Mrs. Grayson and Sylvia had remained on the special car, and expected to join them on the following day, although Sylvia was quite prepared to take the carriage journey across the country and dare all the risks of the darkness and possible bad weather. Indeed, with the fine spirit of the West and her own natural high courage, she wanted to go, saying that she could stand as much as a man, and only Mrs. Grayson's refusal to accompany her and the consequent lack of a chaperone compelled her to abandon the idea. Now Harley and Mr. Grayson were very glad that she was not out in the storm.

 

Although the hood of the carriage was down and the collar of Harley's heavy coat was turned up to his ears, the cold rain, lashed by the wind, struck him in the face now and then.

 

"You don't do anything by halves out here on these Western plains," he said.

 

"No," replied Jimmy Grayson, "we don't deal in disguises; when we're hot we're hot, and when we're cold we're cold. Now, after a perfect day, we're having the wildest kind of a night. It's our way."

 

It was then ten o'clock, and they had expected to reach Speedwell at midnight, crossing the Platte River on the big wooden bridge; but the rain, the darkness, and the singularly sticky quality of the black Nebraska mud would certainly delay them until one o'clock in the morning, and possibly much later. It was not a cheerful prospect for tired and sleepy men.

 

"Mr. Grayson," said Harley, "without seeking to discredit you, I wish I had gone to another war instead of coming out here with you. That would have been less wearing."

 

The candidate laughed.

 

"But you are seeing the West as few men from New York ever see it," he said.

 

The driver turned, and a little stream of water ran off his hat-brim into Harley's face.

 

"It's the wind that holds us back, Mr. Grayson," he said; "if we leave the road and cut across the prairie on the hard ground it will save at least an hour."

 

"By all means, turn out at once," said the candidate, "and the others will follow."

 

"Wise driver; considerate man!" remarked Harley.

 

There was marked relief the moment the wheels of the carriage struck the brown grass. They rolled easily once more, and the off horse, lifting up his head, neighed cheerfully.

 

"It means midnight, and not later, Harley," said the candidate, in a reassuring tone.

 

Harley leaned back in his seat, and trusted all now to the wise and considerate driver who had proposed such a plan. The night was just as black as a hat, and the wind and rain moaned over the bleak and lonesome plains. They were far out in Nebraska, and, although they were near the Platte River, it was one of the most thinly inhabited sections of the state. They had not seen a light since leaving the last speaking-place at sundown. Harley wondered at the courage of the pioneers who crossed the great plains amid such a vast loneliness. He and the candidate were tired, and soon ceased to talk. The driver confined his attention to his business. Harley fell into a doze, from which he was awakened after a while by the sudden stoppage of the carriage. The candidate awoke at the same time. The rain had decreased, there was a partial moonlight, and the driver was turning upon them a shamefaced countenance.

 

"What's the matter?" asked the candidate.

 

"To tell you the truth, Mr. Grayson," replied the driver, in an apologetic tone. "I've gone wrong somehow or other, and I don't know just where we're at."

 

"Lost?" said Harley.

 

"If you wish to put it that way, I reckon you're right," said the driver, with a touch of offence.

 

"What has become of the other carriages?" asked Harley, looking back for them.

 

"I reckon they didn't see us when we turned out, and they kept on along the road."

 

There was no doubt about the plight into which they had got themselves. The plain seemed no less lonely than it was before the white man came.

 

"What's that line of trees across yonder?" asked the candidate.

 

"I guess it marks where the Platte runs," replied the driver.

 

"Then drive to it; if we follow the trees we must reach the bridge, and then things will be simple."

 

The driver became more cheerful, the rain ceased and the moonlight increased; but Harley lacked confidence. He had a deep distrust of the Platte River. It seemed to him the most ridiculous stream in the United States, making a presumptuous claim upon the map, and flowing often in a channel a mile wide with only a foot of water. But he feared the marshes and quicksands that bordered its shallow course.

 

They reached the line of gaunt trees, dripping with water and whipped by the wind, and Harley's fears were justified. The river was there, but they could not approach it, lest they be swallowed up in the sand, and they turned back upon the prairie.

 

"We must find a house," said the candidate; "if it comes to the pinch we can pass the night in the carriage, but I don't like to sleep sitting."

 

They bore away from the river, driving at random, and after an hour saw a faint light under the dusky horizon.

 

"The lone settler!" exclaimed Harley, who began to cherish fond anticipations of a bed. "Go straight for it, driver."

 

The driver was not loath, and even the horses, seeming to have renewed hope, changed their sluggish walk to a trot. They had no hesitation in seeking shelter at that hour, entire strangers though they were, such an act being in perfect accordance with the laws of Western hospitality.

