When he reached his tepee Grayman lit his pipe and sat down alone and remained in deep thought for hours. He feared to find Cut Finger guilty, for his own son was Cut Finger's friend, or fellow, and that means the closest intimacy. There are no secrets between a Tetong and his chum. "If Cut Finger is guilty, then my son knows of it. That I fear."
When any one came to the door he motioned them away; even his daughter dared not enter, for she saw him in meditation. As he smoked he made offering to the Great Spirit, and prayed that he might be shown the right way, and his heart was greatly troubled.
Crawling Elk, with a half-dozen of his head men, was seated in his tepee, calmly discussing the same question. The canvas of his lodge was raised, as much to insure privacy as to let the wind sweep through. It was not easy to accuse any man of this crime, or even to suggest the name of any one as capable of such a foolish deed of blood. For relationships were close; therefore it was that he, too, narrowed the investigation down to Cut Finger. It is easier to accuse the son of a neighbor than your own son, especially if that other is already a marked man among reckless youths.
At five o'clock Grayman called his daughter and said, "Send my sister, Standing Cloud, to me."
Standing Cloud came and took a seat on the outside of the tepee—on the side where the canvas was fastened up—and there sat with bent head, her fingers busy with blades of grass, while her brother questioned her. She was a large and comely woman of middle age. Her expression was still youthful, and her voice had girlish lightness. She was at once deeply moved by her brother's questions. She did not know where her son was; he had not been to see her for several days. She understood whereto the questioning tended, and stoutly denied that her son would do so evil a deed. Nevertheless, Grayman was compelled to say:
"You know he has a bad head," and he made the confused, wavering sign of the hand which signifies crazy or foolish, and the mother rose and went away sobbing.
Then Grayman recalled the words of the Little Father. "If my own brother should do wrong, I would give him up to the war chief," he therefore said. "If my son and my sister's son are guilty, I will give them up," and he rose and sought out Crawling Elk and told him of his fears, and repeated his resolution as they sat together while the sun was going down and the crier was calling the second council.
"It is right," said Elk. "Those who are guilty must be punished; but we do not know who fired the shot."
The people were slow in coming together this second time, and darkness was falling as the head men again took their seats. A small fire was being built in the centre of the circle, and towards this at last, like nocturnal insects, the larger number of the people in the two camps slowly concentrated.
The wind had gone down and the night was dark and still and warm. The people gathered in comparative silence, though the laugh of a girl occasionally broke from the clustering masses of the women, to be followed by a mutter of jests from the young men who stood close packed behind the older members of the bands. Excitement had deepened since the morning, for in some way the news had passed from lip to lip that Grayman had discovered the evil-doer.
On their part the chieftains were slow to begin their painful task. They smoked in silence till the fire was twice replenished, then began talking in low tones among themselves. At last Crawling Elk arose and made a speech similar to that of the morning. He recounted the tale of the murdered white man, and the details of finding the body, and ended by saying: "We are commanded by the agent to find the ones who have done this evil deed. If any one knows anything about this, let him come forward and speak. It is not right that we should all suffer for the wrong-doing of some reckless young warriors."
"Come forth and speak, any one who knows," called the head men, looking round the circle. "He who remains silent does wrong."
Two Horns rose. "We mean you, young men—you too," he said, turning to the women. "If any of you have heard anything of this matter, speak!"
Then the silence fell again on the circle of old men, and they bent their heads in meditation. Crawling Elk was just handing the pipe to Grayman, in order to rise, when a low mutter and a jostling caused every glance to centre upon one side of the circle, and then, decked in war-paint, gay with beads and feathers, and carrying a rifle, Cut Finger stepped silently and haughtily into the circle and stood motionless as a statue, his tall figure erect and rigid as an oak.
A moaning sound swept over the assembly, and every eye was fixed on the young man. "Ahee! Ahee!" the women wailed, in astonishment and fear; two or three began a low, sad chant, and death seemed to stretch a black wing over the council. By his weapons, by his war-paint, by his bared head decked with eagle-plumes, and by the haughty lift of his face, Cut Finger proclaimed louder than words:
"I am the man who killed the herder."
Standing so, he began to sing a stern song:
"I alone killed him—the white man.He was a thief and I killed him.No one helped me; I alone fired the shot.He will drive his sheep no more on Tetong lands.This dog of a herder.He lies there in the short grass.It was I, Cut Finger, who did it."
"I alone killed him—the white man.He was a thief and I killed him.No one helped me; I alone fired the shot.He will drive his sheep no more on Tetong lands.This dog of a herder.He lies there in the short grass.It was I, Cut Finger, who did it."
As his chant died away he turned: "I go to the hills to fight and die like a man." And before the old men could stay him he had vanished among the young horsemen of the outer circle, and a moment later the loud drumming of his pony's hoofs could be heard as he rode away.
Curtis was sitting alone in the library when a tap at his window announced the presence of Grayman.
Following a gesture, the chieftain came in, and, with a look on his face which expressed high resolution and keen sorrow, he said:
"The man who killed the herder is found. He has proclaimed himself at our council, and he has ridden away into the hills."
"Who was he?"
"Cut Finger."
"Ah! So? Well, you have done your duty. I will not ask you to arrest him. Crow will do that. I hope"—he hesitated—"I hope your son was not with him?"
"'I alone did it,' he says. My son is innocent."
"I am very glad," replied Curtis, looking into the old man's tremulous face. "Go home and sleep in peace."
With a clasp of the hand Grayman said good-night and vanished.
There was nothing to be done till morning, and Curtis knew the habits of the Indians too well to be anxious about the criminal. Calling his faithful Crane's Voice, he said:
"Crane, will you go to Pinon City?"
Crane's Voice straightened. "To-night?"
"Yes, to-night."
"If you will let me wear a blue coat I will go."
Curtis smiled. "You are a brave boy. I will give you a coat. That will protect you if you are caught by the white men. Saddle your pony."
With a smile he turned on his heel and went out as cheerfully as though he were going on an errand to the issue-house.
In his letter to the sheriff Curtis said: "I have found the murderer. He is a half-crazy boy called Cut Finger. Make out a warrant for him and I will deliver him to you. You will need no deputies. No one but yourself will be permitted to cross the line for the present."
