A Ree scout scoured every foot of ground leading up to the shack. He trailed the mules, The Squaw, the troopers. He followed those moccasin prints that came across the draw and went again. He found the last behind the lean-to, along the side nearest the coulée, on the back-fire strip in front. And declared they had been made by a white man.
Two circumstances pointed strongly to the truth of this: The body had been carried away in the direction of Shanty Town; a white man would have taken so much trouble, not an Indian, who would have left his handiwork for all to see. And again, when Shanty Town was searched, one of the huts was found to contain evidence of late occupancy—scraps of food that were not yet stale, and, in a rusty stove, fresh coals. But though the coulée, the road, the prairie and the timber edging the river were all faithfully scanned, one thing concerning the murderer's doings remained a mystery. At Shanty Town, the traces of him began and ended. But how had he reached Shanty Town?
Old Michael furnished the clue of time. He related how he had heard the crack of a gun to the eastward the previous evening, "about th' ind av th' furst dog-watch."
Captain Oliver stayed until the last rod had been travelled and the last stone turned. Then, he was ferried to Brannon. On landing, he went at once to the wife of hiscolonel, who had vacated her home when the command left and was now living with Mrs. Martin at Major Appleton's.
"Mrs. Cummings," he said, "the old man on the Bend is missing. It looks like murder. His two girls are left, orphaned and heart-broken. They need a woman's comfort, ma'am. Will you not go to them, and will you find a woman to stay with them for a few nights?"
"Oh, how very sad!" exclaimed that lady; then, turned away as if suddenly perplexed. "I—I—really don't care to go myself," she went on, when she had given his request a moment's thought. "I know these country people—so touchy and taciturn, always ready to think one is patronising them."
"Oneusually is," retorted the captain, sharply. "Then, I must ask somebody else?"
"One of the troopers' wives would probably be glad to go."
"You are evidently quite mistaken regarding these young women," declared Oliver, with some heat. "Mrs. Oliver will think differently."
"Really, I haven't thought of them," she answered petulantly. "But why, may I ask, don't they come to the post?"
"They prefer to stay in their own little home. In their present trouble and grief, it is particularly dear to them—would be to anyone."
"I think it odd, Captain, that they should choose to stay over there alone. Can—can they be—eh—quite nice?"
"Madame," replied Oliver, sternly, "they wish to do what would please their father; they wish to be independent."
"Ah!" Mrs. Cummings threw up her head.
"And let me say that I heartily commend them," Oliver fairly roared. "They are made of the stuff of our forefathers, who pushed their way into the wilderness. Their spirit is the spirit of the frontier." With which, bowing and fuming, the captain stamped out.
Mrs. Oliver, a motherly chunk of a woman, thought very "differently." Work and babies she consigned to a thrifty trooper's wife and, in a jiffy, pinned on a bonnet that had stood various seasons. "I'll be back in the morning," she said, with a kiss for each of the seven. Then, stuffing a tidbit or two into the wide pockets of a duster, she hastened away.
Captain Oliver, meanwhile, had cleared the front room of his progeny and summoned the surgeon, Lieutenant Fraser and Matthews.
Matthews came last. As he entered, the three men were struck by a curious change in him. He was erect and somewhat soldierly in his bearing; he had let his hair grow until it rested upon the handkerchief knotted about his throat; while his dress now aped that of the more picturesque scouts, yet was still half military. Buckskin trousers, down which, at the outer seams, was a dripping of fringe, were tucked into high boots. Over his red flannel shirt he wore a tunic or blouse, also of buckskin, fringed the length of the arms, and belted at the waist like a hunting-shirt. A vest no longer concealed his revolvers; his weapons were at his side, like a trooper's. In one gauntleted hand, he held a wide, grey hat.
"You want to see me, Cap'n?" he asked, meeting that officer's look squarely.
"Yes," answered Oliver, shortly. "I demand an exact account of your time for the past thirty-six hours, beginning with the evening after the departure of the command. I need not tell you why I ask this, and I make no apology for asking. There are reasons for your wanting that old man over there out of the way. You attacked his house in the winter during his absence, when two defenceless women were at home to repel your attack. That lays you open to mistrust. I may add that Lancaster's eldest girl regards you as her father's murderer."
As Oliver talked, his woe-begone face had grown fierce and dark. Now, he arose, lifting clenched fists. "Murder," he cried; "under my very nose, and against a household that I had sworn to guard. Speak, Matthews,speak!"
Matthews screwed up his mouth thoughtfully and looked into space. "Beginning the ev'ning after the command left?" he said. "Let me see. Why, I ain't crossed since the Colonel left."
