“Wal, I meant no offense. But she belongs to somebody. Toddy Nokin shore. An’ I’m sayin’ thet if Toddy or you hit Manerube’s trail------------------------------- ”
“I'll beat him to Toddy’s hogan,” interrupted Chane, leaping on Brutus.
“Hey!” yelled McPherson, hastily. ‘‘Don’t git the idee because Manerube didn’t draw on me thet he won’t on you. Me an’ you might be different proposi- tions.”
“Much obliged,” Chane called back. “If Manerube beats me to a gun you’re welcome to my grub.”
McPherson yelled another 'parting sally, which Chane could not distinguish, owing to the sudden pounding of hoofs. Brutus had not needed spur or word; his answer to the touch of bridle was something that thrilled Chane.
“Say, old boy, you’re there!” he called.
But only a few rods away was the edge of a rocky slope, where Chane had to rein Brutus in. It was noC; necessary to haul on the bridle and hold hard as in the case of Andy and most spirited horses Chane had ridden. Brutus pounded down the rock-strewn trail and splashed across the brook. His hoofs rang hollow on the stone bench where the water rushed. Chane rode at a gallop up the canyon, through the sage flat, and on to a low cedared break in the wall. There was a trail leading over this, down upon the sage upland beyond, where the Indians pastured their horses and sheep. By the time Chane surmounted this ragged rocky eminence he was aware that he bestrode one horse in a million. His heart warmed to Brutus. Apparently he climbed with no more effort than that required on a level. Once on top, he gave a great heave of his bellows-like chest, and that was the only sign of exertion he manifested.
“Look here, Brutus, I reckon I overlooked you, but you needn’t rub it in,” remarked Chane.
It was an easy ride down the long gradual slope. The fragrant breath of the sage came strong on the breeze. Away rolled the heaving purple upland, with its clumps of green cedar, its groups of yellow rocks, its long level lines of canyon rims, red in the morning sun. Herds of mustangs colored the soft gray and purple of the sage flats; a flock of sheep moved like a wide white-and-black patch out on the desert. A sage prairie it seemed, almost endless to the eastward; but in the north interrupted lines and notches betrayed the break-off down into the wilderness world of wind-worn rock.
Toddy Nokin’s hogan, and that of his relatives, stood at the base of the slope, on the edge of the bare upland. These mounds of earth plastered over framework of cedar were no different from the Navajo structures. The one door faced the east. Door as well as hogan invited the sun. Temporary as were these homes of the Piutes, they yet had the appearance of service. Blue smoke curled from the circular holes in the roofs; white and black puppies played with half naked, dusky-skinned children; mustangs with crude Indian saddles and blankets of bright colors stood bridles down; in a round corral, made of cedar branches planted in the ground, a flock of sheep and goats baa-baaed at Chane’s approach, and the shepherd dogs barked viciously.
As Chane rode down to the first hogan the Indian children disappeared as if by magic, and one of Toddy Nokin’s squaws came out. Inquiry for Toddy elicited the information that he was out hunting horses. An old brave, gray and wrinkled, appeared at the hogan door, to bend a dark skinny hand in direction too complicated for Chane’s deduction. Then he asked for Sosie, assured that, if Manerube really had designs upon her, there was time to outwit him. The squaw pointed toward a clump of cedars on the rise of slope just beyond the corral.
Chane rode thither, to find Sosie in the shade of the trees, beside an older squaw who was weaving a blanket. Chane dismounted and, approaching them, he bent a more than usually interested gaze upon Sosie. His greeting was answered in good English. The Indian maiden, though only sixteen years old, had spent the latter nine of these in the government school. She was very pretty, compared with the older Indian women, as she had retained the cleanly and tidy habits fostered upon her at the school. She was slight in build, with small oval face, a golden-bronze complexion, and hair black as the wing of a raven. Her eyes were too large for her face, but they were beautiful. She wore a dark velveteen blouse and necklaces of silver, and her skirt was long, full, and of a bright color. Her little feet were incased in silver-buttoned moccasins.
