Part 14

"Are you Appah's squaw?" he asked Wah-na-gi, but in a kinder tone than he intended and which he felt was unmistakably unofficial. He was a young man and rather careful of his dignity.

"No," she replied with decision.

"Whether she is or is not," said Ladd sharply; "she's the Government's ward--my ward. I'm responsible for her, and I demand her."

The force of this was unanswerable. The captain paused for a moment. Then he addressed Hal, whom he liked.

"I don't see, Calthorpe, on what theory you take and detain this woman, unless," and he paused again, "unless you claim that she is _your_ wife."

It was Hal's turn to feel that the air was filled with poisoned arrows. Every eye was upon him. Every one waited. It was _his_ turn to speak. There was a clergyman standing beside him who in a half-dozen words could make them man and wife. It was perfectly true he had taken her from the care of the representative of the Government for _what_? The pause was interminable. The silence was maddening. Why didn't some one say something? His position was grotesque, impossible, cowardly. If he shrank from becoming a squaw-man, why didn't he leave the Indian woman to her own life and her own people? He felt as if an armor-piercing shell had burst in his brain, leaving his mind in ruins. He couldn't speak. He hadn't two consecutive words to put together. McCloud, the only one present who knew the truth, had been so conscious of the boy's predicament and so deeply grieved with and for him that he, too, shrank back into silence. The pause was obvious therefore before the clergyman crossed to the officer and began to speak.

"Thank God some one was talking," was Hal's thought, though he did not hear what McCloud was saying.

"Captain Baker," said the clergyman, "it is common report that certain interests are trying to get the asphalt lands belonging to the Indians and that Appah is betraying his people for a price. Wah-na-gi is that price. As you know, I have lived on the Agency, and I know of my own knowledge that this woman has been persecuted by this man with the connivance of the agent, and her honor and perhaps her life threatened. In order to protect her I have made an application to the Secretary of the Interior to adopt her as my ward."

"With her consent?" asked the officer.

"Oh, yes, yes," cried Wah-na-gi.

"Where are the woman's parents?

"Dead," she replied.

"Any near relations?"

"None."

"Captain Baker!" cried the agent, seeing the drift of this; "you haven't any discretionary powers in this case. _I_ am the Indian agent and I call on you in the interests of peace to restore this woman to the Agency, to my care."

The captain paused a moment, shrugged his shoulders, and then said with obvious reluctance: "That is absolutely correct, gentlemen. I have no discretion in this matter. If the agent insists, she must go back to the Agency."

Well, that was finished. There was to be no fight and no reviewing of that ultimatum. Every one except those immediately concerned drew a sigh of relief, and Baker walked back to give some instructions to his orderly.

What was that? His quick ear detected something.

"What is it, Sergeant?" he asked of his non-commissioned officer whose gaze was fixed intently on the road by which they had come.

"Someone from the fort, sir, as I make out."

"She must go back to the Agency."

That was the final word.

So that was the end. The agent had said it. There was the Army to enforce it, and back of these troops the might of millions.

The Indian agent was an autocrat, a combination of king, judge, administrator, chief of police, doctor, engineer; in fact, it was a position requiring powers almost unlimited and corresponding responsibilities, and this impossible combination of inconceivable virtues was supposed to be tempted into the service of the Government by a salary of one thousand five hundred dollars a year or less. That these unique powers sometimes fell into incompetent or unworthy hands was inevitable, that the consequences were sometimes tragic, likewise inevitable.

"She must go back to the Agency."

Hal heard it in a numb way. Wah-na-gi heard it. Hal had a wild mad impulse to kill Ladd where he stood, and his fingers sought the handle of his gun, to feel the restraining touch of John McCloud.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and incline not to thine own understanding," whispered the calm voice of faith in his ear.

"Come on," said Ladd; "we must be moving."

The troopers made way for the new arrival who spurred his tired horse to the side of the young commander.

"Despatches from department head-quarters, sir," he said, touching his hat. "They arrived at the post just after you left."

