The Watchers of the Plains Part 19

The room became silent. The yellow light of the lamp threw vague shadows about, and these two made a dark, suggestive picture. The woman's placid and now inscrutable face was in marked contrast to her husband's. His displayed the swift vengeful thoughts pa.s.sing behind it. His overshot jaws were clenched as closely as was physically possible, while his pallid eyes were more alight than Wanaha had ever seen them. As he sat there, biting his thumb so viciously, she wondered what had angered him.

"I don't see how he could have found them," he said at last, more to himself than to her. But she answered him with a quiet rea.s.surance, yet not understanding why it was necessary.

"She only think," she said.

"But he must have given her some cause to think," he said testily. "I'm afraid you're not as cute as I thought."

Wanaha turned away. His words had caused her pain, but he did not heed.

Suddenly his face cleared, and he laughed a little harshly.

"Never mind," he said; "I doubt if he'll lose her through that."

The ambiguity of his remark was lost upon the Indian. She heard the laugh and needed no more. She rose and began to clear the table, while Nevil stood in the open doorway and gazed out into the night.

Standing there, his face hidden from Wanaha, he took no trouble to disguise his thoughts. And from his expression his thoughts were pleasant enough, or at least satisfactory to him, which was all he could reasonably expect.

His face was directed toward White River Farm, and he was thinking chiefly of Seth, a man he hated for no stronger reason than his own loss of caste, his own degeneracy, while the other remained an honest man. The deepest hatreds often are founded on one's own failings, one's own obvious inferiority to another. He was thinking of that love which Wanaha had a.s.sured him Seth entertained for Rosebud, and he was glad. So glad that he forgot many things that he ought to have remembered. One amongst them was the fact that, whatever he might be, Wanaha was a good woman. And honesty never yet blended satisfactorily with rascality.

CHAPTER XIV

THE WARNING

"Ma," exclaimed Rosebud, after a long and unusual silence while she was was.h.i.+ng up the breakfast things, and Mrs. Sampson was busy with some cleaning at the other side of the kitchen, "do you ever get tired of your work here? Your life, I mean?"

It was early morning. Already the heat in the kitchen was intense. Ma looked hot, but then she was stooping and polis.h.i.+ng, and the flies were provoking. Rosebud, in linen overall, still looked cool. Her face was serious enough, which seemed to be the result of some long train of thought. Ma suddenly stopped working to look up, and waved a protesting hand at the swarming flies. She found the girl's violet eyes looking steadily into hers. There was an earnestness in their depths as unusual as the seriousness of her face. The old woman had been about to answer hastily, but she changed her mind.

"Why should I, child?" she said, as though such a contingency were out of all reason. "It's all ours, I guess. It's jest ours to make or mar. Ther'

isn't a stick on this farm that we haven't seen set ther', Rube an' me.

Tired of it? Guess the only tire I'll feel'll come when I can't set foot to the ground, an' ain't the strength to kindle a stove or scrub a floor.

Tired? No, child. What fixed you to get askin' that?"

The plates clattered under Rosebud's hands as she went on with her work.

Ma eyed the stack of dishes in some doubt. She thought there might be some excuse for the girl being a little tired of domestic duties. She often wondered about this. Yet she had never heard Rosebud complain; besides, she had a wise thought in the back of her head about the girl's feelings toward at least one of their little family circle.

"I don't quite know, Ma," the girl said at last. Then she added quickly, feeling, of a sudden, that her question had suggested something she did not intend. "Don't think I am. I was wondering over something else." She laughed a little uncertainly. "It's Seth. He's always harping on my going away. Always thinking of the time when my people are to be found. And I just wondered if he thought I was tired of the farm and wanted to be away.

He's so kind and good to me, and I thought he might, in a mistaken way, believe I'd be happier in--well, with those people who have forgotten my very existence. I love the farm, and--and all of you. And I don't want to go away."

Ma turned again to her work with a wise little smile in her twinkling eyes.

