XVITINHORN FRANK SMELLS MONEY
Smith did not care for money in itself; that is, he did not care for it enough to work for it, or to hoard it when he had it. Yet perhaps even more than most persons he loved the feel of it in his fingers, the sensation of having it in his pocket. Smith was vain, in his way, and money satisfied his vanity. It gave him prestige, power, the attention he craved. He could call any flashy talker’s bluff when his pockets were full of money. It imparted self-assurance. He could the better indulge his propensity for resenting slights, either real or fancied. Money would buy him out of trouble. Yes, Smith liked the feel of money. He took a roll of banknotes from the belt pocket of his leather chaps and counted them for the third time.
“I’ll buy a few drinks, flash this wad on them pinheads in town, and then I’ll soak it away.” He returned the roll to his pocket with an expression of satisfaction upon his face.
He had done well with the horses. The “boys” had paid him a third more than he had expected; they had done so, he knew, as an incentive to further transactions. And Smith had outlined a plan to them which had made their eyes sparkle.
“It’s risky, but if you can do it——” they had said.
“Sure, I can do it, and I’ll start as soon as it’s safe after I get back to the ranch. I gotta get to work and make a stake—me,” he had declared.
They had looked at him quizzically.
“The fact is, I’m tired of livin’ under my hat. I aims to settle down.”
“And reform?” They had laughed uproariously.
“Not to notice.”
Smith sincerely believed that nothing stood between him and Dora but his lack of money. Once she saw it, the actual money, when he could go to her and throw it in her lap, a hatful, and say, “Come on, girl”—well, women were like that, he told himself.
Ahead of Smith, on the dusty flat, was the little cow-town, looking, in the distance, like a scattered herd of dingy sheep. He was glad his ride was ended for the day. He was thirsty, hot, and a bit tired.
Tinhorn Frank, resting the small of his back against a monument of elk and buffalo horns in front of his log saloon, was the first to spy Smith ambling leisurely into town.
“There’s Smithy!” he exclaimed to the man who loafed beside him, “and he’s got a roll!”
His fellow lounger looked at him curiously.
“Tinhorn, I b’lieve you kinsmellmoney; and I swear they’s kind of a scum comes over your eyes when you see it. How do you know he’s carryin’ a roll?”
Tinhorn Frank laughed.
“I know Smithy as well as if I had made him. I kin tell by the way he rides. I always could. When he’s broke he’s slouchy-like. He don’t take no pride in coilin’ his rope, and he jams his hat over his eyes—tough. Look at him now—settin’ square in the saddle, his rope coiled like a top Californy cowboy on a Fourth of July. That’s how I know. Hello, Smithy! Fall off and arrigate.”
“Hullo!” Smith answered deliberately.
“How’s she comin’?”
“Slow.” He swung his leg over the cantle of the saddle.
“What’ll you have?” Tinhorn slapped Smith’s back so hard that the dust rose.
“Get me out somethin’ stimulating, somethin’ fur-reachin’, somethin’ that you can tell where it stops. I want a drink that feels like a yard of barb-wire goin’ down.” Smith was tying his horse.
“Here’s somethin’ special,” said Tinhorn, when Smith went inside. “I keeps it for my friends.”
Smith swallowed nearly a tumblerful.
“When I drinks, I drinks, and I likes somethin’ I can notice.” He wiped the tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I guarantee you kin notice that in about five minutes. It’s a never failing remedy for man and beast—not meaning to claim that its horse liniment at all. Put it back, Smithy; your money ain’t good here!”
Tinhorn Frank’s dark eyes gleamed with an avaricious light at sight of the roll of yellow banknotes which Smith flung carelessly upon the bar, but he had earned his living by his wits too long to betray eagerness. He masked the adamantine hardness of his grasping nature beneath an air of generous and bluff good-fellowship.
He was a dark man, with a skin of oily sallowness; thickset, with something of the slow ungainliness of a toad. His head was set low between stooped shoulders, and his crafty eyes had in them a look of scheming, scheming always for his own interests. Smith knew his record as well as he knew his own: a dance-hall hanger-on in his youth, despised of men; a blackmailer; the keeper of a notorious road-house; a petty grafter in a small political office in the little cow-town. Smith understood perfectly the source of his present interest, yet it flattered him almost as much as if it had been sincere, it pleased him as if he had been the object of a gentleman’s attentions. When he had money, Smith demanded satellites, sycophants who would laugh boisterously at his jokes, praise him in broad compliments, and follow him like a paid retinue from saloon to saloon. This was enjoying life! And upon this weakness, the least clever, the most insignificant and unimportant person could play if he understood Smith.
