All the small ranchers and disreputable stragglers about that immediate
vicinity were of one opinion in regard to the new sheep-man. This
particular section of the country promised to be soon over-crowded with
cattle and horses. There was no room in their mountains for sheep.
Livingston, the interloper, must vacate. That was the unanimous decision
of the whole Harris faction. This gang was a mixture of badness, a scum
of the roughest element from the face of the globe, which in new
countries invariably drifts close upon the heels of the first settlers.
It is the herald of civilization, but fortunately goes on before its
advance to other fields or is deeply buried in its midst. The breeds,
pliable to the strong will of Joe Harris, were not an unimportant
factor, and among these, old Mother White Blanket was the ruling
spirit.
She lived in a tepee not a rod to the left of Harris' squalid log
buildings. Her daughter was the cattle-man's wife, therefore the old
woman had particular rights about the premises, a mother-in-law's
rights, more honored and considered among Indians than among civilized
whites.
Her tepee was the usual Indian affair, its conical, pointed top, dingy
with the smoke of many camp-fires. Back of the old woman's tepee, at
various distances, stood a few ordinary wall tents. These were occupied
by the families of some breeds who were working for Harris. The whole,
heightened by numerous dogs and the old squaw stooping over her fire,
presented the appearance of a small Indian camp, such as may be seen
about any reservation. The old woman's rattle-trap cart stood beside her
lodge, for she had her periods of wandering, after the manner of her
race. The running gears of a couple of dilapidated wagons were drawn up
between the other tents, and not far away two closely hobbled horses,
unmistakably Indian, for horses resemble their human associates, fed
eagerly upon the short, new grass.
At an early hour, when the rising sun cast rosy lights upon every
grass-covered mountain top, when bird notes from the distant brush
sounded the most melodious, when the chanticleer in the barnyard became
loudest in his crowing, when the dew of night began to steam upward in
its vitality-giving stream, when the pigs with a grunt rose lazily upon
their fore-legs, and old Mother White Blanket bent over the smoke of her
newly built camp-fire, the girl school-teacher came out of her room and
leaned against the smooth rain-washed logs of the building. She drew in
with every deep breath new vitality to add to her plentiful fund of it,
she saw the rosy glow upon the mountains, listened in awe and rapture to
the bird notes from the brush, and finally brought herself back to more
material things; to old Mother White Blanket and the Indian scene spread
out before her.
The old woman was bending over the fire apparently unconscious of the
girl's presence. From the school children Hope had learned something of
the wonderful perceptive powers of Mother White Blanket. They had
innumerable stories of witchcraft to tell, as various as they were
astonishing, and, while crediting nothing, she felt a quickened interest
in the old squaw. But she had so far no opportunity to cultivate her
acquaintance. Generally the spaces between the tents were filled with
groups of breeds, and these she had no inclination to approach. Now,
quiet pervaded the place. No one except the old woman and herself were
about. She knew full well that the squaw had seen her, but on an impulse
walked over beside the tepee, spreading out her hands to the warmth of
the fire.
"Good-morning!" she exclaimed. Mother White Blanket made no reply, and
turning her back proceeded to fill a large black kettle with water.
"Good-morning!" repeated Hope in French, to which greeting the old
woman grunted, while she placed the kettle over the fire.
"I beg your pardon," continued Hope. "I forgot for the moment you were
French."
At this old White Blanket stood up, anger bristling all over her.
"What you come here for? You stand there and make fun. You think I don't
know you make fun at me? Go away, girl, or you be sorry! You call me
French and laugh to yourself. Go away, I say!"
"No," said the girl, "I shall not go away until it pleases me. I have
heard that you are a great woman, a witch, and I want to find out if it
is true." She had not one particle of belief in the old woman's
generally credited supernatural powers, but she thought she must possess
sharp wit to so deceive the people and was curious to know more about
her. This she was destined to do.
"I have heard," she continued, "that you can bring the wild deer to your
side by calling to them, that a horse or cow will lie down and die when
you command, and that little children who annoy you are taken with
severe pains in their stomachs. I have heard that you can say 'go' to
any of your men or women and they go; that if anyone is sick you can lay
your hand on them and they are well, and that you can tell the future
and the past of anyone. If all these things are true you must be a very
great, remarkable woman. Is it true that you can do all these things?"
She waited a moment and, as the old woman offered no reply, went on:
"Whether you can do these things or not, you still remain, in my eyes, a
remarkable woman in possessing the ability to make people believe that
you can."
"You shall believe them too, _you_!" said the woman, suddenly rising and
confronting the girl.
As she spoke two yellow fangs of teeth protruded from her thin lips, and
on her face was the snarl of a dog. She drew up her mummified face
within two inches of the girl's own. Hope shuddered and involuntarily
moved backward toward the house. With every step she took the squaw
followed, her weazened face and cruel, baneful eyes held close to hers.
"You murderer of men, you teacher of little children, you butcher, I
will show you my power!"
The girl recoiled from the frenzied woman, shutting out the sight with
her hands and moving backward step by step until she leaned against the
smooth logs of the building. There the foolishness of her sudden fright
presented itself. Should the grimaces of a weazened old squaw frighten
her into a fit, or should she pick up the bony thing and throw her over
the top of the tepee? An impulse to do the latter came over her--then to
her fancy she could hear the crashing of brittle bones. What she did do,
however, was to take her hands away from her eyes and look at the old
witch fearlessly. At this old White Blanket broke into a terrible
jargon, not a word of which was intelligible. Her voice rose to its
utmost pitch. The crisp morning air resounded with its sharp
intonations.
Hope leaned against the logs of the house, lashing the squaw into
greater fury by her cool, impertinent gaze. She began to be interested
in the performance, speculating to just what degree of rage the old
woman would reach before she foamed at the mouth, and as to how much
strength she would have to exert to pitch the frail thing bodily into
the top of the tepee.
