with a never-lapsing dignity that sat well upon his strongly marked face and straight figure, he was yet punctiliously gracious in his bearing to- ward his " inferiors," never failing to speak to them courteously whenever he met them or to exchange the conventionalities of the day with them when he found himself in their presence. But he mingled little with men. Daily he rode, and latterly he drove or was driven by Bev, into the village at the mail hour, and occasion- ally he would make a purchase at some one of the sleepy " stores ; " but beyond this he was seldom seen away from his own home. He had no intimates, not even in his family, except per- haps his daughter Victoria his second wife, Victoria's mother, having died, and the son to whom he had given his name having fallen at Shiloh. The death of James York Torrance, Jr., bore heavily upon the old man. There had 40 Red Blood and Blue always been a James York Torrance since the first one, and the present James York Torrance cherished and watched over his younger son, Lee, with a solicitude born more of anxiety that he should live to perpetuate the name than of any excessive fondness for the boy himself. The weight of that name seemed to be as well recognized by others as by himself. No one ever called James York Torrance any- thing but James York Torrance. It would have seemed as incongruous to speak of him as Torrance, or James Torrance, or J. Y. Tor- rance, as to speak of or to him as Jim. There was a vague impression among the gossips that the family tree was rooted in royalty, and Andrew Outcault once heard Cap'n Pow explaining to a neighbor how this might be, as it was said that the James York Torrances descended from that Duke of Ber- wick who died at Philippsburg, and through him from James of York, who figures in history as James II. Thereupon Andrew searched fuller details of this illustrious family, in Cap'n Pow's books, and his unsophisticated mind was so shocked at the nature of the connecting link between James of Berwick and James of York that he soon afterwards Red Blood and Blue 41 thrashed the shirt from the back of Rody Bumpus, the crack shinny player of Feme Run, for boasting that Victoria Torrance " come down from a king." The Civil War left James York Torrance " land-poor." With his slaves gone and no reliable labor to take their place, and with no practical experience as a " manager " himself for Backwater had always been run by an over- seer James York Torrance was for a time in straits to preserve even the appearance of sustaining the traditions of the Torrance family. The place had grown up in weeds, most of the fencing had disappeared, and the fields that once had been white with cotton were now the grazing ground of the Feme Run cows ; while the master who before the war had lived in such lordly ease was now so " reduced in circumstances " that Little Ony Swango, the one man in the neighborhood totally devoid of reverence for ancestral an- tiquity and social station, swore that James York Torrance even Little Ony called him James York Torrance was so run down at the heels and run out at the elbows that he carried the family sugar and coffee from town in his saddle-bags. 42 Red Blood and Blue This went on for a year or two, when Jerry Outcault drifted in from nobody knew where and made an arrangement with Mr. Torrance to cultivate part of the Backwater land " on shares." Jerry was a " shifty " sort of man. He had most of the fences rebuilt the first winter, and when he sold his crop he went off North and came back with a lot of " new contraptions " in harrows and ploughs that set the countryside agog. At the end of three years he had, Little Ony Swango ad- mitted, not only " pulled Backwater outn the woods and the weeds," but he had enabled James York Torrance to " do his groceryin' by the barrel stidder the bag." More than that, he seemed to have gained, as no one had ever done before, the confidence of James York Torrance; and when he completed his invention of the wonderful cotton-picker and explained the model to Mr. Torrance, that unworldly old gentleman had so much faith in the inventor that in the end he allowed himself to be drawn into a scheme for organ- izing a great stock company to manufacture the machine. Undoubtedly there would be a fortune in it if it should be a success, and it was not hard for Jerry Outcault to con- Red Blood and Blue 43 vince him that it would be a success. It was much harder to overcome the prejudices of James York Torrance against engaging in business, but the memory of his recent adver- sity and the realization of the new order of things in the South were strong aids to Jerry's arguments. " You see, Mr. Torrance," he said, " you don't have to do anything but consent to be president of the company. We got to get up a company because we have n't got the money to start the thing ourselves. Now, the people don't know me, but they do know you. Your word is gospel in this county. All I want, when I go to a man and ask him to subscribe for stock, is to be able to say that you are at the head of the concern, and to print your name on the prospectus. If you are not dead certain that the picker is a good thing the best thing of the century don't you touch it, Mr. Torrance. But you take your time to investigate it before you go into it. That 's all I ask." The result was that Jerry Outcault had his way ; the name of James York Torrance went on the prospectus of the Outcault Cotton- Picker Manufacturing Company ; several thou- sand dollars of his money, derived mostly from 44 Red Blood and Blue the sale of part of his land, went into the com- pany's treasury ; and on the strength of this a hundred men and women in Torrance County eagerly paid from ten to a thousand dollars for the company's stock, notwithstanding the open scoffs of Little Ony Swango. It was not long before Ony was vindicated. The company was duly organized with James York Torrance as nominal President, half a dozen farmers, who could not have explained the difference between stocks and bonds, as " Directors," and J. Outcault, the only man who knew anything about the Outcault Cotton- Picker, as General Manager, Secretary, and Treasurer. Half cash, amounting to about $40,000, was paid in for the stock ; and when the General Manager, Secretary, and Treasurer went North and drew this out to buy the machinery for the plant, and neither he nor the machinery could be traced thereafter, a hundred men and women of Torrance County awoke to the fact that they had been deliber- ately swindled. That was a tragedy in the life of James York Torrance such as had never been dreamed of by him or any of his progenitors. Few calamities could have been more horrify- Red Blood and Blue 45 ing to him than the realization that he, of all men, had lent his name to the perpetration of so base a fraud upon the people who hon- ored and trusted him. For a time he dis- appeared from public view altogether, and when he was seen again on his trips to the post-office or to his lawyer the change in him was the subject of general remark. His hair was a little whiter; his skin a little paler; his face had lost something of its sensitive mobility and gained more of the sharpness of cut stone ; instead of the courteous salu- tation with which he was wont to greet all, he now looked to neither side, but went his solitary way, his head high, his eyes appar- ently seeing only inwardly and emptily. Oc- casionally when some of the bolder among those who knew him forced their presence upon him and offered a passing commonplace in a tone of sympathy, he would flush pain- fully, his voice would waver in reply, and he would hurry on, sometimes, it was said, with a tear gathering under his glasses. The result of his conferences with his lawyer was that by giving Backwater as se- curity he borrowed enough money from Little Ony Swango to return every dollar that the 46 Red Blood and Blue stockholders in the cotton-picker company had put up, and this he did, notwithstanding the half-hearted demurrers which a few of them made. He continued to live at Back- water, hoping by its cultivation to extinguish the debt gradually. Perhaps he would have succeeded, at least partially, if Ony had not gone off to Nashville at a time when the fever for speculating in cotton " futures " was at its height in the South. When Ony returned he had to raise a considerable sum of money to pay the cost of making " a gormed fool " of himself, and it was necessary for him to sell his own home or foreclose on Backwater. He foreclosed on Backwater, but it was a losing operation. There was little money in the country those days, and it was disastrous to put up realty at forced sale. It was agreed that Backwater was worth from $75,000 to $100,000, but when it was sold under the hammer to satisfy Ony Swango's claim of $30,000 it brought less than $20,000. Where- upon James York Torrance went immediately to Little Ony (he was called Little Ony be- cause he was the giant of the county) and said with grave courtesy : " Mr. Swango, the amount you realized on Red Blood and Blue 47 Backwater was but a little over $16,000, I see." Little Ony looked at him silently, in his stolid way, before speaking. Then he answered in his sluggish, subterranean voice: " Pre- cise-ly $16,465, Mr. Torrance." " I was astounded and distressed that it was no more. I need not assure you, sir, that I shall take it upon myself to liquidate every cent of my indebtedness to you at the earliest opportunity." The collarless shirt of Little Ony was as usual open one button at the top. He slowly unfastened the next button, displaying a huge, hairy chest, from whose depths there rumbled up a raucous grunt. " You don't owe me nothin', Mr. Torrance," he finally responded. " I owe you the difference between $16,465 and $30,000, sir; and I shall pay it if I live." "You don't owe me nothin', Mr. Torrance. You borrowed some money from me an' I took Backwater as security. It was n't yo' lookout that it did n't bring what it oughter a-brung when I sold it. It would a-brung mo 'n enough if I had waited for a better time to sell. That 's all there is about it." 48 Red Blood and Blue " It is not all, sir. I have had your money ; the security I gave you proved inadequate. I shall make it up to you just as soon as I can." For the first time during the interview the old gentleman's voice ascended in pitch, and he struck his cane into the ground. Little Ony studied him longer than usual before replying; then he said, as if addressing a peevish child: " All right, Mr. Torrance. But you ain't goin* to pay any of it until you can pay the whole pile. I don't want to be bothered with no driblets." " As you please, sir," stiffening and turning away. " Good-morning, sir." Little Ony talked it over with the first man he met. " James York Torrance is got about as much business sense as a chicken," he com- mented, " but he 's a gormed old game chicken, though. Anyhow, I reckon I fixed him by tellin' him he 'd have to pay it in a lump. He ain't got no mo' chanst to make that money than I have to fly to glory with a pair of my ole 'oman's turkey-wing fans." When James York Torrance left Backwater he took up his residence at The Mounds, a much smaller place, which had been left to him Red Blood and Blue 49 by his second wife in trust for their daughter, Victoria. Here he lived with Victoria, to- gether with the children of his first marriage, Lee and Clara, and his spinster cousin, Miss Juliana Torrance. Here, with Bev as the real executive, he managed the farm, accounting into court a fair rental for Victoria's benefit, and hoarding the remainder of his income, when there was any remainder, for the ultimate payment of Ony Swango. Here, more secluded from the world than ever, he sat under the trees and watched his pigeons, while Victoria read to him his paper or his Macaulay, or Bev made his reports and gave his counsel. It was a placid life with his paper and his pigeons, externally at least, though what his meditations were as he sat sometimes for hours motionless and wordless, no one knew. But always the delicate pink came into his face and the knuckles grew white if by any chance Jerry Outcault was mentioned. Andrew sat long in silence after he had heard the story of his father and James York Torrance. His elbows were planted on his knees and his jaws rested in his hands as 4 50 Red Blood and Blue he studied the steps beneath him. Once or twice Cap'n Pow, stroking his beard musingly, glanced uncertainly at the boy, recognizing in him some unwonted mood. Suddenly a breeze rustled through the shrubbery, a shutter banged somewhere, and Andrew, jerking him- self upright, turned to Cap'n Pow again. " Cap'n Pow," he said, " my father went away and left me by myself, did n't he? " " Well, Andrew, he well, yes, yes, he did, Andrew." " And you brought me here and took care of me, did n't you?" " Why, of course, of course, Andrew. I did n't have any son, and I liked you and your father, too." " And you 've give me a home and been good to me all this time, just like you have to old Moujik ! " Cap'n Pow laughed his laugh was loud and melodious, but there was something foreign and strained in it now. "You and Moujik!" he exclaimed. " Why, boy, boy, this would have been a terrible lonesome place if it hadn't been for you and Moujik and Janet." There were tears in the lad's eyes which Cap'n Pow did not see, and would not have Red Blood and Blue 51 seen if he could. " Cap'n Pow," Andrew went on, "you have been better to me than if I were your own son, and I haven't done nothin' much except play and hunt and fish and read them story-books in your library. I 'm big enough to go to work sure enough now, and I want to begin." " Work ! Why, you do more work already than any nigger on the place, and you are worth more than any two hands I 've got." " I want to go to work regular, Cap'n Pow. I want to work all day, and all spring and sum- mer and fall, till the crops are in ; then if I 'm worth anything more than my board I want to go to the Academy in Feme Run. If you don't need me that way, I want you to hire me out to somebody else." Cap'n Pow gave his beard a sudden jerk which must have unrooted some strands of it, and he rose impulsively and went over to Andrew, who, seeing this unusual action of his benefactor, also got up. " My boy ! my boy ! " and Cap'n Pow's normally high voice was now somewhat muffled in his throat, "you're a better farmer now than I am, and this place could spare me a long sight easier than it could you. You shall have all the work you ought 52 Red Blood and Blue to do, and that will be twice as much as your board and the Academy will come to. You shall have wages just like any other hand just like any other man for you are a man, Andrew, and I ought to have found it out sooner ; " and with his arm around Andrew's shoulders, the two went into the house. Red Blood and Blue 53 IV ONE who did not know Andrew as well as Cap'n Pow Halliburton knew him might have taken it for granted that the boy's sudden desire for work would pass, or at least re- lax, with a night's sleep. But, young as he was, neither Andrew's desires nor resolutions passed or relaxed quickly; and at the end of three years he had so persisted in his "fit of industry," as Mrs. Rearden had at first called it, that many a time he had been too busy to hurry off to Feme Run for a new medicine which she had discovered in the newspaper advertisements, and that lady had consequently been threatened many a time with extinction by horrible new diseases which, her reading revealed to her, were preying upon her grievously afflicted body and mind. Cap'n Pow had been right when he said that Andrew was the better farmer; and he had now prac- tically turned over the farm to the boy, the cap- tain himself spending most of his time in Feme 54 Red Blood and Blue Run ; mixing with the residents or the country- men in town for the day ; sitting in the court- room, watching the progress of the cases on trial, laughing with the lawyers, twitting the judge, and occasionally when he appeared as attorney in a case himself firing up into such a crackling conflagration of wrath that the idle clerks in the stores hurried across the " square " to see " Cap'n Povv perform ; " and a quarter of an hour later loafing in a law-office or under the trees in front of it, telling funny anecdotes or winning the war for the Confederacy if Forrest had only been in command at Fort Donelson. Andrew had faithfully carried out the plan which he had proposed on the night that Cap'n Pow had related to him the story of his father and James York Torrance. With an energy that kept Aunt Dilsey in interjectional ad- miration of his appetite, that impressed itself upon the neighbors and the leisurely black farm- hands he directed, and won the open commen- dation of Little Ony Swango, considered the most progressive man thereabout, Andrew made and harvested Cap'n Pow's crops, and in the late fall and the winter grubbed away doggedly at the Feme Run Academy. Not once in all the Red Blood and Blue 55 three years had he gone across the fields, up the spring-branch, toward The Mounds. He saw Victoria Torrance seldom, except at church; but he was a regular attendant of the church in which the Torrances occupied a high-backed pew. The Torrance pew was well forward,. on the central aisle, and Andrew chose his seat in the rear, on one of the side aisles, from which point he could keep his eyes on the head, an ear, a cheek, and occasionally the full profile of Victoria Torrance, without arousing the suspicion of the sharp-eyed congregation. He was free to select his own seat, for Cap'n Pow, accompanied by Janet, always went to another church, in whose choir A Certain Lady helped to sing, in a thin, sweet soprano, " Gently down the stream of time," adapted to the appropriated score of the great Lucia sextet. In these three years Andrew had been but once nearer Victoria Torrance than he was when in his back-seat at church. That was the day when, driving with Janet Rearden to Feme Run, they met the old Torrance carriage, and Victoria, leaning through the window, said with the dignity of thirteen and the rare voice of the Torrance women : 56 Red Blood and Blue " Good-morning, Janet ; good-morning, An- drew." Miss Juliana Torrance, by Victoria's side, looked chill disapprobation, and Bev, on the box, sat more rigidly and cracked his whip viciously at a fly on the withers of the off horse. Minutes afterwards Janet said quietly, as if she had made a discovery: " What a beautiful name Andrew is ! " Andrew shook up his horse, cutting off a laugh at its beginning. " It does sound well," he answered. Then he gave a ringing cry to the horse, whistled the whip over the animal's head, and dashed into Feme Run at a speed that brought Janet's hand to her hat and made the chickens take wing in clattering panic from the roadside. That was the last time for many months that Victoria Torrance spoke to Andrew when she met him. For it happened that when he next saw Victoria it was at a moment when a young girl of spirit and a budding realization of the responsibilities accompanying a gradual length- ening of her skirts would naturally resent an unexpected invasion by masculine eyes. It was on a Saturday afternoon, a half-holiday, Red Blood and Blue 57 when, the negroes having gone off to Feme Run, nobody was left at Cap'n Pow Hallibur- ton's except the Reardens and Andrew. Mrs. Rearden, having just read the advertisements in the last number of the Feme Run Recorder, had suddenly become possessed of a terrifying case of atrophia musculorum lipomatosa, which only Dr. Quobb's Wizard Triturate of Black- bryony would cure, and there was nothing for Andrew to do but go to Feme Run with a dollar to secure a bottle. All the horses had been turned out to pasture, and Andrew chose to walk. There was a short cut from the pike, across the fields, to the head of Torrance Avenue, which Andrew had not taken since he killed James York Torrance's pigeon. He took it this afternoon, whistling gayly until he came within a quarter of a mile of The Mounds. But he did not stop to loiter by the creek. It was on this afternoon that Victoria Torrance found herself in full possession of The Mounds. She had read to her father the heaviest editorial columns of his daily paper (forty-eight hours old), had adjusted his black string tie, kissed him maternally, and watched him drive off with Bev; Miss Juliana was in 58 Red Blood and Blue her room, with the blinds closed, withdrawn from the waking world until the sun sank low in the west ; Lee was away, as usual, no one knew where ; Clara had gone shopping with Rosalie Kemp, who would have preferred to re- main for a romp with Victoria ; while the ne- groes were all on " Smoke Side," in Feme Run, a part of the public square of which the black population of the county took complete posses- sion on Saturday afternoons, swarming on the pavement and over the curbstones, feasting on melons, cold chicken and gingerbread, cider, and whiskey ; trading, roystering, laughing, posing, strutting, dancing, arguing, preaching, expounding, courting, fighting, and occasionally killing, happy through it all if the sun only shone. It was shining now at The Mounds as it shines only in early summer when the rains were yesterday or the day before ; when the skies are unfathomably blue ; when the crisp- ness of the morning is all the day long ; when there is neither dust nor haze, but the vivid greens of uplands and fields are close and clear, and every created thing within one's horizon is vibrant with the common tide of life. Even the dingy walls of the old house at The Red Blood and Blue 59 Mounds seemed to brighten youthfully in this tide, as somewhere the drum of a great turkey- cock's wings throbbed through the silence, while the fragrance distilled in the topmost branches of the giant magnolia-trees cleft the air and thrilled the nostrils as the notes of a bugle thrill the ear. Victoria Torrance, thirteen, buoyant with health and with the hour, seeking some vent for her vitality this June afternoon, might have been capable of any of the splendid things that have made the world's heroines of history and romance. As it was, such are the limitations that hedge modern mortals, find- ing nothing better to do, she oh, the proud, proud blood of all the long line of James York Torrances ! she rode a bicycle. Victoria Torrance on a bicycle ! It was well, indeed, that James York Torrance was far away, that Clara Torrance was not there to see, that Miss Juliana Torrance's eyes were veiled in slumber. Nor was it even a " safety." It was in the days of the old " ordinary," the now obsolete, high-seated device with one very big wheel in front and one very little wheel behind. It was the property of Lee Torrance, and lean- 60 Red Blood and Blue ing against the house now, was very con- spicuous in the sight of this girl who for the time had all The Mounds to herself. Victoria driving aimlessly and energetically Clara's cro- quet balls over the lawn, looked at the bicycle, and looked at it again. Soon she dropped the croquet mallet and, laughing quickly with a new thought, hurried to the corner of the house, and made a reconnoissance in the rear ; after which she ran to the big gate and satisfied herself that Torrance Avenue was entirely deserted. No one was visible in any direction, and hastening back to the bi- cycle, she pushed it to a horse-block on the edge of the gravelled drive. From the block, as the drum of the turkey-cock detonated upon her taut senses like rumbling thunder, she swung into the saddle, paling a little and closing her eyes, and in a second tumbling to the ground. She repeated this performance until the palms of her hands were blue-dented from the gravel and her dress bore unmistak- able evidence of the battle. She was oblivi- ous of all now, except her determination to master this thing which Lee rode so easily and so gracefully ; oblivious even of the fact that since she had taken her observation Red Blood and Blue 61 there had been sufficient time for Torrance Avenue to fill with half the population of Feme Run. Finally she caught the secret of the pedals and the balance in a moment, and sailed off down the drive, her eyes spark- ling, her hair streaming sailed off as if the world were before her and there were no end to the world, with never a thought that she must some time stop her elating flight and dismount, or how she was to do it. That was the vision which burst upon Andrew Outcault as he was vaulting the fence from the fields into Torrance Avenue. But that was not all he saw, for at that moment the automatic gate was swinging open for the phaeton of Rosalie Kemp and Clara Torrance, with Victoria wheeling swiftly toward them. At sight of the phaeton, Vic- toria helplessly threw her weight upon her hands as if she would check a horse, and in an instant she and the bicycle were in a heap upon the ground. Andrew ran forward at once, and as he ran, Rosalie Kemp was already bending over Victoria and hysterically kissing her, while Clara Torrance Miss Torrance, as she preferred to be called, for she was eighteen and launched upon young ladyhood was 62 Red Blood and Blue standing, her skirts drawn around her, her forehead wrinkling, her lips puckering with ladylike exclamations of bewilderment and fear. Before Andrew could come up, Victoria had disentangled herself from the wreck and got to her feet. She looked from Clara to Rosalie, a smile, partly of humiliation, partly of de- fiance, playing upon her face. Then she took the sobbing Rosalie in her arms and comforted her. " Why, Rosalie, I am not hurt the least bit," she said reassuringly, while she glanced with growing bravado at Clara, who was now a statue of shocked dignity. Suddenly Rosalie began to laugh, and hold- ing Victoria at arm's length, looked her up and down and gave her a final convulsive em- brace as she cried joyously: " Oh, Victoria, are you sure you are not hurt ? I did n't know but you were killed ! " Then Miss Clara found speech. " Indeed, Victoria Torrance ! " she exclaimed, " I 'm sure I 'd rather be killed than do such a scan- dalous thing ! What would father, what would everybody say if they knew you had actually ridden a a boy's bicycle? I certainly hope Red Blood and Blue 63 for the family's sake, if you have no shame yourself, that nobody else saw you ! " And Miss Clara, with a swish of her skirts that was disdainful and intended to be haughtily regal, turned to leave Victoria, only to con- front Andrew Outcault as he ran up flushed and anxious. " What ! " dropping her voice in her new horror. " What are you doing here ? What do you mean by daring to come here?" Victoria, who had been laughing with Rosa- lie and at Clara, straightened up at sight of Andrew. It was a come-and-go of color in her face, but her eyes burned steadily as she stood forth in her tatters. " Andrew Outcault," she said, catching her breath, and then going on uncompromis- ingly, "what do you want? Did you did you see ? " Andrew had a dim idea that he was in an awkward situation. "I I was crossing over into Torrance Avenue," he answered, "and I thought maybe you might be hurt. I reckon the wheel is sorter stove up, anyhow." He stepped to the wrecked bicycle and picked it up, scrutinizing it with an affectation of sober (Concern. 64 Red Blood and Blue " I am not hurt," Victoria proclaimed, with the even emphasis of an oracle ; adding, with less exaltation of unconcern : " And you need not mind about the bicycle. Go away ! Go away at once!" Clara, her chin in air and her petticoats starchily ejaculatory of her emotion, was already walking toward the house; Victoria, without looking again at Andrew, placed her arm about Rosalie and followed Clara; while Andrew, standing where he was left and hold- ing in view the receding backs of the three girls, was divided by desires to protest indignantly and to laugh. He compromised by whistling very softly; after which, tiptoeing to a tree, he set the bicycle against it and continued his journey down Torrance Avenue to Feme Run. For many months afterwards Victoria Tor- rance would not look at Andrew when they met. When Andrew next saw her, soon after this adventure, she was again seated beside Miss Juliana Torrance, this time in an open surrey, and she ignored him as coolly and as obviously as Miss Juliana herself always did, to the evi- dent approval of Bev, whose smile of satisfac- tion wrinkling his cheek Andrew could, see as he looked back. Red Blood and Blue 65 Andrew did not smile himself. He walked on very solemnly a quarter of a mile; then, coming to a tree where the shade was dense, he threw himself down on the grass and broke into loud laughter. 66 Red Blood and Blue IT was not until a little more than two years later that Andrew made Victoria Torrance speak to him again. Andrew was now well in his nineteenth year, while Victoria was fifteen and had already begun to be an interesting subject of village gossip, which had marked out her and Arthur Feme as set apart for each other by present conditions and past genealogical eons. An- drew had put his will and youthful vigor to such good use that he had now about ex- hausted the course at the Feme Run Academy and was in complete charge of affairs at Cap'n Pow Halliburton's farm. It was another Satur- day afternoon, in late September, and the farm work was so well in hand that as Andrew saw his negroes leave for Smoke Side he felt the satisfaction of knowing that their attention was needed by nothing in the fields or the barns. It was very warm, and Andrew struck out through the Kemp woods to a famous swimming pool in the river. Returning about Red Blood and Blue 67 five o'clock, he would probably have taken an- other and longer route if he had been aware that Rosalie Kemp had chosen this afternoon for her " cotton-picking picnic." Rosalie was a leading spirit of the " younger set," and she did more than any one else to break the normal calm of Feme Run society. The cotton-picking picnic was the latest outcome of her wits and activity. She had issued the invitations, repeated the explana- tions, and provided the lunch, the prizes, and the motive enthusiasm. She was not to blame that the day, which, so late in September, ought to have been pleasant, had degenerated from a beautiful morning into the sultriest of afternoons. And she was making the most of her bad luck when, the wagon having de- posited the great thimble-shaped baskets in the field, and the party, merry with the nov- elty of the lark and with the oddity of their improvised working garbs, had fallen to with infectious jollity, each eager to pick the greatest weight of cotton in the stipulated hour's time and win one of the prizes, only to succumb to the heat one by one and re- tire to the bordering woods. There they were comforting themselves with iced drinks, laugh- 68 Red Blood and Blue ing lamentations, and an occasional expostu- latory call to two or three of their number who still remained in the cotton-field, when Andrew stumbled upon them. Their laughter warned him, however, before any of them had noticed him, and he retraced his steps a short distance and turned into the cotton with the intention of cutting across to the road beyond. There was a slight ridge run- ning the length of the field, and once over that he was invisible from the woods where the picnickers were. Just before passing over the ridge he noticed, down the cotton- rows, the backs of two pickers, and after he had crossed and walked on perhaps fifty yards he was stopped short by the appa- rition of Victoria Torrance rising, a few feet in front of him, from a stooping posture among the waist-high stalks, her hands full of the snowy lint. And an odd-looking apparition it was. A blue-and-white checked cotton apron was pinned over her shortened skirts, and her face was two-thirds concealed in the depths of a gingham sun-bonnet. It was such a face as Andrew had never seen before. He had seen the beauty of it many times, with Red Blood and Blue 69 hungry eyes, but he had never seen the pallor and the weariness of it. The dead whiteness was broken only by the shadowy circles which had come beneath the eyes, and about the young mouth and brow were lines of fatigue and determination which made the girl of fifteen appear more like a worn woman years older. She drew her slender figure very straight as she saw Andrew, and she con- fronted his amazement with challenging si- lence and dilated pupils. Andrew for a little after he saw her stood where he had abruptly halted. Then he took a quick step toward her. " Why, Miss Victoria," he exclaimed, " what in the world are you doing here? " Victoria for a few seconds continued to meet his questioning gaze with no response in ex- pression or speech. Then she turned quietly to a tall cotton-stalk and slowly resumed her work. The flare of her sun-bonnet shut in her face from Andrew, and it seemed as if she did not intend to make him any reply. He strode nearer. Under the sun-bonnet there was a faint smile now, which he could not see, but he heard her very distinctly as she finally answered: yo Red Blood and Blue " I am attending a cotton-picking picnic." " It is idiotic, that 's what it is, on a day like this ! " emphatically. " Everybody else has quit and gone to the shade. Why don't you ? " It appeared as if Victoria would ignore the question. She rifled several cotton-bolls before she spoke. " I am going to win the girls' prize. Mabel Gorman defied me, and she is still picking. That was she you saw over the ridge there." " Mabel Gorman be hanged ! Look here, Miss Victoria," with rising impatience, " it 's too hot for anything like this, and you ought n't to do it." Victoria moved to the next stalk, but she did not glance toward Andrew, and she did not answer. " You ought to quit, Miss Victoria ; you ought to quit right now, and you know it." There was an imperiousness in his way of speaking that caused the girl to turn upon him a second time. For a moment there was that in her countenance which seemed to foretell some cutting reply, but the weak smile came again, and again she bent over the cotton row. " It is a little warm," she said, " but it is no warmer for me than for Mabel." Red Blood and Blue 71 Andrew had seen the smile, and he was now close enough to see clearly the battle against exhaustion in the pale face. He saw, too, the unsteadiness of her hand as it again sought the bursting bolls, and he caught it almost roughly in his own. " You must not do this any longer," he ordered. She gave a low cry of surprise and resent- ment, springing erect, and, as she snatched her hand away, facing him with flashing eyes. " You ! " with an intense expression of anger and authority in the one word. " What do you mean ? " " That you can't stand this," Andrew an- swered, with no wavering in his voice or manner ; " that you must quit it at once. You are sick already. Your hand is as cold as a corpse's and you have the same look I saw one time on a man two minutes before he was prostrated by heat." Andrew did not draw much upon his imagi- nation. Victoria, as she stood defiantly before him, certainly looked ill. There was strength of will left, but it was plain that there was little strength of body remaining. The heat was humid and stifling. It seemed to steam from the bare soil, to wilt the stilled forest, 72 Red Blood and Blue to well from the surcharged thunderheads, to smother out from under the low dome of the oily heavens every breath of oxygen. Andrew waited for Victoria to speak again, but before she did Arthur Feme, smiling and tanning himself with a palm-leaf, came over the ridge. " It 's the biggest fan in the crowd, Miss Victoria, and I 've captured it and brought it out to you. How are you, Andrew ? But Miss Rosalie said I must bring you back immediately, Miss Victoria." He was speaking as he approached, and as he came up and stopped by Victoria's side he added, a little solicitously : " And you do look tired, too." He bent towards her and, with that deferential manner which he showed to all women, began fanning her gently as he talked. Outcault's face hardened with an instantly formed purpose. He had been watching Vic- toria closely, and he not only noted the new tremor in her voice, but he saw the increasing evidence of distress in the flagging figure. He went directly up to her. " Miss Torrance is more affected by the heat than she is aware of," he said firmly. " You must take her to the shade at once, Mr. Feme." Red Blood and Blue 73 Feme, with a puzzled look, glanced from one to the other. " Certainly," he agreed, his eyes upon the girl, "if Miss Torrance will come with me." She made a final rally and laughed faintly in Outcault's face. "This is ridiculous, Andrew Outcault," she said, almost as faintly. "Go away, both of you," she added with an effort at levity ; " you interfere with my work." " If Mr. Feme won't take you, then I will." Outcault spoke as if he were merely announc- ing the day of the month. Victoria's eyes opened a little wider; she looked at him with calm incredulity for a moment; and then she said, in a tone in which there was no levity now : " You you are impertinent." Feme took an impetuous step toward Out- cault. "Look here, Andrew, what's the matter with you?" he demanded, beginning to resent the situation and Outcault's assumption of control over it. Outcault gave no heed to the demand. His attention was all for Victoria. Hardly had she spoken last when her eyelids quivered and drooped, and the slender form perceptibly faltered. Before Feme fairly realized what 74 Red Blood and Blue was taking place, Outcault had Victoria in his arras and was holding her as if she were a sleeping baby. Feme became almost as pale as Victoria. He sprang forward with a low exclamation of anxiety. " What is it ? Give her to me ! Give her to me ! " Outcault did not even look at him. Outcault had started with Victoria toward the woods, but suddenly turned and measured the distance across the field to the Kemp farmhouse, whose roof and well-sweep were visible in a clump of trees not more than a furlong away. It was not much farther than the woods where the picnickers were, and Outcault walked swiftly toward it. " What are you doing ? Where are you going ? " Feme panted, hurrying to Outcault's side. " She came with me here to-day ; she is under my protection. Give her to me, I tell you ! " " Then why did n't you protect her ? " Out- cault answered curtly. " Get out of the way. If you want to do something for her, go ahead there and let down that fence." Feme flushed hotly ; but he was helpless now. He kept step with Outcault a few paces Red Blood and Blue 75 more, then he hastened on in advance to clear the way by letting down a panel of the rail fence that inclosed the field. Outcault, walking through and over the cotton stalks, crushed them down as if they had been so much dead grass. He felt that he would have walked over them thus if they had been phalanxes of armed opponents, such was the pulse that was now in his heart, the power that was in his sinews. Thus he pushed forward, until, his eyes resting for a little on the relaxed lines of the tender mouth, on the delicate tracery of the fallen lashes against the colorless cheeks, he held the still form higher, that even the tallest cotton might not brush it, and picking his footing watchfully, he went on with greater care, but no less rapidly. He quickly passed out of the field, down the road, and through the Kemp gate, finding Mrs. Kemp sitting in the wide hall. That sensible woman, after her first flutter of alarm, directed Outcault to lay Vic- toria on the wicker lounge in the big room adjoining the hall, after which she ordered Outcault and Feme out and closed the door on them. Outcault seated himself against one of the portico pillars and waited, while j6 Red Blood and Blue Feme paced impatiently to and fro on the lawn, neither speaking and neither looking at the other. It was not long before Mrs. Kemp came out, smiling. " I told you there would be no use going for the doctor," she said, addressing Outcault. " It was only a little fainting spell, from the heat and over-exertion. She is her- self again now, and will soon be all right." After proffers of all sorts of assistance had been declined by Mrs. Kemp, the two young men left. They walked together in silence up the road until they reached the panel of the fence which Feme had let down. Outcault began replacing this, and Feme helped him. When the last rail was laid Feme confronted Outcault and said in a voice restrained in modulation, but keyed with excitement : " Andrew Outcault, your conduct to Miss Torrance this afternoon was presumptuous and rude. It was enough in itself to make her ill, and you must answer to me for it." Outcault's response was instantaneous and measured. " I '11 answer to you for anything you like, but not here. And you," in some- thing of the tone in which he had ordered Feme to let down the fence, "go and tell Red Blood and Blue 77 Miss Rosalie that Miss Victoria is at the house. Better just say that she got tired and you came over with her, without mentioning me or the fainting, I reckon. No use setting that crowd to gabbling. But you know how to manage all that." He turned into the road, and then, pausing, faced Feme again. " As to answering to you, whatever you may choose to mean by that, I shall be at home any time after seven o'clock to-day, or I shall be at Swango's Gap at ten o'clock to-morrow morn- ing, or I shall be anywhere else at any time you please." " Swango's Gap at ten to-morrow will suit me," said Feme decisively. " It will suit me." And Outcault continued up the road, while Feme went back across the cotton-field. 