Well, in reference to what you intimated in your letter regarding the land up there, I am deeply interested. Nothing strikes my fancy so much as homesteading--which I think you meant. I would the best in the world like to hold down a claim, and am sure I would make a great homesteader. But why write more! An hour with you will explain matters more fully than a hundred letters, so I will close with this: You hinted about coming down, and my invitation is to do so, and do so at _your earliest possible convenience_. I am waiting with great anxiety your honored appearance.

In the meantime, trusting that you are healthy, hopeful and happy, please believe me to be,

Cordially, sincerely--and anxiously yours,

IRENE GREY.

He regarded the letter a little wistfully, and the next moment tore it to bits, flung it to the winds, and went about his business.

CHAPTER VI

THE PRAIRIE FIRE

"My mother grabbed me, kissed and hugged me time and again when I returned," Jean Baptiste read in the letter he received from his wife-to-be a few days after she had returned to the windy city, and he was satisfied. "She had been so worried, you see, because she had written father nothing about it, and this was the first time in her married life that she has dared do anything without a long consultation with him. But she is glad I went now, and thinks you are a very sensible fellow therefor. Papa sent a telegram advising that he had been reappointed Presiding Elder over the same district, and would come into Chicago for a few days before entering into another year of the work.

"I am deluged with questions regarding the West, and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to explain everything, and of the wonderful work you are doing. Now, papa will be home in a few days, and, knowing how hard he is to explain anything to, I am preparing myself for quite a task. I will close now. With love and kisses to you, believe me to be,

"Your own,

"ORLEAN."

Jean now went about his duties. His sister and grandmother were with him, and he had planned to put them on their claims at once, so as to enable them to prove up as soon as possible. Therefore to their places he hauled lumber, coal and provisions. Their claims lay some forty-five miles to the northwest beyond the railroad which now had its terminus at Dallas. And, referring to that, we have not found occasion to mention what had taken place in the country in the two years passed.

When the railroad had missed Dallas and struck Gregory and the other two government townsites, Dallas was apparently doomed, and in a few months most of the business men had gone, and the business buildings, etc., had been moved to Gregory. This town, because of the fact that it was only five miles from the next county line--the county that had been opened and which contained the land that Jean Baptiste had secured for his relatives and bride--was, for a time, expected to become the terminus.

And to this end considerable activity had transpired with a view to getting the heavy trade that would naturally come with the opening and settlement of the county west, which had twice the area of the county in which Gregory lay.

Now, it was shortly after the railroad was under course of construction that one, the chief promoter of the townsite, called on the "town Dad's"

of Gregory with a proposition. The proposition was, in short, to move Dallas to Gregory, and thereupon combine in making Gregory a real city.

Unfortunately for Gregory, her leaders were men who had grown up in a part of the country where the people did not know all they might have known. They consisted in a large measure of rustic mountebanks, who, because, and only because, Gregory happened to have been in the direct line of the railroad survey, and had thereby secured the road, took unto themselves the credit of it all. So, instead of entertaining the offer in a logical, business and appreciative manner, gave the promoter the big haw! haw! and turned their backs to him.

There was a spell of inactivity for a time on the part of the said promoter. But in the fall, when the ground had frozen hard, and the corn was being gathered, all that was left in the little town of Dallas, laying beside the claim of Jean Baptiste, was suddenly hauled five miles west of the town of Gregory. And still before the Gregory illogics had time even to think clearly, business was going on in what they then chose to call New Dallas--and the same lay directly on the line of the two counties, and where the railroad survey ended.

It is needless to detail the excitement which had followed this. "Lies, lies, liars!" were the epithets hurled from Gregory. "The railroad is in Gregory to stay; to stay for"--oh, they couldn't say how many years, perhaps a hundred; but all that noise to the west was a bluff, a simon pure bluff, and that ended it. That is, until they started the same noise over again. But it had not been a bluff. The tracks had been laid from Gregory to Dallas early in the spring that followed, and now Dallas was _the_ town instead of Gregory, and the boom that had followed the building of the town, is a matter never to be forgotten in the history of the country.

Gregory's one good fortune was that she had secured the land office which necessitated that all filings should be entered there, and in this way got more of the boom that was occasioned by the land opening at the west than it had expected to when the railroad company had pushed its way west out of the town.

It was about this time while great excitement was on and thousands of people were in the town of Dallas that something occurred that came near literally wiping that town off the map. Jean Baptiste had loaded his wagons and was on the way from his land to the claims of his sister when the same came to pass.

