The Watchers of the Plains

by Cullum, Ridgwell

  “Little Black Fox is not wise. He is very fierce. No, I love my brother, but Rosebud must not be his squaw. I love Rosebud, too.”

  The blue eyes of the man suddenly became very hard.

  “Big Wolf captured Rosebud, and would have kept her for your brother. Therefore she is his by right of war. Indian war. This Seth kills your father. He says so. He takes Rosebud. Is it for him to marry her? Your brother does not think so.”

  Wanaha’s face was troubled. “It was in war. You said yourself. My brother could not hold her from the white man. Then his right is gone. Besides——”

  “Besides——?”

  “A chief may not marry a white girl.”

  “You married a white man.”

  “It is different.”

  There was silence for some time while Wanaha cleared away the plates. Presently, as she was bending over the cook-stove, she spoke again. And she kept her face turned from her husband while she spoke.

  “You want Rosebud for my brother. Why?”

  “I?” Nevil laughed uneasily. Wanaha had a way of putting things very directly. “I don’t care either way.”

  “Yet you pow-wow with him? You say ’yes’ when he talks of Rosebud?”

  It was the man’s turn to look away, and by doing so he hid a deep cunning in his eyes.

  “Oh, that’s because Little Black Fox is not an easy man. He is unreasonable. It is no use arguing with him. Besides, they will see he never gets Rosebud.” He nodded in the direction of White River Farm.

  “I have said he is very fierce. He has many braves. One never knows. My brother longs for the war-path. He would kill Seth. For Seth killed our father. One never knows. It is better you say to him, ‘Rosebud is white. The braves want no white squaw.’”

  But the man had had enough of the discussion, and began to whistle. It was hard to understand how he had captured the loyal heart of this dusky princess. He was neither good-looking nor of a taking manner. His appearance was dirty, unkempt. His fair hair, very thin and getting gray at the crown, was long and uncombed, and his moustache was ragged and grossly stained. Yet she loved him with a devotion which had made her willing to renounce her people for him if necessary, and this means far more in a savage than it does amongst the white races.

  Steyne put on his greasy slouch hat and swung out of the house. Wanaha knew that what she had said was right, Nevil Steyne encouraged Little Black Fox. She wondered, and was apprehensive. Nevertheless, she went on with her work. The royal blood of her race was strong in her. She had much of the stoicism which is, perhaps, the most pronounced feature of her people. It was no good saying more than she had said. If she saw necessity she would do, and not talk.

  She was still in the midst of her work when a sound caught her ear which surely no one else could have heard. In response she went to the door. A rider, still half a mile away, was approaching. She went back to her washing-up, smiling. She had recognized the rider even at that distance. Therefore she was in nowise surprised when, a few minutes later, she heard a bright, girlish voice hailing her from without.

  “Wana, Wana!” The tone was delightfully imperious. “Why don’t you have some place to tie a horse to?”

  It was Rosebud. Wanaha had expected her, for it was the anniversary of her coming to White River Farm, and the day Ma Sampson had allotted for her birthday.

  Wanaha went out to meet her friend. This greeting had been made a hundred times, on the occasion of every visit Rosebud made to the woman’s humble home. It was a little joke between them, for there was a large iron hook high up on the wall, just out of the girl’s reach, set there for the purpose of tying up a horse. The squaw took the girl’s reins from her hands, and hitched them to the hook.

  “Welcome,” she said in her deep voice, and held out a hand to be shaken as white folk shake hands, not in the way Indians do it.

  “What is it I must say to you?” she went on, in a puzzled way. “Oh, I know. ’Much happy return.’ That is how you tell me the last time you come.”

  The squaw’s great black eyes wore their wonderful soft look as they gazed down upon her visitor. It was a strange contrast they made as they stood there in the full light of the summer afternoon sun.

  Both were extremely handsome of figure, though the Indian woman was more natural and several inches taller. But their faces were opposite in every detail. The squaw was dark, with clear velvety skin, and eyes black and large and deeply luminous; she had a broad, intelligent forehead over which her straight black hair fell from a natural centre parting, and was caught back from her face at about the level of her mouth with two bows of deep red braid. Her features might have been chiseled by a sculptor, they were so perfectly symmetrical, so accurately proportioned. And there were times, too, when, even to the eyes of a white man, her color rather enhanced her beauty; and this was when her slow smile crept over her face.

