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Good Indian

by B. M. Bower · English · Gutenberg #938 · 464,960 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Good Indian

Author: B. M. Bower


        
Release date: June 1, 1997 [eBook #938]
                Most recently updated: March 9, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/938

Credits: Produced by Ken Smidge, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOOD INDIAN ***




Produced by Ken Smidge





GOOD INDIAN

by B. M. Bower

1912




Contents:

     I     PEACEFUL HART RANCH
     II    GOOD INDIAN
     III   OLD WIVES' TALES
     IV    THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL
     V     “I DON'T CARE MUCH ABOUT GIRLS”
      VI    THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL PLAYS GHOST
     VII   MISS GEORGIE HOWARD, OPERATOR
     VIII  THE AMIABLE ANGLER
     IX    PEPPAJEE JIM “HEAP SABES”
      X     MIDNIGHT PROWLERS
     XI    “YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH ME”
      XII   “THEM DAMN' SNAKE”
      XIII  CLOUD-SIGN VERSUS CUPID
     XIV   THE CLAIM-JUMPERS
     XV    SQUAW-TALK-FAR-OFF HEAP SMART
     XVI   “DON'T GET EXCITED!”
      XVII  A LITTLE TARGET PRACTICE
     XVIII A SHOT FROM THE RIM-ROCK
     XIX   EVADNA GOES CALLING
     XX    MISS GEORGIE ALSO MAKES A CALL
     XXI   SOMEBODY SHOT SAUNDERS
     XXII  A BIT OF PAPER
     XXIII THE MALICE OF A SQUAW
     XXIV  PEACEFUL RETURN
     XXV   “I'D JUST AS SOON HANG FOR NINE MEN AS FOR ONE”
      XXVI  “WHEN THE SUN GOES AWAY”
      XXVII LIFE ADJUSTS ITSELF AGAIN TO SMALL THINGS




GOOD INDIAN




CHAPTER I. PEACEFUL HART RANCH

It was somewhere in the seventies when old Peaceful Hart woke to a
realization that gold-hunting and lumbago do not take kindly to one
another, and the fact that his pipe and dim-eyed meditation appealed to
him more keenly than did his prospector's pick and shovel and pan seemed
to imply that he was growing old. He was a silent man, by occupation
and by nature, so he said nothing about it; but, like the wild things
of prairie and wood, instinctively began preparing for the winter of his
life. Where he had lately been washing tentatively the sand along Snake
River, he built a ranch. His prospector's tools he used in digging
ditches to irrigate his new-made meadows, and his mining days he lived
over again only in halting recital to his sons when they clamored for
details of the old days when Indians were not mere untidy neighbors to
be gossiped with and fed, but enemies to be fought, upon occasion.

They felt that fate had cheated them--did those five sons; for they had
been born a few years too late for the fun. Not one of them would ever
have earned the title of “Peaceful,” as had his father. Nature had
played a joke upon old Peaceful Hart; for he, the mildest-mannered
man who ever helped to tame the West when it really needed taming, had
somehow fathered five riotous young males to whom fight meant fun--and
the fiercer, the funnier.

He used to suck at his old, straight-stemmed pipe and regard them with a
bewildered curiosity sometimes; but he never tried to put his puzzlement
into speech. The nearest he ever came to elucidation, perhaps, was when
he turned from them and let his pale-blue eyes dwell speculatively
upon the face of his wife, Phoebe. Clearly he considered that she was
responsible for their dispositions.

The house stood cuddled against a rocky bluff so high it dwarfed the
whole ranch to pygmy size when one gazed down from the rim, and so steep
that one wondered how the huge, gray bowlders managed to perch upon
its side instead of rolling down and crushing the buildings to dust and
fragments. Strangers used to keep a wary eye upon that bluff, as if
they never felt quite safe from its menace. Coyotes skulked there, and
tarantulas and “bobcats” and snakes. Once an outlaw hid there for days,
within sight and hearing of the house, and stole bread from Phoebe's
pantry at night--but that is a story in itself.

A great spring gurgled out from under a huge bowlder just behind the
house, and over it Peaceful had built a stone milk house, where Phoebe
spent long hours in cool retirement on churning day, and where one went
to beg good things to eat and to drink. There was fruit cake always
hidden away in stone jars, and cheese, and buttermilk, and cream.

Peaceful Hart must have had a streak of poetry somewhere hidden away in
his silent soul. He built a pond against the bluff; hollowed it out from
the sand he had once washed for traces of gold, and let the big spring
fill it full and seek an outlet at the far end, where it slid away under
a little stone bridge. He planted the pond with rainbow trout, and on
the margin a rampart of Lombardy poplars, which grew and grew until they
threatened to reach up and tear ragged holes in the drifting clouds.
Their slender shadows lay, like gigantic fingers, far up the bluff when
the sun sank low in the afternoon.

Behind them grew a small jungle of trees-catalpa and locust among
them--a jungle which surrounded the house, and in summer hid it from
sight entirely.

With the spring creek whispering through the grove and away to where it
was defiled by trampling hoofs in the corrals and pastures beyond, and
with the roses which Phoebe Hart kept abloom until the frosts came, and
the bees, and humming--birds which somehow found their way across the
parched sagebrush plains and foregathered there, Peaceful Hart's ranch
betrayed his secret longing for girls, as if he had unconsciously
planned it for the daughters he had been denied.

It was an ideal place for hammocks and romance--a place where dainty
maidens might dream their way to womanhood. And Peaceful Hart, when all
was done, grew old watching five full-blooded boys clicking their
heels unromantically together as they roosted upon the porch, and threw
cigarette stubs at the water lilies while they wrangled amiably over the
merits of their mounts; saw them drag their blankets out into the broody
dusk of the grove when the nights were hot, and heard their muffled
swearing under their “tarps” because of the mosquitoes which kept the
night air twanging like a stricken harp string with their song.

They liked the place well enough. There were plenty of shady places
to lie and smoke in when the mercury went sizzling up its tiny tube.
Sometimes, when there was a dance, they would choose the best of
Phoebe's roses to decorate their horses' bridles; and perhaps their
hatbands, also. Peaceful would then suck harder than ever at his pipe,
and his faded blue eyes would wander pathetically about the little
paradise of his making, as if he wondered whether, after all, it had
been worth while.

A tight picket fence, built in three unswerving lines from the post
planted solidly in a cairn of rocks against a bowlder on the eastern rim
of the pond, to the road which cut straight through the ranch, down that
to the farthest tree of the grove, then back to the bluff again, shut in
that tribute to the sentimental side of Peaceful's nature. Outside the
fence dwelt sturdier, Western realities.

Once the gate swung shut upon the grove one blinked in the garish
sunlight of the plains. There began the real ranch world. There was the
pile of sagebrush fuel, all twisted and gray, pungent as a bottle
of spilled liniment, where braided, blanketed bucks were sometimes
prevailed upon to labor desultorily with an ax in hope of being rewarded
with fruit new-gathered from the orchard or a place at Phoebe's long
table in the great kitchen.

There was the stone blacksmith shop, where the boys sweated over the
nice adjustment of shoes upon the feet of fighting, wild-eyed horses,
which afterward would furnish a spectacle of unseemly behavior under the
saddle.

Farther away were the long stable, the corrals where broncho-taming was
simply so much work to be performed, hayfields, an orchard or two, then
rocks and sand and sage which grayed the earth to the very skyline.

A glint of slithering green showed where the Snake hugged the bluff a
mile away, and a brown trail, ankle-deep in dust, stretched straight out
to the west, and then lost itself unexpectedly behind a sharp, jutting
point of rocks where the bluff had thrust out a rugged finger into the
valley.

By devious turnings and breath-taking climbs, the trail finally reached
the top at the only point for miles, where it was possible for a
horseman to pass up or down.

Then began the desert, a great stretch of unlovely sage and lava rock
and sand for mile upon mile, to where the distant mountain ridges
reached out and halted peremptorily the ugly sweep of it. The railroad
gashed it boldly, after the manner of the iron trail of modern industry;
but the trails of the desert dwellers wound through it diffidently,
avoiding the rough crest of lava rock where they might, dodging the
most aggressive sagebrush and dipping tentatively into hollows, seeking
always the easiest way to reach some remote settlement or ranch.

Of the men who followed those trails, not one of them but could have
ridden straight to the Peaceful Hart ranch in black darkness; and there
were few, indeed, white men or Indians, who could have ridden there at
midnight and not been sure of blankets and a welcome to sweeten their
sleep. Such was the Peaceful Hart Ranch, conjured from the sage and the
sand in the valley of the Snake.



CHAPTER II. GOOD INDIAN

There is a saying--and if it is not purely Western, it is at least
purely American--that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. In the very
teeth of that, and in spite of the fact that he was neither very good,
nor an Indian--nor in any sense “dead”--men called Grant Imsen “Good
Indian” to his face; and if he resented the title, his resentment was
never made manifest--perhaps because he had grown up with the name, he
rather liked it when he was a little fellow, and with custom had come to
take it as a matter of course.

Because his paternal ancestry went back, and back to no one knows
where among the race of blue eyes and fair skin, the Indians repudiated
relationship with him, and called him white man--though they also spoke
of him unthinkingly as “Good Injun.”

Because old Wolfbelly himself would grudgingly admit under pressure
that the mother of Grant had been the half-caste daughter of Wolfbelly's
sister, white men remembered the taint when they were angry, and called
him Injun. And because he stood thus between the two races of men, his
exact social status a subject always open to argument, not even the fact
that he was looked upon by the Harts as one of the family, with his own
bed always ready for him in a corner of the big room set apart for the
boys, and with a certain place at the table which was called his--not
even his assured position there could keep him from sometimes feeling
quite alone, and perhaps a trifle bitter over his loneliness.

Phoebe Hart had mothered him from the time when his father had sickened
and died in her house, leaving Grant there with twelve years behind him,
in his hands a dirty canvas bag of gold coin so heavy he could scarce
lift it, which stood for the mining claim the old man had just sold, and
the command to invest every one of the gold coins in schooling.

Old John Imsen was steeped in knowledge of the open; nothing of the
great outdoors had ever slipped past him and remained mysterious. Put
when he sold his last claim--others he had which promised little and so
did not count--he had signed his name with an X. Another had written the
word John before that X, and the word Imsen after; above, a word which
he explained was “his,” and below the word “mark.” John Imsen had stared
down suspiciously at the words, and he had not felt quite easy in his
mind until the bag of gold coins was actually in his keeping. Also, he
had been ashamed of that X. It was a simple thing to make with a pen,
and yet he had only succeeded in making it look like two crooked sticks
thrown down carelessly, one upon the other. His face had gone darkly red
with the shame of it, and he had stood scowling down at the paper.

“That boy uh mine's goin' to do better 'n that, by God!” he had sworn,
and the words had sounded like a vow.

When, two months after that, he had faced--incredulously, as is the way
with strong men--the fact that for him life was over, with nothing
left to him save an hour or so of labored breath and a few muttered
sentences, he did not forget that vow. He called Phoebe close to the
bed, placed the bag of gold in Grant's trembling hands, and stared
intently from one face to the other.

“Mis' Hart, he ain't got--anybody--my folks--I lost track of 'em years
ago. You see to it--git some learnin' in his head. When a man knows
books--it's--like bein' heeled--good gun--plenty uh ca't'idges--in
a fight. When I got that gold--it was like fightin' with my bare
hands--against a gatlin' gun. They coulda cheated me--whole thing--on
paper--I wouldn't know--luck--just luck they didn't. So you take it--and
git the boy schoolin'. Costs money--I know that--git him all it'll
buy. Send him--where they keep--the best. Don't yuh let up--n'er let
him--whilst they's a dollar left. Put it all--into his head--then he
can't lose it, and he can--make it earn more. An'--I guess I needn't
ask yuh--be good to him. He ain't got anybody--not a soul--Injuns don't
count. You see to it--don't let up till--it's all gone.”

Phoebe had taken him literally. And Grant, if he had little taste
for the task, had learned books and other things not mentioned in
the curriculums of the schools she sent him to--and when the bag was
reported by Phoebe to be empty, he had returned with inward relief to
the desultory life of the Hart ranch and its immediate vicinity.

His father would probably have been amazed to see how little difference
that schooling made in the boy. The money had lasted long enough to take
him through a preparatory school and into the second year of a college;
and the only result apparent was speech a shade less slipshod than that
of his fellows, and a vocabulary which permitted him to indulge in an
amazing number of epithets and in colorful vituperation when the fancy
seized him.

He rode, hot and thirsty and tired, from Sage Hill one day and found
Hartley empty of interest, hot as the trail he had just now left
thankfully behind him, and so absolutely sleepy that it seemed likely to
sink into the sage-clothed earth under the weight of its own dullness.
Even the whisky was so warm it burned like fire, and the beer he tried
left upon his outraged palate the unhappy memory of insipid warmth and
great bitterness.

He plumped the heavy glass down upon the grimy counter in the dusty far
corner of the little store and stared sourly at Pete Hamilton, who was
apathetically opening hatboxes for the inspection of an Indian in a red
blanket and frowsy braids.

“How much?” The braided one fingered indecisively the broad brim of a
gray sombrero.

“Nine dollars.” Pete leaned heavily against the shelves behind him and
sighed with the weariness of mere living.

“Huh! All same buy one good hoss.” The braided one dropped the hat,
hitched his blanket over his shoulder in stoical disregard of the heat,
and turned away.

Pete replaced the cover, seemed about to place the box upon the shelf
behind him, and then evidently decided that it was not worth the effort.
He sighed again.

“It is almighty hot,” he mumbled languidly. “Want another drink, Good
Injun?”

“I do not. Hot toddy never did appeal to me, my friend. If you weren't
too lazy to give orders, Pete, you'd have cold beer for a day like this.
You'd give Saunders something to do beside lie in the shade and tell
what kind of a man he used to be before his lungs went to the bad. Put
him to work. Make him pack this stuff down cellar where it isn't two
hundred in the shade. Why don't you?”

“We was going to get ice t'day, but they didn't throw it off when the
train went through.”

“That's comforting--to a man with a thirst like the great Sahara. Ice!
Pete, do you know what I'd like to do to a man that mentions ice after a
drink like that?”

Pete neither knew nor wanted to know, and he told Grant so. “If you're
going down to the ranch,” he added, by way of changing the subject,
“there's some mail you might as well take along.”

“Sure, I'm going--for a drink out of that spring, if nothing else.
You've lost a good customer to-day, Pete. I rode up here prepared to get
sinfully jagged--and here I've got to go on a still hunt for water with
a chill to it--or maybe buttermilk. Pete, do you know what I think of
you and your joint?”

“I told you I don't wanta know. Some folks ain't never satisfied. A
fellow that's rode thirty or forty miles to get here, on a day like
this, had oughta be glad to get anything that looks like beer.”

“Is that so?” Grant walked purposefully down to the front of the store,
where Pete was fumbling behind the rampart of crude pigeonholes which
was the post-office. “Let me inform you, then, that--”

There was a swish of skirts upon the rough platform outside, and a young
woman entered with the manner of feeling perfectly at home there.
She was rather tall, rather strong and capable looking, and she was
bareheaded, and carried a door key suspended from a smooth-worn bit of
wood.

“Don't get into a perspiration making up the mail, Pete,” she advised
calmly, quite ignoring both Grant and the Indian. “Fifteen is an hour
late--as usual. Jockey Bates always seems to be under the impression
he's an undertaker's assistant, and is headed for the graveyard when he
takes fifteen out. He'll get the can, first he knows--and he'll put in
a month or two wondering why. I could make better time than he does
myself.” By then she was leaning with both elbows upon the counter
beside the post-office, bored beyond words with life as it must be
lived--to judge from her tone and her attitude.

“For Heaven's sake, Pete,” she went on languidly, “can't you scare up a
novel, or chocolates, or gum, or--ANYTHING to kill time? I'd even enjoy
chewing gum right now--it would give my jaws something to think of,
anyway.”

Pete, grinning indulgently, came out of retirement behind the
pigeonholes, and looked inquiringly around the store.

“I've got cards,” he suggested. “What's the matter with a game of
solitary? I've known men to put in hull winters alone, up in the
mountains, jest eating and sleeping and playin' solitary.”

The young woman made a grimace of disgust. “I've come from three solid
hours of it. What I really do want is something to read. Haven't you
even got an almanac?”

“Saunders is readin' 'The Brokenhearted Bride'--you can have it soon's
he's through. He says it's a peach.”

“Fifteen is bringing up a bunch of magazines. I'll have reading in
plenty two hours from now; but my heavens above, those two hours!” She
struck both fists despairingly upon the counter.

“I've got gumdrops, and fancy mixed--”

“Forget it, then. A five-pound box of chocolates is due--on fifteen.”
 She sighed heavily. “I wish you weren't so old, and hadn't quite so many
chins, Pete,” she complained. “I'd inveigle you into a flirtation. You
see how desperate I am for something to do!”

Pete smiled unhappily. He was sensitive about all those chins, and the
general bulk which accompanied them.

“Let me make you acquainted with my friend, Good In--er--Mr. Imsen.”
 Pete considered that he was behaving with great discernment and tact.
“This is Miss Georgie Howard, the new operator.” He twinkled his little
eyes at her maliciously. “Say, he ain't got but one chin, and he's only
twenty-three years old.” He felt that the inference was too plain to be
ignored.

She turned her head slowly and looked Grant over with an air of
disparagement, while she nodded negligently as an acknowledgment to
the introduction. “Pete thinks he's awfully witty,” she remarked. “It's
really pathetic.”

Pete bristled--as much as a fat man could bristle on so hot a day.
“Well, you said you wanted to flirt, and so I took it for granted you'd
like--”

Good Indian looked straight past the girl, and scowled at Pete.

“Pete, you're an idiot ordinarily, but when you try to be smart you're
absolutely insufferable. You're mentally incapable of recognizing the
line of demarcation between legitimate persiflage and objectionable
familiarity. An ignoramus of your particular class ought to confine
his repartee to unqualified affirmation or the negative monosyllable.”
 Whereupon he pulled his hat more firmly upon his head, hunched his
shoulders in disgust, remembered his manners, and bowed to Miss Georgie
Howard, and stalked out, as straight of back as the Indian whose blanket
he brushed, and who may have been, for all he knew, a blood relative of
his.

“I guess that ought to hold you for a while, Pete,” Miss Georgie
approved under her breath, and stared after Grant curiously. “'You're
mentally incapable of recognizing the line of demarcation between
legitimate persiflage and objectionable familiarity.' I'll bet two bits
you don't know what that means, Pete; but it hits you off exactly. Who
is this Mr. Imsen?”

She got no reply to that. Indeed, she did not wait for a reply. Outside,
things were happening--and, since Miss Georgie was dying of dullness,
she hailed the disturbance as a Heaven-sent blessing, and ran to see
what was going on.

Briefly, Grant had inadvertently stepped on a sleeping dog's paw--a dog
of the mongrel breed which infests Indian camps, and which had attached
itself to the blanketed buck inside. The dog awoke with a yelp, saw
that it was a stranger who had perpetrated the outrage, and straightway
fastened its teeth in the leg of Grant's trousers. Grant kicked it
loose, and when it came at him again, he swore vengeance and mounted his
horse in haste.

He did not say a word. He even smiled while he uncoiled his rope,
widened the loop, and, while the dog was circling warily and watching
for another chance at him, dropped the loop neatly over its front
quarters, and drew it tight.

Saunders, a weak-lunged, bandy-legged individual, who was officially a
general chore man for Pete, but who did little except lie in the shade,
reading novels or gossiping, awoke then, and, having a reputation for
tender-heartedness, waved his arms and called aloud in the name of
peace.

“Turn him loose, I tell yuh! A helpless critter like that--you oughta be
ashamed--abusin' dumb animals that can't fight back!”

“Oh, can't he?” Grant laughed grimly.

“You turn that dog loose!” Saunders became vehement, and paid the
penalty of a paroxysm of coughing.

“You go to the devil. If you were an able-bodied man, I'd get you,
too--just to have a pair of you. Yelping, snapping curs, both of you.”
 He played the dog as a fisherman plays a trout.

“That dog, him Viney dog. Viney heap likum. You no killum, Good Injun.”
 The Indian, his arms folded in his blanket, stood upon the porch
watching calmly the fun. “Viney all time heap mad, you killum,” he added
indifferently.

“Sure it isn't old Hagar's?”

“No b'long-um Hagar--b'long-um Viney. Viney heap likum.”

Grant hesitated, circling erratically with his victim close to the
steps. “All right, no killum--teachum lesson, though. Viney heap bueno
squaw--heap likum Viney. No likum dog, though. Dog all time come along
me.” He glanced up, passed over the fact that Miss Georgie Howard was
watching him and clapping her hands enthusiastically at the spectacle,
and settled an unfriendly stare upon Saunders.

“You shut up your yowling. You'll burst a blood vessel and go to heaven,
first thing you know. I've never contemplated hiring you as my guardian
angel, you blatting buck sheep. Go off and lie down somewhere.” He
turned in the saddle and looked down at the dog, clawing and fighting
the rope which held him fast just back of the shoulder--blades. “Come
along, doggie--NICE doggie!” he grinned, and touched his horse with the
spurs. With one leap, it was off at a sharp gallop, up over the hill and
through the sagebrush to where he knew the Indian camp must be.

Old Wolfbelly had but that morning brought his thirty or forty followers
to camp in the hollow where was a spring of clear water--the hollow
which had for long been known locally as “the Indian Camp,” because of
Wolfbelly's predilection for the spot. Without warning save for the beat
of hoofs in the sandy soil, Grant charged over the brow of the hill and
into camp, scattering dogs, papooses, and squaws alike as he rode.

Shrill clamor filled the sultry air. Sleeping bucks awoke, scowling at
the uproar; and the horse of Good Indian, hating always the smell and
the litter of an Indian camp, pitched furiously into the very wikiup of
old Hagar, who hated the rider of old. In the first breathing spell he
loosed the dog, which skulked, limping, into the first sheltered spot
he found, and laid him down to lick his outraged person and whimper to
himself at the memory of his plight. Grant pulled his horse to a restive
stand before a group of screeching squaws, and laughed outright at the
panic of them.

