"Yes; his wife is here."
"Then tell him I will not let him fight. Tell him that shooting will do
no good, and that I want him to come down and see me."
The officer trotted away.
"What did he say?" asked Elsie. "What is that man on the hill for?"
"That is Cut Finger, the guilty man. He proclaimed himself the murderer
last night and now he is willing to die, but wants to die on his horse."
The whole agency was again tremulous with excitement. The teachers, the
scholars, the native employes were all gathered into chattering groups
with eyes fixed on the motionless figure of the desperate horseman, and
in the camps above the agency an almost frenzied excitement was
spreading. The stark bravery of the boy's attitude had kindled anew the
flame of war, and behind Cut Finger on the hills two groups of mounted
warriors had gathered suddenly. Several of the more excitable old women
broke into a war-song, whose wail came faintly to the ears of the agent.
"Two Horns, silence those singers," said Curtis, sternly.
Elsie and Jennie and the Parkers joined the group around the agent, and
Miss Colson, the missionary, came flying for refuge at the side of her
hero.
"What are you going to do?" asked Parker. "If the fellow really means to
shoot, of course no man can go up to him. You might send some soldiers."
"Silence in the ranks!" commanded Maynard, and, though he smiled as he
said it, Parker realized his mistake. He turned to Elsie and his wife.
"I tell you, we'd better get out of here. I feel just like a man sitting
on a powder-mine. There's no telling what's going to happen next."
Lawson turned towards him with a sarcastic grin. "I wish I'd realized
the state of your nerves, Parker; I should have invited you to Asbury
Beach instead of the Indian country."
Maynard brought his field-glasses to bear on the desperado. "He has
dismounted," he said. "He is squatted beside his horse, the bridle-rein
on his arm, a rifle across his knees, and is faced this way. His
attitude is resolute and 'sassy.'"
Curtis quietly said: "Now, friends, I wish you would all go in and pay
no further attention to this man. Miss Colson, go back to your work. So
long as he sees us looking at him he will maintain his defiant attitude.
He will grow weary of his bravado if ignored."
"Quite right, Captain," replied Lawson, and the little knot of visitors
broke up and dispersed to sheltered points of observation.
Under the same gentle pressure the employes went back to work, and the
self-convicted warrior was left to defy the wind and the sky. Even the
Tetongs themselves grew tired of looking when nothing seemed likely to
happen, and the forenoon wore away as usual, well filled with duties.
Maynard's men got out for drill an hour later, and their bugle's voice
pulsed upward to the silent and motionless watcher on the hill like
mocking laughter. The clink of the anvil also rose to him on the hot,
dry air, and just beneath him the children came forth at recess to play.
He became tired of sitting on the ground at last, and again mounted his
horse, but no one at the agency seemed to know or to care. The sun beat
remorselessly upon his head, and his throat became parched with thirst.
Slowly but surely the exaltation of the morning ebbed away and a
tremulous weakness seized upon him, so that, when his wife came bringing
meat and water, he who had never expected to eat or drink again seized
upon the food and ate greedily.
Then, while she sat on the ground and repeated the agent's message, he
stood beside his horse, sullen and wordless. The bell rang for noon, and
as the children came rushing out they pointed up at him again, and the
teachers also stood in a group for a moment, with faces turned upward,
but only for a moment, then went carelessly away to their meals.
An hour passed, the work-bell rang, the clerks returned to their duties,
and the agent walked slowly across the road towards the office. Cut
Finger lifted his rifle and pointed it. "I could shoot him now," he
muttered. "But he is a good man; I do not want to kill him." Then the
heat and silence settled over hill and valley, and no sound but the
buzzing of flies and the clatter of grasshoppers broke the hot, brooding
hush of the mid-day. The wind was from the plain and brought no coolness
on its wings.
But he was not entirely forgotten. Elsie, from her studio door, kept
close watch upon him. "There's something fine about him after all," she
said to Curtis.
"It's like the old Mosaic times--an eye for an eye. He knows he must die
for this, but he prefers to die gloriously, as a warrior dies."
A dust down the road caught Curtis's attention. "The mail will soon be
in and then we will see how all this affects the press of the State; the
Chicago dailies will not reach us for a couple of days yet."
"Send the papers over here, please!" cried Elsie, "I'm wild to see
them."
"Why not all assemble at 'the parsonage' and I'll bring them there?"
"Very well; that will do as well," she replied. "It will be such a joy
to read our obituaries."
As he entered the library with his armful of papers a half-hour later
Curtis exclaimed: "Well, now, here is a feast! The commotion on the
outside is prodigious. Here are the Copper City and Alta papers, and a
dozen lesser 'lights and signals of progress' in the State. Help
yourselves." He took out a handful of letters and telegrams. "And here
are the prayers of anxious relatives. A telegram for you, Miss Brisbane;
and two for you, Lawson."
Elsie's message from her father was brief. "Have no word from you; am en
route for Pinon City. Not finding you there will cross to agency at
once. Why do you not come out?"
Looking at the date she said: "Papa is coming; he is probably on his
way to the agency at this moment."
Curtis looked a little troubled. "I hope not; the roads are dusty and
the sun is hot."
"By George! this is fierce stuff," said Parker, looking up from his
paper.
"Cut Finger has left the hill," announced Jennie from the door-way; "he
is nowhere to be seen."
"Now he will submit to arrest," exclaimed Curtis. "His fine frenzy is
gone."
"I'm sorry," Elsie soberly exclaimed. "Must you give him up to that
stupid sheriff?"
"Yes, it must be done," replied Curtis. "My only claim to consideration
lies in executing the law. I fought lawlessness with the promise that
when the sheriff came with proper warrant I would act."
As the young officer went back to his duties the head-lines of the
papers he had but glanced at began to burn into his brain. Hitherto his
name had been most inconspicuous; only once or twice had it achieved a
long-primer setting; mainly it had kept to the security and dignity of
brevier notices in the _Army and Navy Journal_. Now here it stood,
blazoned in ill-smelling ink on wood-pulp paper, in letters half an inch
in height: