That afternoon, following a hint from Ralston, Burton made a point of interviewing Watson, the chief of police, on the subject of the old High Ridge disturbances which had been laid at Henry Underwood's door. He found it a sore subject. Watson was a decent fellow and disposed to be fair-minded, but Henry Underwood was a red rag to him. The way in which the police force had been defied and outwitted in the former outbreak was not likely to soften their attitude toward the culprit in the present case. The hope of proving Henry guilty was evidently dear to the official heart, and Burton departed, feeling that there was no help to be looked for in that direction. The rigor of the law was all that the Underwood family could expect. It was evening before he found the time and opportunity to take his basket to the Red House. Mrs. Bussey did not appear. Instead, it was Leslie herself who admitted him, and conducted him to the surgery.
"See what a bargain I have found," said Burton, displaying his purchase.
The doctor gave it a casual glance. "An Indian basket, isn't it? And not a very good one."
"A very good--for my purpose. I wish I had another. Do you know any one in town who could weave one for me?"
"No, I'm afraid not." The doctor made an obvious effort to respond to his guest's trivial interests.
"Are there any Indians living in or near town?"
"No. They were all corralled on the Reservation years ago. There is a squaw who comes down from the Reservation to sell beadwork and things like that on the streets, but she is the only one I ever see nowadays."
"Yes, I got this basket from her today. But I want a mate to it. Is there any one in town who can weave in the Indian fashion?"
"I don't know of any one."
"Would you know if there were any one? Excuse the persistence of a tourist and a faddist!"
Underwood aroused himself to a more genuine interest. "Why, if it is a matter that you have your heart set upon, I certainly should be glad to give you any information possible. But I don't believe there is any one in town who makes any attempt at that sort of work, or takes any interest in it. I should certainly know if any one made a profession of it, or even had a well-developed fad for it, to use your own word. Why? Is the basket rare?"
"I have never seen that particular knot before. What's more, I didn't know that the mid-continent Indians did that sort of weaving at all. I should guess that it is the work of some one individual weaver and possibly those who have learned from her. Do you know any one in town who has a personal acquaintance with the Indians?"
The doctor smiled whimsically. "Our dear and cherished friend Selby has a first-hand acquaintance with them. When I first came to High Ridge, it was just a frontier settlement. The Indians were the free lances of the State. They still hunted in the northern woods with much of their original freedom, and they came to town to do their trading and to get what they wanted by a sort of proud and independent begging that came near to having the ethical weight of natural law. How could you refuse a fellow mortal a paper of tobacco when he came and took it out of your pocket? To take it back with a dignity matching his own was something that required more ancestral training in dignity than most of us had. All the men that had a love for hunting came sooner or later to pick out some Indian who would act as scout and show him the best trails. There's an attraction about that sort of life."
"And Selby was one of them?"
"More than any of us. Selby and old man Bussey antedate my time. They were here when there was only a beginning of a town, and it was mostly wild country. Bussey was a born Bohemian who lived among the Indians for years like one of themselves. Even after he was married, he would go off for the whole summer, leaving his wife and the kid to shift for themselves. Sometimes he took Ben along, and Mrs. Bussey would come around and work for Mrs. Underwood."
"You linked Selby and Bussey together. Did he go among them also?"
"He often went off with Bussey, but he went for the trades he could make, rather than for any innocent purpose like hunting. He was a mere boy when he began selling them calicoes warranted to fade in the first wash in exchange for muskrat and beaver skins. And he cheated them when he could, at that."
"Did he take any interest in Indian basketmaking?"
"I'm sure I don't know. Old man Bussey could probably have woven your basket for you and put in some extra kinks of his own in addition, but I never paid much attention to that sort of thing,--old squaw's work!"
"I hope to convince you of its value and importance. If I went up to the Reservation, should I find any of those old neighbors of yours?"
"You might, and you might not. The Indians do not live to be old under the conditions of life that the white man provides for them. But it is more than probable that some of them are still alive."
"What does Selby pay Ben Bussey for that woodcarving he buys?" Burton asked abruptly.
"I don't know," said the doctor, with a look of helpless surprise.
"You think my questions irrelevant," smiled Burton. "I was wondering if Selby cheated Ben as he used to cheat the Indians."
"Oh, I guess not. If he didn't take Ben's work, I don't know who would, in High Ridge. There isn't much demand for that sort of thing. I have always felt that Selby made a market for Ben out of old friendship."
"That's an amiable trait which I should hate to discover in Mr. Selby. It would be so lonesome. I wonder if it is friendship."
"Well, say merely old acquaintance, then. Selby as a boy was out and about with Bussey, and they naturally would have come to have a feeling of comradeship. Then Ben grew up, and Selby took him about as Ben's father had taken him before. Especially after Bussey disappeared. Ben was a sort of a waif, and Selby took him along in his trips into the back country. I have no doubt he made him work for his keep, all right."
"Then Ben would be likely to know whether Selby learned weaving from the Indians, wouldn't he?" exclaimed Burton. "That's the way to find out! Can I talk to Ben Bussey?"
"Certainly. He sees people whenever he likes. That back part of the house, over the kitchen, is given over to them, and they are as independent there as if they lived in their own house. But why are you so curious about Selby's Indian experiences? If one is to believe gossip, he had more experiences than he would care to have remembered against him nowadays. But you are not inquiring into his morals?"
