Part 15

"Now I'll compromise in this case, Mr. Sheriff. You discharge the rest of your deputies and send them away, while you and Calvin remain with me to attend a council--not to arrest anybody, but to convince yourself of my good-will in the matter. I will not permit you to be armed nor to arrest any of my Indians until we know what we are doing. When we secure evidence against any man I will arrest him myself and turn him over to you. But I insist that you send away the men in the outer office."

Calvin spoke up. "I reckon the Major's right, sheriff. How ye goin' to arrest a man if you don't know who he is? I reckon you better do as he says. I ain't a-lookin' fer no fuss with the agent, and the United States army only fifty miles off."

The sheriff growled surlily. "All right, but there ain't no monkey business about this. I get my man sooner or later, you bet your heart on that." As he went out into the general office and announced the agent's demand, Green blurted out defiant phrases.

"I'll be damned if I would! No--stick it out! Do? Why, take old Elk and hold him till the tribe produces the right man--that's the way we always done before."

The arguments of Calvin could not be heard, but at last he prevailed, and the sullen deputies withdrew. The sheriff scrawled a hasty note to the county attorney to explain his failure to bring his man, and the three deputies went out to saddle up. Their cursing was forceful and varied, but they went.

Parker, seeing them come forth, met them, inquiring anxiously:

"Well, what do you think of the situation?"

Green looked at him surlily. "You belong here?"

"No, I'm just a visitor."

"Well, you better get out quick as God'll let ye."

"Why, what is going to happen?"

"Just this: we're goin' to have the man that killed Cole or we'll cut this whole tribe into strips. That's all," and they moved on, cursing afresh.

Parker fell back aghast, and watched them in silence as they saddled their horses and rode off. He then hurried to the office. Wilson, after going in to see his chief, came back to say: "The Major will see you in a moment. He's sending out his police."

A few moments afterwards six of the Indian policemen came filing out, looking tense and grave, and a couple of minutes later Curtis appeared.

"What is it, Parker?"

"What is going on, Captain? I am very anxious."

"You need not be. We've reached a compromise. Wait a moment and I will go over to the house with you."

When he reappeared, Lawson was with him. Nothing was said till they were well in the middle of the road. Then Curtis remarked, carelessly:

"You attended to that matter, Lawson?"

"Yes, Crane's Voice is ten miles on his way."

"There go two dangerous messengers," said Curtis, lifting his eyes to the hill-side, up which the sullen deputies were climbing.

Parker was importunate--he wished to understand the whole matter. Curtis became a little impatient. "I will explain presently," he replied, and nothing more was said till they entered the library, which was filled with the women of the agency. Jennie had reassured them as best she could, but they were eager to see the agent himself. Miss Colson, the kindergarten teacher, was disposed to rush into his arms.

Curtis smiled round upon them. "What's all this--a council of war?"

Miss Colson seized the dramatic moment. "Oh, Major, are we in danger? Tell us what has happened."

"Nothing much has happened since dinner. I have persuaded the sheriff to discharge all his deputies except Calvin, and they are to remain over. I have sent for the head man to come in, and we are going to council to-night. The trouble is practically over, for the sheriff has given up the attempt to arrest Elk as a hostage. Now go back to your work, all of you. You should not have left your children," he added, rather sternly, to Miss Colson. "They need you now."

The women went out at once, and in a few minutes Curtis was alone with the members of his own little circle. "Now I have another story for you," he said, turning to Elsie. "While I am sure the worst of the sheriff's work is over, I realize that there are two hundred armed men over on the Willow, and that it is better to be on the safe side. Therefore I have sent to Fort Lincoln for troops. Crane's Voice will reach there by sundown--the troops should arrive here by sunrise to-morrow. Meanwhile I will talk with Elk--"

"Suppose Elk don't come?" asked Jennie.

Curtis looked grave. "In that case I shall go to find him."

Elsie cried out, "You wouldn't do that?"

