"Y-a-a-as," drawled Lancaster, reflectively, gnawing the while at a fresh slab of tobacco, "we jes' nat'ally mavericked this claim."
A fortnight had passed since his return from the land-office. In that time, his fear had slowly vanished, his confidence returned. And he had begun to show streaks of the bravado that, in his stronger days, made him an efficient section-boss. Rosy dreams, even, beset his brain—dreams upon which Marylyn, despising her father's meaner structures (and kept in ignorance of what might, at any moment, raze them), piled many a rainbow palace. For, to the younger girl, certain calico-covered books on the mantel had invested the events of the fortnight just gone with a delightful tinge of romance.
Dallas, however, took a sensible view of their situation. She pointed out that the man who had made an entry for the land would, in all probability, return; and that if he did not, five years, at least, would pass before the railroad reached them. Meanwhile, the quarter-section should be properly filed upon for possession and farmed for a living. Now, as she brushed the hearth clean with the wing of a duck, she listened quietly to her father's confident boasting.
"It's this way, m' gal:" he said—he compassed a goodly quid and shifted it dexterously into the saggingpocket of a cheek—"Inside o' six months after a man files, he's got t' dig a dugout er put up a shanty. He's got t' do a leetle farm-work, an' sleep on his claim. When thet six months is up, ef he ain't done no buildin' er farmin', th' claim's abandoned, an' th' first man comin' along c'n hev it.
"Inthiscase, th' gent in question ain't built, dug er farmed. Ef he was t' show up an' want this quarter, he could git it by payin' fer our improvements. Ah reckon we'd hev t' sell an' pull our freight. But ef he was t' show up an'notpay like a' honest man, they'd—they'd—wal, they'd likely be aleetledisagreement."
Dallas shook her head. "If he comes before his six months is up and improves, we got to go. That would be the only square thing. Ain't it so?"
"Wal—wal——" began Lancaster, lamely.
"It is," she said. "He filed on the quarter, and we had no right to settle——"
"Wehevsettled, an' th' lan' 's goin' t' be worth money," broke in her father.
She put up her hand. "We got to go, if he comes. But"—she arose wearily—"if he didn't offer pay for our improvements, howcouldwe go, or get through the winter, or build again next spring? Our money's gone."
"Look a-here, Dallas," began her father, crossly, "they ain't no use t' worry th' way you do. Winter is clost. It ain't likely th' man'll come along this late. An' ef he don' show up pretty soon, he ain't got a chanst. 'Cause, when his six months is gone, Ah'll make another trip t' Bismarck, contes' his entry, hev it cancelled an' file.Then, we's safe."
She silenced him, for Marylyn was entering, and quit the shack. Outside, before the warped door, she paused.
"He's always so sure of himself. But he can't do anything. And Marylyn—Oh, Iwishthere was someone with us, now—someone that'd help us if anything—went wrong."
Of a sudden, looking down at her hands, her eyes fell upon the crimson stripes left across her palms by the plow. And, in fancy, a horseman was riding swiftly toward her from the east, again, while she leaned on the cross-brace and waited.
"Twenty miles," she said thoughtfully; "twenty miles." And turned the marks under.
Sun-baked, deep of rut and straight as the flight of a crow, lay the road that led northeast from the swift, shoally ford of the Missouri to the cattle-camp at Clark's. It began at the rough planking upon which the rickety ferry-boat, wheezing like some asthmatic monster, discharged its load of soldiers or citizens, and ran up through the deep cut in the steep, caving river-bank. From there, over the western end of the Lancaster quarter, across the coulée under a hub-depth of muddy backwater—at the only point where the sumach-grown sides sloped gradually—it took its level, unswerving way.
Twice only in its course did it touch the ravine curving along near by it—once, six miles from the ferry-landing, where, on the limbs of a cluster of giant cottonwoods that grew in the bottom of the gully, a score of Indian dead were lashed, their tobacco-pipes, jerked beef and guns under the blanket wrappings that hid them; and, again, atMurphy's Throat, four miles farther up, where the coulée narrowed until a man, standing in its bed with arms outstretched, could place the tips of his fingers against either rocky wall. Beyond the Throat, the crack in the plains grew wider and shallower, veered out to the eastward, and, at last, came to an abrupt end in a high meadow below the distant river-bluffs.
For decades the road had been a buffalo-trail, a foot wide and half as deep, that, in the dry season, guided the herds in single file from the caking meadow to the distant waters of the Missouri; then the travee poles of Indian tribes gave it the semblance of a wagon track, the centre of which was worn bare by the hoofs of laden ponies and the feet of trudging squaws; and, finally, the lumbering carts of traders, the Studebakers of settlers, and those heavier wagons that roll in the rear of marching men, made of the track a plain and hardened highway.
Down it, that morning, approaching to the accompaniment of loud talking, the tramping of horses, the cracking of whips and the jingling of spurs, came a long procession. Yet so absorbed was Dallas in her plowing that not until the head of its column was close upon her and there was barely time to go to the bridles of the frightened mules did she see it.