 

As they approached, a bare wooden house, unprotected by trees, rose out of the plain. A wire fence enclosed a half-acre or so about it, and apparently there had been a few rather futile attempts to make a lawn.

 

"Looks cheerless," said Harley.

 

"But it holds beds," said the candidate.

 

"You save your voice," said Harley; "I'll call the farmer, and I hope it will be a man who can speak English, and not some new Russian or Bohemian citizen."

 

He sprang out of the carriage, glad to relieve himself from his cramped and stiff position, and walked towards the little gate in the wire fence. There was a sudden rush of light feet, a stream of fierce barks and snarls, and Harley sprang back in alarm as two large bull-dogs, red-mouthed, flung themselves against the fence.

 

"I said you had no cause to regret that war," called the candidate from the carriage.

 

The wires were strong, and they held the dogs; but the animals hung to the fence, as fierce as wolves; and Harley, lifting up his voice, added to the chorus with a "Hi! Hi! Mr. Farmer! Strangers want to stop with you!"

 

The din was tremendous, and presently a window in the second story was shoved up, and a man, fully dressed, carrying a long-barrelled rifle in his hands, appeared at it. He called to the dogs, which ceased at once their barking and snarling, and then he gazed down at the intruders in no friendly manner. Harley saw him clearly, a tall, gaunt old man, white-haired, but muscular and strong. He held the rifle as if he were ready to use it--a most unusual thing in this part of the country, where householders seldom kept fire-arms.

 

"What do you want?" he called, in a sharp, high voice.

 

"Beds!" cried Harley. "We are lost, and if you don't take us in we'll have to sleep on the prairie, which is a trifle damp."

 

"Waal, I 'low it hez rained a right smart," said the old man, grimly.

 

Harley noticed at once the man's use of "right smart," an expression with which he had been familiar in another part of the country, and it encouraged him. He was sure now of hospitality.

 

"Who are you?" the old man called.

 

"Mr. Grayson, the nominee for President of the United States, is in the carriage, and I am his friend, one of the newspaper correspondents travelling with him."

 

"Wait a minute."

 

The window was closed, and in a few moments the old man came out at the front door. He carried the rifle on his shoulder, but Harley attributed the fact to his haste at the mention of Jimmy Grayson's name.

 

"My name is Simpson--Daniel Simpson," he said, hospitably. "Tell the driver to put the horses in the barn."

 

He waved his hand towards a low building in the rear of his residence, and then he invited the candidate and the correspondent to enter. He looked curiously, but with reverence, at the candidate.

 

"You are really Jimmy Grayson," he said. "I'd know you off-hand by your picture, which I guess hez been printed in ev'ry newspaper in the United States. I 'low it's a powerful honor to me to hev you here."

 

"And it's a tremendous accommodation to us for you to take us," said Jimmy Grayson, with his usual easy grace.

 

But Harley was looking at Simpson with a gaze no less intent than the old man had bent upon Grayson. The accent and inflection of the host were of a region far distant from Nebraska, but Harley, who was born near that wild country, knew the long, lean, narrow type of face, with the high cheek-bones and the watchful black eyes. Moreover, there was something directly and personally familiar in the figure before him.

 

Under any circumstances the manner of the old man would have drawn the attention of Harley, whose naturally keen observation was sharpened by the training of his profession. The old man seemed abstracted. His fingers moved absently on the stock of his rifle, and Harley inferred at once that he had something of unusual weight on his mind.

 

"Me an' the ol' woman hev been settin' late," said Simpson. "When you git ol' you don't sleep much. But it'll be a long time, Mr. Grayson, before that fits you."

 

He led the way into a room better furnished than Harley had expected to see. A coal fire smouldered on the hearth, and the arrangement of the room showed some evidences of refinement and taste. An old woman was bent over the fire, but she rose when the men entered, and turned upon them a face which Harley knew at once to be that of one who had been frightened by something. Her eyes were red, as if she had been weeping. Harley looked from host to hostess with curious glance, but he was still silent.

 

"This is Marthy, my wife, gen'lemen," said Simpson. "Marthy, this is Mr. Grayson, the greatest man in this here United States, and the other is one of the newspaper fellers that travels with him."

 

Jimmy Grayson bowed with great courtesy, and apologized so gracefully for the intrusion that an ordinary person would have been glad to be intruded upon in such a manner. The woman said nothing, but stared vacantly at her guests. The old man came to her relief.

 

"Marthy ain't used to visitors, least of all a man like you, Mr. Grayson, and it kind o' upsets her," he said. "You see, Marthy an' me lives here all by ourselves."

 

The woman started and looked at him.

 

"All by ourselves," repeated the man, firmly; "but we'll do the best we kin."

