CHAPTER III.
AT CROSS-PURPOSES.
"Their tricks and craft ha' put me daft, They've taen me in, and a' that."
"And so you got back unharmed from the midst of the hostiles?" askedRachel in mock surprise, when, a week later, Hardy, Stuart, andMacDougall returned from their pilgrimage, bringing with them specimensof deer they had sighted on their return.
"Hostiles is about the last name to apply to them, I should imagine,"remarked Stuart; "they are as peaceable as sheep."
"But they can fight, too," said MacDougall, "an' used to be reckonedhard customers to meet; but the Blackfeet ha' well-nigh been the finisho' them. The last o' their war-chiefs is an old, old man now, an'there's small chance that any other will ever walk in his moccasins."
"I've been told something of the man's character," said Rachel, "buthave forgotten his name--Bald Eagle?"
"Grey Eagle. An' there's more character in him worth the tellin' of thanyou'll find in any Siwash in these parts. I doubt na Genesee told youtales o' him. He took a rare, strange liking to Genesee from thefirst--made him some presents, an' went through a bit o' ceremony bywhich they adopt a warrior."
"Was this Genesee of another tribe?" asked Stuart, who was alwaysattentive to any information of the natives.
"Yes," said Rachel quickly, anticipating the others, "of a totallydifferent tribe--one of the most extensive in America at present."
"A youth? A half-breed?"
"No," she replied; "an older man than you, and of pure blood. Hen, thereis Miss Margaret pummeling the window for you to notice her. DavyMacDougall, did you bring me nothing at all as a relic of your trip?Well, I must say times are changing when you forget me for an entireweek."
Both the men looked a little amused at Rachel's truthful yet misleadingreplies, and thinking it just one of her freaks, did not interfere,though it was curious to them both that Stuart, living among them somany days, had not heard Genesee mentioned before. But no late newscoming from the southern posts, had made the conversations of theirtroops flag somewhat; while Stuart, coming into their circle, broughtnew interests, new topics, that had for the while superseded the old,and Genesee's absence of a year had made them count him no longer as aneighbor. Then it may be that, ere this, Rachel had warded off attentionfrom the subject. She scarcely could explain to herself why she didit--it was an instinctive impulse in the beginning; and sometimes shelaughed at herself for the folly of it.
"Never mind," she would reassure herself by saying, "even if I am wrong,I harm no one with the fancy; and I have just enough curiosity to makeme wonder what that man's real business is in these wilds, for he is notnearly so careless as his manner, and not nearly so light-hearted as hislaugh."
"Well, did you find any white men among the Kootenais?" she asked himabruptly, the day of his return.
His head, bent that Miss Margaret could amuse herself with it, as a toyof immense interest, raised suddenly. Much in the girl's tone and mannerto him was at times suggestive; this was one of the times. His usuallypale face was flushed from his position, and his rumpled hair gave him atotally different appearance as he turned on her a look half-compellingin its direct regard.
"What made you ask that?" he demanded, in a tone that matched the eyes.
She laughed; to see him throw off his guard of gracious suavity wasvictory enough for one day.
"My feminine curiosity prompted the question," she replied easily. "Didyou?"
"No," he returned, after a rather steady look at her; "none that youcould call men."
"A specimen, then?"
"Heaven help the race, if the one I saw was accepted as a specimen," heanswered fervently; "a filthy, unkempt individual, living on theoutskirts of the village, and much more degraded than any Indian I met;but he had a squaw wife."
"Yes, the most of them have--wives or slaves."
"Slaves?" he asked incredulously.
"Actually slaves, though they do not bring the high prices we used toask for those of darker skin in the South. Emancipation has not mademuch progress up here. It is too much an unknown corner as yet."
"Is it those of inferior tribes that are bartered, or prisoners taken inbattle?"
"No, I believe not, necessarily," she replied, "though I suppose such awindfall would be welcomed; but if there happens to be any superfluousmembers in a family, it is a profitable way to dispose of them, amongsome of the Columbia Basin Indians, anyway. Davy MacDougall can give youmore information than I, as most of my knowledge is second-hand. But Ibelieve this tribe of the Kootenais is a grade above that sort oftraffic--I mean bartering their own kindred."
"How long have you been out here, Miss Rachel?" he asked, as abruptly asshe had questioned him of the white men.
"About a year--a little over."
"And you like it?"
"Yes; I like it."
