CHAPTER XIII"Gee, she's pretty!"Cadger came over to the window of his store to see whose horse was meant."Oh," he said, with seeming loss of interest as he walked back to his account books."She's give in. She's wearing Injin clothes.""She's got pluck, grit. A man would have given in long ago."It was Ladd at the store window, and there was something in his attitude or the vibration in his voice that made the other slide him a covert glance."He's a disappointment to me in a way," added Ladd, unconscious of the hiatus."Who?""Calthorpe. Didn't think he'd give her up without a struggle. She's worth fighting for. Most pretty women are just pretty. She's got something behind it, something sort of tantalizing."He said this mentally, groping for what it was.Cadger lifted his head from his figures to shift another curious glance at the agent, but he did not reply."I somehow imagined that Calthorpe thought enough of the girl to pay us a visit.""Why should he?" said Cadger, not looking up and continuing to reckon his gains. "When your worst enemy's a barber, why sit down in his chair and invite him to shave you?""You heard what he said?" suggested the agent."You bet I did. He handed you a bunch of roses all right. I'm kind o' hard of hearin' but I heard it. He said it loud enough fer 'em to hear it in Washington.""I'm not afraid of Washington so long as Senator Plumtree and Senator Wilkins are on the job. I hear that Judge Walker wants to go back to his law practice, and if he does, Whittaker'll leave the Land Office to be Secretary of the Interior. Our people aren't losing any tricks."It was plain that Ladd spoke his convictions when he said he felt easy as to Washington."Appah's gittin' kind o' chesty," suggested Cadger with an indifference that was important."Yes," drawled Ladd. "Take your hand off their throat and let them get an easy breath and they begin to buck. He's showin' off. He'd like his people to think he's a bigger man than I am.""Oh, he'll settle down and git tame when he's lassoed Wah-na-gi.""Well, he isn't going to lasso Wah-na-gi," said Ladd quickly."No? Why, I thought that was your idee.""I had hoped that Calthorpe and Appah would sort of mix it up and save me a lot of trouble.""Then you never intended him to have her?""Never.""That's his understandin'.""Hand her over to that surly savage?—An educated woman?""A good-looker too," suggested Cadger kindly."Good-looking?" said Ladd, caught by the bait and forgetting his audience in the interest of his subject. "Have you ever thought what she would show for with all the harness and trimmings our women put on? She isn't good-lookin'; she's a world-beater. Appah's got another guess. Slowly but surely it will be borne in on him that she's out of his class.""Chickens is awful human, ain't they?" said Cadger. "One of 'em gits a bead on sumpin' good, makes a rush fer it with wings out, and durned if every other chicken don't leave his job, drop sumpin' better maybe, and chase after the grub the first one's after. Most of our fun in gittin' is in takin' it away from somebody else; ain't it?"Ladd laughed. "Well, I saw it first. Only I never let anything interfere with business."Cadger's face never collaborated. He really didn't need features. He didn't stop figuring, but said calmly: "Our scheme's on the toboggan and so are you.""What do you want me to do? Suppose I let him take her? He's got what he wanted and is independent of us. You and I don't get our pay until we deliver the goods.""It's all right to hold him off if you can, but if he sees you're interested, why it's all off. You can't handle him, that's all.""Well, if I can't handle him, I can hobble him, and I will. You watch me." And Ladd strolled out of the store and watched the retreating figure of Wah-na-gi as she set out for Chapita's cabin.If Cadger could have managed it he would have treated himself to a sardonic grin as he said to himself:"I never knew a good thing yet that wasn't busted by a woman."Wah-na-gi had been down to sit under the shelter of the flag. It is difficult for the Indian to resist the inborn reverence for symbols, but it was futile. She wouldn't go again. She was, Ladd had said, plucky, but she was at last desperate. Chapita was dead. The cabin which had always been forbidding and forlorn was now empty. She knew that in her way Chapita had loved her and that she was always glad to see her, and then there was some one to talk to. Now she had not even the half-starved, mangy dogs to welcome her.When the old woman was buried the wretched beasts were killed and their carcasses left at the grave, so that she would not miss their companionship in the spirit world. Solitary confinement drives prisoners mad. Queer thoughts were creeping into her head, thoughts of the grave, of death.Hal had come into his own. He was interested in other things. He had forgotten. Their paths lay so far apart anyway; they touched for a short distance only, then diverged again, and would go farther and farther away as time went on. He could never live at the Agency again; and she was doomed to it. Should she accept the inevitable, or should she follow Chapita to that desolate village of the dead over in the Bad Lands? She hadn't the strength to decide. She would let it be decided for her. Before she reached the top of the ground swell on which rested the cabin she was conscious that some one was waiting for her. The first sense of relief was succeeded almost at once by apprehension, and she was therefore not surprised to see the tall form of Appah sitting before her door.He let her stand in his presence a moment while he looked her over. Then he said with conviction: "Wayno! Touge wayno!" (Good! Very good.)His eyes sparkled as he saw her in the picturesque dress of his people. He stood up. His undisguised elation, his sense of triumph, his certainty of possession stung her into life. At last there was something to do. The weary irresolute droop slipped from her like a shadow and she straightened up and stood face to face with him."You have done this," she said, indicating her clothes with a swift gesture that left no doubt of her attitude. "You have done this, but you can't drive me back. You can dog my steps and spy on me; you can steal my clothes like a sneaking squaw; you can take away from me my children, my school; you can starve me and run me down like a wild horse; you can make fun of me to my people, and make them hate me, but you can't drive me back; I'm an Indian woman, but I'm a woman; you can't make me a cringing squaw, crawling at your feet, ready to lick your hand. I'm past that. You can hunt and hound me, but you can't break me!"His amazement let her get so far, then he advanced upon her with arm upraised."Yes and you can kill me as you did Chapita—but it won't make any difference."The allusion to Chapita startled him and gave him pause a moment to regain his poise and restrain his homicidal impulse.He drew back, folded his arms and, with a sullen face, said: "Maybe so hate Injin, hate Injin all time.""No; I don't hate my people. I love them. I want to make them better and stronger and freer. It's you that hates them. Nothing stops. Everything changes. White people change, Indian must change. The buffalo are gone. Lands are gone. Crowded, crowded! Everybody crowded! No room to hunt any more. The Indian must learn to be clean, strong, to work. I love my people; I want to do them good. People like you make trouble, keep them back, deceive them. The old ways are gone. They never will come back; they cannot come back. Once we were hunters, warriors—that was good. Now we must be farmers—that, too, is good. Shinob makes it so. We must obey. You know better too, but you cling to the old ways because they're better for you. If these people weren't ignorant and superstitious they'd know you for what you are—a liar and a cheat."Appah was in a measure sophisticated, but the fury and audacity of this left him somewhat dazed. He was a reactionary, and the latest phase of the new woman was a form of madness new to him. It might easily have discouraged a wiser man. He was determined to make one more try before falling back on the only recourse left—force."Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! (You will be sorry!) Teguin (friend) me! wayno teguin!" he said in an effort to placate her. "Peenunk (pretty soon) pikeway (go away)," and he pointed to the mountains. "Big hunt, maybe so deer catch 'em, make medicine, good time. Maybe so you come, eh?""With you? No; I cannot. I will not."He looked puzzled and frustrated. What would appeal to this woman he wanted?"Appah way off yonder! By and by you come my wickiup. My wickiup, your wickiup! Pah-sid-uway?"He was telling her that his home was hers, that while he was away he would like her to live in it, with the implication that all that was in it was hers."Thank you; I must stay here."He saw he had made no progress and fierce anger blazed up within him. He looked at her, at the squalid cabin and its surroundings, and stalked away muttering to himself: "Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! Na-nunk-quoi-vandum." (There will be much trouble.)She sank down on the empty box where Appah had awaited her. It was a relief, this burst of anger. She had been fighting shadows. She had been alone with her thoughts, her fears, with no one to share them with her. Here was a human being she could hate. There was a savage joy in battle, and she felt an unholy uplift in having hit hard.Appah would have the better of it in the end, perhaps, but he would carry a scar—there was consolation in that. How curious it was! Appah was very anxious to make her his wife; there was no doubt about that. Why was it that the man she loved, and who loved or seemed to love her, hadn't ever mentioned that subject to her?"I'll bet I can read your thoughts."Agent Ladd stood before her, smiling down at her.She rose in a startled way."Mr. Ladd? You here?""Don't be frightened. May I sit down and talk with you?"Here was something new. The aggressive autocrat could be gentle, even deferential. She was puzzled. What could it mean?She motioned to the box and he sat and took out a pipe and began to fill it."First of all, I'd like you to know I'm your friend.""You haven't acted much like one.""You won't have to complain of that in the future. As you know, it's the policy of the Government to keep the Indians apart. To discourage their marrying with the whites and to encourage their marrying among themselves. I couldn't openly oppose Appah or stand in his way. In fact, I've given him a free hand, for one reason," and Ladd laughed at his own shrewdness; "because I knew he didn't have a ghost of a chance. You're an educated woman—a lady—and he's a blanket Injin—a savage. It's preposterous.""And yet you stood by and let them try to drive me back to being a blanket Indian.""He is an influential man with his people, and it was the only way he would understand. He had to know it was hopeless. Well, he's had his inning; he's had everything his own way; he's brought every argument and influence to bear, legitimate and illegitimate, and he's failed, completely failed, and now it's time this persecution of you stopped; and I'm going to stop it."He looked at her in a benevolent way, but she waited."You can go back to your position in the school whenever you want it.""Oh, Mr. Ladd; do you mean it?"If Agent Ladd had known how beautiful he looked to her in the role of Santa Claus he would have been tempted to live it instead of play it."Then you don't believe those stories?""There is no one knows a good woman better than the man who has had a tolerably wide acquaintance with the other kind. The only difference in women is love. There isn't anything a good woman or a bad woman won't do for the man she loves. And in that connection I want to ask you a rather personal question. You know that Calthorpe and I are enemies. I've been deceived in that boy. I think you have too." Before she had time to protest he said bluntly: "Has he ever asked you to marry him?"Before she had time to think, before she realized that the agent had no right to ask the question, she gasped falteringly: "No! No.""I thought so. And he's been doing the devoted for a long time."She was so conscious of the truth of this that she had no time to reflect that the agent was going quite beyond the legitimate bounds of his position."He isn't on the level. You can't trust a half-breed.""Mr. Ladd, you mustn't say that to me."I'll show you the difference. I'll ask you to be my wife."This was so amazing, so direct, that it took her breath away. She could only sink down bewildered on an upturned bucket. All her preconceived ideas of the man seemed to need readjusting. How did it happen?"Now, take your time and give me an even chance." He rose but did not disturb her by advancing toward her. "Wah-na-gi, I'm playing for big stakes. I'll tell you something in confidence. These asphalt mines are valuable—very valuable, but back of them are coal mines—rich? There's no end to 'em. At the lowest price ever paid for coal they would pay the national debt and God knows how much besides. The cowboys don't know that. There are only three people know it as yet—a big capitalist, his engineer, and myself. These cowboys are children in a game like this.""How does this interest me?""Why, if we can get our bill