I've answered that question, I wouldn't be lookin' for no stake to buy
cattle with."
"De white woman couldn't give you no stake."
He made no reply to her taunt. He was thinking. The words of a cowpuncher
came back to him as he sat and regarded with unseeing eyes the Indian
woman. The cowpuncher had said: "When a feller rides the range month in
and month out, and don't see nobody but other punchers and Injuns, some
Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes begins to look kind of good to him when
he rides into camp and she smiles as if she was glad he had come. He gits
used to seein' her sittin' on an antelope hide, beadin' moccasins, and the
country where they wear pointed-toed shoes and sit in chairs gits farther
and farther away. And after awhile he tells himself that he don't mind
smoke and the smell of buckskin, and a tepee is a better home nor none,
and that he thinks as much of this here Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes
as he could think of any woman, and he wonders when the priest could come.
And while he's studyin' it over, some white girl cuts across his trail,
and, with the sight of her, Mary Moonbeam or Sally Star-eyes looks like a
dirty two-spot in a clean deck." The cowpuncher's words came back to
Smith as though they had been said only yesterday.
"Why don't you say what you think?" the woman asked, uneasy under his long
stare.
"No," said Smith, rousing himself; "the Schoolmarm couldn't give me no
stake; and money talks."
"When you want your money?"
"Quick."
"How much you want?"
"How much you got?" he asked bluntly. He was sure of her, and he was in no
mood to finesse.
"Eight--nine thousand."
"If I'm goin' to do anything with cattle this year, I want to get at it."
"I give you de little paper MacDonald call check. I know how to write
check," she said with pride.
Smith shook his head. A check was evidence.
"It's better for you to go to the bank and get the cash yourself.
Meeteetse can hitch up and take you. It won't bother your arm none, for
you ain't bad hurt. Nine thousand is quite a wad to get without givin'
notice, and I doubt if you gets it, but draw all you can. Take a
flour-sack along and put the stuff in it; then when you gets home, pass it
over to me first chance. Don't let 'em load you down with silver--I hates
to pack silver on horseback."
To all of which instructions the woman agreed.
That she might avoid Susie's questions, she did not start the next morning
until Susie was well on her way to school. Then, dressed in her gaudiest
skirt, her widest brass-studded belt, her best and hottest blanket, she
was ready for the long drive.
Smith put a fresh bandage on her arm, and praised the scrawling signature
on the check which she had filled out after laborious and oft-repeated
efforts. He made sure that she had the flour-sack, and that the check was
pinned securely inside her capacious pocket, before he helped her in the
wagon. He had been all attention that morning, and her eyes were liquid
with gratitude and devotion as she and Meeteetse drove away. She turned
before they were out of sight, and her face brightened when she saw Smith
still looking after them. She thought comfortably of the fast approaching
day when she would be envied by the women who had married only "bloods" or
"breeds."
Smith, as it happened, was remarking contemptuously to Tubbs, as he nodded
after the disappearing wagon:
"Don't that look like a reg'lar Injun outfit? One old white horse and a
spotted buzzard-head; harness wired up with Mormon beeswax; a lopsided
spring seat; one side-board gone and no paint on the wagon."
"You'd think Meeteetse'd think more of hisself than to go ridin' around
with a blanket-squaw."
"He _said_ he was out of tobacer, but he probably aims to get drunk."
"More'n likely," Tubbs agreed. "Meeteetse's gittin' to be a reg'lar
squawman anyhow, hangin' around Injuns so much and runnin' with 'em. He
believes in signs and dreams, and he ain't washed his neck for six
weeks."
"Associatin' too much with Injuns will spile a good man. Tubbs," Smith
went on solemnly, "you ain't the feller you was when you come."
"I knows it," Tubbs agreed plaintively. "I hain't half the gumption I
had."
"It hurts me to see a bright mind like yours goin' to seed, and there's
nothin'll do harm to a feller quicker nor associatin' with them as ain't
his equal. Tubbs, like you was my own brother, I says that bug-hunter
ain't no man for you to run with."
"He ain't vicious and the likes o' that," said Tubbs, in mild defense of
his employer.
"What's 'vicious' anyhow?" demanded Smith. "Who's goin' to say what's
vicious and what ain't? I says it's vicious to lie like he does about them
idjot skulls and ham-bones he digs out and brings home, makin' out that
they might be pieces of fellers what could use one of them cotton-woods
for a walkin' stick and et animals the size of that meat-house at a
meal."
"He never said jest that."
