The Friend

The Friend. BY WILLARD DONE. I. "Big Bill Dayton" he was called by the men who rode the western plains with him. In the large hearts of these men, expanding under the influence of the boundless plains and the lofty mountains, he occupied a place befitting his size. For Dayton was a big-bodied, large-souled man, in every sense a friend. And if, in a universal way, "all the world loves a lover," every man in it loves intimately and individually a friend. Dayton was a scout, hunter and guide on the western frontiers in the early 50's, and knew every phase of the wild lives and strong, sturdy, true characters of the men who braved the primitive perils and hardships of the virgin wilderness. Therewas a mysterious something connected with his early life in New England which had been only vaguely hinted at among his companions, but was circumstantially known to none of them. They only knew, in a general way, that in his young manhood he had had educational advantages, social aspirations, bright prospects, refined surroundings, influential connections. Then, of a sudden, everything changed; prospects vanished; the future was darkened; and "the places that had known him knew him no more." It was, as Longfellow has said, As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine, Suddenly paused in the sky, and fading, slowly descended Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. There were vague hints of an unfortunate love affair, involving the treachery of a trusted friend, and a disappointment from

THE FRIEND. 879 which complete recovery was impossible. At any rate, he suddenly left his native town just when his career seemed about to open, and began a new life in the great west. The friends he found in his new home, and the few strangers he occasionally met, made but few attempts to probe into his past, and he met these attempts with good-humored but baffling evasion. "Bill," said one of them, "why did ye come to th' wild and woolly, when ye might 've hed wife and young 'uns and home and infiooence in th' effete east? What made ye come, anyway?" With a good-natured smile and wink he answered, " 'Cause I like ye so well, boys. I felt yer friendly hooks a reachin' out and pullin' me acrost the range, and I jist couldn't help comin'. It was your fault thet the east lost me, an' my promisin' career was cut short. Why say, boys, if ye'd only let me alone, I might' ve been in Congress or in jail by now. And maybe I wouldn't 've broke the hearts of a lot of forlorn girls and left New England so all fired full of pinin' old maids. It's all your fault, boys." His manner of speech, rather than his words, was greeted with delighted shouts, and the boys knew better than to pursue the subject further. It was very evident that Dayton had no intention of telling them of his life before the west called him. And yet each day their conviction was deepened that reasons unknown to them lay behind his severing old ties and forming new ones. So they bided their time in patience. Only with one of the men was Dayton in the least degree confidential. If it is the case that opposites attract, there was a striking illustration of the fact in the friendship of Dayton and Dick Martin. Dick was little more than five feet high, and weighed only a hundred and ten pounds. The contrast between his diminutive figure and Dayton's six feet, and more than two hundred pounds, of muscular manhood, was almost grotesque. But in the long rides and arduous labors and thrilling adventures of the frontiersmen, they were inseparable companions. "Big Bill" and "Dickey Boy" were familiarly and closely associated figures in the west; and if Dayton lifted the curtain of his past life to any one, it was to Martin.

880 IMPROVEMENT ERA. II. The golden glow of the summer of 1852 was fading into autumn, and some of the boys, Dayton and Martin among them, were ready for a trip from Fort Bridger to the Missouri river. They set out in the early morning, just as the level rays of the sun shot across the prairie, making a path of gold for the beginning of their journey. "It's a good sign, Dick," said Dayton, as he and Martin rode side by side, a little apart from the others. "What is?" asked the matter-of-fact Martin. "The sun-path to the east," answered Dayton, his serious eyes turned full on his friend's face. "Say, Bill," said Martin, "don't ye sometimes wish ye was in the east, 'stid of livin' in this no-man's country?" A shadow of pain rested for a moment on Dayton's face, as he made answer. "No, Dick, I don't. Fer I know thet out here there's truth and honesty, and when a friend hitches up with ye, he's yours till the world goes smash. It may be no-man's country," he added after a pause, "but it's God's country. And it's too big and wonderful for men to be mean; and people ain't so thick here thet they hev to lie and deceive and take each other's stuff and break faith with their friends. " "Bill," said Martin, "I know ye're way above us fellers. Ye're only puttin' on when ye talk rough and act ign'rant. When ye fergit yerself, ye talk and act like a— a — " he paused for a word — "like a Senator!" he finished abruptly. Dayton started at the word, and a flush spread over his face. "You've hit me right, Dick," he said. "You're the only man out here, I guess, that ever tried to understand me. So I think you can understand what I'm going to tell you. I was a law student in a New England town; and after graduating I opened an office, secured a practice, and made a start in politics. And there was where my trouble began. I was candidate for the Senatorship, and my chief opponent was also my rival for the love of a beautiful girl.