Few people had been privileged to see Baker hurry. He was a deliberate body. He took his time now. In fact, he took so much time that Ladd, who was nervous and irritable, finally recalled him to the situation by saying:

"We have a long, hard ride, Captain; whenever you're ready."

"Yes--y-e-s," and Baker drew out the little word until it threatened to break. "I haven't forgotten. Thank you for reminding me."

Then he read the papers all over again. By this time the air seemed to become electrical again, and the little group into which the spectators had divided were hypnotized by the soldier's preoccupation. The attention became concentric. Talking stopped. Everybody waited on the captain.

Finally he said with great deliberation:

"Mr. Ladd, you will probably find similar instructions on your return to the Agency. These are orders from General Ruggles, Department Commander at Denver, directing me to relieve you of your office, pending an investigation, and ordering me to assume your duties until further notice."

Ladd was a man of quick and violent temper, and his hand instinctively felt for his gun.

The husky cavalryman looked him in the eye and said very slowly:

"If you pull a gun on the uniform I wear, you'll go back to Washington as damaged goods. You'd better hit the trail," and he turned away.

"I'm not afraid to go to Washington," said the agent, white with anger, "and I'm not afraid of an investigation," and he walked deliberately over to Calthorpe and said: "I owe this to you, Calthorpe."

"I told you," was the affable reply, "that I'd camp on your trail until I had your official head."

"I owe a lot to you, and I've got a damned good memory." And the agent turned on his heel and disappeared.

McCloud was the first to recover from his surprise and turn the situation to account.

"So you are acting agent, Captain Baker. Then you _have_ discretionary powers _now_. This young woman is like my own daughter. I'm sure the Government will eventually let me adopt her. Will you trust her to me?"

"Dr. McCloud," said the soldier, a bit embarrassed by the strange situation, "we all know you. Everybody round here knows you. I guess I'll take a chance on you."

This disposition of the bone of contention seemed to the captain like a special providence, and he was immensely relieved.

"My squaw--my woman!"

Everybody had forgotten Appah.

"You get out of here. Savey? Go on! Get your people home."

Appah looked at the young officer for a moment. The Indian respects our soldiers. The men who fought the Indians have as a rule been just to them, have kept their promises to them when they could, and the Indian fears our soldiers and also trusts them.

"Go on or I'll have you in the guard-house."

Appah turned his horse's head and rode away, but ugly and surly.

Baker was in the saddle and his men were already on the move when he turned and said to the clergyman:

"When people get to scrappin' over a young and pretty woman, I guess it's about time for Bobby Baker to pass up the job of chaperon. You got your work cut out for you, Doctor, and by the holy smoke I'll hold you accountable."

"Thank you, Captain; thank you. I'll try to be worthy of your confidence," and Baker rode after his men.

McShay's eyes were twinkling as he gazed after the boys in khaki.

"Parson," he said, "the Lord and the little old picayune U.S.A. is a fine workin' combination, ain't it?"

And the Irishman went out to round up his desperadoes, almost consoled for missing the fight by the sight of his adopted country's flag and her fighting men. Perhaps it's an inherited impulse, but even the man of peace stirs to the sound of the bugle, the beat of the drum, and the brave glitter of a fluttering flag.

McCloud turned to see the troopers round up the Indians like a bunch of cattle and start them back to the Agency.

"Wah-na-gi," he said without turning, "after to-day I think you can look on that flag as your flag. For once at least it has stood for protection instead of oppression to the Indian. You will learn to love it too, some day."

As she did not reply he turned to see her in Hal's arms, held close in a fierce embrace, the young man murmuring incoherently: "You are safe, and you are mine--mine--mine!"

They were alone, these three. McCloud regarded the two young people for a moment with sympathy, then he advanced to the side of Hal, touched him on the elbow, and said:

"This is yours."

It was the cable from the London physician about his father's illness.

"Oh, yes," Hal said in a dazed way; "I had forgotten."

"You can't forget; you can't avoid; you can't postpone. You must choose, and you must choose now."