78 Red Blood and Blue VI SWANGO'S Gap was a nick in the limestone ledge which walled one side of the river. Through it Torrance Creek, skirting the south- western border of the Dead Sea, made its junction with the river; and here the little triangle of rock, vine, and stunted tree, edged on two sides by creek and river and on the greater part of the third by the dark pool of the Dead Sea, was as wild and secluded a spot as was anywhere unredeemed from the heart of the wilderness. One could reach it with difficulty by picking his footing along the ledge that banked the river, while it was more accessible by way of the rocky neck between the Dead Sea and the creek ; but few were the human feet that ever disturbed its solitude. The ignorant and superstitious held the place in uncanny awe, and by the more intelligent, even by those as thrifty as its owner, Little Oriy Swango, it was considered worthless for any practical purpose. Red Blood and Blue 79 To this rendezvous Arthur Feme, turned his horse next morning a little after nine o'clock. Feme had not had a good night. He showed it in a trifling fulness beneath the eyes and in the edge of irritability fraying his voice as he gave his horse the word of command. He was far from satisfied with the part he was to play to-day, and he was so far from satisfied with the part he had played the preceding afternoon that the memory of it was as the twisting of a thorn in his nerves. Feme's nervous endowment was both large and fine, marking him for acute pleasure or acute pain, and destining him to get most and to miss most from the life about him. With the ardor and ideality of such a na- ture he believed himself in love with Victo- ria Torrance. It may be doubted if he was in love with the real Victoria Torrance, for it may be doubted whether, though know- ing her nearly all his life, he knew the real Victoria Torrance. Feme knew Victoria as he knew his dreams of woman and love. He knew her as the embodiment of those dreams, vital with the warmth and grace of physical beauty, vivid with the play, temper- amental or superficial, of the varying mani- 8o Red Blood and Blue festations of a rare spirit, and softened and ennobled by that depth and strength and sweet- ness of the heart which for him were compre- hended in " womanhood." To her Feme's at- titude was necessarily one of bared head and bended knee. He gave to her all that there was in him to give a loyalty that was unre- served, a devotion that was engrossing, a pas- sion that was inexorable, and a reverence that was at once humbling and uplifting. As yet, restrained by the realization of his youth and by the conviction of his unworthiness, he had spoken no word of love to her; but he lived, if he did not speak, his love for her ; and all the world of Feme Run understood and ap- proved. It was agreed by that world that Victoria Torrance and Arthur Feme were literally " born " for each other. ^ When on the preceding afternoon Feme had seen Victoria in the arms of Andrew Outcault it had seemed almost like a sacrilege ; but more potent for Feme's distress than any sacrilege was the instinctive resentment that raged within him at sight of Victoria in any other man's arms, a rage that was inten- sified, in the situation in which he had found himself, by the knowledge that he had no real Red Blood and Blue 81 right to interfere and that he was helpless to do more than he had done in not only sub- mitting to, but in aiding, the action of Out- cault. Moreover, his merciless mental ferment had been further aggravated by the fact that subsequent reflection failed to justify his pro- posal to hold Outcault to personal account- ability for the course he had taken in the matter. Feme now understood that he had no warrant for such a purpose, aside from perhaps a strained interpretation of a pro- vincial conventionalism ; and that even if he had, he would play but a sorry part in pick- ing a quarrel that could only set tongues to wagging in gossip which would in all prob- ability involve the girl whose protection from such desecration must be paramount with him. The sultriness of the preceding day had passed away with the night, and the air as Feme breathed it was like cool drink to a fevered thirst. Feme rode away from the quiet village, the chimes of the church bells following him, out the smooth turnpike, be- tween fields in which cattle browsed and horses and mules were taking their Sunday holiday ; over the- dirt road that divided stretches of 6 82 Red Blood and Blue stubble and slopes of bending apple orchards ; and down the faint cow-path that wound be- tween the Dead Sea on the right and the densely shaded gorge on the left along which Torrance Creek slipped and sang. As he entered the triangular approach to Swango's Gap he pulled up his horse at sight of Out- cault prone upon his back, his bed a huge bowlder that absorbed gratefully the morning rays of the mellow sun, threading down through a canopy of vines which shot the golden air with the tang of the wild grape. " Good-morning," Feme called out as he dismounted. Usually he would have said, " Good-morning, Andrew," and the note of constraint would have been lacking; but the tone was not un- civil, and that it was different from what An- drew Outcault had expected, was shown by a passing glint of surprise in his eyes as he raised himself to a sitting posture. " Hello ! " he answered. It was at once a response to Feme's greeting and a non-com- mittal expression of his intention to await Feme's further initiative. Feme silently tied his horse to an over- hanging bough and seated himself on the rock Red Blood and Blue 83 near Outcault. He flicked, a little nervously, a bit of dust from his leg, saying, without looking up: " Well, I see you are on time." " Of course," Outcault replied, still waiting. Feme looked at Outcault squarely. " I sup- pose I was rather hasty yesterday," he said. " Since thinking it over I have come to the conclusion that I was hardly justified in speak- ing to you as I did." It was characteristic of Outcault that he rarely showed any evidence of surprise. He showed none now, but answered in his usual straightforward way : "All right, Feme ; I didn't think you were myself." " You may have appeared a little too dic- tatorial and brusque in your manner to Miss Torrance, and I may have been remiss in my duty to look after her comfort ; but well, the result proved that there was reason for your insistence ; and if there had not been I well, I am not sure how far I should have had a right to object to your action." Outcault looked as if he doubted whether he fully comprehended. " I 'm not sure, either, Feme," he finally said. " In fact, I don't know 84 Red Blood and Blue whether any question of ' right ' has anything to do with the case." " You must not misunderstand me," Feme quickly rejoined. " I do not mean to say that, whatever the circumstances may have been, I should have had a right to feel any resentment yesterday which any escort of the young lady would not have had a right to feel. I most certainly had no right to assume any attitude toward Miss Torrance which would not have been the right of any other gentleman under whose protection she temporarily was." Feme was now speaking unevenly, his agita- tion betraying itself in his rising color as well as in his hesitating pauses. Outcault got up, brushing his clothes in a manner that indicated his disposition to drop the subject. He picked up a stone and threw it into the water, saying as he did so : " Well, I reckon there 's not much of a mis- understanding between us." Feme also rose. " One thing more," he added : " I regret to have put you to the trouble of keeping this unnecessary appoint- ment. It seems now rather silly of me." " Oh ! it does n't. matter about the trouble. Fact is, I don't know but that you have done Red Blood and Blue 85 me a good turn. I got here an hour ahead of you this morning and I put in the time explor- ing that pond out there. I believe I 've hit upon a big scheme, if I can get the Dead Sea from Mr. Swango." " The Dead Sea ! " and Arthur smiled for the first time during the meeting. " I reckon Little Ony would be glad to give it to you if you would agree to take it off his place." " That 's just what I want to do with it." Feme laughed rather vacantly as he mounted his horse. " Are you riding ? " he asked. " No ; I walked over." " Well, good-morning, Outcault." " Good-morning, Feme." The incidents of the twenty-four hours, notwithstanding Feme's virtual apology, had not left the relations of the two young men unchanged. Before, they had addressed each other as " Andrew " and " Mr. Feme ; " now, it was " Outcault " and " Ferae." Outcault spent another hour poking and peering about the shores of the Dead Sea. Then, going a mile out of his way, he turned into the road that took him in front of the Kemp homestead. Discovering far down that road a vehicle which he recognized, he timed 86 Red Blood and Blue his steps to meet it at the Kemp gate, which he opened for Mrs. Kemp and the Squire, driving back from church. " Has Miss Victoria entirely recovered, Mrs. Kemp ? " Outcault inquired as the buggy passed through. " Miss who ? " asked Mrs. Kemp, in a voice whose unwonted formality kindled a merry spark in the Squire's eyes. " Miss Victoria," repeated Outcault, his lids lifting a little. "Miss Torrance had sufficiently recovered to return to The Mounds last evening," an- swered the formal voice. " G'lang there, Solomon," clucked the Squire, shaking the reins over the fat back of the horse. " Much obleeged to you, Andy." Red Blood and Blue 87 VII NEXT afternoon Rosalie Kemp went over to The Mounds in her phaeton and took Victoria Torrance for a drive. Rosalie was usually very happy or very unhappy, and when at either extreme it was her wish to be with Victoria Torrance. This afternoon she was very unhappy. Beyond a slight lingering pallor Victoria showed no trace of her illness of the preced- ing Saturday, as the two girls were drawn by old Solomon from The Mounds along the dirt road toward the river. Rosalie Kemp, having exclaimed her dis- tress over the misfortunes of Saturday and her delight over Victoria's recovery, had lapsed into one of the pensive silences which generally preceded the commission of her unhappiness to words. " What a delicious day ! " she soon sighed. "And what a shame that we could not have had it for the picnic ! " 88 Red Blood and Blue "Yes," assented Victoria, reflectively; "but this just you and I and Solomon is nicer than any picnic." " You dear ! But oh, Victoria, I 'm heart- broken about the picnic ! To think, after all our preparations, and everybody so taken with the idea, that it should have turned out so miserably ! " " But it did n 't turn out so miserably," Vic- toria reassured her. " I 'm certain I had a good time, at first, and the others most of them, at least were more sensible than I was." " How could we enjoy it after Arthur Feme came back and told us that you were feeling so bad you had gone to the house, and I was dying to get them all away so I could go to you ? And, oh, Victoria! what do you reckon? I sat by Bessie McLane at church last night and she told me such awful things. She said that Maud Gibbs was circulating it around that her father said that the picnic was just a scheme to get popper's cotton picked for nothing. And, oh, Victoria ! that was n't the worst. What else do you suppose she said ? " "Indeed, I haven't the slightest idea, Rosalie ; but I should n 't mind what Maud Gibbs said." Red Blood and Blue 89 " Victoria ! " in almost a whisper, " she said that we broke up the picnic because Andrew Outcault, who of course was n't wanted, came, anyway." " Oh, Rosalie ! How absurd ! " Victoria did seem to mind what Maud Gibbs said. There was an indignant flush on her cheeks now and a flash in her eyes. "Of course ! " Rosalie went on. " Why, we did n't even know that Andrew Outcault had been in the neighborhood. Arthur Feme came back and told us that he himself had gone with you to the house; and you know that he would not have told any one about Andrew afterwards. Arthur is a true gentle- man." " Yes ; Arthur never told any one about Andrew Outcault," Victoria agreed, looking straight ahead. " Then it must have been Andrew himself," Rosalie decreed. " How contemptible ! " "Do you think that he would do such a thing? " " What could you expect of an Outcault ? " answered Rosalie, scornfully, disturbing Solo- mon's meditations with a sudden lash of the reins. " Why, Victoria, mommer says he actu- 90 Red Blood and Blue ally had the impudence to come by and inquire about you yesterday." " Indeed ! " There was that in the sharply cut enunciation which reminded Rosalie of Clara Torrance in her haughtiest moments of aristocratic young-ladyhood. " Of all the presumption ! " Rosalie echoed. Solomon jogged on for several seconds unpursued by the sound of human voices. Then Rosalie gathered up the reins again and suddenly asked : " Victoria, tell me, how was it possible how was it that Andrew Outcault dared do what he did, and Arthur Feme with you, too ? " Victoria's hands, lying in her lap, closed convulsively, one over the other; then they swooped on the reins held loosely by Rosalie, drew them up and shook them fiercely over the startled Solomon, who actually broke into a gallop. " Let me drive for a while ! " she said impetuously, pulling Solomon down to a trot. "And don't ask me anything about Andrew Outcault! I suppose he did as he did because he is what he is! And don't, don't, don't ever mention the odious affair to me again ! " Rosalie looked at her friend with a little Red Blood and Blue 91 gasp. Victoria was sitting erect, loosened strands of her hair flaying her temples, her lips firmly set, her eyes burning through un- shed tears. " Oh, Victoria, I never will ! " Rosalie sighed, nestling closer ; and a little later : " But isn 't Arthur Feme the handsomest creature you ever saw ? " Victoria's face relaxed and she turned to Rosalie with a smile. " Except one," she answered. " Who ? " incredulously. "Father." -Yes but " The sentence was for some seconds un- finished, and Victoria's inquiry was in her eyes. " But I was not thinking of old gentlemen," Rosalie concluded. They were now in sight of the woods through which was the ideal drive of the county, a springy dirt road, known as the Arcade, wind- ing within occasional glimpses of the river on one side and wild uplands on the other, and so overarched with trees that the sun rarely pierced through. Here in the spring miles of dogwood blossoms made a white canopy as if of 92 Red Blood and Blue the entrance to some fairy bridal festival, but now squirrels swung across the archway as they sought the hickory-trees for their winter stores, acorns strewed the road, and brown leaves drifted down to cover them from the coming frosts and the slow feet of idlers and lovers. Suddenly Rosalie started and laid a hand on Victoria's wrist. " Victoria ! " she cried, " look ! Is n't that Andrew Outcault ? " A horseman was coming towards them, three or four hundred yards down the road. " I think it is," replied Victoria, eying him steadily. " What are you going to do, Victoria ? " under her breath. " Are you going to speak to him ? " Victoria, her gaze still on the approaching horseman, answered after an interval of silence : "We might avoid him by turning into Wingate's Lane." Wingate's Lane was a brier-grown byway that led through weeds and thickets to the abandoned Wingate barrens and the hut of old Dru Wingate, the con jure- worker, the sole human being who lived on the shores of the Dead Sea. Red Blood and Blue 93 " But we should miss the Arcade," Rosalie objected, " and," with lowered voice, " we should have to go by old Dru's." " I should like to see old Dru's," Victoria replied with a smile. " Oh, I should n't ! " closing her eyes so tightly as to pucker her face whimsically. " It makes me creepy to think of it ! " " We could turn back before we got to Dru's," laughed Victoria. " Yes," agreed Rosalie ; " but, Victoria Torrance, why do you want to avoid Andrew Outcault ? I should think you would be glad of the chance to cut him. / shall never speak to him again." They had now reached the mouth of the lane. Victoria seemed to have decided to drive by it, straight on ; but in an instant she so wrenched the reins as to almost bring Solomon to his haunches, and half a minute later, when Andrew Outcault cantered up to the junction of the two roads, the back of a phaeton rapidly wheeling towards Dru Wingate's was all that he saw as he looked up the lane. He had recognized the girls long before they turned aside, and he pulled up his horse 94 Red Blood and Blue at the mouth of the lane and watched the receding vehicle. In Outcault's place Arthur Feme, looking across that forbidden ground, might have sighed a prayer or a poem. But Outcault, with a laugh abruptly ended almost with its first note, slapped the flank of his horse with the palm of his hand, as a boy who rides without a saddle sometimes does, and galloped on his way, humming, in a raw baritone, a line from a Scotch air : Ye '11 take the high road and 1 11 take the low road." Red Blood and Blue 95 VIII HE had made a second visit to the Dead Sea that morning, and having further explored the place, had jumped on his horse and started in search of Little Ony Swango, in whose domain the great pond lay. The Dead Sea covered about four hundred acres, and was fed by the spring freshets of the river, which, overflowing its bank at the mouth of a little valley half a mile above Swango's Gap, filled the natural basin between the river and the upland barrens with a volume of muddy water to which, except over the rim of the valley, itself higher than the basin, there was no outlet. The result was a stagnant pool, to partially evaporate under the summer sun, leaving its margins marshy quagmires, grown up with rank underbrush and fringed with greenish fungus. Here solitude settled over decay. There was no sign of life except that which feeds on corruption. Perhaps a sleek muskrat dropped into the water, a torpid turtle crawled out on a rotting log, or a funereal heron 96 Red Blood and Blue stood sentinel. In summer grotesque dragon- flies shimmered, and spectral butterflies quiv- ered above the fetid mould. At times a cloud of turgid mist ascended, and brackish odors rose with it. Overhead, in periods of drought, the sky was like a yellow desert, while the reek of the flat fumes was insidiously nauseous. It was not strange that by a people so impres- sionable as the negroes this spot was shunned in superstitious dread ; that they believed it ac- cursed from above and ruled from below ; that to them the swamp fires which were sometimes seen near it were the personal materializations of the Evil One ; and that old Dru Wingate, who lived on its edge and caught her tadpoles and devil's-horses in its fens, was his vicegerent. Andrew Outcault, riding from this desolate spot to the home of Little Ony Swango, and failing to find him there, traced him to Cap'n Pow Halliburton's law office in Feme Run, where, sitting on one chair, a leg over the seat of another chair, and the back of a third caught under his arm, he was slowly rolling his hickory walking-stick to and fro between the palm of his hand and his extended leg, and silently listening to Cap'n Pow's voluble war reminiscences. Red Blood and Blue 97 "Why, hello, Andrew!" Cap'n Pow broke off as Outcault entered, " I did n't know you were in town." " I wanted to see Mr. Swango, and I followed him here," Outcault explained. "Howdy, Andy? What's in the wind?" Ony lifted his head, and his greeting was plainly one of curiosity as well as friendliness. Young Outcault, with characteristic direct- ness, at once disclosed his mission. " Mr. Swango," he said, " will you sell the Dead Sea ? " " What the Dead Sea ? " exploded Cap'n Pow, his high, boyish voice breaking in a roulade of infectious laughter. Ony's shoulders were shaking and his face was contorted with a smile. Ony rarely laughed, but he sometimes smiled ; and when he smiled there was often a ponderous convul- sion throughout his whole corporeal being. " Did you say sell the Dead Sea, Andy ? " he asked, straightening his face. " Yes, sir." Outcault's jaw closed firmly after the words, and he refused to see any cause for amusement in his inquiry. " Oom, well, I reckon I won't," Ony replied, dropping his eyes to the floor again. 7 98 Red Blood and Blue " Would you tell me why, sir ? " " Becaze, Andy, there ain't nobody that would be a gormed goose enough to buy it." " I '11 buy it, sir." There was another of Cap'n Pow's roulades of laughter, but Ony's smile now extended only to his eyes and lips as he again glanced up at Outcault. " Look-ahere, Andy," he said, "what new dido are you a-projickin now? " " I '11 give you three hundred dollars for it. I 'd give you more if I had it. But you say that's three hundred dollars more than any- body else would give for it." Cap'n Pow forgot to laugh, in his astonish- ment, and Ony Swango rose heavily from his seat before replying. " Three hundred dollars for the Dead Sea ! " he exclaimed, throwing his coat over his shoulder. " Why, boy, I 'd as soon sell you a quarter section of the moon." " I '11 make you another proposition, Mr. Swango," Outcault said, moving a step nearer. "I'll give you three hundred dollars for the Dead Sea outright, or I '11 undertake to drain it for a share of the reclaimed ground. If I succeed there will be four hundred acres of the finest land in the world." Red Blood and Blue 99 " Dreen it ? Dreen the Dead Sea ? " Ony roared in amazement. " Why, if the Almighty had a-intended it to be dreened he would n't a-made it ! " " You might as well say, sir, that if he had intended your woods to be cleared he would n't have made them." " Oom, well," not quite so positively, " I reckon that argument don't hold, Andy. In the beginning he created the water and the dry land, an' he set his marks and demarks. An' he said, thus fur an' no furder ; an' thus fur an' no furder it has been and shill be, tell time shill be no mo'. Nobody befo' ever thought of such a outlandish thing as dreenin' the Dead Sea. Nobody but you, Andy Out- cault, ever would a-thought of it. Say, how the gormnation ken you dreen her, anyhow, Andy ? " Cap'n Pow was no longer moved to laugh. He was flushed with excitement, and his soft beard was suffering from the nervous unrest of his hand. " If anybody can do it," he volun- teered, " I '11 lay you Andrew can, Ony Swango ! " Ony Swango had long been considered one of the most " enterprising " men of the county. ioo Red Blood and Blue He had made money while his neighbors had merely made a living. He had been among the first to recognize and utilize the new con- ditions following the abolition of slavery. He farmed as a vocation, not as an avocation. He was a leader of those who discontinued the cultivation of cotton for diversified crops of grain and grass. He introduced new methods and new machinery. But he still believed in the goose-bone as a weather prophet, and he still insisted that the " razor-backed " hog, mast-fed, was the only meat fit to be hung up in the smoke-house ; while it would have occurred to him as readily to doubt the exist- ence of old-fashioned " hell-fire " as to lay an iconoclastic hand on such a landmark as the Dead Sea. He listened with an occasional non-commit- tal " Oom ! " as Andrew Outcault explained his plans. They were surely simple enough. A ridge of rock was to be blasted away and an outlet for the water was to be thus provided through Swango's Gap into the river. Higher up, at the mouth of the gorge through which the Dead Sea was fed by the spring floods, a levee was to be constructed, and the Dead Sea, thus dammed at one end and drained at Red Blood and Blue 101 the other, would soon be a four-hundred acre tract of rich alluvial land. Outcault was explicit and confident; Cap'n Pow was enthusiastic ; Ony Swango sat down again, grunting dubiously and occasionally putting a gruff question as the young man pressed his arguments. It was not until several days later, after two other interviews with Outcault on the subject, and after Ony had laboriously re-read the first chapters of the Book of Genesis, that he consented to let Outcault try his "projick; " the terms being that in case of its success Outcault was to have half of the reclaimed land. IO2 Red Blood and Blue IX WHEN the details of this transaction became public, as they soon did, Feme Run and the surrounding country awoke to a mild sensa- tion of amused gossip. It was the joke of the day, and of many days. Ony Swango had taken up a lot of "new-fangled notions," but nobody had expected him to countenance such a visionary scheme as this. He would be try- ing to make a fish-pond of Bald Knob next. And as if there were not more land all around him than was cultivated, or than there was any use for ! Maybe he expected to bottle the Dead Sea and supply the world with Colonel Sellers' celebrated eyewater. As for young Outcault, he was the real point of the joke. He was clearly the son of his father, and the breed was cropping out early. If you could not make a silk purse from a sow's ear, no more could you make one from any of her litter. Ony Swango ought to be smart enough to remember Jerry Outcault and his cotton- picker; many of those who made this remark, Red Blood and Blue 103 however, failing to remember that Ony Swango had been smart enough to avoid the trap in which they themselves had been caught by Jerry Outcault and his cotton-picker. Ony, when thus twitted, did not appear to be disturbed. " Oom," he would grunt good- naturedly, " I ain't got nothin' to lose, an' I have got two hundrud acre of extry Ian' to gain. An' don't you worry about Andy Outcault. Any boy that could bring out Cap'n Pow Halliburton's farm like Andy's done an* Cap'n Pow a-puttin' in all his licks a-larruppin' the judge an' jury an' a-lambastin' the Yankee army will be mighty ap' to take keer of hisse'f." Andrew Outcault was not unaware that he was looked upon as a great joke now, but that affected him even less than it did Ony Swango. He went energetically about his preparations for his new work, smiling, perhaps, or respond- ing briefly in kind, but losing no time, when some countryman, with his leg over the saddle pommel, inquired how much mud-cat he ex- pected to raise to the acre. At the outset he was retarded by the unfore- seen difficulty of obtaining hands. The negroes refused to take employment on the Dead Sea, 104 ked Blood and Blue They would not challenge the malevolent powers of the unseen world by meddling with their works in this. So it was that on the autumn day when Andrew Outcault began his operations against the Dead Sea his only assistants were Line, the son of Bev, and a Polish Jew, whom Line called " a Dutchman," for in this region all foreigners whose native tongue was not English were known by both whites and blacks as " the Dutch." Line, having spent several years of his youth in that centre of enlightenment for his be- nighted race, the city of Nashville, prided himself upon his superiority to the foibles of the " country niggers." Yet even Line, when he and Andrew had each drilled into the rock at the edge of the Dead Sea, insisted that not his charge, but Andrew's, should be the first to be fired, the while he rolled his eyes across the murky water, on the far shore of which the gaunt form of old Dru Wingate was standing sternly in the door of her hut. The explosion of that first blast stirred into unprecedented commotion the stillness of the Dead Sea. There were the "swish" and " chug " of slimy things as they slid or plunged into the water; among the reeds were croaks Red Blood and Blue 105 from hoarse throats and the sweep of wings in sudden flight; high up a buzzard floating sluggishly over the putrescent morass tremu- lously flapped its pinions and, wheeling, fled beyond the rim of the barrens ; on the surface of the shivering pool the white belly of a dead fish gleamed in the sun ; while following the ripples straight across the lake toward the now empty door of old Dru Wingate's hut, the small, sinister heads of a pair of water-snakes, as sharply defined as intaglios, cleft their way. Seeing which, Line, in a voice splitting be- tween hysterical defiance and defence, broke into the old song of the quarters: " Wake, snakes, day 's a-breakin' ! " The reverberations of that first blast beat through the calm of the countryside for miles around, and at the sound the farm-wife came to the door to look under the shadow of her hand for the thunder-cloud, remarking that she had known that it would rain before night ; while the business man in Feme Run, uncross- ing his legs and brushing the whittlings from his trousers, chuckled that the more fools there were like Andrew Outcault the more blasting powder would be sold. Cap'n Pow io6 Red Blood and Blue Halliburton, sitting in front of his office and entertaining a group of fellow-idlers with proofs of how the Confederacy would have " whipped " if Forrest had been in command at Fort Don- elson, sprang to his feet as if at a sudden call to boots and saddles, and with head thrown back said, in a voice that was a cross between the note of a clarion and the pop of a whip-lash : " By the godts ! " Then, with a magnificent sweep of his arm which carried his hand from the roots of his beard to its tips and thence half around the circle of the horizon, he added : "Gentlemen, do you know what that is? It is the sunrise gun the sunrise gun for the county of Torrance, gentlemen ! " And in another minute he was again lolling in his chair, fighting over the war as it should have been fought. Squire Kemp, leaning out of his buggy to chat with Ony Swango over Ony's pasture fence, also heard the boom of Andrew Out- cault's opening blast, and the Squire laughed broadly in Ony's face. " ' Dah, now! ' " was the Squire's comment. " As the old darky said when the first gun at Sumter was fired, ' dah, now ! hell done laid a aigg!'" Red Blood and Blue 107 " Oom, I dunno," Ony Swango replied, biting a dried spear of blue-grass. "Maybe it is a aigg, but I dunno about the breed of Andy's hen." It was not long before Andrew Outcault had all the laborers he wished. After that first explosion old Dru Wingate was never again seen in that part of the country. Out- cault said that she must have departed during the night, but there was a report among the negroes, authorized by no less a personage than Line himself, that the old woman had been blown straight from the doorway of her hut to another world when that first charge of blasting powder was touched off. The devil's vicegerent having thus been removed from her haunts on the Dead Sea, there was no dearth of black hands to do Outcault's bidding, though there was not one of them, including even Line, who, notwithstanding Dru's translation, would remain a minute after " sundown." The work went on throughout the fall and winter, and before the floods of the spring came an outlet had been made for the water through Swango's Gap, the inlet above had been strongly dammed, and the summer of io8 Red Blood and Blue the next year saw what had been the bottom of the Dead Sea a vast field of luxuriant Indian corn. Andrew Outcault's three hun- dred dollars of capital was now represented by two hundred acres of land that was ac- knowledged by those who had laughed at him most to be worth from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. Red Blood and Blue 109 ABOUT five years later Andrew Outcault was, for the first time, perhaps, the subject of a general conversation at the The Mounds. It was at the supper table. The dining-room, with its high ceiling, with its frescoing dimmed into a misty phantasmagoria, and its zinc- painted woodwork, once a glistening white, now a creamy yellow, was similar in construc- tion to the drawing-room, from which it was divided by a pair of sliding mahogany doors that had been brought with the Chippendale furniture from the homestead of Victoria Tor- ranee's maternal ancestors in Virginia. These doors were now open, and but for the great mirror in its tarnished frame covering the en- tire space between the high front windows of the drawing-room, and but for the furniture and the newer and cheaper carpet of the dining-room, the two apartments were one in appearance. The tall mantels, the hearths, and the skirting-boards were of gray marble, no Red Blood and Blue sometimes stained and oftener cracked. The pictures were confined to family portraits, con- spicuous among which were that of the pioneer James York Torrance in skin cap and hunt- ing shirt, and one by Jouett of the present James York Torrance's father, in the nonde- script uniform in which he had fought with Jackson at New Orleans. Over the dining-table hung fans of peacock plumes, which were pulled backward and for- ward by means of a cord in the hands of a young negro ; while the " likeliest " yellow girl on the place was kept busy bringing fresh supplies of hot biscuits and waffles from the kitchen. James York Torrance sat at one end of the table and Miss Juliana Torrance at the other. Besides Victoria, Clara, and Lee Tor- rance, there were present Rosalie Kemp and Arthur Feme. Feme had just declined a fourth offer of hot biscuits and Lee was accept- ing a second helping of chicken. " Speaking of chicken," Lee said abruptly, with nothing of the manner which distin- guished his father, "there's a new kind in the country. Andrew Outcault imported them for Janet Rearden. Says they '11 lay seventy per cent, more eggs, are