a “no account youngster,” and that he would not do it, when all the time he knew deep down in his heart that he loved this straight young fellow better than any other thing in the world, and that presently he was going to do exactly what he said he would not do.
The Governor knew this also, for he ran down the steps without stopping to interrupt the amiable flow of the Auditor's depreciatory remarks.
At the depot he found the Chinaman, Bumgarner, waiting with his coat.
That such a primitive Celestial should be saddled with such a name arose entirely from the pious instincts of the Major. It happened that the Virginian was standing in a crowd at the corner near Crawley's Emporium when the Chinaman first appeared, having tramped from the coast. The Major, who was slightly in his cups, called the Chinaman over to the corner, and inquired by what appellation he was known, to which the foreigner responded that he was called Fu Lun. “Fu Lun!” shouted the Major, fiercely, “a name smacking of the devil, and not to be tolerated in a Christian State.” And then turning to the crowd, “Gentlemen,” he continued, “behold! I do a goodly missionary work. I rebuke the evil spirit dwelling in the bosom of this heathen. I give it a Christian name. I name it Bumgarner.”
Thus the first evidence of civilization fastened upon the Celestial, and, as the Major's mandate was not to be disregarded, as “Bumgarner” the Chinaman had gone.
The journey to El Paso was not an idle one for the Governor. In a very short time he should be in the presence of Miss Marion Lanmar and her aunt Mrs. Beaufort, and, of all times since their first eventful meeting, this was the very time he was not prepared for an interview. Prior to the notable exodus of the machine to Idaho, Randal had called upon Miss Lanmar, who was at that time a very young woman in college. The two were quite important, quite enthusiastic, and pitiably ignorant of the world's ways.
This last meeting to them seemed big with fate, and was dramatic to the limit of a playactor's rehearsal. Youth lent to it all the glamour of romance. To Miss Lanmar young Randal was her chivalrous knight-errant, on the eve of his departure into a wild and unknown land full of mysterious peril, in quest of wealth and fair fame, all for her. To Randal she was the Lily Maid of Astolat, whom it was fate that he should worship with noble deeds until he won. It was all in strict accord with romantic custom in such cases made and provided, and terminated quite in keeping with the ideal conventions.
When the door had closed upon the handsome young fellow whom Miss Marion Lanmar had promised to love for ever more, that young lady remained standing motionless by the mantel shelf, her face very white, and her heart very desperate and very true. To the dainty Miss Lanmar it was all very real, and by no means the pretty little comedy which the world out of its practical wisdom would have known it to be.
To Mr. Alfred Randal, as he passed down the steps of Mrs. Beaufort's residence on the avenue, the world was now a vast arena, into which he was going, armed and knighted with his lady's colors on his helm. His heart beat high in his bosom. He would be a factor in great affairs; the hour would come when he would return, famous, wealthy past belief, announced by the heralds. He could not know that he was but another character in that sweet old fairy story which men and women have striven to act over and over again before they learn with dumb horror how pitiless and how practical are the ways of Providence.
Yet the wise man who accompanies the youth to the gateway of the arena will not say: “To-morrow Circumstance will beat you from your horse and tramp you under, and instead of returning victor, you will return a cripple.” Although the wise man knows full well that of all results this latter is most probable, yet he will not say it, because the enthusiasm of youth is a marvellous power, difficult to estimate, and what it may accomplish no man can tell.
The Governor had not seen this young woman after that night, but he had clung to his intention with the determination of a man who has a single object in life. An intermittent correspondence had been maintained, but after years this intention to wed Miss Lanmar had become rather an ideal something, and in this there was peril. But a few weeks before, he had intimated vaguely, that he was now a person of some local importance, and with no inconsiderable prospects of wealth, and to this Miss Lanmar had intimated quite as vaguely that she was waiting. But in it all there, seemed to be a powerful, albeit somewhat indistinct doubt. Years had passed, and years had a way of working frightful changes in people. The Miss Lanmar of to-day could not be the school-girl whom he had known.
The Executive leaned back in a seat of the stuffy little coach and speculated with grave concern At any rate, this alliance was now quite impossible. Complications had been thrust in; a duty, or what he conceived to be a duty, had sprung up, and this duty it was not his intention to evade.
II
THE Governor walked gravely down the long platform at El Paso, looking up at the windows of the Pullmans, wondering, rather indistinctly, how he should be able to recognize the irridescent princess of his romantic youth. A negro porter touched him on the arm and inquired if he was Governor Randal. The Executive replied that he was, whereupon the negro with much profound obeisance announced that Miss Lanmar was waiting in the drawing-room of the opposite Pullman.
The Governor sprang up the steps of the coach. As he entered, a young woman, wearing a dark travelling dress, came forward to meet him. She was of medium height, with heavy brown hair, fine eyes, arched brows, and quite a faultless nose. But the great charm of the woman was her splendid bearing, and her instinctive culture.
Just how this meeting began Alfred Randal could never afterwards quite recall. He could remember in vivid details the first picture of this superb woman as she arose to greet him, but then, just then, the love of his youth that had seemed to sleep under an anaesthetic for so many years, suddenly woke into glorious life, and gushed into his heart and overran his senses with its marvellous vitality. What transpired thereafter was provokingly indistinct. He remembered being presented to the aunt, Mrs. Beaufort, and her astonishment, and her incredulous query as to whether he lived in this “terrible country” to which he had replied that he could not be said to live, but that it was his part to exist in this rather primitive land. He remembered that the three sat together in the drawing-room of the coach and talked of his return to New York, of his ultimate success, and his assured future. He remembered also that for the time he had forgotten the grave difficulty in the way of such a future and his stern decision made but a few minutes before. He remembered also that through it all he had been very foolish and very confident and idiotically happy, and how at the parting he had kissed Miss Lanmar's hand and blushed like a school-girl, and then jumped down from the moving train at the peril of his life.
The Governor stood upon the platform and watched the great train as it thundered away in the distance. The interview which had just ended, although a thing apparently unreal, had swept him out from under the influence of an illusion that had served to make his life in the great Southwest bearable, even happy. From this time forth it could never be what it had been. The man felt like one who, having been so long a captive in a dungeon that he was half content, and his memories of the world had become vague and unreal, is suddenly and without warning lifted into the sunshine of the great glorious world and held there until his heart is filled to drunkenness with the beauty of it all, and then, ruthlessly and on the instant, is thrust back into the rayless gloom of his dungeon.
Randal stood for a time looking at the rows of dim lights scattered about the station like dismal fireflies. Then he crossed to the freight train upon which he was to return and climbed up into the cab with the driver.
“What time shall we get in?” he asked.
“By
