A TRIO IN WITCHLAND.
The noon was passed when they reached the cabin on Scot's Mountain, and
found its owner on the point of leaving for the Maple range. But quickly
replacing his gun on its pegs, he uncovered the fire, set on the
coffee-pot, and, with Rachel's help, in a very short time had a
steaming-hot dinner of broiled bear steaks and "corn-dodgers," with the
additional delicacy of a bowl of honey from the wild bees' store.
"I have some laid by as a bit of a gift to Mr. Hardy's lady," he
confided to Rachel. "I found this fellow," tapping the steak, "in one o'
the traps as I was a-comin' my way home; an' the fresh honey on his paws
helped me smell out where he had spied it, and a good lot o' it there
was that Mr. Grizzly had na reached."
"See here," said Stuart, noting that, because of their visit, the old
man had relinquished all idea of going to the woods, "we must not
interfere with your plans, for at best we have but a short time to
stay." And then he explained the reason.
When the question of snow was taken into account, Davy agreed that
Stuart's decision was perhaps wise; but "he was main sorry o' the
necessity."
"An' it's to Owens ye be taken' the trail?" he asked. "Eh, but that's
curious now. I have a rare an' good friend thereabouts that I would be
right glad to send a word to; an' I was just about to take a look at his
tunnel an' the cabin, when ye come the day, just to see it was all as it
should be ere the snows set in."
"I should be delighted to be of any service to you," said Stuart warmly;
"and to carry a message is a very slight one. Who is your friend?"
"It's just the man Genesee, who used to be my neighbor. But he's left me
alone now these many months--about a year;" and he turned to Rachel for
corroboration.
"More than a year," she answered briefly.
"Well, it is now. I'm losin' track o' dates these late days; but you're
right, lass, an' the winter would ha' been ower lonely if it had na been
for yourself. Think o' that, Charlie Stuart: this slim bit o' womankind
substituting herself for a rugged build o' a man taller than you by a
half-head, an' wi' no little success, either. But," he added teasingly,
"ye owed me the debt o' your company for the sending o' him away; so ye
were only honest after all, Rachel Hardy."
Rachel laughed, thinking it easier, perhaps, to dispose of the question
thus than by any disclaimer--especially with the eyes of Stuart on her
as they were.
"You are growing to be a tease," she answered. "You will be saying I
sent Kalitan and Talapa, next."
"But Talapa has na gone from the hills?"
"Hasn't she? Well, I saw her on the trail, going direct south, this
morning, as fast as she could get over the ground, with a warrior and a
papoose as companions."
"Did ye now? Well, good riddance to them. They ha' been loafing around
the Kootenai village ever since I sent them from the cabin in the
summer. That Talapa was a sleepy-eyed bit o' old Nick. I told Genesee
that same from the first, when he was wasting his stock o' pity on her.
Ye see," he said, turning his speech to Stuart, "a full-blooded Siwash
has some redeeming points, and a character o' their own; but the
half-breeds are a part white an' a part red, with a good wheen o' the
devil's temper thrown in."
"She didn't appear to have much of the last this morning," observed
Rachel. "She looked pretty miserable."
"Ah, well, tak' the best o' them, an' they look that to the whites. An'
so they're flittin' to the Reservation to live off the Government?
Skulking Bob'll be too lazy to be even takin' the chance o' fightin'
with his people against the Blackfeet, if trouble should come; and
there's been many a straggler from the rebels makin' their way north to
the Blackfeet, an' that is like to breed mischief."
"And your friend is at Owens?"
"Yes--or thereabouts. One o' the foremost o' their scouts, they tell me,
an' a rare good one he is, with no prejudice on either side o' the
question."
"I should think, being a white man, his sympathies would lean toward his
own race," observed Stuart.
"Well, that's as may chance. There's many the man who finds his best
friends in strange blood. Genesee is thought no little of among the
Kootenais--more, most like, than he would be where he was born and bred.
Folk o' the towns know but little how to weigh a man."
