Yet the first words he uttered showed the voice and diction of a gentleman. "My dear Captain," he began, extending his hand as he approached, "I am indeed charmed! What a delight to see you again in our part of the world! I must claim the pleasure of having met you once--two years ago, in St. Louis. Are you again on your way to the frontiers?"
The tone of inquiry in his voice was just short of curious, indeed might have been called expectant. His gaze, admiring yet polite, had not wholly lost opportunity to list the attractions of this lady, whose name had not yet been given him.
The gentleman accosted declined to be thus definite; adding only, after the usual felicitations, "Yes, we are going down the river a little way on the Vernon here."
"For some distance?"
"For quite a distance."
"At least, this is not your first journey down our river?"
"I wish it might be the last. The railway is opening up a new world to us. The stage-coach is a thing of the past."
"I wish it might be, for me!" rejoined the stranger.
"Unfortunately, I am obliged to go West from here over the National Road, to look at some lands I own out in Indiana. I very much regret--"
There was by this time yet more expectancy in his voice. He still bowed, with respectful glances bent upon the lady. No presentation came, although in the easy habit of the place and time, such courtesy might perhaps have been expected. Why this stiffness among fellow travelers on a little river packet?
[Ill.u.s.tration: He still bowed, with respectful glances.]
The tall man was not without a certain grave audacity. A look of amus.e.m.e.nt came to his face as he gazed at the features of the other, now obviously agitated, and not a little flushed.
"I had not known that your sister--" he began. His hand thus forced, the other was obliged to reply: "No, the daughter of an old friend of mine, you see--we are _en voyage_ together for the western country. It has simply been my fortune to travel in company with the lady. I present you, my dear sir, to Miss Barren.
My dear Miss Barren, this is State Senator Warville Dunwody, of Missouri. We are of opposite camps in politics."
The tall man bowed still more deeply. Meantime, Josephine St.
Auban in her own way had taken inventory of the new-comer. Her companion hastily sought to hold matters as they were.
"My dear Senator Dunwody," he said, "we were just pa.s.sing down to the boat to see that the luggage is aboard. With you, I regret very much that your journey takes you from us."
The sudden consternation which sat upon Dunwody"s face was almost amusing. He was very willing to prolong this conversation. Into his soul there had flashed the swift conviction that never in his life had he seen a woman so beautiful as this. Yet all he could do was to smile and bow adieu.
"A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We"ll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there. A strong man--a strong one; and a heedless."
"Of what party is he?" she inquired, as though casually.
"What a man"s party is in these days," was his answer, "is something hard to say. A man like Dunwody is pretty much his own party, although the Bentonites call him a "soft Democrat." Hardly soft he seems, when he gets in action at the state capital of Missouri yonder. Certainly Dunwody is for war and tumult. None of this late weak-kneed compromise for him! To have his own way--that is Dunwody"s creed of life. I thank G.o.d he is not going with us now. He might want his own way with you, from the fashion of his glances. Did you see? My word!" Young Carlisle fumed a shade more than might have seemed necessary for military reasons.
Josephine St. Auban turned upon him with her slow smile, composedly looking at him from between her long, dark lashes.
"Why do you say that?" she inquired.
"Because it is the truth. I don"t want him about."
"Then you will be disappointed."
"Why do you say that? Did you not hear him say that he was going West by coach from here?"
"You did not give him time. He is not going West by coach."
"What do you mean?"
"He will be with us on the boat!"
CHAPTER II
THE GATEWAY, AND SOME WHO Pa.s.sED
When Captain Edward Carlisle made casual reference to the "weak-kneed compromise," he simply voiced a personal opinion on a theme which was in the mind of every American, and one regarded with as many minds as there were men. That political measure of the day was hated by some, admired by others. This man condemned it, that cried aloud its righteousness and infallibility; one argued for it shrewdly, another declaimed against it loudly. It was alike blessed and condemned. The southern states argued over it, many of the northern states raged at it. It ruined many political fortunes and made yet other fortunes. That year was a threshold-time in our history, nor did any see what lay beyond the door.