After Crane had galloped off, Curtis laid down his pen and sat for a long time recalling the events of the evening. He remembered that Lawson and Elsie went away together, and a pang of jealous pain took hold upon him. "I never had the privilege of taking her arm," he thought, unreasonably.
Among other perplexities which now assailed the agent was the question of how to secure Cut Finger without inciting further violence. He confidently expected the police to locate the fugitive during the day, probably in the camp of Red Wolf, on the head-waters of the Elk.
"He cannot escape. There is no place for him to go."
"He may have committed suicide," said Wilson, discussing the matter with his chief the following morning.
"He may, but his death will not satisfy the ranchers unless they are made the instrument of vengeance. They would feel cheated and bitterer than ever," replied Curtis, sombrely. "He must be taken and delivered up to the law."
On his return to the office after breakfast Curtis stopped at the door of Elsie's studio, his brain yet tingling with the consciousness that no other man's claim stood between them now.
She greeted him joyously. "I am starting a big canvas this morning," she said. "Come in and see it."
He stepped inside to see, but the canvas only had a few rude, reddish lines upon it, and Elsie laughed at his blank look as he faced the easel.
"This thing here," she pointed with her brush, "is a beautiful purple butte; this yellow circle is the sun; these little crumbly looking boxes are trees; this streak is a river. This jack-in-the-box here is Crow Wing on his horse."
Her joking helped to clear his brain, though his blood was throbbing in his ears.
"Ah! I'm glad to know all that. Will you tag each anomalous hump?"
"Certainly. You will recognize everything by number or otherwise." She turned a suddenly serious face upon him. "I am determined to get back to work. These last few days have been so exciting. Is there any news?"
"Yes. The murderer proclaimed himself at a big council last night."
"He did! Oh, tell me about it! When?"
"I don't know exactly the hour, but the chieftains came to me about nine o'clock. I know him well; he is a reckless, handsome, half-crazy young man—" He broke off suddenly as Heavybreast, one of the policemen, profoundly excited, darkened the door-way. "Cut Finger is on the hill," he signed, and pointed away with trembling finger to a height which rose like a monstrous bee-hive just behind the school-house. On the rounded top, looking like a small monument on a colossal pedestal, sat a mounted warrior.
"What is he there for?" asked Curtis.
"He wants to die like Raven Face. He wants to fight the cowboys, he says. He don't want to hurt any one else, he says; only the cowboys and their war chief, so he says."
"Where is Crow? I want this man arrested and brought to me."
"Now he will shoot any one who goes up the hill; he has said so. All the people are watching."
Curtis mused a moment. "Can you send word to him?"
"Yes; his wife is here."
"Then tell him I will not let him fight. Tell him that shooting will do no good, and that I want him to come down and see me."
The officer trotted away.
"What did he say?" asked Elsie. "What is that man on the hill for?"
"That is Cut Finger, the guilty man. He proclaimed himself the murderer last night and now he is willing to die, but wants to die on his horse."
The whole agency was again tremulous with excitement. The teachers, the scholars, the native employés were all gathered into chattering groups with eyes fixed on the motionless figure of the desperate horseman, and in the camps above the agency an almost frenzied excitement was spreading. The stark bravery of the boy's attitude had kindled anew the flame of war, and behind Cut Finger on the hills two groups of mounted warriors had gathered suddenly. Several of the more excitable old women broke into a war-song, whose wail came faintly to the ears of the agent.
"Two Horns, silence those singers," said Curtis, sternly.
Elsie and Jennie and the Parkers joined the group around the agent, and Miss Colson, the missionary, came flying for refuge at the side of her hero.
"What are you going to do?" asked Parker. "If the fellow really means to shoot, of course no man can go up to him. You might send some soldiers."
"Silence in the ranks!" commanded Maynard, and, though he smiled as he said it, Parker realized his mistake. He turned to Elsie and his wife. "I tell you, we'd better get out of here. I feel just like a man sitting on a powder-mine. There's no telling what's going to happen next."
Lawson turned towards him with a sarcastic grin. "I wish I'd realized the state of your nerves, Parker; I should have invited you to Asbury Beach instead of the Indian country."
Maynard brought his field-glasses to bear on the desperado. "He has dismounted," he said. "He is squatted beside his horse, the bridle-rein on his arm, a rifle across his knees, and is faced this way. His attitude is resolute and 'sassy.'"
Curtis quietly said: "Now, friends, I wish you would all go in and pay no further attention to this man. Miss Colson, go back to your work. So long as he sees us looking at him he will maintain his defiant attitude. He will grow weary of his bravado if ignored."
"Quite right, Captain," replied Lawson, and the little knot of visitors broke up and dispersed to sheltered points of observation.
Under the same gentle pressure the employés went back to work, and the self-convicted warrior was left to defy the wind and the sky. Even the Tetongs themselves grew tired of looking when nothing seemed likely to happen, and the forenoon wore away as usual, well filled with duties. Maynard's men got out for drill an hour later, and their bugle's voice pulsed upward to the silent and motionless watcher on the hill like mocking laughter. The clink of the anvil also rose to him on the hot, dry air, and just beneath him the children came forth at recess to play. He became tired of sitting on the ground at last, and again mounted his horse, but no one at the agency seemed to know or to care. The sun beat remorselessly upon his head, and his throat became parched with thirst. Slowly but surely the exaltation of the morning ebbed away and a tremulous weakness seized upon him, so that, when his wife came bringing meat and water, he who had never expected to eat or drink again seized upon the food and ate greedily.
Then, while she sat on the ground and repeated the agent's message, he stood beside his horse, sullen and wordless. The bell rang for noon, and as the children came rushing out they pointed up at him again, and the teachers also stood in a group for a moment, with faces turned upward, but only for a moment, then went carelessly away to their meals.
An hour passed, the work-bell rang, the clerks returned to their duties, and the agent walked slowly across the road towards the office. Cut Finger lifted his rifle and pointed it. "I could shoot him now," he muttered. "But he is a good man; I do not want to kill him." Then the heat and silence settled over hill and valley, and no sound but the buzzing of flies and the clatter of grasshoppers broke the hot, brooding hush of the mid-day. The wind was from the plain and brought no coolness on its wings.
But he was not entirely forgotten. Elsie, from her studio door, kept close watch upon him. "There's something fine about him after all," she said to Curtis.
"It's like the old Mosaic times—an eye for an eye. He knows he must die for this, but he prefers to die gloriously, as a warrior dies."
A dust down the road caught Curtis's attention. "The mail will soon be in and then we will see how all this affects the press of the State; the Chicago dailies will not reach us for a couple of days yet."
"Send the papers over here, please!" cried Elsie, "I'm wild to see them."
"Why not all assemble at 'the parsonage' and I'll bring them there?"
"Very well; that will do as well," she replied. "It will be such a joy to read our obituaries."
As he entered the library with his armful of papers a half-hour later Curtis exclaimed: "Well, now, here is a feast! The commotion on the outside is prodigious. Here are the Copper City and Alta papers, and a dozen lesser 'lights and signals of progress' in the State. Help yourselves." He took out a handful of letters and telegrams. "And here are the prayers of anxious relatives. A telegram for you, Miss Brisbane; and two for you, Lawson."
Elsie's message from her father was brief. "Have no word from you; am en route for Pinon City. Not finding you there will cross to agency at once. Why do you not come out?"
Looking at the date she said: "Papa is coming; he is probably on his way to the agency at this moment."
Curtis looked a little troubled. "I hope not; the roads are dusty and the sun is hot."
"By George! this is fierce stuff," said Parker, looking up from his paper.
"Cut Finger has left the hill," announced Jennie from the door-way; "he is nowhere to be seen."
"Now he will submit to arrest," exclaimed Curtis. "His fine frenzy is gone."
"I'm sorry," Elsie soberly exclaimed. "Must you give him up to that stupid sheriff?"
"Yes, it must be done," replied Curtis. "My only claim to consideration lies in executing the law. I fought lawlessness with the promise that when the sheriff came with proper warrant I would act."
As the young officer went back to his duties the head-lines of the papers he had but glanced at began to burn into his brain. Hitherto his name had been most inconspicuous; only once or twice had it achieved a long-primer setting; mainly it had kept to the security and dignity of brevier notices in theArmy and Navy Journal. Now here it stood, blazoned in ill-smelling ink on wood-pulp paper, in letters half an inch in height:
while in the editorial columns of the Copper City papers similar accusations, though adroitly veiled, were none the less apparent. He had smiled at all this in the presence of his friends, but inwardly he shrank from it just as he would have done had some tramp in the street flung a handful of gutter slime across the breast of his uniform. A gust of rage made his teeth clinch and his face burn hot, and he entered his office with lowering brows.
Wilson looked up with a grin. "Well, Major, the politicians are getting in their work on us."
"This is only the beginning. We may expect an army of reporters to complete the work of misrepresentation."
"The wonder is they haven't got here before. They must be really nervous. Crane says the people in town have very bad hearts. As near as I can make out they faced him up and threatened his life. He says the mob is hanging round the edge of the reservation crazy for blood. He got shy and took to the hills."
"Did he see the sheriff?"
"Yes, the sheriff is on the way."
"Is Crane still asleep?"
"Yes. He didn't wait for grub; he dropped like a log and is dead to the world."
"Poor chap! I shouldn't have sent him on this last trip. Where is Tony?"
"Tony's out in the hills to keep an eye on Cut Finger. Will you go after him to-night?"
"No, not till morning. The police will locate him and stay with him to-night, and to-morrow morning I will go out and get him myself. I don't want any shooting, if it can be avoided. What is it, Heavybreast?" he asked of a large Tetong who entered at the moment, his eyes bright with information.
"White man coming," signed the redman.
Curtis rose and went to the door and looked down the road.
Three carriages were passing the issue-house—one a rather pretentious family surrey, the others ordinary mountain wagons. In the hinder seat of the surrey, and beside the sheriff, sat a gray-haired man.
"It is Senator Brisbane!" said Curtis to Wilson, and a keen pang of anticipated loss came to him, for he knew that Brisbane had come to take his daughter away. But his face was calm as he went down to the gate to meet his distinguished and powerful enemy.
The ex-Senator was hot, weary, and angry. He had arrived in Pinon City on the early train, just as the county attorney and the sheriff were about to set forth. A few words with these officials assuaged his anxiety for his daughter but increased his irritation towards Curtis. Leaving orders for another team to follow, he had taken passage with the sheriff, an action he regretted at once. The seats were too low and too narrow for his vast bulk, and his knees grew weary. The wind came from the plain hot and insolent, bringing no relief to the lungs; on the contrary, it filled his eyes and ears with dust and parched the skin like a furnace blast. Altogether the conditions of his ride had been torturing to the great man, and he had ridden the latter part of it in grim silence, mentally execrating both Lawson and Curtis for luring his daughter so far from civilization.
No one spoke till the agent, pacing calmly down to the gate, stepped into the road and said:
"Good-evening, gentlemen, will you get out and come in?"
Even then Brisbane made no reply, but the sheriff spoke up: "I suppose we'll have to. This is Senator Brisbane, Major. He was very anxious about his daughter and so came in with me. This is Mr. Grismore, our county attorney."
Curtis bowed slightly. "Mr. Grismore I have seen. Senator Brisbane I have met. Send your horses down to the corral, sheriff, and come in; you can't return to-night."
As the sheriff got out he said: "This second team is the Senator's, and the reporter for the Associated Press is in there with Streeter."
Brisbane got out slowly and painfully, and a yellow-gray pallor came into his face as he stood beside the carriage steadying himself by resting his hand on the wheel. The young county attorney, eager to serve the great politician, sprang out and offered a hand, and Curtis, with sudden pity in his heart, made a step forward, but Brisbane put them both aside harshly.
"No, no! I'm all right now. My legs were cramped—that's all. They'll limber up in a minute. The seats were too low for a man of my height. I should have stayed in the other carriage."
After all he was Elsie's father, and Curtis relented: "Senator, if you'll take a seat in my office, I'll go fetch your daughter."
"I prefer to go to her myself," Brisbane replied, menacingly formal. "Where is she?"
"I will show you if you will permit," Curtis coldly replied, and set out to cross the road.
The old man hobbled painfully at first, but soon recovered enough of his habitual power to follow Curtis, who did not wait, for he wished to have a private word with Elsie before her father came. She was lying down as he knocked, resting, waiting for the dinner call.
"Your father is here," he said, as she opened the door.
Her face expressed surprise, not pleasure.
"Here! Here at the agency?"
"Yes, and on his way to the studio. Moreover, he is very dirty, very disgusted, very crusty, and not at all well."
"Poor old father! Now he'll make it uncomfortable for us all. He has come for me, of course. Who is with him?"
"The sheriff, the county attorney, and some reporters."
She smiled. "Then he is 'after you,' too."
"It looks that way. But you must not go away without giving me another chance to talk with you. Will you promise that?" he demanded, abruptly, passionately. "I have something to say to you."
"I dare not promise," she responded, and her words chilled him even more than her action as she turned away to the door. "How slowly he walks! Poor old papa! You shouldn't have done this, popsey," she cried, as she met him with a kiss on his cheek.
Curtis walked away, leaving them alone, a hand of ice at his heart.
Brisbane took her kiss without changing to lighter mood.
"Why didn't you follow out my orders?" he demanded, harshly. "You see what I've had to go through just because you are so foolishly obstinate. That ride is enough to kill a man."
Her throat swelled with anger, but she choked it down and replied very gently. "Come into the studio and let me clean off the dust. I'm sorry."
He followed her in and sank heavily upon a chair. "I wouldn't take that journey again for ten thousand dollars. Why didn't you come to the railway as I ordered?"
"Because I saw no good reason for it. I knew what I was doing. Captain Curtis assured me—"
"Captain Curtis!" he sneered. "You'd take his word against mine, would you?"
"Yes, I would, for he is on the ground and knows all the conditions. He has the outbreak well in hand. You have seen only the outside exaggeration of it. He has acted with honor and good judgment—"
"Oh, he has, has he? Well, we'll see about that!" His mind had taken a new turn. "He won't have anything in his hand six months from now. No West Point dude like him can set himself up against the power of this State and live."
"Now, papa, don't start in to abuse Captain Curtis; he is our host, and it isn't seemly."
"Oh, it isn't! Well, I don't care whether it is or is not; I shall speak my mind. His whole attitude has been hostile to the best interests of the State, and he must get off his high horse."
As he growled and sneered his way through a long diatribe, she brought water and bathed his face and hands and brushed his hair, her anger melting into pity as she comprehended how weak and broken he was. She had observed it before in times of great fatigue, but the heat and dust and discomfort of the drive had reduced the big body, debilitated by lack of exercise, to a nerveless lump, his brain to a mass of incoherent and savage impulses. No matter what he said thereafter, she realized his pitiable weakness and felt no anger.
As he rested he grew calmer, and at last consented to lie down while she made a little tea on an alcohol lamp. After sipping the tea he fell asleep, and she sat by his side, her mind filled with the fundamental conception of a daughter's obligation to her sire. To her he was no longer a great politician, no longer a powerful, aggressive business man—he was only her poor, old, dying father, to whom she owed her every comfort, her education, her jewels, her art. He had never been a companion to her—his had been the rule absolute—and yet a hundred indulgences, a hundred really kind and considerate acts came thronging to her mind as she fanned his flushed face.
"I must go with him," she said; "it is my duty."
Curtis came to the door again and tapped. She put her finger to her lips, and so he stood silent, looking in at her. His eyes called her and she rose and tiptoed to the door.
"I came to ask you both to dinner," he whispered.
Her eyes filled with quick tears. "That's good of you," she returned, in a low voice. "But he would not come. He's only a poor, old, broken man, after all." Her voice was apologetic in tone. "I hope you will not be angry." They both stood looking down at him. "He has failed terribly in the last few weeks. His campaigning will kill him. I wish he would give it up. He needs rest and quiet. What can I do?"
Curtis, looking upon the livid old man, inert and lumpish, yet venerable because of his white hairs—and because he was the sire of his love—experienced a sudden melting of his own resolution. His throat choked, but he said:
"Go with him. He needs you."
At the moment words were unnecessary. She understood his deeper meaning, and lifted her hand to him. He took it in both his. "It may be a long time before I shall see you again. I—I ought not—" he struggled with himself and ceased to speak.
Her eyes wavered and she withdrew her hand. "My duty is with him now; perhaps I can carry him through his campaign, or dissuade him altogether. Don't you see that I am right?"
He drew himself up as though his general-in-chief were passing. "Duty is a word I can understand," he said, and turned away.
Having no further pretext for calling upon her, Curtis thought of Elsie as of a strain of music which had passed. He was rather silent at dinner, but not noticeably so, for Maynard absorbed most of the time and attention of those present. At the first opportunity he returned to his papers, and was deep in work when Jennie came in to tell him that Elsie was coming over to stay the night.
"She has given up her bed to her father, and so she will sleep here. Go over about nine and get her."
If she knew how deeply this command moved him, she was considerate enough to make no comment. "Very well, sis," he replied, quietly. "As soon as I finish this letter."
But he did not finish the letter—did not even complete the sentence with which his pen was engaged when Jennie interrupted him. After she went out he sat in silence and in complete immobility for nearly an hour. At last he rose and went out into the warm and windless night.
When he entered the studio he found her seated upon one trunk and surveying another.
"This looks like flight," he said.
"Yes; papa insists on our going early to-morrow morning. Isn't it preposterous! I can only pack my clothing. He says the trouble is only beginning, and that I must not remain here another day."
"I have come to fetch you to Jennie."
"I will be ready presently. I am just looking round to decide on what to take. Be seated, please, while I look over this pile of sketches."
He took a seat and looked at her sombrely. "You'll leave a great big empty place here when you go."
"Do you mean this studio?"
"I mean in my daily life."