"And is he from the cities?"
For the first time Davy MacDougall looked up quickly.
"I know not," he answered briefly, "an', not giving to you a short
answer, I care not. Few questions make long friends in the hills."
Stuart was somewhat nonplussed at the bluntness of the hint, and Rachel
was delighted.
"You see," she reminded him wickedly, "one can be an M. D., an L. S. D.,
or any of the annexations, without Kootenai people considering his
education finished. But look here, Davy MacDougall, we only ran up to
say 'klahowya,' and have got to get back to-night; so, if you are
going over to Tamahnous cabin, don't stop on our account; we can go
part of the way with you."
"But ye can go all the way, instead o' but a part, an' then no be out o'
your road either," he said, with eagerness that showed how loath he was
to part from his young companions. "Ye know," he added, turning to
Rachel, "it is but three miles by the cross-cut to Genesee's, while by
the valley ye would cover eight on the way. Now, the path o'er the hills
is no fit for the feet o' a horse, except it be at the best o' seasons;
but this is an ower good one, with neither the rain nor the ice; an' if
ye will risk it--"
Of course they would risk it; and with a draught apiece from an odorous,
dark-brown jug, and the gift of a flask that found its way to Stuart's
pocket, they started.
They needed that swallow of brandy as a brace against the cold wind of
the hills. It hustled through the pines like winged fiends let loose
from the north. Dried berries from the bushes and cones from the trees
were sent pattering to sleep for the winter, and the sighs through the
green roofing, and the moans from twisted limbs, told of the hardihood
needed for life up there. The idea impressed Stuart so much that he gave
voice to it, and was laughed at grimly by the old mountaineer.
"Oh, well, it just takes man to be man, an' that's all when all's said,"
he answered "To be sure, there be times when one canna stir for the snow
wreaths, but that's to be allowed for; an' then ye may ha' took note
that my cabin is in shelter o' all but the south wind, an' that's a
great matter. Men who live in the mountain maun get used to its frolics;
but it's an ugly bit," he acknowledged, as they stopped to rest and look
up over the seemingly pathless way they had come; "but I've been
thankful for it many's the time, when, unlooked for, Genesee and Mowitza
would show their faces at my door, an' she got so she could make that
climb in the dark--think o' that! Ah, but she was the wise one!"
Stuart glanced at Rachel, who was more likely than himself to understand
what was meant by the "wise one;" but he did not again venture a
question. Mowitza was another squaw, he supposed, and one of the
companions of the man Genesee. And the other one they had passed in the
morning?--her name also was connected with the scout whom the white girl
seemed to champion or condemn as the fancy pleased her. And Stuart, as a
stranger to the social system of the wilderness, had his curiosity
widely awakened. A good deal of it was directed to Rachel herself.
Hearing MacDougall speak of the man to her, he could understand that she
had no lack of knowledge in that direction--and the direction was one of
which the right sort of a girl was supposed to be ignorant; or, if not
ignorant, at least to conceal her wisdom in the wise way of her sisters.
This one did nothing of the sort; and the series of new impressions
received made him observe the girl with a scrutiny not so admiring as he
had always, until now, given her. He was irritated with himself that it
was so, yet his ideas of what a woman should be were getting some hard
knocks at her hands.
Suddenly the glisten of the little lake came to them through the gray
trunks of the trees, and a little later they had descended the series of
small circular ridges that terraced the cove from the timber to the
waters, that was really not much more than an immense spring that
happened to bubble up where there was a little depression to spread
itself in and show to advantage.
"But a mill would be turned easily by that same bit o' water," observed
MacDougall; "an' there's where Genesee showed the level head in locating
his claim where he did."
"It looks like wasted power, placed up here," observed Stuart, "for it
seems about the last place in Christendom for a mill."
"Well, so it may look to many a pair o' eyes," returned the old man,
with a wink and a shrug that was indescribable, but suggested a vast
deal of unuttered knowledge; "but the lad who set store by it because o'
the water-power was a long ways from a fool, I can tell ye."
