Chapter 13

"I wisht I knowed what it was. I'm gittin' all strung up myself." His popping eyes ached from trying to see into the darkness around them. "If we kin git past them gulches onct! That ud be a dum bad place to roll off the side. We'd go kerplunk into the crick-bottom. Gosh! what was that?" He stopped the weary horses with a terrific jerk.

It was only a little night prowler which had scurried under the horses' feet and rustled into the brush.

"You see how on aidge I am! I'll tell you," he went on garrulously--the sound of his own voice was always pleasant to Meeteetse: "I take more stock in signs and feelin's than most people, for I've seen 'em work out. Down there in Hermosy there was a feller made a stake out'n a silver prospect, and he takes it into his head to go back to Nebrasky and hunt up his wife, that he'd run off and left some time prev'ous. As the date gits clost for him to leave, he got glummer and glummer. He'd skerce crack a smile. The night before the stage was comin' to git him, he was settin' in a 'dobe with a dirt roof, rared back on the hind legs of his chair, with his hands in his pockets.

"'Boys,' he says, 'I'll never git back to Genevieve. I feels it; I knows it; I'll bet you any amount I'm goin' to cash in between here and Nebrasky. I've seen myself in my coffin four times hand-runnin', when I was wide awake.'

"Everybody had their mouths open to let out a holler and laff when jest then one of the biggest terrantuler that I ever see dropped down out'n the dirt and straw and lands on his bald head. It hangs on and bites 'fore anybody kin bresh it off, and, 'fore Gawd, he ups and dies while the medicine shark is comin' from the next town!"

His companion did not find Meeteetse's reminiscence specially interesting, possibly because she had heard it before, so at its conclusion she made no comment, but continued to watch with anxious eyes the clouds and the road ahead.

"Now if that ud been me," Meeteetse started to say, in nowise disconcerted by the unresponsiveness of his listener--"if that ud----"

"Throw up your hands!" The curt command came out of the night with the startling distinctness of a gun-shot. The horses were thrown back on their haunches by a figure at their head.

Meeteetse not only threw up his hands, but his feet. He threw them up so high and so hard that he lost his equilibrium, and, as a result, the ill-balanced seat went over, carrying with it Meeteetse and the Indian woman.

The latter's mind acted quickly. She knew that her errand to the bank had become known. Undoubtedly they had been followed from town. As soon as she could disentangle herself from Meeteetse's convulsive embrace, she threw the flour-sack from her with all her strength, hoping it would drop out of sight in the sage-brush. It was caught in mid-air by a tall figure at the wagon-side.

"Thank you, madam," said a hollow voice, "Good-night."

It was all done so quickly and neatly that Meeteetse and the Indian woman were still in the bottom of the wagon when two dark figures clattered past and vanishing hoof-beats told them the thieves were on their way to town.

"Well, sir!" Meeteetse found his feet, also his tongue, at last.

"Well, sir!" He adjusted the seat.

"Well, sir!" He picked up the reins and clucked to the horses.

"Well, sir! I know 'em. Them's the fellers that held up the Great Northern!"

The Indian woman said not a word. Her heart was filled with despair. What would Smith say? was her thought. What would he do? She felt intuitively how great would be his disappointment. How could she tell him?

She drew the blanket tighter about her shoulders and across her face, crouching on the seat like a culprit.

The ranch-house was dark when they drove into the yard, for which she was thankful. She left Meeteetse to unharness, and, without striking a light or speaking to Susie, crept between her blankets like a frightened child.

Smith, in his dreams, had heard the rumble of the wagon as it crossed the ford, and he awoke the next morning with a sensation of pleasurable anticipation. In his mind's eye, he saw the banknotes in a heap before him. There were all kinds in the picture--greasy ones, crisp ones, tattered bills pasted together with white strips of paper. He rather liked these best, because the care with which they had been preserved conveyed an idea of value. They had been treasured, coveted by others, counted often.

Eager, animated, his eyes bright, his lips curving in a smile, Smith hurried into his clothes and to the ranch-house, to seek the Indian woman. He heard her heavy step as she crossed the floor of the living-room, and he waited outside the door.