  Rosebud had no classical regularity of feature, but she had what is better. Her face was a series of expressions, changing with almost every moment as her swift-passing moods urged her. One feature she possessed that utterly eclipsed anything the stately beauty of the other could claim. She had large, lustrous violet eyes that seemed like wells of ever-changing color. They never looked at you with the same shade in their depths twice. They were eyes that madden by reason of their inconsistency. They dwarfed in beauty every other feature in the girl’s face. She was pretty in an irregular manner, but one never noticed anything in her face when her eyes were visible. These, and her masses of golden hair, which flowed loosely about her head in thick, rope-like curls, were her great claims to beauty.

  Now, as she stood smiling up into the dark face above her, she looked what she was; a girl in the flush of early womanhood, a prairie girl, wild as the flowers which grow hidden in the lank grass of the plains, as wayward as the breezes which sweep them from every point of the compass.

  “Mayn’t I come in?” asked Rosebud, as the woman made no move to let her pass.

  Wanaha turned with some haste. “Surely,” she said. “I was thinking. What you call ‘dreaming.’”

  She eagerly put a stool for the girl to sit upon. But Rosebud preferred the table.

  “Well, Wana,” said the girl, playfully, “you said you wanted me particularly to-day, so, at great inconvenience to myself, and mother, I have come. If it isn’t important you’ll get into grave trouble. I was going to help Seth hoe the potatoes, but——”

  “Poor Seth.” Wanaha had caught something of the other’s infectious mood.

  “I don’t think he needs any pity, either,” said Rosebud, impulsively. “Seth’s sometimes too much of a good thing. He said I ought to learn to hoe. And I don’t think hoeing’s very nice for one thing; besides, he always gets angry if I cut out any of the plants. He can just do it himself.”

  “Seth’s a good man. He killed my father; but he is good, I think.”

  “Yes.” For the moment Rosebud had become grave. “I wonder what would have——” She broke off and looked searchingly into her friend’s face. “Wana,” she went on abruptly, “why did you send for me to-day? I can’t stay. I really can’t, I must go back and help Seth, or he’ll be so angry.”

  Rosebud quite ignored her own contradictions, but Wanaha didn’t.

  “No, and it is not good to make Seth angry. He—what-you-call—he very good by you. See, I say come to me. You come, and I have—ah—ah,” she broke off in a bewildered search for a word. “No—that not it. So, I know. Birthday pre—sent.”

  Wanaha gave a triumphant glance into Rosebud’s laughing face and went to a cupboard, also made of packing cases, and brought forth a pair of moose-hide moccasins, perfectly beaded and trimmed with black fox fur. She had made them with her own hands for her little friend, a labor of love into which she had put the most exquisite work of which she was capable.

  Rosebud’s delight was unfeigned. The shoes were perfect. The leather was like the finest kid. It was a present worthy of the giver. She held out her ha
nds for them, but the Indian laughed and shook her head.

  “No,” she said playfully. “No, you white woman! Your folk not carry things so,” and she held the tiny shoes out at arm’s length. “You put paper round, so.” She picked up one of her husband’s newspapers and wrapped the present into a clumsy parcel. “There,” she exclaimed, handing it to the girl, “I wish you much happy!”

  As she put the parcel into the outstretched hands, Rosebud sprang from the table and flung her arms round the giver’s neck, and kissed her heartily.

  “You’re the dandiest thing in the world, Wana,” she cried impulsively, “and I love you.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER VI

  A NEWSPAPER

  Seth was bending over his work among the potatoes. It was a large order, for there were more than five acres of it. Every time he stood erect to ease his back he scanned the distance in the direction of the White River. Each time he bent again over his hoe, it was with a dissatisfied look on his sunburnt face. He made up his mind that Rosebud was playing truant again. He cared nothing for the fact of the truancy, but the direction in which his eyes turned whenever he looked up displayed his real source of dissatisfaction. Rosebud had been out since the midday dinner, and he guessed where she was. The mosquitoes worried him to-day, which meant that his temper was ruffled.

