AND WHAT FOLLOWED IT
Rifle in hand, forgetful of crutches, bewildered by sleep, the
section-boss came diving through the blanket partition to answer her
call. "Wha's matter? Wha's matter?" he demanded thickly, rubbing hard at
his eyes to unclog their sight.
Dallas leaned in the doorway, facing out. Her shoulders were bent
forward heavily, as if she, too, were only half awake. Her head was
rested against a casing. She lifted it when she felt him beside her.
"Well, dad," she answered grimly, "it's Indians, this time, and--I
reckon they got us stampeded." She smiled a little, ruefully, and
pointed.
Winking into the light, Lancaster followed her pointing, and saw the
pole. Up jerked his chin, as if from a blow on the goatee. He stared
wildly. His jaw dropped. "W'y, Lawd!" he breathed perplexedly, and his
chest heaved beneath the grey flannel of his shirt. Slowly he hobbled
forward in his bare feet, using the gun for a prop. Before the pole, he
halted, and began tousling his grizzled crown with trembling fingers.
Overhead, the scalp-weighted rag swung to and fro in the breeze, waving
him its sinister salute.
Gradually, his brain cleared, and into it there trickled a hint of the
pole's meaning and purpose. He stopped ruffling his hair, and caught up
the Sharps in both hands. Then, all at once, the trickle swelled to a
foaming torrent of suspicion, that carried him close to the truth.
Maddened, cursing, he dropped the gun and fell upon the sapling, pried
it furiously from the sod, and smashed it into a dozen bits.
To Dallas, watching him in silence, the destruction of the pole was a
sore reminder. For, better than ever before, she realised that her
father could only accomplish the hasty, childish things; that beyond
these, he was powerless. Without a doubt, she must ask elsewhere for
aid.
As he came limping and raging back to her, she hurried forward to
relieve him of the rifle and to guide his crippled feet. "Dad, I think
it's about time we had a' understanding at the Fort," she said quietly,
and took him by an arm.
He brought up short and wrung himself out of her grasp. "Th' Fort! th'
Fort! th' Fort!" he repeated in a frenzy. "Lawd-a-mighty, Dallas, y'
make me sick!"
"It's Indians," she replied steadily. "They're coming too near to be
comfortable. We got to have help."
He raised his fists and shook them. "Help an' fiddlesticks!" he
blustered. "_Thet_ ain't no Injuns! It's thet Shanty Town blackleg
a-tryin' t' skeer us. Go look at th' groun'--go look at th' groun', Ah
say. _See_ if they's moccasin tracks thereabout. Ah bet y' won't fin'
any!" He turned back to the scattered splinters, pulling Dallas after
him.
Together they got down, examining with care. As he had said, there were
no prints of an Indian shoe in the soft earth. But mingling with the
round, faint marks of his own naked heel were those--more plainly
stamped--of a large boot. They led up to the spot from the nearest
point on the river; and back upon themselves toward the same point.
"W'at'd Ah tell y'?" demanded the section-boss, almost triumphantly. His
voice quavered, however, and he gulped. "It's thet scalawag, an' he
wanted us t' know it! Ain't ev'ry Injun in fifty mile shet up tight in
yon corral? Ev'ry one 'cept Charley--an' this ain't the job o' _thet_
blamed fool. No, siree! An' then, th' mules didn' make no row las'
night. They'd a shore snorted if it was Injuns----"
"I guess that's so," agreed Dallas, hastily, and made him a warning
sign. Marylyn was moving about inside, and calling.
But he was beyond thought for another. "Bosh! bosh!" he cried. "She's
got t' stop bein' coddled an' know w'at's w'at. _You_ got t' stop
talkin' Fort. Ah'm goin' t' ketch thet low-down skunk 'thout no
soldiers. An' _Ah'll_ pepper his ugly hide! _Ah'll_ make him spit blood
like a broncho-buster. Th' _idee_ o' his havin' th' gall!" He rammed the
Sharps into its rack and laughed immoderately.