If there existed then a day when great men and great measures were to be born, certainly there lay ready a stage fit for any mighty drama--indeed, commanding it. It was a young world withal, indeed a world not even yet explored, far less exploited, so far as were concerned those vast questions which, in its dumb and blind way, humanity both sides of the sea then was beginning to take up.
America scarce more than a half century ago was for the most part a land of query, rather than of hope.
Not even in their query were the newer lands of our country then alike. We lay in a vast chance-medley, and never had any country greater need for care and caution in its councils. By the grace of the immortal G.o.ds we had had given into our hands an enormous area of the earth"s richest inheritance, to have and to hold, if that might be; but as yet we were not one nation. We had no united thought, no common belief as to what was national wisdom. For three quarters of a century this country had grown; for half a century it had been divided, one section fighting against another in all but arms. We spoke of America even then as a land of the free, but it was not free; nor on the other hand was it wholly slave. Never in the history of the world has there been so great a land, nor one of so diverse systems of government.
Before these travelers, for instance, who paused here at the head of the Ohio River, there lay the ancient dividing line between the South and the North. To the northwest, between the Great Lakes and the Ohio, swept a vast land which, since the days of the old Northwest Ordinance of 1787, had by _national_ enactment been decreed for ever free. Part of this had the second time been declared free, by _state_ law also. To the eastward of this lay certain states where slavery had been forbidden by the laws of the several states, though not by that of the nation. Again, far out to the West, beyond the great waterway on one of whose arms our travelers now stood, lay the vast provinces bought from Napoleon; and of these, all lying north of that compromise line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, agreed upon in 1820, had been declared for ever free by _national_ law. Yet beyond this, in the extreme northwest, lay Oregon, fought through as free soil by virtue of the old Northwest Ordinance, the sleeping dog of slavery being evaded and left to lie when the question of Oregon came up. Along the Pacific, and south of Oregon, lay the new empire of California, bitterly contended over by both sections, but by her own self-elected _state_ law declared for ever free soil. Minnesota and the Dakotas were still unorganized, so there the sleeping dog might lie, of course.
To the south of that river on which our voyagers presently were to take ship, lay a section comprising the southern states, in extent far larger than all the northern states, and much stronger in legislative total power in the national halls of Congress. Here slavery was maintained by laws of the _states_ themselves. The great realm of Texas, long coveted by the South, now was joined to the ranks of the slave-holding states, by virtue of a war of somewhat doubtful justice though of undoubted success. Above Texas, and below the line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, lay a portion of what was known as the Indian country, where in 1820 there had been made no _prohibition_ of slavery by the _national_ government.
Above the line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, there thrust up a portion of Texas which had no law at all, nor had it any until a very recent day, being known under the t.i.tle of "No Man"s Land."
Yet on to the westward, toward free California, lay a vast but supposedly valueless region where cotton surely would not grow, that rich country now known as Utah, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. This region, late gained by war from Mexico, soon to be increased by purchase from Mexico on the South, was still of indeterminate status, slavery not being prohibited but permitted, by _federal_ action, although most of this territory had been free soil under the old laws of Mexico. Moreover, as though sardonically to complicate all these much-mingled matters, there thrust up to the northward, out of the permitted slavery region of the South, the state of Missouri, quite above the fateful line of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes, where slavery was permitted both by _federal_ and _state_ enactment.
Men spoke even then, openly or secretly, of disunion; but in full truth, there had as yet been no actual union. In such confusion, what man could call unwise a halting-time, a compromise? A country of tenures so mixed, of theories so diverse, could scarcely have been called a land of common government. It arrogated to itself, over all its dominion, the t.i.tle of a free republic, yet by its own mutual covenant of national law, any owner of slaves in the southern states might pursue what he called his property across the dividing line, and invoke, in any northern state, the support of the state or national officers to a.s.sist him in taking back his slaves. As a republic we called ourselves even then old and stable. Yet was ever any country riper for misrule than ours?
