Part 4

"It's too late," she said sadly. "I couldn't go back."

There was a pause as she looked over to the agent's house and added:

"Not now."

Appah saw and understood.

"Alone, you! Heap alone! All time alone!"

"Yes," she said with the suspicion of a sob in her voice. "I am alone."

Appah was on his way to the dances in the meadows, not the sun-dance, but the social functions, the turkey, wolf, buffalo dances, and he was dressed in all the glory of feather bonnet, buckskin shirt, and was conscious of looking extremely well. He was a vain man and it was difficult for him to realize that he had not produced a favorable impression, so he made the mistake of calling attention to his advantages.

"My father--big chief--Big Thunder. Big chief--me! Big medicine-man! Heap savey, me! Heap savey Shinob, heap savey--mystery! The bear, my friend, give me his strength! the wolf, he heap savey me! The wind talk to me! the sun, my friend! Plenty cattle, plenty horses! Maybeso you be Appah's squaw."

As Appah finished his eloquent appeal, two of Calthorpe's police lounged into sight from nowhere in particular. The sight of them made the medicine-man angry.

"Pikeway," he said to them. Which means "go away," "get along," and "get out," or just "go," according to the way you say it. It meant several things the way Appah said it. The two men only came nearer and were provokingly oblivious of the big chief. It was plain that they did not intend to hear him. Appah turned to her and, doubly irritated at being disregarded before her, said:

"Injin police--bad medicine! Trail, trail! me! all time, follow me! Tishum, tishum (all time)! Maybeso make heap trouble! You tell 'em pikeway."

"No, I will not," said Wah-na-gi boldly, plucking up courage in their presence.

"I'm afraid of you."

Then Appah forgot that he was trying to win her love. He advanced close to her, as if he would lay violent hands on her.

"Maybeso you heap like 'em white man. I savey you! Chief Injin police, eh? Katch wayno! (No good). Maybeso kill 'im some day!"

Then he noticed that she was dressed very neatly, better than the Indian women dress, that in fact she had on her best clothes, and he knew it was because the chief of police had just got back, and it enraged him to violence. He snatched the string of beads from her neck and threw them to the ground.

"Kill 'im, me, some day."

"Who's that you're going to kill?" said Calthorpe in his soft musical voice as he advanced from the porch of the agent's house. Appah turned on him in a fury.

"What's matter you?"

He pointed to the two policemen.

"Your dog, savey? I look down--saw-reach! (dog). Look back--saw-reach! This side, that side--saw-reach, Injin police! Maybeso you can't do it. Maybeso make heap trouble!"

"You savey this woman?" said Hal quietly. "Her people, dead! No father, no mother! heap bad men all around, plenty bad men, some whites, some Injin. You leave her alone. Savey?"

Unconsciously the white people speak English to the Indians as the Indians speak it, as we talk baby-talk to a baby.

"Maybeso you too all time pretty quick leave Injin woman alone."

Appah's hand was feeling under his blanket for his knife.

"When I speak with this woman," replied Hal simply, "some of these Indian men are always near. She is not to be troubled--not by you, not by me! Chavanaugh, come here."

One of the policemen came forward.

"If anything bad, any harm, comes to this woman through me, these men will kill me. These are my orders; is it so?"

"Toyoch, wayno," replied Chavanaugh slowly. "It is so and it is well."

"Now for you," said Hal to the medicine-man.

"You quit running off the settlers' cattle or I'll arrest you."

"Maybeso you can't, medicine-man, me! Chief, heap big chief!" Hal ignored this boast.

"This woman heap scared, all time scared! Let her alone!"

Appah made a long pause before he replied, then he said with some thing that approached a smile:

"Maybeso yes--maybeso no," and he walked to his pony hitched before the blacksmith shop and rode away.

Up to this time Wah-na-gi had remained alert, proud, outwardly calm; now she seemed to dwindle and shrink as she weakly drifted to some empty boxes which huddled under a cottonwood tree by the side of the little irrigating ditch which brawled along in a joyous hurry to get to the big streams below.

