The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop Part 48

"We are all transition types," remarked Curtis, harking back to a remark of Lawson's making.

"Even these settlers are immortal souls," said Parker.

"Consider!" exclaimed Lawson. "How could we live without the Indian question? Maynard would be like Oth.e.l.lo--occupation gone. Curtis would cease to be a philanthropist. Elsie Bee Bee would go sadly back to painting 'old hats' and dead ducks. I alone of all this company would be busy and well paid. I would continue to study the remains of the race."

Jennie rose. "Put a period there," said she, "till we escape, and, remember, if we hear any loud talk we'll come out and fetch you away,"

and she hurried out into the sitting-room, where Elsie and Mrs. Parker yielded up valuable suggestions about dress.

As the Parkers rose to go, Lawson approached Elsie and asked in a low voice: "_Are_ you going home to the mess-house to-night? If you are, I want to go with you."

"I'll be ready in a moment," she replied, but her eyes wavered. As they stepped out together quite in the old way, he abruptly but gently began:

"It is significant of our changed relations when I say that this is the first time I've had an opportunity for a private word since our camping trip. There is no need of this constraint, Elsie. I want you to be your good, frank self with me. I'll not misunderstand it. I am not charging anything up against you. In fact, I can see that you are right in your decision, but it hurts me to have you avoid me as you have done lately."

There was something in his voice which brought the hot tears to her eyes and she replied, gently: "I'm very sorry, Osborne. I hoped you wouldn't care--so much, and I didn't mean--"

"I've tried not to show my hurt, for my own sake as well as yours, but the fact is I didn't realize how deeply you'd taken root in my thoughts till I tried to put you away. It is said that no two lovers are ever equal sharers in affection--one always gives more than the other--or one expects more than the other. I was perfectly sincere when I made that bargain with you, and I know you were; but you are younger than I, and that has changed the conditions for you. I am older than you thought, and I find myself naturally demanding more and more. I think I understand better than I did two days ago why you gave me back the ring, and I do not complain of it. I shall never again refer to it, but we can at least be friends. This cold silence--"

She put out her hand. "Don't, please don't."

"I can't bear your being stiff and uncomfortable in my presence, Bee Bee! You even called me Mister Lawson." There was a pathetic sort of humor in his voice which touched her. "Let us be good comrades again."

She gave him her hand. "Very well, Osborne. But you are mistaken if you think--"

"Time will tell!" he interrupted, and his voice was strenuously cheerful. "Anyhow, we are on a sound footing again. Good-night."

The presence of Maynard and the troop was a greater relief to Curtis than he realized. He laid down for a moment's rest on his couch and fell into a dreamless sleep at once, and Jennie, deciding not to arouse him, spread a light shawl over him and withdrew softly. Maynard's coming brought a deeper sense of security than a stranger could have given with twice the number of troops. "Jack Maynard is so dependable," she said, and a distinct note of tenderness trembled in her voice.

XXVI

THE WARRIOR PROCLAIMS HIMSELF

The messengers from both Riddell and Pinon reported to Curtis about daylight, laden with papers and telegrams. The telegrams naturally received first reading. There was one filled with instructions from the Secretary of the Interior, and one from the Commissioner, bidding him stand firm. Several anxious ones from various cities, all of this tenor: "Is there any danger? my niece is one of your teachers," etc. In the midst of the others, Curtis came upon a fat one for Elsie, plainly from her father. This he put aside till after breakfast, when he permitted himself the pleasure of carrying it to the studio. He found her at work, painting a little brown tot of a girl in the arms of her smiling mother.

"I have a telegram for you--from your father, no doubt."

She rose quickly and opened the envelope. As she read she laughed. "Poor papa; he is genuinely alarmed. Read it."

He took it with more interest than he cared to show, and found it most peremptory in tone.

"Reports from Fort Smith most alarming. Come out at once. Have wired the agent to furnish escort and conveyance. Shall expect you to reply immediately, giving news that you have left agency. You should not have gone there. I will meet you at Pinon City if possible; if I do not, take train for Alta. Wire me your plans. Country is much alarmed. I must hear from you at once or shall be worried."

Curtis looked up with an amused light in his eyes. "He's a little incoherent, but sufficiently mandatory. When will you start?"

"I will send a telegram out at once that I am safe, and all danger over.

He will not want me to leave now."

"Very well. A messenger will start at once with all our letters and messages. Anything you wish to send can go at the same time."

"What news have you?"

"I only had time to glance at my mail, but the papers are all that Lawson has predicted. If you would know how important a criminal I am, read these"--he pointed at a bundle on a chair. "I must go back to the office now, but I will wait for your letters and telegrams before despatching a messenger. If you think it better to go than to stay, I will ask Captain Maynard to escort you to the station."

"I will stay," she replied.

She wrote a brief telegram to her father, saying: "I am quite safe and hard at work. All quiet; don't worry," and also composed a letter giving vital details of the situation and taking strong ground against the way in which the cattlemen had invaded the reservation. In conclusion she added: "I have a fine studio, plenty of models, and am in fine health; I cannot think of giving up my work because of this foolish panic. Don't let these settlers influence you against Captain Curtis; he's right this time."

As she ran through the papers and caught the full significance of their precipitate attack on the agent, her teeth clinched in hot indignation.

At the first breath, before they were sure of a single item of news, they leaped upon an honorable man, accusing him of concealing stolen cattle and of harboring murderers and thieves. "As for the Indians, it is time to exterminate these vermin! Let the State wipe out this tribe and its agency, and send this fellow Curtis back to his regiment where he belongs," was the burden of their song.

As she read on, tingling with wrath at these vulgarly written and utterly un-Christian editorials, the girl caught an amazing side-glimpse of herself and the views she once held. She remembered reading just such reports once before, and joining with her father in his desire to punish the redmen. Was Lawson right? Had her notions of the "brave and n.o.ble pioneers fighting the wild beast and the savage" arisen from ignorance of their true nature? Had they always been as narrow, as bigoted, as relentless, and as greedy as these articles hinted at? Some of Lawson's clean-cut, relentless phrases came back to her at the moment, and she began to believe that he was nearer right than she had been. And her father? Would he sanction such libels as these? At last the essential grandeur of the position held in common by both Curtis and Lawson--of the right of the small people to their place on the planet--came to her, and in opposition to their grave, sweet eyes she saw again the brutal, leering faces of the mob, and comprehended the feelings of a chief like Grayman, as he confronts the oncoming hordes of a destroying race.

Meanwhile, in the gra.s.sy hollow between two round-top hills the bands of Elk and Grayman were gathered in extraordinary council. No one was in gala-dress, no one was painted, all were serious or sad or morose. Upon their folded blankets the head men sat in a small circle on the smooth sod, exposed to the blazing sun. Behind them stood or knelt a larger circle, the men and boys on one side, the women on the other, while in the rear, mounted on their fleetest ponies, some two hundred of the young men were ranked, enthralled listeners to the impa.s.sioned speeches of the old men.

Crawling Elk made the first address, repeating the story which the agent had told and calling upon all those who sat before him to search for the guilty one and report to him if they found him. His words were received in silence.

Then Grayman rose, and, stepping into the circle, began to speak in a low and sorrowful voice. Something in his manner as well as in his words enlisted the almost breathless interest of the crowd. There was a tragic pathos in his voice as he called out: "You see how it is, brothers; we are like a nest of ants in a white man's field, which he is ploughing.

We are only a few and weak, while all around us our enemies press in upon us. We have only one friend--our Little Father. We must do as he says. We must give up a man to the war chief of the cowboys. They will never believe that any one else killed the sheep-man. The cattlemen and sheepmen are always quarrelling, but they readily join hands to do the Tetongs harm."

"It is death to us to fight the white man; I know it. Unless we all wish to be shot, we must not become angry this time; we must do as the Little Father says, and if we cannot find the man who did this thing, I will go and give myself into the hands of the white war chief." A murmur of protest and anger ran round the circle. "It is better for one to suffer than many," he said, in answer to the protest, "and I am old. My wife is dead. I have but one son, and he is estranged from me. I say, if we cannot find who did this thing, then I am willing to go and be killed of the white people in order to keep the peace. I have said it."

Standing Elk leaped to his feet, tall, gaunt, excitable. "We will not do this," he said. "We will fight first." And among the young warriors there was applause. "The Tetongs are not dogs to be always kicked in the ribs. I have fought the white man. I have met 'Long Hair' and 'Bear Robe' in battle. I am not afraid of the cattlemen. I am old, but my heart is yet big. Let us do battle and die like brave men."

Then Crawling Elk rose, and his broad, good-humored face shone in the sun like polished bronze as he turned his cheek to the wind.

"The words of my brother are loud and quick," he said, slowly. "In the ancient time it was always so. He was always ready to fight. I was always opposed to fighting. We must not talk of fighting now; all that is put away. It belongs to the suns that have gone over our heads. We must now talk of cattle-herding and ploughing. We must strive always to be at peace with the cowboys. I, too, am old. I have not many years to live; but you young men have a long time to live, and you cannot be always quarrelling with the settlers; you must be wise and patient. Our Little Father, Swift Eagle, is our friend; you can trust him. You can put your hand in his and find it strong and warm. His heart is good and his words are wise. If we can find the man who did this evil deed, we must give him up. It is not right that all of us should suffer for the wickedness of one man. No, it is not right that we who are old should die for one whose hands are red."

This speech was also received in silence, but plainly produced a powerful effect. Then one of the men who found the body rose and told what he knew of the case. "I do not think a Tetong killed the man," he said, in conclusion.

In this wise the talk proceeded for nearly two hours, and then the council rose to meet again at sunset, and word of what had been said was carried to Curtis by Crawling Elk and Grayman.

To them Curtis said: "I am pleased with you. Go over the names of all your reckless young men, and when you reach one you think might do such a deed, question him and his people closely. The sh.e.l.ls of the rifle were the largest size--that may help you. Your old men would not do this thing--their heads are cool; but some of your young men have hot hearts and may have quarrelled with this herder."

The old men went away very sorrowful. Grayman was especially troubled, because he could not help thinking all the time of Cut Finger, his nephew.

Running Fox, or "Cut Finger," as the white people called him, he knew to be a morose and reckless young man, and probably possessed of some evil spirit, for at times he was quite crazy. Once he had forced his pony into the cooking-lodge of Bear Paw for no reason at all, and Bear Paw, in a rage, had s.n.a.t.c.hed up his rifle and fired, putting a bullet through the bridle hand of Running Fox, who lost two fingers and gained a new name. At another time the mad fool had tried to force his horse to leap a cliff; and once he had attempted to drown himself; and yet, between these obsessions, he could be very winning, and there were many among Elk's band who pitied him. He was comely withal, and had married a handsome girl, the daughter of Standing Wolf. It was easy to imagine that Cut Finger was the guilty one, and yet to think of him was to think of his son's intimate friend.

When he reached his tepee Grayman lit his pipe and sat down alone and remained in deep thought for hours. He feared to find Cut Finger guilty, for his own son was Cut Finger's friend, or fellow, and that means the closest intimacy. There are no secrets between a Tetong and his chum.

"If Cut Finger is guilty, then my son knows of it. That I fear."