She became reflective. "I hate to go, and that's the truth of it. I am just beginning to feel my grip tighten on this material. I know I could do some good work here, but really I was frightened at papa's condition this afternoon. He is better now, but I can see that he is failing. If he insists on campaigning I must go with him—but, oh, how I hate it! Think of standing up and shaking hands with all these queer people for months! I oughtn't to feel so, of course, but I can't help it. I've no patience with people who are half-baked, neither bread nor dough. I believe I like old Mary and Two Horns better."
"I fear you are voicing a mood, not a conviction. We ought not to condemn any one;" he paused a moment, then added: "I don't like you to evensaycruel things. It hurts me. As I look round this room I see nothing which has to do with duty or conviction or war or politics. There is peace and beauty here. You belong in this atmosphere; you are fitted to your environment. I admit that I was fired at first with a desire to convert you to my ways of thought; now, when a sense of duty troubles you, takes you away from the joy of your art, I question myself. You are too beautiful to wear yourself out in problems. I now say, remain an artist. There is something idyllic about your artist life as I now understand it. It is simple and childlike. In that respect it seems to have less troublesome questions of right or wrong to decide than science. Its one care seems to be, 'What will produce and preserve beauty, and so assuage the pain of the world?' No question of money or religion or politics—just the pursuit of an ideal in a sheltered nook."
"You have gone too far the other way, I fear," she said, sadly. "Our lives, even at the best, are far from being the ideal you present. It seems very strange to me to hear you say those things—"
"I have given the matter much thought," he replied. "If I have made you think of the woes of the world, so you have shown me glimpses of a life where men and women are almost free from care. We are mutually instructed." He rose at this point and, after hesitation, said: "When you go I wish you would leave this room just as it is, and when I am tired and irritable and lonely I'll come here and imagine myself a part of your world of harmonious colors, with no race questions to settle and no harsh duties to perform. Will you do this? These few hangings and lamps and easels are unimportant to you—you won't miss them; to me they will be priceless, and, besides, you may come back again some time. Say you will. It will comfort me."
There was a light in his eyes and an intensity in his voice which startled her. She stammered a little.
"Why, of course, if it will give you the slightest pleasure; there is nothing here of any particular value. I'll be glad to leave them."
"Thank you. So long as I have this room as it is I shall be able to persuade myself that you have not passed utterly out of my life."
She was a little alarmed now, and hastened to say: "I do not see why we should not meet again. I shall expect you to call when you come to Washington—" she checked herself. "I'm afraid my sense of duty to the Tetongs is not strong. Don't think too hardly of me because of it."
He seemed intent on another thought. "Do you know, you've given me a dim notion of a new philosophy. I haven't organized it yet, but it's something like this: Beauty is a sense of fitness, harmony. This sense of beauty—call it taste—demands positively a readjustment of the external facts of life, so that all angles, all suffering and violence, shall cease. If all men were lovers of the beautiful, the gentle, then the world would needs be suave and genial, and life harmoniously colored, like your own studio, and we would campaign only against ugliness. To civilize would mean a totally different thing. I'm not quite clear on my theory yet, but perhaps you can help me out."
"I think I see what you mean. But my world," she hastened to say, "is nothing like so blameless as you think it. Don't think artists are actually what they should be. They are very human, eager to succeed, to outstrip each other; and they are sordid, too. No, you are too kind to us. We are a poor lot when you take us as a whole, and the worst of it is the cleverest makers of the beautiful are often the least inspiring in their lives. I mean they're ignorant and spiteful, and often dishonorable." She stopped abruptly.
"I'm sorry to hear you say that. It certainly shatters a beautiful theory I had built up out of what you and other artists have said to me." After a little silence he resumed: "It comes down to this, then: that all arts and professions are a part of life, and life is a compromise between desire and duty. There are certain things I want to do to-day, but my duties for to-morrow forbid. You are right in going away with your father—I'm not one to keep you from doing that—but I must tell you how great has been the pleasure of having you here, and I hope you will come again. If you go to-morrow morning I shall not see you again."
"Why not?"
"I start at dawn to arrest Cut Finger."
"Alone?"
"No. The captain of the police goes with me."
Her face paled a little. "Oh! I wish you wouldn't! Why don't you take the soldiers?"
"They are not necessary. I shall leave here about four o'clock and surprise the guilty man in his bed. He will not fight me." He rose. "Are you ready to go now?"
"In a moment," she said, and softly crossed the floor to peep into the bedroom. "Poor papa, he looks almost bloodless as he sleeps."
As they stepped out into the darkness Curtis realized that this was their last walk together, and the thought was both sweet and sad.
"Will you take my arm?" he asked. "It is very dark, though there should be a new moon."
"It has gone down; I saw it," she replied, as she slipped her hand through his elbow. "How peaceful it all is! It doesn't seem possible that to-morrow you will risk your life in the performance of duty, and that I will leave here, never to return. I have a curious feeling about this place now. It seems as though I were settled here, and that I am to go on living here forever."
"I wish it were true. Women like you—you know what I mean; there are no women like you, of course—come into my life too seldom. I dread the empty futility of to-morrow. As an Indian agent, I must expect to live without companionship with such as you. I have a premonition that Jennie is going to leave me—as she ought."
"You will be very lonely then; what will you do?"
"Work harder; do more good, and so cheat myself into forgetfulness that time is flying."
"You are bitter to-night."
"Why shouldn't I be when you are going away? It wouldn't be decent of me to be gay."
"Your methods of flattery are always effective. At one moment you discuss the weightiest matters with me—which argues I have brains—and then you grow gloomy over my going and would seem to mean that I am charming, which I don't think is quite true."
"If I weren't a poor devil of an army officer I'd convince you of my sincerity by asking you not to go away at all."
"Thatwouldbe convincing," she said, laughingly. "Please don't do it!"
His tone became suddenly serious. "You are right, I can't ask you to share a life like mine. It is too uncertain. I may be ordered back to my regiment next winter, and then nothing remains but garrison duty. I think I will then resign. But I am unfitted for business, or for any money-getting, and so I've decided that as an honorable man I must not imperil the happiness of a woman. I claim to be a person of taste, and the girl I admired would have other chances in life. I can't afford to say to her, 'Give up all your comfort and security and come with me to the frontier.' She would be foolish to listen—no woman of the stamp I have in mind could do it." They were nearing "the parsonage" gate, and he ended in a low voice: "Don't you think I am right?"