A tanned, unkempt officer led the way, with baying foxhounds running about him. On either hand rode his staff, and his scouts—Arickaree Indians, in patched breeches and dusty blankets. And behind, full-bearded, all military look gone from their boots, hats and uniforms, came the cavalry, riding two and two, and flying torn and faded guidons.
Dallas had no chance to view the front of the command, for the mules claimed all her attention by hauling back on their bits. But now they quieted a little, and she was free to watch the dozen or so musicians who came next, mounted, with their brass instruments in hand. She saw that these men were nudging one another, and directing at her glances which were bold and amused.
Something of her father's hatred of soldiers stirred her. She grew defiant; yet only for a moment. The musicians trotted by, and now Indians were passing—men, women and children, whose stolid faces disclosed no hint of grief or hatred for their captivity. The braves, twenty in number, formed the head of the band, and kept no order of march as they spurred forward their ragged, foot-sore ponies. Their Springfield rifles, knives and tomahawks had been taken from them, but they still carried their once gay lances, and shields of buffalo-hide covered with rude pictures of the chase and battle. But though on other occasions these would have betokened the free warrior, they now only emphasised by contrast the blankets that trailed ingloriously from their wearers' shoulders to the ground and the drooping feathers of the conquered chiefs.
A war-priest, whose string of bears' claws, triple feathers, charms and bag plainly betokened the medicine-man, headed the tribe. He was seated upon a gaudily decorated saddle; the nose-band, front and cheek-pieces of his horse's bridle were thickly studded with brass nails; bright pom-poms of coloured wool swung from the curb and the throat-latch; and the nag's tail was stiffly braided with strips of woolen—scarlet and yellow and blue. Close beside him rode two stately braves of high rank, theirmounts as richly caparisoned, their buckskin shirts gorgeous with bead and porcupine-quill embroidery, otter-skin head-dresses upon their hair. Like their leader, the dusky faces of the two Indians and of those forming the rest of the party were hideously painted, showing that all had but recently been upon the warpath.
The other half of the redskin company was more squalid. A score of spotted, sway-backed ponies crept along, bearing and, at the same time, dragging, heavy loads. Each saddle held a squaw and one or more small children—the squaw with a cocoon-like papoose strapped to her back. And at the tail of each horse, surrounded by limping Indian dogs, came a travee laden with a wounded or aged Indian, or heaped with cooking utensils, blankets and buffalo-skins.
One woman of all the squaws rode a pony that had not a double burden. She was dressed in buckskin and bright calico, and sat upon a blanket that almost covered her horse. Her hair was braided neatly, her dark cheeks were daubed with carmine. She kept a rigid seat as she passed Dallas, and her black eyes answered the other's kindly look with one full of sullen pride. Beside her hobbled an aged hag across whose wrinkled mouth and chin was a deep and livid scar.
When the Indians were past, more troopers followed. After them trundled a half-dozen light field-pieces, the wagon-train, and ambulances filled with sick or wounded soldiers, all under the conduct of a rear-guard. Soon, the entire cavalcade was gone, and had halted on the river-bank to wait the ferry. Dallas was alone again, listening to the faint strains of the band which, from thecut, was gallantly announcing the return from the long campaign.
At the door of the shack, Lancaster and his younger daughter were watching the portage, piecemeal, of the troops. But Dallas, starting the team again, saw father and sister suddenly turn from the landing to look and point toward the coulée. Glancing that way, too, she saw the object of their interest. Over the brink into sight was toiling a strange figure, bent and almost hidden under an unwieldy load.
She moved aside in some trepidation to await the creature's advance. Upon its back, as it tottered along, was a score of pots and pans, tied together, and topped by a sack of buffalo-chips that, at each slow step, rolled first to one hand and then to the other. Yet with all the difficulty of balancing the fuel-sack and preventing its falling to the ground, the straggler did not fail to keep in place a drab face-covering.
The mules stood perfectly quiet until the figure was near. Then they became uneasy for the second time, and shied back upon the plow, tangling their harness.
The effect of this was startling. The sack of chips came tumbling off the pots and pans, spilling upon the roadway. The tin things followed with a crash. And, with a grunt, the bent figure retreated a few steps and uncovered its face.
In very amazement Dallas let go the mules. The creature facing her was young and pitifully thin. About a face dripping with perspiration fell a mop of tangled hair. Under a tattered mourning blanket, a bulging calico waist disclosed, through many rents, a lean and bony chest. Andbelow the leather strap that belted both the sombre blanket and the waist, hung limply the shreds of a fringed buckskin petticoat. The straggler was an Indian—a male—yet, despite his sex, he wore, not a brave's dress, but the filthy, degrading garb of a squaw!
He watched Dallas with cowed, questioning eyes, strangely soft and un-Indian in their expression. After a moment, seeing that he was ill, as well as unarmed, she ceased to feel afraid of him.
"How," she said, in greeting.
He made no reply, only continued to watch her steadily.
"How," she repeated, and smiled.
His eyes instantly brightened.
"You sick?" she asked, moving her head sorrowfully in pantomime.
For answer, he shambled closer and held up first one naked foot and then the other, like a suffering hound. Dallas saw that they were sore from stone bruises and bleeding from cactus wounds.
