CHAPTER XIX.

Mr. Harry Brierly drew his pay as an engineer while he was living at the City Hotel in Hawkeye.  Mr. Thompson had been kind enough to say that it didn’t make any difference whether he was with the corps or not; and although Harry protested to the Colonel daily and to Washington Hawkins that he must go back at once to the line and superintend the lay-out with reference to his contract, yet he did not go, but wrote instead long letters to Philip, instructing him to keep his eye out, and to let him know when any difficulty occurred that required his presence.

Meantime Harry blossomed out in the society of Hawkeye, as he did in any society where fortune cast him and he had the slightest opportunity to expand.  Indeed the talents of a rich and accomplished young fellow like Harry were not likely to go unappreciated in such a place.  A land operator, engaged in vast speculations, a favorite in the select circles of New York, in correspondence with brokers and bankers, intimate with public men at Washington, one who could play the guitar and touch the banjo lightly, and who had an eye for a pretty girl, and knew the language of flattery, was welcome everywhere in Hawkeye.  Even Miss Laura Hawkins thought it worth while to use her fascinations upon him, and to endeavor to entangle the volatile fellow in the meshes of her attractions.

“Gad,” says Harry to the Colonel, “she’s a superb creature, she’d make a stir in New York, money or no money.  There are men I know would give her a railroad or an opera house, or whatever she wanted—­at least they’d promise.”

Harry had a way of looking at women as he looked at anything else in the world he wanted, and he half resolved to appropriate Miss Laura, during his stay in Hawkeye.  Perhaps the Colonel divined his thoughts, or was offended at Harry’s talk, for he replied,

“No nonsense, Mr. Brierly.  Nonsense won’t do in Hawkeye, not with my friends.  The Hawkins’ blood is good blood, all the way from Tennessee.  The Hawkinses are under the weather now, but their Tennessee property is millions when it comes into market.”

“Of course, Colonel.  Not the least offense intended.  But you can see she is a fascinating woman.  I was only thinking, as to this appropriation, now, what such a woman could do in Washington.  All correct, too, all correct.  Common thing, I assure you in Washington; the wives of senators, representatives, cabinet officers, all sorts of wives, and some who are not wives, use their influence.  You want an appointment?  Do you go to Senator X?  Not much.  You get on the right side of his wife.  Is it an appropriation?  You’d go ’straight to the Committee, or to the Interior office, I suppose?  You’d learn better than that.  It takes a woman to get any thing through the Land Office:  I tell you, Miss Laura would fascinate an appropriation right through the Senate and the House of Representatives in one session, if she was in Washington, as your friend, Colonel, of course as your friend.”