The word had gone down the line that Smith was in town with money. They rallied around him with loud protestations of joy at the sight of him. Smith held the centre of the stage, he was the conspicuous figure, the magnet which drew them all. He gloried in it, revelled in his popularity; and the “special brand” was beginning to sizzle in his veins.
“I’m feelin’ lucky to-day, me—Smith!” he cried exultantly. “I has a notorious idea that I can buck the wheel and win!”
He had not meant to gamble—he had told himself that he would not; but his admiring friends urged him on, his blood was running fast and hot, his heart beat high with confidence and hope. Big prospects loomed ahead of him; success looked easy. He flung his money recklessly upon the red and black, and with throbbing pulses watched the wheel go round.
Again and again he won. It seemed as if he could not lose.
“I told you!” he cried. “I’m feelin’ lucky!”
When he finally stopped, his winnings were the envy of many eyes.
“Set ’em up, Tinhorn! Everybody drink! Bring in the horses!”
Bedlam reigned. It was “Smithy this” and “Smithy that,” and it was all as the breath of life to Smith.
“Tinhorn”—he leaned heavily on the bar—“when I feels lucky like this, I makes it a rule to crowd my luck. Are you game for stud?”
The film which the lounger had mentioned seemed to cover Tinhorn’s eyes.
“I’m locoed to set agin such luck as yours, but I like to be sociable, and you don’t come often.”
“I likes a swift game,” said Smith, as he pulled a chair from the pine table. “Draw is good enough for kids and dudes, but stud’s the only play for men.”
“Now you’ve talked!” declared the admiring throng.
“Keep ’em movin’, Tinhorn! Deal ’em out fast.”
“Smithy, you’re a cyclone!”
A hundred of Smith’s money went for chips.
“Dough is jest like mud to some fellers,” said a voice enviously.
“I likes a game where you make or break on a hand. I’ve lost thousands while you could spit, me—Smith!”
“It’s like a chinook in winter just to see you in town agin, Smithy.”
The “hole” card was not promising—it was only a six-spot; but, backing his luck, Smith bet high on it. Tinhorn came back at him strong. He wanted Smith’s money, and he wanted it quick.
Smith’s next card was a jack, and he bet three times its value. When Tinhorn dealt him another jack he bought more chips and backed his pair, for Tinhorn, as yet, had none in sight. The next turn showed up a queen for Tinhorn and a three-spot for Smith. And they bet and raised, and raised again. On the last turn Smith drew another three and Tinhorn another queen. With two pairs in sight, Smith had him beaten. When Smith bet, Tinhorn raised him. Was Tinhorn bluffing or did he have another queen in the “hole”? Smith believed he was bluffing, but there was an equal chance that he was not. While he hesitated, the other watched him like a hungry mountain lion.
“Are you gettin’ cold feet, Smithy?” There was the suspicion of a sneer in the satellite’s voice. “Did you say you liked to make or break on a hand?”
“I thought you liked a swift game,” gibed Tinhorn.
The taunt settled it.
“I can play as swift as most—and then, some.” He shoved a pile of chips into the centre of the table with both hands. “Come again!”
Tinhorn did come again; and again, and again, and again. He bet with the confidence of knowledge—with a confidence that put the fear in Smith’s heart. But he could not, and he would not, quit now. His jaw was set as he pulled off banknote after banknote in the tense silence which had fallen.
When the last of them fluttered to the table he asked:
“What you got?”
For answer, Tinhorn turned over a third queen. Encircling the pile of money and chips with his arm, he swept them toward him.
Smith rose and kicked the chair out of his way.
“That’s the end of my rope,” he said, with a hard laugh. “I’m done.”
“Have a drink,” urged Tinhorn.
“Not to-day,” he answered shortly.
The crowd parted to let him pass. Untying his horse, he sprang into the saddle, and not much more than an hour from the time he had arrived he rode down the main street, past the bank where he was to leave his roll, flat broke.
At the end of the street he turned in his saddle and looked behind him. His satellites stood in the bar-room door, loungers loafed on the curbstone, a woman or two drifted into the General Merchandise Store. The Postmaster was eying him idly through his fly-specked window, and a group of boys, who had been drawing pictures with their bare toes in the deep white dust of the street, scowled after him because his horse’s feet had spoiled their work. His advent had left no more impression than the tiny whirlwind in its erratic and momentary flurry. The money for which he had sweat blood was gone. Mechanically he jambed his hands into his empty pockets.
“Hell!” he said bitterly. “Hell!”
XVIISUSIE HUMBLES HERSELF TO SMITH
Smith’s return to the ranch was awaited with keen interest by several persons, though for different reasons.