“Hello! Viney! I brought back your dog,” he drawled. “He tried to bite
me--heap kay bueno* dog. Mebbyso you killum. Me no hurtum--all time
him Hartley, all time him try hard bite me. Sleeping Turtle tell me him
Viney dog. He likum Viney, me no kill Viney dog. You all time mebbyso
eat that dog--sabe? No keep--Kay bueno. All time try for bite. You
cookum, no can bite. Sabe?”

*AUTHOR'S NOTE.--The Indians of southern Idaho spoke a somewhat mixed
dialect. Bueno (wayno), their word for 'good,' undoubtedly being taken
from the Spanish language. I believe the word “kay” to be Indian.
It means “no”, and thus the “Kay bueno” so often used by them means
literally “no good,” and is a term of reproach On the other hand, “heap
bueno” is “very good,” their enthusiasm being manifested merely by
drawing out the word “heap.” In speaking English they appear to have no
other way of expressing, in a single phrase, their like or dislike of an
object or person.

Without waiting to see whether Viney approved of his method of
disciplining her dog, or intended to take his advice regarding its
disposal, he wheeled and started off in the direction of the trail which
led down the bluff to the Hart ranch. When he reached the first steep
descent, however, he remembered that Pete had spoken of some mail for
the Harts, and turned back to get it.

Once more in Hartley, he found that the belated train was making up
time, and would be there within an hour; and, since it carried mail from
the West, it seemed hardly worthwhile to ride away before its arrival.
Also, Pete intimated that there was a good chance of prevailing upon the
dining-car conductor to throw off a chunk of ice. Grant, therefore, led
his horse around into the shade, and made himself comfortable while he
waited.



CHAPTER III. OLD WIVES TALES

Down the winding trail of Snake River bluff straggled a blanketed half
dozen of old Wolfbelly's tribe, the braves stalking moodily in front and
kicking up a gray cloud of dust which enveloped the squaws behind them
but could not choke to silence their shrill chatter; for old Hagar was
there, and Viney, and the incident of the dog was fresh in their minds
and tickling their tongues.

The Hart boys were assembled at the corral, halter-breaking a
three-year-old for the pure fun of it. Wally caught sight of the
approaching blotch of color, and yelled a wordless greeting; him had
old Hagar carried lovingly upon her broad shoulders with her own papoose
when he was no longer than her arm; and she knew his voice even at that
distance, and grinned--grinned and hid her joy in a fold of her dingy
red blanket.

“Looks like old Wolfbelly's back,” Clark observed needlessly. “Donny, if
they don't go to the house right away, you go and tell mum they're here.
Chances are the whole bunch'll hang around till supper.”

“Say!” Gene giggled with fourteen-year-old irrepressibility. “Does
anybody know where Vadnie is? If we could spring 'em on her and make her
believe they're on the warpath--say, I'll gamble she'd run clear to the
Malad!”

“I told her, cross my heart, this morning that the Injuns are peaceful
now. I said Good Injun was the only one that's dangerous--oh, I sure did
throw a good stiff load, all right!” Clark grinned at the memory. “I've
got to see Grant first, when he gets back, and put him wise to the rep
he's got. Vad didn't hardly swallow it. She said: 'Why, Cousin Clark!
Aunt Phoebe says he's perfectly lovely!”' Clark mimicked the girl's
voice with relish.

“Aw--there's a lot of squaws tagging along behind!” Donny complained
disgustedly from his post of observation on the fence. “They'll go to
the house first thing to gabble--there's old Hagar waddling along like
a duck. You can't make that warpath business stick, Clark--not with all
them squaws.”

“Well, say, you sneak up and hide somewhere till yuh see if Vadnie's
anywhere around. If they get settled down talking to mum, they're
good for an hour--she's churning, Don--you hide in the rocks by the
milk-house till they get settled. And I'll see if--Git! Pikeway, while
they're behind the stacks!”

Donny climbed down and scurried through the sand to the house as if his
very life depended upon reaching it unseen. The group of Indians came
up, huddled at the corral, and peered through the stout rails.

“How! How!” chorused the boys, and left the horse for a moment while
they shook hands ceremoniously with the three bucks. Three Indians,
Clark decided regretfully, would make a tame showing on the warpath,
however much they might lend themselves to the spirit of the joke. He
did not quite know how he was going to manage it, but he was hopeful
still. It was unthinkable that real live Indians should be permitted to
come and go upon the ranch without giving Evadna Ramsey, straight from
New Jersey, the scare of her life.

The three bucks, grunting monosyllabic greetings' climbed, in all the
dignity of their blankets, to the top rail of the corral, and roosted
there to watch the horse-breaking; and for the present Clark held his
peace.

The squaws hovered there for a moment longer, peeping through the rails.
Then Hagar--she of much flesh and more temper--grunted a word or two,
and they turned and plodded on to where the house stood hidden away
in its nest of cool green. For a space they stood outside the fence,
peering warily into the shade, instinctively cautious in their manner of
approaching a strange place, and detained also by the Indian etiquette
which demands that one wait until invited to enter a strange camp.

After a period of waiting which seemed to old Hagar sufficient, she
pulled her blanket tight across her broad hips, waddled to the
gate, pulled it open with self-conscious assurance, and led the way
soft-footedly around the house to where certain faint sounds betrayed
the presence of Phoebe Hart in her stone milk-house.

At the top of the short flight of wide stone steps they stopped and
huddled silently, until the black shadow of them warned Phoebe of their
presence. She had lived too long in the West to seem startled when she
suddenly discovered herself watched by three pair of beady black eyes,
so she merely nodded, and laid down her butter-ladle to shake hands all
around.

“How, Hagar? How, Viney? How, Lucy? Heap glad to see you. Bueno
buttermilk--mebbyso you drinkum?”

However diffident they might be when it came to announcing their
arrival, their bashfulness did not extend to accepting offers of food
or drink. Three brown hands were eagerly outstretched--though it was the
hand of Hagar which grasped first the big tin cup. They not only
drank, they guzzled, and afterward drew a fold of blanket across their
milk-white lips, and grinned in pure animal satisfaction.

“Bueno. He-e-ap bueno!” they chorused appreciatively, and squatted at
the top of the stone steps, watching Phoebe manipulate the great ball of
yellow butter in its wooden bowl.

After a brief silence, Hagar shook the tangle of unkempt, black hair
away from her moonlike face, and began talking in a soft monotone, her
voice now and then rising to a shrill singsong.

“Mebbyso Tom, mebbyso Sharlie, mebbyso Sleeping Turtle all time come
along,” she announced. “Stop all time corral, talk yo' boys. Mebbyso
heap likum drink yo' butter water. Bueno.”

When Phoebe nodded assent, Hagar went on to the news which had brought
her so soon to the ranch--the news which satisfied both an old grudge
and her love of gossip.

“Good Injun, him all time heap kay bueno,” she stated emphatically, her
sloe black eyes fixed unwaveringly upon Phoebe's face to see if the stab
was effective. “Good Injun come Hartley, all time drunk likum pig.

“All time heap yell, heap shoot--kay bueno. Wantum fight
Man-that-coughs. Come all time camp, heap yell, heap shoot some more. I
fetchum dog--Viney dog--heap dragum through sagebrush--dog all time cry,
no can get away--me thinkum kill that dog. Squaws cry--Viney cry--Good
Injun”--Hagar paused here for greater effect--“makum horse all time
buck--ridum in wikiup--Hagar wikiup--all time breakum--no can fix that
wikiup. Good Injun, hee-e-ap kay bueno!” At the last her voice was high
and tremulous with anger.

“Good Indian mebbyso all same my boy Wally.” Phoebe gave the butter a
vicious slap. “Me heap love Good Indian. You no call Good Indian, you
call Grant. Grant bueno. Heap bueno all time. No drunk, no yell, no
shoot, mebbyso”--she hesitated, knowing well the possibilities of her
foster son--“mebbyso catchum dog--me think no catchum. Grant all same my
boy. All time me likum--heap bueno.”

Viney and Lucy nudged each other and tittered into their blankets,
for the argument was an old one between Hagar and Phoebe, though the
grievance of Hagar might be fresh. Hagar shifted her blanket and thrust
out a stubborn under lip.

“Wally boy, heap bueno,” she said; and her malicious old face softened
as she spoke of him, dear as her own first-born. “Jack bueno, mebbyso
Gene bueno, mebbyso Clark, mebbyso Donny all time bueno.” Doubt was in
her voice when she praised those last two, however, because of their
continual teasing. She stopped short to emphasize the damning contrast.
“Good Injun all same mebbyso yo' boy Grant, hee-ee-eap kay bueno. Good
Injun Grant all time DEBBIL!”

It was at this point that Donny slipped away to report that “Mamma and
old Hagar are scrappin' over Good Injun again,” and told with glee the
tale of his misdeeds as recounted by the squaw.

Phoebe in her earnestness forgot to keep within the limitations of their
dialect.

“Grant's a good boy, and a smart boy. There isn't a better-hearted
fellow in the country, if I have got five boys of my own. You think
I like him better than I like Wally, is all ails you, Hagar. You're
jealous of Grant, and you always have been, ever since his father
left him with me. I hope my heart's big enough to hold them all.” She
remembered then that they could not understand half she was saying, and
appealed to Viney. Viney liked Grant.

“Viney, you tell me. Grant no come Hartley, no drunk, no yell, no
catchum you dog, no ride in Hagar's wikiup? You tell me, Viney.”

Viney and Lucy bobbed their heads rapidly up and down. Viney, with a
sidelong glance at Hagar, spoke softly.

“Good Injun Grant, mebbyso home Hartley,” she admitted reluctantly, as
if she would have been pleased to prove Hagar a liar in all things.
“Me thinkum no drunk. Mebbyso ketchum dog--dog kay bueno, mebbyso me
killing. Good Injun Grant no heap yell, no shoot all time--mebbyso no
drunk. No breakum wikiup. Horse all time kay bueno, Hagar--”

“Shont-isham!” (big lie) Hagar interrupted shrilly then, and Viney
relapsed into silence, her thin face growing sullen under the upbraiding
she received in her native tongue. Phoebe, looking at her attentively,
despaired of getting any nearer the truth from any of them.

There was a sudden check to Hagar's shrewish clamor. The squaws
stiffened to immobility and listened stolidly, their eyes alone
betraying the curiosity they felt. Off somewhere at the head of the tiny
pond, hidden away in the jungle of green, a voice was singing; a girl's
voice, and a strange voice--for the squaws knew well the few women
voices along the Snake.

“That my girl,” Phoebe explained, stopping the soft pat--pat of her
butter-ladle.

“Where ketchum yo' girl?” Hagar forgot her petulance, and became curious
as any white woman.

“Me ketchum 'way off, where sun come up. In time me have heap
boys--mebbyso want girl all time. My mother's sister's boy have one
girl, 'way off where sun come up. My mother's sister's boy die, his
wife all same die, that girl mebbyso heap sad; no got father, no got
mother--all time got nobody. Kay bueno. That girl send one letter, say
all time got nobody. Me want one girl. Me send one letter, tell that
girl come, be all time my girl. Five days ago, that girl come. Her heap
glad; boys all time heap glad, my man heap glad. Bueno. Mebbyso you glad
me have one girl.” Not that their approval was necessary, or even of
much importance; but Phoebe was accustomed to treat them like spoiled
children.

Hagar's lip was out-thrust again. “Yo' ketchum one girl, mebbyso yo' no
more likum my boy Wally. Kay bueno.”

“Heap like all my boys jus' same,” Phoebe hastened to assure her, and
added with a hint of malice, “Heap like my boy Grant all same.”

“Huh!” Hagar chose to remain unconvinced and antagonistic. “Good Injun
kay bueno. Yo' girl, mebbyso kay bueno.”

“What name yo' girl?” Viney interposed hastily.

“Name Evadna Ramsey.” In spite of herself, Phoebe felt a trifle chilled
by their lack of enthusiasm. She went back to her butter-making in
dignified silence.

The squaws blinked at her stolidly. Always they were inclined toward
suspicion of strangers, and perhaps to a measure of jealousy as well.
Not many whites received them with frank friendship as did the Hart
family, and they felt far more upon the subject than they might put into
words, even the words of their own language.

Many of the white race looked upon them as beggars, which was bad
enough, or as thieves, which was worse; and in a general way they could
not deny the truth of it. But they never stole from the Harts, and they
never openly begged from the Harts. The friends of the Harts, however,
must prove their friendship before they could hope for better than an
imperturbable neutrality. So they would not pretend to be glad. Hagar
was right--perhaps the girl was no good. They would wait until they
could pass judgment upon this girl who had come to live in the wikiup
of the Harts. Then Lucy, she who longed always for children and had been
denied by fate, stirred slightly, her nostrils aquiver.

“Mebbyso bueno yo' girl,” she yielded, speaking softly. “Mebbyso see
yo' girl.”

Phoebe's face cleared, and she called, in mellow crescendo: “Oh,
Va-ad-NIEE?” Immediately the singing stopped.

“Coming, Aunt Phoebe,” answered the voice.

The squaws wrapped themselves afresh in their blankets, passed brown
palms smoothingly down their hair from the part in the middle, settled
their braids upon their bosoms with true feminine instinct, and waited.
They heard her feet crunching softly in the gravel that bordered the
pond, but not a head turned that way; for all the sign of life they
gave, the three might have been mere effigies of women. They heard a
faint scream when she caught sight of them sitting there, and their
faces settled into more stolid indifference, adding a hint of antagonism
even to the soft eyes of Lucy, the tender, childless one.

“Vadnie, here are some new neighbors I want you to get acquainted with.”
 Phoebe's eyes besought the girl to be calm. “They're all old friends of
mine. Come here and let me introduce you--and don't look so horrified,
honey!”

Those incorrigibles, her cousins, would have whooped with joy at her
unmistakable terror when she held out a trembling hand and gasped
faintly: “H-how do you--do?”

“This Hagar,” Phoebe announced cheerfully; and the old squaw caught the
girl's hand and gripped it tightly for a moment in malicious enjoyment
of her too evident fear and repulsion.

“This Viney.”

Viney, reading Evadna's face in one keen, upward glance, kept her hands
hidden in the folds of her blanket, and only nodded twice reassuringly.

“This Lucy.”

Lucy read also the girl's face; but she reached up, pressed her hand
gently, and her glance was soft and friendly. So the ordeal was over.

“Bring some of that cake you baked to-day, honey--and do brace up!”
 Phoebe patted her upon the shoulder.

Hagar forestalled the hospitable intent by getting slowly upon her fat
legs, shaking her hair out of her eyes, and grunting a command to the
others. With visible reluctance Lucy and Viney rose also, hitched their
blankets into place, and vanished, soft-footed as they had come.

“Oo-oo!” Evadna stared at the place where they were not. “Wild
Indians--I thought the boys were just teasing when they said so--and
it's really true, Aunt Phoebe?”

“They're no wilder than you are,” Phoebe retorted impatiently.

“Oh, they ARE wild. They're exactly like in my history--and they don't
make a sound when they go--you just look, and they're gone! That old fat
one--did you see how she looked at me? As if she wanted to--SCALP me,
Aunt Phoebe! She looked right at my hair and--”

“Well, she didn't take it with her, did she? Don't be silly. I've known
old Hagar ever since Wally was a baby. She took him right to her own
wikiup and nursed him with her own papoose for two months when I was
sick, and Viney stayed with me day and night and pulled me through. Lucy
I've known since she was a papoose. Great grief, child! Didn't you hear
me say they're old friends? I wanted you to be nice to them, because
if they like you there's nothing they won't do for you. If they don't,
there's nothing they WILL do. You might as well get used to them--”

Out by the gate rose a clamor which swept nearer and nearer until the
noise broke at the corner of the house like a great wave, in a tumult of
red blanket, flying black hair, the squalling of a female voice, and
the harsh laughter of the man who carried the disturbance, kicking and
clawing, in his arms. Fighting his way to the milk-house, he dragged the
squaw along beside the porch, followed by the Indians and all the Hart
boys, a yelling, jeering audience.

“You tell her shont-isham! Ah-h--you can't break loose, you old
she-wildcat. Quit your biting, will you? By all the big and little
spirits of your tribe, you'll wish--”

Panting, laughing, swearing also in breathless exclamations, he forced
her to the top of the steps, backed recklessly down them, and came to
a stop in the corner by the door. Evadna had taken refuge there; and he
pressed her hard against the rough wall without in the least realizing
that anything was behind him save unsentient stone.

“Now, you sing your little song, and be quick about it!” he commanded
his captive sternly. “You tell Mother Hart you lied. I hear she's been
telling you I'm drunk, Mother Hart--didn't you, you old beldam? You say
you heap sorry you all time tellum lie. You say: 'Good Injun, him all
time heap bueno.' Say: 'Good Injun no drunk, no heap shoot, no heap
yell--all time bueno.' Quick, or I'll land you headforemost in that
pond, you infernal old hag!”

“Good Injun hee-eeap kay bueno! Heap debbil all time.” Hagar might be
short of breath, but her spirit was unconquered, and her under lip bore
witness to her stubbornness.

Phoebe caught him by the arm then, thinking he meant to make good his
threat--and it would not have been unlike Grant Imsen to do so.

“Now, Grant, you let her go,” she coaxed. “I know you aren't drunk--of
course, I knew it all the time. I told Hagar so. What do you care what
she says about you? You don't want to fight an old woman, Grant--a man
can't fight a woman--”

“You tell her you heap big liar!” Grant did not even look at Phoebe,
but his purpose seemed to waver in spite of himself. “You all time kay
bueno. You all time lie.” He gripped her more firmly, and turned his
head slightly toward Phoebe. “You'd be tired of it yourself if she threw
it into you like she does into me, Mother Hart. It's got so I can't ride
past this old hag in the trail but she gives me the bad eye, and mumbles
into her blanket. And if I look sidewise, she yowls all over the country
that I'm drunk. I'm getting tired of it!” He shook the squaw as a puppy
shakes a shoe--shook her till her hair quite hid her ugly old face from
sight.

“All right--Mother Hart she tellum mebbyso let you go. This time I no
throw you in pond. You heap take care next time, mebbyso. You no tellum
big lie, me all time heap drunk. You kay bueno. All time me tellum
Mother Hart, tellum boys, tellum Viney, Lucy, tellum Charlie and Tom and
Sleeping Turtle you heap big liar. Me tell Wally shont-isham. Him all
time my friend--mebbyso him no likum you no more.

“Huh. Get out--pikeway before I forget you're a lady!”

He laughed ironically, and pushed her from him so suddenly that she
sprawled upon the steps. The Indians grinned unsympathetically at her,
for Hagar was not the most popular member of the tribe by any means.
Scrambling up, she shook her witch locks from her face, wrapped herself
in her dingy blanket, and scuttled away, muttering maledictions under
her breath. The watching group turned and followed her, and in a few
seconds the gate was heard to slam shut behind them. Grant stood where
he was, leaning against the milk-house wall; and when they were gone, he
gave a short, apologetic laugh.

“No need to lecture, Mother Hart. I know it was a fool thing to do; but
when Donny told me what the old devil said, I was so mad for a minute--”

Phoebe caught him again by the arm and pulled him forward. “Grant!
You're squeezing Vadnie to death, just about! Great grief, I forgot all
about the poor child being here! You poor little--”

“Squeezing who?” Grant whirled, and caught a brief glimpse of a crumpled
little figure behind him, evidently too scared to cry, and yet not quite
at the fainting point of terror. He backed, and began to stammer an
apology; but she did not wait to hear a word of it. For an instant
she stared into his face, and then, like a rabbit released from its
paralysis of dread, she darted past him and deaf up the stone steps into
the house. He heard the kitchen-door shut, and the click of the lock.
He heard other doors slam suggestively; and he laughed in spite of his
astonishment.

“And who the deuce might that be?” he asked, feeling in his pocket for
smoking material.

Phoebe seemed undecided between tears and laughter. “Oh, Grant, GRANT!
She'll think you're ready to murder everybody on the ranch--and you can
be such a nice boy when you want to be! I did hope--”

“I don't want to be nice,” Grant objected, drawing a match along a
fairly smooth rock.

“Well, I wanted you to appear at your best; and, instead of that, here
you come, squabbling with old Hagar like--”

“Yes--sure. But who is the timid lady?”

“Timid! You nearly killed the poor girl, besides scaring her half to
death, and then you call her timid. I know she thought there was going
to be a real Indian massacre, right here, and she'd be scalped--”

Wally Hart came back, laughing to himself.

“Say, you've sure cooked your goose with old Hagar, Grant! She's right
on the warpath, and then some. She'd like to burn yuh alive--she said
so. She's headed for camp, and all the rest of the bunch at her heels.
She won't come here any more till you're kicked off the ranch, as near
as I could make out her jabbering. And she won't do your washing any
more, mum--she said so. You're kay bueno yourself, because you take Good
Indian's part. We're all kay bueno--all but me. She wanted me to quit
the bunch and go live in her wikiup. I'm the only decent one in the
outfit.” He gave his mother an affectionate little hug as he went past,
and began an investigative tour of the stone jars on the cool rock floor
within. “What was it all about, Grant? What did yuh do to her, anyway?”

“Oh, it wasn't anything. Hand me up a cup of that buttermilk, will you?
They've got a dog up there in camp that I'm going to kill some of these
days--if they don't beat me to it. He was up at the store, and when I
went out to get my horse, he tried to take a leg off me. I kicked him
in the nose and he came at me again, so when I mounted I just dropped
my loop over Mr. Dog. Sleeping Turtle was there, and he said the dog
belonged to Viney, So I just led him gently to camp.”

He grinned a little at the memory of his gentleness. “I told Viney I
thought he'd make a fine stew, and, they'd better use him up right away
before he spoiled. That's all there was to it. Well, Keno did sink his
head and pitch around camp a little, but not to amount to anything. He
just stuck his nose into old Hagar's wikiup--and one sniff seemed to be
about all he wanted. He didn't hurt anything.”

He took a meditative bite of cake, finished the buttermilk in three
rapturous swallows, and bethought him of the feminine mystery.

“If you please, Mother Hart, who was that Christmas angel I squashed?”