through Congress before the rest of the world knows what we're up to, you and I won't have to live at Standing Bear Agency. We'll have the world in a sling. We'll make a plaything of it. Every luxury, every pleasure, honors, if we want 'em! Society? Why, if you want society, we'll buy it for you. Culture, learning, genius; why, they'll eat out of our hand. We'll show 'em. Who'll care then who you are or what you are? Who'll know or care whether you are an Indian or a Fejee? You'll bemy wife—the wife of one of the three or four richest men in the world. I'll put the world on its knees to you, my girl.""I don't know that I care much forthings.""But you will. You'll learn. Gosh, wants are easily picked up. It's doing without that needs practice.""And in the mean time?""What do you mean?""Before all this happens?""We must of course keep this a secret for the present.""Ah!""Now, don't misunderstand me. Personally I have no race prejudice and I despise the idiot that has, but I'm on the job here. I can't let go. I'd lose my pull with the Department, with the settlers, and with the Indians themselves. Now, isn't that so?You know.""It is so impossible I wonder you ever thought of it.""Nothing is impossible with me. People have done that before—kept their relations secret for a time——""Their relations?"The word was an unfortunate one. He realized it. It was a word that uncovered the mental reservation that sneaked behind it. She looked at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. She drew herself up with a mocking smile. He had spoken with such conviction and passion as to please and convince himself. He felt the genial glow of protecting this beautiful woman against the ignorance and prejudice of the world. That it was to be in imagination and in the future made it easier and more attractive."You aren't fair to me," he said in a hurt tone of reproach. "I'll do anything any other man would do—I'll marry you.""When?"He hesitated. She saw his hesitation. He knew that she did and he felt his dreams melting away. Like other blessings, they "brightened as they took their flight." He had strapped down his passion for a long time because he realized that it wasn't "business." Now he had unloosed it, given it rein, had sensed its realization, and it carried him away. He stood ready to take any risk, make any sacrifice, at that moment; but it was a second thought."You came here," she said with a cruel smile, "to offer me relations.""I'll marry younow, if you'll keep it a secret until——""You've insulted me, and the shame of it is you don't know it. If I were a white woman you respected you wouldn't have come here in secret and made me such an offer."Wah-na-gi hadn't the feminine gift of denying men and yet leaving no sting. It didn't matter. She was reckless, desperate. Her eyes flashed and Ladd bowed before her even through his anger. He had made a bad beginning. He had underestimated her, her intelligence, her pride, and that made her all the more desirable. Inwardly he cursed himself and her, but inwardly, too, he swore to have her, never to give her up."I would rather marry Appah," she said with conviction. She wanted to hurt him and she did."Wayno, wayno!"It was Appah who stood before them, with two of his men, and gave his cordial assent to what he had just heard. A miracle had happened and all seemed well."My squaw! touge wayno!" he started to go to her. Ladd stood in his way."Whatareyou doing here?" said the agent fiercely."Whatyoudo here?" was the angry response."None of your damn business.""All same me damn business too.""What are these men doing here?"He noticed the small rope carried by one of them. Wah-na-gi answered for them."Appah is going off up into the Moquitch to hunt and make medicine, and he wanted to take me with him.""Oh, it was to be a wedding journey, eh?" sneered Ladd."Go? Wayno! No go? Maybe so all same take her, pah-sid-uway?""I won't go. I told you that. I won't go!""And you won't take her. I'll tell you that." Ladd could not resist the temptation to play the role of protector for her and before her. Appah did not at first grasp the meaning of Ladd's about-face. He had not had occasion before to look upon the agent as a rival. However, in flashes of love and hate, mental photography is almost instantaneous even in dull brains. He faced Ladd with steady eye."Pah-kowo-nunk!" (Kill you.)"Easy there. Easy there!" said Cadger who, missing the busy agent, had rightly guessed where to find him. The two antagonists did not know whether to be annoyed or relieved at the trader's presence. He added an element that could not be exactly measured or overlooked."He can't bullyrag women," said Ladd to Cadger, but keeping his eyes on Appah, "and drag them around wherever he likes; and he can't force this woman to marry him—not while I'm agent.""What's matter you?" glared Appah, furious at interference from a source where it was totally unexpected. "What's matter you? You, too, pretty good liar, damn quick.""The first man that puts his hand on his weapon'll have me to deal with," said Cadger. "You ain't agoin' to ignore me. I've got some interests at stake here," and he pushed himself between the two men who fell back before him, and then, turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "You better go into the house until we find where we stand. You're safer there.""Yes, go in, Wah-na-gi," said Ladd; "leave it to me."She was glad to go in; glad to get away from them if only for a few moments. But a cruel thought went in with her and stayed with her. The man she loved had not asked her to be his wife. She tried to put it away, but it came again and again to plague her. If he did not care, why should she? It was settled; she did not want to live!Cadger watched her retreating figure until it was evident that she had really gone, then he turned to the others and said: "Sit down. We got to talk this over."They sat in a semicircle and each was very alert and watchful. No one smoked or thought of it."Now, first of all, Dave Ladd; you're a white man and ought to have more sense. You can't afford to quarrel with Appah any more'n he can afford to quarrel with you. I've got a lot at stake too. I'm damned if either of you is agoin' to throw me down and my interests. The first man that tries it'll git his head blowed off. You a-riskin' the biggest stake a man ever played fer, just fer a pretty face! There's millions of pretty faces and only one chance like this. We've gone too far with Appah to give him the double cross, and the woman's his price.""He'll have to name another price. We'll give him more money, more cattle, more horses, and all that; more of anything else he likes.""Suppose he's as big a fool as you, and rather have the pretty face?""It ain't his to choose. It's mine to give. It isn't only this woman—it's a question who's master here—he or me."Appah said nothing but his face showed he was irreconcilable."Will you take anything else?" said Cadger. "Horses, cattle, wagons?""Katch-wayno.""Youwon't," rasped Cadger to the agent; "andyouwon't," he hissed at Appah. "All right, I'm not goin' to sit down while you ruin me between you. It's a deadlock, andIdecide it. I decide that you gamble for it, and I kin shoot quicker'n either one of you. Is that a go?"There was a pause while each of the others looked theimpassein the face. It seemed the only way out of a situation that involved the pride of each of these reckless men as well as the asphalt stakes.Both antagonists were born gamblers. Each believed in his luck.Cadger paused for a moment while each antagonist quickly weighed his chances; then the trader saw there was silent acquiescence. It was obviously the only way out of a dangerous dilemma.The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the long shadows had quickly melted into night. There was a sudden chill in the air. Chapita cooked in the open air. There was a smouldering fire before the lean-to which was a sort of summer kitchen. The two friends of Appah threw some dry greasewood on the ashes and coaxed the embers into a blaze. The players sat down before the fire, their faces lit by its fitful blaze."We haven't any cards here," said Ladd."Appah, you or your friends got a set of bones?" asked Cadger, but he knew they never were without them.Appah produced them from his pouch."Good! The best three in five," said the umpire.The "bone-game," sometimes called "the moccasin game," because the bones were formerly hidden and juggled in a moccasin, is, I suppose, a sort of Indian version of the "three-shell-game" of the white man.The small bones are marked differently, one black, one red. Appah was an expert player. Much of his skill was attributed by his people to his medicine, to magic! Perhaps some of it was due to his hypnotic power which he undoubtedly possessed in a measure. He had a snake-like concentration of the eye that seemed to have reptilian fascination in it. He and his Indian companions began the gamblers' song, a weird, monotonous incantation, the two friends beating time to its rhythm. Appah showed the bones to all, then passed them to the agent. Ladd took them, passed them from hand to hand, rolled them together, made passes, and quickly showed that he was no novice at the game, which above all requires dexterity. He finally extended his two hands and Appah chose—and lost. The agent's eyes sparkled with elation as he carelessly tossed the bones to Appah. The medicine man caught only one of the bones, theone he wanted, and picked the other up without attracting the attention of the observers. Then it was the agent's turn to guess. The Indian's manipulation of the little sticks was extraordinary—it would have done credit to a skilled sleight-of-hand performer. It bewildered the eye. Ladd had never played with Appah, and he began to grow peevish as the provoking skill of his opponent was made manifest.He remembered too late the gambler's axiom not to "go up against the other fellow's game." He felt that Cadger should have warned him. While this was passing swiftly through his brain, almost as swiftly passed the bones before his eyes. Appah watched his victim. He brought his two fists together with a series of rapid movements, then paused, saw perfectly well in the agent's face the choice he was about to make, then opened his hand: it was empty. He laughed in Ladd's face and his friends laughed. He was, or thought he was, "having fun" with the white man. Ladd's relief at not having made the choice he had intended was drolly apparent. Again a series of manipulations more rapid than the first. Sometimes the little sticks seemed to pass directly through one hand to the other. Finally the two hands came to rest before him and the mocking, cruel eyes invited him to the test. He chose and lost.The incantation swelled with a note of triumph and its insistence was irritating. There was an undefined feeling on the part of the agent that the chant gave the other side an undue advantage. All gamblers are superstitious. He was ashamed to demand silence, and yet the noise was confusing, disconcerting. They were at least even. Each had won once. Appah's eye was fixed on him in supercilious derision and Ladd displayed less confidence, and therefore took longer for his manipulation. Appah chose, and won. This time the agent put the bones in themedicine man's hand. If Appah won now the woman was his to do with as he pleased. Among other motions Appah passed his hands underneath his knees. This was fair as the Indians played the game, but Ladd protested. Cadger disallowed his protest and Appah smiled an evil smile. The agent held back as the bronze hands were placed before him. He hesitated before indicating his choice—andlost. Quick as a flash he reached over and caught the Indian's other hand."Open that other hand—open that hand!" he screamed. Appah with a quick twist of the wrist shook himself free. "You damn cheat!" And Ladd struck him in the face.It happened so quickly that no one had a chance to interfere. Appah had his knife out and the agent his gun drawn before the onlookers had time to interfere. Appah got to close quarters at once and they came together in a clinch. Then it became a task of some difficulty and no little risk to interfere. Appah's followers began to skirmish to get control of their chief while Cadger bent his energies to restraining the infuriated agent. It was a pretty mix-up, and much admired by an individual who had been an interested observer for some time. He was standing rifle in hand on the small cliff to the right of the cabin, and was busy directing the movements of some cowboys who were scrambling over each other down the perpendicular side of the rock. It was a soldier's trick and the man who directed it had the bearing of the soldier. The first man down after the human chain was formed went directly to the cabin and emerged with Wah-na-gi. Her weight was nothing to these sinewy men and her slender figure went up the man-ladder as if it were part of a perfected drill in a military tournament. The man with the rifle put his hand over her shoulder as the man-ladder was hoisted man by man. The last man was up.The combatants had at last been dragged apart, frenzied and gasping, their faces distorted with hate."She isn't going with you," screamed Ladd at Appah."No, she's going with me," called down the man from the cliff.And they disappeared in the darkness.CHAPTER XIVThe morning following Chavanaugh's appearance with Wah-na-gi's message, Bill and McCloud awoke to find themselves the only persons besides the man cook left on the ranch. Hal knew how to keep his own counsel, so little was said by his two friends, each supposing that the other had been informed of the boss's plans and had received his instructions. But as day wore on and night came, and no word of Hal or his men, each looked at the other inviting confidences and each went to bed without giving or receiving any."Hello, Parson; you're up early.""Wasn't sleeping very well, Bill."It was before dawn of the following day and the stars were still blinking in the crisp air. The clergyman had had a bad night and had crawled out into the open to get the rest denied to him in bed. He leaned wearily against the support of the veranda and wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Bill had come from the stable opposite with a lantern in his hand and, seeing some one looming shadowy and ghostly in the dim light, had come over to the tired, pathetic figure and held his lantern up to the clergyman's face. It was a Rembrandt effect. The great patient eyes burning in their hollow sockets, the white face shining with the borrowed light of another world! Here, in the light of a stable lantern, was a beauty that could not be translated into flesh and blood. Here was a face that had been a battle-ground; the scene of a mighty conflict, a life-and-death struggle. It was all there—the wreckage of high hopes and ambitions, the sacrifice of blood and treasure, the sad evidences of futile charges, repulses, heroic stands, of fallen and recovered flags, of glorious scars and wounds, the ashes of spent camp-fires, and the funeral inarch to the inevitable trench. It was noble; it was pitiful; it would be horrible but for the to-morrow when "the weary are at rest."The eyes of Big Bill were moist and he threw an almost gruff tone into his morning greeting."How clean the air is, Bill," said the parson, scenting the perfume of the morning. "What has become of Hal?""Ain't never said a word to me. Thought he must have toldyou. Perhaps he's gone over to see McShay.""He and McShay have become great friends," said McCloud, smiling."Thicker'n thieves; blood-brothers, as the Injins play it.""What will be the outcome of the asphalt fight, Bill?""Oh, sooner or later the boys'll have to sell out to the Trust.""Hal's worried; very much worried. Is it about the asphalt?""Worried, is he? What do you suppose a feller about his age is usually worried about? A woman, Parson, just a female woman; and he's in luck if it's only one."There was a peculiar note in the air. It wasn't a sound, but the shadow of a coming sound. Both men made a simultaneous movement, paused and listened, then looked solemnly at each other. The beat of hoofs and the advancing rush of man and horse was in the air. In a whirlwind of dust the bronchos were brought from a run to a standstill in a few short, staccato jumps, as the cattle horse is trained, and out of the dusk of the morning Hal advanced with a protecting arm about Wah-na-gi."Bill, pay Chavanaugh and these Indians twice the sum I promised them and let them go. I don't want to involve them in any trouble I may have with the agent or the Government, and put the ranch in trim for a scrap. Let no one on the premises without my permission and place my men so as to prevent surprise. They have my orders."Bill started to whistle but Hal continued: "And have me a fresh horse saddled. I'll go out and take charge of the men as soon as I can explain matters here."Bill's face was a study in lengthening shadows, but by the time Hal had finished he had got his second wind and managed to take up a hole in his mental belt and addressed the situation thus: "Well, boys, the boss is agoin' some; but he pays as he goes, so I guess you don't mind a little excitement.""Excitement!" exclaimed Rough-house Joe. Joe had gained his sobriquet because he expressed the joy of being drunk by breaking and smashing things, not with malice, but in a buoyant spirit of playfulness. He was a long, lanky, loosely joined hulk with a solemn, cadaverous face, flanked by enormous ears that stood out from his head like ventilators on a ship. Joe was the kind of person that dies young in the cattle country. He had been unusually lucky. "Excitement?" he drawled. "A scrap with Injins? Why, it's pussy wants a corner. Why, if the boss'll say the word, and the troops'll just look the other way, we'll put Ladd and the Agency out of business before you could sing 'Blest Be the Tie that Binds,' omittin' the first and last stanzas. As fer the boss? We'll stay in the saddle with him if he rides through hell; eh, boys?"And the crowd of Hal's retainers went off yip-yipping and yapping in the approved cowboy style in their enthusiasm for the young boss and uplifted by the consciousness of having earned a handsome addition to their month's wages.As soon as Big Bill and the men were gone Hal turned to McCloud with a smile: "Got another boarder, John; you won't be so lonesome now."McCloud looked past him out to the eternal hills.Wah-na-gi went to the preacher timidly. "Please don't be angry. I sent him word. I asked him to take me away. Don't make me go back. Won't you let me stay? Won't you?"McCloud did not look at her but gave her hand a reassuring touch. Then he said to Hal, in a tone of pity: "I thought you were a man. You're only a boy; a crazy boy.""Don't be too hard on me, John."He said this with a plaintive appealing smile, very hard to resist, but John McCloud did not see it. He was looking into the future with the prescience and the sternness of the prophet. He had been accustomed all his life to self-examination. He had only an acquired patience with those who act first and think afterwards. He belonged to a race that by instinct and training had learned to scrutinize desire, to stop inclination at the door, and make her tell her business. It was much easier than to turn her out of doors after she was once in.Hal felt the need of sympathy and understanding, and he put out his hand toward the other but withdrew it. Turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "Go in, little woman; lie down and rest. You must be very tired."He walked with her to the door with a protecting hand on her shoulder. It is difficult to altogether appreciate what this meant to her starved soul, worn out with the struggle against her pitiless environment, ready to lie down and die. This hand, so strong, so gentle! At last she could trust, and rest. She could forget the past; she could leave the present and the future in his hand, so strong, so gentle."Yes, I'm tired; but nothing mattersnow," she said with a smile from which every trace of care had vanished—the smile of a happy child.He stood looking after her for a moment after she disappeared into the house—his house. He would have liked to close the door and turn to the world and say: "She's mine. Leave us alone. Forget us. Go your ways and let us be happy."But no, the world would not do that. It never did. It was a crazy, cruel world, where everything was as wrong as it could be. He turned to find McCloud still sitting on the bench before the door, staring into space. He seemed so much older. The skin seemed to have been drawn tighter over his big bones; or was it the gray, pitiless light of dawn? Now that the stress of action was off he, too, felt weary and old as he came over and sat down beside his friend."I suppose you think I'm mad?" he said patiently, with the patience of physical weariness. McCloud did not look at him."It was a mad thing to do, Hal, my boy.""You won't understand it, John; you couldn't.""I thought it was agreed that you were to wait until I could determine whether the Government would let me adopt her; make her my ward, my child.""It would have been too late. She sent me word: 'Will you come for me or must I kill myself?'""A momentary desperation is very far from the accomplishment of such anactin a young and healthy child.""I couldn't let it happen. I couldn't take the risk. And the thought of those claws of Appah's. Well, I couldn't see straight. I couldn't leave her to a fate like that! I couldn't!""You want her for yourself," said the elder man with the nearest approach to sarcasm of which he was capable."I don't deny it. I'm mad with love for her. That's the truth.""You took her away by force. They'll take her back by force. It's a bad business, Hal, my boy. There is only one way you can keep her now.""What's that?""Why, as your wife."As Hal made no immediate response to this, the other turned and looked at him for the first time, as he added quietly: "You must have thought of that?""Yes, I've thought of it," said the boy brokenly as his hands clutched each other. Then he rose and walked away as if he would physically avoid that thought. "Yes, I've thought of it."The clergyman's grave face grew graver. It wasn't often any one saw a stern look in those gentle eyes."You are not prepared to go as far as that?""Oh, you don't understand," groaned the boy; "I wish I could make her my wife. I wish I could!""And the mother of your children?""Yes, yes; I'd make her mine if I could—if I could!""Ah, I see," said the other with comprehension and with a dreary little smile."I have a wife in England." And the lad sank down on the remnants of a broken harrow.McCloud looked at the bent figure sadly."You never told me.""What was the use?"McCloud shook his head over this world-old excuse of sinners. It is so much easier to let things drift, to avoid, to trust to events or the mistakes or acts of others. Hal wasn't the first to leave the unsolved problem with the vague, unexpressed, shadowy hope that he would come back to it and somehow find it solved, find the answer staring him in the face."And your wife?" probed the inquisitor. "What of her?""As to my wife, my conscience is clear, John—absolutely clear." This was said with such boyish frankness and ingenuousness as to bring an almost worldly smile to the face of John McCloud."Areyoua fair judge of that?""I try to be. I think I am. I married Edith because I loved the woman I thought she was. She never loved me. She married me because I was the most available man coming into a title. She was a beautiful woman. Perhaps my vanity was flattered. It was a bad beginning. I won't accuse her or excuse myself. Perhaps she would have been different, married to a different man, or to a man she loved. When I saw what a mess we'd made of it, I put up a fairly decent fight to make the best of it, but she wouldn't let me, or it wasn't possible. Anyway, our marriage ended in being degrading to us both. We were going to hell fast, both of us. I ought to have freed myself before I left England. I owed it to myself."Though he made some effort to avoid it, this was said with some of the bitterness of the past."A divorce?"The way John McCloud said this was a trumpet call to battle, and Hal accepted the challenge. He was at his best in a fight, but it wasn't ground of his choosing, and he felt at a disadvantage with an antagonist like John McCloud, for the boy knew he had no claims to being super-man."A divorce? Yes. Why not? You're a big man, John McCloud. You don't believe that God has joined all those whom the alderman, has joined, all those whom ambition, or pride, or avarice, or lust, or even honest mistakes have joined. You don't believe that the words of a church service sanctify marriage? Love makes marriage a sacrament, mutual love."John McCloud in his strenuous life had gone up into some exceeding high mountains where he had communed with his own soul and with his God, and many, very many things which to the average clergyman seem fixed and absolute, because he has never been higher than the roof of his own church or an office building, seemed to McCloud small and mutable."My son," he said with kindly tolerance, "marriage is the most important voluntary act of a man's life, and divorce ought to be like death—inevitable.""I have a right to be free," and Hal's voice vibrated with passion."You mean you'dliketo be free; but your desire no longer involves yourself alone; it involves others, perhaps the unborn. You cannot trust to your own inclinations. Are you willing and are you able to take your feelings, emotions, desires to God, lay them bare before Him and askHimfor the answer?""I don't think of God as a cruel and omnipotentDon't.""That is the test, my lad.""You're a queer man, John. Up where you are you can look into the next world, but it must be awfully cold up there. You mustn't ask me to live up to your standard. I couldn't do it. You're not like me, a man with passions.""Oh, my boy, my dear boy," interrupted the other with amused patience; "you don't know what you are saying. I know what you are suffering. I have loved too, not so violently perhaps as you; perhaps as sincerely—at any rate with all my soul—and I ran away—ran away from happiness, because I would not inflict an invalid on the woman I loved, nor make her the mother of sickly children; and so for this world we said good-by, and I am here alone—alone—except for God."Hal was very still. It meant a great deal to him that John McCloud had taken him behind the curtain. He realized that it was a supreme test of the other's affection, and