The east was saffron and pale-blue as Crow and the agent drove out of
the corral and up the road to the south. Two Horns was the driver. Crow
alone was armed, and he wore but his official revolver. Maynard had been
purposely left out of the expedition, for Curtis did not wish to seem to
question in the slightest degree the obedience of his people. He
preferred to go unarmed and without handcuffs or rope, as a friend and
adviser, not as an officer of the law.
The morning was deliciously cool, with a gentle wind sliding down from
the high peaks, which were already glowing with the morning's pink and
yellow. From some of the tepees in Grayman's camp smoke was already
rising, and a few old women could be seen pottering about the cooking
lodges, while the morning chorus of the dogs and coyotes thickened.
There was an elemental charm in it all which helped the young soldier to
shake off his depression.
Passing rapidly through the two villages, Two Horns turned to the left
and entered upon a road which climbed diagonally up the side of a long,
low ridge. This involved plodding, and by the time they reached the
summit the sun met them full-fronted. In the smaller valley, which lay
between this ridge and the foot-hills, a rough trail led towards the
mountains. This way Two Horns took, driving rapidly and silently, and
soon entered the pines and pinons which form the lower fringe of the
vast and splendid robe of green which covers the middle heights of the
Rocky Mountains.
After an hour of sharp driving, with scarcely a word or gesture, Crow
turned and said: "Cut Finger there. Black Wolf, his tepee."
The trail here took a sharp curve to the left to avoid a piece of stony
ground, and from a little transverse ridge Curtis could look down on a
small, temporary village, the band of Black Wolf, who had located here
to cut hay on the marsh.
"We must surprise him if we can," said Curtis to Crow. "We must not
shoot. I will talk to him. If he cocks his gun kill him; but I don't
think he will want to fight."
The lads could be heard singing their plaintive songs as they climbed
the hills for their ponies. Smoke was rising from each lodge, and
children, dogs, and hens were outdoing each other in cheerful uproar as
Two Horns drove up to where Black Wolf stood, an old man with thin, gray
hair, shielding his eyes with the scant shadow of his bony wrist.
"Ho, agent!" he cried. "Why do you come to see us so early?"
"Is Cut Finger here?"
"Yes; he is in there." He pointed to a tepee near.
"Be silent!" commanded Curtis, as he alighted swiftly, but without
apparent haste or excitement. Crow instantly followed him, alert and
resolute. As they entered the tepee Cut Finger, still half asleep on
his willow hammock, instinctively reached for his rifle, which lay
beneath him on the ground, dangerous as a half-awakened rattlesnake.
Curtis put his foot on the weapon, and said, pleasantly: "Good-morning,
Cut Finger; you sleep late."
The young man sat up and blinked stupidly, while Crow took the gun from
beneath the agent's foot.
Curtis signed to Black Wolf. "This boy has killed a herder and I have
come for him. You knew of his deed."
"I have heard of it," the old man replied, with a gesture.
"It is such men who bring trouble on the tribe," pursued Curtis. "They
must be punished. Cut Finger must go with me down to the agency. He must
not make more trouble."
The news of the agent's mission brought every soul hurrying to the tent,
for Cut Finger had said, "I will fight the soldiers if they come."
Curtis heard them coming and said: "Crow, tell all these people outside
that Cut Finger has done a bad thing and must be punished. That unless
such men are cast out by the Tetongs they will always be in trouble."
Crow lifted up his big, resounding voice and recounted what the agent
had said, and added: "You shall see we will take this man. I, Crow, have
said it. It will be foolish for any one to resist."
The agent, sitting before Cut Finger, addressed him in signs. "I am your
friend, I am sorry for you. I am sorry for any man who does wrong and
suffers punishment; but you have injured your people, you made the white
man very angry; he came ready to shoot--you saw how I turned him away.
I said: 'I will find the man who shot the herder. I will bring him--I do
not want any one else to suffer.' Then you proclaimed yourself. You
said: 'I alone did this thing.' Then you went on the hill to fight--I
cannot allow that. No more blood will be shed. I will not lie; I have
come to take you. You will be punished; you must go with me to the white
man's strong-house."
A whimpering cry arose, a cry which ended in a sighing moan of
heart-piercing, uncontrollable agony, and Curtis, turning his face, saw
the wife of Cut Finger looking at him from her blanket on the opposite
side of the tepee. A shout of warning from Crow made him leap to his
feet and turn.
Cut Finger confronted him, his eyes glowing with desperate resolution.
"_Sit down!_" commanded the Captain, using his fist in the sign, with a
powerful gesture. The fugitive could not endure his chief's eyes; he
sank back on his couch and sat trembling.
