CHAPTER II

STEVEN MERCER

The city of New Orleans, even after the French sold it to the United States, remained a place of gilt-braided social life, where the brilliant creole “quality” held bright levees. It was, too, a port of intrigue and of commerce that swirled about the wharves and up and down the great Mississippi.

Had the society that frequented his mother’s drawing-room in the lovely old French city not been so brilliant, the ladies so entertaining, the gentlemen so distinguished, Steven Mercer would have rebelled quite openly against a life that seemed to him mainly frills and lace. He was happier on the river than anywhere. For one reason only would Steven stay at home, his keeled boat moored idly at a delta wharf: to hear epauletted gentlemen recount the thrills of the War of 1812; to listen spellbound while naval celebrities who had been with Decatur told of that immemorial engagement in the Tripolitan harbor. That had been in the year of Steven’s birth. It was a bitter disappointment to a boy of seventeen to reflect that those days were over.

“Steven prefers combat,” his mother lamented; “now that there are no more wars, he wants to run away to sea, to trade, I am sure!” She was always afraid of this vulgar reversion.

“Why not?” Hamilton Mercer would reply to his wife. “Steven is a man grown. This country is new. It breeds men.” He looked with pride on his son’s six feet, on the breadth of him. When Steven was twenty-one he would take him into the business of Mercer & Co., the largest mercantile importing house in Louisiana. Let him do as he wished until then, aside from his studies.

But his gay little French _maman_ made many demands upon Steven. She was exacting as to his manners, but for the rest did not trouble about whether he roamed the plantation or studied his Greek. As a child she had been content to turn him over to his governess or his tutors. Now that he had grown into a tall, muscular youth, and a handsome one, he must attend her levees, escort her at times. And although Steven admired his mother very much and had been brought up to the life, it must be confessed that he preferred his father’s wharves to his mother’s drawing-room.

Quick enough at goods and figures, still he went less often to the offices of Mercer & Co. than to the riverside. Yet trade was already claiming him for her own, to tread in the footsteps of his paternal ancestors--ship captains, merchants, and merchant owners of good vessels all--whose blood stirred restlessly in his veins, calling him to new markets and to adventure.

Down on the wharves, where vessels from strange ports were putting in with their merchandise for the warehouses of Mercer & Co., that was where Steven had always loved to be. Where the negroes talked in their own river talk, and fought the English-speaking blacks of the West Indies. Where one could talk in villainous Portuguese with equally villainous-looking, ear-ringed sailors, with salty first mates from Lisbon, Calcutta, Hong-Kong, Liverpool. Across the Gulf to Mexican ports went their cargoes, and up the river to that wide inner country searched by the sinuous fingers of the great Mississippi, the Father of Waters.

Scarcely a quarter of a century had passed since Napoleon had sold to the United States “Louisiana,” the French territory stretching from the Mississippi westward to the Rockies, and from the Gulf of Mexico northward to Canada; a buffer against the British which Napoleon himself could not hold and sold for a song. France had counted on Spain’s keeping the American colonists out of the West, and had secretly ceded her vast territory to the Spanish crown, but British traders from Montreal dispatched their bateaux down the Mississippi and up the Des Moines and Arkansas Rivers, undisturbed by the Spanish galleys sent against them. Spain abandoned the land she could not hold.

She thrust it back upon France, busy with the wars that Napoleon provided for her at home. Hence New Orleans became an American port. The mouths of the mighty Mississippi were no longer closed to the ships of the United States. The inland empire which the great stream watered, bottled up no longer by the Spanish and French, was filling rapidly with the land-hungry settlers of the new United States. It was less than fifty years since the Revolutionary War, and yet already the thirteen original Colonies had expanded across the Alleghanies, west to the Mississippi. Even under French occupation there had been more Americans in St. Louis than French.

