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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 51611
   :PG.Title: The Silent Call
   :PG.Released: 2016-03-30
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Edwin Milton Royle
   :DC.Title: The Silent Call
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1910
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE SILENT CALL
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      THE SILENT CALL

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      BY

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      EDWIN MILTON ROYLE

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      AUTHOR OF "THE SQUAW-MAN," "THE STRUGGLE EVERLASTING,"
      "FRIENDS," ETC.

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      ILLUSTRATED

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      GROSSET & DUNLAP
      PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

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      Published by arrangement with Charles Scribner's Sons

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      COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
      EDWIN MILTON ROYLE

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      Published May, 1910

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      To

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      MY FATHER AND MOTHER

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      WHOSE YOUNG HEARTS HAVE PRESERVED THE IDEALS OF
      OLD-FASHIONED ROMANCE THROUGH FIFTY-THREE YEARS OF
      WEDDED LIFE, THIS STORY IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY

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      THE AUTHOR

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      April 12th, 1910

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.. _`CHAPTER I`:

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   THE SILENT CALL

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   CHAPTER I

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Not even snow is as white as these great masses of
congealed foam floating in a deep blue sky, six
thousand feet above the sea, and yet somewhere out of
this deep cool infinity flamed a sun that searched the
mesa until it blistered and cracked.  The alkali plain
quivered and burst into spirals of heat that were
visible to the eye.  A cloud of dust hung like white
smoke above the fiery trail over which a band of
Indian police was slowly and painfully crawling.
This dust is very penetrating and very irritating.
The reins hung limp on the ponies' necks and their
heads swung low as though they looked for a place to
sink down.

As far as the eye could see you would have known
that they were Indians.  The uniform furnished
them by the government is a dark purplish blue with
a red piping down the trousers.  It's a plain affair,
but each Indian wears it with a difference and adds a
decorative touch that is his own, and that is always
pictorial and Indian.  One had encircled his
broad-brimmed black hat with a wide purple ribbon, lapped
by a narrow pink ribbon.  A yellow neckerchief
rested on his green silk shirt, and about his waist was
a sash braided of many colored worsteds, and, strange
to say, the result was pleasing if rather brilliant.
Another had a pink feather apparently plucked from
the tail of the domestic duster tied loosely to his hat,
which lent to the changing airs a graceful note of
color.  Some wore cowboy boots, yellow and elaborately
stitched in fancy designs; others adhered to the
ever beautiful moccasins.  Most of them wore brown
or drab cowboy hats, but made them their own by
beautifully beaded hat-bands.  Here and there
gleamed gauntlets heavy with a stiff beaded deer
which seemed trying to jump away from the cuffs,
but couldn't because it was so obviously and eternally
stiff and beaded.  Some had beaded sleeve bands
and all sported guns hung in holsters elaborately
outlined in brass.  No one wore a coat except a tall
elderly man with glasses who, in spite of the torture,
felt that his out-of-date captain's uniform enhanced
his straight unbending dignity.

The police had no prisoner in charge, nor even
an air of expectancy, or remote or possible interest.
Horse and man were as near sleep as it was possible
to be in the quivering heat.  The pack animals were
loaded with surveyors' instruments, and there was
evidently nothing more warlike or strenuous on foot
than to creep across the table-land and reach the
Agency.  To the close observer even at a distance
there was a difference in the figures as they straggled
through the sage-brush.  The man who rode behind
was well set up and sat his horse like a cavalryman.
He wore khaki that fitted well his close-knit and
athletic figure, and he carried the suggestion of
authority.  He was the chief of Indian police.
"Calthorpe," as he called himself, hadn't explained
himself and nothing had as yet explained him.  He had
been from the first a mild mystery to his neighbors,
in a country where neighbors were few and far
between, and as he had a gift for silence, and it did not
appear to be any one's business in particular to
unravel him, a task which might, too, involve risk as
well as trouble, he had remained a mystery.  Oscar
Wilde once expressed great astonishment at finding
a miner in Leadville reading Darwin's "Origin of
Species," but in this Western country one ought to
be surprised at nothing.

On closer observation, there was a certain
resemblance between the leader and his men.  He might
have been one of them with his swarthy skin and
coarse black hair, but that a startling pair of frank
blue eyes flashed out from their dark surroundings.
They were friendly eyes set in a strong, immobile
face.  He glanced at his companions, at the burning
plateau, then at his companions again.

"And they expect the hunter and warrior to turn
farmer in a country like this," he thought.  A horned
toad startled by the intrusion darted across the trail
from the shelter of one sage-brush to another—"In a
country that raises sage-brush, horned toads, and
hell," and he laughed softly to himself.  "The
Indian only gets the land the white man wouldn't
have."  Then his eyes fell on the pack mules, and
again the blue eyes gleamed with amusement.  "And
sometimes valuable minerals are found on land the
white man refused, and then he wants even the
God-forsaken remnant he promised by solemn treaty
never to take from the red man and his children's
children."  "God-forsaken" was a stock phrase for
that country and Calthorpe reflected, "And it *is* the
last word in desolation, the last word, but *I* like it.
Yes, I like it."  And he was amused with himself.

He didn't understand it or try to, but something in
him responded to the crimson and yellow glory of
the cactus flower, the purple of the thistle, the dull
red of the "Indian's paintbrush," or, as the mountain
children call them, "bloody noses."  He knew a
secret joy when the pale greens of the sage-brush and
greasewood, and the live shimmer of the scrub oak
were relieved by the larkspur, wild roses, the white
columbine and sago lillies, and the flashing black
and white of the magpie's wing, and somehow he
knew that these things were more appealing because
set in wide spaces and in silence and desolation.

By chance or telepathy something like this was
passing through the mind of another, a man in middle
life who sat in front of a tent pitched on the bank
of a clear mountain stream that separated the Agency
from the rest of the Reservation.  He was a big
framed man, stoop shouldered, with the face of a
scholar and a saint.  His clothes hung loosely on
him, and he sat as though it would be an exertion for
him to rise.  Near by was the blasted trunk of a
hollow tree.  It had been fired by the cigarette of
some careless smoker, and it was afire within and
smouldering.  A look at the man's pensive eyes
showed that he too was afire within and smouldering.

"Fine boy, strange boy," he mused.  Then he
caught the vibration of the thought of the young chief
of police who was riding toward him on the dusty
trail.

"Some sins," he thought, "are magnificent.  Milton's
villain is superb, but"—and his eyes rested
on the rather pretty cottage of the agent nestling in a
grove of trees below—"small sins are really
inexcusable."  Rather an unusual reflection for a
clergyman, who ought surely to be irreconcilable to sin in
any form.  But then he *was* unusual, the Rev. Dr. John
McCloud.  "We send these wild children to
our great cities, and show them how hopeless it would
be to resist our countless millions, but we never show
them righteousness.  We only make the Indian
hopeless.  And who of the countless millions knows or
cares what happens to this bewildered anachronism,
this forlorn child of a day that is gone?  With really
generous and noble purposes we hand him over to
the spoiler, and so a great people becomes *particeps
criminis* in petty larcenies and other pitiful and
ignoble wrongs.  I wish I could awaken our people
to their privileges, their divine opportunities—not so
much for the sake of the Indian, but for our own
sakes."  And he coughed and sank deeper into his
camp chair.  "Why should a great, mighty,
enlightened people stoop to crush such obviously
harmless and helpless ones?  Is it because they have no
votes, no lobby in Washington, are unorganized,
obscure, and ignorant?"  And his eyes drooped to the
book open on his lap and rested on these figures:
"7,000,000 families on a medium wage of $436 a
year, and 5,000,000 farmers with an average income
of $350 a year.  Which means that 60,000,000
people must think before buying a penny newspaper,
that they must save and plan for months to get a
yearly holiday, that sickness means debt or charity,
that things that make for comfort or beauty in a
home are out of the question."

"Yes, yes," he reflected, "that is it.  Why should
we trouble to save the Indian?  We are not even
troubled to save our own.  At least the Red Man
has the fresh air, the light, the sun," and his mind
wandered back to the crowded cities, with their gaunt
men, slatternly women, and pallid children.

Between this middle-aged man sitting under the
flap of his tent and the young man riding across the
desert there had been from the first, quick,
instantaneous sympathy and understanding.  And now the
thought of each jumped from the general to the
particular.

"She's a fine woman," clicked the instrument in
the elder man's head.  "It's very tragic, her situation.
I wonder if the boy realizes its full significance?
I wonder if he knows his own peril?"

"She's a fine woman," was the response in the
younger man's consciousness.  "I must speak to the
agent about her.  I've given her such protection as I
could, but he *is* the man; it is *his* duty.  Duty isn't
Ladd's strong point, but perhaps I can ram it gently
down his throat.  If he doesn't do it, it will lead to
trouble," and he looked grim and his teeth set.

He reined in his horse for a moment to take in the
beauties of the view.  His men had already descended
from the mesa into the huge basin that opened out
suddenly at their feet, disclosing a dreary waste that
was beautiful and absolute, for not a dwarfed tree or
a sage-brush or a twig lived there.  The wind and
rain had cut and carved the hills and mounds into
strange and sometimes grotesque shapes, and merged
and blended the colored sands, so that they
presented versions of the spectrum, sand rainbows,
giving brilliancy and color to this dead desolation.

The Bad Lands were buttressed by a ring of
sandstone battlements, twisted, tortured, pock-marked,
broken away here and there in huge masses, weird
and fantastic.  Time had painted them the Indian
colors—a dull red at the top blending into a faded
yellow, then half-way to the valley the dirty drab of
earth, looking as if it had been polished with
sandpaper, escarped to the plain.  He had crossed this
trail many times, but never failed to pause on this
brink to wonder and admire.  It was lucky for the
chief of police that just at that moment he raised his
hat to wipe his dripping brow, for the report of a
rifle rang out, and reverberated again and again
among the hills, pockets, and gullies of the Bad
Lands.  Instantly every policeman sat erect,
unslung his rifle from the pommel of his saddle, but
with unanimity that told of unusual discipline, they
turned and waited for their commander's orders.
The latter made a gesture which in the sign language
meant "Wait."  The men deployed and waited,
their eyes sweeping the broken ground before them.
Calthorpe looked at his hat, and laughed as he
replaced it on his head.

"By Jove," he muttered; "he picked his place.
What a mark I was on this sky-line!  Don't know
how he could have missed me!"

When he had rejoined his men in the valley below,
he called to his interpreter:

"Chavanaugh, I think these boys savey my English
pretty well by now, but you make sure; explain
it again to them when I am not by.  You savey
Wah-na-gi?"

Chavanaugh signified that he did.

"Well, I want some of my men always near her,
pretty close by.  Good woman, Wah-na-gi.  Pretty
bad men all time round loose.  No father, no mother,
Wah-na-gi!  No harm come to Wah-na-gi, savey?
Bad come to Wah-na-gi?  Well, you kill 'em, kill
'em; anybody; me too!  I do wrong, *me* too.  You
savey me?"

Chavanaugh paused for a long while, then wiped
his brow with painful deliberation, and they rode on.





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.. _`CHAPTER II`:

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   CHAPTER II

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With a whoop and on the run, they dashed into
the water, throwing the spray high into the air, and
the weary animals buried their noses in the stream
and drank so greedily that the water ran out of their
nostrils, the men leaning over and drinking out of
their hands, and throwing it over their heads and
faces.

"Hello, Calthorpe," joyously called McCloud from
the bank above.  "You're late."

Calthorpe made no reply, but having allowed his
horse another gulp, with quirt and spur drove him
through the stream to the further bank.

"Hold my horse, will you?" throwing him the
reins.  "And don't let him get back into the stream."

"What in the world are you doing?"

But to this the young man did not trouble to reply,
but tore his clothes off as if they burnt him.

"See here, you can't bathe here at this ford; some
of the women might come this way."

"Well, you stand there and shoo them away."

The other smiled good-humoredly as Calthorpe
lurched down the bank above the ford and slid into
the water with complete abandon.

"Oh, Lord," he sighed, "how heavenly."

Standing Bear "river," except in the spring, was a
"crik."  The young man lay where he fell, on a
beautiful clean pebbly bed, with just enough water
to cover him, eyes closed, blissfully inert.

"Bless the chap who invented water," he
murmured feebly.  "Parson, my throat's lined with
alkali dust; say a few words for me to fit the
occasion, won't you?"

A beautiful smile lit up the pallid face of the
preacher as he said simply: "Bless the Lord, oh my
soul, and forget not all His benefits, who preserveth
thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with
loving kindness and tender mercy."

"That's it.  That's me.  Thanks!—I could drink
it dry, *this*; but I mustn't."  Then he managed
energy enough to spurt a mouthful into the air.  "If
I put this into my boiler I'd explode.  I'm taking it
in through the skin.  See the steam?  Now if I had
a 'horse's neck' with cracked ice—oh, a yard long,
and a soup plate full of Maillard's ice cream and the
Savoy Hotel orchestra to play to me, and I could
eat and drink and sleep at the same time—but it's
pretty good as it is."

"We've been expecting you for the last two or
three days."  McCloud had descended to the brink
of the stream and was sitting under a willow with a
towel in his hand.  "Mr. Ladd's been getting
nervous about you."

At the mention of the agent's name the lids of the
young man's eyes dropped half over his eyes in a
peculiar way.

"Yes?  What's up?"

"A powwow over the asphalt lands! all the interests
are to be represented.  You're just in time.
The agent has been very anxious to see you before it
took place."

The young man sat up with a sudden accession of
life.  "Yes, I ought to see the agent before that.  All
right, I'm alive again, and as good as new," and he
shook himself and clambered out on the bank, catching
the towel McCloud tossed to him.

"Thanks.  This *is* luxury.  One dries by
evaporation in this climate."

"Mr. Ladd seems to think your report of the highest
importance in the settlement of this dispute."

"Well, what I don't know now about the asphalt
lands isn't worth knowing.  If information is what is
wanted, I'm dripping with it.  There!" as he threw
the towel aside, "I'm not clothed, but I'm in my
right mind, and I am a human being once more."  Offering
his brawny hand to the older man—"How
is the good doctor, eh?"

"Oh, not complaining, my boy; not complaining."

The other was quick to detect the subtle shade of
over-emphasis, and immediately met it with a
jocularity and buoyancy that did not altogether conceal
its anxiety.

"By Jove!  Why, you're getting fat.  I'll wager
you're gaining every day!"  And then realizing
that his tone had not carried complete conviction
with it, he hurriedly began to throw his dusty
clothes on.

"No, my dear fellow," said the clergyman with a
plaintive smile and sinking into the camp chair before
his tent.  "No, I'm losing, gradually, but steadily
losing every day."

"Nonsense," laughed the other with a determination
not to be impressed.  "Nonsense.  Look at *me*.
Almost forgotten I ever had a cough.  When you've
been here as long as I have——"

"You came in time.  I'm afraid I came a little
late—just a little late."  And the smouldering eyes
dreamed off to the snow-capped mountains in the
distance.

"Better grub, that's all you need, John."

Calthorpe was not a demonstrative man and
McCloud realized the affection that the use of his
first name implied.

"You're coming to live with *me*.  I'll make a new
man of you."

"You?" interjected the other with some surprise.
"You and Big Bill haven't enough room for
yourselves, much less for——"

"No, not at this exact moment, but, as you public
speakers would say, we are on the verge of momentous
changes, fellow citizens.  Say nothing, look wise,
and wait for the dinner-bell.  And when my ship
comes in, why you sit at the captain's table—savey?
Ladd doesn't cater to you."

A shade of annoyance crossed the brow of the
elder man.

"The agent has been exceedingly kind to me since
I've been here."

"I know," protested Calthorpe.  "You brought
letters of introduction from the Secretary of War,
and——"

"Who was one of my former parishioners, that's all."

"That's all," mocked the impertinent youngster,
"and other people of influence, social and political,
and you have been ostensibly the agent's honored
guest, but Ladd likes you, John; yes, he likes you,
just about as much as a burglar likes dodging a
search-light.  The fact of the matter is that you're
an infernal nuisance around here, and when I get
ready I'll have no difficulty in kidnapping you and
having you all to myself."  And the blue eyes laughed
impudently into the obvious disapproval of the grave
eyes opposite.

"You ought not to make me listen to reflections on
my host.  By the way, he has asked me to preside
at the conference this afternoon."

"Really?" said the other seriously.  "What have
*you* to do with it?"

"That is just it.  Presumably a disinterested party
may help along."

"I'm rather sorry."

"Why?"

"Well, they're a rough lot, quick, passionate, not
too scrupulous——"

"Why, this is a peace affair, isn't it?"

"Yes," dryly; "so make every son-of-a-gun disarm
before he becomes a part of it."

With this the young man, now dressed, flung into
his saddle with an alert grace that spoke favorably
of the regeneration of his bath.

Perhaps the most significant thing about this
interview was that neither had spoken of what was
uppermost in the mind of each—Wah-na-gi!

"Hello!" exclaimed the chief of police as he settled
in his saddle; "here come McShay and his pals.
Howdy, boys," he shouted down to the three men
who had halted their horses in mid-stream. "By
the way, McShay, I've just had a chat with our
chairman.  Perhaps you'd like a word with him
before we confer this afternoon."

"Sure," called back a thick-set man with a meaty
face; "sure, only ain't got nuthin' to say nobody
couldn't hear."

"Well, so long, see you later," and Calthorpe
whirled his pinto and shot off to the agency.  Pinto
is the local word for piebald.  There is taste in
horse-flesh just as much as in neckties or hose, and
evidently the owner's taste was a little loud.  At all
events, he shared the Indian prejudice in favor of
the calico horse.  The Indians regard the pinto as
"good medicine," good luck.

"Glad to see you, Mr. McShay," said the preacher
heartily as the burly figure of McShay disengaged
itself from his saddle in a lumbering way.  In the
saddle McShay was at home, but for purposes of
embarking or disembarking, his weight was badly
distributed.

"You know Orson Lee and 'Silent' Smith, don't
you?" said the Irishman.

"If we had a church over our way these two
scoundrels would be deacons or whatever you call
the fellers that's on the inside of the inside ring, you
can bet on that.  They're two of our most influential
citizens.  Couldn't pass your wickiup without sayin'
hello."

The preacher greeted the two awkward cattlemen
and made them feel at ease at once.

"I hope you won't ever pass by my tent.  I should
feel hurt if you did.  I'm rather lonesome at times
and it's a great pleasure to see friends.  Sit down,
won't you?"

He got another camp stool for McShay, and Lee
and Smith sat on a decaying log near by.  McShay
had already noted that the gaunt figure was a bit
gaunter, so he said with pleased surprise,

"Why, you're lookin' well, Parson—you're lookin' fine."

Like most active men forced by ill-health to think
too often of themselves, McCloud disliked any allusion
to his condition or appearance, but he replied
gently and without irritation,

"Thank you, Mr. McShay, I've nothing to complain of."

"That's good," said the other heartily.  "Have
a torch?  You needn't hesitate.  I smoke 'em
myself," he added with a laugh, as he offered the
preacher a cigar.  "Wouldn't throw 'em away on
them longhorns," with a jerk of his head toward
Smith and Lee.  "They just 's leave smoke alfalfa."

"No, Mr. McShay, thank you.  I used to smoke a
little, very mild cigars, but had to give up even that
dissipation."

"Honest?" said the other, with an awkward smile,
almost incredulous.  McShay was built after the
bulldog style of architecture, and with a physical
equipment and adjustment that left such things as ill-health
in the category of objective phenomena, but he had
a sort of respect for it, as for a form of culture he
didn't and couldn't possess.  He had always been a
smoker since he could remember.  The only
objection he had to sleep was that no one had yet
discovered a method of smoking during sleep.  He had
sometimes felt that even this difficulty might be
overcome if he had time to "go after it."  McShay was a
man who was in the habit of getting things he "went
after."  The fact that he couldn't at all measure
the dimensions of the preacher's sacrifice gave him a
painful impression, and he shot a covert but searching
look at the other, and then he said with uneasy
gentleness:

"We sure got a superior brand of climate out here,
parson, but you mustn't git discouraged if the
improvement don't come by special delivery.  Takes a
little coaxin' sometimes, you know."

"Oh, I'm sure I am as well here as I should be
anywhere, Mr. McShay."

"Sure," and the cattleman was strangely conscious
of a peculiar feeling in his throat, and he coughed,
spat, sat down, and became unduly busy with his
cigar.

"You know," he said, changing the subject, "it's
some spunky of you to preside at these festivities
to-day, Parson.  Ladd says you're goin' to take the
chair."

"Why, you don't imagine there will be any trouble,
do you?" said McCloud lightly.

"No, don't know as there will.  You bein' in the
saddle will have a steadyin' and refinin' inflooence,
because you're respected round here, parson, and
that's sayin' a good deal for a preacher.  Most of
the salvation experts we've been used to has inspired
practical jokes."

"I'm glad the presumption is in my favor," said
the preacher, greatly amused, "but I didn't suppose
any of my neighbors even knew that I was here."

"Oh, it gits around, Doc; amazin' how it gits
around.  Don't know as we're much smarter'n
ordinary folks—maybe we are, but any way we're on.
We got you tagged.  We're not only onto your
present game, but we know your record.  We got it
pretty straight that you had to let go your holt in
Minneapolis just when the cards was a comin' fine,
just when you was the acknowledged pulpit champion
of the Middle West, with standin' room only at
every performance.  Say, it must have been tough,
just when you had the Old Boy licked, just needin'
an easy little punch to put him out; say, it must have
been tough to have to throw up the sponge and
crawl under the ropes."

The preacher smiled.  "It *was* a bit tough, Mr. McShay."

Then, realizing that he might have called up
painful memories, McShay hastened to add:

"But you're all right, Parson; you're grit clean
through.  Don't suppose you could throw a lariat or
pull a gun—parsons ain't supposed to be up in the
useful things, are they?—but we like you.  We like
you, and the feller as don't has got to explain it to
us or put us out of business.  Personally, we ain't
no better'n we ought to be, don't profess no religion.
We're on the make; we're in the little game of grab
along with all the rest of 'em, but we know the
spiritual goods when we see 'em, and you can touch us
for anything we've got—in the pocket, on the cards,
or in the fryin' pan, and at any spot in the road.
Now, I can't make it stronger than that, can I?  I
guess I've about expressed the prevailing sentiment,"
and he turned to his two companions for the approval
of which he felt serenely certain, as befits an admitted
leader.

Neither Lee nor Smith had spoken up to this time,
and even now neither felt called upon to pass upon
the subject of the great man's remarks.  That was
obviously superfluous.

"Say, Silent," said Lee to that sphinx, with open
admiration, "ain't he a wonder?  Ain't Mike got a
cinch on the language?  Why, when he wants a
word all he's got to do is to whistle to it, and it'll
come up and eat out of his hand.  He's got the
English language broke to single or double harness—in
fact, he kin make it do tricks like a circus hoss.  Say,
Parson, Mike's a orator."

"Oh, git out," protested McShay, obviously
pleased.  "You're locoed."

"He sure is all right," insisted Lee.

"I'm sure of that," said the clergyman heartily,
glad that the centre of interest had been shifted to
the other.

"Oh, shucks," laughed McShay, with good-humored
toleration.  "When it comes to savin' the
nation or plantin' a prominent citizen, I kin sprinkle
a little language over the occasion, but I ain't a
braggin' about it, Orson, before a feller as is a artist.
I have the savin' grace to know where I come in, and
it's at the back door, son.  I daresay, Parson, you've
heard that I keep a saloon over at 'Calamity'?"

"Yes, I've heard so," said the other simply, without
a trace of pharisaism even in the tone of his
voice.

"Well, any time you want to keep your hand in at
the preachin' game, come right along, and I'll
personally guarantee the character of the proceedings.
They tell me that as a preacher you're a stampede."

The big eyes in the pallid face glowed for a
moment, then they suffused with melancholy.  There
was a sensible pause before he said:

"Thank you, Mr. McShay; thank you.  Perhaps
I'll take advantage of your offer some Sunday, but at
present I've had to give up preaching: it seems to
exhaust my vitality."  He paused for a second and
then added with a shy little smile, as if he were
confessing to a fault: "I like to preach, too, and, as you
say, it's been 'tough' to be compelled to give it up,
but, after all," suddenly alarmed at the thought that
he was bidding for sympathy, "living is more
important than preaching, isn't it?"

McShay filled in the pause, that threatened to be
too obvious, by jerking out his Waterbury.

"Hello, gitting on to the time!  Guess we'll be
moseying along.  Well, Parson, I've expressed myself
pretty free, ain't I?  And in something of a
complimentary vein, not with a view to inflooincin' your
attitude in this approachin' conference.  Mind you,
I ain't above doin' it if I could.  I don't do it 'cause
I know it wouldn't go, that's all," and he laughed
generously as he hoisted himself into the saddle.
McShay was a man with few illusions.  He fancied
he was pretty familiar with the ordinary phases of
human nature, and his code of morality was a
working code; it would bear comparison, he felt sure,
with that of the average citizen, and it wasn't so
high as to be inconvenient.  He had never felt called
upon to experiment with a code obviously theoretical.
He wouldn't hesitate at cards or in a trade to cheat
one who was engaged in trying to cheat him.  In
fact he looked upon it as a joyous and holy duty to
skin the skinner.  He was not inexperienced in the
ways of the world.  He knew more of Doctor
McCloud than that worthy man dreamed of, for
when a very young man he had been a policeman in
St. Paul and during the uncomfortable times
following a reform upheaval had felt obliged to leave that
saintly city.  Indeed, he had brought about the
upheaval by his own obstinacy, for there are degrees of
graft, and the young Irish-American wouldn't
violate his own wholly illogical standards of what was
fair or decent any more than he would accept the
standards of the too-good.  He had come into his
own in the cattle country, opened a saloon, became
a political leader, a boss, and a cattle king.  He had
prospered.  He was loved by his friends and feared
by his enemies, and he was fond of both.  And
when the cowboys on one of their summer round-ups
found something that looked like coal or jet, and
which, unlike coal or jet would light like a candle,
they took it at once to McShay, who promptly,
without knowing whether it had value or not, located
claims for everybody and everybody's relatives and
claimed everything in sight.  "To those that have
shall be given," he explained irreverently, and indeed
that version of the text was his point of view.  And
when further investigation showed that the discovery
was an important one and that a considerable part
of the mine or the vein or series of pockets was on
the Red Butte Ranch, he promptly sent Andy Openheim
and Charley Short, very quietly, to London to
buy the ranch or that portion of it containing
minerals from the Earl of Kerhill.  It was pretty well
known that the ranch had not been a profitable
venture to the Earl, in the days when he had been a
cowboy, and it was thought that his old herders,
"Andy" and "Shorty," could buy it for a song.
They had returned with a deed, but by this time
these two amiable citizens had caught the prevailing
spirit of enterprise and announced that they had
indeed secured the prize, but that they had bought
the ranch for *themselves*, a sample of commercial
wakefulness which was denounced as several kinds
of treachery, and came near to leading to the death
of some eminent citizens.  However, as by that time
the secret was out and the lust of gain had spread
from the range to the settlements and from there to
the cities and the State, and indeed to the busy halls
of Congress, and every one pretty much was evolving
a plan to get in on the good thing, it was thought
best to buy out the holders of the deed, even at the
advance in price which they impudently demanded.
McShay paid the price for himself and his cowboy
associates, but at the conclusion of the purchase he
strongly advised Shorty and Andy to leave the
country, which they lost no time in doing.  The fate of
these two worthies will always be a stock warning
to the rising generation in Calamity.  Before they
reached the Canadian border they had quarrelled,
and when the smoke had cleared away Shorty was
alive and had the money.  There was profound
regret at first that either should have survived, but
this sorrow was mitigated later by the report that
Shorty had lost every cent at a single sitting in a
three-card monte game up in the North-west.  Then
only was the moral tone of Coyote County felt to be
in the way of rehabilitation, and confidence was
restored in the dispensations of Providence.  It was
even darkly hinted that McShay had sent out some
skilful short-card men on their trail, and to that
extent had assisted Providence to make plain that
"transgressors shall be taken in their own naughtiness."

Whether this was true or not, McShay never contradicted
it, and it added not a little to his prestige
with his constituents.  As McShay turned to speak
to the preacher, his more active companions, Orson
Lee and "Silent" Smith, had already mounted and
turned their mustangs toward the agency.  As he
glanced toward their retreating figures, McShay
said with a twinkle in his eye:

"Say, Parson, you'll like 'Silent.'  He ain't much
on gab, but say, he kin shoot like hell, and if the
argyment is agoin' against you, 'Silent' is good
company; he sure is good company."





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.. _`CHAPTER III`:

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   CHAPTER III

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After a ride through the Bad Lands, Standing
Bear Agency was a gracious sight.  One could see
from afar the white flag-pole which marked the centre
of its activities.  Close by nestled the agent's cosey
little cottage which peeped out from the shade of
maple and cottonwood trees, backed by its well-kept
barns and corrals.  Opposite it sprawled the
Indian-trader's store, a log-cabin affair, the relic of other
days, by comparison a really beautiful bit of
architecture in the surrounding ugliness.  These two
aristocratic buildings stood a bit apart, and had a small
sense of aloofness.  Between ran what had once
been a trail, then a road, and now was trying to be
a street; a street that had moved boldly out toward
the prairie, taken one frightened look, and then
shrunk back cowed, and had refused to be teased
or coaxed further.  It quit almost before it began
and was hideous with sheet-iron and clapboard
monstrosities, which here and there bulged into a
pretentious bow-window, as irritating as the
challenge of a flagrant hat on a particularly ugly woman.
These buildings huddled together as if they felt the
enveloping loneliness.  Back of them was a tin-can
desolation.  Further along was the blacksmith shop,
and near the "bench" which rose on the other side
of the "crik" was the saw-mill, and off to one side
the slaughter-house and its corrals.  The valley was
sprinkled with the huts, tepees, rude houses of the
Indian farmers and the agency employees, which
followed the course of the Standing Bear and the crude
irrigating ditches.  Beyond all, across the mesa, rose
majestic peaks covered with perpetual snows.  But
for these noble heights, Nature hereabouts might
have been accused of an undignified proceeding, but
the Moquitch Mountains spoke eternally and serenely
of God.

In front of the trader's store was a platform littered
with merchandise, buckets, rope, tubs, etc., things
that slopped over from the crowded shelves within.
Even on bargain-counter days, if such evidences of a
high civilization ever reached this emporium,
business was desultory, but the trader made up in
percentage of profit what he lacked in volume of trade.
It was late in the afternoon, business apparently at a
standstill, "nuthin' doin."  Cadger, the proprietor,
was leaning casually out of the window, and, though
neither looked at the other, was talking to the agent
who stood on the platform just outside.  The merchant
must have had another name, but no one had ever
heard him called anything but Cadger.  His father
and mother—it was difficult to believe that he had
ever had a father and mother, and inconceivable that
he had ever been a child, much less a baby—if, I say,
he ever had parents, they probably called him
something endearing or at least human, but in a country
where almost no one escaped a nickname, he
remained just Cadger.  In appearance he suggested
negation, the excluded middle.  He seemed to have
been plucked too soon and faded early.  He had a
half-hearted nose, a discouraged chin, and his faded
little eyes blinked weakly.  There is such a thing
as carrying insignificance to excess.  In personality
he was so unobtrusive as to appear not to be around,
unless one stepped on him.  It is said, however, that
any one so careless remembered it, if he lived to
remember anything; for, strange to say, Cadger was
supposed to be a man-killer.  He wasn't at all the
usual bad man type, looking for an audience and a
chance to show off.  He was a plain business man,
and all he had ever asked, like other business men,
was just "to be let alone."  There was a vague
rumor that he had once been in business in the
Black Hills, where he had gone into competition
with the express companies in the carrying of gold,
and after a more or less successful career had found
it safer to retire to the slower and less exciting
pursuits of a post-trader's store.  At all events, he was a
quiet, modest man that no one cared to investigate
or annoy, and no one had successfully questioned
his commercial methods.  He took no pains to
remedy his natural deficiencies, for he had found it
useful to look like a fool.

"I think we can do business with Calthorpe," said
the agent, looking off into space.

"Can't make him out," said Cadger in a tone as
vacant as his face.  Then after quite a pause which
he filled with smoke from a filthy pipe.  "Suppose
you know all about him, but you ain't never give it
away to me."

The agent swung a contemptuous look in the direction
of the other.

"He's out here, isn't he?  Along with the rest of
us.  No one knows the exact particulars about you
before you came here."

The other overlooked the obvious inference and
did not trouble to reply in kind, but murmured gently,
"Takin' chances."

"Big Bill applied for the job for him," continued
the agent.  "All Bill knows about him, or all he'll
tell, is that he brought a letter of introduction to him
from his old boss, the earl of something or other,
who used to own the Red Butte Ranch.  Of course
he isn't out here because he wants to be here any
more than we are.  A couple of years ago I read a
story in one of the Sunday papers about an English
lord who was ambassador to Spain and got mixed
up with a Spanish dancer and raised a family by
her.  The son, when he got around to it, tried to
prove he was legitimate.  Maybe Calthorpe's story
isn't any worse than that.  Maybe it is.  He looks
like he was half Spanish.  Of course he's had English
bringing up, has the remnants of an accent with
him, though he's trying to drop it.  What do you
suppose would induce a man who was an educated
gentleman to come out to this damned waste and
accept the wages of a chief of Indian police?  Well,
to my humble mind, nothing but crime, my Christian
friend."

"Kin you hold him?"

"Well, we can't frighten him.  We got to make it
worth his while, that's all."

"Will he *stay* bought?" persisted the business man.

"We got to trust somebody," said Ladd impatiently.
"He knows more about the country in general
and the asphalt lands in particular than any man
living, and when I found out he was a surveyor——"

"How did you get onto that?"

"Heard him talking the lingo with Bill, then
asked him point-blank.  It was a find for us, for his
position as chief of police made it possible for him
to survey these lands without arousing any suspicion.
Don't think the other people know we have been at
it.  I wouldn't have consented to this powwow this
afternoon if I hadn't thought we could have fixed
things up beforehand.  What in hell do you suppose
is keeping him?"  But Cadger's mind was still
back on the first tack.

"You're in too much of a sweat.  You want to
go awful slow when it comes to puttin' yourself"
(deprecating pause) "and me into his hands."

The force of this observation seemed to impress
David Ladd, for he said quietly:

"Well, you know the talk we had last night.  The
confab will be out here.  I'll see to that.  Cleaning
a gun at that window just where you are now—why,
an accident might happen.  People are so careless
with fire-arms, especially a plum fool like you.  Why,
it's easy.  If you see me take off my hat and hold
it in my hand, get ready: if you see me put my hat
back again on my head, why get him, that's all.
You're the best shot in the country, unless it's
'Silent' Smith."  This as one business man to another.

"Hello, here's Big Bill.  Maybe he knows."  And
Ladd stepped down from the store to meet the
cattle-boss.

"Has Calthorpe come in with his men?"

"Hardly think so.  I'm on my way to our shack
now to see."

"When he arrives, tell him I want to see him at
once, will you—*at once*!" and the agent entered his
house across the way.

Big Bill was bigger and a good deal slower than
in the old days on the Red Butte Ranch, and his
coarse hair was very gray, but it still crowned the
same kindly, simple face.  Bill was feeling his way
to the retired list, though he didn't realize it himself,
and he had kept his job because no one cared to
explain to him that he was getting old.  It was
hoped that some day he'd tumble to it himself and
resign.  No one liked to contemplate what would
happen then, so no one did.  The agent was not a
sentimental man, but he knew the working value of
sentiment, and so Bill stayed on.

He and Calthorpe shared their house, a little
wooden box pitched in the shelter of a clump of
quaking ash ("quaking asp" in the vernacular) some
little distance below the Agency and on the bank of
an irrigating ditch.  As Bill came in sight of it he
saw Calthorpe calmly sitting in the door-way.
Instead of riding into the Agency the young man had
deliberately avoided it.

"Hello, Bill," he shouted cheerily.

"Hello, son.  Say, Ladd's terrible anxious to see you."

To this the other replied irrelevantly:

"Seen Wah-na-gi?"

"No."

"Seen Appah?"

"No," and the smile of welcome faded from Bill's
face, and he sat down on a convenient soap box,
picked up a stick on the point of his pocket-knife,
and began to whittle.  The young man saw he was
displeased and waited.

"Say, son, you're kind of runnin' wild on the
range, ain't ye?  And ye ain't a-gittin' anywhere,
or a-servin' any useful purpose 's far as I kin
see.  Ain't ye kind o' fergittin' what ye come out
here fer?  What you lingerin' round here fer any way?"

"Oh, for several reasons, Bill, several reasons,"
said Calthorpe pleasantly.

"You found out all you want to know about the
asphalt lands long ago.  When you goin' to chuck
this job and go over and take what belongs to
you?"

There was a pause while Calthorpe looked
dreamily off into space.

"Well," he drawled slowly, "before leaving I'd
like to turn a trick or two—make the agent show his
hand."

The slang and the metaphor of the people about
him came very easily to this alleged stranger.

"Ladd?" said Bill doubtfully, with a tone and
inflection that expressed volumes for the danger and
uselessness of such a proceeding.

"Wouldn't you like to see him put his cards on the
table?" asked the boy.  Bill's eyes twinkled and it
was manifest that the suggestion was alluring.

"Sounds good.  To rope David might be a pleasin'
diversion as a form of entertainment; he's a skunk
all right, but that ain't a-keepin' you here, Hal, my
boy."

"No?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"You ain't asked me what it is, but I'm goin' to
tell you.  It's Wah-na-gi."

"Bill!"  And the light died out of the blue eyes
which glittered ominously, and Bill was sensitive to
the warning in the cold even tone of the boy's
pleasant voice.

"That's all right," he hastened to say as he put
up his guard.  "You needn't git the blind staggers.
Somebody's got to round you up.  I was your dad's
foreman before you was born.  Your dad sure was
a gentleman.  He sure was, and as to his bein' an
Englishman, why, he lived that down."

"You and father were pals, I know that, Bill,"
said the youngster, softening.

"You and me was pards too, son.  I made you
your first quirt; taught you how to ride.  I helped to
bury your little Injin mother.  I ain't your kin
exactly——"

"You're closer than kin, Bill.  I didn't mean to
be ugly.  Don't mind me.  Say what you like."

"Well," said the big fellow with an awkward air
of apology, "your dad made me promise to ride herd
on you.  You know that, don't you?"

"That's right."

"Sure."  He blurted, as he felt on firmer ground.
"He wrote me you had been a-hittin' it up in London."

"That's right, Bill; I was riding for a fall—going
to hell fast."  And he watched the smoke of his
cigarette and saw in it those evil days.  "I didn't
belong and I couldn't fit in.  It was all wrong.  *I*
was all wrong.  I knew it, felt it, but couldn't
somehow change it.  It was the West in me, I fancy—in
my blood."  Then he turned to the big fellow
and said with a smile that won the people who could
inspire it: "But I've been a pretty good boy since
I've been out here, haven't I, Bill?"

The other looked at him with an affection that
was unmistakable.

"Well, say, since you been out here you've made
everything that wears a hat take it off to you."

"Then why in blazes are you giving me the spur?"

"Wah-na-gi—that's the answer.  Now wait.  I
got to git this out of my system.  Hal, son, don't
you go to makin' no such mistake as your dad made."

"And don't you forget, Bill," said Hal stiffly, "that
I had a mother as well as a father—a mother I have
no reason to regard as a mistake."

It was Bill's turn to look off into the mountains,
to go back into the past.

"Say," he said softly, "she was all right.  Nat-u-ritch
was sure all right.  She didn't know anything
but bein' a wife and bein' a mother, and that's pretty
good, I guess.  I suppose you know why she killed
herself?  Couldn't understand why her kid should
be sent away to England.  She was a thoroughbred
in a way, but, son, it was an Injin way."

"I fancy that was what was the matter with me
in London, Bill.  My way was an Indian way."

"Well," said the cattle-boss, seeing that he was
being diverted from his text, "Don't walk into
trouble with your eyes wide open."

"Don't you worry about me, old chap; I'm not in
love with Wah-na-gi, but——"

"You jess feel sorry fer her."  Bill said this with
the amiable sneer of a man who has nothing to learn
about women and the world.

"Yes," said Hal simply; "don't you?"

The directness of this appeal caught the guileless
Bill unprepared.

"Sure," he admitted.  "Sure, I do.  She's been
to school.  Couldn't anything worse happen to her.
Edjjication?  Why, it's worse'n whiskey fer the Injin."

"And don't you see," said the boy, following up
his advantage, "she's alone and she needs friends,
and while I'm here, while I'm chief of police, I
can keep an eye on her, protect her in a way, but
when I leave" (pause) "what will become of Wah-na-gi?"

While Bill was groping in his slow way for an easy
and pleasant and convincing way of saying that one
couldn't plunge headlong into the tangled affairs of
all the misfit people in this crazy world, the figure of
a woman appeared in the foot-path that crossed the
low ridge on the opposite side of the narrow valley.
Before Bill had arranged his arguments Hal, without
a change of countenance, suddenly developed
initiative.

"Well," he said, rising, "I thought I'd learn all
the news from you, but, as usual, I'll have to find out
all about it and tell it to you.  And now I'm going
over to see the amiable Ladd.  Oh, by the by," he
added casually, "how is 'Calico'—fit?"

"Never better."

"He hasn't been ridden to-day?"

"No.  Why?"

"Have him fed and watered; saddled and bridled,
then hitch him just behind the trader's store.  Do
the same for the best horse you've got."

"Why?  What's up?  Ain't you had enough of
the trail for the present?"

"Don't know, Bill.  Don't know what may
happen.  Tell you later—after it's happened."

And he swung off on foot toward the Agency.
Bill did not change his position for several moments;
then he rose and looked affectionately after the boy,
and, as he turned, the figure of a woman paused for
a moment on the ridge and then disappeared in the
direction of Cadger's store.

"Of course," he muttered, "*of* course," with all
the sarcasm of which he was capable.  "Ain't a
man a damn fool!"





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.. _`CHAPTER IV`:

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   CHAPTER IV

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The French explorers and trappers called them
medicine-men (*médecins*), but it isn't a comprehensive
term.  The medicine-man is something more
than an Indian doctor.  He is prophet, preacher,
teacher, poet, and priest as well as healer.  Before
the coming of the missionaries the Indian had become
aware of the world within and the world without,
and, like every sentient creature, had begun to
speculate on their relations and grope his way toward the
eternal mysteries.  He arrived at a confused
intuition of a Supreme Being and he reasoned that
everything came from this source, that each bird and
beast, each river and tree, had some measure of the
divine power and that this could be imparted, and
so, when he was puzzled before the ever-renewing
miracle of life or helpless before his own life
problem, he did as holy men have done in all ages, he
went apart into the solitudes, into the mountains or
the deserts, and sought in contemplation, in purification,
in fasting and prayer to find out God.  He
prayed and God sent the bear, the wolf, the eagle,
the coyote, the thunder to give him strength or
wisdom or courage.  He became a dreamer and an
interpreter of dreams, and from his comparison of the
seen with the unseen have come some dignified and
poetic concepts.  For example, the Milky-Way
became for him "the pathway of departed spirits."  He
invented song and story, myth and miracle, and
symbolism dominated his life.  Like all who have tried
to rise out of the world of matter into the realm of
mind, his holy men claimed to find exalted powers
and metaphysical forces.  He believed as we do in
the healing virtues of plants and herbs, and when
these failed he, too, resorted to spiritual healing.  We
are always intolerant of what we do not understand.
We know now that the ghost-dance was nothing
more than a religious revival with characteristic
hysterical phenomena, and in intention was to usher in
not war but universal peace.  The victims of the
Wounded Knee massacre were religious martyrs.
The troops might as well have fired on a Methodist
camp-meeting.  Underneath the skin we are very
much alike.  We all travel the same road, only we
differ in the mile-stones we have passed in the
age-long journey.

Appah was a medicine-man.  Whether he was a
fair sample of the class I am not prepared to say.
Even medicine-men differ in character and sincerity.
Only Infinite Wisdom knows to what extent we are
self-deceived.  What happened at the sun-dance will
give you some idea of Appah's position with his
people and his relation to the principal characters of
our story.  All our Indians are more or less
sun-worshippers.  The sun is to them the most obvious
power in the physical world.  The sun-dance, to
honor the sun or propitiate the sun, is held every
year in the early days of July.  The Indians will
tell you "it's just for good time, same as white
people," but it is in reality a religious ceremonial.
Two or three miles below the Agency is a flat meadow
where the dances are held.  This is marked here and
there by the medicine poles of former dances.  These
medicine poles are left standing and a new one cut
from the mountains each year.  It has a crotch at
the top into which a bundle of sage-brush and some
eagle feathers are tied.  It is planted and raised
with ceremonial, reverent and joyous.  From it as a
centre radiate poles to a circular enclosure made of
young cottonwood and cedar trees planted with their
foliage on.  Inside, on the west of the big lodge, are
little booths, sheltered, where the dancers rest when
not dancing.  The dance begins about seven o'clock
at night, just as the sun has gone down.  Those who
are to participate appear on the plain in single file,
blowing on a whistle made of the quill of an eagle's
feather, and they keep this in their mouths all the
time they are dancing, and its sharp, staccato note
dominates the chant and the drum.  The dancers
are naked to the waist; in fact, have on nothing but
breech-clouts and a loin cloth which is elaborately
ornamented and falls to the feet before and behind.
They have the down feather of the eagle tied to one
finger on each hand, and some of the braves wear
their rich glossy hair loose like a woman's.  The
forty-six dancers circled the dance lodge three times
and then entered.  After that the general public
were admitted.  As each buck stood before the little
booth which was to be his home until the dance
was finished it made a striking and beautiful picture.

Bare to the waist, the term "redskin" was
justified, though some had obscured the natural beauty
of their skins with a white, green, or yellow smear.
On the whole they were a fine-looking body of men,
though some of them were in the prayer dance with
the hope of being cured of various ailments,
rheumatism, tuberculosis, and the like.

The old cruelties, the lacerations, etc., have been
eliminated, but it is still an endurance test.  They
dance for four or five days and nights without food
or drink, and at high noon they look into the terrible
sun.  The dance itself is a perpetual strain on the
same muscles—the feet held together, hopping
forward and hopping back.  The women have no part
in the ceremonial except to join in the chant, though
presumably their presence is not unknown to some of
the participants, in spite of their rapt gaze being always
turned to the medicine pole or to the sun.  In fact, it
is understood that some are "dancing for a wife."

The dance had been opened by Appah in very
much the same way that we open a prayer-meeting.
He advanced to the eastern side of the medicine
pole and with his hands together at the waist, and
the emphasis of small gestures or movements with
the fingers, head reverently bowed, and in a tone
inaudible three feet away had uttered a brief
invocation.  The others could not have heard him, but
at his conclusion they clapped their hands together
and uttered grunts of approval.

The drummers began to beat the tomtom furiously
and swung into their monotonous chant, and the
dance was on.  The whites and half-breeds stood or
sat about the entrance on the north.  Appah, having
started the dance, remained in front of his booth for
some time, waiting for the spirit to move him;
suddenly his face set and he moved out to the medicine
pole with the wing of an eagle in his hand.  He
dipped the tip of this in the dust at the foot of the
pole, then touched the top of his head, then ran it
down each arm, then down each leg, then he held
it up dramatically to the east.  Just then the cool
fragrant air of the night was broken by a laugh—a
glad, buoyant, girlish laugh.  It would be difficult
to describe the shock of this incongruity.  Almost
without turning to see, every one knew that it came
from Wah-na-gi.  She was dressed in a neat pink
cotton frock with the white of her bodice showing
in the neck and sleeves and a pink ribbon in her hair.
She had not been back long from school, and she
was still very young, took the sun or the shade
quickly like a mountain lake, and she could still
laugh easily.  Appah stopped, turned ashen with
anger, saw who it was, and saw who stood behind
her—Calthorpe, the chief of Indian police.  He saw
Calthorpe with a look of dull ferocity and, strange
to say, he saw Wah-na-gi for the first time in a new
light.  He had heard the talk about her since she
had returned from the school at Carlisle, but hitherto
she had escaped his notice.  Now he could have
strangled her, and at the same time he was acutely
aware that she was pretty, indeed beautiful.  He
unconsciously excused her in some half-instinctive
way and held Calthorpe responsible for the insult.
In a measure he was right; it was the latter's
remark which made the girl laugh, but that remark
was not directed at Appah.  The latter did not know
that behind him had hopped into view—Tonkawa,
a fat, vain little man with a grotesque body set on
a pair of grotesque legs.  The movement of the
dance threw Tonkawa's superfluous flesh about in
a most ridiculous way.  Calthorpe had whispered to
Wah-na-gi:

"Look at Tonkawa!  He's a prairie dog."  Indeed,
he looked so like a prairie dog, Wah-na-gi
giggled.  Calthorpe continued: "He's dancing for
a wife."

Even Calthorpe did not expect the peal of laughter
that followed, but he was the first to recover his
presence of mind, and before the general indignation
could take form he carried her from the enclosure.
Appah was so preoccupied with the unpleasant
incident that he *turned his back* on the medicine pole
and *walked* back to his booth.  Both these proceedings
were bad luck, and were noted by his followers,
and he was angrily aware of them himself when it
was too late.  It was a bad beginning.  Every one
felt it.  When at midnight the watch-fire was lighted,
the air got very still and hot, unusual in this country,
for the nights are cool, and after an interval of
suffocating calm, filled with forebodings, a terrific
wind-storm sprang out of the night and filled the
air with a hot, blinding, choking desert dust.  Then,
indeed, gloom gathered over the mystic circle and
fear and depression invaded each heart.

Appah was conscious, too, that in an unacknowledged
way he would be held responsible for these
misfortunes, so, smarting with a sense of personal
insult, raging against the crowding omens of ill, he
redoubled his energy, danced often and with a fierce
energy that soon wore itself out, and still the
tempest blew on.  It blew through the night, it blew
through the next day.  It looked as if the dance
would have to be abandoned.  Appah was showing
signs of distress.  He advanced as usual to the
medicine pole and, appearing to be about to faint,
he threw out his hands and grasped it, steadied
himself like a tired pugilist who hugs and hangs on to
his opponent, then, when he had recovered
sufficiently, he went through various signs and passes,
"making medicine."  He continued this until he
could stand, then he boldly stood out and addressed
his companions.

The Wind-Gods were angry; they were tearing up
the earth and throwing it in their faces.  Something
was wrong.  Indian women were turning into white
women; they went away from their people, went to
school and then came back and laughed at their
elders, laughed at the sacred mysteries.  Shinob (the
God-mystery) was sorry, ashamed of his Indian
children.  Everything was all wrong.  Appah was a big
medicine-man, a wise man, knowing many things.
He had done much for his people and God was
angry to have his servant mocked.  It would be bad
medicine to abandon the dance; great sorrow and
trouble would come of it.  Their friends had come
from afar to see it; a great feast was to follow, and
those who had danced were to have the joy of
giving away many gifts to these friends.  The dance
must go on, while he went apart and made medicine.
He would go into the mountains and consult the
thunder-bird and in the morning come back and
drive away the wind.  And with as much dignity as
he could command, he walked out of the corral.

The news of this promise spread rapidly, and the
following day the corral was crowded with Indians
and whites, all to see whether Appah could "make
good."  The morning wore away and still he did not
appear, but when people had begun to smile, he
walked into the dance like a man in a trance.  A
hush fell upon all.  He carried an eagle feather in
his hand, and with this made medicine.  First he
faced the north, rubbed the wrist of his left hand
with the feather, then, with a simultaneous movement
of both hands, threw off the evil spell.  This he did
to the east, south, and west.  Then all the Indians
got up and shook their blankets, and—the WIND
DIED!  It went out like a candle.  You may
explain this as you like.  Appah may have been lucky
in choosing the moment when the wind would have
died anyway, or you may say that the skeptical
whites who saw this were hypnotized just as the
Indians were.  That Appah would not hesitate to
resort to any trick to impress his followers, I do not
deny, but it is certain also that he believed in himself
and in his esoteric powers.  However you explain
it, it was conceded among the whites that it was
a sporty thing to do, to stake his professional
reputation on a throw like that, and great was the fame
of Appah in the land.  One result which may
interest us was that Appah who had already been the
unhappy possessor of two wives, showed an unmistakable
desire to take a third, and it was the woman
who laughed!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER V`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V

.. vspace:: 2

Wah-na-gi was about to mount the steps of the
trader's store when Appah, who had followed her
without her being aware of it, abruptly confronted
her and put out his hand as if he would speak to
her.  As she shrank back startled, Calthorpe, who
had likewise followed her, stepped in between the
two.  With a swift glance at the latter she slipped
past Appah and entered the store.  It all happened
in a moment, but it was one of those moments in
which all pretence, all appearances, all conventional
restraints slip from the soul and leave it naked,
knowing and being known.

"Hello, Appah, you look as if you had swallowed
a hair rope.  What is it?"

And the young chief of police smiled provokingly
into the glowering face of the medicine-man.  It was
war.  The two men knew it: the woman knew it,
and Ladd, who had just stepped from his house
opposite, knew it.

"Wait a minute, you two," he said in a firm, quiet
tone that implied acquiescence.  "Better leave this
to me."

"I understood that Appah was looking for me,"
drawled the youngster insolently, then he turned and
looked squarely into the glittering eyes of the Indian.

"Always at home to my friends, old chap, only"—and
he removed his hat and ran a finger through
the hole in it—-"don't send up your card; just come
yourself."

If Appah knew what was meant, not a quiver of
an eyelash betrayed it.  There was an obvious
pause, then Calthorpe added in a patronizing tone
not lost on his enemy:

"A rotten bad shot by the way; it doesn't do you
credit."  Nothing hurts the Indian like ridicule.
Most of us are vulnerable.  Poor Achilles!  What a
pitiful weakness for a warrior—in the heel!  Perhaps
the story is intended to convey the impression
that some one laughed at Achilles' feet and he died.
The deaths we die from ridicule!  Lingering and
conscious!  We arm ourselves with contempt for
others, but alas for the Achilles spot.  Centuries of
cultivated philosophy do not protect us.  Only love,
that love which looks past time into eternity, arms
us against the sting of ridicule.

Poor Appah!  The woman had laughed at him,
and now the man!  He did not attempt to reply in
kind.

"Maybe so Injin," he said with a movement of
the hand toward the store where Wah-na-gi had
disappeared.

After a dignified pause during which he looked
from one to the other to make sure they knew what
he meant, he continued:

"White woman,—white man!  Injin woman,—Injin
man!  You savey—wayno (good).  No savey,—heap
trouble, plenty trouble!"  Seeing that he was
understood, he moved away with great dignity.

"That seems to cover the ground, doesn't it?"
said the agent pleasantly.  "White women are for
white men; Indian women are for Indian men,
and the man who thinks differently will get into
trouble."

"There's a bad boy, if you like," said the young
man indifferently, ignoring the insinuation of the
other and lounging lazily against the store platform.
"He's a naughty boy."

"Yes," said the agent, as he offered his cigarettes
to the other and with a lithe spring seated himself
beside him.  "Look out for him.  He's a bit peevish
over your attentions to Wah-na-gi."

"Attentions?"

"Call it what you like," said the agent, aware of
the irritation of the other's inflection.  "You're not
going to get any quarrel out of me over an Indian
woman."

This frank contempt, including as it did Wah-na-gi,
produced a very disagreeable impression upon Hal,
but he restrained himself to say quietly:

"I've been wanting to speak to you about that—about
her, I mean.  You ought to protect her, this
Indian girl."  He was annoyed to find he was
speaking as if he were confused.

"You seem to be making a special feature of
that—yourself, Calthorpe."

This was like a blow and Hal flushed with anger,
but he was conscious that he was in some way at a
disadvantage and so he controlled himself to say
coldly:

"I'm your chief of police."

"Has she complained?"

"Yes."

"To you?"

"Yes, but leaving her out of the question, you
ought to hobble Appah or let me hobble him."

"Oh, I think he knows I'm agent."

"You let him play a free hand."

"Do I?  What do you mean?"

"The last time I arrested him you let him go."

"Appah is a difficult person, very cunning, very
influential.  He would have posed as a martyr.  The
cowboys were the aggressors."

"They were," said Calthorpe, "but you leave
*them* to *me*.  I'll keep them and their cattle off the
Reservation, if I'm not interfered with.  Appah
steals their cattle; they steal back, only, *two* for
*one*.  Somebody gets hurt and then the settlers
yell 'Murder'; there's a call for the troops, there's
an Indian war, and the rest of these poor people
suffer."

"Why, my dear boy," said the agent, laughing,
"we couldn't get on without men like Appah.  They
divert attention and raise a useful dust."

Hal had no illusions about the agent, but the
brutal cynicism of this left him for the moment
without a reply.  He had a picture of thugs picking a
quarrel with a stranger in order to assault him, beat
him to death, and rob him.

Ladd had spoken rather plainly.  He meant to be
even plainer.

"Let's talk about something more important," he
said with amusement at the other's blank expression.
"Yourself, for instance."

"Myself?"

"Yes, I've taken a fancy to you, my boy, and I
want to see you get on.  In this country it's etiquette
never to ask a man where he comes from or if that's
his real name.  I've heard it set down to our native
delicacy and finer feeling, but I reckon it comes from
the fact that most people who come out here couldn't
stay at home.  For instance, I don't suppose that
Calthorpe is your——"

"My real name?  No, you are quite right; it isn't."

He said this with almost boyish frankness.  Ladd
chuckled at his own shrewdness and felt completely
master of the game.

"What does it matter so long as I do my duty and
give satisfaction—and I have done that, haven't I?"

"You certainly have," said the other with a
cordiality that was meant to be disarming and
ingratiating.  "You have brought the police force to the
highest state of efficiency, and your men—well, they
would stand the torture test for you.  And it isn't
the first time you've had men under your command
either," he added with a knowing smile.

"No," said the other simply.

"In fact you've been a soldier."

"Right."

"A British soldier, I fancy."

"Right again."

"You left the service——"

Ladd paused for effect like a police court lawyer,
who was having fun with a helpless witness.

"You left the service—well, let us say, for good
and sufficient reasons."

"Because I couldn't stay, if that's what you mean.
Well, what of it?"

"Why, only this, that I think you and I might
be useful to each other, that's all.  Now, about this
asphalt."

Ladd's voice dropped to a confidential key and
slipped into a tone that was intended to chloroform
his victim.

"I happen to know that the Asphalt Trust could
make use of these lands.  At present McShay and
his cowboys are in forcible possession, but they can't
hold 'em.  If the Trust can't get the lands any other
way, they'll fight these people in and out of the
courts, in and out of the legislature, in and out of
congress, in and out of the cabinet, until they wear
them out, until the cowboys get tired fighting and
spending money, and are glad to sell out for a song.
The Trust will get the lands in some way and sooner
or later, you can stake your life on it."

Hal was listening with great intentness and Ladd's
voice showed that he felt on surer ground.

"Now, we'd like to feel that you were friendly to
us, that your interests were identical with ours; we
think we can show you that they are identical, and,
under any circumstances, we want to feel sure that
your knowledge of the Reservation and the country
in dispute is not at the disposal of our enemies, the
McShay crowd.  And oh, by the by, just as a
precaution against trouble, during this conference this
afternoon, instruct your police to be out of sight,
but near at hand, and ready to obey orders.  And
understand this, that any arrangement we may make
with you now will only be a beginning—just an
evidence of good-will.  Come on into the house
and let's fix it up."

Ladd started for the house and turned his head to
see if Hal was following him.  The latter seemed in
a daze.  That seemed very natural and very
encouraging to the agent.  Just at that moment
Wah-na-gi appeared in the door of the store.  Ladd
saw her, beckoned to Hal, and played his trump card.

"And as for Appah and this Indian girl—well,
stand in with us and you shall have a *free hand*.
Savey?  Come on.  Let's get together."  And Hal
followed the agent into his house.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VI

.. vspace:: 2

"I'm in a hurry."

Wah-na-gi spoke before Appah had uttered a word.
The latter had waited and again confronted the
Indian girl as she was leaving the trader's store.  She
looked for a way to escape and saw none.  As for
Appah, he cherished no illusions as to his chances.
He realized that he must exercise all his resources to
win against the young chief of police, but that
knowledge only made him the more determined.  He was
a tall, muscular man, of great natural dignity, very
proud.  As a lad he had gone to school for a while
and progressed rapidly, especially on the foot-ball
field, where he gave promise of developing into one
of the greatest half-backs ever seen on the gridiron,
but he resented restraint, was easily offended, and
suddenly left the school, made his way back to the
Agency, taking back with him a cordial hatred of the
white man and everything connected with him.  A
swift survey of the situation convinced him that the
easiest way to influence and preferment among his
own people was to become more Indian than the
Indian, so he resumed the blanket, and with it he
became the representative of the old order of things.
He understood English perfectly, but pretended not
to, and he could speak English fairly well, but he
loathed it, and affected to speak it with great
difficulty, after the manner of the elders who had never
learned and did not want to learn.

He had a finely chiselled face in which the ascetic
seemed to be struggling with the voluptuary.  It is a
not impossible combination.  He looked at Wah-na-gi
now in a kindly way and spoke reassuringly, as one
would speak to a child.

"Touge wayno teguin."

She did not hear him.  She was thinking of some
one else, of many things, and she was frightened.
Then to meet her more than half-way, to show that
he could be even indulgent to her prejudices, he
translated.

"Heap good friend, me!"

She did not hear.

"Maybe so we talk Injin talk.  White man talk
no good.  All lies, plenty lies, lies all time!"

At last she heard, but she did not look at him as
she said:

"No, I won't talk Injin talk.  I won't go back and
be like you and like them.  It's no use for you to try
to make me.  I can't.  It's too late."

It was a curious contrast, these two.  They were
very far apart, at the two extremes, each going to
exaggerated and unreasonable lengths, the one to
go back, the other to go on.  It was very childish.
Appah felt this and, feeling the stronger, made the
concession.  "Fish—water!  Bird—air!  Half bird,
half fish—no good!  Injin face, Injin name, white
heart!—no good!  White man no savey you; Injin
no savey you.  Maybe so you come back—be Injin!
Wayno!"  He looked very well as he said this, for
he was very much in earnest and he threw into it all
his natural eloquence of voice and gesture.

"It's too late," she said sadly.  "I couldn't go back."

There was a pause as she looked over to the
agent's house and added:

"Not now."

Appah saw and understood.

"Alone, you!  Heap alone!  All time alone!"

"Yes," she said with the suspicion of a sob in her
voice.  "I am alone."

Appah was on his way to the dances in the
meadows, not the sun-dance, but the social functions,
the turkey, wolf, buffalo dances, and he was dressed
in all the glory of feather bonnet, buckskin shirt,
and was conscious of looking extremely well.  He
was a vain man and it was difficult for him to realize
that he had not produced a favorable impression,
so he made the mistake of calling attention to his
advantages.

"My father—big chief—Big Thunder.  Big chief—me!
Big medicine-man!  Heap savey, me!  Heap
savey Shinob, heap savey—mystery!  The bear,
my friend, give me his strength! the wolf, he heap
savey me!  The wind talk to me! the sun, my
friend!  Plenty cattle, plenty horses!  Maybeso you
be Appah's squaw."

As Appah finished his eloquent appeal, two of
Calthorpe's police lounged into sight from nowhere in
particular.  The sight of them made the medicine-man
angry.

"Pikeway," he said to them.  Which means "go
away," "get along," and "get out," or just "go,"
according to the way you say it.  It meant several
things the way Appah said it.  The two men only
came nearer and were provokingly oblivious of the
big chief.  It was plain that they did not intend to
hear him.  Appah turned to her and, doubly
irritated at being disregarded before her, said:

"Injin police—bad medicine!  Trail, trail! me! all
time, follow me!  Tishum, tishum (all time)!  Maybeso
make heap trouble!  You tell 'em pikeway."

"No, I will not," said Wah-na-gi boldly, plucking
up courage in their presence.

"I'm afraid of you."

Then Appah forgot that he was trying to win her
love.  He advanced close to her, as if he would lay
violent hands on her.

"Maybeso you heap like 'em white man.  I savey
you!  Chief Injin police, eh?  Katch wayno!  (No
good).  Maybeso kill 'im some day!"

Then he noticed that she was dressed very neatly,
better than the Indian women dress, that in fact
she had on her best clothes, and he knew it was
because the chief of police had just got back, and
it enraged him to violence.  He snatched the string
of beads from her neck and threw them to the
ground.

.. _`He snatched the string of beads from her neck.`:

.. figure:: images/img-056.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: He snatched the string of beads from her neck.

   He snatched the string of beads from her neck.

"Kill 'im, me, some day."

"Who's that you're going to kill?" said Calthorpe
in his soft musical voice as he advanced from the
porch of the agent's house.  Appah turned on him
in a fury.

"What's matter you?"

He pointed to the two policemen.

"Your dog, savey?  I look down—saw-reach! (dog).
Look back—saw-reach!  This side, that
side—saw-reach, Injin police!  Maybeso you can't do it.
Maybeso make heap trouble!"

"You savey this woman?" said Hal quietly.
"Her people, dead!  No father, no mother! heap
bad men all around, plenty bad men, some whites,
some Injin.  You leave her alone.  Savey?"

Unconsciously the white people speak English to
the Indians as the Indians speak it, as we talk
baby-talk to a baby.

"Maybeso you too all time pretty quick leave Injin
woman alone."

Appah's hand was feeling under his blanket for
his knife.

"When I speak with this woman," replied Hal
simply, "some of these Indian men are always near.
She is not to be troubled—not by you, not by me!
Chavanaugh, come here."

One of the policemen came forward.

"If anything bad, any harm, comes to this woman
through me, these men will kill me.  These are my
orders; is it so?"

"Toyoch, wayno," replied Chavanaugh slowly.
"It is so and it is well."

"Now for you," said Hal to the medicine-man.

"You quit running off the settlers' cattle or I'll
arrest you."

"Maybeso you can't, medicine-man, me!  Chief,
heap big chief!"  Hal ignored this boast.

"This woman heap scared, all time scared!  Let
her alone!"

Appah made a long pause before he replied, then
he said with some thing that approached a smile:

"Maybeso yes—maybeso no," and he walked to
his pony hitched before the blacksmith shop and
rode away.

Up to this time Wah-na-gi had remained alert,
proud, outwardly calm; now she seemed to dwindle
and shrink as she weakly drifted to some empty
boxes which huddled under a cottonwood tree by
the side of the little irrigating ditch which brawled
along in a joyous hurry to get to the big streams below.

Calthorpe followed her and as she sat down said
gently: "You are very tired."

"No," she said; "I am not tired."

"What is it, Wah-na-gi?"

It was a musical name as he uttered it.

"Is it Appah?"

She made a movement with the shoulders, and a
half, unfinished, suggested movement of the hands;
it indicated weariness and contempt.

"No, he frightens me, but it isn't that.  It's *me*.
Appah is right.  I'm half bird, half fish, and I can't
fly and I can't swim.  I flop around on the earth and
gasp for breath.  And I know it, and I can't make
it different."

Her lip curled bitterly but he did not try to console
her with feeble platitudes.  It was a great relief to
her to speak to one who knew, and she was grateful
for his silence.  He simply sat down beside her and
she felt that he was sorry and would like to help her.

"I suppose I was always impossible, even as a
child.  My parents gave me another name, but no
one ever called me by it.  Wah-na-gi is a nickname.
It means 'the spirit when separated from the body.'[1]
You see, even as a child I must have been strange and
different."

..vspace:: 2

.. class::noindent small

[1] A Dakota word.

..vspace:: 2

"It's a very beautiful name," he said softly; "the
most beautiful name I ever heard.  I'm glad they
gave it to you."

Though he struggled to control his voice and make
what he said very simple and commonplace, his tone
was a caress.  It seemed to take her by the hand and
lead her through the gardens of life and bring her to
the gates of Paradise.

It was very terrible for her to be so conscious of
misery and so near to happiness.  Tears sprang to
her eyes; she trembled, she bit her lip and struggled,
struggled audibly to control herself, to keep to the
earth, to get back to the reality.

"Why did they do it?" she sobbed.  "Oh, why
did they do it?"

"They?" he said gently, groping, groping in his
mind for some way to help her.

"My parents and the old chief Tabywana.  No,
I must not speak bitterly of them.  They're dead
now, and they meant well.  They meant well.  They
thought they were doing great things for me—for *me*.
Oh!  Oh!"  As a realization of her position swept
over her again, her hands closed convulsively and she
moaned as if in physical pain.  It was the first time
she had talked to any one about herself since she had
returned from school.  She was suffering it all over
again, but it was a great relief to share it with some
one.  She was calmer now as she continued:

"They thought it was a great thing for me to go
away to the Government school.  They must have
been dreamers too.  They were very proud of me
and thought I was so wonderful.  Parents will think
that sometimes about their children," she added
wisely.

He smiled as he thought to himself:

"What a child she is!  She'll always be a child."

"They thought I would learn all the wonderful
things the white people knew, and I was very young;
I thought so too.  And the teachers—they were so
kind.  They petted and spoiled me because I learned
faster than the rest.  A new world opened to me,
and I saw that there was nothing very mysterious
about the white man's way, that it lay open to me,
a poor Indian girl, and then I began to dream, and
I forgot everything but my dream, and I worked, oh
so hard; and I was happy, happier than I can tell
you.  Soon no one would have known that I was an
Indian, except that I looked like an Indian, and I
was not ashamed of that.  And no labor, no sacrifice
was too great, for I had great thoughts.  I said to
myself: 'Some day I will gather up all these blessings
and take them home, back to the mountains, back
to my own people, and perhaps God, the Great Spirit,
will let me take them by the hand, these poor, ignorant,
helpless children, and lead them out of bondage.'"

She paused for a moment and her face lit up with
the glory of this dream whose sun had set.

"And I hoped that perhaps I could teach them to
protect themselves against the white man, his
cunning, cruelty, and vices.  I saw it all so clearly
myself, I felt that I could make them see it.  And so,
walking on the air, my head in the clouds, I came
back with my dream.  I came back with both hands
stretched out to my people, and then——"

She paused, the sunset glow of a departed dream
was gone, and in her face gathered the shadows of
the long night that followed.  It was such a relief
to find expression that she was not conscious that
she was laying bare her soul before this man, and
he was conscious only of the fact that he was living
her life with her, and it made him strangely, sadly
happy.  She had paused before the recollection of her
home-coming and she was grateful to him that he
did not try to comfort or console her.

"And then?" he suggested gently.

"I can't tell it, I can't," she sobbed; then with an
effort she steadied herself and shook the tears out of
her voice and went bravely on:

"The surprise, the shock, the pain as I began to
realize the truth.  I can't tell it, I can't explain it.
I didn't try much at first, just example.  I tried to
live before them, to let them see the other way, the
better way.  The women saw me wash my face and
hands always before eating, my teeth too.  I tried
to show them in my dress, my habits, my manner, but
instead of seeing that what I was doing or trying to
do was better, they only saw that it was different, and
they hated me for it.  They thought that I felt I was
better than they were, and I couldn't make them see
that I had only love for them in my heart.  They
would say: 'Here she comes, the white woman; make
room for her; give her the best seat; she knows
everything; we are nothing but poor Indians, but she has
been to school; listen carefully to what she has to
say.  She is very young but she will teach us all.'  I
believe I could stand torture, but I can't bear to be
made fun of.  Perhaps they didn't mean to do more
than tease me, but they tortured me.  They hurt me
cruelly and I could not hide it.  They saw this and
it seemed to make them happy, so every one took a
hand in the new game.  They called me the White
Squaw.  They praised me, they praised everything I
did.  It was great sport—*for them*.  Finally the
chiefs, the elders, took me aside, and talked to me of
my effort to change things.  The women must look
to the men of the tribe; it wasn't wise to attempt new
and strange things; it wasn't womanly; it was foolish
for me to meddle in matters beyond me.  This was
more terrible because they were trying to be kind to
me.  They advised me to marry.  Appah had asked
for me and Colorow, the head chief, had given his
consent.  I began to see that it was hopeless.  I was
not an Indian to the Indians nor a white woman to the
whites.  I tried to forget, to go back, to be like them,
and then you came, and I knew that I couldn't."

She said this simply, quite as a matter of course.
Indeed, she was quite unconscious of what this
meant to him.

"The worst of it all is they won't let me teach
their children."  She tried to say this bravely, but
her voice broke in a sob.

"No?" he said with deep concern, for he knew that
her hope lay in the children, that her heart was in her
work as a teacher, and that her cramped, starved soul
had found meat and drink in her love for the little
ones.

"No.  Yesterday the agent asked me to resign my
position!  He said that if I didn't the Indians would
withdraw their children from the school."

Hal did not reply to this.  All his faculties were
alive and in a flash he saw the situation.  He said
nothing.  What could he say?

She was not only face to face with a big, implacable
problem but with a very painful and sordid struggle
for existence.

"No, I could not go back," she repeated.  "Whatever
happens I will never again be like them.  They
make me shudder.  I have no people, no kindred, no
country.  I am an outcast.  Sometimes I get
frightened.  I seem to be just an empty shadow.  I feel
dead, but I still walk about.  I can't even lie down
under the ground and rest like my parents who are
gone.  I don't know why I tell you all this.  You
are a white man.  You cannot understand."

"Wah-na-gi, I understand.  I understand even
what you haven't said.  I'm glad you told me all
this, but I knew it before you told me."  And he
smiled at her tenderly and she smiled back at him
through her tears.

"You are very wonderful," she said with divine
candor, and he laughed joyously, because he knew
she was incapable of sarcasm.

"No Wah-na-gi, I'm not wonderful.  I'm a very
ordinary chap.  It would be strange if I didn't
understand.  My mother, too, was an Indian woman."

He thought she would be startled, and he watched
her narrowly for a sign.  Would she be disappointed?
Would her hero crumble?  Or would she be glad
that they were closer to each other than she had
dreamed?

"Your mother?" she said.  She did not grasp it.
She hadn't thought to speculate about him; to
wonder who he was or where he came from or why he
was there.

"Your mother!  Did you say your mother was an——"

"An Indian woman.  Nat-u-ritch was her name.

"Nat-u-ritch?  No, it isn't possible.  The pretty
little woman—they say she was so pretty—who,
who——"

He said it for her.

"Killed herself over at the Red Butte Ranch?
Yes, the same.  She was my mother."

"I see now," she said.  "Otherwise it couldn't
have been.  I couldn't have told you, and you, you
never would have understood.  I'm so glad you told me."

And without stopping to inquire why, the world
seemed a different world, almost possible, perhaps a
world in which one would be willing to live, might
even be happy.  Such small things sometimes make
this curious old world.

"It was Fate, Wah-na-gi," he said irrelevantly.
"It had to be.  It is always like that.  Things are
so.  That's all.  We come together, you and I,
because we are alone, alone in a big world."

"You, too," she said incredulously.  Was it possible
that this superior being could have been treated
by life with the same want of consideration shown
to a poor Indian girl?  "Alone?  You?" she
repeated.  It was a joy to find that they had many
things in common, even if they were sorrows.

"Yes, I, too, am an outcast."

He said it lightly, because he was not begging for
sympathy, for he no longer felt in need of sympathy.
Indeed, he no longer felt an outcast.  He said it
because he wanted to make one more tie between
them.

"You?  Oh, no, it couldn't be!" she said, and her
soul went out to meet him and stood waiting.  He
saw it but he did not realize all it meant to him.

"Yes," he said reassuringly.

"I pitied myself once, but I don't now.  It was all
for the best.  Otherwise I wouldn't be here.  Yes, I
had to get out, had to leave England, had to leave
the British Army."

"You were a soldier.  Of course, I ought to have
known that," she said with frank admiration.

"I could tell you a fancy story," he said; "and
you'd believe it, but I'd rather you knew the truth.
Lies always keep one dodging.  They said I
disobeyed orders."

"But it wasn't true," she said with quiet conviction.

"Yes," he replied, grateful to her nevertheless.
"Yes, it was true.  Yes, I disobeyed orders.  They
were fool orders; they were crazy, cowardly, panicky
orders and I disobeyed them, and I dare say I'd do
it again if I had the chance."

He said this with more heat than she had ever seen
him display, and she was proud and happy because
she saw no sense of shame in his face and felt no
reservation in the ringing tones of his voice.

"It was in South Africa.  I was ordered to retreat.
I tore up the despatch and ordered my men to charge,
and I'm not bragging when I say I saved the division
from annihilation."

"And they punished you for that?"

"Well, you see, it was like this—I don't know
whether you'll understand it exactly, but this wasn't
done in a corner.  It was plain that if I was right
our commander was—well—deserved to be
court-martialled.  He was a great man with the highest
social and political connections.  The people behind
him couldn't afford to be shadowed by his disgrace.
In fact, if they let the truth out it would have become
a national scandal.  It was easier to ask for the
resignation of a youngster whom nobody knew, and
about whom nobody cared, nobody but my poor old
Dad.  Even those who knew the truth said I was a
fighter not a soldier, that I didn't know how to obey,
was insolent and insubordinate, and they bawled that
the Empire needed soldiers not heroes.  They said I
jeopardized the Empire in order to make a reputation
for myself.  They said a lot of things.  The only
man who stood by me—God bless him!—was my immediate
superior, and he had to resign too, for telling
the truth.  So I was sacrificed.  I had to give up the
only career for which I was fitted, the only thing
I cared for, and every door in England was shut to
me forever.  You see I have no people or country
either."

"You shall have mine," she said quickly.

"You forget, you haven't any," he rejoined, and
they both laughed like happy children.

Ladd had stood for a moment on his veranda and
watched them with a cynical smile.  They felt the
chill of his shadow even before he spoke.

"Have you instructed your men as I told you?"
he asked of Calthorpe as he came toward them.

"No," said the young man rising, "but I will."

He signalled to his two men to follow him and he
walked away.

"Come," he said to her; "I'll walk a little of the
way with you."

"Don't go far," said the agent.  "The meeting will
take place at once and *I depend on you*."

As they walked along neither spoke.  Both of
them had looked forward to this moment many times;
both had dreaded it; both had avoided it; both had
conspired to postpone it, and now they were face to
face with it.  Something strange had come into their
lives, born of complete understanding.  To help him
to go away, to urge him to go away, at first seemed to
her impossible, now it was imperative.

"You must go away," she said simply, as if they
had been talking of it for a long time.  "Your life
isn't safe here."

This conveyed no meaning to him now.  There
were other reasons.  He was well aware of them.
He had in fact laid awake many a night answering
them and confusing them, smothering them.  His
inclinations had silenced them many times.  Now he
knew that it was inevitable and could no longer be
postponed, and yet, what of her?  He saw that she
had some basketwork and beadwork in her hands;
that she had been into the store to try to sell them;
that she had not done so.  The trader sells these
things for very good prices, but he takes care not to
pay anything for them.  He knew that Appah had
been instrumental in having her dismissed from her
position in the school, in the expectation that it might
help to drive her to the protection and shelter of his
home; that this had been done with the connivance
of Ladd.  He realized that her dismissal would
be popular!  He thought, too, that he could, if he
chose, have her restored to her position, which meant
more, much more to her than the salary involved;
and that this was part of the "valuable consideration"
intended by the agent.  He knew that never had she
so much need of him as now, and he must go away.
"Your life isn't safe here," she repeated, seeing
that he had not heard.

"Oh," he said, laughing, taking off his hat and
looking at the hole in it quizzically.  "Somebody has
told you.  Oh, it was nothing.  Some one was hunting
and I happened in the way—that's all."

"It was Appah," she said with complete conviction.

"What if it was?" he said, unimpressed.  "He
knows I know."

"He's a bad man."

"Well, he isn't my idea of a good man exactly;
still—there are worse men than Appah."

"Yes," she echoed with conviction; "the agent, and
he doesn't trust you."

"No?" he said, genuinely surprised.  "What
makes you think so?"

"Last night I was sitting crouched behind an
empty oil barrel below the trader's window.  I was
very discouraged, for I had not been able to sell any
of my work, and I was trying to think of some other
way, or some other work, and before I knew it or
realized that I was listening I heard their voices, the
trader and the agent.  I couldn't hear it all, but I
heard enough.  It was how the trader could stand
at the store window, pretend to be cleaning a gun,
and kill some one outside."

"And you think they had me in mind?"

"I didn't hear your name, only—don't go to this
meeting this afternoon."

"I must go, Wah-na-gi; I couldn't stay away; but
don't you be worried."

"What is it about?"

"The asphalt lands."

"They are a lot of bad men.  Don't go, please
don't go."

"Why, bless your heart, little woman, I know all
about them, and I can take care of myself.  I'm as
safe as if I were in a church."

"If you stay on the Agency—they will kill you.
You must go away."

"What is it, Bill?" said Calthorpe as the big
foreman hove in sight breathing heavily as if he had
hurried.

"Ladd wants you; they're ready to begin."

"All right, Bill, I'll come at once."

As Bill hastened away Hal took from his vest
pocket a small automatic magazine gun.

"Wah-na-gi," he said, "I bought this for you the
last time I was in Denver."  And he rapidly showed
her its simple mechanism.  "Learn to use it.  You
might need it some day, and if you don't, no harm
done."  And he dropped it in the beaded pouch that
hung from her waist.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII

.. vspace:: 2

"Howd'y, boys?" said the agent in his most genial
tones as he shook hands with McShay, Silent Smith,
and Orson Lee.  "Howd'y?  By the way, McShay,
I asked Captain Baker to come over from Fort
Serene.  I hope that is agreeable to you."

"Sure," said the big cowman.  "Sure.  Baker's all
right.  Who represents your side besides yourself?"

McShay had not made his way in the world by
subtlety.  The inference was too obvious to be
ignored, but Ladd chose to assume the attitude of
the righteous man who is not easily offended.

"I don't represent any side, McShay," he said
with an amiable smile.

"Ain't you over-modest?"  McShay's tone made
it obvious that he did not expect quarter, and it was
pretty well known that in a fight he didn't give any.
Still the agent preserved his equanimity.

"Like Captain Baker, I'm just an officer of the
Government."

"Not even Cadger, the Injin trader; ain't he in
the game?"

"Not unless you personally desire his presence,"
said Ladd genially and without a trace of the
amusement he felt at the idea.

"Not me," said the other hastily.  "Any time I
want Cadger present I'll put the occasion under lock
and key and lose the key."

"Hello, here's Captain Baker now.  Howd'y, Captain?
Thank you for coming."

Baker had played centre rush at West Point and
was really too big for a cavalryman.  At sight of him
one naturally felt sorry for the horse, and associated
him involuntarily with the heavy artillery, coast
defences, or something in keeping with his architectural
lines.  He looked like an overgrown boy.  His
fresh, rosy complexion, blond hair, and round face
made him look much younger than he really was.  If
he was a bit slow mentally, he could mind his own
business, and was universally liked by his men and
by his neighbors in the country roundabout.

"Shall I get some chairs and benches?" said the agent.

"Mother Earth for me," said McShay, taking in
the chances with a swift mental calculation, and
arriving at the conclusion that sitting on the ground he
could shoot quicker and had a better target than
the man who sat on a chair or one who sat on the
agent's porch.  "Sure of your ground wires down here."

He was about to sit when Dr. McCloud walked
slowly toward them, his hat in his hand, as if he felt
the burden of the heat.

Ladd went toward him with the deference and
respect which it was impossible to withhold from
this unusual man.

"Thank you for coming," he said, and turning to
the others: "Gentlemen, Dr. McCloud has kindly
consented to preside at this conference——"

"Unless there is some objection," said the clergyman,
looking from one to the other with his benignant,
shadowy smile.

"Objection to Dr. McCloud would be regarded on
this side of the fence as the opening of
hostilities—what the lawyers would call provocative," said
McShay with a drawl which seemed to add weight
to the sentiment expressed, and he made the last
word his own with an unnecessarily long o, sort of
put his brand on it.

Silent Smith looked at Lee with helpless admiration.

"Gee whiz," said Orson in complete sympathy.
"Ain't that a bird?  And Mike gets 'em out without
the aid of a net or any mechanical contrivance—just
spontaneous like."

And the two men looked around to see if any one
was rash enough to question the superiority of their
leader.

Ladd's brow had begun to darken with anxiety
when in walked Calthorpe.

"And, oh, by the way, McShay, I've asked Calthorpe,
my chief of police, to be present, as he is
thoroughly familiar with the country in dispute."

McShay took Hal by the hand and held it while he
said, looking straight into the boy's eyes:

"Glad to meet somebody who is goin' to be interested
in the proceedin's.  Mr. Ladd is gittin' so
shy and retirin' it makes us fellers feel kind of selfish
and lonesome."

McShay's sharp gaze was a hard one to meet, but
Hal looked into it with eyes so steady and serene that
the big man was puzzled.

The two had met but seldom, and then in a way
not calculated to make them friends.  Hal had on
one occasion ordered McShay and his men and cattle
off the Reservation, had in fact put them off.  The
young man's attitude had been so quiet but so
determined and convincing that, much to the cattlemen's
surprise, they had gone without more than an
angry protest.  McShay had been a police officer
himself and knew that the fellow with the law behind
him had all the best of it, and so he'd taken his
medicine, but he hadn't enjoyed it.  On another
occasion these same men, but without their leader,
had come to one of the Indian dances with the
avowed purpose of "having fun with the police."  They
had been drinking and were quarrelsome, but
Calthorpe arrested them, disarmed them, and put
them in the "lock-up" so quickly that they had no
time to get going, though they were a formidable
and dangerous lot.  He had earned their good-will
on the following morning, when they were sober, by
inducing the agent to let them go without further
trouble.  So McShay and his crowd had at all events
learned to respect him as a man who could take care
of himself.

"Well, Doctor, it's up to you.  The meeting is in
your hands," and Ladd offered him a chair which
had been placed on the edge of the veranda.  The
agent sat on the steps to the right of the clergyman,
Captain Baker on the steps to his left, the others
were grouped in a semicircle, McShay and Calthorpe
opposite the chairman.

The agent had felt sure of his ability to put
McShay and the cowboys in the attitude of law-defiers,
and he had manoeuvred to have the clergyman and
the army man present in order to have two disinterested
witnesses to their confusion, witnesses whose
influence might be potent at Washington and before
the nation.

"Well, gentlemen," said McCloud, rising, "if I
can help you to know each other better and understand
each other better, I shall be glad.  Misunderstandings
are at the bottom of most quarrels, and so
we are here——"

"For a show-down," interrupted McShay nervously,
anxious to get down to business.

"Well, that poker expression seems to cover it,"
said the clergyman, smiling—"a show-down."

"Before you go any further," said Captain Baker,
"I want it understood that I don't know anything
about this matter, that I am here in nobody's interest,
merely on the invitation of the agent."

"That is correct."  Ladd spoke with condescension
and as one far removed from undignified strife, with
a lofty and impersonal note; indeed, as one divinely
appointed to the task of pouring oil on troubled
waters, an attitude intended to put greedy self-seekers
in their proper light, an attitude very exasperating
to McShay who chafed under the genial implication.

"That is correct," he repeated.  "The captain
is here by my invitation.  I thought he should
be present as I may be forced to ask for troops
to remove from Government lands all interlopers
who——"

"Interlopers is good.  It's a glad word.  It's all
right about interlopers," broke in McShay, feeling
that Ladd had made him look greedy long enough.
"You brought Captain Baker here as a bluff, but it
don't go.  We ain't got any quarrel with him or his
soldier boys, and we're glad he's here."

"And, like Captain Baker, I have no axe to grind,"
beamed the lofty one.  "I am here just as——"

"—the paid representative of the Asphalt Trust."

It came like lightning.  The big man had tired of
the fancy sparring and had stepped in with one
straight from the shoulder that caught his opponent
and staggered him with its directness.  McShay
didn't know any other way but to take and give
punishment.  It served its purpose.  It knocked the
tactics and amenities out of Ladd with a single punch,
and he stood revealed, his jaw set, his eyes blazing, a
fighter, dangerous and implacable.  Every one
present gasped.

"You'll have to retract that statement," he said
after a moment's pause in which he struggled to
control himself.  "It's false."

Every one got to his feet and every man's hand
went to his gun.  McShay had forgotten that he had
planned to shoot from a sitting position.  He couldn't
resist the simultaneous impulse.

"Wait a moment, please!"

It was the minister who spoke.  McCloud spoke
as one sure of himself.  It wasn't the first time he
had exercised control over men.  It had been his life
work.  He had swayed thousands as one man.  He
had held out both hands to avarice and men had given
him the money they loved dearer than their souls.
He had faced the frenzied mob and taken the human
torch from their mad vengeance.  Men had submitted
to this power without knowing what it was or
whence it came.  Perhaps it was the same force which
stilled the tempest on the Sea of Galilee and made
men say: "Even the winds and the waves obey Him."

"Wait a moment, please," he said, and they waited.
As they turned to him, something shone in his face.
Perhaps it was the radiance of the dying sun sinking
behind the Moquitch Mountains; perhaps it was
the light of another world.  Whatever it was, human
passion became self-conscious before it and shrank
back abashed.

"You are forgetting *me*.  You have honored me
by making me your chairman.  As long as I am acting
for you and as your servant I will not allow you
to ignore me.  Your own self-respect should teach
you to respect me.  I won't be a figure-head.  If
I am not in control here, absolute control, get another
chairman."

It was not what he said, but it was the man himself,
that made this cogent.

"Well, that's no more than fair," said McShay
frankly.

"Why, of course," said Ladd, not to be outdone
and greatly relieved to have the occasion drift into
still water.

"Good," said McCloud heartily.  "That's understood.
And when I say absolute control, I mean
just that.  Each man has his own pet methods, but
for the present it is *my* way."

"Your way goes, Parson," announced McShay grandly.

"I'm glad that is agreed upon.  Very well, gentlemen,
this being a peace conference we will begin by
a general disarmament."

There was a momentous pause before McShay's
mind groped its way through the bewildering chaos
conjured up by this cataclysm.

"A what?" he gasped.

Quite unobtrusively and without attracting the
notice of any one engaged in the powwow, Wah-na-gi
had glided into the background, crept up the steps
of the store, glanced furtively into the open window,
taken a survey of the interior of the store, and then
crouched on the steps where, without appearing to,
she had been a most intent observer of the scene.

"There's Wah-na-gi," said McCloud, seeing her
strategic position for his purposes.  "Every man
present will oblige me by handing over his weapons
to her.  They can be reclaimed later."

"Ain't that a bit unusual?" said Orson Lee awkwardly.

"Ain't fashionable in our set, Orson.  Don't you
think, Parson," said the Irishman, turning to
McCloud with his most ingratiating manner, and
McShay could be very winning when he wanted to;
"don't you think a gun is a kind of civilizen inflooence,
as it were?  Ain't it a check on intemperate
speech and reckless statement?"

"Are you going to begin by appealing from the
decisions of the chair?" asked the chairman.

"Not me.  Me and my men will deposit our hardware
and git a rain check."  And he began to unbuckle
his belt slowly, his example being followed by
his retainers in a helpless, bewildered way.

"Mind you, I think you're wrong.  There bein'
no proper sense of restraint, I'll bet this ends up in the
damnedest row!  You know, Parson," holding it out,
"God made the gun to put every man on an equality!"

He paused for a moment, almost expecting that the
preacher might be moved by this powerful almost
unanswerable argument, but as he saw no sign of any
weakening he put his gun before Wah-na-gi.

Hal had been the first to comply with the request
of the chairman, and as he put his weapon before
her, gave her a smile, to which she responded with a
look in which love and terror struggled for the
mastery.

"Make some excuse and get away," she whispered.
"He's armed," and she tossed her head in the
direction of the store.

"Don't worry, little woman," he said and walked
back to the others.

"By the way," said McCloud casually.  "Perhaps
I didn't make it quite plain.  I meant all weapons."

McShay looked at the parson with a smile that was
touching in its frank admiration.

"Boys, the parson's on.  He's on.  There can't
be no trumps held out in this discard."

It now appeared that the McShay crowd was a
walking arsenal.  Weapons made their appearance
from the most innocent places.  The big man drew
a gun from a pocket holster underneath each arm.
They were so disposed that he could fold his arms
in the most natural way and have each hand rest on
the butt of a gun, which he could draw simultaneously
and very quickly.  Orson Lee seemed to have a
preference for the knife as an auxiliary weapon, for
he drew one from the leg of his boot and another from
the back of his neck, the two extremes.

Silent Smith, the expert, wore a coat, and had a
magazine gun of moderate size in each pocket, so
that he could sit or stand with his hands in his pockets
and shoot through the pockets.  It saved a lot of
time not to have to draw and aim.  It looked as
if the cowboy contingent had come prepared for
trouble.

While this was in progress McShay said:

"Don't suppose you have political asperations,
Parson, but if you ever git locoed that-a-way, you can
put a rope around any office we got runnin' around
loose down our way.  Now, Brother Ladd, we'd like
a contribution from you.  Can't let you overlook
the plate that-a-way."

"As I'm not armed—" said Ladd, but the minute
he said it he knew it was a mistake.

"Guess ag'in," said McShay with a provoking smile.

"Oh, I had forgotten this," corrected Ladd,
removing a magazine gun from his pockets.  "This
is an old hunting coat of mine and I had neglected
to remove it."

The cowman looked a quizzical "How careless!"
but refrained from further comment.

"Would you like to make sure that is all?" said
Ladd to the other.

Much to the disappointment of the preacher,
McShay rejoined: "If you don't mind," and proceeded
to tap him for further concealed weapons.  Ladd
submitted to this with a good grace that pleased
the chairman, particularly when no further artillery
was in evidence.

"I'm not armed," said Baker.

"I'll take the captain's word for that," said the
chairman.

"You have no other weapons, Mr. Calthorpe?"

"None," said Hal; "but any one is at liberty to
make sure."

"I'll take your word," said McShay.

The inferential insult of this was not lost on Ladd,
but he had made up his mind not again to lose his
temper, and to let McShay rattle on and expose his
hand.

"Oh, by the way," observed the chairman, looking
around; "oughtn't the Indians to have a representative
here?"

"*I* represent the Indians," said Ladd laconically.

"Never mind the Injins," agreed McShay.

The chairman made a note of the fact that no one
thought it worth while to consult the Indians about
lands presumably belonging to them.  Both parties
to the dispute were agreed in this, so the clergyman
let it pass without further comment.

"Now we will sit down," he said, "and listen to
each other calmly.  First, Mr. McShay, we will hear
from you.  Don't rise.  This is informal.  We will
try to avoid provocation and also try to be patient
under provocation.  Go on."  McShay fired the first
shot.

"Mr. Chairman, gentlemen, and—Injin agent."

The slight pause before "Injin agent" did not
promise well for the avoidance of provocation, but
Ladd ignored it.

"I represent the cowboys and settlers who are in
present possession of these lands.  Possession is
usually considered nine points of the law, and when
backed up by repeatin' rifles it sometimes tallies up
to ten."

"You mean that you are in forcible possession,"
said the chairman, "but of course you don't insist
that might is right."

"Well, might comes mighty near bein' right, Parson.
In my experience it's the best argument I'm
acquainted with."

"You've 'jumped' these lands and, unless you get
off, I shall be forced to get Captain Baker to assist
my Indian police in putting you off."

Ladd had regained his composure and said this
without feeling.

"You ain't agoin' to put us off, Mr. Agent, 'cause
we've a right to be there.  We hold two tracts under
two separate titles—first, the lands formerly belonging
to the Red Butte Ranch, we own them——"

"Under what sort of title?"

Every one turned to the speaker.  It was the young
chief of police who spoke, and even Ladd showed
plainly his surprise at this obvious meddling in
matters which did not concern him.  McShay was about
to ask him what business it was of his, but a second
glance at the youngster made him think better of it,
so he only remarked:

"By purchase.  Bought 'em from the owner."

"The owner?  Meaning?"

"The Earl of Kerhill."

"You bought them from the Earl of Kerhill?"
persisted the other, but he pronounced the name as
if it were spelled "Karhill," and Mike corrected him
with obvious patience.

"Surest thing you know.  We bought 'em from
Charley Short and Andy Openheim, two of his old
cowboys, who bought 'em from the earl direct."

"I'm afraid you've been taken in, Mr. McShay."

"Taken in?  Not me.  Not a take-in.  Never
been took in—wouldn't know how."

"I'm afraid you were a bit too eager to get these
lands.  For once your rapacity got the better of your
caution."

The muscles around the Irishman's eyes contracted.

"Parson, I don't care much for the word rapacity."

"It isn't parliamentary," said the chairman, amused
in spite of himself.  "I declare it out of order.  I
hope Mr. Calthorpe will——"

"I withdraw it," said Hal good-humoredly.  "Sorry!
What I meant was they sold you something they
didn't have, Mr. McShay."

"It's giving our hand away," said the cowman with
an assumed serenity he did not feel, for there was
something about the manner and speech of the other
which made him uneasy in spite of himself.

"It's a-giving our hand away, but I don't mind
puttin' you wise.  There's a deed!"—and he took a
paper from his wallet—"and it's signed, 'James
Wynnegate, Earl of KERhill.'"

"*Kar*\hill," corrected the boy.

"*Kerr*\hill," insisted Mike, and then spelled
it—"Kay-arr-hell."

"May I see that?"

"Sure!  Strictly speakin', I don't know as it's any
of your business, but maybe it'll be good for what ails
you."

Hal looked at it, read it, examined it swiftly but
carefully, amid a silence which was intense!  The
interest had shifted from the agent to the chief of
police, and every one present was wondering how it
happened and what it could mean.  While the
document was under examination, Big Bill sauntered in,
trying to look absent and desultory, and failing
completely.  He tried to appear on his way to the store,
but his open face showed plainly his anxiety to know
what was going on.

"The signature is a forgery," said Calthorpe simply.

"What?" bellowed McShay, jumping into the air
and feeling for his gun.  His dismay on realizing
that he didn't have this final argument was pathetic.

"I told you, Parson," he said to the chairman
bitterly; "I told you it was a mistake."

"No unsupported statement need bother you, Mr. McShay,"
suggested the preacher, his eyes, twinkling,
for now that he felt that he had the situation well
in hand he was amused at the play of human
emotions going on before him.

"That's right, Parson," said McShay.  "That's
right, 'unsupported' is a glad word and it epitomizes
the situation.  But the young feller'll have to make
this good some other time and place."

"I'll make it good now, Mr. McShay.  Bill, come
here, will you?"

As the big foreman sauntered over to him, the
young man went on:

"As you all know, Bill was the Earl's foreman for
years, and knows his signature as well as he knows
his own.  Will you let me submit this signature to
Bill?"

As Mr. McShay did not refuse, being by this time
somewhat bewildered, Hal passed the paper up to
the cattle-boss, who looked it over and over, and then,
thinking Of other things, looked at the back of the
paper.

"He didn't sign it on both sides of the paper, Bill,"
growled McShay impatiently, "and it ain't leaked
through."

"'Tain't Jim's—the Earl's, I mean," said Bill
decisively.

"This is a put-up job, that's what it is, a put-up
job," and the representative of the cowboys, now
thoroughly enraged, made a movement in the direction
of the pile of guns nestling in front of Wah-na-gi.

"McShay!" cried Ladd imperatively; "I wouldn't
advise you to try to get your gun.  My Indian police
are within call and they have orders to put down
violence."

The baffled fury of the cowman was a pleasant
sight to the agent and he smiled broadly as he
explained:

"You know this is as much of a surprise to me as it
is to you," and this was strictly true; "but I am
endeavoring to take it calmly," he added with an
irritating grin.  "You don't see me getting excited."

"Well, boys," said McShay to his followers, "the
wheel is crooked and the cards are marked, but we'll
sit through the game out of respect for the chairman."

McCloud bowed, pleased and flattered by the
deference of the rough man whose sincerity was
unmistakable.

"Thank you.  I'm sure the agent will have no
excuse for using the police even to keep the peace."  And
he felt grateful to McShay that the latter did
not for a moment suspect him of being connected in
any way with what he was pleased to regard as a
crooked game.

"I thought it best to be on the safe side," explained
the agent.  "And now I think it only fair, also in the
interests of peace, to make my position plain.  The
rest of the lands you cowboys are illegally holding are
on the Reservation and you've got to get off."

"Don't think so," said McShay, having now in a
measure regained his poise.  "No, don't think so.
They were thrown open by Act of Congress and we
hold 'em as original discoverers and locators.  We
hold 'em under the mineral laws."

"This isn't your day at home, McShay.  You're
wrong all the way round.  Calthorpe here is a
surveyor——"

"Say, he's all sorts of cute and convenient things,
ain't he?"

McShay was getting himself in hand once more.

"All right, Parson," he said in response to a gesture
of protest by the chairman; "all right, I ain't
a-sayin' what they are.  I'm a-sayin' it."

"Mr. McShay," said the preacher with
good-humored forbearance, "a wise man once said:
'Surely the churning of milk bringeth forth butter
and the wringing of the nose bringeth forth blood,
so the forcing of wrath bringeth forth strife.'"

Cadger appeared at the window of his store and
he was busy cleaning a Colt's 48.  Ladd did not look
at him, but he knew he was there.

"Now let's get down to business," he said sharply.
"My chief of police here has surveyed these lands
and boundaries and finds the original monuments
have been moved."

"Oh, he's a handy man to have about the house,
ain't he?" insinuated McShay.  "Well, useful," he
said, turning to Hal with an ominous sneer.  "Get
on.  Don't you see your master's waitin' fer you.
Let's see just how much of a fancy liar you really are."

Every man got to his feet and there was an instinctive
impulse which demonstrated the wisdom of the
chairman's point of order.  This was followed by a
simultaneous movement to get between the two men,
which was checked by the perfect calmness of the
younger who raised his hand in a deprecatory way.

"I let the word liar pass for the present," said Hal
coolly.  "We can take that up later, Mr. McShay
and I.  You see the agent isn't quite accurate.  I
did make a survey."

Before the quiet young man could finish his sentence
Ladd slipped his leash.

"And you're on Government lands, McShay, and,
by God, you've got to get off."  It was an explosion.
The austere official went up in smoke, leaving fierce
self-interest showing its teeth.  It was unmistakable
that Ladd meant what he said.  His jaws were set
and his clenched fist quivered in the Irishman's face.

"Wait a moment, wait a moment, Mr. Agent,"
said Hal with a soft, soothing menace.  "You're
going too fast.  You must let me tell my own story
and in my own way.  On the contrary, I told you
these lands were *not* on the Reservation."

Ladd turned gray and for a moment could not
speak.  His eyes contracted in a fierce deadly glitter.
Then quite naturally, as a bewildered man might, *he
took off his hat* and passed his other hand over his
brow.  Cadger glanced up from the cleaning of his
gun.  The movement seemed to arrest his attention.

"What?" gasped Ladd, finding his voice at last.

"Isn't that what I reported?" asked the youngster
calmly.

"You?  Why, there, there, there must be some mistake."

The agent began to falter, stutter, grope his way.
What could it mean?  Was the boy crazy?  Would
he throw away his chances?  Had the other side
bought him too and paid him more?  And there were
all these men, all these hostile eyes glaring at him,
searching him, gloating over his confusion.  There
was McShay hovering near like an eagle about to
swoop.  He could hear the Irishman's mocking
voice, like a mischievous boy, playing about him.

"This is as much a surprise to me as it is to you,"
it jibed, "but I'm trying to take it calmly.  You don't
see *me* gittin' excited."  Ladd realized that they were
his own words thrown back in his face like dirty
water.  His surprise, confusion, shame were being
swallowed up in a murderous hate.  He would hurt,
tear, rend, kill.  There was Cadger in the
background.  All these men faced him, the agent.  Their
backs were turned to the store.  It was easy, so easy
it gave him a moment's pause.  He must be careful.
He must make no mistake.  He would be sure.  If
this boy betrayed him, why then—  The only thing
he missed in his rapid mental survey of the situation
was a little girl crouching on the steps over the
discarded weapons, her fierce little black eyes following
his every movement, searching his face for every
thought.  Yes, there was Cadger cleaning his gun,
and—waiting for the signal, the *second* signal!

"He means," he heard himself say with a fair
assumption of serenity; "he means he told me they
were on the Reservation."  He addressed this to
McShay.  Then he turned directly to Hal, looked him
straight in the eye, and said:

"And the monuments—the landmarks?"

Before Hal replied he saw what the answer would
be, saw it in the relentless face, the mocking eye.

"That was *your* idea, that they had been moved,
*not mine*."

Any hesitation the agent may have felt was gone.
Irresolution vanished.  *He put on his hat*!  And he
put it on with decision, as if in his opinion the
conference was over.  Then for the first time he noticed
that Wah-na-gi had left her position as custodian
of the armory, had mounted the steps of the store,
and stood for a moment by the window like a cat
waiting to spring, every nerve and muscle tense, and
as Cadger raised his gun she stepped in front of him.
The trader drew back swiftly and tried to step to
one side.  She followed him.

"Git out of my light!  Can't you see I can't see?"

He executed a rapid movement to push her aside.
Again she covered him.

"Git away from my store winder or I'll break your
face, you——" and Cadger called her a name not
used in good society.