he felt ashamed that he should have taken for granted so much that was childish in assumption and offensive in its condescension. In the presence of the other man's sorrows his own seemed dwarfed and commonplace. When his voice was steady he said: "Then you know; yes, you know." And McCloud understood what he would have liked to say but couldn't."Does Wah-na-gi know?" he asked relentlessly."No, I couldn't tell her; but I will."Swiftly it passed through McCloud's thought: "Is this a house built upon sand? Would this lad run straight? Would he stand the test? Would he swerve under pressure? Or was he one of those infirm of purpose, who take cycles of infinity to develop into a man—God's man?""My boy," he said gently; "you must make a calm, relentless examination of your own soul. You must not forget that you are a white man. You have Indian blood in your veins, it is true, but you were born and bred a gentleman. Have you thought of that?""Gentleman?" said the boy bitterly. "I'm a half-breed. I've never been allowed to forget it."It was the first time McCloud had ever heard him use the odious term, and the expression of his face, the tone of his voice, opened up a vision of a journey made tragic with the burden of the cross and the crown of thorns. He knew for the first time what this boy had suffered and it filled his soul with pity. But he saw in the bitter past only a sign and prophecy for the future. Here was the wound. The boy had bared it and placed in his hand the knife. He must use it."Then you know, no one better than you, that there is nothing more cruel in a cruel world than race prejudice.""And nothing more cowardly," flashed back the quivering victim."I'm not speaking for myself. You knew that. You know I love this young woman. She is a fine soul—brave, patient, serene. To me she is a child of the living God. Theoretically we are all equal before the All-Father. Theoretically we are all His children; but we live in a world of prejudice and passion, of huge implacable ignorance of the simplest things of divine Love. Is it wise to arouse that ignorance, challenge its ferocity, live face to face with it, and force your wife and children to live face to face with it? Is it wise to subject them to commiseration and that odious sense of superiority which is one unending crucifixion? Do you want them to suffer as you have suffered?"In his effort to hold up before this youth the eternal truth, to make him bow the stubborn neck under the yoke of duty, John McCloud was as implacable as Savonarola, and Hal lowered his head before the blast. The sick man shook off his limitations, forgot his weakness, rose up out of the trammels of the flesh and stood over the boy, the preacher, the priest, the prophet, aroused and potential, and all the pent-up passion of the saver of souls, the martyr, and fanatic, burst into flame."Race prejudice? It's the curse of the world," he cried. "In all ages men have been busy inventing reasons for being better than their fellow men. The Jews called themselves the 'Chosen People' in order to exterminate the un-chosen, and now the Russians persecute and murder the Jews. The Turks massacre the Armenians. The Germans would 'eliminate' the Poles. The Anglo-Saxon is a mongrel who thinks his pure blood gives him the right to make the rest of the world buy the goods he can't sell at home. The amiable and enlightened Dr. Johnson once said of us: 'I am willing to love all mankind exceptAmericans—I would burn and destroy them.' And we Americans, the most mixed of mixtures! We are proud of our enlightenment, and yet we call the Italian a 'dago,' the Mexican a 'greaser,' the Chinaman a 'chink.' We excuse our treatment of the Indian by inventing the phrase: 'The only good Indian is the dead Indian.' And recently we burned twenty churches and school-houses belonging to the negroes in order to teach them respect for law and order. It is nineteen hundred years since the Son of God brought 'peace on earth and good-will to men,' and still we have the gospel of Hate."McCloud's fine eyes flamed and two bright scarlet spots burned in his cheeks."Perhaps," said Hal, rising under the torrent of the other's eloquence; "perhaps I can help show the world that mankind is superior to any race."Swift as the swoop of the eagle came back: "Then you must be willing to be a martyr. Your Indian mother was a victim of this and your own life is shadowed by it. Are you going to repeathertragedy?" And he pointed to the rock that mutely stood before them and bore its silent witness to the sorrow of the broken heart that lay beneath it."God forbid!" ejaculated the boy, tears springing to his eyes as the figure of his mother loomed dimly out of childhood's memories. "God forbid! Poor little mother! I think the secret of her tragedy was that my father did not love his little Indian wife. I love Wah-na-gi."The boy's sincerity was unmistakable. McCloud hurried on that he might not be swerved from his purpose."You love Wah-na-gi; yes, now; but what of the future? Do you dare look into the future? You are heir to a title and estates. You will eventually take up your obligations to an honored name and a glorious civilization."Hal straightened up and showed fight. Hitherto McCloud had called to the lover, to his chivalry, to the potential father. It was an appeal he could not ignore, that lifted him up and swept him along with it. Now it was to his own interests. It was an anticlimax. The trained controversialist had made a mistake. Titles, estates, an honored name, civilization! The Shepherd of the sheep had put on the garments of the man of the world and they didn't fit. To the youth, in the throes of a mighty passion, they sounded hollow and empty. Hal had never discussed his past, his life, with any one. How was the preacher to know that he was walking among the graves of things already buried? Titles, estates, an honored name, civilization! It probably never occurred to Samson to pause over his duties to Philistine society, and to hesitate over the beauty of the temple where he was on exhibition. Hal started to rise, to throw off this incubus sought to be put upon him, to tear it to pieces; but the hated things had done something for him, taught him restraint, the capacity to measure the other man's point of view, and so he sat down again before he spoke and struggled to keep his voice even, though it vibrated with scorn."I hate the whole thing! Why should I be the victim of conditions which are no part of my consent or my will? I don't want the title! I don't want a place in their silly, rotten world. I couldn't live in it or be a part of it. I'll take the ranch and make my own way, and I claim the right to do it. I want my own life and the freedom to live it. I gave the best that was in me to civilization, and civilization kicked me out, robbed me of a career, made my home a hell, and so I say—to hell with civilization."McCloud was surprised. He was an emotional man too, and he thrilled to the sweep of this violence. He would have liked to take the boy in his arms and cry: "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" Instead, he held him away, shifted his own ground, and sought the joints of the other's harness. Hal's allusion to his home seemed to offer an opening."This wife in London, this unhappy home—perhaps it is an appointed barrier!""Barriers are surmounted—swept away!"Hal was standing now and he looked audacious and puissant. He looked the master of his own destiny. The man who had passed through the fire, whose proud hopes and ambitions lay in broken heaps where the car of destiny had passed, looked at him in admiration."Yes, barriers are swept away; but only by those who humbly and patiently kneel down before them. Perhaps Infinite Wisdom stays your hand, to keep you from bringing sorrow to this helpless Indian woman whom you love, and to her children.""Never!" was the answer, in the pride and strength of youth, in the consciousness of capacity, in the joy of a child of battle, the offspring of warriors, who had sung their triumph under torture. It was a wide gulf that separated this fierce courage from the white-faced saint who had learned in patience and humility."It's a feeble-minded man who keeps picking at the irrevocable," was McCloud's reply, more to himself than to the savage before him. "Suppose some day you grew tired of all this and wanted to go back and be a part of the world of convention, of fashion and culture?"Hal had no argument to make to this, but it had no appeal, no meaning. He only made a gesture of negation and impatience."Oh, my boy," said McCloud helplessly; "you're a rebel.""Well, America was made by rebels," said the other with a triumphant smile.The minister put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked into his eyes as David might have done to his wayward son."Well, God bless you for a fine, glorious, dangerous rebel."The sun was up, a new day was born, all things seemed possible as Big Bill hove into sight."Say, Boss," he drawled; "McShay's out here with the toughest looking gang of ruffians——""Let 'em in, Bill," cried Hal joyously, his eyes dancing with the excitement of his conflict with McCloud."Turn 'em loose on the ranch?" said the foreman doubtfully. "That outfit? Gee whiz!""May need 'em, Bill.""Most worse'n Injins," grumbled the old man as he went away, doubt, hesitation, protest in the stoop and shrug of his huge bulk.Bill's advent had brought them both back to earth, to the business in hand.McCloud spoke first."If they would let you keep this woman you could not. You are too near to her. You must go away.""Now?" said the radiant rebel; "when she has come to me? When she is mine? Mine?""You must go away," said the other, relentless as Fate."She's mine. I'll take her and hold her against the world.""No, you'll hold her againstyourself."Hal sank feebly down on the bench and clasped his hands in a helpless way."I can't. I can't give her up! I can't."McCloud came to him and put his hand on him."Hal, my son," he said affectionately; "I've sometimes wondered why I had to give up my work and come out here to die. Perhaps it was to be your living conscience. To this woman you seem divinely appointed, like the Moquitch Mountains. I've seen her soul go out of herself and stand expectant before you with outstretched arms. Her temperament, her environment, the very strength and weakness of her character put her in your hands. You know that without stopping to question or think she has laid herself at your feet. Are you going to listen to the passion that desires, that demands, that takes, or is your soul going to rise up within you crowned and glorified?"Hal buried his face in his hands and groaned. He looked about for some way of escape, but there stood the weak sick man, inevitable and unanswerable. He felt bewildered but resentful. Why shouldn't he be happy? Why should he be expected to give up his one chance, the only chance he had ever had, would ever have?"We'll go away into the mountains," he exclaimed, "away from your artificial rules and regulations! We'll go away.""You can't go where obligation will not meet you.""Why should I letyoudecide for me what my obligations are?" he said rudely, fiercely."Now you're a savage, but you've got white blood in your veins, blood that has bowed the knee to duty, bowed the back to burdens, bowed the head to God. Now I thank heaven you're a half-breed. You couldn't go back to the blanket savage if you wanted to. You've got to live up to your higher self. You have assumed obligations to these two women. You can't avoid the consequences. The heart of this Indian woman has gone out to you because you are part of a social order to which she aspires, that represents to her her better self. You can't drag her down and back to the blanket Indian. She would hate you. If you are brutal I must say brutal things to you. You can't force her to apologize to her children, to tell them they have no standing before the law and before society; that they face the inevitable social order with an inevitable stain. You can't flee from obligation. No man liveth to himself nor for himself. And this other woman—you have in the past assumed obligations to her. They have become irksome. You say you have a right to be free. Well, then, you must prove it. I don't believe in divorce, but that is a matter between a man and his Maker. Happiness, permanent happiness, is worth fighting for, worth waiting for. If you stay here you will steal it and pay the penalty of the thief, a penalty that will fall heaviest upon those you love best in the world. Again I say, you couldn't keep this woman if they would let you. She must go away or you must."McCloud looked at the lad, silent but unconvinced, and then he lifted up his heart in secret prayer that God would keep this soul unspoiled.
CHAPTER XIII
"Gee, she's pretty!"
Cadger came over to the window of his store to see whose horse was meant.
"Oh," he said, with seeming loss of interest as he walked back to his account books.
"She's give in. She's wearing Injin clothes."
"She's got pluck, grit. A man would have given in long ago."
It was Ladd at the store window, and there was something in his attitude or the vibration in his voice that made the other slide him a covert glance.
"He's a disappointment to me in a way," added Ladd, unconscious of the hiatus.
"Who?"
"Calthorpe. Didn't think he'd give her up without a struggle. She's worth fighting for. Most pretty women are just pretty. She's got something behind it, something sort of tantalizing."
He said this mentally, groping for what it was.
Cadger lifted his head from his figures to shift another curious glance at the agent, but he did not reply.
"I somehow imagined that Calthorpe thought enough of the girl to pay us a visit."
"Why should he?" said Cadger, not looking up and continuing to reckon his gains. "When your worst enemy's a barber, why sit down in his chair and invite him to shave you?"
"You heard what he said?" suggested the agent.
"You bet I did. He handed you a bunch of roses all right. I'm kind o' hard of hearin' but I heard it. He said it loud enough fer 'em to hear it in Washington."
"I'm not afraid of Washington so long as Senator Plumtree and Senator Wilkins are on the job. I hear that Judge Walker wants to go back to his law practice, and if he does, Whittaker'll leave the Land Office to be Secretary of the Interior. Our people aren't losing any tricks."
It was plain that Ladd spoke his convictions when he said he felt easy as to Washington.
"Appah's gittin' kind o' chesty," suggested Cadger with an indifference that was important.
"Yes," drawled Ladd. "Take your hand off their throat and let them get an easy breath and they begin to buck. He's showin' off. He'd like his people to think he's a bigger man than I am."
"Oh, he'll settle down and git tame when he's lassoed Wah-na-gi."
"Well, he isn't going to lasso Wah-na-gi," said Ladd quickly.
"No? Why, I thought that was your idee."
"I had hoped that Calthorpe and Appah would sort of mix it up and save me a lot of trouble."
"Then you never intended him to have her?"
"Never."
"That's his understandin'."
"Hand her over to that surly savage?—An educated woman?"
"A good-looker too," suggested Cadger kindly.
"Good-looking?" said Ladd, caught by the bait and forgetting his audience in the interest of his subject. "Have you ever thought what she would show for with all the harness and trimmings our women put on? She isn't good-lookin'; she's a world-beater. Appah's got another guess. Slowly but surely it will be borne in on him that she's out of his class."
"Chickens is awful human, ain't they?" said Cadger. "One of 'em gits a bead on sumpin' good, makes a rush fer it with wings out, and durned if every other chicken don't leave his job, drop sumpin' better maybe, and chase after the grub the first one's after. Most of our fun in gittin' is in takin' it away from somebody else; ain't it?"
Ladd laughed. "Well, I saw it first. Only I never let anything interfere with business."
Cadger's face never collaborated. He really didn't need features. He didn't stop figuring, but said calmly: "Our scheme's on the toboggan and so are you."
"What do you want me to do? Suppose I let him take her? He's got what he wanted and is independent of us. You and I don't get our pay until we deliver the goods."
"It's all right to hold him off if you can, but if he sees you're interested, why it's all off. You can't handle him, that's all."
"Well, if I can't handle him, I can hobble him, and I will. You watch me." And Ladd strolled out of the store and watched the retreating figure of Wah-na-gi as she set out for Chapita's cabin.
If Cadger could have managed it he would have treated himself to a sardonic grin as he said to himself:
"I never knew a good thing yet that wasn't busted by a woman."
Wah-na-gi had been down to sit under the shelter of the flag. It is difficult for the Indian to resist the inborn reverence for symbols, but it was futile. She wouldn't go again. She was, Ladd had said, plucky, but she was at last desperate. Chapita was dead. The cabin which had always been forbidding and forlorn was now empty. She knew that in her way Chapita had loved her and that she was always glad to see her, and then there was some one to talk to. Now she had not even the half-starved, mangy dogs to welcome her.
When the old woman was buried the wretched beasts were killed and their carcasses left at the grave, so that she would not miss their companionship in the spirit world. Solitary confinement drives prisoners mad. Queer thoughts were creeping into her head, thoughts of the grave, of death.
Hal had come into his own. He was interested in other things. He had forgotten. Their paths lay so far apart anyway; they touched for a short distance only, then diverged again, and would go farther and farther away as time went on. He could never live at the Agency again; and she was doomed to it. Should she accept the inevitable, or should she follow Chapita to that desolate village of the dead over in the Bad Lands? She hadn't the strength to decide. She would let it be decided for her. Before she reached the top of the ground swell on which rested the cabin she was conscious that some one was waiting for her. The first sense of relief was succeeded almost at once by apprehension, and she was therefore not surprised to see the tall form of Appah sitting before her door.
He let her stand in his presence a moment while he looked her over. Then he said with conviction: "Wayno! Touge wayno!" (Good! Very good.)
His eyes sparkled as he saw her in the picturesque dress of his people. He stood up. His undisguised elation, his sense of triumph, his certainty of possession stung her into life. At last there was something to do. The weary irresolute droop slipped from her like a shadow and she straightened up and stood face to face with him.
"You have done this," she said, indicating her clothes with a swift gesture that left no doubt of her attitude. "You have done this, but you can't drive me back. You can dog my steps and spy on me; you can steal my clothes like a sneaking squaw; you can take away from me my children, my school; you can starve me and run me down like a wild horse; you can make fun of me to my people, and make them hate me, but you can't drive me back; I'm an Indian woman, but I'm a woman; you can't make me a cringing squaw, crawling at your feet, ready to lick your hand. I'm past that. You can hunt and hound me, but you can't break me!"
His amazement let her get so far, then he advanced upon her with arm upraised.
"Yes and you can kill me as you did Chapita—but it won't make any difference."
The allusion to Chapita startled him and gave him pause a moment to regain his poise and restrain his homicidal impulse.
He drew back, folded his arms and, with a sullen face, said: "Maybe so hate Injin, hate Injin all time."
"No; I don't hate my people. I love them. I want to make them better and stronger and freer. It's you that hates them. Nothing stops. Everything changes. White people change, Indian must change. The buffalo are gone. Lands are gone. Crowded, crowded! Everybody crowded! No room to hunt any more. The Indian must learn to be clean, strong, to work. I love my people; I want to do them good. People like you make trouble, keep them back, deceive them. The old ways are gone. They never will come back; they cannot come back. Once we were hunters, warriors—that was good. Now we must be farmers—that, too, is good. Shinob makes it so. We must obey. You know better too, but you cling to the old ways because they're better for you. If these people weren't ignorant and superstitious they'd know you for what you are—a liar and a cheat."
Appah was in a measure sophisticated, but the fury and audacity of this left him somewhat dazed. He was a reactionary, and the latest phase of the new woman was a form of madness new to him. It might easily have discouraged a wiser man. He was determined to make one more try before falling back on the only recourse left—force.
"Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! (You will be sorry!) Teguin (friend) me! wayno teguin!" he said in an effort to placate her. "Peenunk (pretty soon) pikeway (go away)," and he pointed to the mountains. "Big hunt, maybe so deer catch 'em, make medicine, good time. Maybe so you come, eh?"
"With you? No; I cannot. I will not."
He looked puzzled and frustrated. What would appeal to this woman he wanted?
"Appah way off yonder! By and by you come my wickiup. My wickiup, your wickiup! Pah-sid-uway?"
He was telling her that his home was hers, that while he was away he would like her to live in it, with the implication that all that was in it was hers.
"Thank you; I must stay here."
He saw he had made no progress and fierce anger blazed up within him. He looked at her, at the squalid cabin and its surroundings, and stalked away muttering to himself: "Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! Na-nunk-quoi-vandum." (There will be much trouble.)
She sank down on the empty box where Appah had awaited her. It was a relief, this burst of anger. She had been fighting shadows. She had been alone with her thoughts, her fears, with no one to share them with her. Here was a human being she could hate. There was a savage joy in battle, and she felt an unholy uplift in having hit hard.
Appah would have the better of it in the end, perhaps, but he would carry a scar—there was consolation in that. How curious it was! Appah was very anxious to make her his wife; there was no doubt about that. Why was it that the man she loved, and who loved or seemed to love her, hadn't ever mentioned that subject to her?
"I'll bet I can read your thoughts."
Agent Ladd stood before her, smiling down at her.
She rose in a startled way.
"Mr. Ladd? You here?"
"Don't be frightened. May I sit down and talk with you?"
Here was something new. The aggressive autocrat could be gentle, even deferential. She was puzzled. What could it mean?
She motioned to the box and he sat and took out a pipe and began to fill it.
"First of all, I'd like you to know I'm your friend."
"You haven't acted much like one."
"You won't have to complain of that in the future. As you know, it's the policy of the Government to keep the Indians apart. To discourage their marrying with the whites and to encourage their marrying among themselves. I couldn't openly oppose Appah or stand in his way. In fact, I've given him a free hand, for one reason," and Ladd laughed at his own shrewdness; "because I knew he didn't have a ghost of a chance. You're an educated woman—a lady—and he's a blanket Injin—a savage. It's preposterous."
"And yet you stood by and let them try to drive me back to being a blanket Indian."
"He is an influential man with his people, and it was the only way he would understand. He had to know it was hopeless. Well, he's had his inning; he's had everything his own way; he's brought every argument and influence to bear, legitimate and illegitimate, and he's failed, completely failed, and now it's time this persecution of you stopped; and I'm going to stop it."
He looked at her in a benevolent way, but she waited.
"You can go back to your position in the school whenever you want it."
"Oh, Mr. Ladd; do you mean it?"
If Agent Ladd had known how beautiful he looked to her in the role of Santa Claus he would have been tempted to live it instead of play it.
"Then you don't believe those stories?"
"There is no one knows a good woman better than the man who has had a tolerably wide acquaintance with the other kind. The only difference in women is love. There isn't anything a good woman or a bad woman won't do for the man she loves. And in that connection I want to ask you a rather personal question. You know that Calthorpe and I are enemies. I've been deceived in that boy. I think you have too." Before she had time to protest he said bluntly: "Has he ever asked you to marry him?"
Before she had time to think, before she realized that the agent had no right to ask the question, she gasped falteringly: "No! No."
"I thought so. And he's been doing the devoted for a long time."
She was so conscious of the truth of this that she had no time to reflect that the agent was going quite beyond the legitimate bounds of his position.
"He isn't on the level. You can't trust a half-breed."
"Mr. Ladd, you mustn't say that to me.
"I'll show you the difference. I'll ask you to be my wife."
This was so amazing, so direct, that it took her breath away. She could only sink down bewildered on an upturned bucket. All her preconceived ideas of the man seemed to need readjusting. How did it happen?
"Now, take your time and give me an even chance." He rose but did not disturb her by advancing toward her. "Wah-na-gi, I'm playing for big stakes. I'll tell you something in confidence. These asphalt mines are valuable—very valuable, but back of them are coal mines—rich? There's no end to 'em. At the lowest price ever paid for coal they would pay the national debt and God knows how much besides. The cowboys don't know that. There are only three people know it as yet—a big capitalist, his engineer, and myself. These cowboys are children in a game like this."
"How does this interest me?"