"If you touch the Little Father I will kill you," said Crow, gruffly, as
he stood with drawn revolver in his hand. "I, Crow, have said it!"
Black Wolf was looking on with lowering brow. "He says the white man was
driving his sheep on our land."
"So he was," replied Curtis, "but it is bad for the Tetongs when a white
man is killed. It is better to come and tell me. When a redman kills a
white man the white men say: 'Let us kill _all_ the Tetongs--spare no
one.' Cut Finger said he was ready to die. Well, then, let him go with
me, and I will make his punishment as light as I can. I am his
friend--a friend to every Tetong. I will tell the war chief at Pinon
City how it was, and he will say Cut Finger was not alone to blame--the
white man was also to blame. Thus the punishment will not be so heavy.
Cut Finger is a young man; he has many years to live if he will do as I
tell him. He will come back to his tribe by-and-by and be a good man."
So, by putting forth all his skill in gesture he conveyed to Cut
Finger's mind a new idea--the idea of sacrificing himself for the good
of the tribe. He also convinced the members of Black Wolf's band that
their peace and safety lay in giving him up to their agent, and so at
last the young desperado rose and followed his chief to the wagon
wherein Two Horns still sat, impassive and unafraid.
As he put his hand on the carriage-seat a convulsive shudder swept over
Cut Finger. He folded his arms and, lifting his eyes to the hills, burst
forth in a death-song, a chant so sad, so passionate, and so searching,
that the agent's heart was wrenched. Answering sobs and wails broke from
the women, and the young wife of the singer came and crouched at his
feet, her little babe in her arms, and this was his song:
"I am going away.
I go to my death.
The white man has said it--
I am to die in a prison.
I am young, but I must go--
I have a wife, but I must go
To die among the white men
In the dark.
So says the soldier chief."
Curtis, looking into the eyes of Black Wolf, perceived that the old man
wavered. The wailing of the women, the young man's song, had roused his
racial hatred--what to him was the killing of a "white robber"?
"Be quiet!" commanded Curtis, and the song ceased. "Get in, quick! No
more singing."
The ending of the song left the prisoner in a mood of gloomy yet passive
exaltation. He took the place indicated and sat with bowed head, his
hands limply crossed.
"Go on!" commanded Curtis, and Two Horns brought the whip down on the
horses. As they sprang forward a wail of agony burst from the lips of
the bereaved young wife. At this cry Cut Finger again turned upon the
agent with hands opened like the claws of a bear--his face contorted
with despair. Curtis seized him in a grip whose crunching power made
itself felt to the marrow of the Tetong's bones, and his eyes, piercing
with terrible determination, shrivelled the resolution of the
half-crazed man. He sank back into his seat, a hopeless lump of swaying
flesh, his face a tragic mask, and uttered no further word till the
sound of a galloping horse made them all turn to see who followed.
"My wife!" the prisoner said. "She carries my baby."
This was indeed true. The sad little wife was galloping after, riding a
strong bay pony, the reins flapping loose, while across the pommel of
her saddle she held her small pappoose, whose faint wailing told of his
discomfort and terror.
"Wait--me take pappoose," the prisoner said, in English, with a note of
command.
Curtis was deeply touched. He ordered Two Horns to halt, and Crow got
out and took the babe and handed it to Cut Finger, who received it
carefully in his long arms. No woman could have been tenderer.
As they drove on, a big lump rose in the soldier's throat. It seemed a
treacherous and sinful thing to hand this man over to a savage throng of
white men, perhaps to be lynched on the road. "I will not do it," he
said; "I will take him to Pinon City myself. He shall have trial as if
he were white. I will yield him to the law, but not to vengeance."
Cut Finger thereafter spoke no word, did not even look back, though
Curtis detected him turning his head whenever the sound of the galloping
horse grew faint or died away for a few moments. The baby ceased to
wail, and on the rough ground, when the wagon jarred, the father held
the little one high as in a sling.
Upon entering the camp of Crawling Elk they found all the people massed,
waiting, listening, and their presence excited the prisoner greatly, and
he began again to sing his death-chant, which now seemed infinitely more
touching by reason of the small creature he cradled so lovingly in his
arms.
"Be silent!" commanded Curtis. "You must not sing. Drive fast, Two
Horns!"
Answering wails and fragments of chanting broke from the women; one or
two cried out, "Take him from the agent!" But the men shook their heads
and sadly watched them pass. "He has done a foolish thing; he must now
suffer for it," said Crawling Elk.
As they drew up before the door of the parsonage Curtis sprang out and
said to Cut Finger:
"Give me the baby; he shall be well cared for."
