"Dad, what's the day after to-morrow?"
Evan Lancaster pursed out his mouth and thoughtfully contemplated his elder daughter.
"Ah c'd figger it out," he declared after a puzzled silence, "ef Ah had th' almanac." He hunted about, found the pamphlet and began to study the December page. "Trouble is," he said at last, "Ah don' know no day t' figger fr'm—Ah los' track 'way back yonder at th' fore part o' th' month. 'Sides, Ah kain't say whether this is Tuesday er Wednesday er Thursday. Mar'lyn, d' you remember w'at day o' th' week it is?"
Marylyn left the farther window and walked slowly forward. As she halted beside her sister, the latter put an arm about her tenderly and drew her close. A change had recently come over the younger girl—a change that Dallas had not failed to see, yet had utterly failed to understand. Marylyn still performed her few tasks about the house, but with absent-minded carelessness. Her work done, she took up the long-neglected vigil at the windows, spending many quiet, and seemingly purposeless, hours there—all unmindful that the beaded belt lay dusty and unfinished on a shelf. Only by fits and starts was the shack enlivened by her happy chatter. At all other times, she was wistful and distrait. Now, as she answered her father, a faltering light crept into her eyes.
"The last time Mr. Lounsbury was here," she said, hesitatingly, "it was the 6th, and to-day is——"
"Ah c'n git it," the section-boss interrupted. After a moment's tallying on his fingers, he sat back and clapped his knees in excitement. "W'y, Dallas!" he cried, "th' day after t'-morrow's the end o' thet man's six months!"
Dallas released Marylyn. "Yes," she said, watching the younger girl wander back mechanically to the post she had forsaken; "and to-morrow you ought to start for Bismarck. Maybe it wouldn't matter if you waited a while before going; but as long as the weather's good, I think you ought to go right off."
"Ah reckon," he replied, but not heartily.
And so, once more preparations for a trip were made. That night, when all was ready, and Dallas and her father, having given the team a late feed, were leaving the stable together, she spoke to him of her sister.
"There's just one thing that worries me about your leaving," she said. "I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but Marylyn don't seem to be feeling good."
"Y' think mebbe she takes after her ma?" ventured the section-boss.
Dallas nodded.
"No, no," he said, "she favours me, an' they's no need t' fret. They's nothin' th' matter with her—jus' off her oats a leetle, thet's all."
The developments of the next morning swept every thought from Dallas' mind save those concerning the journey. For, when it came time to harness the mules, she found that Ben had unaccountably gone lame. Whetherhis mate had kicked him, or whether he had sprained a leg while exercising the previous afternoon, she did not know. But it was plain that, as far as he went, the miles between quarter-section and land-office were impossible. At once, Dallas suggested that Betty be driven single to a small pung that had been built for water-hauling when the well froze up. Accordingly, the mule was put before the sleigh. Failure resulted. Though both Dallas and her father alternately coaxed and scolded, Betty, with characteristic stubbornness, refused to budge a rod from the lean-to without Ben.
Dallas was in despair. "She won't go, she won't go," she said. "We've got to think of some other way."
"Yestiddy," observed the section-boss, as he unfastened the tugs, "y' said it wouldn' matter ef Ah didn' go now." He was somewhat complacent over the outcome of the hitch-up.
"I don't feel that way now," asserted Dallas.
"Thet ol' man up at th' leetle ben' has hosses," he volunteered when they were again within the shack.
"He took 'em to Clark's two months ago, and walked back."
"Wal, how 'bout th' Norwegian over by th' Mountain?"
"He keeps oxen. If a blizzard came up, they'd never lead you out of it." Then she was moved to make a suggestion which she felt certain, however, would only be denounced. "There are hundreds of horses and mules at Brannon. I could ask there for a team."
Instantly Lancaster's ire was roused. "Thet's all Ah want t' hear fr'm you 'bout them damned Yankees," he said hotly. "An' Ah want y' t' remember it."
"But you're wrong, dad."
"Eh?" He turned upon her in amazed disgust.
"You're wrong," she repeated gently. "We oughtn't to treat the soldiers as if they was enemies. Some day we'll be in danger here——"
"Bosh!"
"And then we'll have to take their help."
He began to hobble up and down, working himself into a white heat. "'S long as Ah live on this claim," he said, "Ah'll never go t' Brannon fer anythin', an' they'll be no trottin' back an' forth. Thet ornery trash over thar is th' same, most of it, thet fought th' South, jus' a few years ago. Ah kain't forget thet. An' notoneof 'em'll ever set a foot in this house."
After more hobbling, he burst forth again. "Ah tell y', Dallas, Ah won'thev' you gals meetin' them no-'count soldiers——"
She smiled at him. "We don't want to meet any soldiers," she answered. "But there are women at the Fort—women like mother. It seems a shame we can't know them."
"Y' mother raised y' t' be's fine a lady as any of 'em over thar!"
"Maybe that's true. If it is, then they'd like us, wouldn't they? and we could have friends. I'm not thinking about myself—just about Marylyn."
"You gals got each other. Meetin' th' women at Brannon means meetin' th' men.An' Ah won't hev it!" His voice rose almost to a shout.
"I'll never speak to you about it again," she said. And her quiet acceptance mollified him.
"M' gal, y' kain't think how Ah feel about them Yanks," he went on tremulously. "An' Ah want y' t' promise me thet whether Ah'm 'live er dead, y' 'll allus keep on you' own side of th' river."