"Account for your time," repeated Oliver.
"I messed at Blakely's that night. Afterward, me and Kippis had a little game."
"What game?"
"Cards."
"Ah!" At once, Oliver sent for the sutler and the sergeant, and, waiting for them, tramped up and down. When the men came, he halted and with pointed finger asked Matthews to repeat his story. The interpreter did so.
"And how long did that game last?" demanded Oliver.
Without looking in Kippis' direction, the interpreter answered. "Till revelly," he said.
Fraser grunted, the surgeon smiled broadly. But the captain frowned.
"Of that, later," he said significantly. "Kippis?"
The sergeant stepped forward. "Hit's hall true, sir," he faltered. It was Kippis' misfortune always to look more guilty than he was. With Oliver's angry gaze upon him, he flushed redder than fire.
The captain was only half satisfied. He turned to the sutler. "Andyou, Blakeley?"
The sutler had a round, jolly figure—a figure that was a living advertisement of the fat-producing quality of his edible wares. At Oliver's question that figure gave a startled bounce, like a kernel of corn on a hot grid. "True, sir, true," he vowed huskily, and coughed in apprehension behind a plump hand.
The captain looked keenly from man to man. "Very well," he said. Those twelve hours accounted for, Matthews was shown innocent of planting the pole. "Tell me what you did yesterday from revelly on."
"Slept till stables."
"I know that's so," said Fraser.
"After that?" Oliver asked.
"I goes into the stockade. Little Thief was carving his bride."
The captain glanced at Fraser. The latter nodded back.
"I remember," said Oliver, slowly. "Then——?"
"Cards till revelly."
The listening officers laughed.
But there was no softening of the captain's face. "Who played with you?"
Matthews indicated the sutler and the sergeant by a sideways move of the head. "Them two," he answered.
"Blakely?"
"True—true." And Blakely gave another bounce.
"Sergeant?"
"True's far'sHiknow, sir."
The thirty-six hours were now covered. Oliver sat down. "That'll do. I want The Squaw and the men who have been on duty at the stockade since the command left. Matthews, you may go."
Matthews bowed, Blakely and the sergeant saluted, and the three withdrew. Outside, beyond hearing, they exchanged congratulatory shakes of the hand.
"My! but the dander!" breathed the relieved sutler, rolling his apple-round head. "I was that scairt!"
"Make you happreciate the K. Ho. w'en you got 'im," returned Kippis, sagely.
Matthews shrugged his shoulders pityingly. But he had nothing to say.
The three gone, Oliver had turned to those with him. "A complete alibi," he said.
"I knew it," said Fraser. "But I wanted you to get it first hand."
"You knew?"
"Yes, sir. And I hope you'll be easy on Kippis. He and Blakely have been helping me keep tab on Matthews to prevent the very thing that's happened."
An hour later, a second group of men gathered in the captain's front room. These were the troopers for whom the commanding officer had asked. With them came Squaw Charley, quaking in his tatters, flinching at every look.As Oliver appeared, the wretched Indian was half-dragged, half-pushed before him.
The examination was short. The sentries who had tramped the high board walk vouched for The Squaw's constant presence in the stockade throughout the whole of the required time. The guards at the sliding-panel lent corroboration. From sun-up till taps of the previous day, Charley had fleshed at the hide of an elk, the scarred fury, Afraid-of-a-Fawn, hanging over him the while. Both nights, from taps on, he had watched outside the lodge occupied by the hag and an Indian girl.
Captain Oliver crossed to the bend to tell Dallas his results. "Matthews has witnesses who know where he was every minute of the time," he said. "Undoubtedly he had no active part in this affair."
"He knows about it, though," she answered.
"That would be hard to prove."
Before he went, the captain proposed certain defensive improvements for the shack. She accepted them gratefully. Later, a carpenter nailed thick cleats across the warped door, and the post blacksmith put heavy lashes of iron over the eyes of the shack.
At nightfall, a detachment landed on the east bank, divided, and went on a scout in opposite directions. It was only part of Oliver's plan of guarding, for he did one thing more—spoke plainly to Matthews in regard to the bend.
"I advise you to relinquish all claim to the Lancaster place," he said. "I shall allow no warring on girls."
Matthews gave his promise.
During the first few days that followed, Marylyn'sheart beat pendulum-like between grief and dread. It was grief when, in a moment of forgetfulness, she found that she had set the table for three; or when, missing her father sorely—for in the past year he had been much with her—she spoke of him to Dallas. At such times, with sweet impartiality, she mourned him as sincerely as she had mourned her mother. But at night, when the detachment came back from its scouting, she felt a terrible dread—dread least the hunt had been successful, and the troopers should ride across the prairie to the shack door, bearing something solemnly home.