Calthorpe followed her and as she sat down said gently: "You are very tired."

"No," she said; "I am not tired."

"What is it, Wah-na-gi?"

It was a musical name as he uttered it.

"Is it Appah?"

She made a movement with the shoulders, and a half, unfinished, suggested movement of the hands; it indicated weariness and contempt.

"No, he frightens me, but it isn't that. It's _me_. Appah is right. I'm half bird, half fish, and I can't fly and I can't swim. I flop around on the earth and gasp for breath. And I know it, and I can't make it different."

Her lip curled bitterly but he did not try to console her with feeble platitudes. It was a great relief to her to speak to one who knew, and she was grateful for his silence. He simply sat down beside her and she felt that he was sorry and would like to help her.

"I suppose I was always impossible, even as a child. My parents gave me another name, but no one ever called me by it. Wah-na-gi is a nickname. It means 'the spirit when separated from the body.'[1] You see, even as a child I must have been strange and different."

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[1] A Dakota word.

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"It's a very beautiful name," he said softly; "the most beautiful name I ever heard. I'm glad they gave it to you."

Though he struggled to control his voice and make what he said very simple and commonplace, his tone was a caress. It seemed to take her by the hand and lead her through the gardens of life and bring her to the gates of Paradise.

It was very terrible for her to be so conscious of misery and so near to happiness. Tears sprang to her eyes; she trembled, she bit her lip and struggled, struggled audibly to control herself, to keep to the earth, to get back to the reality.

"Why did they do it?" she sobbed. "Oh, why did they do it?"

"They?" he said gently, groping, groping in his mind for some way to help her.

"My parents and the old chief Tabywana. No, I must not speak bitterly of them. They're dead now, and they meant well. They meant well. They thought they were doing great things for me--for _me_. Oh! Oh!" As a realization of her position swept over her again, her hands closed convulsively and she moaned as if in physical pain. It was the first time she had talked to any one about herself since she had returned from school. She was suffering it all over again, but it was a great relief to share it with some one. She was calmer now as she continued:

"They thought it was a great thing for me to go away to the Government school. They must have been dreamers too. They were very proud of me and thought I was so wonderful. Parents will think that sometimes about their children," she added wisely.

He smiled as he thought to himself:

"What a child she is! She'll always be a child."

"They thought I would learn all the wonderful things the white people knew, and I was very young; I thought so too. And the teachers--they were so kind. They petted and spoiled me because I learned faster than the rest. A new world opened to me, and I saw that there was nothing very mysterious about the white man's way, that it lay open to me, a poor Indian girl, and then I began to dream, and I forgot everything but my dream, and I worked, oh so hard; and I was happy, happier than I can tell you. Soon no one would have known that I was an Indian, except that I looked like an Indian, and I was not ashamed of that. And no labor, no sacrifice was too great, for I had great thoughts. I said to myself: 'Some day I will gather up all these blessings and take them home, back to the mountains, back to my own people, and perhaps God, the Great Spirit, will let me take them by the hand, these poor, ignorant, helpless children, and lead them out of bondage.'"

She paused for a moment and her face lit up with the glory of this dream whose sun had set.

"And I hoped that perhaps I could teach them to protect themselves against the white man, his cunning, cruelty, and vices. I saw it all so clearly myself, I felt that I could make them see it. And so, walking on the air, my head in the clouds, I came back with my dream. I came back with both hands stretched out to my people, and then----"

She paused, the sunset glow of a departed dream was gone, and in her face gathered the shadows of the long night that followed. It was such a relief to find expression that she was not conscious that she was laying bare her soul before this man, and he was conscious only of the fact that he was living her life with her, and it made him strangely, sadly happy. She had paused before the recollection of her home-coming and she was grateful to him that he did not try to comfort or console her.

"And then?" he suggested gently.

