A CHANGE IN PLAN
It was Old Michael who fished the interpreter from his unwelcome bath.
Choking with rage and spewing muddy water, Matthews was hauled into the
stern of a pirogue. There, while the pilot rowed slowly to the Brannon
shore, he stretched his sorry, bedrabbled figure--a figure in striking
contrast to that of an hour before. His handkerchief hung upon one ear,
his red shirt clung, his buckskin trousers, dark and slick from their
sousing, bellied with water let in at the band; his bright-topped boots
spurted like pump-nozzles, his pale hair straggled and dripped into his
eyes.
When the boat touched at the steamer-side, he raised himself to look
back. Simon was leisurely ascending the cut, and reaching to left and
right for tender wisps of vine. Matthews gave his hard laugh. "I'll make
meat of _you_," he promised savagely. Then he turned to Michael.
The Irishman was leaning back, steadying his craft against the bank with
one hand, holding his stub pipe out in the other. His blowzy face was
blowzier than ever. Down it, from his closed lids, ran the teardrops,
chasing one another into the black-notched cavern of his mouth.
Here was a culprit handy to the moment's anger. Matthews arose in his
squashing boots. "You lop-eared son-of-a-gun, who you laughin' at?" he
demanded.
The cavern widened till the face was split in two. "W-w-w-_ah_!" gasped
the pilot.
"Maybe you think it was funny," said the interpreter, with suave heat.
Cunning deviltry distorted his features. And, stepping forward in the
boat, he kicked Michael on a bunion.
Pain sobered the pilot. With a roar of "Howley smoke!" he swung his
paddle aloft.
The interpreter was too quick for him. Like a frightened muskrat, he
sought the water, floundered to a solid footing, and waded out. "You
_will_ monkey with a buzz-saw!" he taunted. "_Jus' wait._"
Clinging to his injured foot, Old Michael rocked himself and cursed. But
not for long. He was soon rambling toward the barracks. "For," he
argued, "there's more 'n wan way t' kill a cat."
In a frontier post, news flies with the dust in the air. Soon the story
of Matthews and the bull had spread to every soul at Brannon. The Line
chatted it from gallery to gallery. Clothes-Pin Row digested it in
hilarious groups. At barracks, it set the men to swapping yarns. "I
knowed a feller onct that was goin' past a bull-pen," declared one
trooper, "and he had a pail of cherries, and I'll be darned if----"
"But, say! Down home, one time," put in a second, "there was a vaquero
with a red sash that was stoopin' to fix a flank girth, and----" "Why,
that ain't a two-spot to what happened in Kansas a year ago this summer.
The purtiest gal I ever seen--you know them Kansas gals can be
purty--she had a wig that'd keep your hands warm in January. Well----"
When, however, the surgeon recounted the story at the bachelors' noon
mess, mirth over it was noticeably lacking. To the little circle of
officers there was nothing comical in the fact that a man from the post
had molested the girls so recently orphaned. And all save Fraser vowed
stormily that Matthews would be called to account. The young lieutenant
said nothing.
Before the meal ended, the interpreter came in. He had changed his
clothes and restored his hair to its pristine smoothness. He gave the
group his usual bob and smile.
Cold stares answered him--from all but one, who fairly bounded from his
chair. It was Fraser, face red, shoulders working under the blue of his
uniform. He planted himself before Matthews.
"You damned blackguard!" he gasped.
The other looked highly amused. "What's got into _your_ craw, sonny?" he
inquired.
"You damned blackguard!" repeated Fraser. And struck out.
An amazed and delighted mess room looked on. For Fraser, the
tender-hearted, Fraser, the pink-cheeked "mamma's darling," was
battering the interpreter hammer and tongs!
From the doorway the captain's voice interrupted the battle, and the two
men were pulled apart. Matthews fell to wiping at his stained lips,
which had magically puffed to proportions suggesting those of the
colonel's black cook. While the lieutenant was panting, and struggling
wildly to get free.
Oliver thrust the latter behind him and addressed the interpreter. "I'm
not stopping this boy because I don't think you need a sound
thrashing," he said. "I'd like to see you walloped within an inch of
your life. But I can't have this kind of thing going on."
"I wasn't goin' to tech them gals," lisped Matthews. "I ain't no city
tough."
"We shan't need _your_ services at Brannon any longer. You light out."