"No, merely his skill." He hesitated a moment, and then explained. "I don't want to raise any false hopes, but I have an idea that the person who tied Mr. Hadley in his bed and who braided the lilac branches together over the Sprigg baby had learned weaving from the same squaw who wove this basket I bought today. It's a peculiar knot,--not at all a common one in such weaving, so far as I am acquainted with it."
The doctor looked serious. "I wonder! Unquestionably Selby might have learned Indian weaving. But--"
"That wouldn't prove very much. No, but it would be something. Suppose you ask Mrs. Bussey to take me up to see Ben. His woodcarving will supply a reason for my visit. And incidentally I'll find out what Selby pays him."
Mrs. Bussey was obviously both surprised and flattered at the request that she conduct this important visitor to her son's room. She had evidently taken Dr. Underwood's chaffing use of the title "Doctor" in good earnest, and insisted upon regarding Burton as a famous physician.
"You can't do nothing for Ben, Doctor," she said, pursing up her lips and shaking her head. "He's that bad nobody can do anything for him. Henry Underwood done for him all right."
He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a window which in the daytime must command a pleasant view of the garden. He was a heavy-featured young man, somewhat gaunt and hollow-eyed from his confinement, but nowise repulsive. His lower limbs were wrapped in an afghan, but his hands, which held a piece of wood and his knife, were strong and capable looking. A table with the material for his work was drawn up beside his chair.
p200"He found Ben Bussey in a wheeled chair near a window."Page 200
"Dr. Underwood happened to mention that you did woodcarving," Burton said, drawing up a chair for himself, "and I asked if I might come up and see it. I'm interested in things of that sort. That's good work you are doing. How did you come to learn carving?"
"Just picked it up," Ben answered. He was looking at his visitor with an air of quiet indifference, as though the comings and goings of other people could have nothing vital to do with his isolated life.
"Ben's real smart with his hands," said Mrs. Bussey proudly.
"Do you find any market for your carving?"
"Selby takes it."
"Selby the contractor," explained Mrs. Bussey. "Sometimes people want hand-carved mantels and cornishes, and things like that. He makes quite a bit that way, Ben does."
"I won't unless I want to," drawled Ben.
"Does Selby come here with his orders?"
Ben looked at him with a slow, peculiar smile. "I can't very well go to him."
"I asked, because I had an impression that he was not on very friendly terms with the Underwood family, and I wondered if he would come to their house to see you."
"He don't see none of them," said Mrs. Bussey, with a lofty air. "He can come in by the side door and right off here to Ben's room. The doctor says as Ben and I shall have this part of the house for our own, and little enough, too, seeing what Henry done to Ben."
"Is Selby an old friend of yours?"
"Guess we've known him as long as anybody. When my old man was alive, he used to take Ort Selby out into the woods hunting and trapping with the Indians. He was great for that, my man was."
Ben looked at his mother with a satirical smile. "He wasn't great for much of anything else, was he?"
"That's not for you to say," she retorted sharply. "Here you lay, and have everything done for you. You needn't say anything agin your dad."
Ben picked up his tool and board in contemptuous silence.
"That was before the Indians were put on a Reservation, wasn't it?" asked Burton.
"Yes."
"How did they live? By hunting and fishing?"
"Yes."
"Anything else? Did they do any kind of work like carving?"
"Redstone pipes, and things like that."
"And baskets?"
"Birch-bark baskets. To sell."
"Other baskets, too, didn't they? I have a lot of Indian baskets at home."
"Not from here," said Ben.
"No, you are right about that. But today I saw some baskets an Indian woman was selling at the station. They are made at the Reservation, aren't they?"
Ben looked up with the first sign of real interest he had shown. "That was Pahrunta. She comes down sometimes to sell the baskets that her mother makes. Her mother is Ehimmeshunka. She came from another tribe,--many moons away, they said. She was stolen, I guess. She makes baskets like the western Indians, not like the Indians here."
"You have seen her working, then?"
"Yes."
"Was that when you were with Selby?"
"Yes. My dad was chummy with Washitonka,--brothers, they called each other. Ehimmeshunka was Washitonka's squaw."
"Did Selby learn how to make baskets like Ehimmeshunka?" asked Burton. Immediately he regretted that he had put the question so bluntly, for a surprised question came into Ben's face. He fixed his somber eyes on Burton for a moment before he answered curtly: "No."
And Burton knew at once that the answer was merely prompted by a desire to shut off questioning! He tried to turn the conversation into another channel.
"Is that work you are doing an order?"
"Yes."
"What is it for?"
"Bookcase."
"What does Selby pay you for a piece of work like that?"
Ben did not open his lips to reply. He merely looked at Burton with a gaze like a blank wall.
"Unless he pays you a fair price," Burton continued, "I might be able to do something for you in some place where there is more demand for that sort of work."
An unmistakable gleam of interest came into Ben's eyes, though he did not answer. But Mrs. Bussey answered for him.
"Do you hear that, Ben? He'll get you better prices. I told you all along that Selby wasn't paying you enough."
"What does he pay for a piece of work like this?"
"Whatever he likes," said Ben morosely. Burton saw that he had touched a sensitive spot.
"One dollar,--two dollars, maybe. If he feels 'good.'"
"And then he doesn't pay what he says he will," added Mrs. Bussey. "It's always come next week, and wait a little."
