"Very well, about three o'clock we will go. You will have time for a
_siesta_. You must be tired."
"Oh no, I am quite rested and ready to go any time," and her bright eyes
and warm color confirmed her words.
With military promptness the horses were brought round, and,
accompanied by Maynard and Jennie, Curtis, with Elsie by his side, led
the way to the camp. She was a confident horsewoman and rode a fine
brown pony, and Curtis, who had never ridden with her before, glowed
with pleasure in her grace and skill.
As they galloped off up the road a keen twinge of remorseful pity for
Lawson touched Elsie's heart. He was grown suddenly older, it seemed to
her, as though he had definitely given up the attempt to remain young,
and this thought made her rather sober. He was being left out of her
plans now almost unconsciously, while the other--
"One of the real heroes in this affair," Curtis was saying, "is Crane's
Voice. He has been in saddle nearly thirty-six hours, and is willing to
start again to Pinon City if I ask it."
"Of course you will not?"
"No. I will send a white man. The settlers might do even Crane's Voice
an injury."
All was quiet in the camps, with little sign of the precipitate flight
of the morning, either in the faces of the men or in the disposal of the
tepees. The old men and some of the women came out to greet their Little
Father and the soldier of the good heart, and Curtis gave out a
tranquillizing message and asked, "Have you called the council?"
"Ay, for sunrise to-morrow," answered Elk and Two Horns.
"That is good," he replied. "Where are your young men?"
"Some are in the hills, some are gone as messengers, others are watching
the ponies."
"Call them all in. I don't want them riding about to-night. Keep them in
camp, close by the soldiers--then no harm will come to them."
So, scattering greetings and commands, he rode through the two circles
of tepees. The redmen were all eager to shake hands with Maynard, in
whom they recognized a valiant friend as well as an old-time enemy.
They found the camp of Grayman less tranquil, for the stragglers were
still coming in from the hills, and scores of women were busy resetting
their tepees. Grayman himself came forth, nervous and eager. "Ho, Little
Father, my heart is glad that the soldiers have come."
"We are all glad," replied Curtis. "Where is your son?"
Grayman looked troubled. "I do not know. He is away with Cut Finger, my
sister's son."
"Cut Finger is bad company for your son."
"I know it; but they are blood-brothers, as is the way of young men.
Where one is, there the other is also."
Maynard and Jennie were not as deeply interested in the camp as they had
given out to be at starting. He was recalling to her mind some of the
parties they had attended together at Fort Sibley. "Really, Captain
Maynard," she was saying, as they rode up, "you would have it appear
that we saw a great deal of each other in those days."
"That's my contention entirely," he replied, "and it is my _in_tention
to continue this Indian outbreak indefinitely in order to go into
cantonment here."
"You always were susceptible to good dinners, Captain Maynard."
"Say good company, and you'll be right entirely."
Curtis, having caught Maynard's last remark, called out in the biting
tone of the upper classman at West Point.
"Are you on special duty, Captain Maynard, or riding in the park?"
He saluted imperturbably. "By good luck I am doing both, at your
service."
"Merely cast your eye around so that you can report the Tetongs peaceful
and in camp, then you may ride where you please."
Maynard swept his eyes over the village. "It is done! Now, Miss Curtis,
let's try for the top of that hill?"
"No, no, you have been riding all night."
"Why, so I have! In the charm of your presence I'd forgotten it. I'm
supposed to be fagged."
"You don't look it," remarked Curtis, humorously, running his eyes over
the burly figure before him. "At the same time, I think you'd better
return. Your commissariat wagons will be rumbling in soon."
Maynard again saluted. "Very well, 'Major,' it shall be so," and,
wheeling his horse in such wise as to turn Jennie's pony, they galloped
off together, leaving Curtis and Elsie to follow.
"It's hard to realize that disaster came so near to us," he said,
musingly, and Elsie shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at the
hills.
"There is a wonderful charm in this dry country! I have never seen such
blinding sunshine. But life must be difficult here."
"You begin to feel that? I expect to stay here at least five years,
providing I am not removed."
She shuddered perceptibly. "Five years is a long time to give out of
one's life--with so little to show for it."
He hesitated a moment, then said, with deep feeling, "It's hard, it's
lonely, but, after all, it has its compensations. I can see results. The
worst side of it all is--I can never ask any woman to share such a life
with me. I feel guilty when I consider Jennie--she ought to have a home
of her own; she has no outlook here."