In response to several demands, he had enthroned Miss Margaret on hislap by this time; and even there she was not contented. His head seemedto have a special fascination for her babyship; and she had such aninsinuating way of snuggling upward that she was soon close in his arms,her hands in easy reach of his hair, which she did not pull in infantilefashion, but dallied with, and patted caressingly. There was nomistaking the fact that Stuart was prime favorite here at all events;and the affection was not one-sided by any means--unless the man was athorough actor. His touch, his voice even, acquired a caressing way whenMiss Margaret was to be pleased or appeased. Rachel, speaking to Tillieof it, wondered if his attraction was to children in general or to thisone in particular; and holding the baby so that her soft, pink cheek wasagainst his own, he seemed ruminating over the girl's replies, and aftera little--
"Yes, you must, of course," he said thoughtfully; "else you could nevermake yourself seem so much a part of it as you do."
During the interval of silence the girl's thoughts had been wandering.She had lost the slight thread of their former topic, and looked alittle at sea.
"A part of what?" she asked.
"Why, the life here. You seem as if you had always belonged to it--a bitof local color in harmony with the scenes about us."
"How flattering!--charmingly expressed!" murmered Miss Hardy derisively."A bit of local color? Then, according to Mr. Stuart's impressions I maylook forward to finding myself catalogued among greasy squaws andpicturesque squaw men."
"You seem to take a great deal of delight in turning all I say or dointo ridicule," he observed. "You do it on the principle of the countrythat guys a 'tenderfoot'; and that is just one of the things that stampyou as belonging to the life here. I try to think of you as a Kentuckygirl transplanted, but even the fancy eludes me. You impress one asbelonging to this soil, and more than that, showing a disposition tofreeze out new-comers."
"I haven't frozen you out."
"No--thanks to my temperament that refuses to congeal. I did not leaveall my warmth in the South."
"Meaning that I did?"
"Meaning that you, for some reason, appear to have done so."
"Dear me, what a subtle personage you make of me! Come here, Margaret;this analyst is likely to prejudice you against your only auntie."
"Let her be with me," he said softly, as the baby's big blue eyes turnedtoward Rachel, and then were screened by heavy, white lids; "she isalmost asleep--little darling. Is she not a picture? See how she clingsto my finger--so tightly;" and then he dropped his face until his lipstouched the soft cheek. "It is a child to thank God for," he saidlovingly.
The girl looked at him, surprised at the thrill of feeling in his tones.
"You spoke like a woman just then," she said, her own voice changedslightly; "like a--a mother--a parent."
"Did I?" he asked, and arose with the child in his arms to deliver it toAunty Luce. "Perhaps I felt so; is that weakness an added cause fortrying to bar me out from the Kootenai hills?"
But he walked away without giving her a chance to reply.
She saw nothing more of him until evening, and then he
was rather quiet,sitting beside Tillie and Miss Margaret, with occasional low-tonedremarks to them, but not joining in the general conversation.
"What a queer remark that was for a man to make!" thought Rachel,looking at him across the room;--"a young man especially"; and thatstarted her to thinking of his age, about which people would have widelydifferent opinions. To see him sometimes, laughing and joking with therest, he looked a boy of twenty. To hear him talking of scientificresearches in his own profession and others, of the politics of the day,or literature of the age, one would imagine him at least forty. Butsitting quietly, his face in repose, yet looking tired, his eyes so fullof life, yet steeped in reveries, the rare mouth relaxed, unsmiling,then he looked what he probably was, thought the girl--about thirty; butit was seldom that he looked like that.
"Therefore," reasoned this feminine watcher, "it is seldom that we seehim as he really is; query--why?"
"Perhaps I felt as a parent feels!" How frank his words had been, andhow unlike most men he was, to give utterance to that thought with somuch feeling, and how caressing to the child! Rachel had to acknowledgethat he was original in many ways, and the ways were generally charming.His affections were so warm, so frankly bestowed; yet that gracious,tender manner of his, even when compared with the bluntness of the menaround him, never made him seem effeminate.
Rachel, thinking of his words, wondered if he had a sweetheartsomewhere, that made him think of a possible wife or childrenlongingly--and if so, how that girl must love him!
So, despite her semi-warlike attitude, and her delight in thwarting him,she had appreciation enough of his personality to understand howpossible it was for him to be loved deeply.
