"Some messenger for me, probably," said the Captain, composedly. "He is
coming fast, too."
As the steady drumming of the horse's hoofs increased in power, Elsie
felt something chill creep beneath the roots of her hair. Perhaps the
Indians had broken out in war against the whites! Perhaps--
A tall young Tetong slipped from his tired horse and approached the
Captain. In his extended hand lay an envelope, which gleamed in the
firelight. As Curtis took this letter the messenger, squatting before
him, began to roll a cigarette. His lean and powerful face was shadowed
by a limp sombrero and his eyes were hidden, but his lips were grave and
calm. A quirt dangled from his right wrist, and in the two braids of his
hair green eagle-plumes were twisted. The star on the lapel of his
embroidered vest showed him to be a police-officer. From the intensity
of his attitude it was plain he was studying his agent's face in order
to read thereon the character of the message he had brought.
Curtis turned the paper slowly and without excitement. With rapid signs
he dismissed the courier. "I have read it. You will camp with Two Horns.
Go get some food. Mary will give you meat."
Turning to his guests, he then said: "It is nothing special--merely some
papers I forgot to sign before leaving."
"By George! what a picture the fellow made, sitting there!" said Parker.
"It was like an illustration in a novel. Why don't you paint that kind
of thing, Bee Bee?"
"Because I can't," she replied. "Don't you suppose I saw it? I'd need
the skill of Zorn to do a thing as big and mysterious as that. Did you
see the intensity of his pose? He expected Captain Curtis to show
excitement or alarm. He was very curious to know what it was all
about--don't you think so?"
Curtis was amused. "Yes, I suppose he thought the paper more important
than it was. The settlers have kept the tribe guessing all the spring by
threats of running them off the reservation. Of course they wouldn't
openly resort to violence, but there are several irresponsibles who
would strike in the dark if they found opportunity."
In spite of his reassuring tone, a vague fear fell over the camping
party. Parker was frankly alarmed.
"If you think there is any danger, Captain, I want to get out o' here
quick. I'm not here to study the Tetong with his war-paint on."
"If there had been any danger, Mr. Parker, I would not have left my
office. I shall have a report similar to this every day while I am away,
so please be composed."
The policeman came back, resumed his squatting position before the fire,
and began a series of vigorous and dramatic gestures, to which the
Captain replied in kind, absorbed, intent, with a face as inscrutable as
that of the redman himself. The contrast between the resolute, handsome
young white man and the roughhewn Tetong was superb. "There's nothing in
it for me," said Parker, "but it's great business for a painter."
Elsie seized a block of paper, and with soft pencil began to sketch them
both against the background of mysterious blackness, out of which a pine
bole gleamed ashy white.
Suddenly, silently, as though one of the tree-trunks had taken on life,
another Tetong appeared in the circle of the firelight and stood with
deep-sunk eyes fastened on the Captain's face. Another followed, and
still others, till two old men and four young fellows ranged themselves
in a semicircle before their agent, with Crane's Voice and Two Horns at
the left and a little behind. The old men smoked a long pipe, but the
young men rolled cigarettes, taking no part in the council, listening
the while with eyes as bright as those of foxes.
It was all sinister and menacing to the Parkers, and all wondered till
Curtis turned to say: "They are my mill-hands--good, faithful boys,
too."
"Mill-hands!" exclaimed Parker. "They looked uncommonly like a scalping
party."
"That is what imagination can do. I thought your faces were extra
solemn," remarked Curtis, dryly; but Lawson knew that the agent was not
so untroubled as he pretended, for old Crow Killer had a bitter story to
relate of the passage of a band of cowboys through his camp. They had
stampeded his ponies and shot at him, one bullet passing so close to his
ear that it burned the skin, and he was angry.
"They wish to kill us, these cattlemen," he said, sombrely, in
conclusion. "If they come again we will fight."
Happily, his vehemence did not reach the comprehension of the women nor
the understanding of Parker, and Lawson smoked on as calmly as if these
tell-tale gestures were the flecking of shadows cast by the leaping
flames. At last the red visitors rose and vanished as silently as they
came. They seemed to pass through black curtains, so suddenly they
disappeared.
In spite of all reassurance, the women were a little reluctant to go to
bed--at least Mrs. Parker and Elsie were.
"I wish the men's tent were not so far off," Mrs. Parker said to Elsie,
plaintively.
"I'll ask them to move it, if you wish," returned Elsie, and when Jennie
came in she said: "Aren't you a little nervous to-night?"
Jennie looked surprised. "Why, no! Do you mean about sleeping in a
tent?"
"Yes," replied Mrs. Parker. "Suppose a wolf or a redman should come?"
Jennie laughed. "You needn't worry--we have a powerful guard. I never am
afraid with George."
"But the men are so far away! I wish their tent were close beside ours.
I'm not standing on propriety," Mrs. Parker added, as Jennie hesitated.
"I'm getting nervous, and I want Jerome where he can hear me if I call
to him."
Perceiving that Elsie shared this feeling in no small degree, Jennie
soberly conveyed their wish to Curtis.
"Very well, we'll move over. It will take but a moment."
As she heard the men driving the tent-pegs close beside her bed Mrs.
Parker sighed peacefully.
"_Now_ I can sleep. There is no comfort like a man in case of wolves,
Indians, and burglars," and the fact that the men were laughing did not
disturb her.
With a little shock, Elsie realized that Curtis and not Lawson was in
her mind as her defender. Of course, he was in command; that accounted
for it.
Nevertheless, as she listened to the murmur of their voices she detected
herself waiting for Curtis's crisp, clear bass, and not for the nasal
tenor of the man whose ring she wore. Her mind was filled, too, with the
dramatic figure the young officer made as he sat in gesture-talk with
his Tetong wards. In case of trouble the safest place on all the
reservation would be by his side, for his people loved and trusted him.
She did not go to sleep easily; the excitement, the strangeness of being
in a tent, kept her alert long after Jennie and Mrs. Parker were
breathing tranquilly on their cots.
One hears everything from a tent. It seems to stand in the midst of the
world. It is like being in a diving-bell under water. Life goes on
almost uninterruptedly. The girl heard a hundred obscure, singular,
sibilant sounds, as of serpents conferring. Mysterious footsteps
advanced, paused, retreated. Whispered colloquies arose among the
leaves, giving her heart disquiet. Every unfamiliar sound was a threat.
The voices of birds and beasts no longer interested her--they scared
her; and, try as she would to banish these fancies, her nerves thrilled
with every rush of the wind. It was deep night before she dropped
asleep.