A PROPOSAL
[Illustration]
"Oh! I say, Captain Lewis, I am all ready to start. I have Ramon, a
cook, and Wolf-Voice, together with pack-animals, but I can't get your
man Ermine to say when he will go."
"That's odd, Harding; I don't know of anything to detain him. But go
slow; he's like all these wild men up here; when they will they will,
and when they won't, they'll lay down on you. I'll go round and scout
him up. What is the matter so far as you can determine?"
"I can't determine. He says he will go, but will not name any exact
time; tells me to push on and that he will catch up. That is a curious
proposition. He is willing to take my money--"
"Oh! whoa up, Mr. Harding! That fellow doesn't care anything about your
money--make no mistake about that. Money means no more to him than to a
blue jay. He wanted to go back to his own country and was willing,
incidentally, to take you. I'll see; you wait here awhile;" saying
which, Captain Lewis went in search of his man, whom he found whittling
a stick pensively.
"Hello, my boy, you don't seem to be very busy. Suppose your heart is
out in the hills chasing the elk and bear."
"No, Captain; I don't care much about the hills."
"Or the Crow squaws?"
"D---- the Crow squaws!" And Ermine emphasized this by cutting his stick
through the middle.
"Want to stay here?"
"Yes, I am getting so I like this camp; like the soldiers--like the
wagons--kind of like the whole outfit."
"Like to chase wolves?" interrupted the officer.
Ermine slowly turned up his head and settled his fathomless blue eyes on
Lewis, but he said nothing.
"Well, Mr. Harding is all set. You said you would go with him; a soldier
must keep his word."
"I will go with him."
"When?"
Again Ermine shaved some delicate slivers off the stick; suddenly he
threw it away, shut up his knife, and arose. "If Mr. Harding will pull
out now, Wolf-Voice will show him the way. I shall know where the Indian
takes him, and in four days I will walk into his camp. The pack-ponies
travel slowly, I do not care to punch pack-horses; that will do for
Ramon and the cook."
"Does that go?"
"I have said it. Did I ever lie, Captain Lewis?"
"All right. Mr. Harding will go now. I will attend to that." With this
Lewis left him, and in two hours the little cavalcade trotted westward,
out into the hot, sunlit plains, carrying faith in Ermine's word. The
scout, leaning on a log stable, saw them go.
Three days took their slow departure, and on the morrow Ermine would
have to make good his word to follow the Englishmen. He would have liked
to stay even if his body suffered slow fire, but excuses would not avail
for his honor. A soldier's honor was something made much of in these
parts; it pegged higher than the affairs of the flesh.
He had not been able to see Miss Searles, and he wondered what she would
feel, or think, or say. He was a thief when he remembered the stolen
kisses, and he dared not go to the Searleses' home to inquire after her.
All this diffidence the public put down to apathy; he had done his duty,
so why further concern himself?
After supper he strolled along the officers' row, desperately forlorn,
but hoping and yearning, barely nodding his head to passers-by.
Major Searles approached him with the nervous stride habitual to a
soldier, and held out his hand, saying bluffly: "Of course, I can't
thank you enough for your attention to my daughter, Ermine. But for your
fortunate presence there at the time of the accident, things might have
been bad; how bad I fear to contemplate. Come to my quarters, my boy,
and allow my daughter to thank you. She is quite recovered. She is
sitting out-of-doors. She hasn't been abroad much. Such a fall would
have killed an older woman."
Together they made their way to the house, and Ermine passed under the
_ramada_ with his hat off. Mrs. Searles shook his hand and said many
motherly things due on such occasions.
"Please forgive me if I do not rise; it is the doctor's orders, you
know." And Miss Searles extended her hand, which the scout reverently
took. To have seen him one would have fancied that, after all, manners
must have been made before men; which idea is, of course, absurd.
In response to their inquiries, he retold the story of the accident and
of his ministrations and perplexities. He did not embellish, but left
out very important details, wondering the while if they were dead to all
but his memory.
"She should not ride so poor a horse," ventured Ermine.
"She should not have been left unattended." And this severity was
directed at Major Searles by his wife, to which he feebly pleaded vain
extenuations, without hope of their acceptance.
"No, no, my dear; you were always a careless person; one is never safe
to place dependence on you in minor matters. I declare, all men are
alike --leastwise soldiers are. A blanket and a haversack, and the
world may wag at will, so far as they concern themselves." Rising, she
adjusted her hat, saying: "I must run down to Mrs. Taylor's for a
minute. Her baby is very ill, and she has sent for me. You will stay
here, Major," and she swept out.
"When do you depart for your hunting with Mr. Harding, Ermine?" asked
Searles.
"I must go soon. He left camp three days ago, and I have promised to
follow."
"I should think you would be delighted to hunt. I know I should if I
were a man," cheerfully remarked the young woman.
"I have always hunted, Miss Searles. I think I should like to do
something else."
"What, pray?"
"Oh, I don't know, something with a white shirt in it."
"Isn't that foolish? There is no more fun in a white shirt than there is
in a buckskin one, and there is no fun in either when it rains, I am
told."
A passing officer appealed to the Major to come out; he was needed,
together with other requests to follow, with reasons why haste was
important.
"All right, I will be back in a moment, daughter." And the officer took
himself off in complete disobedience of his wife's orders.
"Don't be gone long, father; there is no one here but Mary and the
striker. You know I cannot depend on them."
"You keep the wolves off, Ermine; I won't be gone a minute." And Ermine
found himself alone again with Katherine.
This time she was not pale unto death, but warm and tingling. Her
lover's hands and feet took better care of themselves on a horse than in
a chair, but the gloom under the porch at least stayed some of the
embarrassment which her eyes occasioned him. Indeed, it is well known
that lovers prefer night attacks, and despite the law and the prophets,
they manage better without an audience.
She gained a particularly entrancing attitude in her chair by a
pussy-cat wiggle which let the point of her very small foot out of
concealing draperies. One hand hung limply toward Ermine over the arm of
the chair, and it seemed to scream out to him to take hold of it.
"And when do you go, Mr. Ermine?"
This seemed safe, and along the lines of his self-interest.
"I go to-morrow; I have given my word."
"Very naturally there can be nothing to delay you here," she continued;
"the fighting is over, I hear."
"There is something in the world beside fighting."
"Yes?" she evaded.
"Yes, you detain me."
"I!" and the little foot went back to its nest; the extended hand rose
in protest. "I detain you! My dear Mr. Ermine, I do not understand how I
detain you; really, I am quite recovered from my fall."
"You may have got well, Miss Searles, but I am not. Do you remember?"
"Remember--remember--do I remember? What should I remember? I am told
you were very good to me, but I was laboring under such a shock at the
time that you cannot expect much of my memory."
"I was but little better off."
"And were you injured also?"
"Yes, so bad that I shall never get well unless you come to my rescue."
"I come to your rescue! What can I do?" Her sword waved in tierce and
seconde.
"Be my wife; come, girl, be my wife."
He had beaten down her guard; the whole mass was in the fire. The dam
had broken; he led his forlorn hope into the breach. "Come, Katherine,
say you will marry me; say it and save me."
"Oh," she almost screamed, "I can't do that; why, my mother would never
consent to it," she appealed in bewilderment.
He had risen and taken a step forward. "What has your mother to say? Say
you will be my wife, Katherine."
"Careful, careful, Mr. Ermine; restrain yourself, or I shall call a
servant. No, no, I cannot marry you. Why, what should we do if I did? We
should have to live in the mule corral."
"No, come to the mountains with me. I will make you a good camp."
She almost laughed aloud at this. "But I should make a poor squaw. I
fear you would have many quarrels with your dinner. Besides, my father
would not let me marry you. I like you, and you have been very good to
me, but I had no idea we had gotten so far as this. Don't you think you
Western men cover the ground a little too fast?"
Ermine drew back. "Why did you kiss me?"
"I didn't," she snapped. Her manner grew cold and strange to him. He had
never seen this mood before. It chilled him not a little, and he sat
down again in the chair. His assault had been repulsed. They were now
looking straight into each other's eyes. Fear had departed from Ermine's
and all graciousness from hers. Divested of their seductive flashes, he
saw the eyes of his photograph, and slowly reaching into the bosom of
his shirt, drew out the buckskin bag and undid it. Turning to the
straining light, he gazed a moment, and then said, "It is you!"
"I!--what is I?"
"Yes! it is you!" and he handed the much-soiled photograph labelled
"Bogardus" to her.
She regarded it. "Why, how on earth did you come by this, Mr. John
Ermine?"
"Sak-a-war-te sent it to me in the night, and he made it talk to me and
he made me swear that I would seek the woman until I found her. Then she
would be my wife. I have found you--I do not know--my head is burning--"
She scanned the photograph, and said in an undertone: "Taken last year
in New York, and for him; yet you have it away out here in the middle of
this enormous desert. He surely would not give it away to you. I do not
understand." And she questioned him sharply as she returned the card.
"Who is this Sak-a-war-te?"
"He is God," said the scout.
"Oh!" she started up. The little miss had never heard God connected with
affairs of this sort. An active fear of the fire which burned this
extraordinary man's head began to oppress her.
"It is very strange. What has your god got to do with me,--with my--oh,
you are joking, Mr. Ermine," she again appealed, a shadow of her old
smile appearing.
"No, no; I am not joking. I have found you. I must believe what the
spirits say to me when they take my mind from me and give it to you,"
returned the excited man.
"But really--I did not mean to take your mind. I haven't it anywhere
about me. You have dreamed all this."
"Yes; it may be only a dream, Miss Searles, but make it come true;
please make it all come true. I should like to live such a dream."
"Oh, my good man, I cannot make the dreams of casual people come true,
not such serious dreams as yours."
"You say you would have to live in the corral with mules. Is that
because I have so little money?"
"No, it is not money. I do not know how much you have."
"I have often taken enough gold out of the ground in a few days to last
me a year."
"Yes, yes, but that is not the only thing necessary."
"What is necessary, then? Tell me what you want."
"There would have to be a great deal of love, you know. That is why any
one marries. I have been flattered by the attentions of many cavaliers
like yourself, Mr. Ermine, but I could not marry any one of them unless
I loved him."
"And then you do not love me," this in a low, far-away voice, lopping
each word off as though with an axe.
"No, I do not. I have given you no reason to think I did. I like you,
and I am sorry for you, now that I know in what way you regard me. Sit
down again and let me tell you." She crouched herself on the edge of her
chair, and he sat in his, revolving his big hat in both hands between
his knees. He was composed, and she vaguely felt that she owed him a
return for his generous acts of the past. She had the light touch of
mature civilization and did not desire her darts to be deadly. Now that
one had laid this simple nature low, she felt a womanly impulse to nurse
the wound.
"Some terrible mistake has been made. Believe me, I am truly sorry that
our relationship has not been rightly understood." Here she paused a
moment to take a long breath and observe the effect of her words on the
one who had so easily lost his head. "No, I simply admired you, Mr.
Ermine, as I do many of the brave men about here. I was not thinking of
marrying any one. As for living in the mule corral, I was only joking
about that. There might be worse places. I should dearly love a gold
mine, but don't you understand there would have to be something else--I
should have to give you something before we thought of marrying."
"I see it; it all comes to me now," he labored. "You would have to give
me something, and you won't give me yourself. Then give me back my
mind--give me the peace which I always had until I saw you. Can you do
that, Miss Searles? Can you make John Ermine what he was before the
steamboat came here, and let him mount his pony and go away?"
It was all so strange, this quiet appeal, that she passed her hand
across her forehead in despair.
"If you will not make my dreams come true; if you will not say the
things which the photograph does; if you will not do what God
intends,--then I must take my body away from here and leave my shadow,
my mind, and my heart to be kicked about among the wagons and the dogs.
And I know now that you will soon forget me. Then I will be John Ermine,
riding among the hills, empty as an old buffalo carcass, moving without
life, giving no thought to the sunshine, not feeling the wind nor
caring how the birds fly or the animals run. If you will not marry me--"
"Stop, please stop. I cannot stand this sort of thing, my dear Mr.
Ermine. There are other young women besides myself. Go about the world,
back in the States; you will find whole oceans of them, and without
flattery, I feel you will soon find your mind again."
"You have my mind. You have all the mind I ever had." And his voice
dropped until she could distinguish only wild gutturals. He was talking
to himself in the Indian language.
Springing up quickly, she flew into the house, out through it to the
rear steps, where she fell upon the neck of Mary, the cook, to the utter
consternation of a soldier, who, to all appearances, was there with a
similar ambition so to do. This latter worthy flung himself out into the
darkness. The cook held Katherine, expecting the entire Sioux tribe to
come pouring through the front door on the instant, and at this belated
interval Mrs. Searles entered her own porch.
"Why, Mr. Ermine, where is Katherine, and where is the Major? Why, you
are all alone!" And she came up standing.
"Yes, I am all alone," said the scout, quietly, rising from the chair
and putting on his sombrero. Before she could comprehend, he was gone.