 

"Daniel," suddenly exclaimed the old woman, in high, shrill tones, "why don't you put down your gun? Mr. Grayson'll think you're a-goin' to shoot him."

 

The old man laughed, but the ever-watchful Harley saw that the laugh was not spontaneous.

 

"I 'clar' to gracious," he said, "I clean forgot I had old Deadeye. You see, Mr. Grayson, when I heerd the dogs barkin', sez I to myself 'it's robbers, shore'; and before I h'ists the window up-stairs I reaches old Deadeye off the hooks, and then, if it had 'a' been robbers, it wouldn't 'a' been healthy for 'em."

 

"I'm sure of that, Mr. Simpson," said Jimmy Grayson; "you don't look like a man who would allow himself to be run over."

 

"An' I wouldn't," said the old man, with sudden, fierce emphasis. But he put the rifle on the hooks over the fireplace. Such hooks as these were not usual in Nebraska; but Jimmy Grayson was too polite to say anything, and Harley was still watching every movement of the old man. The driver returned at this moment from the stable, and, reporting that he had fed the horses, took his place with the others at the fire.

 

"I 'low you-uns would like to eat a little," said the old man, laughing in the same unnatural way. "Marthy, tote in suthin' from the kitchen as quick as you kin."

 

The old woman raised her startled, frightened eyes, and for a moment her glance met Harley's; it seemed to him to be full of entreaty; the whole atmosphere of the place was to him tense, strained, and tragic; why, he did not know, but he shook himself and decided that it was only the result of weariness, the long ride, and the night in the storm. Nevertheless, the feeling did not depart because he willed that it should go.

 

"No, we thank you," Jimmy Grayson was saying; "we are not hungry; but we should like very much to go to bed."

 

"It's jest with you," said Simpson. "Marthy, I'll show the gen'lemen to their room, and you kin stay here till I come back."

 

The old woman did not speak, but stood in a crouched attitude looking at Grayson and then at Harley and then at the driver; it seemed to the correspondent that she did not dare trust her voice, and he saw fear still lurking in her eyes.

 

"Come along, gen'lemen," said Simpson, taking from the table a small lamp, that had been lighted at their entrance, and leading the way.

 

Harley glanced back once at the door, and the woman's eyes met his in a look that was like one last despairing appeal. But there was nothing tangible, nothing that he could not say was the result of an overwrought fancy.

 

It was a small and bare room, with only a single bed, to which the old man took them. "It's the best I've got," he said, apologetically. "Mr. Grayson, you an' the newspaper man kin sleep in the bed, an' t'other feller, I reckon, kin curl up on the floor."

 

"It is good enough for anybody," said Jimmy Grayson, gallantly. As a matter of fact, both he and Harley had known what it was to fare worse.

 

"Good-night," the man said, and left them rather hastily, Harley thought; but the others took no notice, and were soon in sound slumber, the candidate because he had the rare power of going to sleep whenever there was a chance, and the driver because he was indifferent and tired.

 

But Harley lay awake. An hour ago his dream of heaven was a bed, and now, the bed attained, sleep would not come near. Out of the stillness, after a while, he heard the gentle moving of feet below, and he sat up on the bed, all his suspicions confirmed. Something unusual was going on in this lone house! And it had been going on even before he and the candidate came!

 

He listened to the moving feet for a few moments. Then the noise ceased, but Harley knew that there was no further chance of sleep for him, with his nerves on edge, and likely to remain there. He lay back on the edge of the bed, trying to accustom his eyes to the darkness, and presently he heard a sound, the most chilling that a man can hear. It was the sound of a woman, alone and in the dark, between midnight and morning, crying gently, but crying deeply, uncontrollably, and from her chest.

 

Harley's resolve was taken at once. He slipped on his clothes and went to the door. His eyes were used now to the dark, and there was a window that shed a half-light.

 

He stopped with his hand on the bolt, because he heard the low, wailing note more plainly, and he was sure that it came from another room across the narrow hall. He turned the bolt, but the door refused to open. There was no key on the inside! They had been locked in, and for a purpose!

 

Harley was fully aroused--on edge with excitement, but able to restrain it and to think clearly. There was an old grate in the room, apparently used but seldom, and, leaning against the wall beside it, an iron poker. Tiptoeing, he obtained the poker and returned to the door. The lock was a flimsy affair, and, inserting the point of the poker under the catch, he easily pried it off and put it gently on the floor.

 

Then he stepped out into the dusky hall and listened. The woman was yet crying, monotonously, but with such a note of woe that Harley was shaken. He had thought in his own room that it was the old woman who wept thus; but now in the hall he knew it to be a younger and fresher voice.

 

He saw farther down............