"Oh, you're hurt!" she cried.
The Indian nodded, and at once made her a dumb appeal. Lowering himself stiffly until he was seated upon the dead grass before her, he pointed eloquently into his wide-open mouth.
Dallas understood. "Hungry," she said.
He nodded again.
She had never heard a scoffing white declare that the red man is, above all, a beggar, so she did not delay answering his mute petition. She stooped to examine again the cuts and bruises on his feet. Then, "Wait till I come back," she bade him, and his vigorous nod assured herthat he understood what she said. She hurried away to the shack.
She tarried only long enough to tell her father of the straggler and to hear his objections at her "fussin'" with a "no-'count Injun." Returning, she found her charge patiently waiting for her. As she came up, he was facing the ford, where, amid cursing, shouting and trumpet blares, some troopers were trying to induce the balky ambulance mules to go aboard the boat. But when she handed him a crockery plate heaped with boiled potatoes, cold meat and pancakes, and a piece of suet wound in a soft white cloth, he became indifferent to the lively doings at the landing and began to eat as if famished.
He made such rapid headway that, before Dallas realised it, the food was gone, the plate scraped clean and the suet direly threatened. He gave her a puzzled look as she put forth a hand objectingly.
"No, no," she said. And while she tore the soft cloth into strips, she put the fat out of reach by slipping it into a skirt pocket.
The bandages ready, she knelt before him and tenderly swathed his wounds.
"There!" she said, as she finished. "Now, you'd better hurry. The soldiers are almost over, and you'll be too late to get across dry."
He scrambled up, but, ignoring her advice, put one hand through a rent in his squaw's waist and began to search for something. Presently, he brought forth a package done up in dirty muslin, and slowly unfastened it. A folded paper as soiled as its wrapper fell out. It wasworn through much handling and covered with pencilled words. He handed it to Dallas.
At first, she could not decipher it. But after studying it carefully and placing together several detached bits she was able to make it out. It was written scrawlingly and in a trembling hand.
"The bearer of this [it read] the good chief, Red Moon, I commend to the gentleness and mercy of every God-fearing man and woman. Once, out of the weakness of the flesh, he wept under the tortures of a sun-dance. Since then he has been abused, starved, and spat upon. Yet, hearing from me of Christ, His suffering, and His command to forgive, he has put down his desire to revenge his wrongs in blood, and goes on his way, labouring and enduring in silence. May God be gracious to whomsoever aids this least one among us."
"The bearer of this [it read] the good chief, Red Moon, I commend to the gentleness and mercy of every God-fearing man and woman. Once, out of the weakness of the flesh, he wept under the tortures of a sun-dance. Since then he has been abused, starved, and spat upon. Yet, hearing from me of Christ, His suffering, and His command to forgive, he has put down his desire to revenge his wrongs in blood, and goes on his way, labouring and enduring in silence. May God be gracious to whomsoever aids this least one among us."
Here the letter ended, but underneath was the signature—so fingered, however, that Dallas could spell out only the word "David"—and a blurred postscript which said:
"I have christened him Charles, and taught him English, but since his punishment he has never——"
"I have christened him Charles, and taught him English, but since his punishment he has never——"
The remainder of the paper was illegible.
When Dallas gave it back to the Indian, he wrapped it up carefully and returned it to his bosom. Then he gathered up the scattered chips, lifted his double load to his shoulders, drew his sombre blanket close about him, and shambled slowly away.
"Poor thing!" said Dallas, in compassion.
He stopped to look back.
"Good-by," she said as he went on; "good-by."
When he reached the river-bank, he turned again. The frost-blighted cottonwoods that bordered the Missouri were behind him, gleaming as yellowly as if, during the short, hot summer, their leafy branches had caught and imprisoned all the sunshine. Against that belt of brilliant colour stood out his spare, burdened frame.
Watching, she saw his gaunt face slowly relax in a friendly grin.
Snow fell on the very heels of the cavalry. Scarcely were the Indians safe in the stockade and the troopers once more in barracks, when some first flakes, like down plucked by the wind from the breasts of the southward-hastening wild-fowl, came floating out of the sky. Soon the long sumach leaves on the coulée edge were drooping under a crystalline weight, the black plowed strip was blending with the unplowed prairie, and the shock head of the cottonwood shack was donning a spotless night-cap. And so heavy and ceaseless was the downfall that, at supper-time, the sweet trumpet notes of "retreat" were wafted out from Brannon across a covered plain.
When morning dawned, the heavens were cloudless, and the laggard sun, as it rose, shone with blinding glory upon peaceful miles. Nowhere was a sign of wallow, path or road, and the coulée yawned, white-lipped. Even the Missouri was not unchanged. For, away to the northwest, there had been a mighty rainstorm, and the murky river tumbled by in waves that were angry and swollen.
Since his early boyhood, the section-boss had not known snow. Before the previous day, Dallas and Marylyn had never seen it. It was with exclamations of delight, therefore, that, crowding together in the doorway, the three first caught sight of the glistening drifts.
"Pa, it's like a Christmas card," cried the younger girl. And, bareheaded, she ran out to frolic before the shack.