Those first days past, however, the sharp edge of her sorrow, together with her fears, wore gradually away. She had the elastic spirit of eighteen. And she was impatient of this new heartache, which possessed none of the romantic qualities of the old. A doubt of her father's death, fostered by Dallas, grew until it became a conviction. He had been taken away, or he had fled; he would return. Meanwhile, though nothing could have induced her to leave the shack after dark, it fretted her sorely, that, in the daytime, she was not permitted to go as far as the grove.
That restriction was the only hardship that the elder girl allowed the younger to bear. Dallas believed that their father had come to mortal harm. But she never shared that belief with Marylyn.
"We got to keep a stiff upper lip, baby sister," she would say, with an encouraging pat. And her smile was always hopeful and cheering.
Mrs. Oliver came daily, and spent her time with Marylyn. She did not feel that Dallas needed buoying—Dallas,quiet, self-poised, and staunch. Yet, all the while, the elder girl was growing wan under the strain. For, having given generously of her strength, there was no one from whom, in turn, she might take. And so her thoughts came often to be of the one who had faithfully watched over them, how faithfully, shown by the fact that catastrophe had followed swift upon his leaving. And in her heart she cried out for him.
The tragedy on the bend furnished a nine days' wonder for Brannon. But the garrison felt little grief over it. Lancaster had earned their dislike by insults open and veiled, and by his determination to cut his family off from every friendly influence. The enlisted men were even inclined to treat his disappearance facetiously. When they heard about the pole, they declared that in his fright over it, he had fired a shot, cut a finger, broken a crutch—and "lit out." One wag announced that the section-boss was mired in some alkali mud-hole; another, that he had been bitten by a polecat; a third composed some doggerel lines in which Lancaster was described as having gone "over the range." Notwithstanding this, the troopers had deep sympathy for the bereaved girls.
Oliver, never too popular, they scored roundly for his treatment of Matthews, and vowed to the latter that he had ample grounds for walking off and leaving the whole "shooting-match." But Matthews gently chided them, reminding them that any moment an interpreter might be badly needed. Furthermore, he said, he would disregard the unfairness shown him, for he knew his duty.
Brannon was still asking Who? and Why? and How? in the Lancaster affair when Squaw Charley discovered andshowed to Captain Oliver the testimony that had in some way escaped the scout. Under a willow clump on the beach before Shanty Town, was a well-defined mark in the sand, V-shaped, long, and quite deep. It was the mark left by the prow of a boat that had been pulled out of the water and hidden at the river's edge. It was almost certain proof of the route taken, going and coming, by Lancaster's assailant.
But no absolute facts were unearthed. As the days slipped by, this cruel one became apparent: the section-boss, with his wild outbursts of anger, his implacable hatreds, his suspicions, and his tantrums of jealousy—was gone.
Across the sky, a pale shining ribbon, stretched the Milky Way. The braves in the stockade were watching it, their faces reverently upturned. They sat before their lodges in silent knots of two or three; or stood apart here and there, shrouded in summer sheets of dressed cow skin, and motionless as statues. When they moved, it was to draw heavily upon a pipestone bowl and waft the incense of kinnikinick toward the glimmering strip overhead—the sacred road that leads the Sioux to the Happy Hunting Grounds.
One moon had passed since the signal smoke arose on Medicine Mountain. In that time, though they had fasted and prayed, not a crumb of hope had come to feed their languishing spirits. Truly, it seemed as if the pied buffalo were bringing them more than a generous share of ill-luck. The interpreter told them only evil news: That all but sixty of the pony soldiers had gone to hunt and kill Indians. As for the distant peak, from it had curled up no news at all!
They gambled no more. They spoke no more of the captive white women. The four condemned brooded in their wigwams, with eyes gloomy, with hair unkempt. Among the squaws, hot discontent was working. They greeted even those who brought them rations with black looks andmenacing gestures. And all—warriors as well as squaws—got up with the sun and paced along the log walls like prisoned animals, wearing a deep rut into the earth.
Throughout the winter they had been contented enough with their lot. In no other winter had they enjoyed such freedom from labour and care, such health, comfort, and abundant food. But now—the grass was grazing high. The new leaves were opening. The willows were in bud. The wild fowl were back, and nesting by river and slough. In lonely ravines, the antelope kids were bleating—proof that it was the killing season of the prong-horn. And here the village was yet shut in a pen—like pigs!
