WITHIN THE CONQUEROR'S OWN COUNTRY
It was the day set for the wedding, the eighteenth since the girl had
left, the sixteenth since a new mound had arisen on the bare lot
adjoining that beneath which rested Landman Bud Smith, the twelfth since
How Landor had arrived to haunt the tiny railway terminus. The one train
from the East was due at 8:10 of the morning. It was now eight o'clock.
Within the shambling, ill-kept hotel, with its weather-stained exterior
and its wind-twisted sign, the best room, paid for in advance and
freshly dusted for the occasion, awaited an occupant. In a stall of the
single livery, a pair of half-wild bronchos, fed and harnessed according
to directions, were passively waiting. An old surrey, recently oiled and
tightened in all its senile joints, was drawn up conveniently to the
door. In a tiny room, designated the study, of the Methodist parsonage,
on the straggling outskirts of the town, the only minister the
settlement boasted sat staring at the unpapered wall opposite. He was a
mild-featured young man of the name of Mitchell, recently graduated from
a school of theology, and for that reason selected as a sacrifice to the
frontier. In front of him on the desk lay a duly prepared marriage
licence, and upon it a bright gold half eagle. From time to time he
glanced thereat peculiarly, and in sympathy from it to the tiny
fast-ticking clock at its side. He did so now, and frowned
unconsciously.
At the station the crowd of loafers that always preceded the arrival or
departure of a train were congregated. In some way suggestions of the
unusual had passed about, and this day their number was greatly
augmented. Just what they anticipated they did not know; they did not
care. Restless, athirst for excitement, they had dumbly responded to the
influence in the air and come. In the foreground, where a solitary
Indian stood motionless, waiting, there was being repeated the same
puerile pantomime and horse-play of a former occasion. At intervals,
from the rear, sounded the war whoop travesty. It was all the same as
that afternoon eighteen days before, when the girl had left, similar
even to the cloud of black smoke in the distance lifting lazily into the
sky; only now the trail, instead of growing thinner and lighter, became
denser and blacker minute by minute. In sympathy, the humorists on the
platform redoubled their efforts. The instinct of anticipation, of
Anglo-Saxon love of excitement that had brought them there, urged them
on. Not one throat but many underwent simultaneous pantomimic bisection.
A half dozen voices caught up the war whoop, passed it on from throat to
throat. Almost before they realised what they were doing, the thing
became a contagion, an orgy. Many who had not taken part before, who had
come from mere curiosity, took part now. The crowd pressed closer and
closer about the alien, the centre of attraction. When he moved farther
along the platform to avoid them, they followed. Heretofore passive, the
innate racial hostility became active. One youth with a dare-devil air
jostled him--and disappeared precipitately. There was no response, no
retaliation, and another followed his example. The confusion redoubled,
drowned the roar of the approaching train. Spectators in the rear began
mounting trucks and empty barrels the better to see. Within the station
itself the shirt-sleeved agent surreptitiously locked the door to the
ticket-room and sprung the combination of the safe. Beginning
harmlessly, the incident was taking on a sinister aspect, and he had
lived too long in this semi-lawless land to take any chances. Re-turning
to his place of observation at the window, he was just in time to see a
decayed turnip come hurtling over the heads of the crowd and, with
enviable accuracy, catch the Indian behind the ear. Simultaneously, with
a roar and a puff of displaced air, the light train drew into the
station, on time.
Through it all the Indian had not spoken a word. Save to move twice
farther away along the platform, he had not stirred. Unbelievable as it
may seem, even when the missile had struck him, though it had left a
great red welt, he gave no sign of feeling. For a space following the
arrival of the train there was a lull, and in it, as though nothing had
happened, he approached the single coach and stood waiting.
It was the last of the week and travel was very light.
