AFTER TEN YEARS.
Major Dreyer left the next day, with a scout and small detachment, with
the idea of making the journey to Fort Owens and back in two weeks, as
matters were to be discussed requiring prompt action and personal
influence.
Jack Genessee was left behind--an independent, unenlisted adjunct to the
camp, and holding a more anomalous position there than Major Dreyer
dreamed of; for none of the suspicious current of the scout ever
penetrated to his tent--the only one in the company who was ignorant of
them.
"Captain Holt commands, Genesee," he had said before taking leave; "but
on you I depend chiefly in negotiations with the reds, should there be
any before I get back, for I believe you would rather save lives on both
sides than win a victory through extermination of the hostiles. We need
more men with those opinions; so, remember, I trust you."
The words had been uttered in the presence of others, and strengthened
the suspicions of the camp that Genesee had been playing some crooked
game. None knew the reason for that hastily decided trip of the Major's,
though they all agreed that that "damned skunk of a squaw man" was
posted. Prophecies were rife to the effect that more than likely he was
playing into the hands of the hostiles by sending away the Major and as
many men as possible on some wild-goose chase; and the decision arrived
at was that observation of his movements was a matter of policy, and
readiness to meet an attack from the hills a probable necessity.
He saw it--had seen it from the day of his arrival--and he kept pretty
much out of the way of all except Kalitan; for in watching Genesee they
found they would have to include his runner, who was never willingly far
away.
During the first few days their watching was an easy matter, for the
suspected individual appeared well content to hug the camp, only making
daily visits to Hardy's stable, generally in the evening; but to enter
the house was something he avoided.
"No," he said, in answer to Hardy's invitation; "I reckon I'm more at
home with the horses than with your new company. I'll drop in sometime
after the Kootenai valley is clear of uniforms."
"My wife told me to ask you," said Hardy; "and when you feel like
coming, you'll find the door open."
"Thank you, Hardy; but I reckon not--not for awhile yet."
"I'd like you to get acquainted with Stuart," added the unsuspicious
ranchman. "He is a splendid fellow, and has become interested in this
part of the country."
"Oh, he has?"
"Yes," and Hardy settled himself, Mexican fashion, to a seat on his
heels. "You see he's a writer, a novelist, and I guess he's going to
write up this territory. Anyway, this is the second trip he has made.
You could give him more points than any man I know."
"Yes--I might."
"Rachel has given him all the knowledge she has about the country--the
Indians, and all that--but she owns that all she learned she got from
you; so, if you had a mind to be more sociable, Genesee--"
The other arose to his feet.
"Obliged to you, Hardy," he said; and only the addition of the name
saved it from curtness. "Some day, perhaps, when things are slack; I
have no time now."
"Well, he doesn't seem to me to be rushed to death with work,"
soliloquized Hardy, who was abruptly left alone. "He used to seem like
such an all-round good fellow, but he's getting surlier than the devil.
May be Tillie was right to hope he wouldn't accept the invitation.
Hello, Stuart! Where are you bound for?"
"Nowhere in particular. I thought that Indian, Kalitan, was over here."
"No; Jack Genesee came over himself this morning. That mare of his is
coming up in great shape, and you'd better believe he's proud over it. I
reckon he saw you coming that he took himself away in such a hurry. He's
a queer one."
"I should judge so. Then Kalitan won't be over?"
"Well, he's likely to be before night. Want him?"
"Yes. If you see him, will you send him to the house?"
Hardy promised; and Kalitan presented himself, with the usual
interrogation:
"Rashell Hardy?"
But she, the head of the house in his eyes, was in the dark about his
visit, and was not enlightened much when Stuart entered, stating that it
was he who had wanted Kalitan.
That personage was at once deaf and dumb. Only by Rachel saying, "He is
my friend; will you not listen?" did he unbend at all; and the girl left
them on the porch alone, and a little later Stuart went upstairs, where
she heard him walking up and down the room. She had heard a good deal of
that since that day the three had called upon the Major, and a change
had come over the spirit of their social world; for where Stuart had
been the gayest, they could never depend on him now. Even Rachel found
their old pleasant companionship ended suddenly, and she felt, despite
his silence he was unhappy.
"Well, when he finds his tongue he will tell me what's the matter," she
decided, and so dismissed that question.
She rode to camp alone if it was needful, and sometimes caught a glimpse
of Genesee if he did not happen to see her first; but he no longer came
forward to speak, as the rest did--only, perhaps, a touch of his hat and
a step aside into some tent, and she knew she was avoided. A
conventional young lady of orthodox tendencies would have held her head
a little higher next time they met, and not have seen him at all; but
this one was woefully deficient in those self-respecting bulwarks; so,
the next time she happened to be at the end of the avenue, she turned
her steed directly across his path, and called a halt.
