Jessica Trent: Her Life on a Ranch

CHAPTER XIV

THE FINISH

It was a journey of something more than two hundred miles and they were almost a week on the way; riding for several hours each morning and evening; camping in some well-watered spot at midday; or, this failing, sharing the dinner of some friendly ranchman. Also, they slept at some little inn or ranch, and where their hosts would receive it, Ephraim delighted to make liberal payment for their entertainment.

Indeed, he felt a prince, with his well-filled purse, and would have forced all sorts of dainties and knickknacks upon his little charge, at each village they passed through, save that she resolutely refused them.

“You generous Ephraim, no! What money we need for the trip and after we get to Los Angeles is all right. But you mustn’t waste it. Hear! I am older than you in this thing.”

“But–I want you to have everything nice in the world, Lady Jess. Any other of the ‘boys’ traveling with you–”

“Could not have been so kind and thoughtful as you. Not one. Dearly as I love them I’d rather have you to take care of me on this long journey than any other single one. So do be good and not extravagant. And isn’t it lovely to find how almost everybody knew of my dear father? Or, if they didn’t know him for himself, they’d heard of him and of something he’d done for somebody. It makes the way seem almost short and as if I’d been over the road before.”

“He often passed this way, child; and whenever he went left pleasant memories behind him. He was a grand man, was Cassius Trent. Ugh! To think–”

“That will be all right, Ephraim. I know it. I feel it. And how I do love all the new places and things I see. I should never have cared to leave Sobrante but for this business; yet now I have left it I’m finding the world a big, splendid, lovely place.”

“H-m-m! I reckon even this old earth could show only its best side to you, little girl. However, it has been pleasant and it’s about over. Aunt Sally’s provisions didn’t have to go into the mesquite bushes, after all. What we couldn’t eat we’ve found plenty of others to take off our hands. Even the medicine didn’t go begging, and that’ll do her proud to hear. Poor wretches who have to take it!”

“But they wanted it, Ephraim. Some of the women said they hadn’t had a dose of medicine in years and seemed as pleased as if it had been sweetmeats. Now the basket is empty. What shall you do with that?”

“Leave it at the next place we stop.”

They had set out upon their ride on Tuesday morning and this was sunset, Saturday. They were descending the slope of a mountain and the guide pointed forward, eagerly.

“Do you see that hazy spot off yonder? That’s our City of the Angels! The city where we shall find justice and honor.”

“Oh, shall we be there to-night?”

“No. We might have been days ago if we’d ridden across country and struck the railway lines, but I wanted to do just as we have done. I knew you’d hear so much about your father it would do you good forever. We can go home the quicker way if we think best; and if we have good news to take will, likely, so think, I–I’m almost sorry we’re so near the end.”

“In one way so am I. Not in another. I long to begin to hunt for that money and the men who have it.”

Ephraim sighed. Now that he was thus far on his mission he began to think it, indeed, as Joe Dean had said, “A good deal of the needle and haymow style.” But he rallied at once and answered, cheerfully:

“There’s a house I know, or used to, at the foot of this slope. I planned to sleep there to-night, make an early start in the morning, and ride the fifteen miles left so as to get to the town in time for the churches. To think you’re eleven years old, Lady Jess, yet have never been inside any church except the rickety old mission.”

“Do you like churches, Ephraim?”

“Yes. I do now, child. I didn’t care so much about ’em when I lived nigh ’em. But they’re right. There’s a good many kinds of ’em and they get me a little mixed, arguing. But they’re right; and the bell–It’ll be a good beginning of this present job to go to meeting the first thing.”

“Oh! this wonderful world and the wonderful things I’m learning! What a lot I shall have to tell the folks when I get home. Seems as if I couldn’t wait.”

They found the little lodging-house, as Ephraim had hoped, though now kept by a stranger to him. However, the new landlord made them comfortable, charged them an exorbitant price–having caught sight of his guest’s fat purse–and set them early on their way. “Forty-niner” did not complain. Their next and final stop would be with an old fellow-miner who, at Ephraim’s last visit to Los Angeles, five years before, had kept a tidy little inn on one of the city’s central streets. If this old friend were still living he would give them hearty welcome, the best entertainment possible, and what was more to the purpose–practical advice as to their business.

“The bells! The bells! Oh! they are what you said, the sweetest things I ever heard!” cried Lady Jess, in delight, as over the miles of distance there floated to them on the clear air, the chimes and sonorous tollings from many church towers.

“We shall be late, after all, I guess. That means it’s time for the meetings to begin. Well, there’ll be others in the afternoon; so we may as good take it easy and go slow.”