Jim, under Miss Hardy's tuition, had been making an attempt to "rope in"an education, and that night was reading doubtfully the history of ourGlorious Republic in its early days; garnishing the statements now andthen with opinions of his own, especially the part relating to thecharacter of the original lords of the soil.
"Say, Miss Rache, yer given' me a straight tip on this lay-out?" he saidat last, shutting the book and eyeing her closely.
The question aroused her from the contemplation of the Hermes-like headopposite, though she had, like Hardy, been pretending to read.
"Do you mean, is it true?" she asked.
"Naw!" answered Jim, with the intonation of supreme disgust; "I hain'tno call to ask that; but what I'm curious about is whether the galoot aswrote the truck lied by accident--someone sort o' playin' it on him, yesee--er whether he thought the rest o' creation was chumps from awayback, an' he just naturally laid himself out to sell them cheap--nowsay, which is it?"
In vain his monitor tried to impress on his mind the truth of thechronicles, and the fact that generations ago the Indian could be trulycalled a noble man, until his child-like faith in the straight tongue ofthe interloper had made a net for his feet, to escape which they hadrecourse only to treachery and the tomahawk, thus carving in history acharacter that in the beginning was not his, but one into which he waseducated by the godly people who came with their churches and guns,their religion and whisky, to civilize the credulous people of theforests.
Jim listened, but in the supercilious disbelief in his eyes Rachel readthe truth. In trying to establish historical facts for his benefit, shewas simply losing ground in his estimation at every statement made.
"An' you," he finally remarked, after listening in wonderful silence forhim--"an' you've read it all, then?"
"Yes, most of it."
"An' swallowed it as gospel?"
"Well, not exactly such literal belief as that; but I have read not onlythis history, but others in support of those facts."
"Ye have, have yeh?" remarked her pupil, with a sarcastic contempt forher book-learning. "Well, I allow this one will do me a life-time, ferI've seen Flatheads, an' Diggers, an' Snakes!"
Thus ended the first lesson in history.
"Don't you think," said Tillie softly to Stuart, "that Rachel would winmore glory as a missionary to the Indians than among her own race? Sheis always running against stumbling-blocks of past knowledge with theprogressive white man."
Rachel cast one silencing glance at the speaker; Tillie laughed.
"Never mind," she said reassuringly; "I will say nothing about yourother attempt, and I only hope you will be willing to confine yourselfto the Indians near home, and not start out to see some Flatheads, andDiggers, and Snakes for yourself."
"Lawd bress yeh, honey!" spoke up Aunty Luce, whose ears were alwaysopen to anything concerning their red neighbors; "don' yo' go to puttin'no sech thoughts in her haid. Miss Rache needs tamin' down, she do,'stead o' 'couragement."
"Well, it's precious little encouragement I get here, except to growrusty in everything," complained Rachel. "A crusade against even theDiggers would be a break in the monotony. I wish I had gone with you tothe Kootenai village, Mr. Stuart; that would have been a diversion."
"But rather rough riding," he added; "and much of the life, and--well,there is a great deal one would not care to take a lady to see."
"You don't know how Rachel rides," said Tillie, with a note of praise inher voice; "she rides as hard as the men on the ranch. You must gotogether for a ride, some day. She knows the country very well already."
Rachel was thinking of the other part of his speech.
"I should not have asked to be taken," she said, "but would have gone onmy own independence, as one of the party."
"Then your independence would have led you to several sights revoltingto a refined nature," he said seriously, "and you would have wishedyourself well out of it."
"Well, the Kootenais are several degrees superior to other tribes of theColumbia Basin; so you had better fight shy of Jim's knowledge. Why,"she added, with a little burst of indignation that their good pointswere so neglected, "the Kootenais are a self-supporting people, askingnothing of the Government. They are independent traders."
"Say, Miss Rachel," broke in Jim, "was Kalitan a Kootenai Injun?"
"No, though he lived with them often. He was of the Gros Ventres, a racethat belongs to the plains rather than the hills."
"You are already pretty well posted about the different tribes,"observed Stuart.
"Yes, the Lawd knows--humph!" grunted Aunty Luce, evidently thinking theknowledge not a thing to be proud of.
"Oh, yes," smiled Tillie, "Rachel takes easily to everything in thesehills. You should hear her talking Chinook to a blanket brave, orexchanging compliments with her special friend, the Arrow."