“Vad? Was Vad in on it, mum? I never saw her.” Wally straightened up
with a fresh chunk of cake in his hand. “Was she scared?”

“Yes,” his mother admitted reluctantly, “I guess she was, all right.
First the squaws--and, poor girl, I made her shake hands all round--and
then Grant here, acting like a wild hyena--”

“Say, PLEASE don't tell me who she is, or where she belongs, or anything
like that,” Grant interposed, with some sarcasm. “I smashed her flat
between me and the wall, and I scared the daylights out of her; and I'm
told I should have appeared at my best. But who she is, or where she
belongs--”

“She belongs right here.” Phoebe's tone was a challenge, whether she
meant it to be so or not. “This is going to be her home from now on; and
I want you boys to treat her nicer than you've been doing. She's been
here a week almost; and there ain't one of you that's made friends with
her yet, or tried to, even. You've played jokes on her, and told her
things to scare her--and my grief! I was hoping she'd have a softening
influence on you, and make gentlemen of you. And far as I can make out,
just having her on the place seems to put the Old Harry into every one
of you! It isn't right. It isn't the way I expected my boys would act
toward a stranger--a girl especially. And I did hope Grant would behave
better.”

“Sure, he ought to. Us boneheads don't know any better--but Grant's
EDUCATED.” Wally grinned and winked elaborately at his mother's back.

“I'm not educated up to Christmas angels that look as if they'd been
stepped on,” Grant defended himself.

“She's a real nice little thing. If you boys would quit teasing the life
out of her, I don't doubt but what, in six months or so, you wouldn't
know the girl,” Phoebe argued, with some heat.

“I don't know the girl now.” Grant spoke dryly. “I don't want to. If I'd
held a tomahawk in one hand and her flowing locks in the other, and
was just letting a war-whoop outa me, she'd look at me--the way she did
look.” He snorted in contemptuous amusement, and gave a little, writhing
twist of his slim body into his trousers. “I never did like blondes,” he
added, in a tone of finality, and started up the steps.

“You never liked anything that wore skirts,” Phoebe flung after him
indignantly; and she came very close to the truth.



CHAPTER IV. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL

Phoebe watched the two unhappily, sighed when they disappeared around
the corner of the house, and set her bowl of butter upon the broad, flat
rock which just missed being overflowed with water, and sighed again.

“I'm afraid it isn't going to work,” she murmured aloud; for Phoebe,
having lived much of her life in the loneliness which the West means
to women, frequently talked to herself. “She's such a nice little
thing--but the boys don't take to her like I thought they would. I don't
see as she's having a mite of influence on their manners, unless it's to
make them act worse, just to shock her. Clark USED to take off his hat
when he come into the house most every time. And great grief! Now he'd
wear it and his chaps and spurs to the table, if I didn't make him take
them off. She's nice--she's most too nice. I've got to give that girl a
good talking to.”

She mounted the steps to the back porch, tried the kitchen door, and
found it locked. She went around to the door on the west side, opposite
the gate, found that also secured upon the inside, and passed grimly to
the next.

“My grief! I didn't know any of these doors COULD be locked!” she
muttered angrily. “They never have been before that I ever heard of.”
 She stopped before Evadna's window, and saw, through a slit in the green
blind, that the old-fashioned bureau had been pulled close before it.
“My grief!” she whispered disgustedly, and retraced her steps to
the east side, which, being next to the pond, was more secluded.
She surveyed dryly a window left wide open there, gathered her
brown-and-white calico dress close about her plump person, and crawled
grimly through into the sitting-room, where, to the distress of Phoebe's
order-loving soul, the carpet was daily well-sanded with the tread of
boys' boots fresh from outdoors, and where cigarette stubs decorated
every window-sill, and the stale odor of Peaceful's pipe was never long
absent.

She went first to all the outer rooms, and unlocked every one of the
outraged doors which, unless in the uproar and excitement of racing,
laughing boys pursuing one another all over the place with much slamming
and good-natured threats of various sorts, had never before barred the
way of any man, be he red or white, came he at noon or at midnight.

Evadna's door was barricaded, as Phoebe discovered when she turned the
knob and attempted to walk in. She gave the door an indignant push, and
heard a muffled shriek within, as if Evadna's head was buried under her
pillow.

“My grief! A body'd think you expected to be killed and eaten,” she
called out unsympathetically. “You open this door! Vadnie Ramsey.
This is a nice way to act with my own boys, in my own house! A body'd
think--”

There was the sound of something heavy being dragged laboriously away
from the barricaded door; and in a minute a vividly blue eye appeared at
a narrow crack.

“Oh, I don't see how you dare to L-LIVE in such a place, Aunt Phoebe!”
 she cried tearfully, opening the door a bit wider. “Those Indians--and
that awful man--”

“That was only Grant, honey. Let me in. There's a few things I want
to say to you, Vadnie. You promised to help me teach my boys to be
gentle--it's all they lack, and it takes gentle women, honey--”

“I am gentle,” Evadna protested grievedly. “I've never once forgotten
to be gentle and quiet, and I haven't done a thing to them--but they're
horrid and rough, anyway--”

“Let me in, honey, and we'll talk it over. Something's got to be done.
If you wouldn't be so timid, and would make friends with them, instead
of looking at them as if you expected them to murder you--I must say,
Vadnie, you're a real temptation; they can't help scaring you when you
go around acting as if you expected to be scared. You--you're TOO--” The
door opened still wider, and she went in. “Now, the idea of a great girl
like you hiding her head under a pillow just because Grant asked old
Hagar to apologize!”

Evadna sat down upon the edge of the bed and stared unwinkingly at her
aunt. “They don't apologize like that in New Jersey,” she observed, with
some resentment in her voice, and dabbed at her unbelievably blue eyes
with a moist ball of handkerchief.

“I know they don't, honey.” Phoebe patted her hand reassuringly. “That's
what I want you to help me teach my boys--to be real gentlemen. They're
pure gold, every one of them; but I can't deny they're pretty rough on
the outside sometimes. And I hope you will be--”

“Oh, I know. I understand perfectly. You just got me out here as a--a
sort of sandpaper for your boys' manners!” Evadna choked over a little
sob of self-pity. “I can just tell you one thing, Aunt Phoebe, that
fellow you call Grant ought to be smoothed with one of those funny axes
they hew logs with.”

Phoebe bit her lips because she wanted to treat the subject very
seriously. “I want you to promise me, honey, that you will be
particularly nice to Grant; PARTICULARLY nice. He's so alone, and
he's very proud and sensitive, because he feels his loneliness. No one
understands him as I do--”

“I hate him!” gritted Evadna, in an emphatic whisper which her Aunt
Phoebe thought it wise not to seem to hear.

Phoebe settled herself comfortably for a long talk. The murmur of her
voice as she explained and comforted and advised came soothingly from
the room, with now and then an interruption while she waited for a tardy
answer to some question. Finally she rose and stood in the doorway,
looking back at a huddled figure on the bed.

“Now dry your eyes and be a good girl, and remember what you've
promised,” she admonished kindly. “Aunt Phoebe didn't mean to scold you,
honey; she only wants you to feel that you belong here, and she wants
you to like her boys and have them like you. They've always wanted a
sister to pet; and Aunt Phoebe is hoping you'll not disappoint her.
You'll try; won't you, Vadnie?”

“Y--yes,” murmured Vadnie meekly from the pillow. “I know you will.”
 Phoebe looked at her for a moment longer rather wistfully, and turned
away. “I do wish she had some spunk,” she muttered complainingly, not
thinking that Evadna might hear her. “She don't take after the Ramseys
none--there wasn't anything mushy about them that I ever heard of.”

“Mushy! MUSHY!” Evadna sat up and stared at nothing at all while she
repeated the word under her breath. “She wants me to be gentle--she
preached gentleness in her letters, and told how her boys need it, and
then--she calls it being MUSHY!”

She reached mechanically for her hair-brush, and fumbled in a tumbled
mass of shining, yellow hair quite as unbelievable in its way as were
her eyes--Grant had shown a faculty for observing keenly when he called
her a Christmas angel--and drew out a half-dozen hairpins, letting them
slide from her lap to the floor. “MUSHY!” she repeated, and shook down
her hair so that it framed her face and those eyes of hers. “I suppose
that's what they all say behind my back. And how can a girl be nice
WITHOUT being mushy?” She drew the brush meditatively through her
hair. “I am scared to death of Indians,” she admitted, with analytical
frankness, “and tarantulas and snakes--but--MUSHY!”

Grant stood smoking in the doorway of the sitting-room, where he could
look out upon the smooth waters of the pond darkening under the shade of
the poplars and the bluff behind, when Evadna came out of her room. He
glanced across at her, saw her hesitate, as if she were meditating a
retreat, and gave his shoulders a twitch of tolerant amusement that she
should be afraid of him. Then he stared out over the pond again. Evadna
walked straight over to him.

“So you're that other savage whose manners I'm supposed to smooth, are
you?” she asked abruptly, coming to a stop within three feet of him, and
regarding him carefully, her hands clasped behind her.

“Please don't tease the animals,” Grant returned, in the same impersonal
tone which she had seen fit to employ--but his eyes turned for a
sidelong glance at her, although he appeared to be watching the trout
rise lazily to the insects skimming over the surface of the water.

“I'm supposed to be nice to you--par-TIC-ularly nice--because you need
it most. I dare say you do, judging from what I've seen of you. At any
rate, I've promised. But I just want you to understand that I'm not
going to mean one single bit of it. I don't like you--I can't endure
you!--and if I'm nice, it will just be because I've promised Aunt
Phoebe. You're not to take my politeness at its face value, for back of
it I shall dislike you all the time.”

Grant's lips twitched, and there was a covert twinkle in his eyes,
though he looked around him with elaborate surprise.

“It's early in the day for mosquitoes,” he drawled; “but I was sure I
heard one buzzing somewhere close.”

“Aunt Phoebe ought to get a street roller to smooth your manners,”
 Evadna observed pointedly.

“Instead it's as if she hung her picture of a Christmas angel up before
the wolf's den, eh?” he suggested calmly, betraying his Indian blood
in the unconsciously symbolic form of expression. “No doubt the wolf's
nature will be greatly benefited--his teeth will be dulled for his
prey, his voice softened for the nightcry--if he should ever, by chance,
discover that the Christmas angel is there.”

“I don't think he'll be long in making the discovery.” The blue of
Evadna's eyes darkened and darkened until they were almost black.
“Christmas angel,--well, I like that! Much you know about angels.”

Grant turned his head indolently and regarded her.

“If it isn't a Christmas angel--they're always very blue and very
golden, and pinky-whitey--if it isn't a Christmas angel, for the Lord's
sake what is it?” He gave his head a slight shake, as if the problem was
beyond his solving, and flicked the ashes from his cigarette.

“Oh, I could pinch you!” She gritted her teeth to prove she meant what
she said.

“It says it could pinch me.” Grant lazily addressed the trout. “I wonder
why it didn't, then, when it was being squashed?”

“I just wish to goodness I had! Only I suppose Aunt Phoebe--”

“I do believe it's got a temper. I wonder, now, if it could be a LIVE
angel?” Grant spoke to the softly swaying poplars.

“Oh, you--there now!” She made a swift little rush at him, nipped his
biceps between a very small thumb and two fingers, and stood back,
breathing quickly and regarding him in a shamed defiance. “I'll show you
whether I'm alive!” she panted vindictively.

“It's alive, and it's a humming-bird. Angels don't pinch.” Grant laid a
finger upon his arm and drawled his solution of a trivial mystery.
“It mistook me for a honeysuckle, and gave me a peck to make sure.”
 He smiled indulgently, and exhaled a long wreath of smoke from his
nostrils. “Dear little humming-birds--so simple and so harmless!”

“And I've promised to be nice to--THAT!” cried Evadna, in bitterness,
and rushed past him to the porch.

Being a house built to shelter a family of boys, and steps being a
superfluity scorned by their agile legs, there was a sheer drop of three
feet to the ground upon that side. Evadna made it in a jump, just as the
boys did, and landed lightly upon her slippered feet.

“I hate you--hate you--HATE YOU!” she cried, her eyes blazing up at his
amused face before she ran off among the trees.

“It sings a sweet little song,” he taunted, and his laughter followed
her mockingly as she fled from him into the shadows.

“What's the joke, Good Injun? Tell us, so we can laugh too.” Wally
and Jack hurried in from the kitchen and made for the doorway where he
stood.

From under his straight, black brows Grant sent a keen glance into the
shade of the grove, where, an instant before, had flickered the white
of Evadna's dress. The shadows lay there quietly now, undisturbed by so
much as a sleepy bird's fluttering wings.

“I was just thinking of the way I yanked that dog down into old
Wolfbelly's camp,” he said, though there was no tangible reason for
lying to them. “Mister!” he added, his eyes still searching the shadows
out there in the grove, “we certainly did go some!”



CHAPTER V. “I DON'T CARE MUCH ABOUT GIRLS”

“There's no use asking the Injuns to go on the warpath,” Gene announced
disgustedly, coming out upon the porch where the rest of the boys were
foregathered, waiting for the ringing tattoo upon the iron triangle just
outside the back door which would be the supper summons. “They're too
lazy to take the trouble--and, besides, they're scared of dad. I was
talking to Sleeping Turtle just now--met him down there past the Point
o' Rocks.”

“What's the matter with us boys going on the warpath ourselves? We don't
need the Injuns. As long as she knows they're hanging around close, it's
all the same. If we could just get mum off the ranch--”

“If we could kidnap her--say, I wonder if we couldn't!” Clark looked at
the others tentatively.

“Good Injun might do the rescue act and square himself with her for what
happened at the milk-house,” Wally suggested dryly.

“Oh, say, you'd scare her to death. There's no use in piling it on quite
so thick,” Jack interposed mildly. “I kinda like the kid sometimes.
Yesterday, when I took her part way up the bluff, she acted almost
human. On the dead, she did!”

“Kill the traitor! Down with him! Curses on the man who betrays us!”
 growled Wally, waving his cigarette threateningly.

Whereupon Gene and Clark seized the offender by heels and shoulders, and
with a brief, panting struggle heaved him bodily off the porch.

“Over the cliff he goes--so may all traitors perish!” Wally declaimed
approvingly, drawing up his legs hastily out of the way of Jack's
clutching fingers.

“Say, old Peppajee's down at the stable with papa,” Donny informed them
breathlessly. “I told Marie to put him right next to Vadnie if he stays
to supper--and, uh course, he will. If mamma don't get next and change
his place, it'll be fun to watch her; watch Vad, I mean. She's scared
plum to death of anything that wears a blanket, and to have one right at
her elbow--wonder where she is--”

“That girl's got to be educated some if she's going to live in this
family,” Wally observed meditatively. “There's a whole lot she's got to
learn, and the only way to learn her thorough is--”

“You forget,” Grant interrupted him ironically, “that she's going to
make gentlemen of us all.”

“Oh, yes--sure. Jack's coming down with it already. You oughta be
quarantined, old-timer; that's liable to be catching.” Wally snorted his
disdain of the whole proceeding. “I'd rather go to jail myself.”

Evadna by a circuitous route had reached the sitting-room without being
seen or heard; and it was at this point in the conversation that she
tiptoed out again, her hands doubled into tight little fists, and her
teeth set hard together. She did not look, at that moment, in the least
degree “mushy.”

When the triangle clanged its supper call, however, she came slowly down
from her favorite nook at the head of the pond, her hands filled with
flowers hastily gathered in the dusk.

“Here she comes--let's get to our places first, so mamma can't change
Peppajee around,” Donny implored, in a whisper; and the group on the
porch disappeared with some haste into the kitchen.

Evadna was leisurely in her movements that night. The tea had been
poured and handed around the table by the Portuguese girl, Marie, and
the sugar-bowl was going after, when she settled herself and her ruffles
daintily between Grant and a braided, green-blanketed, dignifiedly
loquacious Indian.

The boys signaled each another to attention by kicking surreptitiously
under the table, but nothing happened. Evadna bowed a demure
acknowledgment when her Aunt Phoebe introduced the two, accepted the
sugar-bowl from Grant and the butter from Peppajee, and went composedly
about the business of eating her supper. She seemed perfectly at
ease; too perfectly at ease, decided Grant, who had an instinct for
observation and was covertly watching her. It was unnatural that she
should rub elbows with Peppajee without betraying the faintest trace of
surprise that he should be sitting at the table with them.

“Long time ago,” Peppajee was saying to Peaceful, taking up the
conversation where Evadna had evidently interrupted it, “many winters
ago, my people all time brave. All time hunt, all time fight, all time
heap strong. No drinkum whisky all same now.” He flipped a braid back
over his shoulder, buttered generously a hot biscuit, and reached for
the honey. “No brave no more--kay bueno. All time ketchum whisky, get
drunk all same likum hog. Heap lazy. No hunt no more, no fight. Lay
all time in sun, sleep. No sun come, lay all time in wikiup. Agent, him
givum flour, givum meat, givum blanket, you thinkum bueno. He tellum
you, kay bueno. Makum Injun lazy. Makum all same wachee-typo” (tramp).
“All time eat, all time sleep, playum cards all time, drinkum whisky.
Kay bueno. Huh.” The grunt stood for disgust of his tribe, always
something of an affectation with Peppajee.

“My brother, my brother's wife, my brother's wife's--ah--” He searched
his mind, frowning, for an English word, gave it up, and substituted a
phrase. “All the folks b'longum my brother's wife, heap lazy all time.
Me no likum. Agent one time givum plenty flour, plenty meat, plenty tea.
Huh. Them damn' folks no eatum. All time playum cards, drinkum whisky.
All time otha fella ketchum flour, ketchum meat, ketchum tea--ketchum
all them thing b'longum.” In the rhetorical pause he made there, his
black eyes wandered inadvertently to Evadna's face. And Evadna, the
timid one, actually smiled back.

“Isn't it a shame they should do that,” she murmured sympathetically.

“Huh.” Peppajee turned his eyes and his attention to Peaceful, as if the
opinion and the sympathy of a mere female were not worthy his notice.
“Them grub all gone, them Injuns mebbyso ketchum hungry belly.” Evadna
blushed, and looked studiously at her plate.

“Come my wikiup. Me got plenty flour, plenty meat, plenty tea. Stay all
time my wikiup. Sleepum my wikiup. Sun come up”--he pointed a brown,
sinewy hand toward the east--“eatum my grub. Sun up there”--his finger
indicated the zenith--“eatum some more. Sun go 'way, eatum some more.
Then sleepum all time my wikiup. Bimeby, mebbyso my flour all gone, my
meat mebbyso gone, mebbyso tea--them folks all time eatum grub, me no
ketchum. Me no playum cards, all same otha fella ketchum my grub. Kay
bueno. Better me playum cards mebbyso all time.

“Bimeby no ketchum mo' grub, no stopum my wikiup. Them folks pikeway. Me
tellum 'Yo' heap lazy, heap kay bueno. Yo' all time eatum my grub, yo'
no givum me money, no givum hoss, no givum notting. Me damn' mad all
time yo'. Yo' go damn' quick!'” Peppajee held out his cup for more tea.
“Me tellum my brother,” he finished sonorously, his black eyes sweeping
lightly the faces of his audience, “yo' no come back, yo'--”

Evadna caught her breath, as if someone had dashed cold water in her
face. Never before in her life had she heard the epithet unprintable,
and she stared fixedly at the old-fashioned, silver castor which always
stood in the exact center of the table.

Old Peaceful Hart cleared his throat, glanced furtively at Phoebe, and
drew his hand down over his white beard. The boys puffed their cheeks
with the laughter they would, if possible, restrain, and eyed Evadna's
set face aslant. It was Good Indian who rebuked the offender.

“Peppajee, mebbyso you no more say them words,” he said quietly. “Heap
kay bueno. White man no tellum where white woman hear. White woman no
likum hear; all time heap shame for her.”

“Huh,” grunted Peppajee doubtingly, his eyes turning to Phoebe. Times
before had he said them before Phoebe Hart, and she had passed them by
with no rebuke. Grant read the glance, and answered it.

“Mother Hart live long time in this place,” he reminded him. “Hear bad
talk many times. This girl no hear; no likum hear. You sabe? You no
make shame for this girl.” He glanced challengingly across the table at
Wally, whose grin was growing rather pronounced.

“Huh. Mebbyso you boss all same this ranch?” Peppajee retorted sourly.
“Mebbyso Peacefu' tellum, him no likum.”

Peaceful, thus drawn into the discussion, cleared his throat again.

“Wel-l-l--WE don't cuss much before the women,” he admitted
apologetically “We kinda consider that men's talk. I reckon Vadnie'll
overlook it this time.” He looked across at her beseechingly. “You no
feelum bad, Peppajee.”

“Huh. Me no makum squaw-talk.” Peppajee laid down his knife, lifted a
corner of his blanket, and drew it slowly across his stern mouth. He
muttered a slighting sentence in Indian.

In the same tongue Grant answered him sharply, and after that was
silence broken only by the subdued table sounds. Evadna's eyes filled
slowly until she finally pushed back her chair and hurried out into the
yard and away from the dogged silence of that blanketed figure at her
elbow.

She was scarcely settled, in the hammock, ready for a comforting half
hour of tears, when someone came from the house, stood for a minute
while he rolled a cigarette, and then came straight toward her.

She sat up, and waited defensively. More baiting, without a doubt--and
she was not in the mood to remember any promises about being a nice,
gentle little thing. The figure came close, stooped, and took her by the
arm. In the half--light she knew him then. It was Grant.

“Come over by the pond,” he said, in what was almost a command. “I want
to talk to you a little.”

“Does it occur to you that I might not want to talk t to you?” Still,
she let him help her to her feet.

“Surely. You needn't open your lips if you don't want to. Just 'lend me
your ears, and be silent that ye may hear.' The boys will be boiling out
on the porch, as usual, in a minute; so hurry.”

“I hope it's something very important,” Evadna hinted ungraciously.
“Nothing else would excuse this high-handed proceeding.”

When they had reached the great rock where the pond had its outlet,
and where was a rude seat hidden away in a clump of young willows just
across the bridge, he answered her.

