by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER XV. SQUAW-TALK-FAR-OFF HEAP SMART
Good Indian spoke briefly with the good-looking young squaw, who had ashy glance for him when he came up; afterward he took hold of his hatby the brim, and ducked through the low opening of a wikiup which shesmilingly pointed out to him.
"Howdy, Peppajee? How you foot?" he asked, when his unaccustomed eyesdiscerned the old fellow lying back against the farther wall.
"Huh! Him heap sick all time." Having his injury thus brought afreshto his notice, Peppajee reached down with his hands, and moved the footcarefully to a new position.
"Last night," Good Indian began without that ceremony of long waitingwhich is a part of Indian etiquette, "much men come to Hart ranch.Eight." He held up his two outspread hands, with the thumbs tuckedinside his palms. "Come in dark, no seeum till sun come back. Makeumcamp. One man put sticks in ground, say that part belong him. Twentyacres." He flung up his hands, lowered them, and immediately raisedthem again. "Eight men do that all same. Have guns, grub, blankets--stopthere all time. Say they wash gold. Say that ranch have much gold,stake placer claims. Baumberger"--he saw Peppajee's eyelids drawtogether--"tell men to go away. Tell Peaceful he fight those men--incourt. You sabe. Ask Great Father to tell those men they go away, nowash gold on ranch." He waited.
There is no hurrying the speech of an Indian. Peppajee smoked stolidly,his eyes half closed and blinking sleepily. The veneer of white men'sways dropped from him when he entered his own wikiup, and he would notspeak quickly.
"Las' night--mebbyso yo' watchum?" he asked, as one who holds hisjudgment in abeyance.
"I heap fool. I no watch. I let those men come while I think of--a girl.My eyes sleep." Good Indian was too proud to parry, too bitter withhimself to deny. He had not said the thing before, even to himself,but it was in his heart to hate his love, because it had cost thiscatastrophe to his friends.
"Kay bueno." Peppajee's voice was harsh. But after a time he spoke moresympathetically. "Yo' no watchum. Yo' let heap trouble come. This dayyo' heart bad, mebbyso. This day yo' no thinkum squaw all time. Mebbysoyo' thinkum fight, no sabe how yo' fight."
Grant nodded silently. It would seem that Peppajee understood, eventhough his speech was halting. At that moment much of the unfoundedprejudice, which had been for a few days set aside because of biggerthings, died within him. He had disliked Peppajee as a pompous egotistamong his kind. His latent antagonism against all Indians because theywere unwelcomely his blood relatives had crystallized here and thereagainst; certain individuals of the tribe. Old Hagar he hated coldly.Peppajee's staginess irritated him. In his youthful arrogance he had nottroubled to see the real man of mettle under that dingy green blanket.Now he looked at Peppajee with a startled sense that he had never knownhim at all, and that Peppajee was not only a grimy Indian--he was also aman.
"Me no sabe one thing. One otha thing me sabe. Yo' no b'lieve Baumbergaone frien'. Him all same snake. Them mens come, Baumberga tellum comeall time. All time him try for foolum Peaceful. Yo' look out. Yo' nosleepum mo'. All time yo' watchum."
"I come here," said Good Indian; "I think you mebbyso hear talk, youtell me. My heart heap sad, I let this trouble come. I want to killthat trouble. Mebbyso make my friends laugh, be heap glad those men nostealum ranch. You hear talk, mebbyso you tell me now."
Peppajee smoked imperturbably what time his dignity demanded. At lengthhe took the pipe from his mouth, stretched out his arm toward Hartley,and spoke in his sonorous tone, calculated to add weight to his words.
"Yo' go speakum Squaw-talk-far-off," he commanded. "All time makumtalk--talk--" He drummed with his fingers upon his left forearm."Mebbyso heap sabe. Heap sabe Baumberga kay bueno. He thinkum sabestealum ranch. All time heap talk come Man-that-coughs, come all sameBaumberga. Heap smart, dat squaw." A smile laid its faint light uponhis grim old lips, and was gone. "Thinkum yo' heap bueno, dat squaw. Alltime glad for talkum yo'. Yo' go."
Good Indian stood up, his head bent to avoid scraping his hat againstthe sloping roof of the wikiup.
"You no hear more talk all time you watch?" he asked, passing over MissGeorgie's possible aid or interest in the affair.