"Why, that's absurd! I'm sure I can get you ten to twenty times that for it. May I see it?"
Ben dropped the piece of wood he held, and Burton picked it up. It was intended for a panel in the side of a bookcase, and the design was cut out in low relief. It was a spirited sketch of an Indian with a bent bow drawn up to his shoulder.
"That's good," said Burton, in frank admiration. "Awfully good. Did you copy it or design it yourself?"
"Just made it up."
"What is he shooting at?"
The answer was startling, in view of Burton's theory of the situation. Ben glanced at him with a smile that held some hidden meaning. "Selby says he is shooting at the brave that has stolen his squaw." Then he lapsed back into his former attitude of somber indifference. "I think he is just shooting for fun," he added carelessly.
"Can Selby shoot?" asked Burton, trying to draw the conversation around again to the subject of Selby's Indian schooling.
Ben lifted himself on his elbow and looked up into Burton's face with a grin of malicious amusement. "Not very well," he said, and opened his mouth in a silent laugh that struck Burton as somehow horrible. Was it possible that he connected the shot through Burton's window, which had been talked of merely as an accident, with Selby?
"What makes you laugh?" he asked abruptly.
But Ben would not talk. He turned his head away with a gesture of weariness that aroused Burton's conscience.
"I mustn't tire you now, but I'll see you again before I leave. I think I can help you to get a better market for your work. Is there anything you want now?"
"No. Only to be let alone," said Ben, without looking at him. He spoke so indifferently that it was impossible to charge him with intentional rudeness. The natural man was expressing himself naturally. Burton suppressed an apology as he took his leave.
The door of the surgery was open when he came down the stairs to the back hall, and Dr. Underwood, keen-eyed and eager, with a crutch under his arm, stood in the doorway.
"Well," he asked. "What have you discovered?"
Burton pushed him gently inside the room and shut the door.
"For one thing, I have discovered that it isn't safe to talk secrets in this house unless you know where Mrs. Bussey is," he laughed.
"Yes, she's an inveterate eavesdropper, I know. But we have no secrets to discuss, so I haven't minded. She has the mother-instinct to purvey for her helpless young,--gossip or food or anything else she may think will be acceptable. She wants to keep Ben interested, that's all."
"Perhaps that's all. But she has so much to do with Selby that it makes me uncomfortable for her to hear my casual remarks about him. I couldn't get what I wanted from Ben. He shied off at once when I asked if Selby had learned Indian weaving. I have decided to go up to the Reservation to find out."
"Really?" exclaimed the doctor, in obvious surprise. "You attach so much importance to this--idea of yours?"
"It is the only definite and positive clue I have found yet, and I am going to follow it out. I am satisfied that Selby hates your son. So does the mysterious unknown. The Unknown unconsciously ties his knots in a very peculiar manner which he must have learned among the Indians. Selby has had the opportunity to learn from the Indians. There are two steps taken."
"Yes," mused the doctor thoughtfully.
"Is there any one else more likely?" asked Burton. "Have you any enemies? Discharged servants, for instance?"
"No."
"Professional rivals?"
"If there is any poor devil of a doctor so unfortunate as to envy my degree of success, let him go ahead with his revenge. He needs all the barren consolation he can get."
"Then you really have no suspicion to better my own?"
The doctor shook his head. "I have believed it to be Henry," he said simply.
"Not the hold-up?"
"Even that might have been,--though I confess that was the first event that gave me hope, because it gave me a doubt."
"Then I hold to my theory. Did Selby hold himself up, and afterwards, with Mrs. Bussey's connivance, get access to your surgery and hide his chain here under the hearth and his handkerchief behind your books? Does he write those typewritten accusations on your machine while Mrs. Bussey plays sentry? In that case, instead of being a short-sighted proceeding, as I at first thought, it is rather deep. The first intelligent investigation would throw suspicion upon Henry, who of course would have access to your room. In short, does Selby supply the venom, and Mrs. Bussey the easy, ignorant and vindictive tool? That's what is occupying my mind at present."
"Jumping Jerusalem!" gasped Dr. Underwood. "Aren't there some more tenable hypotheses that you have overlooked? Have you given due consideration to the possibility that Ben may be the son of an earl, stolen in childhood, with a strawberry mark on his arm, and Henry my first wife in disguise, and that I--Oh, I can't think of anything that would not be an anticlimax to your imaginative effort. What do you do for mental exercise when you are at home?"
But Burton refused to be diverted.
"I am willing to accept any other theory, but I am determined that the mystery shall be named and known. The police don't seem equal to it. I never had any experience in this direction, and I am not over-confident of my own abilities, but I am better than nothing, and I am going to do something,--something absurd, or futile, quite possibly, but at any rate something."
"If you succeed," said Dr. Underwood quietly, "you will have lifted the curse from my life and such a load from my heart as I pray you may never have to carry for an hour. If I were a king of the old style, I'd say: 'Ask what you will, even to the half of my kingdom.'"
Burton was about to make some light reply, when the sound of music from the old piano in the drawing-room came in between them. Leslie was playing. It was to the doctor's offer of half his kingdom what a spark is to a train of powder. The flashing thought it conjured up--though it was less a thought than a dazzling recognition--made him dizzy. He dropped his eyes, dismayingly conscious that it was a thought which he did not care to expose to the keen eyes of the old doctor. He stood silent for a moment, ostensibly listening to the music. Then he lifted his eyes, and put out his hand in farewell.