A dapper commercial salesman with an imitation alligator grip descended
first, looked about him apprehensively, and disappeared with speed. A
big rancher with great curling moustaches and a vest open save at the
bottom button followed. He likewise took stock of the surroundings, and
discreetly withdrew. Following him there was a pause; then of a sudden
onto the platform, fair into view of the crowd, appeared one for whom
apparently they had been looking, one who on the instant caused the
confusion, temporarily stilled, to break forth anew: the figure of a
dainty brown girl with sensitive eyes and a soft oval chin, of Elizabeth
Landor returned alone!
"Ah, there she is," shouted a voice, an united voice, the refound voice
of the expectant crowd.
"Yes, there she is," repeated the intrepid youth who had introduced the
jostle. "Go to, redskin. Kiss her again. Kiss her; we don't mind."
A great shout followed this sally, a shout that was heard far up the
single street, and that brought curious faces to a half score of doors.
"No, we don't mind, redskin," they guffawed. "Go to! Go to!"
Hesitant, hopelessly confused, the girl halted as she had appeared. Her
great eyes opened wider than before, her face shaded paler momentarily,
the soft oval chin trembled. Another minute, another second even.
"Come Bess," said a low voice. "Come on; don't mind them. I'll take
care of you."
It was the first speech the man had made, and from pure curiosity the
crowd went silent, listening--silent until he was silent; then with the
lack of originality ever manifest in a mob, they caught up his words
themselves.
"Yes, Bess," they baited, "he'll take care of you. Come, don't keep him
waiting."
But the girl did not stir. Had empires depended upon it that moment, she
could not have complied. Could she have cried, as the chin had at first
presaged, she might perhaps have done so; but she was beyond the reach
of tears now. The complete meaning of the scene had come to her at last,
the realisation of personal menace; and a fear such as she had never
before known, gripped her relentlessly. She could hear, hear every word;
but her muscles refused to act. She merely stood there, the old
telescope satchel she carried gripped tight in her hand, her great eyes,
wide and soft as those of a wild thing, staring out into the now rapidly
accumulating rabble; merely stared and waited.
"Bess," repeated the persuading voice, "come, please. Don't stand there,
come."
At last the girl seemed to hear, to understand. Hesitatingly, with
trembling steps, she came a pace forward, and another; then of a sudden
she gave a little cry and her free hand lifted defensively. But she was
not quick enough, had seen too late; and that instant came the
_dénouement._ A second turnip, decayed like its predecessor, aimed
likewise unerringly, caught her fair in the mouth, spattered, and broke
into fragments that fell to the car steps. Following, swift as rain
after a thunderclap, a spurt of blood came to her lips and trickled down
her face.
Simultaneously the crowd went silent; silent as the still prairie about
them, awed irresistibly by the thing they had themselves wittingly or
unwittingly done. Save one, not a human being stirred. That one, no need
to tell whom, transformed visibly; transformed as they had never seen a
human being alter before. With not a step, but a bound, he was himself
on the platform of the coach; the girl, protected behind him, hid from
sight. She was sobbing now; sobbing tumultuously, hysterically. In the
stillness every listening ear on the platform could hear distinctly. For
an instant after he had reached her the Indian stood so, his left arm
about her, his back toward them. He did not say a word, he did not move.
For the first time in his life he dared not. He did not see red that
moment, this man; he saw black--black as prairie loam. Every savage
instinct in his brain was clamouring for freedom, clamouring until his
free hand was clenched tight to keep it from the bulging holster behind
his right hip. Before this instant, when they were baiting him alone, it
was nothing, he could forgive; but now--now--He stared away from them,
stared up into the smiling, sarcastic prairie sky; but, listening, they,
who almost with fascination watched, could hear beneath the catch of the
girl's sobs the sound of his breathing.
