Ruggles of Red Gap by Wilson, Harry Leon, 1867-1939

A further relief it was, therefore, when we were on the dock and his mind was diverted to other matters. A long time we were detained by customs officials who seemed rather overwhelmed by the gowns and millinery of Mrs. Effie, but we were at last free and taken through the streets of the crude new American city of New York to a hotel overlooking what I dare say in their simplicity they call their Hyde Park.

CHAPTER FIVE

I must admit that at this inn they did things quite nicely, doubtless because it seemed to be almost entirely staffed by foreigners. One would scarce have known within its walls that one had come out to North America, nor that savage wilderness surrounded one on every hand. Indeed I was surprised to learn that we were quite at the edge of the rough Western frontier, for in but one night's journey we were to reach the American mountains to visit some people who inhabited a camp in their dense wilds.

A bit of romantic thrill I felt in this adventure, for we should encounter, I inferred, people of the hardy pioneer stock that has pushed the American civilization, such as it is, ever westward. I pictured the stalwart woodsman, axe in hand, braving the forest to fell trees for his rustic home, while at night the red savages prowled about to scalp any who might stray from the blazing campfire. On the day of our landing I had read something of this--of depredations committed by their Indians at Arizona.

From what would, I take it, be their Victoria station, we three began our journey in one of the Pullman night coaches, the Senator of this family having proceeded to their home settlement of Red Gap with word that he must "look after his fences," referring, doubtless, to those about his cattle plantation.

As our train moved out Mrs. Effie summoned me for a serious talk concerning the significance of our present visit; not of the wilderness dangers to which we might be exposed, but of its social aspects, which seemed to be of prime importance. We were to visit, I learned, one Charles Belknap-Jackson of Boston and Red Gap, he being a person who mattered enormously, coming from one of the very oldest families of Boston, a port on their east coast, and a place, I gathered, in which some decent attention is given to the matter of who has been one's family. A bit of a shock it was to learn that in this rough land they had their castes and precedences. I saw I had been right to suspect that even a crude society could not exist without its rules for separating one's superiors from the lower sorts. I began to feel at once more at home and I attended the discourse of Mrs. Effie with close attention.