"Prairie Flower!" he whispered as she stood before him.

She avoided his eyes, and her fingers fumbled nervously with the buckle of her wide belt.

"Could you get it?"

"Most of it."

"Where is it?" His eyes gleamed with the light of avarice.

She drew in her breath hard.

"It was stole."

His face went blood-red; the cords of his neck swelled as if he were straining at a weight. She shrank from the snarling ferocity of his mouth.

"You lie!" The voice was not human.

He clenched his huge fist and knocked her down.

She was on the ground when Susie came out.

"Mother!"

The woman blinked up at her.

"I slip. I gettin' too fat," she said, and struggled to her feet.

Elsewhere, with great minuteness of detail, Meeteetse was describing the exciting incident of the night, and what would have happened if only he could have laid hold of his gun.

"Maybe they wouldn't 'a' split the wind if I could have jest drawed my automatic in time! As 'twas, I put up the best fight I could, with a woman screamin' and hangin' to me for pertection. I rastled the big feller around in the road there for some time, neither of us able to git a good holt. He was glad enough to break away, I kin tell you. They's no manner o' doubt in my mind but them was the Great Northern hold-ups."

"But what would they tackle _you_ for?" demanded Old Man Rulison. "Everybody knows _you_ ain't got nothin', and you say all they took from the old woman was a flour-sack full of dried sa'vis berries. It's some of a come-down, looks to me, from robbing trains to stealin' stewin'-fruit."

"Well, there you are." Meeteetse shrugged his shoulders. "That's your mystery. All I knows is, that I pulled ha'r every jump in the road to save them berries."

XX

THE LOVE MEDICINE OF THE SIOUX

Still breathing hard, Smith hunted Tubbs.

"Tubbs, will you be ready for business, to-day?"

"The sooner, the quicker," Tubbs answered, with his vacuous wit.

"Do you know the gulch where they found that dead Injun?"

"Yep."

"Saddle up and meet me over there as quick as you can."

"Right." Tubbs winked knowingly, and immediately after breakfast started to do as he was bid.

Smith's face was not good to look upon as he sat at the table. He took no part in the conversation, and scarcely touched the food before him. His disappointment was so deep that it actually sickened him, and his unreasoning anger toward the woman was so great that he wanted to get out of her sight and her presence. She was like a dog which after a whipping tries to curry favor with its master. She was ready to go to him at the first sign of relenting. She felt no resentment because of his injustice and brutality. She felt nothing but that he was angry at her, that he kept his eyes averted and repelled her timid advances. Her heart ached, and she would have grovelled at his feet, had he permitted her. In her desperation, she made up her mind to try on him the love-charm of the Sioux women. It might soften his heart toward her. She would have sacrificed anything and all to bring him back.

Smith was glad to get away into the hills for a time. He was filled with a feverish impatience to bring about that which he so much desired. The picture of the ranch-house with the white curtains at the windows became more and more attractive to him as he dwelt upon it. He looked upon it as a certainty, one which could not be too quickly realized to please him. Then, too, the atmosphere of the MacDonald ranch had grown distasteful to him. With that sudden revulsion of feeling which was characteristic, he had grown tired of the place, he wanted a change, to be on the move again; but, of more importance than these things, he sensed hostility in the air. There was something significant in the absence of the Indians at the ranch. There was an ominous quiet hanging over the place that chilled him. He had a feeling that he was being followed, without being able to detect so much as a shadow. He felt as if the world were full of eyes--glued upon him. Sudden sounds startled him, and he had found himself peering into dark stable corners and stooping to look where the shadows lay black in the thick creek-brush.

He told himself that the trip through the Bad Lands had unnerved him, but the explanation was not satisfying. Through it all, he had an underlying feeling that something was wrong; yet he had no thought of altering his plans. He wanted money, and he wanted Dora. The combination was sufficient to nerve him to take chances.

Tubbs was waiting in the gulch. Smith looked at the spot where White Antelope's body had lain, and reflected that it was curious how long the black stain of blood would stay on sand and gravel. He had been lucky to get out of that scrape so easily, he told himself as he rode by.

