University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

WHILE Ruth was thus absorbed in her new occupation,
and the spring was wearing away, Philip
and his friends were still detained at the Southern
Hotel. The great contractors had concluded their business
with the state and railroad officials and with the lesser contractors,
and departed for the East. But the serious illness
of one of the engineers kept Philip and Henry in the city
and occupied in alternate watchings.

Philip wrote to Ruth of the new acquaintance they had
made, Col. Sellers, an enthusiastic and hospitable gentleman,
very much interested in the development of the country, and
in their success. They had not had an opportunity to visit
at his place “up in the country” yet, but the Colonel often
dined with them, and in confidence, confided to them his projects,
and seemed to take a great liking to them, especially
to his friend Harry. It was true that he never seemed to
have ready money, but he was engaged in very large operations.

The correspondence was not very brisk between these two
young persons, so differently occupied; for though Philip
wrote long letters, he got brief ones in reply, full of sharp
little observations however, such as one concerning Col. Sellers,
namely, that such men dined at their house every week.

Ruth's proposed occupation astonished Philip immensely,

but while he argued it and discussed it, he did not dare hint to
her his fear that it would interfere with his most cherished
plans. He too sincerely respected Ruth's judgment to make
any protest, however, and he would have defended her
course against the world.

This enforced waiting at St. Louis was very irksome to
Philip. His money was running away, for one thing, and he
longed to get into the field, and see for himself what chance
there was for a fortune or even an occupation. The contractors
had given the young men leave to join the engineer
corps as soon as they could, but otherwise had made no provision
for them, and in fact had left them with only the most
indefinite expectations of something large in the future.

Harry was entirely happy, in his circumstances. He very
soon knew everybody, from the governor of the state down
to the waiters at the hotel. He had the Wall street slang at
his tongue's end; he always talked like a capitalist, and
entered with enthusiasm into all the land and railway schemes
with which the air was thick.

Col. Sellers and Harry talked together by the hour and by
the day. Harry informed his new friend that he was going
out with the engineer corps of the Salt Lick Pacific Extension,
but that wasn't his real business.

“I'm to have, with another party,” said Harry, “a big
contract in the road, as soon as it is let; and, meantime, I'm
with the engineers to spy out the best land and the depot
sites.”

“It's everything,” suggested the Colonel, “in knowing
where to invest. I've known people throw away their money
because they were too consequential to take Sellers' advice.
Others, again, have made their pile on taking it. I've looked
over the ground, I've been studying it for twenty years.
You can't put your finger on a spot in the map of Missouri
that I don't know as if I'd made it. When you want to place
anything,” continued the Colonel, confldently, “just let
Eschol Sellers know. That's all.”

“Oh, I haven't got much in ready money I can lay my

[ILLUSTRATION]

"ONLY FOR YOU, BRIERLY."

[Description: 499EAF. Page 151. In-line image of two seated men talking in confidence with a person working at a desk in the background.] hands on now, but if a fellow could do anything with fifteen
or twenty thousand dollars, as a beginning, I shall draw for
that when I see the right opening.”

“Well, that's something, that's something, fifteen or twenty
thousand dollars, say twenty—as an advance,” said the Colonel
reflectively, as if turning over his mind for a project
that could be entered on with such a trifling sum.

“I'll tell you what it is—but only to you Mr. Brierly, only
to you, mind; I've got a little project that I've been keeping.
It looks small, looks small on paper, but it's got a big future.
What should you say, sir, to a city, built up like the rod of
Aladdin had touched it, built up in two years, where now you
wouldn't expect it any more than you'd expect a light-house
on the top of Pilot Knob? and you could own the land!
It can be done, sir. It can be done!”

The Colonel hitched up his chair close to Harry, laid his
hand on his knee, and, first looking about him, said in a low
voice, “The Salt Lick Pacific Extension is going to run
through Stone's Landing! The Almighty never laid out a
cleaner piece of level prairie for a city; and it's the natural
center of all that region of hemp and tobacco.”

“What makes you think the road will go there? It's

twenty miles, on the map, off the straight line of the road?”

“You can't tell what is the straight line till the engineers
have been over it. Between us, I have talked with Jeff
Thompson, the division engineer. He understands the wants
of Stone's Landing, and the claims of the inhabitants—who
are to be there. Jeff says that a railroad is for the accommodation
of the people and not for the benefit of gophers; and
if he don't run this to Stone's Landing he'll be damned!
You ought to know Jeff; he's one of the most enthusiastic
engineers in this western country, and one of the best fellows
that ever looked through the bottom of a glass.”

The recommendation was not undeserved. There was
nothing that Jeff wouldn't do, to accommodate a friend, from
sharing his last dollar with him, to winging him in a duel.
When he understood from Col. Sellers how the land lay at
Stone's Landing, he cordially shook hands with that gentleman,
asked him to drink, and fairly roared out, “Why, God
bless my soul, Colonel, a word from one Virginia gentleman
to another is `nuff ced.' There's Stone's Landing been waiting
for a railroad more than four thousand years, and damme
if she shan't have it.”