"Good night, Doctor. I shall go up to the Reservation to-morrow, and may not be back for a few days, but I'll leave my address at the hotel, in the event of your possibly wanting me. I'll say good night to Miss Underwood as I go out. I assume I'll find her if I follow the music."
"Yes, that's the way it seems, sometimes," said the doctor. The remark was so unintelligible that Burton wondered whether he had dropped his eyes soon enough.
For a moment, as he stood in the doorway, watching her, he had a vision. He saw her in the music-room at Oversite, her head outlined against the stained-glass window that he had helped Rachel choose, while Philip, restless, radiant, pervasive Philip, hung over the piano, turning her music, or looking at her with those adoring eyes of his. He shook his head impatiently, the picture vanished, and he went forward to the piano.
Leslie looked up with a smile, and though her fingers kept on playing, that appeared to offer no bar to their owner's conversing.
"It was very wise and kind of you to get father to talking about the Indians," she said, looking at him with grateful eyes. "It took his mind from these worrying affairs. He has a lot of enthusiasm for the Indians and the old times in the woods."
"That's the way we get credit we don't deserve, and miss praise that belongs to us," said Burton. "As De Bergerac said, 'I have done better since.' But I drew your father out for purely selfish reasons. I wanted information. I am going up to the Reservation myself to-morrow to make a few inquiries."
"What if something happens while you are away?" she said, in evident alarm.
"It isn't likely to, while your brother is in jail."
She looked so dismayed and reproachful that he hastened to make his meaning clearer. "Oh, merely because this evil genius of his will be too shrewd to try anything on while your brother is so evidently and publicly out of the reckoning. I think you are quite safe for the immediate present. But at the same time I hope you will be very watchful, and if anything happens that is out of the ordinary, be sure to make a note of it, and let me know when I come back."
"What sort of things?" she asked, with wide eyes.
"If you see any one hanging about the house, or talking to Mrs. Bussey,--"
"Goodness! She talks to everybody!"
"Go on playing," said Burton softly. As she took up the thread of the melody with obedient fingers, though wondering eyes, he sauntered across the room and then suddenly turned into the hall as he passed the open doorway.
"Oh, Mrs. Bussey! Is that you?" he asked. "Did you want something?"
There was a sound of pattering feet, as the housekeeper hurried nervously away.
"She lacks invention," said Burton, as he came back to the piano. "It would have been so easy for her to pretend that she came to see if you wanted another lamp, or something of that sort."
"She is stupid past belief," said Leslie, in manifest annoyance.
"Does her habit of eavesdropping suggest nothing to you but idle curiosity?" Burton could not refrain from asking.
She looked startled. "No. You don't mean--"
"Oh, I am of an uncharitable nature, and I am ready to see something sinister in anything and everything. I don't want to sow seeds of distrust in your mind, but I'm rather anxious to overlook no possible agency."
"I can't believe it is anything more than vulgar curiosity," said Leslie, after a thoughtful pause. "You know people of that sort have so little to occupy their minds that they become inordinately curious about the personal doings and sayings of the people they live among. I don't suppose a delivery wagon goes by in the street that Mrs. Bussey does not know about it, and speculate as to where it is going and what it is going to deliver at whose house. If she were not so curious about everything, I might feel that this was a more serious matter. But--she is so inefficient! I can't imagine her a mysterious conspirator!"
"Well, let's forget her. Won't you play some more for me?"
"I'd rather talk," she said. "There are some things I want to ask you."
"That pleases me still better."
"I want you to tell me about Philip's mother."
"Very well," he said, but the eagerness had faded out of his voice. "What in particular?"
"You are a great friend of hers, are you not?"
"Yes,--an old friend."
"It was to please her, rather than Philip, that you came here?"
"Yes," he said. He knew that something more than this tame acquiescence was really due from him, but he felt suddenly as barren of invention as ever Mrs. Bussey could have been.
Leslie touched the keys of the piano softly and absent-mindedly as she asked her next question. "What does she look like? Is she very beautiful?"
"I have always thought so," said Burton. "She is a little woman, compared with you,--tiny, but very imperious and queenly. When she tells me to do a thing, I go and do it, without any objection."
"What would happen if you didn't?"
Burton laughed. "Goodness knows! I never tried it."
"Is she dark?"
"No, very fair."
"Then she probably looks younger than she is. How young does she look?"
"Oh,--as though she had been caught in an eddy somewhere between twenty-five and thirty!"
"And would stay there. I see. And she dresses exquisitely, doesn't she?"
"That is exactly the word for it."
"Is she contemptuous of those who do not dress exquisitely? Or merely tolerant?"
Burton felt rather uncomfortable under these probing questions, but he understood something of the girl's mood, and he could not resent the trace of defiance that he caught under rather than in her words. He therefore answered gently:
"I think that if she likes a person, she likes him whole-heartedly, and without regard to the accidental attributes. She will like you. She will love you."
"What makes you think so?" she asked, with her searching eyes steadily upon him.
"Why,--because Philip does, for one thing."
"But if it were not for that,--am I the sort of girl that she would be apt to like?"