"Much talkum--no can hear. All time them damn' Baumberga shut door--notalkum loud. All time Baumberga walkum in dark. Walkum where applesgrow, walkum grass, walkum all dat ranch all time. All time me heapwatchum. Snake come, bitum foot--no can watchum mo'. Dat time, muchmens come. Yo' sabe. Baumberga all time talkum, him heap frien'Peacefu'--heap snake all time. Speakum two tongue Yo' no b'lievum. Alltime heap big liar, him. Yo' go, speakum Squaw-talk-far-off. Bueno, datsquaw. Heap smart, all same mans. Yo' go. Pikeway." He settled back witha gesture of finality, and so Good Indian left him.
Old Hagar shrilled maledictions after him when he passed through thelittered camp on his way back to where he had left his horse, but foronce he was deaf to her upbraidings. Indeed, he never heard her--or ifhe did, her clamor was to him as the yelping of the dogs which filledhis ears, but did not enter his thoughts.
The young squaw smiled at him shy-eyed as he went by her, and thoughhis physical eyes saw her standing demurely there in the shade of herwikiup, ready to shrink coyly away from too bold a glance, the man-mindof him was blind and took no notice. He neither heard the baffledscreaming of vile epithets when old Hagar knew that her venom could notstrike through the armor of his preoccupation, nor saw the hurt lookcreep into the soft eyes of the young squaw when his face did not turntoward her after the first inattentive glance.
Good Indian was thinking how barren had been his talk with Peppajee, andwas realizing keenly how much he had expected from the interview. It isfrequently by the depth of our disappointment only that we can rightlymeasure the height of our hope. He had come to Peppajee for somethingtangible, some thing that might be called real evidence of theconspiracy he suspected. He had got nothing but suspicion to match hisown. As for Miss Georgie Howard--
"What can she do?" he thought resentfully, feeling as if he had beenoffered a willow switch with which to fight off a grizzly. It seemed tohim that he might as sensibly go to Evadna herself for assistance,and that, even his infatuation was obliged to admit, would be idiotic.Peppajee, he told himself when he reached his horse, was particularlyfoolish sometimes.
With that in his mind, he mounted--and turned Keno's head towardHartley. The distance was not great--little more than half a mile--butwhen he swung from the saddle in the square blotch of shade east bythe little, red station house upon the parched sand and cinders, Keno'sflanks were heaving like the silent sobbing of a woman with the pace hismaster's spurred heels had required of him.
Miss Georgie gave her hair a hasty pat or two, pushed a novel out ofsight under a Boise newspaper, and turned toward him with a breezilycareless smile when he stepped up to the open door and stopped as if hewere not quite certain of his own mind, or of his welcome.
He was secretly thinking of Peppajee's information that Miss Georgiethought he was "bueno," and he was wondering if it were true. Not thathe wanted it to be true! But he was man enough to look at her with akeener interest than he had felt before. And Miss Georgie, if one mightjudge by her manner, was woman enough to detect that interest andto draw back her skirts, mentally, ready for instant flight intounapproachableness.
"Howdy, Mr. Imsen?" she greeted him lightly. "In what official capacityam I to receive you, please? Do YOU want to send a telegram?" The accentupon the pronoun was very faint, but it was there for him to notice ifhe liked. So much she helped him. She was a bright young woman indeed,that she saw he wanted help.
"I don't believe I came to see you officially at all," he said, andhis eyes lighted a little as he looked at her. "Peppajee Jim told me tocome. He said you're a 'heap smart squaw, all same mans.'"
"Item: One pound of red-and-white candy for Peppajee Jim next time I seehim." Miss Georgie laughed--but she also sat down so that her face wasturned to the window. "Are you in urgent need of a heap smart squaw?"she asked. "I thought"--she caught herself up, and then went r
ecklesslyon--"I thought yesterday that you had found one!"
"It's brains I need just now." After the words were out, Good Indianwanted to swear at himself for seeming to belittle Evadna. "I mean,"he corrected quickly--"do you know what I mean? I'll tell you what hashappened, and if you don't know then, and can't help me, I'll just haveto apologize for coming, and get out."
"Yes, I think you had better tell me why you need me particularly. Iknow the chicken's perfect, and doesn't lack brains, and you didn't meanthat she does. You're all stirred up over something. What's wrong?" MissGeorgie would have spoken in just that tone if she had been a man or ifGrant had been a woman.
So Good Indian told her.
"And you imagine that it's partly your fault, and that it wouldn't havehappened if you had spent more time keeping your weather eye open, andnot so much making love?" Miss Georgie could be very blunt, as well askeen. "Well, I don't see how you could prevent it, or what you couldhave done--unless you had kicked old Baumberger into the Snake. He's thegod in this machine. I'd swear to that."
