devotion to one tremendous demonstration of man’s dominion over nature means
less than nothing to you two. I asked Rawlins to look over our work and advise
us. He’s doing it. It’s only by courtesy that you two were called in to hear
what he has to say. It’s out of friendship for _me_ that he’s going on with
his study of the problems we have to solve.
“Why, damn you,” he flared out suddenly--for all the world like King, of the
Mounted--“you couldn’t hire this man to do for you what he’s doing for me for
nothing!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHANGED RELATIONS
Young Jess and Old Jess exchanged sidelong glances. Young Jess turned his head
away from the group and spat out a quid of tobacco on to the porch floor,
whereat Nevada frowned her disgust.
“Yeah--we know all about him doin’ it fer _you_,” he leered. He eyed the two
through half-closed lids. “You played it slick, but not slick enough. When yuh
thought up a name fer him, Pete, you’d oughta stuck to it, ’stid of changin’
your mind first day he was here. Gladys knows. He told Nevada one name, an’
you come along and changed it on him.
“Look at ’im, Dad! D’ yuh ever see father an’ son look more alike in your
life? By--, you can’t make a fool outa me, Pete, nor outa Gladys. Why don’t
yuh own up? _We_ know you’re his daddy. You can’t claim to me an’ Gladys you
never throwed in with no woman! Not with that face, right there, callin’ you a
liar!”
Nevada started, and Peter’s arm around her tightened restrainingly. She did
not speak, although her lips parted in astonishment. She looked at Rawley and
met his eyes fixed upon her questioningly. Nevada flushed and turned away her
face, hiding it against Peter’s cheek.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Uncle Peter?” she whispered chidingly. “You could
have trusted me--you know you could.”
Peter’s arm tightened again. His face was turned toward the Cramers. His lips
were drawn up a bit at the corners in a smile, but his eyes were hard.
“Well, and what of it?” he asked calmly. “Suppose he _is_ my son--what then?”
Young Jess was prying off a fresh chew of tobacco from a half-plug that filled
his palm.
“Nothin’, I guess. Only I want yuh to know we’re wise to you. You mighta come
out with it, ’stid of lyin’ and beatin’ about the bush, that’s all. Any fool
can see you two’re close related. I seen it first thing, and so did Gladys.”
“Is it anybody’s business, besides his and mine?” Peter’s voice was still
calm, though it boded ill for Young Jess if he did not watch his tongue.
“Can’t say as it is,” Young Jess admitted. “Mebby his mother might think it
was _her_ business--whoever she is.”
“Leave my mother out of this,” Rawley cried hotly. “She’s not--”
“Aw, what the hell do I care?” Young Jess rose and hitched up his sagging
breeches. “Yuh can’t fool me--that’s all. And I will say I ain’t afraid to
have yuh go ahead and look the works over. My own _nephew_ wouldn’t
double-cross his paw’s family, I guess.”
He left them, turning his head once to grin knowingly over his shoulder. Old
Jess mumbled a general curse on all family ties, or anything that would
interfere with his getting the gold out of the river, and followed. Ten steps
away he saw what he believed to be a joke and went off cackling, “Pete’s own
son! he-he!”
Nevada shivered and pulled herself free from her Uncle Peter’s arms. Her lips
were pressed rather firmly together, and she avoided looking at either of the
men.
“Well, you were the first to notice the likeness, Nevada,” Peter reminded her
banteringly.
“And you were the first to--no, my _cousin_ was the first to lie to me about
it!” Her voice was coldly disapproving. “I’m very sorry--I did think that I
was worthy your full confidence, Uncle Peter. It seems that I have been
mistaken all along. You have only pretended to trust me, and all these
years--though that in itself doesn’t so much matter, since there may have been
good reason for keeping the secret, even from me. But when my--_cousin_ came
here, you must have known immediately who he was, Uncle Peter. It is that
which hurts. You pretended to me that you never had seen him before, and that
you were not quite willing that he should stay. And he--oh, I hate you both!”
Her voice broke quite unexpectedly. She gave an impatient, spurning gesture
and fled.
Peter got out the solacing “makings” of a cigarette. He glanced at Rawley
queerly and gave a cynical smile.
“Talk about the beautiful faith of your own people,” he remarked
philosophically. “Here’s a sample for you. Even Nevada believes right away
that I have lived a double life.”
“It makes it damned awkward--this resemblance,” Rawley muttered ruefully.
