“Gibbs!” he called hoarsely.
“What is it, Steve—I'm here; don't you see me?” asked the general from his seat at his side, and he rested a shaking hand on the younger man's arm.
“Take him to his aunt,” muttered Landray, “to his aunt, do you understand? I mean the boy—take him to his aunt, take him there first.”
“Yes, yes, Steve, don't worry; I'll do just as you say,” cried Gibbs in a choking voice.
“Do you hear me—he's to go back to Ohio,” gasped the dying man with painful effort. “She's all he has left. You'll take him there—as soon as you can;” and with that Landray fell back on his bed and spoke no more.
CHAPTER FORTY
GIBBS settled Stephen's affairs, and there was left in his hands a small sum of money, which, by dint of borrowing, he increased to a figure that enabled him to take the boy to Benson. The occasion was like a tonic to him, the buoyancy of a dauntless spirit spoke in his very air and manner; he forgot Grant City, the Golden West Saloon, his shabbiness; and his travelling companions learned early who he was, and to most ears, General Gibbs of Kansas, had a large sound. He reached Benson just at nightfall. The place had an unfamiliar aspect. A village had become a town, the town almost a city. He had expected changes, but he would have said that he could have found his way to what he had known years before as the Leonard farm in spite of any changes; yet again and again he was forced to pause and ask his way. Even when he reached the house itself he would not have known it. He paused at the gate and glanced about. Below him was the level valley of the Little Wolf River. It was dotted with rows of lights; they diverged or ran in parallel lines and marked streets, streets in what in his day had been the best corn-land in all the county.
Gibbs entered the yard and followed up the path to the front door. Virginia, herself, answered his summons, and seeing her there in the door, in the light that streamed out and about her, he owned that the years had been kind to her.