Ever at climaxes time seems suspended. Whether it was a second or a
minute he stood there so, they who watched could never tell. What they
did know was that at last he turned, stood facing them. All their lives
they had seen passion, seen it in every phase, seen it until it was
commonplace. It was in the very air of the frontier, to be expected,
life of the life; but as this man shifted they saw a kind of which they
had never dreamed. For How Landor was master of himself again, master,
as well--they knew it, every man and youth who saw,--of them. For
another indefinitely long deathly silent space he merely looked at them;
looked eye to eye, individual by individual, into every face within the
surrounding semi-circle. Once before another man, a drunken cowman, had
seen that identical look. Now not one but a score saw it, felt a
terrible ice-cold menace creep from his brain into their brains. Even
yet he did not speak, did not make a sound; nor did they. Explain it as
you will, he did this thing. Another thing he did as well; and that was
the end. Slowly, deliberately, he stepped to the platform and held out
his hand. Obediently the girl followed. She was not crying now. Her eyes
were red and a drop of blood came now and then to her lips; but she had
grown wonderfully quiet all at once, wonderfully calm--almost as much so
as the man. Deliberately as he had stepped down into the spectators'
midst, the Indian took the old telescope from the girl's hand and, she
following by his side, moved a step forward. He did not touch her again
nor did she him. They merely moved ahead toward the sidewalk that led up
the single street; moved deliberately, leisurely, as though they were
alone. Not around the crowd, but straight through it they passed;
through a lane that opened as by magic as they went, and as by magic
closed behind them, until they were within a solid human square. But of
all the assembled spectators that day, an aggregation irresponsible,
unchivalrous as no other rabble on earth--a mob of the frontier,--not
one spoke to challenge their action, not one attempted to bar their way.
The complete length of the platform they went so, turned the corner by
the station--and, simultaneously, the crowd disappeared from view, hid
by the building itself. Then in sudden reaction, the girl weakened.
Irresistibly she caught at the man's arm, held it fast.
"Oh, How! How!" she trembled, "is it to be always like this with you and
me? Is it to be always, everywhere, so?"
But the man said never a word.
* * * * *
Two hours had passed. The girl had breakfasted. A wood fire crackled
cheerfully in the sheet iron heater of the tiny room where the same two
people sat alone. Already the world had taken on a different aspect. Not
that Elizabeth Landor had forgotten that recent incident at the depot.
She would never forget it. It had merely passed into temporary
abeyance, taken its proper place in the eternal scheme of things.
Another consideration, paramount, all-compelling, had inevitably crowded
it from the stage. It was this consideration that had held her silent
far longer than was normal. It was its overshadowing influence that at
last prompted speech.
"How did you know I was coming to-day?" she queried suddenly.
"How did _you_ know I would be at the train to meet you?" echoed a
voice.
The girl did not answer, did not pursue the subject.
"Tell me of Aunt Mary, please," she digressed. "I felt somehow when you
wrote as if I--I--" A swiftly gathered shower called a halt. Tear drops,
ever so near, stood in her eyes. "Please tell me," she completed.
The man told her. It did not take long. As of her prosaic life, so there
was little to record of the death of Mary Landor. "It was best that you
were away," he ended. "It was best for her that she went when she did."
"You think so, How, honestly?" No affectation in that anxious query.
"You think I didn't do wrong in leaving as I did?"
"No, you did no wrong, Bess." A pause. "You could not."
A moment the girl sat looking at him; in wonder and something more.
"I believe you knew all the time Aunt Mary would--go while I was
away," she said suddenly, tensely. "I believe you helped me away on
purpose."
No answer.
"Tell me, How. I want to know."
"I thought so, Bess," simply.
For a long time the girl sat so; silent, marvelling. A new understanding
of this solitary human stole over her, an appreciation that drowned the
sadness of a moment ago. "How you must care for me," she voiced almost
unconsciously. "How you must care for me!"
She did not expect an answer. She was not disappointed. Again a silence
fell; a silence of which she was unconscious, for she was thinking.
Minutes passed. In the barn the bronchos were passively waiting. At the
parsonage the young minister still sat scowling in his study. No time
had been set for the visit he expected. There was no apparent reason why
he should not have gone about his work; but for some reason he could
not. Angry with himself, he thrust the new half eagle into his pocket
and, placing the offending licence beneath a pile of papers, he walked
over to the window and stood staring out into the sunshine.