“I don't know that it's of any importance at all,” he said calmly. “I
got to feeling rather ashamed of myself, is all, and it seemed to me the
only decent thing was to tell you so. I'm not making any bid for your
favor--I don't know that I want it. I don't care much about girls,
one way or the other. But, for all I've got the name of being several
things--a savage among the rest--I don't like to feel such a brute as
to make war on a girl that seems to be getting it handed to her right
along.”

He tardily lighted his cigarette and sat smoking beside her, the tiny
glow lighting his face briefly now and then.

“When I was joshing you there before supper,” he went on, speaking low
that he might not be overheard--and ridiculed--from the house, “I didn't
know the whole outfit was making a practice of doing the same thing.
I hadn't heard about the dead tarantula on your pillow, or the rattler
coiled up on the porch, or any of those innocent little jokes. But if
the rest are making it their business to devil the life out of you,
why--common humanity forces me to apologize and tell you I'm out of it
from now on.”

“Oh! Thank you very much.” Evadna's tone might be considered ironical.
“I suppose I ought to say that your statement lessens my dislike of
you--”

“Not at all.” Grant interrupted her. “Go right ahead and hate me, if you
feel that way. It won't matter to me--girls never did concern me much,
one way or the other. I never was susceptible to beauty, and that seems
to be a woman's trump card, always--”

“Well, upon my word!”

“Sounds queer, does it? But it's the truth, and so what's the use of
lying, just to be polite? I won't torment you any more; and if the boys
rig up too strong a josh, I'm liable to give you a hint beforehand. I'm
willing to do that--my sympathies are always with the under dog, anyway,
and they're five to one. But that needn't mean that I'm--that I--” He
groped for words that would not make his meaning too bald; not even
Grant could quite bring himself to warn a girl against believing him a
victim of her fascinations.

“You needn't stutter. I'm not really stupid. You don't like me any
better than I like you. I can see that. We're to be as decent as
possible to each other--you from 'common humanity,' and I because I
promised Aunt Phoebe.”

“We-e-l!--that's about it, I guess.” Grant eyed her sidelong.” Only I
wouldn't go so far as to say I actually dislike you. I never did dislike
a girl, that I remember. I never thought enough about them, one way or
the other.” He seemed rather fond of that statement, he repeated it so
often.” The life I live doesn't call for girls. Put that's neither here
nor there. What I wanted to say was, that I won't bother you any more. I
wouldn't have said a word to you tonight, if you hadn't walked right up
to me and started to dig into me. Of course, I had to fight back--the
man who won't isn't a normal human being.”

“Oh, I know.” Evadna's tone was resentful. “From Adam down to you, it
has always been 'The woman, she tempted me.' You're perfectly horrid,
even if you have apologized. 'The woman, she tempted me,' and--”

“I beg your pardon; the woman didn't,” he corrected blandly. “The woman
insisted on scrapping. That's different.”

“Oh, it's different! I see. I have almost forgotten something I ought
to say, Mr. Imsen. I must thank you for--well, for defending me to that
Indian.”

“I didn't. Nobody was attacking you, so I couldn't very well defend you,
could I? I had to take a fall out of old Peppajee, just on principle. I
don't get along very well with my noble red cousins. I wasn't doing it
on your account, in particular.”

“Oh, I see.” She rose rather suddenly from the bench. “It wasn't even
common humanity, then--”

“Not even common humanity,” he echoed affirmatively. “Just a chance I
couldn't afford to pass up, of digging into Peppajee.”

“That's different.” She laughed shortly and left him, running swiftly
through the warm dusk to the murmur of voices at the house.

Grant sat where she left him, and smoked two cigarettes meditatively
before he thought of returning to the house. When he finally did get
upon his feet, he stretched his arms high above his head, and stared for
a moment up at the treetops swaying languidly just under the stars.

“Girls must play the very deuce with a man if he ever lets them get on
his mind,” he mused. “I see right now where a fellow about my size and
complexion had better watch out.” But he smiled afterward, as if he did
not consider the matter very serious, after all.



CHAPTER VI. THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL PLAYS GHOST

At midnight, the Peaceful Hart ranch lay broodily quiet under its
rock-rimmed bluff. Down in the stable the saddle-horses were but
formless blots upon the rumpled bedding in their stalls--except
Huckleberry, the friendly little pinto with the white eyelashes and the
blue eyes, and the great, liver-colored patches upon his sides, and the
appetite which demanded food at unseasonable hours, who was now munching
and nosing industriously in the depths of his manger, and making a good
deal of noise about it.

Outside, one of the milch cows drew a long, sighing breath of content
with life, lifted a cud in mysterious, bovine manner, and chewed
dreamily. Somewhere up the bluff a bobcat squalled among the rocks,
and the moon, in its dissipated season of late rising, lifted itself
indolently up to where it could peer down upon the silent ranch.

In the grove where the tiny creek gurgled under the little stone bridge,
someone was snoring rhythmically in his blankets, for the boys had
taken to sleeping in the open air before the earliest rose had opened
buds in the sunny shelter of the porch. Three feet away, a sleeper
stirred restlessly, lifted his head from the pillow, and slapped
half-heartedly at an early mosquito that was humming in his ear. He
reached out, and jogged the shoulder of him who snored.

“Say, Gene, if you've got to sleep at the top of your voice, you better
drag your bed down into the orchard,” he growled. “Let up a little,
can't yuh?”

“Ah, shut up and let a fellow sleep!” mumbled Gene, snuggling the covers
up to his ears.

“Just what I want YOU to do. You snore like a sawmill. Darn it, you've
got to get out of the grove if yuh can't--”

“Ah-h-EE-EE!” wailed a voice somewhere among the trees, the sound rising
weirdly to a subdued crescendo, clinging there until one's flesh went
creepy, and then sliding mournfully down to silence.

“What's that?” The two jerked themselves to a sitting position, and
stared into the blackness of the grove.

“Bobcat,” whispered Clark, in a tone which convinced not even himself.

“In a pig's ear,” flouted Gene, under his breath. He leaned far over and
poked his finger into a muffled form. “D'yuh hear that noise, Grant?”

Grant sat up instantly. “What's the matter?” he demanded, rather
ill-naturedly, if the truth be told.

“Did you hear anything--a funny noise, like--”

The cry itself finished the sentence for him. It came from nowhere,
it would seem, since they could see nothing; rose slowly to a subdued
shriek, clung there nerve-wrackingly, and then wailed mournfully down to
silence. Afterward, while their ears were still strained to the sound,
the bobcat squalled an answer from among the rocks.

“Yes, I heard it,” said Grant. “It's a spook. It's the wail of a lost
spirit, loosed temporarily from the horrors of purgatory. It's sent as a
warning to repent you of your sins, and it's howling because it hates to
go back. What you going to do about it?”

He made his own intention plain beyond any possibility of
misunderstanding. He lay down and pulled the blanket over his shoulders,
cuddled his pillow under his head, and disposed himself to sleep.

The moon climbed higher, and sent silvery splinters of light quivering
down among the trees. A frog crawled out upon a great lily--pad and
croaked dismally.

Again came the wailing cry, nearer than before, more subdued, and for
that reason more eerily mournful. Grant sat up, muttered to himself, and
hastily pulled on some clothes. The frog cut himself short in the middle
of a deep-throated ARR-RR-UMPH and dove headlong into the pond; and the
splash of his body cleaving the still surface of the water made Gene
shiver nervously. Grant reached under his pillow for something, and
freed himself stealthily from a blanketfold.

“If that spook don't talk Indian when it's at home, I'm very much
mistaken,” he whispered to Clark, who was nearest. “You boys stay here.”

Since they had no intention of doing anything else, they obeyed him
implicitly and without argument, especially as a flitting white
figure appeared briefly and indistinctly in a shadow-flecked patch of
moonlight. Crouching low in the shade of a clump of bushes, Grant stole
toward the spot.

When he reached the place, the thing was not there. Instead, he glimpsed
it farther on, and gave chase, taking what precautions he could against
betraying himself. Through the grove and the gate and across the road
he followed, in doubt half the time whether it was worth the trouble.
Still, if it was what he suspected, a lesson taught now would probably
insure against future disturbances of the sort, he thought, and kept
stubbornly on. Once more he heard the dismal cry, and fancied it held a
mocking note.

“I'll settle that mighty quick,” he promised grimly, as he jumped a
ditch and ran toward the place.

Somewhere among the currant bushes was a sound of eery laughter. He
swerved toward the place, saw a white form rise suddenly from the very
ground, as it seemed, and lift an arm with a slow, beckoning gesture.
Without taking aim, he raised his gun and fired a shot at it. The arm
dropped rather suddenly, and the white form vanished. He hurried up to
where it had stood, knelt, and felt of the soft earth. Without a doubt
there were footprints there--he could feel them. But he hadn't a match
with him, and the place was in deep shade.

He stood up and listened, thought he heard a faint sound farther along,
and ran. There was no use now in going quietly; what counted most was
speed.

Once more he caught sight of the white form fleeing from him like the
very wraith it would have him believe it. Then he lost it again; and
when he reached the spot where it disappeared, he fell headlong, his
feet tangled in some white stuff. He swore audibly, picked himself up,
and held the cloth where the moon shone full upon it. It looked like a
sheet, or something of the sort, and near one edge was a moist patch of
red. He stared at it dismayed, crumpled the cloth into a compact bundle,
tucked it under his arm, and ran on, his ears strained to catch some
sound to guide him.

“Well, anyhow, I didn't kill him,” he muttered uneasily as he crawled
through a fence into the orchard. “He's making a pretty swift get-away
for a fellow that's been shot.”

In the orchard the patches of moonlight were larger, and across one
of them he glimpsed a dark object, running wearily. Grant repressed an
impulse to shout, and used the breath for an extra burst of speed. The
ghost was making for the fence again, as if it would double upon its
trail and reach some previously chosen refuge. Grant turned and ran also
toward the fence, guessing shrewdly that the fugitive would head for the
place where the wire could be spread about, and a beaten trail led from
there straight out to the road which passed the house. It was the short
cut from the peach orchard; and it occurred to him that this particular
spook seemed perfectly familiar with the byways of the ranch. Near the
fence he made a discovery that startled him a little.

“It's a squaw, by Jove!” he cried when he caught an unmistakable flicker
of skirts; and the next moment he could have laughed aloud if he had not
been winded from the chase. The figure reached the fence before him, and
in the dim light he could see it stoop to pass through. Then it seemed
as if the barbs had caught in its clothing and held it there. It
struggled to free itself; and in the next minute he rushed up and
clutched it fast.

“Why don't you float over the treetops?” he panted ironically.
“Ghosts have no business getting their spirit raiment tangled up in a
barbed-wire fence.”

It answered with a little exclamation, with a sob following close upon
it. There was a sound of tearing cloth, and he held his captive upright,
and with a merciless hand turned her face so that the moonlight struck
it full. They stared at each other, breathing hard from more than the
race they had run.

“Well--I'll--be--” Grant began, in blank amazement.

She wriggled her chin in his palm, trying to free herself from his
pitiless staring. Failing that, she began to sob angrily without any
tears in her wide eyes.

“You--shot me, you brute!” she cried accusingly at last. “You--SHOT me!”
 And she sobbed again.

Before he answered, he drew backward a step or two, sat down upon the
edge of a rock which had rolled out from a stone-heap, and pulled her
down beside him, still holding her fast, as if he half believed her
capable of soaring away over the treetops, after all.

“I guess I didn't murder you--from the chase you gave me. Did I hit you
at all?”

“Yes, you did! You nearly broke my arm--and you might have killed me,
you big brute! Look what you did--and I never harmed you at all!” She
pushed up a sleeve, and held out her arm accusingly in the moonlight,
disclosing a tiny, red furrow where the skin was broken and still
bleeding. “And you shot a big hole right through Aunt Phoebe's sheet!”
 she added, with tearful severity.

He caught her arm, bent his head over it--and for a moment he was
perilously near to kissing it; an impulse which astonished him
considerably, and angered him more. He dropped the arm rather
precipitately; and she lifted it again, and regarded the wound with
mournful interest.

“I'd like to know what right you have to prowl around shooting at
people,” she scolded, seeing how close she could come to touching the
place with her fingertips without producing any but a pleasurable pain.

“Just as much right as you have to get up in the middle of the night
and go ahowling all over the ranch wrapped up in a sheet,” he retorted
ungallantly.

“Well, if I want to do it, I don't see why you need concern yourself
about it. I wasn't doing it for your benefit, anyway.”

“Will you tell me what you DID do it for? Of all the silly tomfoolery--”

An impish smile quite obliterated the Christmas-angel look for an
instant, then vanished, and left her a pretty, abused maiden who is
grieved at harsh treatment.

“Well, I wanted to scare Gene,” she confessed. “I did, too. I just know
he's a cowardy-cat, because he's always trying to scare ME. It's Gene's
fault--he told me the grove is haunted. He said a long time ago, before
Uncle Hart settled here, a lot of Indians waylaid a wagon-train here
and killed a girl, and he says that when the moon is just past the full,
something white walks through the grove and wails like a lost soul in
torment. He says sometimes it comes and moans at the corner of the house
where my room is. I just know he was going to do it himself; but I guess
he forgot. So I thought I'd see if he believed his own yarns. I was
going to do it every night till I scared him into sleeping in the house.
I had a perfectly lovely place to disappear into, where he couldn't
trace me if he took to hunting around--only he wouldn't dare.” She
pulled down her sleeve very carefully, and then, just as carefully, she
pushed it up again, and took another look.

“My best friend TOLD me I'd get shot if I came to Idaho,” she reminded
herself, with a melancholy satisfaction.

“You didn't get shot,” Grant contradicted for the sake of drawing more
sparks of temper where temper seemed quaintly out of place, and stared
hard at her drooping profile. “You just got nicely missed; a bullet that
only scrapes off a little skin can't be said to hit. I'd hate to hit a
bear like that.”

“I believe you're wishing you HAD killed me! You might at least have
some conscience in the matter, and be sorry you shot a lady. But you're
not. You just wish you had murdered me. You hate girls--you said so. And
I don't know what business it is of yours, if I want to play a joke on
my cousin, or why you had to be sleeping outside, anyway. I've a perfect
right to be a ghost if I choose--and I don't call it nice, or polite, or
gentlemanly for you to chase me all over the place with a gun, trying
to kill me! I'll never speak to you again as long as I live. When I say
that I mean it. I never liked you from the very start, when I first saw
you this afternoon. Now I hate and despise you. I suppose I oughtn't
to expect you to apologize or be sorry because you almost killed me. I
suppose that's just your real nature coming to the surface. Indians love
to hurt and torture people! I shouldn't have expected anything else of
you, I suppose. I made the mistake of treating you like a white man.”

“Don't you think you're making another mistake right now?” Grant's whole
attitude changed, as well as his tone. “Aren't you afraid to push the
white man down into the dirt, and raise up--the INDIAN?”

She cast a swift, half-frightened glance up into his face and the eyes
that glowed ominously in the moonlight.

“When people make the blunder of calling up the Indian,” he went on
steadily, “they usually find that they have to deal with--the Indian.”

Evadna looked at him again, and turned slowly white before her temper
surged to the surface again.

“I didn't call up the Indian,” she defended hotly; “but if the Indian
wants to deal with me according to his nature--why, let him! But you
don't ACT like other people! I don't know another man who wouldn't have
been horrified at shooting me, even such a tiny little bit; but you
don't care at all. You never even said you were sorry.”

“I'm not in the habit of saying all I think and feel.”

“You were quick enough to apologize, after supper there, when you hadn't
really done anything; and now, when one would expect you to be at least
decently sorry, you--you--well, you act like the savage you are! There,
now! It may not be nice to say it, but it's the truth.”

Grant smiled bitterly. “All men are savages under the skin,” he said.
“How do YOU know what I think and feel? If I fail to come through with
the conventional patter, I am called an Indian--because my mother was
a half-breed.” He threw up his head proudly, let his eyes rest for a
moment upon the moon, swimming through a white river of clouds just over
the tall poplar hedge planted long ago to shelter the orchard from the
sweeping west winds; and, when he looked down at her again, he caught a
glimpse of repentant tears in her eyes, and softened.

“Oh, you're a girl, and you demand the usual amount of poor-pussy talk,”
 he told her maliciously. “So I'm sorry. I'm heartbroken. If it will
help any, I'll even kiss the hurt to make it well--and I'm not a kissing
young man, either, let me tell you.”

“I'd die before I'd let you touch me!” Her repentance, if it was that,
changed to pure rage. She snatched the torn sheet from him and turned
abruptly toward the fence. He followed her, apparently unmoved by her
attitude; placed his foot upon the lower wire and pressed it into the
soft earth, lifted the one next above it as high as it would go, and
thus made it easier for her to pass through. She seemed to hesitate
for a moment, as though tempted to reject even that slight favor, then
stooped, and went through.

As the wires snapped into place, she halted and looked back at him.

“Maybe I've been mean--but you're been meaner,” she summed up, in
self-justification. “I suppose the next thing you will do will be to
tell the boys. Well, I don't care what you do, so long as you never
speak to me again. Go and tell them if you want to--tell. TELL, do you
hear? I don't want even the favor of your silence!” She dexterously
tucked the bundle of white under the uninjured arm, caught the loose
folds of her skirt up in her hands, and ran away up the path, not once
stopping to see whether he still followed her.

Grant did not follow. He stood leaning against the fence-post, and
watched her until her flying form grew indistinct in the shade of the
poplar hedge; watched it reappear in a broad strip of white moonlight,
still running; saw it turn, slacken speed to a walk, and then lose
itself in the darkness of the grove.

Five minutes, ten minutes, he stood there, staring across the level bit
of valley lying quiet at the foot of the jagged-rimmed bluff standing
boldly up against the star-flecked sky. Then he shook himself
impatiently, muttered something which had to do with a “doddering fool,”
 and retraced his steps quickly through the orchard, the currant bushes,
and the strawberry patch, jumped the ditch, and so entered the grove and
returned to his blankets.

“We thought the spook had got yuh, sure.” Gene lifted his head
turtlewise and laughed deprecatingly. “We was just about ready to start
out after the corpse, only we didn't know but what you might get excited
and take a shot at us in the dark. We heard yuh shoot--what was it? Did
you find out?”

“It wasn't anything,” said Grant shortly, tugging at a boot.

“Ah--there was, too! What was it you shot at?” Clark joined in the
argument from the blackness under the locust tree.

“The moon,” Grant told him sullenly. “There wasn't anything else that I
could see.”

“And that's a lie,” Gene amended, with the frankness of a
foster-brother. “Something yelled like--”

“You never heard a screech-owl before, did you, Gene?” Grant crept
between his blankets and snuggled down, as if his mind held nothing more
important than sleep.

“Screech-owl my granny! You bumped into something you couldn't
handle--if you want to know what _I_ think about it,” Clark guessed
shrewdly. “I wish now I'd taken the trouble to hunt the thing down; it
didn't seem worth while getting up. But I leave it to Gene if you ain't
mad enough to murder whatever it was. What was it?”

He waited a moment without getting a reply.

“Well, keep your teeth shut down on it, then, darn yuh!” he growled.
“That's the Injun of it--I know YOU! Screech-owl--huh! You said when you
left it was an Indian--and that's why we didn't take after it ourselves.
We don't want to get the whole bunch down on us like they are on
you--and if there was one acting up around here, we knew blamed well it
was on your account for what happened to-day. I guess you found out, all
right. I knew the minute you heaved in sight that you was just about as
mad as you can get--and that's saying a whole lot. If it WAS an Indian,
and you killed him, you better let us--”

“Oh, for the lord's sake, WILL YOU SHUT UP!” Grant raised to an elbow,
glared a moment, and lay down again.

The result proved the sort of fellow he was. Clark shut up without even
trailing off into mumbling to himself, as was his habit when argument
brought him defeat.



CHAPTER VII. MISS GEORGIE HOWARD, OPERATOR

“Where is the delightful Mr. Good Indian off to?” Evadna stopped
drumming upon the gatepost and turned toward the person she heard coming
up behind her, who happened to be Gene. He stopped to light a match
upon the gate and put his cigarette to work before he answered her; and
Evadna touched tentatively the wide, blue ribbon wound round her arm and
tied in a bow at her elbow, and eyed him guardedly.

“Straight up, he told me,” Gene answered sourly. “He's sore over
something that happened last night, and he didn't seem to have any talk
to give away this morning. He can go to the dickens, for all I care.”

“WHAT--happened last night?” Evadna wore her Christmas-angel expression;
and her tone was the sweet, insipid tone of childlike innocence.

Gene hesitated. It seemed a sheer waste of opportunity to tell her the
truth when she would believe a falsehood just as readily; but, since the
truth happened to be quite as improbable as a lie, he decided to speak
it.

“There was a noise when the moon had just come up--didn't you hear it?
The ghost I told you about. Good Injun went after it with a gun, and I
guess they mixed, all right, and he got the worst of it. He was sure on
the fight when he came back, and he's pulled out this morning--”

“Do you mean to tell me--did you see it, really?”

“Well, you ask Clark, when you see him,” Gene hinted darkly. “You just
ask him what was in the grove last night. Ask him what he HEARD.” He
moved closer, and laid his hand impressively upon her arm. Evadna winced
perceptibly. “What yuh jumping for? You didn't see anything, did you?”

“No; but--was there REALLY something?” Evadna freed herself as
unobtrusively as possible, and looked at him with wide eyes.

“You ask Clark. He'll tell you--maybe. Good Injun's scared clean off the
ranch--you can see that for yourself. He said he couldn't be hired to
spend another night here. He thinks it's a bad sign. That's the Injun of
it. They believe in spirits and signs and things.”

Evadna turned thoughtful. “And didn't he tell you what he--that is, if
he found out--you said he went after it--”

“He wouldn't say a blamed thing about it,” Gene complained sincerely.
“He said there wasn't anything--he told us it was a screech-owl.”

“Oh!” Evadna gave a sigh of relief. “Well, I'm going to ask Clark what
it was--I'm just crazy about ghost stories, only I never would DARE
leave the house after dark if there are funny noises and things,
really. I think you boys must be the bravest fellows, to sleep out
there--without even your mother with you!”

She smiled the credulous smile of ignorant innocence and pulled the gate
open.

“Jack promised to take me up to Hartley to-day,” she explained over her
shoulder. “When I come back, you'll show me just where it was, won't
you, Gene? You don't suppose it would walk in the grove in the daytime,
do you? Because I'm awfully fond of the grove, and I do hope it will be
polite enough to confine its perambulations entirely to the conventional
midnight hour.”

Gene did not make any reply. Indeed, he seemed wholly absorbed in
staring after her and wondering just how much or how little of it she
meant.

Evadna looked back, midway between the gate and the stable, and, when
she saw him standing exactly as she had left him, she waved her hand and
smiled. She was still smiling when she came up to where Jack was giving
those last, tentative twitches and pats which prove whether a saddle is
properly set and cinched; and she would not say what it was that amused
her. All the way up the grade, she smiled and grew thoughtful by turns;
and, when Jack mentioned the fact that Good Indian had gone off mad
about something, she contented herself with the simple, unqualified
statement that she was glad of it.

Grant's horse dozed before the store, and Grant himself sat upon a bench
in the narrow strip of shade on the porch. Evadna, therefore, refused
absolutely to dismount there, though her errand had been a post-office
money order. Jack was already on the ground when she made known her
decision; and she left him in the middle of his expostulations and rode
on to the depot. He followed disapprovingly afoot; and, when she brought
her horse to a stand, he helped her from the saddle, and took the bridle
reins with an air of weary tolerance.

“When you get ready to go home, you can come to the store,” he said
bluntly. “Huckleberry wouldn't stand here if you hog-tied him. Just
remember that if you ever ride up here alone--it might save you a walk
back. And say,” he added, with a return of his good-natured grin, “it
looks like you and Good Injun didn't get acquainted yesterday. I thought
I saw mum give him an introduction to you--but I guess I made a mistake.
When you come to the store, don't let me forget, and I'll do it myself.”

“Oh, thank you, Jack--but it isn't necessary,” chirped Evadna, and left
him with the smile which he had come to regard with vague suspicion of
what it might hide of her real feelings.

Two squaws sat cross-legged on the ground in the shade of the little
red depot; and them she passed by hastily, her eyes upon them watchfully
until she was well upon the platform and was being greeted joyfully
by Miss Georgie Howard, then in one of her daily periods of intense
boredom.

“My, my, but you're an angel of deliverance--and by rights you should
have a pair of gauze wings, just to complete the picture,” she cried,
leading her inside and pushing her into a beribboned wicker rocker. “I
was just getting desperate enough to haul in those squaws out there
and see if I couldn't teach 'em whist or something.” She sat down
and fingered her pompadour absently. “And that sure would have been
interesting,” she added musingly.

“Don't let me interrupt you,” Evadna began primly. “I only came for a
money order--Aunt Phoebe's sending for--”

“Never mind what you came for,” Miss Georgie cut in decisively, and
laughed. “The express agent is out. You can't get your order till we've
had a good talk and got each other tagged mentally--only I've tagged you
long ago.”

“I thought you were the express agent. Aunt Phoebe said--”

“Nice, truthful Aunt Phoebe! I am, but I'm out--officially. I'm several
things, my dear; but, for the sake of my own dignity and self-respect,
I refuse to be more than one of them at a time. When I sell a ticket
to Shoshone, I'm the ticket agent, and nothing else. Telegrams, I'm the
operator. At certain times I'm the express agent. I admit it. But this
isn't one of the times.”

She stopped and regarded her visitor with whimsical appraisement.
“You'll wait till the agent returns, won't you?” And added, with a
grimace: “You won't be in the way--I'm not anything official right now.
I'm a neighbor, and this is my parlor--you see, I planted you on that
rug, with the books at your elbow, and that geranium also; and you're in
the rocker, so you're really and truly in my parlor. I'm over the line
myself, and you're calling on me. Sabe? That little desk by the safe is
the express office, and you can see for yourself that the agent is out.”

“Well, upon my word!” Evadna permitted herself that much emotional
relief. Then she leaned her head against the cherry-colored head-rest
tied to the chair with huge, cherry-colored bows, and took a deliberate
survey of the room.

It was a small room, as rooms go. One corner was evidently the telegraph
office, for it held a crude table, with the instruments clicking
spasmodically, form pads, letter files, and mysterious things which
piqued her curiosity. Over it was a railroad map and a makeshift
bulletin board, which seemed to give the time of certain trains.
And small-paned windows gave one sitting before the instruments an
unobstructed view up and down the track. In the corner behind the door
was a small safe, with door ajar, and a desk quite as small, with,
“Express Office: Hours, 8 A.M. to 6 P.M.” on a card above it.

Under a small window opening upon the platform was another little table,
with indications of occasional ticket-selling upon it. And in the end of
the room where she sat were various little adornments--“art” calendars,
a few books, fewer potted plants, a sewing-basket, and two rugs upon the
floor, with a rocker for each. Also there was a tiny, square table, with
a pack of cards scattered over it.

“Exactly. You have it sized up correctly, my dear.” Miss Georgie Howard
nodded her--head three times, and her eyes were mirthful. “It's a game.
I made it a game. I had to, in self-defense. Otherwise--” She waved
a hand conspicuous for its white plumpness and its fingers tapering
beautifully to little, pink nails immaculately kept. “I took at the
job and the place just as it stands, without anything in the way of
mitigation. Can you see yourself holding it down for longer than a week?
I've been here a month.”

“I think,” Evadna ventured, “it must be fun.”

“Oh, yes. It's fun--if you make fun OF it. However, before we settle
down for a real visit, I've a certain duty to perform, if you will
excuse my absence for a moment. Incidentally,” she added, getting lazily
out of the chair, “it will illustrate just how I manage my system.”

Her absence was purely theoretical. She stepped off the rug, went to the
“express office,” and took a card from the desk. When she had stood it
upright behind the inkwell, Evadna read in large, irregular capitals:

“OUT. WILL BE BACK LATER.”

Miss Georgie Howard paid no attention to the little giggle which went
with the reading, but stepped across to the ticket desk and to the
telegraph table, and put similar cards on display. Then she came back to
the rug, plumped down in her rocker with a sigh of relief, and reached
for a large, white box--the five pounds of chocolates which she had sent
for.

“I never eat candy when I'm in the office,” she observed soberly. “I
consider it unprofessional. Help yourself as liberally as your digestion
will stand--and for Heaven's sake, gossip a little! Tell me all
about that bunch of nifty lads I see cavorting around the store
occasionally--and especially about the polysyllabic gentleman who seems
to hang out at the Peaceful Hart ranch. I'm terribly taken with him.
He--excuse me, chicken. There's a fellow down the line hollering his
head off. Wait till I see what he wants.”

Again she left the rug, stepped to the telegraph instrument, and
fingered the key daintily until she had, with the other hand, turned
down the “out” card. Then she threw the switch, rattled an impatient
reply, and waited, listening to the rapid clicking of the sounder. Her
eyes and her mouth hardened as she read.

“Cad!” she gritted under her breath. Her fingers were spiteful as they
clicked the key in answer. She slammed the current off, set up the “out”
 notice again, kicked the desk chair against the wall, and came back to
the “parlor” breathing quickly.

“I think it must be perfectly fascinating to talk that way to persons
miles off,” said Evadna, eying the chittering sounder with something
approaching awe. “I watched your fingers, and tried to imagine what it
was they were saying--but I couldn't even guess.”

Miss Georgie Howard laughed queerly. “No, I don't suppose you could,”
 she murmured, and added, with a swift glance at the other: “They said,
'You go to the devil.'” She held up the offending hand and regarded it
intently. “You wouldn't think it of them, would you? But they have to
say things sometimes--in self-defense. There are two or three fresh
young men along the line that can't seem to take a hint unless you knock
them in the head with it.”

She cast a malevolent look at the clicking instrument. “He's trying to
square himself,” she observed carelessly. “But, unfortunately, I'm out.
He seems on the verge of tears, poor thing.”

She poked investigatingly among the chocolates, and finally selected a
delectable morsel with epicurean care.

“You haven't told me about the polysyllabic young man,” she reminded.
“He has held my heart in bondage since he said to Pete Hamilton
yesterday in the store--ah--” She leaned and barely reached a slip
of paper which was lying upon a row of books. “I wrote it down so I
wouldn't forget it,” she explained parenthetically. “He said to Pete,
in the store, just after Pete had tried to say something funny with the
usual lamentable failure--um--'You are mentally incapable of recognizing
the line of demarcation between legitimate persiflage and objectionable
familiarity.' Now, I want to know what sort of a man, under fifty and
not a college professor, would--or could--say that without studying it
first. It sounded awfully impromptu and easy--and yet he looks--well,
cowboyish. What sort of a young man is he?”

“He's a perfectly horrid young man.” Evadna leaned to help herself to
more chocolates. “He--well, just to show you how horrid, he calls me
a--a Christmas angel! And--”

“Did he!” Miss Georgie eyed her measuringly between bites. “Tag him
as being intelligent, a keen observer, with the ability to express
himself--” She broke off, and turned her head ungraciously toward the
sounder, which seemed to be repeating something over and over with a
good deal of insistence. “That's Shoshone calling,” she said, frowning
attentively. “They've got an old crank up there in the office--I'd know
his touch among a million--and when he calls he means business. I'll
have to speak up, I suppose.” She sighed, tucked a chocolate into her
cheek, and went scowling to the table. “Can't the idiot see I'm out?”
 she complained whimsically. “What's that card for, I wonder?”

She threw the switch, rattled a reply, and then, as the sounder settled
down to a steady click-clickety-click-click, she drew a pad toward her,
pulled up the chair with her foot, sat down, and began to write the
message as it came chattering over the wire. When it was finished and
the sounder quiet, her hand awoke to life upon the key. She seemed to be
repeating the message, word for word. When she was done, she listened,
got her answer, threw off the switch with a sweep of her thumb, and
fumbled among the papers on the table until she found an envelope. She
addressed it with a hasty scrawl of her pencil, sealed it with a vicious
little spat of her hand, and then sat looking down upon it thoughtfully.

“I suppose I've got to deliver that immediately, at once, without
delay,” she said. “There's supposed to be an answer. Chicken, some queer
things happen in this business. Here's that weak-eyed, hollow-chested
Saunders, that seems to have just life enough to put in about ten hours
a day reading 'The Duchess,' getting cipher messages like the hero of a
detective story. And sending them, too, by the way. We operators are not
supposed to think; but all the same--” She got her receipt-book, filled
rapidly a blank line, tucked it under her arm, and went up and tapped
Evadna lightly upon the head with the envelope. “Want to come along? Or
would you rather stay here? I won't be more than two minutes.”

She was gone five; and she returned with a preoccupied air which lasted
until she had disposed of three chocolates and was carefully choosing a
fourth.

“Chicken,” she said then, quietly, “do you know anything about your
uncle and his affairs?” And added immediately: “The chances are ten to
one you don't, and wouldn't if you lived there till you were gray?”

“I know he's perfectly lovely,” Evadna asserted warmly. “And so is Aunt
Phoebe.”

“To be sure.” Miss Georgie smiled indulgently. “I quite agree with you.
And by the way, I met that polysyllabic cowboy again--and I discovered
that, on the whole, my estimate was incorrect. He's emphatically
monosyllabic. I said sixteen nice things to him while I was waiting for
Pete to wake up Saunders; and he answered in words of one syllable; one
word, of one syllable. I'm beginning to feel that I've simply got to
know that young man. There are deeps there which I am wild to explore.
I never met any male human in the least like him. Did you? So
absolutely--ah--inscrutable, let us say.”

“That's just because he's part Indian,” Evadna declared, with the
positiveness of youth and inexperience. “It isn't inscrutability, but
stupidity. I simply can't bear him. He's brutal, and rude. He told
me--told me, mind you--that he doesn't like women. He actually warned
me against thinking his politeness--if he ever is polite, which I
doubt--means more than just common humanity. He said he didn't want me
to misunderstand him and think he liked me, because he doesn't. He's a
perfect savage. I simply loathe him!”

“I'd certainly see that he repented, apologized, and vowed eternal
devotion,” smiled Miss Georgie. “That should be my revenge.”

“I don't want any revenge. I simply want nothing to do with him. I don't
want to speak to him, even.”

“He's awfully good--looking,” mused Miss Georgie.

“He looks to me just like an Indian. He ought to wear a blanket, like
the rest.”

“Then you're no judge. His eyes are dark; but they aren't snaky, my
dear. His hair is real wavy, did you notice? And he has the dearest,
firm mouth. I noticed it particularly, because I admire a man who's
a man. He's one. He'd fight and never give up, once he started. And I
think”--she spoke hesitatingly--“I think he'd love--and never give up;
unless the loved one disappointed him in some way; and then he'd be
strong enough to go his way and not whine about it. I do hate a whiner!
Don't you?”

A shadow fell upon the platform outside the door, and Saunders appeared,
sidling deprecatingly into the room. He pulled off his black, slouched
hat and tucked it under his arm, smoothed his lank, black hair, ran his
palm down over his lank, unshaven face with a smoothing gesture, and
sidled over to the telegraph table.

“Here's the answer to that message,” he said, in a limp tone, without
any especial emphasis or inflection. “If you ain't too busy, and could
send it right off--it's to go C.O.D. and make 'em repeat it, so as to be
sure--”

“Certainly, Mr. Saunders.” Miss Georgie rose, the crisp, businesslike
operator, and went to the table. She took the sheet of paper from him
with her finger tips, as if he were some repulsive creature whose touch
would send her shuddering, and glanced at the message. “Write it on the
regular form,” she said, and pushed a pad and pencil toward him. “I have
to place it on file.” Whereupon she turned her back upon him, and stood
staring down the railroad track through the smoke-grimed window until a
movement warned her that he was through.

“Very well--that is all,” she said, after she had counted the words
twice. “Oh--you want to wait for the repeat.”

She laid her fingers on the key and sent the message in a whirl of
chittering little sounds, waited a moment while the sounder spoke,
paused, and then began a rapid clicking, which was the repeated message,
and wrote it down upon its form.

“There--if it's correct, that's all,” she told him in a tone of
dismissal, and waited openly for him to go. Which he did, after a sly
glance at Evadna, a licking of pale lips, as if he would speak but
lacked the courage, and a leering grin at Miss Georgie.

He was no sooner over the threshold than she slammed the door shut,
in spite of the heat. She walked to the window, glanced down the track
again, turned to the table, and restlessly arranged the form pads,
sticking the message upon the file. She said something under her breath,
snapped the cover on the inkwell, sighed, patted her pompadour, and
finally laughed at her own uneasiness.

“Whenever that man comes in here,” she observed impatiently, “I always
feel as if I ought to clean house after him. If ever there was a human
toad--or snake, or--ugh! And what does he mean--sending twenty-word
messages that don't make sense when you read them over, and getting
others that are just a lot of words jumbled together, hit or miss? I
wish--only it's unprofessional to talk about it--but, just the same,
there's some nasty business brewing, and I know it. I feel guilty,
almost, every time I send one of those cipher messages.”

“Maybe he's a detective,” Evadna hazarded.

“Maybe.” Miss Georgie's tone, however, was extremely skeptical. “Only,
so far as I can discover, there's never been anything around here to
detect. Nobody has been murdered, or robbed, or kidnapped that I ever
heard of. Pete Hamilton says not. And--I wonder, now, if Saunders could
be watching somebody! Wouldn't it be funny, if old Pete himself turned
out to be a Jesse James brand of criminal? Can you imagine Pete doing
anything more brutal than lick a postage stamp?”

“He might want to,” Evadna guessed shrewdly, “but it would be too much
trouble.”

“Besides,” Miss Georgie went on speculating, “Saunders never does
anything that anyone ever heard of. Sweeps out the store, they say--but
I'd hate to swear to that. _I_ never could catch it when it looked
swept--and brings the mail sack over here twice a day, and gets one
to take back. And reads novels. Of course, the man's half dead with
consumption; but no one would object to that, if these queer wires
hadn't commenced coming to him.”

“Why don't you turn detective yourself and find out?” Plainly, Evadna
was secretly laughing at her perturbed interest in the matter.

“Thanks. I'm too many things already, and I haven't any false hair or
dark lantern. And, by the way, I'm going to have the day off,
Sunday. Charlie Green is coming up to relieve me. And--couldn't we do
something?” She glanced wearily around the little office. “Honest, I'd
go crazy if I stayed here much longer without a play spell. I want to
get clear out, away from the thing--where I can't even hear a train
whistle.”

“Then you shall come down to the ranch the minute you can get away,
and we'll do something or go somewhere. The boys said they'd take me
fishing--but they only propose things so they can play jokes on me,
it seems to me. They'd make me fall in the river, or something, I just
know. But if you'd like to go along, there'd be two of us--”

“Chicken, we'll go. I ought to be ashamed to fish for an invitation the
way I did, but I'm not. I haven't been down to the Hart ranch yet; and
I've heard enough about it to drive me crazy with the desire to see it.
Your Aunt Phoebe I've met, and fallen in love with--that's a matter of
course. She told me to visit her just any time, without waiting to be
invited especially. Isn't she the dearest thing? Oh! that's a train
order, I suppose--sixteen is about due. Excuse me, chicken.”

She was busy then until the train came screeching down upon the station,
paused there while the conductor rushed in, got a thin slip of paper for
himself and the engineer, and rushed out again. When the train grumbled
away from the platform and went its way, it left man standing there, a
fish-basket slung from one shoulder, a trout rod carefully wrapped in
its case in his hand, a box which looked suspiciously like a case of
some bottled joy at his feet, and a loose-lipped smile upon his face.

“Howdy, Miss Georgie?” he called unctuously through the open door.

Miss Georgie barely glanced at him from under her lashes, and her
shoulders indulged themselves in an almost imperceptible twitch.

“How do you do, Mr. Baumberger?” she responded coolly, and very, very
gently pushed the door shut just as he had made up his mind to enter.



CHAPTER VIII. THE AMIABLE ANGLER

Baumberger--Johannes was the name he answered to when any of his family
called, though to the rest of the world he was simply Baumberger--was
what he himself called a true sport. Women, he maintained, were very
much like trout; and so, when this particular woman calmly turned
her back upon the smile cast at her, he did not linger there angling
uselessly, but betook himself to the store, where his worldly position,
rather than his charming personality, might be counted upon to bring him
his meed of appreciation.

Good Indian and Jack, sitting side by side upon the porch and saying
very little, he passed by with a careless nod, as being not worth his
attention. Saunders, glancing up from the absorbing last chapter of
“The Brokenhearted Bride,” also received a nod, and returned it
apathetically. Pete Hamilton, however, got a flabby handshake, a wheezy
laugh, and the announcement that he was down from Shoshone for a good,
gamy tussle with that four-pounder he had lost last time.

“And I don't go back till I get him--not if I stay here a week,” he
declared, with jocular savagery. “Took half my leader and my pet fly--I
got him with a peacock-bodied gray hackle that I revised to suit my own
notions--and, by the great immortal Jehosaphat, he looked like a whale
when he jumped up clear of the riffle, turned over, and--” His flabby,
white hand made a soaring movement to indicate the manner in which the
four-pounder had vanished.

“Better take a day off and go with me, Pete,” he suggested, getting an
unwieldy-looking pipe from the pocket of his canvas fishing-coat, and
opening his eyes at a trout-fly snagged in the mouthpiece. “Now, how
did that fly come there?” he asked aggrievedly, while he released it
daintily for all his fingers looked so fat and awkward. He stuck the
pipe in the corner of his mouth, and held up the fly with that interest
which seems fatuous to one who has no sporting blood in his veins.

“Last time I used that fly was when I was down here three weeks ago--the
day I lost the big one. Ain't it a beauty, eh? Tied it myself. And, by
the great immortal Jehosaphat, it fetches me the rainbows, too. Good
mind to try it on the big one. Don't see how I didn't miss it out of my
book--I must be getting absent-minded. Sign of old age, that. Failing
powers and the like.” He shook his head reprovingly and grinned, as if
he considered the idea something of a joke. “Have to buck up--a lawyer
can't afford to grow absent-minded. He's liable to wake up some day and
find himself without his practice.”

He got his fly-book from the basket swinging at his left hip, opened
it, turned the leaves with the caressing touch one gives to a cherished
thing, and very carefully placed the fly upon the page where it
belonged; gazed gloatingly down at the tiny, tufted hooks, with their
frail-looking five inches of gut leader, and then returned the book
fondly to the basket.

“Think I'll go on down to the Harts',” he said, “so as to be that much
closer to the stream. Daylight is going to find me whipping the riffles,
Peter. You won't come along? You better. Plenty of--ah--snake medicine,”
 he hinted, chuckling so that the whole, deep chest of him vibrated. “No?
Well, you can let me have a horse, I suppose--that cow-backed sorrel
will do--he's gentle, I know. I think I'll go out and beg an invitation
from that Hart boy--never can remember those kids by name--Gene, is it,
or Jack?”

He went out upon the porch, laid a hand upon Jack's shoulder, and beamed
down upon him with what would have passed easily for real affection
while he announced that he was going to beg supper and a bed at the
ranch, and wanted to know, as a solicitous after-thought, if Jack's
mother had company, or anything that would make his presence a burden.

“Nobody's there--and, if there was, it wouldn't matter,” Jack assured
him carelessly. “Go on down, if you want to. It'll be all right with
mother.”

“One thing I like about fishing down here,” chuckled Baumberger, his fat
fingers still resting lightly upon Jack's shoulder, “is the pleasure of
eating my fish at your house. There ain't another man, woman, or child
in all Idaho can fry trout like your mother. You needn't tell her I
said so--but it's a fact, just the same. She sure is a genius with the
frying-pan, my boy.”

He turned and called in to Pete, to know if he might have the sorrel
saddled right away. Since Pete looked upon Baumberger with something of
the awed admiration which he would bestow upon the President, he felt
convinced that his horses were to be congratulated that any one of them
found favor in his eyes.

Pete, therefore, came as near to roaring at Saunders as his good nature
and his laziness would permit, and waited in the doorway until Saunders
had, with visible reluctance, laid down his book and started toward the
stable.