It was hard not to be allowed a moment in which to enjoy the fierce ecstasy of triumph, of possession. Hal's life went out of him. He sank down on the rough bench and buried his face in his hands.

McCloud continued: "I have assumed certain obligations to this child which I consider sacred. I know that I have no power over her, no influence with her, except what you may choose to give me. I leave you together to decide this for yourselves, and I pray that you may deny yourselves the present and trust God for the future," and he went within to lie down to rest, for the strain and the excitement had been a great drain on his small store of energy.

They were alone together, their fate in their own hands. Wah-na-gi came over to him and put her hand on his bowed head with a caress.

"It shall be as you wish."

"No, my girl, it cannot be as I wish. It cannot be."

The acquired powers of review, of analysis, of restraint were forever battling within him with the impulses of the savage. He didn't understand it himself, this tumult, this confusion, this irresolution.

"I'm all wrong somehow," he cried bitterly. "McCloud is right. I'm not fit to be trusted with a love like yours. I'd soil it or crush and destroy it. I want you; I want you like a madman. I hate McCloud because he stands between us. I can't wait and toil and suffer. I don't know how, and yet I know I must."

"Whatever you decide will be right."

"It's that makes it impossible. You trust me."

"Of course," she said with a smile.

"You don't know that I'm a coward or a fool or both. I must live up to your belief in me, and I can't. I haven't the will to go back, to leave everything I want and go back to everything I loathe. McCloud says happiness is worth fighting for, worth waiting for, but I want to take it. How do I know if I let it slip from my grasp now that I'll ever see it again? How do I know that if I do go now I'll ever see _you_ again? Oh, Wah-na-gi, worse than all, I haven't had the courage to destroy your belief in me."

"You couldn't do that."

"You have known for a long time that I loved you. You have wondered, of course you have wondered, why I never asked you to be my wife. You saw me stand here like a helpless imbecile when I ought to have stood out and said proudly: 'She is mine. Touch her if you dare. She is my wife.' And I couldn't, I couldn't, because I am married. My wife is living in England."

Wah-na-gi drew a long breath. Then she sat down on a bench beside him.

"It's always like that," she said with the fatalism of her race. "Happiness goes out like one's breath on a frosty night."

She dropped into the figure of speech of her people.

"There sleeps Nat-u-ritch," she thought. "She, too, loved a white man, and there she lies dreaming. Did God make the Indian woman too? I wonder why?"

She always thought of him as a white man.

"The white woman is waiting for you."

"No, she cares for me less even than I care for her. If I go back it will be to be free."

McCloud appeared at the door of the cabin. He had tried to rest but he carried with him the sense of the conflict which he had left behind. He must know the result. Was it victory or defeat?

"Well, Hal, my son," he said gently; "which is it? Do you stay or do you go?"

Hal rose to his feet, pressed his hands to his head and then there was a long silence. Big Bill appeared at the entrance to the stable.

"Well, Boss," he said, awaiting instructions.

"My horse ready, Bill?"

Hal referred to the fresh horse he had ordered to be ready for the fight.

"As you ordered, sir."

"I'll catch the Overland Limited at Carbon. Send my things after me."

"Yes, sir," and Bill disappeared into the stable.

"You are going," said Wah-na-gi in a scarce audible whisper. "Where?"

"Back to London. Back home--no, not home. This is home to me."

Wah-na-gi crept to McCloud like a timid child.

"Must he go?"

"Yes, I think so."

Then she turned to Hal with a pitiful cry: "And you'll never come back."

"Oh, yes I will, Wah-na-gi; yes I will. I couldn't stay away. It's in my blood. I love this desolate land. It's my land. I love these people. They are my people. McShay is here; Bill is here; John McCloud is here; my mother is here; you are here. I couldn't stay away."

"If you do come back," said John McCloud with his eyes filled with tears, "you must bring this Indian woman clean hands and a pure heart. Promise me that."

"I'll do that or I won't come back; so help me God."

Upon the hands of the two men clasped in solemn pledge rested the small brown hand of Wah-na-gi.