Good Indian had been fiddling with his hat and staring hard at a pile ofold ties just outside the window. He raised his head, and regarded hersteadily. It was beginning to occur to him that there was a good deal tothis Miss Georgie, under that offhand, breezy exterior. He felt himselfdrawn to her as a person whom he could trust implicitly.
"You're right as far as I'm concerned," he owned, with his queer,inscrutable smile. "I think you're also right about him. What makes youthink so, anyway?"
Miss Georgie twirled a ring upon her middle finger for a moment beforeshe looked up at him.
"Do you know anything about mining laws?" she asked, and when he swunghis head slightly to one side in a tacit negative, she went on: "You saythere are eight jumpers. Concerted action, that. Premeditated. My daddywas a lawyer," she threw in by way of explanation. "I used to help himin the office a good deal. When he--died, I didn't know enough to goon and be a lawyer myself, so I took to this." She waved her handimpatiently toward the telegraph instrument.
"So it's like this: Eight men can take placer claims--can hold them, youknow--for one man. That's the limit, a hundred and sixty acres. Thoseeight men aren't jumping that ranch as eight individuals; they're in theemploy of a principal who is engineering the affair. If I were going toshy a pebble at the head mogul, I'd sure try hard to hit our corpulentfriend with the fishy eye. And that," she added, "is what all thesecipher messages for Saunders mean, very likely. Baumberger had to havesomeone here to spy around for him and perhaps help him choose--or atleast get together--those eight men. They must have come in on the nighttrain, for I didn't see them. I'll bet they're tough customers, everymother's son of them! Fighters down to the ground, aren't they?"
"I only saw four. They were heeled, and ready for business, all right,"he told her. "Soon as I saw what the game was, and that Baumberger wasonly playing for time and a free hand, I pulled out. I thought Peppajeemight give me something definite to go on. He couldn't, though."
"Baumberger's going to steal that ranch according to law, you see," MissGeorgie stated with conviction. "They've got to pan out a sample of goldto prove there's pay dirt there, before they can file their claims. Andthey've got to do their filing in Shoshone. I suppose their notices areup O.K. I wonder, now, how they intend to manage that? I believe," shemused, "they'll have to go in person--I don't believe Baumberger can dothat all himself legally. I've got some of daddy's law-books over in mytrunk, and maybe I can look it up and make sure. But I know they haven'tfiled their claims yet. They've GOT to take possession first, andthey've got to show a sample of ore, or dust, it would be in this case.The best thing to do--" She drew her eyebrows together, and shepinched her under lip between her thumb and forefinger, and shestared abstractedly at Good Indian. "Oh, hurry up, Grant!" she criedunguardedly. "Think--think HARD, what's best to do!"
"The only thing I can think of," he scowled, "is to kill that--"
"And that won't do, under the circumstances," she cut in airily."There'd still be the eight. I'd like," she declared viciously, "to putrough-on-rats in his dinner, but I intend to refrain from doing as I'dlike, and stick to what's best."
Good Indian gave her a glance of grateful understanding. "This thinghas hit me hard," he confided suddenly. "I've been holding myself in allday. The Harts are like my own folks. They're all I've had, and she'sbeen--they've all been--" Then the instinct of repression walled in hisemotion, and he let the rest go in a long breath which told MissGeorgie all she needed to know. So much of Good Indian would never findexpression in speech; all that was best of him would not, one might betempted to think.
"By the way, is there any pay dirt on that ranch?" Miss Georgie keptherself rigidly to the main subject.
"No, there isn't. Not," he added dryly, "unless it has grown gold inthe last few years. There are colors, of course. All this countrypractically can show colors, but pay dirt? No!"
"Look out," she advised him slowly, "that pay dirt doesn't grow overnight! Sabe?"
Good Indian's eyes spoke admiration of her shrewdness.
"I must be getting stupid, not to have thought of that," he said.
"Can't give me credit for being 'heap smart'?" she bantered. "Can'teven let me believe I thought of something beyond the ken of the averageperson? Not," she amended ironically, "that I consider YOU an averageperson! Would you mind"--she became suddenly matter of fact--"waitinghere while I go and rummage for a book I want? I'm almost sure I haveone on mining laws. Daddy had a good deal of that in his business, beingin a mining country. We've got to know just where we stand, it seems tome, because Baumberger's going to use the laws himself, and it's withthe law we've got to fight him."
She had to go first and put a stop to the hysterical chattering ofthe sounder by answering the summons. It proved to be a message forBaumberger, and she wrote it down in a spiteful scribble which left itbarely legible.