THE FRIEND. 881 "I never could prove it on him, but I believe he stooped to sharp practice and low politics to gain his ends and defeat meI'm not the kind of man, Dick, to play the trickster in love or a fight. I've got to see my enemy's eyes when I strike him. I can't stab him in the back. "Well, I woke up, the morning after the election, a ruined man: defeated for office, spurned by the girl I loved, stripped of my practice, shunned by my friends. I guess I was too hotheaded, but I immediately issued a statement declaring that I knew nothing of the means by which I had been defeated and discredited; that I cared nothing; that the good or ill opinion of people so fickle was a matter of indifference to me; that the truth would come out some time, and I would hold my patience; that I wouldn't dignify the town by living in it any longer; and much more to the same effect. "There was a great deal of bombast in what I said, but the spirit of indignant protest was on me and brought to full vigor an inborn love of wild adventure; so I left the town that night and started west. That was seven years ago, Dick, and no word has passed between my friends and me since that time. "If I had had any relatives," he continued after a time, "maybe I wouldn't have thrown away my life. But the spirit of wild unrest is on me now forever, and I am always to be a homeless, hopeless, aimless wanderer. ' ' There was such a note of pathos in the story and the manner of telling it, that tears sprang to Martin's eyes. In mute sympathy he grasped the big man's hand, and they rode on in silence. III. An emigrant train, bound for the gold fields of California, was making its slow and weary way westward. In the party was a man scarcely entering middle life, yet prematurely old, with hair growing gray and face deeply marked with lines of care. His wife was a strikingly handsome woman, refined in features, and graceful and dignified in bearing. But her face bore traces of sorrow and suffering and deep anxiety, as if ordeals remote or recent had tried her soul to the limit of endurance.

882 IMPROVEMENT ERA. With them was their only child, a little girl not more than five years old, but bearing evidence of a sad experience far beyond her years. Only at long intervals did she relax from her seriousness long enough to pick a flower or play with a pretty pebble, or note some curious object along the trail. For the most part she looked anxiously at her father and mother, as if trying vainly to read the story of sorrow and care written in their faces. It was only when her father was away that she put her questions into words. Time and again in the long journey had she asked her troubled mother questions which troubled and perplexed her the more. "Didn't we have a good home in Norton, mamma?" "Yes, my child." "And wasn't papa rich?" "Yes." "Was he a Senator?" "Yes, dear." "What does it mean to be a Senator?" "It's a great honor. A Senator goes to Washington and sits in a beautiful, big building and helps to make laws." "Then why did papa come back from there so soon?" "Hush, child," said the sorrowing mother, with a sob. "I can't make you understand." "But I'll understand sometime, won't I?" "I'm afraid so, my poor child." The little one looked wonderingly at her mother, and hesitated a moment between sympathy and curiosity. She must ask one more question, the one that perplexed her most, and on which her childish curiosity had never been satisfied. "Why did we leave home, where we had a nice house, and carriages and horses and money, and come out here where everything is so poor and bare and dry, and I get so tired— so tired — " "Hush, hush, my poor child," said the heart-sick mother, bursting into uncontrolable tears. And the little one put her arms around the mother's neck and murmured the words that have comforted many another sorely perplexed one, "Don't cry, mamma, everything will be all right."

THE FRIEND. 88b Then the father came up, and he knew that the old subject was up for sorrowful question. So he turned away, and let the wife and child weep out their anguish together. IV. Riding as scouts in advance of their party, Dayton and Martin made their camp one night near a small stream which ran into the Platte river. The two preceding days rumors of Indian troubles had been brought to them by trappers, who were returning to winter quarters at Salt Lake City. That night they took their turns at sentry duty. The second watch was taken by Dayton. The moon was at the full, and its mellow light brought every detail of the landscape into full relief. To the east of the camp was a low, sharp ridge, its slopes bearing a few trees. Like a silver band the glistening stream flowed past the camp, disappearing around the point of the hill. Tinged by the early frosts, winter's harbingers, the browning grass stretched in a ruffled vista to the north and south. The beauty of the scene enchanted Dayton, and the vast solitude reawakened in him the longings and aspirations of his early life. As he recalled his boyish hopes and ambitions, the career he had marked out for himself, and thought of her who he hoped would share it with him, he knew the bitter memories and vain regrets of the man who has cast the die of life and lost. He was roused from his reverie by a faint sound which seemed to come from the trees on the further slope of the ridge. He listened intently; and soon the sound was repeated. It was the cry of a child. A third time it reached him, but it was interrupted, as if a hand had been suddenly clapped over the little one's mouth. Dayton quietly awakened Martin and told him to watch the camp. Stealthily creeping up the slope, he saw an Indian running along near the summit, with a little girl in his arms. He ran in a crouching position, as if afraid of being seen in the brilliant moonlight by some one on the eastern side of the ridge. Dayton hid behind a tree directly in the Indian's path, and faced him when he came up, commanding him to halt. The savage was completely unnerved, and he knew that no argument would avail against the pistol the white man held. The child ceased crying and held out