"Good-morning, Miss Rachel."
"Klahowya, tillikum," she answered, bringing him back to a remembrance
of his Chinook. "Jack Genesee, do you intend ever to come to see us--I
mean to walk in like your old self, instead of looking through the
window at night?"
"Looking--"
"Don't lie," she said coolly, "for I saw you, though no one else did.
Now tell me what's wrong. Why won't you come in the house?"
"Society is more select in the Kootenai hills than it was a year ago;"
he answered with a sort of defiance. "Do you reckon there is any woman
in the house who would speak to me if she could get out of it--anyone
except you?"
"Oh, I don't count."
"I had an 'invite' this morning," he added grimly--"not because they
wanted me, but because your new friend over there wanted someone to give
him points about the country; so I've got him to thank for being wanted
at all. Now don't look like that--or think I'm kicking. It's a square
enough deal so far as I'm concerned, and it stands to reason a man of my
stamp hasn't many people pining for him in a respectable house. For the
matter of that, it won't do you any good to be seen talking to me this
long. I'm going."
"All right; so am I. You can go along."
"With you?"
"Certainly."
"I reckon not."
"Don't be so stubborn. If you didn't feel like coming, you would not
have been at that window last night."
His face flushed at this thrust which he could not parry.
"Well, I reckon I won't go there again."
"No; come inside next time. Come, ride half way to the ranch, and tell
me about that trip of yours to the Blackfeet. Major Dreyer gave you
great praise for your work there."
"He should have praised you;" and her own color deepened at the
significance of his words.
"I met Kalitan on his way to the ranch, as I came," she said in the most
irrelevant way.
He looked at her very sharply, but didn't speak.
"Well, are you going to escort me home, or must I go alone?"
"It is daylight; you know every foot of the way, and you don't need me,"
he said, summing up the case briefly. "When you do, let me know."
"And you won't come?" she added good-naturedly. "All right. Klahowya!"
She moved out of his way, touched Betty with the whip, and started
homeward. She rather expected to meet Kalitan again, but there was no
sign of him on the road; arriving at the house, she found that youth
ensconced among the pillows of the largest settee with the air of a king
on a throne, and watching with long, unblinking stares Miss Fred, who
was stumbling over the stitches of some crochet-work for the adornment
of Miss Margaret.
"I'm so glad you've come!" she breathed gratefully. "He has me so
nervous I can't count six; and Mrs. Hardy is taking a nap, and Aunty
Luce has locked herself upstairs, and I never was stared so out of
countenance in my life."
"I rather think that's a phase of Indian courtship," Rachel comforted
her by saying; "so you have won a new admirer. What is it Kalitan?"
He signified that his business was with the "Man-who-laughs," the term
by which he designated Stuart.
"Mr. Stuart left the house just after you did," said Fred; "I thought,
perhaps, to catch you."
"No, he didn't go my way. Well, you look comfortable, Kalitan; and if
you had the addition of another crazy-patch cushion for your left elbow,
you might stand a little longer wait--think so?"
Kalitan thought he could; and there he remained until Stuart arrived,
flushed and rather breathless from his ride from somewhere.
"I was out on the road, but did not see you," said Rachel, on his
entrance.
"This is likely enough," he answered. "I didn't want you to--or anyone
else. I'm not good company of late. I was trying to ride away from
myself." Then he saw Kalitan, propped among the cushions. "Well," he
said sharply; "what have you brought me?"
Kalitan answered by no word, but thrust his hand inside his
hunting-shirt and brought forth an envelope, which he gave into the
eager hands reaching for it.
Stuart gave it one quick glance, turning it in his hand to examine both
sides, and then dropped it in his pocket and sat down by the window.
Rachel could see it was a thick, well-filled envelope, and that the
shape was the same used by Stuart himself, very large and perfectly
square--a style difficult to duplicate in the Kootenai hills.
"You can go now, if you choose, Kalitan," she said, fearing his ease
would induce him to stay all night, and filled with a late alarm at the
idea of Tillie getting her eyes on the peaceful "hostile" and her
gorgeous cushions; and without any further notice of Stuart, Kalitan
took his leave.
When Rachel re-entered the room, a moment later, a letter was crisping
into black curls in the fire-place, and the man sat watching it moodily.
