The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 20

ELSIE REVISITS CURTIS

Jennie thought her brother the handsomest man in the State as they walked up and down the station platform waiting for the express train which was bringing Elsie and Lawson and a famous Parisian-American sculptor and his wife. Curtis was in undress uniform, and in the midst of the slouching crowd of weather-beaten loafers he seemed a man of velvet-green parade grounds and whitewashed palings, commanding lines of polished bayonets.

He was more profoundly stirred at the thought of Elsie's coming than he cared to admit, but Jennie's delight was outspoken. "I didn't know how hungry for a change I was," she said. "They will bring the air of the big city world with them."

The whistle of the far-off train punctuated her sentences. "Oh, George, doesn't it seem impossible that in a few moments the mistress of that great Was.h.i.+ngton home will descend the car-steps to meet us?"

"Yes, I can't believe it," he replied, and his hands trembled a little as he nervously b.u.t.toned his coat.

The train came rapidly to a stop, with singing rods, grinding brakes, and the whiz of escaping steam. Some ordinary mortals tumbled out, and then the wonderful one!

"There they are!" cried Jennie. "And, oh--aren't her clothes maddening!"

Lawson, descending first, helped Elsie to the platform with an accepted lover's firm touch. She wore a blue-cloth tailored suit which fitted marvellously, and her color was more exquisite than ever. Admiring Jennie fairly gasped as the simple elegance of Elsie's habit became manifest, and she had only a glance for the sculptor and his wife.

Elsie, with hands extended, seized upon them both with cordial intensity. A little flurry of hand-shakings followed, and at last Mr.

and Mrs. Jerome Parker were introduced. He was a tall man with a bush of yellow beard, while she was dark and plain; but she had a pleasant smile, and her eyes were nice and quiet.

"Do you know, I'm overjoyed to get back!" said Elsie to Curtis. "I don't know why I should be, but I've been eagerly looking for the Cleft b.u.t.te all day. Jerome will tell you that I expressed a sort of proprietors.h.i.+p in every prairie-dog."

"We are very glad to have you here again," replied Curtis. "And now that you _are_ here, we must get your belongings together and get away. We are to camp to-night at the Sandstone Spring."

"A real camp?"

"A real camp. We could drive through, of course, but it would be tiresome, and then I thought you'd enjoy the camp."

"Of course we shall. It's very thoughtful of you."

"Everything will be ready for us. I left Two Horns to look after it."

"Then it will be _right_," said Lawson, who was beaming with placid joy. "Isn't it good to breathe this air again? It was stifling hot in Alta City. I never knew it to be hotter in the month of June."

While they talked, Crane's Voice was collecting the trunks, and in a few minutes, with Elsie by his side, Curtis drove his three-seated buckboard out upon the floor of the valley, leaving the squalid town behind.

Lawson and Mrs. Parker occupied the middle seat, and Jennie and the tall sculptor sat behind. They were all as merry as children. Elsie took off her hat and faced the sun with joyous greeting.

"Isn't this glorious? I've dreamed of this every night for a month."

"That's one thing the Tetong has--good, fresh air, and plenty of it,"

said Lawson.

"A thin diet, sometimes," Curtis replied. He turned to Elsie. "Your studio is all ready for you, and I have spoken to a number of the head men about you. You'll not lack sitters. They are eager to be immortalized at your convenience."

"You are most kind--I am going to work as never before."

"You mustn't work too hard. I have a plan for an outing. One of my districts lies up in the head-waters of the Willow. I propose that we all go camping up there for a couple of weeks."

"Do you hear that, Osborne?" she called, turning her head.

"I did not--what is it?"

Curtis repeated his suggestion, and Parker shouted with joy. "Just what I want to do," he said.

Curtis went on: "We'll find the redman living there under much more favorable conditions than down in the hot valley. We have a saw-mill up in the pines, and the ladies can stay in the superintendent's house--"

"Oh no!" interrupted Elsie. "We must camp. Don't think of putting us under a roof." A little later she said, in a low voice: "Father is in Chicago, and expects to be out here later. I mean, he's coming to make a tour of the State."

"How is his health?" Curtis asked, politely.

Her face clouded. "He's not at all well. He is older than he realizes. I can see he is failing, and he ought not to go into this senatorial fight." After a pause she said: "He was quite ill in March, and I nursed him; he seemed very grateful, and we've been very good friends since."

"I'm glad of that," he replied, and bent closely to his driving.

"You drive well, Captain."

"An Indian agent needs to be able to do anything."

"May I drive?"

"You will spoil your gloves."

"Please! I'll take them off. I'm a famous whip." She smiled at him with such understanding as they had never before reached, as she stripped her gloves from her hands and dropped them at her feet. "Now let me take the reins," she said. He surrendered them to her unhesitatingly.

"I believe you can drive," he said, exultantly.

Her hands were as beautiful as her face, strong and white, and exquisitely modelled; but he, looking upon them with keen admiration, caught the gleam of a diamond on the engagement finger. This should not have chilled him, but it did. Then he thought:

"It is an engagement ring. She is now fairly bound to Lawson," and a light that was within him went out. It was only a tiny, wavering flame of hope, but it had been burning in opposition to his will all the year.

As she drove, they talked about the gra.s.ses and flowers, the mountain range far beyond, the camping trip, and a dozen other impersonal topics which did not satisfy Curtis, though he had no claim to more intimate phrase. She, on her part, was perfectly happy, and retained her hold of the reins and the whip in spite of his protest.

"You must not spoil your beautiful hands," he protested; "they are for higher things. Please return the lines to me."

"Oh no! Please! Just another half-hour--till we reach that b.u.t.te. I'm stronger than you think. I am accustomed to the whip."

She had her way in this, and drove nearly the entire afternoon. When he took the reins at last, her fingers were cramped and swollen, but her face was deeply flushed with pleasure.

"I've had a delicious drive," she gratefully remarked.

At the foot of a tall b.u.t.te Curtis turned his team and struck into a road leading to the left. This road at once descended upon a crescent-shaped, natural meadow enclosed by a small stream, like a babe in a sheltering arm. All about were signs of its use as a camping-ground. Sweat lodges, broken tepee-poles, piles of blackened stones, and rings of bowlders told of the many fires that had been built. Willows fringed the creek, while to the south and west rose a tall, bare hill, on which a stone tower stood like a sentinel warrior.

Elsie cried out in delight of the place. "Isn't it romantic!" Already the sun, sinking behind the hill, threw across the meadow a mysterious purple gloom, out of which a couple of tents gleamed like gray bowlders.

"There is your house to-night," said Curtis. "See the tents?"

"How tiny they look!" Elsie exclaimed, in a hushed voice, as though fearing to alarm and put them to flight.

"They are small, but as night falls you will be amazed to discover how snug and homelike they can become."