THE RESCUE.
WHEN Olilie, the Indian girl, came back to consciousness, after being
put to bed at the ranch house, three days had passed. She lay between
broad sheets smelling of violets and whiter than anything she had ever
seen, except the new snow on the prairies.
Over in the corner of a big empty room sat a strange little girl. She
was sewing on some small doll clothes and humming softly to herself. Two
braids like plaited silk of the corn hung over her face. Olilie did not
recall ever having seen her before and had not the faintest idea how she
happened to be in this wonderful place, instead of the dirty hut of
Laska the Indian woman and her son Josef.
Some one else tiptoed softly into the chamber. Olilie half closed her
eyes. She remembered this other face faintly, but where and when had she
seen it?
"Hasn't she spoken yet?" a voice asked in a disappointed tone. "I am so
sorry, but I simply have to ride over the range with Jim this morning.
Some of the cattle keep disappearing. If our patient wants to talk,
please don't let her tell you everything before I get back. She must be
kept pretty quiet."
Just for a second, Olilie felt that a face bent over hers. But she gave
no sign of being awake, although she now knew where she was and how she
happened to be there. It had flashed across her memory--her flight, her
hiding and the meeting with the ranch girls. She understood that she had
been ill but was going to get well again. The hot, uncomfortable feeling
had left her head, she had no pain, only she was very weak and she did
not think that she could bear to go away from this beautiful place. If
only she could have been ill a little longer!
Olilie's wistful, black eyes were wide open, when the bedroom door
unclosed the second time. She caught a glimpse of a tall, dark figure
and a wave of terror swept over her. Already had Laska come to take her
home?
But the woman walked quietly up to the bed, took one of Olilie's thin
hands and gazed at it earnestly, turning it over in her own brown palm.
She shook her head, smoothed up the covers and nodded to Olilie not to
try to talk.
"This girl has been brought up among white people, hasn't she, Frieda?"
Aunt Ellen inquired softly.
The blonde plaits moved slightly.
"I am sure I don't know," came a faint voice from between them. "We know
nothing about her, except what Jack told you. She did not talk like an
Indian, so I suppose she has been to school. Her mother, from whom she
was running away, was a full-blooded Indian but she don't look a bit
like her." Frieda lowered her voice still further. "Has the Indian woman
been here to inquire for her daughter? Jack was afraid she would find
out who we were and come over here."
Aunt Ellen gave her head a warning shake and said something to Frieda
that the sick girl on the bed could not hear. But Frieda jumped up and
her bits of doll dresses scattered about on the floor. "When will Jack
and Jim come back?" she demanded quickly. "If we had only known before
they went away!"
"Known what?" Olilie asked, as naturally as though she had been taking
part in the conversation all the time. "I am quite well now, thank you.
If you don't mind, I should like to get out of bed."
Frieda's face turned quite red and her blue eyes were round with
surprise. She ran to Olilie and threw her arms around her. "You are well
now, aren't you?" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad. Just wait until I run and
find Jean. She won't like it unless I tell her at once."
"Child," Aunt Ellen queried, as soon as Frieda went away, "is the
Arapaho woman who makes baskets and strings beads at the end of the Wind
Creek valley your mother and is the lad Josef her son?"
Olilie nodded. "I think so," she replied. "At least I know of no other
woman who is my mother. I have lived with her always."
"But you are not a full-blooded Indian girl," Aunt Ellen argued,
"although your hair is so black and straight and your skin is dark.
Look," Aunt Ellen picked up the girl's hand again. "See, your finger
nails are pink and that is not the case with the red or brown-skinned
people." Aunt Ellen opened the girl's gown, and where her skin was
untouched by the sun and wind, it was a beautiful olive color.
Aunt Ellen lifted her up, wrapped her in a blue dressing gown and sat
her in Frieda's vacant chair. "It's a hard time ahead of you, child,"
she murmured to herself. "Mixed blood don't never bring happiness, when
one of 'em runs dark."
Jean's and Frieda's faces both wore strange expressions when they came
back to their guest. But Olilie did not know them well enough to guess
that anything unusual was the matter.
She stretched out both hands humbly and took one of Jean's and one of
Frieda's in her own. "Won't you let me thank you for keeping me here and
let me tell you why I ran away?" she asked gratefully.
Jean shook her head nervously, her brown eyes fastened on the
tight-closed door, against which Aunt Ellen stood like a body-guard.
"No, please don't try to tell us anything now," Jean begged. "I am sure
you are not strong enough. And Jack, she is the oldest of us, she would
like you to wait until she comes back this afternoon."
The ranch house was built on one floor. A long hall led straight through
the centre of it. There were four bedrooms beside the living-room and
Aunt Ellen's room, which opened off the kitchen. Aunt Ellen and her
husband, Zack, slept on the place and the old man helped Frieda and Jean
with their violet beds. To-day he had ridden over to the nearest village
to see about the building of the new greenhouses.
A tramp of heavy feet echoed out in the passageway. Jean kept on
talking, as though she wished to drown the sound. The Indian girl did
not seem to be disturbed. She was too happy and too weak to care much
what was going on outside her room.
"Don't you think I might tell you my name at least?" she begged. "It is
Olilie, an Indian name. I don't know just what it means. I--"
There were no locks on the doors inside the big hospitable ranch house.
What need was there of locking people either out or in, in this great
open western land?
