"Very," answers Erma. "But my father, in his railroad enterprises, must be thrown among men of all ranks, grades and conditions."
"Oh, certainly," a.s.sents Oliver. "You remember that individual with the free and easy manners who invited himself to mother"s supper party the other night."
"If you mean Captain Lawrence," remarks Ferdie, tossing himself into the conversation, "I can tell you he didn"t invite himself--I did that part of the business myself. And as to his manners being free and easy, I think, considering he hadn"t spoken to a pretty woman for a year, he did very well--under the circ.u.mstances. If I"d been in his place I"d have probably kissed the ladies all round."
This a.s.sertion is greeted by a very horrified "Oh, Ferdinand!" from Mrs.
Livingston, and screams of laughter from Louise.
Miss Travenion, who remembers Captain Lawrence"s last glance and hand squeeze and words, grows slightly red about her cheeks and sinks upon a seat and gazes out of an open car window.
As for Mr. Kruger, the moment he has left Erma Travenion, he has dropped all the laziness of a Newfoundland dog, and a.s.sumes the activity of a terrier. He has said hurriedly but determinedly to his satellite, "Jenkins, you stay and wait for the four hundred coming on the Scotia.
Forward the other three hundred by Davis, who came from Wales with them."
"But--" Jenkins is about to interrupt.
"No time to discuss this "ere matter," says Kruger with a snap. "I must go West on this train. It"s somethin" you can"t understand, but more important than all the Welsh cows that we"ve brought over these ten years--you do as I tell ye."
"Yes, Bishop," answers the man humbly and goes away, as Mr. Kruger, whose plans the sudden meeting with Miss Travenion seems to have changed, produces a pa.s.s from the New York Central Railway, hurries to the sleeping-car office, buys a ticket to Chicago, and boards the train almost as it begins to move out for the West, and placing himself in a smoking compartment, goes to chewing tobacco in a meditative but seemingly contented manner, as after a little time he remarks to himself, "How things seem to be coming to Lot Kruger and Zion together."
CHAPTER IV.
MR. FERDIE BEGINS HIS WESTERN INVESTIGATIONS.
The train rattles out of New York, and crossing the Harlem, skirts that pretty little salt water river; as Miss Travenion settles herself lazily in her seat, with a graceful ease peculiar to her, for the girl has a curious blending of both style and beauty, giving her a patrician elegance of manner that makes gracious even the slight tendency to _hauteur_ in her manner and voice.
The sun shines upon her face, and she turns it from the morning beams, and gazing towards the West, thinks of her father. Her eyes grow gentle, her mobile features expectant with hope, and tender with love; and Oliver Livingston, who is reading a New York journal, glances up from it, and noting Erma"s face thinks, "She really does love me, dear girl, though she is so cold, which is much better form till we are regularly engaged," and decides to give her a chance to admit her affection to him formally before the end of their summer tour, for this prim gentleman actually adores the young lady he is looking at as much as his diminutive soul can love anything, except himself.
At present he does not know how small his soul is, but rather thinks it is large and n.o.ble and very magnanimous. He has had no occasion so far to test its dimensions, his life up to this time having been quite narrow; and though he has travelled, it has not brought much into his brain, save some strong, high church notions he has imported from Oxford, to which university this young gentleman had been sent to complete his education after Harvard; his mother having an idea it might get him into English society, and perhaps permit him to make a great European match. This was before Erma"s father had made his million dollar settlement upon her; Mrs. Livingston having been one of the first of those pioneers from New York who pa.s.sed over to England and replaced the social chains of the Mother Country upon her,--those her grandfather and other American patriots had fought to throw off, together with the political ones of George the Third, his Majesty of glorious memory.
Upon his return to New York, Mr. Ollie had signalized his advent by dragging his mother and sister to Saint Agnes"s from their old pew at Grace Church, the ritual of that place not being sufficiently Puseyitic for his views; his father, the elder Livingston, who had no religion to mention save certain maxims of business and the rules of his club, being, fortunately for his son"s high church movement, dead.
