makes it a rule to crowd my luck. Are you game for stud?"
The film which the lounger had mentioned seemed to cover Tinhorn's eyes.
"I'm locoed to set agin such luck as yours, but I like to be sociable, and
you don't come often."
"I likes a swift game," said Smith, as he pulled a chair from the pine
table. "Draw is good enough for kids and dudes, but stud's the only play
for men."
"Now you've talked!" declared the admiring throng.
"Keep 'em movin', Tinhorn! Deal 'em out fast."
"Smithy, you're a cyclone!"
A hundred of Smith's money went for chips.
"Dough is jest like mud to some fellers," said a voice enviously.
"I likes a game where you make or break on a hand. I've lost thousands
while you could spit, me--Smith!"
"It's like a chinook in winter just to see you in town agin, Smithy."
The "hole" card was not promising--it was only a six-spot; but, backing
his luck, Smith bet high on it. Tinhorn came back at him strong. He wanted
Smith's money, and he wanted it quick.
Smith's next card was a jack, and he bet three times its value. When
Tinhorn dealt him another jack he bought more chips and backed his pair,
for Tinhorn, as yet, had none in sight. The next turn showed up a queen
for Tinhorn and a three-spot for Smith. And they bet and raised, and
raised again. On the last turn Smith drew another three and Tinhorn
another queen. With two pairs in sight, Smith had him beaten. When Smith
bet, Tinhorn raised him. Was Tinhorn bluffing or did he have another queen
in the "hole"? Smith believed he was bluffing, but there was an equal
chance that he was not. While he hesitated, the other watched him like a
hungry mountain lion.
"Are you gettin' cold feet, Smithy?" There was the suspicion of a sneer in
the satellite's voice. "Did you say you liked to make or break on a
hand?"
"I thought you liked a swift game," gibed Tinhorn.
The taunt settled it.
"I can play as swift as most--and then, some." He shoved a pile of chips
into the centre of the table with both hands. "Come again!"
Tinhorn did come again; and again, and again, and again. He bet with the
confidence of knowledge--with a confidence that put the fear in Smith's
heart. But he could not, and he would not, quit now. His jaw was set as he
pulled off banknote after banknote in the tense silence which had fallen.
When the last of them fluttered to the table he asked:
"What you got?"
For answer, Tinhorn turned over a third queen. Encircling the pile of
money and chips with his arm, he swept them toward him.
Smith rose and kicked the chair out of his way.
"That's the end of my rope," he said, with a hard laugh. "I'm done."
"Have a drink," urged Tinhorn.
"Not to-day," he answered shortly.
The crowd parted to let him pass. Untying his horse, he sprang into the
saddle, and not much more than an hour from the time he had arrived he
rode down the main street, past the bank where he was to leave his roll,
flat broke.
At the end of the street he turned in his saddle and looked behind him.
His satellites stood in the bar-room door, loungers loafed on the
curbstone, a woman or two drifted into the General Merchandise Store. The
Postmaster was eying him idly through his fly-specked window, and a group
of boys, who had been drawing pictures with their bare toes in the deep
white dust of the street, scowled after him because his horse's feet had
spoiled their work. His advent had left no more impression than the tiny
whirlwind in its erratic and momentary flurry. The money for which he had
sweat blood was gone. Mechanically he jambed his hands into his empty
pockets.
"Hell!" he said bitterly. "Hell!"
XVII
SUSIE HUMBLES HERSELF TO SMITH
Smith's return to the ranch was awaited with keen interest by several
persons, though for different reasons.
Bear Chief wanted to learn the whereabouts of his race-horse, and seemed
to find small comfort in Ralston's assurance that the proper authorities
had been notified and that every effort would be made to locate the stolen
ponies.
Dora was troubled that Smith's educational progress should have come to
such an abrupt stop; and she felt not a little hurt that he should
disappear for such a length of time without having told her of his going,
and disappointed in him, also, that he would permit anything to interfere
with the improvement of his mind.
Susie's impatience for his return increased daily. Her chagrin over being
outwitted by Smith was almost comical. She considered it a reflection upon
her own intelligence, and tears of mortification came to her eyes each
time she discussed it with Ralston. He urged her to be patient, and tried
to comfort her by saying:
"We have only to wait, Susie."
"Yes, I thought that before, and look what happened."
"The situation is different now."
"But maybe he'll reform and we'll never get another crack at him," she
said dolefully.
Ralston shook his head.