"The theory is that nothing really counts in a woman's life but love," she replied, enigmatically.
"Yes, but theory aside—"
"Well, then, I can conceive of a girl—a veryyounggirl—leaving wealth and friends, and even her art, for the man she loved, but—"
He waited a moment as a culprit listens to his judge. "But then—but in case—"
"If the girl were grown up and loved luxurious living, and shared an enthusiasm—say for art—then—" She broke off and said, wearily, "Then she might palter and measure values and weigh chances, and take account of the future and end by not marrying at all."
They had reached the gate and he spoke with perceivable effort: "I've no right to ask it, of course, but if you take pity on my loneliness at any time and write to me, your letters will be more welcome than it is seemly in me to say, and I'll promise not to bore you with further details of my 'Injines.' Will you be kind to me?"
"I will be glad to write," she replied, but in her voice was something he did not understand. As they entered the house Elsie said: "Captain Maynard, Captain Curtis is going out to-morrow morning to arrest that crazy Indian. Do you think he ought to go alone?"
"Certainly not! It would be too dangerous. He shall have an escort," replied Maynard, emphatically.
"No, no!" said Curtis, decisively. "I am safer to go unarmed and alone."
"George!" protested Jennie, "you shall not go out there alone. Why don't you send the police?"
Maynard here interposed. "Don't take on worry; I'll go with him myself."
This last hour in Elsie's company was a mingled pain and pleasure to Curtis, for she was most charming. She laid aside all hauteur, all perversity, and gave herself unreservedly to her good friends. They were all at high tension, and the talk leaped from jest to protest, and back to laughter again, agile and inconsequent. The time and the place, the past and the future, counted for little to these four, for they were young and they were lovers.
At last Jennie rose. "If you people are to rise at dawn you must go to sleep now. Good-night! Come, Elsie Bee Bee."
Maynard followed Jennie into the hall with some jest, and Curtis seized the opportunity to delay Elsie. He offered his hand, and she laid hers therein with a motion of half-surrender.
"Good-night, Captain. I appreciate your kindness more than I can say."
"Don't try. I feel now that I have done nothing—nothing of what I should have done; but I didn't think you were to leave so soon. If I had known—"
"You have done more than you realize. Once more, good-night!"
"Good-night!" he said, in an unsteady voice; "and remember, you promised to write!"
"I will keep my promise." She turned at the door. "Don't try to write around your red people. I believe I'd like to hear how you get on with them."
"Defend me from mine enemies within the gates, and I'll work out my problem."
"I'll do my best. Good-bye!"
"No, not good-bye—just good-night!"
For a moment he stood meditating a further word, then stepped into the hall. Elsie, midway on the stairs, had turned and was looking down at him with a face wherein the eyes were wistful and brows perplexed. She guiltily lowered her lashes and turned away, but that momentary pause—that subtle interplay of doubt and dream—had given the soldier a pleasure deeper than words.
Jennie was waiting at the door of the tiny room in which Elsie was to sleep, her face glowing with admiration and love. "Oh, you queenly girl!" she cried, with a convulsive clasp of her strong arms. "I can't get over the wonder of your being here in our little house. You ought to live always in a castle."
Elsie smiled, but with tears in her eyes. "You're a dear, good girl. I never had a truer friend."
"I wish you were poor!" said Jennie, as they entered the plain little room; "then you could come here as a missionary or something, and we could have you with us all the time. I hate to think of your going away to-morrow."
"You must come and see me in Washington."
"Oh no! That wouldn't do!" said Jennie, half alarmed. "It might spoil me for life out here. You must visit us again."
There was a note of honest, almost boyish suffering in Jennie's entreaties which moved the daughter of wealth very deeply, and she went to her bed with a feeling of loss, as though she were taking leave of something very sweet and elementally comforting.
She thought of her first lover, and her cheeks burned with disgust of her folly. She thought of two or three good, manly suitors whose protestations of love had left her cold and humorously critical. On Lawson's suit she lingered, for he was still a possibility should she decide to put her soldier-lover away. "But Ihavedone so—definitely," she said to some pleading within herself. "I can't marry him; our lives are ordered on divergent lines. I can't come here to live."
"Happiness is not dependent on material things," argued her newly awakened self. "He loves you—he is handsome and true and good."
"But I don't love him."
"Yes, you do. When you returned Osborne Lawson's ring you quite plainly said so."
She burned with a new flame with this confession; but she protested, "Let us be sensible! Let us argue!"
"You cannot argue with love."
"I am not a child to be carried away by a momentary gust of emotion. See how impossible it is for me to share his work—his austere life."
And here entered the far-reaching question of the life and death of a race. In a most disturbing measure this obscure young soldier represented a view of life—of civilization antagonistic to her faith, and in stern opposition to the teachings of her father. In a subtle fashion he had warped the worddutyfrom its martial significance to a place in a lofty philosophy whose tenets were only just beginning to unfold their inner meaning to her.
Was it not true that she was less sympathetic with the poor brown peoples of the earth than with the animals? "How can you be contemptuous of God's children, whom the physical universe has colored brown or black or yellow—you, who are indignant when a beast is overburdened? If we repudiate and condemn to death those who do not please us, who will live?"
She felt in herself some singular commotion. Conceptions, hitherto mere shells of thought, became infilled with passion; and pity, hitherto a feeble sentiment with her, expanded into an emotion which shook her, filled her throat with sobs, discrediting her old self with her new self till the thought of her mean and selfish art brought shame. How small it all was, how trivial, beside the consciousness of duty well done, measured against a life of self-sacrifice, such as that suggested by this man, whose eyes sought her in worship!
Could there be any greater happiness than to stand by his side, helping to render a dying, captive race happier—healthier? Could her great wealth be put to better use than this of teaching two hundred thousand red people how to meet and adjust themselves to the white man's way of life? Their rags, their squalor, their ignorance were more deeply depressing to her lover than the poverty of the slums, for the Tetongs had been free and joyous hunters. Their condition was a tragic debasement. She began to feel the arguments of the Indian helpers. Their words were no longer dead things; they had become electric nodes; they moved her, set her blood aflame, and she clinched her hands and said: "I will help him do this great work!"