"Oh, pa!" expostulated Marylyn, in a startled whisper, and flew to
Dallas. Her face, still pink from slumber, paled a little. She laid it
against her sister. Long ago, she had seen her father roused to the same
pitch. The sight had terrified her, and blunted some earlier and
tenderer memories.
"You git you' clothes on," he ordered roughly, "an' rustle us some
breakfas'."
She retreated, ready for tears.
Dallas walked up to him, gave him his crutches, and put a hand on his
shoulder. "Dad," she said firmly, "don't take out your mad on Marylyn.
Keep it all for--him." She nodded south toward Brannon. "That's where it
belongs."
"Dallas, you plumb disgus' me," he retorted. "Talkin' soldier, when y'
know Matthews could buy th' hull kit an' boodle with a swig o' whisky!"
He arraigned the Fort with a crutch.
"What do you think of doing, dad?"
"Ah'll fin' out where thet cuss was las' night--Charley'll help me, y'
see----"
"And then?"
"Ah'll see thet--thet Oliver knows o' this, thet he keeps a' eye on thet
dog-goned----"
"But it'll be easier just to go straight to the Captain; not _I_, but
_you_----"
"Yes, do pa," urged Marylyn. "Oh, Dallas, what's happened?"
The elder girl told of the pole and the bootmarks, treating them
lightly. Then she came back to her father. To find that her argument of
a moment before, for all its short-cut logic, had set him utterly
against the plan he had himself proposed. And now he was for no man's
help, but for a vengeance wreaked with his own gun. Hurling a final defy
toward Shanty Town, he disappeared behind the partition.
No breakfast was eaten that morning. The section-boss was too angry to
taste of food, Marylyn was too frightened, and Dallas had no time. For
she was busy with the mules, currying them and putting them before the
wagon. "Can't help what you think about it this time," she said when
her father asked her where she was going; "I've made up my mind that if
you won't say the Fort, why then I'll have to drive to Clark's for Mr.
Lounsbury. We don't know for sure what that pole meant. We must ask."
"Aw, you ain't got a smitch o' pride," he taunted jealously. "Goin' t'
Lounsbury. Wal! Wal! You think a heap o' him, don' y'? More 'n you do o'
you' father! Thet sticks out like a sore finger."
"No," she answered simply. "I'm putting my pride in my pocket, dad. I'm
going to Mr. Lounsbury because I care so much for you, and for Marylyn.
And I want to say something--I hate to say it--you've almost discouraged
me about Brannon lately. We came here to raise stuff to sell over there.
But I can't see how we can sell over there if we won't even speak to a
soul. It looks as if we're going to give all that up--as if a lot of my
work is for nothing."
It was a new thought for the section-boss. And while Dallas disappeared
behind Betty, he pondered it with hanging head. She came around soon to
hitch Ben's tugs, when her father looked up shamefacedly. "Ah'll tell
y', Dallas," he said, by way of compromise, "ef Lounsbury don't come
back with y'----"
"He will," assured Dallas, stoutly.
"W'y, we'll go t' th' Fort, as you say."
"All right, dad," she replied, giving his back a pat.
He began to hobble up and down. "You ain't scairt t' go?" he ventured at
last. "Ain't afeerd o' nothin'?"
"No; and I'm going on my own hook, remember. It's not your fault."
"Y' kain't think o' no other way----"
She paused in front of him. "Can you?" she asked.
He could have sworn; but there was something in her face that forbade
it. "No--no," he said explosively, and so matched her determination with
his hot stubbornness.
He left her, and taking the rifle and all the ammunition there was,
seated himself on a bench placed just outside the door. There he was--a
pitiful sentinel--as she circled the shack and reined.
And now another question was presented: Should Marylyn stay or go?
Dallas was for her remaining, so that, in case of need, help could be
summoned--from somewhere. Marylyn sided with her. And it was long
afterward, when many things were made clear, before the elder girl
understood her sister's action--one that seemed so contrary to what the
younger one felt. But their father opposed them both, and vehemently.
