Part 2 (2/2)
”Goin' away?” Judge Bradley straightened up, and his expression if anything was one of relief. He had had his own misgivings about this grave-faced and mature young man should he go into the practice at the Bloomsbury bar. It was well enough to encourage such possibilities to take their test in some other locality. Judge Bradley therefore became more cheerful. ”Goin' away, eh?” he said. ”Where to?”
”Out West,” said Franklin, unconsciously repeating the phrase which was then upon the lips of all the young men of the country.
”Out West, eh?” said the judge, with still greater cheerfulness.
”That's right, that's right. That's the place to go to, where you can get a better chance. I came West in my day myself, though it isn't West now; an' that's how I got my start. There's ten chances out there to where there's one here, an' you'll get better pay for what you do.
I'd advise it, sir--I'd advise it; yes, indeed.”
”I think it will be better,” said Franklin calmly.
”Hate to lose you,” said the judge, politely--”hate to lose you, of course, but then a young man's got to make his way; he's got to get his start.”
Franklin sat silent for a few moments, musingly staring out of the window, and listening, without active consciousness of the fact, to the music of the singing bird which came from somewhere without. At length he rose and turned toward the elder man.
”If you please, judge,” said he, ”get the committee appointed for to-night if you can. I'll take the examination now.”
”Yes? You are in a hurry!”
”Then to-morrow I'll go over and say good-bye to my sister; and the next day I think I'll follow the wagons West. I've not much to put in a wagon, so I can go by rail. The road's away west of the Missouri now, and my letter comes from the very last station, at the head of the track.”
”So?” said the Judge. ”Well, that ought to be far enough, sure, if you go clean to the jumping-off place. Goin' to leave your sweetheart behind you, eh?”
Franklin laughed. ”Well, I don't need face that hards.h.i.+p,” said he, ”for I haven't any sweetheart.”
”Ought to have,” said the judge. ”You're old enough. I was just twenty-two years old when I was married, an' I had just one hundred dollars to my name. I sent back to Vermont for my sweetheart, an' she came out, an' we were married right here. I couldn't afford to go back after her, so she came out to me. An' I reckon,” added he, with a sense of deep satisfaction, ”that she hasn't never regretted it.”
”Well, I don't see how love and law can go together,” said Franklin sagely.
”They don't,” said the judge tersely. ”When you get so that you see a girl's face a-settin' on the page of your law book in front of you, the best thing you can do is to go marry the girl as quick as the Lord'll let you. It beats the world, anyhow, how some fellows get mixed up, and let a woman hinder 'em in their work. Now, in my case, I never had any such a trouble.”
”And I hope I never shall,” said Franklin.
”Well, see that you don't. You hit it close when you said that love an' law don't go together. Don't try to study 'em both at the same time; that's my advice, an' I don't charge you anything for it, seeing it's you.” With a grin at his little jest, Judge Bradley turned back to his desk and to his little world.
CHAPTER VII
THE NEW WORLD
Franklin crossed the Missouri River, that dividing stream known to a generation of Western men simply as ”the River,” and acknowledged as the boundary between the old and the new, the known and the untried. He pa.s.sed on through well-settled farming regions, dotted with prosperous towns. He moved still with the rolling wheels over a country which showed only here and there the smoke of a rancher's home. Not even yet did the daring flight of the railway cease. It came into a land wide, unbounded, apparently untracked by man, and seemingly set beyond the limit of man's wanderings. Far out in the heart of this great gray wilderness lay the track-end of this railroad pus.h.i.+ng across the continent. When Franklin descended from the rude train he needed no one to tell him he had come to Ellisville. He was at the limit, the edge, the boundary! ”Well, friend,” said the fireman, who was oiling the engine as he pa.s.sed, and who grinned amiably as he spoke, ”you're sure at the front now.”
Franklin had not advised his friend Battersleigh of his intended arrival, but as he looked about him he saw that he had little need for any guide.
Ellisville as an actual town did not yet exist. A rude shanty or two and a line of tents indicated the course of a coming street. The two hotels mentioned by Battersleigh were easily recognised, and indeed not to be evaded. Out of the middle of this vast, treeless plain the great stone hotel arose, with no visible excuse or palliation, a deliberate affront to the solitude which lay far and wide about. Even less within the bounds of reason appeared the wooden building which Franklin learned was the Cottage. ”Surely,” thought he, ”if the railroad company had been mad in building the stone hotel, much worse must have been the man who erected this rambling wooden structure, hoping for customers who must come a thousand miles.” Yet was this latter mad act justified before his very eyes. The customers had come. More than forty cow ponies stood in the Cottage corral or in the street near by. Afar there swelled the sound of morning revelries.
Franklin wanted breakfast, and instinctively turned toward the stone hotel at the depot, where he learned were quartered the engineers and contractors on the railroad work. He seated himself at one of the many tables in the vast, barren dining room. Half the attendants were haughty young women, and half rather slovenly young men.
Franklin fell under the care of one of the latter, who greeted him with something of the affection of an old acquaintance. Coming to the side of his chair, and throwing an arm carelessly across Franklin's shoulder, the waiter asked in a confidential tone of voice, ”Well, Cap, which'll you have, hump or tongue?” Whereby Franklin discovered that he was now upon the buffalo range, and also at the verge of a new etiquette.
After breakfast Franklin paused for a moment at the hotel office, almost as large and empty as the dining room. Different men now and then came and pa.s.sed him by, each seeming to have some business of his own. The clerk at the hotel asked him if he wanted to locate some land. Still another stranger, a florid and loosely clad young man with a mild blue eye, approached him and held some converse.
<script>