"Yes, it would be my duty--I have promised--but he will come. He trusts me. I have ordered him to bring all his people and camp as usual just above the agency store. Now, of course, no one can tell the precise outcome of all this, and if you, Miss Brisbane, and Mr. and Mrs. Parker, want to go down to the white settlement, I will send you at once. Mr. Lawson will go with you, or I will ask the sheriff to take you--"

"The safest place on the reservation is right here!" said Lawson. "Suppose the ranchers return--they will take control here, and use the agency as a base of supplies; the fighting will take place in the hills. Besides, our going would excite the settlers uselessly, and put Captain Curtis deeper into trouble. I propose that we stay right here, and convince the employes and the Indians that we are not alarmed. I don't want to assume the responsibility of a panic, and our going this afternoon might precipitate one."

Curtis was profoundly grateful to Lawson for this firm statement. "I think you are right, Mr. Lawson," he said, formally. "You see my position clearly. I feel sure I can control the sheriff by peaceable means--and yet my responsibility to you weighs upon me." He looked at Elsie again. "I think you can trust me. Will you stay?"

"Of course we will stay," she replied, and Parker sank into his chair as if resigned to his fate.

Curtis went on: "I am not speaking to reassure myself. Perhaps I am too positive, but my experience as an officer in the army has given me a contempt for these six-shooter heroes. The thing I really fear is a panic among the settlers. Naturally, I am disinclined towards the notoriety I would gain in the press; but the troops will certainly be here to-morrow, and that will settle the turmoil. The sheriff is less of an embarrassment, now that he has only Calvin as deputy."

"Send the sheriff over here--we'll entertain him by showing him the photograph album," called Jennie. "We helped out this forenoon, and we can do it again."

"I don't think such heroic methods are necessary; an extra good dinner will do quite as well," replied Curtis, smiling. "I'm sorry, Mr. Parker, that your expedition for material is coming to this grewsome end."

Elsie interposed. "It is precisely what he wants; he will know from positive knowledge how a Tetong brave dresses for war. I have always claimed that no Indian ever wore that absurd war-bonnet."

Lawson added: "And _you_ will gain valuable information as to the character of white settlers and 'Indian outbreaks.'"

"I ought to telegraph papa."

"I have already done so," replied Lawson--"in anticipation of the hullabaloo that will break forth in the papers of the State to-morrow."

"I shall wire the department a full statement to-night," said Curtis. "But we must be careful what we say at this point."

"Isn't it a foolish thing not to have a telegraph line connecting the fort and the agency?" cried Jennie. "The troops could have been half-way here by this time."

"It's the same penny-wise and pound-foolish method by which the Indian service is run," responded Lawson.

"Here comes one of my scouts," said Curtis, as a young Tetong galloped up to the gate, threw himself from his reeking pony, and strode into the hall-way without knocking, his spurs clattering, his quirt dangling from his wrist. As he stood before his chief, delivering his message with shadowy silence and swiftness, Elsie thrilled with the dramatic significance of the scene. The stern, almost haughty face of the young man was in keeping with his duties.

Curtis dismissed the boy and translated his message. "He says the settlers below us have fled towards Pinon City, taking all their goods with them. White Wolf's band are all in camp except the young men, who are scouting for the chiefs to see what it all means. That mob of cowboys took delight, no doubt, in scattering consternation as they passed. The settlers are in stampede."

"Wilson is coming across the street," said Jennie, "and has an Indian with him."

"Another scout," said Curtis. "Now I will let you know all that goes on, but I must ask you all, except Mr. Lawson, to leave me the library to transact this business in." As Elsie passed him, she drew towards him with a little, shrinking movement which moved him deeply. It was as though she were clutched by a force greater than her will.

"It's like being at army headquarters," she said to Jennie.

"It is a little like a commander's tent in the field. I wish we dared to throw that old sheriff off the reservation. He has no right to be snooping round here."

Parker slumped deep in a big rocker, and Mrs. Parker sat beside him and put her hand on his arm.

"Don't worry about me, Jerome."