Her somber face changed at Chane’s arrival. He was used to finding her moody, and thought that indeed she had reason to be. Sosie talked well, and had told
Chane more about the Indians, and the tragedy of educated girls like herself, than he could otherwise have learned. It appeared that this morning she had another grievance. Her father, Toddy Nokin, wanted her to marry a young Piute who already had a wife, and he could not understand her objection. Chane sympathized with her and advised her not to marry any Indian she could not love.
“I couldn’t love an Indian,” replied Sosie, in disgust.
“Why not?” queried Chane.
“Because Indian boys who are educated go back to the dirty habits of their people. We girls learn the white people’s way of living. We learn to like clean bodies, clean clothes, clean food. When we try to correct our mothers and fathers we’re accused of being too good for our own people. My father says to me: ‘You’re my blood. Why aren’t my ways right for you ?’ Then when I tell him, he can’t understand.”
‘Why don’t you leave them and live among white people?” asked Chane.
“I’d have to be a servant. Only a few Indian girls find good places.”
“Well, Sosie, it doesn’t look as if education for Indian girls was right,” said Chane, soberly.
“I don’t say it’s wrong, but it’s hard. If I could help my family I’d be glad. But I can’t. And when I look at a white man they are angry.”
“Sosie, most white men—out here, anyway—are not fit for you to look at,” replied Chane, earnestly.
“Why? I like them better than Indians,” she said bluntly.
Chane found his mission rather embarrassing, as it had not occurred to him that Sosie would prefer the company of a bad white man to the best Indian her father could present. After deliberating a moment, he talked to her as plainly and kindly as if she had been his sister, explaining why Manerube or one of his class meant nothing but evil toward her. Chane exhausted his argument, at the conclusion of which Sosie said: “You preach like our missionary at school. I’d rather be made love to.”
“But, Sosie,” exclaimed Chane, aghast at her simplicity, “I never made love to you!”
“No. You’re different from other white men out here,” she replied, in a tone that did not indicate that she respected him for it.
“If I made love to you I’d ask you to marry me,” Continued Chane, at a loss what to say to this misguided child.
Her reception of this was a shy surprise, a hint of coquetry and response singularly appealing. It made Chane pity her. At the same time he divined that other white men, in their attention to her, had never touched the chord of fineness and sweetness that lay deep in her. Suddenly he realized the fatality of her position, and it distressed him. He did not love her, but almost he wished he did. In his anxious perturbation he launched into an emphatic declaration against Manerube. Sosie listened intently. It was evidently an exciting hour for her.
“But Manerube says he will take me away,” she replied when Chane had concluded his tirade.
Chane was shocked. “Surely he will. But you mustn’t let him.”
“I’ll run off with him,” the girl replied, with something inevitable about her.
“No, you won’t, Sosie,” declared Chane. “I’ll stop you. I told Manerube he’d better not let me see him with you again.”
“What would you do, Mr. Chane?” she asked, a curious dark flash in her eyes.
“Well—that depends on what he did,” rejoined Chane, somewhat taken aback. “I’d beat him good and hard, at least.”
“I thought you said you weren’t in love with me,” cried Sosie, in a sort of wild gladness.
Chane threw up his hands. It was impossible to hear h
er talk and remember she was Indian, yet the content of what she said forcibly struck home the proof that she was not white. Chane had a momentary desire to tell her he did care for her and thus save her from Manerube; but he reconsidered the hasty thought because, once acted upon, that would involve a greater sacrifice than he could offer.
“Sosie, can’t you understand?” asked Chane, striving for patience. “I don’t love you as a man of my kind must love a girl to want her—to marry her, you know. But I like you. I’m sorry for you. I think you’re a bright, fine little girl. I want to help you. Manerube means bad by you. I know. I’ve heard him say as much to his pards. He’ll destroy your soul. Promise me you’ll not see him again.”
“Yes, I promise—if you’ll come sometimes,” she replied, won by bis spirit. There were tears in her big dusky eyes. She was a simple, impulsive child, honest at heart, with the hot blood of her race.
“Of course I’ll come—as long-------- ” he said, break
ing off suddenly. He had meant to say he would come as long as he stayed in camp there, but he thought it best to hide from her that he was leaving soon. “I’ll be back in an hour. You stay here.”