The greatest danger in a new country comes after the grass has died in the fall and before the new grass starts in the spring. But in the fall when the grass is dry and crisp, and the surface below is warm and dry, is the time of prairie fires. No time could have been more opportune for such an episode than the time now was. The wind had been blowing for days and days, and had made the short grass very brittle, and the surface below as hot as in July. Jean Baptiste was within about a mile of where New Dallas now reposed vaingloriously on a hillside, her many new buildings rising proudly, defiantly, as if to taunt and annoy Gregory, against the skyline, when with the wind greeting him, he caught the smell of burning grass. He reached a hillside presently, and from there he could see for miles to the west beyond, and the sight that met his gaze staggered him.

"A prairie fire," he cried apprehensively, and urged his teams forward toward Dallas. One glance had been sufficient to _convince_ him what it might possibly mean. A prairie fire with the wind behind it as this was, would bid no good for Dallas, and once there he could be of a little service, since he knew how to fight it.

When he arrived at the outskirts of the embryo city, he was met by a frightened herd of humanity. With bags and trunks and all they could carry; with eyes wide, and mouths gaped, in terror they were hurrying madly from the town to an apparent place of safety--a plowed field nearby. Miles to the west the fire and smoke rose in great, dark reddened clouds, and cast--even at that distance, dark shadows over the little city. As he drew into the town, he could see a line of figures working at fire breaks before the gloom. They were the promoters and the townspeople, and he imagined how they must feel with death possible--and destruction, positive, coming like an angry beast directly upon them.

Soon, Jean Baptiste, with wet horse blankets, was with them on the firing line. The speed at which the wind was driving the fire was ominous. Soon all the west was as if lost in the conflagration, for the sun, shining out of a clear sky an hour before was now shut out as if clouds were over all. The dull roar and crackle of the burning grass brought a feeling of awe over all before it. The heat became, after a time, intense; the air was surcharged with soot, and the little army worked madly at the firebreaks.

Rolling, tumbling, twisting, turning, but always coming onward, the hurricane presently struck the fire guards. In that moment it was seen that a mass of thistles, dried manure, and all refuse from the prairie was sweeping before it, as if to draw the fire onward. The fire plunged over the guards as though they had not been made, pushed back the little army and rushed madly into the town.

It was impossible now to do more. The conflagration was beyond control.

Now in the town, an effort was therefore made to get the people out of their houses where some had even hidden when it appeared that all would be swept away in the terrible deluge of fire. One, two, three, four, five, six--ten houses went up like chaff, and the populace groaned, when, of a sudden, something happened. Like Napoleon's army at Waterloo there was a quick change. One of those rare freaks--but what some chose to claim in after years as the will of the Creator in sympathy with the hopeful builders, the wind gradually died down, whipped around, and in less than five minutes, was blowing from the east, almost directly against its route of a few minutes before. The fire halted, seemed to hesitate, and then like some cowardly thing, turned around and started back of the same ground it had raged over where it lingered briefly, sputtered, flickered, and then quickly died. And the town, badly frightened, hard worked, but thankful withal, was saved.

CHAPTER VII

VANITY

"My father is home, and, oh! but he did carry on when he was informed regarding my trip West to take the homestead," Orlean wrote her betrothed in her next letter. "He was so much upset over it that he went out of the house and walked in the street for a time to still his intense excitement. When he returned, however, he listened to my explanation, and, after a time, I was pleased to note that he was pacified. And still later he was pleased, and when a half day had passed he was tickled to death.

"Of course I was relieved then also, and now I am fully satisfied.

I have not written you as soon as I should have on this account. I thought it would be best to wait until papa had heard the news and was settled on the matter, which he now is. He has written you and I think you should receive the letter about the same time you will this. He has never been anxious in his simple old heart for me to marry, but of course he understands that I must some day, and now that I am engaged to you, he appears to be greatly pleased.

"By the way, I have not received the ring yet, and am rather anxious. Of course I wish to be quite reasonable, but on the whole, a girl hardly feels she's engaged until she is wearing the ring, you know. Write me a real sweet letter, and make it long. In the meantime remember me as one who thinks a great deal of you,

"From your fond,

"ORLEAN."

Baptiste heard from his father-in-law-to-be in due time, and read the letter carefully, replying to the same forthwith.