"I guess you know what you're up against, feller," he said bluntly, as he and Tubbs met.

"I inclines to the opinion that it's a little cattle deal," Tubbs replied facetiously.

"You inclines right. Now, here's our play--listen. The Bar C outfit is workin' up in the mountains, so they won't interfere with us none, and about three or three and a half days' drive from here there's some fellers what'll take 'em off our hands. We gets our wad and divvies."

"What for a hand do I take?"

"By rights, maybe, we ought to do our work at night, but I've rode over the country, and it looks safe enough to drive 'em into the gulch to-day. They isn't a human in sight, and if one shows up, I reckon you know what to do."

"It sounds easy enough, if it works," said Tubbs dubiously.

"If it works? Feller, if you've got a yeller streak, you better quit right here."

"I merely means," Tubbs hastened to explain, "that it sounds so easy that it makes me sore we wasn't doin' it before."

The reply appeared to pacify Smith.

"I hates to fool with cattle," he admitted, "'specially these here Texas brutes that spread out, leavin' tracks all over the flat, and they can't make time just off green grass. Gimme horses--but horses ain't safe right now, with the Injuns riled up. Now, you start out and gather up what you can, and hold 'em here till I get back. I'll go to the ranch and get a little grub together and get here as quick as it's safe."

Smith galloped back to the ranch, to learn that Dora had ridden to the Agency to spend the day. He was keenly disappointed that he had missed the opportunity of saying good-by. She had chided him before for not telling her of his contemplated absence, and he had promised not to neglect to do so again; for she was in the habit of arranging the table for her night-school and waiting until he came. Then it occurred to Smith that he might write. He was delighted with the idea, and undoubtedly Dora would be equally delighted to receive a letter from him. It would show her that he remembered his promise, and also give her a chance to note his progress. Since Smith had learned that a capital letter is used to designate the personal pronoun, and that a period is placed at such points as one's breath gives out, he had begun to think himself something of a scholar.

His enthusiasm grew as he thought of it, and he decided that while he was about it he would write a genuine love-letter.

Borrowing paper, an erratic pen, and ink pale from frequent watering, from a shelf in the living-room, he repaired to the dining-room table and gave himself up to the throes of composition.

Bearing in mind that the superlative of dear is dearest, he wrote:

Dearest Girl.

I have got to go away on bizness. I had ought to hav said good-by but I cant wate till you gets back so I thort I wold write. I love you. I hates everyboddy else when I think of you. I dont love no other woman but you. Nor never did. If ever I go away and dont come back dont forget what I say because I will be ded, I mean it. I will hav a stak perty quick then I will show you this aint no josh. You no the rest, good-by for this time.

Smith. The perspiration stood out on his forehead, and he wiped it away with his ink-stained fingers.

"Writin' is harder work nor shoein' a horse," he observed to Ling, and added for the Indian woman's benefit, "I'm sendin' off to get me a pair of them Angory saddle-pockets."

His explanation did not deceive the person for whom it was intended. With the intuition of a jealous woman, she knew that he was writing a letter which he would not have her see. She meant to know, if possible, to whom he was writing, and what. Although she did not raise her eyes from her work when he replaced the pen and ink, she did not let him out of her sight. She believed that he had written to Dora, and she was sure of it when, thinking himself unobserved, he crept to Dora's open window, outside of the house, and dropped the letter into the top drawer of her bureau, which stood close.

As soon as Smith was out of sight, she too crept stealthily to the open window. A red spot burned on either swarthy cheek, and her aching heart beat fast. She took the letter from the drawer, and, going toward the creek, plunged into the willows, with the instinct of the wounded animal seeking cover.

The woman could read a little--not much, but better than she could write. She had been to the Mission when she was younger, and MacDonald had labored patiently to teach her more. Now, concealed among the willows, sitting cross-legged on the ground, she spelled out Smith's letter word by word,

I love you. I hates everyboddy else when I think of you. I don't love no other woman but you. Nor never did.