Forgetting now what is buried, the old arguments all forgot, that most b.l.o.o.d.y and most lamentable war all forgot, could any mind, any imagination, depict a situation more rife with tumult, more ripe for war than this? And was it not perforce an issue, of compromise or war; of compromise, or a union never to be consummated?
Yet into this heterogeneous region, from all Europe, itself convulsed with revolution, Europe just beginning to awaken to the doctrine of the rights of humanity, there pressed westward ever increasing thousands of new inhabitants--in that current year over a third of a million, the largest immigration thus far known. Most of these immigrants settled in the free country of the North, and as the railways were now so hurriedly crowding westward, it was to be seen that the ancient strife between North and South must grow and not lessen, for these new-comers were bitterly opposed to slavery. Swiftly the idea national was growing. The idea democratic, the idea of an actual self-government--what, now, was to be its history?
North of the fated compromise line, west of the admitted slave state of Missouri, lay other rich lands ripe for the plow, ready for Americans who had never paid more than a dollar an acre for land, or for aliens who had never been able to own any land at all.
Kansas and Nebraska, names conceived but not yet born,--what would they be? Would the compromise of this last summer of 1850 hold the balances of power even? Could it save this republic, still young and needy, for yet a time in the cause of peace and growth? Many devoutly hoped it. Many devoutly espoused the cause of compromise merely for the sake of gaining time. As neither of the great political parties of the day filled its ranks from either section, so in both sections there were many who espoused, as many who denied, the right of men to own slaves. We speak of slavery as the one great question of that day. It was not and never has been the greatest. The question of democracy--that was even then, and it is now, the greatest question.
Here on the deck of the steamer at the little city of Pittsburg, then gateway of the West, there appeared men of purposes and beliefs as mixed as this mixed country from which they came. Some were pushing out into what now is known as Kansas, others going to take up lands in Missouri. Some were to pa.s.s south to the slave country, others north to the free lands; men of all sorts and conditions, many men, of many minds, that was true, and all hurrying into new lands, new problems, new dangers, new remedies.
It was a great and splendid day, a great and vital time, that threshold-time, when our western traffic increased so rapidly and a.s.suredly that steamers scarcely could be built rapidly enough to accommodate it, and the young rails leaped westward at a speed before then unknown in the world.
Carried somehow, somewhither, for some reason, on these surging floods, were these travelers, of errand not wholly obvious to their fellows, yet of such sort as to call into query alike the nature of their errand and their own relations. It is easily earned repet.i.tion to state that Josephine St. Auban"s was a presence not to be concealed. Even such a boat as the Mount Vernon offered a total deck s.p.a.ce so cramped as to leave secrecy or privacy well out of the question, even had the motley and democratic a.s.semblage of pa.s.sengers been disposed to accord either. Yet there was something in the appearance of this young woman and her companion which caused all the heterogeneous groups of humanity to make way for them, as presently they approached the gang-plank.
Apparently they were not unexpected. The ship"s clerks readily led the way to apartments which had been secured in advance. Having seen to the luggage of his charges, whom he disposed in a good double state-room, the leader of the party repaired to his own quarters. Tarrying no longer than to see his own luggage safe aboard, he commanded one of the men to fetch him to the office of the captain.
The latter gentleman, busy and important, dropped much of his official way when he found whom he was accosting. "This is quite unexpected, sir," he began, removing his cap and bowing.
"Captain Rogers," began the other, "you have been advised to some extent of my plans by telegram from Washington."
The captain hesitated. "Is this with the lady"s consent? I must consider the question of damages."
"There will be no damages. Your owners will be quite safe, and so will you."
"Are there any charges of any kind against----?"