“Adios, sefior,” she murmured, gladly, speaking the Spanish he had told her pleased him.
Chane rode back to the hogan, hoping to find Toddy Nokin or one of the Indian men. He thought it best to tell some one to keep an eye on Sosie. He was not sure he could trust her. But he did not find anyone, and turned Brutus for the open sage. As he rode, perplexed by the unsolvable problem of this little Indian girl, he became conscious that now, although he pitied her, somehow his sympathy was different from what it had been. He had rather idealized Sosie. It affronted and alienated him to learn she was quite willing to run off with such a man as Manerube.
Chane rode across the rolling upland, keeping sharp lookout along the ridge that Manerube would cross if he had ventured toward the Indian camp. There was, however, no sign of horses in that direction.
“Reckon it was a bluff,” declared Chane, with relief. In spite of McPherson’s hint, he did not entertain a very high regard for Manerube’s courage.
Circling to the south, Chane at length reached the, rise of ground running along a shallow league-wide valley, gray and purple with sage, spotted with rocks and cedars, and animated by moving horses. Toddy Nokin and his braves were driving in the last of the mustangs Chane had bargained for. This pleased Chane, for some of these had been ranging Piute Canyon, a deep long gorge, accessible by but few trails.
Brutus saw the moving dots below and lifted his head high, his ears erect. Then Chane put him to a lope down the gradual descent. It soon became evident to Chane that this horse did not need to be guided, except possibly in exceedingly bad ground. The sagebrush did not bother Brutus any more than if it had not been there. He crashed through it; and the little washes and ruts in the red earth, that sometimes tripped an ordinary horse, apparently were the same to Brutus as level ground. His hoofs were so big, his legs so strong, his dexterity and judgment so good, that it seemed safe to ride him anywhere a horse could run.
Down in the center of this oval bowl lay a natural corral, a long narrow space of the best pasture land, barred on two sides by low stone walls that came to an apex at the head of the depression, and shut off at its mouth and widest part by a cedar fence. Even at dry seasons there was always water in the deep hole in the rocks where the walls met; and at this time there was a running stream. Chane arrived as Toddy Nokin and his Indians were driving a bunch of mustangs into this corral.
Chane rode inside to take a look at these mustangs. There were nine of them, and the best of the lot he had seen. A blue roan stood out conspicuously among the tan-colored, black-maned buckskins. They were young horses, fat and sleek, and, unlike most Indian ponies, not-at all wild. The Piutes handled horses better than the Navajos. The latter were nomads of the desert, and seldom took time to break and train a horse properly. Most Navajo mustangs were head shy, which was a trait Chane did not like. They had been beaten about the head, or broken with cruel hackamores, or in some way hurt so that they never recovered.
Toddy Nokin rode into the corral, and his braves, who were his sons, put up the poles that formed a gate. He held up his hands to Chane and counted with fingers to the number of twenty-six, and informed Chane he would not sell more. Chane had hoped to buy a larger number, but knew it was useless to try to change Toddy’s mind.
He motioned to Toddy to dismount, and, getting off himself, he went among the mustangs. They would not allow him to get close enough to put a hand on them, until Toddy’s sons drove them back into a bunch. Then Chane, following a habit that was pleasure to him as well as business, leisurely examined them one by one. He just naturally loved horses, and if he had been rich he would have owned a thousand. The blue roan at once took his eye.
“Blue, reckon I’ll keep you,” he said.
Presently he had looked them over to his satisfaction, and repaired to the shade of a cedar, where Toddy squatted, making a flat wisp of a cigarette.
“Toddy, they’re worth more than I offered and you agreed to take,” said Chane, frankly.
The Piute made a gesture that signified a bargain was a bargain. Then he asked, “How much Mormons pay you?”
“Twenty-five dollars for most of them and more for the best,” replied Chane.
Toddy nodded his grizzled old head as if that was something to consider.
“Why good horse trade now?” he asked.
Chane explained to him that a St. Louis horse-dealing company had recently stimulated the wild-horse hunting in Nevada and Utah, which business had stirred the Mormons to more activity.
“Ugh!” grunted Toddy, and then he told Chane he would round up more mustangs of his own, and buy from the Navajos, and drive them across the rivers next moon.