"The Arrow? That is a much more suggestive title than the Wahoosh,Kah-kwa, Sipah, and some other equally meaningless names I jotted downas I heard them up there."
"They are only meaningless to strangers," answered the girl. "They allhave their own significance."
"Why, this same Arrow is called Kalitan," broke in Jim; "an' what'd youmake out of that? Both names mean just the same thing. He was calledthat even when he was a little fellow, he said, 'cause he could run likea streak. Why, he used to make the trip down to the settlement an' beback here with the mail afore supper, makin' his forty miles afoot afterbreakfast; how's that for movin' over rough country?"
The swiftness did not seem to make the desired impression, his listenercatching, instead, at the fact of their having had an Indianmail-carrier.
"And where is your Indian messenger of late?" he asked. "He has notvisited you since my arrival, has he?"
"No; he left this country months ago," said Rachel. "Kalitan is a bit ofa wanderer--never long in one place."
"Davy MacDougall says he'd allus loaf around here if Genesee would, buthe's sure to go trottin' after Genesee soon as he takes a trail."
"That is the Indian you spoke of this morning, is it not?" asked Stuart,looking at Rachel.
"What!" roared Jim; and Hardy, who was taking a nap behind a paper,awoke with a start. "Genesee an Injun! Well, that's good!" and he brokeinto shrill, boyish laughter. "Well, you ought to just say it to hisface, that's all!"
"Is he not?" he asked, still looking at the girl, who did not answer.
"Oh, no," said Tillie; "he is a white man, a--a--well, he has lived withthe Indians, I believe."
"I understood you to say he himself was an Indian." And Rachel felt thesteady regard of those warm eyes, while she tried to look unconscious,and knew she was failing.
Hardy laughed, and shook himself rightly awake.
"Beg your pardon," he said, coming to the rescue, "but she didn't sayso; she only gave you the information that he was pure-blooded; and Ishould say he is--as much of a white man as you or I."
"Mine was the mistake," acknowledged Stuart, with his old easy manneronce more; "but Miss Rachel's love of a joke did not let me fall into itwithout a leader. And may I ask who he is, this white man with theIndian name--what is he?"
Rachel answered him then brusquely: "You saw a white man with theKootenais, did you not--one who lives as they do, with a squaw wife, orslave? You described the specimen as more degraded than the Indiansabout him. Well, Genesee is one of the class to which that manbelongs--a squaw man; and he is also an Indian by adoption. Do you thinkyou would care for a closer acquaintance?"
Tillie opened her eyes wide at this sweeping denunciation of Genesee andhis life, while even Hardy looked surprised; Rachel had always, before,something to say in his favor. But the man she questioned so curtly wasthe only one who did not change even expression. He evidently forgot toanswer, but sat there looking at her, with a little smile in his eyes.
Once in bed, it did not keep her awake; and the gray morning crept inere she opened her eyes, earlier than usual, and from a cause notusual--the sound in the yard of a man's voice singing snatches of song,ignoring the words sometimes, but continuing the air in low carols ofmusic, such as speak so plainly of a glad heart. It was not yet sun-up,and she rebelled, drowsily, at the racket as she rolled over toward thewindow and looked out. There he was, tinkering at something about hissaddle, now and then whistling in mimicry of a bird swaying on aleafless reed in the garden. She could see the other men, out across theopen space by the barn, moving around as usual, looking after thedomestic stock; but until one has had a breakfast, no well-regulatedindividual is hilarious or demonstrative, and their movements, as shecould see, were not marvels of fast locomotion. They looked as she felt,she thought, yawningly, and groped around for her shoes, and findingthem, sat down on the side of the bed again and looked out at thatmusical worker in the yard.
She could hear Aunty Luce tinkling the dishes in the kitchen, and Tillieand Miss Margaret, in the next room, cooing over some love-story of dawnthey were telling each other. All seemed drowsy and far off, except thatpenetrating, cheery voice outside.
"The de'il tak' him!" she growled, quoting MacDougall; "what does thefellow mean by shouting like that this time of the night? He is as muchof a boy as Jim."
"Here awa', there awa', wandering Willie. Here awa', there awa', haud awa', hame!"
warbled the Stuart, with an accent that suited his name; and the girlwakened up a bit to the remembrance of the old song, thinking, as shedressed, that, social and cheery as he often was, this was the firsttime she had ever heard him sing; and what a resonant, yet boyish,timbre thrilled through his voice. She threw up the window.
