Part 1 (2/2)

”Good Heavens! Has the boy read history? It's a relation that began when the world was made, and will last while men are in it.”

”I am not defending Paul's ideas, Colonel. I have a great sympathy with tyrants myself. You must talk to him. He will amuse you.”

”My word! It's a ticklish kind of amus.e.m.e.nt when _we_ get talking. Why, the boy wants to turn the poor old world upside down--make us all stand on our heads to give our feet a rest. Now, I respect my feet,”--the colonel drew them in a little as the lady's eyes involuntarily took the direction of his allusion,--”I take the best care I can of them; but I propose to keep my head, such as it is, on top, till I go under altogether. These young philanthropists! They a.s.sume that the Hands and the Feet of the world, the cla.s.s that serves in that capacity, have got the same nerves as the Brain.”

”There's a sort of connection,” said Mrs. Bogardus carelessly. ”Some of our Heads have come from the cla.s.s that you call the Hands and Feet, haven't they?”

The colonel admitted the fact, but the fact was the exception. ”Why, that's just the matter with us now! We've got no cla.s.s of legislators.

I don't wish to plume myself, but, upon my word, the two services are about all we have left to show what selection and training can do. And we're only just getting the army into shape, after the raw material that was dumped into it by the civil war.”

”Weren't you in the civil war yourself?”

”I was--a West Pointer, madam; and I was true to my salt and false to my blood. But, the flag over all!--at the cost of everything I held dear on earth.” After this speech the colonel looked hotter than ever and a trifle ashamed of himself.

Mrs. Bogardus's face wore its most un.o.bservant expression. ”I don't agree with Paul,” she said. ”I wish in some ways he were more like other young men--exercise, for instance. It's a pity for young men not to love activity and leaders.h.i.+p. Besides, it's the fas.h.i.+on. A young man might as well be out of the world as out of the fas.h.i.+on. Blood is a strange thing,” she mused.

The colonel looked at her curiously. In a woman so unfrank, her occasional bursts of frankness were surprising and, as he thought, not altogether complimentary. It was as if she felt herself so far removed from his conception of her that she might say anything she pleased, sure of his miscomprehension.

”He is not lazy intellectually,” said the colonel, aiming to comfort her.

”I did not say he was lazy--only he won't do things except to what he calls some 'purpose.' At his age amus.e.m.e.nt ought to be purpose enough.

He ought to take his pleasures seriously--this hunting-trip, for instance. I believe, on the very least encouragement, he would give it all up!”

”You mustn't let him do that,” said the colonel, warming. ”All that country above Yankee Fork, for a hundred miles, after you've gone fifty north from Bonanza, is practically virgin forest. Wonderful flora and fauna! It's late for the weeds and things, but if Paul wants game trophies for your country-house, he can load a pack-train.”

Mrs. Bogardus continued to be amused, in a quiet way. ”He calls them relics of barbarism! He would as soon festoon his walls with scalps, as decorate them with the heads of beautiful animals,--nearer the Creator's design than most men, he would say.”

”He's right there! But that doesn't change the distinction between men and animals. He is your son, madam--and he's going to be mine. But, fine boy as he is, I call him a crank of the first water.”

”You'll find him quite good to Moya,” Mrs. Bogardus remarked dispa.s.sionately. ”And he's not quite twenty-four.”

”Very true. Well, _I_ should send him into the woods for the sake of getting a little sense into him, of an every-day sort. He 'll take in sanity with every breath.”

”And you don't think it's too late in the season for them to go out?”

There was no change in Mrs. Bogardus's voice, unconcerned as it was; yet the colonel felt at once that this simple question lay at the root of all her previous skirmis.h.i.+ng.

”The guide will decide as to that,” he said definitely. ”If it is, he won't go out with them. They have got a good man, you say?”

”They are waiting for a good man; they have waited too long, I think.

He is expected in with another party on Monday, perhaps, Paul is to meet the Bowens at Challis, where they buy their outfit. I do believe”--she laughed constrainedly--”that he is going up there more to head them off than for any other reason.”

”How do you mean?”

”Oh, it's very stupid of them! They seem to think an army post is part of the public domain. They have been threatening, if Paul gives up the trip, to come down here on a gratuitous visit.”

”Why, let them come by all means! The more the merrier! We will quarter them on the garrison at large.”

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