"He might as well. What I'm aimin' at is that it's demoralizin' to get
interested in things like that and spend your life diggin' up the dead.
It's too tame for a feller of any spirit."
"It's nowise dang'rous," Tubbs admitted.
"If I thought you was my kind, Tubbs, I'd give you a chance. I'd let you
in on a deal that'd be the makin' of you."
"All I needs is a chanct," Tubbs declared eagerly.
"I believe you," Smith replied, with flattering emphasis.
A disturbing thought made Tubbs inquire anxiously:
"This here chanct your speakin' of--it ain't work, is it?--real right-down
work?"
"Not degradin' work, like pitchin' hay or plowin'."
"I hates low-down work, where you gits out and sweats."
"I see where you're right. There's no call for a man of your sand and
_sabe_ to do day's work. Let them as hasn't neither and is afraid to take
chances pitch hay and do plowin' for wages."
Tubbs looked a little startled.
"What kind of chances?"
Smith looked at Tubbs before he lowered his voice and asked:
"Wasn't you ever on the rustle none?"
Tubbs reflected.
"Onct back east, in I-ó-wa, I rustled me a set of underwear off'n a
clothes-line."
Smith eyed Tubbs in genuine disgust. He had all the contempt for a
petty-larceny thief that the skilled safe-breaker has for the common
purse-snatcher. The line between pilfering and legitimate stealing was
very clear in his mind. He said merely,
"Tubbs, I believe you're a bad _hombre_."
"They _is_ worse, I s'pose," said Tubbs modestly, "but I've been pretty
rank in my time."
"Can you ride? Can you rope? Can you cut out a steer and burn a brand?
Would you get buck-ague in a pinch and quit me if it came to a show-down?
Are you a stayer?"
"Try me," said Tubbs, swelling.
"Shake," said Smith. "I wisht we'd got acquainted sooner."
"And mebby I kin tell you somethin' about brands," Tubbs went on
boastfully.
"More'n likely."
"I kin take a wet blanket and a piece of copper wire and put an addition
to an old brand so it'll last till you kin git the stock off'n your hands.
I've never done it, but I've see it done."
"I've heard tell of somethin' like that," Smith replied dryly.
"Er you kin draw out a brand so you never would know nothin' was there.
You take a chunk of green cottonwood, and saw it off square; then you bile
it and bile it, and when it's hot through, you slaps it on the brand, and
when you lifts it up after while the brand is drawed out."
"Did you dream that, Tubbs?"
"I b'leeve it'll work," declared Tubbs stoutly.
"Maybe it would work in I-ó-wa," said Smith, "but I doubts if it would
work here. Any way," he added conciliatingly, "we'll give it a try."
"And this chanct--it's tolable safe?"
"Same as if you was home in bed. When I says 'ready,' will you come?"
"Watch my smoke," answered Tubbs.
Smith's eyes followed Tubbs's hulking figure as he shambled off, and his
face was full of derision.
"Say"--he addressed the world in general--"you show me a man from I-ó-wa
or Nebrasky and I'll show you a son-of-a-gun."
Tubbs was putty in the hands of Smith, who could play upon his vanity and
ignorance to any degree--though he believed that beyond a certain point
Tubbs was an arrant coward. But Smith had a theory regarding the
management of cowards. He believed that on the same principle that one
uses a whip on a scared horse--to make it more afraid of that which is
behind than of that which is ahead--he could by threats and intimidations
force Tubbs to do his bidding if the occasion arose. Tubbs's mental
calibre was 22-short; but Smith needed help, and Tubbs seemed the most
pliable material at hand. That Tubbs had pledged himself to something the
nature of which he knew only vaguely, was in itself sufficient to receive
Smith's contempt. He had learned from observation that little dependence
can be placed upon those who accept responsibilities too readily and
lightly, but he was confident that he could utilize Tubbs as long as he
should need him, and after that--Smith shrugged his shoulders--what was an
I-ó-wan more or less?
Altogether, he felt well satisfied with what he had accomplished in the
short while since his return.
When Susie came home from school, Smith was looking through the
corral-fence at a few ponies which Ralston had bought and driven in, to
give color to his story.
"See anything there you'd like?" she inquired, with significant emphasis.
"I'd buy the bunch if I was goin' to set me some bear-traps." Smith could
see nothing to praise in anything which belonged to Ralston.
Susie missed her mother immediately upon going into the house, and in
their sleeping-room she saw every sign of a hurried departure.
"Where's mother gone?" she asked Ling.
"Town."
"To town? To see a doctor about her arm?"