We should record before going further that the incident which had happened between them in his youth had been almost as completely buried as it had been before the day of its recent resurrection. In his reply he stated that he would come into the city Xmas, which meant of course, that they would meet and come to understand each other better. He was glad that the formalities were in part through with, and would be glad when it was over. He did not appreciate so much ado where so little was represented, as it were. He had it from good authority without inquiry that the Reverend McCarthy had never possessed two hundred dollars at one time in his life, and the formalities he felt compelled to go through with far exceeded that amount already. And with this in mind he began gathering his corn crop which he had been delayed in doing on account of the stress of other more urgent duties.

He had been at work but a few days when snow began to fall. For days it fell from a northwesterly direction, and then turning, for a week came from an easterly direction. This kept up until the holidays arrived, therefore most of the corn crop over all the country was caught and remained in the field all the winter through. By the hardest work his sister and grandmother succeeded in reaching his place from their homesteads, and stayed there while he went into Chicago.

"Mr. Baptiste, please meet my father," said Orlean when he called, following his arrival in the city again. He looked up to find a tall, dark but handsome old man extending his hand. He regarded him, studied him carefully in a flash, and in doing so his mind went back twenty years; to a memorable day when he had been punished and had followed it by running away. He extended his hand and grasped the other's, and wondered if he also remembered.... They exchanged greetings, and if the other recalled him, he gave no evidence of the fact in his expression.

When he had sat beside the teacher, such a long time before, Baptiste recalled now, that at the back of the other's head there had been a white spot where the hair was changing color; but now this spot spread over all the head, and the hair was almost as white as snow. With his dark skin, this formed a contrast that gave the other a distinguished appearance which was noticeably striking. But his eyes did not meet with Baptiste's favor, though he was not inclined to take this seriously. But as he continued to glance at him at times during the evening he did not fail to see that the other seemed never to look straight and frankly into his eyes; and there was in his gaze and expression when he met Baptiste,--so Baptiste thought--a peculiar lurking, as if some hidden evil were looking out of the infinite depths of the other's soul. It annoyed Baptiste because every time he caught the other's gaze he recalled the incident of twenty years before, and wanted to forget it; declared he would forget it, and to that task he set himself, and apparently succeeded while in the city.

With Ethel and her husband, whose name was Glavis, he never got along at all. Ethel was pompous, and known to be disagreeable; while Glavis was narrow, and a victim of his wife's temper and disposition. So unless the talk was on society and "big" Negroes, which positively did not interest Jean Baptiste, who was practical to the superlative, there was no agreement.

So when Jean Baptiste returned West, he was conscious of a great relief.

The severe winter passed at last and with early spring everybody completed the gathering of the corn and immediately turned to seeding their crops. Work was plentiful everywhere, and to secure men to complete gathering his crop of corn, Baptiste had the greatest difficulty. Stewarts had failed to secure any land at all--either of the four in the drawing, and, being unable to purchase relinquishments on even one quarter at the large sum demanded therefor, had gone toward the western part of the state and taken free homesteads. As for Agnes, she had apparently passed out of his life.

He labored so hard in the cold, wet muddy fields in trying to get his corn out that he was taken ill, and was not able to work at all for days, and while so, he wrote his fiancee his troubles; and that since he was so indisposed, with a world of work and expense upon him she would do him a great favor if she would consent to come to him and be married.

Now the McCarthys had given Ethel a big wedding although her husband received only thirteen dollars a week for his work. Two hundred dollars, so it was reported, had been expended on the occasion. Such display did not appeal to the practical mind of Jean. He had lived his life too closely in accomplishing his purpose to become at this late day a victim of such simple vanity; the ultra simple vanity of aping the rich. Upon this point his mind was duly set. The McCarthys had started to buy a home the summer before which was quite expensive, and had entered into the contract with a payment of three hundred dollars. The Reverend had borrowed a hundred dollars on his life insurance and paid this in, while Glavis had paid another. Ethel had used what money she had saved teaching, to expend in the big wedding, so Orlean had paid the other hundred out of the money she had saved teaching school.

Now, if there was any big wedding for Orlean, then he, Jean Baptiste, knew that he would be expected to stand the expense. Therefore, Baptiste tried to make plain to Orlean in his letters the gravity of his position. She would be compelled to establish residence on her homestead early in May, and this was April, or forfeit her right and sacrifice all he had put into it.

But Orlean became unreasonable--Jean Baptiste reasoned. She set forth that she did not think it right for her to go away out there and marry him; that he should come to her. She seemed to have lost sense of all he had written her, regarding the crops, responsibilities, and other considerations. He wrote her to place it up to her mother and father, which she did, to reply in the same tenor. They had not agreed to it, either. He replied then heatedly, and hinted that her father was not a business man else he would have realized his circumstances, and, as man to man, appreciated the same.