Dallas upon the wagon-seat, prepared for her long drive, had softened
and touched him. She bore herself so bravely. She was so respectful, and
concerned.
"You take Mar'lyn," he insisted, "an' th' pistol. Ah c'n git along fine
by myself. Charley'll be comin', an' Ah'll hang on t' him. Ah reckon,
between us, we'll be O. K. 'Sides, y' know, Ah got a weasel's tail."
The mention of Charley won Dallas to her father's view. He would not be
alone all day, for the outcast would surely appear. On the other hand,
she longed to have Marylyn with her, where she could shield her from
cross words and possible harm. "We'll have Mr. Lounsbury with us coming
home," she said.
At that, Marylyn waxed still more eager to remain. And it took some
pleading to overcome her reluctance, and to bring about her consent.
Finally, however, the two girls drove away.
Before she started the team, Dallas climbed down to say good-by. In all
their lives, few caresses had ever passed between father and daughter,
and those had been during her babyhood. But now, moved by a common
impulse, each reached out at parting to clasp the other. And there were
tears in the eyes of both.
As the wagon trundled out of ear-shot, that one of the trio least
consulted in the affairs of the shack was hard beset by a temptation: to
tell Dallas about Lieutenant Fraser and his earnest, oft-repeated
promise of protection. But Marylyn hesitated, afraid to speak--no less
afraid of her sister than of her father. She realised that if she
mentioned the officer, she would have to admit their meetings. And such
a confession would undoubtedly result in an end to those meetings and,
perhaps, in severe blaming. Yet--it would also cut short the drive to
Clark's. And what might not be awaiting them on that journey? Still,
there were only two likely dangers: Indians and the interpreter. "But
Mr. Fraser says this upper side of the river's safe," she remembered. As
to Matthews, he would not be lingering beside the road to waylay them.
Her fears for her own safety were thus argued down.
There was yet her father's safety to consider. Well, her gallant new
friend would look to that. "He'll be across again this afternoon," she
thought, "and he'll watch the house careful. He couldn't do any more if
he knew about the pole." So, her conscience satisfied, she decided to
keep her own counsel. That decision cost her abundant grief and
penitence in the months to come.
While Marylyn was busy with her troublesome problem, a similar one was
running in Dallas' brain, where it called for calculation. Would
Matthews threaten the shack that day? It was scarcely probable. Night
offered the best hours for an attack. Therefore, the wagon must return
before night. But could Ben and Betty make Clark's and the return trip
before then? So far, they had never done it. The previous summer, the
drive was begun at dawn, when dawn was at three o'clock. "We'll just
have to hike along," she said aloud to Marylyn.
Into the coulee slid the wagon, its long tongue in the air, the loose
tugs hitting the mules in the hock. When the team had scrambled up the
farther side, Dallas put them to a trot by a flick of the black-snake.
Then she bent forward over the dashboard, her eyes fixed eagerly on that
distant brown blotch at the eastern ridge-top. But Marylyn, as they drew
away, looked regretfully backward--to where a clump of tall cottonwoods,
shaking their heart-shaped leaves in the wind, dappled a flower-studded
stretch below the coulee mouth.
Rod by rod the mules climbed the gently sloping prairie. The morning was
perfect, and belied, in its beauty, even a suggestion of lurking harm.
The air, crystal-clear and exhilarating, brought far things magically
near to the eye. On every hand shimmered the springing grass, now, a
pale emerald with the wind brushing it, again, in the still places, a
darker green, and yet again--under the ravine's fringing willows, where
the deer nibbled--a cool black. Out of it, the meadow-larks showed their
good-luck waistcoats and rippled their tunes; out of it, countless wild
roses smiled up pinkly to the sun.