easier to Red Blood and Blue 1 1 1 raise, and make better eating than common chickens. But the old-fashioned, long-tailed, yellow-legged, every-day chicken is good enough for me." At the mention of Andrew Outcault's name Miss Juliana and Miss Clara glanced furtively at James York Torrance, and Miss Juliana threw a look of reproof at Lee. James York Torrance, however, betrayed only polite atten- tion to the remarks of his son, and himself broke the unusual silence which followed them. " That young man," he said, " is full of new ideas, I believe, since he returned from that school up North. What school was it, Lee?" " I don't know. Some heathenish name." " I know," volunteered Rosalie Kemp, tri- umphantly. " It was a school of technology. But I don't know what a school of technology is." " He was full of new ideas, though, such as they were," said Arthur Feme, " before he went to the school." " Of course he was ! " affirmed Lee. " Look at the new kinks he put in at Cap'n Pow Halli- burton's place, and look at the Dead Sea. Be- 112 Red Blood and Blue sides, it was a new idea to go to a school like that. Nobody here ever did it before." " I think," said Miss Juliana Torrance, level- ling her eyes at Lee over her coffee-cup, " that it would be a very good rule of life not to take it upon one's self to do what nobody here ever did before." " And I think," cut in Miss Clara, impaling a pickled gherkin on her fork, " that persons who try to push themselves out of their proper places are intolerable." " Really, Clara," she was answered by Rosa- lie Kemp, " they say he is very nice." " How could he be, Rosalie ? " Miss Clara spoke conclusively. " It would be impossible, with such an origin." " I understand he has made quite a success of his waterworks at Feme Run," said Arthur Ferae. " That 's what ! " Lee corroborated. " When he was trying to get up the company nobody would have anything to do with it except Little Ony Swango and Cap'n Pow Halli- burton and that Dutchman who worked for Outcault on the Dead Sea say, that Dutch- man will own half of Feme Run yet ! All the rest of them refused to touch the stock because Red Blood and Blue 113 they said they had not forgotten Outcault was the son of his father, and " Victoria caught his eye with a swift, peremptory, yet appealing look of warning, and glancing at James York Torrance, Lee colored a little and, with dropped face, took a sup of water before finishing in a lower tone : " And now the stock can't be bought at all." " I hear," James York Torrance turned to Feme, " that he is also agitating a proposition for a branch railroad between Feme Run and Mavistoc." " Yes, sir," Feme replied ; " and there is an impression that it may go through. People seem to be beginning to believe in him, and the opinion is that the county will grant the right of way, though, of course, the main diffi- culty will come when he attempts to float the bonds for its construction." " A railroad for Feme Run ! How lovely I " Rosalie Kemp exclaimed. " If Feme Run never has a railroad until Andrew Outcault builds it " Miss Clara's nose and her sentence were both in the air. "Well, railroads have their advantages," James York Torrance reflected, " but for me " he paused and then continued with 8 H4 Red Blood and Blue his eyes on the portrait of James York Tor- ranee the pioneer "I am not so sure that I should not be willing to see our old com- munity escape their materializing tendencies during my life-time." " Yes," assented Miss Juliana, with spirit ; " I have travelled on the cars but once since the war, and then there were two disgusting creatures with a bottle of whiskey between them in the seat across the aisle, and there was a negro family in the seat in front of me. I 'm sure I 'm well enough satisfied without any of their railroads." " The railroad is not the only new scheme Andrew Outcault has on hand," Feme smiled. " He has made several trips away recently, and I saw in a Nashville paper the other day that he had an option on some old lands down the river that he believed contained valuable phos- phate beds." " And that is n't all ! " broke in Lee. " I heard of his very latest to-day. What do you reckon he is going to take to raising on his Dead Sea farm ? " "Wooden nutmegs?" answered Miss Clara. " You would n't guess in a week. Horse- radishes.'' Red Blood and Blue 1 1 5 " Horse-radishes ! " cried Miss Juliana, with a little laugh much higher pitched than was often heard from her. " Horse-radishes or horse-ponds ? " returned Miss Clara. "Why, I thought horse-radish came in bot- tles," confessed Rosalie Kemp. " Then it will come in bottles for that chap if it comes for anybody else," Lee replied. "Are n't you mistaken, Lee ? " asked James York Torrance. " What could one possibly do with any considerable quantity of horse- radishes ? " " Outcault says there is a good market for all he can produce, father. He has been experi- menting, and analyzing the soil, and all that, and he says that horse-radishes are what about ten acres of it is best adapted for. So Janet Rearden told me." " Janet Rearden ! Why will you associate with such people, Lee? " chided Miss Juliana. " Janet Rearden ? " he answered in affected surprise. " Why, present company excepted, she's the prettiest girl in the county." " It is useless to remonstrate with Lee Tor- rance about his associates, Cousin Juliana," Miss Clara reminded her, with resigned disapproval. n6 Red Blood and Blue " Waterworks, railroad, phosphate beds, horse-radish farm," repeated James York Tor- ranee, with one of his rare, gentle smiles : " are there any other worlds which this young Alex- ander has set himself to conquer ? " No one answered until Rosalie Kemp spoke. " He was at church with Mabel Gorman Sun- day night," she said. There was a laugh around the table, and Rosalie blushed a little. " Oh, I did n't mean that ! " she protested. "Beaux are scarce at Feme Run," explained Miss Clara. " But not with Mabel Gorman, Clara," Vic- toria suggested. " It was not until recently, I believe," Feme said, "that Outcault appeared to care for the society of the ladies." " It was not until recently, after people began talking about his success in making a few dollars," Miss Clara retorted, " that the ladies would have anything to do with him. Feme Run society seems to be getting very modern. I suppose it will be taking up the Dutch next." Rosalie Kemp usually wished to laugh when Miss Clara was serious and severe, but Rosalie only dimpled and smiled now. " I met Andrew Red Blood and Blue 117 Outcault last week at Mabel Gorman's," she said, " and, actually, Clara, he was not so abominable. Really, I rather liked him." " One can rather like a person," Miss Clara decreed, " without forgetting who he is." " Or without forgetting his proper place," mildly echoed Miss Juliana. " Or without forgetting that he is able to make a living for himself," mocked Lee. " And," continued Rosalie, her smile gather- ing more mischief, " I do believe he would have asked permission to call on me " "The presumption! "interjected Miss Clara. " if I had not asked him to call," Rosalie completed. " Ros-a-lie Kemp ! " was all that Miss Clara could or would say ; but there was a sufficiency in the way she said it and the way she looked it. "To so forget your family graveyard!" Lee caught the tone of his sister as his eyes twinkled across the table upon Rosalie. For a little Miss Juliana seemed to hesitate as to what construction she should put upon Rosalie's avowal; then she said with forced lightness, as she deposited her napkin on the table : n8 Red Blood and Blue " Why, Clara, you never seem to understand when Rosalie is joking." " I am sure," said James York Torrance, ris- ing, " that if the young man has found any sort of favor with Rosalie he is to be con- gratulated upon his fortune more than upon a dozen successful railroads and phosphate mines." Rosalie curtsied airily to this gallant speech and caught the old man's arm as he turned from the table. His other hand was slipped into one of Victoria's, and between the two girls he walked from the dining-room, bending his well-poised white head to either side that their prattle might not escape his failing ears. Rosalie Kemp's cheeriness and her fearless- ness of himself were peculiarly grateful to this reticent, sensitive recluse, and next to Victoria, whose devotion to him grew stronger and ten- derer, if possible, as he grew older and feebler, he liked to have Rosalie near him. Red Blood and Blue 119 XI LATE one afternoon Andrew Outcault, a few minutes after he had ridden past the Kemp homestead, met Rosalie's dog-cart Rosalie's phaeton had now been succeeded by the more fashionable vehicle. Rosalie was driving, and Outcault knew, as soon as the cart came in sight over the hill a quarter of a mile away, that her companion was Victoria Torrance. The sun, dropping over the hill behind them, threw them into bold relief, and played like electricity on the metal of the harness. Outcault instantly stiffened in his saddle, as if it had been veritable electricity and had charged his own body; his head went higher, and he breathed the deep breath that sends the blood tingling through all one's being. The horse felt the change in the rider and at once responded with quickened pace. Almost before the last of the black- birds which flew up at his feet had settled with garrulous expostulations in the tree-tops the two horses were so near together that Outcault saw the flexile curves of Victoria's lips 120 Red Blood and Blue as she talked. His hand fell more heavily on the reins and his horse slackened to a walk. Whether consciously or not, Outcault was doing what little he could to protract by even a second the draught permitted his long-denied eyes in passing. Riding to the right, he drew so near Victoria, sitting on the left side of the cart, that he could have reached out and touched her with his hand. Rosalie smiled and greeted him, with a note of genuine cordiality, and as he swept his eyes from her to Victoria she too spoke to him, in that manner, never lacking in courtesy, and ever marked by unlessening distance, which had always characterized her salutations of him since the day, years ago, when he had borne her away from the cotton-field. Brief as it necessarily was, the look in which Outcault held her, as he approached and passed, absorbed in a pulsing image, which he bore on with him, every detail of her presence, the beautiful lines of shoulders and neck ; the firm grace of chin and cheek; the soft warmth of the clear skin ; the living hue of the lips ; the star-shot shadows of the eyes ; the lumin- ous face parting the dusk of the hair, whose deeps of brown and glints of amber might have Red Blood and Blue 121 been touched with the afterglow of an ended summer day. Outcault pressed his heels upon his horse's sides and galloped the rest of his way with long, free strides. It was a habit of his, when his breathing was full and his heart-beats strong, to ride at such a gait. There was something in its sweep and power that was in grateful consonance with his mood. Thus he rode when his mind surged with some new and daring determination to break through his environ^ ments in fighting his way upward. Thus he had ridden that Monday when he had deter- mined upon the redemption of the Dead Sea valley ; thus he had ridden, mile after mile, on the day when he had decided that the county should have a railway outlet. He was rid- ing now to a sudden resolution that meant more to him than had any of the others which had so affected his life. It was the resolu- tion to accept Rosalie Kemp's invitation to call to accept it to-night, because to-night Victoria Torrance would be with Rosalie Kemp. Except for a glimpse of her now and then in her distant pew at church, or when passing her pji the highroad, as he had passed her this 122 Red Blood and Blue afternoon, he had not seen Victoria since the incident of Rosalie Kemp's memorable and never repeated cotton-picking picnic. The work to which he had set himself on the night when Cap'n Pow Halliburton had told Andrew Outcault the story of his father exacted of him long years of otherwise directed energy before it would permit him to think of any actual attempt to change the personal relations be- tween Victoria Torrance and himself more in accordance with his ever-present passion and ultimate purpose. That work proposed that he should win for himself among the people who had known his father a place which would com- pel the respect his father had forfeited ; that he should repair the wrongs his father had done, at least to the extent of making good every dollar of his father's theft ; and that if ever again he was to be ordered from any man's premises, as he had been on the day when he had shot James York Torrance's pigeon, or if he was to be denied by any man aught which was deemed the due from one manly man to another, it should not be because, in the clear- ing-house of men among men, there should be any balance of obligation and performance, against himself. Red Blood and Blue 1 23 The varying fortunes of undaunting failure and forced success which had befallen him through all these years had been such that for some time now he had felt he was at least near that point in the course he had marked for him- self at which he would be able to make res- toration of the money his father had stolen. Though' Outcault had never disclosed such a purpose, yet, it being now agreed that there was " something in him," that he was a " hus- tler " of self-reliance and pluck, and that while he was undoubtedly clouded by a past he was also " a rising young man " in a region where there was no surplus of young men of any kind, bars began slowly to fall and doors to open which offered him a partial entrance, if no more, to the social life from which hereto- fore he had been excluded. Being vigorously healthy in mind as well as in body, living in the present and for the future, instead of nurs- ing the past, and coursing with the currents of youth, of active days, and that sweet sleep which blesses one with new birth every morn- ing, he had a normal bent for the companion- ship of his kind, and he accepted, though he never sought, these opportunities for its grati- fication. It was thus that he began occasion- 124 R e d Blood and Blue ally to take part in the simple gayeties of the young people of Feme Run and the country- side the infrequent picnics and barbecues, the county fair, or a Christmas dance. After a while there were households where he felt that he was welcome to a chair by the parlor fire, or on the veranda when the honeysuckles bloomed and the girls, in cloudy-light drap- eries, laughed in the summer dusk or star- light. And then it was that on Sunday evenings at church, the very centre of Feme Run's social life, the one place where everybody was seen and everybody saw, Andrew began to appear among the young men who walked up the aisles with the village maidens, and sat beside them in the pews, and held with them the same hymn-books. When that time came Andrew Outcault, though far from its inner sanctuary, was generally conceded to have been admitted at least into the vestibule of Feme Run society. It was thus that he met Rosalie Kemp, and when she asked him to call on her Outcault felt a bounding joy which nothing in his lim- ited social experience had ever approached. Rosalie was Victoria Torrance's most intimate friend, and what lover of Victoria Torrance Red Blood and Blue 125 would not have placed Rosalie above all other women, after Victoria? Arthur Feme did, as everybody knew ; for it was obvious that Arthur Feme, in his devotion to Victoria, and in his consideration lest he weary her by too great assiduity, saw more, perhaps, of Rosalie than of Victoria herself. When Outcault, as he met the two girls on the highway this afternoon, galloped on with his suddenly formed intention to return to the Kemps' that evening, it was with no introspec- tive qualms as to the wisdom of such a step, and no speculation as to its ultimate results. He had simply loosed the restraint he had put upon himself so long and sprung to his desire to see Victoria Torrance face to face again, with no self-imposed thought, beyond the im- mediate opportunity, of either his past or his future. When he set out for Squire Kemp's, after a zest at supper that inspired several of Cap'n Pow Halliburton's best campaign stories, the new moon was sinking behind a greenish pyr- amid of cloud in the west, and there was a fitful stir in the stagnant atmosphere that turned the pallid underleaves outward in warning. He struck into the free gallop 126 ' Red Blood and Blue that he loved, with an exultant " Go, boy ! " that was responded to by his horse with lengthened stride and ears laid back. He rode as if to welcome the coming storm, and as a lance of fire flashed from the pyramid's peak and the first peal of thunder shook the earth he sniffed in pure delight the freshen- ing air and broke into a bar of the drivel about " Dandy Jim," which he had forgotten since the days of his boyhood. Meeting a dog scurrying, tail lowered, before the wind, he fell into another trick of his boyhood, and with a wanton laugh bent from his saddle and, brushing the dog with his hand, sent the frightened creature yelping into the woods. Swiftly the pyramid rose and spread ; the stars before him and then above him disappeared, and when he had ridden three-fourths of the way to Squire Kemp's the big drops began to fall. In another minute they were coming in a fusillade ; then in sheets. Black darkness closed down, and only the lightning showed him the road between the torrents that rushed at its sides and under its culverts. Strange, vast sounds filled the forest on either hand, the creak and crash of wrested bough, the stress of bended bole, the fierce chords and Red Blood and Blue 127 mysterious undertones, the moan and sough, the rage and glee, the hurtling roar and plain- tive sob, of wind and rain, leaf and wood. The storm passed almost as swiftly as it had come, and Outcault left it behind him as his horse bounded over the trunk of a tree that had been blown across the road. He left be- hind him the forest and its dying din of spent blast and cloud, to emerge into the open stretches of grassland and tilled fields, with the stars shining; the gurgle of water in the gullies ; the lisp of the wet bushes in the fence corners ; the drip of the foliage ; the purity of the air that seemed to flow from the blue, dark spaces of the stars as from the deeps of some great cool cavern ; the twinkle of lights not far away that meant the end of his journey. There was also the click of horseshoes on the macadamed road just ahead of him ; and galloping to the side of the rider, Outcault recognized Arthur Feme. Outcault laughed. " So you, too, were caught in that waterspout, Mr. Feme," was his greeting. " Hello ! is that you, Outcault ? " Feme replied. " And as wet as I am ? J thought I got it all." 128 Red Blood and Blue " I wish you had. I 'd have been willing to spare my share of it." " It spoils a whole evening for me. I was on my way to call on some ladies." " So was I. And there they are, now, I should say." Outcault pulled up his horse in front of the Kemp homestead, set back a hundred yards from the road. The eastern side of the house had been protected from the storm, and the light shining from the hall showed that the veranda on that side was occupied by figures in white. Feme reined in his horse also, and turned upon Outcault a quick, unconscious glance of surprise, which Outcault did not see. " Our destination was the same, it seems," Feme said, after a moment. " It 's too bad ! We sha'n't have time to return home and dress again. And the night so fine, after all ! " " Are n't you going in ? " Outcault asked, as if studying the problem before him. " Why, no ; I 'm drenched," Feme answered, looking at his companion curiously. " I am, too ; but I have come too far to make this call to give it up entirely now." " Why, man, surely " Feme was on the point of saying, " surely you would not think Red Blood and Blue 129 of appearing in the presence of ladies in your plight ; " but he did not say it. He would not think of it himself. In his view it would be a disrespect to ladies of which he could not be guilty. But it was not in such delicacy as his to protest against or criticise Outcault's expressed purpose, and he finished his sentence with a slight laugh and, "Well, if you are bent on trying it I wish you a pleasant time. Good-evening. I '11 strike over to the Kelway pike." " I 'm going to see if I can't speak to them, at least, from the outside," Outcault answered, as Feme rode away. That was Outcault's solution of the problem. He rebelled against returning wholly balked of his object. He could not enter the house, but if the girls were on the veranda he might approach as near as the railing for a few words with them. Perhaps in the imperfect light his unpresenta- ble condition might not be noticed. At any rate, he was not going back now without making the experiment. Under his wet clothes he was glowing with a physical reaction that warmed to stronger life the spirit in him which brooked no trifles. He opened the gate and rode through. Throwing the 9 130 Red Blood and Blue reins over a hook in the hitching-post near the house, he started toward the white-gowned figures on the veranda. But he had taken only a few steps when he saw that he would be unable to avoid the light . from the hall. Rosalie Kemp arose, and coming to meet him, stood in its direct range. " It is Mr. Outcault, Victoria," she called. " How do you do, Mr. Outcault ? " She extended her hand, and Outcault, ad- vancing to take it, was clearly revealed. "Oh, Mr. Outcault!" she cried; "you are wringing wet ! You must have been in all that terrible rain ! " " Yes," Outcault smiled ; " but I saw you were out here, and I thought I might come as far as the edge of the porch, if only for a moment. Good-evening, Miss Torrance." " Good-evening, Mr. Outcault." Victoria, sitting just beyond the line of light, responded to his greeting without ris- ing, and as she might have responded to any acquaintance. " Indeed, you must come right in and dry yourself ! " Rosalie insisted. " Do look at the water running from his hat, Victoria." Outcault glanced down at his hat, as he held Red Blood and Blue 131 it in his hand, and at the small stream trickling from the brim. " I thank you, Miss Kemp ; but I could not think of that. Really, it is of no consequence." " But you must ! Only oh, dear ! there is no fire in the house, unless there is still some in the kitchen. You must come straight to the kitchen, Mr. Outcault." " You are very good, Miss Kemp ; but please do not think any more about it." Outcault was getting earnestly emphatic now. "A wet- ting cannot hurt me in this weather. Besides, I shall be on my horse again in a minute." " Oh, I know ! " Rosalie proclaimed, in sud- den triumph. " Papa shall give you some dry clothes. Sit down just a second, Mr. Outcault. O papa ! papa ! " and she disappeared through the hall, calling her father, and paying no heed to Outcault's vigorous protest. Outcault was becoming a little vexed that he should have got himself into a situation to suggest such demands upon hospitality. His face showed his vexation as he stood looking after his vanished hostess. Then the absur- dity of it came over him, and he turned his eyes to those of Victoria Torrance. For a little they looked at each other in waiting 132 Red Blood and Blue silence, broken then by the spontaneous laugh- ter of each; and Victoria repeated Rosalie's invitation : " Won't you sit down, Mr. Outcault ? " " No, I thank you, Miss Torrance. But, of course, I could n't ! " laughing again as he shook the water from his hat to the ground. " Really, this seems very ridiculous ; but I did not intend to cause all this commotion. The simple truth is that I deceived myself with the belief that I could stop by for a few minutes in the darkness without exposing my wetness to discovery." Nevertheless the glow of his body was in- creased just then by gladness that he had come ; for never before had he felt that Victoria Tor- rance was so near to him as when she had laughed with him at his predicament. Squire Kemp bustled out, beaming with the instinct of impersonal hospitality. " How are you, Outcault, how are you? But I see ! Come right along with me," he insisted, " and I '11 fix you out right away. I Ve got a suit of tow-linen that the ladies think irre sistible." The squire's laugh was jolly, but his re- peated invitation was a command. Outcault, Red Blood and Blue 133 renewing his demurrer and declination, was beginning to feel that he must obey or retreat, when Rosalie reappeared, bearing a waiter on which were two goblets topped with sheaves of green mint. " You must drink this at once," she ordered, going up to Outcault ; " it will keep you from taking cold." " Or taking anything else," the squire added proudly. " Young man, you will join me in a glass of Lincoln County that is older than you are." " With pleasure, Squire." Outcault lifted one of the goblets from the waiter as Squire Kemp appropriated the other. " Cap'n Pow Halliburton's toast," the squire said, touching his glass to Outcault's and in- cluding Victoria and Rosalie in the sweep of his eyes and his arm. " ' To the ladies : there is no liquor too good to drink to them ; there is none good enough for them to drink.' " The juleps were disposed of and the squire added, as he wiped his lips : " I like that toast. It fits our Southern women. Why, Arthur Feme was telling me the other day that at a place called Syracuse, in the State of New 134 Red Blood and Blue York, the most elegant ladies not only drank juleps with him, but they drank julep for julep, sir ! What is the country up there coming to, Outcault? Think of it! And think of the sort of liquor they must have to drink, sir, in Syracuse, New York ! " Outcault, recognizing the fact that there was nothing for him to do but change his clothes or leave, soon took his departure, with a touch of Rosalie's offered hand and a " Good-night, Miss Torrance," to Victoria, who responded in the same words and the same perfect man- ner in which she had greeted him on his coming. He was followed to his horse by Squire Kemp, who wanted more time to discuss Arthur Feme's report that in the North it was almost impossible for a gentleman to get a drink of "good liquor." "Do you know what those people up there make what they call whiskey out of? Rye, sir ! Upon my word, sir, rye ! Why, sir, Arthur Feme tells me that there is many a man up there who professes to be an expert on the subject of good liquor who never saw a drop of Bourbon in his life. Think of that ! As Cap'n Pow Halliburton says, ' They licked us, and they may lick us again and Red Blood and Blue 135 again, but, by the godts ! they never can lick us into an integral part of a country that drinks rye-water for whiskey ! ' Well, young man, how 's that railroad coming on ? " " Not as well as I could wish, squire ; but it will be built." " You think so ? " " I know it." " And of course you are as sure it will pay a man to invest a few dollars in it." " In one way, yes ; in another, I am not so sure. It will pay us all because it will give us an outlet to market, but, frankly, I doubt if it can pay dividends on the stock for a long time, if ever. But the bonds will be safe for four per cent. You have not made your subscription yet." " Subscription ! I don't want any four per cent, investment." "But you want the road. And it won't be many years before you will be glad to get good four per cent, investments." " Well, come to see me some time and we will talk it over." Outcault smiled as he sprang into the saddle. He knew what " some time " meant among his happy-go-lucky neighbors. " I will meet you 136 Red Blood and Blue in Feme Run any day you like, Squire," he suggested. " Oh, well, most any day." " Better name it," Outcault said, gathering up the reins. The squire laughed. " Well, I 've got to be in town Thursday, anyhow." " Then I '11 see you Thursday. Good-night, Squire Kemp." " Came a-courting and goes a-talking busi- ness," chuckled the squire as he sauntered back toward the house. "Well, he's a differ- ent sort of a business man from his daddy, and I '11 bet piggins to pints he gets me into that railroad yet." As his horse picked his way back leisurely, unurged, Outcault's thoughts were not of rail- roads nor was his consciousness of the tonic balm of the rain-washed forest and steeped earth. His revery was broken as his horse stopped with a whinny at Cap'n Pow Hallibur- ton's gate. A few minutes later, after a plunge in the swimming pool, which was one of the " improvements " he had made at Cap'n Pow's, Outcault was in bed. But for the first time in years he turned from one side to the other wakefully. Finally, when the cocks began Red Blood and Blue 137 crowing the yet invisible dawn, he spoke aloud, as he settled his face upon the pillow. " I will marry her, so help me God." Then he set his teeth together, closed his eyes, and went to sleep. 138 Red Blood and Blue XII OUTCAULT did not profess that easy and all- sufficing philosophy which provides, in a uni- versal vicar called Fate, a gratuitous shift for the inertia of the indolent and the failure of the impotent, and which stretches under the in- dividual, as a netting between his aspirations in the air and his tumbles toward the earth, the comforting theory that somewhere, everywhere, there is a power at once so great and so small as to assume and shape the individual fortunes of the myriads of men. If he had professed such a philosophy, he would have complained that Fate was playing him a characteristically remorseless trick when, just as he had reached that point where he felt he could turn his eyes to Victoria Torrance, just as he saw his way clear to wiping out the black score his father had left and to taking that place among his fellows whence he could make his fight for his life's desire, he should find it his part to do that which seemed to leave the chasm between him and Victoria wider than ever. Red Blood and Blue 139 This trick which he might have ascribed to Fate was really played by the hot blood of Cap'n Pow Halliburton. Captain Powhatan Halliburton, known wher- ever he was known at all as Cap'n Pow, was accustomed and proud to boast that he was still " an unreconstructed Rebel." He had come by his military title honestly. He had been one of Forrest's officers, and it was well understood wherever the fame of Cap'n Pow extended that the " maddest " moment in all his life had been that night when Forrest, refusing to remain at Fort Donelson to be bagged by Grant, rode indignantly away with- out being given an opportunity and aid to bag Grant. It was also almost as widely understood that perhaps the proudest day in Cap'n Pow's life was when he dashed with Forrest down the main street of Feme Run right in front of the house of A Certain Lady, at whose door A Certain Lady herself stood waving a handkerchief and rode out again a few hours later with "a drove of Yankee prisoners," as Cap'n Pow expressed it, far outnumbering their captors in butternut and gray. And during all the years since his return to civil life these two incidents of his 140 Red Blood and Blue service with Forrest were signally potential with Cap'n Pow, the one for hope, the other for wrath. Fort Donelson was never men- tioned in his presence without making him " mad ; " and it was something stirring to see and hear the vehemence of gesture and words with which he denounced the surrender and proved that if Forrest had been in com- mand Grant would have been beaten and the Confederacy ultimately would have triumphed. As for the time when he charged with Forrest down the Feme Run street, ah, well! it was no secret, and never had been to those who knew this gallant and open-hearted gentle- man, that he yet hoped to install as mistress of his own home the Lady who stood in her door that morning and waved her handker- chief to the flying troopers. Cap'n Pow was, as they said in all the Feme Run region, " a mighty clever " man. If he had been politically ambitious he could have had any office " within the gift of the people," as the Feme Run Recorder had more than once testified. He was geniality itself when- ever he was not " mad," and he was never mad long. By no means a minor factor of his popularity was his proved fearlessness Red Blood and Blue 141 proved not only in, but since, the war; for it was understood that he had been the leader of the Ku Klux Klan in the county during the chaotic period when some such power seemed necessary, and he was the most daring and active in putting down the organization when it had degenerated into an instrument of mere rowdyism and crime. In appearance Cap'n Pow was not more than the average in height, with a step which had lost little of the buoyancy of his youth. His eyes, bright and twinkling, were less the " windows of his soul " than the lights of his body. His dark hair, touched with gray, though now thinning at the top, still fell thick and glossy to his velvet collar. The texture of his skin, when closely shaven, was femi- ninely fine. It was usually closely shaven on his cheeks, but his lips and chin were covered by a silky beard, which was to his left hand, in some similitude, what the strings of a guitar are to the hand of the player. Cap'n Pow habitually played with his left hand upon his beard, and he played the whole gamut of his emotions except perhaps when their inten- sity impelled to a physical expression requir- ing the more forcible employment of his hands. 