"Look here!" she said, with mock asperity, "we are willing to make someallowance for national enthusiasm, Mr. Charles, Prince of the Stuarts,but we rebel at Scotch love-songs shouted under our windows beforedaybreak."
"All right," he smiled, amiably. "I know one or two Irish ones, if youprefer them.
"Oh, acushla Mavourneen! won't you marry me? Gramachree, Mavourneen; oh, won't you marry me?"
Click! went the window shut again, and from the inside she saw himlooking up at the casement with eyes full of triumph and mischief. Hewas metamorphosed in some way. Yesterday he had been serious andearnest, returning from his hill trip with something like despondency,and now--
She remembered her last sight of him the night before, as he smiled ather from the stairway. Ah, yes, yes! all just because he had feltjubilant over outwitting her, or rather over seeing a chance do the workfor another. Was it for that he was still singing? Had her instinctsthen told her truly when she had connected his presence with the memoryof that older man's sombre eyes and dogged exile? Well, the exile washis own business, not that of anyone else--least of all that of thisdebonair individual, with his varying emotions.
And she went down the stairs with a resentful feeling against thelight-hearted melody of "Acushla Mavourneen."
"Be my champion, Mrs. Hardy," he begged at the breakfast-table, "or I amtabooed forever by Miss Rachel."
"How so?"
"By what I intended as an act of homage, giving her a serenade atsunrise in the love-songs of my forefathers."
"Nonsense!" laughed Rachel. "He never knew what his forefathers wereuntil Davy MacDougall brushed up his history; and you have not thoughtmuch of the songs you were trying to sing, else you would know theybelong to the people of the present and future as well as the past.
"Trying to sing!" was all the comment Mr. Stuart made, turning with aninjured air to Tillie.
"Learn some Indian songs," advised that little conspirator impressively;"in the Kootenai country you must sing Chinook if you want to beappreciated."
"There speaks one who knows," chimed in Hardy lugubriously. "A year agoI had a wife and an undivided affection; but I couldn't sing Chinook,and the other fellow could, and for many consecutive days I had to takea back seat."
"Hen! How dare you?"
"In fact," he continued, unrestrained by the little woman's tones orscolding eyes, "I believe I have to thank jealousy for ever reinstatingme to the head of the family."
"Indeed," remarked Stuart, with attention impressively flattering; "mayI ask how it was effected?"
"Oh, very simply--very simply. Chance brought her the knowledge thatthere was another girl up the country to whom her hero sang Chinooksongs, and, presto! she has ever since found English sufficient for allher needs."
And Tillie, finding she had enough to do to defend herself withoutteasing Rachel, gave her attention to her husband, and the girl turnedto Stuart.
"All this gives no reason for your spasms of Scotch expression thismorning," she reminded him.
"No? Well, my father confessor in the feminine, I was musical--begpardon, tried to be--because I awoke this morning with an unusuallylight heart; and I sang Scotch songs--or tried to sing them--because Iwas thinking of a Scotchman, and contemplating a visit to him to-day."
"Davy MacDougall?"
"The same."
"And you were with him only yesterday."
"And may say good-bye to him to-morrow for a long time."
"So you are going?" she asked, in a more subdued tone.
"I believe so!" And for the moment the question and answer made the twoseem entirely alone, though surrounded by the others. Then she laughedin the old quizzical, careless way.
"I see now the inspiration to song and jubilance that prevented you fromsleeping," she said, nodding her head sagaciously. "It was the thoughtof escaping from us and our isolated life. Is that it?"
"No, it is not," he answered earnestly. "My stay here has been apleasure, and out of it I hope will grow something deeper--a happiness."
The feeling in the words made her look at him quickly. His eyes met herown, with some meaning back of their warmth that she did not understand.Nine girls out of ten would have thought the words and manner suggestiveof a love declaration and would at once have dropped their eyes in theprettiest air of confusion and been becomingly fluttered; but Rachel wasthe tenth, and her eyes were remarkably steady as she returned hisglance with one of inquiry, reached for another biscuit, and said:
"Yes?"
But the low tones and his earnestness had not escaped two pairs of eyesat the table--those of Mistress Tillie and Master Jim--both of themcoming to about the same conclusion in the matter, the one that Rachelwas flirting, and t
he other that Stuart "had a bad case of spoons."