"Beads."
"Beads?"
"Blue beads, gleen beads. She no have enough beads for finish moccasin."
"When's she comin' home?"
"She come 'night."
Forty miles over a rough road, with her bandaged arm, for beads! It did
not sound reasonable to Susie, but since Smith was accounted for, and her
mother would return that night, there seemed no cause for worry. Susie
could not remember ever before having come home without finding her mother
somewhere in the house, and now, as she fidgeted about, she realized how
much she would miss her if that which she most feared should transpire to
separate them.
She walked to the door, and while she stood idly kicking her heel against
the door-sill she saw Ralston, who was passing, stoop and pick up a scrap
of paper which had been caught between two small stones. She observed that
he examined it with interest, but while he stood with his lips pursed in a
half-whistle a puff of wind flirted it from his fingers. He pursued it as
though it had value, and Susie, who was not above curiosity, joined in the
chase.
It lodged in one of the giant sage-brushes which grew some little distance
away on the outer edge of the dooryard, and into this brush Ralston
reached and carefully drew it forth. He looked at it again, lest his eyes
had deceived him, then he passed it to Susie, who stared blankly from the
scrap of paper to him.
XIX
WHEN THE CLOUDS PLAYED WOLF
The Indian woman was restless; she had been so from the time they had lost
sight of the town, but her restlessness had increased as the daylight
faded and night fell.
"You're goin' to bust this seat in if you don't quit jammin' around,"
Meeteetse Ed warned her peevishly.
Meeteetse was irritable, a state due largely to the waning exhilaration of
a short and unsatisfactory spree.
The woman clucked at the horses, and, to the great annoyance of her
driver, reached for the reins and slapped them on the back.
"They're about played out," he growled. "Forty miles is a awful trip for
these buzzard-heads to make in a day. We orter have put up some'eres
overnight."
"I could have stayed with Little Coyote's woman."
"We orter have done it, too. Look at them cayuses stumblin' along! Say, we
won't git in before 'leven or twelve at this gait, and I'm so hungry I
don't know where I'm goin' to sleep to-night."
"Little Coyote's woman gifted me some sa'vis berries."
"Aw, sa'vis berries! I can't go sa'vis berries," growled Meeteetse.
"They're too sweet. The only way they're fit to eat is to dry 'em and
pound 'em up with jerked elk--then they ain't bad eatin'. I've et 'most
ev'ry thing in my day. I've et wolf, and dog, and old mountain billy-goat,
and bull-snakes, and grasshoppers, so you kin see I ain't finnicky, but I
can't stummick sa'vis berries." He asked querulously: "What's ailin' of
you?"
The Indian woman, who had been studying the black clouds as they drifted
across the sky to dim the starlight, said in a half-whisper:
"The clouds no look good to me. They look like enemies playin' wolf. I
feel as if somethin' goin' happen."
The bare suggestion of the supernatural was sufficient to alarm Meeteetse.
He asked in a startled voice:
"How do you feel?"
"I feel sad. My heart drags down to de ground, and it seem like de dark
hide somethin'."
Meeteetse elongated his neck and peered fearfully into the darkness.
"What do you think it hides?" he asked in a husky whisper.
She shook her head.
"I don't know, but I have de bad feelin'."
"I forgot to sleep with my feet crossed last night," said Meeteetse, "and
I dreamed horrible dreams all night long. Maybe they was warnin's. I can't
think of anything much that could happen to us though," he went on, having
forgotten some of his ill-nature in his alarm for his personal safety.
"These here horses ain't goin' to run away--I wisht they would, fer 't
would git us quite a piece on our road. We ain't no enemies worth
mentionin', and we ain't worth stealin', so I don't hardly think your
feelin' means any wrong for us. More'n likely it's jest somebody dead."
This thought, slightly consoling to Meeteetse, did not seem to comfort the
Indian woman, who continued to squirm on the rickety seat and to strain
her eyes into the darkness.
"If anybody ud come along and want to mix with me--say, do you see that
fist? If ever I hit anybody with that fist, they'll have to have it dug
out of 'em. I don't row often, but when I does--oh, lordy! lordy! I jest
raves and caves. I was home on a visit onct, and my old-maid aunt gits a
notion of pickin' on me. Say, I ups and runs her all over the house with
an axe! I'm more er less a dang'rous character when I'm on the peck. Is
that feelin' workin off of you any?" he inquired anxiously.
"It comes stronger," she answered, and her grip tightened on the
flour-sack she held under her blanket.