Bear Chief wanted to learn the whereabouts of his race-horse, and seemed to find small comfort in Ralston’s assurance that the proper authorities had been notified and that every effort would be made to locate the stolen ponies.
Dora was troubled that Smith’s educational progress should have come to such an abrupt stop; and she felt not a little hurt that he should disappear for such a length of time without having told her of his going, and disappointed in him, also, that he would permit anything to interfere with the improvement of his mind.
Susie’s impatience for his return increased daily. Her chagrin over being outwitted by Smith was almost comical. She considered it a reflection upon her own intelligence, and tears of mortification came to her eyes each time she discussed it with Ralston. He urged her to be patient, and tried to comfort her by saying:
“We have only to wait, Susie.”
“Yes, I thought that before, and look what happened.”
“The situation is different now.”
“But maybe he’ll reform and we’ll never get another crack at him,” she said dolefully.
Ralston shook his head.
“Don’t let that disturb you. Take certain natures under given circumstances, and you can come pretty near foretelling results. Smith will do the same thing again, only on a bigger scale; that is, unless he learns that he has been found out. He won’t be afraid of you, because he will think that you are as deep in the mire as he is; but if he thought I suspected him, or the Indians, it would make him cautious.”
“You don’t think he’s charmed, or got such a stout medicine that nobody can catch him?”
Ralston could not refrain from smiling at the Indian superstition which cropped out at times in Susie.
“Not for a moment,” he answered positively. “He appears to have been fortunate—lucky—but in a case like this, I don’t believe there’s any luck can win, in the long run, against vigilance, patience, and determination; and the greatest of these is patience.” Ralston, waxing philosophical went on: “It’s a great thing to be able to wait, Susie—coolly, smilingly, to wait—providing, as the phrase goes, you hustle while you wait. One victory for your enemy doesn’t mean defeat for yourself. It’s usually the last trick that counts, and sometimes games are long in the playing. Wait for your enemy’s head, and when it comes up,whack it! Neither you nor I, Susie, have been reared to believe that when we are swatted on one cheek we should turn the other.”
“No;” Susie shook her head gravely. “That ain’t sense.”
The person who took Smith’s absence most deeply to heart was the Indian woman. She missed him, and, besides, she was tormented with jealous suspicions. She knew nothing of his life beyond what she had seen at the ranch. There might be another woman. She suffered from the ever-present fear that he might not come back; that he would go as scores of grub-liners had gone, without a word at parting.
In the house she was restless, and her moccasined feet padded often from her bench in the corner to the window overlooking the road down which he might come. She sat for hours at a time upon an elevation which commanded a view of the surrounding country. Heavy-featured, moody-eyed, she was the personification of dog-like fidelity and patience. Naturally, it was she who first saw Smith jogging leisurely down the road on his jaded horse.
The long roof of the MacDonald ranch, which was visible through the cool willows, looked good to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his horse’s pace—he could squirm out somehow.
It gave him no concern that he had not a dollar to divide with Susie, as he had promised, and his chagrin over the loss of the money had vanished as he rode. His temperament was sanguine, and soon he was telling himself that so long as there were cattle and horses on the range there was always a stake for him. Following up this cheerful vein of thought, he soon felt as comfortable as if the money were already in his pocket.
Smith threw up his hand in friendly greeting as the Indian woman came down the path to meet him.
There was no response, and he scowled.
“The old woman’s got her sull on,” he muttered, but his voice was pleasant enough when he asked: “Ain’t you glad to see me, Prairie Flower?”
The woman’s face did not relax.
“Where you been?” she demanded.
He stopped unsaddling and looked at her.
“I never had no boss, me—Smith,” he answered with significance.
“You got a woman!” she burst out fiercely.
Smith’s brow cleared.
“Sure I got a woman.”
“You lie to me!”
“I call her Prairie Flower—my woman.” He reached and took her clenched hand.
The tense muscles gradually relaxed, and the darkness lifted from her face like a cloud that has obscured the sun. She smiled and her eyelids dropped shyly.
“Why you go and no tell me?” she asked plaintively.
“It was a business trip, Prairie Flower, and I like to talk to you of love, not business,” he replied evasively.
She looked puzzled.
“I not know you have business.”
“Oh, yes; I do a rushin’ business—by spells.”
She persisted, unsatisfied:
“But what kind of business?”
Smith laughed outright.
“Well,” he answered humorously, “I travels a good deal—in the dark of the moon.”
“Smith!”
She was keener than he had thought, for she drew her right hand slyly under her left arm in the expressive Indian sign signifying theft. He did not answer, so she said in a tone of mingled fear and reproach:
“You steal Indian horses!”
“Well?”
She grasped his coat-sleeve.