This performance of the heir of the house had made his mother think him a saint; as, indeed, to do the young man justice, he wished to be; and had Ollie Livingston elected to follow any profession, he would doubtless have turned to the ministry; but his million of dollars perhaps dulled his incentive for work, and after his return from England, the young man had done nothing; but as Ferdie had irreverently expressed it, "had done that nothing GRANDLY."
And why should he work? He had money enough to command any ordinary luxury of life. As for position, was he not a Livingston, and could he add additional honor to that old Knickerbocker name? thought his mother.
There was only one trouble in all their family affairs, and that was removed by the settlement Mr. Travenion had made upon Ollie"s _fiancee_, for as such Mrs. Livingston already regarded Erma. In order to make the settlement upon his son, the elder Livingston had culled his best securities and most gilded collaterals; those left for the support of his widow and daughter, not being so stable, had depreciated in the last few years, and Mrs. Livingston"s income had dwindled until it was not what she considered it should be for a lady of her station. Now, of course, if Ollie married a very rich wife, he could be very liberal to his mother and sister, and that point had been happily settled by the million-dollar settlement upon Miss Travenion.
It is some thought of this that is in Erma"s mind once or twice in her first day"s journey towards the West. The girl loves Mrs. Livingston, who had been a companion of Erma"s mother, and had been very kind to the child even after her father"s reverses, and had frequently visited Miss Hines" Academy in Gramercy Park, and had the little Erma, now wholly orphaned by her mother"s death and father"s absence, to her great house on Madison Square, where she had been regaled _en princess_ and sent back to the boarding school made happy with good things to eat and presents that make children"s hearts glad.
This, Miss Travenion does not forget, now that her father"s settlements upon her have made her probably as great an heiress in her own right as any girl of her circle in Manhattan society.
This peculiar position of Mrs. Livingston had been pretty well known to Erma, and it seemed to compel her to make no protest when the widow had taken her from the seclusion of Miss Hines" Academy at the beginning of the winter and brought her out, with much blowing of social trumpets and flowers and fiddling at Mrs. Livingston"s Madison Square mansion--and also had chaperoned her at Newport.
Therefore, she has rather grown to consider herself set apart for Oliver"s wife, and as such has turned a deaf ear to the many men who, on slight encouragement, would be more than happy and more than ready to woo a young lady who has gorgeous beauty, a million of dollars of her own and a father of indefinite Western wealth, which, magnified by distance, has increased to such Monte Cristo proportions, that it has gained for her the t.i.tle, among her set, of "Miss Dividends."
Besides any notion of grat.i.tude to Mrs. Livingston, Erma knows that this match with Ollie is her father"s wish. On one of his visits to New York, she had once hinted her desire to visit and live with him in the West, and had been promptly refused in terms as stern as Ralph Travenion could bring himself to use to his daughter, for whom he seemed to have a very tender love, and in doing so he had indicated that his wishes were that she fulfil the arrangement he had made with his old-time friend, the elder Livingston.
"Marry Oliver," he had said. "He is in your rank--the position to which you were born, Erma. Live in the East. The West is, perhaps, the best place to make money, but New York is _par excellence_ the place to enjoy it. Some day--perhaps sooner than you expect, I shall join you here, and settle down to my old life as club man again," and Ralph Travenion looks towards the Unity Club, upon whose lists his name still stands, and of whose smoking-room he is still an _habitue_ on his visits to Manhattan, rather longingly from his parlor in the Brevoort House, at which hotel he always stopped, in contradistinction to most of his comrades from the Plains, who are more apt to register at the Fifth Avenue or the Hoffman.
It was on one of these visits at the Brevoort that Erma had chanced to meet Mr. Lot Kruger, and circ.u.mstances compelling the same, had received introduction to him.