Philip had not so much faith as Harry in Stone's Landing,
when the latter opened the project to him, but Harry talked
about it as if he already owned that incipient city.

Harry thoroughly believed in all his projects and inventions,
and lived day by day in their golden atmosphere.
Everybody liked the young fellow, for how could they help
liking one of such engaging manners and large fortune? The
waiters at the hotel would do more for him than for any other
guest, and he made a great many acquaintances among the
people of St. Louis, who liked his sensible and liberal views
about the development of the western country, and about St.
Louis. He said it ought to be the national capital. Harry
made partial arrangements with several of the merchants for
furnishing supplies for his contract on the Salt Lick Pacific
Extension; consulted the maps with the engineers, and went
over the profiles with the contractors, figuring out estimates

for bids. He was exceedingly busy with those things when
he was not at the bedside of his sick acquaintance, or arranging
the details of his speculation with Col. Sellers.

Meantime the days went along and the weeks, and the
money in Harry's pocket got lower and lower. He was just
as liberal with what he had as before, indeed it was his nature
to be free with his money or with that of others, and he
could lend or spend a dollar with an air that made it seem
like ten. At length, at the end of one week, when his hotel
bill was presented, Harry found not a cent in his pocket to
meet it. He carelessly remarked to the landlord that he was
not that day in funds, but he would draw on New York, and
he sat down and wrote to the contractors in that city a glowing
letter about the prospects of the road, and asked them to
advance a hundred or two, until he got at work. No reply
came. He wrote again, in an unoffended business like tone,
suggesting that he had better draw at three days. A short
answer came to this, simply saying that money was very tight
in Wall street just then, and that he had better join the
engineer corps as soon as he could.

But the bill had to be paid, and Harry took it to Philip,
and asked him if he thought he hadn't better draw on his
uncle. Philip had not much faith in Harry's power of
“drawing,” and told him that he would pay the bill himself.
Whereupon Harry dismissed the matter then and thereafter
from his thoughts, and, like a light-hearted good fellow as he
was, gave himself no more trouble about his board-bills.
Philip paid them, swollen as they were with a monstrous list
of extras; but he seriously counted the diminishing bulk of
his own hoard, which was all the money he had in the world.
Had he not tacitly agreed to share with Harry to the last in
this adventure, and would not the generous fellow divide
with him if he, Philip, were in want and Harry had anything?

The fever at length got tired of tormenting the stout young
engineer, who lay sick at the hotel, and left him, very thin, a
little sallow but an “acclimated” man. Everybody said he
was “acclimated” now, and said it cheerfully. What it is to
be acclimated to western fevers no two persons exactly agree.

[ILLUSTRATION]

AN ACCLIMATED MAN.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 154. In-line image of a skinny man with his hands in the pockets of his stripped pants.] Some say it is a sort of vaccination that renders death by some
malignant type of fever less probable. Some regard it as a sort
of initiation, like that into
the Odd Fellows, which
renders one liable to his
regular dues thereafter.
Others consider it merely
the acquisition of a habit
of taking every morning
before breakfast a dose of
bitters, composed of whiskey
and assafœtida, out of the
acclimation jug.

Jeff Thompson afterwards
told Philip that he once
asked Senator Atchison,
then acting Vice-President
of the United States, about
the possibility of acclimation;
he thought the opinion
of the second officer of our great government would be
valuable on this point. They were sitting together on a
bench before a country tavern, in the free converse permitted
by our democratic habits.

“I suppose, Senator, that you have become acclimated to
this country?”

“Well,” said the Vice-President, crossing his legs, pulling
his wide-awake down over his forehead, causing a passing
chicken to hop quickly one side by the accuracy of his aim,
and speaking with senatorial deliberation, “I think I have.
I've been here twenty-five years, and dash, dash my dash
to dash, if I haven't entertained twenty-five separate and distinct
earthquakes, one a year. The niggro is the only person
who can stand the fever and ague of this region.”

The convalescence of the engineer was the signal for breaking
up quarters at St. Louis, and the young fortune-hunters
started up the river in good spirits. It was only the second
time either of them had been upon a Mississippi steamboat,

[ILLUSTRATION]

NO THANKS! GOOD BYE!

[Description: 499EAF. Page 155. In-line image of a bald man waving his top hat to a steam boat that is taken off from port.] and nearly everything they saw had the charm of novelty.
Col. Sellers was at the landing to bid them good-bye.

“I shall send you up that basket of champagne by the
next boat; no, no; no thanks; you'll find it not bad in
camp,” he cried out as the plank was hauled in. “My
respects to Thompson. Tell him to sight for Stone's. Let
me know, Mr. Brierly, when you are ready to locate; I'll
come over from Hawkeye. Good-bye.”