"Betraying professional secrets, but I don't care," she exclaimed,turning swiftly toward him. "Listen to this:
"'How's fishing? Landed the big one yet? Ready for fry?"'
She threw it down upon the table with a pettish gesture that waswholly feminine. "Sounds perfectly innocent, doesn't it? Too perfectlyinnocent, if you ask me." She stared out of the window abstractedly,her brows pinched together and her lips pursed with a corner between herteeth, much as she had stared after Baumberger the day before; and whenshe spoke she seemed to have swung her memory back to him then.
"He came up yesterday--with fish for Pete, he SAID, and of course hereally did have some--and sent a wire to Shoshone. I found it on filewhen I came back. That was perfectly innocent, too. It was:
"'Expect to land big one to-night. Plenty of small fry. Smooth trail.'
"I've an excellent memory, you see." She laughed shortly. "Well, I'llgo and hunt up that book, and we'll proceed to glean the wisdom of theserpent, so that we won't be compelled to remain as harmless as thedove! You won't mind waiting here?"
He assured her that he would not mind in the least, and she ran outbareheaded into the hot sunlight. Good Indian leaned forward a little inhis chair so that he could watch her running across to the shack whereshe had a room or two, and he paid her the compliment of keeping herin his thoughts all the time she was gone. He felt, as he had done withPeppajee, that he had not known Miss Georgie at all until to-day, and hewas a bit startled at what he was finding her to be.
"Of course," she laughed, when she rustled in again like a whiff offresh air, "I had to go clear to the bottom of the last trunk I lookedin. Lucky I only have three to my name, for it would have been in thelast one just the same, if I'd had two dozen and had ransacked them all.But I found it, thank Heaven!"
She came eagerly up to him--he was sitting in the beribboned rockerdedicated to friendly callers, and had the rug badly rumpled with hisspurs, which he had forgotten to remove--and with a sweep of her forearmshe cleared the little table of novel, newspaper, and a magazine anddeck of cards, and barely saved he
r box of chocolates from going bottomup on the floor.
"Like candy? Help yourself, if you do," she said, and tucked a pieceinto her mouth absent-mindedly before she laid the leather-bound bookopen on the table. "Now, we'll see what information Mr. Copp can giveus. He's a high authority--General Land Office Commissioner, if youplease. He's a few years old--several years old, for that matter--butI don't think he's out of date; I believe what he says still goes.M-m-m!-'Liens on Mines'--'Clause Inserted in Patents'--'Affidavits TakenWithout Notice to Opposing'--oh, it must be here--it's GOT to be here!"
She was running a somewhat sticky forefinger slowly down the indexpages. "It isn't alphabetically arranged, which I consider sloppy of Mr.Copp. Ah-h! 'Minerals Discovered After Patent Has Issued to AgriculturalClaimant'--two hundred and eight. We'll just take a look at that first.That's what they're claiming, you know." She hitched her chair closer,and flipped the leaves eagerly. When she found the page, they touchedheads over it, though Miss Georgie read aloud.
"Oh, it's a letter--but it's a decision, and as such has weight. U-m!
"SIR: In reply to your letter of inquiry. . . I have to state that allmineral deposits discovered on land after United States Patent thereforhas issued to a party claiming under the laws regulating the disposal ofagricultural lands, pass with the patent, and this office has no furtherjurisdiction in the premise. Very respectfully,"
"'PASS WITH THE PATENT!'" Miss Georgie turned her face so that she couldlook into Grant's eyes, so close to her own. "Old Peaceful must surelyhave his patent--Baumberger can't be much of a lawyer, do you think?Because that's a flat statement. There's no chance for any legalquibbling in that--IS there?"
"That's about as straight as he could put it," Good Indian agreed, hisface losing a little of its anxiety.
"Well, we'll just browse along for more of the same," she suggestedcheerfully, and went back to the index. But first she drew a lead pencilfrom where it had been stabbed through her hair, and marked the letterwith heavy brackets, wetting the lead on her tongue for emphasis.
"'Agricultural Claimants Entitled to Full Protection,'" she readhearteningly from the index, and turned hastily to see what was to besaid about it. It happened to be another decision rendered in a letter,and they jubilated together over the sentiment conveyed therein.
"Now, here is what I was telling you, Grant," she said suddenly, afteranother long minute of studying silently the index. "'Eight Locaters ofPlacer Ground May Convey to One Party'--and Baumberger's certainly thatparty!--'Who Can Secure Patent for One Hundred and Sixty Acres.' We'lljust read up on that, and find out for sure what the conditions are.Now, here"--she had found the page quickly--"listen to this:
"'I have to state that if eight bona-fide locaters'
("Whether they're that remains to be proven, Mr. Baumberger!")