Yet Aunt Ellen kept her hand on the doorknob. "You are not to come in
here," she insisted fiercely. "I told you to leave our ranch."
The door burst rudely open. The squat ugly figure of Laska appeared
inside the room, followed by a young Indian boy, who looked sheepish and
ashamed.
"Ugh," grunted the old squaw. "Did you think we no find you? Come, git
up. You go with me." She pushed aside Frieda and Jean, who were trying
to guard the sick girl.
Olilie's face was so white that no one could have thought her an Indian.
She could not speak, she only clutched at the arms of her chair as
though nothing could part her from it.
Jean stamped her foot angrily. "Go out of this house at once," she
ordered angrily. "How dare you thrust your way in here? Your daughter is
too ill for you to move her. Besides, we are going to keep her here
until we find out whether you were cruel to her and why she won't live
with you."
"No, no, I shall not live with her again," Olilie burst out
passionately. "I do not mind the work or the blows, but I will not be a
squaw woman. I will not light the pipe, clean the gun, hew the wood and
fetch the water for her son. At the school they have taught me that a
girl is a boy's equal. I will not, because I am a girl, be a slave.
Please, please go." The Indian girl looked not at her mother, but at
Josef, the Indian boy. He kept his head down and mumbled something that
only Laska and Olilie could understand.
Laska pointed toward the girl. Then her eyes held her son. "Take her to
the tepee of her own people," she commanded. "I know the laws of the
white race are many and strange, but they take not the child from her
mother, while she is yet young."
Josef went toward Olilie, but Jean's body covered her and he did not
dare to thrust the white girl aside.
Frieda flung herself half way out the open window. In front of the ranch
was a grove of cottonwood trees, to one side ran a long, winding creek.
There was no one in sight, even their watch dog had followed Jack and
Jim across the range.
Jean was trying bribery and corruption. She had slipped her hand in her
pocket and brought out two bright silver dollars. She held one up before
the boy, the other before old Laska. "I will give you these if you will
leave the girl with us for a few days longer," she suggested.
The Indian boy did not lift his hand. He was gazing at the figure of his
sister in the chair. "I no take her, she sick," he said. "I no want her
to work for me. It is Laska who make her. She not like other Indian
girl. She different somehow. She read books. She talk like teachers at
school."
Laska seized the boy by the arm and shook him roughly. "You no talk
foolish," she declared. "You bring girl home. We take not white money.
Always you try to make the Indian sell big things for little."
"Oh, if somebody would only come to help us," Frieda thought
despairingly. She saw that Josef had picked Olilie up in his arms. She
felt like Sister Anne in the dreadful story of Bluebeard. If she could
see a little cloud of dust arising somewhere down the long road that led
through the trees from the far trail of the plains, she knew that help
would come to them! If only she could catch sight of one of the cowboys
returning to the ranch!
Frieda did spy a little dust along the trail on the upper side of the
creek. She seized a white scarf from the table near by and waved it
frantically out the window. "Help! Help! Jim! Jack! Somebody come quick!
We need you!" she cried.
The Indian boy and woman waited, puzzled and alarmed by the noise that
Frieda was making.
Frieda saw a rider catch sight of her signal, plunge down the trail and
through the muddy creek, straight to the ranch house door. She knew that
it was some one whom she had never seen before in her life, but it did
not make the least difference to her.
"Won't you come in here?" she begged. "The door is open. There are some
Indians trying to steal a girl away--" Frieda drew her blonde head back
inside the window, just in time to see the stranger stalk into their
room.
"Put the girl down," he commanded Josef in a tone of authority. Nothing
loath, the Indian boy returned Olilie to her chair. The newcomer then
spoke to the surly Indian woman. "You and your son leave this ranch at
once. It was fortunate that I learned that you were coming here this
morning. I rode over just in time."
The young man had brown hair and eyes. His face was quite pale. He did
not look in the least strong, but there was something in his quiet
manner that showed he was accustomed to being obeyed.
"We come back to get my girl, when she well," the Indian woman
threatened, as the door closed behind her.
There was an awkward silence when the Indians had gone. The young fellow
immediately lost his grown-up manner and seemed very uncertain and shy.
He colored and held his new cowboy hat in his hands.
"I am awfully glad I turned up in time to help you drive those people
out of the house," he declared. "I happened to hear that they were
coming over to your ranch to take the Indian girl away from you to-day.
If there had been anybody to send over to tell you, I wouldn't have come
myself," he ended. "Will you please tell the older Miss Ralston this. I
won't intrude on you any longer. Good-bye."
Jean laughed and held out her hand. "Please don't go quite yet," she
said. "At least stay until we thank you. I know who you are and Jack
will be just as grateful to you as Frieda and I are. You must not think
she is always so unfriendly. Aren't you Frank Kent, the English fellow
who is the guest of the Nortons? Jack told us about you But you see the
Nortons are--"
"Yes, I understand," Frank Kent answered quickly. "At least I have been
told what the trouble is between you, but I hope it may be a mistake. I
can't believe Mr. Norton and Dan--" Frank stopped. Jean's and Frieda's
cheeks were crimson. He realized that he had no right to talk about
their private affairs. Aunt Ellen was looking at him suspiciously.
Frank Kent bowed. "I think I had better go," he announced. Just as he
started out of the room, Jacqueline Ralston marched into it. Every bit
of color left her face and she stared at him in blank astonishment.