Soon—it might be any day—the four chiefs would be dragged out to die by the rope. If the rest were sent away, would it not be to some reservation? And if, by chance, they got free? Their ponies were gone. Where could they get others? Then it would be late in the summer, perhaps. On what would their women and children live? There would be no dried meat for pemmican; no caches of roots or berries; no packed fish; no smoked tongue; no backfat—nothing. And all would go hungry.
The post saw how terrible was the ferment among the hostage crew. And following David Bond's last visit to the stockade, had used extra precautions. The officers' families never entered the sliding-panel now, but climbed a ladder and viewed the Indians from the safe height of the board walk. An armed escort went with the rations on issue days. The sentry beats were halved, and the number of watchers thus doubled. And every night a detail entered and rigidly searched each lodge, to see that no brave was trying, after the fashion of the badger, toburrow a way out. Squaw Charley alone was exempt from any new ruling, for he came and went when he chose.
Yet he had changed in no less degree than his brothers, though in a different way. The word from Medicine Mountain had been a blow to quiver under. For months the outcast whose loyalty The Plow-Woman boasted, had been slipping from his old-time fealty to her, made false by his dream of winning back his rank. In a moment he had seen his chance for honour wiped out. Before him again there lay only woman's work, curses, beatings, and a life with the dogs—even worse: to see her whom he coveted going to Standing Buffalo!
He could bear the curses and the cruelty. He could sit quiet under the ridicule that outraged the childish vanity of his kind. He could thirst. He could starve. But, returning to the roof one night, he had prowled yearningly past her lodge. And had come upon her and her new lover, standing cheek to cheek, close wrapped in a single blanket.
And so this night, while the warriors watched the sacred track upon the sky, he made his way to the river. For there he meant to plead the God of David Bond, that He send him a chance for valour—a chance to slay. Out in the starlight, therefore, he fell upon his knees.
But before his simple mind had framed his petition, there entered a thought that puzzled and alarmed. He pondered upon it. The God of David Bond was a God of Peace, Who frowned in awful anger upon fighting and bloodshed. The preacher had said so. Had taught "Thou shalt not kill!" Had taught that no answers werevouchsafed to wicked prayers; but punishments, instead.How then could a prayer of that kind be sent to Him!
The outcast was dismayed.
Then came a happier idea. The God of David Bond being a God of peace, why trouble His ear? Why not pray this one prayer for blood to the Great Spirit he had served before—the Great Spirit who marked out the destinies of the Dakotas, who was ever strongest in times of war?
Hurriedly The Squaw got to his feet and ran to the edge of the bank, where there were climbing lengths of grapevine. Degraded, he might not use tobacco for a rite. But the Great Spirit would understand. In the dark, his hands felt for and found a dry stalk. He snapped off a finger-length of it.
A second to take flint and steel from his buckskin pouch. Another to light the bit of vine. Then——
But he did not sit upon the ground with crossed legs. Neither did he pull upon the vine. He let it go out, instead. And sank hesitatingly to his knees. For, again, he had remembered!
David Bond had said: "The red man's god is poor and stingy. He lets his people want and starve. He lets enemies triumph over them, and destroy. But the God of the white man is rich and good. See how generously He gives to those who serve Him! Yet—lest you anger Him—have none other. Because He is a jealous God!"
He might not pray to either then! He lifted despairing eyes—and saw above him, divinely luminous, that sacred path, glittering white with the hastening spirits of the dead.
He put a ragged sleeve across his eyes to shut out thesight. It brought a picture he longed to forget—the terrible picture of his downfall:
It was a spring day, and the Uncapapas, to make ready for battle, were dancing the great sun-dance. He was the chief Moon Dog then, haughty as any, brave as the next, given to warfare and the shedding of blood. In the great tent, it was he who led.
He was naked, save for a loin-cloth. Coup-sticks were braided in his hair. Eagle feathers trailed from his scalp-lock. The skin of his body was hidden beneath devices.
He signified a wish to suffer wounding, to have willow wands run through the flesh of his back. Standing Buffalo was dancing beside him. And it was that warrior's knife which leaped from its beaded sheath to do the cutting.
And then the wounds weakened the chief Moon Dog. The wands tore his flesh past all power to endure. And he knew nothing. But when the squaws brought him to life again, they told him that, like a squaw, he had pleaded for mercy—and wept!
For this he was branded, spat upon, cast out, and cursed. For this he had gone hungry, scoured kettles, and herded with the dogs.
David Bond had come, telling him of One Who was bruised, reviled, and nailed to a tree. That One was the God of the white man. Broken in spirit, The Squaw had accepted Him.
Yet—what had the new God done for him? Was his work lighter? No! Was the food not the cast-off's still, fouled by the touch and the tongues of others and by the dirt of the pen? Yes. If the new God was good,why had He not saved the evangelist?