But all the loveliness of the new day only mocked at the lonely girls in
the wagon. To them, the grey sands of their desert home, the blistering
"northers," the brassy skies, were, unconsciously, synonymous of safety
and peace. More than once, as they pressed on, the old, red-painted
section-house rose before them, a very haven.
Behind, the squat shack was gradually lessening in size. A jutting
corner had already shut from view its crippled sentry.
There was little conversation. Marylyn, for a time, could not dismiss
the subject that had confronted her at the start. Finally, however, she
put it aside impatiently, and let herself drift on a pleasant current.
And Dallas--her thoughts were also harried. For as her home dropped,
mile by mile, in the distance, and she was forced to meet the question
of what she would say and do when she arrived at Clark's, her feelings
underwent a marvellous change. It had been easy enough, in the
excitement following her discovery, to contemplate a meeting with
Lounsbury. But that excitement having dwindled not a little, the idea of
seeing him and of talking to him mounted in proportional importance. She
saw herself drawing up before his store, or standing just within as she
related her story. She saw his face, the blue eyes, full of fun--and she
had not met him since that evening! Her heart began to thump with her
picturing, its poundings playing up to her throat and down again. Want
of food was giving her a sensation of weakness and sinking. But this
seemed also to be the result of mental, and not physical, suffering. She
was torn by a desire to retreat.
Then darted through her mind the remembrance of Marylyn's midnight
confidence. It was a blow on a wound. She glanced at her sister
entreatingly. And what she fancied she read in the other's eyes
instantly altered the desire to turn--made her send the mules forward at
a better pace. Marylyn was sitting stiffly upright, bracing herself with
her hands. Her head was up, her look was eager and fixed. There was a
smile on her parted lips.
"She's happy about seeing him," thought Dallas, and was overwhelmed by a
sense of her own guilt.
A diversion soon came in a horrid guise. The road touched the coulee
again, bringing close the giant cottonwoods, where the Sioux dead were
lashed; and the girls, glancing toward the trees, suddenly caught a
glimpse of long, wrapped bodies.
Marylyn edged toward her sister. "Oh, I hope it'll be light when we get
here coming back," she whispered, shuddering.
"We won't be alone," answered Dallas, reassuringly.
The coulee was deep and dark at that point, and full of queer shadows.
From the boughs that cradled the braves came uncanny flutterings, as the
wind shook loosened scraps of the sleepers' covering. The dead seemed to
be moving restlessly upon their bier-boards, and waving an imploring
summons to be freed of the thongs that bound them. Overhead was full
cause for fear. Floating on motionless wing, with bare necks craning
hungrily, circled black watchers.
"They say," whispered Marylyn, watching nervously behind, "they say the
Indians are scared to come near these trees, never do till one of 'em
dies. I don't wonder. It gives me the shivers just to see that bunch."
Dallas drew the whip across Betty. "A dead Indian's not dangerous," she
said, smiling. And forgot to ask Marylyn where she had heard the tale.
Six miles were gone. But the way ahead was still long, the brown blotch
at the ridge-top was still only a blotch. And the team was fast tiring.
When Murphy's Throat was reached, Dallas drove out to the left, watered
the thirsty pair at a slough, and ate with Marylyn the long-deferred
breakfast. After that they went at a better pace for a time. Soon,
however, the road became steeper, and Betty slacked up. The sun was
high, now, and unpleasantly warm. So the wise old mule merely humped her
back as Dallas applied the lash, and doggedly refused to increase her
speed.
It was noon when the wagon approached the summit. It did not rest there
a moment. Behind was spread out a wonderful landscape. The Missouri
threaded it quarteringly, the western bluffs walled its farther edge to
the sky. Its eastern boundary was the ridge over which the wagon was
rolling. From this undulating line, the verdant land slipped down and
down and down--to the fantastic turnings of the river. But the girls,
peering back upon it, through a haze that was softly blue, were wholly
indifferent to its beauty. They sought, and in vain, for a remote dot
that might be the shack--the shack they had left at the end of that
unswerving road.