“Needn't bother to bring the horse down here, my man,” Baumberger called
after him. “I'll get him at the stable and start from there. Well, wish
me luck, Pete--and say! I'll expect you to make a day of it with me
Sunday. No excuses, now. I'm going to stay over that long, anyhow.
Promised myself three good days--maybe more. A man's got to break away
from his work once in a while. If I didn't, life wouldn't be worth
living. I'm willing to grind--but I've got to have my playtime, too.
Say, I want you to try this rod of mine Sunday. You'll want one like it
yourself, if I'm any good at guessing. Just got it, you know--it's the
one I was talking to yuh about last time I was down.

“W-ell--I reckon my means of conveyance is ready for me--so long, Peter,
till Sunday. See you at supper, boys.”

He hooked a thumb under the shoulder-strap of his basket, pulled it to a
more comfortable position, waved his hand in a farewell, which included
every living thing within sight of him, and went away up the narrow,
winding trail through the sagebrush to the stable, humming something
under his breath with the same impulse of satisfaction with life which
sets a cat purring.

Some time later, he appeared, in the same jovial mood, at the Hart
ranch, and found there the welcome which he had counted upon--the
welcome which all men received there upon demand.

When Evadna and Jack rode up, they found Mr. Baumberger taking his ease
in Peaceful's armchair on the porch, discussing, with animated gravity,
the ins and outs of county politics; his fishing-basket lying on its
flat side close to his chair, his rod leaning against the house at
his elbow, his heavy pipe dragging down one corner of his loose-lipped
mouth; his whole gross person surrounded by an atmosphere of prosperity
leading the simple life transiently and by choice, and of lazy enjoyment
in his own physical and mental well-being.



CHAPTER IX. PEPPAJEE JIM “HEAP SABES”

Peppajee Jim had meditated long in the shade of his wikiup, and now,
when the sun changed from a glaring ball of intense, yellow heat to a
sullen red disk hanging low over the bluffs of Snake River, he rose,
carefully knocked the ashes from his little stone pipe, with one
mechanical movement of his arms, gathered his blanket around him, pushed
a too-familiar dog from him with a shove of moccasined foot, and stalked
away through the sagebrush.

On the brow of the hill, just where the faint footpath dipped into a
narrow gully at the very edge, almost, of the bluff, he stopped, and
lifted his head for an unconsciously haughty stare at his surroundings.

Beneath him and half a mile or so up the river valley, the mellow green
of Peaceful's orchard was already taking to itself the vagueness of
evening shadows. Nearer, the meadow of alfalfa and clover lay like a
soft, green carpet of velvet, lined here and there with the irrigation
ditches which kept it so. And in the center of the meadow, a small
inclosure marked grimly the spot where lay the bones of old John Imsen.
All around the man-made oasis of orchards and meadows, the sage and the
sand, pushed from the river by the jumble of placer pits, emphasized by
sharp contrast what man may do with the most unpromising parts of the
earth's surface, once he sets himself heart and muscle to the task.

With the deliberation of his race, Peppajee stood long minutes
motionless, gazing into the valley before he turned with a true Indian
shrug and went down into the gully, up the steep slope beyond, and
then, after picking his way through a jumble of great bowlders, came
out eventually into the dust-ridden trail of the white man. Down that he
walked, erect, swift, purposeful, his moccasins falling always with the
precision of a wild animal upon the best footing among the loose
rocks, stubs of sage-roots, or patches of deep dust and sand beside the
wagon-road, his sharp, high-featured face set in the stony calm which
may hide a tumult of elemental passions beneath and give no sign.

Where the trail curved out sharply to round the Point o' Rocks, he left
it, and kept straight on through the sage, entered a rough pass through
the huge rock tongue, and came out presently to the trail again, a scant
two hundred yards from the Hart haystacks. When he reached the stable,
he stopped and looked warily about him, but there was no sight or sound
of any there save animals, and he went on silently to the house, his
shadow stretching long upon the ground before him until it merged into
the shade of the grove beyond the gate, and so was lost for that day.

“Hello, Peppajee,” called Wally over his cigarette. “Just in time for
supper.”

Peppajee grunted, stopped in the path two paces from the porch, folded
his arms inside his blanket, and stood so while his eyes traveled slowly
and keenly around the group lounging at ease above him. Upon the bulky
figure of Baumberger they dwelt longest, and while he looked his face
hardened until nothing seemed alive but his eyes.

“Peppajee, this my friend, Mr. Baumberger. You heap sabe
Baumberger--come all time from Shoshone, mebbyso catchum heap many
fish.” Peaceful's mild, blue eyes twinkled over his old meerschaum.
He knew the ways of Indians, and more particularly he knew the ways of
Peppajee; Baumberger, he guessed shrewdly, had failed to find favor in
his eyes.

“Huh!” grunted Peppajee non-commitally, and made no motion to
shake hands, thereby confirming Peaceful's suspicion. “Me heap sabe
Man-that-catchum-fish.” After which he stood as before, his arms folded
tightly in his blanket, his chin lifted haughtily, his mouth a straight,
stern line of bronze.

“Sit down, Peppajee. Bimeby eat supper,” Peaceful invited pacifically,
while Baumberger chuckled at the Indian's attitude, which he attributed
to racial stupidity.

Peppajee did not even indicate that he heard or, hearing, understood.

“Bothered much with Injuns?” Baumberger asked carelessly, putting away
his pipe. “I see there's quite a camp of 'em up on the hill. Hope you've
got good watchdogs--they're a thieving lot. If they're a nuisance, Hart,
I'll see what can be done about slapping 'em back on their reservation,
where they belong. I happen to have some influence with the agent.”

“I guess you needn't go to any trouble about it,” Peaceful returned
dryly. “I've had worse neighbors.”

“Oh--if you're stuck on their company!” laughed Baumberger wheezily.
“'Every fellow to his taste, as the old woman said when she kissed her
cow.' There may be good ones among the lot,” he conceded politely when
he saw that his time-worn joke had met with disfavor, even by the boys,
who could--and usually did--laugh at almost anything. “They all look
alike to me, I must admit; I never had any truck with 'em.”

“No, I guess not,” Peaceful agreed in his slow way, holding his pipe
three inches from his face while he eyed Peppajee quizzically. “Don't
pay to have any truck with 'em while you feel that way about it.”
 He smoothed down his snow-white beard with his free hand, pushed the
pipe-stem between his teeth, and went on smoking.

“I never liked the breed, any way you look at 'em,” Baumberger stated
calmly.

“Say, you'll queer yourself good and plenty, if you keep on,” Wally
interrupted bluntly. “Peppajee's ears aren't plugged with cotton--are
they, Jim?”

Neither Peppajee nor Baumberger made reply of any sort, and Peaceful
turned his mild eyes reproachfully toward his untactful son. But the
supper summons clanged insistently from the iron triangle on the back
porch and saved the situation from becoming too awkward. Even Baumberger
let his tilted chair down upon its four legs with a haste for which his
appetite was not alone responsible, and followed the boys into the house
as if he were glad to escape from the steady, uncompromising stare of
the Indian.

“Better come and eat, Peppajee,” Peaceful lingered upon the porch to
urge hospitably. “You no get mad. You come eat supper.”

“No!” Peppajee jerked the word out with unmistakable finality. “No eat.
Bimeby mebbyso makum big talk yo'.”

Peaceful studied his face, found it stern and unyielding, and nodded
assent. “All right. I eat, then I talk with you.” He turned somewhat
reluctantly and followed the others inside, leaving Peppajee to pass the
time away as pleased him best.

Peppajee stood still for a moment listening to the clatter of dishes
from the kitchen, and then with dignity end deliberation seated himself
upon the lowest step of the porch, and, pulling his blanket tight around
him, resettled his disreputable old sombrero upon his head and stared
fixedly at the crimson glow which filled all the west and made even the
rugged bluff a wonderful thing of soft, rose tints and shadows of royal
purple. Peaceful, coming out half an hour after with Baumberger at his
heels, found him so and made a movement to sit down beside him. But
Peppajee rose and stalked majestically to the gate, then turned and
confronted the two.

“I talk yo'. Mebbyso no talk Man-with-big-belly.” He waited impassively.

“All right, Jim.” Peaceful turned apologetically toward his guest.
“Something he wants to tell me, Baumberger; kinda private, I guess. I'll
be back in a minute, anyway.”

“Now don't mind me at all,” Baumberger protested generously. “Go ahead
just as if I wasn't here--that's what'll please me best. I hope I ain't
so much of a stranger you've got to stand on ceremony. Go on, and find
out what the old buck wants; he's got something on his mind, that's
sure. Been stealing fruit, maybe, and wants to square himself before you
catch him at it.” He laughed his laziest, and began leisurely to fill
his pipe.

Peppajee led the way to the stable, where he stopped short and faced
Peaceful, his arms folded, one foot thrust forward in the pose he
affected when about to speak of matters important.

“Long time ago, when yo' hair black,” he began deliberately, with a
sonorous lingering upon his vowels, “yo' all time my frien'. I yo'
frien' all same. Yo' no likum otha white man. Yo' all time bueno. Yo'
house all same my wikiup. Me come eat at yo' house, talk yo' all same
brotha. Yo' boys all same my boys--all time my frien'. Me speakum all
time no lie, mebbyso.”

“No,” Peaceful assented unhesitatingly, “you no tell lies, Peppajee. We
good friends, many years.”

“Huh! Man-that-catchum-fish, him no yo' frien'. Shont-isham. All time
him speakum lies--tellum frien' yo', no frien'. Yo' no more tellum stop
yo' wikiup. Kay bueno. Yo' thinkum frien'. All time him have bad heart
for yo'. Yo' got ranch. Got plenty hay, plenty apple, plenty all thing
for eat. All time him think bad for yo'. All time him likum steal yo'
ranch.”

Peaceful laughed indulgently. “You no sabe,” he explained. “Him like
my ranch. Him say, long time ago, pay much money for my ranch. Me no
sell--me like for keep all time. Baumberger good man. Him no steal my
ranch. Me got one paper from government--you sabe?--one paper say ranch
all time b'longum me all same. Big white chief say ranch b'longum me all
time. I die, ranch b'longum my boys. You sabe?”

Peppajee considered. “Me sabe,” he said at length. “Me sabe paper, sabe
ranch all time b'longum yo'. All same, him like for ketchum yo' ranch.
Me hear much talk, him talk Man-that-coughs, tellum him ketchum ranch.
Much white man come, so--” He lifted one hand with thumb and fingers
outspread, made a downward gesture, and then raised three fingers.
“Catchum ranch.”

Peaceful shook his head while he smiled. “No can do that. Mebbyso much
men come, heap fight, mebbyso killum me, ranch all same b'longum my
boys. Men that fights go to jail, mebbyso hangum.” He indicated by signs
his exact meaning.

Peppajee scowled, and shook his head stubbornly. “Me heap sabe. All
same, ketchum yo' ranch. Man-that-catchum-fish kay bueno. Yo' thinkum
frien', yo' damfool. Him all same rattlesnake. Plenty foolum yo'. Yo'
see. Yo' thinkum Peppajee Jim heap big fool. Peaceful Hart, him all time
one heap big damfool. Him ketchum yo' ranch. Yo' see.” He stopped and
stared hard at the dim bulk of the grove, whence came the faint odor of
smoke from Baumberger's pipe.

“Yo' be smart man,” he added grimly, “yo' all same kickum dat mans
off yo' ranch.” For emphasis he thrust out a foot vigorously in the
direction of the house and the man he maligned, and turned his face
toward camp. Peaceful watched until the blanketed form merged into the
dusk creeping over the valley, and when it disappeared finally into the
short cut through the sage, he shook his gray head in puzzlement over
the absurd warning, and went back to talk politics with Baumberger.



CHAPTER X. MIDNIGHT PROWLERS

Came midnight and moonlight together, and with them came also Good
Indian riding somewhat sullenly down the trail to the ranch. Sullen
because of Evadna's attitude, which seemed to him permanently
antagonistic, and for very slight cause, and which made the ranch an
unpleasant abiding place.

He decided that he would not stop at the ranch, but would go on up
the valley to where one Abuer Hicks lived by himself in a half-dugout,
half-board shack, and by mining a little where his land was untillable,
and farming a little where the soil took kindly to fruit and grasses,
managed to exist without too great hardship. The pension he received for
having killed a few of his fellow-men at the behest of his government
was devoted solely to liquid relief from the monotony of his life,
and welcome indeed was the man who brought him a bottle of joy between
times. Wherefore Good Indian had thoughtfully provided himself with a
quart or so and rode with his mind at ease so far as his welcome at the
Hicks dwelling place was concerned.

Once again the Peaceful Hart ranch lay in brooding silence under the
shadow of the bluff. A few crickets chirped shrilly along the trail, and
from their sudden hush as he drew near marked unerringly his passing.
Along the spring-fed creek the frogs croaked a tuneless medley before
him, and, like the crickets, stopped abruptly and waited in absolute
silence to take up their night chant again behind him. His horse stepped
softly in the deep sand of the trail, and, when he found that his rider
refused to let him stop at the stable-door, shook his head in mute
displeasure, and went quietly on. As he neared the silent house, the
faint creak of saddle-leather and the rattle of spur-chains against his
iron stirrups were smothered in the whispering of the treetops in the
grove, so that only the quick hushing of night noises alone betrayed him
to any wakeful ear.

He was guilty of staring hard at that corner of the house where he knew
Evadna slept, and of scowling over the vague disquiet which the thought
of her caused him. No girl had ever troubled his mind before. It annoyed
him that the face and voice of Evadna obtruded, even upon his thoughts
of other things.

The grove was quiet, and he could hear Gene's unmistakable snore over
by the pond--the only sound save the whispering of the trees, which
went on, unmindful of his approach. It was evident, he thought, that
the ghost was effectually laid--and on the heels of that, as he rode out
from the deep shade of the grove and on past the garden to the meadows
beyond, he wondered if, after all, it was again hardily wandering
through the night; for he thought he glimpsed a figure which flitted
behind a huge rock a few rods in advance of him, and his eyes were not
used to playing him tricks.

He gave a twitch of his fingers upon the reins, and turned from the
trail to investigate. He rode up to the rock, which stood like an island
of shade in that sea of soft moonlight, and, peering into the shadows,
spoke a guarded challenge:

“Who's that?”

A figure detached itself without sound from the blot of darkness there,
and stood almost at his stirrup.

“Yo' Good Injun--me likum for talk yo'.”

Good Indian was conscious of a distinct disappointment, though he kept
it from his voice when he answered:

“Oh, it's you, Peppajee. What you do here? Why you no sleepum yo'
wikiup?”

Peppajee held up a slim, brown hand for silence, and afterward rested it
upon the saddle-fork.

“Yo' heap frien' Peaceful. Me heap frien' all same. Mebbyso we talk.
Yo' get down. No can see yo', mebbyso; yo' no likum bad man for se--” He
stepped back a pace, and let Good Indian dismount; then with a gesture
he led him back into the shadow of the rock.

“Well, what's the row?” Good Indian asked impatiently, and curiously as
well.

Peppajee spoke more hastily than was usual. “Me watchum
Man-that-catchum-fish. Him hee-eeap kay bueno. Me no sabe why him walk,
walk in night--me heap watchum.”

“You mean Baumberger? He's all right. He comes down here to catchum many
fish--trout, up in the Malad, you sabe. Heap friend Peaceful. You no
likum?”

“Kay bueno.” Peppajee rested a forefinger upon Good Indian's arm. “Sun
up there,” he pointed high in the west. “Me go all same Hartley. Come
stable--Pete stable--me walkum close--no makum noise. Me hear talk.
Stoppum--no can see--me hear much bad talk. All time me hear, heap
likum for steal dis ranch. Me no sabe”--his tone was doubtful for a
space--“all same, me hear stealum this ranch. Man, you callum--”

“Baumberger?” suggested Grant.

“Him. All same Baumberga, him talk Man-that-coughs. All time say
stealum ranch. Makum much bad talk, them mans. Me come ranch, me tellum
Peaceful, him all time laugh, me. All time shakum head. Mebbyso thinkum
I lie--shont-isham!”

“What more you do?” Good Indian, at least, did not laugh.

“Me go camp. Me thinkum, thinkum all time. Dat man have bad heart. Kay
bueno. No can sleep--thinkum mebbyso do bad for Peaceful. Come ranch,
stop all time dark, all time heap watchum. Bimeby, mebbyso man--all same
yo' callum Baumberga--him come, look, so--” He indicated, by a great
craning of neck in all directions, the wariness of one who goes by
stealth. “Him walk still all time, go all time ova there.” He swept his
arm toward the meadows. “Me go still, for watchum. Yo' come, mebbyso
make heap much noise--kay bueno. Dat mans, him hear, him heap scare.
Me tellum, yo' mebbyso go still.” He folded his arms with a gesture of
finality, and stood statue-like in the deep gloom beside the rock.

Good Indian fingered his horse's mane while he considered the queer
story. There must be something in it, he thought, to bring Peppajee
from his blankets at midnight and to impel him, unfriendly as he usually
seemed, to confide his worry to him at once and without urging. And yet,
to steal the Peaceful Hart ranch--the idea was ludicrous. Still, there
was no harm in looking around a bit. He sought a sagebrush that suited
his purpose, tied his horse to it, stooped, and took the clanking
Mexican spurs from his heels, and touched Peppajee on the shoulder.

“All right,” he murmured close to his ear, “we go see.”

Without a word, Peppajee turned, and stole away toward the meadows,
keeping always in the shadow of rock or bush, silent-footed as a
prowling bobcat. Close behind him, not quite so silent because of his
riding-boots, which would strike now and then upon a rock, however
careful he was of his footing, went Good Indian.

So they circled the meadow, came into sand and sage beyond, sought there
unavailingly, went on to the orchard, and skirted it, keen of eye and
ear, struck quietly through it, and came at last to the place where,
the night before, Grant had overtaken Evadna--and it surprised him not a
little to feel his heart pounding unreasonably against his ribs when he
stopped beside the rock where they had sat and quarreled.

Peppajee looked back to see why Grant paused there, and then, wrapping
his blanket tightly around him, crawled through the fence, and went on,
keeping to the broad belt of shade cast upon the ground by the row
of poplars. Where the shade stopped abruptly, and beyond lay white
moonlight with the ranch buildings blotching it here and there, he
stopped and waited until Good Indian stood close beside him. Even then
he did not speak, but, freeing an arm slowly from the blanket folds,
pointed toward the stable.

Grant looked, saw nothing, stared harder, and so; feeling sure there
must be something hidden there, presently believed that a bit of the
shadow at that end which was next the corral wavered, stopped, and then
moved unmistakably. All the front of the stable was distinctly visible
in the white light, and, while they looked, something flitted across it,
and disappeared among the sage beyond the trail.

Again they waited; two minutes, three minutes, five. Then another shadow
detached itself slowly from the shade of the stable, hesitated, walked
out boldly, and crossed the white sand on the path to the house.
Baumberger it was, and he stopped midway to light his pipe, and so,
puffing luxuriously, went on into the blackness of the grove.

They heard him step softly upon the porch, heard also the bovine sigh
with which he settled himself in the armchair there. They caught the
aromatic odor of tobacco smoke ascending, and knew that his presence
there had all at once become the most innocent, the most natural
thing in the world; for any man, waking on such a night, needs no
justification for smoking a nocturnal pipe upon the porch while he gazes
dreamily out upon the moon-bathed world around him.

Peppajee touched Grant's arm, and turned back, skirting the poplars
again until they were well away from the house, and there was no
possibility of being heard. He stopped there, and confronted the other.

“What for you no stoppum stable?” he questioned bluntly. “What for you
no stoppum ranch, for sleepum?”

“I go for stoppum Hicks' ranch,” said Good Indian, without any attempt
at equivocation.

Peppajee grunted. “What for yo' no stoppum all same Peaceful?”

Good Indian scorned a subterfuge, and spoke truly. “That girl, Evadna,
no likum me. All time mad me. So I no stoppum ranch, no more.”

Peppajee grinned briefly and understandingly, and nodded his head. “Me
heap sabe. Yo' all time heap like for catchum that girl, be yo' squaw.
Bimeby that girl heap likum yo'. Me sabe.” He stood a moment staring at
the stars peeping down from above the rim-rock which guarded the bluff.
“All same, yo' no go stoppum Hicks,” he commanded. “Yo' stoppum dis
ranch all time. Yo' all time watchum man--yo' callum Baumberga.” He
seemed to remember and speak the name with some difficulty. “Where
him go, yo' go, for heap watchum. All time mebbyso me watchum
Man-that-coughs. Me no sabe catchum ranch--all same, me watchum. Them
mans heap kay bueno. Yo' bet yo' life!”

A moment he stood there after he was through speaking, and then he was
not there. Good Indian did not hear him go, though he had stood
beside him; neither could he, catching sight of a wavering shadow, say
positively that there went Peppajee.

He waited for a space, stole back to where he could hear any sound
from the porch even if he could not see, and when he was certain that
Baumberger had gone back to his bed, he got his horse, took him by a
roundabout way to the stable, and himself slept in a haystack. At least,
he made himself a soft place beside one, and lay there until the sun
rose, and if he did not sleep it was not his fault, for he tried hard
enough.

That is how Good Indian came to take his usual place at the breakfast
table, and to touch elbows with Evadna and to greet her with punctilious
politeness and nothing more. That is why he got out his fishing-tackle
and announced that he thought he would have a try at some trout himself,
and so left the ranch not much behind Baumberger. That is why he
patiently whipped the Malad riffles until he came up with the portly
lawyer from Shoshone, and found him gleeful over a full basket and
bubbling with innocent details of this gamy one and that one still
gamier. They rode home together, and together they spent the hot
afternoon in the cool depths of the grove.

By sundown Good Indian was ready to call himself a fool and Peppajee Jim
a meddlesome, visionary old idiot. Steal the Peaceful Hart ranch? The
more he thought of it, the more ridiculous the thing seemed.