"Ha! a new convert to Zion!" the Westerner had cried out, looking rather curiously at the beautiful girl of nineteen, who had entered unannounced into Ralph Travenion"s apartments.
But her father had simply said: "My daughter, Miss Erma, let me present Mr. Kruger, a business a.s.sociate of mine," and had so dismissed the affair, though several times afterward the Westerner had chanced to be at Travenion"s apartments when Erma called, and once or twice he had appeared at Miss Hines" Academy, bearer, as he said, of news from her father to Miss Travenion, to the amus.e.m.e.nt, astonishment and giggles of her fellow-pupils and the dismay of the schoolmistress, who thought Mr.
Kruger a species of Western border ruffian or bandit.
However, as she sits and meditates, the thought that she is drawing nearer and nearer to her loved father, drives all else out of Erma Travenion"s head, and she watches the wave-washed banks of the beautiful Hudson, and as they pa.s.s by says, "One more tree nearer papa--one more island nearer papa--one more town nearer papa," and later in the day, they having got off the New York Central, she murmurs "_One more railroad nearer papa_," and grows happier and happier as the cars bear her on.
So the day pa.s.ses. Her companions have settled down to their journey, and are pa.s.sing their time in cards or novel reading, and Miss Travenion has plenty of opportunity for reflection, for Ollie notices that the girl seems to wish to be left to herself, and only ventures occasional remarks when pa.s.sing objects demand them.
Mr. Kruger, awed perhaps by the private car, which was much more of a rarity and luxury in 1871 than it is to-day, does not intrude upon the young lady or her party, though Erma notices when she gets off at the large stations for exercise that Lot"s eyes seem to follow her about, as if he were interested in her for her father"s sake.
Thus the night comes and goes, and during the next day, the 1st of October, the party pa.s.s through Chicago, just then waiting to be burned in order that it may become great.
So, running over the prairies two days and a few hours after leaving New York, they arrive at Council Bluffs, and take ferry across the Missouri River, no bridge at this time crossing that great but uncertain and shifting stream.
During this two days" journey from New York to the Missouri, a considerable change has taken place in the minds of some of the members of the party as to their proposed jaunt to the Rocky Mountains and beyond. This has chiefly been brought about by Mr. Ferdie, who, having purchased a book ent.i.tled "_Facts About the Far West_," has been regaling himself with the same, and devoting a considerable portion of his time explaining and elucidating the knowledge he thinks he has gained from it to Mrs. Livingston, producing a very distressing effect upon that plump lady"s nervous system.
These "_Facts About the West_" consist chiefly of anecdotes of the border ruffian kind, descriptions of various atrocities, Indian ma.s.sacres, Mormon outrages and vigilance committees, and are of such a very highly colored and blood-curdling description that Mr. Chauncey himself remarks, as he finishes the volume: "If these are _facts_ about the West, I think the _fiction_ will be too rich for my blood!" Though half-believing the same, this young gentleman imagines he has acquired in his two days between New York and Council Bluffs, considerable knowledge of the manners of the Western frontiersman, border-ruffians, stage-drivers, Indians, Mormons, and buffaloes.
A number of the more blood-curdling anecdotes he has detailed to Mrs.
Livingston at odd times, enjoying her shudderings at such stories as that of the waiter in the New Mexico hotel, who shot the Chicago drummer to death because he declined to eat the eggs and said they were incipient chickens; also, a few of the more cruel exploits of celebrated Johnnie Slade, the murderous superintendent of a division of the Ben Holliday"s stage line, together with a full, true and accurate account of the atrocious butchery of one hundred and thirty three men, women and children by the notorious John D. Lee, of Utah, the Mormon bishop, and a portion of the Mormon militia, disguised as Indians, that occurred in 1857, and now known under the head of the Mountain Meadow Ma.s.sacre; "The Last Shot of Joaquin, the California Bandit," etc., etc.