"What sort of a girl are you?" he asked, with a smile. He knew that her last question held dangerous depths into which he did not care to look at that instant. Rachel was so--well, narrow in her social sympathies!
"Never mind that," said the girl, and he wondered uneasily whether she thought her last question had been sufficiently answered. "Tell me something about their place,--Oversite. That is the name of their estate at Putney?"
"Yes, and it is quite as important a place as the town that honors itself by existing alongside the estate. It goes back to the colonial days. The Overmans were Tories during the Revolution, but they managed somehow to hold or to recover their estate, and though the family has consented to live under a republic, it has always been conscious of the graciousness of its attitude. Of course Rachel--Mrs. Overman--is an Overman by marriage only. She comes from a Southern family, herself, and she has the Southern woman's beautiful voice and sweet graciousness. And Philip you know. There is nothing priggish about him."
She was silent a moment, considering.
"Is he fond of the place,--Oversite? Would he wish to live there?"
"Oh, unquestionably. It would be difficult to imagine an Overman in any other setting."
"Does Mrs. Overman have the same feeling about it?"
"She is devoted to it. She is more of a Royalist than the king."
The broken music that was dropping unconsciously from Leslie's fingers crashed into a sudden stormy volume of sound that made Burton feel as nervous as though a peal of thunder had suddenly shot across the summer night. It filled the room with inharmonious noise for a few minutes. Then Leslie stopped abruptly and whirled about on her piano stool. There was a threatening storm in her cloudy eyes.
"You understood clearly, didn't you, that my--my agreement to consider Philip's proposal further was conditioned upon the absolute, complete and unequivocal clearing of my family's name from the reflections that have been cast upon it? Under no other conditions would I for a moment consider the possibility of entering such a family."
"I understood perfectly," said Burton gravely. "Believe me, I shall guard your dignity quite as jealously as you would yourself."
She dropped her eyes swiftly, but not soon enough to hide the rush of tears that suddenly brimmed them at his words. But she was staunch, and after a moment she said gaily, though without lifting her eyelids:
"You asked a while ago what sort of a girl I am. I fancy I am a sort that Mrs. Overman has never met,--a girl who has known humiliation, poverty, struggle, and yet who is unreasonably and uncomfortably proud. What have I to commend me to her? My accomplishments are commonplace,--perhaps not even passable in her eyes. And I have nothing else, except a knowledge of life which she would deprecate as something most undesirable,--a knowledge that has never come near her. I am just one of the great average!"
She had begun gaily, but she ended bitterly. Burton could not help realizing, as he watched her eyes, misty with deep feeling, and her flushed face, what an exceptional woman she would be in any assembly by the one gift of beauty, and yet he felt that she was one of the few women who would regard a reference to her beauty as a slur rather than a compliment. So he only answered, as lightly as possible:
"You are--yourself! And that is not an average, by any means. And as for the knowledge of life that you are inclined to treat so slightingly, any real knowledge is one of the precious things of earth, and what is more to be desired than true understanding of the most important thing the planet holds,--life? You surely know in your heart that you would not give up what you know for the most graceful ignorance that ever bloomed in some sheltered corner of a drawing-room! When your epitaph comes to be written, would you rather have it read. 'Here lies Leslie, beloved wife, et cetera, et cetera, whose horizon was bounded by the painted windows of her husband's colonial mansion, and who could make the most exquisite courtesy of any in her set'; or, 'She knew the real things of real life. She faced the troubles and the humiliations that come to the men and women who are building up the world of to-morrow out of today, and she helped to build courage and loyalty and love and good cheer into the work!'"
Leslie listened with held breath, then suddenly she dropped her folded arms upon the jangled keys and hid her face upon them. A tremor ran all through her slender body. Burton bit his lip as he looked at her. He wanted to put his hand out and touch her bowed head, to tell her how wonderful he thought her, to comfort her in some way. The impulse was an amazing one. It set every pulse in his body tingling. It astonished him so that he walked slowly away toward the window, wondering what had come over him, and how he was going to keep her from guessing that he was liable to attacks of losing his senses. But in a moment she lifted her head, with a long breath.
"Don't think me silly. I--believe I am too tired to be quite myself."
"We are all a little overwrought," said Burton, with great relief. That was probably what the trouble was!
"You have been so much more than kind that there is nothing for me to say about it," she added, rising. "I can't really imagine what I should have done if all this trouble had developed before you came. You have somehow made it seem possible to go through with it."
"Of course we will go through with it," he answered cheerily. "A year from now, you and Philip will be laughing at it." He said the words deliberately, to see how they sounded. They seemed to sound quite simple and natural.
"A year is a long way to guess," she said lightly. "You are going away to-morrow? Then I will say goodbye now."
"Let it be good night only," he said, and held out his hand steadily.
She touched it so carelessly with her own that the act seemed almost unconscious.
"Good night," she repeated. And then, as he was turning away, she added quickly, "How long has Mrs. Overman been a widow?"
"Nearly a year," he answered.
"Good night," she said again, as though forgetful that she had already said it twice. "I think I am a little tired. But--I'll be all right to-morrow." She lifted her head with that gallant air of hers, and he turned away. It required something of a conscious effort.