At that instant a man, apparently hurriedly dressed, rushed from the
lodge and grasped the old woman by the arm.
"What're you doin'? Go over there and git my breakfast, and don't be all
day about it!"
The old woman's face changed marvelously. She calmed like a dove, under
the hand of her son-in-law, but before turning away began muttering what
might have been intended for an apology.
"I no hurt her. She think I know nothing. I _show_ her."
The man laughed good-naturedly.
"Well, you show me some grub an' that'll be enough fer one day, I
reckon. Wimmen folks should be seen an' not heard, an' you make as much
noise as an old guinea hen." Meekly the old woman continued her
interrupted task, showing that in spite of his gruff speech she
entertained great respect for her tall son-in-law, Long Bill.
"Hope the old woman didn't frighten you, Miss. She don't mean nothin' by
it, only she gits them spells once in a while," apologized Long Bill
politely. Hope gave a short laugh, while the man continued: "Seems like
all Hades is turned loose when she does git on the rampage, though."
"Probably I aggravated her. If so, I am sorry. But I wouldn't have
missed it--not for anything. Her rage was perfect--such gestures, and
_such_ expressions!"
At her words the man smiled, holding up to his face as he did so a
bandaged hand. In an instant her eyes were riveted upon it. She had
searched for that hand since Saturday evening among all the men she had
chanced to see. That this great, strong fellow possessed it eased her
conscience, if, indeed, it had greatly troubled her. She wanted to get
him to talk about the hand, but shifted her eyes from it to the old
woman moving slowly before the tepee.
"She seems a very interesting woman," she remarked casually to Long
Bill, who through sheer awkwardness made no attempt to move away.
"Oh, she's a little locoed, but barrin' that she's smarter'n a steel
trap. They ain't nothin' goin' on but she's got her eye peeled. If she
takes a likin' to anyone she'll just about break her neck to please,
but," he added in a lower voice, "if she ain't a-likin' anyone she's
just about the _orneriest_, _cussedest_----" Words failed, in view of
the critical eyes before him.
"Do you belong to the family?" asked Hope, observing: "I noticed you
came from the tepee."
"Well, you see," replied the man awkwardly, "I sort of do--that is, I
did. I married her youngest girl awhile back, but I ain't sure now we're
goin' to make it a go. You see I 'lowed to meet her here when the
round-up come 'round to these parts, but here's she's done run off to
Canada with some o' her folks, and I ain't set eyes on her fer nigh on
to four months. But we've been spliced all right 'nough, an' the old
woman's mighty fond o' me."
"I should think you would be glad of that!" exclaimed Hope. "It would be
too bad if she didn't like you. I am sorry she is not in a more amiable
mood, for I'd really like to talk with her; but perhaps I will be
permitted to approach her later in the day."
"Oh, she'll be all right, now she's had her spell out," assured Long
Bill.
"You speak of the round-up; why are you not with it?" queried the girl,
with cool intent.
Long Bill brought his huge bandaged fist up before him, resting it upon
the well one.
"I had a little accident th' other day," he explained, "an' hurt my hand
powerful bad. It ain't goin' to be much use fer handlin' a rope fer
quite a spell. Had to let the round-up move away without me." His voice
grew plaintive.
She spoke quickly, with great compassion. "I am sorry! It seems too bad
to see a great big fellow like you disabled. How did it happen?"
"Well, it was like this: I come over here th' other night an' got to
settin' 'round here doin' nothin', so I thought I'd improve th' time an'
clean this here gun o' mine. It's been a-needin' it powerful bad fer
awhile back. I didn't know there was nary load in it until the blame
thing went off an' I felt somethin' kind o' sudden an' hot piercin' my
left hand. It was a fool trick to do, but it's the gospel truth, Miss."
"I heard--that is, the boys said something about a shooting affair up
the road." She pointed toward the sheep-man's ranch. "I thought for a
moment that perhaps you had been mixed up in that. I'm very glad to know
that you were not, because you know it wasn't a very nice, manly thing
to do to a defenseless stranger." Her cool eyes watched his nervous
shifting. "You see I can't very well help hearing a lot of things around
here. The girls hear things and they tell me, and then I am often forced
to overhear the men and boys talking among themselves. It's none of my
business, but yet I am glad to know that you were not one to set upon an
innocent white man. I scarcely know this Mr. Livingston by sight, but he
is a friend of Sydney's, my cousin, and they say,"--here she drew out
her words slowly and impressively,--"that over in his country he has
been in the army and is well versed in firearms; also that he has a
small Gatling gun with him over here that shoots hundreds of shots a
minute. So he really isn't so defenseless as he seems." This startled
the man into open-mouth astonishment.
"I thought there was something!--I mean I thought, when I heard tell
about the fracas over there, that there was somethin' like that in the
wind," stammered the man.
Apparently Hope had told a deliberate untruth to force a confession from
Long Bill, but yet it was a fact that she had heard something very
similar. On the day before, Sunday, Jim McCullen had come to visit her.
From his camp the noise of the shooting had been plainly heard, and
through curiosity he and Carter had ridden to Livingston's ranch to
inquire into it, but the sheep-man had been very reticent about the
matter. Had told them only that there had been trouble with some breeds,
and his herder had been killed. This old Jim repeated to Hope, adding
that Livingston must have a Gatling gun concealed on his place, judging
from the sound of the firing. So Hope in her effort to impress the tall
cow-puncher had not used her imagination wholly.
"I am glad you had nothing to do with it," she concluded, walking slowly
away toward the kitchen end of the house. "And I hope your hand will
soon be well."
"That's right," said Long Bill. "I didn't have nothin' to do with it. No
Gatlin' guns in mine, Miss!"