884 IMPROVEMENT ERA. her hands to Dayton, but he spoke to her in a voice as gentle as a woman's. "Stay there a few minutes, dear. I'll soon get you back to your mother." And the little girl sank back into the savage's arms. Changing again to the Indian tongue, Dayton asked gruffly, ''Where did you get the girl?'' "Back here," said the Indian, nodding toward the east. "How far?" "About two hours." "Where are you taking her?'' "To my camp." "How far is that?" Dayton asked; but the Indian stubbornly refused to answer. "Turn around," Dayton said sharply. The Indian obeyed. "Now carry the child back to its mother," he said, in a commanding tone. The Indian shuddered. "They kill me," he said. "I'll kill you if you don't," Dayton exclaimed; and the Indian knew that he meant what he said. Dayton called Martin, and knowing they could get back to camp soon after daybreak, the two drove the Indian before them at a rapid pace. They had not proceeded far when they saw a woman running distractedly toward the south. "Mamma! Mamma!" cried the little girl, and Dayton shouted. As the woman ran toward them Dayton turned to Martin and said, "Take this Indian back to the camp. I don't want him here when the child's mother comes. If you know he is not armed, you may turn him loose." Then turning to the Indian he said, "Don't come back. Leave white women and children alone. If you must fight, fight men. But don't let me see you again." They disarmed the Indian and Martin started westward with him, while Dayton, with the child in his arms, went to meet the woman. The mother took her child and passionately embraced and kissed it, while Dayton stood speechless and blanched, as if he had seen an apparition.

THE FRIEND. 885 Then she looked up to thank her benefactor, and the color left her cheek, and the words of thanks died on her lips. "Will!" she gasped. "You here?" Overcome with excitement and the surprise of the unexpected meeting, she swayed and would have fallen; but Dayton placed his arm through hers, and gently took the child from her. Then the flood of memory returned, and the barriers of seven years melted away before it. He saw her as he had known her in the old New England home, and the name he had called her sprang to his lips. "Edith, yes. This is my home now." The pathos of utter loneliness and desolation was in his voice and words, and a sob of pity shook her frame. "And I have no home," she said disconsolately. For a short time they walked along in silence, both busy with their thoughts. Edith was the first to speak. "Why did you leave home between two days, like an outcast, with no word of farewell or explanation to your friends?" she asked. "Do you, of all my friends, ask me that?" he exclaimed, looking at her in astonishment. "And why not?" she asked. "After all that had passed between us in the old time, who is more entitled to know?" "Who, indeed!" he exclaimed bitterly. He thrust his free hand into the bosom of his hunting shirt, drew therefrom a faded and battered paper and handed it to her. "Perhaps this will remind you of the reason." And the bitterness and sorrow of years of disappointed longing were in his voice. The sun was just commencing to streak the eastern sky with strands of gold, and the light frost that decked the grass shone like diamonds. As Edith read the paper, her eyes dilated and a moan of despair escaped her lips. "It's a forgery!" she cried. "I wrote nothing. I had no opportunity. An enemy has done this." "A forgery!" he exclaimed, incredulity and dismay pictured in his face. For a few minutes they stood, while the child turned wonderingly from one to the other. Then Edith grasped Dayton's arm and gasped, "Can my husband— can Robert Bailey have done this?"