She read it slowly, carefully, each word sinking deep. Then she stroked her hair with long, deliberate strokes, and read it again.

I don't love no other woman but you. Nor never did.

She laid the letter on the ground, and, folding her arms, rocked her body to and fro, as though in physical agony. When she shut her lips they trembled as they touched each other, but she made no sound. The wound in her arm was beginning to heal. It itched, and she scratched it hard, for the pain served as a kind of counter-irritant. A third time she read the letter, stroking her hair incessantly with the long, deliberate strokes. Then she folded it, and, reaching for a pointed stick, dug a hole in the soft dirt. In the bottom of the hole she laid the letter and covered it with earth, patting and smoothing it until it was level. Before she left she sprinkled a few leaves over the spot.

She looked old and ugly when she went into the house, seeming, for the first time, the woman of middle-age that she was. Quietly, purposefully, she drew out a chair, and, standing upon it, took down from the rafters the plant which Little Coyote's woman, the Mandan, had given her. It had hung there a long time, and the leaves crumpled and dropped off at her touch. She filled a basin with water and put the plant and root to soak, while she searched for a sharp knife. Turning her back to the room and facing the corner, like a child in mischief, she peeled the outer bark from the root with the greatest care. The inner bark was blood-red, and this too she peeled away carefully, very, very carefully saving the smallest particles, and laid it upon a paper. When she had it all, she burned the plant; but the red inner bark she put in a tin cup and covered it with boiling water, to steep.

"Don't touch dat," she warned Ling.

The afternoon was waning when she went again to the willows, but the air was still hot, for the rocks and sand held the heat until well after nightfall. In the willows she cut a stick--a forked stick, which she trimmed so that it left a crotch with a long handle. Hiding the stick under her blanket, she stepped out of the willows, and seemed to be wandering aimlessly until she was out of sight of the house and the bunk-house. Then she walked rapidly, with a purpose. Her objective point was a hill covered so thickly with rocks that scarcely a spear of grass grew upon it. The climb left her short of breath, she wiped the perspiration from her face with her blanket, but she did not falter. Stepping softly, listening, she crept over the rocks with the utmost caution, peering here and there as if in search of something which she did not wish to alarm. A long, sibilant sound stopped her. She located it as coming from under a rock only a few feet away, and a little gleam of satisfaction in her sombre eyes showed that she had found that for which she searched. The angry rattlesnake was coiled to strike, but she approached without hesitancy. Calculating how far it could throw itself, she stood a little beyond its range and for a moment stood watching the glitter of its wicked little eyes, the lightning-like action of its tongue. When she moved, its head followed her, but she dexterously pinned it to the rock with her forked stick and placed the heel of her moccasin upon its writhing body. Then, stooping, she severed its head from its body with her knife.

She put the head in a square of cloth and continued her search. After a time, she found another, and when she went down the hill there were three heads in the blood-soaked square of cloth. She hid them in the willows, and went into the house to stir the contents of the tin cup. She noted with evident satisfaction that it had thickened somewhat. Little Coyote's woman had told her it would do so. She found a bottle which had contained lemon extract, and this she rinsed. She measured a teaspoonful of the thick, reddish-brown liquid and poured it into the bottle, filling it afterward with water. The cup she took with her into the willows. Laying the heads of the snakes upon a flat stone, she cut them through the jaws, and, extracting the poison sac, stirred the fluid into the tin cup. While she stirred, she remembered that she had heard an owl hoot the night before. It was an ill-omen, and it had sounded close. The hooting of an owl meant harm to some one. She wondered now if an owl feather would not make the medicine stronger. She set down her cup and looked carefully under the trees, but could find no feathers. Ah, well, it was stout enough medicine without it!

She had brought a long, keen-bladed hunting-knife into the willows, and she dipped the point of it into the concoction--blowing upon it until it dried, then repeating the process. When the point of the blade was well discolored, she muttered:

"Dat's de strong medicine!"

Her eyes glittered like the eyes of the snakes among the rocks, and they seemed smaller. Their roundness and the liquid softness of them was gone. She looked "pure Injun," as Smith would have phrased it, with murder in her heart. Deliberately, malevolently, she spat upon the earth beneath which the letter lay, before she returned to the house.

