LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

other mail he left unopened, while he read and re-read this message of hope. It was so sacred to him – it meant so much. This great, strong fellow who, heretofore, had been proof against love’s tender passion, had awakened to find himself thoroughly ensnared in its silken meshes. No, he did not wish to be’ free. As he walked to and fro in his room, he idealized Ethel with an ardent chivalry that might have become a knight of old.

      The door-bell rang and Hugh Stanton was announced.

      “Admit him,” said Jack. “I wonder what he wants. No, I will not tell him of my happiness.”

      A moment later Hugh Stanton was ushered into Jack Redfield’s presence. They greeted as the warmest of friends. Between these two it was always “Jack” on the one side and “Hugh” on the other. They had been classmates at Princeton. After graduation Hugh had turned his attention to commercial pursuits, and had gradually worked his way up to the cashiership of one of Chicago’s most conservative banking institutions.

      Hugh Stanton presented a striking contrast to his friend, Doctor Redfield. He was slightly below medium height, and rather stout. He had a handsome, good-natured face, black eyes, fair skin, and a silky, dark mustache. His thick, dark hair was inclined to be wavy, while his rather small hands and feet suggested a patrician ancestry.

      After their greeting Jack produced a box of Havanas, and settling themselves in comfortable chairs, he observed, “Well, old boy, what’s the news?”

      “I am about to leave Chicago,” replied Hugh, with an interrogative smile as much as to say, “What do you think of that?”

      “Leave Chicago!” exclaimed Jack, in amazement. “Why, man, you have one of the best positions in the city.”

      “Yes, but you know that my father’s estate, which has been tied up so long in the courts, is at last settled; and I find myself with fifty thousand dollars in ready money at my command. That amount does not mean much in a city like this, but on the frontier, where rates of interest are high, I can soon double it several times; and then, too, I am tired of city life. One is too much of an atom in a great throbbing centre like Chicago.”

      “Well, you astonish me,” said Jack, “you almost take my breath away. I thought you were permanently settled and thoroughly in love with your surroundings.”

      “Well, you know there is an old saying,” said Hugh, smiling, “that it is better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in an ocean. I have been in correspondence with the captain of my father’s old company, who is now on the frontier, and am offered the cashiership and an opportunity to purchase half the stock in the national bank of which he is the president.”

      “It is rather strange that your father’s estate was so long in being settled,” said Jack, reflectively.

      “Yes,” said Hugh, “more than twenty years from the time of his supposed death. He fought in the battle of Bethel Church and was numbered among the missing, but we were unable to establish the fact of his death. My mother died when I was a mere child, and then I lived with an uncle, who has had charge of my affairs; but at last everything is settled, and the money is now to my credit in the bank.”

      “And so you are going to the frontier. I fear you will soon grow tired of it,” said Jack, “the contrast will be so great. What sort of man is he with whom you are going to associate yourself?”

      “I cannot say,” replied Hugh, as he knocked the ashes from his cigar, “I have never met him. He was captain of the company in which my father was first lieutenant, and I have had considerable correspondence with him in trying to obtain information in regard to my father’s death. This correspondence has, strangely enough, led to the present contemplated business arrangement.”

      “Well, we must see much of each other between now and the time you start.”

      “My dear Jack,” replied Hugh, “I have already resigned my position and I shall leave to-morrow for my new home. I have called to-night to have an old-time chat, and to say farewell.”

      Jack looked at his friend incredulously, and said, half indignantly, “Well, why have n’t you called before?”

      “I have called nearly every evening for the past two weeks,” replied Hugh, “but you were never at home.”

      “Oh, yes,” said Jack, looking up at the tiers of books on the shelves, and plucking his mustache, reflectively. “Yes, that’s so, I have been away – professional calls, you know.”

      Soon Hugh Stanton took leave of his friend and the following day found him en route for Meade, Kansas.

      After crossing the “Big Muddy” at Kansas City, Hugh began to realize, for the first time, that he was entering the “Great Plains” – that he was, indeed, in the West. He gazed meditatively from the car windows and beheld, in rapturous anticipation, the vast, rolling, monotonous prairies. He was coming to a land of promise, a land of hopes and of disappointments, a land of vast herds and of writhing winds, a land of struggling farmers and of princely cattle barons, a land of wild flowers and of sunshine. Here, Hugh Stanton was soon to become an actor on the realistic stage of the Southwest. He was to become, first, an actor in melodrama, then tragedy, and finally he was to play a part in a mighty orchestral avalanche of mystery.

      CHAPTER V. – A FRONTIER BANKER

      MEADE, Kansas, was at that time almost a typical western frontier town, situated some forty miles southwest of Dodge City – the nearest railroad station – and on the western bank of a small stream known as Crooked Creek. It had then a population of three or four thousand people, and was an important commercial centre for ranchmen and cattlemen. When Hugh Stanton arrived on the old four-horse stage-coach from Dodge City, late one afternoon, he found himself covered with dust and almost exhausted from the tiresome ride. The leading hotel was the Osborn House, where he found convenient and pleasant quarters. The hotel property belonged to Captain Lyman Osborn, who also owned several brick business blocks at Meade.

      That evening he met Captain Osborn, who gave him a hearty welcome to Meade and expressed sincere pleasure at his decision to join him in the banking business.

      On the following day, after carefully looking over the books of the Meade National Bank, Hugh made arrangements to purchase one-half of the capital stock of the institution and was duly elected and installed cashier.

      Those were halcyon days in southwestern Kansas. Hugh, to his amazement, found that deposits in the bank amounted to over half a million dollars and that a semi-annual dividend of fifteen per cent, was regularly declared.

      Captain Osborn was a man of perhaps sixty years, military in bearing and possessing a flowing iron gray mustache and an imperial mien that gave him a distinguished appearance.

      “Sir, you remind me very much of your father, Lieutenant Stanton,” observed the captain one day after Hugh had become his partner in the banking business. “There was not a braver man in the company. We were bosom friends for many years before the war with the South, and we enlisted at the same time. I feel very proud, Stanton, my boy, that we have become associated in business. I know that I can trust you implicitly, and I have need of some friend to lean upon.”

      The rich, deep voice of the old captain quivered a little as he spoke, and a shadow of melancholy flitted across his face.

      “You will not be disappointed with the profits,” he continued, – “they are certainly enormous compared with returns on money in the middle or eastern States.”

      “I am quite sure,” replied Hugh, “that I shall like the change to the frontier, although it differs vastly from the busy metropolis that I have just left.”

      “Doubtless,” said the captain, “the contrast is very marked. There are many reasons why I like southwestern Kansas. The climate is superb; then there are so many old soldiers here, and you know between the veterans there is a sort of unspoken friendship. Scattered throughout our valleys and across our prairies you will find the boys who wore the blue and those who wore the gray dwelling on adjoining farms, and the best of neighbors. There are many old soldiers of the late war living among us; one of the most prominent of whom is Major Buell

Скачать книгу