He looked up gloomily. "I got you into this, dearest, and I must get you out. If the soldiers come to-morrow I will ask for an escort to the fort, and then we can reach the railway and get out of the cursed country. I'd as soon live in a den of hyenas and rattlesnakes."

Elsie laughed. "Parker, you are too amusing. You are pathetic. When I think of you as you pranced about the camp-fire two days ago and look upon you now, my heart aches for you."

"I don't think it generous of you to make fun of us at this time, Bee Bee," Mrs. Parker replied, reproachfully.

"Oh, let her go on. Her Latin Quarter English doesn't disturb me," Parker answered, savagely.

Curtis at this moment appeared. "My message was from the farmer at Willow Spring. He says all his employes, with one or two exceptions, have disappeared; that the band of Crawling Elk was threatened by a mob of white men early this morning, and that they are all breaking camp in order to flee to the hills. All the settlers on the Willow are hurrying their women and children down towards Pinon City. The whole country has been alarmed by the menace of the coroner's inquest, which is camped below the agency at Johnson's ranch, waiting the sheriff's return. The deputies had not reached there when this letter was written," added Curtis. "The sheriff's message will disperse the crowds, and I am sending a note of reassurance to the farmers and to the settlers."

"It's getting mighty serious, don't you think so?" asked Parker. "I wish the troops were here. Can't we hurry them up?"

"No, all that can be done has been done. I am telling you all that goes on, and I must request you not to repeat it. I wish you would all be specially guarded in the presence of the sheriff. You might engage him in a game of 'cinch' after dinner. Anything to keep him out of my way."

"We'll absorb him," said Jennie.

One by one Curtis called in his most trusted employes, and, quieting their fears, put them to their duties. Special policemen were uniformed and sent to carry messages to the encampments on the hills, asking the head men of each band to come at once to the agency for council, and to order their people into camp. The tranquillizing effect of the agent's bearing made itself felt immediately. The threads of the whole tangle were soon in his hands and made straight, and when he received the sheriff at six o'clock he was confident and serene of bearing.

* * * * *

Two Horns came down from the hills, and at the agent's order gathered his band close around his own tepee to camp until the trouble was ended. Together they made a tour of the village, and Curtis made it plain that he would protect them, and that no more armed men would come among them to incite violence.

"They have turned back, for fear of the Little Father and of Washington," said Two Horns to the old men, and they were glad of his words.

Curtis was by no means at ease. As he recalled the threats of the cattlemen, the encroachments of their flocks, the vicious assaults made on Crow Killer and Yellow Hand, he divined a growing antagonism which could go but little further without producing war. His mind dwelt on the hurrying figure of Crane's Voice. Much depended on him. He saw him as he faced the sentry. "If he should fail to reach the Colonel! But he will not fail, and troops will be instantly despatched."

From these considerations he turned to the growing trust and confidence which Elsie was displaying. That movement towards him, slight as it was, and the softened look in her eyes, quickened his breath as he allowed his inward self to muse on their meaning. She was looking to him for protection, and this attitude was not only new, it was disturbing; and the soldier found it necessary to put away his pipe and fall savagely upon some work to keep his mind from ranging too far afield.

XXII

A COUNCIL AT NIGHT

The sheriff came to dinner rather shamefacedly, but Calvin, being profoundly pleased, was on his very best behavior. "This being deputy suits me to the ground," said he to Wilson, as he rose in answer to the call to dinner.

As they were crossing the road he said, confidentially: "Now see here, you mustn't talk politics round the ladies over there, sheriff."

"Politics?"

"You know what I mean. You keep to the weather and the crops, and let this murder case alone for a minute or two, or I'll bat you one for luck."

Winters took this threat as a sign of their good understanding, and remarked, jocosely, "You damned young cub, I'd break you in two for a leather cent."

"That's all right, but what I say goes," replied Calvin. And remembering old Joe Streeter's political pull, the sheriff did not reply.

Jennie kept the talk pleasantly inconsequential during dinner by a cheery tale of the doings of a certain Chinaman she had once tried to train into a cook, and Calvin, laughing heartily, matched her experience with that of his mother while keeping house in Pinon City one winter. This left Elsie to a little conversation with Curtis.