"Why, if we can get our bill through Congress before the rest of the world knows what we're up to, you and I won't have to live at Standing Bear Agency. We'll have the world in a sling. We'll make a plaything of it. Every luxury, every pleasure, honors, if we want 'em! Society? Why, if you want society, we'll buy it for you. Culture, learning, genius; why, they'll eat out of our hand. We'll show 'em. Who'll care then who you are or what you are? Who'll know or care whether you are an Indian or a Fejee? You'll bemy wife—the wife of one of the three or four richest men in the world. I'll put the world on its knees to you, my girl."
"I don't know that I care much forthings."
"But you will. You'll learn. Gosh, wants are easily picked up. It's doing without that needs practice."
"And in the mean time?"
"What do you mean?"
"Before all this happens?"
"We must of course keep this a secret for the present."
"Ah!"
"Now, don't misunderstand me. Personally I have no race prejudice and I despise the idiot that has, but I'm on the job here. I can't let go. I'd lose my pull with the Department, with the settlers, and with the Indians themselves. Now, isn't that so?You know."
"It is so impossible I wonder you ever thought of it."
"Nothing is impossible with me. People have done that before—kept their relations secret for a time——"
"Their relations?"
The word was an unfortunate one. He realized it. It was a word that uncovered the mental reservation that sneaked behind it. She looked at him in a way that made him uncomfortable. She drew herself up with a mocking smile. He had spoken with such conviction and passion as to please and convince himself. He felt the genial glow of protecting this beautiful woman against the ignorance and prejudice of the world. That it was to be in imagination and in the future made it easier and more attractive.
"You aren't fair to me," he said in a hurt tone of reproach. "I'll do anything any other man would do—I'll marry you."
"When?"
He hesitated. She saw his hesitation. He knew that she did and he felt his dreams melting away. Like other blessings, they "brightened as they took their flight." He had strapped down his passion for a long time because he realized that it wasn't "business." Now he had unloosed it, given it rein, had sensed its realization, and it carried him away. He stood ready to take any risk, make any sacrifice, at that moment; but it was a second thought.
"You came here," she said with a cruel smile, "to offer me relations."
"I'll marry younow, if you'll keep it a secret until——"
"You've insulted me, and the shame of it is you don't know it. If I were a white woman you respected you wouldn't have come here in secret and made me such an offer."
Wah-na-gi hadn't the feminine gift of denying men and yet leaving no sting. It didn't matter. She was reckless, desperate. Her eyes flashed and Ladd bowed before her even through his anger. He had made a bad beginning. He had underestimated her, her intelligence, her pride, and that made her all the more desirable. Inwardly he cursed himself and her, but inwardly, too, he swore to have her, never to give her up.
"I would rather marry Appah," she said with conviction. She wanted to hurt him and she did.
"Wayno, wayno!"
It was Appah who stood before them, with two of his men, and gave his cordial assent to what he had just heard. A miracle had happened and all seemed well.
"My squaw! touge wayno!" he started to go to her. Ladd stood in his way.
"Whatareyou doing here?" said the agent fiercely.
"Whatyoudo here?" was the angry response.
"None of your damn business."
"All same me damn business too."
"What are these men doing here?"
He noticed the small rope carried by one of them. Wah-na-gi answered for them.
"Appah is going off up into the Moquitch to hunt and make medicine, and he wanted to take me with him."
"Oh, it was to be a wedding journey, eh?" sneered Ladd.
"Go? Wayno! No go? Maybe so all same take her, pah-sid-uway?"
"I won't go. I told you that. I won't go!"
"And you won't take her. I'll tell you that." Ladd could not resist the temptation to play the role of protector for her and before her. Appah did not at first grasp the meaning of Ladd's about-face. He had not had occasion before to look upon the agent as a rival. However, in flashes of love and hate, mental photography is almost instantaneous even in dull brains. He faced Ladd with steady eye.
"Pah-kowo-nunk!" (Kill you.)
"Easy there. Easy there!" said Cadger who, missing the busy agent, had rightly guessed where to find him. The two antagonists did not know whether to be annoyed or relieved at the trader's presence. He added an element that could not be exactly measured or overlooked.
"He can't bullyrag women," said Ladd to Cadger, but keeping his eyes on Appah, "and drag them around wherever he likes; and he can't force this woman to marry him—not while I'm agent."
"What's matter you?" glared Appah, furious at interference from a source where it was totally unexpected. "What's matter you? You, too, pretty good liar, damn quick."
"The first man that puts his hand on his weapon'll have me to deal with," said Cadger. "You ain't agoin' to ignore me. I've got some interests at stake here," and he pushed himself between the two men who fell back before him, and then, turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "You better go into the house until we find where we stand. You're safer there."
"Yes, go in, Wah-na-gi," said Ladd; "leave it to me."
She was glad to go in; glad to get away from them if only for a few moments. But a cruel thought went in with her and stayed with her. The man she loved had not asked her to be his wife. She tried to put it away, but it came again and again to plague her. If he did not care, why should she? It was settled; she did not want to live!
Cadger watched her retreating figure until it was evident that she had really gone, then he turned to the others and said: "Sit down. We got to talk this over."
They sat in a semicircle and each was very alert and watchful. No one smoked or thought of it.
"Now, first of all, Dave Ladd; you're a white man and ought to have more sense. You can't afford to quarrel with Appah any more'n he can afford to quarrel with you. I've got a lot at stake too. I'm damned if either of you is agoin' to throw me down and my interests. The first man that tries it'll git his head blowed off. You a-riskin' the biggest stake a man ever played fer, just fer a pretty face! There's millions of pretty faces and only one chance like this. We've gone too far with Appah to give him the double cross, and the woman's his price."
"He'll have to name another price. We'll give him more money, more cattle, more horses, and all that; more of anything else he likes."
"Suppose he's as big a fool as you, and rather have the pretty face?"
"It ain't his to choose. It's mine to give. It isn't only this woman—it's a question who's master here—he or me."
Appah said nothing but his face showed he was irreconcilable.
"Will you take anything else?" said Cadger. "Horses, cattle, wagons?"
"Katch-wayno."
"Youwon't," rasped Cadger to the agent; "andyouwon't," he hissed at Appah. "All right, I'm not goin' to sit down while you ruin me between you. It's a deadlock, andIdecide it. I decide that you gamble for it, and I kin shoot quicker'n either one of you. Is that a go?"
There was a pause while each of the others looked theimpassein the face. It seemed the only way out of a situation that involved the pride of each of these reckless men as well as the asphalt stakes.
Both antagonists were born gamblers. Each believed in his luck.
Cadger paused for a moment while each antagonist quickly weighed his chances; then the trader saw there was silent acquiescence. It was obviously the only way out of a dangerous dilemma.
The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the long shadows had quickly melted into night. There was a sudden chill in the air. Chapita cooked in the open air. There was a smouldering fire before the lean-to which was a sort of summer kitchen. The two friends of Appah threw some dry greasewood on the ashes and coaxed the embers into a blaze. The players sat down before the fire, their faces lit by its fitful blaze.
"We haven't any cards here," said Ladd.
"Appah, you or your friends got a set of bones?" asked Cadger, but he knew they never were without them.
Appah produced them from his pouch.
"Good! The best three in five," said the umpire.
The "bone-game," sometimes called "the moccasin game," because the bones were formerly hidden and juggled in a moccasin, is, I suppose, a sort of Indian version of the "three-shell-game" of the white man.
The small bones are marked differently, one black, one red. Appah was an expert player. Much of his skill was attributed by his people to his medicine, to magic! Perhaps some of it was due to his hypnotic power which he undoubtedly possessed in a measure. He had a snake-like concentration of the eye that seemed to have reptilian fascination in it. He and his Indian companions began the gamblers' song, a weird, monotonous incantation, the two friends beating time to its rhythm. Appah showed the bones to all, then passed them to the agent. Ladd took them, passed them from hand to hand, rolled them together, made passes, and quickly showed that he was no novice at the game, which above all requires dexterity. He finally extended his two hands and Appah chose—and lost. The agent's eyes sparkled with elation as he carelessly tossed the bones to Appah. The medicine man caught only one of the bones, theone he wanted, and picked the other up without attracting the attention of the observers. Then it was the agent's turn to guess. The Indian's manipulation of the little sticks was extraordinary—it would have done credit to a skilled sleight-of-hand performer. It bewildered the eye. Ladd had never played with Appah, and he began to grow peevish as the provoking skill of his opponent was made manifest.
He remembered too late the gambler's axiom not to "go up against the other fellow's game." He felt that Cadger should have warned him. While this was passing swiftly through his brain, almost as swiftly passed the bones before his eyes. Appah watched his victim. He brought his two fists together with a series of rapid movements, then paused, saw perfectly well in the agent's face the choice he was about to make, then opened his hand: it was empty. He laughed in Ladd's face and his friends laughed. He was, or thought he was, "having fun" with the white man. Ladd's relief at not having made the choice he had intended was drolly apparent. Again a series of manipulations more rapid than the first. Sometimes the little sticks seemed to pass directly through one hand to the other. Finally the two hands came to rest before him and the mocking, cruel eyes invited him to the test. He chose and lost.
The incantation swelled with a note of triumph and its insistence was irritating. There was an undefined feeling on the part of the agent that the chant gave the other side an undue advantage. All gamblers are superstitious. He was ashamed to demand silence, and yet the noise was confusing, disconcerting. They were at least even. Each had won once. Appah's eye was fixed on him in supercilious derision and Ladd displayed less confidence, and therefore took longer for his manipulation. Appah chose, and won. This time the agent put the bones in themedicine man's hand. If Appah won now the woman was his to do with as he pleased. Among other motions Appah passed his hands underneath his knees. This was fair as the Indians played the game, but Ladd protested. Cadger disallowed his protest and Appah smiled an evil smile. The agent held back as the bronze hands were placed before him. He hesitated before indicating his choice—andlost. Quick as a flash he reached over and caught the Indian's other hand.
"Open that other hand—open that hand!" he screamed. Appah with a quick twist of the wrist shook himself free. "You damn cheat!" And Ladd struck him in the face.
It happened so quickly that no one had a chance to interfere. Appah had his knife out and the agent his gun drawn before the onlookers had time to interfere. Appah got to close quarters at once and they came together in a clinch. Then it became a task of some difficulty and no little risk to interfere. Appah's followers began to skirmish to get control of their chief while Cadger bent his energies to restraining the infuriated agent. It was a pretty mix-up, and much admired by an individual who had been an interested observer for some time. He was standing rifle in hand on the small cliff to the right of the cabin, and was busy directing the movements of some cowboys who were scrambling over each other down the perpendicular side of the rock. It was a soldier's trick and the man who directed it had the bearing of the soldier. The first man down after the human chain was formed went directly to the cabin and emerged with Wah-na-gi. Her weight was nothing to these sinewy men and her slender figure went up the man-ladder as if it were part of a perfected drill in a military tournament. The man with the rifle put his hand over her shoulder as the man-ladder was hoisted man by man. The last man was up.
The combatants had at last been dragged apart, frenzied and gasping, their faces distorted with hate.
"She isn't going with you," screamed Ladd at Appah.