At New Orleans docks bale after bale of goods from New York or from Charleston, from Massachusetts or from New Jersey, was shifted to the new keeled boats of the river. Up the Mississippi to St. Louis and beyond they went, branching off upon the Arkansas to push into the west. And down the river, borne with the incredible speed of that mighty current, came the flat-bottomed bateaux, laden with pack after pack of lustrous furs.

“Where are they going?” Steven always asked the river captains as he watched the new boats, that went by steam, loading for the upstream voyage. “To the Oklahoma fur-traders at Fort Gibson, to Leavenworth for the Rocky Mountain Fur Company,” or, “For the Indians, for New Spain.”

Fascinated by the broad bosom of the river as he was, Steven was a dozen times on the verge of running away up the Mississippi to see for himself the tribes of Indians living a wild free life on the plains. Something always happened to prevent. His mother had had a _fête champêtre_ at their country place at Pas Christian the last time he was so tempted. That was when he was thirteen; and the country beyond still remained a mystery.

Persons of interest and importance came sometimes to the offices of Hamilton Mercer as well as to the _soirées_ of Madame Mercer. And on the day that Steven arrived at seventeen, and at a restlessness that could no longer be endured, two such were destined to present themselves at the merchant’s establishment. Hamilton Mercer had gone up the river to Pas Christian to oversee his plantations, and Steven was attending to some minor matters of business.

He found conversing with Mr. Morley, his father’s chief clerk, a dark-bearded Frenchman in the habit of the _voyageurs_ who came down the river at the helms of their fur-laden bateaux. The man’s appearance and dress fascinated Steven. He waited around until Monsieur Delmar was presented to him. The Frenchman represented a group of Western traders and was arranging for a large shipment of merchandise of a commoner sort than that usually handled by Mercer and Co.

It was for the far Western trade, he said, in Mexican territory. The customer told of the commerce that had grown up during the past four years with New Spain, that province of Mexico; a vast, far territory, lying a good five months’ travel away, beyond the Rocky Mountains. Great caravans were crossing the continent every six months, he said, carrying thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise into New Mexico, to the Villa de Santa Fe. Last year the government had built a new fort way up above St. Louis, upon the Missouri River, just to protect the people from the Indians.

The route to the West lay from this Fort Leavenworth in the Kansas country, to Santa Fe in Mexico--a three months’ journey, more or less.

“So soon as this goods I buy now reach the place from which they start,” Monsieur Delmar explained, “the caravan will set out. Many wagon, maybe twenty, thirty, forty--and mules. A big train, so to be safe against those Indian who fight across the plain.

“This year my fr’en’, Colonel St. Vrain,” he told them, “build with the brothers Bent a large fort and trade station in that Mexican country, on the River Arkansas; safety is there for _les voyageurs_.”

The Frenchman was eager to be on the return. He had come down the river from St. Louis at the rate of from fifty to a hundred miles a day, borne on the bosom of powerful currents, but it would take longer than usual to ascend the river, swollen as it was with the melting snow and rain.

Under the fire of Steven’s eager questions the Frenchman expanded on his theme. It was the tale of the Trail that he told--the Santa Fe Trail that watered with blood the growth of an empire to the west. Attacked by savage red men on the long overland journey, oftentimes at the end of the Trail thrown into prison by hostile Spanish governors, still they came, trader and trapper. “Some day, by Gar! we see who own that land.”

Steven sat entranced while his carriage and horses waited below. This was better than stories of the past; it was going on right now. This was adventure, a life for men. This was a conquest that lured him. He knew then that he must ask his father to send him with a shipment of goods across the plains.

“Could I join the caravan that will leave this spring?” The request came almost before he realized it.

“_Pourquoi pas?_” Monsieur Delmar would give the boy a letter to Colonel St. Vrain. The colonel would take him in his train without doubt. The Frenchman was leaving New Orleans at once, the following morning, and the letter was therefore written upon the spot, and Monsieur Delmar took his departure. With the missive thrust into his pocket Steven prepared to leave the offices and return home to wait his father’s arrival. They would talk the project over.