To Dallas, the scene had a deeper meaning. Here was what would discourage and block anyone who had put off necessary improvements! And this would last long after the expiration of that six months! "I guess there'll be no building or plowingnow," she said to her father, happily.
He, fully as relieved, returned a confident assent.
A little later, Old Michael, the ferryman, drove by, breaking a track along the blotted road. His ancient corduroys, known to every river-man from Bismarck to Baton Rouge, were hidden beneath layers of overcoats. Through the wool cap pulled down to his collar, two wide holes gave him outlook; a third, and smaller aperture, was filled by the stem of a corn-cob pipe. He was headed for the cattle-camp, the lines over a four-in-hand hitched to three empty wagons, a third team tied to the tailboard of the hindmost box.
On the arrival of the saloon gang, the pilot had left his steamboat in the hands of his two helpers and made his way to Shanty Town. There, in a shingle hut, perched atop a whisky cask, and kicking its rotund belly complacently with his heels, he had wet a throat, long dry, from the amber depths beneath him.
With each succeeding glass, his obligations had grown apace. Nevertheless, for a lifetime of rough service had brought about an immunity that belied his Celtic blood, his brain remained clear, his step steady and his eye unbleared. Thus it happened that when, cut off from grazing, it was necessary for the Shanty Town teams tobe returned at once to Clark's, Old Michael was on hand and in condition to take them, and, by so doing, wipe out his drinking-account.
As he came opposite the shack, Marylyn was still running about in the snow, while Dallas was sweeping out some long, narrow drifts that had sifted in through window-and door-cracks. Squinting across at them, he recalled, all at once, a heated conversation that had taken place at Shanty Town the afternoon of the southward departure of a Dodge City courier. And he shook his head sorrowfully.
"Ye'll have yer han's fule before long," he advised aloud, "or it's me that's not good at guessin'." And, lifting the front of his cap, he sympathetically blew the purple bump that served him for a nose till it rang through the crisp air like a throaty bugle.
Farther on, as he sat pondering deeply and letting the leaders choose their course, a horseman came cantering toward him, and drew rein beside his wheel. It was Lounsbury, buried to the ears in a buffalo coat.
"Sure, it's somethin' important, John, that's a-bringin' ye out t'-day," cried Old Michael, roguishly, his brogue disclosing his identity. "It's ayther tillegrams or l-a-a-ydies."
The storekeeper coloured under his visor. "It's nay-ther," he mocked laughingly.
"None o' yer shillyshallin'," warned the ferryman, giving the other a playful whack with his gad. "Oi kin rade ye loike a buke."
"You can't read a book," declared Lounsbury. "But I'll tell you: I'm going to the Lancasters'."
Old Michael nodded, with a sly wink through the portholes of his mask. "Oi knowed it!" he said. Then, after fishing out a tobacco-bag from under his many coats and lighting the corn-cob in the protecting bowl of his palms, "In that case, man, Oi got somethin' t' say t' ye."
He leaned over the wheel confidentially, and Lounsbury bent toward him, so that the smoke of the pipe fed the storekeeper's nostrils. They talked for a half-hour, the one relating his story, the other putting in quick questions. At the end of their conversation, Lounsbury held out his hand.
"If their letter brings him, Mike," he said, "don't you fail to let me know."
"Aye, aye," promised the pilot, earnestly.
They parted. Old Michael continued his way with an easy mind. But Lounsbury was troubled. Instead of carrying—as on his former visit—good news to the little family on the bend, he must now be the bearer of evil.
And when, having stalled his horse with Ben and Betty, he entered the cottonwood shack, his heart smote him still more. For, secretly, he had hoped that he was to tell them what they already knew. But it seemed precisely the reverse. There was nothing in the appearance and actions of the Lancasters that suggested anxiety. The section-boss, though his manner was not without a certain reserve (as if he half believed something was about to be wormed out of him), greeted Lounsbury good-naturedly enough. Marylyn hurried up in a timid flutter to take his cap and coat. While, facing him from the hearth-side, her hair coiled upon her head like a crown, her grey eyes bright, her cheeks glowing, was a new Dallas.
"Well, how've you all been?" asked Lounsbury, accepting a bench.
"Oh, spright 'nough," answered the section-boss. "But it's cold, it's cold. Keeps me tremblin' like a guilty nigger."
"You'll get over that," assured the other, rubbing the blood into his hands. "It's natural for you to be soft as chalk-rock the first winter—you've been living South."
"Ah reckon," agreed Lancaster. He sat down beside the younger man, eyeing him closely. "How d' y' come t' git away fr'm business?" he queried.
"Well, you see," Lounsbury answered, "I've got an A 1 man in my Bismarck store, and at Clark's there's nothing to do week days, hardly. So I just took some tobacco to Skinney's, where the boys could get at it, and loped down here." Then, playfully, "But I don't see much happening in these parts." He stretched toward a window. "The town of Lancaster ain't growing very fast."
Dallas, seated on a bench with Marylyn, looked across at him smilingly. "I'm glad of it," she declared. "We ain't used to towns."