“Young Jess ought to have his block knocked off.”
“Dynamite wouldn’t feaze Young Jess,” Peter declared. “He and Gladys have
cooked this up between them. ’Twouldn’t have done any good to deny it, son.
They wouldn’t believe it unless it suited them. And if I convinced them,
they’d want to know more than ever why we look so much alike. Poor old
mother--I was thinking of her. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not in the way you mean,” Rawley assured him discontentedly. “I only wish you
were my father. That is, I would if-- I hate to have Nevada feel that we both
lied to her,” he blurted helplessly.
For once, Uncle Peter was dense. He laughed quietly to himself.
“Oh, she’ll get over that,” he declared easily. “That’s the drop of Spanish
blood. Don’t you worry about that, boy. On the whole, I’m rather relieved.
I’ve caught Young Jess eyeing you; Old Jess, too, and even Gladys noticed, I
think. I was waiting for one of them to mention the resemblance between us. I
was braced for it. I meant to laugh it off, as just their imagination. This
way, they think they have it all accounted for. It does save a good deal of
dangerous speculation. I’m not guessing. I know that Old Jess used to take
spells of jealousy. Anita--mother--has always been afraid of him. When I was
just a kid, I threw up his gun when it was pointed at her heart, and the
quarrel was over your--over my father. Something had brought up the subject,
some chance remark. The Spanish in her flamed up, and she told him that she
loved King. Then he pulled the gun. He may have been drunk--I don’t remember
that part.
“So you see, son, I know why she’s in deadly fear of having him find it out.
And there are other reasons why none of them must know. While he and Young
Jess think I’m a Cramer, they will listen to me. I can keep things straight
here. If they knew the truth, I’d probably have to leave.” He lighted the
cigarette, and Rawley watched his face revealed for a moment by the flare of
the match.
“Boy,” he went on, turning toward Rawley, “I’ve got to stay. I’ve grown up,
I’ve spent my whole life dreaming of the dam. It isn’t what we’ll get out of
it, altogether, though it’s human and natural to want the gold, too. It’s the
_dam_. I’ve planned and worked for it so long. I’ve got to see it go through.”
He smoked and meditated for awhile, staring down at the river, always slipping
past him, always in a hurry to meet the tides; to mingle its mountain water
with the salt of the ocean.
“I saw two men drown out there, once.” He waved a hand toward the river. “I’d
like to stop it running, just to show it who’s master here.” Another silence,
and then he looked at Rawley. “You don’t mind being thought my son?” There was
a wistfulness in his tone. “If I thought you minded--”
Rawley shook himself out of his mood. He leaned forward and forced himself to
smile at Peter.
“I don’t mind, at all,” he lied. “I hate to have Nevada think that I
deliberately lied to her because I was ashamed of any such relationship.
I--want to keep her confidence and respect--”
Strange words for the leaden depression that had come over him at her anger,
but he was fairly sincere in their employment. He believed--because he was
forcing himself to believe--that he merely liked Nevada very much, and admired
her, and was anxious to preserve the friendly relations into which they had
drifted. It amused him to be called “Fifth Cousin” in that whimsical tone she
used for the term. He thrilled a little whenever she reminded him thus of the
make-believe relationship. To be called her cousin was somehow quite
different. There was a chill in the word,--and any young man would rather be
thrilled than chilled by a girl as beautiful, mentally and physically, as was
Nevada.
“I’ll tell her you didn’t know you were my son,” Peter was calmly planning
aloud. “She’ll believe it, if I tell her so. I have never lied to Nevada in my
life. She’ll believe whatever I tell her about this affair. She’s bound to.”
He chuckled under his breath, still blinded by his relief at the attitude his
family had taken. “A reputation for honesty comes in handy, sometimes!”
“You don’t think, then, that it would be wise to tell Nevada the straight of
it?” In spite of himself, Rawley spoke constrainedly. He wanted to appear
nonchalant, even amused, but he knew that he was betraying himself to any man
who chanced to observe him.
“I don’t. The truth is not our secret, boy. It belongs to a silent, sad old
woman who never speaks what’s in her heart and so is not considered as having
any feelings. Do you think the taint of Indian relations will do you the
slightest harm? Tell me honestly.”
“No. I’m young, but I have made a certain name for myself for all that. I have
the name of never having been bought and never leaving a job until I have the
correct data. My clients have never yet inquired into my personal affairs.
