Told in the Hills

by Marah Ellis Ryan

  Rachel, thinking of his words, wondered if he had a sweetheart somewhere, that made him think of a possible wife or children longingly—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 how possible 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 our Glorious Republic in its early days; garnishing the statements now and then with opinions of his own, especially the part relating to the character of the original lords of the soil.

  "Say, Miss Rache, yer given' me a straight tip on this lay-out?" he said at last, shutting the book and eyeing her closely.

  The question aroused her from the contemplation of the Hermes-like head opposite, 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't no call to ask that; but what I'm curious about is whether the galoot as wrote the truck lied by accident—someone sort o' playin' it on him, ye see—er whether he thought the rest o' creation was chumps from away back, an' he just naturally laid himself out to sell them cheap—now say, which is it?"

  In vain his monitor tried to impress on his mind the truth of the chronicles, and the fact that generations ago the Indian could be truly called a noble man, until his child-like faith in the straight tongue of the interloper had made a net for his feet, to escape which they had recourse only to treachery and the tomahawk, thus carving in history a character that in the beginning was not his, but one into which he was educated by the godly people who came with their churches and guns, their religion and whisky, to civilize the credulous people of the forests.

  Jim listened, but in the supercilious disbelief in his eyes Rachel read the truth. In trying to establish historical facts for his benefit, she was simply losing ground in his estimation at every statement made.

  "An' you," he finally remarked, after listening in wonderful silence for him—"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 only this history, but others in support of those facts."

  "Ye have, have yeh?" remarked her pupil, with a sarcastic contempt for her book-learning. "Well, I allow this one will do me a life-time, fer I'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 win more glory as a missionary to the Indians than among her own race? She is always running against stumbling-blocks of past knowledge with the progressive white man."

  Rachel cast one silencing glance at the speaker; Tillie laughed.

  "Never mind," she said reassuringly; "I will say nothing about your other attempt, and I only hope you will be willing to confine yourself to the Indians near home, and not start out to see some Flatheads, and Diggers, and Snakes for yourself."

  "Lawd bress yeh, honey!" spoke up Aunty Luce, whose ears were always open 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 grow rusty in everything," complained Rachel. "A crusade against even the Diggers would be a break in the monotony. I wish I had gone with you to the 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 in her voice; "she rides as hard as the men on the ranch. You must go together 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 on my own independence, as one of the party."

  "Then your independence would have led you to several sights revolting to a refined nature," he said seriously, "and you would have wished yourself well out of it."

  "Well, the Kootenais are several degrees superior to other tribes of the Columbia Basin; so you had better fight shy of Jim's knowledge. Why," she added, with a little burst of indignation that their good points were so neglected, "the Kootenais are a self-supporting people, asking nothing 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 race that 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 the knowledge not a thing to be proud of.

  "Oh, yes," smiled Tillie, "Rachel takes easily to everything in these hills. You should hear her talking Chinook to a blanket brave, or exchanging 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 down as I heard them up there."

  "They are only meaningless to strangers," answered the girl. "They all have their own significance."

  "Why, this same Arrow is called Kalitan," broke in Jim; "an' what'd you make out of that? Both names mean just the same thing. He was called that even when he was a little fellow, he said, 'cause he could run like a streak. Why, he used to make the trip down to the settlement an' be back here with the mail afore supper, makin' his forty miles afoot after breakfast; how's that for movin' over rough country?"

  The swiftness did not seem to make the desired impression, his listener catching, instead, at the fact of their having had an Indian mail-carrier.

  "And where is your Indian messenger of late?" he asked. "He has not visited you since my arrival, has he?"

  "No; he left this country months ago," said Rachel. "Kalitan is a bit of a wanderer—never long in one place."

  "Davy MacDougall says he'd allus loaf around here if Genesee would, but he'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 broke into shrill, boyish laughter. "Well, you ought to just say it to his face, 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 with the Indians, I believe."

  "I understood you to say he himself was an Indian." And Rachel felt the steady 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 say so; she only gave you the information that he was pure-blooded; and I should say he is—as much of a white man as you or I."

  "Mine was the mistake," acknowledged Stuart, with his old easy manner once more; "but Miss Rachel's love of a joke did not let me fall into it without a leader. And may I ask who he is, this white man with the Indian name—what is he?"

  Rachel answered him then brusquely: "You saw a white man with the Kootenais, did you not—one who lives as they do, with a squaw wife, or slave? You described the specimen as more degraded than the Indians about him. Well, Genesee is one of the class to which that man belongs—a squaw man; and he is also an Indian by adoption. Do you think you would care for a closer acquaintance?"

  Tillie opened her eyes wide at this sweeping denunciation of
Genesee and his life, while even Hardy looked surprised; Rachel had always, before, something to say in his favor. But the man she questioned so curtly was the only one who did not change even expression. He evidently forgot to answer, 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 in ere she opened her eyes, earlier than usual, and from a cause not usual—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 of music, 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 the window and looked out. There he was, tinkering at something about his saddle, now and then whistling in mimicry of a bird swaying on a leafless reed in the garden. She could see the other men, out across the open space by the barn, moving around as usual, looking after the domestic stock; but until one has had a breakfast, no well-regulated individual is hilarious or demonstrative, and their movements, as she could see, were not marvels of fast locomotion. They looked as she felt, she thought, yawningly, and groped around for her shoes, and finding them, sat down on the side of the bed again and looked out at that musical worker in the yard.