He got away quickly, but he did not return at once to his hotel. He wanted to be by himself,--though there was nothing that he wanted to say to himself. He simply wanted to walk and walk under the spreading trees that lined the avenues of the town and--avoid all thinking. The moonlight flickered down through the branches very beautifully. He did not remember that he had ever noticed before how very beautiful that effect was. And yet there was something sad in it. He had not noticed that before, either. At least, not since he was in college, and spent good time that should have been otherwise occupied in writing bad poetry to Rachel. Yes, decidedly there was something saddening about the effect of the moonlight.
"My adored Rachel," wrote Burton that night. "I am having a very curious experience. I have dropped into a regular melodrama. I suppose there is a plot to it, but so far I have chiefly been kept guessing. You will be interested in it, though I know melodrama is not your favorite style of literature, because it nearly involves the Underwood family. In fact, they are supposed to be the whole head and front of the offending.
"I told you that there was some vague accusation of Dr. Underwood in the town, which I felt under obligations, as your ambassador, to investigate, in carrying out the mission with which I was charged. That matter has almost been lost sight of, in the popular excitement over subsequent events. A house burned down the next night, and the police said the fire was of incendiary origin. Thereupon the public jumped to the conclusion that it was set either by Dr. Underwood or his son Henry, though as to the doctor I can personally testify that he was laid up with a sprained ankle that night, and could hardly hobble about his room. But a trifle like that would cut no figure with an excited public, eager only to hear some new thing that would make its hair stand on end. Then the following night a man was assaulted in his own house,--tied to his bed, and warned not to talk about people as recklessly as he had been doing. This time suspicion was directed to Henry Underwood, and he has been arrested. The young man refuses bail, on the ground that he wants to be locked up so as to leave no room for charging him with the next eccentric thing that may happen in High Ridge. I hope you agree with me that this shows a good deal of spirit and pluck, especially as the town jail is a place that no one who was looking for downy beds of ease would choose for a summer resort. I must tell you that this young man interests me extremely. There is no vanity in this, for I cannot say that the interest is reciprocated. He treats me with a haughty tolerance that would wound my self-esteem, if I did not see that it is merely his manner to everybody. He seems to go on the theory that all men are in a conspiracy against him, and he will neither ask nor give quarter. You will gather from this that I do not believe he assaulted the old gentleman in his bed. I don't. Use your judgment as to how much of all this you should tell Philip. And speaking of that, I am not sure that I fully expressed, in my last letter, my great enthusiasm for Philip's sagacity. My admiration for the young lady in question has grown with my more extended acquaintance. She is not only beautiful,--as I told you in my first report,--but she has a lot of personality. That is an attribute which it is hard to more specifically designate, but you know what I mean. She has character, so that you feel you could rely upon her absolutely in need, and fascination, so that you would never be dull in her company, and simplicity, so that you would never weary of her. I think it is the artificial element in people that tires us, just as it is the artificial in life. The large, simple things are always restful. The longer we live with them,--as shown in the sea and the mountain and the desert,--the more we come to depend upon them and love them. Some people are like that,--large-natured and simple and so true that you never have any disturbing perplexity as to what they may stand for. She is like that, I think. And I feel that Philip has chosen a really wonderful woman for his wife,--a woman who will be the making of him.
"You may not hear from me again very soon, for I am going out of town on a mission,--a secret mission which may be big with importance if I do not miss my guess. Does that make you curious? In short, I, even I, am going to try my hand at some detective work on my own account. I shall not tell you the details in advance, because if I fail utterly, it will be less humiliating to reflect that I have not confessed my wild-goose chasing. But if your wishes have any influence with the powers that be, do wish me success. I want terribly to pull this thing off. Just think what it will mean to that poor, brave girl! Oh, Rachel, you will be so proud and fond of her! To have helped in any degree to have brought you so rare a daughter is a matter to cheer the solitary moments of
"Your Blighted Being."
"My Adored Rachel: This is not a postscript, nor yet is it a mere subterfuge to give me a chance to call you 'adored' again. It is another letter under the same cover, because I just happened to think of something else I wanted to say. Miss Underwood is very proud, very sensitive, and, I suspect, more than a little in awe of the paragon of perfection who will receive this epistle. I think it would be a very 'nice' thing, as you would say, for you to write her a little letter, telling her how you will love her and all that. Who knows better how beautifully you can write when you want to than your own
"Blighted Being."
Burton mailed the letter without reading it over. It is possible that if he had applied his mind to the matter, he might have realized that it was not exactly the sort of an introduction that would make Miss Underwood persona grata to her future mother-in-law, for he had intervals of common sense; but his mind was otherwise engaged. So he sent the letter on its way with innocent cheerfulness.
It was a barren prospect that greeted Burton when he stepped from the train at the station,--the only passenger to alight. A bare windswept prairie; at a little distance, a colony of teepees, with fluttering rags and blankets blowing about, and a bunch of ponies nibbling at the coarse grass; and nothing to mark the hand of the white man but the rails which ran in gleaming and significant silence away. A man whose clothes were of the indistinguishable color of the sunburnt grass was sitting on the edge of the platform which made the whole of the station. He was dangling his feet over the edge and whittling, and it was this occupation quite as much as his looks that made Burton guess him to be a white man. He went up to him.
"Can you tell me where to find the Agent?" he asked.
The man had been staring at him intently as he approached, and now, after a pause that made Burton wonder whether he had been understood, the man cocked his thumb in the direction of a long frame building on the other side of the track. A man was standing in the doorway, watching the daily pageant of civilization represented by the passing train, and Burton approached him. Immediately the man to whom he had spoken slipped from the platform and ran, with a long lope, toward the teepees on the right.