She glanced up at him quickly. "Do you mean that, daddy?" she asked, using the name he had borne in her babyhood.
"Ahdo!Ah do!"
"Then I promise." Her tone was sorrowful.
"Mar'lyn?"
The younger girl faced about slowly.
"D'youpromise?"
"Promise?" she repeated. "Yes,—I—I promise."
Dallas knew that the trip to the land-office was impossible unless Lounsbury should chance along—which was unlikely, some weeks having passed since his last visit. Undoubtedly were he to come, he would help them. But would her father allow her to ask the storekeeper's aid? Probably not.
"I'll tell Charley about it to-night," she said finally. "We justgotto find a way."
"What c'nhedo?" retorted her father. "Far's him's gitting a team's concerned, we-all might's well look fer someone t' come right outen th' sky."
Her determination to ask advice of the pariah was a natural one. The morning that succeeded the night of the mules' terror, she had awakened to find a reassuring explanation for their fear: In the growing light, as the trumpet sounded reveille from the fort, she sprang up and looked out expectantly. On the top of a drift in front of the door was a bundle of sticks! A hard crust had formedduring the night; and moccasin tracks, leading up to the wood, and then pointing away again, were cast in it with frozen clearness.
"That poor Indian!" she had exclaimed, in grateful relief.
Not once after his summoning before Colonel Cummings had The Squaw forgotten daily to leave firewood at the shack. The evening of his second trip across the Missouri, Dallas had lain in wait for him, secreted under the dismantled schooner, which she had drawn into place beside the door. And as, bringing his offering, he crossed the snow softly and approached, the terrified mules again announced his coming, and she hailed him.
"Come on, come near," she had called; "I want to see you."
Eager to prove his good intent, he had hastened forward; and she, just as eager to show her thankfulness, had led him into the house. There, with the distrustful eye of the section-boss upon him, and with Marylyn watching in trepidation from a distance, he had eaten and drunk at Dallas' bidding.
At the very moment when Dallas decided to confide in him, Squaw Charley was not unmindful of her. Where the river-bluffs back of Brannon shoved their dark shoulders through the snow, the wind having swept their tops clean of the last downfall, he was working away like a muskrat. To and fro, he went, searching diligently for buffalo-chips. A sack followed him on a rope tied to his leather belt, so that he could beat his hands against his breast as he covered every square rod of dead, curly grass on the uplands. The bag crammed to the top, he took off hisblanket and, despite the cold, began to fill it also. For he knew, and fully as well as they who watched the thermometer hanging just outside the entrance at headquarters, that the night would require much fuel.
As he hunted along the bare ridge, something more than the frigid gusts that whipped the skirt about his lean shanks urged him to finish his gathering and go riverward. In the little snug cabin out on the prairie a cheery welcome awaited him; before the glowing coals in the stone fireplace he could warm his shaking legs; there was good food for his empty stomach. But, better than all else, there a kindly face always smiled a greeting.
The blanket piled so high with chips that its weight balanced the grain-sack, he prepared to start riverward. But first, prompted by an old habit, he climbed to a high point of bluff near by, and, standing where lookouts had maintained a post before severe weather compelled their withdrawal, carefully scanned the white horizon. To the west, from where—the band in the stockade boasted—warriors of their tribe would come in the spring to make a rescue; to the north, on either side of the ice-bound Missouri; to the east, in the wide gap between the distant ranges of hills, he saw no creature moving. But facing southward, his hands shading his eyes carefully from the glare, he spied, on the eastern bank, and at not a great distance, the approach of a familiar milk-white horse, drawing a heavy pung.
The stooping pariah was transformed by the sight. He threw up his arms with an inarticulate cry, and sprang away down the slope to his sack and blanket. Seizing them, he made for the level ground north of the barracks,descended to the ice, swiftly crossed and dragged the fuel up to the cottonwoods. Then he started down the river, taking long leaps.
The upper part of the improvised sleigh that was tilting its way across the drifts like a skiff on angry water, was the green box of an ordinary farm-wagon, set on runners. The wheels of the vehicle lay on some hay in the rear of the box. On the broad wooden seat was a man, facing rearward to get the wind at his back. He was almost concealed by quilts, his arms being wrapped close to his body, and the milk-white horse was taking his leisurely way unguided. Above the man, and nailed so loosely to the wagon-seat that it wavered a little from side to side and kept up a squeaking, was a tall board cross, rude and unpainted.
When he came close to the sleigh, Squaw Charley caught the sound of singing, and stopped. The traveller was comforting his lonely way with a sacred hymn, the words of which, scattered by the wind, reached the Indian in broken, but martial, phrases.
"Onward, Christian soldiers,Marching ... war,... the cross of Jesus... on before."
"Onward, Christian soldiers,Marching ... war,... the cross of Jesus... on before."
Again Squaw Charley spurred himself into long leaps. And behind Shanty Town, on the open prairie, he brought the horse to a halt.
Once more he gave his wordless cry—a cry like the shrill hail of a mute. It brought the man face about. Another second, answering, he stood up, shook off the quilts to freehis arms, reached down and caught the pariah to his breast.
Tall and spare, he was, and aged; over his shoulders flowed long, white hair; a beard as white fell to his waist; his sharp eyes were shaded by heavy brows; he wore a coat of coarse cloth that touched his feet, and about his head was wound a nubia; as, with face upraised, he embraced the Indian, he was a stately, venerable figure.