Within the tiny room at the hotel the gaze of the girl shifted, dropped
to her feet. Despite an effort her face tinged slowly red.
"Did you think," she queried abruptly, "when you expected me to-day that
I would come alone?"
The Indian showed no surprise.
"Yes, Bess," he answered. "I knew you would be alone."
"Why, How?" The question was just audible.
"Because I trusted you, Bess."
Silence again. Surreptitiously, swiftly, the girl's brown eyes glanced
up; but he was not looking at her, and again her glance fell. A longer
pause followed, a pause wherein the girl could not have spoken if she
would. A great preventing lump was in her throat, an obstacle that
precluded speech. Many things had happened in the short time since she
had last been with this man, some things of which she was not proud; and
beside such a trust as this Bess Landor was speechless. Without volition
upon her part, the cup of life had been placed to her lips and, likewise
without knowledge of what it contained, she had tasted. The memory of
that draught was with her now. Under its influence she spoke.
"You are better than I am, How," she said.
If the man understood he gave no evidence of the knowledge. He did not
even look at her. Time was passing, time which should have found them
upon their way, but he showed no impatience. It was his day, his moment,
his by right; but no one looking at him would have doubted that he
himself would never first suggest the fact. Conditions had changed very
rapidly in the recent past, altered until, from his view-point, it was
impossible for him to make the move toward the old relation, to even
intimate its desirability. With the patience of his race he waited. In
the fulness of time he was rewarded.
"How," of a sudden initiated a voice, withal an embarrassed voice, "will
you do me a favour?"
"What is it, Bess?"
The girl coloured. Instinctively the man knew that at last the recall
had come, and for the first time he was looking at her steadily.
"Promise me, please," temporised the girl.
"I promise."
Even yet Elizabeth Landor found it difficult to say what she wished to
say.
"You won't be--offended or angry, How?"
"No, Bess. You could hurt me, but you couldn't make me angry."
"Thank you, How. It's a little thing, but I'd like to have you humour
me." She met his look directly. "It's when we are married to-day you'll
be dressed--well, not the way you usually dress." Her colour came and
went, her throat was a-throb. "Dressed like--You understand, How."
Of a sudden the Indian was upon his feet; then as suddenly he checked
himself. Characteristically, he now ignored the immaterial, went, as
ever, straight to fundamentals without preface or delay. Scarce one
human in a generation would have held aloof at that moment. It was his,
his by every right; but even yet he would not take it, not until--.
"Bess," he said slowly. "I want to ask you a question and I want you to
answer me--as you would answer your mother were she alive." Once again,
unconsciously, he fell into pose, his arms across his breast, his great
shoulders squared. "I have seen Mr. Landor's will. He has left you
nearly everything. You are rich, Bess; I won't tell you how rich because
you wouldn't understand. You are young and can live any life you wish.
You know what marrying me means. I am as I am and cannot change. You
know what others, people of your own race, think when you are with me.
They have shown you to-day. Answer me, Bess, have you thought of all
this? Was it duty that brought you back, or did you really wish to come?
Don't take me into consideration at all when you answer. Don't do it, or
we shall both live to regret. Tell me, Bess, as you know I love you,
whether you have thought of all this and still wish to marry me. Tell
me." He was silent. Once again it was a climax, and once again came
oblivion of passing time. For minutes passed, minutes wherein, with wide
open eyes, the girl made her choice. Not in hot blood was the decision
made, not as before in ignorance of what that decision meant.
Deliberately, with the puerile confidence we humans feel in our insight
of future, she chose; as she believed, honestly.
"Yes, How," she said slowly. "I have thought of it all and I wish to
marry you. I've no place else in the world to go. There's no one in the
world that I trust as I trust you. I wish to marry you to-day, How."
Then, indeed, it was the man's moment. Then, and not until then, he
accepted his reward.
"Bess!" She was in his arms. "Bess!" He tasted Paradise. "Bess!" That
was all.