"No, she's going with me," called down the man from the cliff.
And they disappeared in the darkness.
CHAPTER XIV
The morning following Chavanaugh's appearance with Wah-na-gi's message, Bill and McCloud awoke to find themselves the only persons besides the man cook left on the ranch. Hal knew how to keep his own counsel, so little was said by his two friends, each supposing that the other had been informed of the boss's plans and had received his instructions. But as day wore on and night came, and no word of Hal or his men, each looked at the other inviting confidences and each went to bed without giving or receiving any.
"Hello, Parson; you're up early."
"Wasn't sleeping very well, Bill."
It was before dawn of the following day and the stars were still blinking in the crisp air. The clergyman had had a bad night and had crawled out into the open to get the rest denied to him in bed. He leaned wearily against the support of the veranda and wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Bill had come from the stable opposite with a lantern in his hand and, seeing some one looming shadowy and ghostly in the dim light, had come over to the tired, pathetic figure and held his lantern up to the clergyman's face. It was a Rembrandt effect. The great patient eyes burning in their hollow sockets, the white face shining with the borrowed light of another world! Here, in the light of a stable lantern, was a beauty that could not be translated into flesh and blood. Here was a face that had been a battle-ground; the scene of a mighty conflict, a life-and-death struggle. It was all there—the wreckage of high hopes and ambitions, the sacrifice of blood and treasure, the sad evidences of futile charges, repulses, heroic stands, of fallen and recovered flags, of glorious scars and wounds, the ashes of spent camp-fires, and the funeral inarch to the inevitable trench. It was noble; it was pitiful; it would be horrible but for the to-morrow when "the weary are at rest."
The eyes of Big Bill were moist and he threw an almost gruff tone into his morning greeting.
"How clean the air is, Bill," said the parson, scenting the perfume of the morning. "What has become of Hal?"
"Ain't never said a word to me. Thought he must have toldyou. Perhaps he's gone over to see McShay."
"He and McShay have become great friends," said McCloud, smiling.
"Thicker'n thieves; blood-brothers, as the Injins play it."
"What will be the outcome of the asphalt fight, Bill?"
"Oh, sooner or later the boys'll have to sell out to the Trust."
"Hal's worried; very much worried. Is it about the asphalt?"
"Worried, is he? What do you suppose a feller about his age is usually worried about? A woman, Parson, just a female woman; and he's in luck if it's only one."
There was a peculiar note in the air. It wasn't a sound, but the shadow of a coming sound. Both men made a simultaneous movement, paused and listened, then looked solemnly at each other. The beat of hoofs and the advancing rush of man and horse was in the air. In a whirlwind of dust the bronchos were brought from a run to a standstill in a few short, staccato jumps, as the cattle horse is trained, and out of the dusk of the morning Hal advanced with a protecting arm about Wah-na-gi.
"Bill, pay Chavanaugh and these Indians twice the sum I promised them and let them go. I don't want to involve them in any trouble I may have with the agent or the Government, and put the ranch in trim for a scrap. Let no one on the premises without my permission and place my men so as to prevent surprise. They have my orders."
Bill started to whistle but Hal continued: "And have me a fresh horse saddled. I'll go out and take charge of the men as soon as I can explain matters here."
Bill's face was a study in lengthening shadows, but by the time Hal had finished he had got his second wind and managed to take up a hole in his mental belt and addressed the situation thus: "Well, boys, the boss is agoin' some; but he pays as he goes, so I guess you don't mind a little excitement."
"Excitement!" exclaimed Rough-house Joe. Joe had gained his sobriquet because he expressed the joy of being drunk by breaking and smashing things, not with malice, but in a buoyant spirit of playfulness. He was a long, lanky, loosely joined hulk with a solemn, cadaverous face, flanked by enormous ears that stood out from his head like ventilators on a ship. Joe was the kind of person that dies young in the cattle country. He had been unusually lucky. "Excitement?" he drawled. "A scrap with Injins? Why, it's pussy wants a corner. Why, if the boss'll say the word, and the troops'll just look the other way, we'll put Ladd and the Agency out of business before you could sing 'Blest Be the Tie that Binds,' omittin' the first and last stanzas. As fer the boss? We'll stay in the saddle with him if he rides through hell; eh, boys?"
And the crowd of Hal's retainers went off yip-yipping and yapping in the approved cowboy style in their enthusiasm for the young boss and uplifted by the consciousness of having earned a handsome addition to their month's wages.
As soon as Big Bill and the men were gone Hal turned to McCloud with a smile: "Got another boarder, John; you won't be so lonesome now."
McCloud looked past him out to the eternal hills.
Wah-na-gi went to the preacher timidly. "Please don't be angry. I sent him word. I asked him to take me away. Don't make me go back. Won't you let me stay? Won't you?"
McCloud did not look at her but gave her hand a reassuring touch. Then he said to Hal, in a tone of pity: "I thought you were a man. You're only a boy; a crazy boy."
"Don't be too hard on me, John."
He said this with a plaintive appealing smile, very hard to resist, but John McCloud did not see it. He was looking into the future with the prescience and the sternness of the prophet. He had been accustomed all his life to self-examination. He had only an acquired patience with those who act first and think afterwards. He belonged to a race that by instinct and training had learned to scrutinize desire, to stop inclination at the door, and make her tell her business. It was much easier than to turn her out of doors after she was once in.
Hal felt the need of sympathy and understanding, and he put out his hand toward the other but withdrew it. Turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "Go in, little woman; lie down and rest. You must be very tired."
He walked with her to the door with a protecting hand on her shoulder. It is difficult to altogether appreciate what this meant to her starved soul, worn out with the struggle against her pitiless environment, ready to lie down and die. This hand, so strong, so gentle! At last she could trust, and rest. She could forget the past; she could leave the present and the future in his hand, so strong, so gentle.
"Yes, I'm tired; but nothing mattersnow," she said with a smile from which every trace of care had vanished—the smile of a happy child.
He stood looking after her for a moment after she disappeared into the house—his house. He would have liked to close the door and turn to the world and say: "She's mine. Leave us alone. Forget us. Go your ways and let us be happy."
But no, the world would not do that. It never did. It was a crazy, cruel world, where everything was as wrong as it could be. He turned to find McCloud still sitting on the bench before the door, staring into space. He seemed so much older. The skin seemed to have been drawn tighter over his big bones; or was it the gray, pitiless light of dawn? Now that the stress of action was off he, too, felt weary and old as he came over and sat down beside his friend.
"I suppose you think I'm mad?" he said patiently, with the patience of physical weariness. McCloud did not look at him.
"It was a mad thing to do, Hal, my boy."
"You won't understand it, John; you couldn't."
"I thought it was agreed that you were to wait until I could determine whether the Government would let me adopt her; make her my ward, my child."
"It would have been too late. She sent me word: 'Will you come for me or must I kill myself?'"
"A momentary desperation is very far from the accomplishment of such anactin a young and healthy child."
"I couldn't let it happen. I couldn't take the risk. And the thought of those claws of Appah's. Well, I couldn't see straight. I couldn't leave her to a fate like that! I couldn't!"
"You want her for yourself," said the elder man with the nearest approach to sarcasm of which he was capable.
"I don't deny it. I'm mad with love for her. That's the truth."
"You took her away by force. They'll take her back by force. It's a bad business, Hal, my boy. There is only one way you can keep her now."
"What's that?"
"Why, as your wife."
As Hal made no immediate response to this, the other turned and looked at him for the first time, as he added quietly: "You must have thought of that?"
"Yes, I've thought of it," said the boy brokenly as his hands clutched each other. Then he rose and walked away as if he would physically avoid that thought. "Yes, I've thought of it."
The clergyman's grave face grew graver. It wasn't often any one saw a stern look in those gentle eyes.
"You are not prepared to go as far as that?"
"Oh, you don't understand," groaned the boy; "I wish I could make her my wife. I wish I could!"
"And the mother of your children?"
"Yes, yes; I'd make her mine if I could—if I could!"
"Ah, I see," said the other with comprehension and with a dreary little smile.
"I have a wife in England." And the lad sank down on the remnants of a broken harrow.
McCloud looked at the bent figure sadly.
"You never told me."
"What was the use?"
McCloud shook his head over this world-old excuse of sinners. It is so much easier to let things drift, to avoid, to trust to events or the mistakes or acts of others. Hal wasn't the first to leave the unsolved problem with the vague, unexpressed, shadowy hope that he would come back to it and somehow find it solved, find the answer staring him in the face.
"And your wife?" probed the inquisitor. "What of her?"
"As to my wife, my conscience is clear, John—absolutely clear." This was said with such boyish frankness and ingenuousness as to bring an almost worldly smile to the face of John McCloud.
"Areyoua fair judge of that?"
"I try to be. I think I am. I married Edith because I loved the woman I thought she was. She never loved me. She married me because I was the most available man coming into a title. She was a beautiful woman. Perhaps my vanity was flattered. It was a bad beginning. I won't accuse her or excuse myself. Perhaps she would have been different, married to a different man, or to a man she loved. When I saw what a mess we'd made of it, I put up a fairly decent fight to make the best of it, but she wouldn't let me, or it wasn't possible. Anyway, our marriage ended in being degrading to us both. We were going to hell fast, both of us. I ought to have freed myself before I left England. I owed it to myself."
Though he made some effort to avoid it, this was said with some of the bitterness of the past.
"A divorce?"
The way John McCloud said this was a trumpet call to battle, and Hal accepted the challenge. He was at his best in a fight, but it wasn't ground of his choosing, and he felt at a disadvantage with an antagonist like John McCloud, for the boy knew he had no claims to being super-man.
"A divorce? Yes. Why not? You're a big man, John McCloud. You don't believe that God has joined all those whom the alderman, has joined, all those whom ambition, or pride, or avarice, or lust, or even honest mistakes have joined. You don't believe that the words of a church service sanctify marriage? Love makes marriage a sacrament, mutual love."
John McCloud in his strenuous life had gone up into some exceeding high mountains where he had communed with his own soul and with his God, and many, very many things which to the average clergyman seem fixed and absolute, because he has never been higher than the roof of his own church or an office building, seemed to McCloud small and mutable.
"My son," he said with kindly tolerance, "marriage is the most important voluntary act of a man's life, and divorce ought to be like death—inevitable."
"I have a right to be free," and Hal's voice vibrated with passion.
"You mean you'dliketo be free; but your desire no longer involves yourself alone; it involves others, perhaps the unborn. You cannot trust to your own inclinations. Are you willing and are you able to take your feelings, emotions, desires to God, lay them bare before Him and askHimfor the answer?"
"I don't think of God as a cruel and omnipotentDon't."
"That is the test, my lad."
"You're a queer man, John. Up where you are you can look into the next world, but it must be awfully cold up there. You mustn't ask me to live up to your standard. I couldn't do it. You're not like me, a man with passions."