"You must let me see this council to-night," she said, and her request had the note of a command.

"I know how you feel," he said, "and I wish I could do so; but I can't make an exception in your favor without offending the Parkers."

"Are you not the general?" she asked, smilingly. "If you see fit to invite me and leave them out, they can only complain. I'm going to stay here with Jennie, anyhow."

"In that case we can manage it."

"Do you know what I think? You've instigated this whole affair to convert me to your point of view. Really, the whole thing is like a play. I'm not a bit frightened--at least, not yet. It's precisely like sitting in a private box and seeing the wolves tear holes in Davy Crockett's cabin. You are the manager of the show."

"Well, why not? When the princess tours the provinces it is customary to present historical pageants in her honor. This drama is your due." And as he spoke he observed for the first time the absence of the ring from her significant finger. The shock threw him into a moment's swift surmise, and when he looked up at her she was flushed and uneasy. She recovered herself first, and though her hand remained on the table it had the tremulous action of a frightened small animal--observed yet daring not to seek cover.

"I hope this council to-night will not fail. I am eager to see what you will do with them," she hastened to say.

"They will come!" he replied.

Calvin was relating a story of a mountain-lion he had once treed for an Eastern artist to photograph.

"Just then the dern brute jumped right plum onto the feller and knocked him down, machine and all; for a minute or two it was just a mixture o' man and lion, then that feller come up top, and the next thing I seen he batted the lion with his box, and that kind o' stunted the brute, and he hit him again and glass began to fly; he was game all right, that feller was. When the lion stiffened out, he turned to where I was a-rollin' on the pine-needles, and says, quiet-like, 'Give me your revolver, please.' I give it to him, and he put it to the lion's ear and finished him. When he got up and looked at his machine he says, 'How much is a mountain-lion skin worth?' ''Bout four dollars, green,' I says. He looked at the inwards of his box, which was scattered all over the ground. Says he, 'You wouldn't call that profitable, would you--a seventy-dollar instrument in exchange for a four-dollar pelt?'"

Everybody laughed at this story, and the dinner came to an end with the sheriff in excellent temper. Lawson offered cigars, and tolled him across the road to the office, leaving Curtis alone in his library.

He resolutely set to work to present the situation of the sheriff's presence concisely to the department in a telegram, and was still at work upon this when Jennie entered the room, closed the curtains, and lit the lamp.

Elsie came in a little later to say, sympathetically:

"Are you tired, Captain Curtis?"

He pushed his writing away.

"Yes, a little. The worst of it is, I keep saying: _If so and so happens, then I must do thus and thus_, and that is the hardest work in the world. I can deal with actual, well-defined conditions--even riots and mobs--but fighting suppositions is like grappling with ghosts."

"I know what you mean," she replied, quickly. "But I want to ask you--could father be of any help if I telegraphed him to come?"

He sat up very straight as she spoke, but did not reply till he turned her suggestion over in his mind. "No--at least, not now. What troubles me is this: the local papers will be filled with scare-heads to-morrow morning; your father will see them, and will be alarmed about you."

"I will wire him that I am all right."

"You must do that. I consider you are perfectly safe, but at the same time your father will think you ought not to be here, and blame me for allowing you to come in; and, worst of all, he will wire you to come out."

"Suppose I refuse to go, would that be the best of all?" Her face was distinctly arch of line.

His heart responded to her lure, but his words were measured as he answered: "Sometimes the responsibility seems too great; perhaps you would better go. It will be hard to convince him that you are not in danger."

She sobered. "There really is danger, then?"

"Oh yes, so long as these settlers are in their present mood, I suppose there is. Nothing but the life of an 'Injun' will satisfy them. Their hate is racial in its bitterness."

"You think I ought to go, then?"

He looked at her with eyes that were wistful and searching.

"Yes. It is a sad ending, but perhaps Captain Maynard will be here to-morrow with a troop of cavalry, and--I--think I must ask him to escort you to the railway."

"But the danger will be over then."