Burton presented himself to the Indian Agent, introducing himself as an amateur on the subject of Indian basketry, who wished to add to his knowledge by studying the art among the Indians on the Reservation.
The Agent, whose name was Welch, evidently found some difficulty in adjusting his own point of view to that of his visitor, but Burton finally succeeded in convincing him that he was at least sane enough to receive the benefit of the doubt, and that there really were people who cared to know about what the Indians made for their own use.
"I especially want to see the older squaws who remember how things were done in the old days, before they were put on Reservations," said Burton.
"Old Ehimmeshunka would about fill that bill, I guess," said Welch. "She's old, all right. She's Washitonka's squaw. Their daughter is Pahrunta, and she takes baskets and fancy things like that on the railroad train to sell."
"I should like to see them," said Burton eagerly. They certainly were the very people he wanted to see. Those were the names Ben Bussey had mentioned.
"All right; come along."
"Can they speak English?"
"Washitonka speaks fairly well. Ehimmeshunka doesn't need to, of course. Pahrunta knows a few words, enough to enable her to get about by herself. She probably understands a good deal more than she shows. They are that way."
"I shall be greatly obliged if you will act as interpreter."
"Certainly. Hello, here's Washitonka now!"
An old Indian had entered the room so noiselessly that neither of the white men had heard him. He was a striking figure, erect in spite of the years he carried, and wrapped in a blanket which looked as dignified as any Roman toga. In spite of the stolidity of his expression, there was unmistakable curiosity in the look he bent upon Burton.
"What you want, Washitonka?" asked Welch, in a tone of indulgent jocularity.
The Indian continued to look at Burton with a frank interest that did not approach rudeness or lessen his dignity. It was hard to say whether his curiosity was friendly or not. He seemed a mixture of the child and the Sphinx.
"How!" said Burton, with friendly intent.
"How!" responded Washitonka. Then he turned to Welch and made some observations in a very guttural voice.
"He says he has come to see the man who has a charmed life," said Welch with a laugh.
"Ask how he knows that I have a charmed life."
After some colloquy, which Burton wished vainly that he could understand, Welch explained.
"He says he knew, when he saw the smoke rise this morning, that a man who bore a charmed life would come to his teepee today."
"Oh, did he!" exclaimed Burton. "Well, tell him that when I lit my cigar this morning I knew by the way the smoke rose that I should meet today a wise old man with a silver tongue, who would tell me many wonderful tales of the old days when the Indian and the paleface hunted the buffalo together and were brothers."
Welch laughed, and after a moment's stony impassivity Washitonka relaxed into a grin which betrayed his understanding of the white man's tongue.
"Good talk," he said briefly.
"Will you explain to him that I want to find out about basket-weaving?" said Burton.
Welch evidently found it expedient to use Washitonka's own language for elaborate disquisitions of this sort. At the end of his exposition, Washitonka approached a step toward Burton and spoke with grave dignity.
"Bacco," was what he said.
Burton had come prepared for this emergency, and he produced a package of tobacco, artfully allowing it to be seen that there were other packages still in reserve.
"Come," said Washitonka, and stalked off toward the sunburnt teepees toward which the stray lounger at the station had gone.
By this time the little village was very much alive. Curiosity had brought the women and the children to the doors, where they stood shyly staring at the stranger. The men scorned to show open curiosity, but they all seemed to have business out of doors at that moment.
Washitonka's teepee was somewhat larger than the others, but there was nothing else about it to suggest the dignity of the chief. A pile of folded blankets and garments filled one corner, and cooking utensils were piled in another. But Burton had neither eyes nor thoughts for the accessories of the place. His attention was wholly given to the little old woman, broad-faced, brown-skinned, who sat by the doorway stringing beads. Her face was wrinkled like a piece of leather, and her coarse black hair was drawn down behind her ears and tied with gay cord. Her small black eyes followed Burton's motions as an animal's might. She was so complete and so unusual a picture that Burton would very gladly have made the trip just to see her.
Back of her in the teepee a woman was moving about her work,--the daughter, Pahrunta. Burton smiled at her and she smiled back in recognition.
Welch said something in their own tongue, and the younger woman waddled across the place and brought out a large basket holding the wares that she took to the town to sell. They were mostly trumpery things,--impossible birch-bark baskets and bead-worked match-holders and collar-boxes supposed to appeal to the taste of the tourist. But Burton saw, with thankfulness, that the large basket which held the things was woven with the same strong, peculiar twist that he had studied so carefully in the example he already owned.
"Ask them who made the large basket," he said, while he handled the gay trivialities with careless hand.
Welch duly translated the inquiry, and said: "She did,--Ehimmeshunka here. Made it long ago, she says."
"Ask her if she will teach me to make one like it."
This, translated, provoked only laughter from Pahrunta and a grunt from Washitonka. The old, old woman looked on without expression.
"Tell her I will pay her," said Burton, showing money.
It took a good deal of explaining to get the idea really understood, and then Ehimmeshunka shook her head.
"She says the winter has come into her fingers and they are like twigs when the frost is on them," he explained, with some difficulty. "Now she can only put beads on a string like a child."
"Ask if she ever taught any one else when her fingers were young."