  She could hear Aunty Luce tinkling the dishes in the kitchen, and Tillie and Miss Margaret, in the next room, cooing over some love-story of dawn they were telling each other. All seemed drowsy and far off, except that penetrating, cheery voice outside.

  "The de'il tak' him!" she growled, quoting MacDougall; "what does the fellow mean by shouting like that this time of the night? He is as much of 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 girl wakened up a bit to the remembrance of the old song, thinking, as she dressed, that, social and cheery as he often was, this was the first time 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 some allowance for national enthusiasm, Mr. Charles, Prince of the Stuarts, but we rebel at Scotch love-songs shouted under our windows before daybreak."

  "All right," he smiled, amiably. "I know one or two Irish ones, if you prefer 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 him looking up at the casement with eyes full of triumph and mischief. He was metamorphosed in some way. Yesterday he had been serious and earnest, returning from his hill trip with something like despondency, and now—

  She remembered her last sight of him the night before, as he smiled at her from the stairway. Ah, yes, yes! all just because he had felt jubilant over outwitting her, or rather over seeing a chance do the work for another. Was it for that he was still singing? Had her instincts then told her truly when she had connected his presence with the memory of that older man's sombre eyes and dogged exile? Well, the exile was his own business, not that of anyone else—least of all that of this debonair individual, with his varying emotions.

  And she went down the stairs with a resentful feeling against the light-hearted melody of "Acushla Mavourneen."

  "Be my champion, Mrs. Hardy," he begged at the breakfast-table, "or I am tabooed forever by Miss Rachel."

  "How so?"

  "By what I intended as an act of homage, giving her a serenade at sunrise in the love-songs of my forefathers."

  "Nonsense!" laughed Rachel. "He never knew what his forefathers were until Davy MacDougall brushed up his history; and you have not thought much of the songs you were trying to sing, else you would know they belong 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 an injured air to Tillie.

  "Learn some Indian songs," advised that little conspirator impressively; "in the Kootenai country you must sing Chinook if you want to be appreciated."

  "There speaks one who knows," chimed in Hardy lugubriously. "A year ago I 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 take a back seat."

  "Hen! How dare you?"

  "In fact," he continued, unrestrained by the little woman's tones or scolding eyes, "I believe I have to thank jealousy for ever reinstating me to the head of the family."

  "Indeed," remarked Stuart, with attention impressively flattering; "may I ask how it was effected?"

  "Oh, very simply—very simply. Chance brought her the knowledge that there was another girl up the country to whom her hero sang Chinook songs, and, presto! she has ever since found English sufficient for all her needs."

  And Tillie, finding she had enough to do to defend herself without teasing Rachel, gave her attention to her husband, and the girl turned to Stuart.

  "All this gives no reason for your spasms of Scotch expression this morning," she reminded him.

  "No? Well, my father confessor in the feminine, I was musical—beg pardon, tried to be—because I awoke this morning with an unusually light heart; and I sang Scotch songs—or tried to sing them—because I was 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 two seem entirely alone, though surrounded by the others. Then she laughed in the old quizzical, careless way.

  "I see now the inspiration to song and jubilance that prevented you from sleeping," she said, nodding her head sagaciously. "It was the thought of escaping from us and our isolated life. Is that it?"

  "No, it is not," he answered earnestly. "My stay here has been a pleasure, 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 her own, with some meaning back of their warmth that she did not understand. Nine girls out of ten would have thought the words and manner suggestive of a love declaration and would at once have dropped their eyes in the prettiest air of confusion and been becomingly fluttered; but Rachel was the tenth, and her eyes were remarkably steady as she returned his glance with one of inquiry, reached for another biscuit, and said:

  "Yes?"

  But the low tones and his earnestness had not escaped two pairs of eyes at the table—those of Mistress Tillie and Master Jim—both of them coming to about the same conclusion in the matter, the one that Rachel was flirting, and the other that Stuart "had a bad case of spoons."

  Many were the expostulations when, after breakfast, Hardy's guest informed him that his exit from their circle was likely to be almost as abrupt as his entrance had been. In vain was there held out to him the sport of their proposed hunt—every persuasive argument was met with a regretful refusal.

  "I am sorry to put aside that pleasure," he answered; "but, to tell the truth, I scarcely realized how far the season has advanced. The snow will soon be deep in the mountains, they tell me, and before that time I must get across the country to Fort Owens. It is away from a railroad far enough to make awkward travel in bad weather, and I realize that the time 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 as possible."

  "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 of the officers there—Captain Sneath. I have not seen him for years, but can not consider my trip up here complete without visiting him; so, you see—"

  "Better fight shy o' that territory," advised An
drews, chipping in with a 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 most stirring circumstances," replied Stuart in smiling unconcern, "for in time 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 find yerself 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 jest about this time o' year."

  "And concluding as I have to leave at once," resumed Stuart, turning to Hardy, "I felt like taking a ride up to MacDougall's for a good-bye. I find myself interested in the old man, and would not like to leave without 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 located here for the purpose of breaking up your routine of stock and agricultural schemes? Not a bit of it! I'm afraid, as it is, your hospitality has caused them to suffer; so not a word of an escort. I wouldn't take a man from the place, so—"

  "What about a woman?" asked Rachel, with a challenging glance that was full of mischief. For a moment he looked at a loss for a reply, and she continued: "Because I don't mind taking a ride to Davy MacDougall's my own self. As you say, the sunny days will be few now, and I may not have another 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. "Do you think it is quite—"