* * * * *
For the second time that day the air of the tiny town tingled with
portent of the unusual. For the second time a crowd was gathered; only
now it was not at the station, but at a place of far more sinister
import, within and in front of the "Lost Hope" saloon. Again in
personnel it was different, notably different from that of the first
occasion. The same irresponsibles were there, as ever they are present
at times of storm; but added to the aggregation now, outnumbering them,
were others ordinarily responsible, men typical in every way of the time
and place. A second difference of even greater portent was the motif of
gathering. For it was not a mere rumour, an idle curiosity, that had
brought them together now. On the contrary they had at last, these
dominant Anglo-Saxons, begun to take themselves seriously. Rumour,
inevitable in a place where days were as much alike as the one-story
buildings on the main street, had begun when How Landor had commenced to
haunt the station at the time of the incoming train. The incident of the
morning had familiarised the rumour into gossip. Hard upon this had
followed a report from the hotel landlord, and gossip had become
certainty. Then it was that horse-play had ceased, and, save at the
point of congregation, a silence, unwonted and sinister, had taken its
place. So marked was the change that when at last the Indian and the
girl left the hotel together on their way to the parsonage the street
through which they passed was as still as though it were the street of a
prairie dog town. So quiet it was that the girl was deceived; but the
ears of the Indian were keener, and faint as an echo beneath it, as yet
well in the distance, he detected the warning of an alien note. Not as
on that other day out on the prairie when he caught the first trumpet
call of the Canada goose, did he recognise the sound from previous
familiarity. Never in his life had he heard its like; yet now an
instinct told him its meaning, told him as well its menace. Not once did
he look back, not one word of prophecy did he speak to the girl at his
side; yet as surely as a grey timber wolf realises what is to come when
he catches the first faint bay of the hounds on his trail, How Landor
realised that at last for him the hour of destiny had struck, that as
surely as the wild thing must battle for life he must do likewise--and
that soon, very, very soon.
Up the street they went: a small dark girl garbed as no woman was ever
garbed in a fashion-plate, a tall copper-brown man all but humorously
grotesque in a ready-made suit of clothes that were far from a fit and
the first starched shirt and collar he had ever worn. Laughable
unqualifiedly, this red man tricked out in the individuality-destroying
dress of the white brother would have been to an observer who had not
the key to the situation; but to one who knew the motive of the
alteration it was far as the ends of the earth from humorous. On they
went, silent now, each in widely separated anticipation; and after them,
at first silent likewise, then as it advanced growing noisier and
noisier, followed the crowd which had congregated at the Lost Hope
saloon. As on the day of the little landman's funeral when Captain
William Landor had passed up the street of Cayote Centre, ahead where
the Indian and the girl advanced not the figure of a human being was in
sight, unless one were suspicious and looked closely, not a face; but to
the Indian eyes were everywhere. Every house they passed--for they were
in the residence section now--had its pair or multiple pairs peering out
through the slats of a blind, or, as in a theatre preceding a
performance, at the side of a drawn curtain. Like wildfire the news had
spread; like turtles timid women folk had drawn close within their
shells; yet everywhere curiosity they could not repress prompted them to
take a last look before the storm. Once, and once only, the pedestrians
were interrupted. Then a house dog came bounding across the lawn to
pause at a safe distance and growl a menace; and again the all-noting
Indian had observed the cause of the unwonted bravery, had heard the low
voice from the kitchen that had urged the beast on.
Thus nearer and nearer that sunny fall morning the storm approached.
Long before this, unobservant though she was, had the girl not been
living in the future instead of the present, she would have recognised
its coming. For the pursuers were gaining rapidly now. They had crossed
onto the same street, the principal residence thoroughfare, and were
coming as a crowd ever moves: swiftly, those in the rear exerting
themselves to get to the fore, and so again. Far from silent by this
time, the man ahead, the man who never deigned a backward glance, could
hear their voices in a perpetual rumble; could distinguish at intervals,
interrupting it, above it, a voice commanding, inflaming. Without
seeing, he knew that at last his persecutors had found a commander, a
directing spirit--and as well as he knew his own name he knew who that
leader was. Unsophisticated absolutely in the ways of the world was this
man; but in the reading of his fellows he was a master.