"You folks've never lived in one?"
"No—we never evenbeenin one."
He puckered his forehead. "Funny," he said. "Somehow, I always think of you two as town girls."
"Aw, shucks!" exclaimed Lancaster, scowling.
But Dallas was leaning forward, interested. "That's on account of our teachers," she said. "There was a school-house up the track, in Texas, and we went to it on the hand-car. Every year we had a different teacher, andall of 'em came from big Eastern places like New Orleans or St. Louis. So—so you see, we kinda got towny from our school-ma'ams."
"One had a gold tooth," put in Marylyn. Her eyes, wide with recollection, were fixed upon Lounsbury.
"But you passed through cities coming north," argued the storekeeper.
"N-n-no," said Dallas, slowly; "we—we skirted 'em."
"What a pity!" He turned to the section-boss.
"Pity!" echoed the latter. "Huh! You save you' pity. My gals is better off ef they don' meet no town hoodlums."
It had been "soldier trash" before; now, it was "town hoodlums." Lounsbury wondered whyhehad been allowed a second call. He glanced at the girls. There was a sudden shadow on each young face. He changed to the fire, and looked hard at it. How cut off they were! Where was their happiness—except in their home? And could he tell them even that was threatened?
"Not by a long shot!" he vowed. "I'll trust Old Michael."
He set himself to being agreeable, and especially toward the section-boss. He told of the Norwegian at Medicine Mountain, and of the old man who lived with wife and children at the "little bend" up the river; he admired the Navajo blankets, and explained their symbolic figures of men, animals and suns; he leaned back, clasping a knee, and branched into comical stories.
The little shack awoke to unaccustomed merriment. Lancaster warmed to the storekeeper's genial attentions, and burst into frequent guffaws; Dallas and Marylynfollowed his every word, breaking in, from time to time, with little gleeful laughs.
But in the midst of it, there came from outside a startling interruption: Shouts, and a loud, pistol-like cracking, powdery swirls over the windows, a frightened lowing, and heavy thumps against the shack.
The noise without produced a change within. Incredibly agile, Lancaster got to a pane. While Dallas, springing up, screened Marylyn, and waited, as if in suspense.
Dark bulks now shot past, pursued by mounted men. And very soon the herd was gone, and all was again quiet. Then followed a moment that was full of embarrassment. Keenly, Lounsbury looked from father to daughter, the one striving to assume an easy air, the other incapable of hiding alarm. All at once, he felt certain they shared Old Michael's information. He determined to tell them that he, too, knew what and whom they feared.
"Expecting someone, Miss Dallas?" he asked tentatively.
The section-boss hastened to answer. "Expectin' nothin'," he snapped. Then, to cut short any further questioning, "Dallas, y' clean forgot them mules t'-day. Lawd help us! y' goin' t' let 'em starve?"
Lounsbury sat quiet, realising that the team was but a pretext. The elder girl found her cloak, picked up a bucket and left the room. Marylyn shrank into the dusk at the hearth-side. Lancaster was hobbling up and down, his crutch-ends digging at the packed dirt of the floor.
The storekeeper, putting aside his determination, went on as though he had not noticed the other's attitude. "Thestorm was hard on the stock last night. They must 'a' drifted thirty miles with it. Our loss is big, likely. The punchers'll bunch everything on four hoofs and drive 'em into the coulée. Cows'll be out of the wind there, and live on browse till the ground clears."
But as he was talking, the section-boss made himself ready for the cold; before he had finished, the elder man had disappeared.
Lounsbury was thoroughly provoked at the treatment shown him—he was hurt at the plain lack of faith. Again, he considered what course to pursue. Granted the family knew all he could tell them, what would be gained by forcing the fact of his knowledge upon them? Nothing—unless it were more suspicion against himself. And if they were in ignorance—well, it was better than premature care. As before, he decided to remain silent and depend upon the pilot.
He glanced at Marylyn. On her father's departure, she had moved out of the shadow. Now, she was sitting bolt upright, with fingers touching the bench at either side. Her lips were half parted. She was watching Lounsbury wonderingly.
The moment their eyes met, her own fell. She reached to the mantel for a beaded belt, and began work upon it precipitately.
"What is the prairie princess doing?" he asked.
"Making something." She held the belt by one hand to let it slip through the other.
He reached for it. "My! it's pretty! Wish you'd make me a watch-fob like that."
She flushed and dimpled. "I'd like to," she said.
"I'll wear it as an amulet." He gave her back the belt, and their hands touched.
She started nervously.
"Why, Miss Marylyn!" he said gently. "You afraid of me?"
"No." It was whispered.
"Well, you mustn't be." His tone was one that might have been used to a child. "Since I rode here a month ago, I've thought of you folks a lot. I'd like to do a real good turn for you. Perhaps it's because you girls seem so lonely——"
"We're not lonely," she declared. "The Fort's near, and we can hear the band. And pa says there'll be three or four steamers go by next summer."
The storekeeper mentally kicked himself. "The idea of suggesting a thing like that," he growled inwardly, "when she hadn't even thought of it! John Lounsbury, you've got about as much sense as a fool mud-hen."