"Don't let that disturb you. Take certain natures under given
circumstances, and you can come pretty near foretelling results. Smith
will do the same thing again, only on a bigger scale; that is, unless he
learns that he has been found out. He won't be afraid of you, because he
will think that you are as deep in the mire as he is; but if he thought I
suspected him, or the Indians, it would make him cautious."
"You don't think he's charmed, or got such a stout medicine that nobody
can catch him?"
Ralston could not refrain from smiling at the Indian superstition which
cropped out at times in Susie.
"Not for a moment," he answered positively. "He appears to have been
fortunate--lucky--but in a case like this, I don't believe there's any
luck can win, in the long run, against vigilance, patience, and
determination; and the greatest of these is patience." Ralston, waxing
philosophical went on: "It's a great thing to be able to wait,
Susie--coolly, smilingly, to wait--providing, as the phrase goes, you
hustle while you wait. One victory for your enemy doesn't mean defeat for
yourself. It's usually the last trick that counts, and sometimes games are
long in the playing. Wait for your enemy's head, and when it comes up,
_whack it_! Neither you nor I, Susie, have been reared to believe that
when we are swatted on one cheek we should turn the other."
"No;" Susie shook her head gravely. "That ain't sense."
The person who took Smith's absence most deeply to heart was the Indian
woman. She missed him, and, besides, she was tormented with jealous
suspicions. She knew nothing of his life beyond what she had seen at the
ranch. There might be another woman. She suffered from the ever-present
fear that he might not come back; that he would go as scores of
grub-liners had gone, without a word at parting.
In the house she was restless, and her moccasined feet padded often from
her bench in the corner to the window overlooking the road down which he
might come. She sat for hours at a time upon an elevation which commanded
a view of the surrounding country. Heavy-featured, moody-eyed, she was the
personification of dog-like fidelity and patience. Naturally, it was she
who first saw Smith jogging leisurely down the road on his jaded horse.
The long roof of the MacDonald ranch, which was visible through the cool
willows, looked good to Smith. It looked peaceful, and quiet, and
inviting; yet Smith knew that the whole Indian police force might be there
to greet him. He had been gone many days, and much might have happened in
the interim. It was characteristic of Smith that he did not slacken his
horse's pace--he could squirm out somehow.
It gave him no concern that he had not a dollar to divide with Susie, as
he had promised, and his chagrin over the loss of the money had vanished
as he rode. His temperament was sanguine, and soon he was telling himself
that so long as there were cattle and horses on the range there was always
a stake for him. Following up this cheerful vein of thought, he soon felt
as comfortable as if the money were already in his pocket.
Smith threw up his hand in friendly greeting as the Indian woman came down
the path to meet him.
There was no response, and he scowled.
"The old woman's got her sull on," he muttered, but his voice was pleasant
enough when he asked: "Ain't you glad to see me, Prairie Flower?"
The woman's face did not relax.
"Where you been?" she demanded.
He stopped unsaddling and looked at her.
"I never had no boss, me--Smith," he answered with significance.
"You got a woman!" she burst out fiercely.
Smith's brow cleared.
"Sure I got a woman."
"You lie to me!"
"I call her Prairie Flower--my woman." He reached and took her clenched
hand.
The tense muscles gradually relaxed, and the darkness lifted from her face
like a cloud that has obscured the sun. She smiled and her eyelids dropped
shyly.
"Why you go and no tell me?" she asked plaintively.
"It was a business trip, Prairie Flower, and I like to talk to you of
love, not business," he replied evasively.
She looked puzzled.
"I not know you have business."
"Oh, yes; I do a rushin' business--by spells."
She persisted, unsatisfied:
"But what kind of business?"
Smith laughed outright.
"Well," he answered humorously, "I travels a good deal--in the dark of the
moon."
"Smith!"
She was keener than he had thought, for she drew her right hand slyly
under her left arm in the expressive Indian sign signifying theft. He did
not answer, so she said in a tone of mingled fear and reproach:
"You steal Indian horses!"
"Well?"
She grasped his coat-sleeve.
"Don't do dat no more! De Indians' hearts are stirred. Dey mad. Dis time
maybe dey not ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more brave and you
steal from white man. You steal two, t'ree cow, maybe all right, but when
you steal de white man's horses de rope is on your neck. I know--I have
seen. Some time de thief he swing in de wind, and de magpie pick at him,
and de coyote jump at him. Yes, I have seen it like dat."
Smith shivered.