As he donned the tall hat of the dandy of the day, Mr. Morley rapped, ushering into the room a gentleman who wore a wide hat pulled down over his eyes. A dark cloak thrown over his shoulder was held across the lower part of his face in spite of the warmth of the day.

“You will see the gentleman?” inquired the courteous Morley.

The visitor waited until the door closed behind the clerk, and then, without removing his hat or releasing his hold on the cloak clutched beneath his chin, took the chair Steven proffered.

“Señor,” he began in Spanish, “I expected to see a grown man, pardon, and you are but a youth.”

“You are looking for my father, sir,” Steven replied. “I am Steven Mercer, _a sus ordenes_, at your service,” for Steven spoke Spanish as well as French. He bowed. “May I not serve you in my father’s place?”

At this the visitor removed his hat, threw back his cloak, revealing a long dark face with an extremely high forehead. “Señor,” he repeated, “I am Gomez Pedraza, recently elected President of the Republic of Mexico”--Steven gasped and rose to his feet--“and still more recently abdicated. I am fleeing to England because military force and the machinations of my opponent have forced me from the position to which I was rightfully elected. I have but a short time here in New Orleans, and, to be brief, I have a favor to ask of your father. I have been assured by faithful friends that he is a man of the utmost probity, and”--he eyed Steven keenly--“I am inclined to believe that one may repose the same confidence in the son.”

Curiously affected by the statement of Señor Pedraza, Steven was actually trembling as he replied, “Señor, I will try to serve you as my father would were he here, and I beg of you to tell me in what way that may be.”

“I wished to learn,” replied the visitor, “whether your father is engaged in an expedition of trade to our northern province of New Mexico. There is an overland route from this country, the Santa Fe Trail--you may have heard of it--over which much goods are being carried to our northern territories. Has Señor Mercer dealings with any trader in whom he has implicit trust--one who is trading with New Mexico?”

“My father himself does not send goods to the West,” Steven replied, “but he sells to the merchants engaged in trade on the prairies and at the fur-trading stations. Just today he has supplied enough for several loads to a buyer for the traders to New Spain.”

“Do not say New Spain,” interposed Señor Pedraza. “The province is New Mexico. But, alas! Mexico is less independent since she threw off the yoke of Spain but six years ago than she had been for two hundred years under the Spanish vice-regents. To return to my mission, however--is there, then, no chance of your father sending any of his own men over the plains? For I have a mission that I would intrust to him.”

“Yes,” answered Steven, boldly and without a moment’s hesitation. “I myself am going to take the trip. I shall probably travel with the caravan of one of the great traders of the plains.”

“Then”--the deposed President of the troubled country across the Gulf leaned impressively nearer the young man--“then, Señor, will you accept the mission? Will you carry a dispatch for me to one whom you will encounter at Santa Fe? When he will arrive I do not know--sometime within the next few months--but the message must be delivered _into his hands_. His name is upon the inner envelope, which you will discover upon your arrival. It is a matter of great moment to Mexico.”

“I will do it, señor.” With the impulsiveness of youth Steven rose, accepting with no further ado a mission of apparently grave importance. The two clasped hands.

“When will you be leaving?” Pedraza lowered his voice.

“As soon as may be señor. It will take time to make all arrangements, but the caravan leaves, so monsieur tells me, sometime in the spring, and as it is now January I shall have to make haste.” As the words fell from his lips Steven felt an inner exultation, coupled with amazement, that this could indeed be he. To take upon himself such a decision, without so much as consulting his parents, without obtaining his father’s permission! Why, he didn’t even know whether he could have any merchandise! But the desire of youth overruled any other consideration.

The deposed President of Mexico drew close to the boy. “Señor, you are young.” He spoke in a low voice. “But I have the confidence in you. Some day I shall be returning to Mexico; then, you may be sure, the interests of the American traders from New Orleans shall not be slighted. Señor, _adios_!” He thrust a sealed letter into Steven’s hands and, once more muffling his face, opened the door before which an attendant awaited him, and took his departure.

