Adventure, December 3, 1920 — page 94: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

84 girl, eighteen, was becoming a toast among men much older and very, very much more sophisticated than I. She was often spoken of as the belle of Charles City County, and I spent much time vainly wishing she was less attractive. Her father, engaged in the Indian-trade, and often away from home for several months at a time, had seemed to be very kindly disposed to me. I instinctively hurried to the Dales to impart the astounding fact that I was bankrupt. One usually speaks of financial reverses as “crashing about” one’s head. My wind-up did not even possess that poor dignity; for there was not enough left even to rattle, let alone crash. The youth who rode so desperately to the Dale home that wonderful day tragically to proclaim his plight, followed by fervid vows to go away and make a new fortune, has long since won my sympathy. I have always resented Ericus Dale’s attitude toward that youth on learning he was a pauper. It is bad enough to confess to a girl that one has not enough to marry on; but it is hell to be compelled to add that one has not enough to woo on. How it wrung my heart to tell her I was an imposter, that I was going to the back-country and begin life all over. Poor young devil! How many like me have solemnly declared their intentions to begin all over, whereas, in fact, they never had begun at all. And why does youth in such juvenile cata- clysms feel forced to seek new fields in making the fresh start? Shame for having failed, I suppose. An unwillingness to toe the scratch under the handicap of having his neighbors know it is his second trial. But so much had happened since that epochal day back in Williamsburg that it seemed our parting had been fully a million years ago. It made me smile to remember how mature Patsy had been when I meekly ran her errands and gladly wore her yoke in the old days. Three years of surveying, scouting’ and dis- patch-bearing through the trackless wilderness had aged me. Iprided myself I was an old man in worldly wisdom. Patsy Dale had only added three years to her young life. I could even feel much at ease in meeting Ericus Dale. And yet there had been no day during my absence that I did not think of her, still idealizing her, and finding her fragrant memory an anodyne when suffering in the wilderness. The sun was casting its longest shadows as I inquired for the house and rode to it. If my heart went pit-a-pat when I dismounted and walked to the veranda it must have been be- cause of anticipation. As I was about to rap on the casing of the open door I heard a deep voice exclaim: “This country’s going to the dogs! We need the regulars over here. Using volunteers weakens a country. Volunteers are too —— Adventure independent. They'll soon get the notion they’re running things over here. ——. Put me in charge of Virginia, and I’d make some changes. I’d begin with Dunmore and wind up with the backwoodsmen. Neither Whigs nor Tories can save this country. It’s trade we want, trade with the Indians.” I could not hear that any one was answering him, and after a decent interval I rapped again. At last I heard a slow, heavy step approaching from the cool twilight of the living-room. “Aye? You have business with me, my man?” demanded Dale, staring into my face without appearing to recognize me. He had changed none that I could perceive. Short, square as though chopped out of an oak log. His dark hair still kinked a bit and suggested great virility. His thick lips were pursed as of old, and the bushy brows, projecting nearly an inch from the deep-set eyes, perhaps had a bit more gray in them than they showed three years back. “Ericus Dale, you naturally have forgotten me,” I began. you and your daughter three years ago in Williamsburg.” “Oh, young Morris, eh? I’m better at remembering Indian faces than white. Among ’em so much. So you’re young Morris, who made a fool of himself trying to be gentry. Sit down. Turned to forest-running, I should say.” “And he advanced to the edge of the veranda and seated himself. He had not bothered to shake hands. “T had business with Colonel Lewis and I wished to see you and Patsy before going back,” I explained. I had looked for bluntness in his greeting, but I had expected to be invited inside the house. “Pat’s out,” he mumbled, his keen gaze roaming up and down my forest garb. “But she’ll be back. Morris, you don’t seem to have made a of a hit at prosperity since coming out this way.” “T’m dependent only on myself,’ I told him. “Personal appearance doesn’t go for much when you’re in the woods.” “Ain’t it the truth?” he agreed. “In trade?” “Carrying dispatches between Fort Pitt and Governor Dunmore just now. Surveying before that.’ “Then, by Harry, sir! You could be in better business,” he snapped. “What with Dunmore at the top, and thieving, land-grabbing settlers at the bottom, this country is going to the devil! Dunmore cooks up a war to make a profit out of his land-jobbing! Settlers quit good lands on this side the mountains to go land-stealing in the Kentucky country and north of the Ohio. It riles my blood! I say you could be in better business than helping along the schemes of Dunmore and that trained skunk of his, Jack Connolly.” EOPMIG OOO KS “T am Basdel Morris. I knew” EO)