"Don't talk about them things," he said impatiently. "I've been near
lynchin' twice, and I hates the looks of a slip-noose yet; but I gotta
have money."
As he stood above her, looking down upon her anxious face, a thought came
to him, a plan so simple that he was amazed that it had not occurred to
him before. Undoubtedly she had money in the bank, this infatuated,
love-sick-woman--the Scotchman would have taught her how to save and care
for it; but if she had not, she had resources which amounted to the same:
the best of security upon which she could borrow money. He was sure that
her cattle and horses were free of mortgages, and there was the coming
crop of hay. She had promised him the proceeds from that, if he would
stay, but the sale of it was still months away.
"If I had a stake, Prairie Flower," he said mournfully, "I'd cut out this
crooked work and quit takin' chances. But a feller like me has got pride:
he can't go around without two bits in his pocket, and feel like a man. If
I had the price, I'd buy me a good bunch of cattle, get a permit, and
range 'em on the reserve."
"When we get tied right," said the woman eagerly, "I give you de stake
_quick_."
Smith shook his head.
"Do you think I'm goin' to have the whole country sayin' I just married
you for what you got? I've got some feelin's, me--Smith, and before I
marry a rich woman, I want to have a little somethin' of my own."
She looked pleased, for Susie's words had rankled.
"How big bunch cattle you like buy? How much money you want?"
He shook his head dejectedly.
"More money nor I can raise, Prairie Flower. Five--ten thousand
dollars--maybe more." He watched the effect of his words narrowly. She did
not seem startled by the size of the sums he mentioned. He added: "There's
nothin' in monkeyin' with just a few."
"I got de money, and I gift it to you. My heart is right to you, white
man!" she said passionately.
"Do you mean it, Prairie Flower?"
"Yas, but don't tell Susie."
He watched her going up the path, her hips wobbling, her step heavy, and
he hated her. Her love irritated him; her devotion was ridiculous. He saw
in her only a means to an end, and he was without scruples or pity.
"She ain't no more to me nor a dumb brute," he said contemptuously.
Smith felt that he was able to foretell with considerable accuracy the
nature of his interview with Susie upon their meeting, and her opening
words did not fall short of his expectations.
"You're all right, you are!" she said in her high voice. "I'd stick to a
pal like you through thick and thin, I would! What did you pull out like
that for anyhow?"
Smith chuckled.
"Well, sir, Susie, it fair broke my heart to start off without seein' your
pretty face and hearin' your sweet voice again, but the fact is, I got so
lonesome awaitin' for you that I just naturally had to be travellin'. I
ups and hits the breeze, and I has no pencil or paper to leave a note
behind. It wasn't perlite, Susie, I admits," he said mockingly.
"Dig up that money you're goin' to divide." Susie looked like a young
wildcat that has been poked with a stick.
Smith drew an exaggerated sigh and shook his head lugubriously.
"Child, I'm the only son of Trouble. I gets in a game and I loses every
one of our honest, hard-earned dollars. The tears has been pilin' out of
my eyes and down my cheeks for forty miles, thinkin' how I'd have to break
the news to you."
"Smith, you're just a common, _common_ thief!" All the scorn of which she
was capable was in her voice. "To steal from your own pal!"
"Thief?" Smith put his fingers in his ears. "Don't use that word, Susie.
It sounds horrid, comin' from a child you love as if she was your own
step-daughter."
The muscles of Susie's throat contracted so it hurt her; her face drew up
in an unbecoming grimace; she cried with a child's abandon, indifferent to
the fact that her tears made her ludicrously ugly.
"Smith," she sobbed, "don't you ever feel sorry for anybody? Couldn't you
ever pity anybody? Couldn't you pity me?"
Smith made no reply, so she went on brokenly;
"Can't you remember that you was a kid once, too, and didn't know how, and
couldn't, fight grown up people that was mean to you?--and how you felt? I
know you don't _have_ to do anything for me--you don't _have_ to--but
won't you? Won't you do somethin' good when you've got a chance--just this
once, Smith? Won't you go away from here? You don't care anything at all
for Mother, Smith, and she's all I've got!" She stretched her hands toward
him appealing, while the hot tears wet her cheeks. She was the picture of
childish humiliation and misery.
Smith looked at her and listened without derision or triumph. He looked at
her in simple curiosity, as he would have looked at a suffering animal
biting itself in pain. The unexpected outbreak interested him.
Through a blur of tears, Susie read something of this in his face, and her
hands dropped limply to her sides. Her appeal was useless.