“Don’t do dat no more! De Indians’ hearts are stirred. Dey mad. Dis time maybe dey not ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more brave and you steal from white man. You steal two, t’ree cow, maybe all right, but when you steal de white man’s horses de rope is on your neck. I know—I have seen. Some time de thief he swing in de wind, and de magpie pick at him, and de coyote jump at him. Yes, I have seen it like dat.”
Smith shivered.
“Don’t talk about them things,” he said impatiently. “I’ve been near lynchin’ twice, and I hates the looks of a slip-noose yet; but I gotta have money.”
As he stood above her, looking down upon her anxious face, a thought came to him, a plan so simple that he was amazed that it had not occurred to him before. Undoubtedly she had money in the bank, this infatuated, love-sick-woman—the Scotchman would have taught her how to save and care for it; but if she had not, she had resources which amounted to the same: the best of security upon which she could borrow money. He was sure that her cattle and horses were free of mortgages, and there was the coming crop of hay. She had promised him the proceeds from that, if he would stay, but the sale of it was still months away.
“If I had a stake, Prairie Flower,” he said mournfully, “I’d cut out this crooked work and quit takin’ chances. But a feller like me has got pride: he can’t go around without two bits in his pocket, and feel like a man. If I had the price, I’d buy me a good bunch of cattle, get a permit, and range ’em on the reserve.”
“When we get tied right,” said the woman eagerly, “I give you de stakequick.”
Smith shook his head.
“Do you think I’m goin’ to have the whole country sayin’ I just married you for what you got? I’ve got some feelin’s, me—Smith, and before I marry a rich woman, I want to have a little somethin’ of my own.”
She looked pleased, for Susie’s words had rankled.
“How big bunch cattle you like buy? How much money you want?”
He shook his head dejectedly.
“More money nor I can raise, Prairie Flower. Five—ten thousand dollars—maybe more.” He watched the effect of his words narrowly. She did not seem startled by the size of the sums he mentioned. He added: “There’s nothin’ in monkeyin’ with just a few.”
“I got de money, and I gift it to you. My heart is right to you, white man!” she said passionately.
“Do you mean it, Prairie Flower?”
“Yas, but don’t tell Susie.”
He watched her going up the path, her hips wobbling, her step heavy, and he hated her. Her love irritated him; her devotion was ridiculous. He saw in her only a means to an end, and he was without scruples or pity.
“She ain’t no more to me nor a dumb brute,” he said contemptuously.
Smith felt that he was able to foretell with considerable accuracy the nature of his interview with Susie upon their meeting, and her opening words did not fall short of his expectations.
“You’re all right, you are!” she said in her high voice. “I’d stick to a pal like you through thick and thin, I would! What did you pull out like that for anyhow?”
Smith chuckled.
“Well, sir, Susie, it fair broke my heart to start off without seein’ your pretty face and hearin’ your sweet voice again, but the fact is, I got so lonesome awaitin’ for you that I just naturally had to be travellin’. I ups and hits the breeze, and I has no pencil or paper to leave a note behind. It wasn’t perlite, Susie, I admits,” he said mockingly.
“Dig up that money you’re goin’ to divide.” Susie looked like a young wildcat that has been poked with a stick.
Smith drew an exaggerated sigh and shook his head lugubriously.
“Child, I’m the only son of Trouble. I gets in a game and I loses every one of our honest, hard-earned dollars. The tears has been pilin’ out of my eyes and down my cheeks for forty miles, thinkin’ how I’d have to break the news to you.”
“Smith, you’re just a common,commonthief!” All the scorn of which she was capable was in her voice. “To steal from your own pal!”
“Thief?” Smith put his fingers in his ears. “Don’t use that word, Susie. It sounds horrid, comin’ from a child you love as if she was your own step-daughter.”
The muscles of Susie’s throat contracted so it hurt her; her face drew up in an unbecoming grimace; she cried with a child’s abandon, indifferent to the fact that her tears made her ludicrously ugly.
“Smith,” she sobbed, “don’t you ever feel sorry for anybody? Couldn’t you ever pity anybody? Couldn’t you pity me?”
Smith made no reply, so she went on brokenly;
“Can’t you remember that you was a kid once, too, and didn’t know how, and couldn’t, fight grown up people that was mean to you?—and how you felt? I know you don’thaveto do anything for me—you don’thaveto—but won’t you? Won’t you do somethin’ good when you’ve got a chance—just this once, Smith? Won’t you go away from here? You don’t care anything at all for Mother, Smith, and she’s all I’ve got!” She stretched her hands toward him appealing, while the hot tears wet her cheeks. She was the picture of childish humiliation and misery.
Smith looked at her and listened without derision or triumph. He looked at her in simple curiosity, as he would have looked at a suffering animal biting itself in pain. The unexpected outbreak interested him.