CHAPTER XI. “YOU CAN'T PLAY WITH ME”

Good Indian was young, which means that he was not always logical,
nor much given to looking very far into the future except as he was
personally concerned in what he might see there. By the time Sunday
brought Miss Georgie Howard and the stir of preparation for the fishing
trip, he forgot that he had taken upon himself the responsibility of
watching the obviously harmless movements of Baumberger, or had taken
seriously the warnings of Peppajee Jim; or if he did not forget, he at
least pushed it far into the background of his mind with the assertion
that Peppajee was a meddlesome old fool and Baumberger no more designing
than he appeared--which was not at all.

What did interest him that morning was the changeful mood of Evadna;
though he kept his interest so well hidden that no one suspected it--not
even the young lady herself. It is possible that if Evadna had known
that Good Indian's attitude of calm oblivion to her moods was only a
mask, she might have continued longer her rigorous discipline of averted
face and frigid tones.

As it was, she thawed toward him as he held himself more aloof, until
she actually came to the point of addressing him directly, with a
flicker of a smile for good measure; and, although he responded with
stiff civility, he felt his blood pulse faster, and suddenly conceived
the idea that women are like the creatures of the wild. If one is very
quiet, and makes no advance whatever, the hunted thing comes closer and
closer, and then a sudden pounce--he caught his breath. After that he
was wary and watchful and full of his purpose.

Within ten minutes Evadna walked into the trap. They had started, and
were fifty yards up the trail, when Phoebe shouted frantically after
them. And because she was yet a timid rider and feared to keep the pace
set by the others, it was Evadna who heard and turned back to see what
was the trouble. Aunt Phoebe was standing beside the road, waving a
flask.

“It's the cream for your coffee,” she cried, going to meet Evadna. “You
can slip it into your jacket-pocket, can't you, honey? Huckleberry is so
steady--and you won't do any wild riding like the boys.”

“I've got my veil and a box of bait and two handkerchiefs and a piece of
soap,” the girl complained, reaching down for the bottle, nevertheless.
“But I can carry it in my hand till I overtake somebody to give it to.”

The somebody proved to be Good Indian, who had found it necessary to
stop and inspect carefully the left forefoot of his horse, without
appearing aware of the girl's approach. She ambled up at Huckleberry's
favorite shuffling gait, struck him with her whip--a blow which would
not have perturbed a mosquito--when he showed a disposition to stop
beside Grant, and then, when Huckleberry reluctantly resumed his pacing,
pulled him up, and looked back at the figure stooped over the hoof he
held upon his knee. He was digging into the caked dirt inside the hoof
with his pocketknife, and, though Evadna waited while she might have
spoken a dozen words, he paid not the slightest attention--and that in
spite of the distinct shadow of her head and shoulders which lay at his
feet.

“Oh--Grant,” she began perfunctorily, “I'm sorry to trouble you--but do
you happen to have an empty pocket?”

Good Indian gave a final scrape with his knife, and released the foot,
which Keno immediately stamped pettishly into the dust. He closed the
knife, after wiping the blade upon his trousers leg, and returned it to
his pocket before he so much as glanced toward her.

“I may have. Why?” He picked up the bridle-reins, caught the
saddle-horn, and thrust his toe into the stirrup. From under his
hat-brim he saw that she was pinching her under lip between her teeth,
and the sight raised his spirits considerably.

“Oh, nothing. Aunt Phoebe called me back, and gave me a bottle of cream,
is all. I shall have to carry it in my hand, I suppose.” She twitched
her shoulders, and started Huckleberry off again. She had called him
Grant, instead of the formal Mr. Imsen she had heretofore clung to, and
he had not seemed to notice it even.

He mounted with perfectly maddening deliberation, but for all that he
overtook her before she had gone farther than a few rods, and he pulled
up beside her with a decision which caused Huckleberry to stop
also; Huckleberry, it must be confessed, was never known to show any
reluctance in that direction when his head was turned away from home. He
stood perfectly still while Good Indian reached out a hand.

“I'll carry it--I'm more used to packing bottles,” he announced gravely.

“Oh, but if you must carry it in your hand, I wouldn't dream of--” She
was holding fast the bottle, and trying to wear her Christmas-angel
look.

Good Indian laid hold of the flask, and they stood there stubbornly
eying each other.

“I thought you wanted me to carry it,” he said at last, pulling harder.

“I merely asked if you had an empty pocket.” Evadna clung the tighter.

“Now, what's the use--”

“Just what I was thinking!” Evadna was so impolite as to interrupt him.

Good Indian was not skilled in the management of women, but he knew
horses, and to his decision he added an amendment. Instinctively he
followed the method taught him by experience, and when he fancied he
saw in her eyes a sign of weakening, he followed up the advantage he had
gained.

“Let go--because I'm going to have it anyway, now,” he said quietly,
and took the flask gently from her hands. Then he smiled at her for
yielding, and his smile was a revelation to the girl, and brought the
blood surging up to her face. She rode meekly beside him at the pace
he himself set--which was not rapid, by any means. He watched her with
quick, sidelong glances, and wondered whether he would dare say what he
wanted to say--or at least a part of it.

She was gazing with a good deal of perseverance at the trail, down
the windings of which the others could be seen now and then galloping
through the dust, so that their progress was marked always by a
smothering cloud of gray. Then she looked at Grant unexpectedly, met one
of his sharp glances, and flushed hotly again.

“How about this business of hating each other, and not speaking except
to please Aunt Phoebe?” he demanded, with a suddenness which startled
himself. He had been thinking it, but he hadn't intended to say it until
the words spoke themselves. “Are we supposed to keep on acting the fool
indefinitely?”

“I was not aware that I, at least, was acting the fool,” she retorted,
with a washed-out primness.

“Oh, I can't fight the air, and I'm not going to try. What I've got
to say, I prefer to say straight from the shoulder. I'm sick of this
standing off and giving each other the bad eye over nothing. If we're
going to stay on the same ranch, we might as well be friends. What do
you say?”

For a time he thought she was not going to say anything. She was staring
at the dust-cloud ahead, and chewing absently at the corner of her under
lip, and she kept it up so long that Good Indian began to scowl and call
himself unseemly names for making any overture whatever. But, just as he
turned toward her with lips half opened for a bitter sentence, he saw a
dimple appear in the cheek next to him, and held back the words.

“You told me you didn't like me,” she reminded, looking at him briefly,
and afterward fumbling her reins. “You can't expect a girl--”

“I suppose you don't remember coming up to me that first night, and
calling me names, and telling me how you hated me, and--and winding up
by pinching me?” he insinuated with hypocritical reproach, and felt of
his arm. “If you could see the mark--” he hinted shamelessly.

Evadna replied by pushing up her sleeve and displaying a scratch at
least an inch in length, and still roughened and red. “I suppose you
don't remember trying to MURDER me?” she inquired, sweetly triumphant.
“If you could shoot as well as Jack, I'd have been killed very likely.
And you'd be in jail this minute,” she added, with virtuous solemnity.

“But you're not killed, and I'm not in jail.”

“And I haven't told a living soul about it--not even Aunt Phoebe,”
 Evadna remarked, still painfully virtuous. “If I had--”

“She'd have wondered, maybe, what you were doing away down there in
the middle of the night,” Good Indian finished. “I didn't tell a soul,
either, for that matter.”

They left the meadowland and the broad stretch of barren sand and sage,
and followed, at a leisurely pace, the winding of the trail through
the scarred desolation where the earth had been washed for gold. Evadna
stared absently at the network of deep gashes, evidently meditating
very seriously. Finally she turned to Grant with an honest impulse of
friendliness.

“Well, I'm sure I'm willing to bury the tomahawk--er--that is, I mean--”
 She blushed hotly at the slip, and stammered incoherently.

“Never mind.” His eyes laughed at her confusion. “I'm not as bad as
all that; it doesn't hurt my feelings to have tomahawks mentioned in my
presence.”

Her cheeks grew redder, if that were possible, but she made no attempt
to finish what she had started to say.

Good Indian rode silent, watching her unobtrusively and wishing he knew
how to bring the conversation by the most undeviating path to a certain
much-desired conclusion. After all, she was not a wild thing, but a
human being, and he hesitated. In dealing with men, he had but
one method, which was to go straight to the point regardless of
consequences. So he half turned in the saddle and rode with one foot
free of the stirrup that he might face her squarely.

“You say you're willing to bury the tomahawk; do you mean it?” His
eyes sought hers, and when they met her glance held it in spite of her
blushes, which indeed puzzled him. But she did not answer immediately,
and so he repeated the question.

“Do you mean that? We've been digging into each other pretty
industriously, and saying how we hate each other--but are you willing
to drop it and be friends? It's for you to say--and you've got to say it
now.”

Evadna hung up her head at that. “Are you in the habit of laying down
the law to everyone who will permit it?” she evaded.

“Am I to take it for granted you meant what you said?” He stuck
stubbornly to the main issue. “Girls seem to have a way of saying
things, whether they mean anything or not. Did you?”

“Did I what?” She was wide-eyed innocence again.

Good Indian muttered something profane, and kicked his horse in the
ribs. When it had taken no more than two leaps forward, however, he
pulled it down to a walk again, and his eyes boded ill for the misguided
person who goaded him further. He glanced at the girl sharply.

“This thing has got to be settled right now, without any more fooling
or beating about the bush,” he said--and he said it so quietly that she
could scarcely be blamed for not realizing what lay beneath. She was
beginning to recover her spirits and her composure, and her whole
attitude had become demurely impish.

“Settle it then, why don't you?” she taunted sweetly. “I'm sure I
haven't the faintest idea what there is to settle--in that solemn
manner. I only know we're a mile behind the others, and Miss Georgie
will be wondering--”

“You say I'm to settle it, the way I want it settled?”

If Evadna did not intend anything serious, she certainly was a fool not
to read aright his ominously calm tone and his tensely quiet manner. She
must have had some experience in coquetry, but it is very likely that
she had never met a man just like this one. At all events, she tilted
her blonde head, smiled at him daringly, and then made a little grimace
meant to signify her defiance of him and his unwarranted earnestness.

Good Indian leaned unexpectedly, caught her in his arms, and kissed her
three times upon her teasing, smiling mouth, and while she was gasping
for words to voice her amazement he drew back his head, and gazed
sternly into her frightened eyes.

“You can't play with ME,” he muttered savagely, and kissed her again.
“This is how I settle it. You've made me want you for mine. It's got to
be love or--hate now. There isn't anything between, for me and you.” His
eyes passed hungrily from her quivering lips to her eyes, and the glow
within his own made her breath come faster. She struggled weakly to free
herself, and his clasp only tightened jealously.

“If you had hated me, you wouldn't have stopped back there, and spoken
to me,” he said, the words coming in a rush. “Women like to play with
love, I think. But you can't play with me. I want you. And I'm going to
have you. Unless you hate me. But you don't. I'd stake my life on it.”
 And he kissed her again.

Evadna reached up, felt for her hat, and began pulling it straight,
and Good Indian, recalled to himself by the action, released her with
manifest reluctance. He felt then that he ought never to let her go out
of his arms; it was the only way, it seemed to him, that he could
be sure of her. Evadna found words to express her thoughts, and her
thoughts were as wholly conventional as was the impulse to straighten
her hat.

“We've only known each other a week!” she cried tremulously, while
her gloved fingers felt inquiringly for loosened hairpins. “You've no
right--you're perfectly horrid! You take everything for granted--”

Good Indian laughed at her, a laugh of pure, elemental joy in life and
in love.

“A man's heart does not beat by the calendar. Nature made the heart to
beat with love, ages before man measured time, and prattled of hours and
days and weeks,” he retorted. “I'm not the same man I was a week ago.
Nor an hour ago. What does it matter, I am--the man I am NOW.” He
looked at her more calmly. “An hour ago,” he pointed out, “I didn't
dream I should kiss you. Nor you, that you would let me do it.”

“I didn't! I couldn't help myself. You--oh, I never saw such a--a
brute!” The tears in her eyes were, perhaps, tears of rage at the
swiftness with which he had mastered the situation and turned it in a
breath from the safe channel of petty argument. She struck Huckleberry a
blow with her whip which sent that astonished animal galloping down the
slope before them, his ears laid back and his white eyelashes blinking
resentment against the outrage.

Good Indian laughed aloud, spurred Keno into a run, and passed her with
a scurry of dust, a flash of white teeth and laughing black eyes, and a
wave of his free hand in adieu. He was still laughing when he overtook
the others, passed by the main group, and singled out Jack, his
particular chum. He refused to explain either his hurry or his mirth
further than to fling out a vague sentence about a race, and thereafter
he ambled contentedly along beside Jack in the lead, and told how he had
won a hundred and sixty dollars in a crap game the last time he was in
Shoshone, and how he had kept on until he had “quit ten dollars in
the hole.” The rest of the boys, catching a few words here and there,
crowded close, and left the two girls to themselves, while Good Indian
recounted in detail the fluctuations of the game; how he had seesawed
for an hour, winning and losing alternately; and how his luck had
changed suddenly just when he had made up his mind to play a five-dollar
gold piece he had in his hand and quit.

“I threw naturals three times in succession,” he said, “and let my bets
ride. Then I got Big Dick, made good, and threw another natural. I was
seeing those Spanish spurs and that peach of a headstall in Fernando's
by that time; seeing them on Keno and me--they're in the window yet,
Jack, and I went in when I first hit town and looked them over and
priced them; a hundred and fifty, just about what we guessed he'd
hold them at. And say, those conchos--you remember the size of 'em,
Jack?--they're solid silver, hammered out and engraved by hand. Those
Mexicans sure do turn out some fine work on their silver fixings!” He
felt in his pocket for a match.

“Pity I didn't let well enough alone,” he went on. “I had the price of
the outfit, and ten dollars over. But then I got hoggish. I thought I
stood a good chance of making seven lucky passes straight--I did once,
and I never got over it, I guess. I was going to pinch down to ten--but
I didn't; I let her ride. And SHOT CRAPS!”

He drew the match along the stamped saddle-skirt behind the cantle,
because that gave him a chance to steal a look behind him without being
caught in the act. Good, wide hat-brims have more uses than to shield
one's face from the sun. He saw that Evadna was riding in what looked
like a sulky silence beside her friend, but he felt no compunction for
what he had done; instead he was exhilarated as with some heady wine,
and he did not want to do any thinking about it--yet. He did not even
want to be near Evadna. He faced to the front, and lighted his cigarette
while he listened to the sympathetic chorus from the boys.

“What did you do then?” asked Gene.

“Well, I'd lost the whole blamed chunk on a pair of measly aces,” he
said. “I was pretty sore by that time, I'm telling you! I was down
to ten dollars, but I started right in to bring back that hundred
and sixty. Funny, but I felt exactly as if somebody had stolen that
headstall and spurs right out of my hand, and I just had to get it
back pronto. I started in with a dollar, lost it on craps--sixes, that
time--sent another one down the same trail trying to make Little Joe
come again, third went on craps, fourth I doubled on nine, lost 'em both
on craps--say, I never looked so many aces and sixes in the face in my
life! It was sure kay bueno, the luck I had that night. I got up broke,
and had to strike Riley for money to get out of town with.”

So for a time he managed to avoid facing squarely this new and very
important factor which must henceforth have its place in the problem of
his life.



CHAPTER XII. “THEM DAMN SNAKE”

Three hundred yards up the river, in the shade of a huge bowlder, round
an end of which the water hurried in a green swirl that it might the
sooner lie quiet in the deep, dark pool below, Good Indian, picking his
solitary way over the loose rocks, came unexpectedly upon Baumberger,
his heavy pipe sagging a corner of his flabby mouth, while he
painstakingly detached a fly from his leader, hooked it into the proper
compartment of his fly-book, and hesitated over his selection of another
to take its place. Absorption was writ deep on his gross countenance,
and he recognized the intruder by the briefest of flickering glances and
the slightest of nods.

“Keep back from that hole, will yuh?” he muttered, jerking his head
toward the still pool. “I ain't tried it yet.”

Good Indian was not particularly interested in his own fishing. The
sight of Baumberger, bulking there in the shade with his sagging cheeks
and sagging pipe, his flopping old hat and baggy canvas fishing-coat,
with his battered basket slung over his slouching shoulder and sagging
with the weight of his catch; the sloppy wrinkles of his high, rubber
boots shining blackly from recent immersion in the stream, caught his
errant attention, and stayed him for a few minutes to watch.

Loosely disreputable looked Lawyer Baumberger, from the snagged hole
in his hat-crown where a wisp of graying hair fluttered through, to the
toes of his ungainly, rubber-clad feet; loosely disreputable, but not
commonplace and not incompetent. Though his speech might be a slovenly
mumble, there was no purposeless fumbling of the fingers that chose a
fly and knotted it fast upon the leader. There was no bungling movement
of hand or foot when he laid his pipe upon the rock, tiptoed around the
corner, sent a mechanical glance upward toward the swaying branches of
an overhanging tree, pulled out his six feet of silk line with a sweep
of his arm, and with a delicate fillip, sent the fly skittering over the
glassy center of the pool.

Good Indian, looking at him, felt instinctively that a part, at least,
of the man's nature was nakedly revealed to him then. It seemed scarcely
fair to read the lust of him and the utter abandonment to the hazard of
the game. Pitiless he looked, with clenched teeth just showing
between the loose lips drawn back in a grin that was half-snarl,
half-involuntary contraction of muscles sympathetically tense.

That was when a shimmering thing slithered up, snapped at the fly, and
flashed away to the tune of singing reel and the dance of the swaying
rod. The man grew suddenly cruel and crafty and full of lust; and Good
Indian, watching him, was conscious of an inward shudder of repulsion.
He had fished all his life--had Good Indian--and had found joy in
the sport. And here was he inwardly condemning a sportsman who stood
self-revealed, repelling, hateful; a man who gloated over the struggle
of something alive and at his mercy; to whom sport meant power indulged
with impunity. Good Indian did not try to put the thing in words, but he
felt it nevertheless.

“Brute!” he muttered aloud, his face eloquent of cold disgust.

At that moment Baumberger drew the tired fish gently into the shallows,
swung him deftly upon the rocks, and laid hold of him greedily.

“Ain't he a beaut?” he cried, in his wheezy chuckle. “Wait a minute
while I weigh him. He'll go over a pound, I'll bet money on it.”
 Gloatingly he held it in his hands, removed the hook, and inserted under
the gills the larger one of the little scales he carried inside his
basket.

“Pound and four ounces,” he announced, and slid the fish into his
basket. He was the ordinary, good-natured, gross Baumberger now. He
reached for his pipe, placed it in his mouth, and held out a hand to
Good Indian for a match.

“Say, young fella, have you got any stand-in with your noble red
brothers?” he asked, after he had sucked life into the charred tobacco.

“Cousins twice or three times removed, you mean,” said Good Indian
coldly, too proud and too lately repelled to meet the man on friendly
ground. “Why do you ask?”

Baumberger eyed him speculatively while he smoked, and chuckled to
himself.

“One of 'em--never mind placing him on his own p'ticular limb of the
family tree--has been doggin' me all morning,” he said at last, and
waved a fishy hand toward the bluff which towered high above them. “Saw
him when I was comin' up, about sunrise, pokin' along behind me in the
sagebrush. Didn't think anything of that--thought maybe he was hunting
or going fishing--but he's been sneakin' around behind me ever since. I
don't reckon he's after my scalp--not enough hair to pay--but I'd like
to know what the dickens he does mean.”

“Nothing probably,” Good Indian told him shortly, his eyes nevertheless
searching the rocks for a sight of the watcher.

“Well, I don't much like the idea,” complained Baumberger, casting an
eye aloft in fear of snagging his line when he made another cast. “He
was right up there a few minutes ago.” He pointed his rod toward a
sun-ridden ridge above them. “I got a flicker of his green blanket when
he raised up and scowled down at me. He ducked when he saw me turn my
head--looked to me like the surly buck that blew in to the ranch the
night I came; Jim something-or-other. By the great immortal Jehosaphat!”
 he swore humorously, “I'd like to tie him up in his dirty blanket and
heave him into the river--only it would kill all the fish in the Malad.”

Good Indian laughed.

“Oh, I know it's funny, young fella,” Baumberger growled. “About as
funny as being pestered by a mosquito buzzing under your nose when
you're playing a fish that keeps cuttin' figure eights in a hole the
size uh that one there.”

“I'll go up and take a look,” Good Indian offered carelessly.

“Well, I wish you would. I can't keep my mind on m' fishing--just
wondering what the deuce he's after. And say! You tell him I'll stand
him on his off ear if I catch him doggie' me ag'in. Folks come with
yuh?” he remembered to ask as he prepared for another cast into the
pool.

“They're down there getting a campfire built, ready to fry what fish
they catch,” Good Indian informed him, as he turned to climb the bluff.
“They're going to eat dinner under that big ledge by the rapids. You
better go on down.”

He stood for a minute, and watched Baumberger make a dexterous cast,
which proved fruitless, before he began climbing up the steep slope of
jumbled bowlders upon which the bluff itself seemed to rest. He was
not particularly interested in his quest, but he was in the mood for
purposeless action; he still did not want to think.

He climbed negligently, scattering loose rocks down the hill behind
him. He had no expectation of coming upon Peppajee--unless Peppajee
deliberately put himself in his way--and so there was no need of
caution. He stopped once, and stood long minutes with his head turned to
catch the faint sound of high-keyed laughter and talk which drifted
up to him. If he went higher, he thought, he might get a glimpse of
them--of her, to tell his thought honestly. Whereupon he forgot all
about finding and expostulating with Peppajee, and thought only a point
of the ridge which would give him a clear view downstream.

To be sure, he might as easily have retraced his steps and joined the
group, and seen every changing look in her face. But he did not want
to be near her when others were by; he wanted her to himself, or not at
all. So he went on, while the sun beat hotly down upon him and the rocks
sent up dry waves of heat like an oven.

A rattlesnake buzzed its strident warning between two rocks, but before
he turned his attention to the business of killing it, the snake had
crawled leisurely away into a cleft, where he could not reach it with
the stones he threw. His thoughts, however, were brought back to his
surroundings so that he remembered Peppajee. He stood still, and scanned
carefully the jumble of rocks and bowlders which sloped steeply down to
the river, looking for a betraying bit of color or dirty gray hat-crown.