Before Welch could translate this question, Washitonka spoke a curt word to the woman. His intonation and look needed no translation. Burton guessed quickly enough that it was an injunction of silence, and this was confirmed when Ehimmeshunka's grin faded into stolidity and she took up her work again.
"Old Wash says she never taught anybody," said Welch.
This response and the look he had intercepted gave Burton pause. Was he being purposely blocked in his investigation? He did not wish to prejudice his case by too much urgency, so he deemed it best to drop the matter for the time. He gave Ehimmeshunka a coin, and turned away with Welch.
"What do you know yourself about these people?" he asked the Agent.
"Well, not much. You see, I've just come."
"You know their language."
"Oh, yes. I've been in the service for some time, but I was assigned here only about a month ago, when the other Agent died. I haven't seen all the Indians that belong to me yet. They're away somewhere, hunting or loafing, or riding their wild ponies over the prairies just for fun. No head for business."
"Then you know nothing of the personal history of Washitonka or who his friends are?"
"Not a scrap."
"I'm sorry," said Burton. "I wanted to learn something about the early days when they saw more or less of the early settlers."
"Writing a book?"
"You might call it so," said Burton non-committally. (Certainly he might, if he wanted to.)
"That old chap, Washitonka, ought to have stories to tell," said Welch, with interest, "but he seems as close as a clam. That's an Indian trait. They won't talk personalities."
"What did he mean by saying I had a charmed life?" asked Burton, returning to a point that had puzzled him.
"Don't know. Said that you cheated death. They have a way of giving names like that. Have you had any narrow escapes?"
"How would Washitonka know it, if I had?"
"Oh, there you get me! Perhaps Pahrunta heard talk of it."
But the suggestion did not satisfy Burton. He had the feeling that Washitonka knew more than he should--unless posted. Yet how could he have been posted? It made him feel that he must go warily.
In the afternoon he visited other teepees under Welch's chaperonage, and tried to establish a wide-spread reputation as a collector of curios and of stories. He did not go near Washitonka's teepee. He followed the same plan of procedure the next day,--and it took more self-control than he often had occasion to call upon. He gained one point by this method, however: he definitely satisfied himself that if he did not get the information he wanted in Washitonka's teepee, he might as well abandon the idea of getting it anywhere on the Reservation. There was no one else, in this little colony at any rate, who dated back to the time he wanted to probe. When he asked why there were no old people, the Agent answered tersely: "Smallpox."
That curse of the winter had swept the nomadic tribes again and again in their days of wandering, and only the younger and stronger had survived to find the comparative protection of the Reservation life. And to this younger generation the past had either no value or too emotional a value. They had forgotten its traditions, or else they refused to tell them to the stranger of today. Burton's inquiry was specific and definite: Had any white men been among them and learned how to weave baskets? To them it was a foolish question,--so foolish that they could with difficulty be persuaded to make a definite answer. Why should any white man wish to weave baskets? Could he not buy better baskets in the stores, not to mention buckets of beautiful tin? Nobody made baskets but old Ehimmeshunka.
On the third day he returned, with as casual an air as was possible, to Washitonka's teepee. Ehimmeshunka was sitting in the sunshine by the door. Washitonka was smoking some of Burton's tobacco, with an air of obliviousness, but when Burton placed himself beside Ehimmeshunka and began talking in a low voice to his interpreter, Welch, the old Indian promptly laid aside his dignity and came over to the little group by the door. Clearly he was not going to allow any conversation in his teepee without his knowledge.
There was little opportunity, however, for any asides, since Burton was under the necessity of talking through an interpreter. It was so cumbersome a method that he resolved to abandon his small attempt at diplomacy and strike boldly for what he wanted.
"Ask Washitonka if he knows Dr. Underwood. I am a friend of his," Burton said to Welch. He watched the faces of the Indians as this was translated, but he could see no glimmer of responsiveness in any face. Possibly it was merely because he did not understand the language of their unfamiliar faces any more than he did their unfamiliar tongue.
"Tell them I know Selby," he continued, while he watched Pahrunta. At the sound of the name she looked toward him with blank directness and Burton rejoiced. He had established communication! But when Welch repeated the question in Indian, it brought no response from any one. Washitonka merely grunted. Pahrunta turned away and spat upon the ground, but that might have had no significance.
"They don't seem to know him, either," said Welch.
"Ask the woman what she calls the man who struck her arm in the station when she spoke to him, and spilled her baskets."
But Pahrunta would not answer. She listened as though she heard nothing and turned away as though they had not spoken.
"Is it possible that she is still friendly to Selby?" he wondered. "Is she so much the savage that she admires him the more for striking her?"
Welch yawned, as though the game were losing its interest. "The train is about due," he said, rising. "I guess I'd better go and meet it, in case there is any mail."
He wandered off, leaving Burton to his own resources. Washitonka, apparently satisfied that he was not dangerous without an interpreter, lapsed back into dignified unconcern and tobacco smoke. He looked the Sphinx more than ever.
Burton was, indeed, helpless. Should he confess himself beaten and take the afternoon train back to High Ridge? He was still debating the question when Welch returned,--the train from the south having come in while he was tossing his mental penny.
"A letter for you!" Welch called, while still at a distance, as though the arrival of a letter were a great event.
It was from Ralston, and Burton read it with interest.