It was not that Smith did not understand her feelings. He did--perfectly.
He knew how deep a child's hurt is. He had been hurt himself, and the scar
was still there. It was only that he did not care. He had lived through
his hurt, and so would she. It was to his interest to stay, and first and
always he considered Smith.
"You needn't say anything," Susie said slowly, and there was no more
supplication in her voice. "I thought I knew you before, Smith, but I know
you better now. When a white man is onery, he's meaner than an Injun, and
that's the kind of a white man you are. I'll never forget this. I'll never
forget that I've crawled to you, and you listened like a stone."
Smith answered in a voice that was not unkind--as he would have warned her
of a sink-hole or a bad crossing:
"You can't buck me, Susie, and you'd better not try. You're game, but
you're just a kid."
"Kids grow up sometimes;" and she turned away.
McArthur, strolling, while he enjoyed his pipe, came upon Susie lying face
downward, her head pillowed on her arm, on a sand dune not far from the
house. He thought she was asleep until she sat up and looked at him. Then
he saw her swollen eyes.
"Why, Susie, are you ill?"
"Yes, I'm sick here." She laid her hand upon her heart.
He sat down beside her and stroked the streaked brown hair timidly.
"I'm sorry," he said gently.
She felt the sympathy in his touch, and was quick to respond to it.
"Oh, pardner," she said, "I just feel awful!"
"I'm sorry, Susie," he said again.
"Did _your_ mother ever go back on you, pardner?"
McArthur shook his head gravely.
"No, Susie."
"It's terrible. I can't tell you hardly how it is; but it's like everybody
that you ever cared for in the world had died. It's like standin' over a
quicksand and feelin' yourself goin' down. It's like the dreams when you
wake up screamin' and you have to tell yourself over and over it isn't
so--except that I have to tell myself over and over it _is_ so."
"Susie, I think you're wrong."
She shook her head sadly.
"I wish I was wrong, but I'm not."
"She worries when you are late getting home, or are not well."
"Yes, she's like that," she nodded. "Mother would fight for me like a bear
with cubs if anybody would hurt me so she could see it, but the worst
hurt--the kind that doesn't show--I guess she don't understand. Before now
I could tell anybody that come on the ranch and wasn't nice to me to
'git,' and mother would back me up. Even yet I could tell you or Tubbs or
Mr. Ralston to leave, and they'd have to go. But Smith?--no! He's come
back to stay. And she'll let him stay, if she knows it will drive me away
from home. Mother's Injun, and she can only read a little and write a
little that my Dad taught her, and she wears blankets and moccasins, but I
never was 'shamed of Mother before. If she marries Smith, what can I do?
Where can I go? I could take my pack outfit and start out to hunt Dad's
folks, but if Mother marries Smith, she'll need me after a while. Yet how
can I stay? I feel sometimes like they was two of me--one was good and one
was bad; and if Mother lets Smith turn me out, maybe all the bad in me
would come to the top. But there's one thing I couldn't forget. Dad used
to say to me lots of times when we were alone--oh, often he said it:
'Susie, girl, never forget you're a MacDonald!'"
McArthur turned quickly and looked at her.
"Did your father say that?"
Susie nodded.
"Just like that?"
"Yes; he always straightened himself and said it just like that."
McArthur was studying her face with a peculiar intentness, as if he were
seeing her for the first time.
"What was his first name, Susie?"
"Donald."
"Donald MacDonald?"
"Yes; there was lots of MacDonalds up there in the north country."
"Have you a picture, Susie?"
A rifle-shot broke the stillness of the droning afternoon. Susie was on
her feet the instant. There was another--then a fusillade!
"It's the Indians after Smith!" she cried. "They promised me they
wouldn't! Come--stand up here where you can see."
McArthur took a place beside her on a knoll and watched the scene with
horrified eyes. The Indians were grouped, with Bear Chief in advance.
"They're shootin' into the stable! They've got him cornered," Susie
explained excitedly. "No--look! He's comin' out! He's goin' to make a run
for it! He's headed for the house. He can run like a scared wolf!"
"Do they mean to kill him?" McArthur asked in a shocked voice.
"Sure they mean to kill him. Do you think that's target practice? But look
where the dust flies up--they're striking all around him--behind
him--beside him--everywhere but in him! They're so anxious that they're
shootin' wild. Runnin' Rabbit ought to get him--he's a good shot! He
_did_! No, he stumbled. He's charmed--that Smith. He's got a strong
medicine."