This suited Jessica, who found more and more to surprise and interest her in every stage of their advance, and most of all as they entered the city. This was much altered and improved since the sharpshooter had himself last seen it, but even thus he could point out many of the finest buildings, name the chief avenues, and comport himself after the manner of one who knows enlightening one who does not.

But soon Jessica saw few of the things which interested him and heard him not at all. It was the first time she had ever seen a girl of her own age, and now–the streets were full of them. In their gay Sunday attire, on their homeward way now from the churches whose bells had long ceased to ring, they were here, there, and everywhere. They lined the sidewalks and glittered from the open electric cars. They smiled at one another and, a few, at her; for to them, also, this other stranger girl was a novel sight, just then and there. Besides the oddity of her dress and equipment, the eagerness and beauty of her face attracted them, and more than one pair of eyes turned to look after her, as Scruff scrambled along, unguided by his rider, and dodging one danger only to face another.

“That’s a country girl, fast enough; and if she doesn’t look out that uneasy burro will land her on the curbstone! Look out there, child!” cried one passerby, just as the animal bounded across the track of a whizzing trolley.

But this peril escaped, Ephraim grasped Scruff’s bridle and presently led the way into a quieter street or alley, and thence to the wide plaza before the inn he sought.

“Thank fortune, there’s room enough here to turn around in! And there’s the very house. Hello! Lady Jess! I say, Jessica!”

Without warning the girl had whisked the bridle from his grasp and had chirruped to the now excited beast in the manner which meant:

“Go your swiftest!”

Scruff went. Following he knew not what, and terrified afresh at every square he traversed. Somewhere a band of music was playing, and the beating of the drums seemed to his donkey brain the most horrible of noises. To escape it and the ever-increasing throng his nimble feet flew up and down like mad; he thrust his head between the arms of people and forced the crowd to part for him; he reared, backed, plunged, and shook himself; but did not in the least disturb his mistress’ firm seat, as with her own head leaning forward she kept her gaze upon some distant object and urged him to pursuit.

The crowd which made way for this eager pair was first angry, then amused. After that it began to collect into a formidable following. Poor Lady Jess became to them a “show” and Scruff’s antics but meant to exhibit her “trick” riding.

Now Stiffleg was an ancient beast, which had been a trotter in his day; but his day, like his master’s, was past. By good care and easy stages he had accomplished his long journey in fair condition; but he was a sensible animal and felt that he had earned a rest. So when Ephraim urged him forward after the vanishing burro he halted and turned his head about. If ever equine eyes protested against further effort, his did then; and at ordinary times “Forty-niner” would have been the first to perceive this appeal and grant it. He had always bragged that “Stiffleg’s more human than most folks,” but he forgot this now. He remembered only that his precious charge was fast disappearing from sight and that in another moment she would be lost in a great, strange city.

“Simpleton that I was! I never even mentioned the name of the tavern we were going to,” reflected, “else she might tell it and get shown the way.” Then came another startling thought. For fear of just such an emergency–why had he been silly enough to think of it?–he had on that very morning, as they neared their journey’s end, divided their money into two portions and make her carry the larger one. She had objected, at first; but afterward consented, and with pride in his trust. “If any scamp got hold of her he’d rob her or–maybe worse! Oh, Atlantic! Giddap, Stiff! Giddap, I tell you!”

To the crowd this appeared but another feature of “the show.” These rustics from the plains had evidently come into town to furnish entertainment for Sunday strollers, and Stiffleg’s obstinacy was to them a second of the “tricks” to be exhibited.

However, it was a case of genuine balk; and the more Ephraim urged, implored, chastised, the firmer were the horse’s forefeet planted upon the highway and the more despairing became the rider’s feeling.

“Build a fire under him,” “Thrust red pepper under his nose,” “Tie him to a trolley car.” “Blindfold him.”

Various were the suggestions offered, to none of which did the sharpshooter pay any heed. The brass band accomplished what nothing else could. Blatantly it came around the corner, keeping time to its own noisy drums, and Stiffleg pricked up his ears. In his youth he had marched to battle and, at that moment, his youth was renewed. He reared his drooping head, a thrill ran through his languid veins, and, though still without advance motion, his hoofs began to beat a swift tattoo, till the towering plumes of the drum major came alongside his own now gleaming eyes. Then, he wheeled suddenly and–forward!

“Ho! the old war-horse! That’s a pretty sight,” shouted somebody.

Alas! for Ephraim. The unexpected movement of the balking animal did for him what was rare indeed–unseated him. By the time that it was “right front” for Stiffleg his master was on the ground, feeling that an untoward fate had overtaken him and that his leg, if not his heart, was broken. Music had charms, in truth, for the rejuvenated beast, and one of the sharpshooter’s pet theories was thereby proved false. Had anybody at Sobrante told him that anything could entice his “faithful” horse away from him he would have denied the statement angrily. He would have declared, with equal conviction, that, in case of accident like this, the intelligent creature would have stayed beside and tried to tend him.

Now, lying forsaken both by Jessica and Stiffleg, he uttered his shame and misery in a prolonged howl, as he attempted to rise and could not.

“O! Ough! Oh! My leg’s broke! My leg’s broke all to smash, I tell you. Somebody pick me up and carry me–yonder–to the Yankee Blade. If Tom Jefferts keeps it still, he’ll play my friend. Oh! Ah!”

Some in the now pitying throng exchanged glances, and one man bent over the prostrate Ephraim, saying, kindly:

“Why, Tom Jefferts hasn’t been in this town these three years. He went to ’Frisco and set up there. If there’s anybody else you’d like to notify I’ll telephone–”

“He gone, too! Then let me lie. What do I care what becomes of me now? Oh! my leg!”

The bravest men are cowards before physical suffering, sometimes. Ephraim would have faced death for Jessica without flinching, but that gathering agony of pain made him indifferent, for the moment, even to her welfare. This calamity had fallen upon him like lightning from a clear sky and benumbed him, so to speak. But it had not benumbed those about him. Within five minutes the clang of an ambulance gong was heard, and the aid which some thoughtful person had summoned arrived. Ephraim was tenderly lifted and placed within the conveyance, and away it dashed again, though almost without jar, and certainly without hindrance, since everything on the street gives place to suffering.

By the time the hospital was reached the patient had recovered something of his customary fortitude, but he was still too confused and distressed to think clearly about his escaped charge and what should be done to find her. As for Stiffleg:

“I hope I’ll never see that cowardly, ungrateful beast again!” he ejaculated; then resigned himself to the surgeon’s hands.

That which Lady Jess had perceived in the distance and had followed so wildly was the tall figure of a gentleman in a gray suit. He wore a gray hat and blue glasses, such as her mother had pressed upon Mr. Hale’s acceptance during his brief stay at Sobrante.

“It’s he! It certainly is he! Oh! Now I can tell him how sorry both mother and I were that the ‘boys’ behaved so rudely. And he’s a lawyer. He’s on the same business we are, if his is the other side. I must stop him–quick!”

This might have been an easy thing to do, under Scruff’s present rate of speed; but, unfortunately, the tall man stepped into a hack, waiting beside the plaza for stray passengers, and giving an order was driven rapidly away.

For a long time Jessica kept that carriage in sight; then it turned a corner into an avenue, where were hundreds more just like it, it seemed to her, and she lost it among the many.

Even yet she pressed on determined. “In a city–it’s just one city, even if it is a big one–I shall find him if I keep on. I must. Go, Scruff! The band is after you. Go! Go!”

The overtaxed burro had already “gone” to his fullest ability. He could do no more, although his mistress whispered “sugar,” “sweet cake” and other tempting words. His excited pace dropped to the slowest of walks, his breath came hardly, and finally he leaned himself against a post and rested. When he had done so for some moments, Jessica turned him about and looked backward, expecting to see Ephraim close behind. But he was nowhere in sight; and in a flash of horror the girl realized that she was lost.

CHAPTER XV

A NEW FRIEND FOR THE OLD

“Lost! I’m lost! Right here in this great city full of folks. It seemed so easy to find Mr. Hale and it was so hard. There are so many streets–which one is right? There are so many people–oh! if they’d stop going by for just one minute, till I could think.”

The passing crowd that had so interested now terrified her. Among all the changing faces not one she knew, not one that more than glanced her way, and was gone on, indifferent. The memory of a time in her early childhood when she had strayed into the canyon and became bewildered flashed through her mind. Was she to suffer again the misery of that dreadful day? But the day had ended in a father’s rescuing arms, and now–

“I remember he told me then that if ever I were lost again I was to keep perfectly still for a time and think over all the things I’d seen by the way. After awhile I might feel sure enough to go slowly back and guide myself by them. But I can’t think here. It’s so noisy and thick with men and women. And I’m getting so hungry. Ephraim said we would have the best dinner his friend could give us. If he’d told me that friend’s name or where he lived. Well, I’ll mind my father in one thing; I’ll keep still. Then if Ephraim should happen to come this way he’d find me sooner. But–he won’t. Something has happened, or he’d never let me out of sight. If I didn’t know the bigness of a city he did and would have taken care.”

So she dismounted and led Scruff back beside the telegraph post, against which the weary animal calmly leaned his shoulder and went to sleep. Jessica threw her arm over the burro’s neck and, standing so, scanned every passing pedestrian and peered into every whirling vehicle.