Steven stood before the closed door, his blood singing in his veins, the packet already hidden in an inner pocket. There was no doubt about it now. He was cast for adventure. It was as good as done. He hurried home to the birthday festivities in his honor, and many an older soldier of fortune that night envied his youth, his shining face, seeing in him the potentialities of fresh achievement.

“And as to your brave days of eighteen twelve,” cried Steven to the toast of the gilt-braided officer, “we are living in brave days. There is plenty of work for a man of mettle today, too----” He caught himself, lest some word escape him. The evening passed at length. Steven lingered in his father’s study.

The thing must be talked over. All Steve’s instinct was to pack his luggage and depart; but he was too well brought up, too faithful, seriously to consider such a course. Of course, his mother would say no. His father would have to be relied upon to win her over. But to win his father’s consent. Out with the question! that was the only way.

“Would you consider, sir, sending a wagon of your own for the trade upon the Western prairies?” he began, most business-like.

Hamilton Mercer considered. “Why, no, Steve, I’ve never leaned toward making any investment there,” he replied, slowly. “The hazards are too great. And although the rewards are said to be fabulous, I know personally no one whom I would intrust with the handling of several thousands of dollars’ worth of investment.”

“How about myself?” Steven looked straight at his father, meeting his eyes coolly enough, albeit with a rising color and a pounding heart. Mr. Mercer rose in astonishment; he considered some moments before replying.

“Steven, no, my son. I do not think that you are prepared for the hardships, the enmities, the dangers, of such pioneer enterprises. I could not say that I would outfit a caravan for you.”

“Very well, sir.” Steven took the rebuff quietly, hiding his acute disappointment. “But a man must know life sometime.” That was all there was to the conversation. Two days later Hamilton Mercer found a note upon his study table. “I have gone, father, to join the caravans leaving from Independence. Tell _maman_ not to have any worries about me.” And so Steven Mercer had run away, not to sea, but to follow in the wake of the prairie schooner.

* * * * *

Nearly three months later a tall youth, with reddish-blond hair, a straight nose still peeling under the blistering rays of the river sun, deep-set blue eyes, and an enviable burn, stepped off a river boat at Westport Landing. He carried two heavy bags, while a small darky struggled after him with another. Steven had been fortunate in catching the American Fur Company’s steamer which was plying the river between New Orleans and St. Louis.

Arriving at St. Louis, he had had to disembark and continue his trip by bateau. The freight destined for Fort Leavenworth and for Independence had been loaded aboard the flat-bottomed river boats, and the slow pull upstream begun. Steven had learned, on the afternoon after his conversation with his father, that at midnight that night one of the Astor Company’s steamers would start up the Mississippi, laden with provisions. He determined at once to take it. There remained but a few hours before it left and his preparations had been hurried and stealthy, of necessity. He had thrust into two bags all the clothes that they would contain and into the other such of his personal treasures as it seemed to him he might need: books, a brace of rather ancient pistols, a hunting-knife, a set of chessmen and a board. And so here he was, for once eager to leap ashore, and the next thing to find Colonel Ceran St. Vrain and the caravan he expected to join.

Independence! the spot from which the westward-moving train was to set out. How was he to reach the place? He hung around the landing, watching the bales of goods unloaded from one bateau after another, looking for some one who might be going his way. A trapper in buckskins and beaded moccasins yelled profanely and ardently as the oarsmen battled against the current and struggled for a safe landing. Not far away stood his mules, waiting for their loads.

“Independence?” nodded the half-breed. “You ride over with me, Pierre Lafitte. Sure, you ride my white mule, Céleste.” Buy a horse at Independence. No time to stop now or they would miss the caravan, if they had not already done so. Pierre had but a small amount of cargo, and soon they were trotting through the streets of the new settlement, a little place of frame houses at the juncture of the Missouri River with the Kansas, later to be known as Kansas City. It was only about eight miles to Independence, and as the trapper pushed straight ahead they would reach it in an hour or so.