“But I could look my eyes out and welcome, if he didn't want to be
seen,” he concluded, and sat down while he rolled a cigarette. “And
I don't know as I want to see him, anyway.” Still, he did not move
immediately. He was in the shade, which was a matter for congratulation
on such a day. He had a cigarette between his lips, which made
for comfort; and he still felt the exhilarating effects of his
unpremeditated boldness, without having come to the point of sober
thinking. He sat there, and blew occasional mouthfuls of smoke into
the quivering heat waves, and stared down at the river rushing over the
impeding rocks as if its very existence depended upon reaching as soon
as possible the broader sweep of the Snake.

He finished the first cigarette, and rolled another from sheer force of
habit rather than because he really wanted one. He lifted one foot, and
laid it across his knee, and was drawing a match along the sole of his
boot when his eyes chanced to rest for a moment upon a flutter of green,
which showed briefly around the corner of a great square rock poised
insecurely upon one corner, as if it were about to hurl its great bulk
down upon the river it had watched so long. He held the blazing match
poised midway to its destination while he looked; then he put it to the
use he had meant it for, pulled his hat-brim down over his right eye and
ear to shield them from the burn of the sun, and went picking his way
idly over to the place.

“HUL-lo!” he greeted, in the manner of one who refuses to acknowledge
the seriousness of a situation which confronts him suddenly. “What's the
excitement?”

There was no excitement whatever. There was Peppajee, hunched up against
the rock in that uncomfortable attitude which permits a man to come
at the most intimate relations with the outside of his own ankle, upon
which he was scowling in seeming malignity. There was his hunting-knife
lying upon a flat stone near to his hand, with a fresh red blotch upon
the blade, and there was his little stone pipe clenched between his
teeth and glowing red within the bowl. Also there was the ankle, purple
and swollen from the ligature above it--for his legging was off and torn
into strips which formed a bandage, and a splinter of rock was twisted
ingeniously in the wrappings for added tightness. From a crisscross of
gashes a sluggish, red stream trickled down to the ankle-bone, and from
there drip-dropped into a tiny, red pool in the barren, yellow soil.

“Catchum rattlesnake bite?” queried Good Indian inanely, as is the habit
of the onlooker when the scene shouts forth eloquently its explanation,
and questions are almost insultingly superfluous.

“Huh!” grunted Peppajee, disdaining further speech upon the subject, and
regarded sourly the red drip.

“Want me to suck it?” ventured Good Indian unenthusiastically, eying the
wound.

“Huh!” Peppajee removed the pipe, his eyes still upon his ankle. “Plenty
blood come, mebbyso.” To make sure, however, he kneaded the swollen
flesh about the wound, thus accelerating slightly the red drip.

Then deliberately he took another turn with the rock, sending the
buckskin thongs deeper into the flesh, and held the burning pipe against
the skin above the wound until Good Indian sickened and turned away his
head. When he looked again, Peppajee was sucking hard at the pipe, and
gazing impersonally at the place. He bent again, and hid the glow of his
pipe against his ankle. His thin lips tightened while he held it there,
but the lean, brown fingers were firm as splinters of the rock behind
him. When the fire cooled, he fanned it to life again with his breath,
and when it winked redly at him he laid it grimly against his flesh.

So, while Good Indian stood and looked on with lips as tightly drawn
as the other's, he seared a circle around the wound--a circle which bit
deep and drew apart the gashes like lips opened for protest. He regarded
critically his handiwork, muttered a “Bueno” under his breath, knocked
the ashes from his pipe, and returned it to some mysterious hiding-place
beneath his blanket. Then he picked up his moccasin.

“Them damn' snake, him no speakum,” he observed disgustedly. “Heap fool
me; him biteum”--he made a stabbing gesture with thumb and finger in
the air by way of illustration--“then him go quick.” He began gingerly
trying to force the moccasin upon his foot, his mouth drawn down with
the look of one who considers that he has been hardly used.

“How you get home?” Good Indian's thoughts swung round to practical
things. “You got horse?”

Peppajee shook his head, reached for his knife, and slit the moccasin
till it was no more than a wrapping. “Mebbyso heap walk,” he stated
simply.

“Mebbyso you won't do anything of the kind,” Good Indian retorted. “You
come down and take a horse. What for you all time watchum Baumberger?”
 he added, remembering then what had brought them both upon the bluff.
“Baumberger all time fish--no more.” He waved his hand toward the Malad.
“Baumberger bueno--catchum fish--no more.”

Peppajee got slowly and painfully upon his feet--rather, upon one foot.
When Good Indian held out a steadying arm, he accepted it, and leaned
rather heavily.

“Yo' eyes sick,” said Peppajee, and grinned sardonically. “Yo' eyes
see all time Squaw-with-sun-hair. Fillum yo' eyes, yo' see notting. Yo'
catchum squaw, bimeby mebbyso see plenty mo'. Me no catchum sick eye.
Mebbyso me see heap plenty.”

“What you see, you all time watchum Baumberger?”

But Peppajee, hobbling where he must walk, crawling where he might,
sliding carefully where a slanting bowlder offered a few feet of smooth
descent, and taking hold of Good Indian's offered arm when necessity
impelled him, pressed his thin lips together, and refused to answer. So
they came at last to the ledge beside the rapids, where a thin wisp of
smoke waved lazily in the vagrant breeze which played with the ripples
and swayed languidly the smaller branches of the nearby trees.

Only Donny was there, sitting disgruntled upon the most comfortable
rock he could find, sulking because the others had taken all the
fishing-tackle that was of any account, and had left him to make shift
with one bent, dulled hook, a lump of fat pork, and a dozen feet of
line.

“And I can catch more fish than anybody in the bunch!” he began
complainingly and without preface, waving a dirty hand contemptuously at
the despised tackle when the two came slowly up. “That's the way it goes
when you take a lot of girls along! They've got to have the best rods
and tackle, and all they'll do will be to snag lines and lose leaders
and hooks, and giggle alla squeal. Aw--DARN girls!”

“And I'm going to pile it on still thicker, Donny!” Good Indian grinned
down at him. “I'm going to swipe your Pirate Chief for a while, till I
take Peppajee into camp. He's gentle, and Peppajee's got a snake-bite.
I'll be back before you get ready to go home.”

“I'm ready to go home right now,” growled Donny, sinking his chin
between his two palms. “But I guess the walkin' ain't all taken up.”

Good Indian regarded him frowningly, gave a little snort, and turned
away. Donny in that mood was not to be easily placated, and certainly
not to be ignored. He went over to the little flat, and selected Jack's
horse, saddled him, and discovered that it had certain well-defined race
prejudices, and would not let Peppajee put foot to the stirrup. Keno
he knew would be no more tractable, so that he finally slapped Jack's
saddle on Huckleberry, and so got Peppajee mounted and headed toward
camp.

“You tell Jack I borrowed his saddle and Huckleberry,” he called out to
the drooping little figure on the rock. “But I'll get back before they
want to go home.”

But Donny was glooming over his wrongs, and neither heard nor wanted
to hear. Having for his legacy a temper cumulative in its heat, he was
coming rapidly to the point where he, too, started home, and left no
word or message behind; a trivial enough incident in itself, but one
which opened the way for some misunderstanding and fruitless speculation
upon the part of Evadna.



CHAPTER XIII. CLOUD-SIGN VERSUS CUPID

Few men are ever called upon by untoward circumstance to know the
sensations caused by rattlesnake bite, knife gashes, impromptu
cauterization, and, topping the whole, the peculiar torture of congested
veins and swollen muscles which comes from a tourniquet. The
feeling must be unpleasant in the extreme, and the most morbid of
sensation-seekers would scarcely put himself in the way of that
particular experience.

Peppajee Jim, therefore, had reason in plenty for glowering at the world
as he saw it that day. He held Huckleberry rigidly down to his laziest
amble that the jar of riding might be lessened, kept his injured foot
free from the stirrup, and merely grunted when Good Indian asked him
once how he felt.

When they reached the desolation of the old placer-pits, however, he
turned his eyes from the trail where it showed just over Huckleberry's
ears, and regarded sourly the deep gashes and dislodged bowlders which
told where water and the greed of man for gold had raged fiercest. Then,
for the first time during the whole ride, he spoke.

“All time, yo' sleepum,” he said, in the sonorous, oracular tone which
he usually employed when a subject held his serious thought. “Peaceful
Hart, him all same sleepum. All same sleepum 'longside snake. No seeum
snake, no thinkum mebbyso catchum bite.” He glanced down at his own
snake-bitten foot. “Snake bite, make all time much hurt.” His eyes
turned, and dwelt sharply upon the face of Good Indian.

“Yo' all time thinkum Squaw-with-sun-hair. Me tell yo' for watchum, yo'
no think for watchum. Baumberga, him all same snake. Yo' think him all
time catchum fish. HUH! Yo' heap big fool, yo' thinkum cat. Rattlesnake,
mebbyso sleepum in sun one time. Yo' no thinkum bueno, yo' seeum sleep
in sun. Yo' heap sabe him all time kay bueno jus' same. Yo' heap sabe
yo' come close, him biteum. Mebbyso biteum hard, for killum yo' all
time.” He paused, then drove home his point like the true orator.
“Baumberga catchum fish. All same rattlesnake sleepum in sun. Kay
bueno.”

Good Indian jerked his mind back from delicious recollection of one
sweet, swift-passing minute, and half opened his lips for reply. But
he did not speak; he did not know what to say, and it is ill-spent
time--that passed in purposeless speech with such as Peppajee. Peppajee
roused himself from meditation brief as it seemed deep, lifted a lean,
brown hand to push back from his eyes a fallen lock of hair, and pointed
straight away to the west.

“Las' night, sun go sleepum. Clouds come all same blanket, sun wrappum
in blanket. Cloud look heap mad--mebbyso make much storm. Bimeby much
mens come in cloud, stand so--and so--and so.” With pointing finger he
indicated a half circle. “Otha man come, heap big man. Stoppum 'way off,
all time makeum sign, for fight. Me watchum. Me set by fire, watchum
cloud makeum sign. Fire smoke look up for say, 'What yo' do all time,
mebbyso?' Cloud man shakeum hand, makeum much sign. Fire smoke heap sad,
bend down far, lookum me, lookum where cloud look. All time lookum for
Peaceful Hart ranch. Me lay down for sleepum, me dream all time much
fight. All time bad sign come. Kay bueno.” Peppajee shook his head
slowly, his leathery face set in deep, somber lines.

“Much trouble come heap quick,” he said gravely, hitching his blanket
into place upon his shoulder. “Me no sabe--all same, heap trouble come.
Much mens, mebbyso much fight, much shootum--mebbyso kill. Peaceful Hart
him all time laugh me. All same, me sabe smoke sign, sabe cloud sign,
sabe--Baumberga. Heap ka-a-ay bueno!”

Good Indian's memory dashed upon him a picture of bright moonlight and
the broody silence of a night half gone, and of a figure forming sharply
and suddenly from the black shadow of the stable and stealing away into
the sage, and of Baumberger emerging warily from that same shadow and
stopping to light his pipe before he strolled on to the house and to the
armchair upon the porch.

There might be a sinister meaning in that picture, but it was so well
hidden that he had little hope of ever finding it. Also, it occurred to
him that Peppajee, usually given over to creature comforts and the idle
gossip of camp and the ranches he visited, was proving the sincerity of
his manifest uneasiness by a watchfulness wholly at variance with his
natural laziness. On the other hand, Peppajee loved to play the oracle,
and a waving wisp of smoke, or the changing shapes in a wind-riven cloud
meant to him spirit-sent prophecies not to be ignored.

He turned the matter over in his mind, was the victim of uneasiness for
five minutes, perhaps, and then drifted off into wondering what Evadna
was doing at that particular moment, and to planning how he should
manage to fall behind with her when they all rode home, and so make
possible other delicious moments. He even took note of certain sharp
bends in the trail, where a couple riding fifty yards, say, behind a
group would be for the time being quite hidden from sight and to
all intents and purposes alone in the world for two minutes, or
three--perhaps the time might be stretched to five.

The ranch was quiet, with even the dogs asleep in the shade. Peppajee
insisted in one sentence upon going straight on to camp, so they did not
stop. Without speaking, they plodded through the dust up the grade, left
it, and followed the dim trail through the sagebrush and rocks to the
Indian camp which seemed asleep also, except where three squaws were
squatting in the sharply defined, conical shadow of a wikiup, mumbling
desultorily the gossip of their little world, while their fingers
moved with mechanical industry--one shining black head bent over a
half-finished, beaded moccasin, another stitching a crude gown of
bright-flowered calico, and the third braiding her hair afresh with
leisurely care for its perfect smoothness. Good Indian took note of
the group before it stirred to activity, and murmured anxiety over the
bandaged foot of Peppajee.

“Me no can watchum more, mebbyso six days. Yo' no sleepum all time
yo' walk--no thinkum all time squaw. Mebbyso yo' think for man-snake.
Mebbyso yo' watchum,” Peppajee said, as he swung slowly down from
Huckleberry's back.

“All right. I'll watchum plenty,” Good Indian promised lightly, gave a
glance of passing, masculine interest at the squaw who was braiding her
hair, and who was young and fresh-cheeked and bright-eyed and slender,
forgot her the instant his eyes left her, and made haste to return to
the Malad and the girl who held all his thoughts and all his desire.

That girl was sitting upon the rock which Donny had occupied, and she
looked very much as if she were sulking, much as Donny had sulked. She
had her chin in a pink palm and was digging little holes in the sand
with the tip of her rod, which was not at all beneficial to the rod and
did not appear even to interest the digger; for her wonderfully blue
eyes were staring at the green-and-white churn of the rapids, and
her lips were pursed moodily, as if she did not even see what she was
looking at so fixedly.

Good Indian's eyes were upon her while he was dismounting, but he did
not go to her immediately. Instead, he busied himself with unsaddling,
and explained to the boys just why he had left so unaccountably.
Secretly he was hoping that Evadna heard the explanation, and he raised
his voice purposely. But Evadna was not listening, apparently; and, if
she had been, the noise of the rapids would have prevented her hearing
what he said.

Miss Georgie Howard was frying fish and consistently snubbing
Baumberger, who hulked loosely near the campfire, and between puffs
at his pipe praised heavily her skill, and professed to own a ravenous
appetite. Good Indian heard him as he passed close by them, and heard
also the keen thrust she gave in return; and he stopped and half
turned, looking at her with involuntary appreciation. His glance took
in Baumberger next, and he lifted a shoulder and went on. Without
intentionally resorting to subterfuge, he felt an urge to wash his
hands, and he chose for his ablutions that part of the river's edge
which was nearest Evadna.

First he stooped and drank thirstily, his hat pushed back, while his
lips met full the hurrying water, clear and cold, yet with the chill it
had brought from the mountain springs which fed it, and as he lifted his
head he looked full at her.

Evadna stared stonily over him to where the water boiled fastest. He
might have been one of the rocks, for all the notice she took of him.

Good Indian frowned with genuine puzzlement, and began slowly to wash
his hands, glancing at her often in hope that he might meet her eyes.
When she did not seem to see him at all, the smile of a secret shared
joyously with her died from his own eyes, and when he had dried his
hands upon his handkerchief he cast aside his inward shyness in the
presence of the Hart boys and Miss Georgie and Baumberger, and went
boldly over to her.

“Aren't you feeling well?” he asked, with tender proprietorship in his
tone.

“I'm feeling quite well, thank you,” returned Evadna frigidly,
neglecting to look at him.

“What is the matter, then? Aren't you having a good time?”

“I'm enjoying myself very much--except that your presence annoys me. I
wish you'd go away.”

Good Indian turned on his heel and went; he felt that at last Evadna was
looking at him, though he would not turn to make sure. And his instinct
told him withal that he must ignore her mood if he would win her from
it. With a freakish impulse, he headed straight for the campfire and
Miss Georgie, but when he came up to her the look she gave him of
understanding, with sympathy to soften it, sent him away again without
speaking.

He wandered back to the river's edge--this time some distance from
where Evadna sat--and began throwing pebbles at the black nose of a
wave-washed bowlder away toward the other side. Clark and Gene, loitered
up, watched him lazily, and, picking up other pebbles, started to do
the same thing. Soon all the boys were throwing at the bowlder, and were
making a good deal of noise over the various hits and misses, and the
spirit of rivalry waxed stronger and stronger until it was like any
other game wherein full-blooded youths strive against one another for
supremacy. They came to the point of making bets, at first extravagant
and then growing more and more genuinely in earnest, for we're gamblers
all, at heart.

Miss Georgie burned a frying-panful of fish until they sent up an acrid,
blue smoke, while she ran over to try her luck with a stone or two. Even
Baumberger heaved himself up from where he was lounging, and strolled
over to watch. But Evadna could not have stuck closer to her rock if she
had been glued there, and if she had been blind and deaf she would not
have appeared more oblivious.

Good Indian grew anxious, and then angry. The savage stirred within
him, and counseled immediate and complete mastery of her--his woman.
But there was the white man of him who said the thought was brutal and
unchivalrous, and reminded the savage that one must not look upon a
woman as a chattel, to be beaten or caressed, as the humor seized the
master. And, last of all, there was the surface of him laughing with the
others, jeering at those who fell short of the mark, and striving his
utmost to be first of them all in accuracy.

He even smiled upon Miss Georgie when she hit the bowlder fairly, and,
when the stench of the burning fish drifted over to them, he gave his
supply of pebbles into her two hands, and ran to the rescue. He caught
Evadna in the act of regarding him sidelong, just as a horse sometimes
will keep an eye on the man with the rope in a corral; so he knew she
was thinking of him, at least, and was wondering what he meant to do
next, and the savage in him laughed and lay down again, knowing himself
the master.

What he did was to throw away the burnt fish, clean the frying-pan, and
start more sizzling over the fire, which he kicked into just the right
condition. He whistled softly to himself while he broke dry sticks
across his knee for the fire, and when Miss Georgie cried out that she
had made three hits in succession, he called back: “Good shot!” and
took up the tune where he had left off. Never, for one instant, was he
unconscious of Evadna's secret watchfulness, and never, for one instant,
did he let her see that she was in his thoughts.

He finished frying the fish, set out the sandwiches and doughnuts, and
pickled peaches and cheese, and pounded upon a tin plate to announce
that dinner was ready. He poured the coffee into the cups held out to
him, and got the flask of cream from a niche between two rocks at the
water's edge. He said “Too bad,” when it became generally known that the
glare of the sun upon the water had given Evadna a headache, and he said
it exactly as he would have spoken if Jack, for instance, had upset the
sugar.

He held up the broken-handled butcher knife that was in the camp kit,
and declaimed tragically: “Is this a dagger that I see before me?” and
much more of the kind that was eery. He saw the reluctant dimple which
showed fleetingly in Evadna's cheek, and also the tears which swelled
her eyelids immediately after, but she did not know that he saw them,
though another did.

He was taken wholly by surprise when Miss Georgie, walking past him
afterward on her way to an enticing pool, nipped his arm for attention
and murmured:

“You're doing fine--only don't overdo it. She's had just about all she
can stand right now. Give her a chance to forgive you--and let her think
she came out ahead! Good luck!” Whereupon she finished whatever she
pretended to have been doing to her fishing-tackle, and beckoned Wally
and Jack to come along.

“We've just got to catch that big one,” she laughed, “so Mr. Baumberger
can go home and attend to his own business!” It took imagination to feel
sure there had been a significant accent on the last of the sentence,
and Baumberger must have been imaginative. He lowered his head like
a bull meditating assault, and his leering eyes shot her a glance of
inquiry and suspicion. But Miss Georgie Howard met his look with a smile
that was nothing more than idle amusement.

“I'd like nothing better than to get that four-pounder on my line,” she
added. “It would be the joke of the season--if a woman caught him.”

“Bet you couldn't land him,” chuckled Baumberger, breathing a sigh which
might have been relief, and ambled away contentedly. “I may not see you
folks again till supper,” he bethought him to call back. “I'm going to
catch a dozen more--and then I thought I'd take 'em up to Pete Hamilton;
I'm using his horse, yuh see, and--” He flung out a hand to round off
the sentence, turned, and went stumbling over a particularly rocky
place.

Miss Georgie stood where she was, and watched him with her mouth twisted
to one side and three perpendicular creases between her eyebrows. When
he was out of sight, she glanced at Evadna--once more perched sulkily
upon the rock.

“Head still bad, chicken?” she inquired cheerfully. “Better stay here in
the shade--I won't be gone long.”

“I'm going to fish,” said Evadna, but she did not stir, not even when
Miss Georgie went on, convoyed by all the Hart boys.

Good Indian had volunteered the information that he was going to fish
downstream, but he was a long time in tying his leader and fussing with
his reel. His preparations were finished just when the last straggler
of the group was out of sight. Then he laid down his rod, went over to
Evadna, took her by the arm, and drew her back to the farther shelter of
the ledge.

“Now, what's the trouble?” he asked directly. “I hope you're not trying
to make yourself think I was only--You know what I meant, don't you? And
you said yes. You said it with your lips, and with your eyes. Did you
want more words? Tell me what it is that bothers you.”

There was a droop to Evadna's shoulders, and a tremble to her mouth.
She would not look at him. She kept her eyes gazing downward, perhaps
to hide tears. Good Indian waited for her to speak, and when it seemed
plain that she did not mean to do so, he yielded to his instinct and
took her in his arms.

“Sweetheart!” he murmured against her ear, and it was the first time
he had ever spoken the word to any woman. “You love me, I know it. You
won't say it, but I know you do. I should have felt it this morning if
you hadn't cared. You--you let me kiss you. And--”

“And after that you--you rode off and left me--and you went away by
yourself, just as if--just as if nothing had happened, and you've acted
ever since as if--” She bit her lips, turned her face away from him,
plucked at his hands to free herself from his clasping arms, and then
she laid her face down against him, and sobbed.

Good Indian tried his best to explain his mood and his actions that
day, and if he did not make himself very clear--which could scarcely
be expected, since he did not quite understand it himself--he at least
succeeded in lifting from her the weight of doubt and of depression.

They were astonished when Wally and Jack and Miss Georgie suddenly
confronted them and proved, by the number of fish which they ca

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