The father gave up the child passively, and Curtis called to Jennie:
"Here is a babe that is tired and hungry--be good to it."
"Where is the mother?" asked Jennie, as she tenderly received the little
brown boy.
"She is coming," he said, and the mother galloped up in a few moments
and fairly tumbled off her horse. "See!" Curtis said to her and to the
father, "My sister will give the baby milk, and its mother shall also be
fed. You need not fear; both will be taken care of. We are your
friends."
Cut Finger watched Jennie as she carefully carried the baby into the
house, and as he turned away, a look of apathetic misery, more moving
than any cry, settled on his face.
Maynard, who had been standing in the door, said, in a tone of
astonishment, "Did that wild Injun carry his papoose all the way down?"
"Yes, and was as tender of it as a woman, too."
"Well, I'll be hanged! There's a whole lot for me to learn about Injuns
yet. Want a guard?"
"Yes; I think it safer. There is a good deal of sympathy for this poor
chap."
"I don't blame 'em very much," said Maynard. "Take him right down to our
guard-house, and I'll have Payne detail a squad of men to take care of
him."
"I intend taking him to Pinon myself. I can't find it in my heart to
give him over into the hands of these whites--they'd lynch him, sure."
"I believe it," replied Maynard, with conviction.
As they passed the agency gate, Winters and the county attorney stepped
out as if they expected to receive the prisoner; but the savage grin on
the sheriff's face died out as Curtis nodded coldly and drove past.
"That fellow is a wolf. Did you have any trouble?" asked Maynard.
"Not a bit. We surprised him in bed, as I planned to do."
"Nice thing, your leaving me out in this way!"
"Have the Brisbanes gone?"
"Yes. Got away about eight o'clock. Lawson went with them, though he's
coming back to see you clear of this war. He's a crackerjack, is Lawson;
but the old man has you marked for slaughter."
It was good to be able to turn his prisoner over to the blue-coats and
feel that he would not be taken away except properly and in order.
Lynching does not flourish under the eyes of a commander like Maynard.
As Curtis led his man into the guard-house and motioned him to a seat,
he said, in signs:
"You are safe now from the cattlemen. I am your friend, remember that. I
myself will take you to the white chief's big village. I will not let
the war chief have you. I will turn you over to the wise man--the man
who will judge your case. I will let your wife and your little son go
with you. So you see I am still your Little Father. I am very sorry you
have shot this man, but you must be punished. I cannot prevent that."
As he met the sheriff he said, quietly, "I have decided to accompany you
to Pinon City."
The sheriff was not greatly surprised.
"Oh, very well. But I don't see the need of it."
"I do!" replied Curtis, and his tone silenced opposition.
Going immediately to the house, Curtis flung himself down in his chair
and submitted to Jennie's anxious care. She brought him some coffee and
biscuit, and stood with her hand on his shoulder while he ate. "Well,
they're gone--Lawson and all. I never saw a greater change in any one
than in that girl. Do you remember how she was last fall? I never
supposed I should come to love her. I hated her for the treatment
of you then, but--I think she has a different feeling towards us
now--not excepting you. I think--she was crying because she
was--going--away--from--you."
He looked up at her and smiled incredulously. "Your loyalty to me, sis,
is more than I deserve!"
Curtis seized a moment to cross the square to Elsie's studio, eager to
see whether she had regarded his wishes or not. It was an absurd thing
to ask of her, and yet he did not regret having done so. It would serve
as a sort of test of her regard, her sympathy. Now as he stood at the
door he hesitated--if it should be bare!
He turned the knob and entered. The effect of the first impression was
exalting, satisfying. All was in order, and the air was deliciously cool
and fragrant, infilled with some rare and delicate odor. Each article
was in its place--she had taken nothing but the finished pictures and
some sketches which she specially needed. Scraps of canvas covered with
splashes of color were pinned about on the walls, the easel stood in the
centre of the room, and her palette and brushes were on the table. The
young soldier closed the door behind him and took a seat in deep
emotion. At that moment he realized to the full his need of her, and his
irreparable loss. All he had suffered before was forgotten--swallowed up
in the empty, hungry ache of his heart. The curtains and draperies were
almost as much a part of her as her dress, and he could not have touched
them at the moment, so intimately personal did they seem.
It appeared that he had not fully understood himself, after all. This
empty temple, where she had lived and worked, these reminders of her
beautiful self, were not to be a solace and a comfort, after all, but a
torture. He felt broken and unmanned, and the aching in his throat grew
to an intolerable pain, and with a reaction to disdain of himself he
rose and went out, closing and locking the door.