Through a blur of tears, Susie read something of this in his face, and her hands dropped limply to her sides. Her appeal was useless.
It was not that Smith did not understand her feelings. He did—perfectly. He knew how deep a child’s hurt is. He had been hurt himself, and the scar was still there. It was only that he did not care. He had lived through his hurt, and so would she. It was to his interest to stay, and first and always he considered Smith.
“You needn’t say anything,” Susie said slowly, and there was no more supplication in her voice. “I thought I knew you before, Smith, but I know you better now. When a white man is onery, he’s meaner than an Injun, and that’s the kind of a white man you are. I’ll never forget this. I’ll never forget that I’ve crawled to you, and you listened like a stone.”
Smith answered in a voice that was not unkind—as he would have warned her of a sink-hole or a bad crossing:
“You can’t buck me, Susie, and you’d better not try. You’re game, but you’re just a kid.”
“Kids grow up sometimes;” and she turned away.
McArthur, strolling, while he enjoyed his pipe, came upon Susie lying face downward, her head pillowed on her arm, on a sand dune not far from the house. He thought she was asleep until she sat up and looked at him. Then he saw her swollen eyes.
“Why, Susie, are you ill?”
“Yes, I’m sick here.” She laid her hand upon her heart.
He sat down beside her and stroked the streaked brown hair timidly.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
She felt the sympathy in his touch, and was quick to respond to it.
“Oh, pardner,” she said, “I just feel awful!”
“I’m sorry, Susie,” he said again.
“Didyourmother ever go back on you, pardner?”
McArthur shook his head gravely.
“No, Susie.”
“It’s terrible. I can’t tell you hardly how it is; but it’s like everybody that you ever cared for in the world had died. It’s like standin’ over a quicksand and feelin’ yourself goin’ down. It’s like the dreams when you wake up screamin’ and you have to tell yourself over and over it isn’t so—except that I have to tell myself over and over itisso.”
“Susie, I think you’re wrong.”
She shook her head sadly.
“I wish I was wrong, but I’m not.”
“She worries when you are late getting home, or are not well.”
“Yes, she’s like that,” she nodded. “Mother would fight for me like a bear with cubs if anybody would hurt me so she could see it, but the worst hurt—the kind that doesn’t show—I guess she don’t understand. Before now I could tell anybody that come on the ranch and wasn’t nice to me to ’git,’ and mother would back me up. Even yet I could tell you or Tubbs or Mr. Ralston to leave, and they’d have to go. But Smith?—no! He’s come back to stay. And she’ll let him stay, if she knows it will drive me away from home. Mother’s Injun, and she can only read a little and write a little that my Dad taught her, and she wears blankets and moccasins, but I never was ’shamed of Mother before. If she marries Smith, what can I do? Where can I go? I could take my pack outfit and start out to hunt Dad’s folks, but if Mother marries Smith, she’ll need me after a while. Yet how can I stay? I feel sometimes like they was two of me—one was good and one was bad; and if Mother lets Smith turn me out, maybe all the bad in me would come to the top. But there’s one thing I couldn’t forget. Dad used to say to me lots of times when we were alone—oh, often he said it: ‘Susie, girl, never forget you’re a MacDonald!’”
McArthur turned quickly and looked at her.
“Did your father say that?”
Susie nodded.
“Just like that?”
“Yes; he always straightened himself and said it just like that.”
McArthur was studying her face with a peculiar intentness, as if he were seeing her for the first time.
“What was his first name, Susie?”
“Donald.”
“Donald MacDonald?”
“Yes; there was lots of MacDonalds up there in the north country.”
“Have you a picture, Susie?”
A rifle-shot broke the stillness of the droning afternoon. Susie was on her feet the instant. There was another—then a fusillade!
“It’s the Indians after Smith!” she cried. “They promised me they wouldn’t! Come—stand up here where you can see.”
McArthur took a place beside her on a knoll and watched the scene with horrified eyes. The Indians were grouped, with Bear Chief in advance.
“They’re shootin’ into the stable! They’ve got him cornered,” Susie explained excitedly. “No—look! He’s comin’ out! He’s goin’ to make a run for it! He’s headed for the house. He can run like a scared wolf!”
“Do they mean to kill him?” McArthur asked in a shocked voice.
“Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think that’s target practice? But look where the dust flies up—they’re striking all around him—behind him—beside him—everywhere but in him! They’re so anxious that they’re shootin’ wild. Runnin’ Rabbit ought to get him—he’s a good shot! Hedid! No, he stumbled. He’s charmed—that Smith. He’s got a strong medicine.”