142 Red Blood and Blue Whether Cap'n Pow sat on the veranda of an evening, his feet across the railing and his left hand slowly caressing his beard with the leisurely flow of his reflections, or whether in conversation, animated, emphatic, reminiscen- tial, or speculative, this manipulation of his beard, not ungraceful in itself, was variously and often vividly interpretative of his thoughts. It was even once said by a person of refine- ment that if anything could mitigate the offence of expectorating tobacco it was the deft deprecation in that performance with which Cap'n Pow swept his beard without the line of fire, and the serene unconsciousness with which he readjusted it over any fleck that may have stained his shirt-bosom. For Cap'n Pow was fastidious of his dress ; and especially of his boots and coat-collars. The boots, at least when -he visited the town where A Certain Lady resided, were always of finest calf, brightly polished and high-heeled. His collars, whether attached to coats of jeans, cassimere, or broadcloth, were invariably of velvet. He had once heard A Certain Lady say that velvet collars gave an air of distinc- tion to a gentleman, and he could see in his own case that they accentuated the fineness Red Blood and Blue 143 of his skin and his beard. He was partial to broadcloth, and his coats, dark blue and full- skirted frocks, were rarely of any other mate- rial. With a soft hat and a Lord Byron collar, he was an attractive figure to feminine eyes when he went to Feme Run, as he did almost daily, and the fact that he had not yet married was considered as corroborative of the theory that in affairs of the heart women are much less than men influenced by personal appearance. Cap'n Pow was by profession, though not much by practice, a lawyer. There was, in- deed, but little law practice at Feme Run, with a surplus of lawyers, and Cap'n Pow being accustomed on slightest provocation to fly into a passion and denounce in violent and rapid volleys of eloquence the judge, the jury, the opposing counsel, and even the lawyers associated with him on his own side of the case, was not in great professional demand. Not long before he enlisted with Forrest, he had bought a farm out on the Oldbury pike and had built a home in accordance with his own ideas ; there taking up his residence, and riding into town daily to attend to his law business or crack jokes with his brethren of the bar as they loafed in their offices or sat 144 Red Blood and Blue under the trees outside. Almost any one in Feme Run could have told you that Cap'n Pow had been governed in the choice of a home by the fancy or the taste of A Certain Lady. The Oldbury pike was the popular drive of the people of Ferae Run, and when A Certain Lady, sitting behind Cap'n Pow's three-minute trotter, drove of a Sunday after- noon out that road with Cap'n Pow, his face glowing, his eyes dancing, and his beard streaming over his shoulder, she was wont, as Cap'n Pow frequently testified to his confiden- tial friends, to sigh in praise of the loveliness of Ostard's Grove and in exclamation of the happiness that would be hers if she had a dear little cottage in just such an idyllic sylvan nook. As it was about this time that Cap'n Pow bought the tract of land of which Ostard's Grove was a part and began building a cottage in the grove, his confidential friends, who embraced a large proportion of the inhabi- tants of Torrance County, were not at a loss to explain why he had made a bargain which was generally considered a bad one. For a long time Cap'n Pow lived alone in the cottage which he had built with so much care in Ostard's Grove. No one was able to Red Blood and Blue 145 say positively why he did not marry ; but it was well understood that Cap'n Pow had his own theories about ladies, and that one of them was that a lady's answer to a proposal of marriage depended largely, if not chiefly, upon the propitiousness of time and circumstances with which it was made to her. And there were some of Cap'n Pow's confidential friends who had ample reason to believe that Cap'n Pow had never yet determined in his own mind, or discovered in his experience, just what time and circumstances were adequately propitious for a favorable answer. Certain it was that no lady shared Cap'n Pow's cottage until he took to live with him his widowed sister, Mrs. Rearden, and her daughter, Janet. Mrs. Rearden, such was the prevailing opinion, was not one to bring to his home all those feminine graces and benig- nities without which it was known Cap'n Pow held life to be sadly incomplete, for she was a woman of a fertile and despondent imagination, which kept her in the clutches of many and deadly maladies ; an imagination which fed voraciously upon all advertisements of patent medicines in the newspapers and the almanacs, immediately revealing to her as her own the 146 Red Blood and Blue harrowing arrays of desperate symptoms set forth therein, and alarming her into spending most of her own and much of Cap'n Povv's substance to provide herself with the remedies for her bodily afflictions thus disclosed to her from time to time by her assiduous reading. But whatever trial Mrs. Rearden may have been to Cap'n Pow, he found more than com- pensation in the presence of Janet, a child with the soberness of mature womanhood upon her and a quiet sympathy in her ways that completely won the warm heart of Cap'n Pow, and represented in a partial degree some- thing of what he had missed and still hoped for in the home which he had built in Ostard's Grove. Mrs. Rearden, having one day discovered from her reading that she was afflicted with both incipient angina pectoris and well-ad- vanced neurilemmitis, and laying in supplies of the advertised remedies for both maladies, having swallowed the nostrums alternately the same hour, discovered when too late that the medicines did not mix well, and died be- fore a physician could reach her. For Janet, then motherless as well as fatherless, Cap'n Pow Halliburton's affection became all the Red Blood and Blue 147 more solicitous; and when the girl grew up and Lee Torrance began to indicate a parti- ality for her, Cap'n Pow's anxiety added an erratic restlessness to the hand with which he thridded his beard as he sat on the veranda in the evenings. Lee was an anomaly among the Torrances. He seemed entirely unimpressed by the Tor- rance traditions, history, or responsibilities to the future. Thus far his object in life had been his own pleasure, which he took wherever it was to be found, but which was frivolous rather than vicious. His father bore with him patiently, for one of James York Torrance's spirit ; having, indeed, long since abandoned any hopes regarding the young man except that he might in time mature into a respect- able medium for the transmission of the Tor- rance name, and that meanwhile he should go to no extreme that could bring dishonor to that name. The boy had always appeared oblivious of Miss Juliana Torrance's acerbic disapprobation and martyr-like resignation, while he laughed openly and good-humoredly at Clara's undisguised contempt. Victoria, though only his half-sister and three years his junior, was the one member of the household 148 Red Blood and Blue for whose good opinion he seemed to care, and her he held in a combination of affection and almost reverential admiration whose influence she did not weaken by either patronizing or upbraiding him. The distasteful problem which Lee Torrance had set Cap'n Pow Halliburton was finally solved one evening when, Janet not being at home, Lee, calling, was engaged by Cap'n Pow on the veranda and was requested, in as cour- teous words as Cap'n Pow could frame, to dis- continue his visits to Janet, which, owing to the disparity in the social gradations of the two families, to say nothing of any other reasons, must provoke undesirable gossip. Lee, red- dening, had bowed himself away with, for once, all the dignity of the Torrance manner. " As you please, sir," was all he had replied, not deigning to discuss the subject, or to make either promise or protest. It was about six o'clock, a week afterwards, when Outcault left the train at Mavistoc, after an absence of several days in Nashville. In an hour he had got his supper and his horse and was well on his twenty-five miles ride over the Feme Run road. It was not later than ten that night that, less than half a mile from Cap'n Red Blood and Blue 149 Pow Halliburton's, he saw walking rapidly to- ward him along the turnpike a man with a gun on his shoulder. Before he was near enough for recognition the man turned aside and began climbing the fence of the field in which Outcault had shot the quail on the day when he had also shot James York Torrance's pigeon. The fence was high, and by the time the man had thrown his leg over the top rail Outcault had ridden up close enough to distinguish the features of Cap'n Pow Halliburton in the moonlight. " Cap'n Pow ! " he exclaimed in astonish- ment, pulling up his horse short. " What is the matter ? Where are you going ? " It was plain that Cap'n Pow was moved by some strong excitement. As he poised him- self on the fence-top and turned toward Out- cault, Cap'n Pow's face was strangely wrought, his eyes were preternaturally brilliant, and the hand with which he held the gun trembled until the sheen of the gun-barrel quivered in the moonlight. When he answered it was with sharp vehemence. " To James York Torrance's," he said. " Go home and wait for me there an hour. If I do not return by that time you may come for me." 150 Red Blood and Blue Outcault spurred his horse to the side of the fence and laid his hand on Cap'n Pow's arm. " What is it, Cap'n Pow ? " he asked anxiously. " What are you about to do? " " To right an infernal wrong, sir ! Do not detain me. I have no time for talk now." Outcault's hand tightened on the man's arm. " But can you not tell me what it is ? " he asked, with gentle firmness. " Surely I some one beside yourself ought to know." " Janet ! Lee Torrance ! They ran away to Mavistoc last night to be married. When they got there one of them or both of them backed out, and there was no marriage. He brought her back before daylight this morn- ing, and they agreed that it should be kept a secret between them. But Janet broke down to-night and told me. I immediately went to Feme Run and got a marriage-license and a minister. They are waiting at home now. I am on my way to The Mounds for the groom. Go on to the house and wait for us." Outcault was silent for a little before reply- ing. " Have you thought this over fully ? " he asked. " Are you sure you are doing what is best ? Does Janet wish to marry him now ? " "Janet shall marry him now! They drove Red Blood and Blue 151 to Mavistoc in a buggy. They were together all night. I know that there was nothing wrong. I would kill the man who would say that there was. But the story would ruin Janet here, and there's but one thing to do. Janet agrees with me in that." " Has the story got out ? " " Janet says that they were not recognized by any one; that nobody else knew of the affair until she told me of it. But that makes no difference. It may or may not become known; but the marriage must take place now. Let loose my arm." Outcault obeyed. " Had you not better wait and think it over, at least until to-morrow?" he urged, as Cap'n Pow, with the activity of a much younger man, jumped down into the field. " I am done thinking and talking about it," Cap'n Pow said curtly, and started toward The Mounds. Outcault tied his horse to the fence, and swinging over, soon caught up with Cap'n Pow. "Where are you going?" the older man asked. " I think some one ought to accompany you," 152 Red Blood and Blue Outcault replied, " if you are determined on this." " I don't, sir. You will oblige me if you will return to your horse." Outcault walked on for a few steps in silence, his eyes on the ground. "Would you have them say that I played the coward, sir ? " Cap'n Pow demanded. "That two men sought to bully one? No, sir! I shall go alone. I shall take no ad- vantage of him, and I shall have it out with him, man to man." " Cap'n Pow," Outcault spoke with more deliberation than was his habit, " I want to ask of you a great favor for myself." " I would do anything in the world for you, Andrew. I owe you a thousand times more than I can ever repay you. But you must not ask me an impossibility. You must not ask me to sacrifice honor and Janet's good name for you." " I don't. If you won't wait, if you insist on this thing to-night, what I ask is that you let me go in your place." Cap'n Pow for a second stopped in the mid- dle of the field. " You ? Go in my place ? " he said more softly. " Why, that would be out Red Blood and Blue 153 of the question. And what earthly good could it do ? " "This," Outcault explained as they walked on. " You say you will have it out with Lee, man to man. But you are an old man and he is a young one ; may you not be yourself at a disadvantage if it comes to violence ? Be- sides, you know, Cap'n Pow, that your temper is high, and inflamed as it now is against Lee, unfits you for talking the matter over with him. If you go there with that gun you are almost sure to do something that may be un- necessary, and that you will always regret." " Mush and milk ! I am going there to either make him marry her or to kill him." " But I suppose that your desire is that he shall marry her, while you are far more likely to kill him, or be killed. Lee is pretty quick on the trigger himself." Thus it went, Outcault reasoning and plead- ing and Cap'n Pow scoffing and refusing, until they reached The Mounds, and, skirting the high picket fence, came to the gate at the be- ginning of Torrance Avenue. Here Cap'n Pow halted and, jamming the butt of his gun on the ground, said decisively : " All right, Andrew ; I '11 do it. I don't 154 Red Blood and Blue want to, but I '11 do it for you. Now, remem- ber : he must come at once to my house and marry Janet, or he must take the conse- quences," tapping the gun. " I will give you just thirty minutes to attend to the business. Look at your watch. We are together. It is now ten minutes after ten. I will wait here. If you are not back at this gate by ten-forty I will immediately come to the house and finish the business myself. Understand : he marries Janet to-night or, by God, somebody dies." " I understand. Give me the full half hour," Outcault said, as he passed through the gate and walked rapidly toward the house. Red Blood and Blue 155 XIII IT was a walk of two hundred yards, perhaps, and every detail of it was vivid as long as he lived. As he left Cap'n Pow the guilty thought flashed over Outcault that if he had remained in Nashville another day, as he had at one time intended, he would have been spared the necessity of placing this further barrier be- tween himself and Victoria Torrance. He knew that it should be a contemptible thought, and yet at the time he felt no self-contempt for entertaining it. The lid of the night drew down on him oppressively. Over the moon had drifted a wisp of cloud through which the light sifted like a phosphorescent vapor. Under his feet the gravel grated harshly and slipped as if to stay his steps. The iteration of a katydid sawed across his ears. There was an insistent mockery in the metallic quavers of the tree- frogs and in the elfish torches of the fireflies. Around the house came a hound baying deeply, and a man's voice called the dog back, as the glow of a cigar-point was shifted on the veranda. 156 Red Blood and Blue Outcault, as he approached, saw that the cigar was in the hand of Lee Torrance, who had risen and was waiting at the top of the steps to receive him. " Mr. Torrance," Outcault said, pausing two steps below. " I was looking for you. I should like a few words with you." " How are you, Mr. Outcault ? " offering his hand ; " I am at your service. Will you come in, or would you find it pleasanter on the veranda ? " Outcault saw that the windows to the left of the entrance were lighted, but that the veranda to the right was in darkness. " I presume we shall be alone out here," he suggested. " Certainly." Lee led the way to the darkened end of the veranda, drawing two chairs with him. " Sit down," he said hospitably. " Won't you join me with a cigar ? " Outcault thanked him, but declined both invitations. Stopping at the extreme end of the veranda, he plunged into his mission. "To come at once to the object of my visit, Mr. Torrance : I have just left Captain Halliburton ; he thinks you have compromised Miss Rearden by your trip to Mavistoc last Red Blood and Blue 157 night, and that the indescretion can only be repaired by marriage." Lee was leaning against a pillar of the veranda. He did not remove the cigar from his mouth, nor did he make any answer. " I have come to say, Mr. Torrance, that it is hoped, upon reflection, you will take the same view of the matter." Lee was still silent, but the glow of his cigar was waxing rapidly in the darkness. Outcault went resolutely on : "Of course you understand the sensitiveness of public sentiment here regarding such conventionali- ties, and recognize " " Mr. Outcault ! " Lee cut him off sharply, throwing the cigar away and withdrawing from the support of the pillar. "I do not recognize your right to discuss this question with me. It is a question which lies entirely between Miss Rearden and myself. Let us say no more about it." " You forget that the world does not consist entirely of Miss Rearden and yourself," Out- cault continued. "There is another point which it is right should be brought to your attention. You know Captain Halliburton. You know what an irresponsible madman he 158 Red Blood and Blue is when his passions are aroused. I have tried to induce him to postpone any action until he is calmer, but he will not listen to me. He swears that you must marry Janet to-night, or that your life or his must be for- feited. I tell you this not as a threat I do not think you could be intimidated but that you may understand the actual conditions and that you may weigh them well before you bring upon yourself, upon your family, upon both families, the shock of violence, the stain of blood." Lee answered with incisive emphasis that could not be misunderstood: " Mr. Outcault, I shall be pleased to talk with you upon any other subject. Upon this I have not another word to say, and if you say another you will force on me the discourtesy of turning my back upon a guest." He took a step away from Outcault, pausing to await his decision. " Very well," Outcault replied ; " but you compel me to a still more unpleasant course. I am determined to do what I can to prevent this tragedy, and I shall now urge your father to bring his influence to bear upon you. Will you show me to him, or shall I find my way alone?" Red Blood and Blue 159 Lee bowed ceremoniously. " I shall be happy to save you that trouble. Come." Outcault followed, through the hall and into the room whose illuminated windows he had observed at the other end of the veranda. The scene as he entered smote him anew with the incongruity of his mission and the thank- lessness of the part he was playing. James York Torrance was almost reclining in a big easy-chair, his slender hands clasping loosely its arms, his thin face lifted placidly, as he listened to Victoria, who, sitting near the table, the mellowing rays of the lamp soften- ing her charms of color and contour, was read- ing aloud. Outcault, just over the threshold, involunta- rily checked himself, as if to withdraw ; Victoria looked up, her eyes calmly curious, then widen- ing with surprise and wonder; while James York Torrance, as yet unconscious of the inter- ruption, still gazed contentedly at the ceiling. Victoria rose with a bow to Outcault ; Out- cault flushed, with an answering bow and a murmur of " Miss Torrance ; " and James York Torrance stirred, looking uncertainly toward Outcault and Lee. "Father," Lee said, "this is Mr. Outcault 160 Red Blood and Blue Mr. Andrew Outcault who wishes to see you on an affair of importance." The old gentleman, rising, and directing a puzzled glance of inquiry at Lee, turned to Outcault and saluted him with unaffected grace. " Pray be seated, Mr. Outcault," he said, waving the uncomfortable young man to a chair near the table which divided father and daughter. Outcault placed his hand on the back of the chair indicated, but did not sit down. The others, including Victoria, were still standing, and Victoria started quietly to the door, as if to withdraw. Lee promptly called her back. " I wish you to remain, Victoria," he said. " It is a family matter that Mr. Outcault pro- poses to speak about, and I want you to get the straight of it." Victoria paused, and Outcault flashed a pro- testing look at Lee. " Do you think this advisable? " " I insist upon it," Lee replied. Outcault bowed acquiescence, and, as Vic- toria returned to her seat, he took the chair which James York Torrance, resuming his own chair, again waved to him. Red Blood and Blue 161 " Would it not be preferable, Mr. Torrance," Outcault said to Lee, " that you should explain the cause of my visit? The facts are more accurately within your knowledge." Lee hesitated a moment, while his father looked from one young man to the other, and Victoria's eyes, fixed upon her brother, dark- ened with a vague foreboding. "Very well," he assented, with emphasis. " If I make any errors, please correct me." " I shall accept your narrative of the facts," Outcault declared. Lee bowed and turned to his father. " Mr. Outcault comes as the representative of Captain Halliburton," he began, with unusually distinct enunciation. " Captain Halliburton is the uncle and, I believe, the guardian of Miss Janet Rearden. For some time I have been in love with Miss Rearden." James York Torrance inclined his body sud- denly a little farther forward, his lips parted and then closed tightly, but he said nothing and kept his eyes riveted on his son. " Miss Rearden," Lee went on firmly, " does me the honor to say that my suit is not dis- pleasing to her. It does not meet the approval, however, of Captain Halliburton, who has re- 1 62 Red Blood and Blue quested, I may say ordered, me to discontinue my attentions to his niece. Last night I sought Miss Rearden and persuaded her to leave home for the purpose of marrying me at once, without the knowledge of Captain Halliburton. We drove to Mavistoc, reaching there shortly after twelve o'clock. The town was asleep, the court-house closed. We had started to drive to the residence of the county clerk, to arouse him and secure the license, when Miss Rearden, who for some minutes had shown an inclination to reconsider her consent to the elopement, became hysterical and insisted that I should turn around and start back home. This angered me, and, though I complied with her demands, I reproached her with such feeling that she seemed to repent her change of mind and again consented to the marriage. But I did not care to go on with it then, under such conditions. I told her that I would take her back to Captain Halliburton's and that she should have time to think over the matter calmly and reach a final decision. We got to Captain Halliburton's about four o'clock this morning, without, so far as I was aware, any one besides ourselves knowing of our trip. The subsequent develop- ments Mr. Outcault can explain to you better Red Blood and Blue 163 than I can. I have just heard of them through him." Lee ceased speaking and, turning his eyes from those of his father, which seemed to burn deeper and deeper into their sockets, looked sullenly at nothing. Victoria made a sudden motion as if to rise and go to her brother, but sank back in her chair and watched him anx- iously. James York Torrance squared himself upon Outcault and waited, silent and, but for the slight tremor of the hand clutching the arm of his chair, motionless. There was a perceptible tautening of the muscles in Outcault's cheeks as he set his jaws before beginning. " I have told Mr. Torrance," he said, " that last night's events, in Captain Halliburton's opinion, make an immediate marriage imperative. Mr. Torrance declines to consider Captain Halliburton's demand. I have sought this interview with you, sir, in order that I might appeal to you to advise your son otherwise." Then he went on to urge the practical reasons why Lee should not refuse the demand of Cap'n Pow, ignoring all moral cast of the question and discussing it alone from the attitude of expediency. " As I under- stand," he was saying, " Mr. Torrance wishes 1 64 Red Blood and Blue to marry Miss Rearden, but he resents all appearance of dictation to that end. But can he not, ought he not, put aside that phase of the matter in view of the peculiar conditions that now exist in view of the rashness and unreasonableness of Captain Halliburton and of the sad consequences to both families that may follow a collision between the passion of one side and the pride of the oth " " Stop, Mr. Outcault ! " The tint of the apple-blossoms which Out- cault so well remembered was now pink against the ashes of the skin and the snow of the hair. The old gentleman raised one hand in warning, palm outward, the fingers curving as with rheumatism and closing tightly as he brought the fist down with a blow on the chair-arm. " I cannot hear any more, sir. Whom and when my son shall marry are matters for his own decision. The point, sir, upon which you ask me to intervene seems to be that my son in making his own decision declines to be moved by threats of force. I cannot but applaud, rather than-attempt to dissuade, him. I have never heard of an instance in which a Torrance did not act for himself in such affairs, and I thank God that the Torrance manhood has not Red Blood and Blue 165 so degenerated through any son of mine. I must beg you, sir, upon this subject, to consider our interview at an end." He stood up, very straight except for a slight inclination forward from the hips, which was plainly a bow of dismissal. Outcault, rising, drew his watch and saw that he yet had about ten minutes of grace from Cap'n Pow. When he looked up from his watch Victoria Torrance was standing by the side of her father, her hand on his sleeve, her eyes searching his face, her lips opening in quick, broken words. " Oh, father ! " she was saying, " wait ! Are you sure might it not be possible " The deep eyes of the old man looked down on her as if from a dream, conscious now for the first time of her presence. A tender smile wavered on his stony lips, to leave them in a moment stonier than before. "What are you doing here, Victoria?" he asked. " You must not concern yourself in this affair. There is no more to be said about it." She looked intently, steadily up at him ; then she shrank back, and turning away, crossed swiftly to Lee, who had been standing, with 1 66 Red Blood and Blue the gleam of a smile in his eyes after his father had risen so abruptly, but who was now watch- ing Victoria with wonder and with clouding countenance. Victoria ran up to him and stopped, her throat swelling, her face mantling with crowd- ing and conflicting impulses. " Lee ! " she cried, " oh, Lee ! " clasping one hand quickly over the other and then halting as if doubtful what she would say, or as if impotent to say it. " Why, Victoria," Lee exclaimed, " what is the matter?" She seemed to gain control of herself sud- denly and completely. " Lee," she spoke, in the rich voice which Outcault had heard before, but which was now charged with a majesty of authority and an undertone of appeal that thrilled him with their new power and sweetness, " let me ask you some things, dear." Lee always seemed another man when talk- ing to Victoria. The stubborn lines of his features softened as he looked at her now. " Of course, Victoria," he answered ; " ask me anything." " Lee, you say you love Janet ? " Red Blood and Blue 167 " I do, Victoria." " And that you wish to marry her ? " " Yes ; but that must be left to her and to me. I cannot be bullied." "We all know that, Lee; but that is not the real question now." James York Torrance stood eying the two in amazement and growing impatience. " Victoria ! " he expostulated, in a stronger voice than he had yet employed. " What are you thinking of, child ? Come with me." It was as if Victoria spoke to him as the child. " Yes, father," she replied with a sooth- ing patience ; " in a moment." Then she turned again to her brother. " Do not think of yourself now, Lee," she urged. " Think of all of us. Think of the crime and sorrow that may follow your refusal now. Think of me, Lee ; and, above all, think of Janet." " Of you ! Of Janet ! Good Lord, Victoria, you surely don't ask me to give in to this outrageous demand of Captain Halliburton's ? " "It is best, Lee. Captain Halliburton is hot-headed and hasty, but he is influenced by his knowledge of public opinion in such things, and he is acting for Janet's interest among 1 68 Red Blood and Blue those who are her world. In that sense he is right, Lee ; and Janet can never forget the wound you give her if your first consideration is not her good name, but your own pride. You do not love her truly, and you should never marry her at all, if you cannot make such a sacrifice for her." James York Torrance, his lips twitching and little flecks of froth at the corners of his mouth, took an impetuous step forward, with hand raised shoulder-high in enforcement of his words. " What nonsense is all this ? " he cried, his voice breaking into a falsetto in its unwonted ascent. " Victoria, I am astounded. Lee, con- duct your sister at once from the room. Mr. Outcault," wheeling upon him, " go to Captain Halliburton and tell him, with the compliments of Mr. Lee Torrance, that it is impossible to hold any communication with him on the sub- ject of his proposition ; and tell him, with the compliments of Mr. James York Torrance, that as long as there is a drop of Torrance blood at The Mounds, such insolence as his will be resented and the honor of the family will be at all times properly defended." Outcault, upon whom nothing had been lost, Red Blood and Blue 169 saw the influence of Victoria over her brother, and saw that he could still count on that influ- ence. He turned from the father to the son and addressed him. " May I not take Mr. Lee Torrance's answer from his own lips ? " Outcault said. "Yes," Victoria responded, catching Lee's hand. "Victoria Torrance! My daughter!" the old man's words were hardly above a husky whisper, his chin quivering, his face blacken- ing. " I command you to remember that / have given Captain Halliburton his answer ! " " Yes, father," Victoria replied gently. Then she slipped her arm over Lee's shoul- der and lifted her pleading face and wet eyes to his. " Give him your answer, Lee," she implored. " And be sure, dear, for my sake, for Janet's sake, give him the answer of a man." There was an inarticulate sound from the hoarse throat of James York Torrance, but no one was looking toward him now. Lee's chest heaved once ; he dashed his hand across his eyes, which filled suddenly with tears. He stooped abruptly and kissed the brow of his sister. 1 70 Red Blood and Blue " I will be the man you want me to be, Victoria," he cried. " God knows you are the only one in this house who ever believed me a man, or treated me as one. Mr. Outcault, please inform Captain Halliburton that I assent to his arrangements, and that I shall follow you at once." Victoria, suppressing a sob, threw her arms around him. " I am proud of you, Lee ! " she murmured. Then she sprang toward Mr. Torrance, who with uncertain step, weakly steadied by a hand-grasp of a chair, was making his way to the door, his head thrown back and his eyes vacant. " Oh, father ! " she said as a mother might speak to the child she had hurt, " do not look so. Come," taking his arm in both her hands, as was her habit, " and let me explain ; let me " He shook her off; then paused for an in- stant in the doorway. " Never call me father again," he ordered. " Both of you have dis- honored your name. There is nothing be- tween either of you and me in the future." He turned his back on them and walked slowly across the hall. Victoria, gazing after him, was speechless and white with an agony Red Blood and Blue 171 that had come to her with the unexpectedness of a dagger-thrust. As he disappeared in the opposite room she threw her hand out falter- ingly for support, and with a moan was caught in Lee's arms. Outcault, grinding under his breath an outcry against the very name of James York Torrance, was already out of the house, on his way to Cap'n Pow Halliburton. 172 Red Blood and Blue XIV LEE led Victoria to the open hall doors, where the breeze was stirring. " Are you ill ? " he asked anxiously. " No ; I was a little dizzy for a second, but I am over it now. Oh, Lee, I must go to father ! " "And I shall be here, or in my room, for ten minutes yet, if you should want me." She pressed his hand, and then hurried back through the hall, through the room in which James York Torrance had disappeared, through the next, into the back hall, and up the stairs there, until, when she reached his own room she was panting and running. A light shone through the transom ; she turned the knob ; the door was locked. "Father! Oh, father, please let me in!" Her words were tense with indefinite alarm. The reply came, cold and curt. She had never heard her father speak to her in that way. " I am busy," he said ; " I cannot be disturbed." Red Blood and Blue 173 She stood motionless and blanched for more than a minute. Then she shrank away, along the upper hall, as if she knew not whither. She saw Lee coming out of his room, and stopped as one half dreaming. " Oh ! " she said, " are you going ? " " Yes. Is there anything I can do for you first?" She spoke more like herself. " Wait down- stairs for me a moment." When she joined him she had on a hat and a light wrap. "Why, where are you going, Victoria?" he asked in surprise. " With you." " With me ? Not not to " " To your wedding. Did you think I should not be at your wedding ? " with a little smile. He blushed deeply, his sober face then light- ing in a pleased, boyish laugh. " You are a trump, Victoria ! You always were ! But wait until I can hitch up something to drive you over in." " No, no ! " she objected. " I 'd rather walk. It is not far and the night is so beautiful. Be- sides, I want to talk." They went arm and arm down Torrance 174 Red Blood and Blue Avenue, and then through the woodland lane to the Oldbury pike, and on to Cap'n Pow's, a walk of perhaps twenty minutes. Outcault met them at Cap'n Pow's gate. " Mr. Torrance," he said, " it occurred to me, after I left you, that since you have shown your willingness to defer to Captain Hallibur- ton's wishes regarding this marriage there is no reason why, if you like, the ceremony shall not be postponed for a few days and be ob- served in a more formal and public manner. If it is your preference, Captain Halliburton shall consent to this, sir." " I thank you, Mr. Outcault," Lee answered, without the least constraint ; " but it is really my preference now that it shall go on to-night, just as Captain Halliburton has planned." It was a very simple wedding, and a very singular wedding for a Torrance. But the groom seemed to see nothing of it except the bride ; and as Victoria watched his eager face, so much younger than his years, she felt that for the time, at least, he was happy. There were a few minutes after the cere- mony when Janet, ever afterward worshipful of Victoria, was in Victoria's arms, when little was said between them, but that little for life, Red Blood and Blue 175 and not to be wasted upon masculine ears. Then it was that Cap'n Pow was stamping about on the veranda, sadly mutilating his beard and his mother-tongue in his torrential efforts to apologize to Lee for any injustice to him that Cap'n Pow's action might have implied. Outcault, whom everybody had for- gotten, appeared when Victoria came out, to return to The Mounds. "Are you going, Victoria?" Lee asked. " Wait until I speak to Janet and but per- haps Mr. Outcault will be good enough to see you home ? " " I was just about to request that privilege," Outcault avowed. Victoria said good-night and walked away with Outcault. Neither spoke until they reached the gate, between which and the house there was a stretch of fifty yards of trees and shrubbery. Victoria having passed through the gate which Outcault held open for her, paused and said, as one who knew her mind : " Mr. Outcault, it will not be necessary for you to accompany me. The walk is short and the night almost like day." " Yes but indeed, it will not be the least trouble, and " 176 Red Blood and Blue " I prefer to go alone." There was no mistaking that. She turned to leave, and Outcault did not speak again until he had closed the gate deliberately be- hind them. " One moment, Miss Torrance," he called. " I have ordered the rockaway, and it will be ready in a few seconds." She stopped again, but her tone was no less positive. " Thank you, but I shall not need it." " Old Jasper will drive you over. You shall be alone," he assured her, without restraining a slight smile. "You are very kind," uncompromisingly; " but I shall not wait." She started on again ; but Outcault started, too. " I shall not permit this, Miss Torrance," he declared, in a stronger voice. " This is Satur- day night, and you may meet drunken rowdies from town at any moment. If you will not wait for the rockaway, I shall follow you." She halted again abruptly. "Very well," she said, " I will wait." "It will not be long. I hear it coming now." She made no reply, but stood, adjusting the Red Blood and Blue 177 wrap about her throat, without looking at him. He was silent, also, until the rockaway had almost reached them. " It is immaterial, doubtless displeasing, to you," he then said, "but I please myself in recalling, Miss Torrance, that your conduct to-night was beautiful and noble." She did not answer. There was little oppor- tunity to do so, if she meant to, before the rockaway came up. Outcault helped her in. "Drive Miss Torrance to The Mounds," he ordered Jasper. Then he lifted his hat silently to the girl He could see that she bent her head a little. "Good-night, Mr. Outcault," he heard as the rockaway moved off. But he could not tell whether there was, in the way she said it, the least indication of any unbending. 