Brisbane was early awake, abrupt and harsh in command. "Come! we must get out o' here," he said. "I don't want to be under the slightest obligation to this young crank. I intend to break him."
She flamed into wrath—a white radiance. "When you break him you break me," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean I've changed my mind. I think he's right and you are wrong."
The entrance of the sheriff prevented a full accounting at the moment, but it was merely deferred. Once in the carriage, Brisbane began to discredit her lover. "Don't tell me Curtis is disinterested; he is scheming for some fat job. His altruistic plea is too thin."
"You are ill-fitted to understand the motives of a man like Captain Curtis," Elsie replied, and every word cut. "What have you—or I—ever done that was not selfish?"
"I've given a thousand dollars to charity for every cent of his."
"Yes, and that's the spirit in which you gave—never to help, only to exalt yourself, just as I have done. Captain Curtis is giving himself. He and his sister have made me see myself as I am, and I am not happy over it. But I wish you would not talk to me any more about them; they are my friends, and I will not listen to your abuse of them."
It was a most fatiguing ride. Brisbane complained of the heat and the dust, and of a mysterious pain in his head; and Elsie, alarmed by his flushed face, softened. "Poor papa, I'm so sorry you had to come on this long ride!" Lawson was also genuinely concerned over the Senator's growing incoherency, and privately told the driver to push hard on the reins.
When they rounded the sharp point of the Black Bear Mesa, and came in sight of the long, low, half-way house, Lawson sat up with a jerk. "There is the mob—camped and waiting for the sheriff."
As Elsie looked at the swarming figures of the cowboys her mind forecasted tragic events. The desperadoes were waiting to lynch Cut Finger—that was plain. Curtis had said he would not surrender his prisoner to be lynched. He was coming; he would be met by this mob.
She clutched Lawson by the arm. "We must warn him!"
He merely nodded; but a look in his eyes gave her to understand that he would do his duty.
The cattlemen, seeing the wagon whirling round the mesa, mounted and massed in stern array, believing that the carriage contained the sheriff and his prisoner. They were disappointed and a little uneasy when they recognized Brisbane, the great political boss; but with ready wit Johnson rode along in front of the gang, saying, with a wink: "Put up your guns, boys. This is a meeting in honor of Senator Brisbane." Then, as a mutter of laughter ran down the line, he took off his hat and lifted his voice:
"Boys, three cheers for Senator Brisbane—hip, hip, hurrah!"
After the cheers were given the horsemen closed round the carriage with cries for a speech.
Brisbane, practised orator and shrewd manipulator, rose as the carriage stopped, and removed his hat. His eyes were dim and the blood seemed about to burst through his cheeks, but he was not without self-possession.
"Gentlemen, I thank you for this demonstration, but I must ask you to wait till I have rested and refreshed myself. With your permission I will then address you."
"Right—right!"
"We can wait!" they heartily responded, and opened a way for the carriage.
Elsie shuddered as she looked into the rude and cruel faces of the leaders of this lynching party. They no longer amused her. She saw them now from the stand-point of Captain Curtis and his wards, and realized how little of mercy they would show to their enemies. On Lawson's lips lay a subtly contemptuous smile, and he uttered no word—did not lift a hand till the carriage was at the door.
Streeter helped the Senator out, and with unexpected grace presented his hand to Elsie. "I do not need help," she said, coldly, and brushed past him into the little sitting-room, which swarmed with excited, scrawny, tired, and tearful women.
"What is goin' on out there? Have the soldiers put down the pizen critters?" asked one.
"You're Miss Brisbane—we heerd you was all killed at the agency. Weren't you scared?"
Almost contemptuously Elsie calmed their fears, and by a few questions learned that this house had been made a rallying-point for the settlers and that the women were just beginning to feel the depressing effects of being so long away from their homes without rest and proper food.
"Doyou think we can go home now?"
"Certainly. Captain Curtis will see that you are not harmed," she replied, and she spoke with all a wife's sense of joy and pride in her husband.
"We've been camping here for most a week, seems like, an' we're all wore out," wailed one little woman who had three small children to herd and watch over.
Brisbane, inspirited by an egg-nog and a sandwich, mounted a wash-tub on the low porch and began a speech—a suave, diplomatic utterance, wherein he counselled moderation in all things. "We can't afford at this time to do a rash thing," he said, and winked jovially at Johnson. "The election coming on is, after all, the best chance for us to get back at these fool Injun apologists. So go slow, boys—go slow!"
As these smooth words flowed from his lips Elsie burned with shame and anger. Some newly acquired inward light enabled her to read in the half-hearted dissuasion of her father's speech a subtle, heartless encouragement to violenceafterelection. While the cheers were still ringing in her ears, at the close of the address, Elsie felt a touch on her shoulder and turned to face Calvin, standing close beside her, timid and flushed.
She held out her hand with a swift rush of confidence.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Streeter?"
"I'm pretty well," he said, loudly, and added, in a low voice, "I want to see you alone." He looked about the room. The corner least crowded was occupied by a woman nursing a wailing baby. "Come this way; she's Norwegian; she can't understand us."
Elsie followed him, and when he spoke it was in a rapid, low mutter. "Is the Major goin' to come with Cut Finger?"
"I'm afraid so."
"He mustn't. You know what this gang's here for?"
"What can we do? Can't we warn him?"
"Well, I'm goin' to take a sneak and try it. It's all my neck is worth to play it on the boys; but it's got to be done, for the Major is a fighter, and if this mob meets him there will be blood on the moon. Now don't worry. I'm going to slide right out through the first gate I see and head him off; mebbe you'd like to write a word or two."
"You are a real hero," she said, as she put a little slip of paper into his hand, and pressed it there with both of hers.
"Don't do that," he said, hurriedly; "they'll think something's up. I'm doin' it for the Major; he's treated me white all the way along, and I'll be derned if I let this gang do him."