She heard Susie's voice in the Schoolmarm's room, and quickly hid the knife behind a mirror in the living-room, where she hid everything which she wished to conceal, imagining, for some unknown reason, that no one but herself would ever think of looking there. Susie often had thought laughingly that it looked like a pack-rat's nest.

The woman poured the liquid which remained in the tin cup into another bottle, frowning when she spilled a few precious drops upon her hand. This bottle she also hid behind the mirror.

In Dora Marshall's room, Susie was examining the teacher's toilette articles, which held an unfailing interest for her. She meant to have an exact duplicate of the manicure set and of the hairbrush with the heavy silver back. To Susie, these things, along with side-combs and petticoats that rustled, were symbols of that elegance which she longed to attain.

As she stood by the bureau, fumbling with the various articles, she caught sight of a box through the crack of the half-open drawer. She had seen that battered box before. It was the grasshopper box--for there was the slit in the top.

Susie was not widely experienced in matters of sentiment, but she had her feminine intuitions, besides remarkably well-developed reasoning powers for her years.

Why, she asked herself as she continued to stare through the crack, why should Teacher be cherishing that old bait-box? Why should she have it there among her handkerchiefs and smelly silk things, and the soft lace things she wore at her throat? Why--unless she attached value to it? Why--unless it was a romantic and sacred keepsake?

Susie rather prided herself on being in touch with all that went on, and now she had an uneasy feeling that she might have missed something. She remembered the day of their fishing trip well, and at the time had thought she had scented a budding romance. Had they quarrelled, she wondered?

She sat on the edge of the bed and swung her feet.

"My, but won't it seem lonesome here without Mr. Ralston?" Susie sighed deeply.

"Is he going away?" Dora asked quickly.

"He'll be goin' pretty soon now, because he's found most of his strays and bought all the ponies he wants."

"I suppose he will be glad to get back among his friends."

Susie thought Teacher looked a little pale.

"Maybe he'll go back and get married."

"Did he say so?"

Susie was _sure_ she was paler.

"No," she replied nonchalantly. "I just thought so, because anybody that's as good-looking as he is, gets gobbled up quick. Don't you think he is good-looking?"

"Oh, he does very well."

"Gee whiz, I wish he'd ask me to marry him!" said Susie unblushingly. "You couldn't see me for dust, the way I'd travel. But there's no danger. Look at them there skinny arms!"

"Susie! What grammar!"

"Those there skinny arms."

"Those."

"Those skinny arms; those hair; those eyes--soft and gentle like a couple of augers, Meeteetse says." Susie shook her head in mock despondency. "I've tried to be beautiful, too. Once I cut a piece out of a newspaper that told how you could get rosy cheeks. It gave all the different things to put in, so I sent off and got 'em. I mixed 'em like it said and rubbed it on my face. There wasn't any mistake about my rosy cheeks, but you ought to have seen the blisters on my cheek-bones--big as dollars!"

"I'm sure you will not be so thin when you are older," Dora said consolingly, "and your hair would be a very pretty color if only you would wear a hat and take a little care of it."

Susie shook her head and sighed again.

"Oh, it will be too late then, for he will be snapped up by some of those stylish town girls. You see."

Dora put buttons in her shirt-waist sleeves in silence.

"I think he liked to stay here until you quarrelled with him."

"I quarrelled with him?"

"Oh, didn't you?" Susie was innocence itself. "You treat him so polite, I thought you must have quarrelled--such a chilly polite," she explained.

"I don't think _he_ has observed it," Dora answered coldly.

"Oh, yes, he has." Susie waited discreetly.

"How do you know?"

"When you come to the table and say, Good-morning, and look at him without seeing him, I know he'd a lot rather you cuffed him."

"What a dreadful word, Susie, and what an absurd idea!"

Susie noted that Teacher's eyes brightened.

"_You'll_ be goin' away, too, pretty soon, and I s'pose you'll be glad you will never see him again. But," she added dolefully, "ain't it awful the way people just meets and parts?"