"And," went on Marylyn, "there's the ladies at Fort Brannon. If pa——" She hesitated.
Lounsbury shook his head, smiling. "Well, I wouldn't count onthem, if I were you," he advised, remembering certain experiences of Bismarck belles. "Those women over there are as clannish as crows."
"Yes?" plaintively. She went at her beads again.
"As I was saying," he began once more, "I've thought of you folks a lot. Seemed as if I just had to come down to-day. And I brought you something. See here!" He delved into the side pockets of his coat and pulled out two books.
"O-o-oh!" breathed Marylyn. "Books!"
"All I had, but maybe you'll like 'em. They're love stories."
The shadow beyond the firelight claimed her again.
From the lean-to came the sound of Lancaster's voice. It was shrill with anger. A great sadness came over the storekeeper. "I wish I could come down often and look after things," he said. "You need another man around."
There was a short silence. Then, "Dallas likes the work outside," she answered, very low, "and driving Ben and Betty up and down."
He nodded. "But you?"
"I like to stay in and sew."
"'Stay in and sew,'" he mused. "That takes me back to the States. My dear mother sits by the fire and sews. Ah!"—with big-brotherly tenderness—"I hope you'll never have to do anything harder."
"Dallas won't let me work outside. She says she's the man."
Dallas—the man! Somehow it stung him. And then he heard the elder girl pushing an armful of hay before the eager noses of the mules. He got up quickly. "She is tending to those beasts!" he exclaimed. "Why, if I'd 'a' thought——"
She rose also, a wavering figure in the half light.
He picked up hat and coat, then halted. If he offered his help in the lean-to, what would be his reception? He felt utterly hampered, and began twirling his thumbs like a bashful cowboy. Moreover, Lancaster had been gone a good while. Was his absence a hint for his visitor to go?
The storekeeper went up to Marylyn. "Good-by," he said. "I must be hiking along."
She put a trembling hand in his.
The latch clicked behind them, and the section-boss entered. Again the younger girl started, and consciously.
Lancaster banged the door and looked them over. "Huh!" he snorted meaningly. So—he had misled himself with the idea that Lounsbury had come to pry into the matter of the claim. And all the while, underneath, the storekeeper had had another object!
He jerked at a bench, dropped upon it and flung his crutches down.
The other saw the look and heard the sniff. He believed they arose from the fact that he was still there. "Just going, Lancaster," he said. "So long."
"S' long."
"Good-by, Miss Marylyn. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." He gave her a hearty smile.
"Good-by." She opened the door for him.
John Lounsbury passed out, regretting that he had been unwelcome; indignant that the section-boss had misjudged his interest in the ownership of the claim. But he would have been astounded if he had known the real nature of the false impression he was leaving with Evan Lancaster; or had read the thoughts of the younger girl, country-reared, unused to the little courtesies of speech and action. For there were two who had misunderstood him that day.
Squaw Charley crouched, dull-eyed, among the dogs. The dark folds of his blanket were drawn tight over his tattered waist. Close around his feet, which were shod in old and cracking moccasins, was tucked his fringed skirt. An empty grain-sack covered his head and shielded his face from the wind. As an icy gust now and then filtered in through the chinks of the stockade wall and swept him, he swayed gently back and forth; while the tailless curs snuggling against him whined in sympathy and fought for a warmer place. For the kennel roof of shingles, put up in one corner of the enclosure as a protection for the pack, had served only, during the week that followed the storm, to prevent the pale beams of the winter sun from reaching the pariah and his dumb companions.
Presently the flap of a near-by lodge was flung aside. An Indian woman emerged and threw a handful of bones toward the shelter. At once Squaw Charley awoke to action. Shedding sack and blanket, he scrambled forward with the half-starved, yelping beasts to snatch his portion.
His bone picked clean of its little, the pariah resumed his crouching seat once more; and the pack closed quietly about him, licking his face and the hands that had cuffedthem as, with much turning and shivering, they settled down to sleep.
A warrior stalked proudly past, ignoring both his disgraced brother and the sentries that paced the high board walk at the wall's top. Two Indian lads approached, chattering to each other over the heart-shaped horn tops they were swinging on buckskin strings, and tarried a moment to scoff. Squaw Charley paid no heed to either brave or boys. His face was hidden, his eyes shut. He seemed, like the dogs, to be sleeping.
Of a sudden there came a shrill summons from a distant wigwam, and the pariah sprang up eagerly. Afraid-of-a-Fawn stood in the tepee opening, her evil face with its deep scar thrust forward to look about.
"Skunk!" she shrieked, as he hurried toward her, and her long, black teeth snapped together; "a fire!" Then she spat to cleanse her mouth.
Squaw Charley hastened back to the shingle roof for an armful of fuel. Returning, he entered the wigwam and knelt beneath the smoke-hole. And while he arranged the sticks carefully upon a twist of grass, the aged crone hovered, hawk-like, over him, ready with fist or foot for any lack of haste, or failure with the fire. Not until, with flint and steel, he lighted a strip of spongy wood and thrust it under the dry hay, and a flame leaped up and caught the soot on a hanging kettle, did she leave him and go on a quest for breakfast rations.