All that evening there was scarcely question or answer to be had from
Stuart. He sat by the fire, with Miss Margaret in his arms--her usual
place of an evening; and through the story-telling and jollity he sat
silent, looking, Jim said, as if he was "workin' hard at thinkin'."
"To-morrow night you must tell us a story," said Miss Fred, turning to
him. "You have escaped now for--oh, ever so many nights."
"I am afraid my stock is about exhausted."
"Out of the question! The flimsiest of excuses," she decided. "Just
imagine a new one, and tell it us instead of writing it; or tell us the
one you are writing at now."
"Well, we will see when to-morrow comes;" and with that vague proposal
Miss Fred had to be content.
When the morrow came Stuart looked as if there had been no night for
him--at least no sleep; and Rachel, or even MacDougall himself, would
not think of calling him Prince Charlie, as of old.
She was no longer so curious about him and that other man who was
antagonistic to him. She had been fearful, but whatever knowledge they
had of each other she had decided would not mean harm; the quiet days
that had passed were a sort of guarantee of that.
Yet they seemed to have nerved Stuart up to some purpose, for the
morning after the burning of the letter he appeared suddenly at the door
of Genesee's shack, or the one Major Dreyer had turned over to him
during his own absence.
From the inside Kalitan appeared, as if by enchantment, at the sound of
a hand on the latch. Stuart, with a gesture, motioned him aside, and
evidently to Kalitan's own surprise, he found himself stepping out while
the stranger stepped in. For perhaps a minute the Indian stood still,
listening, and then, no sounds of hostilities coming to his ears, an
expressive gutteral testified to his final acquiescence, and he moved
away. His hesitation showed that Rachel had not been the only one to
note the bearing of those two toward each other.
Had he listened a minute longer, he might have heard the peace within
broken by the voices that, at first suppressed and intense, rose with
growing earnestness.
The serious tones of Stuart sounded through the thin board walls in
expostulation, and again as if urging some point that was granted little
patience; for above it the voice of Genesee broke in, all the mellowness
gone from it, killed by the brutal harshness, the contemptuous derision,
with which he answered some plea or proposition.
"Oh, you come to me now, do you?" he said, walking back and forth across
the room like some animal fighting to keep back rage with motion, if one
can imagine an animal trying to put restraint on itself; and at every
turn his smoldering, sullen gaze flashed over the still figure inside
the door, and its manner, with a certain calm steadfastness of purpose,
not to be upset by anger, seemed to irritate him all the more.
"So you come this time to lay out proposals to me, eh? And think, after
all these years, that I'm to be talked over to what you want by a few
soft words? Well, I'll see you damned first; so you can strike the back
trail as soon as you've a mind to."
"I shan't go back," said Stuart deliberately, "until I get what I came
for."
The other answered with a short, mirthless laugh.
"Then you're located till doomsday," he retorted, "and doomsday in the
afternoon; though I reckon that won't be much punishment, considering
the attractions you manage to find up here, and the advantages you carry
with you--a handsome face, a gentleman's manners and an honest name.
Why, you are begging on a full hand, Mister; and what are you begging
to? A man that's been about as good as dead for years--a man without any
claim to a name, or to recognition by decent people--an outlaw from
civilization."
"Not so bad as that, Jack," broke in Stuart, who was watching in a sort
of misery the harsh self-condemnation in the restless face and eyes of
Genesee. "Don't be so bitter as that on yourself. You are unjust--don't
I know?"
"The hell you say!" was the withering response to this appeal, as if
with the aid of profanity to destroy the implied compliment to himself.
"Your opinion may go for a big pile among your fine friends, but it
doesn't amount to much right here. And you'd better beat a retreat, sir.
The reputation of the highly respected Charles Stuart, the talented
writer, the honorable gentleman, might get some dirty marks across it if
folks knew he paid strictly private visits to Genesee Jack, a renegade
squaw man; and more still if they guessed that he came for a
favor--that's what you called it when you struck the shack, I believe. A
favor! It has taken you a good while to find that name for it."
"No, it has not, Jack," and the younger man's earnestness of purpose
seemed to rise superior to the taunts and sarcasm of the other. "It was
so from the first, when I realized--after I knew--I didn't seem to have
thoughts for anything else. It was a sort of justice, I suppose, that
made me want them when I had put it out of my power to reach them. You
don't seem to know what it means, Jack, but I--I am homesick for them; I
have been for years, and now that things have changed so for me,
I--Jack, for God's sake, have some feeling! and realize that other men
can have!"
Jack turned on him like a flash.
"You--you say that to me!" he muttered fiercely.