12 178 Red Blood and Blue XV VICTORIA, on reaching home, went immediately to her father's door again. The light was still shining through the open transom, and through that also she could hear the ticking of the clock and the scratching of a pen. She raised her hand to knock, but her heart failed her, and she withdrew quietly and went to her own room. It was hours before she could sleep; and when she awoke next day it was long after her usual breakfast time. Before she had finished dressing Miss Juliana came in. Miss Juliana never did that except on rare and, in her opinion, important occasions. Her sub- dued but palpable excitement told Victoria at once that her cousin regarded this as an important occasion. It was more important than Victoria had suspected. Her father had left that morning on a long journey. It was something unusual for him to pass a night away from home. He Red Blood and Blue 179 seldom went as far as Mavistoc, and only once since the war had he gone as far as Nashville. But now he had set out for Memphis, in the extreme western part of the State, and his absence would be not only for days, but in- definite, as well as Miss Juliana could tell. He had even taken Bev with him ; and he had not done such a thing as that since he had made his memorable visit to Virginia, away back in the fifties. Victoria was far more deeply affected by this news than she allowed her cousin to see. Her father, she learned by questioning Miss Juliana, had left early and would permit Miss Juliana to awaken only Clara to bid him good-bye. He had refused peremptorily to let Victoria be called, and as for Lee, his name had not been mentioned. Besides, Lee, Miss Juliana ob- served with a contemptuous little fling of her head, had slept away from home again. Where- upon Victoria told Miss Juliana of Lee's mar- riage, sending her to bed for the rest of the day, horrified not only at the informality of the ceremony, but that a Torrance should wed a Rearden at all. Victoria, restless, impatient, fearing she knew not what, was at the post-office on the 180 Red Blood and Blue distribution of every mail. On the third day after her father's departure a letter from him came for Miss Juliana. It was very brief, simply notifying her of his arrival at Memphis and promising to inform her of his future move- ments. About a week later Victoria's visits to the post-office were rewarded with two other letters in his handwriting, one addressed to her and the other to Miss Juliana. She hurried away, her first impulse being to read her letter as she drove home. But now that she had that which she had awaited so anxiously she postponed even opening it. She sat bolt upright as she sped out Torrance Avenue, her eyes fixed ahead and not once conscious of the people she met, among whom was Andrew Outcault, who had not seen her since the night of the wedding. Reaching home, Victoria sought Miss Juliana, and giving her the letter addressed to her, went to the window and stood looking out while Miss Juliana was finding and adjusting her spectacles. " Come here, Victoria," Miss Juliana finally called, " and read this to me. I never could read James York's writing well, and he seems to have got into a country where there is no ink fit to write with," Red Blood and Blue 181 Victoria went up to Miss Juliana and taking the letter, again turned to the window, reading aloud : LORCH, TENN., September 7. DEAR JULIANA : I have occupied my time, since I wrote you from Memphis, in looking over the coun- try, it being my purpose to lease a farm in this re- gion, where it is my expectation to reside in future. I think I have about determined upon the selection of a place near this village, and it is probable that I shall close the contract in a day or two. As you may be aware, the soil here is very fertile, being richly adapted to the culture of cotton, the only species of agriculture which I feel qualified to pursue. It is far superior to our Middle Tennessee lands for the production of this staple, and I am sanguine that here I may ultimately be successful in repairing somewhat my fortunes. Bev, upon whom I have always relied so greatly, will remain with me, and I count much upon his experience, efficiency, and fidelity. It will not be necessary for me to return to The Mounds. The crop there is now virtually made, and I have already satisfactory arrangements in view for disposing of it in the field. I assume that you will wish to remain on at The Mounds on the same conditions as heretofore, and I am sure that it will be for the good of the children that you should do so. Under no circumstances are 1 82 Red Blood and Blue you, or any of the family, to follow me here, until notified by me of my readiness to receive you. I shall write you more fully of my plans shortly, and send you a list of my personal effects which I shall request you to forward to me. With assurances to you of the continuance, under Providence, of the health which I enjoyed when I last saw you, and with earnest wishes for your own bodily welfare, I am, Affectionately yours, JAMES YORK TORRANCE. To Miss JULIANA FORDYCE TORRANCE, " The Mounds." Victoria, deaf to her cousin's exclamations of astonishment and sighs of pity for " poor James York," dropped the letter in Miss Juliana's lap and walked from the room. Behind her own closed door she took out her letter, and, kissing it passionately, tore it open. LORCH, TENN., September 7. VICTORIA : In leaving The Mounds permanently, the proper safe-guarding of your interests demands that I resign the trusteeship of your estate, in order that it may be administered by some one who can give it the attention of his personal presence. I shall at an early day communicate with my attorneys at Feme Run, with this end in view. The court will Red Blood and Blue 1 83 appoint another trustee, a step which I am confident will be signally to your advantage, as at best I am but an indifferent business man, and any successor can hardly fail to prove for your advantage. In any event, the trust will continue for only a year longer, as at the age of twenty-five, under the provisions of your mother's will, you are to come into the possession of your property absolutely. Your Cousin Juliana will, I presume, desire to con- tinue living at The Mounds as now, and her income is ample to permit her to maintain her existing rela- tions to the household as long as it is agreeable to yourself and her that she should do so. I hope that, for the present at least, Clara may also find a home at The Mounds. It is my intention to make her a regular allowance, sufficient to prevent her being in any degree a burden upon any one. As soon as the new trustee is appointed I will make a final settlement with him of all accounts appertain- ing to your estate, including the liquidation of the balance due from myself for this year's rent of The Mounds. All affairs between us can be satisfactorily wound up, on the installation of the new trustee, without the necessity, or the advisability, of any further personal interview whatsoever between you and myself. JAMES YORK TORRANCE. To Miss VICTORIA TORRANCE, "The Mounds." 1 84 Red Blood and Blue Victoria sat long, staring vacantly at the closely written pages that had fallen to her lap. At last her dry eyes filled, and sobs shook her as she buried her face in her hands. But she quickly rebelled against this gust of tears, and sitting erect again, carefully read the letter a second time. Then, rising, she went out and issued an order to a stable boy; after which, going to Miss Juliana, she amazed that lady by the announcement : " Cousin Juliana, I am going to start at once for that place, Lorch." Red Blood and Blue 185 XVI was on her way to Mavistoc in an hour, notwithstanding Miss Juliana's shocked sense of propriety, her wounded family dignity, her fluttering fears, her awed protests against dis- obeying James York's express injunctions, and her faint-hearted threats, for appearance's sake at least, to accompany Victoria to Lorch. By repeatedly urging her driver to a faster speed than the customary jog of the family span Victoria reached Mavistoc in time to take the night train for Nashville. Next day she had left behind her the rolling beauty of Middle Tennessee and was steaming through the level fields, the big forests, and the riotous brake that marked her approach to the great river of the continent. She did not leave the train at the railroad junction where it was neces- sary to change cars for Lorch, having learned that she would thus reach the little town at midnight, and believing that there would be small chance of finding her father until morn- ing. She therefore decided to go on to Mem" 1 86 Red Blood and Blue phis, where she spent the night in a comfortable hotel, returning to the junction by the early train, and reaching Lorch by noon. It was a desolate-looking village in the mud. There were narrow sidewalks of plank on the main thoroughfare, along which were scattered the houses, principally one-story frame cot- tages, many of which had never been painted, in dingy contrast to the more pretentious struc- tures that were coated in conspicuous hues of ready-mixed lead, with their white-washed fences and lime-desecrated tree-trunks. Victoria felt herself fortunate in not having to remain long at the ramshackle hotel, full of flies and dogs, and frequented, she saw at a glance, by men who were coatless and in some instances shoeless. It was not hard to trace her father. Strangers of such distinguished appearance were rare in Lorch, and were not strangers long. It was plain that James York Torrance had impressed and interested Lorch ; and Victoria could have probably ascertained where he was from any citizen of whom she might have made inquiry. The citizen of whom she did make inquiry was the landlord. Yes, Mr. Torrance had stopped at the hotel for several days ; but he. Red Blood and Blue 187 had gone out into the country now. He had rented the place of Cephas Dismukes and had already moved in. It was about five miles out, but there was a tolerably good road. His old nigger was in town that very morning. Had seen him not an hour before. Of course he could be found, and he would be, dead or alive, if he had not started back yet. The lady just wait a few minutes. And the landlord, delegating his son to ex- plore one end of the street, himself sauntered off down the other; the result being that Bev, breathless, white-eyed, snuffling and almost shouting, was soon blessing God in the pres- ence of Victoria. " You sutny is sent by de will er de Lawd, Miss Victoria; you sutny is ! Da's how come I 's in dis yere town to-day, caze I done writ you a letter an' come in fer to put it in de pos'- awfice. I ain't sayin' zackly dat I writ it my- se'f. De doctor, he done de writin' but I gin him de name an' de caution, an' he fix up de letter, unbeknownst to Marse Jeems York." " The doctor ! What doctor ? " asked Vic- toria in sudden alarm. " Is any one is father ill?" " No 'm ; he ain't ill, Miss Victoria. Tain't 1 88 Red Blood and Blue dat bad. Marse Jeems York des ailin' sorter. He ain't got vatcinated to dis yere country yit. An' I don't blame him, needer. I ain't feelin' so peart myse'f. Me an' de doctor, we des 'lowed 't would n't be so lonesome fer Marse Jeems York ef he had somer de home folks to sorter tek keer him a while. Da 's how come we fix up de letter." Victoria was not long in getting away from Lorch. Bev had driven to town in a " carryall," and she was soon on the seat beside him, her trunk in the bed of the vehicle and the mule striking out homeward, Bev was pleased to remark, " at a heap livelier clip dan all de hollerin' an' de whuppin' could git outn de var- mint gwine de yuther way." The town left behind, the road, which was a corduroy three or four feet higher than the surface of the country it traversed, was cut through a forest of gigantic trees and thick un- dergrowth, whose extent seemed almost limit- less. The soil, where it was visible, was dark and moist, and the streams were sluggish and murky. After what seemed to Victoria miles and miles of this wood had been pene- trated, with never a sign of human life any- where, the road ran out into a clearing bounded Red Blood and Blue 189 only by the horizon. The black lands stretched away for leagues, the monotony of the cotton- fields varied only by the monotony of the corn- fields, with here and there a cluster of trees about an unpretentious farmhouse. The sun, hanging low, shot its rays straight along the burnished corn-tops, while it extended and illu- minated with soft opalescence the vague west- ern sky-line. Something of its vagueness and calm came into Victoria's eyes as she looked over those whispering corn-tops into the fath- omless lights of the sunset, and there was a touch of awe even on the face of Bev as he turned it for a little to the far circle where the clouds and the plain mingled in a deepening haze. " Over yander," he explained, with a wave of his whip, " da 's whar dey says de Mis'sippi is at. An' ef she 's over yander," he added, giving the mule his attention again, " I reckon she '11 stay over yander ; caze water got to run down-hill ef it runs, an' it don't look lak dey 's any down-hill er up-hill arry one over dere." A few minutes later he pointed the whip toward a clump of trees, over which was a spiral of wood smoke, a quarter of a mile off the road. " Da 's whar we gwine," he said. " All dis 190 Red Blood and Blue Ian' twixt dis an' dat smoke is whut me an* Marse Jeems York is a-figgerin' to put in cot- ton nex' spring. You ain't never seed no cot- ton Ian' lak dis, back whar we come f'om," turning off into a lane. " But when you say Ian' da's all you gwiner say. I done toF Marse Jeems York dat. Dey is some toler'ble "good mules an' a gin dat '11 do atter it 's sharp- ened, but de house fer de white folks, it ain't no better 'n our hen-'ouse at home, an' de fur- nicher well, suh, de furnicher is des pine- blank scan'lous. We would n't no mo 'n 'lowed sich bedstids an' cheers in our nigger cabins at home 'fo' de war." As they drove up to the house Victoria's heart sank. There was an air of neglect and bareness over the place. The building was a two-story frame, the four rooms above and below divided by a narrow hall, a one-story L extending at the rear. It was bald as to cor- nices; it was raised on brick piles two feet from the ground, the space beneath the floor having evidently been further hollowed out by fowls and hogs; the chimneys of brick, on the outside of each end of the house, were cracked and tottering. In color the structure was of the dull drab of the rotting pulp with Red Blood and Blue 191 which time and weather coat unpainted planed poplar. Slats were missing from the warped shutters, and in one of the windows a wood- cut of a candidate for sheriff took the place of a shattered pane. The bark of the trees in the yard had been bitten away by stock, and lower down the boles had been plastered with mud by hogs from their wallow. The yard itself, except where hard and smooth near the sagging-roofed log kitchen, was over- grown with plantain. There was a worm-fence of rails, in the corners of which ironweed and mullein crowded shoulder-high. The door opened, and a kindly faced woman, in a dingy calico dress, and with a clay pipe in her mouth, stood looking out. "Da's Mis' Dismukes," Bev volunteered. " De Dismukeses ain't moved away yit." Victoria sprang from the wagon and hurried in, while Bev busied himself with her trunk. Mrs. Dismukes, to whom Victoria introduced herself and briefly explained that she had come to visit her father, manifested no sur- prise. Her manner would not have been dif- ferent if Victoria had been a member of the household returning after an absence of a few hours, She did not offer her hand, nor make 192 Red Blood and Blue any other demonstration of welcome, though there was nothing unfriendly in the eter- nal tranquillity of her face and the equable stolidity of her bearing. She took the pipe from her mouth and led the way into the best room, which, with its bare floor and curtain- less windows was furnished with a few split- bottomed chairs; a high bed, covered with a bright " log-cabin " quilt ; a pine table sup- porting a plain glass kerosene lamp, that stood on a worsted mat ; at one end of the tall mantel a tea-canister, which served as a tobacco jar ; at the other end a colored glass stand which was the depository of odd packages of garden seed, buttons, bits of shell, a buckeye, and an Easter egg ; while on the centre of the mantel was a wooden clock, in the crevices of which were stuck receipts and the few letters that had come to the Dismukes family for a generation. The pictures embraced a chromo of a cut watermelon and a bowl of peaches ; a lady in white furs, blue velvet, and red hair present- ing, with the compliments of a dry-goods es- tablishment, a calendar several years out of date ; and a purple print on a green poster- sheet of Wyatt and Wade's celebrated Spanish jack, Grenada Grandee, Red Blood and Blue 193 "Come in and set down," was Mrs. Dis- mukes' invitation, as she herself settled in a chair apparently for the rest of the day. " You kin rest yo' things on the bed there." Victoria compromised with the situation to the extent of seating herself for a moment on the edge of a chair. " But my father : may I not see him ? How is he ? " she asked. " He 's toler'ble, I reckon," Mrs. Dismukes replied calmly. " I wish to go to him. Please show me the way at once." " Yes 'm," without moving. " But I don't reckon he 'd know you now ; he 's kinder outn his head this evenin'." " Out of his head ! " Victoria was on her feet instantly, her voice wrung. " I did not know he was so ill. No one told me. Take me to him immediately ! " " Yes 'm. He did n't git flighty till this evenin', and he 'd kinder dozed off when I left him just now. You must take keer and not wake him." She got up slowly and laid her pipe on the mantel. " Come along o' me," she said in the same 13 194 R d Blood and Blue mild monotone in which she had spoken throughout. Victoria followed her into the hall, up the stairs, into a room over the one she had just left. The blinds were half shut and there was a faint odor of drugs in the close air. Mrs. Dismukes approached the bed softly, Victoria slipping ahead of her. "He is still asleep," whispered the older woman. " Don't make no noise." Victoria knelt beside the bed and bent over the sleeper. There was little change in the thin face since she had seen it last, except that it was perhaps thinner and was flushed with fever. The fine, white hair lay in disorder against the pillow, and as her anxious eyes drew nearer she could see the throb of the pulse under the attenuated skin of the temple. There was a tightness across her throat and a fulness in her eyes, and she felt a yearning impulse to clasp him to her, but she drew back even before Mrs. Dis- mukes' warning hand fell on her shoulder. She gazed at her father for a full minute, motionless, then mustering all her self-control, she rose and beckoned Mrs. Dismukes into the hall. Red Blood and Blue 195 "When was the doctor here?" she de- manded. " This raornin', early." " When will he return ? " " He said maybe to-night, maybe to-morrow." " My father is worse. He was not delirious until this afternoon, you have told me. The doctor must be sent for at once." " There wan't nobody to send, 'cep'n Cephas ; but Cephas is too busy to-day." " Is that Cephas ? " Victoria, looking through a window, pointed to a man in his shirt-sleeves sitting on the woodpile, his legs crossed, his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand, his foot wagging slowly and regularly. It was the same figure, the same posture, the same wagging foot she had noticed when she first entered the yard. " Yes," answered Mrs. Dismukes, " that 's Cephas." Victoria ran downstairs and sent Bev for the doctor. Hurrying back to the sick room, she found Mrs. Dismukes there, and not un- willing to be relieved. "I'll go put on supper," that lady said, moving toward the door. " Cephas will be trompin' roun' on the back po'ch d'rec'ly and 196 Red Blood and Blue scattin' the cat he allus does that away when he has to wait for supper and it might wake up yo' pa." Victoria busied herself quietly, making what changes in the room she could for comfort and appearance ; and when her father began toss- ing and muttering she went to him, and sitting on the side of the bed, gently touched his fore- head and wrists with wet cloths. He was rambling, in his feverish sleep, of the old days when Backwater was a principality and he was the master. Suddenly his eyes opened and rested on Victoria. Her heart leaped and her breath stopped as she leaned forward and waited for some sign of recognition. " Father," she murmured, timidly taking his hand, " don't you know me?" " Mr. Swango," he replied, with measured courtesy, " it is impossible for me to pay you the balance of my indebtedness to you just yet. I have not been as fortunate in my farm- ing operations as I had hoped. But I will pay you every dollar before I die. You have my word for that, sir. What more can you ask ? " Victoria bent nearer with a short sob. " Oh, father, it is I Victoria your own Victoria." Red Blood and Blue 197 He waved his hand imperiously and ordered sharply, " Stop ! Juliana, you must understand me once for all. Never speak that name to me again. She is not my Victoria. She has scorned my wishes ; she has defied my au- thority. She has led her brother into filial disobedience and into cowardly dishonor. She has done what no Torrance before has ever done made the name a byword and a re- proach. She has exiled her own father from the land of his birth and of his shame. I leave The Mounds at once. No ; you shall not wake her. I will not see her. I will never see her again. I am going to begin life over, in another part of the State. I am not too old yet to right myself with the world Bev and I together and I will not die until I do it. I have not been able to do much here, but there is a better chance in West Ten- nessee. Bev will tell you that. And no one shall say that I remained at The Mounds, even apparently on the bounty of a daughter who has ceased to be a daughter. Good-bye, Juliana. Here is some money for Clara. See that she pays her board regularly, as long as she lives at The Mounds." Victoria, as he spoke, had shrunk down until 198 Red Blood and Blue her knees slipped to the floor, but after an involuntary exclamation of protest and appeal, no sound escaped her lips and only an occasional convulsive tremor betrayed her torture. The wandering mind turned to other things : to the cold well at Backwater ; to the prepa- rations for a Christmas dinner in the old times, and various orders to the negroes of the kitchen and the dining-room ; to the rich cotton lands around Lorch and consultation with Bev over plans for next year's crop. Then Victoria rose, and putting aside all thoughts of self, became at once the calm, resourceful nurse, whose presence brought an instantaneous light of recognition and con- fidence to the face of the doctor as he entered the room. Red Blood and Blue 199 XVII FOR forty-eight hours Victoria's vigil by the bedside was incessant, except for a little sleep which she snatched, within call, when her place was taken by Mrs. Dismukes or Bev. Nothing that the most faithful ministration could do for her father was left undone. Dr. Browder came and went, hard-worked, patient, cheerful, and always the more cheerful on leaving Victoria. " Now that your father has such a nurse," he told her, " I have half a dozen patients who need me more than he does." Victoria and the old doctor were sick- room friends at once, each relying without reserve on the other. The experienced practi- tioner knew the value of such an assistant as soon as he saw her, and she was hardly less prompt in detecting the worth of the man and the physician, and in trusting both implicitly. When Dr. Browder came on the afternoon of the second day after her arrival her father was sleeping. The doctor remained in the 2oo Red Blood and Blue room but a minute, and as Victoria followed him into the hall she was already aglow over the good news which she read in his face. " The fever is broken," he said, as he closed the door upon the sleeper ; " when he wakes his mind will be clear." A glad light sprang into her eyes. " I can- not tell you how grateful I am to you, doctor," she answered, pressing his hand. " Your father owes more to you than to anybody else. But he has not recognized you yet. He does not know you are here. You must not let him discover you too suddenly. Better leave it to me, and I '11 prepare him for it at the proper time." Her eyes darkened with pain and doubt. She had thought of this often as she sat by her father in his unconsciousness. What should she do when his reason returned ? What would be the effect of her presence upon him ? Should she place herself within the possibility of recognition at all; at least, while he was ill? If she was to infer his feeling toward her by his action that last night at The Mounds, by his departure, by his letter, by his delirious wanderings, would it be wise to reveal herself to him here now, if ever ? Red Blood and Blue 201 "I am afraid, doctor," she said, after a moment of hesitation, " it is best that he should not know, for the present, that I am here : because " It came to her suddenly that she would take this kindly and sensible old man partially into her confidence and throw herself upon his counsel. So she explained to him enough of what had occurred to indicate the existing relations between herself and her father, touch- ing necessarily, but briefly, upon his insulated life, sensitive pride, and passionate nature. " I think you are right," the doctor said with a constrained sympathy in his tone, after she had finished. " It would be discreet to wait for a day or two, until he is stronger, before showing yourself. Leave it to me and I will judge, as best I can, when and how to act. In the mean time, you can take the rest you need so much." She thought little of rest for herself during the next few days. The. mere fact that she was so near and yet must remain out of her father's room, was not conducive to rest. Mrs. Dismukes and Bev, having with some difficulty been impressed with the necessity of keeping the invalid in ignorance of his daughter's 202 Red Blood and Blue presence, alternated in attendance upon him ; while Victoria sat in the hall outside, the door slightly ajar that she might hear any sound within, accessible for consultation at any instant, prompt to give direction on every point, tireless in preparing delicacies for a con- valescent appetite and in providing the count- less little comforts which only a woman's love can provide for the helpless. Finally, one morning, as the doctor was about entering the sick-room, he answered gently the appeal of her eyes and her anxious inquiry whether he had spoken yet. " Not yet, but I think I may to-day." As he closed the door behind him Victoria, impelled by the desire that possesses one at times to get away, for a little, from some inevitable crisis to postpone, for a little, the knowledge of its issue walked down to the gate, and through it, past the doctor's horse, along the bush-bordered lane. There was some vague relief a rarer air, a lighter foot after a clump of elders had shut the house from view ; and yet she went but a short way beyond the elders before retracing her path until she could again see the house. Thus she strolled slowly back and forth along the lane, Red Blood and Blue 203 now anxiously scanning the house, now with the screen of the elders between; her eyes again roaming the monotonous fields around her, and again pretending to search for wild- flowers at her feet. At last, after what seemed hours, she saw Dr. Browder standing in the doorway, appar- ently looking for her. She went at once rapidly toward him, her eyes fixed on him as if in fascination. At the gate there was just an instant of seeming desire to lean upon it for support, as she opened it and hastened on to Dr. Browder. Not until she was within a few yards of him did her steps slacken as her supreme ordeal came. But when she had crossed those few yards and stood before the doctor she ap- peared as calm and inscrutable as he, who had trained himself to calmness and inscrutability. " Well ? " she asked, waiting. The doctor seemed in no haste to answer. " Your father," he finally said, " knows that you are here, and has consented that you re- main with him for the present." The face that bloomed before him in swift comprehension and rapture he always after- wards held in his memory as the most beautiful thing that had ever blessed his old eyes. 204 Red Blood and Blue She made no sound, except a little cry, which was so low that it was hardly more than audi- ble. She started rapidly into the hall; but she abruptly whirled, and running to the doctor took his hands, and, as her grateful eyes filled suddenly, bowed her head upon his shoulder, breaking into what he would have been at a loss to say was repressed laughter or sobbing. In a moment she had recovered herself and was looking him in the face again. " I am going now," she said. " But first tell me everything that passed between you and father. I have a right to know." " I began by telling your father," he ex- plained, " that I wanted some one of his family to be with him that it would be a benefit to him and an aid to me, which I insisted on. But he would not consent to it ; he would not even discuss it. I then trumped up a story that you had written to me begging to be allowed to come, and I urged him to authorize me to write for you. He not only flatly refused, but added that if I did send for you he would leave the place at once. After a while I played my last card and told him that you had come of your own accord soon after he became ill ; that you Red Blood and Blue 205 had been a godsend to both him and me ; that you had been with him throughout his delirium and had done everything that the most devoted nurse could do since, without risking his dis- pleasure by letting him discover your presence. That got him." Victoria said she tried to say it in her natural voice: " You have managed it beautifully, doctor." Then she hastened to her father; and Dr. Browder, leaving the house, muttered indig- nantly : " I could n't tell her that the old mummy would not give in until I swore to him that if he did n't he would have her break-down and maybe her death on his hands be-damn to him ! " 206 Red Blood and Blue XVIII AFTER that the old relations between father and daughter seemed fully restored, and more : for to the old intimacy, rare as it was, there was the new tenderness, oftener sug- gested than expressed, that follows reunion after estrangement; while there was, further, on the part of Victoria, the exultant gratitude for a loved one's rescue from illness, and on the part of Mr. Torrance the tonic reaction of the convalescent. They were beautiful autumn days which the two spent together, sitting in Mrs. Dismukes' bare hall, or sometimes, in the early mornings and the evenings, in her best room, with a few sticks of hickory crackling and simmering in the fireplace. Victoria had obtained a buggy at Lorch, and many were the fine afternoons that slipped by as she drove her father be- tween the flat fields and through the great forest, dashed now with gold and scarlet and fragrant with wild grape and muscadine. Red Blood and Blue 207 There was no talk between them now of Victoria's return to The Mounds. Once she had told her father that as long as he remained in West Tennessee she intended to remain with him, and he had postponed the discussion of that point to some indefinite day, replying that though it was best for his worldly affairs that he should try at least one crop in this part of the State, there was no necessity for cross- ing any bridges before they were reached. It was as though, content with the present, he had no desire to anticipate the future. Be- yond this the subject had not been mentioned by either; and to this may be added one subject which, though it must have been often in their thoughts, had never been mentioned at all that of Lee Torrance and his marriage. Only once, too, had Victoria ventured to remonstrate, tentatively, against his remain- ing, even for a year. In a few months, she reminded him, she would come into full pos- session of The Mounds, with power to dispose of it as she chose ; and it had long been her intention to turn it over to him for the pay- ment of his debts. James York Torrance em- phatically vetoed this proposition. He would no more think of accepting the property of his 208 Red Blood and Blue daughter than of anybody else. And even if he would, The Mounds would not bring enough at forced sale to meet his requirements. He had had sufficient experience on that score from the sale of Backwater. Victoria, she was enjoined, was neither to speak of nor to think of such a thing, an injunction which she only partially observed. For she was thinking of it one afternoon as she sat in the hall, a bit of needlework in her hand, the balmy air, following the western sun-rays, drifting through the open doors. The time was opportune for thought: her father had gone upstairs for a nap, Mrs. Dis- mukes had ridden off to visit the neighbors, and even the soporific figure of Cephas was nowhere visible in its accustomed haunts. So engrossed was she in her reflections that she did not hear a horse gallop up to the gate, nor was she aware of an intruder until, at a rap on the doorcase, she looked up and saw Andrew Outcault standing in the entrance. She rose instantly, her color quickening, her shoulders slightly thrown back. " Mr. Outcault ! You ! " she cried, the sur- prise of her exclamation hardly exceeding its resentment. Red Blood nd Blue 209 To Outcault she seemed by her action more than by her words instinctively to bar his way. " I fear I must beg your indulgence, Miss Torrance," he said as he bowed, " but I wish very much to see your father for a few moments, on business of some importance to me," As he spoke he stooped and picked up a pair of scissors that had slipped from her lap when she got up. " Thank you," she said, as he restored them to her. " I hope," she added, " you will not think I wish to be rude, but surely, Mr. Out- cault, you must understand that your presence here would be exceedingly displeasing to my father." "Yes," with a faint smile, "I presume I do have some understanding of that ; but I have come here to ask an interview which I believe I am entitled to, regardless of any personal disinclination he may have to granting it." " Mr. Outcault " she spoke very firmly and deliberately "I must request you not to insist on this. My father has been ill. He has a peculiar temperament, which I am cer- tain would be greatly excited by your appear- ance here. In his interest, at least, I must decline to invite you to remain." 14 2io Red Blood and Blue The words seemed to strike home. Outcault unmistakably flushed. "I perhaps you are right," he answered a little unevenly. " I had not thought of that. I will wait till a better time." He bowed and moved to leave. She returned his bow. " I am sorry " she murmured. He paused suddenly and looked at her again. " Do you think, if I should remain in Lorch a week or two, I might make another attempt to see Mr. Torrance? Perhaps if I told you the nature of my business and asked you to use your judgment and select some favorable time to mention it to him an interview might be arranged." Victoria hesitated. " Of course," she finally answered," if it is so urgent, I shall be willing to do what I can, provided " She seemed uncertain how to finish. " Provided I am not too unreasonable, I suppose," again with the faint smile. " It is simply this, Miss Torrance : I have come here to see Mr. Torrance in order that I may learn from him the amount he lost through my Red Blood and Blue 211 father. I am anxious to repay him all that his business association with my father cost him. It is an obligation which has weighed upon me a long time, and which, now that I am at last able to do so, I wish to re- lieve myself of with as little delay as pos- sible. If you will mention the matter to Mr. Torrance, as soon as you think advisable, and induce him either to give me a short inter- view, or send me, at Lorch, a full statement of all that he paid directly to my father, and of the indebtedness to the other stockholders which he assumed, you will do me a favor which I shall appreciate." Victoria's countenance underwent a subtle change as he spoke; but Outcault did not know whether it was to less coldness or merely to deeper thoughtfulness. She waited a moment, as if for anything more he might wish to add. Then she said: " What you ask me to do seems reasonable. Please sit down, and I will go up and see if father is awake yet. He should know of your visit and its object." " Thank you." Outcault bowed and seated himself, as she went up the stairs. 212 Red Blood and Blue She soon returned, and as Outcault rose she asked him to keep his seat. " Father is still asleep," she explained, re- suming her own chair; " but I am sure he will be up in a few minutes now. If you do not mind waiting a little he may see you this afternoon." " I have nothing better to do in this part of the country," sitting again ; " but don't let me impose on you. I fear," glancing at the sewing she had laid aside, " I have interrupted your work." She did not seem to think that worth a reply ; but, evidently determined to make con- versation, she inquired : "When did you leave Feme Run, Mr. Outcault ? " " Day before yesterday. I saw one of your friends in town just before I left Miss Rosalie Kemp." " Yes ? And how was Rosalie ? " " She was as charming as ever. She told me confidentially, however, that she was pin- ing away on account of your desertion, and that if you did not return soon she intended to start out in the world in search of you. I believe she would have been equal to coming Red Blood and Blue 213 with me if she had known that I was about to hunt up Mr. Torrance." Victoria smiled. " Did you have any trouble in finding him ? " " None at all. The Feme Run paper said he had leased a farm in this part of the State, and Lee told me Lorch was his post-office." " Lee writes me that he is very busy now." It was plainly an indication that she was willing to hear Outcault talk of Lee. "Yes. He will make his way, I am sure. He has already taken a contract to build a section of our little railroad, and he is think- ing of going in with me next season in the horse-radish business," Outcault added, with a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. " And Janet what of her? " " Blooming. She and Lee are very happy, and Captain Halliburton seems hardly less happy in watching their happiness. I think they would go to housekeeping themselves but for Captain Halliburton's delight in having them with him." " I hope to have Lee and Janet make their home with us at The Mounds before very long." " That is natural, but I almost wish you to 214 Red Blood and Blue be disappointed, Miss Torrance. If you knew Captain Halliburton as well as I do, what a big heart he has, how essentially a family man he is, and how he has missed the best in the home life that would seem ought to have been his, you would understand what I mean." " He is devoted to Janet, is he not ? " " He has always been, more so than to any one else, except perhaps to " Outcault failed to finish the sentence, not because it would have been any betrayal of Cap'n Pow's confidence for there was prob- ably no one about Feme Run who could not have supplied the name of the Lady which Outcault omitted but because he was not in the habit of talking of this chapter of Cap'n Pow's life; and he was surprised at himself that he should have touched on it in this instance. A short process of self-analysis, if he had been given to introspection, might have shown him that, though he had seen so little of Victoria Torrance, yet in his inmost thoughts he had so long set her apart from all others, that now when in her actual presence he unconsciously assumed toward her some- thing of the intimacy and confidence which Red Blood and Blue 215 years of nurture of his mental image of her had generated. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds after this. It was enough for Outcault that he was near her so near that by taking two steps toward her he could have touched her with his hand ; that he could look upon her openly, closely, and not as in the days when he haunted the fields for a glimpse of her, or later when he was limited to a passing glance on the highway or a view of her across the church. Here he was sitting before her, with no other to divide his attention, with nothing to interfere. He could see without obstruction and without haste the exquisite play of feature and color, the dignity, delicacy, and at times sudden brilliancy of the facial ex- pression, the firm mould of chin and forehead, the mobile arch of the lips, the curve of the lashes against the pure skin, the mingling lights and shadows of the rebellious hair, the lights and shadows of eyes that were fountains of light and reservoirs of shadow, the graceful lines of the slender figure, the sinuous swell of the wrist, the rare modelling of the hand as it sought once the coil of her hair, the very 216 Red Blood and Blue texture and folds and stir of the soft dress which seemed a part of her. Outcault asked no more than this now. It mattered nothing to him that Victoria but a few minutes before had almost dismissed him the house. That was of the long past. Victoria herself was the present. The future would take care of itself. The present was his. It was of little conse- quence what was said, so that it enabled him to hear the voice he had heard so infrequently in his life and so constantly in his dreams. He took scant thought of what he should say himself. He knew that now was no time for saying anything but commonplaces. Some day, after his business with Mr. Torrance was settled, it would be different. Victoria was the first to break the brief silence. " You spoke of the railroad," she said : " then it is really to be built ? " " Oh, yes ! It is already under way. With anything like favorable weather it will be fin- ished by spring. It is only about twenty-five miles long, you know." With such stop-gap questions by Victoria and matter-of-fact answers by Outcault perhaps a quarter of an hour more passed, when, to the Red Blood and Blue 217 keen regret of Outcault, Victoria rose, remark- ing that she thought she heard her father stirring in his room, and that she would go up and see if he had yet wakened. Five minutes later James York Torrance, with his usual erect carnage, came slowly down the stairway. Victoria did not return ; and this, with the thought that he was not to see her again now, was, for the moment, of more concern to Outcault than the meeting he was about to have with her father, which he had waited for and worked for most of the years of his life. 2i 8 Red Blood and Blue XIX OUTCAULT rose as Mr. Torrance reached the floor of the hall. The old gentleman bowed courteously, and motioned Outcault to resume his seat ; but he neither extended his hand to his visitor nor called his name. " My daughter informs me that you wish to see me," he said, taking a chair almost across the width of the hall from Outcault and ad- dressing him with easy formality ; " and upon an unusual mission, though I am not sure that I understand it quite definitely." "I can explain it to you, sir, in a few words." " Be so obliging, if you please." " I wish to make good the money which my father secured from you by inducing you, through fraudulent representations, to form a business connection with himself, and also to make good to you the money which you paid back to all others who were led to take stock in that enterprise. In short, Mr. Torrance, it is my object to restore to you all that you Red Blood and Blue 219 lost through my father ; and I am here to ask you for a statement of the amount : for while I have a reasonably accurate general idea of it, I do not know the precise sum." Mr. Torrance looked reflectively for several seconds at the tips of his shapely fingers. When he again lifted his eyes to Outcault he said, with hardly a perceptible modification of tone : " I must own, sir, that your visit to me is somewhat a surprise. Not that its purpose is not a natural one. Such a purpose should be, I might say, imperative on the part of any man placed in the same situation as yourself. But I am free to say it is not so, in our loose, latter- day materialism. In fact, I may add that while all men under like conditions to yours should act as you propose to act, very few of them, I fear, would do so. In fine, Mr. Outcault, your case belongs to the exceptions, while it should belong to the rule. Which is to say," with a gentle and fleeting smile, " that it is not a credit for one to do as you are doing : it would merely be a discredit not to do as you are doing." Outcault restrained to his eyes the smile that threatened his lips. " Perhaps you are 220 Red Blood and Blue right," he replied. " I have never considered the matter philosophically. It is simply a debt which fell to me, and until I have got rid of it I shall never feel free to enjoy life as a man should. So its payment now, instead of being a point of credit, seems to be one merely of selfishness. I had not thought of it in that light before. The truth is, I sup- pose, that the thought I have given it has been chiefly upon the problem, how to get the money. I trust it will not put you to much trouble to furnish me the statement I need." " Oh, no ; it will be very little trouble. I have the memoranda among my papers up- stairs, I presume. But, of course, you under- stand that I can permit you to return to me only what I paid out to the other stockholders. The eight thousand dollars which I subscribed for the stock on my own account is quite an- other affair. I ventured it of my own voli- tion, with my eyes open caveat emptor, the lawyers say, do they not ? and I lost it. That is all there is to that. No one else is in any way concerned in it." " My father was concerned in it. Admitting that you subscribed it as a business venture Red Blood and Blue 221 it was my father who appropriated it and ab- sconded with it. I shall restore it to you, sir, not because you made an unwise investment, but because it was my father who stole it." " Before proceeding any further let me apologize for my little moralizing excursion a moment ago. That was entirely gratuitous, and certainly ill-timed. Please consider the remarks unsaid, sir." " If you wish," Outcault smiled. " How- ever, they were not in the least disagreeable to me, I assure you. I merely recognized their truth." " Because an opinion is true is no reason why it should be flaunted out of its place. My volunteering it on this occasion was a lapse of taste for which there was no excuse. Now, sir, to return to the object of your call: we can quickly reach a clear understanding. While you are under no legal obligation to pay me anything, yet for sufficient reasons you desire to recoup me for all that I lost through my connection with your father. I have signified my willingness to accept so much as I paid to the stockholders, but I must, from motives which you should recognize to be as natural and cogent as those which prompt you in your 222 Red Blood and Blue course, decline to receive any part of the sum I put into the concern on my own behalf. That, sir, was my own act, whose consequences I can allow no one else to assume." "I don't think you have weighed fully my side of the case. As you say, there is no ques- tion of legal obligation. Nor will we discuss any question of moral duty; for, as I have intimated, it has not been that which moved me. But it seems to me that I have a moral right to pay you this money to do what I can to repair the wrong committed by my own father and to square myself among men with my own self-respect. That right, sir, I assert and insist upon." " And I, sir, assert and insist upon the right to keep myself squared with my own self- respect. It is absolutely useless to press the point." It was pressed, nevertheless, forcibly and resolutely, and resisted immovably. " Very well, Mr. Torrance," Outcault finally concluded. " Ever since I learned of the na- ture and consequences of your business asso- ciation with my father I have lived to cancel his indebtedness to wipe out not only the score he made, but as far as possible the stain Red Blood and Blue 223 he left upon myself. You refuse to let me do this. You would condemn me for life to the humiliation of my youth. That, sir, is your affair; but it shall be mine to throw off this shame, if not with your co-operation, without it. I shall pay you all of this indebtedness you will receive; the remaining eight thousand dol- lars I shall deposit in the Feme Run National Bank to your credit, to be taken or left by you or yours as you see fit." " And there it will remain forever then," James York Torrance replied. " Then let it remain. My end will have been gained none the less. I shall have done all I can do to free myself of the load that I have carried. And I shall be free of it." There was no sign of anger in either. There was a power in Outcault's measured words more impressive than passion, and there was in the speech and bearing of James York Tor- rance the calm finality of a man who was equally sure of himself. Having reached this point, at which the futility of further discussion was recognized by each, Mr. Torrance went to his room and returned in a few minutes with a statement 224 R- e( i Blood and Blue of the amount he had paid to the sharehold- ers, and Outcault wrote him a check for it. ." You understand now, Mr. Torrance," he said, rising to leave, " that within forty-eight hours the remaining eight thousand dollars will be in the Feme Run National Bank, in your name." " I understand ; and so must you. I shall never touch a cent of it. I am satisfied as it is. If you choose to throw away eight thou- sand dollars I presume it will be for your own satisfaction, and I don't suppose there will be any doubt of the bank's satisfaction." The smile on the thin old face now was almost winning. " Are you returning to Lorch this afternoon ? " he asked. " Let me have your horse put up and prevail on you to remain with us for the night." Outcault colored slightly. "Thank you, Mr. Torrance. It would give me pleasure, but I leave by this evening's train." That was a purpose formed on the instant. He was not sure that there was an evening train; it would have been far more to him than a pleasure to remain under this roof for the night; but he had no intention that his relations as debtor to James York Torrance Red Blood and Blue 225 should change so abruptly to those of guest, especially as the hospitality to which he would look would include that of Victoria. Mr. Torrance had extended the invitation because in the common acceptation of the word he was a gentleman. Outcault had de- clined it because he was also a gentleman ; though it is hardly probable that he was re- garded by Mr. Torrance as strictly such. The older man would perhaps not have denied that it was possible for one of Outcault's origin to be an instinctive gentleman notwith- standing, but he would certainly have held that the chances were as a thousand to one against it. But Mr. James York Torrance was a gentle- man as he interpreted that word, and he did not permit Outcault to go yet. " Pray let me detain you a moment, at any rate," he interposed. " Victoria," he called up the stairs, " come here, please." Victoria appeared almost immediately, hurry- ing down with an expression of wonder and some anxiety on her face. " Victoria," her father said, as she stopped on the lowest step, " Mr. Outcault is on the point of leaving, but before he goes I wish to '5 226 Red Blood and Blue correct in your presence an injustice I once did him, also in your presence." Victoria looked from one to the other in beautiful bewilderment; Outcault, nonplussed, was staring blankly at Mr. Torrance ; and Mr. Torrance was smiling benignly and pausing as if to await the effect of his words. " Many years ago," he resumed, " when Mr. Outcault was a boy, I very peremptorily or- dered him away from The Mounds. Indeed, if my memory serves me, I believe I ordered a servant to eject him." Victoria's perplexed face broke in a sudden smile. " Oh, yes ! I remember," she ex- claimed. " It was when he shot the pigeon." " Precisely," confirmed James York Tor- rance. " But it was not so much because of the pigeon as because of a of an erroneous estimate of him that I was rude to him on that occasion. And now, having discovered my mistake, I wish to express my regret to Mr. Outcault for the for the very decided breach of hospitality I was guilty of at that time." Outcault laughed, a little embarrassed. " That is very thoughtful and graceful of you, Mr. Torrance," he said, as if it were more than half a joke, " especially as the incident was Red Blood and Blue 227 so long ago. I don't think I have ever har- bored any violent animosity on account of it, as," with a look at Victoria, " through the media- tion of Miss Torrance, I came to no harm." He turned again to Mr. Torrance. " Thank you again for the ready assistance you have given me this afternoon. Good-bye, sir," with a formal bow. James York Torrance advanced and took the younger man's hand. " Good-bye, Mr. Outcault," he said. " I trust you will have no trouble in making your way back to Lorch." " Thank you, sir," Outcault replied, in almost as ceremonious a manner as that of his host. " Good-bye, Miss Torrance," bowing to Vic- toria. She stepped to the floor with outstretched hand. " Good-bye, Mr. Outcault." He forgot his ceremony. It was with almost a bound that he reached her and clasped her hand, his blood tingling and his eyes fixed upon hers, lifted frankly and smilingly, which he searched with an unconscious fire that caused her lids to fall. 228 Red Blood and Blue XX TEN days later James York Torrance and Victoria were back at The Mounds. His changed fortunes made it no longer incumbent upon him to begin life over on a West Tennes- see cotton plantation ; and his reconciliation with Victoria, together with her firmly declared purpose to remain with him in any event, left him no good reason, if he had wished any, why he should not yield to her solicitation and return home. The Dismukes were found even readier to cancel his lease of their place than they had been to make it; and there being nothing further to detain him, James York Torrance took the east-bound train at Lorch, the morning sunlight being superflu- ous for the illumination of the countenances of his two companions, that of Victoria quietly radiant, that of Bev broadly agrin. On the day following his arrival at The Mounds James York Torrance drove over to Little Ony Swango's and paid him, principal Red Blood and Blue 229 and interest, the balance of the money borrowed from him. " Gorm ! " exclaimed that blunt-spoken indi- vidual. "This knocks me. I never had no idy you 'd ever be able to make this up, Mr. Torrance. I knowed you went down to the Deestric' two or three mont's ago to take a fresh start in cotton, but you ain't had no chanst to make no crop yit." James York Torrance stood a little taller. " You assuredly must have known, sir, that I would pay you the very first thing after I returned." " Oh ! I knowed you 'd pay me the fus thing after you got the money; but " Ony ruminated over the mystery of it as he chewed a splint from the fence on which he was leaning. " Well, sir, you must have known, ever since Andrew Outcault got back, that I had the money." " Andy Outcault ? Oom, I dunno why any- body 'd ever take up such a fool notion as that Andy Outcault would know anything about yo' privit affairs, Mr. Torrance." " You don't mean to inform me, sir, that you have not heard that Outcault has paid me the 230 Red Blood and Blue full amount of his father's embezzlement, bar- ring my individual subscription to the stock of the concern, which he pressed upon me, but which I declined to accept ? " Ony lifted his chin from his huge arms, folded across the fence. " Gorm ! Andy done that? You don't tell me ! Well, I be gorm ! " " He most undoubtedly has done that." Ony sputtered the chewed splinter from his mouth. " I be gorm ! " Then he carefully picked a fragment of the wood from his inner lip, and added reflec- tively : " Oom, well, sir, I dunno as I oughter be so much s'prised at Andy. That air chap is jus' got the gumption of all out-o'-doors ; an' there wan't no tellin' what he 'd be up to when he made that las' turn in them phosphate lands he was projickin' with. Oom, by gorm ! " " I drove immediately to Feme Run," said James York Torrance, after having related this incident to Victoria that night, "and I made it a point to accost several of my acquaintances and mention this matter of Out- cault's action ; but I found that none of them Red Blood and Blue 231 had heard of it. That meant, I judged, that he had chosen to keep it to himself ; for un- questionably if it had been divulged the village would have been agog over it. Later I met Outcault himself and taxed him with hiding his light under a bushel ; to which he replied that, regarding it as much my affair as his, he had left it entirely with me. It is not necessary for me to say that I shall take ade- quate steps to give it full publicity. The fel- low evidently has some of the promptings of the well-bred. What puzzles me is where he got them." " But birth is not necessarily everything." Victoria replied, not because she seemed dis- posed to insist upon that view of the subject, or upon any view of it, but rather because her father had evidently expected her to say something. "It is virtually everything, so far as one's real nature is concerned. There is no man of innate honor who was not born such." " But must every man of honor have had a like parentage? " "Like begets like. It is a rule to which there is the rarest exception. You cannot gather figs from thistles, though," his face 23 1 Red Blood and Blue hardening a little at thought of his own son, " we sometimes gather thistles from figs." " Does it not seem," asked Victoria, without noting the personal deflection of his words, " that if there are exceptions to the rule in one direction there may be exceptions in the other?" " Granted that Outcault may be an excep- tion, I fear that in a certain sense he will be the unhappier for that reason. Materially he has achieved some success. Material success, in an age of growing materialism, will un- doubtedly open the way to him to a certain point, but only to a certain point. For ex- ample, he appears to have social aspirations. That being the case, the the elements of our society to which his worldly accomplish- ments will give him entrance will not satisfy him ; but what except disappointment can await him when he seeks admission on terms of intimacy to the homes of such families as as the Brookfields, the Fordyces, and the Femes who really constitute our society as the uncorrupted representatives of the 'Old South ; ' a term which has been forced upon us in these latter days in contradistinguish- ment of the true South from the crass en- Red Blood and Blue 233 croachments of the vulgarity and superficiality, the thrifty lust, the grovelling strife, the fever- ish, elbowing, down-trampling, uprooting activ- ity of what blares itself as the ' New South ' ? The New South may batter down every barrier of the Old South except that which guards its social existence. That is impregnable to any bludgeon of a weapon which the New South can command." It was a subject upon which he had moral- ized repeatedly, and Victoria turned to a news- paper which she held. " Here is a leader in The Doctrinaire" she said, "on the 'Delimitation of State Sover- eignty and Constitutional Federalism.' Would you like me to read it?" " By all means. I do not wish to miss any- thing The Doctrinaire says on that theme. Poor Prendergast ! He is getting very old now, and his pen is not what it once was, but he is one of the few, the very few, who still interpret the present and the future by the light which the Fathers of the Republic lit. Read it, Victoria." 234 Red Blood and Blue XXI ON one of the last afternoons of that autumn James York Torrance drove homeward from Feme Run along Torrance Avenue. The sun had disappeared behind a low rim of slate, of the grime and heaviness of the soft-coal smoke that hangs over a region of factories. The dusk of the short day was rapidly deepening, and lights were already shining hazily through the windows of the straggling houses. The long avenue was covered with the dead leaves of the trees that lined it, and Mr. Torrance's horse trotted over the rustling carpet with the regular stride that had been familiar for many years to the inhabitants of those straggling houses. Here and there were great oaks to which the brown foliage still clung ; and occa- sionally one of these stirred faintly with a shivering premonition of the oncoming winter. A spectator, with a little imagination, behold- ing the rigid figure, the frosty hair, the ice- chiselled face of the man sitting behind the Red Blood and Blue 235 aged roadster, might have said that the winter had already come. The appearance of James York Torrance was even more wintry than usual. He had that day been defeated in an action at law which he had brought to enjoin the construction of a factory on Torrance Avenue, near The Mounds. For several weeks he had made a stubborn fight against this " modern " encroachment upon the pastoral retirement of the old estate which was his home. In his unbending way he had at first expostulated with the projectors of the enterprise, and had then proposed to buy and present them another site on the other side of town. But such efforts being unavailing, and the excavations for the cellar and foundations actually having begun, he had resorted to the courts. To-day his suit had been decided against him, and to-morrow work on the factory would probably be resumed. As he approached the eyesore he pulled his horse from the road and drew rein at the side of the excavation, sitting for a few seconds in grim contemplation of what he had tried to prevent. Looking now upon the unseemly hole, his eyes clou.ded and his mouth faltered. 236 Red Blood and Blue " I am beaten," he said aloud, and he turned away and shook up his horse. But, with his poor vision and in the fading light, he had driven nearer the excavation than he had known, and its edge crumbling under the horse's feet, the struggling animal, the buggy, and the driver fell in a heap to the bottom, eight or ten feet below. James York Torrance was found there un- conscious, less than a minute later, by Arthur Feme, who was riding by on his way home from The Mounds. That night, as the old gentleman lay on his bed, having been told by the doctor that death was inevitable and near, there was the calm of a last content upon his worn, beautiful face. Miss Juliana and Clara were sniffling in a cor- ner of the room, and Victoria, still and white almost as the dying man, but tearless and speechless, sat by the bedside. He had just said good-bye, gently and affectionately, to Bev, who had left the room with bent form and streaming eyes. Vic- toria, after a little, leaned closer and asked softly : " Is there no one else, father, you would like to see ? " Red Blood and Blue 237 His lids drooped wearily and he shook his head in the negative. " No one," he answered weakly. " It is not worth while, now." Victoria hesitated, and then added, with anxious resolution : " But Lee, father : will you not see him ? He is here and wishes me to ask you if you will not speak to him." It was the first time since his marriage that she had ventured to mention Lee's name to Mr. Torrance. The dimming eyes opened and fixed them- selves upon Victoria. The hand lying at his side waved feebly in dissent. " There is nothing to say," he answered, and again closed his eyes. In a few minutes, his eyes still closed, he spoke again. " Arthur Feme," he murmured : " did I not see him here ? " " Yes," Victoria replied ; " he was the first to reach you ; he helped to bring you home." " Ask him to come in, if he is still here." Victoria left the room, and almost imme- diately Feme entered. Victoria did not return with him. 238 Red Blood and Blue There was a touch of fondness in the look which the old man gave the younger. " I wanted to thank you, Arthur, and to say good-bye." Feme took the open hand which crept along the bed toward him. His eyes swam and speech choked him. " Oh, Mr. Torrance," he said brokenly, " perhaps it is not so bad as the doctor fears." " It is not bad, Arthur," he answered, with his rare, sweet smile the last that was ever to transfigure his face ; " it is well. My day was done long ago. You see they are cut- ting the very ground from the feet of us lin- gering remnants of the Old Regime. You are young, Arthur, but you are one of us, and I am sorrier for you, because of your youth and the odds against you, than you should be for me, for whom the fight is over. Good-bye; and now " his eyes closed once more and he turned his face as if to sleep " now send me Victoria." Feme went out and Victoria hurried back, her features drawn pathetically. She was no longer able to hold herself in restraint, and falling to her knees by her father's side, she Red BJood and Blue 239 buried her face in his pillow, with a sob of agony. For the last time James York Torrance opened and shut his eyes, his hand finding and resting upon the bowed head of Victoria, where it remained until it was no longer the hand of the living. And thus left the world one who, though he had long been in it, had, as the world had come to be in his later years, never been of it. 240 Red Blood and Blue XXII THE winter had passed, and spring was peep- ing from behind the southern walls and slopes. Arthur Feme, returning after a month's absence in Florida, rode over the little railroad, just completed, between Mavistoc and Feme Run. The innovation was welcome to him now, for he was impatient to reach home. He had cut short his stay in Florida because it had broken over him there that he had waited long enough to know what life held for him ; that the time had come when, from out the hover- ing cloud of the devotee's adoration with which he had invested Victoria Torrance as with a nimbus, he should speak as a man, as well as devotee, to the woman, as well as the divinity. Hitherto that time, always looked forward to as the crisis of his destiny, had ever seemed indefinitely remote. In the days of his boy- hood it had been far in that vast, vague state that ever is to be, yet never is, which youth dreams of as life. Later, in his early manhood, he had felt that Victoria was too young, too Red Blood and Blue 24 1 exhilarated with the joyous freedom, the evan- escent ideals, the crowding sensations, mys- teries, wonder, of girlhood, to stop to listen to the crude and selfish prayer of man's love. Later still, as time matured all the promises of her youth and developed new strength and sweetness in her character, she had seemed so infinitely above him that he was despondent in his unworthiness, and dared not speak be- cause he dared not lose her. During the last year her entire consecration to her father, and after his death the acuteness of her grief, had been additional injunctions upon Feme's silence. But there was now no reason, except such as would always exist, why he should not break that silence. He would always be unworthy of her; but what man was worthy of her? Feme could never have loved any woman whom he did not believe above him. To hold that a man, because of such a belief in a woman's superiority, should refrain from ask- ing her in marriage, would have been, in Feme's philosophy, to hold that the love of man for woman is not justification upon which he must find a wife. It was a soft night in March when Feme 16 242 Red Blood and Blue rode out to The Mounds through the golden mist of the moonlight and the pink drifts of the peach orchards. When he rode back it was through chill darkness, a wind that split the peach-trees to the ground and a rain that pelted their blossoms into the mire. The hand- somest horseman of Feme Run sat slouched in his saddle, the sharp spears of the rain strik- ing upon his white face with never a flinch of his eyelids. He had asked and been answered the question which his heart had nurtured almost since it began beating; and but for one feeble ray, not of hope, but of possibility, which Victoria's words had left him, there was nothing but the barrenness of death-in-life to which the future now condemned him. " Oh, no, no ! " Victoria had cried with a vehemence that Feme did not understand. " Don't speak of it now ! Not now ! Not now! I wish it were different. I wish I could give you all you ask. But I could never give you all you deserve. As I know you, Arthur, you are all that a man should be; all that no other man that I know is. Any woman would be honored by such a love as yours. I am proud of it, and yet pained by it because I have nothing like it to give you Red Blood and Blue 243 because I am not, I can never be, worthy of such a love. If I could single out from all men one to whom of my own will to turn my heart, it would be you ; and you were " She was on the point of adding that he had been her father's ideal of manhood; but she checked herself. " I can promise you nothing. I can only pray I shall pray that the feel- ing for you which I lack now, will yet come to me. But, frankly, I do not expect it; and neither must you." 244 Red Blood and Blue XXIII IT was the next month that the Congress of the United States made the demands upon Spain that were quickly followed by war. The Presi- dent's call for volunteers met an eager re- sponse in Tennessee, as elsewhere. To Feme such an opportunity for active military service was peculiarly welcome at this time. It offered him at least a physical outlet from the torpor into which his interview with Victoria Tor- ranee had sunk him ; and to one of his imagi- nation there were in a campaign at the front even possibilities of developments that might bring to his aid something which was now wanting in his appeal to Victoria. His family connections had influence at Washington, and through this he secured a second lieutenant's commission, leaving at once on his assignment. Outcault, in the splendor of his youth and health, this note of war thrilled with that which ever made the old Northmen of his race superb in conflict, whether in rage for Red Blood and Blue 245 mere battle's sake, or in onslaught for the sake of cause and kind. Outcault dropped, where he stood, his work of money-getting and " developing the country." So much of it as Lee Torrance could do was turned over to that ardent disciple of Outcault's. The rest was allowed to wait or to rot, as time might prove. It was all clod to him now, over which he walked to the newer and stronger music that had struck for him. He did not join any of the companies of Tennessee militia, as the Feme Run boys did ; but, being moved solely by the desire to get where there was righting to be done, and to get there at the earliest moment, and believ- ing, from some correspondence with a former schoolmate, who was an officer in a Northern volunteer regiment, that it would be among the first to be sent to Cuba, Outcault deter- mined to seek service as a private under him. One of the last things, and the main thing, he set himself to do before leaving, was to see Victoria Torrance. He had hardly laid eyes on her since her return from West Tennessee. Following her father's death her winter had been one of comparative seclusion, and as 246 Red Blood and Blue Outcault was away from home most of the time he had not even been thrown with her on any of her brief visits to Lee and Janet. It was after one of these visits of hers that Outcault, returning to Cap'n Pow Halliburton's on an April afternoon, came upon Victoria, as she was about driving off. He went up to her, lifting his hat, with a conventional greeting, and she, after an instant of hesitation almost too fleeting to be noticed, held out her hand to him. There was a brief exchange of those trifles found so convenient by people who have nothing to say to each other, or who have more to say than they choose to say at the time. " I am glad to have met you this afternoon," Outcault declared, as Victoria gathered up the reins to drive on. " I am leaving this week, I hope on my way to Cuba, and I wanted to see you before going, and ask your good wishes." " You have them without asking," she smiled. " Then I shall find you at home to-night, or to-morrow?" For two seconds her eyes seemed to study some point straight ahead of her. Then she turned them, clear and frank, upon Outcault. Red Blood and Blue 247 " I shall be at home either to-night or to- morrow," she answered. " Then let it be to-night." And thus, at last, was arranged Andrew Outcault's formal call at The Mounds. During the first half hour of that call a casual onlooker would have inferred that it was much more pleasurable to the girl than to the man. Victoria chatted easily and brightly of things in which Outcault must necessarily be interested the preparations for the war, Feme Run's contributions to the State militia, the blockade of Cuba which had just been declared, Outcault's own plans for participating in the drama that was so stirring the country. But Outcault appeared under an ill-borne re- straint. His part in the talk was disjointed and sometimes distant. His mind evidently lapsed or overleaped to something that was stronger to hold it than was any subject on which Victoria touched. Suddenly he changed his seat to a chair nearer Victoria; and leaning forward, a little awkwardly, but with tremendous earnestness, said : " Miss Torrance, I must appear very abrupt perhaps I should be less so if I were not 248 Red Blood and Blue going away so soon but I could not go, or would not, without telling you, what I have always wanted to tell you some time, that the one great thing in my life has been my love for you, and that my one great hope is that some day it will not be unwelcome to you " " Stop ! stop ! you must not ! I cannot permit you to speak of such things ! " She threw up her hand as if to ward off his words, her face flashing with command. Outcault's pause was very brief. His tone was perhaps calmer as he went on. " I must speak of them, and now. There is a possibility that I may not have another opportunity." " Then I will not listen ! " She rose, and Outcault also stood. "To listen is the least you can do, Miss Torrance," he said firmly ; " and that I shall insist upon your doing." " You will force me to the rudeness of leav- ing the room." She took a step toward the door, but she seemed to be restrained by the more resolute step of Outcault following her. " And you will force me to the greater rude- ness of detaining you," he interposed. Red Blood and Blue 249 He was now between her and the door. Their eyes met for a second, and hers were the first to fall. " As you will," she answered, signifying her submission with a slight shrug ; " please be brief." He drew a chair to her and she sat down. He continued to stand. " It is not so much," he said, in a voice rough from the feeling with which it was charged, " when a man who has loved a woman ever since he can remember, who has given her every thought and every hope, and who has asked of her as yet nothing in return, takes a few minutes of her time in which to reveal himself to her, still asking of her nothing ex- cept that she shall see him as he is." He waited a second, as if for some word or sign from her ; but she gave none, as she sat in silence, even her eyes concealed from him by downcast lids. " As I have said, I have loved you ever since I can remember; and yet I have never loved you for a moment when I did not know that there were strong barriers between us. At first I did not understand clearly what they were ; but neither then nor later, when I un- 250 Red Blood and Blue derstood them fully, did I ever waver in my de- termination to beat them down or break over them. I knew that I did not place them there, and I made up my mind that I would not be denied the best there was in life because of the acts of others, or the prejudices of caste, for none of which I was responsible. I call them barriers. God knows they are. The world your world considers them impreg- nable. But, faugh ! they are trifles, they are nothing, to stay a love which can no more be checked or killed by them than it was created by them." She gave him a swift glance of depreca- tion. "Why refer to these things?" she protested. " Why ? Because I want you to know me, not as others may know, but as I know myself. Because I want you to know yourself better than you do yet. Shall I tell you what I know of you ? Oh, do not object," as she made a motion of demurrer. " It is necessary in order that you may know me. You have a mind of your own, and you use it. Some day you will discover you have a heart of your own, and until that day I shall know you better, per- haps, than you know yourself. You are. honest, Red Blood and Blue 251 independent, brave, but you are hedged more or less by influences against which you have never yet found it necessary to assert yourself. Pride of family, advantage of position, class distinctions are still potent with you, though even now they would not be omnipotent with you. But what I have called the barriers be- tween you and myself would be regarded by you, at present, as almost too formidable to be assailed." " Surely there is no occasion to discuss my- self in what you have to say." " There is to show you that I realize that among the barriers between us one of the strongest is yourself. All these years, when I longed to speak, yet had no right to speak when I even had no right to seek your society as other men did " He was impelled to tell her of his distant worship of her through his boyhood and young manhood, of the inspiration it had been to him, of the struggle which it had moved him to make, of the difficulties it had helped him to