"I can't tell it, I can't," she sobbed; then with an effort she steadied herself and shook the tears out of her voice and went bravely on:

"The surprise, the shock, the pain as I began to realize the truth. I can't tell it, I can't explain it. I didn't try much at first, just example. I tried to live before them, to let them see the other way, the better way. The women saw me wash my face and hands always before eating, my teeth too. I tried to show them in my dress, my habits, my manner, but instead of seeing that what I was doing or trying to do was better, they only saw that it was different, and they hated me for it. They thought that I felt I was better than they were, and I couldn't make them see that I had only love for them in my heart. They would say: 'Here she comes, the white woman; make room for her; give her the best seat; she knows everything; we are nothing but poor Indians, but she has been to school; listen carefully to what she has to say. She is very young but she will teach us all.' I believe I could stand torture, but I can't bear to be made fun of. Perhaps they didn't mean to do more than tease me, but they tortured me. They hurt me cruelly and I could not hide it. They saw this and it seemed to make them happy, so every one took a hand in the new game. They called me the White Squaw. They praised me, they praised everything I did. It was great sport--_for them_. Finally the chiefs, the elders, took me aside, and talked to me of my effort to change things. The women must look to the men of the tribe; it wasn't wise to attempt new and strange things; it wasn't womanly; it was foolish for me to meddle in matters beyond me. This was more terrible because they were trying to be kind to me. They advised me to marry. Appah had asked for me and Colorow, the head chief, had given his consent. I began to see that it was hopeless. I was not an Indian to the Indians nor a white woman to the whites. I tried to forget, to go back, to be like them, and then you came, and I knew that I couldn't."

She said this simply, quite as a matter of course. Indeed, she was quite unconscious of what this meant to him.

"The worst of it all is they won't let me teach their children." She tried to say this bravely, but her voice broke in a sob.

"No?" he said with deep concern, for he knew that her hope lay in the children, that her heart was in her work as a teacher, and that her cramped, starved soul had found meat and drink in her love for the little ones.

"No. Yesterday the agent asked me to resign my position! He said that if I didn't the Indians would withdraw their children from the school."

Hal did not reply to this. All his faculties were alive and in a flash he saw the situation. He said nothing. What could he say?

She was not only face to face with a big, implacable problem but with a very painful and sordid struggle for existence.

"No, I could not go back," she repeated. "Whatever happens I will never again be like them. They make me shudder. I have no people, no kindred, no country. I am an outcast. Sometimes I get frightened. I seem to be just an empty shadow. I feel dead, but I still walk about. I can't even lie down under the ground and rest like my parents who are gone. I don't know why I tell you all this. You are a white man. You cannot understand."

"Wah-na-gi, I understand. I understand even what you haven't said. I'm glad you told me all this, but I knew it before you told me." And he smiled at her tenderly and she smiled back at him through her tears.

"You are very wonderful," she said with divine candor, and he laughed joyously, because he knew she was incapable of sarcasm.

"No Wah-na-gi, I'm not wonderful. I'm a very ordinary chap. It would be strange if I didn't understand. My mother, too, was an Indian woman."

He thought she would be startled, and he watched her narrowly for a sign. Would she be disappointed? Would her hero crumble? Or would she be glad that they were closer to each other than she had dreamed?

"Your mother?" she said. She did not grasp it. She hadn't thought to speculate about him; to wonder who he was or where he came from or why he was there.

"Your mother! Did you say your mother was an----"

"An Indian woman. Nat-u-ritch was her name.

"Nat-u-ritch? No, it isn't possible. The pretty little woman--they say she was so pretty--who, who----"

He said it for her.

"Killed herself over at the Red Butte Ranch? Yes, the same. She was my mother."

"I see now," she said. "Otherwise it couldn't have been. I couldn't have told you, and you, you never would have understood. I'm so glad you told me."

And without stopping to inquire why, the world seemed a different world, almost possible, perhaps a world in which one would be willing to live, might even be happy. Such small things sometimes make this curious old world.

"It was Fate, Wah-na-gi," he said irrelevantly. "It had to be. It is always like that. Things are so. That's all. We come together, you and I, because we are alone, alone in a big world."