Many were the expostulations when, after breakfast, Hardy's guestinformed him that his exit from their circle was likely to be almost asabrupt as his entrance had been. In vain was there held out to him thesport of their proposed hunt--every persuasive argument was met with aregretful refusal.
"I am sorry to put aside that pleasure," he answered; "but, to tell thetruth, I scarcely realized how far the season has advanced. The snowwill soon be deep in the mountains, they tell me, and before that time Imust get across the country to Fort Owens. It is away from a railroadfar enough to make awkward travel in bad weather, and I realize that thetime is almost past when I can hope for dry days and sunshine; so,thinking it over last night, I felt I had better start as early aspossible."
"You know nothing of the country in that direction?" asked Hardy.
"No more than I did of this; but an old school-fellow of mine is one ofthe officers there--Captain Sneath. I have not seen him for years, butcan not consider my trip up here complete without visiting him; so, yousee--"
"Better fight shy o' that territory," advised Andrews, chipping in witha cowboy's brief say-so. "Injun faction fights all through thar, an'it's risky, unless ye go with a squad--a big chance to pack bullets."
"Then I shall have an opportunity of seeing life there under the moststirring circumstances," replied Stuart in smiling unconcern, "for intime of peace a military post is about the dullest place one can find."
"To be sure," agreed his adviser, eyeing him dubiously; "an' if ye findyerself sort o' pinin' for the pomp o' war, as I heard an actor spoutin'about once, in a theatre at Helena--well, down around Bitter Root River,an' up the Nez Perce Fork, I reckon you'll find a plenty o' it jestabout this time o' year."
"And concluding as I have to leave at once," resumed Stuart, turning toHardy, "I felt like taking a ride up to MacDougall's for a good-bye. Ifind myself interested in the old man, and would not like to leavewithout seeing him again."
"I rather think I've got to stay home to-day," said his host ruefully,"else I would go with you, but--"
"Not a word of your going," broke in Stuart; "do you think I've locatedhere for the purpose of breaking up your routine of stock andagricultural schemes? Not a bit of it! I'm afraid, as it is, yourhospitality has caused them to suffer; so not a word of an escort. Iwouldn't take a man from the place, so--"
"What about a woman?" asked Rachel, with a challenging glance that wasfull of mischief. For a moment he looked at a loss for a reply, and shecontinued: "Because I don't mind taking a ride to Davy MacDougall's myown self. As you say, the sunny days will be few now, and I may not haveanother chance for weeks; so here I am, ready to guide you, escort you,and guard you with my life."
What was there left for the man to say?
"What possessed you to go to-day, Rachel?" asked Tillie dubiously. "Doyou think it is quite--"
"Oh, yes, dear--quite," returned that young lady confidently; "and youneed not assume that anxious air regarding either the proprieties or myyouthful affections, for, to tell the truth, I am impelled to go throughsheer perversity; not because your latest favorite wants me, but simplybecause he does not."
Twenty minutes after her offer they were mounted and clattering awayover the crisp bronze turf. To Stuart the task of entertaining a ladywhose remarks to him seldom verged from the ironical was anything but asinecure--more, it was easy to see that he was unused to it; and anungallant query to himself was: "Why did she come, anyway?" He had notheard her reply to Tillie.
The air was crisp and cold enough to make their heavy wraps a comfort,especially when they reached the higher land; the sun was showingfitfully, low-flying, skurrying clouds often throwing it in eclipse.
"Snow is coming," prophesied the girl, with a weather-eye to the north,where the sky was banking up in pale-gray masses; "perhaps not heavyenough to impede your trip south, to Owens, but that bit over therelooks like a visiting-card of winter."
"How weather-wise you are!" he observed. "Now I had noticed not theslightest significance in all that; in fact, you seem possessed ofseveral Indian accomplishments--their wood-lore, their language, theirhabit of going to nature instead of an almanac; and did not Mrs. Hardysay you knew some Indian songs? Who taught you them?"
"Songs came near getting us into a civil war at breakfast," sheobserved, "and I am not sure that the ground is any more safe aroundIndian than Scotch ones."
"There is something more substantial of the former race" he said,pointing ahead.
It was the hulking figure of a Siwash, who had seen them first and triedto dodge out of sight, and failing, halted at the edge of a littlestream.
"Hostile?" queried Stuart, relying more on his companion's knowledgethan his own; but she shook her head.