"God be praised!" he said over and over. Then he held Squaw Charley away from him a moment to look him up and down. "I feared some harm had come to you—that your people had behaved so cruelly to you that you had died. But you are well. Yet how thin! Ah! I am so glad to see you once more!"
He held him close again, murmuring a blessing. When he released him, it was to make room for him on the seat, and wrap him up in a thick, soft quilt. All the while the benevolent old face was shining with happiness, and tears were streaming down the wrinkled cheeks.
Squaw Charley, too, was overcome. His black eyes were no longer sad and lowered. They glowed softly, almost adoringly, as he watched his friend.
"David Bond had not forgotten you, Charles," the old man said, as he clucked to the white horse. "I was at Dodge City—that wickedest town of the plains—when news came of the capture of your village. At once I started, for I knew that my duty lay here, here with your poor people, who will not realise how foolish and puny is their warfare. I did not come alone," he added, casting a look behind; "a white man accompanied me—a man so full of evil and blasphemy that I quake for the safety ofhis miserable soul. He has walked most of the distance, for he is warmer walking, and there are scarce enough quilts for two."
They looked back. A mile to the rear, trailed a solitary man.
Squaw Charley made a quick, questioning sign.
"His name is Matthews," replied David Bond; "and his mission, I fear, is a bad one. All the way he has urged my poor Shadrach on and on, so that we have hardly had time to rest and eat. And all the day, as he rides or tramps, he mutters to himself. When I ask him what he is saying, he replies, 'You'll find out quick enough!' and curses more vilely than before."
The pung was now opposite the stockade. Looking across the river, David Bond got his first view of the high-walled prison with its ever-moving and wary guards.
He pulled up his horse. "Alas!" he exclaimed mournfully, "how misguided they are—white and red men alike!"
The pung slid on until the cut in the river-bank was reached. Again the old man reined. "I cannot cross the river while the ice is so smooth. Shadrach could not keep his feet. And I will not leave him behind. But where can I stop on this side?"
Glancing to the left, he saw the line of saloons. "There, Charles," he said. "I shall drive there and ask for shelter."
He turned the white horse into the cut. As they approached the shanties, a woman's voice was heard, raised in ribald song.
"God sends David Bond whither he is most needed," the old man murmured fervently.
A shingle sign was nailed over the door of the first building. On it, in bold, uneven letters, were the words:The Trooper's Delight. David Bond climbed down and knocked.
There was a moment of dead silence within; then, sounds as if several persons were moving about on tiptoe; again, silence. The old man knocked louder. After a short wait, the door was thrown wide. A thick-set man, whose eyes squinted at cross purposes over his flat, turned-up nose, filled the entrance.
"What in the devil do you want?" he demanded roughly, when he saw David Bond. But his seeming anger illy concealed his relief that it was not an officered guard, searching for recreant soldiers.
"I wish for nothing in the name of the devil," was the simple answer. "But in the name of God, I ask for a roof."
"That buck with you?" The squint-eyed man shut the door behind him as he pointed at Squaw Charley.
"No; he lives in the stockade yonder."
"Oh! He's the one that goes prowlin' 'round here day an' night, sneakin' an' stealin'!"
"He may prowl," said David Bond, stoutly, "but he does not steal. He is a good, honest Indian."
The keeper of The Trooper's Delight laughed immoderately. "Get out! Who ever heerd tell of a' honest Injun? Say!"—tauntingly—"where'd you an' your broom-tail come from, anyhow?"
"From Dodge City."
"Dodge City!" the man cried. "Then maybe you seen my brother there, or heerd if he' comin'. Nick Matthews is his name——"
David Bond lifted one hand and opened his mouth to answer. But the words stopped at his lips. For, from the top of the high bank behind the line of shanties, there came a shout. Looking up, the squint-eyed man, David Bond, and The Squaw saw a face peering down upon them.
"Hello!" came the voice again. "Hello, Babe! Hello, gran'pa! you beat me here, didn't y'? Look out! I'm a-comin'!"
And amid a little avalanche of snow, icicles, dirt and stones that frightened the milk-white horse so that he all but overturned the pung, Nick Matthews tobogganed down the bank on his overcoat and landed beside them on the shelf.
"Short cut," he said, as he got up and shook out the coat. "Well, Babe, old socks, how's things goin'? How"—he threw his thumb back over his shoulder toward the east—"how 'bout over there? What news y' got?"
Squaw Charley followed the direction of the pointing.
"You ain't come a minnit too soon," declared Babe. "Only just a day or two left of your six months, an' they——" The two moved toward the shanty, whispering together.
David Bond called to the brothers appealingly. "May I put up here?" he asked. "Have you a vacant building that I may share with Shadrach? I have hay and food of my own."
Nick Matthews came back. He had a putty-colouredface upon which his blonde eyebrows failed to show; but he summoned a look that was as near to a scowl as possible. "Look a-here, gran'pa," he said, "d'youthink I'm goin' t' let you sponge offen my frien's? Not by a long shot! Hain't I come all the way fr'm Dodge City t' keep th' redskins fr'm takin' your scalp? Whatmored' y' want?" He gave a laugh in which there was no humour, disclosing small teeth, ranged close, and like the first set of a child's.
David Bond did not quail. "You have accepted my hospitality for a month," he said. "I ask nothing that is not justly mine."
Matthews snapped his fingers derisively. "We can't have you here t' snoop an' spy," he declared. "Git!" As he turned to enter the shanty, he came face to face with the Indian. "What's this?" Then, noting the squaw skirt, "Gran'pa, who's your lady frien'?"