“Next moon,” repeated Chane. “That’ll be after the middle of October. Fine. Will you sell to me or the Mormons?”
“Sell Mormons,” replied Toddy, shrewdly, adding he would pay Chane for finding purchasers.
“Maybe I can get a better price from the wranglers,” replied Chane. “Now, Toddy, where will we meet?”
Whereupon the Piute brushed clear a place in the dust, and taking up a bit of stick he began to draw a map. This sort of thing always interested Chane. The Indians were natural artists, and they held in their minds a wonderful knowledge of the country. Toddy Nokin drew lines to represent the San Juan and Colorado rivers; he made a dot to mark the Hole in the Wall, an outlet from the canyoned wilderness made notorious by outlaws a few years before; he drew the Henry Mountains to the right and Wild Horse Mesa to the left, and between these he laid down a trail he would follow. Somewhere beyond Wild Horse Mesa, at a place he called Nightwatch Spring, he would hold the mustangs to fatten up after that long hard journey over the barren rocks.
“Nightwatch Spring,” said Chane. “I’ve heard of that place from someone—maybe a wrangler. . . . ’Toddy, mark out where this water lies.”
Toddy showed Chane where to branch off the main Piute trail, north and west of the low end of Wild Horse Mesa, and he gave Chane the impression that this spring had never been known by whites and lay in a beautiful wide canyon where grass was abundant.
“You want have horse ranch sometime,” concluded Toddy, nodding with great vehemence. “Toddy show you place.”
So much from this old Piute thrilled Chane with its possibilities. How well it paid to be kindly and helpful toward the Indians! No Piute had ever left debt unpaid to him.
“Toddy Nokin, you’re a good fellow,” said Chane as he took out his worn wallet and opened it. “Here’s your money for twenty-six horses.” He counted it out, bill after bill, and placed the sum in Toddy’s wrinkled hand. The Indian did not recount it, and slowly rolling it up he put it in an inside pocket of his coat, after the manner of a white man.
“Grass gone here,” he said, waving his hand to indicate the long pasture-corral. “You go now.”
To leave at once with his newly purchased mustangs, which Toddy manifestly advised, had scarcely been in Chane’s calculations. But a moment’s study told him how necessary that was. If the mustangs were turned loose again to feed they would wander in one night back to their regular haunts. It had taken two weeks to collect the band. Chane saw it the same as Toddy —the mustangs should be driven at once on the way across the rivers, and herded at night or hobbled on the best available grass. It had been his intention to postpone leaving the Piute range, owing to his distrust of McPherson, but this now was obviously impracticable. If he ran any risk from McPherson and his comrades it could hardly be any greater now than it might be next week. Chane decided to break camp that very day, and he told Toddy Nokin so. Whereupon the Piute said he and his sons would ride with him a couple of days, until the mustangs were off their range.
Leaving his sons to follow with the mustangs, Toddy accompanied Chane up the sage slope toward the mounds and knolls of yellow rock that marked the canyon country. Toddy’s hogans lay somewhat south and west of this sage valley where the mustangs had been kept. So that upon his return Chane rode in a direction which would cross Manerube’s trail, if this J worthy had approached Toddy’s camp. The fact of such possibility reminded Chane of his promise to Sosie. He would see her, to bid her good-bye, and then he must hurry to his camp. From that moment McPherson, Horn, and Slack occupied Chane’s thoughts. The situation was not to his liking, yet there had not occurred to him an alternative.
Riding along at a brisk trot, Chane, with Toddy Nokin loping behind on his shaggy little mustang, appoached a zone of gray and yellow wind-worn rocks, as high as hills, and with both sloping and abrupt walls. Cedars grew thickly around them and in the winding lanes that separated them.
Turning a corner of wall, Chane’s quick eye sighted a pack horse trotting toward him, and then part of another horse, mostly concealed by an intervening cedar. They were in line with Chane. Quick as a flash he leaped off, and motioning Toddy Nokin to do likewise he led Brutus behind a thick low-branched cedar. Toddy slipped close behind him, stooping to peer through the branches.
Grey, Zane - Novel 27 Page 3