The soul of Squaw Charley tottered.
Hark!
Overhead, a high-sailing crane bugled. But to the outcast, the lonely night-cry seemed supernatural, a hail from one of the departed!
He uncovered his eyes and looked up. Above him stretched the pale, shining ribbon of the Milky Way.
Again the crane sounded its rousing, guttural cry. He shook himself, as if to free his body from a chain.
Once more he took out flint and steel and lit the bit of grapevine. Then, he sank to the prairie, where he crossed his legs like a brave. Now, with deep breath, he drew upon the stem. His nostrils filled, he tipped back his head; and from them, upward to the path, sent wreath upon wreath of adoring smoke.
One morning in early July, Matthews came swaggering into the post barber-shop, his air that of a man who is mightily pleased with himself. "Bill," said he, as he flung off blouse and hat, "wish you'd mow down this stubble of mine."
The barber set about stropping a razor. "Don't want your mane trimmed?" he inquired. "Strikes me—eh—it's pretty long."
The interpreter loosened the collar of his shirt and took a chair. "Never you mind about my mane," he answered. "It's just as long's I want it. You turn loose on my chin." He leaned back to elevate a pair of bright-topped boots.
The other directed his gaze upon the sharpening blade. "Do you happen t' know Portugee?" he asked humbly. "One of the boys is loony on a gal at Bismarck that he ain't writ to for a year. She's Portugee——"
Matthews gave a dismissing wave of the hand. "I savvy English and most Injun," he said; "none of them fancy languages, though. I been to school only a week in my hull life. That was down in Omyha, and one week was plenty." At the remembrance, he shook with silent laughter. "That week, as I say, was 'nough forme. The teacher—she was a lady, mind y'!—tries to tell me that it's the same blamed sun we see comin' up every mornin'. 'Looka-here, now,' I says; 'don't we git a new moon onct in a while? Then, what's the matter with havin' a change of sun?' Well, that plumb stumped her. She shut up."
The barber was now ready for operations, so Matthews adjusted his shoulders, closed his pink-lidded eyes, and followed the suit of his nonplussed teacher.
"Bill" felt there was something in the wind, and longed to question Matthews, yet dared not. The interpreter, formerly so feared, and even disliked, by the enlisted men, was now regarded in B Troop as a generally misunderstood and maligned individual—this in consequence of the Lancaster inquiry. Hence, he was playing the rôle of injured innocence, and seriously taking himself for a popular hero. He was more cocksure and conceited than ever before, and more prone to brag and bully. Scraping diligently away, the barber shuddered at the thought of even letting the razor slip.
Kippis was less respectful. He entered when Matthews was rising, all redolent of bay-rum, and surveyed the latter in mock amaze. "My, ho, my!" he cried. "Hain't we bloomin' fine!"
Matthews wriggled those faint lines upon his glistening forehead that served for eyebrows. "You go soak your head," he retorted.
"And no gun hon 'is 'ip," went on the sergeant. "But w'y, ho, w'y does 'e wear red shirts?"
The interpreter spraddled out his legs. "Folks git rich mindin' their own business," he said meaningly.
Kippis could not forego a last jibe. "Person'dhalmostthink you's goin' sparkin'," he declared.
Matthews gave a start, and his keen eyes shot asearching glance at the sergeant's smiling countenance. What he read there reassured him. The other was bantering without a notion that he approached the truth. The interpreter shrugged and stalked out. Within the hour, he was on his way to the Lancasters'.
He did not go to the shack, however. From the cottonwoods, he spied Dallas at work in the corn, so he directed his steps thither. She did not see him. Her back was toward the river, and the sun was glinting on her swinging hoe. Beyond her, on a picket-rope, was Simon, the bull. He was travelling in a restless circle, and sending lonesome blasts across the deserted prairie. He, alone, saw the interpreter, and paused in his rounds, head raised and eyes bulging inquiringly.
Dallas weeded on, unconscious of a visitor. The corn was shoulder-high now, and bearded. Its long leaves swayed and whispered, covering the sound of Matthews' approach. But when he was yet some rods off, a flock of ground-sparrows rose before him with startled twitters. At that, she looked back. The next instant, she had caught up the Sharps.
Matthews halted and lifted his hat, displaying hair pasted down to a silky smoothness. "I ain't got no gun," he said quietly. "I jus' come for to have a talk."
She made no answer.
The interpreter shifted from foot to foot and mopped his forehead. "I allus been sorry for what I done las' winter," he went on. "I was a blame fool to come scarin' you gals—ought to knowed better. But, you see, when I started, nobody told me there was women folks over here."