Apparently oblivious when a part of this same crowd had congregated at
the train, he had nevertheless observed them individual by individual;
and in his own consciousness had known that the moment, his moment, had
not come: for a leader, the leader, was not there. Again when the train
had pulled in he had watched--and still the leader did not appear. But
he was not deceived. As he had trusted in the girl's coming he had
trusted in another's following surreptitiously; and as now he heard that
one voice sounding above the other voices he knew he had been right. For
the man at the head of that pursuing mob which gained on them so
rapidly block by block, the man whose influence in those brief hours the
Indian and the girl had been alone in the tiny room at the hotel had
vitalised the lukewarm racial hostility into a thing of menace, was the
same man whose life he had once saved, the same man about whose throat
ere the identical night had passed his fingers had closed: Clayton Craig
by name, one time of Boston, Mass., but now, by his uncle's will, master
of the Buffalo Butte ranch house!
Meanwhile in the study of the parsonage Clifford Mitchell was again
looking out the single window. Time and time again he had tried to
work--and as often failed. At last he had conformed to the inevitable
and was merely waiting. The house was on the outskirts of the town and
the window faced the open prairie; bare and rolling as far as the eye
could reach. He was city bred, this mild-faced servant of God, and as
yet the prairie country was a thing at which to marvel. He was looking
out upon it now, absently, thoughtfully, wondering at its immensity and
its silence--when of a sudden he became conscious that it was no longer
silent. Instead to his ears, growing louder moment by moment,
penetrating the illy constructed walls, came an indistinct roar; rising,
lowering, yet ever constant: a sound unlike any other on earth,
distinctive as the silence preceding had been typical--the clamour of
angry, menacing human voices _en masse._ Once, not long before, in a
city street the listener had heard that identical sound; and
recognition was instantaneous. Swift as memory he recalled the strike
that had been its cause, the horde of sympathisers who had of a sudden
appeared as from the very earth, the white face and desperate figure of
the solitary "scab" fighting a moment, and a moment only, for life, in
their midst. Swift as memory came that picture; and swift upon its
heels, blotting it out, the present returned. Clifford Mitchell had not
been among this people long; yet already he had caught the spirit of the
place, and as he listened he knew full well what a similar gathering
among them would mean. He was not a brave man, this blue-eyed pastor;
not a drop of fighting blood was in his veins; and as moment after
moment passed and the sound grew nearer and nearer, the first real
terror of his life came creeping over him. Not in his mind was there a
doubt as to the destination of that oncoming multitude. Premonition had
been too electric in the air that day for him to question its meaning.
They were coming to him, to him, Clifford Mitchell, these irresponsible
menacing humans. It might be another for whom they had gathered; but he
as well would share in their displeasure, in their punishment: for he
was a party to the thing of which they disapproved. All the day, from
the time the Indian had called and almost simultaneously, vague rumours
of trouble had come floating in the visitor's wake; he had been in
anticipation; and now the thing anticipated had become a certainty.
Answering he felt the cold perspiration come pouring out on his
forehead; and absently, he wiped it away with the palm of his hand.
Following came a purely physical weakness; and stumbling across the room
he took the seat beside the desk. Unconsciously nervous, restless, his
fingers fumbled with the pile of papers before him until they came to a
certain one he had buried. Almost as though impelled against his will to
do so he spread this one flat before him and sat staring at it, dumbly
waiting.
Nearer and nearer came the roar as he sat there, irresistible,
cumulatively menacing as a force of nature; and instinctively, by it
alone, the listener marked the approach of its makers. He could hear
them down the street at the other end of the block before the residence
of Banker Briggs. He knew this to a certainty because part of those who
came were on the sidewalk, and that was the only piece of cement in
town. Again, by the same token, he knew when they passed the only other
house in the block besides his own. There was a gap in the boardwalk
there, and when the leaders reached it the patter of their footsteps
went suddenly muffled on the bare earth. It was his turn next, his in a
moment; yes, the feet were already on the confines of his own yard, the
roar of their owners' voices was all about. He could even distinguish
what they were saying now, could catch names, his own name.
Of a sudden, expected and yet unexpected, a dark shadow passed before
his window, and another; then a swarm. Simultaneously faces, not a few
but as many as could crowd into the space, appeared outside the panes,
staring curiously in. Involuntarily he arose to draw the shade; and at
that moment, interrupting, startlingly loud, there came a knock at his
front door.
Clifford Mitchell paused on his way to the window, stood irresolute;
and, seemingly impossible as it was, the number of curious faces
multiplied.
The knock was repeated; not fearfully or frantically, but deliberately
and with an insistence there was no misunderstanding.
This time the minister responded. He did not pause to blot out the faces
of the curious. The licence he had been absently holding was still in
his hand; but he did not delay to put it down. There was something
compelling in that knock; something that demanded instant obedience, and
he obeyed. The living-room through which he passed on his way had two
windows and, identical with that of his study, each was black with
humanity; but he did not even glance at them. His legs trembled
involuntarily and his throat was dry as though he had been speaking for
hours; yet, nevertheless, he obeyed. With a hand that shook perceptibly
he turned the button of the spring lock, and, opening the door onto the
street, looked out.
While Clifford Mitchell lived, while lived every man of the uncounted
throng gathered there beneath the noon-time sun that October day, they
remembered that moment, the moments that followed. As real life is ever
stranger than fiction, so off the stage occur incidents more stirring
than at the play. Standing there in the narrow doorway, white-faced,
hesitant, awaiting a command, the minister himself exemplified the fact
beyond question; yet of his own grotesque part he was oblivious. He had
thought for but one thing that moment, had room in his consciousness for
but one impression; and that was for the drama ready there before him.
And small wonder, for, looking out, this was what he saw:
An uneven straggling village street, mottled with patches of dead grass
and weeds. Along it, here and there, like kernels of seed scattered on
fallow ground, a sprinkling of one-story houses. This the background. In
the midst of it all, covering his lawn, overflowing into the yards of
his neighbours, dense, crowding the better to see, all-surrounding, was
a solid zone of motley humanity. Old men with weather-beaten faces and
untrimmed beards were there, young men with the marks that dissipation
and passion indelibly stamp, awkward, gawky youths unconsciously aping
their elders, smooth-faced youngsters in outgrown garments; all ages and
conditions of the human frontier male were there--but in that zone not a
single woman. Ranchers there were in corduroys and denims, cowboys in
buckskin and flannel, gamblers in the glaring colours distinctive of
their kind, business men with closely cropped moustaches, idlers in
anything and everything; but amid them all not a friendly face. This the
surrounding zone, the mongrel pack that had brought the quarry to bay.
In the centre of the half circle they formed, within a couple of paces
of the now open doorway, were three people. Two of them, a rather small
brown girl and a tall wiry Indian in a new suit of ready-made clothes
and a derby hat of the model of the year before, were nearest; so near
that the door, which swung outward, all but touched them. The other, a
well-built, smooth-faced Easterner with a white skin and delicate hands,
was opposite. His dress was the dress of a man of fashion, his cravat
and patent leather buttoned shoes were of the latest style; but his
linen was soiled now, and a two-days' growth of beard covered his chin.
Moreover, his eyes were bloodshot and, despite an effort to prevent, as
he stood there now he wavered a bit to right and left. One look told his
story. He had been drinking, drinking for days; and, worst of all, he
had been drinking this day, drinking in anticipation of this very
moment, swallowing courage against the necessity of the now. All this
the stage and its setting, upon which the white-faced minister raised
the curtain. Simultaneously, as ever an audience grows silent when the
real play begins, it grew silent now. The hinges of the little-used
front door were rusty and had squeaked startlingly. Otherwise not a
sound marked the opening of the drama.