John McCloud turned away to hide the emotion that was mastering him. Hal took the girl in his arms, held her long to his breast, then put her at arms' length and, looking into her eyes, said through his own tears:

"I'm coming back, Wah-na-gi, dear; I'm coming back."

Bill stood by with the horse. Hal leaped into the saddle.

"Explain it to the boys," he said to McCloud simply. Once more the girl went to him as if she would drag him from the saddle. He leaned down and kissed her and whispered "I'm coming back." Then he put spurs to his horse, and was off.

No one who has not lived on a ranch or in the wilderness apart can ever know what it is--the solemn aching void left by the one who goes away. Hal turned as he reached the hill before descending into the Bad Lands and waved his sombrero to them. Wah-na-gi was standing on the rock, Nat-u-ritch's gravestone, to get the last glimpse of him. Bill and McCloud were standing below. She stood there looking, looking, long after he had disappeared. They had to lift her gently down. Still she stood looking, looking.

"He's gone, Wah-na-gi, child," said John McCloud gently.

"Will he come back?" she said.

*CHAPTER XVII*

It is a trying moment when we face the wrong answer and realize that we must go back step by step to find the mistake. There is a fascination about the unknown. The future beckons.

Marching always onward, our courage each day finds an uplift in accomplishment. We are farther ahead if only a few inches. Incredible hardships and difficulties are put to flight.

Retracing one's steps, going back, requires more bravery than to go on. Initial enthusiasm looks like a grinning skeleton. It is not the same army in retreat. Doubt, despair hang on its flanks, worry and harass it all the bleeding way.

The moment Hal had decided to go back to England the necessary intermediate processes seemed wholly inadequate. He almost killed a good horse to reach Carbon on the D.&R.G. Railroad, only to find that he had eight hours to wait in that unmitigated by-product of civilization. They were eight heavy, heavy hours. He walked about the station, he gazed at the sage-brush and the water-tank, he went in and out of the "hotel," he attempted unsuccessfully to eat its so-called food, he tried to read its magazines six months old. The only possible object of interest was a very painful object. In the shade of one corner of the veranda on a stretcher lay a coal miner who had been hurt in the company's mines. His breast was heaving as if the life within him was struggling to get out. He was being removed to the company's hospital at Pedro. He had to wait for the train too, and it looked as if his impatient life refused to wait.

The few people in the desolate spot were fortunately busy or they would have gone mad. So no one paid any attention to the sufferer.

"Some people are unlucky, born that way," explained the young company doctor who had the dying man in charge. "Larry's just out of the hospital, and now he's goin' back--to stay this time, I guess."

It seemed to Hal as if he, too, were carrying is maimed life back on a stretcher, but he resisted the suggestion that it was to stay.

At last the train, late as usual, arrived. It was a relief at first. At least it was in motion, and he was going, even if it was backward. He was so preoccupied that it was some time before he was conscious of his fellow-passengers; then he felt rather than saw that he was being elaborately searched, optically swept, marked and staked out; coaxed, petted, and allured. He looked across to see a formidable person of the female sex who was half-pretending to read a book under the solicitous title "Stolen Kisses." This person seemed the last word in modern fixtures. An elaborate baby face peered out from under an elaborate hat of huge dimensions, ornamented with an elaborate mixture of flowers, fruit, and fur. Her face had had elaborate treatment. She wore an elaborate gown with a wholly unnecessary wrap. She had on patent-leather shoes with white cloth tops and exaggerated French heels, and occasionally she unconsciously treated the patient observer to a glimpse of an elaborate silk stocking. Except for the hat, it looked to be a case of tight-fit. Indeed, she seemed a physical and moral protest against restrictions.

