The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 28

"It's my favorite music. There's no sorrow in a banjo. You can make it laugh. You can make it shout. You can make it growl and howl and snarl and fight. But you can't make a banjo cry. There are no tears in it. The joy of living is all a banjo knows. Why should we try to know anything else anyhow?"

"We shouldn't," she answered soberly. "The other things will come without invitation sometime."

For an hour they talked of the deep things of life. He told of his high ambitions of service for his country in the dark days that might come in the future. Of the kind of soldier the nation would need, and the ideal he had set for his soul of truth and honor, of high thinking and clean living in the temptations that come to a soldier's daily life.

And she applauded his ideals. She told him they were big and fine and she was proud of him as a true son of Old Virginia.

The sun was sinking behind the dim smoky hills toward the West when she rose.

"We must be going!"

"I had no idea it was so late," he apologized.

It was not until he reached his room at eleven o'clock after three hours more of her in the reception room that he faced the issue squarely.

He stood before the mirror and studied his flushed face. A look of deep seriousness had crept into his jolly blue eyes.

"You're a goner, this time, young man!" he whispered. "You're in love."

He paused and repeated it softly.

"_In love_--the big thing this time. Sweeping all life before it.

Blotting out all that's pa.s.sed and gripping all that lies beyond--Glory to G.o.d!"

For hours he lay awake. The world was made anew. The beauty of the new thought filled his soul with grat.i.tude.

He dared not tell her yet. The stake was too big. He was playing for all that life held worth having. He couldn't rush a girl of that kind. A blunder would be fatal. He had a reputation as a flirt. She had heard it, no doubt. He must put his house in order. His word must ring true.

She must believe him.

He made up his mind to return to Fort Leavenworth next day and manage somehow to get transferred to Fort Riley for two weeks.

CHAPTER XVII

The Surveyor of the lands of Pottawattomie Creek was shaping the organization of a band of followers.

To this little group, composed as yet of his own sons in the main, he talked of his work, his great duty, his mission with mystic elation. A single idea was slowly fixing itself in his mind as the purpose of life.

It was fast becoming an obsession.

He slept but little. The night before he had slept but two hours. When the camp supper had been prepared, he stood with bare head in the midst of his followers and thanked G.o.d. The meal was eaten to-night in a grim silence which Brown did not break once. The supper over, he rose and again returned thanks to the Bountiful Giver.

And then he left the camp without a word. Alone he tramped the prairie beneath the starlit sky of a beautiful May night. Hour after hour he paused and prayed. Always the one refrain came from his stern lips:

"Give me, oh, Lord G.o.d, the Vision!"

And he would wait with eyes set on the stars for its revelation. He crouched at last against the trunk of a tree in a little ravine near the camp. It was past three o'clock. William Walker, who was acting his second in command, was still waiting his orders for the following day.

He saw Brown enter the ravine at one o'clock. Impatient of his endless wandering, tired and sleepy, he decided to follow his Chief and ask his orders.

He found him in a sitting posture, leaning against a blackjack, his rifle across his knees. Walker called softly and received no response.

He approached and laid his hand on his shoulder.

Instantly he leaped to his feet, his rifle at his follower's breast, his finger on the trigger.

"My G.o.d!" Walker yelled.

His speech was too late to stop the pressure of the finger. Walker pushed the muzzle up and the ball grazed his shoulder. The leader gripped his follower's arm, stared at him a moment and merely grunted:

"Oh!"

When the day dawned a new man was found to act as second in command.

Walker had deserted his queer chieftain.

The old man entered the camp at dawn, the light of determination in his eyes and a new set to his jaw. His first plan of the Pottawattomie was right. The turn toward Lawrence had been a waste of time. He selected six men to accompany him on his mission, his four sons who had made up the Surveyor's party, his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, and Theodore Weiner. Owen, Salmon, Oliver and Frederick Brown knew every foot of the ground. They had carried the chain, set the markers and flags and kept the records.

He called his men in line and issued his first command:

"To the house of James Townsley."

Townsley belonged to the Pottawattomie Rifles of which organization his son, John Jr., was the Captain.

Arrived at the house, Brown drew Townsley aside and spoke in a vague, impersonal manner.

"I hear there is trouble expected on the Pottawattomie."

"Is there?"

"We hear it."

"What are you going to do?"

"March to their rescue. Will you help us?"

"How?"

"Harness your team of grays and take our party to Pottawattomie."

"All right."

The old man found a grindstone and ordered the ugly cutla.s.ses which he had brought from Ohio to be sharpened. He stood over the stone and watched it turned until each edge was as keen as a butcher's blade.

It began to dawn on the two younger sons before the grinding of the swords was finished what their father had determined.

Frederick asked Oliver tremblingly:

"What do you think of this thing?"