"I wisht I knowed what it was. I'm gittin' all strung up myself." His
popping eyes ached from trying to see into the darkness around them. "If
we kin git past them gulches onct! That ud be a dum bad place to roll off
the side. We'd go kerplunk into the crick-bottom. Gosh! what was that?" He
stopped the weary horses with a terrific jerk.
It was only a little night prowler which had scurried under the horses'
feet and rustled into the brush.
"You see how on aidge I am! I'll tell you," he went on garrulously--the
sound of his own voice was always pleasant to Meeteetse: "I take more
stock in signs and feelin's than most people, for I've seen 'em work out.
Down there in Hermosy there was a feller made a stake out'n a silver
prospect, and he takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky and hunt up
his wife, that he'd run off and left some time prev'ous. As the date gits
clost for him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He'd skerce crack a
smile. The night before the stage was comin' to git him, he was settin' in
a 'dobe with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of his chair, with
his hands in his pockets.
"'Boys,' he says, 'I'll never git back to Genevieve. I feels it; I knows
it; I'll bet you any amount I'm goin' to cash in between here and
Nebrasky. I've seen myself in my coffin four times hand-runnin', when I
was wide awake.'
"Everybody had their mouths open to let out a holler and laff when jest
then one of the biggest terrantuler that I ever see dropped down out'n the
dirt and straw and lands on his bald head. It hangs on and bites 'fore
anybody kin bresh it off, and, 'fore Gawd, he ups and dies while the
medicine shark is comin' from the next town!"
His companion did not find Meeteetse's reminiscence specially interesting,
possibly because she had heard it before, so at its conclusion she made no
comment, but continued to watch with anxious eyes the clouds and the road
ahead.
"Now if that ud been me," Meeteetse started to say, in nowise disconcerted
by the unresponsiveness of his listener--"if that ud----"
"Throw up your hands!" The curt command came out of the night with the
startling distinctness of a gun-shot. The horses were thrown back on their
haunches by a figure at their head.
Meeteetse not only threw up his hands, but his feet. He threw them up so
high and so hard that he lost his equilibrium, and, as a result, the
ill-balanced seat went over, carrying with it Meeteetse and the Indian
woman.
The latter's mind acted quickly. She knew that her errand to the bank had
become known. Undoubtedly they had been followed from town. As soon as she
could disentangle herself from Meeteetse's convulsive embrace, she threw
the flour-sack from her with all her strength, hoping it would drop out of
sight in the sage-brush. It was caught in mid-air by a tall figure at the
wagon-side.
"Thank you, madam," said a hollow voice, "Good-night."
It was all done so quickly and neatly that Meeteetse and the Indian woman
were still in the bottom of the wagon when two dark figures clattered past
and vanishing hoof-beats told them the thieves were on their way to town.
"Well, sir!" Meeteetse found his feet, also his tongue, at last.
"Well, sir!" He adjusted the seat.
"Well, sir!" He picked up the reins and clucked to the horses.
"Well, sir! I know 'em. Them's the fellers that held up the Great
Northern!"
The Indian woman said not a word. Her heart was filled with despair. What
would Smith say? was her thought. What would he do? She felt intuitively
how great would be his disappointment. How could she tell him?
She drew the blanket tighter about her shoulders and across her face,
crouching on the seat like a culprit.
The ranch-house was dark when they drove into the yard, for which she was
thankful. She left Meeteetse to unharness, and, without striking a light
or speaking to Susie, crept between her blankets like a frightened child.
Smith, in his dreams, had heard the rumble of the wagon as it crossed the
ford, and he awoke the next morning with a sensation of pleasurable
anticipation. In his mind's eye, he saw the banknotes in a heap before
him. There were all kinds in the picture--greasy ones, crisp ones,
tattered bills pasted together with white strips of paper. He rather liked
these best, because the care with which they had been preserved conveyed
an idea of value. They had been treasured, coveted by others, counted
often.
Eager, animated, his eyes bright, his lips curving in a smile, Smith
hurried into his clothes and to the ranch-house, to seek the Indian woman.
He heard her heavy step as she crossed the floor of the living-room, and
he waited outside the door.
"Prairie Flower!" he whispered as she stood before him.
She avoided his eyes, and her fingers fumbled nervously with the buckle of
her wide belt.
"Could you get it?"
"Most of it."
"Where is it?" His eyes gleamed with the light of avarice.
She drew in her breath hard.
"It was stole."
His face went blood-red; the cords of his neck swelled as if he were
straining at a weight. She shrank from the snarling ferocity of his
mouth.