They never will. They know I’m an American; that’s about all that counts,
these days, so far as your blood ties go.”
“There isn’t one chance in fifty that this will ever be known, even in this
district. We keep to ourselves. The old man has made it plain, ever since I
can remember, that he doesn’t want his neighbors to come around the place. If
you inquire amongst the miners and prospectors, you will hear that we are a
tough outfit and best let alone. It is believed, as I told you, that we’re
just a bunch of breeds digging out a little gold--enough to support us. Dad’s
a half-crazy squaw-man, and Young Jess is mighty unpopular. Whatever business
must be taken care of outside, I attend to myself. Or Nevada sometimes does it
for me. She never talks with people except when it’s necessary. Whenever she
goes to Nelson, or to Las Vegas, my mother goes with her.
“Nevada would not mention the matter, in any case, but I must ask you not to
tell her. Mother is almost uncanny at reading faces. She’d see at once that we
had told the girl. She worships Nevada. It would break her heart if she saw
that Nevada knew her secret. She’s afraid of Old Jess, but that’s partly
because of what it would mean to the girl. She thinks Nevada would despise her
for the sin of her youth. That’s the way she put it, and there’s this about an
Indian: You can’t pry an idea out of their minds, once it’s firmly planted.
Poor old mother broods over these things. She feels as if Nevada is her one
hope of heaven, almost. To keep that girl pure and sweet is her religion. I
promised her, by everything that she called sacred, that Nevada should never
know; at least, not so long as her grandmother lives. So that’s why,” he
finished gently, “I’m pleased at the turn it’s taken. I don’t mind anything
they may hatch up about me, if it will protect poor old mother.”
Rawley felt humbled. He remembered how old Anita had spat her contempt of the
gold that could not buy her the things she had loved,--and lost. In that
gross, shapeless body, who could say how fine a soul might be hidden?
“It’s all right,” he said, after a minute. “I’ll have to warn Johnny Buffalo,
and then I’ll adopt you for my dad, if you like. I can see how it simplifies
matters here. But I’m afraid Nevada never will forgive--”
“Oh, she’ll be proud of her new cousin, once she recovers from the shock of
not being told first thing,” Peter assured him gratefully. “I’m afraid I’ve
spoiled that girl.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE JOHNNY BUFFALO UPRISING
Johnny Buffalo was on the warpath. Figuratively speaking, he was brandishing
the tomahawk over the tribe of Cramer. The gods he worshiped had been
blasphemed, the altar upon which he laid the gifts of his soul had been
defiled.
In other words, Johnny Buffalo had lain in his bed and listened while Young
Jess and his father jibed at Johnny Buffalo’s two idols, in whose veins flowed
the blood of his beloved sergeant. The blood of the Kings might not be made a
mockery while Johnny Buffalo could lift one arm to fight. When Rawley returned
to him, he was discovered out of his bed, braced against a table and trying
unsuccessfully to load the old King rifle which he had first used to kill
Mohaves on that day, fifty years ago, when King, of the Mounted, received the
shot that changed his whole life.
The old Indian was shaking with weakness, but his eyes blazed with the war
spirit of his tribe.
“They are dogs of Pahutes!” he exclaimed, when Rawley entered the room. “They
would drag the virtue of good men in the mud. They shall retract. They shall
know the truth! Or I shall kill.”
With three long steps Rawley was beside him, his hand on the rifle barrel,
touching the trembling, sinewy hand of Johnny Buffalo. But the old man would
not yield the gun. His eyes neither softened nor lowered themselves before the
steadfast blue eyes that were the heritage of the Kings.
“You better get back to bed,” Rawley warned him, half-laughing. “If Peter
comes and finds you up, there’ll be the devil and all to pay. I guess we won’t
massacre anybody, Johnny,--at least not to-night.”
“I heard the half-breed make a mock of Peter and of you. I heard him say that
Peter is your father. When he said that, he laughed. His laugh was evil. Now
he shall kneel upon his knees and beg the forgiveness of Peter and of you. He
shall say that he spoke a lie from his black heart that would like to see
others vile, because he is vile. If he does not say that he lied, I shall kill
him. And that half-breed cousin, Anita, shall own her sin and her son. It is
not good that Peter should be thought the son of that old vulture, when we
know that he is the son of my sergeant. He is not your father. He is your
uncle. I will tell them so, and we will see then if they laugh!”