Dallas took a deep breath.
"I wanted to tell you," continued Matthews. "And—and I wanted to say I feel sorry about you' losin' your pa. Now he's dead, I wouldn't take this here land if you come to me and says, 'Nick, it's yourn.' That's jus' the way I feel—yes, ma'am. I savvy how to treat a lady, Miss Lancaster, gentlemanly and honourable."
"You talk nice," commented the girl.
His look faltered from hers. He gave his hard laugh. "You're a little out of temper," he said soothingly. "That'snatural, though. You had a lot of trouble."
"My trouble's all owing to you," she answered passionately. "And I'll thank you to go—right now."
He put out a hand in expostulation. "Jus' a minute," he begged. "You done me wrong, but I don't hold it ag'in you. Jus' believe I didn't hurt your pa. And I admire you and your sister—sure I do. By golly! You're blamed sandy!"
"You take big chances to come here."
"Now, Miss Lancaster!" His chin sank. He wagged his head dolefully. Then, whether from warmth, or a desire to display the glories of his raiment, he took off his blouse.
As he talked, in a half-whine that was meant to be placating, Simon suddenly became a more interested spectator. He began to revolve again, and at the very end of his rope, slipping around with tigerish gracefulness; or, the rope taut, he halted as near as possible to the two in the corn, stamped one forefoot angrily and shook his curly head. There, a bold affront, was that blot of glaring scarlet. It awoke in him a long-slumbering lust for fight.
But the interpreter did not remark the bull. Afterrepeated praise and condolence, he had arrived at the main object of his visit.
"I got a proposition to make you," he was saying, the while he cooled himself with his hat. "It's jus' this, and it puts a' end to the hull row. You and me will forgit what's past and done. Eh?" He paused impressively, and threw out an arm toward the shack. Smoke was curling out of the chimney. A slender figure was flitting to and fro within the open door. "And if I come to see the little one, maybe it'll be O. K.?" To make himself clearer, he touched a hand to his mouth and wafted toward the house a smacking kiss.
Sudden fury seized Dallas. Her lips moved.
A few rods away was another as furious, one whose eyes were as red as the interpreter's. Simon was pawing with alternate hoofs, and tossing dirt and grass into the air. With each stroke he gave a sullen rumble.
"Now," proceeded Matthews, speaking from one side of his mouth, "you and me wouldn't jibe." He giggled with a feeble attempt at mirth. "But your sister, she's a nice little gal. And she'd like me. I'm——"
He got no further, nor was Dallas given time to reply. A resonant blare rang through the lanes of corn. Then came the sound of trotting. They turned, to behold Simon advancing. He had jerked up the picket-pin!
Matthews saw his peril. With a curse of alarm he dropped coat and hat and made for the coulée.
But to no use. The sight of that fleeing red maddened the bull. His feet stretched to a gallop, his broad horns lowered until his muzzle touched the grass, his tail sprang out to the level of his curly back. With the picket-ropehissing across his flanks, and with no eye for his mistress, he bore down upon the hapless Matthews.
"Shoot him! Shoot——" screamed Matthews. The bull was at his heels. With quick thought, he side-stepped.
It gave him a brief respite. But, since Simon went on for a space and then wheeled, it also cut him off from the coulée. He tore toward the shack, now. After him, tether whipping among the stalks, charged the bull. Again the interpreter side-stepped, just in time, and with the dexterity of a matador. But Simon was more alert, and came about like a cow-pony, emitting terrible bellows. Matthews fled toward Dallas. His face was a sickly green; his hair was loosened and waved backward in the sun.
"Simon!" cried Dallas, as the two went by.
Matthews was winded, and when the bull's hot breath fanned his back for the third time, he resorted to strategy. Once more stepping aside, and escaping the sharp horns by less than a foot, he followed, and, in desperation, seized Simon by the tail.
And now the bull's anger was suddenly changed to fear; his desire to horn that scarlet thing became a desire to get rid of it. With a bawl of terror he darted this way and that, trying to shake himself free, and swinging Matthews clear of the ground. This method failed. At once he adopted new tactics. Bellowing, he raced away through the corn, dragging the interpreter astride of the stalks, plowing up the earth with him, rolling him feet-first or sidelong down the rows. But like grim death, and with raucous oaths, Matthews hung on.
Out of the corn to the coulée road, they went—when Simon saw the grove at the landing. Among those treesmany a pestering buffalo-fly had been outwitted; there, where grapevines tangled, many a mosquito had been rubbed away. Quick as a flash, Simon made for the cut, with Matthews coming breathlessly after.