"To your father it will seem to be intensifying."

"I will not go on that account! I feel that the safest place will be right here with you, for your people love you. I am not afraid when I am near you."

Curtis suddenly realized how dangerously sweet it was to sit in his own library with Elsie in that mood seated opposite him. The sound of a tapping on the window relieved the tension of the moment.

"Another of my faithful boys," he said, rising quickly. Then, turning to her with a tenderness almost solemn, he added: "Miss Brisbane, I hope you feel that if danger really threatened I would think of you first of all. You will stay with Jennie to-night?"

"If you think best, but we want to know all that goes on. I can't bear to be battened down like passengers in a storm at sea; there is nothing so trying to nerves. I want to be on deck with the captain if the storm breaks."

"Very well. I promise not to leave you in ignorance," and, raising the curtain, he signed to the man without to enter. It was Crow, the captain of the police, a short man with a good-humored face, now squared with serious dignity.

"Two Dog has just come in from Willow Creek," he reported. "He says the cattlemen are still camped by Johnson's ranch. They all held a council this afternoon."

"Are any of the head men here?"

"Yes, they are all at my tepee. They want to see you very bad."

"Tell them to come over at once; the council will take place here. I want you, but no more of the police. I want only the head men of each band."

After the officer went out Curtis moved the easy-chairs to the back of the room and set plain ones in a semicircular row at the front. Hardly was he settled when Elk, Grayman, and Two Horns entered the room, and, after formally shaking hands, took the seats assigned them. Their faces, usually smiling, were grave, and Grayman's brow was knotted with lines of anxiety. He was a small man, with long, brown hair, braided and adorned with tufts of the fine feathers which grow under the eagle's wings. He was handsome and neatly dressed, the direct antithesis to Crawling Elk, who was tall and slovenly, with a homely, grandfatherly face deeply seamed with wrinkles, a face that would be recognized as typical of his race. He seemed far less concerned than some of the others.

Two Horns, also quite at his ease, unrolled his pipe and began filling it, while Curtis resumed his writing.

Jennie, looking in at the door, recognized the chiefs, and they all rose politely to greet her.

"I'm coming to the council," she said to Two Horns.

He smiled. "Squaws no come council--no good."

"No, no, heap good," she replied. "We come. Chiefs heap talk--we catchim coffee."

"Good, good!" he replied. "After council, feast."

One by one the other chiefs slipped in and took their places, till all the bands were represented save that of Red Wolf, who was too far away to be reached. Curtis then sent for the sheriff and Calvin and Elsie and Lawson, and when all were seated began his talk by addressing the chieftains. He spoke in English, in order that the sheriff could hear all that was said, and Lawson interpreted it into Sioux.

"You know this young man"--he pointed at Calvin. "Some of you know this man"--he touched the sheriff. "He is the war chief of all the country beyond where Grayman lives. He comes to tell us that a herder has been killed over by the Muddy Spring. He thinks it was done by an Indian. The white people are very angry, and they say that you must find the murderer. Do you know of any one who has threatened to do this thing?"

One by one the chiefs replied: "I do not know who did this thing. I have heard no one speak of it as a thing good to be done. We are all sad."

Two Horns added a protest. "I think it hard that a whole tribe should suffer because the white man thinks one redman has done a wrong thing."

Grayman spoke sadly: "My people have had much trouble because the cattlemen want to drive their herds up the Willow, and we are like men who guard the door. On us the trouble falls. It is our duty--the same as you should say to a policeman, 'Do not let anybody come in my house.' Therefore we have been accused of killing the cattle and stealing things. But this is not true. I remembered your words, and I did nothing to make these people angry; but some of my young men threw stones to drive the sheep back, and then the herder fired at them with revolver. This was not our fault."

"He lies!" said the sheriff, hotly, when this was interpreted. "No one has fired a gun but his reckless young devils. His men were riding down the sheep, and the herder rocked 'em away."

"You admit the sheep were on the reservation, then?" asked Curtis.

"Well--yes--temporarily. They were being watered."