A pain shot through her heart. Putting her hand to her bosom, she said: "It means everything to me, Calvin. Good-bye. I am trusting you—it's life or death to me. Good-bye!"
The east was saffron and pale-blue as Crow and the agent drove out of the corral and up the road to the south. Two Horns was the driver. Crow alone was armed, and he wore but his official revolver. Maynard had been purposely left out of the expedition, for Curtis did not wish to seem to question in the slightest degree the obedience of his people. He preferred to go unarmed and without handcuffs or rope, as a friend and adviser, not as an officer of the law.
The morning was deliciously cool, with a gentle wind sliding down from the high peaks, which were already glowing with the morning's pink and yellow. From some of the tepees in Grayman's camp smoke was already rising, and a few old women could be seen pottering about the cooking lodges, while the morning chorus of the dogs and coyotes thickened. There was an elemental charm in it all which helped the young soldier to shake off his depression.
Passing rapidly through the two villages, Two Horns turned to the left and entered upon a road which climbed diagonally up the side of a long, low ridge. This involved plodding, and by the time they reached the summit the sun met them full-fronted. In the smaller valley, which lay between this ridge and the foot-hills, a rough trail led towards the mountains. This way Two Horns took, driving rapidly and silently, and soon entered the pines and pinons which form the lower fringe of the vast and splendid robe of green which covers the middle heights of the Rocky Mountains.
After an hour of sharp driving, with scarcely a word or gesture, Crow turned and said: "Cut Finger there. Black Wolf, his tepee."
The trail here took a sharp curve to the left to avoid a piece of stony ground, and from a little transverse ridge Curtis could look down on a small, temporary village, the band of Black Wolf, who had located here to cut hay on the marsh.
"We must surprise him if we can," said Curtis to Crow. "We must not shoot. I will talk to him. If he cocks his gun kill him; but I don't think he will want to fight."
The lads could be heard singing their plaintive songs as they climbed the hills for their ponies. Smoke was rising from each lodge, and children, dogs, and hens were outdoing each other in cheerful uproar as Two Horns drove up to where Black Wolf stood, an old man with thin, gray hair, shielding his eyes with the scant shadow of his bony wrist.
"Ho, agent!" he cried. "Why do you come to see us so early?"
"Is Cut Finger here?"
"Yes; he is in there." He pointed to a tepee near.
"Be silent!" commanded Curtis, as he alighted swiftly, but without apparent haste or excitement. Crow instantly followed him, alert and resolute. As they entered the tepee Cut Finger, still half asleep on his willow hammock, instinctively reached for his rifle, which lay beneath him on the ground, dangerous as a half-awakened rattlesnake.
Curtis put his foot on the weapon, and said, pleasantly: "Good-morning, Cut Finger; you sleep late."
The young man sat up and blinked stupidly, while Crow took the gun from beneath the agent's foot.
Curtis signed to Black Wolf. "This boy has killed a herder and I have come for him. You knew of his deed."
"I have heard of it," the old man replied, with a gesture.
"It is such men who bring trouble on the tribe," pursued Curtis. "They must be punished. Cut Finger must go with me down to the agency. He must not make more trouble."
The news of the agent's mission brought every soul hurrying to the tent, for Cut Finger had said, "I will fight the soldiers if they come."
Curtis heard them coming and said: "Crow, tell all these people outside that Cut Finger has done a bad thing and must be punished. That unless such men are cast out by the Tetongs they will always be in trouble."
Crow lifted up his big, resounding voice and recounted what the agent had said, and added: "You shall see we will take this man. I, Crow, have said it. It will be foolish for any one to resist."
The agent, sitting before Cut Finger, addressed him in signs. "I am your friend, I am sorry for you. I am sorry for any man who does wrong and suffers punishment; but you have injured your people, you made the white man very angry; he came ready to shoot—you saw how I turned him away. I said: 'I will find the man who shot the herder. I will bring him—I do not want any one else to suffer.' Then you proclaimed yourself. You said: 'I alone did this thing.' Then you went on the hill to fight—I cannot allow that. No more blood will be shed. I will not lie; I have come to take you. You will be punished; you must go with me to the white man's strong-house."
A whimpering cry arose, a cry which ended in a sighing moan of heart-piercing, uncontrollable agony, and Curtis, turning his face, saw the wife of Cut Finger looking at him from her blanket on the opposite side of the tepee. A shout of warning from Crow made him leap to his feet and turn.
Cut Finger confronted him, his eyes glowing with desperate resolution.
"Sit down!" commanded the Captain, using his fist in the sign, with a powerful gesture. The fugitive could not endure his chief's eyes; he sank back on his couch and sat trembling.
"If you touch the Little Father I will kill you," said Crow, gruffly, as he stood with drawn revolver in his hand. "I, Crow, have said it!"
Black Wolf was looking on with lowering brow. "He says the white man was driving his sheep on our land."
"So he was," replied Curtis, "but it is bad for the Tetongs when a white man is killed. It is better to come and tell me. When a redman kills a white man the white men say: 'Let us killallthe Tetongs—spare no one.' Cut Finger said he was ready to die. Well, then, let him go with me, and I will make his punishment as light as I can. I am his friend—a friend to every Tetong. I will tell the war chief at Pinon City how it was, and he will say Cut Finger was not alone to blame—the white man was also to blame. Thus the punishment will not be so heavy. Cut Finger is a young man; he has many years to live if he will do as I tell him. He will come back to his tribe by-and-by and be a good man."
So, by putting forth all his skill in gesture he conveyed to Cut Finger's mind a new idea—the idea of sacrificing himself for the good of the tribe. He also convinced the members of Black Wolf's band that their peace and safety lay in giving him up to their agent, and so at last the young desperado rose and followed his chief to the wagon wherein Two Horns still sat, impassive and unafraid.
As he put his hand on the carriage-seat a convulsive shudder swept over Cut Finger. He folded his arms and, lifting his eyes to the hills, burst forth in a death-song, a chant so sad, so passionate, and so searching, that the agent's heart was wrenched. Answering sobs and wails broke from the women, and the young wife of the singer came and crouched at his feet, her little babe in her arms, and this was his song: