McShay turned with a bewildered look to Sad. "Did I?"

Sad shook his head in the negative.

"What's the matter with you, Kal?" said McShay in a gentle, considerate

voice.

"Say," said Kal, grasping a bottle in each hand; "charge these to me.

Come on, boys; let's go home."

And the poker players and Roach lurched out into the night fairly on

their way to forgetfulness.

McShay followed them to the door and watched their receding figures.

When it was safe, he shut the door, and the rough men left in the Palace

Saloon could be seen hugging each other, giving each other huge slaps on

the back, and rolling around on the bar, the tables, and the floor with

wild guffaws and paroxysms.

When the enthusiasm had spent itself McShay lifted his glass, the first

he had poured for himself that night, and said: "Well, boys; here's

hoping you may like your new job over on the Red Butte Ranch."

*CHAPTER XI*

When the asphalt conference broke up with the spectacular departure of

Hal and Bill, no one gave a thought to the little Indian woman. Almost

before the two horsemen were engulfed in their own dust she was in

action, without conscious plans or purposes, but also without

hesitation. Perhaps she was stirred by vague premonitions, but of this

too she was unconscious. She knew that the man she loved was riding

away, riding away into danger, and to follow was inevitable. It was an

instinct she could not resist, which she did not try to resist or even

understand. Behind Cadger's store were hitched the horses of the

police. She took the first one she came to. It happened to belong to

Charlie Chavanaugh. Chavanaugh was a sport, a lover of horse-flesh, and

before she had gone far she knew that she had picked a good horse, in

fact his pet racer. She knew how to ride. It was her favorite

dissipation, and in the first mad exhilaration she and the fine animal

came to a complete understanding. She knew all the crosscuts, cutoffs,

and trails. She did not follow directly, but took to the open, over

sage-brush and hillock. It was hurdle-racing, only more dangerous, with

hidden pitfalls of gopher holes and prairie-dogs' homes. She knew the

Knife-edge and took it as a matter of course. It never occurred to her

to think what she would do when she got to the ranch, or her possible

connection with what might happen there. The ranch was his objective!

Therefore it was hers. She seemed to be two persons, the one riding a

horse over difficult and dangerous ground, picking, choosing, active,

alert; the other free from the limitations of the flesh, absorbed in her

own thoughts, thoughts always of him, going over their acquaintance from

the beginning, trying to find herself and him, and what it meant and was

to mean. When the young chief of police had bundled her out of the

sun-dance, she was not conscious so much of his protection or the need

of it as of a wonderful glow and thrill. Something that made existence

new and strange and divine. That he liked her in return she had known

for a long time. There was no mistaking his look. And yet why had he

never spoken? There was only one reason--he was a white man and she was

an Indian. And that made her draw herself away cold and proud. She did

not suppose it was because she was poor. She had the Indian's

metaphysical contempt for the material, and she felt that this white man

was superior to the failings of his race. No; this man was not absorbed

in _getting things_, in taking them from others and keeping them from

others. He could stop to dream and to wonder. No; it was not because

she was poor. It was because she was Indian. She knew all the phases

of the white man's sense of race superiority. That would account for

everything. Then came the revelation that Nat-u-ritch was his mother.

That explained many things, but not everything. She knew at last that

he did not hate his mother's people. Indeed, this understanding seemed

to set them apart from others and then bring them together in a way

neither had known before. Still there was something. What was it? She

went over the possible rivals. There was the pretty little teacher,

Miss Olmstead. She was effective in a pale, blond indefiniteness, but

she was a teacher from necessity, not from choice, and uncongenial

routine had left her diluted. That Miss Olmstead had cast longing eyes

in the direction of the chief of police was obvious, but even jealousy

could not suggest that this interest had been returned. Why was he

silent? Why was the shadow of restraint over all their intercourse?

This eddied in endless circles and always came back as it started,

unanswered.

When she got close to the ranch it occurred to her for the first time

that Hal might be displeased that she had followed him, so, while he and

Bill were busy with Curley, she had slipped by them into the cow-sheds,

from there crept into the stable and up into the loft. Fortunately for

Hal he had no suspicion that she was the witness of his trial and

execution. Fortunately the knowledge of her sufferings was not added to

his own. As for her, she was on the rack and acutely conscious.

Nothing escaped her. Every twist and turn of the wheel brought a new

pang, an added element of torture. It was the sublimation of cruelty

brought to a white heat. She saw it in detail and the end from the

beginning. She had a quick and complete sense of the frightened,

savage, covetousness of these lawless men. She saw, too, that she was

powerless to stop or prevent the murder of the man she loved. She would

have tried the impossible, but she was paralyzed with the obvious

futility of every wild expedient that rushed through her brain, and

while she groped for something else, something sane, the crime went

relentlessly on to its certain and ghastly end. Then she tried to shut

her eyes and pray, but her eyes refused to close. She prayed wide-eyed,

prayed first as an Indian, to the bear to give him strength, to the wolf

to give him cunning, to the eagle to give him freedom, to the sun, to

Shinob. Then she remembered that she had passed beyond all that, and she

called upon God, John McCloud's God. Who shall say that God, the god of

the bear, of the Indian, and of John McCloud did not hear her? But to

her He did not seem to care. Perhaps it was because she had not shut

her eyes. The white people shut their eyes in prayer. She closed hers

for a terrible moment, and as she did so she heard the rope creak and

groan as the body of her man shot up into the air. When she opened them

it was to glare at the awful thing in cold and empty horror. She could

not even cry out. She staggered to her feet with an impulse to throw

herself from the loft. Something hard in the buckskin pouch struck her

sharply as it swung. Then she found it in her hand. She didn't know how

to shoot, had not been taught, but something happened. She saw a flash

near her hand; her right hand. She felt weak and faint. With the left

hand she steadied herself against the adobe wall. Something cut her

hand. It was a scythe. If she smote the rope she did not remember it.

She only remembered gazing into the beloved face distorted in the agony

of a horrible death. Had he passed beyond all help? As she started in

panic to the spring her toe struck Curley's half empty flask. That and

the ice-cold water of the spring, and her love--surely that would bring

him back to life. It was a relief to be doing something at last, even

if it should prove futile. Then when all was done, it seemed so little,

there was only to wait. That was hard--to wait and watch. Suddenly,

was it her own delusion? His eyelid fluttered. Yes, he lived. Then

the mountains waved, and the stars danced, and it seemed that days and

nights passed as she sat waiting and watching each returning sign of

life. She had died with him step by step; so now she returned with him

to life. When she remembered again she was sitting with his head in her

arms and weeping.

Consciousness came back to Hal through the flickering lights that

snapped and cracked, burnt and went out, then burned again in a vast

smother of writhing darkness. The first breath of fresh air choked him.

He felt that he was drowning in it. Then he slipped out of the

mountainous whirlpools into still waters, and he saw the face of

Wah-na-gi bending over him, and he felt that this was what men called

Heaven. He tried to reach out his arms and take her but they wouldn't

move. It was a dream. She seemed to say: "Don't try, just rest." When

he was conscious again his limbs responded and he drew her face down and

murmured: "Wah-na-gi, you're mine. I love you. I want you. I want you

_now_." And she kissed him.

The moon, now white and cold, still hung in the heavens, but in the east

the day was coming with a passionate rush. The snow-white bosom of the

Moquitch glowed with its fervor, and through the chill of the dawn stole

the breath of a languorous day.

"Deliver us from evil!" That is the only prayer of those who lie

helpless in the grip of a mastering passion.

"Deliver us from evil."

Their good angel stirred the bleeding form of Curley, and a moan broke

from his lips.

"Water; I'm dying. Water."

While Wah-na-gi went to the spring, Hal pulled himself together, crawled

over to his executioner, and made a superficial examination. As he

turned his thought to another his strength came fast. With the aid of

Wah-na-gi he put a tourniquet on the shattered arm; then he found a

wound near the lungs made by the deflected bullet. By slow stages they

managed to get the injured man into the house where his wounds were

washed and he was made as comfortable as was possible. "He's got a

chance, Wah-na-gi. Will you be afraid to stay here with him until I can

bring a surgeon?"

"You're not strong enough to ride to the Fort."

"I'll go to Calamity and telephone from there."

When Hal returned to the ranch with Surgeon Flood, Wah-na-gi was _gone_.

It was a great blow to him and, strange to say, unexpected. He knew of

course that she had no right to be off the Reservation without a permit,

yet somehow he had taken for granted her welcome. It was the one thing

he thought of while he was away. It enabled him to forget his own

weakness. It kept him steadily to the task in hand. Without thinking

he had begun to make her a feature of his plans for the ranch and his

own future. He felt the void left by her was unbearable. He felt the

despair of the thirst-crazed wanderer who rides madly toward the ghostly

trees which promise water, only to find them always drifting away into

the mocking distance.

All Curley could tell him was that some Indians had called her outside

and that she had not returned.

Then after the first bitterness of his resentment over this

disappointment came a strange sense of relief. And he knew that he was

glad; glad that she had gone.

"Deliver us from evil!"

Yes, he was glad she was gone.

There was plenty for him to do and he threw himself into the doing of it

with a feverish energy. Neglect and nature had gone far to restoring the

ranch to the wilderness. Houses, barns, corrals, ditches--they called

aloud for help. This response to duty and obligation was highly

gratifying to Bill, who did not realize that it was a frantic effort to

flee from the voices of the night. Hal never spoke of Wah-na-gi, but in

the cool silences under the stars his imagination galloped to the

Agency, and rode riot there, circling round and round that girlish

figure, begging for news, begging for some word, pleading for some token

that her love had not died in the night, uncovering pitfalls, digging

them where they did not exist, building and tearing down, testing,

arguing, threatening, fighting, inventing, inventing and suffering.

Life has no tortures to compare with these figments that never happen,

these phantom bridges we never cross, these deaths we never die. In the

night given to peace, rest, and regeneration, our thoughts stampede like

maddened cattle and rush to destruction or exhaustion, and all we can do

is avoid their hurtling hoofs, ride herd on them, get them to "milling,"

round and round in endless circles until they come to rest in wide-eyed

collapse. Mysterious phantoms of the night! In the clear day these

cattle wander "in green pastures and beside still waters." The strain

of it was telling on Hal as day followed day and exhausting night

followed night. In action his momentum was fierce and irritable; in

moments of repose his face looked drawn, and a world-weariness drooped

in his limbs, and a pale light shone out of his blue eyes.

Even Bill began to notice that he never smiled, and in this connection

Bill remarked to Joe: "And smilin' is one of the best things the kid

does."

He smiled the day McCloud arrived as he put his two strong hands on the

shoulders of the invalid's big frame, gave them a gentle pressure, as if

afraid of crushing that frail habitation of the spirit, and bade the

clergyman welcome to Red Butte Ranch. Then monotonous week followed

monotonous week and the hidden fires smouldered on. One evening as the

sun was going down he smiled again, but it was a peculiar smile; it got

no higher than his lips, and the pale light of endurance in his eyes

changed to a fierce flame. Chavanaugh had ridden in about sundown with

a letter. It was hardly a letter, just a few words scribbled on a scrap

of paper, not over a dozen words, but they were from Wah-na-gi.

*CHAPTER XII*

In a great city people live so close together there are no neighbors.

Isolation is the freedom of the city; it's the city's one gift. Men

guard it jealously, are ready to fight for it. It's the only safeguard

against the crowding obligations of a common humanity. One is appalled

at the suggestion of bringing home the sorrows of others, or letting

them peek in at the window--these multitudinous sorrows, so painful, so

sordid. We resent the noise in the cells overhead or the cells

underneath, and we do not want to know that it is the cry of mortal

anguish of those who are as alone as ourselves. It's only people who

live apart, or meet each other on the road to Jericho, that are really

neighbors. The units of a community that is shut off from the rest of

the world huddle together, and gentleness and kindness are born in the

solitudes. In the barren soil of common hardships flowers bloom. But the

city has its advantages. The loneliness of a great city is as nothing

to the isolation of one who is alone in a small community. Wah-na-gi

was being made to feel very much alone. The teachers of the school with

the exception of Wah-na-gi were white women and with one exception,

women of a narrow horizon. They sympathized with her in her struggle

not to go back, but there had always been condescension and toleration

in their attitude toward her. That she was made much of by the Rev. John

McCloud, that she was admired by the chief of police and others perhaps

had not added to her popularity. Sometimes such things make a woman a

suspicious character. When she was returned to the Agency she found

gossip had been before her. Perhaps one may be pardoned for living in a

city, to escape from the terrors of tattle. Calthorpe had been seen.

His escape was known. That she had saved a man's life without being

chaperoned on the occasion, that she remained with the young man at the

ranch an indelicate time, that she had to be brought back by force,

etc., etc.--the intervening details could be supplied by any one with

half an imagination. To the white women on the Agency this was "just

what one might expect from an Indian." The moral attitude is sometimes

a curious one. The knowledge of what we would have done under certain

conditions instead of making us forbearing, strange to say, only makes

us more intolerant; but that knowledge makes us very certain of _just

what happened_. The only person apparently within a hundred miles who

hadn't heard about it was the victim herself. It was night when she

reached the Agency and she went directly to the school. The teachers

lived together in one of the adjoining buildings. The first thing that

met her eyes was her few belongings huddled together on the veranda.

The principal came out just as Wah-na-gi stopped to gaze at the

unfriendly spectacle.

"We didn't know what your plans were, and thought you might be in a

hurry----"

"I would have gone in the morning."

Something of the cruelty of their haste came even to the human

logarithm, and she hurriedly offered to give up to the ex-teacher _her_

room for the night.

Tears were streaming down Wah-na-gi's face and she had to wait a moment

before replying. Then she said simply: "Thank you; no, I couldn't stay

now," and she walked out of the yard, down the deserted street, and out

onto the bench where Chapita had her farm and her log-cabin, some two

miles from the Agency.

"I'm going back," she thought as she trudged the lonely two miles to the

cheerless cabin on the desolate farm. "I'm going back in spite of

myself; going back to the savage in me."

Chapita was the widow of the blood-brother of her father. One of her

few sentiments had been gratitude to the big chief who had been her

husband's friend, and this now flowered in loyalty to his child. She was

an unlovely person but she was human. Her cabin was an unlovely place

but it was a shelter. Wah-na-gi was very tired with her long ride, too

tired perhaps to sleep. She closed her eyes but not in slumber, and

each time that she opened them to escape from the mental images which

terrified and mocked her, it seemed to her as if the walls of the little

cabin were closing in on her inch by inch and that if she lost herself

in forgetfulness they would crush her. The strained stillness of the

night was broken by the mournful howl of the coyotes and the mournful

answer of Chapita's dogs, trying to tell their wild kin how impossible

it was to go back! The dogs were explaining that it wasn't a pleasant

thing to be man's "best friend" but it was better than being his hunted

enemy. But the logic of this made no impression on the coyotes whose

only answer to its inevitableness was to call again and again--come

back; come back.

The following day Wah-na-gi stayed away from the Agency as long as she

could, but it is a long day which has had no night. The odors of the

cabin offended her, and she was waiting for the tardy sun when at last

it consented to get up. Chapita would not allow her to share the simple

chores. They were _her_ refuge from consuming loneliness; so Wah-na-gi

stirred about in the stillness; she sat down in it; she rose up in it.

She looked away off into the distance where was the Red Butte Ranch.

She looked down on the Agency buildings and the brave flutter of its

flag. She did these things several times. Then by the law of

gravitation she found herself in the afternoon at the post-office. She

knew she had no letters, but she had to speak to some one. The fat

post-mistress had protruding eyes and wore glasses that horribly

magnified them. She looked like a mediaeval gargoyle.

"No!" there was no mail for Wah-na-gi, and this simple fact was put

through the narrow window in a way to suggest the early Hebrew prophets

in their favorite posture toward the stiff-necked and rebellious

generation.

Wah-na-gi duly quailed. Thus encouraged the amiable official glared at

her malevolently and suggested with clumsy guile:

"I suppose you know there's a _ree_-ception to-night at the agent's to

the Guv'ment inspector, skool inspector?"

"No; I didn't know it."

"S'pose you're goin'?"

"I don't know--I, er--I don't know." And she hastened out of the dingy

little office of inquisition. Both knew that she wasn't going.

It would seem that one might face the future without despair even if one

should be purposely excluded from so important a function as a reception

by the agent to the school functionary, but these things are relative.

This was as important here as the king's drawing-room would be in

London, and we know that fortunes have been spent, the arts of diplomacy

exhausted, homes shaken, and governments jeopardized for social prizes

of no more real consequence. _Every one_ would know that she was not

there, and nowhere on earth where human beings meet can they exist

without the approval of their fellows.

Besides the wound to her self-esteem there was a genuine loss to her in

not meeting the official. She had started a movement to interest the

Indian children in themselves, their own art, music, history, and

poetry, to awaken their pride of race and stimulate their desire to

preserve and perpetuate these priceless things which were fast drifting

back into the unknown and forgotten. The movement had received

encouragement from some of the wiser folk at Washington. She wanted to

show what she had done, what the children had accomplished. Perhaps it

wasn't of consequence, but it seemed so to her. The inspector would be

told the experiment was a failure, and at the thought of that she wanted

to cry out.

It all seemed so unjust, so cruel. Many of these things were trifles in

themselves, but the sum of them was soon to become portentous.

She stood irresolutely for a moment in front of the post-office. Where

could she go? What could she do? Her employment was gone. The school

was closed--_to her_. She looked over at the trader's store. Cadger had

been shamed before a lot of men and made to apologize _to her_, an

Indian woman. He wasn't likely to forget it in a hurry, and so the

store, the social rendezvous of the Agency, was closed _to her_. There

was the blacksmith shop, the saw-mill out on the bench, the corrals and

stables, and the agent's house. She drifted aimlessly along. Time hung

heavy on her hands. She had ample leisure to think, to face the

situation. She felt physically weak. Her limbs began to tremble and she

sank down. She looked up at the inhospitable sky. There waving over

her was the flag. At least she could sit down here and rest, under her

country's flag. But was it her country, or her flag? Would it protect

her, a friendless Indian woman? Thousands, tens of thousands had died

to make it the symbol of protection.

"Wah-na-gi, my child, what are you thinking of?" And John McCloud laid

his long thin hand upon hers.

"I was thinking that _this_ has meant so much to the white people,

perhaps it might some day mean something to me."

The gaunt man followed the direction of her eyes and saw that she meant

the stars and stripes, and the simplicity of her faith touched and

saddened him.

All he could say was: "Perhaps! Perhaps at an hour when ye think not."

And he took off his hat reverently and without ostentation to that

gallant symbol. "It hasn't always stood for justice to your people, but

on the whole we have reason to be proud of it, and perhaps even the

Indian may come to love it some day."

"I was thinking, too, why everything was made so hard for me."

"That question comes to us all, my dear! To me, too, very often."

But she was so absorbed in her own perplexities she did not see his wan

smile or note his effort to resist the racking cough.

"Have I done anything wrong?"

He looked at her keenly for a second.

"Your asking me the question shows me that you have not."

"Then why?"

"We seem to want to think the worst of each other sometimes. These good

people have decided that you did something indiscreet in following

Calthorpe to the ranch, in remaining there, in having to be brought

home."

She looked at him in wonder. He felt ashamed.

"I tell you this because some one will tell you, and perhaps in a less

friendly way."

"It isn't really worth while; is it?"

"What?"

"Living."

"Oh, yes, my dear. Life is worth living; life is a glorious thing."

It seemed a priceless thing to him struggling so desperately to keep it.

"It doesn't matter if naughty little children make faces at us."

"Yes; but it does matter. These people are here. I am here. I make my

life a little. They make it a good deal."

"No; just reverse that. They make it a little. You make it a good deal.

Wah-na-gi, I have no children. God has not given me that supremest

blessing, but I could not be prouder of you if you were my very own.

I've watched you. You have made a brave, splendid struggle. You must

not give up. You must win out. You have youth and you have health; oh,

thank the good God for that. You have health. We each mean something

in the great sum the Divine Mind is solving. Leave the meaning to Him.

Leave the answer to Him! Trust Him. Promise me not to give up, not to

despair. I couldn't go away and leave you here----"

"You are going away?" The warm blood that was coming back into her

empty heart at the revelation that this good man trusted her, cared for

her, suddenly stopped and left her cold and numb.

"You are going away?"

"I tried hard to like the agent, and when that was impossible, to at

least respect him. After what happened at the asphalt conference my

presence makes Mr. Ladd very uncomfortable. If I wanted to stay, or

could stay, he would not let me. The valley of humiliation is an

unpleasant place, even when it's another's valley."

"You are going back East?"

"No; I couldn't live in the East. I am going over to the Red Butte

Ranch."

"To live with _him_?"

"With Hal; yes. He invited me some time ago, and I've sent him word I'm

coming. I'm going now."

She had an indistinct recollection that he took both her hands in his,

that he begged her not to do something, that she promised whatever it

was he wanted, that there were tears in his eyes, that he asked God's

blessing on her, and then he was gone.

She must have remained there some time, for suddenly she became aware of

the presence of some one, and the flag, the flag that was to be her

protection, was _coming down_. It seemed an evil omen. She was

startled and she thought some one laughed. She looked up. The teachers

in their best array were laughing and chatting in the best of humor on

their way to Agent Ladd's. There was to be a dinner evidently to

precede the reception to the Washington official.

Again she found her way like a wounded bird across the bleak uplands to

Chapita's cabin.

So long as the old woman lived Wah-na-gi would have a refuge. She was

truly grateful for this, as she thought how rapidly her world was

narrowing, and Chapita had her uses, but under no circumstances was it

possible for this ignorant, slovenly, unpleasant old woman to be a

companion to this young girl. They had nothing in common except a need

for the necessities of life, and Chapita was a type to the girl of all

she had striven to avoid.

They were driving her back, back to _this_! Yes, when she was old she

would be like this. She shuddered. It would not have mattered if she

had never known. She could not eat the coarse food badly prepared by

the old woman. She knew that in time hunger would make her eat it! So,

too, in time she would yield and go down, and back to this. Hunger

would force her to it; hunger for companionship, for human ties. She

tried not to let Chapita see how repellent all this was to her. She

tried hard to be gracious and not to hurt her feelings, but the old

woman knew there was a great gulf between them and felt sorry for the

child and patient with her. She, too, shared the thought that in time

Wah-na-gi would come back to her own people. Wah-na-gi had to leave her

food uneaten and get out into the air under the stars. The cabin

contained only a single room. It was very primitive. She thought of

her clean little boudoir at the school, which she had somehow taken for

granted would always be hers, and which she had taken such pains and

such pride in making dainty and attractive. She hadn't slept the first

night in that room of Chapita's. She knew she would sleep this second

night. Nature would bring her to that too. She was so tired and yet

she had done nothing all day, nothing but suffer. Chapita's noisy

breathing told her the old woman had not stayed awake to puzzle over any

one's destiny, and finally she dragged herself into the dirty room and

slept.

She was awake early and unrefreshed. Chapita had not stirred. The

first thing that met Wah-na-gi's eyes as she threw open the door for the

air was a beautiful buckskin dress ostentatiously laid out in a

conspicuous place. It was elaborately outlined and adorned, a striking

example of the best skill in Indian beadwork, and it glistened in the

shadows of the dull, shabby room. Perhaps Chapita had grown wildly

extravagant and had--but what holiday or fete day was it? Her brain

refused to account for any public occasion that would justify Chapita in

wearing such gorgeous habiliments. She would not wake her to inquire,

but dress and get out into the sweet morning air. But her clothes?

What had become of her clothes? They were gone. No, some one had

hidden them. It was a joke, not a joke she relished! She searched the

place. Finally she woke the bewildered Chapita and asked for an

explanation. Chapita was more nonplussed than herself. It was plain

that she knew no more of the appearance of the new and the disappearance

of the old than Wah-na-gi herself. The Indian girl's wardrobe was very

limited, but her simple little frocks were such as white girls wore, and

now for these were substituted very charming specimens of such clothes

as Indian women wear. She sat down to think. Was it a hint, a warning,

or an invitation? There was no mistaking it. She began to feel cowed

and helpless.

"Yes, they are driving me back to the savage in me," she thought. She

sat down helplessly. For a long time she sat so. Finally she put on

the buckskin dress. It was evident that she must unless she was

prepared to remain within doors. There was no mistaking the look in

Chapita's face. It was abject admiration. She thought herself she must

look well in it. The lines were simple and graceful. It fitted her as

if made for her. The quick gratification to her vanity was momentary.

She had a conviction that she looked better in it than in the

conventional clothes of the white woman. This startled her, worried

her. She admired the dress. It made an unmistakable appeal to her.

There is something of the savage lust of color in us all. Was it

because the garment was really beautiful, or because she was an Indian

forever in spite of her aspirations? She knew that the wearing of these

clothes would be hailed by the whites and Indians as a sign of

surrender. She saw their wagging heads, heard their jests and laughter.

She exaggerated their triumph, her own defeat. She wouldn't go to the

Agency any more, and she stayed away that day. It was a long hard day

to get through. She made Chapita's home cleaner inside and out. That

was all she could do. The cabin was approachable only from the front and

sides. On the north it had been stuck up against some broken, crumbling

sandstone cliffs, that it might not be blown off the bench by the

north-east winds when the Winter-man came. Toward the north-west these

ramparts were low, scarcely more than twice the height of the house.

These battlements, a protection in the winter, made the place a flaming

furnace in the summer. It was bearable only at night, at sunset and

sunrise. At other times it was hell. Chapita's farm was a farm in

name. It spread out on the bench in unfenced acres, how many Chapita

did not know or care, of dusty sage-brush and cactus lying on the broken

foot-hills. Irrigation and great labor might have turned its desolation

into a farm; it wasn't likely to get either. Around the house was not a

blade of grass or a flower. Two half-starved mangy dogs occasionally

relieved the gathering and oppressive stillness. At first there was a

sense of relief that no one bothered her, that every one let her alone;

then she began to feel that even the society of Appah or the agent would

be a relief. The monotony of nothing to do, nowhere to go, was

maddening. One day she was wandering aimlessly along a trail feeling

that invisible and malevolent influences were hounding her. It came to

her that she was being "run down," a process employed successfully by

plainsmen and Indians in capturing wild horses. It was very sure if

somewhat slow and tedious. It consisted in never letting the quarry

rest. Suddenly two horsemen loomed up in front of her, and she was

ordered to turn round and go back. They were Indian police and she

looked about and realized that she was on the trail leading to the Red

Butte Ranch. Then she knew that she was watched. Appah was now in

control of the police force and the system invented by Hal for her

protection was now used to persecute her. By and by the sense of

hostile eyes invisible but present grew to be painful. That night when

she got home, she got a very disagreeable impression. Chapita had been

to the distribution of the Government rations; she had been to the

slaughter-house and had fought with the other squaws for the entrails.

Wah-na-gi remembered as a child having once witnessed the hideous and

disgusting spectacle. She had seen the squaws practically skin cattle

alive, before the death convulsion was fairly started or the glazing

eyeball ceased to roll. Chapita bore evidences of the good-natured

rivalry for the refuse. It made Wah-na-gi physically ill. She had a

violent nausea. Worse than all, it was obvious that the poor old woman

had been unfortunate or had been discriminated against, for it looked as

if the rations were those no one else would have. Even the spirit of the

wild horse on the free and limitless plain is broken. The following

morning she went directly to the Agency and walked into the offices.

There the clerks and typewriters were busy with the many details of this

little government within a government. They let her stand at the

railing while they discussed her in whispers until she called to one of

them by name and asked would she be so kind as to let the agent know she

wanted to speak to him. The individual addressed brought back the word

that Mr. Ladd was too busy to see her. She stood for a moment, gripped

her hands, and kept back the tears. Would they tell him it was very

important? There was a shadow of a smile at this, but the message was

delivered. Wah-na-gi would have to come some other time. She came the

next day and the next. It was the same answer. Then she asked for a

piece of paper and a pencil and scribbled on it: "Please, Mr. Ladd, oh

please give me back my school."

There was no answer. She was dizzy as she came out into the street and

she drifted helplessly to the seat at the foot of the flag-staff and sat

down under the flag. Charlie Chavanaugh lounged down beside her and

slyly put something into her hand. She knew it was money, a roll of

bills, and she knew whence it came.

"No; I couldn't take _money_ from him."

This contingency had evidently been provided for, for Charlie said

softly: "See paper. Not now," and walked away. She retained the paper

wrapped about the money and when she got home read it: "Send Chapita to

Crazy John at night." Everybody knew about Crazy John. Out on the

bleak bench for eighteen years had existed a thing which had once been a

man. Under a lean-to so crude and badly made as to offer small shelter

from the blistering heat of the summer and even less protection from the

rigors of winter, huddled a wretch in rags who, so far as any one knew,

had done nothing all these years but lie there. He had a story grim as

Greek tragedy. The man had murdered his mother and his punishment was

self-inflicted. It was as if he had thrown himself down on the hard

bosom of mother earth and said to the elements: "I have sinned past

forgiveness. Do your worst." In all the years, so far as any one knew,

he had never spoken to a human being or lifted a hand to protect himself

except for this wretched lean-to which would not have given shelter to a

wolf. Why the fluids of his body did not freeze when the thermometer

was below zero was a mystery; as great as his immunity from the greedy

wolf and coyote. The Indians believe that the insane enjoy the special

protection of Deity. To them he was a sacred mystery and his tragedy

was respected. Occasionally food was placed within his reach by his

relatives, and white curiosity seekers sometimes tossed him a coin, but

he was a fearsome thing and his dwelling-place was a fearsome spot,

cheerfully avoided.

Wah-na-gi understood. It was something of an undertaking to persuade

the superstitious old woman to go there for the food and supplies left

there by Hal's emissaries, but once the route was established it solved

the problem of bare existence; at least it did for a time. One night

Chapita did not return and in the morning her body was found near the

imbecile with the skull crushed. It was said that the old woman had

been trying to steal the food left for Crazy John and that he had killed

her.

This theory would not have borne scrutiny. The food contained in the

old woman's bag was _uncooked_, and was of a character and quality

unknown to the imbecile or his relatives, but Chapita was a matter of no

particular consequence to any one except Wah-na-gi, and it did not suit

the purposes of any one in authority to question the accepted theory.

When Chavanaugh brought the news to the girl she just threw up her arms

like one who drowns. Then it was she scribbled the ten words to Hal and

gave them to Chavanaugh.

*CHAPTER XIII*

"Gee, she's pretty!"

Cadger came over to the window of his store to see whose horse was

meant.

"Oh," he said, with seeming loss of interest as he walked back to his

account books.

"She's give in. She's wearing Injin clothes."

"She's got pluck, grit. A man would have given in long ago."

It was Ladd at the store window, and there was something in his attitude

or the vibration in his voice that made the other slide him a covert

glance.

"He's a disappointment to me in a way," added Ladd, unconscious of the

hiatus.

"Who?"

"Calthorpe. Didn't think he'd give her up without a struggle. She's

worth fighting for. Most pretty women are just pretty. She's got

something behind it, something sort of tantalizing."

He said this mentally, groping for what it was.

Cadger lifted his head from his figures to shift another curious glance

at the agent, but he did not reply.

"I somehow imagined that Calthorpe thought enough of the girl to pay us

a visit."

"Why should he?" said Cadger, not looking up and continuing to reckon

his gains. "When your worst enemy's a barber, why sit down in his chair

and invite him to shave you?"

"You heard what he said?" suggested the agent.

"You bet I did. He handed you a bunch of roses all right. I'm kind o'

hard of hearin' but I heard it. He said it loud enough fer 'em to hear

it in Washington."

"I'm not afraid of Washington so long as Senator Plumtree and Senator

Wilkins are on the job. I hear that Judge Walker wants to go back to

his law practice, and if he does, Whittaker'll leave the Land Office to

be Secretary of the Interior. Our people aren't losing any tricks."

It was plain that Ladd spoke his convictions when he said he felt easy

as to Washington.

"Appah's gittin' kind o' chesty," suggested Cadger with an indifference

that was important.

"Yes," drawled Ladd. "Take your hand off their throat and let them get

an easy breath and they begin to buck. He's showin' off. He'd like his

people to think he's a bigger man than I am."

"Oh, he'll settle down and git tame when he's lassoed Wah-na-gi."

"Well, he isn't going to lasso Wah-na-gi," said Ladd quickly.

"No? Why, I thought that was your idee."

"I had hoped that Calthorpe and Appah would sort of mix it up and save

me a lot of trouble."

"Then you never intended him to have her?"

"Never."

"That's his understandin'."

"Hand her over to that surly savage?--An educated woman?"

"A good-looker too," suggested Cadger kindly.

"Good-looking?" said Ladd, caught by the bait and forgetting his

audience in the interest of his subject. "Have you ever thought what

she would show for with all the harness and trimmings our women put on?

She isn't good-lookin'; she's a world-beater. Appah's got another

guess. Slowly but surely it will be borne in on him that she's out of

his class."

"Chickens is awful human, ain't they?" said Cadger. "One of 'em gits a

bead on sumpin' good, makes a rush fer it with wings out, and durned if

every other chicken don't leave his job, drop sumpin' better maybe, and

chase after the grub the first one's after. Most of our fun in gittin'

is in takin' it away from somebody else; ain't it?"

Ladd laughed. "Well, I saw it first. Only I never let anything

interfere with business."

Cadger's face never collaborated. He really didn't need features. He

didn't stop figuring, but said calmly: "Our scheme's on the toboggan and

so are you."

"What do you want me to do? Suppose I let him take her? He's got what

he wanted and is independent of us. You and I don't get our pay until

we deliver the goods."

"It's all right to hold him off if you can, but if he sees you're

interested, why it's all off. You can't handle him, that's all."

"Well, if I can't handle him, I can hobble him, and I will. You watch

me." And Ladd strolled out of the store and watched the retreating

figure of Wah-na-gi as she set out for Chapita's cabin.

If Cadger could have managed it he would have treated himself to a

sardonic grin as he said to himself:

"I never knew a good thing yet that wasn't busted by a woman."

Wah-na-gi had been down to sit under the shelter of the flag. It is

difficult for the Indian to resist the inborn reverence for symbols, but

it was futile. She wouldn't go again. She was, Ladd had said, plucky,

but she was at last desperate. Chapita was dead. The cabin which had

always been forbidding and forlorn was now empty. She knew that in her

way Chapita had loved her and that she was always glad to see her, and

then there was some one to talk to. Now she had not even the

half-starved, mangy dogs to welcome her.

When the old woman was buried the wretched beasts were killed and their

carcasses left at the grave, so that she would not miss their

companionship in the spirit world. Solitary confinement drives

prisoners mad. Queer thoughts were creeping into her head, thoughts of

the grave, of death.

Hal had come into his own. He was interested in other things. He had

forgotten. Their paths lay so far apart anyway; they touched for a

short distance only, then diverged again, and would go farther and

farther away as time went on. He could never live at the Agency again;

and she was doomed to it. Should she accept the inevitable, or should

she follow Chapita to that desolate village of the dead over in the Bad

Lands? She hadn't the strength to decide. She would let it be decided

for her. Before she reached the top of the ground swell on which rested

the cabin she was conscious that some one was waiting for her. The

first sense of relief was succeeded almost at once by apprehension, and

she was therefore not surprised to see the tall form of Appah sitting

before her door.

He let her stand in his presence a moment while he looked her over.

Then he said with conviction: "Wayno! Touge wayno!" (Good! Very good.)

His eyes sparkled as he saw her in the picturesque dress of his people.

He stood up. His undisguised elation, his sense of triumph, his

certainty of possession stung her into life. At last there was

something to do. The weary irresolute droop slipped from her like a

shadow and she straightened up and stood face to face with him.

"You have done this," she said, indicating her clothes with a swift

gesture that left no doubt of her attitude. "You have done this, but

you can't drive me back. You can dog my steps and spy on me; you can

steal my clothes like a sneaking squaw; you can take away from me my

children, my school; you can starve me and run me down like a wild

horse; you can make fun of me to my people, and make them hate me, but

you can't drive me back; I'm an Indian woman, but I'm a woman; you can't

make me a cringing squaw, crawling at your feet, ready to lick your

hand. I'm past that. You can hunt and hound me, but you can't break

me!"

His amazement let her get so far, then he advanced upon her with arm

upraised.

"Yes and you can kill me as you did Chapita--but it won't make any

difference."

The allusion to Chapita startled him and gave him pause a moment to

regain his poise and restrain his homicidal impulse.

He drew back, folded his arms and, with a sullen face, said: "Maybe so

hate Injin, hate Injin all time."

"No; I don't hate my people. I love them. I want to make them better

and stronger and freer. It's you that hates them. Nothing stops.

Everything changes. White people change, Indian must change. The

buffalo are gone. Lands are gone. Crowded, crowded! Everybody crowded!

No room to hunt any more. The Indian must learn to be clean, strong, to

work. I love my people; I want to do them good. People like you make

trouble, keep them back, deceive them. The old ways are gone. They

never will come back; they cannot come back. Once we were hunters,

warriors--that was good. Now we must be farmers--that, too, is good.

Shinob makes it so. We must obey. You know better too, but you cling

to the old ways because they're better for you. If these people weren't

ignorant and superstitious they'd know you for what you are--a liar and

a cheat."

Appah was in a measure sophisticated, but the fury and audacity of this

left him somewhat dazed. He was a reactionary, and the latest phase of

the new woman was a form of madness new to him. It might easily have

discouraged a wiser man. He was determined to make one more try before

falling back on the only recourse left--force.

"Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! (You will be sorry!) Teguin (friend) me! wayno

teguin!" he said in an effort to placate her. "Peenunk (pretty soon)

pikeway (go away)," and he pointed to the mountains. "Big hunt, maybe

so deer catch 'em, make medicine, good time. Maybe so you come, eh?"

"With you? No; I cannot. I will not."

He looked puzzled and frustrated. What would appeal to this woman he

wanted?

"Appah way off yonder! By and by you come my wickiup. My wickiup, your

wickiup! Pah-sid-uway?"

He was telling her that his home was hers, that while he was away he

would like her to live in it, with the implication that all that was in

it was hers.

"Thank you; I must stay here."

He saw he had made no progress and fierce anger blazed up within him.

He looked at her, at the squalid cabin and its surroundings, and stalked

away muttering to himself: "Mun-a-ra-tit-tur-nee! Na-nunk-quoi-vandum."

(There will be much trouble.)

She sank down on the empty box where Appah had awaited her. It was a

relief, this burst of anger. She had been fighting shadows. She had

been alone with her thoughts, her fears, with no one to share them with

her. Here was a human being she could hate. There was a savage joy in

battle, and she felt an unholy uplift in having hit hard.

Appah would have the better of it in the end, perhaps, but he would

carry a scar--there was consolation in that. How curious it was! Appah

was very anxious to make her his wife; there was no doubt about that.

Why was it that the man she loved, and who loved or seemed to love her,

hadn't ever mentioned that subject to her?

"I'll bet I can read your thoughts."

Agent Ladd stood before her, smiling down at her.

She rose in a startled way.

"Mr. Ladd? You here?"

"Don't be frightened. May I sit down and talk with you?"

Here was something new. The aggressive autocrat could be gentle, even

deferential. She was puzzled. What could it mean?

She motioned to the box and he sat and took out a pipe and began to fill

it.

"First of all, I'd like you to know I'm your friend."

"You haven't acted much like one."

"You won't have to complain of that in the future. As you know, it's the

policy of the Government to keep the Indians apart. To discourage their

marrying with the whites and to encourage their marrying among

themselves. I couldn't openly oppose Appah or stand in his way. In

fact, I've given him a free hand, for one reason," and Ladd laughed at

his own shrewdness; "because I knew he didn't have a ghost of a chance.

You're an educated woman--a lady--and he's a blanket Injin--a savage.

It's preposterous."

"And yet you stood by and let them try to drive me back to being a

blanket Indian."

"He is an influential man with his people, and it was the only way he

would understand. He had to know it was hopeless. Well, he's had his

inning; he's had everything his own way; he's brought every argument and

influence to bear, legitimate and illegitimate, and he's failed,

completely failed, and now it's time this persecution of you stopped;

and I'm going to stop it."

He looked at her in a benevolent way, but she waited.

"You can go back to your position in the school whenever you want it."

"Oh, Mr. Ladd; do you mean it?"

If Agent Ladd had known how beautiful he looked to her in the role of

Santa Claus he would have been tempted to live it instead of play it.

"Then you don't believe those stories?"

"There is no one knows a good woman better than the man who has had a

tolerably wide acquaintance with the other kind. The only difference in

women is love. There isn't anything a good woman or a bad woman won't

do for the man she loves. And in that connection I want to ask you a

rather personal question. You know that Calthorpe and I are enemies.

I've been deceived in that boy. I think you have too." Before she had

time to protest he said bluntly: "Has he ever asked you to marry him?"

Before she had time to think, before she realized that the agent had no

right to ask the question, she gasped falteringly: "No! No."

"I thought so. And he's been doing the devoted for a long time."

She was so conscious of the truth of this that she had no time to

reflect that the agent was going quite beyond the legitimate bounds of

his position.

"He isn't on the level. You can't trust a half-breed."

"Mr. Ladd, you mustn't say that to me.

"I'll show you the difference. I'll ask you to be my wife."

This was so amazing, so direct, that it took her breath away. She could

only sink down bewildered on an upturned bucket. All her preconceived

ideas of the man seemed to need readjusting. How did it happen?

"Now, take your time and give me an even chance." He rose but did not

disturb her by advancing toward her. "Wah-na-gi, I'm playing for big

stakes. I'll tell you something in confidence. These asphalt mines are

valuable--very valuable, but back of them are coal mines--rich? There's

no end to 'em. At the lowest price ever paid for coal they would pay

the national debt and God knows how much besides. The cowboys don't

know that. There are only three people know it as yet--a big capitalist,

his engineer, and myself. These cowboys are children in a game like

this."

"How does this interest me?"

"Why, if we can get our bill through Congress before the rest of the

world knows what we're up to, you and I won't have to live at Standing

Bear Agency. We'll have the world in a sling. We'll make a plaything

of it. Every luxury, every pleasure, honors, if we want 'em! Society?

Why, if you want society, we'll buy it for you. Culture, learning,

genius; why, they'll eat out of our hand. We'll show 'em. Who'll care

then who you are or what you are? Who'll know or care whether you are

an Indian or a Fejee? You'll be _my wife_--the wife of one of the three

or four richest men in the world. I'll put the world on its knees to

you, my girl."

"I don't know that I care much for _things_."

"But you will. You'll learn. Gosh, wants are easily picked up. It's

doing without that needs practice."

"And in the mean time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Before all this happens?"

"We must of course keep this a secret for the present."

"Ah!"

"Now, don't misunderstand me. Personally I have no race prejudice and I

despise the idiot that has, but I'm on the job here. I can't let go.

I'd lose my pull with the Department, with the settlers, and with the

Indians themselves. Now, isn't that so? _You know_."

"It is so impossible I wonder you ever thought of it."

"Nothing is impossible with me. People have done that before--kept

their relations secret for a time----"

"Their relations?"

The word was an unfortunate one. He realized it. It was a word that

uncovered the mental reservation that sneaked behind it. She looked at

him in a way that made him uncomfortable. She drew herself up with a

mocking smile. He had spoken with such conviction and passion as to

please and convince himself. He felt the genial glow of protecting this

beautiful woman against the ignorance and prejudice of the world. That

it was to be in imagination and in the future made it easier and more

attractive.

"You aren't fair to me," he said in a hurt tone of reproach. "I'll do

anything any other man would do--I'll marry you."

"When?"

He hesitated. She saw his hesitation. He knew that she did and he felt

his dreams melting away. Like other blessings, they "brightened as they

took their flight." He had strapped down his passion for a long time

because he realized that it wasn't "business." Now he had unloosed it,

given it rein, had sensed its realization, and it carried him away. He

stood ready to take any risk, make any sacrifice, at that moment; but it

was a second thought.

"You came here," she said with a cruel smile, "to offer me relations."

"I'll marry you _now_, if you'll keep it a secret until----"

"You've insulted me, and the shame of it is you don't know it. If I

were a white woman you respected you wouldn't have come here in secret

and made me such an offer."

Wah-na-gi hadn't the feminine gift of denying men and yet leaving no

sting. It didn't matter. She was reckless, desperate. Her eyes

flashed and Ladd bowed before her even through his anger. He had made a

bad beginning. He had underestimated her, her intelligence, her pride,

and that made her all the more desirable. Inwardly he cursed himself

and her, but inwardly, too, he swore to have her, never to give her up.

"I would rather marry Appah," she said with conviction. She wanted to

hurt him and she did.

"Wayno, wayno!"

It was Appah who stood before them, with two of his men, and gave his

cordial assent to what he had just heard. A miracle had happened and

all seemed well.

"My squaw! touge wayno!" he started to go to her. Ladd stood in his

way.

"What _are_ you doing here?" said the agent fiercely.

"What _you_ do here?" was the angry response.

"None of your damn business."

"All same me damn business too."

"What are these men doing here?"

He noticed the small rope carried by one of them. Wah-na-gi answered for

them.

"Appah is going off up into the Moquitch to hunt and make medicine, and

he wanted to take me with him."

"Oh, it was to be a wedding journey, eh?" sneered Ladd.

"Go? Wayno! No go? Maybe so all same take her, pah-sid-uway?"

"I won't go. I told you that. I won't go!"

"And you won't take her. I'll tell you that." Ladd could not resist

the temptation to play the role of protector for her and before her.

Appah did not at first grasp the meaning of Ladd's about-face. He had

not had occasion before to look upon the agent as a rival. However, in

flashes of love and hate, mental photography is almost instantaneous

even in dull brains. He faced Ladd with steady eye.

"Pah-kowo-nunk!" (Kill you.)

"Easy there. Easy there!" said Cadger who, missing the busy agent, had

rightly guessed where to find him. The two antagonists did not know

whether to be annoyed or relieved at the trader's presence. He added an

element that could not be exactly measured or overlooked.

"He can't bullyrag women," said Ladd to Cadger, but keeping his eyes on

Appah, "and drag them around wherever he likes; and he can't force this

woman to marry him--not while I'm agent."

"What's matter you?" glared Appah, furious at interference from a source

where it was totally unexpected. "What's matter you? You, too, pretty

good liar, damn quick."

"The first man that puts his hand on his weapon'll have me to deal

with," said Cadger. "You ain't agoin' to ignore me. I've got some

interests at stake here," and he pushed himself between the two men who

fell back before him, and then, turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "You

better go into the house until we find where we stand. You're safer

there."

"Yes, go in, Wah-na-gi," said Ladd; "leave it to me."

She was glad to go in; glad to get away from them if only for a few

moments. But a cruel thought went in with her and stayed with her. The

man she loved had not asked her to be his wife. She tried to put it

away, but it came again and again to plague her. If he did not care, why

should she? It was settled; she did not want to live!

Cadger watched her retreating figure until it was evident that she had

really gone, then he turned to the others and said: "Sit down. We got

to talk this over."

They sat in a semicircle and each was very alert and watchful. No one

smoked or thought of it.

"Now, first of all, Dave Ladd; you're a white man and ought to have more

sense. You can't afford to quarrel with Appah any more'n he can afford

to quarrel with you. I've got a lot at stake too. I'm damned if either

of you is agoin' to throw me down and my interests. The first man that

tries it'll git his head blowed off. You a-riskin' the biggest stake a

man ever played fer, just fer a pretty face! There's millions of pretty

faces and only one chance like this. We've gone too far with Appah to

give him the double cross, and the woman's his price."

"He'll have to name another price. We'll give him more money, more

cattle, more horses, and all that; more of anything else he likes."

"Suppose he's as big a fool as you, and rather have the pretty face?"

"It ain't his to choose. It's mine to give. It isn't only this

woman--it's a question who's master here--he or me."

Appah said nothing but his face showed he was irreconcilable.

"Will you take anything else?" said Cadger. "Horses, cattle, wagons?"

"Katch-wayno."

"_You_ won't," rasped Cadger to the agent; "and _you_ won't," he hissed

at Appah. "All right, I'm not goin' to sit down while you ruin me

between you. It's a deadlock, and _I_ decide it. I decide that you

gamble for it, and I kin shoot quicker'n either one of you. Is that a

go?"

There was a pause while each of the others looked the _impasse_ in the

face. It seemed the only way out of a situation that involved the pride

of each of these reckless men as well as the asphalt stakes.

Both antagonists were born gamblers. Each believed in his luck.

Cadger paused for a moment while each antagonist quickly weighed his

chances; then the trader saw there was silent acquiescence. It was

obviously the only way out of a dangerous dilemma.

The sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and the long shadows had

quickly melted into night. There was a sudden chill in the air. Chapita

cooked in the open air. There was a smouldering fire before the lean-to

which was a sort of summer kitchen. The two friends of Appah threw some

dry greasewood on the ashes and coaxed the embers into a blaze. The

players sat down before the fire, their faces lit by its fitful blaze.

"We haven't any cards here," said Ladd.

"Appah, you or your friends got a set of bones?" asked Cadger, but he

knew they never were without them.

Appah produced them from his pouch.

"Good! The best three in five," said the umpire.

The "bone-game," sometimes called "the moccasin game," because the bones

were formerly hidden and juggled in a moccasin, is, I suppose, a sort of

Indian version of the "three-shell-game" of the white man.

The small bones are marked differently, one black, one red. Appah was

an expert player. Much of his skill was attributed by his people to his

medicine, to magic! Perhaps some of it was due to his hypnotic power

which he undoubtedly possessed in a measure. He had a snake-like

concentration of the eye that seemed to have reptilian fascination in

it. He and his Indian companions began the gamblers' song, a weird,

monotonous incantation, the two friends beating time to its rhythm.

Appah showed the bones to all, then passed them to the agent. Ladd took

them, passed them from hand to hand, rolled them together, made passes,

and quickly showed that he was no novice at the game, which above all

requires dexterity. He finally extended his two hands and Appah

chose--and lost. The agent's eyes sparkled with elation as he

carelessly tossed the bones to Appah. The medicine man caught only one

of the bones, the _one he wanted_, and picked the other up without

attracting the attention of the observers. Then it was the agent's turn

to guess. The Indian's manipulation of the little sticks was

extraordinary--it would have done credit to a skilled sleight-of-hand

performer. It bewildered the eye. Ladd had never played with Appah, and

he began to grow peevish as the provoking skill of his opponent was made

manifest.

He remembered too late the gambler's axiom not to "go up against the

other fellow's game." He felt that Cadger should have warned him.

While this was passing swiftly through his brain, almost as swiftly

passed the bones before his eyes. Appah watched his victim. He brought

his two fists together with a series of rapid movements, then paused,

saw perfectly well in the agent's face the choice he was about to make,

then opened his hand: it was empty. He laughed in Ladd's face and his

friends laughed. He was, or thought he was, "having fun" with the white

man. Ladd's relief at not having made the choice he had intended was

drolly apparent. Again a series of manipulations more rapid than the

first. Sometimes the little sticks seemed to pass directly through one

hand to the other. Finally the two hands came to rest before him and

the mocking, cruel eyes invited him to the test. He chose and lost.

The incantation swelled with a note of triumph and its insistence was

irritating. There was an undefined feeling on the part of the agent

that the chant gave the other side an undue advantage. All gamblers are

superstitious. He was ashamed to demand silence, and yet the noise was

confusing, disconcerting. They were at least even. Each had won once.

Appah's eye was fixed on him in supercilious derision and Ladd displayed

less confidence, and therefore took longer for his manipulation. Appah

chose, and won. This time the agent put the bones in the _medicine

man's hand_. If Appah won now the woman was his to do with as he

pleased. Among other motions Appah passed his hands underneath his

knees. This was fair as the Indians played the game, but Ladd

protested. Cadger disallowed his protest and Appah smiled an evil

smile. The agent held back as the bronze hands were placed before him.

He hesitated before indicating his choice--and _lost_. Quick as a flash

he reached over and caught the Indian's other hand.

"Open that other hand--open that hand!" he screamed. Appah with a quick

twist of the wrist shook himself free. "You damn cheat!" And Ladd

struck him in the face.

It happened so quickly that no one had a chance to interfere. Appah had

his knife out and the agent his gun drawn before the onlookers had time

to interfere. Appah got to close quarters at once and they came

together in a clinch. Then it became a task of some difficulty and no

little risk to interfere. Appah's followers began to skirmish to get

control of their chief while Cadger bent his energies to restraining the

infuriated agent. It was a pretty mix-up, and much admired by an

individual who had been an interested observer for some time. He was

standing rifle in hand on the small cliff to the right of the cabin, and

was busy directing the movements of some cowboys who were scrambling

over each other down the perpendicular side of the rock. It was a

soldier's trick and the man who directed it had the bearing of the

soldier. The first man down after the human chain was formed went

directly to the cabin and emerged with Wah-na-gi. Her weight was

nothing to these sinewy men and her slender figure went up the

man-ladder as if it were part of a perfected drill in a military

tournament. The man with the rifle put his hand over her shoulder as

the man-ladder was hoisted man by man. The last man was up.

The combatants had at last been dragged apart, frenzied and gasping,

their faces distorted with hate.

"She isn't going with you," screamed Ladd at Appah.

"No, she's going with me," called down the man from the cliff.

And they disappeared in the darkness.

*CHAPTER XIV*

The morning following Chavanaugh's appearance with Wah-na-gi's message,

Bill and McCloud awoke to find themselves the only persons besides the

man cook left on the ranch. Hal knew how to keep his own counsel, so

little was said by his two friends, each supposing that the other had

been informed of the boss's plans and had received his instructions.

But as day wore on and night came, and no word of Hal or his men, each

looked at the other inviting confidences and each went to bed without

giving or receiving any.

"Hello, Parson; you're up early."

"Wasn't sleeping very well, Bill."

It was before dawn of the following day and the stars were still

blinking in the crisp air. The clergyman had had a bad night and had

crawled out into the open to get the rest denied to him in bed. He

leaned wearily against the support of the veranda and wiped the cold

perspiration from his brow. Bill had come from the stable opposite with

a lantern in his hand and, seeing some one looming shadowy and ghostly

in the dim light, had come over to the tired, pathetic figure and held

his lantern up to the clergyman's face. It was a Rembrandt effect. The

great patient eyes burning in their hollow sockets, the white face

shining with the borrowed light of another world! Here, in the light of

a stable lantern, was a beauty that could not be translated into flesh

and blood. Here was a face that had been a battle-ground; the scene of a

mighty conflict, a life-and-death struggle. It was all there--the

wreckage of high hopes and ambitions, the sacrifice of blood and

treasure, the sad evidences of futile charges, repulses, heroic stands,

of fallen and recovered flags, of glorious scars and wounds, the ashes

of spent camp-fires, and the funeral inarch to the inevitable trench.

It was noble; it was pitiful; it would be horrible but for the to-morrow

when "the weary are at rest."

The eyes of Big Bill were moist and he threw an almost gruff tone into

his morning greeting.

"How clean the air is, Bill," said the parson, scenting the perfume of

the morning. "What has become of Hal?"

"Ain't never said a word to me. Thought he must have told _you_.

Perhaps he's gone over to see McShay."

"He and McShay have become great friends," said McCloud, smiling.

"Thicker'n thieves; blood-brothers, as the Injins play it."

"What will be the outcome of the asphalt fight, Bill?"

"Oh, sooner or later the boys'll have to sell out to the Trust."

"Hal's worried; very much worried. Is it about the asphalt?"

"Worried, is he? What do you suppose a feller about his age is usually

worried about? A woman, Parson, just a female woman; and he's in luck

if it's only one."

There was a peculiar note in the air. It wasn't a sound, but the shadow

of a coming sound. Both men made a simultaneous movement, paused and

listened, then looked solemnly at each other. The beat of hoofs and the

advancing rush of man and horse was in the air. In a whirlwind of dust

the bronchos were brought from a run to a standstill in a few short,

staccato jumps, as the cattle horse is trained, and out of the dusk of

the morning Hal advanced with a protecting arm about Wah-na-gi.

"Bill, pay Chavanaugh and these Indians twice the sum I promised them

and let them go. I don't want to involve them in any trouble I may have

with the agent or the Government, and put the ranch in trim for a scrap.

Let no one on the premises without my permission and place my men so as

to prevent surprise. They have my orders."

Bill started to whistle but Hal continued: "And have me a fresh horse

saddled. I'll go out and take charge of the men as soon as I can

explain matters here."

Bill's face was a study in lengthening shadows, but by the time Hal had

finished he had got his second wind and managed to take up a hole in his

mental belt and addressed the situation thus: "Well, boys, the boss is

agoin' some; but he pays as he goes, so I guess you don't mind a little

excitement."

"Excitement!" exclaimed Rough-house Joe. Joe had gained his sobriquet

because he expressed the joy of being drunk by breaking and smashing

things, not with malice, but in a buoyant spirit of playfulness. He was

a long, lanky, loosely joined hulk with a solemn, cadaverous face,

flanked by enormous ears that stood out from his head like ventilators

on a ship. Joe was the kind of person that dies young in the cattle

country. He had been unusually lucky. "Excitement?" he drawled. "A

scrap with Injins? Why, it's pussy wants a corner. Why, if the boss'll

say the word, and the troops'll just look the other way, we'll put Ladd

and the Agency out of business before you could sing 'Blest Be the Tie

that Binds,' omittin' the first and last stanzas. As fer the boss?

We'll stay in the saddle with him if he rides through hell; eh, boys?"

And the crowd of Hal's retainers went off yip-yipping and yapping in the

approved cowboy style in their enthusiasm for the young boss and

uplifted by the consciousness of having earned a handsome addition to

their month's wages.

As soon as Big Bill and the men were gone Hal turned to McCloud with a

smile: "Got another boarder, John; you won't be so lonesome now."

McCloud looked past him out to the eternal hills.

Wah-na-gi went to the preacher timidly. "Please don't be angry. I sent

him word. I asked him to take me away. Don't make me go back. Won't

you let me stay? Won't you?"

McCloud did not look at her but gave her hand a reassuring touch. Then

he said to Hal, in a tone of pity: "I thought you were a man. You're

only a boy; a crazy boy."

"Don't be too hard on me, John."

He said this with a plaintive appealing smile, very hard to resist, but

John McCloud did not see it. He was looking into the future with the

prescience and the sternness of the prophet. He had been accustomed all

his life to self-examination. He had only an acquired patience with

those who act first and think afterwards. He belonged to a race that by

instinct and training had learned to scrutinize desire, to stop

inclination at the door, and make her tell her business. It was much

easier than to turn her out of doors after she was once in.

Hal felt the need of sympathy and understanding, and he put out his hand

toward the other but withdrew it. Turning to Wah-na-gi, he said: "Go

in, little woman; lie down and rest. You must be very tired."

He walked with her to the door with a protecting hand on her shoulder.

It is difficult to altogether appreciate what this meant to her starved

soul, worn out with the struggle against her pitiless environment, ready

to lie down and die. This hand, so strong, so gentle! At last she

could trust, and rest. She could forget the past; she could leave the

present and the future in his hand, so strong, so gentle.

"Yes, I'm tired; but nothing matters _now_," she said with a smile from

which every trace of care had vanished--the smile of a happy child.

He stood looking after her for a moment after she disappeared into the

house--his house. He would have liked to close the door and turn to the

world and say: "She's mine. Leave us alone. Forget us. Go your ways

and let us be happy."

But no, the world would not do that. It never did. It was a crazy,

cruel world, where everything was as wrong as it could be. He turned to

find McCloud still sitting on the bench before the door, staring into

space. He seemed so much older. The skin seemed to have been drawn

tighter over his big bones; or was it the gray, pitiless light of dawn?

Now that the stress of action was off he, too, felt weary and old as he

came over and sat down beside his friend.

"I suppose you think I'm mad?" he said patiently, with the patience of

physical weariness. McCloud did not look at him.

"It was a mad thing to do, Hal, my boy."

"You won't understand it, John; you couldn't."

"I thought it was agreed that you were to wait until I could determine

whether the Government would let me adopt her; make her my ward, my

child."

"It would have been too late. She sent me word: 'Will you come for me

or must I kill myself?'"

"A momentary desperation is very far from the accomplishment of such an

_act_ in a young and healthy child."

"I couldn't let it happen. I couldn't take the risk. And the thought of

those claws of Appah's. Well, I couldn't see straight. I couldn't

leave her to a fate like that! I couldn't!"

"You want her for yourself," said the elder man with the nearest

approach to sarcasm of which he was capable.

"I don't deny it. I'm mad with love for her. That's the truth."

"You took her away by force. They'll take her back by force. It's a

bad business, Hal, my boy. There is only one way you can keep her now."

"What's that?"

"Why, as your wife."

As Hal made no immediate response to this, the other turned and looked

at him for the first time, as he added quietly: "You must have thought

of that?"

"Yes, I've thought of it," said the boy brokenly as his hands clutched

each other. Then he rose and walked away as if he would physically

avoid that thought. "Yes, I've thought of it."

The clergyman's grave face grew graver. It wasn't often any one saw a

stern look in those gentle eyes.

"You are not prepared to go as far as that?"

"Oh, you don't understand," groaned the boy; "I wish I could make her my

wife. I wish I could!"

"And the mother of your children?"

"Yes, yes; I'd make her mine if I could--if I could!"

"Ah, I see," said the other with comprehension and with a dreary little

smile.

"I have a wife in England." And the lad sank down on the remnants of a

broken harrow.

McCloud looked at the bent figure sadly.

"You never told me."

"What was the use?"

McCloud shook his head over this world-old excuse of sinners. It is so

much easier to let things drift, to avoid, to trust to events or the

mistakes or acts of others. Hal wasn't the first to leave the unsolved

problem with the vague, unexpressed, shadowy hope that he would come

back to it and somehow find it solved, find the answer staring him in

the face.

"And your wife?" probed the inquisitor. "What of her?"

"As to my wife, my conscience is clear, John--absolutely clear." This

was said with such boyish frankness and ingenuousness as to bring an

almost worldly smile to the face of John McCloud.

"Are _you_ a fair judge of that?"

"I try to be. I think I am. I married Edith because I loved the woman

I thought she was. She never loved me. She married me because I was

the most available man coming into a title. She was a beautiful woman.

Perhaps my vanity was flattered. It was a bad beginning. I won't accuse

her or excuse myself. Perhaps she would have been different, married to

a different man, or to a man she loved. When I saw what a mess we'd made

of it, I put up a fairly decent fight to make the best of it, but she

wouldn't let me, or it wasn't possible. Anyway, our marriage ended in

being degrading to us both. We were going to hell fast, both of us. I

ought to have freed myself before I left England. I owed it to myself."

Though he made some effort to avoid it, this was said with some of the

bitterness of the past.

"A divorce?"

The way John McCloud said this was a trumpet call to battle, and Hal

accepted the challenge. He was at his best in a fight, but it wasn't

ground of his choosing, and he felt at a disadvantage with an antagonist

like John McCloud, for the boy knew he had no claims to being super-man.

"A divorce? Yes. Why not? You're a big man, John McCloud. You don't

believe that God has joined all those whom the alderman, has joined, all

those whom ambition, or pride, or avarice, or lust, or even honest

mistakes have joined. You don't believe that the words of a church

service sanctify marriage? Love makes marriage a sacrament, mutual

love."

John McCloud in his strenuous life had gone up into some exceeding high

mountains where he had communed with his own soul and with his God, and

many, very many things which to the average clergyman seem fixed and

absolute, because he has never been higher than the roof of his own

church or an office building, seemed to McCloud small and mutable.

"My son," he said with kindly tolerance, "marriage is the most important

voluntary act of a man's life, and divorce ought to be like

death--inevitable."

"I have a right to be free," and Hal's voice vibrated with passion.

"You mean you'd _like_ to be free; but your desire no longer involves

yourself alone; it involves others, perhaps the unborn. You cannot

trust to your own inclinations. Are you willing and are you able to

take your feelings, emotions, desires to God, lay them bare before Him

and ask _Him_ for the answer?"

"I don't think of God as a cruel and omnipotent _Don't_."

"That is the test, my lad."

"You're a queer man, John. Up where you are you can look into the next

world, but it must be awfully cold up there. You mustn't ask me to live

up to your standard. I couldn't do it. You're not like me, a man with

passions."

"Oh, my boy, my dear boy," interrupted the other with amused patience;

"you don't know what you are saying. I know what you are suffering. I

have loved too, not so violently perhaps as you; perhaps as

sincerely--at any rate with all my soul--and I ran away--ran away from

happiness, because I would not inflict an invalid on the woman I loved,

nor make her the mother of sickly children; and so for this world we

said good-by, and I am here alone--alone--except for God."

Hal was very still. It meant a great deal to him that John McCloud had

taken him behind the curtain. He realized that it was a supreme test of

the other's affection, and he felt ashamed that he should have taken for

granted so much that was childish in assumption and offensive in its

condescension. In the presence of the other man's sorrows his own

seemed dwarfed and commonplace. When his voice was steady he said:

"Then you know; yes, you know." And McCloud understood what he would

have liked to say but couldn't.

"Does Wah-na-gi know?" he asked relentlessly.

"No, I couldn't tell her; but I will."

Swiftly it passed through McCloud's thought: "Is this a house built upon

sand? Would this lad run straight? Would he stand the test? Would he

swerve under pressure? Or was he one of those infirm of purpose, who

take cycles of infinity to develop into a man--God's man?"

"My boy," he said gently; "you must make a calm, relentless examination

of your own soul. You must not forget that you are a white man. You

have Indian blood in your veins, it is true, but you were born and bred

a gentleman. Have you thought of that?"

"Gentleman?" said the boy bitterly. "I'm a half-breed. I've never been

allowed to forget it."

It was the first time McCloud had ever heard him use the odious term,

and the expression of his face, the tone of his voice, opened up a

vision of a journey made tragic with the burden of the cross and the

crown of thorns. He knew for the first time what this boy had suffered

and it filled his soul with pity. But he saw in the bitter past only a

sign and prophecy for the future. Here was the wound. The boy had

bared it and placed in his hand the knife. He must use it.

"Then you know, no one better than you, that there is nothing more cruel

in a cruel world than race prejudice."

"And nothing more cowardly," flashed back the quivering victim.

"I'm not speaking for myself. You knew that. You know I love this young

woman. She is a fine soul--brave, patient, serene. To me she is a

child of the living God. Theoretically we are all equal before the

All-Father. Theoretically we are all His children; but we live in a

world of prejudice and passion, of huge implacable ignorance of the

simplest things of divine Love. Is it wise to arouse that ignorance,

challenge its ferocity, live face to face with it, and force your wife

and children to live face to face with it? Is it wise to subject them

to commiseration and that odious sense of superiority which is one

unending crucifixion? Do you want them to suffer as you have suffered?"

In his effort to hold up before this youth the eternal truth, to make

him bow the stubborn neck under the yoke of duty, John McCloud was as

implacable as Savonarola, and Hal lowered his head before the blast.

The sick man shook off his limitations, forgot his weakness, rose up out

of the trammels of the flesh and stood over the boy, the preacher, the

priest, the prophet, aroused and potential, and all the pent-up passion

of the saver of souls, the martyr, and fanatic, burst into flame.

"Race prejudice? It's the curse of the world," he cried. "In all ages

men have been busy inventing reasons for being better than their fellow

men. The Jews called themselves the 'Chosen People' in order to

exterminate the un-chosen, and now the Russians persecute and murder the

Jews. The Turks massacre the Armenians. The Germans would

'_eliminate_' the Poles. The Anglo-Saxon is a mongrel who thinks his

pure blood gives him the right to make the rest of the world buy the

goods he can't sell at home. The amiable and enlightened Dr. Johnson

once said of us: 'I am willing to love all mankind except _Americans_--I

would burn and destroy them.' And we Americans, the most mixed of

mixtures! We are proud of our enlightenment, and yet we call the

Italian a 'dago,' the Mexican a 'greaser,' the Chinaman a 'chink.' We

excuse our treatment of the Indian by inventing the phrase: 'The only

good Indian is the dead Indian.' And recently we burned twenty churches

and school-houses belonging to the negroes in order to teach them

respect for law and order. It is nineteen hundred years since the Son

of God brought 'peace on earth and good-will to men,' and still we have

the gospel of Hate."

McCloud's fine eyes flamed and two bright scarlet spots burned in his

cheeks.

"Perhaps," said Hal, rising under the torrent of the other's eloquence;

"perhaps I can help show the world that mankind is superior to any

race."

Swift as the swoop of the eagle came back: "Then you must be willing to

be a martyr. Your Indian mother was a victim of this and your own life

is shadowed by it. Are you going to repeat _her_ tragedy?" And he

pointed to the rock that mutely stood before them and bore its silent

witness to the sorrow of the broken heart that lay beneath it.

"God forbid!" ejaculated the boy, tears springing to his eyes as the

figure of his mother loomed dimly out of childhood's memories. "God

forbid! Poor little mother! I think the secret of her tragedy was that

my father did not love his little Indian wife. I love Wah-na-gi."

The boy's sincerity was unmistakable. McCloud hurried on that he might

not be swerved from his purpose.

"You love Wah-na-gi; yes, now; but what of the future? Do you dare look

into the future? You are heir to a title and estates. You will

eventually take up your obligations to an honored name and a glorious

civilization."

Hal straightened up and showed fight. Hitherto McCloud had called to

the lover, to his chivalry, to the potential father. It was an appeal

he could not ignore, that lifted him up and swept him along with it.

Now it was to his own interests. It was an anticlimax. The trained

controversialist had made a mistake. Titles, estates, an honored name,

civilization! The Shepherd of the sheep had put on the garments of the

man of the world and they didn't fit. To the youth, in the throes of a

mighty passion, they sounded hollow and empty. Hal had never discussed

his past, his life, with any one. How was the preacher to know that he

was walking among the graves of things already buried? Titles, estates,

an honored name, civilization! It probably never occurred to Samson to

pause over his duties to Philistine society, and to hesitate over the

beauty of the temple where he was on exhibition. Hal started to rise,

to throw off this incubus sought to be put upon him, to tear it to

pieces; but the hated things had done something for him, taught him

restraint, the capacity to measure the other man's point of view, and so

he sat down again before he spoke and struggled to keep his voice even,

though it vibrated with scorn.

"I hate the whole thing! Why should I be the victim of conditions which

are no part of my consent or my will? I don't want the title! I don't

want a place in their silly, rotten world. I couldn't live in it or be

a part of it. I'll take the ranch and make my own way, and I claim the

right to do it. I want my own life and the freedom to live it. I gave

the best that was in me to civilization, and civilization kicked me out,

robbed me of a career, made my home a hell, and so I say--to hell with

civilization."

McCloud was surprised. He was an emotional man too, and he thrilled to

the sweep of this violence. He would have liked to take the boy in his

arms and cry: "Oh, Absalom, my son, my son!" Instead, he held him away,

shifted his own ground, and sought the joints of the other's harness.

Hal's allusion to his home seemed to offer an opening.

"This wife in London, this unhappy home--perhaps it is an appointed

barrier!"

"Barriers are surmounted--swept away!"

Hal was standing now and he looked audacious and puissant. He looked

the master of his own destiny. The man who had passed through the fire,

whose proud hopes and ambitions lay in broken heaps where the car of

destiny had passed, looked at him in admiration.

"Yes, barriers are swept away; but only by those who humbly and

patiently kneel down before them. Perhaps Infinite Wisdom stays your

hand, to keep you from bringing sorrow to this helpless Indian woman

whom you love, and to her children."

"Never!" was the answer, in the pride and strength of youth, in the

consciousness of capacity, in the joy of a child of battle, the

offspring of warriors, who had sung their triumph under torture. It was

a wide gulf that separated this fierce courage from the white-faced

saint who had learned in patience and humility.

"It's a feeble-minded man who keeps picking at the irrevocable," was

McCloud's reply, more to himself than to the savage before him.

"Suppose some day you grew tired of all this and wanted to go back and

be a part of the world of convention, of fashion and culture?"

Hal had no argument to make to this, but it had no appeal, no meaning.

He only made a gesture of negation and impatience.

"Oh, my boy," said McCloud helplessly; "you're a rebel."

"Well, America was made by rebels," said the other with a triumphant

smile.

The minister put his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked into his

eyes as David might have done to his wayward son.

"Well, God bless you for a fine, glorious, dangerous rebel."

The sun was up, a new day was born, all things seemed possible as Big

Bill hove into sight.

"Say, Boss," he drawled; "McShay's out here with the toughest looking

gang of ruffians----"

"Let 'em in, Bill," cried Hal joyously, his eyes dancing with the

excitement of his conflict with McCloud.

"Turn 'em loose on the ranch?" said the foreman doubtfully. "That

outfit? Gee whiz!"

"May need 'em, Bill."

"Most worse'n Injins," grumbled the old man as he went away, doubt,

hesitation, protest in the stoop and shrug of his huge bulk.

Bill's advent had brought them both back to earth, to the business in

hand.

McCloud spoke first.

"If they would let you keep this woman you could not. You are too near

to her. You must go away."

"Now?" said the radiant rebel; "when she has come to me? When she is

mine? Mine?"

"You must go away," said the other, relentless as Fate.

"She's mine. I'll take her and hold her against the world."

"No, you'll hold her against _yourself_."

Hal sank feebly down on the bench and clasped his hands in a helpless

way.

"I can't. I can't give her up! I can't."

McCloud came to him and put his hand on him.

"Hal, my son," he said affectionately; "I've sometimes wondered why I

had to give up my work and come out here to die. Perhaps it was to be

your living conscience. To this woman you seem divinely appointed, like

the Moquitch Mountains. I've seen her soul go out of herself and stand

expectant before you with outstretched arms. Her temperament, her

environment, the very strength and weakness of her character put her in

your hands. You know that without stopping to question or think she has

laid herself at your feet. Are you going to listen to the passion that

desires, that demands, that takes, or is your soul going to rise up

within you crowned and glorified?"

Hal buried his face in his hands and groaned. He looked about for some

way of escape, but there stood the weak sick man, inevitable and

unanswerable. He felt bewildered but resentful. Why shouldn't he be

happy? Why should he be expected to give up his one chance, the only

chance he had ever had, would ever have?

"We'll go away into the mountains," he exclaimed, "away from your

artificial rules and regulations! We'll go away."

"You can't go where obligation will not meet you."

"Why should I let _you_ decide for me what my obligations are?" he said

rudely, fiercely.

"Now you're a savage, but you've got white blood in your veins, blood

that has bowed the knee to duty, bowed the back to burdens, bowed the

head to God. Now I thank heaven you're a half-breed. You couldn't go

back to the blanket savage if you wanted to. You've got to live up to

your higher self. You have assumed obligations to these two women. You

can't avoid the consequences. The heart of this Indian woman has gone

out to you because you are part of a social order to which she aspires,

that represents to her her better self. You can't drag her down and

back to the blanket Indian. She would hate you. If you are brutal I

must say brutal things to you. You can't force her to apologize to her

children, to tell them they have no standing before the law and before

society; that they face the inevitable social order with an inevitable

stain. You can't flee from obligation. No man liveth to himself nor

for himself. And this other woman--you have in the past assumed

obligations to her. They have become irksome. You say you have a right

to be free. Well, then, you must prove it. I don't believe in divorce,

but that is a matter between a man and his Maker. Happiness, permanent

happiness, is worth fighting for, worth waiting for. If you stay here

you will steal it and pay the penalty of the thief, a penalty that will

fall heaviest upon those you love best in the world. Again I say, you

couldn't keep this woman if they would let you. She must go away or you

must."

McCloud looked at the lad, silent but unconvinced, and then he lifted up

his heart in secret prayer that God would keep this soul unspoiled.

*CHAPTER XV*

"Howd'y, Parson! Hello, boy!"

The diversion made by the appearance of McShay was a most welcome one to

the youth who felt "baffled and beaten and blown about by the winds of

the wilderness of doubt." Hal felt helpless in the hands of McCloud

with his metaphysical verities, so fixed, unalterable, and unanswerable,

but McShay carried with him something that was tangible and workable.

Shadows fled before him. Subtleties disappeared before the sun of his

genial optimism, or materialized in rain or snow or ice, assumed a form

that could be reckoned with. The presence of the man of action was an

enormous relief to Hal. McShay's intuitions were quick and he no longer

spoke to the clergyman of his health, but he swept him with a searching

glance and took his hand gently in his iron grip as he would have taken

the hand of a woman.

"You sent me word you needed help," he said to Hal.

"Yes."

"Things is awful dull over our way; wouldn't like to miss anything. I

brought over a few of the boys. It's Wah-na-gi; ain't it?"

McShay was adaptable. It was perhaps a large part of his success in

life. He could be vulgar and common with the vulgar and common, or he

could follow those who went up into the mountains and looked into a far

country, and whether with those who grovelled or those who stood on the

heights, each kind felt he was one of them, and there was no hypocrisy

in this. He understood and sympathized with both. There was nothing

offensive in the way he said:

"It's Wah-na-gi."

"How did you know it was Wah-na-gi?"

"Why, son," and a broad smile spread over the cowman's face, "everybody

on the range knows you're sweet on Wah-na-gi. Presumably, too, you was

not unaware that the amiable Ladd had threatened to shoot you on sight,

and that the gentle Appah has promised himself your scalp as a Christmas

present!"

"I knew I wasn't exactly popular at the Agency just now."

"And so you just went over and took her? Well, it was a fool thing to

do; but it's kind of appealin,' Parson, it's appealin'. What was that

young feller's name--none of your _Eastern_ tenderfeet--the young feller

that come out of the West?"

"Rode out of the West?" corrected McCloud with a twinkle in his eye.

"That hero was a Scotchman, Mike."

"Couldn't be, Parson; couldn't be. The Scotchman will risk his neck for

religion or a pinch of change, but not for the ladies. No, I'll bet he

was on the border, and mostly on our side. But this feller here!" and

he put his hand on the shoulder of the boy with unmistakable liking; "an

Englishman, too! Beats all, don't it? Anyway he loves a fight. Must

have a dash of the Irish in him somewhere, even if it's the damn

Protestant variety; savin' your presence, Parson. Sure, I took to him

when he put it all over Ladd, and when I count a man my friend, I ain't

over-nice as to his failin's. Say, it's too bad he's an Englishman,

ain't it? He's saved by the Injin in him, I guess. That's the truth."

"We were just discussing race prejudice," said McCloud.

"Don't believe in it. Nuthin' to it," ejaculated the Irishman warmly.

"'A mon's a mon for a' that,' eh, McShay?" suggested the countryman of

Burns with a smile.

"No use for narrer-minded prejudice, but the _English--excuse me_!"

Mike's face and body united in a convulsion that was a three-volume

exegesis of the traditional Irish point of view.

"Sure, it's a toss up," he continued. "The English rule Ireland. The

Scotch rule England. The Irish rule America, and to hell with the rest

of it--it ain't worth rulin'." The preacher laughed heartily. "You

know, Hal, me boy," continued Mike, "the parson's human like the rest of

us. He don't look like a duck as has swallowed a croquet ball just

because a little language slips out now and then. For a gospel-foreman

he's aces! Well, as I was sayin' when you interrupted me, we ain't come

over to fight, we ain't a-looking fer a fight, but if there's goin' to

be one, we'd hate to miss it. Does it look encouragin'?'

"I'm afraid there's going to be trouble over Wah-na-gi," sighed the

preacher. "I have made a formal application to the Secretary of the

Interior to adopt her, but----"

He did not say it, and Hal was grateful. Having expressed himself

without reservation to the boy, he had the wisdom to know when to let

the good seed alone. A worldly twinkle lit up McShay's eyes as he said:

"You've made formal application to the Secretary of the Interior. It's

a noble move, Parson, and you'll hear from it about the time Wah-na-gi

is somebody's great-grandmother, and in the meantime you don't suppose

these amiable feller-citizens is goin' to sit down and twirl their

thumbs."

"Any news from Washington, Mike?" asked Hal.

"Well, me boy, our fight against Ladd is goin' to precipitate the whole

thing. You see, instead of communicatin' in a genteel whisper they're

beginnin' to shout in Washington, and when they shout in Washington it

makes the God-fearin' business man nervous and hysterical. I guess we

ought to let this agitation against Ladd drop."

"Why, we can't do that," protested Hal warmly. "Why let it drop?"

"Well, son, here's the situation. We got a bill before Congress, ain't

we? To make good our title if it ain't good already. Well, we're a

menace to the Trust. They may queer our bill, but if they do, they got

to prove the lands are Government lands, and that shuts _them_ out,

except for a lease from the Injins, and that we can make cost 'em a

pretty penny, maybe we can queer it altogether. If everything is quiet

in Washington our bill has a good chance, because we can make terms with

the Trust to _let it go through_ by agreein' to sell them our rights if

it does go through. We are bound to git something! How much we can

make 'em pay depends on how close we stick together. Now, if we put up

a fight against Ladd in Washington, Ladd is the Trust's agent, they're

goin' to stand behind him, and we've got a big fight on our hands, and

if we get to screamin' at each other in Washington, why, every newsboy

in America'll know all about it."

"Suppose he does?" asked the preacher, deeply interested.

"Well, the present Secretary of the Interior has intimated that he might

on investigation insist on these lands being held for the benefit of the

_general public_. The 'general public'! What do you think of that?

Did you ever hear anything so funny in your life?"

"Why, that doesn't strike me as funny, McShay," said the preacher.

"That seems to be a very just and splendid solution of the difficulty."

"And where would we come in?" yelled the Irishman.

"You're part of the general public."

"Hah!" he snorted, then turning to Hal; "ain't parsons the limit?"

"I know Secretary Walker slightly," added McCloud. "He strikes me as a

strong man."

"I'll tell you how strong he is," bellowed McShay. now thoroughly

aroused. "He can't hold his job. That's how much the 'general public'

amounts to. He don't please anybody. He's got to resign."

"Well, you may quit the firing line, Mac," said Hal quietly. "But I

promised Ladd to have his scalp, and I'd hate to break a promise I'd

made to Ladd."

"You ain't practical, either," shouted McShay. "That's the Injin in

you."

And the parson was in a dilemma too. He didn't know whether to praise

the boy for being honest or reprove him for being vindictive.

"Boss, Curley's come in with the mail," said Bill as he came to Hal and

handed him a telegram. "Nuthin' but this."

Curley completely recovered, but minus a right arm, was now one of Hal's

retainers, and like all converts he was a fanatic where the owner of the

Red Butte Ranch was concerned.

"I hope it's news from Washington," said Hal. "No, it's from London."