Part 40 (1/2)
”Not I. But I come here for a specific purpose. I mean to provide Rafferty with the sum of fifteen dollars weekly while he lives, and, if his grandson recovers from an accident he sustained yesterday, a further sum sufficient to maintain, clothe, and educate the boy until he is taught a trade. My banker will co-operate in a trust for this purpose. Will you, or one of your brotherhood, act with him?”
Thus it came to pa.s.s that Rafferty, like Job, was more prosperous in the end than in the beginning, and died when he was ”old and full of days”; but he had lived five long years to bless the name of his benefactor.
That evening Power took train to the West. He prepared MacGonigal for his coming by a telegram, never thinking that an event which lay in the category of common things for him meant something akin to an earthquake at Bison. He was enlightened when a bra.s.s band, ”headed by the mayor and a deputation of influential citizens” (see _Rocky Mountain News_ of current date) met him at Bison station, where an address of welcome was read, the while MacGonigal and Jake beamed on a cheering mult.i.tude. At first Power was astonished and secretly annoyed; then he could not help but yield to the genuine heartiness of this civic welcome, which contrasted so markedly with his last dismal home-coming. He made a modest speech, expressing his real surprise at the community's progress, and promising not to absent himself again for so long a period.
Then he was escorted in a triumphal procession to the ranch. It was the organizers' intent that he should sit in an open carriage in solitary state, in order that thousands of people who had never seen him should feast their eyes on ”the man who made Bison,” while it was felt that, if he were not distracted by conversation, he would give more heed to local marvels in the shape of trolley-cars, a town hall, a public library, a ”Mary Power” inst.i.tute, and a whole towns.h.i.+p of new avenues and streets.
But he declined emphatically to fall in with this arrangement, and, if his subconscious mind were not dwelling on less transient matters, might have been much amused by noting how MacGonigal, Jake, and the mayor (a man previously unknown to him) shared the honors of the hour. Nothing could have proved more distasteful personally than this joyous home-coming; yet he went through the ordeal with a quiet dignity that added to his popularity. For, singularly enough, he had not been forgotten or ignored in Bison. MacGonigal, the leader of every phase of local activity, never spoke in public that he did not refer to ”our chief citizen, John Darien Power,” and his name and personality figured in all matters effecting the town's rapid development.
He was deeply touched when he found the ranch exactly as he had left it.
He imagined that Jake and his family were living there; but the overseer had built himself a fine house close at hand, and the Dolores homestead was altered in no respect, save that it seemed to have shrunk somewhat, owing to the growth of the surrounding trees and shrubberies.
When, at last, he and MacGonigal were left together in the room which was so intimately a.s.sociated with vital happenings in his career, his stout partner brought off a remark which the ordered ceremony of the railroad depot had not permitted.
”Wall, ef I ain't dog-goned glad ter see ye ag'in, Derry!” he said, holding forth a fat fist for another handshake. ”But whar on airth did ye bury yerself? Between yer friend Mr. Dacre an' meself, the hull blame world was s'arched fer news of you; but you couldn't hev vanished more completely ef Jonah's whale had swallered you, or you'd been carried up to Heaven in a fiery chariot like Elijah.”
”h.e.l.lo, Mac!” cried Power, eying his elderly companion with renewed interest. ”Whence this Biblical flavor in your speech? Have you taken a much-needed religious turn?”
”It's fer example, an' that's a fac', Derry. Sence you boosted me inter bein' a notorious char-ac-ter, I've kind o' lived up ter specification.
Thar's no gettin' away from it. Ye can't deal out prizes to a row o'
s.h.i.+ny-faced kids in a Sunday-school without larnin' some of the stock lingo, an' bits of it stick. But don't let's talk about me. I want ter hear about you. Whar hev you been?”
”It's a long story, Mac, and will take some telling. Just now, looking around at this room and its familiar objects, my mind goes back through the years. What did you say to Nancy when she wrote and asked what had become of me?”
MacGonigal, who had made quite a speech at the reception, and had been unusually long-winded during the drive, reverted suddenly to earlier habit.
”Who's been openin' old sores?” he inquired.
”No one. Nancy wrote to me before she died. That is all.”
”Look-a here, Derry, why not leave it at that?”
”Unhappily, I cannot do otherwise. But I have a right to know exactly what happened.”
”It wasn't such a heap. She cabled an' wrote, an' I had to tell her you was plumb crazy about--about yer mother's death. That was the on'y reason I could hand out fer your disappearin' act. Pore thing! Soon after she got my letter she gev in her own checks.”
”Have you met Marten recently?”
”He was in Denver last fall.”
”And the child--the little girl--did you see her?”
”Yep. Gosh, Derry, she's as like her mother as two peas in a pod.”
”Is Marten fond of her?”
”Derry, that kid kin twist him round her little finger; but he's a hard man ter move any other way.”