Front matter (continued 3)

"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."

CHAPTER XI

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.

CHAPTER XII

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.

CHAPTER XIII

"Gee, she's pretty!"

Cadger came over to the window of his store to see whose horse was meant.

"Oh," he said, with seeming loss of interest as he walked back to his account books.

"She's give in. She's wearing Injin clothes."

"She's got pluck, grit. A man would have given in long ago."

It was Ladd at the store window, and there was something in his attitude or the vibration in his voice that made the other slide him a covert glance.

"He's a disappointment to me in a way," added Ladd, unconscious of the hiatus.

"Who?"

"Calthorpe. Didn't think he'd give her up without a struggle. She's worth fighting for. Most pretty women are just pretty. She's got something behind it, something sort of tantalizing."

He said this mentally, groping for what it was.

Cadger lifted his head from his figures to shift another curious glance at the agent, but he did not reply.

"I somehow imagined that Calthorpe thought enough of the girl to pay us a visit."

"Why should he?" said Cadger, not looking up and continuing to reckon his gains. "When your worst enemy's a barber, why sit down in his chair and invite him to shave you?"

"You heard what he said?" suggested the agent.

"You bet I did. He handed you a bunch of roses all right. I'm kind o' hard of hearin' but I heard it. He said it loud enough fer 'em to hear it in Washington."

"I'm not afraid of Washington so long as Senator Plumtree and Senator Wilkins are on the job. I hear that Judge Walker wants to go back to his law practice, and if he does, Whittaker'll leave the Land Office to be Secretary of the Interior. Our people aren't losing any tricks."

It was plain that Ladd spoke his convictions when he said he felt easy as to Washington.

"Appah's gittin' kind o' chesty," suggested Cadger with an indifference that was important.

"Yes," drawled Ladd. "Take your hand off their throat and let them get an easy breath and they begin to buck. He's showin' off. He'd like his people to think he's a bigger man than I am."

"Oh, he'll settle down and git tame when he's lassoed Wah-na-gi."

"Well, he isn't going to lasso Wah-na-gi," said Ladd quickly.

"No? Why, I thought that was your idee."

"I had hoped that Calthorpe and Appah would sort of mix it up and save me a lot of trouble."

"Then you never intended him to have her?"

"Never."

"That's his understandin'."

"Hand her over to that surly savage?—An educated woman?"

"A good-looker too," suggested Cadger kindly.

"Good-looking?" said Ladd, caught by the bait and forgetting his audience in the interest of his subject. "Have you ever thought what she would show for with all the harness and trimmings our women put on? She isn't good-lookin'; she's a world-beater. Appah's got another guess. Slowly but surely it will be borne in on him that she's out of his class."

"Chickens is awful human, ain't they?" said Cadger. "One of 'em gits a bead on sumpin' good, makes a rush fer it with wings out, and durned if every other chicken don't leave his job, drop sumpin' better maybe, and chase after the grub the first one's after. Most of our fun in gittin' is in takin' it away from somebody else; ain't it?"

Ladd laughed. "Well, I saw it first. Only I never let anything interfere with business."

Cadger's face never collaborated. He really didn't need features. He didn't stop figuring, but said calmly: "Our scheme's on the toboggan and so are you."

"What do you want me to do? Suppose I let him take her? He's got what he wanted and is independent of us. You and I don't get our pay until we deliver the goods."

"It's all right to hold him off if you can, but if he sees you're interested, why it's all off. You can't handle him, that's all."

"Well, if I can't handle him, I can hobble him, and I will. You watch me." And Ladd strolled out of the store and watched the retreating figure of Wah-na-gi as she set out for Chapita's cabin.

If Cadger could have managed it he would have treated himself to a sardonic grin as he said to himself:

"I never knew a good thing yet that wasn't busted by a woman."

Wah-na-gi had been down to sit under the shelter of the flag. It is difficult for the Indian to resist the inborn reverence for symbols, but it was futile. She wouldn't go again. She was, Ladd had said, plucky, but she was at last desperate. Chapita was dead. The cabin which had always been forbidding and forlorn was now empty. She knew that in her way Chapita had loved her and that she was always glad to see her, and then there was some one to talk to. Now she had not even the half-starved, mangy dogs to welcome her.

When the old woman was buried the wretched beasts were killed and their carcasses left at the grave, so that she would not miss their companionship in the spirit world. Solitary confinement drives prisoners mad. Queer thoughts were creeping into her head, thoughts of the grave, of death.