And now they went forward again. The scene on the farther side of the
summit was newer than that on the other, but did not rival it. Short
coulees had eaten the bluff slopes into flutings, and spilled small
rivulets upon the plain. Yet, barring these, and a lake that sparkled, a
round sapphire, on the right, there was superb uniformity. Not a stream,
not a butte, not even a nubbin of rock varied the view. And not a head
of cattle! To the south moved a score of yellow animals--antelope. But
these and a village of saucy prairie-dogs were the only signs of life.
The land dropped away by imperceptible degrees. As imperceptibly, it
melted into a mellow sky.
Dallas and Marylyn were each intent upon Clark's, lying far ahead, and
to the left, a dun-coloured line which seemed scarcely to get nearer as
the time went. But after an hour, their patience was rewarded. When the
dun-coloured line resolved itself into two, and they saw the cow-camp: A
narrow street flanked by low shanties of canvas and board.
Again, Dallas and Marylyn were absorbed, each with a mental conflict.
The younger got fidgety, then petulant, and began to complain of thirst.
For once, the elder girl showed scant sympathy. She was hurriedly
planning some new speeches.
At the southern end of the camp, their destination was made plain to
them by a sign reading, "General Merchandise." It was nailed along the
hip of a large building that stood midway of the street. Looking to
neither side, they made straight for it.
When the team came to a stand before the store, the girls saw to their
surprise that the door was shut. They waited. A minute passed. No one
came out. Then, Dallas climbed down and knocked. There was no answer.
She waited again. Finally, she tried the knob. It resisted her effort.
From within came the rattle of a chain.
"It's locked!" She went back to Marylyn. The two looked at each other.
Over the younger's face swept a flush of relief. But Dallas had
forgotten her dread of seeing Lounsbury in a keen disappointment at
finding him gone. She glanced anxiously up and down the street.
It was deserted and still. Dallas climbed back to the seat. "Maybe he's
at the Fort," she said encouragingly. "We'll drive home quick. There's a
lot of it down-hill." She clucked to the team.
At that moment the door of a near-by shanty opened. A man came out,
waving a letter. "Say! hello!" he bawled; "don't you want your mail?"
Dallas checked the mules.
"I got a letter for you," he went on. It was Al Braden of Sioux Falls.
Dallas gave Marylyn the reins and reached for the letter, noting that
the real-estate man did not doff the floppy hat, or make any swinging
bows.
"A letter?"
"Yep, from Lounsbury. I told him I was going to lope back down to the
Bend--but I didn't." He snickered.
"Where's he gone?" she asked, slitting the envelope with a shaking hand.
"Dunno," answered Braden. He was leaning on a wheel now, surveying Ben
and Betty with a critical, and somewhat disdainful, eye. For each was
hanging upon three legs to rest a fourth. Presently, he glanced up at
Marylyn, and his eye lit impudently. "Dunno," he repeated. "You're his
girl. _You_ ought to know."
But Dallas did not hear him. She was scanning a page, closely written
and addressed to herself.
"A telegram has come calling me home [ran the letter]. It
says my mother is ill--'seriously ill'--and I am afraid it's
put that way to hide something worse. It is the only thing
that could take me out of Dakota now. But I am not leaving
you unprotected. Before I left Brannon, I arranged to have
Matthews watched every hour of the day and night. And he is
the only thing that might make you trouble. For if the
Indians get nasty, I know Oliver will insist on bringing you
in. Still, I shall worry terribly till I get back. I wish I
could write all I would like to. But it would be what I have
already told you--you will understand."
Thus, it ended.
Dallas thrust it into the pocket of her skirt, took the reins and lifted
the black-snake. Ben saw the threatening movement from behind his bridle
blinds. He sprang forward. The wheel rolled from under Braden's elbow.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he growled. "Ain't you going to say ta-ta?" He
strode along at the tailboard, smirking up at the two in an attempt to
be friendly. "Maybe you'd like company going home," he said. "Lonely
trip for girls, 'specially when they ain't got a gun." He gave Marylyn a
bold wink.