Something of her first terror left her. She was foolish to think anything harmful could have happened to “Forty-niner” so quickly after she had run away from him. She wished she had called and explained to him, but she had had no time if she would catch up to that gray-coated gentleman. After all they were still in the same city and all she needed was patience.

“That’s what I have so little of, too. Maybe this is a lesson to me. Mother says impatient people always find life harder than the quiet kind. I wonder what she’s doing now! and oh! I’m glad she can’t see me. She’d suffer more than I do. It’s queer how that man, in a fancy coat, with so many brass buttons, keeps looking at me. He’s walked by this place on one side the street or the other ever so many times. I wonder if he owns this post. Maybe it’s his and he doesn’t like us to stand here, yet is too polite to say so. Come, Scruff, let’s walk a little further along. Then he can see we don’t mean to hurt his post.”

Scruff reluctantly roused and moved a pace or two, then went to sleep again. The shadow of a building that had sheltered them from the hot sunshine passed gradually and left them exposed to the full glare from the sky. Both Jessica and the burro were used to heat, however, and did not greatly suffer from it. But this motionless waiting became almost intolerable to active Lady Jess, and the sharpness of her hunger changed into faintness. The sidewalks seemed to be rising up to strike her and her head felt queer; so she pulled the hot Tam from her curls, leaned her cheek against Scruff’s neck, and, to clear her dizzy vision, closed her eyes. Then for a long time knew no more.

A young man sat down to smoke his after-dinner cigar before the window of a clubhouse across the way. Idly observant of the comparatively few persons passing at that hour, his artist eye was caught by the scarlet gleam of Jessica’s cap, fallen against the curbstone.

“Hello! That child has been in that spot for two hours, I think. She was there before I went to dinner and must be dead tired. But she and the burro are picturesque–I’ll sketch them.”

He whipped out notebook and pencil and by a few skillful lines reproduced the pair opposite. But as he glanced toward them, now and then, during this operation, he became convinced that something was amiss with his subject.

“Poor little thing! If she’s waiting for anybody she keeps the baby too long. I’m going over and speak to her. If she’s hungry I’ll send her a sandwich.”

At his touch on her shoulder Jessica roused. Her sleep had refreshed her, though she was still somewhat confused.

“Oh! Ephraim! How long you’ve been! Why–it isn’t Ephraim!”

“No, little girl, I’m not Ephraim, but I’m a friend. I’m afraid you will be ill standing so long in the hot sun. Are you waiting for anybody?”

The voice was kind and Jessica was glad to speak to any one. She told her story at once in a few words. The young man’s face grew grave as he listened, still he spoke encouragingly.

“It’s quite easy for strangers in a big place to get separated. Suppose, since you haven’t had your dinner, as I guess, that you go with me and have some. Wait, I’ll just speak to that policeman, yonder, and ask him to have a lookout for your Ephraim, while we’re in the restaurant. There’s a good place halfway down the block, and from its window you can watch the burro for yourself. I’ll tie him, shan’t I?”

“He’s very tired. I don’t think he’ll need any tying. He’s never tied at Sobrante.”

“Sobrante? Are you from Sobrante? Why, I’ve heard of that ranch, myself.”

“Have you? That makes it seem as if I knew you.”

The stranger smiled and beckoned to the policeman, who proved to be the brass-buttoned individual that had taken so much apparent interest in Jessica, but had not spoken to her of his own accord. He came forward promptly now and the young man related to him what Lady Jess had said. Then asked:

“What would I better do about it? I thought of taking her to the restaurant over there and getting her some dinner.”

“No. She’d better go to the station-house with me. The matron’ll look after her and I’ll have the donkey put in stable. I’ll tell the officer who’s coming on this beat now to keep an eye out for a countryman with a stiff-legged horse; is it, girl?”

“Yes. A bay horse, with a blazed face. The horse’s name is Stiffleg and the master’s, Ephraim Marsh.”

The officer made the entry in his book, then took hold of Scruff’s bridle and led the way stationward. Jessica looked appealingly into the young man’s face and he smiled, then grasped her hand.

“Don’t fear, child, that I’ll desert you till I find your old guardian. There’s nothing frightful about a station-house, except to criminals,” he said, kindly.

However, Jessica knew nothing of such institutions and therefore had no fear of them. With the exception of Antonio’s “crossness” she had met with nothing but love and kindness all her life, and she looked for nothing else. She was already happy again at finding two persons ready to talk with her and help her; and her pretty face grew more and more charming to the artist’s view as she skipped along beside him toward the police headquarters, as this station chanced to be.