"You, too," she said incredulously. Was it possible that this superior being could have been treated by life with the same want of consideration shown to a poor Indian girl? "Alone? You?" she repeated. It was a joy to find that they had many things in common, even if they were sorrows.

"Yes, I, too, am an outcast."

He said it lightly, because he was not begging for sympathy, for he no longer felt in need of sympathy. Indeed, he no longer felt an outcast. He said it because he wanted to make one more tie between them.

"You? Oh, no, it couldn't be!" she said, and her soul went out to meet him and stood waiting. He saw it but he did not realize all it meant to him.

"Yes," he said reassuringly.

"I pitied myself once, but I don't now. It was all for the best. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Yes, I had to get out, had to leave England, had to leave the British Army."

"You were a soldier. Of course, I ought to have known that," she said with frank admiration.

"I could tell you a fancy story," he said; "and you'd believe it, but I'd rather you knew the truth. Lies always keep one dodging. They said I disobeyed orders."

"But it wasn't true," she said with quiet conviction.

"Yes," he replied, grateful to her nevertheless. "Yes, it was true. Yes, I disobeyed orders. They were fool orders; they were crazy, cowardly, panicky orders and I disobeyed them, and I dare say I'd do it again if I had the chance."

He said this with more heat than she had ever seen him display, and she was proud and happy because she saw no sense of shame in his face and felt no reservation in the ringing tones of his voice.

"It was in South Africa. I was ordered to retreat. I tore up the despatch and ordered my men to charge, and I'm not bragging when I say I saved the division from annihilation."

"And they punished you for that?"

"Well, you see, it was like this--I don't know whether you'll understand it exactly, but this wasn't done in a corner. It was plain that if I was right our commander was--well--deserved to be court-martialled. He was a great man with the highest social and political connections. The people behind him couldn't afford to be shadowed by his disgrace. In fact, if they let the truth out it would have become a national scandal. It was easier to ask for the resignation of a youngster whom nobody knew, and about whom nobody cared, nobody but my poor old Dad. Even those who knew the truth said I was a fighter not a soldier, that I didn't know how to obey, was insolent and insubordinate, and they bawled that the Empire needed soldiers not heroes. They said I jeopardized the Empire in order to make a reputation for myself. They said a lot of things. The only man who stood by me--God bless him!--was my immediate superior, and he had to resign too, for telling the truth. So I was sacrificed. I had to give up the only career for which I was fitted, the only thing I cared for, and every door in England was shut to me forever. You see I have no people or country either."

"You shall have mine," she said quickly.

"You forget, you haven't any," he rejoined, and they both laughed like happy children.

Ladd had stood for a moment on his veranda and watched them with a cynical smile. They felt the chill of his shadow even before he spoke.

"Have you instructed your men as I told you?" he asked of Calthorpe as he came toward them.

"No," said the young man rising, "but I will."

He signalled to his two men to follow him and he walked away.

"Come," he said to her; "I'll walk a little of the way with you."

"Don't go far," said the agent. "The meeting will take place at once and _I depend on you_."

As they walked along neither spoke. Both of them had looked forward to this moment many times; both had dreaded it; both had avoided it; both had conspired to postpone it, and now they were face to face with it. Something strange had come into their lives, born of complete understanding. To help him to go away, to urge him to go away, at first seemed to her impossible, now it was imperative.

"You must go away," she said simply, as if they had been talking of it for a long time. "Your life isn't safe here."

This conveyed no meaning to him now. There were other reasons. He was well aware of them. He had in fact laid awake many a night answering them and confusing them, smothering them. His inclinations had silenced them many times. Now he knew that it was inevitable and could no longer be postponed, and yet, what of her? He saw that she had some basketwork and beadwork in her hands; that she had been into the store to try to sell them; that she had not done so. The trader sells these things for very good prices, but he takes care not to pay anything for them. He knew that Appah had been instrumental in having her dismissed from her position in the school, in the expectation that it might help to drive her to the protection and shelter of his home; that this had been done with the connivance of Ladd. He realized that her dismissal would be popular! He thought, too, that he could, if he chose, have her restored to her position, which meant more, much more to her than the salary involved; and that this was part of the "valuable consideration" intended by the agent. He knew that never had she so much need of him as now, and he must go away. "Your life isn't safe here," she repeated, seeing that he had not heard.