Again Stuart found himself trying to count the spokes of some shadowy
wheels within wheels that had a trick of eluding him; and he felt
irritatingly confident that the girl looking at him with quizzical,
non-committal eyes could have enlightened him much as to the absent
ruler of this domain, who, according to her own words, was utterly
degraded, yet had a trick of keeping his personality such a living thing
after a year's absence.
The cabin was cold with the chill dreariness of any house that is left
long without the warmth of an embodied human soul. Only the wandering,
homeless spirits of the air had passed in and out, in and out of its
chinks, sighing through them for months, until, on entrance, one felt an
intuitive, sympathetic shiver for their loneliness.
A fire was soon crackling on the hearth; but the red gleams did not
dance so merrily on the rafters as they had the first time she had been
warmed at the fire-place--the daylight was too merciless a rival. It
penetrated the corners and showed up the rude bunk and some mining
implements; from a rafter hung a roll of skins done up in bands of some
pliable withes.
Evidently Genesee's injunction had been obeyed, for even the pottery,
and reed baskets, and bowls still shone from the box of shelves.
"It's a mystery to me those things are not stolen by the Indians,"
observed Stuart, noticing the lack of any fastening on the door, except
a bar on the inside.
"There's no much danger o' that," said the old man grimly, "unless it be
by a Siwash who knows naught o' the country. The Kootenai people would
do no ill to Genesee, nor would any Injun when he lives in the
Tamahnous ground."
"What territory is that?"
"Just the territory o' witchcraft--no less. The old mine and the spring,
with the circle o' steps down to it, they let well alone, I can tell ye;
and as for stealin', they'd no take the worth o' a tenpenny nail from
between the two hills that face each other, an' the rocks o' them 'gives
queer echoes that they canna explain. Oh, yes, they have their witches,
an' their warlocks, an' enchanted places, an' will no go against their
belief, either."
"But," said Rachel, with a slight hesitation, "Talapa was not afraid to
live here."
"An' did ye not know, then, that she was not o' Kootenai stock?" asked
the old man. "Well, she was not a bit o' it; Genesee bought her of a
beast of a Blackfoot."
"Bought her?" asked Stuart, and even Rachel opened her eyes in
attention--perhaps, after all, not knowing so much as the younger man
had angrily given her credit for.
"Just that; an' dear she would ha' been at most any price. But she was a
braw thing to look at, an' young enough to be sorry o'er. An' so when he
come across her takin' a beating like a mule he could na stand it; an'
the only way he could be sure o' putting an end to it was by maken' a
bargain; an' that's just what he did, an' a'most afore he had time to
take thought, the girl was his, an' he had to tek her with him. Well,"
and the old man laughed comically at the remembrance, "you should ha'
seen him at the comin' home!--tried to get her off his hands by leavin'
her an' a quitclaim at my cabin; but I'd have none o' that--no
half-breed woman could stay under a roof o' mine; an' the finish o' it
was he hed to bring her here to keep house for him, an' a rueful
commencement it was. Then it was but a short while 'til he got hurt one
day in the tunnel, an' took a deal o' care before he was on his feet
again. Well, ye know womankind make natural nurses, an' by the time she
had him on the right trail again he had got o' the mind that Talapa was
a necessity o' the cabin; an' so ye may know she stayed."
"In what tunnel was he injured?" asked Stuart.
"Why, just--"
"There's your horse ranging calmly up toward the timber," observed
Rachel, turning from the window to Stuart. "Do you want to walk to the
ranch?"
"Well, not to-day;" and a moment later he was out of the door and
running across the terraced meadow.
"Don't tell him too much about the tunnel," suggested the girl, when she
and the old man were alone.
"Why, lass,"--he began; but she cut him short brusquely, keeping her eye
on the form on the hill-side.
"Oh, he may be all right; but it isn't like you, Davy MacDougall, to
tell all you know to strangers, even if they do happen to have Scotch
names--you clannish old goose!"