If unshakable dignity can rave, then Johnny Buffalo was raving. Rawley tried
again to take the rifle gently from the Indian’s grasp; but the brown fingers
seemed to have grown fast to the barrel. Rawley hated to do it, but his word
had been given to Peter and this unforeseen uprising must be quelled; he
therefore took Johnny Buffalo firmly by the shot shoulder. The old man wilted
in his grasp. Rawley leaned the rifle against the table and helped Johnny
Buffalo back to his bed.
Subdued but knowing no surrender, Johnny Buffalo lay glaring up at Rawley,
even while his lips were twisted with pain. With a singularly motherly motion,
Rawley adjusted the pillows and smoothed the sheet.
“That’s a nice way to act--start out gunning for my adopted family the minute
I get one!” he scolded with mock severity. “Can’t leave you a minute but you
jump the reservation and go on the warpath. And here I thought you were
civilized!”
He grinned, but in Johnny Buffalo’s eyes the fire did not die. His thin, old
lips would not soften to a smile. The immobility of his face reminded Rawley
of what his Uncle Peter had just said about Indians: that it is impossible to
pry an idea out of their minds, once it is firmly fixed there. Nevertheless,
he sat down beside the bed and repeated to Johnny Buffalo all that Peter had
said concerning Young Jess’s charge. He was wise enough, however, to refrain
from any attempt to rouse sympathy in Johnny’s heart for that pathetic
culprit, Anita. Rather, he flattered himself by declaring that Peter was
pleased because the tribe of Cramer believed him Rawley’s father, and he
emphasized the need of protecting Peter’s influence over the two men, and his
and Nevada’s interest in the river gold. The mocking laughter of Young Jess,
he declared, was not worthy a second thought.
It took Rawley just three hours to bring about an unconditional surrender to
Peter’s wishes in the matter. Even so, Rawley went to his own bed fagged but
feeling that he had done pretty well, considering Johnny Buffalo’s first
intention. But as an indemnity to the old man’s pride, Rawley had faithfully
promised that he would get their camp outfit up from its hiding place on the
morrow, and that he would pitch their tent as far as was practicable from the
tribe of Cramer. Johnny Buffalo, it appeared, would not attempt to hold
himself responsible for what might happen if he were compelled to listen to
further inanities from Gladys, or to hear the voices of Old Jess or Young Jess
or Anita. Nevada he very kindly excepted from the general condemnation of the
tribe. And Peter, of course, was a King. He therefore could do no wrong,--in
the eyes of Johnny Buffalo.
It was a secret relief to Rawley that the change could be placed in the form
of a concession to the Indian’s pride. His own pride was demanding that he
should move under his own canvas roof and eat the bread--so to speak--of his
own buying. He had never felt quite right about taking Nevada’s cabin. He
happened to know that their occupancy had forced her to many little
makeshifts. Then the jibe of Old Jess had made his position as a guest
intolerable, in spite of the quick championship of Nevada and Peter. He had
felt obliged to consider, however, Johnny Buffalo’s welfare. The old man was
not recovering as quickly as he should. Rawley had felt constrained to stay on
his account; but now it seemed likely that a change to their own tent would
really be beneficial. He had not dreamed that Johnny Buffalo’s Indian pride
had been daily martyred by the presence of Anita and Gladys.
“The scion of chiefs,” Johnny Buffalo had declaimed bitterly, “should not be
forced to become a companion of the squaws. Anita knows the etiquette of our
tribe. Yet she would humiliate me by forcing me to listen to her chatter. Bah!
I am not a squaw, nor a lover of squaws. Take me to our camp, my son. There I
need not submit to the indignity of their presence.”
So the next morning, when Peter stopped by the porch for a minute on his way
to work, Rawley told him honestly what it was that he and Johnny Buffalo had
burned a light so late the night before to discuss. Peter seemed to understand
and offered the burros and Nevada for his service. Rawley grinned over the
manner in which Peter had made the offer, but he made no comment. The burros
and Nevada would be very acceptable, he said.
“I had a talk with Nevada last night,” Peter added. “You’ll find she’s all
over her temper. And she knows all the good camping places between here and El
Dorado. You couldn’t stay down there in the canyon; it’s too hot. There are
places, like this basin, where the breeze strikes most of the day. I want you
close. I’ll have Nevada show you a place down the river, on one of my claims.
I don’t suppose you’ll object to camping on my land, will you?”