And the last the young fellows saw of the Colonel, he was
waving his hat, and beaming prosperity and good luck.

The voyage was delightful, and was not long enough to
become monotonous. The travelers scarcely had time indeed
to get accustomed to the splendors of the great saloon where
the tables were spread for meals, a marvel of paint and gilding,
its ceiling hung with fancifully cut tissue-paper of many
colors, festooned and arranged in endless patterns. The
whole was more beautiful than a barber's shop. The printed
bill of fare at dinner was longer and more varied, the

proprietors justly boasted, than that of any hotel in New York.
It must have been the work of an author of talent and imagination,
and it surely was not his fault if the dinner itself was
to a certain extent a delusion, and if the guests got something
that tasted pretty much the same whatever dish they ordered;
nor was it his fault if a general flavor of rose in all the dessert
dishes suggested that they had passed through the barber's
saloon on their way from the kitchen.

The travelers landed at a little settlement on the left bank,
and at once took horses for the camp in the interior, carrying
their clothes and blankets strapped behind the saddles. Harry
was dressed as we have seen him once before, and his long
and shining boots attracted not a little the attention of the
few persons they met on the road, and especially of the bright
faced wenches who lightly stepped along the highway, picturesque
in their colored kerchiefs, carrying light baskets, or
riding upon mules and balancing before them a heavier load.

Harry sang fragments of operas and talked about their fortune.
Philip even was excited by the sense of freedom and
adventure, and the beauty of the landscape. The prairie,
with its new grass and unending acres of brilliant flowers—
chiefly the innumerable varieties of phlox—bore the look of
years of cultivation, and the occasional open groves of white
oaks gave it a park-like appearance. It was hardly unreasonable
to expect to see at any moment, the gables and square windows
of an Elizabethan mansion in one of the well kept groves.

Towards sunset of the third day, when the young gentlemen
thought they ought to be near the town of Magnolia,
near which they had been directed to find the engineers'
camp, they descried a log house and drew up before it to
enquire the way. Half the building was store, and half was
dwelling house. At the door of the latter stood a negress
with a bright turban on her head, to whom Philip called,

“Can you tell me, auntie, how far it is to the town of
Magnolia?”

“Why, bress you chile,” laughed the woman, “you's dere
now.”

It was true. This log house was the compactly built town,

[ILLUSTRATION]

"YOU'S DERE NOW."
CAMP LIFE.

[Description: 499EAF. Illustration of a colony of African slaves with people on horseback, and other sitting around a fire talking.]

[ILLUSTRATION]

STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 157. In-line image of a three men standing next to each other as one drinks out of a large whisky vat.] and all creation was its suburbs. The engineers' camp was
only two or three miles distant.

“You's boun' to find it,” directed auntie, “if you don't
keah nuffin 'bout de road, and go fo' de sun-down.”

A brisk gallop brought the riders in sight of the twinkling
light of the camp, just as the stars came out. It lay in a
little hollow, where a small stream ran through a sparse
grove of young white oaks. A half dozen tents were pitched
under the trees, horses and oxen were corraled at a little
distance, and a group of men sat on camp stools or lay on
blankets about a bright fire. The twang of a banjo became
audible as they drew nearer, and they saw a couple of negroes,
from some neighboring plantation, “breaking down” a juba
in approved style, amid the “hi, hi's” of the spectators.

Mr. Jeff Thompson, for it was the camp of this redoubtable
engineer, gave the travelers a hearty welcome, offered
them ground room in his own tent, ordered supper, and set
out a small jug, a drop from which he declared necessary on
account of the chill of the evening.

[ILLUSTRATION]

JEFF THOMPSON AS A NIGHTINGALE.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 158. In-line image of a man outside of his tent in the moonlight. He has his arms outstretched]

“I never saw an Eastern man,” said Jeff, “who knew how
to drink from a jug with one hand. It's as easy as lying.
So.” He grasped the handle with the right hand, threw the
jug back upon his arm, and applied his lips to the nozzle. It
was an act as graceful as it was simple. “Besides,” said Mr.
Thompson, setting it down, “it puts every man on his honor
as to quantity.”

Early to turn in was the rule of the camp, and by nine
o'clock everybody was under his blanket, except Jeff himself,
who worked awhile at his table over his field-book, and then
arose, stepped outside the tent door and sang, in a strong and
not unmelodious tenor, the Star Spangled Banner from beginning
to end. It proved
to be his nightly practice
to let off the unexpended
steam of his conversational
powers, in the words of this
stirring song.

It was a long time before
Philip got to sleep. He
saw the fire light, he saw
the clear stars through the
tree-tops, he heard the gurgle
of the stream, the
stamp of the horses, the
occasional barking of the
dog which followed the
cook's wagon, the hooting
of an owl; and when these
failed he saw Jeff, standing
on a battlement, mid the
rocket's red glare, and heard him sing, “Oh, say, can you
see?” It was the first time he had ever slept on the ground.