"Oh, my boy, my dear boy," interrupted the other with amused patience; "you don't know what you are saying. I know what you are suffering. I have loved too, not so violently perhaps as you; perhaps as sincerely—at any rate with all my soul—and I ran away—ran away from happiness, because I would not inflict an invalid on the woman I loved, nor make her the mother of sickly children; and so for this world we said good-by, and I am here alone—alone—except for God."
Hal was very still. It meant a great deal to him that John McCloud had taken him behind the curtain. He realized that it was a supreme test of the other's affection, and he felt ashamed that he should have taken for granted so much that was childish in assumption and offensive in its condescension. In the presence of the other man's sorrows his own seemed dwarfed and commonplace. When his voice was steady he said: "Then you know; yes, you know." And McCloud understood what he would have liked to say but couldn't.
"Does Wah-na-gi know?" he asked relentlessly.
"No, I couldn't tell her; but I will."
Swiftly it passed through McCloud's thought: "Is this a house built upon sand? Would this lad run straight? Would he stand the test? Would he swerve under pressure? Or was he one of those infirm of purpose, who take cycles of infinity to develop into a man—God's man?"
"My boy," he said gently; "you must make a calm, relentless examination of your own soul. You must not forget that you are a white man. You have Indian blood in your veins, it is true, but you were born and bred a gentleman. Have you thought of that?"
"Gentleman?" said the boy bitterly. "I'm a half-breed. I've never been allowed to forget it."
It was the first time McCloud had ever heard him use the odious term, and the expression of his face, the tone of his voice, opened up a vision of a journey made tragic with the burden of the cross and the crown of thorns. He knew for the first time what this boy had suffered and it filled his soul with pity. But he saw in the bitter past only a sign and prophecy for the future. Here was the wound. The boy had bared it and placed in his hand the knife. He must use it.
"Then you know, no one better than you, that there is nothing more cruel in a cruel world than race prejudice."
"And nothing more cowardly," flashed back the quivering victim.
"I'm not speaking for myself. You knew that. You know I love this young woman. She is a fine soul—brave, patient, serene. To me she is a child of the living God. Theoretically we are all equal before the All-Father. Theoretically we are all His children; but we live in a world of prejudice and passion, of huge implacable ignorance of the simplest things of divine Love. Is it wise to arouse that ignorance, challenge its ferocity, live face to face with it, and force your wife and children to live face to face with it? Is it wise to subject them to commiseration and that odious sense of superiority which is one unending crucifixion? Do you want them to suffer as you have suffered?"
In his effort to hold up before this youth the eternal truth, to make him bow the stubborn neck under the yoke of duty, John McCloud was as implacable as Savonarola, and Hal lowered his head before the blast. The sick man shook off his limitations, forgot his weakness, rose up out of the trammels of the flesh and stood over the boy, the preacher, the priest, the prophet, aroused and potential, and all the pent-up passion of the saver of souls, the martyr, and fanatic, burst into flame.
"Race prejudice? It's the curse of the world," he cried. "In all ages men have been busy inventing reasons for being better than their fellow men. The Jews called themselves the 'Chosen People' in order to exterminate the un-chosen, and now the Russians persecute and murder the Jews. The Turks massacre the Armenians. The Germans would 'eliminate' the Poles. The Anglo-Saxon is a mongrel who thinks his pure blood gives him the right to make the rest of the world buy the goods he can't sell at home. The amiable and enlightened Dr. Johnson once said of us: 'I am willing to love all mankind exceptAmericans—I would burn and destroy them.' And we Americans, the most mixed of mixtures! We are proud of our enlightenment, and yet we call the Italian a 'dago,' the Mexican a 'greaser,' the Chinaman a 'chink.' We excuse our treatment of the Indian by inventing the phrase: 'The only good Indian is the dead Indian.' And recently we burned twenty churches and school-houses belonging to the negroes in order to teach them respect for law and order. It is nineteen hundred years since the Son of God brought 'peace on earth and good-will to men,' and still we have the gospel of Hate."
McCloud's fine eyes flamed and two bright scarlet spots burned in his cheeks.
"Perhaps," said Hal, rising under the torrent of the other's eloquence; "perhaps I can help show the world that mankind is superior to any race."
Swift as the swoop of the eagle came back: "Then you must be willing to be a martyr. Your Indian mother was a victim of this and your own life is shadowed by it. Are you going to repeathertragedy?" And he pointed to the rock that mutely stood before them and bore its silent witness to the sorrow of the broken heart that lay beneath it.
"God forbid!" ejaculated the boy, tears springing to his eyes as the figure of his mother loomed dimly out of childhood's memories. "God forbid! Poor little mother! I think the secret of her tragedy was that my father did not love his little Indian wife. I love Wah-na-gi."
The boy's sincerity was unmistakable. McCloud hurried on that he might not be swerved from his purpose.
"You love Wah-na-gi; yes, now; but what of the future? Do you dare look into the future? You are heir to a title and estates. You will eventually take up your obligations to an honored name and a glorious civilization."
Hal straightened up and showed fight. Hitherto McCloud had called to the lover, to his chivalry, to the potential father. It was an appeal he could not ignore, that lifted him up and swept him along with it. Now it was to his own interests. It was an anticlimax. The trained controversialist had made a mistake. Titles, estates, an honored name, civilization! The Shepherd of the sheep had put on the garments of the man of the world and they didn't fit. To the youth, in the throes of a mighty passion, they sounded hollow and empty. Hal had never discussed his past, his life, with any one. How was the preacher to know that he was walking among the graves of things already buried? Titles, estates, an honored name, civilization! It probably never occurred to Samson to pause over his duties to Philistine society, and to hesitate over the beauty of the temple where he was on exhibition. Hal started to rise, to throw off this incubus sought to be put upon him, to tear it to pieces; but the hated things had done something for him, taught him restraint, the capacity to measure the other man's point of view, and so he sat down again before he spoke and struggled to keep his voice even, though it vibrated with scorn.
"I hate the whole thing! Why should I be the victim of conditions which are no part of my consent or my will? I don't want the title! I don't want a place in their silly, rotten world. I couldn't live in it or be a part of it. I'll take the ranch and make my own way, and I claim the right to do it. I want my own life and the freedom to live it. I gave the best that was in me to civilization, and civilization kicked me out, robbed me of a career, made my home a hell, and so I say—to hell with civilization."
McCloud was surprised. He was an emotional man too, and he thrilled to the sweep of this violence. He would have liked to take the boy in his arms and cry: "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" Instead, he held him away, shifted his own ground, and sought the joints of the other's harness. Hal's allusion to his home seemed to offer an opening.
"This wife in London, this unhappy home—perhaps it is an appointed barrier!"
"Barriers are surmounted—swept away!"
Hal was standing now and he looked audacious and puissant. He looked the master of his own destiny. The man who had passed through the fire, whose proud hopes and ambitions lay in broken heaps where the car of destiny had passed, looked at him in admiration.
"Yes, barriers are swept away; but only by those who humbly and patiently kneel down before them. Perhaps Infinite Wisdom stays your hand, to keep you from bringing sorrow to this helpless Indian woman whom you love, and to her children."
"Never!" was the answer, in the pride and strength of youth, in the consciousness of capacity, in the joy of a child of battle, the offspring of warriors, who had sung their triumph under torture. It was a wide gulf that separated this fierce courage from the white-faced saint who had learned in patience and humility.
"It's a feeble-minded man who keeps picking at the irrevocable," was McCloud's reply, more to himself than to the savage before him. "Suppose some day you grew tired of all this and wanted to go back and be a part of the world of convention, of fashion and culture?"
Hal had no argument to make to this, but it had no appeal, no meaning. He only made a gesture of negation and impatience.
"Oh, my boy," said McCloud helplessly; "you're a rebel."
"Well, America was made by rebels," said the other with a triumphant smile.
The minister put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked into his eyes as David might have done to his wayward son.
"Well, God bless you for a fine, glorious, dangerous rebel."
The sun was up, a new day was born, all things seemed possible as Big Bill hove into sight.
"Say, Boss," he drawled; "McShay's out here with the toughest looking gang of ruffians——"
"Let 'em in, Bill," cried Hal joyously, his eyes dancing with the excitement of his conflict with McCloud.
"Turn 'em loose on the ranch?" said the foreman doubtfully. "That outfit? Gee whiz!"
"May need 'em, Bill."
"Most worse'n Injins," grumbled the old man as he went away, doubt, hesitation, protest in the stoop and shrug of his huge bulk.
Bill's advent had brought them both back to earth, to the business in hand.
McCloud spoke first.
"If they would let you keep this woman you could not. You are too near to her. You must go away."
"Now?" said the radiant rebel; "when she has come to me? When she is mine? Mine?"
"You must go away," said the other, relentless as Fate.
"She's mine. I'll take her and hold her against the world."
"No, you'll hold her againstyourself."
Hal sank feebly down on the bench and clasped his hands in a helpless way.
"I can't. I can't give her up! I can't."
McCloud came to him and put his hand on him.
"Hal, my son," he said affectionately; "I've sometimes wondered why I had to give up my work and come out here to die. Perhaps it was to be your living conscience. To this woman you seem divinely appointed, like the Moquitch Mountains. I've seen her soul go out of herself and stand expectant before you with outstretched arms. Her temperament, her environment, the very strength and weakness of her character put her in your hands. You know that without stopping to question or think she has laid herself at your feet. Are you going to listen to the passion that desires, that demands, that takes, or is your soul going to rise up within you crowned and glorified?"
Hal buried his face in his hands and groaned. He looked about for some way of escape, but there stood the weak sick man, inevitable and unanswerable. He felt bewildered but resentful. Why shouldn't he be happy? Why should he be expected to give up his one chance, the only chance he had ever had, would ever have?
"We'll go away into the mountains," he exclaimed, "away from your artificial rules and regulations! We'll go away."
"You can't go where obligation will not meet you."
"Why should I letyoudecide for me what my obligations are?" he said rudely, fiercely.
"Now you're a savage, but you've got white blood in your veins, blood that has bowed the knee to duty, bowed the back to burdens, bowed the head to God. Now I thank heaven you're a half-breed. You couldn't go back to the blanket savage if you wanted to. You've got to live up to your higher self. You have assumed obligations to these two women. You can't avoid the consequences. The heart of this Indian woman has gone out to you because you are part of a social order to which she aspires, that represents to her her better self. You can't drag her down and back to the blanket Indian. She would hate you. If you are brutal I must say brutal things to you. You can't force her to apologize to her children, to tell them they have no standing before the law and before society; that they face the inevitable social order with an inevitable stain. You can't flee from obligation. No man liveth to himself nor for himself. And this other woman—you have in the past assumed obligations to her. They have become irksome. You say you have a right to be free. Well, then, you must prove it. I don't believe in divorce, but that is a matter between a man and his Maker. Happiness, permanent happiness, is worth fighting for, worth waiting for. If you stay here you will steal it and pay the penalty of the thief, a penalty that will fall heaviest upon those you love best in the world. Again I say, you couldn't keep this woman if they would let you. She must go away or you must."
McCloud looked at the lad, silent but unconvinced, and then he lifted up his heart in secret prayer that God would keep this soul unspoiled.