"He's not too brave to run," said McArthur, but added: "I ran, myself,
when they were after me."
"He'd better run," Susie replied. "But he's after his gun; he means to
fight."
"He'll make it!" McArthur cried.
Susie's voice suddenly rang out in an ascending, staccato-like shriek.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! Mother, go back!" but the cracking rifles drowned Susie's
shrill cry of entreaty.
The Indian woman, with her hands high above her head, the palms open as if
to stop the singing bullets, rushed from the house and stopped only when
she had passed Smith and stood between him and danger. She stood erect,
unflinching, and while the Indians' fire wavered Smith gained the
doorway.
Gasping for breath, his short upper lip drawn back from his protruding
teeth in the snarl of a ferocious animal, he snatched a rifle from the
deer-horn gun-rack above the door.
The Indian woman was directly in line between him and his enemies.
"Get out of the way!" he yelled, but she did not hear him.
"The fool!" he snarled. "The fool! I'll have to crease her."
He lifted his rifle and deliberately shot her in the fleshy part of her
arm near the shoulder. She whirled with the shock of it, and dropped.
XVIII
A BAD HOMBRE
The Indians ceased firing when the woman fell, and when Susie reached her
mother Smith was helping her to her feet, and it was Smith who led her
into the house and ripped her sleeve.
It was only a painful flesh-wound, but if the bullet had gone a few inches
higher it would have shattered her shoulder. It was a shot which told
Smith that he had lost none of his accuracy of aim.
He always carried a small roll of bandages in his hip-pocket, and with
these he dressed the woman's arm with surprising skill.
"When you needs a bandage, you generally needs it bad," he explained.
He wondered if she knew that it was his shot which had struck her. If she
did know, she said nothing, though her eyes, bright with pain, followed
his every movement.
"Looks like somebody's squeaked," Smith said meaningly to Susie.
"Nobody's squeaked," she lied glibly. "They're mad, and they're
suspicious, but they didn't see you."
"If they'd go after me like that on suspicion," said Smith dryly, "looks
like they'd be plumb hos-tile if they was sure. Is this here war goin' to
keep up, or has they had satisfaction?"
Through Susie, a kind of armistice was arranged between Smith and the
Indians. It took much argument to induce them to defer their vengeance and
let the law take its course.
"You'll only get in trouble," she urged, "and Mr. Ralston will see that
Smith gets all that's comin' to him when he has enough proof. He's stole
more than horses from me," she said bitterly, "and if I can wait and trust
the white man to handle him as he thinks best, you can, too."
So the Indians reluctantly withdrew, but both Smith and Susie knew that
their smouldering resentment was ready to break out again upon the
slightest provocation.
Susie's assurance that the attack of the Indians was due only to suspicion
did not convince Smith. He noticed that, with the exception of Yellow
Bird, there was not a single Indian stopping at the ranch, and Yellow Bird
not only refused to be drawn into friendly conversation, but distinctly
avoided him.
Smith knew that he was now upon dangerous ground, yet, with his
unfaltering faith in himself and his luck, he continued to walk with a
firm tread. If he could make one good turn and get the Indian woman's
stake, he told himself, then he and Dora could look for a more healthful
clime.
The Schoolmarm never had appeared more trim, more self-respecting, more
desirable, than when in her clean, white shirt-waist and well-cut skirt
she stepped forward to greet him with a friendly, outstretched hand. His
heart beat wildly as he took it.
"I was afraid you had gone 'for keeps,'" she said.
"Were you _afraid_?" he asked eagerly.
"Not exactly afraid, to be more explicit, but I should have been sorry."
She smiled up into his face with her frank, ingenuous smile.
"Why?"
"You were getting along so well with your lessons. Besides, I should have
thought it unfriendly of you to go without saying good-by."
"Unfriendly?" Smith laughed shortly. "Me unfriendly! Why, girl, you're
like a mountain to me. When I'm tired and hot and all give out, I raises
my eyes and sees you there above me--quiet and cool and comfortable,
like--and I takes a fresh grip."
"I'm glad I help you," Dora replied gently. "I want to."
"I'm in the way of makin' a stake now," Smith went on, "and when I gets
it"--he hesitated--"well, when I gets it I aims to let you know."
When Dora went into the house, to her own room, Smith stepped into the
living-room, where the Indian woman sat by the window.
"You like dat white woman better den me?" she burst out as he entered.