The interpreter thanked his stars for the bull's manœuvre. The grove would give him shelter; he could dodge behind a friendly trunk, or shin one to safety. He——
Simon had stopped to indulge in more whiplash waltzing, and the arm-weary Matthews could scarcely keep his hold. "Ma-a-aw! Ma-a-aw!" roared the bull. Then, discouraged, he shot forward again.
But now fright consumed him, and he lost thought of scratching free of his tormentor. His red eyes were popping from his curly face. His mouth was wide. His tongue lolled. With great jumps, he sped straight through the grove.
It was all too swift for calculation. Matthews was conscious only of a great wind, of an invisible power that bound him to that bull's tail, of a dull roar in the ears, a blur in the eyes——
Simon leaped the hedge of fruit-hung grapevines, poised for a second on the brink of the river's caving bank—his feet together, his neck stretched. Then, the red of him disappeared. And, after it, the more vivid tuft at the end of his tail.
It was Old Michael who fished the interpreter from his unwelcome bath. Choking with rage and spewing muddy water, Matthews was hauled into the stern of a pirogue. There, while the pilot rowed slowly to the Brannon shore, he stretched his sorry, bedrabbled figure—a figure in striking contrast to that of an hour before. His handkerchief hung upon one ear, his red shirt clung, his buckskin trousers, dark and slick from their sousing, bellied with water let in at the band; his bright-topped boots spurted like pump-nozzles, his pale hair straggled and dripped into his eyes.
When the boat touched at the steamer-side, he raised himself to look back. Simon was leisurely ascending the cut, and reaching to left and right for tender wisps of vine. Matthews gave his hard laugh. "I'll make meat ofyou," he promised savagely. Then he turned to Michael.
The Irishman was leaning back, steadying his craft against the bank with one hand, holding his stub pipe out in the other. His blowzy face was blowzier than ever. Down it, from his closed lids, ran the teardrops, chasing one another into the black-notched cavern of his mouth.
Here was a culprit handy to the moment's anger. Matthews arose in his squashing boots. "You lop-eared son-of-a-gun, who you laughin' at?" he demanded.
The cavern widened till the face was split in two. "W-w-w-ah!" gasped the pilot.
"Maybe you think it was funny," said the interpreter, with suave heat. Cunning deviltry distorted his features. And, stepping forward in the boat, he kicked Michael on a bunion.
Pain sobered the pilot. With a roar of "Howley smoke!" he swung his paddle aloft.
The interpreter was too quick for him. Like a frightened muskrat, he sought the water, floundered to a solid footing, and waded out. "Youwillmonkey with a buzz-saw!" he taunted. "Jus' wait."
Clinging to his injured foot, Old Michael rocked himself and cursed. But not for long. He was soon rambling toward the barracks. "For," he argued, "there's more 'n wan way t' kill a cat."
In a frontier post, news flies with the dust in the air. Soon the story of Matthews and the bull had spread to every soul at Brannon. The Line chatted it from gallery to gallery. Clothes-Pin Row digested it in hilarious groups. At barracks, it set the men to swapping yarns. "I knowed a feller onct that was goin' past a bull-pen," declared one trooper, "and he had a pail of cherries, and I'll be darned if——" "But, say! Down home, one time," put in a second, "there was a vaquero with a red sash that was stoopin' to fix a flank girth, and——" "Why, that ain't a two-spot to what happened in Kansas a year ago this summer. The purtiest gal I ever seen—you know them Kansas gals can be purty—she had a wig that'd keep your hands warm in January. Well——"
When, however, the surgeon recounted the story at thebachelors' noon mess, mirth over it was noticeably lacking. To the little circle of officers there was nothing comical in the fact that a man from the post had molested the girls so recently orphaned. And all save Fraser vowed stormily that Matthews would be called to account. The young lieutenant said nothing.
Before the meal ended, the interpreter came in. He had changed his clothes and restored his hair to its pristine smoothness. He gave the group his usual bob and smile.
Cold stares answered him—from all but one, who fairly bounded from his chair. It was Fraser, face red, shoulders working under the blue of his uniform. He planted himself before Matthews.
"You damned blackguard!" he gasped.
The other looked highly amused. "What's got intoyourcraw, sonny?" he inquired.
"You damned blackguard!" repeated Fraser. And struck out.
An amazed and delighted mess room looked on. For Fraser, the tender-hearted, Fraser, the pink-cheeked "mamma's darling," was battering the interpreter hammer and tongs!
From the doorway the captain's voice interrupted the battle, and the two men were pulled apart. Matthews fell to wiping at his stained lips, which had magically puffed to proportions suggesting those of the colonel's black cook. While the lieutenant was panting, and struggling wildly to get free.
Oliver thrust the latter behind him and addressed the interpreter. "I'm not stopping this boy because I don'tthink you need a sound thrashing," he said. "I'd like to see you walloped within an inch of your life. But I can't have this kind of thing going on."
"I wasn't goin' to tech them gals," lisped Matthews. "I ain't no city tough."
"We shan't needyourservices at Brannon any longer. You light out."
After that, mess went merrily on. "Didn't know you had it in you, Fraser," marvelled one officer. "By crackey!" added a second. "How youcanslug!" The surgeon sighed. "No one has ever understood Robert," said he, "but women, critters, and kids."
And now Matthews' blood was up, and under his sloping forehead the grey-matter was bubbling and boiling like the soup in the sutler's pot. He hurled out terrible oaths—against the shack, against Captain Oliver, against Fraser, against the old pilot. Dallas Lancaster had made a cheap spectacle of him; the commanding officer had ordered him to leave Brannon; the "unlicked calf" of a lieutenant had whipped him out of hand; and the man most ready to guzzle his liquor had gone through the barracks a-blabbing.
He hurried to his room to pack his belongings. "I'll fix 'em, I'll fix 'em," he raged. "I'll git even with the hull crowd."
He halted at a window and looked across the Missouri at the little shack. "When the reds go to the reservation, that'll do foryou," he said. "But—how can I soak them damned shoulder-straps?"
It was then that a change in his plan came to his mind. Why wait until the Indians were sent, if——
The more he thought of the change, the better he likedit. "One deal, and everybody fixed. Land'll be mine, and there'll be some court-martiallin'."
He determined to get into the stockade for a last talk with the hostages. If they approved what he proposed, he would promise them his services. Yes, he would. The value of the quarter-section had made him fight for the Bend. But this was a horse of another colour. His pride had been outraged—for that he would have his quits.
His conduct earlier in the day, and the fight at the sutler's, gave place, that afternoon, to other and more direful news. A steamer touched on its way down the river and told of the Custer massacre. Not a trooper at Brannon but had lost a friend; not an officer but had lost several. Gloom settled upon the post, and Matthews was forgotten.
He took advantage of that. Before an order went out to prevent him, he went through the wicket of the sliding-panel and gathered around him the four chiefs named in Cummings' ultimatum. They were more sullen, unhappy, and discouraged than ever. A few words, and he had them breathless with interest
"You must look to me alone for freedom now," he said. "There has been a great battle in the Valley of the Greasy Grass. Custer, the Long Hair, met Sitting Bull and his allies. And Custer and all his men are dead."
"Ho, hos," of joy greeted the announcement.
"Yet this is not good for you. There will be other battles. Your brothers will have no time to come and rescue you. Even your friends, the Scarred-Arms, will not help. For it is said that the Cheyenne warriors are gone to join the Sioux——"
"What of the two white squaws that were captured?"asked Shoot-at-the-Tree anxiously. "And what of us—is there danger?"
"The women are still with your people. And who knows what may happen soon? So I come to speak of your delivery. I shall get you free—you shall free my land."
"But our women," suggested Standing Buffalo, his eye straying toward a tent at the stockade's centre; "they go free, too?"
"That is impossible. But what does it matter? When you are gone, your women and children will be cared for—put upon a reservation. From there, you can steal them back."
"But how can we get free?" inquired Lame Foot. "Tell us quickly."
Matthews drew the four chiefs' heads together and whispered to them.
After a time, all rose.
"Shall we have guns?" inquired Canada John.
"No—bows and arrows. I can get them, and hide them in my board lodge across the river."
Lame Foot pouted. "Our brothers who are fighting have fine new rifles from Standing Rock."
"Rifles I cannot get," said Matthews.
"But," said Standing Buffalo, "if we cross to your lodge and get our bows and arrows, will not the pony soldiers follow in their smoking-canoe?"
"Bah!" retorted the interpreter. "Am I like a pig for sense? The smoking-canoe shall be gone."
The chiefs nodded.
"I must go," added Matthews. "There is no time for the pipe. Remember, if you are discovered trying toescape, I know nothing of it. Then, I shall try another plan. And keep everything from The Squaw. He is a friend to the pony soldiers. He may tattle."
"And your reward," said Canada John, softly: "It is that The Plow-Woman and her sister shall be——"
Matthews put a finger to his lips. "You will free my land," he said.
"When the night comes?" whispered Lame Foot. They pressed about Matthews, taking his hands.
"When the night comes," he answered, "you will know by a sign. Let a warrior keep watch. For it shall come when the moon dies. It shall be the call of a mourning dove."