"One of the products of John McCloud's 'glorious civilization,'" commented Hal to himself as he got up and retreated to his own car. From which it may be observed that the young man was not in a mood to be altogether fair to civilization or John McCloud. He sat down at the window but he did not see the telegraph poles flying past or the varying monotony of the landscape rushing by. Each revolution of the wheels was taking him farther and farther from Red Butte Ranch. What were they doing there now--Wah-na-gi, John McCloud, Big Bill, and the others? She was no longer at the Agency and the victim of the deviltry of David Ladd and Appah. She was among friends. That was some consolation, much consolation. And the time would pass; then he would be going the other way, going back to pick up his life where he had now dropped it. He wondered at what time of day he would arrive, whether he should notify them or surprise them. Yes, the time would pass. London wouldn't keep him long. Edith would be glad to release him. He felt absolutely confident of that, and yet there was a shadow over all his thoughts. He had a curious unreasonable foreboding of ill. What could happen? Then he became aware that some one was speaking to him. Would the gentleman care to make up a bridge party?

The invitation came to him from one of his fellow-travellers and it seemed a refuge from his thoughts, so Hal was glad to play. It would force him to think of other things. He played and lost quite a tidy sum of money before it came to him that he was being exploited by unfair means.

Having virtuously resolved to do what was right and much against his will, he had a feeling that the way ought to be made smooth and easy. Civilization had never been fair to him, and his return to it was evidently not to be strewn with flowers. He began to grow morose.

He found on picking up a newspaper that he would have two days in New York before his ship sailed, and he determined to spend those days in Washington. He had Ladd on the run. He must see to it that he wasn't allowed to stop short of losing his official head. He had offered to go to Washington at any time to substantiate his charges, and now Ladd was to face an investigation. The papers he had in his possession would go far to establish the agent's connection with the Trust and other papers he possessed would convict him of malfeasance in office. These papers were high explosives and had to be handled with the greatest care, for they involved not only Ladd but officials high in Government circles, and some leaders in Congress and in both of the political parties.

Hal's train arrived at the Grand Central Station in New York at night. He took a cab and ordered the driver to drive to the Hotel Astor. The direct road to the hotel was of course through Forty-second street, which was obviously slow and difficult of negotiation, and the situation seemed to offer an inducement to go a roundabout way with the amiable intention of boosting the fare. It was a trick with which the proposed victim was familiar, and he resolved that while consenting to the extra ride he would resist any effort to collect an extra fare. It was election night, and as soon as the cab hit Broadway it was caught in a whirlpool of humanity. It could neither go on nor go back.

The great city seemed to have resolved itself into a vast lunatic asylum and to have emptied all the patients into the streets. The incoherent maniacs seemed to be enjoying themselves and to be on the whole good-natured. In its gentlest moments New York is a noisy place, but to the ordinary din of traffic, the sag and smash of trucks, the rush and roar of the elevated on its iron bed was added an indescribable cacophony that was fiendish. Election night with its liberty and license--Hooligan's holiday! It seemed to Hal that he had never seen so many unpleasant faces in such a short distance or in so short a time. The sweat-shops seemed to have emptied into the streets, and the Tenderloin, and the submerged wreckage of the Bowery. They were mauling each other, jostling, joking, babbling, hurrahing, hardly knowing for whom or what, blowing fierce blasts on tin horns, ringing clusters of cow-bells, pulling fantastic shrieks out of motor sirens, whirring gigantic rattles--all struggling to see who could make the biggest noise. Women seemed more elated with the spirit of the occasion than men, and they evoked the attentions of strangers without the ceremony of an introduction. The interchange of pleasantries was sometimes marked by freedom and abandon. To Hal just from a country where it was possible to be for days and weeks without the sight of a human being, this seething, writhing mass of humanity, rubbing up against each other, jostling, pulling at each other, handling each other, bawling into each other's faces, was supremely obnoxious. His cab caught in the slow-moving swirl was a fine temptation to horse-play. As he leaned out of one window to try to understand the unusual tumult a vivacious young woman leaned in at the other window and blew a megaphonic tin horn directly into his ear. It seemed as if it would rip the drum of the ear. A greasy-faced urchin blew an expanding and suggestive-looking toy into his face. A buxom Amazon leaned in, gave his necktie a jerk, and screamed through her nose: "Why, sweetheart! I didn't know you was back!"

Other enthusiasts threw confetti over him.