A moment following the silence was intense, a thing one could feel; then
of a sudden it was broken--not by words, but by action. One step the
white-skinned man took forward; a step toward the girl. A second step he
advanced, and halted; for, preventing, the hand of the other man was
upon his own.
"Stand back, please," said an even voice. "It's not time for
congratulations yet. Stand back, please."
Answering there was a sound; but not articulate. It was a curse, a
challenge, a menace all in one; and with a hysterical terrified little
cry the girl shrank back into the doorway itself. But none other, not
even the minister, stirred.
"Mr. Craig," the words were low, almost intimately low, but in the
stillness they seemed fairly loud. "I ask you once more to stand back. I
don't warn you, I merely request--but I shall not ask it again." Of a
sudden the speaker's hand left the other's arm, dropped by his own side.
"Stand back, please."
Face to face the two men stood there; the one face working, passionate,
menacing; the other emotionless as the blue sky overhead. A moment they
remained so while the breathless onlookers expected anything, while from
the doorstep the minister's white lips moved in a voiceless prayer; then
slowly, lingeringly, the man who had advanced drew back. A step he took
silently, another, and his breathing became audible, still another, and
was himself amid the spectators. Then for the first time he found voice.
"You spoke your own sentence then, redskin," he blazed. "We'd have let
you go if you'd given up the girl; but now--now--May God have mercy on
your soul now, How Landor!"
Again there was silence; silence absolute. As at that first meeting on
the car platform, the girl had turned facing them. It was the crisis,
and as before an instinct which she did not understand, which she merely
obeyed, brought her to the Indian's side; held her there motionless,
passive, mysteriously unafraid. Her usually brown face was very pale and
her eyes were unnaturally bright; but withal she was unbelievably
calm--calm as a child with its hand in its father's hand. Not even that
solid zone of menacing, staring eyes had terror for her now. Whether or
no she loved him, as she believed in God she trusted in that motionless,
dominant human by her side.
A moment they stood so in a silence wherein they could hear each other
breathe, wherein the prayer that had never left the minister's lips
became audible; then came the end. Incredible after it was over was that
_dénouement_, inexplicable to a legion of old men, then among the boys,
who witnessed it, to this day. Yet as the incredible continues to take
place in this world it took place then. As one man can ever dominate
other men it was done that silent noon hour. For that moment the first
challenge that had ever passed the lips of How Landor was spoken. The
only challenge that he ever made to man or woman in his life found
voice; and was not accepted. One step he took toward that listening,
expectant throng and halted. With the old, old motion his arms folded
across his chest.
"Men," he said, "I don't want trouble here to-day. I've done my best to
avoid it; but the end has come. I've stood everything at your hands,
every insult which you could conceive, things which no white man would
have permitted for a second; and so far without resentment. But I shall
stand it no more. I'm one to a hundred; but that makes no difference.
Bess Landor and I are to be married now and here; here before you all. I
shall not talk to you again. I shall not ask you to leave us in peace;
but as surely as one of you speaks another word of insult to her or to
me, as surely as one of you attempts to interfere or prevent, I shall
kill that man. No matter which of you it is, I shall do this thing." A
moment longer he stood so, observing them steadily, with folded arms;
then, still facing, he moved back a step. "Mr. Mitchell," he said, "we
are ready."
And there that October noonday, fair in the open with two hundred
curious eyes watching, in a silence unbroken as that of prairie night
itself, Bess Landor and Ma-wa-cha-sa the Sioux were married. The
minister stumbled in the ritual, and though he held the book close
before his face, it was memory alone that prompted the form; for the
pages shook until the letters were blurred. Yet it was done, and, save
one alone, every spectator who had come with a far different intent
stayed and listened to the end. That one, a tall, modish alien with a
red, flushed face covered with a two-days' growth of bread, was likewise
watching when it began. But when it was over he was not there; and not
one of those who had followed his lead had noticed his going.