Hal had come into his own. He was interested in other things. He had forgotten. Their paths lay so far apart anyway; they touched for a short distance only, then diverged again, and would go farther and farther away as time went on. He could never live at the Agency again; and she was doomed to it. Should she accept the inevitable, or should she follow Chapita to that desolate village of the dead over in the Bad Lands? She hadn't the strength to decide. She would let it be decided for her. Before she reached the top of the ground swell on which rested the cabin she was conscious that some one was waiting for her. The first sense of relief was succeeded almost at once by apprehension, and she was therefore not surprised to see the tall form of Appah sitting before her door.

He let her stand in his presence a moment while he looked her over. Then he said with conviction: "Wayno! Touge wayno!" (Good! Very good.)

His eyes sparkled as he saw her in the picturesque dress of his people. He stood up. His undisguised elation, his sense of triumph, his certainty of possession stung her into life. At last there was something to do. The weary irresolute droop slipped from her like a shadow and she straightened up and stood face to face with him.

"You have done this," she said, indicating her clothes with a swift gesture that left no doubt of her attitude. "You have done this, but you can't drive me back. You can dog my steps and spy on me; you can steal my clothes like a sneaking squaw; you can take away from me my children, my school; you can starve me and run me down like a wild horse; you can make fun of me to my people, and make them hate me, but you can't drive me back; I'm an Indian woman, but I'm a woman; you can't make me a cringing squaw, crawling at your feet, ready to lick your hand. I'm past that. You can hunt and hound me, but you can't break me!"

His amazement let her get so far, then he advanced upon her with arm upraised.

"Yes and you can kill me as you did Chapita—but it won't make any difference."

The allusion to Chapita startled him and gave him pause a moment to regain his poise and restrain his homicidal impulse.

He drew back, folded his arms and, with a sullen face, said: "Maybe so hate Injin, hate Injin all time."

"No; I don't hate my people. I love them. I want to make them better and stronger and freer. It's you that hates them. Nothing stops. Everything changes. White people change, Indian must change. The buffalo are gone. Lands are gone. Crowded, crowded! Everybody crowded! No room to hunt any more. The Indian must learn to be clean, strong, to work. I love my people; I want to do them good. People like you make trouble, keep them back, deceive them. The old ways are gone. They never will come back; they cannot come back. Once we were hunters, warriors—that was good. Now we must be farmers—that, too, is good. Shinob makes it so. We must obey. You know better too, but you cling to the old ways because they're better for you. If these people weren't ignorant and superstitious they'd know you for what you are—a liar and a cheat."

Appah was in a measure sophisticated, but the fury and audacity of this left him somewhat dazed. He was a reactionary, and the latest phase of the new woman was a form of madness new to him. It might easily have discouraged a wiser man. He was determined to make one more try before falling back on the only recourse left—force.

"Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! (You will be sorry!) Teguin (friend) me! wayno teguin!" he said in an effort to placate her. "Peenunk (pretty soon) pikeway (go away)," and he pointed to the mountains. "Big hunt, maybe so deer catch 'em, make medicine, good time. Maybe so you come, eh?"

"With you? No; I cannot. I will not."

He looked puzzled and frustrated. What would appeal to this woman he wanted?

"Appah way off yonder! By and by you come my wickiup. My wickiup, your wickiup! Pah-sid-uway?"

He was telling her that his home was hers, that while he was away he would like her to live in it, with the implication that all that was in it was hers.

"Thank you; I must stay here."

He saw he had made no progress and fierce anger blazed up within him. He looked at her, at the squalid cabin and its surroundings, and stalked away muttering to himself: "Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! Na-nunk-quoi-vandum." (There will be much trouble.)

She sank down on the empty box where Appah had awaited her. It was a relief, this burst of anger. She had been fighting shadows. She had been alone with her thoughts, her fears, with no one to share them with her. Here was a human being she could hate. There was a savage joy in battle, and she felt an unholy uplift in having hit hard.

Appah would have the better of it in the end, perhaps, but he would carry a scar—there was consolation in that. How curious it was! Appah was very anxious to make her his wife; there was no doubt about that. Why was it that the man she loved, and who loved or seemed to love her, hadn't ever mentioned that subject to her?

"I'll bet I can read your thoughts."

Agent Ladd stood before her, smiling down at her.

She rose in a startled way.

"Mr. Ladd? You here?"

"Don't be frightened. May I sit down and talk with you?"

Here was something new. The aggressive autocrat could be gentle, even deferential. She was puzzled. What could it mean?

She motioned to the box and he sat and took out a pipe and began to fill it.

"First of all, I'd like you to know I'm your friend."

"You haven't acted much like one."