These revelations of Western atrocity Mr. Ferdinand is delighted to see produce upon the nerves of Mrs. Livingston effects more demoralizing than the morphine habit. And he would continue his narrations, with much _gusto_, to the agitated Mrs. Livingston, did not Erma, who has been listening indifferently to his tales of blood, suddenly, at her first opportunity, lead the chuckling Ferdie aside, and, placing two flaming eyes upon him, whisper: "Not another of your Western horrors to your aunt!" Then her voice grows pathetic, and she mutters: "Would you frighten her so that she retreats from her journey and takes me back to New York, and deprives me of seeing my father--the joy I am looking forward to minute by minute, and hour by hour."
This oration, emphasized by savage glances and made pathetic by flashing eyes, has a great effect on Mr. Ferdinand, and he promises silence, remarking to himself: "What a stunner that Erma is, and only out of boarding school ten months."
As it is, when Ferdie first looks upon the Missouri River and utters, "The West is now before me. I feel as if I knew it very well from my guide-book," tapping his blood-curdling volume. "Now for a practical experience of the same," adding to this one or two attempts at Indian war-whoops, the effect of his narratives has been so great on Mrs.
Livingston that she puts her plump hands over her pale blue eyes and shudderingly mutters: "The West--shall I ever live to come out of it?"
and would take train immediately for Eastern civilization, were it not that she fears the laughter of her daughter, Louise, and the sneers of Oliver, her son, who has several times pooh-poohed Ferdie"s anecdotes of Rocky Mountain life, and once or twice, during his more atrocious recitals, has e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed "Bosh!"
As she descends from her car at Council Bluffs, she lays one trembling hand on her son"s arm, and makes one half-hearted expostulation, "Don"t you think, since we are compelled to leave our private car here, we had better end the trip and return to New York immediately?"
This Mr. Oliver silences by a stern "What! Our tickets already bought for San Francisco? Besides that, Van Wyke Stuyvesant has just come back with his mother and sisters, and p.r.o.nounces the trip delightful, and I don"t wish Van Wyke, who is something of a braggart, to be able to talk of the Yosemite and Big-trees and I be unable to say I have been there also. Besides, Erma is looking forward to meeting her father."
Thus compelled, Mrs. Livingston nervously accepts her son"s escort to the ferry boat, and the party cross the Missouri River to take cars at Omaha on the Union Pacific Railway--Mr. Oliver, calmly indifferent to his mother"s feelings, and only intent upon using some of the chances of the journey for making his romantic declaration to Miss Travenion.
It will give that young lady, he imagines, the opportunity she is anxiously awaiting, to accept his distinguished name, large fortune and small heart; though did he but guess it, Miss Travenion has but one thought in her soul--fifteen hundred miles nearer papa!
Mr. Chauncey, however, is very anxious for the wonders of the border land he has read about, crazy to see a herd of buffaloes, and determined to investigate Western matters for himself generally, in order to have some rare stories of frontier life with which to make his Eastern college chums open their eyes over social spreads at the "D. K. E.," for this young gentleman will enter Harvard as freshman next term. An Alma Mater of which he is already very proud _in futuro_, and in which he is very anxious to distinguish himself, not as a reading man, but as a Harvard man--a being, who, this young gentleman fondly imagines, has the beauty of an Adonis, the muscle of a Sullivan, the pluck of a bull-terrier, the brain of a Macchiavelli, and the morals of a Don Juan, disguised by the demeanor and bearing of a Lord Chesterfield.
So the young man springs eagerly ash.o.r.e on the Nebraska side of the Missouri, and cries out in a laughing voice: "Omaha! All aboard for the Rockies and buffaloes and Indians and scalpings!" exclamations which make the widow"s nerves tingle and the widow"s plump hands shake a little, as her son a.s.sists her across the gang-plank.
Then, his mother being landed, Ollie turns to offer the same attention to Erma, but to his astonishment he is antic.i.p.ated in his act of gallantry by the Western Mr. Kruger.