'each having located twenty acres, in accordance with the congressionalrules and regulations, should convey all their right, title, andinterest in said locations to one person, such person might apply for apatent--'
"And so on into tiresomeness. Really, I'm beginning to thinkBaumberger's awfully stupid, to even attempt such a silly thing. Hehasn't a legal leg to stand on. 'Goes with the patent'--that soundsnice to me. They're not locating in good faith--those eight jumpersdown there." She fortified herself with another piece of candy. "All youneed," she declared briskly, "is a good lawyer to take this up and seeit through."
"You seem to be doing pretty well," he remarked, his eyes dwellingrather intently upon her face, and smiling as they did so.
"I can read what's in the book," she remarked lightly, her eyes uponits pages as if she were consciously holding them from meeting his look."But it will take a lawyer to see the case through the courts. And letme tell you one thing very emphatically." She looked at him brightly."Many a case as strong as this has been lost, just by legal quibblingand ignorance of how to handle it properly. Many a case without a leg tostand on has been won, by smooth work on the part of some lawyer. Now,I'll just jot down what they'll have to do, and prove, if they get thatland--and look here, Mr. Man, here's another thing to consider. MaybeBaumberger doesn't expect to get a patent. Maybe he means to make oldPeaceful so deucedly sick of the thing that he'll sell out cheap ratherthan fight the thing to a finish. Because this can be appealed, andtaken up and up, and reopened because of some technical error--oh, asJenny Wren says in--in--"
"'Our Mutual Friend?'" Good Indian suggested unexpectedly.
"Oh, you've read it!--where she always says: '_I_ know their tricks andtheir manners!' And I do, from being so much with daddy in the officeand hearing him talk shop. I know that, without a single bit of justiceon their side, they could carry this case along till the very expenseof it would eat up the ranch and leave the Harts flat broke. And ifthey didn't fight and keep on fighting, they could lose it--so there youare."
She shut the book with a slam. "But," she added more brightly whenshe saw the cloud of gloom settle blacker than before on his face, andremembered that he felt himself at least partly to blame, "it helps alot to have the law all on our side, and--" She had to go then, becausethe dispatcher was calling, and she knew it must be a train order."We'll read up a little more, and see just what are the requirementsof placer mining laws--and maybe we can make it a trifle difficultfor those eight to comply!" she told him over her shoulder, while herfingers chittered a reply to the call, and then turned her attentionwholly to receiving the message.
Good Indian, knowing well the easy custom of the country which makessmoking always permissible, rolled himself a cigarette while he waitedfor her to come back to his side of the room. He was just holding thematch up and waiting for a clear blaze before setting his tobacco afire,when came a tap-tap of feet on the platform, and Evadna appeared in thehalf-open doorway.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and widened her indigo eyes at him sitting thereand looking so much at home.
"Come right in, chicken," Miss Georgie invited cordially. "Don't standthere in the hot sun. Mr. Imsen is going to turn the seat of honor overto you this instant. Awfully glad you came. Have some candy."
Evadna sat down in the rocker, thrust her two little feet out so thatthe toe, of her shoes showed close together beyond the hem of herriding-skirt, laid her gauntleted palms upon the arms of the chair androcked methodically, and looked at Grant and then at Miss Georgie, andafterward tilted up her chin and smiled superciliously at an insurancecompany's latest offering to the public in the way of a calendar twofeet long.
"When did you come up?" Good Indian asked her, trying so hard to keep aplacating note out of his voice that he made himself sound apologetic.
"Oh--about an hour ago, I think," Evadna drawled sweetly--the sweettones which always mean trouble, when employed by a woman.
Good Indian bit his lip, got up, and threw his cigarette out of thewindow, and looked at her reproachfully, and felt vaguely that he wasmisunderstood and most unjustly placed upon the defensive.
"I only came over," Evadna went on, as sweetly as before, "to say thatthere's a package at the store which I can't very well carry, and Ithought perhaps you wouldn't mind taking it--when you go."
"I'm going now, if you're ready," he told her shortly, and reached forhis hat.
Evadna rocked a moment longer, making him wait for her reply. Sheglanced at Miss Georgie still busy at the telegraph table, gave a littlesigh of resignation, and rose with evident reluctance.
"Oh--if you're really going," she drawled, and followed him outside.