Hate flashed across the pariah's face, like forked lightning on a dark sky.
"One of Sitting Bull's warriors," answered David Bond; "and a good man."
"Uncapapa, eh?" said Matthews. "I savvy their lingo." He plucked at Squaw Charley's dress. "Our warrior wears fine garments," he jeered, speaking in the Indian tongue. Then, with another laugh, he followed his brother into the shanty and banged the door.
David Bond took his horse's bridle. "We must find hospitality elsewhere, Shadrach," he said resignedly. And he headed the pung up the river. As he got back into the wagon-box, he looked round for Squaw Charley.
The pariah was standing close to the shanty, his headheld forward, as if he were watching to spring, his hands opening and clenching angrily.
"Charles!" pleaded the old man, reproachfully. "Remember—do good to them that wish you evil, and love them that hate."
The Indian dropped his arm meekly and shuffled over to the pung. But when David Bond again drew him on to the seat, his lips moved silently, and until the cut was reached and Shadrach pulled them out upon the prairie once more, he continued to glower back at the line of saloons.
"It will be a terrible night," the other said, as they came to a standstill beside the cottonwoods. "It is getting late. I suppose I must try to cross the river."
The pariah was recalled from his backward glances. Rising, he extended an arm to direct David Bond's attention. And the old man, rising also, made out the squat shack of the Lancasters, almost hidden from sight by drifts. With a fervent prayer of thanksgiving, he touched up Shadrach and steered him toward it, pausing only long enough for the Indian to load the chip-sack and the filled blanket on top of the wheels and hay.
"If this lonely house will give me shelter and welcome," vowed David Bond, urging his horse on, "it will find me grateful."
Squaw Charley made no answering sign. Bundled again in the soft quilt, he sat in the wagon-box, brooding. For he had divined, with the instinct of the savage, that if the shack on the rise before them would find a faithful friend in him who sat beneath the wavering cross, it was threatened by the presence of a dangerous foe—the man just come to the shanty saloon by the river.
When four distinct raps—Squaw Charley's familiar signal—sounded upon the outer battens of the warped door, Dallas drew back the iron bolt eagerly, caught the lantern that lighted the dim room from its high nail above the hearth, and held it over her head. Then, standing in the opening, with the icy wind fluttering the wide flame till it leaped and smoked in its socket, she met, not the faltering eyes of the faithful Indian, but the piercing gaze of aged David Bond.
She fell back and let the lantern drop to her waist. There she held it, her fingers trembling despite her effort to appear calm. Many days and nights she had waited expectantly for the man who, by voice and fist, had displayed an enmity toward them; she had pictured his arrival, or that of his emissary, and planned what she would say and do. Now, certain that he had come at last—after she had long ceased to watch for him—and reading justice and fearlessness in the stern visage before her, she was dumb and helpless.
Her father's voice, rising from the hearth-side, brought her to action. "Wal! wal!" he was saying, "don' keep th' door open all night."
With a defiant step forward, and as if to bar intrusion,she spread out her arms. "You're here," she said in a low tone.
Dallas' words did not penetrate the head-covering worn by David Bond; and the fire having died down for lack of fuel, the interior of the shack was so dark that he could see only her gesture. He thought her alone and frightened.
"Have no fear, daughter," he begged. "I will go somewhere else. But the ice is so——"
His gentle address surprised and disarmed her. She advanced relentingly as her father came up behind.
"W'y—a stranger?" cried the section-boss.
She stopped him. "Yes, but we wouldn't turn a dog away to-night, dad." She motioned David Bond to enter.
As he crossed the sill, Dallas, for the first time, caught a glimpse of the white horse and the pung, and saw Squaw Charley lifting his load of chips from the wagon-box.
"You came together?" she asked.
"Charley pointed out your house to me," was the answer.
A sudden hope came to her. "Maybe I made a mistake," she said. "Tell me, who are you?"
"David Bond—an evangelist by the grace of God."
She lifted the lantern, so that he could see the others. "My father and my sister," she said. Then she put the light on the table, retired to a corner and suddenly sank down.
Squaw Charley, having brought in and emptied the sack and blanket, fed the blaze and crouched at one side of the fireplace. Evan and Marylyn were across from him, intently examining the features and dress of the traveller.It was Dallas who, eased, yet shaken, remembered to be hospitable.
"Come, Charley," she said, rising, "we'll put the horse up. No, no," as their guest would have accompanied her, "we won't need help. The mules are used to Charley, now, and Simon's pretty ugly to strangers." She started out. "Marylyn," she said, from the door, "you take Mr. Bond's coat." Then, to the evangelist, "I'm glad it's you, and not—somebody—else." A rare smile crossed her face.
The aged man, divested of his long ulster, advanced and, with fatherly tenderness, lightly touched her braids.
"'I was a stranger, and ye took me in,'" he quoted solemnly.
Dallas lingered a moment, arrested by the picture: Lancaster was leaning forward from his seat in unaccustomed silence; Marylyn sat beside him, the nubia thrown across her arm; nearer was the Indian, his copper-coloured face marvellously softened; and, before them all, stood the evangelist, priestly, patriarchal.
When Dallas and Squaw Charley were gone, the section-boss and his younger daughter were, for a space, tongue-tied through a lack of something to say. Soon, however, David Bond broke the quiet to assure Lancaster of his gratitude. And thereafter the two men talked freely.
"You need not fear any trouble with my horse," the evangelist said, as Dallas was heard bidding Simon keep to his side of the stall. "Shadrach is a gentle beast."