“He’s not too brave to run,” said McArthur, but added: “I ran, myself, when they were after me.”
“He’d better run,” Susie replied. “But he’s after his gun; he means to fight.”
“He’ll make it!” McArthur cried.
Susie’s voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek.
“Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!” but the cracking rifles drowned Susie’s shrill cry of entreaty.
The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect, unflinching, and while the Indians’ fire wavered Smith gained the doorway.
Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the deer-horn gun-rack above the door.
The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies.
“Get out of the way!” he yelled, but she did not hear him.
“The fool!” he snarled. “The fool! I’ll have to crease her.”
He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in the fleshy part of her arm near the shoulder. She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped.
XVIIIA BAD HOMBRE
The Indians ceased firing when the woman fell, and when Susie reached her mother Smith was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith who led her into the house and ripped her sleeve.
It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the bullet had gone a few inches higher it would have shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of aim.
He always carried a small roll of bandages in his hip-pocket, and with these he dressed the woman’s arm with surprising skill.
“When you needs a bandage, you generally needs it bad,” he explained.
He wondered if she knew that it was his shot which had struck her. If she did know, she said nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed his every movement.
“Looks like somebody’s squeaked,” Smith said meaningly to Susie.
“Nobody’s squeaked,” she lied glibly. “They’re mad, and they’re suspicious, but they didn’t see you.”
“If they’d go after me like that on suspicion,” said Smith dryly, “looks like they’d be plumb hos-tile if they was sure. Is this here war goin’ to keep up, or has they had satisfaction?”
Through Susie, a kind of armistice was arranged between Smith and the Indians. It took much argument to induce them to defer their vengeance and let the law take its course.
“You’ll only get in trouble,” she urged, “and Mr. Ralston will see that Smith gets all that’s comin’ to him when he has enough proof. He’s stole more than horses from me,” she said bitterly, “and if I can wait and trust the white man to handle him as he thinks best, you can, too.”
So the Indians reluctantly withdrew, but both Smith and Susie knew that their smouldering resentment was ready to break out again upon the slightest provocation.
Susie’s assurance that the attack of the Indians was due only to suspicion did not convince Smith. He noticed that, with the exception of Yellow Bird, there was not a single Indian stopping at the ranch, and Yellow Bird not only refused to be drawn into friendly conversation, but distinctly avoided him.
Smith knew that he was now upon dangerous ground, yet, with his unfaltering faith in himself and his luck, he continued to walk with a firm tread. If he could make one good turn and get the Indian woman’s stake, he told himself, then he and Dora could look for a more healthful clime.
The Schoolmarm never had appeared more trim, more self-respecting, more desirable, than when in her clean, white shirt-waist and well-cut skirt she stepped forward to greet him with a friendly, outstretched hand. His heart beat wildly as he took it.
“I was afraid you had gone ‘for keeps,’” she said.
“Were youafraid?” he asked eagerly.
“Not exactly afraid, to be more explicit, but I should have been sorry.” She smiled up into his face with her frank, ingenuous smile.
“Why?”
“You were getting along so well with your lessons. Besides, I should have thought it unfriendly of you to go without saying good-by.”
“Unfriendly?” Smith laughed shortly. “Me unfriendly! Why, girl, you’re like a mountain to me. When I’m tired and hot and all give out, I raises my eyes and sees you there above me—quiet and cool and comfortable, like—and I takes a fresh grip.”
“I’m glad I help you,” Dora replied gently. “I want to.”
“I’m in the way of makin’ a stake now,” Smith went on, “and when I gets it”—he hesitated—“well, when I gets it I aims to let you know.”
When Dora went into the house, to her own room, Smith stepped into the living-room, where the Indian woman sat by the window.
“You like dat white woman better den me?” she burst out as he entered.
“Prairie Flower,” he replied wearily, “if I had a dollar for every time I’ve answered that question, I wouldn’t be lookin’ for no stake to buy cattle with.”
“De white woman couldn’t give you no stake.”
He made no reply to her taunt. He was thinking. The words of a cowpuncher came back to him as he sat and regarded with unseeing eyes the Indian woman. The cowpuncher had said: “When a feller rides the range month in and month out, and don’t see nobody but other punchers and Injuns, some Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes begins to look kind of good to him when he rides into camp and she smiles as if she was glad he had come. He gits used to seein’ her sittin’ on an antelope hide, beadin’ moccasins, and the country where they wear pointed-toed shoes and sit in chairs gits farther and farther away. And after awhile he tells himself that he don’t mind smoke and the smell of buckskin, and a tepee is a better home nor none, and that he thinks as much of this here Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes as he could think of any woman, and he wonders when the priest could come. And while he’s studyin’ it over, some white girl cuts across his trail, and, with the sight of her, Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes looks like a dirty two-spot in a clean deck.” The cowpuncher’s words came back to Smith as though they had been said only yesterday.