"You, who took no count of anybody's feelings but your own, and thought
God Almighty had put the best things on this earth for you to use and
destroy! Killing lives as sure as if they'd never drawn another breath,
and forgetting all about it with the next pretty face you saw! If that
is what having a stock of feeling leads a man to, I reckon we're as well
off without any such extras."
Stuart had sat down on a camp-stool, his face buried in his hands, and
there was a long silence after Genesee's bitter words, as he stood
looking at the bent head with an inexplicable look in his stormy eyes.
Then his visitor arose.
"Jack," he said with the same patience--not a word of retort had come
from him--"Jack, I've been punished every day since. I have tried to
forget it--to kill all memory by every indulgence and distraction in my
reach--pursued forgetfulness so eagerly that people have thought me
still chasing pleasure. I turned to work, and worked hard, but the
practice brought to my knowledge so many lives made wretched
as--as--well, I could not stand it. The heart-sickness it brought me
almost drove me melancholy mad. The only bright thing in life was--the
children--"
An oath broke from Genesee's lips.
"And then," continued Stuart, without any notice save a quick closing of
the eyes as if from a blow, "and then they died--both of them. That was
justice, too, no doubt, for they stayed just long enough to make
themselves a necessity to me--a solace--and to make me want what I have
lost. I am telling you this because I want you to know that I have had
things to try me since I saw you last, and that I've come through them
with the conviction that there is to be no content in life to me until I
make what amends I can for the folly of the boy you knew. The thought
has become a monomania with me. I hunted for months for you, and never
found a trace. Then I wrote--there."
"You did!"
"Yes, I did--say what you please, do what you please. It was my only
hope, and I took it. I told her I was hunting for you--and my purpose.
In return I got only this," and he handed toward Genesee a sheet of
paper with one line written across it. "You see--your address, nothing
more. But, Jack, can't you see it would not have been sent if she had
not wished--"
"That's enough!" broke in the other. "I reckon I've given you all the
time I have to spare this morning, Mister. You're likely to strike
better luck in some different direction than talking sentiment and the
state of your feelings to me. I've been acquainted with them
before--pretty much--and don't recollect that the effect was healthy."
"Jack, you will do what I ask?"
"Not this morning, sonny," answered the other, still with that
altogether aggressive taunt in his tone. "I would go back to the ranch
if I was you, and by this time to-morrow some of them may make you
forget the favor you want this morning. So long!"
And with this suggestion to his guest to vacate, he turned his back, sat
down by the fire, and began filling a pipe.
"All right; I'll go, and in spite of your stubbornness, with a lighter
heart than I carried here, for I've made you understand that I want to
make amends, and that I have not been all a liar; that I want to win
back the old faith you all had in me; and, Jack, if my head has gone
wrong, something in my heart forbade me to have content, and that has
been my only hope for myself. For I have a hope, and a determination,
Jack, and as for anyone helping me to forget--well, you are wrong there;
one woman might do it--for a while--I acknowledge that, but I am safe in
knowing she would rather help me to remember."
Genesee wheeled about quickly.
"Have you dared--"
"No, I have not told her, if that is what you mean; why--why should I?"
His denial weakened a little as he remembered how closely his impulse
had led him to it, and how strong, though reasonless, that impulse had
been.
The stem of the pipe snapped in Genesee's fingers as he arose, pushing
the camp-stool aside with his foot, as if clearing space for action.
"Since you own up that there's someone about here that you--you've taken
a fancy to--damn you!--I'm going to tell you right now that you've got
to stop that! You're no more fit than I am to speak to her, or ask for a
kind word from her, and I give you a pointer that if you try playing
fast and loose with her, there'll be a committee of one to straighten
out the case, and do it more completely than that man did who was a fool
ten years ago. Now, hearken to that--will you?"
And then, without waiting for an answer, he strode out of the shack,
slamming the door after him, and leaving his visitor in possession.
"I've got to show him, by staying right in these hills, that I am in
earnest," Stuart decided, taking the seat his host had kicked aside, and
stretching his feet out to the fire. "No use in arguing or pleading with
him--there never was. But give him his own lead, and he will come around
to the right point of view, though he may curse me up hill and down dale
while he is doing it; a queer, queer fellow--God bless him! And how
furious he was about that girl! Those two are a sort of David and
Jonathan in their defense of each other, and yet never exchange words if
they can help it--that's queer, too--it would be hard telling which of
them is the more so. Little need to warn any man away from her, however;
she is capable of taking very good care of herself."
There was certainly more than one woman at the ranch; but to hear the
speech of those two men, one would have doubted it; for neither had
thought it necessary even to mention her name.