All those present got up and turned at this sudden
and untoward disturbance.  Hal was the only one
who did not look back.  He could see what was
happening in the agent's face.

"Have Cadger step here a moment, will you?"
said Hal to Ladd.

"What for?"

"Bill," said Hal to the cattle-boss who was
manoeuvring in the background, greatly puzzled by what
was going on at the window.  "Ask the Indian trader
to step here?"

"Stop," called Ladd to Bill.  "Cadger don't want to
be mixed up in this.  Besides, he can't leave the store."

The agent was conscious that this sounded hurried
and feeble, and it seemed not to impress Bill, for he
went on directly into the store.  Hal reassured the
agent—with the suggestion that Bill would look after
the store for the trader.  Indeed, one per cent. of
small boy would have been able to take care of the
trade just at that moment.

"Things are coming my way to-day, Mr. Ladd;
better let me have my way."

Whether the agent would have consented to this or
not, the chief of police had his way, for Bill appeared
with Cadger in charge.

In fact, Cadger knew that Bill would bring him
bodily, so he thought it more dignified to come of
his own accord.

"Just put your weapon with the others, Cadger,"
said Calthorpe, "and come here."

The little furtive man glanced swiftly at Ladd for
guidance and Bill took his gun and rags out of his
hands before he could determine on what course he
ought to pursue.  Bill broke the gun, then glanced
curiously over the little man:

"Cleanin' a *loaded* gun, too!  Ain't you careless?"

"Wah-na-gi, come here, please," said Hal, never
taking his eyes from Ladd's face.

She had remained in the background as Cadger
came down.  Now she came to Hal who was standing
with the trader in easy reach.  Cadger seemed to
shrink and get smaller as he blinked feebly.  The
business of the meeting was forgotten.  Again the
young man diverted the interest and every one
wondered what would happen next.

"Wah-na-gi, Mr. Cadger wants to tell you before
these gentlemen that he made a mistake, that he
would like to beg your pardon.  Mr. Cadger wants
to apologize."

"Like hell I do," growled the trader.

"Calthorpe," called out the agent; "you're the one
that's making the mistake.  You're going too far.
I won't stand for this."

"Oh, yes, I think you will," asserted the boy
quietly.

The agent gave him a swift look, trying to
determine how far he had gone or would go.  Something
had gone wrong.  The machinery had slipped a cog,
but how far wrong was it?  Could it be repaired?
Could it be fixed up?  Was it a strike for higher pay?
Or was it the eternal woman interfering and putting
them at cross purposes?  His own interest in the
woman, guarded with the greatest care, kept under
lock and key, in the dark, had this boy seen a furtive
glance, the flash of a hidden desire?  He must
proceed cautiously until he saw the other's hand and
knew his cards.  Still, this boy must be taught his place.

"I want you to understand I'm the agent, Calthorpe."

"Yes, that's why you'll protect this woman from
insult."

"You leave that to me.  This is outside our business,
and——"

"As the insult became a part of our proceedings,"
said McCloud calmly, "it seems right for the apology
to be included."

"Parson," exclaimed McShay, delighted; "you're
a sport, and I'll back any play you make."

"I think you would facilitate matters, Mr. Ladd,"
added the preacher, "if you instructed your man to
comply with Mr. Calthorpe's request."

"Please don't make him," begged Wah-na-gi timidly.

"Come on, little man," said Hal coaxingly.

"Oh, well, apologize, Cadger, and get it over with.
We're wasting time."  And Ladd walked away.
Hal applied a sharp squeeze to the back of the trader's
neck, just under the ears, and he squirmed with pain.

"Oh, hell, I apologize," he blithered.

"She accepts your apology," said Hal graciously,
and every one except Cadger breathed a sigh of
relief.  *That* was a closed incident.

"Now sit down here where I can see you," and he
tossed him lightly on a bale of goods that was leaning
against the steps waiting to be unpacked, and he
brushed his hands as if they had been soiled.  "Now
I feel more comfortable in my mind"—and added to
himself—"and in my back."

"Now see here, Calthorpe," said Ladd, coming
down swiftly and gripping the situation with at least
the show of authority.  "What do you mean by this?
Didn't you tell me these lands were on the Reservation?"

"I did not!"

The issue was joined.  For a moment the agent's
mind refused to face the situation.  His jaw dropped
and he looked at the other blankly.

"You, you, you mean to say—" he stammered.
Then he gazed into the unrelenting face opposite
and fell back and cowered like a whipped dog, white
with fear.  "You mean to say you didn't tell me?
Why, why you're going back on your word, why,
you scoundrel, you have, you have——"

"I have your money," said Hal, picking the words
out of his mouth and completing the unspoken
thought.  "That's right, I have.  And there it is,"
and he took some papers from his pocket.  "Fifteen
thousand dollars' worth of gilt-edged securities in the
Asphalt Trust.  And here is a receipt for the fifteen
thousand dollars I *didn't* pay for them.  I took your
money because it was the only way to make you
show your hand.  Every one knows you're a crook
and grafter, but nobody could prove it.  It's my
sworn duty to catch thieves and everybody knows
you're robbing these helpless people, and that you're
the paid agent of the Asphalt Trust.  I've been
camping on your trail, David Ladd, and I'm going
to camp on it until I have your official head."

The words cut the tense silence like lightning
flashes.  No one spoke or moved.

The appearance of the agent was pitiable, but only
for a moment.  As he realized that the young chief
of police had not only caught him "with the goods"
but, what was worse, had made him look "easy,"
he felt the agony of unspeakable hate, and it brought
him to himself.

"Why, you rotten traitor—" he screamed and
threw himself upon Hal to tear him to pieces.  The
latter caught his right arm by the wrist and threw his
own left across the other's throat, forcing back his
head and stopping his wind.  Ladd was a quick,
muscular, wiry man.  The boy drew him close for a
second and then he threw him off.  As soon as Ladd
recovered his balance he made for the pile of guns.
Hal blew upon a shrill, sharp whistle that dangled at
his wrist.  Before the agent could reach the weapons
a half-dozen Indian police appeared like magic on
the scene.  They had been hidden behind the
trader's store.

"Shoot any man who moves toward those guns,"
said their chief to them, pointing.  Ladd was phased.
He fell back.

"You order my own men to fire on me?"

"Your own orders, Mr. Agent, to preserve the peace."

"Say, Parson," exclaimed McShay; "that gun
order of yourn was a inspiration.  It sure was a
inspiration."

"Calthorpe, you're removed.  You're no longer
my chief of police."  Hal smiled.

"It'll take my men a couple of days to get that
through their heads.  In the meantime, don't forget
that they will act under my orders."

Then he turned to them and said:

"Don't let any one put a finger on those guns until
I'm out of sight.  You savey me all right.  And you,
McShay," he said, turning sharply to that exultant
citizen; "you and your men must get off my ranch."

"Your ranch?  What the hell!  Your ranch?
What next?"

"My ranch.  My name is Effington.  The Earl of
Kerhill is my father.  The Red Butte Ranch is mine.
I'm going over now to take possession of it.  Better
come over and see me do it.  Come on, Bill."

As he jumped on "Calico" and rode off on the run,
followed by Big Bill, McShay exclaimed:

"Say, Parson, the kid's on the level.  He's on the
level."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER VIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII

.. vspace:: 2

Hal and Bill were well mounted, had an excellent
start, and before the members of the peace conference
had recovered from their astonishment the two
horsemen were out of sight and night had fallen.  As they
left the Agency behind the heart of Big Bill grew
lighter.  The fact that Hal had not taken him into
his confidence did not worry the simple-minded Bill,
but he rejoiced that at last they were on the straight
and narrow way and had left behind them the world,
the flesh, and the devil, always and everywhere of
the female gender.  The fact that they had a
dangerous job ahead of them did not worry Bill, for it
involved nothing more serious than just men.  Bill
had dealt with men as men and in a straight and
fearless way had found himself capable, but where woman
was involved, with nothing like the experience to
justify it, he had arrived at the conclusion of the
wise man who said: "Can a man take fire into his
bosom and his clothes not be burned?"  Indeed,
greater minds than gentle Bill's have felt bewildered
by "the way of a man with a maid."  In his role of
parent and guardian he had several times started to
speak to his companion in words of commendation
and encouragement, but impenetrable gloom
enveloped the boy and the words died unborn.  He
essayed blithesome song, but even this personal
expression degenerated into a whistle and dribbled feebly
away, so, finally, the big man shook himself down into
his saddle and they rode in silence—a silence that
seemed to drip with a chilling mist.  So they rode
on into the radiant night indifferent to its splendors.
They knew that the horses' stride was steady and
strong in the clean, cool air that romped down from
the snows, laden with the perfume of the pines, and
that a matchless moon made it possible for them to
leave the road at every opportunity and hit the trails
and short cuts, but the poem of the night was not for
them, its melody and its mystery.

Wah-na-gi—"the soul when separated from the
body!"  That was the meaning of her name.  The
young man had a queer feeling that *his* body was
riding away from his soul into the night, into the
unknown, into the far away.  All of a sudden it came
to him that he had been very happy at the Agency.
Why was he riding away?  What was this asphalt
that made men lie and steal and jump at each other's
throats?  What was it to him?

What did he care for the Red Butte Ranch, except
that his mother was buried there?  That it was rich
in minerals which could be exchanged for money,
wealth, was outside his purposes.  It was not the
legal but the spiritual ownership which determined
him.  When we understand more about psychical
phenomena we shall know more about our Indians.
It wasn't only that the big appeal of the open was
here intensified.  Half memories, vague instincts,
ghostly and subliminal concords met him here, took
him by the hand, and said: "Come apart and be at
peace."  But all this was there, would wait.  He
never doubted his ultimate possession of the ranch.
The Shades who owned it would eventually hand it
over to him, their rightful heir.  All that was only a
matter of time.  It could wait.  Meantime, what was
he doing?  He was riding into the future unwillingly.
He had left the Agency, and knew it was forever.  He
knew in a dull way that he had finished a chapter in
his life, and that it would never be quite the same
again.  How did it happen?  Ought he to have prevented it?

His thought wandered back over the devious ways
he had come.  His life seemed so impersonal, his
own will and purpose had had so little to do with it.
He could only think of a boat swept from its moorings,
floating about on the waves of circumstance, driven
before this wind, twisted by that current, tossed on
the shore to be caught up again in the high tide and
taken back to the deeps, back to the wanton winds
and waves.  He knew it would be useless to turn the
horses' heads and try to go back.  Always before he
had submitted; what did it matter?  Now it mattered.
When was it he first cared?  Swiftly his
thought travelled back until it focussed on those two
rough men in the library at Portman Square—awkward,
shy, fumbling their broad-brimmed hats in
their hands, dressed in their "store clothes"; all the
more unmistakable for the London setting and for
the contrast with his father with whom they were
talking!  He recalled his own wonder that the high-bred,
delicate man with his distinguished face could
ever have been tanned and weather-stained like these
uncouth men and been their companion on the
frontier.  He recalled his own surprise at the familiarity
of his father with them.  The Earl had called
them "Andy" and "Shorty," and he was rather
punctilious about the forms and ceremonies.  It was
a revelation of a hitherto unsuspected talent for
unbending.  How his father had plied them with cigars
and liquors, and their astonishing capacity!  The
amount of neat liquor they had taken at a gulp!

These men, so different from all the types with
which he had been familiar, and each so unlike the
other!  "Andy," an Austrian Jew, was so determined
to be conciliatory and ingratiating that he had
developed a conservative stutter which, with its
saving clauses and roundabout phrases, enabled him to
estimate the effect upon his listener even before he
had actually committed himself to the proposition in
hand.  "Shorty," quick, sharp, explosive, going
direct to the point and disarming suspicion by a
method the reverse of the other!  There was
something about these men that had interested him from
the first, then amused him, then fascinated him.
The subject of the talk did not immediately claim his
attention.  Every one knew that the ranch had been
an expensive experience to the Earl, and it was a
foregone conclusion that he would jump at the chance
to sell it.  The negotiations had gone quickly to a
conclusion.  The Earl had accepted their first offer
and a deed had been prepared and was about to be
signed.  Then the young man interposed for the first
time.  He had suddenly received an impression, a
"hunch," as the cowboys say, that seemed later to be
clairvoyant.  At first it was only a vague sentiment,
too vague to be expressed, too vague to be used as an
argument, or to influence practical men, so he only
asked that the matter might be postponed until the
following morning.  His father and the Westerners
were annoyed by this freak of eccentricity, but
humored him as we humor children, or the irresponsible,
for he remembered that he had been drinking, was
perhaps drunk, as he often was in those evil days.
The following morning a cable came from Big Bill
saying: "Don't sell ranch.  Have sent letter."  The
letter which followed explained what we already
know, that asphalt had been found, that in Bill's
opinion a lot of this valuable mineral was on the
ranch, which had been "jumped" by the cowboys,
and he strongly advised the Earl to send some one
out there to investigate the matter; he suggested that
this investigation should be conducted as secretly as
possible; that he was himself too well known, and
his former affiliations with the Earl were too well
known, to permit of his doing this successfully.  There
was a job open at the Agency, the chief of Indian
police, and Bill offered to use his influence to get it
for any one the Earl would send out to look after his
interests.

Then something in the young man's soul rose up
and said: "Here am I."  And when he turned his
face to the West the winds and the waves beckoned
to him and recognized him and led him to his own.
Then for the first time he recognized purpose in his
life.  Ladd had seen in him only the usual adventurer
trying to hide away from his past and one likely to
be amenable and useful.  It would have been difficult
to find any one more suitable to the position of
chief of police.  In a country where men required
initiative, self-reliance, and courage he had found
conditions suitable to his temperament and abilities.
He had felt "at home" and had been a success from
the start.  About the time that he took charge of the
police, Wah-na-gi returned from Carlisle, and every
phase of her struggle with her environment and
heredity was obvious to him.  He saw at once what
she did not see, that it was hopeless, but it lent to her
the charm of poetry and romance, and she was pretty
enough not to require such assistance.  For a long
time he was very cunning in concealing and disguising
his interest in the girl, and he continued to fool
himself long after he had ceased to fool any one else.
And now he was riding away from everything that
made life worth living, and the fact that he had just
come successfully through a big fight meant nothing
to him.  He would have liked to go back, but that
was impossible, and he rode in bitterness and rebellion.

The cowboys had found the holding of the asphalt
territory rather irksome.  At first it had been all
hurrah, but as week followed week and month
followed month, and no armed conflict took place, they
grew very tired.  The Trust had entered upon the
long siege with bomb-proof galleries and an elaborate
system of underground approaches.  No isolated fort
ever successfully withstood such a siege.  The asphalt
vein stretched across considerable country and to
police it all and hold it by force of arms against an
invisible enemy that did not materialize but might
at any moment do so, and at some unexpected place,
was a nerve-racking job for a time, and then grew
monotonous, and with monotony came carelessness.
The Red Butte Ranch was their base of supplies and
operations, and in possession of this they felt legally
and morally secure, having been held up for it by two
robbers in the usual and conventional way of the
business world.

The majority of their men were therefore, as Hal
knew, distributed along the asphalt vein, but he also
knew that there were more than enough left at the
ranch to put up a winning fight against two men.
So it was necessary to exercise caution and strategy,
and fight only if cornered and compelled to.

In his capacity of chief of police, Hal had ridden
over every foot of the country and knew it as well
as Bill.  It was therefore greatly to the surprise of
the latter when the young man, after crossing a spur
of the Bad Lands, left the trail and struck into the
hills.

"Where you goin', son?" he asked with obvious
disapproval.

"We got to do this on the jump, Bill, or not at all.
Time is the important thing, particularly if any of
those bandits try to follow us.  It's an awful bluff,
but we'll get away with it."

"You can't git through that-a-way.  You'll just
run up against the 'Knife-edge'!"

"That's right.  I'm going to cross it."

"Why, you're crazy.  You can't do it."

"I've done it."

"Gosh!  Honest?  I never heard of any one fool
enough to try it."

"My Indian police and I have done it."

"But, gosh-a-mighty, not at night!"

"No; but it's almost as light as day.  My horse
saveys it.  Just shut your eyes, leave the reins on
your horse's neck, and let him follow me."

"All right, son.  I've had my innings.  A Big
Bill more or less don't matter.  Go ahead."

The Knife-edge was a narrow ledge of sandstone
that crossed a deep gash in the hills.  It was not
over one hundred yards in length, but its negotiation
was apparently impossible.  A single false step
meant precipitation into the arid abyss, a thousand
feet below.  It was wonderful the way these Indian
ponies felt their way across, a sort of equine
tight-rope performance.  Hal was right.  The rider had
nothing to do with it, except to sit straight and easily,
without strain or fear, and let the pony do the rest.
It was a test of nerves, and Bill, whose avoirdupois
was not adjustable to tight-rope niceties, was in a
profuse perspiration when his pony had taken the
last careful step that put the Knife-edge into the
background of things one would willingly forget.
Bill had spent the best days of his life as foreman at
the ranch, and could have found his way about blindfold,
so when they were about a mile from the ranch
Bill took the lead.

After riding a few moments over some bare clay
hills they descended into an arroyo and followed its
tortuous course unseen and unheard, for the horses'
footfalls made no noise on the silent sands.  It was
necessary to dismount and lead the horses, and it was
slow work.  Suddenly Bill stopped short and pointed.
It was an effulgent night and there against the skyline
was limned the figure of a sentry, sitting before a
little camp-fire, serenely smoking.  He was perched on
a little elevation just where the arroyo took a sharp
bend, his rifle leaning against some greasewood near
at hand.  Bill unlimbered his gun, but Hal put his
hand out and made a sign to stay him.  The young
man then uncoiled his lariat from his saddle and,
hugging the walls of the dead stream, he crept to
within reach of the dark figure and, with a hand that
had become more than expert, coiled the deadly loop,
then sent it into the silent air, where it poised for
a moment like a snake about to strike, then it settled
down about the body of its victim with the incredible
squeeze of a constrictor.  With a swift jerk the figure
tumbled into the dry gulch and, before he realized
what had happened to him, Hal's knee was on his
chest and his gun-barrel at his head.  Bill immediately
disarmed the prostrate figure, taking his pistol
from its holster as Hal said: "Don't speak."  Indeed,
there was really no need for this injunction.
It had happened so quickly and the sentry was so
unprepared that he hadn't a sound in him.  It took
him several valuable seconds to realize just what had
happened, and by that time it was obvious that he
was a prisoner.  Bill took a hitch knot in the lariat
and Hal ordered the man to stand up.

"Do as you're told and no harm'll come to you,"
he said quietly.  Then he turned to Bill and said:
"Shall we go on or shall we wait for the others?
They must have the ranch surrounded by this time."

"I guess you and I can persuade 'em resistance
would be useless."

This was to impress the prisoner who was by this
time in an impressionable frame of mind.

"All right.  Now, Curley," he said to the man
whom he recognized; "we got the drop on you
fellows.  While McShay and your crowd have been
gabbing over at the Agency we've got you cornered.
Now I want you to walk ahead of us to the house,
then call Coyote Kal out and we'll do the rest.  Bill
will have you covered from the stable and I will have
you covered from behind the rock (meaning the rock
that marked Nat-u-ritch's grave).  If you give us
away, neither of us could miss you.  You're a dead
man twice," he added with a laugh.  His ill-humor
always vanished in action.  When the three men
reached the barns, Hal made a short detour, crawling
on his hands and knees until he was in the shelter of
the rough, undressed bowlder which his father had
hauled down from the canyons to mark the grave
of the little Indian woman who had been his wife
and the mother of the son who now crouched behind
it, oblivious for the moment of everything except
the dangerous business in hand.  Then Bill untied
Curley and pointed to the house opposite.  The space
over which Curley walked slowly was bathed in a
flood of light.  There didn't seem any way out of
the predicament, so Curley stood before the adobe
house and called softly: "Kal—Kal."

As this was repeated a sleepy voice within growled:
"What the hell?"  Then a tousled head appeared
at the window and said: "That you, Curley?  What's
up?  Has a messenger come from the Agency?"

"Yes.  Come on out," urged Curley.  "It's important."

The other man drew his trousers on and came out
into the moonlight.

"What is it?"  Then he noticed.  "Where's your gun?"

"They took it away from me."

"They?  What are you talking about?"

"It's no use, Kal; they got us surrounded."

With an oath the man addressed as Kal backed
toward the house.  Instantly Bill and Hal stepped
into the light and covered him.

"Don't move," said Hal, and Coyote Kal had a
solemn moment when the issue was uncertain.

Curley decided for him.

"Don't be a damn fool, Kal; they got us.  What's
the use?"

"Why didn't you ring the bell," said Kal surlily,
"and call the men in?"

"Ring the bell?" sneered Curley.  "Ring the bell?
Say, wake up.  Ring the bell with a couple of cannon
up against your bowels?  Does it take you a week to
tumble?  It didn't me.  They stole up the dry crik
and lassoed me; jerked me into the middle of next
week before I knowed what ailed me.  Ring the bell!
I'll wring your neck if you say that to me ag'in."

"Bill, get that bench against the wall and put it
there," indicating the middle of the court-yard.  Bill
did this with alacrity.

"Now, gentlemen, we're not going to fatigue you.
We're going to treat you with distinguished consideration.
Please be seated side by side on that bench.
You can hold each other's hands if you get lonesome."

The two men obeyed in an apologetic way.  Kal
growled: "Why don't you tell us what you're up to
and be done with it?"

"Now, Bill, ring that anxious bell for Coyote Kal."

Bill stepped over to the barn and rung a small bell
affixed to its outer wall.

"Now, Kal, I want you to tell your men that they
are trespassers on this property, and that you will be
graciously permitted to withdraw if you do so at
once and without trouble.  If they stop to discuss the
matter, there'll be a fight, and I don't think there'll
be enough of you left to get away.  Bill will occupy
the stable and I will occupy the house, and if there is
any show of resistance by your men you and Curley
will be the first to meet your Maker; and I think you
need more time for preparation."

"You sure ain't prepared," ejaculated Bill.  "You
sure ain't."

The ranch house was a mixture of styles.  A log-cabin
met an adobe addition at right angles.  Each
was supplied with a door, flanked by a window, and
a portico leaned wearily against the house in various
attitudes of discouragement.  Hal took his stand in
the shelter of the angle.  He had the house on two
sides of him.  His position was exposed to the stable,
where Bill was secreted, and the space between the
house and stable was completely dominated by them
both.  One could have read a paper in the moonlight.

"My, it's clear to-night," said Hal, surveying the
situation with a grin of satisfaction.  "Anyway it
happens it looks to me as if you two out there were
a sure thing."

This was perfectly plain to Kal and Curley, but
outside the purely physical situation they were
completely dazed.  McShay and his men were supposed
to be looking out for their interests at the conference
at the Agency, and here was Ladd's chief of police
claiming their ranch and putting them forcibly off
the ground they had bought and paid for.

They merely got a vague impression that this was
just an effort on the part of Ladd to shift the battle
ground.  But as their brains worked slowly over it
nothing seemed to fit into this theory.  And it was
part of Hal's plan to leave them no time to think.
He realized that his only chance of success was in
rushing them off their feet.  It was a perilous game
in which time was to be a deciding factor.

As suggested by Kal, the bell was an alarm that
called all the men on the ranch in for instructions.
They came, and quickly, and all armed; some fifteen
men.  As they came into view their amazement was
comic at the sight of Curley and their boss sitting on
a bench side by side in the moonlight like two naughty
boys kept in at school.

"Speak your little piece, Kal," urged Hal.

"Well, boys," said their leader, shamefaced; "I
don't know how it happened, but the Agency folks
got the bulge on us, got us corralled, Curley says, and
it's fight or surrender.  As they got a bead on me
from the house and the stable, surrender looks a whole
lot better to me.  We can come back and fight 'em
for it afterwards."

Instinctively there was a simultaneous movement
for cover.  The dilapidated sheds leaning against
the barn with their bags, barrels, bales of hay, etc.,
were selected by those nearest to them.  Carroll and
the rest put the rock that marked Nat-u-ritch's grave
in front of them.  "Humpy" Carroll, as his name
indicated, was a humpbacked little man with
ambitions.  He had always fallen just short of being a
leader and it made him a chronic insurgent.  His
insubordination had brought him into frequent
conflict with Kal, whose place he coveted, and the
latter's uncomfortable position afforded him keen
satisfaction.  In fact, Kal's taking off would not have
appealed to Humpy as an irreparable loss.

Kal knew this and it filled him with helpless rage.

"Surrender without a fight?" inquired Humpy in
a tone that made Kal squirm.

But he replied calmly with a slow drawl: "You got
a nice fat rock in front of you, Humpy."

"I don't mind kickin' the bucket with a gun in my
hand," chimed in Curley; "but give us a *chance* to
fight, Humpy?"

"'Tain't our fault if you let 'em rope you."

"Say," said Kal, "if these fellers'll give me a gun,
and will stand by, I'll fight *you*, Humpy; and the
feller that gits over it—his word goes."

"Say, that's sporty," exclaimed Hal, delighted;
"I'll stand for that."

Humpy's sardonic face grinned.

"Say, you'd like to get us a killin' each other,
wouldn't you?  Got us 'surrounded' have you?  Well,
we'll just have a look around and see."

"No, you don't."  cut in Hal with decision.  "You
surrender or fight *now*."

"Boys," called out Kal, "you know I'm no
coward, but I think you owe it to me and Curley
to give us a chance.  I'll give you your innings
later.  They can't keep what they've took, and
no man of you'll beat me in comin' back after it."

"I'll give you 'till I count ten," said Hal.

Voices came spontaneously from various places:
"Kal's right"—"Let *him* decide"—"Leave it to
Kal," and similar expressions.  It was obvious that
the men realized the position of their leader and
would temporarily surrender possession of the ranch
rather than see him sacrificed.  Curley's fate was
thrown in for good measure.

"Your men are with you, Kal," said Hal, eager to
consummate the precarious deal.  "Tell them to put
their weapons in a pile back of you and Curley."

Kal repeated these instructions, but with evident
reluctance.  It was obvious that the fact that he was
getting away with his life was hardly compensation
for the humiliation suffered before Humpy and his
comrades.  As the men came forward from their
hiding places Hal relaxed his tension.  It came to
him that he was very tired, and he leaned against the
window of the log-cabin, the window Kal had opened
before leaving the house.  Just then a warning shout
came from the stable.  "Look out, boy!  Look out!"

Bill had time to say no more.  It all happened in
a flash.  Two sinewy bronze arms darted from the
window and pinioned Hal from behind in a vise-like
grip.  Hal knew instinctively that it was Appah.
Bill, as he was in the act of warning Hal, was
over-powered from behind and bound by Appah's men
so quickly that he had only time to see that his
warning to the boy had come too late.

This had occurred without the cowboys being
aware of it, so intent were they on their own part in
the drama.  Kal's head drooped with shame as he
looked at the ground and said:

"We surrender."

"Surrender?  Surrender?  What are you talkin' about?"

It was Agent Ladd's voice as he strode nervously
through the crowd of ranchmen.  He stopped in
front of Kal and Curley, his eyes blazing with
excitement.

"Surrender this ranch to a couple of bluffs?
You're a nice chicken-hearted lot!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER IX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IX

.. vspace:: 2

As the cowboys turned and saw Hal and Bill with
their arms pinioned and in the custody of Appah's
men, they suffered a revulsion of feeling that boded
no good to the men whose bluff had been called.

"And two of 'em, *two* of 'em hold you up.  Why,
you'll be the laughing stock of the country."

Ladd lost no time in fanning their smouldering
pride into a relentless blaze.

"Gosh-a-mighty; ain't these your men?" gasped Kal.

It seemed such a useless question at this juncture to
Ladd that he didn't stop to answer it.

"You lynch cattle thieves out in this country, but
you 'surrender' to land thieves."

Hal looked at his adversary with admiration.  He
hadn't supposed that Ladd would follow him, that
he would trust himself in the enemy's country; but
here he was in time to turn victory into defeat, and
he was appealing to this mob with all the cunning of
a skilled demagogue and with the ferocity of a tiger.

Kal came over to Calthorpe and, looking him in
the eye, said slowly—emphasizing every word:

"You made me look foolish, boy."

That is an unforgivable sin.  You may take a
man's honor or his money or his wife, and indeed
have his life, and forgiveness is still possible; but
don't expect mercy if you have made him look foolish.

"And you *roped me*," added Curley.  "Ropin'
bein' in fashion, we'll let you in on it."  And he
threw around Hal's neck a coil of the rope the latter
had used on him.

"Wait a minute," said the irreconcilable Humpy.
"If this feller ain't your man, Mr. Agent; who the
hell is he?"

"He's the legal owner of this ranch," declared Bill
with emphasis; "and if you lynch him you'll be
guilty of committin' murder."

"Oh, no," said Kal grimly; "we'll just be guilty of
a mistake."

"Fer which," added Humpy, "we kin apologize later."

"Is that right?" demanded Kal.  "Do you claim
this ranch and the asphalt on it?"

"I do.  It's mine."

"Well, I guess that'll be about all."

"I guess we'll have to give your imagination an
extra stretch."

"I can prove it."

"'Tain't open to argyment."

"If you git a chance to prove it, it'll sure be
contributory negligence on our part.  Ain't that right,
boys?"

Everybody was in on the conversation now.  The
men gathered around Hal and Bill like carnivorous
beasts at the smell of blood.  Nothing stirs the
average man's imagination like gold.  Each one of
these rough men had seen visions and had fashioned
elaborate impossibilities out of this mysterious
asphalt.  They told each other apocryphal stories of
its enormous value.  Each saw himself fabulously
rich.  There was enormous potential wealth here,
but nothing could have corresponded to their
grotesque dreams, and the more nebulous and vapory
they were the more these rough men clung to them,
and at the mention of their "rights" they became
feverish, fanatical, ready to tear into pieces whoever
looked toward their disputed treasures; ready to tear
each other to pieces for the fraction of a claim to that
which they did not possess.

"Lynch him first and discuss it afterwards,"
suggested Ladd, seeing the temper of his audience and
playing to its sardonic humor.

"You know what's eatin' *him*?" said Bill, pointing
an angry finger at the agent.  "The kid showed him
up as a crook and a thief.  When he's got you so deep
in this you can't git out, he'll be the first to turn on
you and sic justice onto you."

The eyes of all turned from the prisoner to Ladd,
and Humpy expressed the prevailing suspicion of
the man they had no reason to trust:

"It ain't been supposed that Mr. Ladd was a
sittin' up at nights a tryin' to think of ways to help
us."

Ladd faced them with courage and an air of
apparent candor.

"I've fought you, but fair and in the open, and I'm
goin' to fight you for the land that's on the
Reservation, but this land, as I understand it, is yours, bought
and paid for."

There was a chorus of fierce assent to this.

"You're in for a long and a losing fight against the
Government; so if you lose *this ranch* you lose
everything."

There was no approving shout for this, but the
force of it was felt by all.

"But this feller here," said the tenacious Humpy,
pointing to the prisoner and not to be diverted by the
agent; "what about him?"

Ladd looked at the wild animals with their fangs
frankly bared and knew that they were easy.  Then
he played his trump card.

"As for this land-grabber, the best I know of him
and the best he can say for himself is that he's a
half-breed."

This irrelevant appeal to prejudice was so crude,
raw, and unblushing as to be obvious to a child,
but its effect was instantaneous.  Every vestige of
restraint, of irresolution disappeared in the faces of the
mob.  Human equality!  There is no such thing even
theoretically.  There are differences which separate
human beings and will always separate them, but
they are moral and intellectual differences.  No one
admits the principle of human equality, because:

"The principle of human equality takes away the
right of killing so-called inferior peoples, just as it
destroys the right claimed by some of dominating
others.  If all peoples are equal, if their different
appearances are only the result of changing circumstances,
in virtue of what principle is it allowable to
destroy their happiness and to compromise their right
to independence?"[1]

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[1] Finot.

.. vspace:: 2

The logic of prejudice is a strange and wonderful thing.

That some criminals were also half-breeds, that
many half-breeds were undesirable citizens has
crystallized into the conviction in most Western
communities that all half-breeds are worthless and dangerous,
and are therefore capable of any and all crimes.
This has nothing to do with any ascertainable facts,
and if opposite to Agent Ladd had arisen a man of
intellect who had devoted his life and all the energies
of a noble mind to finding out the truth, and had
said: "If the word half-breed was strictly applied to
the progeny which has really issued from a mixture
of varieties, it would be necessary to include under
this denomination all human beings with rare
exceptions"[2]—it would have meant nothing to the
audience to whom Ladd's appeal meant everything.
As one man they turned upon Hal, their brows
lowering and the pupils of their eyes contracting.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[2] Finot.

.. vspace:: 2

"Is it true," said Kal, "that you're a half-breed?"

The boy did not reply at once, but drew himself up
proudly and looked them over contemptuously; he
saw his last chance was gone, so he took his time and
said very slowly:

"I'm the son of the Earl of Kerhill and of Nat-u-ritch,
an Indian woman; and I've got better blood
in my veins than any man here, you swine!"

"Throw the rope over that beam," said Kal, pointing
to the timber that projected over the loft on the
barn.

"Yes," added Humpy; "it's time we made an
example of some one.  Land-grabbin' and half-breeds
has got to be discouraged."

"You haven't anything against Bill.  Let him go,"
said Hal quickly.

"He'll be a witness against us."

"You bet I will," said Bill promptly.

"No; he'll leave the country."

"I'll camp on the trail of these murderers as long
as I live."

"For God's sake, shut up, Bill," begged Hal, as
his eyes filled with involuntary tears.

"Sorry you feel that-a-way," said Humpy; "leaves
us no choice.  Up with 'em."

"Hold on there—*you*!"

The cowmen turned to see McShay sitting on a
smoking, gasping horse with quivering nostrils and
trembling flanks, and mopping his dripping brow
first with his sleeve and then with a huge bandanna
handkerchief.

"Say, I ain't had a ride like this since I was a kid.
Well, you beat me to it, Mr. Agent; didn't you?  I
guess your Injins showed you a short cut.  Some of
you hold up this horse, and some more of you help
me off'n him, though I don't know's I can stand much."

The interjection of this cool personality seemed to
lower the temperature several degrees.  While
McShay was dismounting, Smith and Lee rode in
on horses which showed similar evidence of hard
usage.

"If these are my leags as I'm a standin' on, I want
to observe that you are gittin' precipitate a whole
lot.  I move to reconsider."

"What fer?"

"Well, boys, I'm afraid we're on the young feller's
land."

This declaration from their leader would have
made a sensation if it had come before their passions
had gained momentum.  It might have changed the
progress of events, but now Kal voiced the general
sentiment in a surly: "We'll give him some of
it—just about six feet of it."

There is no use talking temperance to the drunkard
who has already started on his debauch.  The
unacknowledged fear that their acts would not bear
examination made them fiercely resentful of interference,
and there was an unacknowledged conviction
that what was done and could not be undone justified
itself as inevitable.

"Even Judge Lynch usually holds court," suggested
McShay.

"We've heard what he's got to say."

"Say; you're foolish to interfere."

"Interferin' is my long suit," drawled McShay.
"I ain't happy unless I'm interferin'.  Now there
are two ways of lynchin' a man.  One is to git
hysterical and borey-eyed, and lose yer re-pose.  The
other is to proceed in a regular and high-toned way.
Now these fellers has the right to a ca'm judgment,
and they will git it."

"They will," glared Humpy; "if you'll agree to
abide by the decision of the majority."

"I've always found I had to do that; so I usually
fixed the majority."

McShay's imperturbability was irresistible.

"Now, I've mostly presided at functions like this,
but I ain't a-pushin' my claims.  Who do you want
fer judge?  Show of hands—who's fer me?"

Up went the hands of the two faithful retainers,
Orson and Silent, and Mike saw that his effort to
stampede the proceedings was late, perhaps too late.
Before the "opposed" were called for there was a
concerted shout for Kal.

"Majorities are always wrong," commented the
experienced McShay; "you git it, Kal."

Kal took his seat on the bench where he had lately
been the prisoner and Hal and Bill sat in the centre
of the motley group of men who were accusers,
witnesses, jurymen, and executioners.

Perhaps there have been times and conditions when
Judge Lynch served a useful purpose, but even when
the judge happened by accident to be right, the
resulting demoralization must have been worse than the
initial crimes.  Now that McShay had entered the
arena, Ladd retired to the outskirts of the crowd and,
having fired the house, was content to stand by and
see it burn.

"I got to have an office," said McShay.  "Not
gittin' judge, I'm attorney for the defence."

"All right," said the judge, getting quickly to
business.  "You have first innin's.  How do you
come to know mor'n and better'n us?"

"Well, I know a face card when I see it face up.
I'm as good as that."

"He says he owns this ranch," interjected Humpy
who was the self-appointed prosecuting attorney.
The offices Humpy got were self-appointed.

"The worst of it is," answered McShay, "I'm
afraid he does."

"You got to show *us*," said the judge in a tone that
indicated the difficulty of such a proceeding.

"Well," replied McShay; "we bought it of Andy
and Shorty, and we know they were crooks, 'cause
they were crooked with us.  Bill here says the
signature to the deed is a forgery; and Bill knows the
Earl's hand-writin'.  That's all."

"Well," smiled Humpy, "that don't go very
strong with me.  Bill may be mistaken or he may be
lyin'."

"Peradventure he ain't," retorted Mike.  "Bill
couldn't lie.  He ain't gifted.  Bill's the shortest
distance between two points.  I've knowed him fer
an awful long time, and I wouldn't trust him to lie."

"Is that all?" asked the judge, obviously refusing
to be impressed.

"That's all."

"'Tain't conclusive," said Humpy, trying to get
the impressive lingo of opposing counsel.

"By the eternal it's presumptive," bellowed McShay.
"Let the young feller go.  If it should turn
out that he owns the land, somebody might insist on
making it awkward for some of us; if he don't own
it, he can't prove it; he can't hold it, and no harm
done."

"If he owns the land," said the judge, taking a
hand; "why didn't he go to court in a regl'r way?"

Hal almost laughed aloud.

It was the first time he seemed to be even an
interested listener.  After his outburst of a moment ago
his thought had gone back to the Agency and had
left in his face a vacant and far-away look.

"Go to court, eh?  Judge Swayback owns a nice
thick wad of your stock and Sheriff Black owns
another.  And you have no difficulty in packing any
jury in this part of the State."

"The prisoner seems to be unusually well informed,"
drawled McShay.  "In resortin' to violence
the defendant is at fault, but it is the indiscretion and
exuberance of youth, gentlemen.  I sometimes find
myself resortin' to violence, and perhaps you
gentlemen may remember in your own peace-lovin' and
law-abidin' careers the sudden impulse to go and take
what you thought was yourn.  As a failin' it's
distinctly human."

"I think we've heard enough," remarked the
judge.  "McShay's full of presumin's and peradventurin's,
and such misleadin' legal gab, but no
feller is agoin' to come around and hold me up at
the muzzle of a gun and git away with it."

"Say, you're a judge; you ain't no right to argue."

"I ain't a-arguin'.  It's a fact."

Humpy arose and advanced a step as if he felt the
importance of the blow he was about to deliver.

"Testimony is conflictin'.  Bill says he's all right.
Ladd says he's all wrong.  Testimony ain't no good
any way.  Never knew a feller as wouldn't lie if he
had ter.  This is the point.  This feller wants land
we bought and paid for, and he sets an awful bad
example by comin' after it with a gun.  That's
enough fer me."

There were murmurs of approval at this simple
statement and impatient cries of "Vote—vote."

"Say, Kid," said McShay to the prisoner; "you
better offer to give up your claims and save your life."

"No half-breed would keep such a promise," said
Ladd quickly.

McShay turned on the agent a look that held the
other in a breathless grip for a second; then he only
said: "Don't you interfere in this."

"And I won't make such a promise," said Hal simply.

"Vote—vote," came impatiently from all directions.

"All in favor of lettin' the prisoner go hold up the
right hand."

McShay was always sure of the absolute support
of Lee and Silent Smith on any side of any question.

"Three!" announced the judge grimly.  "All in
favor of hangin' the prisoner, similar!"

"He swings!" laconically added Kal.

"Now about Bill.  I'm in favor of givin' Bill
twenty-four hours to quit the country.  If he's
caught after that we'll string him up.  All in favor
hold up their hand.  Carried!  Curley, you're the
feller that got us into this trouble.  I'll appoint you
to stay on guard, for to see that no one interferes with
the course of justice.  The prisoner has a couple of
minutes with his friends."

The court, jury, and executioners considerately
moved away, just out of hearing.

"Boy," said McShay with the shadow of a quiver
in his voice; "I can't prevent this."

"I know you can't, McShay; but I thank you just
the same for what you've done.  You're a square
man.  I wish I'd known it sooner."

The two men looked each other in the eye for a
second and in that silence was born an understanding
and a fellowship that each knew to be proof against
time, self-interest, and life's vicissitudes.

Bill muttered more to himself than to them: "I'm
an old man.  It wouldn't have mattered about me."

"Is there anything Bill or I could do for you?"
asked McShay, trying hard to keep his voice even
and his eye clear.

"Yes; I'm troubled about Wah-na-gi," and Hal's
voice shook in spite of himself.  "Tell John
McCloud I want him to adopt her.  He has influential
friends in the Indian Office.  He's the best man I've
ever known.  Tell him it's my last request, the only
one I have to make.  I want him to get control of
her and take her away from the Agency.  Write my
father, Bill, that I'd like the two of them to have this
ranch.  And tell the governor I took my medicine
like a gentleman's son.  Don't forget about Wah-na-gi."

"She shan't want a friend while me or Bill lives;
ain't that right, Bill?"

Bill was crying and couldn't answer.

"Time's up," announced Kal.

Hal's hands had been tied ever since he had been
caught through the window by the Indians and
disarmed.  Now they led him over to the barn, tied his
feet together, and Curley was placing a bandanna
handkerchief over his eyes.

"I rather you wouldn't do that, if you don't mind,"
said Hal.

"It's fer *me*," explained Curley in an almost tender
voice.  "I got to stay here with you, and I—Well,
you understand."

Hal understood and made no further protest.

"Boys," said McShay with a solemnity most unusual
to him, "I think you're a committin' murder, and
I won't stay and see you do it.  You can have my
share of the asphalt—I wouldn't have it.  It's blood
money."

And he walked off, followed by Smith and Lee, and
they made the greatest haste to secure their horses
and get away before the silent thing hung in the silent
air.

"You might as well make it two instead of one,
for I won't quit the country.  I'll bring some one to
justice for this," said Bill through his tears.

"Bill," called the victim in a pleading voice, "live
to do what I told you, for my sake."

"Johnson and McMurdy," said Kal, pointing to
Bill; "take him to Carbon and put him on the train."

The two burly cowmen hustled Bill over to the
corral, and Bill was thankful that fate had decreed
that he need not be present at the ghastly moment.
Kal looked the situation over calmly.

"When it is done, every one but Curley hit the trail
and forget it.  Are you ready, Calthorpe?"

"Ready!" and the voice was calm and steady now.

"Anything to say?"

"Nothing."

"Let her go."

Up went the body into the air that seemed to grow
suddenly still and cold.

In a twinkling the end of the rope was made fast
to a cleat in the side of the barn, and almost before
this was done the crowd melted—vanished.  There
was, in fact, a horrible haste to leave the uncanny
thing behind.  Almost before it had begun to twist
and twirl, Curley found himself alone with It.  He
shuddered, turned away, pulled a flask from his
pocket and took a long pull, put the cork back, and
tried once more to look at It.  His legs kind of
faded under him and he sat down at the foot of the
rock that was Nat-u-ritch's grave; his jaw fell open
and he stared at It, not being able now to look away.
He stood this for a moment, then he succumbed to an
overpowering sense of horror.

"I ain't agoin' to stay here and watch *that*," he
gasped.

Then he drew his gun and took deliberate aim at
the twisting target.  His hand shook.  He steadied
it and got his aim.  There was a flash from the loft
of the stable and Curley sank back against the rock,
bleeding.

Then a slender girlish figure leaned out from the
loft, a big blade gleamed in the moonlight, and the
horrible twisting thing crumpled to the ground.





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.. _`CHAPTER X`:

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   CHAPTER X

.. vspace:: 2

The town of Calamity got its beginning and its
name from a mine which a desperate prospector had
located there.  It was his last throw with the dice,
and having tried "The Golden Hope," "Lucky
Lode," "Good Fortune," and other optimistic challenges
to fate, he at last guessed right, and called it
Calamity.

Whether the wickedness of Calamity was unusual
or sufficient to justify a special visitation of divine
wrath was an open question, but at all events it
seemed to the inhabitants to be marked for special
affliction.  In all the lowlands, along all the rivers
of that region the spring floods had left miles and
miles of standing water which bred millions of
mosquitoes, but Calamity wouldn't have minded just
an ordinary Egyptian plague like that.  With no one
in a position to explain or scientifically justify their
presence, a plague of gnats had descended on the
town and life became an acute exasperation.  Unlike
the mosquito and the rattlesnake, this ferocious
little beast gave its victims no warning.  He was so
small that an ordinary mosquito netting was the open
door and the satisfaction of killing one's tormentor
was largely denied as the angry slap of retaliation
found the cowardly assailant gone.  A sharp blow
simply stimulated his poignant activities.  He had to
be caught and then rolled elaborately to death.  This
required special faculties in an advanced state of
development and a patience unknown to high altitudes.
At first he was regarded as a joke, but when
he invaded every walk of life with implacable impartiality,
sparing neither age, sex, nor previous pulchritude,
the serenity of Calamity developed virulent and
baneful bumps.  Facility in expletive already
abnormal filled the air space not occupied by the insects
with violent and unclean words.  The first man with
the courage to wear gloves and a mosquito-netting
around his hat with a draw-string about his neck
enjoyed the martyrdom of all inventors and discoverers.
To wear a veil certainly seemed effeminate, and
that was the last word in Calamity.  But all of a
sudden there was a rush to the store for
mosquito-netting by swollen and lumpy citizens with angry
spots all over their necks, hands, and faces, and
strong men worked in the sight of other strong
men with *veils*.  It may be here stated that one fold
of ordinary mosquito-netting was as good as none
at all, and women's veils were scarce in Calamity
and very expensive.  They were, however, the only
safeguard, but there was still a lingering suspicion
that they were a shade more effeminate than the
regular netting.  This got on the nerves of the
citizens finally and men got to be irritable, morose,
depressed.  It drove a great many estimable citizens
to drink, of those not previously driven by other
causes.  McShay was the magnate of Calamity.  He
owned the store, the livery and feed stable, the coach
line, and the Palace Saloon.  The latter was the
business, social, and intellectual centre of the crude
town which sprawled with a shameless disregard for
appearances on both sides of the gulch through which
flowed Bitter Creek.

The Palace wasn't a cheerful place exactly, but it
was the nearest approach to it in Calamity, especially
at night.  It was early evening and, though the lights
were lit, except for Humpy, Kal, and several others
who were playing poker at one of the tables, the place
was empty.  After the events of the last chapter the
relations between McShay and the cowboys were
strained.  Mike was a leader who didn't know how to
follow and didn't want to learn.

"Hello, Mike," said Kal to the owner as he entered
his saloon by the front door.

"Hello," was the short reply, and the Irishman
went directly to the bar and began a conversation with
his barkeeper without even looking at the speaker.

"Won't you take a hand?"

"Nope."

"Gee, ain't you grouchy!" growled Humpy.  "You
can't have your way all the time."

"Well, I ain't agoin' to have your way any of the
time, Humpy.  Your calibre is too small and you
ain't got sufficient penetration."  This was pretty
plain talk, and the men at the table looked at each
other and the game seemed to drag.

"You ain't a goin' to quit us?" asserted Kal uneasily.

"I ain't, 'cause I have."

"You said that when you was excited."

"Well, when I stop to think I'm always wrong,"
retorted the Irishman bluntly.

It seemed unreasonable that McShay should be so
rigid about a little thing like a lynching.  While Kal
was thinking of some way to placate the big boss,
Johnson and McMurdy clattered in.  They went
directly to the bar and ordered refreshment.

"Well," called out Humpy; "did you put Bill on
the train?"

"We sure did."

"And he got off again at the next station," added
McShay with provoking assurance.

"Shouldn't wonder," admitted Johnson.

"And you'll have him to deal with when he gits
back."

This seemed to the poker players extremely likely,
but no one admitted it to their uncompromising critic.

"Bill's a kindly idiot," sneered McShay.  "He
ain't got sense enough to keep his mouth shut and
you ain't got nerve enough to shut it.  Two such
mistakes wouldn't go even in this kummunity."

"You still think we made a mistake?"

"Huh!" ejaculated Mike with undisguised contempt.

"What makes you think so?" asked Kal meekly.

"Go to Ladd.  He's got a ring in your nose.  He's
your leader.  Ask him."

"Can't you answer a plain question in a plain way?"

"I can, but it ain't worth while.  It's too late."

"Maybe we was a bit hasty.  Anyway we can't
git on without you.  You know that."

This unconditional surrender mollified the magnate
some and, as he really wanted to let them know the
full extent of their folly, he added:

"The young feller was on the square.  It was to
his interest to play in with Ladd and the Trust, but
instead he cut the agent out of the herd and was a
drivin' him to the slaughter-house.  This boy held
all the cards, and with him as a partner we could have
put Ladd out of the game and beat the Trust that's
behind him.  Now we'll lose everything.  You can
have my share; divide it among you; it ain't worth
fightin' for."

"Mike," called from the door a tough-looking boy
with a face as hard as quartz; "there's a feller outside
here wants to see you private."

"Tell him to come in and you git home before
I tan yer hide."

The proprietor of the saloon made for the urchin
with a view to enforcing an unwritten curfew edict,
and as he got to the door something in the appearance
of the stranger startled him.  He stood for a moment
looking intently, then walked out into the night.

Johnson and McMurdy joined the poker players.

"Where's Curley?" asked the latter.

"He ain't turned up yet," said Humpy.  "We've
sent Dick Roach over to see what's become of him.
Hello, here's Dick now."

Dick staggered into the saloon and lurched over
to the bar, calling for a drink in a husky voice, and
repeating the dose at a rate that indicated undue
haste even in a practised hand.

"You got back soon," suggested Kal.  "What's
become of Curley?"

"Dam'f I know."  And as he turned his face to
them they saw that Roach was very pale, except for
the angry red spots characteristic of the local pest.
The combination wasn't becoming.

"I didn't git there.  Boys, I saw him; saw it—met it."

"Curley?"

"No; the corpse—the feller we—we—hung."

A slow smile spread from face to face at the table.

"Where did you absorb it, Dick?"

Fortified now by a couple of more drinks, and
looking around the familiar saloon and steadied by
the cold scepticism of his friends, Roach began to
suspect himself, and taking some more courage with
him he sat down in a corner white and silent, and the
poker game proceeded, but in a perfunctory and
listless way.  The players felt a growing resentment
against Roach.  The gnats alone made life unbearable.
Then they were in the first throes of a horrible
reaction, following on the violence at Red Butte
Ranch.  Any remaining shred of comfort had been
rudely torn to pieces by the ruthless McShay.  And
now this white-faced idiot had to blunder in and
force them to remember what they were trying to
forget—"the corpse," and "the feller we hung."  It
was most inconsiderate.  Besides, fear is contagious.
It was unmistakable that Roach *thought* he had seen
something.  Of course he hadn't, but if a vote had
been taken it would have been unanimously voted a
"deepressin' evenin'."

"When I'm out on the mesa," said Kal, trying to
give voice to the general consciousness, "I'm a-longin'
fer the reefinements of civilization, and when I'm
enjoying the reefinements"—and his gesture took in
the embellishments of the Palace Saloon—"why, I'm
a-longin' for the mesa.  I guess we ain't never satisfied."

Just then one of the embellishments began to
smoke.  In fact it had smoked for some time before
any one noticed it.  The barkeeper finally observed
it, took it out of its bracket, turned it out, and was in
the act of trimming the wick when the oily glass
slipped in his fingers, and, in an effort to catch it, he
threw it against the mirror behind the bar.  Involuntarily
the players jumped and then each looked about
with annoyance to find out if the others had seen him
jump.  People are so afraid of being afraid.

"A lookin'-glass," said one.

"Seven years," added another.

No one used the words—bad luck.

No one believed in bad luck in such a connection,
but—it was evident that they were nervous.

Just then McShay entered and with him through
the open door a bat flew in.  There are people queer
enough or scientific enough to like bats, but it is one
of those things that most of us can learn to do without,
and the eccentric aviation of a frightened bat in
the same room cannot be recommended as a sedative
for nervous people.  Again there are some who tell
others that such an incident is an ill omen.

When McShay re-entered the room his eyes were
snapping, and if any one had noticed, which no one
did, so absorbed were they with the gyrations of the
uncanny little beast, they would have seen that
something had occurred to encourage or amuse the
big boss.

"Hello, Dick," he said as he caught sight of Roach
in a corner.  "What's the matter with you?  Seen a
ghost?"

"That's what I have."

"Say," said Humpy with a cheerless laugh;
"Dick's got 'em.  Thinks he's seen the feller as
thought he owned the Red Butte Ranch.  Ha, ha."

"Well," said McShay, "the longer I live the less
I'm sayin' things ain't so.  I ain't a-sayin' positive
that dead men come back to camp on the trail of them
as has wronged 'em, but if they do, it's a safe bet that
Dick ain't the only one as 'll be seein' things."

This extraordinary admission from a hardened
materialist did not add to the gayety of the occasion.
There was no response to it and the speaker went
behind the bar and whispered a few words to his
barkeeper.  This person had a name but every one had
long since forgotten it.  He had a smooth round
face that looked out on the world with a sort of holy
sorrow.  McShay had called him "Sad" and the
name had stuck.  "Sad" was fond of remembering
that he had seen "better days."  He had been an
undertaker and his cultivated manner of subdued
sympathy in half lights was Calamity's idea of the
last word in elegance and refinement.  Sad gave the
proprietor a reproachful look and then nodded his
head gravely.  When a man's money is up he usually
exhibits some mental concentration, but the poker
game stumbled badly.  There were frequent
admonitions to "git in on it," and lapses were reproved
with unnecessary severity.  Somehow the usual
desultory talk ceased and the big room became quiet,
uncomfortably so.  Even the click of the chips was
a relief.  The strain was relaxed to the comfort of
all by the entrance of Orson Lee, Silent Smith, and
Rough House Joe, who ambled to the bar, pushing
up the mosquito-netting from their faces as they did
so.  With them also entered very quietly a stranger,
his head shrouded by a heavy black close-meshed
veil such as women wear.  The stranger did not lift
his veil but followed the others to the bar where
McShay had already placed convenient bottles and
glasses.  The fourth man did not speak but he had
to raise his veil to drink.  As he put down his empty
glass he turned and leaned against the bar.

"By G——!" gasped Roach, who had been in
close communion with the bottle since he had been
in the saloon.  "I've got 'em, have I?"

The poker game stopped and the players followed
the wild stare of the speaker to the figure leaning
against the bar.

"You mean to say you don't see *that*?" whispered
Dick, pointing a quivering finger.

It was evident that the people at the table saw
something.  There was a moment of oppressive
silence, then Smith, Lee, and Joe walked over to
Dick and looked at him carefully, then at the solemn
people at the poker table.  Their burly figures hid
the stranger for a moment, and when they turned to
walk back to the bar the stranger had disappeared.
The poker players looked rather relieved and a bit
limp.

"You fellers better take Dick home," said McShay
quietly, "and git some one to take care of him."

The poker players rose rather hurriedly, some of
them tipping over their chairs, and made a concerted
rush to the bar, leaving cards, chips, and some money
on the table.  They gulped their liquor feverishly.

"Gee, it's a hot night; ain't it?" said Humpy in a
dry voice, and wiping away the perspiration which
stood out in beads on his face.

"Dick sure is bad.  He thinks he seen it ag'in—just
now—*here*."  And he tried to force a superior
smile as he looked around.

"Say," said Kal, pulling himself together with the
aid of a couple of drinks; "it ain't no use to kid
ourselves nor to let no one else kid us.  He *did* see it.
That was——"

He didn't finish, for he was cruelly conscious of
the pity in the faces of Orson, Silent, and Joe.  He
turned to look at McShay and Sad.  The latter wore
his professional air of forbearance and bored interest.
McShay raised his eyebrows as much as to say:
"Well, old man; what is it?"

It was Dick's turn.  He rose and lurched to the
bar, looking at Kal and the others, and pounding
the bar with his fists.  "I'm a damn fool, am I?
I've got the williamytrimities, have I?"  Then he
turned to Lee.  "You mean to say *it* didn't—*he*
didn't come in here with you?"

"You mean Silent?" blandly inquired Lee, putting
his hand on the lanky man's shoulder.  "Yes," he
added in a kindly way.  "Yes, Richard; Silent and
Joe came in with me."

"Say," said Kal with more courage than the rest;
"you can't kid me.  He came in here with you.  A
fourth man came in here with you; stood up to the
bar and drank with you."

The three men looked helplessly at each other and
then at McShay.

"Say, McShay," bellowed the now infuriated Kal;
"you ain't a liar nor a fool.  Didn't you serve drinks
to a fourth man—here—just now?"

McShay turned with a bewildered look to Sad.
"Did I?"

Sad shook his head in the negative.

"What's the matter with you, Kal?" said McShay
in a gentle, considerate voice.

"Say," said Kal, grasping a bottle in each hand;
"charge these to me.  Come on, boys; let's go home."

And the poker players and Roach lurched out into
the night fairly on their way to forgetfulness.

McShay followed them to the door and watched
their receding figures.  When it was safe, he shut
the door, and the rough men left in the Palace Saloon
could be seen hugging each other, giving each other
huge slaps on the back, and rolling around on the bar,
the tables, and the floor with wild guffaws and
paroxysms.

When the enthusiasm had spent itself McShay
lifted his glass, the first he had poured for himself
that night, and said: "Well, boys; here's hoping
you may like your new job over on the Red Butte
Ranch."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XI`:

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   CHAPTER XI

.. vspace:: 2

When the asphalt conference broke up with the
spectacular departure of Hal and Bill, no one gave
a thought to the little Indian woman.  Almost before
the two horsemen were engulfed in their own dust she
was in action, without conscious plans or purposes,
but also without hesitation.  Perhaps she was stirred
by vague premonitions, but of this too she was
unconscious.  She knew that the man she loved was
riding away, riding away into danger, and to follow
was inevitable.  It was an instinct she could not
resist, which she did not try to resist or even
understand.  Behind Cadger's store were hitched the
horses of the police.  She took the first one she came
to.  It happened to belong to Charlie Chavanaugh.
Chavanaugh was a sport, a lover of horse-flesh, and
before she had gone far she knew that she had picked
a good horse, in fact his pet racer.  She knew how
to ride.  It was her favorite dissipation, and in the
first mad exhilaration she and the fine animal came
to a complete understanding.  She knew all the
crosscuts, cutoffs, and trails.  She did not follow
directly, but took to the open, over sage-brush and
hillock.  It was hurdle-racing, only more dangerous,
with hidden pitfalls of gopher holes and prairie-dogs'
homes.  She knew the Knife-edge and took it as a
matter of course.  It never occurred to her to think
what she would do when she got to the ranch, or her
possible connection with what might happen there.
The ranch was his objective!  Therefore it was hers.
She seemed to be two persons, the one riding a horse
over difficult and dangerous ground, picking, choosing,
active, alert; the other free from the limitations
of the flesh, absorbed in her own thoughts, thoughts
always of him, going over their acquaintance from
the beginning, trying to find herself and him, and what
it meant and was to mean.  When the young chief
of police had bundled her out of the sun-dance, she
was not conscious so much of his protection or the
need of it as of a wonderful glow and thrill.
Something that made existence new and strange and
divine.  That he liked her in return she had known
for a long time.  There was no mistaking his look.
And yet why had he never spoken?  There was only
one reason—he was a white man and she was an
Indian.  And that made her draw herself away cold
and proud.  She did not suppose it was because she
was poor.  She had the Indian's metaphysical
contempt for the material, and she felt that this white
man was superior to the failings of his race.  No;
this man was not absorbed in *getting things*, in taking
them from others and keeping them from others.
He could stop to dream and to wonder.  No; it was
not because she was poor.  It was because she was
Indian.  She knew all the phases of the white
man's sense of race superiority.  That would account
for everything.  Then came the revelation that
Nat-u-ritch was his mother.  That explained many things,
but not everything.  She knew at last that he did not
hate his mother's people.  Indeed, this understanding
seemed to set them apart from others and then
bring them together in a way neither had known
before.  Still there was something.  What was it?
She went over the possible rivals.  There was the
pretty little teacher, Miss Olmstead.  She was
effective in a pale, blond indefiniteness, but she was a
teacher from necessity, not from choice, and
uncongenial routine had left her diluted.  That Miss
Olmstead had cast longing eyes in the direction of the
chief of police was obvious, but even jealousy could
not suggest that this interest had been returned.
Why was he silent?  Why was the shadow of restraint
over all their intercourse?  This eddied in
endless circles and always came back as it started,
unanswered.

When she got close to the ranch it occurred to her
for the first time that Hal might be displeased that
she had followed him, so, while he and Bill were
busy with Curley, she had slipped by them into the
cow-sheds, from there crept into the stable and up
into the loft.  Fortunately for Hal he had no suspicion
that she was the witness of his trial and execution.
Fortunately the knowledge of her sufferings was not
added to his own.  As for her, she was on the rack
and acutely conscious.  Nothing escaped her.  Every
twist and turn of the wheel brought a new pang, an
added element of torture.  It was the sublimation of
cruelty brought to a white heat.  She saw it in detail
and the end from the beginning.  She had a quick and
complete sense of the frightened, savage, covetousness
of these lawless men.  She saw, too, that she was
powerless to stop or prevent the murder of the man
she loved.  She would have tried the impossible, but
she was paralyzed with the obvious futility of every
wild expedient that rushed through her brain, and
while she groped for something else, something sane,
the crime went relentlessly on to its certain and
ghastly end.  Then she tried to shut her eyes and
pray, but her eyes refused to close.  She prayed
wide-eyed, prayed first as an Indian, to the bear to give
him strength, to the wolf to give him cunning, to the
eagle to give him freedom, to the sun, to Shinob.
Then she remembered that she had passed beyond
all that, and she called upon God, John McCloud's
God.  Who shall say that God, the god of the bear,
of the Indian, and of John McCloud did not hear
her?  But to her He did not seem to care.  Perhaps
it was because she had not shut her eyes.  The white
people shut their eyes in prayer.  She closed hers for
a terrible moment, and as she did so she heard the
rope creak and groan as the body of her man shot
up into the air.  When she opened them it was to
glare at the awful thing in cold and empty horror.
She could not even cry out.  She staggered to her
feet with an impulse to throw herself from the loft.
Something hard in the buckskin pouch struck her
sharply as it swung.  Then she found it in her hand.
She didn't know how to shoot, had not been taught,
but something happened.  She saw a flash near her
hand; her right hand.  She felt weak and faint.
With the left hand she steadied herself against the
adobe wall.  Something cut her hand.  It was a
scythe.  If she smote the rope she did not remember
it.  She only remembered gazing into the beloved
face distorted in the agony of a horrible death.  Had
he passed beyond all help?  As she started in panic
to the spring her toe struck Curley's half empty flask.
That and the ice-cold water of the spring, and her
love—surely that would bring him back to life.  It
was a relief to be doing something at last, even if it
should prove futile.  Then when all was done, it
seemed so little, there was only to wait.  That was
hard—to wait and watch.  Suddenly, was it her own
delusion?  His eyelid fluttered.  Yes, he lived.  Then
the mountains waved, and the stars danced, and it
seemed that days and nights passed as she sat waiting
and watching each returning sign of life.  She had
died with him step by step; so now she returned with
him to life.  When she remembered again she was
sitting with his head in her arms and weeping.

Consciousness came back to Hal through the flickering
lights that snapped and cracked, burnt and went
out, then burned again in a vast smother of writhing
darkness.  The first breath of fresh air choked him.
He felt that he was drowning in it.  Then he slipped
out of the mountainous whirlpools into still waters,
and he saw the face of Wah-na-gi bending over him,
and he felt that this was what men called Heaven.
He tried to reach out his arms and take her but they
wouldn't move.  It was a dream.  She seemed to
say: "Don't try, just rest."  When he was conscious
again his limbs responded and he drew her face down
and murmured: "Wah-na-gi, you're mine.  I love
you.  I want you.  I want you *now*."  And she
kissed him.

The moon, now white and cold, still hung in the
heavens, but in the east the day was coming with a
passionate rush.  The snow-white bosom of the
Moquitch glowed with its fervor, and through the
chill of the dawn stole the breath of a languorous day.

"Deliver us from evil!"  That is the only prayer
of those who lie helpless in the grip of a mastering
passion.

"Deliver us from evil."

Their good angel stirred the bleeding form of
Curley, and a moan broke from his lips.

"Water; I'm dying.  Water."

While Wah-na-gi went to the spring, Hal pulled
himself together, crawled over to his executioner, and
made a superficial examination.  As he turned his
thought to another his strength came fast.  With the
aid of Wah-na-gi he put a tourniquet on the shattered
arm; then he found a wound near the lungs made by
the deflected bullet.  By slow stages they managed to
get the injured man into the house where his wounds
were washed and he was made as comfortable as was
possible.  "He's got a chance, Wah-na-gi.  Will you
be afraid to stay here with him until I can bring a
surgeon?"

"You're not strong enough to ride to the Fort."

"I'll go to Calamity and telephone from there."

When Hal returned to the ranch with Surgeon
Flood, Wah-na-gi was *gone*.  It was a great blow to
him and, strange to say, unexpected.  He knew of
course that she had no right to be off the Reservation
without a permit, yet somehow he had taken for
granted her welcome.  It was the one thing he thought
of while he was away.  It enabled him to forget his
own weakness.  It kept him steadily to the task in
hand.  Without thinking he had begun to make her
a feature of his plans for the ranch and his own future.
He felt the void left by her was unbearable.  He felt
the despair of the thirst-crazed wanderer who rides
madly toward the ghostly trees which promise water,
only to find them always drifting away into the
mocking distance.

All Curley could tell him was that some Indians
had called her outside and that she had not returned.

Then after the first bitterness of his resentment
over this disappointment came a strange sense of
relief.  And he knew that he was glad; glad that
she had gone.

"Deliver us from evil!"

Yes, he was glad she was gone.

There was plenty for him to do and he threw
himself into the doing of it with a feverish energy.
Neglect and nature had gone far to restoring the
ranch to the wilderness.  Houses, barns, corrals,
ditches—they called aloud for help.  This response
to duty and obligation was highly gratifying to Bill,
who did not realize that it was a frantic effort to flee
from the voices of the night.  Hal never spoke of
Wah-na-gi, but in the cool silences under the stars
his imagination galloped to the Agency, and rode
riot there, circling round and round that girlish
figure, begging for news, begging for some word,
pleading for some token that her love had not died
in the night, uncovering pitfalls, digging them where
they did not exist, building and tearing down, testing,
arguing, threatening, fighting, inventing, inventing
and suffering.  Life has no tortures to compare with
these figments that never happen, these phantom
bridges we never cross, these deaths we never die.
In the night given to peace, rest, and regeneration,
our thoughts stampede like maddened cattle and rush
to destruction or exhaustion, and all we can do is
avoid their hurtling hoofs, ride herd on them, get
them to "milling," round and round in endless
circles until they come to rest in wide-eyed collapse.
Mysterious phantoms of the night!  In the clear day
these cattle wander "in green pastures and beside
still waters."  The strain of it was telling on Hal as
day followed day and exhausting night followed night.
In action his momentum was fierce and irritable; in
moments of repose his face looked drawn, and a
world-weariness drooped in his limbs, and a pale
light shone out of his blue eyes.

Even Bill began to notice that he never smiled,
and in this connection Bill remarked to Joe: "And
smilin' is one of the best things the kid does."

He smiled the day McCloud arrived as he put his
two strong hands on the shoulders of the invalid's big
frame, gave them a gentle pressure, as if afraid of
crushing that frail habitation of the spirit, and bade
the clergyman welcome to Red Butte Ranch.  Then
monotonous week followed monotonous week and
the hidden fires smouldered on.  One evening as the
sun was going down he smiled again, but it was a
peculiar smile; it got no higher than his lips, and the
pale light of endurance in his eyes changed to a fierce
flame.  Chavanaugh had ridden in about sundown
with a letter.  It was hardly a letter, just a few words
scribbled on a scrap of paper, not over a dozen
words, but they were from Wah-na-gi.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII

.. vspace:: 2

In a great city people live so close together there
are no neighbors.  Isolation is the freedom of the
city; it's the city's one gift.  Men guard it jealously,
are ready to fight for it.  It's the only safeguard
against the crowding obligations of a common humanity.
One is appalled at the suggestion of bringing
home the sorrows of others, or letting them peek in at
the window—these multitudinous sorrows, so painful,
so sordid.  We resent the noise in the cells overhead
or the cells underneath, and we do not want to know
that it is the cry of mortal anguish of those who are as
alone as ourselves.  It's only people who live apart,
or meet each other on the road to Jericho, that are
really neighbors.  The units of a community that is
shut off from the rest of the world huddle together,
and gentleness and kindness are born in the solitudes.
In the barren soil of common hardships flowers bloom.
But the city has its advantages.  The loneliness of a
great city is as nothing to the isolation of one who
is alone in a small community.  Wah-na-gi was being
made to feel very much alone.  The teachers of the
school with the exception of Wah-na-gi were white
women and with one exception, women of a narrow
horizon.  They sympathized with her in her struggle
not to go back, but there had always been condescension
and toleration in their attitude toward her.
That she was made much of by the Rev. John McCloud,
that she was admired by the chief of police
and others perhaps had not added to her popularity.
Sometimes such things make a woman a suspicious
character.  When she was returned to the Agency
she found gossip had been before her.  Perhaps one
may be pardoned for living in a city, to escape from
the terrors of tattle.  Calthorpe had been seen.  His
escape was known.  That she had saved a man's life
without being chaperoned on the occasion, that she
remained with the young man at the ranch an indelicate
time, that she had to be brought back by force,
etc., etc.—the intervening details could be supplied
by any one with half an imagination.  To the white
women on the Agency this was "just what one might
expect from an Indian."  The moral attitude is
sometimes a curious one.  The knowledge of what
we would have done under certain conditions instead
of making us forbearing, strange to say, only makes
us more intolerant; but that knowledge makes us
very certain of *just what happened*.  The only person
apparently within a hundred miles who hadn't heard
about it was the victim herself.  It was night when
she reached the Agency and she went directly to the
school.  The teachers lived together in one of the
adjoining buildings.  The first thing that met her
eyes was her few belongings huddled together on the
veranda.  The principal came out just as Wah-na-gi
stopped to gaze at the unfriendly spectacle.

"We didn't know what your plans were, and
thought you might be in a hurry——"

"I would have gone in the morning."

Something of the cruelty of their haste came even
to the human logarithm, and she hurriedly offered to
give up to the ex-teacher *her* room for the night.

Tears were streaming down Wah-na-gi's face and
she had to wait a moment before replying.  Then she
said simply: "Thank you; no, I couldn't stay now,"
and she walked out of the yard, down the deserted
street, and out onto the bench where Chapita had her
farm and her log-cabin, some two miles from the
Agency.

"I'm going back," she thought as she trudged the
lonely two miles to the cheerless cabin on the desolate
farm.  "I'm going back in spite of myself; going
back to the savage in me."

Chapita was the widow of the blood-brother of
her father.  One of her few sentiments had been
gratitude to the big chief who had been her husband's
friend, and this now flowered in loyalty to his child.
She was an unlovely person but she was human.
Her cabin was an unlovely place but it was a shelter.
Wah-na-gi was very tired with her long ride, too tired
perhaps to sleep.  She closed her eyes but not in
slumber, and each time that she opened them to
escape from the mental images which terrified and
mocked her, it seemed to her as if the walls of the
little cabin were closing in on her inch by inch and
that if she lost herself in forgetfulness they would
crush her.  The strained stillness of the night was
broken by the mournful howl of the coyotes and the
mournful answer of Chapita's dogs, trying to tell
their wild kin how impossible it was to go back!  The
dogs were explaining that it wasn't a pleasant thing
to be man's "best friend" but it was better than being
his hunted enemy.  But the logic of this made no
impression on the coyotes whose only answer to its
inevitableness was to call again and again—come
back; come back.

The following day Wah-na-gi stayed away from the
Agency as long as she could, but it is a long day
which has had no night.  The odors of the cabin
offended her, and she was waiting for the tardy sun
when at last it consented to get up.  Chapita would
not allow her to share the simple chores.  They were
*her* refuge from consuming loneliness; so Wah-na-gi
stirred about in the stillness; she sat down in it;
she rose up in it.  She looked away off into the
distance where was the Red Butte Ranch.  She looked
down on the Agency buildings and the brave flutter
of its flag.  She did these things several times.  Then
by the law of gravitation she found herself in the
afternoon at the post-office.  She knew she had no
letters, but she had to speak to some one.  The fat
post-mistress had protruding eyes and wore glasses
that horribly magnified them.  She looked like a
mediaeval gargoyle.

"No!" there was no mail for Wah-na-gi, and this
simple fact was put through the narrow window in a
way to suggest the early Hebrew prophets in their
favorite posture toward the stiff-necked and rebellious
generation.

Wah-na-gi duly quailed.  Thus encouraged the
amiable official glared at her malevolently and
suggested with clumsy guile:

"I suppose you know there's a *ree*-ception to-night
at the agent's to the Guv'ment inspector, skool
inspector?"

"No; I didn't know it."

"S'pose you're goin'?"

"I don't know—I, er—I don't know."  And she
hastened out of the dingy little office of inquisition.
Both knew that she wasn't going.

It would seem that one might face the future without
despair even if one should be purposely excluded
from so important a function as a reception by the
agent to the school functionary, but these things are
relative.  This was as important here as the king's
drawing-room would be in London, and we know
that fortunes have been spent, the arts of diplomacy
exhausted, homes shaken, and governments jeopardized
for social prizes of no more real consequence.
*Every one* would know that she was not there, and
nowhere on earth where human beings meet can they
exist without the approval of their fellows.

Besides the wound to her self-esteem there was a
genuine loss to her in not meeting the official.  She
had started a movement to interest the Indian children
in themselves, their own art, music, history, and
poetry, to awaken their pride of race and stimulate
their desire to preserve and perpetuate these priceless
things which were fast drifting back into the
unknown and forgotten.  The movement had received
encouragement from some of the wiser folk at
Washington.  She wanted to show what she had done,
what the children had accomplished.  Perhaps it
wasn't of consequence, but it seemed so to her.  The
inspector would be told the experiment was a failure,
and at the thought of that she wanted to cry out.

It all seemed so unjust, so cruel.  Many of these
things were trifles in themselves, but the sum of them
was soon to become portentous.

She stood irresolutely for a moment in front of the
post-office.  Where could she go?  What could she
do?  Her employment was gone.  The school was
closed—*to her*.  She looked over at the trader's store.
Cadger had been shamed before a lot of men and
made to apologize *to her*, an Indian woman.  He
wasn't likely to forget it in a hurry, and so the store,
the social rendezvous of the Agency, was closed *to
her*.  There was the blacksmith shop, the saw-mill
out on the bench, the corrals and stables, and the
agent's house.  She drifted aimlessly along.  Time
hung heavy on her hands.  She had ample leisure to
think, to face the situation.  She felt physically weak.
Her limbs began to tremble and she sank down.  She
looked up at the inhospitable sky.  There waving
over her was the flag.  At least she could sit down
here and rest, under her country's flag.  But was
it her country, or her flag?  Would it protect her, a
friendless Indian woman?  Thousands, tens of thousands
had died to make it the symbol of protection.

"Wah-na-gi, my child, what are you thinking of?"  And
John McCloud laid his long thin hand upon hers.

"I was thinking that *this* has meant so much to the
white people, perhaps it might some day mean
something to me."

The gaunt man followed the direction of her eyes
and saw that she meant the stars and stripes, and the
simplicity of her faith touched and saddened him.

All he could say was: "Perhaps!  Perhaps at an
hour when ye think not."  And he took off his hat
reverently and without ostentation to that gallant
symbol.  "It hasn't always stood for justice to your
people, but on the whole we have reason to be proud
of it, and perhaps even the Indian may come to love
it some day."

"I was thinking, too, why everything was made so
hard for me."

"That question comes to us all, my dear!  To me,
too, very often."

But she was so absorbed in her own perplexities
she did not see his wan smile or note his effort to
resist the racking cough.

"Have I done anything wrong?"

He looked at her keenly for a second.

"Your asking me the question shows me that you
have not."

"Then why?"

"We seem to want to think the worst of each other
sometimes.  These good people have decided that
you did something indiscreet in following Calthorpe
to the ranch, in remaining there, in having to be
brought home."

She looked at him in wonder.  He felt ashamed.

"I tell you this because some one will tell you, and
perhaps in a less friendly way."

"It isn't really worth while; is it?"

"What?"

"Living."

"Oh, yes, my dear.  Life is worth living; life is a
glorious thing."

It seemed a priceless thing to him struggling so
desperately to keep it.

"It doesn't matter if naughty little children make
faces at us."

"Yes; but it does matter.  These people are here.
I am here.  I make my life a little.  They make it a
good deal."

"No; just reverse that.  They make it a little.
You make it a good deal.  Wah-na-gi, I have no
children.  God has not given me that supremest
blessing, but I could not be prouder of you if you
were my very own.  I've watched you.  You have
made a brave, splendid struggle.  You must not give
up.  You must win out.  You have youth and you
have health; oh, thank the good God for that.  You
have health.  We each mean something in the great
sum the Divine Mind is solving.  Leave the meaning
to Him.  Leave the answer to Him!  Trust Him.
Promise me not to give up, not to despair.  I couldn't
go away and leave you here——"

"You are going away?"  The warm blood that
was coming back into her empty heart at the revelation
that this good man trusted her, cared for her,
suddenly stopped and left her cold and numb.

"You are going away?"

"I tried hard to like the agent, and when that was
impossible, to at least respect him.  After what
happened at the asphalt conference my presence
makes Mr. Ladd very uncomfortable.  If I wanted
to stay, or could stay, he would not let me.  The
valley of humiliation is an unpleasant place, even
when it's another's valley."

"You are going back East?"

"No; I couldn't live in the East.  I am going over
to the Red Butte Ranch."

"To live with *him*?"

"With Hal; yes.  He invited me some time ago,
and I've sent him word I'm coming.  I'm going now."

She had an indistinct recollection that he took
both her hands in his, that he begged her not to do
something, that she promised whatever it was he
wanted, that there were tears in his eyes, that he
asked God's blessing on her, and then he was gone.

She must have remained there some time, for
suddenly she became aware of the presence of some one,
and the flag, the flag that was to be her protection,
was *coming down*.  It seemed an evil omen.  She was
startled and she thought some one laughed.  She
looked up.  The teachers in their best array were
laughing and chatting in the best of humor on their
way to Agent Ladd's.  There was to be a dinner
evidently to precede the reception to the Washington
official.

Again she found her way like a wounded bird
across the bleak uplands to Chapita's cabin.

So long as the old woman lived Wah-na-gi would
have a refuge.  She was truly grateful for this, as
she thought how rapidly her world was narrowing,
and Chapita had her uses, but under no circumstances
was it possible for this ignorant, slovenly,
unpleasant old woman to be a companion to this
young girl.  They had nothing in common except a
need for the necessities of life, and Chapita was a
type to the girl of all she had striven to avoid.

They were driving her back, back to *this*!  Yes,
when she was old she would be like this.  She
shuddered.  It would not have mattered if she had never
known.  She could not eat the coarse food badly
prepared by the old woman.  She knew that in time
hunger would make her eat it!  So, too, in time she
would yield and go down, and back to this.  Hunger
would force her to it; hunger for companionship, for
human ties.  She tried not to let Chapita see how
repellent all this was to her.  She tried hard to be
gracious and not to hurt her feelings, but the old
woman knew there was a great gulf between them
and felt sorry for the child and patient with her.
She, too, shared the thought that in time Wah-na-gi
would come back to her own people.  Wah-na-gi
had to leave her food uneaten and get out into the air
under the stars.  The cabin contained only a single
room.  It was very primitive.  She thought of her
clean little boudoir at the school, which she had
somehow taken for granted would always be hers,
and which she had taken such pains and such pride
in making dainty and attractive.  She hadn't slept
the first night in that room of Chapita's.  She knew
she would sleep this second night.  Nature would
bring her to that too.  She was so tired and yet she
had done nothing all day, nothing but suffer.  Chapita's
noisy breathing told her the old woman had not
stayed awake to puzzle over any one's destiny, and
finally she dragged herself into the dirty room and
slept.

She was awake early and unrefreshed.  Chapita
had not stirred.  The first thing that met Wah-na-gi's
eyes as she threw open the door for the air was a
beautiful buckskin dress ostentatiously laid out in a
conspicuous place.  It was elaborately outlined and
adorned, a striking example of the best skill in Indian
beadwork, and it glistened in the shadows of the dull,
shabby room.  Perhaps Chapita had grown wildly
extravagant and had—but what holiday or fête day
was it?  Her brain refused to account for any public
occasion that would justify Chapita in wearing such
gorgeous habiliments.  She would not wake her to
inquire, but dress and get out into the sweet morning
air.  But her clothes?  What had become of her
clothes?  They were gone.  No, some one had
hidden them.  It was a joke, not a joke she relished!
She searched the place.  Finally she woke the
bewildered Chapita and asked for an explanation.
Chapita was more nonplussed than herself.  It was
plain that she knew no more of the appearance of the
new and the disappearance of the old than Wah-na-gi
herself.  The Indian girl's wardrobe was very limited,
but her simple little frocks were such as white girls
wore, and now for these were substituted very charming
specimens of such clothes as Indian women wear.
She sat down to think.  Was it a hint, a warning, or an
invitation?  There was no mistaking it.  She began
to feel cowed and helpless.

"Yes, they are driving me back to the savage in
me," she thought.  She sat down helplessly.  For a
long time she sat so.  Finally she put on the buckskin
dress.  It was evident that she must unless she
was prepared to remain within doors.  There was no
mistaking the look in Chapita's face.  It was abject
admiration.  She thought herself she must look well
in it.  The lines were simple and graceful.  It fitted
her as if made for her.  The quick gratification to
her vanity was momentary.  She had a conviction
that she looked better in it than in the conventional
clothes of the white woman.  This startled her,
worried her.  She admired the dress.  It made an
unmistakable appeal to her.  There is something of the
savage lust of color in us all.  Was it because the
garment was really beautiful, or because she was an
Indian forever in spite of her aspirations?  She knew
that the wearing of these clothes would be hailed by
the whites and Indians as a sign of surrender.  She
saw their wagging heads, heard their jests and
laughter.  She exaggerated their triumph, her own
defeat.  She wouldn't go to the Agency any more,
and she stayed away that day.  It was a long hard
day to get through.  She made Chapita's home
cleaner inside and out.  That was all she could do.
The cabin was approachable only from the front and
sides.  On the north it had been stuck up against
some broken, crumbling sandstone cliffs, that it
might not be blown off the bench by the north-east
winds when the Winter-man came.  Toward the
north-west these ramparts were low, scarcely more than
twice the height of the house.  These battlements,
a protection in the winter, made the place a flaming
furnace in the summer.  It was bearable only at
night, at sunset and sunrise.  At other times it was
hell.  Chapita's farm was a farm in name.  It
spread out on the bench in unfenced acres, how many
Chapita did not know or care, of dusty sage-brush and
cactus lying on the broken foot-hills.  Irrigation and
great labor might have turned its desolation into a
farm; it wasn't likely to get either.  Around the
house was not a blade of grass or a flower.  Two
half-starved mangy dogs occasionally relieved the
gathering and oppressive stillness.  At first there was
a sense of relief that no one bothered her, that every
one let her alone; then she began to feel that even
the society of Appah or the agent would be a relief.
The monotony of nothing to do, nowhere to go, was
maddening.  One day she was wandering aimlessly
along a trail feeling that invisible and malevolent
influences were hounding her.  It came to her that she
was being "run down," a process employed successfully
by plainsmen and Indians in capturing wild
horses.  It was very sure if somewhat slow and
tedious.  It consisted in never letting the quarry rest.
Suddenly two horsemen loomed up in front of her,
and she was ordered to turn round and go back.
They were Indian police and she looked about and
realized that she was on the trail leading to the Red
Butte Ranch.  Then she knew that she was watched.
Appah was now in control of the police force and the
system invented by Hal for her protection was now
used to persecute her.  By and by the sense of
hostile eyes invisible but present grew to be painful.
That night when she got home, she got a very
disagreeable impression.  Chapita had been to the
distribution of the Government rations; she had been
to the slaughter-house and had fought with the other
squaws for the entrails.  Wah-na-gi remembered as a
child having once witnessed the hideous and disgusting
spectacle.  She had seen the squaws practically
skin cattle alive, before the death convulsion was
fairly started or the glazing eyeball ceased to roll.
Chapita bore evidences of the good-natured rivalry
for the refuse.  It made Wah-na-gi physically ill.
She had a violent nausea.  Worse than all, it was
obvious that the poor old woman had been unfortunate
or had been discriminated against, for it looked
as if the rations were those no one else would have.
Even the spirit of the wild horse on the free and
limitless plain is broken.  The following morning
she went directly to the Agency and walked into the
offices.  There the clerks and typewriters were busy
with the many details of this little government within
a government.  They let her stand at the railing
while they discussed her in whispers until she called
to one of them by name and asked would she be so
kind as to let the agent know she wanted to speak to
him.  The individual addressed brought back the
word that Mr. Ladd was too busy to see her.  She
stood for a moment, gripped her hands, and kept back
the tears.  Would they tell him it was very important?
There was a shadow of a smile at this, but the
message was delivered.  Wah-na-gi would have to come
some other time.  She came the next day and the
next.  It was the same answer.  Then she asked
for a piece of paper and a pencil and scribbled on it:
"Please, Mr. Ladd, oh please give me back my school."

There was no answer.  She was dizzy as she came
out into the street and she drifted helplessly to the
seat at the foot of the flag-staff and sat down under
the flag.  Charlie Chavanaugh lounged down beside
her and slyly put something into her hand.  She
knew it was money, a roll of bills, and she knew
whence it came.

"No; I couldn't take *money* from him."

This contingency had evidently been provided for,
for Charlie said softly: "See paper.  Not now," and
walked away.  She retained the paper wrapped
about the money and when she got home read it:
"Send Chapita to Crazy John at night."  Everybody
knew about Crazy John.  Out on the bleak bench
for eighteen years had existed a thing which had once
been a man.  Under a lean-to so crude and badly
made as to offer small shelter from the blistering
heat of the summer and even less protection from the
rigors of winter, huddled a wretch in rags who, so far
as any one knew, had done nothing all these years but
lie there.  He had a story grim as Greek tragedy.
The man had murdered his mother and his punishment
was self-inflicted.  It was as if he had thrown
himself down on the hard bosom of mother earth and
said to the elements: "I have sinned past forgiveness.
Do your worst."  In all the years, so far as any one
knew, he had never spoken to a human being or
lifted a hand to protect himself except for this
wretched lean-to which would not have given shelter
to a wolf.  Why the fluids of his body did not freeze
when the thermometer was below zero was a mystery;
as great as his immunity from the greedy wolf and
coyote.  The Indians believe that the insane enjoy
the special protection of Deity.  To them he was a
sacred mystery and his tragedy was respected.
Occasionally food was placed within his reach by his
relatives, and white curiosity seekers sometimes tossed
him a coin, but he was a fearsome thing and his
dwelling-place was a fearsome spot, cheerfully avoided.

Wah-na-gi understood.  It was something of an
undertaking to persuade the superstitious old woman
to go there for the food and supplies left there by
Hal's emissaries, but once the route was established it
solved the problem of bare existence; at least it did
for a time.  One night Chapita did not return and
in the morning her body was found near the imbecile
with the skull crushed.  It was said that the old
woman had been trying to steal the food left for
Crazy John and that he had killed her.

This theory would not have borne scrutiny.  The
food contained in the old woman's bag was
*uncooked*, and was of a character and quality unknown
to the imbecile or his relatives, but Chapita was a
matter of no particular consequence to any one except
Wah-na-gi, and it did not suit the purposes of any one
in authority to question the accepted theory.  When
Chavanaugh brought the news to the girl she just
threw up her arms like one who drowns.  Then it
was she scribbled the ten words to Hal and gave them
to Chavanaugh.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII

.. vspace:: 2

"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 be *my 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 for *things*."

"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 you *now*, 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.

"What *are* you doing here?" said the agent fiercely.

"What *you* do 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."

"*You* won't," rasped Cadger to the agent; "and
*you* won't," he hissed at Appah.  "All right, I'm
not goin' to sit down while you ruin me between you.
It's a deadlock, and *I* decide 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
the *impasse* in 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, the *one 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 the *medicine 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—and *lost*.  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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIV

.. vspace:: 2

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 told *you*.  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 matters *now*," 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 an *act* in 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.

"Are *you* a 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'd *like* to 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 ask *Him* for the answer?"

"I don't think of God as a cruel and omnipotent *Don'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 except
*Americans*—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 repeat *her*
tragedy?"  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 against *yourself*."

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 let *you* decide 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XV`:

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   CHAPTER XV

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"Howd'y, Parson!  Hello, boy!"

The diversion made by the appearance of McShay
was a most welcome one to the youth who felt
"baffled and beaten and blown about by the winds of the
wilderness of doubt."  Hal felt helpless in the hands
of McCloud with his metaphysical verities, so
fixed, unalterable, and unanswerable, but McShay
carried with him something that was tangible and
workable.  Shadows fled before him.  Subtleties
disappeared before the sun of his genial optimism, or
materialized in rain or snow or ice, assumed a form
that could be reckoned with.  The presence of the
man of action was an enormous relief to Hal.
McShay's intuitions were quick and he no longer spoke
to the clergyman of his health, but he swept him with
a searching glance and took his hand gently in his
iron grip as he would have taken the hand of a
woman.

"You sent me word you needed help," he said to Hal.

"Yes."

"Things is awful dull over our way; wouldn't like
to miss anything.  I brought over a few of the boys.
It's Wah-na-gi; ain't it?"

McShay was adaptable.  It was perhaps a large
part of his success in life.  He could be vulgar and
common with the vulgar and common, or he could
follow those who went up into the mountains and
looked into a far country, and whether with those
who grovelled or those who stood on the heights, each
kind felt he was one of them, and there was no
hypocrisy in this.  He understood and sympathized
with both.  There was nothing offensive in the way
he said:

"It's Wah-na-gi."

"How did you know it was Wah-na-gi?"

"Why, son," and a broad smile spread over the
cowman's face, "everybody on the range knows
you're sweet on Wah-na-gi.  Presumably, too, you
was not unaware that the amiable Ladd had threatened
to shoot you on sight, and that the gentle Appah
has promised himself your scalp as a Christmas
present!"

"I knew I wasn't exactly popular at the Agency
just now."

"And so you just went over and took her?  Well,
it was a fool thing to do; but it's kind of appealin,'
Parson, it's appealin'.  What was that young feller's
name—none of your *Eastern* tenderfeet—the young
feller that come out of the West?"

"Rode out of the West?" corrected McCloud with
a twinkle in his eye.  "That hero was a Scotchman,
Mike."

"Couldn't be, Parson; couldn't be.  The Scotchman
will risk his neck for religion or a pinch of
change, but not for the ladies.  No, I'll bet he was
on the border, and mostly on our side.  But this
feller here!" and he put his hand on the shoulder of
the boy with unmistakable liking; "an Englishman,
too!  Beats all, don't it?  Anyway he loves a fight.
Must have a dash of the Irish in him somewhere, even
if it's the damn Protestant variety; savin' your
presence, Parson.  Sure, I took to him when he put it
all over Ladd, and when I count a man my friend, I
ain't over-nice as to his failin's.  Say, it's too bad
he's an Englishman, ain't it?  He's saved by the
Injin in him, I guess.  That's the truth."

"We were just discussing race prejudice," said
McCloud.

"Don't believe in it.  Nuthin' to it," ejaculated
the Irishman warmly.

"'A mon's a mon for a' that,' eh, McShay?"
suggested the countryman of Burns with a smile.

"No use for narrer-minded prejudice, but the
*English—excuse me*!"  Mike's face and body united in a
convulsion that was a three-volume exegesis of the
traditional Irish point of view.

"Sure, it's a toss up," he continued.  "The
English rule Ireland.  The Scotch rule England.  The
Irish rule America, and to hell with the rest of it—it
ain't worth rulin'."  The preacher laughed heartily.
"You know, Hal, me boy," continued Mike,
"the parson's human like the rest of us.  He don't
look like a duck as has swallowed a croquet ball just
because a little language slips out now and then.
For a gospel-foreman he's aces!  Well, as I was
sayin' when you interrupted me, we ain't come over
to fight, we ain't a-looking fer a fight, but if there's
goin' to be one, we'd hate to miss it.  Does it look
encouragin'?'

"I'm afraid there's going to be trouble over
Wah-na-gi," sighed the preacher.  "I have made a formal
application to the Secretary of the Interior to adopt
her, but——"

He did not say it, and Hal was grateful.  Having
expressed himself without reservation to the boy,
he had the wisdom to know when to let the good
seed alone.  A worldly twinkle lit up McShay's eyes
as he said:

"You've made formal application to the Secretary
of the Interior.  It's a noble move, Parson, and
you'll hear from it about the time Wah-na-gi is
somebody's great-grandmother, and in the meantime
you don't suppose these amiable feller-citizens is
goin' to sit down and twirl their thumbs."

"Any news from Washington, Mike?" asked Hal.

"Well, me boy, our fight against Ladd is goin' to
precipitate the whole thing.  You see, instead of
communicatin' in a genteel whisper they're beginnin'
to shout in Washington, and when they shout in
Washington it makes the God-fearin' business man
nervous and hysterical.  I guess we ought to let this
agitation against Ladd drop."

"Why, we can't do that," protested Hal warmly.
"Why let it drop?"

"Well, son, here's the situation.  We got a bill
before Congress, ain't we?  To make good our title
if it ain't good already.  Well, we're a menace to the
Trust.  They may queer our bill, but if they do,
they got to prove the lands are Government lands,
and that shuts *them* out, except for a lease from the
Injins, and that we can make cost 'em a pretty
penny, maybe we can queer it altogether.  If
everything is quiet in Washington our bill has a good
chance, because we can make terms with the Trust
to *let it go through* by agreein' to sell them our rights
if it does go through.  We are bound to git
something!  How much we can make 'em pay depends
on how close we stick together.  Now, if we put up a
fight against Ladd in Washington, Ladd is the Trust's
agent, they're goin' to stand behind him, and we've
got a big fight on our hands, and if we get to screamin'
at each other in Washington, why, every newsboy in
America'll know all about it."

"Suppose he does?" asked the preacher, deeply
interested.

"Well, the present Secretary of the Interior has
intimated that he might on investigation insist on
these lands being held for the benefit of the *general
public*.  The 'general public'!  What do you think
of that?  Did you ever hear anything so funny in
your life?"

"Why, that doesn't strike me as funny, McShay,"
said the preacher.  "That seems to be a very just
and splendid solution of the difficulty."

"And where would we come in?" yelled the Irishman.

"You're part of the general public."

"Hah!" he snorted, then turning to Hal; "ain't
parsons the limit?"

"I know Secretary Walker slightly," added
McCloud.  "He strikes me as a strong man."

"I'll tell you how strong he is," bellowed McShay.
now thoroughly aroused.  "He can't hold his job.
That's how much the 'general public' amounts to.
He don't please anybody.  He's got to resign."

"Well, you may quit the firing line, Mac," said
Hal quietly.  "But I promised Ladd to have his scalp,
and I'd hate to break a promise I'd made to Ladd."

"You ain't practical, either," shouted McShay.
"That's the Injin in you."

And the parson was in a dilemma too.  He didn't
know whether to praise the boy for being honest or
reprove him for being vindictive.

"Boss, Curley's come in with the mail," said Bill
as he came to Hal and handed him a telegram.
"Nuthin' but this."

Curley completely recovered, but minus a right
arm, was now one of Hal's retainers, and like all
converts he was a fanatic where the owner of the
Red Butte Ranch was concerned.

"I hope it's news from Washington," said Hal.
"No, it's from London."

It read: "Your father ill.  Come back
immediately.  Rundall."

"It's from my father's physician," explained Hal,
handing the cable to McCloud.

"And say, Boss," said Bill, trying to keep the worst
news to the last, "Ladd's out here."

"Ain't a-losin' any time, is he?" commented McShay.

"And he's got quite a few Injins with him," added
Bill slowly.  "In fact, they got us surrounded, I
reckon."  And Bill returned to his post.

"Go out and see Ladd, will you?" Hal said to
his two friends.  "And let me know what he has to
propose?  It'll give me a moment to think."

"Come on, Parson," said McShay, and he took
the preacher affectionately by the arm.  "By the
way, would you say that Ladd was a *Scotch* name?"

McCloud shot him a sly glance.

"I shouldn't wonder, McShay; but I don't think
the yellow canine mixture is *monopolized* by the
Scotch, do you?"

"Oh, ain't you touchy about your damned old race?"

And the two queer pals walked away arm in arm.

"Wah-na-gi, come here, please."

Hal called gently at the door.  She did not hear.
It was a shame to wake her.  He called again and
then again.  When she did awaken it was with a
start, her heart throbbing violently until she saw
him, then she breathed evenly with an assured smile.
He thought she had never looked so beautiful as she
stood holding to the support of the portico, and then
he noticed for the first time that she was dressed like
her people, and the brave flash and glitter of the
barbaric colors stirred something within him; something
strange, mystical.  He felt the touch of an unseen
hand, heard the sound of a silent voice.  He thrilled
to vague impulses, to a half-remembered strain that
might have been a love song or a lullaby, that had in
it the note of the primeval woods and the vastness of
the sky and plain.  He forgot the exigency of the
moment, the dangers that confronted them, and
said: "Wah-na-gi, wait here for a moment.  I've
something I want to give you."

And he disappeared into the house leaving her
wondering and alone.  She, too, was conscious of
some occult force to whose vibration she thrilled.
When Hal woke her she was quivering with the
ragged remnants of a dream.  Nat-u-ritch had come
to her and said: "You will be very happy.  My son
loves you."  Then John McCloud had come and
led her away to the Land of Shadows.  Here were
shadow streams and shadow hills, shadow wickiups,
shadow horses and cattle, shadow lovers and shadow
children.  Then Hal had come and called her away,
and she woke to see him.

This dream came back to her as she waited.  There
was the grave of Nat-u-ritch.  She walked over to it.
The gravestone was very simple like her life, a rough
bowlder torn from the bed of a mountain torrent.
It displayed no date of birth or death, no line of
eulogy, no word of sentiment, just her name in rude
lettering cut into the face of the rock, but to any one
who knew her tragic story it seemed appropriate and
impressive.  To Wah-na-gi it made the whole dingy,
desolate place sacred.  Nat-u-ritch seemed very real
as she stood there by her grave.  She knew Nat-u-ritch's
story and understood it.  The resignation of
the Indian woman toiling patiently through life
knowing that she was unloved, finding consolation
in her child; then bewildered, unable to understand
why her baby should be taken from her arms and
given to a strange white woman to be taken into a far
country; then the tall chief bringing his dead daughter
in his arms and holding her out to the white man, all
that was left of the little savage who was wife and
mother, with the weapon of destruction in one hand
and her child's little moccasins in the other.
Nat-u-ritch was very real to Wah-na-gi just then.  Her
spirit brooded near.

"Wah-na-gi, I want you to have these as a keepsake."

Hal held something in his hands at which he looked
intently.  Something glittered and gleamed like her
buckskin dress.  They were a tiny pair of child's
moccasins.

"They were mine," he said, "when I was a little
boy running around here on the ranch.  Those were
happy days," he added dreamily.  "My father gave
them to me before I left England.  He took them
from my dead mother's hand.  When my father gave
them to me I knew I had seen them before, often and
often in my dreams.  I used to think it was
Nat-u-ritch, my little mother, holding them out to me.
Then it seemed to me to be you, calling to me, calling
me to leave the cities, the limits, the din, the
make-believe, the murderous crowds; calling me to the
desert, the naked rocks, and the far spaces, the brooding
snows, the camp-fires, the songs of the pines, and
the angry rapids; calling me to my own, to live my
life in the open, and be a man among men."

His eye was fixed on space and he spoke like one
hypnotized or in a dream.  She knew it was the
son of Nat-u-ritch speaking to her, speaking to his
own soul.

"Perhaps—you would like them," he added.  "I
would like you to have them," and he held them
toward her.  "It's the best I have to give.  They are
my 'medicine,' my 'sacred bundle.'"

Tears were gathering in her eyes as she took and
kissed them.

"And now John McCloud says I must go back to
all that—to the land and the life where I was an
idler, a drunkard, and a failure."

Her heart stood still.

"Go back!  Why?"

"Because I love you, because I want you, because
I can't live without you."

She was in his arms and knew the supremest joy
of her life.

"And nobody is going to take you from me," he
added defiantly.

He was fighting McCloud, doing battle with
himself.  He had forgotten the agent until McShay
entered with a face graver than his wont.

"Well, what does he say, Mike?"

"He insists on talkin' things over with you in
person."

"Oh, well, bring him in.  Wah-na-gi," he turned
to her as the Irishman disappeared, "*Ladd is here*."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVI

.. vspace:: 2

Wan-na-gi shrank back, her eyes set with terror.

"Don't let him take me away.  I couldn't go back
there.  When I sent to you I had stood all I could.
Don't let that man put his hand on me.  You thought
he was protecting me from Appah.  I didn't tell
you—I was ashamed.  It was because, because——"

"He wanted you for himself."

"Yes."

"He won't take you back; not if I live.  Now
listen and don't be afraid.  My men believe in me,
better still, in my luck.  McShay's men want nothing
better than a chance to even scores with Ladd.  We
have the position.  Ladd isn't a soldier.  He doesn't
know this game.  I do.  He couldn't take the ranch
if he had twice as many braves, except at a fearful
cost——"

"My own people!" she said, as if it just occurred
to her for the first time.  "We shall kill our own
people!"  This time she included him.

"You are my people," he said passionately.  "You
are my country, my all.  Nothing else matters.  Go
in, Wah-na-gi, and don't be afraid."

"We must not kill our own people.  They're your
people as well as mine."

"A fight's a fight, Wah-na-gi.  Leave it to me."

"I didn't think of this when I called to you.  I
was tortured, mad, desperate, and I cried out for
help.  It was a mistake.  I—I—yes, I will go back."

"No, that would be horrible; I could not let you
go back.  We don't know what may happen, but I
could not do that.  Won't you leave it to me?  Trust
to me?"

She raised her eyes to him with a look of serene
abnegation, of exalted self-surrender, that transported
him, then sobered him.

He took her in his arms, kissed her as a brother
might, and she went within.

"Howd'y, Calthorpe?" said Ladd easily as he
entered with McShay and McCloud.

"How are you, Mr. Ladd?"

"I want to talk to Calthorpe alone, if you don't
mind," said the agent to the other two.

"Certainly," said Hal; "these gentlemen will step
into the house for a moment."

The Irishman drew the preacher toward the upper
wing of the house, keeping his eye steadily on the
agent who sauntered away.  Suddenly he stopped.

"On second thought you may have him," he
said *sotto voce* to McCloud.

"Suppose we divide the responsibility," responded
the preacher with a grave face, "and call
him—Scotch-Irish?"

And they went within to continue the animated
discussion as to the relative contributions of each
country to the world's greatness.

As Ladd turned the two men faced each other.

"I understand," said Hal easily, "that you threatened
to shoot me on sight.  Well, I'm on sight."

"Well," said the other calmly, "it may come to
that, and it may not.  That's up to you."

"Sit down," and Hal motioned to a seat with a smile.

"Thanks!" and Ladd sat on the harrow and nursed
his knee in a careless off-hand way.  "The Indians
are very mad.  Abduction of women is a serious
matter, isn't it?  Even a mean, dispirited race will
fight for its women.  Well, her people think you
stole Wah-na-gi."

Hal thought for a moment and then as he did not
see any advantage in dodging the issue, he said:

"Yes, I took her.  She's here."

"Oh, you admit it?" said the agent with elation.
"Well, that's something.  Then perhaps you'll be
good enough to hand her over to me."

"Well, no, not exactly.  You see she's claimed my
protection."

"*Your* protection?" responded Ladd with a cynical
laugh.  "That's rather feeble, isn't it?  Well,
the Indians claim my protection; protection for their
women, for their homes!"

To Hal, who knew the extent of Wah-na-gi's
obligations to her own people and their supreme
indifference to the girl, this buncombe was peculiarly
exasperating, but he did not honor it with a reply.

Ladd rose and came over to him.  Hal was seated
and the other bent down over him: "Now, you're no
fool, Calthorpe; you know that you've done a wild,
reckless, impossible thing, and you also know that
you can't get away with it," and the smooth, cool, even
manner gave place to the aggressive attitude of the
bully who felt secure in his position.  "Now, after
what happened at the powwow over at the Agency,
no one State is big enough for you and me."

"Yes," assented Hal complacently, "I've realized
that you and I were a bit crowded."

"You're in wrong this time, Calthorpe, and I've
got you where I want you," and Ladd chuckled over
the prospect.

In the cold light of day and in the scrutiny of
second thought and under hostile criticism, Hal had
a sickening sense that his act was crazy, quixotic,
indefensible, and yet what could he have done
otherwise?  Could he as a man have left this woman
he loved to be hounded into self-destruction or
dishonor?  She had called to him in her desperation.
Could he have turned a deaf ear to that cry?  He had
as usual acted on impulse.  Having at very great
risk effected her rescue, was he to face the ultimate
and inevitable and hand her back to these wolves?
It was inconceivable.  One step involved another.
He must go on, trusting to chance, a perilous trust.

"What is the idea?" asked Ladd with sarcastic
tolerance.  "The Government, the Army, and the
American nation is behind me."

Hal knew that this was too true.

"I am responsible to the Government and the
people for this girl.  And you come over and take
her away from me by force."

"Because you have betrayed your trust."

"I was in the very act of affording her protection
from the man of whom she complained when you
stole her.  Well, what are you going to do with her
now that you've got her?"

Hal did not quail under Ladd's merciless gaze, but
inwardly he writhed.

What was he going to do?  Oh, if he could take
this wretch by the throat and say: "She's mine—my
wife, my wife!"

Ladd waited, then added: "Why, if you try to
keep her, we'll wipe you out of existence—you and
your ranch."

"That sounds like a threat."

"We'll make it good.  Now you and McShay and
your crowd have been getting busy at Washington!  You
have been trying to get me removed, haven't you?"

"We have."

"And you haven't done it, have you?"

"Not yet, but we have hopes; we have hopes,
Brother Ladd."

"It didn't take you long to discover that I had a
few friends in Washington myself, did it?"

"No, we found that you were a patriot who had all
his life sacrificed his own interests to the good of his
country.  We found it was first Washington, then
Lincoln, and now Ladd."

"Your only excuse is that you're a kid.  You
make it hard for me to keep my temper.  You make
it hard for me to let you out of the hole you've put
yourself in."

"Let me out?"

"Yes, I can let you out or I can drown you in it.
You want this woman."

"So do you."

The two men stood eye to eye for a tense moment.
Then Ladd shrugged his shoulders and returned to
the business in hand.

"Cadger has decided that I cannot afford such
a luxury under the circumstances, and perhaps I
can't.  He thinks, and perhaps he's right, that you
and I could do a whole lot better than fight each other.
If you think so too, I'll meet you half-way."

"What's your game, Mr. Agent?"

"Well, I can arrest Appah and take these Indians
home, and—forget it.  Now you call off your crowd
in Washington and I'll call off mine here.  What do
you say?"

"Your offer takes me by surprise.  I'll have to
submit it to McShay."

As Hal walked to the house it went through his
brain that this was a very quick solution of a very
dangerous situation.  It was obvious that it would
meet the worldly views of McShay.  That astute
politician had just expressed the belief that the war
on Ladd was bad policy.  It also shot through his
brain that it would not coincide with the unworldly
views of McCloud.  Should he call out McShay
alone?  It is useless to deny that he was tempted.
In fact, he was on the Mount of Temptation and was
to miss no phase of that ordeal.

Ladd hesitated.  "Why, you're not going to—Can't
this be settled between you and me?" he
suggested nervously.

"You two Macs come out here," called Hal
through the door.

"These men are interested with me in this fight.
I can't act without them.  Gentlemen," said Hal to
the Irishman and the Scotchman as they came
forward with an air of expectancy; "the agent has
made me a proposition.  Unless we agree to call off
the fight against him in Washington, or I surrender
Wah-na-gi, he will turn Appah and his friends loose
on us and make the ranch a dust heap.  That's
about it."

"Now, ain't that nice?" said McShay with the air
of a pleased child.  "Now, Parson, you have an
introduction to practical politics.  Well, son," he
continued, turning to Hal; "it's up to you to decide.
Of course my constituents will say I was bought off,
but it wouldn't be the first time they've said
unpleasant things about me, and I'll see you through this
either way.  To me and the parson you're on the
square with regards to this girl, but we're only two
people and we ain't a workin' majority.  Ladd's got
a strangle holt on you in a way, so if you want to buy
him off—well, I'll stand in."

"Thank you, Mike.  What do you say, John?"

"What you have done, you have done.  For the
protection of this fine Indian girl, well, trust her to
God.  Omnipotence can care for her."

"Well, Parson," said Mike doubtfully, "just for
the sake of argument; why not leave Ladd to
Omnipotence?  Think the agent's too many for
Omnipotence?"

The clergyman ignored the irrepressible Irishman.

"You have asserted," he went on, "that Agent
Ladd is unfit for his responsible position, that he has
been untrue to his trust.  If you go back on that you
make yourselves liars and frauds, and continue this
man's tyranny, and fasten it on these helpless people.
There are those who are looking to you, trusting to
you, who have enlisted under you in this fight.  You
can't betray them.  You can't juggle with the right.
You can't do it."

"That's the answer, Mr. Agent," said Hal quietly.

"Ain't parsons the limit?" murmured McShay to
himself.

"Then of course you've decided to hand Wah-na-gi
over to me," said Ladd with menace.

"I'll see you damned first," was Hal's reply.

"Then you'll be responsible for hell cut loose,"
and the agent started to go.

"See here; wait a minute!" cried McShay intercepting
him.  "I've got it, and I can fix it so as
to satisfy everybody."

He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a
coin.  "I'll match you for it—to see whether we give
up the fight against you in Washington, or you throw
up the sponge here.  Now that's fair, Parson.  That
sort of puts it up to Providence, don't you see?"

"We're wasting time," snapped Ladd, now quivering
with rage.  "I'll give you ten minutes to produce
Wah-na-gi or take the consequences."

The participants in this scene had been so intent
on the business in hand that they were oblivious to
the noise of horses' hoofs beating the plain and the
rattle of accoutrements as a couple of troops of
United States cavalry swept through the Indian lines
and the cowboy outposts without stopping to say
by your leave, and came to a sudden and spectacular
halt just back of the grave of Nat-u-ritch.

Captain Baker dismounted and advanced to the
group in front of the house.

"What is the meaning of this, gentlemen?" he
asked in a clear, ringing voice that had the cut of a
sabre in it.  His mouth was set, his face firm and
four square, determination and authority written in
every angle.  He looked from one to the other and
waited for the answer.  Meanwhile Appah, in war
bonnet and war-paint, pushed his pony to the
background as if determined not to be ignored in the
settlement of the dispute.  Big Bill followed him.

It was obvious to Hal and McShay that Baker's
advent was not just what Ladd had planned.

"I didn't call on you, Captain," said the agent,
"because my Indian police are quite sufficient."

"Police?" said Captain Baker, eying the other
sternly.  "Why, you've got the whole tribe out here.
Some one sent me a wire that a fight was on at Red
Butte Ranch between the settlers and the Indians."

The Irishman grinned.

"Sure, I took the liberty of invitin' you, Captain!
Knew you wouldn't like to miss a little thing like
that."

After the asphalt conference Baker's opinion of the
agent wasn't printable, and now he looked him over
with unmistakable disapproval.  That Ladd hadn't
appealed to him or notified him of the trouble seemed
to him most suspicious.

"Well, there isn't going to be any scrap between
the settlers and the Indians.  I'll see to that."

Knowing that he could not move without orders,
he had telegraphed to head-quarters.

"Mr. Ladd, your Indians are off the Reservation.
I've instructions to put them back."

Ladd saw that he could expect no favors from the
officer.

"Correct, Captain," he answered, meeting the challenge.

"And I call upon you to see to it that they go back,
*all of them*."

"I'll do that fast enough."

Wah-na-gi could stand the strain no longer.  She
had crouched within the door of the cabin trying to
follow the course of events which were to decide her
fate: hearing something, missing much, trying to
fill in the gaps, scanning the faces to read there the
answer that meant so much to her, every nerve and
muscle tense, her heart pounding like an engine
carrying too heavy a load.  She seemed to be suffocating
in the house, and she walked out and faced them.
Every eye was turned upon her.  She saw the troopers
cleared for action, bronzed, clean-cut figures, with no
frills or gold braid, their service khaki covered with
alkali dust, weather stained, sitting potential on their
smoking horses, so much bigger than the Indian
ponies or the cowboys' mustangs, waiting for the
word of this quiet young man who eyed her sternly.
What was all this fuss about?  Nothing but an
Indian woman! nothing but an Indian woman!
That was what she seemed to feel.

Realizing that the Army would cast the deciding
vote, the Indians had broken their formation, and
the cowboys had come in from the cover of the
outbuildings and their hastily constructed intrenchments
and were standing about in groups awaiting
developments.  There was Appah's hawk-like face, the
agent's penetrating stare!  Big Bill and McShay!
So many cruel, hostile eyes!  The air seemed filled
with poisoned arrows.

She slipped without design between McCloud and
Hal, like a hunted animal seeking shelter.  Hal felt
her fear, her craving for love and shelter, and put his
hand on her arm.

The agent advanced toward the officer and pointed
at her.

"Calthorpe, here, has kidnapped an Indian woman,
and holds her by force against me, the agent, and
against her relatives and friends."

Appah cut his pony with a quirt and pushed to the
front.

"My squaw—my woman!" he said, pointing too.

So that was it.  All this fuss and fury over a
woman, an Indian woman at that.  The captain was
beginning to feel distinctly annoyed.  He and his
men in a forced march in the broiling sun and the
choking dust!  A squaw!  However, as he took
another good look at the Indian Helen, perhaps there
were mitigating circumstances—she was pretty; she
was damn pretty.

"Your woman?" he said without looking at Appah,
and deciding on the spot that she was entirely too
good for that copper-colored malefactor.

"Are you Appah's squaw?" he asked Wah-na-gi,
but in a kinder tone than he intended and which he
felt was unmistakably unofficial.  He was a young
man and rather careful of his dignity.

"No," she replied with decision.

"Whether she is or is not," said Ladd sharply;
"she's the Government's ward—my ward.  I'm
responsible for her, and I demand her."

The force of this was unanswerable.  The captain
paused for a moment.  Then he addressed Hal,
whom he liked.

"I don't see, Calthorpe, on what theory you take
and detain this woman, unless," and he paused again,
"unless you claim that she is *your* wife."

It was Hal's turn to feel that the air was filled with
poisoned arrows.  Every eye was upon him.  Every
one waited.  It was *his* turn to speak.  There was a
clergyman standing beside him who in a half-dozen
words could make them man and wife.  It was perfectly
true he had taken her from the care of the
representative of the Government for *what*?  The pause
was interminable.  The silence was maddening.  Why
didn't some one say something?  His position was
grotesque, impossible, cowardly.  If he shrank from
becoming a squaw-man, why didn't he leave the
Indian woman to her own life and her own people?
He felt as if an armor-piercing shell had burst in
his brain, leaving his mind in ruins.  He couldn't
speak.  He hadn't two consecutive words to put
together.  McCloud, the only one present who knew
the truth, had been so conscious of the boy's predicament
and so deeply grieved with and for him that he,
too, shrank back into silence.  The pause was
obvious therefore before the clergyman crossed to the
officer and began to speak.

"Thank God some one was talking," was Hal's
thought, though he did not hear what McCloud was
saying.

"Captain Baker," said the clergyman, "it is common
report that certain interests are trying to get the
asphalt lands belonging to the Indians and that
Appah is betraying his people for a price.  Wah-na-gi
is that price.  As you know, I have lived on the
Agency, and I know of my own knowledge that this
woman has been persecuted by this man with the
connivance of the agent, and her honor and perhaps
her life threatened.  In order to protect her I have
made an application to the Secretary of the Interior
to adopt her as my ward."

"With her consent?" asked the officer.

"Oh, yes, yes," cried Wah-na-gi.

"Where are the woman's parents?

"Dead," she replied.

"Any near relations?"

"None."

"Captain Baker!" cried the agent, seeing the drift
of this; "you haven't any discretionary powers in
this case.  *I* am the Indian agent and I call on you
in the interests of peace to restore this woman to the
Agency, to my care."

The captain paused a moment, shrugged his
shoulders, and then said with obvious reluctance:
"That is absolutely correct, gentlemen.  I have no
discretion in this matter.  If the agent insists, she
must go back to the Agency."

Well, that was finished.  There was to be no fight
and no reviewing of that ultimatum.  Every one
except those immediately concerned drew a sigh of
relief, and Baker walked back to give some
instructions to his orderly.

What was that?  His quick ear detected something.

"What is it, Sergeant?" he asked of his non-commissioned
officer whose gaze was fixed intently
on the road by which they had come.

"Someone from the fort, sir, as I make out."

"She must go back to the Agency."

That was the final word.

So that was the end.  The agent had said it.
There was the Army to enforce it, and back of these
troops the might of millions.

The Indian agent was an autocrat, a combination
of king, judge, administrator, chief of police, doctor,
engineer; in fact, it was a position requiring powers
almost unlimited and corresponding responsibilities,
and this impossible combination of inconceivable
virtues was supposed to be tempted into the service
of the Government by a salary of one thousand five
hundred dollars a year or less.  That these unique
powers sometimes fell into incompetent or unworthy
hands was inevitable, that the consequences were
sometimes tragic, likewise inevitable.

"She must go back to the Agency."

Hal heard it in a numb way.  Wah-na-gi heard it.
Hal had a wild mad impulse to kill Ladd where he
stood, and his fingers sought the handle of his gun,
to feel the restraining touch of John McCloud.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and incline
not to thine own understanding," whispered the
calm voice of faith in his ear.

"Come on," said Ladd; "we must be moving."

The troopers made way for the new arrival who
spurred his tired horse to the side of the young
commander.

"Despatches from department head-quarters, sir,"
he said, touching his hat.  "They arrived at the post
just after you left."

Few people had been privileged to see Baker hurry.
He was a deliberate body.  He took his time now.
In fact, he took so much time that Ladd, who was
nervous and irritable, finally recalled him to the
situation by saying:

"We have a long, hard ride, Captain; whenever
you're ready."

"Yes—y-e-s," and Baker drew out the little word
until it threatened to break.  "I haven't forgotten.
Thank you for reminding me."

Then he read the papers all over again.  By this
time the air seemed to become electrical again, and
the little group into which the spectators had divided
were hypnotized by the soldier's preoccupation.
The attention became concentric.  Talking stopped.
Everybody waited on the captain.

Finally he said with great deliberation:

"Mr. Ladd, you will probably find similar instructions
on your return to the Agency.  These are orders
from General Ruggles, Department Commander at
Denver, directing me to relieve you of your office,
pending an investigation, and ordering me to assume
your duties until further notice."

Ladd was a man of quick and violent temper, and
his hand instinctively felt for his gun.

The husky cavalryman looked him in the eye and
said very slowly:

"If you pull a gun on the uniform I wear, you'll
go back to Washington as damaged goods.  You'd
better hit the trail," and he turned away.

"I'm not afraid to go to Washington," said the
agent, white with anger, "and I'm not afraid of an
investigation," and he walked deliberately over to
Calthorpe and said: "I owe this to you, Calthorpe."

"I told you," was the affable reply, "that I'd camp
on your trail until I had your official head."

"I owe a lot to you, and I've got a damned good
memory."  And the agent turned on his heel and
disappeared.

McCloud was the first to recover from his surprise
and turn the situation to account.

"So you are acting agent, Captain Baker.  Then
you *have* discretionary powers *now*.  This young
woman is like my own daughter.  I'm sure the
Government will eventually let me adopt her.  Will
you trust her to me?"

"Dr. McCloud," said the soldier, a bit embarrassed
by the strange situation, "we all know you.  Everybody
round here knows you.  I guess I'll take a
chance on you."

This disposition of the bone of contention seemed
to the captain like a special providence, and he was
immensely relieved.

"My squaw—my woman!"

Everybody had forgotten Appah.

"You get out of here.  Savey?  Go on!  Get
your people home."

Appah looked at the young officer for a moment.
The Indian respects our soldiers.  The men who
fought the Indians have as a rule been just to them,
have kept their promises to them when they could,
and the Indian fears our soldiers and also trusts them.

"Go on or I'll have you in the guard-house."

Appah turned his horse's head and rode away, but
ugly and surly.

Baker was in the saddle and his men were already on
the move when he turned and said to the clergyman:

"When people get to scrappin' over a young and
pretty woman, I guess it's about time for Bobby
Baker to pass up the job of chaperon.  You got
your work cut out for you, Doctor, and by the holy
smoke I'll hold you accountable."

"Thank you, Captain; thank you.  I'll try to be
worthy of your confidence," and Baker rode after
his men.

McShay's eyes were twinkling as he gazed after
the boys in khaki.

"Parson," he said, "the Lord and the little old
picayune U.S.A. is a fine workin' combination,
ain't it?"

And the Irishman went out to round up his desperadoes,
almost consoled for missing the fight by the
sight of his adopted country's flag and her fighting
men.  Perhaps it's an inherited impulse, but even the
man of peace stirs to the sound of the bugle, the beat
of the drum, and the brave glitter of a fluttering flag.

McCloud turned to see the troopers round up the
Indians like a bunch of cattle and start them back
to the Agency.

"Wah-na-gi," he said without turning, "after
to-day I think you can look on that flag as your flag.
For once at least it has stood for protection instead of
oppression to the Indian.  You will learn to love it
too, some day."

As she did not reply he turned to see her in Hal's
arms, held close in a fierce embrace, the young man
murmuring incoherently: "You are safe, and you are
mine—mine—mine!"

They were alone, these three.  McCloud regarded
the two young people for a moment with sympathy,
then he advanced to the side of Hal, touched him on
the elbow, and said:

"This is yours."

It was the cable from the London physician about
his father's illness.

"Oh, yes," Hal said in a dazed way; "I had forgotten."

"You can't forget; you can't avoid; you can't
postpone.  You must choose, and you must choose
now."

It was hard not to be allowed a moment in which
to enjoy the fierce ecstasy of triumph, of possession.
Hal's life went out of him.  He sank down on the
rough bench and buried his face in his hands.

McCloud continued: "I have assumed certain
obligations to this child which I consider sacred.  I
know that I have no power over her, no influence with
her, except what you may choose to give me.  I leave
you together to decide this for yourselves, and I pray
that you may deny yourselves the present and trust
God for the future," and he went within to lie down
to rest, for the strain and the excitement had been a
great drain on his small store of energy.

They were alone together, their fate in their own
hands.  Wah-na-gi came over to him and put her
hand on his bowed head with a caress.

"It shall be as you wish."

"No, my girl, it cannot be as I wish.  It cannot be."

The acquired powers of review, of analysis, of
restraint were forever battling within him with the
impulses of the savage.  He didn't understand it
himself, this tumult, this confusion, this irresolution.

"I'm all wrong somehow," he cried bitterly.  "McCloud
is right.  I'm not fit to be trusted with a love
like yours.  I'd soil it or crush and destroy it.  I want
you; I want you like a madman.  I hate McCloud
because he stands between us.  I can't wait and toil
and suffer.  I don't know how, and yet I know I must."

"Whatever you decide will be right."

"It's that makes it impossible.  You trust me."

"Of course," she said with a smile.

"You don't know that I'm a coward or a fool or
both.  I must live up to your belief in me, and I
can't.  I haven't the will to go back, to leave
everything I want and go back to everything I loathe.
McCloud says happiness is worth fighting for, worth
waiting for, but I want to take it.  How do I know
if I let it slip from my grasp now that I'll ever see
it again?  How do I know that if I do go now I'll
ever see *you* again?  Oh, Wah-na-gi, worse than all,
I haven't had the courage to destroy your belief in me."

"You couldn't do that."

"You have known for a long time that I loved you.
You have wondered, of course you have wondered,
why I never asked you to be my wife.  You saw me
stand here like a helpless imbecile when I ought to
have stood out and said proudly: 'She is mine.
Touch her if you dare.  She is my wife.'  And I
couldn't, I couldn't, because I am married.  My
wife is living in England."

Wah-na-gi drew a long breath.  Then she sat
down on a bench beside him.

"It's always like that," she said with the fatalism
of her race.  "Happiness goes out like one's breath
on a frosty night."

She dropped into the figure of speech of her people.

"There sleeps Nat-u-ritch," she thought.  "She,
too, loved a white man, and there she lies dreaming.
Did God make the Indian woman too?  I wonder why?"

She always thought of him as a white man.

"The white woman is waiting for you."

"No, she cares for me less even than I care for her.
If I go back it will be to be free."

McCloud appeared at the door of the cabin.  He
had tried to rest but he carried with him the sense
of the conflict which he had left behind.  He must
know the result.  Was it victory or defeat?

"Well, Hal, my son," he said gently; "which is it?
Do you stay or do you go?"

Hal rose to his feet, pressed his hands to his head
and then there was a long silence.  Big Bill appeared
at the entrance to the stable.

"Well, Boss," he said, awaiting instructions.

"My horse ready, Bill?"

Hal referred to the fresh horse he had ordered to
be ready for the fight.

"As you ordered, sir."

"I'll catch the Overland Limited at Carbon.
Send my things after me."

"Yes, sir," and Bill disappeared into the stable.

"You are going," said Wah-na-gi in a scarce
audible whisper.  "Where?"

"Back to London.  Back home—no, not home.
This is home to me."

Wah-na-gi crept to McCloud like a timid child.

"Must he go?"

"Yes, I think so."

Then she turned to Hal with a pitiful cry: "And
you'll never come back."

"Oh, yes I will, Wah-na-gi; yes I will.  I couldn't
stay away.  It's in my blood.  I love this desolate
land.  It's my land.  I love these people.  They are
my people.  McShay is here; Bill is here; John McCloud
is here; my mother is here; you are here.  I
couldn't stay away."

"If you do come back," said John McCloud with
his eyes filled with tears, "you must bring this Indian
woman clean hands and a pure heart.  Promise me
that."

"I'll do that or I won't come back; so help me
God."

Upon the hands of the two men clasped in solemn
pledge rested the small brown hand of Wah-na-gi.

John McCloud turned away to hide the emotion
that was mastering him.  Hal took the girl in his
arms, held her long to his breast, then put her at
arms' length and, looking into her eyes, said through
his own tears:

"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi, dear; I'm coming back."

.. _`"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi, dear; I'm coming back."`:

.. figure:: images/img-238.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi, dear; I'm coming back."

   "I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi, dear; I'm coming back."

Bill stood by with the horse.  Hal leaped into the
saddle.

"Explain it to the boys," he said to McCloud
simply.  Once more the girl went to him as if she
would drag him from the saddle.  He leaned down
and kissed her and whispered "I'm coming back."  Then
he put spurs to his horse, and was off.

No one who has not lived on a ranch or in the
wilderness apart can ever know what it is—the solemn
aching void left by the one who goes away.  Hal
turned as he reached the hill before descending into
the Bad Lands and waved his sombrero to them.
Wah-na-gi was standing on the rock, Nat-u-ritch's
gravestone, to get the last glimpse of him.  Bill and
McCloud were standing below.  She stood there
looking, looking, long after he had disappeared.
They had to lift her gently down.  Still she stood
looking, looking.

"He's gone, Wah-na-gi, child," said John McCloud gently.

"Will he come back?" she said.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVII

.. vspace:: 2

It is a trying moment when we face the wrong
answer and realize that we must go back step by
step to find the mistake.  There is a fascination
about the unknown.  The future beckons.

Marching always onward, our courage each day
finds an uplift in accomplishment.  We are farther
ahead if only a few inches.  Incredible hardships
and difficulties are put to flight.

Retracing one's steps, going back, requires more
bravery than to go on.  Initial enthusiasm looks like
a grinning skeleton.  It is not the same army in
retreat.  Doubt, despair hang on its flanks, worry
and harass it all the bleeding way.

The moment Hal had decided to go back to England
the necessary intermediate processes seemed
wholly inadequate.  He almost killed a good horse
to reach Carbon on the D.&R.G. Railroad, only
to find that he had eight hours to wait in that
unmitigated by-product of civilization.  They were
eight heavy, heavy hours.  He walked about the
station, he gazed at the sage-brush and the water-tank,
he went in and out of the "hotel," he attempted
unsuccessfully to eat its so-called food, he tried to
read its magazines six months old.  The only possible
object of interest was a very painful object.  In
the shade of one corner of the veranda on a stretcher
lay a coal miner who had been hurt in the company's
mines.  His breast was heaving as if the life within
him was struggling to get out.  He was being removed
to the company's hospital at Pedro.  He had to wait
for the train too, and it looked as if his impatient
life refused to wait.

The few people in the desolate spot were
fortunately busy or they would have gone mad.  So no
one paid any attention to the sufferer.

"Some people are unlucky, born that way," explained
the young company doctor who had the dying
man in charge.  "Larry's just out of the hospital,
and now he's goin' back—to stay this time, I guess."

It seemed to Hal as if he, too, were carrying is
maimed life back on a stretcher, but he resisted the
suggestion that it was to stay.

At last the train, late as usual, arrived.  It was
a relief at first.  At least it was in motion, and he was
going, even if it was backward.  He was so
preoccupied that it was some time before he was
conscious of his fellow-passengers; then he felt rather
than saw that he was being elaborately searched,
optically swept, marked and staked out; coaxed,
petted, and allured.  He looked across to see a
formidable person of the female sex who was
half-pretending to read a book under the solicitous title
"Stolen Kisses."  This person seemed the last word
in modern fixtures.  An elaborate baby face peered
out from under an elaborate hat of huge dimensions,
ornamented with an elaborate mixture of flowers,
fruit, and fur.  Her face had had elaborate treatment.
She wore an elaborate gown with a wholly unnecessary
wrap.  She had on patent-leather shoes with
white cloth tops and exaggerated French heels, and
occasionally she unconsciously treated the patient
observer to a glimpse of an elaborate silk stocking.
Except for the hat, it looked to be a case of tight-fit.
Indeed, she seemed a physical and moral protest
against restrictions.

"One of the products of John McCloud's 'glorious
civilization,'" commented Hal to himself as he got up
and retreated to his own car.  From which it may
be observed that the young man was not in a mood
to be altogether fair to civilization or John McCloud.
He sat down at the window but he did not see the
telegraph poles flying past or the varying monotony
of the landscape rushing by.  Each revolution of the
wheels was taking him farther and farther from Red
Butte Ranch.  What were they doing there
now—Wah-na-gi, John McCloud, Big Bill, and the others?
She was no longer at the Agency and the victim of the
deviltry of David Ladd and Appah.  She was among
friends.  That was some consolation, much
consolation.  And the time would pass; then he would be
going the other way, going back to pick up his life
where he had now dropped it.  He wondered at
what time of day he would arrive, whether he should
notify them or surprise them.  Yes, the time would
pass.  London wouldn't keep him long.  Edith
would be glad to release him.  He felt absolutely
confident of that, and yet there was a shadow over
all his thoughts.  He had a curious unreasonable
foreboding of ill.  What could happen?  Then he
became aware that some one was speaking to him.
Would the gentleman care to make up a bridge party?

The invitation came to him from one of his
fellow-travellers and it seemed a refuge from his thoughts,
so Hal was glad to play.  It would force him to
think of other things.  He played and lost quite a
tidy sum of money before it came to him that he was
being exploited by unfair means.

Having virtuously resolved to do what was right
and much against his will, he had a feeling that the
way ought to be made smooth and easy.  Civilization
had never been fair to him, and his return to it
was evidently not to be strewn with flowers.  He
began to grow morose.

He found on picking up a newspaper that he would
have two days in New York before his ship sailed,
and he determined to spend those days in Washington.
He had Ladd on the run.  He must see to it
that he wasn't allowed to stop short of losing his
official head.  He had offered to go to Washington
at any time to substantiate his charges, and now
Ladd was to face an investigation.  The papers he
had in his possession would go far to establish the
agent's connection with the Trust and other papers
he possessed would convict him of malfeasance in
office.  These papers were high explosives and had
to be handled with the greatest care, for they involved
not only Ladd but officials high in Government
circles, and some leaders in Congress and in both of
the political parties.

Hal's train arrived at the Grand Central Station
in New York at night.  He took a cab and ordered
the driver to drive to the Hotel Astor.  The direct
road to the hotel was of course through Forty-second
street, which was obviously slow and difficult of
negotiation, and the situation seemed to offer an
inducement to go a roundabout way with the amiable
intention of boosting the fare.  It was a trick with
which the proposed victim was familiar, and he
resolved that while consenting to the extra ride he
would resist any effort to collect an extra fare.  It
was election night, and as soon as the cab hit Broadway
it was caught in a whirlpool of humanity.  It
could neither go on nor go back.

The great city seemed to have resolved itself into
a vast lunatic asylum and to have emptied all the
patients into the streets.  The incoherent maniacs
seemed to be enjoying themselves and to be on the
whole good-natured.  In its gentlest moments New
York is a noisy place, but to the ordinary din of
traffic, the sag and smash of trucks, the rush and
roar of the elevated on its iron bed was added an
indescribable cacophony that was fiendish.  Election
night with its liberty and license—Hooligan's
holiday!  It seemed to Hal that he had never seen so
many unpleasant faces in such a short distance or
in so short a time.  The sweat-shops seemed to have
emptied into the streets, and the Tenderloin, and the
submerged wreckage of the Bowery.  They were
mauling each other, jostling, joking, babbling,
hurrahing, hardly knowing for whom or what, blowing
fierce blasts on tin horns, ringing clusters of
cow-bells, pulling fantastic shrieks out of motor sirens,
whirring gigantic rattles—all struggling to see who
could make the biggest noise.  Women seemed more
elated with the spirit of the occasion than men, and
they evoked the attentions of strangers without the
ceremony of an introduction.  The interchange of
pleasantries was sometimes marked by freedom and
abandon.  To Hal just from a country where it was
possible to be for days and weeks without the sight
of a human being, this seething, writhing mass of
humanity, rubbing up against each other, jostling,
pulling at each other, handling each other, bawling
into each other's faces, was supremely obnoxious.
His cab caught in the slow-moving swirl was a fine
temptation to horse-play.  As he leaned out of one
window to try to understand the unusual tumult a
vivacious young woman leaned in at the other
window and blew a megaphonic tin horn directly into
his ear.  It seemed as if it would rip the drum of
the ear.  A greasy-faced urchin blew an expanding
and suggestive-looking toy into his face.  A buxom
Amazon leaned in, gave his necktie a jerk, and
screamed through her nose: "Why, sweetheart!  I
didn't know you was back!"

Other enthusiasts threw confetti over him.

This was civilization's welcome to him!  He tried
to take it good-naturedly but upon his face was a
fixed look of disgust.

The cab got ahead a few feet at a time, then stopped
in another block, and he went through the felicitations
of these joyous citizens all over again.  To his
immense relief they at last reached the hotel.  Here at
last was a haven of refuge.  How much was it, he
inquired of the cabbie.

"Ten dollars!"

Hal smiled incredulously.  He invited the jehu to
guess again, to think it over.  That worthy reminded
him that it was election night, which was put forward
as an argument that was in its nature unassailable.
Hal patiently explained that he didn't see why he
personally should pay five or six times the price
because some one had been elected governor of a
State which apparently stood in sore need of
government.  He reminded the obstinate and aggressive
person that it was not over half a mile from the station
to the hotel and one dollar was ample—two extravagant.
He offered to compromise on two.  This was
received with profuse profanity of a highly inflammable
character.  In the interstices between expletives
were interjected various allusions to the hours it had
taken to go the half-mile, to the fact that the cab was
scratched, that the horse's life had been endangered,
and other more or less irrelevant matters.  Hal
thought he saw the cab-person signal to a police-person
standing a little behind him.  Finally the
gathering waters of affliction broke and poured forth
in righteous wrath.  Hal stated with picturesque
additions that the man was a crook and a thief.

The burly brute tried to strike the young man with
the butt end of his loaded whip.  Hal avoided the
blow and caught the man square on the jaw, and he
went down for the count.

That was all Hal knew until he came back to
consciousness in a police cell.  It was a very painful
consciousness, associated with bandages, a head
bursting with pain, and most unpleasant surroundings.
Then little by little he came to a vague realization of
what had happened.  He was practically a stranger
in New York.  To whom could he turn?  He was a
British subject.  Perhaps he could communicate with
the representatives of His Majesty's Government.

In addition to having been very thoroughly beaten,
he found that he had been very thoroughly robbed.
It was therefore with some difficulty that he could
persuade his jailer to communicate with the British
Consulate.  The promise of a considerable reward
finally held out inducements.  Fortunately for the
prisoner, the British Vice-Consul, Mr. Percy Holmes
Tracy, proved to be an old friend of his father's
family.  Mr. Tracy supplied the prisoner with
immediate funds and bestirred himself in his behalf.
He found that Hal was accused of being drunk and
disorderly, resisting arrest, and striking an officer.
Fortunately for the prisoner, Mr. Tracy found that
the hotel detective had been a witness of the brutal
assault.  The detective told the Vice-Consul that the
policemen's use of the night-stick was totally
unprovoked and unnecessary, that Hal did not resist arrest,
that he had no chance to do so, that the policeman
and cab-driver were pals who had been suspected of
"working together" before, etc., etc.  Hal expressed
the enthusiastic desire to "make it warm" for all
concerned, to have the policeman "broke," etc., etc.
All of which Mr. Tracy admitted to be a perfectly
natural and justifiable feeling, but he reminded the
young man that it would be a somewhat tedious and
exacting undertaking.  How much time was he willing
to devote to it?  Could he stay and give it his
undivided attention?  No, he could not.  In fact
he was due to sail at once for London.  Ah, well,
that was another matter, was it not?  Under the
circumstances it was Mr. Holmes Tracy's advice to
pocket his losses, swallow his pride, smother his
indignation, and set it down to valuable experience.
It would have been cheaper to have paid the ten
dollars.  These are some of the disadvantages of a
highly organized society.  And so it happened that the
man who had, single-handed, arrested desperadoes
in a country where men carry a gun and know how
to use it, was made the foolish victim of the polished
machinery of "a highly organized society."

Mr. Holmes Tracy's advice was too obviously wise
to be ignored.  Confronted with the hotel detective
the police-grafter was glad to withdraw his charge,
with the understanding that no countercharges should
be preferred against him.  It wasn't altogether
satisfying.  Community life was a series of compromises;
its law expediency.

The two days Hal had intended to spend in
Washington had been spent in prison.  Perhaps he was
safer there.  He and civilization had never been
friends.  Hal welcomed his escape from New York.
He was glad to get out of her canyons and pigeon-holes
into the light and air.  He was glad to reach
the boat.  When he left London and had turned his
face to the West there had seemed a conspiracy to
help him on.  The winds and waves had romped
about him in the sunshine, and hope and joy sang in
his heart.  He had not felt lonely, but a great content
had brooded over him.  Now the elements frowned
on him.  Head winds blew a hurricane the whole
way over.  Huge waves smote the ship and shook
her angrily.  Now she rode them down, now
shouldered them aside, now cut her way through them,
then bowed her head to the blow, shook herself free,
throbbing, quivering in every joint, every muscle and
nerve and sinew of her crying out against the incessant
wear and tear of it.  And over all brooded a sky of
fleeing gray and black demons.  Not a ray of
sunlight crept through the clouds.  The voyage was a
nightmare.  Wind and wave were screaming to him
to go back; trying to force him back.  He was ill
and frightfully depressed.  He was as eager almost
to get out of the ship as if Love's welcome waited
for him; as it seemed to do for all but him.  But
it was scarcely better on shore.  He rode up to
London in a cold drenching rain.  The land looked old,
tired, and discouraged.  And London!—this Mecca
of the exiled Briton.  How many hearts turn to it
in far off-India, China, Australia, Canada, and the
waste places of the earth!  How many eager eyes
look back to it or look forward to it!  What memories
it holds for those who know in their souls they can
never see it again, and what radiant visions it offers
to those who sweat and save and suffer and perhaps
lie and steal that one day they may come back to
it, and bring it the tribute of their blood and treasure.
London is compelling like some great sad song that
tells of sorrows and wrongs.  But it had no message
and no welcome to this returning pilgrim.  Before
they reached the city they rode out of the rain and
into one of those fogs which creeps out of its tombs
and graveyards and buried horrors, and tries to
materialize itself and once more take possession of
the actual life of the city.

Hal took a cab and they began to grope their way
toward his father's town house.  Even in his thought
he didn't call it home.  Oh for the land of sunshine,
he thought, where one can look into the infinite sky,
and beyond and beyond and still beyond.  Here he
felt as if he were knocking his head against it.  One
didn't breathe; one swallowed the air in chunks and
gulps.  They almost rode down a procession of the
unemployed, an army with banners, but an army
with none of the pride, pomp, and circumstance of
glorious war.  Hal shrank back in his cab and
shivered in his great-coat.  Their banners were
dirty, but it was evident that each soldier of despair
had made some little effort with bad success to make
as decent an appearance in the public eye as possible.
They were a sad lot with their gaunt faces and soiled
and tattered clothes.  They were of all ages and
states of desperation, from the young mechanic with
youth and health still left, to the wretch who had
been submerged, who couldn't work if it were given
him to do, fit only to fertilize the soil.  Hal's cabman
lost his way for a moment and they got into Hyde
Park.  One of its orators was about to dismiss his
small audience because he could scarcely see or be
seen by them as they huddled close to him and to
each other, and the speaker complained that the fog
got into his throat and wellnigh choked him.  Hal
called to his driver to stop and they drew up to the
curb.  Hal was not unfamiliar with the Hyde Park
meetings and their speakers, but never in his life
before had he stopped to listen.  It was an admirable
safety-valve where cranks could talk to cranks.
That they had or could have any message to him or
for the world had never entered his mind.  The
unemployed had impressed him painfully.  They were
wandering hopelessly up and down crying in unison:
"Work, work!  We want work."  This dull cry and
their faces peering at him out of clammy shadows and
yellow smears had got on his nerves.  He was
curious to hear what the orator of such people had to
say on such a day.

"One moment and I'll close.  You think I'm a
layin' of it on, that I'm a makin' it up, but I 'old in
my 'and a report of Lord George 'amilton, Royal
Commissioner, on the condition of the English poor,
and these is *'is* words, not mine, *'is*, moind ye.

"The conditions of life in London and other large
cities 'ave produced a degenerate race, morally and
physically enfeebled."

Hal drove on.  When he reached his father's
house there was a new servant at the door and he
had to explain who he was.  This was the glorious
civilization he was coming back to.  This was its
welcome to him!  Oh, John McCloud!  Is this your
Christian civilization?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XVIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII

.. vspace:: 2

The Earl of Kerhill's town house was plain and
formal on the outside.  Within, it was beautiful, but
cold and stately.  Even the arrangement of its
contents was apparently fixed and unalterable.  At any
rate no one could remember when any one had had
the courage to meddle with its established order.
Hal remembered that he had early gained the impression
that it was not a place for little boys to live
in.  Thou-shalt and Thou-shalt-not seemed to divide
the house between them.  And now amid its Boulle
and Tudor tables, its Venetian carved chairs, its
Chippendales, its tapestries and portraits of knights
and ladies, its plate and glass, its marbles and
carvings, Hal felt more of an anachronism than ever.
Cold and stately and solemn!  It was as if it felt
superior to its tenants.  "Look back," it seemed to say
to any one inclined to be familiar with it; "look back
and tell me where are the brave and beautiful and
gallant lords and ladies who once danced here and
feasted here, loved, and made merry here?  Gone and
forgotten!  The present lord, he, too, will soon be
with the others.  I was before them and I will be
after them.  I am a house with an individuality.
People come and people go, but I remain.  Cold,
stately, and solemn!"  The library was the most
livable room and even the library was stately.  Perhaps
there were people so lost to the eternal fitness of
things, so empty and shallow that they might be flippant
in it, but it required an effort, and even shallow
people were not allowed to forget that Grinling
Gibbons had done the carvings about the noble fire-place.

The house seemed to have forgotten Gibbons and
to arrogate the carvings to itself.  It was a proud
house.  The library at least looked inhabited.
Perhaps the books gave it the human touch that linked
up the past and the present and brought people
and things into relations, distant relations no doubt,
but still relations.  It is not surprising that
Nat-u-ritch's son had never liked the Earl's town house.

Lady Winifred was writing at a heavy oak table
elaborately carved, the light from a jewelled lamp
falling over her high-bred face and her abundant hair
which had great snow patches lying gently on it.  She
needed that softening touch of white, for there was a
mocking light in her eyes and a cynical play of the
lips.  Andrews had placed the coffee service and
the liqueurs on a small table before a high-backed
Charles II chair on the other side of the room.

"Andrews, ask the gentlemen to take their coffee
here with me."

"Yes, my lady."

Back of the library was a recess from which sprang
a graceful stairway to the floor above.  It was lit by
panels of jewelled glass.  Crowning the newel post
was an electric flambeau.  As the butler left the
room a beautiful woman entered from the main hall
and stood by the stairway, looking quietly but
nervously about.  The light from the flambeau lit up a
face so colorless, so bloodless that it seemed almost
transparent.  Out of the whiteness, crowned with
glowing auburn hair, shone lustrous agate eyes, hard,
brilliant, with sensuous lights beneath the surface.
She had entered the room and looked about before
Lady Winifred was aware of her presence.  Then
she stole down rapidly but softly to the side of the
elder woman and said:

"Well, have you seen him?"

"Why, I thought you were dining with Lord
Yester at the Carlton."

"So I was," assented the other, pulling nervously
at her gloves.

"And going to the theatre afterward?"

"I couldn't sit still in the theatre.  Even the
thought of it upset me.  You have seen him?"

"Hal?  Why, of course."

"What does he say?"

"About what?"

"About me."

"He hasn't mentioned you to me as yet."

"No?  Oh!" and Edith, Viscountess Effington,
Hal's wife, walked slowly over to the coffee service
and lit a cigarette.  She watched the vagrant smoke
with a retrospective air.

"I had a curious sensation at dinner," she said.
"I found I wasn't hearing what Lord Yester was
saying.  All of a sudden I was frightened.  I felt as
if I were choking.  Hal seemed to stand behind and
over Lord Yester and I got a queer idea that he had
come back to, to—Winifred, you and he have
always been pals; *you* tell him.  Tell him all there
is to tell, about Lord Yester and myself, so that he
will be prepared, and make him understand that if
ne has come back to interfere with my plans"—and
her lips shut and her eyes glistened ominously—"well,
don't let him think of it."

"I think he knows you do as you please."

"Why shouldn't I?" said Edith with a little reckless
laugh.  "Why shouldn't I?  I've only one life
to live and that's mine, to live my way.  I'm selfish;
so is everybody else.  Some people get a selfish pleasure
out of pretending to be unselfish.  Well, let them!
I'm not a hypocrite, thank God!"

Edith took from her enormous ermine muff a gold
and jewelled bonbon box, extracted from it a tablet,
and swallowed it with a drink of brandy which she
had poured from a decanter.

"Sir George's prescription for my headaches," she
explained in answer to the other's look of disapproval.

"The brandy part of the prescription, Edith?"

"Not having headaches, Winifred, you have a fine
superiority to those who have."  And she pulled the
long opera cloak of emerald green like the breast
of the humming-bird about her white shoulders,
adjusted her ermine stole as if she were cold, walked
slowly toward the stairs.  In repose she was very soft,
pliant, lambent, but, when moved, quick and violent.
She turned and stiffened, threw her head up into the
air, and came down swiftly to Lady Winifred's side.

"I must have this settled *now—to-night*!  I can't
stand this suspense.  If he attempts to upset my
plans——"

"You may find him quite as eager to be free as you are."

"Do you think so, Winifred?  Do you really
think so?" she said, rising at a bound to the
extreme of elation.  Then she crept softly out of the
room, purring to herself: "Oh, I hope so; I hope so."

There was a slight elevation to Lady Winifred's
eyebrow and the slightest tilt to one of her shoulders.
It seemed to suggest that she had ceased to be
impressed with the moods and tenses of the other, that
it was a pity that men could not see past the surface
of things feminine, that Edith's egotism had the
noble simplicity of all big things.

"My dear, wasn't Cousin Hal to take his
after-dinner coffee here with us?"

It was Sir Gordon Stuckley who spoke as he came
into the room.  Sir Gordon was known as Lady
Winifred's husband.  He was a retired army officer
and considerably older than his handsome wife.
His mind was the amiable repository of everything
conventional and commonplace.  He walked over to
the writing-table and picked up a cigarette.

"He has gone up to say good-night to his father,"
said Lady Winifred, blotting and folding her finished
letter.

"Well, Hal is back," said Sir Gordon sententiously,
"and brings his problem with him still unsolved."

"Whose life isn't a problem—'still unsolved'?"
said his wife with an enigmatical smile.

"And it's quite difficult enough to face one's own
problem, to face one's own mistakes," she continued.
"It's rather hard to have to answer for the mistakes
of somebody else; mistakes that can't be remedied;
can't in the very nature of things.  Hal can't help
being a half-caste, can he?"

"What is he back for?" asked her husband shortly.

"To see his father, I presume.  Sir George, I
believe, cabled him to come."

"The Earl is no worse than he has been or may be
for some time to come.  I hope, for his own sake,
and for our sake Hal has no intention of staying,
because you know he is quite impossible here, now
isn't he?"

"I suppose so," said Lady Winifred with a note of
regret, for she was fond of the boy, "and yet we pride
ourselves here on being cosmopolitan, on havin' no
race prejudices."

"Officially?  No!  Socially?  Most assuredly yes!
Officially we treat these Indian potentates as princes.
Actually, my dear, we regard them as niggers.  Well,
there you are."

"Yes," she admitted.  "We are fairly tolerant of
aliens because there are not enough of them to annoy
us.  They don't crowd us off the pavement, or take
our places in the tram, or lay hands on the stipends
and positions we reserve for ourselves, but, as a matter
of fact, we are quite the most intolerant people in the
world.  Still it isn't his being a half-breed that matters
so much, I think.  He was living that down—it's his
having to leave the Army."

"Quite so; but why did he have to leave the Army?
Because he didn't know how to obey; because he
couldn't submit to discipline, and why couldn't he
submit to discipline?  Because he had in his veins
the blood of the American Indian.  It comes down
to race at last."

"But why shouldn't a half-breed inherit the best of
each type instead of the worst and so be superior to
either?"

"Oh, there is only one *best*, my dear," said Gordon
as he walked to the coffee with a superior smile.
"There is only one best."

"And of course we assume that we are the superior type."

Lady Winifred looked after Sir Gordon with
toleration.  She was a woman of unusual intelligence
and it was hardly fair to ask her to maintain any real
illusions as to her husband.

"Well," she continued, "this dear boy is a half-breed;
his wife is of our best and purest blood.  Yet,
with all his peculiarities, Hal is adorable, and
Edith—well, if she's a type of superiority, God help the
British Empire."

"Edith isn't representative; oh, no; oh, *my*, no!"  Sir
Gordon's enthusiasm in rejecting Edith on behalf
of the British Empire almost upset the coffee urn.

"Oh, *my*, no!" he kept repeating with comic insistence.

"Isn't she?" objected Lady Winifred coming
forward to take the cup offered by her husband.
"Isn't she?  Is the smoking, drinking, gambling
woman with a moral code of her own an exception,
or is she getting to be the London type?"

"By the way, where is Edith?"

"Dining with Lord Yester at the Carlton."

"Dining at the Carlton the first night her husband
is at home?"

"My dear Gordon, you are hopelessly old-fashioned.
Husbands are like the vermiform appendix.
They must have served some useful purpose once,
but no one knows now what it was.  A busy woman
has no time for such trifles.  Edith is just back from
a house party at Groton Court, she had to devote
some time in the forenoon to her modiste; she went
to the races in the afternoon, had tea at the Austrian
Embassy, played a little bridge, and naturally she
had to dress for dinner.  If Hal is patient they may
eventually meet here or at some mutual friend's."

Gordon never tried to follow the intricacies of his
wife's raillery.

"Well, I must be hopelessly old-fashioned," he
said in the most matter-of-fact way.  "Modern
matrimony is quite beyond me."  Sir Gordon was
old-fashioned.  He belonged to an epoch when men,
by an unwritten law, left the gossip to the women.

"Winifred," he began with much hesitation, and
speaking with grave deliberation, "are you aware that
Lord Yester's attentions to Edith are beginning to
create talk?"

"Beginning?" laughed his wife.  "Why, Gordon,
that is so old that people have ceased to talk
about it."

"Is it really?" he ejaculated in hopeless confusion.
"Well, Hal must put his foot down at once, at once,"
he repeated with feeble over-emphasis.

"My dear, the foot and the hand go together.
They are both archaic.  Since it is no longer good
form to beat one's wife, the putting of the foot down
or up is of no importance.  Women only respected
their husbands when they had to."

One of Gordon's qualifications as a fighter and a
husband was that he could take punishment.  It is
a useful accomplishment, and as rare as it is
beautiful.  It would have been impossible for Lady
Winnifred to live with a man who was over-sensitive.
As she explained the situation herself: "Some
amiability is essential to contiguity.  The bearings must
have oil.  Well, you mustn't expect it of me or of the
cook.  One doesn't look for it in one's friends.  Well,
there you are!"

"I have no doubt something of this has come to
Hal's ears," said her husband, "and he has returned
to put his house in order, and quite time indeed."

"Well," she answered, "from the woman's point of
view the civilized man is a glaring failure.  Perhaps
the half-savage may succeed."

"Fancy, Rundall, fancy my wife suspecting the
superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race!"

This remark was addressed to a polished, imposing
person who was descending the stairs, and in the act
of returning a thermometer to the pocket of his
evening coat.  Sir George Rundall had the right but not
the time to add a long string of letters to his name.
He was a self-made man and was a credit to
himself.  He had the figure of one who has been an
athlete, the head of a scholar who was also a man
of the world, a clean-shaven, florid face and perfectly
white hair, what there was of it.  The doctor was a
man of learning, was an authority on all sorts of
unpleasant things, and had a prodigious memory.
Here was a man who could put Winifred in her
proper place, if any one could.

Sir Gordon had ripped out "the Anglo-Saxon
race" with something of its sonorous after-dinner
effect.

"Haven't you discovered, Stuckley, that our wives
are always right?"

"Oh, I say!" groaned Sir Gordon, dismayed at
this cowardly going over to the enemy.

"There is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon race."

"What?"

"And there's no such thing as a pure type of man.
He simply doesn't exist.  Finot says: 'All human
beings are cross-breeds,'" and the doctor sat down
at a small desk set into a bookcase, and began to
write a prescription.

"Race" was one of Gordon's strong points.  He
had all the conviction of the profound amateur.  He
was an example of a little learning and its consequences.

"You mean to say," he asked with pompous incredulity,
"that there is nothing in dolichocephalic
superiority?"  Having delivered this without a sign of
distress he looked about, greatly pleased with himself.

"Dolly who?" asked Winifred.  "Sir George, is
that a real word, or just aggravated assault and
battery?"

"Don't be alarmed, Lady Stuckley, it only means
fair-haired people with narrow skulls."

"And so blonds are the elect, are they?" she
said.  "Now I know the scientific explanation for
the popularity of peroxide of hydrogen."

"Joking aside," said the military man.  It was a
stock phrase in his domestic experiences.  "Joking
aside, I am sure our man of science will admit the
importance of the—ah, the cephalic index?"

"Sir George, I look to you for protection."

"Head measurements, Lady Stuckley, that's all,"
explained Sir George with a smile.  "Well, as to
that," he went on, rising and coming to the library
table, "a fellow by the name of Parchappe, who went
in for that sort of thing, found 'the head of an
intelligent woman to be perceptibly inferior to the
dimensions of the head of an idiot.'  Now, Stuckley, justify
that to your wife if you can."

Lady Winifred laughed heartily.

"For Lord Kerhill," added the doctor to Winifred
as he put a prescription on the corner of the
table before her.

"It pleases Sir George to treat facts as jests," said
the discomfited Gordon.

"Facts?" queried Winifred.  "Facts?  Why that
is ground for divorce."

"Facts?" echoed the man of science gravely.  "I
wonder what are facts?  The conviction of to-day
is the derision of to-morrow.  We have long used
the skull and the brain to assign hopeless inferiority
to various peoples, now comes along Finot and says:
'The skull and the brain furnish no argument in
favor of organic inequality.'  Lamarck—I think it's
Lamarck—puts it better.  He affirms that 'Nature
has created neither classes nor orders, nor families, nor
kinds, nor permanent species, but only individuals!'"

"That's the answer to the problem, Gordon,"
cried Lady Winifred triumphantly—"the Individual!"

Down the stairs came the Individual and lounged
into the room.  Hal knew at once from the suggestion
of an embarrassed pause that he had been the
subject of the conversation.

It is rather trying to one with a problem to have
inept hands dipping in, messing it about.

The doctor was the first to regain his poise.  He
was used to difficult cases, and when he had to
announce to the patient that he had only six weeks or
six months to live, his manner was perfect.  "Ah,
Harold," he said with a kindly smile, putting his hand
on the boy's arm with a reassuring touch, "splendid
for your dear father, this home coming.  You mustn't
go away again."  Then he dropped his voice for
Hal's ear alone.  "I'll be back.  I want to speak
with you before you retire," and the busy man
passed out.  Hal had on the conventional dinner
coat.  He looked at his relatives with an amused
smile and came down to the table and started to help
himself to a cigarette, then thought better of it, took
some rice-paper from his pocket and made his own,
manipulating it with one hand after the miraculous
manner of the Mexican.  When it was finished, amid
the awed and fascinated wonder of the spectators,
he lit a match on the leg of his trousers and lit the
cigarette with the same hand to the dismay of Gordon
and the joy of Winifred.

To Gordon's mind no well-bred person could really
care for miracles.

"Well, Cousin Hal, you have been three years an
exile!  What a joy, eh?  What a joy to be back in
dear old London!"

The boy smiled as he took up his coffee.

"Do you remember Grafton?  Used to be a pal
of mine.  Met him on the train coming up from
Liverpool."  The boy bent forward with an air of
startled boredom.  One could see Grafton.  "Well,
old chap, missed you awfully!  Where have you
been keeping yourself for the last *fortnight*?"  He
dropped the assumption.

"Cordial place—London!  Out our way men and
their characters go in their shirt sleeves."  And he
stretched his arms and the dinner coat popped
ominously.  For the moment he seemed to fill the library
and it dwarfed most people.

"But you don't escape the rotter even out there,
do you?" asked Winifred.

"No, but the rotter shouts himself out to all the
world, and if you don't like the noise he makes you
shoot it full of holes.  Here they carry concealed
weapons.  I'm more at home with the shirt-sleeve
crowd," and he sat down in the Charles II chair and
threw his leg over one arm of it as he sipped his
coffee.

Sir Gordon rose from the upholstered rail in front
of the fireplace where he had been sitting, put down
his empty coffee-cup, then stood up with the air of
taking charge personally of Hal's tangled affairs.

"Well, Hal, my boy, you have come back prepared
I presume to settle down, settle down to some career
befitting an English gentleman."  Sir Gordon paused
to draw Hal's fire.  As the young man did not dispute
this assumption, he continued with patronizing
pomposity.

"We must place you.  We must place you, my
boy.  It won't be an easy matter, will it?  Of course
you can't go into trade.  The Army is the only
gentleman's game, but—we must not speak of that.
We must not speak of that," and he hastened to get
away from a subject so painful.  "Now, how about
the church?"

"The church?" asked Hal with a laugh.

"Oh, your father could get you a living."  Then
he added hastily: "It's respectable at least."

"For me?  The church?"

"Oh, you don't have to go in for religion; oh, no;
oh, my, no!  None of that bally rot."

Seeing that her amiable husband was in very deep
water, Winifred reached out her hand and encouraged
him to go deeper.

"Hal, how stupid of you," she said.  "You have
assistants, curates, and that sort of thing who do the
religion for you.  You ride to hounds, play cricket
for your county, and enjoy similar spiritual diversions."

"Well, you must do *something*," said Sir Gordon
petulantly, annoyed with the young man's levity.
"Of course whatever you decide to try, it is going to
be a long hard struggle to live down the Army record;
still with time and pluck it may be done.  You are an
earl's son and you have influential relatives.  Well,
then, how about politics?"

"Sit in the House and listen to the gabble on the
Old Age Pensions and The Licensing Bill?  I'd
rather be a suffragette and go to jail."

Sir Gordon had exhausted the careers.  It wasn't
a career exactly, but people went in for it and it was a
devilish nice thing to go in for.

"Well," he suggested, "there's the life of a country
gentleman."

"The country would be all right," said Hal, "if
the people would only stay away.  They spoil everything.
Even the gardens are as formal as the odious
people, and the flowers, even the flowers, are made to
look stiff and stuck-up and well-behaved, as if they
felt they, too, were on exhibition and might be talked
about.  The country is only another setting for teas,
tennis, and top hats, bridge, scandal, and flirting
with each other's wives."

"Well, there's shooting," said Sir Gordon in
desperation.  "You used to like shooting."

"Yes, before people shot in mobs, and made it a
function.  Now they go into the solitudes, the cosey
solitudes, with footmen, a French cook, vintage wines,
and a Hungarian band."

Sir Gordon did not realize that his wife and Hal
were having fun with his prejudices.  He was on the
edge of losing his patience.

"Well, if you stay *here*—"  He was annoyed to
observe that he had raised his voice almost to a vulgar
scream.  He repeated the phrase in a more temperate
key.  "If you stay here——"

"But I'm not going to stay here, Gordon.  It's
the West for me.  It's in my blood.  When I've
visited with father and arranged one or two
important matters, I'm goin' back to God's country."

"Bravo, Hal," exclaimed Lady Winifred.  "If
you stay here you'll end by becoming a conventional
little snob, and I should hate you.  No; go back to
your shirt-sleeve crowd."

"Well, my dear boy," exclaimed Gordon completely
nonplussed; "I can't make you out," and he
made up his mind to beat a hasty retreat to the
United Service Club, where anarchy was not petted
and spoiled and fed on chocolate bonbons.  Then
he thought of something and came back.

"Winifred, speak to Hal about that."

"About what?" inquired Hal.

Again he lost some of his habitual poise in the
fervor of his convictions.

"You must put your foot down, Hal; you really
must—'er—for our sakes as well as for your own.
You ought—er—Winifred will tell you," and the
old soldier scrambled out of the trench and effected
a most disorderly retreat.

His cousin Winifred was about six years older
than Hal, and in all the memories of his childhood
and boyhood she was the one bright spot.  His
step-mother had died when he was but a lad.  His father
was much occupied with public affairs.  No one
else seemed to care to understand the queer little
chap except this tall, queer girl.  She stood by and
encouraged him to whip the first little brat that called
him an insulting name, a name suggested by his color.
Then she washed and wiped his resulting wounds,
and encouraged him to believe that he was in the
path of duty and on the road to glory.  Thus
encouraged, the shy, timid lad had quickly developed
into a fierce little warrior, and it was Winifred who
somehow realized and foresaw that if he were ever to
enjoy the blessings of peace he would have to fight
for them, and she got the head gardener's son who
had a distinguished reputation as an amateur
pugilist, to teach him how to box, an accomplishment
in which he soon distanced his teacher, and one which
was destined to be of the greatest service to him in
his subsequent career.  His readiness to meet all
comers and his demonstrated ability to do so was his
passport through life.

He had fought every step of the way from childhood
to manhood.  A battle or series of battles
marked every change in environment, in school, in
college, in his preparations for a military career.
Soon it came as a routine.  He knew he would
have to "lick somebody" in order to be let alone.
It didn't worry him, and he didn't seek these
encounters, but he didn't mind them.  In fact, it was
one of the things he did exceptionally well.  When
he joined a swell regiment he had a terrific struggle
to stay.  He was "ragged" unmercifully, but he
took his medicine, and before he was forced out,
the regiment was ordered into the field, went through
a campaign in which he had opportunities, which he
eagerly accepted and with brilliant results, results
which he took modestly.  Eventually he compelled
respect from his brother officers, but it was earned.
Oh, it was earned!  In all this bitter struggle with
environment Cousin Winifred, this woman "with the
serpent's tongue," was the only soul who knew and
understood.  He came over to her and put his hands
affectionately on her shoulders.

"What is it you're to tell me?" he asked her.

"Dear, simple soul, he expects you to change Edith."

"Change Edith, eh?"  Hal walked away with a
queer look on his face.  She continued: "One can
dam a river and change its course.  You can't do that
with a woman.  Edith will go on being Edith, I fancy,
to the end of the chapter."

"She seems to be still rather careless of appearances,"
he said.

"She never was discreet, but there are many safely on
the inside who are quite as careless.  At all events, she's
kept out of the papers.  That's something.  See here."

She showed him a London society journal whose
leaves she had been turning and glancing at in a
desultory fashion, one of those hybrid products of
modern life which make a specialty of social garbage
and elevate blackmail to the point of high art; a
journal which every one calls "a rag" and which all
smart people read religiously.  Hal took it and
glanced through the article hastily.

It was an account of a "well-known society
woman," "name withheld out of consideration for her
distinguished relatives and friends," who was found
by a police officer wandering aimlessly in Hyde
Park and utterly unable to give a lucid account of
herself.  Sir George *Blank*, a well-known specialist
in nervous diseases, happens to be driving by,
recognizes the unhappy lady, who is apparently under the
influence of a powerful drug, and takes her to her
home, etc., etc., etc.

"How awful!" he said.  "Do you suppose it's true?"

"My dear boy, these things are becoming so
common we're no longer shocked by them.  Society has
its favorites, and it has a broad mantle of charity for
its favorites, but obviously one mustn't parade one's
sins in Hyde Park.  Edith hasn't been a huge social
success, but she has kept out of the papers; she is
still possible and she never gives up.  She is still at
it—climbing, climbing."

"And Lord Yester is the latest ladder, eh?"

"Why, you haven't been in England more than a
few minutes.  How did you find that out?"

"Why, my friend Grafton laid one of these illustrated
papers down on the seat beside me as we came
up in the train.  I saw a picture of Edith and Lord
Yester, and I had the pleasure of reading 'an open
letter' to my wife.  It was very instructive.  I
thought you said she had kept out of the papers."

"Oh, that's a small matter.  That isn't publicity.
That 'open letter' attention is merely an acknowledgment
of her social prominence.  That is a trifle.
Lady Lucretia Burk-Owsley is dancing in one of our
music halls.  Now, you might object to that, though
her husband, I understand, rather enjoys its democracy.
It sort of takes the whole of London into the
bosom of the family.  She can't dance, of course,
but she's a revelation.  You must see it.  Oh, we're
not standing still."

"And Lord Yester?" suggested Hal.  "What is
his *raison d'être*?"

"Lord Yester's vocation is Edith, his avocation is
being next in succession to the old Duke of Uxminster,
and the Duke is feeble enough to satisfy even the
most impatient heir."

"A duchess, eh?"

"Nothing short of that."

"But Yester," objected Hal in dreamy retrospection;
"Yester's a boy.  His father, though he was
old enough to be my father, was a pal of mine.  We
served together in South Africa.  Why you remember,
Winifred?  He was forced into retirement because
he justified my disobedience and refused to be
silenced—God bless him!  One of the few friends I've
had in the world!  His son, eh?  Why, the youngster
must be just out of his perambulator."

"Some women as they grow older suddenly display
a fondness for children.  When a woman has escaped
being a mother, she sometimes meets her fate in the
grandmother class."

"He's rather a nice child, if I remember correctly,"
said Hal.

"Well, not a 'double-first,' not an intellectual
giant, but a nicely brought-up child; a credit to his
nurse, and, incidentally, just at the age to be madly
in love with a married woman, married, of course, to
a clod who cannot possibly understand her."

Hal laughed.

"Yes, the *clod* understands that.  They have
already made their plans, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes; and you're just in time to give the bride
away.  Now there's a novelty, and they're rare these
days—a wedding in which the ex-husband is the new
husband's best man.  No?  Well, Edith pays you
the compliment of believing that you will behave very
well under the circumstances.  I was expected to
prepare you for the inevitable and, if possible, soften
the blow."

"And Lord Yester—is he willing?"

"Willing?  Strenuously, madly willing.  Personally,
I think you are in tremendous luck.  I congratulate
you upon your prospective deliverance with all
my heart."

Lady Winifred continued to play with the situation,
turning it inside and outside, holding it up to
fantastic derision, until she saw that he was not
listening.  The strain was off.  He had resigned himself
to pleasant dreams.  He had been pulling against
wind and tide, every muscle, every nerve stretched
to cracking, his head bursting, his heart breaking,
and making no progress, barely holding his own.
Now the tide had turned.  The storm had passed.
He could take in his oars, sit in the stern, and just
keep her in the current, the current that was bearing
him on to his desires.  He could rest in delicious
lethargy and see the flowers and gardens on the bank,
and see at the end of the beautiful journey Wah-na-gi
standing on the rock, holding out her arms to him.

"How do you do, Harold?  Welcome home."

Edith stood holding out her hand to him.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX

.. vspace:: 2

Instead of the little bronze figure in the buckskin
dress with its straight, simple lines, as straight and
simple as the soul within it, he saw a white woman,
preternaturally white, the complex product of nature
and art, where the dressmaker, the hair-dresser, and
the jeweller had done their latest and best, with the
soft, warm, dark colors of the library as a noble
background, a chromatic frame.  Her Paquin gown of
canary yellow, cut very low, was bordered and
outlined with dark-brown marabou feathers.  On her
dazzling neck rested a string of emeralds, the gift
of Lord Yester.  Her red hair was dressed, buttressed
and supplemented by braids, coils and puffs, and
surmounted by a diamond tiara.  Her white hands
were covered with rings, many of them with a history.
This ornate combination was concealing and
exposing an individuality more complex still, its
barbaric impulses crossed and seamed and twisted by
generations of acquired stress and strain.  She was
a radiant creature, conscious of her charms, but about
her agate eyes were gathering little signals of distress,
grave, insistent warnings, destined not to be heeded,
saying that she had lived too fast, that she was at the
zenith, the climax, that the descent would be quick
and rapid.  The wonderful mechanism wasn't working
smoothly.  "How do you do, Harold?  Welcome
home."  And an extended hand.  And this was her
husband, returned from a long journey.

"Thank you, Edith," and he took her hand.  She
did not offer to kiss him and she gave him only one
hand.  He might have been a stranger to whom she
had just been introduced.  Indeed, she would have
had more interest in a stranger.  They had gone
past even the forms of domestic procedure.

"Winifred," said her cousin, "Lord Yester is in
the drawing-room.  You get on so well together.
Would you mind?"

"Not at all."

"I just want a moment's chat with Harold."

Winifred glanced at them with a cynical smile as
she went out of the room.  The situation appealed to
her supreme love of contrast.

"You'll pardon my running off to-night, Harold;
won't you?  You see I didn't know in time, and
I couldn't very well break a previous engagement.
I asked Winifred to take my place and make you
feel at home."  And she undulated over to the railing
before the fireplace and sat down in the genial glow
in an indolent cat-like way.  The fog had penetrated
into the house and there was a chill in the dampness.
She knew, too, that the fire shot strange lights into
her hair and over her jewels and neck, and the desire
to excite admiration was instinctive and ever present.

"Winifred is good company and she did her best,"
said Hal simply.

"And I knew that after a little chat with
Winifred—well—that you would know all there was to know,
and that there wouldn't be anything left for me to tell."

It was evident that neither woman had any illusions
about the other.  The attitude of rest and repose
was only momentary.  She got up restlessly and
came forward, her eyes bent with fierce concentration
upon his.

"Of course you haven't come back with the idea of
changing anything?"

"Your attitude would seem to make that hopeless,
Edith."

She was relieved.  It was not to be open war, then.
She turned half away, let her eyelids droop, and
surveyed and measured him from underneath them.  It
gave her an oriental look.

"My dear Harold, it is too late for pretence between
us.  You will welcome a release quite as eagerly as
I shall; and so we ought to be able to arrange matters.
We have investigated your movements since you have
been away and the name of the Indian woman will
serve our purposes."

This produced a most disagreeable impression
upon Hal.

"No," he said with a slow drawl that had menace
in it.  "No, I think not."

Edith turned and looked at him in amazement.
It was a formality, one of those unpleasant
formalities the silly law made necessary.  The woman in
view would never know of it, wouldn't care if she did.
It seemed much the easier way.  To her look of
genteel astonishment he said in explanation:

"You see she is nothing but a savage.  She
wouldn't understand our refinements."

She laughed at his irony.  Then he was in love,
romantically in love.  She laughed joyously.  It
seemed to make his acquiescence very certain.

"I won't oppose your application," she heard him say.

Of course he would not.  Why should he?  He
loved this Indian woman.  Her fears of a moment
ago seemed childish, silly.  She felt the situation
pliant in her soft, cruel hand.  Her heart leaped up
within her.  Her barque, too, was floating with the
stream.  It was a pleasure barge smothered in
flowers but crowned with a coronet, and as it spread
its silken sails to the perfumed breeze, everywhere in
the crowded roadway shipping gave way and place,
salutes were fired, and everywhere the air was thick
with adulation and acclaim.  And no small part of
the anticipated triumph were the scowls of the envious
and the evening of old scores.

"I make two stipulations," she heard him say.

She held her breath.  Had he led her on only to
tell her at last that he would fight her application—refuse
her freedom?  She knew she was at his mercy.
He could exact bitter terms.  He could in fact
prevent the consummation of her crowning ambitions;
could wreck the whole elaborate structure of her
life.  Her assured happiness seemed suddenly
threatened.  In a hysterical moment she saw it in ruins.
Instantly her plans and prospects assumed an
importance and insistence they had never had before.
At the thought that he might stand in her way she
was filled with an insane fury.  Still she waited.
What would he demand?

"You must not bring the Indian woman's name
into the affair."

Heavens!  Was that all?  Willing victims and
accomplices were to be found.  What else?

"And you must take no steps while my father lives."

She passed in a second from death unto life.  The
Earl was clinging to existence by a thread.  Hal
hadn't even bargained for the return of the jewels
he had given her.  She felt that she must make
some show of resistance or the terms would be
changed.  It was too ridiculously simple.

"Of course Lord Yester's wishes must not be ignored."

"I cannot allow you or Lord Yester to decide that
for me."

He turned away as he spoke and so was not aware
that Lord Yester had entered the room in time to
hear this reference to himself.  It is universally
conceded that it requires courage to interfere between
husband and wife; but then Lord Yester was a brave
little man.  He could wait no longer.  His fate, too,
was being decided in the library.  He felt he must
have a voice in deciding it.  More than that, she
needed him, this soft, plaintive soul that had come
through time and space, through sin and suffering, to
meet him, her complement, her supplement.  Small,
slender, with a delicate, sensitive face, distinguished
by regular but small features, he had a fine, fresh,
unspoiled capacity for suffering, which she teased and
worried and played with for her infinite amusement.
Quite apart from his coming coronet, she was in love
with him; that is, she was a pyromaniac, and she got
sensations from seeing his emotions burn, the fresh,
beautiful emotions of a poet and a child.

"Harold, I don't think you have met Lord Norman Yester?"

She was the only one of the three who was without
embarrassment.

"Yes, I think I met Lord Yester when he was at Eton."

Hal had no intention of making the other uncomfortable.

The clod! thought Yester; the clumsy clod!  Eton,
indeed!  Everything about the boy was small except
his spirit.  He was like a child who says: "I'm six,
going on seven."

"Yes?" he said with a supercilious elevation of the
brows.  "That was such a long time ago, I had quite
forgotten it."

Having put the unpleasant husband in his place,
he turned to her with the utmost deference, to the
wronged and neglected wife.

"Edith," he said gently—"Lady Effington," he
corrected himself and bowed formally to her husband.
It was a delightfully ingenuous thing to do.  Hal
smiled, but not in derision.  In fact, he liked the
boy.  What a funny little mediaeval gentleman!

"Lady Effington," continued Sir Launcelot (pocket
edition), "if you can feel that I am worthy of your
confidence, perhaps you will leave your interests in
my hands—er—in our hands!"

Again he forgot the unpleasant husband and again
he bowed an apology for his breach of etiquette.

"Thank you, Lord Yester," she said with a gravity
and dignity equal to his own.  To Hal it was like a
play—this elaborate formality, this adroit indirectness,
this dexterity in handling high explosives in a
perfectly safe and genteel way, this modern capacity
to bring everything down to a common denominator.
He could play the game too, but what a long way it
seemed from Red Butte Ranch, Big Bill, John
McCloud, McShay, and Wah-na-gi, 'the soul without
a body'!

"Lord Effington and I are both men of the
world," Hal heard the youngster say.  "It ought
not to be difficult for us to—to—arrive at an
understanding."

Lord Yester had his thumbs in the armholes of
his waistcoat, his chest was thrown out, and he was
balancing himself on the ball of his foot.  It was an
acquired mannerism that seemed to add to his height.
Like all small men, he was fond of referring to the
fact that Napoleon was not a giant.

Edith inclined her beautiful head forward at an
angle of supreme deference.

"I leave my happiness in your hands, with the
utmost confidence in you both," she said gracefully
as she swept out of the room.  Lord Yester met her
as she moved and gave her the homage of his
protection to the door!  The movement left the husband
in the position of a rank outsider.

What fun Edith must have had, Hal thought, in
playing up to these ideals!  Edith, who had no ideals
of her own.

When Yester returned the two men looked at
each other; there was an awkward pause, each man
cleared his throat, and each waited for the other to
begin.

"Will you smoke?" asked Hal with a motion to the
cigars.  The youngster made a nervous start toward
the table, then it occurred to him that he could not
meet on such a friendly basis the man who had treated
with inhuman cruelty the woman who had thrown
herself upon his protection; so he stopped short and
very awkwardly said:

"No! thank you; no, no!"

Again an awkward pause.

"Will you sit down?"

That seemed consistent with dignity and he started
to do so, but again recoiled.

"I—eh—I feel more comfortable standing, if you
don't mind."

Hal bowed.  Yester's awkwardness was catching.
He lounged across the room, sat down on the rail
before the fire, and lit a cigarette.  He could wait.
Yester fiddled with his collar, stroked his cheek, and
fidgeted.

"This is—this is rather a delicate situation, isn't
it?" he said at last with a little deprecatory, nervous
smile.

"Nothing seems unusual or impossible these days,"
said Hal easily.

"Well, you see," said the other, "I was intended
for the diplomatic service, but I'm afraid I'm rather
direct."

What a kid it was, thought Hal.

"An engaging frankness is sometimes the highest
form of diplomacy," he said encouragingly.

"Well, you see," said the other gathering courage,
"she has come to rely on me so completely, on my
judgment as it were——"

"She?  Oh, yes, my wife."

"Yes, yes," eagerly assented the lover, so absorbed
in his own romance as to be beautifully oblivious
to any other point of view.  Hal smoked and kept
an inscrutable face, while his heart sang within him,
going with the wind and tide, going out of these
eddies, these twists and turns, out into the broad ocean
and on to a new world.

Yester walked over to the writing-table and began
to play nervously with its furnishings.

"I wanted to say certain things to you, and I—I—I
find I hardly know how."  Then he pulled himself
together as his mind went back over their acquaintance.
"You see, as she had no other friends, as
she was in trouble and in bad health, my sympathies
were naturally enlisted, and almost before either of
us realized it—well, you see, while I think you have
behaved very badly, I—eh—now that we have met,
I—will you let me say, I feel very sorry for you?"

The ingenuousness of this was completely
disarming.  Hal loved the child.  But he continued to treat
the situation with becoming gravity, bowed formally,
and said:

"That's very generous of you."

"At the same time," exclaimed the little man
returning to his purpose, "it is her happiness that must
concern us both, isn't it?  And I can only say that
if you can accept the inevitable—well and good!  If
not," and again he balanced himself on his toes and
expanded his chest; "if not, I stand ready to face
the alternative."

Alternative sounded ominous.  What did it mean?

"Alternative?" said Hal puzzled.

"I'll meet you under any terms and conditions you
may name."

"'Meet me?'  Oh, yes," and he smiled in spite
of himself.  "Why, duelling is illegal, isn't it?  It's
worse than illegal; it's unfashionable."  He rose and
went over to the boy and looked down at him with a
protecting air.  "I shouldn't want to take the life of
such a gallant little gentleman, and I should care even
less to have you take mine.  I'm afraid I'm hopelessly
commonplace."

Hal's attitude in spite of himself was too obvious.

"I'm afraid that is too evident, Lord Effington,"
said Yester sharply, resenting the overlordship of the
other.  "And may I suggest," he added with growing
irritation, "that I am not so much younger and
smaller than yourself that you need persist in
patronizing me?"

"I beg your pardon.  I had no intention of doing
that."  Then he looked at him very seriously and
added: "I hope for the sake of my middle-class
conscience you know what you are doing."

"I feel quite capable of deciding that," replied the
boy easily.  "I know something of the world—something,
I fancy, of women!"

"And you are almost of age," added Hal.

"I am about to attain my majority," said Yester
stiffly.  "And when I do——"

"You hope to celebrate it by your marriage to my wife?"

The other bowed with an engaging smile.

"Quite so.  Well, I shall not stand in the way of
your happiness, Lord Yester."

"That is very noble of you."

"I'm afraid it's rather selfish of me.  Your
happiness happens to correspond with mine.  And I hope
in the future you will never have cause to think
bitterly of me."

In Hal's eyes lurked an embryo twinkle.  What a
ripping farce civilization was!

"On the contrary," said Yester, happy beyond
words, "I think you have behaved exceedingly well.
You conceal your sufferings like a soldier and you
join me in protecting the good name of the woman
we have both loved.  I can only say that you have
acted like a gentleman, Lord Effington."

Both men bowed formally.

"Lord Yester," said Hal; "your father once did
me a great service.  I hope we shall always be
friends?"

And they shook hands.

"Oh, Sir George, you know Lord Yester, I think?"

Hal spoke to the physician who had entered from
the hall.

Both men bowed slightly.  Hal turned to the heir
of the Duke of Uxminster.

"Lady Effington will explain to you the only
conditions I make.  They are very slight and I am sure
will meet with your approval."

"Thank you," and the little fellow bowed elaborately
to each man and left the room with his arms
folded behind him, an attitude very much affected by
Napoleon, if we may trust the pictures.

It was with difficulty that Hal refrained from
laughter.  What a farce, but what a joyous farce!
Already he was mentally speculating on the time
when he could turn his back on these attitudinizing
people with their picture-poster lives, on all this
hollow, artificial make-believe, and return to the
shirtsleeve crowd.  What joy he would bring to one soul!
He saw her face as he said to her:

"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi; I'm coming back."  He
had forgotten Sir George.

"I beg your pardon, Sir George.  Delightful little
chap, Yester!  Eh?  I wonder if I was ever as young
as that."

It was evident that Yester's attentions to the wife
of another man had not been a recommendation to
the sedate scientist.  He said dryly: "I don't know
whether he's a fool or a knave."

"Well, he isn't either," said Hal.  "He's been
reading 'Ivanhoe'!  You wanted to speak to me of
father, Sir George."

"No, my boy; it's in regard to your wife."

Sir George had not only been the Earl's medical
adviser as far back as Hal could remember but he
had also been his intimate friend as well.  Hal was
thinking of other things, planning his escape,
picturing the welcome the West was keeping for her child,
or he would have noticed an extra consideration in
the doctor's tone, an added solicitude in his manner.

"Edith?" he queried indifferently and with polite
surprise.

"Yes; sit down."  The doctor motioned to the
little sofa which had its back against the writing-table.
Hal sat down carelessly and picked up from
the seat the society journal Lady Winifred had put
into his hands a few moments before and began to
turn its leaves and glance at its pictures, but in a
cursory way and with an inclination of the head
toward the physician to indicate that he was listening.
Of course Sir George did not know—how could he?—that
he and Edith had passed into different worlds.

Sir George himself was a study as he stood for a
second regarding the other.  How was it this custodian
of other people's secrets and sorrows, forever
intimate with sickness and pain, could look so
sufficient, so impeccable, so serene?  Well groomed,
smooth, and polished to his finger tips, there seemed
no surface where trouble or anxiety might stick.

Was it an armor or was it his integument?

"It's quite time you came home," the doctor said,
glancing absent-mindedly at his polished finger nails.
"You must give some thought to Edith.  The life she
is leading is exhausting, abnormal.  She requires a
change.  You ought to take her away from London
and this fast set."

"She has always lived this life, Sir George.  It
isn't any different, is it?"

"You have a ranch in America.  It's just the
thing.  Why don't you take her there?"

"She wouldn't go.  She is joined to her idols and
I'm not one of them, Sir George."

The doctor was standing at the corner of the table.
He satisfied himself that they were alone before
speaking, then he bent toward the young man and
said quietly:

"Of course no one knows it as yet but me; but
you ought to know it; in fact, you will know it
eventually, when perhaps it is too late, so——"

Hal looked up from his periodical.

"You alarm me, Sir George.  What is it?"

The physician's eye fell upon the paper in Hal's
hands.

"Allow me," he said and held out his hand for it.

Hal watched him deliberately turn the pages.  He
seemed to take a painfully long time to do it.
Meantime the fog seemed to have penetrated the walls and
to have taken possession of the place; the lights grew
dim and the fire loomed ghostly in the dim distance.
The air was thick and Hal seemed to breathe with
difficulty.  Ah, at last the doctor found what he was
looking for.  He handed it back and pointed to the
article.  There must be some mistake.  He had
already glanced through that article.  It concerned
an unfortunate woman who was found in Hyde Park
under the influence of——

He glanced up.  Sir George was still standing
there.  He must have been waiting a long time.  Hal
spoke at last, very slowly.

"And that was—Edith?"

The physician nodded his head gravely.

Hal glanced back at the paper but he did not see it.
He sat still as if everything was just as it had been
before, but he knew that the earth was rocking in a
convulsion, that the house of his building was
tumbling about him, that he was choking with the
circumambient dust, and that he could not move
or escape, only sit still until it was all over.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XX`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XX

.. vspace:: 2

The doctor waited patiently while the other readjusted
his disordered faculties and groped his way
toward the light.

"Good Lord, how terrible!" said Hal, distrait.
"Why, Edith is the last woman in the world—strong
willed, self-willed, ambitious!  Why, I can't grasp
it.  It doesn't seem possible.  I—I can't realize it."

"Oh, it's common enough these days," said the
doctor, sitting down beside the boy and putting his
hand on his knee in suggested sympathy.  "The
pace that kills!  No rest, no respite!  Teas, dinners,
receptions, theatres, balls, races, motors, yachts;
bridge, morning, noon and night; excitement, fatigue,
reaction, depression; then stimulants, small at first,
then more stimulants for greater depression, then
over-stimulants; then sleeplessness and all the horrors
of neurasthenia; then narcotics for rest and quiet, to
keep from going mad; then, all of a sudden as it
seems, but really by the most logical process, a *habit*
is formed—a fixed, implacable, relentless habit."

"Poor old girl," said Hal, trying to follow the
professional exegesis.  "How awful.  How awful!  But
of course people are cured of such things, Sir George.
You haven't let this go on?"

"Unfortunately it had been going on for some time
before I discovered it, and of course I have done all I
can, all I know.  I'm afraid it's now beyond me.
She has one chance in a thousand, and that chance
is in your hands: the fresh air, out-door life, simple
living, rest, peace, quiet!  Then, if she will help you,
if she will help herself, why, who knows?"

Again he put his hand on the boy's knee as much
as to say: Don't take it too much to heart.  We
all have some affliction.  If it isn't one thing, it's
another, and fortunately we have work to do, and
that saves us—work.  All he said was:

"Well, I must be going."

"I want to see you a moment before you go, Sir
George."

It was Edith speaking.  She had entered the room
as usual—noiselessly.

The doctor gave her a quick look.  She was
radiant.  She had heard nothing, suspected nothing.
He gave a sigh of relief.

"At your service, Lady Effington; I'll be in the
billiard-room."

She made sure he had left the room, then she came
toward Hal, her head up, her face beaming, her eyes
dancing, glorious, transcendent!  Magnificent to look
upon was this wayward woman in the first glow of
triumph, but Hal did not see her.  He was gazing
dumbly into space.

"It's very splendid of you, Harold," she said as
she came over and sat down beside him, just where
the doctor had sat a moment ago.

"I have come to thank you.  You and I were
never meant for each other, but it has been no fault
of yours, and though I shall be compelled legally to
complain of your cruelty, I shall, as a matter of fact,
always remember gratefully your generous and
considerate treatment.  Fortunately it is not too late to
remedy our mistakes.  Lord Yester tells me you
have definitely agreed not to interfere with our plans."

At the conclusion of her rhapsody she leaned
forward and put her hand on his.  It was almost a
caress, the nearest approach to it she had bestowed
on him in years.  He withdrew his hand and took
hers, giving it a little sympathetic pat, then he rose
and walked away, the lines of his face drawn.  She
looked at him in wonder.  Was it possible he cared
for her a little bit after all?

"One moment, Edith," he said.  "You see I
didn't know.  I couldn't know.  And now—well, for
the moment I'm bowled over.  We'll have to think
this thing over, won't we?  Hang it all, it isn't fair,
is it?  It doesn't seem quite fair."

"Fair?" she echoed with a dubious smile.  She
saw that he was laboring under great excitement.
"Fair?"

"To him—to the boy—to Yester."

"What are you talking about?" she said with
patient incredulity.  He paid no attention to her.
He only half heard her questions and answers.  He
was reasoning it out, laboring with himself.

"He's a mere boy, and not a bad sort either; in
fact, he's really quite all right.  I don't see how we
can go on with it; you and I."

She was like one who is suddenly and violently
awakened from a halcyon dream to gaze into the
glare of a dark lantern in the hands of a thief who
may at any moment become an assassin.  At the first
glimmer of what he meant terror gripped her.  She
rose and came toward him.

"You gave *me* your word.  You gave *Lord Yester*
your word."

"I didn't know the—the situation, did I?  You
see I thought I could just put my hands in my pockets
and stand off and let it go on, but if I see a blind man
walking over a precipice and I don't stop him, why,
I might just as well push him over.  It's murder
either way.  I can't do it.  I don't see how I can
do it.  I've changed my mind."

He tried to walk away as if it were settled.  She
followed him softly, like a cat, then confronted him.

"I won't let you change your mind."  She spoke
slowly and quietly, but it was a brave or a stupid
man who could ignore the threat.

"It's no use, Edith.  Sir George has told me, told
me for your own sake."  Again he turned away, as
if he were looking for a way of escape from himself,
from her, from the situation.  She felt a wild impulse
to scream, to leap upon him and tear him to pieces,
and then it came to her that that would lend color to
his veiled accusations.  She must go softly, cunningly,
and—wait.

He walked away, over to the fireplace.  Was there
no way out of it?  Oh, if Sir George had not spoken!
If he had not known!  Was there no other way?
Was no compromise possible?  Why should the
burden of all these lives fall upon him?  Why
should he be handed the cross to bear?  The flames,
like little red demons, little fire sprites, danced here
and there, threw up their hands, squirmed, writhed,
trying to get away, trying to leap into the air, trying
to seize an unattainable something, falling back like
whipped dogs to lick and bite the smoking log!
Gazing into the fantastic fire depths—he saw Wah-na-gi,
and beside her John McCloud, just as they stood
that fateful day he left the Red Butte Ranch.  "If
you do come back, you must bring this Indian woman
clean hands and a pure heart, promise me that."  And
he *had promised*.  And Wah-na-gi, the soul
without a body, heard him promise.  He had come
thousands of miles that he might keep the spirit of
that promise.  And now all he had to do would be to
let things alone, let them go on as they were going.
Why should he interfere?  Why should he meddle?
Would any one thank him?  Every one, even Yester
himself, would hate him.  What possible good would
it do?  It was too late to interfere.  His own
happiness was at stake too.  What of that?  Why should
he ruin his own happiness with theirs?  He would
go home a free man and who would know the difference?
There would be no one to blame him except
his own conscience.  Oh, subterfuge, subterfuge!
The lying little devil flames laughed.  John McCloud
would know.  In fact, by some clairvoyant mystery,
he already knew!  Even now he was saying: "And
this boy is the son of your benefactor, the son of your
friend."

At last he said, as if to the fire:

"I couldn't do this and then go back and face
Wah-na-gi and John McCloud.  I promised if I came
back to come with clean hands."

"You are talking like a wild man," Edith said.
"But you see I am not excited.  You're not going to
betray me into a scene and then accuse me of being
as crazy as you are.  I sit down and I am calm."

She sat down deliberately in the high-backed chair
and clutched its arms, and clung to it desperately
like a drowning sailor.  "I have perfect self-possession,
complete control of myself, and I listen, listen
to a madman.  Go on."

She was sincere.  He was irresponsible.  Nothing
else would explain it.

Indeed, to most of us, those who act from altruistic
motives are quite as incomprehensible as those whose
acts suggest diabolical and abnormal instigation.
The boy was mad.  He had always been "queer."  He
was the son of his father.

By a supreme effort of the will she brought all her
faculties to bear.  She would first understand this
and then she would know how to meet it.  She was
a resourceful woman and used to bending others to
her will.  He was the son of his father.  Swiftly her
mind climbed the stairs and bent over the invalid.
Relentlessly she seized his life and dragged it out of
the sick bed, and submitted it to a searching examination.
All his life the Earl had been a sentimentalist.
All his life he had made mistakes.  The woman who
loved him had once called them "glorious mistakes."
Everybody else called them just mistakes.  Out of
quixotic love for the Countess Diana he had left
England under a cloud, bearing the inevitable
implication of another's guilt.  Another man would have
stayed in London and have been her lover.  That was
his first mistake.  An exile, branded as a thief, he
had tried to hide himself away from civilization,
became a cattle-man, in a country where white women
were a curiosity, was thrown by circumstances into
relations with a pretty little Indian woman, had a
child by her, and married the woman that he might
not be the father of an illegitimate child.  That was
his second mistake.  Any other man would have
married her by tribal rites and, when he got ready,
made her a present or made it worth while for some
one else to marry her.  When the death of Diana's
husband, the real embezzler, called him back to a
title and to the life and the land and the woman he
loved, he chose to stay with the little savage who was
the mother of his child.  Another mistake!  And so
he continued.  Sentimental again with regard to his
duty to the child, he had driven the Indian mother
to suicide.  Free at last to marry the woman for
whom he had made such fantastic sacrifices, they
were both middle-aged people, the bloom to life, the
blush of love was gone.  Then, in the first glow of
their new-found happiness, Diana died, and he was
alone.  What had the idealist to show for all his
glorious "mistakes"? for his unselfish adhesion to a
self-conscious conception of duty?  It was ridiculous.
We live in a practical world.  That world has two
standards—a theoretical one, that no one uses, and
the practical one, the actual one.  To try to live
outside the actual is to try to reverse the law of
gravitation.  We have invented the theoretical standard to
fool others into a course we would not take ourselves.
It's a trap for the simple-minded.  It was madness.
Yes, this boy was the mad son of a mad sentimentalist.
And these sentimentalists drag other people
to ruin with them.  But why should she, a practical
woman, a woman of the world, the real world, be
made the victim of these madmen?  Her will,
seldom thwarted and never tamed, rose up for battle
and said, no, NO!

"I won't be a party to this, Edith," he said, looking
into the fire, and the moment he had said it he began
to realize what such a decision would involve.

One step forward or backward wasn't enough.
One couldn't stand still.  One couldn't stop.  My
God, where would it end?  He couldn't take everything
away from her and then leave her to herself.
Lord Yester would gladly assume the burden and
accept the consequences.  If he thwarted her, if he
stood between her and her desires—what?  He
became the nurse of an irresponsible sick woman.  The
love that might have made that possible was gone,
never really existed.  She had stolen this boy's love
and was stealing his life.  To make her drop it, he
would have to resort to force—then what?  Where
would it end?  Who made him a policeman or a
jailer?  He wouldn't do it.  He couldn't do it.  No
one would do it.  He was a fool to think of it.  He
wasn't doing this willingly.  He was hypnotized, led,
driven by some force outside himself.

"But I won't leave you to fight it out alone," he
said.  His voice sounded strange to himself.  What
was that he was saying?  He would rebel, deny it,
take it all back in the next breath.

"I'll give up all my own plans and I'll stand by you."

He recoiled, frightened, appalled at what he had
said, but one thing involved another.  There it was;
it was his decision, his; he had announced it.  Could
he become a party to this conspiracy against this
innocent boy, the son of his friend, and then could
he go back and tell Wah-na-gi and John McCloud
exactly what he had done, and then be happy?  If
not, then he must go the other way, and accept the
consequences, and meet them.  If they were to be
met, it must be boldly.  Cowardice encouraged the
enemy.

"Yes, there is no other way," he said.  "I'll give
up all my own plans."  And for one cruel moment
he stopped to think what that meant to him.  "I'll
stand by you, give you my hand, and we'll beat it out
together."  Then he pulled himself together, put a
torch to his bridges, and went on, his face lit up with
the light of their burning.

"Come now," he said with a show of spirit, going
to her as she held herself with supreme self-control in
the big chair.  "Be a sport, old girl!  Chuck it all,
this rotten, artificial life, and come with me out into
the open.  We'll leave this man-made world, and
go out into God's world, and then when you have
mastered this thing, when you are free——"

He was about to add that then she could marry the
Duke of Uxminster or whomsoever she pleased, but
Edith did not let him finish.  What would become
of this romantic boy in the meantime? and marriageable
dukes were scarce.  Besides, she had no intention
of postponing indefinitely her happiness or her plans.
Like all habit-victims, she refused to acknowledge
even to herself her slavery.  Even, supposing she had
to admit it, she would reform herself!  Indeed, she
had made up her mind to it already and was about
to begin.  Her marriage to Lord Yester would help her,
furnish her an irresistible motive for reformation.  To
keep him from eventually finding out, she would have
to reform, and she had grown very fond of the boy.
His romantic idealization of her was very beautiful.
Hal could safely leave all this in her hands.  In fact,
he would have to leave it in her hands.  She began
to tear at her lace handkerchief in spasmodic jerks.

"I don't know whether to laugh or to scream,"
she said with a scared smile, "but you see I am calm,
and I am listening to you."

"I used to be a drunkard," he said.  "Look at
me now.  You shall choose.  We'll go wherever
you like.  We'll hunt big game in Africa, or fish for
tarpon in Florida, or go after the musk-ox in the
Barren Grounds.  You don't know what it means to
sleep under the sky, to bathe your soul in the solitude,
to rest in the friendly silences, and live face to face
with the Infinite."

He spoke with the enthusiasm of the devotee, of
what he knew and had felt.  He had in his soul to be
the priest, the Poet of the Open, and now, in the white
heat of this tense moment, he found expression.

"Don't hang hack," he urged.  "Don't despair,
and don't discourage me."

The last was almost plaintive.  He knew that he
needed help.

She rose and looked at him through the slits of her
eyes.

"You have never influenced one act of my life.
What makes you think you can do so now?"

"Sir George says it's your only chance."

She backed away, on guard.  She began to laugh,
a little hollow, false laugh.  She would admit
nothing.

"My only chance?  Sir George says that?"

She laughed again, the laugh of derision, of
defiance.  They have an expression in the courts, "the
*burden* of proof," and sometimes it's a heavy load
to carry.  Flagrant sin cries out: Prove it!  The
habitual criminal, caught, the stolen goods taken
from his pocket, says: "I never saw it before.  Some
one put it there."  Prove it, her laugh cried.

"Now, don't try that," he said gently.  He did not
love her, but it was piteous to see this gorgeous
creature, with the world at her feet and destiny in her
hand, with possibilities unlimited; it was piteous to
see her throw it all away in her lust for something—God
knows what—something she called "pleasure!"
"life," in the mad race for sensation, for excitement,
in the fatuous ambition for place in the shallow mob
that called itself Society, sacrificing herself on the
Altar of Self, pouring out her own blood before her
own image.  It was piteous!  One can't stand idly
by and see a maddened horse rush back into a burning
stable.  It was impossible not to feel sorry for
her, not to want to help her.

"Sir George felt it was his duty to you, his duty to
me," he added.  She straightened up and her eyes
blazed.

"It isn't true.  I don't do it.  It's a lie—a wicked,
devilish lie!  Who will believe him?  Who will
believe a man sworn not to betray his patient's secrets?
He has no professional honor.  Who will believe
him?  I don't do it.  I don't do it!"

He hadn't mentioned it.  She had forgotten that
she was admitting that she knew what he had in
mind, and that the admission was fatal.

"I've suffered, suffered horribly from headaches
and insomnia, and sometimes I've taken it, sometimes
for that, but I call God to witness——"

She was screaming in a fierce whisper.

"Hush," he said, trying to quiet her.  "The doctor
says you must get away from here.  It's your only
chance.  Sir George says, if you will help me, if you
will help yourself, you can win out.  Come, you must
let me help you.  Let me try.  Won't you let me try?"

What was the matter with the man?

"Can't you grasp it?" she said, regaining some
poise by a great effort.  "Don't you see that what
you call silence and solitude would put me in a
madhouse?  Leave London?  Why, London is my
heaven!"  And she sat down on the sofa, or rather
crouched down, as if the statement was an argument
and the argument unanswerable.

"London, Heaven, eh?"

Her words broke through the wall of his prejudices
and the stored-up waters of bitterness gushed forth.

"London that is growing sterile in Mayfair and
breeding monsters in Whitechapel!  London, with
one man in every four a pauper; with its thousands
of starving school children!  With its multitudes who
have nothing trying to sell it to those who have
everything!  With its terrible women and its hopeless
men; hollow-eyed vice cheek by jowl with hollow-eyed
want; luxury, overdressed, sweeping past
wretches who are dying standing up, without the
decency of a bed on which to throw the rotten
remnants of their tortured lives!  London, Heaven, eh?
My God!"

He had forgotten her, himself, in his indictment of
the city, not London alone, but the city everywhere,
the city that reversed the order and the law of nature!

How far removed they were!  She had relaxed,
and the curl and sag of her body, the sensuous
somnolent droop of the eye-lid, the voluptuous lips
apart, she might have posed for a statue of lazy
luxury.  "London is my soul," she said softly,
dreamily.  "I'd rather be a stray cat crawling among
its chimneys than live in splendor anywhere else.
The crowds, the excitement, the strife, I love it!
People amuse me, their passions, their cruelty, even
their meanness, yes, even their dulness, their satiety!
It all fascinates me.  I'm drunk with it.  I wouldn't
give it up, and I couldn't if I would."  She rose and
came to him, and scrutinized him narrowly with
soft cunning.

"Don't be foolish!  What's your object?  Why do
you want to play the hypocrite with me?  You don't
care for me any more than I care for you.  And
when I am Duchess of Uxminster——"

"I think you'd better give that up," he said coldly.

"Why give it up?" she said with fierce challenge.

"You and I must answer for our own mistakes
and sins," he said.  "We mustn't unload them onto
others.  Lord Yester doesn't know."

"Who will tell him?  Who will tell him?" she
cried with bravado.

"You will," he said.

.. _`"You will," he said.`:

.. figure:: images/img-302.jpg
   :figclass: white-space-pre-line
   :align: center
   :alt: "You will," he said.

   "You will," he said.

"Never!  Never!  I wouldn't; I couldn't!"

Her voice rose to a hysterical scream, then she
stopped, struggled for control of herself, and shook
like one in a chill, reaching out her hands toward him
in mute appeal, unable to speak, to form coherent
words.  Finally she said in a hoarse whisper:

"Wait a moment.  Wait!  Let us be calm.  Let
us be calm.  You haven't spared me.  I'm not going
to spare you."

She crouched and advanced toward him like a tiger.

"I'll never leave London!  That's as fixed as death.
*You* can't remain in London, and you know that too.
You were forced out of the Army; that's enough.
You're impossible!  You always were impossible.
You always will be.  You're not a gentleman; you're
a misfit, an outcast, a *half-breed*!"

His bronze sinewy hands looked very dark against
the white, the dazzling white of her throat, as he
lifted her in the air for one terrible instant, an instant
when she was near to death and he to murder.

"Edith," he whispered, "if you were a man I'd
kill you!"

Then he took his hands away, caught her when
she would have fallen, and stammered out brokenly,
almost in tears:

"No, no, I mustn't say that.  You're not responsible.
You're not responsible."

And he dragged himself away as though he might
be tempted to put hands on her again, went over to
the sofa, threw himself down in terror and abasement,
and held his hands as though *they* were the offenders,
not his will.  On her part the leash was slipped.
There was no longer any effort or desire to control
herself.  She quivered in an infuriate passion of hate.
All other considerations were swept away.  She
followed him like a wild animal that has tasted blood.
She wanted to hurt, to tear and rend, and she had a
vague insane idea that if she could induce him to
violence, that if she could goad him to maim her, his
will, his inflexible purpose would break down under
pity and remorse.  She crouched over him while
she screamed:

"You're a half-breed, and everything you do,
everything you don't do, shows it.  My God, what
I've had to endure as the wife of a half-caste who had
to leave the Army.  You, too.  It hasn't been easy
for you.  You've suffered.  This is our chance: our
chance to escape from each other.  You want your
freedom.  You want it—you want it—you want it.
I've seen it in your face.  That's why you've come
back.  You don't want to go through life chained
to a woman who hates you, because if you drive me
to desperation I'll make you wish you'd never been
born.  You'll buy your freedom."

It was to be war.  He rose, white with passion.
She moved away as if it were settled, as if the victory
were already hers, repeating hysterically:

"You'll buy it.  You'll buy it."

It was a mistake.  It made him inflexible.

"But not at that price," he said fiercely.  "You
will tell Lord Yester or I must."

The noise of the colloquy had penetrated to the
drawing-room.

Lord Yester, unseen to either of them, had quietly
entered the library.

"Will you or shall I?" was Hal's relentless demand.

She turned and saw him—Lord Yester.  The fierce
mounting flames of her fury died down into ashes.
She seemed to shrink and draw within herself, grow
smaller and whiter.  Hal followed her intense fixed
look to its object.  Yester, too, looked older and
smaller and paler.  It seemed a long time ago when
they were agreed and each saw Happiness standing
by an open door.  Now the door was shut and hung
with crape.  Lord Yester knew that he had entered
a death chamber.  He gazed at her in silence.  He
saw the proud queenly woman cowed, looking
haggard and wan with fear and despair.  Love and
tenderness shone from his eyes and begged her to tell
him all, to trust to him—that years of devotion would
make amends for all her suffering.  He saw that it
was not in her thought that he could help her.  She
looked to the other—to the man she had turned to
stone.  Her eyes swept him with a plea for mercy.
She crept to him, kneeled to him, took his hand,
abased herself, drew herself up to a level with his
face, searched it for one ray of hope, one sign of
relenting pity, then, with a low heart-rending moan
such as neither man would ever forget, she crept like
a piteous wounded thing out of the room.

Lord Yester did not attempt to help her or to follow
her.  He knew in some instinctive way that she was
past help.  He looked at Hal.  He saw him stricken,
spent, seared by suffering.  It wasn't the same man he
had talked to a few moments ago.  Then he had been
a splendid animal, lithe, vibrant, instinct with life
and the joy of living.  Here was a sad, disillusioned,
heart-broken, middle-aged man without hope in the
world.  It had been a drawn battle—a duel in which
both combatants had been wounded unto death.

Lord Yester came down slowly.

What was it this terrible man had said to her as
he came in?—"Will you tell him or shall I?"

What was there to tell?  What could he tell?
Women, and men too, with a past generally tell it before
any one else has the chance—their version of it.
Edith had her history and she had been the first to
tell him *her version* in which she was always the
injured and suffering heroine.

"If it is anything discreditable to her, to Lady
Effington, I would not believe you," he said with
quivering intensity.

"That is for you to decide," said Hal.  What a
game little chap it was! he thought, as he looked at
his sensitive, delicate face, made for suffering.  And
he'll hate me to his dying day.

"Perhaps it won't make any difference," he added,
and at the thought a gleam of hope came into his own
life.  Suppose it didn't make any difference?
Suppose this reckless little Knight-errant threw all
caution, all considerations to the winds; suppose that,
knowing the truth, all the truth, he still held out his
arms to Edith and demanded the right to assume
her burdens?  Ah, then Hal's hands were clean and
would be free to—He glanced up to see Sir George
Rundall.  Oh, if Rundall hadn't known or had kept
silent.  It was too late for regret now.

"Sir George," he said to the doctor, "Edith has
refused to leave London, to go with me.  If Lord
Yester would help us—perhaps——"

"Lord Effington," said the physician sternly,
interrupting Hal, "I am not in the habit of discussing my
patients before strangers."

"Lord Yester is not a stranger," said Hal without
irony.  "He enjoys my wife's confidence and
friendship and if——"

"I am proud to believe that that is true," said
Yester with equal sincerity.  "And if it concerns the
health or happiness of Lady Effington, you may rely
on me, Sir George Rundall."

The polished man of the world restrained his irritation,
his exasperation, with obvious difficulty.

"Lord Effington has placed me in a most embarrassing
position," he said with increasing resentment.
"I have expressed the opinion that Lady Effington,—that
she should—that it was in fact her only chance——"

"Her only chance?" echoed Lord Yester.  "What
do you mean?"

"Perhaps that is too strong," said the doctor,
floundering, sensitive, over-sensitive as to his
professional *amour propre*.

"Perhaps that is too strong.  Let me say her best
chance.  Other scenes, other countries, an out-door
life?  Unfortunately in cases like this, the will-force
is enslaved.  Unfortunately most victims of—let me
say—" he broke off impatiently.  "I cannot see what
right Lord Yester——"

"I will relieve you of all doubt on that point, Sir
George.  I have quite as much right to hear what you
have to say as Lord Effington, and I insist on your
speaking plainly."

The physician looked to Hal, whose refusal to
contradict this was an affirmation of it, and then, with
undisguised amazement and under protest, he said:
"Well, so be it.  What I had in mind was that most
victims of the morphine habit—"

Lord Yester leaned forward slightly as if he did not
think he heard aright, then he half repeated the dread
word, swayed slightly, put his hand across his
forehead, like a man bewildered, and groped with his
other hand until he found the back of a chair.  Then
very quietly he found his way into it.  The expression
on his face was tragic.  If the boy had been his
son or a brother Hal could not have felt more for
him or suffered more with him.

"It's a great shock to Lord Yester, as it was to
me," he said after a moment's pause.  "My wife
trusts him, and I am sure he will join us in our efforts
to save her."

Lord Yester did not reply.  He raised his head as
if he had some difficulty in breathing.

Then there was a painful pause.  Not one of the
three men spoke.

Finally Yester said: "Sir George, if you are going
home——"

"Certainly," said the physician, seeing his distress
and anticipating his wish.  "I will set you down at
your door if you like."

"Thank you," the boy said, struggling to his feet.
"This room suffocates me."

"The fresh air will put you quite all right," said
the doctor, walking beside him but not offering him
physical help.  "Quite all right."

And they went out and Hal was alone.

"Poor boy," he said.  "Poor boy!"

.. vspace:: 2

He put his two hands to his head, and pressed
the temples.  Was it real or was it a dream?  He
drifted into the chair at the writing-table, and put his
elbows on the desk and rested his chin in his hands,
looking into space, trying to understand.  Some one
had left a current magazine open on the table.  His
vacant gaze wandered across a dull level of meaningless
words to a hill which stood up alone and seemed
to call to him, to have a message for him:

   |  "These are my people, and this my land,
   |  I hear the pulse of her secret soul;
   |  This is the life that I understand,
   |  Savage and simple, and sane and whole."[1]

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[1] Lawrence Hope.

.. vspace:: 2

Yes, that was a long time ago.  And they were a
long way off—his people and his land.  Why had he
allowed John McCloud to drive him away from his
people and his land?  Could he have foreseen this
never would he have come, never would he have
had the courage to put aside that which was within
his grasp.  It was a dark, desperate moment.  He
regretted his lost happiness; he regretted that he
had not sinned.  What were these abstract things
which people called "good" and "right"?  Where
did they lead one?  Malicious shadows!  What was
his reward?  For the rest of his life he was to be
the custodian of a rancorous mad woman.  His only
release was death, his death or hers, and these
neurasthenics live forever.  His own?  The only thing
to his credit at this moment was that he pushed aside
the thought of self-destruction.  He was down in the
ring, only semi-conscious, and he heard the referee
counting the fatal seconds, but he had the instinct
of the fighter and he knew that before ten was called
he would try to get up.  His land and his people!
They were calling to him, in many voices, many
ways.  Never had they called to him as now.  And
it was too late.  All that was past.  Wah-na-gi
called to him.  Oh, she called to him.  Again he saw
her as he looked back to get a last glimpse of the Red
Butte Ranch, standing outlined against the eternal
sky, standing on the eternal rock that marked the
lonely grave.  How simple and elemental she seemed
to him sitting in the roar and smash of this huge
factory where they were turning out lives by machinery!
She called to him, to all that was best in him.  Her
soul, how clear and clean it was, like a mountain
stream.  Yes, he was glad he had not soiled it.
Yes, he must live up to her faith in him.  Perhaps
there was another life, another world, where all these
crooked things were made straight.  He took paper
and pen and wrote briefly and simply:

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent

WAH-NA-GI:

.. vspace:: 1

I cannot come back.  Don't wait for me.  Don't expect me.
I can't ask you to forget me, because I love you, never so much
as now when I am saying good-by.  HAL.

.. vspace:: 2

He could only see dimly the address as he wrote it.
Then he held it before him and whispered: "'I hear
the pulse of her secret soul!'"

"I beg your lordship's pardon——"

"Lordship?  Lordship?"  Who was that?  And
who was speaking?  He was out in the shadow of the
Moquitch.  Ah, no, he was in London, in his father's
house.

"Come in, Andrews; what is it?"

It was his father's butler, a slender little old man,
with a deferential face and a refined cultivated voice
like the gentle-folk with whom he had always lived.
Even Andrews felt that there was something unusual
in the air.

"I hope I'm not intruding on your lordship."

"Not at all, Andrews."

"Is there anything I can do for you before you
retire?"

"No; put out the lights and go to bed.  Oh, and
mail this letter for me, please."

He and the letter were a long time in parting.  He
looked at it, passed it from one hand to the other,
held it out in view for a moment, then entrusted it to
Andrews, his eye following it in the butler's hand and
his body straining across the table as if he would go
after it and bring it back.  As the old man got over
to the electric switch he turned and, with old-world
deference, said: "Will your lordship permit me to
say how glad your father's old servants are to see you
at home once more, and we hope you are *home to stay*."

Hal caught his breath.  The judge was putting on
the black cap.

"Home to stay?—Yes, thank you, Andrews; thank
you.  Good night."

"Good night, my lord."

And the representative of that which was and
would be turned out the lights, and left him to
himself, left him in the shadows of the big room.

As soon as the door closed behind the form of
Andrews, Hal clutched at his collar, tore it open,
threw off his coat, rushed to the windows that formed
one side of the room, threw them open, and stood
for a moment with his breast and face bared to the
sluggish, clammy breeze that was struggling with the
burden of the fog.  It was the act of a man used to
the open.

The light from the street lamp outside struggled
feebly through the precious stones that glowed in the
windows on the stair.  The fire light crept out timidly
into the room with a sinister glint.  Hal found his
way back to the chair before the library table, and
fell into it.  The light from the jewelled lamp on the
table threw a white nimbus about his face that made
him look eerie and spectral, like a ghost that had
stolen out of the night and the fog.

"Home to stay!" he gasped.  "To stay!"

Unknown to him, another apparition evolved from
the gloom of the stairs, floated in soft lacy clouds
down into the room, stood for a moment looking off
into the hall where Lord Yester had disappeared,
then drifted noiselessly down and stood beside him.
It was Edith.

"Well, he has gone," she said softly.  "You have
sent him away.  You have locked the door and
thrown away the key, and now we have the rest of
our awful lives to spend with each other."

He did not move or seem to hear, and she slid
serpent-like onto the table, and brought her mocking
face close to his.

"We shall have many, many glorious years to look
forward to, each day of each year a crucifixion.  We
shall hate each other over our coffee; we shall loathe
each other over the luncheon; we shall despise each
other through the long, long dinner.  With murder
in our thoughts and the itch to strangle each other
in our fingers, we'll have to be polite and even
affectionate," and she chuckled softly as she crossed to
the fire, in whose red glow she looked like a satanic
Lamia.

"From now on I shall take an active interest in
what interests you and I shall have the satisfaction
of knowing that I poison every minute of your life.
It's a glorious prospect, isn't it?  When I think that
for a cheap bit of sentimental rubbish you ruined our
lives, your own as well as mine, it seems like a
joke—a huge, ghastly, ferocious joke.  Why don't you
laugh?  Why don't you laugh?  Why don't you
laugh?" and she gave way to a burst of demoniac
cachinnation as she threw herself into the big chair
before the fire.

He did not reply or look at her or turn toward her,
but kept his gaze fixed on that solemn rock so many
thousand miles away.  When she had exhausted
herself, he said softly to himself: "Wah-na-gi!  John
McCloud!  I've kept my promise.  My heart is
empty, but my hands are clean!"

And so they sat as far apart as two worlds in space
until the morning of another day.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXI`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXI

.. vspace:: 2

Before leaving New York Hal had arranged for
a bank account upon which Big Bill was at liberty to
call, but otherwise the folks at Red Butte were left
to themselves.  With the boy had gone the life of the
ranch.  After him a cold torpor settled down and
took possession.  Routine ruled supreme.  Twice a
week Curley rode over to the Agency, the nearest
post-office.  His return was an event, not on account
of anything that ever happened or followed from it,
but because of what might happen.  Some one might
get a letter.  Occasionally this unique experience
happened to John McCloud who had a married
sister living in Washington with whom he
corresponded.  Except the preacher, no one at the ranch
was much of a correspondent.  Hal was not a letter-writer.
In fact, the writing of a letter assumed huge,
formidable, and forbidding proportions.  Outside the
necessary business matters, the letters he had written
in his life could have been counted on two hands.
The newspapers were always old.  By the time they
knew any event at the ranch the world without had
forgotten it or was preparing to forget it.  In winter
the world without at times disappeared altogether.
One day something happened.  Curley rode in with
a letter for Wah-na-gi.  Every one on the ranch knew
that an important thing had happened, that
Wah-na-gi had received a letter, that it was from London,
and consequently from Hal.  No one said a word
about it; no one asked her in regard to it.  She did
not read it until it was night and she was alone in
the living-room.  Then she went to a chest of drawers
up under the window, took from them the tiny pair
of moccasins which had now become her "medicine,"
her "sacred bundle," as the Indians call their
treasures, their good-luck symbols, brought them down,
and sank on her knees before the blazing logs in the
big fireplace.

The reading of the letter was a solemn and formal
function.  She did not tear it open with feverish
curiosity.  She put it down before her in order to
prepare her mind, to calm the beating of her heart.
The little moccasins had been a great comfort to
her.  When she was troubled she went apart and
held them next her heart, and had a "long think," and
somehow she got the impression that at such times
Nat-u-ritch and her son were near.  The little shoes
had walked into her Holy of Holies, where she
dreamed the divine dream of women, and she saw
other tiny feet romp about in them, the little feet of
him who would call Hal father and call her mother.
Then she put down the sacred symbols and in the
angry glow of the fire read the bitter message which
came to her out of the London fog.  There was no
mistaking its meaning, its farewell.  It slipped from
her hands to the floor and in her despair she seized
his gift to her and held it to her heart as she had
done so often, but this time comfort came slowly;
came not at all.  It was the end.  He had said so;
had said good-by.  She did not for a moment dispute
its inevitableness or question his decision.  She
remained there a long time, looking into the cruel fire.
Then she rose and put the baby shoes away, and this
time she knew what the mother feels who gathers up
the clothes and playthings her darling will never need
again.  Then she came back and took up the letter
and read it once more.  She would never need to read
it again.  It was burnt into her brain.  McCloud
came into the room and at a glance saw what had
happened.  He brought a chair near, sat down in it,
and put his hand on her head with a caress.

"Wah-na-gi, my dear little girl," he said after a
long pause; "I wish I could bear this for you.
You've been a teacher.  Try to think of God as a
teacher.  This life is a plane of consciousness, a
kindergarten plane, the primary class, and we may
miss no step in the progress to a larger plane, a higher
plane, in the search to know God, whom to know is
life and peace.  This will mean nothing to you now,
but perhaps it will when you can see beyond your own
tears, and can take up your lesson again.  You know
what the love of a teacher is; add to that the love of
a father, the love of a mother, and know they are only
symbols of that love which is divine."

Wah-na-gi did not answer, but she hastily picked
up her letter and her life and passed out of the room,
and routine resumed its normal sway.

Fortunately for her, she was the busiest person on
the ranch, for she had the care of the house and of
John McCloud.  In the death valley these two found
each other.  They began to see each other face to
face, to know and understand, and a great love took
them by the hand and walked with them in holy
peace.  Each was metaphysical; each had been
denied what seemed the one supreme need; each had
been through the waters of affliction; each seemed to
be God's compensation to the other.  The lonely
man who had missed the love of children found a
child; the lonely child found a father whose love,
supreme, benignant, was like the love of God.  And
so they walked in sad and solemn joy.

"Winter-man" came and went and had come
again.  "Cold-maker" had ridden down out of the
North and a white shroud lay over all the inert
desolation.

Even in the busy summer it is a silent land, its
wide, vast muteness occasionally relieved by the
tumble of a cataract, the sob of a solemn river, the
twitter of a lonesome bird, the barking of a dog, the
nightly plaint of the coyote, the sound of the voice
of some taciturn ranchman or some wandering cowboy.
Sometimes the muffled monotony of the untenanted
wastes falls over the mind and the soul, and
men and women are monotony-mad.  When the
cowboy goes to town he wants to ride up and down
through the streets making a noise, a noise other
people can hear, yapping and shooting off his
revolver.  The summer has activities, the ranch, the
crops, the round-up, social amenities, many things
to interest and occupy the isolated.  In the winter the
bear and the snake go to sleep, and man hibernates
too, in the solemn hush that broods over the pulseless
world.

Winter was upon them before any one realized it,
and it came with an angry rush that boded no good.
The few books and magazines were soon exhausted.
The men looked after the stock, tried to keep in touch
with the cattle, made occasional excursions for deer,
and played cards, and then cards, and then some
more cards.  It was a hard winter and its dull level
unbroken except for two events.  One day McShay
came over with a wagon-load of supplies and brought
with him a stranger, a man he had picked up on the
trail and who was inquiring the way to Red Butte
Ranch.  It was obvious to the Irishman that the
man was a woodsman and used to hardship.  He
was clean-cut, wiry, seasoned, built for endurance,
but evidently an outsider, not of the region.  His
equipment was too complete, too up-to-date, and yet
he wasn't an amateur hunter or a tenderfoot.  There
was something about him hard to describe unless you
call it cosmopolitan, and there was a quiet reserve
that covered powers of reflection, contemplation, the
dreamer or the student.  He didn't fit in to any of
the conditions of the Indian country.  As he volunteered
little information on the way to the ranch, he
found McShay equally taciturn.  When he reached
the ranch, however, the stranger did not leave them
long in doubt as to who he was and what he wanted.

"My name is Gifford—Walter Gifford," he volunteered
as Mike started to introduce him to McCloud,
"This is Doctor McCloud, isn't it?  You're a
Princeton man—so am I.  You studied at Bonn—so
did I.  You see, I know all about you, and now I'm
glad to have the honor of knowing you personally."

He talked now very fast, as if he were in a hurry.

"I've been out to look over the Moquitch Forest
Reserve and before I return to Washington I wanted
to see Mr. Calthorpe.  I hope——"

As he looked from one to the other and divined
that his hope was vain, it was manifest that his
disappointment was very great.

"Hal has been gone for over a year," said the
clergyman.

"Yes," said Gifford; "we knew he went to London
about a year ago, but he isn't in London; hasn't been
there for some time, and no one knows just where he
is.  I hoped I might find him here.  Too bad—too bad."

Gifford spoke with such earnestness as to almost
necessitate further explanation, but every one
hesitated to embarrass him with questions.  Finally
McCloud said:

"Is there anything that we can do?"

Gifford looked from one to the other.  McCloud
added: "You may speak freely.  We are all his
friends here."

"Well, we depended on Calthorpe, on his
testimony, on his documents—the incriminating
documents we supposed he had which came into his
possession while he was chief of police on the Agency—and
we were led to believe that he would be on hand
when he and they were needed.  He failed us,
signally failed us.  It really is too bad."

McShay said: "Mr. Gifford tells me that Ladd is
back on his job with a coat of whitewash that would
make the driven snow look dissolute.  You know I
think they ought to call that place Whitewashington."

"Agent Ladd?  Back?  Is it possible?" ejaculated
the clergyman in dismay.

"Maybe they cooked it up," said McShay, "to pull
off the investigation when the kid couldn't be present.
It's a disappointment to me in a way.  I thought
when the boy put his hand to the plow he'd stay with
it until the plow fell apart.  He promised to have
Ladd's scalp, and he's Injin.  Something's wrong.
The boy ain't a quitter.  You can stake your life on
that.  Did you notify him?"

"We wrote to him again and again, first to his
London address, then here."

"We have always forwarded all mail that came
here for him," said the preacher.

"Then we found that he was not in London, that
he and his wife had gone away, without leaving an
address, to South America or Africa, no one knew
where, but supposedly on a hunting expedition.  We
expected him in Washington on his way to London;
but he didn't turn up."

"Anyway," groaned McShay, "Ladd got away with
it and is back with the bells."

"Ladd personally is a small matter.  Individually
he doesn't count," said Gifford earnestly; "but it was
a chance, a fine chance, to drag these big malefactors
into the light, make them come into the open, make
them show their rapacious hands.  Ladd's just a
common or garden criminal, but we thought we had
the chance to show his connection with the big
fellows, and their backers in the cabinet and in
congress.  The trial of Ladd was a farce.  Secretary
Walker is discredited.  He will be forced out of the
cabinet.  Whittaker of the Land Office will go in,
and the game will go on behind closed doors.
Something is at stake, bigger than Ladd and his honesty;
bigger than even Walker and his reputation, and his
honor and his career; bigger than these asphalt
lands; bigger than the coal lands behind them,
enormous as they are; bigger than you and me or our
immediate interests—the right of the people to
preserve the resources God has given them from spoliation,
to keep them for the public good instead of for
private gain."

It was evident that Mr. Gifford was a man with a
purpose, an idea, and that he could glow with it.

"Say," said McShay, "you ain't the Gifford of the
Forest Service?"

"Yes; I am."

"Well, gosh-all-hemlocks, you're the most unpopular
man in the world in these here parts."

"Of course we're unpopular.  It'll be a sad day
for this country when no one is willing to be unpopular."

"Mr. Gifford," said the cowman rising, "I'd follow
your lead if I thought you'd arrive anywhere, but
you can't pull it off.  I'm a practical man.  These
fellers are practical men.  They'll beat you to it every
time.  You appeal to love of country, posterity; they
appeal to each man's self-interest, his immediate
self-interest.  It's me first and then the country.  That's
human nature.  Look at my people.  You'll get no
support from them.  We discovered this asphalt.  We
located it.  You have it withdrawn from entry and
the Asphalt Trust helps you do it.  When we're frozen
out and have surrendered, they'll have it restored
again.  You hope to prevent that, but you won't do it.
They control power in congress and in the cabinet.
Whittaker belongs to 'em.  We won't get the lands,
but we'll force them to buy us out.  When the gold
mines in the Black Hills were thrown open to entry,
the Supreme Court held that the original locators
had priority rights, and that's a precedent that will
cover our case.  You have a noble idea, Mr. Gifford,
but what the plain American citizen wants to know
is: 'Where do I come in?'  He'd rather have two
dollars and a half in cash than one thousand dollars
for posterity."

"Mike is right," said the preacher, "as to his
constituency.  Your splendid purpose, Mr. Gifford,
would get Wah-na-gi's vote and mine, and Hal's, if
he were here."

"If he were here," repeated the forester wistfully.
"If he were here," but he let the subject drop and
shortly after McShay said good-night and took
himself to Big Bill's quarters.

When he was gone Gifford said, drawing in to the
comfort of the fire:

"Doctor McCloud, I'm glad we are alone; McShay
is not for us."

"You mustn't get a false impression of Mike,
Mr. Gifford.  He's not a man of imagination or a large
horizon, but within his limitations, which are the
limitations of most men, he is true and big.  You
know where he stands.  I'd trust him with everything
but my soul."  The other bowed to this and did not
contest it.

"I'm going to be very frank with you, Doctor; and
I hope you will be as frank with me.  At the
superficial investigation of Mr. Ladd certain expressions
came out that indicated that his backers were in
possession of certain of our letters directed to
Calthorpe.  You know him intimately.  Would
Mr. Calthorpe ignore these appeals completely, if he
received them?"

"I think not.  I can conceive of no reason why
he should not answer your letters and either promise
to come or say why he could not come.  Do you think
any of your appeals reached him before he left
London?"

"I am sure of it.  You say he would not ignore
these appeals if he received them.  If he did not
receive them, who that was near him would have a
motive for tampering with his mail or his
correspondence?  Who in his household would be
approachable? Who would want to injure him or
us?  Or would act from motives of hate or revenge?

"I need not tell you that our opponents would
stop at nothing to side-track Calthorpe or get
possession of his papers.  You know the old saying—find
the woman.  Well, in this case it leads nowhere.
There are only two women in his life apparently—this
Indian girl here——"

"She knows no more of him at this moment than
you do."

"And his wife."

"It is preposterous," said McCloud, "to think of
his wife in connection with a criminal act, and one
in which she could have no conceivable interest.  As
a matter of fact, I have reason to believe that though
they once had an estrangement——"

"Ah, there had been trouble between them?"

"A temporary drawing apart apparently, but, as
I was saying, I have reason to believe, to know in
fact, that they have become reconciled, and been
reunited.  Their going away together is proof
positive of that."

"It's very mysterious, isn't it?" said Gifford.
"His papers?  Did he take them with him or leave
them here?"

"He went away very hurriedly, taking with him
nothing, so far as I know, except some of his clothes.
He left some papers and documents, not many, which
I put carefully in a marked envelope, to await his
instructions."

"And of course you know nothing of the contents
of those documents?"

"Absolutely nothing.  I know he offered to return
the certificates of stock to the asphalt company, but
they ignored his letter."

"I needn't warn you, Doctor, to take good care
of those papers."

"No one here would think of disturbing them any
more than I would.  If I should die before they
are called for by Hal, I have written instructions on
the outside of the envelope to have them sent to my
sister in Washington, who will hold them until she
can put them in possession of the owner."

"Doctor McCloud, we must find Calthorpe and
he must come to America and get into this fight.
He owes it to himself.  He owes it to Secretary
Walker who took up his fight in reliance upon him.
and whose future is at stake.  We have reserved the
right to reopen the Ladd case and we have six months
in which to do it.  Back of all this, back of Walker
and Calthorpe, is a big cause which will be set back
twenty-five years if we fail.  Possibly we can't
prove anything against Whittaker, anything illegal,
but we can drag these interests into the open and
save the resources of the people for the people.  If
you will write him a personal letter, telling him the
facts, asking for instructions, and have it signed also
by this Indian woman, I will take it away with me in
the morning and eventually put it into the care of a
messenger who will have instructions to find Calthorpe,
wherever he is in the world, and put that letter
into his individual hand.  Will you do it?"





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.. _`CHAPTER XXII`:

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   CHAPTER XXII

.. vspace:: 2

All London knew that the "affair" between
Viscountess Effington and Lord Yester was at an end.
People in Society are very busy; they work very
hard, but they always have time to devote to each
other's interests, and they bring to bear on these
matters their best abilities, frequently of a high order.
If the ingenuity, the penetration, the powers of
analysis and deduction focussed upon why Mrs. Smith
is not now speaking to Mrs. Jones, or the exact
thermometric relations of Mr. White to Mr. Black
and Mr. Black's interesting wife, could be
concentrated upon, say the subject of unemployment, the
world would go forward by leaps and bounds.

The interesting and accomplished thief is frequently
told that if he would keep his splendid gifts
within legal bounds he would be the same ornament
to Society that we are, but this artist has no taste for
our dull levels.  The noble river refuses to flow in
straight lines and at an average depth.  It loves the
rapids, and the falls, and the crooked way.  So
probably Society will go on with its minute
microscopic study of itself.

Edith, Viscountess Effington, began to think
socially at a very early age, and ever since she had
come to years of indiscretion the one aim and object
of all life, all hope and endeavor, had been the Court
Set.  Many people pass through life almost ignorant
that there is such a thing, but it is of no use
to say to one who cannot breathe at an elevation
of ten thousand feet: "I am breathing very comfortably."

While we are pleasantly exhilarated the other is
bleeding to death.  Edith had seen the ambition of
her life possible of realization as the Duchess of
Uxminster.  Every phase of her struggle to this end
was familiar to her friends, and every one knew that
it now rested in a fashionable London cemetery,
where "Here Lies," etc., could be read by any one
in the street who would stop long enough to give it a
curious glance.  This made London somewhat
difficult.  It furnished her heaven with some of the
characteristics of a warmer place.  To know that
your grief and despair have furnished amusement to
your friends, that your thwarted ambition has given
them a keen sense of enjoyment; to hear some one
throw the switch when you enter a drawing-room,
to feel the embarrassed silence, and to know that a
damask curtain has been hastily thrown over the
remains of your inmost soul under the knives of
skilful surgeons who have left no organ unexamined,
is an ordeal for the bravest man or woman.  Edith
tried it.  She went everywhere, just as she had done
before.  She tried to act and look as if nothing had
happened.  She made a brave show, but she had
climbed in a ruthless way and she was finding out
that those who live by the sword shall perish by it.
She came to know that she had not only not gained
ground, but had lost it.  Her world had seen her
play her cards, knew what she had in her hand, and
had already decided that she was inevitable as the
Duchess, and it adjusted its deportment accordingly.
When they found that she had played and lost, they
did not know exactly how or why, they felt the
resentment of those who have been cruelly deceived, who
have paid something for nothing, or kowtowed to the
wrong person, and the gratification of social
resentments is a fine art.  To a woman of her pride,
pertinacity, and ambition this was maddening.  She came
back from teas, at-homes, week-ends quivering,
lacerated, and of course her habits did not improve.
Every nerve screamed for rest, for quiet, for
forgetfulness, and she drank more and more and more, and
then sought relief in the oblivion of the master drug.
She had always been an accomplished gambler in the
usual social sense, but now it became a passion, an
obsession, and she played for stakes that increased
rapidly and dangerously, stakes she could not afford
to lose.  It was the one social diversion that helped
her to forget.  Her passion for play was leading her
into questionable associations, into intimacy with
shady people, people she would not have wiped her
dainty boots on before.  She had used people as
steps.  They were now using her to walk on, and it
was likely to be a muddy process.

There was an old-fashioned prehistoric assumption
that the basis of social intercourse was similarity
of tastes, the interchange of intellectual or spiritual
ideas; but when Society becomes an adjunct to
politics, business, or when it becomes a formal profession,
a vocation, then some strange things happen.

Things very surprising to herself were now
happening to Edith.  To her own huge disgust and
dismay, she found herself one week-end a guest at the
beautiful country-place of Solly Wirtheimer, a South
African burglar-person, who was trying to jimmy his
way into the polite world.  Without any more
interest in the horse than in the Mithraic mythology he
owned a racing stable, and he was trying hard to lose
enough money to the proper persons to enable him to
associate with them.  It really was hard work.  He
almost had to push it over to them.  Edith naturally
felt that nothing short of winning a pot of money
would compensate her for the degradation of being
one of Solly's house party.  At the usual game of
bridge, however, she lost persistently.  Her game
was degenerating or Solly's guests were especially
clever or lucky.  Eventually she became frightened
at her losses.  Her genial host offered to lend her any
amount she required.  She chose rather to accept the
offer of her own partner, a friendly young American
person, whom she met here for the first time and about
whom she knew nothing.  This loan naturally led
to further acquaintance.  It is a way with loans.
They either lead to intimacy or estrangement.  In
the course of London activities her own fortune had
been pretty well dissipated, and she had been more
than ordinarily reckless because the future had
seemed so well assured and the estates of Uxminster
seemed to guarantee one against misfortune!  Instead
of bridge being a pastime, it must be confessed that a
great many of the most refined people play it to win.
Every smart house in London is a casino, and one
must play well, or be very lucky, or have lots of money
to lose.  In the course of bridge Edith found herself
again in need of a loan, and the friendly young
American person seemed the most available resource.
Young American persons have so much and are
usually so delightfully careless with it.  This was
arranged over a luncheon at The Savoy grill room.
At this luncheon the "American person" induced the
Viscountess to talk of her husband.  She took small
pains to conceal her animosity.  The upshot of this
interview was that she achieved a remunerative
occupation that promised an assured income and enabled
her to gratify her supreme hate.  The combination
was delightful.  It was understood that she was to
give the American person a perusal of all Hal's
papers and letters that were available, that she would
exercise a supervision of all his future correspondence,
and that she would induce him to leave London; that
she would keep him out of the way and inaccessible
so long as it suited the purposes of the young
American person and his friends.  This latter stipulation
was the only part of the bargain that made her
hesitate.  She took this under advisement.  One day
shortly after this interview she was having her
breakfast and, happening to look at the clock, she saw that
it was six P.M., and after breakfast, when her mind
was fairly clear, she looked into the mirror.  She
was frightened, thoroughly frightened.  Her beauty
had been her armor, her weapon, her resource, her
salvation.  She had always suffered.  The aches, the
pains, the discomfort of ill-health she could endure
so long as she kept her personal appearance.  Now,
in the depths of the mirror, she saw walking toward
her a faded, broken woman, with something in the
background, something cold, inevitable, horrible,
hovering near.  Sir George had advised her to travel,
to get away from London.  London at the moment
was difficult.  She was under a small temporary
cloud.  It was very smart to go to the ends of the
world in search of sport.  Hal had urged it on that
terrible night.  He had not mentioned it since,
because he had learned to conceal his desires.  That
he wanted to do anything, go anywhere, was sufficient
to arouse her vivid opposition, and she was ingenious
in making that opposition as painful as possible.
He had resort therefore to the trick of advocating the
exact opposite of his intent, but she was very cunning
in seeing through such subterfuge.  She saw, too,
in their peregrinations enlarged opportunities of
thwarting him.  So to his intense amazement she
announced her intention of giving up her own pleasures
to gratify him, her willingness to go out, "the
world forgetting, by the world forgot."  He
concluded that she had become frightened about her
health.  His own position was deplorable.  The
atmosphere of the clubs where he would care to go was
cold and clammy.  The clubs where he would have
been welcomed disgusted him.  At home he wore
the armor of silence and impassivity, to keep from
being stung to death.  Abroad he wandered here,
he wandered there, without pleasure or purpose.  At
night he frequented the music-halls, bored, with a
sneer on his lip for the bald common vulgarity of it
all—the brazen women, the vicious youngsters, and
the feeble slimy old men.  He went to the sporting
events, the races.  He never missed the Sporting
Club, and got some diversion from seeing one gladiator
beat another into a bloody pulp.  He was drinking
again, and gambling too.  He didn't have to look
into a mirror to see the end of it all.  At the
suggestion that they go into the wilderness the rubber
mask dropped from his face and he smiled.  Dormant
energy awoke in him.  He suggested India.  India
suited the young American person too, and so it was
agreed that they would go after the pigmy hog in
Nepal and Sikkim, the cat-bear (*Ælurus*), wild sheep
and goats, and the musk-deer in the precipices of the
Himalayas.  It was the boy's salvation.  It gave him
something to think of, plan for, and at least he had
the joys of imagination and anticipation all the long
way to India.  Of hunting he got precious little; of
game almost none at all.  Edith had no taste for
hardship or even discomfort, and she was possessed
with a satanic restlessness and capriciousness.  No
sooner had they determined on one course than she
changed it.  They were lucky to reach any destination
before her whim veered.  He had not the strength
or the patience to fight these moods.  It was easier
to let her have her way.  And so they drifted, drifted
from day to day, from place to place, her preference
always being for the cities where racing and other
forms of gambling offered some diversion.

The cities brought them in contact with the
military class, with its painful and odious memories.
She wouldn't go into the forests or the mountains
with him, and she wouldn't let him go alone.  So
drifting here and there up and down over the earth
like two lost souls, they found themselves one day at
Hardwar, near the head-waters of the sacred Ganges,
and Hal felt the call of the mountain, and determined
to go into the Kedarnath region for game, but, game
or no game, he felt that he must get away, go into
the solitudes and have a "long think."  He had
endured the caprices, the nagging, the ingenious
cruelties of her deviltry as long as it was possible.
He knew she would not follow him, at least not far.
She returned to Hardwar, as he knew she would,
before he reached the waters of the Bhaghirati, where
they camped for the night.

After the evening meal, as they were gathered
about the camp-fire—the guides, interpreter, the
carriers—out of the shadows of the night, into the
fitful gleam of the flames, walked a religious mendicant,
a holy man.  Almost naked, oblivious to the intense
cold, with the abstraction of the devotee, he stood in
proud humility.  If he came to beg for food, his
purpose was at once absorbed, merged in a rhapsodical
fervor.  From the perfunctory murmur of what might
have been a benediction or a prayer, his voice rose
to a penetrating and commanding pitch, reached an
intense climax, and then he went out again into the
night as he had come.  What he said produced a
profound impression on his hearers.

Hal was conscious of being moved, thrilled, awed
by it, though he had no notion of its meaning.  A
profound silence followed the disappearance of the
fakir, a silence that finally became unbearable.  Hal
somehow dreaded to ask what the old man had said,
but finally he started to discuss the plans for the
ensuing day.  The interpreter shook his head.  On
the following day they would go back, he informed
the sahib.  Go back?  What for?  They had scarcely
started.  Then it was explained to him that it would
be unsafe, unwise, to go on in face of the warning they
had received.  This was most annoying.  Hal indignantly
protested against having his plans upset by
the wild words of a crazy old man.  He would go on.
He was informed that in that event he would go
alone.  The natives would go no further.  He fumed,
raged, but saw that it was to no purpose.  They
would return on the morrow.  Again he must submit.
There was no other way.  When all the others had
retired he asked the interpreter what the holy man
had said.  He was informed that the devout man
had suddenly become conscious of the presence of a
stranger, for whom he brought a message.  The
voices of destiny cried to him to flee from the East;
to go back, to retrace his steps, to find his life where
he had lost it, in the far-away where the sun sets in the
West.  Was that all?  No.  The written word was
following him about the world, running toward him;
he must turn back to meet it.  That was not all.
It was difficult to get the interpreter to complete it.
Under pressure he admitted that the wise and holy
one had seen a serpent coiled about him, slowly
crushing, strangling his soul; that he had
disappeared into the night, crying to him: "Escape,
escape, escape!"

The following day, on the way back to Hardwar,
as they halted for the noonday meal, a native joined
them and attached himself to their party without
attracting the attention of the sahib who was silent,
abstracted, despondent.  That night as they camped
again the native, having in various ways established
to his own satisfaction the identity of the European
gentleman, handed him an envelope containing two
letters, one from John McCloud and Wah-na-gi, and
the other from Walter Gifford.  The native was
attached to the Indian secret police.  That night the
sahib had a "long think."  When he reached Hardwar
the following night he found Edith sunk in a
complete stupor.  Over the writing-table were scattered
letters.  In looking for his own it was inevitable
that he should see complete evidence of the extent to
which he had been the victim of her malice.  That
night he wrote to John McCloud to forward his papers
by registered mail to the care of Secretary Walker
at Washington.  He wrote to Gifford saying that he
would be in Washington at the earliest possible
moment, and he left a note for Edith advising her to
return to London, where he promised to meet her
on his return from America.





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.. _`CHAPTER XXIII`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIII

.. vspace:: 2

Down from the summits of the Moquitch had
swept "Winter-man" with legions upon legions of
white cavalry and overrun the land.  Trails, roads,
trees, rocks, landmarks, fences, rivers, disappeared.
Cabins and stables had to be unsnowed.  Man's
boasted dominion reached from the cabin to the
stable and back again.  The throbbing, suffering
earth had gone to sleep, to dream under a white
silence.

John McCloud was dying and God had said to the
world, "Peace!  Be still!"  In the crowded haunts of
men brooding sorrow does not sit down by the fireside,
and stay.  Even sorrow is hustled and bustled
about.  The butcher and baker are at the kitchen
door.  The telephone-bell rings.  The postman brings
the claims of church, hospital, school, town, county,
or State.  Friends put books, pictures in our hands,
close the shutters, take us away, lead us where music
soothes, or into strange lands, or into the playhouse
where the tragedy of imaginary sins and sufferings
forces us for the blessed moment to forget our own.
Life, multitudinous life, goes on and sweeps us with
it.  In the desert sorrow sits by the fire, comes to
the table, lies down beside one in the terrible night.
There is no other voice except the voice of God.
Wah-na-gi and John McCloud had each a noble gift
for loving, a gift that had been narrowed down almost
to the other.  Silence, solitude, and suffering had
put the eternal sign and seal upon their love.  Out of
the wreck of their lives this seemed to be all.  It
made them very tender, very thoughtful, very
considerate of each other.  She took elaborate pains
that he should not see her anxiety, her terror, her
fierce protest against the cruelty of it.  She tried
very hard to surround the invalid with an atmosphere
of comfort, hope, and courage.  At times the pretence
wore a very thin disguise, and he tried so hard not to
let her see him suffer, not to tax her strength, not to
shadow her young life with incurable sorrow.  Each
made a brave show of a cheerfulness neither felt.
Each was very sensitive of the smallest change in
the simple elements that made up their lives.  Each
seized upon the smallest sign of encouragement to
hand to the other, and each turned away from the
grim truth.  The tide ebbed and flowed, but on the
morning and evening of each day both could take the
measure of his drift out to the eternal sea, the measure
of their parting.

All that care, ever watchful; all that prayer, silent
and spoken; all that love could do to hold him back
had been done, and the tide kept on its inevitable way.

As the certain separation came closer and closer
each clung to the other with desperate tenderness.

Oh, if the cruel snows would go, and the warm sun
would come, and the flowers, and the gentle spring,
and give this brave, battling soul a chance!  Finally
she sent word to McShay to come.  She felt that she
must have help, help to face this, to do what was to be
done, to meet what was to come, if nothing could be
done.  She cried out for help, and McShay was a
strong man, the strongest man she knew, and he
loved John McCloud too.  He would come.  Mike
came, came knowing he could do nothing, but glad
to come; glad to bring his silent offering.  He came
when he could, and with him came a storm that raged
with unabated fury and made his return impossible;
a storm that cut them off completely from the world,
that blotted out the sky, that swept the great white
plains, caught up the snow in angry swirls, throwing
it into vast drifts, tearing it up again and tossing it
back against the falling heavens, the turbulent air
filled with blinding, stinging, suffocating flakes, while
through it all the wind moaned and shrieked and
called for victims.

"Beats all," said McShay.  "Never will let up, I
reckon.  Ain't seen a storm like this since I kin
remember."

He was sitting on a three-legged stool by the chimney
in the living-room of the cabin of the Red Butte
Ranch, smoking his pipe.  The remark was addressed
more to himself than to Wah-na-gi, who sat
beside a couch covered with skins and Navajo
blankets, which had been drawn down into the glow of
the roaring fire.  The light from a bracket oil lamp
swung from the ceiling fell over her and the pale face
resting against the black bear skin, and showed her
holding the ghostly hand of all that was left of John
McCloud.  He was sleeping fitfully, painfully.  The
windows on each side of the storm-door in the back
were shivering in their sockets.  The cabin nestled
close to the ground or the wild wind would have torn
it loose.  As it was, it trembled as the wind caught it
in its teeth, shook it fiercely, and dropped it howling
with impotent fury.  As the storm-door opened
vagrant hurrying flakes danced into the room and died
an instant death in the glow of the great fire.  With
them Big Bill entered and shook the snow from his
cap and clothes, and beat his big hands to get the
blood flowing in them.

"Well, Bill, any news?" asked McShay quietly.

"Yes, Rough-house Joe's got in, but he's in awful
bad shape, frost-bitten, starving; never will git over
it, I guess."

"And the supplies?  What about the supplies?"

"Lost!"

"Lost?" and Mike indulged in a low, long whistle.

"Snowslide comin' through Dead Man's Canyon.
As far as he knows, Joe's the only one of the party
left."

"Gee, that's tough, ain't it?" said McShay quietly.

"The stuff you brought in, Mike, is gone, and
we're up against it."  Bill referred to the former
visit of McShay's in which he had brought a wagon-load
of supplies.

"We got to git in touch with somewhere or starve."

Both men realized that help from without was
unlikely as no one would know of their necessities.
It would be natural to suppose that the supplies lost
in Dead Man's Canyon had reached their destination.
The situation was serious.

Bill got a stool and came down and sat on the other
side of the fireplace and they smoked in silence for
some time.  Finally Mike said:

"No one will try to break through to us."

"Some of us got to git through to them," said Bill.
"That's about the size of it."

"I've only been waitin' for the storm to let up a
bit," said the Irishman.

"Gosh, it may keep this up for a month of Sundays.
No use waitin' any longer.  I think it's a dyin' down
some.  I'm fer a try at it."

"You?" said Mike with incredulity.  "Git out.
That's my job.  You with your rheumatiz?  You
ain't any longer young, Bill.  Better leave it to me."

Both Bill and McShay had reached the age when
it is impossible to take advice.  Each went about his
preparations while the argument continued.

"You can go if you like," Bill suggested; "but I'm
agoin'."

"Ain't you old fellers vain?" protested Mike.
"You'll only be a nuisance to me.  Better stay."

"Old fellers, eh?  Say, you needn't be afraid.  If
I can't pull you through I won't run away from you.
I'll bring you back."

"What is it, Bill?" asked Wah-na-gi, looking up
and seeing their elaborate preparations.

"Well, we're clean out o' grub, Wah-na-gi, and
some one's got to git through to Calamity or the
fort or the Agency."

"Oh, Bill," she said; "couldn't you bring back
a doctor for him?"

Bill and McShay exchanged looks and the latter
bent over the clergyman and listened to his breathing
for a second, and then he said very gently to her:

"It wouldn't be no use, Wah-na-gi.  He's pretty
nearly over the Divide, I guess.  You won't be afraid
to be left here alone, will you?"

"Oh, no," she answered simply.

Afraid of what?  There was nothing to be afraid
of, except this grim spectre which sat on the other
side of the couch and held the other hand of her
foster-father.

"He may pass out to-night," said McShay, following
her gaze.

"Don't see how he can play the game much longer.
Gee, he's made a game fight!  He was just lent to us,
I guess, just to show us what a real man was like;
a man who was on the level and wasn't lookin' for
the best of it.  In my experience I've seen men
handled; I've handled 'em myself, and you can appeal
to every feller's fear or his lust or his cupidity,
and that about lets 'em out.  I've always thought
this 'love-one-another' thing, this 'turn-the-other-cheek'
game, this 'bear-ye-one-another's-burden'
racket was a beautiful fairy tale, a good thing for
little boys and old women, but say, he makes it good.
John, here, makes you believe in it.  A life like his
puts it up to you, the Christ story, and says: 'Say, what
about it?'"  Wah-na-gi was weeping.  The preacher
was asleep, so she could have the relief of tears.

"Don't you cry, little woman," said Mike, trying to
console her.  "He's had a tough job here.  It can't
be as hard for him farther on.  Would you want to
keep him here knowin' what he suffers?"

Ah, that's a hard question to ask.  It's only
answered by another, and not answered then.

"Don't your arm git tired holdin' it that-a'-way
hour after hour?" said the Irishman, trying to divert her.

"He sleeps better that way," was all she said.

"Beats all," said Mike with undisguised admiration.
"He clings to the Almighty with one hand, and
a little Injin woman with the other.  Suppose there's
Injin angels, Bill?"

"Looks that-a'-way, don't it?" replied the foreman.
"It's a sure thing there's *one*."

Bill had always kept a small supply of liquor on
the ranch, hidden away with supreme cunning.
Where or what his private cellar was no one ever
knew, but on state occasions and in emergency Bill
could be depended on to produce.  The law of supply
having been completely suspended, the private cellar
had been reduced to a bottle containing perhaps one
and a half drinks of whiskey and another containing
perhaps a third of a bottle of brandy.  The brandy
he now divided carefully into three parts.  One flask
he handed to McShay, the other he put in the inside
of his own storm-coat, and the rest he poured into a
cup which he held out to Wah-na-gi.

"What is it, Bill?" she asked.

"It's fer him," he said, nodding toward the invalid.
Wah-na-gi had to move to take the cup and, though
she disengaged her hand ever so gently, the drifting
man felt the anchor drag, and he woke with a little
start.

"Well, boys," he said with a faint smile, seeing the
two men over him; "what is it?"

"Just tellin' Wah-na-gi to make you take a little
of this if you should feel faint in the night," said Bill.

"I've reformed, Bill.  I'm not drinking now,"
said the sick man with a quizzical look playing about
his eyes, tenuous and vapory.  "I won't need it.
Thank you just the same."

The noble voice was gone, the voice he had played
upon with all the skill of a great musician, the voice
that had swayed multitudes.  He spoke with effort
in a husky whisper.

"Bill and I are going to try to git through to
Calamity or the fort, Parson," said McShay.

"In this storm?" asked the sick man.

"Oh, Bill and I don't mind a little thing like a
storm."

"And the wind has died down a whole lot," added
Bill cheerfully.

"May God go with you," said the clergyman, raising
himself upon the couch.  "I'll say good-by to
you before you go."

"Oh, shucks," laughed Mike uneasily.  "'Tain't
good-by, Parson.  We're a-comin' back."

"But I won't be here, Mike."

Each one knew what McCloud meant, and each
one tried to look as if he didn't.  Wah-na-gi, seeing
that he wanted to sit up, had put a pillow under his
shoulders, and now he stretched out an emaciated
hand, to the two big brawny men, and his eyes looked
from one to the other with admiration.

"You are two fine, brave, splendid men.  I'm
proud to have known you, to have called you my
friends."

The lines about Bill's mouth twitched and all he
could say was, "Same here, Parson," and he walked
away to the fire.

Wah-na-gi had gone to the window, as if to look out
at the storm, but really to hide her tears.  McShay
glanced at her and Bill furtively, then he sat down on
the stool, and bent down over the sick man and spoke
for his ear alone: "And say, Parson, just before comin'
over this time, I—I—sold out my liquor business.
Thought maybe it would please you, and somehow
couldn't think of anything else that would."

A smile spread over the wan face.

"Oh, thank you, Mike.  Thank you.  Perhaps I
haven't lived in vain."

"Anything we kin do fer you while we're gone?"
asked Bill, not turning, but gazing deep into the fire.
"Any letters, or telegrams, or messages you want to
trust us with?"

"No, Bill, thank you.  There is just one thing
troubles me, and only one—this dear child."  He
nodded his head in the direction of the window where
she was standing weeping.  "She's made such a
noble fight, against such frightful odds, she mustn't
go back; she mustn't be allowed to give up or be
forced into the old environment.  She must be
saved."

"Say, Parson, rest your mind easy about that," said
Mike earnestly.  "She ain't agoin' to want a friend
while Bill or me lives.  Ain't that right, Bill?"

"It sure is, Mike."

"That's all," said the sick man with a sigh of
relief.  "And now I'm ready to go."  He meant for
the long, long journey.

Bill and Mike were ready too.  The wind had
died down to a cruel whine and their project waited.

"Well, so long, Parson," said Bill with a pretty
decent show of cheer in his voice.  "If we can't git
through we'll have to come back.  That's all."

"Now no gittin' low spirited while we're gone,"
called out McShay as he went to the door.  "Now
mind!  No gittin' discouraged; no givin' up; no
white-flag business!  Don't you let him weaken,
Wah-na-gi."

"No, no," she answered back through her tears,
trying hard to catch the uplift of the big cowman.

"God sure hates a quitter, Parson; ain't that right?"

"That's right," whispered back McCloud, meeting
the demand for a rally and a charge.  "That's right.
Mike.  No one shall say I was a quitter.  I'm going
out with the honors of war, the flag flying and the
band playing."

"Good," shouted back the Irishman from the
storm-door, and they were gone.

After the paroxysm that followed their departure
had passed, the sick man sank back upon the couch
exhausted, and closed his eyes to rest.  It had been a
great strain, but somehow he felt more at peace than
he had done for a long time, and he drifted into a
great calm.

To Wah-na-gi, who had to watch the struggle, and
whose great pity and love demanded something to do,
her conscious helplessness was an ordeal.  Finally
she could restrain herself no longer and she cried
out in the agony of her soul: "Oh, my father, why
is it?  Why is it?  If there is a God, why does he
let you suffer?"

"Every heart has faced that mystery, dear child,"
he said gently.  "Even the Saviour had a moment
when he felt forsaken.  I thought once I was to do
big things for humanity and God, but who knows
what is great or what is little?  Some careless word
I may have spoken and forgotten may be blessed,
or my obedience, my patience, may have touched
some heart here, yours or another's, who will redeem
the waste places and make the wilderness to blossom
as the rose."

His spirit was unquenchable, his fervor undying.
His enthusiasm rose superior to the claims of physical
dissolution.  She didn't try any longer to force him
to husband his strength.  She knew he wanted to go
down with colors flying, militant.  She knelt by his
bed and bowed her head, so as to lose no word of
those precious words which were to be his last.

"I think the great Teacher is educating us out of
the physical.  He puts two objects in our hands,
then He shows us that if you take one object from two
objects it leaves one object, and we are altogether
concerned with the objects, stones, or sticks, or flowers
that fade, and by and by He takes away the objects
because we no longer need them.  We have grasped
the truth, the fixed, unalterable truth, that one from
two leaves one.  I saw two little street urchins once
standing outside a great shop window filled with
things they desired—playthings.  One said 'I choose
*that*.'  And the other said 'I choose *that*.'  Finally
they chose the same object, and there was a battle, a
fierce, cruel fight, for what neither of them had or
could have.  We are like that.  And so God, little
by little, takes away from us houses and lands and
bodies, playthings, that we may know the truths of
spirit."

Wah-na-gi raised her bowed head to look at him.

"Your face shines with a strange light," she said
with an awed whisper.

"I am very close to the Hereafter, Wah-na-gi."

"I shall be very lonely when you are gone."

"Ah, my child, you are lonely now, grieving for
him, for Hal, grieving, grieving."

"Yes, so it will be always."

He knew that each day as the sun crept up over
the Moquitch she stood on the rock and scanned the
horizon, and gazed long across the trail where he had
disappeared and whence he would return, *if he
returned*.

"I came between you and the man you loved," he
said, putting his hand gently on her glossy hair.
"Don't hold it up against me.  I thought I was doing
right.  I loved you both.  Nothing would have made
me happier than to see you one.  I have prayed that
I might be spared to put your hand in his, to say the
words that would make you man and wife, to see you
happy, but happiness mustn't be stolen.  It must
be earned.  And so I drove him away, drove him
back to duty, because I loved him.  When I'm gone,
send him word and ask him not to hold it up against
me, and God will surely bless this sacrifice.  Oh, yes,
God will surely bless you."

A cruel fit of coughing racked the poor remnants
of a body, and she held her breath till it was over,
and she could lay him back upon the soft couch.

"Talking has tired you.  Sleep and rest," she
said, and he fell away into the sleep of exhaustion.

Those were the last words she would hear him
say, the last words he spoke—"God will surely bless
you."  Often and often thereafter in her life she
remembered those words, his last—"God will surely
bless you."

She smoothed his pillow, pulled the blankets up
over his wasted form, stirred the logs into a fierce
blaze.  Then she went to the chest of drawers under
the window to the left of the storm-door and took
from it a letter and the little moccasins, and brought
them down to the fire.  She was still a child and
needed symbols.  These were the words he had
written with his own hand, cruel words, that shut out
the light and put a blight upon her life, but still they
were his words.  She had a savage instinct to thrust
them into the blaze, with the crude half-formed
notion that to destroy them would be to destroy the
conditions which they expressed.  But this was only
momentary.  The tokens of their love had been so
few, she clung to every scrap and shred of them.  It
never occurred to her that Hal had trifled with her,
had forgotten or deserted her.  It wouldn't have
mattered if he had.  She accepted their fate but
without regret or bitterness, and her heart eternally
asked the question, full of hope, full of fear, that she
had asked John McCloud the day he went away:
"Will he come back?"  And now that John McCloud
was going away, she felt the need of Hal anew.  The
mystery of death was sitting in the room with her.
It was hard to sit there in the silent place, to face that
cruel shadow which tugged and nagged at the poor
tired body, and worried it like a famished dog, and
count the ticking of the clock, the strong, steady ticks,
like blows, and know that it was counting out the
feeble beats of the noble heart which would soon be
still, forever still.  It was hard to be alone in such an
hour.  If Hal had been with her!  Mike had asked
her if she would be afraid, and she was so absorbed
in the human drama as to wonder why, but now, now
that all was over except the flutter of the black wing
of the grim enemy, she felt a cold chill at her heart.
She clutched the tiny moccasins and crouched in
numb terror before the nameless, the unknown.  The
breathing of the invalid, the sonorous clock, the
explosions of the burning logs assumed unnatural
proportions.  The wind had died down again to a
plaintive lament, a dolorous sob, and then it rose to
the fretful cry of a sick child.

She sat gazing into the fire under a premonitory
spell.  Unknown to her the storm-door had opened,
and through the inner door glided the tall sinewy
figure of Appah, silent and sinister.  He swayed as
he entered and the chest of drawers up under the
window kept him from falling.  It also retained a
small bag of flour and a shoulder of venison which
slipped from his grasp.  He held himself up like a
tired wrestler until the warmth of the room relaxed
his stiffened limbs and his eyes had grown accustomed
to the light.

When he felt that he could stand and walk, he
glided noiselessly down to where she was crouching
and called her name softly.  Her heart gave a great
leap and she started to rise, but he put his hand on her
head and held her.

"No scared," he said as gently as he knew how.
"Heap wayno me!  Meat, flour catch 'em!  maybeso
you hungry.  Bring 'em.  Pah-sid-u-way?"

He went up and brought down the bag of flour and
the venison and threw them down before her.  Then
he sank down on the stool by her.  He was very tired.

"Thank you," she said coldly.  "That's very kind
of you."

Then he waited that she might have time to think
it over, to understand what it was he had done and
what it meant.  When others were caring for themselves,
their own comfort and safety, he had thought
of her; there had been suffering in the lonely ranches
cut off from the rest of the world; perhaps it was so
with her, and he had brought all a man could carry,
and had fought his way to her through the storm.
It was something a woman might be glad of, proud of.
Only a strong man, a big chief with a big heart, could
have done it.  Surely it was an achievement.  Surely
she would know.  He must first win her admiration,
the rest would follow.  He had not given up his suit,
but he had waited for his chance.  He had held aloof.
He must not appear too eager.  He had not come to
the ranch, but he was familiar with the known facts
and had drawn his own conclusions.  His gods, his
medicine had freed him from the presence of his
rivals.  The chief of police had gone away by the
fire-wagons, by the fire-boat, many sleeps.  It was
many moons now, and no one ever talked of when he
would be back; in fact, no one talked of him any
more.  He had gone back to his own people, where
there were many women to be loved and married.
He would not come back.  He had already forgotten
the Indian woman and soon she would forget
him.  It was only natural.  For a time, too, he
had been freed from the rivalry of the agent, but
Ladd had returned, was again in power.  It was
time to act.

He had had a big talk with Cadger too.  The
trader was a cunning old fox, who could put his nose
up in the air and tell what was afoot.  Cadger had
told him that maybeso there were big treaties (papers,
contracts), writings, at the ranch, had advised him to
go over and see Wah-na-gi, that if she would come
away with him, they were to bring all the big treaties
(papers) to him, Cadger, and exchange them for heap
ponies, plenty cattle, and the trader kept his bargains.
He wasn't like Ladd, a man of two minds.  Cadger,
too, had made him understand that by bringing away
the papers he would do a great injury to the ex-chief
of police, and Appah had not forgotten what he owed
Hal, and his heart burned hot within him at the
prospect of getting revenge for the slights, insults, and
wrongs he felt that he had suffered at the hands of
the insolent young man.  Perhaps it would be safe
and practical before returning to the Agency to burn
the barns and the cabin.  It all depended on
Wah-na-gi.  Cadger had warned him to be sure of her
before speaking of the papers.  With her as an ally
all would be well.  If not—His mind refused to
consider such an eventuality.  She had cared for
Calthorpe.  Calthorpe was gone.  Nothing stood
between them now, but if there should arise—  At the
suggestion, murder entered his heart.  She had
laughed at him, ridiculed him, flouted him, scorned
him.  That would never be again.  He could not
permit that to be.  She must realize that.  It was a
fateful night and here he was waiting.

"Touge frejo!" he said after a long pause in which
each thought very fast but in which neither spoke.
"Touge frejo!" (Plenty cold.)

"Yes," she said, "it's a cold night."

"Maybeso you talk Injin talk now, eh?"

"No, never again.  Never again so long as I live."

That was not promising.  Again there was a long
pause.  What was it she had left unsaid?  That she
would only speak the white chief's talk, the talk of
the man she loved?  Then she still loved him?
That was the test—her willingness to speak the tongue
of her people, to be like them.  He tried hard to be
patient with her.  Perhaps she found it hard now.
She had lived among the whites and perhaps had
forgotten much of her own tongue.

He would go slowly, be very sure, before proceeding
to extremes.  He made her a long speech in their
vernacular.  He saw that she had not forgotten the
speech of her people, that she followed him perfectly,
and he felt that he was eloquent and convincing.
He was considered a great orator by his tribe.  His
talk recited in detail that the white chief had gone
on a long trail back to his people, that he would
never come again.  He watched her face and saw
that she had no reason to expect his return.  Perhaps
she was hungry?  Did the white man care?  No, he
had forgotten.  Appah hadn't forgotten.  Winter-man
had come.  Cold-maker had come.  White man
was scared.  Injin was scared.  Appah wasn't scared.
Cold!  Touge frejo!  Heap cold.  Snow, heap snow,
plenty snow, snow all time!  The snow came like
white wolves.  They howled and showed their teeth.
White foam flew from their lips.  They leaped up
and tried to bite, to tear at one's heart, but Appah
wasn't frightened.  He had big medicine.  Pretty
soon the snow wolves saw he was too strong for them.
The wind told them.  The wind told them to
pikeway, to get out, here was a big chief, a big medicine
man who was not afraid of them, who had a big heart
and who was bringing food, gifts, to his woman, his
squaw.

"You must not say that," she said promptly.
"The food is good.  I thank you for that; but you
must not call me your squaw.  I am not your squaw.
I never will be."

He forgot the instructions of Cadger, forgot the
papers altogether.  He saw only the woman, the
woman he wanted, all the more because she was
unattainable.  He could have had any other woman in
the tribe for the asking, but nothing seemed worth
while but that which was out of reach.  She had
flouted him again.  It was hard to believe.  Again
there was a long pause, in which the fires of desire
leaped up and threatened to consume him.  Cadger
had supplied him with a small flask of whiskey before
he left the Agency.  The fire was racing in his blood,
prompting him to nameless things.  He sat and
smouldered.  Passion and hate struggled for control.
He stood up.

He told her she was a fool to wait and weep for a
man who only laughed at her, who would never come
back.  Why had he gone away?  Because he did not
dare to take the woman Appah wanted.  He knew
Appah would kill him and so he had run away.  He
was afraid!

She leaped to her feet.

"He never was afraid, least of all of you.  You are
lying.  You cannot say this to me.  Take your food
and go.  I would not eat it.  Go."  She was very
fine with her eyes blazing.

Go?  On such a night?  The snow wolves were
mad, dancing a war-dance, thirsting for blood.  The
fire-spirits were good.  He had brought her food,
and she thrust him out into the wild night.  He
looked her over and laughed evilly.  The big chief
is patient; he knows how to wait.  Then one day
he gets crazy, mad, and then he reaches out and takes
what he wants.  He tried to put his hand on her.
Quickly she eluded him and put the couch of the
sick man between them.  Yes, she could avoid,
resist, but she could not escape.

She had laughed at him, scorned him again and
again.  Now he would possess her, break her, bend
her to his will or kill her.

"Hush," she said, pointing to the sick man; "don't
wake him."

Appah moved close to the couch and looked at
McCloud.  He had been sick a long time.  There
was nothing to be feared from him.  Still he looked
again.  If there had been the slightest chance that
McCloud could have interfered with his purposes he
would have killed him there where he lay.

"No scared sick man," he muttered contemptuously.

She had directed his attention to McCloud for a
purpose.  In the short interval Appah had given to
the dying man, she had backed swiftly against the
chest of drawers, beneath the left-hand window.  A
short time before she had taken the letter and the little
moccasins from this drawer, and had left it open.
Now, keeping her eye on Appah, she had put her
hand behind her and rummaged in the drawer until
her hand felt the little automatic gun that Hal had
given her.  Appah glanced up and divined her
purpose.  Quick as a panther he leaped over the
unconscious clergyman and threw himself upon the
girl as she tried to bring the gun in play.  Her scream
awoke the dying man, and he raised himself on his
elbow, though it was a perceptible interval before his
mind grasped the reality of what was happening.
There was a struggle which brought Appah and the
girl down in front of the fire.  It was a short struggle.
Her frenzied strength was as nothing in his grasp.
He gave her arm a twist and the gun fell from her
hand.  Then he stopped her breath until she was
helpless, when he picked her up in his arms and
bore her through the door leading to the kitchen.

McCloud tried to get up.  He did in fact get to a
sitting position on the low couch; then he realized
for a terrible moment his helplessness.  On the small
stool beside him rested the cup containing brandy
left there by Big Bill.  He drank it quickly, drank it
all.  It gave him a fictitious strength, a momentary
capacity.  While the struggle was going on in the
next room, he crawled to the spot where the little
gun had fallen, picked it up, and by slow and painful
stages dragged himself across the room to the open
kitchen door.  He could go no further.  He sank
down.  He could not hold the little weapon without
trembling.  He rested his elbows on the floor, grasped
it with both hands, steadied it long enough to fire.
Then he collapsed and lay very still upon his face.

There was a sudden quiet in the next room, then
the sound of a body falling heavily.  After a few
moments Wah-na-gi appeared in the kitchen door,
wild-eyed, haggard.  She leaned wearily against the
jamb until her mind and some of her strength came
back, then she saw the body of McCloud.  With a
cry she ran to him, turned him over, and looked into
the beloved face.

Not in the way he thought, but as he wished, John
McCloud had gone out—militant.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XXIV`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XXIV

.. vspace:: 2

Hal had plenty of evidence that Ladd had robbed
the Indians, that he was the representative of the
Asphalt Trust, and had tried to bribe him with its
valuable securities.  He still had Ladd's receipt for
the fifteen thousand dollars he didn't pay for them.
As Doctor McCloud had said, he had offered to
return the securities to the company, an offer which
had been ignored.  While he was chief of police at
the Agency, and while he was secretly camping on the
agent's trail, letters and copies of letters belonging
to Ladd's correspondence had come into Hal's
possession through a disgruntled clerk who had earned
the enmity of the agent and been discharged.  It
was manifest that the interests behind Mr. Ladd
were very anxious to secure or destroy these letters.
They would have cheerfully sacrificed the agent, but
they were forced to protect him for their own sakes.
The fight therefore centred about David Ladd.  The
interests had won the first skirmish with a shout and
a hurrah.  It was made to appear that Secretary
Walker had given credence to absurd accusations
involving honorable business men high in the financial
world, accusations which could not be substantiated;
had removed a valued public servant
without cause, under charges involving not only his
position but his honor, etc., etc.  The victory of
the interests was announced with bellringing and
bonfires.

The arrival of Hal in Washington was therefore an
enormous relief to those who by reason of their efforts
for the general welfare were now forced to fight for
self-preservation and vindication.  Hal's dismay on
learning that Secretary Walker had not received any
package or communication from Red Butte Ranch
was disheartening.  He had written to John McCloud
to forward his papers to the care of Secretary
Walker.  They had not come.  No word had come.
No one in Washington could give him any comfort.
Gifford had informed him that the winter in the
Moquitch country had been the severest in the
memory of living man.  That was all any one knew.
This would explain some of the delay, not all of it,
as Hal felt.  A council of war was held.  It was
unanimously agreed that Hal must go in person for
the papers.  He hesitated.  No one knew why he
hesitated.  Did he dare go?  Could he trust
himself?  At times his sacrifice had seemed so futile.
At times it must be confessed he bitterly regretted
it.  He felt incapable of further immolation.  Life
had lost its zest, its interest.  Could he see her, take
her hand, look into her eyes once more, come to life
again, vivid life, and then turn away and walk
deliberately back into the grave?  No, it wasn't possible.
It wasn't fair to ask it.  Strange chap, this
half-breed boy, was the feeling of the serious men who
watched him, who saw his hesitation.  What was the
matter with him now?  Unstable in all their ways,
these mixed breeds!  Not to be depended on!

Gifford watched him narrowly.  He knew more
than the rest.  He remarked casually that much of
the country was cut off from communication and it
was feared that there was great suffering at the lonely
ranches—starvation perhaps.

Starvation?  Had they tried to get into touch with
the ranch?  Yes, but without success.  They had
telegraphed McShay to go to their relief, but had
heard nothing from him.  McShay was not at Calamity.
Starvation?  He would go.  When was the next
and the fastest train?  He would go by way of Fort
Serene.  They promised that he would be furnished
with supplies at the post.

And so it came to pass that he turned his face once
more to the West, and every step of the way his heart
lifted, the light came back into his eye, the ring came
back into his voice, the spring to his step.  In spite
of his anxiety for their safety, in spite of a painful
knowledge of the difficulties in the way, the possibility
that he might be too late, his soul sang for joy.  He
was going back to his own, his country, his people,
the land of his desire—going back not of his own
volition but in answer to the call, the silent call which
could not be denied.

It seems that the examination of Hal's papers in
the London house had been thorough, but with small
results.  It was correctly surmised that the papers
of importance were at the ranch.  Hal's departure
from Washington was promptly telegraphed to the
Standing Bear Agency and the race was on.

The nearest post-office to the ranch, as I have
intimated, was the Agency, but Hal had directed his
letter to McCloud to the post, as being safer and
farther removed from hostile influences.  He had also
written a short note to Captain Baker, asking him to
warn the official in charge not to deliver any mail
except to some one connected with the ranch, and
properly accredited.  When he arrived at the Fort
Hal discovered that Baker was no longer stationed
at Serene.  His action with regard to Ladd and
Wah-na-gi had been adversely criticised, and though he
was not called before a court of inquiry, he was
sufficiently punished by being exiled to the Philippines.
Hal's letter to him found him eventually long
after the incidents of this story were ancient history.
The new commandant was a stranger who knew
nothing of the undercurrent of affairs in his domain,
and who could be depended on to stick to routine
and, if necessary, look the other way.  Hal learned
that Agent Ladd had been to the fort, had informed
the commandant that he was about to send an Indian
runner over to the Red Butte Ranch to see if they
were in need, and offered to send any mail there was
for the ranch people.  This seemed quite all right
to the soldier, both thoughtful and friendly, and he
interposed no objection.  It developed that considerable
mail had collected for the Red Butte people and
it was naturally handed over to the agent.  Hal very
properly drew the conclusion that Ladd now knew
his papers were at the ranch and in the keeping of
McCloud.  He was also confident that the agent
would leave no stone unturned in order to obtain
them.  As a matter of fact, Cadger had opened the
letter to McCloud, sealed it up again, and then given
it to Appah with instructions to lose it on the way
over.  He was for the sake of appearances to lose
the entire mail.  This was not hard to do.  When
Appah did not reappear promptly there was anxiety
at the Agency.  When due allowance had been made
for all supposable emergencies, and still he did not
return, the best runners in the tribe were sent out to
learn the truth.  An extraordinary story came back.
It alleged that the priest of the white man and the
priest of the Indian had passed into the Great
Beyond together, that Appah had lost his life at the
hands of John McCloud, the man of peace.  That
the dying clergyman had killed the powerful medicine-man
seemed unbelievable.  Still, it simplified matters.
Ladd telegraphed the news to his friends at
Washington and wired them to get for him instructions
from McCloud's sister to take charge of his
effects.  As soon as this authorization arrived, Ladd
and Cadger started for the ranch.

The death of John McCloud had plunged the ranch
into gloom.  It had been a hard, dreary, sullen
winter, even before want and hunger came to dwell with
them.  Cattle were dying, stock suffering everywhere.
McShay and Bill did not get through to the settlements.
As Mike had anticipated, Bill had been an
encumbrance to him.  The stubborn old fellow had
measured his strength by his courage, and they were
no longer equal.  McShay had to return to bring
Bill in.  After a wild night in which both came near
losing their lives, they succeeded in regaining the
shelter of Hal's cabin.  They found the fire dead in
its ashes and Wah-na-gi crouching by the side of the
dead man where he had fallen, holding his hand, as
she had done so many hours in his life, in a dumb
vacant instinct of habit, to give him comfort in the
long sleep which would know no waking.

Death obliterates animosities, so they laid the body
of Appah decently in the stable, to await his relatives
and friends who would take it on a sled or a travois
to the Agency and weep and wail over it, and extol
his virtues, just as we do with our dead.

To those who live apart from the forms and ceremonies
of life they assume an unusual and unnatural
importance.  It was a real grief to these rough men
who had grown to love John McCloud that they could
do so little to testify to their sense of his worth.
Undemonstrative in life, they would have liked to
have made it up in the paraphernalia of grief in the
hour of death.  It didn't occur to them that the dead
man had been very simple, very unostentatious in his
life.  They did not want to intrude the subject upon
Wah-na-gi, so they gathered to discuss it in Big Bill's
quarters.  Orson, Silent, Joe, Curley, Bill, and the
others.  Mike, as usual, was the spokesman.

"Boys," he said, after quite a pause, his eyes
unduly moist and struggling to keep from showing
emotion; "boys, we're up against it.  We can't do
it right, no way you fix it.  John McCloud was a big
man; an important man.  In any right-minded kummunity,
he'd be buried from the cathedral, with a
funeral oration which would try to tell but couldn't
what sort of a man he was, and the mayor and town
officials and the civic organizations would have
followed his hearse to the cemetery, and have covered
his grave with wreaths and flowers, and everything
would have been high-toned and impressive, and all
that is good.  It's good for the risin' generation.  It
shows the kids that's inclined to be wild that they
got to live decent if they want a big funeral."

"John didn't care much fer fixin's, Mike," said
Bill.  "He was awful simple."

"Sure he was—never asked fer nothin'.  All the
more reason we should give it to him; all the more
reason we should show the world what we think of
him; but we can't do it, boys.  We can't even give
him a casket.  A rough board box is the best we kin
do, and we'll have to bury him in the snow until the
spring comes.  Then we'll do the thing right.  We
kin git the band over from the fort.  We'll declare a
half-week's holiday in Calamity, and everybody as is
anybody in these here regions will come over here
and pay their last respects to John McCloud."

And so it was decided.  If John McCloud knew
about it he must have been pleased with his funeral.
The rough men gathered around his remains in the
living-room, Wah-na-gi repeated the Lord's Prayer;
she led and they joined in singing "Nearer, My God,
to Thee," and they laid him to rest under the soft
beautiful snow.  When they came back and the others
had gone to their quarters, Mike said to her:

"Wah-na-gi, there's one thing I'm awful sorry
fer—the kid wasn't here."  And he gave way completely
and cried like a child.  It was the first time he had
mentioned Hal for a long, long time, and he had been
thinking of the affection that had always existed
between the preacher and the boy, and it was the
little Indian woman who had to put aside her own
grief to comfort the big cowman.  Artfully she told
of the dramatic happenings of that night, the night
he and Bill went out into the storm.  She told him
what McCloud had said of his notion of God's
purposes and they talked of the man and his
character and his words, and recalled many things that
would give them good and gracious memories while
life should last, and Mike said to her with some
misgivings and a good deal of embarrassment:

"Wah-na-gi, I can't take his place.  I wouldn't
try, but—rely on me.  Savey?"

And so routine once more resumed its quiet sway.
The food Appah had brought didn't amount to much,
but it came at the right time and saved serious
complications.  Ladd had sent them word by an Indian
runner that he would be over in person to see as to
their necessities and that food would follow him.
Those at the ranch had been physically depleted, so
that Mike made no further effort under the circumstances
to get through himself or send any one else.
They were marking time; but the situation was
distinctly not cheerful.

Wah-na-gi in particular did not rally.  Instead of
recovering from the parson's death and the shock
of that night when she had faced its horrors alone,
she seemed to grow more and more depressed.  It
worried the boys a whole lot.  One night Mike called
them all together at Bill's and they took council-one
with another.  They discussed the situation from
various stand-points.  It was pointed out that
Wah-na-gi was a child.  She was young and, bein' young,
needed playthings.  It was only natural she should
want amusement, relaxation, change.  It was awful
dull fer a young girl on a ranch.  Injins needed fun
and frolic, too, like anybody else.  She needed
companionship of her own sex.  In the spring they could
git some woman over from somewhere who would be
company fer her.  In the spring they promised to
see to it that she went to the dances that might be
goin' on in the settlements, and perhaps go in to Salt
Lake fer the Fourth of July Celebration.  Some one
pointed out that next spring and summer would
doubtless take care of themselves.  It was the present
that had to be looked after.  If she went on grievin'
and mopin' like she was doin' she wouldn't git to
the spring.  Finally, when everybody had had their
say and no one had really said anything, Silent
cleared his throat by a great effort and said gravely:

"Say, fellers, to-morrer'll be Christmas."

Silent had a memory that was unusually retentive
as to figures.  His statement created a sensation but
was, of course, universally challenged.  The days had
come and gone, one just like the other, and how was
any one to know that Christmas was upon them?
Reference to calendars and elaborate computations
finally showed that Silent had made a serious discovery.

"Boys," said Mike; "I got it.  We'll have a
Christmas-tree fer Wah-na-gi!  What do you say?
We'll make it as funny as we kin.  Gee, if we sit
down here and try to outsigh each other we'll all git
bug-house."

The cowboy dearly loves a practical joke and goes
to elaborate pains in its accomplishment.  Suddenly
the ranch became busy, very busy, and there were
winks and nudges, and an air of mystery.  Wah-na-gi
was preoccupied or she would have noticed that there
was something unusual afoot, that every one was
engaged, alert, and secretive.

The idea broadened as it went along and little
plots were hatched against each other.  In the bustle
and activity the men regained their normal elasticity.

Supper that night was a hurried and a constrained
meal with an undercurrent of excitement.  When it
had been rushed through all the men made a hasty
exit, leaving Wah-na-gi alone.  When the table had
been cleared, and the room tidied, she sat down as
usual by the big fire.  It was the hour when the
absence of John McCloud and Hal was very poignant.
The care of the sick man had been onerous, but it had
been a joy to know that she could do for him, anticipate
his wishes, minister to his comfort.  Now there
was a great, blank, empty void.  Mike stole into the
room with a bundle under his arm.  This he put on
the chest of drawers, then he came down and found
her weeping.

"Wah-na-gi," he said to her with suppressed
excitement, "sure you mustn't let the boys see you
cryin'.  It ain't good for none of us to sit down here
and calculate to a fraction just how miserable we are.
Am I right?  Sure I am.  John McCloud himself
wouldn't like it.  He'd want us to lift our head and
face the music, wouldn't he?  Sure he would.  He
didn't have strength enough left to die, but he went
out like a fightin' man.  Sure if I hadn't 'a' loved him
before I'd 'a' loved him for that.  Now go to your
room, wash the tears from your black eyes, put on
your nicest dress and your prettiest bow, and stay
there until you're sent for."

"Stay there?" said Wah-na-gi with dismay.

"Well, dearly beloved, it's to be a surprise party,
and if you stay here divil a surprise will it be.  So
scoot, vamoose, git out.  And you must give me
your solemn oath not to peek, or listen, or come in
until you're called.  Hold up your two hands and
make the oath double."

It was impossible to resist the buoyant spirits of
the Irishman.

Wah-na-gi laughed in spite of herself as he bustled
and herded her out of the room, she having agreed
to the conditions imposed.  When he had the room
to himself, Mike went up to the bundle he had left
on the table.  These placards, rudely lettered, he
began to tack up about the room.  They ran along
somewhat after this fashion:

"Merri (ha, ha!) Crismas."

Like some eminent literary artists, Mike was long
on words and short on spelling.

"Resterant And Food-factery."

Food being mostly absent from its accustomed
place, was naturally very much in the minds of the
humorists, whose efforts at gayety made up in breadth
what they lacked in subtlety.

Another sign announced: "Blew monge—Has Just
Blew In!"  Another: "Egg-nog, without the egg or
the Nog."  "Plum (?) Pudin' (?)."  "Mince Pi
Like Step-Father uster Make."  Under the caption
"Our Motter" appeared this effort at scripture: "O
Lord, Open Thou Our Lips And Our Mouths Shal
Sho Fourth Thi Prais a Whole Lot if We Git the
Chanct."

The materials or the humor seemed to give out at
this juncture.

Mike was in the act of tacking up the last extravagant
effort to the shelf over the fireplace when a voice
behind said softly: "Gee, it's good to be home."

The hammer and the placard both dropped out of
the Irishman's hand.

"Ghosts, is it?" he whispered, fixed, with his eyes
wide open; "or the banshee?"

"Don't breathe a word," said the voice.

"Breathe a word?  Sure I ain't breathin' at all."

Then the startled Mike turned slowly and saw Hal
who had watched him for some time in silence.

"Why, Hal, my son; why God bless you," said the
astonished cowman as he caught the boy's strong
hand in his huge paw, and the men looked in each
other's eyes with the silent affection that men feel
but cannot express.

"It's good to feel the grip of your hand once more,
Mike," said the boy.  "How is Wah-na-gi?"

"Wah-na-gi is it?"  The secret of Hal's wife had
been confined to McCloud and Wah-na-gi.  Mike
was in ignorance of all complications in Hal's
domestic affairs.

"Wah-na-gi?  Sure you stayed away long enough
for a dozen fellers to have run off with her, and small
blame to her, you scamp.  It's awful good you've
got to be to me, boy.  I ain't sure as I'll let you have
her."

"You?" said the boy, smiling.

"You got to show me, son, for I'm her——"

He stopped suddenly confronted with the realization
that Hal did not, could not know.

"Sure, the good man's gone, Hal."

"Dead?" whispered the boy.  "John McCloud?"

He went to the stool by the fire and sat down for a
moment, and Mike followed him and put his hand
on his shoulder.  He knew as well as any one the
relations of the two men and understood them.  It
was a great blow to Hal.  He ought reasonably to
have anticipated such an event, but his thought had
been busy with his own affairs and John McCloud
as he was related to them.  He had thought that he
would have to meet the preacher and face his inquisition,
and it had been some consolation to him that
he could do so.  He could tell the truth and it would
be something to have earned the other's "Well done,
my son; well done."  Briefly and gently Mike told
the boy what there was to tell, and how Wah-na-gi
had never quite recovered from the shock of that
awful night with its double horror.

"Sure, you're a God-send to us," he added.  "My,
my, my, won't their eyes pop out at the sight of you?
You're pretty well liked around here, son, and say,
you're just in time.  The boys are goin' to have a
Christmas-tree fer Wah-na-gi."

"A Christmas-tree, eh?" and the reaction came.
The warmth of the room, the cheer of the blaze, the
relaxation following on the physical strain, upon the
cold and privation, the familiar objects about him with
their associations, the sudden sense of a great loss, and
the eternal mystery of death, the sound of a kindly
voice, the homely joys conjured up by the words
"Christmas-tree," all coming together overpowered
him, and he bowed his head and turned away, speechless,
and Mike looked away too, that he might not see
the other's tears.  It was the first emotion Hal had
allowed himself to feel for a long time.  He had
bathed his soul in a hardening solution of indifference;
otherwise existence would have been unendurable.
Now when the assumption fell away, he felt
uncommonly weak.  After a moment's struggle the boy
cleared his throat and said:

"Mike, I'm pretty glad to get back.  I didn't know
it would hit me so hard.  I don't want to get foolish
and play the baby.  I'll tell you what," and his eyes
began to shine and the old smile to come back to his
face; "hide me some place, get 'em all together,
then make a joke of it, then bring me out, and there
you are, eh?"

Mike chuckled in anticipation of the surprise and
joy of Wah-na-gi and the boys.

"Great!" hesaid.  "I'll put you in this closet here;
then I'll lead up to it with a few simple words; then
I'll bring you out, and take you off the tree as a
Christmas present for Wah-na-gi."

"No; don't do that, Mike.  You don't understand.
Don't single Wah-na-gi out—just let it all come
naturally, you know——"

"Say, young feller; who's doin'this?  I ain't ever
been accused of lettin' anybody else write my speeches
fer me."

Both men were fairly aquiver with the excitement
of anticipation.  Hal had risen, and had removed
his belt and gun, thrown off his storm-coat, and stood
now in his flannel shirt, hunting boots, and woolen
trousers, a trim, vital figure of a man, his eyes dancing,
his face aglow.

"Say, that'll be fine," he said.  "I can see the
whole show from there, can see all their faces."

"Sure; you can see *her* face, if you try hard," said
the irrepressible Mike.  Hal had tossed his things
on the couch in the upper left-hand corner and drawn
a bear robe over them, so that his presence might
not be prematurely disclosed.  Then he entered the
rough pine clothes closet on the opposite side of the
room.

"Say, it's goin' to be a bit close in here."  Then he
turned and shook the big cowman joyously.  "Work
it up, Mike.  Work it up."

"You leave it to me, son.  If I can't git eloquent
to-night, I ain't got no divine fire."

And he pushed the door of the clothes-press to,
turned to see that the room was in readiness, and had
put on his own cap when Big Bill entered with a
suspicious bulge to a portion of his great-coat.

"Bill," said Mike with a nervous tremor in his
voice and taking the foreman by the shoulder, "whatever
you do, don't go near that closet, and don't
let any one else go near it.  There's a Christmas
present in there fer Wah-na-gi, and it's a horrible,
awful secret."

"Gee, you don't say!" said Bill, laughing but mystified.

"Are the boys all ready?" inquired Mike, going
to the door.

"Say, Mike," said Bill.  "It's all right.  It'll
make a cat laf.  It's the bummest thing in
Christmas-trees you ever see.  You better look it over and
memorize your impromptu speech."

And Mike went out bubbling over, saying to himself
with a chuckle: "My, my, my, won't this be a
night!"

When he was gone Bill dug out of his inner
recesses a bottle and he held it up to the light and
rolled it, examining it critically.

"There's all the liquor there is on the place,"
he said mournfully.  "It wouldn't be Christmas to
the boys without a drop of something."  Then he
scratched his head as if trying to think of some way
to make it more.  "They can at least smell of it and
look at the label."  And Bill put it on a small table
near the closet.

As he turned away two men pushed open the
door and entered quietly.  They stood for a second
to get over the glare and then one said quietly:

"Hello, Bill."

Bill turned.

"Why, hello, Mr. Agent.  Hello, Cadger."

The two men shook the snow from their clothes
and came down to the fire.

"Heard you people were hard up for grub.  Came
over to see what we could do for you," said the agent
genially.

"Well, say, that's kind," said the simple-minded
Bill.  "We need it all right."

"Didn't Calthorpe bring any supplies with him?"
asked Cadger, and he and Ladd watched Bill's face
narrowly.

"The boss?  Hal?  Say, what are you a-talkin'
about?" said Bill with a glimmer of suspicion.

"We heard he was back or on his way back,"
suggested Ladd.

"Back your grandmother!" said Bill contemptuously.
"The boss's in Europe.  Ain't ever comin'
back here I reckon; but what's that to you?  Are
you still lookin' fer trouble?  'Cause if you are, you
kin git it."

"Not me," laughed Ladd good-humoredly.  "I'm
for letting by-gones be by-gones.  If he isn't here,
you'll do just as well, Bill.  It's a small matter.
Doctor McCloud's sister has telegraphed me to take
charge of his effects."

"Oh," said Bill, puzzled.  "Is that so?  'Tain't
much," he added.  "He carried his valuables with
him I reckon."

Ladd showed the foreman the telegram.

"Oh, that'll be all right, I guess," said Bill with
reference to Ladd's implied request.  "Wah-na-gi's
put everything he left in his valise—he never had a
trunk—and she says his instructions was to have his
things sent to his sister in Washington.  There it
stands under the table, there, ready to go by express
soon as ever kummunications are established once
more.  You don't want to take it with you this kind
o' weather, do you?"

"I don't know," said Ladd, taking the bag from
under the table below the window on the right-hand
side of the entrance.  "Is it heavy?" and he lifted it.
"We got a pack mule through with us, but no, I
don't think we care to take it this time.  When we
come again will do.  There's no hurry that I can see,"
and he put the bag back where he got it.

"Well," said Bill, recollecting the impending
festivities, "you'll have to excuse me.  I've got to help
with the fixin's and come in with the peeracle.  Say,
you're just in time fer the doin's.  We're goin' to
have a Christmas celebration fer Wah-na-gi and the boys."

"Go right along.  Don't mind us."

"Well, make yourselves comfortable," said Bill
and went out into the night.  As soon as Bill was
out of the room Ladd turned with a look of triumph
to the trader.

"Did you watch Bill's face?  He ain't seen him,
and if Bill hasn't seen him, he isn't here.  We've
beat him to it.  Why, it's a cinch."

Ladd examined his weapons carefully, then put a
chair carelessly against the door leading to the
kitchen, so that any one entering there would be
stopped for a perceptible moment.  Cadger stood
just within the storm-door as a sentinel, to warn him
of any one approaching from without.  Then Ladd
opened the valise which was unlocked.  John
McCloud had never been afraid of any one robbing him
of his unpretentious belongings and the key had been
lost early in the bag's history.  With his face directly
to the closet and his back to the fire, Ladd quickly
examined the contents and had no difficulty in
immediately locating the papers, which he slipped into
the inside pocket of his short storm-coat.  He
rearranged the contents of the bag as nearly as possible
as they had been, closed it, and put it back under the
table.  All was well.  It couldn't be better.  He
called in Cadger.

"It's all right, Cadger; I've got 'em.  Now you
go to the stable ostensibly to look after the mule, but
never take your eyes off that entrance door.  Anybody
that enters gets the light of this room.  If he
comes while we're here, well, we'll have to take care
of ourselves, that's all.  From the stable opposite
it's a certainty."

We'll get away just as soon as we can without arousing
suspicion.  So far it couldn't be better."

Cadger pulled his cap down over his eyes and
slouched out into the night.  Ladd looked carefully
about, removed the chair to its former position, then
walked over to the fireplace, and stretched out his
hands to its genial glow.  Hal had been an interested
listener and observer.  In the strain of it he was wet
with perspiration.  His weapons were with his coat
on the couch, in the farthest corner of the room.
Ladd was armed to the teeth.  To wait until the
room was full of people would complicate matters;
some one might get hurt!  She might get hurt.  He
pushed the door of the closet open just enough for
him to slide out.  He dropped to the position of a
runner on the starting line, on his toes, the tips of his
fingers to the floor.  He looked altogether Indian as
he crept stealthily across.  Just as he was in the act
of springing upon Ladd's back, the latter looked up
into the mirror over the fireplace and saw him.
Quick as a snake Ladd drew his knife, turned, and
struck.  Hal caught his descending arm on the slant
and with the force of the blow Hal's hand slid to the
other's wrist, where it clung.  They clinched
immediately.  The agent was a powerful man, quite as
muscular, perhaps a shade more so, than the boy.
Hal therefore exerted only so much strength as was
absolutely necessary to keep the quivering knife from
his body.  He had forced it well down on the clinch
and held it down.  The agent, having tried in vain
to get it up, strained every nerve and muscle to put
it in the artery of his antagonist's leg—a favorite
blow with Chinese assassins.  Hal managed to stop
it always just short of penetration.  In the struggle
they had worked over to the centre of the room and
up against the stout wooden table.  Over-balanced
with the impact, they fell over it and the knife,
descending, stuck quivering in the top, where Hal held
it, the other trying to wrench it and himself free.
The room was silent as the grave except for the
ticking of the clock and the breathing of the two men.
The agent was putting forth every pound of energy of
which he was capable.  Hal was trying to save a little
out.  He knew that if he could wind the agent he
had him beaten.  Suddenly Ladd got a purchase
against the table and lifted himself and the other clear
of it.  It was a stupendous effort, but it was his best.
He began to tire.  The younger man kept him going,
let him struggle, just held his own until once more
they came close to the table from above, when he
caught Ladd over his hip and lifted him clean off
the floor, throwing him heavily on his back on the
top of the table.  It was the boy's best and all he
could do for the time being.  The agent squirmed
and fought and struggled like a madman, but the
other held, held and held, with the older man tiring
all the time.  Soon the youngster got his second wind,
when he edged and worked his body over the prostrate
man, pulled the other's left arm across his throat,
brought his own arm with it, and threw his weight on
the two.  They rested across Ladd's windpipe and
shut off his air, the position meanwhile resting the
other.  Ladd saw he was beaten unless he could
throw off his antagonist, and he put forth a mighty
effort.  He lifted the boy with all his weight and all
but slipped from under, but Hal held him for the
crucial second and he dropped back—beaten.  Hal
now disengaged his left hand, holding the other with
his arm across the throat, and with both hands pulled
the agent's knife hand up and over his exposed neck.
Then he pressed down and threw his weight upon
the knife.  Quivering, quivering, slowly it descended
until its point rested on the flesh of the prostrate man.

"Surrender," Hal gasped; "or I'll give you your
own knife."

"I surrender," gurgled the agent with what breath
was left in him.

"Let go the knife," said Hal when he could speak.
The other did so.  When Ladd had released his hold
on the weapon, Hal transferred its handle to his right
hand and with the left took the agent's gun from its
holster, then he passed the gun before Ladd's eyes
to let him know that he was disarmed.  Keeping his
enemy's revolver in one hand, he transferred the knife
to his teeth.  Only then did he stand up and away
from the other as he lay.

"Wait a minute," he warned through his set teeth
as Ladd made as if to rise.  Coming back to him, he
removed from the agent's inside pocket the papers
he had taken from Doctor McCloud's bag.  These
papers Hal transferred to the back pocket of his
trousers.  Then he took the knife from his teeth and,
covering Ladd with his own revolver, said:

"Now, get up, if you can."

The beaten man was game.  He half got up,
rolled from the table, staggered to his feet, and fell
against the clothes-press, breathing hard.  Hal could
stand and control his weapons but he wasn't much
better for the moment, though his strength was
returning fast.  Just then a long peculiar whistle was
heard outside.

"What was that?" demanded Calthorpe.  "Cadger's signal?"

"Yes."

"What's it mean?"

"That everything's all right."

"I don't trust you.  I'll see for myself.  Get into
that closet.  I damn near suffocated in there and I
hope you will."

Ladd backed into the closet under the muzzle of
Hal's weapon.  The latter turned the key on the
imprisoned agent.  Then the boy took a long deep
breath, put on his storm-coat and hat, and, coming to
the clothes-press, said:

"I'd advise you to be quiet in there, for if my boys
find out what you've been up to, they'll come pretty
near lynching you.  And now I'm going out to get
your pal, your hired assassin, and then I'll present
the pair of you to the Government as a Christmas
present."

Hal started out of the door, then recollected what
he had heard, glanced back at the fire and the swinging
lamp, closed the door, pulled back the table from
under the window, to the right of the storm-door,
threw up the sash, and, lifting himself through, closed
the window from without and disappeared.

Wah-na-gi had responded gamely to Mike's call.
She had understood from her new foster-father's
anxiety that the boys were worried about her, that she
must have been so abstracted and depressed as to give
them concern, that this tomfoolery, whatever it was,
was intended to divert her, give her pleasure or, at
least, make her think of other things beside her loss.
Determined to make amends, she had gone to her
room, put on her best dress, tied a bright ribbon in her
hair, all the while infected with a growing curiosity.
Having finished her simple toilet, and not having been
summoned, she sat down and tried to wait.  She
found this rather difficult.  The air was electrical.
She found she was under the influence of intense
excitement, conflicting emotions.  Finally she could
bear it no longer and she went to the door of the
living-room and knocked on it impatiently.  Mike
had just entered by the outer door and thrown down
his cap.

"Aren't you ready for me yet, boys?" she called
through the door.

"One moment, lady," called out Mike as he went
down to the door, threw it open with a great flourish
and, offering her his arm, led her into the room.

"Lady," he said to her with his most impressive
manner, "the Young Men's Aid Society and Band
of Hope has arranged these here festivities particular
fer you.  Let her go!" he called out toward the
entrance.

The "peerade" was headed by Orson carrying a
miniature, moth-eaten Christmas-tree, decorated
mostly with corks, the sole relics of by-gone festivities.
The others carried such "presents" as could
not be harnessed to the tree, and all were singing
at the tops of their lusty voices, "There'll Be a Hot
Time in the Old Town To-night."

They got a laugh from Wah-na-gi on their first
appearance, which put the stamp of success on the
show right at the start.  They circled the room until
the song was done, then the tree was placed on the
table in the centre, and the solitary half-hearted
candle at its apex was lighted ceremoniously.
Wah-na-gi, as the guest of honor, was left on one side of
the room and the boys all gathered on the other.
McShay advanced to the tree and began a speech in
a mixture of his best Fourth-of-July camp-meeting
manner.

.. vspace:: 2

FELLER CITIZENS AND LADY:

.. vspace:: 1

Somebody, who is probably a liar, has just informed us
that to-morrer is Christmas.  To-morrer bein' Christmas, it
follers as a sequence before the fact that to-night is Christmas
Eve.  That this is likely to be a Hell of a Christmas ain't no
argyment fer not celebratin' it before we git to it and find out
how bad it is.  Let us therefore humbly and devoutly git agoin'
and ketch the spirit of the occasion even if we have to rope it
and throw it on its head.  All you as has blue tickets and
been in reg'lar attendance can git in on it, and *perhaps* look
fer a prisint, and those as gits left kin fill up on good wishes
of which we have a superfluous supply.  First, we will have
the usual Christmas-tree.

.. vspace:: 2

At this juncture Joe broke into the proceedings
with a loud guffaw.  McShay eyed him severely.

"I said a Christmas-tree, and any feller caught
laffin' at it will be showed the door."  And he walked
away after the manner of platform lecturers who move
about to show their perfect command of the situation.
As he did so Orson stepped into his place and Silent
handed him a small article wrapped in paper which
he took from the tree.  Orson, trying to imitate the
Sunday-school manner of the big man, said:

"Will Mickey McShay please step forward?
Mickey, here is the last see-gar you unloaded on us,
and if you kin smoke it, we'll some day give you the
proudest banquet in any of the local joints this side
the Missouri, at which banquet you kin eat your
own words and damned if they don't choke you," and
he handed Mike a cigar with the added insult:

"It's a onion with a alfalfa wrapper.  It ain't fit
fer perlite society."  Mike joined in the laugh at his
expense, but at once took charge of the occasion,
determined not again to lose control.  He turned
with a kindly smile to Big Bill.

"Will Little Willie push his presence as near to us
as circumstances and his *waist line* will permit?"

Bill ambled forward, glancing down over his ample
figure with an awkward smile, looking a bit teased
and very close to blushing.  Mike took a "sinker"
from the tree and handed it to the big man.

"Here is a cookie for Little Willie," he said.  The
disproportion between the size of the present and the
recipient was so great every one laughed, including
the victim.  Then Mike looked Bill over critically
and, turning to his audience, said:

"If the prevailin' starvation prevails, and little
Willie dies by inches, how long will it take his
equator to reach his poles?"  During the ensuing laugh
Mike took up a small school-house of home manufacture,
with the paint scarce dry on it.  "Will Wah-na-gi,
little bright-eyes, the spirit child, communicate
with us?"  Wah-na-gi came forward, laughing.
Every one was in high glee.  It was many a day since
any one had seen her so radiant.

"Wah-na-gi," said Mike, "here's a school-house for
you with the hope that some day you may have it full
of children of your own and be beholden to nobody."

While Wah-na-gi was blushing furiously, Silent
broke in with the remark: "Gee, I'm awful dry.
Ain't nobody got a drink?"

"That's the one topic of conversation," said Mike,
"upon which Silent can and will discourse.  Gentlemen,
git your cut-glasses."

The mob broke for the cupboard en masse and
there was a wild scramble for drinking vessels, no
one stopping to discriminate, and this was followed
by a frantic rush back to Mike, who in the meantime
had possessed himself of the bottle of whiskey
brought out by Big Bill from his private stock.  Mike,
having with some difficulty protected himself from
their violence, called out:

"Don't crowd; don't crowd.  Now stand in line.
Stand in line, ye beggars.  Ain't ye ever been invited
to have a drink before?"

They stood obediently in line but each with cup
or glass outstretched to the limit, while Mike rolled
the scanty supply critically in the bottle and made
a rapid calculation as to its distribution.  Shaking
the bottle so as to wet the cork, he removed the latter
and carefully dropped a few drops into Big Bill's
cup, who eyed the result ruefully, scornfully.

"Silent," he said to that worthy, "four drops every
four years for you."

To Orson, who was bald, he said: "Externally fer
you, Orson; if you can find it, use it fer a hair tonic."

To Rough-house Joe he said: "Not to be taken
before meals, or at meals, or after meals."  Here the
liquid gave out and he shook the cork over the next cup.

"Lady," he said to Wah-na-gi, "I'll guarantee no
one will git drunk or disorderly.  Boys," he said,
turning to them, "I'll bet there's a name in all our
minds this night, and it's the absent owner of this
ranch.  Here's to 'im and, wherever he is this night,
let's hope his heart is with us.  I ask you to drink
a merry Christmas to the boss."

The boys extended their drinking vessels and
gave vent to vociferous yaps in the approved cowboy
style, and drank, or did their best to drink, to the
health of the absent boss.  Then Mike, with his eyes
sparkling and with a most elaborate manner, walked
up to the centre of the room, glanced toward the
closet, and said:

"And I'll ask him to respond to the toast in person."

Wah-na-gi looked as if she might faint.  Bill said
quickly: "Mike, be careful.  Wah-na-gi's here."

"Sure, I know she's here," replied the buoyant
Irishman.  "And if she had the choosin' of her own
present, I'll bet I could name it.  Wah-na-gi, here's
a Christmas present for you," and he went to the
clothes-press and tried to open it.  To his great
surprise he found it locked.  Quickly unlocking it, he
threw the doors wide and walked away with a
supreme air of triumph.  When David Ladd, pale and
wild-eyed, staggered out and to the table, the
sensation was complete.  Not hearing the cries of joyous
tumult he had expected, Mike turned and saw the
agent.  He was the most astonished man of the lot.

"Holy Mother of Moses," he ejaculated in a
whisper.  "Is it one of them cabinet tricks?"

Just then a shot was heard outside.  Every one
turned from the central figure and listened.  Then,
by common consent, every man grabbed his hat and
rushed out of doors, all except McShay, who made no
movement to go but kept his eye on David Ladd.

"What was that, Mike?" said Wah-na-gi in a
scared whisper.

Ladd lifted his head.  Swiftly it passed through
his mind the hope that Cadger had got his man.
Just then there were cheers outside, and all the boys
came tumbling back, Hal in their midst with a gun
in one hand and Cadger in the other.  The trader
looked sheepish and blood was flowing from a nasty
scalp wound over one eye where Hal had clubbed
him with the barrel of his own gun.

As Hal came suddenly into the light he did not see
Wah-na-gi, and she, as she caught sight of him, drew
back and whispered to herself: "He has come!  He
has come back.  My man has come back."

Then he saw her and, coming swiftly to her, took
her in both hands and lifted her up clear of the floor
as he might have lifted a child, while the rough men
gave vent to their joy and excitement by cheers.

"Put me down, please," she begged.  "Please
put me down, Hal."

When her feet touched the earth, her first impulse
was to go to the wounded man.  Apart from her
kindly instincts she could hide her emotions at a
moment when she suffered at their exposure.

"I'm all right," said Cadger surlily.  "I don't
want to be fussed over."

"You let her fix you up," said Hal, in a tone that
implied obedience, and Cadger submitted with a bad
grace.

"Boys," he said to his retainers, "I can't tell you
how glad I am to get home and how sorry I am to
have broken up this party.  Never mind, to-morrow
is Christmas and I'll have a wagon-load of supplies
here in the morning and we'll have a Christmas that
you won't forget to your dying day."  At this there
was a lusty cheer.  "For the present there's a little
matter of business must be disposed of before we go
any further.  Get chairs all of you, all except Silent.
Silent, you stand by the door, take my gun, and see
that neither of the prisoners gets away or disturbs the
proceedings.  All the rest of you sit down and while
Wah-na-gi is fixing up Cadger we will determine
what is to be done with these two scoundrels."

The table was cleared and the men sat about in a
council of war.  When all were seated, Hal said:
"Well, what shall we do with them?"

McShay said: "I'd take 'em outside, give 'm one
hundred yards, and let 'em get away, *if they could*."

"Why take us outside?" said Ladd, coming down
and standing before them.  He had regained his
aplomb, and never had appeared to better advantage.

"No," said Hal, "I couldn't do that.  If I'd
wanted to do that I wouldn't have taken 'em alive.
I'll have to take 'em East and hand 'em over to the
United States authorities and send 'em to the
penitentiary."

"That's a lot of trouble for two such skunks,"
said McShay.

"I'd rather you shot us as McShay suggests,"
said Ladd.  Then, turning to Hal, he said:
"Calthorpe, you got us.  You turned the trick.  You got
the documents we were after.  They're all you need
for your purposes.  You don't need us except to get
even with us, and you're too big a man for that.  You
can send us up for God knows how many years, for
life, for all I know, but what good will it do you?
Give us another chance?"

"Gee, you got your nerve," said Bill.

"We'll hit the trail for Canada, that is, if we ever
see a trail."

"Say, what have we got agin Canada?" asked Orson.

"If you turn us loose now it's a hundred-to-one
shot we'll never get to the Canadian line.  Give us a
chance; won't you?"

"What do you say, Wah-na-gi?" said Hal, calling
to the girl.

She came down to the table.

"I think perhaps John McCloud would give them
another chance."

"All right, you get it," said Hal.  "On your way.
You can take it as a Christmas present from John
McCloud."

"I hope you won't regret it," said Ladd.  "And
here's a telegram I got for you at Fort Serene.
That'll help some," and he handed Hal a telegram
which had been opened.  Hal took it and put it in
his pocket.

The two prisoners had their own provisions!  They
were given their mule and told to "beat it."  They
were never seen again or heard of.  Perhaps they
reached the Canadian line and disappeared in the
northern wilds; perhaps they were the men whose
bones were found the following spring at the foot of
one of the ravines of Dead Man's Canyon.

When they were gone, Hal turned to the others and
said: "Boys, you take your Christmas dinner here
with us to-morrow."  He looked at his watch.  "Gee,
it's *to-day*!  It's midnight!  Merry Christmas,
Wah-na-gi!  Merry Christmas, boys!  Merry Christmas to
all at Red Butte Ranch," and all gathered round and
shook him and each other by the hand, and if the
angels didn't sing on high they did in the glad hearts
of these homely folk.

Then they all went to bed.  And Hal was alone.
He lit his pipe and sat down before the fire in the
living-room, and was glad of the solitude, of the quiet,
of the peace, the unspeakable peace that had stolen
into his heart.  Wah-na-gi was near, under the same
roof.  He had seen her.  She was, if possible, more
beautiful than ever, the same simple child, without
pretence, without guile, unspoiled, true as truth!  And
he knew she loved him, would always love him.
Long he looked into the embers.  He was alone
and yet not altogether alone.  There was something
strange, mysterious in the room.  Was it the presence
of his mother?  Something seemed to whisper to
him: "Make her happy."  Was it little Nat-u-ritch?
or was it John McCloud?  He said again as he said
that night in the London fog: "John McCloud, my
heart is empty, but my hands are clean."

And John McCloud would never know, never
know what it cost him to say those words, to have
the right to say them.  And yet—perhaps he did
know.  Hal thought he would like him to know.
Then he happened to think of the telegram that Ladd
had given him, that had been purloined with the
other mail at Fort Serene.  He took it out of his
pocket and glanced at it indifferently, but did not see
it.  It belonged to the routine, the details of life.
This moment, this quiet moment apart was his.  He
had earned it.  It was sacred.  This was home.
This was his home.  These were his people.  This
was his land.  Here was the woman he loved.  Here
were memories, influences, elusive but potent, subtle
appeals stealing out of the past, out of the grave before
the door, out of the subconscious, out of the trifles of
childhood.  Sky and plain and peak had welcomed
him.  All these silent things had called to him, called
him back to his own.  He felt that he must be alone
with them.  He would have the night, and the
morrow; and then he would have to turn his back
on them forever, on *her* forever.  He had no thought
of sleep.  He must have a long think.  These
moments were few and precious.  The world without,
that world which had always been so unfriendly,
must not intrude.  He would not read the telegram.
It might disturb this sacred harmony.  He would
put it by and read it on the backward trail.  It was
open in his hand.  Involuntarily he glanced at it.
He saw the name—Winifred.  Evidently it was from
his cousin.  He shuddered apprehensively.  A voice
out of the cruel London fog! calling him back, calling
him away.  Just ahead of the name—he could not
help seeing it—were these words: "buried at sea."  He
was reading it backward.  "Never regained
consciousness.  Over-dose sedative by mistake."  Then
his eye ran quickly to the beginning and read: "On
way from India Edith took——"

The cable slipped from his hand.  How still and
solemn was the world!  And he sat there into the
morning of another day, listening to the voices of the
silent call.

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   THE END

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THE SECOND WIFE.  By Thompson Buchanan.  Illustrated
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An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in
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TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY.  By Grace Miller White.
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An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New
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Realistic stories of men and women living midst the savage
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THE PROFESSOR'S MYSTERY.  By Wells Hastings and
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