At the name, the section-boss cocked his head like an inquiring bird. "M-m, Shadrach," he began in important reflection; "y' call y' hoss Shadrach. Ah seem t' hev heerd thet name before."
Marylyn raised to her father a quick, warning finger. "It's in the Bible, pa," she whispered.
"Heh?"
"It's in the Bible."
"Don' y' think Ah know?" Evan poked the fire cheerfully. He was fairly started in a conversation. "Thet Shadrach was a prophet, ef Ah recall it jes' right," he said tentatively.
The evangelist shot him a sorrowful glance.
"No, pa," whispered Marylyn again. "He was put in a furnace. Remember the furnace, pa?"
"With th' lions!" cried the section-boss. "Certainly Ah do."
"Oh, pa,thatisn't the story."
Evan stroked his moustache. "Ah'm kinda offen th' trail, honey, ain't Ah?" he said aside. Then, to cover his mistake and forestall any embarrassing explanation, he poked the fire again and resolutely began: "Pahson, how'd y' come t' name you' hoss Shadrach?"
"He had been christened Spooks," began the evangelist as if repeating an oft-told tale, "because his last owner mistook him, one night, for a ghost. I could not bear to call the faithful animal by that name, and, day after day, thought over all the names I had ever heard, striving to find one suitable. That summer something happened that decided for me. Spooks and I awoke to find ourselves surrounded by a prairie fire. And I, having hitched up and then gotten down into the bottom of the wagon, my good horse was forced to meet the wall of flame alone. He came out unscorched. I knew at once what his name should be. Henceforth, I called him Shadrach."
The light of returning knowledge—of blessed total recall—illumined the face of the listening section-boss. He gave the fire a glad poke that sent the burning chips to every side, thrust out his chest proudly and pinned the other with a triumphant eye. "Wal, how 'bout Meshach and Abednego?" he demanded.
David Bond studied a moment, knitting his brows until their heavy archings met in a single hoary line. "I take their place," he said at last, with dignity.
Following supper, which Dallas prepared, all gathered before the cheery blaze. There, the evangelist, anxious over the welfare of the people among whom he had preached and taught, promptly began to question Squaw Charley.
"You have not told me of your capture," he said, "or of the fight that came before it. Were you taken in the north—in the country of the White Mother—or in Dakota?"
The Indian nodded.
"Dakota?"
Swiftly, the pariah's whole aspect altered. A moment before, satisfied as to food, happy and comfortable, he had squatted down in his blanket. But, now, his shoulders bent, his chin sank to his breast, his eyes grew dull and sullen.
"Were you in the Mauvaises Terres?" queried the evangelist.
Squaw Charley shook his head.
"On the Powder?"
There was a silent assent.
"The soldiers pursued; maybe they surprised you—which?"
To answer, the Indian rose slowly. With one ofLancaster's crutches he raked out some ashes and levelled them upon the hearth-stones. Next, across them, stooping and using a finger, he drew a varying line that showed the trend of a stream. Far up toward its source, in a bend, he placed bits of bread from the table to indicate the lodges of his tribesmen. Slivers from a stick showed that the tepees had been set thickly in a grove of tall cottonwoods. White beans, from a filled pan on the floor near by him, stood for the warriors that had fought. His fingers moved more quickly as, by means of a handful of corn that Dallas had put in his leather pouch, he planted the United States troops on three sides of the Indian campground, and moved them forward to the attack.
Adroitly he manœuvred the opposing forces, with advancing here and retreating there, groans when the white men felt the fight too keenly, low whoops to picture an Indian gain, little puffs of the breath to betoken flying bullets. The onlookers saw the battle as it had raged about the tepees. And the flickering lantern, as Squaw Charley moved it in a semicircle, told them that the firing began at daybreak and continued until dark.
All at once he changed the picture. Twelve beans were rapidly counted out and laid in rows, and he mourned softly over these to show that they were slain warriors. Five kernels of corn—a line of pale-faced dead—were placed beside the bean rows. This done, he covered the lantern with the grain-sack and leaned back against the logs.
"Aye, aye," cried David Bond, sadly. "Twelve braves and five troopers perished! Seventeen souls went to their Maker to mark the greed of the white man and theyearning to harry off the red! Why do the Indians not stay in peace and quiet upon the lands set apart for them, and not go abroad stealing and slaughtering? Why do my own people not give back to their brothers the country that is rightly theirs?"
Once more Squaw Charley stooped forward and, resting his weight on one hand, traced the return march of the troopers to a crossing of the Missouri, where the command had buried its dead; from there he drew the route southward, to the ferry and Fort Brannon. Here, he stuck the splinters in a circle to picture the stockade below the barracks. At last, rising, he drew his blanket close about him, put the grain-sack over his tangled hair and, with a parting look toward Dallas and the evangelist, went slowly out.
Perfect quiet followed the pariah's going. His recital of the conflict, dumb though it was, had powerfully stirred the little audience. For, as he had proceeded with his crude mimicry, the imagination of the others had filled in the scenes he could not sketch.
The section-boss spoke first. Not incapable of feeling, yet disliking to show emotion because it might be counted a weakness, he hastened to clear the air. "Say, Dallas," he drawled, with a survey of the battle-field, "he ought t' had some red Mexican beans fer his Injuns." But the remark failed to appeal.