"Thank you," replied Dallas, shortly. "We don't want company--and we
_have_ got a gun." She lifted the pistol from the seat.
Braden fell behind. "Stop and drink some beer, anyway," he called. "Got
some in here. You mustn't be mad at me because Johnnie's mamma sent for
him. Come on back."
To this, no answer was made. Dallas gave the team a few smart cuts. The
wagon rumbled out of the street.
And now began the return journey. Five hours had been consumed in
reaching Clark's. Ten minutes had been wasted there. Another five would
be passed at the first clear water. But allowing for the team's faster
gait when they were headed for home, and for twelve miles of downgrade,
they should not take more than four hours to reach the bend. Twilight
would be settling then.
Dallas figured the return thus--but it was soon plain to her that sunset
would find them miles from the shack. Poor feed, with the plowing and
the harrowing, had thinned the mules. After the first spurt, they paid
no heed to the whip, and fairly crawled. Marylyn, tired, gave way to
passionate complaining. Dallas folded a blanket in the bottom of the
wagon and coaxed her sister to lie down upon it, her face shielded by
the seat. To further dishearten the elder girl, Ben and Betty showed
signs of sore-footedness. Guided out upon the grass, they travelled
better.
It took three precious hours to gain the summit. The afternoon was then
far gone. Across the wide valley, dark clouds were piling upon the
western range; they added to its height, and augured the day's early
closing. When the Throat gaped alongside, the fleecy horizon had rolled
still higher, and beneath it the setting sun showed through like a
harvest moon, blood-red.
Swiftly the day withdrew and the stars came out. Then, the breeze
lulled, and a mist rose from the coulee's wooded bottom. From it came
the tremulous call of an owl. Dallas slipped to her feet and wielded the
black-snake vigorously.
The mules shot forward for a wagon-length. The sudden jolt awakened
Marylyn. She got to her knees--and there were the cottonwoods with the
laden boughs!
"Spunky little sister," encouraged the elder girl, and helped the other
to the seat.
The road was so dark, now, that it took on the aspect of a standing man,
who was no sooner overridden than he rose again in the lead. This was a
beginning for all manner of fears. Dallas fought her own. But she could
not conquer them. For they enlarged enormously, and changed to a
premonition that ran riot.
Listening and watching, she had suffered the previous night. Yet that
suffering was nothing compared to the agony that stole into her heart
and held it--till she forgot Marylyn's presence. She seemed to see a
figure skulking through the dusk about the shack; it entered the lean-to
and crouched in hiding. She saw it come forth again, keeping close to
the logs. Its eyes shone in the dark!
Her father was beside the door, where she had left him. He was gazing
straight ahead, as if he expected the enemy to approach only from the
front; as if he had no thought of treachery. His figure was relaxed
wearily. His face was drawn. But his eyes--like the other's--were
strangely luminous.
_Ah!_--the figure was creeping toward him--noiselessly--step by step!
"Go in! Go in! _Daddy!_"
The cry was torn from her, though she strove to keep it back. The strain
of the past night and day was telling. Frantically, she begged Ben and
Betty to hasten. Knowing home was not far, they obeyed her voice, and,
presently, were setting back in their collars to block the descent of
the wagon; were splashing through the backwater at the coulee-crossing,
and jerking their load out upon the level. Eastward, the shack stood out
dimly in the starlight. They made for it at a trot.
But all at once they stopped, and began stepping this way and that, as
if ready to leap the tongue. Dallas and Marylyn recoiled, forsaking the
seat for the shelter of the box.
There was a moment's wait, in a stillness as vast as the prairie. The
mules, sidled to the left, shifted their long ears nervously. The girls
listened, the younger shielded by the elder's arms.
Then, across the bend, from the deserted houses of Shanty Town, sounded
the long, soul-chilling howl of a dog.