Rawley would not, and he said so. And after breakfast he started out with
Nevada, following the two burros which went nipping down the river under empty
packsaddles. There seemed to be certain advantages in becoming a cousin of
Nevada, Rawley discovered. Their chaperonage had been practically abandoned;
they were accompanied by the burros and only one dog. The trailing cloud of
young Cramers were sharply called off by Aunt Gladys, and Nevada drove the
other dogs back with rather accurately aimed stones. Anita, for some reason
which Rawley was not sufficiently acute to fathom, failed altogether to put in
an appearance. It was the first time since Rawley came into the basin that
Nevada prepared to set off without her grandmother.
Nevada, in her high-laced boots, khaki breeches and white shirt open at the
throat, walked with her easy stride down the faint trail behind the burros.
Rawley followed her, wondering man-fashion what thoughts she was thinking, how
she felt about him, whether she was glad to be setting out like this with him
for trail partner instead of her grandmother, and what she thought of him as a
cousin.
He was not a particularly shy young man; there was too much of his grandfather
in his make-up not to have had certain little romantic adventures of his own.
He would have told you, with a bit of cynicism in his tone, that he knew girls
and that they were all alike. But he was beginning to discover that he did not
know Nevada Macalister. Now that he seemed to have become irrevocably her
cousin by diplomacy and tribal belief, he was disposed to make what use he
could of the relationship. But after half a mile of traveling with no more
than an occasional monosyllable for Nevada’s contribution to the conversation,
Rawley was compelled to admit to himself that the cousin business was not
working as he would like to have it.
In view of her emotional outbreak last night, Rawley could not quite bring
himself to the point of asking her outright how she liked her new cousin. But
the question kept tickling his tongue, nevertheless. Then he reflected that
Nevada was rather generously supplied with cousins, none of them definitely
desirable. From that thought it was only a short jump to the next inevitable
conclusion. Nevada, he decided, had placed him mentally alongside those other
pestiferous cousins, the offspring of Gladys and Young Jess. Or if she had
not, she was surely according him the same treatment.
As a romantic chapter in their acquaintance, the trip was a flat failure.
Nevada was businesslike,--and aloof. Rawley’s faint hope that some unforeseen
incident would occur to shock Nevada out of her insouciant mood died of
inanition. The camp outfit they found exactly as it had been left, except that
a rat had rashly decided to make a nest in a fold of the wrapped tent. This
did not seem to interest Nevada in the slightest degree. She helped him with
the packing and did not seem to care whether he hurt his newly healed arm or
not. They returned as they had gone,--Nevada silent, following the burros that
plodded sedately homeward under their loads, Rawley trailing after her in
complete discouragement over the rebuffs his friendly overtures had received.
They did not so much as see a rattlesnake.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE EAGLE STRIKES
The month of inaction which followed fretted Johnny Buffalo nearly as much as
the companionship of the squaws had done. In his boyhood he had been trained
to serve his sergeant. For fifty years that service had been uninterrupted by
ill health or accident. It irked him now to lie idle and watch Rawley burn his
fingers on the handle of the frying pan, or wash the dishes from which Johnny
Buffalo had been fed.
The long days when Rawley was away with Peter were lonesome. There was nothing
to do but to seek sedulously after comfort, which is so rare a thing in a camp
beside the Colorado in summer that every little whiff of cool breeze is
prized, every little change in the monotonous diet makes an impromptu banquet.
Sometimes Nevada walked down to camp with things she herself had cooked; but
Johnny Buffalo had taken care to insult Gladys and Anita so definitely that
they refused to come near him.
“I am well enough now to walk,” he announced one evening, when he had insisted
upon cooking the supper. “To-day I climbed to the top of that hill. In a sack
on my shoulder I carried a rock that weighed twenty-five pounds. I am well. We
can go now and find the gold.”
“You packed a rock up that hill?” Rawley laid his hands on his hips and
squinted at the hill indicated. “You ought to get sun-struck for that. But if
you think you’re up to it, we can hit the trail to the mountain about day
after to-morrow. I’ll have to drive up to Nelson to-morrow to get more grub
and the mail. You might borrow the burros from Peter and meet me at the mouth
of the canyon. That will save time and give you a chance to try out your
shoulder.”
Johnny Buffalo actually grinned and stepped more briskly than was his normal
gait, as if he would prove himself as spry as any young man of twenty-six.