David Bond made a shake-down for himself beside Lancaster's bunk, using an armful of hay and the robes and quilts from his pung. However, the fact that he needed rest, or that his couch was ready, did not tempt him from the fire. Long after his host disappeared behind theswinging Navajo blankets, he sat by the hearth. And Dallas stayed with him, Marylyn's sleepy head pillowed in her lap.
The elder girl felt strangely drawn to him. He returned the interest he inspired. Like Lounsbury, he marked the unusual character of this woman of the far frontier. But he saw further than had the younger man: With her father and sister, she was all firmness and strength, as if she held herself to be the mainstay of the family; yet, now and then, unwittingly, she betrayed qualities that were distinctly opposite. Like Lounsbury, too, when he touched upon the subject of her life it was to inquire if she had spent any of its years in a town. He felt certain that she had not; at the same time, his belief was curiously contradicted by her bearing.
"I'll always live on the plains," she said, having told him of themesaand their migration north; "if I left 'em for a while, I'd learn things I don't know now; and when I came back, maybe I wouldn't be satisfied with the shack, or with dad and Marylyn."
"Child, where did you get that thought?" he asked, astonished.
"I don't know—only my mother would 'a' been happy in Texas if she'd been born there. But she wasn't, and she wanted her old home till she died."
She wanted her old home till she died—it was only a sentence, yet the quiet pathos of it bared to him the tragedy of that mother's exile.
"Never a great city, daughter," he advised. "Stay here, menaced by Indians, among rough men and women, with storms and toil besetting you, but never go to a greatcity. It is close and dirty and paved, and in it no man may fill his lungs with pure air, or touch his feet to God's green earth."
"In cities," questioned Dallas, but in a low tone, as if she wished no one to overhear; "in cities, do—do the women dress like me?" She raised herself a little, though without disturbing Marylyn, so that he might see her plain, collarless waist and straight, scant skirt.
He gave her a smile—a smile as rare and transforming as her own. She had allowed him a glimpse of her suppressed girlishness. "Would that they did, my daughter," he answered.
"I mean in cities like—like—Bismarck," she said, a trifle consciously.
"Perhaps—some—eh—let me see." He was perplexed. He saw the eager light in her face; saw that, for some reason, she was striving to compare herself with the women of the settled districts—and to learn from him the very things she had feared might bring dissatisfaction with her life. He did not wish to teach discontent. He would not tell an untruth. So he created a diversion by taking up his ulster and searching in a capacious pocket.
"But they—they—don't plow."
David Bond brought forth a limp and battered Bible. "No," he said; "no, they—they don't plow."
"Ah!" She looked into the fire. Of a sudden, two memories had returned—one, of the passing musicians, with their nudging and insolent smirks; the other, of a man who had leaned back in his saddle and laughed—after all, perhaps,notat her name.
"I—I suppose they're more like Marylyn," she faltered.
The evangelist adjusted his silver-bowed spectacles and smiled down at her. "And if they are, would it worry you, daughter?"
She shook her head slowly, and looked away.
He turned his back, so that both lantern-and firelight could reach his pages, and, opening the Book at random, began to read. The chapter done, he turned round and glanced at her again. Her face was still averted.
He rose to retire. She put Marylyn gently aside and rose with him.
Then, and not till then, did Dallas think of their dilemma of the morning. The evangelist's coming and their talk together had caused her entirely to forget about the trip to the land-office. However, swift on its remembrance, came a comforting certainty in David Bond's sympathy and aid. At once she told him of the necessity of her father's going.
"Shadrach and I will start with him to-morrow," was his ready response. He put out a hand to part the Navajo blankets. But an unshaped thought made him pause. "You will be alone."
"Why, we're not afraid."
"Brave girl!" he said. Her confident answer drove away the moment's vague uneasiness without its having taken the form or the connection he might have given it.
"Good-night," she called softly.
"Good-night, daughter," he answered, and the swinging blankets met behind him.
The section-boss was thoroughly surprised and not altogether delighted at being roused early the following morning with the news that he could start at once for Bismarck. As Dallas' voice penetrated the partition, he returned the only reply his ice-bound moustache and goatee would permit—a muffled growl. She did not hear it, yet she knew how he felt. The previous day, though a casual observer might have been misled by his garrulous fretting over Ben's lameness, she was quick to note, and with a pang, that, secretly, he was relieved. But her pain at his laxity and indifference was not unmixed with pity. For to her crippled father, whose crutches, in the snow, hindered rather than helped him, she guessed how long and lonely and bitter cold seemed the way to the land-office.
Yet it was something more than these aspects of the journey that caused Lancaster to view it unfavourably. He knew that in another thirty-six hours, when the original applicant's half-year was up, he, and not the other, would have the clearer right to the quarter-section. Therefore, he regarded the proposed declaration of abandonment, the cancelling of the old entry and the filing of a new, as forms which need not be gone through with hurriedly (since the first claimant had undoubtedly disappeared forgood and all), but which might be attended to quite as well the coming spring, when the roads would be open and the days warm. Confident of his perfect security on the peninsula, and possessed by a sneaking, but denied, abhorrence for rush and discomfort, he rejoiced at delay. So, having left his snug bed to fumble about in the dark for his clothes, and, these donned, having loosed his speech before the grateful blaze in the fireplace, he did not argue fatigue or freezing as an excuse for procrastination; he passed over these rather too briefly and enlarged upon his safe status as a settler.
"All bosh," he asserted as he watched Dallas and Marylyn busy with preparations for breakfast. "A hull regiment of soldiers couldn' put us offen this lan', t' say nothin' of a man thet ain't done a thing on it sence he took it up. Ah mightjes'as well stay home."