defy and overcome ; but he abruptly repressed the impulse. " No ! I will not impose upon you now my past. You would hardly look upon it as less 252 Red Blood and Blue than impertinent. I know it is too soon to speak to you of myself at all yet; but, if I should not come back, I wanted you to know that my life had been wholly yours, though it may have been nothing to you ; while if I do come back, as I most likely shall, all the obsta- cles which the world, or which you, would in- terpose between us " he paused, his hand closing in a powerful grip, as if to crush so much straw, his head lifting a little and a smile touching his strong face " shall be as nothing." Victoria, who had been sitting with face that told nothing except serious attention, and eyes that contemplated steadfastly the hands folded in her lap, looked up, after a moment of Out- cault's silence, seemingly in inquiry if he had finished. " I do not ask any reply to what I have said," Outcault went on. " I know that you can give me no answer now that I want. All that I do ask of you is that you forgive me for having made an unwilling listener of you this evening, and will you say good-bye to me ? " He extended his hand, without yet approach- ing any nearer. Red Blood and Blue 253 She showed no hesitation, or displeasure, as she rose from her chair. " Good-bye, Mr. Outcault," offering him her hand. " I hope the war will be short, and that you will go safely through it." "Thank you." He released her hand and fell back a step, but did not yet leave. They stood facing each other, he as if suspending some speech, she waiting. " Won't you add," he asked, " that you hope I shall soon return ? " " I do hope you will soon return, Mr. Out- cault." She spoke sincerely, yet not unconven- tionally. " Then I shall ; I know I shall, though I pass through a hundred battles ! " Outcault's voice was not above its usual pitch, but there was that in it which might have been there if he were already announcing himself triumphant after more than a hundred battles. Victoria felt it and started, as though the sensation were from some physical force. She caught her breath and quickly enjoined : "But not to renew the subject you have spoken of to-night. You are never to do that. 254 Red Blood and Blue What you wish of me is will always be an absolute impossibility." Outcault did not flinch at this. He had the manner of one who was eking out pre- cious time for a last look at the girl from whom he was parting, rather than of one who attached much significance to what was now said or left unsaid. He smiled as his eyes lingered on her, and then replied, with a calmness that was expres- sive more of conviction than of assurance : " If you understood a man's love you would know that, against it, there is no impossibility." He bowed, and was gone ; and Victoria, turning from the doorway through which Out- cault had passed, was confronted by the patri- cian face of her father, looking down upon her coldly from the new portrait which had recently been added to the series of James York Tor- ranees. And as she stood before it she was breathing more rapidly, and a mist upon her eyes blurred the passionately loved features, whose every sensitive index of repose and change she had all her life so solicitously studied. Red Blood and Blue 257 and came down here to find you; and just as we reached this point you appeared at the other end of the opening yonder, walking toward us, with your hat in your hand ; and if I had been a man I 'm sure I 'd have gone down on my very knees; and Arthur, he seemed afraid to breathe at first, and then he quoted such pretty verses that I made him write them out for me afterward, so that I could memorize them: '"At times a fragrant breeze comes floating by, And brings, you know not why, A feeling as when eager crowds await Before a palace gate " ' Some wondrous pageant ; and you scarce would start, If, from a beech's heart, A blue-eyed Dryad, stepping forth, should say, " Behold me ! I am May." ' " What charming poems Arthur Feme knows," Rosalie went on without a pause. " Don't you think so? Of course he has repeated many of them to you." " No ; but I hav read that one in a book which he gave me. It is beautiful." " Beautiful! Everything Arthur Feme likes, or does, is beautiful. He has the most beau- tiful mind of any man I know, and the most 17 258 Red Blood and Blue beautiful ideas about women. Don't you think so?" " Yes ; I have always thought so," Victoria replied softly. "And he is so fair where other men are concerned. The other day such an unfortu- nate thing happened. Andrew Outcault and I were sitting in the summer-house. We did not notice Arthur Feme and Teddy Picker- ing come through the gate and up the walk, until they were almost right on us. They did not notice us at all; and as they passed by they were talking just think of it! about Andrew Outcault himself! We heard Teddy say that people were saying that Andrew paid those those debts of his father simply because he wanted to make you think well of him, and " " Oh, Rosalie ! why do you listen to such nonsense ? " Victoria protested. " And Arthur immediately flared up and said that people were impertinent and silly ; that they had no right, and Teddy had no right, to use your name in any such connection ; and that as for Andrew Outcault, he was an honor- able man and would have paid that money if there had not been a woman in the world. I Red Blood and Blue 259 wish you could have seen Andrew Outcault's face, Victoria. It turned so pale and he looked so so funny that I almost cried for him. But when Arthur and Teddy had gone on into the house and I got up to follow them and asked Mr. Outcault if he would come too, he laughed in such a queer manner and said that he would not run away, and that he wanted to shake the hand of the finest gentleman he knew, meaning Arthur Feme, of course ; and he went on in the house with me and talked with us a while as if nothing had happened. But was n't it awkward, and are n't some people mean ? " "Let us go back," said Victoria, absently lifting her hand to draw about her shoulders a wrap which she had not brought ; " it is damp and chilly here." 160 Red Blood and Blue XXV BEFORE Santiago de Cuba that last night in June two men were thinking of Victoria Tor- ranee. It was understood that the morning would bring battle, unless the enemy declined it. There were some who feared that he would make little or no resistance ; but whether he fought or fled, there were few in the jaded yet impatient ranks of the Americans that 'night who did not expect to raise the flag in San- tiago before their three days' rations were exhausted. Reveille at daylight of the first of July awoke to electric life every fibre in Andrew Outcault's tired body, and he sprang to his feet with kindling color. The march began in the early morning. Another time its beauty might have impressed Outcault : the beauty of wooded hills that rose and fell in this spreading trough between the mountains; the beauty of stretches of lush Red Blood and Blue 261 forest, of drifts of rank jungle, a vista of tropical opulence and pastoral peace. But Outcault was insensible to it now, except as so much obstruction that must be passed before the clash of conflict could come ; and through it he trod with the regular step of the column. It was a step to which, at first, in its determined advance, Outcault was tensely keyed ; but later, as the trail through the wild seemed unending, the progress was so slow that the " cadence " of the column became a chafing restraint, from which he did not find relief until, his company deploying through the chaparral, the lines were broken, and Outcault kept step only to his own desires. It was before this, however, and soon after the march began, that, to the rear and the right, there was a boom whose reverberation among the hills was caught up by the moving column, along which it rolled in a murmurous wave until it burst about Outcault in a jubilant shout, as an incoming tide rises and explodes on the breakers' comb. It was the first gun of Capron's battery trained upon Caney, and to Outcault it was the first full note of the heroic drama to which all else had been the prelude. 262 Red Blood and Blue It was not long before the throb of Capron's sonorous music found antiphonal response, nearer, fiercer, from the throats of Grimes' guns on the knoll of El Poso, ahead and to the left, as they opened on the redouts of Santiago. And after that began to sound the sibilant reeds and singing strings of the orchestra which now filled the great auditorium of the valley ; for the air was whipped with whispers that were not of the summer leaves, with buzzing that was not of the summer insects, as the Spanish bullets sped from trench and bush. For a time Outcault was so near El Poso that, wide and distinct above all else, could be heard, after the roar of the artillery, the resistless sweep of the missile's flight; and it was as the sweep of the wing of the Death Angel athwart the valley. But to Outcault now the Angel of Death and the Angel of Life were one, and all-glorious. Soon strange visions began to come over the road: men hobbling back to the rear; others supported by their fellows; maimed bodies on litters. Blood saturated hasty band- ages, and, in the case of one dying boy, while the surgeon was yet fighting it, gushed out on the grass with the strokes of the Red Blood and Blue 263 young heart. And every drop of the blood which Outcault saw, instead of unnerving him, swelled a stream of fire in his own arteries that drove him, as the forced draught of an engine, to utmost action. Before he had seen this blood he had been buoyed onward by the ecstasy of combat; now he burned with the fury to avenge, the frenzy to destroy. Yet through it all he had not been able to aim a blow, to sight an antagonist, to force his way one step faster than the crawling column. Hardest of all was when the halt and the long wait came, with nothing to do but listen to the volleys further on, to the lisps of the enemy's bullets, to watch the wounded coming back, or to see now and then some companion struck down by a hidden sharp- shooter. Nowhere a visible foe; nowhere to strike ; but everywhere the signs of battle, and every moment the knowledge that he might be the next to fall ; that the day was slipping by, and that his part was still to wait. He gored the ground with his heel and ripped loose the neck of his shirt in his rebellious impatience ; and when at last the order came to advance, it was with a quick cheer that he swung forward, breasting his way through the 264 Red Blood and Blue jungle as a lusty man breasts exultantly the driving gale. The long grass swirled about his legs, briers clutched him, boughs lashed him ; but they stimulated rather than retarded him as he tore onward. Overhead a torrid sun was beating down, and under foot the humid earth was steaming, but in his pres- ent mood the very heat was a tremendous exhilarant. Thus crashing through the brake, he finally sprang into the open, to find that his own company was nowhere in sight and to step into the ranks of a regiment of regulars, whose lines were being re-formed. As he halted here for a moment he swept the scene before him. Straight ahead, a shal- low valley, knee-deep in coarse grass; on the far side a gradual upward slope, and then what seemed an almost sheer rise, a hundred and thirty feet, to the crest of the hill, whose ridge ran horizontally, then to a gentler descent on the right, but on the left falling more sharply down to the plain and blending in the billowy outlines of the wooded heights in the distance. On the summit of the hill was a squat fort ; picketing it, straggling lines of posts supporting wire barricades ; distorting Red Blood and Blue 265 the face of the hill, the hissing lips of rifle- pits ; and over all, the plumes of royal palms against the serene sky. As Outcault stood looking at this, the man by his side suggested that he go to the rear and have his wound dressed, and for the first time Outcault noticed a trickle of red down his wrist. His mouth curved with a quick smile, and his nostrils expanded with the elixir of burnt powder in the air. But why were they waiting? Was there any thought of falling back? It is said that there had been no general order to charge, unsupported by artillery as they were, that fortified hill. But there was the hill in front ; there were the woods behind ; and here were American battalions between. Could there be any question whether those battalions would take the hill or take to the woods? Away to one side Outcault heard sudden cheering, and glancing in that direction he saw that the boys there had begun to press across the valley. If this command was not going up that hill, yonder was one that was, and he was going with it. He leaped forward, but it was not alone. Whether an order was given, he never knew ; but there were yelling throats 266 Red Blood and Blue and trampling feet around him, and as he started toward the hill his fellows were by his side. And then, before fifty yards had been passed, darkness surged over him and he pitched for- ward on his face. Red Blood and Blue 267 XXVI THE reveille that morning did not wake Lieu- tenant Arthur Feme, for he had not been asleep. There was so much that crowded into his thoughts on that last night before battle ; so much that seemed clearer and sweeter than ever before. Perhaps it was really his last night. How short and empty his life had been ; how differently he would value it if he were to have another chance. And Victoria Torrance! Surely life had never begun for him, for it had not yet begun for him with her. And now, it may be, he was never even to know. Reveille took him back to that night in his boyhood when he lay awake and counted the strokes of the town clock, his brain teeming with the messages of doom those strokes must toll to the man in the jail, under the very shadow of the belfry, who was to be hanged at six in the morning. As he made ready for the march the one word which repeatedly forced itself on him 268 Red Blood and Blue was the saddest in the language, the word "last." It might be the last sunrise; the last time he would look at the picture of his mother in the back of his watch ; the last line he would ever write to Victoria Torrance, this which he hastily pencilled, sealed, and placed in his pocket, " To be forwarded only in case of death" Never did the earth appear so beautiful as when he marched with his men this morn- ing, never so beautiful nor so tranquil, and never war so horrible. Life was lavish on every hand, and yet here were thousands of human beings, the highest embodiments of life, bent only upon the destruction of life. When the first gun at Caney rumbled sepul- chrally among the hills, he stood again by the graves of his dead and heard the clods falling upon the coffins. The road was very wearisome. The heat was distressing. It weakened him until he was not sure of his knees. He breathed it and wanted to gasp for air. His throat was dry, and he had a sensation as if his aching eyes were swelling against lids and sockets. When the wounded began to pass he grew faint. At sight of some of the mutilated forms Red Blood and Blue 269 waves of nausea crept over him, and while he gazed into the blanched face of a poor fellow on a litter, the rear litter-bearer, picked off by some hidden guerilla, lurched forward upon the wounded man, and the cry that followed pierced Feme to the marrow. He closed his eyes, with a groan that might have been an echo of the cry from the quivering body on the litter. Once, as his regiment was waiting by the roadside and he was fighting against a feeling that he was a helpless target upon which in- visible eyes were drawing aim, he heard a soft thud, and as he caught a tottering figure at his side he realized with a waning pulse that he had heard for the first time the sound a bullet makes when it strikes flesh and bone. He was glad to obey when, just after this, he was ordered about forty yards from the road to a spot in the bushes where two or three officers were trying to interview a Spanish prisoner. As Feme spoke the language he was di- rected to question the Spaniard, which he did to little avail. The prisoner was loquacious, but vacuous of that information which the Americans wished. He had been sent into the woods as a sharpshooter, but he was ill 270 Red Blood and Blue and hungry. He had heard that the Ameri- cans had plenty to eat and treated their pris- oners well. He was too faint to climb his tree that day and he had proposed to his friend Emilio that they give themselves up. Emilio swore to shoot him if he made the attempt ; those were Emilio's bullets now cut- ting off the twigs above their heads. Would not the Americans allow him to lie down in the gully, where Emilio could not see him? He was sent under guard to bring Emilio " to dinner," and it was while awaiting the result of this expedition that an incident was noted which afterwards got into some of the news- papers as illustrative of Feme's "coolness." Some one suggested that as Emilio and other marksmen had already located the party, cigars would not be out of order, and passed one to Feme. As he smoked it a bullet clipped off the end of the cigar. He smiled weakly, but stooping, picked up the still burning tip, with which he relighted the piece remaining be- tween his lips. Then he sauntered up to a tree and leaning hard against it, had his smoke ; but chill globules of perspiration had formed upon his forehead. Later, in the jungle through which his com- Red Blood and Blue 271 pany forced its way, he feared he would sink down in sheer inability to keep on his feet. He almost fell when he stumbled over a still form with stony eyes and dropped jaw; but he had understood before that why the buz- zards were in the sky and why they were fly- ing so low. When he emerged from the cover of the thicket and looked across that open stretch to the hill which rose beyond, a chaplain, who was ministering to the wounded and the exhausted with a canteen of whiskey, came up to him. "Take some of this," he urged, with com- passion in his eyes ; " you look very tired." Feme grasped the canteen with a hand that tried to be firm, and took a drink that under other conditions he would have quickly felt, but which now seemed to have no effect on him whatever. When his company began its charge across the valley Feme, like one in a stupor, went with it, until, not a stone's throw beyond the point where Andrew Outcault had fallen a few seconds before, a treacherous step suddenly prostrated him to the earth, while his men pushed doggedly on. 272 Red Blood and Blue He lay there in the tall grass less than a minute, but it seemed to him ages. Over him flashed the thought that he need not go any farther now ; that he could lie there until the danger was past ; that he could honestly plead the physical collapse from heat and fatigue that had disabled many another that day. But and his frame shook with agonizing humil- iation as he dug his fingers into the rooted loam he knew now that he did not want to get up. He would not get up. He was afraid to face that hill He flung himself up on one elbow and stared wildly around as if seeking some escape from himself; and then something terrible and magnificent appeared something with heav- ing chest, with blood flowing down a set face from a bullet furrow against the skull, and with the blaze of battle in the eyes. Outcault, pressing on toward the hill, saw Feme, and with unconcealed reluctance paused. " You, Ferae ! " he said, kneeling at his side. " Where are you hit ? Perhaps I can do some- thing for you." Ferae sprang to his feet and confronted Outcault as if at bay. Flushing with shame, but meeting Outcault's puzzled scrutiny with Red Blood and Blue 273 a stare of defiance, he replied in sullen fierceness : " I am not wounded." " Are you ill ? " " I am not ill. There is nothing the matter with me." " Not wounded ! Not my God ! not worse, Feme?" Feme's eyes drooped, but he said it : " Worse." " You ! " It was a low imprecation, harsh with wrath and contempt, that seemed to tear the cords of Outcault's throat. He threw his rifle to his shoulder and levelled it at Feme's head. Feme did not blench. " Kill me," he said, now looking steadily at Outcault. " I do not want to live. I am a coward." The butt of Outcault's gun dropped to the ground, and the two men gazed at each other in silence. Then the glory flamed in Outcault's eyes again, and he swept San Juan Hill with his free hand. " Yonder ! " he cried. " Look yonder, man ! There is the place to die ! " 18 274 Red Blood and Blue Feme followed the gesture and marked the thin ranks of the Americans, stopping at nothing, now almost at the foot of the hill. " Come on ! " shouted Outcault. " Come with me ! " Outcault drove forward, and Feme, as one to whom nothing mattered now, moved me- chanically after him. Outcault was right : death was there, quick, merciful, almost sure. The two plunged on together, and it was not long before Feme's company was overtaken. His ranking officers had been killed, and Feme, greeted by a cheer, led his men up the hill. How the hill was stormed is a familiar story. Some of Feme's company reached the summit ; some had fallen before they crossed the valley ; and others had been shot down along the hillside. Feme stood at the top, taking little note of the demonstration around him, his listless eyes turned in the direction of the routed garrison as it retreated toward the city. Then, weak from loss of the blood that flowed from the wound in his side, he felt his senses leaving him, and as he reeled and sank to the ground it was with the content of Red Blood and Blue 275 that promised death which is the most that hope has to give. Outcault never reached the hill. Another bullet felled him not long after Feme had re- joined his company; and this time Outcault did not get up. In the list of the wounded, telegraphed to the War Department and by it given to the newspaper press, was the name of Lieutenant Arthur Feme ; in the list of the killed was the name of private A. Outcault. 276 Red Blood and Blue XXVII WHEN Arthur Feme came out of hospital at Montauk Point, whither he had been trans- ferred from Cuba, he found that he was looked upon as one of the " heroes " of the short war. The newspapers had made much of the part he had taken, or was reported to have taken, in the assault on San Juan Hill. As their story was, his desperate wound had been received at the beginning of the charge. He had been shot down in the field and his company had rushed on, leaving him as dead. But he had succeeded in getting to his feet again; fearfully wounded as he was, he had dashed on, and, overtaking his company, whose only surviving officer he now was, had placed himself at its head and had rallied it irre- sistibly forward. Nothing could withstand the onslaught he inspired, though falling at every step were those who followed him ; and it was not until, under his brilliant leadership, the hill had been seized that, on its very sum- Red Blood and Blue 277 mit, he had sunk to the ground, more dead than alive from the shrapnel hole in his side. It was a story which caught the popular imagination, inflamed as it was by the deeds that made memorable that first day of July. It lost nothing by repetition, and it was re- peated again and again. Feme read with ceaseless amazement and nettling self-con- tempt the correspondents' effusive descrip- tions of what he had done, or of what they said he had done. He scanned with amuse- ment and impatience the pictures of himself and the drawings of his alleged performances. He thought, with a sense of shame, of his superiors' official and public commendation for gallantry in action, and of the general assumption that he would of course be among the first to be promoted therefor by the President and the Senate. But through all and above all through all his feeling of unworthiness and guilt, above all his desire to rebel against the honors that were heaped upon him, and to place himself in his true light was his wondering, in his waking and in his sleeping, what effect this lionizing of a man who loved her would work upon Victoria Torrance, in the quiet of her country 27 8 Red Blood and Blue home and in the mystery of her woman's heart And wondering thus, he submitted to the honors which, if he had not deserved, he had not sought, and dreamed dreams of requited love when he was impelled to speak out against the false position in which he had been placed. The village of Feme Run was very proud of the fame that had come to one of its sons ; prouder, perhaps, since Feme Run in no small degree shared that fame. The biographic sketches of Arthur Feme made mention of Feme Run as the place of his birth and resi- dence, and some of the illustrated weeklies had published photographic views of his home and of the schoolhouse in which his education was begun. The people of Feme Run soon real- ized that the name of their town, which before had hardly been heard of outside the State, was now linked with the name of Arthur Feme, which was known wherever the story of San Juan Hill was known. They were eager to show at once to Arthur Feme their appre- ciation of his intrepid service at the front and to prove to the outside world that Feme Run was not unequal to the responsibilities entailed upon it as proprietary of so distinguished a citizen. Red Blood and Blue 279 When it was learned that Feme had re- covered from his wound and was coming home on leave of absence, Feme Run determined to receive him in a manner that should be worthy of the occasion. But when Feme heard of this he declined to participate in the plan. He wrote the committee which had communicated with him on the subject that he was grateful for the interest of his neighbors, but that he did not deserve such a tribute as they wished to pay him, and that he could not, in self-respect, accept it. He wished to go home quietly and to mingle with his friends quietly, but anything beyond that would be distasteful, and most of all the public reception which they so generously proposed. Feme Run was not to be balked of its pur- pose, however, by what it was pleased to praise as Feme's modesty, and though he had de- ferred the date of his intended arrival in order to avoid any ambush which his hospitable townspeople might lay for him despite his wishes, the committee did not find it impos- sible to enter into a conspiracy with his family and thus ascertain when his return might be counted on. That was why, one afternoon in September 28o Red Blood and Blue as the train moved out from Mavistoc for Feme Run, Arthur Feme found himself under guard of two members of the committee who had been sent to meet him and bring him in on time. At first'he was for backing out, and threat- ened to get off at one of the way stations ; but the committeemen laughingly informed him that they had been delegated especially to prevent any such strategy on his part, and that they must deliver him at Feme Run, " dead or alive." No miscarriage of their plans was to be thought of now. Elaborate preparations for his reception had been made. " Oodles " of money had been spent for bunting and fire- works. The street from the depot to the Academy was already decorated with flags and streamers, and provisions for its illumina- tion at night were ready. A parade had been organized, headed by the Mavistoc company of militia, which had preceded him on the morn- ing train. The governor of the State had consented to deliver the address of welcome, and was already at Feme Run for that sole purpose; while at considerable expense and trouble a cannon had been secured to fire a salute. Feme Run had " laid herself out to do Red Blood and Blue 281 herself proud, and the show could n't be pulled off without Hamlet." There was no answer to such arguments as these. The affair was beyond the control of Feme. He could not withdraw now without appearing ungratefully and churlishly incon- siderate of his friends. He resigned himself to the situation with a feeling of helplessness that oppressed him for the rest of the short journey. The committeemen missed in him the old-time geniality that had made him so well liked, but they attributed the change to the fatigue of travel and the effect of his ill- ness. His talk was spasmodic. Much of the time he was silent, leaning back inanimately and staring through the car-window. At one little station he suddenly bent for- ward, peering intently at the name nailed to the small depot-building. " Outcault" Fernc read, and sank back into his seat with an un- decipherable expression on his quickened face. "That must be a new station," he remarked in a constrained voice. " I do not remember to have noticed it the last time I passed over the road." " Yes," answered one of the committeemen. " Old Bob Pennypacker would n't rest till we 282 Red Blood and Blue put a depot there, and when we come to name it we called it Outcault, after Andy. We thought he deserved that much, long 's we would n't a- had the road except for him; though it's all the same to Andy, I reckon, layin' in some ditch 'over there in Cuby. I s'pose you didn't see Andy over there, did you, Arthur ? " " Yes ; once. He was wounded, but he was pushing on alone up San Juan Hill." " You don't say so ! He must have been hit again, or he 'd a-got to the top. Po' devil ! " Feme was pale, and made no response. Nor did he speak again until rallied by his escort as the train rolled into Feme Run. It was after seven o'clock, and the line of the main street was marked by many lights. Rockets were ascending, and the cannon was booming on Academy Hill. A brass band was playing as the train stopped, and there were cheers as Feme stepped to the platform. He soon found himself in an open carriage, seated with the governor and the mayor and the chair- man of the Reception Committee. After con- siderable delay and a confusion of orders, the procession was formed and moved off, the band and the Mavistoc Militia leading, then coming Feme's carriage and the carriages of various functionaries of the occasion, followed on foot Red Blood and Blue 283 by all the societies of the county that were equipped with uniforms or regalia. The march was through the principal street to the Academy, at the other end of the town. As Feme's carriage passed between the side- walks, noisy with welcome, and the illuminated houses, gay with the national colors and waving handkerchiefs, he was numbly observant, as far as he was observant at all, of the display of the flag on every hand. This was something new in Feme Run ; at least, in his memory : for since the war between the States, until now, the Stars and Stripes had been rarely seen in the town. At last the parade, which was to Feme like some ruthless dream, was over, and his carriage had halted before the dingy old schoolhouse known as the Academy, in whose auditorium the remaining ceremonies were to take place. Feme got out of the vehicle blindly, torpidly, and walked with some one through the cheering on-lookers up to the entrance of the building. The vestibule was crowded, and already he had absently shaken the hands of several people near whom he was thrown and who seemed eager to greet him, when he heard the voice of Miss Juliana Torrance at his side. Victoria was with her, and Ingalls, the Nashville man 284 Red Blood and Blue whom Feme had come to look upon as one of his rivals. Victoria's face was radiant as she welcomed Feme, and for the first time he forgot momentarily the humiliation of the part he was playing. " I suppose," smiled Victoria as she pressed his hand, " that I ought to stand in awe of you after you have so distinguished yourself. But I do not ; I am just glad." Her words and her manner thrilled him tumultuously, though at the same time cutting him with an acuter realization of the despic- able masquerade by which he had won them. But despicable as he felt that masquerade, so powerful was the intoxication of winning such a light from Victoria Torrance's eyes and such warmth from her voice that he walked on into the hall with alert step and gallant bearing ; and when the applause broke from the audience as he was conducted to his seat on the stage, he had, for the moment at least, not only a feeling of passive sub- mission, but one that very closely approached positive elation. Red Blood and Blue 285 XXVIII ANDREW OUTCAULT, on the departure of the hospital ship that bore Arthur Feme to Mon- tauk Point, had been among those so near death that they were left in Cuba. But he had also been among those who refused to die, and when at last he was able and at liberty to start on his return home it was in ignorance of the published report of his death in battle. At Feme Run that report, official as it ap- parently was, and never corrected, had been generally accepted as conclusive. It was known, however, that Cap'n Pow Hallibur- ton had not yet abandoned all hope. Cap'n Pow had seen too much of war and knew too many private soldiers yet living who had been reported killed on the field, to resign himself, without further investigation, to the certainty of Outcault's death. That investi- gation he proposed to make by a personal trip, if necessary, to Santiago, so soon as, with cooler weather and improved conditions in 286 Red Blood and Blue the fever-stricken region, there should be less obstruction to such a journey. In the mean time Cap'n Pow read all the news from the camps and the hospitals, and not only re- fused to file for probate, but even to open, the will which had been left with him by Andrew Outcault Not knowing that he had been advertised as dead, or that the letter he had written Cap'n Pow from Cuba had not yet been received, Outcault set out for home with a light heart and fast returning strength. Instead of going by way of Mavistoc, he went around by Kel- way, thinking to stop there a day to look after his phosphate lands ; but almost the first per- son he met at Kelway, after convincing him- self that Outcault was still alive, informed him of the news of his death that was credited at Ferae Run, and Outcault without delay had secured a horse and continued his journey. As he neared Feme Run he was puzzled by the display of rockets over the town. " What are they doing down there ? " he asked of a pedestrian whom he overtook in the darkness. " What ? Them there sky-rockitin's ? " "Yes." Red Blood and Blue 287 " My sakes ! don't you know what that 's fer ? " " No." " Land alive ! I reckon you must a-come from a long distance, did n't you ? " " Considerable distance." " I knowed it ! Well, I reckon you 've heerd tell of Arthur Feme, ain 't you ? " " Oh, yes ! " " Co'se ! Well, that 's the place yonder you see them rockitin's that Arthur Feme was horned an 1 raised at befo' he went to the waw an' started up all that potrack a-savin' the whole Nunited States army after the other awficers was killed, an' a-climbin' that Sandy June Hill an' everlastin* breshin' the jackets of them Dagoes an' Spinige, an' all them do- in's down yonder in Cuby." "Ah! I see." " Well, Arthur, he 's jus' gittin' home, an' they 're a-givin' him a big blowout to-night." " So that explains the rockets? " " Yes-sir-ree ! An' a heap mo 'n rockits. They's a cannon didn't you hear her jus' now? an' a gran' promenade from the depot thoo the town, windin' up with a big powwow at the 'Cademy ; an' dog my cats, it 's jus' my 288 Red Blood and Blue luck I won't make it in time to see the haft of it! " Outcault thanked his informant and rode on, laughing as the countryman flung after him : " Say, mister, it 's too dark to git a good look at you, but ef I ain't heerd yo' voice befo' somers-er-ruther, I 'm a Dutchman ! " The Academy was on the side of the town entered by the Kelway pike, and Outcault soon saw the illuminated windows of the familiar structure. The village itself seemed deserted, and he cantered on to the Academy without finding any one on the streets. The " powwow " in the Academy had evidently be- gun, for as he dismounted in the grove that surrounded the building he could hear the voice of a speaker and catch glimpses of the intent throng in the hall. Feeling sure that Cap'n Pow Halliburton was there, Outcault was in no haste to ride on home, and tying his horse, he started toward the entrance of the hall. But it occurred to him that so sudden a return of the dead to life might create more of a stir than would be agreeable to himself and conducive to the equanimity of his friends in the audience. He therefore went around to Red Blood and Blue 289 one side of the house, taking a position against a tree near an open window, where he could hear and see without being observed himself. A glance revealed that the hall was crowded, two thirds of those seated being women, while many men stood in the rear and others occu- pied, in solemn constraint, the rows of chairs on the stage. The assemblage reminded Outcault of the old Commencement Day gatherings, always the largest known in Feme Run, except, of course, those drawn by the circus. The governor was speaking ; but paying little heed to the florid periods, Outcault gave most of his attention to the audience. His first quest was Victoria Torrance, whom he soon dis- covered sitting a few yards away from the win- dow through which he was looking, and his eyes lingered on the sure-lined profile, standing out to him in luminous relief against the nega- tive blur of hundreds of other faces. Finally, following the direction of her gaze, Outcault saw not the speaker, who had gestic- ulated himself to one extreme corner of the stage, but