“Why do you think we might miss the caravan?” asked Steven, his heart sinking at the thought. “I thought it would not leave till May or June.” It would be a fearful disappointment, a disaster, to fail to connect with the caravan, he felt. It might be six months before another would be leaving for Santa Fe, and he would have the opportunity to cross the plains to that mysterious country of New Spain. He felt for the stiffly folded packet which he carried always beneath his vest, the missive given him by President Pedraza. The sense of importance and responsibility which it gave him was at times almost too weighty. What was this mission of national import which he had engaged himself to perform? This thought was running through his head now.

“One caravan have already leave,” said Pierre in reply to Steven’s question. “The Indian are very bad this year. Ute, Pawnee, Cree, Comanche, no like the way white men shoot back.”

Pierre’s tongue had been loosened by several pulls from a flask, and as they jogged briskly along he unburdened himself with talk of the trade, of the American Fur Company and its nefarious ways. “Bribe the Indian with weesky,” he said, “an bad weesky at that.” You never knew what you would get for your furs; lots of trappers frozen out by changed prices. Supplies so high; six dollar for an ax, five dollar for an iron kettle. Sometimes your winter’s catch lost or stolen. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company just as bad. That General Ashley of St. Louis, belonging to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, had stolen a cache of furs up north, planted by Skeen Ogden of Hudson Bay Company, just because he himself have bad luck. In four years Ashley had grown very rich, and sold out to Smith and Sublette of St. Louis.

Pierre was depressed. After ten years’ trapping he was only $550 ahead, and he’d had to come way down from the Colorado River to collect what was due him at St. Louis. The trader who staked him with supplies had tried to cheat on him, and had sent Indians after him on the Trail to kill him before he could get down to St. Louis and get his account straightened out with the company itself. He’d gotten off with his life, but not much else. It was a hard trade. But he wanted to get away from this civilization and be back on the upper Colorado.

Having unburdened his soul, the trapper relapsed into a taciturn silence, and it was so that they completed the journey, jogging into the little town of Independence, where before the big general store and hotel they saw at once that a caravan was making ready. Steve drew a breath of relief, and the suspense which he had felt let down.

“There is Colonel St. Vrain,” and Pierre pointed out a stocky figure in the fustian suit of the townsman of the period, and a broad Mexican hat. A few minutes later Steven stood before him, a heavy-set man with wide, pleasant face.

“Colonel St. Vrain?” The colonel looked up to see a burned young man of twenty-two or three, he judged (so much had three months on the river done for him), who towered head and shoulders over himself, and took an instant liking to “Steven Mercer of New Orleans, at your service monsieur.” Busy as he was--the _arrieros_ were loading the mules with their packs, and everywhere wagons were being charged with their cargo--the colonel stopped to listen to Steven’s request and to read the letter of introduction, upon which he again shook hands with Steven.

“But certainly, my lad, if you wish to cross the Trail with us you are welcome. And welcome you surely are, for another few hours and we should have left. We have waited here six weeks for this merchandise while William Bent, my partner, went ahead with the other caravan, escorted by Major Riley from Fort Leavenworth, and three companies of soldiers. We shall sleep on the prairies tonight, so make haste. But,” and the colonel eyed Steven keenly, “I see you bring no equipment, no merchandise?”

Steven reddened beneath his burn. “No, monsieur, my father is not yet convinced of the possibilities of trade westward to Santa Fe----”

St. Vrain nodded energetically, not displeased, perhaps, at that. “Are you driver, guide, trapper? _Non!_ You are not. I pay you no wages, but all who are of the caravan must do what they can to make themselves useful, _n’est-ce pas_?”