"No; from the Reservation, I suppose. He doesn't look like a blanketbrave. We will see."
Coming within speaking distance, she hailed him across the divide of thelittle stream, and got in reply what seemed to Stuart an inextricablemass of staccatos and gutturals.
"He is a Kootenai," she explained, "and wants to impress on our mindsthat is a good Indian."
"He does not look good for much," was the natural remark of the whiteman, eyeing Mr. Kootenai critically; "even on his native heath he is notpicturesque."
"No--poor imp!" agreed the girl, "with winter so close, their concern ismore how they are to live than how they appear to people who have nocare for them."
She learned he was on his way south to the Flathead Reservation; so hehad evidently solved the question of how he intended living for thewinter, at all events. He was, however, short of ammunition. When Rachelexplained his want, Stuart at once agreed to give him some.
"Don't be in a hurry!" advised his commander-in-chief; "wait until weknow how it is that he has no ammunition, and so short a distance fromhis tribe. An Indian can always get that much if he is not too lazy tohunt or trap, or is not too much of a thief."
But she found the noble red man too proud to answer many questions of asquaw. The fear however, of hostilities from the ever-combativeBlackfeet seemed to be the chief moving cause.
"Rather a weak-backed reason," commented Rachel; "and I guess you candig roots from here to the Reservation. No powder, no shot."
"Squaw--papoose--sick," he added, as a last appeal to sympathy.
"Where?"
He waved a dirty hand up the creek.
"Go on ahead; show us where they are."
His hesitation was too slight to be a protest, but still there was ahesitation, and the two glanced at each other as they noticed it.
"I don't believe there is either squaw or papoose," decided Stuart. "Lois a romancer."
But there was, huddled over a bit of fire, and holding in her arms alittle bundle of bronze flesh and blood. It was, as the Indian had said,sick--paroxysms of shivers assailing it from time to time.
"Give me your whisky-flask!" Rachel said promptly; and dismounting, shepoured some in the tin cup at her saddle and set it on the fire--theblue, sputtering flame sending the odor of civilization into the crispair. Cooling it to suit baby's lips, she knelt beside the squaw, who hadsat stolidly, taking no notice of the new-comers; but as the girl's handwas reached to help the child she raised her head, and then Rachel knewwho she was.
Cooling it to suit baby's lips, she knelt beside thesquaw]
They did not speak, but after a little of the warm liquor had forceditself down the slight throat, Rachel left the cup in the mother'shands, and reached again for the whisky.
"You can get more from Davy MacDougall," she said, in ahalf-conciliatory tone at this wholesale confiscation; "and--and youmight give him some ammunition--not much."
"What a vanishing of resolves!" he remarked, measuring out an allowanceof shot; "and all because of a copper-colored papoose. So you have a bitof natural, womanly weakness?"
The girl did not answer; there was a certain air of elation about her asshe undid a scarf from her throat and wrapped it abo
ut the little morselof humanity.
"Go past the sheep ranch," she directed the passive warrior, who stoodgazing at the wealth in whisky and powder. "Do you know where itis--Hardy's? Tell them I sent you--show them that," and she pointed tothe scarf; "tell them what you need for squaw and papoose; they willfind it."
Skulking Brave signified that he understood, and then led Betty towardher.
"He is not very hospitable," she confided to Stuart, in the white man'stongue, "else he would not be in such haste to get rid of us."
And although their host did not impress one as having a highly strungnervous organization, yet his manner during their halt gave them theidea that he was ill at ease. They did not tarry long, but having givenwhat help they could, rode away, lighter of whisky and ammunition, andthe girl, strange enough, seemed lighter of heart.
After they had reached a point high above the little creek, they turnedfor a look over the country passed. It lay in brown and blue-graypatches, with dashes of dark-green on the highlands, where the pinesgrew.
"What is the white thing moving along that line of timber?" asked thegirl, pointing in the direction they had come. It was too far off to seeclearly, but with the aid of Stuart's field-glass, it was decided to bethe interesting family they had stopped with a little ways back. And thewhite thing noticed was a horse they were riding. It was getting overthe ground at the fastest rate possible with its triple weight, for thesquaw was honored with a seat back of her lord.
"I imagined they were traveling on foot, didn't you?" asked Stuart.
"What a fool he was to steal a white horse!" remarked the girlcontemptuously; "he might know it would be spotted for miles."
Told in the Hills: A Novel Page 12