After that, mess went merrily on. "Didn't know you had it in you,
Fraser," marvelled one officer. "By crackey!" added a second. "How you
_can_ slug!" The surgeon sighed. "No one has ever understood Robert,"
said he, "but women, critters, and kids."
And now Matthews' blood was up, and under his sloping forehead the
grey-matter was bubbling and boiling like the soup in the sutler's pot.
He hurled out terrible oaths--against the shack, against Captain Oliver,
against Fraser, against the old pilot. Dallas Lancaster had made a cheap
spectacle of him; the commanding officer had ordered him to leave
Brannon; the "unlicked calf" of a lieutenant had whipped him out of
hand; and the man most ready to guzzle his liquor had gone through the
barracks a-blabbing.
He hurried to his room to pack his belongings. "I'll fix 'em, I'll fix
'em," he raged. "I'll git even with the hull crowd."
He halted at a window and looked across the Missouri at the little
shack. "When the reds go to the reservation, that'll do for _you_," he
said. "But--how can I soak them damned shoulder-straps?"
It was then that a change in his plan came to his mind. Why wait until
the Indians were sent, if----
The more he thought of the change, the better he liked it. "One deal,
and everybody fixed. Land'll be mine, and there'll be some
court-martiallin'."
He determined to get into the stockade for a last talk with the
hostages. If they approved what he proposed, he would promise them his
services. Yes, he would. The value of the quarter-section had made him
fight for the Bend. But this was a horse of another colour. His pride
had been outraged--for that he would have his quits.
His conduct earlier in the day, and the fight at the sutler's, gave
place, that afternoon, to other and more direful news. A steamer touched
on its way down the river and told of the Custer massacre. Not a trooper
at Brannon but had lost a friend; not an officer but had lost several.
Gloom settled upon the post, and Matthews was forgotten.
He took advantage of that. Before an order went out to prevent him, he
went through the wicket of the sliding-panel and gathered around him the
four chiefs named in Cummings' ultimatum. They were more sullen,
unhappy, and discouraged than ever. A few words, and he had them
breathless with interest
"You must look to me alone for freedom now," he said. "There has been a
great battle in the Valley of the Greasy Grass. Custer, the Long Hair,
met Sitting Bull and his allies. And Custer and all his men are dead."
"Ho, hos," of joy greeted the announcement.
"Yet this is not good for you. There will be other battles. Your
brothers will have no time to come and rescue you. Even your friends,
the Scarred-Arms, will not help. For it is said that the Cheyenne
warriors are gone to join the Sioux----"
"What of the two white squaws that were captured?" asked
Shoot-at-the-Tree anxiously. "And what of us--is there danger?"
"The women are still with your people. And who knows what may happen
soon? So I come to speak of your delivery. I shall get you free--you
shall free my land."
"But our women," suggested Standing Buffalo, his eye straying toward a
tent at the stockade's centre; "they go free, too?"
"That is impossible. But what does it matter? When you are gone, your
women and children will be cared for--put upon a reservation. From
there, you can steal them back."
"But how can we get free?" inquired Lame Foot. "Tell us quickly."
Matthews drew the four chiefs' heads together and whispered to them.
After a time, all rose.
"Shall we have guns?" inquired Canada John.
"No--bows and arrows. I can get them, and hide them in my board lodge
across the river."
Lame Foot pouted. "Our brothers who are fighting have fine new rifles
from Standing Rock."
"Rifles I cannot get," said Matthews.
"But," said Standing Buffalo, "if we cross to your lodge and get our
bows and arrows, will not the pony soldiers follow in their
smoking-canoe?"
"Bah!" retorted the interpreter. "Am I like a pig for sense? The
smoking-canoe shall be gone."
The chiefs nodded.
"I must go," added Matthews. "There is no time for the pipe. Remember,
if you are discovered trying to escape, I know nothing of it. Then, I
shall try another plan. And keep everything from The Squaw. He is a
friend to the pony soldiers. He may tattle."
"And your reward," said Canada John, softly: "It is that The Plow-Woman
and her sister shall be----"
Matthews put a finger to his lips. "You will free my land," he said.
"When the night comes?" whispered Lame Foot. They pressed about
Matthews, taking his hands.
"When the night comes," he answered, "you will know by a sign. Let a
warrior keep watch. For it shall come when the moon dies. It shall be
the call of a mourning dove."