  Suddenly he paused. But this time he didn’t look round. He heard the sound of galloping hoofs racing across the prairie. Continuing his work, he roughly estimated the distance the rider was away.

  He gave no sign at all until Rosebud’s voice called to him.

  “Seth, I’ve come to help you hoe,” she said.

  The man saw that the horse was standing pawing the ground among the potatoes.

  “I take it friendly of you,” he said, eyeing the havoc the animal was creating. “Guess that horse o’ yours has intentions that aways too. They’re laud’ble, but misplaced.”

  The girl checked the creature, and turned him off the patch. Then she quietly slid to the ground and removed her saddle and bridle, and drove him off out on the prairie for a roll.

  “I’m so sorry, Seth! I’m afraid he’s made a mess of these plants.”

  Rosebud stooped and tried to repair the damage her horse had done. She did not look in Seth’s direction, but her smiling face conveyed nothing of her regret. Presently she stood up and stepped gingerly along the furrows toward the man.

  “Did you bring a hoe out for me?” she asked innocently.

  But her companion was used to the wiles of this tyrant.

  “Guess not,” he said quietly. “Didn’t reckon you’d get back that soon. Say, Rosebud, you’d best git out o’ those fixin’s if you’re going to git busy with a hoe. Ma has her notions.”

  “Ye-es. Do you think I’m getting any better with a hoe?”

  The eyes that looked up into Seth’s face were candidly inquiring. There was not a shadow of a smile on the man’s face when he answered.

  “I’ve a notion you have few equals with a hoe.”

  “I was afraid——”

  “Ah, that’s always the way of folks wi’ real talent. Guess you’re an eddication with a hoe.”

  Seth went on with his work until Rosebud spoke again. She was looking away out across the prairie, and her eyes were just a trifle troubled.

  “Then I’d best get my things changed and—bring out a hoe. How many rows do you think I could do before tea?”

  “That mostly depends on how many p’tater plants git in your way, I guess.”

  The girl’s face suddenly wreathed itself in smiles.

  “There, you’re laughing at me, and—well, I was going to help you, but now I shan’t. I’ve been down to see my Wanaha. Seth, you ought to have married her. She’s the sweetest creature—except Ma—I know. I think it’s a pity she married Nevil Steyne. He’s a queer fellow. I never know what to make of him. He’s kind to her, and he’s kind to me—which I’m not sure I like—but I somehow don’t like his eyes. They’re blue, and I don’t like blue eyes. And I don’t believe he ever washes. Do you?”

  Seth replied without pausing in his work. He even seemed to put more force into it, for the hoe cut into the earth with a vicious ring. But he avoided her direct challenge.

  “Guess I haven’t a heap of regard for no Injuns nor squaws. I’ve no call to. But I allow Wanaha’s a good woman.”

  Just for a moment the girl’s face became very serious.

  “I’m glad you say that, Seth. I knew you wouldn’t say anything else; you’re too generous. Wanaha is good. Do you know she goes to the Mission because she loves it? She helps us teach the little papooses because she believes in the ‘God of the white folks,’ she says. I know you don’t like me to see so much of her, but somehow I can’t help it. Seth, do you believe in foreboding?”

  “Can’t say I’d gamble a heap that aways.”

  “Well, I don’t know, but I believe it’s a good thing that Wanaha loves me—loves us all. She has such an influence over people.”

  Seth looked up at last. The serious tone of the girl was unusual. But as he said nothing, and simply went on with his work, Rosebud continued.

  “Sometimes I can’t understand you, Seth. I know, generally speaking, you have no cause to like Indians, while perhaps I have. You see, I have always known them. But you seem to have taken exception only to Little Black Fox and Wanaha as far as I am concerned. You let me teach the Mission children, you even teach them yourself, yet, while admitting Wanaha’s goodness, you get angry with me for seeing her. As for Little Black Fox, he is the chief. He’s a great warrior, and acknowledged by even the agent and missionary to be the best chief the Rosebuds have ever had. Quite different from his father.”