She looked straight ahead as she replied. "You would find life here
intolerable without her."
"I know it; but in my best moments I realize how selfish it is in me to
keep her."
"Suppose you were to resign, what would you do?"
"I would try to secure a chance at some field-work for the Ethnologic
Bureau. It doesn't pay very well, but it would be congenial, and my
proficiency in the sign language would, I think, make me valuable. I
have determined never to go back to garrison life without some special
duty to occupy my mind."
"Life isn't a bit simple when you are grown up, is it?"
"Life is always simple, if one does one's duty."
"That is a soldier's answer; it is not easy for me to enter into that
spirit. I have my art, and no sense of duty at all."
"Your position is equally strange to me; but duties will discover
themselves--later. A life without duties is impossible."
"I know what you mean, but I do not intend to allow any duty to
circumscribe my art." This she uttered defiantly.
"I don't like to hear you say that. Life is greater than art."
She laughed. "How different our points of view! You are Anglo-Saxon, I
am French. Art counts far more with us."
"Was your mother French? I did not know that."
"Yes--a Canadian. I have her nature rather than that of my father."
"Sometimes I think you are your father's daughter. Did your mother live
to enjoy her husband's success?"
"Not to the full. Still, she had a nice home in Alta, where I was born.
She died before he was elected Senator." They had nearly reached the
agency now, and she shook off her sober mood. "Shall we go in with a
dash?"
"I'm agreed."
She put quirt to her horse and they entered the lane at a flying gallop.
As he assisted her to alight at the studio door he said:
"I hope your father will not require you to join him in the East. It is
a great pleasure to have you here." His voice touched something vibrant
in her heart.
"Oh, I don't think he will when he fully understands the situation. I'm
sure I don't want to go. I shall write him so."
Curtis rode away elate as a boy. Something which he did not care to
define had come to him from her, subtle as a perfume, intangible as
light, and yet it had entered into his blood with most transforming
effect. He put aside its analysis, and went about his duties content
with the feeling that life was growing richer day by day.
Wilson, seeing his shining face, sighed and said to himself: "I guess
the Major has found his girl. He's a lucky dog. I wish I could pick up
even a piece of plain calico, I'd be satisfied." And he ran through a
list of the unmarried women within reach, to no result, as usual.
Meanwhile the supply-wagons had arrived, and Captain Maynard was
overseeing the laying-out of the camp just below the agency. Lieutenant
Payne and his command returned at five o'clock, and in a short time the
little village of white tents was in order. Curtis came over to insist
that the officers take dinner with them at "the parsonage," and, as
Captain Maynard had already spoken of the good company and the excellent
dinner he had enjoyed in the middle of the day, Lieutenant Payne was
quite ready to comply, especially as his lunch had been as light as his
breakfast.
The meal was as enjoyable as the mid-day dinner, and the Parkers derived
much comfort from the presence of the soldiers.
"I guess I'm not fitted to be a pioneer artist," Parker confessed, and
the hearty agreement he met with quite disconcerted him.
Mrs. Parker was indignant at the covert ridicule of her husband, and was
silent all through the meal; indeed, the burden of the conversation fell
upon Jennie and Maynard, but they were entirely willing to bear it, and
were not lacking for words.
"It is good to hear the bugles again," Jennie remarked, as one of the
calls rang out on the still air, sweet and sad and as far removed from
war as a love song.
"They're not so pleasant when they call to the same monotonous round of
daily duties," said Mr. Payne.
Curtis smiled. "Here's another disgruntled officer. What would you
do--kill off the Indians and move into the city?"
"To kill off a few measly whites might insure completer peace and
tranquillity," replied Maynard.
"You fellows couldn't be more righteously employed," put in Lawson. "You
might begin on the political whoopers round about."
"What blasphemy!" cried Jennie. "These 'noble pioneers!'"
"Founding a mighty State," added Curtis.
"Founding a state of anarchy!" retorted Lawson. "They never did have any
regard for law, except a law that worked in their favor."
Parker got in a word. "Lawson, do you know what you are? You're what
Norman Bass used to call 'a blame a-riss-to-crat.'" This provoked a
laugh at Lawson's expense.
"I admit it," said Lawson, calmly. "I am interested in the cowboy and
the miner--as wild animals--as much as any of you, but as founders of an
empire! The hard and unlovely truth is, they are representatives of
every worst form of American vice; they are ignorant, filthy, and cruel.