Arthur Feme, sitting impassively near the centre. There was something in that impassiveness '9 290 Red Blood and Blue that fixed Outcault's scrutiny. It was not Arthur Feme as Outcault, as Feme Run, knew him. The face, always alive, even in repose, was now vacant ; the eyes were dull ; and there was in the attitude of the man as he sat in his chair an utter lack of any appearance of in- terest in, or perception of, what was going on about him, that was strikingly uncharacteristic. His pallor, Outcault reflected, might be at- tributable to his confinement in hospital, but that could not explain his apparent petrifaction. There was no change in Feme's position or aspect as the governor concluded with fervid peroration and took his seat amid generous applause ; nor when the mayor arose and an- nounced that the governor having welcomed Feme Run's distinguished son in behalf of the State, Captain Powhatan Halliburton would now perform that pleasant duty in behalf of the county and the city ; nor when Cap'n Pow him- self emerged from those banked in the rear of the stage and walked down to the table in front. Cap'n Pow was received by the audience with a demonstration even more pronounced than the clapping of hands and stamping of feet which had been accorded the governor, several Red Blood and Blue 291 shouts from the rear of the house also greeting the captain as he stood forth. " Now we '11 have it, boys ! " whooped a strong tenor voice. " Give 'em fits, Cap'n Pow ! " roared the bass of Little Ony Swango. Cap'n Pow, pouring a glass of water from the pitcher on the table, and taking a sip, while he gracefully swept back his beard, bowed his best, which was as good as any man's best, buttoned the bottom button only the bottom button of his broadcloth, velvet- collared frock, and began. " Ladies and gentlemen," was his opening, dwelling labially on the " ladies " and adding " and gentlemen " as a pendent formality. At first he spoke without haste or fire, with equable modulation and temperate movement, but it was not long before his gestures were continuous and violent, though never awk- ward, while the flow of his words became tor- rential, and his voice rang as high and bell-like as it ever could have done when he was in the thick of the fray with Forrest. He drew copiously from Grecian and Roman myth and history ; he quoted liberally from Scott, Moore, and Byron ; he studded his periods with meta- 292 Red Blood and Blue phoric " stars," " constellations," " shields," " bucklers," " white plumes," " gonfalons," " escutcheons," " scrolls of fame " and " letters of living light." He extolled the supremacy of Middle Tennessee as " the core of creation," and pictured Arthur Ferae as " the flower of its chivalry." Painting the glory Feme had won in the sight of all men, Cap'n Pow then came to the heart of his address. " The world knows and has acclaimed," he said, " the prowess of Arthur Ferae in war. Our illustrious chief executive has given voice to the pride which the people of our Commonwealth feel in the public career of her valiant son. But it is for me to testify to the admiration and love in which he is held, and has always been held, by his neighbors and companions. And speaking to this point, I say here, and I say it without fear of success- ful impeachment or impugnment, that no lad ever grew up to a straighter, nobler manhood, none ever had soul whiter for immaculate honor nor thews stronger for courageous deed, none ever more realized the composite ideal of the Bayard and the Lion-Hearted, sans peur et sans reproche, than he who is so modestly the re- cipient of the testimonial of affection and pride we are here to pay." Red Blood and Blue 293 Cap'n Pow soared on in this strain for some time, when he added : " I will conclude this phase of my remarks, ladies and gentlemen, with one more poetical gem. I have already enriched my poor words with borrowed beams from some of the most resplendent orbs in the immortal galaxy of poesy, but to my mind nothing could be so pertinent here as the poem which I am now going to repeat to you. It was written by one who shows that his hand is for the pen as well as for the sword. It was written by a boy at school, and given in to his teacher as a ' composition.' It was preserved by that teacher, and only to-day was furnished to me by him that I might thus share it with you to-night. It was written, you may be sur- prised to hear, ladies and gentlemen, by a lad while a pupil in this very Academy, no less a personage than Arthur Feme himself. Thus it runs." Here Cap'n Pow unfolded a sheet of paper and read a well-turned ode, doing full justice, with his resounding elocution, to its lofty sentiment. "Ladies and gentlemen," he continued, as he replaced the paper in his pocket, " did not the boy who penned these lines fore- 294 R e d Blood and Blue shadow the man we honor to-night? Can any one deem it strange that the spirit which in the boy lifted up his voice in such celes- tial consecration to Valor, Honor, and Truth was the same spirit which in the man lifted up his arm, in the face of blood and death, to plant the flag of liberty and law on the last foothold of Old-World despotism and degrada- tion, over a New-World continent redeemed ? " When the acclamations which this flight evoked died away Cap'n Pow, after a drink of water, resumed : "Now, ladies and gentlemen," momen- tarily in a lower and slower voice, "one word more and I am done; and you will pardon me, I know, if it impinges on per- sonality. But I could not repeat that poem worthily, I could not stand here on this oc- casion honestly, if I did not say this word. "You all know, my friends and fellow-citi- zens, that I was once in a war myself. Many of you have heard me declare time and again and declare it with a fervor and feeling that be- spoke my sincerity that if Nathan Bedford Forrest had been in command at Fort Donel- son, that war would have resulted in a victory for the Southern Confederacy. I believed Red Blood and Blue 295 that then, and I believe it now. But, my fellow-citizens, in the light of this later war, in the light of Manila Bay and Santiago, in the light of the common patriotism and the common glory of our boys in the South and our boys in the North, of those who have come back to us and those who fell, in the light of that flag which they have lifted anew in the sight of us all, I thank my God and I thank my God that I have lived to see it and to say it that Nathan Bedford Forrest was not in command at Fort Donelson ! " As Cap'n Pow sat down the audience rose, and "the old rebel yell," starting from "the boys " in the back of the hall, was taken up all over the house by masculine throats, while women waved handkerchiefs excitedly, and some of them gave utterance to queer little hysterical cries. There was a like disorder on the stage, and some of the men who had been seated there were rushing over to grasp Cap'n Pow's hand. As the commotion subsided, Outcault saw Feme standing, white and still, by the speaker's table. There was another great cheer from the audience at this, and then a 196 Red Blood and Blue waiting hush. But there was something in the strange look of Feme that kept the audi- ence on its feet. "There are a few things which I wish to speak of myself," he said, "because I am the only one who can speak of them. " It seemed as if there was a stricture of his throat, and his words were almost inaudible. "Louder!" came from different parts of the hall. Feme turned and swallowed a gulp of water in the glass by his side; then, with his hand resting on the table, he began speaking again, more distinctly, but in the monotone of one who had set himself a task and was determined to get through it : "This is a welcome home which any man might be inexpressibly proud of, if he de- served it. I tried to escape it because I knew I did not deserve it. If I had deserved it more I should have escaped it, despite the preparations which I learned, on the train to- day, you had made to receive me. But it is immaterial to go back to that. Although it was not my desire to receive these honors from you, I entered this hall with my mind fully made up to play out to the end the Red Blood and Blue 297 hypocritical part circumstances had assigned to me. I knew I could play it success- fully and safely, for the only witness who could have exposed my baseless pretensions, Andrew Outcault, is dead. Let me confess more. Unwilling as I was at first to play this part, yet for a time, since I have been in your presence I was not only reconciled to the part, but I believe I can say that I had a feeling of exultation in the attentions you were heaping upon me. I am resolved, how- ever, not to keep up this deception longer. Your kindness to me is meant for a brave man; it is given to a coward." The audience had been breathless, bewil- dered, but now its silence was broken by a few protesting exclamations. "No!" "We know you!" Feme went on, in the same colorless way, and told of his share in the assault on San Juan Hill : the weakness and fear that had unnerved him as he approached the field of battle; his fall in the grass and his decision to lie there out of danger; the appearance and action of Andrew Outcault ; and the consequent charge up the hill in search of death to end disgrace. 298 Red Blood and Blue "That," he concluded, "is the real story of the man you are hailing to-night as a hero. I have been almost irresistibly tempted to remain as silent in its suppression as the lips of Andrew Outcault are in death, as they would be in life if he had survived; but it is some relief to me to find that at the last moment I have at least drawn back from that." As he returned listlessly to his seat, the audience for two or three seconds made no sound or movement, except that here and there a handkerchief was carried to the eyes of some woman. Then one of the voices in the rear cried out : "Good for you, Arthur! We don't take nothin' back ! " At the same time the governor sprang up, and crossing over to Ferae, seized his limp hand, and said very distinctly, and somewhat stagily : " I want to salute publicly a man who has just done the bravest thing that I have ever witnessed." Then, turning to the audience, he added : " I am sure, fellow-citizens, that you will agree with me in this, though we may all dis- Red Blood and Blue 299 agree with our young friend here in his self- accusation of cowardice. I remember reading a description by General Grant of his sensa- tions when going into his first battle that were somewhat similar to those which Cap- tain Ferae has confessed, and all of you must have known or heard of like experiences by men whose courage was unquestioned. But there is a higher courage than that which faceth the cannon's mouth or taketh a city, and, depreciating himself as he did, feeling as he did, who can say that Captain Feme has not but now conspicuously illustrated that courage ? " There was some applause, some shuffling of position among the auditors. There were also a few cheers, and one very vigorous one outside the window where Outcault was standing. As the governor had risen, Outcault had been strongly impelled to rush into the building and utter some such words as the governor spoke. But, after all, he could say nothing more than the governor had said, and Outcault felt that such an appearance by him now would be not only superfluous, but theatrical and tawdry. And as the mayor, at 300 Red Blood and Blue this point, after some remarks in keeping with those of the governor, was declaring the programme of the evening at an end and was dismissing the audience, Outcault mounted his horse and rode homeward. Red Blood and Blue 301 XXIX DAYLIGHT was slitting the blinds of Feme's room next morning as he finally fell into the sleep of exhaustion. When he awoke, and the veil of oblivion, which lingers a little after the eyes have opened, suddenly lifted, he turned his face to the pillow, as if to shut out again the world that had been lost to him as he slept. Presently the clock struck, and he began counting the strokes, thinking that they would number perhaps seven or eight. When they stopped at two, he raised his head in incredulity and looked at the window. The sunbeams, sifting through the blinds, confirmed the clock : it was afternoon. He sank back in bed, and lay staring at the ceiling. What mattered the hour? Better here, with the blinds drawn, he thought, than anywhere else. A servant knocked and entered, laying a note on the table, and quietly leaving the room. Feme indifferently reached over and 302 Red Blood and Blue took the note. As he held it before him in the dim light, something in the superscription caused him to leap up and throw open the blinds. He was not mistaken: it was the handwriting of Victoria Torrance. He stared at the envelope with straining eyes, and then, abruptly tearing it open, read : "Will you not come to see me to-day? I shall look for you. "VICTORIA TORRANCE." He read it over and over; and after he knew every word and letter of it, and the writing was blurred by the film that had come over his eyes, he stood holding the sheet before him. "God bless her!" he finally said, in a choking voice, as he replaced the note in the envelope. He bathed and dressed mechanically. Vic- toria Torrance had thought of him to-day ! She had sent for him, after last night ! Ah, the nobility and sweetness of such a woman ! Could any one, be he never so frail, fall be- yond her pity and sympathy ? Her pity and sympathy! And that was all he could hope for now. Red Blood and Blue 303 But it was Victoria Torrance he was to see; it was Victoria Torrance he was nearing at every stride of his horse as he rode out the avenue that afternoon. And, unconscious of it though he was, the strides grew swifter as the distance shortened; and when he dis- mounted at The Mounds he hastened into the house with much of the alertness of his boy- hood in his step and something of their old light in his eyes. As he waited Victoria's coming his heart- beats were strong and fast. It was not hope ; but if it was not hope it was something the power of her presence that for the time dis- pelled despair. He did not wait long. Almost immedi- ately he heard her rapid descent of the stairs, and he was on his feet as she entered the room. She went up to him quickly, both hands outstretched; and in their warm pressure, and in the depths of her eyes, there was an infinity of womanly joy and solicitude. "I am so glad, so more than glad to see you," she said, in the soft fulness of a voice whose sincerity could never be doubted. *' Were you surprised to get my note ? " she 304 Red Blood and Blue asked as they sat down. But without pausing for an answer, she continued: "I did not know when you would come, and I did not wish to wait. I thought of writing you a long letter this morning, but I preferred to talk to you." "I am fortunate in that," Feme answered, with an attempt at lightness; "for now I have both your note and the talk." "I wanted to tell you how proud we were of your action last night. It was indeed, I have never known anything so fine." Feme looked at her a moment in silence, and something of the lack-lustre expression of the preceding evening had returned to his eyes as they fell before hers. " Fine ! " he replied dully. " Do you call it fine for a man who has played the impostor to confess the truth at the eleventh hour, when the consequences of his deception be- come more than he can endure ? " " You have no right to think of it in that way," Victoria replied, with spirit. "You do yourself and your friends the greatest injustice. You have always been given to self-depreciation, when you have less cause Red Blood and Blue 305 than any one I know. Don't you suppose we all understand that if you were placed in even any apparently false position by the reports of your conduct in Cuba you were not responsible for the mistake? Could you, while you were at the point of death in the hospital, prevent your superior officers and the newspapers from making a hero of you? And why should n't they have made a hero of you? You can't deny you did the things they say you did? What difference does it make if there was a time when you felt some some trepidation? Was not that natural? Do not all brave men say that there are such times in their own experiences ? " "I simply know," he answered obstinately, without looking up at her, "that I was not a brave man." "You are the bravest man I have ever known," she resented. "The mere fact that while you took such a wrong view of the case and felt so poignantly that you were what you call an impostor, you made that voluntary confession last night, proves a higher courage than any that can be shown on the battle-field. That is the way, I want you to be sure, your friends feel about it." 306 Red Blood and Blue He looked at her now gratefully, but still sombrely. "This is like you," he said. "You always put the most generous construction on things. But " he paused, and then continued reso- lutely "you do not yet know all. I am not certain I intended to be honest enough to tell you all until this moment. I was never reconciled to the trick which circum- stances played me until I met you at the Academy door last night. I can't say that I was reconciled to it then; but somehow, for a while, after I left you and passed on into the hall, I felt a sort of blind gratifica- tion in it, and a confirmed determination to carry it through to the end. When I said good-bye to you last spring I was conscious that there was something lacking in me that was necessary to the man who would impress you, as it had been my life-long de- sire to impress you ; but when I saw you last night it came over me God knows why, except for the friendliness of your greeting that perhaps the lack in me might be supplied by by what they said I had done in Cuba, and what those people were wel- coming me for. And I was contemptible Red Blood and Blue 307 enough to wish to win you by keeping up the fraud." Victoria looked at him sadly for several seconds after he had spoken, tears coming into her eyes. "That made your words last night braver still," she said gently. He sprang to his feet, as if the bonds of his self-control had suddenly snapped. " Ah, do not look at me, do not speak to me like that ! " he expostulated. He started as if to walk across the room, but abruptly turned again to her, gripping the back of the chair from which he had risen. "There is something yet that you would say, that you fear would hurt me. What is it?" he demanded. "Let me know everything ! " She stood, sorrowful and anguished, before him. "There is something I ought to say," she owned, miserably. "When you went away last spring I told you that there might be, some time, a possibility of of my feeling for you something stronger than admiration and friendship." " And now," Feme's whitening lips formed, 308 Red Blood and Blue " you would tell me that there is even no such possibility." "I must," she answered with a pitiful firm- ness. "There is no longer a possibility; there can never be." Feme looked away, for a moment, through the window. When he confronted Victoria again his face seemed to have been resolved into its elemental clay. "Good-bye," he murmured, taking her hand. "You see," with a ghastly half -smile, "even you, after that wretched affair of last night " He cut off his words as if unable further to trust his voice, and moved to leave. She caught his hand imperatively. "No, no ! " she cried. " You wrong me, as well as yourself. If anything could have turned my heart to you, it would have been last night. But " "But?" he asked, after waiting for her to go on. "I have no heart for any one." " Then do not answer me if I am too insistent it is another's? " For an instant her eyes fell before his searching gaze ; a light of rose dawned in her Red Blood and Blue 309 face, then waned to gray ; she raised her head and looked at Feme frankly, unreservedly. "Yes," was her quiet answer. "It is an- other's in his grave." Feme was very still for a little, his fixed expression slowly softening. "Forgive me," he begged humbly. "I had not suspected; and I have been thinking only of myself. " As he was leaving she accompanied him to the veranda. "You must come out to see us again often if " She seemed to assume he would understand what she would have said. "Yes, if," he responded desolately; "but can I ? Could any man in my place? " Just then Rosalie Kemp drove up, and Feme went to help her from the cart. She was beaming as she called out: " How splendid it is to find you both here ! " She held out her hands to Feme and jumped to the ground. " And I 'm really, truly, perfectly delighted to see you again, Arthur, I 'm going to call you Arthur still, even if you have got to be such a high-and-mighty personage. And I 'm 3io Red Blood and Blue crazy to have you tell me about your won- derful experiences and all ! And, oh ! have you heard the latest news? Of course you have! Isn't it just too good to be true, though ? Arthur Feme, between you and Andrew Outcault Feme Run never was in such a stew ! " Victoria, her breathing suspended, and her face as if suddenly touched by the spectral glare of an arc light, asked faintly, "What news?" while Feme started with an ejacu- latory gasp : "Andrew Outcault! What about Andrew Outcault ? " "Oh," Rosalie cried, with the zest of one who is first to tell it, "then you have not heard! Andrew Outcault has come back! He is not dead ! He never has been dead ! I saw him myself, in town, not an hour ago ! " Victoria did not stir or speak. Only that her face was a little paler, that her eyes were fixed upon Rosalie with a startled, wide bewilderment, and that her handkerchief had slipped to the ground from her hand, it might have been that she did not hear. " Thank God ! " Feme spoke in all sincer- ity, for the first time in his life pretending Red Blood and Blue 311 not to see a lady's handkerchief that had been dropped. "It is good news, Miss Rosalie," he said ; but he was looking at Victoria as he held close her nerveless hand for a brief moment in parting, during which a little color crept into her face, and her lids fluttered, and hid the eyes that would not meet his earnest scrutiny. "Yes," she finally agreed, a feeble note of constraint in the tone; then adding, with an uncertain little smile and a forced effort at lightness: "But, oh, Rosalie! you burst upon us so abruptly with your good news ! " "I am off to hunt him up." Feme quickly relieved her of the necessity of prolonging the tension of the situation. "And you, Miss Rosalie may I not come over to-morrow and have that talk ? " "You may, and you must!" Rosalie com- manded. She shyly slipped her hand over one of Victoria's as Feme walked away to his horse; and Feme, never once glancing back, rode off down the drive and into the Avenue before the silence between the two girls, whose eyes followed him, was broken. Red Blood and Blue XXX IT was the evening of the next day that Andrew Outcault called at The Mounds. If he had yielded to his impulse he would have made that call twenty-four hours sooner; but he had reflected that the preceding day was the first after the return of Arthur Feme, who would unquestionably wish to spend much of it at The Mounds; and for once Outcault subordinated his own desires in deference to a rival. Moreover, it is only justice to him to say that as he awaited Victoria's appearance, in the same room in which Feme had awaited her the day before, Outcault' s thought was of Feme rather than of himself, his immediate purpose being to do what he could, if he could do anything and if it were necessary to do anything to help Feme to fair play. Outcault felt that he could think of himself later. Unlike Feme, Outcault waited long for Victoria; and when at last he heard her com- Red Blood and Blue 313 ing it was with a slow step, that once halted for a second on the stairs. She paused again in the doorway, and Outcault, as he rose, not noting the momen- tary hesitation, the stir of the chiffon at her throat, the soft sub-color of the clear face, was conscious of only the fathomless splendor of her eyes. She advanced to meet him, giving him her hand, on her lips a faint smile that seemed only to intensify the luminous gravity and mystery of the eyes. Outcault could never recall the exact words of the greeting by either. Most likely each simply spoke the other's name as Outcault clasped her hand. As they found seats Vic- toria, patently bent upon some speech that was commonplace and courteous, said : "You must let me add my congratulations, upon your return, to the many you have already received." "And you, I hope," replying with a slight affectation of levity in his tone, "will not consider me unduly precipitate in seeking your congratulations." He felt at once that this was not what he cared to say, or what he ought to say. He Red Blood and Blue was not always as felicitous in his small-talk with women as he might have been if his training had been different. Victoria an- swered this remark by ignoring it. She had a way sometimes, as Outcault had before dis- covered, of answering in that manner remarks which it did not suit her to discuss, or which she deemed too trivial or too causeless for verbal recognition. And it was a graceful and usually a pleasing way ; for it left upon Outcault the impression of her failure to see his crassness, or of her conviction that he should take for granted the insufficiency of the self-indictment which such utterances of his generally implied. She directed the talk now easily in a chan- nel that was wholly impersonal to himself, and Outcault followed as easily, until he chose to take the lead. "I saw you at the Academy night before last," he then said, a little abruptly. " You ! " in surprise. " I did not know you were there." "I was there, but incognito. I had just got into town, and stopped at the Academy while the governor was speaking. I remained outside, at one of the windows. the. one Red Blood and Blue 315 nearest where you were sitting. You did not see me, but you must have heard me. I cheered Arthur Feme's speech even louder than I cheered his charge up San Juan Hill." "Wasn't it fine?" a new light kindling in her eyes. " I wanted to cheer, too, but " She knew that she had wanted to cry as well, and she left her sentence unfinished. "Perhaps there are other men capable of making such a speech," Outcault commented; "but I don't know of any other one who would have thought it necessary." "That is the quarrel I have with him," Victoria agreed. " He was always a peculiar fellow, as you must know. His sense of honor is so deli- cately developed that it seems sometimes to amount to morbidness. Maybe if he had been roughing it in the open air lately, in- stead of being cooped up in a hospital, he wouldn't have given way to the doldrums the other night. While one can't help admiring him for such pluck, yet such over-fastidious- ness must try the patience of his warmest admirers. What business had he the other night to go digging up and making mountains of his secret qualms when he was starting into 316 Red Blood and Blue battle? It is actions that count. How many brave men would be left to the world if a brave man never knew in his unconfessed moments an instant's flinching or dread?" Outcault soon saw that Feme needed no advocate here; that Victoria understood and appreciated the man far better than he was understood and appreciated by the masculine mind of Outcault himself. And so, after sitting a few minutes longer, during which he did not touch upon the subject that had been forbidden by Victoria when he had last seen her, and did not speak of himself beyond bald replies to the few perfunctory inquiries which Victoria volunteered, Outcault left, satisfied with himself in that he had made just such a call as he had intended to make, and ignorant of the fact that for the first time his departure was watched by Victoria, through the meshes of the curtains, with thoughtful and puzzled eyes. Red Blood and Blue 317 XXXI IT was very different when he saw her next, more than a week later. Two days before, he had said good-bye to Arthur Feme, who was leaving for service with his regiment in the Philippines; and this still October afternoon, as Outcault set out for The Mounds, he had not gone many paces before he was riding in that plunging gallop which he liked when the tide of domi- nant self was running full. In the short walk from his horse to the veranda of The Mounds, his head was high and his lungs were deep with the old elation, pulsing with which, under the lust of battle, he had beat through the Cuban jungle. In the house he did not sit down while he waited for Victoria, but walked from one win- dow to another, and from that to the portrait of the last James York Torrance. Victoria came in almost at once, but Outcault had turned to the window again. He whirled as he heard the rustle of her 318 Red Blood and Blue skirts behind him, his strong white teeth showing between his smiling lips and the light in his eyes leaping at the answering smile, which he knew was such a one as he had never seen before, except in his dreams. "Get your hat," he said buoyantly, as he clasped her hand. " Let us go outside. No one is fit to live who would stay under a roof such a day as this." She gave a little exclamation of delight. "That is what I should like! Wait for me just a second." She was gone in an instant, and Outcault laughed gently and happily. She was almost running she was running ! Victoria Tor- ranee running ! She returned quickly, a little flushed, and the red lips parted in a smile, a brighter, more childlike smile than that which she had given him two minutes before. "Which way shall we go?" she asked, as they left the house. "The beech woods?" " The beech woods ? " They spoke simultaneously, and they looked at each other, and laughed with each other at this miraculous coincidence. Red Blood and Blue 319 They set off down the path to the brook, a narrow path and occasionally a little steep, he thrashing along on the edge of it beside her, his step springing more elastically once as her dress brushed him, and once again as he caught for an instant her hand at an ugly place in the descent. They chatted lightly, aimlessly : the perfec- tion of the day, the balsam of the air, the uni- versal calm, the mystery of the haze that softened sky and atmosphere and water. At the foot-bridge they stopped and, leaning on the rail, looked down at the little stream. Another mood, more in keeping with the dreamy October day, seemed to have come sud- denly to both. They watched a dappled young trout below them, and Outcault's thoughts were full of the new world around him, the new presence beside him. It was as natural, as good to be silent together as a moment before it had been to be frivolous and garrulous together. In either mood here was a Vic- toria Torrance he had never known before ; a Victoria Torrance who no longer withstood or repulsed him, but who was altogether human in her companionship, sweet in the dignity of womanhood, fresh in the spontaneity of girl- Red Blood and Blue hood, his perfect complement in gayety or gravity, such a Victoria Torrance as he had long ago determined that she should be, some day, for him. " Is it not beautiful ? " she said, more as if in revery than in inquiry. "Is not everything beautiful?" he answered in a deep voice. As they walked on across the bridge Out- cault, his eyes lingering on the water, saw floating down from the upper stream an object which arrested his step as he bent over the rail for a better view. " Ah ! " he said with a quick smile, " yonder is something I want ! " He hurried down to the water's edge and, stooping over, seized a magnolia leaf, its enamel glistening wet. With a boyish laugh he sprang up the bank to Victoria again. " It looks," he exclaimed, " like the same leaf I found a long time ago I know it comes from the same place. And I stuck it in my hat and sallied forth to rescue a beautiful prin- cess imprisoned in a mediaeval castle." " How chivalric ! " Victoria smiled. " And I think I have succeeded. Come into the beech woods, and I will tell you about it." Red Blood and Blue 321 Ah ! the magic of the beech woods on a mellow October day. Surely Cap'n Pow Hal- liburton never included these among the con- ditions which he tested in the prosecution of his favorite theory ; or if he did, he must have forgotten to provide with them a man who is born with the secret of mastery and a woman who has learned the blessedness of surrender. When Outcault and Victoria entered the beech woods it was with thoughtless words and fitful laughter. When they emerged it was in silence and with the ineffable calm and joy of the day itself on their counte- nances. The first to speak was Victoria. Outcault was twirling slowly by its stem the magnolia leaf which he had taken from the brook. Victoria, into whose eyes the haze of the wonderful autumnal sunlight seemed to have come, raised them to Outcault's and reached out her hand. " Give it to me, please," she said softly. Outcault started and looked at her a moment without understanding. " Oh, this ! " He smiled slightly a smile that no one 3 22 Red Blood and Blue had ever seen on his face before that walk in the beech woods and his hand was not quite steady as he gave the leaf to her. A little later, as he was not looking, she pressed its cool surface for a moment to her glowing cheek. " Tell me," he said, soon afterwards, " when you began to think of me like this." "I am not sure," she answered, gazing off across blended meadow and wood to the dim line that marked the river's course. " Perhaps it began on that day in the cotton-field, but I did not know until " " Until ? " he insisted, after a moment's waiting. " Until they said you had been killed." They walked in silence a few steps, when she added, as if she found it easier to speak now: "Then I knew. And I knew, also, how insignificant were all the things that had seemed to stand between us." The sun had disappeared beneath the hori- zon, but it seemed to shine on Outcault's face, as it still shone on one rugged crag in the distance. On the foot-bridge, Outcault stopped again Red Blood and Blue 323 and pointed toward the uplands known as the barrens, rising just beyond the fertile acres of what had been the Dead Sea. " Look, Victoria," he said. " There is the top of just one hill over there that the sun still lights." "Yes, I can see it," she answered as she stood beside him. " That is the highest point of the barrens which are not barrens at all, or ought not to be. It adjoins my land over there, and I have long thought it one of the most beautiful spots in the country, though no one, at least in our time, has lived there except old Dru Wingate. I have chosen it, with your approval, for the home which I am to make for us." She looked silently at the sun-touched knoll; then her eyes, turning to the left, swept her own home before they rested on Outcault. " Do you not like The Mounds? " she asked uncertainly. "As well, perhaps, as any home that is already made ; but " " What pleases you best will please me best," she interposed. " I only wish to go where you wish to go. Besides, if I did not " 324 e Blood and Blue Their hands had come together as he looked down at her in mute and tender interrogation. "If I did not," a smile nestling in her uplifted eyes, " I suppose you would carry me off with you, anyway." BY HARRISON ROBERTSON If I Were a Man The Story of a New Southerner i6mo. 75 cents. (The Ivory Series.) " If I were a Man " is a story of love and politics. It narrates incidents in the recent political history of Kentucky which are so like the actual facts that a non- resident of that State can hardly convince himself that he is not reading a real history. Review of Reviews. The story is the main thing in "If I were a Man." It moves right along with the charm of rapid narrative. " DROCH," in Life. Harrison Robertson has again proved that the mixed field of American politics affords unequalled opportu- nities for surprises, dramatic situations, treacheries, renunciations, tragedy, and comedy. The Chicago Evening Post. As a study in practical politics, written with abundant dash, and revealing shrewd insight into conditions which prevail, not in Kentucky alone, the book is good to read. The Nation. IF I f^ERE A MAN To say that it is we'll written and altogether readable does not serve the turn of criticism ; it is more. Short, swiftly moving, the current of the narrative never flags. The story gives a sharp, strong picture, unquestion- ably touched with the fascination of genius. The Independent. It is a good story from every point of view, carefully written, well balanced, and thoroughly wholesome. There is promise in it of strong, sane work in the future. The Outlook. Mr. Robertson has created a manly young American, and dowered him with the manly virtues without mak- ing him a prig. ..." If I were a Man " is a sprightly story, thoroughly in touch with real life, and distinc- tively American. Detroit Free Press. It has remained for Mr. Harrison Robertson to treat for the first time the political life in Kentucky as the making of a career, and he has done it ingenuously and interestingly in his book, " If I were a Man." In pre- senting his initial book, Mr. Robertson begins unques- tionably the fulfilment of the rich promise that his early work held out. Louisville Times. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Publishers, 153-157 Fifth Ave., New York UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. unrn Form L9-Series 444 DC SOUTHERN REGIONAL A 000 030 937 7