836 IMPROVEMENT ERA. "So, you married my rival?" said he. Then, in bitter sarcasm, "I presume his triumph in love was a consequence of his noble political victory?" "Will Dayton, you shall not speak to me like that," she said, and yet there was more of sorrow than anger in her voice. "I waited more than a year for news of you. I wrote letters to every place where I thought you might be. I resisted the bitter attacks they made on you, which were intensified by your absence. And then at length I was forced, by your continued silence, to think that you had cast me out of your heart, and to believe, under protest, the tales they told of you. And so, because of my bitter disappointment and his constant pleading, I married Robert Bailey." By this time the little girl had fallen asleep in Dayton's arms, while the mother, weak with excitement and the long search for her child, leaned heavily on him as they walked. "What did they say of me?" he asked. "That you had defrauded a friend with promises based on your election to the Senate. That you had taken money as a bribe, on the promise that in the event of your election you would use your official position to promote his interests." He stared at her in astonishment. "Who was this friend?" he asked. "John Bartholomew," she answered. "He gave it out that you had approached him with such an offer to secure his support, and that he had accepted merely to defeat you. It was a shrewd political move; for it required only a little quiet work among lukewarm friends of yours to turn enough against you to insure Robert's election. Then, when you went away, vague rumors and assertions spread and became more and more definite. Your enemies became emboldened by your absence and openly charged you with dishonor, and appealed to your absence as proof of the charges." "And would the people of Norton believe these slanders?" he asked in astonishment. "We resisted the rumors as well as we could. But our denials were met with stronger and stronger proofs, including one

THE FRIEND. 887 letter signed by you, bearing on the compact between you and Bartholomew." "I signed no paper, I made no bargains, no agreements!" he exclaimed. "Who has done these wrongs? I'll find out if I have to traverse half the world; and when I do — " She placed her hand protestingly on his arm, and the bitterness left him and he said, "Pardon me, Edith. 1 am saying too much." She said nothing, but her thoughts were busy. Who but her husband had profited by the forgeries? Who else would have a motive for the deception? Her conviction deepened that he was double-dyed with guilt, and she was disconsolate. By this time they had made their way to the camp. Here all was confusion. Most of the able-bodied men, including Bailey, were away reconnoitering when the Indians surprised the camp and the child was stolen. In the confusion following the attack the mother had rushed away, unnoticed, in a wild search for her child. The Indians had scattered, one of them going directly toward camp with the child, while the others, for decoy purposes, had gone the other way. When the father returned, and heard of the loss of wife and child, he immediately started out with a companion to search for them, and had not returned. No more men could be spared from the little party, for fear of another attack; and Dayton volunteered to go out in search of the men. He selected the strongest and swiftest horse the camp afforded, and trusting to his strength and skill and knowledge of the country, he started on his perilous expedition. Edith stood watching him until he disappeared; and then turned wearily into the little tent to care for the child. And in her inmost soul she could scarcely say for whom she felt the greatest anxiety, her husband or the big, strong man whose life was suddenly joined again with hers. Gaining an idea of the general direction the men had taken, Dayton rode swiftly but cautiously after them. For four hours he rode through blinding dust which the wind, that had arisen at

888 IMPROVEMENT ERA. sunrise, hurled about his head as if in defiance of his wish to save the wanderers. His way was impeded and his view restricted by the wind and the stinging sand; while the howling of the gale prevented him from hearing any sound that might betray the nearness of friend or foe. It therefore happened that without the sound of the gun reaching him, a spent bullet rolled almost to his feet. He could just note the direction from which it came, and judge, with the unerring instinct of the trained frontiersman, his distance from the one firing the shot. He turned his horse in that direction. Soon the sounds of firing and the shouts of combatants reached him, and he knew that a battle was on. Spurring his horse to a gallop, he dashed into the midst of the fray, to the utter surprise of white men and Indians alike. The two m^n were desperately struggling against half a dozen Indians, and losing ground every minute. As Dayton came up, one white man fell. Seeing the uselessness of the slaughter, he fired point blank into the faces of the nearest Indians; and before they could recover from their surprise he seized the one survivor, lifted him into the saddle in front of him, and dashed away in the direction from which he had come. The wind, which had been such an annoyance to him, served him now in two ways: it prevented the pursuing Indians from getting a good aim, and it also indicated the direction he must take to get back to camp. As the rescued man turned to see if the Indians were following, he caught signt of the other's face. ''Is this Will Dayton?" he exclaimed. ''Yes, Rob Bailey," Dayton answered. "Have you seen my wife?" Bailey asked. "Yes, and talked with her," he answered. "She and the child are safe in camp." He said nothing of the way in which their safety had been secured. He only urged the horse the more, to save the life of the man who he believed had robbed him of all that would have mile his own life worth while. And so they rode on, until the horse panted with the torture of his work, and could carry his double burden no longer. They both dismounted; and while the