Their value as couriers of the Christian army has never been great with
me."
Maynard was unusually reflective as he stared at Lawson.
"That's mighty plain talk," he observed, in the pause that followed.
"You couldn't run for office on speeches like that."
"Lawson's living doesn't depend on prevarication," remarked Curtis. "If
it did--"
"If it did I'd lie like the best--I mean the worst of you," replied
Lawson.
"In a few years there will not be an Indian left," Parker remarked.
"The world will be the poorer."
"They will all be submerged," continued Parker.
"Why submerge them? Is the Anglo-Saxon type so adorable in the sight of
God that He desires all the races of the earth to be like unto it? If
the proselytizing zeal of the missionaries and functionaries of the
English-speaking race could work out, the world would lose all its
color, all its piquancy. Hungary would be like Scotland, Scotland would
be Cornwall, Cornwall would duplicate London, and London reflect New
York. Beautiful scheme for tailors, shoe-makers, and preachers, but
depressing to artists."
"You must be one of those chaps the missionaries tell about, who would
keep men savage just to please your sense of the picturesque."
"Savage! There's a fine word. What is a savage?"
"A man who needs converting to our faith," said Jennie.
"A man to exercise the army on," said Maynard.
"A man to rob in the name of the Lord," said Parker.
"You're stealing all my oratorical thunder," complained Lawson. "When a
speaker asks a question like that he doesn't want a detailed answer--he
is pausing for effect. Speaking seriously--"
"Oh!" said Maynard, "then you were _not_ serious."
Lawson went his oratorical way. "My conviction is that savagery held
more of true happiness than we have yet realized; and civilization, as
you begin to see, does not, by any construction, advance the sum of
human happiness as it should do."
"What an advantage it is to have an independent income!" mused Maynard,
looking about the table. "There's a man who not only has opinions, but
utters them in a firm tone of voice."
"I am being instructed," remarked Elsie. "I used to think no one took
the Indian's side; now every one seems opposed to the cattlemen."
"When we are civilized enough to understand this redman, he will have
disappeared," said Curtis, very soberly.
"Judging from the temper of this State at present, I reckon you're about
right," replied Maynard. "Well, it's out o' my hands, as the fellah
says; I'm not the Almighty; if I were I'd arrange things on a different
basis."
"We are all transition types," remarked Curtis, harking back to a remark
of Lawson's making.
"Even these settlers are immortal souls," said Parker.
"Consider!" exclaimed Lawson. "How could we live without the Indian
question? Maynard would be like Othello--occupation gone. Curtis would
cease to be a philanthropist. Elsie Bee Bee would go sadly back to
painting 'old hats' and dead ducks. I alone of all this company would be
busy and well paid. I would continue to study the remains of the race."
Jennie rose. "Put a period there," said she, "till we escape, and,
remember, if we hear any loud talk we'll come out and fetch you away,"
and she hurried out into the sitting-room, where Elsie and Mrs. Parker
yielded up valuable suggestions about dress.
* * * * *
As the Parkers rose to go, Lawson approached Elsie and asked in a low
voice: "_Are_ you going home to the mess-house to-night? If you are, I
want to go with you."
"I'll be ready in a moment," she replied, but her eyes wavered. As they
stepped out together quite in the old way, he abruptly but gently began:
"It is significant of our changed relations when I say that this is the
first time I've had an opportunity for a private word since our camping
trip. There is no need of this constraint, Elsie. I want you to be your
good, frank self with me. I'll not misunderstand it. I am not charging
anything up against you. In fact, I can see that you are right in your
decision, but it hurts me to have you avoid me as you have done lately."
There was something in his voice which brought the hot tears to her eyes
and she replied, gently: "I'm very sorry, Osborne. I hoped you wouldn't
care--so much, and I didn't mean--"
"I've tried not to show my hurt, for my own sake as well as yours, but
the fact is I didn't realize how deeply you'd taken root in my thoughts
till I tried to put you away. It is said that no two lovers are ever
equal sharers in affection--one always gives more than the other--or one
expects more than the other. I was perfectly sincere when I made that
bargain with you, and I know you were; but you are younger than I, and
that has changed the conditions for you. I am older than you thought,
and I find myself naturally demanding more and more. I think I
understand better than I did two days ago why you gave me back the ring,
and I do not complain of it. I shall never again refer to it, but we can
at least be friends. This cold silence--"