The pariah had not dared to lift his eyes from his task while the hag was watching. But now he stole a swift glance toward the back of the lodge, where the maid, Brown Mink, was reclining, and his dull eyes, like the fuelat his knees, leaped into sudden flame. But, with the deftness of a woman, he kept on putting bits of wood into the mounting blaze.
Brown Mink did not look his way. She lay on a slanting frame of saplings held together by a network of thongs. The gay blanket on which she had ridden during the march was folded under her. A buffalo-robe was spread over her bead-wrought leggins and shoes, its hairy side under, its tanned face, which was gaudily painted, uppermost. Festoonings of beads fell from her neck to the top of her richly embroidered skirt, and heavy ear-drops of gilt pushed through the purple-black masses of her hair.
Squaw Charley fed his sight gladly with her loveliness, thankful that she, who once had looked upon him kindly, did not now turn to see his squalor. The blaze was thawing his chilled limbs and fast warming him, the brass pot was singing merrily. He kept his hands gratefully near it, and as, from time to time, the girl held up her arms admiringly to let the firelight shine upon her bracelets and pinchbeck rings, he watched her furtively from half-closed eyes.
But not for long. Afraid-of-a-Fawn soon returned with meat and meal and, cursing, ordered him away.
"Off, Ojibway coward," she cried; "to the dogs. But see that there is wood for to-night's cooking and tomorrow's."
The pariah gave the fire under the kettle a last touch, and slunk out hastily into the snow. The hag pursued him, moving backward and pulling after her the partly dressed hide of a black-tailed deer.
"Make it ready for the cutting-board," she bade, andthrew the piece of hard stone for the fleshing so that it split the pariah's cheek.
Squaw Charley took up the hide and dug in the snow for the stone.
A young warrior was lingering at the lodge flap, blowing spirals of kinnikinick. He burst into a laugh. "Ho! ho!" he taunted. "The squaw of a squaw drudges to-day. Ho! ho!"
The crone joined in the laugh. Then, "Standing Buffalo may enter," she said, and respectfully led the way into the wigwam.
The pariah heard, yet did not pause. But when, among the dogs again, he cleaned at the deer hide with short, swift strokes, a light once more flamed up in his dull eyes—a light unlike the one that had burned in them at Brown Mink's fireside.
He was still working diligently, the sack over his head as before, when, about the middle hour of the day, Lieutenant Fraser entered the sliding-panel of the stockade and began to go rapidly from lodge to lodge, as if in search of someone. Seeing the intruder, the dogs about Squaw Charley bounded up, hair bristling and teeth bared.
The outcast laid aside his rubbing-stone and strove to quiet them. But the sudden commotion under the roof had already attracted the young officer. Stooping, he caught a glimpse of The Squaw.
"Oh, there you are!" he exclaimed, and motioned for him to come forth.
When the Indian appeared, the deer-skin in his arms, Lieutenant Fraser pointed toward the entrance. "Youcome with me," he said, with a gesture in the sign language.
Squaw Charley moved slowly along with him. No one was in sight in the enclosure—no one seemed even to be looking on. But, opposite Brown Mink's lodge, the old woman dashed out, seized the hide with a scream of rage and dashed back again. The next moment, Charley passed through the sliding-panel and took up his march to headquarters.
"So this is your last wild pet, eh, Robert?" said Colonel Cummings, as they entered. He backed up to his stove and surveyed Squaw Charley good-naturedly. "Let me see, now: You've run the scale from a devil's darning-needle to a baby wolf. Next thing, I suppose, you'll be introducing us to a youngish rattlesnake."
Lieutenant Fraser rumpled his hair sheepishly. "But you ought to see the way they're treating him—banging him around as if he were a dog."
"Hm. He certainly doesn't look strong."
"They work him to death, Colonel."
The commanding officer laughed. "A redskin, working, must be a sight for sore eyes!"
"But they don't feed him, sir."
The outcast, wrapped close in his blanket, lifted his pinched face to them.
"How'd it happen I didn't notice this fellow during the march?" inquired the colonel, a trifle suspiciously.
"He was with the squaws when there was anything to do; but when we were on the move, he fell to the rear."
"Didn't try to get away?"
"No; just straggled along."
"Ah. Do you know whether or not he took part in the fight the day we captured them?"
At the question, a swift change came over Squaw Charley. He retreated a little, and bent his head until his chin rested upon his breast.
Lieutenant Fraser threw out his arm in mute reply. No feathers, no paint, no gaudy shirt or bonnet marked the Indian as a warrior.
The elder man approached the silent, shrinking figure not unkindly. "And what do you want me to do for him, Robert?" he asked.
Lieutenant Fraser sprang forward eagerly, his face shining. "He's so quiet and willing, sir—so ready to do anything he's told. I'd be grateful if you thought you could trust him outside the stockade. He could get the odds and ends from the bachelor's mess."
"I'll be hanged! Robert," cried his superior, annoyed. "Most men, just out of West Point, have an eye to killing redskins, not coddling 'em."