"You won't have to complain of that in the future. As you know, it's the policy of the Government to keep the Indians apart. To discourage their marrying with the whites and to encourage their marrying among themselves. I couldn't openly oppose Appah or stand in his way. In fact, I've given him a free hand, for one reason," and Ladd laughed at his own shrewdness; "because I knew he didn't have a ghost of a chance. You're an educated woman—a lady—and he's a blanket Injin—a savage. It's preposterous."

"And yet you stood by and let them try to drive me back to being a blanket Indian."

"He is an influential man with his people, and it was the only way he would understand. He had to know it was hopeless. Well, he's had his inning; he's had everything his own way; he's brought every argument and influence to bear, legitimate and illegitimate, and he's failed, completely failed, and now it's time this persecution of you stopped; and I'm going to stop it."

He looked at her in a benevolent way, but she waited.

"You can go back to your position in the school whenever you want it."

"Oh, Mr. Ladd; do you mean it?"

If Agent Ladd had known how beautiful he looked to her in the role of Santa Claus he would have been tempted to live it instead of play it.

"Then you don't believe those stories?"

"There is no one knows a good woman better than the man who has had a tolerably wide acquaintance with the other kind. The only difference in women is love. There isn't anything a good woman or a bad woman won't do for the man she loves. And in that connection I want to ask you a rather personal question. You know that Calthorpe and I are enemies. I've been deceived in that boy. I think you have too." Before she had time to protest he said bluntly: "Has he ever asked you to marry him?"

Before she had time to think, before she realized that the agent had no right to ask the question, she gasped falteringly: "No! No."

"I thought so. And he's been doing the devoted for a long time."

She was so conscious of the truth of this that she had no time to reflect that the agent was going quite beyond the legitimate bounds of his position.

"He isn't on the level. You can't trust a half-breed."

"Mr. Ladd, you mustn't say that to me.

"I'll show you the difference. I'll ask you to be my wife."

This was so amazing, so direct, that it took her breath away. She could only sink down bewildered on an upturned bucket. All her preconceived ideas of the man seemed to need readjusting. How did it happen?

"Now, take your time and give me an even chance." He rose but did not disturb her by advancing toward her. "Wah-na-gi, I'm playing for big stakes. I'll tell you something in confidence. These asphalt mines are valuable—very valuable, but back of them are coal mines—rich? There's no end to 'em. At the lowest price ever paid for coal they would pay the national debt and God knows how much besides. The cowboys don't know that. There are only three people know it as yet—a big capitalist, his engineer, and myself. These cowboys are children in a game like this."

"How does this interest me?"

"Why, if we can get our bill through Congress before the rest of the world knows what we're up to, you and I won't have to live at Standing Bear Agency. We'll have the world in a sling. We'll make a plaything of it. Every luxury, every pleasure, honors, if we want 'em! Society? Why, if you want society, we'll buy it for you. Culture, learning, genius; why, they'll eat out of our hand. We'll show 'em. Who'll care then who you are or what you are? Who'll know or care whether you are an Indian or a Fejee? You'll 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.

CHAPTER XIV

The morning following Chavanaugh's appearance with Wah-na-gi's message, Bill and McCloud awoke to find themselves the only persons besides the man cook left on the ranch. Hal knew how to keep his own counsel, so little was said by his two friends, each supposing that the other had been informed of the boss's plans and had received his instructions. But as day wore on and night came, and no word of Hal or his men, each looked at the other inviting confidences and each went to bed without giving or receiving any.

"Hello, Parson; you're up early."

"Wasn't sleeping very well, Bill."

It was before dawn of the following day and the stars were still blinking in the crisp air. The clergyman had had a bad night and had crawled out into the open to get the rest denied to him in bed. He leaned wearily against the support of the veranda and wiped the cold perspiration from his brow. Bill had come from the stable opposite with a lantern in his hand and, seeing some one looming shadowy and ghostly in the dim light, had come over to the tired, pathetic figure and held his lantern up to the clergyman's face. It was a Rembrandt effect. The great patient eyes burning in their hollow sockets, the white face shining with the borrowed light of another world! Here, in the light of a stable lantern, was a beauty that could not be translated into flesh and blood. Here was a face that had been a battle-ground; the scene of a mighty conflict, a life-and-death struggle. It was all there—the wreckage of high hopes and ambitions, the sacrifice of blood and treasure, the sad evidences of futile charges, repulses, heroic stands, of fallen and recovered flags, of glorious scars and wounds, the ashes of spent camp-fires, and the funeral inarch to the inevitable trench. It was noble; it was pitiful; it would be horrible but for the to-morrow when "the weary are at rest."

The eyes of Big Bill were moist and he threw an almost gruff tone into his morning greeting.

"How clean the air is, Bill," said the parson, scenting the perfume of the morning. "What has become of Hal?"

"Ain't never said a word to me. Thought he must have 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."