“Why don’t you say what you think?” the woman asked, uneasy under his long stare.
“No,” said Smith, rousing himself; “the Schoolmarm couldn’t give me no stake; and money talks.”
“When you want your money?”
“Quick.”
“How much you want?”
“How much you got?” he asked bluntly. He was sure of her, and he was in no mood to finesse.
“Eight—nine thousand.”
“If I’m goin’ to do anything with cattle this year, I want to get at it.”
“I give you de little paper MacDonald call check. I know how to write check,” she said with pride.
Smith shook his head. A check was evidence.
“It’s better for you to go to the bank and get the cash yourself. Meeteetse can hitch up and take you. It won’t bother your arm none, for you ain’t bad hurt. Nine thousand is quite a wad to get without givin’ notice, and I doubt if you gets it, but draw all you can. Take a flour-sack along and put the stuff in it; then when you gets home, pass it over to me first chance. Don’t let ’em load you down with silver—I hates to pack silver on horseback.”
To all of which instructions the woman agreed.
That she might avoid Susie’s questions, she did not start the next morning until Susie was well on her way to school. Then, dressed in her gaudiest skirt, her widest brass-studded belt, her best and hottest blanket, she was ready for the long drive.
Smith put a fresh bandage on her arm, and praised the scrawling signature on the check which she had filled out after laborious and oft-repeated efforts. He made sure that she had the flour-sack, and that the check was pinned securely inside her capacious pocket, before he helped her in the wagon. He had been all attention that morning, and her eyes were liquid with gratitude and devotion as she and Meeteetse drove away. She turned before they were out of sight, and her face brightened when she saw Smith still looking after them. She thought comfortably of the fast approaching day when she would be envied by the women who had married only “bloods” or “breeds.”
Smith, as it happened, was remarking contemptuously to Tubbs, as he nodded after the disappearing wagon:
“Don’t that look like a reg’lar Injun outfit? One old white horse and a spotted buzzard-head; harness wired up with Mormon beeswax; a lopsided spring seat; one side-board gone and no paint on the wagon.”
“You’d think Meeteetse’d think more of hisself than to go ridin’ around with a blanket-squaw.”
“Hesaidhe was out of tobacer, but he probably aims to get drunk.”
“More’n likely,” Tubbs agreed. “Meeteetse’s gittin’ to be a reg’lar squawman anyhow, hangin’ around Injuns so much and runnin’ with ’em. He believes in signs and dreams, and he ain’t washed his neck for six weeks.”
“Associatin’ too much with Injuns will spile a good man. Tubbs,” Smith went on solemnly, “you ain’t the feller you was when you come.”
“I knows it,” Tubbs agreed plaintively. “I hain’t half the gumption I had.”
“It hurts me to see a bright mind like yours goin’ to seed, and there’s nothin’ll do harm to a feller quicker nor associatin’ with them as ain’t his equal. Tubbs, like you was my own brother, I says that bug-hunter ain’t no man for you to run with.”
“He ain’t vicious and the likes o’ that,” said Tubbs, in mild defense of his employer.
“What’s ’vicious’ anyhow?” demanded Smith. “Who’s goin’ to say what’s vicious and what ain’t? I says it’s vicious to lie like he does about them idjot skulls and ham-bones he digs out and brings home, makin’ out that they might be pieces of fellers what could use one of them cotton-woods for a walkin’ stick and et animals the size of that meat-house at a meal.”
“He never said jest that.”
“He might as well. What I’m aimin’ at is that it’s demoralizin’ to get interested in things like that and spend your life diggin’ up the dead. It’s too tame for a feller of any spirit.”
“It’s nowise dang’rous,” Tubbs admitted.
“If I thought you was my kind, Tubbs, I’d give you a chance. I’d let you in on a deal that’d be the makin’ of you.”
“All I needs is a chanct,” Tubbs declared eagerly.
“I believe you,” Smith replied, with flattering emphasis.
A disturbing thought made Tubbs inquire anxiously:
“This here chanct your speakin’ of—it ain’t work, is it?—real right-down work?”
“Not degradin’ work, like pitchin’ hay or plowin’.”
“I hates low-down work, where you gits out and sweats.”
“I see where you’re right. There’s no call for a man of your sand andsabeto do day’s work. Let them as hasn’t neither and is afraid to take chances pitch hay and do plowin’ for wages.”
Tubbs looked a little startled.
“What kind of chances?”
Smith looked at Tubbs before he lowered his voice and asked:
“Wasn’t you ever on the rustle none?”