The other crimsoned. "I'm sorry you look at it that way, Colonel," he said. "I'm ready to punish or kill in the case of bad ones. But—you'll pardon my saying it—I don't see that it's the duty of an officer to harm a good one."
Squaw Charley raised his head, and shifted timidly from foot to foot.
"Well, Robert," replied Colonel Cummings, quietly, "you still have the Eastern view of the Indian question. However, let me ask you this: Has this man a story, and what is it? For all you know, he may deserve being 'banged around.'"
Lieutenant Fraser was shaking his head in answer, when swift came one from the pariah. He searched in his bosom, under the tattered waist, drew out the rag-wound paper and handed it to the commanding officer.
Very carefully the latter read it, his interest growing with every line. Finally, giving it over to the lieutenant, he smiled at Squaw Charley.
"That tells the tale," he said. "I knew the man that wrote that when I was with Sibley in Minnesota, the summer after the massacre. He's a man that writes the truth. He talks the truth, too, and I wish I had him here, now, so that he could interpret for me."
"Why, sir!" exclaimed the younger man, "it says this chap knows English!"
"By all the gods! Ofcourseit does. Robert, I'll make him my interpreter." The colonel strode up and down in his excitement, pausing only to contend with the other for the paper. "Red Moon," he said at last, motioning the pariah forward, "do you know what I am saying to you?"
Squaw Charley nodded.
"Good! good! This is fortunate. Now we can have a talk with these Sioux." He addressed the Indian again. "And you speak English?" he asked.
There was a second grave nod.
"You shall be my interpreter, Red Moon. You shall have a log house near the scouts, and the Great Father at Washington will pay you. You shall have double rations for yourself and your squaw, and more, if you have papooses. What do you say to that?"
Squaw Charley had not taken his eyes from the other'sface for an instant while he was talking. Now, for answer, he shook his head slowly and sadly from side to side.
"Don't want to?" cried the colonel.
"I'll tell you, sir," interposed Lieutenant Fraser, studying the paper, "I don't believe he ever speaks. You'll notice that it says here: 'but he has never.' I can't be sure, but I think the next word is 'spoken.'"
"Vow of silence?"
"Something of the kind. Captain Oliver has been telling me about these bucks that are degraded; and I don't believe that, even if this fellow spoke, the rest of the tribe would treat with us through him."
"That's probably true."
"They've made a squaw of him, sir."
Deep humiliation instantly showed in the pariah's eyes and posture. He looked at Lieutenant Fraser imploringly, and drew his blanket still more closely about him. Then, as, with a sign, he was bidden to put it off, he suddenly let it drop to the floor.
"Great Scott!" cried the colonel. "He'sdressedlike one!"
"His punishment, sir. And he won't be taken back as a warrior till he does some big deed."
"What does that paper say again?'Out of the weakness of the flesh he wept under the tortures of the sun-dance.'Sothat'sthe cause of his trouble! What did they do to you, Red Moon?"
To reply, Squaw Charley quickly divested himself of the calico waist and turned about. And Colonel Cummings, uttering his horror, traced with tender finger the ragged, ghastly seams that lined the pariah's back.
"Muscles torn loose," he said. "Not old wounds, either." As Squaw Charley resumed waist and blanket, he looked on pityingly.
"I'll give him his freedom," he said, when the outcast stood ready to depart. "He can come and go in the post as he likes. Robert, see that the adjutant understands my order. Now, let him get something to eat in the kitchen."
When Squaw Charley's hunger had disappeared before the enforced, and rather nervous, generosity of Colonel Cummings' black cook, and Lieutenant Fraser had left him, he hurried away from headquarters. Making his way to the sentry line north of Brannon, he gathered firewood along the Missouri until dark.
The lantern had been out for an hour in the cottonwood shack. Father and daughters were asleep. But, at the end of that time, Dallas was suddenly awakened by the sound of loud stamping and rending in the lean-to. Ben and Betty, roused by the fear of something, were plunging and pulling back on their halter-ropes. Startled, her heart beating wildly, the elder girl crept softly to the warped door.
Her father and sister still slept, undisturbed by the noise in the stable, which now quieted as abruptly as it had begun. Dallas heard the team begin to feed again. And from outside the shack there came only a faint rustle. Was it the uncovered meadow-grass of the eaves as the wind brushed gently through it? Or the whisper of moccasins on snow?
Later, when The Squaw entered the sliding panel of the stockade, he crept noiselessly toward the shingle roof. Buthe was not to gain it unseen. Afraid-of-a-Fawn, who had been looking about for him, hailed him savagely as he neared.
"Wood for the morning fire," she demanded.
By the light streaming out of a near-by lodge she saw that Squaw Charley was looking at her defiantly. She set upon him, cursing and kicking, and drove him before her to the shelter.
"The pig!" she cried. "Running free since the sun was at the centre of the sky, and yet not a stick! May a thousand devils take the coward! He quakes like an aspen!"
Squaw Charley was indeed trembling, but only with the cold, and soon, under the shingle roof, the snuggling dogs would warm him. Blows and abuse counted nothing this night. He was fed; freedom was his; and he had paid a debt of gratitude.