But he found that Dallas was firm on the question of his going—"haidstrong," he termed it—and would not even pause for a discussion. She had risen early to feed the occupants of the lean-to—Shadrach in particular; next, with a promise of rest later on, she had awaked Marylyn. Formerly, the younger girl would have persisted in questioning her about the proposed journey, and in knowing its purpose. Now, however, her interest in it, like that in most things, was so small that she appeared totally indifferent, and went about her work silently. Despite the fact that this somewhat revived Dallas' anxiety over her sister, the elder girl felt freshly strengthened in spirit. In all her twenty years of life no other morning had, like this one, promised her so much happiness.
When the evangelist emerged and, after a sojourn infront of the hearth, joined the family at table, Lancaster pined to ask him what he thought of their braving the elements foolishly. Not that the section-boss esteemed his aged guest. On the contrary, Dallas' evident interest in the stranger had stirred the unnatural jealousy in her father's wizen brain. Already, he hated David Bond, and had set him down for a crank. But Dallas needed a lesson. It was all very well for her to do the outside duties as if she were a man; that did not privilege her to ride roughshod over his opinions, or to rule affairs in general with a heavy hand. However, he found no opportunity for questions. She, reading impatience and mutiny in her father's every glance, kept up throughout the meal an unwonted flow of talk.
"Dad," she said, covering his plate with a crisp hot-cake for the dozenth time, "I haven't told Mr. Bond all about the claim—all the reasons why we want him to take you to Bismarck;"—the section-boss grunted at the "we"—"so you please tell him as you're going along. And don't let your coat get unbuttoned, or your ears froze. I heated some big rocks for the bottom of the sleigh and some little ones for your pockets. You'll both weigh so much that Shadrach can't run away if he wants to, and you can't fall out into a drift."
Not a word from the others checked her cheery stream of comment. However, breakfast past, and Dallas in the lean-to, David Bond managed to make a declaration. It was when he saw Lancaster take down the Sharps from its pegs by the mantel. "That should stay behind," he said, touching the rifle. "We are leaving your helpless girls alone. At least they should have something for defence."
Lancaster instantly agreed, observing to himself that the evangelist, after all, had some common sense. "Shore," he replied, "Ah'll put th' gun back an' we'll take yourn."
But he was corrected with severity. "I carry no weapons, sir," said David Bond. "I stand for peace."
"Then th' gun goes," declared the section-boss. "The gals was alone before 'thout it. They was no snow on th' groun' then, an' a heap more chance of someone comin'. They ain't no danger. An' ef Ah take th' gun, mebbe Ah c'n git a deer on th' way back. We need th' meat."
The evangelist considered a moment. "Very well," he said; "but I would advise differently."
"Aw, shucks!" retorted the other, struggling with his coat.
A moment later, his irritation was increased. At the same time the visitor unknowingly covered himself forever with suspicion. Through the frosty air and the darkness rang out the first trumpet blast from Brannon. And, as if totally unconscious of the action, David Bond reached up and bared his head.
"I love that summons," he said; "it bids our good lads wake and do their duty."
Lancaster was not unmindful of the courtesy due a guest. But any reference to patriotism was offensive, and he had been particularly provoked. So, behind the broad shoulders of the other he disdainfully turned up his nose.
They were off at last, with Marylyn watching them from a window, and Dallas walking alongside for a few rods to say good-by and to pat Shadrach's bony, white flanks encouragingly. Morning was stealing up the dun east, yetoverhead the stars were shining. And their near radiance, reflected upon the snow, coupled with the light of the slowly growing dawn, made it possible for the girls to follow the travellers' straight course for miles. But long after Marylyn left the window, the elder girl remained outside. The dun of the east was painted out with uprushing waves of pink. The stars sank back into the heavens, grew smaller and dimmer, and, one by one, disappeared. Finally, a yellow rind, haloed in mist, was thrust above the level of the prairie. As Dallas greeted it, the distant ridge of a snow-drift, rose-tinged like the sky, hid the crawling speck that was the pung.
On his arrival behind David Bond, Nick Matthews had found that full pockets were plentiful among the soldiery, and had promptly gone about emptying them. Soon after entering The Trooper's Delight, he sat down to a chip-piled table. His quarry surrounded him. And there he stayed throughout the long night, wide-awake, sharp-witted, unwearied, adding to his heap of coloured discs honestly and otherwise. Not until reveille, a clarion warning, sent his fellow-players scurrying back across the river, did he put his cards one side and throw himself down. For, though a confirmed night-hawk, he needed a short nap to prepare for some business that lay before him.
"Babe," a direct contrast to his brother, being thick-necked, stumpy and dark, had not failed to garner his share of the rich harvest. From his station behind the long counter, which was made of four heavy planks supported on barrels at either end, he had poured strange mixtures into beer mugs and exchanged them for good governmentcoin. When he was not performing his part as bartender, he was scraping illy timed tunes upon a fiddle.
It was he who was left in charge when, shortly after noon, his brother awoke, swallowed some whisky and armed himself with a brace of pistols. Then, with no word to the few loungers in the saloon, the latter set out, following the road that led up the river to the ferry-landing. At the cut, he climbed the bank at a leisurely pace and continued his way eastward, making straight across the snow toward the squat shack of the Lancasters.
His approach was instantly marked. Marylyn was once more at her post, studying the square of landscape framed by a window. When he made a quick figure on that landscape, she saw him, and called to Dallas.
"Here's someone coming," she announced, inwardly glad at the possibility of diversion.
Dallas hurriedly joined her. "Who can it be?" she asked.
The door was unbolted, the other window not fastened. Yet so far were her thoughts from molestation that she left them so.
"Going to ask him in?" questioned Marylyn.
"Not till I find out who he is."
They fell silent, conjecturing.
When Matthews reached the drift before the shack, he halted and signalled for them to open their window. That attitude toward them—clearly he did not expect a welcome—at once roused Dallas' suspicion.
"Marylyn," she said, making as if to obey their visitor, "draw the bolt of the door."
The younger girl, quick to be alarmed, instantly did asshe was told, and Dallas then shoved the sash aside. Both girls looked from the opening.
With all Matthews' hostile intent, it must be said that the moment found him disconcerted. He had learned on arriving that the section-boss had two daughters. The news did not alter his determination one whit. Had anyone suggested such a thing, he would have been moved to laughter. But now he noted the prettiness of the younger girl, and a certain conceited desire to appear chivalrous, which had earned him the title of "Lady-Killer" among his associates, made him involuntarily spruce. He smiled ingratiatingly, and prepared to launch into flowery speech when—he met Dallas' grave, steady eyes, and suddenly found himself at a loss for words.
"How d' do, Miss?" he said at last.
"How d' y' do?" she returned. In spite of herself her voice trembled.
That did not escape Matthews. He shamed his momentary embarrassment and resolutely grappled the matter that had brought him. "I want t' see your old man," he said. It was a demand.
"Dad can't see you to-day," she answered with ready caution. She thought it best to keep from him, whoever he was, the knowledge of her father's absence.
"Huh!" ejaculated Matthews, in an ugly tone. He came a few paces nearer. "I got t' see him, jus' th' same."
"But you can't."
"Ain't he t' home?"
Marylyn pressed close to her sister. "Tell him yes," she begged nervously.
Dallas hesitated. Then she answered. "He's not home. Will you please come again—some other time?"
The gambler chuckled. "Mydearyoung lady," he said, his tone the extreme of insolence, "I can't come no other time. Th' business I got t' do has got t' be done t'-day. I might as well tell you that my name's Matthews—Nick Matthews. This claim you're on is mine, an' I mean t' have it. What's more, I mean t' have it t'-day."
"Ah!" Dallas was thinking fast. At her shoulder, aware all at once that they were in danger, was Marylyn, clinging in pitiful terror.
"Yes," added Matthews, as if that clinched the matter.
Dallas looked at him without speaking.
"I jus' come from Dodge City," he went on. "My intention is t' live on my land all winter. I'mverysorry"—this ironically—"your old man took th' trouble to build on it. He ought t' inquired about th' claim before he done that. But—long's it's all one withmyplans fer improvin'—I don't see's I ought t'kick." He chuckled again, and spat.
"I know, and so does dad," said Dallas, "that a man filed upon this quarter-section in July. We didn't find it out, though, till long after we built this house. We know his six months is almost up, too. But if you're him, and even if you've got back only a few hours before it's up, I'm willing, and I think dad'll be, for you to have the claim. But you must pay for what we've done on it."
"Inever ast y' t' do anything on it."
"That's so. But the law says——"
"Aw, th' law be damned! I don't pay a cent!"
"Then I know dad won't leave."
"Oh, youdo."
"Yes," very quietly.
"Well, let me tell y', my dear, that you'redeadwrong. You're goin' t' git your duds an' grub t'gether right now; in half a' hour, you leave this cabin."
At this, Marylyn began to sob.
"Come, get a move on," ordered Matthews, threateningly. He knew that if he wished to regain the land, there would be no time better than the present. He began to walk up and down, flinging his arms about to start the circulation.
Dallas turned to comfort Marylyn, putting an arm about her protectingly. "Hush!" she said. "Keep quiet, honey."
"Oh, let's go! let's go!" wailed the younger girl.
Matthews came forward again, and took out his watch, a large, open-faced timepiece hung to a braided buckskin chain. "Now, look a-here," he said peremptorily; "I don't want no more funny business. This claim's mine. Your old man ain't got a solitary right to it. So you got t' go. I'll give youjus' ten minutes." With this, he resumed his pacing, comforting his beat with occasional draughts from a flask.
Dallas strove hard to collect herself. "I can't do anything till dad comes," she called to him, finally. "You want us to leave. Why, we haven't got any place to go; and it's cold——"
"Guess I knowthat," interrupted Matthews. "I'm almost friz."
"And you've got no right to ask us to go till you've paid for this house and the well—and—and my plowing."
"I pay fer nothin' I don't see, and fer no hole in th' ground," he said. "And as far 's a place to go is concerned"—this with a leer—"there's Shanty Town. Why, the boys'd be tickled t' death t' see y'. Then there's allus room at the Fort when there's good-lookin' gals in the fambly."
Dallas understood the insult. Her grey eyes flamed in her greyer face. She slammed the window.
Matthews came near, so that his face all but touched the glass. "Oh, that don't do no good, my dear," he said, raising his voice. "When I get ready, I'll come in."
Marylyn had stilled her weeping to listen to him. Now, pallid with fear, she threw herself upon her sister and again burst forth.
Dallas put her swiftly aside. The face that had been grey was now a tense white. Her eyes were blazing. She sprang to the gun rack and put up her arms.
But the pegs were empty!