Tubbs reflected.
“Onct back east, in I-ó-wa, I rustled me a set of underwear off’n a clothes-line.”
Smith eyed Tubbs in genuine disgust. He had all the contempt for a petty-larceny thief that the skilled safe-breaker has for the common purse-snatcher. The line between pilfering and legitimate stealing was very clear in his mind. He said merely,
“Tubbs, I believe you’re a badhombre.”
“Theyisworse, I s’pose,” said Tubbs modestly, “but I’ve been pretty rank in my time.”
“Can you ride? Can you rope? Can you cut out a steer and burn a brand? Would you get buck-ague in a pinch and quit me if it came to a show-down? Are you a stayer?”
“Try me,” said Tubbs, swelling.
“Shake,” said Smith. “I wisht we’d got acquainted sooner.”
“And mebby I kin tell you somethin’ about brands,” Tubbs went on boastfully.
“More’n likely.”
“I kin take a wet blanket and a piece of copper wire and put an addition to an old brand so it’ll last till you kin git the stock off’n your hands. I’ve never done it, but I’ve see it done.”
“I’ve heard tell of somethin’ like that,” Smith replied dryly.
“Er you kin draw out a brand so you never would know nothin’ was there. You take a chunk of green cottonwood, and saw it off square; then you bile it and bile it, and when it’s hot through, you slaps it on the brand, and when you lifts it up after while the brand is drawed out.”
“Did you dream that, Tubbs?”
“I b’leeve it’ll work,” declared Tubbs stoutly.
“Maybe it would work in I-ó-wa,” said Smith, “but I doubts if it would work here. Any way,” he added conciliatingly, “we’ll give it a try.”
“And this chanct—it’s tolable safe?”
“Same as if you was home in bed. When I says ’ready,’ will you come?”
“Watch my smoke,” answered Tubbs.
Smith’s eyes followed Tubbs’s hulking figure as he shambled off, and his face was full of derision.
“Say”—he addressed the world in general—“you show me a man from I-ó-wa or Nebrasky and I’ll show you a son-of-a-gun.”
Tubbs was putty in the hands of Smith, who could play upon his vanity and ignorance to any degree—though he believed that beyond a certain point Tubbs was an arrant coward. But Smith had a theory regarding the management of cowards. He believed that on the same principle that one uses a whip on a scared horse—to make it more afraid of that which is behind than of that which is ahead—he could by threats and intimidations force Tubbs to do his bidding if the occasion arose. Tubbs’s mental calibre was 22-short; but Smith needed help, and Tubbs seemed the most pliable material at hand. That Tubbs had pledged himself to something the nature of which he knew only vaguely, was in itself sufficient to receive Smith’s contempt. He had learned from observation that little dependence can be placed upon those who accept responsibilities too readily and lightly, but he was confident that he could utilize Tubbs as long as he should need him, and after that—Smith shrugged his shoulders—what was an I-ó-wan more or less?
Altogether, he felt well satisfied with what he had accomplished in the short while since his return.
When Susie came home from school, Smith was looking through the corral-fence at a few ponies which Ralston had bought and driven in, to give color to his story.
“See anything there you’d like?” she inquired, with significant emphasis.
“I’d buy the bunch if I was goin’ to set me some bear-traps.” Smith could see nothing to praise in anything which belonged to Ralston.
Susie missed her mother immediately upon going into the house, and in their sleeping-room she saw every sign of a hurried departure.
“Where’s mother gone?” she asked Ling.
“Town.”
“To town? To see a doctor about her arm?”
“Beads.”
“Beads?”
“Blue beads, gleen beads. She no have enough beads for finish moccasin.”
“When’s she comin’ home?”
“She come ’night.”
Forty miles over a rough road, with her bandaged arm, for beads! It did not sound reasonable to Susie, but since Smith was accounted for, and her mother would return that night, there seemed no cause for worry. Susie could not remember ever before having come home without finding her mother somewhere in the house, and now, as she fidgeted about, she realized how much she would miss her if that which she most feared should transpire to separate them.
She walked to the door, and while she stood idly kicking her heel against the door-sill she saw Ralston, who was passing, stoop and pick up a scrap of paper which had been caught between two small stones. She observed that he examined it with interest, but while he stood with his lips pursed in a half-whistle a puff of wind flirted it from his fingers. He pursued it as though it had value, and Susie, who was not above curiosity, joined in the chase.
It lodged in one of the giant sage-brushes which grew some little distance away on the outer edge of the dooryard, and into this brush Ralston reached and carefully drew it forth. He looked at it again, lest his eyes had deceived him, then he passed it to Susie, who stared blankly from the scrap of paper to him.