“Oh, I shall pay my own expenses, _mi coronel_,” protested Steven. The hospitable but practical St. Vrain was at this moment called away to supervise a wagon-load and Steven was led off to the store by Pierre to pick out his outfit. They opened Steve’s luggage to take stock of what he had. Three flannel shirts of the kind that the river men down on the Mississippi wore, some heavy socks, that was all of a frontiersman’s outfit that his bags yielded. He closed them quickly, a bit ashamed to have the guide see the fine linen underthings, the starched shirts, an extra suit of fustian, and one of silk, also a pair of smartly turned city boots.

“I can leave these bags here,” he said, and was all for discarding them grandly.

“But, no,” cautioned Pierre. “Take them with you. If you do not wish to wear the clothes, you can sell them out there. The Mexicans will buy everything.”

Steven emerged from the store transformed, wearing Mexican leather breeches open from the knee down, plainsman’s boots, and a shirt shipped from his father’s warehouse. It had taken the whole of his month’s allowance to outfit himself--gun, ammunition, his rations of beans, salt pork, coffee, and flour, which were added to the general commissary of the colonel’s outfit. He deposited $200 in all with the storekeeper, and his remaining $300 Steven tied tightly in a leather pouch and hung it inside his shirt.

With his grips and new outfit he reported back to the colonel, was assigned a seat in the wagon following the colonel’s own, second in the caravan, and took his stand at one side while he watched the preparations for departure, hoping to be called upon to do something, ready to jump for such service.

Here were swarthy Mexicans, whom the boy from New Orleans recognized, as he had talked with many off the ships from Vera Cruz, swearing and sweating as they made ready the mule pack train which would make up half of the caravan. A _mula de carga_ was brought up to where the cargo lay upon the ground, the sheepskin pad and saddle-cloth thrown upon its back, the _aparejo_, the hay-stuffed saddle of leather which protected the animal’s back from the cargo, set on top, and cinched with a wide grass bandage as tightly as the shouting, straining _arriero_ could draw it, while the mule groaned and grunted. It seemed to Steven raw cruelty, but he kept his own counsel, watching one animal after another saddled in this way, swiftly, expertly. The _cargador_ and his assistant, using their knees as levers, deftly heaved the heavy bales of goods up on to the mules’ backs, lashing them firmly with a stout rope passed under the belly of the animal, while a vicious-looking crupper passed beneath their scarred and lacerated tails further served to hold the whole tight. In five minutes a mule was loaded. “_Adios_,” shouted the _cargador_, slapping the animal on the rump. “Good-by.” The assistant would sing out, “_Vaya_ [Go].” “_Anda_ [Walk],” the cargador would answer, upon which the animal would trot off to feed until the rest of the train was ready.

There were thirty wagons in this caravan, drawn by mules, with the exception of two belonging to the colonel, which would carry three tons of goods each, twice as much as the others, and which were each drawn by twelve oxen. This was something new on the Trail and the colonel was most particular to see how the oxen served. The remaining six wagons belonging to St. Vrain carried one and a half tons each and were drawn by eight mules. The rest of the caravan was made up of eight-mule wagons and the mule train, with thirty or forty extra mules and horses that would bring up the rear of the caravan, as usual.

The colonel had been chosen captain of the traders, and his word would be law on the voyage across the plains. He rode back and forth now, directing the loading of his own wagons and superintending the work of all. Steve’s bags were packed under the seat of the wagon in which he was to ride. The caravan was falling into line before he realized it. No time to lose; the train had waited as long as it dared for the goods from New Orleans, and, now they were ready, they would go.

“All’s set,” was heard from one teamster after another.

“Stretch out,” shouted the _mayordomo_ (who was next in command) as the muleteers ran along, cracking their whips and driving the grazing mules into line. “Catch up! Ca-aatch up!”

The driver of Steve’s wagon leaped to his seat, curled the whip over the backs of his eight mules, yelling and gee-hawing at them; there was a great shouting all down the line, an answering accolade from the populace of Independence which had all gathered in the square to watch the departure, and they were off, to the jingle of chains, the rattle of yokes, the yee-hawing of balky mules, rolling down the incline that led away westward, with a flourish and a bravery, right into the setting sun.