"But the lad's all right."
"May be he is; but you've told him enough of the hills now to send him
away thinking we are all a rather mixed and objectionable lot. Oh, yes,
he does too!" as Davy tried to remonstrate. "I don't care how much you
tell him about the Indians; but that tunnel may have something in it
that Genesee wouldn't want Eastern speculators spying into while he's
away--do you see?"
Evidently he did, and the view was not one flattering to his judgment,
for, in order to see more clearly, he took off his fur cap, scratched
his head, and then replacing the covering with a great deal of energy,
he burst out:
"Well, damn a fool, say I."
Rachel paid not the slightest attention to this profane plea.
"I suppose he's all right," she continued; "only when somebody's
interest is at stake, especially a friend's, we oughtn't to take things
for granted, and keeping quiet hurts no one, unless it be a stranger's
curiosity."
The old man looked at her sharply. "Ye dinna like him, then?"
She hesitated, her eyes on the tall form leading back the horse. Just
then there seemed a strange likeness to Mowitza and Genesee in their
manner, for the beast was tossing its head impatiently, and he was
laughing, evidently teasing it with the fact of its capture.
"Yes, I do like him," she said at last; "there is much about him to
like. But we must not give away other people's affairs because of that."
"Right you are, my lass," answered Davy; "an' it's rare good sense ye
show in remindin' me o' the same. It escapes me many's the time that
he's a bit of a stranger when all's said; an' do ye know, e'en at the
first he had no the ways of a stranger to me. I used to fancy that
something in his build, or it may ha' been but the voice, was like to--"
"You are either too old or not old enough to have fancies, Davy
MacDougall," interrupted the girl briskly, as Stuart re-entered. "Well,
is it time to be moving?"
He looked at his watch.
"Almost; but come to the fire and get well warmed before we start. I
believe it grows colder; here, take this seat."
"Well, I will not," she answered, looking about her; "don't let your
gallantry interfere with your comfort, for I've a chair of my own when I
visit this witchy quarter of the earth--yes, there it is."
And from the corner by the bunk she drew forward the identical chair on
which she had sat through the night at her only other visit. But from
her speech Stuart inferred that this time was but one of the many.
"What are you going to do here, Davy MacDougall?" she asked, drawing her
chair close beside him and glancing comprehensively about the cabin;
"weather-board it up for winter?"
"Naw, scarcely that," he answered good-humoredly; "but just to gather up
the blankets or skins or aught that the weather or the rats would lay
hold of, and carry them across the hills to my own camp till the spring
comes; mayhaps he may come with it."
The hope in his voice was not very strong, and the plaintiveness in it
was stronger than he knew. The other two felt it, and were silent.
"An' will ye be tellin' him for me," he continued, after a little, to
Stuart, "that all is snug an' safe, an' that I'll keep them so, an' a
welcome with them, against his return? An' just mention, too, that his
father, Grey Eagle, thinks the time is long since he left, an' that the
enemy--Time--is close on his trail. An'--an' that the day he comes back
will be holiday in the hills."
"The last from Grey Eagle or yourself?" asked Stuart teasingly. But the
girl spoke up, covering the old man's momentary hesitation.
"From me," she said coolly; "if any name is needed to give color to so
general a desire, you can use mine."
His face flushed; he looked as if about to speak to her, but, instead,
his words were to MacDougall.
"I will be very glad to carry the word to your friend," he said; "it is
but a light weight."
"Yes, I doubt na it seems so to the carrier, but I would no think it so
light a thing to ha' word o' the lad. We ha' been neighbors, ye see,
this five year, with but little else that was civilized to come near us.
An' there's a wide difference atween neighbors o' stone pavements an'
neighbors o' the hills--a fine difference."
"Yes, there is," agreed the girl; and from their tones one would gather
the impression that all the splendors of a metropolis were as nothing
when compared with the luxuries of "shack" life in the "bush."