"Oh," he said, laughing, taking off his hat and looking at the hole in it quizzically. "Somebody has told you. Oh, it was nothing. Some one was hunting and I happened in the way--that's all."

"It was Appah," she said with complete conviction.

"What if it was?" he said, unimpressed. "He knows I know."

"He's a bad man."

"Well, he isn't my idea of a good man exactly; still--there are worse men than Appah."

"Yes," she echoed with conviction; "the agent, and he doesn't trust you."

"No?" he said, genuinely surprised. "What makes you think so?"

"Last night I was sitting crouched behind an empty oil barrel below the trader's window. I was very discouraged, for I had not been able to sell any of my work, and I was trying to think of some other way, or some other work, and before I knew it or realized that I was listening I heard their voices, the trader and the agent. I couldn't hear it all, but I heard enough. It was how the trader could stand at the store window, pretend to be cleaning a gun, and kill some one outside."

"And you think they had me in mind?"

"I didn't hear your name, only--don't go to this meeting this afternoon."

"I must go, Wah-na-gi; I couldn't stay away; but don't you be worried."

"What is it about?"

"The asphalt lands."

"They are a lot of bad men. Don't go, please don't go."

"Why, bless your heart, little woman, I know all about them, and I can take care of myself. I'm as safe as if I were in a church."

"If you stay on the Agency--they will kill you. You must go away."

"What is it, Bill?" said Calthorpe as the big foreman hove in sight breathing heavily as if he had hurried.

"Ladd wants you; they're ready to begin."

"All right, Bill, I'll come at once."

As Bill hastened away Hal took from his vest pocket a small automatic magazine gun.

"Wah-na-gi," he said, "I bought this for you the last time I was in Denver." And he rapidly showed her its simple mechanism. "Learn to use it. You might need it some day, and if you don't, no harm done." And he dropped it in the beaded pouch that hung from her waist.

*CHAPTER VII*

"Howd'y, boys?" said the agent in his most genial tones as he shook hands with McShay, Silent Smith, and Orson Lee. "Howd'y? By the way, McShay, I asked Captain Baker to come over from Fort Serene. I hope that is agreeable to you."

"Sure," said the big cowman. "Sure. Baker's all right. Who represents your side besides yourself?"

McShay had not made his way in the world by subtlety. The inference was too obvious to be ignored, but Ladd chose to assume the attitude of the righteous man who is not easily offended.

"I don't represent any side, McShay," he said with an amiable smile.

"Ain't you over-modest?" McShay's tone made it obvious that he did not expect quarter, and it was pretty well known that in a fight he didn't give any. Still the agent preserved his equanimity.

"Like Captain Baker, I'm just an officer of the Government."

"Not even Cadger, the Injin trader; ain't he in the game?"

"Not unless you personally desire his presence," said Ladd genially and without a trace of the amusement he felt at the idea.

"Not me," said the other hastily. "Any time I want Cadger present I'll put the occasion under lock and key and lose the key."

"Hello, here's Captain Baker now. Howd'y, Captain? Thank you for coming."

Baker had played centre rush at West Point and was really too big for a cavalryman. At sight of him one naturally felt sorry for the horse, and associated him involuntarily with the heavy artillery, coast defences, or something in keeping with his architectural lines. He looked like an overgrown boy. His fresh, rosy complexion, blond hair, and round face made him look much younger than he really was. If he was a bit slow mentally, he could mind his own business, and was universally liked by his men and by his neighbors in the country roundabout.

"Shall I get some chairs and benches?" said the agent.

"Mother Earth for me," said McShay, taking in the chances with a swift mental calculation, and arriving at the conclusion that sitting on the ground he could shoot quicker and had a better target than the man who sat on a chair or one who sat on the agent's porch. "Sure of your ground wires down here."