"You lie!" The voice was not human.
He clenched his huge fist and knocked her down.
She was on the ground when Susie came out.
"Mother!"
The woman blinked up at her.
"I slip. I gettin' too fat," she said, and struggled to her feet.
Elsewhere, with great minuteness of detail, Meeteetse was describing the
exciting incident of the night, and what would have happened if only he
could have laid hold of his gun.
"Maybe they wouldn't 'a' split the wind if I could have jest drawed my
automatic in time! As 'twas, I put up the best fight I could, with a woman
screamin' and hangin' to me for pertection. I rastled the big feller
around in the road there for some time, neither of us able to git a good
holt. He was glad enough to break away, I kin tell you. They's no manner
o' doubt in my mind but them was the Great Northern hold-ups."
"But what would they tackle _you_ for?" demanded Old Man Rulison.
"Everybody knows _you_ ain't got nothin', and you say all they took from
the old woman was a flour-sack full of dried sa'vis berries. It's some of
a come-down, looks to me, from robbing trains to stealin' stewin'-fruit."
"Well, there you are." Meeteetse shrugged his shoulders. "That's your
mystery. All I knows is, that I pulled ha'r every jump in the road to save
them berries."
XX
THE LOVE MEDICINE OF THE SIOUX
Still breathing hard, Smith hunted Tubbs.
"Tubbs, will you be ready for business, to-day?"
"The sooner, the quicker," Tubbs answered, with his vacuous wit.
"Do you know the gulch where they found that dead Injun?"
"Yep."
"Saddle up and meet me over there as quick as you can."
"Right." Tubbs winked knowingly, and immediately after breakfast started
to do as he was bid.
Smith's face was not good to look upon as he sat at the table. He took no
part in the conversation, and scarcely touched the food before him. His
disappointment was so deep that it actually sickened him, and his
unreasoning anger toward the woman was so great that he wanted to get out
of her sight and her presence. She was like a dog which after a whipping
tries to curry favor with its master. She was ready to go to him at the
first sign of relenting. She felt no resentment because of his injustice
and brutality. She felt nothing but that he was angry at her, that he
kept his eyes averted and repelled her timid advances. Her heart ached,
and she would have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her. In her
desperation, she made up her mind to try on him the love-charm of the
Sioux women. It might soften his heart toward her. She would have
sacrificed anything and all to bring him back.
Smith was glad to get away into the hills for a time. He was filled with a
feverish impatience to bring about that which he so much desired. The
picture of the ranch-house with the white curtains at the windows became
more and more attractive to him as he dwelt upon it. He looked upon it as
a certainty, one which could not be too quickly realized to please him.
Then, too, the atmosphere of the MacDonald ranch had grown distasteful to
him. With that sudden revulsion of feeling which was characteristic, he
had grown tired of the place, he wanted a change, to be on the move again;
but, of more importance than these things, he sensed hostility in the air.
There was something significant in the absence of the Indians at the
ranch. There was an ominous quiet hanging over the place that chilled him.
He had a feeling that he was being followed, without being able to detect
so much as a shadow. He felt as if the world were full of eyes--glued upon
him. Sudden sounds startled him, and he had found himself peering into
dark stable corners and stooping to look where the shadows lay black in
the thick creek-brush.
He told himself that the trip through the Bad Lands had unnerved him, but
the explanation was not satisfying. Through it all, he had an underlying
feeling that something was wrong; yet he had no thought of altering his
plans. He wanted money, and he wanted Dora. The combination was sufficient
to nerve him to take chances.
Tubbs was waiting in the gulch. Smith looked at the spot where White
Antelope's body had lain, and reflected that it was curious how long the
black stain of blood would stay on sand and gravel. He had been lucky to
get out of that scrape so easily, he told himself as he rode by.
"I guess you know what you're up against, feller," he said bluntly, as he
and Tubbs met.
"I inclines to the opinion that it's a little cattle deal," Tubbs replied
facetiously.
"You inclines right. Now, here's our play--listen. The Bar C outfit is
workin' up in the mountains, so they won't interfere with us none, and
about three or three and a half days' drive from here there's some fellers
what'll take 'em off our hands. We gets our wad and divvies."
"What for a hand do I take?"
"By rights, maybe, we ought to do our work at night, but I've rode over
the country, and it looks safe enough to drive 'em into the gulch to-day.
They isn't a human in sight, and if one shows up, I reckon you know what
to do."
"It sounds easy enough, if it works," said Tubbs dubiously.