"Seth's a far-seein' boy, an' a good boy in 'most everything," she said, in a tone indicating wholehearted affection; "but he's like most folks with head-pieces, I guess. He don't stop at things which it is given to men to understand. Ef I wus a man I'd say of Seth, he's li'ble to git boostin' his nose into places not built fer a nose like his. Seein' I'm his 'Ma,' I'd jest say he ain't no call to git figgerin' out what's good fer wimminfolk."

"That's just what I think," exclaimed Rosebud, with a quick laugh. "He made me quite angry some time ago. He means to get me off the farm somehow. And--and--I could just thump him for it." The girl's seriousness had pa.s.sed, and she spoke lightly enough now.

"Men-folk do rile you some," nodded Ma. But the twinkle had not left her eyes. "But, my girl, I shouldn't be surprised if Seth's got mighty good reason. An' it ain't to do with his personal feelin's."

Rosebud went on with her was.h.i.+ng without speaking. She was thinking of that picnic she had taken with Seth and General nearly three weeks ago. It had almost developed into a serious quarrel. It would have done so, only Seth refused to quarrel.

"He said, one day, he thought it was better I should go. Much better," she said, presently. "Well, it made me angry. I don't want to go, and I don't see why Seth should be allowed to order me to go. The farm doesn't belong to him. Besides----"

"Well, y' see, Rosebud, you're forgettin' Seth brought you here. He's a kind of father to you." Ma smiled mischievously in the girl's direction, but Rosebud was too busy with her own thoughts to heed it.

"He's not my father, or anything of the kind. He's just Seth. He's not thirty yet, and I am eighteen. Pa's a father to me, and you are my mother.

And Seth--Seth's no relation at all. And I'm just not going to call him 'Daddy' ever again. It's that that makes him think he's got the right to order me about," she added, as a hasty afterthought.

Further talk was interrupted at that moment by a knock at the back door.

Rosebud pa.s.sed out into the wash-house to answer the summons, and Ma Sampson heard her greet the Indian woman, Wanaha. The old farmwife muttered to herself as she turned back to her work.

"Guess Seth ain't got the speed of a jibbin' mule," she said slowly and emphatically.

The girl did not return, and Ma, looking out of the window, saw the two women walking together, engaged in earnest conversation. She looked from them to the breakfast things, and finally left her own work and finished the was.h.i.+ng up herself. It was part of her way to spare Rosebud as much as she could, and the excuse served her now.

While Rosebud was receiving a visit from Wanaha at the back of the house, the men-folk, engaged in off-loading pine logs from a wagon, were receiving visitors at the front of it. The Indian Agent and Mr.

Hargreaves had driven up in a buckboard. The Agent's team was sweating profusely, a fact which the sharp eyes of Seth were quick to detect; also he noted that Parker was driving a team and not the usual one horse.

"Kind o' busy?" questioned Seth, in answer to the two men's greetings.

The Agent glanced at the steaming horses and nodded.

"Going into Beacon Crossing," he said.

"Ah," said Rube, in his heavy, guttural fas.h.i.+on. "Gettin' fixin's?"

The Agent smiled, and nodded at the minister beside him.

"Yes, of a sort; we both are."

"How?"

It was Seth who spoke, and a shade more sharply than usual.

"Well, I want to send a wire over the line, and wait a reply. We shan't be out again until Tuesday, and that's why we came over. There'll be no sewing cla.s.s on Monday. You see, Mr. Hargreaves is going with me. We are driving instead of riding, because we're going to bring out some small arm ammunition. We're both getting short of it."

The Agent's manner was casual enough, but the minister's face was grave.

The former endeavored to pa.s.s lightly over the matter of the ammunition.

A brief silence followed. It was broken at last by the Agent again.

"Getting on with the logs?" he said.

"Yes. We're fixin' a big corral right round the farm."

It was Rube who explained; and the old man glanced from Seth with a comprehensive survey of the proposed enclosure.

"By the way," said Mr. Hargreaves, "I shouldn't let Rosebud come to the Mission on Sunday. I shan't be there, but Jackson from Pine Ridge will hold the service. You see, there's--well----" The churchman broke off, and turned appealingly to the Agent.