THE FRIEND. 889 horse browsed in the short grass, the two men stood face to face for the first time in seven years. Bailey was the first to speak. "We stand in the face of death, Will," said he, "and there is no use wasting words. What has passed between you and Edith?" "She can tell you that," was Dayton's answer. "We have no time for discussion. There is one thing I must know before you are unable to speak, or I to hear. Who wrote this note?'' He held out the battered paper. Bailey gazed at it with astonishment, but without a sign of recognition. "I never saw it before," he said. "I believe you are telling the truth," Dayton answered. "This is no time for falsifying. That horse cannot run with both of us a hundred yards. When he has rested a few minutes longer he can take up one of us and carry him into camp. I know which one of us that will be. The other may never reach the camp alive. In those few minutes I must ask two questions, and I charge you, as one of us is standing on the threshold of eternity, that you tell the truth. First, how was I defeated? Second, why did you come west?"' "I would rather lose my life than miss the opportunity of answering those two questions," Bailey answered. "And yet I could not have answered them until now, because I did not know the whole truth before. The man who was killed by the Indians today knew all about it. He told me the truth and handed me this written statement just before we met the Indians," and he gave to Dayton a piece of paper, roughly scrawled with pencil. Before another word could pass, the noise of the pursuing Indians reached them. Instantly Dayton sprang to the horse, led it to Bailey's side, and before the startled man could think, much less resist, he lifted him on the horse, took off the bridle, and gave the animal a blow that sent it flying toward the camp. Then, seizing his rifle, Dayton slipped into a small ravine, behind a clump of underbrush, and awaited inevitable death. The Indians surrounded him and a fusilade of arrows commenced. He scarcely knew how long he was under fire, when he felt a stinging pain in his side, and became unconscious. When he regained consciousness, he was in the emigrant

890 IMPROVEMENT ERA. camp, and Edith and her husband were bending over him with tenderest solicitude. They had applied such restoratives as were at hand, and Dayton, whom a rescuing party had dragged from the brink of the grave, opened his eyes and smiled faintly into the faces of his friends. "Thank God, you are safe!" they exclaimed in one breath. "But I'm dying," he replied. "Don't say that, Will," said Bailey, while his wife looked her sympathy. "We want you to live and get redress for the wrongs you have suffered." Dayton smiled and shook his head. "It's too late," said he. Then, taking the paper from his pocket, he handed it to Edith and said, "Read this to me." Wonderingly she took the paper from his hand and read: I, Henry Peters, do hereby declare that, under strong pressure. I was induced, by enemies of William Dayton, to commit two forgeries in connection with the election of Robert Bailey. Under this influence I also invented the story of Dayton's bargain with John Bartholomew. Bartholomew, I knew, would not dare deny the story, because he was in the power of Dayton's opponents. Bailey had nothing to do with these things; and when he found, after four years of faithful service, by what foul means he had been elected, ht resigned his seat. Unable to endure the stigma and shame, he gave up all he had in Norton, to make partial amends, and came west. Then remorse seized me, and I followed him, determined to tell the whole truth. But I had not courage to do so until I found myself face to face with death. I write this paper with my own hands, and thus make tardy amends; and may God have mercy upon my soul! The dying man gazed happily into the faces of the husband and wife, from which the shadow of years was lifted. "I saved Rob for you," he said to Edith, "when I thought he had done me the greatest wrong. I leave him to you and to the happiness that will be yours, knowing him to be entirely worthy of you. God bless you both. ' ' And so he died. They placed him in a grave altogether too lonely and shallow and rude for the great body and big heart and tender soul of the man. And before they returned to fortune and happiness at the old Norton home, they placed a stone on the

HE FRIEND. 891 grave with the inscription, "Greater love hath no man than that he will give his life for his friend." In Memory of Samuel W. Richards. (Born Aug. 19, 1824; died Nov. 26, 1909.) (For the Improvement Era.) Dead? dead? nay, say not so, The good, the beautiful can never die; The flowers may fade, and, drooping fall asleep, But they shall bloom anew some fairer day; The oak may fall and mingle with the dust, But "what has been shall surely be again." And to be good was this man's greatest aim ; Behold, great trials trodden under foot; Ambitions flung aside as bubbles on the air; All worldly honor, love and dazzling wealth Counted as dross, entombed in one desire Which mantled him in sheen of righteousness. All heights, all bounds were circumscribed by this; Within its circle possibilities Which few men dream of thrilled his mortal life: "But to be good,'' what meaning anchors there? A trusted son, a faithful minister Of God's immortal plan; ambassador To kindreds, tongues and peoples; patriarch Of countless generations, with the key To endless lives and vast eternities Within his grasp, and power to overcome The fiendish host whose snares were set for him ; To conquer pain and burst the earth-bound tomb, And, rising, live where more inspiring dreams And e'er increasing splendors lure him on. Ruth May Fox.