"Can ye hit the trail down at the forks without me along?" asked
MacDougall, with a sudden remembrance of the fact that Rachel did not
know the way so well from the "Place of the Tamahnous" as she did from
Scot's Mountain. She nodded her head independently.
"I can, Davy MacDougall. And you are paying me a poor compliment when
you ask me so doubtfully. I've been prowling through the bush enough for
this past year to know it for fifty miles around, instead of twenty. And
now if your highness thinks we've had our share of this fire, let us
'move our freight,' 'hit the breeze,' or any other term of the woolly
West that means action, and get up and git."
"I am at your service," answered Stuart, with a graciousness of manner
that made her own bravado more glaring by contrast. He could see she
assumed much for the sake of mischief and irritation to himself; and his
tone in reply took an added intonation of refinement; but the hint was
lost on her--she only laughed.
"I tell you what it is, Davy MacDougall," she remarked to that
gentleman, "this slip of your nation has been planted in the wrong
century. He belongs to the age of lily-like damsels in sad-colored
frocks, and knights of high degree on bended knee and their armor hung
to the rafters. I get a little mixed in my dates sometimes, but believe
it was the age when caps and bells were also in fashion."
"Dinna mind her at all," advised the old man; "she'd be doin' ye a good
turn wi' just as ready a will as she would mak' sport o' ye. Do I not
know her?--ah, but I do!"
"So does the Stuart," said Rachel; "and as for doing him a good turn, I
proved my devotion in that line this morning, when I saved him from a
lonely, monotonous ride--didn't I?" she added, glancing up at him.
"You look positively impish," was the only reply he made; and returning
her gaze with one that was half amusement, half vexation, he went out
for the horses.
"You see, he didn't want me at all, Davy MacDougall," confided the girl,
and if she felt any chagrin she concealed it admirably. "But they've
been talking some about Genesee down at the ranch, and--and Stuart's
interest was aroused. I didn't know how curious he might be--Eastern
folks are powerful so"--and in the statement and adoption of vernacular
she seemed to forget how lately she was of the East herself; "and I
concluded he might ask questions, or encourage you to talk about--well,
about the tunnel, you know; so I just came along to keep the trail free
of snags--see?"
The old man nodded, and watched her in a queer, dubious way; as she
turned, a moment later, to speak to Stuart at the door, she noticed it,
and laughed.
"You think I'm a bit loony, don't you, Davy MacDougall? Well, I forgive
you. May be, some day, you'll see I'm not on a blind trail. Come and see
us soon, and give me a chance to prove my sanity."
"Strange that any mind could doubt it," murmured Stuart. "Come, we
haven't time for proofs of the question now. Good-bye, MacDougall; take
care of yourself for the winter. Perhaps I'll get back in the summer to
see how well you have done so."
A hearty promise of welcome, a hand-clasp, a few more words of
admonition and farewell, and then the two young people rode away across
the ground deemed uncanny by the natives; and the old man went back to
his lonely task.
On reaching the ranch at dusk, it was Rachel who was mildly hilarious,
seeming to have changed places with the gay chanter of the dawn. He was
not sulky, but something pretty near it was in his manner, and rather
intensified under Miss Hardy's badinage.
She told the rest how he divided his whisky with the squaw; hinted at a
fear that he intended adopting the papoose; gave them an account of the
conversation between himself and Skulking Brave; and otherwise made
their trip a subject for ridicule.
"Did you meet with Indians?" asked Tillie, trying to get the girl down
to authentic statements.
"Yes, my dear, we did, and I sent them home to you--or told them to
come; but they evidently had not time for morning calls."
"Were they friendly?"
"Pretty much--enough so to ask for powder and shot. None of the men
sighted them?"
"No."
"And no other Indians?"
"No--why?"
"Only that I would not like Talapa to be roughly unhorsed."
"Talapa! Why, Rachel, that's--"
"Yes, of course it is--with a very promising family in tow. Say, suppose
you hustle Aunty up about that supper, won't you? And have her give the
Stuart something extra nice; he has had a hard day of it."