  “Guess that’s so.”

  “Then why—may I not talk to them? And, oh, Seth”—the girl’s eyes danced with mischief—“he is such a romantic fellow. You should hear him talk in English. He talks—well, he has much more poetry in him than you have.”

  “Which is mostly a form of craziness,” observed Seth, quite unruffled.

  “Well, I like craziness.”

  “Ah!”

  Seth’s occasional lapses into monosyllables annoyed Rosebud. She never understood them. Now there came a gleam of anger into her eyes, and their color seemed to have changed to a hard gray.

  “Well, whether you like it or not, you needn’t be so ill-tempered about it.”

  Seth looked up in real astonishment at this unwarrantable charge, and his dark eyes twinkled as he beheld Rosebud’s own evident anger.

  He shook his head regretfully, and cut out a bunch of weeds with his hoe.

  “Guess I’m pretty mean,” he said, implying that her assertion was correct.

  “Yes.” Rosebud’s anger was like all her moods, swift rising and as swift to pass. Now it was approaching its zenith. “And to show you how good Wanaha is, look at this.” She unfolded her parcel and threw the paper down, disclosing the perfect moccasins the Indian had made for her. “Aren’t they lovely? She didn’t forget it was my birthday, like—like——”

  “Ah, so it is.” Seth spoke as though he had just realized the fact of her birthday.

  “Aren’t they lovely?” reiterated the girl. Her anger had passed. She was all smiles again.

  “Indian,” said Seth, with a curious click of the tongue, which Rosebud was quick to interpret into an expression of scorn.

  “Yes,” she exclaimed, firing up again, and her eyes sparkling. “And I like Indian things, and I like Indian people, and I like Little Black Fox. He’s nice, and isn’t always sneering. And I shall see them all when I like. And—and you can do the hoeing yourself.”

  She walked off toward the house without the least regard for the potatoes, which now suffered indiscriminately. Her golden head was held very high, but she had less dignity than she thought, for she stumbled in the furrows as she went.

  She went straight into the house and up to her room; but she could not fling herself upon her bed a
nd cry, as she probably intended to do. Three large parcels occupied its entire narrow limits. Each was addressed to her, wishing her all happiness on her birthday, and the biggest of the three was from Seth. So, failing room anywhere else, she sat in her rocking-chair, and, instead of an angry outburst, she shed a few quiet, happy tears.

  Meanwhile Seth continued his work as though nothing had interrupted him. It was not until supper-time, and he was making his way to the house, that he happened to observe the newspaper which Rosebud had left lying among the potatoes. He stepped across the intervening furrows and picked it up. Newspapers always interested him, he saw so few.

  This one, he saw at once, was an English paper. And from London at that. He glanced at the date, and saw that was nearly a month old, and, at the same time, he saw that it was addressed to Nevil Steyne, and beside the address was a note in blue pencil, “Page 3.”

  His curiosity was aroused, and he turned over to the page indicated. There was a long paragraph marked by four blue crosses. It was headed—

  “The Estate of the Missing Colonel Raynor.”

  Seth read the first few lines casually. Then, as he went on, a curious look crept into his dark eyes, his clean-shaven face took on an expression of strained interest, and his lips closed until they were lost in a straight line which drew down at the corners of his mouth. He read on to the end, and then quietly folded up the paper, and stuffed it into the bosom of his shirt. Once he turned and looked away in the direction in which Nevil Steyne’s hut lay tucked away on the river bank. Then he shouldered his hoe and strolled leisurely homeward.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII

  AN INDIAN POW-WOW

  Nevil Steyne was indifferent to such blessings as a refreshing thunder-shower at sundown on a hot summer’s day. It is doubtful if he would have admitted the beneficence of Providence in thus alleviating the parching heat of the day. He had no crops to think of, which made all the difference. Now, as he walked along through the brush on the north bank of the White River, in the direction of the log bridge, with the dripping trees splashing all round him, and his boots clogging with the heavy, wet loam, he openly cursed the half-hour’s drenching. His vindictiveness was in no way half-measured. He cursed those who were glad of it, and who, when in direst necessity, occasionally remembered to offer up prayers for it.